CFP CHAOS LOADING: Signing Day Drama, Wild Hires & Playoff Bombshells

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
College football Apostles. It's your boy, George Reister with my
main man, Ralph Amson, and we got to give you
guys a little bit of update the way you guys
understand who Ralph is. But we got a lot to
talk about today. It was National signing Day and it
got falling behind the radar between all the college football
playoff politicking, the new coaching hires and everything in between.

(00:26):
We have to I mean, it is deep. We gotta
get deep in the woods today and thank you guys
for joining us. We appreciate your time because your time
is the most valuable thing that you have and we
appreciate you spending it with us. And I'm George rece
the former NFL player, college football player, college football analysts
for c W. You see me all the time. And
then there have been some comments in the questions like

(00:49):
who the full is that guy? And so I've told
you guys, this is our resident rain Man college football storyteller,
man who knows all the deep dives and the details
covered Arizona High school football. This man knows more about
the backstories about college football players than probably anybody. And

(01:09):
and he's also like the guy behind the curtain behind
a lot of the stuff that goes on here on
on the on the channel, our resident Wizard of Oz,
Ralph Hampston.

Speaker 2 (01:23):
I love you know what I love is I love
how popular the channel is getting. So like when people
are encountering you for the first time, you're like, man,
I love this content, and then they get to Thursday
and they're like, who the hell is Ralph. I'm like, man,
that's great, that's a good question. That's a good question.

Speaker 1 (01:39):
Amen. What watch times are long on Thursday? So people
people clearly like it.

Speaker 2 (01:46):
So you just said something that I think is really important.
National Signing Day. Like, as a member of the media,
this used to be like the biggest and most important
day for me, especially covering high school football and college football.
Now it's really it's even a super low priority for
me because to me, signing day is like looking at
somebody's prom photos, like, I know that's not the woman

(02:09):
you're married to. Like, I get that that was an
important day for you, but it seems like some life
events have happened since then, and we got signing days
all over the country, and it really feels like, you know,
if you're going to go to somebody's signing day, you're
going to their first wedding, knowing that it's their first wedding.
People end up on two to three teams. So it's
more just a celebration of the fact that you're getting

(02:31):
to that level than it is that you're going to spend,
you know, three to five years at a specific institution
with a specific coach. We already know eighty five to
ninety percent of these players aren't going to have their
position coach for you know, more than three years of
their college career. So I am curious for you. Though
it's been it's been a minute. I don't know if
you can dust off the old memory, but what was

(02:52):
your National Signing Day experience?

Speaker 1 (02:55):
Like, Oh, I'll never forget it. I signed my letter
of intent in doctor Calvill's office, our principal at our school.
I still have the picture. It is a I'm standing
in my black and Nike pullover. I am Yeah, I'm
in a black Nike pullover and yeah, just sending there, signing,

(03:18):
signing the paper. It was a great day. We faxed
it over. Now you don't even fax them over anymore.
You DocuSign them like the facts machine, where you had
to facts, which caused all sorts of issues for people
back in the back in the day facts didn't come in,
and then some other letter of intent ends up getting
faxed in because something a line wasn't dated where it

(03:40):
was supposed to be dated or something. All sorts of
nefarious things have have happened. But I am like, I
remember it and how big. It's funny because at that
point in time the decision felt so permanent because transferment
guarantee sit outs and if you tried to transfer within

(04:03):
your conference that was gonna be two year sitout. So
it felt very permanent and like more monumental. But now
and there was no negotiation of money surrounding it and nil,
and so that took something else off the table for it.

(04:24):
But there was a lot of pressure about it because
of the monumental decision and you didn't have backup options
and now you do, but it is still a big deal.
And like for the kids and for the families.

Speaker 2 (04:39):
How close the signing day were you still receiving contact
from other schools.

Speaker 1 (04:46):
Okay, so at that point in time there was only
one signing day. It was in the first Wednesday in February,
So it was like February second, first second or something
like that my year and I I took my Oregon
visit the week before, like three days before signing day.
I got back from my Oregon visit, and the week

(05:07):
before I actually two weeks before, I was at UCLA
because I refused to miss a basketball game to go
on official visits. So and Ucla was like, oh, we
can't promise. We're gonna have a scholarship for you if
you leave, if you don't commit here. I was like,

(05:27):
all right, I got plenty of options. And then literally
within five minutes of me getting in my house from
the Oregon visit, you see phone call Ucla, Hey, yo,
hey yo, we still want you. You coming? I said,
I thought you didn't have a scholarship for me. You're like, ah,
we got it. We were just we just wanted you
to commit. I talked to Yeah, I was talking to

(05:51):
teams Arizona. I was out on Florida State at that
point in time. But Wisconsin. Yeah, those were really my
last was UCLA, Wisconsin, Arizona, and Oregon.

Speaker 2 (06:10):
What was it like to have to tell Dick Tomy
or his staff no, Like, what was that feeling like
as a.

Speaker 1 (06:17):
Recruit That was hard because I loved Dick Toby. Oh,
I wanted to play for Dick Toby. I just knew
he was gonna get fired. So I was like, I
was like, I don't know how long term that this
is gonna work. I like the man, but he came
and come, sat on your floor with the cowboy boots
took him off, and he was just a good human man.
Well or at least it felt like that way. And
I don't know any different. So that was my opinion

(06:39):
of him. So I h yeah, So it was hard,
but I was just but I felt very sure about
my decision when it came to Oregon, so there wasn't
I never felt like I made a bad decision. I
remember telling Marcellus Wiley, you know, because he went to Columbia.

(07:01):
He was like, it was like, you know, he feels
real good about went to Columbia. I went to Columbia.
I was like, yeah, Bro, I could have went to Stanford.
He was like, bro, no way that you could have
went to Stanford and chose to go to Oregon. I was.
I showed him the letters. He was like, what you chose?
I was like, yes, I wasn't a tyrone Whittingham. Willingham
guy like, it was like oil and water for me

(07:22):
and me and him. So no, I didn't go to
school there. He was like, I can't believe you made
that decision. I was like, okay, whatever.

Speaker 2 (07:35):
We're not no regrets. There's no regrets or no regrets.
Organ's been good to you. It's hard for me to
imagine you being a Tucson man. I got tempe ridden
on my chest right now. But I do know how
beloved is.

Speaker 1 (07:48):
And it's so funny how much Arizona people like Jason
Sheer hate me now.

Speaker 2 (07:54):
Yeah, well, yeah, they're territorials for the Territorial Cup. It's
named after everything about both fan bases. But I do
want to move on to this because the number one recruit,
and it feels like this got swallowed up in the
headlines of all the coaching changes and everything else. Like
that number one recruit in the country, Jared Curtis. He
lives and plays in Nashville. Vanderbilt is on a generational

(08:18):
like literal generational run right now. I believe so yeah,
I believe so number one quarterback anyway, So yeah, he
he is in Nashville. Vanderbilt's on a generational run. He
went to the College Game Day set when College Game

(08:38):
Day visited, and then he had to clarify, like, nah,
it's just there to like hang out, you know, I'm
still to Georgia. George just had George just had massive
issues of losing their five star recruits at the freshman level.
But they do recruit over the top a lot, so
it's understandable. He flips on signing day and it gets

(08:59):
leaked by the media multiple memories.

Speaker 1 (09:01):
It was the worst kept secret. Everybody knew this kid
was flipping.

Speaker 2 (09:06):
Yes, but he came out and his what he wrote
was like I didn't even have a chance to talk.
He's like, I haven't talked to anybody. I haven't talked
to Vanderbilt, I haven't talked to Georgia. And he's like,
he's like, my day kind of got ruined. Where where
are you kind of at with that dude? Number One,
do we feel bad for the kid? Do you feel
like the media overstepped or maybe did something wrong? And

(09:30):
just knowing your own personal circle, who can you trust
Nobody but maybe principle you can't. It's your friends. It's
their friends who tell people it's not it's usually not
media members as much, even though sometimes because I do
think that Hayes Fawcett has a conflict of interest right

(09:50):
right now because he's an edit guy. He makes a
lot of edits for up people. But now he's got
to turn into a college football insider because he's got
connections to a lot of kids. He makes their edits
for their commitments and all of that stuff.

Speaker 1 (10:04):
And now can you trust that he won't tell Adam
Gourney or whoever else that you know, like a yo,
like a flip's getting ready to happen, so, you know,
because their part of their job is breaking news and
being first. So I think it creates a conflict of
interest there. So I wouldn't tell Hayes right now now.

(10:25):
I mean, and I think he does a great job
at what he does, but I wouldn't tell him. But
other people's friends tell them or coaches tell them and
stuff like that. They're like, oh, yeah, we do have
a contract signed with this guy and blah blah blah.
So yeah, it gets it's you know, very interesting.

Speaker 2 (10:47):
Yeah, I will say is I worked as a rival's
affiliate website for over a decade. I have friends, a
lot of friends at on three, and I have a
lot of friends at two four seven and a former
colleagues and stuff like that. There is an industry animosity
toward Hayes Faucet. Uh And if you don't know who

(11:07):
he is, he does those like well, because for the
longest time, what was the industry was recruiting insiders being
able to put information and nuggets up on message boards
to drive subscribership and drive your own personal value in
the industry.

Speaker 1 (11:26):
Okay, and then.

Speaker 2 (11:26):
Hayes Faucet comes along and people the trend became that
if you're a high level recruit, you want a Hayes
Faucet edit. And so this kid, this literal child ye
when he started, totally wiped out and made dinosaurs of

(11:49):
those people in this industry, and they have all had
to either you know, pivot or the transfer portal. Honestly
saved a lot of these people's jobs because you know,
Hayes Fawcett does some stuff with that, but there's a
lot more moving parts to keep track of. But they're
you know, if at the end of the day, you

(12:09):
can put all this time in visiting a recruit, and
I'm talking about as a media member visiting this recruit
going to their games, meeting their parents, developing a relationship
with their high school coach. You put in hundreds of
hours of work on any given kid, especially at they're
high level, to be able to be in an Adam
schefter newsbreaker role when the time comes, and one kid

(12:35):
who's good with Adobe totally erases all of that effort.
Now that has nothing to do with Hayes Fawcett. I
think it's bad ass that he like created this niche
for himself. I think it's uniquely American and super fun.
But there is a large level of animosity in the
industry to what he did. And now he works for

(12:56):
ON three and so he's on the same team as
a lot of these guys. But you have a guy
like Steve Wilfong who's also at ON three breaking this news.
Then you have the number one recruit being like man.
And maybe it's better that Georgia found out before he
had an opportunity to call them up and break their hearts.
Who knows how he feels about it five to ten
years down the road or whatever, but it is interesting

(13:18):
and you really can't talk to anybody because I like,
I'll ask my son who's on football football team with
guys who are going to Notre Dame in Virginia and
other places. And I'll be like, hey, what's your friend thinking? Yep,
and he'll be like, yeah, you know, they're talking to
this school, this school in this school. And then I
could if I wanted to. I'm not like this, but
I could shoot a text whoever runs the affiliate site

(13:38):
for University of Virginia or Irish Illustrators or whatever. But
I know he'll get over it. But I'm just wondering,
kind of whose side go on? Is just a lesson
to learn as a teenager.

Speaker 1 (13:51):
I keep so much stuff, as you know, Ralph, very
very private, because I don't think it's right to do that.
Two kids. I don't think it's right to ruin their
their their moment because they are like, like, it's their moment.

(14:12):
In stilling it from them is like, I don't like it.
I don't like it when the uh when the when
the people when they switch their picks and they're doing
like a hat ceremony or something, I don't like that either.
Uh Yeah, it's frustrating.

Speaker 2 (14:30):
Yeah, I think it gets cringe later on in life,
but at the you know, when you're a kid and
it's young and exciting and dangerous and fun to you.
You're not considering everybody else involved. You're just trying to
make your friends laugh. And I do appreciate just it
reminds me of being young and dumb. Uh. So let's
get into these coaching hires. Yes, because there have been

(14:52):
a lot, There have been a lot of introductions, there
have been a lot of fan reactions, and unfortunately one
hiring in particular, took the oxygen out of the room
for literally everyone. So I want to make sure that
we touch on each of these to give them the
attention they deserve. But we do have to stop start
with the oxygen stealer Lane given himself outside of all

(15:13):
of the antics, and we'll get into those in a minute.
I want to hear all your thoughts on that was
this the right hire?

Speaker 1 (15:20):
No? No, this was this was a terribly bad hire
in terms of the risk is so incredibly high? Is
so incredibly high because on one hand, you're paying to

(15:40):
do thirteen million dollars and you gotta pay him like
his buyout is insanity over eighty percent of you know, Like,
so you're on the hook for over seventy million dollars
right now, seventy five and and that is a lot
of damn money for a coach who only has one

(16:00):
conference championship his whole career, a coach who tries to
duck the smoke. Oh, I don't want to play in
the SEC championship. And this is mind you. He's a
really good play caller. He did some things at Old
Miss that were really nice, but he finds a way
to blow things up around him. And he sat there

(16:22):
and lied, Oh, I don't know how much I'm making.
H yes, you do. We all know how much you're making.
So how do you not know because you're on Twitter
all the damn time, So there's no way that you
don't even show up in your own algorithm lit his name. No,
he looks for his name exactly. So so that was

(16:44):
the first lie. Oh and then the coach, I, well,
I didn't find out until the other day that that that, uh,
until Sunday, that I wouldn't be able to coach in
the playoff. You're a damn lie. Everybody else knew that too,
and the AD came out and refuted it too. So
we're gonna believe the guy who's lied about these others?
Oh the oh, the team wanted me to coach there.
Multiple players have come out, Nah, that ain't the truth.

(17:07):
A D said, No, that ain't accurate either. So you're
a you're a serial liar at this point point in time.
You're a good football coach, clearly, but you're a serial liar.
But that's not even it because he won't win a
national championship at LSU because he hasn't learned these lessons.
He runs from hard and uh Kirby smart totals, you

(17:29):
run from hard to get more more hard. But that's
not even the issue. The right answer for them because
he's gonna win games at LSU. He's going to like,
there's no dispute. He's gonna win at least nine games
a year. Probably the issue is the right answer was
an hour and a half down down the road in

(17:49):
John summerw That's who they should have hired.

Speaker 2 (17:56):
Yeah, so.

Speaker 1 (17:58):
You know it's on one more things. So the reason
why John Somerral was such it because I didn't explain
it is that he was in Louisiana already. He's built
Tulane kept them going from their last head coaching move.
They have. He understands Gumbo at Twu Fey Roots and

(18:19):
everything else Louisiana. He knows the people, knows the culture,
and Lane Kiffen is gonna try to be as Lane
kipping as he can be. And them people down there,
they're a little different because they got their own stuff
going on. Like other parts of the country. He may
not fit in there, He's gonna fit in there better
than Brian Kelly, who was checked out. But I do

(18:40):
not believe that this is a like I believe that
John Summraw. But they wanted to win the press conference.
They wanted a flashy new toy. Didn't work out the
last time with Brian Kelly. Now they doing it again.
They'll be firing him. And because they're already paying three
head coaches right now, Brian Kelly, ed Odjeran and and

(19:03):
now Lane Lane Kiffin, they'll be paying a uh well,
ad Odron will be off the books. But then then
they'll be they like paying multiple coaches at once.

Speaker 2 (19:12):
Clearly, yeah, I have one brief thought on link Kiffin
and one brief thought on LSU as a whole. I
think COVID did a number on this whole country. And
one of the It felt like the best thing at
the time, but it might it might ultimately be. One
of the worst things is that the Michael Jordan documentary

(19:33):
dropped while we were all at home to watch it.
And I think a lot of men in the proximity
of greatness watched that and thought to themselves, I want
one of these. Not the not the greatness that it
took to have a documentary, which was a very friendly

(19:53):
edit to Michael Jordan, but not the greatness it took
to have a documentary of that caliber, but the the
the lore. And I think that we are a very
self obsessed society, and I think that Lane Kiffin has
an unhealthy obsession with his own story, with his own lore.

(20:18):
Do the interesting thing, do the thing that keeps everybody
on edge, do the thing that keeps my name on
everybody's lips. And this is the tipping point of the
wildfire of everybody talking about Lane Kiffen. But at the
end of the day, the truth gets told on the field,
which brings me to my point about LSU. Everybody said

(20:40):
that this was a good hire. You're saying that it's not,
But everybody said that this is a good hi. It's
going to be a winning higher. I don't think it's
gonna be a championship. Hi.

Speaker 1 (20:47):
Which is which is the right job? Is with what
the job is required?

Speaker 2 (20:53):
Yes, So the everybody said that, you're right, it was
a it was a winning higher. You don't necessarily disagree
with that. But whether it was the right hire or
not is where you differentiate. A lot of what people
have said and made excuses for Lane Kiffin about making
this move and leaving his team behind while they still
have a shot at winning a national championship was look

(21:14):
at all the coaches that have won at LSU. It's
your easiest path, It's your most logical path to reaching
the summit. Now, if that's true, let's assume it's true.
Let's just assume that it's true. Let's flip it around
and take it from LSU's perspective. If it's the easiest

(21:36):
path for any sitting rising college football coach to achieve
at the highest level, then shouldn't your priority be to
hire the most no nonsense, most process driven, least distracted
coach available to you, whether that's John summerl or anybody else. Fine,

(21:59):
but you're gonna bring in somebody who is addicted to
self destruction because you provide them the easiest path. You've
canceled out your own advantage.

Speaker 1 (22:13):
Listen to his let me pull up his tweets, his
tweets in the last few days. He uh, he just
he just retweeted four hours ago Kevin Bolden signing with
the uh oh oh oh never never mind, that's the

(22:37):
their general manager's kid signing. But he's tweeting all kinds
of LSU stuff. And then he said, ninety percent of
people that judge you or have opinions and you have
no idea what the f is actually going on in
your life. And then he's just been trolling, uh, you know,

(22:59):
talking about James Franklin is talking, and he retweeted his
thing talking about LSU having the number one recruit. It's
just been trolling all over the place ever since he
got there. He retweeted the sec unfiltered grades where it's
got uh, Ryan Silverfield D minus, Pete Golding C plus,

(23:21):
Will Stein B plus, Alex Goldi's B plus, John Summer
all A and Lane Kiffin a A plus.

Speaker 2 (23:29):
So he's doing it then, like can I can I
ask you to click on something right now?

Speaker 1 (23:38):
Yes?

Speaker 2 (23:39):
Uh, have you ever seen Lane Kiffin's Twitter header, because
I think it does the perfect job of explaining the.

Speaker 1 (23:44):
Point of trying to make I've never Lane Kiffin tweets
too much. He will probably tweet this too. Yep, yeah,
you remember that.

Speaker 2 (23:54):
You remember that song? Was it? Carly Simon? You're so
vain you probably think this song is about don't you.

Speaker 1 (24:01):
Yep? Exactly.

Speaker 2 (24:03):
That song might as well be about Lane Kiffen for sure, exactly.
But okay, so outside of all of that, what are
your expectations five years down the road we're looking back
on on on on this higher one. Is he still
there too? Has he achieved at the highest level.

Speaker 1 (24:24):
No, he will not have won a national championship and
they will want him out in five years. But he
wins enough games that it's hard to fire him. He
he ends up being like the James Franklin of of
of LSU, where he just continuously like he flirts with
the mountaintop but never gets there because he just unless

(24:46):
he makes some changes. But like, Okay, if he were
a basketball player, he'd be James Harden. All the talent
in the world, all the everything that you need to
win a championship, except the thing that you need to
win a championship.

Speaker 2 (25:07):
Go Devils. It's always becomes an attack on James Harden,
no matter what, Like if George Reister had a barbershop,
that's when that's when the conversation would end. Every single day,
a giant argument, everybody having a good time talking about sports,
and then George steers it into James Harden.

Speaker 1 (25:28):
Eight. I don't hate James Harden as a person, He's
just not a he's not a winning player. Oh, I'm
sorry he's not a championship player, because he definitely is
a winning player. He's a Hall of Famer, all of
those things, Like, I don't discount the man's career achievements.
But but I've been saying it for over a decade.

(25:49):
How long have you known me? And how long have
I been saying that James Harden will never win a championship.

Speaker 2 (25:54):
I might might have been the first thing you ever
said to me. You'll probably the it will probably be
the last. If we have a chance to know each
other our whole lives. Uh And and I go before
you and you show up to my deathbed, I expect
that you have to be just to lean over. Oh yep,

(26:19):
that's that's what it's gonna be all right. So let's
move on to the next hire. I actually have a
similar opinion to you about LSU about this hire. But
Auburn goes with Alex Golish, who had a great run
at USF, has an incredible personal story. He's forty one,

(26:40):
he's our age, he is from Mother Russia, even Drago,
you know, uh, and he uh didn't play, which I
lean k Evin did. But he you know, he wasn't
somebody who was a high level football player. He just
got into coaching, worked his absolute ass off in the

(27:03):
Big ten, which I find, you know, makes this hiring
given more interesting. Had experience, I think under Matt Campbell
was around rock Party and then went to went to UCF,
followed Josh Hipel to Tennessee, finally got his opportunity to
run a program at USF, and now he's the head
coach of the Auburn Tigers. George, did they get this

(27:25):
one right? Yes?

Speaker 1 (27:27):
Yes, I love this higher. I love Alex Golish because
he's a grinder, and he's and he's hungry, and he's
not gonna be like he's he's a like you know
how some some coaches are five star coaches where they're
like used to all the flashy toys and all of
that stuff. Do you see who his quarterback was at

(27:51):
at USF, he developed the kid that wasn't a great
pass or had just found a way to get him
to make plays to win. Like, he's just gonna find
a way to win. It's not always. It's not gonna
be pretty at first, and he's not gonna go after
the kids just because of their recruiting rankings. He's gonna
like he's got some Kurt Signetty in him in that,

(28:14):
in that it's about the production and the dog in
the fight. Obviously, talent matters, but he feels like he'll
find more dogs, yeah, and guys that can play early
that are under ranked, Like like there are three star
guys that are development people, right, and then there are

(28:36):
four star people that are that are under ranked even
in the four star ranks. And then of course it's Auburn.
He'll get an occasional five star and stuff like that,
but it's gonna be him finding that that three star,
four star guy that is completely under ranked, and and
he's like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, but you got all
the things that you need to play football. Though.

Speaker 2 (29:01):
Yeah, and Byron Brown was not his quarterback. I think
that's a really important thing to note, because he played
high school football out here by me in North Carolina.
He went to USF. They had a coaching change and
Alex Skulish came in, and he was like, best man wins, yep,
and that best man wins. That grinder mentality that he
kind of personifies is what some of these SEC teams

(29:24):
with pedigree are sorely lacking. And so I think he's
going to have an appreciation for people who work the
hardest and do the most because that's been who he is,
and I think that that's who Auburn should be. You
finish your season every year playing in the Iron Bowl.
There is no more there is no word more deserving

(29:48):
of the connotation of like forged in toughness than Iron
and that's really your goal is to get on Alabama's
level and to eventually surpass them and do it with consistency.
And so this could be a really good hire. I
also don't like you felt about the LSU hire. I
felt like John Sumrawl should have been their number one target,

(30:12):
But I feel that way about a lot of schools. Yes,
and so it's not a bad consolation prize, but I'm
with you. I think this is going to change things
for Auburn based on what they've been about in years past,
which one of them was about the power of a system,
one of them was about the power of kind of

(30:33):
personality and recruiting. And now we're on like the power
of hard work. Yeah, you know, and if that doesn't work,
we might have to move on to the power friendship.
We'll see next up on this list of college football
coaching hires, we actually have to get to the man
that we keep referring to. University of Florida hired John Sumral.

(30:54):
He was a head coach at Troy in Alabama. He's
a head coach at Tulane in Louisiana, and it's Florida
that grabs him. And the Florida fans just got done
with a coach that they pulled out of G five
from the state of Louisiana. Did Florida nail this higher

(31:14):
or should they be worried that it's going to be
more of the same.

Speaker 1 (31:18):
Oh my god, the idea that this dude is Billy
Napier is insanity to me. Billy Napier's biggest crime is
that Billy Napier was in the because anybody who talks
about Billy Napier talks about he's a good man, good human.
All of this stuff. Billy Napier's ego ruined his situation
at Florida. His ego did he refused to and from

(31:44):
people I've talked to inside the program at the this year,
he was so disengaged with the defense and the total
team in general. He was so focused on being the
offensive coordinator. And it's two separate jobs. Court to you
don't win championships with coordinators as head coach. It hasn't happened.

(32:08):
It's two separate. It is too much with the media obligations,
the all of this stuff. The opposite coordinator gotta be
game planning while you're glad handing the boosters. You don't
have time to it's you, you can't. You are doing
two things half assed. And I appreciate the dude, you

(32:29):
know what I mean like that that he's trying to
do a good job and go out his way. But
his way was the wrong way. And now he's the
James Madison head coach, or at least is expected to be.
I hope you figures out because he can probably do
it at the G five G six level, but he

(32:52):
needs to just be able to. He needs to like
that's where his growth point is. Let it, let it go.
I know that you were in OC and that's your bag.
You are a head coach. Now. If you can't handle
not doing it, then either stay in the G six
or be prepared to fail again.

Speaker 2 (33:16):
What do you think he's gonna be able to do differently.

Speaker 1 (33:21):
At James Madison?

Speaker 2 (33:24):
No? I mean, what do you think that John Sumra
is because because he's.

Speaker 1 (33:29):
Not trying to do he's not trying to do two jobs.
He's trying to be the head coach. Florida is a
tough place to win at despite having great fans, they
show up at the swamp everything. It's a it's a
it's a culture place, and John summerw I think he
will assimilate. I am. If I were rating like in

(33:56):
order of the coaches I feel least likely to get fired,
he would probably be number four on the list out
of the guys that were hired, behind James Franklin, Bob
Chesney and Alex Golish.

Speaker 2 (34:19):
Okay, I think he should have been the number one
target for three schools that didn't get him. You know,
this is a guy who grew up in Alabama, was
a head college football coach in Alabama, and Auburn had
a vacancy. This is somebody who played linebacker at Kentucky,

(34:39):
coached at Kentucky. Kentucky knew that they were going to
fire Stoops.

Speaker 1 (34:44):
See. I actually think Stein is the better coach option
for Kentucky because Will Steins is an offensive guy. He's
a Kentucky man like. So they want somebody I think
that is willing to stay there at least semi long term.

(35:06):
And I believe that Will Stein because his mother's there's
mother's a huge Kentucky fan and all of this stuff.
If he's able to resource and all of those things,
that he'll stay at Kentucky long term, which is what
I think that they were looking for, which is why
I think that that is the better situation. And Dan

(35:28):
Lanning is building a coaching tree. His first branch was
Kenny Dillingham, who's doing a great job at Arizona State.
The Arizona State job is kind of like the Kentucky job,
Like Kentucky wants to like they are a school who
is a basketball school, a blue blood everything. So their
fans know how to commit to something. And if you

(35:52):
can give them something to commit to in football and
they see progress not perfection, oh they'll get behind him
long term. I love that. Oh Oh, so I'll put
will Stein up there in front of John Somerral too,
but only John. Some are all because of location, where
Like I feel like that's more chewing him in at
Florida than if had he been at Auburn or LSU.

(36:18):
If you were at LSU, I would say I would
put him higher.

Speaker 2 (36:23):
And I think I think we agree. I think we're
coming around to the same place. I think John Sumral
was maybe the best candidate available, and I think he
took maybe one of the worst jobs for him. Yeah,
because I don't personally believe sustained success is possible at
Florida and I has anything to do with who you
are now. No, it has a lot to do with

(36:45):
Florida high school football. It has a lot to do
with having the other major, major, major ACC schools that
you have to deal with, who also have resources. And
then it has to do with being an enemy of
the entire SEC and they're all on your ass too,
So you have to worry about two different in state

(37:07):
foes from a different conference. You have to worry about
the culture of sort of like Florida high school football,
which is not that different than California, where you actually
have people more prepared for the nil era and for
the highest bitter era once they get to the college level.
How do you get kids to buy into the idea

(37:29):
of being a Florida man, and not just any school
in Florida, but this Florida. How do you keep people
locked in in Gainesville, which is just its incredible place
to be a late teenager, early twenties person. And how
do you deal with the fact that you're in a
resource cold war with every other school in the SEC.

(37:50):
So I thought, I think that John Sumrall's path the
success was easier at several other schools. However, that makes
him the anti Lank Kiffin because I think he took
on the whole artist the hardest path to sustain success.
I think you probably win a Natty there, but he
could also get fired the year after winning a Natty there. Yes,
that's why I bring that up. Next up, we have

(38:13):
one of the more interesting hires and I cannot wait
for your take on this. Should Pete Golding have gotten
the permanent stamp as old missus head coach.

Speaker 1 (38:25):
I'm good with that. I'm good with that because it's
the permanent head coach. But it's also very temporary, you
see what I'm saying, Like you have to reward people
who stayed, you know what I mean, Like people who
and give them an opportunity. Because there's been talking about

(38:45):
Pete Golding and potential head coaching searches and all of
that stuff. They like him, he's in the building. They
were going to keep the recruiting class together. They weren't
going to get kicked out of the college football playoff.
They got a shot. Like I think that this was
the right move. But I think Pete and everybody else understands,
this is my shot, like and and it's not the

(39:08):
same shot that Lane Kiffen has at LSU. It's not
the same shot that Alex Golish has it out at Auburn.
This is my shot, and I gotta figure it out.
So I love it. I love his opportunity because in
life sometimes people like you're you're a long shot, and

(39:33):
sometimes you get a chance when out of I mean
that that's how who Dabo Sweeney got the Clemson job.
Coach gets fired, he's the interim Oh great job. Oh
you're our head coach, short short at least, Oh damn,

(39:55):
you're winning, you're doing things.

Speaker 2 (39:56):
You're our guy.

Speaker 1 (39:58):
So that's the thing I love is sometimes in life
you get your shot. Look at brock Purty with the
forty nine ers, mister irrelevant injury injury shot. Oh damn,
Now you're our guy. I mean, I mean they want
to punt him out of the way for mac Jones now.
But but when you get your shot, you gotta shoot

(40:21):
it and you gotta make it. It's it's it's kind
of like those Pat McAfee kicks and you haven't and
you're not a kicker, but you get to kick for
a million dollars. That that's what Pete Golden is getting
right now. But he does have a soccer background, you

(40:41):
see what I'm saying, Like, he's not completely incompetent. He's
got a soccer background and not a like so he's
a football guy. Like he kicks balls, but he's not
a field goal kicker. So now he's got to show
that he can make a kick through the uprights.

Speaker 2 (41:00):
I think the one thing that's getting lost about Pete
Golding that no one is really talking about because he's
a footnote in the Lane Kiffen story is that this
man was running the defense at University of Texas, San
Antonio and made it a top ten defense and Lane
Kiffen or a Nick Saban. Nick Saban came calling yes

(41:22):
to a man who is running the defense at University
of Texas and he survived that ride. Ish out at
Alabama for five years, he outlasted Lane. He helped run
some of the best defenses in America for the hardest
man to work for in America. And then you saw

(41:44):
what he did with last year's Old Miss defense. A
big part of that was Walter Nolan. Can't you can't
get around the fact that Walter Nolan is by himself
for yeah, and Dominkan Sue level game changer, not as good,
but like has that level of impact. But this is
not going to be the hardest transition of Pete Golding's

(42:05):
coaching life. He was forged at Alabama. People always get
respect for being part of that Alabama coaching tree, and
I'm just curious as to why Pete Golding isn't getting
that same respect.

Speaker 1 (42:17):
Let's move to because he puts a pencil in his cap,
he doesn't look coachy enough.

Speaker 2 (42:24):
Hey, I actually support actually kind of support that as
somebody who rooted for HERB Edwards coach team, and he
had a golf pencil and he'd write something down every
time they threw an interception. What was he writing? Could
have been his dinner order. We don't know, but you
brought up Kentucky already. We'll finish with the last sec hire.
Are you worth? Number one? Are you worried at all

(42:46):
that this is going to affect Oregon? And number two?
You say that you think that this is the perfect
hire for Kentucky. What does perfect for Kentucky look like
down the road? What do you think he can bring
to the table for the University of Kentucky?

Speaker 1 (43:00):
He can do for Kentucky what Okay, I'll put it
this way. Will Stein can do for Kentucky what Lane
Kiffen did for Old Miss. He can make them highly
competitive and then get them to the College Football Playoff?
Are they going to be a team that's in the
College Football Playoff year in the out? Probably not, but

(43:22):
once out of every three years four years, yes, you
can go in and if he says their long term,
they might have a chance to win it at some
point point in time. And I like it. I like
he's been around a quality program. He's seen the physicality
that you need at practice. He's led high level offenses,

(43:46):
he's mentored quarterbacks like he's seen the leadership and development
that Dan Lanning has put in place, and now he
can take that with his own experiences from other places
and put that into his own system. I believe he's
a leader of men. This is a good opportunity.

Speaker 2 (44:05):
Now.

Speaker 1 (44:05):
On the organ side of it, Oregon will be just
fine because teams are going well. Not teams. The reason
why Oregon is gonna be just fine is because people
are going to be kicking down the door, kicking down
the door to go work there. You don't think anybody

(44:27):
that like that, that being a tash lupoise. Over at
Cal they're losing Will Steins, so they lose both defensive coordinators.
Do you know how many people are gonna be kicking
down their door to just be in line for Oregon's
next DC, even if they give it to one of
the guys on staff or OC one of the guys
on staff. You move into that spot. Now all of

(44:48):
a sudden, it's like, oh yeah, I got career trajectory
because Oregon is going to be good. It's an established brand.
People are watching, people are gonna notice if you do
a good job. Dan Lanny is trusted. I'm not worried
about Oregon at all. The thing that it could hurt
is some of their like guys either going to the
NFL or not going to the NFL out. But outside

(45:10):
of that, I'm confident because Dan is continuously hired good coaches.
So and I've actually had a couple of coaches text
me like, hey, yo, you text Tex text Dan. I'm interested.

Speaker 2 (45:25):
Nice I So, I just want to offer one thing
about Lexington, Kentucky. It's in the cradle of civilization for
football recruiting. Yeah, Like people don't realize, Like, even though
it says SEC Lexington is the northernmost part of the South.

(45:48):
You you're in the footprint of being able to get
people out of Tennessee, Nashville or Knoxville. You can grab
people out of Charlotte. You're not that far from Pittsburgh.
You're not that far from Cleveland or Columbus or Saint
Louis even or Chicago, like you can get, you can
get whoever, if if, if you do it the right way,

(46:14):
Kentucky could actually compete in football. Yep, let's see that
all the ACC has is right now. Even though I
thought there'd be like fifty million firings in the ACC
up to this point, but there's just the one and
they brought in James Franklin and JA. There's something happening

(46:38):
at Penn State and we'll get to that in a second.
But he was able to flip all those guys because
there's nobody to commit to on the other end, there's
not even position coaches or coordinators for these kids to
commit to. He has to be on the biggest power
trip ever, right It has to feel so good to

(46:58):
be James Franklin right now because these kids that are
committing are committing to him, yes to him, Like he
has to be on the absolute biggest power trip in
a good way right now. I would love to know
what it's like to be James Franklin.

Speaker 1 (47:15):
Hopefully he's taking it from a humbling perspective, because you
heard his thing where he's said, listen, I got people
to I called coaches and support staff and was like, yo,
I need you at my house tomorrow. I don't know
what role you're gonna play. I don't know how much
I can pay you, but I need you to come
with me. And he was like they all said yes,
So yes, that can go to your head. But if

(47:36):
you take it as like a humbling like like, yes,
I got these people to believe. Now I gotta go deliver.
And it was very easy to poach Penn State kids
when they don't have a coach like I don't. I
don't give it as much like cause they were like,
I either go play for the guy that I committed
to at Virginia Tech, or I don't know what the

(47:58):
hell is going on. Were my my kid, he'd be
at Virginia Tech. Because it because your coach is part
of your advocate. So when you don't recruit a kid,
and I've seen this with my own kid, no matter
how talented that you that that that you are, if
a coach didn't recruit you, sometimes he's not your advocate.

Speaker 2 (48:24):
I I guess what I want to say, though, is
because I because I want to believe that, yeah, he's
taking this as a challenge and he's going to operate
in humility, having known that he's been fired, because that
can humble a lot of people. But I look at
the quarterback that committed to Virginia Tech, and you and
I talked about this through text. There's a quarterback named
Troy Hunt who was committed to Penn State and decommitted, yeah,

(48:49):
obviously because of the firing. And then he tweeted out
that he, you know, was going to be making his
decision public college decision. And on the graphic was I
come to my commitment ceremony. I'm going to be choosing
between Penn State and Virginia Tech. And the conspiracy theorist

(49:10):
in me has to believe that that was a setup
that like we pulled the knife out, we put it
back in. We twist. We pulled the knife out, we
put it back in, we twist. Now watch the quarterback
that you were excited about having, you know, being committed
to you put your logo on the graphic when we
all know he's not coming. Yes, why didn't he just
announce Virginia Tech that that's not a kid's idea?

Speaker 1 (49:35):
Yes, And this is no different than the James Franklin
Crumble cookies thing where they got crumble cookies at their
National Signing Day because the head of Crumble Cookies is
the one who who made a lot of this happen.

Speaker 2 (49:49):
So it's I think it's a good hire. I think
it's a really good hire. I just wonder how how
long you can get bye on spite.

Speaker 1 (50:02):
Oh, you can get by for a very long time.
If you're a good football coach, you can get by
with with I mean Tom Tom Brady made a whole
career offspite. So if you are gonna, if you do it,
do it right and you do your job, yeah, it's good.

Speaker 2 (50:17):
Hey, some people hate for free yep, and they're the
Michael Jordan of hating and they don't get any credit.
So you know you can definitely, you can definitely go
a really, really long time. And that transitions us into
if you are the athletic director of Penn State right now,
assuming that you get to keep your job through the
end of the week, what do you do, George, Because

(50:39):
they got nobody.

Speaker 1 (50:39):
As Brown like you should have done weeks ago. Hire
Fran Brown. Now I do. So I've said that either
one of a couple of things is going on in
this situation. Either number one, Pat Craft is completely incompetent
in these be fired, which is I'm not sure if

(51:03):
that if that's the answer, but this is one of
the possibilities. You fired James frank like fifty four days
ago and you don't even have a head coach, Like
what were you doing? Okay, So if you were actually
doing a good job, now all of a sudden it
brings In the second question on The Ringer Podcast with

(51:23):
Bill Simmons, Todd mcshae said that he believed that Jimmy Well,
that he had heard that Jimmy Sexton was boxed. Whose
college football's most powerful agent controls probably like eighty ninety
percent of all the top coaches, that they were upset. Well,
that Jimmy Sexton was upset, not that James Franklin got fired,

(51:46):
but how he got fired, and now he's punishing Penn State,
leading them on to get other people new contracts, only
to be like nope, man got you, bit and and
and if you're packed and if this is true, right,

(52:10):
Penn State only has two options. They can either double
down and be like, f you, Jimmy Sexton, We're not
giving you all of this power. We're gonna do our
own things. Somebody will want to coach Pen Penn State.
But you've already lost a recruiting class, so because you
only signed two kids, So you've because yes, there are

(52:33):
some kids left, but they're they're not all gonna go
to your your your school because there's very few. I mean, like,
out of the top five hundred kids round, how many
of them are unsigned right right now? Thirty?

Speaker 2 (52:48):
Yeah, very few.

Speaker 1 (52:50):
So so you're you're and some of them are just
not signing for whatever reason, and they weren't even considering
Penn State and you're not gonna hire a big enough
name to get them to consider Penn State. So you've
basically lost an entire recruiting class. Then people are like, well, well,
the transfer a portal because you didn't get a recruiting

(53:12):
class and sentiment is down, you're gonna lose a bunch
of you're gonna lose more players to the portal than
you initially work. And then now you're gonna be fighting
for players in the portal, and now you're gonna have
to play an nil game that you don't want to do.
We've seen how that's worked out for Florida State trying
to just transfer a portal. Everybody in Dion over at Colorado.

(53:35):
It ain't working. I told you all this this was
not gonna work from the beginning. But they're, oh, it's
just a new way of college. Yeah, it's a new
way for a second, until everybody's like, oh, we need
high school players. Yeah, that's where we gotta start, so pen.
And then the third option for penn State is and
this would be the most diabolical option and would be

(53:57):
good for them if it works out that way, is
that they got them magic rabbit in the hat in
in in a coach, maybe Kaitlin de Boor who's coaching
on sat on Friday and Saturday. That's the only thing
that we got.

Speaker 2 (54:15):
I'm gonna give you three suggestions and you tell me
what the best one is. Okay. Number one, hire Superfly?
Do you do you know who that is? Fran Brown. No,
that's Terry Smith. That's the man who's already running the program.
That's the legend from he was a high school legend

(54:37):
in Monroeville, Pennsylvania, where my wife was born in there.

Speaker 1 (54:40):
So you would have fired James James Franklin and pay
a buyout to to to hire Terry Smith. This then
then you gotta fire Pat Craft.

Speaker 2 (54:50):
Still sure, but the optics the at this point, the
optics are as bad as they can be. Right, So
you and like I host a high school sports show
with somebody for the last thirteen years. They're a big
Penn State fan. And he said, like, if we're gonna
lose everything, we might as well keep the culture. And

(55:10):
that's his attitude, and there is a contingent of people
who believe that, like, hey, let's stop embarrassing ourselves publicly.
Let's double down on a man who's loved this university
his entire life and who has been here for the
for the last ten years and wants to be here. Yeah,
that's thing one, and I get the public reaction to it.
But if you're you gotta put yourself in the situation

(55:30):
of being a Penn State fan, right Thing number two.
Texas A and M showed you that you can kick
the man that was highly paid out of the driver's seat,
and you can go and get his defensive coordinator who
proved himself.

Speaker 1 (55:47):
Yeah, but he was somewhere else first. Oh many ds.

Speaker 2 (55:53):
That's what I'm saying. Follow the the blueprint to the
t Follow the blueprint that Texas A and M set
out to the t that was your defensive coordinator. You
had success with him. He is proving himself at Duke.
No matter what anybody says they're in. I'm gonna be
at the ACC title game on Saturday night. He's gonna
be one of the coaches on the sideline. Like it

(56:16):
doesn't matter what anybody says he is. He has having
more success at Duke than Mike Calco did. Yeah, as
far as appearing having he could win the conference and
so do what Texas A and M did and see
if you can get Texas A and M results. I
understand if that's not appealing because you know, Duke is
seven and five or whatever. I get that, But I

(56:38):
personally believe the man is brilliant.

Speaker 1 (56:42):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (56:42):
I think as a leader, I do, and I think
he could. He could be good for I appreciate. The
last thing is, wait, wait on what.

Speaker 1 (56:58):
You're gonna lose your roster. If you wait, you're gonna
lose your best players on your roster, and now you're
gonna be two three years back. If you wait too
much longer, you have to get an answer. You You you
have to hire somebody, even if it's Terry Smith. At
least you've got some stability in the building, and you'll

(57:19):
keep a little something and then if it don't work
out at the beginning, actually, if it don't work out
at the beginning the season, then you can just not
even fire to Terry Smith. Just be back dooring the
whole time. Just leave him as interim head coach something.

Speaker 2 (57:36):
What about Mike Tomlin. Noblutely you know that these are
the conversations that are happening behind closed doors at Penn State.

Speaker 1 (57:47):
They're like Brian Day, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (57:50):
They're they're desperate, they're throwing against right.

Speaker 1 (57:53):
Daple just got fired. He might be like, I'm gonna
wait to see what happens with the NFL. I might
take a coordinator spot. Penn State's a sinking ship right now,
I'm down a recruiting class. I'm set myself up to
get fired. This is not they do you. What Penn
State needs to do right now is essentially do what
they did with Josh Hipel at Tennessee and Kenny Dillingham

(58:18):
at Arizona State, which is hire somebody younger who is
an up and coming guy and give him time, like
tell him like we're not gonna fire you, like you
have time because we screwed this whole thing up. We're
gonna give you time to build.

Speaker 2 (58:36):
I'll do it, I tweeted, I'll do it for eighty
grand and premium parking for my twenty fifteen niece on quest.
All right, so that gets us into the That gets
us into the Big ten, which is, you know, George
Reister Country at this point.

Speaker 1 (58:56):
So he's at at this point like.

Speaker 2 (59:00):
Who knows, dude, who knows what it's all gonna look like?

Speaker 1 (59:04):
Are you that my loyalty is for sale?

Speaker 2 (59:10):
Well, I'm saying that team's conference placement is for sale.
So you're going to go. You're gonna go where your
team goes. And we had a team kind of go
to the bargain bin, a team with a lot of
resources go to the bargain bin. And I'm curious as
to what your thoughts are about it. Michigan State cuts

(59:30):
bait with Jonathan Smith and they go and get Pat
Fitzgerald has a long, long, long, long, long, long history
of making Northwestern competitive and nasty and physical. But they
weren't winning. You know, maybe maybe he could have in
the portal era, but we don't know because he got
let go. Now he gets to take over Michigan State.

(59:52):
And this is a program that's been rife with with
with scandal and has not had your footing in the
Portal era like a boring higher, but boring in the
Big ten. That's those are they go hand in hand.
So what do you think about this?

Speaker 1 (01:00:07):
I love Michigan State hiring Pat Fitzgerald. First of all,
Jonason Smith got a raw deal there. Boosters weren't behind
the Higher. They had scandals and stuff coming down that
he didn't know about. He was putting it in an
untenable situation. So that's that's the first thing. Johnson Smith

(01:00:29):
is still a really good head coach and I would
hire him elsewhere. First thing. Second thing is Pat Fitzgerald.
He's a leader of men. He was found like like
you know how some people claim innocent. He was claiming
he was found innocent despite the unlikelihood that he knew anything.
But he wasn't at least participating like they might have

(01:00:52):
kept it from him and you know, just been it
just could have been a thing. But Northwestern has acteddemic
limitations for who they can get and it's Northwestern. Michigan
State's a better program. They got better football players in
the state probably or at least comparable to in Indiana.

(01:01:12):
I'm sorry, but Illinois, and so I like his chances, Ralph,
I like his chances. Michigan State's an underdog right right now.
At least the boosters are behind him. He's gonna have
nil money. The academic restrictions are less at Michigan State,
like you can get different players, and not that it's

(01:01:34):
a bad academic university or anything like that like that,
it's just more it's a different situation. And this higher
reminds me of Jonathan Smith at Oregon State. The irony, right,
which is it's not gonna happen overnight, but two three
years from now, you're gonna be say, how the hell
did they beat Michigan, How the hell did they beat

(01:01:56):
Ohio State this year? What the hell? And then you're
gonna look up the next year they're gonna have ten wins.
You'd be like, what, yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:02:12):
So staying on the big ten in the school that
you know very very very well. When you've already mentioned
today we have a coach that has twenty three conference
losses total ever in sixteen years of being a head coach.
A man who coached Catholic League football to great success,

(01:02:32):
took over James Madison.

Speaker 1 (01:02:34):
Best hire of the cycle, buddy, ooh okay, So I
want to throw something out there.

Speaker 2 (01:02:41):
He has no affiliation with Los Angeles or Southern California whatsoever,
But neither does anybody else that lives out there for
being honest. So what do you.

Speaker 1 (01:02:56):
Bob Chesney at UCLA is the best hire of this cycle.
You mentioned all of these things. He's all the Catholic
League high school elon, do you know that sounds like that?
Sounds like Kurt Signetti. That sounds like a man who
can build something, a man who can build a culture,

(01:03:19):
a man who can identify talent, a man who is
not going to be swayed by recruiting rankings, a man
who is going to demand a standard, and he is
going to be fundamentally sound in winning football games. Now,
when you can win at different levels and adapt, it is,
it is, it shines through. I remember when you know,

(01:03:42):
I am a NFL college football guy and all this stuff,
But my last experience NFL I started coaching kids youth
flag football. It was like my first time learning football,
Like I knew football, but I had to relearn how
to adapt everything that I know to six year olds,
and then I had to learn how to do it

(01:04:03):
to eight year olds and then ten year olds and
then fourteen year olds and now at high school. So
it is two different things. Like it is a learning curve.
But if you commit to not just being stuck in
your old ways and say, oh, how can I take
this high level knowledge that I have up here and

(01:04:25):
make it fit into what's feasible here? Because the things
that you can do schematically in the NFL, because you
have so much time with these players and athletically, they
can do things different and they're more football savvy, how
can we put that into the high school ranks without
creating confusion? And the kids can play fast. And he

(01:04:49):
knows these things, and now he's gonna have to adapt
to how to do it at a Big ten school,
and he has enough juice to be able to to
recruit here in LA. He's gonna do a good job.
I love this Higher. I love this higher. Penn State
screwed up if they were able to get him. I

(01:05:10):
don't know. If he's a Jimmy Sexton guy, they might have.
He might have pumped faked them there and everything else.
But I do know that The other option for UCLA
was Ryan Silverfield and Sean Lewis out of San Diego State.

Speaker 2 (01:05:26):
Interesting, So what's the goal of kind of everybody at
this point? Everyone wants to go to the college football Yeah,
everyone wants to go to college football playoffs. That's the
that's the goal.

Speaker 1 (01:05:41):
Like that, UCLA, that can't be their goal right now.
Their goal has to be relevant recruiting and and juice
and like filling up the stadium. Relevance, recruiting and juice.
Those three things you gotta get fixed in me. Like
those are day one problems. As soon as you get
those problems fixed, now you can worry about the college
football playoffs.

Speaker 2 (01:06:03):
But what level of college football did not have a playoff?
It's just this one, Yes, that's it. Like the highest
level is the only level that didn't have a college
football playoff. I bring that up to tell you this.
George Bob Chesney has been to whatever his version of
the college football playoff was seven times. Seven He did

(01:06:27):
it I think four times at D two and three
times at FCS. He has taken his teams to their
version of the college football playoff seven times in sixteen years,
and he almost did it again. This year.

Speaker 1 (01:06:47):
Yes, and if I am UCLA, I am wrapping my
arms around this man and saying you are one of us.
Now we loved him. Come on do it yep. Oh
and on a side note.

Speaker 2 (01:07:04):
Whoa do what?

Speaker 1 (01:07:08):
I build this together?

Speaker 2 (01:07:10):
Okay?

Speaker 1 (01:07:11):
On a on a On a side note, Tim, Tim Skipper,
UCLA's interim head coach, is now the head coach at
cal Poly FCS school and the Big Sky love it.
I'm glad he got a shout out of this.

Speaker 2 (01:07:24):
I hate it. You know what I wanted for him.

Speaker 1 (01:07:28):
For him to get the UCLA job.

Speaker 2 (01:07:30):
No, I wanted him to be the new college football
version of the Expendables, Oh where he just interims all
over the places.

Speaker 1 (01:07:36):
Oh yeah yeah?

Speaker 2 (01:07:37):
Did you fire your coach midseason? Like I got a
crew ready, yeah, like like in the movie Armageddon, Like
we got to go find all the guys, get him
together for one last job. Yeah. Okay, So I mean Arkansas.
This is I've been waiting to get to this one
because Arkansas fans are pissed and I could not disagree more.

(01:08:02):
How do you feel about Arkansas hiring Ryan Silverfield?

Speaker 1 (01:08:06):
Arkansas got lucky that they got Ryan Silverfield. I know
they don't feel like that they got lucky. He beat
you this year. First of all, with Brendan Lewis at
his as his quarterback. He got Brendan Lewis to do
something that Brendan Lewis has never done. He had like
seventy transfers this year. And there's an interview with him
on the channel. So you guys make sure that you

(01:08:28):
guys go go check that out as well. He's a winner.
Now you're, oh, well, he hasn't won the American in
this this there's a different set of circumstances. He's putting
players in the NFL. They are competitive every single year.
He's getting recruits Memphis, like and Memphis was supposed to

(01:08:50):
be a Big twelve team. They should be into Big
twelve right now. And Arkansas, who's a grinder, he's motivated
and he's ready to go. He's going to win football
games there. It's not gonna turn into I think that

(01:09:10):
the upside for at will Stein at Kentucky's actually higher.
But he can go in and be highly competitive and
since but they wanted to win the press conference. They
wanted Alex Golis, they wanted somebody who was from there.
He just had to drive across the Memphis Bridge to

(01:09:31):
get there. He ain't far so I I hate the
reception that he's giving, which makes me want to root
for him just that much more.

Speaker 2 (01:09:43):
I love the reception that he's getting. I think it's
gonna set Arkansas up for a really cool story. I
love it. I love the doubt, and I think it's
gonna be I think it's gonna be fuel and I
think it's gonna cause that bond to be that much
stronger eventually when they do have success. I want to

(01:10:04):
address a couple of the really specific criticisms that have
been made of Ryan Silverfield. Number one is that Ryan
Silverfield didn't build anything, Okay, that he just coasted on
what Mike Norvel built. Memphis won nineteen games over the
two seasons before Mike Norvel got there. What are we

(01:10:28):
talking about what Mike Norvel built. This is a good
job with access to good players. Justin Fuente won nineteen
games over the course of his last two seasons. Mike
Norvel only surpassed that one time once, and that was

(01:10:51):
in twenty eighteen and twenty nineteen, when he combined for
an eight and six season and a twelve and two season,
which means he had twenty wins over the course of
two years, but he also had eight losses. Justin Fuente
over that nineteen wins fan had six. Okay, so let's say, okay, well,

(01:11:12):
Ryan Silverfield, he all he did was just manage what
Mike's Norvel built. Ryan Silverfield's first ten wins season. And
remember Mike Norvel took everyone with him to Florida State.
My favorite Ryan Silverfield fact, and we talked about it
on this show. If you look at the staff at
Memphis in twenty sixteen when Mike Norvel left Arizona State

(01:11:34):
and he took a bunch of staff with him, Ryan
Silverfield is the only surviving member of that staff.

Speaker 1 (01:11:41):
Yep.

Speaker 2 (01:11:42):
You can't be capitalizing on what somebody else built when
you're the only one left.

Speaker 1 (01:11:46):
Exactly. He won eight games that next year, then six, seven, ten, eleven,
so it wasn't an accident. And then this year eight
and four and we're gonna an eleven.

Speaker 2 (01:11:58):
Well, you just mentioned the ten and eve. Did Mike
Norvel ever win twenty one games over a two year
span at Memphis?

Speaker 1 (01:12:04):
No?

Speaker 2 (01:12:05):
Did Justin Fuente? No, Okay, Arkansas fans, My family comes.

Speaker 1 (01:12:12):
From Mike norvel lost one, two, three, four, five straight
ball games. You know who hasn't lost a ball game
and has been to a ball game one two, three
four and this will be the fifth out of his
six years. Ryan Silverfield.

Speaker 2 (01:12:31):
Yeah, that's interesting. And again, my people are from Arkansas,
so I'm not trying to offend anybody. Like my grandfather's
whole side of his family, they run deep Hamburg Scottie
Pippins neighbors. Right, you go back a little too far,
you might find us on the wrong side of Civil War.
But I think that it's important for Arkansas fans. I

(01:12:53):
know where you guys rank in Math was raised in Arizona.
We're not much better to know. Twenty one wins over
two seasons is more than twenty in it's more than nineteen.
He actually did more. He did more than Mike Norvelle.
And it's been years since Norvelle was there and there's
no surviving members of that coaching staff and there have

(01:13:14):
not been four years. This was a very good hire.
Memphis is not the North Dakota state of their conference.
They were not good before they got in this run
of the three coaches they had, and I know that's
your city, Georgia. I'm not trying to insult Memphis, but
Memphis was a joke before Justin Fuente got there.

Speaker 1 (01:13:36):
Yep.

Speaker 2 (01:13:37):
It should be commended if you can keep up a
standard that somebody else set. But he didn't just keep
it up. He exceeded it, and he beat your ass.
So I'm not asking you to love him. I'm asking
you to remember that you didn't when he proves you wrong.

Speaker 1 (01:13:56):
Yep, I love you. I love it.

Speaker 2 (01:13:59):
I don't know and finish with the most boring hire
of all time to beat a pritchet to Stanford.

Speaker 1 (01:14:05):
Honestly, I don't even have anything to say about it.
I don't even know what this means, to be honest
with you, Like, I hope it works out. Stanford's clearly improving.
I like Elijah Brown as their quarterback. He's doing a
good job. Now you know, Uh, Andrew Luck's learning on
the job, but he seems like he's figuring it out,

(01:14:27):
so we'll see. I think that this is probably a
quality higher because, like, because Andrew Luck doesn't do, you know,
irrational things, it doesn't feel feel like I feel like
this was carefully thought out man who wants to be
there for a while, hopefully it works out.

Speaker 2 (01:14:51):
He took one year to do the most obvious thing.

Speaker 1 (01:14:57):
Hey, well, he needed somebody to get in there in
an emergency, and then Andrew Luck got the head job.
He didn't know what he was doing, so he needed
an adult in the room. He needed somebody that he trusted.
His former head coach, Frank Wright, who knew he didn't
know college football as well because he had been in
the NFL for so long, and he was like, just

(01:15:17):
don't let the house burn down and let me figure
it out, which is exactly what smart people do. They're
not trying to hire somebody and spend all this money
and all this stuff because he didn't want to waste
resources while he's learning. I think that this is prudence
at its best, speaking of prudence.

Speaker 2 (01:15:37):
Percent chance that ten years from now, Tavita Pritchard is
the only one of these coaches that is still at
the destination where they got hired in twenty twenty five.

Speaker 1 (01:15:50):
That he's the only one in ten years.

Speaker 2 (01:15:52):
The only one in ten years. I think he's the
most likely because of the way Stanford does thing.

Speaker 1 (01:15:58):
Yeah, I'm gonna give it like a fifteen percent chance.

Speaker 2 (01:16:02):
Who if all like let's shorten it, because you know
a lot can happen in that amount of time. Seven
years from now. Give me a coach who is still
at the destination that they were hired at in twenty twenty.

Speaker 1 (01:16:13):
Five, Golish, James Franklin, will Stein.

Speaker 2 (01:16:30):
I vehemently disagree with two of those.

Speaker 1 (01:16:35):
Will Stein will be there if they win and get
to the college football playoff and all this stuff. He
won't leave Kentucky. I don't think. I think he's seen
from Dan Lanning. If you get everything you need, his
family's there and everything, stay stay.

Speaker 2 (01:16:48):
There, Okay. And when the San Francisco forty nine ers
hired Dan Lanning or something like that, and Oregon's first
call is to will Stein, I.

Speaker 1 (01:17:07):
Think Dan's kids will be out of high school in
seven years, So that's possible.

Speaker 2 (01:17:13):
Damn, that face was incredible. And the minute, the minute
that a premier job comes open, if Virginia Tech has
gotten to ten eleven wins, what do you think is
gonna happen?

Speaker 1 (01:17:28):
James Franklin is a loyalty guy. M If he's able
to win big there, well, it depends on the resources
and how big he's able to win. I think he
wants to stick at to Penn State like big time,
and he'll be as long as they resource him well
and he can recruit and all that stuff. I think

(01:17:48):
he'll stay. I want to not like any of these
dudes will move around bounce a round guy.

Speaker 2 (01:17:56):
Yeah, I want to believe that any of these dudes
will and I want to. I really want to believe
it for Eric Morris at Oklahoma State. But I don't know, Dude,
This too much happens. You go back five years and
some of these dudes were coaching in the Catholic League
or whatever Bob Chesney. So a lot can happen over
a short amount of time. So I do want to

(01:18:20):
get to something that got sort of under your skin
before we get the game previews and picks. Diego Pavia,
Diego Pavia, the bad boy of college football, reached out
to the forty seventh slash forty fifth President of the
United States to ask him to sign an executive order

(01:18:43):
for a sixteen team playoff. I think it's hilarious that
it's just funny to me, I don't, but you didn't
like it, and I want to give you this floor to.

Speaker 1 (01:18:56):
I hated it until I found out that they tried
to get a game with Texas, they tried to get
a game with Utah, they tried to get a game
with like three other teams, and they wouldn't play them
because they're just like, we want in, we want to
prove our worth. Like that is the that comes from
Clark Lee and Diego Pavia will play you in the

(01:19:18):
parking lot, fam And I love it. I love that
so so how much I was out on the begging
for President Trump to get involved, and it probably had
more to do with Texas and Stark doing on this
incessant whining and begging that then Papa doing it felt
like maybe want to pun him to the sun. But

(01:19:39):
then I found out, Oh they want Oh they're really
with that anytime any place smoking. Everybody else wasn't. So
now I'm like, oh, okay, I'm back in on you
as the most obnoxious player in college football. However, you
back it up. And I love people who are a

(01:20:00):
facious and have audacity. The things he said in the preseason,
he backed up they're ten and two that Vanderbilt would
never be this without his level of irrational belief, and
I love it. They would have never gotten Jared Curtis
to flip without his irrational belief and I love it

(01:20:22):
and I'm thankful for it. And that's why he's got
to be part of this Heisman conversation. He just has to.

Speaker 2 (01:20:32):
Okay, So I asked you about that to spring a
trap on you, George. We've been knowing each other for
six or seven years, and one of our oldest arguments
has to do with one man who was like, I'll
fight you anywhere, anytime, and another man who's like, you

(01:20:53):
need to meet all my conditions. And to me, Steve Sarkisian,
is you need to meet all my conditions? Guy? And
Clark Lee and Vanderbilt Diego Pavia are like, I'll fight
you anywhere, anytime.

Speaker 1 (01:21:06):
Yes.

Speaker 2 (01:21:06):
And so I just want to know if your mind
has changed about Floyd Mayweather and Manipacia.

Speaker 1 (01:21:16):
No, because he was potentially cheating. So no, no, alrighty.
Then now we got to get to the games this weekend, Ralph.
We did not get the chaos that I expected last
week in the college football games, so let's try again,

(01:21:39):
because the committee has already set itself up in case
there is chaos because now they have insulated Alabama from
any loss to in case BYU beats Texas Tech. So
now BHYU is I'm sorry Alabama's insulated because Notre Dames

(01:22:05):
on the ass end. So now imagine this. They want,
I believe Ralph, the committee wants to be WHYU to win?
Do you know why?

Speaker 2 (01:22:15):
Please? Please please educate me?

Speaker 1 (01:22:20):
What has been their biggest problem this whole like the
thing that people have banged on them for this whole time.
Who should be.

Speaker 2 (01:22:29):
Miami Notre Dame? Miami had to head not reflecting how
they sort the playoff?

Speaker 1 (01:22:34):
If BYU gets in, who does that push out both
Notre Dame? So now if Notre Dame's not in the playoffs,
who cares about the Notre Dame UH ranking?

Speaker 2 (01:22:55):
It is that nefarious because I think that's what I
would have done too.

Speaker 1 (01:23:01):
There was no to switch him. Another one that you
saw last week that that would make you switch those
two teams.

Speaker 2 (01:23:08):
Nothing.

Speaker 1 (01:23:12):
Alabama beat a bad football team. Notre Dame beat a
bad football team. Worse, it'd be different if not if
Alabama had played a ranked football team, then yeah, they
played Auburn. They've got like fummy WINZ four right now? Five?

Speaker 2 (01:23:30):
Yeah? I So I went to acc media kickoff. I'll
be at the a SEC Championship game this weekend too.
Jim Phillips, the commissioner, when asked about whether or not
the ACC is getting its due respect, said, we went
two and nine in bowls last year. If we want respect,

(01:23:50):
we're gonna have to go out and earn it. They didn't.
They didn't, so they can go, and as far as
I'm concerned, like Notre Dame can go too, because they
lost to a Miami team that isn't national championship ready. Okay,

(01:24:10):
so I don't have an issue with getting both of
those teams up out of there. The argument then becomes,
I guess it's byu CENTERED.

Speaker 1 (01:24:21):
Okay, so let's get deeper into it. But let's pick
this game first. Okay, sure, Duke Virginia. This feels like
in I mean, Duke has lost to Illinois, Tulane, Georgia, Tech, Yukon,
and UVA. Now mind you, Yeah, so that's who they've

(01:24:47):
lost to. One of these games didn't count as an
ACC game for some inexplicable reason, but because of previous
scheduling and stuff like that. So yeah, oh here we go, Ralph,
So who are you taking in this game? This would
be a obviously at an upset that would potentially discart

(01:25:12):
the apple cart or whatever. But you got NC State.
Oh was sorry. Virginia lost the NC State and Wake.
So this is possible that Duke can win this football game,
despite that they beat Duke the last time thirty four
to seventeen.

Speaker 2 (01:25:33):
Well it was thirty one to three in the fourth quarter. Yeah,
so it's hard for me to knowing that Duke has
no pass defense UVA Chandler Morris is a dog and
they had five hunt they doubled them, more than double
them in total offense, and Duke won the turnover battle.

(01:25:57):
This was an ass beating. I liked it. I like
Manny Diaz. The NIL spind for Virginia was, if you
have any arguments over what NIL can do for you,
look at Virginia, like they invested and won them in
an ACC championship. If they beat Duke, I don't. I

(01:26:18):
don't think Duke kangs. And that was the one game
this year where Duke didn't belong on the field. In
every other game they they actually played tough, and I
think some of their G five stuff was on the road.
I think Duke had a really, really good year that
they could be proud of. I think this is the
one team that is the antidote for anything positive Duke
is doing. And I'm I mean, I don't think this

(01:26:40):
game will be close.

Speaker 1 (01:26:46):
So I agree with you, Ralph, with everything. Nothing that
we have seen lead to us to believe that Duke
will win this football game. However, though, how because this
was two games ago. That was three weeks ago, okay,
because Virginia had a game in between. But they did

(01:27:10):
beat North Carolina thirty two to twenty five. Do you
know what the alarming part about Duke beating North Carolina
thirty two to twenty five is.

Speaker 2 (01:27:21):
What that North Carolinas gig is good on defense?

Speaker 1 (01:27:26):
Well, that and the fact that North Carolina scored twenty
five points. That's problematic.

Speaker 2 (01:27:33):
That's a great point.

Speaker 1 (01:27:36):
That is actually problematic because North Carolina has only scored
over twenty five points against Richmond Syracuse, where they scored
twenty seven. Is Syracuse has maybe the worst defense in
college football, and Duke, that's it. That is it, Ralph.

(01:28:00):
They've only scored over twenty They've only scored twenty or
more points against Charlotte, which they scored twenty. Charlotte is
one I think they finished what one and eleven Richmond
no talent competition there. They scored twenty against Stanford, who
has one of the worst defenses in the country too.

(01:28:23):
Oh wait, no, no, no, excuse me, excuse excuse Stanford has
one of the worst offenses. Their their defense is actually
pretty good comparatively. They scored twenty seven against Syracuse. This
ain't good, Ralph. That ain't good that you gave up
twenty five to that team. It's not.

Speaker 2 (01:28:44):
So And I think the biggest issue is how does
if Duke gets down, how did they make up for
the fact that the big part of Virginia's nil spind
was on this defensive line. Fisher Kmack out of UNLV
and Mitchell Melton, who won a national championship with Ohio

(01:29:04):
State last year as a contributor. Those guys combined for
four sacks, five TFLs, and to force fumble and fumble
recovery last time. They're still on the field. It's just
not I just don't. I don't see Duke having an opportunity.
And these conversations are fun, and the what ifs are fun,
and chaos is fun, but it really isn't. Chaos makes

(01:29:28):
chaos leaves room for really bad opinions, and yes, like
I like chaos, but I don't like the aftermath of it.
If that makes sense, Yes, because the games don't get
played the next day, we get a week of having
to listen to people try to make sense of a
thing that doesn't make sense. If the games were played
the next day, like baseball, if we had no breathing room,

(01:29:50):
then yeah, as much chaos as possible. That's hilarious. But
like we're gonna listen to people be like college football
is broken for a whole week, eccus.

Speaker 1 (01:30:03):
So here's the thing that we have to talk talk
about just in case Duke loses. I'm sorry if Duke
wins North Texas and Tulane. So if Tulane wins, there's
a zero percent chance they're going to put Tulane in
front of Duke. I mean even though that Tulane does
have a I mean Tulane does have a head to
head win over Duke, so who knows. So, but they're

(01:30:27):
unranked and have five losses, so I highly doubt, and
Tulane is number twenty, so it feels like they're too
far in. So that would mean that if that if
Duke wins and TWU Lane wins, that you're gonna have
Tulane playing the being the eleven seed and then playing

(01:30:49):
against the sixth seed. And then the question is if
James Madison beats Troy, which they should, and Duke wins,
James Madison is ranked number twenty five right now, So
with the committee, because Duke would have seven Power four
wins and the ACC champion, then jump James Madison and

(01:31:13):
put him and leave James Madison at twenty five and
put Duke at like twenty four just to make sure
that Duke gets into the CFP. Do you believe that
that's what would happen or do you think they would
just be like, sorry, dude, you got five losses, miss us.

Speaker 2 (01:31:31):
Yeah. Is it a hard and fast, set in stone
rule that a conference champion gets in? Yes, yes, Power
four conference champion gets in.

Speaker 1 (01:31:41):
No no, no, no, no no no. It is the it
is the five highest ranked conference champions.

Speaker 2 (01:31:50):
Then the two lane you if two Lane wins, then
you have to you gotta say like a congrats on
a good seat, Duke, enjoy the Sun Bowl.

Speaker 1 (01:32:02):
No no, no, no, no no no. Two Lane or
North Texas winning doesn't matter, Okay, Okay, it's what happens
if James Madison wins and Duke wins. Okay, because the
the the champion out of North Texas and two lane

(01:32:23):
is for sure going like you can just okay because
they're both ranked in front of James Madison and they
the winner would have a ranked win. So there's no
way to is.

Speaker 2 (01:32:35):
You couldn't justify taking Miami over Duke if wins. Is
that what you're trying to say.

Speaker 1 (01:32:41):
You can't. It's not even possible, Like there is no
possible there no, there is no possible way by the
College Football Playoff rules that Miami can get in. There's
no possible way outside of Miami jumping.

Speaker 2 (01:33:00):
How could Duke jump them?

Speaker 1 (01:33:03):
Because if they beat Virginia, they are I'm glad you're
asking these questions because they are then the ACC champion. Okay,
So right now, SEC, you got Big ten, SEC, Big twelve.
Their champions are already going to be inside of the

(01:33:24):
top twelve. Like you don't have to worry about it, Okay.
The next conference champion, the fourth one right now is
who's possible to be a conference champion is number seventeen.
Virginia Okay. Yes, if Virginia loses, that means Duke is
the ACC champion. Okay, but the American champion Tulane or

(01:33:53):
North Texas is for sure going to be ranked in
front of Duke. Okay, Yeah, that's four. James Madison is
in the Sun Belt, so they could be your fifth.
So so Duke would have to be in front of
James Madison to get into the college football playoffs.

Speaker 2 (01:34:12):
Okay, and that is a human element decision. Yes, And
we can't just give the number five ranked team a
bye no for fun fuzzies. Well, I mean, I guess
take I guess take Duke. If Tulane's already going, so.

Speaker 1 (01:34:42):
You're gonna put them, so you're gonna rank them in
front of James Madison. You had them in front of
James Madison last week. Is a five lost team getting
a ranked win over the seventeen team justification to do that?

Speaker 2 (01:34:58):
Yeah? But do I think that they're justifications for anything
have made any sense? No. The thing that I would
love to change about the first of all, you know,
I would like to do away with the week to
week talking about it anyway. But Hunter Yrcheck should not
ever have a microphone, even even if he's just sharing

(01:35:19):
what other people are saying in that room. Yeah, we
should make we should make this like the papal conclave
or whatever. We don't get to know, we just get
to know that they made a decision.

Speaker 1 (01:35:30):
No, no, no, I think we need to do it like
the like the acc Review Center.

Speaker 2 (01:35:37):
Well then get then, Yeah, but I'm for that. If
we're going to be at least put let us watch.
Let us watch the whole thing so we actually know
who to be mad at. And let also the public
be able to vote on who's in the committee. And

(01:36:00):
people run for it like in a democracy, like congressional representatives.
So you have to win a seat. Yeah, because I
think you have the platform, and I think you have
the easily articulatable ideas, and I do I do think
that people should have to run for a seat on

(01:36:21):
the CFP. Oh, I think you should have to run
for a seat on the CFP and then you and
then it should be broadcast like c SPAN broadcast these
boring ass congressional hearings. You should get a camera in
the room and the people that ran for it. If
you want to run for re election, it's going to
be based on whether or not you were you know,

(01:36:44):
and and it's who votes. Who votes then becomes the conundrum.
And I think that it should be the I think
it should be the media and possibly former players. I don't.
I think we should get the representatives of the school
up out of here, yes, because they have other stuff
they should be doing. There's a lot of focus on
football when you got the volleyball happening at the exact

(01:37:06):
same time. The ads are all there. We've had multiple
people have to drop out, and so get people who
actually talk about this stuff, debate this stuff, people in
the media, have them run for it, have the AD's
vote on the people who are going to be in place,
and yes, and have the AD's vote on yes.

Speaker 1 (01:37:21):
That is a great idea. I like that. I'm building
that platform. That's a good idea. All right, let's go
to the neckar welcome.

Speaker 2 (01:37:30):
You can take credit for it too, because if it's bad,
I'm not gonna want to the criticism.

Speaker 1 (01:37:37):
All right, the next game up is now, this is interesting.
We spent that much time on the ACC game, but
so we'll we'll go quicker on these. We got the
SEC championship, Ralph, we got the Judge of Bulldogs playing
the number two seed playing against the number one seed,
the nine ranked team Alabama Crimson tie. Alabama beat them

(01:38:00):
last time in Athens. This is in the Mercedes Ben's Dome.
Who wins?

Speaker 2 (01:38:12):
I am having a hard time getting twenty twenty three
PAC twelve Championship out of my head.

Speaker 3 (01:38:20):
Oh my god, Oregon Washington, where we had a team
that couldn't really run the ball that well and it
didn't matter because it was prepping for one game and
Kaylin de Bor can do a pretty damn good job
of all right, all our resources are dedicated into this

(01:38:41):
one thing, and we're punching up, and you know, both
of these are flawed teams.

Speaker 2 (01:38:49):
It gives me pause because I Georgia is not the
Georgia that won two national championships. They're still very, very
very good. But I can't get that out of my head.
And I know that that's not sound analysis. But the
twenty twenty three PAC twelve Championship in the Mercedes Benzzome

(01:39:12):
reminds me of University of Washington in Allegiance Stadium in
Las Vegas going and doing something that they already did
once against a team that's probably favored above them. With
a very flawed offense but a very good quarterback. So
I got a rock with Alabama on this one, and
I'm hoping it also provides a Ryan Williams kind of

(01:39:32):
redemption story because he's in the doghouse, I guess so
feels like it, doesn't it.

Speaker 1 (01:39:39):
Yeah, he's not on the injury report. So I'm going
to triple down on the decision that I made at
the beginning of the year that Alabama was going to
miss the college football playoff. They're gonna lose this game
by three scores, seventeen points. This is going to be
a boat race. The only way they get out, the

(01:40:03):
only way they get out they can't run the football.
Jam Miller's out. Heill is their guy. I think Georgia
Kirby Smart is too good. He knows what they did
wrong last time. Georgia's running the ball significantly better than
they were at that point in time in the season.

(01:40:25):
Ty Ty Simpson has not been great versus good defenses
Key Auburn, and Auburn was terrible against the past all season.
And remember I said they're gonna be able to stop
the run with a light box, and then they're gonna
be able to stop Alabama, and that's exactly what they did.
Healing threw for like one hundred and twenty two yards
or something. If he does that against Georgia, it is

(01:40:47):
gonna be a boat race. So Georgia by seventeen.

Speaker 2 (01:40:53):
Yeah, I just Gunner stocked. And I don't know who
he is at this point in the season. What he
did to Texas is not something that I expected. What
he did against Georgia Tech made no sense. And what
I'm saying he went twenty four to twenty nine against
Texas four touchdowns and against Georgia Tech he went eleven
of twenty one for seventy yards at a pick. Yeah,

(01:41:17):
who is he?

Speaker 1 (01:41:19):
And so I know you're right, You're right.

Speaker 2 (01:41:23):
I don't know what we either one of us could
be well, I guess we could both be wrong. Georgia
could eke it out.

Speaker 1 (01:41:29):
But let's see all right, BYU Texas Tech. Texas Tech
won this game last time twenty nine to seven, and
it felt like it was fifty to three. Literally, I
mean it felt like they won by a million. So
I don't see how this is different. But BYU getting Kalanie,

(01:41:54):
so TAKEI back. Bear Bachmeier is older like he's no
longer young freshman. He is old freshman. Now, he's seen more,
he's seen twelve games of work. I think this game
is closer, but Texas Tech's defense is just too tough. Unfortunately, BYU,

(01:42:14):
you came a long way. Bad news is you got
in front of Texas Tech.

Speaker 2 (01:42:23):
Hmm. I want to give credit to BYU, their coaching staff,
their entire team. Yeah, I think they maximized. They did
better than I thought that they would do, and I
thought that they should not start eight to zer end
up nine to three. They're eleven and one. The one
loss was the Texas Tech and as you said, it

(01:42:45):
didn't feel or look close at all. And there's not
really a history of BYU getting a second shot at anybody,
and so to know how they adjust is hard. It's
hard to tell. You know, last year they went to
a slump where they lost to Kansas and Arizona State

(01:43:06):
back to back, and then they were able to turn
around beat Houston and Colorado, but that you know, those
were not necessarily great teams. They did thump Colorado, but
it was a very flawed, one dimensional roster. And so
I closer. I'll just say that, I'll say I'll say

(01:43:27):
maybe a fourteen eleven to fourteen point Texas Tech win.
I think it'll be closer. I will give BYU credit
for the staff that they have. I believe is gonna
be able to adjust. I think the environment's going to
be super electric. There will be a lot of blue there.
Don't let anybody tell you otherwise. I know it's sold

(01:43:48):
out because it's in Texas, and that's where Texas Tech is.
Texas Tech about as close to where they're playing as
BYU is. So there's gonna be a lot of blue
in that stadium. It's gonna be a good time. I
think they hang tight, but not not a win.

Speaker 1 (01:44:08):
Wait you think was gonna win?

Speaker 2 (01:44:11):
No, No, I think they'll hang tough. Oh, eleven to fourteen.
But that's good, right, Like that's good for at least
for the committee. Maybe not for you. I think you're ambibling.
You don't care, but no, it is. It is good
for the committee. If by You lose, it is correct? Yes, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:44:30):
If they could Buffalo wild Wings this this game, they
absolutely would, all right, so oh yeah, so and the
American end the sum Belt games are on Friday. The
rest of them are on Saturday. So the last game
that we got to talk about Ralph.

Speaker 2 (01:44:48):
And this is a.

Speaker 1 (01:44:50):
Thing I put it last because I don't know who
to pick. In this game. We got Indiana Ohio State.
Oregon lost to Indiana. Ohio State hasn't played against any
resistance at all. Michigan's offense is insufferably bad. Again, It's

(01:45:13):
like watching North Carolina but with better athletes. So I
don't even know what to make of it. This is
I think we're gonna learn a lot about Indiana and
we're gonna learn a lot about Ohio State in this game.
I feel like I gotta pick. I think I think

(01:45:34):
it's an Ohio State's a five and a half point
favorite in this game. I think this is a close game.
People are not used to believing in Indiana yet I
think this is the game that they finally make people
believe believe. So I'm gonna take Indiana.

Speaker 2 (01:45:59):
Damn.

Speaker 1 (01:46:00):
Ohio State's defense is so good, But I believe that
Julian Saying is gonna get his first trouble in this game.
He's gonna find trouble for the first time in this game,
and Indiana wins by a field goal.

Speaker 2 (01:46:13):
I one question for you that I'll give you my pick.
I'll make it really really brief. Does this game this
game doesn't matter, right, No, they're both getting to buy.

Speaker 1 (01:46:19):
Yeah, you can't. Well, well, assuming that it's close, assuming
that it's close, like if if well, if Ohio State wins,
but like, like, I don't think that there's a world
where Ohio State can fall below Oregon, who's at five
right now? You see what I'm saying. Yeah, so yeah,
so it's pretty safe to say that, no matter what happens,

(01:46:39):
that they're gonna get a buy.

Speaker 2 (01:46:41):
Okay, give me Indiana. I don't. I think that we
watched what Ohio State did last year, and I think
that they're I think this game matters to Indiana a
little more than it matters to Ohio State.

Speaker 1 (01:46:57):
Yeah, but if if Ohio State wins this game and
they're not really contested, they might be an all time
great team. But that's saying something.

Speaker 2 (01:47:11):
But I love that you said team too, because it's
not it's not like they have they have electric individual
performers who are going to be high level first round
draft picks, but the way they play together is it's
true they will have held everybody kind of at arm's length.
All season long. And that's something that really only a

(01:47:32):
couple of Alabama teams have ever done in my lifetime.

Speaker 1 (01:47:36):
Yeah, you're very right, But you guys, though, that is
the Pac twelfth. Yes, damn.

Speaker 2 (01:47:45):
Yes, you had gone the full year. You had gone
the full college football year of not calling this pack
glob apostles. You made it to the highest heights you
could bost make it before you slipped and fell.

Speaker 1 (01:48:04):
Oh my god, like being Sisipus, I pushed the rock
all the way up the hill, and then.

Speaker 2 (01:48:12):
You did what Oregon did last year.

Speaker 1 (01:48:16):
Goodbye, Goodbye for the second week in a row. Goodbye,

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