Mike Leach Media Day SGPN
The guys (@GamblingPodcast) welcome back on friend of the program Mississippi State Football Head Coach Mike Leach for SGPN media day. As always the Mike Leach interview covers a bunch of topics, beginning with Coach Leach’s recent travels to Zanzibar and the interesting circle of life he got to witness first hand.
They get Coach Leach’s take on college football playoff expansion and his hopes that it eventually gets to sixty four teams. College football NIL is a topic as well and the crew examines the potential side effects and if Bigfoot was a college athlete what his NIL opportunities would look like. They close the interview discussing what to do if you get swallowed by a whale.
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— Michael Baumgartner (@VoteBaumgartner) May 26, 2021
Podcast Video
Podcast Transcription
Speaker 0 (0s): This Mike Leach edition of the sports gaming podcast is presented by win bet. Get started, Daniel, get a risk-free bet up to $500 terms and conditions apply. Get the details at w Y and, and bet.com and download the app today. We’re also brought to you by prop swap America’s number one app to buy and sell sports bets. Use promo code SGP on your first deposit and receive up to $500 in bonus cash. That’s props up.com promo code S G P we’re brought about underdog fantasy set up@anunderdogfantasy.com with promo code SGP, N and receive a free $25 entry to use in best fall mania, too, for a chance to win $1 million.
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Speaker 1 (46s): Head football coach at Mississippi state, and you’re listening to F G P N let it ride.
Speaker 0 (1m 26s): Welcome everyone to the sports gambling podcast. I’m Sean stacking the money green with my partner and pigs Ryan real tired Kramer. What’s happening, cram dog. Wow.
Speaker 3 (1m 35s): It’s going to come out with the shots fired.
Speaker 0 (1m 37s): Well, no, I you’re tired because you, you put the team on your back. You drafted for 24 hours. It was a Herculean feat. If you missed it, it’s available on Twitch. If you want to catch up on the 24 hours, we literally
Speaker 3 (1m 54s): Broke every other video streaming platform
Speaker 0 (1m 57s): Joining us as well. Colby Dan AK the database.
Speaker 3 (1m 60s): So shout out to Twitch for not being closed.
Speaker 0 (2m 2s): There was a, there was a point my girlfriend, you know, I quit, I had it on the big screen as I went to sleep, you know, put it in the family room, kept the TV on and the lady heard
Speaker 3 (2m 10s): My voice and was like, what’s going on out there.
Speaker 0 (2m 15s): She goes in to get like a cup of water at four in the morning. And she goes, that’s not live. Is it? There’s no way this guy’s live. Right. And I go, that’s Ryan, sweetie. And I go, yeah. Yeah. He’s like, he’s more importantly,
Speaker 3 (2m 26s): There were some guys who were live with me all night long.
Speaker 0 (2m 30s): So shout out to DJ nation, really, really helping Ryan Cross the finish line there. We put out our one of the 24 hour stream as a podcast in our 24. So feel free to catch up on those. I was kind of disappointed. I expected Ryan to be drunk out of sorts. You are still, I don’t think you missed a beat between our tuna and our 24 yet your brain food. I think just decades of going on craps runs and whatever your body has a mode it can switch into.
And I, and I think I saw the switch at some point the shades on indoor the suit coat for no reason that you were in Vegas mode, where your body goes, listen, I’m just going to be gambling for 24 hours straight. I’m not going to be sleeping. Your body knows that a handle that I think that’s the mode we saw you. You didn’t biggest. Honestly,
Speaker 3 (3m 19s): The big, like it was helpful to have. So we have a trauma just to pull back the curtain. Lots of foam in the studio that I think is still, probably airing out months later. And I do think it was helpful to have the door to the studio open through the night hours. But I will say the thing about Vegas mode, it clicks in when you don’t see the outside, when you realize your brain just needs to go into full time, I’m not a lazy, lazy fucker. Who’s going to go to sleep right now. I’m going to stay awake. I’m going to power through. And you know, it takes a little bit of blends and mgs, a little bit of nicotine, maybe
Speaker 0 (3m 51s): Some do we have official word? If that’s Guinness book, if that’s the world, I just sent the email to Guinness books. We’ll see if they, they acknowledge it. My, the funniest part to me was finally get out of draft in 24 hours. Kramer’s up, he’s walking around getting some food. This is like 45 minutes later, still trying to reorient himself to the regular it’s non draft prison. And I hear a Dingo off. He pulls out his phone. He goes, I’m on the clock for this FFPC slow draft.
We’re right back into it. And I reached out to Jerry Glanville, who’s known for do 24 hour things. And he said, he said, you know, that was impressive, but now getting a race car. Yeah. Do it in a race
Speaker 3 (4m 31s): Race. I will say I would love to see if anyone has some speech, some speech comparisons from the first hour, last hour,
Speaker 0 (4m 39s): 24, you seem good to go ride. Oh man. You know what? That means? College football is back. That’s right. Talking about the great Mike Leach here and real quick, Sean, sorry to interrupt. Shout out to this song for helping me through the night. Yeah. This song will get you jacked up. Get that, get those football energy and the juices are flowing best place to take some gambling juices over it. Oh, take them over to win bet.com WWI and N P E T dot C O M.
You want to get on, on the Mississippi state over wind total. Oh man, we got some, we got two more guests early next week. Talking more college football. Colby’s lost. Father will be joining the show as well. And of course, Colby doing 130 college football, previous one for each team, more than 130, more than 130, so many gambling opportunities. And you know what to do with gambling opportunities. You convert them into gambling winnings over at wind bet.
W Y N N B E t.com. Best part. Get that $500 risk free bed. L F G oh man. It was a, it was a good interview. A great interview with the Mike Lee. She’s always a fun, a fun to talk to. Can’t wait to get into it. Just got to shout out. Prop swap.com. America’s number one app to buy and sell sports bets, NBA championship heating up. Now it’s too, too. Of course I cashed my over five and a half games in the series, minus 1 75 Kramer, U I and moon off all at the bucks laying the four and a half Milwaukee, little lucky there.
They actually cover the number. I was sweating out. My the game will go, no Tia plus 1500 hit the over on Booker a points as well at 27 and a half. We are, we are on fire as a podcast. And of course we go to prop swap.com. Maybe you took my advice of getting that. Eh, Chris Paul MVP, NBA finals MVP bed in, and the time to sell was after game two because now two losses in a row. That value is probably sinking, but maybe this is a good time to buy.
I still think it’s Chris Paul’s NBA finals MVP to lose. And I think they do have a strong game five and game six, still knocking on wood for game six. But again, that’s where the great thing about props off.com. I don’t even need to hit my Chris Paul finals MVP bad to cash. Big I need to do is go up in value and it went up in value, but had that physical ticket could have just been over a props up.com unloading it. And again, if that wasn’t good enough prop swap.com get a, up to a $500
Speaker 2 (7m 28s): Deposit bonus
Speaker 0 (7m 29s): In bonus cash. Let’s go baby prop swap.com. Joining us on the line. Head football coach over at Mississippi state, Mike leech, Mike, how’s it. How’s your off season been treating you? I saw you were doing a bit of traveling. Were you in Zanzibar? I was
Speaker 1 (7m 44s): In Zanzibar. I was in Zanzibar and I was in Tanzania, traveled all over, went to Dubai to trying to find big foot or what,
Speaker 4 (7m 57s): You
Speaker 1 (7m 57s): Know, just to look at the critters out there really, you know,
Speaker 0 (8m 2s): What was he, what was the craziest animal you came across,
Speaker 1 (8m 6s): We some over 40 lions and we, we saw over 40 lines. A bunch of hippos saw a bunch of Cape Buffalo. We saw a bunch of giraffes. We saw a small crocodile. We saw two cheetahs. We saw a leopard. I mean, so I mean just a crazy hundreds and hundreds of thousands of wilderness.
Speaker 0 (8m 37s): Yeah. Those are obviously they got a ton out there and yeah, I saw a video of you where it was a hyena taken, taken apart, a Willdabeast maybe, or a Buffalo
Speaker 1 (8m 48s): Hyena was taking a part of the Cape Buffalo. That was a funny story. You talked about the circle of life. So we’re going down the road. Now. We happen to be lucky enough to go past this three times. And it was right by the road. Okay. So one evening about dusk we’re going past and all of a sudden you can see a bunch of buzzards, you know, vultures or buzzards, whatever the distinction there is around the tree.
And I mean, just like in the movie jungle book, that’s how those vultures are. They’re just like that, that the movie jungle book, like just sitting there in the tree and it’s almost like they’re carrying on a conversation with one another too.
Speaker 0 (9m 42s): Hey, you going to finish that?
Speaker 1 (9m 44s): Yeah, exactly. So then, well, so then there’s a Cape Buffalo beside the road that these vehicles, these safari vehicles, they look kind of like land rovers are not, ours was a Toyota actually, and the roof pops up so you can stand in there, you know? And well, anyway, there’s a Cape Buffalo lay in there and also something brought it down.
I mean, it’s obvious something brought it down. So we stopped or looking around, looking around, you know, what brought it down, like where is it? And the vultures are sitting there with a heavy interest in this thing. And then looking. And I mean, and I mean, not 20 feet away, like 20 feet away in the grass blended in and you can barely see two female lions. Oh man. Two female lines.
And it clearly just brought this thing down. Okay. And then just sitting in a, in the brush there. And then of course the vehicles there and they kind of shuffle off a little further away. Okay. So then we’d come by it in the morning in a whole bunch of it is eat. You know, there’s kind of a bolster picking away at it and, and hyena, tentatively worked in his way there.
Okay. Then we come back past us that evening. And I mean, it’s just bones and a head, oh man. It’s just bone bones in the head. You know, there’s like three vultures and in a high enough taken away, I mean, it was amazing how quick that thing got consumed, how fast it went, you know, you had at least three elements that I know of. You know, obviously the worms are going to get it at some point, but yet the lines spring it down.
And then it goes to the hygienists and it goes to the vultures. If they can stay in a harm way and then which they’re pretty adept at. And then, and then off it goes, it was unbelievable. And then saw an awful lot of, yeah, you got a firsthand, some stuff you don’t get to see. Yeah. That’s,
Speaker 0 (12m 8s): That was crazy. The circle of life. And I got four hours because everyone
Speaker 3 (12m 12s): I’ve spoken to is done the trips over there. They always have that one moment where they feel a little bit too exposed. And then were there any, any times you felt exposed and what animal was it that made you feel a little bit threatened? Well,
Speaker 1 (12m 25s): We got awfully close to a lie and we’re we’re, you know, cause it was beside the road and, and actually we didn’t see much. Okay. So then there’s a lion lay in there, a male lion and he’s about 10 feet away and he sat there and that’s the vehicle and
Speaker 0 (12m 53s): I’d roll the window up. Yeah. Your wife was okay with
Speaker 1 (12m 56s): It. The top is she wasn’t there. The top was kinda open. Oh man, the top was kinda open and then I dunno, somebody made a noise or clapped or something. And you know, that, that, that lion looked like he was debating whether he’s going to come forward or go backwards, you know? Yeah. What is, what is,
Speaker 0 (13m 19s): What’s the proper line distance? I know, I know we’re supposed to give everyone a six feet, but how much do you give a lion out there in the wilderness?
Speaker 1 (13m 27s): We were in a vehicle, but it was fairly obvious to me that if that lion hit that window with his paws, that window is going to break and come right through to me. And I was in the window closest to the line. So, well we, at the other thing we stayed, it’s hard to describe where we stayed kind of we camp out. I mean, you almost see like those tents and whatnot, Hemingway in those guys stayed in, but we had to stay in a hotel when we were in the Serengeti, we stayed in, you know, glamping.
It was definitely planned, but there were defense. And, and now inside the chants were full fledged beds and was sort of a bathroom. I mean, it was sort of a bathroom. You had to give the guy notice if you’re gonna take a shower so he can take the water up or whatever. But, well, first of all, you didn’t go to the tent without one of those guys with a light, a big light flashed around you, just a giant flashlight. And one of those attendants walking with you.
Okay. Because everything was in it. And, and there are thick tents, canvas tents, but it was all in a tent. And, and the guy, when you come out the next day and there’d be like a water Buffalo or a Cape Buffalo tracks and, and you know, where they’ve taken a dump right on the path, that’s like seek from your tent.
And then there’s another, there’s 10 of us strange noise. It’s sort of a high pitched, strange noise while which I’m kind of wondering what it was initially. Well, that turns out it’s their lions, their lions kind of snoring or some noise they make at night or some deal. And there were lions all around that place too. But yeah, that’s
Speaker 0 (15m 35s): Crazy too. Just got that canvas tent protecting you.
Speaker 1 (15m 40s): Yeah. And it’s, and it’s thicker than you think. And there’s like two layers, but you know, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s pretty exposed. And then, and it’s not like it had windows, you know, and then they made it clear. No, you keep this sucker snip shut. You
Speaker 0 (15m 59s): Don’t want anyone hopping in any room guests in the middle of the night? No,
Speaker 1 (16m 5s): No. I made, they made that pretty clear. So
Speaker 0 (16m 9s): Yeah, it sounds like a, sounds like an awesome trip. I know, you know, obviously a bunch of big news and college football, one thing you’ve been a huge advocate for, of course, expanding the college football playoff. Got it from four. And now it seems like they’re eventually gonna move to 12 teams. What, what do you, what do you think is the ideal number? Do you think they ever get to that number?
Speaker 1 (16m 32s): I think, well, I’d like to see 64. I think you have to have at least 16. I think it definitely makes it better. I think it makes it more exciting. It’s indisputable. It would generate more money, you know, and I think the uncertainty is just who gets the money and where it would go. It wouldn’t be very hard to do. It would require some effort obviously, but I think it’d be incredibly exciting. And you know, 64, it’s not as hard to do.
She’d think, I mean, you kept the regular season back to 10 games, but guarantee everybody guarantee everybody to two additional games. You know, everybody plays 12. I think one that’s a target is everybody plays 12. And of course the champion in the runner up would play 16 games, which is what major ice school conferences and a lot of major states do as it is.
So, you know, it’s not this isn’t a unique and it’s not something that other people aren’t doing, obviously NFL plays even more. So it goes, but, and we find
Speaker 0 (17m 48s): A true champion if there was an undefeated, like a UCF or certain other teams that have went undefeated and haven’t had a chance to play for it. So
Speaker 1 (17m 56s): Yeah. Well, you know, everybody could at least agree on the fact that if you made it through this call, whether somebody’s got a luckier break or that somebody or on some or whatever, but you made it through the gauntlet, you know, you deserve it in the championship. You know? So
Speaker 0 (18m 13s): Yeah. I mean, we saw it this year in the spring ball and FCS, they, they had a playoff, they executed it. The fans got to watch the games, you get a bracket. It just seems so obvious. And, and you know, it took a crazy amount of work even to get to 12. You think they would kind of see, Hey, this works, we’re going to keep expanding. And the whole home game angle like that one, I think they’re under selling like the home game environment. Imagine a game, you know, in a, you know, Gainesville or a game in Starkville or, or, or, you know, Wisconsin or something.
This would be crazy that this would be what all college sports are about. Were you shocked to see that? Yeah, it
Speaker 1 (18m 50s): Would literally be like additional kind of game day, college game, day type environments, variety of schools. And it would be awesome. So like for example, another benefit it has, you know, there’s a lot of people in this country long before I got to Washington state, you know, cause Gonzaga’s up there and Spokane. Okay. So there’s a lot of people in this country that one probably don’t know a word Gonzaga is.
And then two, if they know that they don’t know where Spokane is with that said, you know, you’ll see people all over the country, Gonzaga fans have a Gonzaga’s shirt on or something, I’ll say, oh, so are you from Spokane or whatever? Are you from Eastern Washington? Well, no, they’re just huge Gonzaga fans because they were thrilled watching him play in the basketball tournament, you know? And so I think it creates a lot of exposure, a lot of excitement because you know the thing with these playoffs and things, once your team goes down, oftentimes, you know, I think there’s sometimes people fall asleep think, all right, well, but once someone’s team goes down, they’re just not going to pay attention.
I don’t think that’s the case. I mean, I think if it’s stimulating and exciting, somebody jumps on another team, you know, and then that’s their team or they get excited or you’re just watching it go. And cause there’s a path where you advance and then, you know, the, the success is on the field rather than in a reporters notebooks, however, they ended up voting and, and stuff. So
Speaker 0 (20m 39s): That’s the great part about sports is that literally we settle it on the score. It’s not as subjective. It’s objective. This team had more points than that team. It’s not up to some guy, a tapping on his keyboard to say, who is the number one ranked team it’s actually decided by who scores more points in a given amount of time. It’s, it’s crazy that, you know, it takes this much thinking to get to that. Obviously the other huge thing in college football right now is the name, image and likeness. Have you gotten a lot of players asking your feedback on, on sponsorship stuff?
Like how has the, how has the school been handling this so far?
Speaker 1 (21m 19s): I haven’t heard anything really yet. Man. I think players and coaches are alike are waiting to see how this thing unfolds and what happens and whether, you know, just where the dust settles, like what everybody’s allowed to do, what they’re not, cause there’ll be some adjustment on this and there’ll definitely be some adjustment, but I’m not gonna, in addition to coaching football and having football meetings, I’m not going to set up an employment agency or anything like that.
And I think in a lot of cases, there’s going to be less money than people think, you know? And also I don’t think there’s going to be, you know, it’s not like, you know, you just have to be on a team. So they, you know, they want to race up and hand you money. I think, you know, all of a sudden people were, you know, you’re going to get these handlers involved, which is part of, what’s had a hand in corrupting portions of basketball, which I don’t think is good.
The thing is, is everybody says, well, you know, as soon as the NFL does anything, everybody thinks it’s a brilliant idea, which it’s only a sharp idea half the time, half the time. It’s a really dumb idea. If you don’t believe me, that’s why the NFL changes their mind on a lot of policies and a lot of the times, but you know, and then the other thing is that the NFL is a different entity than college. Anyway. So just because it’s a good idea, there doesn’t mean it’s a good idea in college.
So basically a lot of people want, you know, some of the beneficial things are the fun things that the NFL offers like, you know, name, image, likeness, and all this other thing without having some of the responsibility and the accountability and that accountability would include, you know, you’re the top athlete in the country and you want to do that hat show. Okay. Here’s my five hats.
Guess what? You went on gonna pay none. No, there aren’t any, there aren’t any spots that Molly, Molly pucks as first pick in the draft and that’s where you’re going. Molly. Putz is in, is up there and Pennsylvania, that’s, you know, about 50 miles from the nearest Walmart and that’s where you’re going to go.
And, and then, all right, you got to own that the whole, everybody gets excited about where the kids go into college and they, they, you know, they get, get him a TV, a microwave to put in his dorm room and pull up and, and all of a sudden then tech comes out. And so they, Hey, I got some bad news. Yeah. We just traded you. And, and so we just traded you.
And so yeah, you’re going to play for San Jose or somebody this year. So
Speaker 0 (24m 37s): The microwave,
Speaker 1 (24m 39s): Yeah. That car keep driving because we’re going to need this room, this room by tomorrow morning and well, it, and everybody says you’re professional, you’re professional, your five be professional. That’s what, that’s what they do in minor league baseball. I mean, minor league baseball. I do that. Do that to you in a heartbeat. And there are no there’s no I’m playing for this team. Not that thing. There’s no. Well, you know, everybody’s kind of wiping the tears as a junior goes to embark on his college experience.
I know you’re trading. Okay. You didn’t have a good year at your cut. Yeah. I mean, so the more they go down this path, the more that the responsibility accountability piece is going to come to bear. And, and I’m not sure that that’s as beneficial in the end as some people think. I think you gotta, you know, I think universities I’ll tell you one idea.
I was talking to a friend of mine and I thought it was a great idea. And, and I’m sure there’s a floor to, that would have to be worked through, but why not? Why not? If you sign with the university, you get say a $150,000, which you’re going to receive when you graduate from that university. So if you come to a university and you graduate from that university, when you graduate, you get $150,000.
Okay. Well, what’s good about that as one of the encourages bread squish, because university should educate people and elevate people’s lives and their family’s lives in a, in a, been a big portion of that’s education. And most of the student athletes I’ve dealt with even ones that weren’t real wanting to leave with a college degree. So this, this is nobody cares about a college degree. That’s categorically false. That’s just something that, you know, snobs that don’t care for athletics, like the throw around, because maybe they’re jealous or, you know, some athlete wasn’t nice to them in high school.
Or we
Speaker 0 (27m 2s): Got put into a locker and holding a grudge for years
Speaker 1 (27m 6s): Are something who knows. And then, or maybe they just felt like they should be in the newspaper and that guy wasn’t stuff. So, but you know, we should educate people. So it encourages you to educate people. Okay. Now, and then the other thing is this transfer portal stuff. Okay. If you transfer, okay. That, that 150 grand, that doesn’t go with you. Okay. Now we hope you graduate and that’d be wise for you and it’d be wise for your family, but no, no, that signing bonus thing, that’s in escrow that sticks with that university.
If you need to sign re if you graduate from X universities, which means you’ll typically be there for a years in order to get it, you’ll get a degree, obviously. And then now if you decide to transfer to another school, then you can do that. But you’re, you’re not going to get you, don’t get the initial $150,000 for sign. And, and then, so then people are less inclined to transfer.
They’re going to be more careful with their initial decisions and where they decide to play. And so it’s not going to be just a revolving door, although you are free to transfer. And then, and I think that there’s a lot of benefit to it. And I’m not saying that that, that me and my friend thought it out. Perfect. Yeah, you’re going
Speaker 0 (28m 46s): To jot some stuff down on a cocktail napkin. He almost got through to me. I, I graduated college with less than 150 grand. It was actually a negative number going the other way. So I see the appeal of, of coming out and not only having the degree, but you know, nice amount of change. Coach
Speaker 3 (29m 3s): Hit on some key things. We were discussing this early in their office, but accountability is something that has been slowly being forced to evaporate from society. And I think to your point, like it would be nice to incentivize making a thoughtful, good decision the first time. Like, I agree, like if you want to transfer because something happened or the situation changed. Cool. But as a college football fan, I think, I think most people are probably pro a name, image and likeness. I think most people are probably pro playoff. I do think the transfer portal is something that is starting to earn people a little bit, because one of the benefits of college is that continuity kind of learning your team, following your recruits through the process.
I love the idea of incentivizing making a good correct decision the first time, however you enable that, right? Like the money in escrow is a great idea. I think just something to kind of give you a little bit more staying power to not just the second, the coach tells you, you need to step up your game. You put your name in the transfer portal because I
Speaker 0 (30m 0s): Would imagine, and maybe this is me. Maybe this is
Speaker 3 (30m 3s): A question for you coach. But like with the transfer portal being such, such a consumable thing, does it affect the way that you engage with your players?
Speaker 1 (30m 15s): It doesn’t me, or it hasn’t so far, but I’ll tell you this. I mean, and I remember when I was 18 and a whole bunch of people making decisions nowadays, I’m convinced that they have no memory of when they were 18. When I went to college shoot, I was tempted to cut and run at least once a week, maybe day and you know, you know, foods or, you know, and then, and now I’ve paid every dime of my school too.
So, you know, break up with some girl which who cares. Okay. But I did then, and then, oh yeah. And then, and, you know, you just do the thing where, because everybody’s tempted to feel sorry for themselves. And so then, but you know, I learned a lot of lessons and I think became stronger, more competent, more resilient and better at seeing things through and overcoming adversity by having to persevere through, by persevering through things.
And so if it’s just, if we became a system, become a society that cuts and runs and you know, we’re, we’re, you know, we’re not even going to have the persistence of the thing, finished your finger painting. I mean, we have to, you know, you have to grind through some stuff. And, and I think that is an important lesson that I think is a valuable lesson. And I think that needs to be encouraged. And the thing with the, and the other thing you gotta be careful of with the name, image and likeness stuff like, you know, great players were football’s the top priority.
Like Tom Brady. I don’t remember Tom Brady doing any name, image and likeness and tour maybe does, or at least later in his career. I don’t remember Jerry Rice doing any, I mean, those guys were focused on football to my knowledge. And then, but I think that in a, you can’t just have a deal where instead of buying indoors facilities or libraries that the, the donations you you’re, you’re buying quarterbacks corners and a running back type of thing, you know?
Yeah. I mean, you see
Speaker 3 (32m 35s): It with pro athletes, right. Never forget the reason why people want to pay you money. You’re good at a sport. So focus on that sport. And, and if you’re a university like folk, obviously if you need to move some resources over. Sure. But you’re still at university.
Speaker 0 (32m 48s): Yeah. And I, and I do think getting lost is the employee employer relationship that happens when you start actually getting money. And if you’re a college kid, I, I know when I was in college, I certainly what shouldn’t have been a brand ambassador. I didn’t need to be the face of Nike or anything else. And so I think it comes with a ton of pressure coach. We’ve had you on,
Speaker 1 (33m 10s): They, I don’t think very many of these guys are going to be, I think there’s a bunch of guys that think they’re going to be, but they’re not actually gonna be
Speaker 0 (33m 19s): No, maybe, maybe a local diner or something like that, I think would be probably my level. I think what you’re seeing, I think actually
Speaker 3 (33m 25s): A lot of the resources might go to non football players. Non-basketball players who have large Tik TOK, followings have large Instagram followings. So yeah, it will certainly be interesting to see how the market normalizes and who is actually getting paid
Speaker 1 (33m 39s): And coach. Well, I think w did, there’ll definitely be some of the we’ve
Speaker 0 (33m 44s): Had you on talking before about a big foot. And if he played college football, what position defensive end, maybe quarterback on the other side, what if he was a college football athlete? We were having this conversation in the office and he looked to license his name, image, and like this, what are you, what are you, what brands do you think would look to partner up with the Sasquatch?
Speaker 1 (34m 5s): Well, that, that, that jerky company, clearly they know him, they know him some money for that. And then, and probably he would, you know, get some kind of, some kind of a bonus for some of the stunts yes. To do as they pick on Sasquatch. Right. And then, and then that part of the country loves IPA’s, which I’m not big into that, but Sasquatch would make a great IPA representative.
Him and
Speaker 0 (34m 41s): Jordan is Sierra Nevada in the wilderness. I can see that.
Speaker 1 (34m 45s): I think, I think everything Trump, some form of camping would be good. Cause I think a big foot camps a lot. And then also, well, I can see kind of a spokesperson for nude Sunday because in fairness, he’s done it for years, you know, and then, and imagine, imagine the pile of money that we did, if all of a sudden he decided to shave his beard, hang on a sec.
Hey, good to see ya. When you leave, I’d go up to 26. I’m on the radio though. So I got that. I’ll be, I’ll be around. All right, Bubba, Hey yourself. Same place, right? Yeah. All right. Yeah. This guy, he actually to kick it Georgia and, and he lives on his sailboat here
Speaker 0 (35m 46s): Quite the life.
Speaker 1 (35m 47s): Yeah. So he lives on his sailboat. So I see him sometimes, but yeah. So I think Sasquatch brings a lot, like, you know, I can see him having kind of a bidding war between him and the artesians and you know, I certainly would rather have Sasquatch as a beer representative over the artesian. She’s sick.
Speaker 0 (36m 13s): Well, I think you’re onto something with the shaving is he’s known as a hairy guy grooming.
Speaker 1 (36m 18s): Well, because remember when Joe Nemeth had the leg commercial where they says, if you can shave my legs or whatever ever. And then, I mean, Sasquatch and bury that if he gets
Speaker 0 (36m 30s): Or Sasquatch get a manscaped endorsement, I mean that you see those ads all the time. I think the college kids, if they saw Sasquatch and they they’d be all over that,
Speaker 1 (36m 41s): I think naked and afraid would be . Although,
Speaker 0 (36m 48s): Although he’s always naked and never afraid he might, he might break the show.
Speaker 1 (36m 54s): Maybe, maybe just does guest appearances every so often when people are struggling,
Speaker 0 (36m 59s): Comes out to counsel them in the woods. Yeah. I know you’re scared right now, but don’t worry. We can get you out of this we’ll coach, you know, getting back to the, the game on the field, you know, what you brought in the era offense, obviously kind of behind the eight ball with the whole COVID season limited spring limited practice time. What’s, what’s kind of the key to year two, getting, getting the offense Holman and, and racking up some points here.
What do you, what do you think? What are you trying to focus on?
Speaker 1 (37m 35s): How’s it going? Good to see you guys. I think the biggest thing is keep doing what we’re doing. We’ve got a, you know, we’ve got a lot of young guys where the youngest team in the BCS last year and, and so we have everybody back and then work side of the bus that, and then, you know, just good work ethic, everybody working together and proving, I mean, cause that’s the part we can control and do the best we can to steadily improve. Obviously we have to have a good champ and then, but everybody’s really optimistic and really thrilled, you know, to have the, have the chance to go out there and compete this year.
Speaker 0 (38m 15s): Yeah. And, and, and it’ll feel certainly coming into the season, like a real football season, getting the fans and they are getting the cowbells rolling at the quarterback spot. You had a will Rogers come in halfway through the season, kind of taken over the job. Seems like maybe he’s the, the leader in the clubhouse, but you certainly brought in competition via couple of transfers. What do you want to see out a will in, you know, in training camp, leading into the season to help him cement that job?
Speaker 1 (38m 44s): Well, I thought well did as well as a freshman, as anybody in the nation and you know, enough, you know, starting freshmen was such a good idea at the quarterback position. Everybody do it more often, but you know, it worked, it worked out for us and he got some really valuable experience. And in, I think he improved as time went on and he’s a real hard worker. So I think that’s beneficial to him. And then he, he, you know, he’s good with the other players as far as elevating them in the locker room, that type of thing.
And so my, I do think he’s going to be much improved, like significantly, significantly better. And, and that’s even with him playing pretty respectfully last year in particular, we got to get better on the offensive line. And I think we’re taking steps to do that. And part of the getting older, you know, the best way for a freshman to improve is get older. And so we’ve got a lot of that. And then, but now, you know, looking forward to a good season, which leading up to it, the more they go out there and throw on a catch and better we’re going to be too.
Speaker 0 (39m 59s): Yeah. Getting those reps in as far as being in the sec, the fans expectations, obviously always high year after year, you had a, you had a great quote about the fans and them wanting to see big results. As soon as possible. You said, quote, it’s like breakfast, the chicken is involved, but the pig is committed. Players and coaches are the pigs. I think I know what you’re getting at there, but could you kind of expand on that quote and say, it’s a great quote.
Speaker 1 (40m 31s): Well, like, like, you know, like, you know, chickens, chickens have a little skin in the game, they’re going to lose an egg or two, you know, pigs are going to lose more than just an egg or two. And, and it’s a little more of a bloodsport for the pigs. And that’s kinda how it is with regard to coaches and players as far as having real skin in the game. And so, but you know, I mean, I don’t, nobody’s complaining. I mean, it’s exciting.
And, and again, like if there’s some level of disappointment, somebody says, well, you know, I’m disappointed with this out of the other thing. Well, you’re not as disappointed district coach or a player know. And so, but the biggest thing is, is a constant series of improvements, corrections, and that’s kind of what you gotta focus. Yeah.
Speaker 0 (41m 25s): Just small every day, getting a little bit better, building the team, building the, building a culture around it. As far as having, having fans back in the stadium, what kind of impact do you expect it to have on the players? Cause it’s something obviously as a fan we missed out on and it does seem like having the fans there has some impact, but what do you, what do you expect the change to be as far as the players playing in front of the fans?
Speaker 1 (41m 52s): So I think there’ll be tremendously excited. I mean, that’s part of it, the fans and the players, you know, and the energy and excitement that you have together. And we pray together. I mean, that’s why everybody’s so engaged in sports and that’s why people can’t get enough. And that’s why it’s all over the internet and all over the, you know, the TV and things like that. It’s because, you know, makes everybody up lists of people that are down and uplift gives people something to celebrate together as they’re happy.
And then it, you know, it just unifies everybody. And I think everybody wants to be in front around something. And so then, then, you know, the excitement of bringing everybody together, that’s I think kind of the root of the whole thing. And then of course there’s different roles and whether you’re a player or a coach or a fan or something like that, but, you know, anyway, I think that any portion that people sharing, it creates an amount of energy.
That’s a shared, that’s enjoyed by the whole group. You know,
Speaker 0 (43m 3s): Coach, you coached in Finland in 1989. How were the fans there and Finland?
Speaker 1 (43m 10s): Well, there’s not a lot of English speakers. They, it finishes a tough language. It’s one of the most difficult languages and doesn’t translate as well to English as some. But I always felt like, you know, there was about half didn’t speak or understand English at all. And then, and then, you know, a portion could understanding wish, but couldn’t speak it.
And then some like, especially if they’d been exchange students or were really good at picking things up on videos, one guy spoke pretty good English. His dad owned a video store and he’d watch movies all the time and learned a certain amount off of that.
Speaker 0 (43m 59s): Oh, the Schwartzenegger catchphrases I’ll
Speaker 1 (44m 1s): Be back. Well, he talks on like shorts, you mentioned that his accent was kind of like that. So then he, so then they, they, they had, so some could understand and speak at the number. It many there’d be about, know, it varied a couple hundred to maybe 3000 in the stands and, and you know, they’re thrilled and excited to be there and that they, they yell, Ooh, Uber, which being, I guess, being a good go.
Yeah. Well, well it’s so that they say like, if there is a question, like what or I, or like what they don’t understand right in here, they just say Uber. So, so there were plenty of plays where they’re yelling and I’m on the sideline going Uber. And I didn’t say that, but I’m thinking what, and then, but it was funny how close to the distinction between the words were on that there.
And then they, you know, they, they definitely have it in twos. He has some towards football and then, and they’ve always, you know, maintain their league, their teams. I still hear from guys in Finland, you know, texts and Snapchat and stuff. I was curious
Speaker 0 (45m 33s): Though, you coach what the Pori bears, how did, how, how how’d they do that year?
Speaker 1 (45m 39s): Pori bears. We stayed in the first division. I got there a little late in the season. I’m trying to think. We’re it seems like we were a game over 500 if I recall. Oh, that sounds, that sounds like a pretty solid drug. They do it like socks. Or if you’re, if you’re too low, you don’t stay in the first league, they drop you out. And then they bumped the two from the other league up. You see? And then, yeah.
And then, so we didn’t move down. So they’re pleased with that. And then, and I coached a lot of defense there. They kind of had a sense on offense. One of their older players was a quarterback and I coached a certain amount of defense there. Of course we flipped all the time. One of the smartest things I did was, was, well, everybody tried to run the zone and not the wrong was sown and zones, a good decent, but where you got a certain language barrier and zone something, that’s really gotta be communicated.
One of the best things I did was after the first game, I almost did it before the first game, just in practice. But after the first game, it’s like, screw this. No, we’re just playing, man. Yeah.
Speaker 0 (47m 2s): That’s easier to it. Language barrier, you guard this guy, see
Speaker 1 (47m 7s): Point to him, point to him. That’s your guy. Okay. And then, and so, you know, that’s and we actually won games cause we were misaligned significantly less than our opponents. You know,
Speaker 0 (47m 21s): It’s a simple things. All right, coach. Well, appreciate you calling in always, always good to chat with you. One last nugget here and we, again, this is a story we were talking about in the office, but I feel like it didn’t get enough attention. There was a story about a lobster diver. He got eaten by a whale and he survived. How is this not? How has this not gotten more attention in the news cycle? That was pretty
Speaker 1 (47m 48s): Wild. I read that. I think I actually tweeted it to the, and I guess the, then I read it another article, something about the digestion that whale was going to split you up anyways. So your chances of survival were higher than expected. Although could you imagine you getting swallowed? I mean, what, what would be running through your head on that?
Speaker 0 (48m 14s): No, I, yeah, you would. I guess I’d just be thinking of the movie Pinocchio and open, open, open.
Speaker 3 (48m 21s): My little three inch pocket knife could cut me out of this belly. That’s what I would be. I
Speaker 1 (48m 25s): Know. That’s what I was thinking to get that dive knife. I’d get that dive knife and start slash
Speaker 0 (48m 31s): Yeah, I’m not, I’m not playing the numbers on getting spit out by that way.
Speaker 1 (48m 36s): No, hell no. Might have to cut a whole lot of that. Well, find your own way out. Yup. And then, but no, pretty wild. Yeah. Then it says it’s happened a couple other times. Cause I only knew about the time in the Bible, but yeah, the Nokia and then, and I guess part of me felt like that Pinocchio plagiarized the Bible a little bit, but, but I, I guess it happens from time to time.
Yeah.
Speaker 0 (49m 10s): I guess I was just shocked that it wasn’t, it wasn’t big whales are eating people and spitting them back up. And this isn’t a common thing. They’re getting a bad name. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (49m 20s): Well, no Wales at least Wales at least put you back. Yeah. Sharks do.
Speaker 0 (49m 28s): Yeah. They’re nice. They just get the teeth first. They got the common decency, the whales do. Right. All right. Well coach again, appreciate the time. Best of luck with the season. Hopefully we can make it down there and catch, catch a game in person down in Starkville and yeah. Best of luck with the season and appreciate the time.
Speaker 1 (49m 50s): Well, thanks a lot and appreciate your having me on. I enjoyed it. Yeah.
Speaker 0 (49m 54s): Always. Good to talk, Mike, have a good one. All right. You too. Oh man. So fun talking to coach leach. Speaking of fun, if you didn’t already get in on an underdog fantasy for your chance to win $1 million, I don’t know what you’re doing. Underdog fantasy.com, promo code S GPN. I saw underdog fantasy. They tweeted out a, what would you do with a million dollars? And I was just thinking how that could, you could convert that into what 4,000 entries into best ball Pania til like my odds Kramer, what do you think
Speaker 3 (50m 30s): Max entries? The only 150. Oh,
Speaker 0 (50m 32s): That’s right. So sorry. I could, I would max out at 150. I can tell you this,
Speaker 3 (50m 35s): That in the time, since we started draft day, the total entries went from under 53,000 to over 54 and a half thousand. So I, I wanna, I have to believe we had something to do with them. We definitely
Speaker 0 (50m 49s): Put a big dent into that. Again, a chance to win a million dollars and a great opportunity to warm up for a fantasy football draft. And in July, it doesn’t get any better than that. Of course. Make sure you check out the SGPs app. I know a lot of people are bitching about apple podcasts as GPN app. Perfect place to listen to the podcast. Catch-up on the pods. I used to be an apple podcast guy, but now it’s just, oh man, I don’t know what the, these eggheads, they out-think think themselves. Sometimes it’s working. I mess with it. You know what podcasts need.
Speaker 3 (51m 21s): They need a beautiful webpage. No, just give me a play button. I will say Sean, we’re going to, we need to add a speed up in the app. I’m a, I’m a 1.5 guy. I know you think I’m a Savage, but
Speaker 4 (51m 33s): That it’s crazy to me. Ryan Ryan’s
Speaker 0 (51m 36s): Brain is operating on another level and you see, does that two guys also sleep? So maybe, I mean, maybe it’s just the lazy guy. As we learned from Ryan sleep is for the week, stay up all night and drop a jumping nice little, a five star review on the SGPs app in the app store, Google play store. Send that in for your chance to win a free gear. Every merchant Monday, raffling away some a freeish GPN gear. As we transitioned from summer mode to football mode.
Thank you for participating. I’m just trying to have someone else
Speaker 5 (52m 12s): 20 years from now be doing an interview and say, Hey, that’s this guy that used to do the college experience, living on a boat.
Speaker 0 (52m 19s): That was a great line of Scott used to be a kicker for Georgia, and now he lives on a boat. Awesome love we should have had where Ray Finkle went to college. We should have had coach hand the phone to that guy. Cause I feel like that guy could probably do 20 minutes on a big foot’s NFL opportunities. All right. Awesome time for the sports gaming podcast. I’m Sean to second the money green and he is Ryan. Holy
Speaker 3 (52m 41s): Crap. Colby was right. Ray Finkle attended Stinson university Kramer.
