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Second full week is getting ready to end week three, getting ready to begin, and we are 19 days away from the kickoff Notre Dame in Texas A&M. Do you see that? I guess A&M had a backup running back injured over the weekend or something. No, I did not see that. Nope for the season. I think he had like 700 plus total yards last year. That's not nothing. I mean, that's a legit loss because no team is going to be able to roll, it's just one running back, so that's a legit loss. So each team with a legit loss so far? I would say yes, but Notre Dame is bigger. Probably so, but at least your point is taken. So when are you officially back in school during the day, by the way? I know that's coming here pretty soon. I mean, it is Wednesday, actually. Okay, so very soon. Yeah, Wednesday morning, I am back in the thick of things. So that's when I get back on my normal schedule. So one more afternoon show to go, which would be tomorrow, and then back to my normal evening schedule. And then we're going to do some Saturdays, I guess before the season starts. And then of course Saturdays are going to be taken up by games and post-game shows and pre-game shows and all that fun stuff. So we're getting ready to roll it in here, man. And of course, me going back to school means high school football season is right around the corner too, which I'm pretty proud of about. It is from Friday, I believe, right? Yes, sir. Yeah, this coming Friday is the scrimmage, where two high schools hook up and they get the controlled scrimmage going in the following week, man, it's for real. So really looking forward to that. Usually high school football is about a week ahead of college football. Excellent, excellent. So you'll be plenty busy, we're already getting plenty busier here, of course, at Irish Breakdown. Jump on the new Champions Lounge, go to Irish Breakdown and then I go to the top of the page. I'm trying to remember exactly what it says. I don't have to do this by memory. It says Champions Lounge, Champions Lounge Plus at the top. So you go to IrishBreakdown.com, go to Champions Lounge, and then under the forums you go to New Champions Lounge and boom, there are threads in there. So knock yourself out with the threads, have a lot of fun, there's a lot of good premium intel and recruiting content, all that kind of stuff in there. If you're not a subscriber, get subscribing now. Why? Also, yeah, why not? What do you do it? That's also the place to submit your questions for the we and we out shows and we're doing we and we out tomorrow because we've got a little, we've got more media availability later in the week and I want to be sure that we get in the appropriate audio from the coaches and you know, any, any player audio and stuff like that from post practice and those kinds of things as necessary. So just like we're going to do here in a second on today's show, kind of fired up about this. I don't know if you've looked at the outline at all. I perused it. Okay. I don't know if you saw like what, like, did anything jump out at you that you saw in there? Not yet. Although I will say that I have seen some quotes being bandied about from Max Bulla, which are very interesting about basically how he's ready to, he's ready to get this thing going. He's ready for games basically is what it's just ready for games that there's a different philosophy that we're going to see these linebackers this season. And that's what, and I got to stand there. Eric Hanson was there. Tim Priestor came up and like the start of it, it was mostly Hanson and I kind of, you know, throwing, firing off questions at Max Bulla and stuff like that. And like some of the stuff he was saying, like, I should have been able to absorb more, but you know, like me, it's like I hear and then I try to process and like you'll hear with Max Bulla. I mean, let's be honest, the guy talks a hundred miles an hour and there's a lot of emphasis behind it, you know, so some of the stuff wasn't sticking the way it should, but there's some really interesting stuff in here that I, you know, we'll kind of get some follow-ups on. So we're just going to, we're going to jump into it. Before we do that, I'll just remind you as you're filing into the show, hit the like button. Please and thank you. It's just that simple. Hit like, spread the news. That's right, right, okay, so we got to talk to Max Bulla and talking to him, you know, with him was a lot of things and lightning was at the top of the list. So ton of different things came out. So many, like I said, I had a hard time kind of deciding where to start. So we're just going to start with this. So one of the early questions that came up, have any of the spots been locked down for the linebackers? There of course are three linebacker spots. There's a Mike linebacker, there's a Will linebacker and there is a rover. Have any of those spots been locked down? Now listen Vince, because it's going to come at you fast and furious. Okay, I'm ready. Don't miss anything. We got five guys that are rotating like starters. We have, we go ones and twos at practice, but it's, all right, we don't have ones and twos in our room. We've got five guys that are playing equal, we're rotating them and different guys start the period every day. And that's been the best thing for our, that's been the best thing for us. So you got that? Yes, I did. Five guys, we're not talking ones and twos, we're rotating five guys evenly. And now again, like that came up early. And so kind of hearing that it's like, okay, so are you sort of experimenting still, you know, like is, is that the deal kind of, kind of tell me what you take when you heard that. It sounds like he's counting on five different guys to give you good quality snaps is what it sounds like. I mean, he, he was very adamant. He didn't really beat her on the bush. That's for sure. He, he's like, I got five guys and those are the five guys that are going to play. And so that's an interesting take. It's not really where I saw things necessarily headed this season. So that's, that's an interesting take. I didn't either because we've obviously, you know, had a lot of different things to talk about and we're going to get to somebody specific here in a minute. That's where this is kind of building up to. But I felt like I had to kind of play, you know, the, these first couple cuts from Max Bola first to, you know, to sort of set the scene to get to where we're going to get here in just a second. And the five guys just to kind of kind of lay that out, Jack Kaiser, of course, is one of them. Drake Bowen is one of them. Jaylen Snead, Kingston, Villiano, Asa, and Jaden Osbury, those are the five right now. So are there guys, you know, again, who will play all three linebacker positions or are they rotating, you know, specifically at those positions? What does that look like? Basically, everybody plays everything. Okay. It's for the, there's a, there's a couple of things in there that are very, but for the most part, based on who you're in the game with, that's the position you're in. That's why we're trying to get that through this camp. So we're versatile as we go in the first game. So Vince, thought so far? Well, I'm not sure I'm super enthusiastic about everybody playing everywhere and the whole, you know, I don't know, Jack of all trades, master of none kind of feel. I don't know how I feel about that per se, but I mean, he seems to be very confident with that and he wants to get as many guys on the field as he possibly can. I understand that it'll be interesting to see. Well, and you know, look, like if these were guys just coming in and we've talked about this before, like we talked more about it in the 2023 spring, I think, as opposed to this past spring. But when these freshmen are coming in the door and you're asking them to come right in and spring and now let's learn all three spots, I think that's an issue. Right. Obviously you've got Jack Kaiser, who's a 63 guy, basically played all three spots in a game. Right. And then you've got Jalen Sneed, who's in his third year now, Drake Bowen's in his second year as is Jaden Osbury and Villiamu Asa, we're going to get to specifically here in just a second. I mean, you know, like he's obviously picked things up pretty quickly, you know, and again, this isn't just like cross training to cross train. Basically, and again, I don't know how much of this necessarily comes through with sort of the way you've heard Max Bullock explain it so far, but essentially, like one play, like, you know, like on one play, Drake Bowen could be the middle linebacker and Jack Kaiser is the will linebacker and then you've got Sneed at Rover. And then based on who you're subbing in the next play, it could be Villiamu Asa at middle linebacker, Bowen is now the will and Osbury is the rover or it could like flip the third down where they've got these Mac and money subpositions. And you know, he talked about like in the, in some of the third down situations, potentially one of the linebackers goes to Viper. So like Sneed goes to Viper and now you've got Osbury at the will and Villiamu Asa is the middle linebacker. You know, it's, it's all sort of dependent upon situation and who, you know, who's, who's here and who's here? You're like, it's, there's a lot of flex to it. Sure. But he seems to feel very confident in it. And if, if Bullock is confident in it and how golden is confident in it, I think my tendency leans toward I'm going to be pretty confident in it as well. Price picks is America's number one daily fantasy sports app with over five million active numbers. Price picks is the easiest and most exciting way to play daily fantasy sports. Unlike other apps on prize picks, it's just you against the numbers. All you do is pick more or less on two to six player stat projections and watch the winnings roll in baby. Get in on the daily action with your friends and become part of the prize picks community today. Get in on all the excitement and win up to a hundred times your cash with the summer games on prize picks. With prize picks, you can turn $10 into $1,000 while watching team USA rack up the gold medals this summer. You can make prize picks lineups of players across basketball, soccer, tennis, golf and more in as little as 60 seconds. 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Indeed is your matching and hiring platform with over 350 million global monthly visitors according to Indeed data and a matching engine that helps you find quality candidates fast. Ditch the busy work. Use Indeed for scheduling, screening and messaging so you can connect with candidates faster. 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 apply. Indeed to hire, you need Indeed. Number one, they don't really play a role that often. They're over hardly played at all last year, so, you know, so that means there's going to be a defensive back in the correct case with the nickel, I mean, yeah, like you'll hear more stuff about Jane Osbury member because he cross drained and stuff, but that experiment is kind of done like so they're not they're not doing that with Osbury. Right. And I and I totally understand that. So I am I need to I need to see some things from certain guys to believe that they can just randomly sub evenly all five spots like I don't are all five guys into two to three spots like I'm not necessarily on board with that at the moment, but I'm not there. I'm not at practice. So maybe, you know, for example, maybe Jalen Snead has taken a massive step forward and now he can be trusted to play multiple positions, okay, maybe KVA is further along than your average freshman, you know, from a technical standpoint, because in the spring, there were times where he looked absolutely lost out there, right. And, you know, and Jane Osbury has has really only played Rover. And so now you're talking about moving him inside. I'm not sure he's got the size to be inside, but maybe that's in a like a nickel situation. See, and that's where, you know, again, that that's where I think that comes in. Like with if Osbury is going to play inside, I think it's going to be more in those situations where he can cover space, basically, like he and he and KVA next to each other in those nickel packages, which we've got to see some glimpses of, you know, in different practice viewings so far, again, not a ton of live stuff, but we seem them to do pass rush stuff. That seems to be one of the, to me, it's like it's a very enticing possibility, you know, it's interesting. Yeah. I don't know how I feel about having it. Because well, you don't want Osbury playing the nickel, obviously, him as a will linebacker and able to cover space as a will linebacker, I feel a lot more confident in that than him covering a little slot receiver, basically. I need to see those two young guys being in the game at the exact same time in big money downs like a dime package or something like that. That scares me a little bit to have a second year guy and a first year guy in the game at the same time. I'm not going to lie, that worries me. But again, Max Bull has a lot more experience coaching linebackers than I do. I'm just very curious to see what the confidence level is when they're not, when he's not standing in front of the media to those two young guys being on the field at the same time. I've sort of like played out in my mind how I thought this show might go today. And I've just got to say, you're kind of, you're, you're, you know, you're whizzing all over my weighties right now. Am I a heavy downer on this? Yes. This is not how I thought it would go. I thought Vince would be sitting here going, young linebackers and they're all going to play and they're going to rotate all over the place. linebacker scares the crap out of me when it comes to young guys. It always has like, I need, I need veterans in the linebacker court. You know, I'm all, I'm all for athleticism and all of these different things. And I'm fine with all of these guys playing. But I don't feel like it should be an even time share either. I don't think it's necessarily an even time share and the only time is going to tell of me when we actually get to see it. But I think that, that one of the, you know, one of the things that Max Bola talked about was look, we don't have JD Bertrand and we don't have Marisley if that we got Jack Kaiser now, but we don't have all that experience that we used to have. Right. So for this line backing core to work because there is so much youth and upside, and by the way, I see some of the Kingston, Villiamo, Asa, you know, comments popping into the chat. We're going to get specifically to that here in just a second. Just a second. But I think that, I think that what, what they want to do with this is essentially try to play to the strength of each linebacker as much as possible, right, and get the combinations that allow them to play to the individual strength of each linebacker as much as possible. Now there are going to be times, obviously, where you, where you get caught in somebody is probably going to have to stay on the field, you know, because if you're playing five guys for three spots, there might be a spot where you want to get a guy in, but maybe you're not going to be able to get a guy in, right? You know, those kinds of things are going to happen. But to me, I think because of the relative youth, but still high upside in this group, I think that that's kind of the goal in this is to try to play to each guy's strengths as much as they can by rotating five for the three spots. And then, you know, like you said, how much they play nickel, or, you know, how much, how much the rover plays versus how much nickel is out there. I mean, that's going to dictate some of it as well. But again, if you're doing that, then that gives you, you know, a big time plus athlete potentially like a Jalen Snead to play that Viper position and what's, what's one of the bigger, you know, concerns that people have, what's going to come out of that Viper position? What exactly is that going to give them? And I think that that, that gives you the ability, you know, and even, you know, maybe Kingston, Billy, I'm OASA is, is over there as well because of how, you know, the upside that he's shown with his pass rush and all that kind of stuff. So, okay, so that leads me to, I kind of buried this a little bit. But we're going to get more specific because, you know, again, as you can hear when Bullah speaks, he's passionate, he's emphatic, to the point, you know, a little bit of a mile a minute. But look, who's the linebacker everyone wants to talk about? It is Kingston, Villiamo, ASA and Andrew said, Sean from Lucky Lefty really called him out for saying KVA would demand playing time right away and could replace Bowen if Bowen makes mistakes. He said KVA needs to be bigger. Well, look, I don't know about all that and this is, you know, kind of a running debate we've had because we've been thinking about this as a traditional two deep depth chart kind of thing. And you heard some references that Max Bullah made, you know, this isn't ones versus two and, and that kind of thing. And so what Drake Bowen came up and so then I asked Bullah specifically if Kingston Villiamo ASA is pushing Drake Bowen to have the number one middle linebacker spot. And here is Max Bullah's direct response to that. Well, that's, well, that's what I can't stress this enough that we don't, I just don't think about like we're not doing ones and twos. Like I just said the other day, ones and twos of practice thing, excuse my leg. We're getting ready to play a game and you know, I mean, we don't have, we don't have these season guys that have played a bunch of snaps. We're going to, we're going to roll them like we have because we got five guys we trust and I can't, I can't wait to do it. So it's one, one a, it's not one too. That's right. It's one and one. It seems like that's interchangeable too. It's one and one and all about it and that's interchangeable too. So this whole, you know, and you and I, you know, again, because we've been thinking about this as a, as a very traditional two deep jet depth chart like Bowen is the number one. Kingston is the, the freshman is great as he looked in the spring. He is still the number two. So we were fairly skeptical about whether he was going to overtaking. But what Max Bolet is, is saying Vince is you're not only going to see Drake Bowen on the field, you're not only going to see Kingston, Billy Amo, asa on the field a lot. You might even see both of them together out there at the same time. What do you think about that little nugget? I mean, he is obviously very, very much on board with the young guys, specifically KVA, which is great. That means he has taken his game to another level that we haven't had a chance to see to be perfectly honest with you because all we get to see are drills. Last drill I saw was a blitz pickup drill and KVA got stoned every single time. So, you know, I need to see more and I'm not going to be able to see more until I see a game. I love the fact that he's all on, he's all on board with these five guys. I love it. He's obviously very confident in all five of these guys. He's going to, you know, hopefully put guys in and accentuate what they do well and all of those different. I think that's awesome. If they can make that happen, that's great because that means you've got depth. That means that they've got trust in all of these guys and that means, you know, everybody's concerned about the heat and everything else down in Texas. Well, if you're rolling five guys in and out for basically two and a half positions, I don't see the heat being a problem at that position. And so I think that, look, everything he's saying can only be a positive for Notre Dame if everything that he's saying is 100% accurate, right? I don't know why he would lie to us. You know what I mean? I mean, he's obviously a very enthusiastic guy and that's awesome. But you know, it's still a bit of a wait and see for me, but I love his enthusiasm with where he thinks these guys are at. You know, and again, look, he's out there every day, like he knows what these guys have, you know, and we're going to get to some specifics on, on Sneed and, and Osbury and some of these other guys as well. But I want to just play this one more time, you know, it's like people can kind of absorb it. And this was the answer to the question. Is Kingston Villiamu aza pushing Drake Bowen for the number one middle linebacker spot? Well, that's, well, that's what I'm, I can't stress this enough that we, I'm, I just don't think about like we're not doing ones and twos. Like I just said the other day, ones and twos are ****ing practicing. Excuse my language. We're getting ready to play a game. And you know, I mean, we don't have, we don't have these season guys that played a bunch of snaps. We're going to, we're going to roll them like we have because we got five guys we trust. And I can't, I can't wait to do it. So it's one, one, eight. It's not wrong. Two. That's right. He's one and one. It seems like that's interchangeable too. That's interchangeable too. So they got five guys they trust we're not doing ones versus twos because it's a bleep in practice. Okay. So there you go. Hey, like I said, if everything is as he says it is, then this team is going to be really, really good because the biggest question mark on the defence right now is that linebacker. And if his confidence level matches what they're able to produce on the game field, then this defence is going to be practically unstoppable. That's what it sounds like to me. Right. Andrew Zane, I think it's a situation, KVA has such athletic upside. He needs to be on the field, McCullough said he's incredibly tough to block. He is one of the guys that I think we played it here on the show that Dilla McCullough said KVA is one of the best passrushers on the defence. But, you know, again, I hope everybody is sort of absorbing because I have no idea, you know, I don't watch the downstairs TV press conference that Notre Dame puts up on the YouTube and all that. So I have no idea like what kind of questions came up there, what he did or didn't talk about. But again, like standing there sort of absorbing this and trying to react in the mud was tough because there was just so much that he was saying. And like the whole, you know, again, like, just the notion, as he said, we're not doing ones versus twos, that's a practice thing. We're rotating these guys, we're going to use all five of them because we trust them, we believe in them. And again, they're going to try to play to their strengths as much as possible. So it's, it's going to look a lot different, like if you've been sitting here complaining for the last two or three years about, oh, you know, these, this guy's on the field and that guy's on the field. Why is this guy on the field? Why is that guy on the field? Why aren't we seeing more of this guy? You know, specifically Jalen Sneed, who again, we'll get here to right in a minute. Like if that's, if you've been sitting there complaining about they're not playing enough for these young studs, there's not going to be a lot to complain about, you know, specific to that this season because they're playing the young studs. Now the question is going to be can they do it? Can they do it? Yeah. And they can cut it on the surface. That's the biggest question. If they can, like I said, this defense is going to be really, really good. If they can't, that's, you know, now we're having a different conversation. We'll see. That's exactly right. We'll see. That's exactly right. So he also talked a little bit about like, like this question actually came before the, the comment that we just heard, but I thought it was more important, like to get the big news out first. So here he is talking about how Kingston, Villiamo, Asa and Drake Bowen's skill sets compared to one another. They're very similar. I mean, they're both big bodies. They can both move well, they can both bend well. I think it'll be interesting to kind of watch how that unfolds to be with, to be honest with you. I mean, Kingston's got some ability off the edge. He's, he can bend around the edge, you know, pretty, in a pretty special way, but, but Drake's come a long way too. I mean, credit to Drake. Those guys have both come a long way. I'm excited for both of them. So they're, you know, again, like, I'm going to play it one more time just so I can count. Okay. They're very similar. I mean, they're both big bodies. They can both move well, they can both bend well. I think it'll be interesting to kind of watch how that unfolds to be with, to be honest with you. I mean, Kingston's got some ability off the edge. He's, he can bend around the edge, you know, pretty in a pretty special way, but, but Drake's come a long way too. I mean, credit to Drake. Those guys have both come a long way. I'm excited for both of them. What got me to ask the question about is Kingston pushing Bowen for that number one spot was when he said it'll be interesting to see how it unfolds. And that's what, you know, so I'm thinking sort of this battle for that spot. But, you know, again, I think it's, it's more, it's probably more a matter of who gets more of like, who's, who's more the three down guy as opposed to, you know, who is maybe the guy coming in on third down or the nickel package or, you know, password, whatever it happens to be. Because as he said, their skillsets are fairly similar, but Viliamo Asa has definitely shown himself to be one of the best passrushers on this team. Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. You know, and like what Sean Davis was saying, you know, in response to, I think it was Andrew or somebody else was, okay, is, is Viliamo Asa big enough right now to hold up for three downs, you know, like play the run that often. And again, if they're rotating five guys like this, I don't think he necessarily needs to be that guy because you've got both him and Bowen potentially there, you know, for, to, to kind of double up on that role. There's going to be a lot of roles on this defense for these linebackers and, you know, those roles haven't gone to multiple guys really in the past. And so if there got five guys who they claim that they trust like this, it's going to be interesting to see how those roles are divvied up. So like you said, having these different, and look, I think the skill sets of all five of these guys is very, is very different. And I think you can use their, you know, their good points and kind of mask some of their bad points, you know, depending on the situation and all these different things. Having all of these guys to choose from, I think if they're all as good as he says they are, then it's going to make this defense very dangerous because you're going to be able to highlight strengths and cover up some weaknesses in the various spots. It's going to be very interesting. You know, in fact, I just realized we were talking about the comment that Dila McCullough made about KVA and guess what? Bonus cut. I've still got it hanging around. So let's go ahead and use this here real quick. And came up, we had two guys blocking me, spent up over in the back being one of them. I just wanted to tell you, I said, are you kidding me? I said, we had a guy there and a back came up, Jeremiah came, he spent up both of them as that happens. So again, man, that's a credit to him and a good player, you know, but he makes us better because man, we got to make sure all our details are on point when we go against it. So that's Dila McCullough talking about Kingston, Villiamo, Asa as a pass rusher. And that's kind of what we've seen in some snapshots as well, where he's sitting there and he's spinning off everybody. It doesn't matter who's in front of him. It seems like I'm in Tyson. I'm excited about this. You are, you are obviously much more, I just, you know, because even though Max Bolas, the position coach, I don't think Al Goldin is signing off on this. If he's not fully confident as one, that's why I want to see what happens in an actual game. Yeah. For that reason, right there, like you can be super excited about it as a position coach, but at the end of the day, if the coordinator is like, yeah, pump the brakes a little bit. Let's see what happens in a big moment in the big game, first game of the year on the road, Texas A&M, let's see what this rotation is like. If it's all five guys, like he's saying it's going to be, then obviously, you know, everybody has signed off and blessed this thing and it'll be great. If that rotation is a little bit smaller, I'd understand why. With the possibility of it getting bigger as you move forward, you know what I mean as the season as the season wears on, right? So I'm going to play Bolas cut about Jaden Osbury here because, you know, like I think the question was about like, okay, you know, he played some nickel in the spring and that kind of thing, you know, what's he look like, you know, is he still doing that? He kind of touches on sort of the bigger picture here as well as as to kind of how this how this road, you know, this five man rotation, you know, sort of some of the thought behind that. So here we go. All right, Jaden in the slot for the spring, just based on who we didn't have all of our young DB here. Yeah. Trying to figure what we had. Right. He did a great job. But we have four guys, you know, we're playing a linebacker. We need a fifth guy. I'm not saying he's number five. I have to say, when he five guys at play, he's a hell of a linebacker. He's come a long way a linebacker. So we moved him back in with us. Now there might be some positions on third down where he gets in a different position, plays a DB position. But other than that, he's back with us. So Jaden Osbury, no more nickel again, he is part of the linebacker rotation. And again, what he said was they needed five guys to be able to make this happen. So it feels like he and Al Golden were probably talking about this quite a bit. Like, how do we, how do we, how do we attack this considering we only have one really proven guy, right? And Jack Kaiser. And he's obviously been an undersized guy playing at Rover more played the fewest snaps of any of the linebackers last year because of what you said earlier, the Rover came off the field so much last year, had a great efficiency rating, didn't play as much. But now he's over at will, that's really, you know, a six year guy. That's really the only true experience they have because they got Bowen, you know, Sneed. Again, a guy who's been around a little bit, but not a ton of experience himself. Osbury, obviously, is not that experienced in Billy Amo, as a zero experience. And so they needed five to pull this off. So you know, I just saw Joe saying something about, well, we can't have four guys, you know, learning on the fly in your first game. Whoa, what alternatives do you have? Because I mean, it's either a choice here for guys or at least three guys learn on the fly. Like someone's got to, someone's got to jump into the fire, right? You know, yeah, no, because you got it. You got to have guys out there at those positions and they just, they don't have much experience otherwise. And again, I think that's a big part of why they've decided to go this route to, you know, to again, try to play to the strengths of each guy as much as possible based on the situations as they dictate themselves. Yeah. Like I said, I, there are guys that have a bunch of experience within this, you know, within this program, right? Jalen, it seems like he's been around forever, right? And I think he's just a junior, you know, Drake Bowen is in his second year, but I mean, he was basically, you know, brought up to be the middle linebacker behind JD Bertrand last year and, and we, you know, studied at his feet, which it's pretty good internship as far as I'm concerned. And so, you know, there's certain guys that you, I guess that I inherently trust going in. But again, I'm not there every day and Max Bullis and Al Golden, it sounds like, have decided early on that there was going to be a five man rotation and they just need to figure out who those five are going to be, right? Just like at wide receiver, there's going to be a six man rotation. They just need to figure out who those six are going to be. And so it sounds like it's those five and then kind of everybody else, which makes a lot of sense. I don't know that I can really come up with anybody else that would, you know, have an opportunity to make an impact on this team, on this defense of all things. And so I'm okay with the five. I'm just interested to see what the five are doing specifically, especially in game one, especially in game one. Oh, for sure. And especially if there are five guys rotating in and out of there, you know, like, is it play to play? Is it serious to Siri? You know, like what exactly does this look like? Situation to situation, you know, yeah, it's going to be very interesting. And look, you know, Sneed is we're going to get to Max Bullis comment on Sneed here in a second, but he is probably, you know, in terms of unrealized potential. He's got to be at the top of the list going into his junior season. Now, we've seen him do some good things from time to time, but he hasn't put it together consistently so far. He's going to have a much bigger role this year. And here's how Bullah described what he has seen from Jalen Sneed. He was complimentary of Jalen Sneed in the spring and he continues to be complimentary of him right now. Great question. Because I can't talk enough about how far Jalen Sneed has come from year one, from when I got here to right now. I'm going to talk about a guy that his weight is where it needs to be now. He's 225 consistently, he's playing with knee bend, he's playing with details, he's getting lined up, he's executing, he's communicating. There was one person I'd say I can't be prouder of from what I got here to right now and it's number three. Number three, of course, this needs Jersey number. So Barry, he's very, very bullish on Jalen Sneed going into the season. You mean Bullah is bullish? Ah! Is that where you went with that? Didn't even realize I did that. Look, Jalen Sneed, obviously, like I said, has been in the program for a while and frankly he's super athletic. Like when it's just Seaball Getball, he's pretty darn good. He just needed to be comfortable and I will say he has been extremely comfortable out at practice from what we've been able to see. He looks like a different guy out there and in this day and age, you're going into your junior year. It's like, man, what took so long? You know what I mean? He's a five-star recruit, you know, all these different things and but that's normal. Like that's normal maturation process for the vast majority of college football players. Like that's normal and now he's coming into his own and he's going to have an opportunity to play for a couple of years and that makes a lot of sense, right? And so I guess I'm not overly surprised by Jalen Sneed but there's a lot of people that have already dismissed him because he didn't pan out in their opinion, you know, his first and second year as a five-star, right? So I'm excited, I think he can add a lot to this defense from an athletic standpoint, from a speed standpoint. That guy's fast, you know, he can get downhill quickly. Yeah, the comment from Shamrock's and shenanigans Sneed should definitely get more reps as an edge rusher for sure, right? I mean, you know, again, if you're talking about playing to the strengths of these guys, that would seem to be, especially when you get into those nickel situations like we were talking about and like Bullah, you heard him talk about how one guy goes to the Viper basically. Sneed is the top option there, you know. Those are the kind of body that he has because of the fact that he can get off the edge, you know, with like, that's one of his great strengths and, you know, so again, the whole idea behind this is play to the strengths and so I think that that makes a lot of sense. Andrew said Brian revealed new information on the show last week that Sneed almost left the program in the off-season. He thinks Golden needs to play more of these guys to keep them happy and, you know, two different things on this first, I know Brian revealing the information is new to everyone. This is something that we've known about, you know, since before this happened, basically we knew that there was talk of this going on. I don't think that Golden putting Sneed on the field this year has anything to do with keeping him happy. I think it has much more to do with what Max Bullah is talking about that Jalen Sneed has finally gotten to the point where the information, you know, and all the things that he needs to go about the, you know, this position has matched up with the great talent that he came to Notre Dame with. I don't think it's like you're trying to appease this guy at this point to get him to stick around. It's because they're finally starting to see the production that matched the talent when he came in the door. Correct. And I absolutely do not subscribe to the, you have to plan to keep him happy thing. You play the guys are going to help you win the game. I'm sorry. If a guy, if a guy doesn't want to wait his turn or whatever, then that's on him. He can go someplace else that that's totally fine with me. I don't, I will not play a guy just to keep him happy. Like that's, that's not how this works. Like I'm sorry. This is big boy football. You have to earn your spot on the field and you don't earn your spot. You don't play. It, Marcus Freeman told him, I think like late in training campus freshman year, like you're going to red shirt this year and Sneed wasn't happy about it. And I think that Marcus Freeman has talked to you know, Sneed wasn't happy about it. But you know, he obviously found a bigger role last year. He played a lot of special teams. He got on the field in some situations last year as well. But they weren't just doing it to keep him happy. They were doing it because he showed that he could fit into some different situations like that. And now a year later, he's had a really good spring. He's had a good summer. He's followed that up with a good training camp so far as well. And anything that Sneed got as Ray said, he's earned. I mean, he's earned everything to this. Right. They weren't just going to put him on the field because he's got talent. You know, again, this goes back to the, you know, why is, why are these guys on the field and, you know, Sneed specifically isn't on the field because they obviously, from what they saw day in and day out, felt like those guys were going to be the guys who they could trust the most on Saturdays. 100%. Anthony was asking, is there been any discussion about how the defensive staff will be positioned in games? I mean, no one's really, there's so many other things to try to get details from assistants, you know, like during camp, we've only got to talk to Marcus Freeman once. I think we're going to talk to him again this weekend. That's probably, you know, like a, if it comes up, it would come up, you know, like game week or something like that where the coach is going to be, you know, like you said, how much it matters. That's a non-story to me, to be perfectly honest with you. I don't like if you're an offensive coordinator, for example, everybody thinks you should be up in the booth so you can see the whole field. Okay. But if you've got a guy with a good set of eyes that you trust and you want him up in the booth and you want to be down on the field so you can communicate with your players. Cool. Like I have no problem with that. As long as you've got good communication, you know what I mean? Like, it does not matter to me in any way, shape, or form where guys are located, whether they're on the field in the booth, it doesn't matter to me. All right. It's wherever you're comfortable and you can get the job done. So it's fine. Joe's asking how many more practices they have. I mean, I think it's like, what one? I think you're asking for a lot of fun. Oh, like viewing, like, do guys have, like, we have one more that we're going to get to see. Right. They practice. Like the team obviously is practicing. Yeah. Yeah. They've got, they've got plenty. Yeah. Plenty more to go. So again, I think that's really interesting and I toyed with, you know, like kind of waiting to see what with the former linebacker Jesse thought about this, and we'll probably talk a little bit about tomorrow as well, but his opinions. I thought that you would be, you know, again, one, I thought you'd be a little bit more enthused about this whole nervous, Sean, is what I am. I am officially nervous. That's where I'm at. And I look, I always hope to be proven wrong in a positive way when it comes to Notre Dame. But I am very, very nervous about just the shuttling in and out of guys and things like that. I'm nervous. I'll be the first one to admit it. Okay. All right. I can live with that. I can live with, with Vince's nerves. I'm far more excited about this. Yeah, you are nervous. And I think a big part of the reason why is, you know, look, I've always kind of tamped the brakes on freshmen, regardless of recruiting rankings, you know, like C. Jalen Snead, C. Dion Colsey is his examples. Sure. And I was like that with Jalen Smith as well, but Jalen Smith came in day one and he played a lot. Now again, you know, there were a lot of people who would say, well, he should have played more. He should have played, you know, like he played out of position. Some of those, you know, some of those things are, are true. But the bottom line is he came in as a true freshman and he lived up to the billing for the entirety of his Notre Dame career. I've been a little bit hesitant with Villiamo Asa, but in small snapshots that we've seen, he's done nothing but excel. And if he's done that in, in, you know, in those viewings and then you hear the things that Max Bulla was saying about him, you know, like he's, he's, you know, again, Bulla's Bullish on, on KVA, if he is, because I think that, you know, everyone, everyone trusts Max Bulla's opinion on these guys. And so if he's that high on him and he has the confidence that Villiamo Asa can go out there and do it, you know, and again, like what's it going to look like between him and, Drake bone that I've got to feel pretty confident about it as well. Yeah, I mean, I, I can only trust what he says. I mean, we literally have never seen them run team and full pads. And we're not going to until everybody gets to see them running team and full pads on August 31st. You know what I mean? And so we have to take his word for it as the linebacker coach. And I don't always want to defer to the coach, you know, but he's got way more data than we do when it comes to how these guys are doing. And if he says there's going to be a five man rotation, let's see it. Yeah. Andrew said the confidence to rotate is a validation of good recruiting. I will buy in on that. And that was there and Bulla talked about that as well. I don't have that specific cut, but you know, that's, that's part of it as well. And the fact that, you know, look, it, it, what this shows, what this plan shows is if you can cut it, you don't have to stand around on the sideline for a year or two. You'll see the field, you know, again, it's, it's, it's much more about what you can actually show you can do that whatever recruiting ranking came in with, you know, look, one of the concerns everybody has going into one of the biggest concerns, I think still is the heat down there in college. Sure, sure, sure, sure. In that season opener, you've got a defensive line that's going to go 11 or 12 deep. And now you've got a linebacker rotation that could end up going five deep. I think some of that again will depend on situation just in terms of who we see the most and who we see the lease and all that kind of stuff. But if you're talking about your entire front seven being able to go that deep and heat is one of your biggest concerns that I've, I've got to feel pretty good about how that is going to play out by the time the night's over with it. It's less of a concern, right? I mean, I mean, let's be honest, if you, if you, one of the ways to combat, let's put it this way. One of the ways to combat heat is to rotate, right? I mean, that's, that's the bottom line. And so if that's how you decide to kind of get after it and, and, and, you know, combat the heat, because it's not like you can go down there, like somebody on the board mentioned that you should go down there a week ahead of time and practice down there in the Texas heat and all this other stuff, that's all well and good except classes start that week. So it's not like you can just take your entire team down to Texas for a week and miss the first week of practice. Like that's, I mean, excuse me, the first week of classes, it's still college, right? This isn't the NFL. It's the NFL. That's right. So you're not going to be able to do that. And so it's like we said before, it's about, you know, your preparation from a fluid standpoint, from a sleep standpoint, from a nutrition standpoint, all of those things. And if you are confident enough in your rotation, rotating guys in and out, that's how you combat the heat, just like that. And so if they are that confident in the linebacker court, that position and they can go five, that's only going to help them in the Texas heat on August 31st. Absolutely. So that part I am very happy about if everything plays out the way they say it's going to. So a couple, a couple in here, Joe and an indie sailor saying Kaiser shouldn't come off the field. What do you think about that? Very much kind of on board with that to be perfectly with you. Yeah. Just because like he's the guy, like the glue guy sort of thing is the guy who can always keep everybody. Well now, now Bowen and KVA have been wearing the green dot practice so far too. 100%. I don't know how I feel about a true freshman having the green dot. Again, I don't think they'd give him the green dot. I know feel like he can get it, but I just, that makes me very, very nervous. And I, you know, like I said before, I've always sort of tanned the brakes on the freshman. Right. But they get everybody's excitement. He did enroll early and the fact that they feel as confident in him as they do, I've got a choice of that evaluation. At your job, do you ever have to deal with a nose roller? How about a snub bully? Well, if you're installing a new conveyor belt system, dealing with the different components can sound like you're speaking a foreign language. Luckily, you've got a team ready to help. 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