September 8, 2026 • 35 mins
Jason Smith and Mike Harmon discuss why Lane Kiffin is the new Nick Saban in the NIL era + previewing the NFL's first game.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Listen
Watch
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Thanks for listening to the Jason Smith Show with Mike
Harmon podcast. Be sure to catch us live every weeknight,
10 p.m. to 2 a.m. Eastern, 7 to 11 p.m.
Pacific on Fox Sports Radio. Find your local station for
the Jason Smith Show with Mike Harmon at foxsportsradio.com or
stream us live every night on the iHeartRadio app by
searching FSR.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Now let's get this party started. You're listening to Fox
Sports Radio.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Well-dressed hobo. Right now, 11 minutes to go in the
fourth quarter. In a game that... Looks like it's getting darker.
Maybe they're losing more power than expected. SMU leads Florida
State 24-17. Again, this game was delayed an hour and
(00:49):
40 minutes due to a power outage. A lot of
talk online that somebody ran into a stanchion and knocked
the power out, and that's what happened. But there's been
less lights. There's been less communication on the field. There's
not been a scoreboard. There's been a lot of things
everybody's dealing with. And I mean it earlier in the game.
I felt like it was brighter, Mike. I mean, am
(01:10):
I crazy or does it, has it feel like it's
gotten there even though the game was still at night?
Speaker 2 (01:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
Like I feel like it's gotten even darker in the
last like 45 minutes. A hundred percent.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
Just like those guys that were doing knuckle pushups during
that beat down of Clemson that got a big preview
and profile in the final five minutes of that game.
We need a profile of the guys that are on
the bikes that are generating the electricity because they're seemingly
taking some time off.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
Yeah. I mean, I'm watching this. Yeah. I mean, I
don't like, I feel like, okay, everything looked fine in
the first half and they came out for the second half.
I'm like, no, I think it looks darker. There's a
lot of weird shadows happening now.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
Yeah. I don't think I've ever seen shadows quite so
pronounced on a field like this.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
Right, as the players are running.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
It's like, ah, it's like Princess and the Frog and
the Shadow Man and all the spirits are coming after them.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
There you go. That's for all of you with kids
out there. I love you. Man. Or if you just
like the Princess and the Frog. Oh, TJ, clearly Prince
Naveen looking for some. OK, so again, SMU leads Florida
State right now. Nine and a half to go in
the fourth quarter. 24-17. We'll bring you more on this.
I'm curious what the players will say after the game. Like, yeah,
it started out to be able to see stuff. It
(02:24):
was weird. Like the ACC broadcasts, as I love watching it, again,
outside of people who live, you know, wherever the ACC
network is. I watch ACC Network pregame, right? And they
were like going crazy, going, I can't believe we're going
to play this game. I can't believe we're going to
play this. Oh, my goodness. Right. So it's all like
former ACC legends who, you know, like E.J. Manuel has
(02:46):
been on that show for a while. Like, I like
I like watching stuff that nobody wants. I'm watching the
ACC Network pregame. And they're like, I can't believe we're
going to play this game. I can't look at these lights.
I can't believe it. That's the best.
Speaker 3 (02:56):
You start getting a couple of pieces of insight or
really just the incredulity of it all.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
I don't know. Are we going to go? Maybe.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
They blew out a transformer. And then what happens? He
crashed into another one. And they're trying to rig this
all back together. Maybe they've got electro out there.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
I don't know. Oh, that'd be great. Get Jamie Foxx
like he's trying to hold everything together. Come on, man.
Finish the game. Finish the game. I can't do this forever.
I've got to finish the game. I need the electricity.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
Does he have the blue glow or does he have
the old school Spider-Man comic series?
Speaker 1 (03:31):
Oh, no, no. It's got to be. Electro is green
and yellow. Electro is yellow and green. That's 100%. Absolutely.
Let's understand that's where it's at now. So, again, we'll
have more on this again. Florida State going to the
hurry-up offense here. Pretty fun game, I got to say,
outside of the light issues, you know, so far. And
Florida State's in the end zone now for a touchdown
(03:52):
to tie it. Starting to see some big plays happening
up and down the field. Depending, both teams, maybe they're tired,
the adrenaline's worn off. Again, when you... Have to sit
an hour and 40 minutes and then you have to
go play. Eventually, you're going to hit that low. And
there's been some big broken field plays over the course
of the past few minutes. Makes me think maybe everybody's
getting a little tired. Maybe we're going to see some
more offense here. Well, I mean, they are up an
(04:14):
extra two hours, too. Yeah, they're 20 years old. I
think they're OK. I think they're right. They're not like
me at 55 going, if I'm going to be up,
I've got to have a coffee. You can't have coffee
at 9 o'clock at night. That's insane. Watch me. I'll
have whatever coffee I want to at 9 o'clock at night.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
Watch me have two more before it's done.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
I have no problem drinking and then 11 o'clock at
night and then 12 o'clock at night being asleep. I
could absolutely do that. Then you just yell, gone. You know,
I could tell this story. My wife's not listening. One
of my favorite pictures ever of my mother-in-law, she was awesome.
She passed away about 15 years ago. But she, one
time we were, it was, I think it was like
(04:54):
the holidays. We were at her house and we were
talking and we were playing games and stuff. And I said, Sal,
you're going to, her name was Sally. I said, Sal,
you're going to go to bed. She goes, oh, are
you kidding? Three cups of coffee. I'm sorry. Three Diet
Cokes and a cup of tea. I'm going to be
up all night. 30 minutes later, she's passed out on
the couch. And I have, so I put three empty
cans of Diet Coke and an empty cup of tea
on her. And I took a picture. And it's one
(05:16):
of the most famous family pictures of her laying there.
You know, I'll be up all night with three empty
Diet Cokes and a cup of tea on her. I
dig that. That's fantastic. Oh, it's the best. So meanwhile,
we'll get back into the Michigan, Western Michigan, the Hail Mary,
the story that's continuing to go. But I don't know
that there was a bigger winner in college football this
(05:39):
weekend than Lane Kiffin. And I'm going to go back
to something that's getting a lot of attention and at
halftime of LSU's blowout win over Clemson. Look, it's 33-3
at this point. They're blowing out a Clemson team that, boy,
I'll tell you what, maybe, I don't know, Clemson, Michigan,
these blue buds might be really bad this season. And
(06:02):
here's the halftime interview Lane Kiffin does with Holly Rowe
where he decides, hey, you know, I know we're up
by 30, but I'm going to throw in a little
dig at the NCAA and everybody else a long way.
We'll make adjustments. We've got to play better in the
second half. We can't give away something like the first turnover, man.
This ball, whatever, 38-0. Thank you, Coach. Good map. Everything
(06:28):
to say, not say. Imagine if we had pro players.
Imagine if we had pro players and he walks away.
Took everything not to say it, but I did. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Real funny thing, Lane Kiffin. I don't know if you're
watching Chad Powers, but there's a, you know, Glenn Powell's
a quarterback. He goes undisguised to play college football again
after he winds up flaming out of the NFL. So
(06:50):
it's kind of like college football now. Hey, I can't
make it in the NFL. I'm going to go back
to college. And one of the big storylines now in
the second season, it just dropped. I'm not spoiling anything.
is that the one booster keeps threatening that if they
don't win, I just got to get Lane Kiffin to
call me back and I can make a change in
head coach. I just keep waiting for Lane Kiffin to
(07:10):
call me back. Oh, it's so great. But Lane Kiffin
throws this out there and he's gotten all kinds of
hate for it. And he even said in his postgame
press conference after their 81-3 win over Clemson, what are
people going to do? Hate me more? Lane Kiffin... is
the villain we all deserve in college football. He's who
(07:32):
we've been waiting for to step up and fill that
void of who's going to be the college football villain, right?
And he's that guy. And I don't mean a villain like, boy,
who's a bad guy and your school is scandal. No, no, no.
I mean, like, who's going to be that guy that's
going to be the old Oakland Raiders of college football where,
blank you, I do whatever the hell I want to
(07:53):
and I'm a maverick, right? Lane Kiffin has seen that
path and he is absolutely comfortable on it because he
knows I'm not going to be well-liked. That's just not
his personality. It's never been his personality. He's never going
to win a war of being liked. It's not going
to happen. As you like to say, lean into being
the villain. Lane Kiffin understands I'm going to be the villain.
(08:14):
But as he has seen is that's a really quick
path to being such an in-demand and influential head coach
in college football. He wanted these kids coming back from
the NFL to LSU. Nobody else does. Guess what? It's
about Lane Kiffin wanting these kids. Everybody else says, no,
we can't have them coming back, right? It's him against
the rest of college football. Are these kids going to play?
(08:36):
Are they not? Are they going to get to play?
We're going back to court. We're going to figure stuff out.
All because Lane Kiffin is the one that says, I
want these kids back. If he doesn't do that, we're
not sitting here with this. Everything else is going on
at a really low level of players who may want
to return. Yeah, we don't know. We're going to figure
it out in court. Lane Kiffin is pushing this. He
has become the villain of college football today. And quite frankly,
(09:00):
we've missed having a villain. And he's realized that, oh,
that's a quicker way to relevancy. It's kind of like
in Star Wars where Obi-Wan explains the Force to Luke
and Luke says, oh, so the dark side is more powerful.
He goes, no, no, no. It's only faster. It's more seductive.
It's easier. It's harder to be good than it is
to be bad. So Darth Vader's rise to power. It's easier.
(09:24):
It's more seductive. Right. Like being the villain and being
all of a sudden, yes, you will get all the relevance.
You will get all the attention. You have enough people
singing your praises while everybody else hates you. But you
will cut above everybody else. You will cut through the
clutter and be that guy. Tell me a head coach
right now in college football who has a higher profile
than Lane Kiffin. Nobody. Nobody. How many kids are going,
(09:47):
I want to go play for that guy, man. He
loves his players. True or not, how many people are
watches going, I want to go play for Lane Kiffin
at LSU. I want to go play for this guy,
That looks like fun. This whole thing looks like it's fun.
I want to get involved in that. Two years ago,
we were saying the same thing for Deion Sanders, right?
You have your moment, your coaches having their moments going forward.
(10:07):
Deion was the villain for a little while because he
comes in talking really brash and telling kids they got
to hit the portal right away. Okay, well, I love Deion.
I hate Deion. Well, two years later, guess what? Deion
can't win. and suddenly, okay, Deion's kind of irrelevant, and
we're waiting for Colorado to have a winning season. But
now Lane Kiffin has stepped in with a much better
situation where there's more money, there's more everything, LSU, and
(10:30):
now he has stepped through, and he is the number one,
most popular, most talked about, biggest Q rating of any
head coach in college football. He has found his way
to the path, and it's something that, okay, you can
agree or disagree with it, but you can't fault and
you can't disagree with with where he is right now
in the pantheon of the sport.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
The villain we need, the unifying force, right? The greatest
thing is to have that common enemy, and that's exactly
where college football is with Lane Kiffin. What did you
hear leading up to game time? It was all so
well with all of this distraction. With all of this,
look it, there he is at hot yoga. There he
is hanging out with McAfee. This team, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
(11:11):
And then they went out and they absolutely whipped up
on Clemson from pillar to post. I mean, there was
nothing left when that was all said and done. You know,
we had that clip from halftime. What's been making the
rounds the last hour or two is also Clemson. the
halftime speech that he was giving along the way where
he basically said hey look at what we've done and
(11:32):
look at the beatdown that we're administering so it's the
the idea for lane kiffin is like you lean into
it he's a well-traveled guy right young guy but well-traveled
right he's he's made enemies he's had a lot of
issues along the way you go back to his time
with the raiders and every stop in between uh that
leaves a lot of things in his wake But to
(11:55):
go out and you have at least perception reality, this
is where it gets into the fun part. How much
is lane for lane versus lane for the kids? Well,
if the kids are going to benefit, it doesn't matter.
If the reality is that you're going to go and
you're going to play high-profile, high-flying, let's run up some
points kind of offense and beat teams down, guess what?
(12:17):
People are knocking on your door. NIL deals. More money
comes flowing into the program. More money goes flowing into
your pocket, and recruits are looking going, I could go
play with that.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
Yeah, exactly. Now you've got to keep winning because look
at what happened to Dion. OK, Dion's I want to
go play. Warren Sapp wanted to coach all these guys
want to coach. I want to go play there. But
they didn't win. And that's the thing about. Yeah, but
he doesn't have a kid at quarterback. Right. No, no.
Speaker 3 (12:41):
But he didn't bring a handpicked Heisman Trophy winning guy.
Like because that was a lot. Those two guys account
for a lot of their success.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
Sure. But but Travis Hunter should be a really big deal.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
Oh, boy.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
This guy won the Heisman Trophy with, you know, with college.
But if your program is not relevant, if you're not winning,
if you're not someone that's going to help you get
to the pros or give you attention over anybody else, eventually,
and very quickly in college football, because it's more flavor
of the minute than any other sport, it's Okay, I'm
going to go someplace else. But now Lane Kiffin has that. Okay,
now I want to go here in a school with
(13:11):
a better football tradition, with more money, more money to spend,
more relevancy, a better TV contract, a better everything. He
wins at LSU. All of a sudden, he might become
the new Nick Saban. The way Nick Saban ran Alabama
for the better part of a decade, 15 years, winning
national championships, that could wind up being Lane Kiffin. He
(13:32):
might step into that void already. Again, What other coach
are we talking about in college football for anything? No one.
You can't buy this kind of publicity. And not all
publicity is good, but this publicity, it's Lane Kiffin every day,
Lane Kiffin every day. What kid doesn't want to be
a part of the everyday conversation, right? I mean, anybody would.
(13:52):
But that's it, right?
Speaker 3 (13:53):
You know, the coach that talks a big game, and
if you can back it up, and again, you know,
how it plays out in the playoffs year after year,
you wait and see, but you're playing meaningful football. And that's,
as we see with most of these teams, sustainability, right?
The number of players that hop from school to school.
I was joking about it the other night that I've
(14:14):
got trading cards for guys that are playing this year
in college football with three different schools. That's how quickly
guys bounce from school to school, and they're still playing
college football.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
Same thing with coaches.
Speaker 3 (14:28):
You don't get the long tenure, the long buildup like
we did once upon a time, right? A lot of
guys move from school to school, go take their turn
in the NFL, and go that route. So to try
to establish a beachhead and try to build a program
and sustain a program, we'll see if Lane Kiffin has
the staying power for that. But at least in the
(14:48):
short term, we all win. We all win because he's
a guy people are lining up to hate. And, I
don't know, Saturday was delicious theater.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
Right?
Speaker 3 (14:58):
Maybe you all out there listening or on the other side,
maybe you were cheering against him, Jason. I was sitting
there going, all right, keep piling it on. Well, it
doesn't matter. You're cheering for him or against him.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
It doesn't matter. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (15:10):
But like with Dabo Swinney, he was reticent to embrace
any of it and then finally realized, OK, this is
going to get bad if I don't. But there's still
that many steps behind. And then all he's doing is
playing a violin and crying about that. They don't have
enough resources. Well, welcome to the New World Order.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
Exit out about a fresca exit. Swollen Dome, the Jason
Smith show with my best friend, Mike Harmon live. from
the Fox Sports Radio studios. Coming up next, we get
back into the biggest college football controversy of the last
48 hours that actually does have a silver lining, even
though everybody seems to be mad. What is it? We'll
tell you next right here. Jason and Mike, Fox Sports Radio.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
Be sure to catch live editions of the Jason Smith
Show with Mike Harmon weekdays at 10 p.m. Eastern, 7 p.m. Pacific.
Hit that thumbs up icon and comment away.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
Fox Sports Radio, the Jason Smith Show with my best friend,
Mike Harmon.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
Well-dressed hobo.
Speaker 1 (16:39):
24-24, SMU and Florida State just under two minutes left
to go, but... Mustangs are driving, looking for the go-ahead score.
Florida State down to just one timeout. So SMU, with
some creative holding on to the football, might be able
to take this all the way down to the end. Again,
Steve DeSegre will have more on this game coming up
(17:00):
in a few minutes with what's trending. So we're two
days past it. And, you know, because it's a holiday,
lots of things happening. We are still hot and heavy today.
over Michigan's Hail Mary against Western Michigan, the second that
got put back on the clock after the game had
been over after Michigan's first Hail Mary. Then, you know,
(17:23):
I kind of like everything that's been going on the
last few days on On social media, the big gif
that's out there that's, hey, the big sign, welcome to Michigan.
Be sure to set your clocks back one second. That's
pretty interesting. I like that. Pretty good. Yeah, I like that.
I like that. Sell, sell, sell. You know, but I
got the bad part and the good part of this, right?
Because that's the story, right? The first thing is that
(17:46):
this is really, this is what sucks about it, is
that nobody's happy. There's no... acceptable outcome that's going to
placate anyone with this story. And normally at least some
people are happy, but I mean, but I mean, unless
you bet this game and bet the under or bet
Western Michigan with the points, right? Nobody, nobody is happy, right?
(18:08):
You're because Western Michigan's not happy because they lost the
game and they felt the game got taken away from them.
And did they do a favor for Michigan putting a
second back on the clock and Yeah, they did. So
Western Michigan's not happy. Michigan's not happy. They're not happy
with winning the game. Yes, the fans that ran on
the field, like, really, you're storming the field after a
hell man to beat Western Michigan. Dude, find your wins.
Speaker 3 (18:30):
In that moment, it was the greatest thing because they
thought they were going to go home and need to
drink themselves or find some video game or movie to
go just distract themselves for the rest of the world.
And instead you have the euphoria of winning. So you're
going to go home to a happier movie, a better
video game and a stronger drink.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
Two years ago, they won the national championship. Now it's, Hey,
we beat Western on a hail Mary.
Speaker 3 (18:56):
Hey, it's September 5th, 2026 on that day. They went
one at all.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
The only thing I've ever seen Western Michigan beat Michigan
at is ice skating. And I actually did see that happen.
I was in the, I was in the arena. And
I saw it happen, right? Because I told you my
cousin skates for Western Michigan, so we went to the
figure skating championships in Vegas two years ago. And I'm like, oh, Michigan,
they must be really good. And my aunt says, no, no,
they're not. We should kill Michigan. They go, really? Oh, yeah, yeah.
(19:22):
And sure enough, Michigan finished way lower. Like, wow. No
one goes to Michigan for figure skating. But, like, look,
Michigan's not happy because they won the game, but they
played terribly, and they know they were given the gift
of an extra second. You can sit back and say,
I don't care. That second was legitimately on the clock,
and we won the game. Well, how do you feel?
(19:43):
I'm still pissed because we stink. Okay, so even Michigan
fans aren't happy. My wife, like, her reaction... after the Hailman,
we're watching the game and he catches, I go, whoa,
did he catch it? And she goes, oh, she goes...
We should have lost. We stink. And I'm going, oh, wow.
We stink. That was such a Jets reaction that I
(20:04):
would have to give. Yeah, look what you did there. Hey,
there's a game-winning field goal. Jets win, 17-14. We stink.
Look what you did to Pam. Oh, no, no, I haven't. No,
she's done that to herself over the past few years.
She did stay and hang out, yeah. I knew in
the moment, I said, okay, no one in Michigan's going
to be happy about this after. So now Michigan's unhappy.
(20:25):
The average college football fan, because everybody wants to back
the feel-good story, the underdog, the big upset, all of this.
No one's happy because, oh, here was another big team
that has a big heritage and big favor with the NCAA.
And they had a favor done for them, so they're
not happy. Nobody came out of this thing happy. There's
(20:47):
not one group of people. My goodness, watching the interview
after the game, I'm saying to myself, oh my God,
you can't even get any excitement here on the field
from Winningham. He's just sitting there going, yeah, well, one
for the record books. Like when he said one for
the record books, like you go, oh my God, there
(21:08):
was one for the record book. He goes, yeah, that
was a one for the record books for sure. We done. Okay.
I gave you the quote one for the record books. Okay, great.
Speaker 3 (21:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
And he just like, you could tell right there. And
that's the thing that stinks is that there's no, nobody
is walking away from this happy. No one's walking away satisfied.
No matter what the explanation was after, hey, technically there
was a half a second left. So technically they– it's
not like Michigan got time that wasn't there. We'll get
to why that was ridiculous in a bit. But it's
(21:40):
not like anything absolutely illegal was done. But still, it
doesn't sit right with anybody. And here we are now,
48 hours later, and there's now– We have to have
discrepancies and wonder about the final seconds of games and
how those are adjudicated. And are the big teams going
to get more favors done for them at the end
of the games? Is it going to be like the
(22:01):
72 Olympics where it doesn't matter if Russia keeps missing,
we're going to keep giving them the ball out of bounds?
That's an old reference. But famous game. You should go
watch it. But that's the thing that stinks about it
is that no one comes out of this happy. No
one comes out of this first weekend of college football
with a feel-good feeling about about the biggest story. Even
Lane Kiffin, right? You could not stand Lane Kiffin. We
(22:24):
talked about him a few minutes ago, right? The big
villain of college football. But man, you were watching LSU
and their blowout win over Clemson, and you were saying, wow,
what's Lane Kiffin saying at halftime? Like it or hate it,
you were still watching, seeing that go on. Like, that's
a big story. Doesn't matter if Lane Kiffin's not liked.
That's a big story. A lot of attention. People love
talking about that. This was like, hey, this is not
(22:46):
a great meal, but it's the only meal you have.
I have to eat it? Yes. I don't want to
eat it. Well, then you'll die because you need food
to live. But I don't like it. It doesn't matter.
It's all you're getting. Well, okay, then I guess I'm
going to eat it. I'm not going to be happy
about it, but I guess I'm going to eat it. Okay. Like,
that's what this story was. And that's the part that
makes me the saddest or that upsets me the most
about this is that there's nobody on this where I
(23:07):
can say, yeah, these guys are all happy. Nobody. You
know who's happy? Us in the media. We win. We win.
Everybody else, yeah, I don't care. You don't like the result.
You don't like the way it played out. Whatever. For us,
I mean, come on.
Speaker 3 (23:21):
We're snacking on it 48 hours plus later.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
Hey, what's left in the fridge? It's turning a little
bit green. I don't know. There's still something on that bone.
Let's go.
Speaker 3 (23:30):
That's what we got because it, it, this is how
you start a season.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
How great is that? It's, it's chaos.
Speaker 3 (23:38):
Now all the way through, uh, as we, we look
at this game for the rest of the year, unless
Michigan just absolutely stinks. Uh, and they've got plenty of
chances to show us that, uh, coming up in the
future here, but for the short term, Like, it's just
a great talking point. And it also reminds us that
(23:59):
no matter what we think we know about how a
game is adjudicated.
We never looked behind door number two for a tenth
of a second still being available to us.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
Right?
Speaker 3 (24:11):
So that's the other thing is we learned some stuff,
Jason Smith.
Speaker 1 (24:15):
Yeah. How many times is there going to be a
play near the end of regulation, incomplete pass is thrown?
Check that clock. If there's any time less than one second,
you are putting time back on the clock. But I
actually do have the silver lining for this, right? Okay.
And this is the best part. This is the good
part of this is that it will end somewhat soon. Right?
This story, number one, stories that burn this hot, this
(24:39):
white hot, generally don't stay white hot forever. Right? That's
a general thing. But this is a story that really
is going to fade away somewhat quickly. Number one, you
have the NFL starting in two days, the next weekend
of college football. But overall, it's, you know, yes, the
timing of it is one thing, but just think about this. Okay,
(25:01):
what did this really affect you? In the college football season,
Michigan beat Western Michigan. Western Michigan's not going to go
to the playoff. They're not going to. They were expecting
to lose this game. It would have been a big upset.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (25:14):
Does it suck for them? It does. But it doesn't
change the season for Western Michigan. For Michigan, they're supposed
to beat Western. If they're good and they win the
rest of their games, okay, they're good and they will
prove that, well, okay, we went out and we beat
Ohio State and we won the other big games. We
beat Oklahoma this weekend. We're proving we're really good. If
they lose, well, okay, we knew they weren't very good
and they didn't look like they were very good and
(25:36):
they won't be relevant. in the college football playoff picture
so this is one of those cases where okay nobody
gets hurt long-term if this was michigan and notre dame
like say they opened up a notre dame you're thinking
national championship and they lose week one because of this
and They lose one more game and get left out
(25:56):
of the of the playoff because of this loss right here.
Then you're screaming bloody murder. And then this affects the playoff.
And then you're saying, OK, no matter what, every year
we let Notre Dame into the playoff because they're Notre Dame.
I don't care if they have four or five wins.
It doesn't matter. Right. Like this is, you know, that's
something that really affects. the fabric of the game going forward.
This is one of those, wow, this is a really
(26:18):
bad outcome, a bad story, it happened this way, everybody's
talking about it, but in the end, the effect on
the game is not really that great, because Michigan will
prove everybody wrong by winning the rest of their games
and going to the playoff, and will forget about this
game as long as they're winning their big games, or
they won't, and Western Michigan is Western Michigan, right? It's
(26:38):
a big deal for them, but They're going to go
on and have their max season like they normally do.
So in the end, this is something that will be
around for a few days. But I can already tell you, tomorrow,
the next day, it's going to start going away because
it's Western Michigan and Michigan. It's not Michigan-Notre Dame. It's
not Michigan-Ohio State. It's not something that has long-lasting impact
on the sport this year.
Speaker 3 (26:58):
Yeah, the impact is just, you know, we saw behind
the curtain. And there was the little man controlling the.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
Wizard, right?
Speaker 3 (27:06):
It's like, don't look behind. Pay no attention to the
man behind the curtain. You don't need to look back
there as the dog takes the curtain away. Spoiler alert
if you haven't seen The Wizard of Oz.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
I like that how it sounded like a confused Zoom
call when the Big Ten put out, hey, this is
what the conversation is like, putting a second back on
the clock. It sounded like, hello, are you there? Yeah.
Are you there, Priscilla? Are you there? Yeah, I'm here.
Are you there, Bob?
Speaker 3 (27:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
Okay. We can start right here. Oh, wait a minute.
Jerry's coming. Jerry, you there? Yeah. What'd you think, Jerry? Yeah.
I saw it a second. Okay. It sounded like one
of those really weird meetings you would have on zoom.
Is everybody here? Can we start? Okay. Awesome.
Speaker 3 (27:41):
This guy, Hey, I can see you, but you forgot
to put on your microphone or I can hear you,
but you got to turn on your camera. Make sure
you've cleaned up whatever's going on in the room. All
of those kind of things. But you're absolutely right. I mean,
that's the thing, right? We get the, there'll have to
be more transparency in terms of this, right?
Speaker 1 (28:00):
The super secret clock.
Speaker 3 (28:02):
But as for the mechanics of the game, like we're
going to find out pretty fast if Michigan is any good.
Certainly week one, succeed and proceed. And Underwood is under fire.
And certainly Whittingham's looking around going, what did I get
myself into? Because even with a win, as disputed as
in is still a W he's wearing it today.
Speaker 2 (28:23):
Be sure to catch live editions of the Jason Smith
show with Mike Harmon weekdays at 10 PM. Eastern 7
PM Pacific on Fox sports radio and the I heart
radio app.
Speaker 1 (28:40):
Fox sports radio, the Jason Smith show with my best friend,
Mike Harmon, well-dressed hobo. game of the night college football
labor day night special number 19 smu rhett lashley lashley
it's a good name comes away with a win over
florida state 27 24 they kicked the game winner with
(29:04):
about 25 seconds left to go the game just ending
why because there was a power delay of an hour
and 40 minutes according to some reports uh somebody hit
a stanchion or or some sort of reservoir somewhere in
the stadium, and the power went out. There's been no
official drawing of conclusion saying that that's what it was,
(29:27):
but there's a lot of people saying, yeah, how it
couldn't be. But they lost power for an hour and
40 minutes. If you watch this game, you saw that
there weren't the normal amount of lights normally at a game.
And this game was played under a lot of... of limitations,
including not all the stadium lights were operating, no coach-to-player communication,
(29:48):
no iPads on the sideline, no public address announcer, no scoreboard,
no public game clock. On-field officials were keeping track of
the time. And some replays, but not all, were being
shown at the Jumbotron. So basically, this is like when
you go see a game at the Rose Bowl. Oh,
(30:09):
too soon. Wow. Look at you.
Speaker 3 (30:13):
Hey, they just hosted Guns N' Roses and Ice Cube
on Saturday night.
Speaker 1 (30:17):
Yeah, and from what I gather, the replay system or
the Jumbotrons they had for Guns N' Roses on Saturday
was much better than what you get going to a game. Yeah,
a couple extra screens added for the experience. Oh, boy. And,
you know, it's fun to see that this is how
they went back to play a game where without having
(30:40):
all of these.
Late breaking and latter day advantages like iPads and, and the,
and the, the coach to player communication, it's become so
popular the last, you know, 10, 15 years that we
still had a game that still looked good. It didn't
look out of place. It didn't look like, Oh, there
was all kinds of penalties because you couldn't get a
(31:02):
play in and this couldn't happen. Like there's a little
bit of roughness you would expect, but it's also the
first full week of college football. So you get that
that's going to happen. But outside of that, I mean,
I know, you know, we're doing the show, doing the
game at the same time. Like, watch them going, okay, again,
I didn't really notice a lot of a difference in
this game from other college football games. I'm sure the
coaches will say, oh, you know, it was impossible. We
(31:23):
couldn't do X, Y, and Z. It was tough. But overall,
it just seemed like a very normal game. It didn't
seem like anything where I said, oh, wow, man, they
really went back in time for this, and this is terrible.
We can't play games like this ever again. No, it
actually seemed pretty okay.
Speaker 3 (31:38):
Yeah, I'd be curious, you know, from the perspective of
the crew up in the booth. I know, you know,
as you and I get ready for another NFL season,
we're blessed when DeSegar's with us on the show and
he works with the squad for the Chargers.
Speaker 1 (31:54):
I'm sure the.
Speaker 3 (31:56):
Job that they all had to do might have been
affected a little bit and made their jobs a little
more difficult in terms of dissemination of of some of
that stuff that that might be transmitted normally uh you
know digitally back and forth sideline up to the booth
and and whatever but and benefits of of whatever extra
(32:16):
bonus replays and whatever you got going on there but
it's just that um I don't know, for you and I,
other than it's starting to look really dark in the
fourth quarter.
Speaker 1 (32:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (32:29):
Whatever they rigged together to get them through the game.
It's like, I think it's coming loose. Finish the running clock.
Running clock.
Speaker 1 (32:38):
Let's go.
Speaker 3 (32:40):
The shadows started to get a little bigger. The shadows
the players were casting as they were running down the
field made for an interesting visual for me.
Speaker 1 (32:50):
I don't know. made me realize how much I miss
the 90s. There you go. Again, this is very much
what a college football game was like in the 90s
with most of the current technology but not the latter-day
stuff that's just the last few years. And I was like, okay.
And then, again, I kind of miss the 90s. I
kind of do. I feel like that was our last
(33:11):
great decade, right? I kind of miss the 90s. The fashions,
the music. Oh, yeah, yeah, 100%. Oh, the fashion, especially
like the MC Hammer pants that I used to get
to wear all the time. Like I miss those. Yeah,
you can bring it back.
Speaker 3 (33:23):
I mean, I've got a pair of Zubaz pants for
the Bears season on order.
Speaker 1 (33:27):
No, but I just I just go with the oversized sweat.
You know, the baggies, the oversized sweats now that are
so oversized. You can get the stylish ones that make
you look like Hammer.
Speaker 3 (33:36):
You can add a couple of tassels if you feel
like it.
Speaker 1 (33:42):
I do miss that a little bit. The bright colors
of the 90s, everybody would be able to pull off.
A little bit of neon. The 90s was great. Not
a lot of difference overall. The takeaway, not a lot
of difference in college football from games in 2026 going
back to the 90s. Still the same kinds of offense
that are run. There's still the air raid kinds of offense.
(34:02):
There's still the spread offenses, all the, it, it just is,
is not that different. And I'm talking about 30 years
where you'd expect it to be all kinds of crazy change.
Now there is change with how we have the champions and, and,
and IL and all that. But the game on the
field is very similar to what it was 30 years ago.
Speaker 2 (34:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (34:19):
Just the curiosity though, like, you know, how much the
teams when they have their, their breakdown in the post,
you know, how much it changed for them that they
didn't have the communication because they're, they're used to it.
We had the report, SMU hadn't practiced without the communication
in two years. Well, they were minus four in the
turnover battle. So how much of that impacted their ability
(34:42):
to communicate, plays, and get to the spots and everything else?
Speaker 1 (34:47):
What would have happened if you could have communicated with me?
I would have said, don't throw a pick. Oh, okay, great.
You would have cut it down to minus three then.
It would have been all right. exit out about a
fresca exit swollen dome jason smith mike harman live from
the fox sports radio studios coming up next we get
back into what could best be described as a developing
controversy jason and mike fox sports radio
Thanks for listening to the Jason Smith Show with Mike
Harmon podcast. Be sure to catch us live every weeknight,
10 p.m. to 2 a.m. Eastern, 7 to 11 p.m.
Pacific on Fox Sports Radio. Find your local station for
the Jason Smith Show with Mike Harmon at foxsportsradio.com or
stream us live every night on the iHeartRadio app by
searching FSR.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Now let's get this party started. You're listening to Fox
Sports Radio.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Well-dressed hobo. Right now, 11 minutes to go in the
fourth quarter. In a game that... Looks like it's getting darker.
Maybe they're losing more power than expected. SMU leads Florida
State 24-17. Again, this game was delayed an hour and
(00:49):
40 minutes due to a power outage. A lot of
talk online that somebody ran into a stanchion and knocked
the power out, and that's what happened. But there's been
less lights. There's been less communication on the field. There's
not been a scoreboard. There's been a lot of things
everybody's dealing with. And I mean it earlier in the game.
I felt like it was brighter, Mike. I mean, am
(01:10):
I crazy or does it, has it feel like it's
gotten there even though the game was still at night?
Speaker 2 (01:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
Like I feel like it's gotten even darker in the
last like 45 minutes. A hundred percent.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
Just like those guys that were doing knuckle pushups during
that beat down of Clemson that got a big preview
and profile in the final five minutes of that game.
We need a profile of the guys that are on
the bikes that are generating the electricity because they're seemingly
taking some time off.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
Yeah. I mean, I'm watching this. Yeah. I mean, I
don't like, I feel like, okay, everything looked fine in
the first half and they came out for the second half.
I'm like, no, I think it looks darker. There's a
lot of weird shadows happening now.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
Yeah. I don't think I've ever seen shadows quite so
pronounced on a field like this.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
Right, as the players are running.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
It's like, ah, it's like Princess and the Frog and
the Shadow Man and all the spirits are coming after them.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
There you go. That's for all of you with kids
out there. I love you. Man. Or if you just
like the Princess and the Frog. Oh, TJ, clearly Prince
Naveen looking for some. OK, so again, SMU leads Florida
State right now. Nine and a half to go in
the fourth quarter. 24-17. We'll bring you more on this.
I'm curious what the players will say after the game. Like, yeah,
it started out to be able to see stuff. It
(02:24):
was weird. Like the ACC broadcasts, as I love watching it, again,
outside of people who live, you know, wherever the ACC
network is. I watch ACC Network pregame, right? And they
were like going crazy, going, I can't believe we're going
to play this game. I can't believe we're going to
play this. Oh, my goodness. Right. So it's all like
former ACC legends who, you know, like E.J. Manuel has
(02:46):
been on that show for a while. Like, I like
I like watching stuff that nobody wants. I'm watching the
ACC Network pregame. And they're like, I can't believe we're
going to play this game. I can't look at these lights.
I can't believe it. That's the best.
Speaker 3 (02:56):
You start getting a couple of pieces of insight or
really just the incredulity of it all.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
I don't know. Are we going to go? Maybe.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
They blew out a transformer. And then what happens? He
crashed into another one. And they're trying to rig this
all back together. Maybe they've got electro out there.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
I don't know. Oh, that'd be great. Get Jamie Foxx
like he's trying to hold everything together. Come on, man.
Finish the game. Finish the game. I can't do this forever.
I've got to finish the game. I need the electricity.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
Does he have the blue glow or does he have
the old school Spider-Man comic series?
Speaker 1 (03:31):
Oh, no, no. It's got to be. Electro is green
and yellow. Electro is yellow and green. That's 100%. Absolutely.
Let's understand that's where it's at now. So, again, we'll
have more on this again. Florida State going to the
hurry-up offense here. Pretty fun game, I got to say,
outside of the light issues, you know, so far. And
Florida State's in the end zone now for a touchdown
(03:52):
to tie it. Starting to see some big plays happening
up and down the field. Depending, both teams, maybe they're tired,
the adrenaline's worn off. Again, when you... Have to sit
an hour and 40 minutes and then you have to
go play. Eventually, you're going to hit that low. And
there's been some big broken field plays over the course
of the past few minutes. Makes me think maybe everybody's
getting a little tired. Maybe we're going to see some
more offense here. Well, I mean, they are up an
(04:14):
extra two hours, too. Yeah, they're 20 years old. I
think they're OK. I think they're right. They're not like
me at 55 going, if I'm going to be up,
I've got to have a coffee. You can't have coffee
at 9 o'clock at night. That's insane. Watch me. I'll
have whatever coffee I want to at 9 o'clock at night.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
Watch me have two more before it's done.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
I have no problem drinking and then 11 o'clock at
night and then 12 o'clock at night being asleep. I
could absolutely do that. Then you just yell, gone. You know,
I could tell this story. My wife's not listening. One
of my favorite pictures ever of my mother-in-law, she was awesome.
She passed away about 15 years ago. But she, one
time we were, it was, I think it was like
(04:54):
the holidays. We were at her house and we were
talking and we were playing games and stuff. And I said, Sal,
you're going to, her name was Sally. I said, Sal,
you're going to go to bed. She goes, oh, are
you kidding? Three cups of coffee. I'm sorry. Three Diet
Cokes and a cup of tea. I'm going to be
up all night. 30 minutes later, she's passed out on
the couch. And I have, so I put three empty
cans of Diet Coke and an empty cup of tea
on her. And I took a picture. And it's one
(05:16):
of the most famous family pictures of her laying there.
You know, I'll be up all night with three empty
Diet Cokes and a cup of tea on her. I
dig that. That's fantastic. Oh, it's the best. So meanwhile,
we'll get back into the Michigan, Western Michigan, the Hail Mary,
the story that's continuing to go. But I don't know
that there was a bigger winner in college football this
(05:39):
weekend than Lane Kiffin. And I'm going to go back
to something that's getting a lot of attention and at
halftime of LSU's blowout win over Clemson. Look, it's 33-3
at this point. They're blowing out a Clemson team that, boy,
I'll tell you what, maybe, I don't know, Clemson, Michigan,
these blue buds might be really bad this season. And
(06:02):
here's the halftime interview Lane Kiffin does with Holly Rowe
where he decides, hey, you know, I know we're up
by 30, but I'm going to throw in a little
dig at the NCAA and everybody else a long way.
We'll make adjustments. We've got to play better in the
second half. We can't give away something like the first turnover, man.
This ball, whatever, 38-0. Thank you, Coach. Good map. Everything
(06:28):
to say, not say. Imagine if we had pro players.
Imagine if we had pro players and he walks away.
Took everything not to say it, but I did. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Real funny thing, Lane Kiffin. I don't know if you're
watching Chad Powers, but there's a, you know, Glenn Powell's
a quarterback. He goes undisguised to play college football again
after he winds up flaming out of the NFL. So
(06:50):
it's kind of like college football now. Hey, I can't
make it in the NFL. I'm going to go back
to college. And one of the big storylines now in
the second season, it just dropped. I'm not spoiling anything.
is that the one booster keeps threatening that if they
don't win, I just got to get Lane Kiffin to
call me back and I can make a change in
head coach. I just keep waiting for Lane Kiffin to
(07:10):
call me back. Oh, it's so great. But Lane Kiffin
throws this out there and he's gotten all kinds of
hate for it. And he even said in his postgame
press conference after their 81-3 win over Clemson, what are
people going to do? Hate me more? Lane Kiffin... is
the villain we all deserve in college football. He's who
(07:32):
we've been waiting for to step up and fill that
void of who's going to be the college football villain, right?
And he's that guy. And I don't mean a villain like, boy,
who's a bad guy and your school is scandal. No, no, no.
I mean, like, who's going to be that guy that's
going to be the old Oakland Raiders of college football where,
blank you, I do whatever the hell I want to
(07:53):
and I'm a maverick, right? Lane Kiffin has seen that
path and he is absolutely comfortable on it because he
knows I'm not going to be well-liked. That's just not
his personality. It's never been his personality. He's never going
to win a war of being liked. It's not going
to happen. As you like to say, lean into being
the villain. Lane Kiffin understands I'm going to be the villain.
(08:14):
But as he has seen is that's a really quick
path to being such an in-demand and influential head coach
in college football. He wanted these kids coming back from
the NFL to LSU. Nobody else does. Guess what? It's
about Lane Kiffin wanting these kids. Everybody else says, no,
we can't have them coming back, right? It's him against
the rest of college football. Are these kids going to play?
(08:36):
Are they not? Are they going to get to play?
We're going back to court. We're going to figure stuff out.
All because Lane Kiffin is the one that says, I
want these kids back. If he doesn't do that, we're
not sitting here with this. Everything else is going on
at a really low level of players who may want
to return. Yeah, we don't know. We're going to figure
it out in court. Lane Kiffin is pushing this. He
has become the villain of college football today. And quite frankly,
(09:00):
we've missed having a villain. And he's realized that, oh,
that's a quicker way to relevancy. It's kind of like
in Star Wars where Obi-Wan explains the Force to Luke
and Luke says, oh, so the dark side is more powerful.
He goes, no, no, no. It's only faster. It's more seductive.
It's easier. It's harder to be good than it is
to be bad. So Darth Vader's rise to power. It's easier.
(09:24):
It's more seductive. Right. Like being the villain and being
all of a sudden, yes, you will get all the relevance.
You will get all the attention. You have enough people
singing your praises while everybody else hates you. But you
will cut above everybody else. You will cut through the
clutter and be that guy. Tell me a head coach
right now in college football who has a higher profile
than Lane Kiffin. Nobody. Nobody. How many kids are going,
(09:47):
I want to go play for that guy, man. He
loves his players. True or not, how many people are
watches going, I want to go play for Lane Kiffin
at LSU. I want to go play for this guy,
That looks like fun. This whole thing looks like it's fun.
I want to get involved in that. Two years ago,
we were saying the same thing for Deion Sanders, right?
You have your moment, your coaches having their moments going forward.
(10:07):
Deion was the villain for a little while because he
comes in talking really brash and telling kids they got
to hit the portal right away. Okay, well, I love Deion.
I hate Deion. Well, two years later, guess what? Deion
can't win. and suddenly, okay, Deion's kind of irrelevant, and
we're waiting for Colorado to have a winning season. But
now Lane Kiffin has stepped in with a much better
situation where there's more money, there's more everything, LSU, and
(10:30):
now he has stepped through, and he is the number one,
most popular, most talked about, biggest Q rating of any
head coach in college football. He has found his way
to the path, and it's something that, okay, you can
agree or disagree with it, but you can't fault and
you can't disagree with with where he is right now
in the pantheon of the sport.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
The villain we need, the unifying force, right? The greatest
thing is to have that common enemy, and that's exactly
where college football is with Lane Kiffin. What did you
hear leading up to game time? It was all so
well with all of this distraction. With all of this,
look it, there he is at hot yoga. There he
is hanging out with McAfee. This team, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
(11:11):
And then they went out and they absolutely whipped up
on Clemson from pillar to post. I mean, there was
nothing left when that was all said and done. You know,
we had that clip from halftime. What's been making the
rounds the last hour or two is also Clemson. the
halftime speech that he was giving along the way where
he basically said hey look at what we've done and
(11:32):
look at the beatdown that we're administering so it's the
the idea for lane kiffin is like you lean into
it he's a well-traveled guy right young guy but well-traveled
right he's he's made enemies he's had a lot of
issues along the way you go back to his time
with the raiders and every stop in between uh that
leaves a lot of things in his wake But to
(11:55):
go out and you have at least perception reality, this
is where it gets into the fun part. How much
is lane for lane versus lane for the kids? Well,
if the kids are going to benefit, it doesn't matter.
If the reality is that you're going to go and
you're going to play high-profile, high-flying, let's run up some
points kind of offense and beat teams down, guess what?
(12:17):
People are knocking on your door. NIL deals. More money
comes flowing into the program. More money goes flowing into
your pocket, and recruits are looking going, I could go
play with that.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
Yeah, exactly. Now you've got to keep winning because look
at what happened to Dion. OK, Dion's I want to
go play. Warren Sapp wanted to coach all these guys
want to coach. I want to go play there. But
they didn't win. And that's the thing about. Yeah, but
he doesn't have a kid at quarterback. Right. No, no.
Speaker 3 (12:41):
But he didn't bring a handpicked Heisman Trophy winning guy.
Like because that was a lot. Those two guys account
for a lot of their success.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
Sure. But but Travis Hunter should be a really big deal.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
Oh, boy.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
This guy won the Heisman Trophy with, you know, with college.
But if your program is not relevant, if you're not winning,
if you're not someone that's going to help you get
to the pros or give you attention over anybody else, eventually,
and very quickly in college football, because it's more flavor
of the minute than any other sport, it's Okay, I'm
going to go someplace else. But now Lane Kiffin has that. Okay,
now I want to go here in a school with
(13:11):
a better football tradition, with more money, more money to spend,
more relevancy, a better TV contract, a better everything. He
wins at LSU. All of a sudden, he might become
the new Nick Saban. The way Nick Saban ran Alabama
for the better part of a decade, 15 years, winning
national championships, that could wind up being Lane Kiffin. He
(13:32):
might step into that void already. Again, What other coach
are we talking about in college football for anything? No one.
You can't buy this kind of publicity. And not all
publicity is good, but this publicity, it's Lane Kiffin every day,
Lane Kiffin every day. What kid doesn't want to be
a part of the everyday conversation, right? I mean, anybody would.
(13:52):
But that's it, right?
Speaker 3 (13:53):
You know, the coach that talks a big game, and
if you can back it up, and again, you know,
how it plays out in the playoffs year after year,
you wait and see, but you're playing meaningful football. And that's,
as we see with most of these teams, sustainability, right?
The number of players that hop from school to school.
I was joking about it the other night that I've
(14:14):
got trading cards for guys that are playing this year
in college football with three different schools. That's how quickly
guys bounce from school to school, and they're still playing
college football.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
Same thing with coaches.
Speaker 3 (14:28):
You don't get the long tenure, the long buildup like
we did once upon a time, right? A lot of
guys move from school to school, go take their turn
in the NFL, and go that route. So to try
to establish a beachhead and try to build a program
and sustain a program, we'll see if Lane Kiffin has
the staying power for that. But at least in the
(14:48):
short term, we all win. We all win because he's
a guy people are lining up to hate. And, I
don't know, Saturday was delicious theater.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
Right?
Speaker 3 (14:58):
Maybe you all out there listening or on the other side,
maybe you were cheering against him, Jason. I was sitting
there going, all right, keep piling it on. Well, it
doesn't matter. You're cheering for him or against him.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
It doesn't matter. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (15:10):
But like with Dabo Swinney, he was reticent to embrace
any of it and then finally realized, OK, this is
going to get bad if I don't. But there's still
that many steps behind. And then all he's doing is
playing a violin and crying about that. They don't have
enough resources. Well, welcome to the New World Order.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
Exit out about a fresca exit. Swollen Dome, the Jason
Smith show with my best friend, Mike Harmon live. from
the Fox Sports Radio studios. Coming up next, we get
back into the biggest college football controversy of the last
48 hours that actually does have a silver lining, even
though everybody seems to be mad. What is it? We'll
tell you next right here. Jason and Mike, Fox Sports Radio.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
Be sure to catch live editions of the Jason Smith
Show with Mike Harmon weekdays at 10 p.m. Eastern, 7 p.m. Pacific.
Hit that thumbs up icon and comment away.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
Fox Sports Radio, the Jason Smith Show with my best friend,
Mike Harmon.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
Well-dressed hobo.
Speaker 1 (16:39):
24-24, SMU and Florida State just under two minutes left
to go, but... Mustangs are driving, looking for the go-ahead score.
Florida State down to just one timeout. So SMU, with
some creative holding on to the football, might be able
to take this all the way down to the end. Again,
Steve DeSegre will have more on this game coming up
(17:00):
in a few minutes with what's trending. So we're two
days past it. And, you know, because it's a holiday,
lots of things happening. We are still hot and heavy today.
over Michigan's Hail Mary against Western Michigan, the second that
got put back on the clock after the game had
been over after Michigan's first Hail Mary. Then, you know,
(17:23):
I kind of like everything that's been going on the
last few days on On social media, the big gif
that's out there that's, hey, the big sign, welcome to Michigan.
Be sure to set your clocks back one second. That's
pretty interesting. I like that. Pretty good. Yeah, I like that.
I like that. Sell, sell, sell. You know, but I
got the bad part and the good part of this, right?
Because that's the story, right? The first thing is that
(17:46):
this is really, this is what sucks about it, is
that nobody's happy. There's no... acceptable outcome that's going to
placate anyone with this story. And normally at least some
people are happy, but I mean, but I mean, unless
you bet this game and bet the under or bet
Western Michigan with the points, right? Nobody, nobody is happy, right?
(18:08):
You're because Western Michigan's not happy because they lost the
game and they felt the game got taken away from them.
And did they do a favor for Michigan putting a
second back on the clock and Yeah, they did. So
Western Michigan's not happy. Michigan's not happy. They're not happy
with winning the game. Yes, the fans that ran on
the field, like, really, you're storming the field after a
hell man to beat Western Michigan. Dude, find your wins.
Speaker 3 (18:30):
In that moment, it was the greatest thing because they
thought they were going to go home and need to
drink themselves or find some video game or movie to
go just distract themselves for the rest of the world.
And instead you have the euphoria of winning. So you're
going to go home to a happier movie, a better
video game and a stronger drink.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
Two years ago, they won the national championship. Now it's, Hey,
we beat Western on a hail Mary.
Speaker 3 (18:56):
Hey, it's September 5th, 2026 on that day. They went
one at all.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
The only thing I've ever seen Western Michigan beat Michigan
at is ice skating. And I actually did see that happen.
I was in the, I was in the arena. And
I saw it happen, right? Because I told you my
cousin skates for Western Michigan, so we went to the
figure skating championships in Vegas two years ago. And I'm like, oh, Michigan,
they must be really good. And my aunt says, no, no,
they're not. We should kill Michigan. They go, really? Oh, yeah, yeah.
(19:22):
And sure enough, Michigan finished way lower. Like, wow. No
one goes to Michigan for figure skating. But, like, look,
Michigan's not happy because they won the game, but they
played terribly, and they know they were given the gift
of an extra second. You can sit back and say,
I don't care. That second was legitimately on the clock,
and we won the game. Well, how do you feel?
(19:43):
I'm still pissed because we stink. Okay, so even Michigan
fans aren't happy. My wife, like, her reaction... after the Hailman,
we're watching the game and he catches, I go, whoa,
did he catch it? And she goes, oh, she goes...
We should have lost. We stink. And I'm going, oh, wow.
We stink. That was such a Jets reaction that I
(20:04):
would have to give. Yeah, look what you did there. Hey,
there's a game-winning field goal. Jets win, 17-14. We stink.
Look what you did to Pam. Oh, no, no, I haven't. No,
she's done that to herself over the past few years.
She did stay and hang out, yeah. I knew in
the moment, I said, okay, no one in Michigan's going
to be happy about this after. So now Michigan's unhappy.
(20:25):
The average college football fan, because everybody wants to back
the feel-good story, the underdog, the big upset, all of this.
No one's happy because, oh, here was another big team
that has a big heritage and big favor with the NCAA.
And they had a favor done for them, so they're
not happy. Nobody came out of this thing happy. There's
(20:47):
not one group of people. My goodness, watching the interview
after the game, I'm saying to myself, oh my God,
you can't even get any excitement here on the field
from Winningham. He's just sitting there going, yeah, well, one
for the record books. Like when he said one for
the record books, like you go, oh my God, there
(21:08):
was one for the record book. He goes, yeah, that
was a one for the record books for sure. We done. Okay.
I gave you the quote one for the record books. Okay, great.
Speaker 3 (21:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
And he just like, you could tell right there. And
that's the thing that stinks is that there's no, nobody
is walking away from this happy. No one's walking away satisfied.
No matter what the explanation was after, hey, technically there
was a half a second left. So technically they– it's
not like Michigan got time that wasn't there. We'll get
to why that was ridiculous in a bit. But it's
(21:40):
not like anything absolutely illegal was done. But still, it
doesn't sit right with anybody. And here we are now,
48 hours later, and there's now– We have to have
discrepancies and wonder about the final seconds of games and
how those are adjudicated. And are the big teams going
to get more favors done for them at the end
of the games? Is it going to be like the
(22:01):
72 Olympics where it doesn't matter if Russia keeps missing,
we're going to keep giving them the ball out of bounds?
That's an old reference. But famous game. You should go
watch it. But that's the thing that stinks about it
is that no one comes out of this happy. No
one comes out of this first weekend of college football
with a feel-good feeling about about the biggest story. Even
Lane Kiffin, right? You could not stand Lane Kiffin. We
(22:24):
talked about him a few minutes ago, right? The big
villain of college football. But man, you were watching LSU
and their blowout win over Clemson, and you were saying, wow,
what's Lane Kiffin saying at halftime? Like it or hate it,
you were still watching, seeing that go on. Like, that's
a big story. Doesn't matter if Lane Kiffin's not liked.
That's a big story. A lot of attention. People love
talking about that. This was like, hey, this is not
(22:46):
a great meal, but it's the only meal you have.
I have to eat it? Yes. I don't want to
eat it. Well, then you'll die because you need food
to live. But I don't like it. It doesn't matter.
It's all you're getting. Well, okay, then I guess I'm
going to eat it. I'm not going to be happy
about it, but I guess I'm going to eat it. Okay. Like,
that's what this story was. And that's the part that
makes me the saddest or that upsets me the most
about this is that there's nobody on this where I
(23:07):
can say, yeah, these guys are all happy. Nobody. You
know who's happy? Us in the media. We win. We win.
Everybody else, yeah, I don't care. You don't like the result.
You don't like the way it played out. Whatever. For us,
I mean, come on.
Speaker 3 (23:21):
We're snacking on it 48 hours plus later.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
Hey, what's left in the fridge? It's turning a little
bit green. I don't know. There's still something on that bone.
Let's go.
Speaker 3 (23:30):
That's what we got because it, it, this is how
you start a season.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
How great is that? It's, it's chaos.
Speaker 3 (23:38):
Now all the way through, uh, as we, we look
at this game for the rest of the year, unless
Michigan just absolutely stinks. Uh, and they've got plenty of
chances to show us that, uh, coming up in the
future here, but for the short term, Like, it's just
a great talking point. And it also reminds us that
(23:59):
no matter what we think we know about how a
game is adjudicated.
We never looked behind door number two for a tenth
of a second still being available to us.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
Right?
Speaker 3 (24:11):
So that's the other thing is we learned some stuff,
Jason Smith.
Speaker 1 (24:15):
Yeah. How many times is there going to be a
play near the end of regulation, incomplete pass is thrown?
Check that clock. If there's any time less than one second,
you are putting time back on the clock. But I
actually do have the silver lining for this, right? Okay.
And this is the best part. This is the good
part of this is that it will end somewhat soon. Right?
This story, number one, stories that burn this hot, this
(24:39):
white hot, generally don't stay white hot forever. Right? That's
a general thing. But this is a story that really
is going to fade away somewhat quickly. Number one, you
have the NFL starting in two days, the next weekend
of college football. But overall, it's, you know, yes, the
timing of it is one thing, but just think about this. Okay,
(25:01):
what did this really affect you? In the college football season,
Michigan beat Western Michigan. Western Michigan's not going to go
to the playoff. They're not going to. They were expecting
to lose this game. It would have been a big upset.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (25:14):
Does it suck for them? It does. But it doesn't
change the season for Western Michigan. For Michigan, they're supposed
to beat Western. If they're good and they win the
rest of their games, okay, they're good and they will
prove that, well, okay, we went out and we beat
Ohio State and we won the other big games. We
beat Oklahoma this weekend. We're proving we're really good. If
they lose, well, okay, we knew they weren't very good
and they didn't look like they were very good and
(25:36):
they won't be relevant. in the college football playoff picture
so this is one of those cases where okay nobody
gets hurt long-term if this was michigan and notre dame
like say they opened up a notre dame you're thinking
national championship and they lose week one because of this
and They lose one more game and get left out
(25:56):
of the of the playoff because of this loss right here.
Then you're screaming bloody murder. And then this affects the playoff.
And then you're saying, OK, no matter what, every year
we let Notre Dame into the playoff because they're Notre Dame.
I don't care if they have four or five wins.
It doesn't matter. Right. Like this is, you know, that's
something that really affects. the fabric of the game going forward.
This is one of those, wow, this is a really
(26:18):
bad outcome, a bad story, it happened this way, everybody's
talking about it, but in the end, the effect on
the game is not really that great, because Michigan will
prove everybody wrong by winning the rest of their games
and going to the playoff, and will forget about this
game as long as they're winning their big games, or
they won't, and Western Michigan is Western Michigan, right? It's
(26:38):
a big deal for them, but They're going to go
on and have their max season like they normally do.
So in the end, this is something that will be
around for a few days. But I can already tell you, tomorrow,
the next day, it's going to start going away because
it's Western Michigan and Michigan. It's not Michigan-Notre Dame. It's
not Michigan-Ohio State. It's not something that has long-lasting impact
on the sport this year.
Speaker 3 (26:58):
Yeah, the impact is just, you know, we saw behind
the curtain. And there was the little man controlling the.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
Wizard, right?
Speaker 3 (27:06):
It's like, don't look behind. Pay no attention to the
man behind the curtain. You don't need to look back
there as the dog takes the curtain away. Spoiler alert
if you haven't seen The Wizard of Oz.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
I like that how it sounded like a confused Zoom
call when the Big Ten put out, hey, this is
what the conversation is like, putting a second back on
the clock. It sounded like, hello, are you there? Yeah.
Are you there, Priscilla? Are you there? Yeah, I'm here.
Are you there, Bob?
Speaker 3 (27:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
Okay. We can start right here. Oh, wait a minute.
Jerry's coming. Jerry, you there? Yeah. What'd you think, Jerry? Yeah.
I saw it a second. Okay. It sounded like one
of those really weird meetings you would have on zoom.
Is everybody here? Can we start? Okay. Awesome.
Speaker 3 (27:41):
This guy, Hey, I can see you, but you forgot
to put on your microphone or I can hear you,
but you got to turn on your camera. Make sure
you've cleaned up whatever's going on in the room. All
of those kind of things. But you're absolutely right. I mean,
that's the thing, right? We get the, there'll have to
be more transparency in terms of this, right?
Speaker 1 (28:00):
The super secret clock.
Speaker 3 (28:02):
But as for the mechanics of the game, like we're
going to find out pretty fast if Michigan is any good.
Certainly week one, succeed and proceed. And Underwood is under fire.
And certainly Whittingham's looking around going, what did I get
myself into? Because even with a win, as disputed as
in is still a W he's wearing it today.
Speaker 2 (28:23):
Be sure to catch live editions of the Jason Smith
show with Mike Harmon weekdays at 10 PM. Eastern 7
PM Pacific on Fox sports radio and the I heart
radio app.
Speaker 1 (28:40):
Fox sports radio, the Jason Smith show with my best friend,
Mike Harmon, well-dressed hobo. game of the night college football
labor day night special number 19 smu rhett lashley lashley
it's a good name comes away with a win over
florida state 27 24 they kicked the game winner with
(29:04):
about 25 seconds left to go the game just ending
why because there was a power delay of an hour
and 40 minutes according to some reports uh somebody hit
a stanchion or or some sort of reservoir somewhere in
the stadium, and the power went out. There's been no
official drawing of conclusion saying that that's what it was,
(29:27):
but there's a lot of people saying, yeah, how it
couldn't be. But they lost power for an hour and
40 minutes. If you watch this game, you saw that
there weren't the normal amount of lights normally at a game.
And this game was played under a lot of... of limitations,
including not all the stadium lights were operating, no coach-to-player communication,
(29:48):
no iPads on the sideline, no public address announcer, no scoreboard,
no public game clock. On-field officials were keeping track of
the time. And some replays, but not all, were being
shown at the Jumbotron. So basically, this is like when
you go see a game at the Rose Bowl. Oh,
(30:09):
too soon. Wow. Look at you.
Speaker 3 (30:13):
Hey, they just hosted Guns N' Roses and Ice Cube
on Saturday night.
Speaker 1 (30:17):
Yeah, and from what I gather, the replay system or
the Jumbotrons they had for Guns N' Roses on Saturday
was much better than what you get going to a game. Yeah,
a couple extra screens added for the experience. Oh, boy. And,
you know, it's fun to see that this is how
they went back to play a game where without having
(30:40):
all of these.
Late breaking and latter day advantages like iPads and, and the,
and the, the coach to player communication, it's become so
popular the last, you know, 10, 15 years that we
still had a game that still looked good. It didn't
look out of place. It didn't look like, Oh, there
was all kinds of penalties because you couldn't get a
(31:02):
play in and this couldn't happen. Like there's a little
bit of roughness you would expect, but it's also the
first full week of college football. So you get that
that's going to happen. But outside of that, I mean,
I know, you know, we're doing the show, doing the
game at the same time. Like, watch them going, okay, again,
I didn't really notice a lot of a difference in
this game from other college football games. I'm sure the
coaches will say, oh, you know, it was impossible. We
(31:23):
couldn't do X, Y, and Z. It was tough. But overall,
it just seemed like a very normal game. It didn't
seem like anything where I said, oh, wow, man, they
really went back in time for this, and this is terrible.
We can't play games like this ever again. No, it
actually seemed pretty okay.
Speaker 3 (31:38):
Yeah, I'd be curious, you know, from the perspective of
the crew up in the booth. I know, you know,
as you and I get ready for another NFL season,
we're blessed when DeSegar's with us on the show and
he works with the squad for the Chargers.
Speaker 1 (31:54):
I'm sure the.
Speaker 3 (31:56):
Job that they all had to do might have been
affected a little bit and made their jobs a little
more difficult in terms of dissemination of of some of
that stuff that that might be transmitted normally uh you
know digitally back and forth sideline up to the booth
and and whatever but and benefits of of whatever extra
(32:16):
bonus replays and whatever you got going on there but
it's just that um I don't know, for you and I,
other than it's starting to look really dark in the
fourth quarter.
Speaker 1 (32:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (32:29):
Whatever they rigged together to get them through the game.
It's like, I think it's coming loose. Finish the running clock.
Running clock.
Speaker 1 (32:38):
Let's go.
Speaker 3 (32:40):
The shadows started to get a little bigger. The shadows
the players were casting as they were running down the
field made for an interesting visual for me.
Speaker 1 (32:50):
I don't know. made me realize how much I miss
the 90s. There you go. Again, this is very much
what a college football game was like in the 90s
with most of the current technology but not the latter-day
stuff that's just the last few years. And I was like, okay.
And then, again, I kind of miss the 90s. I
kind of do. I feel like that was our last
(33:11):
great decade, right? I kind of miss the 90s. The fashions,
the music. Oh, yeah, yeah, 100%. Oh, the fashion, especially
like the MC Hammer pants that I used to get
to wear all the time. Like I miss those. Yeah,
you can bring it back.
Speaker 3 (33:23):
I mean, I've got a pair of Zubaz pants for
the Bears season on order.
Speaker 1 (33:27):
No, but I just I just go with the oversized sweat.
You know, the baggies, the oversized sweats now that are
so oversized. You can get the stylish ones that make
you look like Hammer.
Speaker 3 (33:36):
You can add a couple of tassels if you feel
like it.
Speaker 1 (33:42):
I do miss that a little bit. The bright colors
of the 90s, everybody would be able to pull off.
A little bit of neon. The 90s was great. Not
a lot of difference overall. The takeaway, not a lot
of difference in college football from games in 2026 going
back to the 90s. Still the same kinds of offense
that are run. There's still the air raid kinds of offense.
(34:02):
There's still the spread offenses, all the, it, it just is,
is not that different. And I'm talking about 30 years
where you'd expect it to be all kinds of crazy change.
Now there is change with how we have the champions and, and,
and IL and all that. But the game on the
field is very similar to what it was 30 years ago.
Speaker 2 (34:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (34:19):
Just the curiosity though, like, you know, how much the
teams when they have their, their breakdown in the post,
you know, how much it changed for them that they
didn't have the communication because they're, they're used to it.
We had the report, SMU hadn't practiced without the communication
in two years. Well, they were minus four in the
turnover battle. So how much of that impacted their ability
(34:42):
to communicate, plays, and get to the spots and everything else?
Speaker 1 (34:47):
What would have happened if you could have communicated with me?
I would have said, don't throw a pick. Oh, okay, great.
You would have cut it down to minus three then.
It would have been all right. exit out about a
fresca exit swollen dome jason smith mike harman live from
the fox sports radio studios coming up next we get
back into what could best be described as a developing
controversy jason and mike fox sports radio
Hosts And Creators
Jason Smith
Mike Harmon
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Bobby Bones Show
Listen to 'The Bobby Bones Show' by downloading the daily full replay.