November 4, 2025 • 32 mins
This week on Weekend Warriors, Anish and Tom react to the Panthers huge win over the Packers, discuss Rico Dowdle and Chuba Hubbard
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Weekend Warriors podcast is back after a very brief
one week hiatus, but we share some incredible news for you.
I were a producer. The esteemed Matt Hogan, as of
this weekend is a new father. So congratulations, Matt. Nothing
in life will change now.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
No, not at all.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
I'm come on, man, Sorry, I didn't sleep much.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
No way you think.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
She was.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
Really she was really good last night from the time
my wife went to sleep until about two and then
it was you know, a terrorist attack in my in
my house. But it was great. It was it was fun.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
It's fun. So how many days are you going on now?
Speaker 3 (00:46):
She was born on early early, early morning on the first,
and today is the fourth, so this is her fourth
day of existence.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
All right, nothing's changed at all.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
Yeah, I'm tired at all.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
No, I'm great.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
I'm at home, hunched over my dinner table just rubbing
my eyes at all. Everything's great. I didn't miss taking
the trash out, so now I have a full trash
can for the rest of the week.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
You gotta get yourself. You gotta get yourself in dad shape.
So everywhere you go you carry a diaper bag, a
pack and play a car seat. Let's see what else
a stroller?
Speaker 1 (01:25):
What about those contraptions like babyborn. Yeah yeah, with a
baby like you, basically it's like a carry on for
your baby.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Yes, So just start wearing all that stuff, whether you
need it or not. It'll be like it'll be like
a weighted vest and you'll get in shape and get
used to all the crap you gotta have.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
This is the one thing that you're gonna realize real fast, man,
leaving the house for the next three years is an ordeal.
You're gonna have so much more appreciation for all your
friends with kids who make the effort to come out
as you're about to hold out how hard it is
to do the simple task of just leaving the house.
(02:05):
You can't just say, hey, hey, let's let's let's go somewhere.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
Let's leave.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
It is the diaper bag and the baby wipes, and
then the food. Oh yeah, seat, it's it's it's a
thirty minute ordeal just to leave the house to go
for a walk.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
I'm working from home this morning, and my wife and
my mother in law are taking Murphy to the to
the follow up appointment the pediatricians, their second one in
two days. But so they're taking her, and this morning
it took an hour just to just to get the
car loaded and the car seat switched.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
And so that'll become muscle memory.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
Though, yeah, some of it is slowly. I can I
can feel it.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (02:45):
I thought i'd be a lot more grumpy, but I've
really not been that grumpy so far.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
It's only been four days. But well, I'm gonna now.
I'm gonna give you the advice that I give to everybody.
Are you gonna have another?
Speaker 3 (02:57):
I think we have changed our minds from like three
and warded two and three, but we're definitely gonna have another.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
Okay, So everything that Denie just said right there, and
all of the stuff right, formula, diapers, diaper bags, car seats,
pack and plays, strollers, all of it, right, all of it.
You're gonna walk around at some point over the next
year and you're gonna be at the mall. You're gonna
(03:24):
be somewhere and you're gonna see this dad or this
couple and they're gonna have like a seven year old
and like a six month old, and you're gonna say
to yourself, there is no way I'm going back to
all of this stuff, Like I told my wife. I
was like, if you want to have another one, let's
(03:45):
do it. But they got to be like they got
to be really close together. Yeah, because I'm not going
out of all of that stuff in coming back. There
has to be some crossover.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
So when it's done, it's done, you're saying it, you're
staying in it. Yes, that's that's the red zone. Like
I'm starting back at your your minus twenty yard line,
like exactly, Hey, we're gonna be in the red zone.
We're gonna push it back to the thirty. Okay, that's fine,
And all your black past midfield, right, like all your
(04:16):
car seats, all your diaper bags, all your diapers, all
your formula, within a span of.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
A year, year and a half will all be gone
forever and you won't have to come back to it.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
That would be That would be ideal.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
That would be very ideal.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
I'll get to work. My brother's got seven, five and three.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
There you go.
Speaker 3 (04:36):
See just you know, see my parents that I have,
they have four kids, me included, and they're all for
three and a.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
Half four years apart.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
So I feel like my mom kind of stayed in
it for her whole life, but my.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
Kids are two years apart by two days. I timed
it perfectly. Oh so they almost have the same DAG
on birthday. My was supposed to be born on my
son's birthday. My son is November twenty eighth, and my
daughter's November twenty sixth. That would have been kind of
cool Thanksgiving babies.
Speaker 3 (05:09):
Yeah, we got we My darby did not want my wife.
She did not want a Halloween baby. Our due date
was November fourth. And as we're getting closer and closer
and closer, and then they get it, we get induced
on the thirtieth, and so.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
It became a reality.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
It's like, oh, man, we might have a Halloween baby.
And all of a sudden we both switch and we're like, man,
at this point, it would be kind of nice to
have a Halloween baby.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
And then we missed it by two hours. So well,
and think of the fundel having college. If you're a
Halloween baby, you could exactly you get to do all
the partying and the halloweens and the costumes and a
birthday and a birthday. It's wonderful. It's congratulations, duds.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
We'll have a segment next week where maybe we can
get some viewer feedback and just bombard you with like
the best and worst parental advice. Maybe that turns into
a running theme, but hey, listen, he's here, he's producing
the show. Let's get the Weekend Warriors.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
Underway, Ladies and gentlemen, the Weekend the kidneys up. It
is Weekend Warriors, all right.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
The Panthers on Sunday pulled off one of their biggest
wins in recent memory. You probably have to go back
seven eight years to find a win of this magnitude.
Green Bay at Lambeau. The Packers were the number one
team in the NFC going into the game. And I've
said this a few times on Panther Talk. We've said
this again. This was not a perfect game by the Panthers,
(06:42):
yet they won. And you wonder where the subtleties come
in in football. One subtle tea came up right away.
There was a swirling wind at Green Bay, and on
the very opening coin toss, the Panthers win the toss
and Bryce Young, i mean, without blinking, goes we want
the ball. The decision came from the sideline. Tracy Smith,
(07:03):
the Special teams coach, had mentioned Dave Canalis, Hey, we're
in this thing. It might be beneficial to have the
wind at our backs. Quarter let's take the ball now.
That proved to be critical because in that wind, Ryan
Fitzgerald hits the game winning field goal. Yeah, forty nine
yards wind at his back. And you know what was
(07:24):
interesting is even with the wind at his back for
the field goal, there were points in that fourth quarter
where the wind was swirling and you're driving that way,
but you're going in the wind depending on the way
it was blowing.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
So it was a gamble. It paid off.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
I think in the moment you say signature win, magnitude win,
I think if you are really optimistic and what the
hope is, four or five weeks from now, we can
talk about that Green Bay win, maybe even after the season,
and if it still carries the same weight, if it's
still turned in to a real pivot point, a real moment,
(08:03):
a real catapult for this franchise going forward. I think
it's a win that can even get bigger in terms
of magnitude the further you remove yourself from.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
It, when you are able to find ways to win
the hard way. To me, I think that galvanizes a
football team and a locker room, because then from that
point on every game that you're in, every time you
just kind of keep going back and forth. There's this
(08:34):
belief that becomes ingrained that you're going to win the game, right,
And I think that's so important psychologically, whether it's college,
whether it's the National Football League, Like, winning hard and
ugly is part of the process I think of building
a franchise.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
You know who we saw that with last year, Kansas City?
How many times times last year did Kansas City run
out of a burning building without a scratch? Right now,
it caught up to them in the Super Bowl, But
I think a lot of teams would take that. Yeah,
let it catch up to us in the super Bowl.
But we saw time and again it wasn't the greatest roster.
(09:17):
They were asking one guy to do a whole lot. Yeah,
but late in games, in the fourth quarter, there was
this belief that they're going to figure out a way
to win. And you're starting to see that with the Panthers.
Bryce Young since he's been in the league has nine
game winning drives. That's tied for most in the NFL
with Mahomes and Jalen Hurts.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
That's unbelievable and nobody would ever think that dude.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
And you know, to be fair, the Panthers haven't won
a whole lot of games.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
Yeah they have.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
It's been Bryce in those moments and now you're seeing
it with the rest of the team where it's the
defense coming up.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
With big plays.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
I think, you know you can factor in the wind
and everything, sure, but you know, people point to Bryce's
numbers not jumping out when it's part of the game.
In that win, they wanted to run the ball. And
I want to hit on Rico Dowdell here because you
and I we followed this sport for a long time.
It's hard to think of a career path like Rico Dowdles.
(10:13):
This guy in his final season at South Carolina wasn't
even the leading rusher on his own team. He never
even cracked eight hundred rushing yards in a season at
South Carolina, who was never the All American, didn't have
the accolades. First three years in the NFL, he hardly
saw the field as a running back, got any touches,
(10:34):
and then year four, most of it in the second half,
runs for a thousand with Dallas. Nobody gives him the
big contract because everyone said, Okay, let's see you do
it again since he has kind of asserted himself as
the guy. It started with the Miami game. In the
five games where he's played a lot three starts, you
(10:56):
can make the case he has been not just the
best running back in the NFL, he has been one
of the best skilled players in the NFL over the
last five weeks. And in a lot of ways, it's
come completely out of nowhere when you look at his
career leading up to this point.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
Well, and I also think, like when you go out
and you target a guy there's in free agency or
or you know, you're looking from a trade perspective, whatever
it may be. In an individual scenario, you're looking for
certain traits that fit you. So there's something that Dan
Morgan Dave canals, there's something that they saw on him
that they placed a significant amount of value. And I
(11:39):
don't want to get in their head or speak for them,
but my logic would tell me they looked at the
guy and they said, you know what, if we actually
feed this guy and treat him like a lead guy,
maybe he'll start playing like one. Right. Well, he didn't have,
like to your point, he didn't have those opportunities in
Dallas to be that lead guy, you know, and now
(12:03):
they're seeing the fruits of their labor and the decision
that they made. I mean, and I don't think a
lot of it's circumstance. A lot of it's situational. Can
you get in the right place at the right time
with the right staff, and guys are gonna believe in
you and invest in you. I mean, all of those
things play a pivotal role.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
His first three seasons in Dallas, he had seven carries.
Seven And I think what's interesting and what's going to
be interesting and probably lucrative for Dubell in the offseason is, Oh,
for a guy who as a running back is twenty seven,
that's considered older older. Yeah, there's not a lot of
tread on those tires.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
I was gonna say, not a lot of mileage on
the chassis, right.
Speaker 1 (12:45):
So it's like, yeah, you're buying a car that's six
seven years old, but he only has thirty thousand miles.
This thing can still run for a while. So I
think there's a lot of that I'm not ready to
write off. Chuba Hubbard. I said this on Coaches Show yesterday.
You know, you got the trade deadline coming up, and
people are asking, well, do you move a guy like
(13:06):
Cuba Hubbard? And I said, hold on, you got to
remember one thing. As great as Rico Dawdle has been,
he is probably going to get the heaviest workload of
his career. Yeah, any level, and there's going to come
a point this season where you're going to need Chuba
Hubbard and then you're going to be reminded, Oh, yeah,
Cuba is pretty darn good too.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, and that you know, we're so far
beyond now the now he Rico has been heavily invested
in terms of carriers, but like, we're beyond the load back, right,
It's a committee deal now at every level. Yeah, football too,
Like if you got to have two or three and
(13:46):
you know, your hope is that the drop off is
minimal or either minimal or not at all in terms
of production. But yeah, if you were to make a
move like that, you're one play away from getting dinged. Right,
what would the drop off be if you didn't have him?
Speaker 1 (14:05):
I think it raises a good question because there's two
parts to it. One, I do think you're starting to
see a shift in how running backs are used. I
think the lead back is coming back at least.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
A little bit.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
You know, you think of the amount of guys who
had three hundred carries in a season last year, it
was a big number compared to previous ten to fifteen years.
So the Saquons, the Derrick Henry's, I still think there's
a ton of value in that. And right now Rico's
playing at that level. So he curves twenty twenty five
carries in some games, he's had thirty touches.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
He deserved all those touches.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
Ride him while you can, but I'm with you, you're
going to need depth at the opposition for seventeen games.
The Panthers are very much now in the meat of
their schedule. The soft underbelly was the first seven games
they split with Buffalo and Bay. There's an opportunity here.
But you still have San Francisco, you still have the Rams,
(15:05):
you still have Seattle, you still have Tampa, have Tampa
twice in fact, so.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
You know, when you it's interesting you mentioned some of
those load carriers, you know, Saquan and this and that,
and I think we've talked about this here on Weekend
Worries before. How the league is now coming full circle,
right You had everybody started going spread, moving horizontal, getting
guys in space. So what happened on defense You had
to get smaller, you had to get faster. And now
(15:34):
you're seeing the Baltimore as the Philadelphia's. Those teams are
now lining up and they're using the defense against them.
They're using their body types against them. So what's going
to be curious for me is how do teams start
defending Carolina. Do they start loading up the box and
presenting more one on one passing game opportunities that they say, Okay,
(15:59):
we're not gonna Rico beat us. Let's see if you
can beat us one on one and if your quarterback
can put the ball where it's got to be and
do it on time. Now, at some point or another,
those defenses down the stretch are gonna have to start
making that decision.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
In some ways they already have. And what's been impressive
is the Panthers are still finding ways to run the football. Yeah,
I think the most impressive part of the entire rushing
attack has been there doing it with a bandaged offensive line.
So against Buffalo, Damian Lewis didn't play, but Cade Mays,
who had been the starting center, Yeah, he took over
for Austin Corbett. He would have stayed at the center
(16:38):
even when Corbett came back. Mays gets hurt, doesn't play
this past week against Green Bay, so Corbett steps back in.
Robert Hunt, who is your starting right guard, who was
a pro bowler last year, probably out for the season
with a torn bicep. Chandler Zavala then steps in. He
gets hurt. He goes on IR. Brady Christensen steps in,
had done a really nice job until he tears his
(16:58):
achilles last week. So now Zavala, fresh off of IR,
steps back in at right guard. He gets hurt on
the first series. So Jake Kerhan exactly who was picked
up off of the Arizona practice squad at the beginning
of October, fills in admirably at right guard. Yosh Niman
starts at right tackle with Taylor Moten injured. So you've
(17:21):
had an offensive line.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
It's an infirmar reward.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
Every single starter has missed at least one game this season.
It's been using pieces, and yet because of the continuity
they had going into the season with the top nine back,
these guys have played together and they've made it work.
That's a credit to Joe Gilbert, the O line coach,
and the coach staff. But that's the amazing part. Rico
in this rush game have been so successful despite an
(17:46):
offensive line that's just you know, kind of been one
of those puzzles where you like move it's like a
Rubik's cube, you like you get one side and then
the other one. No, yeah, it's all different colors. But
I'm with you. I think at some point teams are
gonna challenge the run game. We actually saw that the
second half of last year. Okay, we're gonna sell out
against the run. And you know what, Bryce had some
of his better games win team.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
Yeah yeah, and that's coming again.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
So I look at the New Orleans game Lugues this
weekend at home. The Panthers are ascending. They've won four
out of five, they've won five out of seven. Saints
come in as probably one of the two or three
worst teams in the NFL. To me, this is a
statement game for Carolina. You know the old adage when
we talked to coaches and they're playing an opponent that
they know they're better than, and they yeah, words like
(18:31):
it's not about them, it's about us, which is code
for if we don't shoot ourselves in the foot, we
win this game going away.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (18:39):
To me, this is one of these games, and it's
been a while since the Panthers have had a game
like this where you're expected to win. And I don't
think it's a stretch to say you're expected to win
with a level of domination, And.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
That to me is very revealing about where you are
as a football team, right, because if you go out
and lay an egg, right, you weren't mature enough to
handle the situation that you just found yourself in, which
was a positive one going in. And it's really about
taking care of business. Are you mature enough to take
care of business in a game where you're the better
team and you are expected to win because the way
(19:16):
the schedule plays out, you can't drop the games you're
supposed to win.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
And if they get to six and four, then they
go on the road against a reeling Atlanta a chance
to get to seven and four, while Tampa, who's in
first place, is looking down the barrel of New England,
Buffalo and the La Rams. Yeah, things could get very
interesting in a couple of weeks. Things will get very
interesting tonight in college football because we get our first
college Football Playoff rankings, And to me, it's not so
(19:46):
much about you know, who's one, who's two, who's ten,
who's twelve, Like the first rankings don't matter as much,
but what they do reveal is what the committee values. Yeah,
and some years it's strength to schedule. Some years it's
who you've beaten. Some years it's you're penalized more for
the loss than you are the great win. So for example,
(20:08):
a team like Alabama, right, they beat four ranked teams
in succession, but that Florida State loss does not look good.
I think sometimes as fans, we said, well they beat
this ranked team in week one and week two. None
of that matters if the team's not ranked right now.
And I think that's the one thing that's interesting is,
(20:28):
you know Oregon's win against Penn State at the time, right,
that was, oh my goodness, big win, huge carrot. Well
then Penn State went into the you know what, Right,
that win doesn't matter as much. So in the fans, I, well,
they beat a top ten, top five Penn State team. No,
not in the committee's eye, it's a win of that caliber.
So I think number one, I think it's going to
(20:52):
come down to either Ohio State or Indiana. Right, Like
to me, I think one of those teams are going
to be number one. But you know A and M
doesn't have a loss yet. But like when you look
at Texas A and M for example.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
They've only beat two teams with a winning record.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
Right, what's their best win? They beat Notre Dame, which
is a good win, and then huge one. You know,
they beat LSU, which is sinking. They've got Missouri this
coming weekend. But would it surprise you if a one
loss Alabama was ahead of Texas A and M.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
Wouldn't surprise me, No, not at all. And I'll tell
you why. Because from a scheduled perspective in this first iteration,
and we just hit on it with Texas A and M,
Alabama won four straight games against ranked opponents without a
bye week. It's never been done before in college football.
That's going to carry some weight. Now when we say that,
and I think this is very interesting, is we're saying
(21:45):
that the committee is going to put some weight into
the strength of record, strength to schedule, and then they should,
But then what are they going to do with BYU?
Because up until this coming weekend, BYU hasn't played anybody.
What are they going to do with Virginia? Right, Virginia
has the easiest schedule in the ACC, has won three
(22:08):
games in overtime, four games in the last minute of
the game. Right, how are they gonna view them? So
it's interesting where will they pick and choose their spots
to value schedule right now? Because remember the month of November.
Oklahoma's got a killer schedule. Okay, Texas has a killer schedule,
(22:28):
all right, Alabama schedule still is fairly needy. There's a
lot of games that I think are going to lend
to that schedule and who have you played? Who did
you beat? Where was the game at? That are going
to carry more weight in creedence three weeks from now
than they carry in this first iteration.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
I think what's going to be potentially fascinating with the
ACC bringing coastal chaos back and now applying it to
its entire league without decisions. You've got Virginia right now
sitting in first place in the ACC. What's fascinating is
they have a loss to NC State in a non
conference game, right, one loss, but their remaining schedule, there's
(23:08):
no win that really helps them in terms of the
playoff committee. Georgia Tech had to stumble last week against
NC State. Bad loss. I mean, that hurts your resume.
So if you somehow have a two loss ACC champion,
there is a good chance that team falls out of
(23:28):
the top twelve. But power conference champion two loss, you're
still going to get in as your conference champion.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
That's guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
But let's say you have an ACC champion that is.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
Out of the top twelve.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
There's a good chance the Group of five champion who
gets an AQ to the playoff is out of the
top twelve. All right, Now, if you're in that group nine, ten, eleven, twelve,
starts sweating some beads because if there's some movement there
and let's say you drop below ten, right eleven, in
that scenario, you.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
Don't get in. You don't get in. It's Alabama last
year at nine and three because guess who got in
the ACC champion Clemson, who is nine and three, but
they were the conference champ and that pushed Alabama out.
The thing that's interesting you you bring up the ACC
is in one weekend they went from potentially getting at
least two, if not potentially three in and in one weekend,
(24:26):
are now hoping to get one in that being the
ACC champ right, and it all happened in one weekend.
Speaker 1 (24:34):
Are you buying Virginia?
Speaker 2 (24:36):
I think sooner or later it's gonna catch up with them.
Maybe it won't, and maybe they're having one of those years.
You know, you know who did this, And I'm not
saying they're gonna run through the playoff and get and
play for a national championship. PCU did this exact same
thing in twenty twenty two. Every single overtime game, every
single one possession game, they won all of them, every
(24:59):
single one. In the next they didn't win any of them,
and they went four and eight.
Speaker 1 (25:03):
Well, caught up to them in the championship game. Oh,
by the way, Georgia just scored again.
Speaker 2 (25:06):
Yeah. Well, you know it's interesting too because you say,
are you buying Virginia? Well, what about Louisville right now?
Speaker 1 (25:15):
Again, I think Louisville's fascinating because I don't think their
remaining schedule is as quote unquote easy as it seems
on paper. Right cal again, you got a quarterback in
Jaron kave Songgapolo Tela who his receivers don't help them
at all they drive. Yeah, the defense, especially upfront, knock great,
(25:39):
pretty good secondary, not not much of a running game.
But this kid's a future first round pick.
Speaker 2 (25:44):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
If he goes off and he plays well, he gives
Cal a chance. And Cal's kind of been one of
these teams where the record is probably better than their talent.
But would it shock you if they go hang with
Louisville maybe pull it out? No, and then again Clemson, Right,
I know, the record says sub five hundred and they
haven't played well and Dabbo looks miserable. Doesn't take away
(26:07):
from the fact that there's still a ton of NFL
talent on that defense, right right, Clemsit on paper has talent.
This is not a team that is devoid of talent. SMU,
just beat Miami. Louisvill's got to go play them.
Speaker 2 (26:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
By the way, rivalry game against Kentucky in a game
where you might have a head coach coaching for his job.
Speaker 2 (26:26):
Yeah, how about this one? The one team you haven't
mentioned that could throw in a wrench in everything Pitt
because guess who has to play Pitt. Who's won five
in a row with a true freshman quarterback? Georgia Tech
and Miami still have to play pitt And in the ACC.
The problem with their tiebreaker scenarios is Virginia, Georgia Tech
and Miami don't play each other, and that throws that
(26:49):
throws a lot of mud in the water.
Speaker 1 (26:53):
Yeah, it is a garbled mess. But how duke you see?
The one team that I think is just confounding to
me because I think they have legitimate national championship talent
is Miami.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
Oh yeah, what we've seen here with the two losses,
you know, the way they lost to Louisville, all the
interceptions and then to lose to SMU, especially after last
year ended. Remember how last year ended. Miami was a lock,
a lock for the college football Playoff.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
Yep.
Speaker 1 (27:27):
They had a three score lead at halftime at Syracuse
and they go and blow the game. Yeah, this pattern
is just starting to manifest itself too many times for Miami.
This team is too good. This is not a flawed
Miami team. They have, I think the type of talent
that it takes to go out and win a national championship.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
Here's their problem and number one Mario crystalbal is four
and eleven in the month of November. Okay, that's number
number one. Number two. There's only one team in the
entire conference it has more penalties than they do, and
it's pit Nobody has more offensive penalties than Miami. Okay,
they are the most self inflicted, beat yourself talented team
(28:12):
in college football. And you're right, they have national title talent.
And part of me wonders because Mario is wound so tight,
Mario Cristobal and everything is about just every detail and
puckered up tight and this and that, and you start
to wonder, after seven, eight, nine, ten weeks, does that
(28:38):
start to grind on their team so badly that they're
constantly pressing? Because I'm going to ask you this question,
does Miami look like they're having any fun? Does Mario
ever look like he's enjoying this football team that he's
enjoying the moment? They don't look they look miserable.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
It's a fair question. I think it's really a question.
And it's funny you bring that up, because my mind
went to a conversation I had with Ron Rivera a
few weeks ago. Ron Rivera, former Panthers head coaches now
the general manager Cal Bears Football, and we were talking
about the twenty fifteen Panthers team, the one that went
(29:18):
to the Super Bowl that was seen and won. Cam
was doing the Superman stuff. A lot of stories and
some I've heard from Luke Keithleean Jordan Gross which I
can't repeat, but it spoke to a locker room culture
that was loose and like to have fun. There was
something in there about a Santa doll. I'll just leave
it at that, and it was one of these Santa
(29:40):
dolls that you know, you'd push a button and it
would say Ho Ho Ho, Merry Christmas.
Speaker 2 (29:44):
Right.
Speaker 1 (29:44):
Well, a couple of the guys sort of re engineered
it and used the bluetooth and added their own voice
track to it, and it became kind of this running joke,
but it lightened the mood when you have all this pressure, right,
you know, they got off to that great start. There
was talk of being undefeated at one time, and guys
had fun with it and it kept everybody loose. And
you saw that play out and they made that great
(30:06):
run through the season. And uh, even with this Panthers team, right,
the Rico Dowbell movement, I don't know if you caught
that where he got penalized in the end zone, so
he gets penalized in the end zone for unsportsmanlike conduct
excessive celebration. And it was from a Key and Peel skit.
I know Kringleberry and Rico thought he got two pumps
(30:29):
and it's kind of become a thing, and that had
to be watched. Watched the skit, then watch Rico. It'll
make sense. It actually gets funnier, right. But like those
moments when you win the game, you can laugh about
them and they become real team bonding moments. Yes, like
guys were joking about. I saw Bryce Young when on
walking in through the stadium the other day and Sam Bryce,
(30:52):
I said, hey, I learned who Hingle mckringleberry is and
he said, yeah, we all got a really good laugh
out of that. Got a good laugh out of that.
But obviously for Dave canals teaching moment, you don't do
that right and he invested. But there's a lightheartedness to
it that brings teams together.
Speaker 2 (31:07):
Yeah, that's one of those things.
Speaker 1 (31:09):
I thought that was funny. I thought, you get too,
and he puts up the two fingers.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
He thought you got two, So that that's what like
that can lead to something in the locker room before
you break and you go out. All right, everybody get
their hands on, let's go. Two pumps on three, Two
pumps on three leads to that type of thing, right, Yeah,
I think like that, and you're right, You're right. I
think the teams that have that and the teams that
(31:34):
can bond together over those kind of things, especially now.
I mean, there's more pressure on college kids today than
there's totally, so I'm curious.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
We'll react to the rankings next week, we'll react to
what we think is going to happen, and hopefully another
win against the Saints. Uh. And then uh, let let's
bring some marital advice for navigating babyland from Matt Hogan
as well.
Speaker 2 (31:59):
Yes, yes, marital and parental and parental
Speaker 3 (32:08):
Mm hm
The Weekend Warriors podcast is back after a very brief
one week hiatus, but we share some incredible news for you.
I were a producer. The esteemed Matt Hogan, as of
this weekend is a new father. So congratulations, Matt. Nothing
in life will change now.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
No, not at all.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
I'm come on, man, Sorry, I didn't sleep much.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
No way you think.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
She was.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
Really she was really good last night from the time
my wife went to sleep until about two and then
it was you know, a terrorist attack in my in
my house. But it was great. It was it was fun.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
It's fun. So how many days are you going on now?
Speaker 3 (00:46):
She was born on early early, early morning on the first,
and today is the fourth, so this is her fourth
day of existence.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
All right, nothing's changed at all.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
Yeah, I'm tired at all.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
No, I'm great.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
I'm at home, hunched over my dinner table just rubbing
my eyes at all. Everything's great. I didn't miss taking
the trash out, so now I have a full trash
can for the rest of the week.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
You gotta get yourself. You gotta get yourself in dad shape.
So everywhere you go you carry a diaper bag, a
pack and play a car seat. Let's see what else
a stroller?
Speaker 1 (01:25):
What about those contraptions like babyborn. Yeah yeah, with a
baby like you, basically it's like a carry on for
your baby.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Yes, So just start wearing all that stuff, whether you
need it or not. It'll be like it'll be like
a weighted vest and you'll get in shape and get
used to all the crap you gotta have.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
This is the one thing that you're gonna realize real fast, man,
leaving the house for the next three years is an ordeal.
You're gonna have so much more appreciation for all your
friends with kids who make the effort to come out
as you're about to hold out how hard it is
to do the simple task of just leaving the house.
(02:05):
You can't just say, hey, hey, let's let's let's go somewhere.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
Let's leave.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
It is the diaper bag and the baby wipes, and
then the food. Oh yeah, seat, it's it's it's a
thirty minute ordeal just to leave the house to go
for a walk.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
I'm working from home this morning, and my wife and
my mother in law are taking Murphy to the to
the follow up appointment the pediatricians, their second one in
two days. But so they're taking her, and this morning
it took an hour just to just to get the
car loaded and the car seat switched.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
And so that'll become muscle memory.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
Though, yeah, some of it is slowly. I can I
can feel it.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (02:45):
I thought i'd be a lot more grumpy, but I've
really not been that grumpy so far.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
It's only been four days. But well, I'm gonna now.
I'm gonna give you the advice that I give to everybody.
Are you gonna have another?
Speaker 3 (02:57):
I think we have changed our minds from like three
and warded two and three, but we're definitely gonna have another.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
Okay, So everything that Denie just said right there, and
all of the stuff right, formula, diapers, diaper bags, car seats,
pack and plays, strollers, all of it, right, all of it.
You're gonna walk around at some point over the next
year and you're gonna be at the mall. You're gonna
(03:24):
be somewhere and you're gonna see this dad or this
couple and they're gonna have like a seven year old
and like a six month old, and you're gonna say
to yourself, there is no way I'm going back to
all of this stuff, Like I told my wife. I
was like, if you want to have another one, let's
(03:45):
do it. But they got to be like they got
to be really close together. Yeah, because I'm not going
out of all of that stuff in coming back. There
has to be some crossover.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
So when it's done, it's done, you're saying it, you're
staying in it. Yes, that's that's the red zone. Like
I'm starting back at your your minus twenty yard line,
like exactly, Hey, we're gonna be in the red zone.
We're gonna push it back to the thirty. Okay, that's fine,
And all your black past midfield, right, like all your
(04:16):
car seats, all your diaper bags, all your diapers, all
your formula, within a span of.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
A year, year and a half will all be gone
forever and you won't have to come back to it.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
That would be That would be ideal.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
That would be very ideal.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
I'll get to work. My brother's got seven, five and three.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
There you go.
Speaker 3 (04:36):
See just you know, see my parents that I have,
they have four kids, me included, and they're all for
three and a.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
Half four years apart.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
So I feel like my mom kind of stayed in
it for her whole life, but my.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
Kids are two years apart by two days. I timed
it perfectly. Oh so they almost have the same DAG
on birthday. My was supposed to be born on my
son's birthday. My son is November twenty eighth, and my
daughter's November twenty sixth. That would have been kind of
cool Thanksgiving babies.
Speaker 3 (05:09):
Yeah, we got we My darby did not want my wife.
She did not want a Halloween baby. Our due date
was November fourth. And as we're getting closer and closer
and closer, and then they get it, we get induced
on the thirtieth, and so.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
It became a reality.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
It's like, oh, man, we might have a Halloween baby.
And all of a sudden we both switch and we're like, man,
at this point, it would be kind of nice to
have a Halloween baby.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
And then we missed it by two hours. So well,
and think of the fundel having college. If you're a
Halloween baby, you could exactly you get to do all
the partying and the halloweens and the costumes and a
birthday and a birthday. It's wonderful. It's congratulations, duds.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
We'll have a segment next week where maybe we can
get some viewer feedback and just bombard you with like
the best and worst parental advice. Maybe that turns into
a running theme, but hey, listen, he's here, he's producing
the show. Let's get the Weekend Warriors.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
Underway, Ladies and gentlemen, the Weekend the kidneys up. It
is Weekend Warriors, all right.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
The Panthers on Sunday pulled off one of their biggest
wins in recent memory. You probably have to go back
seven eight years to find a win of this magnitude.
Green Bay at Lambeau. The Packers were the number one
team in the NFC going into the game. And I've
said this a few times on Panther Talk. We've said
this again. This was not a perfect game by the Panthers,
(06:42):
yet they won. And you wonder where the subtleties come
in in football. One subtle tea came up right away.
There was a swirling wind at Green Bay, and on
the very opening coin toss, the Panthers win the toss
and Bryce Young, i mean, without blinking, goes we want
the ball. The decision came from the sideline. Tracy Smith,
(07:03):
the Special teams coach, had mentioned Dave Canalis, Hey, we're
in this thing. It might be beneficial to have the
wind at our backs. Quarter let's take the ball now.
That proved to be critical because in that wind, Ryan
Fitzgerald hits the game winning field goal. Yeah, forty nine
yards wind at his back. And you know what was
(07:24):
interesting is even with the wind at his back for
the field goal, there were points in that fourth quarter
where the wind was swirling and you're driving that way,
but you're going in the wind depending on the way
it was blowing.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
So it was a gamble. It paid off.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
I think in the moment you say signature win, magnitude win,
I think if you are really optimistic and what the
hope is, four or five weeks from now, we can
talk about that Green Bay win, maybe even after the season,
and if it still carries the same weight, if it's
still turned in to a real pivot point, a real moment,
(08:03):
a real catapult for this franchise going forward. I think
it's a win that can even get bigger in terms
of magnitude the further you remove yourself from.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
It, when you are able to find ways to win
the hard way. To me, I think that galvanizes a
football team and a locker room, because then from that
point on every game that you're in, every time you
just kind of keep going back and forth. There's this
(08:34):
belief that becomes ingrained that you're going to win the game, right,
And I think that's so important psychologically, whether it's college,
whether it's the National Football League, Like, winning hard and
ugly is part of the process I think of building
a franchise.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
You know who we saw that with last year, Kansas City?
How many times times last year did Kansas City run
out of a burning building without a scratch? Right now,
it caught up to them in the Super Bowl, But
I think a lot of teams would take that. Yeah,
let it catch up to us in the super Bowl.
But we saw time and again it wasn't the greatest roster.
(09:17):
They were asking one guy to do a whole lot. Yeah,
but late in games, in the fourth quarter, there was
this belief that they're going to figure out a way
to win. And you're starting to see that with the Panthers.
Bryce Young since he's been in the league has nine
game winning drives. That's tied for most in the NFL
with Mahomes and Jalen Hurts.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
That's unbelievable and nobody would ever think that dude.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
And you know, to be fair, the Panthers haven't won
a whole lot of games.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
Yeah they have.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
It's been Bryce in those moments and now you're seeing
it with the rest of the team where it's the
defense coming up.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
With big plays.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
I think, you know you can factor in the wind
and everything, sure, but you know, people point to Bryce's
numbers not jumping out when it's part of the game.
In that win, they wanted to run the ball. And
I want to hit on Rico Dowdell here because you
and I we followed this sport for a long time.
It's hard to think of a career path like Rico Dowdles.
(10:13):
This guy in his final season at South Carolina wasn't
even the leading rusher on his own team. He never
even cracked eight hundred rushing yards in a season at
South Carolina, who was never the All American, didn't have
the accolades. First three years in the NFL, he hardly
saw the field as a running back, got any touches,
(10:34):
and then year four, most of it in the second half,
runs for a thousand with Dallas. Nobody gives him the
big contract because everyone said, Okay, let's see you do
it again since he has kind of asserted himself as
the guy. It started with the Miami game. In the
five games where he's played a lot three starts, you
(10:56):
can make the case he has been not just the
best running back in the NFL, he has been one
of the best skilled players in the NFL over the
last five weeks. And in a lot of ways, it's
come completely out of nowhere when you look at his
career leading up to this point.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
Well, and I also think, like when you go out
and you target a guy there's in free agency or
or you know, you're looking from a trade perspective, whatever
it may be. In an individual scenario, you're looking for
certain traits that fit you. So there's something that Dan
Morgan Dave canals, there's something that they saw on him
that they placed a significant amount of value. And I
(11:39):
don't want to get in their head or speak for them,
but my logic would tell me they looked at the
guy and they said, you know what, if we actually
feed this guy and treat him like a lead guy,
maybe he'll start playing like one. Right. Well, he didn't have,
like to your point, he didn't have those opportunities in
Dallas to be that lead guy, you know, and now
(12:03):
they're seeing the fruits of their labor and the decision
that they made. I mean, and I don't think a
lot of it's circumstance. A lot of it's situational. Can
you get in the right place at the right time
with the right staff, and guys are gonna believe in
you and invest in you. I mean, all of those
things play a pivotal role.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
His first three seasons in Dallas, he had seven carries.
Seven And I think what's interesting and what's going to
be interesting and probably lucrative for Dubell in the offseason is, Oh,
for a guy who as a running back is twenty seven,
that's considered older older. Yeah, there's not a lot of
tread on those tires.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
I was gonna say, not a lot of mileage on
the chassis, right.
Speaker 1 (12:45):
So it's like, yeah, you're buying a car that's six
seven years old, but he only has thirty thousand miles.
This thing can still run for a while. So I
think there's a lot of that I'm not ready to
write off. Chuba Hubbard. I said this on Coaches Show yesterday.
You know, you got the trade deadline coming up, and
people are asking, well, do you move a guy like
(13:06):
Cuba Hubbard? And I said, hold on, you got to
remember one thing. As great as Rico Dawdle has been,
he is probably going to get the heaviest workload of
his career. Yeah, any level, and there's going to come
a point this season where you're going to need Chuba
Hubbard and then you're going to be reminded, Oh, yeah,
Cuba is pretty darn good too.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, and that you know, we're so far
beyond now the now he Rico has been heavily invested
in terms of carriers, but like, we're beyond the load back, right,
It's a committee deal now at every level. Yeah, football too,
Like if you got to have two or three and
(13:46):
you know, your hope is that the drop off is
minimal or either minimal or not at all in terms
of production. But yeah, if you were to make a
move like that, you're one play away from getting dinged. Right,
what would the drop off be if you didn't have him?
Speaker 1 (14:05):
I think it raises a good question because there's two
parts to it. One, I do think you're starting to
see a shift in how running backs are used. I
think the lead back is coming back at least.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
A little bit.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
You know, you think of the amount of guys who
had three hundred carries in a season last year, it
was a big number compared to previous ten to fifteen years.
So the Saquons, the Derrick Henry's, I still think there's
a ton of value in that. And right now Rico's
playing at that level. So he curves twenty twenty five
carries in some games, he's had thirty touches.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
He deserved all those touches.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
Ride him while you can, but I'm with you, you're
going to need depth at the opposition for seventeen games.
The Panthers are very much now in the meat of
their schedule. The soft underbelly was the first seven games
they split with Buffalo and Bay. There's an opportunity here.
But you still have San Francisco, you still have the Rams,
(15:05):
you still have Seattle, you still have Tampa, have Tampa
twice in fact, so.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
You know, when you it's interesting you mentioned some of
those load carriers, you know, Saquan and this and that,
and I think we've talked about this here on Weekend
Worries before. How the league is now coming full circle,
right You had everybody started going spread, moving horizontal, getting
guys in space. So what happened on defense You had
to get smaller, you had to get faster. And now
(15:34):
you're seeing the Baltimore as the Philadelphia's. Those teams are
now lining up and they're using the defense against them.
They're using their body types against them. So what's going
to be curious for me is how do teams start
defending Carolina. Do they start loading up the box and
presenting more one on one passing game opportunities that they say, Okay,
(15:59):
we're not gonna Rico beat us. Let's see if you
can beat us one on one and if your quarterback
can put the ball where it's got to be and
do it on time. Now, at some point or another,
those defenses down the stretch are gonna have to start
making that decision.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
In some ways they already have. And what's been impressive
is the Panthers are still finding ways to run the football. Yeah,
I think the most impressive part of the entire rushing
attack has been there doing it with a bandaged offensive line.
So against Buffalo, Damian Lewis didn't play, but Cade Mays,
who had been the starting center, Yeah, he took over
for Austin Corbett. He would have stayed at the center
(16:38):
even when Corbett came back. Mays gets hurt, doesn't play
this past week against Green Bay, so Corbett steps back in.
Robert Hunt, who is your starting right guard, who was
a pro bowler last year, probably out for the season
with a torn bicep. Chandler Zavala then steps in. He
gets hurt. He goes on IR. Brady Christensen steps in,
had done a really nice job until he tears his
(16:58):
achilles last week. So now Zavala, fresh off of IR,
steps back in at right guard. He gets hurt on
the first series. So Jake Kerhan exactly who was picked
up off of the Arizona practice squad at the beginning
of October, fills in admirably at right guard. Yosh Niman
starts at right tackle with Taylor Moten injured. So you've
(17:21):
had an offensive line.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
It's an infirmar reward.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
Every single starter has missed at least one game this season.
It's been using pieces, and yet because of the continuity
they had going into the season with the top nine back,
these guys have played together and they've made it work.
That's a credit to Joe Gilbert, the O line coach,
and the coach staff. But that's the amazing part. Rico
in this rush game have been so successful despite an
(17:46):
offensive line that's just you know, kind of been one
of those puzzles where you like move it's like a
Rubik's cube, you like you get one side and then
the other one. No, yeah, it's all different colors. But
I'm with you. I think at some point teams are
gonna challenge the run game. We actually saw that the
second half of last year. Okay, we're gonna sell out
against the run. And you know what, Bryce had some
of his better games win team.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
Yeah yeah, and that's coming again.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
So I look at the New Orleans game Lugues this
weekend at home. The Panthers are ascending. They've won four
out of five, they've won five out of seven. Saints
come in as probably one of the two or three
worst teams in the NFL. To me, this is a
statement game for Carolina. You know the old adage when
we talked to coaches and they're playing an opponent that
they know they're better than, and they yeah, words like
(18:31):
it's not about them, it's about us, which is code
for if we don't shoot ourselves in the foot, we
win this game going away.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (18:39):
To me, this is one of these games, and it's
been a while since the Panthers have had a game
like this where you're expected to win. And I don't
think it's a stretch to say you're expected to win
with a level of domination, And.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
That to me is very revealing about where you are
as a football team, right, because if you go out
and lay an egg, right, you weren't mature enough to
handle the situation that you just found yourself in, which
was a positive one going in. And it's really about
taking care of business. Are you mature enough to take
care of business in a game where you're the better
team and you are expected to win because the way
(19:16):
the schedule plays out, you can't drop the games you're
supposed to win.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
And if they get to six and four, then they
go on the road against a reeling Atlanta a chance
to get to seven and four, while Tampa, who's in
first place, is looking down the barrel of New England,
Buffalo and the La Rams. Yeah, things could get very
interesting in a couple of weeks. Things will get very
interesting tonight in college football because we get our first
college Football Playoff rankings, And to me, it's not so
(19:46):
much about you know, who's one, who's two, who's ten,
who's twelve, Like the first rankings don't matter as much,
but what they do reveal is what the committee values. Yeah,
and some years it's strength to schedule. Some years it's
who you've beaten. Some years it's you're penalized more for
the loss than you are the great win. So for example,
(20:08):
a team like Alabama, right, they beat four ranked teams
in succession, but that Florida State loss does not look good.
I think sometimes as fans, we said, well they beat
this ranked team in week one and week two. None
of that matters if the team's not ranked right now.
And I think that's the one thing that's interesting is,
(20:28):
you know Oregon's win against Penn State at the time, right,
that was, oh my goodness, big win, huge carrot. Well
then Penn State went into the you know what, Right,
that win doesn't matter as much. So in the fans, I, well,
they beat a top ten, top five Penn State team. No,
not in the committee's eye, it's a win of that caliber.
So I think number one, I think it's going to
(20:52):
come down to either Ohio State or Indiana. Right, Like
to me, I think one of those teams are going
to be number one. But you know A and M
doesn't have a loss yet. But like when you look
at Texas A and M for example.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
They've only beat two teams with a winning record.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
Right, what's their best win? They beat Notre Dame, which
is a good win, and then huge one. You know,
they beat LSU, which is sinking. They've got Missouri this
coming weekend. But would it surprise you if a one
loss Alabama was ahead of Texas A and M.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
Wouldn't surprise me, No, not at all. And I'll tell
you why. Because from a scheduled perspective in this first iteration,
and we just hit on it with Texas A and M,
Alabama won four straight games against ranked opponents without a
bye week. It's never been done before in college football.
That's going to carry some weight. Now when we say that,
and I think this is very interesting, is we're saying
(21:45):
that the committee is going to put some weight into
the strength of record, strength to schedule, and then they should,
But then what are they going to do with BYU?
Because up until this coming weekend, BYU hasn't played anybody.
What are they going to do with Virginia? Right, Virginia
has the easiest schedule in the ACC, has won three
(22:08):
games in overtime, four games in the last minute of
the game. Right, how are they gonna view them? So
it's interesting where will they pick and choose their spots
to value schedule right now? Because remember the month of November.
Oklahoma's got a killer schedule. Okay, Texas has a killer schedule,
(22:28):
all right, Alabama schedule still is fairly needy. There's a
lot of games that I think are going to lend
to that schedule and who have you played? Who did
you beat? Where was the game at? That are going
to carry more weight in creedence three weeks from now
than they carry in this first iteration.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
I think what's going to be potentially fascinating with the
ACC bringing coastal chaos back and now applying it to
its entire league without decisions. You've got Virginia right now
sitting in first place in the ACC. What's fascinating is
they have a loss to NC State in a non
conference game, right, one loss, but their remaining schedule, there's
(23:08):
no win that really helps them in terms of the
playoff committee. Georgia Tech had to stumble last week against
NC State. Bad loss. I mean, that hurts your resume.
So if you somehow have a two loss ACC champion,
there is a good chance that team falls out of
(23:28):
the top twelve. But power conference champion two loss, you're
still going to get in as your conference champion.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
That's guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
But let's say you have an ACC champion that is.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
Out of the top twelve.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
There's a good chance the Group of five champion who
gets an AQ to the playoff is out of the
top twelve. All right, Now, if you're in that group nine, ten, eleven, twelve,
starts sweating some beads because if there's some movement there
and let's say you drop below ten, right eleven, in
that scenario, you.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
Don't get in. You don't get in. It's Alabama last
year at nine and three because guess who got in
the ACC champion Clemson, who is nine and three, but
they were the conference champ and that pushed Alabama out.
The thing that's interesting you you bring up the ACC
is in one weekend they went from potentially getting at
least two, if not potentially three in and in one weekend,
(24:26):
are now hoping to get one in that being the
ACC champ right, and it all happened in one weekend.
Speaker 1 (24:34):
Are you buying Virginia?
Speaker 2 (24:36):
I think sooner or later it's gonna catch up with them.
Maybe it won't, and maybe they're having one of those years.
You know, you know who did this, And I'm not
saying they're gonna run through the playoff and get and
play for a national championship. PCU did this exact same
thing in twenty twenty two. Every single overtime game, every
single one possession game, they won all of them, every
(24:59):
single one. In the next they didn't win any of them,
and they went four and eight.
Speaker 1 (25:03):
Well, caught up to them in the championship game. Oh,
by the way, Georgia just scored again.
Speaker 2 (25:06):
Yeah. Well, you know it's interesting too because you say,
are you buying Virginia? Well, what about Louisville right now?
Speaker 1 (25:15):
Again, I think Louisville's fascinating because I don't think their
remaining schedule is as quote unquote easy as it seems
on paper. Right cal again, you got a quarterback in
Jaron kave Songgapolo Tela who his receivers don't help them
at all they drive. Yeah, the defense, especially upfront, knock great,
(25:39):
pretty good secondary, not not much of a running game.
But this kid's a future first round pick.
Speaker 2 (25:44):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
If he goes off and he plays well, he gives
Cal a chance. And Cal's kind of been one of
these teams where the record is probably better than their talent.
But would it shock you if they go hang with
Louisville maybe pull it out? No, and then again Clemson, Right,
I know, the record says sub five hundred and they
haven't played well and Dabbo looks miserable. Doesn't take away
(26:07):
from the fact that there's still a ton of NFL
talent on that defense, right right, Clemsit on paper has talent.
This is not a team that is devoid of talent. SMU,
just beat Miami. Louisvill's got to go play them.
Speaker 2 (26:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
By the way, rivalry game against Kentucky in a game
where you might have a head coach coaching for his job.
Speaker 2 (26:26):
Yeah, how about this one? The one team you haven't
mentioned that could throw in a wrench in everything Pitt
because guess who has to play Pitt. Who's won five
in a row with a true freshman quarterback? Georgia Tech
and Miami still have to play pitt And in the ACC.
The problem with their tiebreaker scenarios is Virginia, Georgia Tech
and Miami don't play each other, and that throws that
(26:49):
throws a lot of mud in the water.
Speaker 1 (26:53):
Yeah, it is a garbled mess. But how duke you see?
The one team that I think is just confounding to
me because I think they have legitimate national championship talent
is Miami.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
Oh yeah, what we've seen here with the two losses,
you know, the way they lost to Louisville, all the
interceptions and then to lose to SMU, especially after last
year ended. Remember how last year ended. Miami was a lock,
a lock for the college football Playoff.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
Yep.
Speaker 1 (27:27):
They had a three score lead at halftime at Syracuse
and they go and blow the game. Yeah, this pattern
is just starting to manifest itself too many times for Miami.
This team is too good. This is not a flawed
Miami team. They have, I think the type of talent
that it takes to go out and win a national championship.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
Here's their problem and number one Mario crystalbal is four
and eleven in the month of November. Okay, that's number
number one. Number two. There's only one team in the
entire conference it has more penalties than they do, and
it's pit Nobody has more offensive penalties than Miami. Okay,
they are the most self inflicted, beat yourself talented team
(28:12):
in college football. And you're right, they have national title talent.
And part of me wonders because Mario is wound so tight,
Mario Cristobal and everything is about just every detail and
puckered up tight and this and that, and you start
to wonder, after seven, eight, nine, ten weeks, does that
(28:38):
start to grind on their team so badly that they're
constantly pressing? Because I'm going to ask you this question,
does Miami look like they're having any fun? Does Mario
ever look like he's enjoying this football team that he's
enjoying the moment? They don't look they look miserable.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
It's a fair question. I think it's really a question.
And it's funny you bring that up, because my mind
went to a conversation I had with Ron Rivera a
few weeks ago. Ron Rivera, former Panthers head coaches now
the general manager Cal Bears Football, and we were talking
about the twenty fifteen Panthers team, the one that went
(29:18):
to the Super Bowl that was seen and won. Cam
was doing the Superman stuff. A lot of stories and
some I've heard from Luke Keithleean Jordan Gross which I
can't repeat, but it spoke to a locker room culture
that was loose and like to have fun. There was
something in there about a Santa doll. I'll just leave
it at that, and it was one of these Santa
(29:40):
dolls that you know, you'd push a button and it
would say Ho Ho Ho, Merry Christmas.
Speaker 2 (29:44):
Right.
Speaker 1 (29:44):
Well, a couple of the guys sort of re engineered
it and used the bluetooth and added their own voice
track to it, and it became kind of this running joke,
but it lightened the mood when you have all this pressure, right,
you know, they got off to that great start. There
was talk of being undefeated at one time, and guys
had fun with it and it kept everybody loose. And
you saw that play out and they made that great
(30:06):
run through the season. And uh, even with this Panthers team, right,
the Rico Dowbell movement, I don't know if you caught
that where he got penalized in the end zone, so
he gets penalized in the end zone for unsportsmanlike conduct
excessive celebration. And it was from a Key and Peel skit.
I know Kringleberry and Rico thought he got two pumps
(30:29):
and it's kind of become a thing, and that had
to be watched. Watched the skit, then watch Rico. It'll
make sense. It actually gets funnier, right. But like those
moments when you win the game, you can laugh about
them and they become real team bonding moments. Yes, like
guys were joking about. I saw Bryce Young when on
walking in through the stadium the other day and Sam Bryce,
(30:52):
I said, hey, I learned who Hingle mckringleberry is and
he said, yeah, we all got a really good laugh
out of that. Got a good laugh out of that.
But obviously for Dave canals teaching moment, you don't do
that right and he invested. But there's a lightheartedness to
it that brings teams together.
Speaker 2 (31:07):
Yeah, that's one of those things.
Speaker 1 (31:09):
I thought that was funny. I thought, you get too,
and he puts up the two fingers.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
He thought you got two, So that that's what like
that can lead to something in the locker room before
you break and you go out. All right, everybody get
their hands on, let's go. Two pumps on three, Two
pumps on three leads to that type of thing, right, Yeah,
I think like that, and you're right, You're right. I
think the teams that have that and the teams that
(31:34):
can bond together over those kind of things, especially now.
I mean, there's more pressure on college kids today than
there's totally, so I'm curious.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
We'll react to the rankings next week, we'll react to
what we think is going to happen, and hopefully another
win against the Saints. Uh. And then uh, let let's
bring some marital advice for navigating babyland from Matt Hogan
as well.
Speaker 2 (31:59):
Yes, yes, marital and parental and parental
Speaker 3 (32:08):
Mm hm
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