Hello and welcome to the Audible, presented by Trader Joe's.

I'm Ralph Russo from The Athletic Join Today by Stuart Mandel and Bruce Feldman.

Guys, it's Mailbag Day.

That's for a little later on.

We'll also preview this weekend's playoff games, getting a little

deeper. We've already made some picks on the fly, but we'll try to dig in a little deeper on

four playoff games this weekend. But first, maybe a way to get into some of the interesting

parts of the playoff. Bruce, you put a lot of work in, apparently, last week. I didn't

even realize you were doing this. Called about 25, 30 coaches and asked them, what do you think

about the playoff? And what do you think about these games? And what do you think about the coaches?

And a few different things stood out. Let's just start more generally.

What stood out to you about your deep dive on what opposing coaches and just coaches around the country think about the playoff field?

Yeah, there was two things really that was like, wait a minute, that surprised me.

The first is, as you said, I talked to

two dozen college coaches, you know, from all over, from group of five and from power for

some head coaches, some assistants. And one of the questions we asked was, who do you think is the

best coach in the field? Not shocked

that Kirby Smart got the most votes or that Kurt Signetti got the second most votes.

Was pretty surprised that not one person said the guy who won the national title last year, Ryan Day.

That's like that definitely surprised me.

I don't know, you know, they only got one vote, and I feel like because, I don't know

if it's recency bias, but, you know, Cignetti just led Indiana, Indiana, again, not just

...