August 13, 2024 • 50 mins
Colin Cowherd is joined by 'Always College Football' host Greg McElroy to share their thoughts on the upcoming college football season. Colin & Greg start off with USC and expectations for Lincoln Riley without Caleb Williams. How will USC fare in the new Big Ten and which is the better conference: Big Ten or SEC? How will Ohio State, Texas and Michigan do this season? Who's making the College Football Playoff?
TIMELINE:
2:15 - INTRO
5:00 - USC & Lincoln Riley
17:00 - Big Ten vs. SEC
27:00 - Ohio State
31:30 - Texas & Steve Sarkisian
37:00 - Big Ten
46:00 - Michigan without Jim Harbaugh
54:00 - Most Overrated/Underrated
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
The volume. So I was looking today at a story
on the internet that ticket sales stub hubs college football
ticket sales are up forty two percent year to year.
(00:23):
So one of the things I bang on, and I'm
going to bring in my guest, Greg McElroy, the host
of Always College Football, former BAMA quarterback twenty ten national champ.
One of the things I bang on consistently in my
audience is the sky has falling. I see it in politics.
You know, if you if you elect Kamala Harris, we'll
(00:45):
go into anarchy, will be venezuela. It's like it's conspiracy theories.
The world's ending. And I kept saying on the twelve
team playoff and the NI on the transfer portal, college
football will be different. It'll be magnificent. It'll still be lobsided,
the big You'll still have the best rosters, but it'll
look a little different. It'll end differently. It's going to
(01:05):
be fine. So the audience, the consumer is telling you, Greg,
we're more excited for college football than ever. In the South,
where you have your footprint, there was a lot of
consternation about change because the SEC was king and you
worry about the Texas money in the Michigan, Ohio State
Notre Dame money. What is the sense about nil transfer
(01:26):
portal twelve team playoff as of today in the South?
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Well, it's still, actually, Willie wrote, really well received, Colin.
I mean, the thing about the SEC is they still
are going to have more access to talent just because
of just your proximity. And while I've used this analogy
a couple of times, the alumni network is not nearly
as big as that of an Ohio State, where they
have a million living alumni sixty thousand undergrad for the
(01:51):
last hundred years. However, many years it's been the level
of intensity and passion that we have in the southeastern
part of the United States for the sport and for
the teams is unrivaled. So while you make a hundred,
I make a hundred. You live in Los Angeles. I
live in Birmingham, Alabama. I'm going to give twenty two
(02:12):
dollars out of the one hundred to Alabama because that's
the team I support, whereas you might give eleven. It's
just kind of the way things have worked. But for
all intentsive purposes, it's kind of been viewed as a
personal challenge to the teams in the Southeast to step
up from an nile standpoint, compete with the big dogs,
and even if they don't have the deepest pockets, they
(02:33):
have access to the most players. And then the portal.
When guys might leave for the big payday as a freshman,
when they go in the portal after year one, they
might be more likely to come back home at their
second stop. So a lot of programs have taken that
route as well.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
Yeah, so there's a lot of different things to talk about.
I've said that we need to temper not only expectations
but criticism of coaches when they go to schools. Look
how long it took Dabo Sweeney or Jim Harbaugh. So
when Harbaugh and Lincoln Riley are interesting comps, so we
know they're both good coaches, nobody disputes that Jim had
(03:10):
a longer resume. And obviously the transfer portal is a
more vigorous. I mean, there were people transferring ten years ago,
but not to the level now. The machine it is right,
And I said, but if you really look at Brian
Kelly and Harbaugh, you know they doubled the wins very quickly,
but it was sort of pseudo not can't compete with
(03:30):
Alabama Georgia, but they won the games they should have won.
And Brian Kelly gets to Annatty and gets blown out
and Michigan, you know, would face Ohio State.
Speaker 3 (03:40):
And it was fools gold.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
It took both about seven years, eight years to stockpile
talent where they could play at Georgia Bama and the
games are good and you could on television You're like, oh,
there's pros on both sides. You know, the Mantai Teo
Notre Dame team in the National Championship, you know, it
felt like it would have finished third in the PAC twelve.
Speaker 3 (03:59):
But a lot of it's scheduling.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
So I say, with Lincoln Riley, as bad as Notre
Dame was in Michigan was, I don't think they were
as bad as USC under Clay Hilton. Not only were
they four and eight, but people inside the program believed
they only had like twelve NFL maybe late round players.
(04:21):
That it was Lincoln Riley identified after two practices, there's
maybe thirty guys we can keep, and so by being
a play away from twelve wins in his first season
was fairly remarkable through those of us closer to the program,
and then the second year they had injuries, Jordan Addison
(04:42):
was gone and frankly, they just know NFL players. It
was Caleb and they kind of shut him down once
they lost a couple of games. They had a defensive
coordinator completely over Ski. So my takeaway is this idea
that USC was going to buy for national championships. They
were way better year one than expectations. That's not really
(05:02):
who they were. They were an early Notre Dameer Harbaugh team.
You know, Harbaugh got from five to ten wins year
one and won the national championship. Team USC couldn't beat
any good teams. They were just beating the crappy teams
on their schedule because of the wizardry of Caleb and
the coaching of Lincoln. So my take is, I think
we're being too unrealistic, even with a transfer portal to
(05:23):
Brian Kelly right now in Lincoln, in that it's still
the sport still comes down to high school recruiting in
chemistry and culture, and you can't do it in two years.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
Your thoughts, the problem is you've had guys that have
ruined it for everybody, the Josh Heipels of the world
that in year one progress, year two, game changer. Right.
We've seen it with urban Meyer his second year at Florida.
I believe they won the national championship, and we've seen
it a handful of other times. Nick Saban at Alabama
(05:55):
two thousand and seven, six and six, six, seven and six,
twenty eight twelve know with the chance and the lead
in the fourth quarter to go to the national title.
So yeah, you're right. In normal circumstances, I think it
takes four years to get a real evaluation on the
trajectory of your team. That's my personal opinion. I understand
that big dollars are in play here, and also along
(06:17):
with I think Temper's player and egos are involved, and
the collective doesn't feel like they're getting what they have
paid for, they're going to be quicker to pull the trigger.
But at the same time, I completely agree with you
and those that have said that Lincoln Riley is he's
not he doesn't know what he's doing. He doesn't he's
he's way out of his so far. I saw an
(06:39):
analyst and national analysts call on the other day say, oh,
his his tenure at SC has been a quote disaster.
Well to be a win away from the college football
playoff in year one with the Heisman Trophy winner. Sign
me up for that disaster most of the week. Most
of the NFL.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
Two NFL players, one of them, Caleb is a sophomore
team had no talent.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
And he did a great job with him. The one
thing that does concern me and I've known Lincoln when
I was a commit to Texas Tech. Lincoln picked me
up at the airport. I've known him for twenty years,
so it's a little bit close to home with me,
and followed him to his years at East Carolina, followed
him in his time at obviously Oklahoma. So I'm wanting
what's best for him as a fan of his, and
(07:23):
it's a fan of the sport. I think it's great
when s he's relevant, So I acknowledge all that he's
done offensively, But I don't know. This is my observation
from a distance. I don't know if they practice the
way they need to practice to be as good along
both lines of scrimmage to compete for championships. And that's
(07:44):
the only question I have. And will he be too
proud to adjust maybe the amount of full contact periods
that they have, will they maybe do some things offensively
in a drill setting that might give the defense a
slight advantage. Will they do things like that to help
a track more defensive personnel and to create a tougher,
more physical mindset, because I saw last year they were
(08:06):
a little banged up in spring. This was spring of
twenty three. They said, after like nine practices, Yeah, we're good.
We're just gonna do, you know, walkthroughs or whatever. At
Georgia They're like, I don't care if we have managers
putting helmets on. We're practicing. So I think that's the
mindset that I'm just a little concerned about. But I
think the I think the hey, the jury's out right now,
(08:26):
and i'd be I'm actually really optimistic about SC this
year more than most calling to be completely honest.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
They get a schedule break no Oregon in Ohio State
Michigan in a total rebuild. Same with Washington and LSU
lost Jayden Daniels. That's the loss on their schedule. Everything
else is winnable. Their only cold weather game is first
week in November and Seattle, and I'm from there. You
may get a sunny, sixty four degree day. I mean, seriously,
you don't know what you're getting until Thanksgiving, so they
(08:54):
got a scheduling break. Ohio State and Oregon are clearly
the best two teams. I think Penn State third in
the Big Ten, and they get Penn State at home.
By the way, they get Notre Dame at home, so
they got a huge It's almost like the conference said,
let's give them a break as Lincoln Riley builds up,
So they got a huge scheduling break. So I don't
think eight or nine are out of the question. But
(09:15):
I don't think they're in the same class as Georgia,
Ohio State, Oregon, Texas, Bama. I don't even know if
they're in the same class as Missouri. I think Iowa
is better than people think. I think Utah is actually good.
Oh miss is excellent.
Speaker 3 (09:28):
I don't think.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
I don't know, but I guess my pushback is, if
you go back to the first year, folks, they were
a play from twelve wins with two NFL players, and
that was if you recall, the last two years have
been by pack twelve historical standards, the conference was about
as good as it's been. Our basketball school, Arizona won
(09:51):
seven straight to end the season. Beat Oklahoma, like we're
not the SEC. It was really good by Pack twelve
standards we had like Oregon State was viable, no question.
Speaker 3 (10:01):
Yeah, but I'm with you though.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
I am curious, though, what does success look like in
year three because I look at what was lost with
Caleb Williams, and well, I think Caleb Williams was the
ultimate neutralizer. Yeah, if there was a talent advantage on
the other side, like Caleb could elevate and neutralize that talent.
But oftentimes he played so much out of the system.
(10:23):
And this is not a negative. I mean, he improvised
so much and he just didn't really stay true to
what made Lincoln Riley an eight figure a year head coach.
I think that's going to be okay with Miller Moss
or you know, there's buzz about Mayava having really good
and kind of having some momentum. I'm not buying it,
(10:43):
but I still think with that weaponry, I think they
have four game changers at wide receiver, all sophomores. But
my dad, I really like SC's personnel offensively, and I
think it will allow Lincoln's exo acumen to shine this
year as opposed to just seeing Caleb run around and
create magic. The last two seasons, it's.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
It's like I have a source inside USC football.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
No, there's no way. I'm shocked to hear that. Based
on how much insider information you have, you.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
Have literally touched on something that is the great unspoken
with the program is that they played actually in more
structure in Caleb's first year. By the second year injuries
to the O line. Lincoln got very tentative once the
National Championship playoff was out to get Caleb hurt, and frankly,
(11:37):
he felt the almost owed it to Caleb. You know,
he got a heisman.
Speaker 3 (11:41):
He didn't want to.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
Get him hurt.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
They didn't trust the offensive line, and it became kind
of an ad libby offense in the last three or
four stars for Caleb, and there are people that have
told me it'll go back to being Lincoln Riley's offense.
It was the first year with Caleb and parts of
the second it's sort of dovetailed. And it's not a
(12:04):
criticism of Caleb. It's they didn't want to get him hurt,
They didn't trust the old line. They didn't call stuff
because they didn't want to put him in a bad spot.
And it really became. There was a backyard feel to
a lot of what as he was doing, and Lincoln,
Lincoln felt he lost the offense a little. So Miller
Moss at the Holiday Bowl ran Lincoln's offense and looked fantastic.
(12:28):
And so I think to your point, you're literally touching
on some That's why you're so connected. You're really touching
on something that in the program. There's a feeling that
Miller's going to play.
Speaker 3 (12:39):
The tempo.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
It won't look like Oregon, Dan Lanning and bow Knicks
where it's like, you know, you know, like they're dialing
up where to go. It won't be quite that, because
I do think they have really good young perimeter talent.
But it'll be more it'll be Lincoln's team. I'll give
you an example in the NFL when Aaron Rodgers was
there with.
Speaker 3 (13:00):
A young Matt Lafleur.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
It was kind of Aaron's offense right completely if you
watched them last year with Jordan Love. It was the
first time I had said this on the air, that
I watched the Packers and thought, oh, that's Matt Lafleur's offense.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
Yeah, right, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3 (13:15):
And your Knight's not a.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
Knock on Aaron, but superstar quarterbacks are gonna blow off
the coach. They're going to go on the huddle, roll
the eyes sometimes for self preservation.
Speaker 3 (13:24):
I'm gonna do what I'm gonna do.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
You wouldn't do that with save It. No, But that.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
Happens more than people think, and I think it happened
at SC.
Speaker 3 (13:33):
That's my point.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
It's a completely fair assessment. But tell me this, if
you're Caleb Williams, are you going to hand it off
in an RPO? Probably not? Why would I We're better
with the ball in my hands. I think I'll just
kind of I'll take this thing over and we'll see
where we go. What do you make of the Big
Ten as a whole? Because I I think you, obviously
with your alignment and do an amazing job covering the sport.
(13:56):
And I appreciate, frankly on your national platform, how you
cover the sport because so many people are like, oh, yeah,
we'll do college football because we have to. You do
it because you love it, and I appreciate your coverage.
But when you look at the Big Ten, I'm I
think that they're solid. I think at the top they're
super elite the High States, best team in the country,
fewest questions beyond them. I think Oregon. We've kind of
(14:19):
put Oregon in kind of the chosen group of Hey,
this group's right there, and they didn't like their wins
last year were fine. Blowing out a Utah team was impressive,
but it's not like, you know, we got way bent
out of shape about Oh, they beat cal by thirty,
like we kind of annoyed them, I think before we
needed to, and then we found out against Washington that
(14:42):
maybe there's still work to be done. I think they've
done that work. So I think they are now on
the inside looking out at the rest of the college
football world. But how do they stack up against the SEC?
Like when you look at the Big ten, you size
them up, cut them up eighteen deep versus the SEC sixteen.
Who do you think is SUPERI well.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
I think Oregon is something that we haven't seen out
west since Pete Carroll and ed Orgeron. They've just done
it differently. They've purchased big bodies, So I think Oregon
stacks up in the train. I mean, they went out
and they bought the best left tackle on the West
Coast in the last several years two years ago he started.
They've went, and Phil Knight has essentially said, before I die,
(15:24):
I won a national championship, and I'll spend whatever it takes.
People talk about the Texas nil Oregon's is unlimited. They'll
just buy whatever they have to. That's really how it's done.
USC's is thirteen million. I have that on thirteen million.
Depending on the ascension of the program, it could get
to fifteen. But USC's fine. They're not Texas, they're not
(15:46):
A and M. They're not Ohio State, they're not maybe
not Georgia. They're not Oregon for sure. So I think
Oregon has purchased. And this is not a criticism. This
is all legal now right right, it's they've gone. All
their marketing is enhanced, even with Mario Crystaball they're recruiting
to me is the best on the West coast, the
best on the West coast. USC's is consistently second because
(16:09):
of the name brand. But Oregon's been recruiting the West
coast crystal Ball landing very well. If they want a
receiver or a dB, they get them. If there's a
top edge rusher, they just get them. If they own
the Northwest, mostly for the players they want. It's a
very weak recruiting year in my opinion in the West
coast this year, especially the Northwest. I think they match
up fine. I think eye test Texas looks really big.
(16:34):
When they faced Alabama last year the last couple of years,
I looked at it and I thought, God, this is
what Alabama looks like the last ten years against everybody else.
You're like, man, Texas passes the eye test. I think
the I think Oregon's going to beat Ohio State in
Eugene because I think Dan Lanning has done something that
I didn't think a Southern guy was going to do
with no head coaching experience. He's immediately I know what
(16:58):
Oregon is. I really do they play their They're a
little Detroit Lions, relentless, they play hard. They got I
think privately they would admit Kaylan de boorr Out coached
him and Washington had a bizarre set of great offensive talent,
almost no NFL bodies, and they matched up with Oregon.
(17:20):
I mean, frankly, Pennis.
Speaker 3 (17:22):
Beat ball h A. Dunze. Oregon wasn't getting beat because
they were being fooled.
Speaker 1 (17:27):
It's just it was just a bad matchup. I said
it before Washington was gonna beat Texas, they were not
gonna beat Michigan is and so I think it was
I think I watched Oregon play Washington twice once live.
I thought Oregon had more good players. I just thought
Washington was a terrible matchup. So I think Oregon matches
up with Ohio State, and I think if you match
(17:49):
up with Ohio State, you match up with everybody. I
think Alabama's underrated. I think Kayland Boor is magnificent. I
think he you know what he is, reminds me of
he's really Chris Peterson.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
Where have some Peterson vibes for sure.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
Where you're like, they will never be out coached at Alabama. Ever,
there are games with Nick Saban where I felt if
you had a quarterback that was good off script, you
could frustrate Nick. I didn't think he was out coached.
I thought there were things Nick did better than other coaches.
Klin de Boor it's almost magical. Like Washington's talent on
(18:24):
the defensive side is they had an interior defensive lineman
who I think the Rams got undrafted free free agent.
Speaker 2 (18:31):
I mean Tully Nasan Noa. They just have any talent,
so a lot of it was magical. And Chris Peterson
gets the Huskies do a playoff, and you're like, how
they don't have Alabama's players. So I think Oregon has purchased,
recruited and developed players. I think Landing has a plan.
I think they match up.
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Speaker 1 (20:26):
I am not as confident with Ohio State because I
just have felt for three years. And I'll ask you, Greg,
it's not that Michigan beat him as how they beat him.
They just don't rushed them. They took over all the
second half. Ohio State has never been prettier, but they've
never been more finesse. I'll ask you what are they
(20:47):
beyond talented.
Speaker 3 (20:48):
What are they?
Speaker 2 (20:49):
I think it's a look. They have been a sports
car where winning the Big Ten the last couple of
years has required a big diesel via goal, a duley
if you will, Like I don't want to say gmc
or ford and like tick people off, I would say Ford.
It's Michigan, So that feels fair, right, let's just go
(21:10):
with that. They have an F one fifty or an
F two to fifty that was one in the Big
Ten the last couple of years. Just the reality. So
I don't think that they're finesse though, Like I don't
know if that's entirely and I understand the characterization and
the way Ohio state standards. They're finesse compared to the
Urban Meyer version twenty fifteen Ohio state versions, that's finesse.
(21:32):
But that was a group that was so outrageously talented.
I remember watching that game in twenty fifteen against Bama
on New Year's Day. The first iteration of the college
football Playoffs was Zeke Elliott and Cardial Jones. Like, these
guys are freaks. Now not only can they fly, but
these guys will pound you. They're so crazy physical, And
I think that the Big Ten has long been a
(21:54):
league that was won with physicality, and then Ohio State found, hey,
we can win with physical but we also have some
high octane machines on the outside that we need to feed.
So I think they've kind of gotten away from themselves
a bit. And that's why the hire of chip Kelly
was so massive, because if you look twenty three consecutive Beers,
(22:15):
the team that has outrushed the other in the game
between Michigan and Ohio State wins the game. You ain't
gonna out rush chip Kelly's that's who he is, that's
what he believes in. And while people will look at
the Oregon Nears and think, oh, they were finesse, No,
they weren't. Just because they used tempo doesn't mean they
were finesse. Look at the UCLA years. Oh, because they
wear the like blue, they're finesse. No, no, No, Ucla was
(22:36):
far from finesse. Ucla ran it down LSU's throat, yep
in the Rose Bowl a couple of years ago. He
has gone out and prioritized running back. They go out
and got quinch On Judkins. They already had Trevon Henderson.
The offensive line is a question mark. But what Chip
Kelly can do is they're gonna play hard and they're
gonna get by a little bit running the football with
smoking mirrors. So I think they're traditional run sets that
(22:58):
they've used the last couple Ye you're not going to
beat Michigan with that because Michigan's got better D lineman
than you have O linemen. I don't know why. They
just do and they've had that for years and they're
probably going to have it again this year based on
what they bring back up front defensively. But if you
have one side of the offensive line blocking one play,
the left side of the offensive line blocking another play,
two completely different plays, you're reading a guy right in
(23:20):
the middle. You can't block him, so you might as
well read him, and you got a pass play off
of it. Now you're cooking them with gas. So I
think chip Kelly being hired by Ryan Day. Ryan Day
acknowledged that his run game was a blind spot, and
that's a really hard thing for coaches to do too.
I mean, hey, I've won a lot of games. I've
lost five games in my career as a head coach, Like, yeah,
I got to acknowledge though, that that's a little bit
(23:40):
of a blind spot for me. I need Chip Kelly
to come in. I'll handle the pass concepts, he handles
the run concepts, and now we're going to make this
thing work together perfectly. So I really like Ohio State
this year, but your one hundred percent right. I mean,
Michigan had their number. Is a terrible matchup, much like
you just talked about with Oregon and Washington. Terrible matchup
for Ohio State, and I wasn't all to see Michigan
(24:00):
went three straight against him.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
Yeah, so I'm predicting Oregon beats Ohio State and Eugene,
but Ohio State gets further in the playoff and plays
for the national championship. I don't know who they'll play.
I think Alabama is the most underrated team, you know.
I think Texas and Sark's history. Let's talk Texas.
Speaker 3 (24:19):
I love Sark.
Speaker 1 (24:20):
There's things he does very well. He really knows. He
understands because he lived in LA. He understands under Pete Carroll, branding, recruiting.
He can really sell Texas. I mean he watched the
master in Pete Carroll take over college football. Like he
gets branding, he gets recruiting, he gets you know all gas,
no breaks. He really gets that. That's really It's like
(24:42):
a marketing mentor. His teams can be a little light
on the details. Sometimes I think they play with more
passion than smarts. I think sometimes I'm pulling my hair
out watching his team play.
Speaker 3 (24:54):
But I like him.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
I like his story. He had some personal issues, He's
overcome them. Impossible not to root for him. I like him,
I really do. I root for people who have been bullied,
or of struggle, or of you know, people who just
fall off the edge and climb back. So I love
that story. Hey, Nick Saban made a career out of
hiring guys whose careers looked over. He was a life
preserver for Lane, Kiffin and Sark and I think that's
(25:17):
an incredibly redeemable part of Nick Saban. But you tell me,
and I love Texas, but I don't trust Texas. There's
a big diff I fell in love with girls when
I was younger. Didn't trust them, but I loved them.
You know, there's no right like and.
Speaker 3 (25:33):
That's my perception.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
I trusted Harball teams, I trusted Saban teams. I trust
Georgia teams. Got it Texas is there's in a big spot.
I'm just like, eh, eh, how do you view them?
Speaker 2 (25:48):
It's perfectly fair. Uh, here's my frustration with Texas. You
see what they should be, and you see what they
could be and what they sometimes are. Allah the Alabama
game last year, the Texas Tech game at the end
of the season. Yeah, the Oklahoma State game in the
Big Twelve title, it's like, you see what they're capable of,
(26:10):
and it's like, my god, there's no one. This is
the most complete team in the sport. Like they're they're
winning it. Like Michigan doesn't want to see them, Bama
doesn't want to see them, Florida State didn't want to
see them. Nobody wants see Texas except for Washington because
they're going to throw it over their head. Yeah, but
for whatever reason, you don't still get that performance every week,
and you don't really get that performance every quarter like
(26:30):
when I saw and you look, if you watched the
best teams in the sport for a number of years,
whether it was the Urban Meyer led Ohio State teams,
whether it was the Nick Saban led Alabama teams, the
Pete Carroll led USC teams, something miraculous had to happen
for them to lose games. Yeah, I mean it was
like miracle, right, Like Sanchez has to go to Corvallis
(26:55):
on a Thursday. It's ring sideways, you know, and it's
like the team has no business losing Oregon State, but
because of the circumstance, they lost Urban Meyer at Florida,
Like Jevins Dated the game of his life, scored twenty
one and beat him twenty one twenty on the last
second field goal or whatever it was. Nick Saban, I mean,
Johnny Manziel had to have the most ridiculous thing ever.
(27:18):
Cam Newton had to have the most ridiculous thing ever
kick sixes. Like weird stuff had to happen for those
teams to lose. You look at Texas, They'll play to
the level of the competition. And I can't understand why
Oklahoma last year you have three turnovers in the first quarter,
biggest game of the year at that point, after beating
Texas or beating Bama three four weeks earlier, you have
you know, you block a punt to get back in
(27:39):
at your you know, you end up almost winning the game,
and then you give up drive at the end quarterback
draw really to set the drive up and then they
go right down the field score. Then you look at
TCU five and seventeen, you win by three. You look
at the offensive performance against s Iowa State and you're like,
what was that? You know, there's just some perform Kansas State,
(28:00):
they're in overtime and can't State's got the ball inside
the five for four consecutive players can't score. I mean
that to me is strange. The year before that, if
you want to go back a year before the lose
to Texas Tech on the road, you have, I mean,
just circumstantial losses that just really don't make sense. So
I understand the thought process because they are navigating to
(28:20):
a league now where the TCUs of the world don't
exist anymore. There's no disrespect to Texas Christion at all.
They're a good program. They're going to do great things.
They're going to be back in the playoff hunt again
at some point because of the league that they play in.
But if you took TCU and put them in the SEC,
I don't think it fared very well.
Speaker 3 (28:37):
Yeah, it's the reality.
Speaker 2 (28:38):
We saw that on the national Championship stage a couple
of years ago. So they're going to have to play
on a consistent basis with more regularity. And that's I
think the next step in the evolution to building Texas
foundation that Sark wants to build is that doesn't matter
who you're playing against, where it's at, what's the score,
this is the expectation, this is the standard, and we
(28:59):
got a played to that standard every week.
Speaker 1 (29:01):
Yeah, it's I think what's happening in the Big Ten
in the SEC is Texas and Oklahoma are both going
to discover that you can end up going and facing
Missouri and you think, oh, LSU in two weeks, We've
got you know, we got better personnel. And you look
up and you trail Georgia went to Missouri?
Speaker 2 (29:21):
Was it last year? The year before?
Speaker 1 (29:23):
And you're like, Missouri is kicking their ass. You don't
get that in the Big Ten. Now, Purdue once rushed
Ohio State. I think that was an urban team. It
was like, what is happening?
Speaker 2 (29:32):
I think he had one twenty seventeen. Yeah, the end,
it was like what was that?
Speaker 3 (29:38):
Well?
Speaker 1 (29:38):
Yeah, but that happens a lot in the SEC where
you're like, you think it's the game before the game
and you're you're in Columbia and you're like, we're getting
pushed around, and and so I don't think Texas and
Oklahoma you can talk about it, you have to live
it for a year. That doesn't exist in the Big Ten.
(30:02):
Whereas Ohio State has significantly better personnel than a good
program like Wisconsin, like almost every position. So it was
like you may have had a Penn State rhody in Michigan.
They kind of match up the differen And so the
difference is whereas Texas Oklahoma are going to go into
(30:23):
the SEC and go, all right, we gotta we gotta take.
Speaker 3 (30:28):
A deep breath here.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
This is a little more consistently difficult than we thought.
I think the inverse is true. I think Ohio State's
gonna go oh shit at Seattle at Eugene. I think
the Pac twelve teams going are more creative. I think
they're much better at home. People have no idea how
(30:51):
good tough it is to play in Seattle in November.
Everybody's talking about the cold weather in Purdue. Go to
Seattle when it's raining November eighteenth. So I think the
Ohio States, I mean, buck guys don't go to Eugene. No,
it's fifty eight thousand, it's the loudest stadium I've ever
been in my life except Gainesville. So I think the Ohio,
the Big Ten is thinking all these soft teams Washington,
(31:14):
Oregon plan crappy weather Ohio. UCLA's irrelevant now that Chips
left USC. Lincoln's very clear. You don't face a lot
of Lincoln Riley offenses, by the way in the Big Ten.
So I think the SEC is going to be shocking
to Texas, Oklahoma. I think the PAC twelve schools, creativity,
(31:36):
Jedfish Lanning, Lincoln Riley, You're going to find out they're not.
Iowe perdue that they both of those programs, Oregon and
USC are buying good players. They have real collectives. So
that's my take. Your thoughts on that, my take on that.
Speaker 2 (31:53):
I think it's one hundred percent accurate. And we've all
said and I had got into an argument with a
buddy of mine who I respect greatly, and I asked him, Hey,
what kind of style of football will win out in
the Big Ten and the RPO and the high volume
offense to that potentially, you know, find its way to
(32:15):
immediate success in the Big Ten. Or is it going
to be a line of scrimmage league where hey, you're
not running it on us, Like, no matter what, I
don't get you. Look at all the Big Ten teams
and I don't care if you're Northwestern or if you're
Michigan State, Like the whole identity of Big Ten football
is like, you're not running it between the tackles. Like
we're going to have three hundred and thirty pounds, six
foot one dudes that grew up on farms that have
been doing farmers walks with four hundred pound dumbbells for
(32:39):
twenty years since childhood, and just on a for fun,
they go bail hey, like you're not moving these defensive tackles.
So they got to get a little creative in the
run game from time to time. But that's been the identity.
The Pac twelve played the game on the perimeter, right.
It doesn't mean they can't go to toe to toe.
I mean they can't. They can, but it was a
perimeter game. And that's why Utah I think found great
(33:02):
success in the Pac twelve in the last few years
because they could play the perimeter game. But they really
were rooted with brass knuckles, you know what I mean,
Like their core was brass force their tight ends to block. Yes,
So here's the thing that I'm curious about. I don't
(33:22):
care how bad SC's defense has been. If Iowa has
to score thirty to win, can they do it? And
and Iowa is a team that they're in the ap
top twenty five, like they're a team that I have
great respect for. But in the event in which hey,
it's a race to twenty eight, you ready to go?
I I really don't know how many teams, the Minnesota's
(33:45):
of the world, the Iowa's of the world, the Illinois
of the world, how many of those teams are going
to be comfortable getting into shootouts because I know SC
will be perfectly fine. Hey, you want to play to fifty,
We'll go first one there. Yeah, I think Washington will
be perfectly fine. And that's as well. And the event
in which the defense is a bad day, the offensive
step ahead. Are you comfortable getting the forty two to win?
(34:06):
Because I don't know how many teams at the Big
ten are The other thing is SC comfortable whinn are
you game thirteen to ten because you go play a
team like Nebraska or a team like Iowa and creepy weather.
If a game that you run into and I don't know,
will Lincoln get frustrated, Will Lincoln get impatient like he
did at Oklahoma? And the reason why Iowa State became
(34:27):
a thing under Matt Campbell is because he could frustrate
Lincoln Riley because it can never manufacture a big plays.
They would just play three stageties at the top. You're
not throwing a deep. You'd to take a bunch of checkdowns.
And I bet if you have to snap the ball
seventeen times on an offensive drive, you're gonna get greedy,
you're gonna get impatient, and you're gonna throw us one.
So that was kind of the the mo So I
just think it's gonna be fascinating to see how that
(34:48):
all works. But I think the Big Ten is probably
collectively sleeping on how physical the Pac twelve is. Not
that that's their bread and butter. It's not, and they
won't be as physical as the teams that they face
in the Big Ten, but I think that there they
can go toe to toe more than people are probably
assuming at the moment. Hey, what's up, everybody?
Speaker 5 (35:09):
John Middlecoff here for the Three and Out podcasts. The
NFL season is right around the corner, and if you
want some of the best football content out there. I
got you covered training camp, through the preseason, throughout the
entire season. Subscribe and follow the Three and Out podcast
with me John Middlecop on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you
listen to your podcasts.
Speaker 1 (35:36):
So I want to address something people. I always think
it's funny because I have defended Jim Harbaugh, who I
think was viewed as my pesky rival years ago because
a clunky interview I did, but that was not the truth.
Behind the scenes, I had reached out to him and
his family so and Jim's been great that The reason
(36:00):
I have defended Michigan and Connor Stallions is this, if
in society we decided suddenly that bank robberies were legal,
I would have a hard time buying into throwing somebody
in jail for jaywalking. That the number one thing you're
you were never allowed to do in college football. It
(36:20):
was the death penalty was by high school players, by
any player, But you buying a high school player is
a death penalty that's now not only legal, it's encouraged.
It's the model. So I'm not a crooked mustache on
a sideline pass with a fuzzy iPhone. It just it
seems ticky tacky. Now is it appropriate? No, it's not appropriate.
Speaker 3 (36:47):
Is there a level two violation? Absolutely?
Speaker 1 (36:50):
But when I read that, of the multitude of level
two violations, one of them was verifying an Instagram account
by a Michigan assistant, I'm like, time out, so you
can get into a bidding war for a sophomore linebacker
from ann arbor that. So my take has been it's
all nonsense, is that the culture in the world changed
(37:14):
and jaywalking doesn't matter to me anymore.
Speaker 3 (37:16):
Let you let.
Speaker 1 (37:17):
Bank robberies now are legal, and we see this stuff
in tech politics. The world changes. So ten years ago,
I would have been much more punitive on Michigan, like, hey,
you can't do that, because you couldn't do anything. Now,
I'm like, guys, it's bidding wars for high schoolers. I
don't even care anymore. I really don't care whatever you do,
(37:40):
you do. So that's my take. Throw it back at.
Speaker 3 (37:44):
Me and why I'm wrong.
Speaker 2 (37:46):
I don't entirely disagree with you. I think that when
you look at look at the world of coaching through
a lens of morality. Here probably let's just be honest,
like it's it's one of those. If you're not cheating,
you not, you're not trying. If you can't beat them,
(38:07):
join them. It's like that, it's daw it's eat or
be eaten. And I'm not condoning what went down at Michigan.
I will never do that. But here's my thought. And
I come from the Nick Saban school of personal accountability. Right, Okay,
this is my own personal opinion. If you steal my signs,
that's on me. That that's my own personal opinion. Now,
(38:29):
I played college in the NFL. Every single time I
was sitting on the sideline, not as a starter. I'm
trying to steal signs every single time NFL go and
look twenty thirteen Cincinnati Bengals against New York Jets. I
had gotten cut by the Jets earlier in the year.
Gino Smith was playing quarterback, pac Man Jones is playing
(38:50):
left corner. I'm staying on the sideline. I know Martin
Morningwig and the entire West coast offen signals. Geno signals
under to the wide receiver. I tell Batman under under
pac Man jumps it takes it to the house. All
is fair. If Marty morning Wagon they know that I
was with them in camp and I was now on
the Bengals, and you are going to just keep it
(39:12):
as is. You're going to keep the same signal if
I were, if I were Marty morning Egg, this signal
the under signal, that would have been a stop and go.
That would have been an under and go because pac
Man would have jumped it and they would have been
out the gate for a touchdown. I thin if we
won that game, like forty nine to seven or something
along the lines of that, it was a lot too
a little. So I think back at my career and
(39:33):
if you wouldn't change your signals and that gave me
access to them, I would be able to create a
competitive advantage. No, a bridge too far is using recording
devices that to me is completely uncalled for and unnecessary.
But the gamesmanship of stealing signals on game day, that's life.
(39:54):
And we're trying to get other information about guys that
might have played there in the past or whatever. And
if you can get information, say hey, guy transfers from
Michigan to Ohio State, you think the Ohio State coaches
aren't asking the player that transferred in from Michigan about
Michigan schemes. Of course, they are. It's not illegal, but
it probably wouldn't be very smart for the Michigan coaches
(40:18):
in that scenario to use the same signals that they
used when that player was on their team. So I
think that while it looks really bad in the court
of public opinion, and while people think it had an
impact on the integrity of the game, it's hard to
disagree with that. But also things could have been done
(40:41):
by the opposing team to not allow Connor Stallion's information
to become relevant on game day. So that's my whole
thought process on it. But I think you're I think
your reasoning for feeling the way you feel is perfectly fine,
But my reasoning is coming from a player's perspective. We're
kind of saying the same thing, it's just coming from
(41:02):
at a slightly different angle.
Speaker 1 (41:03):
Yeah, Ohio State felt two years before it was announced
it was happening, And my take is, okay, if you're
not switching stuff up, especially for Michigan.
Speaker 3 (41:11):
It's one thing.
Speaker 1 (41:12):
If you keep some of your signals, but the Michigan
game is you prepare for that differently, and if you
knew two years out they were doing it, I don't
want to see I don't want to hear that you
know they stole our signs if you don't have to
your initial point separate signs for the Michigan game. I mean,
Urban Meyer talks about they were they scouted Michigan. Every
(41:35):
week you win that game. John Cooper won eleven games
a year. He couldn't beat Michigan, right, harpball was above
four years ago he was winning eleven a year. He
couldn't beat Ohio State. So to me, it's like, if
you knew about it two years ago and you were
investigating it, then you had to have been changing your
signals or you have bad coaches. So I think we
both get to the same spot is that it's not perfect.
(41:58):
It's kind of there. But it's murkier than people are saying,
is what I'm saying. It's it's murkier everybody's stealing signs.
I love your Marty morning Went stuff because I've had
role players. The backup quarterback's job in the NFL is it,
That's it.
Speaker 2 (42:13):
That's why I have an NFL pension. So I was
good at that. Hey, I couldn't throw it, but I'm
gonna figure out your signals. I'm gonna know your protection adjustments,
like we're gonna figure this thing out. It might be
quarter four before I get it, but I'm gonna try.
I can promise I'm gonna try.
Speaker 1 (42:27):
Okay, I'm gonna let's do. Let's do most overrated underrated
teams and close it out this way. I think Michigan's
the most overrated in the in the top twenty five.
They lost not only depth, they lost like leaders. They
lost like locker room leaders, you know, fift year seniors.
They also lost the best quarterback Harballs had who I
watched him before he got hurt. Meniscus Tear had a
(42:49):
terrific debut. It's very difficult to lose not only quality starters,
but veteran quality starters like who who were clubhouse leaders.
I think Michigan will not be a top twenty team. Overrated,
I think underrated.
Speaker 3 (43:07):
I I don't know.
Speaker 1 (43:09):
I think Brian Kelly's gonna figure it out. Jas so good,
He's so good, and I look at all those teams
above him, and I'm like, yeah, they're not going to
beat Georgia, maybe Alabama, Ohio State, but people have them eleventh, twelve, thirteenth,
I'm like, nah, they're better than Utah, and I love Utah.
Speaker 3 (43:29):
They're better than Utah, though.
Speaker 1 (43:31):
Utah returns a guy that's I think has been starting
quarterback for them for eleven years, Cam Rising. So a
little underrated, Lsu, a little overrated, a lot overrated Michigan,
what say you?
Speaker 2 (43:43):
Yeah, I'm good with the Michigan on the same page there.
My problem with Michigan is I've just heard a lot
of buzz and it's hard a little bit with that
place too. All Right, is this real or is it not.
I've heard a lot of positive buzz about their offense
and Alex Orgy and how much he's progressed. And I've
seen him run. I know he's a superstar with the
ball in his hands, but I've also only seen him
(44:04):
throw one pass. I've heard that he's got a monster arm,
and I tried to watch him in preseason or in
pregame warm ups every time I've called a Michigan game,
And when I was on the field, I stood right
behind him and watched him throw it. I thought Tundle
threw it pretty good too, by the way, for Michigan,
so I thought, hey, when JJ leaves, they'll probably going
to be all right. A quarterback regardless. But I just
(44:26):
I look at the rest of the top ten. Ohio State,
They're going to be there, no doubt. So if you're
going to quantify it as quote overrated, Ohio State's gonna
be there. George is going to be there there safe bet.
I think Texas and Oregon are going to be there.
I think BAM is going to be there. So the
top five feel very very safe. People have been saying
Notre Dame look at their schedule, Like Notre Dame, they
(44:48):
could go nine to three and not be a team
ranked in the top twenty five.
Speaker 1 (44:52):
By the way end the year on the road in LA.
And Also, I don't know how good Riley Leonard is.
I have no idea what he is.
Speaker 2 (45:00):
I know that Mike denbrock th row c though, did
a pretty good job with Jayden Daniels, whose skill set
was similar to Riley Leonards when he arrived from Arizona State,
So I think the development portion of bringing him along.
Ryley Lembage has been naturally kind of an inaccurate passer
on the downfield throws that's.
Speaker 1 (45:17):
Got to grow his whole career, his whole crazy wild Yeah.
Speaker 2 (45:21):
Still optimistic though that it's in there because I've seen
the underneath throws. If you can throw the underneath stuff,
you can throw the intermediates, you can throw the deeps.
It's just changing an arm, angled changing the shoulders, changing
the trajectory. All that. I think den Brock will do
a pretty good job with them. I really do, because
I think it's a comparable player to what they brought
in with Jayden Daniels, and that obviously worked out very well.
(45:43):
I can't take him out of the top twenty five though.
Their schedules too manageable. I mean, the toughest games book
in the season sc and A and M. And people say, well,
Florida State. I think Florida State going to South Bend
is a pretty good spot. People say maybe Louisville, Well,
you don't think Notre Dames had that one circled. They
got blown out by Louisville last year at their place,
so I think I think Notre Dame's appropriately ranked ole Miss.
(46:06):
If people are not on their bandwagon, it's because they
aren't familiar with what Lane Kiffin's done. From talent acquisition standpoint.
They're not overrated, they're appropriately rated. You're just not comfortable
with seeing them ranked that high. Then you look at
Penn State, They're going to be rock solid. I am
worried a little about their offense, but their defense will
keep them minute. Especially with their schedule they have, They're
(46:27):
gonna be fine. Their schedule's very manageable. In the Pac
twelve or in the Big ten. I think Missouri, I think,
is the other that I would say maybe slightly over
our skis there. So Missouri and Michigan the two that
I'm just not so sure about. Missouri I think it's eleven,
Michigan at nine as far as underrated. Now you're gonna
say I'm crazy. I know this. I'm comfortable with this.
(46:50):
I've been singing the praises all off season. I did
this last year for a team and ended up working out.
I love Miami this year, I love Miami the year
they coming at number nineteen. Now, a lot of people
are going to sit there and say, well, it's Miami.
We do this every year. You know the same people
that are saying Matt right now are the same people
that said, well, why are we building up Texas? Like
(47:12):
Texas hasn't done anything since two thousand and nine. Why
are you continuing to say that they're going to be
good this year because they were on paper. Texas going
into last year was great. Now it's about allowing it
to come to fruition. Miami on paper is great now,
it's just about can they take the next step as
a program and not beat themselves. This was one of
(47:33):
the best teams in America in the first half of
the season last year, and they turned the ball over
against Georgia Tech, give up the big play on the
fumble and the couple touchdown. You know, then they end
up that has a huge ripple effect throughout the rest
of the season. Tyler Van Dyke can't shake the turnover
woes and he gets benched. Then they give Florida State
all they want, and then their starter who replaced Van
(47:53):
Dyke gets hurt. Van Dyke's back in the lineup. I mean,
it was just it was a disastrous season last year.
They've upgraded a quarterback with cam Ward. He doesn't turn
it over. They couldn't score in the red zone with
any regularity last year. Well, what helps in the red
zone quarterback run game. Cam Ward can run it. They
went and got the best running back available in the
portal in Damian Martinez and that was kind of a
revolving door of players last year with three or four
different guys. We're all solid. None have rushed for twelve
(48:16):
hundred yards in the season like Damian Martinez did last year.
The offensive line was a strength last year. It's strength
again to get their top two wide outs back. Defensively,
they have the best edge defender in the ACC who's
only going into his sophomore year in ruben Bain. They
added three more five stars and a couple guys in
the portal like they are stocked. The one question mark
is the secondary, and by all accounts, that group is
(48:37):
playing well above what they anticipated at this point of
the season. So I think Miami people are gonna be
I think people are going to look at them and say, well,
we're just here. We are again. We always pump up
the blue blotz. I think Miami's extremely capable with the
personnel they have, and I'd be surprised if they're not
in the mix in the ACC and ultimately in the
mix of the playoff.
Speaker 1 (48:57):
Greg McElroy, what a pleasure to see you rushed it.
You are as thorough and as entertaining and fair, and
that's that's the thing college football can be regional and tribal.
Despite the fact that you live in the South and
cover uh, you know the sec I've always thought in
a sport that is often way too regional, you are
(49:18):
the king of common sense and I just love.
Speaker 3 (49:21):
You, really are.
Speaker 2 (49:21):
You know your that means a lot.
Speaker 3 (49:23):
No, you know your stuff.
Speaker 1 (49:25):
You really bring a lot of credibility in my opinion
to what you do because I have to cover everything.
I'm a mile wide, you're a mile deep, and your
knowledge is just supreme. You're really great, and I just
I think I hope the audience enjoyed this as much
as I did.
Speaker 3 (49:40):
Buddy.
Speaker 2 (49:40):
Well, it's always so great to visit with you, and
I told you already in the interview. Thank you for
all you do for college football. It really means a lot.
I don't say that in your tongue in cheek either,
Like you could cover the NFL three hours a day,
and the fact that you carve out a little slice
for college football almost every day, it means a lot.
And you do so much for us in the fall,
so we appre hit the coverage you give us.
Speaker 1 (50:01):
Good seeing you man, Good to see you, buddy the volume.
Thanks so much for listening. If you've enjoyed the podcast,
take a moment, rate and review
The volume. So I was looking today at a story
on the internet that ticket sales stub hubs college football
ticket sales are up forty two percent year to year.
(00:23):
So one of the things I bang on, and I'm
going to bring in my guest, Greg McElroy, the host
of Always College Football, former BAMA quarterback twenty ten national champ.
One of the things I bang on consistently in my
audience is the sky has falling. I see it in politics.
You know, if you if you elect Kamala Harris, we'll
(00:45):
go into anarchy, will be venezuela. It's like it's conspiracy theories.
The world's ending. And I kept saying on the twelve
team playoff and the NI on the transfer portal, college
football will be different. It'll be magnificent. It'll still be lobsided,
the big You'll still have the best rosters, but it'll
look a little different. It'll end differently. It's going to
(01:05):
be fine. So the audience, the consumer is telling you, Greg,
we're more excited for college football than ever. In the South,
where you have your footprint, there was a lot of
consternation about change because the SEC was king and you
worry about the Texas money in the Michigan, Ohio State
Notre Dame money. What is the sense about nil transfer
(01:26):
portal twelve team playoff as of today in the South?
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Well, it's still, actually, Willie wrote, really well received, Colin.
I mean, the thing about the SEC is they still
are going to have more access to talent just because
of just your proximity. And while I've used this analogy
a couple of times, the alumni network is not nearly
as big as that of an Ohio State, where they
have a million living alumni sixty thousand undergrad for the
(01:51):
last hundred years. However, many years it's been the level
of intensity and passion that we have in the southeastern
part of the United States for the sport and for
the teams is unrivaled. So while you make a hundred,
I make a hundred. You live in Los Angeles. I
live in Birmingham, Alabama. I'm going to give twenty two
(02:12):
dollars out of the one hundred to Alabama because that's
the team I support, whereas you might give eleven. It's
just kind of the way things have worked. But for
all intentsive purposes, it's kind of been viewed as a
personal challenge to the teams in the Southeast to step
up from an nile standpoint, compete with the big dogs,
and even if they don't have the deepest pockets, they
(02:33):
have access to the most players. And then the portal.
When guys might leave for the big payday as a freshman,
when they go in the portal after year one, they
might be more likely to come back home at their
second stop. So a lot of programs have taken that
route as well.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
Yeah, so there's a lot of different things to talk about.
I've said that we need to temper not only expectations
but criticism of coaches when they go to schools. Look
how long it took Dabo Sweeney or Jim Harbaugh. So
when Harbaugh and Lincoln Riley are interesting comps, so we
know they're both good coaches, nobody disputes that Jim had
(03:10):
a longer resume. And obviously the transfer portal is a
more vigorous. I mean, there were people transferring ten years ago,
but not to the level now. The machine it is right,
And I said, but if you really look at Brian
Kelly and Harbaugh, you know they doubled the wins very quickly,
but it was sort of pseudo not can't compete with
(03:30):
Alabama Georgia, but they won the games they should have won.
And Brian Kelly gets to Annatty and gets blown out
and Michigan, you know, would face Ohio State.
Speaker 3 (03:40):
And it was fools gold.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
It took both about seven years, eight years to stockpile
talent where they could play at Georgia Bama and the
games are good and you could on television You're like, oh,
there's pros on both sides. You know, the Mantai Teo
Notre Dame team in the National Championship, you know, it
felt like it would have finished third in the PAC twelve.
Speaker 3 (03:59):
But a lot of it's scheduling.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
So I say, with Lincoln Riley, as bad as Notre
Dame was in Michigan was, I don't think they were
as bad as USC under Clay Hilton. Not only were
they four and eight, but people inside the program believed
they only had like twelve NFL maybe late round players.
(04:21):
That it was Lincoln Riley identified after two practices, there's
maybe thirty guys we can keep, and so by being
a play away from twelve wins in his first season
was fairly remarkable through those of us closer to the program,
and then the second year they had injuries, Jordan Addison
(04:42):
was gone and frankly, they just know NFL players. It
was Caleb and they kind of shut him down once
they lost a couple of games. They had a defensive
coordinator completely over Ski. So my takeaway is this idea
that USC was going to buy for national championships. They
were way better year one than expectations. That's not really
(05:02):
who they were. They were an early Notre Dameer Harbaugh team.
You know, Harbaugh got from five to ten wins year
one and won the national championship. Team USC couldn't beat
any good teams. They were just beating the crappy teams
on their schedule because of the wizardry of Caleb and
the coaching of Lincoln. So my take is, I think
we're being too unrealistic, even with a transfer portal to
(05:23):
Brian Kelly right now in Lincoln, in that it's still
the sport still comes down to high school recruiting in
chemistry and culture, and you can't do it in two years.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
Your thoughts, the problem is you've had guys that have
ruined it for everybody, the Josh Heipels of the world
that in year one progress, year two, game changer. Right.
We've seen it with urban Meyer his second year at Florida.
I believe they won the national championship, and we've seen
it a handful of other times. Nick Saban at Alabama
(05:55):
two thousand and seven, six and six, six, seven and six,
twenty eight twelve know with the chance and the lead
in the fourth quarter to go to the national title.
So yeah, you're right. In normal circumstances, I think it
takes four years to get a real evaluation on the
trajectory of your team. That's my personal opinion. I understand
that big dollars are in play here, and also along
(06:17):
with I think Temper's player and egos are involved, and
the collective doesn't feel like they're getting what they have
paid for, they're going to be quicker to pull the trigger.
But at the same time, I completely agree with you
and those that have said that Lincoln Riley is he's
not he doesn't know what he's doing. He doesn't he's
he's way out of his so far. I saw an
(06:39):
analyst and national analysts call on the other day say, oh,
his his tenure at SC has been a quote disaster.
Well to be a win away from the college football
playoff in year one with the Heisman Trophy winner. Sign
me up for that disaster most of the week. Most
of the NFL.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
Two NFL players, one of them, Caleb is a sophomore
team had no talent.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
And he did a great job with him. The one
thing that does concern me and I've known Lincoln when
I was a commit to Texas Tech. Lincoln picked me
up at the airport. I've known him for twenty years,
so it's a little bit close to home with me,
and followed him to his years at East Carolina, followed
him in his time at obviously Oklahoma. So I'm wanting
what's best for him as a fan of his, and
(07:23):
it's a fan of the sport. I think it's great
when s he's relevant, So I acknowledge all that he's
done offensively, But I don't know. This is my observation
from a distance. I don't know if they practice the
way they need to practice to be as good along
both lines of scrimmage to compete for championships. And that's
(07:44):
the only question I have. And will he be too
proud to adjust maybe the amount of full contact periods
that they have, will they maybe do some things offensively
in a drill setting that might give the defense a
slight advantage. Will they do things like that to help
a track more defensive personnel and to create a tougher,
more physical mindset, because I saw last year they were
(08:06):
a little banged up in spring. This was spring of
twenty three. They said, after like nine practices, Yeah, we're good.
We're just gonna do, you know, walkthroughs or whatever. At
Georgia They're like, I don't care if we have managers
putting helmets on. We're practicing. So I think that's the
mindset that I'm just a little concerned about. But I
think the I think the hey, the jury's out right now,
(08:26):
and i'd be I'm actually really optimistic about SC this
year more than most calling to be completely honest.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
They get a schedule break no Oregon in Ohio State
Michigan in a total rebuild. Same with Washington and LSU
lost Jayden Daniels. That's the loss on their schedule. Everything
else is winnable. Their only cold weather game is first
week in November and Seattle, and I'm from there. You
may get a sunny, sixty four degree day. I mean, seriously,
you don't know what you're getting until Thanksgiving, so they
(08:54):
got a scheduling break. Ohio State and Oregon are clearly
the best two teams. I think Penn State third in
the Big Ten, and they get Penn State at home.
By the way, they get Notre Dame at home, so
they got a huge It's almost like the conference said,
let's give them a break as Lincoln Riley builds up,
So they got a huge scheduling break. So I don't
think eight or nine are out of the question. But
(09:15):
I don't think they're in the same class as Georgia,
Ohio State, Oregon, Texas, Bama. I don't even know if
they're in the same class as Missouri. I think Iowa
is better than people think. I think Utah is actually good.
Oh miss is excellent.
Speaker 3 (09:28):
I don't think.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
I don't know, but I guess my pushback is, if
you go back to the first year, folks, they were
a play from twelve wins with two NFL players, and
that was if you recall, the last two years have
been by pack twelve historical standards, the conference was about
as good as it's been. Our basketball school, Arizona won
(09:51):
seven straight to end the season. Beat Oklahoma, like we're
not the SEC. It was really good by Pack twelve
standards we had like Oregon State was viable, no question.
Speaker 3 (10:01):
Yeah, but I'm with you though.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
I am curious, though, what does success look like in
year three because I look at what was lost with
Caleb Williams, and well, I think Caleb Williams was the
ultimate neutralizer. Yeah, if there was a talent advantage on
the other side, like Caleb could elevate and neutralize that talent.
But oftentimes he played so much out of the system.
(10:23):
And this is not a negative. I mean, he improvised
so much and he just didn't really stay true to
what made Lincoln Riley an eight figure a year head coach.
I think that's going to be okay with Miller Moss
or you know, there's buzz about Mayava having really good
and kind of having some momentum. I'm not buying it,
(10:43):
but I still think with that weaponry, I think they
have four game changers at wide receiver, all sophomores. But
my dad, I really like SC's personnel offensively, and I
think it will allow Lincoln's exo acumen to shine this
year as opposed to just seeing Caleb run around and
create magic. The last two seasons, it's.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
It's like I have a source inside USC football.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
No, there's no way. I'm shocked to hear that. Based
on how much insider information you have, you.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
Have literally touched on something that is the great unspoken
with the program is that they played actually in more
structure in Caleb's first year. By the second year injuries
to the O line. Lincoln got very tentative once the
National Championship playoff was out to get Caleb hurt, and frankly,
(11:37):
he felt the almost owed it to Caleb. You know,
he got a heisman.
Speaker 3 (11:41):
He didn't want to.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
Get him hurt.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
They didn't trust the offensive line, and it became kind
of an ad libby offense in the last three or
four stars for Caleb, and there are people that have
told me it'll go back to being Lincoln Riley's offense.
It was the first year with Caleb and parts of
the second it's sort of dovetailed. And it's not a
(12:04):
criticism of Caleb. It's they didn't want to get him hurt,
They didn't trust the old line. They didn't call stuff
because they didn't want to put him in a bad spot.
And it really became. There was a backyard feel to
a lot of what as he was doing, and Lincoln,
Lincoln felt he lost the offense a little. So Miller
Moss at the Holiday Bowl ran Lincoln's offense and looked fantastic.
(12:28):
And so I think to your point, you're literally touching
on some That's why you're so connected. You're really touching
on something that in the program. There's a feeling that
Miller's going to play.
Speaker 3 (12:39):
The tempo.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
It won't look like Oregon, Dan Lanning and bow Knicks
where it's like, you know, you know, like they're dialing
up where to go. It won't be quite that, because
I do think they have really good young perimeter talent.
But it'll be more it'll be Lincoln's team. I'll give
you an example in the NFL when Aaron Rodgers was
there with.
Speaker 3 (13:00):
A young Matt Lafleur.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
It was kind of Aaron's offense right completely if you
watched them last year with Jordan Love. It was the
first time I had said this on the air, that
I watched the Packers and thought, oh, that's Matt Lafleur's offense.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
Yeah, right, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3 (13:15):
And your Knight's not a.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
Knock on Aaron, but superstar quarterbacks are gonna blow off
the coach. They're going to go on the huddle, roll
the eyes sometimes for self preservation.
Speaker 3 (13:24):
I'm gonna do what I'm gonna do.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
You wouldn't do that with save It. No, But that.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
Happens more than people think, and I think it happened
at SC.
Speaker 3 (13:33):
That's my point.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
It's a completely fair assessment. But tell me this, if
you're Caleb Williams, are you going to hand it off
in an RPO? Probably not? Why would I We're better
with the ball in my hands. I think I'll just
kind of I'll take this thing over and we'll see
where we go. What do you make of the Big
Ten as a whole? Because I I think you, obviously
with your alignment and do an amazing job covering the sport.
(13:56):
And I appreciate, frankly on your national platform, how you
cover the sport because so many people are like, oh, yeah,
we'll do college football because we have to. You do
it because you love it, and I appreciate your coverage.
But when you look at the Big Ten, I'm I
think that they're solid. I think at the top they're
super elite the High States, best team in the country,
fewest questions beyond them. I think Oregon. We've kind of
(14:19):
put Oregon in kind of the chosen group of Hey,
this group's right there, and they didn't like their wins
last year were fine. Blowing out a Utah team was impressive,
but it's not like, you know, we got way bent
out of shape about Oh, they beat cal by thirty,
like we kind of annoyed them, I think before we
needed to, and then we found out against Washington that
(14:42):
maybe there's still work to be done. I think they've
done that work. So I think they are now on
the inside looking out at the rest of the college
football world. But how do they stack up against the SEC?
Like when you look at the Big ten, you size
them up, cut them up eighteen deep versus the SEC sixteen.
Who do you think is SUPERI well.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
I think Oregon is something that we haven't seen out
west since Pete Carroll and ed Orgeron. They've just done
it differently. They've purchased big bodies, So I think Oregon
stacks up in the train. I mean, they went out
and they bought the best left tackle on the West
Coast in the last several years two years ago he started.
They've went, and Phil Knight has essentially said, before I die,
(15:24):
I won a national championship, and I'll spend whatever it takes.
People talk about the Texas nil Oregon's is unlimited. They'll
just buy whatever they have to. That's really how it's done.
USC's is thirteen million. I have that on thirteen million.
Depending on the ascension of the program, it could get
to fifteen. But USC's fine. They're not Texas, they're not
(15:46):
A and M. They're not Ohio State, they're not maybe
not Georgia. They're not Oregon for sure. So I think
Oregon has purchased. And this is not a criticism. This
is all legal now right right, it's they've gone. All
their marketing is enhanced, even with Mario Crystaball they're recruiting
to me is the best on the West coast, the
best on the West coast. USC's is consistently second because
(16:09):
of the name brand. But Oregon's been recruiting the West
coast crystal Ball landing very well. If they want a
receiver or a dB, they get them. If there's a
top edge rusher, they just get them. If they own
the Northwest, mostly for the players they want. It's a
very weak recruiting year in my opinion in the West
coast this year, especially the Northwest. I think they match
up fine. I think eye test Texas looks really big.
(16:34):
When they faced Alabama last year the last couple of years,
I looked at it and I thought, God, this is
what Alabama looks like the last ten years against everybody else.
You're like, man, Texas passes the eye test. I think
the I think Oregon's going to beat Ohio State in
Eugene because I think Dan Lanning has done something that
I didn't think a Southern guy was going to do
with no head coaching experience. He's immediately I know what
(16:58):
Oregon is. I really do they play their They're a
little Detroit Lions, relentless, they play hard. They got I
think privately they would admit Kaylan de boorr Out coached
him and Washington had a bizarre set of great offensive talent,
almost no NFL bodies, and they matched up with Oregon.
(17:20):
I mean, frankly, Pennis.
Speaker 3 (17:22):
Beat ball h A. Dunze. Oregon wasn't getting beat because
they were being fooled.
Speaker 1 (17:27):
It's just it was just a bad matchup. I said
it before Washington was gonna beat Texas, they were not
gonna beat Michigan is and so I think it was
I think I watched Oregon play Washington twice once live.
I thought Oregon had more good players. I just thought
Washington was a terrible matchup. So I think Oregon matches
up with Ohio State, and I think if you match
(17:49):
up with Ohio State, you match up with everybody. I
think Alabama's underrated. I think Kayland Boor is magnificent. I
think he you know what he is, reminds me of
he's really Chris Peterson.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
Where have some Peterson vibes for sure.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
Where you're like, they will never be out coached at Alabama. Ever,
there are games with Nick Saban where I felt if
you had a quarterback that was good off script, you
could frustrate Nick. I didn't think he was out coached.
I thought there were things Nick did better than other coaches.
Klin de Boor it's almost magical. Like Washington's talent on
(18:24):
the defensive side is they had an interior defensive lineman
who I think the Rams got undrafted free free agent.
Speaker 2 (18:31):
I mean Tully Nasan Noa. They just have any talent,
so a lot of it was magical. And Chris Peterson
gets the Huskies do a playoff, and you're like, how
they don't have Alabama's players. So I think Oregon has purchased,
recruited and developed players. I think Landing has a plan.
I think they match up.
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Speaker 1 (20:26):
I am not as confident with Ohio State because I
just have felt for three years. And I'll ask you, Greg,
it's not that Michigan beat him as how they beat him.
They just don't rushed them. They took over all the
second half. Ohio State has never been prettier, but they've
never been more finesse. I'll ask you what are they
(20:47):
beyond talented.
Speaker 3 (20:48):
What are they?
Speaker 2 (20:49):
I think it's a look. They have been a sports
car where winning the Big Ten the last couple of
years has required a big diesel via goal, a duley
if you will, Like I don't want to say gmc
or ford and like tick people off, I would say Ford.
It's Michigan, So that feels fair, right, let's just go
(21:10):
with that. They have an F one fifty or an
F two to fifty that was one in the Big
Ten the last couple of years. Just the reality. So
I don't think that they're finesse though, Like I don't
know if that's entirely and I understand the characterization and
the way Ohio state standards. They're finesse compared to the
Urban Meyer version twenty fifteen Ohio state versions, that's finesse.
(21:32):
But that was a group that was so outrageously talented.
I remember watching that game in twenty fifteen against Bama
on New Year's Day. The first iteration of the college
football Playoffs was Zeke Elliott and Cardial Jones. Like, these
guys are freaks. Now not only can they fly, but
these guys will pound you. They're so crazy physical, And
I think that the Big Ten has long been a
(21:54):
league that was won with physicality, and then Ohio State found, hey,
we can win with physical but we also have some
high octane machines on the outside that we need to feed.
So I think they've kind of gotten away from themselves
a bit. And that's why the hire of chip Kelly
was so massive, because if you look twenty three consecutive Beers,
(22:15):
the team that has outrushed the other in the game
between Michigan and Ohio State wins the game. You ain't
gonna out rush chip Kelly's that's who he is, that's
what he believes in. And while people will look at
the Oregon Nears and think, oh, they were finesse, No,
they weren't. Just because they used tempo doesn't mean they
were finesse. Look at the UCLA years. Oh, because they
wear the like blue, they're finesse. No, no, No, Ucla was
(22:36):
far from finesse. Ucla ran it down LSU's throat, yep
in the Rose Bowl a couple of years ago. He
has gone out and prioritized running back. They go out
and got quinch On Judkins. They already had Trevon Henderson.
The offensive line is a question mark. But what Chip
Kelly can do is they're gonna play hard and they're
gonna get by a little bit running the football with
smoking mirrors. So I think they're traditional run sets that
(22:58):
they've used the last couple Ye you're not going to
beat Michigan with that because Michigan's got better D lineman
than you have O linemen. I don't know why. They
just do and they've had that for years and they're
probably going to have it again this year based on
what they bring back up front defensively. But if you
have one side of the offensive line blocking one play,
the left side of the offensive line blocking another play,
two completely different plays, you're reading a guy right in
(23:20):
the middle. You can't block him, so you might as
well read him, and you got a pass play off
of it. Now you're cooking them with gas. So I
think chip Kelly being hired by Ryan Day. Ryan Day
acknowledged that his run game was a blind spot, and
that's a really hard thing for coaches to do too.
I mean, hey, I've won a lot of games. I've
lost five games in my career as a head coach, Like, yeah,
I got to acknowledge though, that that's a little bit
(23:40):
of a blind spot for me. I need Chip Kelly
to come in. I'll handle the pass concepts, he handles
the run concepts, and now we're going to make this
thing work together perfectly. So I really like Ohio State
this year, but your one hundred percent right. I mean,
Michigan had their number. Is a terrible matchup, much like
you just talked about with Oregon and Washington. Terrible matchup
for Ohio State, and I wasn't all to see Michigan
(24:00):
went three straight against him.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
Yeah, so I'm predicting Oregon beats Ohio State and Eugene,
but Ohio State gets further in the playoff and plays
for the national championship. I don't know who they'll play.
I think Alabama is the most underrated team, you know.
I think Texas and Sark's history. Let's talk Texas.
Speaker 3 (24:19):
I love Sark.
Speaker 1 (24:20):
There's things he does very well. He really knows. He
understands because he lived in LA. He understands under Pete Carroll, branding, recruiting.
He can really sell Texas. I mean he watched the
master in Pete Carroll take over college football. Like he
gets branding, he gets recruiting, he gets you know all gas,
no breaks. He really gets that. That's really It's like
(24:42):
a marketing mentor. His teams can be a little light
on the details. Sometimes I think they play with more
passion than smarts. I think sometimes I'm pulling my hair
out watching his team play.
Speaker 3 (24:54):
But I like him.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
I like his story. He had some personal issues, He's
overcome them. Impossible not to root for him. I like him,
I really do. I root for people who have been bullied,
or of struggle, or of you know, people who just
fall off the edge and climb back. So I love
that story. Hey, Nick Saban made a career out of
hiring guys whose careers looked over. He was a life
preserver for Lane, Kiffin and Sark and I think that's
(25:17):
an incredibly redeemable part of Nick Saban. But you tell me,
and I love Texas, but I don't trust Texas. There's
a big diff I fell in love with girls when
I was younger. Didn't trust them, but I loved them.
You know, there's no right like and.
Speaker 3 (25:33):
That's my perception.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
I trusted Harball teams, I trusted Saban teams. I trust
Georgia teams. Got it Texas is there's in a big spot.
I'm just like, eh, eh, how do you view them?
Speaker 2 (25:48):
It's perfectly fair. Uh, here's my frustration with Texas. You
see what they should be, and you see what they
could be and what they sometimes are. Allah the Alabama
game last year, the Texas Tech game at the end
of the season. Yeah, the Oklahoma State game in the
Big Twelve title, it's like, you see what they're capable of,
(26:10):
and it's like, my god, there's no one. This is
the most complete team in the sport. Like they're they're
winning it. Like Michigan doesn't want to see them, Bama
doesn't want to see them, Florida State didn't want to
see them. Nobody wants see Texas except for Washington because
they're going to throw it over their head. Yeah, but
for whatever reason, you don't still get that performance every week,
and you don't really get that performance every quarter like
(26:30):
when I saw and you look, if you watched the
best teams in the sport for a number of years,
whether it was the Urban Meyer led Ohio State teams,
whether it was the Nick Saban led Alabama teams, the
Pete Carroll led USC teams, something miraculous had to happen
for them to lose games. Yeah, I mean it was
like miracle, right, Like Sanchez has to go to Corvallis
(26:55):
on a Thursday. It's ring sideways, you know, and it's
like the team has no business losing Oregon State, but
because of the circumstance, they lost Urban Meyer at Florida,
Like Jevins Dated the game of his life, scored twenty
one and beat him twenty one twenty on the last
second field goal or whatever it was. Nick Saban, I mean,
Johnny Manziel had to have the most ridiculous thing ever.
(27:18):
Cam Newton had to have the most ridiculous thing ever
kick sixes. Like weird stuff had to happen for those
teams to lose. You look at Texas, They'll play to
the level of the competition. And I can't understand why
Oklahoma last year you have three turnovers in the first quarter,
biggest game of the year at that point, after beating
Texas or beating Bama three four weeks earlier, you have
you know, you block a punt to get back in
(27:39):
at your you know, you end up almost winning the game,
and then you give up drive at the end quarterback
draw really to set the drive up and then they
go right down the field score. Then you look at
TCU five and seventeen, you win by three. You look
at the offensive performance against s Iowa State and you're like,
what was that? You know, there's just some perform Kansas State,
(28:00):
they're in overtime and can't State's got the ball inside
the five for four consecutive players can't score. I mean
that to me is strange. The year before that, if
you want to go back a year before the lose
to Texas Tech on the road, you have, I mean,
just circumstantial losses that just really don't make sense. So
I understand the thought process because they are navigating to
(28:20):
a league now where the TCUs of the world don't
exist anymore. There's no disrespect to Texas Christion at all.
They're a good program. They're going to do great things.
They're going to be back in the playoff hunt again
at some point because of the league that they play in.
But if you took TCU and put them in the SEC,
I don't think it fared very well.
Speaker 3 (28:37):
Yeah, it's the reality.
Speaker 2 (28:38):
We saw that on the national Championship stage a couple
of years ago. So they're going to have to play
on a consistent basis with more regularity. And that's I
think the next step in the evolution to building Texas
foundation that Sark wants to build is that doesn't matter
who you're playing against, where it's at, what's the score,
this is the expectation, this is the standard, and we
(28:59):
got a played to that standard every week.
Speaker 1 (29:01):
Yeah, it's I think what's happening in the Big Ten
in the SEC is Texas and Oklahoma are both going
to discover that you can end up going and facing
Missouri and you think, oh, LSU in two weeks, We've
got you know, we got better personnel. And you look
up and you trail Georgia went to Missouri?
Speaker 2 (29:21):
Was it last year? The year before?
Speaker 1 (29:23):
And you're like, Missouri is kicking their ass. You don't
get that in the Big Ten. Now, Purdue once rushed
Ohio State. I think that was an urban team. It
was like, what is happening?
Speaker 2 (29:32):
I think he had one twenty seventeen. Yeah, the end,
it was like what was that?
Speaker 3 (29:38):
Well?
Speaker 1 (29:38):
Yeah, but that happens a lot in the SEC where
you're like, you think it's the game before the game
and you're you're in Columbia and you're like, we're getting
pushed around, and and so I don't think Texas and
Oklahoma you can talk about it, you have to live
it for a year. That doesn't exist in the Big Ten.
(30:02):
Whereas Ohio State has significantly better personnel than a good
program like Wisconsin, like almost every position. So it was
like you may have had a Penn State rhody in Michigan.
They kind of match up the differen And so the
difference is whereas Texas Oklahoma are going to go into
(30:23):
the SEC and go, all right, we gotta we gotta take.
Speaker 3 (30:28):
A deep breath here.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
This is a little more consistently difficult than we thought.
I think the inverse is true. I think Ohio State's
gonna go oh shit at Seattle at Eugene. I think
the Pac twelve teams going are more creative. I think
they're much better at home. People have no idea how
(30:51):
good tough it is to play in Seattle in November.
Everybody's talking about the cold weather in Purdue. Go to
Seattle when it's raining November eighteenth. So I think the
Ohio States, I mean, buck guys don't go to Eugene. No,
it's fifty eight thousand, it's the loudest stadium I've ever
been in my life except Gainesville. So I think the Ohio,
the Big Ten is thinking all these soft teams Washington,
(31:14):
Oregon plan crappy weather Ohio. UCLA's irrelevant now that Chips
left USC. Lincoln's very clear. You don't face a lot
of Lincoln Riley offenses, by the way in the Big Ten.
So I think the SEC is going to be shocking
to Texas, Oklahoma. I think the PAC twelve schools, creativity,
(31:36):
Jedfish Lanning, Lincoln Riley, You're going to find out they're not.
Iowe perdue that they both of those programs, Oregon and
USC are buying good players. They have real collectives. So
that's my take. Your thoughts on that, my take on that.
Speaker 2 (31:53):
I think it's one hundred percent accurate. And we've all
said and I had got into an argument with a
buddy of mine who I respect greatly, and I asked him, Hey,
what kind of style of football will win out in
the Big Ten and the RPO and the high volume
offense to that potentially, you know, find its way to
(32:15):
immediate success in the Big Ten. Or is it going
to be a line of scrimmage league where hey, you're
not running it on us, Like, no matter what, I
don't get you. Look at all the Big Ten teams
and I don't care if you're Northwestern or if you're
Michigan State, Like the whole identity of Big Ten football
is like, you're not running it between the tackles. Like
we're going to have three hundred and thirty pounds, six
foot one dudes that grew up on farms that have
been doing farmers walks with four hundred pound dumbbells for
(32:39):
twenty years since childhood, and just on a for fun,
they go bail hey, like you're not moving these defensive tackles.
So they got to get a little creative in the
run game from time to time. But that's been the identity.
The Pac twelve played the game on the perimeter, right.
It doesn't mean they can't go to toe to toe.
I mean they can't. They can, but it was a
perimeter game. And that's why Utah I think found great
(33:02):
success in the Pac twelve in the last few years
because they could play the perimeter game. But they really
were rooted with brass knuckles, you know what I mean,
Like their core was brass force their tight ends to block. Yes,
So here's the thing that I'm curious about. I don't
(33:22):
care how bad SC's defense has been. If Iowa has
to score thirty to win, can they do it? And
and Iowa is a team that they're in the ap
top twenty five, like they're a team that I have
great respect for. But in the event in which hey,
it's a race to twenty eight, you ready to go?
I I really don't know how many teams, the Minnesota's
(33:45):
of the world, the Iowa's of the world, the Illinois
of the world, how many of those teams are going
to be comfortable getting into shootouts because I know SC
will be perfectly fine. Hey, you want to play to fifty,
We'll go first one there. Yeah, I think Washington will
be perfectly fine. And that's as well. And the event
in which the defense is a bad day, the offensive
step ahead. Are you comfortable getting the forty two to win?
(34:06):
Because I don't know how many teams at the Big
ten are The other thing is SC comfortable whinn are
you game thirteen to ten because you go play a
team like Nebraska or a team like Iowa and creepy weather.
If a game that you run into and I don't know,
will Lincoln get frustrated, Will Lincoln get impatient like he
did at Oklahoma? And the reason why Iowa State became
(34:27):
a thing under Matt Campbell is because he could frustrate
Lincoln Riley because it can never manufacture a big plays.
They would just play three stageties at the top. You're
not throwing a deep. You'd to take a bunch of checkdowns.
And I bet if you have to snap the ball
seventeen times on an offensive drive, you're gonna get greedy,
you're gonna get impatient, and you're gonna throw us one.
So that was kind of the the mo So I
just think it's gonna be fascinating to see how that
(34:48):
all works. But I think the Big Ten is probably
collectively sleeping on how physical the Pac twelve is. Not
that that's their bread and butter. It's not, and they
won't be as physical as the teams that they face
in the Big Ten, but I think that there they
can go toe to toe more than people are probably
assuming at the moment. Hey, what's up, everybody?
Speaker 5 (35:09):
John Middlecoff here for the Three and Out podcasts. The
NFL season is right around the corner, and if you
want some of the best football content out there. I
got you covered training camp, through the preseason, throughout the
entire season. Subscribe and follow the Three and Out podcast
with me John Middlecop on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you
listen to your podcasts.
Speaker 1 (35:36):
So I want to address something people. I always think
it's funny because I have defended Jim Harbaugh, who I
think was viewed as my pesky rival years ago because
a clunky interview I did, but that was not the truth.
Behind the scenes, I had reached out to him and
his family so and Jim's been great that The reason
(36:00):
I have defended Michigan and Connor Stallions is this, if
in society we decided suddenly that bank robberies were legal,
I would have a hard time buying into throwing somebody
in jail for jaywalking. That the number one thing you're
you were never allowed to do in college football. It
(36:20):
was the death penalty was by high school players, by
any player, But you buying a high school player is
a death penalty that's now not only legal, it's encouraged.
It's the model. So I'm not a crooked mustache on
a sideline pass with a fuzzy iPhone. It just it
seems ticky tacky. Now is it appropriate? No, it's not appropriate.
Speaker 3 (36:47):
Is there a level two violation? Absolutely?
Speaker 1 (36:50):
But when I read that, of the multitude of level
two violations, one of them was verifying an Instagram account
by a Michigan assistant, I'm like, time out, so you
can get into a bidding war for a sophomore linebacker
from ann arbor that. So my take has been it's
all nonsense, is that the culture in the world changed
(37:14):
and jaywalking doesn't matter to me anymore.
Speaker 3 (37:16):
Let you let.
Speaker 1 (37:17):
Bank robberies now are legal, and we see this stuff
in tech politics. The world changes. So ten years ago,
I would have been much more punitive on Michigan, like, hey,
you can't do that, because you couldn't do anything. Now,
I'm like, guys, it's bidding wars for high schoolers. I
don't even care anymore. I really don't care whatever you do,
(37:40):
you do. So that's my take. Throw it back at.
Speaker 3 (37:44):
Me and why I'm wrong.
Speaker 2 (37:46):
I don't entirely disagree with you. I think that when
you look at look at the world of coaching through
a lens of morality. Here probably let's just be honest,
like it's it's one of those. If you're not cheating,
you not, you're not trying. If you can't beat them,
(38:07):
join them. It's like that, it's daw it's eat or
be eaten. And I'm not condoning what went down at Michigan.
I will never do that. But here's my thought. And
I come from the Nick Saban school of personal accountability. Right, Okay,
this is my own personal opinion. If you steal my signs,
that's on me. That that's my own personal opinion. Now,
(38:29):
I played college in the NFL. Every single time I
was sitting on the sideline, not as a starter. I'm
trying to steal signs every single time NFL go and
look twenty thirteen Cincinnati Bengals against New York Jets. I
had gotten cut by the Jets earlier in the year.
Gino Smith was playing quarterback, pac Man Jones is playing
(38:50):
left corner. I'm staying on the sideline. I know Martin
Morningwig and the entire West coast offen signals. Geno signals
under to the wide receiver. I tell Batman under under
pac Man jumps it takes it to the house. All
is fair. If Marty morning Wagon they know that I
was with them in camp and I was now on
the Bengals, and you are going to just keep it
(39:12):
as is. You're going to keep the same signal if
I were, if I were Marty morning Egg, this signal
the under signal, that would have been a stop and go.
That would have been an under and go because pac
Man would have jumped it and they would have been
out the gate for a touchdown. I thin if we
won that game, like forty nine to seven or something
along the lines of that, it was a lot too
a little. So I think back at my career and
(39:33):
if you wouldn't change your signals and that gave me
access to them, I would be able to create a
competitive advantage. No, a bridge too far is using recording
devices that to me is completely uncalled for and unnecessary.
But the gamesmanship of stealing signals on game day, that's life.
(39:54):
And we're trying to get other information about guys that
might have played there in the past or whatever. And
if you can get information, say hey, guy transfers from
Michigan to Ohio State, you think the Ohio State coaches
aren't asking the player that transferred in from Michigan about
Michigan schemes. Of course, they are. It's not illegal, but
it probably wouldn't be very smart for the Michigan coaches
(40:18):
in that scenario to use the same signals that they
used when that player was on their team. So I
think that while it looks really bad in the court
of public opinion, and while people think it had an
impact on the integrity of the game, it's hard to
disagree with that. But also things could have been done
(40:41):
by the opposing team to not allow Connor Stallion's information
to become relevant on game day. So that's my whole
thought process on it. But I think you're I think
your reasoning for feeling the way you feel is perfectly fine,
But my reasoning is coming from a player's perspective. We're
kind of saying the same thing, it's just coming from
(41:02):
at a slightly different angle.
Speaker 1 (41:03):
Yeah, Ohio State felt two years before it was announced
it was happening, And my take is, okay, if you're
not switching stuff up, especially for Michigan.
Speaker 3 (41:11):
It's one thing.
Speaker 1 (41:12):
If you keep some of your signals, but the Michigan
game is you prepare for that differently, and if you
knew two years out they were doing it, I don't
want to see I don't want to hear that you
know they stole our signs if you don't have to
your initial point separate signs for the Michigan game. I mean,
Urban Meyer talks about they were they scouted Michigan. Every
(41:35):
week you win that game. John Cooper won eleven games
a year. He couldn't beat Michigan, right, harpball was above
four years ago he was winning eleven a year. He
couldn't beat Ohio State. So to me, it's like, if
you knew about it two years ago and you were
investigating it, then you had to have been changing your
signals or you have bad coaches. So I think we
both get to the same spot is that it's not perfect.
(41:58):
It's kind of there. But it's murkier than people are saying,
is what I'm saying. It's it's murkier everybody's stealing signs.
I love your Marty morning Went stuff because I've had
role players. The backup quarterback's job in the NFL is it,
That's it.
Speaker 2 (42:13):
That's why I have an NFL pension. So I was
good at that. Hey, I couldn't throw it, but I'm
gonna figure out your signals. I'm gonna know your protection adjustments,
like we're gonna figure this thing out. It might be
quarter four before I get it, but I'm gonna try.
I can promise I'm gonna try.
Speaker 1 (42:27):
Okay, I'm gonna let's do. Let's do most overrated underrated
teams and close it out this way. I think Michigan's
the most overrated in the in the top twenty five.
They lost not only depth, they lost like leaders. They
lost like locker room leaders, you know, fift year seniors.
They also lost the best quarterback Harballs had who I
watched him before he got hurt. Meniscus Tear had a
(42:49):
terrific debut. It's very difficult to lose not only quality starters,
but veteran quality starters like who who were clubhouse leaders.
I think Michigan will not be a top twenty team. Overrated,
I think underrated.
Speaker 3 (43:07):
I I don't know.
Speaker 1 (43:09):
I think Brian Kelly's gonna figure it out. Jas so good,
He's so good, and I look at all those teams
above him, and I'm like, yeah, they're not going to
beat Georgia, maybe Alabama, Ohio State, but people have them eleventh, twelve, thirteenth,
I'm like, nah, they're better than Utah, and I love Utah.
Speaker 3 (43:29):
They're better than Utah, though.
Speaker 1 (43:31):
Utah returns a guy that's I think has been starting
quarterback for them for eleven years, Cam Rising. So a
little underrated, Lsu, a little overrated, a lot overrated Michigan,
what say you?
Speaker 2 (43:43):
Yeah, I'm good with the Michigan on the same page there.
My problem with Michigan is I've just heard a lot
of buzz and it's hard a little bit with that
place too. All Right, is this real or is it not.
I've heard a lot of positive buzz about their offense
and Alex Orgy and how much he's progressed. And I've
seen him run. I know he's a superstar with the
ball in his hands, but I've also only seen him
(44:04):
throw one pass. I've heard that he's got a monster arm,
and I tried to watch him in preseason or in
pregame warm ups every time I've called a Michigan game,
And when I was on the field, I stood right
behind him and watched him throw it. I thought Tundle
threw it pretty good too, by the way, for Michigan,
so I thought, hey, when JJ leaves, they'll probably going
to be all right. A quarterback regardless. But I just
(44:26):
I look at the rest of the top ten. Ohio State,
They're going to be there, no doubt. So if you're
going to quantify it as quote overrated, Ohio State's gonna
be there. George is going to be there there safe bet.
I think Texas and Oregon are going to be there.
I think BAM is going to be there. So the
top five feel very very safe. People have been saying
Notre Dame look at their schedule, Like Notre Dame, they
(44:48):
could go nine to three and not be a team
ranked in the top twenty five.
Speaker 1 (44:52):
By the way end the year on the road in LA.
And Also, I don't know how good Riley Leonard is.
I have no idea what he is.
Speaker 2 (45:00):
I know that Mike denbrock th row c though, did
a pretty good job with Jayden Daniels, whose skill set
was similar to Riley Leonards when he arrived from Arizona State,
So I think the development portion of bringing him along.
Ryley Lembage has been naturally kind of an inaccurate passer
on the downfield throws that's.
Speaker 1 (45:17):
Got to grow his whole career, his whole crazy wild Yeah.
Speaker 2 (45:21):
Still optimistic though that it's in there because I've seen
the underneath throws. If you can throw the underneath stuff,
you can throw the intermediates, you can throw the deeps.
It's just changing an arm, angled changing the shoulders, changing
the trajectory. All that. I think den Brock will do
a pretty good job with them. I really do, because
I think it's a comparable player to what they brought
in with Jayden Daniels, and that obviously worked out very well.
(45:43):
I can't take him out of the top twenty five though.
Their schedules too manageable. I mean, the toughest games book
in the season sc and A and M. And people say, well,
Florida State. I think Florida State going to South Bend
is a pretty good spot. People say maybe Louisville, Well,
you don't think Notre Dames had that one circled. They
got blown out by Louisville last year at their place,
so I think I think Notre Dame's appropriately ranked ole Miss.
(46:06):
If people are not on their bandwagon, it's because they
aren't familiar with what Lane Kiffin's done. From talent acquisition standpoint.
They're not overrated, they're appropriately rated. You're just not comfortable
with seeing them ranked that high. Then you look at
Penn State, They're going to be rock solid. I am
worried a little about their offense, but their defense will
keep them minute. Especially with their schedule they have, They're
(46:27):
gonna be fine. Their schedule's very manageable. In the Pac
twelve or in the Big ten. I think Missouri, I think,
is the other that I would say maybe slightly over
our skis there. So Missouri and Michigan the two that
I'm just not so sure about. Missouri I think it's eleven,
Michigan at nine as far as underrated. Now you're gonna
say I'm crazy. I know this. I'm comfortable with this.
(46:50):
I've been singing the praises all off season. I did
this last year for a team and ended up working out.
I love Miami this year, I love Miami the year
they coming at number nineteen. Now, a lot of people
are going to sit there and say, well, it's Miami.
We do this every year. You know the same people
that are saying Matt right now are the same people
that said, well, why are we building up Texas? Like
(47:12):
Texas hasn't done anything since two thousand and nine. Why
are you continuing to say that they're going to be
good this year because they were on paper. Texas going
into last year was great. Now it's about allowing it
to come to fruition. Miami on paper is great now,
it's just about can they take the next step as
a program and not beat themselves. This was one of
(47:33):
the best teams in America in the first half of
the season last year, and they turned the ball over
against Georgia Tech, give up the big play on the
fumble and the couple touchdown. You know, then they end
up that has a huge ripple effect throughout the rest
of the season. Tyler Van Dyke can't shake the turnover
woes and he gets benched. Then they give Florida State
all they want, and then their starter who replaced Van
(47:53):
Dyke gets hurt. Van Dyke's back in the lineup. I mean,
it was just it was a disastrous season last year.
They've upgraded a quarterback with cam Ward. He doesn't turn
it over. They couldn't score in the red zone with
any regularity last year. Well, what helps in the red
zone quarterback run game. Cam Ward can run it. They
went and got the best running back available in the
portal in Damian Martinez and that was kind of a
revolving door of players last year with three or four
different guys. We're all solid. None have rushed for twelve
(48:16):
hundred yards in the season like Damian Martinez did last year.
The offensive line was a strength last year. It's strength
again to get their top two wide outs back. Defensively,
they have the best edge defender in the ACC who's
only going into his sophomore year in ruben Bain. They
added three more five stars and a couple guys in
the portal like they are stocked. The one question mark
is the secondary, and by all accounts, that group is
(48:37):
playing well above what they anticipated at this point of
the season. So I think Miami people are gonna be
I think people are going to look at them and say, well,
we're just here. We are again. We always pump up
the blue blotz. I think Miami's extremely capable with the
personnel they have, and I'd be surprised if they're not
in the mix in the ACC and ultimately in the
mix of the playoff.
Speaker 1 (48:57):
Greg McElroy, what a pleasure to see you rushed it.
You are as thorough and as entertaining and fair, and
that's that's the thing college football can be regional and tribal.
Despite the fact that you live in the South and
cover uh, you know the sec I've always thought in
a sport that is often way too regional, you are
(49:18):
the king of common sense and I just love.
Speaker 3 (49:21):
You, really are.
Speaker 2 (49:21):
You know your that means a lot.
Speaker 3 (49:23):
No, you know your stuff.
Speaker 1 (49:25):
You really bring a lot of credibility in my opinion
to what you do because I have to cover everything.
I'm a mile wide, you're a mile deep, and your
knowledge is just supreme. You're really great, and I just
I think I hope the audience enjoyed this as much
as I did.
Speaker 3 (49:40):
Buddy.
Speaker 2 (49:40):
Well, it's always so great to visit with you, and
I told you already in the interview. Thank you for
all you do for college football. It really means a lot.
I don't say that in your tongue in cheek either,
Like you could cover the NFL three hours a day,
and the fact that you carve out a little slice
for college football almost every day, it means a lot.
And you do so much for us in the fall,
so we appre hit the coverage you give us.
Speaker 1 (50:01):
Good seeing you man, Good to see you, buddy the volume.
Thanks so much for listening. If you've enjoyed the podcast,
take a moment, rate and review
Host
Colin Cowherd
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