The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
The Big Suey: Chris Fowler's Game Prep (feat. Chris Fowler, Pablo Torre, Amin Elhassan, and Jason Tache)
16 Jan 2026
Chapter 1: What unique insights does Chris Fowler offer on game preparation?
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And with a roster of flavors from OG to sweet chili, you can put that shit on everything. So make every dish the greatest and eat the GOAT. Welcome to the Big Suey, presented by DraftKings. Why are you listening to this show? The podcast that seems very similar to the other Dan Lebitard podcast. I'm sorry, I'm not going to apologize for that. In fact, the only difference seems to be this imaging.
I have been tempted in restaurants just walking past tables to grab somebody's fries if they're just there. That hasn't happened to you guys? I've done it. And now, here's the marching man to nowhere, fat face, and the habitual liar. This episode of the Dan Levitt's Art Show is presented by DraftKings. DraftKings, the crown is yours.
Chris Fowler will be here in a little while. Dominique Foxworth at some point will be here. We've got an assortment of guests crashing the proceedings at various points during the next couple of hours. In the interim, though, can you do me the favor, please, of playing the sound of show friend Nick Turturro from...
friend or brother of john tuturo friend of the show nick tuturo uh just going crazy because now the dodgers also at 60 million dollars a year for four years have kyle tucker 45th in war you gotta be kidding me kyle tucker to the dodgers i thought he was gonna be a fucking met of all things what are we looking at it's repeat now you what's going on mlb do something enough is enough
Everyone agrees. Is that the entire Marlins payroll? About 80%. 80% of the Marlins payroll?
I think the Marlins right now have 76 million committed to players on their major league roster for next season, and he just got 60 to be their fourth best offensive player. Loved him on NYPD Blue.
Chris Fowler is going to be here in a second. But the Harbaugh stuff, we haven't actually talked about it very much around here. The idea that Harbaugh wouldn't even be in any way interested in the Dolphins.
Stephen Ross didn't go on My Idea?
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Chapter 2: How does Chris Fowler analyze the matchup between Miami and Indiana?
I prepped for the Rose Bowl. I watched seven Indiana games in the regular season because we don't cover the Big Ten in the regular season. And what jumped out at me was how solid they are. It didn't surprise me they crushed Alabama. or Oregon. Nothing would surprise me from this team. I will not underestimate Indiana, as some Miami fans are still doing.
But no, it's the collision of these two stories and Miami trying to win a championship with a fifth different coach, which is pretty cool. And it's a home field game, not a home crowd game for the Canes. There's so many different angles to this thing. It's fun. Obviously, right? Historically, Indiana has an improbability. They would always be Cinderella.
But have you encountered a lot of situations where the eight and a half point underdog doesn't get the eight and a half point underdog with two losses playing the undefeated team doesn't get to be Cinderella? No, I don't know who Cinderella is, but it's definitely not Indiana. I mean, not at this point. OK, I mean, the 100 years of futility has been convincingly wiped away here.
It's first after first after first. And now, you know, that number just been going up. So Vegas sets the number and then the public agrees that Indiana is going to roll through this game. And that number just keeps climbing. So. Cristobal has always told me that Miami has 20 years of hatred as fuel.
Now they've got a little more fuel because people don't believe on their home field that they can hang with the Hoosiers. What do you think? They better play clean. They better not make mistakes like they did against Ole Miss. Don't drop four interceptions. Don't have major penalties on defense, giving the offense a free 15 yards. Don't have false starts moving your offense back five yards.
You can't do that stuff because Indiana's not going to make mistakes, typically, unless you can get them out of their pattern. It's frightening efficiency. That's what you see when you dive into the numbers, man. At every situational deal, third down, off the charts. Red zone, off the charts. They don't commit turnovers. They take the ball away. They don't commit penalties.
I mean, they're a bunch of 24, 25-year-old guys who played four, five, and six years of football. They just don't make mistakes. So Miami better not.
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Chapter 3: What predictions do guests have for the Miami game?
It's a crazy thing to say. So they'll go, you know, about 25% of the time RPO. They'll go back shoulder throws. You're expecting to see no mistakes from them offensively because Mendoza's 22 touchdowns, zero interceptions in the red zone? I'm not expecting to see that because championship games have a weird dynamic, as we know in any sport. A little bit static on the brain.
People do things they haven't done all season because of the pressure. He seems pretty immune from that, but this is a championship game and it's a once in a lifetime opportunity for him. And for a lot of those guys who have paid their dues and been very poised under pressure, I still think there's the possibility that you could have a mini meltdown from one team or the other.
I've seen Peyton Manning choke in a Super Bowl, not regularly, but it happens. And if that's possible, anything's possible in a football field. So, you know, but if he plays the same way he played against Oregon. Mendoza put the ball exactly where it had to be. I've never seen ball placement quite like that against a pretty damn good defense with pretty tight coverage a lot of times.
And it was exactly where it had to be. And it is undefendable in the way that Aaron Rodgers in his prime would put the ball on a spot. It doesn't matter how good the coverage is. It doesn't matter if the DB is an all-pro. You can't defend it. And on a college level, there have been games I've watched where Mendoza and Indiana's offense is like that.
You're down here, Chris. Is anyone hitting you up for tickets?
Yeah, the smart ones did so two months ago. I posted the prices for these tickets on the aftermarket, trying to discourage people, if you haven't called me by now, don't call. Yes, I've bought a lot of, typically they get free tickets. I've bought a number of tickets through various people and the face prices,
1400 so that's why the ticket prices are high with the scalpers because the the cfp is not letting the scalpers make all the money the face price is pretty high who's the historical comp on mendoza not necessarily story i'm talking about that collegiate accuracy good question i mean andrew luck was pretty damn accurate he's one of the most accurate guys that i saw and his cerebral sense of what to do pre-snap mendoza's kind of lines up with that
I mean, he's kind of a savant guy. I mean, so is Carson Beck. Carson Beck considers himself elite and mentally processing. He considers himself PhD savant level and other coaches who coached him and coached against him would agree with that. Beck's career is still undervalued. Mendoza's burst on the scene as a guy that didn't beat a ranked team at Cal, no disgrace.
He didn't have great teammates around him. So his rise has been meteoric in one season. That's why I think there's still people who are waiting for him to come crashing down to earth. They thought it was going to be at Oregon, or the last drive against Penn State, or Ohio State, or Alabama. He's just passed every test with an A.
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Chapter 4: What historical context is provided about Indiana's football program?
But I mean, I believed in this team. I just I was doubting after the SNU game for sure.
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Chapter 5: How does Miami's recent performance impact their upcoming game?
He spells it differently. Maybe you didn't hear me correctly. His name is Chubby Checkers. There's an S at the end.
I feel like that should be the largest of five. It sounds like a college football name.
This is the Dan Levatar Show with the Stugats.
Chris, for two teams that never play one another, they actually, if you read between the lines, know each other quite well with Cignetti having Heatherman on his staff, with Brock Schott transferring over to Indiana. I don't know if this is a game that's going to have a lot of secrets, and it probably amplifies your point about execution, no?
Yeah, I mean, I don't know what the secret shot factor is that he's going to go over there and open the playbook for him. I mean, I think if you're a coach and you're naturally paranoid, you're a little bit concerned about that. But I think familiarity is a part of it. I mean, Signetti is pretty damn good at preparation. He leaves no stone unturned. And he knows stuff that...
Maybe we shouldn't be surprised that he knows because I really haven't covered him, but he is sort of like a savant that way mentally. And they're going to be very prepared. I think if you're Miami and Indiana's linebacker Aiden Fisher is over there calling out the play before it happens, judging the formation and his tape study, you should be concerned because he's done that in games this year.
He did it to Oregon twice. And I think Alabama felt like, are they stealing our signals? Is there some way? You know, these rumors are out there. They've hacked into the cloud. That's how prepared they are, is that people think they're cheating to do it, which is, you know, kind of preposterous.
But, yeah, I mean, Signetti is going to be prepared, and he's going to be hard to fool, and his staff is, too. Oh, we got another guest here. Oh, this is not promising. This is long-winded here, so I don't know if this is going to be short. Pablo, the University of Miami against Indiana, who are you picking? Miami. Okay, excellent work. That's the way we want to do that. Good contribution.
See you on the rooftop, bud. Bye, Pablo. See you later, Pablo. Thank you. Pablo Torre finds out the most popular sports podcast, sort of sports podcast, going right now in America as a hot new thing. I'm seeing on the screen here, it says first take coming up, Chris Fowler joins the show. I do join the show. That is the next assignment. That's his hard out at 10. No, no, I got some time.
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Chapter 6: What are the challenges Miami faces against Indiana?
Man, see, this is what I was afraid of.
I got so much respect for Chris Fowler, and now I'm embarrassed. So what was he describing here, Chris? Do you want to take any kind of guess for what it is that he was trying to say here? What are you hearing? I'm pretty sure it was English, but I don't get much behind that. I hear excitement. I hear enthusiasm. Translate this. What is he talking about? What were the kids doing?
I mean, not being a parent, it could mean anything. I don't know. Okay, he doesn't have a guest, not in the world.
I mean, look, I would love to have Chris Fowler on with me and Amber Wilson on Monday for college football campus tour. And now when he's asked, he's going to hear the name Zaslos.
All right, so let's give him something else here. What is he saying here, Chris? What is your analysis? It's not just college football, you know. You know professional football as well. You answer this question.
The Packers win or the Bears lose? Bears lose. Packers win or the Bears lose?
I think both are wrong. So you're 0 for 2 on that one.
Packers win or the Bears lose? Man, this is bullshit.
But that's a legit question, don't you think? Yeah. No, I don't think because the Packers, well, just because the game was won by the Bears. The Packers win or the Bears lose. Yeah, but sometimes, you know, like Monday night, it's possible that Miami loses the game and Indiana doesn't win the game. I mean, on the scoreboard they would, but what's the more important factor?
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Chapter 7: What strategies should Miami employ to win against Indiana?
They're doing it with guys who have been at two, three, four schools, who are 24, 25, 26 years old in some cases, and they're using the portal and they're using NIL in a really smart way. So...
you know it's not like they're not good teeth they're not a bunch of good players who are wildly overachieving that's not what this team is it's the story is remarkable because of their historical futility but the way they've used the modern tools at their disposal which was never possible before that's why there's no comparable
Bill Snyder turned around Kansas State, obviously long ago, and they were the worst team in history. And they became competitive and came close to playing for a national championship in the late 90s. But Signetti did it in two years. And that's what you can now do with the modern tools.
And if you use them brilliantly, which he has, this kind of thing is possible going forward, like we've seen in the NFL. Many times a team goes from last in the division to winning the division. It's almost common now. But in college, it's been obviously impossible. Two last questions here.
As someone who knows that you are vastly overprepared for the moment, what percentage of your prep will make it into a game? What percentage? I'm going to lean in and grab something here, so forgive me. I'm going to show you the chart. I posted this at Instagram. But this is the chart, not for this game, because the chart for this game has got a long way to go.
But this is Miami having the football. Can you see how little this writing is? Yeah. This is the spotter chart. This is Miami's offense in the bottom, and this is Ole Miss' defense up top. And to answer your question, yes, wildly overprepared. A fraction of that gets in the broadcast, because if a lot of that gets in the broadcast, then I've done a terrible job. I've smothered the game with data.
That has key one-line things reminding me to get to a story that I want to tell. It has performances in key games and situations. It has a lot of data about each offense and defense, but I promise not to ruin the
game by reading it on the air but over under 10 percent five percent of uh the material that you have prepared that you will actually use i would say because there's much more than i that i've actually prepared that doesn't even get on the chart so i would say under five percent of the stuff i've seen gets on the air what gets on the chart uh 10% might be a good guess. Yeah.
The reason I asked the question is because this game has so many storylines that when is the last time that you went into a game saying to yourself, oh, I'm not going to be able to get all of the great stuff into this one. Like, I know I'm not going to be able. I've got so much stuff that I'm going to be overprepared in a way that's really ridiculous.
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Chapter 8: What humorous anecdotes are shared about college sports culture?
It's incredible. I got my hair cut on campus yesterday. They have a fully operational salon. Shout out to Oliver O'Grickle. You know, Miami, the football program is the reason all that money poured into that university, correct? Yes, yes, at least initially. UHealth has done quite all right for itself, too. Since? Yeah, and real estate ventures. Yeah, UHealth is pretty big.
uh is uh okay i and this cfp run that's a lot of money thank you clemson and fsu we get to keep all of it 20 million dollars the last game made 20 million dollars for miami tony's now uh are we gonna stay with tony as he walks around campus here it is beautiful and it's beautiful out there tony you got a nice day too it's cold but not too cold how many dead iguanas or frozen over iguanas.
None, none right now. I was gonna say, they get thawed out and they're fine. So I'm gonna see, it says, oh, watch out Sean, I'm gonna go, okay, perfect. So it says, sorry we're closed here at the Ratskeller, but it looks like the door is maybe a little ajar that I can maybe peek my head into it and see. Do you wanna send Rose in there first?
That's exactly what I said not to do, just walking in the doors without asking.
Okay, so in all transparency, Chris Cody, before I do my hit, is like, hey, buddy, listen, you know what you do to make things great? Don't do that. And I'm like, why? And he's like, well, you know, so you want me to do stuff that makes it great, or do you not want me to do stuff that makes it great?
I just said Dan's done enough damage for us this week, and I need you to just play it cool. That's what I said.
No, I'd like to see the inside of the Ratskeller, though. Dan, I'm playing it cool. When it opens... It clearly says closed on that door right there. Okay, we'll wait for you. They open at 11 a.m. All right, that's fine. We'll see you in 40 minutes. We'll check in at the beginning of the club. Yeah, we'll check in with you. Okay. Thank you. Is there anyone there that you want to interview?
Anyone there that you want to get seen from, buzz from, energy from, predictions from?
Yeah, let's see. Let's see. Let's see. It looks like there's a guy in some sort of sweater there.
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