Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Two lifelong Houston sports guys named Adam Talking Your Team.
Adam Clinton and Adam Weckler are the A team.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Four o'clock hour underway here on Sports Talk seven to
ninety along with our simul Casi via Space City Home Network.
Adam Wexler and Adam Clinton here with you, along with
Cole Thompson a pleasure to jump into some football talk.
College Gridiron opened up their season this past week one
matchup of note with Iowa State and Kansas State getting
together and now a whole lot more with Thursday, Friday, Saturday,
(00:39):
Sunday Monday games slated for this week one of the
college football season. To that end, Dave Campbell's Texas Football
Mike Craven, senior writer for that publication and entity, joins
us here. Mike really appreciate you joining us here this
very exciting week of the arrival, true arrival of college
football here and certainly with how it gets off on
(00:59):
Saturday morning with number one versus Number two, a rematch
from last year's postseason, and yet there are major major
question marks for both teams. How about if we start
with the opponent, the less hyped quarterback of the two
or of anybody in America. Mike, what do you think
about the Ohio State starting quarterback in this very large
(01:21):
game to open the season.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
Yeah, well, we haven't seen much of them. You know,
obviously you red shirted last year or you know, a
red shirt freshman. I know Texas recruited him. He's highly
thought of. He can move better than I think a
lot of people give him credit for, and so it's
going to be a challenge for Texas.
Speaker 4 (01:37):
I think the good news for.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
The Longhorns is, you know, they have a fourth year
DC and a lot of experience on that defense, so
maybe they can rattle them, you know, cause them to
be confused in his first game out there.
Speaker 5 (01:49):
Interesting you bring that up.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
Was going to ask you about continuity on one side,
the Longhorn side with their coordinators, lack of continuity and
that they happen to be new on Ohio State side.
Speaker 5 (02:00):
Do you think that's a factor in this game?
Speaker 3 (02:03):
I do, you know, obviously Ohio State's advantage is being
at home. I think Texas's advantages they know a little
bit more of who they are.
Speaker 4 (02:11):
You know, of the four main units.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
That are going to take the field on Saturday, Ohio
States offense Ohio States defense, Texas offense, Texas defense. We
probably know the most about Texas's defense. I think that's
why I lean you know that way. Ohio States defense
is not only breaking in a lot of new faces,
they're breaking in a new defensive coordinator.
Speaker 4 (02:29):
Can they get exotic? Can they get into their bag?
Speaker 3 (02:31):
Can they break tendencies to confuse arch Manning in the
same way Pe Kwakowski and Anthony Hill and Colin Simmons
and Michael taff and all those guys can do to
Julians say, And I think that is Texas's advantage.
Speaker 6 (02:43):
On Saturday, We've talked about arch Manning and the esteem
that he has been held in for a long time
this offseason, and how it's just assumed, I think by
a lot that he will just, you know, slide in
seamlessly and lead the Longhorns the glory. It's not that
we don't want that to happen. We both have daughters
that are at their school that school right now, and
(03:04):
wex is a product of ut But I just is
there a little bit to be said for pumping the
brakes a little bit until we actually see him play?
Speaker 3 (03:12):
Oh, no doubt, you know, he's the He's the most
hyped college football player probably since Tim Tebow.
Speaker 4 (03:19):
You just don't see.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
I think college football the famous people usually the head coaches.
They're they're the they're the guys that have all the power.
You see their faces. College football players wear helmets, they
shuffle in and out every three or four years. By
the time they get that big of a stage or
that big of a name, they're off to the NFL.
Now arch is different because of his family. He's from
the first family of football. This is really anticipated. I
(03:41):
think the optimism, at least on the Texas side, to me,
comes from trusting Steve Starkesian. Like Steve Sarkisian knows about quarterbacks,
he knows about offense, and he let a pretty good
college quarterback walk out the door. Like if Texas didn't
believe in arch Manning, if sark didn't believe in arch
man they probably could have kept Youers around. But they
(04:03):
let him go because they think that this offense has
a higher ceiling with arch You know, I think a
lot of people just trust Sark's ability to evaluate quarterbacks.
Speaker 4 (04:12):
And you know, we'll see if he can hit the.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
Ground running, Like I think he can become a really
really good quarterback. Will he be elite in Week one
at Ohio State.
Speaker 4 (04:21):
I think that's probably the bigger question.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
You unfortunately set me up to be rather mean here
with the phrasing you used on their quarterback decision. They
probably let quin yours go. The moment he let go
of the football when he was sacked in the semi
final by Jack Sawyer is my guess on why they've
moved on for various reasons.
Speaker 5 (04:39):
But you made it too easy for me.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
You guys on your podcast not too long ago, ran
through the Texas football teams, with Texas being the team
expected to have the most wins, or, at least by
Vegas predictions, the most wins. Who's the next best team
in the state of Texas after Texas?
Speaker 4 (04:59):
It's a great question.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
I think it's probably a three team race between Texas Tech,
Texas A and M and you know, Baylor probably. I
guess SMU's probably in that mix as well. I guess
I go, if we're just going on the football field,
I take.
Speaker 4 (05:14):
A and M over those other teams.
Speaker 3 (05:16):
They have a really good offensive line. I think they
got better at wide receiver year two. Mike Elcho kind
of taking more of a control of the defense. I
feel like that unit's going to get better, and it
probably just depends on your perception of Marcel Reid and
if he's going to be good or not. But I
think on a neutral field, A and M would be
considered the next best team. The most successful team probably
(05:36):
is going to be Texas Tech. I think they have
a talent advantage over most of the Big Twelve.
Speaker 4 (05:41):
They do have to go play three really.
Speaker 3 (05:43):
Tough road games, but with the money that they spent
and the talents that they brought in, I think they
haven't a personnel advantage on more Saturdays than any of
those other teams I mentioned.
Speaker 5 (05:53):
We're sorry to Mike Craven.
Speaker 6 (05:54):
He is a senior writer for Dave Campbell's Texas Football,
and I'm assuming you do right for that very publication.
You're more than happy about the fact that the Longhorns
and the Aggies are getting together again on a regular basis.
Speaker 3 (06:09):
Oh yeah, for sure. You know, I think one of
the issues, or one of the bad negative parts of
modern college football is that we've lost the regionality that
this sport existed upon. You know, everything's about the national championship,
everything's about the college football playoff. It used to be
about beating the team that your friends rooted for, you know.
(06:30):
And if you grew up a Texas fan in Austin,
you probably don't know a ton of Alabama grads or
a ton of Old miss grads or Tennessee grads. But
you know Tech fans. You know, you know Baylor fans,
you know A and M fans, and I you know,
we lost some of the rivalries when when Texas went
to the SEC. But gaining the Texas Texas A and
M one I think is tremendous and the sport would
(06:50):
be a lot healthier if the teams that hated each
other played more often.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
A couple of games with some regional appeal going on
this weekend of note and certainly worthy of a bit
of our time. Surprisingly one of those is Monday Night,
and it's not because TCUs in the game.
Speaker 5 (07:05):
It's because of the other team in the game. That's
North Carolina.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
And I know we'll see a lot of them, not
only because they'll put them on as often as they can,
but because of their own internal production. Will be so
lucky to get the inside look at. But Bill Belichick,
college football coach, will be filling the blank.
Speaker 4 (07:27):
Yeah, I don't know. I think it'll be interesting.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
I don't know, you know, I think Belichick's genius is
what he was able to install and how exotic his
defense could get, like how he could trick other opponents
or take.
Speaker 4 (07:42):
Away the thing that you did really well.
Speaker 3 (07:45):
I'm not sure you can do that with college athletes
in the same way. I think it's much more of
a personnel game, especially on defense, like you need a
bunch of dudes you do three or four things really well,
and you just go stop the opponent more times than not,
or you force turnovers. I don't know, in a twenty
hour work week with college age kids that are dealing
with class and girlfriends and you know, all that kind
(08:06):
of drama, if you can really sit there and game
plan weekend and week out in the same way, I
don't know if he'll recruit in a way that they
need to to compete with Miami and Clemson and maybe
even SMU in Florida State. So I think it'll be interesting,
you know. I think for Sonny Dike's in the TCU angle,
you need to go win this football game. You know,
(08:27):
you lost to Deon Sanders when he made his FBS,
you know, debut and that kind of you know, tanks
the whole season. I think it just caused a crisis
of faith within that locker room. I think this could
be a similar result if they lose again, where you
know you're losing to an average ACC team. You know,
maybe you get out coached on the road and you
start looking around in the locker room and wonder.
Speaker 4 (08:47):
How good you are?
Speaker 3 (08:48):
Right, you know, And so I think this is more
important for TCU than North Carolina.
Speaker 4 (08:52):
But you know, as you pointed out, people are going
to be watching it a lot more for the North
Carolina side than the TCU side.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
Mike Craven here with us really appreciate the manner in
which you told our listeners how Bill Belichick will relate
to his college student athletes that he's in charge of,
because he too will be dealing with girlfriend issues as
the season unfolds and forever how long he and his
girlfriend are together or then ultimately become engaged.
Speaker 5 (09:15):
We saw a major engagement earlier today.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
If I told you that the national champion this year
will not come from the two big games this weekend.
It will not be Texas, Ohio State or LSU or Clemson.
Then who would you say the national champion will be?
Speaker 3 (09:32):
Probably Penn State or Alabama, you know, James Franklin. Yeah,
you can't win the big one until you win the
big one.
Speaker 4 (09:39):
You know.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
We've seen a lot of coaches have that tag and
then you go win a national championship and you don't
have that tag. I mean, Ryan Day had that tag
in November last year when he lost to Michigan. He
goes and wins the national championship. I like Penn State's roster.
I think their schedule sets up to where, you know,
they're a pretty obvious college football playoff team. And then
you know, nowadays with the twelve team roster, just got
(10:00):
to get there and see if you can survive in advance,
see what the draw is, get a favorable one, end
up in the championship, and then into one game scenario
and then I you know, I think Alabama. You know,
I'm a I'm a stars matter guy. I believe in
the blue chip ratio and just that there's probably six
to eight teams in college football that have the rosters
that are capable of handling a sixteen game season and
(10:23):
winning a four or a three game playoffs. The way
Ohio State did last year. And Alabama is one of
those teams, like they're gonna have super freaks everywhere. They're
gonna be really good along the offensive line, they got
a really good defense. I think they're gonna be better
in year two. You know, de Bors got his his
offensive coordinator back and Grubb coming there from the Seahawks,
So I think Alabama's gonna be a really good team.
(10:44):
That's probably who I would take to win the SEC championship.
I think the Crimson Tid if their quarterback hits it's
kind of like Ohio Sinton Texas like that. I think
what's fun about twenty twenty five is the COVID year
quarterbacks have mostly washed out and we're back to just
kind of seeing what these young guys can do and having.
Speaker 4 (10:59):
Some rush marks across the board.
Speaker 3 (11:01):
The team with all the talent, who has their quarterback
really emerge as a quality player I think is going
to win the championship, and that's going to be Ohio State, Texas,
Alabama one of those teams.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
It's a really interesting quarterback season. You know, guys like
Club Nick Nussmeyer, Aller versus, all these super talented teams,
but they're all running out new quarterbacks who very inexperienced
quarterbacks have the talent to do it. Mike super Information.
Really appreciate the time and look forward to catching up.
Speaker 5 (11:27):
With you again.
Speaker 4 (11:28):
Absolutely, go, I appreciate the invite.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
Mike Craven, Dave Campbell's Texas Football. Lots of football now
only two days out, including Cougars an SFA Thursday night.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
The a teed on Sports Talk seven ninety