Oher joined Mike Francesca on WFAN in New York to talk about the release of the new book, why he decided to do it, his thoughts on the film adaptation of The Blind Side, and all sorts of questions about his life before and after meeting the incredible Tuohy family that adopted him in his native Memphis.

On whether he was pleased with the way he was depicted in the film adaptation of The Blind Side:

“It was a great story, great ending and everything, but my character was a little off to what I’m used to and what I think I am.  I think I have a little more personality, talk a little bit more, and I don’t think he did neither of the two. But it was great, it was a great movie.”

On how Mrs. Tuohy’s role was depicted in the movie:

“Oh yeah, she’s going to get her point across and she’s going to get what she wants. She’s great. I love her to death and I wouldn’t be here without her.”

On his family life prior to being adopted by the Tuohys:

“Growing up we had a lot problems. Our neighborhood wasn’t the best neighborhood, and it was hard to come across meals most of the time, and just a lot of different things like that growing up. But I always had an inner drive to succeed growing up. I was going to do everything in my power to not be a product of my environment and not be a part of the cycle that you grow up, you go to school, you drop out of school, get into gangs, drugs, violence and things like that. I got into sports and ended up in a private school out in the other side of town and was still struggling, struggling to eat, things like that, get a ride to school. Lee Ann, they took me in and we’ve been close ever since.

On just how rough his upbringing was before being taken in by the Tuohy’s:

“Early on it was. Early on until I was probably 15 or 16 it was really that bad. We never had a stable home. We stayed in a Salvation Army several times and were getting evicted a lot. I mean, it was hard growing up.”

On his relationship with his mother then and now:

“Well I know for one thing she always loved the kids. When she could she took great care of us. But she was a product of her environment and it got to her. Things get to all of us, but I know for a fact she loved us. But she’s trying to get better, and hopefully we’ll have that bond that we one had growing up.”

On when he was offered a place in their home:

“Well I think first, I was going to be on the Homecoming Court or something like that and I needed something and she took me shopping. We didn’t just buy one thing, she bought me a ton of things. We had a great time that day. We hit it off right off, and everyday after that she came and find me and we’d talk and I’d go over to their house and eat and stuff like that. She knew what was going on and knew I was having a hard time getting to school and finding a place to stay. She knew I was staying around, and she offered and asked me if I wanted to stay with them, and I was like of course!”

Whether the movie producers went overboard with their depiction of how little he knew about the game of football:

“I prided myself on sports growing up because that’s all I had really. Yeah they did change it around really. But I’ve played football my whole life really.”

On if it’s accurate that the youngest Tuohy boy had a role in some of the recruiting visits from big name college coaches:

“Yeah a couple times he asked a couple coaches if I came could he get this. He actually walked through The Grove our first game. He actually walked through The Grove with us which is a tradition with the fans. So, yeah.”

Whether anybody questioned the legitimacy of a rich white family taking in a kid like him who ultimately wound up at the alma mater of the school they attended and had influence at:

“In private some people doubted it and had questions about it a little bit, but nobody openly came out and had problems with it but the NCAA.”

Whether his struggles academically were as accurate as were portrayed in the movie:

“When I first got to Briarcrest, coming from the schools I was coming from it was a big difference. A lot of the material I’d never seen before. I was behind on a lot of things, grade point average was low. I’d just never seen the material and needed to be caught up. Once I was caught up my junior and senior in high school, my last year i made Honor Roll, that was a big deal for me and still is. I know at one point in my sophomore year and junior year I was the last in my class and I kind of felt about that. And towards my senior year, I had moved up a few spots. That was one of my proudest moments. Everybody at Briarcrest is smart, so that was a big deal for me.”

On if the NFL is harder or in any way different than he expected it might be:

“Yeah it’s been great. The only difference is every one in the NFL is great. You never get a week off and games in the NFL are so tough to win it’s unbelievable. No easy weeks.”

On Ray Lewis as a leader and how he is to young players:

“Yeah his locker is right by mine and every morning I go in there he’s in there. I just love being around him. What a great guy, what a great leader, he’s just an inspiration. He gives wonderful advice, he’s a fierce competitor and he wants to win. What a great guy to be around.”

Whether he has a relationship with his mother and siblings:

“Yeah I have a relationship. My brothers came to a couple games this year and I talked to them a lot. But everybody’s growing up, doing their own thing and living their own lives.”

On if he has a relationship with his natural mother:

“We don’t have that same relationship we had when I was growing up, but hopefully we’ll get it back to where we once were.”

Whether he believes he would have made it to the NFL had he not wound up in the Tuohy house as a high schooler:

“I always said through my younger days in high school in eighth and ninth grade, I didn’t have to go to a D-1. I could have gone to a smaller school or a junior college or anything. Because at first I didn’t know if I would have my grades to get into a D-1. So like I said the road would have been tougher, but I would have worked extremely hard to get to the level I wanted to go.”

On why he decided to do the new book:

“I really didn’t want to do it. People came to me and were like you should do a book and such and such. And I was like no The Blind Side is out. Everybody already thinks they know so much about me, and I was really tired of all that type stuff. Then I started getting over thousands and thousands of letters from people all over the world writing me and telling me that my story reached them and they’re changing their life because they read my story or learned my story. So I said okay I might as well do this. So I wanted to inspire people and try to change people’s lives.”

On if Mrs. Tuohy is really as outspoken and feisty as is portrayed by Sandra Bullock in the movie:

“I think since The Blind Side came out she kinda took her role and ran with it a lot more. I kind of tease her about it — stop acting like Sandra Bullock, you don’t have to act like that with me.”

Listen here to Oher with Mike Francesca on WFAN in New York

Jeremiah Massoli joined 95.5 the Game in Portland to talk about what it was like to watch Oregon have the season they did without him, how closely he paid attention to what Oregon was doing this season, and whether Oregon treated him fairly.

What it was like to watch Oregon have the season they did without him:

“I am just happy for these guys.  From last season to where we didn’t get it done in the Rose Bowl like we wanted to.  I just think that was a lot of fuel for everybody going into the offseason just working hard until you take it to the next step…”

How closely he paid attention to what Oregon was doing this season:

“Yeah I was wrapped up in my own season like you said.  But I had the ESPN phone app thing and I had those guys as one of my favorite teams.  So whenever the final score came up I always checked the box stats or whenever I got a chance to catch them on TV.  You know I saw the Stanford game, the big Stanford game on TV so that was definitely nice.”

How difficult it was for the team to get off the disappointing start they did:

“It was rough.  It was rough man I think that loss to Jacksonville State definitely stayed with us and kind of haunted us for a little while there.  We did our best.  It was tough with that schedule.”

What it was like in Mississippi:

“It was fun.  It was great.  I mean that southern hospitality is real, its live, that whole culture down there is a whole other world, especially coming from this side of the country by going to the deep south.  It was definitely interesting.”

Whether SEC football fans seem that much more engaged with what is going on with their football programs:

“I believe so.  I think so.  I think a lot of that has to do with just the tradition and how strong the tradition is down there, the SEC, you know how strong their tradition is, almost every school.  So yeah I think that has a big deal to do with it.”

Whether Oregon treated him fairly:

“Definitely.  Definitely.  There was a lot that happened and you know, you can’t really blame anybody for anything really.”

Jeremiah Masoli on 95.5 the Game in Portland with John Canzano

Masoli intended to transfer and play using a rule that states that if you graduate from one institution, are not kicked out of school, and intend to begin a graduate school program not offered at your previous school, you can request an academic waiver and play for a new program.

The NCAA rejected that claim saying the transfer wasn’t based on academics, which brings up an interesting quandary. In the argument of athletics and academics, did the other players who have requested this waiver truly do it just for the academics? And was Masoli’s waiver denied, at least in part, because of off-the-field issues that wound up getting him booted off the Oregon football team?

Houston Nutt joined WGFX in Nashville on the 3 Hour Lunch to discuss his frustration over the late decision on Masoli’s case, whether Ole Miss was treated differently than other programs might have been, how another committee will look at Ole Miss’ appeal, why it took so long for the first decision to be made, how he’s keeping his team focused on the start of the season, what the actual rule states and whether he believes they will win the appeal.

On how frustrated he was that the decision on Jeremiah Masoli came so late:

“It’s pretty frustrating to allow a young man to come all the way across the country, pay his own way, and then, by the way, three or four days before the game, [tell him] that he can’t play. That’s what hurts. When you go by the rule and look at the rule and read the rule which specifically states that if you graduate, if you find a degree in the graduate program, a degree where they don’t have that same degree at Oregon, and that if you’re not suspended by the university. … It just looks like a different interpretation. … The biggest thing is that it looks like this is a very high-profile guy and a lot of questions were asked.”

On whether he feels the case was treated differently because it was Ole Miss:

“I don’t know. I don’t know that. Again, this was a curveball for me because this was my first experience with it. I just assumed. That’s where I probably did a bad job, I just assumed that this was going to be like just about all the other transfer cases. I don’t know if we were treated any different.”

On how a new committee will review the appeal:

“It’s a different committee. When you do appeal, there’s another committee, a sub-committee of different people, faculty reps, athletic director, coaches, whoever, that will now decide.”

On why it took so long to find out the initial ruling:

“That’s a good question. That’s one that I don’t know. It started worrying me a little bit when it did take a long time for the committee to decide. That’s what worried me, but I didn’t know. I just remember having a basketball player that Coach [Andy] Kennedy had, that he dismissed, that went on to Seton Hall and he got [a decision] fairly quickly. Of course there was a basketball player at Duke that transferred to Syracuse. When I studied this thing, and this was my first experience, it just seemed like things moved pretty quickly if you did everything by the rule.”

On how he keeps his team focused on the season despite the national news story:

“It’s important that we do get everything because there’s so much attention, so much media, everything’s on Jeremiah. I want to quickly, quickly shift everything today. … I will make sure that we are 100 percent focused on Jacksonville State because I’ll tell you this, they had Florida State beat.”

On what the actual NCAA rule state:

“The rule states this: No. 1, if a young man graduates from a university, if he can go to another program and find a degree in the graduate program that the previous school did not offer, if you get into that school and you have not been suspended by that university – kicked out for whatever reason … – you’re eligible for a waiver to be able to play a year without sitting out for a year. If you look at all the cases of the people that have transferred. … What it gets down to is they start asking questions about, ‘Well, did you transfer for academics?’ … Let’s not be naive, people transfer, usually, it’s athletic related. But Jeremiah graduated in three years, so he’s doing something right, academically. He could’ve gone back to Oregon to go back to graduate school. He wasn’t kicked out of that school, he was dismissed from the team. And so, he had a chance to come here, to get a waiver where he didn’t have to sit out a year, because he followed the three steps of instruction by the way the rule reads.”

On whether he expects to win the appeal:

“I just don’t know. Again, this is my first experience. I’m in uncharted water. … I looked it up, not very many have won an appeal. But, I’ll say this, this is the most different case that this new committee will ever read about. I’m hoping they’ll put all things aside and don’t go by high profile, don’t go by what he’s done in the past, just look at the student athlete and look at the rule.”

Listen to the interview with Houston Nutt on WGFX in Nashville here

So what would you do if you were Houston Nutt and down to just two quarterbacks with minimal experience in the middle of the summer?  You bring in Jeremiah Masoli and give him one last chance and lay down a martial-law-like zero tolerance policy.  Nutt has been known to give players another chance after having disciplinary problems at previous schools.  The upside is that once he learns the offense, he is talented enough to help Nutt win an extra game or two for a team the SEC media picked to finish last in the SEC West.  The downside, however, is that this guy could be a profound embarrassment to Ole Miss if he screws up again, and Nutt’s reputation will be damaged.  Masoli is sure to have an impact on the Rebels this season and he is certainly going to be in the public eye.  I like the idea of giving Masoli yet another chance.  I hope he sticks it to the naysayers and wins a few more games for a team than otherwise doesn’t have a chance.

Houston Nutt joined the Dan Patrick Show to talk about why he took a chance on Jeremiah Masoli, how much Jeremiah Masoli will improve the team, and whether he contacted Jeremiah Masoli about coming to Ole Miss.

Why he took a chance on Jeremiah Masoli:

“First let’s go back to Jevan Snead.  Jevan Snead left a little bit of a curve for us, so we have got Raymond Cotton, we got Nathan Stanley, we got Randall Mackey coming in the summer time, we will be ok.  We will get a walk-on just in case.  When Raymond Cotton threw the double curveball on us, really you are talking about Nathan who had been here during the spring, took a few backup/mop-up snaps last year, Randall had not taken a snap.  I either had to get a junior college guy, who I didn’t know anything about.  I am not used to recruiting in July, guys.  The junior college guy there is Jeremiah.  The thing that swung it for me was when I did get to meet him.  Again guys, I knew there is going to be some bad things said when you take a guy like that but what won it over for me was when he got here I looked him in his eyes and talked to his mom extensively.  I just feel like that this kid is going to be ok.  He is going to be alright here for four months.  I think that he knows.  He absolutely knows that this is his last chance to play college football.”

Whether he worries about the bad press, in particular, Stewart Mandel writing that he is a dirty coach:

“That is pretty strong words there.  Obviously he has no idea about me for him to use that word.  I don’t see how that would even correlate, myself.  But I guess things like that are going to be said I guess, I don’t know.  I just know this, I can go to bed at night knowing first and foremost I went to Nathan Stanley.  ‘Nathan, I have got a little bit of a problem buddy.  Do you remember that one time you went out during the spring?  The last three days in spring that I didn’t really have a quarterback?  Well, we are in the SEC now and I need another quarterback, would you have a problem?’  And he didn’t.  Then our team said, ‘Coach, we will watch him.  We are not going to let him disrupt us.  We need another quarterback, come one.  We trust you.  We know that you have done with guys like this in the past.  Maybe you can help change his life along the way and let’s go.’”

How much Jeremiah Masoli will improve the team:

“He gives us a lift.  He gives us a lift because of the biggest thing he has quarterbacked a team all the way to the Rose Bowl.  He has got some experience.”

Whether he contacted Jeremiah Masoli about coming to Ole Miss:

“We called the first time in the end of May or June.  I told him that we couldn’t do that at this time.  I wished him the best and we have got three quarterbacks and we are ok right now.  Then he called back, I guess I don’t remember the date.  When Raymond Cotton left and he said, ‘Coach, would you give me one chance?’  I said I will tell you what I want to do.  I want to visit.  I want to get permission from my AD and I want to visit you first.  I want to be around you for 48 hours then I talked to Chip Kelly, I talked to quite a few people and I just felt better after all of that in knowing that there is going to be criticism.  I have got an obligation to my team guys.  First and foremost I have got an obligation with the players, the team, first and foremost.”

Houston Nutt on Dan Patrick

This is not a good thing for Miles with the fans of LSU and this might lead to the end of the road for him sooner rather than later. It sure doesn’t help that the former coach of LSU is leading his team to the SEC Championship, thanks again Nick Saban. Les Miles joined WWL 870 in New Orleans talk about the game, the team, and even took some calls from fans. That’s not always safe. (In the interview he sounds like he is speaking at a funeral)

Asked what things stood out in that game that need to be fixed:

“First off the head coach is not above criticism and fixing things and getting them right. From 1:32, the back end of the game, I need to manage that better. I told my team that the corrections will be made by me and I expect our team, each guy, will get this film and do the same.  You have to go forward. We play too quality of a schedule; this next team is a very talented team. You have to improve and go forward.”

Asked about the last drive and if the team thought they had a time out left:

“I am sure that they did. If you look up at the scoreboard, you would recognize that there was a timeout on the board. There was not. We used our third timeout with the last timeout called. I would have loved to call a timeout at that point. I knew that I was without one. I told Jordan frankly he did what we asked him to do, the clocking, we can’t do that. You can’t win it with that call.”

Asked if this was top of the list difficult wise for him:

“Nothing professionally could compare to this one.  This was a very difficult loss to take certainly when you point the finger at me, the head coach. There are some things personally; everybody in our lives needs to know how to handle things personally. It comes in all forms. Those days mark your life. If you handle adversity well, you will enjoy tough times.”

Listen to Les Miles with Bobby Hebert and Deke on WWL AM 870 in New Orleans

On his team’s upcoming reality T.V. show Gridiron U. and if there’s any concern that too much information is revealed about the way things are conducted behind the scenes:

“You know, we talked long and hard about that, went back and forth. You know we live in this world of Twitter, and this world of information that’s out there all the time. And the thing we want to be able to do is to sell to some student athletes, recruits, that hey, this is what this program’s all about, this is what are players are about. I just feel pretty good – I’ve discussed things with Gridiron U. and our players. And we’ve got to be able to handle it. And hopefully we put blinders on and go to work. They will be here a total of about two and a half weeks; maybe three if they can get here the last week of workouts in the summer. So, we’ll see how that goes.”

On how he will get his team to build upon their success last year to take the program to the next level, particularly consistency-wise:

“You look back, even when Eli Manning and them went to the Cotton Bowl, the next year I think they won three or four games. It’s been very up and down. And then of course the three or four years leading up to this past year, there were no Bowls, nothing. And you just talk hard about the consistency, and about the juniors that are now seniors, taking the baton from the seniors and saying hey, this is your football team, you’ve got to take ownership. It’s about coming to work everyday.”

Listen here to Nutt on 790 The Zone in Atlanta