December 18, 2025 • 11 mins
With the CFPs set to kick off tomorrow evening, Saturday is what many Texas natives are setting their calendars by as the Texas A&M Aggies get ready to take on the Miami Hurricanes in Round 1 for a chance at advancing on to playing against the Ohio State Buckeyes in the Cotton Bowl Classic. Switching sides for a moment and hearing from the Canes' side of things, sports radio host of 680 The Fan and the CaneGang Radio Show, John Michaels joins ahead of Saturday's showdown with a few reasons on why he believes Miami could upset the Aggies.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
A man who's going to talk to Miami side of
this game between the Canes and Texas A and M
at eleven o'clock there in Kyle Field in College Station's
John Michaels again from the Cane Gang radio show also
on six A of the Fan in Atlanta as that's
where I know this guy the most, but does a
lot of work covering the Canes. John, you're the best, buddy.
(00:22):
It's great to hear from you again. Let's start off first,
we played it earlier, a lot of trash talk coming
from A and M. We were kind of used to
hearing that out of the Miami program though, but it
seems like Mario Christobaul has his guys kind of on
the straight and narrow this week.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Is that accurate? Yeah, it absolutely feels that way. And
Dan is good to hear your voice as well. It's
been a while. First and foremost, be careful what you
wish for, Aggie. Fans keep calling out Ruben Bain and
a Keen Mesidor. There's reasons those guys are mocked inside
the top first round of the NFL draft. Ruben Bain
and a lot of mock drafts inside the top ten
they're the best two defensive linemen that A and M
(00:58):
will see all year long. And it's not even close.
And I know LSU have really good defense in Texas
has a good defensive line. Bain and Mesador are dogs.
But what people sleep on with Miami's D line is
they've got really good explosive defensive tackles. And Justin Scott,
who's just a sophomore, former five star recruit, David Blay
who's a kid who transferred over from Louisiana Tech. He's
(01:20):
back healthy miss the last couple of games, and a
mod moten. Plus Miami's going to bring in some young
kids on the d end as well, Marquis Lightfoot, who's
an absolute menace coming off the edge. So keep talking,
keep running your mouth, keep thinking that Miami's not what
you're looking for in the SEC. You're gonna find out
real quick on Saturday afternoon.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
Let me get your pint on this Keyante Scott really
blisted on the injury report as probable has been out
since November fifteenth. What is his addition to the secondary
do to put pressure on Marcel Reid.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
He is the best blitzer Miami has on the team,
and they have used if you go back and watch
early on in the year, whether it's against Florida State
with Thomas Castellanos who can run around, whether it was CJ.
Carr at Notre Dame, you know you name it, DJ
Lagway when Miami played Florida early on in the year.
Byron Brown of USF Keiante Scott, they're going to use
him everywhere and Hill a lot of times line up
(02:11):
in the slot looking like he's going to cover, and
he comes off the edge and when he comes off
the edge, he doesn't miss. I think he would have
been a finalist for the Thorpe Award had he not
get hurt over the last couple of games. I was
there when he got He actually got hurt against Syracuse
on that November I think it was November seventh game.
I was at the games down on the field and
he came off and he was kind of limping around
(02:32):
and it didn't look good, and they had to move
some pieces around when he wasn't there. Jacoby Thomas, the safety,
had to play some nickel. They brought in Bryce Fitzgerald,
who was really good. But Keante Scott if kind of
the jack of all trades that Corey Heatherman, our defensive coordinator,
wants to use and I'm going to tell you A
and M better find where zero is on the field
because he is a game wrecker when he's out there. Again.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
He's part of the King Gang radio show that can
be heard Nashale on Fridays eleven to one eastern on
channel one forty five on Sirius x sum He's John
Michaels join us here for a few minutes. John's it's
safe to say that, you know, one of the charges
for Mario christa Ball when he took over at Miami
was trying to be able to solidify the offensive end
(03:15):
defensive lines. And this is finally the year that he
was able to do it.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Yeah, one hundred percent. You think about his first real
recruiting class, his big fish with Francis malanoa the right
tackle that Miami has who's going to also be a
top ten pick. The second big fish was Ruben Bain,
who we already talked about. You go back and look
at the twenty twenty two game. I think it was
the first year Mario was there that was a college
station between Miami and A and M and I get
(03:40):
it a and m wasn't very good. Miami ended up
finishing five and seven. Go back and look at Miami's
offensive line. You had guys that were like six one,
three hundred pounds. It wasn't the most athletic group. You're
now talking about Malano, who's going to be a top
ten pick. The guy that's right next to him, and
Ness Cooper is one of the nastiest offensive linemen you'll
ever meet. Talk about he's going to hit you right
(04:01):
at the edge of the whistle. You'll probably see him
standing there at midfield at Kyle Field on Saturday trying
to hype everybody up. You got James Brockermeyer, who made
some All American teams at center, who was a transfer
from TCU. The left guard is a rotation either between
five star offensive lineman Samson Oklola or four star in
Matthew McCoy, who's really good. And then their left tackle
(04:24):
is six foot nine, three hundred and thirty pounds on
Markel Bell. He had a vision when he took the
job at Miami to make Miami look like every SEC
team he used to coach as an offensive line coach
under Nick Saban. He understands the importance of offensive and
defensive lines from his time at Miami as a player
and a coach as well. And Mario finally has that
(04:45):
vision and it's part of the reason Miami's won ten
games back to back years for the first time since
two thousand and two and two thousand and three.
Speaker 3 (04:53):
John, let me get your opinion on this. I made
a Bowl prediction earlier this year on one Malachi Tony.
I think that he is the most dangerous player on
the field and either side in this matchup. I believe
that if everything goes according to plan, this is going
to be a kid that we talk about making it
to New York City and potentially hoisting up the Heisman trophies.
So let me ask you, how do you slow down
what number ten is able to accomplish this season?
Speaker 2 (05:14):
Uh, you got to get him off his spots and
a lot of So Miami's going to do a lot
of different things with Malachai Toni. And it's crazy to
think that a couple of losses may have been the
best thing that ever happened to Miami. Now, we didn't
figure out it was the best thing until last Saturday
or last Sunday at noon when we were announced that
we were in the playoffs but losing to SMU. There
was a lot of talk about how vanilla the offense
(05:35):
had become. It was a lot of a gap runs
and it was a lot of bubble screens, and they
weren't really using the weapons that they had. And I
think somewhere in about the second quarter of the Syracuse game,
Shannon Dawson the handcuff came off of him and he
realized Number ten might not only be the best freshman
on the field, he might be one of the five
to ten best players in all of college football. And
they started diversifying how they got him the ball. It
(05:57):
was jet sweeps, it was putting him in the why Ken,
it was allowing him to throw the ball. I'm sure
you've seen the story. He was a high school quarterback
his senior year. Based on necessity, and what even his
senior year is. His junior year, he reclassified. He's supposed
to be a senior in high school. But in order
to stop him, you got to find ways to tackle
him at the point of attack. Miami's going to get
the ball to him quick. And one of the great
(06:19):
things Malachi Toni does is he makes that first guy miss,
and then when he makes the first guy miss, all
bets are off. But look for Shannon Dawson to move
him around. He's going to be in motion again. He's
going to line up in the backfield. They've had him
at fullback a couple of times. He's going to play everywhere,
but the first tackler for A and M has to
get him to the ground if you want to flow
him down.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
It'spending a couple more minutes.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
Again.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
John Michael's part of the Kane Gang radio show on
Sirius sex Sem. You can find him on Twitter at
John Michaels you talking the Miami Hurricanes ahead of Saturday's
game against Texas A and m Carson Beck. You know,
I know that he's had a lot of experience both
at Georgia and then also at Miami, a couple of
losses this year where he looked a little shaky. What's
(07:02):
the fan basees belief in Carson Beck and his ability
to be able to put together a run?
Speaker 2 (07:07):
Really? And if you go back Dan and look, the
Louisville game was terrible. He threw four interceptions and was
the sole reason Miami lost that game. The SMU game
and I know people say I was a bad game.
He had two picks. The first interception, he threw a
steam ball right down the middle. Jojo Trader has it
hit him directly in two hands, bounces it up in
the air and it gets intercepted. Never should have been
(07:27):
a pick. The last one, obviously at the end of overtime,
you can't make that throw. That ends up being a
bad throw. But for the rest of the year, Carson
has been lights out seventy four percent completion. He's got
I think twenty five touchdowns to ten interceptions, six of
them being in those two games we just mentioned. He's
been super accurate, he's been super decisive with the ball,
(07:48):
and I think as the year's gone along, he's gotten healthier.
People tend to forget this guy had major arm surgery
in the offseason. He didn't have any spring ball. He
came back right at the start of fall camp and
started throwing. Really was kind of thrown into the fire,
obviously with a schedule that they had starting the year
with Notre Dame and Florida. A couple of weeks after that,
he's gotten more comfortable and over the last four games
(08:09):
where Miami had to win decisively. He had over eleven
hundred yards, eleven touchdowns and one interception. And the one
interception Miami was trying to run up the score against
Pittsburgh and he threw a ball in the coverage late
trying to run up the score. He's been great. I
can tell you our fan base we love him. He's
got us back in the playoffs. Miami's got a chance
to go and win a national title thanks to Carson Beck.
(08:32):
And I think a lot of the stuff that people
talked about off the field were complete folicies. I talked
to him personally at ACC media Day. We had him
all on six eighty the fan for twenty five minutes,
and we asked him about some of the negativity and
Carson was like, dude, my teammates loved me. He goes,
I don't know where that came about. I had a
chance to talk to Carson's mother before the Syracuse game.
(08:52):
She goes, I can show you group text where people
still ask about Carson. If they really didn't like him,
thought he was a bad teammate, they would never say
these things about him. And I had a chance to
talk to our running back Mark Fletcher. I did an
hour web show with him, and he said Carson is
one of the greatest people he's ever got to know,
because Carson is about one thing and one thing only,
and that's winning football first. In the locker room, wants
(09:15):
to stay late once. All he wants to do is
throw the ball to his receivers and get better. And
I trust Carson Beck is going to prove a lot
of people wrong over this next month of football, because yes,
I do think Miami's making a deep run.
Speaker 3 (09:26):
So let's say that Miami doesn't make a deep run.
What is the reason that Texas A and M is
able to get the wool over their eyes and with
an eleven am kick on Saturday.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
Yeah, you know what. A and M's good football team.
I'm not going to knock anything. I know people have
tried to downplay who A and M is and they
didn't play the top SEC teams. Look, they're dangerous and
where I think they could give Miami problems. They have
two receivers in Craver and obviously conception own. Go back
and watch the Louisville game. What they did to beat
Miami a lot was quick crossing routes where Miami's linebackers
(09:57):
a lot of times in coverage we're having to chase
a underneath receivers and they're just not fast enough to
do so. If they can block ruben Bahn and the
King Bezidor and those guys and let Marcel Reid stand
back there and throw, it could be a problem. And
a few times, very few times, is your Miami's run
defense could get leaky. It got leaky a little bit
against Isaac Brown at Louisville. It got leaky a couple
(10:19):
of weeks ago when they played Virginia Tech with a
mobile quarterback in kyrone drones. I think those are some
things where they can attack Miami. But Corey Heatherman has
done a really good job. Like even the Louisville game,
it was fourteen to nothing in two possessions and then
they shut them down the rest of the way outside
of the Carson Beck turnovers, I think they would have
won that football game. But mobile quarterback maybe find some
(10:40):
run game. If Le'Veon Moss ends up playing, that's an
added edition. And I think your two receivers are going
to give us trouble underneath, especially if you get the
ball out quick and Miami has.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
To tackle Gainn's John Michaels part of the King Gang
radio show as well as on six Ay of the
Fan in Atlanta. You can find them on Twitter at
John Michaels You, Johnny Hayes. Great to hear from you again. Man,
tell all the boys I said hello, and also to
say out to Ronnie for me.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
Okay. Absolutely congrats by the way, Dan on having the
morning show. It couldn't happen to a better dude. I
know the grind you went through for a long time
to be where you're at. Super proudy and super happy
for you, and go came
A man who's going to talk to Miami side of
this game between the Canes and Texas A and M
at eleven o'clock there in Kyle Field in College Station's
John Michaels again from the Cane Gang radio show also
on six A of the Fan in Atlanta as that's
where I know this guy the most, but does a
lot of work covering the Canes. John, you're the best, buddy.
(00:22):
It's great to hear from you again. Let's start off first,
we played it earlier, a lot of trash talk coming
from A and M. We were kind of used to
hearing that out of the Miami program though, but it
seems like Mario Christobaul has his guys kind of on
the straight and narrow this week.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Is that accurate? Yeah, it absolutely feels that way. And
Dan is good to hear your voice as well. It's
been a while. First and foremost, be careful what you
wish for, Aggie. Fans keep calling out Ruben Bain and
a Keen Mesidor. There's reasons those guys are mocked inside
the top first round of the NFL draft. Ruben Bain
and a lot of mock drafts inside the top ten
they're the best two defensive linemen that A and M
(00:58):
will see all year long. And it's not even close.
And I know LSU have really good defense in Texas
has a good defensive line. Bain and Mesador are dogs.
But what people sleep on with Miami's D line is
they've got really good explosive defensive tackles. And Justin Scott,
who's just a sophomore, former five star recruit, David Blay
who's a kid who transferred over from Louisiana Tech. He's
(01:20):
back healthy miss the last couple of games, and a
mod moten. Plus Miami's going to bring in some young
kids on the d end as well, Marquis Lightfoot, who's
an absolute menace coming off the edge. So keep talking,
keep running your mouth, keep thinking that Miami's not what
you're looking for in the SEC. You're gonna find out
real quick on Saturday afternoon.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
Let me get your pint on this Keyante Scott really
blisted on the injury report as probable has been out
since November fifteenth. What is his addition to the secondary
do to put pressure on Marcel Reid.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
He is the best blitzer Miami has on the team,
and they have used if you go back and watch
early on in the year, whether it's against Florida State
with Thomas Castellanos who can run around, whether it was CJ.
Carr at Notre Dame, you know you name it, DJ
Lagway when Miami played Florida early on in the year.
Byron Brown of USF Keiante Scott, they're going to use
him everywhere and Hill a lot of times line up
(02:11):
in the slot looking like he's going to cover, and
he comes off the edge and when he comes off
the edge, he doesn't miss. I think he would have
been a finalist for the Thorpe Award had he not
get hurt over the last couple of games. I was
there when he got He actually got hurt against Syracuse
on that November I think it was November seventh game.
I was at the games down on the field and
he came off and he was kind of limping around
(02:32):
and it didn't look good, and they had to move
some pieces around when he wasn't there. Jacoby Thomas, the safety,
had to play some nickel. They brought in Bryce Fitzgerald,
who was really good. But Keante Scott if kind of
the jack of all trades that Corey Heatherman, our defensive coordinator,
wants to use and I'm going to tell you A
and M better find where zero is on the field
because he is a game wrecker when he's out there. Again.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
He's part of the King Gang radio show that can
be heard Nashale on Fridays eleven to one eastern on
channel one forty five on Sirius x sum He's John
Michaels join us here for a few minutes. John's it's
safe to say that, you know, one of the charges
for Mario christa Ball when he took over at Miami
was trying to be able to solidify the offensive end
(03:15):
defensive lines. And this is finally the year that he
was able to do it.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Yeah, one hundred percent. You think about his first real
recruiting class, his big fish with Francis malanoa the right
tackle that Miami has who's going to also be a
top ten pick. The second big fish was Ruben Bain,
who we already talked about. You go back and look
at the twenty twenty two game. I think it was
the first year Mario was there that was a college
station between Miami and A and M and I get
(03:40):
it a and m wasn't very good. Miami ended up
finishing five and seven. Go back and look at Miami's
offensive line. You had guys that were like six one,
three hundred pounds. It wasn't the most athletic group. You're
now talking about Malano, who's going to be a top
ten pick. The guy that's right next to him, and
Ness Cooper is one of the nastiest offensive linemen you'll
ever meet. Talk about he's going to hit you right
(04:01):
at the edge of the whistle. You'll probably see him
standing there at midfield at Kyle Field on Saturday trying
to hype everybody up. You got James Brockermeyer, who made
some All American teams at center, who was a transfer
from TCU. The left guard is a rotation either between
five star offensive lineman Samson Oklola or four star in
Matthew McCoy, who's really good. And then their left tackle
(04:24):
is six foot nine, three hundred and thirty pounds on
Markel Bell. He had a vision when he took the
job at Miami to make Miami look like every SEC
team he used to coach as an offensive line coach
under Nick Saban. He understands the importance of offensive and
defensive lines from his time at Miami as a player
and a coach as well. And Mario finally has that
(04:45):
vision and it's part of the reason Miami's won ten
games back to back years for the first time since
two thousand and two and two thousand and three.
Speaker 3 (04:53):
John, let me get your opinion on this. I made
a Bowl prediction earlier this year on one Malachi Tony.
I think that he is the most dangerous player on
the field and either side in this matchup. I believe
that if everything goes according to plan, this is going
to be a kid that we talk about making it
to New York City and potentially hoisting up the Heisman trophies.
So let me ask you, how do you slow down
what number ten is able to accomplish this season?
Speaker 2 (05:14):
Uh, you got to get him off his spots and
a lot of So Miami's going to do a lot
of different things with Malachai Toni. And it's crazy to
think that a couple of losses may have been the
best thing that ever happened to Miami. Now, we didn't
figure out it was the best thing until last Saturday
or last Sunday at noon when we were announced that
we were in the playoffs but losing to SMU. There
was a lot of talk about how vanilla the offense
(05:35):
had become. It was a lot of a gap runs
and it was a lot of bubble screens, and they
weren't really using the weapons that they had. And I
think somewhere in about the second quarter of the Syracuse game,
Shannon Dawson the handcuff came off of him and he
realized Number ten might not only be the best freshman
on the field, he might be one of the five
to ten best players in all of college football. And
they started diversifying how they got him the ball. It
(05:57):
was jet sweeps, it was putting him in the why Ken,
it was allowing him to throw the ball. I'm sure
you've seen the story. He was a high school quarterback
his senior year. Based on necessity, and what even his
senior year is. His junior year, he reclassified. He's supposed
to be a senior in high school. But in order
to stop him, you got to find ways to tackle
him at the point of attack. Miami's going to get
the ball to him quick. And one of the great
(06:19):
things Malachi Toni does is he makes that first guy miss,
and then when he makes the first guy miss, all
bets are off. But look for Shannon Dawson to move
him around. He's going to be in motion again. He's
going to line up in the backfield. They've had him
at fullback a couple of times. He's going to play everywhere,
but the first tackler for A and M has to
get him to the ground if you want to flow
him down.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
It'spending a couple more minutes.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
Again.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
John Michael's part of the Kane Gang radio show on
Sirius sex Sem. You can find him on Twitter at
John Michaels you talking the Miami Hurricanes ahead of Saturday's
game against Texas A and m Carson Beck. You know,
I know that he's had a lot of experience both
at Georgia and then also at Miami, a couple of
losses this year where he looked a little shaky. What's
(07:02):
the fan basees belief in Carson Beck and his ability
to be able to put together a run?
Speaker 2 (07:07):
Really? And if you go back Dan and look, the
Louisville game was terrible. He threw four interceptions and was
the sole reason Miami lost that game. The SMU game
and I know people say I was a bad game.
He had two picks. The first interception, he threw a
steam ball right down the middle. Jojo Trader has it
hit him directly in two hands, bounces it up in
the air and it gets intercepted. Never should have been
(07:27):
a pick. The last one, obviously at the end of overtime,
you can't make that throw. That ends up being a
bad throw. But for the rest of the year, Carson
has been lights out seventy four percent completion. He's got
I think twenty five touchdowns to ten interceptions, six of
them being in those two games we just mentioned. He's
been super accurate, he's been super decisive with the ball,
(07:48):
and I think as the year's gone along, he's gotten healthier.
People tend to forget this guy had major arm surgery
in the offseason. He didn't have any spring ball. He
came back right at the start of fall camp and
started throwing. Really was kind of thrown into the fire,
obviously with a schedule that they had starting the year
with Notre Dame and Florida. A couple of weeks after that,
he's gotten more comfortable and over the last four games
(08:09):
where Miami had to win decisively. He had over eleven
hundred yards, eleven touchdowns and one interception. And the one
interception Miami was trying to run up the score against
Pittsburgh and he threw a ball in the coverage late
trying to run up the score. He's been great. I
can tell you our fan base we love him. He's
got us back in the playoffs. Miami's got a chance
to go and win a national title thanks to Carson Beck.
(08:32):
And I think a lot of the stuff that people
talked about off the field were complete folicies. I talked
to him personally at ACC media Day. We had him
all on six eighty the fan for twenty five minutes,
and we asked him about some of the negativity and
Carson was like, dude, my teammates loved me. He goes,
I don't know where that came about. I had a
chance to talk to Carson's mother before the Syracuse game.
(08:52):
She goes, I can show you group text where people
still ask about Carson. If they really didn't like him,
thought he was a bad teammate, they would never say
these things about him. And I had a chance to
talk to our running back Mark Fletcher. I did an
hour web show with him, and he said Carson is
one of the greatest people he's ever got to know,
because Carson is about one thing and one thing only,
and that's winning football first. In the locker room, wants
(09:15):
to stay late once. All he wants to do is
throw the ball to his receivers and get better. And
I trust Carson Beck is going to prove a lot
of people wrong over this next month of football, because yes,
I do think Miami's making a deep run.
Speaker 3 (09:26):
So let's say that Miami doesn't make a deep run.
What is the reason that Texas A and M is
able to get the wool over their eyes and with
an eleven am kick on Saturday.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
Yeah, you know what. A and M's good football team.
I'm not going to knock anything. I know people have
tried to downplay who A and M is and they
didn't play the top SEC teams. Look, they're dangerous and
where I think they could give Miami problems. They have
two receivers in Craver and obviously conception own. Go back
and watch the Louisville game. What they did to beat
Miami a lot was quick crossing routes where Miami's linebackers
(09:57):
a lot of times in coverage we're having to chase
a underneath receivers and they're just not fast enough to
do so. If they can block ruben Bahn and the
King Bezidor and those guys and let Marcel Reid stand
back there and throw, it could be a problem. And
a few times, very few times, is your Miami's run
defense could get leaky. It got leaky a little bit
against Isaac Brown at Louisville. It got leaky a couple
(10:19):
of weeks ago when they played Virginia Tech with a
mobile quarterback in kyrone drones. I think those are some
things where they can attack Miami. But Corey Heatherman has
done a really good job. Like even the Louisville game,
it was fourteen to nothing in two possessions and then
they shut them down the rest of the way outside
of the Carson Beck turnovers, I think they would have
won that football game. But mobile quarterback maybe find some
(10:40):
run game. If Le'Veon Moss ends up playing, that's an
added edition. And I think your two receivers are going
to give us trouble underneath, especially if you get the
ball out quick and Miami has.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
To tackle Gainn's John Michaels part of the King Gang
radio show as well as on six Ay of the
Fan in Atlanta. You can find them on Twitter at
John Michaels You, Johnny Hayes. Great to hear from you again. Man,
tell all the boys I said hello, and also to
say out to Ronnie for me.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
Okay. Absolutely congrats by the way, Dan on having the
morning show. It couldn't happen to a better dude. I
know the grind you went through for a long time
to be where you're at. Super proudy and super happy
for you, and go came
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