00:00the passing of Lou Holtz at 89 years old. I know you grew up going to a Catholic school and
00:05you know, you're in that era where he was probably the pinnacle of college football.
00:09Yeah. I mean, there was a time from 1988 to 1993 where they were as good as any team in
00:15the big
00:15game under Lou Holtz. They only lost two top five showdowns, you know, to Colorado and Michigan.
00:22He was, he's the, somebody asked me yesterday, Bobby, who, who do you think Lou Holtz will be
00:29remembered by like Notre Dame, the sportscaster analyst, you know, some other stop like South
00:34Carolina. And to me, it's Notre Dame, you know, he, he was that coach. And I, if I was comparing
00:38it to
00:39Ohio state, I think he, in a lot of ways to Notre Dame is what Jim Trestle is to Ohio
00:44state. I don't
00:45know if that's a fair comparison or not, but he brought the big game to the program. They were
00:49very good in the big game under Lou Holtz. And then he never wavered in his support of the program
00:55afterward, sometimes to a fault on ESPN, but you know, legendary coach. And as you, you and I both
01:01know, and I don't know if younger generation knows this, but he started, he coached under Woody. He
01:07has a strong background in Ohio being an East Liverpool guy and, you know, growing up there.
01:12And I think he embodies kind of the same things you and I grew up with. And that's why he
01:16resonates
01:16so much. And the fact, you know, he's an Ohio guy, like you said, and he was very, he's always
01:21very
01:21complimentary of Ohio state. And I didn't realize that my dad goes, Oh yeah, he's from Ohio.
01:25He coached under Woody Hayes. Like he has immense respect. And you can see, you can kind of hear
01:31that the guys that coached under Woody, just the way they kind of talked with players, the
01:35way they dealt with players, that relationship, their desire to get them to improve. Just there's
01:39a specific type of man. And I, it's kind of a shame though. Cause I don't know if you have
01:45coaches like that anymore, the guys that come in and like, they, that's their dream
01:50program. They're there. They want to see these guys improve. And I know that we're in a different
01:54era of college football, but to the degree, like you have the Lou Holtz is out there who,
01:59you know, they coached a lot of stops, but you know, the pinnacle, like you said, was his
02:03Notre Dame stop, but just his desire to help improve and want to really just pour into his
02:09young coaches and pour into the players. Yeah. You know, and I think, you know, the phrase
02:15I've talked about this a little bit yesterday, I have a really close friend, uh, JD, my college
02:20roommate, he, he would like, when he's talking about his team, he would build them up. Like
02:24if they're playing somebody that they should destroy, he would build up the team they're
02:28playing against. And, uh, I would say, stop being Lou Holtz, you know, because Lou Holtz
02:32was the best at that. Uh, he, he just would build up the other team, but he was classic.
02:38It was classic coaching with him. And, you know, one of the things that stood out to me is
02:42I was thinking about this yesterday. Some of his defining victories, they beat Miami in the
02:48Catholics versus convicts games. When Miami was number one under Jimmy Johnson, they beat Florida
02:52state with Bobby Bowden in the game of the century in 1993, one of the best regular season games of
02:57all time. And then they beat Steve Spurrier in Florida and the sugar bowl and the famous,
03:02you know, what, what is the difference between Notre Dame? And I think what was the joke? Notre
03:06Dame in a bowl of cereal, uh, Notre Dame doesn't belong in a bowl, something like that. Um,
03:10you know, it, it was unbelievable how he could motivate his team in those moments against those
03:15Florida schools where in that era, and even to some extent, when Jim Trestle got to Ohio state,
03:20you were judged by how you did against Miami, Florida and Florida state. And he did very well
03:24in those games. Well, I think he kind of epitomized and I think Marcus might be bringing that back a
03:29little bit, but I always asked my dad, like, well, who does Florida, who does Notre Dame recruit?
03:34He goes, every Catholic kid in this country, he's like, that's, and now there was a long time.
03:38I feel like Lou Holtz was kind of the end of that era bill where, you know, whether you were
03:42from
03:43Detroit, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Cincinnati, anywhere in the country, New York, Baltimore,
03:51LA, if you were a Catholic kid growing up and going to the diocese or even just went, you know,
03:56grew up Catholic, even going to public school, like you were going to Notre Dame, you know,
04:00that's like kind of the Rudy phenomenon and everything. But it seemed like by after Lou
04:05left in the mid nineties, that kind of dissipated a little bit. But until that point, it seemed like
04:10everybody that if you had a Saint or an arch in your school and you were a really good football
04:15player, like you were going to Notre Dame to play. Yeah. Like the GCL schools in Cincinnati. I mean,
04:19they had a pipeline to Notre Dame. You had so many, you can name so many Catholic school kids from
04:23Ohio
04:24that went there and did well. You know, obviously Marcus is doing that now. I think he's trying to
04:30do that. And, and there's a long way recruiting game has changed a little bit, but I think if you
04:35look at how Notre Dame has recruited under him, it's in an elite level. I think it's almost like a
04:39hybrid
04:39of what Holtz did at Notre Dame and what Ohio state's been able to do for a quarter of a
04:45century
04:45where, and really since again, not to keep up bringing Jim Trestle, his ears are probably burning,
04:50but just the way that Ohio state really changed with John Cooper and beyond where they were able
04:56to have these elite recruiting classes all the way through present day with Ryan day. So yeah,
05:01I mean, I think Holtz had a tremendous impact on coaching. He obviously had a really big impact on
05:07what, what we're doing right now, you know, a show with Reese Davis and Mark May, you could say you
05:12love
05:12or hate those guys, but man, they generated a reaction every Saturday night after you watched all the
05:17college football with some of the most entertaining, funny stuff you could watch. I'd say people that
05:21are 21 to 25 and under, or yeah, 25 and under, they'll, they would remember Lou Holtz, the guy on,
05:28you know, ESPN or the guy that was, you know, not afraid to say what he was. And he was
05:32a Notre Dame
05:33Homer. Let's not mistake.
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