Did Ryan Day Earn Your Respect? (Hour 2)

It is! The JR Sportbree Show here with you coast to coast on the Infinity Sports Network. We're coming to you live from Atlanta, Georgia. Thank you to everybody listening all over North America. I am going to be here with you for the next three hours. It's a four-hour show.

It gets started every weekday at 6 p.m. Eastern, 3 Pacific. We've already had a busy first hour of the show. We learned about the newest and latest inductees into the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Billy Wagner, Cece Sabathia, and Ichiro Suzuki. We talked about the national championship game last night of college football, the Ohio State winning over Notre Dame. A matter of fact, in about 20 minutes from now, we're going to have a chat with Tim May. He has covered the Buckeyes for almost 40 plus years.

Not almost, 40 plus years. We're going to have a chat with him about what took place last night, Ryan Day, what we can expect from the program moving forward. Yeah, we got some changes that are coming. And are the fans happy with this?

They didn't beat Michigan, but they won a national championship. You got to be some balance. There has to be some balance there. So we'll talk to Tim May in about 20 minutes from now. Thank you to everybody listening on the free Odyssey app. People tuned in on their local Infinity Sports Network affiliate. If you got Sirius XM, it's channel 375. If you got a smart speaker, ask it to play the Infinity Sports Network.

And shout outs to people on YouTube. Yes, you can now watch this show. You can watch this show streaming on YouTube. Just search the Infinity Sports Network on YouTube, and you can watch the JR Sport Brief show.

Great. You can find me online at JR Sport Brief. And if you want to call up, you can 855-212-4227.

That's 855-212-4227. As we continue on with the show, there are other pieces of news that I do want to share and discuss. Aaron Glenn potentially being the next coach of the New York Jets. Okay, used to play for the New York Jets.

We'll talk about it. Defensive coordinator for the Detroit Lions as he found a new home and a new job. No longer a coordinator. Elevated to a coach, we'll find out. Ben Johnson introduced today to the fans in Chicago, the Chicago Bears. That organization had some words. And then Josh McDaniels.

This kind of broke a little more than an hour ago. Mike Vrabel is hiring Josh McDaniels to return to the New England Patriots to operate as their offensive coordinator. This is what the hell he did where they won six championships. Except for right now, Bill Belichick is not going to be his boss. Mike Vrabel is. And I think that Josh McDaniels will, he'll do a little bit better here than a head coach of the Las Vegas Raiders or Denver. I think being a coordinator is probably a little bit more his speed. Just a little bit.

We'll talk about more of that as we continue on in the show. And it's not easy being a coach in any capacity. I don't care if you're coaching in the NFL. I don't care if you're coaching in college.

Like you got to have the talent that you can go out there and work with. And we can all sit back and laugh on Netflix roasts and what have you about Belichick and Brady. Tom Brady's not stupid. And neither is Belichick.

And people could have arguments all over the damn place. Oh, is it Brady? Is it Belichick and Brady?

Is it Belichick and Brady? Man, if you're coaching two garbage cans, you're not going to get any results. You got to have players. That doesn't take away from you as a coach. You can't just coach anybody and expect results. And so Belichick just, he has said this himself multiple times.

You need the players there. And so last night, in a crazy way, and we saw how bad until the end of the game, that Ohio State beat up on Notre Dame 34 to 23. Marcus Freeman did what a lot of great coaches do. Marcus Freeman, the head coach of the Notre Dame Fighting Irish, he took responsibility for the loss. He took accountability for what happened. He blamed him self. And it's just like, why are you blaming yourself?

Oh, yeah. He kicked the field goal late in the game when he had nine yards to go to put the ball in the end zone. It's like, why are you kicking a nine-yard field goal?

Man, just go for it. But I'm not going to say that that blew the game for the guy. What blew the game is that they didn't have as much talent as Ohio State. That's just the reality. But what the head coach can't say is, they're better than us. Can't say that.

Not at all. As a matter of fact, Marcus Freeman, I told you, kicking that field goal late in the game. And by the way, the field goal was missed. And it's like, why don't you go for the touchdown? You're already losing. You're throwing the ball all over the place, trying to get into it. Why don't you try again? Marcus Freeman explained why he decided to kick a field goal.

What? I think it was fourth and nine or 10. And I just thought, you know, instead of being down 16, let's try to go down 13. And I know it's still a two score game, but you have a better probability of getting 14 points than you do 16 points. And so if it was a shorter fourth and goal situation, I probably would have gone for it. But I just felt fourth and nine was not a great chance for us to make that. And you know, I decided to kick it and we didn't make it. You know, we're already losing. I mean, damn.

The score at the time was 31 to 15. Ouch. I don't. I mean, you might as well go for it. The guy missed the kick anyway. Maybe that's God's way of telling him, man, you should have went for it. You never know.

He missed the kick anyway. And so when you think about what Notre Dame has gone through this entire season, losing to Northern Illinois, I had dismissed them earlier in the year following that loss. They rattled off 13 straight wins.

Marcus Freeman is being talked about as being a potential NFL head coach one day. But last night had the hurt. He looks sad. And of course he looks always going to look happy for losing. He looks sad. Players look sad. And so Marcus Freeman on ESPN radio, he pretty much he was asked, what the hell do you tell your team after they lose?

That's what he said. Just told him, I love them. And I'm so proud to be a part of this season with them. There's a lot of guys that are hurting, but they, they gave it everything they had.

We didn't get the job done tonight and we've got to figure out why. And there's reasons for it, but what they did for this school, this football program. And I think for people that watch college football, I think they sent a strong message about being selfless. Yeah. And everybody in Notre Dame, everybody in Notre Dame, everybody's a great guy.

Let's at least how they make it sound. I don't know none of these guys from the hole in the wall. Now, a couple of years ago, and you know what, there's so much damn transfer portal. I probably met some of these Notre Dame players. I don't know who the hell they are. You know what? There is a guy I know who played on the team.

Probably, probably graduated by now. There's just so much turnover. Is it even possible to, I guess the guys who stick around don't even play, right? You could say that. Yeah. In some cases, other cases, you know, there's a reason why players in the transfer portal, because same thing, they don't play and want to go somewhere else. Or they, they, they're so damn good. They're going to go actually play somewhere else.

For a lot more money than they are probably getting at their current school. Right. Yeah. This is, man, they got to change this system. You know, we'll talk to Pete Fewer Tech about this next hour. He's going to come through and chat all things college football with us.

This system, this is such a wild one. Every year is free agency. And I mean, we, we looked at two quarterbacks last night, jumped into the transfer portal. They're like, Hey, this is why I came here to compete and win for a national championship. And Marcus Freeman knows things are going to be different.

I mean, last night he thanked Riley Leonard and Jack Kaiser. I feel like he's been playing college football for a million years, the linebacker, and he thanked them. Told these guys, they've left this program better.

I don't care if you're here for one year or you've been here for six years. Our program is in a better place. Um, because of the examples these two have set and many other leaders in that locker room.

So the outlook of Notre Dame football is extremely high. Yeah. He doesn't need to blame himself though. Just, just blame the talent.

That's just all it boils down to. Look at all the talent moving all over the country. Look at all the schools that are moving from conference to conference.

It's not an easy thing to do. I mean, even last night, every time Quinn, Sean, Judkins touched the ball, I'm going like, I can't even say it's not fair. I'm like, this guy was at Ole Miss and now he's playing at Ohio state.

Like this is not fair. The guy had three touchdowns last night. And so it's easy for him on the reverse being on the winning side. He was very complimentary of coach Ryan Day, who I hope people are finally going to give this guy a break. He has a 70 and 10 career record, a winning percentage of 87%.

That's ridiculous. Quinn, Sean Judkins says he is a great coach, a great leader. This is what he told ESPN. I think coach Day has great leadership. All the guys in the locker room, we all follow him. He's been tremendous as far as motivating us, being a great players coach and just keeping us motivated throughout the season.

And he did a great job at that. Man, it is so pathetic when you think, and I knew it was serious. I'm like, is this just some school stuff?

Like this is crazy. I was on the campus at Columbus and they were showing me around a beautiful facility, beautiful gyms. Hickey, I now understand why nobody leaves campus.

I understand why people just want to be there forever because man, this place is great. Like I could, I could be a student. Hickey, I'm not lying. I saw Greg Oden walking down campus. He was like studying. He was studying to be something.

I don't know what he's doing now, but it's like a year ago. Look, I mean, you get your meals paid for, right? You get pampered out the wazoo.

Now you're getting paid that compared to the real world. What did he would say? You know, I'm done with this. Let me get out of here. Hickey, their gym, their gym. Oh my God. Let's let me just say I have never seen a gym, their athletic facility, which is the one that's open to the public or the students.

Hickey, I've never seen it. Like take, take 20 Planet Fitnesses and put them on like eight levels in a fancy building. That's the gym at Ohio State. That's the athletic facilities for the students.

And I'm like, what is this? How? Like this is, I'd rather enroll in school and go to the gym than go to Planet Fitness or LA. LA Fitness is garbage compared to the facilities they had there, man. Wait, the students, like the normal students, not the athletes, but students can work out at the same gym as the athletes? No, it's separate.

It's separate. What I'm saying is the normal, quote unquote, the normal people gym at Ohio State is 10 times nicer. It's like LA, you walk into LA Fitness and you go peasants.

Like what is this? Not even, forget LA Fitness, Lifetime Fitness, right? Okay. Like is it Equinox, Lifetime?

Does it get any bigger than that? Aren't those the most high end, outside of ones that we've never heard of? Yeah, I think so. Equinox is probably the king of that.

Equinox, Lifetime. It was like this for students. I felt like I was in the futuristic movie and they're showing me the gym.

I'm like, how many machines do you need? I guess you know why Greg Oden went back. He got to taste the real world. He said, screw this. I'm out of here.

I'm going back to college. He went to the NBA. His knees didn't work and he said, I'm going back to Ohio State. I don't blame him, man.

So I don't know why people out there are so miserable, especially with Ryan Day. This man has the third highest winning percentage amongst football coaches all time. And when you think about FBS, which let's be real, that's the one that really matters.

He's second all time. Like this guy is amazing and he had threats to his house. His family, his home because he didn't beat Michigan.

And that's when I knew it was real. I'm walking around campus. They have no M's. If the word has an M on it, they cross it out. If a professor's name has an M on it, they cross it out.

If the street has an M in the street sign, they put an X over it. It's that serious. Why can't we all just get along? Nick Saban, he was on ESPN and he didn't understand all the criticism for Ryan Day either because he can't beat that school that starts with M? What? And I think it is absolutely ridiculous that Ryan Day has been criticized the way he has. Having been a coach, having coached at Ohio State and lived in the state for 12 or 14 years, I'm telling you when the fans are negative and the media gets negative, it affects so many things.

You know, you got to give the guy credit. He built the roster. He's built the roster for three years and it's gotten better. His coaches have made the players better and they made a lot of improvement and they've overcome adversity, especially in the Michigan game. So we should be giving the guy credit and being positive because every time you're negative, it affects recruiting.

It affects everything that you do. And he's been able to overcome the naysayers and still get to the national championship game and win or lose. I think that that guy deserves respect. Yeah, this is why people say Nick Saban should be a commissioner of college football if they ever have one. And Nick Saban, while he said that, he had a balled up fist and a newspaper rolled up in his other hand and he was just shaking his fist while he made that speech. Old man, get off my lawn.

But no, I agree with him. Like it's not that serious. Come on, man. We had Dan Campbell. He had to move because of some dumb ass kid in his daughter's school.

Want to send threats and scare them at home. What a sick ass world we live in. We got people. Ryan Day needs security around his family and his home 24 seven over a football game.

Ryan Day should be able to go into a room with anybody who would threaten him and beat the living daylights out of. Hickey, I'm an advocate for nonviolence, OK? Did I say that? Yes, multiple times now, so it can't be confused.

It cannot be confused. I'm saying two things, but I don't know which one I mean, Hickey. I think I do. But I'm just saying stuff, OK? The latter part, I'm just saying I'm not an advocate for violence unless Ryan Day's beaten up somebody who threatened his wife and kids. Just just terrible stuff.

Anyway, I'm an advocate for nonviolence. It's the J.R. sport. We show here with you coast to coast on the Infinity Sports Network. We're going to take a break.

We come back on the other side. It's time for a conversation with Tim May from Letterman Row. This man has been covering the team forever from the Columbus dispatch and now does his own thing. And he's podcasting 40 plus years of coverage. We're going to ask him about Ryan Day, the future of the program, who's the next quarterback.

So much to discuss. It's the J.R. sport we show coast to coast. The Infinity Sports Network. You're listening to the J.R. sport brief.

It is the J.R. sport we show here with you coast to coast on the Infinity Sports Network. A lot of talk about coaches today. NFL coaches, college coaches. But now we got to talk about a coach who won last night.

I don't want to say he exercised some demons, but maybe got a little bit of a monkey off of his back. It's time to have a chat about Ryan Davey, Ohio State University, what they did, what they've accomplished and what the program might look like moving into the future. Joining us is someone who's covered this team for 40 plus years right now.

You can check him out on podcasts, lettermanrow.com and more. It is Tim May. Tim, thank you for taking the time. Sure, man.

Anytime you know that. Now, what we saw last night. Are people going to give Ryan Day a little bit of a break over the next few months, just a little bit? Well, the ones who don't, you know, who cares about them anyway?

You know, there are people who can't be satisfied in every walk of life, you know, and I'm not sure I've heard much rumbling about it. Yeah, eventually he does need to beat Michigan again. He has beaten Michigan once as head coach in 2019. But, you know, if you can't appreciate and enjoy what Ohio State just did over the last six weeks, then you're probably not a true Ohio State football fan, you know, or even fan of college football. I mean, winning four straight games. No one's ever done that before in the postseason of major college football and against, you know, the SEC's third best team, and then against the Big Ten champion, Oregon, and then against the SEC's runner-up team, Texas, and then beating the team that beat Georgia, you know, Notre Dame. If you don't appreciate this run, then you don't have a, you don't really have a sense of college football tradition, history, and all those other things, and you don't have appreciation for the new era in major college football. When you talk about the new era of major college football, a lot of people are shocked to really look at the numbers and go, my God, this is a man in Ryan Day who has a coaching record now of 70 and 10. He has an 87% winning percentage.

Like, how much more of a better future or past could a guy have and not get the respect? Even Nick Saban took people to the woodshed for saying, you got to show this guy some love. Yeah, and you do, you know, and Nick Saban as a head coach, you know, for example, didn't win a national championship until I forgot what year was in his, I think it was his third stop as a head coach because he first started at Toledo before he went with Bill Belichick to the Cleveland Browns, and he came back and was at Michigan State. Of course, upset that really great Ohio State 1998 team, which really got his career, jump-started his career big time, but, you know, he didn't win a national championship until, what, 2003 at LSU, and that guy's won more than anybody. So, sometimes it takes a little longer than others, and, you know, yes, I mean, when you look at Ryan Day, who some people want to run out of town on the rail on November the 30th, about five o'clock in the afternoon after a fourth straight loss to Michigan, when you look at his winning percentage up there in the realm of Newt Rodney, a former Notre Dame coach, I might add.

I know you knew that, but some people might not. He was living today, but, you know, Urban Meyer, you know, that winning percentage he had as a head coach, I mean, among the top three or four winning percentages of coaches who coached at least 70 games or more in major college football. It's pretty astounding, and, yeah, and this was, as I told him, from December the 1st until January 20th, I've been around the game for a long time. This was the best coaching job I have ever witnessed, and I think that's saying something a little bit, but the way he got this, the way he went face-to-face with his team the day after the Michigan game in a big closed-door meeting and then left the meeting and the players went face-to-face with each other and came out, finished the meeting arm-in-arm in basically a prayer circle, getting aligned, and I'm telling you, my man, the spiritual aspect of this team should not be snickered at. I mean, it played a major role in this, but, you know, the players took ownership of the team for want of another term, which is what any head coach should strive for.

The players holding themselves accountable and taking ownership, you know, and what they do, they ran off four straight wins by double digits in the toughest post-season gauntlet any team has ever run. Tim May is joining us from lettermanrow.com, has covered Ohio State for a long time. When you talk about how this team has been able to come together, we know that the transfer portal is is huge now in college football. What have you seen from the day that Will Howard arrived, and now we know that he's going to be moving forward?

Have you seen a change, or did you see a change or progression? Oh yeah, I mean, you know, it's no slam on Kansas State, but Kansas State, number one, didn't have the talent assemblage that Ohio State did, or has had for a while. You know, Kansas State didn't run anywhere close to the same kind of offense that Ohio State runs, and, you know, you know, and people have gotten the chronology of this situation a little bit backwards. When Will Howard first showed up at Ohio State, the new offensive coordinator was going to be Bill O'Brien, and then Bill O'Brien, working at Ohio State for, what, two weeks, the Boston College job came open and he jumped at it. Jeff Halfley had left there to go back to the NFL as a defensive coordinator, I think, for the Green Bay Packers, if I remember correctly. Jeff Halfley, at one time in 2019, was a defensive coordinator for a year on Ryan Day's first staff as a head coach. And anyway, Ryan Day had tried to talk Chip Kelly into joining him way back in mid or late December, because Chip Kelly put out feelers that he wanted to maybe step away from being a head coach and become an offensive coordinator somewhere, preferably in the National Football League, but when that didn't pan out, he was still there at UCLA, and he joined Ryan Day, who, you know, I know you know that story about Ryan Day at New Hampshire. Chip Kelly was his offensive coordinator, and when Ryan Day was a player, a quarterback at New Hampshire, and then Ryan Day worked for him both with the Philadelphia Eagles for a year and the San Francisco 49ers for a year. Anyway, they got their act back together in February, so, you know, Will Howard had already been here for a month, had been at Ohio State for a month before Chip Kelly came along, and so suddenly Will Howard was going to learn from both Chip Kelly and Ryan Day, two of the better quarterback coaches, you know, really in college football, maybe as a pair, the best pair on one team, and, you know, he jumped at it from the standpoint of he knew he had a lot to learn from footwork to the brain game to reading defenses, progressions, things like that, and became quite expert at it as the season progressed, and really his final exam on Monday night against Notre Dame, one of the top defenses in the country was a sight to behold the way he passed it with flying colors, no pun intended on past.

Oh, yeah, we saw the passing efficiency to start the game. Tim May is here with us on the JR Sportbreeze show on the Infinity Sports Network. Well, we know when you have success, people move on to bigger and brighter things. We know Will Howard is going to be on his way to the NFL. I mean, Ryan Day, why in the world would he decide to leave what he's done at Ohio State? I sure wouldn't leave. And then you mentioned Chip Kelly.

He certainly said, man, I don't want to deal with being at the top of the totem pole. I want to work specifically on offenses and QBs. Is there any chance that the coaching staff changes at all, especially particularly when it comes down to Chip Kelly? I'm not sure about Chip Kelly. Chip seems pretty happy with his situation. Now, you know, you've always got to have your ear open and your eyes open to offers that you think could be better or, you know, maybe, you know, whatever your whatever your bent is. I mean, you know, the rumors going around about Oklahoma possibly having great interest in Jim Knowles, Ohio State's third year defensive coordinator, who definitely turned that unit around from where it was in 2021 to the number one total defense, number one scoring defense in the country this season. So, you know, and Ryan Day said today, you know, in our early, early, early morning press conference in Atlanta, I don't know why they scheduled those at 9 a.m. when they know everybody didn't get to bed till three at the earliest.

But it is what it is, right? You got to catch a plane. In Atlanta, you got to catch the train sort of plane and you got to hope it leaves. The train, the taxi, the Uber, the Lyft, whatever, just to get you to the airport.

Now, I guess there was a big, big, huge traffic jam at Checkpoint Charlie there getting in, you know, getting into your flight, but the TSA. But that's another story from this morning I drove. So I'm a much smarter man than almost every other person. But the bottom line is, yeah, I mean, it's it was right. They said this morning, you know, when you have a when you when you have a staff like this, you can have success like this. And everybody wants to put a taproot into it. Right.

And draw from it. And that's we've seen that forever in in major college football. I mean, you know, Blue Holes was a was a defensive backs coach on the 1968 Ohio State national championship team for Woody A's. And the next thing you know, he got his first coaching job.

I think it was at William and Mary. But, you know, this you can launch careers out of a season like this. And so long story short, I'm sure there's going to be interest in several Ohio State coaches. Now the funny thing about it is, this is the latest by far that that a college football season has gone for two teams, January 20.

Are you kidding me? And so a lot of people have already solidified things. But we'll see. I mean, you understand Oklahoma still in search of a defensive coordinator. But, you know, how precarious is that perch over there for Brent Venables and stuff?

You know, you would think the fuse is growing really short there. So we'll see what like Jim Knowles does and maybe a couple other people on this staff. But but it wouldn't be a surprise if somebody got an offer because like I said, they're the national champs, the first of a 16 game season.

They know a lot of things that a lot of people still don't know about the new era of college football. When we think about what's actually going to take place on the field next year and who's going to be throwing the football, would you lean it heavily towards Julian Sane taking over? Well, Devin Brown is, you know, put his name into the transfer portal several weeks ago, even though he was a backup quarterback even last night.

So yeah, I mean, Julian Sane would appear to be the next man up. They've got a big time signee, Tavian St. Clair. Actually, he's already in class at Ohio State. In fact, he was at the game last night, posted a picture or two of him on Twitter watching the quarterbacks warm up. I mean, he was a much ballyhooed Ohio State raised quarterback from Belt Fountain, Ohio. And, you know, one of the top recruits in the country if you check their recruiting rankings. So you got to think he'll be in, you know, at least competing. But yeah, Julian Sane would appear to be the guy.

Still don't know what Lincoln keynotes is up to. This great athlete they've got that was basically the fourth team quarterback this year. And they might get somebody from the portal. You know, what we're hearing is there may be looking for like a, for want of another term, a Case Keenum type commercial where you send in the relief guy.

They might be looking for that kind of player maybe out of the portal, but we'll see how that goes. But yeah, Julian Sane from Carlsbad, California would appear to be the the heir apparent at least at this point. When you think about Michigan winning last year, you think about Ohio State winning last night. What does it say to you when you take a look at the Big Ten, especially given all the changes that it's been or it's gone through and the spread of it from West Coast to East and everything in the middle? Yeah, don't leave out Penn State being a semifinalist and in Oregon being a quarter finalist, but was the number one seed in the first 12 team playoff. So it wasn't just Ohio State, obviously it wasn't just Michigan. And the, you know, if Paul Feinbaum can admit the Big Ten now owns college football, you know, instead of the SEC, I'm not sure anybody from the SEC has anything to bellyache about or gripe about when you consider that Notre Dame and Ohio State combined to eliminate the three SEC teams from the tournament. I don't think they have anything to bellyache about as far as this year at least they were not anywhere close to being the number one conference.

So every season brings something new. But here's the thing, Big Ten teams like Oregon, like Ohio State, USC has tried to get us to act together in this realm, the NIL realm, but, you know, they understand what it takes now. Michigan understands what it takes now. You know what they put together for that freshman quarterback, Bryce Underwood, that they got, you know, basically from their home state, like an 11 or 12 million dollar package over four years from an NIL standpoint. It sounds like a signing bonus to me, but what do I know? And then Penn State has the wherewithal to compete.

Your NIL situation is still going to sway, still going to hold sway in the next several years if and when or if they can ever get a lasso around NIL and make it a little more equitable for everybody. But, you know, Ohio State, everybody knows what Ohio State, what the number was they used in there, the 20, 21 million dollar war chest that it was able to accumulate, but it was mainly to keep guys at Ohio State, not to go out and get guys out of the portal. Yeah, they got some key players out of the portal for damn sure. Quinn-Sean Judkin just scored three touchdowns, you know, Will Howard, Seth McLaughlin, who unfortunately tore his Achilles tendon with two games to go, with two games to go, did that in practice. But he was the Remington Award winner, the center who started for a couple of seasons at Alabama, graduate transfer, who transferred in, but to Ohio State.

And man, was he a stud on that line until he got hurt. But, you know, Caleb Downs transferred up from Alabama after Nick Saban shocked him by suddenly retiring. So, there were a lot of circumstances on why Ohio State ended up with a few of these transfers. And of course, Julian Sayan was like, like I said, Davian St. Clair was there last night on the sideline, right, Ohio State's signee and quarterback. Julian Sayan did the same thing with Alabama a year earlier, you know, was already enrolled at Alabama and took part in some of their bowl practices, or at least as a, you know, just kind of like on the side or whatever. But, uh, he transferred also when Nick Saban retired. So, a lot of this was almost serendipity from a circumstance standpoint of enriching Ohio State's roster.

Now, we see that that roster is certainly enriched. I was going to say 20 mil flat. It looks like I might have missed out on a mill or two. I'm sure that was not the exact number. But like I said, you know, do some more research on Oregon and Georgia and quite a few other teams.

You probably spent more than that. Well, I know who didn't, that Dabo guy out in South Carolina, but we don't know what I'm gonna leave him alone for a little while. I think he's coming around a little bit. You know, he doesn't have a choice. Otherwise, he's going to be left behind. Talking about Dabo, talking about Dabo Sweeney. It's him.

Thank you so much for the time. Where can people follow you and all of your work and all your coverage of now the champs? Yeah, I mean, you know, I'm part of the Letterman Row staff.

I retired like six years ago from the Columbus Dispatch and was going to be retired, but they dragged me out, made a little offer, too. You know what I'm saying? A little bit of something.

But me and my wife, we could travel like I wanted to because our three horses, our babysitter for our three horses moved away. So that's another story for another one of these set downs. But LettermanRow.com, and I'm on Twitter at Tim underscore May Sports, and I do a podcast called the Tim May Show on Letterman Row and YouTube and the major podcast platforms every week, sometimes two a week.

Definitely will be having one come out late tomorrow or early Thursday, you know, in reaction to this. I call it the seventh big Ohio State national championship. They sometimes call it the ninth, but it's the seventh definitely officially and the third of this century. So that's a pretty good that's a pretty good record. Your resume. In 24 years. Yeah, your resume is impeccable.

Nobody can say anything about it. Yeah, I appreciate it. We're going to catch you on down the line. That's why I keep telling my listeners. Hey, you got to rock and roll. Hey, Tim, we'll catch you on down the line, OK? You got it, man.

All the time. It's Tim May. Smart man, too. He said he drove. He drove from Ohio to Atlanta.

Smart is snow and ice outside. It's the JR Sport Reshow here with you coast to coast on the Infinity Sports Network. We're going to talk more coaches, some of these NFL coaches. And then I want to dive into a little bit what he discussed about the Big Ten versus the SEC.

We have so much more to discuss. You're listening to the JR Sport Brief. It is the JR Sport Reshow here with you coast to coast on the Infinity Sports Network. Thank you so much to Tim May from Lettermanrow.com for joining us to talk about the Ohio State Buckeyes. And a matter of fact, this is a great opportunity to share with you the Navy Federal Credit Union Defensive Player of the Week, sponsored by the Navy Federal Credit Union, who proudly serves the armed forces, DOD veterans and their families.

Their members are the mission. You can learn more at Navy federal dot org, Ohio state linebacker Cody Simon. He was named the national championship defensive MVP after he led the team with eight tackles, recorded one tackle for loss as the Buckeyes beat Notre Dame 34 to 23 to win the national title. Simon helped lead the best defense in college football that allowed on average just 19 points per game in the four college football playoff games. All about defense, right? All about defense.

Hickey, I love the fact that that Tim May, he kind of threw a shot out of not a shot. He told the reality. Even Paul Finebaum was on television this morning saying that, hey, you know, Big Ten, SEC, it's a it's a Big Ten world. We all just kind of a living in it right now. And you can't dispute the fact when you look at the past two years and we got a national championship out of Michigan, you got a national championship out of Columbus with the Buckeyes now. But there is so much movement like it's still to me feels dirty to say Big Ten.

And I automatically got to think about everything from the West Coast to the east. It just it's not it's not concentrated like it used to be. It's not it's not the mountains, the plains, the Midwest.

It's just everything. And I think that's why you're starting to see, at least in this case, the Big Ten catching up with the SEC, because now it's easier than ever to convince a kid from Georgia, Florida, Texas, to go play in Columbus, Ohio, to go play in Eugene, Oregon, you know, to go play even at USC. Like now, because these conferences are coast to coast, you're playing primetime games, you're in the mix.

NIL has also helped as well. Like, I think now you're starting to see more parity amongst conferences, because now the SEC, which had a stranglehold just because of location, right, with how much talent is in this country terms of football wise, coming predominantly from the southeastern region. Now, a lot of those kids that did not leave home that grew up watching SEC football that want to play in the SEC. Now we're getting chances and getting money to go elsewhere.

And you're starting to see a leveling out on the playing field. Yeah, I'm going to have to get over the the regional aspect of it, because it just it doesn't it doesn't exist anymore. Like I still think SEC and I go, okay, it's reasonable to take in an Oklahoma and a Texas and then go all the way out to, you know, Florida, that that makes sense to me. But to stretch from from west to east is just and then, you know, talk about it.

I don't know, it still has a regional connotation to me. And that's the part I can't get with too much. This is Paul Fonbaum. This is the comment that Tim May referred to earlier today when Paul Fonbaum says the Big Ten is running college football. The Big Ten at the moment owns college football. And there's no way you can say it doesn't when you go back to back.

That's generational. In Ohio State's case, they beat two SEC schools along the way. And there's a there's an old saying that was emanated in 1828.

When Andrew Jackson was elected president, a senator from New York said to the victor belongs the spoils. And that's exactly where the Big Ten is this morning. It's an uncomfortable feeling for the SEC, which is own the sport.

But it's a reality this morning. When I look at it from a talent perspective, you know, you know, I'm gonna I'm gonna share the these numbers. I'm gonna share these stats on the other side of the break. Because there's some numbers that that indicate that this isn't this isn't wholly accurate. Like we can look at the championships.

But if we purely want to take a look at the talent, I don't I don't think that's that's the reality. We're going to take a break when we come back. I'm going to tell you this whole Big Ten versus SEC.

I'm going to give you some some some facts and some numbers here. When when I think about talent, the SEC still still reigns supreme. We'll talk about that on the other side of the break. We'll get an update on some of the movement going on in the NFL when it comes to coaching. We have one coach who got an extension. You got another team that has a new head coach and I'll give you the updates on the other side. You are locked into the JR Sport Reshow here with you coast to coast on the Infinity Sports Network.