Aaron Torres and Jason Martin talk Michigan’s win and Caleb Williams!

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
You're listening to Fox Sports Radio. Welcome in everybody, Fox
Sports Radio, Fox Sports Saturday aror TORS. Jason Martin here
on a busy Saturday nights and we are broadcasting life
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(00:21):
free road hazard protection and over ten thousand recommended installers
tire rack dot com. The way tire buying should be
to say, you just got you caught up on all
of the big scores from across college football. The ones
of note right now that are still going on a
surprise in Aggie Land, Texas A and M four and

(00:42):
seven on the season up thirty one to seventeen, USC
up on Notre Dame twenty four to fourteen going into
the fourth quarter. We'll have all uh, you know, stuff
on all of that here momentarily. We'll obviously talk about
the big game in a minute. But first of all,
Jason Martin, good evening, Hello, How are you. How was
your Thanksgiving? My man, it was pretty good. Watched a

(01:04):
lot of football, obviously, watched a little bit of soccer,
watched a little bit of basketball. Some college hoops meant
Battle for Atlantas was a great tournament of some overtime games,
some good stuff going on. I'm just happy we're here.
I'm happy we have a lot of time tonight because
I don't know about you, but I got a lot
to say about what we've seen today, what we saw yesterday,

(01:26):
things happening across the NFL as well. There's just a
whole lot going on, and it's hard not to have
an opinion that you want to share it. I'm happy
that our benevolent overlords at Fox have gifted us four
hours to talk tonight. I agree. By the way, it
is only seven oh three. We got on air after
seven o'clock and we already have an update. Caleb Williams

(01:49):
runs the ball in for a score. USC now up
thirty one to fourteen if they make the extra point.
Thirty to fourteen extra point pending early in the fourth,
we know the out for USC. They win tonight, they
win next week in the Pack twelve championship game. They
are going to the college football playoff. Jason, but let's
start with uh, you know a result that obviously had

(02:11):
playoff implications, but it was the big one, and I
know that everybody on these airwaves since about you know,
I don't know, well, frankly, all week they were. But
then of course everybody on these airwaves has been talking
about this game pretty much NonStop since it went final
about three o'clock three thirty Eastern today, And of course
I am talking about number two Ohio State versus number

(02:33):
three Michigan. It was obviously the big game on the schedule,
um and it was I mean, I don't want to
put it out there, and I don't know where you
were on this game coming in Jayson. We talked about
it a lot last week, but I think it was shocking.
You know, Ohio State just set the stage here really quick.
They were seven and a half point favorite. We find
out that Michigan star running back Blake Corham was not

(02:55):
anything close to of course, Michigan won last year kind
of weird temperature, weird game, snow, ice, sleep whatever. Well,
this year, perfect conditions. The game are is in Columbus,
and we got much the same result, Jason. As Michigan
wins forty five to twenty three, they all but ensure

(03:16):
that they are going to win probably not only the
Big Ten, but obviously make the college football Playoff. I
think at this point they are probably in the college
football Playoff. We can discuss that at another point before
the second straight year Michigan wins, and I think this
year it was even more dominating fashion than a year ago. Jayson.
By the way, another update, A and M just added
another touchdown in the night of his life. So they're

(03:39):
about to be up one with about seven and a
half minutes left, So you can cross off L s
U from your college football playoff potential. Hearing about probably
about fifteen actual real minutes. But yes to the game.
I'm disappointed in myself, Aaron, because last week with you,
I made the case for why mission why I like

(04:00):
the look of Michigan more than Ohio State recently, and
then by the end of the program I picked Ohio State.
I went back and changed. This game went exactly by
the way that I described it to you, but I
didn't stick with the idea. There's one team that just
felt like they played hard all year. They weren't as
talented on paper as Ohio State, they didn't have a

(04:23):
quarterback that was gonna be anywhere near a Heisman ballot,
and they weren't even sure who their starter was gonna
be two or three weeks into the but they played
so hard. They played defense, which traveled. They were in
the football, which tended to travel. They were doing enough,
and they felt like they were all effort, all passion

(04:43):
all the time, and the other one kind of felt
like they were expecting it to be handed to him
at times. Now Smith and Jig, but that got really weird.
He barely played all season long. I heard somebody compare
it to the Bosa situation from a few years ago,
and I think it's it's it's app next time we're
gonna see him is probably gonna be in the NFL Draft,
and he's gonna be a great player. But he wasn't

(05:05):
able to really contribute this season to Ohio State. But
Ohio State had every reason to win this game. They
had it at home, They had the factor of spending
the last year seething about what happened in this very
matchup that kicked them out of the college football playoffs
and put Michigan in it and actually rose hardball to

(05:25):
the level of oh Man. He actually might keep this job.
After all, all of these things were going for him.
They had the most talent, they had the best player
on the field. They had maybe the Heisman front runner
or one of the two Heisman front runners playing quarterback
for them. It was in front of their own crowd.
They had it all and they got absolutely just punked

(05:45):
in the second half of that football game by a
team that wanted it more, that was more physical, that
was more aggressive, even though they were far less talented.
Michigan deserves a tremendous amount of credit, even though we
can and we're gonna blame Ohio State here in a
minute before we get there. Michigan had no business to
think they could win this game. There, Heisman candidate I

(06:08):
couldn't do anything early in the game because he was hurt.
They had to bring in somebody else with a broken hand.
They at one point in the early second quarter, they
had zero rushing yards. We'll give you the rushing total
here in a second. Let's just say it turned around
for them. Michigan. That second half is about as good
as a football team could play. But Ohio State just
laid down and died right in front of our eyes. Yeah,

(06:30):
and we can talk about Michigan throughout the show, but
one thing that that a couple of our colleagues and
oh Ben Maller famously says, the more interesting story is
often in the losing locker room, and our job is
to be interesting. And the more interesting story right now
is Ohio State. And I'll be honest, that is everything
that you laid out is why this result is so
fascinating to me. And what I'll tell you is I

(06:51):
did a little bit of a double back on Ohio,
on Michigan and Ohio State, but it was for this reason.
I picked Michigan, I think last week on air, I
know I picked him throughout the weed. I liked him
as as recently as I don't know, nine, you know whatever,
seven thirty am Eastern time today. And then you started
to get the reports that that Blake Korum was nowhere

(07:11):
near a percent and that he had a bulky brace
on his on his knee, and Donovan Edwards, the backup
running back who has had a couple of big games,
who didn't play last week and nobody really knew why,
had had one arm one hand wrapped. And I said, well,
if Blake Korum can't play and the backup or not,
I not can't play, but it's nowhere close to a PC.
And if the backup is nowhere close to. Then Olive stayed,

(07:34):
I don't care how much, you know, how in consistent
they've been. Um, they're not winning this game. And so
to me, I had much of the same emotion that
you did this morning, where I said, okay, last day
already had all these things working in their favor. It's
at home. They've spent a year thinking about this game
and what it means. By the way, they hired a
defensive coordinator that makes two million dollars a year. Yeah,

(07:56):
not for Rutgers, not for Indiana, not even for Michigan
State and Penn State. It was for this game. The
weather is nicely. You can't say, oh, you know, well,
the weather last year was this. And then on top
of it, Blake corm and Donovan Edwards are hurt. And
I'll tell you, Jason, I'll tell you when I really
started to get the feel that this thing could turn,
it was exactly what you said a second ago when

(08:19):
you said that there was a point in the second
quarter when Michigan had zero rushing yards and it was
still a game, and at that moment, that was the
Ohio State that we've seen all year. They have a
chance have that killer instinct, go after them, finish it,
finish them, put them behind the eight ball where now

(08:40):
they have no choice but to throw, you know, get
up seventeen to three and make them sweat. In Ohio State,
with all this talent that they have, they couldn't separate.
They couldn't pull away. And then credit to Michigan for
making the plays needed in the second, third, fourth quarter,
But that Ohio State from about the first drive on
they scored the first drive off. Everything is going great,

(09:01):
but Michigan can't do anything in Ohio State can't pull away.
And I said, this is the same Ohio State. And
sure enough they let Michigan stay in the game. J J.
McCarthy get some confidence. We'll talk over the next four
hours about some of the coaching decisions, but that was
right there. I said, this is who Ohio State has
been all year. What you said, no killer instinct, what

(09:21):
is wrong with this team? And we saw it on
the final scores on Sometimes you just have so much
talent you can't factor in how hard you still have
to work. And we saw a few eggs laid by
Ohio State this season where they were able to win
the game, but they by no means looks particularly strong.

(09:43):
We can go back to Northwestern. I know the weather
was bad, but they also played poorly that day. There
have been days where c. J. Stroud just wasn't all
that good. There were days when, yeah, all all of
these things factor in. Michigan had to gut out a
lot more because what they do requires them to play

(10:07):
at a higher level, because the margin for error is different.
Because C. J. Stroud and Marvin Harrison Jr. Can turn
the game in no time flat. When you're running the
ball and you're playing defense, that thing has to be
pretty consistent because you're not likely to be blowing teams
out the same way you are if you have it's
the same thing. Look at this, Who is it easier
for the Kansas City Chiefs of the Tennessee Titans. It's

(10:29):
for the Chiefs because you've got my homes, You've got
the cheek code and you've got the white out. You've
got my homes and you've got Kelsey, Or you have
my homes and you've got Tyreek Hill, or in this case,
you've got c. J. Stroud and Marvin Harrison Jr. And
if you've got him healthy, you've got Smith and Jigba,
whereas Derrick Henry's gotta run and it's gonna take four
quarters for him to generally get his yards. And the
defense has to be up to snuff because the other

(10:51):
team is gonna be able to score a lot faster.
So you have to find a way to stay close
in these games. So Michigan had to play harder. I
believe most of the season their quarterback was nowhere close
to what C. J. Stroud was supposed to be and
most of the time was but to your point, two
million dollars for a defensive coordinator specifically to stop the

(11:12):
run against Michigan because last year Hassan Haskins owned them.
And what happened in the second quarter when they had
zero rushing yards, I remember Joel Clatt saying it, then
McCarthy hit like a sixty five yard pass where they
sent an all out blitz because all they were doing
was trying to stop the run, and in effect, they
were letting a quarterback who you shouldn't have to worry

(11:33):
about beating you, beat you because you were letting one
guy Johnson korn Johnson just get open in man to
man coverage down the field, and all of a sudden McCarthy.
All he had to do was drop it in the bucket,
and that's what he did. But oh yeah, at the
end of this game, Edwards had two hundred sixteen yards
on the ground. Michigan ran for two hundred and fifty

(11:55):
two yards and three touchdowns. Blew you out basically in
the second half. So the two million that you spent
to stop the run worked for exactly two quarters and
then you got absolutely boat raced and embarrassed in front
of your own home crowd in the second half. That
is not Aaron Torrez money well spent. Well, I'll tell
you what else isn't money well spent. Right now, Ryan Day,

(12:17):
making close to ten million dollars a year, has now
lost to his biggest rival in back to back years.
They are going to miss the Big Ten championship game
in back to back years and very likely could miss
the playoff. Coming up, we will discuss Ryan Day next
what's next for him and what answers does he have
to come up with, because he's got quite a few
after today. Erators Jason Martin here on a busy Saturday night,

(12:42):
final regular season day of the college football season, Fox
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(13:27):
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Apple Podcast and wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome back, everybody,
Fox Sports Radio, Fox Sports Saturday Air towards Jason Martin
here keeping the updated on a few college football scores.
USC trying to remain in the thick of the college
football playoff conversation. They are up thirty one to eleven

(13:51):
minutes left in the fourth quarter. Notre Dame has just
scored to cut that lead to ten. USC will have
the ball back. And how about those fight in Texas
A and M. Maggie's up thirty eight two appears to
be twenty five on L s U three minutes left
in that one. So Texas A and M with a
very surprising result here in Texas in College Station. Obviously

(14:14):
L s U will be in the SEC championship game
next week, but any hope of sneaking in as a
two lost playoff participant is probably out the window. So Jason,
before the break, we obviously talked a lot about the
Ohio State Michigan game. Where I want to go now, specifically,
UH is to the head coach of the Ohio State
buck Eys, and that is Ryan Day. And so a

(14:35):
few things stand out about Ryan Day. And you know,
I think we should preface all of this by saying that, look,
just just because you lose to Michigan, as bad as
it is, nobody's saying you're getting fired. Nobody's saying this.
Nobody's saying that he's gonna keep the job as long
as he wants it. If for some reason, Ohio State
went crazy and tried to get rid of him. He
would get an NFL job in a second, because he

(14:55):
has had very successful offenses everywhere he's gone. He's got
an NFL background whenever. So nobody's here to say that
he is going anywhere, or that Ohio State needs to
make a move or Ohio States shouldn't make a move.
But I found an interesting stat, Jason. So the last
eight games in which Ohio State has played a top
fifteen team, and that's kind of an arbitrary number, but

(15:16):
tough fifteen teams, a good team, sometimes elites, sometimes not.
In those last eight games, that was dating back to
the National Championship game against Alabama, Ohio State is four
and four. They are four and four straight up. Three
of the four losses they have trailed at the half.
The only game in the last two years where they've

(15:37):
played a top fifteen team where they did not trail
at the half was Michigan State last year, and Michigan
State finished the year with literally the worst past defense
in college football. So it's kind of a matchup that
kind of perfectly exploited what they do well versus a
team that they could take advantage of. It with I
bring it up to say, each of the last two years,
you could basically argue that in games against teams with

(15:58):
anything resembling similar talent, Ohio State is either lost or
had to rally to win. Ohio State, of course, has
lost their last two to Michigan, which is obviously the
most talented team in the Big Ten besides them, just
in general, and nobody's saying anybody's gonna get fired, nothing
like that. Where are you at on Ryan Day? And
I bring it up because last year after this game,
Jim Harball referenced he said something to the effect of

(16:22):
some people think they were born on third base and
think they hit a triple insinuating that Ryan Day took
over a very nice situation from Urban Meyer and increasingly
I don't know if Ohio State fans want to hear
it on a day like today, they might even agree
with it. But Jim Harball might not be wrong on
that statement. As Ryan Day takes another loss. There are
two schools in the country where if you go historically

(16:46):
Aaron and look at what they've done since the beginning
of time, they've always been good. Almost everybody else has lulls,
whether it's Florida, whether it's Tennessee, whether it's usc whether
it's Texas of this, but there are two schools that
are almost always good. Ohio State is one. Oklahoma is

(17:06):
the other one. Everybody wins at Ohio State. You you
gave that stat? What what what? What did you say again?
What was the stat? Again? The last eight games against
top fifteen teams, Ohio State is four and four and
has trailed at the half in three of the wins.
So essentially seven of their last eight games against top
fifteen teams they've either lost or trailed at the half.

(17:27):
The number four is really interesting to me. You know
why Ohio State's record with Ryan Dayett coach forty five
and four and forty nine games, he has a nine
eighteen win percentage. Forty five and four is an incredible record.

(17:49):
But what coach hasn't won at Ohio State, Like, when
you really go back and you start to think about it,
who really struggled? I mean Luke Fickle struggled and won
nine games, and now we know how good a coach
he is because of what he's gone on to do
with Cincinnati. This isn't a dog out Ryan day but
it is to say this. You know who who Ryan
Day most reminds me of in terms of just how

(18:12):
I kind of view him, Matt Lafleur, because Matt Lafleur
in Green Bay went thirteen and three three consecutive years
and got virtually no credit for it at all, because
everybody knew why that team was winning football games, even
though they forgot that before he got there, they weren't

(18:35):
winning quite the same number of football games as they
had with him. This year, when it's gone south all
of a sudden, well, you know, he really wasn't that
good a coach anyway, But that's the very definition again.
When he got that job, it's like, well, I mean,
you just inherited some people claim the greatest quarterback of
all time and one of the best wide receivers in
the last ten or fifteen years. On top of that,

(18:58):
and a burgeoning run game and a lot of other
things that you like in a classic organization, organization that
always tends to be in the mix. Ryan Day. The
one thing you can't do if you were the head
coach of Ohio State is get in a habit of
losing to the University of Michigan. And Ryan Day is
now owing to and in this last two year span certainly,

(19:21):
and last year's game, you heard all week long about
how basically they had seized and they wanted this one
so bad and they had not forgotten what happened last
year and they were gonna come out inspired. I heard
all this kind of stuff. They changed their practice regiment.
They usually do some kind of like day off deal. No,
we're gonna practice everything going on through the holidays. All

(19:44):
of this, and they showed up and they look like
the two Rams to me in a lot of respects.
They have so much talent, but it just never felt
like to me they were matching the tenacity of Michigan today.
And where does your attitude come from? Look at the Jets.

(20:06):
The Jets are a spitting image of their head coach,
outside of their quarterback who's now not playing football for them,
who's not even gonna address tomorrow for them. That's the
only thing like Ryan Day. Whenever you hear him talk,
he sounds like such a nice guy, professional, you know,
you'd you'd want to hang out with the guy. He
looks like he's exactly what you'd want as a head coach.

(20:26):
You'd want your son to be there with him all
of those kinds of things, but they sometimes play like
they're a little bit nice guy as well. And I
also think again, if you're born on third base, sometimes
you already feel like home plate has been handed to
you and you get thrown out at the plate. And
that's what happened today when you have to grind the

(20:47):
way Michigan has had to grind at times this year
with their style and their lack of talent in some
positions on the field that can prepare you better for
a dog fight. And when the dog fight came to
Ohio State a day in the second half, they folded
like an accordion. I agree with essentially everything you said.
I think the important thing that you said forty five

(21:09):
and four as a head coach, but he hasn't won
the games that you have to win if you're the
Ohio State coach. And so I think that's where a
lot of the frustration is coming into today. It's not
um you know, it's not whether you know. It's not
whether you beat Indiana by forty and how do you
look against Rutgers and all that, it's what do you

(21:30):
do against Michigan? Do you win Big Ten championships? And
now in this playoff you're are you winning playoff games?
And you know he did kind of you know, he
didn't win a playoff game in the COVID year, and
he didn't win two Big Ten championships, but you're owing
two in the last two against Michigan. Um, you know,
they they largely physically dominate you. And I think it's
a good point by you, Jason, about the idea of
you start to take after your head coach. I mean,

(21:52):
look at Michigan. You say what you want about Jim
Harbaugh is a little bit quirky, is a little bit different.
He's tough, he's mean, that's how he played. You know,
he's playing through injuries, He's doing this, he's doing that.
Ryan Day, I think his team kind of took to
his coaching style today. Is there were a couple of
times late in the uh you know, third quarter, fourth quarter,
where they had a chance to make a statement, go

(22:14):
for it in big spots, he chose to punt a
couple of times when I think Michigan fans especially, there
was one with about maybe eight minutes to go where
I think even Joel and Gus, who were calling the game,
we're kind of stunt that he decided to punt it
and so to me, Um, I think that's a good
point by you. I think it's a good point by you.
The idea that Um that that that basically Um, you know,

(22:37):
the team is taking after him and that might not
be a good thing in big spots. I'll tell you what,
I want to keep this conversation go because I think
it's really interesting not only for today but for what
happens next with Ohio State. We're gonna discuss all that next,
but first time this evening. Do you want to get
to Steve to Sega, what's strengdening, what's up to say?
I loving this college football tonight. As we wind down

(22:58):
the regular season under two minutes to go at Texas
A and M, and the Aggies one and six in
conference are leading fifth ranked l s U thirty eight
to twenty five. Meanwhile, USC ranked six in the country
with eight minutes to go, is leading at home thirty
one twenty one over Notre Dame on Fox TV in
the rain at twelfth rank Kansas State, It's case State

(23:21):
ahead of rival Kansas in the third quarter thirty seven
to twenty one. Fourth quarter Number ten Tennessee now at
forty nine nothing at Vanderbilt, and you see f ranked
twenty two, needs a win tonight to go into the
American Conference Championship game. And they're playing at South Florida,
which is one and ten this year. You see f
lad at the half twenty eight seven and has blown

(23:41):
that lead. It's thirty nine thirty eight for South Florida.
In the final minute, however, you see f is in
field goal range and their video reviewing to see if
they get a touchdown pass at the moment. Wins in
the top ten for Georgia and Alabama. T see you
as well, undefeated in fact twelve and oh after ripping
Iowa State sixty four. The Michigan win was at Ohio
State three J. J. McCarthy three touchdown passes and a

(24:06):
t D run. South Carolina one at number eight Clemson
thirty one thirty Clemson had beaten him seven straight times.
And Oregon State at home was trailing rival Oregon thirty
one ten late in the third quarter and still defeated
the Ducks thirty eight thirty four. Oregon State scored three
touchdowns unanswered in the fourth quarter. Penn State and Utah

(24:27):
with wins Kentucky as well. Nebraska's new head coaches Matt Rule.
Colorado offered its head coach opening to Dion Sanders. Tampa
Bay Bucks running back Leonard four Nette is out for
tomorrow's game at Cleveland with a hip injury. At the
World Cup, Argentina shut out Mexico to nothing with two
goals in the second half, including leon O Messi's goal
in the sixty four minute. France one on a goal

(24:49):
in the eighty six minute, two to one over Denmark.
Victories for Poland and Australia. Four more games tomorrow, all
on FS one. The US plays Tuesday. NBA victories for
hugh Ston and Toronto. In college basketball, the University of Houston,
ranked number two, survived over kent State. Back to you,
thank you very much, Steve the Seger. This is Fox

(25:11):
Sports Radio, Fox Sports Saturday, Aaron Torrest, Jason Martin Company
Alive from the Tirec dot Com Studios. This is the
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(25:32):
free home delivery, Big green egg dot com. Jason, I
do have a question for you related to Ohio State,
But before we get to that, was there anything else
to add about the idea of Ryan Day maybe coaching
scared which led to Texas or excuse me, Ohio State
playing scared as Texas A and m is about to
close out this victory against Ellas. No, definitely, I mean
what you said is right, and what Joel said on

(25:53):
the broadcast when they punted, I think they were. They
were punting with like eight minutes left or something down
two scores. It's worth Yeah, it was. It's just kind
of like, are you guys throwing in the towel because
how many possessions do you think you're actually gonna have,
especially with the way Michigan was running the ball in
the second half of that game, like they were drowning
clock anyway, well, until Edwards started breaking a d yard

(26:14):
runs because nobody was tackling or they were just they
they had nobody on one of those runs in the
secondary at all. He had to beat one linebacker and
he was gone. But no. I mean, I just felt
like there was never much aggression from Ohio State. It
just felt like they were playing conservative and they just
thought they were gonna be able to tiptoe their way

(26:34):
to the win somehow. I mean, I don't know. That
was not a strategy that seemed destined for success against
a team that was battered and bruised. And this one hurts,
Like I look at this and I'm just like, that
team doesn't deserve to go to the College Football Playoff.
We can have this discussion about a lot of teams,
and we're gonna talk about a lot of games throughout
the course of this show, and there's a lot of

(26:55):
teams that just flat out don't impress me. And I
don't know if anybody is true really just transcendently good
this year. A matter of fact, I'm pretty sure no
one is. But I can tell you that Ohio State team,
to me today should have played their way into a
New Year's Six Bowl and right out of the College
Football Playoff because I don't really have any interest in
seeing them in a chance to win a national championship

(27:17):
after that. Let me ask you a question, because I
think part of again, you know, the conversation with this
and and by the way, any Michigan fan listening, at
some point we will get to Michigan. I do promise
you that, um. But one thing that I think stands
out is that it's what we talked about a minute ago.
Is that that you know, the idea of of the
physicality toughness to lack thereof when it mattered late, oh

(27:37):
Michigan is able to run the ball when they need to.
Ohio States defense wears down much like they did, uh
this time last year. So my question is this, Jason,
is if you're an Ohio State fan today, I don't
know exactly what the right question is to ask you,
But this time last year you could sit there and say, well,
you know, we weren't tough enough. The defense wasn't there.
Ryan Day's offense was great and we can't blame him,

(27:59):
and they're all Simon. We have c. J. Stroud coming back,
and we have Jackson Smith and Jig but we have
all these great skill position players. I bring it up
because last year it was easy to blame toughness in
the defense and this and that, and as we've referenced
a couple of times, you go out, you pay two
million dollars for a defensive coordinator named Jim Knowles comes
from Oklahoma State, new offensive line coach uh to kind

(28:23):
of toughen up the team in the trenches. What is
the excuse this year? And and and and what do
you do now? Because now this is where it gets interesting,
and this is where I think the conversation about nobody's
firing Ryan Day. But if he starts to maybe make
some phone calls to see if there's opportunities in the NFL,
I could see it because the list time last year. Oh,
it's the defense. So we're gonna get that fixed. Everything's

(28:44):
gonna get right. You better see us next November. Well,
next November came. The defense looked the same, the toughness
in the trenches looked the same, And the only thing
that remains the same is that Ryan Days the head coach.
So again, I don't I don't know if it's a
what do you do? Or how do you feel? If
you're an Ohio State fan? But that's what stands out
to me. This was supposed to be the year that

(29:04):
it all got fixed. It looks very much the same
to me. Yeah, I mean I think that what you
look at it is just like, would you question the
stability of the situation at this at this juncture because
to your point, and it was discussed in last off season,
was Ryan Day gonna go to Chicago and coach the
Bears and go back to Justin Fields? Was was there

(29:26):
another opportunity for him? And I've mentioned several times if
I was a coach and I had the opportunity to
coach in the NFL or college, I would go to
the NFL and heartbeat because of everything that now goes
into college football within i L and the transfer portal
and just it's just a the recruiting game would just
become agonizing to me at some point in time, especially

(29:46):
if I was an XS and OS guy and I
really just wanted to be, you know, in a CEO
type role like a lot of head coaches are in
the NFL. UM I don't know this this ends up
being the same thing as it was last year, where
one team was demonstrably tougher than the other, and it
was Michigan both times. And I think you have to

(30:07):
look at that again back to the personalities of the
coaches and just say, well, hardball has definitely come across briskly,
but he's come across tough. He's always come across. That's
the way the old Stanford teams used to play for him.
That's the way the Niners teams played for him as well.
Like him or not, that is who he is and
his team kind of embodies that. If you're Ohio State

(30:28):
fans today, I don't know that you want Ryan Day gone,
But I also think that you're going to increasingly watch
your football team with a skeptical eye because you've now
seen a whole lot of success right up until it
matters most and then you've seen the team just kind

(30:49):
of come up short, and you've seen it a few
too many times now. Next year, I think the pressure
is higher on Ryan Day and I don't and I
know that he will know that. I think going in,
I don't know that that's a challenge he wants to inherit.
It depends on what opportunities are out there, what jobs
come open in the NFL after the season. It would

(31:09):
have to be a pretty enticing situation for him. But
that's a that became a pressure cooker real quick today
in my opinion, not not in terms of it being
a hot seat situation. But when you lose the Michigan
and back to back years and you have a real
good shot now to miss the college football playoff again,
and the last time we saw you in the college

(31:29):
football playoffs you got summarily crushed by Alabama. That becomes
a big time scenario and a big time problem if
you're Ryan Day. So I don't know the answer to
the question other than to say I kind of feel
for the guy tonight because that's got to be difficult.
And you could even see it in his face with
about five minutes left in the game when they showed

(31:50):
it on the sidelines, he looked exhausted, and I also
think he realized in that moment, this is not gonna
be the most fun. Let's being in a fun USC
With the interception, USC s just turnover, you know, the
the way that they forced turnovers is unbelievable. Thirty one
to one. You and I were obviously on air last

(32:12):
week when they had the game ceiling interception against u
c l A, an interception by USC with five minutes
to go there up thirty one to twenty one. It
looks very much like they are going to finish the
regular season eleven and one. Coming up. I actually have
a USC related question. As they are up by ten
with five minutes to go. We'll take you through the
end of that game figure out if they hold on

(32:34):
for victory, will discuss USC and Dick Killa Williams lock
up the Heisman. Tonight, Fox Sports Radio, Welcome back, everybody,
Fox Sports Radio, Fox Sports Saturday eron Torres. Jason Martin
Here on a Saturday night. We are broadcasting live from
the tirect dot com studios. UH and in true fashion,
much like last week when we were on air, UH,
every time we went to commercial break, we would have

(32:55):
to come back with an update on the U s
C u c l A game last week, Well, this
week we're doing it with USC Notre Dame. As USC
has scored again here with under four minutes to go.
Under three minutes to go, a Caleb Williams sixteen yard
touchdown pass makes it thirty eight to twenty one USC

(33:15):
USC less than three minutes away from advancing to a
Pack twelve championship game where they will be playing for
a College Football Playoff appearance. Really quick, Jason, USC, are you?
I mean we all liked Lincoln Riley, right, but like
I'm genuinely surprised at how good they look this fast. Um,

(33:38):
the way they you know, they're not great on defense,
but they fource a million turnovers. They take care of
the football. This was a team Jason went four and
eight last year, USC did. They are about to finish
the regular season eleven and one, and we'll be playing
for a playoff appearance next week. It is unbelievable in me. Yeah,
it's very impressively. The defense is terrible. They have gotten

(33:58):
a lot of turnovers, but they're bad. Um. It reminds
you a lot of Oklahoma. They were constantly looking for
the right kind of defense to marry with an offense
no one could stop, whether it was Baker Mayfield a quarterback,
or Kyler Murray or kittleb Williams. Last year, once he
replaced Spencer Rattler, it was always gonna be a team
to score points. But I agree with you. I thought
going into the season some people had them ranked higher

(34:21):
than I would have in terms of what you were
expecting from him. I thought it was gonna take more time.
But transfer portal and the way things are done now,
you were able to bring in a guy like Jordan Addison.
You were able to bring Caleb with you. He didn't
have to sit out, he was able to play even
so incredibly impressive. They are running away from Notre Dame

(34:41):
now finally Notre Dames. Notre Dame just plays hard. They
don't have the talent this year, but they have maximized
what's been out there for him and they deserve credit
for that, as does Marcus Freeman in year number one.
But what you've seen is a great head coach with
perfect synergy with his quarterbacks. Same kind of thing you
see with Andy Reid and Patrick Mahomes for example in

(35:02):
the NFL. You've got a coach that knows what he's
doing with a quarterback that he loves and a quarterback
that understands a very high level in terms of i
Q to go along with the athleticism and the intangibles
and all of those other kinds of things. The measurables
are there. And I think the other thing that you
can go ahead and say now, I feel pretty comfortable

(35:22):
with this. Cayleb Williams already won the Heisman. So it's
a wrap tonight because the process of elimination, if nothing else,
you've seen other people play their way out of it
or be injured out of it. Caleb Williams, I think
he's locked it. I don't remember if we had this
conversation last week, but I was very hesitant to give
him the award prior to last week. His biggest games

(35:43):
are ahead of him, all that good stuff. I'm with you.
It's hard for me. And the other thing too, and
and it's something we might have talked about last week
after the U c l A game. The thing that
stands out about Caleb Williams is it's not just that
he's putting up great stats, and it's not just that
his team is winning. They need every single one of
the points that he puts on the board, right like
you go back. You know, tonight is not necessarily the

(36:05):
best example of this, but prior to tonight, the last
five games, outside of a Colorado team that finished one
and eleven today, they gave up forty five points to
U c l A, thirty five to Cal, thirty seven
to Arizona, forty three to U S to Utah. Excuse me,
and so I just bring it up because it's not
just that he's good. It's not just that he's putting

(36:26):
up cool stats. It's not even that the team is winning,
it's that they need him to be great every single night,
and so that to me, I'm with you. I'm not sure.
I'm honestly not sure at this point. I can't imagine
a scenario where something happens next week where he doesn't
win it. I mean, maybe if Blake Corehum comes back

(36:47):
and rushes for four yards, you have the conversation if
USC loses, But it's really hard to think of any
scenario that Caleb Williams doesn't end up with this award.
And I'll say it sometimes I disagree go and in
the final week that this is the guy or that's
the guy or whatever. I think he's a very deserving favorite,
and I think he'll be a very deserving winner two
weeks from tonight. Jason. Yeah, no, I agree with you

(37:09):
and and your point. I thought this for a long time.
This is probably a four lost team without him at quarterback.
It just is because you can't afford two or three
empty trips because of the way the defense has played
throughout the year. He's had to be good constantly all
the time. He's not able to turn the football over.
All of these things have to be there, and He's

(37:30):
been there for this team without Jordan Addison, for games
without other weapons, without Travis die for the last three games.
All of the things that he has had to do
is why they find themselves with the record that they have.
That's the very definition of what the heisman is. I
actually think Blake corehum and I can understand why people

(37:50):
would look to him, the fact that they beat Ohio
State basically without him, I don't. I don't think if
you put USC in the spot of Michigan, that's I
don't think they have a shot against Ohio State without
Caleb Williams. And again it becomes a quarterback award. But
the quarterback is so important in football. It's hard. And
when you look at this USC team, it is made

(38:13):
and it is broken by thirteen. And he has been
more than up to the task. He's been special all year.
Don't disagree. USC up thirty eight to twenty one. Uh
and Jason, do we know, by the way, is it
official yet? Are they playing Utah? I believe with Oregon's
lost today, I believe it is official. You think they

(38:35):
you think you remember they played Utah in our time
slot last a few weeks ago. They lose by one
in a game where there was some very questionable refereeing.
I gotta look a little bit more into Utah, who
took care of business in a big way against Colorado today.
That was a tough environment to let's let's go back
and think about that game. They had to go to Utah,
They were honoring fallen teammates, They had all sorts of

(38:58):
emotion going on that because well, not to even mention
the officiating and the stuff you just talked about. On
the field they were playing with a well of emotion
was Utah. And we already know Utah was talented. We
both thought they could be right there in the College
Football Playoff when we were making our preseason comments, uh
back a couple of months ago. That was a different environment.
This right here is going to be on a neutral

(39:20):
field indoors, which seems to me to be right up
the alley of this USC offense. I'll just throw that
out there. That's right. It was very cold that night.
To say, did you want to jump intd you have
much of Oregon is not out yet. If Washington loses
tonight in the late oh so wazoo playing spoilers. What
you're telling me to say, one way or another, we'll

(39:41):
know in about three and a half hours. Playing very
good well USC. By the way, it ain't technically over yet,
but it's sort of over. Notre Dame does score a touchdown. Uh.
They they tried to go for two to cut the
lead to nine. They instead trailed by eleven points, thirty
eight to twenty seven with just over a minute to go. Obviously,

(40:02):
Notre Dame will be attempting an on side kick. My
guess is that if they can uh successfully recover they
being us CD on side kick, the game will be over. Uh. USC,
of course is up thirty eight to twenty seven on
Notre Dame. Couple other noteworthy scores h L s U
does fall to Texas A and m Tonight doesn't really

(40:22):
matter much for anything other than note L S you
did have kind of a back way into the college
football playoff. They beat Georgia next week. Next week instead
they're playing for nothing but pride, and of course we
have Michigan Ohio State coming up. More on the Michigan
Ohio State stuff, and of course USC can they close
out this win. Fox Sports Radio, Welcome in, everybody, Fox
Sports Radio, Fox Sports Saturday, Hour two as the man

(40:46):
just told you, Jason Martin er Torres, we are broadcasting
live from the direct dot Com studios. Tirect dot Com
will help you get there and unmatched selection, fast, free shipping,
free road hazard protection, and over ten thousand recommended installers.
Direct dot Com the way tire buying should be. As
Zeger just told you, we do have a final from

(41:08):
the l A Coliseum. USC takes care of Notre Dame.
They finish eleven and one in the regular season. Caleb
Williams doesn't officially wrap up the Heisman, but in a
game in which he was once again phenomenal, throwing for
two two yards one touchdown with three more rushing touchdowns. Jason,

(41:32):
I think we know it's at stake for USC. They're
gonna play next week in the Pack twelve championship game.
We don't know quite against two just yet, but if
they win, there going to the college Football playoff, and
I think, regardless of what happens next, I think it's
Friday Night against the winner, depending they're either gonna play
Utah or Washington Utah Oregon, excuse me, depending on Depending

(41:54):
on all that, I think Caleb Williams has officially won
the Heisman Trophy gies. Yeah, And I think we're better
off if we get to a college football playoff that
involves Caleb Williams Like I think that that's an offense
you want to see. I think that's gonna be great
box office their defense, notwithstanding anybody's gonna be able to
score on that defense. Uh, anybody in college football playoff
certainly is gonna be able to score on that defense,

(42:16):
which could make first shootout, which would be great because
you don't we haven't gotten a lot of great college
football playoff games in recent years. So maybe you get
some kind of an offensive explosion, you get something closer
to that Alabama Tennesseee game that we got earlier this year,
or even the u c L a USC game from
last week, something like that. I'd be fine with that,
but I think we're better off having that. I think

(42:37):
the bigger thought is as you start to look at everything,
not just USC, but you can look at Michigan and
Ohio State, you can look at something we haven't talked about,
which is, uh, nobody right now is kind of blowing
people away quite like South Carolina. If you wear orange,
stay the heck away from the game. Cox because they
did it to Tennessee last week. They did it to

(42:57):
Clemson today on the road. Really impressive. Clemson not gonna
be heard from the a SEC Championship game at this
point meaningless. North Carolina lost two NC State and now
you look at the exact same thing happening today with
Clemson losing, with l I shoo losing the SEC title
game loses some of its luster. I think the discussion
that we need to start having is who is great?

(43:23):
Because I don't know that anybody is, like, I know
what we said, it's Georgia and everybody else. I don't
even think Georgia is like overwhelmingly great. I think we
could see more of a wide open Final four than
we think, just because I've seen all of these teams
play with C plus C minus games at times, it
feels like it's more up for grabs to me than

(43:45):
I thought it was gonna be two weeks ago. So
let me ask you, because that was something I did
want to get to at some point in the show,
was why do you think that is? Is it? Is
it just the anomaly of this year? Um or is it?
Because to me, I do think there is something to
the changes that we see in college football where you

(44:07):
have a transfer portal where now in Alabama, who finished
the regular season tenant to this year, Um, you know
they can't just hoard talent on top of talent on
top of talent. And what ends up happening is a
few things that I think some are obvious, some aren't.
Is that one, you have the injuries that can be
a factor if guys get hurt, the caliber of talent

(44:27):
isn't quite as good. I think the other part that's
important is you're not practicing against the level of talent
that you once wore. So you have the transfer portal
stuff where I think it works both ways. Where you
have in Alabama that isn't quite as dominant as they
usually are. Uh, you have certainly a Clemson doesn't look
as deep and talented as they usually are. I know

(44:48):
a lot of what they their problems were were quarterback
related in some cases, but that defense wasn't elite this
year relative to some other years. And again maybe part
of that is they lose their their defensive coordinator, brand
Venables as well. But then I think it also works
the other way to right L L s U. They
do lose tonight, but they're playing for an SEC title
next week. USC is eleven and one and playing for
a College Football Playoff appearance TCU. I don't know that

(45:09):
they hit the portal like quite as hard as some
of those other teams, but they're twelve and oh in
Sunny Dike's first year. I think that to me is
is why and not only do we not see any
great teams this year, I I do wonder if this
is going to be the new norm where maybe there
isn't as much of a gap between one and six,
one and seven, one and eight, two and ten um

(45:32):
because I don't know. I just think that's something that
we may have to like re readjust and recalibrate where
you can't just pencil not only in Alabama into the playoff,
but but a win in the playoff. And I do
wonder if it's because of all these changes we've seen
across college football. Yeah, you know, I think that, and
I've I've said this before. The biggest changes depth has

(45:55):
become an issue for teams where depth was not an
issue before. Because to your point, if you're a great quarterback,
great wide receiver, great linebacker, great pass rusher, whatever it is,
you're not gonna sit and wait your turn, because there's
gonna be an opportunity to cash in somewhere else, and
it's gonna be an opportunity to to make money, to

(46:15):
also start, and to be in a position to play
for a college football playoff first. So you can't just
as you mentioned, hoard the talent. For example, like Georgia
might be great. They might be, but the last two
weeks just make me think there are another team that's
fine to coast and maybe when they're pushed against it,
we'll see what they did to Tennessee in the College

(46:36):
Football Playoff. And they are still I mean, I still
think they're the best team. Don't get me wrong, I
just I still I haven't seen a killer instinct from
them at all times. Maybe they just don't feel like
they have to show it here and they'll have a
couple of slow starts here. But then they ended up
blowing out Georgia Tech in the second half of that game.
But I do think that there is I don't know
if I call it parody. I just think that the

(46:58):
level of elite play has dropped across the country because
more of the talent has spread out. There are more
teams that have studs that in the past wouldn't have
had studs. That doesn't mean that there aren't teams that
are just loaded with talent, but I just feel like
the guys that used to sit on the bench, that

(47:20):
we're able to come in and spell some of those guys.
Those dudes are playing for the opponents of those teams
now and that has changed things around. And so I
just think that I think that shifted. I just think
college football has changed in that regard. Whereas like, if
you're asking me to pick who's gonna win at all,
I'm still gonna say Georgia, but I'm not gonna be

(47:41):
quite as emphatic about it right now, just because I
have seen some reason to doubt virtually everybody, whether it's
a quarterback, whether it's defense, whether it's something. It just
feels like you better show up with your best stuff
or you're gonna find yourself on the on the outside
looking in. I mean, and Nick Saban made this point

(48:02):
after the Iron Bowl today. He said, look, we should
have a chance to play in the college football Playoff
because we lost two games, both of them on the
last play of the game. So it's not like they
got blown out in either one of them. They lost
to two pretty good football teams. He's not gonna get
that opportunity, I don't think. Although with what we saw
today and maybe what you could see next week, I guess.

(48:23):
I guess maybe there's some possibility out there, but I
don't sense that that's going to happen. But I just
think there's a lot of these teams that are a
minus B plus level and as a result, it's kind
of hard from week to week to figure out what's
going to happen. That's why we had that kind of
blood bath of a week last week where nobody saw

(48:44):
coming some of the things that ended up almost happening,
and then later in the evening did happen. So you
mentioned a minute ago, um, you know, some some results
that we haven't even gotten two, which is shame on me.
Disager has definitely updated everybody. But Clemson does lose today,
they're done. They're done, and they're there. There's know that
that's one other team that was kind of they were
the one that needed help in front of them, But

(49:05):
it doesn't matter now because they they lose and they're out.
So it does bring up an interesting question Jason Um.
We have Georgia right now. I believe no matter what
they do their twelve and one, even if they were
to lose in the SEC championship game, they're in the playoffs. Yeah, yeah,
they're twelve and no. Excuse me would be uh even
if they were to lose to fall to twelve and
one last week, they're stowing the playoff Michigan. It's the same, right,

(49:27):
they beat the two best teams in the Big Ten.
I know they're playing pretty next week. It does not
matter they beat Penn State, they want at Ohio State.
They're gonna get in even if they lose next week.
TCU is an interesting one. Yes they're undefeated, but you'll
lose next week. You're not a conference champion. There's a
debate over whether you should be in. And USC, of
course with one loss, they would if if they were

(49:50):
to lose next week, would have two losses and they
would be out. So let's just TCU. I think whatever,
we'll leave them aside. Let's say USC loses, USC would
be an eleven and two. They wouldn't be the Pack
twelve champ. They would have lost twice to probably Utah.
At that point, we'll see what ends up happening in
this Washington Washington State game, UM USC eleven and two

(50:11):
Alabama would be tenant to with with to coach Saban's point,
uh two losses on the final play, Now, I would
argue a little bit, Yeah, but you also won on
the final play against Texas A and M you one
in the final seconds against Old Miss, you one in
the final seconds against Texas. So so I'm not, I'm not.
I'm not. He's going to make the case first team,
but you can't blame him for that. I'm not crying

(50:32):
too many tears for for Nick Saban, But you have
eleven and one Ohio State. I would think if if
just USC loses, do you think it's fair to say
that an eleven and one Ohio State team which just
got destroyed in their biggest game of the year, they
would still have that inside track for that fourth spot. Man.
I'll tell you recentcly bias is a thing, and the

(50:54):
last time we saw Ohio State they look terrible. And
by the way, it's the last time we will see
Ohio State, which I think is important to note as well. Yep, exactly.
So let's say USC is a two lost football team,
but USC also had to play an extra game that
Ohio State's not going to have the privilege to play
first of all, but not be forced to play either. Like,

(51:15):
if you were to end it right now, they both
have one loss, and who would you put in now?
Like after watching Ohio State today, I'm still probably gonna
put in USC quite frankly, even though because Ohio State
it's not like they've had anything too impressive. They have
what one common opponent between the two of them, with
Notre Dame. I think USC Ohio State, Yeah, I think
I think that's right. Maybe maybe USC has played another

(51:37):
Big ten team this year, but it's not been some
kind of murderers row for Ohio State. The last impression
they made was a horrendous impression, especially the fact that
the last half was just such a disaster for Ohio State.
It's not like they were competing to win the game
in the fourth quarter, like they felt completely apart and
got beaten by three touchdowns and that that that just

(52:00):
a bad look. It's hard to come back from that.
I I they can still get in because they're one
lost team. And again, preseason rankings tell you that Ohio
State is supposed to be in they were supposed to
be in before the season started. What are we hear
all the time before the season started, the two most
talented teams Alabama and Ohio State. Maybe neither one of

(52:22):
them man's up in. If either one of them does,
I think a large part of the reason is because
of what they were predicted to do before the season,
as opposed to maybe what we've seen at times from
both of them. Well, really quick, and we gotta head
to break here in a minute, But that is it's ironic,
right because that's literally the whole argument against TCU, And frankly,

(52:45):
I think it's a little bit of an argument against
a tenant to Tennessee team which has an identical record
to Alabama UH and has a head to head win
over Alabama. I mean to me, if we're talking about
a tenant to tenant tennant too Alabama team, well you
gotta talk about the tenant to tennis team that beat them.
But with that said, I don't think they're going to
But again, I think, just just to that point, your

(53:06):
point on preseason rankings from day one has been spot
on in that you know, I'm not as big of
a like anti playoff Committee. Oh my god, they're out
to screw the little guy. But there is some brand
bias and it would be very interesting to see if
USC were to falter, even if TCU were to falter.
I don't think they should be out based on that,
but I think they very well might be if they

(53:28):
were to lose. Next week, Fox Sports Radio eritords Jason
Martin coming up, one last thought on Michigan. Ohio State
will get to some NFL. That's next, Fox Sports Radio.
Welcome back everybody, Fox Sports Radio, Fox Sports Saturday, Aaron Torres,
Jason Martin here Saturday night into Sunday morning. By the way,
speaking of which football fans, be sure to tune into

(53:50):
Fox Sports Radios count Down to Kickoff, presented by bed
MGM on Sunday morning, three hours before kickoff. That's right.
Tune in on Sunday morning at ten am Eastern as
we take live all the way to kick Off on
Fox Sports Radio and the I Heart Radio at presented
by bet MGM. So, Jason, well, we'll get to the
NFL in a second. I wanted to ask you one

(54:10):
final question about Ohio State Michigan, and obviously we'll talk
maybe about it a little bit more at the top
of next hour, just reset the show. But my my
question for you is this. We spent almost all of
our one talking about the ramifications for Ohio State, Ryan Day,
what's next all that stuff. By the way, we do
have a final in Kansas Kansas State. Kansas State will
be the team that plays TCU next week in the

(54:32):
Big Twelve championship game. Kansas State putting the finishing touches
on a win against Kansas But what I want to
ask you, Jason, was what does the win for Michigan
now back to back years, how does it change your
perspective or does it change your perspective on Jim Harbaugh
Because this was a guy that took heat forever, could
not beat Ohio State, most specifically under Urban Meyer. But

(54:54):
now he's two and oh in the last two years
against Ryan day um and I don't think there's any
doubt right now they are the premier program in that conference.
Not to say Ohio State can't get back there literally
a year from now, but a second win, a second
straight resounding win, has your opinion of Jim Harbaugh changed?
And if so, how, Jason? Yeah, of course, because two

(55:16):
years ago, anybody that called him overrated was at least
I wouldn't say you're accurate, but you definitely could argue
it based on the record and what he hadn't done
in terms of success in Michigan. Not that he was
having losing seasons, but that's you're not brought there to
go just above five hundred. You brought there to bet
Ohio State, to beat Michigan State, to win certain games,

(55:39):
and he wasn't doing that. But the guy that coached
at Stanford is the guy that Michigan hired, and what
you've seen over the last two years is the guy
that coached at Stanford still exists and now he's doing
the same kind of thing at Michigan. He was a
guy where it felt like the seat was so hot
that they were just gonna go ahead and cash this

(56:00):
thing in. Within a couple of years, he probably head
back to the NFL and that was gonna be the
end of it. It's hard not say it's changed. They
gave it time. That's the one thing you can look
at Michigan and say, even the biggest naysayers, I don't
think I would classify myself as that, but I was
probably in the middle of the road at best on
hardball at that point in time. They continued to let

(56:22):
him stay. They let him stay through the pandemic. They'll
let him stay through the outback Bowl years, and you know,
things of that nature. Then all of a sudden you
look up and he's done this last year. Okay, but
coming back this year, especially when we saw him playing
musical chairs with the quarterbacks. To enter this season, he
utilized a week schedule to do some some different things.

(56:44):
Some mad scientists like things. But what they've been able
to do and how they've been able to coach up
the guys that have been there, you just don't see
a whole lot of guys go there and play worse
than expected. They seem to be coached up, they seem
to be passionate, they seem to play with a certain
level of energy, a certain edge to them, and that's
a hardball edge. It's an edge that he has had.

(57:07):
So I think it's very hard to say that anybody
would still feel the same about hardball now as they
did two years ago, because the last two years have
been regardless if they go into the college football playoff
and get boat raced again, they've been nothing short of
extraordinary because since Lloyd Carr, when's the last time Michigan
has had something to talk about in consecutive years like this,

(57:31):
I would argue it hadn't happened, and Lloyd Carr, that
wasn't exactly five years ago. It's been a long long time.
So Hardball, if you're gonna be hard on him now,
you actually need to turn that around and say, you
know what, he's done. A hell of a job he has.
And I think the one thing that we need to
consider too is and and I'm sure Bernie will have
more on this later in the show when he joins
us about you know, one twenty Eastern tent Tooni Pacific.

(57:55):
They lost both coordinators after last year, um and some
of it was maybe Jim Harball's own doing. He flirts
with the NFL. Josh Gaddis decides to leave after that.
That was the offensive coordinator. The defensive coordinator who came
from the NFL decided to go back when you know,
he went to back to work for Jim Harbaugh's brother John.
And there's all this talk, and Joel has done a
good job on the broadcast explaining it. But the guy

(58:17):
that they replaced him with comes from the same tree,
coaches the same defense, whatever. But he did it with
two new new new coordinators this year, and so I
want to give him credit. And what I would say
is is I was definitely more in the camp of UM.
I was definitely more in the camp of like, it's
really hard to win ten games every year, um, and
he beats everybody that he's supposed to and and you know,

(58:38):
Ohio State was operating at a really high level. And
I think that's really kind of been my takeaway, especially today,
is um, maybe it just makes us reappreciate how great
of a coach Urban Myra is, right, And you can
talk about all the off the field stuff and who
he is as a person, all that stuff. All I
know is that, as we discussed an hour one, uh,
the Ohio State program, it was and is braiding at

(59:00):
a different level. UM. Not just you know, in wins
and losses, and they won a national championship, but the
way they looked in the way they played in big games,
and they always seem to play their best against Michigan.
So that was really only My only takeaway is you know,
you take out a historically great coach and I I
don't do you know, top five top ten lists. I
don't know if Urban Meyer's top five, top ten, top three, whatever.

(59:22):
I just know he's in a historically great coach that
won a national championship at more than one place, three
national championships overall, and you take that guy out of
the equation, and all of a sudden, it's a much
much different vibe for Jim Harbaugh, who, by the way,
was winning a lot of games before uh these last
two years, just could not get victories over Ohio State.

(59:44):
Now he's winning a lot of regular season games, and
he's winning the game that matters the most against the Buckets. Yeah,
I think that's fair. And I just think that it's
hard to look at two straight seasons like this and
not come away impressed with the coaching job because it
had been so much more difficult and much more of

(01:00:04):
a grind in the years previous. A lot of times
you don't see that rise to the challenge mentality that
it seemed that Michigan found. And it also makes you
question looking at some of these other scenarios and saying, well,
did you cut bait too soon with Tom Herman at
Texas or places like that. Maybe sometimes if you leave

(01:00:26):
them there long enough. If they have the talent you
believed in him to begin with, you have to let
them sink or swim and look one of I mean,
I've been absolutely merciless on Jimbo Fisher. Maybe you gotta
give it time. I think next year has to be
it for him. Maybe that's his Michigan season. But we
could maybe a year from now Aaron be talking about Texas,

(01:00:49):
A and m in much the same way we talked
about Michigan last year. If we're not, we are probably
looking at a new coach. But we do have this
Netflix mentality where we don't even want to watch commercials anymore.
We're gonna stream it. If it's not good within five minutes,
we're gonna watch something else. You're now seeing shows at
record pace and network and cable television be canceled because

(01:01:12):
if they don't get good ratings the first two weeks,
they're not coming. They don't allow shows to grow the
way they did twenty years ago. They've got to cut bait.
They've got to put some game show or something else
on because they feel like the audience is never coming back.
Because if they're not there from the beginning, they're not
getting there. Some things need time to grow. Breaking bad
to terrible ratings, especially for its first two years in

(01:01:35):
terms of its audience, and then it caught fire, became
because it became a cultural touchdown Michigan. We weren't watching
that thing for a little while. It was more hate watching.
It was more dumpster fire is kind of stuff. I
remember watching a Michigan Florida game to open a season
and just saying, yeah, man, this is not it. This
is not it. How long is Michigan gonna put up

(01:01:56):
with us? Well, it seems like they're fine putting up
with it right out. Fox Sports Radio edit tourist Jason
Martin here on a Saturday night. I actually have another
thought on that conversation and what it could mean for
two other programs will discuss that next. Before we do that,
let's throw it to the news desk, Dave de Sager,
what is trend name? Well, we will know in a

(01:02:17):
few hours who USC is playing in the Pact twelve
title game. That conference championship is Friday night in Las Vegas.
Quarterback Caleb Williams at the l A Coliseum tonight at
four total touchdowns, six ranked USC beating Notre Dame thirty
eight to seven. Utah is still alive to be the
Trojan's opponent next Friday. Guests who there one loss was

(01:02:39):
to It was Utah's last minute touchdown and two point
conversion that kept Deesse from a twelve and oh season.
So disiga really quick. If Washington wins, are they in?
Is that right? No? It's between Oregon and ut Okay,
So if Washington beats Washington State, Utah is in. Yeah,
so Oregon they need Washington to lose tonight. And the

(01:03:02):
reason why Oregon is still in it is cut. Just
last week Oregon at home beat Utah in the head
to head matchup, So if they finished tied head to
head in the standings, that doesn't help the Utes. So
how does Utah still have a chance. Well, because there
are no divisions anymore in the FACT twelve conference. Therefore,
if Washington wins tonight, there's a three way tie for

(01:03:23):
second place, and Utah would win the tiebreaker highest combined
winning percentage in conference games among the conference opponents between
those three. In fact, Utah needs four things to happen
this weekend. They've almost all happened already. U C L
A B CAL and then Utah won it's game against
Colorado and Oregon got upset and Utah needs Washington to

(01:03:45):
win tonight. Utah, Wow, they would finish well. They only
have two conference losses. Oregon has two conference losses. That's
that's how things stand. But yeah, they need a Washington
win the utes Washington's losing ten seven at Washington State
early in the second quarter. And a programming note on
FS one, it is just finished. Texas Tech in overtime

(01:04:07):
beats Oklahoma Oklahoma six and six for the season. They
missed a thirty four yard field goal in the OT
and so now f FS one is going to carry
b y U which leads seven three at Stanford in
the first quarter of play. Air Force leads in the
four three at San Diego State. But not a lot

(01:04:27):
of else going on in college football. We mentioned the
USC win ranked sixth in the country, l s U
right number five lost at Texas A and m thirty
eight to twenty three. Michigan gotta win at Ohio State three.
The Oregon State victory. They trailed at home against ninth
ranked Oregon thirty one TAN late in the third quarter
and still the Beavers won the game at home thirty

(01:04:49):
eight to thirty four. Central Florida ranked twenty two, gotta
win at South Florida forty six thirty nine now South
Florida one and eleven. This year, UCF had blown a
thirty won seven third quarter lead and still scored a
touchdown with under thirty seconds left to win on the road.
Nebraska's new head coaches Matt Rule World Cup Argentina shutout

(01:05:10):
Mexico to nothing. Among the four NBA games, Lakers one
at San Antonio one forty three to one, thirty eight.
And in college hoops, Syracuse lost at home at the
Buzzers Bryant seventy three seventy two, and Clemson beat Cal.
In college hoops, you have Clemson football lost it home
to South Carolina by a point, but Clemson basketball with

(01:05:31):
a win on the road. Why do I bring it up?
Because Cal men's basketball is now oh and seven, the
first major conference team in the last forty seasons to
start their season oh and seven. If Louisville loses Tuesday
hosting Maryland, Louisville would join them at oh and seven,
according to ESPN stats. Back to you, okay, multiple choice
question to Sager, which college basketball brand is the deadest Syracuse,

(01:05:55):
Louisville or Georgetown. Jason feel free to chime in as well.
Georgetown phils Georgetown to me, Yeah, that's probably the right answer. Um,
I just can't believe how bad Syracuses and Beheim so
checked out there. I mean we we could do the
song and dance always alleged, always this, always that. Yeah,
but he's paid to coach games right now, and like

(01:06:16):
the guy is so unbelievably checked out. Louisville first year
head coach will see if he works, Pat Ewing. The
era is coming to an end at some point, God Syracuses.
So you're saying that Beheim is like Jeff Fisher at
the end of his career. He's just kind of showing up.
He's still getting paid, but okay, he's gotta be out
of it. I actually heard Jim Beheim say before the season,
we're not f and going fifteen and fifteen this year.

(01:06:39):
Oh wait, no, he didn't say that at all. But yeah,
I think he's been checked out for about ten years now,
but neither here nor there, So retire then and let
somebody else have the job, like don't forever. But that's
a serious he's got new recruits for grandkids in a
few years, and it's gonna stick around. You don't have
to die being bald and cantankerous on the sideline. You

(01:07:01):
can just go to the cut and let someone else
take the job. I mean, coach k left, you can leave.
Roy Williams left, Jim go home. You're a legend. Jay
Wright left with his hair and his good looks. Jim Behnd,
Jim Beyhe just wants something to do. I'm convinced of it.
But thank you to singer. Bill Snyder was in attendance
watching k State football tonight. He was not on the sideline,

(01:07:23):
still coaching case. There you go. That's a great example. Anyway,
thank you to Sager and I I do agree Georgetown's
probably right answer. But Syracuse is really bad. Uh. Fox
Sports Radio editors Jason Martin, So uh, the singer just
told you, and I want your opinion on this, Jason.
We just talked a lot about the hardball, you know,
him getting that extra year and it was a weird

(01:07:45):
year COVID whatever in which they really struggled. But they
were at a breaking point last year going into that
Ohio State game where he again it was it was
almost the Ryan Day situation from today. Jim Jim Jim
Harball wasn't getting fired if they lost to Ohio State
last year and they were ten and one, but it
felt kind of like, Okay, if they don't do it
this year, it's never gonna happen anyway. The point I'm

(01:08:06):
trying to make he gets that extra year they beat
Ohio State, they go to College Football Playoff, win the
Big Ten, and it appears as though they're going to
at the very least when I go to the college
Football Playoff for the second straight year, probably win the
Big Ten next week as well. Here's why I bring
it up. It's because today we got news about two
coaching vacancies that that are are available to two biggest ones,

(01:08:26):
and the Sager just told you the one that is official.
Matt Rule is the head coach at Nebraska. He is,
of course, most recently of the Carolina Panthers that did
not work out. We'll talk about the Panthers later, as
Sam Donald is once again the starting quarterback there. But
I bring it up because, um, what do you make
about Matt Rule? Because I'll say this real quick and
I'll toss it over to you one you know, we

(01:08:48):
don't know if any of these guys are gonna work.
But Nebraska, I think this is about, in theory as
good as they could have done. Because Matt Rule did
have success at Baylor his final year, they win eleven games. Uh.
In this college football playoff world that we live in,
they make the Big Twelve title game, and they could
have made the actual college football Playoff if they had
won there. And so I bring it up because I

(01:09:08):
think this is about as well as Nebraska could have done.
I don't know if he's the guy. I still believe
that in a perfect world, they're not Ohio State in Michigan.
But can they make a twelve team playoff as a
as an at large team? I think so. Um, but
this is another example of you know, is this guy
gonna be a guy that gets time to do it
his way? Maybe that extra year that his predecessor Scott

(01:09:30):
Frost Scott because this is a rebuild. But I'm just
curious for your thoughts on that one. I mean, I
I agree with you. I think it's probably about as
good as they could do. I don't know what guy
they're getting. I don't know if they're getting the guy
from Baylor, And look, I'm not as impressed with what
he did at Baylor because I saw our Briles winning Baylor.
I saw Dave Randa Winn and Baylor had a tough
year this year, but what they did last year. I've

(01:09:51):
seen some people succeeded Baylor, but I saw Matt Rules
succeeded Temple. That's where I look at and say, he
knows what he's doing as a college football coach. May
I work out in the NFL, but would you give
him a college job? He didn't have all the baggage
on him. I mean, he said some dumb stuff, and
a lot of the stuff that he did in Carolina
wasn't particularly great, not in terms of how he coached,

(01:10:13):
but just some of the stuff he said and the
Jay Z quote and all that kind of stuff, and
just there was a lot of cringe with Matt Rule.
But you bring him to Nebraska. He understands how to
coach college football. He understands how to how to probably
maximize talent in that area of the country as well,
because it's not that far away from where he was
in a state of Texas. So I look at it

(01:10:34):
and I say, is he going to be Nick Saban,
probably not. But if he comes in and he's a
guy that wins you eight or nine games at Nebraska,
that might be the ceiling for right now. And I
think if you're a Nebraska fan, you have to kind
of look at that and say, we'll take that and
we can see if we can build upon that. The
one thing you can look at in the Big Ten

(01:10:55):
right now and say pretty clearly that that conference is
open for the taking. Outside of the top two spots,
you can come at. You can come at Penn State,
you can come at Michigan State, you can definitely come
at Iowa, you can come at a lot of these
other schools. That's maybe what you wanna do right now.
You're even Baylor, right you You weren't probably ever gonna

(01:11:16):
be a program consistently better than Oklahoma, or consistently better
most of the time probably than Oklahoma State or Texas
or something to that degree, but you were gonna be
kind of in the mix. And that's He's succeeded in
a spot where you never succeed at Temple and where
it is certainly more challenging to succeed at Baylor. So

(01:11:36):
if you're Nebraska, I do think you should view this
as a home run, even if I look at it
and say it might end up being a double. Yeah.
The only um, I think the big thing is you
just look it's cliche. You just you never know. Uh.
The one thing, I I think you can look at
it as a positive or negative. You know, he got
so much he is getting so much money from the

(01:11:58):
Carolina Panthers. Are you getting that young hungry guy that
that Temple got and that Baylor got? But I think
you could look at it from the opposite too. I've
seen some people say that, and what I would say is,
but it's clear that he wants to get back into
this thing, and is he gonna get back into this
thing to do it at six? I mean, I if
if if he wasn't fully committed, it feels like he

(01:12:19):
could have just set this year out. Um and so
because of it, um so because of it. I I
think it's nothing but a positive. But it'll be interesting
that one is official today. The latest at Auburn is
that he frees is the leader in the clubhouse. There
nothing official is Lane Kiffin signs an extension, pulls his
name out of the running Fox Sports radio errant. Towards
Jason Martin. Here one segment to go at the top

(01:12:40):
of the hour. Of course, we are until the top
of the hour. We are broadcasting live from the tirect
dot com studios. Plut Team more. Next, Fox Sports Radio,
Welcome back everybody. Fox Sports Radio Air towards Jason Bartin,
broadcasting live from the tirect dot com studios. And this
is the Fox Sports Radio Tailgate presented by the Big
Green Egg. Nothing beats a flavor of live fire cooking

(01:13:02):
on a Big Green Egg. It's the most versatile grill
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dot Com, lifetime warranty, free home delivery, Big green egg
dot Com for We were just joining us Big stories
of the night one from the l A Coliseum. The
Sacre just told you a minute ago. But USC does

(01:13:23):
win yet again to go ahead and improve to eleven
and one on the season, thirty eight to twenty seven
the final score. There still trying to figure out who
they will play in the Pac twelve Championship game, but
if USC does get the victory UH next week, they
will be in the College Football Playoff and the other
score of note was of all places Jason Martin College

(01:13:44):
Station Texas, where Texas A and M finishes their regular
season at five and seven overall, but it does include
a victory over the the fifth ranked LSU Tigers. Tonight.
L s U was nine and two had kind of
a back door to the playoff if they could beat Georgia.
There of course going to play in the SEC Championship
game next week, but A and M wins. Jason Martin,

(01:14:06):
have you done a complete one eighty on Jimbo Fisher
now that he's beating the top five LSU team tonight? Jess, No,
what did I What did I text you guys early
in the first quarter of LSU Texas A and M.
I said, I've had this few in all week. L
s U might lay an egg tonight. I don't really
know why, other than just A M still has some
talented players and just because there was no pressure at

(01:14:27):
all on them, like they were gonna be able to
go play free and clear. And already knew that a
HM was good. We talked about that all year long. Well,
he had over two yards on the ground. L s
U ran into a team that just felt like playing
and to the last three weeks l s U hasn't
looked exactly dominant out there, and last week they played nobody.
So you can look at it and just say it's

(01:14:49):
still been a great year for them, But that's not
a team that deserves to be in a college football playoff,
even if they beat george as far as I'm concerned,
not after losing the way that they lost to Tennessee.
If nothing else, it's hard for me to have seen
them ranked above USC, even without USC having the kind
of signature win. But it's set the stage. I understood

(01:15:10):
why they did it because it's set the stage for Okay,
you go beat Georgia, you're in. That's that's in effect
what it was saying. Because one of Michigan Ohio State
was gonna lose, and then TCU had a chance to lose,
USC I think could have leaped frogdom. But if you
beat the number one team, the team that's been number
one basically in most people's minds all year long, the

(01:15:31):
team that has dethroned a few other hopefuls along the way,
most notably what they did to Tennessee, it would have
made sense, but it was gonna shake itself out either
they beat Georgia or they weren't gonna matter anyway, So
they were a five seed to me in name only,
in a lot of respects. But then losing to A
and M. I mean, it certainly takes some of the

(01:15:52):
luster off of the SEC title game, and that now
l s U. Even if they were to beat Georgia
Georgia's end and l s US out, it doesn't really
change anything from that overall perspective. But I do think
it's a good thing just because I didn't really want
to see Ella shoot in the college football playoff. I
think they've had a great year. Brian Kelly deserves a
ton of credit, a lot of the guys on the
team deserve a ton of credit that that's not what

(01:16:14):
anybody expected them to do. But they're not one of
the four best teams in the country. Yeah, I agree
with all of it. I think the only thing that
it really shows is mayor good or bad, that there
is still a lot of talent on that Texas A
and M roster, and uh, you know, like nobody has
sympathy for Texas A and M, but it is worth noting.
You know, Connor Wegman, who started a quarterback today was

(01:16:36):
the third string guy was never supposed to play this year. Uh,
their best wide receiver was lost early in the year,
a couple starting offensive lineman. And so I thought the
point that you brought up earlier, Jason was actually a
great one on Texas A and M is that, Um,
you know, this year kind of feels like Jimbo Fisher's
jim Hardball and and what yeah, what you meant by

(01:16:57):
that it was Hardball has this awful year. It is
sort of an outlier. Hardball had wanted a higher level
or you know, had won more games more consistently than Jimbo.
But it was such an outlier that Michigan just said,
you know what, We're gonna run it back one more time,
makes some changes, Let's see if we can get this
thing back on track. Now. Michigan won the Big Ten.

(01:17:17):
Michigan made the playoff. I don't think A and MS
Woody the SEC. Next year we'll see about the potential
playoff berth. But I all I think today's shows is
that they have a ton of talent. When they're locked in, Um,
you know, they can play with anybody. Remember this was
a team that in Tuscaloosa and again Bryan Bryce Young
excuse me, was not playing, so that matters. But in

(01:17:38):
Tuscaloosa it came down to the final play. They end
up losing to Alabama. So you beat l s U,
you lose to Bama on the final play. The talent
is there. It did not click this year, in a
year where you were clearly I would are. I don't
think it's a bait. Probably the most disappointing team in
college football. Now you gotta run it back. All those
freshmen who came in this year are gonna be sophomores.

(01:17:58):
And you got a lot to show a lot of
people next season. Jayson, Yeah, and he's got a lot
of money. And the buyout is ridiculous and we all
know this, but I promise you somebody's gonna pay it
next year. Somebody's gonna pay it next year if they
don't win this time. And I think this win doesn't.
I mean, this win helps a little bit, But this
was a disappointment by any metric. I don't care how

(01:18:19):
young you say they are. You also had them ranked
number six in the country in preseason polls, Like, if
you're gonna put that and put them that high. Then
you can't also say, oh, but they're incredibly young, Well
they're incredibly young, then they're not the sixth best team.
If you're gonna make that excuse and you knew it
ahead of time, you can't do that. You can't have
it both ways. You've got to make a decision here.
So next year, maybe don't rank them quite as high,

(01:18:39):
and let's let's watch him actually play football, since I
know we're gonna do preseason rankings again, because that's never
gonna change. But next year is definitely to put up
a shut up here. That means Jim but won't get
another job somewhere else. It does mean that that that
Agge money is going to buy him out. There's no
way they go through another five and seven kind of year,
miss a bowl game or barely scrape into one of

(01:19:02):
the bottom tier bowls. That's not gonna be good enough.
Like he's gonna next year, they better win about nine games.
They maybe they don't have to win the conference, but
they better be in the mix deep into the season.
If they're an afterthought by Thanksgiving there or he's in trouble. Yeah,
the starting quarterback tonight returns three of their top four

(01:19:23):
rushers return and now for now that that's an interesting
conversation we might be having here in the in this
window in the going a couple of days, is uh,
what happens in the off season for Texas A and M.
Remember for people who do not know that transfer portal
is technically closed until the end of next week, Well
it's about to reopen and we will find out who

(01:19:43):
goes where and when. Fox Sports Radio Errant Towards Jason
Martin broadcasting live from the tirect dot com studios. Coming up,
we do go back to Columbus the stunner as Michigan State.
Michigan dominates Ohio State. What does it mean for Ohio State?
What does it mean for Michigan? What does it mean?
A college football playoff? And of course to the NFL

(01:20:03):
where a loaded slate of games awaits us tomorrow on Sunday.
Plenty more. Next, Fox Sports Radio Welcome in everybody our
three Fox Sports Radio Errant tours Jason Martin taking you
up until to a m. Eastern time. We are broadcasting
live from the tirect dot Com studios. Direct dot Com

(01:20:23):
will help you get there and Unmatched Selection Fest, free shipping,
free road hazard protection over ten thousand recommended installers tirect
dot com. The way tire buying should be Jason Martin
eron tours, as I said on a Saturday night, By
the way, you want to tweet into the show at
Aaron Underscore Tours on Twitter at j mart Radio for Jason.

(01:20:43):
By the way, Jason, I gotta I gotta tweet that's
right in your wheelhouse that I don't know if it
was intended for me. Mr Chicken tweets in where's the
Survivor series discussion? It was a great w w E
premium live event. Is there a big w w E
event tonight that we have not hit on yet today? Yeah?

(01:21:05):
There was. I actually haven't seen it because I've had
to watch football today, Mr Chi, I actually yeah, so,
Mr Chicken, that's not a discussion that we can have tonight,
but I'm glad that it was worthy of your time.
Um Survivor series has been kind of hit and miss
for a long long time, but w W has has
seemingly kind of righted the ship a bit in terms
of its creative and the wrestling itself has been more

(01:21:28):
entertaining as of late, so that's a positive result. I'm
glad you dug the show. Um, maybe I'll find a
way to working into a conversation in the future. But yeah,
I have no idea what's happened, which is a good thing.
I'm trying to stay dark on it so i can
watch it for USh. Maybe I'll get to watch it
tomorrow night. Come back next Saturday. J's uh, Mr Mr
Chicken will have a full recap of the Survivor series

(01:21:50):
discussion that we are not having today Fox Sports Radio. Listen.
You know we've talked about it quite a bit to say,
you just told you the big stories. Tonight, USC improves
to eleven and in with a victory over Notre Dame.
If they win the Pack twelve Championship game next week,
they are in the college football playoff. Also Texas A
and M pulling the upset against l s U and
Jason just want to put a bow on the college

(01:22:11):
football conversation once and for all for people who missed it.
Jason and I spent most of our one talking about
Ohio State Michigan from the Ohio State perspective, and I
do want to revisit it because it's not only the
biggest story. This wasn't just the biggest game for all
of the reasons that we know everything that was at stake,
Big ten East Championship, Big Ten Championship game appearance, College

(01:22:31):
Football playoff appearance. But why it's so big is because
of the way things went down and what the result
ultimately ended up being. And everybody in the car by
now driving around probably knows at least some of the details.
As Michigan came into the game as a seven and
a half point underdog, I actually saw and we'll ask
Bernie this next hour. I think even the line even

(01:22:54):
expanded prior to kick off with the news that Blake Corham,
Michigan's All American running back, was not it was. He
was available, but he was very limited, big knee brace
barely played the backup running back Donovan Edwards, who's been
really good. Um he was in he had a cast
on one hand. And so all the money came pouring
in on Ohio, on on Ohio State earlier today. Yet

(01:23:16):
despite it, Ohio State loses forty five to twenty three
as Michigan not only wins, but dominates for a second
straight year. And what we said to open the show, Jason,
I think it's important to know this was the game
where last year there were a lot of things going
against Ohio State. We heard the rumors that there was
the flu kind of ravaging the locker room. It was

(01:23:38):
in an arbor, cold weather, I see snowy. Everything that
could be going in Michigan's favor was in Michigan gets
to win. Well, this year it's in Columbus. It's a
breezy fifty fifty five degrees, no weather conditions to speak of. Michigan,
as we just said, was far from add percent. Now
it's worth noting Ohio State was down a few key
guys as well, but at home home as a seven

(01:24:01):
and a half eight nine point favorite by kickoff Jason.
Everybody thought Ohio State was gonna get this victory. Even I.
I liked Michigan all week, but when I heard the
Blake corm news, I got nervous. And Ohio State not
only loses, but the manner in which it happened, as
it looked a lot like last year. They get punked
at the line of scrimmage late and Michigan wins this
one running away literally in figuratively. Did you see the

(01:24:24):
tweet from Michigan's punter oh no, I did not. We
got punter tweets, now we do. I saw it in
an ESPN article, but I'm actually looking at it right now.
Brad Robbins, Michigan's punter weather was nice. We were taking
seriously they didn't have the flu any more excuses, thank you?
Yeah that I mean real quick. The thing last year. Listen,

(01:24:48):
it's evolved into something whatever, But it did almost, I
don't want to quite call it like the the Bowl
game where the upset happens and you hear, oh, well,
that team didn't want to be there. But that tweet
really encapsulates what I don't want to say it was
the narrative, because the narrative coming out of last year
was Michigan breaks the streak all that stuff. But as

(01:25:10):
the year goes on, you just start to get more
and more and more, like you just said, of oh,
you know, the rumor is they really had the flu.
And and C. J. Stroud he was used on an
ivy an hour before kickoff, and it's almost like one
of those like your parents talking about going to school
back in the day barefoot that Yeah, it started with

(01:25:32):
it was a cold day and then your parents are
going uphill both ways and six ft of snow um
And that's kind of what the Ohio State thing was,
right like. It's like it started with it was a
cold day and Michigan just had the right game plan
and by the end whatever, and so you know, I
did not see this tweet, but I think it very
much to me, again encapsulates why today was so shocking. Now,

(01:25:52):
I picked Michigan. I was a little nervous going into
the game, but even in a as a guy who
picked Michigan, I did not see the scenario where for
the second straight year, Ohistate got punked by the end
of the game. And they were good early. Michigan could
not run the ball early, but they broke a few
plays in the past game and then it was just

(01:26:13):
the same thing as last year, where where they played
tight Ryan Day coach tight punted the ball a few times,
you know, especially late in the game when they're down
by by two scores, and it just looked a lot
like last year. No excuses, Michigan was the better team.
And here's the reality, Michigan has surpassed Ohio State at
least right now, is the best program in this conference,

(01:26:35):
as they will almost certainly I can't see any scenario
where they're not headed to a second straight college football playoff. No,
I don't either, and I mean Kevin Warren, the Big
Ten commissioner, this was an instant classic, easy fella, it was.
It was an It was an instant classic half. It
was a great first half, but in the second half,
one team clearly dominated the other one showed that it belonged.

(01:27:00):
You're saying both teams need to get in. I know
that your job as a Big Ten commissioner. I looked
at that Ohio State team in that performance. I saw
what C. J. Stroud said as Solar Ryan. They said,
they're making their case, and of course they should. But
I have not been impressed with Ohio State for about
a month at least like that. And I think that
they have had other smatterings at times where they've had

(01:27:20):
a bad half here and there and there. You can
pick apart anybody, but this second half to me was
indicative of This is kind of what I think has
been in the back of our heads about Ohio State
all year long. It's like, I know how much talent
you have, but eventually you actually have to do something right,
like you might be the greatest guitar player ever. You

(01:27:44):
might be surrounded by the greatest drummer ever, the greatest
spaces ever, and the greatest voice ever. But if you
guys can't make a good album, if you guys can't
perform live effectively, you're not gonna make it as a band.
You're gonna go down as the greatest that never was. Eventually,
you are what you are, and this Ohio State team

(01:28:05):
you just keep thinking, well, they're like Golden State. They're
just gonna be able to flip a switch and turn
it on. That was always the argument, because you knew
how much skill talent they had, and the recruiting numbers
and everything else. But when it came down to it,
the switch wasn't there for him in the second half.
It just wasn't. And maybe that's because the switch was
never there to begin with. This is just who these

(01:28:26):
guys are well, and that was I forget if I
said this an hour one or not, but that was
part of the reason why I did pick Michigan is because, um, listen,
I think the narrative that we discussed an hour one
is the narrative that most people said this week. We're
not claiming it as our own, but that Michigan or
Ohio State is the more talented team, but Michigan has
been the more consistent one. And what with the Ohio

(01:28:49):
State thing when it kind of reminded me of and
this is the part that I don't remember if I
said it in our one or not. It reminded me
of the Alabama situation, right like, like all you go
back to last year with Alabama and every week it's like,
you know, you know what I mean, just just wait
till next year. It didn't click this year, but everybody's
coming back next year. And then this year started and
you play at Texas and well, you know, it's Texas

(01:29:10):
and it was a record crowded. Wait until Alabama puts
it all together. And then they play A and M
and they barely went and then they lose to Tennessee
and then they lose to l s U. And he
just realized they're not gonna put it together. It hasn't happened. No, wait,
they have put it together, but what they've put together
is not as special as you thought it was, like
their completed form. You saw it in those moments where

(01:29:32):
you were saying, wait till they wait till they put
it together, wait till they complete their voltron. Unfortunately they
had already completed it. Like that's actually the puzzle, Like
there was no peace left to add to it at all.
It just wasn't quite as good as you thought it
was gonna be. Well and exactly, and that's why, and
that's where I was gonna go with the with the
Ohio State thing is you know, there were days where

(01:29:54):
the offense really clicked. Uh, there were days where the
defense was really good. There was days where the defense
carried them when the offense wasn't very good, but they
never put it together. Um and and and part of
the reason why I picked Michigan is it just got
to a point where it was again it was all
the excuses where they're playing Northwestern, Well, the weather and that,
you know week one against a Notre Dame, well, you know,

(01:30:15):
Jackson Smith and jib But goes out and this this
week it's tre ViOn Henderson, and that week it's this
and this week it's the weather, and this week it's
and it's like at some point you gotta show me,
like you gotta put it all together, like like we
can argue about like USC right, like like USC clearly
not as talented whatever, but like you kind of get
the same team every single week. The defense struggles because

(01:30:36):
the defense isn't that talented, which is what happens when
you go four and eight and have to replace like
a third year roster through the transfer portal. You get
the same result every week from USC. They gotta put
up a lot of points. The defense isn't great. This
is how they have to win. Same with TCU. Michigan
is the same every week. Georgia's had ups and downs,
but we've certainly seen them play their best football at

(01:30:57):
some point. And with Ohio State, we just I mean,
I was saying about the stage, Jason, and I'd be
lying if I said I watched every second of every
Ohio State game. But what was the game where they
absolutely put it all together? Notre Dame, they struggled. It
was Opening night. We were on air during that game
something like that. Yeah, I mean, you know, maybe the

(01:31:18):
Wisconsin game if you remember that was early in the year.
I think they were up like twenty eight nothing at
some point. That was the last weekend in September, and
so it's like, you know, you go through a season
where you play Maryland. Last week, Maryland has the ball
on the final drive with a chance to win the game.
Northwestern it was the weather Penn State. You're trailing middle
of the fourth quarter, Iowa. The offense isn't clicking, and

(01:31:40):
you're settling for a million field goals, and it's like
at some point we just but we watched that game, Jason,
and they had to settle for a million field goals
in the first half, and Iowa's defense could not get
off the field because their offense could not stay on
the field, and they eventually wore down. But Iowa's defense
did its job in the first half. In the offense
was just so bad. And so I just bring it

(01:32:02):
up because every single week it was a new thing,
and I was actually surprised. I mean I I was
surprised this week when I saw the number of people
that I did say, well, you know, we we've we've
been kind of questioning Ohio State all week, but you
know they're gonna win this game. And so so I'm
not taking a victory lap because I questioned it at
certain points throughout the day going into the game, but

(01:32:25):
this is who they've been all year. I'm not surprised
and as as it kind of heads to a conversation
that we had an hour one, it does fall in
the head coach Ryan Day. You brought up the point
he's forty five and four. I think he is as
a head coach, but you gotta beat Michigan iView of the
the Ohio State coach and to lose two years in
a row in the same fashion after he spent all
off season telling us that you had made the changes

(01:32:46):
needed to learn from last year, it looked much the
same today. Yeah, I was watching Florida and Florida State
Friday night. They brought up the stat that Florida State
had won their last five games by points and said that,
you know, it was the question of the night or whatever.
Who who has the longest streak of plus point wins
in college football this season? What was Ohio State, Arkansas State, Toledo,

(01:33:09):
a bad Wisconsin team, Rutgers, a bad Michigan State team,
and Iowa team that struggles to score against anybody. Those
are your six right there that won that award. This
was a team where you really go and you look
at the slate. Were they battle tested playing against Michigan?
I don't think so I don't think so at all.

(01:33:29):
As a matter of fact, you can make the same
argument for Michigan, but Michigan already was super physical and
played a different kind of style that required running over
you as opposed to style pointing you to death. They
played Notre Dame. They are much better team now than
they were in Week one, and then they played nobody
until maybe if you want to say Penn State, who

(01:33:50):
certainly has been pretty good this year, and you beat
them by thirteen. Outside of that, there's nobody else that
you played that I considered to be particularly good, like
all year long. That's it. And then you go run
into Michigan at home and you get smacked in the mouth.
Who has been able to smack Ohio State in the
mouth based on that schedule, Almost no one, which is why,

(01:34:12):
and we're gonna do this. We need to start talking
more about TCU because undefeated TCU and their battle tested
nature and who they've had to go through in close
ball games. I don't even care style points. I don't
even care they put up sixty three today. TCU deserves
the respect that Ohio State has gotten, even though they

(01:34:33):
necessarily haven't earned it based on their schedule. Well, I'll
tell you what. We're gonna have more time to talk
about TCU because, um, they played for the Big twelve
Championship next week, and I think at this point, I
think there's an argument that even if they were to lose,
I'm not convinced that they get left out of the playoff.
But we have more time. Excuse me to talk about that.
Fox Sports Radio errant towards Jason Martin here on a

(01:34:55):
Saturday night. Coming up, we will transition to the NFL.
A lot happen off the field this week. It sets
up for a fascinating Sunday on the field NFL next
Fox Sports Radio, Welcome back, everybody, Fox Sports Radio editors.
Jason Martin here Saturday night, Sunday on the East Coast.

(01:35:15):
This is the Fox Sports Radio tail Gate presented by
the Big Green Egg. Nothing meets the flavor of live
fire cooking on a Big Green Egg. It's the most
versatile grill you'll ever own, backed by lifetime warranty roll
with the best shop online for free delivery at Big
green egg dot com, Lifetime warranty, free home delivery, Big
green egg dot Com. As I said, it is Sunday

(01:35:36):
on the East coast. We have talked plenty of college football.
If you missed any of it, make sure to go
back and download the podcast available shortly after the show.
But it is time to switch over to the NFL. Jason, Uh,
couple big stories off of the field this week. And
and you know, obviously we already had three games on Thursday.
But but I think the big one and I know

(01:35:57):
it's a little bit older at this point, but it
is interesting and it does, you know, kind of pertain
to a playoff team. Uh. And that is, of course,
Zach Wilson getting benched for the New York Jets. Jets
lose to the Patriots. It's ugly, it's sloppy, Zach Wilson
goes to the podium, takes no accountability for his actions
and for his lack of basically production at all. And

(01:36:19):
I thought it was interesting, right. Robert Sala that day
on Sunday says, you know, benching Zack's the furthest thing
from my mind. A few days later, they officially announced
that Mike White is going to be starting this week.
Zach Wilson has been benched. Uh, what do you think, Jason,
as with the Jets have a new quarterback at least
four tomorrow, and keep in mind, with the Patriots loss
on on Thursday, excuse me, the Jets are back in

(01:36:42):
the playoff picture. If the season ended today, the Jets
are in the playoffs. But obviously it has been despite
the quarterback play, not because of it. Well, I think
we may have lost Jason here for just half a moment,
so I so I will continue the conversation on Zach Wilson,
and I guess what I would say about the Zach

(01:37:03):
Wilson situation. I do want Jason's opinion on this coming up. Ultimately,
I don't I don't think it's that big of a surprise.
First of all, you you do have the situation where, um,
you know, Zack Wilson was just terrible right n of
twenty two, passing seventy seven yards a brisk three and
a half yards per completion in that game. But more importantly,
I thought it was kind of the attitude after I

(01:37:25):
don't think I know it was the attitude after that
frustrated Robert sala Um. And to me, you know, I
saw a lot of people, especially people on this network
call out Zack Wilson, and I think it's a hundred
percent fair. First of all, I would even go back
with Zach Wilson. I find it interesting. Obviously, I've been
in this time slot for quite a while. Arnie Spanier
did used to join me, and Arnie and I were
on during the COVID season of twenty when Zack Wilson

(01:37:47):
played at b y U. And during that COVID season,
remember there was no Pack twelve football, which means that
Zack Wilson and b YU were essentially the only West
Coast team that played for virtually all of the college
football season. The Pac twelve didn't pick up until November.
And I remember talking to Arnie about this at the time.
I said, uh, you know, as Zach Wilson started to

(01:38:08):
emerge as a prospect, I said, oh, I like this kid.
And then he started to become the consensus number to
pick and I never understood that. So that always confused
me as to why he had to be the number
two overall pick. He can go back and listen to
old shows that Arnie and I did, where I said
I thought Justin Fields was the second best quarterback in
that draft behind Trevor Lawrence, UM and so and so,

(01:38:29):
uh and so I bring it up because I've never
understood the Zach Wilson stuff. But on top of the
fact that I always thought he was a little bit
overrated as a prospect, the production hasn't been there. More importantly,
the attitude was there, kind of the lack of accountability
for any of of anything. Uh you know that that
that went wrong, nothing was his fault. So I was

(01:38:50):
not ultimately surprised that Robert Sali plug pulled the plug. Jason,
what do you make of it? I was down on
Zack from before he was drafted. I didn't get it.
He was not in anybody's top fifty draft list before
that season. He became just the bell of the ball.
There were people trying to argue, maybe he's better than
Trevor and all this other kind of stuff. It just

(01:39:12):
it just what has happened doesn't surprise me. Now, the
attitude stuff that does to some degree, just because as
bad as he was and that was an all time
horrific performance against the Patriots, it was what he did
in the press conference that was the worst performance of
the day. And that's probably the biggest reason why he's
not playing football for the Jets this weekend. And I
think his days with the Jets are pretty much numbered.

(01:39:35):
And the reason why I told Brian know this yesterday
and we were filling in on two pros and a
cup of Joe, is that the Jets are in win
now mode because they've got talent elsewhere. The defense is loaded.
They made a great pick with Sauce Gardner, for example.
Breece Hall's out, but you've even got Carter running the
ball pretty well. You've got receivers that you like. Garrett
Wilson's a rookie, but he's making plays. You've got skill, talent,

(01:39:58):
you've got a coach that I think you believe in
and team plays like the coach's attitude, which is a positive.
The one thing you didn't have is a quarterback last
week and when we were when we were doing our
predictions are and you said, so, do you think the
Jets are gonna go get that win in Foxborough? And
I said no, because of Zack Wilson. Zach Wilson, he
didn't seem to get it and what he said after
the presser about the win and not taking any kind

(01:40:20):
of ownership of it. When you're the quarterback. One thing
you can't say about Baker Mayfield is that he doesn't
take ownership. He's sometimes to a fault, he will take
ownership almost to where it almost sounds like, well, he's
gonna take it on himself every single time, and maybe
we're not even gonna believe that. He believes that some
of the time. But Zack Wilson, I never saw anything
particularly special out of him that indicated that people needed

(01:40:43):
to be talking about him the way they began talking
about him in the lead up to that draft. And
you look at it right now, and what is Zach Wilson.
When you look at the stats of Zach Wilson compared
to other Jets quarterbacks in recent years, that is still
one of just the most mind boggling things to look at.
Through the first twenty career games, he has fifteen fewer

(01:41:05):
touchdowns than Sam Donald did. He has seven fewer touchdowns
than Mark Sanchez did. He has three fewer touchdowns than
Gino Smith did. Net yards per passe attempt lower than
all three of the guys I just mentioned, completion percentage
fifty six. Only Sanchez is lower, Gino was higher, Sam

(01:41:26):
Donald was higher. And these are guys that we buried
right like that. There were just jokes, ghosts seeing ghosts
with Sam Donald and all this fifteen touchdowns better than
Zach Wilson over twenty career games. I don't I never
understood it. I think he's done. I don't mean in
the NFL he's but I think he's Josh Rosen right now.

(01:41:48):
I think that he was put into a situation where, yeah,
a lot of times Jeff quarterbacks don't work out, but
most Jets teams aren't put together this well. And this
is supposed to be year A lot of times, year
three becomes the year you bring in a top flight
wide receiver and all of a sudden, Josh Allen becomes
the guy in year three. You've seen it before. But
all I'm looking at right now is Mitch Drabinsky two

(01:42:10):
point oh. But Mitch Drabinsky had a great attitude. Zach
Wilson doesn't have an attitude. And that's a problem. If
you're gonna be mediocre, then you better be Marcus Mariota
in the locker room. Zach Wilson needs to use this
and learn from it. And he did say, you know,
this is a humbling experience. Maybe he's gonna get it,
and we're gonna see him flourished. I'd like to see
that be the result for Zack Wilson. I don't think

(01:42:31):
it's gonna be with the Jets. I think they're gonna
do something in the off season. Whether it's something massive
with a big time quarterback that's out there, or whether
or not they're gonna use a draft pick, They're going
to do something. I I think they're out on Zach Wilson.
Tell you what, I have a few thoughts on everything
that you just said. We will get to them momentarily,
but before we do, I want to toss back to

(01:42:53):
the news desk. Steve said, what's trending, my friend? Well,
we're halftime in the late game of note not the
only late game in college what all but number thirteen
Washington is leading at Washington State quarterback Michael Panics with
two touchdown passes and two touchdown runs. The other late game,
under two minutes to go in the first half, it

(01:43:14):
is b y U nine leaders at Stanford. B Yu's
just throwing a touchdown pass also, but there is a
flag on the play. Now, Stanford's got the worst run
defense in the country, even worse than the Chargers. They're
giving up six yards per carry. It's about nine yards
per carry against by US rushing attack. Tonight, Stanford trails
at home. A loss would put them at three and

(01:43:36):
nine for the season. Meanwhile, Utah is certainly looking at
this Washington game that's at halftime because the Utes are
not out of it. As far as a Pack twelve
title game appearance, we know USC is in and the
game will be Friday in Vegas. Even though you the
Utah Utes lost last weekend to Oregon. Oregon lost today,
so U talk can still get into the Pack twelve

(01:43:57):
championship game with a Washington win tonight because Utah would
win a three way tiebreaker for second place in the conference.
Oregon was up at Oregon State thirty one ten late
in the third quarter, Beavers come back for a thirty
eight thirty four victory. Number six USC beat Notre Dame
tonight thirty twenty seven. Number five LSU lost at Texas

(01:44:19):
A and M thirty eight to twenty three. Meanwhile, victories
for Georgia, Michigan and t s U, so I assume
we'll see USC move up to number four. We'll see
Michigan's win was at Ohio State twenty three Donovan Edwards
of the Wolverines two carries two hundred sixteen yards, including
two long tds in the fourth quarter. South Carolina won

(01:44:40):
at Clemson thirty one thirty. Kansas State a winner tonight
against Kansas forty seven twenty seven, and Central Florida big
big second half lete was blown thirty one seven. U
CEF still wins the game at South Florida forty six
to thirty nine. Tampa Bay Bucks running back Leonard four
Nette is out for tomorrow's game at Cleveland with a
hip injury, where ning back Geo Bernard was activated off

(01:45:02):
i R. Bears quarterback Justin Fields with his bad shoulder,
may not play tomorrow at the Jets, considered a long
shot to play, according to NFL Network. In the NHL.
Among the eight games, New Jersey now eighteen and four
after defeating Washington five to one. Vegas has had a
great record, but they're losing late at home five nothing
to Vancouver and at the World Cup Argentina with two

(01:45:23):
second half goals shout out in Mexico to nothing. France
on a goal in the eighties six minute beat Denmark
two to one. Wins for Australia and Poland. Four more
games tomorrow, all on FS one. Updated is b y
U e to nine at Stanford under two minutes to
go in the first half on FS one. Right now,
back to you to Sega really quick. You'll be back
in about ten minutes from now. What you got for

(01:45:43):
us and you're extended up a lot of college football
coaching news Oregon, Colorado, Auburn, Old miss obviously details from
some of the college football today and tonight, and some
of the weekend sports TV ratings arout for the holiday weekend.
So what was it forty three million? Or am I stealing?
Was silly? Yes? That was it? The most the highest

(01:46:07):
rated regular season game on record. I think I saw
that a stem that does include in the next segment,
that does include out of home viewing on the NFL
numbers that didn't always get added in in previous years. Well,
thank you to Siger. By the way, I did not
steal from his segment because he still got World Cup ratings.

(01:46:30):
Maybe we got some big ten you know, Ohio State, Michigan. Yeah,
there was, there was other games on Thanksgiving. In case
you didn't know, Jason, I'm just trying to create drama.
Just I'm just I'm the Michigan State player in the
tunnel right now. Yeah, you're you're swinging and I'm gonna
press charges for coming after me out of nowhere. So
thank you to say you'll be back in a few minutes.

(01:46:51):
Fox Sports Radio Air Towards Jason Martin, broadcasting live from
the tirect dot Com studios. Was Zach Wilson, You know,
so I don't know how to feel about him. You
said that you think he's done. I've heard a lot
of people. I worked with Dan bay Or. The other day,
Dan said the same. You know, I get it. Um,
I just think that, you know, I think the way

(01:47:11):
that Robert Sala handled it this week something it makes
me feel like there might be another chapter to this story,
because to go from it's something that we're not even
considering to actually doing it. It feels more like we
need you to grow up more than that we've totally
given up on you. But on the flip side, if
they have totally given up on him, then, um, then

(01:47:34):
you know I do understand why something I want to
ask you. I asked Dan this the other day. Um,
you know, I'm not comparing one situation to the other.
Who's worse. Whose behaviors worse, because you're gonna know the
answer when I say it in a second. But what
what I found interesting was Thursday Friday this week, after
he gets benched, you know he does. He started to
see the reports, he apologized to the team, it's heartfelt,

(01:47:55):
everybody forgives him, blah blah blah, this and that. And
what I said to Dan was, it almost reminds me
of the re Irving situation with the Nets. And I'm
not comparing what Kyrie Irving did to Zack Wilson kind
of just being immature in the locker room. But at
the same time, I was saying that Dan is like,
is he really learning if you force him to apologize
when he was completely oblivious to this literally seventy two

(01:48:18):
hours before. Is he actually learning any sort of lesson
or is he apologizing for the sake of apologizing to
move on? And I find that to be an interesting
variable as well. With Zach Wilson is obviously, look, it's
a matter of how much is he going to learn
from this going forward, And it's impossible to know right now,
but like, it's hard for me to believe that this
guy is, Oh my goodness. All of a sudden, the

(01:48:40):
light bulb just went off because he actually apologized when
he literally had no choice to. I I found that
variable interesting as the story started to come out over
the last probably forty eight to seventy two hours, that
he has apologized that his teammates forgive him all that
good stuff. Well, here's the thing. I mean, I don't
know how to answer that. Neither do you, nor does

(01:49:00):
anybody else. There's nothing else he could have done other
than continue to not apologize, whether or not he means
it or not. It's the only step that he could take,
other than still be totally belligerent about it and refused
to actually take any ownership of what had happened. And
all of this, there was no other choice. Like whether
or not it's genuine is almost irrelevant because it's the

(01:49:23):
only thing that he could have done. I don't know
if it's I don't know if it's genuine or not.
I don't know if he won the team back. I
can tell you that what Salo was saying, and to
your point about him being done, I think he's done
with the Jets, because I don't believe what a coach
says as long as someone is still employed by the franchise,
you're not gonna say this guy's a scrub, We're never
gonna play him again while he still works for you.

(01:49:46):
You have to wait until after the fact to even
have really any honesty at all what he said in
the moment and what he's saying about, Hey, I still
believe he's going to be the future of this franchise
and all this other stuff. That's what you say as
long as he's still with the Jets. After that, then
you just move on and you probably don't say too
much about it other than we wish to Zack, well,
sorry it didn't work out all this. But I mean,

(01:50:07):
until he's not there, there's a certain decorum, there's a
certain method to how you have to speak in certain situations.
I mean, what Salad said to me was very similar
to Zach Wilson's apology. It's all you really could say, like,
he can't bury his own guy while his own guy
is still employed by the team like that. That doesn't genuinely,

(01:50:28):
that doesn't work, That doesn't wash. That just that's that's
going to that's gonna result in a lot of negativity
all the way through that. But in terms of the
apology from Zach, I don't know. I mean, I think
the humbling experience comes by not playing and not dressing,
especially if the Jets play well with Mike White playing
quarterback against Trevor Simeon, because Justin Fields isn't gonna play either.

(01:50:50):
Zach was a number two pick, went to New York
and has done. His numbers are strikingly similar to Jamacus
Soul through the same period of time in their careers.
If you want to know what trajectory he is on
right now, if you go look at the numbers, I
think there are I heard some incredible stuff this week

(01:51:12):
where he ranks is near the low low low low
low end of quarterbacks ever to enter the league doesn't
mean his career is over. I just think the Jets
can't afford to wait. And some of the things that
I've heard. I've heard Derek Carr's name mentioned, I've heard
Jimmy G's name mentioned. I have also heard Aaron Rodgers
name mentioned to the Jets. I don't know that any

(01:51:35):
of those things happen, but they are too good a
football team minus the quarterback position to sit there and
not try to address it. And I don't think that
they believe Zach Wilson is the guy, but they can't
say that right now, so I think that they're doing
the political thing. But during the off season there will

(01:51:56):
be as Gwyneth and Chris Martin had a conscious uncoupling. Wow,
did not expect the Gwyneth reference here to wrap our
three Fox Sports Radio eritards Jason Martin here coming up,
Steve de Saga rejoins us as he told, He's got
some stuff on the weekend ratings. Of course, World Cup
is under way. We had some big NFL Thursday football

(01:52:20):
on Thanksgiving and to Sagrad, some news and notes from
across the college football world as well to Saga. Next
air towards Jason Martin, this is Fox Sports Radio. Welcome
back every ready Fox Sports Radio Er towards Jason Martin,
broadcasting live from the tire rec dot Com studios, and
as we do every Saturday night into Sunday morning at

(01:52:40):
around one twenty eastern one forty twelve forty Eastern time
on on Saturday night into Sunday, we throw it over
to the news desk with the Saga for an extended update.
To Sega, what do you got for us my friend.
Another score from the Washington Huskies in the late game
of note in college football, Thirteenth ranked Washington scores on
the first way of the second half to go up

(01:53:01):
thirty five seven at Washington State and Out quarterback Michael
Pentox has all five tds for the Huskies, three touchdown passes,
including a seventy five yard or here, plus two touchdown runs,
and it is halftime at Stanford b y U eight
twelve in the lead at Yes b y U at
ten yards per carry against the great Stanford defense. Nebraska's

(01:53:23):
new head coach is the man who was fired by
the Carolina Panthers last month, Matt Rule, but he did
use to coach Temple and Baylor. Colorado is offering its
head coach opening to Dion Sanders of Jackson State. Real quick,
you think either either you guys think Dion actually takes
that job. No, I mean, I feel like you have
better opportunities. Yes, I can years to come. And I
just I've never looked at primetime Deon Sanders and thought

(01:53:47):
what I'm thinking Rocky mountains. When I think Deon Sanders,
I think rocky mountains. I'm with you. I was just
maybe maybe if he had been like a Broncos dB,
we could have a different discussion. Give him time. He
made have made it there. I agree, I'm more like
a Texas or the South. It does feel like speaking
of the South, Auburn is reportedly still talking to Liberty

(01:54:09):
coach Hugh freezex of Mississippi, but Lane Kiffin is signing
an extension to stay at Old Miss. Former Oregon and
Florida State coach Willie Taggart was fired tonight by Florida
Atlantic after three seasons, and Oregon offensive coordinator Kenny Dillingham,
age thirty two, is the leading candidate to be the
Arizona State new head coach. He is a Phoenix native.
Dillingham an a lum of Arizona State. As for the

(01:54:33):
TV sports ratings this weekend, yesterday, Fox had US England
a World Cup match. That's total viewership this includes streaming.
Total viewership in the US was twenty million for this game.
In other words, certainly more than USC Notre Dame will
get for tonight's contest, just by comparison, and that probably
that US England number will compare somewhat favorably to what

(01:54:56):
Fox gets for Ohio State Michigan today. That is a
huge number for Friday. How mag you think they'll ha
State Michigan will be disager. Do you have any thoughts
on that? I assume that will be at least twenty
million because what you mentioned earlier, didn't see this coming
from Michigan. I think that would keep people tuned in.
Plus it was kind of in its own window today
and it's the rivalry. I think that's going to be
a huge number from today. And of course Ohio State

(01:55:19):
usually rates well anyway, but you throw what all of
those other factors we just mentioned, Yeah, I think that's
gonna be a big, big number for college footballs This
morning a Pacific time. The big newon kickoff is nine
am on the West Coast. As for the Thursday Thanksgiving
we mentioned that it was a huge number for Fox
with the Dallas game over forty million viewers, but before

(01:55:39):
that was the most watched early window ever on Thanksgiving
Bill's Lions over thirty million viewers, and the primetime game
on Thanksgiving Vikings Patriots was more than twenty five million viewers.
As for details from the top ten in college football,
Georgia one George against La s U next Saturday for
the SEC title. Number one Georgia was only up ten

(01:56:01):
seven at the half today, but beat Georgia Tech thirty
seven fourteen. It was thirty seven seven early in the
fourth quarter, so Georgia Tech finishes five and seven. Meanwhile,
Number five l S. You lost at Texas A and
M thirty eight twenty three tonight, the Aggies team that
had lost sixth straight in conference and lost to Appalachian
State this year. Devon eight chain thirty eight carries two

(01:56:23):
hundred fifteen yards and two touchdowns. And then there's the
yardage from Michigan, one big play after another. In the
win at Ohio State forty five to twenty three. Michigan
had six touchdowns, five of them on plays of forty
five yards or more. That cements what you said earlier
that my goodness, this isn't a top four team. No

(01:56:44):
it is not so yeah. C J. Stroud had about
three fifty yards passing, two touchdowns, too late interceptions. But
I thought usc S defense was bad, they actually came
through today. By comparison. Sc over Notre Dame thirty eight
twenty seven Heisman candidate quarterback Aleb Williams four total touchdowns
and let's not forget about twelve and oh TCU definitely

(01:57:06):
one of the top four when the new playoff rankings
come outen the final over Iowa State. TCU plays next
Saturday in the Big twelve championship game against Kansas State,
which one again, that was a Fox TV game tonight
beating Kansas forty seven twenty seven if at k States
beating Kansas fourteen straight times. Next Saturday night, Michigan against

(01:57:26):
Perdue for the Big ten title on Fox TV, that's unfortunate,
could have been iola. So theret glasses full. But this
about the Michigan win today, and they did really pull
away and over two hundred yards rushing for Donovan Edwards
including the two long TVs in the fourth quarter. Michigan

(01:57:46):
had fourteen drives today, only sixteen first downs. They had
over five hundred yards of offense with only sixteen first
downs on fourteen drives. How about they had twelve completions
of thirty yards or more all year and had four
of them against Ohio State. Yeah, and Ohio State wasn't
allowing big plays left and right like this. It was
just it was just amazing that it turned out that way.

(01:58:09):
And then there's the Tennessee game, they won fifty six
nothing at Vanderbilt tonight. Valls had six touchdown runs as
a team, about thirty carries three d fifty yards on
the ground for Tennessee. They had thirteen drives, only about
sixteen minutes time of possession total at Vanderbilt, and still
over five hundred yards of offense with the Valls in

(01:58:29):
this game. Penn State beat Michigan State thirty five sixteen,
So the Spartans finished five and seven. How did Michigan
State do on the ground as a team twenty five
carries twenty five yards rushing early in the game, And yeah, exactly.
And by the way, I know, Michigan was essentially missing
a running back. Ohio State was missing a running back

(01:58:51):
J J. McCarthy. Three touchdown passes and a t d
run for Michigan, and Utah is certainly looking at this
WASH game hoping for a Husky win. Utah would get
into the Pack twelve title game. On Friday, Utah one
HiT's game at Colorado. You two were up forty two
nothing at the half sixty one the final Colorado getting

(01:59:13):
votes for the worst team in the whole country this year,
finished one at eleven. In fact, Colorado allowed over forty
points in ten of the eleven losses and it will
open next year at TCU. Well, thank you very much,
Steve the Sager, Fox Sports Radio, Fox Sports Saturday Errant
towards Jason Martin. By the way, some quick uh projected

(01:59:34):
points spreads from Brett McMurphy from the Action Network Michigan
and eighteen point favorite projected against Purdue next week Georgia
sixteen points against LSU coming up. We do go back
to the NFL lot to get two in week twelve
of the season. This is Fox Sports Radio. Welcome in everybody,
our four Fox Sports Radio air towards Jason Martin broadcasting

(01:59:56):
live from the tire rack dot Com studios. Ti rack
dot Com will help you get there and on mattch
selection Fest, free shipping, free road hazard protection, over ten
thousand recommended installers tirect dot com the way tire buying
should be. It is our four, Aaron Torres and Jason Martin.
We're taking you up till two a m. Eastern time.

(02:00:18):
Bernie Fratto will follow us at the top of the hour. Bernie,
of course, will join us in about twenty minutes straight
from Vegas. Bernie, of course, also worked for many years
in Michigan, so he's gonna have a lot of good
stuff on today's Michigan Ohio State game. Speaking which, if
you've missed any of our coverage of Michigan and Ohio State,
you can go back and download the podcast, which will
be available shortly after our show goes off air. Jason,

(02:00:42):
I want to get back to the NFL, and I
actually want to before we get to some of the
games this weekend. I want to get to another kind
of off the field story that relates to to on
the field, and that's um the Green Bay Packers. They
play Sunday Night football against the Philadelphia Eagles. We find
out this week Aaron Rodgers has a broken thumb, and
uh again it's it's a story. It's about three or

(02:01:03):
four days old. But this is the first time that
we've had on air, uh since since this news became official.
But the Packers obviously again they have not played since
two Thursdays ago when they lost the Tennessee Titans. But
I bring it up because they're four and seven, basically
out of the playoff race, and obviously there you know,
there's some talk like is this now the time to
kind of turn things over to Jordan's Love. We talked

(02:01:24):
a little bit about last hour about the idea of
Zack Wilson being benched and what's best for a team's present,
what's best for her team's future. Where do you stand
on the idea? Aaron Rodgers, by the way, in case
I haven't made it clear, is going to play. But
do you think this is one Do you think Aaron
Rodgers should shut it down, get surgery, get better, whatever
it would be, or do you think, uh, let him

(02:01:46):
play as long as you can. I don't know. I
mean I think that the problem for Green Bay is
that they know what we know, which is Jordan's Love
is not the guy. I think that by now, if
you was, you wouldn't have put up with what you
already had to put up with from Aaron Rodgers. You
would have turned the page if you really believed that

(02:02:08):
you had the future right there in your building. So
I think if you know that, then the only reason
you're putting Jordan's Love in is to confirm he's not
the guy to all the fans, or to bottom out
as much as you can so that you can potentially
get somebody in the draft. Um, if Aaron Rodgers decides
he wants to shut it down for the year, because
why go through this futility? Even though I might be

(02:02:31):
the cause of a lot of this, I don't really
want to put myself through the next seven games, or
at least, you know, maybe try and go get right
and get the surgery and if he wants to come
back to the end of the year whatever. I mean.
Back on October twenty, I think is where you first
heard about this hand injury, but nothing was confirmed. It
was just they asked him about it and he said
it's hurt, and then you know, this week it comes

(02:02:53):
out and it's broken. But I'm not using it as
an excuse all this other stuff the Packard season unless
they if they run the table, they go ten and seven.
I still don't know if that's I mean, I don't
think that's gonna happen, first of all, but that would
be about the only way They're certainly not going to
win their own division with the Vikings running away and
hiding now after getting the prime time win. So I

(02:03:15):
I think that again, the problem for Green Bay is
just they don't have the guy Jordan loves not the guy.
If he was, we would have seen it by now.
We would know it by now, it would have leaked
out by now. A lot of things. I think that
you can you can look at the writing on the
wall and know that so they're in kind of a
bad spot. There's not really any reason to shut Aaron
Rodgers down again unless you want to bottom out or

(02:03:38):
you want everybody to see for themselves that Jordan Loves
not your guy, and that there's gonna be work to
do in the offseason. Well, and I think that that
was one of the reasons why I actually don't think
you go to Jordan's love unless Aaron Rodgers physically can't play.
Is I think we all kind of have the understanding
that he probably isn't the guy. Um, But then you
get yourself into a pickle because obviously, look, Aaron Rodgers,

(02:04:01):
I think you know his future in the NFL. I
think his future in Green Bay is very much in jeopardy.
Are not in jeopardy, but you know it's it's I
don't think it's a certainty that he's back next year
in Green Band. I don't think it's a certainty that
he's playing in the NFL. Next year. Um. And if
you play Jordan's Love and he's clearly not the guy,
UM one. I I think probably any trade value is

(02:04:22):
pretty much gone at this point. I don't know that
you can't trade him anyway. But then two at the
same time, beyond that, Um, all you're gonna do is
upset your fan base. He had three years to develop
this guy into a competent uh NFL starting quarterback and
it does not happen. So I had to agree with you.
I just want to hit on that one really quick
before we got into some of these games. I will
admit a little bit of a lighter slate. Uh this

(02:04:44):
week in the NFL one game that did catch my
eye though, And I'm curious it is in your neck
of the woods. For people who don't know you live
in Tennessee. It's the week, it's the game of the week.
So Cincinnati going to Tennessee. Obviously, these two teams met
in the divisional round last year. Uh. Um. That was,
of course Tennessee's opening game after earning the number one seed.
They fall. What has the buzz been in Tennessee in

(02:05:07):
in Nashville this week and lead up to this game?
Jayson Well it's not even about the week, it's about
the year. I mean, I haven't been quite as in
tune in terms of the day today, but I know
that these fans want to win this game more than
any game they played all year because they're still furious
with what happened. I know that that team wants to
beat this team more than anyone on their schedule. Regardless

(02:05:30):
of what they may have said this week to media
or anything else, they remember they're angry about it. They
want to wash this away and look at the only
The only team that has beaten them in the last
seven weeks is a Chiefs team that had to do
it in overtime. This is a really good football team
because they're so annoying to play. They're gonna show up

(02:05:53):
well coached, and they're gonna show up taking away something
that you do well. They're gonna make you beat them.
They're not gonna beat themselves. Generally, you're going to have
to grind out. They're gonna trash talk you on the
defensive line. It's just gonna be irritating to beat them.
They're just a frustrating out. Doesn't mean Cincinnati can't do it,

(02:06:15):
but I feel like all the momentum right now as
good as Cincinnati's offense has been, even without chasing there,
they've been good. You got no Joe Mixing, and you've
got a very fired up Titans team that's angry about
what happened in January and they know the opportunity that
was taken from them in that day. And I know

(02:06:36):
that the quarterback for the Titans wants people to forget
about his worst day as a pro where he threw
the three interceptions, and look, I took a whole lot
of phone calls for months and months and months about
that guy. This is a huge game and sometimes maybe
you come in and that can be a detriment. I
just don't think Mike Vrabel's gonna allow that. I think

(02:06:57):
Vrabel has proven it doesn't matter who's even on the field.
These are the games that that team shows up and
wins on a pretty consistent basis. But this is gonna
be a great game because that defense against the Bengals
offense that's really firing on all cylinders over the last
four or five weeks, that is a football watchers dream.
This should be a great game. And again there's some

(02:07:17):
hatred here because the Titans are irate and their fans
are even more angry that Cincinnati ripped one from them
in the playoffs right in their own backyard. And it's
interesting from a few different perspectives. Is one, Tennessee, of course,
is sitting coming into this game, UH sitting at seven
and three. Overall, the Bills have improved to eight and three,

(02:07:39):
the Dolphins are seven and three, and the Chiefs are
sitting at eight and two, and so you know, one,
it's not inconceivable that the Titans end up with the
number one seed yet again. Now, of course they played
the Chiefs head to head UH and the Bills, and
the Bills well, but the Chiefs are ahead of them
in the standings. So you know that the Chiefs would
have to lose a few more times before the end

(02:07:59):
of the regular season for the Titan sister passed them.
But Jason, why this game is also interesting. I don't
know if you've gotten a good peak at the Cincinnati
Bengals upcoming schedule, it is brutal so for people who
are not in front of a computer or not die
hard Bengals fans. Their next few games at Tennessee on Sunday,
then they play the Chiefs at home, They play Cleveland

(02:08:22):
at home. Remember by that point Deshaun Watson will be back.
Then they play at Tampa, at New England, Buffalo, and
the Ravens to end the season. So I mean there
are no gimmes, There are no layups over the final
whatever it would be seven weeks of the season, six
weeks of the seven seven seven games of the season.
So you talk about a team that right now they're

(02:08:43):
obviously very you know, very much in the playoff mix,
very much in the mix for a wild card and
potentially to win the division. Is well, Baltimore is a
game ahead of them. This is a game or or
at the very least, uh, you know, if you can
get this one. It's important because there aren't a lot
of easy wins left on the schedule, that's right. And
this is what happens when you go to the super Bowl.

(02:09:03):
When you win a division, you play a first place
schedule the next year. They played one of the easiest
schedules in the league last year. This year it's the opposite,
Which is why before the year I said this Bengals
team maybe a better team with a worse record, or
one that doesn't go as deep because of the challenge
that they're going to face on their schedule and the
fact that you assumed Baltimore was going to be better. Uh, Pittsburgh,

(02:09:27):
maybe not. But the Browns obviously had a terrible year
last year. Uh and in the quarterback scenario and everything else,
and maybe they were gonna come around. Maybe they're gonna
be bad too. But Cincinnati was gonna face an a
f C that was absolutely loaded, and they weren't going
to sneak up on anybody because people had seen what
they were able to do last year. They because of

(02:09:49):
the just the way the a f C is playing
out now, the West obviously has not been as advertised.
Chargers might make the playoffs. Chiefs obviously are Broncos and
raid Or. You've been able to hang that one up
for a couple of weeks. But the Bengals need to
get a few now to go ahead and put him
in the chamber so that they're not reliant on having

(02:10:10):
to win the last two or three games to get
a wild card. Berth if indeed they're not able to
to end up taking the the a f C North,
this is a winnable game because that's the one thing
about Tennessee is Tennessee can beat anybody, but they usually
don't run away from anybody. They usually put it in
a spot where you can beat them. It's just going

(02:10:31):
to be difficult to do. And you never come up
surprised if Tennessee ends up winning a football game, even
one on paper that doesn't make sense for them to win.
That's not necessarily a case. Here. They're walking in battered.
Chase hadn't played a few weeks, Mixing is out with
a concussion. The offensive line is gonna face an incredible
test trying to keep Joe Burrow upright against the team

(02:10:52):
that sacked him nine times in that playoff laws back
in January. Since he's got to keep winning to keep
pace the a f C, because playing for a wild
card in this kind of an a f C is
not the kind of thing you want to do. Do
You want to continue to keep pace with the top
of the conference. So dumb question, um game that looks

(02:11:13):
good on paper? Does does rams at KSE do anything
for you? This is actually I didn't believe this when
I saw it first time these two teams met meet,
since that wild shootout that was actually Jared Goff versus Patrols.
The Monday night football game that was that was an
incredible experience to watch. It was an incredible experience. If

(02:11:34):
we get it again, it will be Bryce Perkins versus
Patrick Mahomes. Well, obviously this is the game of the week.
Don't mean to make light of it. It is on Fox.
But does this one do anything for you? Do you
think Sean McVeigh pull's any kind of rabbit out of
his head? I just think the Rams are d o
A yeah. I don't think the Chiefs are just gonna
go up there and and not put on a great performance.
Anything can happen in the NFL. I mean, we saw

(02:11:57):
a Jeff Saturday leg Colts team beat the Raiders a
couple of weeks ago. Like, weird stuff happens in this league,
and something's that are just utterly baffling continually happen week
after week in the NFL. The Chiefs are on a
completely different level right now. Mahomes is the m v
P and it's not close at this point in time.

(02:12:18):
I don't think they're gonna go lay an egg against
the Rams. I just don't they They just seem to.
You can see his greatness because even when they take
away insane weapons. Him and Kelsey is the most lethal
combination in the sport right now. I think that the
Cousins and Jefferson, and you can mention a few others.
I think at times Hurts and a j. Brown certainly

(02:12:38):
to Entyreek Hill or two in jail and Waddle and
this kind of stuff, but there's still nothing quite like
Mahomes and Kelsey. And the way that you can just
feel like they're probably not gonna show up and do
nothing is because even when they're out there not out
When there was a minute forty left in the Sunday
night game last week between the Chiefs and the Chargers,
I looked at my wife and I was like, well,
she's gonna win the game. She's like, wait, but the

(02:13:00):
Archers just scored and had a great job, right they
left a minute forty Watch this and the most amazing
thing about what the Chiefs do is everything they do
is preposterous and none of it is surprising. It's it's
what you expect from them. This Rams team just seems
like they're ready to pack it in for the year,
and I imagine that's kind of gonna happen. This could

(02:13:22):
get ugly it probably won't, but I just I know
pride can take over. I just think the Chiefs are
gonna vote race the Rams. Yeah. Another one, like I said,
looks good on paper, much better than it should actually be.
Tomorrow afternoon in Kansas City, Fox Sports Radio. Error towards
Jason Martin. Coming up, we head out to Vegas. Bernie
Freddo will join us. Bertie's got a lot, I don't

(02:13:44):
know how state Michigan and everything coming tomorrow in the
world of the NFL. Bernie Fretto. Next error towards Jason Martin.
Fox Sports Radio. Welcome back, everybody, Fox Sports Radio eron
towards Jason Martin. This is the Fox Sports Radio Tailgate
presented by the Big Egg. Nothing beats the flavor of
live fire cooking on a Big Green Egg. It's the
most versatile grilly you'll ever own, backed by a lifetime

(02:14:07):
warranty roll with the best shop online for free delivery
at Big green egg dot com. Lifetime warranty, free home delivery,
Big green egg dot Com. It is one twenty eastern
on Saturday into Sunday, and as we do every Saturday
into Sunday, at one twenty eastern, we're at it out
to Vegas. Our buddy Bertie Fratto. You can hear him
at the top of the hour, the Bernie Fratto Show. Bertie,

(02:14:31):
what's up man? How you doing well? I want to
give top credit to to Michigan for their performance, and
congratulations to Jim Knowls, the Ohio State defensive coordinator, who
will be a household name in ann Arbor for the
rest of his life, because he ran his mouth earlier
in the week and he said he was ready to
shut down Michigan's offense because they just want to worry

(02:14:52):
it down and get you to the fourth quarter. But
we've got answers for that. Well, his answer was to
continuinely put eight, nine, ten men in the box. And
you know, Michigan did have five hundred and thirty yards
of offense today. What if I told you three hundred
and seventy nine of those yards came on five plays,
all for touchdowns. That was a difference in the game. Again,

(02:15:15):
top credit to Michigan. They had scheme they played, but
this was a crazy result, especially when you look at
the fact that Ohio State also put up four or
ninety two yards, had more first downs, more time of position.
But Jim Knowles outsmart himself and it didn't work. Yeah,
it was interesting burn to watch the game. I mean
even at halftime you heard urban Meyer, you heard I

(02:15:36):
think it was Matt Leinert talking about the you know,
like they had to adjust, um, you know, some of
the things that they were doing. And I don't claim
to be a scheme or XS and o's expert by
any means, but it just felt like, you know, Ohio
State made no changes. I thought Michigan looked better prepared.
What what was it more something Michigan did or was

(02:16:00):
is it in consert? You know, just something Jason and
I have been talking about for for the entire show,
is Ohio State they kind of are who they are
at this point, right. They've been up and down and
against Northwestern it was the weather, and they were trailing
against Penn State, and last week against Maryland, Maryland had
the ball late with a chance to win. It just
felt like they never hit a groove where everything was
clicking at the same time all year. So, I know

(02:16:22):
I didn't really ask you a question there, Bernie, but
but what do you just make of what happened outside
of the big plays and things of that nature. Well,
I think the narrative was, is that a lot of
folks weren't sure if J. J. McCarthy could beat you
through the air with his arm. I know that the
Ohiuse State didn't think that, So they were going to
stack the box and make McCarthy beat him. And he did,

(02:16:43):
And I think you have to give him a lot
of credit. And I think if you really watched the film,
because I went back and watched just the fourth quarter,
Michigan max protected and they started to win the line
of scrimmage. Michigan's got an outstanding offensive line, and truth
be told, they did start to wear down Ohouse State
a bit on the offensive line. But look, there's seven
minutes to go in the game. It's thirty one three.

(02:17:04):
Ohhouse State kicks a field goal. For the life of me,
why do you put nine attainment in the box? Once
dialand Edwards gets to the second level, he's got one
guy to beat and he's off to the races. Then
they turned around and do it again four minutes later.
I'm baffled by what Jim Knowles did. At the same time,
I give Michigan top credit for exploiting it. I mean,
they sold out to stop the run Bernie, But how

(02:17:25):
many times did they leave one corner on an island?
Too many receiver, particularly Cornelius Johnson. I mean, like, it's
not like J. J. McCarthy's his um like difficulty quotient
wasn't all that high today because his guys were running
free and clear against one dude who misplayed. Like, that's
not the slight McCarthy. But anybody that's competent, like this

(02:17:49):
guy's making two million dollars a year, you're gonna make J. J.
McCarthy beat you. Then at least make him beat you.
All you did was dare him to throw to open receivers,
which he did. He did with a lam all day. Well,
it's really good observation. At the second quarters, when the
game really flipped. Uh, there was seven minutes to go,
Michigan faced the third and nine again for for reasons

(02:18:12):
I can't explain. Uh, Jim Knowles put State nine ten.
I think it was nine guys in the box. But
there was a blown coverage because Uh J J. McCarthy
ran play action and whoever the dB was who was
assigned to Cornelius Johnson bid on the play. He was
wide open. My goodness, he was twenty yards wide open.
Uh and J. J. McCarthy saw it, got on the ball,

(02:18:35):
he was off to the house and all of a sudden,
instead of ten three as the second quarters winding down,
all of a sudden, it's ten ten. And if you
look at Michigan sideline, they were completely energized by that.
In Ohio State they were kind of shrug on their shoulders.
Ohio State gets the ball back, they take it down.
Noah Reggles gets a field goal. It's thirteen ten. Well,
guess what the same thing happens two and a half

(02:18:57):
minutes later, Cornelius Johnson catches at seven five yard attenched
down fast, this time on another blown coverage because he
put nine guys in the box. I'm like, what are
we doing here? You're not playing you know, Rolls beef
Tecker playing Michigan. They're not stupid and top credit to J. J. McCarthy.
The kids a ball or the kids a competitor. And
Jim Harbor always said he's got ice warners veins. He

(02:19:19):
proved it today, the last one on this and then
we'll get some other stuff burned because there's so much
to get into. But I do want to ask you
what is you know, you have sources all over the
middle you have sources everywhere, but specifically in the Midwest.
What is the buzz on Ryan Day today? Because one
thing Jason and I talked about early in the show
is that at this time last year, Ryan Day can
throw it all on the defense and blame them and

(02:19:41):
we're gonna get tough and we're gonna make changes and
things are gonna be different next year. Well, his offense sputtered.
I I know they scored enough, you know, points to
probably win the game if the defense was better. But
as you said, you paid two million dollars a year
for a defensive coordinator. He doesn't get the job done.
Your offense has not clicked all season, and I know
there's been injuries. But what is the buzz just about

(02:20:03):
Ryan Day the coach? And we understand he's not getting fired.
Nobody's saying he's on the hot seat. But this is
now two years in a row against Michigan. He struggled
two years in a row. They're not going to be
playing for a Big Ten championship. What are your sources
in in the Midwest saying about Ryan Day the coach? Well,
no one really says anything in ann Arbor. They don't.
They don't really have a whole hell of a lot
to say. And let's be fair, he was forty five

(02:20:24):
and four heading into today's game, and he'd never lost
a Big Ten conference game at home. Today was the
first one. He was seventeen and oh on that field.
And by the way, Jim Harbaugh was one and eleven
versus Top ten teams. So look coming out of Columbus,
so it's a different story. The narrative is that he's
not getting nearly enough out of the talent he's got

(02:20:46):
and the talent he's had, not just this year, in
in past years, you know, with Justin Fields and now CJ.
Stroud and the first rounders you've had. But a narrative
started to creep out today and I here's basically what
they're blurting out that Ohio States lost their edge in
the toughness category, that they were a tough, physical team

(02:21:07):
for years. They were a badass team under Urban Meyer.
They had that edge. They had it under Woody Hayes,
he had it under Earl Bruce, even had it under
John Cooper. They just couldn't beat Michigan. That's what cost
him his job. He was only three and nine against
Michigan even under Luke Fickle. Ohiw states all about toughness,
but they also get you know, first round NFL talent,
all that kind of stuff. That's the narrative is that

(02:21:28):
Bryan Day for whatever tone he is setting, they're not
a tough, physical team like they've been in the past,
which has been Ohio States identity over the years. Do
you feel like it's Georgia and everybody else right now
or do you think Georgia is a little closer to
the pack than maybe we would have thought a month ago. No,
that's Georgia and everybody else. Georgia plays all three phases

(02:21:51):
and they're scary good. And I'm gonna go out on
a limb and I think what we're gonna see a
week from Tuesday is Georgia number one, Michigan number two,
TCU number three, in USC number four, And you'll see
George in in UH and UH and in USC played
each other, and then you'll see TCU in Michigan And
don't go to sleep on TCU there for real. So

(02:22:12):
that's the way I see it. But it's George and
everybody else. You put all these teams on a neutral field,
George is gonna be a favorite against anybody, although I
do think Michigan will be about a six and about
a six point favorite against TCU, and there are already
a seventeen and a half point favorite against Purdue next Saturday.
A couple other quick ones burned before we let you go.
You know, one, you are based in Vegas. You have

(02:22:32):
for years covered the gambling scene as well. How has
the handle been in Vegas or really anywhere with legalized
sports betting across the country on this World Cup? Um,
you know, it seems like people are engaged interested obviously
the US with the draw yesterday against England, but just
across the board, how's the betting been on the World Cup? Solid?

(02:22:52):
And uh, you can't even get a seat at the
sports book at the Circus sports book Friday morning at
eleven am when USA kicked off against England, every single
seat was packed and there was a really cool visual
when they played the national anthem. Everybody in the sports
book stood. It was really something to see. So the
handle has been very, very brisk on the World Cup.

(02:23:12):
And I'm glad you mentioned that to you because, by
the way, that was the bet both games draw. If
he had draws plus three thirty three and heading into
the game against Iran Tuesday, which is winner go home,
USC is a slight favorite their minus one hundred. But
the play I think is going to be the under
a two and a half. It's minus one forty. By
the way, not for nothing. Uh, you'd be surprised that.

(02:23:36):
As far as the books today in Michigan, O house
state pretty much stead even. There was really significant two
way action on both sides, so the books didn't make
money or lose money. It was a break even deal.
Do you feel like Caleb Williams is now Heisman at
this point? I'm not sure you can do anything to
lose it. Do you think there's any chance anybody else
could win at this point? I don't see who would
unseen him? A camp be CG. Straw had a good

(02:23:58):
day today through ours, but uh the lusters off, Blake
Coreham's hurt. Uh, Yeah, there's no question I see or
Caleb Williams is like Patrick Mahomes. He's a magician and
he's just got an amazing ability to make plays in
high levelage situations. He can beat you with his feet,
he can beat you with his arm. He covers up
that defense. And I would just say this that if

(02:24:20):
Caleb Williams doesn't win, and I sure have heck, don't
know who will be. And they were he was pretty
much already neck and neck with c J. Stroud and
I think in terms of the betting line here in
Las Vegas, but I think Caleb Williams will be a clear,
clear favorite. Now when Monday rolls around, he's Bernie Friday.
Can hear him at the top of the hour the
Bernie Fratto Show. Also, of course he hosts Friday Night

(02:24:42):
into Saturdays as well as at two a m. Eastern
following us on Saturday's into Sunday. Also make sure to
follow him on Twitter at Bernie Fratto. Bernie has always
we appreciate the insight on everything. And I will be
listening to the top of the hour. And Jason, I
do agree your Titans are gonna thump Cincinnati tomorrow, so yeah, yeah,
and Mike Rabels Tenant two when he's got rest like that.

(02:25:04):
And oh, by the way, since he's only two and
eight in games following the Steelers, I think it's Tennessee tomorrow,
Bernie Fratto. More that is Bernie Friday. Can hear more NFL,
more college football, more soccer with the World Cup under way.
Bernie Fratto following us at the top of the hour,
I want to switch gears. Want to get over to
the news desk final tip Steve Sigarett's trending and Joe

(02:25:26):
Maxon's out for Cincinnati with that concussion. Titans kicker Randy
Bullock is out for Sunday with a caffe injury. Tampa
Bay running back Leonard four Net out for tomorrow at
Cleveland with a hip injury. Joe Bernard was activated off
ir Cardinals activated wide receiver Marquis Brown off injured reserve,
and Bears quarterback Justin Fields with the bad shoulder, may
not play tomorrow at the Jets. He has considered a

(02:25:47):
long shot to play, according to NFL Network, and he
referenced this just now Bernie. US plays Tuesday and has
to beat Iran to advance at the World Cup. At
tie is not good enough. The US has already tied
each of its first two games. Mexico got shut out
to nothing by Argentina with two second half goals today. Mexico,
with a tie and a loss so far, needs to
win on Wednesday and get some help to advance. Defending

(02:26:10):
champion France got a goal in the eighty six minute
to win two one over Denmark. Victories for Poland and Australia.
Four more games in the tournament tomorrow, all on FS one.
That includes Spain against Germany at two pm Eastern Town
and before that Canada at eleven a m Eastern against Croatia.
Now to the late night college football, Thirteenth ranked Washington
has scored again, but the extra point hit the upright

(02:26:31):
no good Huskies forty one thirty three winners leaders. I
should say at Washington State, it's early fourth quarter. If
Washington is the winner in this game, that sends Utah
to the Pack twelve title game. Utah did lose to
Oregon last week head to head, but then Oregon lost today.
Blew a thirty one ten lead late in the third
quarter at rival Oregon State, Beavers came back to win

(02:26:54):
thirty eight thirty four. Oregon State scored three straight touchdowns
in the fourth quarter. Number six US see over Notre
Dame thirty eight twenty seven quarterback Caleb Williams four total touchdowns.
Number five LSU lost at Texas a and m thirty
eight to twenty three victories in the top ten for
Georgia and TCU for Alabama and Michigan, which one in

(02:27:15):
Ohio State. Three. South Carolina won thirty one thirty at Clemson,
victories for Tennessee and Penn State for Kansas States in Kentucky,
Central Florida rank number twenty two blew a second athlete
but still won forty six thirty nine at South Florida.
Nebraska's new head coaches, Matt Rule in the NBA just
four games, the late contest of Phoenix over Utah one

(02:27:37):
thirteen one twelve, DeAndre eight and twenty nine points twenty
one rebounds, and the Lakers are now seven and eleven
after winning tonight one forty three to one thirty eight
at San Antonio. Anthony Davis was out tonight with a
bruise calf. Lebron James scored thirty nine points, and as
MR College Basketball knows, Number one North Carolina lost this week,

(02:27:58):
as did number three Ransas, so number two Houston with
a golden opportunity, they survived at home against Kent State.
Despite twenty three turnovers. Houston from three point range was
two of seventeen back to you. You know, I U
n C lost. They saw Yukon heading towards them in
the title game of that tournament and they said, you

(02:28:20):
know what, we'll take the al Void. Yeah, so we
don't get embarrassed in that title game. To Sager, thank
you so much, man, have a great evening. And Yukon
football going bowling right officially, yes, we do not have
eighty two six and six teams, so uh, Yukon is
going bowling. Also worth noting, uh, there was a minimal
buzz of Arizona State interest in Jim Mora. I think

(02:28:42):
like Lane Kiffin, he was trying to get a few
bucks out of his employer. But with Kenny Dillingham going
to Arizona State from the Oregon staff, Yes, Kenny Dillingham,
as you told us earlier to Seger, appears to be
headed to Arizona State. So Jim Moura part two. So
stay tuned for season two of the Jim Moore era
next year. To say, you're will be talking about plenty
of that. So thank you very much, have a great

(02:29:04):
evening and maybe back on the next SAT. And that
new a s U coach is probably less than half
the age of her Edwards, he probably is three two
years old, actually played to win the game. That's the
only thing that we're a lum of a s U
that's going to be the higher lumb of a s
U thirty two years old. Goodness, gracious staff for you, Toris.
Caleb Williams real fast, Let's do it. Let's talk. Twelve

(02:29:26):
games in two thousand seventeen, Baker Mayfield Haisman Trophy winner
four herd three hundred forty two yards, forty two touchdowns,
five turnovers. Okay, twelve games, Kyler Murray forty seven yards,
forty eight touchdowns, nine turnovers. Through twelve games this year,
Caleb Williams four thousand, sixty three yards, so he's about

(02:29:47):
five hundred off of Kyler's pace, three hundred off of
baker space forty four touchdowns, two more touchdowns, and Baker
had four shy of Kyler three turnovers. So he's protected
the ball by a actor of six better than Kyler,
by a factor of two better than Baker. Has comparable
stats to both of them. Uh, it's possible. By the

(02:30:08):
end of this thing, he's gonna have the most impressive
resume of any quarterback that ever played for Lincoln Riley. Well,
first of all, that just saying that is unbelievable. And
I think the other thing that stands out. I remember
the debate of Kyler. That was the year that to uh,
I still in many ways thought two should have won
it because he put up unbelievable stats and they kept
pulling him at halftime because they were up by so

(02:30:30):
many points. But I bring it up because with Kyler
there was the same exact element of every single week
he had to put up forty fifty fifty five points.
I remember Arnie and I working on Black Friday in
Oklahoma played West Virginia that season, and I'm gonna try
to look up the game really quick, but in the

(02:30:50):
final score had to be about fifties six had to
be yes. I remember, I'm looking up now. Fifty nine
fifty six was the final score. That was the final
obviously the final regular season game of that season. Kyler
Murray three hundred sixty four yards three passing touchdowns, a
hundred fourteen yards rushing. So I just bring it up

(02:31:11):
because by the time Kyler wanted I still thought two
should have won it. But Kyler had the same element
that Caleb william has Caleb Williams has this year, which
is that if you if Caleb Caleb Williams forgetting off game,
Caleb Williams can't have an off series with the way
that defense plays. And so you know, like I said,

(02:31:32):
I was hesitant, even as recently as prior to the
U c l A game last week, to say he
should be the guy, or he is the guy, or
he will be the guy. It's as we've discussed, and
as Bernie just told us that the Vegas Odds reflected,
it's hard to make the argument that anybody else can
do anything to even make it close next week. Yeah,
I mean whatever I mean, Like Hennon Hooker had a

(02:31:53):
shot before the South Carolina game. Now he had a
really good shot. As a matter of fact, Blake Coren
before he gets hurt. You can maybe make an art,
but a quarterback is generally probably gonna take that anyway
in this day and age. But watching it, even with
how everybody else has fallen or at least kind of
become sort of mortal, Cayleb Williams has looked like and

(02:32:15):
if you actually watch them play, he's the best player
in college football. Like watching him is unreal, Like Bryce
and what he's done in Alabama is super impressive, especially
coming off the fact that he won it last year
and he comes back and he is everything for them again.
And I can't wait to watch him in the NFL.
And I've thoroughly enjoyed watching his college career as well.

(02:32:35):
Cayleb Williams has just been on a completely different plane
this year with the size, with the way he escapes,
all the stuff that he does is just stupid in
the best possible way. And so he's gonna be a
very very deserving Heisman winner last point, and he did
bring it up there a second ago. Henning Hooker maybe
you know, had they won last week or whatever was

(02:32:56):
in position. I do hope in a year where Cayley
Williams is gonna win at Hendon Hooker at least gets
an invite to New York. Yeah, he deserves to be honored,
he deserves to be celebrated. Uh. Tennessee finishes the year
at the regular season at ten and two with a
win over Vanderbilt. Fox Sports Radio Air towards Jason Martin.
One segment left, we come back, make our picks for
the week in in the NFL. Excuse me, maybe talk

(02:33:19):
even a little bit of college football. Uh. In terms
of what we'll see next week, one segment left before
we get to Bernie Fratto Air towards Jason Martin Fox
Sports Radio Welcome Back Everybody, Fox Sports Radio, Fox Sports
Saturday Era towards Jason Martin Company Alive from the entire
wreck dot Com studios. One segment left before Bernie Frido

(02:33:39):
takes over top of the hour. He of course hosts
the Bernie Fratto Show. Bernie will have plenty for you
on all things, all things really NFL college football. Bernie,
of course spent many years in Michigan. He's got a
lot on the Michigan Ohio State game. Really quickly. Jason.
By the way, obviously, by the time that we get
on air next week, Uh, the playoff picture will essentially

(02:34:01):
be set. Right. So for people who don't know the schedule, Uh,
the PAC twelve traditionally plays on Friday night. I'm gonna
check really quick. I believe they will play on Friday
night as well. They will Big twelve championship will be early,
the SEC Championship will be midday. UM. I guess the
only thing that will really be undecided is if Michigan

(02:34:24):
is an undefeated Big Ten champ, or if Michigan will
enter the playoff as a one loss I guess it
would be wild card. So I guess what I would
say to you is, by the time we come on
air next week, is there any sort of chaos or
do you believe that we will end up with the
playoff four that we have right now, which would be Georgia, Michigan,
TCU in USC in some order? Uh, Kansas State is

(02:34:44):
really good. Yeah, And before the season, a lot of
people actually we're right in predicting that they might win
the conference. I think I even suggested it as well, Um,
they could be TCU. This isn't me betting against TCU.
It's to say that's where the chaos probably would come from.
That's the most likely scenario. USC can get beat because

(02:35:05):
their defense can get beat. Caleb just hasn't let them
get beat this year. And I don't know that that's
I mean outside of the crazy night in Utah, and
maybe they're gonna get a chance to exercise those demons
and a race that one from memory. Um next week,
if I think the four that we have now make
the most sense to still be the four chaos is

(02:35:27):
obviously a lot of fun, but you kind of in
some ways it's just like, man, if TCU goes undefeated
and they go through that schedule and they end up
winning the conference, that's gonna feel a lot less sour
in the mouth than a one lost TCU can compared
resumes with two loss teams or maybe a one loss
Ohio State here and there. We've come to a place

(02:35:47):
where I'm glad Clemson got beat because I didn't think
they were one of the four best teams, so now
they're out. For example, I do not really think after
watching Ohio State, I don't care what Kevin Warren says.
That team to me in the second half proved it
didn't belong. It proved to me that I would rather
see a tc you get in in an Ohio State,
even if the game that we get as a result

(02:36:09):
isn't as good. So I think I'm cautious in saying
it's still gonna be the four. But I definitely do
think Kansas State could get TCU. That'll be it. That's
gonna be a really, really tough game. So it is
worth noting Kansas State TCU when they played the first
time Kansas State was actually up twenty eight to ten.
Early in the second quarter, they were up to seventeen

(02:36:32):
and a half time TCU, like so many games this year,
rally to win. You kind of hit me with the
follow up question, Uh, regardless of Georgia, Michigan, UM, and
let's let's say USC ends up winning TCU as a
one loss non champion of their conference, do you think
they'd get the benefit of the doubt for the fourth
spot or do you think it would be Ohio State

(02:36:53):
or do you think it'd be somebody else at that point? Uh?
If if, if Michigan, Georgia and USC take care business,
I think they're strange. The record would indicate that you
could put them there. I don't think the College Football
Committee would put them there. I think they've got to
be undefeated. I think if they're one loss, Ohio State
will get it. Personally, I tend to agree with you. UM.

(02:37:14):
You know, we could pretend that this isn't a beauty pageant.
We can pretend that this isn't a TV show. But
at the end of the day, I will say, like, like,
if tc you were to lose, I would feel bad,
But I'll tell you this to semifinals of George, Ohio State, Michigan,
and USC. I think the the TV people would be
very happy with those as opposed to TCU in that

(02:37:37):
final four really quick. The big game tomorrow is right
in your backyard, Cincinnati at Tennessee Tennessee. I think I
think you said you feel pretty confident that they get
get the victory. You feel you're feeling good about the
Tennessee Titans tomorrow. Yeah, I think they win. These are
the kinds of games Vabel has the team ready to play.
They haven't forgotten what happened in January, to a chance

(02:37:57):
to go to a Super Bowl, the number one seed,
to finally hold liston an f C championship game in Nashville.
I think they're gonna get it done. I think it's
gonna be a tight, hard fought game, probably a defensive games.
That's what Tennessee generally does. The guy to watch. We
know what Derrick Hendry can do, but the guy to
watch is Ryan Tannehill because he had the worst day
of his professional career against this same Bengals team back

(02:38:19):
in January. I think he's gonna be out. I think
he's gonna be a man on a mission in this game.
I would watch for him to have a special special
day really quick. Um Sunday night, Green Bay at Philly,
Aaron Rodgers with the broken thumb. Any chance they pull
off the upset in Philadelphia? I mean Philadelphia has come
back down to earth just a little bit. They had
to really sweat that one out against the Colts. They

(02:38:41):
had an off day, and everybody can have an off day,
and they had an off day and they still won
that football game. I don't think they're gonna trip up
and lose. I could see that game being fairly competitive,
although we would have thought Green Bay was really gonna
put up a better fight late against Tennessee than they did.
They they're close to packing it in for the year
and the quarterback is close to packing it in for

(02:39:02):
the year. But I think the Eagles will win over
under one quarter. Pittsburgh, Indie, Monday night football. You watching
over under one quarter that game? Be honest, don't lie
to us. We know you're sports analyst. You're supposed to watch,
but how much are you watching on Monday night? Under Yeah?
Might might be a good time to catch up with
the wife on some Netflix and no, honey, no, no, no,
I'll get you. No, let's why it's anyway. We gotta

(02:39:25):
get out of here. I think the crew, Ramos producer
Bo Steve the Seger, it is time for the Bernie
Frido Show. Bernie Friddo Next, Fox Sports Radio

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