November 27, 2024 • 49 mins
Colin may be shrouded in darkness like Kyle Shanahan but with the right lighting and quarterback around you the 49ers could easily become a Super Bowl winning team. With a total of 12 teams now within the college football playoff we could see some very interesting matchups. Colin also brings you his NFL Super Bowl bubble teams! Plus, the great Jimmy Johnson and Joel Klatt join the show
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Thanks for listening to the Best of the Herd podcast.
Be sure to catch us live every weekday on Fox
Sports Radio in noon to three Eastern nine am to
noon Pacific. Find your local station for The Herd at
Fox Sportsradio dot com, or stream us live every day
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Speaker 2 (00:19):
This is the Best of the Herd with Colin cowher
on Fox Sports Radio.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
Here we go on a Thanksgiving Eve, Wednesday, live in
Los Angeles. It's the Herd wherever you may be and
however you may be listening. We're packed today. Jimmy Johnson,
the Hall of Fame coach in forty minutes. Joel Klatt
top of Next Hour, Greg Cosel top of the Final Hour,
Star Studed Show, Great final Show. Then four days of
(00:49):
watching football, hanging out with family, and our studio lights
just went down. I have no idea what happened, but Jmac,
we are our audio is alive and well, and how
are things? My friend out is to start the day. Uh, yes,
this is somewhere in the.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
World forget to pay a bill.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
Maybe I'm not exactly sure. It'll take a while. I
thought Fox was doing fine. You know, I see them
flickering back on our auxiliary lighting. So we apologize for
our TV audience. You're here, we go, They're slowly, they're
slowly coming back up our auxiliary lighting. That's a first
in my career. There we go. By the way, I
(01:24):
look better when the lights are off. So I do
apologize for the television audience. Uh so, anyway, I hope
you have a great time with your fam. J mackwhile
the Lively Show today, I saw you cut the facial hair.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
I had to get rid of it. Got a couple complaints.
Uh no, no no management, just friends and family.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
What are you doing all right? Well, first off, J
Mack will have more on this. Daniel Jones, the beleaguer
quarterback for the New York Giants. Uh he just signed
with the Vikings. I'm happy for Daniel Jones. No chaos,
great offensive coach. Also, the Vikings get a very experienced,
nice kid. We talked about this yesterday. I root for
young people to avoid chaos. Maybe when you're older you
(02:03):
can handle it. So Daniel Jones, great place for him
to go. Offensive coach, weapons, no pressure understudy. Great for
the Vikings. They get a big, strong kid with a
lot of start, but he loves the NFL. So I
want to talk forty nine ers. So the forty nine ers,
you know, I just got to a Super Bowl, and
they've been sort of the reigning West Coast power for
a long time, and they're a very popular franchise. They're
(02:26):
a little bit bit like the Yankees. Out east, we're
in the summer, everybody's wearing a Yankee hat. Out West,
it's a lot of Dodgers and a lot of San
Francisco forty nine er hats. There's a huge brand. They
fill stadium's home or away. And now I'm seeing a
lot of stories now blaming the coach Kyle Shanahan. Late
game management is the reason, says an NFL executive to
(02:46):
the Athletic. I want to discuss that for a second,
and Deebo Samuel is supporting him. But it's funny about blame.
For years, Andy Reid, for years in Philadelphia, everybody knew
he was smart, but he got called a terrible clock
management coach. Oh just the worst. And then Andy Reid
(03:12):
got Patrick Mahomes and that all disappeared. And Brady and
Belichick for years the Niners were the best clock management
efficient situational football team in the world. And then Tom
Brady went to Tampa and Belichick looked like every other
coach in the league with an average quarterback, penalties, clock management,
(03:35):
losing games they led in the fourth court. And funny
how that works, isn't it? So when your quarterbacks in
San Francisco for Kyle Shanahan or Jimmy Garoppolo, Trey Lance
and Brock Purty, who, by the way, maybe a great fit,
He's not a great quarterback. Brock Purty doesn't erase your mistakes.
Lamar Jackson does, John Elway? Did? Brady? Did? Peyton Manning? Did? Breeze?
(03:58):
Did Marino? Did they erase mistakes? Lebron's done this. Lebron
has rased a lot of bad coaching moves for a
long time in the NBA. Now that's what you know.
The great players like a Yannis can do or a
Wemby can do. So that's what the great athletes do.
I mean USC Caleb Williams remember when he went to USC.
(04:19):
They won eleven games. Defense was atrocious. It was atrocious,
maybe in the worst tackling defense in the country. USC
won eleven games, should have won twelve, but their defense
gave up a late touchdown to Tulane. I mean, go
look at Mike McDaniel with Tua. When Mike McDaniel has
Tua and I don't consider him a great all time quarterback,
(04:39):
But with Tua, you're like, man, Mike McDaniel, who that
guy is a wizard. Without him, he looks like a
bottom five coach. They can't get first downs. So here's
the problem for Kyle Shanahan. Brought Perty is smallish hurt. Again.
They were in the Daniel Jones sweepstakes. They wanted a
veteran back up and by the way, his last twelve
(05:00):
starts I looked it up this morning, brought Purty six
and six at a ninety five passer rating. That's good.
It's not a racer material. It's not Mahomes changing Andy
Reid's career and narrative. So you can bang on Kyle
Shanahan all you want, but the reason they took such
a big swing on Trey Lance is they were hoping
(05:23):
he was an eraser. Because even if you're a great
coach Andy Reid, Belichick, Shanahan, if you have just a
good quarterback and not an eight plus quarterback, this is
what happens to you all of a sudden. Now everybody's going,
I don't know, he's losing a lot of games. That
Kyle Shanahan for the record of the last twenty one
(05:45):
Super Bowl winning quarterbacks twenty one eighteen Hall of famers.
Go look, go you could google it if Google was
around twenty years ago. Go google how much everybody hammered
Andy Reid. Now he's considered by a long shot, the
best coach in the league. So yesterday on this couple
(06:13):
more to go. Starting December twentieth, for the first time
ever in the history of college football, we'll have a
twelve team playoff. So it used to be at the
end you get you know year when I grew up,
it was AP voted for it, the media voted for
the National Championship Game, which was hoky. And there's BCS
and a college playoff. Now for the first time ever,
this year we'll have twelve teams. And so last night,
two weeks left, they released the playoffs. Now again, do
(06:39):
not overreact. Two weeks left. In my lifetime, college football's
last two weeks rivalry week and Championship Week. Anything can happen.
I'll give you an example. J Mack was right yesterday.
I'm gonna reverse my pick. I'm taking USC plus seven
and a half points to keep it close on Notre Dame.
(07:01):
Why full stadium in La Lincoln Riley's emptying the tank.
They got nothing to lose. They feel good after beating
UCLA and Notre Dame's only face two ranked teams since September.
Every single USC game is close. The coliseum all be there,
will be lit. They've got playmakers. Notre Dame steff up
(07:23):
in class. USC beat LSU, and they should have beaten
Penn State and overtime at home. To me, it's twenty seven,
twenty six, twenty eight, twenty seven. Don't be shocked if
Notre Dame gets bounced. How about number two Texas for
the first time in thirteen years going to College Station
to face Texas A and M. What do you think
(07:45):
Texas A and M would love to do? How about
derail the greatest season for Texas Longhorn football in like
since the Mac Brown days. That place is one of
the hardest places to play in the country. Marcel Read,
the quarterback for Texas A and M. Fishman is good.
He's getting better every time we see him. The Aggie's
D line exceptional? What was the team that beat Texas
(08:07):
Georgia their D line exceptional? Oh, by the way, the Aggies.
The Aggies have nothing to lose, Texas all the pressure.
Keep your eye on that one. Oh did I mention
that Tennessee's at Vandy? Vandy beat Alabama at home? Did
I mention Georgia Tech and Georgia Georgia texa good team
(08:29):
beat Miami, So everybody freaks out. I can see all
the SEC fans. I can't believe where we are ranked
a week ago. Just last weekend Ole, Miss Bama, Colorado,
and A and M all lost to unranked opponents. So
it's not Thanksgiving, it's traps Giving. Watch out for Notre Dame,
(08:52):
watch out for Texas, watch out for Georgia. People freak out,
don't this is what's great. For the first time in
our lives, we get a twelve team playoff. I don't
have I just had a coach yesterday tell me he
thinks SMU is wildly underrated. Who knows, but my entire
life college football regular season was amazing, and then you'd
(09:16):
watch a bunch of second tier cheesy bowl games that stuff. Now,
twelve team playoff, can't wait? Fired up? I mean about
the only game I don't see an upset is Ohio
State hosting Michigan. I don't know how Michigan keeps it close.
They're bad at quarterback, they're on the road, they don't
have big plays. Ohio State will be more aggressive, playmakers everywhere,
(09:40):
better at quarterback. A lot of pressure on Ohio State.
That one. I don't see an upset. Everything else I
wouldn't be shocked. So j Mac Jimmy Johnson later this hour,
Joel Clatt Top of the hour. So you basically you
got home and people said, get that thing off your face.
Speaker 3 (09:55):
Oh you know, listen, hey, you take some l's, you
try some things.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
That's what happens.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
He didn't take it out on Daniel Jones. Do you
see where he ended up?
Speaker 1 (10:03):
Minnesota? That was your big gut? Was that your guests? Yeah? Well,
first of all, I'm happy for the kid. I mean,
to go to the Giants is a mess. So he
goes to like a real team with real weapons and
an offensive coach and owners that are non meddling and
a winning culture, and he doesn't have to be a starter.
So it's like, that's a nice gift for the kid.
Speaker 4 (10:24):
So let me ask you, uh, what does this do
for the Vikings next year? Do you think it's a
given that Sam Darnold is not coming back and Daniel
Jones will battle JJ McCarthy for the starting job.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
That's what I think. I think it'll be JJ McCarthy's
team and you'll have Daniel Jones backing it up. And
I think I think this market because it's such a
bad college quarterback market. I mean it's Cam who's got is?
You know? Cam and shadu Or are like B plus prospects.
They're not A's Jalen Milroll people like, but he's a
(10:57):
bit mechanical. He's Anthony Richardson but people a little bit better.
So that you don't have a great quarterback draft class.
So that means Donald. And because of Aaron rodgers sputtering
and kind of turn off on the market, a lot
comes with Aaron Rodgers. I think Sam Donald's going to
have a very robust market.
Speaker 3 (11:14):
He could get paid by somebody.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
Oh absolutely will get the thing about.
Speaker 4 (11:17):
McCarthy, I did read that there was like a second
surgery he had to have somewhat recently. So it's not
a given that JJ McCarthy comes back and it's his
team and he's ready to go, right sitting for two years,
that could happen.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
Jordan loves Thatt for was it three?
Speaker 1 (11:31):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (11:32):
Yeah, So I wouldn't be shocked if Daniel Jones was
the starting play.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
I mean right now, we went into the season. We
didn't know before the season what Minnesota was. Well, now
Sam Donald's really good. JJ McCarthy's very promising, and Daniel
Jones will be the first or second best backup. This
is what I've been talking about with Atlanta. The worst
problem to have in the NFL or the best problem.
The best problem in the National Football League is, you know,
(11:54):
we have one too many quarterbacks. Everybody should want that
Atlanta Cousins Penix. That's not an issue. An issue is
we don't have an elite corner the Rams. And when
you play a team with aj Brown, you play a
team with great receivers, not much you can do. You
just don't match up. So good day today, I'm gonna
release my pre Thanksgiving Super Bowl bubble. Haven't done this
(12:16):
in a month. The teams I think can win it
usually jmc Unlike your facial hair, it lasts. It is
ver it is a harborger of things to come, So
we'll do that next.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
Be sure to catch live editions of The Herd weekdays
and neon Easter nine am Pacific on Fox Sports Radio
FS one and the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
So it is week thirteen in the NFL starting tomorrow
with three games Lions are gonna play. Rest of the
country's gonna see him now, not just the diehards and
the Lion fans. They take on the Bears, Giants, Cowboys,
we'll see I think Packers hosting Miami's fascinating. Get to
that in a bit, Jimmy Johnson this hour two. The
(12:57):
NFL does a great job. It is there is an
illusion of parody. But because over the last decade there's
been all these rule changes which have all benefited offense,
the league has become very quarterback dependent. So if you
have a top ten quarterback, unless your coach is clueless,
you're going to be a playoff team. So if you
go to look at the AFC, for example, and you're
(13:19):
going to see a lot of teams that have really,
really good quarterbacks. Mahomes, Oh what do you know? Josh Allen, C. J. Stroud,
Lamar Jackson, Justin Herbert. And then you've got a couple
of guys in right now bow Knicks. But he's got
super Bowl winning coach Sean Payton. You know there's Russell Wilson. Well,
he's won a super Bowl and so has Mike Tomlin.
So you can see very clearly you got to have
(13:41):
the coach or the quarterback, or preferably both if you
go over to the NFC right now outside of Seattle
and Gino Smith, so Geno's not a star quarterback, and
the head coach we don't know about. But Detroit, okay,
you got a super Bowl quarterback, Jared Goff, Jalen Hurts,
you got a super Bowl quarterback. Atlanta, you know, weakest
(14:02):
division in football. But Kirk Cousins has been, you know,
a top ten quarterback now for a long time in Minnesota,
Green Bay and Washington. Now the NFC is the weaker,
but be honest about this, Sam Darnold and Kevin O'Connell.
Kevin O'Connell looks like a top five offensive coach in
this league. He may be a top five coach Green Bay.
Matt Lafleur, Shock, Jordan Love, I think an elite quarterback
(14:25):
and then Dan Quinn's been to a Super Bowl as
Washington's coach, So you start looking around. Now, I don't
think Seattle's going to win this division. I think either
Matt Stafford or Kyler Murray are going to figure out
a way to win this division. And that would be
the elite quarterback category. So now here's the great thing
about the NFL. You can go from very bad to
very good instantly. It's the League of hope. Jim Harbaugh
(14:48):
Chargers totally changed the franchise. C J. Stroud, Demiko Ryans
changed the franchise. So the great thing about the NFL
is the League of hope. It's not like baseball or
the NBA or hockey that it takes draft pick after
draft after draft pick and you have to change the
entire roster. I mean, Chargers basically brought in better coaches. Boom,
They're good. They're not great, they're good and so. And
(15:09):
what's funny though it is there's an illusion of parody.
And I do think week to week anybody can beat anybody.
But my Super Bowl bubble, which I do about four
times a year, is very familiar. Inside the bubble, Josh
Allen and the Bills, Mahomes and the Chiefs, Lamar and
John Harbaugh, Ravens. Philadelphia a great franchise, and I think
(15:32):
we all think Detroit is loaded. I do think Pittsburgh,
Green Bay, the Chargers in Minnesota are just on the periphery,
all capable of making the playoffs and winning playoff games.
But I think there's five teams super Bowl level quarterbacks,
quarterbacks that have been to Super Bowl that can hoist
a trophy. So again, it is the League of Hope,
(15:54):
the parody thing Macro big picture eighteen game season. Longer
season is the more clarity you get early, and I
think right now week thirteen, we know who's really really
capable of hoisting a trophy.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
Be sure to catch live editions of the Herd weekdays
and Noone Eastern not a im Pacific all right.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
We get ten eleven minutes with Jimmy Johnson not very often,
and we get him in studio today, So I love it.
Fox Sports NFL analysts, the two time Super Bowl champ,
national champ, one of the few college coaches that worked
at the NFL level, And I've always said I don't
get why the Hall of Fame doesn't include both basketball does.
All right, let's start with this. You were known as
you loved personnel and you work great at it. You
(16:36):
created I mean New York Giants didn't do trades before
you made one, and so you are viewed as sort
of Sean Payton's got some of this too. You like personnel,
you're good at it.
Speaker 5 (16:45):
Oh that I spent my time in personnel, you know,
around you know, even during the season, you know, looking
at free agents, and you know, even watching college foot noh.
I I love watching football, and so you know, I
was always on top of the game as far as
college football. And on top of that, when I first
went into the league, I'd been in a lot of
those top players homes. I knew their families, and so
(17:07):
it gave me an advantage in drafting players.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
That's kind of what Jim Harball has for the next
few year, exactly right. Okay, so let's talk about Dallas.
What would you do this offseason? There's some tough choices here.
Speaker 5 (17:18):
Well, first of all, they're so financially strapped, you know,
with some of these contracts. First of all, I would
have never given Prescott a new contract. I'd let him
play it out, you know, because he would you know,
he's the highest paid player in the league. He's not
the best player in the league, and he wasn't going
to go anywhere. If he had gone to the super
Bowl with him, Hey, he wasn't going to go anywhere.
(17:38):
Pay him whatever, you know, and if he, you know,
struggled in the playoffs, then you negotiate, or if he
got hurt, you saved money. But they're so financially strapped
right now.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
I don't know.
Speaker 5 (17:52):
I don't know what they do. I don't know. If
you know, they talk about, you know, change coaching, well,
I don't know if changing coaching is going to, you know,
help them. Mike McCarthy's a good football coach, yes, and
so I don't know that a new coach coming in
can solve the problem.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
Would you consider moving, say a Micah getting a second
first round pick and trying to get some inexpensive star players.
Speaker 5 (18:14):
You know, Parsons is such a great, great player, it
would have to be a boatload of picks to trade him.
I wouldn't want to get rid of him. He is
their whole defense, and he is a game changer. Al
Davis told me one time I was talking about players,
and he said, Hey, that particular player, the one I
(18:37):
was talking about, Michael Irvin. He wins games for you.
You don't want to get rid of a player that
wins games for you.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
Good point. This next question is funny. You coach the
Hurricanes and the Dolphins, so Tua, not a very Hawaiian kid,
is going up the Green Bay. You told me something
funny yesterday. I hope you remember it. I asked you, Jimmy,
when you were at Miami and hadn't played Boston, how
did you prepare your team? And you said to me,
I got warmer clothes.
Speaker 5 (19:06):
I hated cold weather, and you know, both the University
of Miami and with the Miami Dolphins, I hated going
into the cold weather. And you know, I think the
Dolphins are in a situation right now with their schedule.
If they could beat Green Bay, they had have an
outside chance at a playoff.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
They have to win. But they have to win.
Speaker 5 (19:26):
They have to beat Green Bay. And they're not going
to beat green Bay. You know, a short week against
a good football team in twenty degree weather. I don't
think that's going to happen.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
Yeah, I agree with you. I'm gonna talk about cam
Ward plays for Miami. You've seen him again. You're a
personnel guy. He's a lot of off platform stuff. Big arm,
big arm, really big arm, off platform, lot of backyard football.
I think he's too good not to draft if you
need a quarterback, right.
Speaker 5 (19:54):
Oh, I think he's a top two or three picks.
I think Sanders, Travis Hunter, Travis Hunter probably the best
player in football. Yeah, you know, but outside of Travis Hunter,
as far as quarterbacks, you've got Sanders and you've got
Cam Warris.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
So what would you do knowing he likes to move,
he likes to get out of the off script, how
would you look at that draft?
Speaker 5 (20:15):
Colin? It's Caleb Williams.
Speaker 1 (20:18):
You know, the same thing.
Speaker 5 (20:20):
You got to you know, you got to really am in.
You got to say, hey, you take your check down.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
You know.
Speaker 5 (20:25):
You know, he he makes some great plays by being
off platform and running around. He makes some great plays,
but he also turns the ball over doing that. You know,
he's got a great arm.
Speaker 2 (20:36):
Uh.
Speaker 5 (20:36):
He probably may have the best arm in all of football.
As far as collegiate football.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
Yeah, uh.
Speaker 5 (20:42):
He can make the plays, he can make the right decisions.
But as far as an offensive coach, you've got to
really me in and keep him from making all those
scrambles trying to make the great play. Just take what's there?
Speaker 1 (20:54):
Do you worry at all? You know? Detroit's rolling over people.
That's like a college basketball team. Like you think to yourself,
boy they get to March Madness, they don't have close games.
But I don't think that plays in football. I think
if you're good, you're good. Your great teams rolled over
a lot of people. Maybe not the Eagles every week,
but good teams. Do you worry though? When the opposite
(21:16):
is evident? Kansas City only plays close games?
Speaker 5 (21:20):
I think there's two things there. First of all, those
close games I actually think helps their football team and
that it gives them confidence that they can win the
close game. They can win at the end when you
got Patrick Mahomes and it's a one score game, you
got a shot, you know right there. But by the
same token, I think it's also an indication that you're
not quite as good as what you used to be
(21:44):
when you got to Detroit. That's rolling over teams. They
are a physical, physical football team. It's hard to beat
a physical football team, and so I think with Kansas City,
it gives them confidence about winning those close games, but
by the same token, an indicator they may not be
quite as good as what some of the opponents that
are going to face in the playoffs.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
Yeah, I don't think Defensively they are as good, not
as good as a young Last weekend right brought them
right back down a couple of.
Speaker 5 (22:11):
Different acts, right, And that's an indicator when you get
to the playoffs against the really good teams, you may
be vulnerable.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
Okay, So I want to ask you about the forty
nine ers. I said, it's one thing if everybody in
the building when you were in Dallas, everybody knew it
was a rebuild. You needed players. I mean, you probably
didn't have to talk people into that trade. Maybe Jerry
Jones you did, but your coaches knew we move hershonal
against seven dudes. What's hard, Jimmy, is when everybody in
(22:41):
the building isn't sure you're supposed to rebuild. So if
you go look at the last twelve games with the Niners,
they're five and seven, they're paying like eight different guys,
they're best players. Trent Williams, George Kittle, Deebo are hurt
a lot. And my take is, listen, I look at
Detroit and Philly, in Kansas City, in Buffalo, San Francis.
Doesn't look like that, right. I think they look and
(23:03):
think inches. The last five times, Jimmy, they play the
Chiefs their own five and lost by blowout four times, right,
I think they need a big reboot. Is it hard?
Because they're good? They don't feel special to me?
Speaker 5 (23:18):
They don't. They don't seem special because they've got their
best players injured, you know, and they're not able to
go over and roll over teams the way they did
before and dominate teams because they were physical. They've had
you know, the green Law has been hurt. You know,
they almost all their top players have been hurt at
(23:39):
one time.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
Those two guys missing every week.
Speaker 5 (23:41):
Yeah, and that that adds up. And on top of that,
once these players get older and get more injuries, the
next year, they're gonna you know, the percentage of them
being injured is going to go up each year.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
It's more and more and more.
Speaker 5 (23:56):
And a guy is not going to get injured, you know,
and be injured for two or three years and all
of a sudden become healthy, you know, And so it
adds up. And so that tells me that something's got
to change.
Speaker 1 (24:08):
Yeah, I want to end with this. The rookie quarterbacks.
You got bow Knicks, you got Caleb, you got Jayden Daniels.
I think Panis and JJ McCarthy could be good. Drake
May's shown me something. Is there one of them you
look at and you really like.
Speaker 5 (24:25):
I like Jayden Daniels and he hasn't played as well
the last few weeks.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
Maybe it hurt.
Speaker 5 (24:30):
He may be banged up a little bit, and teams
are starting to play him a little bit better. They're
scheming a little bit better on defense. Uh, But I
like him a lot, maybe like him more than any
of the rest of them. As far as Caleb Williams,
we haven't seen all the things that he can do.
I mean, he was the guy coming out of college
(24:52):
I think with a little bit better coaching, and he
didn't have it his first few weeks or the first
part of the season a little bit better coaching than
and I think that he can show that too. I
love him in course with bo Nicks, Yeah, he's got
Sean Payton. Sean does a great job.
Speaker 1 (25:07):
Do you know Sean pretty well?
Speaker 5 (25:08):
Yeah? As Sean you know, Sean does a great job
with young quarterbacks, and I think the two of them
have meshed. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
You know, it's funny. As you went through the Troy
Aikman years, you knew very quickly you're a personnel guy.
You knew he was great. But when you're losing early
with these young quarterbacks like Jaden's hit a plateau, Caleb
is losing now bow nicks, he's fortunate. Is it hard
when you're trying to build a young quarterback's confidence and
(25:36):
they're losing every weekend.
Speaker 5 (25:39):
I remember my second year with Dallas. I tried to
get Troy into the Pro Bowl and he didn't make it.
He injured his shoulder. You know, before one of our
last games. We would have made the playoffs had he
not injured his shoulder. Now I'm sitting down on the
practice field, I said, I said Troy, I said, guy, sorry,
(26:00):
you didn't make the Pro Bowl. And he said, coach,
don't worry about me. He said, you keep bringing in
talent around me. I'll go to plenty of Pro Bowls.
And so he had that confidence, and he knew that
we were a young team and we were building, and
he knew eventually we would start winning a bunch of games.
Speaker 1 (26:19):
And you did you brought in some good players? It's
week thirteen cold, you know. Jimmy, yesterday when I asked him,
I said, did you like coaching in cold weather games?
He said, Colin, I was a worst coach because I
was so worried about cold.
Speaker 5 (26:32):
I was trying to stay warm.
Speaker 1 (26:35):
The great Jimmy Johnson, of course, he is going to
be with the crew tomorrow at four for the Giants
and the Cowboys. Every week Fox NFL Sunday number one
pregame show for about thirty years running. We lose count.
There's so many Emmys stacked in this building and you're
a huge part of it. Coach. Thanks for coming on today.
I right enjoyed it calling Happy Thanksgiving to you, your family, Ronda, and.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
Everybody one more heard The Herd streams twenty four hours
a day, seven days a week within the iHeartRadio app.
Search her to listen live or on demand whenever you like.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
Now, let's bring on the voice of college football at
Fox Sports, Joel Collant, who is doing Michigan at number
two Ohio State sub Dude, how you doing? Happy Thanksgiving?
Happy Thanksgiving to you? So I don't get too worked
up on the twelve team PLAYFF ago two weeks ago.
Okay the rankings you mean, yeah, yeah, okay, I mean
(27:26):
Notre Dame going to USC. They haven't played a ranked
team since September. All SC games are all SC games
look the exact same. Now. USC is not nearly built
in the fashion to compete with Notre Dame. You think
it's a terrible matchup for USC, What about what a
terrible Texas? Texas A and M. A bad matchup for
(27:47):
Texas A and M. So let's go over both of them. USC.
You've got to be tough in the trenches because with
Jeremiah Love in this run game, including Riley Leonard who
can run the football a little bit. For Notre Dame,
you've got to be great stop in the run, which
means you've got to have a great defensive line. That's
exactly where USC is thin right now. If they want
to win, they would want to get you in space,
(28:07):
and they want to just say like, okay, let's let's
equate talent on the outside and then they've they've got
some weapons. But if you take them into a phone
booth and you say like, hey, let's go play a
trenches game, they're not built for that. Right now.
Speaker 5 (28:20):
Now.
Speaker 1 (28:20):
Maybe they will be through recruiting and development and things
in the future, but not right now. So USC they're
not built to beat this Notre Dame team, even at home,
even at home. Meanwhile, in that Texas Texas A and
M game, it's similar in the sense that A and
M has to be able to run the ball because
they don't throw it well. They have a freshman quarterback
who's getting better. He's getting better, but when they don't
(28:42):
have Le'Veon Moss on the field. They run the ball
for under four yards of carry last week against Auburn,
and they can't throw it very well. So it's like, Okay, well, wait,
so you mean to tell me your offense is stagnated
because your running back is out, And now you've got
to face Texas, which has a great pass defense with
jad a barn who's a Thorpe Award final Les Makuba
who transferred in from Clemson. I just don't see how
(29:04):
A and M is able to score a lot of
points against this Texas defense that frankly is one of
the better defenses in all of college football. I feel
the same way with Michigan. If you're gonna beat Ohio, State.
You gotta have to score. Oregon did it, Indiana tried.
I don't think Michigan has the firepower, do they? Yeah?
You know they finally had it last week. Do you
see they scored fifty against Northwestern. Now, granted that's Northwestern,
(29:27):
So I'm not saying that all of a sudden their
offense has arrived. But their offense is better now than
it was early in the season. But I agree with you.
I just I don't get the sense. Here's the thing
about Ohio State. So Ohio State just has answers. Whatever
type of game you want to drag them into, they
probably feel like they can win that game. Yeah, and
(29:48):
that's not the case with every team. Yeah, they feel
like they could probably go win a talent equated game
just throwing the ball with their wide receivers and Will Howard.
They probably like with their run game, even with the
banged up offensive line. But when you have Travon Henderson
and Quinshaw Judkins, you feel like you can go win
a running game like they did with Penn State, and
(30:09):
they finished the game on the field, grinding out downs
in a four minute offense. They feel like they can
go out there and win a defensive oriented game. They're
the number one rank defense both total and scoring defense
in the country. They've done it both rushing the passer
and sitting back and playing zone. So like all of
a sudden, you look at this team and there's an
incredible amount of balance and answers. Regardless of what you
(30:31):
ask of them, they can at least provide an answer.
And I think that's a big credit to Ryan Day
in the way that he built this roster and this team.
But Michigan doesn't have that this year. They did last
year and they had answers against Penn State, but now,
you know, without JJ McCarthy, it's like, what are you
on third down? You know, like JJ McCarthy, the reason
(30:52):
he was a top ten pick is because of what
he did on third down. He was the number one
quarterback in the country on third down. He kept him
on the field, he protected the defense, he won the
time possession. Those extra first downs turned into great field position.
And now when you don't have that, it's like, Okay,
now the defense is more exposed. You don't have the
field position and you're not getting the ball down the field.
So Michigan's going to have to pull a bit of
(31:15):
a rabbit out of their hat in this one, and
they're going to have to do so in the same
physical fashion that they did the previous three iterations of
this when they won the game. You know, speaking of
cold weather, you were talking about cold water supposed to
be like mid twenties and windy, so it could be
a game in which you got to run the football
fifty times. Do you trust Michigan's offensive line this year
(31:35):
to run the ball fifty times against Ohio State? No,
that's not the D Line's great D line's great two
top twelve draft picks on the d line and a
great corner Will Johnson. I know, and it's been a bummer.
Will Johnson has been out basically the back half of
the year, so they've had to move their nickel Zeke
Berry out of the outside and he plays corner. I
hope Will is healthy and gets healthy because he's a
(31:56):
terrific player. So I was a little reality check for
SEC fanboy yesterday on the show. I said, you know,
when you stole Texas and Oklahoma from the Big twelve,
you're like, that's what we do. The downside is Alabama
now didn't get the middle Tennessee State. They had to
go to Norman and they got humiliated. Yeah, and I
(32:17):
don't have any sympathy for it. Well, we play a
tougher schedule. Well, I mean, dude, sorry, I just I
bristled because like, they don't play nine conference games, they
play eight. Oregon had to play eight consecutive weeks of
Big Ten play no SEC. The team comes close to that. Now. Now,
I'm not saying that Georgia's schedule has been easy or
(32:40):
Alabama's schedule has been easy. The top of the SEC
is terrific, it really is. The problem is is that
you lose me and you lose the benefit of the
doubt when you start losing to five loss Oklahoma and
seven loss it was Kentucky. It wasn't that Alabama lost
in Oklahoma. They got smashed. They weren't competitive. Correct, absolutely correct,
(33:01):
And that's a problem. And that's a problem. And now
people are like, well, what's the path for Alabama and
the playoff? No path? I mean, I know, the committee
kind of can't let no. You can't let bam in.
I don't think so you can't let Baman. I don't
think that is over. It's over with some chaos. I
think they would get consideration. I'll let you lose to
a big dog and I'll give you a mulligan. Vandy
(33:22):
was the mulligan. Sure you don't get a second mulligan
with a twelve team playoffs. No, I I listen, I
agree with you. I mean, you lost a tough game
at Tennessee and that's a good game. I'll give you
that the really good team, and I'll give you a gain.
And Vandy on the road. You're like, Okay, there's your mulligan,
and he's pretty good this year. You cannot go to
oh you by the way, and their previous six games
(33:42):
against the FBS. FBS, they were one and five. Yeah,
and they got their doors blown off, you know, so
like that, that's my frustration with all this, and then
and then to see them sitting there at thirteen. Now,
like the committee, the Committee has such a clear bias
towards the SEC and have forever, which is like, I
(34:04):
know that that's kind of baked in, but it's real. Meanwhile,
Indiana gets ranked behind SMU. Indiana's got a tougher strength
of schedule. Their loss was to the number one, number
one defense in the country in Ohio State. On the Road. Meanwhile,
SMU lost to BYU. They've got like a five point
win over Nevada, Like, come on, like, what are we doing?
The college football playoff system is just so flawed. And
(34:27):
at the heart of the flaw is this committee that
like the committee has has no rationale for the things
that they do. They take the path of least resistance
generally speaking, even though they didn't do that last year,
and they give us these rankings, like you cannot tell
me that Indiana should be ranked behind SMU. That's not
a thing. Yeah. The I will say this about Indiana
(34:51):
is it didn't bother me. When Will Howard did the
sig thing for Kurt Signetty, you know, the coach. I
thought Indiana came in a little hot, a little co
for my taste. Yeah, I'm a man of a humble
servant to American listeners. Clearly I didn't like their attitude.
They were a little much for me. And I think
Ohio State said you're Indiana kill pill. Good season. There's
(35:12):
no doubt that the approach that Kurt Signetti has taken
very aggressive. It's been very aggressive. Yeah, And I want
to touch on both sides of this. If if you
don't mind. But there's no doubt that there was a
lot of folks at Ohio State that were like, come
get some Yeah, like let's go. This is a big
this is where, this is where we live. Yeah, you
(35:34):
know you've been dreaming of getting here and you think
you're breathing this rarefied air. No, no, no, we live
this three hundred and sixty five days a year. And
there was definitely that feeling. Now, having said that, if
you're Kurt Signetti and you take the job at Indiana
and you go there and you you walk around the
campus and you walk around the building, and you get
this sense that like, hey, everyone's just excited for like nothing.
(36:00):
There's no energy towards success. It's always like, well, how
are you going to do it here? You really think
you can win here? And to him, so he wants
to build something, He's like, I have to rattle the
cage here. And while he's rattling the cage at Indiana,
trying to communicate this like, hey, guess what produce sucks
and Michigan does too, and Ohio State does too, and
(36:22):
he's saying all these outlandish things, you have to understand
he's not doing that to try to communicate to Purdue
or to Michigan or to Ohio State or any other
fan base. He's doing that for his own fan base
and for his own program. And he and I have
talked about that. He's like, listen, I would have handled
this a lot differently if this was a different place.
But I had to rattle the cage hard here at
(36:44):
Indiana to try to shake loose some sort of belief
that we could actually do this and we could do
it in a quick fashion. Barry Alvarez did that, you know,
thirty forty years ago at Wisconsin. Is that you ever
hear this story about Barry Albarez who he came into
Wisconsin and everybody's said, uh, oh boy, our facilities, who
need an upgrade? He goes, I love them. Yeah, be
(37:06):
proud of these facilities at Wisconsin. These are great facilities.
We're not changing the damn thing. Great camp Randall's great.
And and by the way, Dion did that at Colorado.
He did when he got the job at Colorado, everyone
was there like, well, how are you gonna recruit in
the middle of the country, And oh man, Colorado has
been down and destitute for for two decades, Like what
are you doing? Why did you take that job? And
(37:27):
he came in and he was like, look at this place,
Look at this place. This place is great, you know,
and he immediately built it up to something that maybe
the people that were there didn't even see. And that's
what Signetti was doing. And Dion drew a lot of
ire for that early last year in his first year,
and now Signetti has has drawn a lot of ire
for that in his first year at Indiana. I know
that you're cozy with some of these big name coaches,
(37:51):
so I'm gonna put you in a tough spot. Okay,
Oh okay, So I said, let's hear it, so Ohio
State and Ryan Day's in a weird spot. Everybody's like,
he's gotta beat Michigan. The problem is when he does,
you're not gonna get any credit. Yeah, you're like, oh,
they'd be a hardball's gun. And then he beats Oregon,
You'll be like, we got better players and they already
(38:13):
beat us, so revenge his heart. He won't get any
credit for that, even though Oregon may be the best
team in the country. It's weird if he beats Michigan
and Oregon and beating Oregon anywhere is hard. And then
he goes and plays Tennessee and he loses his first game.
When they spent twenty million, people gonna be like, oh,
they'll be all over him. The only team in this tournament,
(38:35):
there is only one result. They'll be allowed to lose
in overtime to Texas and the Natty maybe maybe maybe
thirty five. Ohio State's the only team. Yeah, the coach.
Many will subscribe to you, we got the wrong coach
unless he gets to the new I listen. I agree
with this and Ryan. Ryan is a ridiculously successful coach.
(38:58):
His record of the timeout, his record is sixty six
and nine. It's wild. It's wild. He's got the highest
winning percentage of any coach with over sixty games. And
he has remade this program and built it into something
that has answers like this is a different team this
(39:18):
year than they've had over the last three years. And
by the way, so him stepping away from play calling duties,
that was a huge step for him because he's one
of the elite play callers in college football. So he
Kippen struggle with that he steps away from play calling duties,
but look what it has provided them. Look at this calling.
Speaker 3 (39:35):
Check this out.
Speaker 1 (39:36):
So this year, you go into this year with Chip
Kelly calling the offensive plays and Jym Knowles on the
defensive side, and they're going through the year and everything's
hunky dori, and then bam, you lose at Oregon. And
now again this guy is falling because or at Ohio State,
you can't have one bad day, you can't have one
bad court. He didn't even have a bad day. No,
they you know, they get a flag thrown and was
it right? Was it right? I don't know. They lose
(39:58):
the game by a point at a and the sky
is falling because it's Ohio State and you can't lose
a game at Ohio State. But what did he do?
Because he made the decision to be a CEO, he
was able to go in and look in at the
defense and say what do we need to change in
this defense? He was able to do that with his
offense and like, what do we need to do with
the offensive line lineup in order to make us better.
(40:20):
So now when you look at their team from the
Oregon loss on defense, they've changed a little bit and evolved.
The previous three years, his team was never able to
evolve because he was so integrated in the offensive side,
so the defense never got extra eyes on them. The
offense never got extra eyes on them. Now he's a
true CEO, and so Chip gets extra eyes on the offense.
(40:42):
What can we do in the run game? What should
we do with the offensive line? Jim Knowles gets extra
eyes on the defense. What should we do with the
pass rush? Why did we not get to Dylan Gabriel,
But now we're getting to Curtis Rourke because they changed
and evolved. Rather than a straight four man rush, they
started to bring the extra man in a blitz, started
to slant, they started to stunt, They started to do
(41:02):
these things that has allowed them to have success. And
that only happens if he evolved as a coach himself,
stepped away from play calling duties and became more of
a CEO. It's not a story that's often told, but like,
that's what you need to do. By the way, guys
that call their own plays don't win the national championship. Yeah,
(41:23):
you gotta give it up. The last guy I think
was Jimbo for Florida State. It just doesn't happen. Yeah,
And so you're right about the standard and him going
into this, and then the last point that I would
make this playoff format and we should be we should be.
Speaker 5 (41:43):
I like it.
Speaker 1 (41:44):
I get it, but I don't need another Bowl game
in Shreveport.
Speaker 2 (41:47):
I like it.
Speaker 1 (41:48):
No, that's fine. I'm not saying that the playoff in general.
I'm just think about the format though. When you give
the top four seeds just to conference champions, that means
that the four seed is likely going to be the
tenth or a life in the best team in the country. True,
which means that there is actually a cleaner path for
the five seed than there is the one seed, which means,
(42:11):
if you're in the Big Ten championship game, do you
want to win it or do you want to lose it?
Because the five seed in this case plays a home
game against Arizona State and then a second round game
against Boise. The one seed, what do you get for
winning the Big Ten championship possibly Georgia as your first
(42:32):
playoff game? So what would you rather? You answer this,
what would you rather do? Play two games one against
Arizona State, one against Boise, or one neutral site game
against Georgia. Yeah, it's not perfect, it's better than what
we had, but it's not perfect. I mean, they should
recede after the first round. I mean, it's so obviously.
(42:53):
What's wrong with that.
Speaker 3 (42:54):
I mean it's a good idea. They're not doing that
though I.
Speaker 1 (42:57):
Know they're not. I'm just saying that they should. Yeah,
don't we receive in the NFL. Doesn't the Crickets the
number one? The number one say if you get the
buy Yeah yeah, yeah, they do you play the worst
remaining team? Yeah? Yeah, Well that's absolutely if we want
to honor the regular season. But again, we have the
same people. It's the same individuals that gave us like
(43:18):
the Bull Coalition and then the Alliance and then the
BCS and then the original playoff and now this twelve
team playoff and it's like they've never gotten it right.
Why did we allow the same people to build this?
The format's wrong. I don't disagree with you now again,
and to ask you an uncomfortable question on Thanksgiving week,
how do we view Dion Sanders credit? He acknowledged we
(43:41):
would we were buying our own media. Yeah, they never
Kansas Kansas, by the way, as well coached, So give
the give the Jayhawks credit. They have a football program.
Now that's redeemable and they didn't forever. But let's be honest,
how do we look at Colorado? Are they just interesting?
And we'll leave it at that. They're not great, they're not,
but they're an interesting part of the sport. And that's
(44:03):
just what they're gonna be. You think he stays there
for sure? Are you sure?
Speaker 5 (44:08):
No?
Speaker 1 (44:09):
I'm not sure? Thank you? He told me he was well,
But I mean with coaches like I don't, I don't know.
I mean, I bumped your segment two weeks ago, but yeah,
you never No, loyalty is a hard thing. That's right.
You did, you did. There was a lot of questions
in there. How do I view this even if they
don't go to the Big two championship, like if they
(44:29):
beat Oklahoma State but don't get into the Big twelve? Gio,
I just think they're a great, new fun story in
college football. They're not elite, They're they're fun, they're new.
Speaker 5 (44:37):
I like them.
Speaker 1 (44:39):
Colorado has fundamentally changed college football? What do you mean
by that? They they provided a blueprint for how to
quickly turn around an organization in a program with im
that was totally dormant. Yeah, and so Indiana used that
with twenty seven transfers, and so now in college football,
(45:00):
not only is there an expanded playoff and there's an
expanded avenue towards the playoff, but but you've also got
different ways that you can go and actually be successful.
Dion showed to the rest of the country that with
some charisma and investment you can go out there and
find requisite players at the lower levels of football and
bring them in and win right away, and in a
(45:21):
short two year span they're going to be an eight
or nine win team, possibly play for a Big twelve
title that was never afforded a team that was one
and eleven. It was a three four five year process
for a one and eleven team to actually change. So
then all of a sudden, Indiana's like, well, hey, we
can do that. Let's go get a guy like Kirk
Signetti and bring him up from the lower levels and
he brings all of his JMU guys. Colorado laid the
(45:44):
blueprint for what Indiana is doing this year, and more
teams are going to follow it. More teams will do this,
and that's good for the sport because what we've had
is like a cycle of elitism where the same five
and six teams win every single year. Why because they
get the best players. It's not like the NFL. Well,
the worst team gets the best player. Here, the best
team gets the big best player. Because they had this
(46:06):
monopoly over the avenue to success, that's no longer the case.
And part of that avenue was paved by Dion Sanders.
So he has fundamentally changed college football forever. You said
two weeks ago you would not be bitter if he
went to the NFL. You would appreciate what he delivered.
And I agree with that. But today Chaduur goes number one.
(46:27):
There's about seven teams going to replace their coach. Are
you a fifty to fifty stay or go? What do
you think? What's your gut feeling? I think it would
be really hard for him to turn down the New
York Giants or the Dallas Cowboys, those brands. Now Here's
what I will say, though, is that and I've made
this this it's not really an argument. I've made this
(46:48):
point before, and I think that it remains truer today
than ever. Which is as much as Colorado was desperate
for Dion Sanders, Deon Sanders needs a place like Colorado.
Colorado turned over the keys, Deon could be totally himself
(47:09):
and turn Colorado into prime. He had the keys to
the castle. Traditions were out the window. You can do
whatever you want. He had clauses contractually where he could
keep his merchandise and wear the sunglasses and do all
of the things that make Dion dion and allow him
to mentor young men at the college level, which I
(47:30):
know he feels like his is his calling. Go to
the NFL and see if you get all of those
Go to the NFL and see if if you can do.
Speaker 5 (47:38):
All of that.
Speaker 1 (47:38):
Like that's he would be so restricted in the NFL
that he couldn't even I don't think, be himself. You know,
like Kyle Shanahan gets reprimanded for wearing the wrong flat
bill hat much less, you know, like Deon, do you
think you can wear your shades out there? And all
of the I just I think Deon Sanders is a
(47:58):
great fit at Colorado. Granted, I'm a Colorado guy, so
I understand that I have a dog in the in
the hunt here in the fight. But saying that, just
think about it for a moment, and it's like Deon
works at Colorado not only because of Dion. But because
of Colorado, you know, you and I legally can give
(48:19):
money to a collective and help a progress. That's true.
Do you give i'd buy the long snapper at cal Poly.
Some guys are out there buying Michigan quarterbacks. I'm not
getting that's what I heard, and controls the at M.
I don't get it. I don't even get a card.
I did hear that. I can't wait for for April
(48:41):
when the house settlement actually goes through, because then every
every team will be more on the equal footing as
far as the revenue that they could equal footing. Guy,
I'm glad you are no equal footing, so you you
would rather just like what you explain it to me?
I like coastal elite. No, I've got it. Yeah, that's
what that's not what it is.
Speaker 5 (49:01):
No it is.
Speaker 1 (49:02):
Well, that's okay, you don't have to explain. We got it,
you know, no, we got it on this on a
week of Thanksgiving when you're all cozy in your homes
in the middle of the country suffering that cold weather.
Remember Colin Coward thinks San Francisco is cold weather. Yeah, here,
you know what the first part of that elitist is
coastal elite. I guess I'm elite. Well, Michael Jordan and
(49:26):
Mahomes wear it. If the shirt fits you call it.
Colin wear it, you know, like don't. I'm not going
to let you marginalize me as I I'm not trying to.
I'm building you up, you know, as you said to yourself.
The first part of elitism is elite. That's right. Thank
you you bet that felt great. It did, didn't it
kind of Joel Clapp Thanksgiving. Good stuff
Thanks for listening to the Best of the Herd podcast.
Be sure to catch us live every weekday on Fox
Sports Radio in noon to three Eastern nine am to
noon Pacific. Find your local station for The Herd at
Fox Sportsradio dot com, or stream us live every day
on the iHeartRadio app by searching Fox Sports Radio or FSR.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
This is the Best of the Herd with Colin cowher
on Fox Sports Radio.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
Here we go on a Thanksgiving Eve, Wednesday, live in
Los Angeles. It's the Herd wherever you may be and
however you may be listening. We're packed today. Jimmy Johnson,
the Hall of Fame coach in forty minutes. Joel Klatt
top of Next Hour, Greg Cosel top of the Final Hour,
Star Studed Show, Great final Show. Then four days of
(00:49):
watching football, hanging out with family, and our studio lights
just went down. I have no idea what happened, but Jmac,
we are our audio is alive and well, and how
are things? My friend out is to start the day. Uh, yes,
this is somewhere in the.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
World forget to pay a bill.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
Maybe I'm not exactly sure. It'll take a while. I
thought Fox was doing fine. You know, I see them
flickering back on our auxiliary lighting. So we apologize for
our TV audience. You're here, we go, They're slowly, they're
slowly coming back up our auxiliary lighting. That's a first
in my career. There we go. By the way, I
(01:24):
look better when the lights are off. So I do
apologize for the television audience. Uh so, anyway, I hope
you have a great time with your fam. J mackwhile
the Lively Show today, I saw you cut the facial hair.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
I had to get rid of it. Got a couple complaints.
Uh no, no no management, just friends and family.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
What are you doing all right? Well, first off, J
Mack will have more on this. Daniel Jones, the beleaguer
quarterback for the New York Giants. Uh he just signed
with the Vikings. I'm happy for Daniel Jones. No chaos,
great offensive coach. Also, the Vikings get a very experienced,
nice kid. We talked about this yesterday. I root for
young people to avoid chaos. Maybe when you're older you
(02:03):
can handle it. So Daniel Jones, great place for him
to go. Offensive coach, weapons, no pressure understudy. Great for
the Vikings. They get a big, strong kid with a
lot of start, but he loves the NFL. So I
want to talk forty nine ers. So the forty nine ers,
you know, I just got to a Super Bowl, and
they've been sort of the reigning West Coast power for
a long time, and they're a very popular franchise. They're
(02:26):
a little bit bit like the Yankees. Out east, we're
in the summer, everybody's wearing a Yankee hat. Out West,
it's a lot of Dodgers and a lot of San
Francisco forty nine er hats. There's a huge brand. They
fill stadium's home or away. And now I'm seeing a
lot of stories now blaming the coach Kyle Shanahan. Late
game management is the reason, says an NFL executive to
(02:46):
the Athletic. I want to discuss that for a second,
and Deebo Samuel is supporting him. But it's funny about blame.
For years, Andy Reid, for years in Philadelphia, everybody knew
he was smart, but he got called a terrible clock
management coach. Oh just the worst. And then Andy Reid
(03:12):
got Patrick Mahomes and that all disappeared. And Brady and
Belichick for years the Niners were the best clock management
efficient situational football team in the world. And then Tom
Brady went to Tampa and Belichick looked like every other
coach in the league with an average quarterback, penalties, clock management,
(03:35):
losing games they led in the fourth court. And funny
how that works, isn't it? So when your quarterbacks in
San Francisco for Kyle Shanahan or Jimmy Garoppolo, Trey Lance
and Brock Purty, who, by the way, maybe a great fit,
He's not a great quarterback. Brock Purty doesn't erase your mistakes.
Lamar Jackson does, John Elway? Did? Brady? Did? Peyton Manning? Did? Breeze?
(03:58):
Did Marino? Did they erase mistakes? Lebron's done this. Lebron
has rased a lot of bad coaching moves for a
long time in the NBA. Now that's what you know.
The great players like a Yannis can do or a
Wemby can do. So that's what the great athletes do.
I mean USC Caleb Williams remember when he went to USC.
(04:19):
They won eleven games. Defense was atrocious. It was atrocious,
maybe in the worst tackling defense in the country. USC
won eleven games, should have won twelve, but their defense
gave up a late touchdown to Tulane. I mean, go
look at Mike McDaniel with Tua. When Mike McDaniel has
Tua and I don't consider him a great all time quarterback,
(04:39):
But with Tua, you're like, man, Mike McDaniel, who that
guy is a wizard. Without him, he looks like a
bottom five coach. They can't get first downs. So here's
the problem for Kyle Shanahan. Brought Perty is smallish hurt. Again.
They were in the Daniel Jones sweepstakes. They wanted a
veteran back up and by the way, his last twelve
(05:00):
starts I looked it up this morning, brought Purty six
and six at a ninety five passer rating. That's good.
It's not a racer material. It's not Mahomes changing Andy
Reid's career and narrative. So you can bang on Kyle
Shanahan all you want, but the reason they took such
a big swing on Trey Lance is they were hoping
(05:23):
he was an eraser. Because even if you're a great
coach Andy Reid, Belichick, Shanahan, if you have just a
good quarterback and not an eight plus quarterback, this is
what happens to you all of a sudden. Now everybody's going,
I don't know, he's losing a lot of games. That
Kyle Shanahan for the record of the last twenty one
(05:45):
Super Bowl winning quarterbacks twenty one eighteen Hall of famers.
Go look, go you could google it if Google was
around twenty years ago. Go google how much everybody hammered
Andy Reid. Now he's considered by a long shot, the
best coach in the league. So yesterday on this couple
(06:13):
more to go. Starting December twentieth, for the first time
ever in the history of college football, we'll have a
twelve team playoff. So it used to be at the
end you get you know year when I grew up,
it was AP voted for it, the media voted for
the National Championship Game, which was hoky. And there's BCS
and a college playoff. Now for the first time ever,
this year we'll have twelve teams. And so last night,
two weeks left, they released the playoffs. Now again, do
(06:39):
not overreact. Two weeks left. In my lifetime, college football's
last two weeks rivalry week and Championship Week. Anything can happen.
I'll give you an example. J Mack was right yesterday.
I'm gonna reverse my pick. I'm taking USC plus seven
and a half points to keep it close on Notre Dame.
(07:01):
Why full stadium in La Lincoln Riley's emptying the tank.
They got nothing to lose. They feel good after beating
UCLA and Notre Dame's only face two ranked teams since September.
Every single USC game is close. The coliseum all be there,
will be lit. They've got playmakers. Notre Dame steff up
(07:23):
in class. USC beat LSU, and they should have beaten
Penn State and overtime at home. To me, it's twenty seven,
twenty six, twenty eight, twenty seven. Don't be shocked if
Notre Dame gets bounced. How about number two Texas for
the first time in thirteen years going to College Station
to face Texas A and M. What do you think
(07:45):
Texas A and M would love to do? How about
derail the greatest season for Texas Longhorn football in like
since the Mac Brown days. That place is one of
the hardest places to play in the country. Marcel Read,
the quarterback for Texas A and M. Fishman is good.
He's getting better every time we see him. The Aggie's
D line exceptional? What was the team that beat Texas
(08:07):
Georgia their D line exceptional? Oh, by the way, the Aggies.
The Aggies have nothing to lose, Texas all the pressure.
Keep your eye on that one. Oh did I mention
that Tennessee's at Vandy? Vandy beat Alabama at home? Did
I mention Georgia Tech and Georgia Georgia texa good team
(08:29):
beat Miami, So everybody freaks out. I can see all
the SEC fans. I can't believe where we are ranked
a week ago. Just last weekend Ole, Miss Bama, Colorado,
and A and M all lost to unranked opponents. So
it's not Thanksgiving, it's traps Giving. Watch out for Notre Dame,
(08:52):
watch out for Texas, watch out for Georgia. People freak out,
don't this is what's great. For the first time in
our lives, we get a twelve team playoff. I don't
have I just had a coach yesterday tell me he
thinks SMU is wildly underrated. Who knows, but my entire
life college football regular season was amazing, and then you'd
(09:16):
watch a bunch of second tier cheesy bowl games that stuff. Now,
twelve team playoff, can't wait? Fired up? I mean about
the only game I don't see an upset is Ohio
State hosting Michigan. I don't know how Michigan keeps it close.
They're bad at quarterback, they're on the road, they don't
have big plays. Ohio State will be more aggressive, playmakers everywhere,
(09:40):
better at quarterback. A lot of pressure on Ohio State.
That one. I don't see an upset. Everything else I
wouldn't be shocked. So j Mac Jimmy Johnson later this hour,
Joel Clatt Top of the hour. So you basically you
got home and people said, get that thing off your face.
Speaker 3 (09:55):
Oh you know, listen, hey, you take some l's, you
try some things.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
That's what happens.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
He didn't take it out on Daniel Jones. Do you
see where he ended up?
Speaker 1 (10:03):
Minnesota? That was your big gut? Was that your guests? Yeah? Well,
first of all, I'm happy for the kid. I mean,
to go to the Giants is a mess. So he
goes to like a real team with real weapons and
an offensive coach and owners that are non meddling and
a winning culture, and he doesn't have to be a starter.
So it's like, that's a nice gift for the kid.
Speaker 4 (10:24):
So let me ask you, uh, what does this do
for the Vikings next year? Do you think it's a
given that Sam Darnold is not coming back and Daniel
Jones will battle JJ McCarthy for the starting job.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
That's what I think. I think it'll be JJ McCarthy's
team and you'll have Daniel Jones backing it up. And
I think I think this market because it's such a
bad college quarterback market. I mean it's Cam who's got is?
You know? Cam and shadu Or are like B plus prospects.
They're not A's Jalen Milroll people like, but he's a
(10:57):
bit mechanical. He's Anthony Richardson but people a little bit better.
So that you don't have a great quarterback draft class.
So that means Donald. And because of Aaron rodgers sputtering
and kind of turn off on the market, a lot
comes with Aaron Rodgers. I think Sam Donald's going to
have a very robust market.
Speaker 3 (11:14):
He could get paid by somebody.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
Oh absolutely will get the thing about.
Speaker 4 (11:17):
McCarthy, I did read that there was like a second
surgery he had to have somewhat recently. So it's not
a given that JJ McCarthy comes back and it's his
team and he's ready to go, right sitting for two years,
that could happen.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
Jordan loves Thatt for was it three?
Speaker 1 (11:31):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (11:32):
Yeah, So I wouldn't be shocked if Daniel Jones was
the starting play.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
I mean right now, we went into the season. We
didn't know before the season what Minnesota was. Well, now
Sam Donald's really good. JJ McCarthy's very promising, and Daniel
Jones will be the first or second best backup. This
is what I've been talking about with Atlanta. The worst
problem to have in the NFL or the best problem.
The best problem in the National Football League is, you know,
(11:54):
we have one too many quarterbacks. Everybody should want that
Atlanta Cousins Penix. That's not an issue. An issue is
we don't have an elite corner the Rams. And when
you play a team with aj Brown, you play a
team with great receivers, not much you can do. You
just don't match up. So good day today, I'm gonna
release my pre Thanksgiving Super Bowl bubble. Haven't done this
(12:16):
in a month. The teams I think can win it
usually jmc Unlike your facial hair, it lasts. It is
ver it is a harborger of things to come, So
we'll do that next.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
Be sure to catch live editions of The Herd weekdays
and neon Easter nine am Pacific on Fox Sports Radio
FS one and the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
So it is week thirteen in the NFL starting tomorrow
with three games Lions are gonna play. Rest of the
country's gonna see him now, not just the diehards and
the Lion fans. They take on the Bears, Giants, Cowboys,
we'll see I think Packers hosting Miami's fascinating. Get to
that in a bit, Jimmy Johnson this hour two. The
(12:57):
NFL does a great job. It is there is an
illusion of parody. But because over the last decade there's
been all these rule changes which have all benefited offense,
the league has become very quarterback dependent. So if you
have a top ten quarterback, unless your coach is clueless,
you're going to be a playoff team. So if you
go to look at the AFC, for example, and you're
(13:19):
going to see a lot of teams that have really,
really good quarterbacks. Mahomes, Oh what do you know? Josh Allen, C. J. Stroud,
Lamar Jackson, Justin Herbert. And then you've got a couple
of guys in right now bow Knicks. But he's got
super Bowl winning coach Sean Payton. You know there's Russell Wilson. Well,
he's won a super Bowl and so has Mike Tomlin.
So you can see very clearly you got to have
(13:41):
the coach or the quarterback, or preferably both if you
go over to the NFC right now outside of Seattle
and Gino Smith, so Geno's not a star quarterback, and
the head coach we don't know about. But Detroit, okay,
you got a super Bowl quarterback, Jared Goff, Jalen Hurts,
you got a super Bowl quarterback. Atlanta, you know, weakest
(14:02):
division in football. But Kirk Cousins has been, you know,
a top ten quarterback now for a long time in Minnesota,
Green Bay and Washington. Now the NFC is the weaker,
but be honest about this, Sam Darnold and Kevin O'Connell.
Kevin O'Connell looks like a top five offensive coach in
this league. He may be a top five coach Green Bay.
Matt Lafleur, Shock, Jordan Love, I think an elite quarterback
(14:25):
and then Dan Quinn's been to a Super Bowl as
Washington's coach, So you start looking around. Now, I don't
think Seattle's going to win this division. I think either
Matt Stafford or Kyler Murray are going to figure out
a way to win this division. And that would be
the elite quarterback category. So now here's the great thing
about the NFL. You can go from very bad to
very good instantly. It's the League of hope. Jim Harbaugh
(14:48):
Chargers totally changed the franchise. C J. Stroud, Demiko Ryans
changed the franchise. So the great thing about the NFL
is the League of hope. It's not like baseball or
the NBA or hockey that it takes draft pick after
draft after draft pick and you have to change the
entire roster. I mean, Chargers basically brought in better coaches. Boom,
They're good. They're not great, they're good and so. And
(15:09):
what's funny though it is there's an illusion of parody.
And I do think week to week anybody can beat anybody.
But my Super Bowl bubble, which I do about four
times a year, is very familiar. Inside the bubble, Josh
Allen and the Bills, Mahomes and the Chiefs, Lamar and
John Harbaugh, Ravens. Philadelphia a great franchise, and I think
(15:32):
we all think Detroit is loaded. I do think Pittsburgh,
Green Bay, the Chargers in Minnesota are just on the periphery,
all capable of making the playoffs and winning playoff games.
But I think there's five teams super Bowl level quarterbacks,
quarterbacks that have been to Super Bowl that can hoist
a trophy. So again, it is the League of Hope,
(15:54):
the parody thing Macro big picture eighteen game season. Longer
season is the more clarity you get early, and I
think right now week thirteen, we know who's really really
capable of hoisting a trophy.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
Be sure to catch live editions of the Herd weekdays
and Noone Eastern not a im Pacific all right.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
We get ten eleven minutes with Jimmy Johnson not very often,
and we get him in studio today, So I love it.
Fox Sports NFL analysts, the two time Super Bowl champ,
national champ, one of the few college coaches that worked
at the NFL level, And I've always said I don't
get why the Hall of Fame doesn't include both basketball does.
All right, let's start with this. You were known as
you loved personnel and you work great at it. You
(16:36):
created I mean New York Giants didn't do trades before
you made one, and so you are viewed as sort
of Sean Payton's got some of this too. You like personnel,
you're good at it.
Speaker 5 (16:45):
Oh that I spent my time in personnel, you know,
around you know, even during the season, you know, looking
at free agents, and you know, even watching college foot noh.
I I love watching football, and so you know, I
was always on top of the game as far as
college football. And on top of that, when I first
went into the league, I'd been in a lot of
those top players homes. I knew their families, and so
(17:07):
it gave me an advantage in drafting players.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
That's kind of what Jim Harball has for the next
few year, exactly right. Okay, so let's talk about Dallas.
What would you do this offseason? There's some tough choices here.
Speaker 5 (17:18):
Well, first of all, they're so financially strapped, you know,
with some of these contracts. First of all, I would
have never given Prescott a new contract. I'd let him
play it out, you know, because he would you know,
he's the highest paid player in the league. He's not
the best player in the league, and he wasn't going
to go anywhere. If he had gone to the super
Bowl with him, Hey, he wasn't going to go anywhere.
(17:38):
Pay him whatever, you know, and if he, you know,
struggled in the playoffs, then you negotiate, or if he
got hurt, you saved money. But they're so financially strapped
right now.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
I don't know.
Speaker 5 (17:52):
I don't know what they do. I don't know. If
you know, they talk about, you know, change coaching, well,
I don't know if changing coaching is going to, you know,
help them. Mike McCarthy's a good football coach, yes, and
so I don't know that a new coach coming in
can solve the problem.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
Would you consider moving, say a Micah getting a second
first round pick and trying to get some inexpensive star players.
Speaker 5 (18:14):
You know, Parsons is such a great, great player, it
would have to be a boatload of picks to trade him.
I wouldn't want to get rid of him. He is
their whole defense, and he is a game changer. Al
Davis told me one time I was talking about players,
and he said, Hey, that particular player, the one I
(18:37):
was talking about, Michael Irvin. He wins games for you.
You don't want to get rid of a player that
wins games for you.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
Good point. This next question is funny. You coach the
Hurricanes and the Dolphins, so Tua, not a very Hawaiian kid,
is going up the Green Bay. You told me something
funny yesterday. I hope you remember it. I asked you, Jimmy,
when you were at Miami and hadn't played Boston, how
did you prepare your team? And you said to me,
I got warmer clothes.
Speaker 5 (19:06):
I hated cold weather, and you know, both the University
of Miami and with the Miami Dolphins, I hated going
into the cold weather. And you know, I think the
Dolphins are in a situation right now with their schedule.
If they could beat Green Bay, they had have an
outside chance at a playoff.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
They have to win. But they have to win.
Speaker 5 (19:26):
They have to beat Green Bay. And they're not going
to beat green Bay. You know, a short week against
a good football team in twenty degree weather. I don't
think that's going to happen.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
Yeah, I agree with you. I'm gonna talk about cam
Ward plays for Miami. You've seen him again. You're a
personnel guy. He's a lot of off platform stuff. Big arm,
big arm, really big arm, off platform, lot of backyard football.
I think he's too good not to draft if you
need a quarterback, right.
Speaker 5 (19:54):
Oh, I think he's a top two or three picks.
I think Sanders, Travis Hunter, Travis Hunter probably the best
player in football. Yeah, you know, but outside of Travis Hunter,
as far as quarterbacks, you've got Sanders and you've got
Cam Warris.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
So what would you do knowing he likes to move,
he likes to get out of the off script, how
would you look at that draft?
Speaker 5 (20:15):
Colin? It's Caleb Williams.
Speaker 1 (20:18):
You know, the same thing.
Speaker 5 (20:20):
You got to you know, you got to really am in.
You got to say, hey, you take your check down.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
You know.
Speaker 5 (20:25):
You know, he he makes some great plays by being
off platform and running around. He makes some great plays,
but he also turns the ball over doing that. You know,
he's got a great arm.
Speaker 2 (20:36):
Uh.
Speaker 5 (20:36):
He probably may have the best arm in all of football.
As far as collegiate football.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
Yeah, uh.
Speaker 5 (20:42):
He can make the plays, he can make the right decisions.
But as far as an offensive coach, you've got to
really me in and keep him from making all those
scrambles trying to make the great play. Just take what's there?
Speaker 1 (20:54):
Do you worry at all? You know? Detroit's rolling over people.
That's like a college basketball team. Like you think to yourself,
boy they get to March Madness, they don't have close games.
But I don't think that plays in football. I think
if you're good, you're good. Your great teams rolled over
a lot of people. Maybe not the Eagles every week,
but good teams. Do you worry though? When the opposite
(21:16):
is evident? Kansas City only plays close games?
Speaker 5 (21:20):
I think there's two things there. First of all, those
close games I actually think helps their football team and
that it gives them confidence that they can win the
close game. They can win at the end when you
got Patrick Mahomes and it's a one score game, you
got a shot, you know right there. But by the
same token, I think it's also an indication that you're
not quite as good as what you used to be
(21:44):
when you got to Detroit. That's rolling over teams. They
are a physical, physical football team. It's hard to beat
a physical football team, and so I think with Kansas City,
it gives them confidence about winning those close games, but
by the same token, an indicator they may not be
quite as good as what some of the opponents that
are going to face in the playoffs.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
Yeah, I don't think Defensively they are as good, not
as good as a young Last weekend right brought them
right back down a couple of.
Speaker 5 (22:11):
Different acts, right, And that's an indicator when you get
to the playoffs against the really good teams, you may
be vulnerable.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
Okay, So I want to ask you about the forty
nine ers. I said, it's one thing if everybody in
the building when you were in Dallas, everybody knew it
was a rebuild. You needed players. I mean, you probably
didn't have to talk people into that trade. Maybe Jerry
Jones you did, but your coaches knew we move hershonal
against seven dudes. What's hard, Jimmy, is when everybody in
(22:41):
the building isn't sure you're supposed to rebuild. So if
you go look at the last twelve games with the Niners,
they're five and seven, they're paying like eight different guys,
they're best players. Trent Williams, George Kittle, Deebo are hurt
a lot. And my take is, listen, I look at
Detroit and Philly, in Kansas City, in Buffalo, San Francis.
Doesn't look like that, right. I think they look and
(23:03):
think inches. The last five times, Jimmy, they play the
Chiefs their own five and lost by blowout four times, right,
I think they need a big reboot. Is it hard?
Because they're good? They don't feel special to me?
Speaker 5 (23:18):
They don't. They don't seem special because they've got their
best players injured, you know, and they're not able to
go over and roll over teams the way they did
before and dominate teams because they were physical. They've had
you know, the green Law has been hurt. You know,
they almost all their top players have been hurt at
(23:39):
one time.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
Those two guys missing every week.
Speaker 5 (23:41):
Yeah, and that that adds up. And on top of that,
once these players get older and get more injuries, the
next year, they're gonna you know, the percentage of them
being injured is going to go up each year.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
It's more and more and more.
Speaker 5 (23:56):
And a guy is not going to get injured, you know,
and be injured for two or three years and all
of a sudden become healthy, you know, And so it
adds up. And so that tells me that something's got
to change.
Speaker 1 (24:08):
Yeah, I want to end with this. The rookie quarterbacks.
You got bow Knicks, you got Caleb, you got Jayden Daniels.
I think Panis and JJ McCarthy could be good. Drake
May's shown me something. Is there one of them you
look at and you really like.
Speaker 5 (24:25):
I like Jayden Daniels and he hasn't played as well
the last few weeks.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
Maybe it hurt.
Speaker 5 (24:30):
He may be banged up a little bit, and teams
are starting to play him a little bit better. They're
scheming a little bit better on defense. Uh, But I
like him a lot, maybe like him more than any
of the rest of them. As far as Caleb Williams,
we haven't seen all the things that he can do.
I mean, he was the guy coming out of college
(24:52):
I think with a little bit better coaching, and he
didn't have it his first few weeks or the first
part of the season a little bit better coaching than
and I think that he can show that too. I
love him in course with bo Nicks, Yeah, he's got
Sean Payton. Sean does a great job.
Speaker 1 (25:07):
Do you know Sean pretty well?
Speaker 5 (25:08):
Yeah? As Sean you know, Sean does a great job
with young quarterbacks, and I think the two of them
have meshed. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
You know, it's funny. As you went through the Troy
Aikman years, you knew very quickly you're a personnel guy.
You knew he was great. But when you're losing early
with these young quarterbacks like Jaden's hit a plateau, Caleb
is losing now bow nicks, he's fortunate. Is it hard
when you're trying to build a young quarterback's confidence and
(25:36):
they're losing every weekend.
Speaker 5 (25:39):
I remember my second year with Dallas. I tried to
get Troy into the Pro Bowl and he didn't make it.
He injured his shoulder. You know, before one of our
last games. We would have made the playoffs had he
not injured his shoulder. Now I'm sitting down on the
practice field, I said, I said Troy, I said, guy, sorry,
(26:00):
you didn't make the Pro Bowl. And he said, coach,
don't worry about me. He said, you keep bringing in
talent around me. I'll go to plenty of Pro Bowls.
And so he had that confidence, and he knew that
we were a young team and we were building, and
he knew eventually we would start winning a bunch of games.
Speaker 1 (26:19):
And you did you brought in some good players? It's
week thirteen cold, you know. Jimmy, yesterday when I asked him,
I said, did you like coaching in cold weather games?
He said, Colin, I was a worst coach because I
was so worried about cold.
Speaker 5 (26:32):
I was trying to stay warm.
Speaker 1 (26:35):
The great Jimmy Johnson, of course, he is going to
be with the crew tomorrow at four for the Giants
and the Cowboys. Every week Fox NFL Sunday number one
pregame show for about thirty years running. We lose count.
There's so many Emmys stacked in this building and you're
a huge part of it. Coach. Thanks for coming on today.
I right enjoyed it calling Happy Thanksgiving to you, your family, Ronda, and.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
Everybody one more heard The Herd streams twenty four hours
a day, seven days a week within the iHeartRadio app.
Search her to listen live or on demand whenever you like.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
Now, let's bring on the voice of college football at
Fox Sports, Joel Collant, who is doing Michigan at number
two Ohio State sub Dude, how you doing? Happy Thanksgiving?
Happy Thanksgiving to you? So I don't get too worked
up on the twelve team PLAYFF ago two weeks ago.
Okay the rankings you mean, yeah, yeah, okay, I mean
(27:26):
Notre Dame going to USC. They haven't played a ranked
team since September. All SC games are all SC games
look the exact same. Now. USC is not nearly built
in the fashion to compete with Notre Dame. You think
it's a terrible matchup for USC, What about what a
terrible Texas? Texas A and M. A bad matchup for
(27:47):
Texas A and M. So let's go over both of them. USC.
You've got to be tough in the trenches because with
Jeremiah Love in this run game, including Riley Leonard who
can run the football a little bit. For Notre Dame,
you've got to be great stop in the run, which
means you've got to have a great defensive line. That's
exactly where USC is thin right now. If they want
to win, they would want to get you in space,
(28:07):
and they want to just say like, okay, let's let's
equate talent on the outside and then they've they've got
some weapons. But if you take them into a phone
booth and you say like, hey, let's go play a
trenches game, they're not built for that. Right now.
Speaker 5 (28:20):
Now.
Speaker 1 (28:20):
Maybe they will be through recruiting and development and things
in the future, but not right now. So USC they're
not built to beat this Notre Dame team, even at home,
even at home. Meanwhile, in that Texas Texas A and
M game, it's similar in the sense that A and
M has to be able to run the ball because
they don't throw it well. They have a freshman quarterback
who's getting better. He's getting better, but when they don't
(28:42):
have Le'Veon Moss on the field. They run the ball
for under four yards of carry last week against Auburn,
and they can't throw it very well. So it's like, Okay, well, wait,
so you mean to tell me your offense is stagnated
because your running back is out, And now you've got
to face Texas, which has a great pass defense with
jad a barn who's a Thorpe Award final Les Makuba
who transferred in from Clemson. I just don't see how
(29:04):
A and M is able to score a lot of
points against this Texas defense that frankly is one of
the better defenses in all of college football. I feel
the same way with Michigan. If you're gonna beat Ohio, State.
You gotta have to score. Oregon did it, Indiana tried.
I don't think Michigan has the firepower, do they? Yeah?
You know they finally had it last week. Do you
see they scored fifty against Northwestern. Now, granted that's Northwestern,
(29:27):
So I'm not saying that all of a sudden their
offense has arrived. But their offense is better now than
it was early in the season. But I agree with you.
I just I don't get the sense. Here's the thing
about Ohio State. So Ohio State just has answers. Whatever
type of game you want to drag them into, they
probably feel like they can win that game. Yeah, and
(29:48):
that's not the case with every team. Yeah, they feel
like they could probably go win a talent equated game
just throwing the ball with their wide receivers and Will Howard.
They probably like with their run game, even with the
banged up offensive line. But when you have Travon Henderson
and Quinshaw Judkins, you feel like you can go win
a running game like they did with Penn State, and
(30:09):
they finished the game on the field, grinding out downs
in a four minute offense. They feel like they can
go out there and win a defensive oriented game. They're
the number one rank defense both total and scoring defense
in the country. They've done it both rushing the passer
and sitting back and playing zone. So like all of
a sudden, you look at this team and there's an
incredible amount of balance and answers. Regardless of what you
(30:31):
ask of them, they can at least provide an answer.
And I think that's a big credit to Ryan Day
in the way that he built this roster and this team.
But Michigan doesn't have that this year. They did last
year and they had answers against Penn State, but now,
you know, without JJ McCarthy, it's like, what are you
on third down? You know, like JJ McCarthy, the reason
(30:52):
he was a top ten pick is because of what
he did on third down. He was the number one
quarterback in the country on third down. He kept him
on the field, he protected the defense, he won the
time possession. Those extra first downs turned into great field position.
And now when you don't have that, it's like, Okay,
now the defense is more exposed. You don't have the
field position and you're not getting the ball down the field.
So Michigan's going to have to pull a bit of
(31:15):
a rabbit out of their hat in this one, and
they're going to have to do so in the same
physical fashion that they did the previous three iterations of
this when they won the game. You know, speaking of
cold weather, you were talking about cold water supposed to
be like mid twenties and windy, so it could be
a game in which you got to run the football
fifty times. Do you trust Michigan's offensive line this year
(31:35):
to run the ball fifty times against Ohio State? No,
that's not the D Line's great D line's great two
top twelve draft picks on the d line and a
great corner Will Johnson. I know, and it's been a bummer.
Will Johnson has been out basically the back half of
the year, so they've had to move their nickel Zeke
Berry out of the outside and he plays corner. I
hope Will is healthy and gets healthy because he's a
(31:56):
terrific player. So I was a little reality check for
SEC fanboy yesterday on the show. I said, you know,
when you stole Texas and Oklahoma from the Big twelve,
you're like, that's what we do. The downside is Alabama
now didn't get the middle Tennessee State. They had to
go to Norman and they got humiliated. Yeah, and I
(32:17):
don't have any sympathy for it. Well, we play a
tougher schedule. Well, I mean, dude, sorry, I just I
bristled because like, they don't play nine conference games, they
play eight. Oregon had to play eight consecutive weeks of
Big Ten play no SEC. The team comes close to that. Now. Now,
I'm not saying that Georgia's schedule has been easy or
(32:40):
Alabama's schedule has been easy. The top of the SEC
is terrific, it really is. The problem is is that
you lose me and you lose the benefit of the
doubt when you start losing to five loss Oklahoma and
seven loss it was Kentucky. It wasn't that Alabama lost
in Oklahoma. They got smashed. They weren't competitive. Correct, absolutely correct,
(33:01):
And that's a problem. And that's a problem. And now
people are like, well, what's the path for Alabama and
the playoff? No path? I mean, I know, the committee
kind of can't let no. You can't let bam in.
I don't think so you can't let Baman. I don't
think that is over. It's over with some chaos. I
think they would get consideration. I'll let you lose to
a big dog and I'll give you a mulligan. Vandy
(33:22):
was the mulligan. Sure you don't get a second mulligan
with a twelve team playoffs. No, I I listen, I
agree with you. I mean, you lost a tough game
at Tennessee and that's a good game. I'll give you
that the really good team, and I'll give you a gain.
And Vandy on the road. You're like, Okay, there's your mulligan,
and he's pretty good this year. You cannot go to
oh you by the way, and their previous six games
(33:42):
against the FBS. FBS, they were one and five. Yeah,
and they got their doors blown off, you know, so
like that, that's my frustration with all this, and then
and then to see them sitting there at thirteen. Now,
like the committee, the Committee has such a clear bias
towards the SEC and have forever, which is like, I
(34:04):
know that that's kind of baked in, but it's real. Meanwhile,
Indiana gets ranked behind SMU. Indiana's got a tougher strength
of schedule. Their loss was to the number one, number
one defense in the country in Ohio State. On the Road. Meanwhile,
SMU lost to BYU. They've got like a five point
win over Nevada, Like, come on, like, what are we doing?
The college football playoff system is just so flawed. And
(34:27):
at the heart of the flaw is this committee that
like the committee has has no rationale for the things
that they do. They take the path of least resistance
generally speaking, even though they didn't do that last year,
and they give us these rankings, like you cannot tell
me that Indiana should be ranked behind SMU. That's not
a thing. Yeah. The I will say this about Indiana
(34:51):
is it didn't bother me. When Will Howard did the
sig thing for Kurt Signetty, you know, the coach. I
thought Indiana came in a little hot, a little co
for my taste. Yeah, I'm a man of a humble
servant to American listeners. Clearly I didn't like their attitude.
They were a little much for me. And I think
Ohio State said you're Indiana kill pill. Good season. There's
(35:12):
no doubt that the approach that Kurt Signetti has taken
very aggressive. It's been very aggressive. Yeah, And I want
to touch on both sides of this. If if you
don't mind. But there's no doubt that there was a
lot of folks at Ohio State that were like, come
get some Yeah, like let's go. This is a big
this is where, this is where we live. Yeah, you
(35:34):
know you've been dreaming of getting here and you think
you're breathing this rarefied air. No, no, no, we live
this three hundred and sixty five days a year. And
there was definitely that feeling. Now, having said that, if
you're Kurt Signetti and you take the job at Indiana
and you go there and you you walk around the
campus and you walk around the building, and you get
this sense that like, hey, everyone's just excited for like nothing.
(36:00):
There's no energy towards success. It's always like, well, how
are you going to do it here? You really think
you can win here? And to him, so he wants
to build something, He's like, I have to rattle the
cage here. And while he's rattling the cage at Indiana,
trying to communicate this like, hey, guess what produce sucks
and Michigan does too, and Ohio State does too, and
(36:22):
he's saying all these outlandish things, you have to understand
he's not doing that to try to communicate to Purdue
or to Michigan or to Ohio State or any other
fan base. He's doing that for his own fan base
and for his own program. And he and I have
talked about that. He's like, listen, I would have handled
this a lot differently if this was a different place.
But I had to rattle the cage hard here at
(36:44):
Indiana to try to shake loose some sort of belief
that we could actually do this and we could do
it in a quick fashion. Barry Alvarez did that, you know,
thirty forty years ago at Wisconsin. Is that you ever
hear this story about Barry Albarez who he came into
Wisconsin and everybody's said, uh, oh boy, our facilities, who
need an upgrade? He goes, I love them. Yeah, be
(37:06):
proud of these facilities at Wisconsin. These are great facilities.
We're not changing the damn thing. Great camp Randall's great.
And and by the way, Dion did that at Colorado.
He did when he got the job at Colorado, everyone
was there like, well, how are you gonna recruit in
the middle of the country, And oh man, Colorado has
been down and destitute for for two decades, Like what
are you doing? Why did you take that job? And
(37:27):
he came in and he was like, look at this place,
Look at this place. This place is great, you know,
and he immediately built it up to something that maybe
the people that were there didn't even see. And that's
what Signetti was doing. And Dion drew a lot of
ire for that early last year in his first year,
and now Signetti has has drawn a lot of ire
for that in his first year at Indiana. I know
that you're cozy with some of these big name coaches,
(37:51):
so I'm gonna put you in a tough spot. Okay,
Oh okay, So I said, let's hear it, so Ohio
State and Ryan Day's in a weird spot. Everybody's like,
he's gotta beat Michigan. The problem is when he does,
you're not gonna get any credit. Yeah, you're like, oh,
they'd be a hardball's gun. And then he beats Oregon,
You'll be like, we got better players and they already
(38:13):
beat us, so revenge his heart. He won't get any
credit for that, even though Oregon may be the best
team in the country. It's weird if he beats Michigan
and Oregon and beating Oregon anywhere is hard. And then
he goes and plays Tennessee and he loses his first game.
When they spent twenty million, people gonna be like, oh,
they'll be all over him. The only team in this tournament,
(38:35):
there is only one result. They'll be allowed to lose
in overtime to Texas and the Natty maybe maybe maybe
thirty five. Ohio State's the only team. Yeah, the coach.
Many will subscribe to you, we got the wrong coach
unless he gets to the new I listen. I agree
with this and Ryan. Ryan is a ridiculously successful coach.
(38:58):
His record of the timeout, his record is sixty six
and nine. It's wild. It's wild. He's got the highest
winning percentage of any coach with over sixty games. And
he has remade this program and built it into something
that has answers like this is a different team this
(39:18):
year than they've had over the last three years. And
by the way, so him stepping away from play calling duties,
that was a huge step for him because he's one
of the elite play callers in college football. So he
Kippen struggle with that he steps away from play calling duties,
but look what it has provided them. Look at this calling.
Speaker 3 (39:35):
Check this out.
Speaker 1 (39:36):
So this year, you go into this year with Chip
Kelly calling the offensive plays and Jym Knowles on the
defensive side, and they're going through the year and everything's
hunky dori, and then bam, you lose at Oregon. And
now again this guy is falling because or at Ohio State,
you can't have one bad day, you can't have one
bad court. He didn't even have a bad day. No,
they you know, they get a flag thrown and was
it right? Was it right? I don't know. They lose
(39:58):
the game by a point at a and the sky
is falling because it's Ohio State and you can't lose
a game at Ohio State. But what did he do?
Because he made the decision to be a CEO, he
was able to go in and look in at the
defense and say what do we need to change in
this defense? He was able to do that with his
offense and like, what do we need to do with
the offensive line lineup in order to make us better.
(40:20):
So now when you look at their team from the
Oregon loss on defense, they've changed a little bit and evolved.
The previous three years, his team was never able to
evolve because he was so integrated in the offensive side,
so the defense never got extra eyes on them. The
offense never got extra eyes on them. Now he's a
true CEO, and so Chip gets extra eyes on the offense.
(40:42):
What can we do in the run game? What should
we do with the offensive line? Jim Knowles gets extra
eyes on the defense. What should we do with the
pass rush? Why did we not get to Dylan Gabriel,
But now we're getting to Curtis Rourke because they changed
and evolved. Rather than a straight four man rush, they
started to bring the extra man in a blitz, started
to slant, they started to stunt, They started to do
(41:02):
these things that has allowed them to have success. And
that only happens if he evolved as a coach himself,
stepped away from play calling duties and became more of
a CEO. It's not a story that's often told, but like,
that's what you need to do. By the way, guys
that call their own plays don't win the national championship. Yeah,
(41:23):
you gotta give it up. The last guy I think
was Jimbo for Florida State. It just doesn't happen. Yeah,
And so you're right about the standard and him going
into this, and then the last point that I would
make this playoff format and we should be we should be.
Speaker 5 (41:43):
I like it.
Speaker 1 (41:44):
I get it, but I don't need another Bowl game
in Shreveport.
Speaker 2 (41:47):
I like it.
Speaker 1 (41:48):
No, that's fine. I'm not saying that the playoff in general.
I'm just think about the format though. When you give
the top four seeds just to conference champions, that means
that the four seed is likely going to be the
tenth or a life in the best team in the country. True,
which means that there is actually a cleaner path for
the five seed than there is the one seed, which means,
(42:11):
if you're in the Big Ten championship game, do you
want to win it or do you want to lose it?
Because the five seed in this case plays a home
game against Arizona State and then a second round game
against Boise. The one seed, what do you get for
winning the Big Ten championship possibly Georgia as your first
(42:32):
playoff game? So what would you rather? You answer this,
what would you rather do? Play two games one against
Arizona State, one against Boise, or one neutral site game
against Georgia. Yeah, it's not perfect, it's better than what
we had, but it's not perfect. I mean, they should
recede after the first round. I mean, it's so obviously.
(42:53):
What's wrong with that.
Speaker 3 (42:54):
I mean it's a good idea. They're not doing that
though I.
Speaker 1 (42:57):
Know they're not. I'm just saying that they should. Yeah,
don't we receive in the NFL. Doesn't the Crickets the
number one? The number one say if you get the
buy Yeah yeah, yeah, they do you play the worst
remaining team? Yeah? Yeah, Well that's absolutely if we want
to honor the regular season. But again, we have the
same people. It's the same individuals that gave us like
(43:18):
the Bull Coalition and then the Alliance and then the
BCS and then the original playoff and now this twelve
team playoff and it's like they've never gotten it right.
Why did we allow the same people to build this?
The format's wrong. I don't disagree with you now again,
and to ask you an uncomfortable question on Thanksgiving week,
how do we view Dion Sanders credit? He acknowledged we
(43:41):
would we were buying our own media. Yeah, they never
Kansas Kansas, by the way, as well coached, So give
the give the Jayhawks credit. They have a football program.
Now that's redeemable and they didn't forever. But let's be honest,
how do we look at Colorado? Are they just interesting?
And we'll leave it at that. They're not great, they're not,
but they're an interesting part of the sport. And that's
(44:03):
just what they're gonna be. You think he stays there
for sure? Are you sure?
Speaker 5 (44:08):
No?
Speaker 1 (44:09):
I'm not sure? Thank you? He told me he was well,
But I mean with coaches like I don't, I don't know.
I mean, I bumped your segment two weeks ago, but yeah,
you never No, loyalty is a hard thing. That's right.
You did, you did. There was a lot of questions
in there. How do I view this even if they
don't go to the Big two championship, like if they
(44:29):
beat Oklahoma State but don't get into the Big twelve? Gio,
I just think they're a great, new fun story in
college football. They're not elite, They're they're fun, they're new.
Speaker 5 (44:37):
I like them.
Speaker 1 (44:39):
Colorado has fundamentally changed college football? What do you mean
by that? They they provided a blueprint for how to
quickly turn around an organization in a program with im
that was totally dormant. Yeah, and so Indiana used that
with twenty seven transfers, and so now in college football,
(45:00):
not only is there an expanded playoff and there's an
expanded avenue towards the playoff, but but you've also got
different ways that you can go and actually be successful.
Dion showed to the rest of the country that with
some charisma and investment you can go out there and
find requisite players at the lower levels of football and
bring them in and win right away, and in a
(45:21):
short two year span they're going to be an eight
or nine win team, possibly play for a Big twelve
title that was never afforded a team that was one
and eleven. It was a three four five year process
for a one and eleven team to actually change. So
then all of a sudden, Indiana's like, well, hey, we
can do that. Let's go get a guy like Kirk
Signetti and bring him up from the lower levels and
he brings all of his JMU guys. Colorado laid the
(45:44):
blueprint for what Indiana is doing this year, and more
teams are going to follow it. More teams will do this,
and that's good for the sport because what we've had
is like a cycle of elitism where the same five
and six teams win every single year. Why because they
get the best players. It's not like the NFL. Well,
the worst team gets the best player. Here, the best
team gets the big best player. Because they had this
(46:06):
monopoly over the avenue to success, that's no longer the case.
And part of that avenue was paved by Dion Sanders.
So he has fundamentally changed college football forever. You said
two weeks ago you would not be bitter if he
went to the NFL. You would appreciate what he delivered.
And I agree with that. But today Chaduur goes number one.
(46:27):
There's about seven teams going to replace their coach. Are
you a fifty to fifty stay or go? What do
you think? What's your gut feeling? I think it would
be really hard for him to turn down the New
York Giants or the Dallas Cowboys, those brands. Now Here's
what I will say, though, is that and I've made
this this it's not really an argument. I've made this
(46:48):
point before, and I think that it remains truer today
than ever. Which is as much as Colorado was desperate
for Dion Sanders, Deon Sanders needs a place like Colorado.
Colorado turned over the keys, Deon could be totally himself
(47:09):
and turn Colorado into prime. He had the keys to
the castle. Traditions were out the window. You can do
whatever you want. He had clauses contractually where he could
keep his merchandise and wear the sunglasses and do all
of the things that make Dion dion and allow him
to mentor young men at the college level, which I
(47:30):
know he feels like his is his calling. Go to
the NFL and see if you get all of those
Go to the NFL and see if if you can do.
Speaker 5 (47:38):
All of that.
Speaker 1 (47:38):
Like that's he would be so restricted in the NFL
that he couldn't even I don't think, be himself. You know,
like Kyle Shanahan gets reprimanded for wearing the wrong flat
bill hat much less, you know, like Deon, do you
think you can wear your shades out there? And all
of the I just I think Deon Sanders is a
(47:58):
great fit at Colorado. Granted, I'm a Colorado guy, so
I understand that I have a dog in the in
the hunt here in the fight. But saying that, just
think about it for a moment, and it's like Deon
works at Colorado not only because of Dion. But because
of Colorado, you know, you and I legally can give
(48:19):
money to a collective and help a progress. That's true.
Do you give i'd buy the long snapper at cal Poly.
Some guys are out there buying Michigan quarterbacks. I'm not
getting that's what I heard, and controls the at M.
I don't get it. I don't even get a card.
I did hear that. I can't wait for for April
(48:41):
when the house settlement actually goes through, because then every
every team will be more on the equal footing as
far as the revenue that they could equal footing. Guy,
I'm glad you are no equal footing, so you you
would rather just like what you explain it to me?
I like coastal elite. No, I've got it. Yeah, that's
what that's not what it is.
Speaker 5 (49:01):
No it is.
Speaker 1 (49:02):
Well, that's okay, you don't have to explain. We got it,
you know, no, we got it on this on a
week of Thanksgiving when you're all cozy in your homes
in the middle of the country suffering that cold weather.
Remember Colin Coward thinks San Francisco is cold weather. Yeah, here,
you know what the first part of that elitist is
coastal elite. I guess I'm elite. Well, Michael Jordan and
(49:26):
Mahomes wear it. If the shirt fits you call it.
Colin wear it, you know, like don't. I'm not going
to let you marginalize me as I I'm not trying to.
I'm building you up, you know, as you said to yourself.
The first part of elitism is elite. That's right. Thank
you you bet that felt great. It did, didn't it
kind of Joel Clapp Thanksgiving. Good stuff
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Colin Cowherd
Jason McIntyre
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