Someone with firsthand experience talks about Damar Hamlin.

How did TCU get in there? We thought that everybody wanted to keep TCU out of the playoff, and as it turned out, TCU got in and oh boy are they knocking down the door to winning a college football playoff.

Before we get to that, Mike Felder, my friend from Watch Stadium, played football at North Carolina. And once you're a player, and gosh you look good, once you are, once you're a player, always a player, and I would imagine that it's easy to put your player hat back on and empathize with what all those guys on the field last night in Cincinnati were having to deal with. So take me to where you went as all of that was playing out.

Terrifying. Like could have been anybody that I played with, could have been me. Like I'm, and I'm someone who, listen, I had anywhere from, I don't know, they said it's from 8 to 12 minutes of temporary paralysis. I didn't, I didn't, my heart didn't stop, but I could not feel my arms and legs from the neck down. Like I had that happen in practice one day and I had to get spine bordered and taken up and rushed. The good thing is we, I'm at UNC, so they just go straight to the hospital that's right up the hill. But at the end of the day, obviously what we're hearing now, cardiac arrest, heart stops, heart has to be restarted. Like that's a lot.

And as someone who, I've been, I've been, I've also been a lifeguard. So like, I understand like that part of it as a first responder of like, you've got to, you've got to defib and you've got to, you've got to clear the scene and, but there's so many people standing around watching. It's one thing when you're at a pool and you know, you're getting a kid out and his mom's there and she's worried, but like, there's all these other, like there's like, you know, a handful of other kids. It's another thing when it's on national television, two full football teams and then a league that's like, come on, keep it moving. And I will say this, this is a, it's a bad part of football that felt very football to me. When somebody gets hurt in a drill, they tell you to move the drill up five yards and they try to block it off so you don't see it, but then you just keep going and you just can't, you can't keep going with something like this. It's an absolutely devastating thing. And I'm, I'm glad that he's been stabilized.

Obviously everybody's rooting for him to pull through. I did have, and I said it, I was like, listen, we can't, like, we're supposed to be at the peak of health, supposed to be at the peak of safety in football right now. And to have it happen, like we can't go backwards to like, you know, like the night, 1905, 1910, where the, it was like normal for guys to collapse, pass away, get knocked out, like it was normal. And we can't go back to that.

That's the terrifying part of this. And it's a violent sport, but we've got to make sure that we cross our T's and dot our I's. And I think that, listen, you got to go through all the background stuff too, right?

Where pre-existing conditions and anything like that, you've got to go through all those things. Mike Felder, before we, before we move on to, to college football, like for me, it wasn't even like, that wasn't a football injury because we see injuries all the time, even, even really bad ones. Like they continued the game after Joe Theismann's leg was broken and Lawrence Taylor is screaming for the trainers to come out or Alex Smith's injury or guys who are paralyzed on the field, Ryan Chazier's injury and others, we continue the game. There was no continuing that game last night because you had both teams, all of those, there was just no way the NFL could ask those players to, to play and the coaches too.

I'm not even, I don't know, I don't know how you would coach a game like that. Were you surprised it took as long or are we just sitting here where like we don't have enough information to really criticize because that's where I am. Like I have not slammed the NFL, but I was surprised that it took an hour to announce that the game was not going to resume. I think it took, I think the big thing for me was one, you couldn't just move the drill up. Two, they wanted to get it done.

And it's, I don't know, it just, there's a callousness to it all in terms of the money machine and the whole deal that that's what I see at least. And maybe I'm wrong, but that should have been a let's stop. We're done. Okay, fine. But it's, that's not what happened.

And we watched it in real time. And it's one of those things, and I'm not trying to equate the two, but with Bush reading a book on 9-11 and everyone's like, Hey, this happened. And he's like, well, I'm going to try to power through. And it's like, no, this isn't a thing you power through. And that's, to me, the thing where it's like, this isn't a thing you power through.

This is a thing where you give it the space that it needs to breathe. And we all get together and pray for this young man. Let's talk a little college football here with Mike Felder.

Also, I encourage you to get the newsletter. It's Felder because it's awesome. Football and food.

Everybody loves those two things. So I think you and I have talked a few times during the course of the year, like they're going to figure out a way to keep TCU out and they couldn't. TCU got in, even though they didn't win their conference championship game, they got in.

And don't you know, they were maybe a little too much for Michigan, certainly Michigan helped with a couple of pick sixes, but what kind of a chance do you give them against Georgia who needed some heroics of their own to beat Ohio State? I'm very curious to see what's going on with Darnell Washington, first and foremost. I'm also curious to see what's going on with Jalen Carter.

That's the part that I don't think has been discussed nearly enough. He did not look like himself at all. Not even remotely like the guy that's bubbled up into being a top three, top five NFL draft pick.

Didn't look like himself at all. So guess what? If those guys aren't a go, Georgia's got to change what they do. And they did adapt very well to chasing Ohio State, but for TCU, why count them out?

Why not? Like everybody counted them out against Michigan. Michigan's too big. Michigan's got the best offensive line. TCU had 13 tackles for loss.

13. I guess the best offensive line in the country. Uh-oh. And all TCU did was just be where they're supposed to be. They didn't do anything crazy. They weren't blitzing like crazy.

They weren't doing anything nuts. They just were where they're supposed to be and Michigan made mistakes. So I think at the end of the day, you got to remember that these are, you know, 17, 18, 19, 20, 22 year olds, and they're going to mess up and TCU just did a really good job of not messing up. So they've got an opportunity. Obviously, I know they're like a two touchdown dog, but, and I expect Georgia to win. And I think here's what I'll say. If Georgia comes out in this football game with a decision made early, like the decision that they make this week, that, hey, we're going to score 50 points.

Doesn't matter what they do. We're going to score 50. Then I think we're looking at a different game than Georgia being like, we'll counterpunch. This isn't counterpunch. This is haymakers. Right.

Well, here's the thing. They might need 50 to win this game. Granted, two touchdowns came on defense for TCU, but pretty much all year long, they had been posting points.

What the 41 by Ohio State was the low for the college football. Semi-finals can anybody play defense? I defense is hard. And I'll say this specifically to defensive backs. It's it's so hard when the refs are against you. The fans are against you.

I think we've had this big thing. I think that I've had this discussion, but most people view with the exception of it being their team. They view the defense specifically, the defensive backs, the secondary, they view them as the antagonist in the story of football.

And the wide receiver is the protagonist and the quarterback's the protagonist. And so everything that happens, they want it to go against the defense. They wanted to go against the defensive back.

And it's really just, and even was it Doc Staples over there writes first, does some stuff with UNC. He posted a video of Florida State and Oklahoma, and he posted a video of a Florida State defensive back. And he said, Oklahoma, and he posted a video of a Florida State defensive back, not looking back for the ball because he's already beat, but he runs down, plays hands and knocks the ball out. And people wanted to call for interference on that. And I'm like, that's not passing interference. That's good football.

The quarterback made a bad throw. And so if you're a defensive back, and this is the reason why I'm circling back to this, TCU, you have Quentin Johnston, you have Savion Williams, you have Taye Barber. Taye Barber might be the fastest player in this football game. And if they're, if they've got their guy stacked, put it out in front, put it out in front.

But if you put it a little bit behind, guess what? You're probably going to get a penalty on Keely Ringo or Christopher Smith or any of these other guys. So the odds are stacked against the defensive backs. That's why I think TCU has got an opportunity because if they, if they chuck it up there enough, they're going to get free first downs or they're going to get big plays. How does a team like TCU, and maybe this is because it doesn't really matter what league you play in. It was funny. I watched social media react to Michigan and Ohio State losing and say, see the big 10 coming up small again.

And I'm like, okay, whatever. It's just the results, scoreboard. But TCU coming out of the big 12 didn't get a lot of respect. I just, I just wonder what you think of those storylines, those, those conversations. I don't think the teams look at it that way, but you never know.

So here's the thing. I, one, I think the collective consciousness around college football was just like, sigh of relief. We don't have to talk about Michigan or Ohio State again. And we certainly don't have to talk about a Michigan and Ohio State national championship game.

So that for most people that are Michigan and Ohio State fans, best of both worlds, right? Like, great, fantastic. They're gone. Okay.

Goodbye. And I'm sorry, Dr. Patty, but like, a lot of people are very excited to not have that as a part of it. And then the other thing is TCU does fit into this Cinderella story that they were hoping to create with the playoff that they never got. It created this Cinderella story that they're going to hope happens out of the 12 team playoff. But they're a team that nobody really knows.

Listen, I've done a lot of radio. A lot of people don't know anything about TCU. A lot of people can't name anyone besides Max Duggan and maybe Quentin Johnston. So, and when Amari Demicato came on, after Kendra Miller goes out, it's even more, who is this guy? Right.

So I think that you get a Cinderella, you obviously get the heavyweight. I think this is a great narrative from a narrative standpoint with respect to the Big Ten. Yeah, it's another year of them not winning a national championship.

That's for sure. And it's one of those things where I've already heard people say that Harbaugh might leave for the NFL. And so this is going to be a really interesting offseason for them because Ryan Day made some really weird decisions at the end of that football game. And I think it goes back to even when he had Justin Fields and they were playing Clemson, him trying to call the perfect, this is what I, this is the way that I say, he's trying to call the perfect play instead of letting his kid play perfectly. And you can't engineer everything from the sidelines. You got to give your guys some freedom and he didn't give CJ Stroud the freedom after Stroud had the freedom earlier in the game. And to juxtapose that I think about Bryce young and Nick Saban and Bill O'Brien cut him loose and they let him do his thing. And it's beautiful.

This is a guy painting on a canvas versus a guy that's trying to do color by number and they never look the same. Yeah. My, my, my feeling on Bryce young is that if he were just a little bigger or maybe a little thicker, I would have zero problem as him being the first player overall. But I had, man, I just don't know, especially when Nick kind of intimated that, Oh, he's, he's had this shoulder injury a lot.

I'm like, what, how do we say that out loud? Uh, anyway, he's still, he's still QB one. He's still QB one.

I just would feel much better about QB one if he was just a little bit, uh, more, I guess, sturdy is the word I'll use. Uh, all right. You brought up, um, Mike Felder from watch stadium at, in the bleachers on Twitter, uh, you brought up, you know, the Cinderella aspect, and this is what people wanted. This is the reaction I got from people after Tulane came back to beat USC. Oh, we're going to see this all the time. Once we get a college football playoff.

And I didn't even respond because it didn't make any sense to do that when I was trying to just kind of relax and not do stuff over the weekend. Uh, but to me one Southern Cal's defense was always bad all year long. Uh, that was always going to be a problem. And two, all bets are off when we have a playoff and it's a win and advance in that type of a scenario. Cause I don't think we're going to have any sort of like come to, come to, uh, come to football. Jesus, uh, upsets are going to rule the day like we have in the NCAA basketball tournament.

Well, I think there's a couple of combination here. One, I think Tulane was always going to be Southern Cal and I, I, I picked that out the gate. Like I, they're a team that they play good defense and then their offense just found its legs in the last three or four weeks of the season. So I think that's enough so that can happen, but we also didn't have a healthy Caleb Williams. We also had a defense that was terrible.

And at the end of the day, like, yeah, sure. We get this upset, right? What were they ranked?

Let me like, what were they ranked 16 and 10, 16 and 10. Okay. We get that in the first round. We get that upset in LA. Okay.

Then you got to step into the ring with one of these heavyweights and they're going to punch it down. Yeah. Like, do you like, did this one make you feel like for those people saying, this is what we're always going to get in the playoff. Do you think that you feel good about Tulane against Georgia now? This makes you feel good about that. Even too late against Michigan.

I just, I like, I guess I don't, I'm not as ambitious a thinker as other people are. But for me, like this one was always going to happen. Tulane is a super hyper disciplined team. They remind me a lot of, excuse me, of UAB from a few years ago when they got, when Bill Clark got the team back and they were just super disciplined on defense and found ways to score on offense. And guess what? When an off, when a defense is very forgiving, like USCs, Tulane's willing to take advantage of them. So I don't know that this is the hallmark. I think TCU Michigan is the thing that we should be pointing at.

I mean, this is, that's the team that to me, they, they pulled off the bigger upset when you compare it to Tulane versus USC. I agree with you a hundred percent as I always do. Mike Felder from watch stadium at in the bleachers on Twitter, go get the newsletter.

It's Felder. It's awesome. As are you happy new year, my friend. Welcome back to North Carolina. Thank you so much, man. It's good to be home. Y'all take it easy. Take care, man.