When it comes to music, everyone has a totally unique taste. So when a song comes on to perfectly fit your mood, it kind of feels like magic. In the credit karma, we do the same thing, but for your finances. We got tired of the financial system, giving broad, impersonal, and a relevant advice to everybody. So we created a way for you to cut through the noise and find offers and recommendations that make sense for your specific money goals. So you know the guidance you're getting is truly custom to you. Download into a credit karma today and get everything you need to outsmart the system. This is an advertisement from BetterHelp. Everyone knows therapy is great for solving problems. But turns out, therapy has some issues of its own. Finding the right therapist, fitting into their schedule, and of course, the cost. Better help can help solve these problems. It's online, convenient, built around your schedule, and surprisingly affordable too. Connect with the licensed therapist by phone, video, or online chat. Visit BetterHelp.com to learn more. That's better h-e-l-p dot com. Muhammad Abdi, Brian, if you were a head coach today, how will you rank the level of importance recruiting, NIL, transfer portal, coaching staff, facilities, scheduling? I mean, all that's important. I mean, look, there's not one that's more important than the other and in pieces. Well, you know, recruiting's the most important. Is it really? If you're recruiting very well, but you have a bad coaching staff and you schedule either hard or too soft or whatever, look, there's teams guys that finish high in rankings and recruiting every year and don't win football games. All right, you need all of it. All of it's what matters. Nick Saban didn't win because he was a great recruiter. He won because he was a great recruiter and a great developer and a great coach. And they scheduled smart. Annie hired good coaches for the most part. And they had great facilities. All of it ties in together, mince. And so you need to be good at all of it. If you're going to win a championship, you need to be good at all of it. And some of those things tie together. I mean, recruiting, the portal, and NIL all go together. It's all part of town acquisition. And nowadays in town acquisition, transfer portal is recruiting because, and here's why I say that. And not just because the act of trying to convince someone to come play for you. But it's more of a, here's who our team is coming back. Here's what we need to go do from an acquisition standpoint to make our team better. Before it was just high school and some transfers that would sit out or whatever. Usually they pursued you. Now it's like, okay, we've got a, we need to rebuild our offensive line. How are we going to do that? All town out there, some freshmen, some transfers, we're going to have to rebuild that way. It's all part of recruiting and a big reason, a big way to recruit to a championship level is you've got to be competitive in the NIL universe. That's just part of recruiting. So those things all go together. You also need a great coaching staff. I think that's even more important now in this era of players making a lot of money and the egos and the attitudes even more important that you've got coaches that can kind of bring all that together. And that's something that Mike Norvell has done a great job so far. And then scheduling smart. Now, some people view scheduling smart like Lincoln Riley. Scheduling easy. Hey, let's be cowards and schedule easy. I think scheduling smart has more to do with not who you play, but when you play them. Right. So, you know, you don't play Ohio State, Duke, Louisville, and USC back to back to back to back. It's not the role of playing those teams, but you just maybe mix it up a little bit. You know, make sure you schedule your bi-week, you know, properly. Make sure you don't have too many road games in a row or, you know, trips, you know, back to if you're Notre Dame, you don't go to Boston one week and then, you know, LA the next or Stanford the next, like they did just 15, right? I mean, you've got to be smart about some of those type of things, Vince. But that's, that's not about make a softer schedule. That's about being scheduling smarter. Yeah. And, and that's kind of, you know, that's kind of where I come down on. They're, they're all, I mean, I'm not trying to, to, to duck, duck your question, Muhammad. I just really believe like I don't, good coaches don't put more of a priority on other things holistically during certain parts of the year, certain parts are more important than the others. But when you look at a big picture, they all have equal value because each one of the things that you talk about with the exception of facilities can completely undermine the other. Sure. So if you're great at recruiting, but you're not good with the coaching staff, and you don't schedule smartly, it can, it'll undermine how good you are recruiting. If you've got a great coaching staff and you schedule smart, but you're not very good at town acquisition, it'll undermine how good you are from a coaching staff and scheduling standpoint. Right. Like, I think, I think Mike, Kyle, winning ham and Mike Gundier, phenomenal football coaches, they have zero chance to win national championships. Why? Because they're never going to be able to acquire talent to the level you need to compete for a championship. Right. And we've seen other coaches that recruit extremely well, Jim Bowfish are recruited extremely well at Texas A&M from our recruiting ranking standpoint. This is true. How well did that result in winning, which we all could have told you. You know, so that those are those are things that kind of factor into you. You've got to be good at all of it to really be a championship football team. Football season may be over, but the action on the floor is heating up. Whether it's tournament season or the fight for playoff home court, there's no shortage of high stakes basketball moments this time of year. Get in on the excitement with prize picks. America's number one fantasy sports app, where you can turn your hoops knowledge into some serious cash. Price picks is the largest daily fantasy sports platform in North America. We are the easiest and most exciting way to play daily fantasy sports. It's just you against the numbers. Instead of battling thousands of other players, including pros and sharks, you pick more than or less than on two to six player stat projections and watch the winnings roll in. You can now win up to a hundred times your money on prize picks with as little as four correct picks. You heard it four correct picks. You can turn $10 into $1,000 with NBA, NHL and college basketball entries today on prize picks. America's number one fantasy sports app. It is so easy to use. All you have to do is download the app in the app store or Google Play store, sign up, add some funds and you're in. Then you just find your favorite player and decide more or less on the suggested stat. It really is that easy. The night I joined I picked Hannah Hidalgo to have more than 14 points. Maddie Westbell to have less than 10 rebounds and Marcus Burton to have more than 18 points. And guess what? I hit on all three. Bing, bang, boom, baby. Money in my pocket. It was just that easy. Download the app today and use code Irish for a first deposit match up to a hundred dollars. Again, download the app today and use code Irish for a first deposit match up to a hundred dollars prize picks. Pick more, pick less. It's that easy. I would give it worthy of our receiver for the NFL. Speeding is a rush on the field in the zone where it matters. As an athlete, I push my limits to win. But when I get behind the wheel, I know the importance of slowing down for safety. Because speeding is illegal and it endages you, your loved ones and everyone else on the road. Did you know speeding accounts for more than one quarter of all traffic related fatalities nationwide? Just like we need to focus the score touchdowns and win games, we need to be in the zone to stay safe on the road. Speed limits are in place to protect everyone. No matter what speed limit is, anything over is not only illegal but dangerous. Like athletes, drivers must stay alert and present because there is no reward for speeding. Nothing is safe about it. Driving over the speed limit might seem like the quicker option. The speeding catches up with you. Stay focused. In a split second, everything can change. Paid for by NHTSA. Wyatt Kerwin, defensive touchdowns are game-changing. But the offense can limit damage, save games by making a tackle after a turnover. Do teams have drills where the offense practices tackling after turnovers? Yeah, sure. I mean, I can't say that I know that Notre Dame does that. Right. Because we don't have to be there. I haven't seen it but I'd be shocked if they don't. Because you have tackling circuits. Some of it's for special teams and you always see running backs and receivers doing that. That's where a lot of times you get a lot of that tackling practice is going to be during special teams. Do you really need your offensive lineman going through tackling circuits? Maybe. Some of them, the ones that are, if you have one that's long snapping, he definitely will. Oh, that's different. Yes. Look at that completely. Look, we went to a kicking camp this year where they made the kickers go through tackling drills. I'm not lying. I was shocked. It's the one and only time it happened. I have never seen that at Notre Dame or anywhere else. We never did that. But, oh, I was like, oh, okay. It's not a stupid idea. Yeah. Honestly, because you're, you're, you may have to tackle someday. Yeah. I've seen punters do that. I've never seen a kicker do that. Well, and it was kickers, you know, it was a specialist camp. So they just like, Hey, so, so, but to answer your question, yeah, you'll do some stuff like that. Yes. Not anything. You hope it's one of the things you, you're prepared. You hope for the best, prepare for the worst, right? Same thing for football. You don't ever want to have to be in a situation where like scrambled drills, I don't ever want to have to be in a situation where my quarterback has to scramble. But when he does, we need to make sure we're prepared on how to handle it. So there's all types of those situations. It's not us on a semi-due every day, either. It's not quite like, quite like that. So, but good question. Very good question. Yeah. Muhammad Abdi, Brian, what statistical categories do you value the most when evaluating how good an offense and defense is? Well, that's going to, it's a good question. That's going to depend on the, the system part of that is, is caveats because like Georgia's never been a great tackle for law sack team. Because their defense is just in gear towards that. Their defense is geared towards completely shutting down the run game. And then being disruptive in the past game, they're not a team that's, you know, racks up a lot of negatives. They, they were a couple of stuffs. But you know, generally speaking, what I tend to look at, yards per play, yards per attempt, yards per play overall as a team, yards per attempt, run game, yards per attempt, past game, that you know, you always want to be hot. Like if you're 14 yards per catch and eight yards per attempt, I don't care as much about that as if you're 14 yards per completion and 10 yards per attempt. Any, any kind of efficiency number is something I'm going to have that. I'm going to take value in Vince. Like, you know, you could say, Hey, we, we didn't do a great job. We only average 4.9 yards per attempt. But then, but who were you playing? Were you playing a top five run defense? You know, was your efficiency numbers way up? But you could also say, Hey, we average 5.8 yards per attempt. We did pretty good. Well, you had an 80 yard run at the end of the game against their backups. Right. I mean, you didn't actually run the ball that well. You had a couple big runs, but overall, the lack of efficiency was there. So there's all types of different things. So I'll tell you what I'll be looking at this year for Notre Dame, the numbers I'll be looking at, to measure success. Big picture wise, yards per attempt, yards per play, yards per pass attempt, yards per rush attempt, yards per play total. Those are the three that go into that. I'll be looking at, because again, I care more about yards per attempt than I do completion percentage as well, Vince, because if you're 78% completion rate, but you're only averaging 7.3 yards per pass attempt, you're completing a lot of balls when I last scrimmage, not getting the yards. So that's why I care about yards per attempt. I care about red zone touchdown percentage. That's a big one for me. I want that to be, I'd be ranked 15th in red zone offense, and you're fifth in red zone touchdown rate. Okay. That works for me. There's going to be things that are hard to measure statistically that are important to me. So like I don't count like, you know, hey, what's your, you know, because it's not a kept stat, but you know, what's your, as a coach, what I would measure is what's your success rate in turning opposition mistakes into touchdowns. You know, so like if you're, if the other team turns the ball over, gives up a long return to your offense, to your special teams, what is your success rate in converting those into touchdowns? That's a big thing for me as far as how good an offense is. And then on the flip side for a defense is how good at you are limiting touchdowns when your own offense or special teams make some mistake. That's a sign of how good you are on offense and defense. And so, you know, we talked about this in 2022, Vince, where the nerding defense wasn't great in 2022, but we, we argued it during the off season that look, it was better than what it showed statistically from a point standpoint, because of how many touchdowns the offense and special teams kind of, not special teams as much, but you know, the offense allowed by, you know, pick sixes or turnovers deep in territory, things like that. So, you know, those things that factor into it as well. So, you know, efficiency numbers, yards per play, I don't care as much about yards per gain, because that can be a skewed stat in a lot of different ways. I care about big play numbers, you know, I would, I'm going to do a more measuring this year of in paying attention to like Notre Dame's plays of 20 or more yards. I think that that is a statistic. I've come to appreciate a lot more Vince in, and I've always felt that you needed to be explosive and efficient, but actually measuring it is what I'm referring to like how long have you known me, Vince? Long time, right? How long have you, so that's how long you've heard me say how important it is to be explosive and efficient on offense, right? So numbers that are measuring that offensively, and noters numbers that limit that defensively. I am someone who still values being really good run defense, because it, it's something that factors into two, I mean, there's, we did that breakdown recently, right, where we showed these are the numbers of teams that have won championships in the rush defense. You can say stop on the run doesn't matter as much as it used to, but I'm just pointing out that all the champions that we look at now are teams that have won that are pretty good against the run unless they were the exceptional scoring almost 50 point for game teams. Those things all factor in. So, you know, I don't know if that helps or not, but those are things that I kind of look at when I'm evaluating if a team is good on offense or defense. Coach bent five, seven, four, only amongst the returning position coaches, which are you most excited to see what they do with their group this year. Oh, there's one major one, right? Go. It's Joe Rudolph. I mean, it's going to be, look, if you want to go back and listen to our podcast the other day when we talked about offensive lineman, this is a make or break year. I mean, or this is a huge year for Joe Rudolph in this offensive line. I mean, the success of Notre Dame in 2024 offensively kind of hinges on what the offensive line does, Brian, and who they decide is going to be the right tackle, the left guard, and how well all five play together. Bottom line. And these are all Joe Rudolph guys at this point. And so this is a crucial, crucial year for Joe Rudolph. Joe Rudolph's one and now Washington's the other. Not, not that it's, it's just who you excited to see this. This isn't like a pressure one. I'm excited to see what, what out Washington is going to do with this D line. Sure. And I'm also excited to see what Mike Brown's going to do with the one that's my second one. Yeah. Yeah. So like, I don't even know that, like, I would necessarily, as I, as you were, my initial reaction events was the same as yours. But as you start talking, I like read through the question and I was like, well, excited to see, I don't know that I'm excited to see Joe Rudolph line. It's more of a, I don't know what we're going to see more of a anxiousness. Yeah, that's fair. When I think of excitement, I start thinking about the receivers and the D line and, and it's what I'm hoping that they're going to be this season. Those are the two that I'm probably most excited to see with their groups this year. Right. Makes sense. Lucky duck 512 guys. I think you missed my other super chat cheers. Yeah, we just hadn't quite gotten to those yet. I'm sorry. I I hadn't scrolled down and seen those. So we did. Thank you for, for that awareness. We do have a couple of them that I want to get. But thanks for that super chat. Appreciate that. Yes. Ryan Elliott super chat. Good show, boys, man. I'm ready for some football. Us too, buddy. Us too. Now let's get the lucky ducks question, Vince. There we go. Lucky ducks. Thanks again for the super chat. Rock me was an innovator back in the day. What are some things you wish Notre Dame would be more innovative in the modern era? For example, sports medicine or things of that nature? Well, one thing I've said a lot in the past, Vince is, is I would love to see another name be an innovator when it comes to sort of the sport psychology aspect of the game. And not so much like the how to help them be better football players, but more so, you know, how are we helping these young men deal with all that's in front of them now? Because like we talk about all the craziness of the sport, this NIL, there's all these crazy things, social media, there's so much stuff these kids have to deal with Vince that you and I didn't have to deal with when we were in high school and college that it's just like there needs to be people there making sure that these kids are handling these things well. I would love to see Notre Dame be innovative when it comes to being proactive when it and they may be doing this. I don't know that they are or aren't. These are just things that pop in my head. I would love to see them be more innovative when it comes to making sure that they're helping with financial planning for these young men so that they're make hey listen, we're going to make sure that you're not getting screwed over by people. We're going to help you guys with good investment strategies. We're going to make sure you guys are tax compliant with all of you. I mean, there's so many things that I would love seeing their name take it and take advantage of what you have on campus. You know, you could even tie it into sort of internships or with other programs like so students on campus that are starting things like hey, you know, we're going to we're going to work with the football team to help them with these sort of things. And so now you're helping your, you know, some of your I don't know if they have like accounting or things like that or, you know, business ethics, things along those lines that they could then incorporate those programs into either either have students help in that regard as part of internship or make sure that players are taking those classes. Right. And as part of those classes, they're then applying their own NIL world to that. So those are type of things where, you know, making sure that we're helping these young people because it it is not a sign of weakness for a man to need help getting through a tough time. It's not. Now, do you are you someone who's just constantly triggered and offended and always hurt your feelings are always hurt. Okay, you are a little too emotional. Okay. But you know, a young man loses a parent loses a friend or a family member. Okay, we're there for that. But like, there's just so much being thrown at these young men and so much expectations of them and just so much just rolliness being thrown at them that that we were sheltered compared to where these kids were when you're teenagers. We need to make sure that we're doing things to help these young men to not only thrive in this environment financially and with all those type of things, but also emotionally, you know, like young people, like I don't know how I would have dealt with social media when I was 18 years old. And people jump in. I mean, some of some people have sent me as an adult. I'm like, wow, like, okay, you're an idiot. But like, I'm 40 in my 40s. How would I have felt when I was 18 if that's all I knew? Sure. And I viewed like you and I know that most people aren't on Twitter. You and I know this. Most people we know aren't on Twitter. Correct. But a lot of young people, they think that's the world. They think that's what's out there. And so when people say things to them, it can hurt them. Are we doing enough to make sure that we're helping them deal with those type of things? And I don't think there's anything wrong with saying, hey, like, like soldiers, one of the biggest strategies that I think we have as a country is our soldiers who go fight on our behalf, don't get the proper help they when they get back dealing. And I've seen this with my own family dealing with PTSD. Now there's things out there, but it's got to be so much more. And how we treat them when they come back from war. I mean, same, I mean, athletes go through a less life threatening, but a similarly traumatic experience, especially when they leave the sport. Vince, a lot of these kids, when they leave Notre Dame, they're not playing football anymore. And so like a lot of kids aren't prepared to handle that. Are we doing enough to make sure that we're helping equip these young people for success on and off the field? Those are errors where I would love to see Notre Dame be innovative. And they may very well be Vince. I don't know that they're not. Right. But but these are things where I'd like to see like there's yeah, the cooking class that they do that may not seem like a whole lot. But I I was talking my mom about this the other day, my wife's out of town for a week. My mom's first every time my wife is that's how my mom's first question is, what are you cooking? You know what I mean? Because like, I know what you're cooking today. Yeah, but I was raised that I was raised like from a very young age to learn how to cook and and do laundry because my mom was like, you know, yeah, it'd be great if you got married. My parents were teenagers when they got married. Well, my mom was they were 19 and 20. They were 22 and 23 when they had me. But they were like, look, if you get married young, great. But you know, my mom was always like, but you're going to be a husband that knows how to do things. You know what I mean? You're going to be a husband that knows how to cook and knows how to help the wife run the house when that is needed. But also, you don't get married. I want to make sure that you know how to take care of yourself. And and so that's how I was raising. So Notre Dame taken these young men and and they're teaching them culinary stuff. That may seem fun, but that's practical. So when they're home or they're doing it, they're going to have tools and and trips and tricks and tips to say, you need to make sure you're taking care of your body. And we're going to help you better prepare for that. So there's no excuse now for you to eat cheeseburgers all summer because you know how to make meals now, right? Right. But then that also helps them practically when they go get, you know, when they become, you know, men, some of these guys are going to have spouses early on or they maybe don't have spouses that are very good at cooking or maybe their spouses have busy lies and busy jobs or maybe they just love to cook and they can prepare a meal for their family. So, but those are practical things that help them far beyond the football field. And I would love to see Notre Dame be innovative and more and more of those things that are really helping young men be successful there. I don't I don't know that it's that I really care as much about being innovative schematically and things on those lines. I don't I don't really care as much about that because some of the most innovative coaches, Mike Leach should be Hall of Famer. I'm in favor of the push to make him Hall of Famer because he felt like two wins short of the cutoff for for being a Hall of Famer. Like, yeah, because he passed away. Like he would have easily gotten there. Mike Leach was an innovator, like a genius football coach. Never won a national championship. I don't think he played for a national championship, right? Like, yeah, no, just being innovative doesn't equal championship. Nick Saban was an innovative. He was just wicked smart and really good at what he did. But, you know, they had some unique things that they did, but I wouldn't call him like innovative per se. They weren't, you know, like Rich Rod was with, you know, the the spread offense that he ran at Glenville State and eventually took the Clemson. You know, obviously, the air raid, how mummy and then Mike Leach took it to I mean, Mike Leach's version of the air raids even better than how mummy, even though I believe Mike, Mike Leach is a, is a disciple of how mummy I believe, but Mike Leach is like, okay, I'll take what you did. I'm going to make it more practical and way better. But when championships, right? So innovation in those regards don't matter a whole lot to me. I think it's more important to be innovative in some of those other areas. This episode is brought to you by AutoTrader. Look around. What do you see? Cars. Lots of them. And guess what? They're probably on AutoTrader. Whether you're into timeless classics or the latest trades, if you see it on the road, you can likely find it on AutoTrader. New, used, electric, and one day, maybe even flying cars. See a car? Find it on AutoTrader. Visit autotrader.com to learn more. Tankinis, bikinis, monokinis. Walmart is the best kept secret for stylish summer swimwear. Make a splash with hot summer essentials like beach bags, sandals, and more. Find your style at Walmart. John Lehi, which first time starter do you think is going to have the most success? And who do you think could be replaced before the season ends? Which week is going to have to be? So first year starters. So let's go with guys that are starting not for the first time at Notre Dame, but just, I mean, just first time starters period. Let's see here. Let's go with, I'm going to go Jeremiah Love on offense. Because I don't count starting a bowl game as a being a first time starter. So let's go with Jeremiah Love on offense. And on defense, I'm going to go with Drake Bowen. Those are my two on offense and defense. And who could be replaced by before the end of the season? If Tosh Baker starts at right tackle, I could see that. I could if Pat Kugen starts at left guard, I could see that. Those are the two on offense most likely to be replaced on defense. On defense, I don't think it's as much about guys being replaced as starters, because on defense, you're going to assume much more rotating. So if RJ Oben starts at big end, or if Josh Burnham does, I don't think that matters a whole lot, to be honest with you. You know, I just, I don't think that's going to matter a whole lot to be honest with you. And some people appointed a receiver doesn't matter a whole lot to me either, because there's going to be a rotation. And somebody said, you know, both cons might be replaced by Cam Williams. They don't even play the same position. So that that's unlikely. Bo Collins is going to be more of a boundary. Cam Williams is more of the field Z. So I don't see that one's going to be the case. But but in that situation, I don't even see that to be completely honest with you. I think it's going to be more of a, you know, Bo is like, for example, I'll just use your example to make my case. You know, Bo's the starter. He's entrenched as the starter. Cam's come along playing great, or Mike Gilbert, whoever you want to use, they would work that guy in. And then maybe that that younger guy is in in some more clutch situations, but it doesn't change the starting lineup aspect of it. So I don't, you know, I don't care as much about that on defense. I don't know, you're trying to think of who might be replaced. The only one I can really think of would be Jordan Patel. And I hope that that's not the case, because I'm hoping that the light goes on for Jordan Patel. But he could be one that that could possibly find himself a little bit on the, the chopping block, so to speak, when it comes to a starting position another day. Got a super chat. Actually, I'm going to wait till Vince comes back to answer that one, because I know he'll, he'll want to answer that one. So here's the one from Andrew Gilmore that's more specific to me. I don't know that I'm going to be able to answer this one a whole lot. Andrew Gilmore says, Brian, you brought up Peyton Manning going to the Broncos if Manning never got hurt, and the Colts didn't draft luck with Tim Tebow have been the Bronco starting quarter back in 2012. Honestly, I can't even, I don't, I don't, I don't remember far enough back to be able to answer that question for you to be completely honest with you. Would Tim Tebow have been starting quarterback? Let me go look and see what the Denver Broncos roster was back in 2012, because I've kind of, that period of time was, was a little strange for me. So I don't, there's a lot from 2012 that I don't, I just, I couldn't pay attention to a lot of things. I just kind of got back into coaching and things along those lines. But let me just see some Bronco statistics. Who were this, you had, oh, Brock Osweiler probably would have been the starter in 2012. Because was it, was it a direct handoff from Tebow to Manning? As far as like starters to starter, like, was it a direct, like he came right after, because I don't remember exactly what the sort of it was kind of Tebow and Kyle Orton were the two quarterbacks before. Yeah, and I still laugh that they thought that Kyle Orton might be a starting quarterback, so he was not good at the Bears. Yeah, Tebow started most like two thirds of the games in 2011, and Kyle Orton started some other games. But that was the year they kind of, let's see if Tebow can be the guy or not, and he couldn't. What's funny is Tebow actually won games that year. So I just pulled it up, Denver won a playoff game. Denver won seven and four that year in games that Tebow started, they went one and four in games that Kyle Orton started. And I believe Kyle Orton started the season. I believe Kyle Orton started the season as the starting quarterback at Tebow took over. And then that is the year events that Tim Tebow threw that touchdown pass to Mary Thomas and over time against the Steelers. Yes, I remember that. Okay. Now they got destroyed the next round by the Patriots. Well, but it just was obvious that, yeah, he can win you some games, but he wasn't going to win your championship. And then when Peyton Manning took over, it's like, you know, just kind of, you know, so maybe Tebow stays. I doubt it. I mean, I just, I doubt he would have been the guy. They would have been looking for somebody else whether the Broncos draft, the Broncos drafted Brock Osweller in a second round of the draft that year. Good point. And they actually remember Peyton kind, they got benched in 2015 and Brock Osweller started some games late in the year. If you remember, Vince, and then they brought Peyton off the bench against the Chargers at the end of the season and then they won that game and then he started in the playoffs. So, because he just was having a hard time just throwing a ball with the, the necker, you know, some of the injuries and stuff. So, yeah, Brock Oswell, I mean, maybe they'd have brought Tebow back maybe, but it would, Tebow would have only, if he would have come back in 2012, it would have been in a until Brock Osweller's ready. Yep, exactly. Type of situation. So, I don't know that it would have been, he would have been a bridge and they would have been trying to prepare whoever the next guy would be and you're probably right. Probably would have been Brock and they would have then moved on from Tebow. So, maybe it would have been, even when they signed Peyton, they were preparing for a contingency plan in case Peyton couldn't throw. Sure. You know, if it, you know, there's, there was a legitimate concern when they signed him. I mean, that was right. Yeah, that was legit. Right. So, you know, I don't, that's why partly what I would assume why Osweller was drafted was because of that. Yeah, agreed. And they knew Peyton Manning wasn't going to, you know, be there for a decade. I mean, there was going to be an end to his tenure. Right. I mean, he was kind of a rental piece, impressive rental piece, but still nonetheless, he wasn't your long term solution. So, Charlie Weiss's last belt loop. Thank you so much for the Super Chat. Appreciate it. Sup IB coach, Mr. Vince. Have you guys played NCAA 25 yet? Add me. His gamer tag. PS five, layer like bear. So a layer 10 10. Anyways, have a great day. IB nation. So, the answer is yes. I have played it. Not as much as I would have liked because, you know, life kind of gets in the way a little bit, but I can tell you right now, the first time I left was to tell my son to turn it down in the other room because he's currently on his road to glory and playing it and has lost some hours of sleep over the last week or so, because he's been playing it. And since it's summer, I don't care. But, you know, so yes, it has been played in our house numerous times, not always behind me. How about you, Brian? Yeah, I've played it not as much as I would like. Yeah, not as much I was like, but I've played. Yeah. Yeah, I played a little bit last night, you know, I got done with some articles and I was like, I wasn't tired yet. So I was like, yeah, I was playing a little bit. Yeah, one of Heisman Trophy, CJ Carr. So, oh, nice. Yeah, CJ working it. Yeah, just it's been fun. Yeah, I built my own playbook and all that kind of stuff. I have it like, I'm not playing anyone. I'm not, I built the night at a team, and Irish breakdown team been so unfortunately, I don't know how to shut your mouth. I don't know how to like, I created the uniform. I just don't know how to add it. I don't know how to. Oh, well, that might be something we're going to have to talk about when I get over there, because you can you can upload it to like whatever, and then you can then search for it and then download it or whatever. And that is that's going to need to happen. I need to play with the Irish breakdown team. That absolutely needs to happen. I take them to some glory. Well, I did that. I like I uploaded it here. Let me see if I can find it. But I did up what it what is it the it's team builder. I'm having all kinds of trouble with team builder. I can't load up like it. It made me say like I had to pay to use it or something like that. And I was like, what's it's kind of lame. So I'm going to see if I can sign in here because I'll show you I'll show you my uniform that I created. I just spins when I try to upload a logo. It just spins and I can never get past uploading a logo. And so that's really been frustrating for me. Yeah, let me let me show you the uniform that I built Vince. I'm excited to see this. So let me see here where's mine. Let me see this my teams here we go. All right. So let me share this with you. And I don't know if I can like do it to where other people can use it or not. I don't know how you can you can. But here's here's what I have. So let me go here. So here's my uniforms. It's IBU nationals, you know, like IB nation you get it. So let me see if it pulls up here. It's just for now it's just spinning. So once I get it up, I'll oh, here we go. All right. So here here's I got. So this is the jersey. Let me let me pull this down. So that's great. Let me go to preview here. So that's the the second board and you went checkerboard. All right. Hold on a second. Let's go back to here. I want to see the jersey uniform. So this is the home uniform. See that. Well, kind of kind of simple. Yeah, but gold, some green, some blue. I'm all about simple. Yeah, but I think it's kind of sharp. And this is the away uniform. You want all white right here with the dark pants. Okay, a little green accents. I wasn't sure how I was going to like the gold jersey, but I kind of dig that to be honest with you. So the numbers you mean? Yeah. Yeah. So like I was like, how's the gold going to look with that? But that's that you can see the helmet, the IB logo on the helmet. You got a home alternate. Oh, the green top. Okay. Yeah. So I tried to do another alternate, but it started acting funky and wouldn't let me do it. Like I wanted to do one with like a blue jersey and a green pants and then like a blue jersey, but it kept messing up. And like, then it like gave me like a Nike jersey for some reason. And it wouldn't let me switch to underarm it was acting funky. Oh, got you. So those are my those are my alternate uniforms. Yeah, we're gonna have to figure out how to get that because I I'm going to write that down. It's I be you. Okay, yeah. And I downloaded it like I saw it on there. So I don't know if it's, you know, then Brian, the fun part is we if you're going to start a dynasty with them, you can go in and change the names of the people. Yeah. So I tried to do it. And it was like it said I had to like pay in order to use team builder, I had to like pay some fee or something. I was like nuts. Yeah. Yeah. So I was like, well, that's lame. So I buy the game, but I can't then make my own team unless I pay more for it. Yeah. No. No. Yep. Yep. So that's um, that's kind of that was my uh, that was my that was my shot and I couldn't sleep the other night. So that was my crack it. Exactly. You know, that's exactly how we got those uniforms at like three o'clock in the morning. So, but yeah, I thought they were pretty sharp, man. I thought they're pretty sharp. So definitely down those guys are going to get downloaded for sure. I don't know. So anyway, but um, so some of you don't have to pay. I don't I don't know how to do it otherwise. Like I tried to go to my team and use it and it said that I had to pay. So I don't. That's not so many. So if I don't have to pay, Ziggy, then could you maybe email me how to use it like without doing it? Because yeah, so I don't know, Vince, if you can look forward and see if it's uh, if you can find it and you can use it, that's cool. Yeah. Well, we'll we'll we'll we'll discuss. Well, we will discuss. I'm I'm looking forward to it. I'll be one of the things we can talk about tonight. I think it was one of the um, like the help like the the stadium. I thought that was pretty cool. Yeah. So which stadium did you end up using? Like Wisconsin's. Okay. Just thought the layout was good and the size was good. But like I, well, the thing that sucked is I couldn't I couldn't figure out a way, Vince to to um, like put like like words in the end zone. Like it would only run you like do designs. Really? Yeah. I so like I'm sure you can. But again, I'm 46. I've never done this before. So um, I probably was doing it wrong. So that's why I went to checkerboard thing in the end zone. Gotcha. Just because I just figured that was probably probably the the the best way to do it. And I just I was like, okay, I'm over trying to figure this out. I'm over it. So I just went with the checkerboard and moved on. So yeah, I get that. Yep. Yep. That's where I'm at. So anyway, so I've played it and I do more I do more stuff like that and recruiting and all that other kind of stuff that I do. Right. Then I do, uh, you know, the um, uh, like the game playing like random. Yeah. Yeah. Cause then I can do that. I can simulate a season to get the recruiting or get to the, you know, while I'm working. Good point. Good point. Such is my life. All right. Let's get back some questions. And so that we did bring that one up from Charlie. Thank you very much for that super chat. Charlie. I appreciate that. Now we got a, uh, two parter. Oh, I like two parters. All right. Here we go from Wyatt Kirwin. I watched the Manti Teo documentary. What a cruel, horrible situation for such a great kid to go through could not agree more. More or less ruin his life for years. Do you know if there is any way to reach out to Manti? I want him to know that he will always be a Notre Dame legend and Irish nation will always love him. I'm sure there's ways that, you know, through his agent stuff that you can reach out, but I will say this. I was worried about how Manti felt about his Notre Dame legacy because after all that happened, we didn't see Manti back at Notre Dame very often. I don't remember ever seeing Manti. And I do believe he was on a couple of times that he kind of kind of came in and got, you know, didn't just announce it. But it was last year, I think, Vince, or was it 2022 last year? I forget which game it was. It might have been 2022, actually. I thought it was 23, but it all runs together. It might have been like the cow game in 22, but I forget whenever it was, but he came back for a game and it was awesome. And the fans were so awesome to him. He cried. I mean, it was. And it wasn't just at the stadium, but like I watched him speak beforehand with Freeman. And I'm pretty sure actually it was 2022, because I'm remembering now Freeman, I like this green code on. And they brought they brought Manti out and he spoke in front of this crowd over by towards the library. Okay. And the crowd just went nuts, man. And he you could just see he was moved. I mean, you can you know, you can tell when someone's like, Oh, thank you, thank you, but you could tell when someone's like, Oh, my gosh, like I was not expecting this. Yeah. And I thought that was important that Notre Dame fans, you know, give him that kind of love. And and rightfully so, he's probably thought for a long time that he's kind of on his own. You know, what I mean, just based on the the media whiplash and everything that that went down. And I mean, he was the butt of every joke on the planet for years. And it sucked. I mean, it just did. But you know, him being able to come back and see that Notre Dame is still Notre Dame. And I mean that in all the good positive ways that that Notre Dame is Notre Dame was I think I think that was needed, honestly, for him. I really do. And you can tell that he was emotional about it, which was really cool to see. Yeah. I mean, it was it was awesome. That was one of my better moments sitting in the stadium. Yeah. You know what I mean, outside of football. And you see him now he's got like, he's got a wife, he's got a kid. And you just remember, like, you know, these guys are people, right? I mean, they are. And they have it's like, I still, you know, I covered Stefan to its recruitment. I remember he was a teenager. I remember talking he was a teenager. And then you remember in the player Notre Dame. And then I don't see it's fun again until he comes back a couple of years ago at a camp. And he's, he hadn't retired yet, but he's getting close retirement. And he's walking in the, in the, this is in the Joyce. And he's, or not Joyce, but this is in Loftus. And he's got a stroller with a kid in it. And then there's another kid he's holding and his wife is with him. And I'm just like, that's not the kid that I really know what I mean. Like, it's just, you know, he's, he's dad now. I mean, it's just, it's wild to see it, to see how that, how that goes. And, and, you know, we sometimes forget that, like, you know, just some of the things I see people tweet it and like, man, you, you got a sad life, got a really sad life, you know, but, you know, sometimes look, sometimes people deserve harsh treatment, you know, but it's not because of what they do on the football field. Right. You know, it's, it's like, you're a pretty bad person. And what you did is like, you deserve to be, you know, but, you know, it's like, who's the tight end from Ohio State that dropped that pass in the against Texas in '05, a legitimately got death threats. It's like, you suck at life. If that's a football game that's going to, you know, but the Notre Dame fans aren't, aren't past that. I mean, some there's, and I don't think that's like the vast majority of Notre Dame fans are not those kind of people. I don't think it's just there's that small minority of very obnoxious losers that feel that every fan base has them. Yes, every time a, you know, deuce night, you know, every time deuce night, there's some new BS rumor about deuce night's going to visit here. There's some Notre Dame fan that's going to jump in deuces DMS and say something stupid. Yep. And you're just like, yep. And you hope that most kids realize most fans are not that way. The vast majority of fans are like, Hey, man, we love you blah, blah, blah. But you know, just always got those idiots and some fan bases have more than others. Right. So there's one to our north and one to our southeast, not that far southeast, that have a lot of those northeast and southeast. And then they play each other every year. You know, in case you didn't know who you're talking about, just want to be clear. Just want to be clear. Just in case there was some ambiguity with that statement. Just want to be clear. Sorry, that was great. It's okay. John Marks, excluding Rocket and Jeremiah Love, which past and present player would you like to see as a Percy Harvin role in the Notre Dame offense? Love you guys. Love you too, John. Which past and present? I mean, you took out my favorite, you know, rocket. That was a pretty good one. You know, there's been some other receivers that have been like that. I mean, Golden Tate could have done a lot of that. Golden Tate was a ran for, I think, rushed for 2000 yards as a junior in high school. Like, Golden could have done a lot of that kind of stuff. There's no doubt. Golden could have been that kind of guy. There's a couple pretty David Givens could have been like that when he was at Notre Dame. He could have definitely done some of that kind of stuff. He wouldn't have been as dynamic. Something in the chat said, Ricky Waters. It's a very good one. Ricky would have been really good in that role. That's true. He played both receiver and running back. Yeah. Yeah. Armando Allen would not have been good in that role post high school injury. Because Armando was not the same sudden athlete he was when he was younger. But if Armando didn't have that devastating leg injury in high school, he would have been a good answer for that one. Brad Lindsey could have been maybe something along those lines. I mean, when we saw that chip long using that way in 2019, and then when chip left, I mean, you saw how chip, I mean, Brad Lindsey in 2019 scored on a jet sweep, a screen and deep ball, right, right, right, within all those different ways. Yeah. And then they just after chip left, nobody didn't, they either didn't know how to use them or didn't care how to figure out a way to either way. Travis, a really good one, Vince. That's a really good recent one. Very good recent one. I always felt Avery Davis should have been used a little bit more because he was a quarterback. Like, I'm still pissed that this kid played five years at Notre Dame and never threw a pass as a receiver. Right. You recruit, not that he, it's not even that he played quarterback in high school, Vince. You recruited him to play quarterback. He played quarterback in the first spring at Notre Dame. I have a picture of Avery Davis in throwing motion in a Notre Dame uniform as a freshman, and they never used him. Like, yeah, on any kind of play like that. It's just like your lane. Now, there's a lot of former quarterbacks, you know, from high school that are on Notre Dame's team over the past and even currently that aren't playing quarterback at Notre Dame. I mean, you know, somebody mentioned Chris Tyree. I don't know that Chris Tyree would have been like Percy. Chris Tyree should have been used differently. Chris Tyree is more fast than he is shifty. Yeah, straight like speed. Yeah. Like, so you, I mean, reverses jets. Those are things that he should have done more of, but I don't know if I would use him as much on the ways that Chris, that Percy was, but, but similarly, somebody else mentioned, Vince, I think is a really good one. In the chat was where, who, where was that? CGA Pro size, Joe Marceano, CGA Pro size. I think that's a good one. Sure. I think that's a good one. So as far as the current roster, I think Faison kind of fits, maybe hold to a degree. Maybe he's being space with his across background. I mean, some of the things he did in lacrosse was like, Oh, I worry about his body type holding up because he's smaller. I get that. I would definitely not like running between the tackles or anything like that, but definitely give him an end around, give him, you know, some different things where the ball gets into his hands, you know, specifically, yeah, I'd be okay with that. Yeah. I mean, other than that, Jade Harrison, Jade Harrison, really good one. Actually, he'd probably be my pick of the current receivers. And that's fair because he's got a little bit more court on the court armor and yeah. And he's kind of he has a little bit of a running back body. Yes, exactly correct. You know, and he's really dynamic. Yeah, really dynamic athletically. I don't know how good of a football player he is, but he's really dynamic. You know what? I was impressed when I saw the ball in his hands in spring. I'm very curious to see how Mike deck, because I just have a feeling that he's a little bit of a revelation for Mike Denmark. It's like, Oh, this is kind of a neat, shiny toy that I can kind of play around with a little bit offensively. You know what I mean? Because they'll be that too. Who's that? KK Smith could be that too. So it'll be, it'll be interesting. I could see Jade and Harrison paving the way for KK, like in the future. You know what I mean? Like you see Jaden kind of getting those ghost carries or touches this year. And then KK steps into that role next year. That makes sense. You know what I mean? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. Good questions. Patrick Ribble. Do you think Rudolph and Freeman will give Lambert an actual chance at being the starting left tackle if he earns it? Or will it be like Brian Kelly days where we don't see young players for a year? It'd be right tackle, first of all. Well, I mean, either one. Look, Marcus Freeman literally has experience playing young freshmen at all most positions. Look, I don't just because a young guy doesn't play doesn't mean always like market like Brian Kelly, right? If Charles Jagasol is the best player for one of the two tackle jobs he'll play. I just, I have no doubt. Will he get an actual chance at being the starting left tackle? I mean, that's more of a fair question. And look, we have evidence that I'm not sure that he will. And that's with Billy Shrell last year. I mean, so we've seen that. We've seen it. And I have six, but online coaches tend to just be that way. That's just that's just in it's understandable to a degree. I'm and I less get like compared to Brian Kelly. I think that's a little bit unfair because lineman is a whole different animal than why didn't Brayden Lindsey plays a freshman or why didn't Kevin Austin plays a freshman or why didn't Xavier Watson play more like that? Yeah, Chase Claypool, like I still remember talking to parents of players in 2020 and they'd be like to this kid number 82 on offense is just killing our defense every week. Like they were concerned about like the defense that year and spring and fall practice because like they'd say like the first team defense will just get torqued by Xavier Watts that game and chance play. You know, so I mean that that was an issue, Brian Kelly. We have not seen that from Marcus Freeman. I mean Notre Dame's number two leading rusher last year was a true freshman. Right. Notre Dame's number two leading pass catcher. Number three leading pass catcher last year was a true freshman. Part of that had a necessity that Marcus Freeman's first year, he had a freshman all American cornerback. You know, so I mean, we've seen freshmen play plenty when they earned it at Notre Dame under Marcus Freeman. Now, will that be true in the offensive line? That's a good question. And I don't know the answer to that Patrick. I just, I think that Oh, lineman is an old lineman is a place where we're in quarterback is a place where coaches tend to be a little bit more conservative in general. And that's true for a lot of coaches, not just Brian Kelly or Marcus Freeman. But I think every talented player should be given a legitimate chance to compete for a position. And I don't know that Joe Rudolph necessarily did that last year, if I'm being completely honest with you, and we'll find out if he's able to do that again this year. Or if Gerbie's going to be getting a legitimate chance. Yeah, it's going to be tough. If a male waggler doesn't fall camp, what I think he's going to do, I, right, you know, it's going to be tough for Gerbie. It's, and look, he wasn't here in the spring. And that's, I'm not saying it's impossible. But coming in in the summer, and then, you know, just practicing in the fall, it's going to be tough. There, there's some, I don't want to say established, but obviously there's guys that have been on this roster who know this offense who, you know, Joe Rudolph knows a lot better than Gerbie Lambert as far as being a player under his tutelage. That's all going to be part of it. You know what I mean? And in order for Gerbie Lambert to start, he is going to have to be markedly better than everybody else, in my opinion. I really do think like it's going to have to be a point where, you know, Rudolph goes into Marcus Freeman's office like, we got to play this kid. Like, we don't have a choice. He's better than everybody we've got. You know what I mean? Like, that's how I see this going down if Gerbie Lambert ends up being the starter. He's going to have to, if it's, if it's close, they're going to go with the kid who's been on the roster. If it's, you know, he's just going to have to be so much better. That's the way I see it playing out. And is that possible? Of course it's possible. I mean, he's just going out there whooping tail every time he gets a chance, then he'll play. Like, coaches aren't stupid, at least most. And I mean, yeah, so, but he's just going to have to be really, really good. And that's possible. We'll see. [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC]
This week's Notre Dame Football Mailbag was loaded with great questions from Irish Breakdown subscribers and listeners. Bryan and Ryan dive into questions and answers this week. This is part two of the show.
Shop for Irish Breakdown gear at our online store: https://ibstore.irishbreakdown.com/
Join the Irish Breakdown premium message board: https://boards.irishbreakdown.com
Stay locked into Irish Breakdown for all the latest news and analysis about Notre Dame: https://www.irishbreakdown.com
Subscribe to the Irish Breakdown podcast on iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/irish-breakdown/id1485286986
Like and follow Irish Breakdown on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/irishbreakdown
Sign up for the FREE Irish Breakdown daily newsletter: https://www.subscribepage.com/irish-breakdown-newsletter
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
