12-1-23 After Hours with Amy Lawrence PODCAST: Hour 2

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That's betterhelp.com slash positive. Hey, hey! Oh, we were a little off there. We definitely were not harmonizing.

It's all right. It's a free for all Friday. We're heading into a football Friday. It's gonna be a fantastic football weekend, not just because of the NFL, but Cowboys Seahawks started at a soft with points and flags aplenty.

It's like something out of, I don't know, the Victorian age. Points and flags aplenty. There was a lot to keep us entertained and a lot to complain about, but a lot to like from AT&T Stadium.

Still to come on the show, a preview of Niners and Eagles. And we've also got the After Hours Game of the Week poll. It is up and running and waiting for you personally to cast your vote. And unlike some of the polling places that we employ, you don't have to go anywhere. You just have to open up Twitter or Facebook and cast your vote that way. While you're there, if you could pick any animal to be your emotional support animal, what animal would it be?

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That's 855-212-4CBS. It's not just NFL this weekend though. You know it's conference championships and college football and we see the undefeateds on top. We are hoping that they will be challenged, that there will be some chaos. And when I say we, I just mean me and Jay. I don't know what everybody else is hoping for, but yes, we would like to see a little drama, a little mixing it up.

And so when the final college football playoff rankings are revealed, we don't actually know exactly how they will look even before they are unveiled by the committee. Our friend, Late Kick Josh. That's how you know him. He's like Christmas. He only comes around once a year here on After Hours, so maybe we should do Christmas in July since he's one of our faves. He's got Late Kick Josh as a very popular show and a podcast.

He's also on CBS Sports HQ and he's on the move for championship weekend, so we'll get to that. Josh, thanks so much for hanging out with us. We've gotten to this point. There's so much build up. How are you feeling about the big weekend? Well, the entire talking point around college football is lack of chaos. I call it volcanic Saturday. Normally we have like three of them and we haven't had that one Saturday where there's just this big cloud of dust over the sport after multiple upsets. And yeah, it could happen this weekend, Amy, but there's also this path where, you know, if we don't have a lot of upsets and mostly chalk holes, we could have this log jam where we've only got four spots and you've got five or six teams that feel like they're deserving. And all the while you've got people like me over here in the corner who have railed against playoff expansion and it's like the mob all of a sudden turns and looks at me collectively as if to say, all right, now what? You've got what you wanted, now what?

And I just, I'm the Shruggy emoji. I'm here for it. What would it look like potentially if we already had the expanded playoff? To me, it would look a little lame. To most people, it would look very exciting because most people, I think the difference fundamentally in my argument versus the expansion argument is most people who are pro expansion, they start their argument by looking at the hypothetical bracket of the 12 teams and saying, how could you not like this?

This looks so exciting. And I never disagree with them. So then they say, well, okay, why don't you want it? And I say, well, that's not chapter one of the book. That's like chapter six.

To get to that, you have to go through chapter 12345. And, you know, chapter one, let's just take Penn State, for example. Penn State's out of the playoff picture right now, as they should be. They're not an elite team. They had a shot against Michigan and they lost. They went and had a shot against Ohio State earlier in the season and they lost.

Okay, that's like chapter one and two. And so I don't have any interest in getting to that third chapter where all of a sudden a two loss Penn State gets a shot in a tournament to win a championship because it really devalues the emphasis that was placed on those two games. And I could say that about a lot of different teams. Like I love that Alabama has their playoff life on the line this Saturday. I love that Georgia has had to win every single game this year and still they don't know what would happen. Still, they think they need to win Saturday.

Michigan, ditto. Like, I love the hundred foot in the air tightrope walk that is the regular season. And I know people, because I've got several friends who disagree with me on this, and they all tell me, oh, it's not going to devalue anything. It just puts emphasis on more games. Amy, you cannot pretend to watch games and just ignore the safety net under it. You can't watch Ohio State and Michigan last week if you know that they inevitably are both going to the playoffs no matter what. You cannot just pretend it still means the same.

And so, I don't know. Maybe it's the old school in me. I grew up on a way of college football and I love it and whatever. No, I agree with you. The idea behind the playoff and making it small and even going back to the BCS, which was a different model, now archaic, the idea was that every single game during the regular season would matter. And if you lost early in the year, well, okay, you had some time to work your way back up. But yeah, the closer you got to the end of the race, the closer you got to the finish line, the more each of these games mattered and the less of a margin for error.

So I agree. I think the build up is so incredible. You can almost feel the tension coming into conference championship because if these top four teams have a slip up of any sort, well, too late.

You're out of real estate. See, the other thing, the beauty to me of the BCS era was we had that and we only had two spots, but we didn't have this meaningless bowl game era that we had entered into that really came in conjunction with the playoffs. Like back in the BCS day, if you lost a game late, yeah, it sucked and yeah, I'm probably not going to be able to play for a conference championship or maybe play for the national championship. But back then, being 10 and 2 and going to the Cotton Bowl, being 9 and 3 and going to the Peach Bowl, that still had a ton of value. When the playoff came around, that coincided with certain networks that had certain media rights deals putting all the marketing emphasis on the playoffs and the public bought it. And then the public started saying things and believing in things like if you're not in contention for the playoff, the games are irrelevant. And if you go to a bowl game that doesn't have a playoff sticker on it, well, it's kind of irrelevant. And the players believed that. And then the players started opting out of games that didn't have playoff significance.

And all of a sudden you're on a slippery slope. You can't put the toothpaste back in the tube. And now you're asking, well, how do we get the value back in bowl season?

You can't. It's like that meme where, you know, there's a guy with a gun with smoke coming out saying, how could we do this to bowl season? You did it to bowl season.

Like you did it. So I think that probably it's wishful thinking to want to go back to that. But I do miss it. Philosophies with Josh Pate. You know him as Late Kick Josh. He's got this incredibly popular college football show. It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence, CBS Sports Radio. We're just happy to be able to connect with you for a couple of minutes. Now, before we get into conference championship actual matchups, I have to ask you about this.

And maybe I'm naive because I just didn't see this coming or didn't realize it until Matt Rule said it at his press conference this week that there are players in college football earning six to seven million dollars. Am I the only one who didn't know this, Josh? Yes.

How can I say this kindly? No, I'm joking with you. I think that there is a pretty big swath of the general sporting public and probably the college football public that doesn't understand how the sausage is being made right now. But that is reality. That's the quarterback market. And look, that's a big dollar figure. Unless you start ascertaining what the return on that investment is, it's no different than at the NFL level. And it's kind of gross to me that we've gone that route of conversation.

But whatever, it is what it is now. If you go get the right quarterback, he's worth tens of millions of dollars any given year to your program. I mean, look, I'm going to watch Bo Nix lead Oregon against Michael Pennix and Washington. Those two are transfer portal quarterbacks who make pretty good money in NIL. But if even now, if those guys were on the market, those guys are two million dollar a year quarterbacks. Now, you can either raise your eyebrow at that figure or you can ask Oregon, what is it worth going to the Pac-12 title game, not to mention all the free marketing you've gotten because we're talking about them right now for free.

Also, you may go to the playoffs. How much is that worth? How much is it worth to Washington football to have been plastered coast to coast as much as they were this year? Because that's because of a kid from Indiana who couldn't stay healthy, came to your place and it all clicked.

And now, voila, here you are. So, yeah, it's a big number. But for the most important position on the field, if the domino falls your way, it's still a bargain, even today, even at that price point. I do agree with that.

And you're right. It's why we talk about the monetary values for quarterbacks in the NFL and say, come on, if they win a Super Bowl, the franchise in the city has made double that or triple that. But my question, Josh, is about pay for play. You and I have had this conversation about NIL really doubling or disguising as pay for play. Doesn't that tilt the playing field then? Because there are some schools that just can't afford that or I guess some boosters, some sponsors that aren't going to be able to fork that over top QBs?

So ultimately, what you're going to see is, well, first, my answer to your question is yes. And because of that, what you will see in the aggregate is you'll see the same teams win and they've always won. I've argued this till I'm blue in the face because there is a detracting point of view out there that NIL will level the playing field in college athletics.

But what people don't take into account is going and buying talent alone is not how you win. Organizations still win championships. It's just as true in college as it is in the Sunday game. You build the organization differently in college, but it's just as true. What you'll notice is, we just brought up Pennax and Knicks, for example, what you'll notice is those are quarterbacks who have thrived because they were dropped into solid organizations. It's no different than we used to talk about Brady with Belichick and vice versa.

And conversely, you know, Carson Palmer wasted away some of his career in Cincinnati because he didn't have a solid organization there. And in the Saturday game, it's the same. The misconception amongst people who kind of know what they're talking about enough to be dangerous is, all right, well, now if some random team out there that's normally eight wins per year gets a booster with a wild hair and you've got, you know, eight-figure net worth, they can just go buy a quarterback. It will not matter. I am telling you, it will not matter. You'll think it'll matter and it'll garner all the headlines. And then they'll go seven and five, like USC just did, by the way, with a superhero roster offensively, and you'll be left scratching your head in December.

And it shouldn't confuse you. It's a poorly built organization on the West Coast right now. And I know they were preseason favorites, but they were never favored in many people's minds to win that conference because folks knew that. So you've got the Alabamas, Georges, et cetera, of the world who understand how to build model organizations. They'll go selectively, purchase the best talent, and they'll win with them. And you'll have other places who think they can cut the corners and go buy the talent without having the proper structural organization. And they will go eight and four and then their coaching will be fired because the boosters will want return on their investment. So it's kind of the same old song and dance. It's just this used to happen in recruiting. Now it happens out in the open.

Right. Josh Pate is with us here after our CBS Sports Radio. You are going to be posted up at Allegiant Stadium for the Pac-12 Championship. By the way, also home of the next Super Bowl. What is the future of the Pac-12 after this very high stakes conference title game?

It's going to be off your radar for a little while. It'll be sort of the equivalent of what we presently call a G5 conference. And I don't look I don't even know what power five means anymore moving forward.

It's more like power two or power three. And we're really going to have to reassess how we phrase that. So in the future, the Pac-12, you know, you'll have your Oregon State, Washington State. They'll merge with another lesser conference.

They'll be OK. Like, I think that name will live, but it will live in a different capacity. I just kind of selfishly think it's a shame that finally the conference gets its act together on its way out the door. And not only do you have Oregon, Washington, but Arizona has been a wonderful story. I think Jed Fish probably is your coach of the year in all of college football.

You've you've got think about this, Amy. You've got the Pac-12 unanimously having their best season in a decade. And Southern Cal wasn't even a part of it. Southern Cal was a disappointment. And you would have thought you have to have USC spearheading a Pac-12 surge if it were to happen.

But nope. Oregon State's been great. Utah's been good.

UCLA had a pulse early on and it's been really competitive and really fun to watch out there. We believe that the winner of this game would end up in the college football playoff because you're talking about three versus five. But you mentioned chaos or mentioned kind of that big blow up weekend.

Where else is the potential for a lot of chaos? Let me go back to one thing you just said. I think if Washington wins, it's a moot point they're in. I do not know that it's a foregone conclusion that Oregon is in if they win. And I can I can pretty well assure you they are a little they're a little I'm not going to say worried about it, but they're aware of that even inside their organization there because they know what a twelve and one SEC champion Alabama sitting there on Saturday night means to that committee. And I don't care where they have them ranked right now.

Like it's one thing to catch out these hypotheticals. If you watch Alabama beat Georgia and Atlanta for the SEC championship, it is tough and it should be tough for that committee to leave them out. Now, if it comes down to a head to head, Bama, Texas, Texas will go. They've got the head to head win regular season.

That should be the case. But if it comes down to one spot left and it's a Bama Oregon debate, Bama's got more ranked wins. Bama's got the better strength of schedule. Bama's got a lot of those in their favor.

Also, they've just got the brand of Alabama and the name Nick Saban and that sticker SEC right there next to their name. That's one chaos theory. The other chaos theory is I think that Louisville may beat Florida State and they're a slight favorite.

And those were a slight favorite. But top 15 run defense for Louisville, you're without your quarterback and FSU. They're going to have to be a run first approach here Saturday. It's going to probably be very rainy in Charlotte. And I have not heard a lot of people take that into consideration, but it could be an ugly game. And if they fall, if Washington falls, especially if Georgia falls, that would be three unbeatens falling in conference title weekend. And then you start to ask questions like, is Texas in? I think they're going to win comfortably. I think they will be in. But do you have one spot left?

Do you have two spots left? Like those sorts of debates are the ones that could rage. Now, the one I didn't bring up to you because I respect your airtime too much to waste it with this. The one I didn't bring up is Iowa over Michigan. And I'm just going to let you guess why I didn't bring that possibility up.

There are so many things that would have to take place. I think Iowa would need 17 to 20 non-offensive points to even be in the realm of competitiveness in the fourth quarter. It's just there's there's no way. I've never said that about a conference title game. There is no way. If I'll eat crow, I will come on your show next week. But there's no way that's happening.

You know, now that I'm rooting for Iowa, I'm sorry, Jim Harbaugh and Wolverines fans in Ann Arbor. I would love to have Josh eat crow here on the show. So that's what I'm dialing up, Josh. Now, hang on. I got a big question for you. What happens with Georgia, Alabama and the possibility that the Tide could take out the Dawgs? Then what do we do with the playoffs? So that's coming up. Got to have you wait. Late kick Josh.

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You are listening to the After Hours Podcast. This isn't just another game now. It's going to require normal preparation. It's going to require normal execution. But it isn't just a normal game. So I think you recognize the elephant in the room and communicate that with your players and then say, okay, what are we going to do about it?

This is After Hours with Amy Lawrence. I can't imagine any coach tries to sell Conference Championship Weekend as just a normal day. It's just your average run of the mill Saturday. Nah, not when you're talking about college football playoff appearances riding on it. Could that change when the playoff expands?

Sure. You could have Conference Championships that feature two teams that know they're in. But not this weekend.

Not this year. It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio. A few more minutes with our friend Late Kick Josh. His actual given name is Josh Pate. But he's got an awesome college football show called Late Kick Josh. And you can also see him on CBS Sports HQ.

He is in Las Vegas for the Pac-12 Championship on Friday. But will also be doing the Crazy Red Eye to get to Atlanta for the SEC Championship come Saturday. So let's dive into this one. I need to know, Josh, what if Georgia loses to Alabama?

Does that automatically drop the dogs out? How much time do we have right now? We've got time. Go. Okay.

Okay. So this is a soapbox and it's really aggravated me because I listened to Bill Hancock the other night, who's the president of the playoff committee. And he said something voluntarily that I think was really shortsighted to say. He said, paraphrasing him, but he said, the most deserving team is not even a phrase that's in our lexicon as the committee. We are out to put the best teams, the four best teams in.

Now, that sounds all well and good, but it's total BS because that's not what they've done. But if I were to take his word as gospel, if I were to go down that road, there is no way, whether they win or lose Saturday, that Georgia is not one of the four best teams in the country. So if Bill Hancock's words, those aren't my words, if Bill Hancock's words are gospel, then there's no way you leave Georgia out. Having said that, I guarantee you, you're not having two SEC teams in that playoff. So if Bama wins and they're in and you've got Michigan winning and they're in and you've got Texas winning and they're in, and you've got either Oregon or Washington winning or Florida State winning, those teams are in over Georgia.

I will promise you that's going to happen. And if it happens, a point spread will be put out. There will be sports books come out and they will put the hypothetical odds out. And they're going to tell you Georgia would have been double digit favorites over multiple teams in the playoff. And you're going to be able to look right back across the table at Bill Hancock and say, how did you decide on this field?

And he's going to be tongue tied. There's no answer because you can't say that. Last year, TCU goes to the playoffs. You've got odds makers telling you Bama would have been a 10-point favorite over TCU had Bama faced them. And Bama got left out. Now, I agreed that TCU should have been in. I agreed Bama should have been out because I didn't think Bama deserved to be in. But if all of a sudden we're just putting the four best teams in, well, at that point, you're just talking about power rating teams. And I put one of those out every Tuesday and get yelled at on the Internet because it doesn't look like the playoff committee rankings. But it shouldn't.

Power ratings should not look like merit-based rankings because one of them is done on a computer and the other involves on-field results. And I'm really not sure what the committee is trying to tell us they're valuing right now. And we're a decade into this process, by the way. And it's about to change.

The ground all moves again underneath your feet. And you've guaranteed me that there's no way Michigan doesn't win in its conference championship. Does that mean Jim Harbaugh is right that the Wolverines are in fact America's team?

I love you so much for this. Look, here has been my philosophy on this. I don't know who America's team is in college football, but I and so I don't know if it's Michigan, but I will say I was at the Penn State game. I was at the Ohio State game last week. I have a lot of respect for how player led that team is. And I got a lot of respect for how even though their leader's hands were like forcibly removed from the steering wheel. The true mark of a strong organization is the car doesn't swerve into the ditch. I mean, that's how good an organization he's built there.

You tear the leader away from a poorly led organization and it just starts doing barrel rolls on the interstate immediately. And that's not what Michigan did. And it's because a couple of years ago, I'm down in Miami. I'm watching them play Georgia in a semifinal game and they get boat raced. And a lot of those at the time, true freshmen and sophomores are standing on the field with that black and red confetti raining down and they're just standing there watching the Georgia trophy celebration.

Well, you fast forward a couple of years. They're not kids anymore. Those are grown men. They're about to play on Sundays next year. And they are the ones leading that team. And they've taken the mentality of we don't really care what anyone else thinks. And I know some people say that, but that program is actually embodying that right now. I don't know if they're going to win a national title and I don't know if anyone really likes them and I don't know if they care. But it has at least garnered a lot of respect for me having been around it a couple of times to see how they've gone about their business.

Oh no, they definitely don't care. In fact, I'm pretty sure Jim Harbaugh would say thank you because you created a monster. To me, they look like a team on a mission. And as much as we can debate whether or not he deserved the three game suspension or what type of rules violations, fact is they are, they're locked in. Yeah, they're locked in. And what's interesting to me as we sort of push forward on all this is they've been terrible in postseason play.

Harbaugh has been terrible at Michigan record wise in bowl games and postseason play. So they've gotten past Ohio State three consecutive times now and don't have playoff wins to show for it. And it looks like they're going to get another swing at it.

And they are the best equipped that they will have been. And what I wonder is if they go and lose in the semifinal game again, how does this season get viewed? Because it's incomplete right now. And I'm talking about from a Michigan fan's perspective, it's incomplete right now. But if you go and you beat Ohio State and that's its own season, that's a win. You can't take that away. But if they go lose a semifinal game again, I really wonder like there's immense pressure still on this program.

They're not playing with nothing to lose by any stretch. Josh Pate is his name, but you know him by late kick Josh. And he loves to stir up controversy, like if the college football playoff committee actually puts the best four into the playoff, Georgia should be the biggest lock of the century. But he's still going to be at the game as well as the Pac-12 championship in Vegas. You want to find him on Twitter at late kick Josh and catch the great show. And we've determined not once a year but twice a year we can manage to connect over college football.

And next week if Iowa beats Michigan. So an emergency third session is pending. Thank you Josh. Safe travels.

I appreciate it. He's promised we could have an emergency sesh with late kick Josh who now is in Vegas. Soon will be in Atlanta and then we get the college football playoff ranking. So yeah, I'm hoping that something crazy happens. Is it Iowa over Michigan?

He says that can't possibly happen. But what does the committee do if Bama beats Georgia? You obviously can't leave Alabama out. If the Tide beat the Dogs, well then Alabama's in.

But do you also include Georgia? Now if you hadn't heard, Nick Saban is already out there with a preemptive strike. Talking about how the SEC should not be left out of the playoff if the committee wears glasses. No that's not what he said.

We'll let you hear what he had to say. And yeah, it is conference championship weekend. There's so much riding on it. I'm still not really on board with the expanded playoff. But I know there's no putting the genie back in the bottle so to speak. Just because there's so much more money in it.

They're going to expand it whether you like it or not. But I'm not a huge fan. I like every game of the regular season being extremely compelling. I love the fact that Ohio State Michigan knew what was riding on their game last weekend in Ann Arbor.

And I really love the fact that you, wait the game wasn't Ann Arbor right? Shoot. Okay. I'm like wait a minute. Uh oh.

It was so long ago. I love the fact that every single step becomes more and more compelling. But you know what? I'm also the girl that really enjoys the one game wild card in baseball playoffs. I don't need a series.

Just go out there. And if you really have the chops to win the World Series, well then prove it to us in game number one. And I think it's a great way to start the baseball playoffs. Because then you get drama and you get winner take all right off the top. I think that's way better than what we had this year which was all three of the wild card three, four. All four of the wild card games ending before we ever got to game three.

It was wah wah wah. We've got the after hours game of the week poll up on our social media. Some of you are being decidedly rude when it comes to responding to the poll.

Just vote. We don't need your gallery comments. Your peanut gallery comments. Duh. Well this is a stupid question. We do it every week.

It's not like we just started it this week. So vote will you? And keep your hands inside the ride at all times. Your hands and feet inside the ride at all times.

All right. Coming up. Tiger Woods back on the golf course. And he's sore.

But not like what you think. And no his glutes are not shutting off or whatever that old. Remember that old we used to we actually it's in our hall of flame I believe.

That was the choice for listeners in the hall of flame going back years and years ago. Because he was talking about how his glutes were shutting off. I don't even know what that means. Marco at the risk of being called inappropriate and you calling H.R. on me. Or is it P.R. H.R. P.R.

both. Have you ever had your glutes shut off. No I pulled one though bowling once. Bowling. Oh yeah. Amazing.

Not kidding. Did you like go over the line and slip. I don't know what the hell I did. All I remember was it was a long night. We were having a lot of fun but it was it was it was late.

We were not so not exactly in our right minds. And all of a sudden. Yeah.

I mean I said on the air all of a sudden I started yelling at I think I just pulled my ass. I'm not kidding. That's what happened. So yep. There you go.

OK. Well it makes you feel any better. I was once golfing with a friend of mine. His name is Mark and he hopped over my line on the putting green and pulled his calf muscle when he hopped over my line. And I told him Mark don't tell anyone that. Make sure that you pretend like you were diving to save me from a bear rushing onto the golf course. You know what I mean again like we all get older so like these things happen. My favorite that I've ever seen.

And you know do you say like oh you want to hide that. I watched my friend running after his toddler and we're in a park. So she's running away and he starts running after he dropped like somebody like shot him with a sniper. Down he went because he pulled both hamstrings and then he's yelling go get Carlin because she keeps running and he can't move.

He's down he's done. He pulled both hands down and I'm having a hard time. I've never heard anyone pull both hamstrings at the same time. Running after a toddler as he wasn't exactly going full speed and he's actually in good shape. Down like he got shot from a sniper and I had to clear the you know the water from my eyes because I was crying I almost hit the ground I was laughing so hard. And then I'm thinking to myself let me go get her before she gets too far away and then I got to run and probably pull something.

And then you pull both hamstrings yes. Oh my gosh that's hysterical. All right on Twitter after our CBS on our Facebook page too. Good to have you with us.

Thanks so much for hanging out. We're heading into the month of December and also a freaky fantastic free for all football Friday. Any more F's. No not that F. We're not using that F Marco white that deck your home with plies dot com la la la la la la la la la la. DIY or let us install la la la la la la la la la la. free to sign consultation especially free samples and free shipping lines dot com invented a way to buy custom high quality window treatments with no show room mock-ups waiting around for quotes from pushy sales people saving you time and money for the holidays. with upfront pricing right on our website. Go right now to Blinds.com and satisfaction guaranteed.

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Blinds.com. Rules and restrictions may apply. The most unique NBA podcast is out on Odyssey. Heat check with Trista Crick. NBA fans, listen up. I'm Trista Crick, host of the Heat Check Podcast.

And if you love this league, the storylines, and want a funny digestible way to get all the news from around the association and someone to break down what's really going on straight up, no chaser, and make you laugh at the same time, follow the Heat Check on the free Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts. When you use bounce dryer sheets and your clothes look amazing, it's the sheet. Less static in your life? Yeah, it's the sheet. Smelling fresher than ever? It's the sheet. Oh, so soft fabric?

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Work off your face. I didn't say a thing. You are listening to the After Hours Podcast. My game feels rusty. I haven't played in a while. I'm excited to compete and play, and I'm just as curious as all of you are to see what happens because I haven't done in a while.

This is After Hours with Amy Lawrence. Tiger Woods is not ready to give up. He's not ready to say he can't compete moving forward. He loves the competition and he still believes that he can win. He was asked by reporters in advance of the Hero World Challenge, which is his tournament in the Bahamas. He was asked whether or not he still believed he could win, and he said absolutely. It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio. His foot fusion.

It's just such a strange phrase, but also makes me feel all types of emotions. The fusion surgery on his foot. Again, his foot fusion. That happened eight months ago.

This his first competitive round of golf since the Masters. So how did it feel? I'm sore. There's no doubt about that. And we got some work to do tonight. And I was saying to Todd tomorrow, get back in the gym and activate and get ready for it. And hopefully hit some better shots.

And now I know mentally what I need to do better. It wasn't terrible. He had a three over 75.

Now this is a very exclusive field. They're only 20 golfers. He did seem to peter out at the end of the round because he was four over par in just the last four holes. So maybe he got tired then. But the good news, it wasn't his right foot or his right ankle that were giving him trouble. It wasn't the fact that he was having trouble walking, right? It was more about just the fact that he was rusty and hadn't used these muscles to get him to the right foot. And he didn't use those muscles in quite a while.

Physically, I knew I was going to be OK. Mentally, I was really rusty and made a lot of errors in the mind and normally I don't make. Mental errors, not something you ever hear Tiger Woods talk about, right? Remember when he was in his heyday at the very top of his game and top of the world, actually transcending his sport, his mind was one of his greatest assets. He could pound the snot out of the ball.

He obviously could hit it so far. Remember, they tried to Tiger proof golf courses when he was number one in the world because he would out drive pretty much everyone or he could drive the green or he could use long drives. Now, they weren't always accurate, but when they were, he could use long drives to get him so close to the green that he'd just be able to do a pitch up on top of the putting surface. And so they tried to extend the length of golf courses and even at the Masters trying to Tiger proof different courses to be able to make the pin farther out or at difficult pin placements.

The Masters a little bit different because it's always challenging with the undulating greens and the drastic angles and some of the bunker placements. So not that one, but other courses, they were trying to extend the holes like the US Open. They would try to make the holes longer so that it would be more difficult for Tiger.

That's what they talked about with Tiger proofing. So you would never really hear much about mental errors because he would stalk his putts and remember all the talk and really it was a thing for a long time. Anyone who was paired with him, whether it be the first couple rounds or whether it be in the final round of a golf tournament was already sunk because he had such a mental toughness that was really intimidating to anyone who would play with him.

It was definitely an issue with Phil Mickelson whenever they were paired up. And so for Tiger mental errors, yeah, not something that you hear him talk about. But he does now recognize the value of being out there and the value of having the repetition which he just hasn't had for the last eight months.

You take it for granted, I guess, when you're playing all the time. Okay, the wind, it's coming up. You move the ball back. You just kind of lean on it just a little bit. I'll just flight it down a little bit.

I'll add a couple yards in. Instead of reacting to it, I was thinking about doing it. And then as I was thinking about it, should I do this or not?

By then, I'm pulling the trigger and I shouldn't really pull the trigger. And then I had a bad shot. I kept doing it time and time again. It was just a lack of commitment to what I was doing and feeling.

And I got to do a better job of it. Interesting because we would call that hesitation. We would call it second guessing in different sports. In fact, I was just talking about what we see with Bryce Young of the Carolina Panthers or what you see with other quarterbacks. Actually, I was talking about it with Mac Jones, too. The fact that he seems hesitant to me. And he doesn't commit or isn't confident as much as he might say that he is. It seems to me that it's more mental, the issue with Mac Jones right now. And here is Tiger talking about it, too. So only three over par, but finished poorly and seemed to run out of steam. And also ends up just kind of battling other pain back because he's an old dude.

And that's what happens when you play a round of golf for the first time in eight months. You're back generally. We'll give you some trubs.

It'll be bulky. It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence here on CBS Sports Radio. You can take the After Hours Game of the Week poll on Twitter, ALawRadio or After Hours CBS, and then also on our Facebook page. Our show question of the night is also getting some interesting responses. I just got one that I love.

Let me set the question. You can tell me if you could pick anything to be your emotional support animal. Any fauna? It's fauna, right? Flora and fauna?

Any fauna on the planet to be your emotional support animal? What would it be? Jay? Well, this isn't mine.

I just came in on our show Twitter. Our friend Gut Boy says emotional support scorpion. Also a great idea right up there with Gator. And I saw someone else respond with Wolf.

Right up there with Wolf. Good idea. Let's talk to... Is it JR or Junior? JR in Pittsburgh. Welcome to After Hours, CBS Sports Radio. Amy, you know what? First of all, big shout out. Number one, honestly, it's good to know that you're not voice tracked.

You're live. How could you possibly think I was voice tracked? I make all kinds of dumb mistakes. If I was voice tracked, I would make sure it was perfect. Because you know what?

If you're really good with voice tracking, you'll let the mistakes go because it makes it seem like it's live. If you really listen to the show, you would know I'm not. Because I'm actually commenting on things that are happening just in the last few minutes. Right. And that's my second thing, right? You know what? I want to give you mad love for talking about the Comrades, okay? Okay. Like mad love, respect for that. And I know like the majority of your listeners, in fact, probably all of them don't know what you're talking about. But I do, and you know what? Respect on that.

That's all I have for you. Well, I explained it. It's a piece of equipment that you can use to create quality broadcast from anywhere. However, it does not sound the same as being in studio, unless you know some of the tricks. For instance, if you're in an empty room, like a living room that has hardwood floors and doesn't have heavy curtains or doesn't have carpet, you can hear the sound kind of bouncing off the walls. I know early in the pandemic, I had some colleagues, I swear they were doing their shows or their updates from bathrooms, because it was echoing.

Or they were in a kitchen where the sandwich is bouncing all off the walls and off the tile and stuff. So yeah, it's a piece of equipment that's extremely valuable. I do not own my own. But when we do interviews, for instance, we talked to Steve Largent this week, the Hall of Famer, and in order to accommodate his schedule, I did record the conversation from home and use this piece of equipment.

And there are still people all over the country that do their radio shows remotely using Comrex's. So my thing is, you know what, respect to you, keep the game going, keep on grinding. I love it. That's all I got, man. All right, JR, thanks so much for your phone call.

Have a great weekend in Pittsburgh. Honestly, the fact that people might actually consider this as voice tracked or that it's not live cracks me up. You have to know that we are total goofballs. And what we're doing here on the air is authentic as it gets. Also, what would be the point of that?

I don't even know how. You have to do more work to make it fit, because in order to cut it down so that it's the exact timing, it requires all kinds of A, math, but B, editing, because it never fits, right? Unless you edit it down and trim it down to go around commercial breaks. So you actually end up doing more work than if you had just done the show live. It would probably take more than four hours to make the four hour show. It might be an eight hour process, because I have done shows in the past. At my previous network, we did shows that were recorded and then flipped on the air. And it's so much work. Again, mostly because you have to get the segments to fit into a particular clock, into a particular footprint. And it's not as easy as it sounds. Also, if I voice tracked, I would never make mistakes. It's after hours on CBS Sports Radio.