Speaker 1: All Star Toyota presents Off the Bench with Jacob Hester
and Matt Flynn.
Speaker 2: Okay, here we go where the.
Speaker 1: Players get broken down, then science gets denied.
Speaker 3: Got to come off the bench.
Speaker 1: Hour two of Off the Bench Live from the Mercedes
ben So Baton Rouge Studio starts now.
Speaker 4: All right, welcome back in OTB one of four five
ESPN Baton Rouge. It is now time to go to
my guy, mister Ben Hartsock, Ohio state legend decade in
the NFL, my colleague at sirius x him Benjamin.
Speaker 3: How are we doing, sir?
Speaker 5: Do well?
Speaker 6: Hester, Good to.
Speaker 7: See you, man. I don't know this Flynn guy though.
Speaker 6: Here he's a little shifty.
Speaker 7: I'm a little.
Speaker 2: Man.
Speaker 3: You know this.
Speaker 4: You gotta watch out for the quarterbacks always like you
gotta keep both eyes on them.
Speaker 7: Definitely absolutely good to see you guys.
Speaker 4: Yeah, great to see you. Before we get into anything
football related. Uh, you're a pageant dad, I mean, and
you are thriving right now, sir.
Speaker 7: Let me tell you something.
Speaker 8: It was not on my bingo card that my oldest
would get into pageants, but here we are, and I'm
gonna bottom.
Speaker 7: Line this thing.
Speaker 8: It's a lot Wow, it is a lot. There's my
oldest starting pageants two years ago. She was so fortunate
she won a local pageant last summer. So she was
missed Greater Atlanta's team. Big caveat she's in the team categories, right, Okay,
so she gets to compete in Miss Georgia. That's a
big deal. Whoever wins Miss Georgia goes to Miss America. Right,
that's how these things go. It's like the playoff system,
and she goes down to this Miss Georgia festival. I
guess it's the only way you can call it. They
don't just compete Saturday. Saturday is the big finish. They
got their last Thursday. Guys, they checked in. I rented an.
Speaker 7: Airbnb in Columbus, Georgia for ten.
Speaker 2: Days, ten days, ten days.
Speaker 7: This is like burning Man for pageants. It's bananas. Bananas.
Speaker 3: Wait, why didn't you just pull the RV up?
Speaker 6: Oh?
Speaker 8: Because mom and Dad are coming down from Ohio to
to soak in the festivities tomorrow. They're staying in the
RF as a secondary casita. It's over at the Pine
Woods RV Resort just outside.
Speaker 7: Columbus, Georgia, so that we can stay as a family
in the Airbnb.
Speaker 8: And you know what's funny about pageanting is do you
remember at the combine guys, how you're trying to be
like Johnny good teammate, Like, all.
Speaker 9: Right, bro, go kill it on the bench press. I
hope you get one hundred reps. Oh dude, I hope
your vertical is like six feet bro, Like, really, you
hope the guy trips, You hope the guy falls down.
You're not really rude to that guy. It's that plus.
Speaker 8: More in the pageant realm oh, your outfit is fire.
Speaker 3: It is you know what I keep down.
Speaker 8: Every one of these girls hopes that the other girl
gets a massive zip right in the middle of their nose.
Speaker 7: That's all this is. That's all this is. It's fake.
It's fake juice, fake juice.
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh.
Speaker 4: That is so good because you're exactly right, Like, yeah, Google,
get that three cone drill, like no, I want the
best three cone drill, like Darren McFadden, Like, I hope
you slipped three times actually on this drill before you go.
Speaker 7: Yeah, exactly, that's exactly.
Speaker 8: But it's it's an incredible thing. It's weird to have
she graduated high school. I've got a high school graduate.
I've got a younger that's now a rising junior. Life
comes at you fast. Which, by the way, how about
the fact that your boy, Philip Rivers, your boy Philip
Rivers has got a kid committed, Like all of our
old teammates are getting to that where our kids are
going to college. The tweet I sent you a couple
weeks ago had me cracking up. It was saying that
every other year, we're gonna have a Philip Rivers son
going to be a college quarterback, just like the Fast.
Speaker 7: And Furious movie series. Like that's the kind of the rhythm.
Speaker 4: Funny enough, The guy who put that tweet out, Chris Marler,
works for us here at this station.
Speaker 3: So good man, you didn't even know that when you
send it to me. But I will say this, though
it's a great tweet, but seven of.
Speaker 4: Ten or girls for Philip, So football wise, right, you're
gonna have a little bit of a gap. We're not
gonna get the banger Fast and Furious movies every other
year because you know, other sports, but just not football.
Speaker 3: With the River Skips.
Speaker 8: Next time you talk to Philip, tell them don't let
those girls do pageants.
Speaker 7: Stay as far away as possible.
Speaker 3: Oh, I love it.
Speaker 4: I love it so yeah, I definitely want to ask
you about that. You did say it was kind of
like the playoff. There give me Ben hart Socks, because look,
you and I did radio together for a very long time.
Now you do the show before my show, so we
don't get a chance to But you and I have
always had great conversations, open conversations about the future of
college football. I was like at SEC spring meetings, and
so I heard a lot from ads and coaches and
what they wanted to do. What does Ben Hartsock want
to do with the college football playoff?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 8: I mean, honestly, I think we are in an era
in society that we are designer everything. We wanted to
design every perfect possible outcome, whether you're a high school
kid trying to be a start or a middle school
kid trying to start on high schoo whether you're high
school kid trying to play in college, a college kids
trying to play in pros, the college team trying to
make it to the playoff.
Speaker 7: We want to fine tune. It's risk of mitigation.
Speaker 8: It's like ruben Feffer from a Long Game, Polly, you
want to mitigate your risk and make your desired outcome
as high as you possibly could. And the postseason, the
fact that we've had one iteration of the twelve team
playoff and immediately we're starting to fine tune it. We
want to tweak it just a little bit to get
a more perfect outcome. Like I understand there it might
be justified to make that adjustment to go from conference
championship seating to straight seating because of last year's output,
But next year it might be completely different and a
team that deserved to get a buy as a championship team,
you know, will be taken to have that taken from them,
and it will then we'll be like, well, we need
to switch it to something else. So I think all
of this stuff and the playoff is no different. We
are very much in an era where we can change
these things and fine tune them, and as a result,
maybe we'll have a more balanced bracket like we didn't
have this year.
Speaker 7: But the unattended.
Speaker 8: Consequence is the meaningfulness of the conference championship games is diminished.
Those winner go home games and or the buy that
came as a benefit of those go away.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they certainly do.
Speaker 4: And you know, the big talk down in spring meetings,
was you know, the formats going to change?
Speaker 3: Like what we wanted to change too.
Speaker 4: That was one of the changes been obviously, like changing
the seating process. But it's like, now, okay, let's get
to sixteen teams. And for me, I'm in favor of going, Hey,
five automatic qualifiers if you win your conference. I am
all for that, because winning your conference should mean something
like you should get in there and then.
Speaker 3: Eleven at largest.
Speaker 4: I do not need four bids automatically to the SEC,
four to the Big Ten.
Speaker 3: I just don't need that.
Speaker 4: I need the eleven best teams after the five champion.
And look, let's go back to a system that all
three of us won a national championship in the BCS system.
Let's go to something like that because in college baseball
and softball we have what we always talk about RPI.
Speaker 3: What do we talk about in basketball season?
Speaker 4: We got kimpalm, we got net raids, right, we got
all these rankings, all these numbers, all these analytics. We
can do something similar in football and we kind of
did with the BCS. So for me, let's get the
eleven best after the champions and no matter what conference
they're in, let's put them in.
Speaker 8: So one thing, I don't disagree with you, the five
plus eleven feels the most merit based. But what I
don't want to do is I don't want to go
back to the algorithm.
Speaker 7: I've been saying this a bunch recently, like there is
so much.
Speaker 8: The FPI for ESPN came out last week and we
talked to Bill Connolly, a lot who does SP plus
all these data metrics.
Speaker 7: A pastor said this to us. It might have been
a year or more ago.
Speaker 8: Pastor said, our kids don't need us today anymore for
any kind of information. If our kids want to know
how to clean a carburetor or build a nuclear bomb,
that's all available on the internet very very easily. But
what our kids need us is interpretation. And then the
same way with data. We've got so much. We can
find out any data point on any team at the
snap of the finger. It's the analysis of that data
and an algorithm that is you know, the KPIs, the fpis,
the SP plus. These things are algorithms that are only
as good as the formulas that you put into it.
Speaker 7: That might be weighted.
Speaker 8: You know what one team or one guy thinks that
third down percentage is weighted higher than red zone efficiency,
and so I want to have humans be involved in
the analysis all the way to the end. That eye
test matters to me. And I'm not saying.
Speaker 7: Only ballplayers or coaches can be the people to do it.
Speaker 8: There's plenty of people that have never stepped foot on
a field that know how to now analyze football. The
BCS era, remember we want bananas. The sporting public went
bananas because we can't have just computers making this decision.
We computers can't watch football. So I want to make
the people in the room the committee. Maybe you could
make that more transparent. You could make a c span
and live stream that that process. I want the humans
in the building, one because I think the human eye
is necessary. And two, I think the biases that you
can never get away from. Eight years in the radio,
I've learned you're not gonna eliminate all bias. Can I
be objective towards my team? Can you be objective towards
your team? Absolutely? But your lived experience gives you a
little different worldview. And that's part of college football's charm
is some of the unreasonable and the human foiable nature
of it all.
Speaker 2: I think you said it best.
Speaker 10: As long as people have transparency in anything, especially with this,
I think we can all at least get on board
with it, Like you make a decision. I disagree with
thee whatever it is, at least I know why you're
not locked in a room for hours and then you'll
just come and tell us and we have to accept it.
But I think we can all agree that there's not
a perfect system. Whether you use algorithms, computers, people, whatever
it is, there's gonna be people that get pissed off.
There's gonna be arguments made against. I think all we
can hope for as fans of college football is that
they're improvement. We want to see the most deserving and
we want to see the best. How do you figure
out that combination? So there's never a perfect situation, So.
Speaker 3: No, there's not.
Speaker 4: But I mean the transparency they are talking about, I
think that would help. I always talk about this, and
Ben's heard me go off on this, like if an
official makes a bad call, because if you threw an interception,
if Ben missed the block, if I fumbled, we had
to answer the question after the game count why did
you do it?
Speaker 3: What happened? And I would love that from officials.
Speaker 4: Hey, I called this because I saw this kind of
the same system, Like, hey, let's get in those rooms.
You know how many people ben you do know would
watch that like behind the doors college Football Playoff Committee
and you know whatever analytics that they're using, and they're
going over it and hear those conversations of what those
ads and presidents, former coaches. I would tune into every
single minute of that.
Speaker 8: You guys said, well, hold on before I start my story,
are you guys on a heart out?
Speaker 3: Do I have a heart out?
Speaker 11: No?
Speaker 3: No, Yeah, we had a letter rip.
Speaker 6: Okay, So.
Speaker 8: You guys we were all in locker rooms when the
analytics era really washed over the NFL. Do you guys
remember your first interactions with analytics?
Speaker 3: I mean no, I do.
Speaker 4: We had so we brought in somebody from the military
into San Diego that I was probably twenty twelve and
it was a former marine, and they like they would
start to go over different things with us as far
as you know, analytics to everything like pass protections and
footwork and like all those things.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they brought in somebody for sure.
Speaker 7: So when I was it was this was during the
Panthers era.
Speaker 6: For me.
Speaker 8: So eleven, twelve, thirteen, one of those years, we were
down in the weight room the day after a Sunday game.
We're on a Monday light workout. You know, y'all go
through the corrections from the previous day. John Mascow, the
O line coach for the team, came down and he
goes boys by the scouts and the front office people upstairs.
Speaker 7: They've got this new thing called.
Speaker 6: Pro Football Focus, and they've.
Speaker 7: Got this information that these guys have given every one
of you jokers a great yeh.
Speaker 8: And the front office people upstairs have given us to
this info, to these coaches, this new data, and they
say that we should make this part of our analysis.
This should be part of our evaluation of you, day
in day out.
Speaker 3: And what do we do.
Speaker 7: We're like a bunch of nerds. These guys don't know ball.
You're telling me that some guy in.
Speaker 8: The basement of his mom's of his mom's house is
going to be able to say no, whether or not.
Speaker 7: Me and so and so executed a double.
Speaker 9: Team like well what I've wrote it at a well
fast forward, real quick.
Speaker 8: They had it broken down by team, They had us
broken down by offensive unit. They had it broke it
down a lot of different ways in that era. And
now remember this was early. They had us broke down
by tight ends. Would you like to know who was
the number one over all ranked tight end in the
entirety of the NFL in that early Pro Football Focus era.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna say it's your favorite Hart, this guy, this
guy and I.
Speaker 8: We were like, whoa, whoa wait, let's let these guys cook.
Speaker 7: They're onto something here. Maybe they know something we don't.
Oh man, we had the biggest laugh at that expense.
Speaker 8: But see, that's the point is that there was an
out Pro Football Focus has.
Speaker 7: Got an algorithm, ESPN's got an algorithm. On Three's got
an algorithm, and it's only as good.
Speaker 8: And for that era, it was early in that formula
to where they had misweighted run blocking. I could handle
myself at the point of attack. I get these two
jumper cables on you.
Speaker 7: I'm going to shock you, right.
Speaker 5: But they had waited the run block too much and
the pass protection too much, but not yet because I
had a zero on the route running capability or passes received.
Speaker 8: So that that it was a good example for me
to point out these algorithms are good as a tool,
but they're not the only tool that we should use.
Speaker 6: No.
Speaker 4: I mean, I'm right there with you. I think it
can certainly be something that you use. And just like
look when I start talking about RPI and NET and
kim paly all those things, that's not how it's seeded.
But it is something that they use and it is
heavily involved in the committee because basketball has a committee,
Football has it, you know, a committee, Baseball has a committee.
All of these sports have committees. But those other sports,
you know, have that, Hey, their strength to schedule. Hey,
Ohio State this year, they had to go, you know,
to Oregon, they had to go to Illinois, and they
had to go to Michigan.
Speaker 3: Like that should mean something.
Speaker 4: So that's what I'm talking about with having that analytic
strength to schedule and having because that's what we talk
about with RPI. It's like this seems fourteenth in the country,
but they got the third highest RPI because man, did
you see who those son of a guns had to
play on the road this year? And that's why I
want to use that analytic Although it's not seeding it
like a computer, humans are still doing it, but they
have that resource.
Speaker 8: Yeah, and to go back to the question of like,
what do we want to change, what do we want
to see? I love I think the SEC was floating
this some of on championship weekend, conference championship weekend and
having one verse two obviously being in the championship game,
but then those bonus games that we got.
Speaker 7: We got that.
Speaker 8: During COVID right three verse four would face off five
verse six. Kind of a good on good as in
a world where hopefully two or three and four and
four and five are going to be competing for justification
to convince the committee we're good enough to make one
of those at large bids. I think that's a really
interesting and compelling and of course the networks are going
to love it because it's content and more games or
as conference championship weekends usually just the championship games. More
content is never a bad thing.
Speaker 3: I like that idea been on the way out here.
Speaker 4: You and I have talked a lot of college baseball before,
and I got with Bobby yesterday. I might look, hey,
there's no Big ten teams. You know the old Big
ten UCLA sure is in there. Can I count on
you to root for the LSU Tigers in the College
World Series.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 8: I mean I'm wanting to go down to Rocos Bar
and order a bunch of jello shots.
Speaker 7: Man, I'm doing my part. I'm ready to chip in.
Speaker 3: Look have RV, will travel. That's all you got to
tell me.
Speaker 4: I know it's busy right now, it's got it's it's
taking care of the pageant. But if it needs to
go to Omaha, you let me know. We've talked about
that before. I mean, you said you would pick me
up in Treeport.
Speaker 8: I know every year I say I'm going to get
to more college basketball games, and then I don't, and
then I want to get to Omaha, and I want
to get to a baseball.
Speaker 7: Game or softball to World Series, and I haven't.
Speaker 8: These kids, man, pageant life's just sucking all my lass,
my younger, it's you know, pageant life.
Speaker 2: Man.
Speaker 7: I'm telling you guys, your daughters keep them away from pageants.
Speaker 8: I heard owning horses was the most expensive extracurricular a
human can have.
Speaker 7: No, it's pageants. Do not do pageants.
Speaker 4: Oh hey, well you know now that you're in it,
best of luck. I've had the chance to meet your daughter,
so certainly rooting for her. Hope she goes out there
and wins Miss Georgia and moves on, and you've got
more money to spend.
Speaker 7: Sr Yo, Man, Miss America is a whole news.
Speaker 2: Let me imagine how many days, how many days he's.
Speaker 4: Going to be there for twenty four days if we
go Miss America. So hey, best of luck, Ben, you're
the man. We appreciate it, sir, and look forward to
the next conversation. Always appreciate you guys, have good one,
all right, you as well? Our guy, Ben Hart Sock,
Ohio state legend, a decade in the NFL in my
colleague at serious XM.
Speaker 3: Always one of my favorites.
Speaker 2: Man, he's crushing it. Man. Yeah, I don't know. I've
never spoke to him before, but I think he'd be I'll.
Speaker 3: Never beer with.
Speaker 4: Yes, Yes, he has got stories on stories on stories.
Speaker 2: Uh huh.
Speaker 3: He had.
Speaker 4: Like I said, you played a decade in the NFL,
and he played with the Colts and Peyton Manning and
he played with Carolina so Greg Olsen and kind of
that era of Carolina.
Speaker 3: Then also played for the Falcons. It's funny.
Speaker 4: He played for the Falcons I think for a year
and that's where he chose to live. So he's from Ohio,
played at Ohio State, longtime cold, longtime panther one year
with the Falcons, and that's where he lives.
Speaker 10: Was it like, uh, it's whereas that His wife just
loved it. I fell in love with him. Love it
good for them, you know. It's it's funny because every
parent is you talk to all these parents, you know,
our kids are at the age are still figuring out
what they want to do. But are parents with older
kids everything they do, They're like, oh, don't let your
kids play soccer. Oh, don't let him swim, don't let
them volleyball, do it, don't let them do this. But
I think he might be the one that's right there
on the whole. That's that's some long days expensive. My
wife was pageant. Yeah, yeah, so I don't know. I
don't I don't even really know her stance with my
little girls in the pageant pageant world. So I'll being
addressed to see I'm definitely going to relay this information.
Speaker 2: Over though for sure ten days.
Speaker 3: See, but you're you're I know, we got to take
a break.
Speaker 4: But like, so I have odd daughter, you have multiple daughters, right,
and so like you might get away with that conversation like, hey,
if we do this once, you know we're gonna do
it twice. Like it's really expensive, Like the fact that
we only have one daughter and four boys. I know
that kid's gonna be like, oh really remember that travel
baseball fee that we paid. Remember that tournament that we
went to and spent thousands of dollars saying in a hotel.
You remember that seven on seven tournament we had to
travel across the country for and you didn't bat deny. Yeah,
go buy the dress. I mean it's gonna be the
whole conversation. Yeah, fair points, absolutely so. Yeah, we got break.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we do.
Speaker 4: We got Jerry Mitchell in about ten minutes from now
joining us to break down LSU VERSUS Arkansas and really
the entire College World Series. We'll do that when we
jump back here. It is oh off the bench right
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Speaker 1: Two two thousand and seven. Champs Purple and Gold to
the core. This is off the Bench with Hester and Flynn,
Matt and Rougees go to for all things Louisiana sports.
Speaker 3: You know, I love bring the heat this one.
Speaker 4: I love my R and B Thursdays we might have
Dawson Creek Tuesdays here.
Speaker 7: I'm gonna have to really go to the well on
that one.
Speaker 4: I got you, Okay, I got you. Gwenn's got you too.
Don't like, don't let this man try to be too cool. Okay,
let me tell you something I have I have. Listen.
I've got vivid memories of West Campus apartment. It was
Kyle Williams, Matt Flynn, Peter Dakowski on the top floor, Me,
Luke Sanders, Craig Stouts in the middle floor.
Speaker 3: And I would go up to their apartment.
Speaker 4: And we would watch reruns of Dawson's Creek on TBS.
Speaker 2: Nine to ten, govery morning. It was our stories.
Speaker 3: It was our stories.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we were getting you know, we were getting back
from workouts, about to go to class.
Speaker 3: Relax. We went to class because we had to, and
little Dawson's Creek. We went to class when we knew
we had to go to class.
Speaker 4: That is a art when you had a class checker
and you knew how to be checked in the class,
but also the right door to sneak out of set
class and avoid the class checker.
Speaker 3: Look, I'm not saying that school wasn't important. It was.
Speaker 4: I graduated with honors from LSU, all right, But you
know when you go to class, Matt, and you know
when you don't have to go to class, you know
who to ask the right person for notes, and if
you're really smart, you get your girlfriend who's going to
be your wife, to take the same classes as you do.
Speaker 2: You know, being a student athlete's a delicate balance.
Speaker 4: You're basically delicate an employee of the university and you
happen to go to school as well.
Speaker 3: Back then, like I felt like, do I work for LSU?
Speaker 10: I think my kids are actually the cars. I'm not
going to like really give the boy to our three
on that way.
Speaker 4: Hey, Flynn, children, if you want the full rundown on
your father, I got you.
Speaker 3: You let me know. Huck school, I see you. No,
that's what I'm saying. No it is.
Speaker 4: I'm saying that school is important, but there is a
way so you get to college. There is a way
when you're in college to make sure you're doing all
the right things.
Speaker 3: But also you don't have to.
Speaker 2: Be in there. He's got to take care of your business.
He got to take care of that, Bene.
Speaker 4: Let me tell you when when me and Steltz went
into Ted White's office, who was you know, our academic
counselor the man he was, the man he was in
was he in like Major League or Angels in the Outfield.
Speaker 3: He was an extra in one of those movies.
Speaker 4: Anyways, we go into Ted's office and he's like, hey, guys,
you're a freshman. You got to go to study hall
and our schedule was brutal. So go into study hall
from seven to nine at night after you finish practice
and all that.
Speaker 3: Like it was miserable.
Speaker 4: It is what it is that it was terrible just
because you didn't get home till like nine thirty.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 4: He's like, but but if you two goofballs make over
a three to two five your first semester, I'm never
gonna see you again unless you really mess up your
first semester on campus. If you make over a three
to two five, you're done. That's all I had to hear.
Speaker 10: Yeah, they they stopped class checking you at least when
we were I think the older we got, the more
we didn't have to go to study hall. Yeah, you
have to go to study hall if you take care
of business. You got to move off campus after a year.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that was a big deal. I was tied into it. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So yeah, just you gotta start out strong early.
Speaker 3: Exactly.
Speaker 4: You fool them early and then you continue to trick
them along the way, and then you graduate with honors
our general Studies degree.
Speaker 10: That was one of the biggest, like like when you
look at regrets, that was one of the biggest ones
I have because I did. I went into college not
really know what I wanted to study. I know I
wanted to play football. If I would have like enjoyed
and like been into the classes, it would have been
a lot different stories. But I was, you know, I
was taking classes with like twenty five other football people,
football players.
Speaker 4: Yeah, then that was it, you get it. And then
we got we got a guy jar Mitchell set to
join us. Yeah, there's a lot of classes I have
with uh no, only football, but like Big Baby Davis
Tyris Thomas, Oh.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, football, basketball, we were all intermingled.
Speaker 4: Baseball had did their own thing, like baseball didn't hang
out with us. Our football and basketball hung out Baseball
guys like they didn't.
Speaker 3: They did their own thing, like they didn't want to
hang out with us. Yeah, it's fine.
Speaker 4: It is funny though, Like so one of like I
had a math minor in college, like Matt just is
kind of my thing. Like English certainly not my thing,
but math was. I didn't see many athletes in that class.
In those math classes.
Speaker 6: I was taking.
Speaker 10: Not a lot of athletes that winter session class I took,
I talked about last week, you gotta shove a whole
semester into two weeks.
Speaker 2: I was the only athlete in that one.
Speaker 4: I bet you were, all right, we are going to
set very cool cool. It is very I mean, look,
we didn't say I didn't say anything bad.
Speaker 3: What do we say that was bad?
Speaker 2: Nothing? We spoke truth is all right, some knowledge we.
Speaker 4: Are going to go to break when we come back.
Jared Mitchell, lsu Legend SEC Network will join us.
Speaker 3: Right here on TV. Off the bench, all right, go
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Speaker 3: Pelicanroof dot com.
Speaker 10: Yeah, a new roof is a big deal, right It's
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three four from.
Speaker 1: The locker room to the airwaves. Gets off the bench
with Jacob Hester and Matt Flynn.
Speaker 4: All right, then, welcome back in OTB one four five
ESPN Baton Rouge. Gonna go now to one of our
former teammates now crushing it on the SEC network. Mister
Jerry Mitchell joins the show. Now, j Mitch, how you doing, sir?
Always a pleasure.
Speaker 6: I'm feeling great. How you boys?
Speaker 3: Doing.
Speaker 6: Man, how y'all living?
Speaker 3: We are doing fantastic? Hey how about this?
Speaker 4: A week into doing the show, Flynn showed up seven
days in a row, So shout out to Flynn.
Speaker 3: But J Mitch, he's about to go out of town
for like a week.
Speaker 6: Hey, hey, we all wish you could be.
Speaker 2: Seven days is a lot. I need a break, Bud,
and listen.
Speaker 11: I'm used to us being like in this kind of setting,
but like we all used to have to shut up
and like just let Matt talk, like.
Speaker 3: So like yes exactly, and we're in the huddle.
Speaker 4: He's like, shut up, you peasants, let me talk, and
he tries to do the same thing here. J Mitch Man,
I am so happy for you. You're crushing it on
the SEC network. Love seeing our LSU brethren on there,
even though you have to put up with part time
Peter Burns.
Speaker 3: We apologize for that portion of.
Speaker 4: It, but man, love seeing you on there. And how Hey,
how are you going to take in Omaha like that?
Speaker 3: Do you know? Are you gonna be in studio for that?
Speaker 6: No?
Speaker 11: So I'm gonna be home for that. I depends. I'm
thinking about going up there. On the back app of
twenty three. We went up there for like the first
five days, which happened to be LSU's like first two games, Yeah,
which was great. Like now and now I'm like, all right,
well I'm not going up there the first half of
this thing, so like past the weekend, I think I'm
thinking about going up there for like the back half
or whatever else we can kind of get through at
that point.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Hey, it's gonna be a tough opening match up.
Speaker 4: Now It's like it's funny because it's like the toughest
matchup possible for both teams, for Arkansas for LSU when
you look at the field. But it is a team
Jay Minch that you had a series with earlier. You
do take two of three there, Like, does that give
you any kind of you know, mental edge over Arkansas,
Like knowing that you did take the series from them,
even though it wasn't Baton rouge, Like, is that something
you can take or is it almost like a complete
reset because these teams are different.
Speaker 11: Now, yeah, I think you take it and the reasons
why you take it too. Listen, they played them, I
want to up to say in early May, right, like
it wasn't that long ago, it was. It's in the
back half of the SEC schedule, and I think at
the time Arkansas was rolling, they were playing really well.
That had just swept Texas I believe a week or
a week or two weeks before that. Yeah, and you
got their best shot, like they they played well against you,
and you still beat them, and you had a chance
to sweep going in a Sunday and into that game
as well. So I do think that's something that you
could kind of take the mental edge over them. Obviously,
you're not playing in bat nerves at times. That's a
little bit different for both teams. But with that being said,
like you're gonna get I would imagine, like I can't
see it happen in any other way, but I would
imagine you're probably gonna get Zach group game one. Although
Arkansas did throw gauge wood in that last game that
they played, and they only threw them for like forty
eight pitches, so I don't I'm wondering why at that
point they had gotten a big league on a big lead.
I'm wondering why they did that at that point. But
I would imagine it's gonna be Zach rupe. But this
is a game where like man I think at this
time of the year, Like I truly think at this
time of the year, it is essential for your offensive
players to perform. That your stars kind of got to
show up on that side of the ball because think
about like the pressure points if you will, and playing
in a super regional and or playing in Omaha where
it's I would much rather that pressure if you will
be spread out among nine bats in the lineup than
it for it to be all on my pitcher having
to keep teams at bay had one to two to
three runs. So, like, I think it's important that the
bats show up at this time of the year.
Speaker 6: That way, you.
Speaker 11: Give some room for mistake and era, and you allow
the pitcher to kind of settle in that much easier.
Speaker 10: Yeah, it kind of seems like the bats are heating
up and are pretty hot right now, so I think
as LSU fans, we're feeling pretty good about it. Javitch,
I want to talk ask you a question that we
actually got asked in our audience chat earlier in the day. Well,
first of all, congrats on the success that you're killing it.
Love watching you out there, But we got to ask earlier,
like when teams get to get to Omaha in the
College World Series start. Do you think that they should
be reseeded?
Speaker 11: So for me, not Omaha. Here's where I have a
problem at when it comes to that entire term. And
I do think like as easy as things to get
fixed in football when the when the noise gets loud,
I think if the same noise was around college baseball,
things will get fixed.
Speaker 6: So you play out a fifty six.
Speaker 11: Game schedule and then they go ahead and see regional
host sites, but they give them to what is called
the top sixteen national seeds. So when you're in that situation,
why on earth are you conceding home field advantage when
teams have to come to you. So if I'm the
number one team in a regional and there's four, right,
the higher sheet seeds should always be the higher be
the home team.
Speaker 3: Yep.
Speaker 6: So when you get to what was.
Speaker 11: LSU's a game seven win all game seven in your
own regional and you're playing a number four seed, number
three seed, number two, it doesn't matter. Why is LSU
the away team? We played all season for this? This
is why you gave me the home site because I'm
the better team, so I should be getting home field
advantage at its truest form in that situation, and then
same thing goes for the super Regional. I got this
spot based off of how we performed throughout the year,
So why on earth are we switching home and away?
That doesn't make any sense to me, right, like that
just that's crazy to me, And I think that's the
kind of things I think. I'm just like that, doesn't
I get what you're trying to do. But then we
just go ahead, Why don't we just go play at
a neutral site? Then if that's what we're gonna do.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm with you there, because like the rule and
the tiebreak, it's like, okay, which team hasn't been the
home team? Like, whichever team hasn't been that, like you're
going to get it in the regional play, and look,
we know, like that could have cost you in regional play.
Like you're sitting there game number seven and you're the
away team, and sure you get your own dugout in
locker room, but still like it matters who has the
final three outs there. It didn't get kind of loud though,
So maybe Jay Mitchell, that is something that maybe might
get changed.
Speaker 6: I hope. So I really think they need to change that.
Speaker 11: I just think, like I said, game seven, so I
get it man, like you get your own crowd.
Speaker 6: So like that part of it doesn't really go away.
Speaker 11: Yeah, but think about football, if we're going into an overtime,
everybody wants the chance to pick to play defense first,
to know what.
Speaker 6: You got to do, right, No one's choosing.
Speaker 11: No one's truly choosing in I want to do it first,
and I have to know what I have to do
like that just that's the case of no one would
ever do that.
Speaker 6: So like that's that's kind of where I'm at with
l No.
Speaker 4: It's a good analogy. I like that when they're hey,
I do want to ask you though, because you've done
mean you've done it all football and baseball, so you've
gone through different grinds of you know, playing in the
SEC championship game and then a BCS national championship game
in the football sided thing.
Speaker 3: But omaha's a different beast.
Speaker 4: Like Omaha, if you're there and you go win a
national championship, you're there for a long time. Like what
is the most difficult part about that grind? Like when
you go you don't really know how long you're going
to be there and then if you do win that
national championship again like mentally, I know physically as well,
Like you have to be exhausted by the end of
that run.
Speaker 3: What's that like going through the totality of Omaha.
Speaker 6: Yeah, there's a couple of things.
Speaker 11: The first thing you point at too, is it's a
huge point, right, like you if you win from start
to finish, you're pretty much there for like two a
little bit over two weeks, I believe, which a lot
of people don't realize. Like that's a long time to
be like completely away from the house, to be on
the road and like not be in your quote unquote routine, right,
Like it's a go while to be that situation. There's
also like when you get there, even compared to SEC stadiums,
just the first time you're probably going to a lot
of those guys are playing with like a second deck.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 11: I know it was obviously LSU went or not even
this year because they played in Frisco, but like in
the past they played in the Shriner's Classic in Houston,
where you're finally playing with the second deck of stadium.
Like that's a different view when you're on the field
as well, like it finding the ball, continuing to keep
finding the ball in the outfield is that's something completely different.
So like that's something about it too. But I also
think the suspense and the drama of postseason baseball over
the course of two weeks, like that, once again, it
becomes a draining thing. Now it's it's great, it's a
great field, but like when the game's over, it becomes
a you come so far down it because it's I
mean the same thing like in football, man, like you
playing one game week, it's tough, but imagine like having
not just physically emotionally, having to play like three games
in one week.
Speaker 6: That's tough.
Speaker 11: Yeah, right, And I think all those things combined and
being able to stay disciplined focusing like on that like
short and narrow for that it's tough to do and
it makes it hard. And I think the best teams
kind of obviously end up being in being in the
end of it, because it's there's a lot of elements
in terms of staying focused that you have to do.
Speaker 4: One of the things that for LSU that they've struggled against.
If we get into the matchup against Arkansas, you mentioned
like Newton might be the starting pitcher there. Lefties have
given LSU some trouble like in the past, and so like,
I wonder how much of that goes into all these different,
you know, decisions, and like Anthony Iinsen had a big
day against Arkansas in the regular season, Like all the
little minute changes in the lineup, that's going to be
fascinating to kind of play out there, because like this
is your one opportunity, and so like, what do you
think LSU is going to do as far as what
they do on the mound.
Speaker 11: So I would imagine it's probably gonna be lefty lefty
matchup in that game one. I think Zach Rut's gonna
throw for them, and I'm pretty sure Kid's gonna throw
for LSU at that point.
Speaker 6: I think it's imperative.
Speaker 11: If you remember, go back to the Super Regional Game one,
they faced a lefty uh from why am I forgetting
the name? They faced the lefty from the team they
just played West Virginia, and his plan in that game
was he really wanted to bust all of the hitters in,
particularly the right handed hitters, and very early on in
the game you could see you kind of made the
adjustment and understood. Okay, if this is what you're gonna do,
We're just gonna really get on top of the plate.
We're not gonna give you room for era off the
plate inside, and if you miss over the plate, we
hammer you right. And that's kind of where they went,
and they were able to execute that game plan.
Speaker 3: Like to a t.
Speaker 6: There was five I think there was eight walks.
Speaker 11: I think there was five hit batters, and really three
swings turned into eleven runs. Right, So, like, I think
it's gonna be imperative for them if they face Zach
Routine that game, where I would expect him to at
some level neutralized the left handed bats in that lineup.
But it's gonna take guys like Barre Jones and Stephen
Stephen Milin from the right side. Obviously it's a switch
hitter from the right side gonna take. Don't guys like
Daniel Dickinson's gonna take guys like Ethan, those guys, Luis Hernandez, those.
Speaker 6: Guys in a lineup.
Speaker 11: I am really interested to see how they're able to
fare against them, because I do think if you're able
to put runners on and you're able to push some across,
it makes it tough and guys like so like, we
got two weekends back to back weekends. If you think
about it, the regionals in the super regions where the
one and two ace that we have the one A,
one B. However you want to look at it, those
guys both went seven plus in the regions and it
was shut down baseball. And then when you got to
the Super regional. I'm not saying that they threw bad
at all, because it felt like to me the mark
of what an old school starting pitcher was where it
doesn't matter what the other team is scoring, you're always
keeping us in the game. So if that calls for
we scored sixteen, I believe in game one, if that
calls for you going seven and giving up eight seven runs,
so be it, because when you leave, we still have
a big lead or we're still within striking range of
winning the ball game.
Speaker 6: That used to be what the mark of a really
good starting pitcher was.
Speaker 11: Every time they got out out there, no matter what
the score was, they gave you a chance to win
the game.
Speaker 6: And you saw both sides of that.
Speaker 11: So I do think like those two guys are and
then obviously having Caden Game one, he's going to give
you a chance to win. Now, it's can you do
the little things to push those runs across across that
you need to win the ball game.
Speaker 10: Jared, I'm always interested in diving, like into the mindset
of an athlete and like yourself being like a former
really accomplished dual dual sport athlete. In football, when you
beat somebody, it's always they always say it's hard to
beat somebody twice, like a good team twice. So you
beat beat somebody in the regular season, Okay, now all
of a sudden, I got to go play him in
a conference championship game or bowl game or whatever it is.
It's the way the adages. Man, it's always hard to
beat someone twice. Beat someone ty Well els you swept
Arkansas two to three, two out of three. That's what
they won the series. So is it the same kind
of mindset going into when you have to play somebody
again that you've already beaten in the same season, knowing
that they're a really good team. Is it kind of
the same like mental block, mental barrier hurdle that you
have to overcome that you that you did.
Speaker 2: And in the football world.
Speaker 11: I think it can and it can't be, and there's
two different ways of it being that way. I think
if it is, it's a to like go back to
Friday night LSU Arkansas, if you're able to get to
Zach root early, get some runner on, push some runs across.
I do think in his mind at that point it's
maybe I don't have my best stuff or all. It's
they're making it tough for me again. And then when
in that same mindset, it's if you you throw Kde
and he throws well, and the next guy you bring
out of somebody that maybe got him last time as well,
I think that same mindset starts to creep.
Speaker 3: Well.
Speaker 11: I do you think it changes in baseball in terms
of let's say Zach Rude goes out there and he shoves,
and then they bring out somebody that maybe LSU didn't
hit well before. That's where I think it kind of changes,
because now that dugout would feel like, oh this is
not the same this. We look different this time, right,
Like we're a different team, we got a different performance.
But when things kind of start going the way they
went before, yeah, I do think team started looking at
like all right here we go, you know, right.
Speaker 4: All right there he is our guy, Jared Mitchell, good
enough to join us here, great form teammate of ours.
Also star at LSU Baseball SEC Network star now. J Mitch,
we appreciate the time as always. Man, if you do
make it up to omahall enjoy the experience and just
hey costs let us know the vibe.
Speaker 11: Yeah, yeah, I give you timey on a.
Speaker 2: One hundred and forty three yards two thousand and seven.
Speaker 3: I know right there.
Speaker 2: J Mitch.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, man, Hey, you're the you're the man. We appreciate it. Hey, hey,
if you just gave you a better ball, you'd at
least two hundred.
Speaker 2: Yeard any question, I a couple of I.
Speaker 4: Just appreciate it, man, that's all right, that's all right,
J Mitch, we appreciate it, brother, all right, boys, take
it easy.
Speaker 3: All right.
Speaker 4: There he is Jared Mitchell, good enough to join us here.
Get the guy a better ball. I know A couple
behind him.
Speaker 3: Uh yeah, show.
Speaker 12: I mean there was a game you missed the hot route.
I remember that. It was he a freshman, young, Yeah,
he's young. He was young, rich freshman freshman, maybe richer freshman.
It didn't really matter because we gotta go to break
more OTB when we come.
Speaker 1: Back off the bench.
Speaker 3: You know what's better than going to Omaha?
Speaker 2: Matt, I do I know?
Speaker 3: It's better being in omahall with a dosecis.
Speaker 2: Lots of do secies.
Speaker 4: Responsibly uh, tailgate in the parking lot about to watch LSU.
Speaker 2: Versus Arkansas and some lawn chairs.
Speaker 4: And we're not sharing those do sequis with the pigs.
Speaker 3: These are our dosecis.
Speaker 2: Arkansas fans probably drinking trash beer.
Speaker 4: Yeah, probably like just you know that one that you
go in there and you buy the flat and it's like, hey,
that will be four bucks.
Speaker 3: You're getting four buck beer. You're not getting an ice
cool dosectis.
Speaker 2: That's what type of beer I'm about to be having.
Speaker 3: I hate you.
Speaker 10: A little vacation beer, a little airport beer, maybe a
beach beer. Vacation a right, so we'll be if you're
playing it on deleting some beers responsibly go for dose.
He'll pick up some dose sekis.
Speaker 1: From players to legends, Hester and FLYNT breakdown L s
U football like only champions can.
Speaker 4: All right, man, welcome I game OTB one four five
ESPN baton rouge.
Speaker 3: You're on this Tuesday morning and I.
Speaker 2: Have the legends legendary time. Man.
Speaker 3: Sure, I mean less of the legend. Did I say,
you're saying that's where we got it from?
Speaker 4: Mean, look, we've we've had like great guests at the
thirty Whoops. I'm not even saying we'll get better because
we probably won't.
Speaker 2: Actually, we went pretty long before the guests.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 2: That's all nice people. We'll get better.
Speaker 3: Let me hit the chest shout out.
Speaker 2: I got Jamie in the chat said I was doing good.
Speaker 3: For two weeks until you leave us for shot days.
Nick Underhill, New Orleans Dot Football. When would jump back
on no TV?
Speaker 1: Off the bench