A

Hello and welcome to the Audible, presented by Trader Joe's. I'm Ralph Russo from the Athletic, and both Stu and Bruce are gone. Stu's on vacation. Bruce had some technical difficulties arise, so I had to dip it. So two things. First of all, my plan to take over the show is really coming into form right now. Just the diabolical plot when I got. When they brought me on is absolutely coming into play here. Secondly, dipped into the bullpen today and brought on my colleague Justin Williams to get me through most of the show. Justin, thank you so much for joining us today.

B

No, I appreciate you having me. Always happy to be Stu's fill in. And I'll take a little credit for being Bruce's fill in today, too, I guess.

A

I mean, if you want to again, like, we can, you know, I can let you in here. We can take over the world, Justin, if you want. Like, again, my diabolical plot. You know, first, I got in their good graces. They invited me on the show, and in another year, it could just be you and me.

C

Right?

A

I mean, I don't know if you want to be my partner in crime.

B

Look, I don't want to be. When Stu gets home, I don't want to be, like, sitting on his couch and have him go into a rage, as we know Stu can often do. So I'm just here to help. Just here to water his plants until he gets back.

A

Okay. All right. You're not just going to be a squat. We're not going to quite squat on his podcast, Bruce and Stu's podcast ip, just yet.

B

All right.

A

One of the reasons why I reached out to Justin first is, first of all, we'll get to the mailbag. Later in the show, we're gonna talk a little bit about nostalgia for 90s college football because the Athletic is doing a Great series on 90s nostalgia starting this week. But of course, it wouldn't be a show without talking about Brendan Sorsby, which made me think that maybe Justin would be a good guy to have on because he's covered it for us at the Athletic as well as anybody in the country. And I think, Justin, I think this will be the last time we have to talk about this guy. Maybe. Maybe next time will be when next year's draft comes along. I'm probably. That's probably wishful thinking, but just give us the latest in the saga of what happened. We're recording this on Wednesday on what happened Tuesday with Brendan Scoresby and the NFL.

B

Yeah, I'm not going to dare suggest that this will be the last Sorsby story here anytime soon because it's felt like maybe we've been there a couple times, and it's a story that doesn't end. But on Tuesday, the NFL announced that it's not going to hold a supplemental draft this summer, that the deadline to apply for the supplemental draft was Monday. Sorsby had already, as of last week, had already submitted the application for that. It was not a guarantee, but I think a lot of people just assumed a foregone conclusion that there would be a supplemental draft and he would be available. He was ineligible for college football, which is kind of the stipulation for the supplemental draft. But the NFL put out a letter yesterday essentially saying he did not provide enough information. He did it too close to the deadline, which I thought was kind of an interesting explanation, and basically just said that he didn't show remorse or take enough blame for essentially the gambling violations that had made him ineligible in college. It almost. It didn't say this, but reading between the lines, it almost kind of felt like the NFL using its muscle in a way that the NCAA could not. I don't know if you, if you read it that same way I did,

A

I thought it really eviscerated him to basically say, listen, if you think you're going to use us to escape punishment for what you did, that's not what we're here for. That's not what our draft is. Our supplemental draft is here for. The NFL actually has collectively bargained rules that generally hold up under legal scrutiny, though that might get challenged, too. So it can, as you said, flex its muscle a little bit. And I think if you read into it. So it caught me totally off guard for the people who are just listening. When Justin said many people thought this was a foregone conclusion, I raised my hand. I definitely did not think the NFL was going to take this stand. So I got that one way, way wrong. But I think the NFL made some. Also some interesting points. Not just flexing its muscle, but it's like, hey, you're a gambling addict. What you did is really big deal to us and our league. We suspend people for that, too. And you're just three days before the deadline going to waltz in and say, like, yeah, I'm good now. Like, don't worry about that whole gambling addiction thing. We're fine. Can you let me in your league? So, yeah, again, caught me off guard, Justin. But I also found that their reasoning was pretty sound.

B

Yeah, I mean, it essentially said that they didn't have the letter mentioned it didn't have access to the NCAA's investigation material. Them essentially saying, we didn't have a full investigation into your gambling history, that NFL teams who might be drafting you didn't have enough time to fully vet kind of your background and what that would mean. And so, yeah, the upshot is there is no supplemental draft. So Brendan Sorsby will not be available for that this summer. He cannot sign as a free agent. In the NFL, the rule is you cannot sign as a free agent until you've not been drafted in whatever draft you have available. So they basically said you will be available to apply for pursue the 2027 NFL Draft. It even kind of used a little bit of cagey language in there saying there are no guarantees here, but if you want to pursue the 2027 NFL Draft, you can do that. It should be noted that Sorsby's lawyer, Jeffrey Kessler, a very powerful lawyer, basically said that Sorsby would kind of take this up with the NFL Players association, which is obviously the player side of the collective bargaining agreement. I'm not sure the specifics, but I believe Kessler has represented the NFL PA at some point in the past as well. So I'm curious to see how all of that unfolds. And it's interesting because technically, Sorsby is not part of the NFL Players association because he's not part of the NFL yet. So I'm not sure how that will. I think we're still kind of waiting to see what the NFL PA's response will be. But yeah, you know, just another. We don't need to rehash every step of this, but you're looking at a situation where Sorsby's deemed ineligible by the ncaa, sues. The NCAA is, you know, granted a temporary injunction to play college football. Huge public backlash. He decides, I'm going to purs NFL supplemental draft. And the NFL supplemental or the NFL says we're not holding the supplemental draft. We're sorry, you're not going to be available. All in the span of, you know, a couple of months here and really

A

the last two weeks, this all ramped up, especially so one. Let's, let's put a bow on this. Justin. Is there any way he could possibly retreat and try to get back into college or explain why he can't or why it seems highly, highly unlikely. I should never say can't. Right? You should never rule anything out. But if you can explain what are the possible ramifications, if any, on him turning around and sort of targeting the Big 12, which essentially trumped him and kept him out and made it hard for him to come back to college, even despite the ruling he got in Texas. Were there any possible machinations left with Texas Tech, the Big 12?

B

Yeah, I would say it seems highly unlikely Brennan Sorsby will play college football this fall. He dismissed the lawsuit, which was in Texas state court, that essentially gave him the injunction. That's what made him ineligible in college again, and allowed him to apply for the NFL supplemental draft. It was dismissed with prejudice, which, you know, I'm not a legal scholar, but as I understand it means you can't just say, like, oh, just kidding, let's. Let's go back to that. So I'm sure there is legal wiggle room there, but it's not as if he can just kind of reinstate that lawsuit and then be eligible to play. And Texas Tech made it pretty clear, you know, the, the long Cody Campbell statement, the Texas Tech booster and board of regions that came out, I guess, last week at this point said he will not, you know, Brendan Sorsby will not be playing football for Texas Tech this fall. So I don't think there's any sense that he can kind of, you know, basically do a do over and go back to that, whether he pursues, you know, a legal challenge against the NFL or against the Big 12, because that Big 12 lawsuit is still kind of hanging out there and not dismissed. Whether something happens with that, we'll see. Regardless, it seems very unlikely, though, that he will be playing college football and obviously now NFL football in any capacity this fall. But as you said, you know, this has kind of been a wild twist and turn case. So I'm not going to speak in absolutes here.

A

Okay. Yeah. First of all, I think we're all qualified as amateur legal scholars at this point. Yeah, right. You and I were texting back and forth last night because you had talked to some folks, and if he were to pursue some more legal challenges, more lawsuits, it might be for damages, you know, from the Big 12 or the NFL or something like that, as opposed to, hey, let me back in.

B

So you go back to that, the letter from Jeffrey Kessler and from the Texas attorney general that kind of sparked one of the most recent fallouts with all this. It was all about an antitrust kind of collusion argument against the Big 12. Does that then get reignited somehow? I don't know. I'd be curious. It seems like at some point it might be in Brendan Sorcerey's best interest to just Kind of lay low and pursue the 2027 NFL Draft again, I don't, you know, it seems like he's been getting a lot of advice from people. I don't want to just kind of join that chorus, but don't you think there's even a possibility. I think that he could either stay enrolled at Texas Tech and even if he couldn't necessarily work out where, practice with the team, I think he could still work out and practice at Texas Tech. To me, it just seems like, all right, lay low, work on yourself, football wise and otherwise, and try and get ready for 2027. But at least thus far, you know that that hasn't kind of been the path that it seems like he's. He's taken.

A

Yeah, it's another thing that I got wrong here. Or maybe I don't know. First of all, I do wonder if he got bad advice and working with Jeffrey Kessler, who again, guy's pretty good at his job. I don't. It's hard for me to think that he got bad advice, that it was worth the chance. But one of the things I thought of very early stages of this is Brendan Sorsby needs to be talking to the NFL as much as he is trying to get back into college football. His messaging needs to be heard by the NFL because in the long run, that's the place where his real value is. Right. He needs to be able to tell the NFL, hey, man, like, I'm good. You don't have to worry about this stuff. Whether it's 2026 or 2027, you're going to get a guy who is on the up and up when it comes to this gambling stuff. And wherever you think I should be drafted, don't hold this against me. And clearly the NFL did not see it that way. So I do wonder if he got some advice or he made some decisions that in the retrospect, like, really undercut him because it didn't look like he was being contrite and he wasn't truly worried about, like, what. What really matters, which is, hey, man, I got to get this thing in line so the NFL eventually lets me in. So, yeah, I find myself wondering if he does. If he did get maybe some bad advice, though, that is. I'm looking at that with, you know, 2020 hindsight, Justin.

B

Yeah, I think either way, you know, coming into this season, let's say two months ago, college football fans probably knew the name Brennan Sorsby. He was a big transfer. Maybe some NFL people who were kind of looking Ahead, new Brennan Sorsby. He was not a household name among sports fans. He wasn't Arch Manning or something like that. He is now. And everyone knows Brendan Sorsby's name for all the wrong reasons. And so instead of having this season where he's going to try to establish himself and become a first round NFL draft pick, now he has this narrative that he has to change. And so I'm kind of interested to see how he navigates the next six months or so or whatever leading up the next year, leading up to the 2027 NFL Draft for his sake. You know, I know Brendan a little bit. I do think he's a good kid. I hope that things kind of get straightened out and he has a chance to overcome that narrative. But it's just, you know, the past couple months are obviously not at all what he expected. And so I think the next, you know, year of his life is going to be really interesting to see how he, he, how he navigates and potentially changes this.

A

Yeah, the only last thing I would say is, listen, he, he, he made about a million dollars from Tech. He probably made about a million from Cincinnati, give or take over two years. He eventually will get a chance to play in the NFL. So, you know, he messed up. He's, he's not going to jail. I don't think, like, I think he'll be okay, but these are the consequences for messing up. Let me pivot to Mich. Like, we don't do a ton of basketball. So I want to look at the Dusty May leaving Michigan after winning championship. By the way, this is the second time in the last, what, three years that Michigan's had won a national, major, national championship and had their coach head to the professional league after Jim Harbaugh did it under somewhat different circumstances. But I kind of want to look at the May thing a little bit through the lens of college football. But Justin, you, I cover some college basketball. You probably cover more than I do. Even though we're kind of football first here at the Athletic and we both had a chance to be around maybe during the NCAA run. I was with Michigan in. Where was I? Buffalo, where they started. And I think you were with him during the next two rounds, including the Final Four. And so he, he's leaving Michigan to go to the Dallas Mavs. I didn't feel like the timing was a little surprising. But even from being around it a little and not being entrenched as a basketball reporter when all the stuff was going on with Tommy Lloyd possibly leaving Arizona for North Carolina, I should really say, the North Carolina job opening and May's name among other high profile coaches coming up for that. What you did start hearing a fair amount of with May was if he's going to leave, it's going to be for the, for the NBA. And by the way, at some point he's going to leave for the NBA. So I wasn't shocked about this. But what was your read and were you at all surprised that he pulled the trigger this year?

B

Yeah, I mean, definitely surprised by the timing, like you said. And certainly anytime you have a coach who is at the top of the sport, won the championship and is moving on, that's a, that's a big deal. I do agree with you though that like there are these coaches, whether it's in basketball. I feel like Ryan Day is like this in college football, right, where these guys who people just kind of assume at some point they're going to make the jump and go to the NFL because it matches with their, their personality. You know, Dusty May is, you know, he loves kind of the intricacies of, of hoops and you know, that idea of, hey, you don't have to worry about recruiting and fundraising and all the stuff that college coaches have to do at the NBA level. You know, C.J. moore wrote a really good piece for us this week, kind of about that personality of May, him going to the NBA. And then CJ wrote a great piece where he literally walked out of the arena after the national championship game with May, back to his hotel. And part of that piece, you know, these are things you look back in retrospect, was like May was on his phone the whole way back. His coaches are celebrating, they're walking back, May's texting recruits and this idea that like, he couldn't, he couldn't shut it off, he couldn't let it go. He almost couldn't be happy with winning a national championship. So in that regard, yeah, okay, I can see how you get to go Coach Cooper flag, you get to go to the NBA and leave some of the college nonsense behind. I don't though, view it, and maybe I'll be wrong. In retrospect, I don't view it as an indictment of college sports. I think we've seen this come up the past couple of years in football and basketball, which is like the coaches are either retiring or they're trying to move on and get away from college sports because there's no guardrails and there's no rules. We're only a couple of years removed from Danny Hurley turning down, you know, LeBron James and the Lakers to stay at UConn. So I do think part of it is just situational and personality. You know, what's interesting about May is, and you probably saw this, you know, when you were within the tournament. I certainly saw it the last couple weeks. He was one of those coaches that just got it. The way he talked about recruiting and the portal and nil. He didn't tiptoe around it. He didn't try and pretend it was something it wasn't. He was very upfront, like, this is how I handle it. This is kind of the new world of college sports. Even if I don't like it, you know, I've totally kind of embraced it. And so in that sense I think it's disappointing for college sports because you're, you're losing kind of very talented but also very refreshing, clear eyed voice. Someone that could have been kind of the face of college basketball. And he's deciding, I'd rather go to the NBA. But you know, so in that sense that's a blow for college basketball. But you're also, you know, John Shire at Duke apparently, you know, was, was of interest for this job with the Mavs and he decided to stay at Duke. And I think you can point to other examples of, you know, certain guys are going to want to stay in college, certain guys are going to move on. I'm a little hesitant just yet to say like this is an indictment on college sports.

A

So the last thing I wanted to touch on with this. So we've seen some back and forth movement over the last couple of years now. Mike Malone is the most obvious one going to North Carolina. But there have been some high profile assistants. Florida State hired an NBA assistant. Byu, Kevin Young was an NBA assistant. Butler, even though Ronald Norad is a former Butler player, was most recently an NBA assistant. And I do myself wondering if there's just. We're at a point now where strategically in basketball like the game is similar enough to the NBA and college where somebody looks at a guy like May and says, oh yeah, your X's and O's, the way you see the game that that translates fine here. You, you will, don't worry about the rest of the stuff like the way the game is played works here. And I wonder if my, if that is going to happen in the NFL more with college. It just still seems like there's a firewall between the NFL and college. Maybe because college coaches and college football coaches are still sort of intertwined with running this operation. And it's not as much an X's and O's thing, but you know, again, as more of a basketball guy, it does seem like the X's and O's translate a little more, a little more seamlessly from college to the NBA.

B

Yeah, no, I think that's a good point. And you're right. There probably are some more examples of even if it's at the assistant level, you know, a little bit more free flowing between the two leagues. The other thing I was thinking of, this is pure speculation and it's very possible if we called up Dusty right now, he would say, no, that didn't factor at all. He's at Michigan. Michigan basketball, they just won a national championship. Michigan basketball is a huge deal. It's never going to be as big of a deal as Michigan football. I do think it's interesting that John Shire decided to stay at Duke, a basketball school. He apparently was in the mix for this as well based on some reporting. That part kind of jumped out at me. Again, maybe that didn't factor in. I don't know. The other thing though that's interesting is Dusty May is he's cashing in when his stock is at an all time high. Say this doesn't work out, he doesn't like it, it doesn't work out at the NBA level three, four, five years from now. He can have any job he probably wants if he wants to come back to college basketball. He's 49 years old. I think he a lot of his career ahead of him. So that was the other. Maybe it was just like Cooper Flag. I just want a title. This is the right time for me to go do it. And then we'll kind of see how it works. Again, that's me speculating, not me reporting. But those were two things that I was kind of thinking about over the course of that story.

A

Yeah, some uncertainty at Michigan too. They've had a tough time filling their presidency, tragically with a person they just hired from Syracuse being diagnosed with cancer. So some circumstances that have led to that presidency being vacant for a while. Also, we're still trying to figure out some of the investigation, internal investigation of some issues within that athletic department that may make Ward Manual's future still be a little cloudy there. They've had some board issues. So yeah, things around Michigan may be a little uncertain. And we all know, as we've talked about a lot on this show, if the administration has some uncertainty, sometimes coaches get a little, little worried about that as well. But yeah, I don't know if this is going to lead to. I don't know if we're going to start seeing similar moves in college football. I think this works better in college basketball, but we'll see. All right, going to take a quick break here. We'll come back and talk about 90s college football and why it means so much to me, but maybe not quite as much to Justin. And we're back here on the Audible, presented by Trader Joe's Just Ralph Russo this week and Justin Williams, my colleague from the Athletic. Pinch hitting for Stu and Bruce. They will be back eventually. I don't know, maybe I'll let them back. I haven't quite decided. The other thing that's getting rolled out this week as we hit sort of peak off season content is the Athletic is doing a series of stories. I have one that comes out a little later, actually. I'm not really sure when mine's gonna publish and I'm not gonna tease it now. I don't know if you've been involved in this, Justin, but a series of stories about reminiscing about 90s college football sparked by the last time the US hosted a World cup, which was 1994. And Joe Rexrode wrote a great piece on 90 Reasons why We Miss the 90s. And Austin Meek did a great job of sort of digging into the nostalgia and what it means to be nostalgic about the 90s. Was it really the best decade for college football or is it just. And this is a question I want to pose to you, Justin, is when you read these pieces that we're writing, are you just thinking, man, these Gen Xers and Boomers just leave me alone, man.

B

There was a little bit of that. So I'm born in 1989. I just make the cut off to kind of be a child of the 90s. But it has been interesting to read because there are aspects of 90s college football that I definitely remember. I was looking through Stu's list of top teams that I think we're going to discuss and certainly some of those later 90s teams. I remember watching those guys in college. But then there are definitely aspects of it that were just a little bit before I was aware as a college football fan. Whereas I might find myself a little bit more identifying with that early 2000s, especially when the college football video game started to really enter the lexicon. Definitely identifying more with that ESPN Goalzone. Do you remember espn? Or was it Goal Line or I think it was ESPN Goal Line, whatever. Goal Line where you would bounce around to the different games. That was a seminal part of my college football fandom. All that stuff came a little bit later. All of which is to say, though I do have a soft spot as a child of the 90s. Seinfeld is religion to me. I do identify with that era. And so it was cool to relive the parts I remember, but also then get educated on maybe stuff that was a little bit before I became totally aware of it.

A

Yeah, I'm going to paraphrase somewhere in Austin's story again, and I might be a little off on this age range. He basically sort of. He comes clean in saying that, listen, we understand that to a certain degree, anything that happened between the ages of like your early teens and your early 20s is often viewed as the best. Right. And I think of like, for the 90s, for me was sort of that post college time. I graduated in 1992. So yeah, I am that much older than Justin. And it was like. I mean, it was really as much as I became a college football fan in the 80s and my formative memories of college football. In fact, we just did a segment on this a couple of weeks ago are early 80s, mid-80s, where sort of like the passion for it started developing. What really pushed me over the top and made me decide this is what I want to do for a living was when I started my career in sports media and started consuming college football and thought, okay, yeah, I think this is the path I want to take for a career. But it's also, again, it was post college. I was single, I was living in Manhattan. Like, everything was pretty cool, frankly, like in my life in the 90s, you know, I moved to Denver. It was like, it was an exciting time. So it's easy for me to see the lens of pretty much everything I thought was pretty cool in the 90s. So again, have a little patience for us Gen Xers and Boomers. Justin, I do want to get a little bit into Stu's list of top 15 school, top 15 teams from the 1990s. Number one was pretty easy. And again, I think you were probably six or seven. So I don't know how much you really remember this Nebraska team, but I think if you are a college football fan, you are aware of 1995 Nebraska, because frankly, the court, this was the peak of that era of Tom Osborne football. And the Cornhuskers beat the living hell out of everyone that year. Do you have any recollection of that national championship game where they. Where Nebraska beat Florida? I want to make sure I get the Score, right? It was 65 to 24. And frankly, it wasn't that close.

B

I don't remember. This was Tommy Frazier, though, right?

A

This is the Tommy Frazier, yeah.

B

So, like, I remember Tommy Frazier as a kind of a college football character. I actually had a really good friend. He was the best man in my wedding. His dad was from Nebraska. So, you know, they were always into Nebraska growing up. So I probably had a little bit more understanding of the history of Nebraska football than most people in Ohio. But no, I don't remember the actual game, but I do kind of remember the mystique around Nebraska as someone growing up in the 90s.

A

Did you. I'm kind of looking at this list and wondering, like, did any of these teams register? Like, what is the first. Like, this team registers with me? Because I think back to, like, the late 70s Penn State teams were the first ones. Late 70s, early 80 Penn State teams and the early 80s Nebraska teams were the ones that really sort of sparked my interest. So that would have been about the same time as like the late 90s and early 2000s for you. Did you have a team that lured you in, or were you just a college football family?

B

Yeah, we were kind of a college football family. You know, like, I distinctly remember my dad, you know, putting games on. On Saturday while. While folding laundry. It was a lot of, you know, I grew up in Cincinnati. A lot of Big Ten football would have been on TV then. I do remember, I think, was it 99. Florida State was on that Stu's list. I remember Peter Warrick, like, watching him in college because then he got drafted by the Bengals. And like, I. Who. That was when the Bengals drafted him, like, oh, yeah, I watched that guy in college. He's incredible. Never quite lived up to that level in the NFL, unfortunately. I had a couple good seasons with the Bengals, but, like, I remember Peter Ward in college. I remember for some reason, the. I think it was in 98, the Andy Katzenmoyer Sports Illustrated cover. You know, he had been there for a few years, but, like, I remember him being on the COVID you know, that Sports Illustrated being at our house. I remember, you know, Ron Dane and Drew Brees, some of these guys, you know, playing in the 90s. I'm trying to think, though, like, the first team that would have really stuck with me. And not that I had a special relationship to that Florida State 99 team, but I remember that. I certainly remember. Was it. When was the Miami, Ohio State championship?

A

Was that 2001, 2002 championship game, if I remember correctly. I always get 2002 or 2001 confused on that one. So it was. I think it was the 2002 championship game with Claret. That game that went. Amazing game that went into overtime.

B

Right. So that would like. I had family who were big Ohio State fans. So that would have been a little bit later, but registered. But certainly my. My earliest memories of college football, probably more players as opposed to teams were definitely some of those. Those late 90 guys.

A

Yeah. And just to clarify, yes, it was the Miami Ohio State game where Ohio State upset Miami. That great Miami team went into overtime. That was the 02 season 03 championship. I loved the Katzen reference though, because it is similar to my. I was again telling the story on a previous episode about Kelvin Bryant again. Do you even know who Kelvin Bryant is? You're going to make me feel really old. Do you know who Kelvin Bryant is? Justin?

B

I'm sorry, I'm sorry to say I do not know.

A

Gosh darn it, I do not know.

B

Sorry.

A

So Kelvin Bryant was a running back in the 80s with early 80s with North Carolina. He went to the USFL and had a big career there and then ended up in the NFL sort of at the tail like the back end of his NFL career, which was good, but not great. But not great. But my recollection of Bryant, I feel like is similar to your recollection of Katzenmoyer, which is. I feel like I remember this player and I remember seeing this player on a game on TV and hearing about his stats. I don't have a full blown memory of this player and I don't know why. It's really important to me that I remembered this player and that moment, but boy, I do. So that's what it sounds like with Katzen Moir and that cover of Sports Illustrated, which was iconic. And it's one of those things that I'm sure. I don't know why I remember this so well, but boy, I remember that a lot.

B

Yeah, definitely. That's one of those that, for whatever reason, core memory. And so it was definitely interesting to see peaks of that again, even on that list. I think John Copeland was on one of the Alabama teams that Stu referenced.

A

1992.

B

John Copeland played with the Bengals. Yeah. So like, I don't remember him in Alabama, but I remember John Copeland playing on the Bengals probably, you know, sometime the next few years after that. And so it was kind of cool to. To go back and see some of these names, even if I don't remember exactly, you know, their place on this list. I do kind of, I'm aware of them. And so that, that part has been, has been fun of this series so far.

A

Yeah. And the 1999 Florida State team, not only were they the first wire to wire national champion, they were number one to start the year in the AP poll and number one to end the year, and never fell away from number one. That had never happened before, undefeated. But the championship game, the BCS championship game the Knowles played against Michael Vick and Virginia Tech, even though the game was somewhat lopsided by the end of the game. I I im is another thing that probably is somewhat embedded into almost anybody's memory, even somebody who was maybe young at the time. Because not only was Peter Warwick amazing, but Michael Vick, of course, was Michael Vick. If you didn't know who Michael Vick was then. And I have visions of him running down the sideline, I believe in Morgantown. Again, one of my iconic memories, I think it was Morgantown, not Lane Stadium, where he had that long run against West Virginia. But yeah, that performance against Florida State sort of turned Michael Vick into a legend.

B

Yeah, definitely. The grainy maroon blur of Michael Vick just making defenders look foolish is like again, whether it's I've recreated it in my mind or I'm actually remembering it in my mind, it is kind of something that I can see.

A

All right, folks, so please go to the Athletic. We are going to be dumping a lot of 90s college football content over the next, I don't know, couple of weeks, I think, I think until the World cup ends. And again, like I said, do you have a story? You don't have to tell me what it is if you don't want to reveal it. I have one and I don't want to necessarily tease it on here, but are you enlisted to write something on this series?

B

I'm actually working something. We're going to do some basketball ones too, 90s college hoops. And so I'm working on something on that. I think those are going to start rolling out here pretty soon. And that's been. Honestly, I was probably a bigger college basketball fan growing up in Cincinnati, you know, Huggins era, Bearcats and things like that would make a little more sense. But so that's been fun too, to kind of go back. It's funny you mentioned, you know, to go back to the Dusty May conversation, doing some research on this was the fact that as the Knicks were winning the championship this year, reminded that Rick Patino left the Knicks to coach Kentucky. You know, basketball which just seems if something that would probably never happen right in today's kind of sports landscape, but just shows, again, like, how it feels so long ago in some ways. And maybe that's because of things like that.

A

Yeah. Some of those Cincinnati teams were also high on my college basketball list. Nick Van Exel and whatnot. So those were fun teams for me as well. All right, Justin, listen, I very much appreciate you filling in pinch hitting for a Stu and Bruce tonight today. Thanks for keeping us on top of all the Sorsby stuff. You've done an amazing job of covering that story, which seems to never end. And again, you're always welcome on this show. And if you have any desire to join my diabolical plot to take it over, just let me know and I'll see what we can do.

B

Always appreciate the opportunity to be a part of your little coup here.

A

We'll be back in a second with the Mailbag. And we're back here on the Audible. As we mentioned a couple of times, Stu and Bruce not here today, but the Mailbag goes on. And helping me with the mailbag this week is Michael Beller, who, What is. I mean, other than being, like, Grand Poobah and overseer of the show, what is your official title here on our show other than, again, like, Grandmaster, the person who runs the show here.

C

Yeah, we can go Grand Puba if you want, Ralph. But, yeah, I like that. I guess. I am the executive producer of the Audible and of the Athletic Football Show.

A

Okay, Right. So you do, like, a really good show, and then you handle us as well. And try. Actually, I should say this. Michael's involvement in our show has definitely lifted. It made it a lot more professional. Among, obviously, the great work from our producer, Matt Schiltz. We're doing some possible. We're in some transition period here. So Bella is stepping in here to help me get through the show by myself because I thought to myself, I think I can do the Mailbag solo, and then realized, yeah, that might be weird. So I need a little help here. So just team me up for some of these mailbag questions, and let's see how I do. And again, as I'm trying to take over the show, this may be a. This may be a trial. Right. We'll see if we really need Stew

C

and Brew Cruz, I'm now the holder of the Trader Joe's gift cards. It's also true, as far as I'm concerned,

B

it's a complaint.

C

All right, very good to you, Dean Sullivan. First question here. He says back in the day, Penn State was known as Linebacker U because they developed so many great players at that position. Currently, Ohio State's probably wide receiver U. I think the NFL would agree with you on that one, Dean. What about some of the other positions? O line U, DBU, Punter U. We've had DBUs over the years as well. Well, Ralph, what do you got for this?

A

So I was thinking that like to try to go a little, not completely outside the box, but a little outside the box because the fact of the matter is during Nick Saban's time, which is still, you know, we are still feeling the effects, the after effects of Nick Saban's dynasty at Alabama, you can make a case that every position was Alabama U. Right. Like they, they put so many guys in the NFL. Offensive linemen, running backs, wide receivers, quarterbacks. For a little while. There's just. They poured so many players into the NFL that you could make the case that Alabama was, was, was just the answer for all of these. So aside from that, I think Iowa makes a pretty good claim to be offensive line you. And the reason why is because they do such a good job of developing guys who aren't four and five stars. They've got about six or seven guys in the NFL. Tristan Wirfs might be arguably, like I'm not as big of an NFL guy. Maybe you can help me out with this Bell. Or like he might be the best offensive tackle in the game or is in maybe the the discussion for being the best offensive tackle in the game. They had two guys drafted along the offensive line this year. So I would say Iowa maybe for offensive line. You. Wisconsin has been in that discussion too in terms of again, being really good at developing guys who weren't necessarily four and five stars. Though one of the reasons why Luke Fickle is in some trouble is because he hasn't kept that up very well over the last couple of years. Running back, you. Penn State came to mind. They just put two guys into the NFL draft this year. You have Saquon Barkley, you have Miles Sanders. I am absolutely forgetting some others. But over the years, Penn State has pretty steadily put some good running backs into the league and a cont against Ohio State for wide receiver you. And it's hard to really top. Ohio State is lsu, right. They've had an amazing run that includes Jefferson and Chase and Odell Beck going back to Odell Beckham, Brian Thomas. So I don't know. You're more of an NFL guy. Am I missing anybody here? Beller?

C

I would just I would add Iowa as tight end. You also.

A

Oh, that's a good one. That's a good one.

C

George Kittle, T.J. hawkinson, Sam Laporta.

A

Yeah, fantasy turned out to be sort of the star that we maybe they thought he was when he was a first round draft pick. But that's a guy who's still in the league and I think there's a couple of others. So yeah, I like Iowa's tight end. You. Iowa does a really good job of. I always say more with less, but they do a good job of sort of finding the guys who are a little off the radar in recruiting and developing in the long run. All right, so good question there. Okay, we're only going to do two questions today since I'm doing this solo. What's question number two?

C

Bell Question number two is from Josh Anderson. I might be one of your younger listeners at 23 years old. Think of whatever you were doing in the spring of 2013, Ralph. That's when Josh was born. I was graduated from high school, so quite a bit older than you as well. Josh. Some of my favorite commercials is now back to Josh, not me. Some of my favorite commercials growing up were the NFL Network spots where Deion Sanders and Jerry Rice come out of retirement under the aliases Leon Sandcastle and Jerry Rice Cake and promptly light up 2014 like it's 1994. My question is, what if we reverse this concept and applied it to college football? Which NFL players that are active now would you wanna see sneak back to their alma mater for one more? What if Matt Campbell was. Matt Campbell was able to ease into his time at Penn State with one of those guys from running back you and bring back current Saquon Barkley. How about adding Patrick Certain to an already excellent Alabama secondary? We all know Texas Tech could benefit from the services of a healthy Patrick Mahomes right about now. So what do you think here, Ralph? And. And Josh also wants to see what you maybe you would have for names for these guys. He as an example, gives you bomb trade Brady taking over as the quarterback in Michigan.

A

Okay, so I want to put a. For our email. I know it might be a little disappointing the way I'm going to answer this question because I'm not. I'm kind of going to take in a little bit of a different direction. Just a little bit of a different direction. What I want to emphasize here is you don't need to be an NFL star to return back to college and make a huge impact. I think sometimes we forget about how Like, I'm almost thinking of like this idea of like who's a, who's a failed Texas Tech quarterback who have failed, but maybe a guy who is bouncing around the league as a backup right now who could go back to Texas Tech and dominate. Right. I think that we get a little too focused sometimes on the stars and how important they could be to a college team and not realize that. Actually even some of the guys who just bounce around, around the journeyman types, like, if you could just take, you know, Alabama is having a hard time running the ball these days. Is Kenyon Drake still around? Is he still knocking around the NFL? Is, is TJ Yellen maybe possibly knocking around the NFL at this point? God knows if you put Derrick Henry, 35 year old or however it is 32 year old Derrick Henry, but I don't even think you necessarily need the big stars. I think guys who are just, just like solid players who are knocking around the NFL could go back to their college teams and make an enormous difference. It goes back to somewhere that like that conversation that pops up all the time of like, that team could beat the worst NFL team. No, they can't. No, they couldn't. It could absolutely not do, do that. But, but I do think I said, you know, I could come up, of course Patrick Mahomes with Texas Tech would be awesome. I'm trying to think of maybe a team that's particularly good right now. Wouldn't it help for hell, wouldn't it help to have George Kittle back at Iowa right now? Iowa's got a pretty good team. They're not quite as loaded at tight end though. I think they might have another one of these guys in the pipeline. But if you could drop George Kittle back at Iowa, holy cow, would that make a difference? But my point is you could do that with almost any NFL player, not even superstar. Drop them back on their old school right now. You know, Tom, I don't know. Here's my question to you, Beller. At 48 years old, I think that's with how old he is, would Tom Brady be better than Bryce Underwood?

C

Probably, right? I mean, probably.

A

I think so. Like, like just, just knowing everybody in

C

the NFL as recently as three years ago. Yeah.

A

Like just having so much knowledge about the way the game is played and that's sort of what I'm referencing a little bit here. Like, I think you have so much knowledge and know how to break down a defense. Like he would never get sacked because the ball would be out of his hands so quickly and like these college players just wouldn't have any idea, any way to keep up with him in terms of the way he processes information. Right.

C

The ball coming out of his hands quickly was part of the problem at the end there in Tampa. I will say that a little too quickly.

A

Oh, cause he clearly didn't want to get hit. Yeah, that's a good point. Like he so clearly did not want to get sacked at the end there. And listen, if I was 45 years old, old, I wouldn't want to get hit. I'm 56, I certainly don't want to get hit now. And at 45, I would not want to get hit by 25 year old pass rushers in the NFL. So yeah, again, I don't know if that really perfectly answers your question, but I can't emphasize enough guys like how even the most mid NFL player five years into the league, if you put him back into college, would kick everybody's ass. Like I just, I really cannot emphasize that enough. All right, Bell, where should we go with the Trader Joe's gift card card? I'm pretty much going to let you pick this. Choose between the two emailers this week. I'm going to clear out. You get to pick.

C

All right, beautiful. So the plan continues on in terms of this. No, no Stew, no Bruce. Coup. I am, I'm going to go, I'm going to go with Dean. I, like we just had a. You know, it's fun to, to remember some guys in this way and think about the ways in which certain schools have cornered certain markets and, and then turn those guys into pros at such a high rate. So it's a fun question, it's a fun group players to think about. Let's give it to Dean Sullivan here.

A

Okay, so Dean, please send your mailing address. And this is gonna be the big test, Beller. Cause I always get this email wrong. Send your mailing address. Email us your mailing address to theaudiblepodmail.com also for future folks who wanna get their questions in here and gosh, guys, please send us some. We feel like we've had some repeats. We definitely love our repeat emailers, but we also love to get some new people in here and spread that Trader Joe's love around. So feel free to send your questions to get on the future mailbag episodes to theaudiblepodmail.com Michael man, we made it. I made it through the episode without Stu and Bruce. I think think again. The coup. We're not in full coup mode, but I think this episode proved that I might be able to do this without them.

B

I'm just.

A

They. They better get their asses back here because I might be able to do this without them. That's the show for today. Come back next week for the latest edition of the Audible with Stu Bruce and Ralph

B

Sam.