Across the nation.

The Raging Cajuns will.

Be a source of pride for this.

University, for the alumni, fans, and donors.

As we achieve success in the classroom, in the competitive arena, and in the community.

It's about to get really fun.

We're looking for dudes that will stand up.

Well, Coach, let me tell you, today.

I'm here, and I'm ready to stand up.

And I challenge you, Raging Cajun Nation, to stand up with us.

Stand up with us.

Let's lock hand in hand and let's walk through the gates of Omaha.

Hey, I love y' all boys.

Let's grind every day starting today.

Let's do it.

Y' all ready?

Allah.

Allah.

Ready?

Who's your team?

Ready.

Who's your team?

Ready?

That's.

I got one thing to say right here.

Cages win.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome in to Raging Review.

Your boy Nick, your boy Jerry, your boy Josh.

And look, let's not delay our big announcement.

Welcome in, new to the pod, our new friend.

Hold on, let me get his walk up music.

In fact, give me one second.

Here we go.

Here's his walk up music.

You guys ready?

No, actually, that was a joke because, you know the Wolf Pack song?

That's not.

That's not his actual song, but he dared me to play it.

No, this is more.

This is more his style right here.

Want to welcome in to Rage and Review, our boy Cole.

Gilbo Cole, man.

Welcome in, brother.

How you doing?

I'm doing great, man.

I appreciate y' all for having me.

Neon Moon's my jam, baby.

Especially in the seventh inning after a long night because you know how things go at the T. But no, I appreciate you boys for having me.

Long time caller, first time, you know, tuning in.

But, you know, we got some good things to talk about tonight.

And, man, what a day it's been, especially on the baseball forefront.

And I can't wait to talk a little bit.

A little bit more about that with y'.

All.

Certainly want to, of course, thank our sponsors.

Before we get into everything, award master, your personalization and recognition experts.

We're working on a couple things with them, so that should be a lot of fun.

Eat Lafayette with Lafayette Travel.

Appreciate those folks as well.

Dr. Brett Venable and Acadiana Chiro Med.

He is our.

He's our dude, man.

In fact, I think I need to go get adjusted myself because I'm not doing so hot right now.

Lafayette Roofing and Darren Domingue.

Darren's my man.

And.

And, you know, I have to apologize to Darren because I used to Say he couldn't spell his name right and he was actually spelling it right the whole time.

So.

Darren, my apologies.

And rage and hydration.

Y' all heard about Coach Doe?

He's been down.

He's been having a little bit of hydration issues with.

With some medical stuff that he's going on with, but he's much better.

He did not take my advice and get rage and hydration, but he told me he would next week.

So we're going to come back and report to you guys on what that is like.

But boys, before we get started, want to go around the horn?

It has been a little while.

I did a nick triple take a couple days ago and gave my thoughts on all this stuff that's going on, which we will get to as soon as I'm done with this round robin stuff.

But Jerry, tell us, what have you been up to this summer, brother?

Yeah, I've been enjoying the summer so far.

You know, had it took a vacation or two.

Going to take one more before school starts back up.

You know, the little one is.

Is learning how to swim, so that's pretty exciting.

We've got a lot of news around college sports with conference realignment and some of the stuff we're going to talk about.

So that's kind of kept me in the loop and then just, you know, hanging out, really just enjoying, enjoying the summer and just kind of enjoying getting away from sports for a little bit.

Sometimes you have to kind of decompress and I've pretty much enjoyed taking advantage of that.

Of course, we have some sports coming up within the next month, but gonna enjoy the last month of summer and maybe enjoy my last beach trip, enjoy some of that crystal clear water before getting back really, really into the digs of season eight.

Josh.

Rainbow.

What were they?

The Rainbow Unicorns.

The Rainbow.

I know it's changed so many times and I know you've been.

I saw you and Owen going do a little bit of golfing and all that kind of stuff.

What's going on in your life these days, man?

So we rebranded to the Jaguars.

Jaguars two years ago.

Nick.

I. I mean, we got to keep up with the dog.

I like the Rainbow Shaws as though that was my favorite.

I can't get out of my head.

I'm sorry.

I think that was great branding.

It was.

When you go from U6 to U8, they're too cool for that.

You know, you got to be, you know, you got to let them pick how they want to be known around the league when they're you know, kind of storming over it and whipping everybody's ass so we couldn't do, you know, mermaid whatevers and be, you know, feared, so we had to go with the scarier name.

But I do want to mention, are we on a generational run of hires where we got, like, Cajun last names?

Like, how do we continue to do this?

We got a Gilbo now on the team.

We got an Abair.

We got Doming.

Obviously, Najagno.

I mean, poor Lane is a giant.

That's why Cole's here.

Lane's never coming back.

I'm just kidding, guys.

Lane, if you're watching, that is not the truth.

We need to get Lane a Cajun last name.

He can have, like, a screen name or something, but.

But no, I'm thrilled to have Cole on board.

I think he's a perfect fit, and he knows his stuff.

It's gonna be fun.

He brings a lot of energy.

I think everybody's gonna just love the addition.

I've been really thrilled with it so far.

But as far as summer goes, man, I. I kind of do my, you know, yearly unplug from social media and whatnot after I piss off LSU fans after the college, by the way, because.

They blame me all yet again for it.

I mean, Mr. Bitters calling Jerry going, tell that a hole, Nick, to stop posting.

And I'm like, it wouldn't even be bitter.

Like, hey, for the record alone, for.

The record, I passed along my number.

My phone didn't ring.

But that's neither here nor there.

Look, you got to poke the bear from time to time.

And it's like Rick Jones told us several years ago, Virginia Tech became a legitimate school when they started picking the right rivals.

And that was with Virginia, not the smaller schools.

And that's.

I'm always going to poke the bear across the basin.

That's what we all should aim to do if we want to grow and continue to elevate our brand and our recognition.

We need to poke fights with the right people.

We need to pick fights with the right people.

And TSAB is the school to do that.

So I'm never going to apologize for how much I love this place.

I'm never going to stop busting their balls for being so obnoxious.

It's just part of our DNA, dude.

It's just what it's going to be.

And I welcome everybody that's here tonight from Baton Rouge, enjoying the show.

But no, man, it's been a pretty uneventful.

A lot of work.

I'm going to take a little trip here in the next week.

But so far so good.

Nothing too higher to low.

What I do enjoy though is a few TSAP fans that like get it, you know, and they kind of, we kind of go back and forth, but we truly do have a mutual respect for, for each other's programs and stuff.

So that's always fun.

You do have those few and far between.

Cole, what about you?

What's going on in Scompton, man?

What you been doing?

You've been preparing for some Acadian high school wrecking Ram football, baby.

That's right, man.

That's right, Katie.

And wrecking Ram football on the horizon.

But even before that, I just had my third kid about six weeks ago.

And boys, let me tell you, three kids under five is tough.

It's tough.

It's a full time job.

But listen, I love it.

I look forward to the weekends and drinking cold beer.

That's been my mo.

Some of you might recognize me from around the ballpark in part, you know, with section A.

But listen, I'm a die hard and like Jerry said earlier, it's good to be able to decompress after the season, especially with the season being as rough as it was.

It's nice to spend time with your family, nice to jump in the pool, you know, relax, kick back.

But yeah, bottom line for me, full time dad mode right now.

But I love it.

I love my kids, I love my wife and she's a rock star.

And I'm looking really forward to just cutting it up with you guys tonight.

We have a lot to talk about.

I hope she's watching because you were, she was a superstar for allowing you to be watching us while you were in the hospital with her and the new baby.

So congratulations, man.

I know that was a big dude and I got some, I got some stuff I'll surprise you with later on in the episode.

Let's get to it, boys.

We've been, we've been chatting and talking and kind of, you know, BSing long enough.

I don't know why we have so many USM fans here tonight.

I can't figure that one out.

I guess they may have heard that Gunner Lege is no longer with the UL baseball program.

And, and honestly, we're not going to get into what we've heard about like was it his decision?

Was it Degs decision?

Was it a mutual decision?

Did it get canned?

The bottom line is it doesn't look great for our university when one of your coaches goes to a rival the way that this just happened, but we wish him the best, man.

I mean, I hope Gunner does really well over there all other times that he's not playing against us.

I think Ostrander is a fantastic pitching coach.

Obviously his numbers show for it.

I think that's a great place for, for Gunner to further develop.

But speaking of development, that is something that some of the players and player parents kind of griped about in the last few years on the pitching side is that they didn't feel they were getting any development.

Now who do you blame that on?

Is it a micromanaging situation?

Did gonna really have that chance to do so?

So, Jerry, I'll start with you.

I know you were a little bit into it a little more than we were.

You were getting some intel.

Tell us what you've heard and what you think about the situation.

Well, first of all, I mean, before I say anything else, I've got nothing but love for Gunner, man.

I've been, I've known him since he was a kid, watched him grow up.

I've known his grandfather for a long time.

I've known his dad, of course, coach Tim Leger, our offensive coordinator for the UL football team for many, many years.

So I have and of course I know I've gotten to know as his mom, Ashley.

I've met her a few times.

Really nice lady.

So I, I have nothing but love for the leges.

As far as Gunner goes with his career, in my personal opinion, I think, look, he, he, if he wants to to develop more and go somewhere else and go to another location where he doesn't have everybody that he's familiar with where he can learn on his own.

I, I, I hate to say this, and it sounds kind of taboo for me to say this on this platform, but I think you take away the logo and you take away the school and you take away the fact that it's a rival Southern Miss isn't a bad place to learn about coaching pitching.

I mean, let's be honest.

Their head coach, Coach Ostrander is, was a pitching coach and, and now he's a head coach and his team was one went away from a super regional.

So as far as him learning, I know there's a lot of fans that may be upset because it's Southern Miss, but look, they offered him and he went.

So I think that's definitely, it definitely hurts because of the circumstances, but I get it from a coaching perspective.

Let's, let' of rewind a little bit.

If you go back to 2024, the fall gunner was actually Offered.

I don't know many, if many people know this.

Gunner was offered by the Cleveland Guardians organization, a team that he signed with as a free agent after the 2019 season to, to work as an assistant pitching coach for their double A affiliate.

So obviously they had a lot of respect for him.

And then this he actually went interview.

He wanted to stay put in Louisiana because of course, fall ball was going on, but because of the opportunity in front of him, you know, when a major league team calls, you can't say no.

So he went and, and at least entertained it and they offered him the job on the spot.

They were so impressed by what he was able to do in the interview process to the point where one of the coaches that he had contacts with, with the Guardians ended up at St. Louis as an assistant pitching coach, I believe, and told him straight up, look, if you ever want to come to St. Louis, we'll have a job waiting for you.

So not only did he get offered by the Cleveland guardians organization, the St. Louis Cardinals organization indirectly offered him as well.

So he had two, two job offers in the fall that he turned down because he wanted to stay put here at Louisiana.

And, and he felt that he had a commitment to this baseball, the UL baseball program.

Fast forward and to, to last month.

He's on the recruiting trail and before you know it, he's in contact with Virginia Tech, Southern Miss and Missouri.

All three schools.

One's an SEC team.

You've got a Virginia Tech team.

Of course, John Sheff, former Raging Cajun assistant coach, being the head coach there, has built a really, really good program with the Hokies and of course Southern Miss.

I mean, those are three programs that are pretty obviously pretty well respected.

And also he had his contacts with the Guardians as well as the Cardinals in the major leagues, but of course they don't start their real internal coaching searches and all that stuff.

A lot of the front office stuff till like August, September.

But he, he was a, he, he took the job at Southern Miss.

I think he felt that he wanted to kind of spread his wings a little bit elsewhere.

I think he might have felt it might have been a better fit from a pitching perspective because again, you have a head coach that has more pitching experience than hitting.

And, and, and look, I just want to say from the people I've talked to, I'm going to take up for Gunner here.

He has nothing but love for this university.

He loves his school.

You know, this school means the world to him.

This is not any type of smite to smite the program.

This is not any type of personal attack on the program of why he left.

He just left because he knew that he had to find a way to improve his own career.

And I know it sounds terrible, it's sad that he's gone, but from the people that I've talked to, that's why he.

He left.

And, and look, I'm just gonna say it, guys.

I, I personally think, and I don't know if you really want to.

Want to get into this, but let's be honest.

We're on our fourth pitching.

We're on our fourth coaching search for a pitching coach in six seasons.

I guess the word for that is, to me is, Is instability.

There's a little bit of instability there on the pitching side of things for our baseball program.

That's a little concerning to me.

I, we definitely need to fix that.

I'm hoping within the next few weeks we'll find out who our new pitching coach is.

Now, I have heard, we've interviewed some, some pretty good names, but it's going to have to be a good one and it's going to have to be, no pun intended, a home run because of the fact that we've been through so much turnover in the last few years.

And let's be honest, guys with turnover, other schools recruit against that.

What do they say?

We.

Why do you want to go to Louisiana?

How do you know the pitching coach that's recruiting is going to be here next year?

Right.

So hopefully, hopefully they're able to fix that.

Hopefully they were able to bring in a good hire.

Like I said, I know we have a few guys on who are candidates who seem like they're good fits.

We'll find out pretty soon.

But as far as Gunner goes, no, it, it hurts a little bit because it's Southern Miss, but I wish Gunner the best of luck.

I, I have no, you know, no hate or anything like that for Gunner.

I hope he does well and he's going to learn a lot from, from Coach Ostrander.

He's.

He's a great.

He's a great baseball coach.

Let's just call it what it is.

So I wish the best of luck and, and hopefully maybe one day down the road he's back here.

We'll see.

And as I mentioned earlier, lots of USM fans in the comments tonight, Mason King telling us he wants us to get better.

Look, I, I don't think we're going to be down for years.

I don't think we will have the opportunity to be down for years.

I Hopefully this is just something on the radar blip.

We can talk about whether or not we all think that's a blip on the radar.

Probably for hours, but we'll find out soon enough.

And then this is my favorite, Cole.

And I'll go to you next when.

When fans come on here and say, he just wanted a better opportunity, he didn't want to be with you guys anymore.

He wanted to be here.

The separation happened last week.

He didn't even interview for the job at that point.

So I don't like when.

When people just throw this kind of stuff out there.

I mean, you know, I'm not hating on the guy for saying that, but, I mean, you don't.

I don't even know what transpired, but I know that it wasn't like he was like, screw you guys.

I'm going to Southern Miss.

That was not the case whatsoever.

But, Cole, your thoughts on the situation, you know, kind of give us.

Give us your take.

And maybe I know you.

You're connected to a lot of the section A fans.

What are they saying?

I mean, let's just start here.

Everybody loves a winner, right?

So, like, if.

If we were in a winning situation, we might not even be talking about this.

But, you know, he's only been here for two years.

Last year, you know, pitching staff was awesome.

You got blessed with Longevin, who is probably the top closer in all of college baseball.

And that's something.

That's a guy you, you know, you hung your hat on as a pitching coach, you know, rookie pitching coach.

And, you know, but going forward from, you know, a section, a standpoint, from a fan standpoint, it's a lot of.

How can I put this?

The turnover is one thing, right?

So you need some stability, especially in a pitching staff that.

In a culture that Tony Robichaux created.

Right?

Because Tony was all about his pitching.

And the thing that, you know, UL has hung their hat on year in and year, year out, has been pitching.

So, you know, with him gone now, and we've had four pitching coaches in six years, you kind of going in, you know, an opposite direction than the culture that he's created all these years.

So we got to find somebody to stop the bleeding.

Jerry made a great point.

Whoever we hire has to be, no pun intended, a home run hire.

You have to have a guy that's going to bring in some recruits.

Recruits, let's call it what it is.

As of right now, we have not a single D1 transfer that has come into this program.

It's all Been Jucos and NAIA pitchers.

I mean, listen, we can strike gold on one of them, but the bottom line is we need guys that are ready to throw that.

That's just what it is.

And who knows, you know, And I don't want to knock on wood.

Who knows who's going to jump in the portal after this news?

You know, that's the biggest thing that we're going to have to wait on with Gunner going.

You know, Gunner brought some of these guys in.

Gunner was working with these guys.

These guys love Gunner.

Who's next to jump in that portal.

That's why we're all kind of holding our breath.

I'll tell you.

Portals close for now.

And Josh, we're going to talk.

Well, that's what I wanted to bring up with you.

So I think this is a good segue into me going to you.

Portals closed now.

I think the guys who have signed, if they've enrolled.

I don't know if they've enrolled like.

Like freshmen, right?

Like the guys who signed commitments.

I think once you were enrolled in college, that you're there.

Correct me if I'm wrong.

So I don't know if it's going to be right now that you're going to see a lot of guys going.

But in the fall, is that correct that this reopens and that if we don't get the higher.

Right, as you were saying, Cole, that's the time that I'm starting to get worried our guys going to leave the program.

So anybody that doesn't.

People keep saying the portal's closed.

The portal's closed.

Yeah, the portal's closed.

But there's.

The fall is not that far away and we see it across college baseball.

I mean, when the window opens, people that didn't have a good fall or are about to get cut, they get in the portal.

That's going to happen here.

There are pitchers here that we know of for a fact that we're only here still because of Gunner.

So there's going to be more, a little bit more attrition down the road.

Let's talk about how in shambles our pitching recruiting is.

Somebody mentioned in AIA pitchers and JUCO transfers.

I mean, look, we don't know what the circumstances are.

Is the circumstances are with these new guys and maybe it's injury and maybe it's lack of opportunity, I don't know.

But the numbers aren't great and there's not a whole lot of tape on them.

So you can't go and evaluate what we're bringing in at the time, but the fact that Gunner's been kind of embroiled in where his job's going to be next year for the last, you know, week and a half, two weeks.

I mean, it's a chicken or the egg.

Did.

Did.

Was recruiting suffering because of the, you know, uncertainty or was, you know, was one of the reasons why Gunner wanted to leave because of the lack of recruiting in the pitching staff?

We don't know that question.

We don't know the answer to that question.

But I can tell you this.

We do know that Gunner resigned.

This wasn't a, you know, somebody poached him with a better offer, and then he went to Southern Miss because they offered him more money and a better opportunity.

That's not what happened.

We know that.

Oh, no.

DeSean said that happened, so it happened.

DeSean doesn't know anything.

And I just wanted to say that on the show because we.

We know that he resigned and shopped himself because he had other offers, but that's a fact.

That.

That's not an unsubstantiated rumor.

Now, there's an unsubstantiated rumor, and I know a lot of guys don't want to get into these waters, and I'm gonna be very brief on this, but they.

We know that there's been some kind of schism between Degs and Gunner.

You know, some people are saying since the whole Martinez thing happened in Houston last year.

I don't know if that's true.

To me, you know, results matter.

If we're talking about results, you know, that's.

That's ancient history.

But if.

If they.

If there's been a pattern of personality clashes between the two, then this makes perfect sense.

And I'm not saying that it didn't or did, but it makes sense that it would end that way.

And, you know, there's some other comments on message boards and whatnot about how, you know, maybe Gunner wasn't necessarily a great pitching.

Pitching coach.

Well, the funny thing is, is that the coach over at USM canceled interviews as soon as he interviewed Gunner to hire him.

Missouri was courting him.

Virginia Tech was courting him.

He had two standing minor league offers.

So it kind of seems like everybody outside of Lafayette thinks his services are extremely valuable except a lot of our fans.

I don't understand that.

Now, I say that as somebody who has asked the questions, hey, lack of production, lack of development, you know, and I kind of.

I've gone back and forth on this.

Is it.

Is it because he hasn't had the ingredients to make the gumbo.

You know, there's been some kids that come through this program that I think, wow, there's some talent there.

There's some talent, some arm talent there.

I think there's some potential.

And then there's some other kids that you clearly see don't have it from the get go, and they try to shove them down your throat and say, no, they're good, they're great.

Just, just hold out.

They're great.

So I don't know, you know, maybe Gunner got aggravated with the lack of pitching recruiting.

I mean, the fact that we only raised $170,000 for nil last year, you know, how the hell are we recruiting elite talent that way?

You know, And I look as Degs is our head coach, you can bet your ass we're going to be looking for hitters first and pitchers second.

So there's a lot of different ways you can go with this thing.

I have absolutely no animosity towards Gunner.

Go and further your career.

Go be great.

I would want to coach under coach Oz if I was a pitching coach as well.

No knock on anybody that's in our program now.

Just saying Oz is on another level.

We got to acknowledge that.

I know it's usm, but.

But productivity matters now from a perception standpoint, all that other stuff being said, go to anywhere else but usm, dude.

I mean, golly, it literally any other school outside of the school across the basin and I probably could have stomached it a little bit better.

But Southern miss this late in the game, it's.

It's tough.

And you know, you lose Steli and you know, he gets a couple stacks to go to go to Hattiesburg and now you got this going on.

It's like, you know, you hate to see that now there's rumors that other kids are going to follow him there.

That's going to be tough.

It's going to be tough.

It'll be.

It'll be fun for the fans, for the rivalry, I suppose.

But just from a professional standpoint, like, it just looks really, really bad.

And I don't think there's any way to salvage that from a PR standpoint.

I hate to be Degs in this situation, I'll be honest with you, because it kind of is like it's a lose, lose scenario.

Jerry, we're up against the 15 minute mark.

Go ahead and wrap it up and then we'll move on to the next.

I think what makes it hard is the fact that a few months ago or Like a month and a half ago when we played Southern Miss, you know, one of the biggest complaints we had was the fact that how we're supposed to be on the level of Southern Miss in a way that, you know, they've gone to nine straight regionals.

They hosted, you know, they hosted a regional this year.

And why, why can't we do that with the money that we've invested in the baseball program?

And I think it kind of compounds over the last couple weeks where you have Caleb Stella going there now and now Gunners, their pitching coach.

And so I.

To your point, Josh, I think perception wise and as far as optics go, it doesn't look good for us.

I mean, that.

That looks really, really bad for us.

It's one thing if you're going to an SEC school or somewhere in the Big 12, you're going to a conference foe who is considered your biggest baseball rival.

So that's where.

That's where it hurts.

That's where it stings as a fan.

You know, I mean, to your point, Josh, look, anywhere but Southern Miss.

But at the same time, to me, that's more an indictment on us.

And so there's.

We're going to have to fix it.

I mean, that's the two magic words right now to this coaching staff.

Guys, look, we have.

We love you guys and all, but you got to fix it.

Just fix it.

Go ahead, Nick.

Can I get 10 seconds on that?

Just to say, four pitching coaches in six years, there's no way to spin that that is bad.

That is instability.

That, that, that shows that there is a hole somewhere in the staff, this coaching staff.

I'm sorry, there's no other way to look at it.

And I say this, I am in the camp that thinks and, and just observing him, knowing a little bit about him behind the scenes and kind of looking at his career as a whole.

I am in the camp that thinks that Degs micromanages and over coaches.

And this is coming from players, parents, alumni, coaches.

I'm not just, I'm not just like looking at it in a small sample size.

I'm talking about over several years watching him do his thing.

He seems to be one of those coaches that try to strangle the control out of situations.

And I think it costs them.

And I think Gunner's personality, it rubbed the wrong way with that.

And that happens.

You know, you have coworkers that you don't get along with.

I get that totally.

But looking at our program from a health standpoint going forward, like what pitching coach wants to take on that, that responsibility.

Especially when the cupboard is bare.

Man, I worry about the talent and a pitching coach taking on a monumental task of rebuilding an entire roster and being in a situation that just can't find a way to keep a coach in place.

Well, there's a lot to be concerned with.

This is just a piece of the puzzle that makes us all scratch our heads and going what the hell are we doing?

And you know, you were mentioning the portal and we'll, we'll turn our attention to that now.

You know, we had some, some players that have already departed or should I say have already announced their next, their next school.

Brooks Wright going over to Southeastern, which was kind of a head scratcher a little bit.

Luke Uas is out.

South Carolina with his new teammate, that Valentine kid from, from Texas State.

We all remember him very well.

So that'll be interesting.

I, I, I think they South Carolina plays LSU in conference.

I don't know how that all works, but I really hope they do because I want that Valentin kid to be at the, in Tiger Stadium and act the ass like he did against us.

That would be a lot of fun to watch.

And then of course we had Caleb Stella that went to Southern Miss.

One of the things that, that we have all kind of discussed and look, if some of those pitchers are players, parents or the players themselves are watching, we don't want this to take a dig at you, but it would you would we look at some of the incoming talent that we have from a pitching perspective.

And Josh, this is kind of what we talked about.

We were wet, kind of wanting to reload with some, with some experience at the D1 level that, that perhaps, you know, had ties to the University or ties to the south.

And you saw a couple of situations with the Oklahoma State player, his name is escaping me that is coming in as a position player.

Had ties to the unit, to the, to the area.

New Debo very well.

So he's going to be transferring over.

We were looking for that a little bit more in the pitching side and now we've got an NAIA kid, I think someone else from juco, which again is not a shot on them, but it's a couple of guys who don't have a lot of experience at the Division 1 level.

So there's naturally concern there when you're trying to reload with Division 1 talent.

And we're getting guys in the Portal that are coming from NAIA and JUCO now I hope they shut me the hell up.

And this is all something that we look back on and say we should have never said that or assumed that.

But, But Josh, you know, we kind of went back and forth on this for a while and I think we all talked about it.

But, but especially you, who keeps an eye on the portal, like your thoughts on this.

Doesn't feel like we've really signed any, any blockbuster transfers that we typically have.

Seen in the past.

You know, a guy like, like Longevan, when you look at his numbers and he comes from, you know, another D1 school and you're like, holy cow, this kid's really good.

Or Martinez, he was very highly touted, didn't do much for us.

Here goes over to Arizona or Arizona State and just, you know, pitches lights out.

So talk to me a little bit about that.

I think we've only signed two pitchers that are not freshmen, so obviously there's going to be need to be development there, but just not a whole lot going on in the portal right now.

And it's concerning me a little.

I like Pruitt out of Live Oak.

I hope we can hold on to him.

I think he's a real deal.

I think we got something special in him.

Some of these JUCO guys.

That is insane.

No, he's, he's.

I think he's a real deal.

I think.

I think he's got a very bright future, I think.

Look, some.

You get lucky with some of these in AI AI gate.

I can't say naia.

I never can.

You get lucky with some of them, but, you know, it really is a diamond in the rough type situation.

Some of them get injured and they fall off of bigger rosters and they try to go and basically do like a rehab stint and then, you know, sometimes at five ERA is like five appearances or two appearances and you just have to get them on campus and see what you have.

We're going to learn a lot more in the fall and I hate to project, but it's the truth.

We really have half a roster right now from the pitching side.

Like, you know, obviously Gunner's gone, whoever takes the job.

And, you know, I think it might be Matthew Kenny out of Semo, by the way, if anybody's interested in some names.

But whoever takes this job is going to want to build their staff and they're going to have some opportunity to do that.

We need to raise some nil dollars.

That's a whole other issue.

But I think they're going to have the opportunity to do that.

And if you can get some good pitchers on campus even after fall, that's okay.

I mean, that's fine.

What people just need to remember that right now we basically have half a roster and it's being built.

I want to go to something that Jay said, if I can go back to it.

He basically said, you know, not everybody's cut out to play for Degs and we're cleaning house.

Sit back and watch.

I think it's a totally legitimate take, by the way, because what we saw this past year reminded me of early Cantrell, late Sinsley teams where some of those cats were crazy talented but they couldn't take the heat.

They just couldn't.

We all knew it, but back then there was no transfer portal and there was no quick turnover and you can move from roster to roster that didn't exist.

This does.

And I think one positive of the transfer portal that we very rarely talk about is that you can rebuild a roster in one off season.

And I think Degs is going to attempt to do that.

And when he says that he's going to fix it, I believe, I believe that he's really going to try to do that.

I obviously, I tend to believe he's going to try to do it at the dish and not on the mound.

I think that that's why you really, really need to rely on a good pitching coach.

But that's.

That ship has sailed.

And look, maybe we get better, maybe we get better at pitching coach.

But we talked about Donnie Lasalle.

A lot of people are talking about, oh well, he couldn't hit.

He was all or nothing hitter.

I continue to say you don't get invited to the Cape as a freshman if you can't hit.

He's going to come in from Oklahoma State.

I think he automatically provides at least some presence in the lineup.

It might take him a month to get acclimated and, you know, be in a starring role.

But I think Donnie LaSalle is going to hit in the Sunbelt Conference.

I really do.

Steven Supplita Spolita, sorry.

We watched him play at the Cane Cutters.

You know, I don't know how much playing time he got at Mississippi State.

Doesn't look like a whole lot of at bats.

I think 70 total or something like that.

That guy was an all everything catcher, first baseman in the state of Louisiana as a high school player.

He's got talent.

You know, that's what you're looking for in the portal.

You're looking for guys with tools and ability.

He provides that and there are a few others.

But I think those guys, you're going to hear their names in the fall.

So I kind of just want to get ahead of that.

And they're going to be.

You know, it's going to be an influx of more players once we start to play football.

This is a complete and total roster overhaul.

People need to understand that.

And it's going to be probably ugly.

It's going to be the making of the sausage and all that stuff.

But this roster is far from what we're going to see opening day of 2026.

We got a long way to go, and some of the kids that are still on the roster may not even be here after the fall.

So we got a long way to go.

I'm going to.

I'm going to just bank on guys like Jose Torres that have seen the live bullets just being back there as your backstop.

Please stay.

I hope he does.

There's a couple of other guys that I think that are stalwarts, are going to get the locker room back with that attitude that we need.

You know, going to war.

You know, they talked about guerrilla warfare during the season.

It just pissed me off to no end because, you know, we were the opposite of guerrilla warfare.

It was a pillow fight every night out there.

It was hard to watch.

But I do believe Degs is going to try and his absolute best is going to.

I believe he's going to use every tool he has in the bag.

I think he's going to work every contact that he has to try to rebuild this thing on the diamond, at the dish, on the.

On the bump, man.

You know, I have real concerns about our pitching staff going into next season, but there's a long way to go.

Everybody needs to understand there's a long way to go.

There is.

And I've been told.

Did not get a name, but I've been told we're very close to signing a new pitching coach, and it is sort of a splash higher that will cause us to all go, whoa.

And I think I know who it is, but I'm not saying, because if I say it, then it won't happen.

So I'll keep it to myself.

Cole, are we starting to panic too early?

I mean, I know the portal is closed, but there are still, what, 3,000 players out there?

And I know getting pitchers in the portal is tough.

I think one of the USM guys even mentioned that here.

Do.

Are we.

Is it.

Am I panicking too early?

I mean, I don't like the fact that we just have.

We don't have a single Division 1 transfer.

I mean, that's what bothers me right now.

Yeah.

And that's kind of what I'm thinking about, too.

So I'm not going to say it's too early to panic because let's.

Let's call it what it is.

You're bleeding out of all ends.

You need pitchers, you need hitters, we need defense.

We were not good defensively last year either.

So, I mean, you got.

You.

You basically have to hit on everybody you go after.

And like we talked about, whether it's juco, naia, I don't care.

If you can come in here and play and play right away and get in the lineup and.

And produce, that's what we need.

Listen, if you could come here and get.

Get in that lineup and play, there's a spot for you with Cajun baseball.

And that's what the fans are worried about is just we're playing.

We have half a roster right now, guys.

I mean, listen, let's call it what it is.

Last year, we didn't hit very well.

We were, you know, Josh said it a lot towards the end of the year on these podcasts.

We were bottom, bottom 50 and D1 and hitting.

Well, listen, you just lost your best offensive players on a bad hitting squad.

So you got to find a way to.

To know, replenish that.

And like you said, De, He's a hidden coach first and foremost, so he's going to go out there and try to find us the best that he can with, you know, with the resources that we have.

But we haven't talked about it one time tonight, let's call it what it is.

Our nil funds, they are thin.

We are.

We are one of the worst in the Sun Belt.

You're trying to go after guys in the portal that are quality, that can come in here and produce right away, but you're doing it with, like, with nothing.

You.

You're basically trying to sell the household name.

And hey, we.

You're.

We're right down the road from your mom and daddy's house.

Please come play for us.

That's basically all we're banking on right now.

So it's not too early to panic.

I mean, we're not even in the fall yet.

Things can happen, but it's realistic to panic because there's factors out there.

There's human nature out there that is edging you that way.

I mean, don't put the wool over my eyes.

This is happening.

It's a great point.

And I mentioned the 170,000 for nil, for baseball.

Just to give people some comparison.

USM spinning over a half a million.

Coastal Carolina national runner up almost a million.

This is what we're dealing with now.

The east is going to continue to be strong and that's baseball country out in South Carolina.

We're never going to have to worry about if they're going to be good.

They're going to always be good and they're going to invest in baseball.

USM I mean they're going to probably make their 10th consecutive regional next year.

They have a bought in fan base.

They're fine.

We gotta fit, we gotta fix us.

Like we've got to raise more money somehow, some way.

I know we're building a football stadium.

I know we're overdue for a locker room.

I know there's a million things that we need to raise money for.

If we can't go out and get players, we will not be relevant.

If we're not relevant, we can't sell tickets and we can't make money.

Jerry, you've been waiting there patiently, man.

I know you have thoughts on this.

Are we panicking?

Is it too early to panic or do you think we're get.

We'll get it right by the time it gets to fall ball?

Well, I think if you look at Degs track record, you know, we have gone to three regionals.

You know we have, you know, we were ranked last year in the top 25 and 24.

1.

I'm sorry, we ranked in the top 25 in 2024 and we won the conference and the regular season conference.

So conference title.

So there's potential there.

And, and we do have a standard here.

We have expectations here.

You know, we have seen what success looks like here.

And the, the issue that I have is, you know, this past season, not only were you 27 and 31, you were a really disappointing 27 and 31.

Worst batting average you've had in almost 25 years.

Your ERA was the worst in 25 years.

You got run ruled by teams like Arkansas State.

You gave Ulm their only weekend conference win of the season.

I mean, you got, you got spanked by Southeastern on the road, only getting four hits.

I mean those are the circumstances that we had this season with our record.

And that's what was frustrating.

It's not the fact that it wasn't like we were a hard grinding 27 win team.

We were a very disappointing 27 win team when we had a lot of expectations going into the season.

So I understand the frustration.

Add the fact that you've like, like Cole said, you lost your Best hitters to a team that couldn't hit.

And on top of that, you just lost your pitching coach to your.

To your rival.

So there's definitely a concern because let's be honest, we're not used to this.

We're.

We.

We don't.

We don't.

We don't have 27 to 31 seasons around here.

And, you know, know, I've said it many times on this platform, and I'll say it again.

You know, you built a 20 mil based off the success of this program.

You built a $20 million stadium a decade ago that we're still kind of paying for.

You're trying to raise money for a $6 million clubhouse.

You're trying to get a $2 million scoreboard.

Add in the miscellaneous costs when it comes to tickets and coaching salaries.

That's a 30 to 40 million dollars project with this baseball program.

It's a 30 to 40 million dollars investment in this baseball program.

And when you're investing that kind of money and you're putting premiums and raising prices of season tickets and you're.

And you're trying to bring in the money and rack in the dough, 27 and 31 is not going to cut it.

And.

And again, when you're going through the instability, fans are going to get concerned.

So are we panicking yet?

I wouldn't say we're panicking yet, but there's definitely concern.

Because if you look at the circumstances going into next season, I know we have a long way to go, like you guys said, when it comes to recruiting.

But, you know, that finish line, we're going to have to kind of increase that throttle a little bit on the gear and push a little further, because it's.

It's not going to get easier for us next season, you know, if you have $170,000 in nil funds, and Southern Miss and Coastal have close to half a mil or over half a mil, and they're hosting regionals and playing in Omaha while we're sitting here with 27 and 31 records.

I mean, that's.

That's a concern.

So, no, I mean, I'm.

I'm not.

It's not that I'm panicking yet.

I'm just.

I'm.

I'm trying to.

I guess I'm trying to tie everything together, and we're trying to get an answer of what's going on now.

Why are we in the situation we're in now.

And, and like I said before about the coaching staff, just fix it.

You're Hired here to do a job, Go out there and fix it.

We've seen success here.

We know what success looks like, and we built a $20 million stadium because of it.

It's time to.

To build on it and find a way to fix it.

Good thoughts, guys.

Appreciate it.

Let's turn our attention back.

I. I guess I should say rewind a little bit to Omaha and of course, watching the men's College World Series, where we want to be, where DEG says we're going to be, and hopefully we get back there soon.

First, I wanted to get you guys thoughts about the College World Series in general and what you thought about, you know, all the teams in the.

In the cws, seeing Coastal go against TSAB in the finals.

You know, Coastal kind of ran out of gas a little bit, but.

But hey, both teams are really, really good, so really not a shocker.

It could have gone 20 either way.

So that was.

That was a fun series, in my opinion.

But I'll start with you, Cole.

What were your thoughts on.

On Omaha in the College World Series this year?

I thought from start to finish, this was probably one of the most fun World Series that I've watched, probably in my adult years.

I really enjoy.

And I.

And I could say this.

I watched almost every game, even the elimination games.

I thought that.

That it was a really good World Series from top to bottom and very competitive across the board.

But specifically talking about the finals, I mean, the low obviously is, you know, you got to tip your cap to LSU down.

Down the way and say, hey, good job, Great season.

Another, you know, national title, number eight, as far as, you know, Coastal goes.

That first game against lsu, that was some of the best pitching that I've seen in the college level ever.

I mean, a one nothing game.

Both of the starters look like they can go one and two in the draft.

Unfortunately for Coastal, they ran into an absolute buzzsaw on Kate Anderson.

Like you just said, Coastal could have easily took game one, and, you know, the momentum would have been a totally different way.

But Kate Anderson, to me, was the total X factor of that entire World Series.

And what's funny is that he didn't even play in game two.

You know, he's just a starting pitcher.

What the surprising thing for me was the lack of offense that Coastal had against lsu.

Obviously, they got shut out in the first game.

Kate Anderson threw his best.

But game two, and what I mean by that is, and you guys may remember, they were like, oh, for 12 with runners in scoring position on that first night.

And they didn't do much better on the second day.

I know they hit a home run late, like a two run bomb, but really that was like in the eighth inning.

So LSU had that game pretty much wrapped up until then.

I think it was 5 to 1 until the 8th, but that was what was surprising to me.

They hit the COVID off the ball in Auburn in the early games in the College World Series on their side, the bracket.

Now granted, it was the weaker side, I'll be, I'll be honest about that.

And LSU is a different animal.

But that was the most surprising to me is the lack of offense from Coastal.

You know, I'm looking back at, at Coastal and tsab, Jerry, and I'm thinking, and I said this when we were watching the series and all texting in the group chat, I was saying if, if TSAB loses one game and I thought it would be that Arkansas game, if they don't completely collapse, which was most unbelievable thing to see, it happened twice to that team.

If they don't completely collapse in the eighth inning, then it's, it's very possible that, that TSAP doesn't have the pitching to go against Coastal.

And this is a different outcome.

So Jerry, your thoughts in general on the World Series and, and what you think about that, that last, last couple of games?

Yeah, I gotta admit, man, this was probably the most fun regional like entire postseason that I've seen in a long time.

A lot of upsets, a lot of, you know, mid major teams that won regionals.

I mean, how about that run by Murray State?

I mean, I tip my hat off to the, to the Racers, of course, former deputy athletic director Nico Yanko at being the athletic director there and, and just seeing them make the run that they made, you know, going through a buzzsaw of teams and doing it on the road, you know, and just finding ways to win, especially when they had their backs against the wall.

And look, I took my hat off to Colestone, I took my hat off to lsu.

You know, lsu.

The best thing that happened to LSU was that loss against Little Rock.

After that loss against Little Rock in the regional, they just brought it up another level and, and just played a different brand of baseball.

And look, let's, let's give credit where credit's due.

Yes, Arkansas totally blew it.

I mean they had some, they did some crazy things to, to give up leads and whatnot.

But also you got to give credit to lsu, where they've been there before, they've played in Omaha.

They know how to handle that environment.

And they took advantage of it against an Arkansas team that really doesn't, you know, they don't know how to face the adversities.

You know, that's why they've, they've, they've kind of given it away a few times.

But look, LSU's top two pitchers were unbelievable.

I mean, Kate Anderson pitched the game of his life against a Coastal team that hit the ball very well in Omaha leading up to that conference final.

Say what you want, but I mean, Coastal Carolina, in my opinion, was a full package team.

They had pitching, they had hitting, they had great defense.

I mean, if you look at their defense, defense against Auburn on the road and that super regional against a really good Auburn team, they, they, they were just as good to win it as anybody as lsu.

But LSU just, they just clicked at the right time and they played good baseball and they're the champion.

So I'm, Look, I, we've had Jay Johnson on here.

I mean, I tip my hat off to Coach Johnson.

I mean, you know, he, he's, he's such a, he's not really a loud coach.

He's one of those coaches, is very analytical, very soft spoken and does his thing.

And, and look, they, they got the job done.

I thought the World Series itself was great.

I enjoyed a lot of these games to, to Cole's point, I watched almost every one, and every team was competitive, just about even Murray State, you know, and so I, I, that when we're not playing in the postseason, I always want to see a good postseason as a whole, from regionals to supers to, to Omaha.

And we got that this year.

So.

And I tip my, I tip my hat off to Coastal.

Way to represent the Sun Belt.

Way to represent the Sun Belt.

You know, say what you want about Coach Schnell and everything that went down.

Look, it's his first year as a head coach and he brought his team to a college final.

I mean, that's, that's, that's pretty damn good, if you ask me, right?

To a team that really doesn't, you.

Know, yeah, they got a lot of.

Nil money, but they, they take pride in their history and they showed it this year.

And, and you know, they're a really good baseball team, by the way, to everybody who's wondering, Coastal does come to Lafayette next year.

So that should be a fun series at the T. Hopefully, you know, we talk about if we're panicking or not.

We can have a team, put a good team put together to compete with them because they are solid.

So no It's a good World Series overall.

Really enjoyed it.

And so Josh, talking about Mary State kind of sex to the next to the next question, because I do want to ask you about your thoughts on the series as a whole, but talking about a Murray State and arts even mentioning it and Jerry said it, it was a fun regional tournament because it wasn't just SEC teams, right?

They had so many teams that got in that shouldn't have beat, shouldn't have beat SEC teams, but they did and did easily and knocked them out of their own regionals and super regionals.

And then of course that carried over to the College World Series.

So talk about, you know, brand and Murray State and I guess even a Coastal because even though they still just won a Natty a couple years ago, like people were still treating them like an underdog and I think that was bs so who do you think really in the College World Series improved their brand as a whole by, by getting through it or even in the regionals?

I mean, it didn't, not necessarily.

UTSA significantly improved their brand by the way that they played in the regional tournament.

So talk to, talk to me about branding and who you think really improved it.

Well, first of all, the reason why baseball is the greatest game on earth is because you can get a little old Murray State to go in and go on an incredible run and make it to Omaha.

And it's also why the nil argument is so lazy and so incorrect.

Yes, you need money to go get players, but you can still achieve things even though you don't have the biggest purse.

You know what I mean?

So Murray State, what an incredible season.

Some of the guys on that team had no heartbeat.

I mean, they ice in their veins.

That was so fun to watch.

I watched every single pitch of all of their games.

UTSA was a great story.

Obviously Coastal, now Coastal has a Natty, so it's a little bit different.

Like they do come from a smaller conference.

Even though the Sunbelt Conference in baseball is as good as any other, you know, we've constantly finished in the top five RPI in the last, you know, what, five or six years in, in the, in the country.

So really not a small school, not, you know, national championship winner, good league.

This shouldn't have surprised anybody, but I'll say, like their ability to play elite level baseball in June, you know, you can have a good season and have a good quality club.

And then June rolls around and you start playing, playing all these elite teams and, and it tends to expose the holes and the, and the The.

The.

The.

The Mrs.

In your roster.

Coastal didn't have any.

Coastal was a legitimate top three, top four type team, and they played really good baseball when it mattered most.

So as far as I'm concerned, they believe they belonged in that championship game as any, as good as anybody.

I mean, what.

They won 26 in a row.

They went.

They went.

They swept Auburn.

They swept into the national championship Series.

That's incredible.

I mean, that would have been.

I think they ended up with, like, what, 56 wins?

That's.

That's what we did, you know, in 2014.

I mean, that's an incredible season.

No matter what you think or say about Coastal, that's great for our league.

It's great for our brand.

It says, you know, we play real baseball in this league, and that's going to last for a very long time.

So that's great for us.

Shout out to their marketing team who put their camps in the dugout, knowing that some of the cameras would be, you know, flashing by there, and who knows the amount of recruiting advantage they got from that.

I mean, I just thought that was brilliant.

They did a great job.

They handled themselves well.

Shout out to Kevin Schnall, who got into the press conference, and everybody kept, you know, chanticleers in him, and he says, dude, it's Shawna.

Clears.

I mean, I would die for the day that we'd have somebody with the balls to sit up in a press conference and say, it's Louisiana.

It's Louisiana.

Get it right.

I just.

I love the way he handled himself after the ump show in game two.

I thought he handled himself beautifully.

What a joke that was.

To me, it tainted the entire series.

And also, I wanted to say something before we got on the brand.

I'm not giving LSU any credit.

I'm not giving them credit.

When you spend 10 to 12 million dollars on a roster, you should be playing for a national championship.

You played a team that had.

That had, you know, what, a tenth of your budget.

And, yeah, they were the better team.

It was clear they had better pitching, but it wasn't by a lot.

It wasn't like.

But they.

Miles, it was inches.

Super to ual, our brother.

That was one of the most bizarre, super regionals I've ever seen.

I mean, regionals I've ever seen.

That was crazy.

The little.

Little Rock, we dropped him from the belt because they couldn't compete.

They play in a park that, you know, we got better facilities in Youngsville than they have in the hood, too.

But anyway, you know, what a Fun postseason.

I will put this up against anybody baseball's postseason.

They have it right, They've gotten it right.

The selection committee leaves something to be desired.

And every year I get pissed because they give undeserving SEC teams too much credit and I hate that.

But overall, top to bottom, it is the most fun postseason.

And I'm saying that against the March Madness, too.

March Madness.

After the first two weekends, it's like whatever, you know, whatever business as usual in baseball.

You got that thing all the way up through June and you got it into the College World Series when the games matter the most.

I just think that.

I think that college baseball's postseason is.

Is perfect the way it is.

And that was fun to watch.

But yeah, dude, as far as branding, you know, Murray State hit an absolute home run.

Their coach became an overnight sensation because that guy just seems like the kind of guy you want your kid to go play for.

I was very impressed with him, impressed with his boys and Coastal, you know, way to represent the league.

And I know we're going to talk about rooting for conference mates.

Y' all can get mad at me for glazing Coastal.

Dude, that was an amazing three week commercial for the Sunbelt Conference.

And.

And you can spin it however you want.

Oh, well, you hate how you gonna root for a conference rival.

No, man, they legitimized this conference in a way that nobody's been able to do up until now.

Now you got usm and we, you know, we.

We've hosted regionals and supers and stuff and all that.

And that's all fine when you do it on the biggest stage.

And college baseball is great, growing exponentially.

So they did it in a year where it was.

I think it was the best rated, highest rated champ.

National Championship Series.

That's great.

And it was a Sunbelt Conference team.

They had SBC on that jersey.

That's major for our program.

So I wanted to say that.

Well, I think.

And that's a good bridge, Jerry, into the.

Do we cheer?

Are you supposed to cheer for your conference mates?

And I do, a thousand percent.

And it's funny because some of the TSAF ads especially because.

Because anytime I tweet anything out, they think it's directed at them.

Especially when they're playing a conference mate.

I'm not going to cheer for them.

I would cheer for Coastal against anybody.

And I will do it all the time.

If it's not in conference, I'm pulling for them.

And just like any other team except for Texas State next year.

Screw Those guys.

So the.

The point is, like, SEC teams don't have to pull for each other because they don't have to fight the battle that we have to fight.

Like they get.

You saw how many teams got into regionals that shouldn't have even been in there.

Florida shouldn't have been in a regional.

Kentucky shouldn't have been in a regional.

And you got.

You got teams hosting that don't even belong.

Belong in the regional.

Like, if you don't have a winning conference record, you should not be in a regional tournament.

I don't care what.

What.

Don't give me this.

Well, it's the sec.

I don't give a crap.

Because you talk about, oh, strength, the schedule.

Well, we've proven that fallacy.

How ridiculous that is, because that is just geared basically towards.

Well, you just have to play a whole bunch of teams at home.

It doesn't matter their rpi, but as long as you get the wins, you get the inflated record, and your strength of schedule, whatever they call it, is just amazing.

So, Jerry, I'm gonna get off my soapbox now and talk about that.

I think I. I mean, I encourage our fans to cheer on other programs.

And I mean, hell, you think of TSAB fans.

Remember when we played Ole Miss in Mississippi State?

They're wearing those shirts and cheering for them against us.

And now all of a sudden, we're not supposed to do it.

We're silly.

We just hate him.

That's why we're cheering for Coastal.

Your thoughts about cheering for conference mates?

No, I'm.

I supported 100.

You know, the only time I actually pulled against a conference mate was coastal in 2020 after the.

The championship game was canceled.

I was pretty happy Liberty beat them, especially after the way their team acted about it.

That's the only time.

I mean, I. I was pulling for Coastal to make a run and have a shot at winning a national championship.

And no disrespect to lsu, but it looks good for our conference.

And I know Josh is raising his hand, but I'm.

I'm.

We're different.

We become a tsab, but I don't care about them.

That's just.

I'm not.

That's what I'm saying.

Like, it's not.

But I'm saying what matters is that the Sunbelt Conference, or any type of G5 conference, if you will, we have to grind and scrap for our success.

You know, we don't get no.

A $60 million TV contract that just comes into our budget that we could just spend and we don't have, you know, a $40 million football nil budget like Texas does, where you can just buy whoever you want and go give Lamborghinis to 18 year old kids, you know.

You know, like a Big Ten school like Michigan paying that Underwood kid $12 million to go play there.

It's easy to win like that when you just have to, you just write the $10 million check to the player.

We don't have that.

So we have to grind and beat those teams to get to that point.

So because of that, because it is more of a grind and you have to scrap more, there's a more, there's more sense of pride.

Look, I pulled just like I pulled for Coastal, I pulled for Southern Miss.

I, I wish they would have beaten Miami in that last game to advance to a super regional.

I wanted to see them advance.

You know, any team that makes a run in our conference, whether they represent us in the, in the, in the NCAA basketball tournament or a bowl game or any type of postseason, I'm going to pull for the Sunbelt because we, anytime a school, well, even if it's not us, succeeds, it makes us look good.

It brings, like Josh said, it brings a light to us.

It brings attention to our conference in our schools.

So I'm all about it.

I mean, I, you know, anytime a Sunbelt school makes a postseason, I'll be their biggest cheerleader.

Because guess what?

At that point, it's us versus them.

It's not about playing each other or I don't like this team.

I don't like that team.

No, it's us versus them.

Them being another conference, them being, you know, P4 or Conference USA or the American or the SEC or the Big 12.

It's us against them.

So I'll, you know, I'll even say that.

I'll even go beyond the conference.

I'll say a team like a Murray State or, or what UTSA did.

I mean, even though it's not our conference, we're in the same boat as them.

You know, you're starting to see that separation of the have and have nots.

And it's pretty interesting when you see a UTSA go to Texas, who has all the money in the world, and they beat them.

They go into Texas and beat them.

A Texas team that was number one in the country for quite a while during this year.

So, yeah, of course I'm a pull for the Sunbelt.

Absolutely.

Without a doubt.

Hey, Cole, I'm gonna let you go real quick.

I just want to say that even From a practical standpoint, even beyond the pride, now that a Sunbelt Conference team has been in a national championship game for the next three to five years, if we're on the bubble, we're going to get the benefit of the doubt.

We're going to.

Next time the TV contracts come up, I think it's 20, 28, they're going to say, wow, look at what the Sunbelt Conference did when they participated in a national tournament or whatever that's going to be.

That's a note that Keith Gill can negotiate with.

From a practical standpoint, it helps us to have a conference member do well.

And Destiny said it well just a second ago.

No coach in this league can say, well, you know, we just can't compete.

No, sir, we can compete.

We just watch a conference made a peer peer institution with similar resources go and play for a national championship.

So in no other way does it.

There's no downside to this.

Yes, it's pride, sure, but also from.

It helps us at home, too.

All politics are local.

This is a perfect example of that.

I agree with you, Cole.

Is there.

I mean, I think I saw you do a lot of nodding.

So I think you agree with us that we should be cheering on for other conference mates.

But is it really any downside to us?

I mean, I mean, I, I guess maybe if it's, if it's a Southern Miss looking, you know, lose losing recruits to them or, or maybe even a Ulm, which of course they haven't done much in, in quite a while.

But is there any really.

Do you think there's any downside to cheering for those folks?

I mean, I, I don't.

I know.

I get that people say, well, you know, you're going to lose recruits.

Well, a lot of our recruits come from Texas and all over the country, so I don't know that we are necessarily trying to keep a Louisiana.

Louisiana, you know, build defense around Louisiana.

So your thoughts there?

Yeah, I mean, if it was like USM that we'd be pulling for, it'd be a little different because you're fighting, you know, maybe some of those New Orleans area recruits or whatever, like Ulm, you know, I'm just talking.

If it was a Sunbelt west team, it would be a little bit different, but for somebody that's more on the east coast, you know, it's.

It's totally fine to pull for Coastal.

And I wanted to say this.

Listen, us as Cajun fans were hardwired to pull for the underdog.

Let's call it what it is growing up a Cajun fan.

You're already in the shadow of lsu.

I mean, so anytime that you have an underdog that is fighting for any kind of relevancy, any kind of championship, it's like hardwired enough to pull for that team.

So do not feel bad that if you pulled for Coastal and you didn't pull for lsu, if you're getting flack from your neighbors, let's call it what it is.

It's very hard to live with the casual LSU fan.

I've said that up and down Twitter the last month, okay?

It's hard.

And it's not necessarily the university or the players of that university, because those are, you know, that's the cream of the crop.

Great guys are going to go play major league ball.

It's very hard to live with that casual LSU fan that.

Listen, I've had people in my phone as soon as the World Series was over.

Oh, nana, nana, boo, boo.

I'm like, dude, you just won a national championship and you're in your.

The first thing you're worried about is rubbing it in my face.

That's the kind of fan you are, okay?

So that's why it's hard for me as a person to pull for lsu.

It's not even because of the university itself.

Now, purple and gold makes me feel itch, but it's.

It's more so the casual fan.

Now, listen, you got your diehards that know their sports.

They're a pleasure to talk to.

They tailgate just like we do, but they love to say, oh, you know, it's.

It's the small fraction that.

That.

Act the donkey.

No, it's a lot bigger than you think you are.

And I challenge you to wear red and pretend you're a Cajun fan and go to a game at Alex Box or Tiger Stadium.

And I would love to watch you get shredded because that happened to my wife eight years ago.

She's a die hard Cajun now, and she's never looked back.

That's how I converted.

Converted Catherine.

Same way.

I was like, hey, look, we're gonna go to this baseball game.

You wear a red now, all right?

My wife graduated from lsu, so.

Well, I don't know if I've ever said that on this pod.

So I said, well, just wear red.

You'll see why everybody hates LSU fans from Lafayette.

And sure enough, they acted the ass and I got a Cajun fan.

Well, I think.

I think Lee Amadeus Dad, I know he would.

He.

Well, I don't think he'd Murder me for saying it.

But he agreed.

He's like, hell, I came over here.

Now I realize what you guys are talking about.

Like, they always on you for no reason.

Like, we say, oh, man, we.

We won this series.

And then you got three other guys that come at you and go, well, how many natties do you have?

I don't give a.

About how many Natties you have.

What does that have to do with me?

Cole, there's.

There's.

We talked about this off the air.

There's only two fan bases in Louisiana that understand kind of the animosity we have to LSU, and it's us, and it's two.

Lane, you got McNE people that love LSU.

You got Louisiana Tech people that love LSU.

Ulm, what I'm saying is, for whatever reason, it's being that close to Baton Rouge and having to live with those people on a daily basis, especially the casual ones.

Like I said, it's.

It's.

It's exhausting.

That's the.

That's the one word I can use to, you know, to get after that.

So I get it.

I appreciate it.

Well, I think we're all in agreement that it is only good for the belt if the belt teams do well out of conference.

Last thing on this topic that we'll move on very quick around the horn.

Josh wrote this question because I don't like it, because I totally do not think that at all is that Sunbelt conferences is the best in 2026.

I think probably, if you're looking at the strongest this conference has been, I would say probably maybe last year, the conference was really strong.

I think we got four.

Four teams in maybe the year before, and I think another time when we were the old Sunbelt before all the realignment, we had four teams in that were all three at largest and of course, one tournament winner.

So the question is, do we think that this is the strongest the belt's ever been in 2026?

I will say no.

I'll.

I'll go to the other two guys first, and I'll let you close it out, Josh, so you can have the last word.

Cole, your thoughts?

No, definitely not.

Now, listen, it was very top heavy with, you know, USM and Coastal.

Extremely top heavy, those two.

You know, those two teams should have ended up in Omaha.

For being honest.

I was heavily pulling for the Eagles because I hate Miami being a Florida State fan.

But no, I think it was very top heavy.

And with Troy not getting in, Troy had a very good year.

But like Troy does, they fall apart.

At the end of years, we've seen that time and time again with Troy not getting in kind of hurt the conference.

I think if Troy would get.

Were to get in, it would have been an average year from our baseball terms or, you know, but I really think it was not a particularly good year for the Sun Belt.

It was just top heavy.

So although, you know, you got the exposure, which is great, especially on the College World Series side, to kind of hold the water on that end, it was overall not a great year, in my opinion.

Yeah, I think.

I think the last couple of years we had at one point like 10 or 11 teams in the top 100.

This year we had like five or six, so.

And that's what I'm going by.

Jerry, your thoughts on if this was a top year for the Sunbelt?

Wait, no, it's 20.

26, not 25.

All right, so you're talking about next year?

Yes.

Oh, well, I totally read that.

Well, I.

Sorry.

But.

But how would we know that.

Well, that.

Here's my question.

How would we know if 26 is going to be a great year for the.

Well, the basis of the thought is, is that rising tide lifts all boats.

And I think with Coastal accomplishing what they did, I think everybody's been put on notice.

I think that Skyler Mead had a good team this year.

I think that he's a pitching guy through and through, and they were relying on offense.

I think he's really close to putting together a real staff.

I think they're going to be really good.

I think Georgia State and Georgia Southern are both primed for a bounce back season.

They have been down and it really makes absolutely no sense.

I think Georgia Southern just parted way with their coach.

They got some.

Some fresh new blood and they have some excitement back in the program.

I think South Alabama has got to shit or get off the pot.

Dude.

I don't know what is going on over there.

I mean, I. I think Cal, it's got to get better than Calvi.

Just coaches good enough to not get fired.

I think that's what it is.

And I don't understand because they get talent and they got dudes.

I just.

I think that they're poised for a bounceback year similar to the Georgia schools.

I also think Marshall's here to stay.

I think that they've put a ton of resources into that program.

The new ballpark, the fans have bought in.

I like what Marshall's doing.

I think they got a good young pitching staff.

I think Blevins actually graduates, but I think they, they have real guys that can pitch it and they play the type of brand of baseball that I think can win.

They can beat bigger schools.

They pitch it, they play defense and they get time hitting.

That's what they look to do.

I think that they're going to be good going forward.

I think ODU is going to take a major step forward this coming year.

I know that that's another Eastern team, but I'm telling you, I think ODU is poised.

They can hit the ball.

I don't know what the hell happened.

I know they were decimated by injuries about mid season.

I kind of kept up with ODU monarchists and we talked about that.

I think ODU is going to have a big major bounce back season again this year.

I think Coastal, they may not make it to the College World Series, dude, but I don't think they're going anywhere.

Morrison's coming back.

He was.

He's not a draft eligible pitcher so he'll be back unless somebody pays him.

You know, I mean that's always a, that's always a thing you got to worry about.

I hope he stays true to Coastal because I mean they love that guy.

I think Fluky was a senior, but the other guy, I'm sorry, ikoff was a senior, but Fluke, he's not.

I think they're gonna be fine.

They got a bunch of guys that can play.

Their roster is ridiculous.

They're gonna be fine.

USM believe it or not, they were supposed to reload this year.

This was a reload year.

So they're gonna be back.

I know they lose like I think they lose Paytow and there's a couple others, but they're going to pitch next year.

Gunner's going to help him pitch next year.

Look, the Sunbelt Conference is from my point of view, just kind of projecting forward.

I think that we've never been as a conference.

I think that we have the opportunity in 2026 to be as good top to bottom as we ever have been.

I think Texas State has what, one more year they're going to play in.

In the.

So I hope we.

Texas State, I hope they go, oh.

Win everything against.

Maybe now that they're moving to the pack, you know, they'll have some momentum.

With returning to that in a second.

Yeah, that'll be fun.

So that was, that was kind of the basis of the thought.

Cole.

Sorry, I totally screwed that up and I really have no thoughts because I wasn't prepared to think about 2026.

I'm just worried about us even fielding a team.

Your thoughts?

Do you think it's going to be a good year for the Belt next year?

Yeah, I do and somebody just mentioned it in the comments.

I think Arkansas State's another team.

We need to look out for.

Arkansas State towards the end this year really surprised me, especially how they came to UL and put it on us.

Now, listen that, you know, they play in a high school ballpark, but I mean, they, they do a lot with a little, you know, so.

But yeah, I mean, the Sunbelt's in a great spot right now.

You know, this year wasn't great throughout the league, but like Josh said, I mean, you got a lot of teams that will compete on the national level.

And I honestly believe the Sunbelt is probably, you know, maybe top two outside of the Power four or whatever you want to call it.

We're a competitive baseball league and that's why it's fun to be in this league.

But bottom line is, and it's maybe a little biased, it's definitely biased.

The Sun Belts better when we're better.

We need to be good because like somebody mentioned earlier, the rivalry that we have with usm, you know, they want us to be competitive because that rivalry was fun two years ago when they came to town and we beat them two out of three.

And that Friday night got, that Friday night game was electric.

That's the kind of baseball that we're looking forward to on a weekend series, you know, so we need to be competitive going forward.

But ultimately, to answer your question, yes, I do expect big things from the Sunbelt in 26.

What you think, Jerry, what we got next year?

I think it's going to be from top to bottom.

Like you guys said, every team has potential.

That's what it comes down to now this year, obviously it was kind of a down year for the rest of the conference.

Obviously it was top heavy, like Cole had mentioned.

But if you look at teams like jmu, right, JMU had a bad year last year, but they were, they gotten that large a couple years ago.

You know, same thing with odu, you know, a couple years ago, ODU before they came to the Sunbelt, actually they were one of the first four teams out.

You know, so you've got teams up and down the, the, the list that are all have potential.

I mean, Arkansas State with Mike Silva, what he did in one year there turned them into competitors in the conference.

Marshall finished fourth in the league this year and ended our season in the, in the, in the Sunbelt Conference tournament with Their new stadium that they built.

I mean, and then you've got Georgia State that obviously they haven't really invested as much as most teams, but they're building a new stadium pretty soon.

And so you've got a bunch of teams in the conference that are not only, you know, building rosters, but they're putting money into their programs and they realize the importance of baseball.

That tells me that every single school in this conference, and I don't know, maybe I'll even include Ulm in there with this new head coach.

They all have a chance to do something special.

And the fact that every team here is competitive, that gives us a chance to up our stature as a top six, at least top five, top six conference this year, it wasn't as great.

It was probably one of the lower in probably one of the lowest rankings we had as a conference in a long time.

But you know, that's not going to last a long time.

I expect, I expect every team across the board to be better.

And I do think 2026 has potential to be a great year, not just for a top heavy league, but for at least six or seven teams that all have a chance, I think are going to be in the mix for.

A postseason birth to correct the record.

Apparently Morrison has announced that he's going to be going to the draft, but Flukey is back for Coastal.

Thank you to the Southern Miss fans that are in the chat that corrected me.

But no, dude, I think Coastal is not going to skip a beat again.

I don't know if they go to the College World Series, but they're going to be a freaking great program.

And as long as they're here, they're going to be good.

They invest in the program.

Kevin Schnall's a freaking samurai.

I mean, that guy's unbelievable.

I wish.

I mean, if we can get somebody like that in a, like that type of mentality and a pitching coach and inject that into our locker room, that's exactly what we need.

You know, I was a little bit, A little bit disappointed we did not get to.

And I just had his name on the tip of my tongue.

But I was listening to you.

Did not get to hire the Ulm outgoing coach.

Coach Fed.

Coach Fed.

Man, Mike Federico, I would have loved him to come here.

And look, we got coach Jimmy Rickleson from.

From McNe.

And I love coach Jimmy.

So very happy about that hire.

But before that happened, I was kind of hoping that we.

We reached out to co Coach Fed.

Now he's at.

At Stinky law tech, which kind of is gross, but, you know, I still like the guy.

He was super nice.

And, and Josh got, Josh got chewed out for asking him a question about law tech, and now he's at LA Tech.

So way to go, Josh.

You can just, you know, I get chewed out.

Insert moment.

I mean, this is my existence.

Let's talk about what's been going on the last few days.

Outside of baseball.

We've got Texas State, that is finally, thank you, Jesus, moving out of the Sunbelt Conference.

I feel like we've been hearing this for 10 years because this, this Oregon State guy has been tweeting for literally two years how Texas State is definitely in.

And finally, I mean, I guess if you say things enough, eventually it becomes the truth.

And that's kind of what happened here.

But Texas State finally announcing that they are going to what I call the Pac State Conference because outside of Gonzaga, all of their football playing schools have the name State something State.

So we will never go to the Pac State Conference, obviously, because we don't belong there.

But let's talk about that.

Let's talk about the PAC 12 conference.

You know, first of all, I've, I, I trigger people on social media, man, and I, I kind of had my way with those Texas, Texas State fans for a little bit because I kind of laughed at the fact that they were acting and saying that they were the best brand and best program in the Sunbelt Conference.

They won a couple of Bubba's Cups, Boobis, Bubbas, whatever you call it.

Boobies, cups.

Congratulations, bro.

Like you're, you in middle Tennessee.

Y' all are just rocking the Sunbelt.

Something that most people don't even know exists, but they were really proud about that.

Really proud about, you know, how much money they're getting, but also having to travel twice the distance to watch volleyball play on a Tuesday night at 9pm in who knows where, California.

So I guess first, what do you think about the move?

Is it smart for Texas State to go to the PAC 12 conference?

And, and secondly, you know, there's been a lot of back and forth with our own fans and saying, well, we should be in the Pac 12.

Well, you got to get past that branding thing because that's what a lot of people still have in their minds.

Oh, it's a Pac 12.

Yeah.

The Pac 12 only has two schools from the Pac 12 that are still in it, and they were left behind for a reason.

So, Jerry, let's start with you.

Do you think it was a smart move for Texas State and Would you be happy or mad that if we join them in the PAC12 conference?

Well, to answer your first question, I mean, I understand why they did it.

I mean, I don't, you know, from a standpoint of travel costs, I mean, I hope they understand that they're going to be paying a lot more to send their volleyball team to Washington State and Oregon State as well as Fresno, California on a Tuesday.

Right.

I mean, as far as recruiting goes, you know, your parents are going to ask, well, you know, if I want to go to my daughter's volleyball game or if I want to go to my son's basketball game.

What, what, what does travel look like?

You're gonna have to fly a plane everywhere you go.

There's no bus rides to.

To California or San Jose or San Diego State or wherever there.

I think Sand San Diego, San Diego State and all these other places.

So I guess they must have seen an opportunity.

I think in their point of view, going to the PAC 12 is a way to say that they can be part of the new.

I guess they consider themselves the P5, even though they're kind of not.

I think it does.

They probably.

They're not kind of not like it's literally in.

Right.

They are not Power five conference.

They're trying to get that perception as well.

Well, it's like P6 with the AAC and you see how that worked out.

You never heard of it again?

No, they're trying to capture the perception and I think they.

They're taking a chance there.

Look, a home sk.

Look, let's be honest, a home schedule against Fresno State, Boise State, Oregon State is.

Is pretty good compared to A.

No offense, A. Ulm and a.

And A. I don't know, I'm just throwing a name out there.

Ulm and maybe South Alabama.

You know, I, I think that looks good.

But at the same time, from Texas State's point of view, unless they feel that they can really recruit and unless they feel that they have the right tools in place.

The way I look at it, they could talk about the Bubba's cup all they want, but when have they ever competed for a conference championship in baseball or football or when was the last time they went to the dance in men's basketball?

Well, in the preseason, they are going to be the team that takes it all.

You hear that in every sport except basketball.

They're terrible in basketball, but literally in football, every single year, man, this is the year that Texas State turns it on.

And they just paid their coach $2 million for Dayton record And that's what.

I want to address too, with the fans.

They're like, oh, all these ULL fans or UL Lafayette fans are so upset.

I'm not upset.

Like, go, go.

Like, they don't understand.

Yeah, I, I have no problem with you going to the PAC12.

Have fun.

Good luck.

You know, I mean, but, but the thing is, again, they, they, I, I guess they figure perception wise, it's better.

And I can see where they're coming from.

But I, I want to come back to that.

I want to come back to that in five years.

Give me, let's give it about five years and see where they are across the board in athletics.

Do.

Does it help elevate their chances to make the, the dance?

Does it help elevate their chances to be a top 25 football team?

Does it help elevate their chances?

Does it help to make a run at a super regional and baseball or softball?

We're going to find out.

Now, the next part of your question, what do I think about us going to the Pac 12?

I'll say this.

The one chance I would see us going to the Pac12 is if that TV deal is a really, really hefty deal that increases our revenue so much that it can afford to pay our travel expenses and net a profit on top of that.

Because let's be honest, we're in South Central Louisiana and traveling to California, traveling to Oregon, traveling to Boise.

We did it for football only in the 90s, if you remember, we were.

In the Big West Conference.

Yeah, a lot of these, some of these teams that are in this new PAC 12, we played Utah State, we played San Jose State, we played, we played unlv.

We played those teams and we did it just for football.

And it cost us a lot of money.

Now, take that across the board in all sports and having to travel and do all that, that's, that's very expensive.

And let's be honest, I mean, you're going to have to find a way to produce a lot more revenue.

So unless the new TV contract was so significant that I could take care of that and make us more money, I would say maybe, but right now, no, I like where we are in the Sun Belt.

I don't want to travel, bring our golf team to, to Oregon State.

That costs money.

And on top of that, I understand if they think, you know, if Boise State comes to town in basketball and may draw a good crowd, but after two or three years, if, if this, if the conference isn't as successful, it does become stale you know, Fresno State and baseball.

Yes, they want a natty in 2008.

What have they done lately?

Right?

Is it really worth bringing them to town compared to if Southern Miss came to town, you know, I mean, or Coastal comes to town.

I don't, I don't, I don't see it right now.

So.

I like where we are.

Look, there's going to be a lot more movement in the conference realignment.

This is really just kind of, we're really just in the middle of it.

There's more to it, I'm sure.

But no, I, I, I like where we are.

I think we're in a decent position where we need to be in the, in the Sunbelt.

I wouldn't want to pay that kind of expenses to go travel to, to California and you know, bring our tennis team to Washington State.

I just, no.

And Josh, I'll go a step further with that.

It's not to me about the media deal.

I mean if it was like $30 million and like, okay, yes, sign me up tomorrow.

But to me as a fan, it's also more about one the convenience of watching my team play in Central time mostly.

And if it's, you know, if it's eastern time, it's not, it's just one hour difference.

I don't want to watch my team play baseball at 9 o' clock at night, you know, in San Diego.

I'm sorry.

Or wherever they're going to for traveling purposes.

If we had a situation where we were included in a pod of Southern teams that we could as fans travel to and not have to get on a plane for three hours and sit there to go and have that expense on top of everything else, then I would say, okay, maybe if we're included with Tulane and utsa, Texas State, Memphis.

Okay, maybe, I mean that's a little more palatable to me but I sure as hell have no desire to go to Boise State.

I mean, frickin Moscow, Idaho was, was bad enough and so going to Boise State just doesn't, I mean a great team, don't get me wrong, but also just not something that I'm gonna spend a weekend in Boise going watch us play baseball.

Just not my thing.

What are your thoughts about it?

Why you hate the Kibby Dome?

Well, I don't actually bought the, the little Kibby Dome, but I've been Idaho and that's terrible.

That's slept on.

That trip was not fun.

The Kibby Dome is legendary, man.

No, I, you know, it's, it just comes down to dollars and Cents.

We don't have the money to do it.

And would I love to play Boise State on the schedule every year in football?

Sure.

Is it worth the cost of volleyball going up there every year and soccer going up there and tennis and golf?

No, it is not.

We cannot afford it.

I personally think that this new edition of the Pack whatever conference is going to fail.

I don't think you can.

I don't think you can make money as a G. I mean, that's basically what it is.

It's basically a bunch of independents that got together and said, hey, let's have a league.

I don't think that they can survive with those travel expenses.

I also think that the future of college football is yet to be written.

But I think you're much safer from a regional rivalry standpoint.

If all of our, if the majority of our travel is within bus rides, we're going to save so much money.

It's so much more predictable.

Fans travel more.

Your recruiting footprint is.

Is impacted in ways that people don't think about.

Like some guys that, you know, some, some recruits that may live in South Mississippi come to our games and then they can go to the USM game and they can go to south out game and they can go to, you know, to Troy game.

You know, that matters to parents and it matters to recruits and people forget about that stuff.

But the revenue share is.

Is predicted to be 10 million or less.

That's not enough to leave our conference.

It's not even close.

That won't even.

That I would.

I mean, I don't have any hard numbers, but without the raw data in front of me, I would guess that that wouldn't even cover our additional travel expenses for all programs.

It's not even worth it.

On top of that, the TV deal is with the cw.

That dude, they are very proud about that.

The cw it.

They.

They are over the air.

They're really excited about that.

You know what else is over the air?

Grit.

Like my parents watch the freaking Grit Network work.

You got to have bunny ears to get to cw.

Who's watching?

Had gas station tv, so every gas station had them.

Congrats.

What did you do for them?

So you're on a bunny, Bunny ear channel at 9pm at night.

Who's watching that?

You know, you want to talk about like exposure and all this stuff.

There's a reason why typically programs migrate to the east of the country and not the west.

They struggle to own that portion of.

Of TV time.

Nobody's staying up till 9 o' clock watching the cage in Boise State.

This is not going to happen.

And I'm a die hard.

I ain't going to do that.

So no.

From that point again, would I like to play those better programs?

Sure.

But number one, if you don't have any money, you can't compete.

Do I want to go get my teeth kicked in at Boise State every year?

Hell no.

Don't want Oregon State to embarrass me every year.

Hell no.

And look, if you can find a way to make it work for say basketball, football, maybe just a revenue generating sports, maybe that's something you consider.

But even then, man, I mean, it's a huge risk.

I think that we, for where we are, where our budget is at this point, the amount of fundraising we do, how we recruit, I think we're fine for now.

I also think in five to seven years everything's going to change all over again.

Why take a step that's unnecessary at this point?

Look good for good for Texas State.

They talk about, you know, how they built their program and stuff.

They had the worst ad in this conference since they joined it.

Their president had all kind of, you know, crazy stuff surrounding him.

He wouldn't, I don't even remember all the laws he broke or whatever the case was.

But they were poorly run.

They hired this new president, what, two years ago and all of a sudden they're going to the PAC 12.

I think just me.

I think it's short sighted.

I wouldn't take the deal.

I'll be honest with you.

Just from a, just from a dollars and cent standpoint, I don't think it makes sense for uo.

We got an old person in the chat saying don't sleep on the Grit Network.

And yes, I am Alan calling you old.

I'm gonna ask Jill about that.

You probably fall asleep on your, on your recliner watching that at night like my parents do.

They got the Rockford Files on Grid.

I saw that the other night by accident.

I didn't even know that existed until my parents came visit.

And like I have like 3,000 channels and I'm thinking they're gonna go in the movie room and watch hbo.

And she's like, what channel is grit?

I'm like, what the hell is Grit, Cole?

Let's talk about that.

Let's get your thoughts.

You know, is this a smart move for Texas State?

Would you want to join them?

I mean, money talks, bottom line.

And when you're talking about moving conferences, I mean, football is going to be king.

So that's kind of Where I turn my attention to, yes, listen, they have more, their members are a little more prestigious than what we have.

Like Josh was talking about, I'd love to play a Boise State or Fresno State, you know, that kind of thing.

But the trickle down effect is real.

Travel costs are real, and let's call it what it is, you know, we're struggling kind of with our funds as we are now.

We have some beautiful facilities that we pump money into.

Our, you know, athletic facilities are as good as they ever have been and it's beautiful to come to Lafayette and watch games here.

But the bottom line is on a, on a traveling, you know, basis, we just wouldn't have the funds for that.

Now, the TV deal, like y' all talked about earlier was there and it was too good to pass up, then obviously you would have to take it.

I also want to mention, and I'm thinking from a, like a young high school kid standpoint, recruiting might be a little easier because, you know, kids don't really think about money.

They're thinking about the conferences that you play for.

So, you know, if a coach can sell you on, hey, you're going playing the PAC 12 or whatever they're going to call it.

I mean, they might just be caught on that fixture of what the old Pack 12 used to be, and it might be easier in recruiting.

I'm just playing devil's advocate, but bottom line, for me, I'm a local guy, I'm a regional guy.

I love what we have down this i10 corridor.

I love the Sun Belt.

If you to ask me this, five years ago, I hated the Sun Belt.

I wanted to get out as fast as possible.

But with all the additions that we have, USN being one of them, you know, the, the Georgia schools, I think we are in a phenomenal place.

I'm a baseball first guy, so I think especially in baseball, so I'm happy to sit tight where we are.

But like I said, bottom line, money talks.

And if that TV deal is as good as, you know, they're making it out to be in the future, you know, you kind of at least have have a conversation about it.

Former UL manager Colin Burgess saying that he's got a 0.82 ERA in MLB, the show.

He wants to put his name in the hat.

You know what true story there was when Jerry Baldwin got canned.

We actually got an email at the athletic department from a guy who said he had no coaching experience, but he wrote a pretty program in the computer that could tell him the best way to coach games.

And he would definitely, he would definitely bring us to the next level.

I want to.

And back then they probably entertain the hire, honestly.

Probably.

You're right.

You're right.

All right, let's talk about this last topic.

I'll break it down.

It's a two part question.

One, who do you want to replace Texas State?

And two, is that Louisiana Tech?

My thought is, and I know 13 is not great, but I think there were still dominoes to fall and I think it might even happen sooner than later.

There is a reason that Keith Gill reached out to ecu because I think he has.

I.

They know a little, a lot more than we do.

So I think if, if the AAC expands, which I think is imminent, then you could see potentially three AAC teams leave and then that opens the door and, and somebody here said, well, I want to join the aac.

Well, what happens if we join the AAC and then we become Conference usa?

Just like Conference USA when everybody left for the Big east with a shell of its former self.

So I think the Sun Belt is in a position of power.

I don't think we need to invite somebody tomorrow.

A lot of chatter about Louisiana Tech, but I feel like if Tech were the pick, they would have already been done.

I, I think that would have been already announced.

So I'll start with you, Cole.

Who do you, who do you want in the Sunbelt Conference and is it Louisiana Tech?

Why or why not?

Okay, so I, going back to what I said earlier, I'm a regional guy and I think about from a state to state standpoint that the Sun Belt is in.

So getting rid of Texas State, you just eliminated Texas market.

Right?

So I'm thinking in terms of markets in the Sun Belt, the only market that's untouched right now is also Florida.

So if you think about the Florida schools, you have the fiu, fau.

And if you want to go up, you can also get from the American usf.

USF is in Tampa.

That's more on the western side.

So you can feel USF in the Sun Belt west if you wanted to.

Other than that, obviously you have the Kentucky's in the Tennessee's, you have Middle Tennessee, you have Memphis.

From the American, you know, you have Western Kentucky.

So I would say realistically, you have about five schools.

What I would want, I would love Eastern Carolina to come in this conference and play in within the Sunbelt.

From a baseball standpoint, that'd be phenomenal football too.

I mean, that's a household brand.

The problem with that is if you do that now you have to split the Georgia schools.

One of them is going to have to be in the west.

And I think they want to try to keep all these states together.

I can't.

You know, you don't have another D1 program in Arkansas.

You really don't have another D1 program in Mississippi that you can bring in.

So, I mean, Louisiana Tech, I know you guys don't like this.

I would not mind them coming in the conference because I would rather them as a northern rival than Ulm.

Sorry to any Ulm people out there.

I doubt there's anybody out there.

They have about 15 fans, and I think it's their bedtime.

But I would rather Louisiana Tech over Ulm.

That's just the bottom line.

Louisiana Tech brings more of a it factor.

It would be a fun rivalry.

It's an old rivalry, so we can renew that fire.

But then again, I understand that you don't want three, you know, three teams in the same state.

So if you're not going to do that, you either got to go to Florida, Kentucky, or Tennessee.

That's my thoughts.

And I'm going to Kentucky.

I am all in on Western, and I'll tell you, it is not easy to get to Bowling Green.

Kentucky.

I made that trip one time, and we actually rode a damn bus up there, and it was awful.

Now, I think we have more funds now to be able to take a.

A, you know, take a flight and then catch a bus from wherever they end up landing.

But Nashville, now, whatever.

I mean, I mean, look at Memphis.

You got to land in Memphis to go to Jonesboro.

So it's kind of the same thing.

But I think as a whole, right now, if you were looking as at football, baseball, basketball and softball, WKU is a better overall brand than East Carolina.

I'm not convinced on East Carolina right now in football, Josh.

I am convinced with them in baseball.

But right now, all the other sports on ecu, Western Kentucky is most much better.

Plus, they also have the basketball history with us.

And I want to dance on that damn court one more time, brother.

I'm with you.

Look, they have.

They have history, and they have a great endowment, Big enrollment for so many reasons.

They check boxes, their facilities are fantastic.

And like Cole said, I'm a baseball guy.

First.

I look at the jungle and I say, I want to play there every other year.

Whenever we do the east, west thing, I want to be able to play in that environment.

I think it's great for recruiting.

I think having a foothold, another recruiting foothold.

There Helps us in a lot of ways.

Ways.

But, no, I like.

I like ecu.

I mean, like he said, we.

We're gonna have to figure out what we're gonna do with the west, and it'll probably come from a Georgia school, but, you know, I'm gonna.

I guess this is my turn to answer both questions.

Is that who I'm doing?

Okay, good.

Go to hell.

Tech.

I don't want Tech in this conference.

Tech is a sinking ship.

What people don't understand about Louisiana Tech is that they're broke.

Jerry will back me up on this.

They are, bro.

They.

You.

You think we're running at a deficit.

I have no idea how they're keeping the lights on in that place.

If they didn't have the new love shack and the tornado wouldn't have actually helped their facilities, they might have already closed the doors.

Tech is a sinking ship.

Their enrollment is cratering.

They.

They have.

I don't know what they have left.

From a.

From a program standpoint, football's been awful for five years.

When's the last time they had a winning season?

Do you know?

19, 20, 19.

We're talking about six.

Six years of losing football.

And by the way, I think when you start talking about us operating at.

At a deficit, you also have to consider how we're.

How we're reporting things, because we're not reporting things like an Arkansas state does.

So we report things on our P and L that look a lot different than other schools.

So I'm not convinced that this deficit is really a deficit, a.

More of a. Yeah, we know it's coming.

We're going to fund it.

I don't think Louisiana Tech could fund a deficit.

I agree with you, and I'm really not worried about it.

In this country, we don't give a shit about deficits.

We all know that.

But the point is, with Louisiana Tech being broke, I don't know that they could fund going into a deficit in athletics right now.

They can't.

But what I wanted to say is that there are certain programs in this country that are insulated, and I think latex is one of them, and they can't raise nil money.

Karl Malone, he closed the wallet a couple years ago.

He's done.

Terry Bradshaw is, what, 900 years old?

Like, at some point, you got to find another cash cow donor, and I think they're out of them.

The women's basketball program, that used to be something they could hang their hat on.

That's dead.

What do they do?

Well, right now, I think Baseball is about their best performing program and they still can't win a regional.

It's hilarious.

They're a sinking ship.

I think that, man.

And I think that with a lot of the reforms that are coming to higher education in Louisiana, with the new regime that's taken over and the swing back to the right, I think you going to see some, some other schools close.

And I think Louisiana Tech's going to be negatively impacted by that.

I think Ulm will be too, but that's a whole other conversation.

Anyway, point is, is I don't think latex adds anything.

What do they add?

The market.

It's the same TV market as Ulm.

They're 45, but they claim.

They claim Shreveport and like Dallas, which is ridiculous.

Well, that's hilarious.

I don't even know what to say about that.

That's.

That's absurd.

I think being in that league in CUSA has really, really damaged their brand.

I think that buffoonery with Tommy McClellan has really damaged their brand.

I think the fact that they just have not been consistently winning in anything at all for six years has really damaged their brand.

All at the wrong time, all of the time where they're hemorrhaging, hemorrhaging money.

I think they don't add to the league.

And I'm not just saying that because I hate tech.

And yes, I hate tech.

I just don't think they have anything to offer this league.

And I think with all the other presidents on the east side, you're seeing, they're being shut out because of.

In part, you know, partially because of that.

I think, I still think.

I know tjo supports him and it's because it's dollars and cents.

He wants to travel partner.

I get that.

But TJO ain't gonna be here for 10 more years and.

And again, that's another conversation.

But I don't think that they have the support that they claim they have in this state.

They may have some, but I don't think it's as die hard as they make it out to be as far as who I want them to replace.

You know, who wants to get to be the replacement for Texas State?

ECU is fine.

I'd be fine with that.

People keep talking about Western Kentucky.

People need to also understand Western Kentucky will not do anything without Middle Tennessee.

They have always been this way.

They are tied at the hip.

The reason why they gave the old SBC blue balls when they said they were going to come and then they decided not to come and then they were going to come again.

And then they said no.

If people remember that, like the presidents and the money people that still run these universities remember that, that hurts the Sun Belt when we lost what, four schools in one, in one fell swoop.

I, I think that, you know, I understand that dollars and cents speak and it helps the, the league to, to, to be at 14, but I don't think we should forget that.

And, but, but who's left?

Who are the presidents left?

Tjo.

I mean that's pretty much it.

You think about.

Monroe lost theirs.

Like a lot of people have moved on.

So I don't know if you have that recency bias anymore because they, you know, leadership, there's all new leadership across the belt.

And I will say input in, you know, to support that.

I think that Western Kentucky immediately improves basketball, which is clearly our worst sport.

I mean it.

Keith Gill is supposed to come in here and fix basketball.

It's gotten worse.

I think they, they make us more relevant in football immediately.

They've been pretty consistent.

And then obviously their baseball program, we have, we have history with them, so I think our fans will support it.

I still don't think they make them move without tennis.

Middle Tennessee, I still think that they're tethered.

So.

So we'll see about that.

Let's think outside the box though.

Who I really want to see.

I told you.

I know and I hate this pick.

Well, it's the right pick we need.

How can you call yourself the Sunbelt Conference and not have a foothold in Florida?

It's crazy.

But we don't need an FCS call up.

Like I'm tired of being the FCS call up.

Just, just follow me.

We called up App State.

That worked out pretty nicely.

We called up Georgia Southern.

All they did was beat Florida and host a regional like two years later.

We have called up some FCS schools that have done a great job in this, in this conference.

University of West Florida Oregonauts are a very ripe pick.

They're in Pensacola.

They have a good enrollment, their endowments kind of low and I don't know how their research is, but I think that I know for a fact they want to be FBS and their president and their athletics, first of all, their facilities are top notch.

Great campus.

They've won 10 national championships in D2.

They want an opportunity to play in a league like ours.

Now I understand that people don't want to be associated with the call ups.

I think we learned our lesson on that though.

I certainly did.

I was against the call ups.

At one point, I'm kind of all in on the Argos, man.

I am.

They have a real athletics department.

They have the money in Florida.

They have the recruiting, fertile recruiting ground that we all need.

It's going to help the league immediately and I think that they can compete pretty shortly.

Josh.

Hey, dude, they're D2.

Throw them a little money from the ESPN revenue.

Look.

What.

That's more fans than Ulm stands, bro.

More.

There's more fans there than us.

Ulm.

Look, start talking to him now.

We don't need to go to 14 immediately.

Start talking to them now.

Give them two years, three years to get their, their finances in order.

I mean, didn't take, how long did it take us to do the stadium?

One year.

They could do that, I think.

Look, baseball is great.

Their softball program is very good.

Their basketball program is very good.

Their coach just won coach of the year for like 8 out of 10 years or something like that.

In their conference, they compete with Valdosta State, who's a real program.

I mean, everybody knows about Georgia, Valdosta State.

They've been competing at a high level in their, you know, in their classification.

I think that I would super support going that route and getting a Pensacola school in the Sunbelt Conference.

Get us back in Florida.

I don't want fiu.

I don't want fau.

It doesn't fit in our footprint.

Footprint.

Pensacola fits in our footprint.

We could start having our conference tournaments there in the, in the community center or whatever the hell it is, the Coliseum, whatever.

Pensacola makes a lot of sense.

I like UWF to the Sunbelt, Josh.

I, I, and I'm with you.

I like their, their logo.

I mean, who wouldn't want to have.

You like their uniforms, Nick?

Argonauts gear?

Hell yeah.

I'm a uniforms guy.

But yeah, no, it's nice.

Negative to FCS call ups.

Jerry, wrap it up.

What are your thoughts here?

Well, first of all, you have to look at the situation of what the AAC is doing.

The reason why the Sunbelt Conference has publicly said that they want to wait or possibly win on the 13 teams is because there's a chance that there could be a snowball effect to the American Conference.

Let's be honest, I highly doubt, and I don't know what you guys think about this, but I highly doubt the Pac 12 is going to stay at eight teams.

They're going to try to add maybe two or maybe even four more teams to get to 10 or 12, especially if they try to attempt, attempt to get to where the other P4 conferences are.

So by doing that, you got to put into play.

You got to look at Memphis.

You might have to look at unlv.

You might have to look at, you know, a North Texas or.

I'm not even North Texas.

I'd probably say, yeah, maybe in North Texas or somebody like trying to throw somebody else out there.

Maybe a two lane, a UTSA.

They were originally in the conversation for the PAC12.

I think USF was one of the teams that were in conversations with the PAC 12 and felt that it wasn't feasible.

I think Tulane came out and said it wasn't feasible at the moment, but now that Texas State has been added and, and maybe if they can get a better TV deal than what you mentioned down in the future that the Memphis Is in the two lanes and the UTSAs of the world will have that conversation.

I think that's what the Sunbelt's waiting for.

Ideally, speaking for me, once if a Memphis or a UTSA or a two lane leave, it makes me wonder if does the AAC come after the Sun Belt or do.

Does the AAC get poached like we saw with Conference USA?

I think if the AAC, the AACs get gets poached.

I think East Carolina is a good pick in my opinion, only because they have a football history.

The baseball team's really good.

Their basketball team has showed promise over the years.

They have a really big fan base.

I think they'd be a perfect fit if you want to go out more to the West.

You know, I probably say, look, I know they kind of burned some bridges back in the day, but I think Western Kentucky would be an ideal pick.

It's in the Kentucky market.

It's an hour away from Nashville.

Nick.

I myself have.

I've also taken the trip.

It's not a bad drive.

So overall, if you look at their history crap, it's not.

It's not.

That's not.

It's an hour drive, dude, and it's beautiful land on the way.

An hour.

No, we drove like bus us to bowling.

Well, I'm talking.

Well, like, I'm talking about.

Yeah, yeah, you're flying to Nashville.

You want to talk about.

We didn't have money.

We really didn't have money back.

It's a good.

It's an easy drive.

It's actually not a bad drive.

From Nashville.

I'm talking about Nashville.

Yeah, from.

Obviously from Lafayette.

It's a longer drive.

But I think Western Kentucky would be an ideal pick only because we do have A history with them a little bit.

They have improved in their athletics success, but to Josh's point, if they want to go do that sort of hand in hand with middle, then you may have to, you may have to look elsewhere.

And unfortunately, I think the default pick for that would be Louisiana Tech.

Do I want Louisiana Tech in the conference?

No, I don't.

I've had debates with fans about this.

I know some of our fans want them because it's regional and we can sell out the stadium and sell out the crowds and have good crowds and the, the fierce rivals between the fan bases.

Here's the issue that I have with Tech, Josh.

You say that they haven't had much success recently, and you're right.

My problem is, is look at the history of the things that they said and done, not only in athletics, but also the academic side in the UL system.

The things they've said about UL Monroe, the things they've said about us, the fact that they kept us out.

The Southern Miss.

They've kept us out.

Yes.

Southern Miss Arkansas State has beef with, with the Louisiana Tech.

They kept the side of the Independence bowl in 2008 when then their head coach, a slash AD, Derek Dooley, said, we don't want to play Sunbelt schools.

We found that out.

Found that out afterwards.

Look at the way that they, they rejected the Sunbelt Conference when they went to the WAC and the way that they burned bridges there.

They talked about separation from other Louisiana schools when they joined Conference USA in 2012.

They have publicly stated things and have said things that have burned bridges.

And at that point.

And then, of course, let's not forget the infamous Tommy McClellan McClellan video in 2020, only to get karma a year later when the Conference USA just basically dissolved into what it is today.

So do I want them in the conference?

No.

And.

And people will say, oh, well, the leadership there now is.

Is no longer there.

Well, the reason why the leadership is.

Is no.

Is quiet right now is because they're desperate.

They need, they need to go to the Sun Belt.

They want to go to the Sun Belt.

So if you're trying to position yourself into a conference that you've basically taken a dump on the last 40 years, you're not going to say anything bad about them.

You're going to try to put on a happy face.

You're going to talk about how great the Sun Belt is.

You're going to, you're going to go and try to wine and dine Sunbelt Conference members.

But we didn't Forget.

We didn't forget.

And that's why they're so quiet right now.

If they weren't.

If they.

The Conference USA was in a better predicament than they were, they'd still be dumping on us right now.

I. I'm kind of disappointed in the Ulm athletic director going out there saying, well, we should invite Louisiana Tech in here because it's so great for the conference.

And I'm thinking Louisiana politics.

Jerry, there's something in there for him.

There's something in it for all of us.

And.

And you know how university presidents are.

They got to get along with everybody.

Get along with everybody.

What did I just say?

They've dumped their.

Their politics on the academic side, have openly dumped on Ulm and tried to.

Tried to isolate themselves from a school that's 25 minutes down the road.

So why should we invite that?

My thing is, look, I understand it's going to draw fan interest with our fan bases.

I don't want the commotion of.

I don't want them coming into the Sun Belt and acting like a bunch of fools and.

And bringing back that conduct that they've been showing for the last 40 years.

And then they'll be the first ones.

Y' all think that, like, we talk about JMU and the JMU fans.

You think that's bad, Put that to the 10th power with Louisiana Tech fans.

So, second, they would be invited.

They would all act like they were better than us.

They talk about they're getting out of here.

Some of them are still calling us the Belch.

And I'm like, bro, y' all are begging to get in the Belch.

And that's why I don't want them.

Let them.

If they.

If they.

They don't like the Belch.

They think they're so great they can try to succeed in Conference USA since it's so great and all that stuff.

So let them stay there.

I would go for a white Kentucky.

I do want to comment on the West Florida thing real quick, Josh, because I do agree with you.

They're.

They're kind of like a Tarleton State where they're kind of on the up and up.

The only issue I have with West Florida right now is I think we're kind of moving fast.

I think the Sunbelt is moving a little bit quicker than the fact that West Florida is trying to get into the Sun Belt.

I think they're in a transition.

They're going to be in transition, or are they in transition to move to Division one?

Yes.

Well, they're Doing the petition and all that stuff and everything you're looking is their endowments a little low, their research dollars are a little low.

But let's pick them up.

Let's teach them up real quick.

But, but here's the thing though, man.

You, you.

That's going to take five years for them to try to get up to Division 1 with all of that.

And here's the problem.

Problem.

I don't think the conference is going to wait that long because the commentary alignment is moving so quickly.

By the time they're ready, we've already.

We've already.

You know what?

I have a solution here.

Here's the solution.

Let's pick up Western, let the Argonauts or whatever they're called go to.

Go to Conference usa, get their together and then in five years, when we're ready to expand again, hey, come on, baby, we'll be ready.

Cool with that.

I'd be cool with that.

Anybody who thinks that UWF is not a viable candidate to be in this league with within the next five to ten years, you're crazy.

I promise you.

Let him go first.

It's still around.

If the Sunbelt's still around, they will be part of this league.

Yeah.

All right.

So anyway, no, I'm like.

Like Western Kentucky, I think would be the ideal pick right now.

No, I don't want Louisiana Tech.

By the way, I did put up the picture that Louisiana Tech Athletics posted today with Rustin Muse.

Damn, I thought that was CMR projects.

Where it looks like.

Yeah, it looks like a sketchy part of town with.

I thought they were filming for.

For.

I thought they were filming for Longest Yard, but the baseball version.

That's what I thought when I first saw that picture.

They're getting so dragged.

I don't know what's funnier is the.

The picture or Terry's response with the Delete this gif.

That is.

That's pretty funny.

But man, I think.

I think is that we.

We retweeted that on the Rager review account and all Louisiana Tech fans are like, yeah, well, your canvas looks like a prison.

I said I'd rather look like a.

It doesn't.

We have a pretty.

That from.

From that picture.

It looks like a Civil War barracks.

Like, what was that?

Is that new?

Looks like old Russia, USSR era stuff.

I don't know.

What is that?

Fort Tortuga?

What is that?

And then they double down on it like, what are you doing, man?

Just be like, yeah, I'll take that out.

Like, it's not okay.

But you know what?

I. I honestly could not tell you what Tex Campus actually looks like, but if that's what they're flexing.

Yeah, there's that.

All right, boys, we got one final topic before we get to Lanyap, which is always fun.

I love lon up section session, whatever I just said.

So early thoughts on the football season coming up?

We have Phil Steele that's going to be coming on in the next couple of weeks, and we'll have a great episode with him.

We'll go through, you know, what he sees for the Cajuns in 2025.

And he's always very analytical.

He's got all the numbers, he's got the metrics, he's got his computer system that he.

Look, a lot of the times you look at the guy and say, well, this is kind of wild.

And then he turns out to be right because he's been doing this for a while, so look forward to speaking with him.

We'll talk about a couple of things.

First, let's talk about season ticket sales and.

And then also tie that into.

Do you think the community is excited?

Did have a conversation with one of the folks in the administration today about what they're doing to engage with the community as part of this conversation.

Was happy to hear they're kind of thinking outside of the box right now.

And instead of the world's greatest chocolate, what they are doing is engaging with local schools.

Now, it would be great if we had a mascot going out to local schools.

Different conversation.

But they are engaging with local schools in the Acadiana area, not just Lafayette, and offering them to participate in fundraising.

And basically what UL will do is charge a certain ticket price for all of the tickets that.

That they give the school.

And then the school is allowed to charge money on top of that, which they get to keep themselves.

So if they decide to charge $5 off off of the ticket over the ticket price that they paid ul, they get to keep the.

That as their donation to the school, and UL gets to keep their ticket money.

And also I think that also ties into the revenue sharing and nil deals and all that good stuff.

So hopefully, and apparently the response has been pretty good, there are a couple of local high schools that have been selling those tickets very well.

Did not get an exact number, did not get an estimation of what season tickets look like now.

But I'll tell you, I bought two season tickets for the first time ever.

And when I looked at the.

The map, I know there were a lot of tickets available.

Kind of in the corners and on the student section.

But I had to kind of, you know, I wanted some good seats, so I had to kind of search for the ones that weren't, you know, $18,000 a piece to be able to sit kind of close down in the action.

So I did get some tickets.

I know a lot of people are getting those tickets as well.

I hope that there's a feeling in Lafayette that, that the new stadium is exciting and, and people want to go see it for the first time.

I will be there the first game no matter what, because I want to be there for the first game in Cajun Field.

I'm gonna start with you, Jerry.

What have you been hearing?

What are your feelings about the ticket sales so far this season and is that tying into like, excitement in the community?

Are you hearing a lot in Lafayette?

What's going on there as far as, you know, connection with the community and are people engaging with the program now?

I, you know, I have a bunch of people.

I think there's more people excited about football season because of the way diamond sports ended.

Kid.

It was kind of one of those things where it's like, man, this is tough, so let's at least look forward to football.

I think when you sign guys like Walker Howard, you know, you get the kid from LSU and, and they're both really talented players and you have, you sign a few guys like the running back from St. Martinville and you've got a lot of local kids playing, it goes a long way.

And so I think that there's excitement with that.

Add in the fact that you had a 10 win season last year.

I think a lot of people's opinions of coach DEZ has really come around.

I think there's a lot of people that believe that last year coach Des really proved himself and they think that he can do it again.

You know, I've talked to a few people closely associated with the team.

They say we're a lot more talented this year.

We're a little bit deeper this year.

I think it, it's, it's yet to be seen how they, how well they play in jail as a team.

But as far as talent goes, we, we do have a very talented team on both sides of the football.

I mean, you saw the other day some of the, the preseason guys with some of the preseason awards and, and the type of hype that they have.

We do have a lot of key starters coming back.

So the people I've talked to around town are pretty excited about the team just because they have local guys playing and we had a good season last year.

I do think the first two games with the new stadium, I think it ties into the fact that, look, we, anytime Lafayette gets a shiny new toy, everybody's got to be there to see what it's about.

I do expect that.

And look, the first game, say what you want about them, but it's Rice.

Rice is a team that, you know, we've played them in the past, in the 80s, and you know, they're, they're not the most well known name as they were back, you know, 30 years ago.

But, you know, there's still a name that we haven't seen in a long time come to Lafayette.

So that's going to be exciting to open the stadium and then the following week it's McNeese.

So, you know, that's going to be a good crowd.

Lake Charles is going to bring a good crowd or people from Lake Charles are going to come in for that game.

So I expect expect that stadium to stadium to be pretty packed.

So the first two home games should have good attendance.

I expect attendance to be really, really solid back to back.

And I expect us to play well those first two games.

I expect us going to Missouri with a 20 record.

So, yeah, I, I, I'm very excited about this team.

I do know that the coaching staff's very confident and excited about this team and I'm hoping that the new stadium can, can, can, you know, get people excited with new season tickets.

I do know a few people who are buying season tickets for the first time, you know, as you were talking about for yourself, Nick.

I do, I have talked to a few people doing that.

So, you know, shiny new toy excitement with the football team.

I think it's going to be fun.

I'm excited about it as well and should be interesting.

We'll see what happens come August when, when the players report to camp.

It's a month away.

It'll be here before you know it.

But God, we got to get it right that first game, man, because if we screw it up, if we screw it up, so many of those people who come, just like last year who come to that first game, the students, the new, the new people, the.

We can't screw it up.

We got to get it right.

Cole, what are you hearing?

I know again, I'm going to always throw section A because I know you're connected with those folks.

What are you hearing from it?

A community engagement standpoint.

Are people really getting excited for the new stadium?

And, and what do you Think we're going to see.

I mean, give me your attendance, guest.

Do you think we'll have a full house after that first game?

Well, miss, it's like the old saying is.

I'm.

Jared didn't say it.

If you build it, they will come.

And that's what's going to happen week one, right?

And to your point, I was going to say the same point.

When you get them in the building, have a good showing.

Because if you want the attendance to stay there, you better play well when the house is full.

And guess what?

Week one and week two with McNiece, the house will be full.

So you better play well.

You got to be hot out the gate and you got to go.

So football wise, it comes down to a good quarterback play and running the football on offense, right?

And to coach Des's credit, we had great quarter play quarterback play last year and we ran the ball very well.

And guess what?

We had a 10 win season.

The formula of winning football games is not hard, right?

So I'm excited to see Walker Howard.

That's another thing that fans are excited to see.

You got a Lafayette kid going to be under center or I should say in the shotgun.

We don't go into center much.

Wrecking ram.

Excuse me, but no, you got a Lafayette kid that's going to be, you know, taking the snaps.

Damn it.

All right, get that out.

Hey, you know, put Ted Davidson calling the plays and then come talk to me.

But listen, we're gonna laugh at boy, you know, a lot of people want to see him do well.

We know the kind of athlete he is.

I mean, I'm excited for it.

Boys, I'll tell you this.

And, and going back to your question about Section 8, Listen, we tailgate year round, baby.

We're gonna be out there.

I personally don't have season tickets for football, but I do buy tickets to every football game.

Me, my wife and my kids, we go to the games.

So just because I don't have season tickets to football, I do have season tickets to baseball.

No, man, listen, if you build it, they will come.

But like I said, play well when they come and then you won't have to worry about, hey, where's the students?

Hey, you know, I think doing what we did with minimizing the, the capacity, kind of like what Tulane did, you made your stadium.

You're going to play to your crowd, right?

Let's call it what it is.

You know, we, we're not a 50,000, you know, that's not our football program.

But if you can have.

You.

If you can have your fans engaged in a facility, kind of like Tulane hat.

Yes.

It's the intimacy.

That's why we miss the old Teague sometimes because you had bingo, that intimacy where you were in on the action.

And I think that's what we're getting.

Bingo.

And it created.

And that's exactly.

Yeah, it created an environment too, for sure, Josh.

And it's beautiful, guys.

Josh, what are your thoughts?

I mean, what do you think is going to happen?

Game one?

I'm going to be a little pessimist.

I think we're going to screw up somehow in game day and I'm going to be pissed off because we do it every year and we eventually get it right in game six.

We can't do that this year, man, because I feel like I'm not in Lafayette.

I feel like there still is a buzz about the stadium.

We got to capitalize.

We're so bad on capitalizing on success.

We have got to get this right.

That's the point.

You get them in.

We've.

We've done an okay job of getting them in for big games and then we scare them off.

And if we can avoid doing that just for three or four games, I think we could really see something.

But, you know, I hope.

I hope the game day guys are paying attention.

I hope Sam's listening and I hope Marcus is listening.

Tonight.

You got a golden opportunity.

Last time we played Rice, they beat us.

We're not used to them beating us, but they beat us, so we owe them one.

And they haven't been to town in a while, so it should be fun.

It's.

It's something that people can look forward to.

As far as ticket updates, I understand all the.

They're doing a really good job selling the premium experiences.

Like the boxers are doing well and the.

The club level stuff is doing really well where you get like, you know, the food and the.

The tickets together.

And from what I can, from what I gather, from what people tell me, that part is doing just fine.

I think that our fan base is pretty predictable.

Everybody's going to buy their season tickets about a week before the game.

I mean, that's just how we do things.

I am very disappointed in the.

Now look, it's the off season, so I guess I'm not gonna be too hard on them just yet.

It is the early.

You know, just July 3rd.

Today.

I gotta start seeing some marketing blitz because it's not happening.

And you know, when you build a stadium, it should do a lot of the marketing for you, I get that part.

But you still gotta go and meet people where they are, and that needs to tick up quickly here soon, so.

But as far as excitement, I mean, I pass the stadium every day.

I'm excited.

I'm excited.

I'm excited because I know we have a good football team.

But I'm also excited, you know, anytime you get a new anything in the.

In the program, it's just something to look forward to.

And, you know, when.

When mid August rolls around, it's going to be cool to step inside that stadium.

It's going to be cool to see the investment and the waiting.

And we're so far beyond due for a new stadium.

You know, remember walking in the Teak for the first time or Russo Park?

It was like, wow, I'm unbelievable.

This is what we've been missing.

So I think that it's going to do its job.

I think it's going to have the La Fonda effect.

People are going to want to be there to be seen.

You know, maybe we need to do a little lafonda sponsorship where they can put the pictures on the wall.

That'd be funny, Jerry.

I think it's going to be fine.

I don't know how exciting the stadium is for just casual fans.

I guess we'll figure out when it gets a little closer.

But I can tell you this.

My.

My friend group, like my core friend group, mostly soccer fans, don't really watch a lot of football.

But every time I see him, they want to talk about Walker Howard.

They want to talk about Walker Howard.

You know what's so cool about that is, you know, Jake was our last real local boy.

Local guy, you know, I know we had a Scotlandville quarterback and a Lutcher quarterback.

We had Daz.

Yeah, you had Bad.

But Jerry Bab, he did not have the pedigree.

He didn't come in here highly touted.

I mean, Walker Howard sat behind NFL quarterbacks his whole career.

You know, I mean, he's, he's.

He's.

He has name.

He has some aura about him.

Like people are older than all of us.

Yes, he does look like he's 15.

He's a very nice.

He's got a nice set of beard and mustache, whatever.

But what they call him Uncle.

Uncle Wawa.

You know, you got the whole.

He's got all of Lafayette behind him.

There's some interest there, obviously, the pedigree, lsu, Ole Miss, all this stuff.

Look, regardless of how he performs on the field, and that's a conversation for another Day, he's going to be blockbuster to start the season.

People are going to be interested to see how he's going to play.

I personally think he's going to be great.

I personally think he's going to.

He's going to check all the boxes that we need him to.

I think he's in the offense that DEZ is going to be able to.

You know, he hasn't got a lot of on field playing time in his college career, so maybe we ease him into his duty.

But I think three or four games into the season, you're going to see the talent fly.

And based on the way that they used them in the spring, a lot of it was short passes on time, hooks, you know, things like that.

That's what I want to see early, get them comfortable, let him sling it.

Game three, game four.

But to start the season, man, you know, and we're going to talk about all SBC in a second.

I know we have a good football team.

You know, every coach that we've talked to, in particular some guys on the offensive side say, top to bottom, we're a better team.

We have better players top to bottom on this team than we did last year who won 10 games and short of an injury to our quarterback, had a chance to win a conference championship on our own home field.

So there's a lot of excitement from my household.

Some of my friends are interested for the first time.

I think that we have a lot of the ingredients to make this season about as exciting as I can remember.

Yeah.

And I think.

I think what.

What's also cool about it, Jerry mentioned it earlier, is about the buy in for dez.

I think last year he earned that buy in.

I think the jury was still out, but.

But I think.

I think it took him a little bit of time to learn how to be a head coach.

And look, I trust in Des, man.

I like what he put together last year.

Nobody's going to buy.

There is absolutely no one in the world that's going to blame him for how last year ended because that was not his fault.

I mean, who can lose two quarterbacks and still try to compete for a championship?

Just that I don't think anybody can.

Can sustain that.

So I'm excited.

I'm sorry.

I remember whenever somebody got on Daniel, oh, my God.

And you lost it.

You.

You went to.

You ran to his defense, which rightfully so.

Yeah.

How are you gonna.

How are you gonna crap on the kid that.

That just got thrown in there in a championship game?

Like, you kidding Me, but I don't want to get pissed off again, but I will just say a former TSAB quarterback that played for us.

You guys remember his name, Anthony Jennings.

Worked out pretty well for us, I thought.

Disaster.

That was.

No, I thought he played pretty well for us.

Anthony Jennings.

Oh, my God.

And now look.

It was the.

It was demise.

We had no other options.

It was the demise of Hud.

And you had that one.

What was that one wide receiver's name.

Jerry.

Remember?

Oh, he would hit him in the corner of the engine.

Barnes.

It was Keenan's.

Yeah, it was.

I think it was somebody else.

But anyway, we had one option.

Just throw the fade.

Just.

It was the fade.

That was all he could throw.

But I.

It worked out well for us at the time.

I guess I have nothing bad to say about Anthony Jennings.

I like the kid.

Anyway, Walker Howard, we're excited about it.

Again, look, when.

I think that's also a benefit of.

You have a lot of Tigers fans in Lafayette and they're going to show up because he's a former Tiger and he's a former STM player, and they're gonna come to see what.

What he can do.

And, you know, maybe.

I mean, as two LSU fans got in a fight the other day because one of them said, man, wish we could have held on to Walker.

And then they're like, no, we had last minor.

How dare you.

I was like, I'm not saying, like, Nussmeier's bad.

I'm just saying I wish we could have held on to Walker hour.

But you know what?

Whatever.

Those people are crazy.

Yeah, I. I totally got off the subject there.

Guys, one more question and then we will.

We'll get to my favorite Lanya moment of the night.

You know, this is again, a two part question.

What do you expect to be the impact player for 25?

And then we'll get into the.

I guess I'll throw the all SBC team up there from Athlon because that kind of ties into it.

Like, are these guys part of who you think are going to be impact players?

Dude, I'm still.

I'm still.

Kaden Jensen, I think, was underutilized last year for obvious reasons, I think, because.

Why you want to get me started?

Throw to the damn tight end.

But they did.

But they only threw to one tight end.

And it wasn't.

It wasn't Kaden Jensen, I think.

And look, I like Kaden's dad, so that might have a little bit of.

Of play in there as well.

But I think Kaden Jensen was underutilized, I think with his size and his.

His athleticism.

I think, you know, he might not appear on this list, but I think he's going to be really good.

Bill Davis is not appearing on any list this year.

Now, look, I think Zyland Perry is going to be a good running back for us.

And he's.

He actually appears on the second team offense and on third team kick returner Bill Davis is not even being mentioned, man.

And that's crazy to me.

So, Josh, third team offense.

So is he on third team offense?

Okay, team offense, which is too low.

That is too low.

Point is taken.

Correct.

So let's talk about that.

Let's talk about who you think will be impact players for 2025.

I mean, obviously Sampson.

I think that, that Howard to Sampson connection is going to be deadly.

I think they're comfortable with each other.

We saw that in the spring game.

That they're comfortable with each other.

Outside of that, who do you think are going to be impact players for Louisiana?

Josh, you go first.

Well, on the defensive side, because obviously that's where I'm going to start.

That's my side.

But Cam Whitfield and Jordan Lawson were the two biggest guys that we, I think were in danger of losing.

The bigger schools, I think they got courted and they ended up deciding to stay in Lafayette.

So look, that those are massive.

Now Jordan Lawson's a little bit more of an edge guy.

We need girth in the middle, and we're going to have to figure that out.

I think that's a weak spot.

But those two guys, they're playmakers when they're on the field.

I mean, Cam Whitfield is all over the place all the time.

Ball Hawkins force fumbles, sacks when you need him, tackles for loss, he's going to fill up the stat sheet and that's what we need.

And we need to play with speed and intent on the defensive side.

He epitomizes those things.

I want to say this.

Tyrese Skipper got injured last year and I thought our defense took a step back after that happened.

I'm not saying that because I've been on him since he signed here, but I'm just telling you guys, they have him.

First team safety.

Athlon Sports does.

I think that he's the best defensive back in the Sunbelt Conference, and if he can stay healthy, he's an NFL player.

I just think that.

I think he controls it back into that defense.

I think when you sneak him up and run cover or in run help he does a great job in the run game.

I think that he can cover anybody that's not like a 44 type guy.

I mean, maybe he might struggle over the top a little bit from time to time, but anything in front of him.

Tyrese Skipper is erasing routes.

He's.

He's completely messing up route trees and, and he's a, he's a thumper.

I mean, he's, he's your back end thumper.

So I think Tyrese Skipper is the anchor of this defense this year.

I love the guy.

I love the way he plays.

He's nasty ball hawk, all that stuff.

Tyrese Skipper is my guy offensively.

Offensive line has got to figure it out quickly.

We had some, a couple of.

A little bit of attrition, some guys leaving and graduating or whatever.

Jax Harrington's got to stay healthy.

He's got to stay healthy.

He hasn't been healthy for two years.

It's not his kid.

It's not his fault.

I understand that injuries happen, but if we're going to have a productive offensive line early in the season, especially Jax Harrington has got to be the anchor there.

Got to have him.

Got to.

I hope he's healthy.

I don't know any injury update on him.

I think he's been fine throughout camp.

I haven't heard any different, but we need him and I'm not going to go down the entire roster.

I just think that Jax makes a huge difference.

If you want Walker Howard to ease into a signal caller role, that's going to be productive.

He has to be protected and that starts.

It starts with Jax Harrington.

As far as I'm concerned, Bill Davis has got to stay healthy.

He's a game changer when he's in the game.

Got to keep him healthy.

Other than that, Zyland Perry needs to hang on to the football.

Throw it to freaking tight end.

Throw it to Jensen.

Jensen.

Jensen is always open and he's a matchup nightmare.

How the dude doesn't get 10 to 12 targets a game is.

Is.

Is a coaching failure.

I'll say that up front while.

Coaching failure.

Well, who left the program?

Well, the kid that went to.

I can't remember his name.

Is it William Taran?

Not Clarence?

Yeah, Clarence.

Call, call, call.

Yeah, Carter.

That.

That was.

That was their focus.

I don't know.

But Jensen needs to be that damn.

Focus this year because it's still a failure.

It's still a. I told Mike.

I told Mike.

You know, after a post game one night I had a cup of drink and I Was like, mike, we got to throw it to the tight end.

Dude, that, that conversation didn't go very long.

Well, we say that literally every year, so.

But throw to the damn tight end.

We.

If he's always open, he's a matchup nightmare.

I know, I know.

So hopefully, hopefully he can make it happen.

And, and look, you know, speaking of defense, Salgado, I want to see what he's going to do with his people this year.

You know, I kind of gave him a little bit of a pass last year and look, we're still freaking 10 and what?

10 and 4, 10.

Like I'm okay with going 10 and 4 every year.

The, the, the thing is, I want to see what he can do when we're not trying to out scheme guys and when we can play man coverage and when we're not playing zone.

Obviously, Lamar was a lot, a lot more of a zone defense kind of guy, so I'm looking forward to see what Salgado can do because I think he's a good coach.

I think he's a good.

I love his scheme.

I think it's a lot more aggressive.

I hate that bubble crap.

Correct.

You know, quarter zone crap.

I hate that.

So you saw a lot more press coverage, but you saw at times where we lacked physicality on defensive line and we were, were thin.

So I don't think he really fully played the style of defense that he's going to implement this year.

And go.

He had necessarily the talent to play to that defense?

No.

Well, he didn't have, he didn't have his bill.

He didn't have the type, in my opinion.

I thought we were okay as far as speed, but I just didn't think that, like nobody respected our defensive line.

Nobody.

And our entire front seven, you know, we had some good lot.

You know, Cam Whitfield is a, is a good player, but he's not that physical, important, imposing linebacker that's just gonna, you know, make the running back change gaps.

Like that's never gonna happen.

He's gonna beat you with speed and that's fine.

But we need to complement that with some, some bigger, more physical players in a run game.

And Marshall figured that out and you saw what happened.

They ate us up.

Jerry, your thoughts on everything we just talked about?

Yeah, I'm curious to see how Tyrese Skipper comes back from last year, because I do expect a lot of high expectations from for him.

If you look at the 23 season, he made some key interceptions.

Same with Cam Whitfield.

Cam Whitfield's he's really quick on the edge.

I think I can expect him to make some good open field tackles this year, be a really big force on that defense, especially with a little bit more seniority.

Those are my main two guys right now.

I'd probably have to do a little bit more research on what we have coming in because I knew we do have some new faces.

I look, the thing about Coach dez, he's going to play a lot of players, so there's going to be some up and comers that we may not have heard of or not too familiar with who we're going to have, who I think are going to have some good seasons and, and be standouts.

Offensively, I'm kind of looking forward to seeing what the running back room looks like.

I mean, we've got two freshman running backs right now that are going to be really, really good on top of Bill Davis and Zyland Perry.

From what I was told, Zyland Perry is, has improved tremendously this off season.

Believe it or not, as much as we love Bill Zyland sound, I've heard he's the clear number one on the depth chart, so that's going to be interesting to see.

And then Bill, Bill's got some competition with those two freshmen, so we're going to be four or five deep in running backs, which is going to be great because it's going to be able to complement Walker's passing ability.

I'm, I'm really excited to see what Walker does.

You know, he's a little bit of a, he's more of a passing quarterback, but he's got some good foot speed as well.

You know, you've got Robert Wilson coming back.

You've got Samson at, at, at.

At the receiving end.

You know, offensively, like you said, Josh, I do think you're going to have to have guys like Harrington step up.

I'm, I think our offensive line will be pretty good to be to, to.

To take on a balanced attack offensively.

And look, I think on the D line we are a little bit young, but you know, as long as we can rotate the guys and they have a little bit of physicality and a get a few games in and make some key stops that can build confidence.

And I think Coach Salgado is a good enough coach to be able to adjust to, to personnel.

We saw it last year, especially with a few injuries that we had to battle and, and I, I think we're going to be fine there.

So overall, offensively, I like Bill Davis, I like Zyland Perry.

I want to see what they're going to do defensively.

I look forward to seeing what Cam Whitfield and.

And.

And Tyrese Skipper can do.

I expect all.

All four of those guys to be really huge playmakers for us this year.

And it replaced T. Lou.

That's a big.

That's true.

Absolutely.

And look, if.

If Walker can perform, I mean, look at what Ben Wooldridge, he wasn't a groundbreaking, you know, amazing superstar quarterback, but holy cow, he got it done for us last couple years.

Injuries obviously precluded, I think, how good he could have really been, but.

But Walker's kind of got the same presence behind the line of scrimmage.

So, look, four star athlete out of high school.

I'm not going to complain at all and look forward to seeing what he's doing.

I'm interested to see what the wide receivers do.

Outside of Sampson, I don't know a whole lot about the wide receiver core, so that's going to be interesting to see how that develops.

Cole, your thoughts on next season for football?

Well, I'm gonna start on the offensive side.

Like Josh said, that he's the defensive guy, I'm the offensive guy.

It's going to come down to running the football.

Right.

And to your point that you just said you don't know what you have out wide.

So the way you remedy that is you run the ball well.

And lucky for you, you got Bill Davis and Zyland Perry, who are two of the powerhouse running backs in this conference, on the same football team.

But like Jerry said earlier, Walker Howard is not a stranger to using his legs.

So I'm curious to see how they use him in packages and he carries the football, because I think there's a lot that we can do with that.

Defensively, I want to see us get after the corner quarterback a little better this year.

It took us a while to get us sack last year, if I remember.

Now, listen, if you give me a carbon copy of last year, we go 10 and four, I would be okay with that.

10 wins in this program.

I mean, listen, unless you're new to the program, that's huge.

That's huge, right?

The only difference, I would say, is obviously win a big game.

You know, you lost the conference championship at home.

You lost the bowl game, but of course, that was due to injury.

But again, if you give me another 10 and 4 season, you can't scoff at that.

But I hope that we can just play complimentary football, as anybody does.

I want to see, you know, the defense feed off, feed off the offense and vice versa.

And I like that we're balanced.

It seems like up and down across this roster, we are a truly balanced football team and that should scare the rest of this conference.

And first and foremost, I want to win the Sunbelt Conference.

I feel like that should be gold number one.

I don't care really what bowl game we get because you can win this conference undefeated and probably end up, you know, at the freaking Dollar General bowl or whatever the hell they're going to send us.

My goal is to win this conference and to host this championship at this brand new diamond that we have.

And that's what I'm looking forward to this year.

I think we can win upwards of 10 games.

You can even talk 11 or 12 if we, you know, play complimentary football.

So I opened the door for you.

You didn't take the bait.

But I want to know what we can expect from Russell Babineau because look, man, I know he's undersized, but I love what I saw out of him at a Katie and a high.

And of course they run the veer offense.

So that played to kind of, I guess when you're undersized and you play the veer, you know, as a wide receiver, that, that, that plays to your advantage because you never know when they're going to pass the ball.

What can we expect from Russell this year?

I love Russell and I'm not even talking about Russell the receiver.

I love Russell as a kick returner, as a punt returner.

If that dude gets his hands on the football in space, you better get on him quick because if you give him a window, he's gone.

I've seen that Acadian a time and time again.

I'm gonna tell you guys, it has been a pleasure to call that man's football games for the last four years.

He is a matchup nightmare.

I would like to see him kind of in a slot role because he would be in he.

There is nobody that can cover that man in this slot.

He's, he's a little undersized, but he runs a 4, 2.

I mean he can run any route on the route tree.

You just gotta find him and I think in the slot, you know, move him around, put him in motion.

He is a nightmare.

And it's his speed that's going to be the game changer.

And to y' all credit, this team this year seems to be built on speed.

And I love it.

I truly love.

Sounds like he could be like another Harry Peoples.

Where you can kind of play him all over the field and you know, you can do jet sweep.

You can.

Dale and Cambry, we, I just don't feel like we use them enough, you know.

Well, Dalen, Dalen and Harry Potter.

Peoples didn't run a 4:2.

Well, this is true, Danny.

Harry.

Harry peoples ran about a four.

I think he was like 44 or 43.

He was quick.

I mean, Russell Babino just won the state championship, you know, track with Acadiana.

This kid runs at 4:2.

His first offer, D1 offer, and I'm a Florida State fan, was from Florida State and I think he was a sophomore barely.

So, I mean, you got a, you got a power five kid coming in your door and he's excited to play.

I know he loves dez.

Actually, I actually talked to a close friend of his whenever I was doing the games for Acadiana and they said whenever he went to that camp at UL for, you know, the incoming guys, he fell in love with the program right away.

And I don't know what, you know, specifically they talked about, but he signed like the very next week.

So whatever they talked about, he was all in and sold.

I hope they're able to utilize him this year because like I said, coming in the door, he's a playmaker.

Ready to go, man.

Go ahead, Josh.

Imagine Bab.

Imagine Bamino in the slot and we lineup lunch under center.

That's what I was about to say.

We, we run a play action and Buddy is 50 yards clear of the last defense.

It'll never happen, but he has played some quarterback and he can take some snaps.

I've seen it.

He's, he's, he could play any position you put him at.

And he was actually a hell of a defensive player in last year's playoff run whenever they went to the dome and unfortunately got beat by Kathy Kai and Daniel Beal.

But he was actually playing both ways and played cornerback.

And I want to say he had two or three interceptions throughout the playoff run that they had.