12-8-22 After Hours with Amy Lawrence PODCAST: Hour 2

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That's Blue Nile dot com Blue Nile dot com. Whoa! I don't know why I'm so fired up. I did not sleep. I have not really slept all week, but still, there's energy. I was just telling producer Jay I could use some more coffee, but maybe that's not a great idea. We're live from the Rocket Mortgage Studios.

Do you need to know what it takes for a home to fit your budget and your family? Rocket can. So find me on Twitter, ALawRadio, also on our Facebook page after hours with Amy Lawrence. Later this hour, we will update you on a couple of fun projects, fun activities, fun contest that we have planned for you. We'll just call them extras. We like to be extra here on the show.

So we've got a couple of fun extras in advance of the holiday season, and we will share that news with you coming up a little bit later on this hour. Plus, as I mentioned, Dansby Swanson is still available of the short stops, the dynamic short stops. There were four to begin this free agent period.

Two have already agreed to terms. Now it's Dansby Swanson and it's Carlos Correa who are still out there and are looking for new deals, if not new homes. On Twitter, ALawRadio, on our Facebook page, it's busy these days on social media. It's amazing to see the number of people we have posting, the number of new followers, people asking us questions about football season. It's that time of the year, but also the traffic that we're getting just in general. Our Ask Amy Anything post from 24 hours ago blew up even over the course of Wednesday, the hump day.

So thank you for finding us and following us and keeping track and playing along. At this point, we want to talk a little college football because it's been one heck of a few days. I was going to say a week, but it's not even been a week since the college football playoff rankings in the wake of championship weekend. So a brand new guest to the show, we're pleased to welcome Brandon Huffman, who is the national recruiting editor for 24-7 sports and a college football insider, joining us now from Seattle. Brandon, the last few days, it's been quite dynamic. A lot of news, a lot of headlines, tough to keep up with. If you put your finger on the pulse of college football right now, what do you feel?

Yeah, I would just say mayhem. I mean, whether it's the college football playoff, the mayhem that kind of started on Friday night with USC getting knocked out of the playoffs and then TCU losing. And then you think, you know, that's the quiet part, but no, it just amplifies on Monday when the NCAA transfer portal opened. You have the coaching changes. You have kind of the shocking moves like Luke Dickel going from Cincinnati, Wisconsin.

Scott Satterfield going from Louisville to Cincinnati and then obviously Deion Sanders. Then you throw the transfer portal in and just how much that has dictated what recruiting is like now with the stretch run to signing day in two weeks. It's just absolutely mayhem. And it really seemed to start last year when you had Lincoln Riley and Brian Kelly leave right after the regular season. Now you almost brace for it and prepare for it.

And it even surpasses what your expectations of just how crazy it's going to be. We can talk about some of those moves because there are some interesting pairings now in terms of coaches and where they've landed. Deion has really attracted a lot of attention in Colorado. But going back to the college football playoff, we know it's expanding.

Not yet. How do you like the four that end up in this year's playoff? Well, I think obviously the top three all deserve to be in it. I thought USC would have been a lock had they beat Utah. Maybe if they had even kept it close against Utah. But to almost get doubled up, I think Ohio State positioned themselves to be that. Their only loss being to Michigan. It was the number two team in the country.

Yeah, it happened at home. But it really seemed like there was a top three and a fourth team had to be in there. We're going to be fastened to see how in years when there's going to be 12 teams, just how much things will shake out just to see what it looked like this year. Where if it had been a top four conference champions and then how they seeded it, you would have had some pretty intriguing games in the first round.

I think it's going to be good. I'm a traditionalist. I grew up in Southern California, grew up going to the Rose Bowl game with my grandpa. And I, you know, I'm all about the tradition and the eight bowl games that we used to get.

But that was the 90s. This is 2022, 2023. We're going to see a true college football champion named. And I think that the sports been waiting for a moment like this. And so this year when there's only four, three of the four deserve to be there. The fourth probably deserved to be there. But right now, it just seems like there's a number one and three other teams playing to keep a competitive against that number one. What's your opinion of 12?

I like it. I kind of think that, you know, 16 might have been a little bit too much. Eight might not have been enough. I think 12 is a nice round number. It rewards those four conference champions that are rated the highest to give them a week off. I do think there needs to be some tinkering where those four teams that, you know, the number four, one through four seed, they get a home game.

They play the bowl games the week before and then go to the on campus sites the following week. So those top four teams are rewarded for being the top four. But I do think 12 is a good number. I wouldn't be surprised if, say, 2032, we see it move to 16.

But I think, you know, you kind of had to go from four to 12 rather than four to eight, at least in the next iteration of it. But I still think it makes it relatively an exclusive club. You really have to make that regular season matter to get into those top 12. And I think it's a good kind of starting number for the second round of an expanded playoffs. Truthfully, do you believe there are 12 teams or these top 12 teams in the rankings could all actually win a title?

No, I don't. It's just the same reason you don't think that the all 68 teams that are going to the NCAA tournament can really win a title. You know, we like upsets. We like seeing those upsets happen in the first round.

But let's be honest, as great as it was to see St. Peter's make it to the Elite Eight, you didn't really want St. Peter's in the Final Four. And I think in college football with 12 teams, you know that you might have an upset or two in the first round. But when it gets down to it over the course of four games, three games or four rounds, you're going to have the four best teams.

I think one thing that would make it just that much more exciting. And, you know, it feels like in recent years we've seen maybe two or three kind of provisional rounds that were being televised when they was kind of released the top 16 teams in the NBA tournament. I think if we didn't have to see a college football playoff show each and every week, we wouldn't have all the talking points that would make people frustrated on that first Sunday in December when the Final Four teams are revealed. So I think if we just had the 12 teams get announced when they were announced, there would be more excitement, there would be more buildup rather than five, six weeks of everybody being angry with how the scenes played off. And then I think those 12 teams could really make it an exciting playoff. You peg college football fans and really sports fans pretty well with that description. But yes, there's such a long time in between the reveal and the actual playoff on New Year's Eve that it does give people a lot of time to get revved up.

Brandon Huffman is with us from 24-7 Sports, the national recruiting editor, and we're glad to have him for the first time after hours on CBS Sports Radio. So Brandon, what are your initial impressions of the Fiesta Bowl and the Peach Bowl matchups? Number two Michigan, number three TCU, the defending champion Georgia still number one against Ohio State, the team that got in last. I think there's a lot of people that thought we would be seeing Georgia against Ohio State in the postseason. I think most people thought that would be at SoFi Stadium in the national championship game.

And instead, we're going to get maybe what could end up being one of the more competitive semifinal games. I mean, when you look at the semifinal games historically, I got to go back to the Ohio State-Alabama game to find the last game that seemed to be as exciting on paper as it ended up being on the field. And that was the first year of the playoffs. Since then, it seems like every semifinal game has been a blowout of some sort, except for maybe the Ohio State Clemson game. I think it was three years ago where Trevor Lawrence rallied Clemson to win.

Justin Fields had a chance to win it. But that ended up being a game of the year, and then LSU smashed that team three weeks later or two weeks later. I think Georgia-Ohio State is going to be a fun game.

I think it's a game everybody wanted to see. Maybe it's a game earlier, but I'm not going to sleep on that Michigan-TCU game. I think Michigan is feeling pretty good about the win at Ohio State, feeling good about that win against Purdue. But with the exception of the Ohio State game, they had a couple games down the stretch where they let teams that they should have been beaten pretty heavily stay in those games a little bit longer. And then TCU, maybe they ran out of luck a little bit towards the end of that Kansas State game where it looked like they were going to be able to pull it out again. And then they fell short in overtime, but Sonny Dykes has that team believing that they are never going to be knocked out of the game.

That even if they're down early, they can make it competitive. Georgia-Ohio State are going to have all the attention that's going to be the highlight of the game. But I think that TCU-Michigan game could be the sneaky better game between the two.

And really, you would think on paper Michigan is going to win, but the way TCU has been playing this year, you can't count Sonny Dykes' team out. Is it weird not to have Alabama no Nick Saban this time of the year? Oh, absolutely.

And you know, it was just quite striking to see him on Saturday and Sunday openly pining to get Alabama in the game. Campaigning! Yes!

Yeah! That would be like an era where Duke was trying to campaign to get to the round of 64. Like, you just don't expect them to not be in it.

And sure, don't expect Coach K to be sitting there trying to make his case. But you know, that's now twice in the last four years that Alabama is not in the playoffs. It's for a school that had been in it so regularly. And not just in it, but playing in the National Championship game. Neither Alabama or Clemson this year. That's the first time in the history of the playoff where neither of those schools are in it. And it's just something that's going to be weird to get used to. There's a changing regard that George is now the team that's going to be in it every year and Alabama is going to have to do what they need to do to get into it.

It's very different than what we've been used to seeing. You don't expect to see Nick Saban basically pleading his case. Usually, their case has been made all season long. So playing on New Year's Eve. Not playing in the playoff.

Instead, No. 5 Alabama and No. 9 Kansas State in the Sugar Bowl. So close and yet so far away. It's after hours here on CBS Sports Radio. We're spending a few minutes with Brandon Huffman of 24-7 Sports. Alright, some of the other chaos that we've seen over the last week. You're a national recruiting editor.

You watch how this plays out. What's the impact? What has been the impact of the transfer portal on college football?

I think you look at some of the schools that have been the biggest beneficiaries of it. You've seen what USC was able to decode from a 4-8 team a year ago when Klay helped inspire the second week of the season. To now, this year, being within 60 minutes of playing in the playoffs. Having the front runner for the Heisman Trophy playing in a different uniform a year ago. You go back to three years ago when the LSU offense was one of the most well-oiled machines we've ever seen in college football.

The transfer portal benefited LSU greatly. Joe Burrow loses the starting quarterback job to Dwayne Haskins. Urban Meyer makes it very clear to him, we're going with Dwayne Haskins. Then Joe Burrow makes the transfer that changes college football, changes the offense. It shows that even coming off years where Baker Mayfield and Kyler Murray before him won the Heisman Trophy as transfers, they were traditional transfers. Burrow goes into the portal and now you're seeing schools realize that, hey, we can have a bad season if we bring in a new coach, we can turn things around quickly with the portal.

You can see teams that maybe are 10-2 teams, 11-1, but maybe they need one or two guys to just get over that hump and they go into the portal. We saw Alabama two years ago have one of the most dominating seasons ever and yet they went to the portal that following year to get Jamison Williams from Ohio State. He couldn't even crack the location at Ohio State. He goes to Alabama and wins the Bolitnikov Award. He becomes a key part of their offense. Henry Tolatoa, who was at Tennessee starting for two years. Nick Saban loses a lot of guys from that 2020 draft to the draft.

He goes and plugs a couple holes. So you're seeing that schools that, even the ones that are perennial powers, know that two or three guys could be the difference between not being in the playoffs and being in the playoffs. You're also seeing coaches that are in their first year can see, instead of it being a real rebuild project, something we're going to need three or four years to change the culture. You can fix that in one year and be competing for a playoff spot and potentially a national championship. So the transfer portal has dramatically changed college football and frankly, as a complete advocate for the student athletes, I think it's about time. I think it's been a long time coming that they've been given the opportunity to go somewhere they want to be. If coaches are going to be able to leave a drop of the hat for a bigger payday, the players should be able to lead to a better opportunity just that quickly. What's your reaction, though, to some of the coaches who criticize it for it creating potentially a free agency type of environment? But also, there are some coaches who say, I'm looking at this from the perspective of the athletes. It's dangerous because it's this lure without always the promise of something better.

There can be students who are left without an opportunity and left without a school, so to speak. You know, I always go back to Clemson in 2016 or 2017. You know, Kelly Bryant leads them to a top four spot. They go to the Sugar Bowl.

They have a chance to play in the playoffs. And then the next year, he comes back having led them to an ACC championship. What does Davosuini does? He turns it over to Trevor Lawrence in the middle of the season. What's Kelly Bryant supposed to do? Sit there and be a backup and signal in plays with a clipboard and a baseball cap during the game?

No. Kelly Bryant wants to keep playing because he wants to play this game at the next level. So the coaches that come around and say, this isn't good, many of those are the same coaches that left for better jobs. Nick Schaben can say what he wants about the portal, but he left LSU to go to the NFL.

He left the NFL to go to Alabama. He's got assistant coaches that have left for better paying jobs. If you're going to say that the transfer portal is bad for college football, then don't take anybody out of the transfer portal. They can sit there from their ivory tower and say, hey, this is bad for college football, but if you're going to say it's bad for college football, then don't partake. Don't take a transfer. Don't leave for a better job.

Don't ask for a bigger extension. Don't ask for all these things if it's that bad for college football. So that's where the hypocrisy of a lot of these coaches really becomes nauseating and frustrating because they're saying all those things, but that usually means that they're not benefiting from it. I like when coaches like Lincoln and Riley say, yeah, we're going to hit the portal hard.

We're going to go after it. We're going to recruit guys from that. And you look at the instant impact that those portal players made at USC. That's why you go with the portal. So if these coaches want to stay put, don't ask for extensions, don't recruit the portal. Then maybe we'll take your word as something that means something. Otherwise you're playing the game in just different ways.

So quit with the hypocrisy. To that end, Brandon, we've seen a lot of coaching movement. Who are the pairings, the new hires that you think will have an impact immediately?

Like a Lincoln and Riley. You know, Luke Sickle, Wisconsin, is going to bake just major ways because I think he's a phenomenal coach. Him getting Phil Longo to come from North Carolina where he's done great things with Drake Maine, Sam Howell before him. That's going to be something that I don't think Wisconsin fans are going to be used to. An offensive coordinator, a program where they're going to throw the ball. We're used to seeing Wisconsin have just a plug and play running background for 1,500, 2,000 yards. That's going to be one. Sickle there with that defense. That's going to be one that's going to obviously get a lot of attention because we've always been waiting to see what's the next move for Luke Sickle.

But the reality is, there is no bigger storyline that people are going to be tracking, at least for the next nine months. Now, we've got to wait to see what kind of product they put on the field, but Deion Sanders at Colorado is going to be fascinating. As much as I said, I'm a traditionalist. Grew up going to the Rose Bowl. I grew up in a time in middle school and high school where Colorado was a top five team.

Where Colorado was playing for the Orange Bowl, playing for national championships, and they were fun to watch. And Colorado was a national brand, a national name. And over the last 10, 15 years, they haven't even been an in-state name. Air Force has been better. Colorado State's been better.

They haven't even been good in their own state. And so everybody's going to be spending the next eight, nine months talking about Deion Sanders in Colorado. I cannot wait to see how that is going to work because Deion shook up HBCU. He shook up FCS football. He shook up college football when he got Travis Hunter, the number one player in the country, to commit to him last year. Now he's at a Power Five school. Now he's at a school where that logo, that brand, that Pac-12 Power Five affiliation is going to move a lot more. So that is one that I absolutely cannot wait to see because a good Colorado makes college football that much more fun because it's like a return to the late 80s and the early 90s when Bill McCartney had them as a national powerhouse. I just love that there's no one else in college football quite like Deion Sanders.

It's impossible not to pay attention to what he is doing. All right, so you're on a selection committee for a bowl, Brandon, the Polynesia Bowl. What is the benefit to the student athletes and to the schools to be invited and then to participate in a college football bowl game? You look at the extra practices that the players get. When they go to a college bowl game, they get those extra 15 practices and with more and more players opting out, you're giving these guys an opportunity to have the young guys kind of audition. They kind of flash to show what they can do the following year. They're going to go off for three months, go to the strength and conditioning program before spring football starts.

But now with the stars opting out, now you can see just what kind of development your coaches have done for those three months in the season, for the summer and the spring before. You get to see some of those young guys that you've heard a lot about, you've read a lot about, and a lot of these guys get to go to exotic places. I mean, imagine if you're a player at, you know, Middle Tennessee State, you get to go to Hawaii for a week for the Hawaii Bowl. I know I love being part of the Polynesian Bowl.

You're getting kids from all over the country. They get to go out and be at a showcase All-Star game, five extra practices, and they're getting to do it in Honolulu overlooking the Pacific Ocean. So, maybe some of the places at the college bowls aren't the most ideal location, but if you're a Mac school and you get to spend the week at the Bahamas Bowl, if you're a school that gets to go to Myrtle Beach in January, and again, I go back to my traditionalist roots, if you're a Big Ken school and you go get to spend five days in Southern California, you get to go to Disneyland, you get to go to the Lawry's Bowl, you get to go play in the granddaddy of a mall, how could you not love that? How can you not be romantic about college football when you get those opportunities? And so, it's extra football, it's extra bowls, it's 40 extra games to get to watch.

Come to New Year's Day, those games go away for nine months. Yes, although it's not quiet around football, but certainly we miss the games when they are done. You can find Brandon Huffman on Twitter, at BrandonHuffman, easy enough, National Recruiting Editor for 24-7 Sports, and is on that selection committee for the Polynesia Bowl. We're looking forward to keeping in touch with you because this is go time for college football, Brandon, so thanks so much for a few minutes. You bet, thanks for having me on, and hey, let's watch some college football these next few weeks. It's go time, it's a free-for-all, baby, college football. If you love bowl games, this is your jam, it's your season. I do understand the benefit, and to the point that he was making about having the opportunity as a college student to travel to quote-unquote exotic locations, when I played college basketball, we did tournaments all over, but two of our tournaments that were really exciting over Christmas break, one in the Bahamas and one in Los Angeles, Anaheim, and so it was a lot of fun to be part of that, and I know a lot of the college basketball teams that I've worked with in the past, their players get thrilled when they're invited to an overseas tournament. They get to play teams in Europe or in other parts of the world, and so it can be such a huge recruiting tool, but it's also really neat for your players to reward them for their hard work, and I like the point he made about practice, too.

When you go to a bowl, you have an extra 40 practices, and that's huge, because you have the chance to be able to see some of the younger kids you didn't see throughout the season. On Twitter, ALawRadio, or our show Twitter, After HoursCBS, a couple of fun activities, a contest we want you to be a part of. People have been asking, how can we get a hand on those shirts? I realize that we have not given out any shirts since the Midsummer swag, though we do have a winner for the Survivor pool, and so we need to, we're trying to get ahold of him so that we can give him his After Hours t-shirt as well. So we'll give you an update on some of the fun holiday ideas that your host has come up with in her brain.

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Are you ready? Find that perfect gift for someone special with jewelry from Blue Nile. Right now, during Blue Nile's site-wide holiday sale, get deals on their endless selection of bold gold styles, gemstone jewelry, and classic diamond pieces.

Need your piece fast? Order today and get free two-day shipping. Shop now and save up to 40% on the season's most stunning trends at Blue Nile.com. That's Blue Nile.com.

Blue Nile.com. It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio. How you doing? I'm great.

For those that listen, just want to know that you are the superwoman of radio sports. Oh, you're sweet. Thanks.

Good evening, Amy. Great show. Now you're stuck with me for a long time.

Stuck is a great way to put it. Now give me a buzz tomorrow night, too. Thank you.

Oh, well, I appreciate the warning. Amy, how you doing? I'm great. Hey, I love your show so much. I'm a super horn at you.

And you jerk it out. This is After Hours with Amy Lawrence. Thanks for hanging out with us as we bid farewell to Wednesday hump day and move forward into a Thursday. We actually believe that we're going to speak to a member of the Pittsburgh Steelers on Thursday afternoon following practice. So it would be a conversation you would hear taped here on the show tomorrow night.

But I won't even tell you who it is right now. Fingers crossed that it works out. Producer Jay has been communicating with a variety of teams over the course of the last few weeks. And it's challenging sometimes to grab active players, players that are in the middle of practices and film sessions leading into a game weekend. But we're we think we've got an opportunity to catch up with a member of the Steelers following practice on Thursday afternoon. So we're looking forward to that and hoping it's the start of something. It's been a while since we've had an active player in season here on the show. That has to do with just the logistics, but also, you know, change producers.

And you have to kind of start over with new contacts. And so Jay's doing a great job looking forward even through these last five weeks of the NFL season. There are some opportunities plus on into the playoffs and, of course, Super Bowl week. It's after hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio. On Twitter, ALawRadio.

Our show account is after hours CBS and then on our Facebook page. And the reason that you care is because we've got a couple of fun things coming up. Things. It's the catch all.

It's the technical term for what we've got. A couple of fun extras planned for you. Number one, Jay and I are working on a Christmas video. A Christmas video greeting.

Now here's the funny part. I don't know, Marco, if you have any ugly sweaters, specifically holiday sweaters. I don't either, which is weird because everybody else in my family does. But I showed up at a Christmas party on Tuesday night. I was in the middle of work prep and emails and I just had a bunch of stuff on my mind. And I was taking cookies to this Christmas party with some group, some friends from my church, a group. And I walk in and realize I'm the only one who's not wearing anything remotely Christmassy. So there's an elf costume. There are all these ugly sweaters. There's some fun socks. People are wearing bells and antlers. And I'm there in like a purple fleece with boring socks. Like I just I totally forgot it slipped my mind that it was going to be a Christmassy party. And so then I realized I don't even have a couple of nice Christmas sweaters. Like one gold lame and one red and black. But I do not have anything ugly. At least that was intentionally ugly.

Maybe people think there's some ugly. Anyway, so Jay and I want to do a fun Christmas video. You can be part of it if you like. If you wear that flannel that you're wearing right now. I was just going to say, is this Christmassy because this one's red?

Does this work out? Yes. I might have a green one that's slightly Christmassy because I don't think it's green or red. I think it's just, you know, green. So anyway, maybe we'll do a three person Christmas video. We're going to find a Christmas tree somewhere around here.

Not in here. There's no Christmas tree. Something lit up. Christmas tree. And Jay swears to me he has more than one ugly Christmas sweater that I can wear. So which one do I get? The one with the dinosaur.

Right. I don't know if that's a good idea or a bad idea, but I get the ugly Christmas sweater with the dinosaur. Is it a T-Rex? It is a T-Rex. Oh, it might be a velociraptor, but I think it's a T-Rex. A velociraptor like something out of Jurassic World?

Yes, but I think I think it's a T-Rex. Which one are you going to wear? I have a different one with an elf on it. Oh, OK. Yeah, you can wear that one. He's skiing. The actual elf or elf elf?

No, no, not not buddy. Gotcha. So what I really want is an ugly Christmas sweater with the peanuts on it. Any chance that there's an ugly Christmas sweater out there that I could buy with Charlie Brown? Pig Pen. Well, the whole crew. Charlie Brown, Lucy, Linus, Pig Pen, Snoopy. Who's who?

I forgot who. What's the little bird's name? Woodstock.

Thank you. I feel like I'm in a peanuts mode lately. I've got peanuts thank you cards that I send to people.

I gave Jay something to do with peanuts last year. So I really do want a peanuts Christmas sweater. I'm looking at a really nice one actually. A nice one or an ugly one? It needs to be ugly. Well, ugly sweaters, I feel like I've taken on this new trend where they're like, they try to look, I don't know, as ugly, but like as kind of cool as possible. They're not really like hideous anymore. No, I like hideous. Hideous is good. So that one's not hideous? No, this one's not hideous. I'll try to find an uglier one.

But I also like the peanuts. So I suppose if I had to choose between one or the other, is it more or less ugly than your dinosaur Christmas sweater? I would say less. Less ugly?

Less ugly. Okay. Maybe so I could still be cool. Well, I'm not cool. But every now and then I can fake cool in a cool sweater or sweatshirt.

A dinosaur is kind of cool. All right. So that's that's what we're going to do next week is a Christmas greeting. So if you happen to be working that night, I mean, sometimes I don't really know what's going on with your schedule.

Me neither. Hit or miss that you're here with us, that you actually show up to work. And so I show up to work just depends on the times.

Right. I get yo-yo around a little bit. Yo-yo. I like that. Maybe that's what I'll give you for Christmas.

A yo-yo. So that's one thing we're planning next week. And we'll do we'll do a little general goofiness for a Christmas video. But something else, because people ask us all the time, when can we win some more of those amazing after hours T-shirts with a picture of Penny on them? Right.

Have you seen them? I'm not. Oh, he didn't watch our YouTube video. The unboxing on our YouTube channel after hours with Amy Lawrence. There's a video. It's actually it's gone viral.

Thousands of views. And it's the unboxing. A listener sent us a box of T-shirts that she ordered for us. They are a unique color and they have my dog on the back.

A picture of my dog on them. Do I get one of these shirts? Well, if you guess the number of M&M's in the Christmas jar, you could win the T-shirts.

Increase your cool quotient. Is that what you want for your Christmas present? Or would you like the M&M's? No, I think I'd go with the T-shirt.

All right. I suppose we can we can give you one as a member of the show. Jay stole one and never gave it back. So he modeled it in the video and then just left with it and didn't return the T-shirt. There's a box full of them.

There is, but they're for listeners. I was modeling it. I don't even have one. It's on my body. It's mine.

I don't know. I just assumed. I agree.

What, possession is nine tenths of the law? That's right. Yeah. I mean, you're not going to give away to a listener a shirt that you already wore.

Sure you are. That's what washing machines are for. Plus, Jay wasn't wearing it on his body with nothing else. That'd be icky.

It'd be like a shirt. Anyway, so Jay has one. He stole one.

I don't even have one, but I'll give you one if you would like, if you participate in some of our Christmas festivities. Now, I've decided we're going to go red and green M&M's in a jar. And we're going to ask people just to guess the number of M&M's, which unfortunately means I have to count the M&M's as I put them in. And the other challenge is to keep them away from Jay, because if I leave the jar lying around, Jay will eat M&M's. Which will change the count. Which will change the number of M&M's in the jar.

You promised to leave it alone? Yeah, if they were like Skittles, I'd go for it more. No, they said to be red. Oh, well then Amy will eat the M&M's. Red and green M&M's in honor of Christmas, of course. So that's going to be our contest for you to win t-shirts. And I guess we'll take top three closest, because we have shirts that we can give away.

Top three closest. Extra large? Yeah, we might have to go a little higher than that. But we'll see what's in the box. It wouldn't shock me if there's not a shirt. What if we only have small left?

It wouldn't shock me if there's not a shirt with my size in that box. If you like, you can give one to your wife for Christmas. Your poor wife. She might like that. She might be like, what dog is this? I mean, she does like dogs. There you go. My daughter likes dogs.

Oh, there we go. We have a small one that you can give to your daughter. It'd be cute. She'd grow into it. I was going to say, yeah, it'd take a while.

That's all right. Penny is very attractive. And pretty soon, I mean, these t-shirts will memorialize Penny. She's 13. She's not going to live forever. Though I'm hoping she gets to 15.

But boy, I'm going to slow moving through our 13th year. Oh my gosh. This dog, she's not at all interested in a speed faster than shuffling. Not even remotely. Me neither.

Good for her. All right. So what I'm going to do over the weekend is I'm going to take a picture of a festive Christmas jar with green and red M&Ms. And you can start guessing. And I don't know, Jay, should we run it through the end of the year? Or should we run it through Christmas and then after that people will send the t-shirts? I think Christmas. Okay.

So I'll do it over the weekend. And it'll be pinned to the top of our Twitter accounts, also on our Facebook page, so that you can start to guess. And we'll take top three closest guesses. I didn't realize that this requires me to count.

Maybe I'll make Jay count. I mean, he needs to work for his salary. Actually, he doesn't really get paid. It's more like volunteer. That could be the price for the shirt, though.

There you go. Count the M&Ms because you stole a shirt. Seems reasonable to me. I'm not sure it's mine. He refuses to give it back. It's one of the things that he does under protest. It's like I have zero power.

It doesn't matter if my name is on the show. He refuses to give it back. My name's on the shirt.

Here's the other thing. He's not wearing it. He's just keeping it. It's my shirt. I can do what I please. Oh. Since when? Oh my gosh. I don't know.

I'm Jay. I'm with you. Not a whole lot of fringe benefits here, so I think take the shirt and run, man. That's true. Long gone. I wish you were long gone. Just kidding. That's not true.

I'm going to take that back before Jay gets his ego injured. All right. So find us on Twitter.

That's not possible. Find us on Twitter on our Facebook page, and we'll do that over the weekend. You get to guess the number of M&Ms in our Christmas jar to win a shirt. Plus, Survivor Island. We've got a winner.

We'll reveal that as well. Jay's trying to track him down. Look, we're all about Christmas spirit here on the show. You need the latest After Hours swag. Boom! The holidays are only a few days away.

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You are listening to the After Hours Podcast. Music And a puck coming out of the zone past Sandheim. Ovechkin out and looking toward the empty net. Gets the move on and scores. It's Alex Ovechkin with the empty net goal.

794 and his 14th of the year. Groverov from the outside. Sandheim with a chance in front for connecting and he can't give the shot away. And now the Capitals on a break. Here's Ovechkin again toward the empty net. He will score. Two goals for Alex Ovechkin and it's 4-1, Washington.

This is After Hours with Amy Lawrence. Our friend John Walton on Capitals Radio and Alex Ovechkin nets a pair of goals late in the third period. In fact, empty net goals for the Capitals in their win against the Flyers. And with that is now two large steps closer to the rarified territory of 800 career goals. So now he's sitting on 795, which is good for third all-time. We had a question on Ask Amy Anything last night.

Do I think that Alex can get there before the end of the year? Well, heck yeah. And that was before he had two goals on Wednesday night.

It's nice to be out there, obviously. Good pass by Cusi at the second one and a great play by Ovechkin in the first one. You watch him every night and how hard he plays, how much he cares.

That's what you don't see sometimes, I think. You see it because you watch him when he's on the ice and you see his passion on the ice. But I always think when you coach somebody, you get a better feel and a different read for him. And he loves the game and he loves coming to the rink and he plays hard every day. He practices hard every day. And it's been great to be a part of it to this point. Peter Laviolette speaking about Alex Ovechkin, still one of the big stars in the NHL.

And you want to talk about longevity. He's still uber productive and now similar to the countdown with Albert Pujols getting to 700 home runs. Here is Ovechkin stalking 800.

And there are only a couple of guys who have ever gotten to this plateau. Again, very similar to Pujols who became the fourth baseball player ever to smash 700 home runs. Alex Ovechkin is in a category that only includes Gordie Howe and Wayne Gretzky. Now Gordie Howe is six goals in front of Ovechkin. So he's likely to not only get to 800 but to pass Gordie Howe.

And that could even happen before the 2022 calendar year is up. And then Wayne Gretzky who is still another 100 goals ahead of him, he's on top of the list. But yeah, this is pretty sweet. The fact that Ovechkin is going to see this honor and we've not heard much talk of retirement with him.

People ask every now and then. But this is a guy who again is still very productive and is carrying the joy still and the love of the game. You know how much he loves it. The intensity is always there. He's a great captain. He sets the tone for his team.

He's one of the most recognizable hockey players in the world. And there doesn't seem to be much letdown. Of course there is when you naturally get older. Maybe there's a step slow. Maybe you're not as explosive. But what he makes or what he lacks and this is the case for most athletes who have played at the highest level. What he might lack.

Again, it's negligible. But what he might lack in speed or explosiveness he makes up for with cunning and with savvy and with experience. And with the way that he communicates with his teammates and this group that's been together. How he raises the level of play when he's on the ice. So he's still a load.

Still a big dude. And still is extremely deft when it comes to not just the assists but the goals. And I just love to see him set up. You can almost see the brain or the wheels turning in his mind as he watches plays unfold. And where he can go and how he can cause it to be a positive on the ice. So not empty possessions or empty trips down the ice.

Whether it's empty deck goals or it's not. Who cares? I just think he's so much fun to watch and is really a unique personality. In addition to someone who's now climbing through the ranks and in the history books.

And it's a lot like a Tom Brady say. Or trying to think of, I mean Chris Paul has been around basketball for such a long time. You think about these guys who have great longevity. And of course every night or every other night, every week there's another piece of history.

Another step up in the career books in this category or that category. So two more goals for Alex Ovechkin. Now it's 795 and I'm starting to get just as excited for him as I was for Albert Pujols. And I hope that hockey makes just as big a deal out of it. Because again we're talking about thousands and thousands of players who have donned NHL uniforms.

And he will be just the third ever to score 800 goals over the course of his career. It's not just about health and durability. It's also about the productivity and not just skating out the strings so to speak. Thanks so much for hanging out with us. Our fourth show of the work week. You know what that means.

And if you don't by now, well you should. We are about to kick off another NFL weekend. And this weekend because we're post championships in college football. There's the Army Navy game. But then the NFL takes over Saturdays as well. Just in time for the holidays. It's got urban sprawl. It never stops.

It completely derailed me. We'll be right back after hours with Amy Lawrence, CBS Sports Radio. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back.