November 18, 2024 • 33 mins
This week on Weekend Warriors, Anish and Tom react to the Paul/Tyson boxing match, recap the Panthers trip to Germany, break down how the College Football Playoffs could shake out, and so much more!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
This Friday is a big, big cinematic event. Tom and
I Boy lattiat or two comes out. Are you not entertained?
And the reason I'm going to go here is because
the closest thing that we've had in the last forty
years to one of those gladiatorial fights that involve a
(00:23):
lion or a tiger on one side and then a
captive with a wooden sword on the other, It was
prime Mike Tyson boxing. Tyson was the lion or the tiger,
and then whoever it was McNeely, Tillman, Spinx, Sa Rbik
(00:44):
who was the champion and got destroyed. Those guys were
presented to Mike as quote unquote contenders and opponents disguised
as boot right right, which makes what we saw on
Saturday all the more, said Jake Paul Mike Tyson. I'll
be honest, I was intrigued because that's how bad boxing
(01:05):
is these days, where Tyson is still a draw and
then you've got this influencer in the wild who is
I guess, also a draw. And I watched this thing
for eight rounds and I swear paint drying was more entertaining.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Yeah, so with watching Gratz grow, I mean, I've been
asking everybody this question and nobody's been able to answer it.
Maybe you can, maybe you can't. How does any state
boxing association sanction and take on the responsibility and a
liability of a fifty eight year old in the ring?
Speaker 1 (01:39):
Yeah, and the fight wasn't even in Vegas, right, Maybe
that's why. That might be the reason, But that's part
of it. He's fifty eight and you're watching this diminished version,
and everybody had the Father Time is undefeated. Listen, by
the time won that battle a long time ago. Yeah,
(02:00):
if I was over, not fifty eight, Like, stop making
this about Tyson versus Father Time. He's fifty eight, he's
not a boxer anymore. It got me thinking, what is
the football equivalent to that matchup? I've got one in
my head, but I'm curious if there's one that comes
(02:22):
to mind for you.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Yeah, it's Bishop Sycamore and IMG.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
Oh gosh, we're not allowed to talk about that.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
I know we're not allowed to talk about it. Yeah,
that's my answer. It's staying at my answer. It's not
getting scrubbed, but we will not elaborate further.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
You know what mine is? Yeah, I know the matchup
in the sense was anticipated and the teams were good.
Two thousand and eleven, maybe Alabama played LSU and it
was that nine to six game yep, and you're going, yeah, okay,
like we know these defenses are good. Then they play
(02:59):
again National Championship and ls you can't get the ball
over midfield and Bama didn't even really do anything. And
that game was beyond boring when it had been hyped
up as part two the sequel. These two great teams,
and again just from a theater perspective, it was bad.
But what we saw on Friday that wasn't even a
(03:20):
side show because the very name side show implies that
there is some theatrical element that would qualify as a show.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
Right right, I Is there any part of you that
thinks it not.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
Was staged or rigged?
Speaker 1 (03:36):
But yes there is?
Speaker 2 (03:37):
Okay, what makes you think that.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
Just watching it? Where again, Jake Paul was what twenty
seven years old? Okay, you're fighting a guy twice as
old as you. I know it's Mike Tyson. They're punching
with pillow gloves. They said that the gloves were softer
than normal gloves, so the punches don't impact you right
(04:02):
much and all they did two minute rounds was look
at each other. Tyson couldn't even move. After about the
third round, you felt better and it almost felt like, all,
let's just string them along. Let's give the people eight rounds.
But I would have much much preferred knockout in the
first round, in the first thirty seconds, because those fights,
(04:23):
when Tyson fought them, as short as they were, men
were they entertaining.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
Absolutely, and everybody on the planet was tuning in. There
ain't no doubt about it. Yeah, I kind of got
the same sense that you did, and just watching some
of the movement and things of that nature, and opportunities
that I thought were not taken advantage of on behalf
of both boxers when they could have gone in for
the attack, and it was almost as if they chose
(04:48):
not to purposefully. I don't know, listen, does anybody know
the numbers yet on it? From a Netflix perspective?
Speaker 1 (04:56):
Sixty five million, sixty million.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
So it accomplished what they had hoped right, even though
it buffered the entire time.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
Got us suckers.
Speaker 3 (05:08):
Got him.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
There you go, there's your answer.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
The almighty dollar, ladies and gentlemen. The weekend.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
Close to the episode caught Back Feeling Touchdown, Carolina.
Speaker 3 (05:23):
Weekend Warriors.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
Octong Baby, We're back from Munich, Panther's return home from
Alian's Arena with a win against the Giants two straight wins.
Bye Week got the Kansas City Chiefs, who were coming
off their first loss coming to Charlotte this weekend. Let
me just start here because we didn't have a show
last week with all the travel coming back from Germany.
(05:52):
Really that's our our producer, Matt Hogan, he didn't make
it back in time, got stuck at the beer hole.
Speaker 3 (05:57):
Yep, he did.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
And you and I are techno a lotan episode. We
couldn't do the show on our own. It was one
of the coolest experiences I've had in this profession. The
soccer fans looking in the crowd, it's Giants versus Panthers,
and you see jerseys from every NFL team from every era.
I saw Drew Bledsoe Patriots circa nineteen ninety four jersey,
(06:24):
and it's Smith a champion jersey, so you know that
was made. And probably the mid nineties or the early
nineties when the Cowboys were rolling, you had Eagles jerseys,
Falcons jerseys forty nine er jerseys. It was just a
bunch of these people going into their closets saying, I'm
going through a football game. This is what I have.
(06:44):
I will wear this today.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
It reminded me so much of the old NFL Europe days.
That's exactly how NFL Europe was. It didn't matter if
you were in Frankfurt, if you were Berlin, if you
were in Amsterdam, Scotland, what have you. Everybody in the
stadium had their gear from the team they were representing,
and then everybody else just had NFL gear and they
(07:08):
were so pumped over. I mean, you talk about you
talk about countries that loved the sport of American football,
like it's unbelievable to me. It's so big that if
it wasn't so expensive, you could have two professional football
leagues and just have them both be overseas one here,
one there.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
You could and the fans. It was very interesting to
talk to some of the local fans. We had a
cab driver at one point who was asking why we
were in town and we mentioned the football game, and
being the dumb American, I said football, right, not American football. Yeah,
he goes football. There's a football game. No, No, no
football game. I said, oh NFL. He goes, oh, oh
(07:52):
the football you play with your hands. Yes, that's unbelievable,
but just an incredible time. The Panther fan showed out
Munich was awesome. And now you get back home. And
I want to bring this to football because we live
in a world where everything is quantified, analytics can account
(08:15):
for everything. Is there something to momentum? And I qualify
this by saying, I get it. The Panthers beat the
Giants who just made a switch at quarterback. They beat
the Saints, who fired their head coach after the game.
They're not exactly the Lions and the Chiefs. I understand that,
But Carolina had been struggling. You win two games, you're
(08:37):
getting healthy, you're in a bye week. There's a different vibe.
I know. There's not a quotient to quantify what that means,
what that signifies. You've been in a locker room. Is
that real?
Speaker 3 (08:52):
It's absolutely real.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
I would say that faith, belief, and confidence is every
bit of important as locker room chemistry. And it's one
of those scenarios where you can feel it, you can
sense it. You might not be able to point it
out physically, but it's it's real, and it impacts your
(09:14):
football team because I think anytime you're popping around with
a you know, a little hitting your step and got
a little smile on your face, all of a sudden,
the building's different, the people around the building are different.
Positive energy affects people. I do think it's very real,
and I think it has a trickle down effect. I
(09:34):
also believe though, that very very quickly it can go away, right,
It can very quickly go back to oh, here we
go again, or some level of negativity in a cloud
hanging over the program or the franchise, what have you.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
But I've always been.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
A believer in that because you know, when you go
from one season to another, let alone one week to
the next week. You can return some of the same names,
some of the same faces, some of the same starters.
You can't return the chemistry in the locker room, no
matter what, that will change always. And that's why that part,
(10:13):
that component is so magical.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
John Fox used to have a saying, you're always two
weeks from disaster. There's truth to that. In the NFL,
where we react to the result of one game and
every event is taken as a singular entity. If you
think about it right, perspective matters. But oh my god,
they lost, it's the end of the world. Oh they won,
(10:36):
They've turned a corner. That's what drives the narrative. Bus
I'm not gonna say, hey, they're gonna go out there
and whip the Chiefs. But I look at Kansas City
and they lost to a very good Buffalo team yesterday.
Heck of a game. Kansas City has been playing with fire.
Speaker 3 (10:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
Season long, they've been that team that has run out
of a burning building without a scratch for seven out
of nine weeks to start the season. They get caught
against Buffalo. Does that concern me a little bit? It does,
because again it's the old Oh no, they're they're coming
off a lost, They're gonna be full. Is that part
real too?
Speaker 2 (11:13):
Yeah? I think it can be a lot of that
depends on the team, like Kansas City in this in
this position, what is their makeup, what is their leadership?
Where is the strength of their leadership? Lie and do
they have people that don't allow one game to define
the next week?
Speaker 1 (11:28):
Right?
Speaker 2 (11:29):
I think that part of it's real too. That's where
leadership comes in. That's where what is your what is
your motivation. Uh, where does that come into play?
Speaker 3 (11:38):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (11:38):
I do. I do think that's real. But I also
believe that on the flip side of that, you can
have very easily have what happened to Kansas City because
they had kind of gotten away with it a few
times happened to hand and then all of a sudden,
the real true reality sets in and maybe they're not
(11:59):
as good as everybody thinks. And whether it's this week,
whether it's next week, or what have you, all of
a sudden they start dropping a few because, let's call
it what it is in any sport, in this sport
in particular, luck and the ball bouncing your way is
a part of the equation every single week.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
I go back to last year when Kansas City looked
a little shaky at times down the stretch. They lost
to the Raiders on Christmas Day, yep, and then they
didn't lose again. They feel to me like a light
switch team, and some teams you got to have that
(12:39):
singular focus for seventeen weeks. They to me, having won
two Super Bowls, having played in four of the last five,
they seem to me a team that we know we're
gonna get in the playoffs.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
You know, we're good enough, we'll turn it on.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
Then we can flip the switch, kind of like the
Lakers used to do when they had Kobe and Shack yep,
regular seas and infighting drama. They'd lose to teams they
shouldn't lose to, and then you get to the playoffs.
Oh yeah, they have Kobe, they have Shaq and Phil
Jackson's their head coach, and they go on and they
bludgeon people. Yeah, to me, Kansas City has a little
(13:13):
bit of that. But again, this is probably despite the
nine to one record, it's probably the weakest team they've
had in the last five years. You Pat Patrick Mahomes,
you put a lot of money and equity into that
quarterback position. We've seen them take a hit it wide receiver,
they're banged up, the checko's injured, Ollywood Brown is out worthy,
was out for a bit. They had to sign DeAndre
(13:35):
Hopkins hoping he's got a little something left in the tank.
Kelsey is on the wrong side of thirty. Now.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
Yeah, it's taking its toll, and it happens to everybody.
That's why the balancing and the management and the massage
of free agency is often so very very tricky, and
there's a lot to go into it in terms of
the financial decisions you make and then the positional decisions
that you make, and that's why you have ebbs and
flows and pets and valleys. You've had it with the
(14:05):
New England Patriots, who have been thought to be the
premier entity of managing a roster. We've seen it now
with the Pittsburgh Steelers, could be embarking on it a
little bit with the.
Speaker 3 (14:15):
Kansas City Chiefs. It's just it's.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
Part of free agency and professional football where the margin
of error is so razor thin that every end season,
an off season decision you make could have a monumental
ripple effect.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
Yeah, and the Patriots for years, their biggest strength was
Tom Brady was one or two in terms of quarterback
in the NFL, but was not paid like one or two,
and they could allocate those resources elsewhere at its big
an advantage that they had in terms of roster building.
Speaking of roster building, a guy that we saw in
college last year and was absolutely dynamite will make his
(14:54):
Panthers debut Sunday against Kansas City second round pick running
back Jonathan Brooks. I think people have kind of forgotten
about him a little bit, although there's been a lot
of speculation when will we see him. He's coming off
in ACL, so I think those expectations are tempered. Remind
people what this guy brings to the table.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
So I actually saw this guy five times in college,
and the fourth time I saw him was the time
he got the A C stell at the ACL. And
he is really, really talented. I'm trying to come up
with a good comp for him. Off the top of
my head, I would probably stay somewhere along the lines
(15:37):
of a Jonathan Taylor type wow, where you've got that
blend of explosiveness, contact balance, really light on his feet
in the hole, but enough power and forward lean to where.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
He can push the pile.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
In short guarded situation, he can lower his shoulder and
fight for that extra eight inches, that extra yard. But
once he gets to the second level, has got the
ability to make people miss. And here's maybe the most
important part. Playing in the offense he played in at
Texas really upgraded his status as a receiver out of
the backfield, because those guys are required to make plays
(16:14):
when they're not the ball carrier. And I was always
really impressive. I thought he was super tough. I thought
he was one of those backs that's better in the
fourth quarter than he is in the first. It was
a real shame that he ended up getting hurt, you know,
because I do think I had somewhat of an impact
on their team, even though they had CJ. Baxter, who
then gets hurt in fall camp this year for Texas.
(16:34):
But this is a fantastic, exciting fame for Panthers fans.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
Yeah, last year with Texas in eleven games, he racked
up sixty three forced missed tackles. There you go, and
he only played eleven games, so that was a top
eleven number in the FBS, the highest division of college football.
And a forced miss tackle means he either broke a
(16:58):
tackle or evaded a tackler. So he can make guys miss,
and he can run through guys. He has the ability
to catch the ball. And you pair him with Chuba Hubbard,
who's having a breakout season well deserved with that contract extension. Yeah,
all of a sudden, it gives Dave Canalis so some
creative freedom where you can go to two back sets,
(17:21):
and Miles Sanders, who is hurt, is going to be
out with an ankle injury, lower leg injury. The reality
is he just hadn't been all that productive this year. Yeah,
you put Brooks in, he starts to show you a
glimpse of what he can do. Boy, now you got
two backs, twenty one personnel. We see how the Ravens
can manipulate that some other teams do. That gives an
(17:43):
offensive coordinator, a play caller in Dave Canalis's case, it
gives you some toys to work with. It gives you
some schematic things to work with.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
Yes, and it also puts the defense in a bind
because from a linebacker perspective, they don't want to have
to match up with two running backs on the field
at one time, let alone a running back and a
tight end. All right, So you go to that stuff,
and even with Bryce Young, because of his athleticism, like,
you can get into a whole lot of offset pistol
all right, split back, split back, offset pistol motion one
(18:13):
out of the backfield. And then when they're both in
the backfield for Dave Kanalis and all of the naked
bootleg play action, pass, move the pocket, get Bryce Young
out on the premier at times where you can see
has an opportunity to run if it's not there in
the passing game, which minimizes mistakes. I totally agree with you.
I think if you've got one that's really productive in
the passing game, you've got another, the belcow type like
(18:35):
you've got with Hubbard. It's the luxury, and not a
lot of teams have.
Speaker 1 (18:39):
Yeah, and again, Adam Thielen's coming back so potentially opens
up the middle of the field for him as well.
Let's hit college football before we wrap up the show.
We're starting to see some craziness. And I got to
be honest with you, Tom, when the expansion from four
teams to twelve for the playoff was announced, my initial
gut react, this is great, as somebody who covers the sport,
(19:03):
more teams are involved, there's more meaningful games late in
the season. That's good for everybody. That's good for the sport.
The other part of it was there also was a
pretty clear reality for most of the fourteen playoff era
that there weren't twelve teams who were capable of winning
a championship. Correct probably were at most six five six
(19:26):
ye posteriers really less than four.
Speaker 3 (19:30):
Absolutely totally agree with you on.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
That, but this year, it does feel wide open. We've
seen Ohio State go down to Oregon. I'm curious what
they do against Indiana this weekend. Oregon has looked vulnerable,
almost lost to Wisconsin. That's the number one team in
the country the SEC. Everyone's beatable, Texas is beatable, George
is beatable, Bama certainly is beatable. Tennessee old myths. So
(19:55):
they're going to get four or five teams in. All
of these teams are flawed. I look at a team
like Boise State, if they're in as a one loss
Mountain West champion, only loss was by a field goal
to the current number one Oregon. Who's to say they
can't win that twelve to five matchup. I think this
twelve team playoff in this year can do wonders for
(20:18):
the format because I do think some of the chaos
that we were seeing here in the regular season certainly
is going to translate once we get into December round
one and then later into the quarterfinals.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
Yeah, it is, I would agree, And I think it's
been so much fun to get into the month of
November and we're talking about teams you would have never
been talking about, Like, who would.
Speaker 3 (20:38):
Have told you that.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
Oh my goodness, Arizona State hosting BYU this weekend is
a consequential game. Colorado playing Kansas this weekend is a
consequential game. Ole Miss you better buckle up and watch
out for the Florida Gators. You're going into the swamp.
GJ Lagway is balling and they're playing defense. All of
a sudden, there is a potential elimination game. I just
(21:03):
think that it makes for not only great storylines, it
makes for really competitive potential matchups. And I think, you know,
for our podcast here and what we're talking about, I
think people need to be reminded of this because they
don't think of it in this manner. But when you
consider the five conference champions, all right, getting the top
(21:24):
five seeds, the top four get a bye, it's not
the top power four conference champions. It's the highest rate
five conference champions. So if for some reason Boise State
continues to ascend, right, they win the Mountain West and
they get one of them. And let's just say Miami's
(21:46):
the ACC representative, and Oregon's the Big Ten representative. Texas
is the the representative out of the SEC. We're just
hypothetically talking here. If b YU we're to win the
Big Twelve, but Tulane we're to win the American. There
(22:06):
is an avenue for this thing to really get shook
up because there is a path for either an ACC
champ or a Big twelve champ to actually not make
the playoff.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
Well BYU in last week's College Football Playoff rankings, and
we're taping the show Monday, so the rankings will come
out Tuesday. YU was number six, Boise at number thirteen,
now Boise one. They're not going to get a big
push for beating San Jose State. BYU lost to a
(22:39):
four and six Kansas team. That Kansas team is much
better than its record, but you have to look at
the metrics. That's a bad loss for BYU. They're going
to drop. So there is a chance Boyse could be
ahead of the highest ranked Big twelve team, which likely
still be by maybe potentially Colorado, but again I don't
(23:03):
see Colorado moving that far up from seventeen. Now Colorado
gets Kansas this week, and Kansas we talked about this
on the pot a few weeks ago. There's talent. A
lot of people thought that they had a chance to
win the Big Twelve. Absolutely a bunch of horrendous, just
torrid luck in the first half of the season, lost
(23:24):
close game after close game. They got talent, they know
they need to win out to get to a ball.
Wouldn't surprise me if they go and beat Colorado.
Speaker 2 (23:31):
Media wouldn't surprise me at all. Nobody's a meal in
each That's the thing. Like nobody's saye.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
Here's one for you. What if Army beats Notre Dame
and then beats an under a ranked two lane team
in the conference championship, Army's undefeated, and those are two
ranked wins, a top ten win and probably a top
twenty five win. They're moving up. If Boyse wins out.
(23:58):
Makes you wonder is they're a scenario where Army and
Boise State are two of the top four and now
a power conference team is left out and another Power
conference champion would have to go on the road in
round one.
Speaker 2 (24:13):
Correct, Yes, And there is that scenario, and then one
of those two conferences would either be the Big twelve
or the ACC right now as it were to stand.
Speaker 1 (24:20):
And so I listen, I.
Speaker 2 (24:23):
Think before we get to all of that, what I'm
going to be very intrigued with this coming Tuesday, is
I want to see how the committee treats Tennessee because
they dumped Georgia, run on the road in bad weather,
lost to old Miss or ranked team, Tennessee goes on
the road to Georgia and loses. Are they gonna dump
(24:45):
Tennessee ten spots? Because that's what they did to Georgia, which.
Speaker 1 (24:51):
Didn't make any sense. George's losses were what to Bama
and then they lost at the time to pule Miss.
Speaker 2 (24:59):
Correct and they a win versus Clemson and a win
at Texas, right, but they dumped them. So what do
they do with Tennessee? And if they don't do that,
how do they justify that? Because what it does is
it tells you that if they don't do it, they're
going to keep those SEC teams near the top, leave
them extension.
Speaker 1 (25:17):
Look at Tennessee's best wins. They beat Bama, that shit
pulled up till the end of the season. I beat
a ranked NC State team early, that win value has plummeted. YEP,
I beat a ranked Oklahoma team on the road, that
win value has plummeted. And then they lost to Georgia
and they got UTEP and Vandy to close out the season.
Speaker 2 (25:38):
Well they lost to Arkansas too. You forgot about that
one and it wasn't pretty.
Speaker 1 (25:42):
Right, lost Arkansas on the road.
Speaker 2 (25:44):
Yeah, yeah, So what do they do with them? And
then I think the other interesting question down the stretch
here is, let's just hypothetically say either Texas or Texas
A and m Is playing in the SEC championship game
versus Alabama. Alabama loses the game, they've got three losses.
If SNU and Miami are playing in the ACC championship game,
(26:08):
they both have one loss. The winner of the loser,
whoever it is, has two losses but played in the
championship game. What would the committee do with those two teams?
A two loss loser in a P four championship game
or a three loss loser.
Speaker 1 (26:21):
If I'm the ACC, I'm working on my propaganda right now.
Speaker 3 (26:26):
Absolutely, you have to.
Speaker 1 (26:29):
You have.
Speaker 2 (26:30):
You're left with no choice.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
Because the SEC and the Big Ten for that matter,
from August from July built this narrative that this twelve
team playoff will include at least three, up to four
or five teams from each of those conferences.
Speaker 2 (26:48):
Right, So how they're talking about five or six.
Speaker 1 (26:52):
Right, and that drum beats only going to get louder.
Just wait, just wait. If you got a bunch of
three loss SEC teams on the bubble, that drum beat
is going to get louder from the folks on the
SEC side. The same with the Big Ten. I'll say this,
I think the Big ten's in better shift because Ohio State,
Oregon virtual locks. I think a State is a lock.
(27:15):
I think Indiana is a lock. I think all four
of those teams are getting.
Speaker 3 (27:18):
Me, which is crazy to me.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
Not that I disagree that they should get in or not,
but the rest of the Big ten is really bad.
Like the Big Ten, everybody's talking about those teams towards
the top, Like, aside from Oiwaw State, who is Penn
State played, that's any good? Aside from Michigan on defense,
who is Indiana played? That's any good?
Speaker 1 (27:37):
So I'm gonna find out about Indiana this week.
Speaker 2 (27:40):
We are, We're gonna find But the thing is, I
don't think they need to win the game. They just
need to play a good game. Yeah, because I still
think they're going to be in the mix because of
the season in its totality, But like, like how god
awful is Purdue, How bad is Maryland? Rutgers, Michigan State, Wisconsin,
gunn in the tank I was very average. Outside of
(28:00):
Orgon the PAC twelve teams have woefully underperformed, like the
conference top to bottom. Nebraska woefully over underperformed. But for
some reason they don't seem to get the same criticism
of the conference top to bottom as you think they would.
Speaker 1 (28:15):
No, and when you look at the SEC again, Texas,
A and M Georgia, Tennessee, Bama, Ole, miss South Carolina's good.
Missouri twenty five most of the season. LSU, I know,
they've got four losses. They're probably the best four loss
team in the country. Vandy is much improved. Arkansas went
(28:37):
out and they beat Tennessee. Florida just beat LSU. You know,
the bottom of the league is Oklahoma, Auburn, Kentucky and
Mississippi State. Match that up with the bottom of the
Big Ten. Those games aren't close.
Speaker 2 (28:52):
No, you're right, that's exactly right. And so you know that.
But that's that's what we have here, and that's and
that's fine. I just think it's going to be very
interesting when all of the dust settles and you have
two loss teams or you have a potential three loss
team because that team played in a conference championship game
versus a ranked opponent. How will the committee view that? Like,
(29:16):
I don't know if you saw here, in the last
couple of weeks, Greg Sankie, the SEC commissioner, came out
and basically said that there's no way the loser of
a conference championship game should have that held against them. Well,
you say that as long as it doesn't happen to
somebody in competition with you, right, So essentially what you're
saying is, if that's a three loss Alabama, that shouldn't
(29:40):
affect you, But if it's a two loss SMU or Miami,
it should.
Speaker 1 (29:46):
Heads eye win, tails you lose. That's it. I'll add
down this and I was wrestling with this earlier today.
If you go into the playoff right now, who are
the two teams that you're eyeing and saying, yep, these
are the two teams to beat. I don't think that
team has revealed itself completely so far.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
I don't either. But if you're we're asking me this
right now off of a reaction of this past weekend,
when Georgia doesn't beat themselves, they're in a different class.
Speaker 3 (30:19):
They just are.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
Do they have enough offensively, and can Carson Beck be trusted?
Speaker 2 (30:26):
Yes, they have enough offensively, but it does come down
to him playing well. When you say trusted, I'm assuming
you mean valuing the football, because at the end of
the day, they're good enough to beat eighty five percent
of the team in college football by turning it over twice, right,
They're not good enough to beat the top five percent
turning it over three or four times, and they've done
that a few times this year. If they play clean
(30:48):
and he values the football, then yes, I would trust
Georgia be the toughest doubt. What I said earlier, though,
in relationship to our SEC discussion is and this is
why every game in the season matters, fortunately, but also
reflective of the fact that teams are different at different
times of the year. If you look at the SEC
right now and you said, who do you not want
to play? South Carolina peaking at the right time, quarterbacks
(31:11):
coming into his own trunchet, Oh nothing else he is,
and you got the running game going, you got the
wide out on the outside. They can rush the passer
like they're a problem, but they've got three losses.
Speaker 1 (31:26):
Yeah, Lenora's sellers. If you haven't seen him. He's a
South Carolina kid from Florence. I mean it feels a
little bit like what you saw out of Johnny Football
twelve years ago. But he can run around, extend plays,
make plays a little faster. He can do more with
his feet, big arm. He's exciting and he's starting to
(31:47):
figure it out. He's a freshman. South Carolina is a
team where I think next year Shane Beemer is going
to have, you know, the weight of expectations. That's a
good thing. They haven't had those kind of expectations really
since the heyday is Spurrier where the team's Clowney and
Lattimore and swim during those guys. South Carolina to me,
(32:07):
next year they are I can't even call them a
sleeping giant. They should be a top five team next year.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
They've got to keep all their personnel, which is said.
Speaker 1 (32:17):
That's right, there's that little.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
All right.
Speaker 1 (32:21):
That does it For this week's pod, we will see
you on Monday. Hopefully the Panthers can get a win
against the Chiefs. Where will you be on Friday?
Speaker 2 (32:30):
I've got Virginia Tech at Duke. How about Mani Diaz
going after his eighth win of the season, and he
came out of spring football with forty five players on
their roster.
Speaker 1 (32:41):
Incredible.
Speaker 2 (32:42):
It is incredible.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
Good for him. It tells you guys sometimes can figure
it out if you give him time.
Speaker 2 (32:48):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just let them navigate the space, let
them implement, let them work the execution of the blueprint,
no doubt.
Speaker 1 (32:56):
Frank Beemer was sixteen games under five hundred in his
first six seasons.
Speaker 3 (33:01):
Yeah, they would have fired you for today.
Speaker 1 (33:04):
He's got a statue outside the stadium. Feel free to
use that one. Twenty four forty one Frank Beaver first
six seasons. Guy's got a statue now.
Speaker 2 (33:13):
Bobby Ross was eight and twenty four at Georgia Tech
his first three years, won the national championship two years later. Right,
how about how about Mark Stoops at Kentucky. Yeah, there's
another one that's going to get a statue because they
allowed him to build.
Speaker 1 (33:26):
It and then they invested into football. They got some
of the besties out there. All right. He's Tom Lougan Bill,
I'm a a shroff a his Weekend Warriors Like subscribe,
we will talk to you a week for Monday
This Friday is a big, big cinematic event. Tom and
I Boy lattiat or two comes out. Are you not entertained?
And the reason I'm going to go here is because
the closest thing that we've had in the last forty
years to one of those gladiatorial fights that involve a
(00:23):
lion or a tiger on one side and then a
captive with a wooden sword on the other, It was
prime Mike Tyson boxing. Tyson was the lion or the tiger,
and then whoever it was McNeely, Tillman, Spinx, Sa Rbik
(00:44):
who was the champion and got destroyed. Those guys were
presented to Mike as quote unquote contenders and opponents disguised
as boot right right, which makes what we saw on
Saturday all the more, said Jake Paul Mike Tyson. I'll
be honest, I was intrigued because that's how bad boxing
(01:05):
is these days, where Tyson is still a draw and
then you've got this influencer in the wild who is
I guess, also a draw. And I watched this thing
for eight rounds and I swear paint drying was more entertaining.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Yeah, so with watching Gratz grow, I mean, I've been
asking everybody this question and nobody's been able to answer it.
Maybe you can, maybe you can't. How does any state
boxing association sanction and take on the responsibility and a
liability of a fifty eight year old in the ring?
Speaker 1 (01:39):
Yeah, and the fight wasn't even in Vegas, right, Maybe
that's why. That might be the reason, But that's part
of it. He's fifty eight and you're watching this diminished version,
and everybody had the Father Time is undefeated. Listen, by
the time won that battle a long time ago. Yeah,
(02:00):
if I was over, not fifty eight, Like, stop making
this about Tyson versus Father Time. He's fifty eight, he's
not a boxer anymore. It got me thinking, what is
the football equivalent to that matchup? I've got one in
my head, but I'm curious if there's one that comes
(02:22):
to mind for you.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Yeah, it's Bishop Sycamore and IMG.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
Oh gosh, we're not allowed to talk about that.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
I know we're not allowed to talk about it. Yeah,
that's my answer. It's staying at my answer. It's not
getting scrubbed, but we will not elaborate further.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
You know what mine is? Yeah, I know the matchup
in the sense was anticipated and the teams were good.
Two thousand and eleven, maybe Alabama played LSU and it
was that nine to six game yep, and you're going, yeah, okay,
like we know these defenses are good. Then they play
(02:59):
again National Championship and ls you can't get the ball
over midfield and Bama didn't even really do anything. And
that game was beyond boring when it had been hyped
up as part two the sequel. These two great teams,
and again just from a theater perspective, it was bad.
But what we saw on Friday that wasn't even a
(03:20):
side show because the very name side show implies that
there is some theatrical element that would qualify as a show.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
Right right, I Is there any part of you that
thinks it not.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
Was staged or rigged?
Speaker 1 (03:36):
But yes there is?
Speaker 2 (03:37):
Okay, what makes you think that.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
Just watching it? Where again, Jake Paul was what twenty
seven years old? Okay, you're fighting a guy twice as
old as you. I know it's Mike Tyson. They're punching
with pillow gloves. They said that the gloves were softer
than normal gloves, so the punches don't impact you right
(04:02):
much and all they did two minute rounds was look
at each other. Tyson couldn't even move. After about the
third round, you felt better and it almost felt like, all,
let's just string them along. Let's give the people eight rounds.
But I would have much much preferred knockout in the
first round, in the first thirty seconds, because those fights,
(04:23):
when Tyson fought them, as short as they were, men
were they entertaining.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
Absolutely, and everybody on the planet was tuning in. There
ain't no doubt about it. Yeah, I kind of got
the same sense that you did, and just watching some
of the movement and things of that nature, and opportunities
that I thought were not taken advantage of on behalf
of both boxers when they could have gone in for
the attack, and it was almost as if they chose
(04:48):
not to purposefully. I don't know, listen, does anybody know
the numbers yet on it? From a Netflix perspective?
Speaker 1 (04:56):
Sixty five million, sixty million.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
So it accomplished what they had hoped right, even though
it buffered the entire time.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
Got us suckers.
Speaker 3 (05:08):
Got him.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
There you go, there's your answer.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
The almighty dollar, ladies and gentlemen. The weekend.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
Close to the episode caught Back Feeling Touchdown, Carolina.
Speaker 3 (05:23):
Weekend Warriors.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
Octong Baby, We're back from Munich, Panther's return home from
Alian's Arena with a win against the Giants two straight wins.
Bye Week got the Kansas City Chiefs, who were coming
off their first loss coming to Charlotte this weekend. Let
me just start here because we didn't have a show
last week with all the travel coming back from Germany.
(05:52):
Really that's our our producer, Matt Hogan, he didn't make
it back in time, got stuck at the beer hole.
Speaker 3 (05:57):
Yep, he did.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
And you and I are techno a lotan episode. We
couldn't do the show on our own. It was one
of the coolest experiences I've had in this profession. The
soccer fans looking in the crowd, it's Giants versus Panthers,
and you see jerseys from every NFL team from every era.
I saw Drew Bledsoe Patriots circa nineteen ninety four jersey,
(06:24):
and it's Smith a champion jersey, so you know that
was made. And probably the mid nineties or the early
nineties when the Cowboys were rolling, you had Eagles jerseys,
Falcons jerseys forty nine er jerseys. It was just a
bunch of these people going into their closets saying, I'm
going through a football game. This is what I have.
(06:44):
I will wear this today.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
It reminded me so much of the old NFL Europe days.
That's exactly how NFL Europe was. It didn't matter if
you were in Frankfurt, if you were Berlin, if you
were in Amsterdam, Scotland, what have you. Everybody in the
stadium had their gear from the team they were representing,
and then everybody else just had NFL gear and they
(07:08):
were so pumped over. I mean, you talk about you
talk about countries that loved the sport of American football,
like it's unbelievable to me. It's so big that if
it wasn't so expensive, you could have two professional football
leagues and just have them both be overseas one here,
one there.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
You could and the fans. It was very interesting to
talk to some of the local fans. We had a
cab driver at one point who was asking why we
were in town and we mentioned the football game, and
being the dumb American, I said football, right, not American football. Yeah,
he goes football. There's a football game. No, No, no
football game. I said, oh NFL. He goes, oh, oh
(07:52):
the football you play with your hands. Yes, that's unbelievable,
but just an incredible time. The Panther fan showed out
Munich was awesome. And now you get back home. And
I want to bring this to football because we live
in a world where everything is quantified, analytics can account
(08:15):
for everything. Is there something to momentum? And I qualify
this by saying, I get it. The Panthers beat the
Giants who just made a switch at quarterback. They beat
the Saints, who fired their head coach after the game.
They're not exactly the Lions and the Chiefs. I understand that,
But Carolina had been struggling. You win two games, you're
(08:37):
getting healthy, you're in a bye week. There's a different vibe.
I know. There's not a quotient to quantify what that means,
what that signifies. You've been in a locker room. Is
that real?
Speaker 3 (08:52):
It's absolutely real.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
I would say that faith, belief, and confidence is every
bit of important as locker room chemistry. And it's one
of those scenarios where you can feel it, you can
sense it. You might not be able to point it
out physically, but it's it's real, and it impacts your
(09:14):
football team because I think anytime you're popping around with
a you know, a little hitting your step and got
a little smile on your face, all of a sudden,
the building's different, the people around the building are different.
Positive energy affects people. I do think it's very real,
and I think it has a trickle down effect. I
(09:34):
also believe though, that very very quickly it can go away, right,
It can very quickly go back to oh, here we
go again, or some level of negativity in a cloud
hanging over the program or the franchise, what have you.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
But I've always been.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
A believer in that because you know, when you go
from one season to another, let alone one week to
the next week. You can return some of the same names,
some of the same faces, some of the same starters.
You can't return the chemistry in the locker room, no
matter what, that will change always. And that's why that part,
(10:13):
that component is so magical.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
John Fox used to have a saying, you're always two
weeks from disaster. There's truth to that. In the NFL,
where we react to the result of one game and
every event is taken as a singular entity. If you
think about it right, perspective matters. But oh my god,
they lost, it's the end of the world. Oh they won,
(10:36):
They've turned a corner. That's what drives the narrative. Bus
I'm not gonna say, hey, they're gonna go out there
and whip the Chiefs. But I look at Kansas City
and they lost to a very good Buffalo team yesterday.
Heck of a game. Kansas City has been playing with fire.
Speaker 3 (10:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
Season long, they've been that team that has run out
of a burning building without a scratch for seven out
of nine weeks to start the season. They get caught
against Buffalo. Does that concern me a little bit? It does,
because again it's the old Oh no, they're they're coming
off a lost, They're gonna be full. Is that part
real too?
Speaker 2 (11:13):
Yeah? I think it can be a lot of that
depends on the team, like Kansas City in this in
this position, what is their makeup, what is their leadership?
Where is the strength of their leadership? Lie and do
they have people that don't allow one game to define
the next week?
Speaker 1 (11:28):
Right?
Speaker 2 (11:29):
I think that part of it's real too. That's where
leadership comes in. That's where what is your what is
your motivation. Uh, where does that come into play?
Speaker 3 (11:38):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (11:38):
I do. I do think that's real. But I also
believe that on the flip side of that, you can
have very easily have what happened to Kansas City because
they had kind of gotten away with it a few
times happened to hand and then all of a sudden,
the real true reality sets in and maybe they're not
(11:59):
as good as everybody thinks. And whether it's this week,
whether it's next week, or what have you, all of
a sudden they start dropping a few because, let's call
it what it is in any sport, in this sport
in particular, luck and the ball bouncing your way is
a part of the equation every single week.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
I go back to last year when Kansas City looked
a little shaky at times down the stretch. They lost
to the Raiders on Christmas Day, yep, and then they
didn't lose again. They feel to me like a light
switch team, and some teams you got to have that
(12:39):
singular focus for seventeen weeks. They to me, having won
two Super Bowls, having played in four of the last five,
they seem to me a team that we know we're
gonna get in the playoffs.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
You know, we're good enough, we'll turn it on.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
Then we can flip the switch, kind of like the
Lakers used to do when they had Kobe and Shack yep,
regular seas and infighting drama. They'd lose to teams they
shouldn't lose to, and then you get to the playoffs.
Oh yeah, they have Kobe, they have Shaq and Phil
Jackson's their head coach, and they go on and they
bludgeon people. Yeah, to me, Kansas City has a little
(13:13):
bit of that. But again, this is probably despite the
nine to one record, it's probably the weakest team they've
had in the last five years. You Pat Patrick Mahomes,
you put a lot of money and equity into that
quarterback position. We've seen them take a hit it wide receiver,
they're banged up, the checko's injured, Ollywood Brown is out worthy,
was out for a bit. They had to sign DeAndre
(13:35):
Hopkins hoping he's got a little something left in the tank.
Kelsey is on the wrong side of thirty. Now.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
Yeah, it's taking its toll, and it happens to everybody.
That's why the balancing and the management and the massage
of free agency is often so very very tricky, and
there's a lot to go into it in terms of
the financial decisions you make and then the positional decisions
that you make, and that's why you have ebbs and
flows and pets and valleys. You've had it with the
(14:05):
New England Patriots, who have been thought to be the
premier entity of managing a roster. We've seen it now
with the Pittsburgh Steelers, could be embarking on it a
little bit with the.
Speaker 3 (14:15):
Kansas City Chiefs. It's just it's.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
Part of free agency and professional football where the margin
of error is so razor thin that every end season,
an off season decision you make could have a monumental
ripple effect.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
Yeah, and the Patriots for years, their biggest strength was
Tom Brady was one or two in terms of quarterback
in the NFL, but was not paid like one or two,
and they could allocate those resources elsewhere at its big
an advantage that they had in terms of roster building.
Speaking of roster building, a guy that we saw in
college last year and was absolutely dynamite will make his
(14:54):
Panthers debut Sunday against Kansas City second round pick running
back Jonathan Brooks. I think people have kind of forgotten
about him a little bit, although there's been a lot
of speculation when will we see him. He's coming off
in ACL, so I think those expectations are tempered. Remind
people what this guy brings to the table.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
So I actually saw this guy five times in college,
and the fourth time I saw him was the time
he got the A C stell at the ACL. And
he is really, really talented. I'm trying to come up
with a good comp for him. Off the top of
my head, I would probably stay somewhere along the lines
(15:37):
of a Jonathan Taylor type wow, where you've got that
blend of explosiveness, contact balance, really light on his feet
in the hole, but enough power and forward lean to where.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
He can push the pile.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
In short guarded situation, he can lower his shoulder and
fight for that extra eight inches, that extra yard. But
once he gets to the second level, has got the
ability to make people miss. And here's maybe the most
important part. Playing in the offense he played in at
Texas really upgraded his status as a receiver out of
the backfield, because those guys are required to make plays
(16:14):
when they're not the ball carrier. And I was always
really impressive. I thought he was super tough. I thought
he was one of those backs that's better in the
fourth quarter than he is in the first. It was
a real shame that he ended up getting hurt, you know,
because I do think I had somewhat of an impact
on their team, even though they had CJ. Baxter, who
then gets hurt in fall camp this year for Texas.
(16:34):
But this is a fantastic, exciting fame for Panthers fans.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
Yeah, last year with Texas in eleven games, he racked
up sixty three forced missed tackles. There you go, and
he only played eleven games, so that was a top
eleven number in the FBS, the highest division of college football.
And a forced miss tackle means he either broke a
(16:58):
tackle or evaded a tackler. So he can make guys miss,
and he can run through guys. He has the ability
to catch the ball. And you pair him with Chuba Hubbard,
who's having a breakout season well deserved with that contract extension. Yeah,
all of a sudden, it gives Dave Canalis so some
creative freedom where you can go to two back sets,
(17:21):
and Miles Sanders, who is hurt, is going to be
out with an ankle injury, lower leg injury. The reality
is he just hadn't been all that productive this year. Yeah,
you put Brooks in, he starts to show you a
glimpse of what he can do. Boy, now you got
two backs, twenty one personnel. We see how the Ravens
can manipulate that some other teams do. That gives an
(17:43):
offensive coordinator, a play caller in Dave Canalis's case, it
gives you some toys to work with. It gives you
some schematic things to work with.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
Yes, and it also puts the defense in a bind
because from a linebacker perspective, they don't want to have
to match up with two running backs on the field
at one time, let alone a running back and a
tight end. All right, So you go to that stuff,
and even with Bryce Young, because of his athleticism, like,
you can get into a whole lot of offset pistol
all right, split back, split back, offset pistol motion one
(18:13):
out of the backfield. And then when they're both in
the backfield for Dave Kanalis and all of the naked
bootleg play action, pass, move the pocket, get Bryce Young
out on the premier at times where you can see
has an opportunity to run if it's not there in
the passing game, which minimizes mistakes. I totally agree with you.
I think if you've got one that's really productive in
the passing game, you've got another, the belcow type like
(18:35):
you've got with Hubbard. It's the luxury, and not a
lot of teams have.
Speaker 1 (18:39):
Yeah, and again, Adam Thielen's coming back so potentially opens
up the middle of the field for him as well.
Let's hit college football before we wrap up the show.
We're starting to see some craziness. And I got to
be honest with you, Tom, when the expansion from four
teams to twelve for the playoff was announced, my initial
gut react, this is great, as somebody who covers the sport,
(19:03):
more teams are involved, there's more meaningful games late in
the season. That's good for everybody. That's good for the sport.
The other part of it was there also was a
pretty clear reality for most of the fourteen playoff era
that there weren't twelve teams who were capable of winning
a championship. Correct probably were at most six five six
(19:26):
ye posteriers really less than four.
Speaker 3 (19:30):
Absolutely totally agree with you on.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
That, but this year, it does feel wide open. We've
seen Ohio State go down to Oregon. I'm curious what
they do against Indiana this weekend. Oregon has looked vulnerable,
almost lost to Wisconsin. That's the number one team in
the country the SEC. Everyone's beatable, Texas is beatable, George
is beatable, Bama certainly is beatable. Tennessee old myths. So
(19:55):
they're going to get four or five teams in. All
of these teams are flawed. I look at a team
like Boise State, if they're in as a one loss
Mountain West champion, only loss was by a field goal
to the current number one Oregon. Who's to say they
can't win that twelve to five matchup. I think this
twelve team playoff in this year can do wonders for
(20:18):
the format because I do think some of the chaos
that we were seeing here in the regular season certainly
is going to translate once we get into December round
one and then later into the quarterfinals.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
Yeah, it is, I would agree, And I think it's
been so much fun to get into the month of
November and we're talking about teams you would have never
been talking about, Like, who would.
Speaker 3 (20:38):
Have told you that.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
Oh my goodness, Arizona State hosting BYU this weekend is
a consequential game. Colorado playing Kansas this weekend is a
consequential game. Ole Miss you better buckle up and watch
out for the Florida Gators. You're going into the swamp.
GJ Lagway is balling and they're playing defense. All of
a sudden, there is a potential elimination game. I just
(21:03):
think that it makes for not only great storylines, it
makes for really competitive potential matchups. And I think, you know,
for our podcast here and what we're talking about, I
think people need to be reminded of this because they
don't think of it in this manner. But when you
consider the five conference champions, all right, getting the top
(21:24):
five seeds, the top four get a bye, it's not
the top power four conference champions. It's the highest rate
five conference champions. So if for some reason Boise State
continues to ascend, right, they win the Mountain West and
they get one of them. And let's just say Miami's
(21:46):
the ACC representative, and Oregon's the Big Ten representative. Texas
is the the representative out of the SEC. We're just
hypothetically talking here. If b YU we're to win the
Big Twelve, but Tulane we're to win the American. There
(22:06):
is an avenue for this thing to really get shook
up because there is a path for either an ACC
champ or a Big twelve champ to actually not make
the playoff.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
Well BYU in last week's College Football Playoff rankings, and
we're taping the show Monday, so the rankings will come
out Tuesday. YU was number six, Boise at number thirteen,
now Boise one. They're not going to get a big
push for beating San Jose State. BYU lost to a
(22:39):
four and six Kansas team. That Kansas team is much
better than its record, but you have to look at
the metrics. That's a bad loss for BYU. They're going
to drop. So there is a chance Boyse could be
ahead of the highest ranked Big twelve team, which likely
still be by maybe potentially Colorado, but again I don't
(23:03):
see Colorado moving that far up from seventeen. Now Colorado
gets Kansas this week, and Kansas we talked about this
on the pot a few weeks ago. There's talent. A
lot of people thought that they had a chance to
win the Big Twelve. Absolutely a bunch of horrendous, just
torrid luck in the first half of the season, lost
(23:24):
close game after close game. They got talent, they know
they need to win out to get to a ball.
Wouldn't surprise me if they go and beat Colorado.
Speaker 2 (23:31):
Media wouldn't surprise me at all. Nobody's a meal in
each That's the thing. Like nobody's saye.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
Here's one for you. What if Army beats Notre Dame
and then beats an under a ranked two lane team
in the conference championship, Army's undefeated, and those are two
ranked wins, a top ten win and probably a top
twenty five win. They're moving up. If Boyse wins out.
(23:58):
Makes you wonder is they're a scenario where Army and
Boise State are two of the top four and now
a power conference team is left out and another Power
conference champion would have to go on the road in
round one.
Speaker 2 (24:13):
Correct, Yes, And there is that scenario, and then one
of those two conferences would either be the Big twelve
or the ACC right now as it were to stand.
Speaker 1 (24:20):
And so I listen, I.
Speaker 2 (24:23):
Think before we get to all of that, what I'm
going to be very intrigued with this coming Tuesday, is
I want to see how the committee treats Tennessee because
they dumped Georgia, run on the road in bad weather,
lost to old Miss or ranked team, Tennessee goes on
the road to Georgia and loses. Are they gonna dump
(24:45):
Tennessee ten spots? Because that's what they did to Georgia, which.
Speaker 1 (24:51):
Didn't make any sense. George's losses were what to Bama
and then they lost at the time to pule Miss.
Speaker 2 (24:59):
Correct and they a win versus Clemson and a win
at Texas, right, but they dumped them. So what do
they do with Tennessee? And if they don't do that,
how do they justify that? Because what it does is
it tells you that if they don't do it, they're
going to keep those SEC teams near the top, leave
them extension.
Speaker 1 (25:17):
Look at Tennessee's best wins. They beat Bama, that shit
pulled up till the end of the season. I beat
a ranked NC State team early, that win value has plummeted. YEP,
I beat a ranked Oklahoma team on the road, that
win value has plummeted. And then they lost to Georgia
and they got UTEP and Vandy to close out the season.
Speaker 2 (25:38):
Well they lost to Arkansas too. You forgot about that
one and it wasn't pretty.
Speaker 1 (25:42):
Right, lost Arkansas on the road.
Speaker 2 (25:44):
Yeah, yeah, So what do they do with them? And
then I think the other interesting question down the stretch
here is, let's just hypothetically say either Texas or Texas
A and m Is playing in the SEC championship game
versus Alabama. Alabama loses the game, they've got three losses.
If SNU and Miami are playing in the ACC championship game,
(26:08):
they both have one loss. The winner of the loser,
whoever it is, has two losses but played in the
championship game. What would the committee do with those two teams?
A two loss loser in a P four championship game
or a three loss loser.
Speaker 1 (26:21):
If I'm the ACC, I'm working on my propaganda right now.
Speaker 3 (26:26):
Absolutely, you have to.
Speaker 1 (26:29):
You have.
Speaker 2 (26:30):
You're left with no choice.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
Because the SEC and the Big Ten for that matter,
from August from July built this narrative that this twelve
team playoff will include at least three, up to four
or five teams from each of those conferences.
Speaker 2 (26:48):
Right, So how they're talking about five or six.
Speaker 1 (26:52):
Right, and that drum beats only going to get louder.
Just wait, just wait. If you got a bunch of
three loss SEC teams on the bubble, that drum beat
is going to get louder from the folks on the
SEC side. The same with the Big Ten. I'll say this,
I think the Big ten's in better shift because Ohio State,
Oregon virtual locks. I think a State is a lock.
(27:15):
I think Indiana is a lock. I think all four
of those teams are getting.
Speaker 3 (27:18):
Me, which is crazy to me.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
Not that I disagree that they should get in or not,
but the rest of the Big ten is really bad.
Like the Big Ten, everybody's talking about those teams towards
the top, Like, aside from Oiwaw State, who is Penn
State played, that's any good? Aside from Michigan on defense,
who is Indiana played? That's any good?
Speaker 1 (27:37):
So I'm gonna find out about Indiana this week.
Speaker 2 (27:40):
We are, We're gonna find But the thing is, I
don't think they need to win the game. They just
need to play a good game. Yeah, because I still
think they're going to be in the mix because of
the season in its totality, But like, like how god
awful is Purdue, How bad is Maryland? Rutgers, Michigan State, Wisconsin,
gunn in the tank I was very average. Outside of
(28:00):
Orgon the PAC twelve teams have woefully underperformed, like the
conference top to bottom. Nebraska woefully over underperformed. But for
some reason they don't seem to get the same criticism
of the conference top to bottom as you think they would.
Speaker 1 (28:15):
No, and when you look at the SEC again, Texas,
A and M Georgia, Tennessee, Bama, Ole, miss South Carolina's good.
Missouri twenty five most of the season. LSU, I know,
they've got four losses. They're probably the best four loss
team in the country. Vandy is much improved. Arkansas went
(28:37):
out and they beat Tennessee. Florida just beat LSU. You know,
the bottom of the league is Oklahoma, Auburn, Kentucky and
Mississippi State. Match that up with the bottom of the
Big Ten. Those games aren't close.
Speaker 2 (28:52):
No, you're right, that's exactly right. And so you know that.
But that's that's what we have here, and that's and
that's fine. I just think it's going to be very
interesting when all of the dust settles and you have
two loss teams or you have a potential three loss
team because that team played in a conference championship game
versus a ranked opponent. How will the committee view that? Like,
(29:16):
I don't know if you saw here, in the last
couple of weeks, Greg Sankie, the SEC commissioner, came out
and basically said that there's no way the loser of
a conference championship game should have that held against them. Well,
you say that as long as it doesn't happen to
somebody in competition with you, right, So essentially what you're
saying is, if that's a three loss Alabama, that shouldn't
(29:40):
affect you, But if it's a two loss SMU or Miami,
it should.
Speaker 1 (29:46):
Heads eye win, tails you lose. That's it. I'll add
down this and I was wrestling with this earlier today.
If you go into the playoff right now, who are
the two teams that you're eyeing and saying, yep, these
are the two teams to beat. I don't think that
team has revealed itself completely so far.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
I don't either. But if you're we're asking me this
right now off of a reaction of this past weekend,
when Georgia doesn't beat themselves, they're in a different class.
Speaker 3 (30:19):
They just are.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
Do they have enough offensively, and can Carson Beck be trusted?
Speaker 2 (30:26):
Yes, they have enough offensively, but it does come down
to him playing well. When you say trusted, I'm assuming
you mean valuing the football, because at the end of
the day, they're good enough to beat eighty five percent
of the team in college football by turning it over twice, right,
They're not good enough to beat the top five percent
turning it over three or four times, and they've done
that a few times this year. If they play clean
(30:48):
and he values the football, then yes, I would trust
Georgia be the toughest doubt. What I said earlier, though,
in relationship to our SEC discussion is and this is
why every game in the season matters, fortunately, but also
reflective of the fact that teams are different at different
times of the year. If you look at the SEC
right now and you said, who do you not want
to play? South Carolina peaking at the right time, quarterbacks
(31:11):
coming into his own trunchet, Oh nothing else he is,
and you got the running game going, you got the
wide out on the outside. They can rush the passer
like they're a problem, but they've got three losses.
Speaker 1 (31:26):
Yeah, Lenora's sellers. If you haven't seen him. He's a
South Carolina kid from Florence. I mean it feels a
little bit like what you saw out of Johnny Football
twelve years ago. But he can run around, extend plays,
make plays a little faster. He can do more with
his feet, big arm. He's exciting and he's starting to
(31:47):
figure it out. He's a freshman. South Carolina is a
team where I think next year Shane Beemer is going
to have, you know, the weight of expectations. That's a
good thing. They haven't had those kind of expectations really
since the heyday is Spurrier where the team's Clowney and
Lattimore and swim during those guys. South Carolina to me,
(32:07):
next year they are I can't even call them a
sleeping giant. They should be a top five team next year.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
They've got to keep all their personnel, which is said.
Speaker 1 (32:17):
That's right, there's that little.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
All right.
Speaker 1 (32:21):
That does it For this week's pod, we will see
you on Monday. Hopefully the Panthers can get a win
against the Chiefs. Where will you be on Friday?
Speaker 2 (32:30):
I've got Virginia Tech at Duke. How about Mani Diaz
going after his eighth win of the season, and he
came out of spring football with forty five players on
their roster.
Speaker 1 (32:41):
Incredible.
Speaker 2 (32:42):
It is incredible.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
Good for him. It tells you guys sometimes can figure
it out if you give him time.
Speaker 2 (32:48):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just let them navigate the space, let
them implement, let them work the execution of the blueprint,
no doubt.
Speaker 1 (32:56):
Frank Beemer was sixteen games under five hundred in his
first six seasons.
Speaker 3 (33:01):
Yeah, they would have fired you for today.
Speaker 1 (33:04):
He's got a statue outside the stadium. Feel free to
use that one. Twenty four forty one Frank Beaver first
six seasons. Guy's got a statue now.
Speaker 2 (33:13):
Bobby Ross was eight and twenty four at Georgia Tech
his first three years, won the national championship two years later. Right,
how about how about Mark Stoops at Kentucky. Yeah, there's
another one that's going to get a statue because they
allowed him to build.
Speaker 1 (33:26):
It and then they invested into football. They got some
of the besties out there. All right. He's Tom Lougan Bill,
I'm a a shroff a his Weekend Warriors Like subscribe,
we will talk to you a week for Monday
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