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July 17, 2023 - Doug Collins Podcast
55:35
Everybody Has a Good Running Back
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You want to listen to a podcast?
By who?
Georgia GOP Congressman Doug Collins.
How is it?
The greatest thing I have ever heard in my whole life.
I could not believe my ears.
In this house, wherever the rules are disregarded, chaos and mob rule.
It has been said today, where is bravery?
I'll tell you where bravery is found and courage is found.
It's found in this minority who has lived through the last year of nothing but rules being broken, people being put down, questions not being answered, and this majority say, be damned with anything else.
We're going to impeach and do whatever we want to do.
Why?
Because we won an election.
I guarantee you, one day you'll be back in the minority and it ain't gonna be that fun.
Hey, everybody.
I've been promising it.
We told you, Coach Chan Gailey is going to be with us today on the Doug Collins Podcast.
Just after the break, you're going to get to hear Coach.
And let me just tell you, it's going to be wild.
Coach is unfiltered as ever.
It's going to be great.
I had the opportunity to do this interview before doing our intro today.
So let me just tell you.
Great hot takes on this one.
You're going to want to see this.
Coaches just give some good insight on both the pro level and the college level.
A lot of things coming up for the football season.
Also, just want to give you a quick rundown.
Hopefully, we're going to have some more getting scheduled here in the future with Tom Homan's going to be coming on.
Matt Whitaker's going to be coming on.
Probably going to have Michelle Perfoya back pretty soon.
A lot of there's different things going on in the next few weeks and few months here leading up to not only hunting season.
Michael Waddell hopefully to get back on.
So we've got hunting and football.
I can just sense it in the air, folks.
I'm getting excited.
That time of the year is coming up for football and for hunting and for just, you know, getting out.
Good stuff happening.
I want you to be a part of it here on the Doug Collins Podcast.
But today, another great episode with the great coach, Chan Gailey.
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All right, Coach.
A lot to talk about.
We've been prepping this for a while.
We've had listeners and everybody ask about coming up with the football season.
We're under next week, I guess it is, the pros.
You've got rookies and some veterans starting back.
I've always wanted this question.
And let's just start off here.
Let's start pros today, and then we'll get to college in a little bit.
Because I've got some serious questions about college.
And some are concerning.
And I think we're just seeing a little bit about it.
But it'll be interesting to look at it.
But I've always wondered, is there a standard?
I mean, when you were head coaching in the NFL with Dallas and others, you know, when you say rookies have to report and some veterans, they sort of leave it open.
Are those veterans that are in need of extra help?
Are those veterans that you're not sure about?
Or are those, what's the standard?
I've always heard that term and never really understood it.
Well, normally it's your first-year players.
And anybody that was on your practice squad the year before, those guys that are not sure if they're gonna make it or not, they want to get there and get all the extra help and get all the extra knowledge and all the extra work.
That they can possibly get to help their fortunes to make the team that year.
It is veterans, but it's normally first year guys, guys that are trying to make the team that might be two or three year guys, that kind of player.
Maybe coming off injury.
Yep, it could be that guy that wants to go out and break in slowly before he gets to the full speed stuff.
Right, that's it.
Well, that brings up an interesting question for me in looking at this, because we know in college, like I think right now, if I'm not mistaken, college is sort of, they can't do the, quote, organized practices, you know, those kind of things, but they can...
You know, they still go to the gym.
They still do the stuff like that, which I'm assuming is not mandatory, but mandatory.
Wink, wink, nod, nod.
But do the pros have those kind of down times as well?
Are they pretty much, I mean, if they're professionals, they're just expecting to stay in shape?
Or do you have some times when they actually just, you know, you're basically saying, you better be in the gym this spring and this summer, or you better be with us and we're monitoring you.
Well, we monitored everything.
Okay.
There's nothing that's not monitored.
Okay.
But you come back and you used to do, way back, you used to do a conditioning test.
When I first started in the NFL, we did a 12-minute run or the 880 deal or whatever it was, but they don't do that anymore.
To be honest with you, the competition level is so high, if a guy doesn't come in in shape or somewhere close to being in great shape, he's going to get hurt or get bypassed in a hurry.
But We do monitor everything in the NFL, and you're expected to be there, especially if you're a fringe guy.
I mean, if you're a 10-year vet and you know you're going to play, you didn't expect the Tom Brady's and some of those guys to be there all the time.
There are some guys, you know, most of the guys would be around and would live there and work out, and they wanted to be around.
To be honest with you, the thing that guys, when they retire, what they miss the most is the camaraderie.
It's not the football.
It's the camaraderie of the locker room and the weight room and things like that.
So they like to be there.
Yeah.
Well, it keeps them going and getting out and everything else.
And you see that, you know, so much is out there nowadays.
Okay, quick off the wall.
We did a podcast called We Do Friday's Finest.
It came out last week.
And we did the ESPYs.
And we had an interesting question that came up, Coach, and we want to ask you.
Patrick Mahomes was not only given the ESPY from ESPN for the best NFL player, but he was given the ESPY for the best male athlete all sports.
Yeah.
I mean, okay.
I said, no.
I call BS on that.
I think he's a great athlete, but there's...
I want your take.
Is he the best athlete all sports?
No.
If you define athlete as run, jump, change direction, athletic talent, like I had two of the best ever.
I had Deion Sanders and Calvin Johnson.
Those are athletes now.
Those are guys that are amazing.
They can catch it.
They can throw it.
They can do everything.
Now, if you're talking about production in your sport, Now you're saying a different thing when you turn MVP athlete.
If you have produced in your sport amazingly, then that's a different criteria.
But if you say athlete, let's change that to most valuable performer.
There you go.
James C., I was right.
James and I, we went to this disagreement about what athlete means here.
D.K. Metcalf up in Seattle, I mean, he's a freak.
Yeah, he is.
He's just an athletic freak.
But yet, Mahomes has the...
It's like Brady.
Nobody would ever confuse Tom Brady of being an athlete in the sense of the truest, fastest, quickest, moving, everything else.
But...
They're also not going to confuse him for not one of the best quarterbacks ever to play the game.
Right.
Exactly.
But we just thought it was pretty interesting.
Again, ESPN playing for the – because they also, while we're at it, we'll jump to college one quick one here because I sort of probably made the whole Pac-12 mad last week on this one.
Basically, I called them the AA of SEC. Oh, God.
That's cold.
That's cold.
But here's the other one.
Caleb Williams was voted the best college athlete last year.
College football player.
And I'll be honest.
Good kid.
He's got some issues he needs to deal with.
He's athletic.
He's big.
He's got the quote.
It reminds me of that.
Did you ever watch the movie, Coach, Moneyball?
Yes.
Did you ever see that?
I remember sitting around, and I would love to get your take on this.
We get Moneyballed in here, James.
This is great.
They're sitting around the table when Brad Pitt, you know, comes in early in the movie and they've lost their players.
And all those scouts are sitting there.
You know, he's got the speed.
He's got the run.
He's a no-hit, pro-ready right now.
You know, that kind of thing.
About like training day.
And, I mean, everybody's got it with Caleb.
It's about like the Richards and Anthony Richardson, which we'll talk about here in a little bit too.
But I just don't see it.
And maybe I'm blind.
I'm willing to say I'm wrong.
But in the big games, he's not performed.
And so, again, is that sort of an interesting play?
I mean, for the Pac-12, maybe he's really good.
But against bigger competition, Utah and others, he stumbled.
Yes.
Well, and again, you go back to what's your definition of athlete?
You know, he's big, he's fast, he can run, he's a quarterback, he can throw it, he is elusive, he can change direction, he is a great athlete, and to be honest with you, There are so many politics involved, making sure that you get somebody from the West Coast, somebody from the East Coast, somebody from the North, somebody from the South.
They're going to spread a few of those things around now so that everybody gets a little happiness to them.
So they're not...
They're not idiots up there.
They've got marketing people breathing down their throat, just like I had PR people breathing down my throat, talking about ticket sales.
Oh, yeah.
Well, that is true.
They so desperately want the LA media market To be viable in sports.
And it just, frankly, just hasn't been for a long time now, in college in particular.
Pro sports, different aspect.
You know, pro football, the Rams now, you know, the Chargers are there.
But, you know, it's a little bit different there.
But nobody, I mean, you show up in the Coliseum and half of it's not, I mean, three quarters of it's not even full.
I mean, they're just struggling.
But I got a question because I'm tipping off the world here.
I'm a not good golfer.
I've gotten better though, coach.
I've been seeing, by the way, if anybody wants to know, Mike McCall, Innsbrook Golf Course is a fabulous coach.
The guy is amazing.
He's really good.
My drivers, by the way, getting really good in my short game.
Well, we're not going to talk about that right now.
But anyway, but for those who don't know, Coach Gailey is a good golfer.
Okay, he is good.
Rick Neuheisel undoubtedly stays on the golf course more than a lot.
Have you ever had the chance to be around Rick Neuheisel?
Yeah, we played actually early May.
We played together.
Oh, you went to that coaches?
Yes, yes.
Oh, my God.
How was that?
It was great.
It was great.
It's always great when you win.
I quit.
You know, come on, coach.
You're killing me, man.
But, okay, the reason I brought up Newhousel was not his golf game or his radio show with the show pony.
But what I brought up was he is the homer for Pac-12.
Okay?
And it looks like it's just continually to fall apart.
I know we've jumped to college here for a second, but, you know, that's the way this show goes.
Okay.
Why is it?
I mean, is it the marketing issue now?
I mean, because the Pac-12, you're going to see at least three teams from the Pac-12 and the top 25 that will not be there come, you know, mid-season or until the end of the year.
Is it just because they are trying to get that balance, Coach?
Is this the rankings and the PR? To let ESPN and others, because their media deal out there is terrible.
They're losing athletes, except for USC, Oregon, maybe.
I think the coach out there, Dan, he's doing it as good as he can.
Utah's been there.
What is it with Pac-12?
Because it used to be, when you and I was younger, and you were as well, UCLA, USC, Notre Dame, that was football.
Yes.
And also, where do you see that?
Because Newhouse always is quick to defend the Pac-12.
He's a Pac-12 guy.
I get it.
I'm an SEC guy.
I get that.
But it just seems like they are trying too hard.
Maybe that's the way to put it.
Well, there are a lot of things going on out West that have taken priority over football.
Right.
And I've always said I'm not sure that the toughest players, the toughest high school players, the toughest college players go much further west than the Mississippi River.
But I know Texas and Oklahoma are out there, so I'm going to now say the Rocky Mountains.
Okay.
I just think that there's a toughness level and a work ethic level, an importance level that we are around every day here in the Southeastern Conference, Big Ten, ACC. I think that there's just a tick higher.
And when it's a tick higher, you and I both know Anything that is worked at harder, that is tougher to do, and you got tougher people doing it, the expectations are higher.
You know, then it becomes a better level of play, of politics, of business, whatever you want to choose.
If you work harder at it, you're tougher at it, you're going to be more successful at it.
Well, and I think that's become the key.
And let's move back, though, to pro for a little bit, because I want to come back to college.
I'd like to say some more college stuff.
You know, Colorado, I want to talk about Deion.
You know, I mean, I think It's interesting the Pac-12 does have that.
I don't know how long they're going to stay, but we'll see.
But let's go back to pro for a little bit because it's going to get started quicker.
And the questions are out there this year.
But one thing has become interesting, and you and I do a great job of talking about what I call the history of this game.
And we talk about where it's come from, the changes and everything else.
But one thing that has become just so predominant in the game Is the devaluing of running backs.
And, you know, when you have a Dalvin Cook, a 1,400-yard rusher, you have Ezekiel Elliott, when he's healthy and mentally, you know, he's focused on the game, is a solid, you know, straight-up-and-down runner.
And then you've got Leonard Fournette, who has probably never reached the potential everybody thought Leonard Fournette was going to have.
He's had good years, bad years.
But all three have been on the free agent market now for years.
Several months.
And they're all still sitting there and we're a week away from starting, quote, starting football.
What?
I mean, I get it to a point where But are we changing the shape of football as we know it, Coach, into a sense of maybe that you're going to go to more of a, I won't say a Canadian league, kind of just wide open defense kind of, but the running back position, are we going to start losing some of the best athletes and say, look, I'm 6'1", 230, I've been running back, I can run a 4'5", 40, 4'4", 40. I can be a better linebacker and get paid more money.
Yes.
And the other thing about it is, There are more running backs out there in college football.
I mean, Bug Tussle U has a good running back.
Everybody has a good running back.
So you can get almost as good a product for a lot less money And so you don't end up paying their longevity because of getting hit as much as they do.
The only guy that's proven the test of time is the guy at Tennessee.
He came from Alabama.
He has led the league and been at the top and stayed fairly healthy.
The last couple of years he's gotten beat up a little bit, but he stayed fairly healthy and they're committed to the run.
They're a different team than everybody else.
Mike Vrabel's a different guy.
So it takes a mindset and it takes a way to get to win football games for a running back to become the top dog because they're paying receivers and they're paying quarterbacks now.
They're not paying running backs anymore.
Yeah, and I think that's going to be interesting.
And I was sitting here thinking, as you were answering that question, Henry up at Tennessee is a great example.
But the one thing that got me about the question is, you know, if we were doing this podcast 15 years ago, what we'd be talking about is the demise of the fullback.
Yes, that's exactly right.
And the fullback is just almost no longer existing.
Oh, there's kids out there playing right now saying, what position are you talking about?
What's that called?
The fullback.
They've never even heard of one, you know, which is crazy.
It is crazy.
You look at it from a perspective of saying, I got a big kick.
If you look on Instagram, the great thing about some of this stuff on social media is mostly boring, but if you're sitting on a plane bored, there's some things that come up and there's a...
Think the old sports.
And there's been some videos run lately of the teams from the 70s and 60s, 70s, 80s running the wishbone, running the old wing tee.
I remember my high school that I graduated from about 15, well, 20 years ago now, they brought in a guy named Bob Christmas, and he's a great high school coach.
He went up to Virginia, coached as well, good guy.
And he looked at my high school, where I graduated from, North Hall High School, and Not overwhelmingly blessed with natural athletes, but what he saw was determined younger kids who may like their size, they had energy, they would get in there and they'd get the game.
And so he had, you know, like six foot 185 guards.
You know, he, I mean, they were just, and he put in the wing tee and he went on a run for state playoffs and everything else because one, other defenses hadn't seen it.
And if it's executed right, You can move, but it's just sort of interesting to see the old school now to the new schools, hunk it and chunk it kind of thing.
Oh, gosh.
Everybody likes to, unfortunately, everybody likes to throw the football.
They like to see the ball in the air.
You know, you're talking to the wrong guy, you know, talking to somebody that wants to throw the football.
I wanted to throw it when I had to.
You know, I wanted to run it when we could.
Yeah, you and I go back to the old Alistair Alley days at Georgia Tech.
Oh my God, there's one, two, three, four, up the middle.
Toe meets leather.
Good.
You know, Pepper, was it Pepper Rogers, you know, three yards in a cloud of dust.
You know, it was the old saying.
Oh, by the way, as we look at this change from running backs into the other, Speaking of the draft, and we saw this a little bit, Philadelphia basically becoming University of Georgia North defensively.
I mean, it's pretty amazing at what they do.
Or you could just call it SEC pro football.
I mean, because, you know, with Jalen and everybody else.
I mean, so this is there.
Yeah.
Quick overlook from pros after the draft.
You know, I know we talked about it, you know, briefly.
Just what's your general impression so far going into the year?
Do you see any movement, anybody that you feel from talking to coaches, talking to others, saying, hey, you know, they've been struggling the last couple years, but this actually could work.
I'm going to give you a team to watch out for this year.
The LA Chargers.
L.A. Chargers, okay.
Yep.
Their defense is going to be pretty good.
I like the way their quarterback's coming on.
They're in a tough division with Kansas City, which makes it really hard.
But I think they're going to be better this year.
I'm looking forward to following them.
Do you think Herbert's actually coming along as a quarterback?
I do.
I think he's going to be fine.
That brings up the question here that we've talked about before, about the prominence of a quarterback and the prominence of, again, maybe even our conversation earlier today about Caleb Williams and some of these others.
I actually felt, and James gave me a hard time on Friday about it, I mean, I just think Caleb's overrated right now.
I think he's a good player.
I wish they would leave him alone.
I wish they would just say, bring him up, then get him to the pros, and develop him, because I think he's got a great ability, but saying he's going to be the next whatever is not helping him.
And, you know, Ryan Leafish kind of stuff here.
You know, oh, he's going to change the world.
He never made it past, you know, the first play.
The quarterback cycle is...
You know, now we've got, you know, Bryce Young at Carolina, smaller quarterback.
You and I briefly mentioned this before.
Let's just bring it up again.
Bryce has the, in my mind, Tua, because you've been with that situation, these smaller quarterbacks, good athletes, smaller quarterbacks, though, have had trouble.
Kyler Murray comes to mind.
It's not the athletic run version of the quarterback.
To me, it's the, and I hate to say this, but it's the size.
I mean, because Lamar Jackson, Patrick Mahomes, nobody will say that they're not two of the best quarterbacks ever, and they run all over the field.
Yeah.
But yet they're durable when it comes to, you know, being able to see, being able to throw and also take a hit.
Right.
And, you know, there's some guys that can take a hit and some guys that can't.
And that's the problem.
And the hits in the NFL compared to college are bigger and tougher and harder and they hurt more.
So you have to have a guy that can take a hit and get up, or at least he knows how to avoid the hit a little bit.
And I think that guys today, I think that players today that play quarterback are getting better about learning how to take a hit Not trying to make a great play every snap.
They've learned how to – okay, I go down.
Yeah.
Go down.
Now, a guy runs out of bounds and there's five – a guy's five yards from him, that makes me a little mad.
You know, but at the same time – I think they've gotten better about learning how to protect their bodies a little bit.
And that's the only thing that's going to save them because you're right.
Size will get you in the long run if you can't take those hits.
But the bottom line is, how do you avoid the hits?
And that's what they're learning to do.
I remember years ago, there was some discussion in the NFL, discussion in college football, it was just all around, and about coaches, especially with running backs and with wide receivers and others, doing tumbling or gymnastics.
It was learning, and basically what they were saying there was learning to fall.
And I just recently heard a commentator, a scout, was talking about Mahomes and some others had learned how to fall.
And they helped them along.
I think Brady was pretty good at that, learning how to tuck, run, roll, not just go straight.
Is that still emphasized a lot on the pro level now?
No, it's not.
It's not at all.
Because And I think it should, but it's not.
And I don't know.
I may have mentioned it to you.
When I was in the eighth grade, our head football coach made every player take time.
Oh, really?
Yeah.
We had to take it to learn how to fall.
And so...
I think that there's a real advantage to doing that.
Even the old monkey roll that we used to do.
You learn how to fall and roll and not break your elbow when you land.
Stuff like that.
there's some real advantages to learning how to fall and how to not try to break your fall with your elbow or your hand or, you know, get your wrist hurt, things like that, or just popping your head back again on the turf when you land.
Yeah.
You know, things like that.
So it should be emphasized more.
It's not as emphasized as much as it needs to be.
And it helps every team and every player who will – You know, force themselves.
I remember there used to be five years ago somebody was trying to do team yoga, team ballet, team that kind of stuff.
And the player said, I ain't doing ballet.
Now, I don't care what you say.
I ain't doing it.
And you probably have to get over the stigma of saying we're going to do tumbling, you know, here in the offseason.
So, yeah.
Yeah, and I think that it's interesting that something that worked, because I'm not a believer in this idea that the You know, everything's just changed because you can't tell me, yes, they're harder hits now.
They're bigger, faster, stronger.
I get that.
But you also had a lot more endurance in some of our older athletes, you know, back then.
I'm not saying everything was great back then because you had a lot of energy.
You see that today being lived out, unfortunately, in some of these people's lives.
But, you know, but they did stay a little bit longer because they could take a hit.
Yeah.
Oh, gosh, yeah.
And they weren't, you know, they weren't protecting the quarterbacks like they protect them now.
I mean, they protect them a bunch right now.
So those were, but I think we were a tougher society back then.
There wasn't as much, you know, guys walked where they rode their bike.
They didn't ride in the car everywhere.
They, you know, there wasn't air conditioning everywhere.
I think it just was a tougher group of people that played back in the day.
And now everybody's got air-conditioned cars unless they're driving convertibles, which most of them are.
Yeah, and I think that's one of the issues we've got going on.
And I'm having some construction done around here, it looks like.
But one of the questions that I have, and let's turn before we go to college, is our own backdoor Atlanta Falcons, okay?
Hometown Georgia folk.
We got through at the beginning of this discussing the absolute plummeting of value of running backs, and of course the Falcons go out and in the first round draft B. John Robinson from Texas, okay?
To go along with the tight end that we drafted Pitts in the first round from a couple years ago, who we never throw to, who's got skills that are pretty amazing.
You've got a quarterback that's untested, Desmond Ritter.
You've added him to the defense.
Where do you see the Falcons this year, Coach?
Yeah.
They're going to struggle, to be honest with you.
I see them struggling.
But I don't know that their division is that strong either.
I don't know where Carolina is.
I don't know where the Saints are.
I don't know where Tampa is.
Their division is not the strongest division.
If they can play, if they can get it together early, and again, they got some weapons.
Hopefully, they'll get the ball to those guys and let them play.
It'll be a good product on the field, but Well, that division right now is struggling as a whole.
So the NFC East is where the strength of the NFC is right now.
So it's going to be interesting to see how it all plays out.
Yeah, I agree.
And I think it's going to be interesting.
A quick question here since we brought up the NFC South.
Is Baker Mayfield the starting quarterback for Tampa in the first game?
Oh, I doubt that.
I mean, he's had a hard time.
He's had a hard time.
And you know what?
I liked him coming out.
I did.
I liked him.
But he got thrown to the wolves.
He got his confidence shaken.
And then he got it back.
And then he just hasn't been able to capitalize anywhere he's been.
And to me, I mean, you take Ron Fitzpatrick.
There's a guy that I had.
I was fortunate to coach.
But he was pretty dang successful wherever he went.
You know, he won a bunch of football games and got his teams close to being to the playoffs almost every year.
There was confidence around him.
I don't know, and I haven't been around Baker, so it's not fair for me to say it, but I don't know how much confidence he has and the people around him have in him at this point.
I think at a certain point in time, it also takes away from your own confidence.
You can be a very confident person.
You've gone through what he's went through and everything else has been tough.
He can.
And the next thing I'm going to say about that, because you have to say where he came from, and that was Cleveland with Deshaun Watson, and that whole issue, which we've talked about a little bit here on the show.
And I'm saying this from a perspective of somebody who's watched Deshaun since he was seven years old.
I've known him.
He's been in my house when he was a kid.
I don't like where I see him right now.
I'll just be frank.
I want the best for him.
He's come through a lot.
I think he's trying to get by that.
But, Coach, you know, you talk about this idea of, you know, working and working out hard and everything else.
And, you know, social media has become the platform for all these players.
And I would expect him after the half of, you know, less than a half a season, you know, being in Cleveland basically all the time, working, you know, getting with these players.
And yet, you don't see any evidence of that.
You see him in Europe for the last month.
And, you know, Do you think Deshaun can come back?
Can he?
Yes, he has the ability to.
Now, you get paid $140 million and you think that you've arrived and you can go to Europe for a month.
What's your makeup?
Who are you?
That's the key and that's the research that you have to do on guys before you pay them a lot of money.
What are they going to be like once they get that money?
Are they still going to be the hungry guy?
Are they still going to be the leader?
Are they still going to be the type of guy that you want to represent your football team?
And some guys can handle that.
Some guys can't.
So can he?
Yes, because he has the talent.
He is a very talented guy.
He's a very smart guy.
But...
The intangible parts of playing quarterback and being a leader on your football team, those things now are critical to being successful.
You can't just go out there and expect to play good on Sundays.
There's more to it than that.
Yeah, he's...
And look, for folks who don't know, he comes from solid.
Okay, his mom, I mean, he comes from solid.
He's got a lot of still supporters down here in Georgia in Gainesville that, you know...
And I hope the best for him.
But again, sometimes it was sort of concerning because I saw sort of the same things out of that social media kind of feed that all of a sudden then led to what we saw in Houston.
And then...
Now, so, I mean, again, I hope the best for them.
I want these players to do well.
Another Clemson quarterback that I think is going to have an outstanding year, I just believe it, this year, Trevor Lawrence in Jacksonville.
Yeah.
Well, and you go back to didn't play very well as a rookie.
Right.
Didn't play well the first half of his next year, but then all of a sudden, things started happening for them, and I think they've got a chance to be a very good football team this year.
They got a good coach.
They brought in some good players around him.
So it's going to be interesting to see how...
And that owner down there seems to...
Again, he'll spend the money to get what he needs.
All right.
Switching to college football for a second.
One of the...
It is interesting always in the early season to listen to sports radio, and I know you get to hear this from coaches' perspective.
It is always amazing to me that Notre Dame, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Texas, the perennial...
Oh, Penn State, you know, USC, or oh, this is their year they turned the corner.
Okay?
Nebraska probably has had a bigger fall than most.
Okay?
And Matt Rule is now there, who turned around Baylor.
Didn't do as well at Carolina.
I think there's probably some just personality issues there more than anything else.
He's now in Nebraska.
Yeah.
They're getting some players or not.
Is Matt one of those, do you think, at Nebraska that they just say, okay, five years, we'll evaluate you in five years.
Or two, three years.
We're going to see progress.
If you go 0-10, 0-10, you're done.
But I mean, Nebraska, do they have to be long-term in their thinking?
Have to be.
They have to be long-term in their thinking.
They've got...
Nebraska, as you and I knew it growing up, and Nebraska today are two totally different things now.
Those people still love it up there, but that is a long way from nowhere to get to Nebraska.
And you've got to have something a little unique to be a great recruiter at Nebraska.
And they brought back Scott Frost, who I really like as a football coach, and he was a hometown guy, and he struggled to do it.
And they gave him a long time.
They did.
Yeah.
I appreciate that.
But Matt's a quick worker.
He can turn things in a hurry.
And, you know, going back to what you said, Nick Saban and Steve Spurrier didn't have success in the pros.
Right.
They're great college football coaches, and Matt may be the same kind of guy.
And it wouldn't surprise me if they aren't better.
But they don't have to be a lot better, because I don't know how good that conference is.
That's part of the problem.
Moving on, you mentioned him earlier, being one of the best athletes around, Deion Sanders.
He now has a chance.
He's been given a chance at Colorado.
He went there.
My understanding was, just from reading media reports, not having inside knowledge, he probably had a chance at some other schools that he chose not to go to.
Probably even a little bit bigger names, maybe a little more defined program, but he wanted Colorado.
There's been a lot said in the offseason about him basically going in and saying, and it's been interesting, the old schoolish and the non-old schoolish.
He goes in and basically says, you're not part of my program.
I'm encouraging you to leave.
And some of the old school folks saying, that's just not right.
You're supposed to take who you got.
You work with these kids.
And then others are saying, well, that's just life now in the pros and in professional college football.
Because these kids can do the same thing.
They can now basically move for money and everything else.
Not to spend a long time here because I think it's just going to be in the proof in the pudding.
Do you think he's building it in a sense of what you've seen so far to compete in the Pac-12 and now they may be moving out?
Does that style work?
I mean, the work ethic style, the holding accountability, I gotta say, Coach, I'm impressed.
I mean, you know, he's held them to a high standard.
He talked about their personal conduct, which, you know, again, I think is very good.
Has he set the bar?
This is hard for me to say because I like to set bars high.
Has he set it almost too high for himself?
I don't think so.
First of all, I have great respect for Deion.
I was able to coach him there for a couple years and I have a great respect for Deion.
The other thing is, I know some coaches that are there with him, and they talk about what a strong disciplinarian he is.
And I don't know how big he will win.
But he will create young men.
And that's missing from our society today, too.
There you go.
So let's look and see how he does in the win-loss column.
But I know he'll do it the right way.
I believe he'll do it the right way.
I believe he will create young men, quality young men who have accountability.
Who have some self-discipline and they'll be productive in society after they leave.
If they'll stay with him for four years, they'll be productive in society.
Yeah, I agree.
Switching back again more toward the two, what they all said is the two major conferences.
Now you got the Big Ten and you got the SEC, you got Ohio State, you got Michigan.
Harbaugh staying at Michigan I think was still pretty much a surprise for most people that he did stay, but he stayed.
You got Michigan, you got Penn State, Franklin.
They'll win eight, nine games, ten games.
I think there's a little bit of a lag there.
So I'll give them their props from that perspective.
And they play.
Moving to the SEC, you mentioned something just a second ago.
It pains me to talk about this.
But instead of talking about two national titles back-to-back, This year's recruiting class, amazing.
Next year's recruiting class, the offensive line in 2024 at the University of Georgia, 6'6", 6'7", 6'6", 6'7", 3", all across the board.
It's just stunning.
And the fact that everybody's now making fun of Georgia's schedule.
They can't make fun of anything else, so now they're going to make fun of Georgia's schedule for this year.
Basically saying, you know, it's a run.
But we've not talked about that, Coach.
And you've seen it nationally.
We've seen it here locally.
We've talked about the off-field stuff that we've not seen before.
And now it's like one thing.
When somebody picks a scab, everybody else will jump on the scab.
As a coach, you can only do...
And look, I'm not letting Kirby off the hook.
I'm not letting the coaching staff or the culture off the hook.
But there's only so much you can do.
Kids are going to get speeding tickets.
I mean, I got two boys.
They're going to get speeding tickets.
They don't need to be stupid, but they're going to get speeding tickets.
And the tragedy that happened earlier this year with that wreck, Jalen is not over.
There's going to be more.
There's two lawsuits that have been filed again already.
The concern has come, if you're reading into it, is that Kirby is not taking what the world would like to see this as seriously as they think.
I know he's probably taking them and they're running till they puke, the old mentality kind of stuff.
But is there something else here?
I mean, are we missing it?
And also the second effect from a locker room.
How do you see this affecting Georgia going into what could be really a legitimate three-peat run if they, you know, because they got the athletes.
That's not the problem.
The quarterback's going to be an issue, but we'll see.
But how much is this off-field stuff really?
Is it indicative of a crack in the foundation, or is it an anomaly?
Well, let me just address something at the outset here.
And I may have said this to you before, but football is a unique sport, okay?
It's a very unique sport.
And the fact that you and your buddy can say, hey, let's go out in the backyard and shoot a few baskets.
Or you and your buddy can say, hey, let's go in the back and throw the ball back and forth, you know, get our gloves and let's go throw some.
Very seldom do you hear two guys say, hey, let's go in the backyard and run full speed into each other.
You know, that just doesn't happen.
You know, football is an edge sport and it has edge people If you expect them to be angels all the time and then to be terrorists on the weekend, that's not going to happen.
They're edge people.
So they live a lot of life on the edge, and you have to learn to control that.
Don't get me wrong.
You have to learn to control that and make it where it's just when you're on the field.
But most people have a hard time separating that out.
So that being said, going to the next part is, In our society today, and I'm getting very philosophical here on you, in our society today, we don't tend to admire greatness.
We tend to tear down greatness.
You are so right, Coach.
You are so right.
Because we're not going to fight to get up to where they are, so we've got to tear them down to get to where we are and make ourselves feel better about where we are.
So, to me, if you're not getting torn down, you haven't done anything.
George has done something.
They're going to get criticized for hangnails.
Exactly.
We got too many hangnails.
And I'm going to tell you, if speeding tickets are the biggest problem that Kirby has, he's in good shape.
Yeah, he's going to be fine.
He's going to be fine.
And it won't affect the locker room at all.
Let me tell you something.
When they line up to go to practice and go to play, they're in their element.
That's their element.
And they'll be fine.
Okay, you may laugh at this, but I got some good buddies of mine that we always talk about.
You know what my biggest concern is?
And I'm just going to be honest, there's a lot of the Georgia Bulldog Nation who are concerned about this.
Our biggest concern is Mike Bobo calling plays.
Well.
I'm going to be honest.
You know, really?
Yes.
Well, don't get bent out of shape until you see what happens, you know?
You're creating anxiety in your heart and your soul over something that hadn't even happened yet.
Just give it time.
Give it time.
So you think that seven years or so away did wonders for the soul?
Let me tell you, seven years in this business, in the coaching business, you get a lot of different perspectives about how things are done.
Yeah.
You do.
I had a friend of mine, we were talking one day, if you remember what was the Outback Bowl or something, it was like six, seven years ago, before Bobo left the first time.
The offense was killing it.
If you remember, they were winning.
They're beating Michigan like 20. I can't remember.
It may not have been Michigan, but they were winning.
They scored 28 points in the first half.
Everything was going.
And then the second half, we came out and we just fumbled all around.
I think we ended up winning, but it was just there.
And I had a friend of mine say, what did they do?
Did they unlock the bathroom door for Bobo to get out at halftime?
That's so bad.
I don't know.
I remember the Falcons having a 28-3 lead, too.
Oh, yeah, very much so.
And that guy is now one of the most successful offensive coordinators.
I mean, head coaches at San Francisco.
Yeah, it's scary, isn't it?
Speaking of that, it goes back to head coaching too.
I think that sets the standard.
I think Kirby, I think you're right.
But again, when he gets played up, when he gets done, but again, the amazing thing about Kirby Smart, and again, everybody talks about Saban and his recruiting, and I've got to give him credit.
Kirby Smart helped Saban's recruiting when he was at Alabama, and now Kirby running it like he's doing now is pretty impressive.
Oh, very impressive.
What they've done is amazing.
And he's, you know, he's one with class, which I appreciate.
He's one with class.
I like Kirby a lot.
Yeah, Kirby's funny.
I mean, you just listen.
Also, by the way, for those who don't know, Kirby's got the number one quarterback prospect in the country in the 2024 recruiting class.
And just so happens he decides to come and coach, you'll laugh at this, he decides he's going to play high school, his last year of high school football in Buford.
Yeah.
At the University of Buford.
At the University of Buford.
For those around the country who may not get that inside joke there, just look up Buford High School football.
It's a whole thing down here.
But he's coming to Buford, which puts him within 45 miles of the campus in Athens.
He's going to be right there.
And I think he actually brought in another receiver.
He's going to be coming to Buford as well.
Really?
Yeah.
So, again, in the legit moves, they move from Arizona, his family moves, so we'll see how it all works out.
Who's your sleeper this year in the SEC, Coach?
Wow.
Boy, that's a great question.
I don't know that there are sleepers out there.
You know, last year, everybody was on A&M. Oh, A&M, they're going to be, ooh, that didn't turn out right.
Speaking of which, do you think this is Jimbo's last year at A&M? Uh, probably.
Okay.
I don't think they turn it around.
Yeah.
The only thing that's got them is that contract.
Yeah.
I know.
I know.
They got a lot of money at A&M, but that's a big contract.
And I think, you know, everybody's going to be a little bit on a wait and see with Oklahoma and Texas coming in, you know, to see how that's going to play out, what direction it's going to go, how they're going to handle all of this.
That'll be interesting as well.
But I don't have a sleeper.
I wish I had a good thought for you, but – Georgia and Alabama are the two top dogs.
I think they're going to stay there.
I don't see anything changing unless somebody comes out of the Would work with some kind of great quarterback somewhere because there's not a lot of those out there.
Well, see, and that's also the interesting part.
The whole league is going into the year in which you don't have that quarterback.
I mean, even Georgia and Alabama.
I mean, I'll be frank.
I know the names of the Georgia.
I don't know who's going to be on the game the first day.
I mean, I think that's even sort of out there.
Alabama is sort of in that.
I mean, Alabama brought in a kid after the spring game.
Yeah.
Which, again, is interesting as you look at it.
LSU, though, I'm not a big fan of their coach.
But again, LSU, they seemed to build some momentum toward the end of the year last year.
They did.
They did.
They played better.
They played, you know, they had some big wins.
And he's done a good job down there, which I thought that would be impossible to do, him trying to go from Notre Dame down there.
But it seems to have worked a little bit.
And it'll be interesting to see.
But Anybody can do anything for a half a season.
Let's see how this thing plays out.
It works out to the teams that I always question in my heart.
When nobody talks about them, I sort of worry until they get through the three or four games and see how they're playing.
And that is, is Auburn continuing to be a dumpster fire?
And is Florida your old place?
Is it making improvements?
Or is it Still a few years off.
Yeah.
Well, and there's another interesting The team out there, to be honest with you.
South Carolina.
Rattler stayed.
Rattler stayed.
And they had a couple big wins there, you know.
So, that's another one to keep an eye on.
Yeah, I'm watching that game in September at Sanford.
Spencer and them come into Sanford, and they're embarrassed last year.
Yeah.
And Beamer, I mean, he's a good – he seems to be a good young coach.
Yeah, I think so.
I think he is.
And he's got a great pedigree.
I mean, he comes out of, you know, the old stuff.
It's going to be interesting.
Tennessee, it'll be essentially what Hoplis can do up there this year with, again, another older quarterback.
You know, coming through.
Again, I think there's some issues because they lost all their receivers.
They lost everything else.
So it's going to be interesting to see that.
And then we come to our last question of SEC football.
Our perennial, oh my lord, what's he going to say this time?
Lane Kiffin at Ole Miss.
No comment.
You know, he is the hype master.
He can create so much hype and then it never pans out.
So everybody, the media loves him because like you said, he'll say anything.
So, he didn't come from my era.
Chuck Nolan, you know, that crew didn't say anything.
Yeah, he didn't do the Vince Dooley well.
We're playing 0-13 Ball State this weekend, but we've got to watch out for them.
They've got a ball club that will beat you on any given day.
We're just going to be happy if we can stay with them.
Yes.
I love it.
All right, coach.
Well, this is our preview.
We'll get into a bigger preview in August for our folks.
Everybody loves having you on.
After we get sort of lineup set, we see the games coming together.
All is well, but coach, it's always great to have you on.
Always great to get your insights on both college and pros.
Go out and have a good golf game.
Thank you.
I'm planning on getting out there as soon as possible.
Take care.
Take care.
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