Thanks for listening to the Best of Herd podcast. Be sure to catch us live every weekday from twelve to three eastern, nine to noon Pacific on Fox Sports Radio and FS one. Find your local station for The Herd at Fox Sports Radio dot com, or stream us live every day on the iHeartRadio app by searching Herd is the Best of the Herd with Colin Cowhern on Fox Sports Radio. Here we Go on a Wednesday, live in Los Angeles. It's the Herd wherever you may be, however you may be listening iHeartRadio, Fox Sports Radio and f S one. Nick Right joining us today, Joey Taylor, Jimbo Fisher, Coach of Texas, and M's joining you. So I was thinking about this. If you go to a movie, it's a little all over the place, but it's got a great last ten minutes. Yes, whether you're on a date, you're married, or with a friend, you walk out of that theater and you're like, I kind of liked that movie. That's a good movie. Yeah, you feel better about it. You're a little confused, but they wrapped it all up. So I'm gonna start with that. A few years ago, I'm in West Hartford, Connecticut. I mean, I watched a movie called Burn after reading it's George Clooney, Brad Pitt. It's odd. It had the greatest last scene in the history of any movie I've ever seen. My wife and I walked out of that movie and were laughing so hard we were bending over in the street for ten minutes. We both today think that's a great movie. It's like I've watched it again and I have the exact same feeling. It's wrapped up so perfectly in the office scene. It is so perfect that it ties it all together. That I think of that very positive. It's a very very good movie to me. Usual Suspects, which was better than that movie, but also similarly had an unbelievable last scene. Last fifteen minutes, is also a good movie with a great ending, And if you ask people about it, they's go, oh, that's a great film. That's not. It's a good film, a great ending, And that leads me to Jimmy Garoppolo. It's now official. He met with Kyle Shanahan, he met with John Lynch yesterday. He's back. He's throwing, but the team informed him we're moving on to Trey Lance and here's Kyle Shanahan stands where we're at. We understand where we're at. Like, I can't tell you how appreciative I have been of Jimmy and hmbing here and so appreciative what he did for us last year. I think Jimmy and we knew what movie made the year before on that Jimmy did a hell of a job coming to a camp and went in that job and taking us real close to the super Bowl. But we have moved on to Trey. We're starting camp out this way. We think Jimmy would have been traded if the surgery didn't happen in Deead. He needed to do it, so there's no ill will there at all. But it's good to see that he is healthy. But now it's all just seeing how this will end up. All three of us are on the same page, all right, They're moving on. So let me ask you do you think last year was a success for Aaron Rodgers. I don't couldn't win a home playoff game one and done embarrassing, yet he was MVP. That goes to me. That goes to my argument the last part of the movie makes the movie. You can never have a great movie with a bad ending. There's never been ever a great movie with a lousy last fifteen minutes. Doesn't doesn't happen. There's not one. Aaron Rodgers won the MVP last year is not a success. Couldn't win a playoff game, couldn't score a touchdown. Let's go to Jimmy Garoppolo because I think a lot of you think replacing Jimmy Garoppolo is not that hard. From week ten on last year, second in the NFL and completion percentage seventy one, second in yards per attempt, fourth and passer rating, that's the Jimmy Garoppolo he's replacing. Nobody cares about Week four. That's why the Niner coaches are nervous. Jimmy's a gamer and an alpha, and he's confident. That's who you're replacing. Nobody gives a rip about the injuries, and nobody cares about Aaron Rodgers. October. Aaron Rodgers season was embarrassing at the end. Again, Trey Lance is not there yet, and Jimmy Garoppolo, by the way, may never ever be close to this good again without Kyle Shanahan. You're probably right, doesn't matter the last fifteen minutes of the movie. If it's great, you walk out of that theater and your memory of it is that is a good movie. And there has never ever been a great movie ever made with a lousy last fifteen minutes. Jimmy Garoppolo's last three years two NFC Championship games. Blew out Aaron Rodgers in one and led Matt Stafford in another in the fourth quarter. The team that has beaten him the last two years that he has gotten to at least the NFC Championship was a Super Bowl champion. That's who knocked him out. There's a Rams this year, and it was the Chiefs that year, and he led both in the fourth quarter. And this roster is full of guys who played in those games and loved Jimmy Garoppolo. So this idea, it's just going to be easy. Trey Lance gonna be bigger, stronger, more athletic. I don't doubt any of it. But how it ends is how it is, okay, And if you look at the Niners schedule, when Trey Lance is on the field on the other side of the field in the first ten games, he's going to be facing Russell Wilson, Matt Stafford, Patrick Mahomes, Matt Stafford, Justin Herbert and Kyler Murray. And that's what you're going to compare him to, and that's what his teammates are going to compare him to. So you know this idea that oh, Niner fans were like, it's great. All I hear is shade for Jimmy Garoppolo last ten games. And that's when legends are made. That's why Rogers will never be Brady. He doesn't end as seasons. Well, oh he's great. In September, that was Brady's the worst month. Nobody cares. Nobody cares Tom's worst month in New England September. Tom was great in January. Can't be a great movie with a lowsy ending. Jimmy Week ten on was really good and won big games. And Trey Lance has his work cut out for him. I think it'll be good. I think it'd be talented. But this idea, this is just Kyle's great. Jimmy g get him out of here tougher than you think. So now it's three teams that Kevin Durant was lined up for. Yesterday, the Miami Heat publicly said no, thank you, and we know that the Warriors publicly said no thank you, and we know the Phoenix Suns by signing DeAndre Aighton have said no thank you. Sons Warrior's heat, no thanks. I think what's happening to Kevin Durant happens all the time in a lot of businesses. I think he's being lumped in with high maintenance players, divas, players that lack self awareness. I think he's getting lumped in with Kyrie and Ben Simmons and Westbrook and James Harden. And I think the NBA and the executives, overwhelmingly of the good teams are now pivoting away from that because those storylines have been so profound and gobbled up a lot of shows like this and don't kid yourself exacts here shows like this, they read the headlines. How many stories have we had on James Harden, Ben Simmons and Westbrook and Kyrie Irving. As I always say, in our business, we report plane crashes, not plane landings, and those there have been a lot of crashes with those guys, right, So KD is getting lumped in with those players. You see this all the time in business like streaming. Right now, Netflix had a really bad quarter and so now suddenly, uh, streaming, streaming's done. No, streaming's fine. Streaming is gonna be just fine, and almost everything is moving to streaming, and streaming is viable. And Hulu's gonna be fine, and Netflix will be fine, and Amazon Prime is gonna be fine, and streaming is fine. But it had a bad quarter. It's really really visible. And any streaming company now, because of Netflix is the big dog. They'll get lumped into who streaming the entire sector. It'll be fine. Kevin Durant is getting lumped in with Kyrie and Simmons and Harden and Westbrook. He's not declining, Harden is, Westbrook is he is available? Ben Simmons isn't He's trustable in the playoffs, Hardens not. We are lumping a guy in who's averaging twenty nine a game, shooting fifty two percent, and when he's on the floor remains a very a very good defender. He plays hard, he plays nightly, he plays well, and he's the best get a bucket guy in the NBA and arguably ever. But he's getting lumped in and right now, and there's an old saying. We've all heard it. Your parents probably told you mine did maybe Joyce, did you know? Choose your friends wisely. You're gonna be judged by the company you keep. So steph to Kyrie. Kyrie, the world is flat. Kyrie's not going to get baxed. Wasn't available, not a great teammate. I think Kad, and I've said this before, has to separate from Kyrie because as long as he's with Kyrie, people are gonna look at Katie and go, oh, that's your guy. That's how you run with because by leaving reliable staff and going to Kyrie that's one thing. Remaining with him, keep doubling down on it that's another. And so choose your friends wisely. Sometimes you gotta cut the court from people you like because you're getting judged by him. And if you're more talented than the company you keep, and more reliable and more dependable and lower maintenance, sometimes you gotta cut the chord. Because I really think Kady it's kind of amazing. There's no takers twenty nine a game best shotmaker in the game still plays defense. I mean he's thirty three, folks, he's not forty. He's unbelievable. There's like no takers and teams are doing it publicly. Miami publicly, no thanks, Golden State publicly, no thanks. Phoenix didn't even wait DeAndre and we'll sign him, no thanks. Like I think he's gonna go back to Brooklyn. We talked about this yesterday. That is my guess. But it is fairly remarkable that this level of player. He's a bit of a wanderer. He's a little passive, aggressive, he's twenty nine, a game fifty two, best shotmaker in the world. There's value. I mean, he's really good. Be sure to catch live editions of The Herd weekdays in noon Easter nine am Pacific on Fox Sports Radio FS one and the iHeartRadio app. So been saying this for a while, kind of irritating that when you love something like college football, it's infuriating that it doesn't have a centralized voice. The structure of it's a bit of a mess. Everybody's doing whatever it takes for their conference to crush. So Kirk Ferent's very respected. Used to be. I think years ago he was on Belichick's staff in Cleveland. He nick Saban Belichick in Cleveland. Really smart guy chose the college route. Could certainly coach in the NFL. Iowa doesn't a remarkable job to put three star athletes, develop them and put them in the NFL where they flourish. It really doesn't as good as anybody in the country at taking like unheralded recruits and making them NFL stars. Iowa does it about as well as anybody. And he was talking about the state at Big ten Media Days, the state of college football. There's a real lack of structure and framework in our sport right now, which I think is concerning and dangerous. Nil. I think it's a great initiative, great conceptually, and our transfer policies right now are a little bit concerning too. And spending six years in the NFL where they had a salary cap, Yeah, there is a system there for you know, a limit on how much or how little players can be paid. And there's also a system of movement. There are times when players can move and can't move, And I have no idea how you get to that point in college football. I'm not smart enough to know that, and I'm not smart enough to know who's going to do it. But right now, I'm sure as a lot of us that are a little confused on what the rules are and what are the how do you operate? And we just have such a good game. I hate to see it, you know, implode or you know, suffer a setback by the way. Pat Fitzgerald, another one of the smartest coaches in the country for Northwestern, summed it up. He said, the games on the field have never been better. Off the field, it's never been more chaotic. Young people, let me speak to you if I may. I know you don't want to hear it, but two things are true. You can't matter at your company and work twenty five hours a week. I know people have convinced you your friends got to put in the hours and grind. It's really true. Sorry. And the second thing is strong management in your career is going to matter. Sometimes they'll bark, sometimes she may fire you, they'll demand you to work extra hours. But I worked at a company one time called ESPN for seven eight years. They had amazingly strong and focused leadership ascending. Then management was say whatever you want on the air, and the ratings tanked. It matters. The games are great in college football. The coaching has never been better, the athletes have never been better, the training has never been better. The TV production has never been better. Who's running it. Who's running it you're I don't care how talented you are in any field, you will swim in mediocrity with unfocused or no leadership. I mean, listen, take a deep breath. College football is not dying. So many people love this sport. They're so close to the trees, right they can't you see the forest from the trees. The old saying goes like boxing and newspapers, we were told they were dying twenty five years ago. They're still fine, all right. New York Times doing fine. So it's the Wall Street Journal making a lot of money, but college football is underachieving. Labor Day weekend is another glaring example why there's no schedule maker in college football, so everybody avoids big games. The Labor Day weekend is the weekend before the NFL starts. It is wide open real estate, beachfront property. We're wrapping our summers up. People go out on the boat for the last time in the summer. They come home at night, they are ready to have a beer, be with their kids for the final time of the summer and watch college football. And we've got two big games games two you gotta watch Oregon Georgia, Notre Dame, Ohio State. There's no ceo. It's a million dollar business. There's no schedule maker. Does everybody understand how long the NFL works on their schedule? I mean the NFL that is a cottage industry. The NFL schedule meticulous weeks on end. They call our boss at Fox, they call CBS, they call every network head. They argue, they fight, they strategize. Labor Day weekend, two games, two games. I gotta watch. So, yes, the games are great. The athletes are great, the quarterbacks are great, the television production is great, the stadiums, the fans, the bands, it's great. You'll swim in mediocrity without strong management that occasionally might bark at you. That's like Dana White UFC's that's what works. Talent needs leadership, and college football, as great as it is, doesn't currently have enough or any. Be sure to catch live editions of The Herd weekdays and nun Easter nine am Pacific. So this is an interesting story. I remember this week, and I know most of you don't watch every day, but earlier this week, Mike Sando of The Athletic dropped his annual quarterback tiers there's like four or five tiers, and he asked his executives and coaches fifty people around the league for their opinion that he takes all those anonymous grades and he has tiers. It's interesting. The GM for the Minnesota Vikings, Quaseadofo Mensa said yesterday regarding Kirk Cousins, I'll be frank, the one asset where you get nervous about not burning it down as quarterback. We don't have Tom Brady, we don't have Patrick Mahomes. Super Bowl is more likely if you have one, it's very unlikely to have that quarterback. So everybody kind of freaks out. WHOA. They say, very credit call. The Vikings are in the second best place you can be in the NFL with a quarterback because my quarterback tiers is more simplified. There's three of them. The first tier is a quarterback that can win a super Bowl. That means you may have to win on the road, You're gonna have to beat other great quarterbacks. You're gonna have to win multiple games. Can you win in bad weather? Can you beat Aaron Rodgers in Lambeau? Quarterbacks that can win super Bowls. The second tier is quarterbacks they can win a division in a playoff game. Andy Dalton won a division, Mitch Trubski won a division. Kirk Cousins won a division. They have one playoff win and it was called a miracle. So they're not gonna win. They're not. They're not. They're good, but they're not good enough to win three straight playoff games or four. Say they're not Matt Stafford, they're not Brady, they're not Manning, they're not Russell Wilson. Where they can win on the road at home good weather, have to carry a team. The defense thinks that day they can win to shootout, but they can win a division. Mister Bisky won an division, Andy Dalton won an division, and they may They're not gonna win multiple playoff games. They go in a playoff game. They need things to go their way. Stefan Diggs makes the Beck's Biggest Player of the Year in the NFL. Vikings win. And then there's the third tier. Get on the phone. You don't got that guy, Get on the phone. And so I think Kirk Cousins is in Tier two. Mike Sando had him rated fifteenth. That's about where I have him. I probably have him fourteenth. I think last time I did it so and so I only think there's eight guys in the world in Tier one, and probably eight and Tier two and then sixteen and Tier three. To me, these are the guys that can win a Super Bowl, Alan Brady, Burrow, Herbert Mahomes, Rogers, Matthew Stafford, Russell Wilson. I think Derek Carr and Kyler Murray or Darn Close, Lamar Jackson, maybe two, I'm not sure. I think Kayler, I think Dak and Lamar and when maybe a playoff game or two. I think Derek Carr's darn close. I like Derek way more than the market, and I think Kyler's really special. If Kyle is healthy at the end of the year, running around making plays with that roster, he's got dagon win multiple playoff games. I don't have him yet winning four, just not quite. I don't think he's quite quite special enough from the pocket. But I mean that's so My whole point on Kirk Cousins is it's not a terrible place to be. There's only eight teams in the first tier, and some of those guys in the first tier, justin Herbert, haven't even made the playoffs. Yet most of them don't have Super Bowls, So, I, you know, I think it's I don't think it's a shot at all at Kirk Cousins. I think we know exactly what he is, and he's a very capable Tier two guy, and they deserve to be paid a lot of money. I think Tier two quarterbacks are They make billionaires rich, they sell merchandise, they fill a stadium, they're excellent. I even think there's guys like Mitch Trubisky as a bridge quarterback who's incredibly valuable this year to the Steelers for his mentorship of Kenny Pickett. He's a really good guy. That defense is good enough that division. You could win some games in that division. I think you could. I think I honestly, I don't think they will, But I you know, are we all gonna be shocked if Tomlin, that defense, those receivers and playmakers won that division. Wouldn't be shocked by it. I don't think they're gonna go on the road and beat Mahomes. Are not gonna beat Josh Allen. They probably wouldn't beat Lamar. They may not even beat Tannehill. One more Herd The Herd Streams twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. Within the iHeartRadio app, search Herd to listen live or on demand whenever you like. Mike Tomlin was talking yesterday. When Mike Tomlin talks, I listen because I think he's the best podium speaker we've had in the NFL. Perhaps Ever, some guys are not good Belichick, some guys talk too fast, Pete Carroll, some guys are regrettable, Dan Campbell. Tomlin's great, and he was talking about Kenny Pickett, and he was talking about Mitch Traubisky and not judging them. Here is Mike Tomlin doing something he does very well, talk at the podium. We're not going to micromanage or overmanage this quarterback competition. The depth chart will not rest on every throw. I know that you guys will want to ask me every day and every throw, but we're gonna be a little bit more steady than that. I think it's important from a leadership perspective to to to not overmanage it, to not be too impulsive. And so that's what I relate to those guys, and our actions will continue to display that mindset. The Pittsburgh Steelers fan base is quite interesting. Sometimes I think they live in a time warp. I feel the exact same way about the Steelers every single year with Mike Tomlin, Le'll be pretty good. Not buttoned up enough to win a Super Bowl, but pretty good. Always have good players, always have a good structure. I'll be pretty good. Last year a lot of turbulence. Nine to seven and one. Steelers were nine and seven and one. They draft well, they organized well, they developed well, they teach well. Oh well, they're nine to seven and one, but they have not won a playoff game in six years. They have not beaten an elite quarterback in a playoff game in twelve years. And by elite, I'm saying Joe Flacco. Steeler fans, however, demand that you respect them like it's the seventies. Since the Steelers losses were both to Green Bay a long time ago. They have one playoff win over a starting quarterback. I'm not in Pittsburgh regularly, but do they still think Eddie Murphy is the top billing comedian and are they quoting like back to the Future quotes? I don't understand it. You can't demand nineteen seventies respect and Big Ben's best year respect when I've been watching this thing for the last like eight years, ten years. You do not beat star quarterbacks in playoff games. Don't beat starting quarterbacks in playoff games. And once again this year, I think they'll be good. Pretty good, draft well, developed, well, teach well, pretty good this year in an offensive leaning league. They are thirty first in offensive spending and have Mitch Trubisky in a rookie and I think all things considered, it'll be about nine to seven and one they'll be pretty good. I know, I know I'm gonna get huge pushback on that opinion. I'll put it out today on the interweb. They'll be pretty good. Not good enough to win Super Bowl, pretty good, won't be the elite quarterbacks in the playoffs. Pretty good. Be sure to catch live editions of The Herd weekdays in noon Easter nine am Pacific on Fox Sports Radio FS one and the iHeart Radio app. Well, Jimbo Fishers won of five college football coaches that have actually won a national title. That's active. You got Dabbo, and you got Sabin and now Kirby Smart, mac Brown and Jimbo Fisher. He was the first Saban assistant to come back and beat him and they beat him last year, and his recruitings on an absolute role. And you know he gets out there sometimes and you know he's a little publicity skirmishes. He's like a talk show host. He's just out firing shots. Jimbo Fishers joining us live and uh, you know I did defend you when Saban came after you. I said, give me a break on this stuff. Nick, don't be a hypocrite on this stuff. Here is um So. I'm a fan of the transfer portal because I think kids change their mind, coaches leave. I'm a fan of the NIL, but as a diehard college football fan, here's where I'm at with this stuff. Jimbo, And I'm not blaming anybody. Hell, I don't even know what's legal. I thought NIL was name image likeness for active college players. Now it looks like you can go out and buy a high schooler. Don't. I don't love that? Are you? What? Do you ever say it to yourself? Can we do this? Can we do that? Is it confusing to coaches? It's very confusing because niccolony is based off your state laws. The NCAA does not regulate has these regulations. Their regulation is based off individual state laws. Some guys can offer high school kids, some guys can have written offers for him, do the whole thing. And in some states you can even get nil as a high school player. In our state, we can't even have a conversation about NI all. We can say our players have nils, they do it, the guys that are here, but we cannot even talk about NIL to a player with any kind of offer or anything in that regard. So everybody's offering, and I mean everybody's on a different rule set, there's no standard. It's all based off everybody's own state laws. That is crazy. So Kirk Ferrin said yesterday and Pat Fitzgerald said this, and I agree with him. Pat said, the games have never been better, the athletes have never been better, and the sport's never been more chaotic. I believe the sport needs a czar, a schedulings are and as CEO your take on that, I'm for that one hundred percent. And I think unified. I think unification in officiating. The same officials that there's no confidence to everything is to a school you play them as full time. We're in a billion we're in a multi billion dollar business and we're paying officials and not, you know, having full time train I think that should be a full time job for one. They have other jobs on the side, that's fine, but I mean training them, send them out of the right place. I mean a unification of scheduling everything in college football. So be under one, as you say, Czar, in my opinion, one set of rules. So Jimbo, I look at your schedule and it's funny. So everybody love guys like me. I love USC UCLA to the Big Conference, Texas, Oklahoma. But then I look at your schedule and I think to myself, at one point you have Miami and Crystal Ball. Arkansas was probably the shock in the country last year, at Mississippi State, at Bama at South Carolina. Then it's Lane Kiff in Florida at Auburn. I think to myself, what if I threw Oklahoma into that is? Have you ever said to anybody in the sect, guys, y'all want to keep adding teams at some point, it's almost it's like an NFL schedule. You don't get a break. Like if I ran your program, I'd be like, why do I have to play Miami? If next year? Yeah, your take on that I'm with you one hundred percent, Colin. I mean, welcome to the SEC. It's it's enclosure to the NFL of any conference in football. I don't mean I'm not trying to slide anybody else, but the number of players, the quality of the programs, and the importance that the football is to them. And like you say, but I think they've trying to I think in the future where they're trying to do as they're trying to round it out where you're like, for instance, we're in the SEC West, and I think in the new rules when we ADD, I think we're going to mix up and play more Eastern teams. Eastern teams are gonna play more Western teams, and you're not all the way set in with just only the West schedule plus a couple of your Eastern schedules. Yeah, I think it's actually going to balance the scheduling out a lot more because in the SEC it's always been sometimes the East is really good, sometimes the West is really good. Are better? I say, they're are both always really good, but one side it's better than the other. And I think the new rules, when we do ADD, I think it's actually going to bounce a scheduling out more than it is right now. If you believe that or not so Jimbo Fisher joining us, Um listen, you and I know Nick, and like Nick, I got no problem. But I think sometimes he gets a little pious up there. You know, you dominate for a long time and you see the world to your tunnel, and that's the only way to see it today this morning. If you if he called you when you picked the phone up and talk to him, Yeah, men, men, Nick, we're path we're moving past it. I'll understand something. Where we drank the same water growing up. When you're coming from West Virginia, you're fight scratching, clawing for everything you got. We have and people in our statement where I grew up, in the way I grew up, what was on your mind? Come out your lips, okay, and then you moved in. Five minutes later, you said what you said and either either fought over it, got to fight over and then played five minutes later, or you said okay and you walked off and you played five minutes later. He's the same and we're cut from the same cloth. We're both competitive, and that's just the way it is. I mean, and I have respect for Nick, like I said before, and we're fine, Jimbo. I don't like the second um signing date in college football, and here's why, because I think it tears away at the quality of life of the young people on your staff that you never get a vacation. I think it's horrible. If I ran it, i'd hire off. Schedulings are and there's one signing date. And I would also make the transfer portal. You can transfer all year except Labor Day to the end of the regular season. You can't transfer in a season as a player either going to coach, but but there are I look at your schedule and I get more vacation time than you, And I think to myself, how long can you coach at your level before it's complete utter burnout. Do you ever feel that, Yeah, it's totally changed. I mean the visits in June and made the spring visits. I like you said, I like to have one signing day. I like the early signing day. I think it's the best. I really do, But I would cut out. You and I are thinking on the same same track here, and I do think the way recruiting is because we're recluding two and three and four classes at a time, and every weekend except for the four weekends we're dead, and we have a dead period in February, but we're working on ball, getting ready for spring practice. You're working with your players. The only time, the only three or four weekends we get off is those at the end of June the first of July, and we're back on track. That is it, per year, every other time of the year, every weekend, we have players here, we're recruiting, we're coaching. Something is going on, and you are right, I'm worried about the longevity of some of these guys and what it does to the family life for things that are going on in college football right now. Yeah, so, okay, you're gonna be very good. I know that. Um what when you have a great program and you bring in these five star kids and that you had a class last year, how I'm a five star kid. Okay, okay, and you're recruiting me. I want to play. Oh I don't want to sit on the bench. But you have a bunch of five star kids. You are getting to a point in your program that you have so many NFL bodies that you're gonna go out and recruit, and people are gonna recruit against Jimball and say you're not gonna play. He's got three NFL corners. You can't not gonna play a NM. Do you sense now you're moving into that space where people are using that against you, is you just can't go to an M and play very quickly. Right now, we're getting that in recruiting right now, they're saying they di And my thing is this, you mean we think more of you than they do. I mean, why can't you play? Or we think you can? And I'm gonna tell you what where you get better is who you go against on a daily basis, every day in practice. And you're going to line up and practice against these guys each and every day. And I think that's where you get better. And I'm a day one statement and I say this all the time. Call it. I've never had a great play with the guys that are truly great players. Ever asked me about the depth chart. I mean, I give you I'll give you a quick story and I'll tell you about Jay and Ramsey. Sure when he came, we had four returning We had LaMarcus Joiner, P J. Williams, Terrence Brooks and Ronald Darby all four first second round draft picks that are still playing in the NFL. On you're eight, I mean after eight years. That was he was a freshman coming in year we won the national championship. PJ said. I mean, Jenden said, coach, I'm gonna start to day one. I said, Jayen, and I ain't seeing that. If you're the best players, you're gonna start. We had four returning guys. They're all taught two round draft picks. He started day one, and we moved another guy to Nicol and then we had the best and that whole secondary to this day is still playing in the NFL eight years later. But what I'm saying is the truly great players back room. I remember Michael Clayton was a guy. I mean, the guys that we've had here are some of the the great players. You know, have never asked me about who we have or what goes on. They think somebody else is going to have to move. Dalvin Cook was that way. I mean, Darwin James was that way. Guys were in this group here are saying the coach, I'm not being arrogant to the guys we have. We're coming into the playoffs. They come to play and the competition. The truly great players love the competition and it's working out. And I think that's how you build great program, just like we did at Florida State, and just like we're starting to establish here. Okay, I want you to recruit me right now, and I'm the recruit. I say, you know, Jimbo, it's hot in Texas. Oh my good lord, jim Ball. You know, boy, that's sark, guy. Boy, he really sell me, well, boy, sell me. Listen. Here's what A and M has. It has the most complete package of any school in the country. When you're talking about culture of university, this place is unbelievable. You get here and you'll see it. The commitment to people have its top twenty educational school in the country, educations through the roof, the commitment that we have made to our f For instance, right now, we're building a new one hundred and sixty million dollars facility right now that's going to be state of the art, which no one in the country is going to have. For your personal development. What we have, we have coaches of one of the five coaches have won a national championship. We have coaches that have put as many NFL players in the NFL as we can afterwards. You're talking about this where the sixth richest school in a country with an eighteen billion dollars endowment for life every ball. You're talking about one of the two largest alumni associations in the country at five hundred and fifty thousand alums. There's one hundred nine thousand people in every game. You're playing an SEC schedule each and every time. And here's the important thing I want. Do you want to go somewhere that has won a championship or you want to be the first to do it? The people you remember, the guys that really make a difference in the world of the guys are the first to do it. If you go somewhere else and just be another guy, you're just another guy. Come here and be the first guy to ever do it and set the standard for a new organization. Those are the ones got statues outside they talk about all that's pretty good. Sales pitch Jim Ball, that's pretty good. I didn't know about alumni stuff. I like that. Wish I could be done now. I mean at this school here, when you when you dig into a college. That's why I tell peop when they get here, not just the facilities, but the commitment in how this place is five hundred and fifty thousand living alums. You've got you got one of the sixth The commitment to the to the student athlete after ball is as good as is the best there is anywhere in the country. Boy, if you signed four recruits today, I better get a cut on that. I'll tell you that. I'll send to your take. Keep me on the show. You gotta keep me going on the show, all right. So they had a number one recruiting class, eight five star recruits. They play Bam October eight, which is going to get a lot of publicity. And I never talked to you before. You know, Um, you make college football good. I like guys that spar out there. I like that whole Texas thing going on right now, and I wish you're the best of lout going forward. Thank you very much this thing. What would you be doing in May and this summer right now if I wasn't arguing with somebody Jimbo Fisher. That was a good thing. That was a big one right there.

Thanks for listening to the Best of Herd podcast. Be sure to catch us live every weekday from twelve to three eastern, nine to noon Pacific on Fox Sports Radio and FS one. Find your local station for The Herd at Fox Sports Radio dot com, or stream us live every day on the iHeartRadio app by searching Herd is the Best of the Herd with Colin Cowhern on Fox Sports Radio. Here we Go on a Wednesday, live in Los Angeles. It's the Herd wherever you may be, however you may be listening iHeartRadio, Fox Sports Radio and f S one. Nick Right joining us today, Joey Taylor, Jimbo Fisher, Coach of Texas, and M's joining you. So I was thinking about this. If you go to a movie, it's a little all over the place, but it's got a great last ten minutes. Yes, whether you're on a date, you're married, or with a friend, you walk out of that theater and you're like, I kind of liked that movie. That's a good movie. Yeah, you feel better about it. You're a little confused, but they wrapped it all up. So I'm gonna start with that. A few years ago, I'm in West Hartford, Connecticut. I mean, I watched a movie called Burn after reading it's George Clooney, Brad Pitt. It's odd. It had the greatest last scene in the history of any movie I've ever seen. My wife and I walked out of that movie and were laughing so hard we were bending over in the street for ten minutes. We both today think that's a great movie. It's like I've watched it again and I have the exact same feeling. It's wrapped up so perfectly in the office scene. It is so perfect that it ties it all together. That I think of that very positive. It's a very very good movie to me. Usual Suspects, which was better than that movie, but also similarly had an unbelievable last scene. Last fifteen minutes, is also a good movie with a great ending, And if you ask people about it, they's go, oh, that's a great film. That's not. It's a good film, a great ending, And that leads me to Jimmy Garoppolo. It's now official. He met with Kyle Shanahan, he met with John Lynch yesterday. He's back. He's throwing, but the team informed him we're moving on to Trey Lance and here's Kyle Shanahan stands where we're at. We understand where we're at. Like, I can't tell you how appreciative I have been of Jimmy and hmbing here and so appreciative what he did for us last year. I think Jimmy and we knew what movie made the year before on that Jimmy did a hell of a job coming to a camp and went in that job and taking us real close to the super Bowl. But we have moved on to Trey. We're starting camp out this way. We think Jimmy would have been traded if the surgery didn't happen in Deead. He needed to do it, so there's no ill will there at all. But it's good to see that he is healthy. But now it's all just seeing how this will end up. All three of us are on the same page, all right, They're moving on. So let me ask you do you think last year was a success for Aaron Rodgers. I don't couldn't win a home playoff game one and done embarrassing, yet he was MVP. That goes to me. That goes to my argument the last part of the movie makes the movie. You can never have a great movie with a bad ending. There's never been ever a great movie with a lousy last fifteen minutes. Doesn't doesn't happen. There's not one. Aaron Rodgers won the MVP last year is not a success. Couldn't win a playoff game, couldn't score a touchdown. Let's go to Jimmy Garoppolo because I think a lot of you think replacing Jimmy Garoppolo is not that hard. From week ten on last year, second in the NFL and completion percentage seventy one, second in yards per attempt, fourth and passer rating, that's the Jimmy Garoppolo he's replacing. Nobody cares about Week four. That's why the Niner coaches are nervous. Jimmy's a gamer and an alpha, and he's confident. That's who you're replacing. Nobody gives a rip about the injuries, and nobody cares about Aaron Rodgers. October. Aaron Rodgers season was embarrassing at the end. Again, Trey Lance is not there yet, and Jimmy Garoppolo, by the way, may never ever be close to this good again without Kyle Shanahan. You're probably right, doesn't matter the last fifteen minutes of the movie. If it's great, you walk out of that theater and your memory of it is that is a good movie. And there has never ever been a great movie ever made with a lousy last fifteen minutes. Jimmy Garoppolo's last three years two NFC Championship games. Blew out Aaron Rodgers in one and led Matt Stafford in another in the fourth quarter. The team that has beaten him the last two years that he has gotten to at least the NFC Championship was a Super Bowl champion. That's who knocked him out. There's a Rams this year, and it was the Chiefs that year, and he led both in the fourth quarter. And this roster is full of guys who played in those games and loved Jimmy Garoppolo. So this idea, it's just going to be easy. Trey Lance gonna be bigger, stronger, more athletic. I don't doubt any of it. But how it ends is how it is, okay, And if you look at the Niners schedule, when Trey Lance is on the field on the other side of the field in the first ten games, he's going to be facing Russell Wilson, Matt Stafford, Patrick Mahomes, Matt Stafford, Justin Herbert and Kyler Murray. And that's what you're going to compare him to, and that's what his teammates are going to compare him to. So you know this idea that oh, Niner fans were like, it's great. All I hear is shade for Jimmy Garoppolo last ten games. And that's when legends are made. That's why Rogers will never be Brady. He doesn't end as seasons. Well, oh he's great. In September, that was Brady's the worst month. Nobody cares. Nobody cares Tom's worst month in New England September. Tom was great in January. Can't be a great movie with a lowsy ending. Jimmy Week ten on was really good and won big games. And Trey Lance has his work cut out for him. I think it'll be good. I think it'd be talented. But this idea, this is just Kyle's great. Jimmy g get him out of here tougher than you think. So now it's three teams that Kevin Durant was lined up for. Yesterday, the Miami Heat publicly said no, thank you, and we know that the Warriors publicly said no thank you, and we know the Phoenix Suns by signing DeAndre Aighton have said no thank you. Sons Warrior's heat, no thanks. I think what's happening to Kevin Durant happens all the time in a lot of businesses. I think he's being lumped in with high maintenance players, divas, players that lack self awareness. I think he's getting lumped in with Kyrie and Ben Simmons and Westbrook and James Harden. And I think the NBA and the executives, overwhelmingly of the good teams are now pivoting away from that because those storylines have been so profound and gobbled up a lot of shows like this and don't kid yourself exacts here shows like this, they read the headlines. How many stories have we had on James Harden, Ben Simmons and Westbrook and Kyrie Irving. As I always say, in our business, we report plane crashes, not plane landings, and those there have been a lot of crashes with those guys, right, So KD is getting lumped in with those players. You see this all the time in business like streaming. Right now, Netflix had a really bad quarter and so now suddenly, uh, streaming, streaming's done. No, streaming's fine. Streaming is gonna be just fine, and almost everything is moving to streaming, and streaming is viable. And Hulu's gonna be fine, and Netflix will be fine, and Amazon Prime is gonna be fine, and streaming is fine. But it had a bad quarter. It's really really visible. And any streaming company now, because of Netflix is the big dog. They'll get lumped into who streaming the entire sector. It'll be fine. Kevin Durant is getting lumped in with Kyrie and Simmons and Harden and Westbrook. He's not declining, Harden is, Westbrook is he is available? Ben Simmons isn't He's trustable in the playoffs, Hardens not. We are lumping a guy in who's averaging twenty nine a game, shooting fifty two percent, and when he's on the floor remains a very a very good defender. He plays hard, he plays nightly, he plays well, and he's the best get a bucket guy in the NBA and arguably ever. But he's getting lumped in and right now, and there's an old saying. We've all heard it. Your parents probably told you mine did maybe Joyce, did you know? Choose your friends wisely. You're gonna be judged by the company you keep. So steph to Kyrie. Kyrie, the world is flat. Kyrie's not going to get baxed. Wasn't available, not a great teammate. I think Kad, and I've said this before, has to separate from Kyrie because as long as he's with Kyrie, people are gonna look at Katie and go, oh, that's your guy. That's how you run with because by leaving reliable staff and going to Kyrie that's one thing. Remaining with him, keep doubling down on it that's another. And so choose your friends wisely. Sometimes you gotta cut the court from people you like because you're getting judged by him. And if you're more talented than the company you keep, and more reliable and more dependable and lower maintenance, sometimes you gotta cut the chord. Because I really think Kady it's kind of amazing. There's no takers twenty nine a game best shotmaker in the game still plays defense. I mean he's thirty three, folks, he's not forty. He's unbelievable. There's like no takers and teams are doing it publicly. Miami publicly, no thanks, Golden State publicly, no thanks. Phoenix didn't even wait DeAndre and we'll sign him, no thanks. Like I think he's gonna go back to Brooklyn. We talked about this yesterday. That is my guess. But it is fairly remarkable that this level of player. He's a bit of a wanderer. He's a little passive, aggressive, he's twenty nine, a game fifty two, best shotmaker in the world. There's value. I mean, he's really good. Be sure to catch live editions of The Herd weekdays in noon Easter nine am Pacific on Fox Sports Radio FS one and the iHeartRadio app. So been saying this for a while, kind of irritating that when you love something like college football, it's infuriating that it doesn't have a centralized voice. The structure of it's a bit of a mess. Everybody's doing whatever it takes for their conference to crush. So Kirk Ferent's very respected. Used to be. I think years ago he was on Belichick's staff in Cleveland. He nick Saban Belichick in Cleveland. Really smart guy chose the college route. Could certainly coach in the NFL. Iowa doesn't a remarkable job to put three star athletes, develop them and put them in the NFL where they flourish. It really doesn't as good as anybody in the country at taking like unheralded recruits and making them NFL stars. Iowa does it about as well as anybody. And he was talking about the state at Big ten Media Days, the state of college football. There's a real lack of structure and framework in our sport right now, which I think is concerning and dangerous. Nil. I think it's a great initiative, great conceptually, and our transfer policies right now are a little bit concerning too. And spending six years in the NFL where they had a salary cap, Yeah, there is a system there for you know, a limit on how much or how little players can be paid. And there's also a system of movement. There are times when players can move and can't move, And I have no idea how you get to that point in college football. I'm not smart enough to know that, and I'm not smart enough to know who's going to do it. But right now, I'm sure as a lot of us that are a little confused on what the rules are and what are the how do you operate? And we just have such a good game. I hate to see it, you know, implode or you know, suffer a setback by the way. Pat Fitzgerald, another one of the smartest coaches in the country for Northwestern, summed it up. He said, the games on the field have never been better. Off the field, it's never been more chaotic. Young people, let me speak to you if I may. I know you don't want to hear it, but two things are true. You can't matter at your company and work twenty five hours a week. I know people have convinced you your friends got to put in the hours and grind. It's really true. Sorry. And the second thing is strong management in your career is going to matter. Sometimes they'll bark, sometimes she may fire you, they'll demand you to work extra hours. But I worked at a company one time called ESPN for seven eight years. They had amazingly strong and focused leadership ascending. Then management was say whatever you want on the air, and the ratings tanked. It matters. The games are great in college football. The coaching has never been better, the athletes have never been better, the training has never been better. The TV production has never been better. Who's running it. Who's running it you're I don't care how talented you are in any field, you will swim in mediocrity with unfocused or no leadership. I mean, listen, take a deep breath. College football is not dying. So many people love this sport. They're so close to the trees, right they can't you see the forest from the trees. The old saying goes like boxing and newspapers, we were told they were dying twenty five years ago. They're still fine, all right. New York Times doing fine. So it's the Wall Street Journal making a lot of money, but college football is underachieving. Labor Day weekend is another glaring example why there's no schedule maker in college football, so everybody avoids big games. The Labor Day weekend is the weekend before the NFL starts. It is wide open real estate, beachfront property. We're wrapping our summers up. People go out on the boat for the last time in the summer. They come home at night, they are ready to have a beer, be with their kids for the final time of the summer and watch college football. And we've got two big games games two you gotta watch Oregon Georgia, Notre Dame, Ohio State. There's no ceo. It's a million dollar business. There's no schedule maker. Does everybody understand how long the NFL works on their schedule? I mean the NFL that is a cottage industry. The NFL schedule meticulous weeks on end. They call our boss at Fox, they call CBS, they call every network head. They argue, they fight, they strategize. Labor Day weekend, two games, two games. I gotta watch. So, yes, the games are great. The athletes are great, the quarterbacks are great, the television production is great, the stadiums, the fans, the bands, it's great. You'll swim in mediocrity without strong management that occasionally might bark at you. That's like Dana White UFC's that's what works. Talent needs leadership, and college football, as great as it is, doesn't currently have enough or any. Be sure to catch live editions of The Herd weekdays and nun Easter nine am Pacific. So this is an interesting story. I remember this week, and I know most of you don't watch every day, but earlier this week, Mike Sando of The Athletic dropped his annual quarterback tiers there's like four or five tiers, and he asked his executives and coaches fifty people around the league for their opinion that he takes all those anonymous grades and he has tiers. It's interesting. The GM for the Minnesota Vikings, Quaseadofo Mensa said yesterday regarding Kirk Cousins, I'll be frank, the one asset where you get nervous about not burning it down as quarterback. We don't have Tom Brady, we don't have Patrick Mahomes. Super Bowl is more likely if you have one, it's very unlikely to have that quarterback. So everybody kind of freaks out. WHOA. They say, very credit call. The Vikings are in the second best place you can be in the NFL with a quarterback because my quarterback tiers is more simplified. There's three of them. The first tier is a quarterback that can win a super Bowl. That means you may have to win on the road, You're gonna have to beat other great quarterbacks. You're gonna have to win multiple games. Can you win in bad weather? Can you beat Aaron Rodgers in Lambeau? Quarterbacks that can win super Bowls. The second tier is quarterbacks they can win a division in a playoff game. Andy Dalton won a division, Mitch Trubski won a division. Kirk Cousins won a division. They have one playoff win and it was called a miracle. So they're not gonna win. They're not. They're not. They're good, but they're not good enough to win three straight playoff games or four. Say they're not Matt Stafford, they're not Brady, they're not Manning, they're not Russell Wilson. Where they can win on the road at home good weather, have to carry a team. The defense thinks that day they can win to shootout, but they can win a division. Mister Bisky won an division, Andy Dalton won an division, and they may They're not gonna win multiple playoff games. They go in a playoff game. They need things to go their way. Stefan Diggs makes the Beck's Biggest Player of the Year in the NFL. Vikings win. And then there's the third tier. Get on the phone. You don't got that guy, Get on the phone. And so I think Kirk Cousins is in Tier two. Mike Sando had him rated fifteenth. That's about where I have him. I probably have him fourteenth. I think last time I did it so and so I only think there's eight guys in the world in Tier one, and probably eight and Tier two and then sixteen and Tier three. To me, these are the guys that can win a Super Bowl, Alan Brady, Burrow, Herbert Mahomes, Rogers, Matthew Stafford, Russell Wilson. I think Derek Carr and Kyler Murray or Darn Close, Lamar Jackson, maybe two, I'm not sure. I think Kayler, I think Dak and Lamar and when maybe a playoff game or two. I think Derek Carr's darn close. I like Derek way more than the market, and I think Kyler's really special. If Kyle is healthy at the end of the year, running around making plays with that roster, he's got dagon win multiple playoff games. I don't have him yet winning four, just not quite. I don't think he's quite quite special enough from the pocket. But I mean that's so My whole point on Kirk Cousins is it's not a terrible place to be. There's only eight teams in the first tier, and some of those guys in the first tier, justin Herbert, haven't even made the playoffs. Yet most of them don't have Super Bowls, So, I, you know, I think it's I don't think it's a shot at all at Kirk Cousins. I think we know exactly what he is, and he's a very capable Tier two guy, and they deserve to be paid a lot of money. I think Tier two quarterbacks are They make billionaires rich, they sell merchandise, they fill a stadium, they're excellent. I even think there's guys like Mitch Trubisky as a bridge quarterback who's incredibly valuable this year to the Steelers for his mentorship of Kenny Pickett. He's a really good guy. That defense is good enough that division. You could win some games in that division. I think you could. I think I honestly, I don't think they will, But I you know, are we all gonna be shocked if Tomlin, that defense, those receivers and playmakers won that division. Wouldn't be shocked by it. I don't think they're gonna go on the road and beat Mahomes. Are not gonna beat Josh Allen. They probably wouldn't beat Lamar. They may not even beat Tannehill. One more Herd The Herd Streams twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. Within the iHeartRadio app, search Herd to listen live or on demand whenever you like. Mike Tomlin was talking yesterday. When Mike Tomlin talks, I listen because I think he's the best podium speaker we've had in the NFL. Perhaps Ever, some guys are not good Belichick, some guys talk too fast, Pete Carroll, some guys are regrettable, Dan Campbell. Tomlin's great, and he was talking about Kenny Pickett, and he was talking about Mitch Traubisky and not judging them. Here is Mike Tomlin doing something he does very well, talk at the podium. We're not going to micromanage or overmanage this quarterback competition. The depth chart will not rest on every throw. I know that you guys will want to ask me every day and every throw, but we're gonna be a little bit more steady than that. I think it's important from a leadership perspective to to to not overmanage it, to not be too impulsive. And so that's what I relate to those guys, and our actions will continue to display that mindset. The Pittsburgh Steelers fan base is quite interesting. Sometimes I think they live in a time warp. I feel the exact same way about the Steelers every single year with Mike Tomlin, Le'll be pretty good. Not buttoned up enough to win a Super Bowl, but pretty good. Always have good players, always have a good structure. I'll be pretty good. Last year a lot of turbulence. Nine to seven and one. Steelers were nine and seven and one. They draft well, they organized well, they developed well, they teach well. Oh well, they're nine to seven and one, but they have not won a playoff game in six years. They have not beaten an elite quarterback in a playoff game in twelve years. And by elite, I'm saying Joe Flacco. Steeler fans, however, demand that you respect them like it's the seventies. Since the Steelers losses were both to Green Bay a long time ago. They have one playoff win over a starting quarterback. I'm not in Pittsburgh regularly, but do they still think Eddie Murphy is the top billing comedian and are they quoting like back to the Future quotes? I don't understand it. You can't demand nineteen seventies respect and Big Ben's best year respect when I've been watching this thing for the last like eight years, ten years. You do not beat star quarterbacks in playoff games. Don't beat starting quarterbacks in playoff games. And once again this year, I think they'll be good. Pretty good, draft well, developed, well, teach well, pretty good this year in an offensive leaning league. They are thirty first in offensive spending and have Mitch Trubisky in a rookie and I think all things considered, it'll be about nine to seven and one they'll be pretty good. I know, I know I'm gonna get huge pushback on that opinion. I'll put it out today on the interweb. They'll be pretty good. Not good enough to win Super Bowl, pretty good, won't be the elite quarterbacks in the playoffs. Pretty good. Be sure to catch live editions of The Herd weekdays in noon Easter nine am Pacific on Fox Sports Radio FS one and the iHeart Radio app. Well, Jimbo Fishers won of five college football coaches that have actually won a national title. That's active. You got Dabbo, and you got Sabin and now Kirby Smart, mac Brown and Jimbo Fisher. He was the first Saban assistant to come back and beat him and they beat him last year, and his recruitings on an absolute role. And you know he gets out there sometimes and you know he's a little publicity skirmishes. He's like a talk show host. He's just out firing shots. Jimbo Fishers joining us live and uh, you know I did defend you when Saban came after you. I said, give me a break on this stuff. Nick, don't be a hypocrite on this stuff. Here is um So. I'm a fan of the transfer portal because I think kids change their mind, coaches leave. I'm a fan of the NIL, but as a diehard college football fan, here's where I'm at with this stuff. Jimbo, And I'm not blaming anybody. Hell, I don't even know what's legal. I thought NIL was name image likeness for active college players. Now it looks like you can go out and buy a high schooler. Don't. I don't love that? Are you? What? Do you ever say it to yourself? Can we do this? Can we do that? Is it confusing to coaches? It's very confusing because niccolony is based off your state laws. The NCAA does not regulate has these regulations. Their regulation is based off individual state laws. Some guys can offer high school kids, some guys can have written offers for him, do the whole thing. And in some states you can even get nil as a high school player. In our state, we can't even have a conversation about NI all. We can say our players have nils, they do it, the guys that are here, but we cannot even talk about NIL to a player with any kind of offer or anything in that regard. So everybody's offering, and I mean everybody's on a different rule set, there's no standard. It's all based off everybody's own state laws. That is crazy. So Kirk Ferrin said yesterday and Pat Fitzgerald said this, and I agree with him. Pat said, the games have never been better, the athletes have never been better, and the sport's never been more chaotic. I believe the sport needs a czar, a schedulings are and as CEO your take on that, I'm for that one hundred percent. And I think unified. I think unification in officiating. The same officials that there's no confidence to everything is to a school you play them as full time. We're in a billion we're in a multi billion dollar business and we're paying officials and not, you know, having full time train I think that should be a full time job for one. They have other jobs on the side, that's fine, but I mean training them, send them out of the right place. I mean a unification of scheduling everything in college football. So be under one, as you say, Czar, in my opinion, one set of rules. So Jimbo, I look at your schedule and it's funny. So everybody love guys like me. I love USC UCLA to the Big Conference, Texas, Oklahoma. But then I look at your schedule and I think to myself, at one point you have Miami and Crystal Ball. Arkansas was probably the shock in the country last year, at Mississippi State, at Bama at South Carolina. Then it's Lane Kiff in Florida at Auburn. I think to myself, what if I threw Oklahoma into that is? Have you ever said to anybody in the sect, guys, y'all want to keep adding teams at some point, it's almost it's like an NFL schedule. You don't get a break. Like if I ran your program, I'd be like, why do I have to play Miami? If next year? Yeah, your take on that I'm with you one hundred percent, Colin. I mean, welcome to the SEC. It's it's enclosure to the NFL of any conference in football. I don't mean I'm not trying to slide anybody else, but the number of players, the quality of the programs, and the importance that the football is to them. And like you say, but I think they've trying to I think in the future where they're trying to do as they're trying to round it out where you're like, for instance, we're in the SEC West, and I think in the new rules when we ADD, I think we're going to mix up and play more Eastern teams. Eastern teams are gonna play more Western teams, and you're not all the way set in with just only the West schedule plus a couple of your Eastern schedules. Yeah, I think it's actually going to balance the scheduling out a lot more because in the SEC it's always been sometimes the East is really good, sometimes the West is really good. Are better? I say, they're are both always really good, but one side it's better than the other. And I think the new rules, when we do ADD, I think it's actually going to bounce a scheduling out more than it is right now. If you believe that or not so Jimbo Fisher joining us, Um listen, you and I know Nick, and like Nick, I got no problem. But I think sometimes he gets a little pious up there. You know, you dominate for a long time and you see the world to your tunnel, and that's the only way to see it today this morning. If you if he called you when you picked the phone up and talk to him, Yeah, men, men, Nick, we're path we're moving past it. I'll understand something. Where we drank the same water growing up. When you're coming from West Virginia, you're fight scratching, clawing for everything you got. We have and people in our statement where I grew up, in the way I grew up, what was on your mind? Come out your lips, okay, and then you moved in. Five minutes later, you said what you said and either either fought over it, got to fight over and then played five minutes later, or you said okay and you walked off and you played five minutes later. He's the same and we're cut from the same cloth. We're both competitive, and that's just the way it is. I mean, and I have respect for Nick, like I said before, and we're fine, Jimbo. I don't like the second um signing date in college football, and here's why, because I think it tears away at the quality of life of the young people on your staff that you never get a vacation. I think it's horrible. If I ran it, i'd hire off. Schedulings are and there's one signing date. And I would also make the transfer portal. You can transfer all year except Labor Day to the end of the regular season. You can't transfer in a season as a player either going to coach, but but there are I look at your schedule and I get more vacation time than you, And I think to myself, how long can you coach at your level before it's complete utter burnout. Do you ever feel that, Yeah, it's totally changed. I mean the visits in June and made the spring visits. I like you said, I like to have one signing day. I like the early signing day. I think it's the best. I really do, But I would cut out. You and I are thinking on the same same track here, and I do think the way recruiting is because we're recluding two and three and four classes at a time, and every weekend except for the four weekends we're dead, and we have a dead period in February, but we're working on ball, getting ready for spring practice. You're working with your players. The only time, the only three or four weekends we get off is those at the end of June the first of July, and we're back on track. That is it, per year, every other time of the year, every weekend, we have players here, we're recruiting, we're coaching. Something is going on, and you are right, I'm worried about the longevity of some of these guys and what it does to the family life for things that are going on in college football right now. Yeah, so, okay, you're gonna be very good. I know that. Um what when you have a great program and you bring in these five star kids and that you had a class last year, how I'm a five star kid. Okay, okay, and you're recruiting me. I want to play. Oh I don't want to sit on the bench. But you have a bunch of five star kids. You are getting to a point in your program that you have so many NFL bodies that you're gonna go out and recruit, and people are gonna recruit against Jimball and say you're not gonna play. He's got three NFL corners. You can't not gonna play a NM. Do you sense now you're moving into that space where people are using that against you, is you just can't go to an M and play very quickly. Right now, we're getting that in recruiting right now, they're saying they di And my thing is this, you mean we think more of you than they do. I mean, why can't you play? Or we think you can? And I'm gonna tell you what where you get better is who you go against on a daily basis, every day in practice. And you're going to line up and practice against these guys each and every day. And I think that's where you get better. And I'm a day one statement and I say this all the time. Call it. I've never had a great play with the guys that are truly great players. Ever asked me about the depth chart. I mean, I give you I'll give you a quick story and I'll tell you about Jay and Ramsey. Sure when he came, we had four returning We had LaMarcus Joiner, P J. Williams, Terrence Brooks and Ronald Darby all four first second round draft picks that are still playing in the NFL. On you're eight, I mean after eight years. That was he was a freshman coming in year we won the national championship. PJ said. I mean, Jenden said, coach, I'm gonna start to day one. I said, Jayen, and I ain't seeing that. If you're the best players, you're gonna start. We had four returning guys. They're all taught two round draft picks. He started day one, and we moved another guy to Nicol and then we had the best and that whole secondary to this day is still playing in the NFL eight years later. But what I'm saying is the truly great players back room. I remember Michael Clayton was a guy. I mean, the guys that we've had here are some of the the great players. You know, have never asked me about who we have or what goes on. They think somebody else is going to have to move. Dalvin Cook was that way. I mean, Darwin James was that way. Guys were in this group here are saying the coach, I'm not being arrogant to the guys we have. We're coming into the playoffs. They come to play and the competition. The truly great players love the competition and it's working out. And I think that's how you build great program, just like we did at Florida State, and just like we're starting to establish here. Okay, I want you to recruit me right now, and I'm the recruit. I say, you know, Jimbo, it's hot in Texas. Oh my good lord, jim Ball. You know, boy, that's sark, guy. Boy, he really sell me, well, boy, sell me. Listen. Here's what A and M has. It has the most complete package of any school in the country. When you're talking about culture of university, this place is unbelievable. You get here and you'll see it. The commitment to people have its top twenty educational school in the country, educations through the roof, the commitment that we have made to our f For instance, right now, we're building a new one hundred and sixty million dollars facility right now that's going to be state of the art, which no one in the country is going to have. For your personal development. What we have, we have coaches of one of the five coaches have won a national championship. We have coaches that have put as many NFL players in the NFL as we can afterwards. You're talking about this where the sixth richest school in a country with an eighteen billion dollars endowment for life every ball. You're talking about one of the two largest alumni associations in the country at five hundred and fifty thousand alums. There's one hundred nine thousand people in every game. You're playing an SEC schedule each and every time. And here's the important thing I want. Do you want to go somewhere that has won a championship or you want to be the first to do it? The people you remember, the guys that really make a difference in the world of the guys are the first to do it. If you go somewhere else and just be another guy, you're just another guy. Come here and be the first guy to ever do it and set the standard for a new organization. Those are the ones got statues outside they talk about all that's pretty good. Sales pitch Jim Ball, that's pretty good. I didn't know about alumni stuff. I like that. Wish I could be done now. I mean at this school here, when you when you dig into a college. That's why I tell peop when they get here, not just the facilities, but the commitment in how this place is five hundred and fifty thousand living alums. You've got you got one of the sixth The commitment to the to the student athlete after ball is as good as is the best there is anywhere in the country. Boy, if you signed four recruits today, I better get a cut on that. I'll tell you that. I'll send to your take. Keep me on the show. You gotta keep me going on the show, all right. So they had a number one recruiting class, eight five star recruits. They play Bam October eight, which is going to get a lot of publicity. And I never talked to you before. You know, Um, you make college football good. I like guys that spar out there. I like that whole Texas thing going on right now, and I wish you're the best of lout going forward. Thank you very much this thing. What would you be doing in May and this summer right now if I wasn't arguing with somebody Jimbo Fisher. That was a good thing. That was a big one right there.