Hr4 - Dukes and Bell Tackle Falcons Roster and Braves Bullpen Woes

0:00We are dooks in Bell. We start off every day and every hour by saying, Hey, man, the Falcons have signed another offensive lineman. His name is Josh Thompson to the practice squad that leaves one spot open on the practice squad. Who's that going to be? Harrison has not been resigned yet, Mike. We will wait to see if that is something that may be in the in the offering. We were talking about all the things that are going on with the Falcons guys from a football perspective, not the two social media hiccup. Okay. Again, his wife says, Hey, that was me blah, blah, blah. Michael saying it's everywhere. I wouldn't expect anything less guys. Everybody runs with stories whether they're true or not now. And that's just where we're at. And then you said it. The correction is, Hey, his wife did that. You're not going to hear that part of the story. Everybody's going to be like, Oh, it's too. He's got a fake account. Blah, blah, blah. That's the stuff that's rat poison that you got to block out. Meanwhile, the question that needs to be answered has yet to be answered. But Mike, let me ask you something about the defense because you brought this up earlier and you were talking about Harrison and other guys on this defense.

1:01So we got one guy hurt another guy that's out for a game suspension. We got another guy that's not with its team. He's with the Saints. Got another guy that's been traded. That's Rook. We got another guy that was let go and advocate because Dayton won a resigning. He's with the Eagles. We got another guy in Leonard Floyd. He's a free agent and not playing with anybody right now. You start looking at the number of sacks and the guys that were a part of that record breaking number last year and 57 sacks and second in the league. And you start to realize, okay, they're not a lot of guys that are left on this defense, especially for week one that played a role in that. And I mentioned this earlier, guys, the defense. Yes, it has to be better. But I also believe that the offense is the key. Doerlis, LeKill, London, Mike, Billy, Bowman and D, not D. But Diablo are the four guys in week one that came from that 57 sacks squad. And you go, well, who else is out there? Well, again, half these guys are either gone and then you got your two most important guys hurt and then out for a game. Right. And I know that today because of the roster moves and folks, I think the initial sticker shock, the lack of a better word was seeing

2:05that JD Bird, Tram was still in the squad. Then we find out he's on the IR. So whether, again, I said, Carl, whether that's just simply, you know, cap and roster gymnastics, you didn't think he was going to make the team, right? I did not think JD Bird, Tram was going to think he should make the team of my modest. But I think people got upset about that because when divine, I said, divine, Diablo, when out last year, JD Bird, Tram just really, I mean, it was a local kid and you're pulling from Notre Dame guy, but he just really struggled and he just could not cover. But that, and then people looked at Zach and I got to be honest, I think some of you guys turned in Zach, you know, Harrison in a Reggie white. I mean, yeah, four and a half sacks and seven games is great. The guy only played seven games. He never played a game after the Berlin game. And a matter of fact, part of the reason they're reshuffling this deck and they've added so much size, you know, and they're bringing in big dudes, bigger bodies. And that's because we're terrible against the run. And he was in some of those games. That's where we brought in Jervon Dexter. Yep. That's why Mason Smith replaces Rooka Roro. So for all the things that Zach did and it's again, great to get four and a half sacks. Good for you. We still didn't win those games.

3:08We lost these games because we couldn't stop the run when Christian McCaffrey and Jonathan Taylor were running all over us. He's on the field for those games. And then he got hurt. Nate Oli also said, look, we love his energy. But he's got, you know, it's about health. So with all due respect, guys, slow your roll on Zach, Zach Harrison. I got to be honest with you. All right. And I look, I'm not going to disagree on any of that simply because the defense does need to be better. You also talked about, you know, the ceiling mistakes last year. Some of that was coaching mistakes, right? You know, personnel on the field when it needs to be, right, you get 49ers put 12 guys on the field. You got them on the, you got a pendant and then we only run 10 guys out there. Yeah. So James the drive helps them and then we lose that 49ers game. Even though the, the, the, if you just looked at the box score, we lost by 10. So one possession game. It was. It really was 4047 260929. That's the assessment of the defense. We're just simply talking about, all right. Now September 1st, guys, we can start to get into some of the meat potatoes of what this is going to look like heading to Pittsburgh in week one, September 13th. But as far as these four quarterbacks, everybody's still like, okay, what's the deal? And Mike, we talked about it. Look, this could

4:12be trade bait for a picks down the road. Ian Cunningham does come from that school of general managers who believe in this. If you believe like I do, it's the most, uh, you know, valued position. Guys are going to get hurt. I'm not wishing that on anybody. But when it does, who are you calling? You're calling teams with excessive amount of quarterbacks or at least the perceived talent that maybe Mike, you want to go after. And now you're looking at what the Eagles, the Steelers are at least right now. This could change. Obviously the Falcons. And so I think that may be a part of this. But I also think this is going to shake out. There are different circumstances for every team. We believe steel as much as I love frost and I was making a point about this competition crap that we hear every year. The guy played great, but he's not going to start, right? And that's why I keep bringing it up. But at the end of the day, somebody's got to be your practice squad quarterback, right? Um, Cooper Rush, I said to crawl this more in a more injuries occur. It's not going to somebody loses a quarterback either, you know, not necessarily a starter, but a team needs a serviceable backup. That's Cooper Rush. Cooper Rush fits the bill.

5:15And then the big question will be, are you, can you live with Jack Strand and can you, can you trust him in an emergency? He's got to go in. Yeah. Because again, it's still hard to see four quarterbacks, you know, being on this roster when we start with the Steelers. And the other thing, just to double down, because we said this earlier in the show with guys, you know, a guy hit us up on the text line, I thought, I thought you guys were all excited about the defense. Yeah, you had all those sacks. Did we win the division? Did we make the playoffs last year? Like, I love the sacks. I argued for years with Mike Smith. Sacks don't matter. Mike and Carl, what he said, you know, and this is one of those years where I hate to say it. Smitty, if you're listening, hey, Smitty, you might be right about this because we had the second most sacks in the league. And we still couldn't get teams off the field. Yeah, it mattered for Denver, but they also came back in 14 games. It's remarkable that Denver ended up with the record they did, but they led the league and Mike, they had one of the best defenses. Their run defense was way better than ours. So it's one of those things. It's misleading, but yeah, there are elements of the defense. I love it's like there are elements of the offense. I love, but it's not the complete package. And we've seen that my issue is guys offensively, you've spent all this money.

6:22You took care of your linemen. You took care of B. Jean. And I'm not saying you shouldn't have. That's what they needed to do. You took care of your star wide receiver, took care of your star tied in. When's this going to start paying dividends where our best defense becomes our best offense, where we're scoring points and we don't have to worry about trying to hold teams of damn 20 points every game. Like that's the issue, Mike. And last year, I think we were putting that predicament, the sacks were piling up, but we still can get off the field in the red zone. We still can get off the field in third long. Those are the plays that matter. We weren't sustaining drives. You know how many times they're defense three and out back defenses back around the field. So, again, I'm not put before the Pentex fans get triggered. No, some of this was Zach Robinson and all that. But okay, here we go. Seasons about to start. How do we answer those questions? Michael Panics Jr lives up to everyone's expectations, comes out swinging, play action, boom, boom, using the accuracy, the action, the deep ball we saw at Washington. And we start doing all those things you're asking for. Yes. And then in this case, until James Pierce Jr gets back and some

7:22other guys in the rookies develop like, hopefully, Kendall Daniels can step in the breach. You know, the defense will have to hold the fort, but you know, it's going to be different. I saw Mark Ramondi said it's almost he didn't use the phrase gap here, but it's like the GM and coach are refitting the team in their image. I do agree with that. Look, as a general manager, if you're really going to let him cook, you allow him to come in with the plan. And I think Ian's plan was pretty simple. We need to get bigger. I think Jeff Olbrick looked at him and said, I agree. And then I also think from an offensive standpoint, they are looking at this and going, what do we need to make this a really effective offense? But yeah, man, I think Ian's philosophy is pretty simple. Go look at the guys that we've gone and picked up big dudes defensively fast line backers, big up front, feel good about your DBs. Mike, that I think absolutely you're right about this. And you come in as a general manager, you go, here's what I believe wins in this league. Now whether it happens or not, but that's what he comes from, right? It's clear that Ian,

8:23kind of amazes the fans get a reshaping this roster incrementally. This is from Mark Ramondi from ESPN.com. First few months on the job are always an evaluation period. He says he'd expect him to continue to acquire players who fit more with their vision for the franchise. Next year, we got a ton of cap space gap year sports fans gap year. And we got it. We'll have a ton of picks as well. But I don't know, but I'm not looking to next to you. How is this? Again, because you lost Pierce for half the season. Jalen Walker was expected to be a big contributor. You know, we love what we have with Diablo. Never really talked much about Christian Harris. You know, no, but I think he'll be in the mix. I think you know, he's obviously made the squad. He'll be he'll be in the mix. I think they're going to rotate guys. Look, the way this isn't a gap year and we exceed expectations is Michael Patix Jr. wins the starting job and kicks ass. And when are you ready to kick ass Mike? How you feeling, Mike? We get, okay, that's three plus eight, even eight days of practice. How you feeling? It's true. You good to go. Yes. I don't know. You don't know. We don't know. That's the biggest question. It's I don't want to see two of us starting to piss. It still needs to be answered. Well, whether we wanted or not, I've just said

9:27that it's a fan. We got to get over that. Like at the end of the day, and this is where I've been all along for those who follow. You got to give him a chance if he's going to start. I'm not going into the Pittsburgh game going, man, I hope we lose because I don't like two of us. Mike there are people out there who feel that way. But I mean, first thing first to get the snap. Okay, that's got to be executed because before you get throw the football down, the field you have to the ball in your hands. And two has struggled in some areas. Now, as you said, it's not all as bad as it's looked and I thought he did some really good things the other night against the dolphins. Yeah. But also some things that he just scratched your head. I just feel like preseason. You could say that about a lot of guys. There were no demarrads for Brian Robinson's fumble. He made the squad. Right. I mean, give me a break like that. You can't pick and choose. It's all a totality of the work that's being done. And then let's go see how it looks. But I think that's part of the problem is, like you said, you want Michael to be the guy so bad that you're rooting against the guy that may give you a chance to win the game. But in fact, he's playing.

10:28I still don't know that. If Petics, if Petics won't tell, like, and this is from Adam Shaftier. So take this with the grain of salt. But the stuff we talked about yesterday, they're going to see how Mike feels. I'd like to think that you know, by next week, Mike feels like starting in the NFL. Feel like, you know, he's done with the rehab. He's checked all the boxes. Now get out there and leave this team, man. All right. Or don't and take another week and get yourself a hundred percent. No, no, no. I just and I will be so fearful of that first hit on Michael Petics. It's the NFL. It's going to happen. But I'm just, I'm, I will be very nervous about that. All right. We're coming back. We got to talk some braves guys. The road trip continues after the makeup game last night. That was kind of ugly. But this is a big week. Nationals handle that. But then you get the fillies. We're going to talk to Grant McCauley, our baseball guy next on sports radio, 92 9th and the game. Let's talk some braves as the road trip starts. It's nuts. And then it's fillies. But we got to start with what went down yesterday. Grant McCauley joined this best baseball guy in town. And Grant,

11:28your assessment on what happened yesterday and that seven to three loss. Yeah. Just a couple of things that really went wrong in on the pitching side for first Bryce elder and then really Dylan Lee. And I think we've been seeing this in the second half. And especially here lately that Dylan Lee's just not getting away with anything. And if you kind of started to look into his game logs and kind of see what exactly is going on. Has he been overused? Or you know, he lost velocity. Is he just not as, you know, deceptive as he was before? I don't know. It could be a combination of a few of those things at different times. But velocity seemed to be there. I don't think that Walt Weiss has been going to him too often. He's been going to him in a leverage spot because the braves have played a lot of close games. But Dylan Lee indicated to reporters after the game last night that he believes that pitch tipping could be a possibility. So Mark Bowman wrote a little bit about that today on MLB.com. And you know, over the course of a long season, when team studying the day in and day out, I'm inclined to believe that could be a play. But every time you get hard, it doesn't mean you were necessarily tipping pitches. So we'll see how all of that kind of shakes out. But that was kind of the moment right there is the Giants turned that

12:31six inning into a big frame for them. And they were able to win a baseball game pretty handily. Just based on the fact that the braves bullpen and to a lesser extent rice elder were struggling to get the out they needed there. But the offense was also very quiet, which you wouldn't expect as a team like the Giants had to fly across country to play this one game in Atlanta and then head on their way to their next stop. So you were hoping to take advantage of that matchup. It just flat out didn't happen. Yeah, we talked about it earlier and just, you know, keeping the balls in the park is an important part of the process, certainly. But and then I just looked at the your point about the Bowman article, the pre-all star break and then post-all star break is just eye popping. And unless the and now the Giants, they by the way, the Giants are a kryptonite, which is strange because they're not going anywhere. Yeah. Well, one of the odds that the braves would go five and won against the Los Angeles Dodgers and one in five against the San Francisco Giants this year. But that's the reality we're living in. It is it's Grant McColley guys joining us here on Dukeson Bell. So what that said, this road trip becomes really important. How are you viewing this?

13:34I don't want to dismiss the Nats, but you got to handle that. But I think this Philly series, man, Grant have a cushion, right? Yeah, like I don't want to say the seasons on the line as far as the division is concerned. But you know, you go sweep them. I think it's it's done. That's where I'm at. You don't and they sweep us for whatever reason. All of a sudden now things get really interesting. How are you viewing this? Yeah, well, I think it let's take sweep off the table, right? I mean, you'd be happy with winning that series. And whereas the braves would benefit from that, the Philly's wouldn't quite get enough out of that because two of those games would cancel each other out. So ultimately, they'd only pick up one game in the standings if they take two out of three. Now, to your point, if they take all three, we can all do the math. That's three games that would be cut off that lead. So that would tighten things up really quick in that divisional race. So the braves obviously want to avoid the sweep. That goes without saying you want to avoid as many losses as you can, which is why we need to point at the nationals and say, well, let's go ahead and try to win those games. The national pitching staff is one of the worst in baseball. On the flip side,

14:34they do score a lot of runs. But James Wood is also on the injured list. So you don't have to worry about his 30 plus home or bat there. So it's kind of like you said, you don't want to overlook anybody, but it's hard not to focus on knowing that there are these seven September meetings between the braves and the Philly's and whether it's a four game lead or a five game lead or a three game lead, you're going to be feeling kind of that playoff atmosphere that we were seeing it through as part when the Dodgers had rolled into town. So can the braves continue to play well in those kinds of games? I think that they've shown that they can play a very complete game. They've got clutch hits. They've been getting great starting pitching really in the entire second half, but especially since the trade deadline and can the bullpen continue to do its job. Those are the things that the braves will have to do is kind of everything in concert right now because the offense, you know, it's been a while since they just blew somebody out. It'd be nice if they wanted to tune up the band and do it a couple of times to Washington and get right and roll into Philadelphia a little bit of momentum offensively speaking, but it's been the completeness of the braves game that has been

15:38their greatest asset here, especially in that seven game winning streak, which was punctuated by a sweep of the LA Dodgers and Chris sales masterful performance in a one nothing game. Those the kind of games that even a week or two before, you aren't sure that the braves could win those. Right. Again, it's been it's been some as a roller coaster season. It's a long season, but certainly the Dodgers and that just the way they looked against the Dodgers to in a playoff atmosphere, that's why even if we do get the Phillies, you know, I don't want I just want I don't want to be in that best of three grand. That's the thing. That's why I think we all agree. You just got to be that number two seat if you can't get to the brewers. By the way, you mentioned the bullpen. Suarez, explain the roster moves. Is it retroactive? How does it all work and when do we expect to see Suarez? Yeah, all of those kinds of things when you transfer from a 10 or a 15 day IEL sent to a 60 day stint, typically, you know, because you don't want to put somebody on the 60 day immediately if they have a chance of coming back soon. There's really nothing, you know, beyond just trying to give yourself the flexibility to have somebody come back in less than 60 days by putting them on the 10 or 15,

16:38even if you know they're going to be out for a while. But when you need a 40 man spot, which the braves did to make their September moves to bring up Blake Berkhalter, who's a very exciting relief arm. We'll see how the braves want to utilize him. He's active as of today and he brought back how farmer as well. They're going to need another roster spot at some point for Rinaldo Lopez, but it sounds like that's at least a week away. He's going to make another start in Gwyneth. But that's totally procedural for Robert Suarez, who's been out since the end of June to just move to the 60 day IEL and opens up a 40 man spot. And when it's time to activate him, they'll just have to make a corresponding move and send somebody out. So nothing to be alarmed about, but I would tell you right now, as we sit here on September the 1st, I would assume and I would imagine, I'll do better than assuming. I'll imagine that it's about a three week window that we're looking at for Suarez to get really ramped up. And we could just be looking at that last few games or maybe last series of the season because I don't think they're going to rush him through this rehab process. And he's still got to throw bullpen and face live hitters and then go out and make some appearances. All right. I want to have a little nerd conversation with you here because I want to get into

17:42in depth a little bit in the Tyler Malley lowest ERA of any pitcher acquired at the deadlion. 1.48. He's been great. Why? What is the pitch now that he's relying on? Has it changed and he came over? Has he added something? Yeah, I think he's actually simplified his, his arsenal, if I understood kind of looking at the pitch mix with the giants and looking at it now. I think he's been a little bit more fastball reliant too, which yeah, everybody you have to establish your fastball pretty much everything's going to live off of that, but certain guys, they specialize with getting most of their swing and miss on other counts, but he ends a lot of strikeouts with fastballs and he's putting it up there about 94 miles an hour. So it's not like he's touching triple digits and really overpowering hitters, but the way that he is able to sequence and attack hitters, I think they just don't see him well. And that's the thing that is a benefit for certain pitchers that they're just a little bit more deceptive than others. And I think that the braze looked at him and so okay, he's having some success. He's ditched some things and been able

18:44to incorporate different pitch usage, you know, even if it's just a percentage, the amount of times that you're throwing something that they've recognized, hey, this is more beneficial to him. Well, let's try it this way. I mean, Bryce Elder was telling me like last week, I started throwing a different change up playing catch one day and thought, man, this feels better than the one I'm using in games and Jeremy Hector just said, use it, take it out there. The worst thing that can happen is you've switched back to the old one at some point, but find out if it works for you and if it does, we're not afraid to try that. And I think that's where Jeremy Hector really comes in and I had an in-depth conversation with him. You can find that in the archives on from the diamond, you can find it on the Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcast, but he sat down with me and really went through how they game plan for each person individually on a daily basis, make adjustments and do the kind of things that you're asking about it. It's fascinating because he's got 13 different projects at any given time and that does include Chris Sale because they did some things in the spring that they believe helped Chris Sale find this little bit of extra velocity at 37 years old. So

19:45everybody all the time is trying to get that much better. Is there like a Leo Mazzoni Honorary Award for pitching coaches? I mean, if that there should be. Hey, by the way, Graham McCullough before we wrap Hassan Kim in the lineup tonight in Washington. He's had a few hits. So, I mean, we talked about, we asked a question, Alex and Thoppelgis yesterday about, you know, like you're ever going to use sick with him and he explained it all. It's on the Odyssey app. So are we going to continue to see like every other day trying to get him in a rhythm with Hassan Kim? Yeah, I think so. I mean, he can't give a better answer than Alex and Thoppelgis did because he knows exactly what they're trying to do with their roster spots and, you know, Hassan Kim and deciding that look, we've spent the $20 million and that's not necessarily the problem. And he did bring up a great point with, look, we felt like at one point that Dylan Dodd was a better option left handed than Aaron Bummer was and who's on the team now and who was getting paid just to kind of go try to find another job and the answer was Aaron Bummer is the guy who wouldn't had to find other work. But to bring it back to Hassan Kim, I do think that he's done a ton of work

20:46to kind of get himself ready for whenever that opportunity came. The Dodd's moment was Chef's kiss timing for him and for the braves. But, you know, he's going to have to continue to play well and look good in these games and in these opportunities to earn more. You got to see all these deaching today, Mauricio DeBond playing second base that does open up shortstop for Hassan Kim and I do think that Walt Weiss wants to move Mauricio around and try to give some guys some days off here and there down the stretch so that everybody's kind of feeling like they're ready to play their best baseball in October and not like they've been pushed to the limit with no days off because the schedule is a little bit unrelenting that you had to sacrifice an off day yesterday, for example, to play the Giants in a makeup game. So a lot of different things have been thrown at him, but I do think that with Hassan Kim, just try to figure out what you got here. And if he can provide a spark at a good time, you'll be forgetting all about April, May, June, July and all the way into August to be able to come through it some big times. Good stuff, Grant. We'll see what happens tonight and we'll talk to you tomorrow and port and road trip for the braves years. We start September.

21:47Thank you again. Look forward to it. Thanks, guys. Showing Carl during the commercial break. It's pretty funny video last night in the Phillies game. There's a line on the ground ball. I mean, it wasn't like it was a laser, but it was pretty sharply hit ball in the Phillies dugout and Maddenley just goes, who grabs it? It's like nothing happened. It went viral. He's changed. He's changed the tune in that team, right? And I wonder because the knock on Maddenley's first couple of times as a manager was too much of a hard ass. Yep. And I wonder if he tempers that a little bit and Philly. I don't know. It's very possible. Hey, man, we're going to talk some more college football. We got some more stuff for you as we get ready for a big weekend heading into labor day. Want to remind you get your holiday. We can start it right Friday with the special broadcast of our Stukson Bell at Buffalo's Cafe Hamilton Mill. We'll be broadcasting live from two to six previewing all the week one college football matchups. We'll also enjoy the great food and drinks at Buffalo's Cafe. Come join us, man. We're going to have a good time and get the weekend started right to the six Buffalo's Cafe Hamilton Mill right here on sports video 92 9 the game. Well, things are about to come to a head in college football. No, I'm not talking about the games.

22:51It's Duke's in Bell Sports Radio 92 9 the game and a reminder opening week on sports radio 92 9 the game is presented by hands free. Sketchers slip ends just step in and go. So Mike, the president of the SEC's executive committee, this is Tennessee chancellor Don Deplowman basically says the league's not going to budge on its rule that NFL players cannot return to college. This Dr. Plowman, this is correct. Yeah, chancellor. That's chance the plowman of you, Buster. So the manner is at one point. Speaking on behalf of the SEC presidents and chancellors, she made it clear that the SEC is prepared to defend our rules and wants commissioner Greg Sanky to feel empowered to levy significant penalties. This is the SEC again pushing back to all of this craziness that 's happening at LSU. And again, I still do not feel Lane is going to be stupid enough to say, I'm willing to risk it. These kids are playing or these grown men are playing and Mike, we will have

23:55a chance to not participate in the playoff. We won't we won't do that. I just don't feel that way. But either way, you've got now the executive committee of the SEC saying we're putting our foot down. Right. Now again, eventually this thing, we'll get to a judge who's not an idiot like the doofus in LSU in Louisiana, who's obviously, you know, he knows where his bread is buttered with the governor. It is you, but in this case, you will get the ruling, which probably I think we'll get a ruling. We'll give us some common sense on this issue. And then you're right. They won't risk playing these guys because the games will then be invalidated or they'll be ill before fitted because they're ineligible players. Once the ruling comes down and who does that? Nobody's going to take that chance. By the way, she says all 15 SEC presidents and chancellors have been on and off zooms chatting about options among themselves. So they've been in constant contact about what's been going on. I mean, I would think is anybody contacted LSU on this? Like it's almost like they're they're on an island by themselves. Louisiana's like its own country, a third world

24:55country at that. But yeah, it's it's just crazy how things are going out there. And I got a guy is an LSU fan who's here in town said, I met you with Dixie Tavern. Okay, many years ago, my friend zoomer who's bucket. I bought you a drink. But Ronald says what's your problem with Lane, man? He's just playing the system. Well, here's the thing. The stuff that Lane said and we played the audio earlier, where Lane's like, you know, I talked to my leadership council and they were all for it. All for one of their teammates being cut who's put the work in all year, you know, for some guy who couldn't make it in the NFL to come back. That's bull. Lane is lying. Just like that. Remember the same crap when he said, you know, I talked to my leadership council. They want me to coach this team in the playoffs. No, they didn't. Ole Miss wanted Lane to go goodbye. They didn't want him around. That was that was more bullony. The players all said, now he's full of crap. So I'm just I know there's a lot of BS, but I expect more BS from the men's basketball coaches. I expect some degree of truth from men's football coaches, I guess. Call me crazy car. All right, speaking of football coaches, this is what Davos said about where the state of college football is. Specifically,

25:56guys were talking about allowing professionals or guys that have at least tried out to be professionals to come back to school. I would just say it's kind of embarrassing. I mean, honestly, this is just embarrassing. That's where we are. I don't blame the kids. People trying to take advantage of the system. I just think it's embarrassing where we're over college football. And we've been there for a while. So I just keep my energy, my focus on and my energy on the things that I control and the things that matter. And that's these kids here and our team. But all that outside stuff, we just kind of know pun intended. We just stay in our lane here at Clemson. Try to. Every now and then, somebody will ram into us. But we try to just handle our business here. But it's embarrassing. I mean, it really is. You know, we have no rules. There's no governance. I mean, it's a joke. There's zero rules. And when you enforce rules, somebody just goes and finds a judge to say,

27:01no, you can't enforce that rule. So I mean, never did I think I'd be living in an era like this, but that's where we are. It is, and it's a shame. So from one side of the country to the other, this is Steve Stark. He's been talking about the same thing. These players on all of our rosters, not just hours, have been working for nine months for this moment on Saturday, which then will lead into the next five to six months. The fact that somebody out there is going to take a player on off of an NFL roster and tell somebody who's been doing it for nine months, go kick rocks. That doesn't sit well with me. I think that's wrong. That that morally is wrong. So I think our presidents, A.Ds and and chancellors got it right and we'll support it and we'll fall online. So look, we said this, Mike, you want to get into the morality conversation? Fine. I still believe in knowing a lot of coaches in my career that there is still that moral fiber in their body. Like, yeah, I'm going to follow rules and guess what? If I'm allowed to break the rules a little bit

28:03to get ahead, I'll do that. But at the end of the day, we all have to be on the same page on this. And Mike, I think if it was left up to the coaches independently and again, I've said this to you, I think this lane thing is over him. I think they're pressing this just to see if they can get away with it and there's a lot of money there behind this. He happens to be adults in the room in the Louisiana state. And he's the face of the program. So everybody's going, this is lane. He's having to deal with other people going, we should do this. We should we can get away with it. Nobody in their right mind thinks this way, especially from a coaching standpoint. Like what what coaching the SEC is going, yeah, I'm going to bring in a couple of guys that didn't make it on the Cleveland Browns. Well, you've been lane, but lane just can't help himself. You know, I talked to him. He's a bull artist. You know, my you know, my leadership council's all for it. No, they're not. Just again, they wanted to be golden to coach it to your full of crap. I just think lane, he's crossed over. Like, we know this guy's in there in our business. They, they, you know, they just believe their own baloney. And it just, oh, it just drives me crazy. Hopefully as we said, this thing does play out with the, they get these things from a judge with some common sense. And I don't know when that happens.

29:06Carl, because again, it's as we heard from Davos Sweeney, it's just you get your judge. I get my judge. You just keep, keep, keep all the way to the Supreme Court. Yeah. Over this. And then meanwhile, LSU be stupid to play these guys because they may have to, you know, forfeit their season. Yeah. And again, we'll see where it goes. But the big news is again, the executive committee is saying we're all on the same page here. Okay. It's Duke's and Bell speaking of dogs and Georgia plan this weekend. We had Connor Riley on. If you missed the interview, go online, audacie.com. You can check out everything he had to say about the team getting ready for week one. I almost went bubble free. Did you? I popped the bubble. He said that too. Yeah. Yeah. He was waiting for a bubble question. I get a problem. Well, do you expect one of each generic? Yeah. I mean, this, you know, it's funny. Had a guy tell me it's like, just stop fretting about FSU. They were going to sandbag. Who can, you can't sandbag. We do not that good. Now, Georgia is that good. They can totally sandbag against Tennessee. Stay in the next opponent and then obviously get ready for Arkansas and then Oklahoma. I mean, I get it. But I don't expect bubble to do anything fancy. I think you run the football, but you want to see some, you want to see the receivers that were getting a way of questions about looking

30:09pretty good, right? You don't want to get them involved. No, I look Kirby talking about execution. I think we'll be discussing that over the next few days. That's what you want to see. Clean, executed football, right? And nobody gets hurt. Correct. And that's that's really where this is at. Here's Kirby, though, talking about planning the heat. This got a lot of chuckles because everybody was like, man, it's hot out here. I committed to a game type atmosphere in that heat because you don't ever play games a lot of times. We practice in it, but we did get the scrimmage in it. So, I'd be interested to see as much about our players as I do about our fans and see if they can handle it. See if you guys can handle it. You'll get out of that air conditioning. You'll come out everywhere else. If you have a hundred and ten heated decks and go up and down the field with 25 pounds of pads on. You think you'll be all right? Absolutely. If you wear all the equipment, I'll give it to you. I'll put your ass out there. Give me these pro players coming back. That's just slower and over. That's great. Is that Mark Weiser? I don't know if that was who he was going after,

31:11but yeah. Or an older. That's funny. But yeah, man, like, I think it does matter. I mean, Kevin Stafansky, Mike, we talked about this. He had a couple of camp days out there in that heat. And, you know, more times or not, we go back three coaches. Nobody was practicing in the afternoons. Everybody was doing this stuff in the morning. And Kevin's like, no, we're going to do some stuff in the afternoon. I think it matters. You know, you talk about most high schools day, we talk about this. They're out there in that heat. And so, you know, the first month of the season, September is still hot. Yeah. Unless you're in California where I went against the 90 everybody stays inside. I don't know what it goes to USC football games. Let me tell you something. When you got a high school football game, the first couple of weeks of August, they are so long because there are so many cramps, right? Cats are just dropping. Like you left and right. Like just someone's down. What's that? He's cramping. We saw that. And that was indoors. Yeah. So, but Kirby, look, he's joking,

32:11but his guys will be ready. And then this is the other thing you said before we get out of here, talking about getting to see the growth in a real game situation. And you see growth confidence. Exposure to playing in front of fans. You know, in my coaching history, there's guys that nobody goes out and just does something phenomenal. They have it done in practice. What we see in practice, we see in games. But maybe the reaction to a play they gave up or they get beat and how they respond to it is what I'm looking for is the response more than the actual event. So we'll get a chance to see all of that. We'll break down games starting tomorrow. We're getting ready for Georgia Tech, Colorado. And also tomorrow, Ian Cunningham speaks to the media. So we'll hopefully get some more answers when it comes to our Falcons. We got to get out of the way and clear on throw. Turtle has a full show coming up. Stay tuned. He'll be on from six to 10 tonight. Tomorrow,

33:12guys, we're back in studio. But Thursday, make plans to come out, hang out with us, Twin Peaks and Kennesaw and then Friday Buffalo's Cafe, Hamilton Mill will be out there hanging out with you guys getting ready for Big Labor Day weekend. Did a great job, exactly to produce the show as always. And of course, big O behind the glass, keeping us on point are engineer. Mike, let's get out of here, man. Clear throw. Hey, man, I just saw Tiger's going to change his plea on that that case out of Florida. Just dropped really. I presume that means he's going to do some kind of a deal. Please guilty. We'll find out. Remember, we were to rehab in Switzerland. We sure did. And that was the latest situation behind the wheel when he shouldn't have been behind the wheel. Hey, man, what are we doing adults? I don't have any kids, but at least I have the common sense of around kids, not to get in a fight with somebody. You see that brawl in Pennsylvania? No, I mean, you got 11, 10 year, 11 year old kids and you got coaches pushing each other. In front of the kids, they got a battle royal. I mean, literally women, man, everybody's shoving. Just saw a video. It just dropped. I have it at Mike Bell, Ray Till Bell, what are the hell? I am on Twitter. But it's a guy who was constant and he's tripping. He literally trips a nine year old going down

34:12the silent for a touchdown run. I mean, who does that? People that weren't raised right. And unfortunately now they've got kids in their own straight. Not, will you? Yeah. That's embarrassing. It's also completely out of pocket. Hey, just a little quick advice for you. It's still too early to do your fantasy draft. I know you want to. I know you've done your research. But just give it a week. Please. Hey, if you love the show, you tell your friend. If you don't, you just took a swing at somebody in a popcorn game.