Who's got it RIGHT 👀 Georgia, Michigan or Clemson? | College GameDay Podcast

Welcome despite the realignment the Big 10 remains on brand what you can look forward to in terms of rankings this season and what matchups will be the most compelling with this new look in conference realignment this is the college game day podcast for Wednesday May 29th Reese Davis with you Pete THL Is On Assignment Pete THL is working sources at the SEC meetings in the Glorious panhandle of Florida he will come with all kinds of information over the next calendar year as a result of the interactions had uh perhaps at sandest or wherever it is whichever hotel or or luxurious estate they are now holding those festivities in the greater 30A neighborhood but we are delighted to be joined by Ryan McGee and Bill Connelly on this edition of the podcast so first of all bill I don't know if you recognize this but you and I BTS on covering auto racing driver Kyle Larson are graced by McGee's presence his First Media obligation since he went all in on race day he was in his racing Glory uh recently Ryan how was how was the trip how was the back and forth Indie Charlotte all of that it was good I chased Kyle Larson uh and uh we started in Indianapolis ended up in Charlotte we sat in the rain in Indianapolis then got on a plane and went to Charlotte flew through the rain that we had just gotten rained on and then got to Charlotte just in time to get rained on by the same rain again so it was it I tell you this I did the double the Indie Charlotte double with Tony Stewart 20 years ago uh with Robbie Gordon like 25 years ago that it's like red eyee flights and drinking games that's a young man's game to double so so I'm not sure not sure if be doing that again but it but you know ree racing is my that's uh that's been my deal for a long time so it's good to be back at the racetrack Bill you're race fan at all do you follow the races I I know who wins the race I don't spend my my Saturdays or Sundays uh keeping up with it I really once football's over I I mean other than you know soccer in the morning which fits into my schedule perfectly um yeah I try to hand over the remote to other other people in the household as much as possible that just makes everything a lot easier comef I I don't want to offend my friends in the racing Community um as Ryan knows Ryan and I actually became very good friends early in my tenure at ESPN when I was the host of a show called RP pm tonight and when they called me and asked me to host the show I said to the executive who called me I said if you think hey let's get the guy from Alabama to host the racing show I said you've got I said you've got the wrong dude I said I I don't know anything about it I said I have a a you know functional literacy of who Dale Earnhart and Jeff Gordon are um I said and they're oh no no I said now I'll learn it and Ryan was instrumental in helping me learn it I developed um an intense appreciation but not a passion for it um I once I finished RPM tonight I've rarely watched a race from start to finish um but I during that time I think that's it's that way in our business with just about any sport you're assigned to cover that you develop often an appreciation for it and what those guys do and the teamwork it takes and the technology involved and the intensity in the arena or at the racetrack is is impressive whether you are Ryan McGee hardcore life long race fan or ree Davis who was thrown into it at you know in my early 30s or whatever yeah I guess that was a 31 32 years old and you know thrown into it and developed the appreciation for it when you go and as a result of those early days in racing I got to do some really cool things I rode as a passenger in various race cars at tracks and then in Ryan you'll know the track what's the uh what's the track in New Jersey is it Elizabeth Town the drag racing track yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah you went to NH yeah yeah NH and I drove a dragster yeah and let me tell let me tell you man even though you know very little could have gone wrong one would think right but you're holding the clutch in and when it's time to let it go there's a big part of you because you really haven't done this before that goes yeah I I don't think I want to let this go so CFB players at the Coke 600 Motorsports Race it's like hitting off The Hitting off the first te of proam suddenly you're like I play golf all the time and then you realize it's a tunnel of people and it's not exactly what you thought that it was but but I'll say this what's changed tremendously recent since you were there in the 90s now is you walk up to pit Lane like if you walked up the pit Lane at the Coca-Cola 600 in Charlotte on Sunday night so many college football players it's crazy you know you know back when when we were first when you and I first met back in the 990s you know you have what they call the over the belt gang it's the guys who literally built the engines during the week and then just happened to pit the car over the weekends now you know they started this got Ray everham and got him Andy Papa who played offensive line at Stanford in the 90s they changed all that and they started so now you walk up down the pit Lane and it's guys that played at appalache State and it's guys that played for Nick Sav at Alabama it's guys that played at Georgia guys that played Georgia Southern there so many former college football players up and down the pit Lane and there's so much more crossover now even than there was back in the day we did Marty McGee on Saturday morning from Indianapolis M Speedway and Graham Ray Hall insists on being on Marty McGee every year because he is such a hardcore Ohio State fan that he wants to he we want to talk to him about his dad and him trying to win the n500 his dad was Bobby rayall he wants to talk to us about Ryan day he wanted he wanted to ask us about so Quin Shan jins is he the real deal we're like yes and so so there's so much more crossover now I feel like than there used to be back in the day but it's uh yeah he looked at me and he goes so here in Indiana they're gonna play UCLA this year how they feel about that I'm like I don't know let's ask and so during the rain delay I did yeah and so Bill that brings us perfectly to your latest SP plus rankings where the new Big 10 is on brand with the worst collection of offenses uh perhaps bolstered by a very good collection of defenses and I know you take a lot of that into consideration uh you know maybe a particular group of teams rank a certain place or have a certain rating in the SP plus because of the teams they face and some of that is because it's you know harder to move against Iowa than it is for Iowa you know Iowa has a harder time moving on people but as you evaluated this the one thing that struck me as I read your article is dealing with the returning production and how you've had to tweak your formula adjust your perception or your perspective or your formula going in based on to use Ryan's example quinon Judkins moving from ol Miss to Ohio State Dylan Gabriel moving from Oklahoma to Oregon how has that impacted your belief and how accurate these will be in terms of projection in the early part of the season um over the last couple years I I mean I was a Riding the ups and downs of the CFB rankings little shaky heading into the season just because I mean two years ago after USC did what USC did bringing in not just a double digigit transfer Hall but bringing in like Elite trans transfers who don't usually transfer the Caleb Williams is of the world um I was pretty I didn't feel like you know there I had a good way of uh of accounting for that and I didn't want to just start taking guesses as to how to account for that I wanted there to be some data to lean on um but then I had data the lean on and last year I think it did pretty well as a whole it nailed Colorado that that was kind of the one like um do I have any sort of grasp on how to handle transfers well how how good is the Colorado projection well they were projected to not be very good and they pretty much landed exactly where they were supposed to um even with the with the start being the way it was so I do feel like at this point there's just you know I I have had to tweak The Waiting of the formula based on you know how much of retur in production matters and and when we say returning production it's returning College production you know at this point it's not you know how much of last year's how much of your team returns from last year it really is more of a you know when when you bring in a transfer your his stats count for your totals and whatnot um and so I do think I've adjusted pretty well uh you know when you look at this year's uh the top of this year's SP plus projections it certainly seemed pretty conventional wisdom like there aren't many uh extreme leaps uh when you look at the teams at the top of the list it's it's pretty much what people are when they put out the way too early is it's pretty similar to that so you know I like being antisocial I like when I have some uh some new names to throw out there or some team that is drastically overrated or whatever but you look at the list it makes quite a bit of sense I got yelled at less for this year's list than I have for a while do you do you pay attention because I I have become oblivious largely to the yelling and this comes A quick Lou Holtz story from someone who by nature is a bit of a pleaser I want I want people to get along I you know I I want to be nice to people I want people to be nice to me but some of the yelling uh on occasion and it look it's a minute fraction of fans who engage in this but it's so irrational and illogical and hysterical that I've gotten to the point to you know it's sort of it's sort of like the old the old Lou Holtz joke that you know he he goes um you know he goes to a restaurant I don't know if this is completely true it could be partially true but he tells the story that he and his late wife Beth went out to dinner one night and Notre Dame hadn't had a particularly good season and the waiter says to him hey uh do you know the difference between Notre Dame and Cheerios and and Lou says no what and he goes well Cheerios belong in a bowl and so Lou is steaming you know Lou says I you I'm steaming I can't stand I'm so angry I can't even enjoy my dinner and as Lou tells the story his wife says to him why is it that you would let someone who doesn't know you doesn't care about you doesn't think about you have any impact on how you would enjoy your night or spending time with your family Lou said that changed his perspective so when the waiter came back over L said to him uh excuse me do you know the difference between Lou Holtz and a golf pro and the waiter said no and he goes golf pro gives tips so so anyway I've I've I've adopted a good portion of that philosophy in terms of this I I do want to take um critique criticism into mind when it's reasonable and say that's that's an interesting perspective you know I'll evaluate that but the hysterical you know the hysterical you hate my team you know you're biased you know all of this stuff you how Bill Connelly you're crazy for having whoever ranked in whatever spot you deal with that pretty well yeah I Riding the ups and downs of the CFB rankings mean I think basically it it hints at how at your own insecurities how personally you take it like if I um if I make a genuine mistake in a piece and get yelled at for it it does kind of hit because I screw up um but if I if I if I'm confident in what I did if I know I didn't screw up and and it says what it's supposed to then you know you do notice through the years it is playing the hits it's just the the fan base changes one fan base loves you one year then the exact same fan base hates you the next year and you start to realize like this is all it's just all part of the dance and and you don't you don't take it all that personally in the end I had it happened I had it happened last year with Ford State beginning of the year I was you know I was I was you know right there with Chief aola then by the end not so much you know yeah Washington was my version of that we do our little power ratings at the end of every Saturday night uh for espn.com and I had Washington first like two weeks into the season but then late in the year when they were winning every game by two points and their SP plus rating started doing this uh and they ended the regular season like 11th or something Washington fans didn't weren't weren't quite as kind as they were when I was a Visionary Midway through September the bill and I are always the ones re so so you our our power rankings come in and our our playoff picks come in all the ESPN writers and all that stuff and Bill and I are always the ones that if there's one that everybody's mad about typically he and I both have them in their to top four right and and and this is the way the bottom 10 works right the the most the part about the bottom 10 I didn't see coming when I took it over you know 10 years ago was the coveted fifth spot which was not my idea I inherited the idea but it's not the fifth worst team in the country but if you're Alabama and you're number one and you lose to Texas A&M you're probably going to go in that spot for a week and you can tell the fans of the teams that are always in the top 10 never read the bottom 10 cuz when they show up in the bottom 10 they don't quite they don't quite get that at the airport they don't they explain to me that they don't quite understand what's going on yeah hey Bill when you look at this now you and I have had this discussion An overview of SP+ projections for the coming season on podcast too and Ryan I'm interested in in your perspective on this as well as we go into this 12 team playoff era and Heather Den did a really nice piece the other day that I can Envision you know we did a a we did a similar thing on game day last week to try to explain how this is going to work the difference between ranking and seaing which is I can imagine I'm going to say that one billion times leading into selection day and as you get to this the 12 team playoff your rankings the metrics that those and others many other metrics that the that the selection committee has at its disposal that they will use to evaluate and rank these teams um it calls into question whether the committee is still useful now you know last year was last year in the first year the playoff were the years that in my judgment the committee was useful because for the entire uh the entire time of the BCS people said we have to have a human element well you have to be able to distinguish between teams who you know maybe don't have the exact same records certainly do not have the exact same schedules and determine which is stronger and from your from your article uh you know what was it the it's it's going to be the average top five team which is you know playoff team and that will go a little farther down this year with the 12 team playoff but the average top five team could be expected against the average SEC schedule to be less than a 10- win team and then take the you know Big 12 or ACC I think you would expect an average top five team to be an 11- win team and there are exceptions some of of those schedules are tougher than others and all of that kind of thing where does this where do you think this leaves the fans when it comes down to distinguishing between a nine and3 team from the Big 10 of the SEC versus a 10-2 team from the Big 12 or whatever yeah that's why I wanted to address it in that piece because we've already kind of seen even if it's just jokes about you know an eight and4 SCC team versus an 111 ACC team even if we're kind of exaggerating we we know what everybody is going to be yelling at in early December and and it's it's already been this way for a long time and now we just added you know Oklahoma and Texas to the SEC and we we created a genuine power two U within the power four I guess lots of new labels that we have to get used to but yeah I I just wanted to you know take these projections which I know are as objective as anything can be um and use my strength of schedule ratings that I come up with which is basically I look at strength of schedule based on like what would the average top five team expect to do against your schedule like Florida Florida scheduled this year the average top five team would go nine and three against Florida schedule um just they play everybody in the top 15 basically they got the the the Short Straw uh by far from the SEC schedule makers um and and you know that's going to Skuse some perceptions Oklahoma schedule is really really really hard Missouri's is it uh Missour is like 37th in strength of schedule this year old Miss is in the 20s or 30s I don't remember um but on average so I just wanted to look at the averages even though there's a range within each conference and on average yeah the the top five the average top five team would would go about 10- two against the average SEC schedule it it would win about 10 and a half games against the average Big 10 schedule because Big 10 still has a lot of dead weight at the bottom a lot of dead weight at the bottom um and it would go about 11 to1 against the average ACC or Big 12 team and I I you know I got yelled at for that and you're creating a narrative and all this stuff after I put that out but honestly I was encouraged by that because I we know that it's going to be SEC fans are going to be are not going to think their conference is one game better than whatever the ACC produces they're going to think they you know again like they're going to think their eight and4 team deserves it over you know the the crap schedule that the 111 ACC team faced and this kind of laid set a bar so to speak that I was pretty okay with um and and yeah then so I basically use that in the in the SP plus projections to just come up with a list of like sort of contenders so to speak like the teams that are most likely to go 10 and two in the SEC or the Big 10 or 11 And1 in the Big 12 in ACC and you have this huge clump of teams who are coming into the season with playoff uh expectations or hopes and and it's really you know the best thing I think we can say about the committee last time I was on this in December whenever that was um you know I'm pretty sure I had pretty strong feelings about the committee and and its need for more numbers and objectivity and all this other stuff I ended up writing a piece about that in probably March just looking at the ways we could incorporate the lessons from the BCS and the lessons from the college football playoff committee and everything else um and I I I you know I I hope that we can figure out ways to be as objective as possible not you know not to fight old battles or anything but I do I am curious about how the committee treats this this new SCC especially um and you know we'll see I I don't know what to expect in that regard uh you know all these projections we started making when we were looking at you know if the 12 team playoff existed in 2014 or whatever that was a really fun exercise but now that we have the 12 teamer we completely changed college football by putting all the biggest brands in two conferences and so everything's completely different now Top “new” conference match-ups to look forward to you know the example Ryan that we'll be able to use that I can Envision using on Game Day this year to uh point out to people how the rankings versus seedings going to work is not last year but the year before when you know the teams at the top would not have gotten the buys that you know TCU is in the playoff but they would not have gotten the buy they weren't a conference Champion you know and and so on that'll be the year that will be uh I can already see the graphic or or me standing at the big zoton with a pointer saying okay here look this is how and and still it's going to be it's going to be confusing but it's going to be fun when you think about some of the games that are coming back I think Texas Texas A&M's pretty obvious what else Ryan what else are you looking forward to that you know we talk about these problems the power two you know is somebody going to get left in the weeds because they played in the Big 12 or ACC or whatever but there are there are some things that we're going to get back because as fans fans first what we want to see great games a little history uh a little potential for building a rivalry or rebuilding one what game are you really looking forward to seeing that's going to be back at least occasionally with the realignment oh the the the game that that I've never been to and has always been at the top of my list is uh is Utah BYU I I I don't know that there's ever more emotion tied to a football game than that one and I've always been you guys know this about me even though I grew up in the Carolinas I've always been obsessed by what what I call Mountain football right I love D Dallas and Air Force right and I loved watching you know BYU back in the day because you know I would watch my ACC SEC all day on Saturday a lot of times be at a game and you know final scores 21 to 18 and you know we've had two safeties and and whatever else and then you know I turn on BYU San Diego State at midnight and I'm not going to bed till 3 o'clock in the morning and so I've always loved the passion behind that game and talking to the people who have played in that game I mean both head coaches at those schools played in that game and super intense versions of that game and so that game coming back on the regular is a big deal I'm fascinated by Texas Tex A&M simply because I wrote a story a few years ago about are they ever gonna play this game again and there was a weekend where they both had home games I&M was home on Thursday and Texas was home on on Saturday there were throwaway games but it was opening weekend and I found the one barbecue joint that was the geographic center I mean almost to the tenth of a mile between the two schools and went there on Friday and talked to a lot of fans about it and it was interesting because the older fans were it God it has to come back I lived for this game and they start telling all these stories the younger fans didn't care because you know this is the part that I always talk about about messing with stuff and there's an entire generation I mean you would argue You could argue a generation and a half that's never seen this football game the only thing they know about this football game is what Granddad has shown them on the YouTube machine right in standard definition video and so I'm really curious to see what the passion is like when these games come back and on the flip side of that how about Oklahoma Texas A&M I think Oklahoma is so underappreciated and underreported in this whole thing when I talk to my SEC people they're obsessed with Texas and oh how's Texas going to fit I understand Texas was just in the playoff and they just played at Alabama and all that stuff but Oklahoma's a better his historically a much much better program in Texas and it is look look at the two schedules the two teams got too yeah yeah Oklahoma got a baptism baby but everybody but everybody's like what's it like going to game in Texas it's fine but going to game at Oklahoma's unbelievable and so I to me it's the underappreciated aspect of it and I think that you know Tennessee fans experienced it going to Oklahoma not the long guy I just I think that I think that that part's going to be sneaky but to me to me it's it's The Holy War I I know we're not supposed to call it that anymore I guess but I I I can't wait to see that game on the regular because they need it man they they live for that game up there and I don't care if the teams are good or bad you know they the passion behind that thing some I've always wanted to witness in person yeah they play you know they've played some over the years and being in in different different conferences it'll be add an element to it um being in the same conference I do want to say one thing Ryan I don't if I misunderstood you please correct me but I think you made reference to the Texas Texas A&M game being in standard definition if you did I'm highly offended because uh whenever that game comes around I assume I won't be calling it this year I was a play-by-play guy for the last Texas Texas A&M game and I can assure you right now it was in spectacular high definition High defition I know I know you look like the guys on the roofs like in London and World War II you know I know come and the r the single wing and I can hear you now got your Fedor on and the whole hey that was it the good old days that's the way it should be called you know I do remember that night because A&M had them and it was it was what 2011 2011 they had them and and they also were on their way out they were feeling good about life but they were also in that run of time for a couple years where they continually beat teams and lost the game you know it's what ended up what costing Mike Sherman his job and it happened again against Texas they they played better almost the whole game and then found a way uh to lose at the end bill as we we're getting close to wrap time here what what do you look at in terms of your projections right now as as the most fascinating thing you found the team we should that we should keep an eye on at least because as much as returning production can go in I I feel like that a lot of these coaches are finding out what college basketball coaches have embraced uh because they've been forced to embrace the last couple of years that each year is a brand new team I mean it that's always the case and Nick Sabin has said many times he's always approached it that way but there's also been a great deal of continuity in college football generally speaking from one year to the next you know barring coaching changes and things of that nature college basketball by necessity the last few years the the coaches just L this is a one-hot deal man this is my team this year and we'll see about next year later and so as you look at this right now what's the most compelling team that you have ranked as as you look at your SP plus rank well I think the most compelling just really super macro level storyline is kind of the same as last year in that we know Building dreams: Georgia vs. Michigan model now with the transfer portal like I mean Yukon obviously just changed their entire basketball team and won another national title but you know with football we know that using the transfer portal heavily can help you close gaps and it can you can fill holes um all the other schools that recruit like Clemson does uh fill holes quicker more quickly than Clemson does now and as as we've talked about many times but you know we don't know that there's still if you're if the end goal is winning a national title the Georgia model is still the model the the the Georgia model that was uh absorbed from the Alabama model and everything else like just build a warship of four and fivestar guys and if you can't then do what Michigan did and and get the right foreign five-star guys and develop guys over two three four years uh and just build a physically ridiculous football team um and that's still what wins you the title in the end even if you know what's fun about college football is that it matters if you improve from 4 and eight to eight and four that's a humongous deal to thousands and thousands of fans and the portal offers us all these different ways of going of winning eight games or 10 games or 11 games but the model is still the model and and I'm really curious if uh moving forward you know do we how what lessons do we take from that is it it it just going to be like we're still going to do it we're still going to use the portal 25 times a year like like blae kein because we can't recruit like Georgia does or you know does uh that Gap closed to the point where Georgia starts having to take on 10 transfers a year or what I'm just really curious about those kind of Dynamics what that means for this year I mean the most noteworthy thing is that Georgia starts out way ahead of the pack in in Sp plus and Ohio State's really the only one close Ohio state did take some key transfers but those are still two of the three best recruiting teams in college football and um so I am really like Old Miss is going to be super interesting this year simply to see how high they can rise with L kein basically saying culture who needs culture I'm just gonna 25 transfers every single year we're gonna have the most Talent we possibly can and we're gonna sacrifice culture to try to to try to close that Gap with Georgia we'll see if it works at some point it hasn't quite yet even though it's made Old Miss really good I I know what I know what you mean I don't I don't know that I'd say you can Building dreams: What about the Clemson model? sacrifice culture but you have to develop a more transient one or one that that that is more malleable and you know it it brings me to this THL always you know THL will always say on this podcast you know we don't root for teams root for stories so in that vein I'm rooting for the story of Clemson I'm I'm sick to death sick to sick to death of the Dabo blasphemy I've had it I mean all these people you got to use the portal you know what the guy has won two national championships and played for two more if he think thinks it can work this way why would we why would we just automatically assume that because they've had a couple of by Clemson standards recent Clemson standards by All Time Clemson standards they haven't had down years by recent Clemson standards they've had a couple of you know not as Championship caliber years I'm rooting for that story not because I'm against the portal I don't I the way Lane's doing it go for it no problem no problem at all dabo's trying to do it his way good for him go ahead I hope Clemson is really really good this year not rooting for the team rooting for that story because of that I think um I I I'm really curious about well Clemson's really interesting because they're not bad like you said like basically I think with the way deos when he currently runs his roster he's not going to win another National Title it's just he's not going to produce like a top two or three team Mark that down really and I'm not saying you're wrong but man I you know I would I wouldn't I wouldn't like to come back on this podcast and tell you were wrong about that I would love it I would love do I have no problem being wrong I've been doing this long enough to have been wrong about everything at least once and so you know that kind of frees you to say what you want to say and I I just don't think when everybody else is F you because they've never their whole thing was they never they weren't ever signing like top one or two recruiting classes they were again they were signing the right four five star guys and then using culture to to get the and development to get the rest of the way and by culture I have always tried to Define it as basically like when you've got upper classmen serving as coaches when the when the coaches aren't around that's that's my definition of culture I was going to say that earlier was the the last big interview I did with Nick Sabin down at Tuscaloosa two weeks before he retired and we didn't know he was going to do it but but what he talked about was he talked about Germaine Burton and he talked about Koolaid McKenry he talked about Malachi Moore and he talked about guys and that's I'm curious to see with all of the rulings and all that that we had last week and we agree that amateurism is dead as Pete keeps reminding us that you know but but you know I'm curious to see if if it comes back around for Clemson because if we're in a world where contracts are signed and we're in a world where guys can't walk out the door as quickly as they are doing it right now right then maybe maybe it leans back into you the the guys staying for three and four and some cases five years because that that's that's the model and you're exactly right to me that's all culture is all culture is is you know in basketball I got 10 guys you know I could turn that room pretty quick if I'm if I'm pretty good as a coach when I got a hundred guys then I need help and that's why my coaching staff is so big but the coaching staff can only do so much so it's about those older guys that are in the room but yeah and by the way bill I I live about one mile north of the South Carolina border I can already hear the uh the mobs are headed to my house is that guy in your house the guy that just said that they're all wearing orange hey now let me let let me point out something here too now because I'm defending davo and his approach I do not think and I do think sometimes he can uh he is predisposed to digging his heels in for the sake of digging his heels in should not do that I'm not saying they should never take a transfer I'm not saying he shouldn't look to the portal in fact I think he should but I I think I think this whole idea that the game has passed him by and he doesn't know what he's doing and all of this stuff is is that's what has gotten under my skin about it it's not I now if he's gonna dig in and say well I'm gonna develop that 218 pound tackle I'm gonna make him a 270 pound tackle over three years and I'm not taking you know allamerican X from wherever that wants to come to Clemson I and I don't think he's doing that but if I'm not talking about that I'm not talking about you know of stubbornly digging your heels in for the sake of doing it I'm talking about feeling like I've got to I've got to replace everybody I can't I I can't trust Hunter Renfro because he was a zero star and he weighed 135 pounds when he came on campus I've got to go get an Ohio State transfer that didn't play as much that's what I'm talking about but it'll be it'll be a pretty fascinating thing to watch for sure yeah no I think that that's you know I'm I'm definitely not saying Davis should go out and start signing 20 transfers but I I think he is being overly stubborn by not taking like the four biggest holes on the roster and bringing in four guys to fill those holes and leaning on on upper classment and development and everything for everything else because again like if you're signing top 15 classes um even with awesome development and everything else you're going to you're still going to need a little boost to get ahead of all the other teams Sig in top 10 or 15 classes and he doesn't have that right now yeah if we go back around to to signing contracts and gu staying two three years or whatever he's he's set like he's right back in his environment and he could move right back up but right now in this environment he's not going to win a National Title but he also knows his constituency and these are my people and so you know no nobody circles the wagons like like upstate South Carolina right and and so I mean I always Upstate New York with Bill I knew you're gonna go there but but the reality is is that I mean I remember I remember a million years ago a sports illustrator wrote a great profile of Clemson because back then Danny Forge there they're winning nine 10 games a year they're playing on New Year's Day every day they got a national championship and the whole open I can't remember who wrote it now but the whole open was about this charming little Cow Town you know and upst they got they're still mad about that story that story was 30 years ago and so Dao knows his people they don't get us y'all they don't get how we do things it South Cary bus the rest of y'all you know Ro rest Wy peppercorn rule right she don't know what she's doing yeah she does she knows exactly what she's doing boys this was fun as we uh as we close this Remembering Bill Walton, a great football fan edition of the college game day podcast I do and I'm sure that those of you watching and listening have seen countless tributes to the great Bill Walton over the last couple of days uh bill was uh was a friend uh bill was a football fan bill was one of the great guest Pickers in the history of college game day and when we asked him in 2021 to come be the guest picker he had a major schedule conflict he was in Houston for something U some other personal business and then he was going to go watch Luke his son coach um and but he said I would love to do it if I can we were eventually able to work out the logistics he came as he always does he or always did he was Sensational though I'm still not sure that Corso or herb Street had a single clue as to what he was saying the entire time but it was uh but it was tremendous I mean it was just a highlight of the show uh he he's always he was always funny and engaging in this Persona that he created in the years after his playing career uh was one to the whole but in that in that episode and let me let me say at the beginning I'm not I'm a casual Grateful Dead fan which would have made Bill write me off but I'd done a little homework uh before the show because I wanted to throw some references in just to see what reaction I would get from bill so we did and there were a couple good moment moments from it and a few days after the I'm going to read a text to you a few days after the show I got a text from Bill and Bill said my deepest apologies recently when I was on your show you made a beautiful graceful and DEA Grateful Dead reference and I butchered it by misidentifying the song I goofed by saying althia when I should have said help is on the way or help on the way which is what I really need I'm so sorry I beg your forgiveness and that of the rest of the known universe as well I'm sorry I hope we can still be friends thank you for my life BW I mean if that doesn't epitomize Walton I don't know what does man I mean there was a mischievousness a mischievousness to it there was a messing with you quality to those notes that you'd get from him but there was an underlying sincerity too he was he was one of one man and we'll miss him he was a great football fan his his brother Bruce was a terrific player UCLA and for the Dallas Cowboys so he's certainly a knew ball and our condolences to his wife Lori his sons and everybody who are great friends with him we lost a great one and one of the great celebrity guest Pickers of all time in the legendary Bill Walton we appreciate you listening this has been the college game day podcast we encourage you to download it wherever you prefer to get your podcast or better yet subscribe [Applause]