Welcome to Annie and Ari on three.

We got a lot to talk about today.

I read a very interesting Ari Wasserman column about USC at On Three on Tuesday morning.

And I have a lot of some questions and just some thoughts because I find USC incredibly interesting going into this season, but also going forward because what the Trojans are doing in the recruiting class of 2026 doesn't match the production in the last couple of years and suggests maybe something different is coming and better is coming.

But, Ari, we will definitely have to talk about that because that column, the column got me fired up. It got you fired up? I thought it was kind of, I was like, I'm tired of getting beaten up on Twitter. I'm just going to go right down the middle of pros and cons and I'll let you decide. I even said at the end of the column, you decide, leave me out of it. But like, I will say there is no team in college football that has put me up into more of a pretzel than USC.

Because on one hand, you know my original thoughts as it pertains to the USC from 2021 when Lincoln Riley hired.

Multiple national titles incoming, yes.

No, no, I thought that they were going to be the SEC dominant program of the West Coast.

And then, like, my anger towards how bad it went, went off the rails.

And then I see recruiting results like this and then I get excited again.

And I'm in this like perpetual, because they had good recruiting results at this time last year, too, and I wrote recruiting results like this and then I get excited again and I'm in this like perpetual because they had good recruiting results at this time last year too and I wrote a column

like this is the type of stuff that gets me excited so it's like when do you take the bait

when do you actually buy back into what USC is building because the thing that was most frustrating

to me from a USC standpoint at this point last year was or not at this point last year at the end of last regular season is what is it that you cling to for hope. We'll get into that later on, but I'm excited to talk about you. I think this is a different situation than last year. I know everybody who isn't following USC that closely is like, oh, it's the same as last year. I think it's different. We can talk about that.

But we also need to talk about the college football video game a little more because I got to play it last week.

You did not.

I know you have some questions.

I also got to talk to Ben Hal Miller, the principal designer of the game.

And we'll play that interview today and hear from him

because he's you know he's one of those guys that he was the one complaining about the game

when he was a student at Florida State and just whipping people, you know, in the game.

And now he's the one who hears your complaints and addresses them.

...