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Heading to Pullman for a long shooting weekend. This has become a highlight of our summer. This was one of the more viral cuts we've done for our Inside the Den series and it was actually a throwaway. John was so nervous on camera that to loosen him up, Cassie just gave him some dumb stuff to riff on. It ended up getting a few million impressions. Pretty solid ROI for the Beef Commission. Later that day, Brandon (Creative Director at HMG) was having dinner with his brother when, in the ultimate Pullman moment, the starting QB turned out to be the only other person in the restaurant. They'd met at the shoot earlier, so he just came over and sat with them. At that point, John's only NIL deals were trade at a BBQ spot and a milkshake place. In his adorably generous way, he insisted on taking the two 40 year old dudes out for milkshakes after dinner. Literally a month later, that kid was fielding insane offers and couldn't go anywhere without getting mobbed. But that day he was still the nervous kid. My other favorite moment from that shoot… he was sitting next to my then-6-year-old daughter, talking Zeppo’s and genuinely telling her he could beat her at bowling. She asked if he was going to be the quarterback. He said, "I think so. I just hope I'm good at football." He was dead serious. Turns out the kid was good at football. The rest of the story unfolded from there. He's not at the school we hoped he'd stay at, but he's a frontrunner for the Heisman this year and we'll be rooting for him. And as I've told every athlete since, the difference between a milkshake trade deal and a $3.5 million bag is being nice to the camera crews and stringing together those early season highlights. Curious what some nervous kid we'll get on camera this weekend will go on to do. No idea, but I know it'll be cool. Go Cougs.

CFB27 has the highly-anticipated addition of user-selectable crowd themes (blackout, stripe out, etc.) before dynasty games 🔥