Matt Campbell to Penn State, Notre Dame's ACC Beef & Early CFP Leans | College Football - The Solid Verbal College Football

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to the solid verbal. I'll ah for me. I'm
a man, I'm forty. I've heard so many players say, well,
I want to be happy. You want to be happy
for day Edo State?

Speaker 2 (00:13):
Is that?

Speaker 1 (00:13):
Whoo whoom? And now Dan and Tie.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
Danner mustee welcome back. We just did this like twenty
four hours ago. We're doing it again.

Speaker 1 (00:23):
How are you? I'm good. So let's see. We did
a Saturday stream for a game, and a Saturday night
reaction to all of the game stream we did Ohio
State Indiana. Then yesterday we did a reaction stream for
the College Football Playoffs selection show, and then Friday, I
want to say, we did a bonus recording that's on

(00:45):
YouTube and maybe the audio's out there on Patreon atverballers
dot com. About the Matt Campbell hire. That's right, So
I'm going at it. That's right. I can't get a night. Tie.

Speaker 2 (00:52):
My voice yesterday morning sounded like Kirk Kerbstreet's voice yesterday afternoon.

Speaker 1 (00:57):
Yeah it was rough, Yeah it was rough.

Speaker 2 (01:01):
I was drinking a lot of the tea with the
honey and all that. So I think I've revived it
enough to go at this again and record a little
bit more with you.

Speaker 1 (01:09):
Yeah, we've got a lot to discuss.

Speaker 2 (01:11):
I mean, of course, go back and listen to the
bonus episode, the bonus audio that you and I recorded.
It's out there on your podcast feed. It's out on
YouTube as well. Sort of a two parter this past weekend.
Part one was what we normally do at midnights where
we recap all the action.

Speaker 1 (01:27):
We talked through all the conference championship games, and.

Speaker 2 (01:29):
Then what we put together and then published, of course
to the feed yesterday was our reaction to the playoff
rankings and the.

Speaker 1 (01:35):
Matchups and whatnot.

Speaker 2 (01:37):
We're going to talk through a little bit more of
that on today's episode.

Speaker 1 (01:41):
But there's a bunch of news that's been building up.

Speaker 2 (01:43):
You gave away the game a little bit by talking
about Penn State and Matt Campbell.

Speaker 1 (01:47):
But yeah, yeah, weeople are just finding out now through
the shell that it happened. I'm sorry, weiled it.

Speaker 2 (01:53):
We haven't talked about that yet on the public feed,
so we're we're gonna do that here. In addition to
a bunch of other items that have popped up since
we last reviewed the news, we are going to talk
through some early college football playoff thoughts we do have
four matchups, our first rounders that we're going to go through,
give you points spreads. Now, when we recorded yesterday, we
didn't have those, so we'll talk through those and just

(02:13):
some elements of the matchups that jump out to us.

Speaker 1 (02:16):
And then we're going to go through some of the
Bowl matchups as well.

Speaker 2 (02:18):
Not a full fledged preview or anything like that, but
there are some interesting matchups. There are some interesting news
stories that come out of these Bowl matchups as well,
which we can dive into here in just a little
bit as well.

Speaker 1 (02:31):
Hit, I got it, by the way, I got it.
I'm interrupting you. I got gotta tell you. I'm a
little bit surprised, as a Notre Dame person tie that
you opted into recording an episode about the postseason. I'm
a little surprised that you didn't release a statement to
me exclusively. You know, you know, ultimately, I'm disappointed that
Notre Dame is not in the cause relationship is strained.

Speaker 2 (02:57):
I think those were Pete Bavakua's words with respect to
Notre Dame and the ACC's we have a show.

Speaker 1 (03:02):
Thank you for your courage, Hie, right now, yes, thank
you for your courage. We got that.

Speaker 2 (03:08):
We got a bunch of stuff we're gonna get into.
As I was saying, hit follow, hit subscribe. If you
like the show, if you want to usport what we do,
we'll be with you three times a week all throughout
the off season. I should add that what we're gonna
start doing since we don't want to record on the
weekends anymore unless.

Speaker 1 (03:21):
We have to.

Speaker 2 (03:22):
Of course, we're gonna be running interviews on Sundays now,
so we're gonna be doing longer interviews throughout the course
of the week. You and I and some cases will
trade off. In some cases it'll be both of us.
But either way, you will have fresh content at your
fingertips for free. Yes, right here on YouTube, right here
in your podcast feed, wherever it is you consume the show.

(03:44):
You've got that to look forward to throughout the month
of December and probably beyond.

Speaker 1 (03:49):
Yeah, agree, can't wait. Got some good people absolutely all right,
the coaching Dan Rubenstein. You know what the roar means,
don't you? Of course, just just a lot of energy
and enthusiasm. Sure, it does mean that.

Speaker 2 (04:08):
It also means we've got more coaching hires to discuss
on the show.

Speaker 1 (04:12):
Chief among them is what you alluded to a few
moments earlier.

Speaker 2 (04:17):
Pat Kraft has made it official. He has shot off
the white smoke. He has a guy ut to Penn State.
It took forever fifty four days, but Matt Campbell is
the higher. They actually had their introductory presser a little
bit ago.

Speaker 1 (04:34):
I watched the whole thing. This is a higher that.

Speaker 2 (04:37):
As you know, this process took a bunch of strange turns.
It started with a bunch of the biggest names in
the coaching profession, all of whom seemingly turned Penn State down.
Kalani Sataki was heavily rumored to the position, but then
the BYU community stepped up. However that news leaked. I

(04:58):
do not know, but they can't tell. The cookie crumbles tied.
That is how the cookie crumbles.

Speaker 1 (05:03):
Very very good bag. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (05:05):
BYU stepped up in a big way to retain their guy.
Kline's TAKEI and it.

Speaker 1 (05:11):
Got a little hairy there towards the end.

Speaker 2 (05:13):
Not gonna lie, but Pat Craft eventually finds this guy
in Io State's Matt Campbell. Dan.

Speaker 1 (05:23):
Matt Campbell's been rumored to a bunch of big positions,
or at least there's reported interest in one direction or
the other. But yes, and he like especially some of
those bigger, big ten jobs that have opened up these
past few years. His name has come up, and he
seemingly has not expressed that much interest, at least it
hasn't seemed that way outwardly.

Speaker 2 (05:44):
I think this is an enormous hire for Penn State.
I mean, not just in terms of the gravity of it,
given circumstances with letting go of James Franklin after he
had been very successful at Penn State for an eternity.
But I think they got a really good guy in
Matt Campbell. As I said, he's been rumored to a
bunch of other college football openings. The NFL came calling

(06:09):
for Matt Campbell not too long ago. Matt Campbell is
not a guy who jumped around. He said as much
at his press conference. He has been tremendously loyal at
the places that he has been. You can just listen
to his former athletic director at Iowa State, Jamie Pollard,
talk about him. I mean he was emotional, voice cracked
a lot talking about the relationship that he had with

(06:29):
Matt Campbell. What Matt Campbell did at Iowa State, If
Penn State gets half of the guy that Matt Campbell
was at Iowa State, this is a home run.

Speaker 1 (06:37):
Higher.

Speaker 2 (06:38):
So when I heard this, I will admit, if I
had heard this seven days into the process, I may
not have been enamored with it, because Matt Campbell's a
low key guy. It certainly is not the flashiest hire.
But now, given the strange turns that this coaching search
has taken, the fact that Matt Campbell now fell off

(06:59):
the back of a freaking truck and into the waiting
and desperate arms of pack Craft and Penn State University,
it's a plus at this point. Okay, yeah, it is
a plus given context. The fact that it took so
long to get here, that's probably a story for another day.
By the way, I'm gonna have Matt Fortuna on with
me at some point here, probably later part of this week.

Speaker 1 (07:21):
You'll hear that interview.

Speaker 2 (07:22):
He's got great details on how the coaching search evolved
and all that, So we'll go into that in more
detail with Matt. But the fact that it arrived here
at a place now where everybody I think is pretty
comfortable with the hire, this is a success story for
Penn State for pack Craft and hopefully for Matt Campbell.

Speaker 1 (07:41):
Yeah, I don't. I don't think. I mean, look, no
coaching high is a sure thing. But I think there
are pretty obvious questions about Matt Campbell and Penn State,
you know, the least of which is like, what does
he look like building a roster? Obviously, what does he
do with that roster? And the uphill battle he has
in a conference with now the number one and two
teams in the country in Indiana and Ohio State heading

(08:02):
into the playoff that are going to be on his
schedule at some point either during the regular season or
in the postseason. You've got Oregon, You've got maybe a
Michigan team that could be potentially ascending in the next
couple of years. It's a difficult spot for Penn State
to start over from, but obviously Penn State's starting point
is in an advantaged one because of how large this

(08:24):
operation can be. But that also begs the question, like
does he have the personality to run a much larger
operation than what he had at Iowa State, Which, obviously
he did a great job with what he had at
Iowa State and did a very good job recruiting and
won a bunch of games, and you know, built good offenses,
built good defense is hired well for the most part.

(08:46):
Obviously there are some hires that don't work out for everybody.
But what does that look like at a place that
is larger and has much larger expectations than he's ever
had to deal with? And that's why he's a head coach, right.
You want those challenges, you want that competition, you want
to measure yourself against the best, And so there's no
reason to doubt this hire from a like do we

(09:10):
think this is the right guy to grow into a
role like this? I think it's absolutely one of the
right guys that you can talk yourself growing into a
place like this. So I do like it a lot.

Speaker 2 (09:22):
He said two things at his introductory pressor that to
me stood out above all else. The first was it
was the last question in the Q and a bit
where somebody asked him, tell us your roots about Penn
State or to Penn State. Have you ever met James Franklin,

(09:42):
Have you ever met Bill O'Brien or Joe Paturno?

Speaker 1 (09:44):
Have you ever been here before? And Matt Campbell I
thought was really, really, I don't want to say conviction
and like straightforward. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (09:57):
I don't want to say calculated, because calculated that implies
that there was some undertone of you know, there was
some ulterior motive. But it was just really smart the
way he answered that question, and he said, the short
answer is no to everything.

Speaker 1 (10:11):
I haven't been here before.

Speaker 2 (10:12):
I don't know James Franklin, I don't know Bill O'Brien,
I didn't meet Joe Paterno. He had a relationship with
Todd Blackledge's dad. He talked about how that was an
important relationship for him that helped sort of mentor him
through his early days as a.

Speaker 1 (10:27):
Football player and as a coach.

Speaker 2 (10:29):
He talked about his grandparents in Pennsylvania and how they
had an outsized influence on him just as people, and
how they were very passionate about Penn State football. But personally,
given some of the strife that has been circling around
this program now for a while, I like the fact
that they're getting somebody from the outside completely maybe has
regional ties to Penn State football, but does not have

(10:52):
the baggage of having been at Penn State before knowing
any of the same people. That type of thing, if
you're going to make this movie. If you're going to
do away with a guy who was this successful for
that long in state college, I would hope that it's
somebody from the outside who's not going to continue any
of the old ideas, going to start fresh or going
to reboot now and see what we can build for

(11:13):
the better moving forward.

Speaker 1 (11:14):
That was the first thing.

Speaker 2 (11:16):
The second thing, and this is a little bit more
X and OE, but he talked at length about how
they built from the ground up their player acquisition model,
their GM position over at Iowa State. It's much different
than what Penn State was doing under James Franklin. And
so I think a guy who and he detailed this.

(11:38):
He can go and listen to this if you want,
but talked about how he and his partners at Iowa
State built this from the ground up. He's got first
hand experience putting in that elbow grease, figuring out on
the fly as many programs did, how to navigate this
new landscape in college football. I think that will benefit
him greatly because a he's put in the work, he

(11:59):
knows what goes into it, he understands the operation, and
it's going to benefit Penn State in the long run
because I think it will take their program to the
next level. Again, this is something that we heard on
that leaked audio that came out from Patcraft, how James
Franklin was paying everybody on the roster instead of maybe
a lotting funds in a way that you're giving more
to the guys who are doing more.

Speaker 1 (12:21):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (12:22):
So I just think that there's going to be a
total reboot on that side. And I honestly that was
the most exciting part of it. His demeanor fits the moment.
I think Penn Staters are going to be very happy
with just listening to this guy in an interview, but
I think the more operational aspects of what he brings
to the table here are really exciting.

Speaker 1 (12:40):
Yeah. And look, it was it was intended to be recorded,
which is new for Penn State with everything coming out
of the program. Yeah, no point. Did Matt Campbell call
Oregon soft or a fraud, which I guess is like
a new a new like fut Man. We'll find out
those flashing uniforms, can you be jmu? I don't know.
We'll see, We'll see, We'll see Man twenty one twenty

(13:04):
two point somewhere. And let's get to that we'll get
to that.

Speaker 2 (13:07):
Wait, so Penn State's got his guy. It took forever,
it ended up well. If in fact this ends up
working for pat Craft, he will have truly pulled a
rabbit out of his you nowhere, because this was a
really fed up process. And again, I'm going to talk
more about that with our friend Matt Fortuna. We'll talk
about that and publish it to the feed a little

(13:28):
bit later on in the week.

Speaker 1 (13:30):
I mean, Matt Campbell did. He did accept a four
million dollar raise too. He did. We should point out that, like,
he's not doing this out of the goodness of his heart.

Speaker 2 (13:37):
Now eight years seventy and a half million, I believe
fully guaranteed.

Speaker 1 (13:40):
Yes, good for him.

Speaker 2 (13:42):
Iowa State moved quickly, and I mean very quickly to
name his replacement, so quickly that they named their replacement
before Penn State made it official with Matt Campbell.

Speaker 1 (13:54):
They were ready, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (13:55):
They were ready for this. Jimmy Rodgers is going to
be the guy from wise. I listened to Jamie Pollard,
the ad again for Iowa State, talk through his relationship
with Jimmy Rodgers and why he went in this direction
as quickly as he did. Jimmy Rodgers familiar with that
part of the country, was a coach in South Dakota.
Has been successful in his own right. I think was
good at Wazoo in the short time that he was there. Yes,

(14:16):
he seems very excited about that move to Ames, Iowa.
So hopefully Iowa State's got a good guy to fill
their vacancy.

Speaker 1 (14:23):
By the way, Wazoo this past year, all things considered, right,
two straight years of losing your quarterback, you're very good
quarterback to the portal, bringing in a coach who is
bringing inn FCS players, competing with schools like take your pick,
Virginia and Old Miss traveling all over the place because
of a weird schedule, playing Oregon State twice. I think
splitting with Oregon State. I just thought he did a

(14:44):
really good job in a very difficult situation. And so
hopefully it's gonna be a little bit more stable for
Rogers in Ames. And I seem to like the higher
like you like to hire winning coaches no matter the level,
and he sort of fits that bill.

Speaker 2 (14:58):
Another guy who is Matt Campbell ad Jason is Jason Kandall.
It took the Yukon job. Jason Kandell another one of
these guys who has been rumored for a bunch of
other positions, been a good coach for a long time
at Toledo.

Speaker 1 (15:13):
He is making a move over to Yukon, kind of
a rumors move. Rumored to be interested in major program
offensive coordinator jobs yep, for a couple of years there.
I think Miami is a team with whom he spoke
about an open coordinator job situation there. It just seems
right now, especially when you look at Sean Lewis taking
the Colorado and an eventual San Diego State Colorado offensive

(15:34):
coordinator job San Diego State head coaching job. That making
a leap right now from MAC head coach to Power
Conference head coach or Major G five head coach might
not be the most obvious path, Like there needs to
be there needs to be a move elsewhere. I mean
the Yukon situation. I guess Jim Moore is at Colorado

(15:56):
State now, but just seemed like he needed a change
of scenery. Felt like he had hit his ceiling there
and by the way, just fall out from that. I
think it's Vince Karaz. I don't know how you pronounced.
I apologize, but he's a super well regarded defensive coordinator,
smaller school head coach before that. He is taking over
at Syracuse right very much in need of a new
defensive thinker after this past season, and I think there's

(16:18):
a lot of high hope for him after what he
did at Toledo. Charles Huff is going to Memphis. He
was at Southern Miss for one year. Yes, that was.

Speaker 2 (16:27):
After coming over from Marshall bringing his whole team. Had
a good year, you know.

Speaker 1 (16:31):
One of the most improved teams.

Speaker 2 (16:32):
Yeah, and we'll see if he brings the whole team
within the Memphis now or the what the plan is
going to be.

Speaker 1 (16:38):
But I think a good coach.

Speaker 2 (16:41):
You know, a lot of people think highly of Charles Huff,
and I think it's a good Memphis program. Look, they're
getting money, They're getting that FedEx money. They were very
much in the conversation for a good chunk of this year.
Even before this year, Memphis has very much been one
of those schools that's sort of on the top line.
When you're thinking a group of five programs and get

(17:01):
an opportunity, I guess to go somewhere a little bit
bigger with more resources.

Speaker 1 (17:05):
Here's what I don't love I think you're right. I
think obviously the Memphis thing, they'll have I think the
most resources in the American Obviously, Southern miss was one
of the most improved teams in America this past year
after how down they were in twenty four. I don't
love one and done coaches. It always rubs me. Like
Jimmy Rogers to Iowa State, there's is that element, and

(17:26):
I know Washington State's in like a weird unique thing
with the conference changes and everything like that. I didn't
love it with Todd Graham at what Pitt to Arizona State.
The one and done thing is just it's kind of
schevs me out. I just the idea of going to
a new place, getting everybody excited. This is how we're
going to recruit. This is how we're going to retain

(17:47):
the roster, this is how we're going to like, you know,
how we're going to hire. Here's how we're going to
scheme and just like bailing after ten months or something,
you know, a year, I don't know. I don't love it.
I know there's opportunity. I know you got to strike
when the irons hot. We've seen this before, Like I
see it, and I think to myself, Man, a bunch
of kids just like got sold a bill of goods

(18:09):
and that sucks. I don't know Billy Napier is going
to be the coach at JMU. He is, I mean,
value higher, right? I think so.

Speaker 2 (18:22):
James Madison's been really good at hiring football coaches. Obviously,
Kurt Signetti that one worked obviously. Now with Bob Chesney,
that one seems to work pretty well. They're a playoff team.
Billy Napier, not that long ago, was the name. He
was the name among G five coaches that everybody wanted.

(18:46):
I remember when he signed on with Florida. It was
viewed as a slam dunk. It wasn't It didn't work out.
We can discuss at some other point, maybe on our
Sunday Interview series, why it didn't go the way that
it was supposed to do. But that being said, Billion
Napier was very successful at this level before you got
to think that he learned something.

Speaker 1 (19:05):
I would hope he learned something from his time at Florida.

Speaker 2 (19:09):
And if you are a JMU duke out there, at
a minimum, you are getting a guy with previous coaching
experience who's been around the block a bunch of times,
and clearly as coach at.

Speaker 1 (19:20):
The highest level.

Speaker 2 (19:20):
So I actually think this is a brilliant move by
JMU to get him sort of on the rebound at
a bit of a discount. You definitely run the risk
of being successful and him going to greener pastures at
some point in the future. But this is the state
of play if you're a school like JMU, I commend
them for going out and get him because I.

Speaker 1 (19:40):
Think he can do really well there. It's also JMU
is one of those places and I say that like
with a capital P that sometimes places when and not
necessarily coaches. And this is to take nothing away from
any of those guys you mentioned. Also Mike Houston had
a really nice run at JMU before what ECU that
sometimes places have the in structure, have the leadership, have

(20:01):
the location right that JMU was one of those teams
that made an impeccable leap from the FCS ranks to
the FBS ranks, and you saw that with those coaches,
and so you know, apparently Harrison I've never been a Harrisonburg,
Virginia people think seem to think it's a really terrific
like Gem of a college town. So yeah, I think

(20:23):
it's one of those situations that if Billy Napier doesn't
succeed in this role, it almost makes it very obvious
it's a Billy Napier thing, not a JMU thing, when
the three guys who you know preceded him had the
success that they did. So hope that they can keep
it going because it's been a cool story there in
the Sunbelt. Also obviously a winnable conference, a very winnable
confidence Sunbelt.

Speaker 2 (20:44):
Billy back at it, yes, just with a different Sunbell team.
Tulane has promoted Will Hall the offensive coordinator. They are
promoting from within. There are a bunch of big names
that were tied to that two lane job, like Baker
as one comes to mind at LC, the defensive coordinator
who decided he's going to stay at Alishampton.

Speaker 1 (21:06):
Yeah, yeah, I heard.

Speaker 2 (21:07):
A bunch of names that were tied to this one.
But they're promoting from within, hoping to keep the trend rolling.
Tu lane obviously is going to be playing in a
playoff game. We will talk about that momentarily as well.

Speaker 1 (21:18):
Hope to keep the wave foaming. That's good, not bad.
I do like I got a good night's sleep last night, Ty,
I hope you can tell I'm.

Speaker 2 (21:26):
Pretty excited about the uniform game that we're going to
see on display. Like Two Lane's got some of the
best home away in alternate jersey combinations in college football,
and to have that sort of under the bright.

Speaker 1 (21:39):
Lights of the College Football Playoff is pretty cool. I'm excited. Well,
it's a it's a baby blue rematch. It is, obviously
Oh Missus shade of baby blue and Two Lane's shade
of I think Two Lanes a little bit lighter. I
wouldn't count on Ty hilden Brandt to point out the
specifics on shade. You could tell me it's red, I'd
believe you. I have no idea. Ty has made ab

(22:00):
D plus eye awareness. I can't see color, so right,
I'm saying, like you're I don't know what part of
is your retina's whatever it is. It's yeah, but you're
right that this should be even though it's a rematch
on the football field for a game. I don't think
not many people and only a lot of people wanted
to watch forty five to ten Part two after what

(22:21):
olemiss did to them earlier this season. Obviously, Tulane had
a very good year. Otherwise, it's a great uniform matchup. Absolutely.

Speaker 2 (22:29):
And then on the assistant front, Dan, Yes, you already
mentioned that Syracuse hired a new defensive coordinator. But there
are a couple other coordinators that are out and about.

Speaker 1 (22:38):
Yes, there are. Brent pry is coming back, Baby, I
love this so much. Brent. Two of these right, It's
Brent Priy and we have Zach Arnett Mississippi State.

Speaker 2 (22:50):
Brent Prye is coming back as defensive coordinator for Virginia Tech.
I had heard a couple other names attached to that one,
and never once was Brent probably ruled out of that conversation,
which I found odd at the time, but sounds as
though he kind of parted ways on decent enough terms

(23:11):
with Virginia Tech.

Speaker 1 (23:12):
He liked the area.

Speaker 2 (23:14):
I think a lot of people liked him. But it's
I saw what it was floating around online.

Speaker 1 (23:18):
It killed me.

Speaker 2 (23:20):
The clip of George Costanza walking back in after he
had been fired, after he quit the day before and
acting as if nothing happened. That's essentially what we're getting
here with Brent Priye. He's coming back at it, going
to be coaching the defense one of the things, and
again fact check me.

Speaker 1 (23:35):
I could be totally away off here, but I want
to say I saw this in a couple of different
places that one of the things Brent Prye did really
well at Virginia Tech was sort of mend fences locally
with a lot of high schools in the state of
Virginia that justin Fwente did not do a terrific job
reportedly in terms of relationships and recruiting and stuff like that.

(23:57):
And what Brent Pride did with Virginia Tech was almost invaluable,
even though the results weren't there on the field. That
Virginia Tech's network has sort of regenerated in the high
school ranks, and obviously they're going to be very portal
heavy for the next year or two and just getting
the floor up at Virginia Tech to where James Franklin
wants it to be. But if you have somebody like
that in the fold and relationships internally seem to be fine,

(24:21):
Like you mentioned with Brent pry it's weird, it's novel,
it's unorthodox, but fired coach new role, Okay.

Speaker 2 (24:30):
I mean, if James Franklin is basically able to reconstitute
some version of his Penn State operation at Virginia Tech.

Speaker 1 (24:38):
It's a home run.

Speaker 2 (24:39):
Sure that in and of itself would be a home
run in Blacksburg because they needed that. And now they're
renewing their investment in the football program. What was the
number something on like two hundred and twenty nine million
dollars maybe more that they're going to inject into the operation.
So look, there's there's a lot of reason, I think
to be optimistic about where this goes. And just look

(25:00):
at the ACC this year, look at the ACC last year. Right,
you could build a program quick in the ACC, you
can make some serious Hey, you can do it, and uh,
Franklin's gonna try. So he's keeping Brent Pryor around. You
mentioned the Zach Barnett thing at Mississippi State. He is
coming back in the folds. I got another one of
these situations. He wasn't his way fired. He wasn't just

(25:22):
fired this year as Pride was, but alas we're going
to have that happen. We've got Buster Faulkner, the offensive
coordinator from Georgia Tech who's going to go to Florida.
They have also made a hire at defensive coordinator, Brad
White gonna come down from Kentucky.

Speaker 1 (25:39):
Yes, two good amount of success. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (25:41):
Buster Faulkner was a name that was floating around many circles,
many openings. Brad White has obviously been very, very good
for a long time up at Kentucky. So that staff
down at Florida taking form for John Summrell. We've got
Joe Rossi retained as defense coordinator up at Michigan State

(26:01):
for Pat Fitzgerald, their new coach. We've got a new
offensive coordinator at Kentucky, Joe Sloan, coming over from LSU.
He is being hired now by will Stein, the new
head guy at Kentucky, to run that offense. I'm curious
to get your thoughts on that one, because Joe Sloan

(26:22):
was very much sort of a boogeyman at LSU with
the way the offense had played recently under Brian Kelly
made a change at that position. But will Stein, an
offensive mine familiar with the state of Kentucky.

Speaker 1 (26:35):
He is tabbing Joe Slan to be his dude. Right, Look, Joe,
if you want to spin it positively, Joe Sloan was
Jaden Daniels. I think quarterbacks coach, the quarterback coach at
LSU when he won the Heisman and helped to develop
into the first round talent and successful NFL coordinator, successful
NFL quarterback that he is now. Look, when you have

(26:55):
will Stein as your head coach, you might also have
will Stein as your office coordinator. And Joe Sloan might
just be handling quarterbacks more than anything. And maybe and
certainly he'll be game planning and helping to design the
architecture of the offense. But I would suppose that this
is going to be a will Stein offense more than anything.
I don't know if they've is that a good thing
about calling plays? Wi? Willstein's offense at Oregon has led

(27:19):
the nation in EPA the past three years. And I
think will Stein exclusively or at least not exclusively because
I don't think Dante Morris be a Heisman finalist but
had two Heisman finalist quarterbacks Nicks. Is it leading the
nation because of the talent on hand or because of
the scheme. There's a lot of schools that have talented

(27:40):
players that are nowhere near first in the country in EPA,
including LSU. With Joe Sloan's right a lot of talent
on that offense. Didn't sniff that. So yes, I think
it's one thing to acquire talent, it's another thing to
develop it and then game plan and execute in games.
Did so in the Big Ten, a major conference. So
I don't think you can make any sort of case

(28:01):
that will Stein is an average offensive mind. He's I
think he's excellent Oregon and we'll see what they do
in this year's playoff with will Stein calling the offense
ahead of us, with the you know, potential first round
quarterback talent and Dante Moore they've got, They've had a
really really good offense, and I think in the SEC

(28:22):
and where Kentucky is in the financial commitment that they
seem to be giving will Stein, they're going to be
able to find more Wandale Robinson's best case scenario, right
that you're going to be able to look at what
Oregon did. You're gonna be able to sell what will
Stein did at Oregon developing quarterbacks and receivers and offensive
lineman whatever, that he is going to be able to
find guys to succeed at Kentucky in a way that

(28:44):
Kentucky hasn't seen consistently ever in the modern era, so
I think it's a good thing. Well, they've had the
same coach there forever and it's always been a little
bit more defensive minded, so it'll be nice to see
what they can do on the offense side of the
ball with Gully will Stein first big job. Obviously he's
been a big place, but I'm curious to see how
this shapes up around him again. Joe Sloan gonna be

(29:06):
the OC.

Speaker 2 (29:07):
And the only other the only other one I have
here in terms of coordinators, you have one other one
that I want to discuss after this, please, But Ryan
Silverfield made a higher as Ron Roberts of Ron Roberts
to be his new defensive coordinator at Arkansas. So bear
in mind this is an Arkansas team that did not

(29:28):
play defense for two years running. No, and I know
this is a higher in particular that Arkansas fans were
interested in.

Speaker 1 (29:35):
Which direction is he going to go? He chooses Ron Roberts, Yes,
I mean the sort of SEC institutional knowledge given his
recent time at Auburn and Florida I think is pretty good.
Since Ryan Silverfield's institutional SEC knowledge is limited, I don't
think Ron Roberts, given you know, the ups and downs.
I think he's older as well. Maybe you can fact

(29:57):
check me on that. I don't think he's a long one,
long term guy. But in terms of like setting up
the infrastructure of like an average SEC defense, an up
and down SEC defense, you could do worse only fifty
eight years old. Oh Okay, it's not that way. It
just sounds like an old guy. Ron Robert. And he's
also been everywhere. Yeah, he was a tailor with Dave Randa.

Speaker 2 (30:19):
Yeah, for a long long time. Yeah, he's at Florida
a couple of years ago. Over the last two years,
I should say, last two seasons, sort of came in
and supplanted Austin Armstrong, right, that ended up being more
of a Ron Robbers job and.

Speaker 1 (30:34):
Had a very good reputation at Louisiana as well.

Speaker 2 (30:37):
Yeah, so they're getting somebody with a bit of a
track record, and I think if you're an Arkansas fan,
the reason we put it down on the sheet is
because we know that obviously defense has been a primary
concern now as they enter this new territory with Ryan
Silverfield the other name here that I want to bring up.
We don't talk a ton about offensive line coaches but
this is one that I think has real relevance. Nebraska

(30:59):
has fired Don of in Riola. Yes, their offensive line coach.
The last name sacked him, if you will, ty sacked him,
thank you. Yeah, the last name sounds perhaps familiar to
those of you listening at home. He is related to
Dylan Royola. He was one of the main reasons why
Dylan Royl is there. So if you want to play

(31:21):
a little bit of like jump to conclusions, does this
mean Could this mean that Dylan Royola is also going elsewhere?
That seems to be the smoke as of late.

Speaker 1 (31:34):
Yeah, I mean I understand why it's the smoke. I
don't know if he did the like the always terrifying
cleared all of his social media of all references to Nebraska.
I have no idea, but obviously this you know, Dylan
Roola was somebody whose recruitment was sort of all over
the place in terms of commitments I think with Ohio
State and Georgia before Nebraska. His high school career was

(31:56):
sort of all over the place, so it wouldn't be surprising.
I can't speak with the authority about what he's thinking
in this moment, but the I think the Nebraska fans
sentiment was, we've got to sort of treat the offensive
line coach with kid gloves so we don't upset the quarterback.
And so if the quarterback's already upset and perhaps thinking
about his future, the change it offensive line coach seemed

(32:19):
kind of necessary if his last name were, you know,
Freedman or something. So they've they've quickly, you know, made
a move. I think they hired Georgia Tech's offensive line
coach is a jeep. Way does I he pronounce it
geep jeep? I always get confused by the geep. And
they also hired a new defensive coordinator after a pretty
disappointing defense this past year under John Butler. They hired

(32:42):
was it rob Oric Orich from San Diego State. Yeah,
so they're they're being very proactive, which I think good
for Nebraska because even quarterback and injury aside, there were
a lot of rooms in that house for improvement.

Speaker 2 (32:59):
Yeah, and it's such a because I know you and
I differ a little bit on our opinion of Dilan Royola,
but he was done no service by his offensive line.
The offensive line now both years with him as starting
quarterback has just been dreadful. So it's really tough, and
I know that there's frustration in the Nebraskan community. They

(33:20):
were never truly able to see Dilan Royal was sealing it.
At least they haven't yet. Now maybe he'll stay. I
you know, I'm not privy to anything. It seems though
that the writing is on the wall that he might
be headed elsewhere. So if he ends up hitting the portal,
that would clearly be a big name that I think
would get a lot of an interest from places around
college football that might be looking for a quarterback. And

(33:44):
you know, it's literally every program that might be looking
for a quarterback would probably be interested in Dilanroola because he.

Speaker 1 (33:49):
Definitely has a lot of role tiels that are exciting.
He has a first round arm, there's no question about
that for sure.

Speaker 2 (33:55):
So where he ends up, if he does go in
the portal, that will be something that we cover here.
But yeah, with relation leaving the program as offensive line coach,
perhaps the writing is on the wall there.

Speaker 1 (34:07):
You could, by the way, you could just see watching
Nebraska this year offensively that we've talked about seeing ghosts
right when coverages are confusing for certain quarterbacks and they're
throwing it into areas they thought would be clear and
there's three dudes fighting over the interception, or they're not
throwing it there because they think dudes were there. There
was something about watching Dylan Royola and his footwork that

(34:28):
even when he had a clean pocket, he almost felt
like a ghost pass rush, that there was something that
he felt hurried up, even in times he didn't need
to feel hurried up. And that's just because of the
scar tissue. I think he developed, like the emotional scar
tissue behind playing behind a line that was pretty disappointing
at times, and so it just it led to such
an a rhythmic offense that it just felt like they

(34:52):
needed somebody new. I'm glad they found somebody that hopefully
can improve things. And whether it's Dian Royola, whether it's
somebody else at quarterback, you'd like an issue to be
addressed after four years or whatever successfully. So hopefully this
is the guy. This is the year. I'm going to
move on here.

Speaker 2 (35:08):
I want to talk about something else, but before I do,
just an fyi. We kind of did a speed run
there of new coach hires, some of which we talked
about in greater detail.

Speaker 1 (35:18):
Than others.

Speaker 2 (35:19):
We also are going to be doing a coach only
show where we talk about coaches, and we talk about rumors,
and we talk about much of what went on on
this coaching carousel cycle that we've been on over the
last couple of weeks. Because obviously there's been a lot
to talk about, we want to make sure we give
it it's due. We're going to give its own show
here in short orders, so stay tuned for that, but

(35:39):
a little preview as to what's to come on that front.

Speaker 1 (35:43):
And when we talk some playoff matchups. Sure, this New
Year's Eve will be so awesome.

Speaker 2 (35:50):
As Dan Rubertstein, You're four first round matchups. We talked
about him yesterday, I talked about him again. Now Oklahoma
squaring off against Alabama. They are playing host to that
one in Norman. Alabama is a one and one half
point road favorite. We've also got Texas A and M

(36:11):
playing host of Miami. A and M is favored by four.
We've got the sixth seed, Ole Miss Rebels, a sixteen
and a half point home favorite over tu Lane. As
you mentioned earlier, they beat them forty five to ten
earlier in the year and last, but certainly not least
your Oregon Ducks. The five seed playing host on Saturday night,

(36:31):
December the twentieth to James Madison. The twelve seed got
in by virtue of Duke winning the ACC and all
that rigamarole. Can't let the five lost team in them
be a little bit weird, jam you going to be
making the trip out to the Pacific Northwest. So those
are our first round matchups. Wanted to give ourselves a
little bit more of an opportunity to offer any early

(36:54):
thoughts we have on these matchups. We did again a
speed run of them yesterday we reacted to the playoff field,
but now with the benefit of about twenty four hours
to think through these matchups a little bit more. What
comes to mind with Oklahoma Alabama because this is the
game that they're going to focus on, the Friday night game.

Speaker 1 (37:15):
Yep, solo shot.

Speaker 2 (37:16):
Yeah, right, so they get the stage all to themselves.
Last year it was Notre Dame against Indiana. This year
it's going to be Oklahoma Alabama. As I said, Alabama
favored by a point and a half. Bear in mind
that Oklahoma won this game a little bit earlier in
the year.

Speaker 1 (37:30):
Yeah, I mean, look, it's going to be an incredible
environment in Norman, and the focus is going to be
on I think both of these offenses more than anything,
because there's not a lot to question with Oklahoma's defense
at this point now. They're pretty excellent. The schedule that
they played, the playmakers on all three levels, the results
that they got. You thank the defense because this offense

(37:52):
is around the eightieth best in America. So I think
you're just sort of racing to twenty racing to twenty
four and hoping that that's I mean, you'll sort of
be pretty well assured that that's going to be good enough.
Alabama's defense this year, by and large, has been excellent.
It just hasn't had to lead the way in the
way that Oklahoma's defense has had to lead the way,

(38:13):
and obviously that was highlighted with Oklahoma's very recent win
in this rematch matchup. So yeah, I think it's just
like in terms of maybe John Mateer's health in his
hand and taking some time to like watch more tape
because I don't know, if you listen to a lot
of Oklahoma fans, I think they like him a lot.
They're like, they like the spirit and the enthusiasm and

(38:35):
the leadership of Jometier. But then like you watch games
from a higher angle and you're like, he's just missing receivers.
So hopefully this time is good for the game plan
and the reps in practice for Jametier to get time
and Alabama wise is just like figuring out their offensive
line ahead of Oklahoma, figuring out their game plan and

(38:56):
getting rid of the ball quickly as we saw Ty
Simpson being hounded and forced in mistakes and just sort
of I guess it's this. It's sort of the time
for a reset. Who resets best in this matchup? I
think is going to be a good focus.

Speaker 2 (39:10):
When these teams played back on November the fifteenth, you
may recall, and in case you don't, I'm going to
remind you now one member of this broadcasting duo predicted
the exact final score, and that was me.

Speaker 1 (39:21):
Yeah. Well, when you bet against Alabama weekly, you're just
going to start nailing things eventually, even if they're a
good team. This is one of those weeks which apparently
I've done. We had some folks already in that I've
bet against Alabama not to lose out right against my spread. Yeah,
against the spread a.

Speaker 2 (39:38):
Good number of times this past season.

Speaker 1 (39:41):
Now, we both had Oklahoma in that game.

Speaker 2 (39:44):
To be clear, we had Oklahoma in that game twenty
three to twenty one was the final, and I remember
my big takeaway from it was just how much pressure.

Speaker 1 (39:53):
Oklahoma got on Ty Simpson.

Speaker 2 (39:56):
And if you think what has happened to Alabama now
now since that matchup back on November the fifteenth, it's
been a bunch of teams trying to dial up the
pressure on him. I saw it from Auburn, We obviously
saw it from Georgia. These teams have proven rather successful
at getting to Ty Simpson, upsetting his balance a bit.

(40:18):
Alabama has not really been able to run the football
this year, so it's truly all in the arm of
ty Simpson. If you're getting to him, if you're upsetting
that rhythm, we've seen it a couple times now, you
can have some success. Even though Auburn didn't win, they
blitzed like every play. It felt like this seems to
be a bit of a template now that Oklahoma has
set since knocking off Alabama earlier this year, and I

(40:39):
would expect that we're going to see a lot of
the same stuff in this matchup. I have not seen
the big reset. Yet on the Alabama side, it's part
of why I was, I don't know, more skeptical than
almost everybody about Alabama getting into this playoff field. Yeah,
so I think they're going to have their work cut
out for them to block what is going to be

(41:01):
a ferocious Oklahoma pass rush. That's the first thing they
got to deal with and where my mind goes first
with that, And secondly, I think you said exactly where
I'm leaning on the Oklahoma offense side. We haven't done
the full research for this game. We'll do a preview
and all that, but snap judgment, Oklahoma's got to get
better on offense. They might be able to win this

(41:22):
game solely with defense, because I think they've established a
bit of a track record for that now against Alabama,
they know how to do it. But the deeper they
go into this thing, if they've got Indiana in the
next round, you're.

Speaker 1 (41:37):
Going to score some points. You're going to score some points.

Speaker 2 (41:40):
Now Indiana only need a thirteen to beat Ohio State,
maybe you don't need to score points. Maybe you can
get into a bit of a defensive slug fest. But
I just think that's a lot to assume when you
go up against what is otherwise a high scoring offense
in Indiana that you're just going to be able to
contain them to seventeen points.

Speaker 1 (41:58):
Nice little Calvin Samson Bowl there by the way, Oklahoma, Indiana,
it is. I love connective tissue. You're totally right, totally
right that among the Power Conference teams in the playoffs,
So I guess among the top ten teams, Oklahoma's offense
is the worst unit on the field.

Speaker 2 (42:16):
We'll see see where this goes. We got a rematch
Texas A and M. Miami is, for my money, the
most interesting matchup in round one. Okay, again A and
M favored by four points. This is in effect the
two teams beat Notre Dame.

Speaker 1 (42:33):
Not in effect it is it just is yeah and
nbat I guess Alabama. Alabama beat Notre Dame just in
a more vague way, in a more vague way.

Speaker 2 (42:41):
And then one back in uh, I don't know, early
part of the year, Week three, Week two, whatever it
was forty one botched extra point by Tyler Buckner.

Speaker 1 (42:51):
On the Notre Dame side.

Speaker 2 (42:52):
Miami won that one Week one against Notre Dame in
Coral Gables in Miami, twenty seven to twenty four. So
upon seeing this matchup, my first thought was I'm gonna
go heavy on Texas A and m I like the
fact that they're hosting a game. I think they've got
better balance across the board than Miami does. I also

(43:14):
want to be careful when I do my research to
not underestimate Miami, because Miami is very good along the lines.
Miami has a bona fide playmaker and true freshman Malachai Toni.
They've got a veteran quarterback in Carson Beck who has
played in many a big game and will not be
prone to, like, you know, wilting in a matchup like this.

Speaker 1 (43:38):
Wait, hold on, am I to understand you don't feel
like Carson Beck can wilt in a big game.

Speaker 2 (43:42):
I know he can, but I don't think that is
my starting point when I talk about Miami.

Speaker 1 (43:48):
Okay, So I think this is a dangerous team in
this tournament.

Speaker 2 (43:53):
I think they are built from the inside out in
a way that makes them very viable to make a run.
I just like Texas A and m better in this way,
which is why I think I would lean Aggie's Do
you have a differing point of view?

Speaker 1 (44:07):
I don't know. My lean yet, because there are certain
arguments to be made that, like, the best playmaker in
this game is a Malachi Toni for Miami, although like
the receipt, you can say Casey Conceptsion fits that bill
with what he does on special teams and at receiver.
So I'd be fine with that. If you want to
make the argument that Miami's defensive line is the best
unit in that game, I think I'm okay with it.

(44:29):
If you want to make the argument that what Mike
Elko does with this defense, especially in the second halves
of these games, is maybe the scariest element of this game,
I'm okay with that, honestly. To me, like the underthink
express says, which quarterback has fewer diarrhea throws? Right? Diarrhea? Like?
Which quarterback? Where did you find that? What is that

(44:51):
clip from? It's Morgan Freeman and a drug commercial, A truebee?
I think that's what which one it was? Did? I
just say diarrhea throws because I could play that clip.
It's It's entirely possible. He played it the other day
and I was saying, what is going on here? Okay? Anyway,

(45:12):
no it to me, it's just like, okay, a quarterback,
had a nightmare of a night and let three to
five throws get away from him, not necessarily interceptions, but
three just like abysmal throws, and that ended up being
the difference. I don't know who I'm describing between Marcel
Read and Carson Beck, who both have very high ceilings
and very low floors this season specifically, so that to

(45:36):
me is like who grows into the moment and who
wilts away in the moment. I think is going to
be a big factor here.

Speaker 2 (45:43):
And you know, Marcel Reid, given his mobility, is a
huge X factor totally. He is a matchup nightmare, especially
when you get the best version of Marcel Reid. The
other thought I have about this matchup, and you know
it because it came up when we were talking about
Miami versus Notre Dame. Going all the way back to

(46:03):
that first matchup. A lot was made of the fact
that it was a ten carry thirty three yard performance
by Jeremiah Love. They did a pretty good job containing
Notre Dame's ground attack. Again, You've heard me argue many
times over it was a terrible game plan.

Speaker 1 (46:18):
They didn't know what they had in CJ. Carr.

Speaker 2 (46:20):
They definitely played it too close to the vest. But
the game is over in Miami won right. This game
is going to be I think a really really good
test of the Texas A and M ground assault because
if they're not able to get it going on the ground.
Even though Marcel Reid has definitely improved as a passer
this year, and I think that's very evident if you
watch any of A and M this year, but without

(46:41):
that balance, I think it makes it much harder to
attack this Miami defense. Remember this is a really really
solid Miami defensive front. They know how to get after
the passer. If you can introduce something of a ground game,
if you can give the front, the guys behind them,
and the second layer of the defense something more to
think about, it makes the A and.

Speaker 1 (47:00):
M offense all the more explosive.

Speaker 2 (47:02):
And they do have explosive playmakers across the board, but
you got to get that ground game gone. They've been
good at it all year. This will be I think
a unique test for them, going up against the Miami
front that's been very very good by and large AA Instagram.

Speaker 1 (47:15):
Yeah, I agree, And also it should be noted that
like neither one of these teams has played incredible offenses
consistently this year. No so, no, they have these will
be some of the better offenses. Like Texas A and
m had a stretch where like they're playing South Carolina,
they're playing a beat up Miszoo LSU was obviously a
nightmare of Arkansas good, but like Florida was a nightmare
this year, and same goes for what Miami saw down

(47:38):
the stretch by and large. And so this is this
is going to be obviously a raised ceiling environment in
terms of like the pop of both of these offenses.

Speaker 2 (47:49):
And then we've got the six and the eleven, the
five and the twelve. Ole Miss playing host Tulane. Again,
we saw this game earlier in there forty five to ten,
was not particularly close.

Speaker 1 (47:59):
No situation has changed at Ole Miss, new coach specific
what happened.

Speaker 2 (48:03):
A lot of distractions, right, I mean, there's a lot's
gone on since these teams played last not the least
of which is both coaches for both teams going elsewhere.
Even though John Sommerl is hanging around for this one,
and then on the Oregon JMU side did not play
during the regular season. Bob Chesney's going to be playing
in the same conference, coaching in the same conference before

(48:26):
long as he makes the move over to UCLA. So
this is going to be his first taste of what
the Oregon Ducks provide.

Speaker 1 (48:33):
This one will be played in Eugene.

Speaker 2 (48:35):
Of these two matchups, take yourself out of like your
Oregon bubble for a minute, right, Of these two matchups,
which one to you is the most interesting of the
two matchups?

Speaker 1 (48:48):
I still think it's two Lane ole Miss from what
of course, the narrative perspective of ole Miss and what
they look like without Lane Kiffen, all the drama that
surrounded that program, and like, maybe this thing that helps
to galvanize ole Miss, right that, like everybody's writing them off,
including their own head coach who decided a few weeks
ago that he'd rather be elsewhere, which what, it's his prerogative.

(49:10):
That's fine. That maybe this is something that sort of
helps to bring this team together. And I mean Tulane
has a transitive ACC Conference championship, right, Tulane as a program.
Just did they win the Cotton Bowl like three or
four years ago? Right, they beat USC in like a shootout,

(49:31):
So I just the ceiling of this program, I think
is a little bit higher than James Madison, and given
the uncertainty about what exactly ole Miss is going to
look like, I know we have the certainty of what
this matchup looks like when everything is sort of uneven.
Played during the regular season, ole Miss was five touchdowns better.

(49:51):
But at this point you can at least talk yourself
into Tulane being a better form team, albeit losing their
head coach. As you mentioned as well, that they've grown
into something after Look, Jake Retslav joined this program like
an hour and a half before the season started, so
he's had time to gel in this system. They won
the conference. They looked overwhelming on defense against North Texas.

(50:12):
It's North Texas, so I think that at least has
the higher potential for a competitive two and a half
quarters before maybe all Miss runs away with it. That's
my view. I actually think the other game is more interesting. Okay,
tell me why to quote the Backstreet Boys. Tell me why.

Speaker 2 (50:32):
James Madison on defense is really intriguing to me. And
if you watched the championship game the other night, you
were undoubtedly left with a lot to be desired with.

Speaker 1 (50:46):
This Jamu offense.

Speaker 2 (50:48):
Yeah, it run the ball, but the offense was not
I mean, I really wanted more from a team that
I had talked up as a playoff participant. We did
not see that. On defense. The defense came through in
a really big way. This is going to be obviously
a much different test for the Dukes going all the

(51:09):
way up to the Pacific Northwest playing one of the
best offenses in the country, the five seed Oregon. But
one of the conversations you and I have had, I
think frequently about Oregon is how much is real, how
much is assumed? How good is this team really? They

(51:29):
have been a whole lot of tests for Oregon. Right
They struggled on the road at Penn State, at least
down the stretch they struggled. They ended up winning that
one in overtime. They obviously lost to Indiana.

Speaker 1 (51:39):
These are teams that we perceived to be much better
than jmu oh. They struggled on the road against Iowa
in the rain. That was a slugfest. Yeah know.

Speaker 2 (51:46):
There have been a couple of these moments for Oregon,
in particular against teams that play defense, where you just
sort of wonder, like, Okay, what are we in for
here with this team? I am not saying JMU is
going to beat Oregon. I do not believe that. Maybe
it's more a question of the point spread, but I
think JMU is really feisty on defense, and at least

(52:07):
that side of their game is not something to be
too underestimated. I think, for at least a chunk of
this game, and maybe it's only a half or half
of a quarter, I don't know, but I think for
some portion of this game, you're gonna see jmu's defense
step up and maybe provide a little bit more resistance
than might meet the eye. When you see five versus
twelve and a twenty one point spread.

Speaker 1 (52:30):
Would you ager on James Madison to cover that? No?
I would, I probably won't. Oh, to be fair, the
question that you were asking is just like, what are
you most intrigued by? What could what could be? Like
a weird thing that could happen that goes against the
assumption that Oregon wins and Ole Miss wins easily.

Speaker 2 (52:47):
So I mean, if I were betting on one of
these two G five schools, it would almost certainly be
two lane. Okay, it would one hundred percent be two lane,
given the distractions at Old Miss, given what two lane
does on offense with Jake Rehetzliff. I think it's a
little too Retzliff heavy. Honestly, it looks a lot like
his offense last year at BOU. I talked about this
on the Recap show. But there's at least a familiarity there.

(53:10):
Tou Lane saw Ole Miss. They know what they're in
for here. Maybe they can use some of what they
learned that first time around to make this one a
little bit closer. And the fact that the point spread
is under three scores is telling in its own right,
given the fact that it was a thirty five point
game the first time around. So Vegas given Tu Lane
I think a little bit more respect than they are

(53:30):
JMU at this point. Maybe they just think Oregon's way better.
I don't know, but if I were wagering, I'd probably
pick Tu Lane.

Speaker 1 (53:37):
I wouldn't go JMU.

Speaker 2 (53:38):
I'm just interested in the JMU defense to see how
it handles totally a Lamborghini like Oregon.

Speaker 1 (53:45):
I think I saw somewhere that Oregon's potential path to
the National Championship runs through three of like the five
best run defenses in America, just from a statistical standpoint
in Texas Tech and I guess it would be what
Indiana after if Oregon were to beat Texas Tech and
James Madison. I looked at the offenses that JMU played

(54:05):
and what they were able to accomplish outside of playing JMU.
I'm not going to say JAMU is crazy inflated in
terms of their defensive numbers, but because they perform like
a good defense should perform against these offenses, I just
think we're talking about a different level here, and I
think Oregon we'll score a lot of points.

Speaker 2 (54:23):
What kind of cheesy motivational device is Dan Lanning going
to use to get this team fired up to play
James Madison.

Speaker 1 (54:33):
I don't know. He tell you that, I don't need
to motivate these guys. These guys are already motivated. It's
the college who wall playoff, it's the opportunity to start
a path to the national championship. I don't need to
bring extra motivation. But yes, they understand what the bracket
looks like. They're playing the weakest team in this twelve
team field, and the fact that they're playing at home.

(54:54):
Like we kind of had this conversation a little bit
when Oregon played Liberty was at the Fiesta Bowl, Yep.
We're like, they get dealt the hand in the postseason
in a bowl system that not a lot of people
feel great about. Go Irish talk about that next. It
was it was one of the least motivating external situations

(55:15):
we've had, right, Like, why would Oregon get up for
Liberty in the Fiesta Bowl when they're, you know, in
this as sort of a way to include more teams.
They beat them, like fifty nine to seven. Right, that
was an undefeated Liberty team playing from the Yeah, that
wasn't even so I think whatever worked then with Bo
Nix and all the guys that played in that game,
Bucky Irving are gonna it's it's gonna work against James

(55:38):
Madison with with actual real stakes on the line. Here.
Speaking of other Bowl games again, we'll do a full
preview for all of the first round College Fotball Playoff matchup.
We'll do full previews for all of the games throughout
the course of the tournament, and we are going to
have a game out at for bowlers dot Com.

Speaker 2 (56:00):
Last year it was free for all. All you had
to do was sign up as a paid or free member.

Speaker 1 (56:05):
We're going to do that again.

Speaker 2 (56:06):
We call it Bowl Bingo. I'm in the process of
getting that spun up right now and built so that
we can send out notice to all of our people,
So stay.

Speaker 1 (56:16):
Tuned for that.

Speaker 2 (56:17):
You're going to want to pay attention to all of
these Bowl games. We may not start that game the
first run of Bowl games, but certainly over the next
week and a half two weeks or so, you're going
to see a lot coming out about us playing Bowl Bingo.
And it was a lot of fun last year. Here
are some of the other BOWLD matchups of note. Okay,
I'm not going to read through all of these. We

(56:38):
do have some new sponsors this year, which is always
a lot of fun. But here are a couple of
matchups that jump out to me. On December the twenty seventh,
the Bad Boy Moers Pinchstripe Bowl features my once predicted
National Championship game. Penn State is playing Clemson. They're just
playing in the Pinch Stripe Bowl in the National Championship Game.

(57:01):
You gotta go, Ty Go, you gotta go go. Figure
other interesting games LSU versus Houston. Houston is favored by
three points.

Speaker 1 (57:13):
Yeah, I understand that. Ninth little regional matchup as well.

Speaker 2 (57:17):
The RelA Quest Bowl another year, another really good matchup.
Last year it was Michigan Alabama. This year it is
Iowa versus Vanderbilt.

Speaker 1 (57:27):
Huh right, very elegible. Yep.

Speaker 2 (57:30):
Speaking of Michigan, they're going to the Citrus Bowl to
cheese it Citrus Bowl these days. Squaring off against Texas.
That's a big time blue blood matchup right there.

Speaker 1 (57:39):
Yeah, you'd have to go all the way back to
twenty twenty four for the last time they played, right
Quen you were as an ann arbor. But nevertheless, really
good opportunity for I think Michigan more specifically to jump
into twenty twenty six on a positive NOE. Texas probably
disappointed they're not in the playoff, but as we'll get
to I'm sure with a Notre Dame conversation, there's there's

(58:00):
plenty of positive to take away from extra practices and
extra time together. The Music City Bowl Tennessee versus Illinois.
Interesting matchup like that one. Sure.

Speaker 2 (58:11):
The Holiday Bowl now sponsored by Trust and Will I
have no idea what that is?

Speaker 1 (58:15):
Do you no? Trust?

Speaker 2 (58:17):
And will Holiday Bowl Arizona against SMU should be fun,
really fun matchup there, m hm.

Speaker 1 (58:26):
And then we get to the Pop Tarts Bowl. It's
an estate planning app maybe true trust and will that
makes sense. Yeah, what was the last one you said?
Pop Tarts Bowl? Pop Tarts Bowl?

Speaker 2 (58:41):
Sure, this brings us back to Notre Dame. Notre Dame
not playing in this game. It's gonna be Georgia Tech
versus b y U b YU favored by two and
a half points, So that in and of itself is
a really good matchup.

Speaker 1 (58:57):
Pop Tarts pul got a good matchup there, depending who
on the field.

Speaker 2 (59:00):
Yes, Pence is on the field. Obviously, that goes for
all of these games. Yeah, but Georgia Tech versus BYU's
good matchup. I'm excited about that one. By you should
have the bulk of its players, if not all of
his players playing in that game.

Speaker 1 (59:14):
Notre Dame opted out of the Bowl. Notre Dame opted out.
Not the only team this season, right i Kansas State
the only team to opt out.

Speaker 2 (59:24):
That isn't going through a coaching change, but both Iowa
State and Case State have opted out of their bowl
games as well.

Speaker 1 (59:31):
Notre Dame though definitely getting I think.

Speaker 2 (59:33):
A little bit more of the press on this. I'll
be honest with you, It is not the best optics.
It is not the best optics for Notre Dame and
Pete Bavaqua and this program as a whole to sort
of just cast bull season aside. It definitely presents a
sour grapes and I have a Notre Dame fan saying this,

(59:55):
I am just as disappointed. I'm sure they are much
more disappointed, being so they're in the building and I'm
not so I get that level of disappointment. Pete Levaqua,
he did an interview earlier today. We're recording this on Monday.
He talked with Dan Patrick about the process and the
second they find out that there was a gigantic rug
pull and they're not going to be in the playoff,

(01:00:16):
that's when the phone starts ringing off the hook with
different bowl invitations and whatnot.

Speaker 1 (01:00:20):
And they put it.

Speaker 2 (01:00:21):
Up to the team captains, and it doesn't sound like
they wanted to play a game with.

Speaker 1 (01:00:30):
Guys who are backups.

Speaker 2 (01:00:31):
They didn't want to be out there a shell of
their former self, and so it is what it is.
They're not going to a bowl game. Honestly, I think
the biggest news that came out of that interview with
Pete Vaqua excuse me is that there is some very
obvious tension now between Notre Dame and the ACC, and

(01:00:52):
the stems from a whole multitude of things. But the
ACC was not shy about lobbying for Miami. Miami, of course,
is a full member of the ACC. Notre Dame has
a special agreement, a partial membership agreement with the ACC
where they play five ACC games year. Sounds as if
that relationship is strained. Pete Bivaqua was said as much,

(01:01:16):
what comes of this now? Or is anybody's guests? I
have seen wild speculation out on the interwebs that they
might sue the ACC based on the comments I heard
from Pete bivaqu. Well, I'm not sure anything's actually going
to happen. He's like, ah, we'll move past it. But
the relationship is strained, maybe permanently damaged. What comes of

(01:01:37):
this will certainly be fodder for the offseason. We are grateful,
at least in that sense that we will have content
to talk about. And Notre Dame always moves the needle
because you either love them or you hate him. Where
this goes next, I have no idea, but Notre Dame
is none too pleased with the fact that the ACC
was out there politicking for the Canes. I think they
ran the Notre Dame Miami game on loop for forty

(01:02:00):
eight hours on the ACC hour or something like that.

Speaker 1 (01:02:02):
Yeah, okay, yeah, finish. I have some thoughts continue.

Speaker 2 (01:02:05):
So that that I think is at least partially the
source of the tension here, if there is any that exists,
if you believe Notre Dame's athletic director.

Speaker 1 (01:02:13):
Right, So, I mean, what do we know about like
the timeline of this, Like did Notre Dame the night
before like all get on the same page. If we
don't make the playoff, we're just out? Was it an
emotional decision? I think? And then sort of afterglow? Yeah,
I think part of the animus here stems from the

(01:02:35):
fact that obviously the ACC was out there politicking for Miami. Right.

Speaker 2 (01:02:39):
But in addition to that, Notre Dame was led to
believe for a month that they were in.

Speaker 1 (01:02:45):
I agree they were.

Speaker 2 (01:02:46):
Led to believe by this stupid weekly ranking show that
they had proven all they needed to prove and that
they were safely in. They had talked about it in
previous iterations of the Tuesday rank show that they were
being compared to Alabama, not necessarily Miami. So everything that
they had been led to believe was that they were

(01:03:08):
going to get in.

Speaker 1 (01:03:09):
Bye Tom dumb dumb. Those dudes are so dumb. You're
just waiting for that one. Weren't shit? I was, I
was sitting You wanted to play it last time.

Speaker 2 (01:03:20):
I was for.

Speaker 1 (01:03:20):
Crouching Tiger, hidden audio dropper. You forgot about that one
last time. You were upset that you didn't play I
didn't play that when we were talking about the committee,
and it hunted my dreams last night.

Speaker 2 (01:03:32):
But look, the committee, The committee made Notre Dame think
that they were in. And so I understand on a
certain level if you're working this from the Notre Dame angle,
they were told nothing but good things for a month straight.

Speaker 1 (01:03:47):
Right.

Speaker 2 (01:03:48):
The people that put these rankings together can lump ESPN
in there if you want to. They strung Notre Dame
along for a month. Do you blame them for being
pissed that they did the rug pull at the eleventh hour? No,
I you know well, and he himself said, I understand it.
They understand the argument for Miami, and some of the
tension here that he gave voice to was not directed

(01:04:09):
at any of the teams in the tournament. It was
more directed at the acc It was more directed at
the process for picking the teams involved in the.

Speaker 1 (01:04:16):
College Football Playoff.

Speaker 2 (01:04:17):
I think, separate from Notre Dame sitting out the ball,
whatever you feel from that perspective, what he gave voice
to is what we gave voice to on this show
and what a lot.

Speaker 1 (01:04:27):
Of other people have talked.

Speaker 2 (01:04:28):
Andy Staples wrote a long article on it over at
On three. Notre Dame was strung along through this process.
They created drama whoever was in charge of this by
keeping Notre Dame ahead of Miami, only dropping small bread
crubs along the way that maybe at the last second
Miami could do something, something might occur that changes the

(01:04:49):
committee's mind.

Speaker 1 (01:04:50):
They built up this drama, they.

Speaker 2 (01:04:53):
Used Notre Dame to get people interested in that drama,
and then they pulled a rug on him at the
last second.

Speaker 1 (01:04:59):
I get why they're pissed. I'm pissed as a fan.

Speaker 2 (01:05:02):
So that, I think is where this conversation is going
to go next from the Notre Dame side as it
relates to both the College Football Playoff, the format in
the future, and in addition, what their relationship looks like
with the ACC, because there are other sports on the
Notre Dame side that are full members of the ACC,
like football, where they're just sort of half pregnant. If

(01:05:26):
in fact that relationship has been strained to an extent,
what do they do about that? Will be the next
place this conversation goes.

Speaker 1 (01:05:33):
Well, I mean, the other part of it is the
punitive nature towards ESPN because ESPN's hand in the playoff,
in the messaging of everything, with the reaction or yeah,
I guess it would be the release of the weekly rankings,
and then the fact that ESPN runs Bowl season as well.
Right that what Notre Dame is doing is punishing ESPN

(01:05:57):
by removing themselves from ESPN's airwaves and thus removing a
ratings giant from that.

Speaker 2 (01:06:05):
And that was Andy's point. Andy's point was he gets
it from the standpoint of, Okay, you used us to
create all this drama. We're not gonna let you use
us now for ratings, right, which you could argue is
a little bit petty, and maybe it is, but I
get that thinking like I would probably be of similar
mind if it were me.

Speaker 1 (01:06:24):
It's yeah, I mean, look, we're also sort of wading
into the waters of the sort of quieter part of
the college football business conversation in that there are basically
two entities. The Notre Dame is not fully a part
of either one of these entities, but between Fox and
the Big Ten and ESPN and the SEC, and when

(01:06:46):
we watch on ESPN's airways airwaves, Miami beat Notre Dame
by three close, and then Alabama get absolutely demolished in
front of the world the day for the playoff rankings
and have that not be affected and have like half
of the talking heads say, well, Notre Dame should join

(01:07:06):
a conference so they can play in a conference championship game,
and then at the same time, have Alabama play in
a conference championship game and have that not affect things
in the slightest. You have the same network speaking out
of both sides of its own mouth, and you know,
starting the playoff selection the the final playoff selection show
with just pure Alabama messaging right that it was just

(01:07:29):
like it weirdly had everybody on the same page with like,
we all agree that Alabama should be in the playoff
and it's just not like a question about it, right like,
and like, let's toss it to Greg McElroy and Nick Saban. Hey,
that's how we're for their takes.

Speaker 2 (01:07:44):
That's how it was for herbiean and h and Fowler
sureing the SEC championship game and I tweeted it out
and it went crazy and I got a lot of
pushback from people, and I don't care, but for a
good chunk of that game, they were allergic and it
was more Herbie than foul are right, seemingly allergic to
the mirror idea of dropping Alabama at all. And I'm

(01:08:06):
not even talking about out of the playoff right, but
the goal right, the goal right. And I know it's
also been floating around that something like of the previous
sixteen conference championship game losers, fifteen of those teams dropped
in the subsequent poll at least one place, at least

(01:08:27):
one spot. The only one over the last three years
that did not at all did not even budgets Alabama.

Speaker 1 (01:08:33):
Right. Why is that? Let me do my wind tors,
Why why do you think that? Shout out Brian Windhorse,
notable not SEC fan, Ohio State fan, Brian Winhorse. It
I understand from a Notre Dame perspective, I do think
it's sour grapes like you' that's the first that feels
first line of this that like, if you're thinking about
your program, if you're thinking about practices and getting younger

(01:08:55):
players reps and like bonding on the you know, traveling
and it's a road spot against you know, a high
quality team in BYU, that there's a lot of positive
to take away from Notre Dame sort of gritting its
teeth and playing in this bowl game. So I think
that's the first line is this is sower grapes and
it's not a great look and Notre Dame probably should
have like I guess they couldn't have just like taken

(01:09:16):
the night to think on it and sleep on it
because you got to commit. Yeah, But I also get
it from a Notre Dame perspective where you feel as
if this is an ESPN tournament that they are deciding
through their own repeated messaging. Don't I don't think the
ACC network thing is a big deal. Like I think
it's like a fun tweet ze on next the everything

(01:09:38):
app everything. But I don't know who's watching the ACC
network in earnest to like pick up on what their
programming rhythms are. I'll due respect to EJ. Manual, the
fine people at the ACC network. But I get it
from Notre Dame's perspective that you're, like, the ACC should
kind of have our back on a certain level, given
that we play a lot of ACC games. And I
get it from the ACC now work thing where in

(01:10:00):
the ACC messaging of like Miami's our best hope, they're
our best team, and and they're a full member. They're
full member. Yeah that it puts them in a weird position,
But I really do understand it from Notre Dame's perspective
of just like it does feel like an ESPN invitational
that you know, if we play our cards right, the

(01:10:22):
people who are saying that we are a clear top
ten team all season or the back half of the
season will continue to think that after we don't play
a game, Miami doesn't play a game, and none of
the teams we collectively played play a game, and then
we are bumped out. And yeah, I mean, look, that's
the thing that I get it, but I don't. I

(01:10:46):
don't know who this is truly effectively punishing other than
Notre Dames players. I get where they're coming from. I
do think it's sour grapes on some miniscool, minuscule level
at a.

Speaker 2 (01:11:00):
Minimum, is definitely some sour grapes going on. And I
think the lesson learned for the committee is a we
don't need a weekly ranking show. Even if you're going
to do one, maybe do three instead of five.

Speaker 1 (01:11:15):
I would say, here's what you do. You do it
the week before Halloween, and you do it after conference
championship weekend, and you let people surmise and make guesses.
But there's too many ways to paint yourself in a
corner and put yourself in a box. You shouldn't do
this a mid midyear check in and a final ranking.

Speaker 2 (01:11:33):
And if you are going to insist on doing weekly rankings,
ranked teams appropriately first. If you were that set and
determined to put Miami ahead of Notre Dame, and I
understand the argument for it, and I made the argument
yesterday when we recorded.

Speaker 1 (01:11:49):
I understand it.

Speaker 2 (01:11:50):
Yeah, that to me seems logical that Miami would get
in over No today if they're close, and if one
played the other end, the team that won on the
field sho get the spot. I'm not arguing that, but
rank them that way. Don't create this drama. Don't kind
of talk yourself into one thing and then gradually tell us,
well with BYU losing that bumped up Miami. They were

(01:12:12):
side by side and then we gave the tiebreaker to
Miami did not play, and they jumped a couple spots. Okay,
so that in and of itself strip out all the
other contexts. That in and of itself is kind of ridiculous.

Speaker 1 (01:12:24):
Yeah. Look, I mean we mentioned this before. This happened
because they wanted it to happen. They wanted an ACC
team in. They didn't like the look of leaving out
a major conference, and they decided that Miami was more
of an ACC team than Notre Dame. And they had
the head to head to justify like a very specific
bump up, and they did it because they wanted to.

(01:12:46):
I don't know, anyway, this will be very interesting. Now,
see what happens next. I we're recording this again on
a Monday afternoon. Notre Dames athletic director is going to
give a press conference Tuesday noon. See what he has
to say. I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:13:03):
If there's trouble in Paradise with the ACC, it could
open up the playbook for all whole host of things.
Dan and I don't have any clue where it goes next,
but just something to kind of keep on the radar.
Notre Dame's definitely up in its fefees right now, and
there's there's a chance.

Speaker 1 (01:13:19):
It could get a little weirder. So that's what we're
here for.

Speaker 2 (01:13:21):
We will do our part to kind of keep you
up to speed again. There are many other bowl games
that are going to take place during bowl season. We
have a bowl game that we are going to play
that all are invited to take part in. Details on
that are forthcoming. I'm still working on.

Speaker 1 (01:13:38):
We're not that. What's the website.

Speaker 2 (01:13:41):
I think the website's gonna be playbowlbingo dot com. But
play okay, don't go the X and set it up
right if you go now, I think you're gonna get
get redirected.

Speaker 1 (01:13:50):
Do we own it? I don't want somebody buying and
we just like, okay, just making sure yeah we got it. We'reka.
But I gotta set the page up. I gottaet everything going.

Speaker 2 (01:14:00):
So more to come on that front. Bullbingo was a
big hit last year when we played. You played for
fabulous prizes. It is not your standard issue bowlpool, even
a confidence pool, which we did for many years. You
pick a couple things each week. The winners get fabulous prizes,
but it's very low stress. You don't play the full
way through if you don't want to, very casual play
with friends and family. Truly, people really enjoyed it last year,

(01:14:22):
so we're gonna do it again.

Speaker 1 (01:14:25):
Love to hear it, can't wait to play all. That's
all I have. I don't know if there's any other
topics you wanted to get to. I think we're gonna
leave it there today. Okay, okay. We have Army Navy
by the way, so you have Army Navy. We've got
the heisman. We do have the heigs. We're gonna talk
about that the next episode. Oh good, good, good folks,
Hit follow, hit subscribe.

Speaker 2 (01:14:45):
If you made it this far, if you're like what
we do, if you want to support the effort here
over at soliverbal headquarters, we'd appreciate it. Do you tell
your friends? Do check out verballers dot com. That is
where we go if we want to give you ad,
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(01:15:05):
game that we have running here over at s v
h Q. Verbowlers dot com v E R B A
L L E r s dot com, or you can
go to patreon dot com slash solidver.

Speaker 1 (01:15:14):
We'll both will take you to the same spot. Yes,
Dan Ruvestein, I will talk to you again. I guess
on Thursday. Do it again. Can't wait, Tie, and for
the final time this episode diarrhea for that Dad, for myself. Tie.
We'll catch you on a few days, need time, Stay soft, peace,

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Matt Campbell to Penn State, Notre Dame's ACC Beef & Early CFP Leans | College Football

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Matt Campbell to Penn State, Notre Dame's ACC Beef & Early CFP Leans | College Football