Welcome to Monday Night Live, I'm Paul Bobington joined by Eric Nalene and Ian Boyd, my co-workers and colleagues from inside Texas. Hey, thanks to all of y'all for joining us in the chat. And for those of you joining us on Twitter, welcome as well. We got some stuff to talk about. Usually not something you say in late May, but I see some super chats already pouring in. I see some questions coming already in. We're gonna have a couple of things we want to talk about. First, I want to lead off with something, Eric, there was an event that happened recently with regards to NIL, fundraiser, to help put some money into athletes that are out on the field. And I just wanted to see if you had any information or any insight on any of that. I know we covered it. And I know inside Texas played a little bit of a role, at least in maybe helping this thing come off. So I just wanted to see what you're comfortable talking about, if anything. Well, you called them athletes, Paul. First of all, I would prefer to call them student athletes. Oh, I'm sorry. To get the education. Yeah, I mean, it was a big event. It was a very forward thinking event. This was in the works for quite a while, started hearing word about this in February. I think it was probably in the works even before then, to get Ryan Bingham. I think Ryan Bingham flew in from Australia for it and then flew right back to Australia. He's one of the better, maybe not exactly mainstream artists, but to me, he's my favorite musician of this century. So that was a pretty cool thing. Yeah, you know, inside Texas might have been a minor sponsor of it. There were a lot bigger sponsors that I think the fan base was a whole lot more gratitude than us. You can see right here, we show a little bit of that. You got your title sponsors at the top. Tito is doing his thing, presenting sponsors and then eyes of Texas sponsors. You see the more there are, the less you donated, but you know, at least at least we're still getting mentioned there. Yeah, it was a great event. It raised a lot. There's also an auction outside of the sponsorship money raised. There was an auction. There was, I think, the trip for to a company, the team in Ann Arbor, went for $450,000. So whichever one of you came through that, I wouldn't call that a super, super chat. It was probably Brett Nelson. That was a huge donation right there. So yeah, it was a big success. I hadn't heard of a figure that was raised, but I ballparked it going into it at about $3 million. And just my guests based on what I've heard, I mean, that auction going for that. That tells you a lot. It probably raised more than that. So it's all about building the future of Texas football and taking advantage of the climate that UT finds itself in. Ian, I checked hotel prices near Ann Arbor on that weekend. And I think that guy who bid $250,000 might be getting a bargain. I'm looking at a Hampton Inn and they're asking me for $1,200 a night. I'm not too psyched. Are we going to have an opportunity to stay at your house or are you out there, man? Nope. I'll be out. No, we wouldn't have had a chance to stay at his house anyway. Yeah. No, everybody's been asking me like where to stay in Michigan. And I'm like, well, I mean, it doesn't sound like Ann Arbor is going to work for you, but there's a lot of burbs and small towns around here that are really nice. Just, you know, Detroit, maybe you want to be a little cautious. Flint, not so great. Nobody great. Oh, man. Celine, Pinkney, hell. If you're willing to drive, there's lots of nice places. Name he's now just naming leak industrial towns. That's that's great. How far are you from Gary, Indiana? I mean, can we drive in from Gary, Indiana? That sounds nice. Isn't that right near South Bend? I don't know. You're just naming all terrible towns. Nobody wants to stay in. So, you know, I don't know. I thought I'd throw in through it. Muncie is only a two hour. Why do the names of Midwestern towns make me laugh? I'm not sure. They always, they always crack me up. They just have a certain sound to them. Hey, the NIL bent from, from what I've hear from multiple people is that it was a big success. And I think it's probably motivation for them to do something like this again. And their comedy, they had music, guys like Shane Gillis were performing, obviously a big comedian. He was even the rep in the Texas hat, which was nice. So yeah, I think they've got a blueprint for doing this again. And honestly, Eric, this is something we've talked about. And I think you've been really on the front of in talking about that the big fear, I think, for a lot of college football is putting payments above board. Because it puts Texas in a tremendous advantage if they have any sort of vision of really wanting to attack this and it's starting to look like we started, we're wanting to attack this. So, can you develop that theme a little bit? Yeah, I mean, so, you know, poker chips and really shoddy American sports cars have been replaced by contracts and structure and real work above board. And when just a normal person has presented the opportunity to do something below board or above board, they're going to take the above board opportunity. Then you compound the factor that it's, you know, the money is a lot more the way that Texas is doing it than the old bad game was a couple of years ago. You would have a running back, let's say a running back was being fought over between two southeastern foes, you know, four or five years ago, and he went for 300k. Well, Texas is in a position where he can say, hey, look, our running backs on campus right now that are starting are making this and it's a whole lot more than 300 or $400,000 a year. So, it's going to behove you to come here, you know, wait a year or two and start to earn that amount of money. Bijon was sort of the template for that. So, you know, you hear all these southeastern conference teams and fan bases crying about it or, you know, some people might even be retiring over it. They kind of took what they were doing when it they brought it public and are taking advantage of the climate and nobody was better suited to take advantage of the Texas. This was obvious when it came out. And right now you're seeing a lot of fan bases saying two things are saying that Texas buying all the players and Texas is never going to win. So, you know, these people are becloning themselves with that sort of a contradictory statement. Agreed. All right, hey, I want to tap into your thinking on another issue that I think has come up with regards to recruiting. But I want to put that on hold because I want to hit a few super chats. Ian, would you care to guess who already has a super chat in? Take a wild guess. All right. It's Brett. I would of course Brett Nelson is in there. Brett Nelson. Brett Nelson is single-handedly paying for inside Texas staff members, kids, college. It's very impressive. Brett asks, how confident are y'all on the O line performing against the high-end dls this year? Of course, talking about Michigan, Georgia, the Aggies. I'm going to throw that to you, Ian. And then on the second question, I'm going to throw that out to Eric. So, you take a crack at number one. How confident are we that these guys are going to hold up against what should be some particularly elite defensive lines and they'll see one early? I'm going to say pretty confident because they faced that Alabama unit last year that had y'all correct me on the pronunciation of Boigbei, Boigbei, and Dallas Turner, and a couple of guys that are back this year at Alabama. I mean, for as good as this, the SEC defensive lines are one that has like two early round draft picks. That's what the good ones look like. They're usually not so much better than that. They were great, Brett. Now, facing that every single week is probably another level. Although, like I said, that's a high end SEC defensive line. I think it's going to be fine. I think the offensive line also is going to be meaningfully better anyways than last year because they had so many like DJ Campbell and Kelvin Binks for sophomores last year. I'll add maybe one caveat to see if you agree and you guys either one of you can weigh in on this. I think we'll be better in pass protection than run blocking against the elite D lines, particularly in Michigan because I think they're going to have a duo of defensive tackle that's going to be the best in the country. That's usually how it goes. It's very hard to run the ball against the premium defensive lines. Eric, any thoughts on that one? Well, I mean, we've talked about in the past, they'll scheme up that D line a little bit differently too. We saw that it was not a great line in 2022, but they schemed up Alabama. Alabama had very little pressure on the quarterback in DKR a couple years ago. The offensive line really thought everybody thought they were going to get manhandled. Some thought that Texas might get blown out in that game. I called a close one and the old line came to play. So I think a lot of that has to do with scheming. The play caller is going to play a lot into that as well. There's ways to slow down the defensive line with play calling and misdirection and that sort of thing. I'm not too worried about it, but I think all things equal, I think they are going to hold their own just from a physical standpoint. I'm going to throw this right back at you. Three wide receiver class or four, and is that dependent on getting the three we want? I'm really thinking it's three right now. We basically reported that on Sunday. We had a really good recruiting piece. It wasn't just me. It was a group effort on that with Justin Welles and Coach Williams. Right now, we're feeling so good about them getting their top two that, you know, there's probably not going to be enough much of a reason to reach. And then, you know, there's always the safety valve of being able to go to the portal if they have to, but they took four last year. No matter what happens this season, they're going to have a good group coming back in 2025. So I would put the number at three, but I would put it at a very remarkable three. Sounds good. All right. I want to throw something out to you with regard to recruiting. Obviously, I've never seen a de-commit from a school get people as excited as the recent de-commit of a certain receiver from LSU, which I think many of us expected. But what is that just a solitary thing or is the landscape sort of improving because the momentum of SARCs recruiting is starting to pick up a little bit? Well, they're hitting the championship rounds of May, June, July and August. That's kind of where the staff excels. You know, they're playing possum throughout the early rounds. Paul, you'd be in a boxing fan. You know, exactly what that is. They're, you know, they're not going to show their hands too early. They're embracing the sweet science of learning who they truly want. You know, they're getting to know these players and doing a mental eval. The mental eval never stops with this staff. They'll break off of somebody, you know, pretty quick. Maturity counts to a major degree with them. You know, there's a guy that I thought was going to be in the class very recently. And then, you know, the more I dig on it, I'm not sure it's going to happen just because I'm not sure his maturity level is exactly where they want it to be. So, they're always evaluating. Now, the excitement about the Cory and Morris, I think a lot of people assume that he's going to end up at Texas. I think that's the most likely outcome. But I think that de-commit was a sign like, "Okay, now everything that they're saying is real. If they're saying he's going to de-commit and they think he's going to end up at Texas, then the de-commit prime means that he's going to end up at Texas." We've seen that in the past with some players. Mat was it, you know, everybody now assumes that he's going to have a Texas. There's still plenty of recruiting left to do. Oregon's going to make a full-hearted effort. He's going to use all the leverage. Or his people are going to use all the leverage he has, which he has the considerable amount being the number one receiver in the country. But I think, you know, there's a bit of a fait accompli to this where I think anybody truly paying attention and anybody reads inside Texas and knows how we feel about Muscat recruits, which certainly de-Cory and Morris, they tend to end up at Texas. The thing about recruiting Mavens and God bless them, we love them. They make football a year-round sport, truly. They like their serotonin hits. And Steve Sarkeesian has a methodical, slow-building recruiting style, which delays your serotonin hits. You know those studies on kids about you can have one marshmallow now. But if you wait, I'm going to leave the room for five minutes. And if you come back and you leave this, I'm going to give you two, right? The recruiting fans eat the marshmallow. And they don't wait for the two. There's an element of fire, aim, ready. Whereas I think Spark is all about ready, aim, fire. And Ian, do you think that has to do with them figuring out character fit? Or do you think they want to do a deeper evaluation on the guy to see also scheme fit? And like, is this a University of Texas player, not just in terms of what we want from a guy, in terms of athletic character? But specifically in our schemes, what does this guy exactly do? We're not just going to go recruit a body with a high four stars attached to him because it gets a quick serotonin hit. I mean, it could be that. You also wonder if it's, you know, Mac didn't always like to stick around for people that remember the Mac days. Mac didn't always like to stick around for the guys that had the confidence or the people around them that would drag things out until late in the process. Charlie Strong would go for those, but, you know, it wasn't always as successful. I think, I think, Spark wants like the big game hunting kind of recruits. And the nature of that is just that those guys have leverage. Like you were just like Eric was just describing with more. The guys that have leverage are hard to just wrap it up really quick. Eric, Eric, we want to add more to that. Well, I mean, that's definitely part of it. Yeah, they have leverage. So they're like, why are they not pushing for a commit? So I mean, yeah, you'd celebrate this commit because of the serotonin hit. But that's not exactly how you build a roster. Another factor is in NIL, you really have to get to know them better and see if they're going to stay motivated after, you know, making what a lot of people would consider, you know, a lot of money, you know, it's a lot of these kids are making more than their parents. And that's not a shot at their parents, or me, because they're making some of them making more than me. But you have to make sure that they're going to stay motivated. I use Dana Stubblefield as an example, who's defensive player the year for the 49ers years ago, had 15 sacks of interior defensive lineman, got a huge, got a huge, I don't know if I don't want to get canceled by YouTube for saying this, but he got a huge contract from the Redskins. And then he cratered his whole career crater after he got paid. So you got to make sure that the motivation to stay by them. Some guys want the money, but some guys understand that this is the minimal ways that they're ever going to earn as a football player that are on the bigger and better things. Some people think that it's a stopping point, and you don't want those players. Yeah, Mac Brown valued loyalty, but as the great philosopher Chris Rock one said, a man is often as loyal as his option. All right, speaking of great philosophers, this question is targeted to me and Ian, because obviously you're looking at Ian, he's living outside of Detroit. He's got the most gangster cred on inside Texas. I live in Colorado, which speaks for itself. I have the second most gangster cred. Ian, did we ever get Ian or Paul's take on the Kendrick versus Drake beef? Ian, what do we think? I don't know if I can name a song by Kendrick, except for, I think I recognize the name of one of his recent distracts. I really don't care. I have to say, you know, I grew up, I remember the advent of rap. I mean, I was remember being in seventh grade and being introduced to this different music. I liked it. I was old school back in the day, and I thought rap went through a period where it was got frankly terrible. And that sounds like an old guy. I do think Kendrick Lamar's talented. I'm not a huge Drake fan. I would say that the old rap beefs, this is pre Tupac, where guys would like kill each other. A lot of it was like, your whack, your rhymes are terrible. Like that's how they diss each other. Kendrick Lamar said that Drake goes for underage women. Yeah, Kendrick had inside info. He went hard. Well, yeah, no pun intended. Yeah, he had inside of me pain. Somebody in Drake's camp sold him out. You know, money talks. Drake's beat was really good. But Kendrick had the inside info. And that's, you know, that is just, can you make the other guy cry and quit? That's how you win these things. You know, it's not necessarily how clever you are. Did you say the meanest thing? And I think Kendrick kind of got over that. But Kendrick is five times more talented than Drake, and I'm not even up on my new rap. But I grew up in the Bay Area in the 80s. And it wasn't the whitest white kid in the 80s. So I've been around rapping. That's sort of stuff a long time. Producer, can we throw in some too short right now? Oh, man. It's all too short. And you know, Paul in San Francisco for a long time, he might know rap and forte players ball, fantastic song. But yeah, Kendrick won that, but Drake's beat was good. But you know, Drake out sources all the stuff, even his writing. That's that's that's the I think you kind of win the battle when you direct the rap to the other rapper's father and berate him for how what a terrible son he raised. So good question, Johnson. I think we're out of a 14 Kendrick or team Drake, but I think Kendrick won. West Side right on time is a great song by Kendrick. I encourage everybody to listen to it. Reminds me of hanging out with a couple football players at UT. All right, we got Geronimo 2.0 vastly improved over the original Geronimo, in my opinion. Well, he's three, he's three, he's 3.0 on the site. So he hasn't been. We haven't been. Yeah, that's where it falls. It's literature. It's written. Is LSU a net loser in the NIL era? I hear their own, I hear their own fans are promoting the poverty school status wake of DK more de-commit Ian surprised ha ha. Ian, are you surprised? Ha ha. No, you know, crawfish sales can only buy so many players, so. Hey, you know, I was at walk-ons the other day and you know, walk-on started in in Baton Rouge. So I feel like some of my my tab went to LSU's NIL and it didn't exactly make me fearful. So I don't know if they have the business and industry. If they get the shipyards going, maybe maybe that's something to worry about, but that's one of those schools that's hurt by the aboveboard nature of recruiting these days. It's just, you know, how how many billionaires are actually involved at Texas and how many billionaires even exist from LSU, you know, if you just looking at that way. Well, and there's a middle class of rich guy, if you want to assign it that. And what are the guys who are between worth between 20 and 50 million? Texas has a bunch of those. Yeah. And, you know, that's not quite having a billion, but you could fund some stuff. It's your passion. And, you know, that's where, you know, I can tell you I had a family member go to Bama and they went went to that game and saw Texas's great win last year. And she got to talking with some other Bama fans who had really good seats. And what they have to contribute to get the prime seats, Texas fans would laugh at. I mean, it's it's just they just don't have the money and the resources. Now, on the other hand, or maybe we getting milked a little bit. Yeah, I think a lot of fans sometimes feel that way. But if Texas is aimed and focused and interested in funding athletics, I there's a lot of really successful Texas people. And when you run when you're writing for them and you're running something like inside Texas, you encounter and I just think that a school like LSU is going to really struggle. What they really need is oil to get up to about 150 a barrel. But even then Texas will still keep pace because Texas is diverse. We got guys and everything. It doesn't help them to be next door to Texas. Like everything that is good about the Louisiana economy right now is true times 10 in Texas. It can be matched easily, right? Their advantage is usually always been just that there are so many players in state and they have a million different means of keeping them there. So yeah, and I think tell us, you know, social pressure being number one for sure. And also to be frank, you don't go there to play school. So, you know, if you're not interested in any element of school or anything like that, they're going to be on online classes, you're going to live a different world playing football at LSU. At Texas, there's still going to be a part of your life that you're a student at the University of Texas. Well, if you go back to Baton Rouge, I mean, what's Baton Rouge know for? rappers. We've got a lot of good rappers. We've got, you know, taken back to the previous conversation. You got Kevin Gates, a little Busy Webby. I mean, it's that's is that a place where you want to celebrate versus Austin and Joe Rogan and, you know, Elon Musk and from its big time versus little time. Eric, pretend he's not up on his rappers. He knows all these modern rappers. I like, I'm still trying to wait for Eric B and Rock him to have a comeback. Geronimo, thanks for your question and thanks to all of you for your super chats. Gentlemen, is there anything that needs to be said that's going on in the zeitgeist? Anything going on inside Texas? Anything in general you want to get off your chest? Ian, what do you think, man? Well, I'll have some notes tomorrow on, you know, we talked about this already, but the SEC is loaded next year with amazing passers. And I've been doing a lot of research. Yeah, in 2024. I do that every time. I always say next year when I mean the season hasn't started yet. Right. Sorry. 2024, the SEC has just amazing quarterback experience. And then everybody that didn't already have good receivers went out and got some from the portal from like the top guys at the G five or, you know, these formerly schools that were formerly power five and are now kind of in nebula status. And then so I've been taking a look at which schools have the veteran secondaries and which schools have the NFL caliber quarterbacks and the NFL caliber edges that are going to have the best chance to stop these offenses within the league. And long story short, Texas and Georgia not only stand out for their offensive potential in 2024, but also their ability to counter it. If a few young blue chips paying out on both sides like we think, yeah, I saw a new I saw a recent SEC power poll that had Georgia number one Texas number two coming into the season. A&M was at number nine. I think that they could be higher than that if some things break right for them. But one thing that is interesting, Eric, and this is a dynamic that you would think would happen all the time. It would be the case every year. Not really. And that is that Texas and Texas A&M for the first time in a while have a number of head to heads on key recruits, not only for 25, but maybe even 26 and down the road. What's going on with that dynamic? What is that about? Well, I think first, the Elco staff have done a really good job to get a foothold in the state, maybe a little bit quicker than I expected with the the top town. I thought they would have a good class within sort of the, you know, 25 and on, you know, just that that new car smell we talk about with new coaches, they get the benefit of the doubt at these schools that have that show promise and want to in resources like A&M has. But they're getting a better foothold with some of these kids that that Texas really wants. And so they're setting up some, you know, cage matches, you know, Jonah Williams, the safety out of Galveston ball is setting up to be Texas versus UT or Texas versus A&M. I think OU's has lost ground to A&M in that one. Tyrian Quiardi Armstrong out of Jasper is another one. Michael Fusuci, the the five star officer tackle out of Lewis Phillips one. Caleb Chester, the corner out of Fort Bend Marshall. I saw him the other day. Cade Phillips, safety out of Fort Bend high tower from a couple miles away at Chester. Those two are actually pretty close. There's a and there's even more, you know, that are might materialized to be Texas UT battles. Kaleek Lockett is one. I don't want to include him just because he likes LSU as well. And I'm not sure I can see five or three five stars or borderline five stars in the Texas water receiver class just yet. But yeah, A&M's done a really good job. Now, I'm not sure how many they're going to win, but they're going to make Texas work for these. And you know that if it comes down to NIL, you know, little brothers are going to do everything they can to to try to win one or two. Yeah, I saw in the chat Jeff G at an interesting comment, Aggie value and character again. Question mark. I kind of wonder if that's a little piece of the dynamic as well because frankly, there were some players that Jimbo and Texas didn't overlap on at all because Texas sort of kicked the tire on the guys like this guy's not really about football per se, even if he's highly recruited or highly ranked. Is there truth to that or is that tech, is that probert orange propaganda on our part? No, I think that there's more substance to Elko. You know, I have a pretty good source in the ACC that knows Elko fairly well, you know, it wasn't on the staff there, but played Elko every year and had some keen insights. And he thinks that Elko is a real ball coach that put together a coaching staff like for football, not just recruiting, which I think Jimbo prioritized recruiting much more than the actual football. And then, you know, on the other side of there's ways to make up for that lack of next recruiting charisma, you know, with NIL and again, resources, you know, nobody wants to win more than A&M. It's that's it's kind of make it's funny that nobody wants to win more than them yet they struggle to do it. But you can't you can ever question their want to. And so I think that there's, you know, A&M the school has compensatory traits for what Elko might be lacking, but I think they're doing a good job of relationship building and they're setting themselves up to a very good alternative in the region outside of Texas. Isn't the right strategy for them right now with the way things are to be like to be looking to grab three four star guys that are the right kind of guys for Elko's culture. And then just go ahead to head with Texas on a few key battles. Yeah, I mean, I think that's what they're doing. The guys that that they're in with that are battling Texas with it, they're I mean, they're they're credible threats. I'm not, you know, I don't think I've got predictions in for Michael for Susie. You know, I think that I think Texas can make up or I think Texas can win the the Jonah Williams recruitment. Though baseball is going to factor in there and and it's got a good baseball program. They're they're not they're not shooting for the stars and just hoping like they're they're in these recruitments. That's why I wrote the article, like it's it's an incredible thing. It's something that I didn't think was going to happen this cycle. But you know, what they did is they kneecapped OU on some of these guys and that sets up to be the sin state rivalry. But I, you know, I still think you know, Texas is going to win more than their share. But, you know, when it comes down to to some of these recruitments, it's going to have to it's going to be more than just money. You're going to have to have the relationship in place. And so Texas can't take them lightly. I don't think Texas is DJ Sanders is another one. I think, you know, he's down to defensive tackle out of Belleville. You know, and then probably has an upper hand on that one. Texas wants them there after a couple other guys at the position they have to they can't miss at that position. I feel I'm pretty optimistic they'll do well. But it's it's going to be it's going to be a wild summer between Texas and and which is only going to lead us towards, you know, the game on November 30th. Competence matters, gentlemen. Tradition and dissociations and affiliations only matter so much. And that's the case when it comes to mortgages, not just recruiting or coaching. We've got a friend who is sponsoring this humble YouTube show. His name is Gabe Winslow. You could reach him at 832-557-1095. Yep. He's a UT grad. Yep. He's a former national merit scholar. Yep. He is a die hard passionate fan for the University of Texas. And none of that matters if he's not great at what he does. Fortunately, he's great at what he does. And we have the testament and testimony of dozens, Nate, perhaps even a hundred folks who have reached out to Gabe through the various methods that he advertises. Reach out to him, find out why he's so good at what he does. And you could do that at 832-557-1095. I think we've got a super chat that we want to hit. We're rich with super chats today. And this one comes from Aloha Traveler. Aloha. Please tell me if you're in Hawaii and what island. Aloha Traveler. Aloha gents is the elephant in the room in this program right now that the recruiting at DT and is it DT and DB seems like these are the only areas not meeting the talent standard when compared to the rest of the team. I'm assuming he's meaning recruiting. But also, of course, there's a sense of urgency imparted to that recruiting when you have some departures in both of those rooms, right? Notably, defensive tackle. We know we've got a little bit of a void to fill given that it was the best pair of defensive tackles in college football last year. DB, we had some guys transfer out. I would argue some of them transferred out for a reason, which would be that they're playing time might not be of what they expected this year, which is probably a good thing. But in terms of recruiting, Ian, do you think that's fair or, and I'm the throats you, Eric, after, but do you think that's a fair assessment? Or do you think this is a question of a new DT coach kind of getting his feet wet and DB? We haven't quite pounced yet. Yeah, I mean, you need to find Texas fans need to find something to complain about. Texas didn't win the national championship. So if you're looking at areas where they're not yet at a national championship standard, but it's different because like you like you were hinting at DB, they've brought in tons of talent and really high volume. They just haven't churned out a lot of NFL prospects yet. So we haven't seen it on the back end. And then a defensive tackle, they've been churning out NFL prospects from the older players they inherited, but they have not been bringing in a high volume of recruits as of yet, right? And they're going to look to resolve that in this recruiting class. The previous recruiting classes, they need to have a really high hit rate on guys like Alex January, Sidear Mitchell, Jeray Bled. So because they just didn't take very many guys. So the guys they took need to be good. But I don't, I would say no, Eric. I mean, you're on the right track, you know, Bo Davis benefited from stock shelves. The DB coaches are stocking the shelves now. So, you know, but Bo didn't restock the shelves. The DB coaches are stocking the shelves currently. There have not been a lot of DBs that would have gone to the NFL. So we're like, why aren't they, why aren't there any draft picks? Well, who would have gone? We've talked about this a lot in recent weeks. DeShawn Jamison played by far as best football for the staff. Ryan Watts got drafted. Malik Mohammed's going to get drafted. Andrew McCub is probably going to get drafted. That's more of a portal recruitment. But I think the staff has not, the D-back staff has been scrambling since they got there to get caught up. And they've recruited very well. There's just a little bit of a lag. The opposite is D tackle looked good, but that was all inherited. Bo Davis didn't restock what they were losing. And so now Kenny Baker is kind of back up against the wall. But I'm not worried about it. I think Baker's had a good couple of weeks recruiting. We're starting here some really good things in those regards. I'm not worried about either one of them long-term. And I think DBs are going to be better this year. I wrote an article this past week and another article that was in defense of the secondary. I don't think that they're the main question heading into the season. Also, it has to be noted. And defensive back, the state of Texas will produce, you know, maybe four or five top level blue chips every single year across the secondary. And then maybe 10 more guys that end up getting drafted eventually down the line. But a defensive tackle, there's usually only like, what, Eric, maybe one or two, one or two like high four star five star guys in the whole state. This is a really good year for defensive tackle, which is I think why Texas has got to hit. And I do think they're well, and they're also looking out of state as well. I'm not worried about recruiting it either. Defense of backs, they tend to, you know, Joseph and Gideon are extremely patient, but it pays off every year. So I mean, there's no point in worrying about either. If you're worried about DBs this year, I guess that's fine. But I think I would encourage you to read inside Texas and see why I think that that sentiment is a little outdated. I think they raised the athletic profile, the IQ in the room, all the people that busted last year, their busted assignments are gone. And so I think that just by, you know, that simple fact, you're going to see improvement. Aloha traveler in the chat does let us know he does live in Hawaii, he lives in Kauai, which is the correct answer, gentlemen. In a former life when I was in biotech and I was the manager of Hawaii, I had to for me, I had to travel out there five or six times a year for years. I've been to every major island, the four major islands in Kauai is the best. It is awesome. Great choice, man. Number two, the big island, Hawaii, just in case y'all didn't know, but everyone else goes to Oahu and Maui, which is good. That's why those are the two best. All right. Let's see. Oh my god, they can't be true. No way. All right, I'll get rid of that. Man, that's rambered meltdown. Oh man. Are the Astros still in last or are they in second to last? No, they're in third. They're making a move right now. It's going to be the it's going to be the tallest midget division, but hey, just win the division. It's baseball and never know what happened to the playoffs. It's like the 2024 big 12. Good deal. All right. All right, gentlemen, Geronimo is saying, damn you, Paul. We're not sure why. Oh, because I'm mocking the Astros. All right. Anything else we need to hit on that the chat needs to know about chat. Do you have any final questions? Any thoughts? Anything you want to share? Where's Jacob? Where is Joe Cook? Wherever Meg tells him to be would be it was probably the right. He's in the he's in the kitchen with with an apron and only an apron. He's at an opus day meeting. All right. I think we have one more and then we may be out of here. All right. Texas went after several big time dt's the last two classes. They just didn't get one or two each class to fill the depth. Dominic McKinnon, don't you want to know it would have been nice. Absolutely. I think you guys that you guys touched upon that. The thing about defensive tackles historically, pretty high of washout rate. So not only are the best rare, they don't always stick around. So you've got to find other contingencies. I mean, University of Texas has turned a couple of former high school running backs into very good defensive tackles that played in the NFL. That's Chris Whaley and Henry Melton. Lamar Houston actually was a running back and linebacker in high school. So sometimes you got to grow those guys and develop them. You can't always get recruit them. And they had a poor process for about a year and a half. And once they corrected, they didn't exactly, they figured it out, but they didn't exactly address the issues. And so, yeah, they're slacking the rope and they're making it for lost time. That's a problem. I think it's going to be fixed long term. I think they now understand that they have to throw bodies at the position in the same exact manner that they understand on the offensive line clearly. But yeah, there was a mess up about a year and a half ago. I wrote about it. Hey, look guys, I'm worried about this long term and we're starting to see that. But I think they're going to address at this class. They're probably going to have to go to the portal again another year just as they've done it wide receiver to buy themselves time. But it's going to work out. We're talking about first world problems when it comes to college football in 2024. Hey, got another super chat. Good question from Justin Yargro. Keep him coming. Thanks, Justin. What area do you all think SARC will improve the most this season? And that's a open question. What do you got? I think the addition of Nancy to the defensive staff is going to help in a few ways. SARC knows them and trusts him from working together multiple times in the past. Well, USC right and maybe Washington too, if I'm not mistaken. I think Nancy will help with defensive tackle recruiting. And he already has helped there, I believe, in recruiting the portal, right? And also with connections like generally to recruit defensive tackles, there's not enough in Texas like we're just talking about. So you have to look out of state. Well, the most obvious place to go is across the American south. But that's also where the most competitive recruiting is. So it's a good idea, but it's tough. The other spot is to go out west. Maybe not quite as far as our Hawaiian friend here, but some of his compatriots that are settled along the west coast, those Pacific Islander communities, those produce a lot of defensive tackles too. And so Nancy helps them with that as well. I kind of wonder if Nancy will help bring, I mean, it could be adding one more shift to the kitchen on defense, or it could be adding somebody that has a little more of a unifying presence in marrying everything together on the defensive side. So all that say, I don't know how much that really counts for Sark, but he's the one that hired Nancy. So yeah, well, they're extremely close, extremely close. And so, you know, I think he's his Kyle Flood on the defensive side. So that makes sense. I'll go red zone just because a lot of fans worry about red zone. I think there's going to be a regression of the mean in Texas is going to be excellent in the red zone this year. I think the running game is going to be a lot more consistent, you know, thanks to the offensive line. And I think because of the run game, the passing game is going to be good. I think the short game, the inside the 10 yard passing game is going to be better with more weapons. I think, you know, there's all three of those water sheavers are more of a target that Sark will go after as opposed to where I think Whittington was far too often an afterthought. And then I think, you know, their tight ends are good in the red zone as well. So I think the red zone is going to see stark improvement over last year. I think with Nancy, one of the things he brings in is if you don't have a ton of talent, you better be creative. And sometimes talent can spoil you a little bit. And you're just not as interested as trying different stuff at all layers of your defense. I mean, people Kowski's always been pretty creative with his fronts, right? So I wonder if Nancy will urge him to try some different things with respect to personnel, some different stuff with respect to to weird defenses that are just suited for that week's particular offense. And then you scrap it, you're not going to even run it again the rest of the year. That's the kind of stuff I like. If I can see PK, not PK, but Sark improving in one area, particularly, maybe a little bit of game theory, game management. I've seen a couple of times when it hasn't been as good as it could have been. Quite frankly, that's a criticism that can be leveled at 97% of college football coaches, and then majority of the coaches in the NFL, they struggle sometimes with that a little bit. You saw a funny example of it with Gundy, right? Kind of taking it to him with the rule, the clock run out at the end of the first half in the big 12th time. It didn't matter. And Sark to his credit and why I think this can improve is Sark immediately said, the head coach at Texas bundled that. I need to have a talk with him. So I think Sark can improve a little bit there. I still will hold forever that we probably should have played the OU sequence near end of game a little differently. And I wonder if Sark might have done it differently if he had another crack at it. And also, I'd like to see Sark be a little more involved with game theory on defense, right? End of half, end of game. Sometimes you have considerations that aren't just the clock or yardage or anything like that. You've got to play sort of the game theory correctly and come out with the best solution. You can't just outsource it to the defensive coordinator in that moment. So anyway, those are my kind of nits to pick. But generally speaking, Sark has really high grades from me and most of the stuff he does. Hey, let's say what's up to Deshae Milburn real quick. He's a he's a fantastic watershed trainer in Southeast Houston, works with some of the best guys in town. Always love talking to him. Always love hanging out with him. He is a he's a stud. Good to hear from you Deshae. Nice. Thanks Deshae. Appreciate that. Hey, SEC power rankings. A list came out recently. I want awesome Connor always ahead of the game. Is there anything you see there, Ian, that you disagree with, or do you see any team that could surprise? And I'll throw it to you as well, Eric, after that. Ian, what do you see, bud? Do you see Vanderbilt actually win in the league? Well, Diego Pavia is going to take them to much greater heights than anticipated, but that may be like four wins other than three. Alabama is too high for my taste. They they lost so many guys. They're starting over with a whole new staff and a whole new approach after losing the greatest college football coach of all time. I know they have a ton of talented players. I know Kalen DeBore is a really good coach, but boy, even three feels a little generous in his competitive league as this is. And then I would have A&M over Oklahoma, of course. Yeah, I would have A&M ahead of LSU, I think. LSU's watched a whole lot. Their defense is still questionable. I think there's a solid foundation in Aggieland to have them. Man, yeah, maybe six or seven. Yeah, I think we talked about earlier in the show. I think A&M is too low at nine. Think about a power rating and I appreciate that they didn't do this cheesy thing where like six teams are tied, right? It is still a power rating. It's a forced rating. You might have identical in conference records for Bama, Ole Miss, Missouri, and A&M, right? And now you're just kind of questioning is it based on schedule, stuff like that. So I think probably more realistic depiction of this would be Georgia, space, Texas, space, and then your next three, your next four, right? Tennessee, this is an optimistic ranking, I think, and I think it's a lot of respect for which I think is warranted. I mean, Hyrule has done a great job with a program that was effectively dead for, gosh, 18 years. But you're really putting a lot on Nico there to just be the dude in that offense if you've got them there. LSU, you're putting a lot in Nussmeyer to be just a stud quarterback because I think Eric nailed it. That defense is profiling to be anywhere from horrific to mediocre. I agree with you, gentlemen. I think A&M probably has the highest potential to surprise. Is there anyone else? I got one more. Go ahead, bring it again. Auburn is too low that people are disrespecting Hugh Freeze and Peyton Thorne. I mean, they find one good receiver for Hugh Freeze to scheme up, and you will see Auburn wildly over-perform this, I think. Ian, I've got to agree with you. Hugh Freeze is a guy that I don't pretend to like very much as a human being. I find him pretty almost a silly person, but he's a much better football coach than is perceived by the national media. Whereas they look at Lane Kiffin because he's so fun on Twitter. He's a coaching god, and I watch Lane Kiffin mis-manage games all the time. I actually think Kiffin's a good coach, but I think the average media person would put Kiffin notches above Hugh Freeze, and I don't think that's actually warranted. In fact, Hugh Freeze has coached at the same school as Lane Kiffin and had as much or greater success. I think I agree with you, man. I think he's a guy that's really underrated. The problem with Hugh Freeze, and this is almost characteristic of Auburn football historically, just like Gus Malzahn, he gets Auburn up for some big, big opponents with some great game plans. And then they'll get their butt kicked at home by New Mexico State and the aforementioned Diego Pavia when he was at New Mexico State. See, it all goes full circle here on the Monday night live. Hey, we enjoyed this. Gentlemen, if you have any parting thoughts, we would love to hear them. Chat, thank you so much. You made this entertaining and fun and lively. Some great super chats. Really appreciate all of you. Any parting shots, gentlemen, or shall we say goodbye? Well, I think Eric had one more recruiting thing to get to. I'm not getting cut off. Almost. Oh, Connor was going to be complicit on that. Eric's too wily. That's why he's the man with the plan. Hey, it's fitting for it to end with me trying to spring out.
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