But he was pretty down, it seemed like, after the game the other day and disappointed with what he saw offensively.

He was.

I mean, it's like, as he kept saying, not up to the standard they want.

And, you know, at least there's not video of him doing some kind of club dub weird dance, you know, after beating whoever.

And, yeah, he expects a lot more out of them.

And I like that, that, you know, and we're not satisfied.

But then again, you get a W that's better than having an L, especially against North Alabama.

So I'm just not sure what happens first because we didn't necessarily see either of those happen against North Alabama.

Then

what? And, yeah, he expects a lot more out of them.

And I like that.

that we're not satisfied.

But then again, you get a W, it's better than having an L, especially against North Alabama.

So I think I predicted about an 18-point game.

When I saw the original spread for this, I was really surprised.

How much do you expect, and I don't know if Coach talked about it, do you expect the elevation and the late kick to be a factor tomorrow?

What's your evaluation of that?

Yeah, he's a really solid kid, comes from a great family, uh, uh, can handle the hard coaching.

Uh, look, I mean, he came in midway against Texas last year and looked pretty good moving the team.

A couple of touchdowns in the fourth quarter, and he didn't look as solid in, against an FCS team.

Now, obviously, the offense has changed a ton from a Bobby Petrino style, you know, pro style attack to Tim Cramsey's, um, attack.

And they did, they simplified a lot of stuff, but what he's got to get better at is checking them into better situations.

And so, uh, it's a, it's a fast pace right now.

Is that true?

What's your evaluation of that?

Yeah, he's a really solid kid.

Comes from a great family.

Can't handle the hard coaching.

Look, I mean, he came in midway against Texas last year and looked pretty good moving the team.

A couple of touchdowns in the fourth quarter, and he didn't look as solid against an FCS team.

Now, obviously, the offense has changed a ton from a Bobby Petrino-style, you know, pro-style attack to Tim Cramsey's attack.

Is that true?

We can hang our hat on this at a key moment in a game.

Well, that's a great question, and you wanted that to be something to do with the run game, but their offensive blocking grades were not that good.

Now, granted, North Alabama put a lot of its resources into bulking up its defensive front, and they did some scheming stuff with running their linebackers through the run blitzes that kind of limited them.

So it's not the run game.

I will say this.

They defended the run really well.

They've got a bunch of 300-pounders they can rotate up front at the defensive tackle, the nose and the tackle spots.

What's your evaluation of that?

What's your evaluation of that?

Yeah, he's a really solid kid.

Comes from a great family.

Can't handle the hard coaching.

Look, I mean, he came in midway against Texas last year and looked pretty good moving the team.

A couple of touchdowns in the fourth quarter.

And he didn't look as solid against an FCS team.

Is that true?

What's your evaluation of that?

Yeah, he's a really solid kid.

Comes from a great family.

Can't handle the hard coaching.

Look, I mean, he came in midway against Texas last year and looked pretty good moving the team.

A couple of touchdowns in the fourth quarter.

And he didn't look as solid against an FCS team.

Is that true?

Or I was,

no, I was repping on the road at that stage.

I was on the road at that stage and my wife was more or less...

For a pharmaceutical company? No, I started off with wool in 1972, September 1972.

It wasn't yesterday.

And I was covering all of Ireland in that.

And after that, then I moved to another company, which was started up by a group of brothers from Ballandine called Grants.

And honestly, Alpharex has changed my life.

What does solid performance look like tomorrow in your eyes?

You know, it's funny you mention that.

I was just thinking, what am I going to say on the air today? And one of the things was I've not gone into a Razorback football season not as confident in what I've seen and what I feel like is going to happen maybe more than any other year than this year because – I want to say I picked a 28-point spread for this game.

40.5 just seems really high, but what do I know? But I picked a 28-point spread, but I'm not sure that they're going to be a really good running team.

But they could be.

There's so many things we saw in the period we viewed during camp that were like, wow, their passing and catching might not be up to snuff.

They were having trouble one day throwing corner routes into the end zone.

What sort of a receiver is CeCe?

What's a solid performance look like tomorrow in your eyes?

You know, it's funny you mention that.

I was just thinking, what am I going to say on the air today? And one of the things was, I've not gone into a Razorback football season not as confident in what I've seen and what I feel like is going to happen maybe more than any other year.

I want to say I picked a 28-point spread for this game.

40.5 just seems really high, but what do I know? But I picked a 28-point spread, but I'm not sure that they're going to be a really good running team.

But they could be.

There's so many things we saw in the period we viewed during camp that were like, wow, their passing and catching might not be up to snuff.

What sort of a receiver is CeCe?

With all that in mind, Tom, how are you positioning for the rest of the year?

Yeah, no, you're right, James.

It's super interesting environment.

All the things that you just mentioned and we need to spend a lot of time talking about the AI piece as well.

You know, when I think about the way that we approach the markets here at Columbia Threadneedle, our framework is fundamentals plus technicals plus valuations inform our portfolio positioning.

So if quickly we can just go through all of those, fundamentals are in a tremendous space.

Companies have done a great job since COVID boasting their balance sheets.

But, you know, it seems like there's sort of an underlying worry out there that, you know, even with this tremendous potential, maybe not all of these guys are needed.

tough.

He doesn't take any guff.

He holds them accountable, and they're not going to like him.

And that's what Steven Soule says.

Right now, if I do my NFL documentary a year from now, I'm going to say I hate Ryan Silverfield, but I understand what he – I hate him right now, and that's because at this moment in camp, they're grinding.

But he's like, I understand what he's doing.

He's pointing out all the little things we have to do right, And so you've got to give Silverfield credit for this.

And I just wonder what you think of both of those players and how hopefully they can progress in different roles than they had before.

That was a little bit of a different kind of a presser.

It was.

And, you know, we talked to him in spring, and I believe here's the first line of, hey, Stephen, you had two sacks today, three sacks today.

So he's a funny guy, and I told Kyle Parkinson after, I said, man, I hope he has a really productive year, and I hope we talk to him a lot.

And Kyle's like, I don't know, because he was so outspoken.

But you know what? He got to the real part of it, y'all.

He said, and this is what somebody told me at Memphis, and I wrote about it quite a bit this summer.

And I just wonder what you think of both of those players and how hopefully they can progress in different roles than they had before.

When you're talking KJ Jefferson and Taylen Green, how, how much running do you expect, if it's KJ Jefferson or AJ Hill to do, and h- how much more of the workload will be on running backs actually this year under the Cramsey offense?

Well, that's a great question.

I, and I do think KJ, you know, we saw his touch, a tackle breaking touchdown at Texas.

That was an impressive run, and I can't remember if it was a scramble.

I think it was a scramble.

Um, but I think he's got the capability.

AJ, it takes him a minute to get those legs going, because he's got such long levers.

Sure.

So what might this be?

Leap Motor.

I mean, there were tons of questions on Investor Day, May 21st in Auburn Hills, tons of questions about Leap Motor.

And they, at that point, CEO...

Peloso is not ready to talk in detail about that.

But you got to think that would make some sense to produce them in Brampton.

Battery electric vehicles, China designed.

So who's making these decisions to make these very expensive moves at a company that needs to make everything it possibly can in terms of

Okay.

But there was some yesterday.

So we got, we actually got pretty high volume.

I mean, they started the day with these back up on your own two-yard line, and KJ Jackson went with the ones, and he got a first down out of it.

Brandon Russell had a, a really ni- Chris Marshall had a catch, and then Russell had a nice run to get a first down.

But then the second unit went out there, and they created a first down on their first play.

It was, uh, AJ Hill to CC, 10-yard gain.

But just in terms of what you've seen, have you noticed a difference in maybe just their ability to be more effective? Uh, now that you got to see some live action, was there any noticeable difference on the offensive line from last year to this year, even though it's just practice?

But just in terms of what you've seen, have you noticed a difference in maybe just their ability to be more effective? Uh, now that you got to see some live action, was there any noticeable difference on the offensive line from last year to this year, even though it's just practice?

Right.

Well, when we're watching live snaps, I mean, I'm tracking the ball carrier.

This just what I do for how we wanna cover it.

So it's really hard to see what technique looks like, who's got the best get off on the defensive front, who's holding their guy off the best on the O line.

It's just really hard to see that on a play-to-play basis.

Um, so comparing it to last year's team, I really don't have a lot to give you right there.

Have you noticed in practice at least that they have improved in those categories?

What, what are those needs? How do you support them?

Yeah.

I think they, they, uh, without making blanket statements, I do think they, um, need space to do things the way they're going to do them.

I think when I was younger, there was a very prescribed way that creative people, uh, worked, and I think this younger generation is, um, they've grown up with a much more flexible border between work and, and play and, and their personal lives and their work lives, and I think giving them room to work the way they, they want to work is important.

I also think there is, um, we know, having been in the business a while, there is a, um, there's a lot of pessimism actually in our industry right now.

There are a lot of articles being written, a- and not just in our industry, but in the world at large, about fear of AI and, and fear of what's happening to entry-level jobs and fear of what the eco- uh, what the industry will look like in a few years.

I did a presentation to some people in our office the other day about, you know, sort of career advice.

Really? Wow.

So what's the scoop on that?

Well, it's really, if you think back to what they did in spring, there are days, like, for instance, yesterday, neither Sutton Smith nor Braylon Russell ran in team tempo.

They just give those guys certain breaks, and it's just the way things go.

You know, it was Cam Settles who went with the first unit yesterday, the A.J. Hill unit, and then K.J. Jackson had, I think it was Mark Keelan-Batton in there with him.

So, The guys, they mix it up, and obviously when we leave and they really do more intense team periods, I would think that Sutton Smith and Braylon Russell get the bulk of things.

But that's no – it's nothing to be, you know, strange about.

And Sutton Smith appears to be fine and all those things.

So just curious about your thought about sort of their alignment defensively and then also what his contributions will be.

Hmm.

They just give those guys certain breaks, and it's just the way things go.

Um, um, you know, it, it was, uh, Cam Settles who went with the first unit yesterday, the, the AJ Hill unit.

And then, um, KJ Jackson had, I think it was Markalen Batten in there with him.

So the guys get...

They mix it up, and obviously when we leave and they really do more intense team periods, I would think that Sutton Smith and Braylon Russell get the bulk of things.

But that's no, it's nothing to be, um, you know, strange about.

Mm-hmm.

But, I mean, have you got any indication on that or feeling on, you know, I guess who's going to run with the ones or any of that so far?

Well, I would just think that the carryover from what we saw at the end of spring would be where you're starting point unless somebody made a drastic move throughout summer.

And so it's the same five I would think on the offensive front that would get the nod to at least run out with the ones.

And then, you know, there's some spots.

I think the receiving core, when you look at CJ Brown, Chris Marshall, they've probably got spots.

And then maybe the third spot like a Jamari Hawkins or someone else could be up for grabs.

But there's some guys who kind of established themselves in spring.

What is the perspective you come from right now? Is it optimism? Is it skepticism? Is it hopefulness? Is it positivity, negativity? Give me a word.

Can you believe it? Did you

expect it? I mean, I still pinched myself.

You know, in 2002, we had a fundraiser for the playground, and that's how it really started for Crocker Amazon Playground.

And the first Jerry Garcia Excelsior celebration was at the Italian American Social Club, and there was like less than 100 people.

Now we're on our 24th annual event for Jerry Day, and we're getting people from all over the country to come to the event.

So it's pretty fantastic.

It's also fantastic that you and I both went to the same grammar school.

What do you hope their big takeaway is? What do you hope they really understand about who he was?

[laughs]

It won't be any good unless they know the number.

In other words, how do you get people to look at your website? [clears throat] So, um, [clears throat] so what my recommendation is to, to make good work that you're, that you like yourself because, uh, um- Objective as you can and, uh, [clears throat] and full disclosure, there's stuff that I shot 40 years ago that I throw away.

I thought it was pretty good at the time.

Now it's not.

Like, I'm just gonna ditch it.

But, uh, so your stuff is gonna get better hopefully, and, uh, donate it.

Um, how do you think about that compositionally when you're working in a landscape as wide and as flat as, as parts of Yellowstone can be? How do you do that?

Give me a grade on Tampa, the experience versus some of the other places you've been over the years, Tom, for the media days.

Well, I haven't done that, so I'll do it for the moment.

I haven't done it in my head.

The setting was beautiful.

We were on whatever that river's called.

I meant to look it up before now, but Right there on the river, and it was lovely, and the wind was – the breeze was blowing most of the day, so it made the heat very tolerable.

In fact, kind of pleasant until the last day, and then the wind wasn't blowing, and it was really hot.

aura.

But what did you think of his performance overall, and what do you have to say?

Right, and that's a great point because, again, he in one of the electronic media rooms he got asked about the aura question because so many people were i don't know mocking or making fun of like this guy looks like a tire salesman ula put out a picture of him and this guy doesn't have much aura somebody posted so he was asked about that directly i didn't hear this live but i've heard about it since that he's like look if you have a hot wife and you can cite notorious big lyrics you know i think you got a little something to you and really we're going to go out and win some games.

So he showed a spark and that he had some aura.

And just from his presentation, his presence in the main room, he did fine.

To me, the thing for him was to not make any major mistakes where he gets caught on a word or whatever.

He didn't get tripped up by anything.

He was right on point with all of his answers.

But what did you think of what Greg Sankey had to say and the things that he was pressed with this week?