Do you give a **** about Wimbledon?

Wes Mitchell of Gamecock Central joins the show at 3:20pm!

Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat up here. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat up here. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. You know, when we were all going through school diesel on Fridays, we all wanted it to be a movie day or a game day because let’s be honest, nobody wants to work on Friday. It’s mail it in Friday if you will. But we’re not going to mail it in on the Fan Upstate. But we are going to start the show with a game that may last 6 seconds. It may last 16 seconds. It may last 6 minutes. We really don’t know. But that’s what we’re doing to keep it a buck with you. We don’t know how long the game will last, but the game is titled, and by the way, we need the toll’s help. The game is titled, “How long can we do a radio segment about Wimbledon?” Diesel, are you up for it? This sounds kind of like um telling a woman she’s fat and finding out how long it’s going to take for her to hit you. Yeah. Or uh being in a china shop with a bull and wondering how long it’s going to take to get gourded. Well, that’s where we are. Yeah, this is where we are. That’s where we are. And again, we do have a segment planned in this very We don’t have a topic rather for this very first segment. Uh but I’ll tell you this, I don’t know how many people out there in the upstate of South Carolina actually give a rip about Wimbledon. You would think that there would be a few, right? There there’s high school tennis programs all over the place. Clemson and Upstate and Wford and Ferman, they all have tennis teams. You would think that they them their families, they would want to talk about it. But not once, Cole, in the roughly five years, six years that I’ve worked for this radio station, the Fan Upstate before that ESPN Upstate, not once has anyone ever called in to talk about tennis. Not once. Unless it’s about like, “Hey, did you see that hot girl playing tennis at the at Wimbledon or at the Open or whatever.” So, it may last, like I said, it may last longer than we expect, but here’s the goal. Diesel and I are going to start this radio segment with a boxing bell start round sound effect, and we’re going to time ourselves, and we need the help of the tollos on this Friday. If you want to contribute to the conversation about Wimbledon, you will extend our segment length. If not, like I said, this thing may fall flat on its face. We can diesel if you want to. We can go without using the internet at our disposal just to keep it true. I’m not going to use the internet at all. Let’s see what we can do. How long this thing truly does last. How much do you really know about Wimbledon without You’re about to find out. Alex Guess says tennis yawn. See, that’s what I’m saying. So, here we go. Ready? I’m going to sound the uh the boxing bell start at 30330. Oh god. In five, four, 3, two, one. The segment has started. Diesel, let’s talk Wimbledon. Yeah, Wimbledon is a tennis tournament. Uh, it’s it’s held in New York City. I I just learned something new. New York City. New York State, right? It is. Uh, are you sure about that? It attracts the world’s best um best what? Tennis players. It attracts celebrities. You see celebrities there all the time. Do celebrities actually attend? Yeah. Okay. That’s about all I got. I learned I learned in in your 14 seconds that it was in New York. I didn’t know that. So, I learned something new today. By the way, we are at uh 40 seconds now into the segment conversation. I’ll tell you what I know about Wimbledon. It’ll kind of echo what you said. It happens in the summertime. Oh, I was wrong about one of those facts. It’s not New York. Not in New York. It’s in England. The US Open is held in New York. Oh my god. That’s the U. The US Open is in New York. I see. I don’t know. So, uh Oh, I do know that they make them play in white uniforms. They Oh, yes. Yes, they play. Yeah, I know that. Um grass courts. What’s the guy on NBA on TNT uh that host the show? Uh Ernie, he likes tennis. I saw him at a tennis match not long ago, like on TV. So, I know that they do wear all white. It’s across the pond. Y and that’s about it. That’s about it. I mean, I’m sorry, but that’s that’s about all I know when it comes to anything else. Can you name um Can you name one of the top 20 men’s tennis players in the world right now? Roger uh the guy with the last name starts with an F. Is he still playing? Roger Federer. Yes. Is he still playing? Uh I think he was retired. Oh, okay then. I don’t know. I think he’s retired. Uh, stop me when you hear a name that you’ve heard before. Okay. Going from 20 up to number one. Uh, Karen Chakenoff, Francisco Karano, Yugo Hbert, Yakob Mensic, Arthur Fields, Casper RDE, Andre Rublev. Hey, guess what? I’m I’m not going to stop you. Tommy Paul, Francis Tfo, no. Alex Demanor, no. Uh, Ben Shelton, no. Daniel Medvidev, no. Holaroon, no. Lorenzo Museetti, no. NovakJokovic. Yeah, heard that name. I’ve heard it. I’ve heard it. NovakJokovic, rated the sixth highest ranked tennis player in the world. Taylor Fritz, Jack Draper, Alexander Zerev, Carlos Alcarez, and Yannik Center. Well, ladies and gentlemen, that’ll do it. And I recognized Yannik Center’s name, but I could not have pulled that out of the ether off the top of my head. No way. 21. That’s three minutes. There you go. Three minutes, Diesel. That’s three minutes of conversation that we just had. And we had to use the uh This conversation never happened, by the way. We get in trouble. This sport blows. We had to use the uh the internet. Well, this sport makes you want to I just want to do a header off the top of the press box. Unfortunately, it’s too low. It wouldn’t kill me. I love that that audio and then So, there we go. We spent three minutes on the fan upstate about tennis. I’m sure Rob Brown could, you know, spend 20 minutes on it. Uh but Diesel and I know that tell us that we’re all idiots and we don’t know what we’re talking about for not following tennis. But we also are going to uh keep it real with you and we all know that you really don’t care about this. I genuinely believe that you cannot care enough about every sport to have real opinions about every sport. So I’ll say this, the guy that’s hosting for Rich Eisen today did a had a good point about an hour ago talking about the uh tournament. I don’t know if it was about the tournament, but I kind of correlated Diesel with Wimbledon. He was talking about how in sports, and I really thought this was well done. He was talking about how in sports, Diesel, you have to have a rooting interest to watch. You know, not a lot of people really watch sports that don’t have a rooting interest. And I thought that went well. Uh, by the way, caller, we lost you at 844 3263663 if you want to call back in. I thought that went well with Wimbledon Diesel because maybe, just maybe, that’s the case. Maybe we just don’t know anybody in the tournament in Wimbledon and we just don’t have a rooting interest and for that reason we don’t really care. Well, when it was when it was Andy Rodic, one of the best players in the world. I don’t know if you ever reached world number one. When it was Pete Sampris and Andre Agassy, Americans were kind of running the tennis world. And I think that’s the last time Americans gave a rip. Like we cared a little bit about the women’s side of tennis when Serena and Venus were ripping it apart. Yeah. Because Americans like exceptionalism, right? We we want to be the best at everything. And I think if we’re not the clear dominant force in a global sport, most people aren’t going to care. If America ever got to the point where it was winning World Cups with regularity, Americans would care. Like people would jump on that bandwagon. They would say, you know, I’m rooting for my country, da da da da da. But if we’re not running a sport, like nobody’s going to care. Nobody’s going to tune in. I’ll bet you people would get into highlight if Americans were dominating that sport. They would get into cricket and finally learn the rules. I saw a group of people playing cricket at a park uh a couple weeks ago. Mhm. Sat there and watched them for like 10 minutes. didn’t have a clue what was going on. Not a like why are they bouncing the ball? What’s going on here? What? Like why does he run one direction and then come back? Yeah. Yeah. Didn’t make any sense to me. Uh by the way, on the Hub City Spartanberger’s text line, we did an APB the other day for Dwey. He did text the show. So, as of one minute ago, Dwey is still alive. Your presence has been requested, Dwey from Tom. Tom Tom did call you out. That’s right. He’s wondering where you were. Maybe that was Dwey that called in a minute ago. ran out of minutes or something. Can you name the four events that are part of the tennis grand slam? No. Dewey on the text line says don’t even want to try. No, I don’t I couldn’t tell you. Dewey says, “Tennis sucks. I’d rather watch the Braves continue to lose to bad teams than watch tennis.” And again, I I think that’s pretty much the notion. I don’t You did say that if the Braves lost last night, you weren’t going to pay attention to them. The Daily Wires, by the way, was in the Yeah, it’s in the very first So 5:45, you’ll hear this diesel. Um, deadly wires. I said yesterday if the Braves lost, I was done cuz they had Spencer Strider on the mound and guess what? They lost. So, I’m going to hold you to it. I’m not going to give up three. He g He earned three runs in that game. Yeah. I mean, it was extra innings. Uh, 11 innings. The A’s beat him two out of three. So, I’m going to stick to what I said. I’m going to be a man of my word, Diesel. I’m not going to watch the Braves anymore this year. So, uh, R.J. asks on the Hub City Spartanbergers text line before we turn the page. Have y’all put out an APB for Harold? Hope he is all right. We have. We put on an APB for Harold, Rick, Dewey. Uh, we have a couple of APBs out at the moment. So, to appreciate Could you imagine a road trip with with those three in the car with you? You’re driving. I would like I would Who would you want in the passenger seat beside you? Harold. Yeah, Harold for sure. Easy answer. And in the rear, you got Dewey and Rick. Yeah, on top I put Dewey. Is that okay? I mean, I’m allowed to do that. If it’s a pickup truck in the back, put Dewey and Rick in the back of the pickup. Boy, would that be a uh interesting ride down uh down down 85, right? That’s a that’s a good question and I think we should hold on to that for next week, Cole. Mhm. If you were on a road trip in a car, like a four-door passenger car, Mhm. you and three other tools, who would you most want to be in that car with you and who would you least want to be in? That’s a good question. I like that. For next week, I toos, hang on to that. We’ll do it Monday, Tuesday. Chew on that, as they say. Right. Let that uh let that marinate a little bit. I like that. All right, to let’s turn the page. Let’s flip the page. We tried to milk that Wimbledon tennis conversation as long as possible, but there’s just not much uh lemon juice in the lemon, if you will. Diesel, I want to ask the question in this very segment before we’re joined by Wes Mitchell of Gamecock Central in about uh 10 minutes on the show. Is and I want to ask the toos as well is baseball by far does the Major League Baseball so or does does Major League Baseball have by far the best All-Star game? So, the All-Star break approaching for Major League Baseball here in a couple of days and uh you and I and other shows talk about just how miserable we are when we have to watch the Pro Bowl or the NBA Allstar game, right? The All-Star race in NASCAR is pretty good. I I thought this year was really good. Um I like where they do it. I like the venue, but I want to hear from the tollos out there as well as you, Diesel, at 8443263663. You don’t have to call that number. You have a microphone right there. But um I want to hear from the tollos at 844 fan phone. Uh if they believe baseball, Major League Baseball does indeed have the best Allstar game. It’s pretty bad that you would crown Major League Baseball with the best All-Star game just because in terms of how bad the other two are. Are we are we talking strictly the Allstar game or are we including all of the tertiary events? You can include the events, I believe, because like with with football, you got the skills challenges. Yeah, I think include the events. With the NBA, you got the slam dunk contest and a point contest. Um, yeah, include all of it. Could you imagine a an allstar NASCAR race like a a a celebrity proam? How many uh cars? First of all, the first question is how long would it last? Shane Conic would Shane Conic in the driver’s seat. It wouldn’t last a lap, right? And Dale Jr. in the passenger seat. It wouldn’t last a single lap and there would be cars destroyed within 30. They have to be in bumper cars, honestly. Go-karts. Yeah, go-karts. So, include the festivities. Okay. Include the festivities. Include all of the uh pageantry that goes along with these all-star games. You mentioned with the NBA, they have the dunk contest, which has not been the best as of late. Uh they have the celebrity all-star game. MLB has the home run derby, right? The Pro Bowl. You mentioned the skills challenge. Just to be quite frank with you, I’m not a fan of the Pro Bowl at all. Like, I don’t even tune in for the NFL Pro Bowl. It is terrible. The festivities, the pageantry around it, in my opinion, is all terrible. So, I am out on the NFL Pro Bowl, including all of the festivities around it. I am also out on the NBA All-Star game. I am not like the biggest diesel, the biggest MLB Allstar fan, but I think if I’m having to pick, yeah, I guess I guess MLB is up there, right? It is game by itself and I’m doing my own little rating here. I’m working out of my head and writing it down on the rundown. Yeah, I’m grading on an ABCDF scale the game and then the festivities around it. Everything else o other other than the game. So, with Major League Baseball, it’ be the home run derby. with the NBA. I What do they do? Do they do the three three-point contest and uh and the dunk contest with the NFL skills challenge versus the game? Um Major League Baseball, the game to me is a B-level game, right? Because you’re constantly rotating out talent. You’re the best players, but they’re not there long, right? They’re only in the game for an inning, for an at bat, and then they’re gone. um you know so it’s more of like a to me I think the Major League All-Star game it it I it obviously is an exhibition and it feels like an exhibition. It feels like they’re all just goofing off like they’re all just happy to be there. There’s no real competition. So let me ask you this question on that on that note real quick before we move on because I agree with you there. You do see the best of the best which I like. They do try which I like. Right. That that’s that’s up there for me. they give effort in the MLB All-Star game. How would you fix though the problem that the MLB All-Star has now that the All-Star game has now in terms of players exiting all the I mean, do you just lessen the amount of players that make it then you have a you know a small bench in terms of depth for the All-Star game? I don’t know exactly what the answer is, but I agree with you. I’ll tell you this. If in an all-star format, Diesel, if I saw the the best players in the world going at it for the length of the game as a fan, I would be more intrigued in that than seeing all these extra guys sub in. So, that’s an interesting idea, limiting the bench. And here’s where I think you can make it more fun. All you have are pitchers on the bench. So, if a right fielder goes down, if a third baseman goes down, a pitcher has to play that position. Somebody who’s not used to playing that position, right? Or if you want to have one infielder and one outfielder, right? You have an outfielder come in and play second base. You have an infielder go out and play center field. Okay. And and the change has to happen at some point. Think of it like the NASCAR All-Star race where at the halfway point, fans can vote whether or not they want to invert the field. Yeah. So, that would be an interesting element to add to it. Do I think it would make throngs of people suddenly turn it on and pay attention to it? Probably not. Um, hopefully they do turn it on and leave it on, but they probably wouldn’t. Maybe you’re talking about adding in a celebrity or a former great. I I I don’t know. Like a like a Hall of Famer. You can insert a Hall of Famer into the lineup. Somebody still young enough to play, right? Yeah. Uh not somebody who’s 80. you want to put some you don’t want to put an 80-year-old out there in center field uh because they were great back in the 60s. But I think that would add an interesting element to it and and take away this everybody gets a trophy. Every team gets two guys in. Every team’s going to get a pitcher on the lineup. That that part of it lame. Yeah, I understand having guys that deserve to be there in the game. I really do. But what if Diesel instead of How about this? Here’s just a bam spur-of the- moment idea. Okay. How about instead of limiting the bench, having a skills challenge before the actual Allstar game that funnels and eliminates players into the All-Star game or out of the All-Star game. How about that? I like it. So, there’s a skills challenge right before, maybe the day before, and all of the All-Star guys are in. They’re there. They’re recognized, but then only a select few because of some sort of skills. Chad, I don’t know what it is. Get into the actual game. They’re going headtohead in some kind of format to determine who gets in. And then when we get to the game, we’re seeing the best of the best for the entirety of the game. See, I actually loved when the outcome of the All-Star game affected homefield advantage in the World Series. I loved it. I I it added it added a real tangible reason for these guys to play hard. other than go out there and get miked up and wave their little hat in the air, give the people a thrill, you know, put something on the game and there’s charitable donations and that’s cool for about 10 minutes after the game is over. Not really all that worried about that anymore. It’s interesting though, a lot of texts we’ll get to later in the show on the Hub City Spartanber text line. Nonetheless, Allstar games for the most part, Diesel do need a little bit of an upgrade in in the fans mind at least. When we come back, we talked Clemson recruiting yesterday. Let’s talk Gamecock recruiting today. Wes Mitchell of Gamecock Central on the other side. Heat. Heat. Heat up here. Heat up here. Heat up here. Heat up here. Heat up here. Heat up here. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat up here. Heat up here. People can call us homers on this show, wire-to-wire with Diesel and Cole Bryson all they want to, but the truth is Cole, we are just as equally opportunity as it gets. We talked Clemson recruiting yesterday. Let’s talk South Carolina Gamecock recruiting today. We go straight to the source with Wes Mitchell of Gamecock Central, also a representative of On Three Sports. Welcome to the show, Wes. The big one that everybody’s waiting for, the shoe that everyone’s waiting to drop is is obviously Landon Duckworth. Uh PJ Dean, also a highly touted recruit. Both of those guys highly sought after. Besides money in 2025, what’s baked into the pitch to get a guy to come to South Carolina? Yeah, appreciate you guys having me on. Hope y’all been doing well. Obviously, I mean, in today’s age, like you said, uh, money, NIL, revshare, whatever you want to call it, that is a factor, but I I do think ultimately relationships do still matter. I think, um, you know, the plan for you at a program, whether you’re, you know, a quarterback like Duckworth or a defensive player, uh, these guys still want to be put in a position to succeed. they want to be put in a position to be developed. Um, you know, I I do think for most these guys, money does end up being a factor, but a lot of times, especially if the uh quote unquote kind of offers or then it’s going to come down to all those traditional factors. Um, you know, to kind of break the tie, I guess, if you will. Wes, you know, kind of to play off of that a little bit again. It’s Cole here. appreciate you hopping on with us uh as always. But I I do wonder sometimes I find myself asking for people like you that uh follow recruiting deeply. You guys in terms of being privy to to NIL dollar figures, dollar amounts. We heard a couple of months ago a report about Lenora Sellers being offered uh you know X amount by another school. th those on the beat like yourself, whether it be Clemson or South Carolina or any school out there, how privied are you guys to the actual dollar amounts when it comes to these NIL deals? Uh yeah, it’s a great question, man. I I would say like anything, every player is is a little bit different and um you know in the cases certainly I would say with South Carolina um you know hey this guy is going to make X or this guy could make Y if they go to South Carolina or if they’re already on the roster. Um, I’d say for a lot of guys, um, that the people who are pretty dialed in either will have that information or if they wanted to know would maybe have an avenue to figure it out to to sort of get that information. When it comes to recruiting, I will say it like this. It’s a little bit more like I could probably tell you what is being said a school is going to offer or kind of, you know, it with anything like this when you start involving agents, you start involving other people. Um, you start involving promises of money as opposed to just an actual, you know, contract. In the case of recruiting and where it is right now, um, a lot of times there’s no guarantee if that number might be real, but with a lot of kids, especially when it gets down to these final decisions, we do have a decent idea of sort of what numbers are being thrown out there, if that makes sense. Wes, do you think we deserve to know that information? You know, if you if you look at things in sort of a political realm, it’d be nice to know out of all the senators and congressmen who are who are in Washington, who is putting money in their pockets and into their campaigns, just like NASCAR sponsorships. Should we know how much and who is paying these college athletes and recruits? That’s a that’s a deep question. I uh you know, I I think there’s probably let me think about it from multiple ways. from from a just revshare standpoint which is obviously going into effect now and if you’re talking about a public university um you know there may be a legal case for that there I would be interested to see how deep that would go. Now, I I think from the true NIL standpoint, um you know, car dealership a has a legitimate deal with Norris Sellers um to where he’s going to be a spokesman for the car dealership and he’s going to get a car out of it or some cash out of it. Um I I don’t really believe that’s any of our business whatsoever. That’s a private deal um done with a student athlete who’s using his name, his brand, his following to do a legitimate business deal. That’s probably none of our business. So, I I think when you start talking about the total value some of these guys are making, probably not our business. Um, you know, I I would say at least at the very least from a general standpoint, there is probably a case to be made in terms of knowing how much of that rev share, how much of those school dollars are, again, at the very least going like, hey, this is going to the football team, that’s going to the baseball team. Uh, just because a lot of cases you’re talking about um universities that are funded by um tax dollars. H Wes, we heard uh Davos Sweeney about a year ago, maybe a little bit less than a year ago, bring up Revshare. You just brought it up there and Davos said something to the effect of Clemson’s going to be able to do more than anybody else with Revshare coming to the table. And if there is a South Carolina fan in the upstate listening to you today, uh, that that may be a a Gamecock fan, but maybe not a diehard Gamecock fan, when they hear about Revshare on top of what already is with NIL, can you give a little bit of information on what Revshare can do for a school like South Carolina being in the SEC? Is it to what Davos said, is it going to elevate some schools compared to others or would you look at it as a a pretty much a general copy and paste across the board? Yeah, you know, I I think certainly it’s going to be tough um for maybe the nonp power four schools or the FCS schools to like I I think it maybe creates more of a gap there. Now, I think if you’re if you’re in the SEC, you’re in the ACC, um you know, all any of the kind of traditional like top 25 or top 35, top 40 programs out there, um they’re going to fully fund that rev share. So, in theory, um you know, you could this school may give 75% to football. this other school may just give 70% of that number to football, but for the most part, for the most part, that is going to create um a a fairly even uh playing field there in terms of that. So, I I don’t know if the rev share itself gives any school a huge advantage over the other as long as you’re kind of in that, let’s say, top 40 schools traditionally window. Now, what’s going to be interesting and the answer we don’t know yet is how are these schools going to be able to um I would just say logistically structure what they’re doing above the rev share. So, that’s the true NIL, but obviously schools are still able to put together those packages for student athletes as well that are like I’m talking about the brand deal. Hey, this car dealership wants to work with your running back. That does not necessarily count towards the ref share. But something a lot of coaches are complaining about right now, and rightfully so, is when player or when school B offers player A, hey man, we’re you’re we’re going to be able to pay you $700,000 this year. Okay. Well, how much of that is revshare, which can be quite literally promised? like there can be a contract. Those contracts will be available to current seniors starting on August 1st. It’s on paper. It’ll be signed on signing day and it’s locked in versus the kind of pie in the sky. Well, you know, a quarter of this deal we’re going to be able to get that for you via NIL. Okay. Well, how are you going to get that approved through NIL GO, which is the system that has to approve every single deal. So, I think that’s what has a lot of coaches up in arms about right now is these a lot of these schools allegedly are promising big numbers that they may or may not be able to deliver. Wes, I’m glad you brought up that NIL go there and and to stay on that here for just a second, then we’ll get back to South Carolina recruiting. Uh, what are you hearing as far as how this clearing house NIL go is is going to operate? How much scrutiny do you think, do you hope, or do you want there to be on some of these big NIL deals? I mean, I I just learned today that a Texas Tech booster put up $5.1 million in NIL money to land a 2026 five-star offensive tackle. So, that’s that’s a $5 million deal over three years. Would would would you want NIL go to look at that and say, “No, we’re not going to let that happen.” Yeah. You know, I I think there’s some nuance to that, too. That so that 5.1 was initially reported. I believe that was put out by the agency involved with that kid. And then you dive into it and you see, okay, the actual guaranteed number was more into the 700 750K per year um guaranteed via revshare. So, what they’re saying essentially is, hey, we we’re going to do everything we can to get you up to that 5.1 whatever million over those three years by um supplementing it with NIL or if the rules change, we’ll renegotiate this up to that. So, that’s another aspect of all this. You have it looks very good if I’m the agency and I can let it just leak out there. Oh man, my client who I’m working very closely with is making this much money. the the reality is that he is making a heck of a lot of money potentially, but maybe not the number that got floated out there initially. Um, NIL GO is very intriguing right now. Some of the reporting I’m seeing on a national basis is that they are really pushing back against the collectives right now, even when we’re talking about fair market, legitimate business deals. So, I think that’s something that’s going to be worked through potentially. Uh, I don’t know, maybe in the courts or there’s going to that that’s the next argument I think is what if you have a collective that has a legitimate business deal for a student athlete, how can you how do you have the power to say that that athlete is not able to do that deal? And I I think in in a general sense, the NIL go concept is a good thing. But here’s the thing about all this stuff right now. every coach is going to want to point the finger to the schools that are spending too much, but then that same coach is not going to want for the system to deny their players deal. So, um, ultimately I I think they have the right thought process with it, but I still don’t know how it’s going to ultimately stand up to scrutiny um, in what is supposed to still be an open market. Wes Mitchell, Gamecog Central, joining us right here on the Fan Upstate. West. When you look at the South Carolina 2026 football commits, eight of the 10 hard commits are from the Carolas. Of those 10, which of those uh should Gamecock fans be most excited about in your mind? Yeah, man. There there’s some options there. Honestly, I think most of them are kind of blue chip guys, and it is a smaller class right now, but um it’s heavy on highly recruited guys. I I would say two people maybe stand out to me a little bit would be Javian Currents from South Point. You’re talking about a highly rated kid who’s been um kind of on the recruiting radar for two or three years now as someone that every school in the country was going to want. So that was a big recruiting win for them. They were able to kind of stave off some other schools that remained recruiting him even after he was committed to South Carolina last year. And then I’ll go to Aiden Harris, the four-star defensive lineman out of the Charlotte area. You know, that’s a spot, especially on the interior where they really I feel like needed to upgrade their high school recruiting at that position. They’ve had to rely heavily on the portal the last couple of cycles there and so they really tried to make a move there. You look at adding in Aiden and adding in Noah Clark, who is another state of North Carolina four-star defensive tackle prospect. Those are two guys that sort of fit needs, but also are very different players. Aiden’s a little bit more of that pass rush, athletic defensive tackle. Noah Clark is more of kind of your plug up the middle, nose tackle type guy. And so I think they complement each other pretty well. Um, both of those commitments were really big gets for South Carolina. Wes, the rule, as everybody knows, is is you can enter and declare for the NFL draft three years removed from high school graduation. At the end of this season, Lenora Sellers will be three years removed from high school graduation. What does your heart tell you about whether or not Lenor sticks around for the 2026 season? And then as we’re looking uh looking at the, you know, the hopeful commit from Landon Duckworth, do you think Landon Duckworth is is that kind of dude who can jump an Air Noland and a Cutter Woods who have been in the program a little bit longer? Yeah, a lot to unpack. I would say um the general consensus from people I have talked with has been that if Lenor Sers has the gear that uh that he expects to have that he wants to have that people around here believe he can have that he’s probably going to be a top 10 pick and that that’s going to be very difficult for him to turn down. Now, uh he is not a person who is going to just jump to the NFL draft just to jump. He’s got his brother on the team. He’s had a great experience so far by all indications at South Carolina. Um I don’t think he would jump just to jump. Uh you know, in other words, if he doesn’t quite have the year he’s wanting, he doesn’t quite have the projections that um he would want to have, I could see him still returning. I will say this, as much as people wanted to talk about, you know, he turned down reportedly whatever millions of dollars, um, Lenor Sellers is very well taken care of in Colombia, South Carolina as well. So, it wasn’t like he is making peanuts and turned down multi-millions of dollars. So, we’ll put it like that. Um, there’s a lot of reasons for him to potentially want to stay and have another year with his family in Colombia. That said, if he blows up this year, like everybody expects, it’s gonna be hard for him to turn it down. I’ll tell you what, man. Landon is a heck of a talent, but I I think he’s kind of the closest in this class upside wise um skill set wise to to what Lenor is as a player. I still would think it’d be very difficult even as an early enrolly if that position was open going into next year for any true freshman to just come right in and uh and steal the spot. I think you would have a a open quarterback competition there obviously and u man don’t sleep on Cutter Woods like there is a lot of buzz about this true freshman from what he’s done so far after being on campus. So, um, there’s a far jump from creating some buzz as a freshman, right, to being a starter in the SEC, but way way way too far ahead of time there. There’s just a there’s a lot to like about Cutter Wood. So, I I I think this guy is going to have his say at that position before his career is over at South Carolina. Wes, before we let you go, you mentioned Cutter Woods there. from what you’ve seen through spring and summer bowl, some other newcomers that have uh turned your head a little bit. Yeah, like I said, man, Cutter’s been great. I tell you what, these wide receivers um it’s funny you you ask, “All right, well, which wide receiver is the best of the bunch?” And depending on who you ask, you’ll get a different answer because um really in their own way, all five, six of these guys have excelled so far since they arrived. There is one kid out of that bunch that just consistently um creates more buzz, I would say, than than maybe about anybody else in the freshman class. That is Brian Row, fourstar receiver out of North Carolina. I would keep an eye on him potentially making a big impact this season. And let’s see, among the transfers, let me throw Brandon Cece at you. This kid came in from NC State, was a starter there. um just is a uh he’s a football head. Like he’s one of these guys that you have to kick out of the film room. Um just loves ball. Um heavy heavy on the film review, all that stuff on top of being a great versatile athlete. Um I’m expecting really really good things from Cay this year to step in and play a variety of roles on that defense. Wes instant review on you joining our show today. Texter says, “This guest is top-notch, very informative.” Uh, we want all of our tools to go follow Wes on Twitter, Wesmitchellg. Appreciate your time. Thanks, Wes. All right, guys. Have a good one. Wes Mitchell, Gamecock Central to the Texters Point. Always a good conversation. How many names toos do you know that are expected to go in the top 10, 15 or so in the MLB mock draft or in the MLB draft rather? We’ll dive into that next. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat up here. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat up here. Heat up here. Heat up here. Heat. Heat. So, as we know, baseball season is a rocking and a rolling, but when it comes to college baseball, that season’s over. But the MLB draft is rapidly approaching. In fact, it starts Sunday, Diesel. So, when you look at the mock draft from guys like Kylie McDaniel and others on ESPN, how many of these names do you know that that you’ve heard of before that are predicted to go in the top 10 or 15 or so or even in the first round of the 2025 MLB draft? Let’s start with number one in the latest mock draft from Kylie McDaniel of ESPN Diesel. He predicts the Washington Nationals to select right-hand, excuse me, left-handed pitcher out of LSU, Cade Anderson with the number one overall pick. And obviously, because of what they did in the postseason in College World Series, we’ve all heard of that guy. Uh yeah, that’s a name that’s been thrown around quite a bit. And you know what? there. It is interesting to note the Washington Nationals not far removed from firing their general manager Mike Rizzo. So with that being in the works as of recent with that happening recently, you don’t really know exactly what they’re going to do there. Kate Anderson’s a guy that’s expected to go early. Liam Doyle, left handy, uh left-handed pitcher, lefty if you will, out of Tennessee. He’s sixth in most rankings in the uh power rankings for the guys going in the first round. He’s predicted to go to the Los Angeles Angels. Liam Doyle, Seth Hernandez, Ethan Holiday to the Rockies. You obviously have heard of him. And at five, Eli Wiltus, uh predicted to go to the St. Louis Cardinals. Of those top five though, Diesel, I would imagine our audience out there has pretty much only heard of Kate Anderson and maybe obviously Ethan Holiday. But how many of the projected top 10 are pitchers? Uh, of the top 10, you’ve got one pitcher or one being the pitcher, two being a pitcher, three pitcher. Uh, Ethan Holiday plays third base. Obviously, everybody knows Ethan, his brother went and his dad um in his time in the MLB. Uh, St. Louis Cardinals at five. They’re predicted to go uh shortstop. So, you’ve got three in the top 10, four at eight, four. So, four of the top 10 are projected to be pitchers. I love it. I I love that. You know, pitchers, it’s hard enough to find an ace, right? And that’s what they’re all trying to do. Every team is trying to get an ace. You can figure out hitting after that. They’re not just going after the guys that are the home run hitters, the guys that can then put they can put it over the wall. They need shut down pitchers in major league. And I love that that’s the the most highly soughtafter position. It is. And a friend of mine also uh reminded me on my uh on the text line that or on my phone rather that Liam Doyle is a former Coastal Carolina Shantaa Clear who obviously finished his season or finished his career at Tennessee. And then at number four, if the Rockies, who do have the fourth pick, go with Ethan Holiday, I think there would be a lot of people interested in that just because of what his dad did with that organization. If he doesn’t go number one to the nationals, it looks like the Colorado Rockies might be the the favorite or the landing spot of uh Ethan Holiday and there would be two Holidays now in the MLB with his brother not going or with his brother going just a few years ago to the Baltimore Orioles. It’s wire towire with Diesel and Cole Bryson. Programming reminder for you guys. Next week we’re going to be back out at an Engles Market, the 410 Pelzer Highway location. That’s on Wednesday. On Friday, we’re going to be at the Hub City Spartanberger Stadium at Fifth Third Park there in downtown Spartanberg. Uh Cole will be there at least. Uh we had some uh producer scheduling issues, so he’ll be there. I’ll be here in studio. Uh but it is their Christmas in July event. Two chances next week to see us out on the road. When we come back home, let’s take a quick look in and see what’s happening in North Berwick, Scotland for the Scottish Open. The final tuneup before the Open Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat up here. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat up here. Heat up here. Heat up here. Heat. Heat. Heat up here. Heat up here. Heat up here. Heat up here. Well, the Genesis Open might be the professional golfer’s last chance to tune up before playing in the Open Championship, the British Open, as it used to be called. But don’t call it the redheaded stepchild, Cole. This is a big deal event. Everybody’s paying attention to what’s going on in Scotland right now, and some of the games biggest names are tearing it up out there on the course. the Renaissance Club in North Berwick, Scotland. Uh, round two is completed for most of these golfers because again, the time difference, they tee off super early, which means they’re basically done by midafternoon our time. Uh, but the Genesis Open going well for Rory, for Scotty, for Tommy Fleetwood, for Xander, and the US of A. America acquitting themselves quite well in the uh in the Genesis Open so far. You know, I I don’t know if I’ve heard a golfer talk about this or not, Diesel, but when you said what you said about this kind of being the tuneup before next week, before the major, the last major of the year, by the way, the thought did cross my mind. And I’d like to ask, you know, one of these pros one day about the way the schedule lines up because let’s just say this week, the week of, you know, the second week of July, these golfers were back in the States, right? They were doing their own thing. Maybe they were playing in a tournament this weekend, let’s say in Pittsburgh, right? They finish up on Sunday. They’re done. They have Monday to get their butts across the pond for the one of the biggest majors, the last major of the year. I wonder if number one, if there’s a something in riding that there has to be a tournament, excuse me, overseas the week before the open. And number two, if these golfers who are the best in the world would be thrown off their game diesel if they had to get over there, bam, bam, finish on Sunday in the States, I would imagine. So, I don’t know about you, but but jet lag kicks my rear end. I’ve never flown anywhere east, so like I’ve never flown to to Europe or Africa or anywhere else. So, I don’t really know what what, you know, jet lag feels like going that way. But I have flown to the West Coast a couple times and that’s a that’s a shorter time difference. That’s, you know, 2 hours, 3 hours depending on where you are, 2 hours if we’re going to New Mexico, 3 hours if we’re going out to California. Uh but it kicks my rear end, especially on those early morning flights. Yeah. Getting over there, it’s not fun, man. I don’t like it. It puts me on my ass for for about, you know, 36 hours before I start feeling normal again. But you go back uh last week and the week before. Uh the week before was the John Deere. Last week was can’t remember the name of the classic. The was the John Deere and the Travelers, right? I think so. I think so. Yeah. One of those or the Detroit Open was was we last week. Uh but a lot of the a lot of the big time golfers, Rory, Scotty, etc., they skipped those. So, I wonder if if they like to skip those to get over to uh to Scotland to get in the same time zone as the Open so they can get their bodies right. You got to acclimate to the weather. You got to acclimate to the time difference. You got to acclimate to the terrible food. I mean, there’s a lot you got to get your body right for. People don’t realize, Diesel, to your point, it takes a good day, day and a half, two days to kind of get used to it. The farthest I’ve been, the furthest I’ve been is is and when I went to Israel, I got there. When I got to Israel, they told us, “Hey, we know you’re really tired. You’ve been on this 14- hour flight, but don’t sleep.” It was like 300 p.m., right? They said, “Don’t take a nap. Don’t take a nap. Everybody wants to take a nap, but don’t take a nap because if you do, then it’s really going to hurt you more and more down the road.” Right? So, we pushed through, stayed up till, you know, 8 n 10 o’clock and then went to bed. But I will tell you when we came back to the states it was just as tough acclimating 14-hour flight with a jet lag. What’s the time difference? Probably seven eight. Yeah, I would say exactly what it is. That put you halfway off your day. So it’s halfway off. I I guess these golfers, even though they’re that good, I you you think they they fussed and moaned and complained about the the wet course up in Charlotte, can you imagine what their their fussing and complaining would be like to that extent, Diesel, if they had to leave in a day or two? Hey, show up and play golf within, you know, a two-day span. That’d be really tough. Seven hour time difference, by the way, from Eastern time to to Israel. Um Yeah. Yeah. And again, imagine, look, I know they bring their own food and they keep things as consistent as they possibly could, but uh imagine, you know, three days of eating, you know, beans on toast as as the Brits do and then you’re on hole number five and there is not a portagon in sight. Yeah, it’d be tough. It’d be tough. I I I am looking forward to though, not to not to zoom past this one. I am looking forward to this next major. I I just wish I like I like that they’re early in the morning, but like with this tournament, I’ll be honest with you, the Genesis uh the Genesis Scottish Open sometimes. I do wish it was a little bit later in the I mean right now you and I would love be watching the golf, right? But it’s over. It’s done. Yeah, but maybe it should be like the Olympics where they time shift it, you know? Yeah. Uh maybe and maybe the golf channel is doing that. We’re we in the studio, we’ve got the four-letter on the TV here. Uh, and to to crack a little joke here, I called it the redheaded stepchild, which I don’t call it the redheaded stepchild. Scotland has the highest confirmed percentage of redheads of any country in the world. 13%. Say that against Scot Scotland. Scotland has the highest percentage of redheads, natural red heads of any country in the world. That’s a good Yeah, I would I would I could see that. Global average is 1 to 2% redheads. Wow. Scotland is 13% redheads, which doesn’t sound like a huge number, but 40% of Scots carry the gene. So, a little little uh uh little genetic news for you here. Update. Uh but the the Genesis Open happening right now, par 70 at the Renaissance Club in North Burwick, Scotland. Uh they’re having about as good a weather as you could possibly have for this tournament. Uh yesterday, today, tomorrow, and Sunday, all sitting at highs around 77°. Yeah, it’s humid, but it’s right by the ocean, so you get you you get that nice ocean breeze. And they’re even on, you know, they’re on the east coast of Scotland, so they’re not getting hit with with all that weather coming off of off of the Atlantic. You know, the only thing I would say, going back to my point about TV, I know that right now we’re hot and heavy in the offseason, right, with ESPN, because you mentioned ESPN, it’s what’s on our TV screen. And I know this this tournament going on is not a major. However, I I do wish and I look, I I realize Golf Channel, ESPN, CBS, they’re all different. They all have their legal responsibilities of what they talk about and what they carry and what they air. But for example, on a four o’clock at at four o’clock on a Friday on July the 11th, I would much rather be watching highlights and reports from the Genesis Open than hearing about Aiden Hutchinson, who missed the final 12 games of last season. They’ve been they’ve been uh really reaching on the four-letter the last couple of days. They’re going state by state, Cole, of the greatest athletes who were from that state, who were born in that state, who played college in that state. Wow. And who played their professional Yeah. You know, they spent like an hour talking about Hawaiian players the other day. Not Not to disparage the contributions of Hawaiian players, but I mean, come on. You’re going to have to do the same bit 50 days in a row. I just wish I could see more. I I’d like to know like there’s nothing on there right now. And if I go to the golf channel, they’re they’re airing the tournament that’s happening in Louisville. Maybe it’s the something PC. You can go on you can go on the four-letter networks app and you can watch, you know, you can watch the coverage on demand. Yeah, I guess. Uh again, the weather not bad. 77 degrees. It’s not like it was a couple of years ago, Cole. in July of 2022, which was would have been when they played the Scottish Open in 2022, it was 105 degrees. It’s a record high in that area. 105°. So, they’re playing in in beautiful 77°. But I was telling you earlier that Americans are dominating this uh dominating this field right now. 18 Americans inside the top 50. An American is sitting in first place. Chris Gotup, whose name I’ve never heard before. No. Uh, congratulations to him. This is your day, pal. He is He was nine under today, 11 under overall, sitting in first place. Congratulations to him. I looked at I clicked on Chris Garup because I was in the same boat as you and I. I said, “Who’s this guy?” And when I clicked on his info, Diesel, to find out where he was from, who he is, I got a loading message. Nothing. I don’t even think they know. They’re like, “Huh?” I don’t even know if the PE What website is this on? He’s 25. He’s from Eastern Maryland. Okay. Played his college golf at Oklahoma and is currently the 96th highest uh 96th ranked player in the world. And see the one I’m looking at says Rutgers. Nobody knows. It says Chris God Ruters. I don’t know. Uh he’s he’s killing it. Hopefully he can hold on to that. Rory Maroy playing well. He was uh five under today. Seven under overall. Tied for sixth. He’s up 27 spots from yesterday. Xander Schoffley, four under today, 6 under overall, tied for 12th. Scotty Sheffler, two under today, five under overall, tied for 21st. And Tommy Fleetwood, who uh god, we all hoped would get it done. Who didn’t get it done? He is tied for 40th at three under overall. I’m just kind of surprised that guy is still alive. Surprised he didn’t end it. I I know that’s terrible for me to say. I shouldn’t joke about that, but good gosh. surprised he’s not, you know, in the bottom of a bottle of scotch right now. I’m telling you. So, uh, you look at the, uh, the Americans, you’ve got Chris Gdder up as the the number one diesel who jumped 32 spots, but other than that, I mean, the Americans are kind of far-fetched. Well, you got Keith Mitchell at T6. The others are playing well here, too. There are, look at the I mean, yeah, there are a lot. Uh, Jake Kop, I think I’ve heard that name. Brian Harmon, I’ve heard Brian. He’s T12. Alander Shoffley as you mentioned, but but if you go down Oh, by the way, shout out T21 Walford College alum Andrew Novak who jumped up 92 spots today. Is that is that good by the way? Uh pretty had himself a good day. Scotty’s So here here’s the question I want to know and I think this is the question most casual golf fans want to know. Diesel Scotty’s right now T-21, right? He dropped seven spots from yesterday. So Scotty’s T-21, Rory is T6. T6. So with Rory T6, you obviously know he’s in contention. Currently, he is at seven under. The leader Chris Gdder ups 11 under. I want to know, the casual golf fan out there probably wants to know. Here we are, day two, round two. You still have Saturday and Sunday. Two more rounds to go. With Scotty being T21, does he have a shot to win it? Right. That I think that’s what people want. So he’s five under. Yep. Six off the six off the lead. And you you take away do the math. That’s six. And remember the the leader Chris got her up. He was nine under today. So he played out of his mind. He played out of his mind. 61 by the way to get to second overall score is nine under. And that would be you know Scotty Sheoffller four off the pace. You know who else? Sander Shoffley three off the pace. That’s very reachable. Diesel. Uh Chris got her up. Shot a 61 today. Do you want to know who else shot a 61 today? Uh Phil. Nobody. I mean that’s pretty good. So the problem is he was plus eight yesterday. Yeah, he he did yesterday. He uh No, he shot a 68 yesterday, 61 today. And again, I think that’s just where we are. like we is the the diehard golf fans diesel. They’re in tune with it. They’re keeping up with it and the diehard golf fans are probably watching it right on the PGAF. They probably got it pulled up. But for me, somebody who would consider themselves a casual fan of the sport. That’s what I look at when I look at these leaderboards. I look at, okay, where’s Scotty? Where’s Rory? You mentioned Rory’s playing really well. He jumped up 27 spots. I would like for there to be, and maybe there is, I just don’t know about it. I I’d like for there to be a way Diesel for I uh so I could watch the the biggest names in the world all on one screen constantly consistently and just see in terms of contention where they are because here’s the bad part. If Scotty’s not in contention, my interest drops. So when I watch um when I watch on my Roku app through the ESPN app, they have featured groups and it’s usually I mean there’s almost always the Scotty Sheffller featured group. Yeah. Uh, and so it may be the the Xander Schoffley group, the Rory Mroy group, whatever it may be. It would be awesome if you could if you could fourcreen, four-way screen just the featured groups that you want to see. Yeah. You know, the the whole tournament coverage is is great and it’s a you know, you get the national playby-play guys and they’re fantastic at what they do, but we care about the stars. We care about the biggest. By the way, take a wild guess at where JJ Spawn, who just won the US Open 3 weeks ago, where is he? If you had to guess 75, I didn’t see him top 25. I’d guess top 100, I’d say 75. Cut. JJ Spawn cut. Didn’t make just won the He uh he went 70 and 72. So, he was two over par. Two overpar. Got him cut from the Genesis. Also want to shout out um Jacob Bridgeman who had a better day today. He shot a 71 yesterday, 68 today. Did jump up 30 spots. He’s still way back there with the likes of Sam Burns and Sam Stevens. Jacob Bridgeman now T64. He’s one under through the first two rounds. Uh Clemson product and Chapman High School product right here from the upstate. So we’ll see. What’s the cut line? Did you mention the cut line already? uh cut line is let me scroll down and find it again minus one. Yeah. So minus one. So so when you look at this course traditionally um a score that typically wins this thing over the last five years the average winning score is 14 under. Yeah. You look at Robert Robert McIntyre T64 and Justin Thomas also T64. two names we know they barely made the I mean they were the first in or excuse me the last in in terms of making the cut and you mentioned one under that’s where Bridgemond is. So there there are currently you talk about a log jam diesel right now there you’ve got Sam Stevens Jacob Bridgen uh Sew Kim four five six7 about about 20 25 guys all T64 so there’s a log jam toward the bottom but I guess you make the cut you make the cut at least you’re playing golf all weekend right so for those unfamiliar with with golf being played in Scotland and Ireland and the UK this is considered to be a Lynx light course it’s not a true Lynx course which At a Lynx course, there’s no trees. It’s, you know, tall grass in between the holes, a lot of wide open space, a lot of rolling undulating uh fairways. This is not a true Lynx course. It is a Lynx light course. Put together the architect by uh American architect do Tom Do. Xander Schoffley won this thing in 2022. He was the first American to ever win uh the the co-sanctioned event between the PGA and the DP, which is the European tour. Uh he he won he was in the middle of a hot streak. He won the Travelers and the Zurich in that span. In 2023, Rory Mroy won the whole thing. He shot a 31 on his final nine holes to win uh by one over Robert McIntyre, the Scott. And uh you know, you got to be good with your irons. You got to be good in the wind. I imagine you’re not hitting driver a lot out there. A lot of low angled uh one irons, two irons, three irons trying to keep that ball down out of the wind. I look here here’s where I am before we run to a break. I am considered considering myself someone who’s a golf casual. I I want to know how we can can get to the point. And look, I I mentioned it earlier, these these agreements are already tied up. But if if you want to grow the game of golf, wouldn’t you think that the week before your I don’t want to call it the Super Bowl, but last major, the last major of the year, wouldn’t you think that when you turn on ESPN or turn on one of these big networks, wouldn’t you think the week before the the last major of the year, we could be able to get some better coverage? Here’s my problem. You tell me and everybody I have buddies who are golf guys. They said, “Well, go to the app. Go to the app.” I shouldn’t have to. If I’m a casual golf fan, you’re never going to get me interested in the game of golf full full-fledged diesel by telling me to go to an app. I want it mainstream on all the big networks, all the TV platforms. You asked earlier, how do we fix the Major League Baseball All-Star game to make it more interesting? How do we fix golf to make it more interesting? You need to give people at least an option and you need to put it on a major network somewhere. It doesn’t have to be the number one CBS broadcast, but you got to make it easily accessible. I want to see somebody like Michael Collins, somebody with a lot of energy. Yeah. You know, out there on the course, walking the course with a mic and a headset. You know, you can’t talk to the golfers in the middle of their rounds. Uh who was that? Bryson. Sorry, Bryson. They’re not going to talk to you. Uh, you need somebody with a lot of entertainment value and personality out there roaming the course to make the broadcast more interesting. And you got to put this thing in prime time. You got to you got to time shift it. Put it in prime time. Make the playbyplay the most interesting thing about watching golf. Or at least do this. I like your Michael Collins idea. I like him. do a taped Michael Collins and Marty Smith highlight reel and then play it back at 3:00 so that I can watch golf. Oh, well, it’s already gone. It’s already up. But no, turn put it on TV on the board. I mean, have the guys from Good out there, you know, doing the playbyplay. Uh, how does how does playing well in the Scottish Open translate to playing well in the Open? Uh, it doesn’t really not not all that much. I mean, golf is such a hard sport to be elite week after week after week after week. There’s a reason why tiger is tiger. Uh, since 2010, only one player has won both the Scottish Open and the Open in the same year. That was Phil Mickelson. Rory Mroy in 23 won the Scottish, tied for sixth at the Open. 2022, Xander Schoffley won the Scottish tied for 15th at the Open. In 2015, Ricky Fowler won the Scottish tied for 30th at the Open. So, you know, if you’re playing well, you’re playing well, but you know, it doesn’t necessarily mean cuz you win one, you’re going to win the next. Sure. Uh, Tollos, we earlier in the week had a fantastic conversation and a lot of good feedback about the interview we did with Ramon Robinson of RR Elite Academy. Uh, it was later in the show. A lot of you that listen early in the show missed it. We’ve uh had some some tollos ask uh where they can find it. We are we love Ramon. He’s one of the best. Uh he’s so so so smart and so full of knowledge. We’re going to have that interview from Tuesday in case you missed it for you next. Heat. Heat. Heat up here. Heat up here. Heat up here. Heat up here. Heat up here. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat up here. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat up here. Heat. Heat. Heat up here. Heat. Heat. Heat up here. Heat up here. I wish more big time sports pundits, Cole, had more of a filter. I wish they would have somebody read their tweets before sending them out. Like, you write something, you hear it in your own voice, the way you intend it to be taken, and it sounds fine. and then the general public gets a hold of it and it’s the exact opposite. Now you’re in a firestorm. RG3 is in a firestorm after he defended a racist tweet aimed at Angel Ree. And in doing so, he decided, you know what, now is a good time for me to drop the little tidbit of information that someone in Angel Reese’s inner circle told me that she hates Caitlyn Clark. A So he used it as an opportunity to uh dig the hole deeper, as you’d say. Yep, he did. And people inside of Angel’s inner circle are saying, “You don’t know anybody inside of our inner circle.” Angel fired back, calling him out, saying it was nasty work and accused him of lying for clout. Now, nobody knows if somebody inside Angel’s Circle did tell RG3 the truth or if it was even the truth at all, but uh dangerous dangerous tweet from RG3 and now he’s embroiled in uh in a multi-way bleep storm with himself, Angel Reese, Ryan Clark, Jamal Hill, like they’re all over him. RG3 is opinionated. He is. He is uh he he’s something else I uh you know I have my thoughts on him and according to him we’re right now in World War II. That’s you know he he is very opinionated. That’s all I’ll say. He’s also telling us something that we probably already knew. Yeah. Like Angel and Caitlyn don’t like each other. Duh. We know. I need Diesel needs. We need you. And this is a big segment we have coming up. If you are a sports fan and you are listening to us talk right now, we need you to turn it on and leave it on because you are going to be called to the plate. What are we doing? It’s your time to shine. Next, right here on the Fan Upstate Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat up here. Heat up here. Heat up here. Heat up here. Oh, heat, heat. Heat up here. Heat up here. Oh, heat. Oh, heat, heat. Well, Diesel, you and I on this very show many, many, many, many, many, many times. times make predictions. We put our prediction hat on. We tell the tollos out there what we think is going to happen. We give analysis and we predict wins and losses. That’s what we do. It’s our job. They do pay us a little bit to do that every day from paid for this. I know really I wouldn’t call it paid from 3:00 to 7 every day. That’s what we do. However, in this very segment, we want to open it up and we want to allow you to out there in the dead of summer to get your official predictions in. We will record them and uh we will have them at your disposal later on toward the end of the season if you would like. But here is what we’re doing on this Friday at five o’clock. If you’re listening to the show, most likely you’re a sports fan. most likely or you just love diesel. The second thing, let me back up. I’ll tell you the first thing. The first thing is we hope you’re a sports fan. The second thing is we want you to engage in this very segment by playing the win loss game with your team. So, you know, when Diesel and I started the show over a year back in March of 2024, uh over a year or so, Diesel, we asked all of the tools out there, kind of did a poll, right, of who your team was, whether it be Clemson, South Carolina, Ohio State, professional team. We pulled the audience and we learned who the teams were that Utolo’s out there pulled for. So, we’re doing a win loss game segment with your team. That’s right. you toos out there listening, we’re going to do it right now in this very segment. So, here’s how it works. If you’re driving down the road or sitting at home listening or watching the show and you are a Gamecock fan or you’re a Panthers fan or you’re a Texans fan, you call the show, you tell us who your team is, Diesel and I will pull up in rapid response pull up the schedule and we will go game by game and you out there will tell us win or loss game by game and We’ll record it. We’ll have it written down and we will allow you to uh just see how good you are at making predictions. So, we’re keeping receipts is keeping receipts, Diesel. And we’re going to give an example. Okay. Examples are good in life, right? People need examples. Here is the example. By the way, the phone lines are open right now at 844 3263663. This segment does not involve the text line. So, if you are a sports fan and have a team and want to be really knowledgeable and and maybe look really smart at the end of the season, now is your opportunity to do so. Diesel, I’m going to start with you as an example. Oh god. With App State out of me. Are you ready? Do you think you’re ready? Yeah. Let me look up. Let me pull the 25 ABS state football schedule. Yep. Pull it up. 2025. 2025. I pull up the schedule. Sorry, we got callers calling in. We got callers calling in right now. TXerience or TXperience is on hold. Uh the phone lines are open. 8443263663. So for all those tollos out there that have never played this game, this is how it works. I and Diesel, me and Diesel are going to pull up the schedule of your team. Diesel is going to call in. He’s going to say his name is Diesel. He wants to play the win loss game with App State. Okay. All right. I’ve got to pull it out. Diesel, you ready? Yeah. Friday, August 29th, AppState will play Charlotte in Bank of America Stadium. When? Okay. Uh after that, the following week on September the 6th, AppState will play a team named Lynenwood in Boone, North Carolina. Have you heard of Lynenwood? I’ve never heard of Lynenwood. So, are they new? Uh are they division two? Are they are they even a division high school? Uh that’s a win. That’s a win. So you’ve got them starting two and0. Yep. At Southern Miss, the Golden Eagles. This one’s in Mississippi. I’m going to say a win on the road. Southern Miss has struggled the last couple of years. Charles Huff, the coach who was just at Marshall. Yeah. Took the job at Southern Miss and brought a lot of his team with him, but not all of his team with him. So I think Abstate’s going to get this win on the road. You have you have your alma m starting off three and 0 going into the bye-week. That’s really two and a half and0 because Lynwood. Okay, so here’s the next one. This get this is where it gets a little tough, man. The schedule really picks up. Diesel has app state 3 and 0. Uh after the buy 927, they’re at Boise State. I’m going to say that’s a loss. Okay, three and one. That’s a loss. I wanted to go to that game. I had plans to go to that game and then life happened and yeah, kind of screwed that up. October 4th, they come back home to Kid Brewer Stadium and host Oregon State. God. Um, two tough ones. I don’t I don’t know about Oregon State this year. Yeah. No DJU. No DJU. Um, I’m going to say that’s a win. Okay. I like that. I’m going to say that’s a win because by then we’re four games in going into week five. Big time opponent at home. I like that. Confidence under first year head coach. So you’re Dens. Dow Loggins 4 and one. Now Loggins just 4-1 going to Atlanta, Georgia to take on Georgia State. Win. 5-1. Mhm. They come back calling the next week October 18th hosting Coastal Carolina. The big the big one, right? Yeah. Um not knowing kickoff time, there’s some hesitation. No, Coastal’s played abstate really well the last couple of years and got him a couple times. I’m going to say I’m going to say we lose that game. We lose homecoming. Who schedules Coastal for homecoming? Five and two. The next week, October 25th, you’re 5-2 heading into Norfolk, Virginia at Old Dominion. When? Six and two heading into the buy. November the 6th, you are back home hosting your Georgia Southern Eagles. Yeah. Uh you’re six and two, by the way. Good season. Good season so far, especially first year for a first year head coach. Absolutely. Uh with Georgia Southern Clay Helton. This has been this is such a wonky matchup to try to call to try to pick. Um Georgia Southern’s had us the last couple years. Not going to lie, it’s it’s been it’s chat my ass. But I think with a new head coach, I think they got it rolling at that point. Win at home. 7 and2 you’re at J. It’s a Thursday night by the way. 7:30 prime time matchup on ESPN. These last few are tough. 7-2 you go to JMU. Loss. Seven and three. You host Marshall. Win. You’re eight and three. Final game of the season. You’re hosting Arkansas State. Win. Nine. N. Did you N? Nine and three in Dow Loggin’s first year. That’s great, right? D Loggins crushing it. Now, I know this is 2026 recruiting class. Crushing it on the recruiting trail, but that’s big. First year nine and three. Yeah. Beating Oregon State. Getting back to getting back to bowl eligibility. That’s big. Beating the rival. That’s big. James Madison still really good. Taking the L on the road. And uh yeah, they’re always good. That is how you play the win loss game. Should we um I I think there could be a u a stipulation on it where if you are dead on or correct with a plus minus of one like you know what you’re talking about in the in the parlance of the Rob Brown show, you know ball. Yeah, that’s true. If you’re if you’re dead on or plus or minus by one, you know ball. Yeah. But if you’re outside of that, you know, you’re either you’re either homer or a hater. Yeah, it’s true. Uh I’m interested to see how our tollos are going to respond to their school. Again, this is open for college or pro. College or pro. You name the school. You call in. Diesel’s up next. So the T experience will give Diesel his schedule. Diesel will go gameby-ame. Phone lines are open right now. 8443263663. It’s the win loss game. T Experience, you’re leading off. Who is your team? Buffalo Bills and Florida Gator. So, let’s go with my Gator. Oh, Florida Gator. Florida Gator. Diesel’s going to pull up the 2025 Florida Gator schedule. Meanwhile, phone lines again. 844 3263663. We’ll uh obviously this segment’s being recorded. So, T Experience will record it. Diesel, you ready with T Experience? We are ready to go. T Experience leading off the season at home against the LIU Sharks. Do you even know what LIU stands for? Long Island and I’m going to their game. Okay, how about that? And Oh, it’s a win. Okay, I was about to say. All right, you got them start off 1 and 0 week two also at home against the South Florida Bulls. A lot of people think South Florida might have a little something this year. Win two and 0. I like that. Then you go on the road for the first time of the season at number six LSU Tiger Stadium in Baton Rouge. Loss. That’s tough. I’m with you there. And lost. Two and one for TX with the fourth game of the season on the road yet again. Staying in the state of Florida at number 21 Miami. Loss. Loss. You got him at two and two through four games by week and then you go uh you stay at home and you face the number three Texas Longhorns. Loss. Loss. Oh man, now you’re two and three. Two and three. Then you go on the road at Texas A&M. Kyle Field a 330 kickoff. Win. Win. That’s a big win. On the road at&m. How about the following week? Mississippi State at home. Win. That’s a win. All right. You got him at four and three through seven games by week and then you face Georgia in Jacksonville. Upset win. Oh, he’s calling the upset win. Five and three. Is that right? 30. Five and three. Is that where we are now? That’s Yeah, I think so. We got him at five and three. That’s a big one. Billy Napier just saved his job. Uh, will there be a let down the following week on the road at Kentucky? No, it’s a win. Win for Florida after that. Eligible, baby. Then we got on the road at Miss Win. Win rolling off five straight wins. How about three after that? At home against Tennessee. Preseason ranked number 19. Win. Win six in a row. And you close out the regular season at home against Florida State. Oh god. Three wins. That’s a win. How about you just go nine and three and three with a with a weird streak in the middle. Uh three losses in a row. Wow. After two straight to start the season. Uh T experience, we got receipts. We’re holding on to it and we’ll uh we’ll see if you know ball by the end of the season. Appreciate you, man. All right, guys. That’s good, man. Experience. He’s got confidence in his team, though. I like that. Were you uh I took notes, by the way. He’s I thought he was going to go loss on a couple. I thought he was going to go lost at Georgia. I thought he was going to go lost at Old Miss. That So, he’s uh he’s he’s he’s confident. Nine and three to the phone lines are still open. 844326 3663. If you just tuned in and don’t know what’s going on, we’re allowing you to put on your prediction hat. Win loss game. You call in, you tell us your team, we pull up the schedule, and we roll on. 8443263 663. Diesel, do you want to guess what Dewey is going to say when I ask him what his favorite team is? If if you’re going to make us do this for the Atlanta Braves for the rest of the season, we’re going to ban you again, Dwey. What’s up, Dewey? Atlanta Braves ain’t going to win another game this year. What’s your name? Okay, good. Thank Thank you for saving all of us. Dewey, who’s your team? What are we doing? Let’s do the game talk. All right. While we So, just to be fair, let’s pause for a second. Diesel, while we have South Carolina pulled up, I pulled it up because I knew Dewey was a Gamecock. If there are any other tools out there at 844-3263663 that are also Gamecock fans and want to call in, we will put you on the same line as Dwey. That way y’all can all do it at one time because you know there’s no need to do South Carolina three, four, five times in a row. So if there are any other Gamecock fans, now is your time to call. I would imagine that Dewie is going to go what 12 and0 here, right Diesel? Is that how this is going to work? I want to do another team. Dewy’s a smart. You want to do another You have another team, Dewey. Let’s do a North Carolina Tar Hill. Okay. All right. North, are you a Are you a closet North Carolina Tar Hills fan, by the way? Well, I think Bill Bich’s going to make go to the playoff. Okay. I like that. You’re changing. So, the Gamecock’s still on the table. Phone lines are still open. Dewey, we’re going to start. North Carolina Tar Hills at home hosting TCU. That should be a win. Okay. At Charlotte at Charlotte. A definite win. Okay. So, you’re two and0. Bill Bichc will then host Richmond. If he if he loses that game, he needs to be fired. Wild to wire. What’s your name? So, that’s a win. That’s a win. Okay. So, he’s what what’s he got? Three and0. All right. After that, Bill Bellichic has a bye-week and then they host Clemson in Chapel Hill on October. Oh, did I miss UCF? Did I skip UCF Diesel? You skipped UCF. I’m sorry. UCF uh at UCF these uh Dewey. That should be a win. So, you’ve got them three uh four and0. Four and0. All right. They have a buy, right? Got a buy and then you host Clemson. I think Clemson’s going to beat them. Okay. They said they’re 4- one at Cal. Yeah, I think Cal’s going to beat them. 4-2 Virginia. That’d be a bad loss, by the way. That’s a win. 5-2 at Syracuse. That’s a win. Six and two hosting Stanford. That’s a win. Seven and two at Wake Forest. That’s a win. Nine and two. Now we’re getting into coach of the year territory. Who is he getting? Duke. Duke. Duke. Dewey. Duke’s gonna upset him. Oh, loss. Maybe what? Nine and three. Diesel. Is that right? Yep. Or nine and uh that he would have them here at 8 and three and three. And finally at NC State, Dewey, that should be a win. NC State sucks. Okay. All right. Dewey, final comments beforeh before we let you go. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you and don’t go splat some more. Thanks D. If you do, think of me and goat. That’s amazing. Thank you. So he hit North Carolina. What diesel do you have? He’s got him at nine and three. Nine and three. Back to the phone lines we go. 844 3263663. Playing the win loss game. Tom in Somerville, I would assume, wants to play the win loss game with a Gamecocks, right? That’s right. But if y’all want to do the Braves, we can do the No, no, no. Let me let me help you out real quick. Lost, lost, lost, lost, lost, lost, lost, lost, win, lost, lost, lost, lost win, lost, lost, lost, lost, lost, lost win. By the way, Tom, I’m no longer allowed to watch Braves games. Did you catch what happened yesterday? I did not. I told Diesel, I said, “Pencer Strider, Lamound, if the Braves lose tonight, which I know they won’t because they’re they’re going to win tonight, I won’t watch another game all season long.” And guess what happened? They lost. You did yourself You did yourself a favor, man. You’re going to be a happier man for for making that decision, Cole. That’s true. That is true. All right, Tom. Gamecocks, if there are any other Gamecock fans, get in quick at 844 3263663. I mean, real quick. Tom, are you re by the way? What are your thoughts on Dwey predicting North Carolina going nine and three? Nine and three in Bill Bich’s first year. That ain’t happening, Dwey. That ain’t happening. What would you have them at? Like more like eight wins, seven? I just The ACC has so many question marks in my opinion. Yeah. You know, they they could go seven and five. They could go eight and four. They could go six and six. But I think there’s a threeame window of opportunity. It could be six and six. Dwey could be right. It could be nine and three. There’s just too many unknown uh questions. Be the first time be the first time Dewey was right. All right, Tom Diesel’s got you ready. You ready to do this? Uh, let’s go. Hang on. I I didn’t quite have it yet. 2025 South Carolina football. Uh, we all know, you know, who they who they start with, obviously. Uh, Tom against Virginia Tech. Tom, who you got? It’s going to be closer than people realize. Like, but the Gamecocks are going to win. Hold on one second. Win to start the season. Starting off at one and0. We got another Gamecock on the line. So, we’re going to uh have you both on the line at the same time. All right. We’re putting your live predictions. Hang on for us, Tom. Just a moment. Gamecock Gary. So, we got to lock Tom together. That’s right. We got to lock Tom. Go to Gamecock Gary. Tom Gary. Gary. What’s up, Gary? What’s up, Tom? Go Gamecock. Gamecock Gary. Virginia Tech. Who do you got? Win. Win. Okay, here we go with week two, South Carolina State. Tom, you go first. Win. Win. and Gary Smackdown. All right, week number three, the Vanderbilt Commodores come to town. Tom, win. Win and for Gary. Ah, loss. Paul, loss. Oh my gosh. We’ll let y’all fight it out. How about week number four at Missouri? Loss. Loss for Tom. Gary. Yeah, loss. Gary’s down. Rough, rough crowd. How about at home against Kentucky? Beat down. Win for Tom. Win. And a win for Gary. How about it? So in the buy, just to to pause for a second. Yeah. Tom’s got him at 4 and one. Gary’s got him at three and two. All right. Not that solid uh by week. And then on the road at LSU, lost, Gary. Lost. There you go. Uh, sorry I can’t put an A on here for ass whooping. Yeah. How about uh the following week at home against Oklahoma? Win. Win for Tom and Gary lost. Oh, Gary. Gary, are you sure you’re a Gamecock fan? Venable’s getting that defense that he had up there in dagum Tiger Town. Show up. All right. The following week, you got two in a row at Williams Bryce, but you face Alabama for homecoming. Tom win. Whoa, Tom, come on now. Uh Gary, lost. Lost. Scary. Not not high on this year’s team. Tough schedule. Uh how about on the road at Miss on November 1st? Los Gary. This is a bunch of L’s up here. Are you sure Gary’s not a Claus at Clemson fan? Just calling in to dig the needle in. Another buy uh by week. And at that by week, Tom has the South Carolina Gamecooxs at 6 and2. Gamecock Gary has them at three and six at that point. No, sorry. Tom had him at six and three. Gamecock Gary’s got him at three and six. Oh, that’s not good. All right, here we go. The final three games to close it out. Tom at at Texas A&M. win. Los God, Gary. Coastal Carolina coming in to Williams Bryce Stadium on November 22nd. Smackdown. There you go. Win. Win for both of you. All right, one more. And the final game of the season, you got to stay at home and face the Clemson Tigers. Who? Tyler. Hey, Beamer’s gonna finally beat him in Colia. It’s going to be a beatd down. We’re going to be dancing in the fairgrounds. We’ll be nine and three. We’ll be on the way to the college football playoff. And we going to have us a party in Colia. And just for you, Dewey, game Kary, what’s going to happen in that game? You’ve lost your mind. This is Lefty Tiger. We going to spank the heck out of y’all in the middle of the fairground. And the way, baby, I called it. Calling in. Tom, I called it. Lefty tiger clips. Natty or bust, baby. Let’s go. Well, you going to be busting cuz ain’t taking y’all to no national championship. I can promise you that. Write it down. You can put it on a piece of paper and you can call me back if I’m wrong, but that is not happening. Ky is not taking Clemson to a national championship. He ain’t Sean Watson. He ain’t Trevor Lawrence. It will not happen. Tom, did you see that coming? Did you see the switcheroo? I mean, that that is a might Shyamala ding-dong type of twist right there. As soon as he said the Gamecocks are losing to Vanderbilt, I knew because the last time South Carolina lost to Vanderbilt Yeah, but Alabama lost to Vanderbilt. Well, I don’t care about Alabama. The last time the Gamecocks lost to Vanderbilt, George W. Bush was still president. Okay, it has been that dagam long. It ain’t happening. Tom, you are simply the best. That might have been my favorite segment in like months. Go Gamecocks. We are 50 days till kickoff. How about Thank you, Tom. That that that was incredible. What a heel turn. What a plot twist. Didn’t expect that. You know what I was thinking, Diesel? Lefty Tiger. I was sitting there thinking the whole time during while while you were doing that, I was sitting there thinking, I’ve never heard of Gamecock Gary. And there’s a reason he didn’t exist. And there’s a Gary out there thinking, man, I can never call now because I don’t think I’m Lefty Tiger. That was epic. So So Tom had him going nine and three. Lefty Tiger aka Gamecock Gary has South Carolina at 4 and eight. That is amazing. To who’s going to be closer to the correct prediction? I think Tom by the end of the season. I think so. It’s still the brutal SEC schedule you face. Uh, scrolling down the list here, you got one, two, three, four, five preseason ranked teams. Oklahoma coming to town. Vandy with Diego Pav is still there. You know, we we’ll do it again this year, Diesel. The first week of August last year, the first week of August, we did ours official predictions. That gives you and I just a little bit less than a month to stew on a little bit more and get our minds right. You and I have a little bit less than a month to give our official predictions. 2025 Clemson and South Carolina get on the schedules. I think probably though I think it’s going to be a little closer to Toms. I I do. When we come back, let’s do our Friday tradition, our Friday fives, our whip around the sports world to see who’s crushing it this week. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat up here. Heat up here. Heat. Heat. Heat up here. Heat up here. Heat up here. Oh, heat, heat. Oh, heat, heat. Oh, heat, heat. Buckeye Brian texts in on the Hub City Spartanberger’s text line 844 fan phone 844 3263663. He doesn’t go win loss for the Buckeyes, but he does say that they’re going to go 11-1 and win back-to-back national championships. And Buckeye Brian, since you didn’t tell me which game they were going to lose, I’m going to go ahead and put the L down for November 29th. Um, that game is the Michigan game. Buckeye Brian, who why didn’t you call? Well, come on. So, they got I don’t want to hear any excuses. You might be working, but you next time next week we’ll do it again. And I want to hear you call win loss. Texas, Gramling State, Ohio, at Washington, Minnesota, at Illinois, at Wisconsin, Penn State, at Purdue, UCLA, Rutgers, and at Michigan. At Michigan’s the hardest game on that schedule, Texas outside of the Texas. Well, the hardest road game, excuse me. It is a road game. Uh Michigan really good. They’re not going to be Texas good. That just shows you how soft this is, but it is a road game. Yeah. I mean, let’s be one. One one two. Illinois is a preseason top 11 team in the country. Yeah. For now. Help me out with that. That won’t last long. Help me. Sorry. Somebody explain that to me. Brent B. Four. Four ranked opponents. Yeah. I’m just going to put you down for that L was the one that almost got into it with Beamer. Belma and Beamer, right? That is true. That’s true. They did have dinner after the fact and they squared it away. So everything is good between Beamer and Bilaba. Cole, let’s do our uh our segment here. We do it every single Friday. It’s called our Friday fives. The best performances this week. That deserves a high five. This is the high five. All right. High five, ladies. Gentlemen, I should feel tremors of psychitude rock my body like a seizure. Continue the interaction. Tollos, here’s your chance to shout out something that happened that was great. This week, we like to shout out some of the best sports performances of the week, but you can shout out anything you want to at 844 3263663. I’ll get it started. Cole here, Team USA Women’s Basketball, taking home a gold in the FIA America Cup, which I’ve never heard of before. Never heard of the FIA America Cup, but if there’s a gold, dang it, I want America to win it. They had a comeback victory over Brazil 92- 84. All college players on this team, by the way. Freshman Michaela Blakes, who is going to be playing at Vanderbilt, led the charge with 27 points. Notre Dame’s Olivia Miles, broke the assist record in a FIA America Cup game. And South Carolina’s Joyce Edwards, 11 points and seven rebounds. She was all over the glass. High five to USA women’s basketball. I love Joyce Edwards. I really do. You know, do the usual. I’ll tell you this. Um yesterday, you know, we we plan about a day in advance for our our shows and I knew we had Friday fives coming up or maybe those day before. Uh and I was thinking, you know, I bet I bet I’m going to give mine to Cooper Flag. However, I’m here to tell you on this Friday that I’m not giving it to Cooper Flag. Cooper Flag struggled a little bit. And it’s not Flag Day. No. summer league debut in Las Vegas. 10 points, tough night shooting, five of 21. What a loser overall. 0 for five from three. Uh again, he he had some defense, some stiff defense. I saw a couple of videos online where him and Bronny were kind of kind of not getting into it, but really good play between the two of them. Uh he did have a tomahawk dunk off of a steel, but it was a tough night shooting for Cooper Flag. So, I’m here to tell Cooper Flag publicly cuz I know he’s listening to the show that he is not getting a Friday five from me. Sorry about that, Cooper Flag. So, you pulled the old lefty tiger switcheroo where it makes it sound like you’re going to say something nice and then you turn it around. I did. I’m sorry. Cooper Joey on the hub city Spartanberg’s text line says, uh, let’s see. High five to Kendra LLC out of Chicago for giving me a job and ending this year long retirement. Wow. So it what are you moving Joey? Yeah. Tell us. Are we losing you? I hope not. What is Tell Joey? Help us out. Tell us what Kendra LLC is and uh tell us if you’re moving or if you’re working remotely. Hopefully we’re working remotely. Hopefully hopefully you stay here. Or we’ll have a tollo in Chicago. Right. Um Cole, I’ve got one here for the vast majority. So, this is lots of high fives. High fives to the vast majority of professional athletes for not injuring themselves on Fourth of July when it came to fireworks. Hold on, Naji Harris. Not you. Not you, Naji Harris. Former Alabama and current San Die San Diego Los Angeles Chargers running back. He had a mishap at a fireworks event in Antioch, California, which caused him a quote superficial eye injury. While another attendee at this party lost a finger, not good. Come on, Naji. I diesel. Be smarter than that. Am going to give one one high five today. Just one and one only. And I’m not going to pull another switcheroo on you. I’m gonna give a high five to our friend, good friend of the show. You’ve heard him on here multiple times, Chad Culr, the manager of the Hub City Spartan Burgers. The Spartanbergers since Wednesday have had one, two, three, four again, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven wins in their last eight. So, the Burgers are starting to hit a little bit of a good stretch, getting back above 500. Rome’s a good team. They’ve took two of three so far. So, seven of their last eight are all wins. My Friday fives going to the Spartanbergers, but in particular, Diesel, the manager, Chad Culmer, by the way, at Rome tonight, 7:00, first pitch. Uh, see, Dan B says, “Didn’t a player blow a finger off about 10 or 15 years ago?” That was Jason Pierre Paul. Giants. Yep. Yep. Yep. Sure did. Uh, his hand is mangled. It is wonky. It is gross. You know what happens when you do that, Diesel? You have one less finger. You got to have high force. He has nine fingers now. Yeah. Uh, I’m going to throw a high five out there to whoever it was at Texas Tech University. That’s why this is so surprising. Somebody at Texas Tech put up $5.1 million in NIL money to land 2026 five-star offensive tackle Felix Oho. Didn’t know they had that kind of scratch. So, out of Texas Tech, here’s what I will tell you about that. Uh, I’ve been, you know, Big 12 media days going on. Yep. I’ve been seeing uh videos and pictures on social media of this guy, this booster. He is making his rounds with the media at Big 12 media days. He’s evidently like cha-ching. Like cha-ching. And he’s do he’s so cha-ching cha-ching that he’s doing interviews with media. You’ve got a a rich guy just walking around this booster. Hey man, what’s it like to have four billion dollars in, you know what I mean? So this this guy Texas Tech, he is singlehandedly kind of like Dave Portoroy did with Michigan. single-handedly trying to get them to a national title. Are we sure it’s not uh Taylor Sheridan? Because he made Texas Tech the focal point of Land Man. That’s the that’s the school that that the son was a fan of. That’s the school that the daughter and the daughter’s boyfriend are going to go to. So, they were all over Texas Tech in that show. Wasn’t that funny when he said something about Nick Sabin and Billy Bob Thornton was like, you know, Nick Sin retired. And then that the the best part was the line. We can’t say it on air, but the line at the end when the daughter got upset and they told him, you know, the dad, Billy Bob Thornton, told the daughter, he he said, “Screw Alabama.” But it wasn’t. Ah, it was a good That’s a good move. A good show. Uh, by the way, real quick, Joey says, “Not moving. They are an IT service provider. They hired me to support their client location in Simpsonville, 7 minutes from the house.” Congrats, Joey. That’s worth celebrating. That’s awesome. Awesome. Congratul High five to you, Joey. High five to you. High five to you. Uh, I’m gonna throw one more out there for you, Cole. Um, I’m going to throw one to my wife who’s at home right now taking care of a two-day old kitten that we found behind our fence, behind our house, between our house and the one behind us. Found an abandoned kitten. So, she’s at home taking care of this teeny weeny little thing. I’m not envious. I’m not envious. I mean, it’s still got the the umbilical cord attached. Like that’s how baby baby this thing is. And we think maybe Mama Cat um abandoned it cuz it got stuck in the grass and Mama Cat said, “Well, can’t get it out. Sorry. You’re going to hate me for this, but I’ll tell you this. I I dislike cats so much that if there was an abandoned cat behind my house, let me tell you this. I would not have found it. You just need I would have found it. You just need a like a cat to come and sit in your lap one time and be like, “Oh my god, I get it. I get it.” So, if any tools want a kitten, let me know. Diesel has a 844 fan phone. Shameless wave for me to see if anybody wants a kitten in the Malden Greenville. That is fantastic. That’s fant. Why is Why is Diesel driving down 85 tonight at 9:00 with a kitten while he’s delivering it to a tollo in Spartanber. Don’t eat it. I can Oh, whoa, whoa, whoa. I can see that happening. Good stuff. To Daily Wires. If you’ve never heard of that segment, we’ll tell you what it is next. Heat up here. Heat. Heat. Heat up here. Heat up here. Heat. Heat. Heat up here. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat up here. toos. If you are new to the show and you’re wondering what a tool is, well, glad you asked. Tollo stands for turn on leave on. Occasionally, we have somebody asked what tollo means. And you out there that listen faithfully every day from 3:00 to 7:00 are tollos. Turn on, leave on. That’s what we ask you to do every day on the fan upstate. Turn it on and leave it on. Diesel, uh, some pretty nasty storms in the upstate before we start the daily wires. Daily wires. There you go. Before we start the day, sorry, I was thinking about I know you atmosphere. To be safe out there. Be safe out there is all I got to say cuz there’s been some nasty storms up in the uh Spartanberg area from what I was told on the text line. But let’s get this party started with what’s going on in the sports world. The Atlanta Braves were defeated in 11 innings on Thursday. You don’t say. Shocker, right? 5 to four was the final score, Diesel, by the the A’s. And I told you yesterday that if they lost with Spencer friaking Strider on the mound, which I thought there was no way they’d lose, I would not watch the Braves. So, guess what? Here I am on July the 11th telling you I’m done with the Braves for 2025. I’m not watching anymore. So there you have it this year. Okay. Now I’ll probably see them on like highlight. Well, I don’t know if they’ll have highlights. They might not have highlights. There’s There’s no highlights. It’s only It’s only when it’s highlights for the other team. Fair enough. Atlanta in St. Louis tonight. 8:15 first pitch. Grant Holmes on the mound. Uh how about this Diesel? We talk a lot about on the field. But what about off the field? Former Tiger right-handed pitcher Lucas Molstead was named the ACC baseball scholar athlete of the year for the entire ACC conference. Um, announced Thursday by the league office. He became the first Tiger since 2019. Logan Davidson and the third in the history of the program to receive this honor for baseball. The ACC Scholar Athlete of the Year Awards were established in 2007 to be awarded annually to the top junior or senior student athlete in their respective sports. Pretty cool. Way to go. He’s done. He’s a He’s a smart one, as they say. The former Alabama basketball player Darius Miles is scheduled to stand trial for capital murder beginning December 1st in Alabama circuit court more than 2 years after he was arrested in a fatal shooting or connection with a fatal shooting of Jimmy Harris in Tuscaloosa. Only 23 years old, he was accused of aiding and abetting codefendant Michael Davis who was found guilty of capital murder. Davis was sentenced to life in prison. Just terrible news, Diesel, that you really don’t want to see. You know, they they they can’t all be perfect. Um, it’s bad. It’s rough. Really is. WBA lightweight champion Gravanta Tank Davis, 30 years old, was arrested on Friday morning in Miami Beach on a battery charge stemming from alleged domestic dispute with his ex-girlfriend of four years. Venus Williams accepted a wildcard invitation to play singles at this month’s DC Open, which would be the seventime Grand Slam Champion’s first tournament in more than a year. Williams, who turned 45 in June, is listed as inactive on the WTA’s Tours website. I like that wildcard invitation. Is that what gave you the idea for um for for our all-star Major League Baseball All-Star game like improvements? No. No, I No, I didn’t think about that. Think about that. A wildcard invitation. Could be a celebrity. Could be could be a guy from Dude Perfect. You know, that kind of stuff. Uh New York. The Yankees leftander Carlos Rodon was named to a to the American League All-Star team Friday, replacing teammate Max Freed. You know that name, don’t you? It is third all-star selection for Rodon, 32, who made the all AL squad with the Chicago White Socks in 2021 and the National League roster with the Giants in 22. It is such a great idea for Alex Anthopoulos to move on from next week. It really was. Yeahar Alex, thanks. Five-star DT Lamar Brown, ESPN’s number one overall recruit in the 2026 class, announced his commitment to LSU on Thursday, securing a seismic local recruiting win for coach Brian Kelly. That’s big. Yeah, feels big. We were talking about this the other day. Is Brian Kelly going to end the season as the LSU head coach if they miss the college football playoff? Well, I’ll tell you what, for him to be able to go get that guy, again, it hadn’t happened on the field yet, right? They haven’t they haven’t become that that perennial powerhouse that they’re uh known for yet, but for him to go get that guy, and he’s uh done a good job with recruiting thus far, that’s big. That’s really, really big. So, we’ll see how how things go for old Brian Kelly. He’s going to be stacked this year, so he better he better perform. Uh in Washington, a bill to regulate college sports introduced in the House on Thursday would offer limited antitrust protection for the NCAA while barring schools from using student fees to pay for college athletic programs. Co-sponsors of the SCORE Act include seven Republicans and two Democrats, which gives the bill a fair chance of passage. In the House, it would need at least seven Democratic votes in the Senate where its chances are viewed as slim. That’s big because a lot of schools a lot I mean every school every school uses student fees to help pay for athletics. Oh yeah, we just talked about that a couple days ago. I mean James Madison’s number is gigantic. It’s like two grand a year JMU students are paying for athletics. Now JMU students will will tell you or their fans will say it’s it’s all accounting. They’re not really paying two grand. It’s just two grand attributed to each student. They’re not actually paying that. But think about how many schools and athletic programs are kept afloat by student fees. And I’m sorry, running a program is not going to get any cheaper. So, if you now take away a giant revenue source from these athletic departments and you’re making them pay up to 20.5 million dollars a year in revenue sharing, Yeah. Woo. It’s crazy. That could be a seismic shift in college athletics. Before we get back into the Allstar game conversation, one more for you. Chargers running back Naji Harris sustained an eye injury after a fireworks mishap at a July 4th event. His agent Doug Hendrickson told ESPN’s Adam Shar on Tuesday. They said it was superficial and that Harris is expected to be ready for the NFL season. And those, ladies and gentlemen, are your daily wires. I guess you could say he can see himself getting on the field. I like it. I like it. When we come back, Cole, we had a great conversation. Uh let’s let’s jump back into a great conversation earlier about um about the All-Star game. The Allstar game. Wimbledon. Yeah. Is it even worth talking about, paying attention to if you’re an American? We’ll jump right back into it next.