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The fact that you're looking out for anyone is a myth. Earlier on the show, Senior Writer for the MMQB, Albert Prear. Coming up, Fox Sports College football insider, Bruce Feldman.
Actor, Chase Stokes. And now, it's Rich Eisen. So our number two, the Rich Eisen Show on the air, 844204rich is the number to dial here on the Infinity Sports Network. Also on Sirius XM channel 375, the Roku Sports Channel, Odyssey app is the way you can stream us for your Ear Gate. There's our podcast, All 3 Hours. I chilled out with Susie and Amy on What the Football yesterday. Chris Brockman and I have Overreaction Monday that's been out there for now two days, the podcast version of it.
TJ Jefferson and O'Shea Jackson Jr. The star of Den of Thieves 2, Pantera. He's going to be in studio with you.
And who are you chit-chatting with today as you're on? The WWE Intercontinental Heavyweight Champion. The title has great lineage. It's Braun Breaker. Very good. That'll be on. And then Jim Jackson's guest on Thursday is Maurice Claret. I wonder what they're going to talk about. Football team in the Midwest.
844204rich is the number to dial here on the program. So Ben Johnson is the newest head coach of the Chicago Bears. And I mean, how many of these hires in retrospect should have been done last year that we're seeing?
Well, I think we're two for two with Mike Vrabel and Ben Johnson. That's what I'm saying. Right.
That's what I'm saying. And we'll see, you know, who the Dallas Cowboys hire. You know, could have been done last year is one way to look at it. Should have been done last year when you're looking at it through the lens of what happened this year. And how different it could have been in Chicago if Ben Johnson was attached to Caleb Williams right from the get go.
How different would the Lions' season have been? Right. That's the butterfly effect that just trickles down. Right. I mean, and watching Dan Quinn currently speak with the media on Conference Championship Wednesday where everybody's having their shot with the media and vice versa prior to the big championship week. And there's Dan Quinn with the W on his chest. He could have the star on his chest if not for sticking with the coach for one more year that you weren't going to keep anyway. You also have to look at this rich like Dan Quinn for himself did a great job because he could have left the year before and taken a job. That's true, too.
But he waited and obviously he landed in the right spot. But in terms of, you know, Ben Johnson, I guess for the Bears, better late than never. Certainly, if you think that Caleb Williams will not bring the mental scars of whatever he went through this past season into next season and that that might actually be a better piece of clay for Ben Johnson to help mold. And Ben Johnson had this to say about his reasons for taking the job because last year he had his choices and turned them all down to go back to Detroit as the offensive coordinator. And I'm sure they they gave him maybe an extra, you know, on top of the comma to actually stay in the same way that maybe Tampa's done with their offensive coordinator.
Liam Cohen announced today that he's removing himself from the Jaguars head coaching position to stay in Tampa for the NFC South winning Tampa Bay Buccaneers. At any rate, Ben had his choice last year and had this to say about why he took the Bears job now. There's several reasons why I wanted this job. The first is this place. For the last 10 plus years, my family and I have been coming up for a Cubs series every summer. And it doesn't take long to realize that this place is special.
These people are special. Number two is this roster that that Ryan's already built. It is it is stock. It's loaded.
Everyone wants to talk about the quarterback and Caleb. I'm I'm excited to work with you. But it's going to take more than just you. And there are a lot of pieces already in place.
And I can't wait to get to work with the rescue guys. And then finally, I want to stay in this division. I know this is the toughest division of football right now. There's three teams that made the playoffs this year. I've got a tremendous amount of respect for the coaches and the players in this league. Haven't competed against them for the last six years. Dane Campbell, Kevin O'Connell talking about two guys that are up for coach of the year awards as the season ends here. And to be quite frank with you, I kind of enjoyed beating Matt look forward twice a year.
No, he just kind of giggled a little bit there. Now that's the red meat that love he threw out there. Remember, he took the job, said the first order of business is beating the Green Bay Packers. We're going to have goals, beat the Packers, win your division, win the conference, win the Super Bowl. Well, he he did all of that with the exception of winning the Super Bowl.
Got to it. So there's the red meat for you. Been serving up the red meat fan base has to love that. Well, this is why they were excited to have him. He's talking it up.
He also walked the walk or called the calls in Detroit. And that's the that's the question. The leader of men question and how he's going to run the organization and whether that's a culture that he brings. What is his culture? How can he affect it?
But he obviously knows. How he's talking to the fan base. Hey, I came for Cubs games. What are you going to piss off the red white Sox people with their five wins?
I took care of it for you, Ben. No, but, you know, you're talking about the North Siders and you're giving them a I love coming. By the way, Chicago in the summer, when you go there, it's amazing.
It is unreal. It is the greatest one of the most beautiful cities in the in the world. Yeah.
Man, everybody should work here and live here until until the winter comes. But other than that, no, I know it's you're right. It's Chicago's great. I remember when I went to school there, Northwestern, Bill Curtis was doing the CBS local news talking about the Polar Express pulling into town.
Anybody wonders if Bill Curtis is he was the voiceover on Anchorman. Oh, yes. And listen, the Chicago sports town and everybody knows, despite the Jordan stuff and the. I know I just.
Boiled down the Chicago dynastic years as the Jordan stuff, but and the Cubs stuff bears win and give you a parade down Michigan Avenue and look out, OK? Like that's that's what it's about. And that's what fans are expecting out of Ben Johnson to wave a wand and turn Caleb Williams into the best draft choice from the quarterback class of twenty twenty three.
And good luck with that. And that's got nothing to do with Caleb. It's got to do with Jayden Daniels. And it's got to do with whatever he can affect from Caleb that he wasn't able to affect. And the answer to that is get him the damn protection up front. A and B, come up with the plays that makes him comfortable and gets him playing like the kid we saw at USC. That's the answer, obviously. And I think Ben Johnson knows it.
The question is, how will they go about and do it? But for Bears fans who wants that, who've been looking for that big, splashy hire winning the press conference moment. I don't know the last time they had one of them.
It's been a long time. It's been a long time since I was like, hey, everybody, here's your new head coach and everybody in town is like, yes. And I love how he said, you know, I respect all the coaches. It's kind of he did give with an all due respect before showing the back of his hand to Matt Leflore. Who probably spat out his cabernet wherever he was sipping it in Green Bay for that.
Good luck. I can't wait to see some of the plays that he comes up with. We'll see for this offense, because Chris, like there are certain plays that Detroit would run and I'd be like, why are you pulling this out now? Like there was one that Brady mentioned during the divisional round. He's never seen it before. Where it was, what is a handoff to or is a flip back?
I'm on Ross St. Brown from David Montgomery. Brady's never seen it before. And I'm sitting there with Coop and he's like, so that's a run from Montgomery and then a pass as well receiving yards. I'm excited for Keenan Allen to throw a backbreaking interception in a playoff game.
Well, again, now that, you know, I start with the Bears. No, no, I mean, you're just trying to rile everybody up. You know, he's always going to give you the noise. He's just always going to try and give you the other way of the coin, which is... That was a dumb play call at that moment in time.
That wasn't his best. That's for sure. Keenan's got a better arm, though. I'm just kidding. I'm excited for Bears fans.
I mean, how can you not be inspired? You got a guy who's the hotshot coordinator in the league and now you're pairing him up with your number one potential franchise changing draft pick. This is what you got to do.
And I will say this. He's got to do, and I know we're all comparing, you know, Cliff Kingsbury with Jayden Daniels and Kingsbury could have been the guy. What he's got to do is what Dave Canales did for Bryce Young, which is we're going to bring in an offensive guy and hook him up with our quarterback, who in year one seemed lost at times and lost a lot of games and got hit a lot, and we need to see the kid that we drafted first overall. And this year we did, after they benched him.
Like, that's what the Bears won. Like, you see what just happened with Bryce Young? Because I'll tell you what, Caleb didn't win too many more games than Bryce Young did in the first year. No, he didn't. But statistically, he was pretty good. 63%, 3,500 yards, only six interceptions. Like, he did play well. They just didn't win a lot. They also didn't help him.
Protection-wise and scheme-wise, they just didn't. Now then, you've got to just wonder again with Ben Johnson, the culture that he's brought to the equation. Don't know it. The other guy who's been hired in this cycle, who could have been hired and should have been hired one year ago, but wasn't, we know the culture he's bringing. That's Mike Vrabel. And I'll tell you what, Christopher, you were hoping for it and you got it.
I was. Josh McDaniels is the offensive coordinator of the New England Patriots. And he is nothing short of exactly what the doctor ordered. In the same way that Vrabel is what the doctor ordered for the front office and the owner's suite and the fan base.
And we understand who we are, what we've been, where we want to go back again. He is the culture installer that the Patriots fans hoped that Gerard Mayo would still continue, but didn't. And bringing McDaniels in is exactly what was needed. You take a look at McDaniels's numbers as the offensive coordinator for the New England Patriots throughout his tenure. And they have just been nothing short of spectacular in that regard.
You take a look at the win loss, 115 and 46. Obviously that's Brady infused. But don't forget his last year there was as the offensive coordinator in Mac Jones's first year.
And that was when everybody thought it might be a seamless transition from one to the other. Total yards per game. Again, I understand there's a lot of the Brady on the screen too, but McDaniels brought it out. He was calling the plays. He was drawing them up with Tom. And I know now he's dealing with a second year player.
Spectacular. I think the thing that's most encouraging is you just saw what he did with Mac Jones in 2021. They made the playoffs that year. I know they got smoked by Buffalo, but they still made it. Mac Jones was an alternate, but he did have a Pro Bowl season.
He was in the top 100 on the NFL Network players list. It was a success. Well, there's no doubt about it. And you're bringing in also somebody who knows the culture that you're trying to install.
He also brings you back to the future. That's what the Patriots need. And also in the same way, the Lions say to Ben Johnson, OK, here's the mold of clay drafted right before Jayden Daniels.
McDaniels is now being told, here's the lump of clay selected after Jayden Daniels. And I think you could state the case that Drake May had a better rookie season than Caleb Williams. Maybe not numbers.
Maybe not numbers. There were times when you would look at May and it's just like the light is on there. And with Caleb Williams, you would wonder, does he understand what he's seeing? Sometimes you would ask those questions, you would hear it from the tape heads, the all 22 people and the scheme and all of that stuff.
I mean, honestly. To come in and Vrabel knows what McDaniels is going to do. The fan base knows what McDaniels is going to bring. It's going to be see it, throw it, get it out.
It's going to be a lot of quick game, right? It's going to be a lot of the stuff that you saw with Brady. They will install for May and maybe he can do the same damn thing even better than his number sake before him. And then, you know, he's got the running element. That's what the Patriots have never had. You know, going back to the 80s, he can run the ball.
He can make plays with his feet, which is what you need in today's modern NFL. And we'll see what McDaniels does with them. And then they hired a defensive coordinator to they reported or they're going to hire Terrell Williams, who Vrabel had on his staff in Tennessee coaching the defensive line and the assistant head coach.
I mean, that Tennessee front four was always stupendous. Obviously, Jeffrey Simmons was brought to bear from the middle of it. And then when Vrabel left, Williams was the defensive line coach in Detroit and the run game coordinator there.
How was Sonic and Knuckles looking in that coordinated run game? That's a huge hire. So the CEO head coach of the Patriots has made two really good hires in my estimation. And and one in Chicago, you're wondering, what's the culture that the coach is going to install? We'll find out.
I'm not saying he's unable to do it or won't be able to affect it or we won't find out what the Ben Johnson culture is. But the other one, we absolutely know what it is. And it's exactly what the doctor ordered for New England. My goodness are those two terrific coordinator hires on top of Vrabel being brought back. With his red jacket and all.
Eight four four two oh four rich number two dollars. Take a break here. Bruce Feldman is going to come on out fresh back from Atlanta, which means he's not so fresh. Oh, we made it. He's in our green room.
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Terms and points can't apply. Learn more at AmericanExpress.com slash Amex Business. Back here on The Rich Eyes and Show. Look who's here from Fox Sports and the Athletic, none other than Bruce Feldman back here from Atlanta. Good to see you, sir.
Good to see you guys. So what was longer, the longest Jeremiah Smith catch of the season or the TSA line leaving Atlanta? The TSA pre-check line was, that could be, there was a stat somebody said about, oh, this person had, it totals up, it was a Berman line, eight miles of yardage or whatever.
That's what it felt like, the TSA pre-check line. Because it was just freezing cold and everyone was trying to get out of town. Yeah, I think you have two huge fan bases coming in from a three-day weekend and everything. Like, look, I mean, there's enough other stuff going on where I don't want to, you know, I won't be the one complaining about that.
But I'm just like, whoa, this is different. Yeah, right. And just probably more de-icing than the airports used to happen, too. Yeah, I have a buddy who was supposed to leave yesterday. Still there?
Won't be out of there till tomorrow. Jeez. Wow. So, and the way that he got to the airport was the golf cart driver for Ryan Day? That's what it seemed like.
On top of it, too? That poor young lady, right? That poor lady is taking a beating this week.
She just drove right on the wall. That was pretty bad. Well, at least as I was saying yesterday, if you're going to have an Ohio State coach in the national championship game is going to have a golf cart moment, you'd rather have that one than having sad pizza. The pizza box. I knew you were going there. Sad pizza eating.
You know, we don't want that. Sad pizza eating. How can you be sad eating pizza?
It's so good. You don't remember the picture? I know, I know. They lost, right?
After that? Yeah. They lost it, yeah. Wasn't that the picture after he lost to Michigan State, though? Is that the sad pizza one? I thought it was the national championship game. No. This one right here? I thought that was after losing to Michigan State. Oh, is that right? Yeah. Yeah, I'd binge eat pizza losing to Michigan State, too, if I was Ervin Meyer.
Or anyway, just even me. I think that might have been the game where they only got, like, Zeke Elliott, like, four touches. Back here on the Rich Eisen Show, sitting at the Rich Eisen Show desk on the radio network, furnished by Grainger with supplies and solutions for every industry. Grainger has the right product for you.
Call clickgrainger.com or just stop by. Bruce Feldman, back from the national championship game. Your first blush thoughts are what? The best team won. They were the best team in college football. They played really well. I mean, you talk about their first five series against a really good defense, really well coached team at Notre Dame. They scored four touchdowns. And I gave Notre Dame a lot of credit because one point it was 31 to 7. You know, they have the first crazy drive where it's 10 minutes and just grind it out with Riley Leonard.
Get on the board first. Then Ohio State just answers. And Ohio State's just so good on both sides of the ball. And it feels like Notre Dame is really getting blown out of the building. And for a lot of folks, I'm sure a lot of people at home are like, oh, yeah, I remember Notre Dame in a national title game back in the Brian Kelly-Mantetao days when Alabama just destroyed them. And to Notre Dame's credit, they made a big play on defense when Ohio State was driving again, punched the ball out, got a fumble and then got it. Got it.
Interesting. You know, like that takes a lot for a team to go up and and be that resilient to keep fighting, keep battling. Credit to Marcus Freeman and them. And obviously didn't go the way Notre Dame wanted it to end. But I thought it was, you know, is a really, you know, if you're sitting there looking at the pictures of the guys on the sideline, I mean, I couldn't have been much more impressed because that's a team that they're without their best, the best cover guy. Again, they play a lot of man. And Benjamin Morrison's been out for most of the season. They're without their best pass rusher, Riley Mills. And I know a lot of teams have injuries and certainly Ohio State, they're without their center in their first round, probably talent left tackle. But Notre Dame, to see how far they've come, especially under Freeman, has been pretty impressive. And I thought, you know, we were around Ohio State a lot, especially this year.
Yes. And on Fox, on Fox a lot. And I think knowing Ryan Day for a long time, knowing Ryan Day's family for a lot like that was my story. You know, after the game was to talk to his wife and his kids and his father in law and people really close to him about what they've endured. Way more than, you know, in the story, his father in law, who Ryan's known since he was like nine, from New Hampshire, is a legendary Division Two basketball coach.
He was up for the Basketball Hall of Fame. Just a wonderful man, great sense of humor. And he was like, you know, my daughter grew up as a daughter of a coach in a coaching family. But coaches, you got a lot of stress and the mom usually has to run the household because, you know, the dad's all, you know, hours are crazy and travel is crazy and everything else. But this other stuff that they dealt with. Like what? I know you wrote about it.
Give it up, pop it out there. Yeah, I mean, the threats that the family dealt with to need round the clock protection. This is after the loss to Michigan? This is after the loss to Michigan. Ryan Day's son, RJ, is a really talented young quarterback. He's only a sophomore in high school.
But talking to him, he was like, you know, school's really rough. He didn't go out much till after the Tennessee game. You got to remember, that's like three weeks. It wasn't like Tennessee happened the week later.
They didn't play Tennessee for like three weeks after Michigan game. So, you know, I think that's really hard. They have two young, you know, RJ is the oldest, but then two younger girls and they know what's going on.
And I think that's, you know, mind blowing in that regard. And I give a ton of credit to Nina Day. That's Ryan Day's wife, how she handled it. She was very and she told me she was really worried because in this day and age, you got to take everything seriously, especially when it comes to things of that nature. And on top of this, the symbolism she pointed out to me or the symmetry of this, the day the national title game was Monday, January 20th, it was also the anniversary of when Ryan Day is a little boy, he loses his father. His father dies by suicide.
I mean, the gravity of all that is just remarkable. So, you know, as you know, from the human component, you couldn't have been you had to be even if you're a Michigan fan, I think you have to feel for that family. Of course. Well, the question I have then, not to turn this into a therapy session, but what do we take away from this? What do you take away from the Ohio State fan base?
And I'm not painting it as a one big brush, but there I mean, that sounds like there's a lunatic fringe, which is exactly what Kirk Herb Street said and got eviscerated by a lot of Buckeye fans for saying such a thing, because I'm sure he was well aware of what you're referring to right now at the time that that came out of his mouth in the booth when Tennessee was being destroyed by Ohio State and starting to turn the page to eventual national championship. What what's the takeaway here that they, you know, four games later, now it's all good. Like, is that what we're saying now? Yeah. Somebody in there had kind of half kiddingly said, I think we'll be OK for a couple of weeks. You know, it's and I don't have any concept of what how small the percentage is of people who would go to that length.
I think what you have to, you know, figure, you know, sort out what this is. There are people and look, it's not just the fans or people in the in the national media with big voices who will sit there and say, oh, if he if he if he loses to them again, he should be fired. If he lost to Tennessee, he should be fired. The guy is now 70 and 10 all time as a as a coach. Right. Jim Harbaugh lost a lot of games to to Ohio State for a long time.
He could not beat them. Yes. Obviously, you remember that. Yeah.
And so, yeah, I think people can say, oh, you're you know, they're making X amount of millions of dollars and everything is justified in the in the pressure on that. But I think there's also some other parts of this where you're like, OK, who are you going to get? Who's going to who's going to do a better job than this guy did now? That was before he won a national title. He's the one who who is the architect of this program.
I mean, he's done a really good job hiring a really good staff. But I think, you know, you asked me about like, what's the takeaway from this? You know, you can wag the finger at people who don't have perspective at all. But look, you know, that's kind of the society we're in right now. It's a really you know, it's a really toxic place and a lot of places and, you know, online. And I think that stuff that stuff is unfortunately it's out there, you know. And I think my takeaway was what something Nina Day told me the other night, which is like, you know, you get knocked down, people fail.
The most important thing is you got to get back up and you got to fight. And I think that is a great lesson. I mean, again, to you know, to their credit is you don't have to be an Ohio State defense, I think, to buy into this part. I mean, Ryan Day has been really proactive and vocal about talking about mental health issues because of what he has been through from a time he was really young.
And I think those are important issues for him with his platform to use. And hopefully that stuff will now, when you become a national championship coach, when you become a Super Bowl winning, whatever it is, your platform grows so much more significantly. Obviously, he had a platform because he was a head coach at Ohio State, which is just when you have those credentials onto it. I mean, as a quick aside, I remember Mike Leach's book, we were working on it and he had his agent has also represented Tom Coughlin. And Tom Coughlin won Super Bowls with the Giants. I remember thinking, well, I mean, he's obviously a terrific coach, but like nowhere as interesting as Leach was. But then the idea is, well, when you win a Super Bowl, you have the magnitude behind you.
It doesn't matter, you know, beyond that. And I, again, to say that to get to this is like, I think for Ryan Day's position now as a, there's only a couple other guys who are still in college football who are coaching now, active, who have won national titles. Yeah, with Harbaugh and across the street. Matt Brown is gone, Saban's gone. I mean, they're not working. It's basically Kirby Smart, Dabo, and now him. I mean, it's kind of mind-boggling that that few of the guys, the last guys who won, are all out of the business. Matt Brown, who won a long time ago, Ed Ojoron who won at LSU, obviously Saban won a bunch of them. I mean, those guys aren't there anymore. Obviously, you know, Harbaugh's in the NFL, but now Ryan Day joins a very, very small fraternity.
Bruce Feldman here on the Rich Eisen Show. So let's just stir it up a little bit here, if you don't mind. Do we live in a Big Ten world now? What do you think? As close as there is, yeah.
I mean, you have to go back to another one of your hard travels. Michigan State won back-to-back in the 60s, 1960s, under Duffy Dougherty. That's the last time two Big Tens, a Big Ten school, the Big Ten had back-to-back national champs. Well, and now with Oregon part of the conference, Saban sitting on a television set, you know.
It's a different world in that, like, NIL and the Portal has changed the dynamic a lot. Because right now, it was harder to, like, store, you know, elite prospects and elite talent. Because a lot of the times, those guys are leaving as freshmen and go to play someplace else.
And so I think it's why some of the talent has also been scattered around. I mean, South Carolina had a really good team this year. They had five-star guys and big, big-time difference-maker guys who are at South Carolina now, where maybe five years ago, they would have been at Georgia or they would have been at Alabama. It's not to say that those teams aren't still really talented, but they're not as talented or that much more talented than some of these other places. So some of that SEC talent now is in Oxford, Mississippi. Certainly some of it is now in the Big Ten.
A lot of it is in Columbus, Ohio. Yeah. Caleb Downs just has won. They have two best players in college football. One came from South Florida, Jeremiah Smith. The other one was on Nick Saban's roster.
And how many are coming back? Well, those two guys are. I mean, one's definitely the best player in the country. I mean, J.J. Smith is incredibly talented. He's only going to keep getting better because you hear about his work ethic and his drive. Caleb Downs is an elite defensive back and a leader.
You know, they they went in the portal. They've got two really good offensive line, you know, offensive tackle guys to step in. They have a really good tight end. They added, you know, the guys inside the program tell me that kind of reminds them of Zach Ertz. That's a plus.
They have they lost. They're losing Will Howard, who I didn't who I don't think until late Monday night got enough credit for being. He was superb. Yeah, he was. He was superb.
I was equating him to Phil Simms in the Super Bowl. Yeah, it was. He was 22 of 25.
Yeah, he didn't. And the throws were awesome. They were they were exactly the exactly where he needed to be. He had a full command. He used his legs appropriately. He stayed away from the big hit, which he did not do against Michigan. And he was terrific.
He was really smart. And I think, you know, they have a lot of talent around them. They just, you know, two terrific running backs. The defense is so good. Those guys are violent.
I know. And they make moves in the hole. My God, do they make moves in the hole between tackles?
They're terrific. To me has always been like a wow running back. You saw it on the 75 yard screen pass right before halftime in the semifinal game. You saw Judkins. They talk about Judkins, about, you know, his toughness and what he brings.
I mean, they'll still be really good. They are losing a boatload of of, you know, outstanding college football players at all three levels. You know, we talk a lot about and rightly so about Jack Sawyer and JTT, the two defensive ends.
They've been there forever. And Cody Simon is a guy that, you know, knowing James Lauren is a linebacker coach, cannot stop raving about him. Not just what he saw on the field, but the sacrifice and the selflessness and all the things that I think become integral when you're going to have a national title team. Because what I think is a it was an eye opening thing for a lot of us who cover the sport day in and day out is it really felt like there was two different seasons. It was the first season, which was and maybe this is something like I don't cover the NFL year round. But it's like there's the regular season, which is long. And then there's the playoffs, which also can be long because, you know, talking to Chip Kelly after the national title game, his point was about the notar about the Michigan loss was. You can sit and look there and go, OK, back in the day, if you lose your your last regular season game, you may be going to like the Bluebonnet.
Yeah, you're toast, you know. And he said, so it's either you have to look at it. Well, you can look at it one or two is either a tombstone or a stepping stone. And clearly that program believed that it was going to be a stepping stone. And I think they way they prepared and managed.
I think there's a lot of things that other coaches are going to take from how this is because it's just a different world. They played 16 games. They could have. Well, Notre Dame couldn't have played 17 because there's no conference title. But if Penn State had gotten there, if Ohio State did play in the big, they would have played 17 games. So did Chip Kelly say that the loss to Michigan was actually big in there?
And I'm not trying to troll here. I'm not like did. I mean, he had his fun yesterday with overreaction Monday on a Tuesday saying Michigan shouldn't have planted the flag. But that was that that was the impetus.
I don't. But did Chip Kelly basically say like, you know, like our loss to Michigan? But a couple of weeks ago at the Rose Bowl, I remember Tyleek Williams was an outstanding defensive tackle. I was like, that was a wake up call. You know, that was something that a lot of a lot of players talked about after the Rose Bowl.
Well, then, you know, you're welcome. And I'm just glad, you know, Michigan's national championship run. We didn't have to have that as a stepping stone. There were other there were other issues that Michigan had to overcome.
What are you talking about? You had you had you had like seven years in a row of being being the stepping stone like that. Like, you know, I know enough Michigan people inside that program talked about beat Ohio period.
It was like, I think Ohio State had an integral role in Michigan upping its game. Oh, no question. You know, that's the way it should be.
I totally agree. Can I keep you one more segment? Because I want to talk about prime and I want to talk about before I let you go on the day. I would like to talk about now that the college football playoff, 12 teams, we've seen it.
What the the industry thinks of it and what tweaks might be coming. I'd like to get that. That's Bruce Feldman right here on the the Rich Eisen show. 844-204-rich is the number to dial back here on the Roku Sports Channel in a moment. But on the Infinity Sports Network, here's Rich Ackerman with an update.
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See store or sleepnumber.com for details. Bruce Feldman here on the Rich Eisen Show. Our radio audience will rejoin us shortly.
But a couple things I want to hit you on before they do. What is the college football community talking about Jayden Daniels right now? I think a lot of people are really happy for him, you know, because he is a guy who kept getting better. The work he did with – and there was a lot of cutting-edge stuff that he did with Jack Marucci. The VR stuff you're talking about? Because apparently he's still doing it. And everybody's still crediting the fact that the VR stuff helps him see the game, so his ability to do what he's doing and make decisions and see it.
Everybody's saying these VR goggles are a major thing. So Jack Marucci, who I would argue is as brilliant a guy as there is working in sports, long-time trainer at LSU, I mean for like 30 years. Is this from the Bat family? He is Marucci Bats from that. Started out like, you should have him on someday. Just an incredibly humble guy to the point where you're like, wait, that's you? I think he started out making like five bats maybe for Manny Ramirez in his backyard and only sent him. What was in him? Sorry.
The best will apparently possible. So he did that, but also he's been involved with people internationally who had this technology and Jayden Daniels really bought into it. And he went from being a good dual-threat quarterback to a record-setting Heisman winner to a guy who's now tearing up the NFL as a rookie. It's a great story because when he was at Arizona State, I felt like he was kind of a one-man. It was a mess with Herm. There was all kinds of screwball stuff going on there.
They had NCAA issues around. And he was a good player, but I don't think anybody saw this. And now, just the fact that what he's done so far, like if you had said to me a year ago at this time, I'm buying CJ Stroud.
I thought he clearly should have been the first pick of the draft because he's so accurate and he checked off all the boxes. He's pretty athletic. He's really smart. He sees the game. He's really competitive.
He's really driven and all those things, but he's incredibly accurate. To see where Jayden's done has been... He's surpassed it. He's the best rookie quarterback I've ever seen.
I've ever seen. Because all the other rookies who have gotten to the conference championship level, including Ben Roethlisberger, who didn't lose a game his rookie season until the championship game, they were all game managers, or at least that was the way that the coaches were coaching them. These coaches are like, keep doing it, Jayden. And as a matter of fact, the high leverage situation you were just in in quarter numbers two, it's going to be more high leverage in quarter three and then quarter four, and we're going to still do it. And it's going to be fourth down, and it's going to have the game on the line. And they're like, go do it. They want him to do that, and now they expect him to do that because the rest of the team has bought into it.
I've never seen anything like it. Well, it's also the franchise he's changed. When was the last time it was like, oh, that guy's the face? Is it Darryl Green?
I mean, I guess RG3 might be the... For a minute. For a season. Correct. And look, I mean... Correct. Yeah, this is... It's unprecedented. I mean, they didn't get to this level.
That is correct. He lost to Russell Wilson, who was the last rookie quarterback to win a playoff game on the road since. Jayden Daniels, who's now won two of them. And if he wins this weekend, he'll be the first quarterback in playoff history to eliminate the one, two, and three seeds in his own conference.
Back here on the Rich Eisen Show radio network, we're here with Bruce Feldman. So what is the general sense now that the 12-team playoff is done? What do people think about it?
What do you think? I think people loved what it did for not just the regular season, but I think there was intrigue about... They really liked that some of the games were on college campuses. I think they would like to see more of that, but I think they're not severing ties with the bowl people that have had longstanding relationships. So I think that's not changing.
I would have suspected some point. So the leaders of the sport got together on Sunday just for like an hour and a half. And if there was any tweaks or changes they were going to make, they had to be voted on unanimously, I think, which is harder to do. I think you'll see more change, real change a year from now when they can, and they don't need it to be 100% approved that there can be... It's just a bylaw that they're all going to agree to? What's going to change, though, is you have so much power that is with the head of the Big Ten, the head of the SEC.
I don't know how that dynamic is going to help the people who are on the lower end of the food chain. But how the seeding happened. Remember, we had what was like a seven and an eight playing. I mean, they weren't the seventh and eighth best team. Hey, man, we had Ward-Manuel on the day after the field was set and the brackets were set.
And he's just like, they just went one through 12, and it just came out the way it came out. And I agree with you 100%. And, you know, we had Dan Wetzel of Yahoo on, and he said when they first came up with the idea that the Power Five, four of them would have to get the buys, it was done when there was a Pac-12. It was done when Texas and Oklahoma were in the Big 12. And now things have changed that it shouldn't be done that way. You know, we should see maybe a runner-up of a conference get a buy over a winner of another conference when you're using common sense eye tests and things of that nature. And I understand that that makes things more subjective and open for debate and anger.
But let's get this right. I think what should be done is the bi-week teams get a home game too. Now you're messing with the bowls, which is a big problem.
That is a big issue. I know this from talking to one of the coaches who played a first-round game, and he was on a road team. And he said the home field advantage is huge because everything has to be like a silent count. You're not getting off the ball as fast as the other team. And you looked at the biggest example of that was I think Kevin Jennings, yes, wasn't me.
Quarterback's a pretty good player. He had a nightmare of a day going into Happy Valley, and it was like noon. But he was like a turnover machine because he looked rattled not just by the noise but also the cold.
There's like different elements. You talk to people at Ohio State, they were like Tennessee didn't even want to be there that night. You know, they felt like. And you would think if Oregon does win the Big Ten, which they did, they should have gotten whoever was their first-round opponent at home. Stick them up there in Oregon, which is one of the toughest places to win. I agree. If they are the number one seed of the entire thing, you know.
Yes. Make the regular season count more because I'm a firm believer. The college football season is long, but it's not as long as certainly any other sport. But you don't want to devalue the regular season. And I feel like if you gave that kind of reward for it, I think that would add incentive to the regular season.
I mean, the part that I struggle with is. And, you know, there was a lot of pushback after the first round of the games. Indiana, you know, gets beaten pretty handily by Notre Dame and an SMU gets drilled. But then also, you know, like later in the at the end of the first round, Tennessee from the SEC also gets smacked around by Ohio State.
But I think people are sitting there going, wait, your team. And this is especially the SEC teams that was going to get the benefit of the doubt or usually does. But you're going to have three losses. And it's one thing to have like one bad loss, but you have like a bad loss and then a couple other losses that are that are like not against elite teams.
It's like you can't have that many that many mulligans. Right. And still make the playoff. And I think that's the thing that that you want to you can look at at Indiana's resume. And by the way, Indiana ended up losing to the national champs and they ended up losing to a team that played for Indiana. They ended up losing to a team that played for the national title. And, you know, they did beat a team that beat Alabama in the bowl game. You know, so I think it's just like, hey, you're not when you have a 12 team playoff and even if it ever ends up at 16, the resumes are going to be flawed because you have that many more.
It's not for anymore. The national champion lost two games, including one of the worst losses by that team in the history of their rivalry. Honestly, one of the Michigan team that beat them was one of the, as you know, more troubled, limited, limited versions of Michigan. But so we you need to throw it. You need to throw out the I mean, a six seed in the NFL might win the Super Bowl.
You know what I'm saying? So we accept that. We accept that. Didn't the Giants win the Super Bowl as a wild card a long time ago?
Of course they did. I mean, we've seen six seeds do it multiple times and we don't bat an eye in the professional sport. But the reason why is because the schedule amongst everybody in the NFL is as close to even in college football when they're choosing who to play and when and what the bye week is and all that on their own. That's that's the issue.
You got to you got to handle all of that. That might actually make the playoff better if you do. And so a two or three loss team can still make it. And we won't bat an eye and they might win the whole damn thing, too. Like we just saw that. So in the two minutes I have left with you, is Dion going anywhere or is he staying put? I heard Tennessee has stepped up.
So Tennessee, I heard Colorado stepped up pretty significantly. What, NIL and stuff like that or or for him? For him. OK, I know Rick George, the AD has a lot of value for Dion and what he's meant to the program, not only meant to the program, meant to the school, meant to the state, all of it. You know, it's just what's what are his options going to be? You know, if Dion could be an NFL head coach, does that make him sit there and go, OK, you know, this is a place this is the next chapter for me.
I know having been around his program and him some and just being there at the Alamo Bowl, the the the part that you probably can't get the same in the NFL is develop, helping develop young men and take them from a place in their lives where there's uncertainty. And, you know, you can be transformational in that role. That part I get. And it's really that's important to Dion for real.
Yeah. You know, it's just going to be a different chapter if he stays there. I like whatever Colorado has to do to keep him financially.
If there's no NFL in the thing, it's like to me, that would obviously be easy for say it's not my money, right? But it's like that would seem like a no brainer because without him, the program is and was totally irrelevant. And with him, it is it is nationally relevant. You can you can hate Dion if you're you know, if you're if you're sick of all the coverage and content and all. But people pay attention to it and they got a lot better with him there.
So, you know, what is it going to it's again, it's two pieces. It's the NFL. Like, I don't know how much Colorado can compete with the NFL if the NFL comes for him.
But if it doesn't, it's like, OK, what do we need to do to make sure that this relationship is still still thriving? You know, and when you when you look at it overall, I could see why Dion would want to move to the Cowboys. You know, it doesn't look like the Cowboys are going to hire him. Looks like they're going to you know, they're already circling around either Kellen Moore or Brian Schottenheimer. The Raiders just hired a general manager from the Buccaneers, John Spytek, who Brady knows for forever and a day. And, you know, they do have a head coaching position open. They could potentially draft his son. I don't know if that's what they're thinking or what the new general manager would be thinking. I know what the new general manager would be thinking. Brady would know. Yeah.
So I don't know if this is going to be something that pops over the next few days for prime. But other than that, just staying put and building this next iteration, no doubt one would think, even with the talent that's leaving stronger version of what he's doing. I mean, the Big 12 is a path to a bye week, man. So you can be in the college football thing. We almost was this year. And it's winnable, Rich, because you look and you saw Arizona State was picked to finish last in it. They had a young quarterback who's really talented and Cam Scott Abu, who is an amazing story, came no offers, went to Sac State and and, you know, a lot of credit to Kenny Dillingham. But like that program came out of nowhere and they they made it to the play for the almost beat Texas, by the way. So I know in easily the best playoff game, you could say was it the best playoff game period or Ohio State? Texas got interesting at the end.
You know what I mean? Arizona State, Texas was pretty awesome. You're looking back at the at the entirety of the college football playoff.
I think that was the best game. But again, they're in the right conference to do that from because anybody has a chance. I mean, BYU was picked to finish 13th. That was the team, obviously, that blew them out in the Alamo Bowl. You know, BYU could be a top 15 team this year.
They would have a chance. And we know Dion has two very coveted quarterbacks there. One was a big recruit from from the state of Georgia.
The other one was a prolific mid-major quarterback. The offensive line has definitely gotten better from where it was a year ago, and I think it should keep improving. It's just, you know, again, I I think Colorado is is committed to taking another step with him. You know, but the program is going to feel a lot different just because they won't have Travis Hunter, won't have Chidor.
But if they still have Dion, I think they'll still be able to attract a lot of talent. Well, we'll still have Bucky, right, doing all the social media, which means I think he's number one atop the Sanders Death Shark. Still number one. OK, very good. Thanks for coming in, Bruce Feldman.
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