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00:00Live from Radio Row, SportsGrid's coverage of Super Bowl 59 continues. Joe
00:05Lisi with ESPN Radio host Matt Moscana. Matt, great atmosphere here in New Orleans.
00:11Joe, I was born in this city, love New Orleans. It is the greatest big event
00:17city in the world bar none. Fired up that you're here. Yeah, talk to me about the
00:21matchup on Sunday. It's a rematch of a couple of years ago. Kansas City looking
00:26for the three-peat. Mahomes hurts. How do you see this game playing out? I'll never
00:30bet against 15. I mean, you get Superman in the game. I won't bet against him. I
00:35mean, I do look at the difference. Obviously, Saquon Barkley wasn't there
00:38two years ago, and that was a game two years ago that if you didn't have Jalen
00:43Hurts' fumble, right? The Jalen Hurts' unforced turnover, Eagles probably win
00:47that football game. If they protect the football, they might have a chance, but
00:49you give Mahomes a shot in a one-score game in the fourth quarter, I like
00:5315. It's interesting. When you talk about your Saquon and get your thoughts, I've
00:56been asking all the football people, are we gonna see a change back to maybe
01:00elite running backs? Teams would always say, oh, we could duplicate the
01:03productivity, getting a free agent, a sixth or a late round draft pick, and
01:07plug and play as long as the offensive line is putting in holes. When you see
01:11Derrick Henry and now the emergence of Saquon with Philly, you think we're
01:15gonna go back to maybe RB ones? Where's the guy? Where's the guy? Who is it? I
01:19mean, you could maybe try to sell me on Ashton Gente coming up. There's good
01:23running backs in the league, but we still don't see the longevity. So you're
01:27not gonna have teams invest in the... Saquon Barkley's a freak. He's a freak of
01:30nature. He's a one-of-one. I could say maybe the same of Derrick Henry, but
01:34you're not gonna see that across the league. There's just so much emphasis at the
01:37lower levels, which is where it starts, Joe, on the quarterback position and
01:41seven-on-sevens, and that's just what we're gonna see more of. We'll see how
01:43that plays out. I do want to talk about your team, the New Orleans Saints. They're
01:47in the headlines. Kellen Moore, potentially, after this game, will be the
01:51new head coach of the team. Do you think it's a good fit? And I want to ask you
01:56about Joe Brady because his name was mentioned. We know about the success with
02:00Joe Burrow and LSU. Seemed like a seamless fit. Would you prefer Brady over
02:05Kellen Moore? Yeah, Brady's a more proven, I think, play caller at this point, but
02:09the problem is the New Orleans Saints job isn't desirable at all, Joe. They have
02:14the worst cap situation in the league. They're the fourth oldest roster in the
02:17league. You've got aging veterans. You don't have a draft pick where you can
02:21get a franchise quarterback. It's why Joe Brady said, I'll hang out with Josh
02:25Allen for another year, wait for a better gig. Do you think it's similar to what we
02:28saw in Jacksonville with Balky being fired? If Mickey Loomis, let's say,
02:33just moves away or gets let go of the position, maybe you would get an elite
02:37OC or an elite head coach in that regard? Maybe, but the difference with Mickey
02:41Loomis is you have an owner that doesn't have heirs. Gail Benson, her whole
02:45succession plan is tied in with Dennis Lauscher, the team president, Mickey
02:49Loomis, the GM, so it's really a unique situation. So he's not going
02:53anywhere, so whoever does come in as a head coach is going to have limited
02:58ability to move the roster. All right, let's talk about something that really
03:01matters to us, the LSU Tigers. You know we talk ball throughout the
03:05college football season. Right now, you talk about Brian Kelly, year number one,
03:09they win the SEC West. Unbelievable expectations in terms of year number two
03:14and year number three. Jaden wins the Heisman, right? Nine and three, not the
03:18season they wanted. And then last year with Nuss, they had some glimpses, but
03:22that Texas A&M game, some other games down the stretch, Florida really cost
03:26them in terms of the college football playoff. I've heard you talk about year
03:30two in the scheme. We saw it with Burrow, we saw it with Daniels. Do you expect that
03:36at a Nussmeier? First of all, Garrett Nussmeier threw for 4,000 yards a year
03:40ago. He's the leading returning passer in college football. With what LSU did in
03:44the portal, returning Garrett Nussmeier, Joe, if they are not in the college
03:49football playoff in 2025, it is an epic failure and everybody that is a doubter
03:54of Brian Kelly will be proven correct because this is the roster that Ohio
03:59State put together a year ago, that Ole Miss put together, going and spending
04:03north of $10 million in the portal. LSU has built this roster around this
04:08veteran quarterback to make a championship push right now. If they
04:12don't get into a 12 team playoff, I don't know that I foresee Brian Kelly
04:16ever doing in his time in Baton Rouge. And he might be on the hot seat, right?
04:19It might be like almost like a Brian. Could it be a Brian Harsin situation
04:23after this year where four years we saw what you could do? You're not a
04:27southern type of guy, right? In terms of the scheme, you're Northeast, you're
04:31Notre Dame. You think maybe they would let him go? The challenge is when LSU
04:36hired Brian Kelly, they gave him a 10 year, $95 million contract with 90% of
04:41the contract guaranteed, meaning if they fired Brian Kelly after this year, they
04:44would still owe him north of $50 million. And LSU is not paying that. So
04:49for better or worse, LSU and Brian Kelly are financially bound to each other for
04:54a decade. And last thing I want to ask you is in terms of the conferences, we
04:57saw the SEC not win a national championship. Talk to me about that. Do
05:02you feel they're still the most dominant conference in college football?
05:05I think you could flip a coin with the SEC in the Big 10. I think the top of
05:09the SEC has been weakened, obviously with Nick Saban no longer at Alabama.
05:12Georgia is still fantastic. But Joe, think of it this way. If this were a
05:16year where we had a 14 playoff instead of 12, Ohio State, Notre Dame wouldn't
05:20have even made the field. Your field would have been Oregon against Penn
05:23State, Georgia against Texas. So you'd have two from the Big 10, two from the
05:27SEC. I don't know that the landscape has changed. I think the playoff
05:30changing is maybe allowing more access to teams. So you might not see one
05:36conference dominate the final game the way it's been. Great insight from Matt
05:40Moscona. We'll be right back.