00:00John Michaels hosts mornings on 680 the fan in Atlanta and you can hear him nationally on ESPN
00:05radio. Literally the biggest Canes fan in media. Born and raised in South Florida. He's got
00:11hurricanes tattoos on his body and he travels all over to see his Canes. He even named his son
00:18Canes. So this dude is as legit as legit gets when it comes to ride or die with the Miami
00:27hurricane. So put into your words, John, what a trip to the college football national championship
00:33means to this program and Mario Cristobal and hurricanes fans nationwide. It validates
00:42everything coach Cristobal talked about four years ago. I've gone back in the last week and watched
00:47his opening press conference and he talked about everything that they needed to do to get back to
00:52being Miami. And I had a chance to talk to him at ACC media day this year. And I remember distinctly,
00:57I asked him, I said, you know, you said four years ago that it wasn't there and we needed to be
01:01patient and we were building. And I asked him straight up to his face. I said, are you there?
01:06And this is back in July. And he told me, he goes, yes, this is a team that can do it. And he smiled,
01:11which Mario doesn't do very often when he answered that. But now you validate everything that you've
01:17been preaching to guys like Ruben Bain and CeCe Malinoa who came here when you were five and seven,
01:23your vision was to build a team that looks exactly like this and accomplish what they have over these
01:28last three weeks, beating Texas A&M on the road, a big physical SEC team, dominating Ohio State at
01:34the line of scrimmage, you're defending national champions, and then going against a Heisman
01:38contender in Trinidad Chambliss and winning late with a quarterback that many people during the
01:42offseason said you overpaid for. It means the world to this program.
01:46And speaking of Mario Cristobal, man, I fell in love with him. Did you see him on
01:52game day with Nick Saban? And Nick, Nick tried to criticize him. And he said, how about you go put
01:57some makeup on and talk about people that you talk about people doing something you don't want to do
02:01anymore? The edge is there. But, but John, Talana said it like you, you can, you can, you can measure
02:12size and speed Miami stronger. Miami's bigger. Miami's faster, but they're still over a touchdown
02:19dog. Like why is Indiana favored so much? I heard him on ESPN talking today, a more talented team
02:26versus a disciplined team. I'll take the disciplined team. It doesn't make sense to me.
02:31Uh, yeah, they have fun with that. I I I'm dumbfounded that it's eight and a half in some sports books
02:37today that I've seen Channing. Um, and, and trust me when I lay, I should not land when I cross the
02:43state line in Florida, whatever the money line is, I'm putting some money on Miami. Like I don't,
02:47I don't need no damn points. Give me the money line. Look, Indiana is an unbelievable story.
02:52What they've done, what, what Kurt Signetti has done to build a team that literally was the one of
02:58the three or four worst programs in power for, for the last 10 decades, and now have them in a national
03:04title game as a prohibited favorite. It's really a testament to what he's done. Their defensive line
03:10averages 270 pounds. You know, their offensive line, while it's really good, only averages like
03:15three 15 or three 20 good luck going against Miami's horses who not only are big, but they're super
03:23talented. The biggest problem Miami's had all year long when they struggled is beating themselves.
03:29And they almost did it against Ole Miss 10 penalties, you know, drop passes. They dropped four
03:34interceptions. I know Hawk and I were texting between the third and the fourth quarter. He
03:37asked me if I was okay. And I said, no, I'm not. Okay. My heart was like somewhere over here on my
03:42neck. One of my balls was over by my knees. You know, it was like body parts weren't where they
03:48were supposed to be. Admittedly. I have that now, but I'm 56. Well, I'm 51. And after playing a
03:53Braves fantasy camp, I'm not sure half where half of my body parts are either. I go back and look at
03:59the three times that Indiana has played big physical teams, Iowa, who's not all that talented.
04:06They beat them 20 to 15 Penn state who stunk this year. It took one of the great catches in the history
04:12of college football to win that game. And Ohio state pushed them all over the field. Ohio state just
04:18made a mistake after mistake down in the red zone. I'm not afraid of Indiana. Uh, it's going to be a
04:24really good matchup. Like they're talented. I take nothing from them, but they got to come see us
04:29in our home field. And all that BS that people are talking about in Indiana takeover, you have lost
04:35your mind. There are people from Hialeah to Opelaka to Florida city, to Immokalee that are showing up.
04:42They might not be in the building, but they're going to be walking around Miami gardens, Florida
04:46with bad intentions for that, for that university of Miami team to come out and win a national title.
04:51Hey John, you're in Georgia. You do radio in Atlanta. And I would imagine 99% of people had
04:57given up hope on Carson Beck. And then he comes to Miami and you've told us people been chirping
05:02about how Beck's overrated and he's not that dude anymore. When he crosses into the touchdown
05:07and he converts, he drives him down the field. He has his moment of redemption. What's that feeling
05:14for you knowing what everybody has been doing, which is giving you hell for believing, believing in
05:20Carson Beck. Again, it was, you know, it was something Solana where I looked at and I said,
05:24I was right. Cause I never thought he, he was, he never deserved the criticism. And I stuck up for
05:30him at Georgia last year. I said, hell without Carson Beck last year, you probably won seven games.
05:33They needed him for everything they had in his last season that he was there for that kid.
05:38It's got to feel amazing. And you could see the look on his face, the smile in his helmet,
05:42as he knew he was crossing that goal line to win that college football semifinal matchup.
05:47What's crazy is we literally, literally talked about him on Friday morning. I was on like one
05:53and a half hours of sleep, pain meds, massage oil, and everything I could at this Braves fantasy
05:58camp to try to make it. And there were Georgia fans on our six 80, the fan social media page
06:03that kept talking about his looks and how overrated he is. And I'm thinking to myself, like, you know,
06:08your guy in Gunnar Stockton, he lost to that same Ole Miss team. Our guy in Carson Beck,
06:15not once, but twice led us back in the fourth quarter. Carson's going to win a national
06:19championship. He's going to be able to do that DX chop to everybody that's watching around the
06:25country. And John, some, some, as you talk about, they got to come see us. So that be an approach
06:32to the game because you're, you're arrogance. Hawk has the arrogance today. I'm, I'm an adopted
06:37UN fan right now. I'm, I really wasn't born a UN fan, but we're like on the 50, fourth and three,
06:44because I go back to the play before Carson ran it in. I love them running the ball because the
06:50games, you know, everybody thinks you're going to go wide open, try to score. Mario had to run one
06:55more time to show you, I can go get five yards whenever the hell I want five yards. Like that
07:00arrogance of a fourth and two on the 50. We're not putting watch this. Yeah. And it'll be interesting
07:06if, if he plays wide open the way that he has, because Mario in this playoffs has shown,
07:11Hey, if it is fourth and two, and it's a long field goal, we're going to go for it. We're
07:16going to trust it. Our offensive line. A lot of times it has been a gap run, something that
07:20we complained about back in October that they were doing too much. Now they're just lining
07:24up and going, fine, we're going to run you over. And I think it's going to be a lot like
07:28the old miss game. They're going to try to body blow Indiana to death early on. And eventually
07:32in that fourth quarter, you just wear them out. You know, Indiana, they're great defensively,
07:37but they also like to stun a lot. They like to send extra guys into the same gap. Well,
07:42you run into the wrong gap and you run into CC Malanoa and the two of you get knocked out.
07:46Well, now it's 11 on nine. And I want to see how that ends up working. And I think what's also
07:50happened, especially in that old miss game, Carson Beck showed that he can make throws when needed.
07:57He had a couple of in routes to Keelan Marion on second and 11 and third and 10 and the third and
08:02six throw that he throws to CJ Daniels right on the sideline with a DB draped all over that stand
08:08in there and fire the football. He doesn't complete those. We may not win the game. Cause if you kick
08:14a field goal with a minute left, old miss showed, they can march right back down the field and maybe
08:18they end up winning it. It's a Testament to everything. Mario's preached all this time.
08:22And great for him as we sit on the precipice of number six.
08:26So how'd you react personally when, when they punched their ticket to the national championship,
08:32because we know, I think you told us that you cried after the old miss game, right?
08:36Yeah. I absolutely shed a tear. So I was in a bar in Venice, Florida. So I was down for those of you
08:43who don't know, the Braves have this thing called a brace fantasy camp where people pay to come down
08:49and play basically a week worth of baseball with former major leaguers being your manager. You're at
08:55the brave spring training facility. You actually stay there in North port. We had an event that night
09:00with Javi Lopez. I had to MC it. Part of them bringing me down as I had to MC. I told Greg
09:05McMichael who puts this whole thing on. I said, Greg, I got to be out of here by seven 15. Cause
09:10there's a bar a mile down the road. He goes, no, no, no. Come back to the Academy. We're going to
09:14have it on the big screen. I said, I don't think you guys want me there. And there was about three
09:19other Miami fans at the camp that were trying to get me to go back. I just walked into some random
09:24bar. I found a seat at the bar. There were about 20 Miami fans in there. And Oh, absolutely. I was
09:30ecstatic. We're jumping around hugging. And then when Cain called me, I broke into tears. I'm like,
09:34dude, we're going to the national championship game. And he, he finally at 16 has come around.
09:40He had, and you'll love this Crowder. I'm out of town. He bamboozles my wife into having a house
09:45party on Thursday night. He's got a bunch of his buddies in the basement down here watching the game.
09:51But yeah, it's awesome. I had to text him today. Some really good news is my ticket connects came
09:56through. I'll be at the game Monday night. So I was going to ask you, because I know you had said to
10:02me, you're coming down regardless. And the tickets are insanely expensive. In fact, buddy of mine was
10:09texting me today and he's like, you're going to the game. And I said, nah, that's out of my price range.
10:13And, uh, and he's like, with all the connections you have. And I'm like, there's no connections when
10:18there's that much money on the line to be made for people who have access to tickets. So you got
10:23tickets? Yes. No, I had to pay for him for, yeah, I did. I got nothing for free, but I did not have
10:29to pay the third party prices and it was much more palatable. So it'll be me, my mom and my son
10:34coming to the game. I've got a buddy, uh, my best friend, Carnell, who comes down all the time.
10:39He's like, dude, I'm riding down. He goes, I don't care if I end up on 183rd street and 27th Ave. He
10:47goes, I just have to be in Miami for this. And I know I got some friends. My boy, Derek Coe's going
10:52to be there. My boy, Armando Mondo. I know he's listening right now. He's going to be there. Like
10:57we got people that got tickets through the school. I didn't care. Hawk. I was going to come down and go
11:02to grails or again, just be walking around like it's Goombay back in 2001. And I was going to be
11:08dancing in the middle of the street, but I'm a static. I get a chance to go to the game. I don't
11:14know how I'm probably going to cry, walking in, cry, walking out. I'm going to be a big old biatch
11:19this entire time. But if they win a national championship, I've already got my tattoo artist
11:23set up. I've got an appointment. 2026 is going right here and I'm putting a big ass trophy on the
11:29back of my leg with a U around it. Okay. 16. Yeah, he's 16. Okay. Well, in two years now,
11:36can't stay good. Bring old cane down. Uncle Chan want to show him a couple of places.
11:41He'll go at 16. I don't. Here's the crazy thing, Channing. I was thinking about it. I was like,
11:49man, if I don't get tickets, I'm going to have to grease some people's pocket to get into one of
11:54these parks. I know all the parties are 21 and up. I was going to tell Kane, look, keep that beard
11:58growing a little longer, put on some shades, put a hat sideways, wear a do-rag like Uncle
12:04Channing, whatever you need to do. We're getting you into a party, but now he doesn't have to worry
12:08about it. He's going to the game, which is going to be awesome. I don't want to do my humble brag,
12:13but after the, I guess after we beat Ohio state, Mario finally texts me back after all the time.
12:19And he just said, thank you for your support, whatever it was not a big message. But after he
12:23was on a sports center saying he had over 9,000 unread messages, it felt pretty good that he sent
12:29me a text message back. So I didn't text him after the old miss game. Kevin Beard had got on his bad
12:34side by hugging him from behind. He wanted to kill the Verbo Fiesta Bowl people for having 9,000 suits
12:40up on the stage. I'm just going to leave. I'm going to leave coach alone until after we win this title.
12:45I think I have his number. I don't think I've ever used it. I'm going to text him during this
12:48commercial break, ask him for tickets.
12:50Yeah. Let me tell you, you have a better chance of Jesus doing the Tootsie Roll at Opelaka Hialeah
12:56flea market. If that's still a thing, come back in the four o'clock hour with the 69 boys, Jimmy
13:02Tootsie Roll. You know what that is, Jimmy? I know what that is. He has never Tootsie Rolled a day.
13:08And as I know Channing in Atlanta in 1995, when Tootsie Roll came on was he was Tootsie rolling to the
13:15left to the left. He was ready to do whatever. Because the butterfly was old. I was trying to
13:20see that Tootsie Roll. We got to give that to
13:21at the DBJ. The butterfly. Uh-uh, that's old. Let me see that Tootsie Roll.
13:29John Michaels, follow him on Twitter. John Michaels, you. We'll talk to you
13:33hopefully after Monday night, man.
13:36I was going to say, if you want to talk to me Monday, if you guys are going to be working,
13:39call me.
13:40Just one hour because the Canes pregame show will start at three.
13:43I forgot they do have important things that day. So yeah, Tuesday, I'll be on the car ride home,
13:47but I've got 10 hours in the car. So nothing but time. Well, we'll definitely call in and talk to
13:52you guys. Sounds good. See you, John. See ya.
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