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Just go to indeed.com/bluewire right now and support our show by saying that you heard about Indeed on this podcast, that's indeed.com/bluewire, terms and conditions applied. And to hire, you need Indeed. And to hire, you need Indeed. Well, hello, glad you're with us here today, along with Vince Diderio, Sean Steyer's IB's favorite Nebo baby will hopefully be on in a little bit. Never heard him describe like that. I kind of like it. Well, you know, sometimes you just got to go with it. Like that. It's got to go with it is that's what people think. That's what people think just just go with it. So Jesse is actually there's apparently tornado warning going through Cleveland and his apartment is without power right now. So he was supposed to start us off. Vince is here in his place. Appreciate you being here today. Vince, hopefully Jesse is in a safe and yes, whatever place. He's going to try to join us for rapid fire later. So we'll just kind of have to play it by ear and see how he goes. I am because, you know, he's not that far away from us. You know what I mean? And so I guess I've been in the basement for the last few hours. I don't know what exactly is happening outside, but I don't think that there's any kind of tornado issues happening around us, right? I don't know if you were watching the news this morning, like before practice, I was actually watching Olympics and they cut in. There was some really severe stuff up in Michigan, a few miles north of us this morning where it was like severe thunderstorm warming. So I'm guessing Cleveland is probably getting some of that stuff kind of rolling in here early this evening. So gotcha gotcha gotcha. No, I was not watching. I was watching the Olympics, but I was not paying too much attention to actual news itself. So I guess if a tornado came through, I would have just, you know, hit the dust. Well, I mean, if you're, if you were watching on the main, you know, NBC affiliate, I would have thought now you do streaming though. So I don't know if it was a, I'm not, because we were watching, what were we watching? We were watching the women's volleyball was going on, I believe this morning as I was watching and I think there was one other sport that was going on as well. I wasn't up early enough to watch, you know, women's wrestling that has a local flair to it. I told the Brent, by the way, one or semi finals, she's going to wrestle for gold tomorrow. So that's freaking awesome. It's freaking great. Like, and it's, it's redemption because in the last Olympics, she lost this round and then one bronze. And so she's at least going to get a silver, which is better off than she was before. So yeah, yeah, super exciting for the folks around here and another female, a meat elor, I believe is how you pronounce her name, one a gold today. So she became, she's 20 years old, became the youngest wrestler of any kind run, youngest American wrestler of any kind to win a gold medal. Cool. So that's awesome. Yeah. Very awesome. Yeah. Very cool. I guess she just missed out on the Tokyo Olympic trials by one day in terms of the age limit. So Oh, wow. That's for another time. Well, I didn't even know there was an age limit because there's some, I think it's kids. It's always by sport. Right. So like the gymnast for whatever reason can be in there at 16 years old, but a wrestler couldn't. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Well, we've got a lot of football to get to, offensive line talk specifically. And that's what Vince is here for. We got to see just a little snippet of practice this morning, the old five period practice and the wake of the old five period practice. Yeah, the old five, well, for us, five period practice viewing. I guess team did more than five periods, but correct. So in the wake of the Charles Jagger saw injury, we got to see what the new offensive line looks like. Tash Baker is now the left tackle, middle wagner stays at right. Pat Coogan still at left tackle, Billy Shrauth or at left guard, Billy Shrauth at right guard Ashton Craig still at center. Now Joe Rudolph did say, we're not going to get into this in depth, but he did say that Coogan and spindler are still battling going back and forth left guard spot. So that's not a done deal just yet. But the bit, you know, the biggest thing that we wanted to see is what's happening there at left tackle. You look like you had something to say. No, I was just going to respond to Joe Allen and the chat. He says, how long does five periods take each period is five minutes long. Yeah. And so it's 25 total minutes that we get plus plus plus the stretch them stretch. Yes. That's not that's not part of it. We're typically there for about 40 minutes or so. Yeah. And stretching in the periods. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So that's that's kind of it. Yeah. And so as far as the battle at left guard, you know, they're pretty much going every other day, kind of a situation, it's it, you know, we'll see how that one shakes out. I would assume that they would come to a conclusion on that one here in the next few days. And then, you know, I think that as far as the left tackle situation is concerned, I think they pretty much did what we anticipated that they would do to start off with. I don't think anything is set in stone, and I'm sure I'm sure the questions were asked of Joe Rudolph. And so I don't want to jump all over it. He got plenty. He got plenty. All right. We've got the responses. So let's let Joe Rudolph talk about it and then we'll we'll respond to that. How about that? Perfect. So it is Tosh Baker at left tackle. He of course was backing up a mill wagner over there on the right side, like in the spring, he was predominantly the number one, but a mill wagner overtook him. And a meal is now number one. So basic question. Why Tosh Baker at left tackle? Tosh has started games at both right and left. His understanding is outstanding, his competitive level and his care level is off the charts. He's ready to go. Like he left the field as a starting right tackle, you know, so he's started it left before. He started it right before. Didn't miss a beat, like step right in was him. And that's the one thing I've appreciated about Tosh, no matter what role he's had or what title like working into a practice or working into a game, he's attacked with the same approach. So, you know, disappointed by Charles, you know, you wish he breaks your heart for him, but excited that the opportunity opens up and the next person steps in. We're going to have him ready to be the best. I think he's got incredible size, incredible length. He's got an understanding, he understands technique, he understands situational football. He will play physical like he will give you everything he has. Great communicator. I think the guy see him as a leader. I got no doubt about his ability to step in there and do a great job for us. So there's Joe Rudolph on Tosh Baker. And as he said, he has started it left, started it right. He started it right tackle, of course, in the sun bowl and then 2021 he made two starts against Purdue and Wisconsin at left tackle. He is the most experienced of any of Notre Dame's Lyman 37 career games played. But again, just three starts and the majority of the rest of the time that he has played has been like special teams units, you know, extra point field goal, those kind of things, you know, get guys on the field. 37 games. Wow. That one even surprised me a little bit, but yeah, that makes sense, but he has been out there. Well, yeah, initial thoughts on what you heard Joe Rudolph there say. Well, my initial thoughts are that it's all signed, sealed delivered that he's going to be the left tackle. That's what it sounds like, you know, based on that audio. Now I don't know if there's more audio where he says there's going to be some other guys competing for that spot or not, but just based on that. And since I've got like at least seven cuts here, okay, there's a lot of audio and a lot of everything. Fair enough. Just listening to that audio, it sounds like Tosh Baker is our guy and he hasn't missed it to be moving from right to left and he's the guy we're going to roll with and he'll give us everything that he's got. Like that's what it sounded like to me. Hopefully there's something that I'm about to hear that says that there's going to be a little bit of a battle there at least or giving some other guys an opportunity. Well, that's what it sounded like to me. Let me play this next cut and we can kind of get into that a little bit because the question was, is this basically, is this the next plan A or is there something else? Because it kind of a work in progress, like how does Joe Rudolph see this Tosh Baker left tackle now? I mean, we're always going to have a competitive kid, you know what I'm saying? So he was still competing over there on the right side with, with a mill. But yeah, I mean, I totally expect him to step up and own that spot. And so that'll be, that'll be what we move forward with and can't. Now, you know, short and sweet and you know, here's kind of how I look at it and you know, you were there watching it today as well and like we saw Tai Chan some, you know, get some, some reps over there at left tackle. I think that was a little bit unexpected, you know, but Anthony Knapp was in the second team at left tackle and Knapp was a name who came up quite a bit like he, this is another freshman, but he was an early enrollee like as opposed to Gerby Lambert and you'll hear someone Gerby Lambert here in a little like here's some more of the depth, you know, like the three most talented guys behind the two starters Baker on the left and Emil Wagner on the right. They're all true freshmen, styles Prescott, Anthony Knapp and Gerby Lambert. And you'll hear again, you'll hear some thoughts on Lambert in a second like so to me, like it just feels like this is, like this is the option right now. It doesn't feel like there is any other real, but to me, the, the battle is for it's kind of like Riley Leonard and then the rest of the quarterbacks. It's like it's the battle for who the number two is price picks is America's number one daily fantasy sports app with over five million active members. 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Leveraging over 140 million qualifications and preferences every day, Indeed's matching engine is constantly learning from your preferences so the more you use Indeed, the better it gets. Join more than 3.5 million businesses worldwide that use Indeed to hire great talent fast. And listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsor job credit to get your jobs more visibility at indeed.com/bluewire. Just go to indeed.com/bluewire right now and support our show by saying that you heard about Indeed on this podcast, that's indeed.com/bluewire, terms and conditions applied. Add to hire, you need Indeed. Yeah, I mean that's kind of what it sounds like to me as well and I don't, I guess I will say this, I will say that I was hoping there would be more of an open competition at that spot. I was hoping that if they're super confident that Tash Baker is the guy and that's who they're going to run with and so be it, I'll. Whether I see a little bit more, I will surely form more of a definitive opinion on that particular decision, but I will say at this point, I was hoping it would be more of an open competition. Well, well, like who would be competing for that though? I would, I would have Tash Baker obviously, I would have Sullivan Absher get some snaps there, I would have Gerby Lambert get some snaps there, I would throw them all out there, see what they can do, you know, put them out with the first team, see how they operate. You've got plenty of time between now and Texas A&M prep to do that. Now if this was game three or game four, yeah, you put your experienced guy in there and you roll with it because you've got three practices to get him right, fine. But this is August 6th, like, and this happened a few days ago, you've got time to kind of experiment and see, you know, you never know if a guy's going to step up and, you know, take control of that position, you know, that kind of a deal and look, it's nothing against Josh Baker. Well, I mean, these guys are getting reps. They're just not getting first team reps. I want them with the first team though, I want them with the guys that they're going to be next to if they happen to be on the first team because there's nothing like first team reps. But doesn't that take away from Tash Baker and his ability to, you know, to the for line cohesiveness and all that, like, for whoever he's going to play next to, like, do you need that open audition with the first team or like, if you're not even cutting it with the second team, like, what, you know, what, well, yeah, they're not going to deserve to be, you know what I mean? Like, if they're not you deserve to be there, if they're not cutting it with the second or 13, then fine. But I don't think that's the case. Like I don't, there's too much talent there to make me think that none of them are cutting it. You know what I mean? Like that. And if Tash Baker is such a experienced guy, if he's got so much experience, then he can take a day off of being with the first team and he'll be fine. Yeah. You know, again, it like the snapshots of practice we're getting or telling us nothing. They tell us, you know, some line drills, like we got to see the offense run out there plays against air, that kind of thing today. It's not like we're seeing competitive snaps where they're going back and forth, you know, so I do have to trust that the combination of Joe Rudolph and Mike Denbrock are trusting with Daisy with their eyes and that, you know, again, the most experienced, like there's some talent behind them. I'll tell you what, I'll go ahead and play this about the depth right now because again, Anthony Knapp's name came up a few times, you know, again, a freshman early enrollee in the spring and he's kind of emerged. It almost sounded for a little bit like he was potentially the number two at either of the spots because he, you know, he's practiced a little bit at both sides. Joe Rudolph, excuse me, wasn't quite willing to go that far, but he is definitely, it sounds like the backup on the left side. Here it is. I finally found the cut as I kind of tried to stall there a little bit. But so here's Rudolph kind of, he'll start off talking about Knapp and a little bit of the depth with some of these other guys. Well, I think, I think Tasha's our answer at the love tackle position. The question is, what does Anthony actually work into as a tackle? Like, what all can he be able to do for us and can we trust him to be like, hey, we got, we need you or you got to step in and get this done. I think that's what the rest of camp's for, but he's having a good show and he's doing a great job with it. And some young guys are coming on, you know what I mean? Like, Sully absolutely has the ability to go back out there and play. Got no doubt in that. And then Ty Chan, Kirby Lambert, Kirby's just a little bit behind in coming in in the summer, you know, and he's doing some really, really good things. It's just that there's a lot of things going on on offense and defense and he's trying to close the gap on and Stiles Prescott, who also could be an answer there. You know, Stiles was getting over that knee he came in with from high school, so he didn't really practice for most of the spring. But now he's kind of overcoming that and he's showing some good signs. So it's early in fall camp, so our job is keep pushing and keep helping your eyes. But Anthony's done some really good stuff. He's been playing left. He played right in the spring, he felt like he could do either one if you needed him to. Still pushing it throughout. Like, I could, you know, if you needed a left, Sully could play left. He had played left. So Knapp could play right. Ty Chan's got reps there with the second group today with the right side. Keep pushing Gerby and Prescott and see where they're at. But we've got some different opportunities there at the tackle position. Okay, Vince. They're all kids. They're all young young. See, and I think that's the thing when, you know, when you've got a guy as experienced as Baker, you know, albeit with, you know, in whatever predominant reserve capacities and you've just got it, you know, there's a lot of young talent there, but it just doesn't sound like one week into training camp. It's anywhere close to, you know, being able to compete with that. That's the, that's the line that they're giving us is that these young kids aren't mentally ready to do it. That's what it sounds like to me. They're basically saying we're going with the experience and that's it. And, but here, I guess my pushback would be, okay, does he have more experience than the young guys? Sure. He's got three starts under his belt. That's only three more starts than everybody else. Like that, that's not a ton of experience. And the fact that he's got 30 seconds in the program for five years, you know, I get it. Five minutes for the other one, five for the other two, you know, I wouldn't be pushing the quote unquote experience card too much because he doesn't have a ton of it. No, but I mean, do you want to trust a true freshman as talented as he might be? And you know, as good as he might be, even by the middle of the season, if not a year from now, do you want to trust that when you have a quarterback who had the kind of injury that he had last year and had two surgeries, you know, on his ankle and foot in the spring? Do you want to, because all it takes is one blown assignment and then everyone's worst nightmare comes true, you know, in front of everybody on national TV. I would trust them enough to give them some reps in practice. That's where I'm at. Because it's right. It's the last week of August, right? This is a completely that it's a completely different conversation. If it's October, you know what I mean? We're having a completely different conversation. Hey, it's Tash Baker. You roll with the guy that's been in the program, et cetera. So I have no problem with that. It's the fact that it's so early in camp that I think you at least give them a shot. Now, if they go in there and they blow it, okay, cool. Then you go back with Tash and you call it a day and that and you coach him up and all of that. You just don't think it's as clear cut as we're going with the guy with experience. That's the only comment that I have on that particular part of it. I think you've got time to give other guys some opportunities and it doesn't sound like that's going to happen. And okay. I mean, that's the decision that you make. That's what you're going to roll with and I hope it works out. Well, but I mean, we did see Ty Chan get some first team snaps. You didn't even mention Ty Chan in that cut either. So it like makes me wonder like, why did you waste those reps, I guess, is that my biggest thing. You know what I mean? Like, cause he has some who who has the opportunity to, you know, compete or whatever, who's your backup? Ty Chan's name never came up, which is, I think, very interesting, you know, again, I'm not going to play like all the Anthony Nap. Sure. Stuff. There were, you know, you heard Anthony Nap's name mentioned and he talked about the fact that he has played left and right. My feel is based on the way Joe Rudolph talked about like he of that young group, he's the one they feel the most confident in right now. And like the spring practice that he had really put him, like if it had been Gerbie Lambert instead of Anthony Nap here in the spring, I think that Lambert would be the guy that they would be talking about right now. But because of the experience that Nap got by being here, he just got a head start and he's ahead of Lambert right now. Right. And he made that pretty clear in the last cut that we heard is that, you know, he wasn't here in the spring. He just got here in the summer. And so he's kind of playing catch up from a mental standpoint, which there is some credence to that. Like I, I get it. I understand where he's coming from on in that regard, because he probably is way behind from a mental standpoint and seeing college defenses and understanding Mike Dembrox offense and all of that. I think that is legit, right? Does he have the physical tools to play left tackle? He didn't really answer that part. He just answered the, I don't think he's ready mentally part. You know what I mean? And I think there's two parts to that. Yeah. And you know, again, there's still 25 days between now and game one where I think depending and I don't know how he processes information. You know, Rudolph is in the film room with these guys and he's on the practice field with these guys. He knows, you know, he has to have a pretty good idea of just, just how quickly he thinks that these guys could potentially get up to speed. It sounds like they feel confident enough in nap being the number two right now. Again, like it's not like there are any more experienced options than nap because there's just total lack of experience pretty much all the way around. I'm curious what you think about Mike's comments, you know, and you know, we do have to preface this with, with Mike is a big Gerby Lambert supporter. Oh, yeah. So, but he says, I'm not a Rudolph fan. He's not about the best player. He's about the player that needs the least coaching to him. Is that well? Is that your read or? No, that's not my read. My read is that he trusts guys that are older and he trusts guys that have experience and he trusts guys that are going to go to the right place at the right time. That's why, you know, Pat Coogan is getting the time that he's getting and it's why Tash Baker is pretty much the anointed starter at left tackle right now. It has nothing to do with him not wanting to coach or being lazy like that. Those are two completely different things coaches are going to play guys that they trust. You know, and, and sometimes the talent will outweigh that and sometimes it won't, you know what I mean? And, and right now he doesn't trust that Gerby Lambert is going to be able to go out there and execute from a mental standpoint as opposed to Tash Baker. And that's where he's sitting right now. And I understand where he's coming from. I don't know that I necessarily agree with that blanket statement, right? But if, like I said, if this was week three or four, then yeah, I get that. I understand that you put the guy in that you trust. I just think you have an opportunity here to potentially coach up a younger guy who has more upside than the guy with the experience. And I, and I feel like maybe he's not thinking about that or, or, and maybe he is maybe he's going to coach him up from the third of the second team and, and, you know, give him a shot later on, but, uh, I think his past dictates that is, you know, now that Tash is the left tackle, nothing is going to change. Yeah. And I mean, Mike's saying they didn't mind trusting Alton Fisher is true freshman. You know, again, look, everybody's different. It's, it's, yeah, like, again, there were limited options then. And it's not like all became the starter as soon as Fisher went down, it was the fourth option. Yes. Baker came first and then, you know, like, as somebody said yesterday, Tash Baker probably would, would start for a majority of power five teams in the nation. He had two NFL guys in front of him. Like he very easily could have been starting the last couple of years, but he had two NFL guys in front of him. But again, it's not like you can't make a blanket statement when it comes to freshmen. You can't, as a coach, especially in a road environment, um, in a season opener and the whole thing, you can't play upside over the guy that you think is best for the job right now. It's still about who's best for the job right now. Sure. Now that doesn't mean that by week five or week six, it might be one of these other guys. One of these guys might pass up Tash Baker. And I've got confidence that though, that they'll make that move if that becomes the case. I don't. Where do you get that confidence from? Because they didn't make that move last year. And I think that there was a, there was a guy on the roster that was better than the guys that were playing and they didn't make that move until there was an injury. Well, I mean, you know, again, I'm taking him at his word. Maybe I am the naive one. I don't know. But based on what he said, Coogan was the more consistent guy coming out of camp. And that's why he got. Sure. You know, I get that. I get that. And that it took. And I think Shrout has even talked about this, that, that it, there were some things that he had to continue to work through. And that's why by the time we finally got to see Billy Shrout later in the season, he was as good as he was because there were some things that, you know, he was kind of finishing and he became the guy. So I don't think, you know, again, I don't think in the moment that it, that it was Coogan that they obviously have, have remained confident enough and Shrout that he has essentially implanted himself at right guard. And he's displaced the guy who started off the season, you know, spindler who started up the season there as well. I, I agree that he is the best guard on the roster right now. There's no doubt about it. And that's why he's talking about, but that happened in the off season. I think he was the best guard on the roster, probably halfway through last season and hit and worked through all of those things. And there's no way. I don't think that he would have played if there hadn't been an injury. That's why he played because there was an injury and they didn't have a choice. So then he played and he clearly was better than the other two. Right. And right. Got that spot. I think if there was no injury to the either guard, I don't think Billy sees the field the whole year. That's my opinion. I don't, I just don't think he would have probably a good chance that it didn't happen, you know, based on the way things went. Yeah. So that, you know, that's my, that's why I'm saying I don't think that if there's going to be, if they're going to start Tasha left tackle, regardless of the progress that either of the young guys makes behind him, I don't think he gets moved out of that spot unless he gets hurt. I hope I'm wronged. No, I mean, there's a lot of different things that go with. So Andre is asking Vince, who would be your ideal? So that's really hard because I don't have an ideal starting left tackle because I'm not at every practice. And while I am advocating that they give a couple of other guys a shot, I'm not saying that they're ready to be the starter either. You know what I mean? So I don't want people to think I'm just pounding my fist that you have to start Gerby Lambert or you have to start Sullivan Abscher or, you know, you have to start Anthony Knapp or whoever, right? Just so you don't start Tasha Baker. I'm not saying that. I'm saying you need to give those guys an opportunity for the possibility of starting at left tackle. Right now, if there was a game tomorrow, I'm starting Tasha Baker at left tackle. I'm also starting, I guess the rest of the way would be Rocco left guard, Ashton Craig at center, you know, and the rest of the same, right? Billy Shrout, the right guard and Wagner at right tackle like that. I don't know who my left tackle is going to be 25 days from now. I need to be at practice to see it. And the unfortunate part is you and I and anybody else aren't really going to get that opportunity because we only get to see individual drills. Right. So we're not going to see. We're not going to know who the best guy for the job is. We can extrapolate. We can guess. We can say, you know, based on high school film, it doesn't matter what that it doesn't matter. I need to see it right now, day in and day out. See, to me, you know, again, like I know you've said that these guys should get a shot with the first team to show what they can do with the first team. Like to me, it's a little bit like, well, you've got it, you know, like we coached in high school, you've got a JV for a reason. If you're not, if you're, you know, like if you're not cutting it at the JV level, you're not going to get pushed up to the varsity level. So I'm fine with if they're evaluating these guys with the second and third team and again, you know, there are different levels of cutting it. But to me, you've got to be just flat out dominant to start with. You can't be just good enough. Like if you're the second team guy, you've got to be a dominant guy working with and against other second teamers to show that, you know, you even deserve a chance to, you know, to maybe to split some of those reps or get partial reps up there with the first team. I wouldn't be just sort of experimenting, you know, again, because like you are, what are we now? We are 25 days. We're a little bit more than three weeks away from the opener. So I'm not saying like that you've got to have your decision made now, even though Rudolph obviously sounds like he's getting right now. I think these other guys, these other guys are still going to have a chance to show themselves. But you know, if nothing else, someone's got to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that they are definitely the number two guy because everyone now, whoever it happens to be is one snap away from becoming the guy, you know, being the next man in. Yeah. No, I could get on board with what you're saying. I don't know that they have the time or the opportunity to, well, he's dominated on 13. Let's go move him to second team and he's dominated on second team. Let's move him. You know what I mean? Like, I would just, I would throw him in. Hey, throwing feet to the fire, man. Can you do it? No. All right. You're out. Next guy. Let's see what we got. But I understand what you're saying for sure. Well, and then the other question is why Tosh Baker left tackle and stick, you know, keeping Emil Wagner at right tackle? So let's hear some of Joe Rudolph talking about that. I think if both of them told you, I think Emil feels more comfortable at right, just his body. And I think Tosh feels more comfortable at left. So I think that just kind of sorted out accidentally. But the whole reason I have Tosh at right for the bowl game was I thought he was a better pairing with Billy, and I thought Emil was a better, and I thought Charles was a better pairing with Pat, so that was the reason for that. Wasn't necessarily a thought one guy had to play one side or the other. So they're both more comfortable where they are right now. And I want to go ahead and play this other cut here that kind of pertains to this as well, just about the mobility factor. Because there is, you know, maybe sort of a general line of thinking that you put the guy who's a little bit more nimble of foot, Emil, you know, which would be Emil Wagner at the left side and put sort of the bigger sturdier guy, Tosh Baker, on the right side. So here's Joe Rudolph's answer to that. Yeah, I don't think I do it one way or the other. I just try to put guys in the best position. I think they can be successful with sometimes it's what they most, what they do most naturally from a physical standpoint, their build, their, their, the way they are, you know, like Emil, I kept them on the right side because structurally he's just a lot cleaner when he works from the right side for whatever reason, you know what I mean? And then Tosh being over there for the bowl game was I thought him and Billy would be a good match up, like together, I thought they would, they would really mesh well. And then, and I thought Charles would really mesh well with Pat on the other side. So you're really just trying to figure that out. It's not like I don't try to pigeonhole a guy in one spot or the other. If I think he can really help us or he would be a, he would raise the level of play in a certain position, I would, I would get him there to help us. So what do you think about all that Vince? I mean, it's interesting and I do think that the pairings idea, you know, who works better with somebody else. I think that does come into play when you're just trying to decide who is going to start, you know what I mean? And we talked about it this, I don't know if it was this afternoon. I don't care, it all runs together at this point. But we talked about the fact that the left guard competition, I think goes into a little bit of fast forward hyperdrive because you need to figure out who's going to play best with apparently, Tash Baker, you know, and, and what that relationship looks like because I feel like my opinion, Vince's opinion is that, you know, if you have Kugen and Baker next to each other, I feel like you've got two similar types of players. And I don't know that that's what I would want there. I would want more of a, you know, a road grader at left guard and, you know, to pair up with Tash Baker, as opposed to two similar types of players. So I don't know, again, we'll see how that ends up, you know, going and who they decide to put it left guard and how if that in turn affects, you know, the fact that they've got Tash Baker at left tackle, does that affect who you have now at left guard? Does that affect that competition now? You know what I mean? And so, yeah, I don't know, like because now it's Baker, do you have to put the guy who you think? And he just said when it was last year, well, I guess Rocco was already gone by then, it was shrouded over there. Never mind. So, but yeah, I mean, but, but still, I mean, he obviously has in his head who he thinks goes better when to move and that goes into his decision making, right? And so, I don't know, it's going to be interesting if you're Joe Rudolph, you're darned if you do darned, if you don't, to be honest with you, as far as who he selects to be in what position he's going to piss off. I agree with it. Group anyway. We've got to be perfect now because he's going to be under the microscope every little mistake. It's going to be, well, see, I told you, you know, Gerbie should be out there. You know, Prescott should be whoever it should be. But I mean, you know, and again, like, I think that he's open to the, he's definitely open to nap. I mean, you know, again, he feels pretty confident in nap the way he talked about nap today. It's, and a big part of that is just because he got all that more experience in the spring, but he has also shown that he can do it, you know, from whatever opportunities that he's had so far. So, I mean, I don't, I don't think that he's like opposed to any of these young guys getting opportunities. They've, they just, you know, as you heard him talking about Gerbie Lambert there, there are just things going on on both sides of the ball. And it sounds like he's still, you know, some of that, yeah, I don't, I don't think it necessarily sounds like a physical thing. I think that it's just making sure that he's assignment sound, you know, about the majority of the time. Yep. Makes sense. This episode is brought to you by our good friends at NFL Sunday Ticket on YouTube TV. I'm sure by now you've all got back into your Sunday routines, but they could be even better. With NFL Sunday Ticket and YouTube TV, you get the most live NFL games all in one place every game, every Sunday. And you can even watch up to four different games at once with multi view, one of my favorite inventions of this decade, it's exactly what you need to catch all the action. Make your Sunday's more magical and also YouTube TV is great. I got it this year. It's awesome. Sign up now at youtube.com/BS device and content restrictions apply local and national games on YouTube TV and a false Sunday ticket for out of market games excludes digital only games and then another guy came up, Billy Shrout, speaking of which, you know, like is Shrout a tackle candidate? I just think you just make sure that you don't weaken one thing to help another and so like that'll be an assessment, you know. I would say anything's a possibility for sure, but that would be a reason to not do it if you thought that would be the case. So no Billy Shrout at tackle. And I, you know, again, I think that we talked about this you and I yesterday, right? You don't. I mean, you're talking about some serious dominoes at that point, you know, and you want to affect the least amount of guys as you possibly can and putting Tash over at left tackle affects one position and one guy, you know what I mean? And so I think that's the least disruptive way to go about it. And so I do understand why they would do that. Yeah, and I just, you know, like talking about what could happen over the course of the season and I'm not even talking about injuries, but like when you think back to it, isn't it amazing they only lost one game in 2021, like as bad as that offensive line? That's a good point. You know, like they still only lost one game that they finished fifth in the college football playoff rankings. So even, and I don't think it will be, but even if it ends up being that, I mean, if all you lose is one game, you're going to be in the playoffs still. Oh, 100% you'll probably be hosting the first round. So you know, look, is this an ideal situation, losing your young left tackle? Of course it's not. Nobody's going to say that it is, but you've got a very, very experienced offensive coordinator who didn't have a Joe Moore award winning offensive line at LSU last year, by the way. I don't know if anybody realizes that. And so he's going to be able to call an offense regardless of who his offensive line is. You don't need to all now, all of a sudden, go in 12 and 13 personnel just to protect your tackles and you know, there's certain things that you don't need to do. You can still get the ball to the perimeter. You can still throw the ball downfield. You can still do a lot of the things that they want to do. They're not going to change their offensive strategy based on one guy going down unless that guy is Riley Leonard, okay? So everybody just needs to kind of take a deep breath and let it out. Move in. You're going to be okay, it's going to be okay. That's my biggest thing. Now my question to you is, did he talk about the guard competition at all? I mean, you said it was still going on, right? He did, but I don't have that. Well, do I have that? I think I actually might. A little bone can summarize for me. I do. I do. I've got it. Go ahead and throw it in here. I was, I was, I think I was kind of saving it maybe for, you know, a rapid fire for another day. But since, you know, I blew it, sorry. That's okay. That's okay. We're sitting here talking about offensive line. So we might as it is one of the more pressing questions and I saw someone was just talking about it. So we might as well get it in here. So. Kugan V Spindler. Yes. Left guard. Go Joe Rudolph. Really balanced so far in camp. I mean, from the, if you can imagine camp, we coach is calling it block one. We just finished like a five day span, four practices, kind of that, kind of that day off. And then now we're in day practice two of the second four day set. The amount of volume of installation offensively and defensively is high. So really what you're looking for is who can apply themselves now that the installation is kind of done. Like who's going to be able to be at their best, how do those things play out. I think there's a lot of great competition. I do think it's bringing out the best in us, but it's, it's ongoing. Okay. Ongoing right now. That was the extent of it. Okay. Fair enough. I thought it was interesting that somebody declared that one of the two of them was going to be a captain and clearly is the starter. Like, I don't know where you get that kind of information, but I guess to each his own, but it sounds like the competition is still ongoing. And as far as we can tell, and the practices that we've been to, it's kind of been every other one day. Kugan is with the ones. And the next day Rocco is with the one. So, you know, everything that we've seen says that it's back and forth. So I'm not sure where some of that information is coming from. Yeah. I mean, you know, I don't know if that sourced information or I don't know exactly, you know, because that gets into, you know, we're talking about what other people are reporting and we can't stay away from that one. Yeah. Exactly. We were just, we're not going to go and, you know, again, I don't know. There's obviously something about Kugan that Rudolph likes, you know, as you've, you know, kind of detailed with, you know, whether it is just the consistency, whether it is something else, you know, like his ability to absorb or whatever, but I don't know. Yeah. I mean, he basically made it sound like, okay, all the stuff is in now who can apply at the best and still be dominant. Like that's what it sounded like to me. I guess we'll see what happens there. So what, you know, I know sloppy Joe's been going at it here tonight. He says Rudolph seems to want to build an O line that can simply beat teams on the schedule, not building one that can beat Georgia, Bama, Texas, Ohio State, et cetera. I mean, I don't know how you can make that statement today, right? One week into training camp when the options are so limited, like you're not going to build that line today. Tosh Baker today makes the most sense. It's like, again, there's a ton of talent there, but I don't, I don't, I don't think that applies to this situation. I mean, I guess I would say, well, who's your offensive line that would beat those teams right now today on August 6th? Like what, what, what five guys that you could come up with today that beats those teams? You know what I mean? Like, yeah, I don't know that there's an answer to that right now. There's still so much camp to go. And there's so much season to go that there's no matter who he starts, no matter who starts on the offensive line, it's going to be a completely different line come December as it is now in August. Completely different. Yeah. And like Mr. 2.0 said, I think he wants to have the best offensive line he can for Texas. Yes. I think that's the most important thing. Completely agree with that. Completely agree with that. Because again, we were talking about this yesterday. And obviously, once you get past Texas A&M, like, you know, whatever issues you do or don't see against Texas A&M, then you're going to play Northern Illinois, Purdue, Miami, Ohio, before you get Louisville at the end of September. Like, so you've got a chance. I mean, no matter who you're playing, you obviously want to see as few mistakes as possible. Of course. The chance to learn from whatever happens against Texas A&M over the next three weeks. Right. Absolutely. And look, right now, goal number one is to be want to know. And I know that sounds like coach speak, but that is uber important right now based on everything that's going on. And I mean, your soul goal right now is to be want to know if you can get out of Texas A&M want to know, then you worry about everything else. You know what I mean? You've got a bunch of get right games after that where you can, you know, move some pieces around and do some different things. Well, look, the other aspect of this is now I realized Miami, Ohio won the conference. They were a solid team last year and all that stuff. But at, you know, at the very least, Northern Illinois and Purdue in back-to-back weeks, if you do what you're supposed to be doing, there's an opportunity for whoever that next unit is to get in there and get some actual game reps and evaluate some of that on film as well to see exactly where they do stand against real Christian. Right. And I do think, you know, all this focus on the offensive line, it's important. Don't get me wrong. You need to have a good offensive line. You're forgetting about the rest of the talent on this team as well offensively. There's a lot of it and it's still there. So it's not all going to hinge on one offensive lineman. So yeah, I agree. I agree. Do you agree, Jesse? I think so. I don't like to agree with Vince. It's fair. That's fair. I'm going to say you've got pretty quality sound on your phone, especially. Do you have power? Is that a light I see in the background? No, that's just natural. Natural daylight. Still no. It's the God-given light, huh? It's getting hot in here. I'll tell you that. Is that why you're lying to hat? Have the storms calmed down at all? Yes, storms are done. It's just no power. Yeah, that's rough. Yeah. So for those who are joining us late, Jesse, who's in Cleveland, started the show under a tornado warning and his apartment is without power. So that's why Vince jumped in to start off the show. I thought it was funny, I was leaving the office to get back to the house because we started getting all these amber alert type alarms going off on our phone and then the sirens were going off outside and a couple co-workers were like, "Oh, it's just a storm. What are you guys so worried about?" It's like, "Okay, yeah." No big deal. Having home, there's a light pulse that fell on a car, just all kinds of debris in the road, raining hard. It's like, "Yeah, nothing to worry about." I think all those people live south and don't realize that a lot of us have to travel back north into the storm. I was like, "I'm just trying to get home before this thing gets too crazy." Well, on that note, boys, I got to be somewhere. I'm glad I could help out. All right. I made it, Vince. You guys have a wonderful rest of your show. Sounds good. See everybody later. All right. I will talk to you tomorrow. Little tag team action. Well, I mean, Jesse, you missed, obviously, the bulk. Did you have any offensive line thoughts before we moved the show along to the next level? I was surprised to see, because I watched some of that press conference. I just saw some bits and pieces from Rudolph and then Pat Coogan kind of came out and talked a little bit. I guess I was a little bit surprised to see Baker at left tackle. I know it's, you know, Gerby Lambert's a true freshman, but I was a little bit surprised to not hear his name. I don't know if he still is developing into his frame and all of that stuff, but that's another name that I think I would keep an eye on throughout the duration of the season. I mean, I think we all are the entire, the entire time. The thing right now is Anthony Knapp, also a true freshman, but was an early enrollee. So he was here all spring, working through the spring and the summer, whereas Lambert higher rated, yes, but guy to hear in the summer, summer, Knapp is ahead of Gerby Lambert right now. And Joe Rudolph feels pretty good about Knapp, but I think that, I think mental reps, you know, are kind of a thing for Lambert, just figuring some things out. So he is still 13 right now with an opportunity to keep getting better. I think he will over time. I just think it's going to take a little bit of time and, you know, hopefully, you know, I think a lot of people are pretty panicked right now with Tosh Baker over there. At there, something we were just talking about. Like what's your feel, you know, one thing I didn't even mention, Joe Rudolph did confirm today that Emil Wagner is sitting at around 300 pounds right now. So he is finally up to 300 pounds. You know, he has gained more than, you know, like what, 25, 30 pounds since he's been here at Notre Dame. He is up there at 300 playing on the right, but he, you know, whereas, you know, he's, he's 300. We don't have the official weight for Tosh Baker. He's at least 320. So you've got the sort of more nimble-footed guy playing right tackle versus the, you know, the bigger, bulkier guy playing left tackle and Rudolph talked about comfort and fit for both of them and who they're playing next to and all that kind of stuff. If they both feel more comfortable at the current spots that they're at right now, like would you prefer the more mobile guy being, you know, playing left tackle, you know, than the bigger, more physical guy? Yeah. I think the blind side tackle should be your more mobile and athletic tackle. But, you know, listening to, to Kugen, Spindler, and just seeing some of these guys, I'm not overall worried about it because of the way that they're talking about that they train in this off-season. A lot of these guys just look more, how would I say, just tight, you know what I mean? The faces look slimmer, the bodies are looking slimmer, and it shows that, you know, a lot of the, and it goes, this goes for, you know, across the board. It really feels like that they are focusing on explosion, but keeping their strength at the same time. A lot of these guys have really kind of cut off 5 to 10 pounds of, you know what I mean? I think bad, bad weight, and kind of replaced it with some of that explosive quick twitch muscle. So, I think that you're going to see an offensive line, especially for the scheme that Notre Dame is trying to run that's going to be more explosive this season, more physical, quicker to that first punch. And so, while, you know, everyone kind of wants to be worried right now, I think we kind of have to wait to see how it's going to pan out and see, you know, just how these guys have been working in the off-season and how they're able to play as a 5 man unit. So, I think that's a good thing. So, I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. [BLANK_AUDIO]
