Raising Howl: Luke Combs, What Are You Even Thinking?

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1:00Hey, I'm Josh Speagle. Host of the podcast, Lunatic in the newsroom. If you enjoy journalism that drifts into mild panic, wild overthinking, and a guaranteed nervous breakdown, Lunatic in the newsroom is for you. It's news like you've never heard before. The only newsroom with a panic button. You'll laugh. You'll cry. And gasp and horror as the show spirals completely out of control. It's not just news. It's emotionally unstable. Lunatic in the newsroom. Listen today. Hey, you're back. Yes, I'm back. This is Jeremy Harper raising a hell. Part of the believe network. Sort of an offspring to fun-built PC. Welcome back. Here we talk about the red wolves of Arkansas state. We also talk a little bit about the sunbelt,

2:01about the group of five in general. Got all kinds of opinions today. My biggest opinion, though, is red wolves baseball is back. But I don't even know if they're back. I don't even know if they were ever here to tell you the truth. But I know that there have been some seasons where we saw a sliver of success. A sliver of success. But not in a very long time. I remember that for a while there, the storyline for Arkansas state baseball was, hey, we don't do very well in the regular season. But come tournament time. Come sunbelt tournament time. And we did. We would seem like we'd get into the finals a lot. We'd lose.

3:03But it was like we had to get hot at the end of the season. This season we're hot now. This season, Arkansas state red wolves baseball is hot right now. And I love, I love the team. I love this team. I, you know, it was funny at the beginning of the year, you know, you see that Coach Silva is putting together his guys. Oh, this guy signed, this guy signed, this guy signed. And you're like, are they any good? You don't know. You don't know if Lane Walton's going to be any good. You don't know if Evan Griffiths is going to be good or Patrick in scale or all these guys, all these guys that we have.

4:05That can mash the ball. We knew Quiller could play well. He's having a great season. He's giving us leader. He's leading off games. Not just leading off the lineup, but leading off games with homeruns. I've been to two A state baseball games already this year. And that's like double the amount of A state baseball games that I've ever been. True confession, full transparency. It used to be I could count on Arkansas state baseball to be bad, so I can just sort of relax through the summer. I didn't have to think about a state baseball. Yeah, you know, sometimes I would listen to it on the radio. I'd get mad if we lost. I was like, I'd say state baseball. We're not putting any effort into it. If the school wasn't going to put effort into baseball,

5:08then why should I put effort into baseball, right? Like Silva comes in, makes a couple demands. Ever early, they weren't even demands. I was like, hey, this is where the program needs to be if you want to compete. Not just in the sunbelt, where the sunbelt is not a mid-major program, or a mid-major conference when it comes to baseball. The sunbelt is a major conference for baseball. Today, there are eight sunbelt programs, sub-100. The number one for RPI. The number one RPI school in the land is a sunbelt school. That's Southern Miss. Number 14. Are the Cajuns, the traditional powerhouse in the sunbelt. They're finally back. Welcome back to the conversation Cajuns.

6:10And Arkansas states in there. They took a hit. Red Bulls lost a couple games in Houston, the oral Roberts. They picked up one, lost two, hurt the RPI a little bit. I went to the Hogan field, Gary Hogan field, where you a little rock plays to watch a state clobber, you a little rock, especially in the ninth inning. It was just a clobbering. At one point, they loaded the bases intentionally to get the lane walled in. I thought, wow, that's a risk. He made him pay with a big single. Yeah, every time I tell people, yeah, I went to the two games at Gary Hogan. Both a state Trojans games.

7:11And every year, I get the same thing, oh, it's dangerous out there. Oh, it's so dangerous. There's so many gunshots. I don't know what you guys are talking about. It's in the middle of a neighborhood. It's not like a bad neighborhood either. I mean, it's not filled with million dollar houses. I think so. You just need to grow up a little bit. I hear a lot of people, they talk tough. They're always tough. They're country tough. Got my truck, got my shotgun. But man, you have to spend a couple hours in the city. Whoo. Anyway, I like Gary Hogan field. It's not much to it. It's just baseball and Gary Hogan. They had one concession stand open. One really slow worker out there putting together stuff. He didn't care. He was in no rush. A beer 750.

8:12It's a 25 ounce beer. God, it's a lot of beer. They even have to pay to get in. Just walked in. So my good friend Mike Harley from the Democrat is that he covers a state, but he also covers you a little. He was like, I'm covering both. Anyway, I love Arkansas state baseball. I love the lineup. I like the pitching, the pitching for Arkansas state is tremendous. Right now, there are two programs in the thumbnail that have excellent team ERAs. And that is Southern Miss and Arkansas state. Something like 2.4 and 2.6. Something like that. They're given about two and a half runs again. Everybody else after that. At least four and a half runs again.

9:14So Arkansas state doesn't just have the hitting, which is good. Because in past teams, there's always at least one guy for Arkansas state that could that could hit. Everybody else, you just didn't know. There's at least four or five guys on this team. Maybe back in head. Maybe more. I don't know. But I like this team. I like I'm going to show up at the Southern Miss Arkansas state game on Sunday. Can't get there until Sunday. By then, two games will have already been played. Who knows? Maybe we're two and no. Maybe we're O and two. Maybe we split the series. I don't know. I'm going to show up. I think it's going to be electric. I'm going to drop by the beer garden. See, Mr. Felding. The former head of the. A state esports program.

10:14He might be bartending. Out there in the beer garden. There are a couple of things that happened. Within the college sporting community. Well, at least one big national headline came out. The Donald Trump administration put together a. A round table saving college sports. And I'm not opposed to these round tables. I think these round tables are a great idea. Give me a meaty topic. Something that that maybe this administration can confront and solve. Violence towards Native American women. All right. That needs a round table.

11:16The growing drug use in southern states. Let's have that discussion. Look, these are national story lines that the federal government should weigh. And I like round tables because what you do is you bring in some experts. Some people who know the situation. And they say, Mr. President, this is what's going on. You might have read this in the news somewhere. You might have heard this on a podcast. You might be watching this on YouTube. But here are what's actually going down on the grid. Okay, great. I don't know. President may not be able to solve that. Well, at least he's at least the president knows what's down. What's going on. I like that. I think that's a great idea. There should be more of that. I like that. They're public. Put it on TV.

12:18Let everybody know what's going on. And saving college sports. Right now, I know we've got a lot of stuff going on. There's a war going on and ran. Prices are very high right now. Oil is going in skyrocketing. The housing market is still unaffordable. There's just a lot of things going on, right? That our government could be focused on. So you say, well, maybe saving college sports is probably not top priority. I don't care. You know, people are kind of grousing about that. Why is he focused on this? I don't care. You can spend a couple hours on this. Go ahead. Let's talk about it. Bring in some guys. Some top-notch experts. Make it diverse. I say diverse. Diverse. Make it diverse. I want to see everybody represented. It's a big enough table.

13:22My problem with the saving college sports roundtable is pretty much who is at the roundtable. Some of these people have nothing to do with college sports. Why is Mark Rubio? No, no, I'm sorry. Mark Rubio. Why is Ted Cruz? Why is Mike Johnson at this? Why is Laurie Trayhan? I get it. They're leaders. Maybe they have something to say. What do they know about this topic? What can they add to this roundtable? That some of the people who weren't invited could have added to the table. All right. Fine. We need big leaders. Let's get some leaders in there.

14:22Let's get in. I don't know. Tiger Woods. Okay. Great. Nick Sabin. Isn't he retired? Urban Myers. Isn't he retired? So all the commissioners for the big forums were there. The only group of five representation that was at the roundtable was the AAC guy, right? American Commissioner Tom Pernetti, who probably in his mind he thinks that the AAC is probably a power conference. He probably says that to people. Hey, we're a power conference. So he probably thinks he fits right in with the power for so really no representation from the group of five.

15:24Great. The very people who are responsible for the destruction of college sports as we see it today are invited to the roundtable. Not to be dressed down or criticized, but so they can lend their voice to more complaints. See, the power for they're there. They're not there to save college sports. They're there to squeeze more money out of college sports out of us, the fans, and reduce the amount of teams out there to which you will spend money. That's why they're there. The athletes are making all this bank, which is sort of a double edge sword for them because they want. They don't want athletes to make a lot of money, but they want athletes to make just enough money where the group of five programs, group of six programs can't compete.

16:36That's what they want to do. They're tired of paying quarterbacks, six million dollars. Offensive linemen, a million dollars. They're tired of doing that. They don't want to do that. That's money that they can have. But they want them to have enough money to why even the group of five is like, we can't we still kind of work. I'm just sure there's this great sweet spot for them. I don't know what it is. I don't know economics. But that's what the round table was. Nick Saban, these kids are making too much money. It's really ruining everything. How about coaches? Are coaches making too much money? We're paying coaches 10 million a year. We're paying assistant coaches two, three, four million dollars a year. They never have any complaints about that. You know, when college sports start paying coaches a million bucks a year, that happened in the 90s.

17:46That's when things started going downhill. It's like, we got to just keep paying coaches. We got to pay them a lot of money. We're going to brag about it. Man, we're paying our coach two million. Oh yeah, we're paying ours three. But at least at that time, it wasn't the fans. I mean, we were getting fleeced. Don't get me wrong. But it's mostly rich boosters foot in the bill, right? Now, I guess Scana NIL code when I walk into a place. Put some money in the NIL. It's up to me. Jeremy Harper. Middle class fan. We need your money to compete. Now that's addressed. Those guys met for two hours. They bitched and complained about student athletes making money. College sports needs a roundtable. It might even need federal intervention.

18:50We had our own governing body, the NCAA 2014. The power five conferences decide that they wanted to be the NCAA. That's why we're in this mess. Now it's the power four because they got so greedy. They got rid of one of their own. Greg Sankey, Tom Petty, Brett, your Mac, Jim Phillips. You are the guys responsible for the destruction of college sports. You're the reason why I need saving. Why are you at this table? Not a single athlete at this table. Definitely not real group of six or anyone interested in representing the group of six. American isn't interested in that. They think they're power.

19:54Yes, let's have a roundtable. Mr. President, let's do it. Put the right people there. I don't want to hear what Marco Rubio has to say. He's got bigger fish to fry. The map's app that came with your phone? It's fine. If you enjoy waiting and guessing and inefficient routes. Or you could use MapQuest. MapQuest is back with live directions. Real-time traffic and faster routes. It moves when you move. Best of all, no prints are needed. No paper. No more misterns. Just you and the app. Get there fast with MapQuest. Download the MapQuest app on the app store or visit MapQuest.com. MapQuest, still getting you there. The Bleacher Report app is your destination for sports. Right now, the NBA's heating up, March Manus is here, and MLB is almost back. Every day there's a new headline, a new highlight, a new moment you've got to see for yourself. That's why I stay locked in with the Bleacher Report app. For me, it's about staying connected to my sports.

20:56I could follow the teams I care about, get real-time scores, breaking news, and highlights all in one place. Download the Bleacher Report app today so you never miss a moment. Hi, this is Alex Cantrowitz. I'm the host of Big Technology Podcast, a long-time reporter and an on-air contributor to CNBC. And if you're like me, you're trying to figure out how artificial intelligence is changing the business world and our lives. So each week on Big Technology, I bring on key actors from companies building AI tech and outsiders trying to influence it. Asking where this is all going, they come from places like Nvidia, Microsoft, Amazon, and plenty more. So if you want to be smart with your wallet, your career choices, and meetings with your colleagues, and at dinner parties, listen to Big Technology Podcast wherever you get your podcasts. I don't care what Ron DeSantis has to say. He's running a state! Anyway, that's one thing that happened.

21:59Here's something else that happened just recently. I still haven't even wrapped my head fully around it, so you're just going to have to bear with me a little bit. So you may or may not know that country music star Luke Combs is a graduate of Appalachian State. Yeah, it's always good when you have a celebrity of that kind of standing come from your school because you can count on them. You hope you can count on them to represent, right? Like Demaro Davis, for instance, I wish he was a little more vocal for Arkansas State, but he helps. He comes over. That other country McBride Saturday Melissa McBride, I don't know country music.

23:05I wish you were a little more vocal, but hey. Appalachian State Appalachian State has Luke Combs, who in the past has been very supportive of the mountaineers. Great. That's great. How many times have you seen a star that graduated from a Sunbelt School and instead of supporting that school, they've supported an SEC school nearby? That happens, right? Happens here in Arkansas. All man, big razor back fan. Dude, the degree he gets from a state. All man, family's been big Arkansas fans all their lives. Yeah, go get bent, man. Why did you go to Arkansas? Anyway, that happens.

24:07Anyway, Luke Combs. He has concerns. He gets on a podcast, something called The Bustin with the Boys. I don't know what that is. I don't care. I don't really listen to podcasts. I don't even listen to this. Well, Luke Combs, he's on there. He's sitting there with his sunglasses on top of his baseball cap. He's bearded with no mustache. And the host is asking Luke Combs, why haven't you donate to the NIL? And he says, why need guarantees? Well, you know, two-year contract. These kids should have to sign a two-year contract if they're going to sign an NIL deal. And you know what? That's not a bad idea.

25:08In fact, I think that's probably among bigger donors. That's probably a popular idea. Hell, it's a popular idea with me. He was like, one year's not enough. They're already doing one of your deals. They get their money and they split. Get their money somewhere else. A two-year deal. That would be great. I think that there are a lot of wealthy donors that are seeing NIL's kind of scam. Hey, donate this money so we can get this quarterback. Okay, great. He's going to leave us to the promised line. Oh, he's a bus. Third string. I mean, that's got to be the biggest waste of money you could possibly have, right? That money could have gone to cancer research, education, a charity. You just put that money in a third string quarterback. I get it.

26:09If I got a ton of cash, I don't want my money to go to somebody who's riding the bitch. So yeah, Luke comes as I need some guarantees. I need some limits. He should have stopped there because then he had some more opinions. I just don't know that in the portal era that we're in now, that is school like us. And this is going to be such a hot take. Absolutely. I would love to see us go back down to FCS. Because then there's a chance that you win a national championship. I mean, you're best. The best thing that can happen to us is get beat by Oregon by 50 points. Buddy, that's the season. You're singing to me right now. Yeah. Luke comes. Big Appalachian State fan. Really big when Appalachian State football was doing well.

27:09All right, that was a few years ago. Remember when Appalachian State football was talk of the town? They were crushing guys. Not anymore. You know, this happens to almost any team. Not just in the sun belt. Just anywhere you go through a run where you're really good. And then that magic sort of fades away and you have to rebuild. That's where Appalachian State is now. Appalachian State will be good again. They'll find their glory again. You don't take a couple bad years though and say, hey man, I guess this experiment at the FBS didn't work out for us. I think we should drop back down to FCS. Not even somebody who a fan of ULM would say that on a podcast like that.

28:13Although privately they might say that. I know they do. And here was Luke Holmes' rationale for that. Oh, at least we'd have a chance for a national championship. That is a loser's mentality, folks. That's like saying, I could win the karate tournament if I competed against like 10-year-olds. Then I could win a trophy. What would you rather do? Have your team compete with the best? Work hard. Maybe not win, probably not win, but man. They're up there. They're playing against the best competition. Or do you just want the trophy? Do you just want a trophy?

29:18I'll be honest with you. I don't know who won the FCS title this year or last year or the year before. I don't keep that in mind. I mean, fans of James Madison and Appalachian State and Georgia Southern. They'll tell you right away who won because they still seem to give a shit. I don't. History doesn't. And Appalachian State's most visible fan came out and said, hey, we got to give up, dog. We can't win a national championship, so we're done. I'm coming to get it. Yeah. Sure. You had a couple bad years. It's not as much fun as it used to be. Yeah, it's fun winning. And for guys like Luke Combs, it doesn't matter who you're winning against.

30:21Why don't you go down to the boys club? Just dunk on some 14-year-olds. That'll make you feel better, Luke Combs. Well, some of us say FCS doesn't play good football. They do. They play great football. But it's not the same category of football. It's not the best. They play great football. They're not playing the best. And you're saying, my school, my program doesn't deserve that. No, we worked hard for it. And now we've had a couple of lean years. And we're going to pack it in. Yeah, I think that sucks. It doesn't just suck for Appalachian State. That sucks for Sunbelt, too. Because Appalachian State represents the Sunbelt.

31:23You got one of its most visible high-profile fans saying, hey, our guys can compete. I mean, they competed before. They're having some bad years. So they'll compete a more. So we should drop down. You know what? I've heard this from Arkansas State, guys, too. They would never say that on a podcast. They wouldn't come on this podcast to make that argument. Because they know that that wouldn't be popular. That probably is wrong. But they'll say, hey, at least, at least we could win. Yeah, if we drop down the FCS, I don't know which conference we go to. I don't know FCS conferences. But yeah, we could we could do well for a while until the money ran out until fan interest lost out till the donors stopped giving.

32:27Because we're here to see the big stage, right? And suddenly we dropped down the FCS and we're like, oh, yeah. Who we playing? Oh, Lamar. Great. I love Lamar. Guys like Luke comes. They don't get it. They're not. I don't want to say they're not fans. They are fans. All right. They take an interest in the school. They take an interest in the success. They get too hurt by the failures or are disappointed by the failures. Why can't we be Indiana? Why can't we be Oregon? We're not Indiana. We're not Oregon. It's your school, though. I'll support it. He can't root for it. I don't know.

33:27That night. I just don't understand it. I don't understand what Luke comes. Why he thinks he has to go on to a podcast and make that statement. And he was right. His fan base. The fan base at Appalachian State is not going to like that. I shouldn't like it. Hmm. Basketball seasons over. It's not over. There's a popular tournament that's coming up. March Madness NCAA tournament. For the women, it'll be James Madison. Maybe Troy. I thought Troy was the better team James Madison won. Good for them. They're both, you know, to me, they were probably the two best teams. The two most likely teams to compete well in the national tournament.

34:31They can shoot from the outside. They can make layups on the inside. They weren't relying on guard play that Arkansas state. I'm sorry. We just. We're just we're just popping up three is all the time, which is fine. We won a lot of games that way, but. When you go up against a team that's big in the middle and. Can hit a critical three at a critical time. And. Can get a ton of rebounds and. Just make their basic layups. You just can't. You have to get lucky to beat those teams. Coach Rogers needs to find a big. Troy beat us two times. Three times now. I know Wilkerson was not available for the tournament, but what have mattered? I don't know. I just don't think we had the bigs. We need we need somebody in the middle. Somebody whose job it is to get those rebounds.

35:34We got plenty of women who can shoot for the three. We do. It's fun to watch. I love this season. I love to watch in this season. One of my favorite seasons yet. Rogers up and coming name. In women's basketball circles. Does she come back next year? I hope. Honestly, I think she probably follows her sister to Arkansas. That's my that's what I predict happens, but we'll see. For the men. Troy on their way to the NCAA tournament and well deserved. You know what Troy had returning starters. They had some guys that came back who knew the system understand stood Scott Cross. They knew the expectations. Could take some of the newcomers and say, hey, this is the way coach Cross wants it played.

36:35I hope and known can keep some of these guys. I do. Ryan Pannon. I hope you can keep some of these guys. Not just because I think they're good players. I think they are. But just to have some continuity man. We need it. If you have two guys that stays on your team. That know the system that can run it. Maybe you already have advantage in the Sunday. You have the advantage. I'm like saying, hey, it's all on you. Ryan Pannon. You can't convince guys to stay. If there's a bigger bag somewhere else. I get it. I don't blame players. We're all chasing the bag. I'm chasing it. You listening. You're chasing bag. We're all chasing bag. So I'm not going to say wow, the players felt for leaving their.

37:37Yeah, sometimes they get some bad advice. They're young. They're kids. They think they're invincible. That this ride is going to last forever. I get it. I get it though. It's fun. Chasing that back. So okay. So I don't blame players. But Pannon has to find a way. Has to find a way to keep some of these guys. So we can compete. Excellent job this year with a roster full of new guys. To win 20 games. To come in technically second in the sun belt. Seated seventh. But still okay. Second place that was fine. Next year. I'm sorry Ryan Pannon. We're going to want more. That's the way fans are set up. We're going to want more. We're going.

38:37We're going to be a little like a state baseball. A state baseball by the way. Five losses. Each of those losses lost by one run. That's five wins we could have had. You

39:41You You

40:41You You

41:41You You

42:41You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You The maps app that came with your phone. It's fine. If you enjoy waiting and guessing and inefficient routes. You could use map quest. Map quest is back with live directions. Real time traffic and faster routes. It moves when you move. Best of all, no prints are needed. No paper. No more misterds. Just you and the app. Get there fast with map quest. Download the map quest app on the app store or visit mapquest.com. Map quest. Still getting you there. The bleach report app is your destination for sports. Right now. March Band is here and MLB is almost back. Every day there's a new headline.

43:43A new highlight. A new moment you've got to see for yourself. That's why I stay locked in with the bleach report app. For me, it's about staying connected to my sports. I can follow the teams I care about. Get real time scores, breaking news and highlights all in one place. Download the bleach report app today so you never miss a moment. Hi, I'm Alicia and I'm Stacy and we make trashy divorces. Everybody's favorite good podcast about bad relationships. Looking for something true crimey without the gore or the body count? We've been shurning out funny, feisty, feminist episodes since 2019. So if you're looking to put some scandalous stories told well into your ears this summer, check out trashy divorces. Wherever you listen to podcasts, trust us. We've covered someone you love or someone you love to hate. If you liked the show, please take a moment to rate, review and subscribe. It really does help the show to grow. Thank you for listening.