Buffalo Tough (Hour 3)

No one's more locked into the NFL than First and Pod. Why is it not within the realm of possibility that Geno Smith was a victim of a horrible organization, bad offensive coaching, and then went and played behind three high level talents and only got spot starts and did okay, by the way? Well, because it's just it doesn't really happen that often anymore. Subscribe to First and Pod on the Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts. No one's more locked into the NFL than First and Pod. Why is it not within the realm of possibility that Geno Smith was a victim of a horrible organization, bad offensive coaching, and then went and played behind three high level talents and only got spot starts and did okay, by the way?

Well, because it's just it doesn't really happen that often anymore. Subscribe to First and Pod on the Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts. The Zach Gelb Show, Coast to Coast on CBS Sports Radio. We're efforting for Ty Dunn, so hopefully we will be able to connect with him for a few minutes. Coming up later on on the Zach Gelb Show on CBS Sports Radio. We're waiting for Ty who does a great job, who is the founder of golongtd.com.

So we'll see if we can connect with him. And he had a piece out about DeMar Hamlin actually right when DeMar Hamlin got drafted. And his article was a feature piece.

And Ty does all these really great feature piece. And it was why DeMar Hamlin is exactly what the Buffalo Bills need. And he put that article out on July 9th, 2021. So we'll see if we'll be able to connect with Ty as we're all still going through the emotions of what happened with DeMar Hamlin on Monday night as he remains in ICU in critical condition with signs of improvement noted yesterday and overnight.

This is a statement the Bills released today. He's expected to remain under intensive care as his healthcare team continues to monitor and treat him. So we'll all continue to still think about DeMar Hamlin obviously and hope that all will be okay. And now joining us, of course, is Ty Dunn who did a wonderful feature piece on DeMar Hamlin going all the way back to July of 2021.

And Ty Dunn, who of course has been covering football for a long time, you can check him now at golongtd.com, joins us on the Zach Gelb Show. Ty Dunn, appreciate the time. Thank you. How are you? I'm good, man.

How have you been? Great to reconnect here. Thanks for having me.

Yeah, thanks so much for joining us. So you know DeMar Hamlin obviously a little bit. You did the feature piece on him back in July of 2021 when you wrote why DeMar Hamlin is exactly what the Buffalo Bills need. Can you just tell us more about who DeMar Hamlin is? No doubt about it. This is somebody who, you know, I think that we're around this game and there's a lot of football players who are talented. Maybe they enjoy the game a little bit, but when they wake up in the morning, it's kind of punch in, punch out.

They're very good at their job, but maybe don't necessarily have that vision, that purpose, that reason to get up in the morning and go to that practice field and do something. DeMar Hamlin has always had that purpose and it really does have its roots in McKees Rocks just outside of Pittsburgh where, you know, as early, I guess you start here when he's 12 years old, he's in a courtroom and he can picture his dad getting taken away to prison and spends it to 10 years. He spent three and a half years behind bars at a very fragile point of his life. He loses his dad simultaneously. So many of his friends are catching stray bullets, getting involved with the streets and you don't even have to be involved.

Sometimes it's just wrong place, wrong time. He estimates that more than half of his childhood friends died before the age of 21. Meanwhile, you know, there's winters in Pittsburgh where they're unable to heat their home and it just breaks so you're finding ways to stay warm. There's days at school where he doesn't have a lunch.

Maybe a buddy gives him a couple bites of his sandwich. He's helping his mom at her cleaning business till midnight and she's just doing an unbelievable job of kind of shielding him from those bad influences in the streets. He's always wanted to make an impact on future DeMar Hamlins, on kids just like him in this environment who need hope, who need an image, something to aspire to be. So that's why he stayed at Pitt. I mean, he could have gone to Clemson, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Penn State, 48 scholarship offers. He stayed home because he also had a little brother he knew who needed to look up to somebody. So it's always been bigger than football for DeMar Hamlins.

Now, you've done a ton of feature pieces and every time you release a feature piece, it's always a must read. How did you come across this story in particular? Because, you know, this is someone back when he gets drafted, he's a six round pick and you wrote that he is exactly what they needed, which is a pretty telling statement at the time. Yeah, you know, I guess when it comes to the actual football, which is it's so weird to even wrap our brains around football still after seeing a player get CPR for nine minutes on a field. But, you know, it was I was just looking at the team, you know, they were about to pay Josh Allen a lot of money. And as we know, with these quarterbacks, with these teams, when you pay the quarterback a lot of money, that kind of reemphasizes the draft and need to find some gems late in the rounds, late rounds. You know, he was drafted, I think 212th overall in the sixth round. So I looked him up. It's been a little, you know, I'm no draft expert, but this guy's got a little game to him.

Fearless, makes some plays around the ball. And Jordan Poyer, Micah Hyde, they're not going to be around forever. They're such mainstays. The Bills haven't really experienced life without these guys.

DeMar Hamlin could be a player that they need to rely on. So I just reached out to him and his representatives. And today I saw on Twitter, he was asking fans for the best wing spot in western New York, and they filled him in. They told him Barbell and Elmo's.

He already went to Barbell. I'm actually on my way to Elmo's right now, believe it or not. I'm returning to where I hung out with DeMar. And yeah, he said he's all about Elmo's, was all about getting the Buffalo experience. So we went there and they brought out four plates of wings.

So I really do think that we devoured all 40 wings when we were there with fries on the side. Ty Dunn here with us. It's been so tough, clearly, since Monday.

Everyone's been affected by it. How did you process over the last few days of what we unfortunately had to see on Monday night? And obviously we're all thinking about DeMar Hamlin and hope that he can come out of this okay. God, you hope and you pray.

That's all you can do is just pray and pray and pray and really speak to your loved ones like he does. And that's probably what stuck with me the most when I realized who it was down on the field. My first thought went to his parents because I figured Pittsburgh is only four and a half hours away. They're in the stands somewhere. They're seeing a body. Are they seeing the CPR? Are they just seeing this body loaded into an ambulance and that ambulance driving off and they don't know if he's alive?

That's where my mind went. What's mom thinking right now? We don't know.

Nobody knows. And then I thought back to a comment he made where he said that growing up, how he grew up in McKees Rocks, you get into the habit of telling people you love them. You end every conversation with I love you because you don't know what's going to happen. You don't know what tomorrow holds, especially in that neighborhood.

So if we take anything from this at all, I think it's that. Hey, if you got an extra $20, put it toward his toy drive. It's unreal.

The generosity of people around the country with that's done. But just tell your loved ones you love them because that's something DeMar really does all the time with everybody close to him. I know NFL locker rooms are a special place and I'm sure all around the league you could say, oh, it's a tight-knit group. But just knowing some of those players on the Buffalo Bills and seeing some of their Instagram Lives and everything throughout the season, it's really a fun environment. And they've been in a lot of big moments in Buffalo.

I just don't know. And I know, right, their athletes, they're kind of wired that way. But this is just so different than anything we've ever seen. I don't know how they play coming up on Sunday and how they find a way to go out on the field after what they just saw earlier this week on Monday, Ty.

I'm with you. It's an unbelievably tight-knit team. I haven't really seen a team that's this close because it's real. Like you said, it's real.

It's authentic. They've been through a lot together on the field, obviously. They've been knocking on the door for a few years now as a Super Bowl contender.

But just living here in Western New York, there's just been two massive snowstorms that have affected the team in their day-to-day lives, let alone taking lives. I don't even know what the real number is. They tell us it's in the 40s or 50s. I'm skeptical.

I think it's much higher than that. We had the shooting at Topps, which feels like light years ago. It really wasn't that long ago. The team was very involved in trying to uplift the community through that. They've been through a lot of non-football stuff.

This team in the city always finds a way to turn something really, really dark, really, really negative into a positive. I think we're seeing that right now with DeMar Hamlin, which obviously this trauma, this tragedy kind of tops them all, at least with the team. I don't know how they play a football game. I do know that football players are not wired like you and I psychologically. They're used to just stepping back onto that battlefield.

But this feels like it crossed some new threshold that we've never experienced, ever. I think that their mindset is directly tied to DeMar Hamlin's recovery. If DeMar continues to show progress and there's been some good signs so far, then they're probably going to feel better as a team. Maybe they inch their way toward playing football again. I'm with you.

It just seems far-fetched at the moment. What obviously makes this one so difficult is it happened right on the field. How many times, Ty, do we hear players who lose a loved one and they go to the facility to kind of use it as a distraction to get away from what's going on at home? You go into that facility today. You see his locker.

You're in a positional meeting room. You're thinking, okay, he should be there. There's just no distraction from those players. You just hope that the mental health side of it, and I know that the Bills have had a lot of resources even before this allocated to that in their organization with the Pugula family and the way that Brandon Bean and Sean McDermott have run it. I fear for some of the mental health of these players just because there's no getting away from something like this.

I totally agree. I don't know what conversations can be had to help you get through this other than that phenomenal news that we're all praying someone is opening his eyes, he's with his family, he's seeing the love, he's seeing the support, that he's on his way toward being himself again. I'm not sure what helps you get over it. I don't think anything really is going to help these guys get over it.

They'll always be part of them some way, somehow. In some way, somehow, you have to rally around it because you can't hide from it. You can't compartmentalize this, right? You just shove it into the back of your brain and start game-planning for the New England Patriots.

It's got to be at the forefront. You've got to use it somehow. I just don't know why. I don't know how. All I know is professional football players, like I said, they are modern-day gladiators that are playing the most violent game on earth, and they are wired differently.

So, I don't know. I'm kind of talking in circles here because I really don't know how they play a football game. Ty Dunn, before we let you run, just two things from a football standpoint. Have you heard anything about if the league was actually trying to resume that? We were all watching it and you hear Joe Buck say that they're going to resume in five minutes.

And then, just from afar, it looks like McDermott and Zach Taylor basically made sure that that didn't happen with their conversations. Right, we're all very skeptical of how the NFL conducts business. I would just be kind of guessing, but the five-minute thing always kind of struck me as very procedural. Like, Monday Night Football, everything's kind of to the book.

You're in, you're out, you've got commercial breaks. Maybe they were just very mechanical from a game production standpoint and they weren't taking the human elements into it. I sure would hope it's not like the commissioner is up on some throne demanding players to report back to the field in five minutes.

I don't think it was anything like that. And you're right. Kudos to Sean McDermott, Zach Taylor, the players, all taking matters into their own hands and Sean saying, look, I can't coach a football game, we can't play a football game. We've got to get to DeMar, Hamlin, right now.

And that's absolutely where the focus should have been then and where the focus still should be, what, 48, 72 hours later. Last thing I'll ask you, Ty, I know that people are wondering what's going to happen with this schedule. Do they even play this Bills-Bengals game ever again? It's all trivial in the large scheme of things, but do you expect there to be football this weekend?

I know we haven't got the announcement there's not going to be football, but do you think they're waiting or do you think they're just going on and planning that there's going to be football this weekend? For the Buffalo Bills or the whole NFL? The whole NFL, right?

Isn't it kind of you got to have everyone play or no one play, really? Yeah, I think the NFL is, at least the sense I get is it's going to play on, that the league, that these games are going to happen and they'll find a way, but yeah, the human side of this is that you can't just ignore the emotions that all of these players are feeling. I mean, maybe the NFLPA and all the players, if they really feel strongly about it, they take a stand, but I feel like there will be football games. We've seen this game and this shield kind of move forward through quite a bit, and as tragic as this is, I do think there will be football games. Now the Buffalo Bill has a different story here in Buffalo.

I'm not sure how the players who witnessed this all move on right now, but yeah, I do feel like we will be talking about football before we know it. You can read the article that he wrote, and this is back to July 9, 2021. It's a great read. Why DeMar Hamlin is exactly what the Buffalo Bills need at golongtd.com.

He is Ty Dunn. Ty, hang in there, be alright. We appreciate you giving us a few minutes today.

No, thank you, Zach. Really appreciate you having me on and sharing DeMar's story. Thanks so much.

Thanks so much. There's Ty Dunn, who does just incredible work and featured pieces, and he always finds a way to get the best out of people and tell people's stories. Obviously, no one wanted to see what happened on the football field occur, but we've seen a lot of stories the last 72 hours of videos of DeMar Hamlin talking, and you just get a sense of how good a person DeMar Hamlin is. And this story that Ty, which you can find on his Twitter page, it's pinned on his bio at TyDunn, T-Y-D-U-N-N-E, did author back in the summer of 2021. It's a must read, and it just shows how great of a person DeMar Hamlin is. And once again, we wish him and his family and everyone involved in the Buffalo Bills community and the NFL nothing but the best.

Zach, I'll play with you on CBS Sports Radio. What's the strangest thing you're afraid of? Tails without fur on them, such as rats or possums. I'm Larry Mullins, host of the podcast Your Weirdest Fears, where we dig into the crazy things you're afraid of. Everything from animal people hybrids. You know, people who get surgeries to look like an animal to giant statues.

If I ever saw one of those giant statues, I probably would poop my pants. Listen and subscribe on the Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts from. When you need to know what's happening, it's time to get in the huddle. You're fraudulent. You're not in the business of winning football games. You're in the business of trying to prove your own asinine decisions correct. We can talk about the Ursay thing. Do I think the Saturday thing is the biggest joke in the history of the NFL? I do. But at least he was going to say, this ain't working for me.

I don't care that I just gave him extensions. Listen to in the huddle available on the Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcast. No one's more locked into the NFL than first and pod. Why is it not within the realm of possibility that Geno Smith was a victim of a horrible organization, bad offensive coaching, and then went and played behind three high level talents and only got spot starts and did OK, by the way?

Well, because it's just it doesn't really happen that often anymore. Subscribe to First and Pod on the Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcast. You're listening to the Zach Gelb show. It is Zach Gelb show on CBS Sports Radio. We will have to get to hot take Kiki's adventure to the Rose Bowl coming up in about two minutes or so.

We got some audio from that crazy extravaganza that hot take Kiki did have. But first up, eight five five two one two four CBS eight five five two one two forty two twenty seven. Let me take Lou in Rochester next up on the show. Sweet Lou, how you been?

Pretty good. Listen, I appreciate your compassion and the great coverage you've given the Hamlin story yesterday and today. Great interviews with Sal Capaccio and Tyler Dunn.

Just a great take overall. I just wanted to address that Sean McDermott and I think that he he ended up saving off embarrassment because they were going to go through with that game. And Zach Taylor, they're agreeing both of them really should be given a lot of credit, both show and leadership. I think what's gone under the radar with McDermott, even though the bills were expected to perform well and be Super Bowl contenders, he maintained that. He is not really thought of as Coach of the Year type candidate, but as Tyler Dunn suggested, there's been weird, bizarre circumstances.

With weather, blizzards, snowstorms and their fatal incident with his own player. And now, like you said, he's expected to play Sunday. Now, it's great that Hamlin seems to be improving and probably make it, thank God.

But what if McDermott and his bills end up winning with a decimated secondary under extreme emotional circumstances, knocking the Patriots? I know you like them, but don't expect them to run out and he ends up with a 13 and three record. This is not really worthy of Coach of the Year.

Lou, I appreciate the phone call and thank you for the kind words. It's tough for me. I'm just going to be honest here. It's tough for me to talk about the DeMar Hamlin situation and then make it into any sort of case for why someone should win an award across the league.

What happened on Monday is obviously terrible. And if you listen to this show, ever since we've launched, I've been a huge fan of Sean McDermott. Heck, I wanted the Eagles when I was covering Philadelphia when they hired Doug Peterson to hire Sean McDermott. And what McDermott has done from a roster standpoint with Brandon Bean and the way that they've coached in the first year, nine and seven. Then they missed the playoffs, six and ten. And then since then, a dominant team, ten and six, 13 and three, 11 and six, now 12 and three, could be 13 and three. What Sean McDermott has to coach through, it is just something that I can't even imagine.

But you look around the league and I don't even like to go here. But since the question was asked, I don't think he's going to win Coach of the Year because everyone thought the Bills were supposed to be this great team. But it doesn't mean that he hasn't been through tough circumstances even before this.

When you mention what Buffalo has gone through as a community this year. So McDermott is a heck of a coach. I know last year in what was the AFC divisional round, he got a lot of flack because he didn't squib kick it.

And he took a lot of heat for that. But you saw what real leadership looks like. Regardless if they win another game this year or not, I don't even care. Football is trivial at this point compared to what DeMar Hamlin's going through as he's fighting for his life.

And obviously we hope nothing but the best for DeMar Hamlin. But in that moment, there's no doubt about it that the NFL was thinking about playing again. And there's no doubt about it, the NFL, whether it was saying five minutes and then realizing, oh, they can't play. However it did go down, the reason why they did not play that game was because Sean McDermott and Zach Taylor knew that it wasn't right.

And there's something, sometimes you know something isn't right and then you don't say something. You saw two coaches who've done phenomenal jobs with their teams, obviously. And the Bengals won a Super Bowl last year.

And they are in great position to get to another one this year. McDermott, we talked about the rise of Buffalo, who before McDermott got there, that was a team that didn't make the playoffs since 1999. So we know how great coaches these two guys are, but you really saw in their toughest moment ever, maybe their best work. Because they made sure the players were not going to be put in that position to go back out there on the field and play football after seeing one of their own get CPR during a game. I just want to play you here right now Zach Taylor, who did speak earlier today.

This is Zach Taylor, who did have a lot of praise for Sean McDermott and obviously discussed his first conversation with Sean McDermott on the field after everyone saw, unfortunately, what did happen to DeMar Hamlin on Monday. We separated as teams. The officials, again, did a great job of coming over to me and saying, hey, they're still trying to process this moment here, Coach McDermott and their team. And so instead of playing telephone on separate sidelines, the decision was made just to go over there and make sure we're all talking together.

And I won't disclose any of the private conversations Sean and I had except for this. When I got over there, the first thing he said was I need to be at the hospital with DeMar and I shouldn't be coaching this game. And so that to me provides all the clarity because there was no unprecedented is the word that gets thrown out a lot about this situation because that's what it is. But in that moment, he really showed who he was, that all his focus was just on DeMar and being there for him, being there for his family at the hospital. And at that point, I think everything trended in the direction it needed to trend and the right decisions were made there. But again, just the way that I really felt Sean McDermott led in that moment for his players. He was there for his players.

He processed the right way, which is incredibly difficult. And really helped us get to the solution that we needed to get to. You know, it's kind of weird to say that the Buffalo Bills are a model franchise now of the NFL. But the way that they have run their organization the last five, six years, if you just look at the last five, six years, it's one of the better jobs in the league. And if you look at other teams, the Giants trying to recreate what Buffalo has been doing by bringing in Joe Shane, by bringing in Brian Deball as well.

And it's really the people in that Bills organization that make the difference. Sean McDermott is an outstanding person. Brandon Bean, we've had him on this show before, outstanding guy. And I had a few text messages exchanged with Brandon Bean after the incident, unfortunately.

Because you feel clearly for him and you develop a little bit of relationship with someone. You know, if you've listened to this show before, you know I'm friendly from Temple with Deon Dawkins and Tyler Metikevich. Two of the classiest people you'll ever meet. And there's a reason why Deon Dawkins is nominated for the Walter Payton Man of the Year. And we'll play you some audio from Deon coming up later on in the show. But he was doing interviews last night talking about DeMar Hamlin on CNN with Wolf and then on SportsCenter with Kevin Nagande. And when I walked out of the studio on Monday at 10 p.m. and they were showing what happened, obviously, I saw an image of Tyler Metikevich. I knew Tyler when he got right to Temple University's campus before he became a Bronco Dagurski Award winner, a Chuck Bednarek Award winner.

Phenomenal special teams player with the Steelers and now a team captain with the Buffalo Bills. And Tyler's always someone that has a smile on his face. You know, he's always a jovial guy. And when I saw the look in his eyes, it told me everything I needed to know about the situation.

And obviously the situation was horrible. But you go to this entire roster, what Josh Allen has done in this league, and you see the personality of a Staphon Diggs who right away, such a team first guy and someone that was just trying to be a good friend on Monday. And you hear how much Staphon Diggs has changed the direction of this Bills franchise.

But you get to the human side of it, takes an Uber and just talks his way into get into the hospital. Gabe Davis as well, a tremendous person from a conversation I've had with him before. You look defensively with some of the players they have on the defensive side of the ball and just the entire like Jordan Poyer and Micah Hyde. I know Micah Hyde's out for the season, but the relationship of a Dane Jackson as well, who he has and will have with DeMar Hamlin.

This is just from top to bottom, a phenomenal organization. You know, what Dawson Knox, unfortunately, has been through this year. And there's just a lot of good people in this organization. And you saw the type of person that really Sean McDermott was on Monday. Because how many times do we, when talking about football coaches, we talk about how they lose sight of the situation.

And I know it's in different levels of severity, but a lot of times they're robots. And there could have been a lot of coaches in that moment that saw unfortunately what happened and knew how horrible it was. But then start to think, OK, we got to go play, we got to go play, we got a game going on. Sean McDermott knew that team wasn't playing. He knew they were not going to get back onto the field that night.

And Zach Taylor as well. He's got to be given a lot of praise to for knowing that there was no way you could continue that game. So we could sit here and we could discuss, oh, the league should have called it before and shouldn't have left it in really needing the coaches to make the decision. And were they told five minutes or not? We've never seen anything like that on the field.

And we say it before and we'll say it again. There's no playbook for what happened. And no one wanted to obviously see what happened, occurred. But the way that Sean McDermott handled it, it was admirable.

It really was. And I know we can get all caught up in who you root for and, you know, I'm obviously a Patriot fan. I would love to see Buffalo this year go on and win the Super Bowl. Even before this, just the respect that you have for that fan base, just the respect that you have for that organization.

It's a phenomenal organization. But really, in times like this, I don't care when they play next. I don't care if they don't resume the Bills and Bengals game and what it does for playoff seeding.

All that stuff is trivial. I know I don't want to, because we're so passionate about the game. I know I don't want us to say, hey, it's just a game. But when you see what Damar Hamlin's going through, it's impossible to say, to not say that it's just a game. Because there's obviously something bigger than football and it's the health.

And it's just that Damar Hamlin, hopefully, he makes a full recovery. Why is it not within the realm of possibility that Geno Smith was a victim of a horrible organization, bad offensive coaching, and then went and played behind three high-level talents and only got spot starts and did OK, by the way? Well, because it doesn't really happen that often anymore. Why is it not within the realm of possibility that Geno Smith was a victim of a horrible organization, bad offensive coaching, and then went and played behind three high-level talents and only got spot starts and did OK, by the way? Well, because it doesn't really happen that often anymore. Why is it not within the realm of possibility that Geno Smith was a victim of a horrible organization, bad offensive coaching, and then went and played behind three high-level talents and only got spot starts and did OK, by the way? Well, because it doesn't really happen that often anymore.

Why is it not within the realm of possibility that Geno Smith was a victim of a horrible organization, bad offensive coaching, and then went and played behind three high-level talents and only got spot starts and did OK, by the way? You went to the Rose Bowl, and you got to see your alma mater, Penn State, sorry, take down Utah. I need the whole experience.

I need the recap of what it was like to be at the granddaddy of them all, the Rose Bowl. Let's start with the negative first. There's one negative.

Well, two negatives. Number one, the weather. The weather sucked. It was like the coldest day in L.A. maybe of all year. Every year I watch the Rose Bowls, it's the game I look forward to the most.

Every year it's sunny, it's 75, there's not a cloud in the sky. The two times Penn State's been in 2016, I was not there, but watch on TV, it's cloudy, it's not a very nice day. That was the game against USC, the crazy back and forth with Sam Darnold? Was that Hackenberg?

Sam Darnold, no, Trace McSorley, Saquon Barkley. Great game that was. Well, for some. No, objectively that was a great game. I know because Penn State didn't win. You have to be miserable and you have to cry and you can't. It's a back and forth game and you lose. Are your Michigan fans happy that they lost?

No. It's a great game. But you can acknowledge it's a great game. They acknowledge that Michigan TCU was a great game. You can acknowledge that Penn State against USC and the Rose Bowl back in, what was it you said, 2015, 2016?

2016 season, 2017 calendar year if you want to get technical. Oh yeah, that's okay. So yeah, you could acknowledge that was a great game.

But anyway, continuing. So it was cloudy, it was chilly, and in the fourth quarter it rained the entire time and it was raining pretty heavy. Now thank God at that point Penn State was up three touchdowns, so at that point it doesn't matter. Did you guys leave?

No, no, no, no. That would have been horrible if you left the full game. But if they're down 21 and it's raining and it's cold, yeah. Yeah, but you're there. You can't leave. I agree.

It would just be extra, add a little extra misery, that's all. But other than that, it was tremendous. The stadium is beautiful. It's 100 years old and it still looks pretty good. I've been to plenty of other stadiums that are a lot younger that are in way worse shape. It's picturesque.

The flyover is awesome. Just the way the stadium is painted, how it looks on TV, it's even more beautiful in person. Great atmosphere. A lot of Utes in attendance. Yeah, how about the attendance?

I could not believe. And you know me, I am someone that will take a shot at Penn State here or there. I could not believe how many more Utah Utes fans there were than Penn State Nittany Lion fans. It looked like on television, I kid you not, 75-25 in favor of the Utah Utes. Yeah, there was a lot more red there than I was anticipating. I really thought Penn State would be 50-50. I thought they were going to overtake Utah, to be quite frank.

It shows you one thing. That game does not have the significance as it once did. As much as I love the Rose Bowl and as much as you say it's the granddaddy of them all, other than you, it wasn't like there was a lot of buzz for Penn State Utah this year. It's still an important game, but now with the playoff and it's a playoff for Boston, I would agree. Definitely since 2014, it's not a semi-final game. Is that really an important game? I would say so. If Utah would have beat a huge bowl win. Is it not?

Not in the year of 2023, I don't think so. Well, outside of the playoff, if you can't win the College Bowl playoff, which is ideal, and you say you win a bowl game, the Rose Bowl is probably the number one bowl most people would pick. Let me ask you this.

You lose that game. Are you really that devastated? Oh yeah, absolutely. You're still down in the dumps today?

Maybe not today, like two days later. You would have moped around here? I wouldn't be moping around, but I would definitely be upset. Clearly it wasn't that big of a game if only 25% of the stadium was Penn State fans. Well, I did my part. I was there. I was loud. It was a great atmosphere. I'll give to the Utah fans credit. It was very loud in the pregame. I would give them a lot of credit, but that didn't really matter. When you don't have a lot to cheer about, it's hard to be loud. Now, I will say this.

Your video afterwards, I just laughed out loud. It is the most classic, because the stereotype about Penn State is it is a cult. That the football program is a cult, and you have 100,000 people at their stadium each and every week. No matter what they say, the school could do no wrong.

That's just the way that people talk about it. And really, the football program could do no wrong, and everything's great, and they're a wonderful team. Now, I'll give Penn State credit. Penn State had a good season this year. Penn State had a better season than really what anyone could have thought.

You out of all people who's like the leader of the Penn State propaganda and the leader of the cult. Going into the season, this was the first time since knowing you that you were actually down on your football team heading into a season where most of the time, you're like, Penn State's going to the college football playoffs. Don't let the Knicks get hot.

Don't let them get hot. This year, you had no really optimism for this season. Next year, I think they'll go 0-12. I'm just going to say that now. They're going to be a really bad team next year. It's funny you say that because, like Robert Sala, I got receipts. This is hot take Hickey leaving the Rose Bowl, the granddaddy of them all, and he had to rush to Twitter to get out his just thoughts of jackassery about Penn State football for next year. You can't even, you don't even know who Foley's going to be on the team next year, and Hickey's already telling you how great Penn State's going to be.

Before we play this audio, because I made a few observations when you released this video. How many drinks did you have during the course of that game? Because I've been to a lot of tailgates, I've been to a lot of football games, and before the game, right, you're getting liquored up, and during the game you're having a few, but then by the time you usually leave the stadium, you could be coherent.

You could be somewhat sober. How many drinks do you have throughout the course of that? Like, when did you start tailgating?

Or when did you start pre-gaming for the game? We got there like 10.30. 10.30 Pacific time?

10.30 Pacific time, yep, for a 2 o'clock game. Okay, so how many drinks did you have before you entered the stadium? Roughly about 7 or 8. Oh, wow!

I didn't know Hickey got down like that. We brought, not to brag about our friends, we brought, there were 60 beers, and we went into the stadium without any. How many people? It was a core of six, and we had two other stragglers, and we gave like 3 or 4 away to some strangers, because we were kind of near the entrance, or at least it was like a bottleneck, so we were kind of near where a lot of people exit the fields.

So let's say it's like 9 people you're probably tailgated with, it's like 6 or 7 beers each you're looking at. We were getting after it. We were doing some damage. Now in the stadium, how much damage did you do?

Another 4 tall boys on top of that. Because you usually can be sober and still sound like you're drunk when talking about Penn State football, but I know, I know my Hickey. I know my hot take Hickey. And you walking out of that stadium, you could barely speak, but still, the leader of the Penn State cult, hot take Hickey with his Penn State propaganda, gave us this gem, his first, folks, his first hot take of the year of 2023, is this gem. We are live right at the Rose Bowl, where no big deal Penn State demolished, dominated, controlled number 8 Utah in an absolute dominant victory. So let me just tell you this folks, for the future, 2023, look out for the Knicks. They dominated with Sean Clifford, 6-year quarterback, no big deal.

Hey guys, you all are coming in, two professional running acts, dominant. We'll see you next year. We'll see you in the playoffs. You know, Penn State, they dominated the game. Not only did they dominate the game, they did it with a 6-year, I think it's a 6-year, a 6-year quarterback, and no big deal. We win a game that our great fan base didn't even want to show up to, but I'm going to return like this is winning a national championship game. You know, forget Michigan next year, forget that team from Ohio State. They're going to win it all next year.

They're going to be a comfortable playoff. I'm just going to say this. The voice had nothing to do with the boozing. It was all strictly from leaving my voice and heart and soul in the Rose Bowl. And that is just a product of, like I said, when you're cheering hard and giving your full support behind your team, that's the result.

You were boozed up leaving that stadium. Oh, without a doubt. For me, it hits a lot later.

It's not like instant. So that was like a tidal wave at that point in the fourth quarter. But again, the voice is more just, again, leaving on the line for four quarters in the rain, in the cold, no big deal. Now, after you've sobered up now and you've had a few days to think about it, I'm going to give you an out here. Give you an out. I'm in a good mood.

It's 2023. I made it a New Year's resolution. I'm usually a nice person to be a little bit more benevolent this year.

I think I have a good heart, but I want to be a little bit more benevolent this year. So I'm going to give you an out before we troll you. You think Penn State next year is going to the college football playoff?

Did I hear that right? Next year is truly the first time I can say college football playoff or bust since probably 2017. Okay. Let's go. Now, I know Drew Aller is supposed to be a phenomenal quarterback, but for a quarterback that we have seen very little to put those expectations on someone right away, when you're in a conference with the big boys of Michigan and Ohio State, I think you're setting yourself up for us to be playing.

Let me hit that audio clip one more time. I think next year we're going to be playing this towards the end of the college football season. We are live right at the Rose Bowl where, no big deal, Penn State demolished, dominated, controlled, number eight Utah in an absolute dominoic day. So let me tell you folks, for the future, look out for the Knicks.

They dominated with Sean Clifford, Shakespeare, no big deal. Now you guys, you are coming in two professional running acts, dominant. We'll see you next year. We'll see you in the playoffs. How many times are you going to say dominant? That was the adjective on the brain. What can I say? When you watch that performance, offense, defense, special teams.

Give me a break. And if you want to play this this time next year, music of my ears, the Rose Bowl is the semifinal game. We'll see you there.

Let's go. Big year for 2023. I'll tell you that right now. You're crazy. It's already starting. You're really a jackass, but you're our jackass.

But that's what I'll say to you. I don't think this year it's being delusional. I could argue definitely 2020.

After Auburn, I was feeling a little bit for that. There were some flaws in 2021. This is like the boy who cried wolf. You cry this every year. On paper. On paper. This should be the year that I'm actually right.

I've swung and missed a few times. I'm feeling good that, you know. So now James Franklin, who could never win a big game because he won this big game of the Rose Bowl that used to be a big game. But this year it really meant nothing. You're now confident that your coach is going to mess it up in a big spot, right? That's right.

That's right. I love Pat Kraft. The idea at Penn State. Pat, you're getting mushed before the season even started because our mush, the hot take hickey, is the mush of all mushes.

When you need to know what's happening, it's time to get hit. In the huddle. You're fraudulent. You're not in the business of winning football games. You're in the business of trying to prove your own asinine decisions correct. We can talk about the Ursay thing. Do I think the Saturday thing is the biggest joke in the history of the NFL? I do. But at least he was willing to say, this ain't working for me.

I don't care that I just gave him extensions. Listen to In the Huddle, available on the OZY app or wherever you get your podcast. No one's more locked into the NFL than first and pod. Why is it not within the realm of possibility that Geno Smith was a victim of a horrible organization, bad offensive coaching, and then went and played behind three high level talents and only got spot starts and did okay, by the way?

Well, because it's just, it doesn't really happen that often anymore. Subscribe to first and pod on the Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcast. No one's more locked into the NFL than first and pod. Subscribe to first and pod on the Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcast.