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This is the Dan Levator Show with the Stugatz Podcast.

Welcome to another edition of JenCFB, the show whose name everyone loves.

Thanky. They definitely didn't send me mean messages all weekend about how mad they are. They can't yell foot.

At me anymore. And yet they.

Still will, Lucy. They still will.

I think every comment on last week's video was like, footgirls was better. And you know what? Neither of us cosigned that. No. That was a Mike Ryan thing.

You are not my target audience. I don't want a man to tell me that they like to yell foot at me. I don't want that. Yeah.

I mean, we get why. We get it. But we wanted to make our own name. And now we get to do the show with Dan's hairy arm behind my head.

But I will say Mike Ryan did a great job on the music video.

No, don't. Just get out of here. You were not invited to this episode.

No, you did a great job on the music video. It was very funny. I appreciated all the creativity, but I hated the name of the show, which you did choose, but you did so well with it.

His presence is now guilting you into acknowledging him and the work he put into something that we didn't ask for.

We didn't ask for it, but...

In fact, I would say I didn't ask for any of this.

No, not particularly. So happy bowl season, I guess.

Happy bowl season, Lucy. How are you finding the bowls this year?

I've been impressed so far. I have, man, the famous toastery bowl. Wow. Electric. Right out of the gate. Good stuff.

Yeah, I know talking about your bets or your pickups or your fantasy teams, no one really cares. No one wants to hear about it. But I'm going to do it for just one second. Please, I want to hear. So bear with me.

I want to hear.

I go ham on bowl season in Pick 'em. My family has been doing it for as long as I've been alive. Over 20 years, we've been doing Pick 'Ems, and we always do a straight-up pick a winner, the person with the most winner wins. But recently I've gotten into the confidence Pick 'Em game, which is probably the most commonly found one on ESPN. And it's hard because I have no confidence in any of these games. There are so many players not playing. There are so many players in the portal. Coach is gone. Coach is coming and going. It's just a mess. And so I had Western Kentucky, and I felt very confident in them. And then I turned on the game in the first quarter and it was like 21 to zero old Dominion. And I was like, I got so mad and this is irrational and I shouldn't have done this. I got so mad I turned it off. What? I turned off the famous Toastery bowl. And then an hour later, my friends were over and I was like, I need to turn the famous Toes Re bowl back on because it's a bowl game.

I don't care if it's one-sided or whatever, I'm going to turn it back on. And I witnessed after that moment, one of the most electric, confusing, penalty-laden comebacks in college football history, Western Kentucky won. I won that game in my confidence pool, and I celebrated like, Notre Dame had won the national championship.

We've had this year, it just has felt like... Last year, I feel like we got screwed in. Maybe I'm remembering things wrong. I don't know. Today's been a long day.

They all are. It doesn't help that we also record the segment last out of everything that we do. And my brain's usually scrambled eggs by like, hour two, and then this is.

Like.

Post-post-post.

Hour two. People have been tweeting at me stuff we said today. I don't remember it. I don't remember saying it.

I couldn't tell you anything that I've said in two and a half years doing.

This job. And with this nice little like... What's the tangent? Segue? Whatever we've done here? I don't even know. Ball games. I forgot what we.

Were talking about. You said we were cheated last year. Yeah, maybe.

Not even cheated last year, but maybe cheated this regular season. We didn't have a ton of upset. We had good regular season games. I think we're due for a good bowl slate this year. I think we've already had a pretty decent shot. I only got to watch the first half of UTSA Marshall, but it was really fun. This famous Toastery Bowl was great.

Yeah, UTSA Marshall was... So Marshall came out very strong and then UTSA... Something happened to them after the first quarter, and they just decided we're going to actually play really good football now. And they won that game pretty dominantly. But the thing that happened after the game is what bowl season has become about, which is the full headfirst diving into sponsors doing silly things. And they dumped a vat of cold brew on Jeff Taylor, the UTSA head coach. And he said afterwards, he will never forget the feeling of that cold brew running down his crack.

Well, that's what the bull season is about. People say that capitalism has no good things, and I disagree, man. Watch the famous Idaho potato bowl and tell me that capitalism isn't serving some purpose. How have we.

Not been doing that? How did this... With the Idaho potato bowl and the French fries, how is this a recent thing? What were we doing in the dark ages for all of these years? Jeremy, you're nodding your head.

You agree with me. I couldn't agree with you more. I really am so amazed that we weren't using more gimmicks all the way around. What have we been doing? Looking at the Bad Boy Moars, Gasparillable. Don't the lawnmower. -everyone should be... Yeah, or just ride around on lawnmowers at the end.

Of it. Before, they used to have lawnmower races the week.

Itry to be creative enough to it. I remember that. You're right. But it's got to be a post-game response. I'm seeing myself in the camera right now. I still look like Brian Santana.

I look awful. The Toastery Bowl, though, is a great example. They had so many.

Toasts everywhere. They threw toasts. Players were doing.

Toast Angels on the field. I was like, Oh, my God, they're doing Toast Angels. And everyone's like, What does that mean? Well, they're doing Snow Angels, but in a sporadically tossed toast on the field. Penalty box. From here?

I thought you guys supported me.

Yeah, sometimes you make it hard to do that.

Okay, you can come back. You can come back.

You can come back. The only issue we run into with the fun bull gimmicks is like, Man, that's going to suck to go play in the turbo tax bowl and be like, Well, or.

Like- Great. Yeah, like the.

Irs is here. Do your taxes for you. You also.

Don't want the sponsors to take it too far because we do have a bowl sponsored by Lockheed Martin.

Yeah. Hey, guys, everyone gets a Extreme grade weapon.

America. You're anyways, the Bulls have been really good. It was weird that we talked last week about how bulls season started surprisingly out of nowhere this year because all this has to do with the television networks and mainly the NFL schedule. And they don't have bowl games on at the same time as NFL games. I get that. But the Wednesday before we were recording this, no bull game. I got used to my bull game NFL schedule. And then Wednesday rolled around. Maybe it was because it was National Signing Day. Maybe it was because there was other nationally broadcast games that day, no bowl game. So we were deprived for one day and I felt bowl game withdrawal. So now we're back in it, Lucy. And I'm excited for the rest of these.

Now I am so pumped. I think we're going to focus on the New Year's six bowls today because we still only have a short amount of time to talk about college football.

Not enough. They still only give us like 20 minutes. So we're going to talk about the New Year's Sixth Bowl games, obviously the playoffs, the national championship. This is our last episode of Gen CFP until after New Year's. So I guess we won't talk about the national championship. That doesn't make sense.

That's on the eighth. That's on the eighth. So we'll.

Have time. We'll be back maybe the fourth or the fifth. Maybe the sixth. Probably not the sixth. Probably the fifth. And we're also going to talk about all the news. Do you want to start with this Florida State situation?

Yeah. So we all predicted when Florida State got left out of the playoff because of Jordan, Travis's injury, mainly because they were in the ACC is the actual reason. I pretty much knew that Florida State was out on remaining in the ACC. This was always going to be something that happened. Well, before they got left out of the playoff, Florida State, Clemson, I believe, Virginia, UNC, and then NC State was like, Oh, Stuart, snuck in there. And they were like, We have had it with the ACC. So Florida State is now... They've called just a random meeting to talk about leaving the ACC, which you may be like, Well, they went 12 and 0 this year. Why would they leave the ACC? Because the ACC respectfully is poor, and they don't have... They are. They're poor. Rutgers make so much more money than Florida State. I mean, they're going to burn it really fast. But Purdue, way more money than Florida State, which is crazy. And I know that in this day and age of NIL and recruiting, you're going to want those facilities. You're going to want that money to be able to win football games, win national championships, win national championships and non-revenue sports.

And Florida State is great in non-revenue sports.

And the Women's Soccer National Championship this year.

Their softball team kicks ass. So we're in this weird... Florida State is pretty much doing everything they can to leave the ACC, get out of those grant of rights. However, the ACC has called that an ironclad document. There's no way to get out of it. But Florida State, I am in the Florida State little Facebook group, they're going to find a way. They have gone full delusion. They're going to find a way.

So you've been reading Florida State fans' reactions to all of this on Facebook, which seems like the most dangerous game.

It absolutely is. Me and Jeremy were talking about it earlier. I was like, Sometimes you're like, I can't understand how people get these crazy, wild conspiracy theory. 1 hour in the Florida State Facebook group, you get it. They have convinced themselves ESPN is the one who has done this. They are.

Trying to take- ESPN is out to get them.

Yeah, Kerr, Kerr Street is trying to get Florida State. It is a dark but interesting and funny place.

To be. I don't blame fans for being upset at the television networks, but I feel like it's not because of the talking heads talking about their teams. It's because of the executives that are behind a lot of the conference realignment decisions that are being made. And that's what's caused this huge Gulf. Although I will say, when it comes to Florida State and the ACC and this grant of rights, they're in a bad deal that they.

Agreed to. And their solution for this, if they cannot just abandon the ACC, which that's best case scenario, is getting out of the ACC. However, there are so many things that go into this document where it's like, Okay, you can leave the ACC. You pay your, I believe it's multiple millions and millions of dollars to.

Get out. It could be like $120 million. Basically, if they want to leave, they can. It's going to cost so much money in.

Legal fees.

Is it going to be worth it? That's the calculation that it sounds like they're.

Going to be making. And even if they leave, the ACC still owns the rights to broadcast anything that happens in Tallahassee. So if Florida State has a home game against, I don't know, Texas.

You're great.

You're not going to broadcast that anywhere because that still belongs to the ACC, and that's going to kill your revenue even more. So even if you do join the SCC, you're not getting the piece of that TV network pie. They're in a really terrible situation. It seems like the most likely solution, because I do not think that you're going to get out of this document or this grant of rights, is the ACC restructuring their model, where it's not an equal base revenue share, where every team in the Big Ten right now gets the same amount of money. That's fine, because every team in the Big Ten is getting an insane amount of money. But when you look at what revenue Wake Forest brings into the ACC compared to Florida State, it's going to be vastly different. So if Florida State thinks it should be based off more of, hey, here are our TV ratings. Here are our how many championships we win. It's going to... Schools are going to lose money in the process of this. But also, I understand it. Then the name of-.

Yeah, no one wants to make less money. But I think also the struggle with the ACC has been that there are certain athletic departments that are content with their size and aren't trying to grow and keep up with athletic departments in the SCC or the Big Ten, although obviously everyone wants more money all the time. And then you have schools like Florida State and Clemson and maybe the current regime at Miami right now that are like, no, we want to be making 50 million dollars a year. We're not going to settle for 23 or 25 or whatever. I don't know. It's a mess. I'm not a lawyer, so I don't really know what's going to happen. I don't know if they can break the grant of rights or if they can pay their way into some negotiation. I have no idea. I don't know how much this will cost. It doesn't seem like they're worried about money right now, though. They just are very mad and fed up. I don't know if they do try to leave the ACC, which conference wants them? Because they've all said, like, They're done. But I don't believe any of them.

No way. They are 18 team conferences now. They're huge. I don't know, do they go to the SCC? Do they go to the Big 12? Do they go to the Big Ten?

Probably not. They're just trying to get to a big boy conference like Big Brother UCF already did.

When you.

Said that, I.

Didn't acknowledge it because I didn't want it.

To be a part of this. I've been waiting for minutes. You didn't want it on the air? A legitimate question about it, though. A legitimate question is, do you think that if F. S. U. Didn't go undefeated this season that they would still be throwing this stank about the ACC? Because I do, too. It just happens to look more like, instead of when you see a claim to national championship, it's like F. S. U being like, Well, we're going to blow up the whole thing because you didn't let us in. Where I think actually, in reality, as you guys were stating, even if they went nine in three this year, they'd probably still be making that argument about the ACC.

They absolutely would. I just don't think it would be... Because they've already made this argument before. This is not the first time they talked about this. This is not the.

First time they did that.

It's just the momentum now. I think that it may have been something that would have waited a year or two, but this is absolutely a secondary push in response to being left out of the playoff.

I think this is a good time to raise money if you're at FSU, because you could be like, Look, we've got a target on our backs now.

That Kirk Herb Street put there.

Yeah. So I don't know. I don't know what's going to happen. But by the time people listen to this, the board of trustees may have already met. And if they do meet, they may be meeting to produce a quote, A legal filing in what many describe as the first step to achieving an exit from the ACC's Binding Grant of Rights Agreement. So anyways, that's from Ross Dellinger, where a lot of this reporting is coming from. Good stuff, Lucy. We'll see what happens. It's going to be spicy. -maybe everyone should be independent. I don't know. Independence, not the worst thing, right, guys?

Chip Kelly had the right idea. Until he went into like 64 team conference. All right, you need to calm down there. But, not a day, gosh, I've been doing it right.

Don't live a tard. Elton John does not like performing Crocadile Rock, but to the point we were making, I think he still does because he just knows the crowd wants to hear it.

Right, well, he has to. I feel.

Like that's safe. He might be litigious, but that was such a poor imitation of the song.

Still guts. We can all agree, Piano Man. This might get shyny as well. The crowd needs to sing Piano Man.

Yeah, but I want to hear Billy Joel sing Piano Man.

They just let.

You at the end go.

Does he still have the.

She just wants suie nominations.

She just wants to rack up suey.

I'm trying to avoid that. I'm trying to avoid that. Make rock and roll rock. Make Billy Joel's Piano. You got it?

You got it.

It's all right.

This is The Don't Live at our show with the Stugats. Well, we've wasted so much.

Time on Florida State. Not that we're sad about it, but someone deserves to talk about them then they make the playoff. Let's talk about our New.

Year's Six Bulls. Should we start with the one that Florida State is playing in, the Orange Bowl?

Yes, the Capital One Orange Bowl here in Miami.

I see what you did there. Playing against Georgia. Georgia is a heavy favorite. Florida States got a lot of opt-outs. They're already an underdog. Georgia has also got a lot of opt-outs. This is like a game of like, I don't know who's playing.

Yeah, I'm not going to bet this game because Florida State has enough opt-outs that you should be concerned. Georgia also does, but Georgia specifically, as I'm wearing a Georgia hat, is a school that just cycles in five stars. So we're just going to see the next, we might like, crop of NFL, first rounders with Georgia. It's going to be a good game. These are two teams that are both very respectfully unhappy to be there, but I think it'll have a lot of eyes on the game. It's not a game that you can really really predict because we genuinely don't know who's playing.

I still give an edge to Georgia. So if I'm making a pick, my pick is Georgia.

I'll do the same, but I'd rather see Florida State win. That's the absolute funniest case scenario.

Just remember that if Florida State wins, it's because Georgia didn't care. And if Georgia wins, it's because F. S. U. Never deserve to be there.

Yeah. I mean, that is the thing with the ball game era now is that it's really difficult to take any stock in any program. I will say, obviously, the playoff games are an exception. I do think that players still, not all of them and not all the time, do take a little bit more stock in the New Year's Six games, which is why we're talking about those. But if we go back now to talk about the Cotton Bowl, that's another game that I'm like, These are two teams that I would have loved to see play in the regular season. I think that would have been a really fun thing to watch. Missouri, I think maybe, is a one-point favorite in this game. But Ohio State's quarterback, who was 11 and won this season, transferred to Syracuse, he's not playing. Their backup, Devon Brown, is probably going to start. We still don't know if they're even going to get a quarterback in the portal next year. Maybe they're waiting to see how he plays. I don't know. Marvin Harrison Jr, their best player maybe is playing, maybe isn't playing. We're typing this ahead of time, so I have no idea.

Missouri, though, has been such a fun team this year. They have all these great skill position players. They have this running back who got a first place Heisman vote, Lucy, current trainer. And he earned it.

He had a.

Great season, finished with 1,500 yards, 13 touchdowns, averaging six yards a carry. I don't know who to pick in this game either. Ohio State, I want to give an edge too, but I wouldn't be surprised if Missouri won it.

This is a game that's a surprisingly good talent matchup. You wouldn't really expect that from Mizzou. But as we talked about earlier on the main show that they have just been crushing it when it comes to recruiting and the portal and stuff. Ohio State is just the vibes are so off right now because it wasn't like, Okay, Kyle McCord just transferred. Kyle McCord was like, This was miserable, and I hated it here, and I want to leave so bad. So vibes are off with Ohio State right now. So I'm leaning Mizzou, but I can see it going either way. Ohio State is obviously one of the most talented teams in the country as they are all the freaking time.

I have a question. How do you guys get Heisman votes?

I want one. I think.

Dan has one. His dad, I believe, still has one.

And hasn't been on television anymore. I don't think I would ever get one because I'm too much of a homer. Yeah, I'd pick.

On it.

Just want to go through.

Yeah. I do think I deserve one.

I mean, Dan voted for Jordan, Travis.

Yeah, what's the application process? What do we do to get you guys in? How do we start.

A campaign? My dad, Gojo, has a Heisman vote. I don't ask him. But he's also a homer.

Yeah, that's what I'm saying. You're telling me that people in Tuscaloosa that have Heisman votes aren't voting for Alabama? Get out of here.

Someone did vote for Cody Schrader, which I don't know who it was. He deserved it. But it's very funny. If someone voted JJ McCarthy, gave him a.

First-yeah, that one was crazy.

-first-place pick too. Imean, I could have seen it if we voted in week nine. Yeah.

If that were a week six, then I would have been a.

Good call. Yeah, he didn't get any other.

First-place votes. They let him throw the ball eight times against Penn State.

We're so serious. There's 928 electors. That's a lot. Exactly. What would kill them to have 930? You know what I mean? Gen CFP.

Speaking of games that I don't know who to predict a winner in, and also Penn State. Penn State and Ole Miss and the Peach Bowl. On the one hand, Penn State, they... James Franklin wins New Year's Six Bowl games. He has a decent record in them. On the other hand, some of their best players are gone, Chop Robinson, I believe, is not playing. Manny Diaz, their defensive coordinator, is now the head coach at Duke. You may remember him from the 2021 Coach and Carousel season on the Dan Levitard show with Stu Gatz when he was the Miami head coach.

The guy who has the same record as Mario or?

Jerber.

Sorry.

We don't slander the on the show. Save that for the main show and save to Mike's face. Just kidding, we do.

It looks like the Heisman voters are broken down by region, and it's an equal number of voters per region. And like, I don't know, this is nice, but Kojo moved. So should he still have a vote when he switched his location? Also, are we... I don't want this to take a dark turn. Are we hoping people die and then both become available?

I feel like if it's by region, then being in the Southeast is going to work against us because there's probably a lot of Heisman voters in this region.

I could lie.

I mean, look.

I.

Lived in L. A. What it look? I think that it would be great. I could still live there. -it'd be great. Exactly right. It'd be great for Metallark to have one or two Heisman voters. And if that required you guys moving back to where you lived previously, I feel like it raises the credibility of the show and the company, right? And you'd be doing it in the best interest of the company, would you not?

Yeah. I think it'd be really good. Let's apply an expense. I assume you apply, right? Or do you get invited? I don't know. But if we have to apply and pay a fee, we'll just expense it to Dan. I think that's a good-.

Sounds.

Fair. -solution. I don't know who's going to win the Peach Bowl, Lucy. Penn State's favored, Ole Miss. They both had really good seasons, but couldn't beat those top teams on their schedules. I have no idea.

I'm leaving Penn State. I know Mannie Diaz is out. I believe they made a hire. I believe it's Tom Allen, the old Indiana Coach. Which is.

So crazy to me because he got a huge buyout, and he's like, Yeah, I'm going to go live in state college and keep coaching. I would be gone. He would.

Never see me again. Oh, yeah. I'd be on a boat. I'd be posting a little picture like Dan Mullen, but not.

Tom Allen. You need to talk about.

That, too. Yeah, no, I actually really like that higher. I think Penn State wins. I do think both of these teams are too... On the overrated side, just how we discussed them this year, this is a game that we're going to see a million and 10 times when the playoff expands to 12 teams. This will be 5, 6 pretty much every single year or whatever that matchup is.

Yeah, this would be a great first round of next year game.

I really love Penn State's defense. I don't think there's anything about it. I think they're really, really good. James Wranglin does coach well in these games. Ole Miss is a team that's just like, It is very hard for me to trust them, and I understand it's hard to trust Penn State as well, but that defense is phenomenal. So I guess I'm going to Penn State.

All right, I'll go Ole Miss just to be contrarian. All right, Liberty and Oregon. I think we both are team. We're not even have time to talk about the playoffs. This is ridiculous. This segment is ridiculous. It is.

It should be double. We spent too much.

Time on FSU. We really did. Let's skip the Fiesta Bowl. We both pick Oregon. Yeah, we do. Alabama and.

Michigan, Lucy. The more I look into this game, the more I think about this game, the less confident I feel in Michigan. Jj McCarthy has not played well as of late. And my big thing, and I know we can't use Iowa as a judgment point, but oh, my God, when I watched that Big Ten Championship game, if I had a third of the offense, they would have won. Michigan could not score on short fields. Michigan's defense is very, very good, but they have yet to face a quarterback even remotely of the caliber of Jaylen Millrow. This is also the first time Alabama is going into a playoff without a ton of expectations. I think they're more on Michigan in this point just because of what's happened this season. I just do not think that Michigan has the talent. I don't think they have the offensive explosion to match up with Bamma. It was just crazy. We could have avoided this all at Auburn to finish off the game.

Michigan, they lost their right guard against Ohio State. That's a huge loss for them. They've had to shuffle around their old line. Like you said, JJ McCarthy has been shaky. I'm not sure if it's because they've just gone against really good defenses or because he's banged up. I read an article that a lot of opposing coaches think that he may have gotten hurt later in the season. Yeah, I read that as well. They also haven't played, like you said, against a quarterback like Jaylen Millrow, who can run, who's really going to put pressure on your defense and take off when he has the opportunity. So I'm excited to watch this game. Obviously, I'm an Alabama fan now. I've always been roll tide, big Tommy Reese, Gurley. So I want Alabama to win. Also, wouldn't be surprised if this win either way. I think this is going to be a really fun game to watch, but I'll take Alabama.

I like Texas, Washington. I think that's going to be the best game of the day. This is a game that people are really, really buying into Texas for. But when I just saw... You said about Washington, I've doubted him the whole year, and I've been wrong every time. So I'm not going to do it again.

I don't doubt Washington. I think this will be... So we have two of the best offensive play callers, like dueling with Brian, Grubb, and Sark. And I really love Washington. The fact that they've had a month or so off and Michael Pennex, I know there was questions if he was hurt at the end of the year, too, but he looked pretty good in the Pack 12 Championship game. Yeah, he looks great negative. So I don't know if he's hurt or maybe just needed a little-.

He was just feeling wonky. That Washington State game, he was wonky as hell.

But they have three receivers that are, when they're all healthy, like who do you throw the ball to? It doesn't matter. They're all, like, insanely good. Roman Dunze is probably the best on the team. He's physical. He's fast. He's going to play in the NFL next year. And then Dylan Johnson, the running back also the second half of the season was really, really good, like we talked about. So Washington's offense is super legit, and Texas's defense is also super legit. They've got this insane D-line. So it's going to be really crazy. It's probably going to be a pretty high scoring game. It's going to be a fast game. I think I like Texas? Question mark? Texas-alabama National Championship?

Yeah, it was such a fun game, so I wouldn't be that mad if I saw that National Championship game again, but I want something different. I think it's really funny that Alabama barely made the playoff and if they win the whole thing. That's a bummer for my agenda.

Why Sabin's the king, dude? Because just when you think he's gone….

This would be the perfect retirement spot.

He's going to coach for the rest.

Of eternity. He also won it as a four C the year that another Florida school went undefeated and didn't make the playoff.

All right, Jeremy, that's enough. You're done. You're done. Merry Christmas. Happy holidays. Happy New.

Year.

Everyone. Shut up, Jeremy. Go Bulls.

Don.

Levitard. Don Grevers. Joel, he's going to tweet what he wants to tweet. Quite frankly, I'm fine with it. If anything, I want to go to Miami, too. Is that all right? I mean, isn't supposed to be in the front office by now. Hey, I could hit the back nine.

Right after practice.

Oh, he'd love that. Oh, my God.

Stugatz.

I'm a bad man. Me and Joel, let's go. I mean, Stugats, that's a great question. It's a great question. If they win game six, that hurts my chances of coming down here and being head coach for Joel. It's a real handsome question, Stugats.

This is the Don Levator Show with the Stugats.

This guy made it look easy. Strolls into a head coaching job. The Toronto Raptors need a championship. He's like, Okay, I got it. Right out of the box as a head coach wins the championship. Now I know it's not that easy. I know there was a climb through British basketball. I know that there was some slaving at Ohio State for four days where he got $175,000. I know. I was state. That's fine. Excuse me. You're right. It's I was state. But I went and I got in a hurry to the $175,000 he got for four days of work at I was state. My apologies there for the mistake. Thank you for joining us, nick Nurse. I wanted to ask you off the top, the British basketball experience. Can you take us through what the smallest parts of it were? The places where you found yourself saying, What am I doing with my life?

Hundred %. Vans breaking down in the English countryside on the way home from games late in the evening or early morning hours and no cell phones back in those days, and you're trying to figure out what the heck to do next. You're looking out in the sky and saying, How in the hell did I wind up? How in the hell did I wind up here? But it was just a few of those moments, Dan. I mean, good to see you, man. Long time, no see.

Yeah, good seeing you, too, Coach. Dan, I don't know if you know this. Nick was the head coach of the Iowa Energy when that was our then D League affiliate for Phoenix. And so when I would come down with the guys that get sent down, I would sit with nick and his staff in the meetings and sit in on practices and all that stuff. So me, nick, go back way back. You missed that stop in his resume. You all have to deal with the mean all happen. But, nick, I want to ask you because you said, Oh, how did I get here? How did you get here? I never asked you that question. How did you get to England, of all places, to start coaching?

Yeah. I played at Northern Iowa and was in my last year there as a student assistant coach finishing up my degree, got a call from a team to come over and play, and I figured, yeah, I'll play a little bit more. And that didn't really work out. Then I said, Jeez, I'm in shape. Let's see if I can find a job. This is back again, pre-internet everything. I started sending out letters to any club address I could find. And the guy in Derby, England, called me up. The first line of my cover letter said, I'm interested in playing and/or coaching overseas. He read that line to me, he said, How about both? I said, What do you mean? He said, We want to play or coach. Three days later, I was on a plane to London and drive up to Derby, England.

Take us through the culture shock. Take us through not beyond broken down vans. Just you get there and you're like, What did I sign up for?

The same guy that called me, picked me up and took me to the pub and said, You got to score like 25 points a game for us. That's what our import guys do. And I average nine points a game. I would go three for six from the three-point line in college, and that was my nine points. But I was like, It's not really my game. And then once you get in there, you think, Well, I better probably take a few more shots here. It might be a good option. So that stuff, back then, we only practiced twice a week, Tuesdays and Friday nights. We only played every Saturday night. So it was just a lot of trying to bring a lot of people along to the bug of basketball, which I had, and try to coach them up and lead them a little bit and have some fun while we were out there playing.

Walk me through the joys, the fun, the misery of coaching. I've talked with Ameen about this before. The responsibility of it seems like not a whole lot of coaches enjoy it. Obviously, you enjoy the competition. Obviously, you enjoy the games themselves. Obviously, you love basketball. But the size of the responsibility makes it so most coaches I know, they might not be miserable, but they've got to manage their happiness aggressively to not get miserable because of the size of the responsibility.

Yeah, you're right on it there, Dan. I think that the job of where you're placed in the organization of so many different departments and things that you're intertwined with every day isn't really about just basketball, right? That's a lot of things. So being able to have a decent management leadership style, and that starts with finding people to help you do all this stuff like delegating a lot of what you need to do to people who can run that stuff for you. And that's one of the big keys to being able to do it. The losing is still really hard. It's really hard on you. Every time you lose, you're wondering, why do you do this? Why do you do this to yourself? But I always say, As soon as that feeling goes away from me is when I'm going to stop. Right now it doesn't. I mean, the competition is what drives you. The trying to get a group of guys to play harder and play more together and strive for the ultimate goal is what really gets you up every day. In most days, you're really fired up to get.

To work. But how obsessive, compulsive are you? When your family or the people who care about you ask you about, Hey, stay here with us. Are you mentally present here? Are you or are you floating off to basketball, obsession land?

No, I'm pretty good. I think that I do have a pretty, I wouldn't say rigid schedule of what I do to prepare for games, and I just do that, but I dice that around being up early to see the kids before they go to school and getting home at night when I'm in town to spend some time with them. I think that the interesting part of like my training, I always say my training, like in England, I was doing everything from handing out programs to popping popcorn and everything. And then you got to go coach the game. And in the D League, it's the same. You're washing uniforms and handing out practice gear and all this stuff, and then you got to coach the game. That has helped me be able to do things and then still be ready to compete when the ball goes up and be prepared.

What percentage of the job is fun and what percentage of the job is not?

90-10.

Fun. 90-10 fun. What percentage of the job is weighted down with responsibilities and feels actively shitty? Is it still 10 %? Or is it lower than 10 %?

It's just such an intense 10 %. And I think when the shitty stuff is intense, right? There's no doubt about it. And it's just sometimes you got to say, this is what you signed up for and this is part of the job and then you got to do the job.

How do you approach confrontation?

I mean, first of all, I like to... There's issues, I like to handle them right away. You don't like to let them stew or try to brush them under the rug or whatever. Hopefully, issues don't become confrontation. I'd like to try to be as concise and clear and honest and hit problems head-on and get them resolved before they blow off.

nick, if you could have your last name be another profession besides nurse, what would you select? I'm thinking nick Plumber.

nick Plumber is good.

That's pretty good. Yeah, Plumber is pretty good.

That sounds insincere.

I've never thought about that before, nor have I ever been asked that before.

Yeah, nor should you have been asked that. I don't feel like you have a great answer for that. Even as they celebrated back there, I feel like you're stuffed. You've stumbled Coach.

Well, I didn't that hard. I could be that hard. I could be a professor. I don't know. I can teach. I could get a lot of cool things done if you really got pressed for it.

Well, we have a couple of nominees here from our listeners on what you look like, on what you looked like as you were coaching the Raptors, because some of these are old. I'm going to give you two options here, and you get to pick one of these. It's just what you looked like independent of being a basketball coach. You're walking down the street and somebody says, nick Nurse looks like the disheveled public defender who arrives 10 minutes late for his client's trial, leans over and whispers, So what did you do again? That sounds like a lack of preparation. He does not look like that. Nick Nurse looks like the camp counselor in a movie who, while telling the campers, There's absolutely no such thing as monsters, cannot see the half-man, half-swamp creature walking out of the lake behind him.

That's better. That one I could see. I would tell you, because nick is like one of those infectious, positive energy people that from afar, you're almost like, Oh, this guy. But then when you're around it, you're like, He actually works. I remember because the first time you and I crossed paths, I think it was, was it Summer League? It was before I started going to Iowa. It was Summer League. I didn't know who you were. I said, Who is this guy? He was all over the gym. I'm like, Who is this guy? And they're like, That's a D-League coach. I'm like, Oh, okay. Then after a while, I'm like, All right, I get it.

Where's that come from, nick? Where's the formations of that? Where are the roots of it?

Well, I'm the youngest of nine. I got five older brothers. You better wake up early if you want something to eat, and you better start battling if you want a bowl of spoon, milk, and cereal, and it goes on like that all the time. So it's like you got to get up running. I think it's a product of the environment I grew up in.

nick, you come into the situation in Philadelphia, obviously, there's a lot going on with the Harden stuff, and you weren't here for any of that. You just got here. But on top of that, you've got Joel Embiid, who's coming off an MVP year. And I think one of the interesting things is when you were in Toronto, you took over, obviously, you had been part of the staff, but still there's an element of, Hey, Kyle and DeMar, you guys have been very successful playing one way, but I have some ideas on making you play a different way. And obviously, Damar wasn't there, Kwai is there. But the idea is that you change things and people bought in. So coming here again, you're coming to talk to a guy who's an MVP, the MVP of the League. And you're saying to him, What? In order to get him to buy in the way you want to play basketball.

Well, first of all, we had a lot with a couple of long playoff series with them, and then a lot of games, regular season against them. So felt I had a good read on the team, or somewhat. You never really know until you get in here. But we just to just talk about, This is what I see. Joel, this is what I see. When we play you, this is what I see. And if it was turned around, here's what I would do to combat some of those things. We game plan pretty heavy for him. We threw everything you could possibly throw at him. And I don't know how many games we played, 20 plus against each other. And just those kinds of things. Here's the things I see about your offense. Here's the things I think you could do defensively. Here are some things that as I watched you guys play in playoff series that I would throw out as suggestions or ideas that maybe you could do differently. That's the conversation, really.

nick Baker.

Can you tell us the historical comp as a basketball aficionado for Embiid? Because I don't want to normalize the idea that I don't believe there's ever been anyone like him.

I don't either. I think that Dan, he's so talented, he's so big, he really can do it so many ways. And I think we're still exploring some things right now. We're having him grab defensive rebounds and brace the ball up the floor right now as another weapon he can use. He's so good on the perimeter. I don't have a comp for him. I just keep reminding my team we got the biggest dude in the whole world playing basketball on our team. Let's make sure we get him the ball near the basket-with some.

There's a lot that goes into being the best team, but if I ask you who's got the most talented roster in the league and you're not allowed to select your roster, who would you.

Point to? I think there's probably a handful. I think, for sure, Boston's starting six is awfully talented. I think Milwaukee as well. I still wouldn't throw out either of the LA teams, the Lakers and Clippers. I think the Clippers, those guys are coached. A few of those guys have been around them. They're super talented as well. Then you got a whole bunch of up and coming teams that are surprising people, Orlando, Minnesota, KC, etc. I don't know. I guess I've never sat down and thought who has the most talent on their team. I just try to focus on my team and how we can counteract some of the talent we go against and keep an eye out for adding talent to our own team.

nick, given some of the confusion in the early parts of the in-season tournament about just how the rules work, is there anything you do differently, knowing now a clearer idea of what's good about it or what are the things that lead to success in it?

The only thing I didn't like about it was the floors. I thought the competition was great. I thought the pool play, all the stuff they did was great. I know people were complaining about the score differential and all that stuff, but you got to have some criterion. There's no perfect way to schedule it. I don't think I played in a ton of them in Europe. I played in a ton of Cup competitions over there. They all have different formats. They're all somewhat flawed because, again, even national team formats aren't perfect either. But I think the floors were like, they didn't need it. They didn't need it as a gimmick or whatever, or a visual or whatever.

nick Gairner.

What is the defeat? What is the mistake or the defeat that keeps you up at night, nick? The one time at an end of the game you made a mistake, you did something, and you still think about it.

I don't really have one. But if you want me to think of one for this year, we had the ball at a balance down three against Cleveland and didn't get a shot. Two seconds left, we needed a three-ball, didn't get a shot. I could have done much better there, but I don't think about it too much.

Can you give us a story about Kauai Leonard that would offer us some insight into one of the most mysterious figures in sports stardom?

Well, I think that some of my favorite stories about Kauai, I tell them a lot. But listen, I think the first meeting I had with him turned out to be prophetic. I mean, he didn't really look... He wasn't that thrilled about the trade and he didn't really understand what was going on and flew to Toronto to meet him and sat down with him. We were just going through X and O's and it was super fun. He got into it. He's really intelligent basketball. His mind. At the end of the meeting, he stood up and he said, Okay, I'm going to play 100 %. I'm going to play to win it all and I'm going to play for a year. After that, I don't know what's going to happen. I stuck my hand out and I said, That's the deal. And he did. He played awesome. Obviously, we won it. And then he was a free agent and he left.

Which feeling felt better, nick? I know this is probably obvious to the audience, but I don't know, because of the moment and the size of the moment and the stakes. The way that Kauai hit the shot to beat what are now your sixers or the winning of the championship in that moment? Just an instantaneous feeling that swells through your body?

Both pretty close, I would say, but winning it all, for sure. Yeah, winning it all, for sure.

I know, but I just asked a question about... I imagine he was scared. There would be an element of fear involved with where that game had risen to the stakes, whereas Toronto won the championship fairly easily by comparison.

Yeah, the finals. Yeah, it was not as quiet. Now, it wasn't a game-seven.

Buzzerbeater- What this is what I'm saying? A game-seven buzzerbeater. I would imagine there aren't a lot of feelings in the world. The difference between winning and losing, advancing in your season is over, that seems fairly dramatic there.

nick, do you have that picture somewhere in your house of Kauai crouching and everyone just staring at the ball in the air?

I do not. I have several copies of it in some tube somewhere, but I think it still hasn't made it out from the move yet to the new place in Philly. Good reminder, though, I'll dig through my stuff and try to get one.

Up here pretty soon. Send me a copy.

You.

Got.

It. Nick, garbage man.

What is that? Get out of here. Just get out of here. I don't even want to see you anymore. Get out of here. Nick, what would you say is the greatest headache? The greatest headache.

I just walked out the door.

Yes, that's one of them. The greatest headache that a coach like you has to endure in the daily rigors of doing the job.

I think for me, it's not having the ability to give guys a chance that deserve a chance to play and that are good players. That seems to bother me internally more than anything that you got guys that are good enough that do everything you ask. And they get their few minute runs here and there, they play great, but you just can't play everybody.

So it's just minutes, right? It's guys and minutes. There's not enough to go around. Nick, congratulations on all the success. Thank you for making the time for us, sir.

Thanks a lot. Thanks, nick candy man.

Get out of here. How would you get back here? Get out of here. Candy man. What profession is that? Don Leberthard. Amino acid. Stugats.

Amino.

Acid. This is the Dan.

Levator show with the Stugats.

You see Charlotte's fist, ladies and gentlemen.

Yeah, these things can do.

Some serious damage.

She's got 10 fingers. I don't know how many knuckle that is. It's like eight knuckle. Does this count as a knuckle? Don't know. Either way, she's going to put them to good use. You know why? Because we're going to play a game called word count, where I ask Charlotte a question, and she's got to answer it in 10 words or less. And we'll know how we got to 10 words.

Charlotte how? Because I will count on my hands.

There you go.

Because it's convenient. We happen to have.

10 fingers. Imagine if the word count game was 12, right?

That would throw me for real.

Oh, my God. I got to get my toes down.

I don't.

Think so. Charlotte, are you ready for your first question?

Yeah, I'm so ready.

Who is the more likable Tyrese right now and why? Is it Tyrese Halliburton, Tyrese Maxxie, or Tyrese Gibson, star of The Fast and Fierce movies?

I can't answer that.

Wow, big Fast and Fierce fan, huh?

Not Tyrese Gibson.

Oh.

Okay.

I don't think likable... Likable, I can't answer. They're both adorable. They're both phenomenal. They're fun, fast-paced, blah, blah, blah. I think who is more crucial to their team, you could have to say Halliburton because he's the main guy. But also you don't really have the Sixers right now doing well without Ty-I.

Mean, I'm not saying that Tyrese Maxey is their best player. Obviously, Joel Embiid's reigning MVP and is having an even better year this year than he did last year. Right.

But- They're not where they are without him.

No, we're not where they are without Tires Maxey. He makes so much happen. And what I like about Maxey is whatever role he's been asked to play in his career, he's like, All right, cool, I'll do it. Like, Hey, James Horne is coming in. We need you to come, Oh, cool. Hey, James Horne is out. I need you to step out. Okay, cool. He's so positive and so team-oriented, and despite having clearly a world of talent, is okay with sacrificing and doing whatever the team asks of him, and being good at it, too, because there are a lot of guys who are like, I want to sacrifice. I want to do that. But it's hard for me. I can't adjust to not having the ball in my hands. And he hadn't had that issue at all, not having the ball taken out of his hands, not having the ball put back into his hands and said, Hey, now you got to be more of a facilitator as well.

Yeah, but then.

There's Halbert. Then there's Halbert, man. The last hope.

Sorry, this is the first word count. I'm just going to say I'm not going to do it.

-just forfeit.

Okay. -okay, are you ready? Yes. What player, I mean, is more deserving of their first All-Star appearance this season and why? This is easy.

I'm going to go see him tonight, Dylan Brunson. It was the biggest travesty of All-Star selections, All-NBA selections, perhaps in the history of basketball. In the history. But last year, there's not a single soul who could watch a nick game and not say, Oh, that guy's the best player right there. Clearly, he's the best player. Clearly, he's the reason why they win. Clearly, he's the reason why the culture changed there. He is responsible both tangible stuff, on-court stuff, and the intangibles for so much positivity that's happened to the Knicks and this turnaround that they've had in the last couple of years. And the idea that he wasn't recognized in any way, Julius Randel. It just it blew my mind. The way I explain it is like, if you watched The Phoenix Suns when I worked there, sure, Amari Stoudamire was a tremendous tremendous talent, right? And made it happen on the court every night. But there wasn't a soul in the world who watched it and said, didn't say, Oh, Steve Nash is the best player on this team. And Amari knew it too. Amari just knew, Okay, well, my role is to catch Steve's passes and destroy whoever's in front of me.

So it was like, I don't care. But it was clear that Steve was the straw that stirred the drink. It's Jalen Brunson because he doesn't get recognition on his own team while someone else does. All right, Charlotte. Question number two. What is the biggest reason for the feeling that the Warriors' dynasty is over?

It isn't. Oh!

And.

Your face would count.

It isn't. It isn't because until I see everything fall apart in the playoffs this year, I don't think I will believe it's over. These are guys... Nobody thought they were going to do it in 2022. Nobodythought they were going to be there. Nobody thought they were going to be in the finals. They were already old then. They're old now. Draymond's been suspended. When Draymond is suspended, you know how he's going to come back. Hopefully, he'll come back in a way where he won't then get suspended again. But if they can use this as the rallying cry, if Steph can take on some of that enforce a role while Draymond's gone, and then they come back together. And if Clay... If people stay healthy, like, I'm not going to count them out yet. I'm just not going to. I know that it is a popular thing to do, and there have been a lot of articles written by very smart people saying that it is over and that it's because if it were to be over, it would be because of age, it would be because of time, it would be because it's insane to have a dynasty last this long.

But I'm just not ready to say that.

This thing is a dozy. Emily Radikowski, the supermodel, actress, whatever she wants to do with her life, was denied her usual free court-side MSG tickets because she left early during the Nicks' 21 point comeback against the Heat last month. Charlotte, whose side are you taking here? And would you have done the same?

You've done the same. I was born for this part. Msg, New York Knicks. I would never, ever... You give me free court-side tickets? Hell, you let me into the building? I will never leave early. You get free court-side seats. You stay until that final bucket. You make sure that you see... And she left while they were in the middle of a 21-point comment. They were already coming back and she left. And I would never, in a million years, first of all, speak badly about your organization. Secondly, please let me in, and I won't leave, which might not be what you want. You might want me to leave, but I won't. But I won't leave in a rude way.

I can't believe what just happened here, the betrayal. Emily Ratajkowski has brought you so many joyful moments in your life and you're just tossing her aside. You know what? Maybe she had an emergency. She had something she had to do. Somewhere to be. I mean, I'm.

Doing-.

You're doing-.

I would do this. I want to take her sign, but I can't because I need the next to let me into the building.

Don't.

Blow this up for me.

Yeah.

You.

Know what? I'll stand up for you, Emily. I'll be the man that says this was wrong, MSG, and you give her her tickets back. You saw what they said in the press release. She's welcome to buy them. Buy them? The whole point. She's doing you a favor, Jim Dolan. How about that? Emily? Charlotte, I'm doing a thing, too. I'm trying to get in a deal with Emily Gradkowski. I'm hoping this is my on-ramp.

She remoteed me. Am I laughing too hard? Okay, are you ready?

Is there more? There's one more. You have one more. Oh, okay.

Laurie Markman says he doesn't want to go anywhere. I just want to emphasize that I really believe in what we're building here with the jazz. Do you think he's right and why should he want to leave?

I blacked out and thought we were doing who's lying? We're going.

To do something new today because the Dallas Mavericks posted a video of Luca Donchitz and Nikola Jokic walking into an arena together. And when I saw this, my first.

Thought- Oh, there it is on the screen.

Yeah, do you see it? You see them.

Walking in?

Slow motion. Yeah. My first thought when I saw this was if I didn't know that these were two basketball players walking into a basketball game, what would I think was going on here? And I have a few that I came up with that I would love to share with you. By all means. I think this is a scene in the born identity, like the fifth born identity, where Yokach, who is a hired hitman, is talking to Luca, this young guy that he is manipulating to do the hit for him so he doesn't get in trouble. That was the first one I thought of.

Yeah, I could see that. The one that first came up to me is similar, that Nicola looks like a mob boss, right? Yeah. And Lucas the young, brash, he's a kid with a lot of steam, and he might be a main man one day, but he's not made yet. And he's like, You do this for me, kid, and it pitches his cheek then you got something. Also, another thing is, Yokech, successful investment banker.

I was just going to say that. I'm not even kidding. I was going to say successful investment banker, dad, who sees his kids once a month and decides to take him to basketball.

I got successful investment banker, and Luca is his idiot son who, despite going to the best schools, right? Yeah. That's just the thing that dad, I know what I want to do when I grow up. I want to be a rapper.

That's really good.

That's really good. It's like Chet Hanks, basically. It's what I'm saying. Oh. Shout out to Chet Hanks. Shout out to Chet. I liked you in Your Honor. He did a good job.

I have one more, which is that Yokich is the guy at the high-end Men's Wear store, and this young man is brought in by his wife to be being like, We need to get him some real clothes. He can't go to the engagement party looking like this.

You sound like... That sounds a.

Little too close. No, no, no. I am Luca in this situation.

Tyler had to.

Be like, You can't leave the house.

Like that. She wears sweats and Air Force 1s all the time. Don't pan down, camera. Let's look at this picture right here. This is Zach LaVine, and he's entering the arena, and he's got a Goodfellow shirt on. I swear to God, the first thing I thought was, As far back as I can remember, I've always wanted to be traded from Chicago.

Okay, well, that's probably the best one. To me, this looks like he is one of Tommy DeVito's best friends from high school, showing up to the pizza place that Tommy had to show up to and trying to freeload off of his.

Recent success. I also have This is the guy who whenever you say, Oh, I haven't seen it, You've never seen? I can't believe it. What have you been doing?

It's like in Barbie, when he's racist, Have you seen The Godfather?

I finally watched that movie. Funny, right? Yeah, it's really funny. Really funny. It dragged a little in the third act, but it's a funny movie. But yes, what else do you have for Zach LaVine?

I think I also have the guy who is from a very wealthy family and discovers that there are people who don't have as much money as he does and is really into movies about Rough and Tumble, Blue Collier and wears this to his prep school, like wears this to Deerfield after Christmas break. And the teachers are like, That's not dress code. And he's like, My dad's a trustee. What are you going to do about it? There you go.

I have him also as Crypto Bro who's worth $27 billion. But because of that, he's like, I dress down in T-shirts and sneakers all the time.

He's just missing the hoodie.

I like this game. We should do this more often. Yeah, me too.

It was fun.