July 18, 2025 • 50 mins
RJ recapped this week's SEC media days. He unpacks the preseason SEC media poll and takes on what Oklahoma fans should expect as well as whether or not Texas is the best team in the SEC.
--15:11 Oklahoma is betting on Brent Venables' decision?
--29:33 Greg Sankey doesn't want to expand the CFP?
-- 38:51 DJ Lagway's health is key to Florida success?
--RJ gives his strong opinions on the biggest topics in college football, sports and entertainment every week.
--Tune in live on College Football Saturday Night, Sunday Night Football, Monday Night Football, Tuesday Night College Football Playoff rankings revealed and Thursday Night Football.
--RJ also performs daily segments taking on the biggest breaking news stories in college football and the NFL.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
The SEC media preseason poll is out, so is the preseason all SEC
team. Let's talk about who us that
cover the sport think is going to win the SEC Championship and
who its best players are. What's up kid folk, it's RJ
(00:26):
Young. I am not on a step mill.
If this is your first time watching, adapt and respond.
Thank you for joining us here. We talk college football year
round. If that is something that you're
into, go ahead and hit that subscribe button.
Like this video and answer the question in the comments below.
Do you agree with the SEC preseason media poll that has
picked Texas to win the SEC Championship in the year of our
(00:51):
Lord 2025? Also going to take this
opportunity to remind you we gotan audio podcast where you can
listen to a long form version ofthe show, about half hour to 40
minutes, give or take three daysa week.
We're coming close to doing our live thing pretty quick.
You're pretty regularly as we get closer to college football
season. And if you have gone to Apple
(01:13):
and Spotify and you left us fivestar review and you filled out
the form in the description below, know that your sticker is
on its way. If you haven't, there's still an
opportunity there for you to do a solid to five star review on
Spotify Apple and fill out the form of description.
I will send you one of these stickers and a handwritten thank
you letter from me. So many folks expected Texas to
(01:36):
play for the national championship this year for the
first time since 2009, and many expect them to win the national
championship this year for the first time since 2005.
It would stand to reason that wethink that the Texas Longhorns
would win their league championship, as it is
representative of a large swath of what we expect to be the most
(01:57):
competitive teams in college football this year.
However, I still think it's really interesting to go through
it starting at the bottom and then moving up.
So predicted order of finish versus how many people expected
the to get an SEC to win the SECchampionship is also interesting
because you got two different polls here.
You got SEC champion and you gotpredicted order of finish.
(02:18):
I'm going to do SEC champion andthen predicted order of finish,
which is more like what we expect the standings look like.
Auburn got a vote, Ole Miss got a vote.
Tennessee got a vote. Vanderbilt got 2 votes.
Florida got 2 votes. Oklahoma got three votes.
LSU got, excuse me, South Carolina got 5 votes, LSU got
20, Alabama got 29, Georgia got 44, and Texas got 96.
(02:43):
This is excuse me, not those thepoints that you're awarded by,
you know how many times you get ranked number one and your
particular order of finish. I always enjoy these things
because they give us a baseline for those of us that cover the
sport to give to the audience that might not have kept up with
the transfer portal, recruiting,name, image and likeness,
revenue sharing, changes in coaching staff, changes in
(03:03):
quarterback and frankly, changesin how we decide who the
national champion is. Going from, you know, our
previous format, 12 team play format to a straight seating,
right? It's supposed to the highest
rank of champions in the top 25 pole.
We're now just going one through12.
What is it? It's not to knock anybody.
(03:24):
And I think that's what the Big 12 is doing when it abolished
it's it's pretty see the media poll.
I think what the SEC did here isright.
Leave it until after we're done with Media Day.
So it's not a talking point thatyou have to entertain as a head
coach or even as a writer or broadcaster.
It's not something that you really want to talk about as
much as you want to talk about something.
(03:45):
You can only ask that coach or that player that's fit for them.
This is an opportunity for us toask really good questions, kind
of question to Chachi BT just can't answer.
And I always enjoy these sorts of perspectives because it gives
us something like, you know, OK,cool.
Not just something to talk about, but something to use as a
(04:06):
mark. Like last year, Arizona State
was picked to finish dead last in Big 12.
They win the conference championship and they take Texas
into the deep water. Nobody saw that coming.
I don't think that that is hurting the league as much as I
think that's Arizona State showing everybody what Indiana
showed everybody. Anybody can get it, anybody can
do it. And especially in this day and
age of being able to rebuild your roster overnight.
(04:31):
So I would not be shocked to find out that there's a team
here that's predicted to finish dead last or next last that OPS
up and does something. Maybe Mississippi State has
something we don't know about except the toughest schedule in
all the college football. So particularly where to finish
here. Texas at one makes sense to us,
right? Georgia at 2 also makes sense to
us. I think you can flip flop those
(04:51):
because I got a column at foxsports.com.
You can read where I am arguing that this, this conference
belongs to Georgia, and it's belonged to Georgia since Nick
Saban stepped down as head coachto Alabama.
But even more so, you take a look at what Kirby Smart has
been able to do at Georgia versus say, what Caitlin Dubois
was able to do before he got to Alabama.
And I find what Kirby Smart has done to be way more impressive.
(05:16):
You know, we got over 100 wins here, fewer than 20 losses, 2
national championships, SEC championships in there when Nick
Saban was still coaching Alabama.
Kirby Smart is 53 and five over the last five years, just last
year came into board with 9 and 4.
All right, like there's, there'slevels to this.
And Kirby Smart is at the top ofthis with Georgia.
(05:37):
They just don't get the recognition that some do because
you haven't had 1000 yard rushers since DeAndre swept in
2019, haven't had 1000 yard receiver since 2002.
And that's their only one ever. They predicate their game on
playing great defense, playing together, playing lots of guys.
The all those five stars get significant snaps.
Young guys aren't young when they go to Georgia.
They play, they develop, and they get to be outstanding NFL
(05:58):
players. 11 first round draft picks, just as 2021 Bama at
3:00. I could argue this mostly
because I haven't seen enough TySimpson to believe it.
But I know what Ryan Williams can do.
They're going to be better defensively.
They're going to be really good at tailback.
Can't wait to see what kind of touches Richard Young gets.
I know what Jam Miller capable of.
I know Kaden Proctor can do on that offensive line.
(06:19):
LSU is going to have a dynamic offense.
We know this. Gary Nutmeyer is probably going
to throw 4000 yards. Scott absolute speed everywhere.
He doesn't think he has receiverin the 2 deep that runs slower
than 4/4. That's from Nick Anderson to
Barry and Browning. They're going to have monsters
on the Watt on on the numbers and it could look a lot like it
did in 2019 when Joe Burrow was that quarterback.
(06:40):
I don't think he's gonna throw for no 5600 yards, 60 TD, 6
picks, but I expect them to be really good and then to be there
at the end. South Carolina with Lenore
Sellers, they they showed us last year they came to play,
they won nine games. They can win 10 this year.
Florida with DJ Lagway is 6 and O when he starts the game,
finishes the game. It's that simple.
Six and one when he when he juststarts the game.
(07:01):
They could have beaten Georgia. They probably should have beaten
Georgia if Lagway could stay in the game.
It's really up to him if he's healthy, you're good.
But the shoulder and hammy, we just want to see it.
I, I, I see a Quinn, you were kind of experience for Florida
fans, which is not a bad thing, by the way.
That's that's conference championship.
That's an appearance in the conference championship.
That's 2 College football Playoffs and that's setting you
(07:21):
up to make a run at the nationalchampionship.
But you want to do it now with what we think is one of the
better five stars to come out atquarterback in some time.
Ole Miss with Austin Simmons at quarterbacks going to be fun.
Lane Kiffin knows exactly what he's supposed to be doing, how
he's going to do it. Tennessee is going to be fun
because, excuse me, A&MA&M is going to be fun because Marcel
Reed, all you got to do is show me you can throw the ball.
(07:43):
If they can throw the ball with,you know, accuracy and limit the
turnovers. Mike Elko's defense will do the
rest. He believes they're going to
have more first round draft picks than they've had and
sometime in A&M coming out this year, or I should say more NFL
draft picks, not first round draft picks, but Marcel Reed
needs to be more than an option quarterback if you want to go
and play for the college football in the College Football
Playoff. Tennessee, I think it's about
(08:06):
Joey Aguilar winning the job andthen turning to Shawn Bishop or
* Thomas or whomever into the next.
Dylan Sampson. They're missing a lot with that
guy. That's the SEC offensive player
of the year for good reason. When they ran the ball last
year, they were great and they will run the ball again this
year. The defense will have to deal
with the loss of James Pierce, some others, but Jamar McCoy is
going to help with that. Tim Banks, great off defense
(08:27):
coordinator. Oklahoma figures in it.
What? Let me see.
Now we get Texas, Georgia, Alabama, that's three, LSU,
South Carolina, Florida, that's six, Ole Miss A&M, Tennessee,
that's not Oklahoma comes in at #10YO.
All right, so apparently not everybody is on John Metier, Ben
Arbuckle, Brent Denimals callingplace bandwagon.
(08:49):
But that's OK, right? I get that.
That makes sense to me. John Metier still has something
to prove in this league. So it has been our buckle for
that matter. If they're healthy at wide
receiver, it's going to be fun. If they're as good defensively
as I think they can be, it's also going to be fun.
We'll find out a lot with how they play against Michigan.
I pick Oklahoma to win that gamesimply because Bryce Underwood
on the road against Brent Venables, first big start on the
(09:12):
road. Yeah.
All right, good. Good luck with that.
Plus, it ain't like Sooners don't make themselves heard at
night or during the day for thatmatter, but make themselves
heard in Oklahoma. All right, Auburn behind
Oklahoma. That makes sense.
That's the SEC opener for Auburn, which I think is fun.
(09:33):
We're also talking about an Auburn team that's gonna have
Jackson Arnold on the other sideand we'll see just how badly
weren't Heat. The Heat, the defense wants to
hit him when Oklahoma plays. But I I expect Auburn to be
better than they were last year.I just don't know that they got
a ready replacement for Jerk W Hunter.
They've got lots of potential back there, but that dude was
able to carry the load for you in a way that, well, frankly,
you got to have guys that demonstrate they can do that for
(09:55):
me before I'm going to pick themto do some upsetting this year.
Missouri behind them. That's wild to me, mostly
because Missouri's schedule's got 8 home games and it's, I
mean, there's there's no easy inthe SEC, but that's as easy as
it's going to get for them. They don't play Texas, they
don't play Georgia. They and all their tough games,
Alabama A&M, they come to them, right?
(10:18):
Say nothing to the non conference game, non conference
slate's kind of weak. Vanderbilt above Arkansas.
That's that's the story right there is people expect Vandy to
be better. Arkansas 2025, I don't see that.
I think Taylen Green and Bob Pacino are going to find a way.
Now. They got a tough schedule too.
They get Notre Dame coming to them, A&M's coming to them.
They got to play Texas. It'll be fun.
(10:40):
It'll be fun. But I don't know that I'm going
to pick Vanderbilt to have a better season than Arkansas or I
should say finish ahead of Arkansas on the SEC standings.
And then you got Arkansas, Kentucky, Mississippi State.
Nobody loves former SEC players with other teams more than Mark
Stoops, who's got Zach Alzada atquarterback after brief stop and
(11:01):
Incarnate Word. Remember, Calzada was
quarterback at A&M when unrankedA&M beat Alabama.
That's the claim to fame there. Mississippi State.
We'll see. We'll just see, right?
Preseason, all SEC teams. Interesting.
Lenore Sellers as your starting quarterback, yo, Not Garrett
Nussmeyer, not arch Manny Lenore's, not DJ Lagway.
Lenore Sellers There's a lot of people that are buying into what
(11:23):
he can do as a as a player. He's big, he's strong, he's got
a huge arm, he can run. We'll find out how much of that
translates to ten wins as opposed to 9.
Quintravion Wisner. I think Steve Sarkisian thought
that he he said this out loud. He's like, I don't know that you
guys know that we have the SEC leading returning rusher and
(11:44):
Trey Wisner and apparently we doSteve because he's RB-1 here on
the offense with Le'veon Moss atTexas A&M.
That's fine with me. J Knott might be a guy, but if
you're looking at returners, no.Brian Williams, a wide receiver.
Cam Coleman, a wide receiver. Interesting, interesting,
interesting because Nick Anderson is right there.
Barry and Browning is right there.
(12:04):
I mean, I keep going down the list on this one, but I won't.
I'm just going to say I need to see more from Cam Cam Coleman
before I make him first team. All SCC Eli stores.
Yep. Locked in.
Caden Proctor, Caden Green, DJ Campbell, Austin Barber and Jake
Slaughter. That's two Florida kids on the
offensive line make preseason all SEC.
So that's that's the thing to watch.
(12:26):
Second team Garrett Nussmeyer, Jnod, Kaden Durham, Man, I like
the second team here when I likethe first team.
Aaron Anderson, Ryan Wingo, Oscar Delt.
Still like the second team a little bit better.
Like the first team. Goodness me, we got three out
two Alabama 2A and M players on the offensive line. 13 Arch
(12:47):
Manning, Nate Fraser, Jan MillerYoung and can run.
Eric Singleton Can Kevin Coleman, Jack Andreess up.
Man, I like that. I like that a lot.
Ernest Green Chase Bison. It Bison by Santis Besantis.
Besantis. My bad, my bad.
(13:08):
Chase Besantis. Xavier Chaplin, Trevor Goosby at
13. What the hell is that?
Connor Lou. I guess I I expected him just on
general principle to be first team.
That wouldn't be me dog. I don't know what we're looking
at here. First team defense, Keldrick
Faulk, Dylan Stewart, Collins Simmons, Christian Miller.
(13:28):
That's Stout, Anthony Hill, Witweek, CJ Allen.
That's a nasty lineback crew. That's Texas, LSU, Georgia.
And then DBS we go. KJ Bolden, Michael Taft, Dalen
Everett, Jamar McCoy. That's tough, too.
All right. Linebackers in secondary, Tough
first team. All SCC goodness, me, second
team. Caleb Banks, Tim Keenan, Lt.
Overton or Mason Thomas. Deonte Lawson, Tough.
(13:51):
Harold Perkins. Suntreen Perkins.
Golly. All right, so let me go at this
Again, this linebacking crew is ridiculous.
Deonte Lawson, Harold Perkins, Suntreen Perkins.
Second team. Damn this league is deep.
Defensive backs Malik Mohammed, Dumani Jackson will lead Jalen
(14:13):
Kilgore, Deep 13. Tyrique Sapp, Treymore Campbell,
Xavian Harris and then linebackers Tarian York, Arian
Carter, Prince Will. Prince will Prince Will.
I thought it was princely, but it's Prince Will.
Uman Milan at Ole Miss. Keyon, Saab, Boo Carter, Bray
(14:35):
Hubbard, Isaac Smith, Your DBS. Yeah, right.
Tough, tough all the way through.
I think that's kind of it. That I could still look at guys
in the second, third team and say that's the first team player
almost anywhere else. Tells you just how deep the SEC
is. I'm having fun with this guys.
I hope you are too. Now we just know which one of
these guys that is going to be on the bulletin board with The
Wanted poster when we're playinggames now.
(14:57):
But more than that, it means that football is something like
43 days away and I can't wait for us to start playing games.
Dude, I hope you're as excited as I am.
Just how much will John Mater matter for Oklahoma in 2025?
(15:22):
And why do I think this team looks a lot like a team 10 years
ago? 2015 Sooners.
What's up kinfolk, it's RJ young.
I am not on the step mill. If this is your first time
watching adapt and respond. Thank you for joining us here we
talk college football year round.
(15:43):
If that is something you're into, go ahead and hit that
subscribe button like this videoand answer the question in the
comments below. Do you believe that John Mateer
is going to be the guy that getsOklahoma back to where we expect
Oklahoma to be 1011 wins plan the College Football Playoff
plan for college football national championships.
We hope. It's certainly playing for an
(16:05):
SEC title. I find it fascinating that we're
in the spot once again, especially with Brent Venables
going into year three. It's not been a great start with
two losing seasons in three years. 110 win season that we
quickly forget about because Oklahoma and ten wins is like
saying it's hot in the summer inOklahoma.
(16:26):
That's what it been like. We could count on that.
It's also a different league where we could say that by
comparison, Brent Vittables from1999, 2011's defense coordinated
Oklahoma. If I tell you that he won 7
conference titles in a national championship as coordinated
Oklahoma and he could do that again in the SEC, you would take
that. I think if the next seven years
(16:48):
would give 7 national championships, and, excuse me,
set 7 conference championships and one national championship,
you take that. And I think there's something
like groundwork being laid here because Oklahoma's been forward
on what we all know is coming. And anytime there's chaos, I
always enjoy it. I enjoy chaos because I operate
(17:10):
well in chaos. Show like mine, personality like
mine, work ethic like mine, I have to take advantage of those
spaces where people don't feel balanced.
When things are balanced, it's really difficult to gain
anything like market share. It's difficult to breakthrough
noise and have people listen to what you have to say.
So when things are imbalanced, you got to take your
(17:30):
opportunities because that's as close to fair as it's going to
get. And Brevitable said this best.
It's a look, we're all dealing with the same deck of cards now.
Everybody knows revenue sharing is everybody knows what name,
image and likenesses, and everybody knows that they have
to engage in recruiting in a waythat we've never had in a more
volatile time. College football, there's never
been OK expansion of 12 teams, probably going to 16, changing
(17:52):
conferences and realignment state conference, AKA the PAC 12
coming back to life. And then there is the dichotomy
of what Texas has been doing, what Oklahoma's been doing in
what I believe is Georgia's SEC,right?
I think as we look at this, it'salso important to see what was
working for Oklahoma when it went well with the same sort of
(18:13):
variables at play, right? 2015, I pointed that out is
really Baker's first year to be Baker at Oklahoma.
One of my favorite stories aboutthat scout team that he was part
of when he had to sit out the year when we still had, you
know, you sitting out for transferring in conference.
That was one of the better scoutteams ever been a part of,
right? Like or ever got to cover, I
should say Baker, Mayfield, Doriel Green, Beckham, I want to
(18:37):
say Mark Andrews. I think Nixon was there too
'cause he was serving that one year suspension for his incident
is fun, right? I also looked at that at that
schedule here recently and I wassurprised to see their five
ranked opponents on it. They won four of those games,
one of them at Tennessee. That's on the schedule this
(18:57):
year. Now, that was an early non
conference game where Tennessee didn't know what they had,
Oklahoma didn't really know whatthey had.
It was #19 versus #2319 was coming 2/23 at a Nealon where
it's turning into much more of afortress than it was 10 years
ago. And they're coming out of the
doldrums. That's not that team anymore.
It's better football team. It's better football program
even without Niko Yamaliaba. You might say addition by
(19:21):
subtraction. Oklahoma, though, went through
it last year. As much as I'm going to continue
to beat on how injured this teamwas and how I believe that
starts in the weight room in your winter, conditioning
doesn't just all of a sudden happen when you get to start
playing games. Brent went out of his way to
tell everybody, look, we played a bunch of underclassmen last
(19:41):
year. 24 of those guys are back.That's another thing, retention.
They were able to keep them fromtransferring.
They were able to keep them fromwarding off other offers.
So you have a lot of experience on this team that matters in
this competition. This SEC 70% of last year's
production is back at Oklahoma. That's top ten in the nation.
That's really, really good. Your new guys, guys like John
(20:04):
Metir, J, not guys you expect tonot just be good, but to elevate
the play that you had. Oklahoma basically played the
sport without a wide receiver, without quarterbacks last year.
You know, like it's, it's difficult.
It's really hard. It's difficult to score.
It's difficult to play great defense.
You're also seeing Brent Venables take control of the
defense, hiring you a 5 new assistants, most of them on the
(20:25):
defensive side of the ball, guyshe knows, guys he trusts.
Nate Dryling and Wes Goodwin ought to mean great things for
this program. The development on the defensive
line, the off the offensive line, those are going to be
better than they were last year by virtue of just having more
experience. It's really difficult to play
defense when you got an offense that is non functional and
(20:45):
that's what it felt like Oklahoma had.
And basically 8 out of 12 games.And in the Alabama game, it's
really Jackson Arnold being ableto run away and then the defense
being able to make plays on Jalen Milro.
It's a tough way to win in the SEC.
You either need to be balanced or you need to be the best at
running the football, playing defense.
Balance being Texas, run the ball, playing defense being
(21:06):
Georgia, who by the way, will still throw the ball down the
field. John Mateer is going to make a
difference. How big a difference?
We'll see if you get the kind ofplay out of John Mateer this
year that you got out of Baker Mayfield in 2015.
Talking about 3700 yards, you'realso talking about, you know, 30
+ T DS. I would be remiss if I didn't
(21:26):
tell you Shamaa. JP Ryan rushed for 1400 yards
that season. Joe Mixon had 753.
OK, You had guys on everywhere. That split back formation was
lethal for them. Sterling Shepherd was amazing
that year. You had guys, but it's Sterling
Shepherd. You got Dionne Burks right split
backs. We'll see.
We'll see who can step up next. J not I hope it's Javonte
(21:46):
Barnes, but you got able to do something like that.
It's going to be fun. We'll see whether Ben Arbuckle
draws up and how they are able to make it go.
We know that the offensive line is going to be good.
One of things that also stood out to me was remedibles at his
SEC Media Days press conference,like at the big stage said Danny
is the best athlete on our team.Pound for pound, that dudes got
to play. Then that dudes got to play.
(22:06):
He's got to play a bunch. It's got to be him.
Our Mason Thompson and Grayson Hall.
They got to be your guys. They got to get after it.
They got to go. You bring in our Robert Spears,
Jenning, I get it. But the Bowen boy just got to
get after it. They got to go.
There's so many things that haveto work here and you have to
prove this depth because you're going to get tested.
The injury rate and football is undefeated.
(22:27):
It's going to happen. You're also going to need a guy
that can get you out of bad plays and make broken plays and
the good ones. That's what Materials on campus
to do. That's what Baker could do very
well. You also have swagger.
One of the things that said about John Material is he feels
like he's planning Fast forward,right?
Sometimes a little too fast, buthe's always ready to go.
He's always amped up. He always wants to self
(22:49):
deprecate and he's having fun out there.
We need a quarterback to having fun out there.
I never got the sense of JacksonArnold was having fun out there,
not even when he's playing well to the Idol Mobile.
It felt like there was a lot on his shoulders.
It felt like he needed to live up to the potential that he
showed, the talent that he'd shown, and it was much more
flash in the pan than it was steady.
With John Material, at least at Washington State, you've been
(23:10):
able to see what Steady looks like and the competition he's
going to play is there's there'sno getting around.
It's class up. Best team they played last year
when he was quarterback. Texas Tech, you know, Boise
State, you know, these are not these are not SEC teams.
These are not teams that you areafraid of more than that going
(23:31):
into other people's places to play in the SEC with something
new for Oklahoma. Now you got to do that again.
You got to go to Tennessee. That's that's going to be a
game. You got to go to Alabama.
It's going to be a game. You know LSU is coming to you,
but they travel well too. This is going to be the season
for which I believe we find out if the rest of this is going to
(23:52):
work because just as it felt like Brandon was getting a
handle on the off the field aspects of the game, right?
General manager higher with Jim Naggy, being able to recruit
from the portal, being able to recruit from high school, being
able to retain players he knows are good, saying all the right
things and really trying to change something like the way in
(24:14):
which he does business. You get your AD saying, OK,
after 28 years, I'm through here.
Also add to this 26 of the 28 years Oklahoma's gone bowling.
That is Joe Castiglione right there.
Going down in history is one of the greatest athletic directors
that we've ever seen in college.Like just period.
I don't think that's a stretch at all.
I think Joe C is Joe C and if he's not the guy, I don't think
(24:38):
that Oklahoma has this sustainedlevel of dominance for so long
because Joe Harris got to understand real quick, fast, in
a hurry. Look, I'm going to get on their
schedule. I got to get on their
wavelength. And that was cool to see a
president do. Usually presidents want to come
in and tell you what to do with your job?
And in this, he's found something that was working and
said, no, how do I, how do I integrate?
How do I make sure I don't mess this up for you?
(25:01):
And they've done that. And Oklahoma's been forward on
all of this understanding that the straw that stirs to drink in
the state of Oklahoma is Sooner football.
Always has been Sooner football,always will be Sooner football,
even as the NBA champions are inOklahoma City.
I would also like you to know, Idon't think the Thunder come to
Oklahoma City if OU football didnot exist and we could not show
(25:23):
what kind of rabid sports fans we are in this state.
Like, I don't think the Pacers are would be the Pacers today if
they weren't the Pacers from years ago, right?
The fact that you can get an NBAfranchise and a city and a state
like Oklahoma in the 21st century is wild.
It shouldn't be a thing, right? We should have gone the way of
the Vancouver Grizzlies, but we didn't.
(25:45):
We, we are that program. We are that team.
We, we have shown over and over again that we lay out for our
teams if they lay out for us. And nobody understands that more
than Brent Venables. When I listen to Brent talk,
it's easy to feel like you got your senior pastor up there.
It's also easy to feel like it'sa man for which you cannot
(26:06):
please, because everything he does is to the letter and
everything he does is to perfection.
I guarantee you nobody's hurtingmore than he's been hurting.
And to let a guy go right then Arbuckle and say, hey, I'm just
going to take my hands off of you and say I'm going to put my
hands on the defense. You got to trust that guy.
And in that regard, I think it'sa lot like what Bob Stoops was
(26:26):
able to do with his offensive coordinators from Mike Leach all
the way on up, right? I'm also looking at this and
Kevin Wilson's on staff. Kevin Wilson, who knows from
coaching against Print Venables week in and week out as
offensive coordinator, defensivecoordinator, they're going to be
really good. And nobody's better in a film
room than Kevin Wilson. A lot of things that I think are
going well right for OU right now.
(26:46):
And the mature part of it is going to matter 'cause if you
get out of him, what I think you'd get out of him, Yeah,
you're you're playing at the highest level.
I am somehow worried, though, that we still have not figured
out Oklahoma fans. I mean, what our expectations
must be in this league. It ain't the Big 12.
(27:10):
Been saying that feels very obvious to say, but it ain't the
Big 12. There ain't but two other teams
you got to beat, right? Texas being one of them.
It's 12 teams in this league that are good.
Not, not, not OK, good. Missouri is good.
A&M is good. Auburn will be good.
Florida's good. LSU is good.
(27:33):
South Carolina's good. God damn it, so is Oklahoma.
I got I I'm Tulsa. I live in Tulsa.
(27:54):
I was born on Tinker, was raisedin Hattiesburg.
I live in Tulsa, Tulsa, my hometown.
I'm tired of having to show people.
I'm tired of, I should say, I'm tired of having to tell people
what Oklahoma's like. I'm tired of having to tell
people what tough looks like in this state.
(28:20):
I'm trying to having to tell people we want it more than you.
It's past time to show that it'spast time.
Enough is enough, boys. Enough is enough.
Crimson and cream needs to mean fear again.
(28:42):
Yeah. This is the fan of me.
This is not the analyst part. It's not the analyst part.
I did the analyst part before and I'll continue to do the
analyst part after. It's getting on my nerves, boys.
It's getting on my nerves. Tighten up, tighten up.
(29:17):
Six and seven won't stand, 8 and5 won't stand.
Tighten up. Certainly sounds like we're
(29:41):
going to stick to 12 teams in 2026 and there will not be an
immediate expansion of the 12 team playoffs to the 16 team
playoff, mostly because the Big 10, the SEC, are pulling rank.
Let's talk about what that meansfor Big 10, the SEC, what that
means for college football and why we can't all just, you know,
Reginald Odini, get along. What's up Kim folk, it's RJ
(30:11):
Young. I am not on a step.
No. If this is your first time
watching, adapt and respond. Thank you for joining us here.
We talk college football year round.
If that is something you're into, go ahead and hit that
subscribe button. Like this video and answer the
question in the comments below. Can we get the Big 10 and the
SEC to play 9 conference games and commit to a 5 + 11 format
(30:33):
where the conference champion isthe only automatic entry into
the field from each conference? I know it's a long winded
question, but I feel like I knowyour answer is going to be all
of 2 letters and neither one of them begins with Y or ends with
S. You know?
Like I understand where the SEC and the Big 10 are coming from
(30:56):
because you are representing your league 1616 members in the
SEC 18 members of the Big 10 andyou are trying to enforce a
memorandum of understanding. Something like a contract where
you get the majority of the say and what the College Football
Playoff format will be. Now, Greg Sankey's already shown
(31:18):
that he's a little bit sensitiveabout how the SEC is perceived
over the last couple of years because the Big 10 has won the
national championship 2023-2024 and more importantly, the SEC
has not played in the national championship game since 2022.
Last year they watched SMU get aspot that they felt belong to
(31:44):
Alabama. Didn't matter that Georgia,
Tennessee and Texas got in. Felt like 1/3 of the field
should have been represented by the SEC as Indiana, Ohio State,
Oregon, Penn State all got in tothe College Football Playoff.
OK, SMU, Boise State felt like outliers.
(32:05):
Arizona State felt like right, it's right where it should be,
and Notre Dame is Notre Dame. OK.
Nobody's really upset about those things.
I think the extra team gives youanother chip to play with, gives
you another token to put into the slot machine to play through
the tournament and win the national championship.
And the reason that we are arguing about how many teams you
(32:26):
get in is not just because who gets to win the national
championship, but by each win you get adds more money to the
pot. From the $7.6 billion to ESP, NS
paying to televise College Football Playoff to your
individual conference or if you're Notre Dame, Notre Dame,
it really is about money at thispoint.
It's always been about money, though.
(32:47):
Like, we're not arguing about what's best for college football
right now. Because if we were doing that,
we'd be having a totally different conversation.
One where the Big 10 and the SECdon't get to tell everybody else
what to do. But that's the world we live in.
That's what it is, right? This is why in this, in this
particular instance, the Big 10,the SEC, that's your executive
(33:07):
branch, OK, OK, OK, right. The, the, the Congress, that
that's all of us. We can't get nothing done.
You know what I'm saying? And the judicial branch remains
judicial branch and they ain't got no reason to get involved
just yet. But I assure you, they will just
take a look at House versus NCAA.
If we can't figure it out, we will ask judges in black robes
(33:30):
tell us what to do. I really wish it doesn't come to
that, and I don't think it will in the playoff, right?
How we decide our national champion has always been
ridiculous and stupid. The one time that we're trying
to do it right is the time for which we find gridlock.
A mythical national champion always got under my skin as a
child. I'm going, I play baseball.
I love baseball, right? College football, baseball.
(33:53):
It's just I get more out of talking about college football
than I do about, you know, WHIP,you know, OPS and there's just
more games and you know, I'm scoring a baseball game and I,
baseball is a different sport for me than football, put it
that way. However, when I played Dixie
youth, when I played at RL Turner in Little League LLWS as
(34:14):
opposed to Dixie League, right, Dixie Youth, when I played high
school ball, we got tournaments to define who the champ is.
We didn't have no freaking tournament until 2014 in a sport
this more than 150 years old. So now we're trying to do it.
We're trying to do it right. You know, the the majority
shareholders are trying to predict their majority
(34:34):
interests. So we get word from Bretton
Murphy on on Three that the Big 10 is not likely to support a 5
+ 11 format of any kind unless we get the big the SEC to play
in nine conference games. So why is the conference games
part of this sticking point? Well, because the SEC gets one
more cupcake on its schedule than everybody else.
(34:55):
Because they get one more cupcake on their schedule than
everybody else. They have inflated win loss
record compared to the US. Swear baseball is actually a
little bit further ahead. ERA should not be just what the
ERA is. It should be adjusted to the
average of the league. That's why WAR matters.
Now. Nobody plays with WAR on the
back of their friggin jersey. But we're talking about warnings
above replacement 2025, not in 2014.
(35:17):
That's asinine. OK, like I I don't you introduce
a little bit of nuance to a conversation, everybody.
Heath Ledger Joker loses their minds because apparently we
stopped thinking. Making a blanket statement is an
easy thing to do as a sports talk show host.
It's not the hardest thing in the world when you can do the
(35:40):
math on a notepad and demonstrate that it's powerful.
Because you're making people believe that something really is
simple. That is much more than you watch
than you think. Some of y'all have you woman or
you man's come home and tell youabout their day.
And their day probably revolves around bosses.
Like this boss kind of sucks. This employee kind of sucks.
(36:01):
Kylie kind of sucks. I wish you wasn't that way as
the spouse, as the boyfriend, girlfriend, as significant
other, as the side piece. You don't get to say, well,
damn, you should just go tell them off because that'd be the
simplest thing to do, right? That'd be the simplest thing to
do. It would be, hey, go to your
colleague, go to your boss and tell them what's what.
(36:21):
You know, it's not that hard to not eat the thing that's labeled
Cheryl in the refrigerator. If your name ain't Cheryl.
OK, you should tell that to them.
To which you probably won't get you going.
You going to get the eye, You going to get the eye.
And if you lucky, you might justget to sleep on the couch.
If you're not lucky, you might get kicked out the house.
(36:42):
Because it's not that simple, right?
There's nuance involved in here.There's interpersonal
relationships that are have to be ongoing.
These are the things that keep our social morays in check.
This is the reason why being sports talk show host, you get
this guy, Hey, here's here's howmuch the asset player.
I hate that. Here's how much the asset is
worth. All you do is deduct this from
what you were going to pay. And then all of a sudden the
(37:04):
asset is valuable again. No, because people are people,
dummy. And when we start treating
people like they don't matter, we lose their interest.
And when we lose their interest,they don't want to give us their
money. Because that's the part of this
that I think is really getting under people's skin is the
money's so big that for us regular people, you talking
(37:24):
about millions and billions got us feeling some kind of way cuz
that's life changing money. But another way, Brian Kelly was
able to throw $1 million at the 2025 LSU roster cuz he got that.
Some people will never see $1,000,000 in their entire life.
Most people will not see $1,000,000 in their entire life.
So Rita just gotta be able to kick that in, write that off.
(37:48):
That's not going to hit the way you think it's going to hit with
most people. LSU fans getting it's great
because they just want to win. But that's just it though.
That's all you get as a fan. You don't get no national
championship ring, you don't getno bonus, you don't get no money
for plan. All you get to do is say my team
is better than your team and when the calculus for that gets
to be so offsides and ridiculousthat we're having an argument
(38:11):
about a SEC, just play the same number of conference games.
Everybody else 9 and they're going no, our ACC schedule is
harder than your nine game conference schedule.
Eat it. No, we can't all get along.
By the way, I LED with that Reginald any quote because if
y'all do your history on that. Do you remember what happened
after he said that or before he said that?
(38:34):
No. Well, the college football
version is Georgia, TCU 20/22 and he was not Georgia.
At SEC Media Days. DJ Lagway had a sentence that I
(38:56):
thought was just kind of funny. And I think it also speaks to
where we are in the DJ Lagway experience and why people feel
good about Florida going into 2025.
(39:18):
What's up, Kim folk, it's RJ Young.
I am not on a step mill. If this is your first time
watching Adapt and respond, thank you for joining us here.
We talk college football year round.
That is something you're into. Go ahead and hit that subscribe
button. Like this video and answer the
question in the comments below. Is it really about DJ Lagway
just being healthy in 2025 that could see us watch or I should
(39:41):
see, could see Florida return tothe kind of team that we came to
associate it with even during the Dan Mullen years, let alone
the Urban Meyer years. I think it's kind of that
simple. And I think DJ had a funny way
of getting at it, like when he was surrounded by reporters and
media day, he had a really great.
Line that was hey guys, I don't have a prosthetic arm.
(40:04):
I'm coming back. I've been coming back.
I feel great. But this is also kind of the
story with DJ, right? He had a shoulder injury that
had been basically nagging him since he played high school
football. Willis, TX 5 star quarterback,
one of the great quarterbacks ofthe last five years in high
school and shows up to Florida and immediately we all want to
(40:27):
see him play, right? We think he's the best player on
campus and it would be criminal not to see him on the field.
Which Billy Napier would say, hey DJ, trust the process.
And he led SEC media day last year by just saying how grateful
he was to Graham Merch and how Graham Merch is going this and
that and everybody else is going.
Ain't enough of the merch stuff with the Lagway kid.
(40:47):
Can can we get the Lagway kid? And eventually Graham takes an
injury that forces DJ Lagway into this game.
And you know what the Sanford game is the one where I got to
see, oh, OK, this this do different.
The one I think that convinced everybody was 259 on I think 14
or 24 against Kentucky. And what was a route you could
(41:09):
see it all on display. He can move.
He can. He's got a cannon for an arm.
He sees the field well, He's balanced in the pocket.
He knows where his receivers aregoing to be.
He knows how to get them in and out.
And if they are as good as they showed themselves to be in the
second-half of the year, it's noquestion they could be what
Tennessee was last year. This year especially, because
(41:32):
Florida had to play a bunch of younger players than it would
have otherwise wanted to. Which means going into 2025,
that team is much more seasoned than it was a year ago.
And that was really what it was about in 2024 for Billy Napier.
Perhaps he doesn't say this, butall of us thought that man was
going to get fired by October. And it flipped.
(41:53):
And it flipped in a hurry. So much so that when DJ Lagway
played, they were six and one. They won eight games when he
played. When he started and finished the
game, they're undefeated 6 and Othat one loss Georgia and that
game looked like a one that Florida was going to win if DJ
Lagway did not come up with the gimpy hamstring.
(42:15):
The lady having to play the third string quarterback who
didn't look terrible didn't lookgreat.
Georgia ends up doing what Georgia should do against third
string quarterback and basicallya bunch of underclassmen who
ain't played a lot of games. That bodes well for the future.
And that's one of the reasons I think close watchers of Florida
football have been going. Yeah, we're we're good this
(42:35):
year. We got it.
Trey Wilson is going to be an absolute stud.
Jaden Baugh is an absolute stud.We know what we got defensively,
Know what we got offensively is humming in the right direction.
The question that I have for Florida and frankly, DJ Lagway,
is can he be healthy for the entire year?
It feels like an unfair criticism because everybody
(42:58):
wants to be healthy and injury prevention is the biggest part
of exercise and sports science and being a strength
conditioning program is to prevent you from, or at least to
help prevent you from suffering these sorts of injuries.
But when I have a guy that's gota shoulder injury and a guy
that's had a twitchy hamstring, I asked this question in harness
(43:18):
because Quinn Newer's great at Texas, did not play a full
season at Texas for one injury or another.
Is that enough to get Florida towhere they want to go?
Because when you was able to getTexas to Big 12 Championship and
win in the College Football Playoff and then get them to the
College Football Playoff once again after getting them to the
(43:39):
SEC Championship game in Year 1,if that's who DJ Lagway can be
and miss a couple of games, great, awesome, sweet.
But I don't think that's what itis.
I think when you was also blessed with the best offensive
tackle in the sport, Kelvin Banks or season offensive line,
and I believe had four starters on it last year that had started
(44:02):
the year before. He didn't have the running back
room that he thought he was going to have.
But Trey Widener still rushed for over 1000 yards.
Ryan Wingo was great, DeAndre Moore was great and he had a
defense that was pretty phenomenal.
That's all you got to do at Florida.
I say all you got to do at Florida, but that's what it's
about, right? It is.
Can you put it together in the first half like you did the
(44:22):
second-half? Because if they play the first
half like they did the second-half, we are talking
about 11 win team. It's that simple.
I think that we're all right to ask him questions about how he's
feeling and the program that they've had him throwing on
because I believe they got quarterbacks thrown three days a
week according to Billy Napier, and he's been throwing well.
I think the pitch count and needing to cite it, I've never
(44:43):
been excited about that. I don't like citing pitch counts
in baseball. How many pitches the guy throws,
how many pitches the guy throws.Now the the statisticians and
the accountants and the folks that really want to do the
science and nerd stuff in both of those sports, they'll tell
you after a certain number, there's the diminishing return
(45:03):
and you can only ask so much come late in the season.
I get that. I understand, but one of the
reasons that I love college football like I love baseball is
that at its core, it's simple. Block and tackle take care of
the football. C ball, hit ball, right field
the ball with two hands, make the throw.
(45:23):
If you don't have the talent to play, you won't.
I guess just that easy. So when Florida says what I
think only a few talented peoplecan say, we're going to make
this game as simple as we can. We're going to be a leader.
All the things that don't require talent.
That's it. My favorite example of this.
And I would always kind of give this one out because there's
always this recognition with therest of us that aren't playing
(45:46):
major college sports or in professional sports that we are
just not that good anymore. And it's got nothing to do with
effort. I'm all effort, right?
But the hoes that I had in Little League ain't the hoes
that I need to have in high school.
OK, Some of these dudes are throwing lasers.
It feels like everybody throws 100 miles an hour now.
(46:06):
And I don't mind telling you kids, when I was a child, 100
miles an hour was a circus act. That was that was that was just
a trick. Troy Percival was close as you
got to that. And now it feels like
everybody's got an absolute flamethrower in the bullpen just
waiting, right? Everybody's got a rawdest
Chapman out there, man, It's wild, but that's what it was.
(46:28):
It was after we know that you could do that.
Can you hit your spots? That's it, or your mechanics,
things that can be relied on. Can you repeat the action?
That's why I also state championbowler sports where all I needed
to do was practice and repeat the action.
I'm I was excellent at because the talent was there.
Like as a bowler, I'm a snapper,right?
(46:48):
Like this is what I'm going to do.
At any time that there's a, there's a bowling ball in my
hand, I'm going to be able to dothis and I'm going to get the
ball to I think the kids call ithooking, you know, like it does
a hook. But that's really about how many
revolutions are making contact with, with the oil in the wood,
the kind of wood, whether or notit's synthetic wood or whatnot,
(47:09):
and just how dry or wet the lanes are.
And frankly, I'm always going tobe to the left of any of, of any
head pin. Like I'm always going to be the
left of it. I'm always going to be breaking
back because I'm going to get the most bang for my buck.
I'm going to get the most pin movement, yadda, yadda, yadda.
But I could do that because I had the talent to do this with
my wrist, right? Same thing, would be able to
(47:31):
throw a football 60 yards. I could flip my wrist.
Baseball. I learned a lot about throwing
hard playing catcher because youhave to be able to generate so
much momentum from your feet down and get it out very
quickly. It's about hips.
It's about leg strength. And then, you know, if your
right arm is also a Thunderbolt,it's easy.
(47:52):
So when Barry Bond says something like I can hit 100
miles an hour, that's not that'snot a thing.
People go, wait, what? You're telling me that a guy
that can catch a baseball, all you got to do is this and he
catches the baseball 100 miles an hour?
Why couldn't I just put a bat where that where that MIT is?
Well, Barry, because the rest ofus are human beings and not
gods. So it ain't working like that
(48:14):
for us. I keep telling people realize
that after 92 mph you physicallycan't track the ball with your
eyes means that you're catching or you're hitting where you
expect that thing to end up. You have to see into the future.
First time I've caught a Major League curveball because I
thought I'd caught, you know, tough curves.
I thought I'd call it, you know,stuff that broke, you know, 11
(48:35):
to five, couple 12 to sixes. But then I got a real 12 to 6
from a dude that ends up playinghigh a ball, not even Major
League Baseball, but had a MajorLeague curve.
And I came out of my stance because I got fooled.
I thought the thing was going togo over my head and it came down
like mule nor into my hands. And I said, Oh my God.
(48:56):
I mean just a Thunder clap of ofa just it's not a drop.
Like I hate that we say this. It's not dropping.
It's, it is torpedoing at you and you, Oh my God, I get
animated about this stuff because there's movement that
you see on television and then there's movement that you see as
a catcher or a hitter and you get to see guys go, oh, no one,
(49:17):
they're about to get hit and it's a strike.
That thing that goes behind yourback, it snaps back wizardry.
I'm trying to tell you, I just wish the pitchers were smart
enough to tell, to let me tell them when to throw that stuff.
Because sometimes there's a there's a hitter up there that's
just to tell if there's a pitcher out there and he's going
to hit it for a nuke. And now we're down.
(49:41):
Can you tell that I've had pitchers shake me off?
Can you tell that I've had managers call in pitches that I
look over and I look down and I go, OK, serve it up.
And that's what happens. He ain't seen my slider, dog.
Not only has he seen your slider, he's seen it 1000 times
on film and he's been practicingto smash that thing on a 22
(50:03):
count cuz he knows that's what you're going to go to when you
got to have it. So you threw that slider and
Lord help you, you didn't put itright where I told you to put
it. And now it's 513 feet that way
and it looks like it's still going as a matter of fact.
Is that. Yeah, I think that just hit a
star. Yeah, it's exploding star right
there. See that you did that just
(50:23):
grapefruit at that thing up there cuz he grew the hell out
of it. Florida can be that, right?
Florida. Florida can be elite.
It's there. DJ Lagwe is elite.
It's can he be healthy? Can we get him for an entire
season and then Gators become fun as hell?
The SEC media preseason poll is out, so is the preseason all SEC
team. Let's talk about who us that
cover the sport think is going to win the SEC Championship and
who its best players are. What's up kid folk, it's RJ
(00:26):
Young. I am not on a step mill.
If this is your first time watching, adapt and respond.
Thank you for joining us here. We talk college football year
round. If that is something that you're
into, go ahead and hit that subscribe button.
Like this video and answer the question in the comments below.
Do you agree with the SEC preseason media poll that has
picked Texas to win the SEC Championship in the year of our
(00:51):
Lord 2025? Also going to take this
opportunity to remind you we gotan audio podcast where you can
listen to a long form version ofthe show, about half hour to 40
minutes, give or take three daysa week.
We're coming close to doing our live thing pretty quick.
You're pretty regularly as we get closer to college football
season. And if you have gone to Apple
(01:13):
and Spotify and you left us fivestar review and you filled out
the form in the description below, know that your sticker is
on its way. If you haven't, there's still an
opportunity there for you to do a solid to five star review on
Spotify Apple and fill out the form of description.
I will send you one of these stickers and a handwritten thank
you letter from me. So many folks expected Texas to
(01:36):
play for the national championship this year for the
first time since 2009, and many expect them to win the national
championship this year for the first time since 2005.
It would stand to reason that wethink that the Texas Longhorns
would win their league championship, as it is
representative of a large swath of what we expect to be the most
(01:57):
competitive teams in college football this year.
However, I still think it's really interesting to go through
it starting at the bottom and then moving up.
So predicted order of finish versus how many people expected
the to get an SEC to win the SECchampionship is also interesting
because you got two different polls here.
You got SEC champion and you gotpredicted order of finish.
(02:18):
I'm going to do SEC champion andthen predicted order of finish,
which is more like what we expect the standings look like.
Auburn got a vote, Ole Miss got a vote.
Tennessee got a vote. Vanderbilt got 2 votes.
Florida got 2 votes. Oklahoma got three votes.
LSU got, excuse me, South Carolina got 5 votes, LSU got
20, Alabama got 29, Georgia got 44, and Texas got 96.
(02:43):
This is excuse me, not those thepoints that you're awarded by,
you know how many times you get ranked number one and your
particular order of finish. I always enjoy these things
because they give us a baseline for those of us that cover the
sport to give to the audience that might not have kept up with
the transfer portal, recruiting,name, image and likeness,
revenue sharing, changes in coaching staff, changes in
(03:03):
quarterback and frankly, changesin how we decide who the
national champion is. Going from, you know, our
previous format, 12 team play format to a straight seating,
right? It's supposed to the highest
rank of champions in the top 25 pole.
We're now just going one through12.
What is it? It's not to knock anybody.
(03:24):
And I think that's what the Big 12 is doing when it abolished
it's it's pretty see the media poll.
I think what the SEC did here isright.
Leave it until after we're done with Media Day.
So it's not a talking point thatyou have to entertain as a head
coach or even as a writer or broadcaster.
It's not something that you really want to talk about as
much as you want to talk about something.
(03:45):
You can only ask that coach or that player that's fit for them.
This is an opportunity for us toask really good questions, kind
of question to Chachi BT just can't answer.
And I always enjoy these sorts of perspectives because it gives
us something like, you know, OK,cool.
Not just something to talk about, but something to use as a
(04:06):
mark. Like last year, Arizona State
was picked to finish dead last in Big 12.
They win the conference championship and they take Texas
into the deep water. Nobody saw that coming.
I don't think that that is hurting the league as much as I
think that's Arizona State showing everybody what Indiana
showed everybody. Anybody can get it, anybody can
do it. And especially in this day and
age of being able to rebuild your roster overnight.
(04:31):
So I would not be shocked to find out that there's a team
here that's predicted to finish dead last or next last that OPS
up and does something. Maybe Mississippi State has
something we don't know about except the toughest schedule in
all the college football. So particularly where to finish
here. Texas at one makes sense to us,
right? Georgia at 2 also makes sense to
us. I think you can flip flop those
(04:51):
because I got a column at foxsports.com.
You can read where I am arguing that this, this conference
belongs to Georgia, and it's belonged to Georgia since Nick
Saban stepped down as head coachto Alabama.
But even more so, you take a look at what Kirby Smart has
been able to do at Georgia versus say, what Caitlin Dubois
was able to do before he got to Alabama.
And I find what Kirby Smart has done to be way more impressive.
(05:16):
You know, we got over 100 wins here, fewer than 20 losses, 2
national championships, SEC championships in there when Nick
Saban was still coaching Alabama.
Kirby Smart is 53 and five over the last five years, just last
year came into board with 9 and 4.
All right, like there's, there'slevels to this.
And Kirby Smart is at the top ofthis with Georgia.
(05:37):
They just don't get the recognition that some do because
you haven't had 1000 yard rushers since DeAndre swept in
2019, haven't had 1000 yard receiver since 2002.
And that's their only one ever. They predicate their game on
playing great defense, playing together, playing lots of guys.
The all those five stars get significant snaps.
Young guys aren't young when they go to Georgia.
They play, they develop, and they get to be outstanding NFL
(05:58):
players. 11 first round draft picks, just as 2021 Bama at
3:00. I could argue this mostly
because I haven't seen enough TySimpson to believe it.
But I know what Ryan Williams can do.
They're going to be better defensively.
They're going to be really good at tailback.
Can't wait to see what kind of touches Richard Young gets.
I know what Jam Miller capable of.
I know Kaden Proctor can do on that offensive line.
(06:19):
LSU is going to have a dynamic offense.
We know this. Gary Nutmeyer is probably going
to throw 4000 yards. Scott absolute speed everywhere.
He doesn't think he has receiverin the 2 deep that runs slower
than 4/4. That's from Nick Anderson to
Barry and Browning. They're going to have monsters
on the Watt on on the numbers and it could look a lot like it
did in 2019 when Joe Burrow was that quarterback.
(06:40):
I don't think he's gonna throw for no 5600 yards, 60 TD, 6
picks, but I expect them to be really good and then to be there
at the end. South Carolina with Lenore
Sellers, they they showed us last year they came to play,
they won nine games. They can win 10 this year.
Florida with DJ Lagway is 6 and O when he starts the game,
finishes the game. It's that simple.
Six and one when he when he juststarts the game.
(07:01):
They could have beaten Georgia. They probably should have beaten
Georgia if Lagway could stay in the game.
It's really up to him if he's healthy, you're good.
But the shoulder and hammy, we just want to see it.
I, I, I see a Quinn, you were kind of experience for Florida
fans, which is not a bad thing, by the way.
That's that's conference championship.
That's an appearance in the conference championship.
That's 2 College football Playoffs and that's setting you
(07:21):
up to make a run at the nationalchampionship.
But you want to do it now with what we think is one of the
better five stars to come out atquarterback in some time.
Ole Miss with Austin Simmons at quarterbacks going to be fun.
Lane Kiffin knows exactly what he's supposed to be doing, how
he's going to do it. Tennessee is going to be fun
because, excuse me, A&MA&M is going to be fun because Marcel
Reed, all you got to do is show me you can throw the ball.
(07:43):
If they can throw the ball with,you know, accuracy and limit the
turnovers. Mike Elko's defense will do the
rest. He believes they're going to
have more first round draft picks than they've had and
sometime in A&M coming out this year, or I should say more NFL
draft picks, not first round draft picks, but Marcel Reed
needs to be more than an option quarterback if you want to go
and play for the college football in the College Football
Playoff. Tennessee, I think it's about
(08:06):
Joey Aguilar winning the job andthen turning to Shawn Bishop or
* Thomas or whomever into the next.
Dylan Sampson. They're missing a lot with that
guy. That's the SEC offensive player
of the year for good reason. When they ran the ball last
year, they were great and they will run the ball again this
year. The defense will have to deal
with the loss of James Pierce, some others, but Jamar McCoy is
going to help with that. Tim Banks, great off defense
(08:27):
coordinator. Oklahoma figures in it.
What? Let me see.
Now we get Texas, Georgia, Alabama, that's three, LSU,
South Carolina, Florida, that's six, Ole Miss A&M, Tennessee,
that's not Oklahoma comes in at #10YO.
All right, so apparently not everybody is on John Metier, Ben
Arbuckle, Brent Denimals callingplace bandwagon.
(08:49):
But that's OK, right? I get that.
That makes sense to me. John Metier still has something
to prove in this league. So it has been our buckle for
that matter. If they're healthy at wide
receiver, it's going to be fun. If they're as good defensively
as I think they can be, it's also going to be fun.
We'll find out a lot with how they play against Michigan.
I pick Oklahoma to win that gamesimply because Bryce Underwood
on the road against Brent Venables, first big start on the
(09:12):
road. Yeah.
All right, good. Good luck with that.
Plus, it ain't like Sooners don't make themselves heard at
night or during the day for thatmatter, but make themselves
heard in Oklahoma. All right, Auburn behind
Oklahoma. That makes sense.
That's the SEC opener for Auburn, which I think is fun.
(09:33):
We're also talking about an Auburn team that's gonna have
Jackson Arnold on the other sideand we'll see just how badly
weren't Heat. The Heat, the defense wants to
hit him when Oklahoma plays. But I I expect Auburn to be
better than they were last year.I just don't know that they got
a ready replacement for Jerk W Hunter.
They've got lots of potential back there, but that dude was
able to carry the load for you in a way that, well, frankly,
you got to have guys that demonstrate they can do that for
(09:55):
me before I'm going to pick themto do some upsetting this year.
Missouri behind them. That's wild to me, mostly
because Missouri's schedule's got 8 home games and it's, I
mean, there's there's no easy inthe SEC, but that's as easy as
it's going to get for them. They don't play Texas, they
don't play Georgia. They and all their tough games,
Alabama A&M, they come to them, right?
(10:18):
Say nothing to the non conference game, non conference
slate's kind of weak. Vanderbilt above Arkansas.
That's that's the story right there is people expect Vandy to
be better. Arkansas 2025, I don't see that.
I think Taylen Green and Bob Pacino are going to find a way.
Now. They got a tough schedule too.
They get Notre Dame coming to them, A&M's coming to them.
They got to play Texas. It'll be fun.
(10:40):
It'll be fun. But I don't know that I'm going
to pick Vanderbilt to have a better season than Arkansas or I
should say finish ahead of Arkansas on the SEC standings.
And then you got Arkansas, Kentucky, Mississippi State.
Nobody loves former SEC players with other teams more than Mark
Stoops, who's got Zach Alzada atquarterback after brief stop and
(11:01):
Incarnate Word. Remember, Calzada was
quarterback at A&M when unrankedA&M beat Alabama.
That's the claim to fame there. Mississippi State.
We'll see. We'll just see, right?
Preseason, all SEC teams. Interesting.
Lenore Sellers as your starting quarterback, yo, Not Garrett
Nussmeyer, not arch Manny Lenore's, not DJ Lagway.
Lenore Sellers There's a lot of people that are buying into what
(11:23):
he can do as a as a player. He's big, he's strong, he's got
a huge arm, he can run. We'll find out how much of that
translates to ten wins as opposed to 9.
Quintravion Wisner. I think Steve Sarkisian thought
that he he said this out loud. He's like, I don't know that you
guys know that we have the SEC leading returning rusher and
(11:44):
Trey Wisner and apparently we doSteve because he's RB-1 here on
the offense with Le'veon Moss atTexas A&M.
That's fine with me. J Knott might be a guy, but if
you're looking at returners, no.Brian Williams, a wide receiver.
Cam Coleman, a wide receiver. Interesting, interesting,
interesting because Nick Anderson is right there.
Barry and Browning is right there.
(12:04):
I mean, I keep going down the list on this one, but I won't.
I'm just going to say I need to see more from Cam Cam Coleman
before I make him first team. All SCC Eli stores.
Yep. Locked in.
Caden Proctor, Caden Green, DJ Campbell, Austin Barber and Jake
Slaughter. That's two Florida kids on the
offensive line make preseason all SEC.
So that's that's the thing to watch.
(12:26):
Second team Garrett Nussmeyer, Jnod, Kaden Durham, Man, I like
the second team here when I likethe first team.
Aaron Anderson, Ryan Wingo, Oscar Delt.
Still like the second team a little bit better.
Like the first team. Goodness me, we got three out
two Alabama 2A and M players on the offensive line. 13 Arch
(12:47):
Manning, Nate Fraser, Jan MillerYoung and can run.
Eric Singleton Can Kevin Coleman, Jack Andreess up.
Man, I like that. I like that a lot.
Ernest Green Chase Bison. It Bison by Santis Besantis.
Besantis. My bad, my bad.
(13:08):
Chase Besantis. Xavier Chaplin, Trevor Goosby at
13. What the hell is that?
Connor Lou. I guess I I expected him just on
general principle to be first team.
That wouldn't be me dog. I don't know what we're looking
at here. First team defense, Keldrick
Faulk, Dylan Stewart, Collins Simmons, Christian Miller.
(13:28):
That's Stout, Anthony Hill, Witweek, CJ Allen.
That's a nasty lineback crew. That's Texas, LSU, Georgia.
And then DBS we go. KJ Bolden, Michael Taft, Dalen
Everett, Jamar McCoy. That's tough, too.
All right. Linebackers in secondary, Tough
first team. All SCC goodness, me, second
team. Caleb Banks, Tim Keenan, Lt.
Overton or Mason Thomas. Deonte Lawson, Tough.
(13:51):
Harold Perkins. Suntreen Perkins.
Golly. All right, so let me go at this
Again, this linebacking crew is ridiculous.
Deonte Lawson, Harold Perkins, Suntreen Perkins.
Second team. Damn this league is deep.
Defensive backs Malik Mohammed, Dumani Jackson will lead Jalen
(14:13):
Kilgore, Deep 13. Tyrique Sapp, Treymore Campbell,
Xavian Harris and then linebackers Tarian York, Arian
Carter, Prince Will. Prince will Prince Will.
I thought it was princely, but it's Prince Will.
Uman Milan at Ole Miss. Keyon, Saab, Boo Carter, Bray
(14:35):
Hubbard, Isaac Smith, Your DBS. Yeah, right.
Tough, tough all the way through.
I think that's kind of it. That I could still look at guys
in the second, third team and say that's the first team player
almost anywhere else. Tells you just how deep the SEC
is. I'm having fun with this guys.
I hope you are too. Now we just know which one of
these guys that is going to be on the bulletin board with The
Wanted poster when we're playinggames now.
(14:57):
But more than that, it means that football is something like
43 days away and I can't wait for us to start playing games.
Dude, I hope you're as excited as I am.
Just how much will John Mater matter for Oklahoma in 2025?
(15:22):
And why do I think this team looks a lot like a team 10 years
ago? 2015 Sooners.
What's up kinfolk, it's RJ young.
I am not on the step mill. If this is your first time
watching adapt and respond. Thank you for joining us here we
talk college football year round.
(15:43):
If that is something you're into, go ahead and hit that
subscribe button like this videoand answer the question in the
comments below. Do you believe that John Mateer
is going to be the guy that getsOklahoma back to where we expect
Oklahoma to be 1011 wins plan the College Football Playoff
plan for college football national championships.
We hope. It's certainly playing for an
(16:05):
SEC title. I find it fascinating that we're
in the spot once again, especially with Brent Venables
going into year three. It's not been a great start with
two losing seasons in three years. 110 win season that we
quickly forget about because Oklahoma and ten wins is like
saying it's hot in the summer inOklahoma.
(16:26):
That's what it been like. We could count on that.
It's also a different league where we could say that by
comparison, Brent Vittables from1999, 2011's defense coordinated
Oklahoma. If I tell you that he won 7
conference titles in a national championship as coordinated
Oklahoma and he could do that again in the SEC, you would take
that. I think if the next seven years
(16:48):
would give 7 national championships, and, excuse me,
set 7 conference championships and one national championship,
you take that. And I think there's something
like groundwork being laid here because Oklahoma's been forward
on what we all know is coming. And anytime there's chaos, I
always enjoy it. I enjoy chaos because I operate
(17:10):
well in chaos. Show like mine, personality like
mine, work ethic like mine, I have to take advantage of those
spaces where people don't feel balanced.
When things are balanced, it's really difficult to gain
anything like market share. It's difficult to breakthrough
noise and have people listen to what you have to say.
So when things are imbalanced, you got to take your
(17:30):
opportunities because that's as close to fair as it's going to
get. And Brevitable said this best.
It's a look, we're all dealing with the same deck of cards now.
Everybody knows revenue sharing is everybody knows what name,
image and likenesses, and everybody knows that they have
to engage in recruiting in a waythat we've never had in a more
volatile time. College football, there's never
been OK expansion of 12 teams, probably going to 16, changing
(17:52):
conferences and realignment state conference, AKA the PAC 12
coming back to life. And then there is the dichotomy
of what Texas has been doing, what Oklahoma's been doing in
what I believe is Georgia's SEC,right?
I think as we look at this, it'salso important to see what was
working for Oklahoma when it went well with the same sort of
(18:13):
variables at play, right? 2015, I pointed that out is
really Baker's first year to be Baker at Oklahoma.
One of my favorite stories aboutthat scout team that he was part
of when he had to sit out the year when we still had, you
know, you sitting out for transferring in conference.
That was one of the better scoutteams ever been a part of,
right? Like or ever got to cover, I
should say Baker, Mayfield, Doriel Green, Beckham, I want to
(18:37):
say Mark Andrews. I think Nixon was there too
'cause he was serving that one year suspension for his incident
is fun, right? I also looked at that at that
schedule here recently and I wassurprised to see their five
ranked opponents on it. They won four of those games,
one of them at Tennessee. That's on the schedule this
(18:57):
year. Now, that was an early non
conference game where Tennessee didn't know what they had,
Oklahoma didn't really know whatthey had.
It was #19 versus #2319 was coming 2/23 at a Nealon where
it's turning into much more of afortress than it was 10 years
ago. And they're coming out of the
doldrums. That's not that team anymore.
It's better football team. It's better football program
even without Niko Yamaliaba. You might say addition by
(19:21):
subtraction. Oklahoma, though, went through
it last year. As much as I'm going to continue
to beat on how injured this teamwas and how I believe that
starts in the weight room in your winter, conditioning
doesn't just all of a sudden happen when you get to start
playing games. Brent went out of his way to
tell everybody, look, we played a bunch of underclassmen last
(19:41):
year. 24 of those guys are back.That's another thing, retention.
They were able to keep them fromtransferring.
They were able to keep them fromwarding off other offers.
So you have a lot of experience on this team that matters in
this competition. This SEC 70% of last year's
production is back at Oklahoma. That's top ten in the nation.
That's really, really good. Your new guys, guys like John
(20:04):
Metir, J, not guys you expect tonot just be good, but to elevate
the play that you had. Oklahoma basically played the
sport without a wide receiver, without quarterbacks last year.
You know, like it's, it's difficult.
It's really hard. It's difficult to score.
It's difficult to play great defense.
You're also seeing Brent Venables take control of the
defense, hiring you a 5 new assistants, most of them on the
(20:25):
defensive side of the ball, guyshe knows, guys he trusts.
Nate Dryling and Wes Goodwin ought to mean great things for
this program. The development on the defensive
line, the off the offensive line, those are going to be
better than they were last year by virtue of just having more
experience. It's really difficult to play
defense when you got an offense that is non functional and
(20:45):
that's what it felt like Oklahoma had.
And basically 8 out of 12 games.And in the Alabama game, it's
really Jackson Arnold being ableto run away and then the defense
being able to make plays on Jalen Milro.
It's a tough way to win in the SEC.
You either need to be balanced or you need to be the best at
running the football, playing defense.
Balance being Texas, run the ball, playing defense being
(21:06):
Georgia, who by the way, will still throw the ball down the
field. John Mateer is going to make a
difference. How big a difference?
We'll see if you get the kind ofplay out of John Mateer this
year that you got out of Baker Mayfield in 2015.
Talking about 3700 yards, you'realso talking about, you know, 30
+ T DS. I would be remiss if I didn't
(21:26):
tell you Shamaa. JP Ryan rushed for 1400 yards
that season. Joe Mixon had 753.
OK, You had guys on everywhere. That split back formation was
lethal for them. Sterling Shepherd was amazing
that year. You had guys, but it's Sterling
Shepherd. You got Dionne Burks right split
backs. We'll see.
We'll see who can step up next. J not I hope it's Javonte
(21:46):
Barnes, but you got able to do something like that.
It's going to be fun. We'll see whether Ben Arbuckle
draws up and how they are able to make it go.
We know that the offensive line is going to be good.
One of things that also stood out to me was remedibles at his
SEC Media Days press conference,like at the big stage said Danny
is the best athlete on our team.Pound for pound, that dudes got
to play. Then that dudes got to play.
(22:06):
He's got to play a bunch. It's got to be him.
Our Mason Thompson and Grayson Hall.
They got to be your guys. They got to get after it.
They got to go. You bring in our Robert Spears,
Jenning, I get it. But the Bowen boy just got to
get after it. They got to go.
There's so many things that haveto work here and you have to
prove this depth because you're going to get tested.
The injury rate and football is undefeated.
(22:27):
It's going to happen. You're also going to need a guy
that can get you out of bad plays and make broken plays and
the good ones. That's what Materials on campus
to do. That's what Baker could do very
well. You also have swagger.
One of the things that said about John Material is he feels
like he's planning Fast forward,right?
Sometimes a little too fast, buthe's always ready to go.
He's always amped up. He always wants to self
(22:49):
deprecate and he's having fun out there.
We need a quarterback to having fun out there.
I never got the sense of JacksonArnold was having fun out there,
not even when he's playing well to the Idol Mobile.
It felt like there was a lot on his shoulders.
It felt like he needed to live up to the potential that he
showed, the talent that he'd shown, and it was much more
flash in the pan than it was steady.
With John Material, at least at Washington State, you've been
(23:10):
able to see what Steady looks like and the competition he's
going to play is there's there'sno getting around.
It's class up. Best team they played last year
when he was quarterback. Texas Tech, you know, Boise
State, you know, these are not these are not SEC teams.
These are not teams that you areafraid of more than that going
(23:31):
into other people's places to play in the SEC with something
new for Oklahoma. Now you got to do that again.
You got to go to Tennessee. That's that's going to be a
game. You got to go to Alabama.
It's going to be a game. You know LSU is coming to you,
but they travel well too. This is going to be the season
for which I believe we find out if the rest of this is going to
(23:52):
work because just as it felt like Brandon was getting a
handle on the off the field aspects of the game, right?
General manager higher with Jim Naggy, being able to recruit
from the portal, being able to recruit from high school, being
able to retain players he knows are good, saying all the right
things and really trying to change something like the way in
(24:14):
which he does business. You get your AD saying, OK,
after 28 years, I'm through here.
Also add to this 26 of the 28 years Oklahoma's gone bowling.
That is Joe Castiglione right there.
Going down in history is one of the greatest athletic directors
that we've ever seen in college.Like just period.
I don't think that's a stretch at all.
I think Joe C is Joe C and if he's not the guy, I don't think
(24:38):
that Oklahoma has this sustainedlevel of dominance for so long
because Joe Harris got to understand real quick, fast, in
a hurry. Look, I'm going to get on their
schedule. I got to get on their
wavelength. And that was cool to see a
president do. Usually presidents want to come
in and tell you what to do with your job?
And in this, he's found something that was working and
said, no, how do I, how do I integrate?
How do I make sure I don't mess this up for you?
(25:01):
And they've done that. And Oklahoma's been forward on
all of this understanding that the straw that stirs to drink in
the state of Oklahoma is Sooner football.
Always has been Sooner football,always will be Sooner football,
even as the NBA champions are inOklahoma City.
I would also like you to know, Idon't think the Thunder come to
Oklahoma City if OU football didnot exist and we could not show
(25:23):
what kind of rabid sports fans we are in this state.
Like, I don't think the Pacers are would be the Pacers today if
they weren't the Pacers from years ago, right?
The fact that you can get an NBAfranchise and a city and a state
like Oklahoma in the 21st century is wild.
It shouldn't be a thing, right? We should have gone the way of
the Vancouver Grizzlies, but we didn't.
(25:45):
We, we are that program. We are that team.
We, we have shown over and over again that we lay out for our
teams if they lay out for us. And nobody understands that more
than Brent Venables. When I listen to Brent talk,
it's easy to feel like you got your senior pastor up there.
It's also easy to feel like it'sa man for which you cannot
(26:06):
please, because everything he does is to the letter and
everything he does is to perfection.
I guarantee you nobody's hurtingmore than he's been hurting.
And to let a guy go right then Arbuckle and say, hey, I'm just
going to take my hands off of you and say I'm going to put my
hands on the defense. You got to trust that guy.
And in that regard, I think it'sa lot like what Bob Stoops was
(26:26):
able to do with his offensive coordinators from Mike Leach all
the way on up, right? I'm also looking at this and
Kevin Wilson's on staff. Kevin Wilson, who knows from
coaching against Print Venables week in and week out as
offensive coordinator, defensivecoordinator, they're going to be
really good. And nobody's better in a film
room than Kevin Wilson. A lot of things that I think are
going well right for OU right now.
(26:46):
And the mature part of it is going to matter 'cause if you
get out of him, what I think you'd get out of him, Yeah,
you're you're playing at the highest level.
I am somehow worried, though, that we still have not figured
out Oklahoma fans. I mean, what our expectations
must be in this league. It ain't the Big 12.
(27:10):
Been saying that feels very obvious to say, but it ain't the
Big 12. There ain't but two other teams
you got to beat, right? Texas being one of them.
It's 12 teams in this league that are good.
Not, not, not OK, good. Missouri is good.
A&M is good. Auburn will be good.
Florida's good. LSU is good.
(27:33):
South Carolina's good. God damn it, so is Oklahoma.
I got I I'm Tulsa. I live in Tulsa.
(27:54):
I was born on Tinker, was raisedin Hattiesburg.
I live in Tulsa, Tulsa, my hometown.
I'm tired of having to show people.
I'm tired of, I should say, I'm tired of having to tell people
what Oklahoma's like. I'm tired of having to tell
people what tough looks like in this state.
(28:20):
I'm trying to having to tell people we want it more than you.
It's past time to show that it'spast time.
Enough is enough, boys. Enough is enough.
Crimson and cream needs to mean fear again.
(28:42):
Yeah. This is the fan of me.
This is not the analyst part. It's not the analyst part.
I did the analyst part before and I'll continue to do the
analyst part after. It's getting on my nerves, boys.
It's getting on my nerves. Tighten up, tighten up.
(29:17):
Six and seven won't stand, 8 and5 won't stand.
Tighten up. Certainly sounds like we're
(29:41):
going to stick to 12 teams in 2026 and there will not be an
immediate expansion of the 12 team playoffs to the 16 team
playoff, mostly because the Big 10, the SEC, are pulling rank.
Let's talk about what that meansfor Big 10, the SEC, what that
means for college football and why we can't all just, you know,
Reginald Odini, get along. What's up Kim folk, it's RJ
(30:11):
Young. I am not on a step.
No. If this is your first time
watching, adapt and respond. Thank you for joining us here.
We talk college football year round.
If that is something you're into, go ahead and hit that
subscribe button. Like this video and answer the
question in the comments below. Can we get the Big 10 and the
SEC to play 9 conference games and commit to a 5 + 11 format
(30:33):
where the conference champion isthe only automatic entry into
the field from each conference? I know it's a long winded
question, but I feel like I knowyour answer is going to be all
of 2 letters and neither one of them begins with Y or ends with
S. You know?
Like I understand where the SEC and the Big 10 are coming from
(30:56):
because you are representing your league 1616 members in the
SEC 18 members of the Big 10 andyou are trying to enforce a
memorandum of understanding. Something like a contract where
you get the majority of the say and what the College Football
Playoff format will be. Now, Greg Sankey's already shown
(31:18):
that he's a little bit sensitiveabout how the SEC is perceived
over the last couple of years because the Big 10 has won the
national championship 2023-2024 and more importantly, the SEC
has not played in the national championship game since 2022.
Last year they watched SMU get aspot that they felt belong to
(31:44):
Alabama. Didn't matter that Georgia,
Tennessee and Texas got in. Felt like 1/3 of the field
should have been represented by the SEC as Indiana, Ohio State,
Oregon, Penn State all got in tothe College Football Playoff.
OK, SMU, Boise State felt like outliers.
(32:05):
Arizona State felt like right, it's right where it should be,
and Notre Dame is Notre Dame. OK.
Nobody's really upset about those things.
I think the extra team gives youanother chip to play with, gives
you another token to put into the slot machine to play through
the tournament and win the national championship.
And the reason that we are arguing about how many teams you
(32:26):
get in is not just because who gets to win the national
championship, but by each win you get adds more money to the
pot. From the $7.6 billion to ESP, NS
paying to televise College Football Playoff to your
individual conference or if you're Notre Dame, Notre Dame,
it really is about money at thispoint.
It's always been about money, though.
(32:47):
Like, we're not arguing about what's best for college football
right now. Because if we were doing that,
we'd be having a totally different conversation.
One where the Big 10 and the SECdon't get to tell everybody else
what to do. But that's the world we live in.
That's what it is, right? This is why in this, in this
particular instance, the Big 10,the SEC, that's your executive
(33:07):
branch, OK, OK, OK, right. The, the, the Congress, that
that's all of us. We can't get nothing done.
You know what I'm saying? And the judicial branch remains
judicial branch and they ain't got no reason to get involved
just yet. But I assure you, they will just
take a look at House versus NCAA.
If we can't figure it out, we will ask judges in black robes
(33:30):
tell us what to do. I really wish it doesn't come to
that, and I don't think it will in the playoff, right?
How we decide our national champion has always been
ridiculous and stupid. The one time that we're trying
to do it right is the time for which we find gridlock.
A mythical national champion always got under my skin as a
child. I'm going, I play baseball.
I love baseball, right? College football, baseball.
(33:53):
It's just I get more out of talking about college football
than I do about, you know, WHIP,you know, OPS and there's just
more games and you know, I'm scoring a baseball game and I,
baseball is a different sport for me than football, put it
that way. However, when I played Dixie
youth, when I played at RL Turner in Little League LLWS as
(34:14):
opposed to Dixie League, right, Dixie Youth, when I played high
school ball, we got tournaments to define who the champ is.
We didn't have no freaking tournament until 2014 in a sport
this more than 150 years old. So now we're trying to do it.
We're trying to do it right. You know, the the majority
shareholders are trying to predict their majority
(34:34):
interests. So we get word from Bretton
Murphy on on Three that the Big 10 is not likely to support a 5
+ 11 format of any kind unless we get the big the SEC to play
in nine conference games. So why is the conference games
part of this sticking point? Well, because the SEC gets one
more cupcake on its schedule than everybody else.
(34:55):
Because they get one more cupcake on their schedule than
everybody else. They have inflated win loss
record compared to the US. Swear baseball is actually a
little bit further ahead. ERA should not be just what the
ERA is. It should be adjusted to the
average of the league. That's why WAR matters.
Now. Nobody plays with WAR on the
back of their friggin jersey. But we're talking about warnings
above replacement 2025, not in 2014.
(35:17):
That's asinine. OK, like I I don't you introduce
a little bit of nuance to a conversation, everybody.
Heath Ledger Joker loses their minds because apparently we
stopped thinking. Making a blanket statement is an
easy thing to do as a sports talk show host.
It's not the hardest thing in the world when you can do the
(35:40):
math on a notepad and demonstrate that it's powerful.
Because you're making people believe that something really is
simple. That is much more than you watch
than you think. Some of y'all have you woman or
you man's come home and tell youabout their day.
And their day probably revolves around bosses.
Like this boss kind of sucks. This employee kind of sucks.
(36:01):
Kylie kind of sucks. I wish you wasn't that way as
the spouse, as the boyfriend, girlfriend, as significant
other, as the side piece. You don't get to say, well,
damn, you should just go tell them off because that'd be the
simplest thing to do, right? That'd be the simplest thing to
do. It would be, hey, go to your
colleague, go to your boss and tell them what's what.
(36:21):
You know, it's not that hard to not eat the thing that's labeled
Cheryl in the refrigerator. If your name ain't Cheryl.
OK, you should tell that to them.
To which you probably won't get you going.
You going to get the eye, You going to get the eye.
And if you lucky, you might justget to sleep on the couch.
If you're not lucky, you might get kicked out the house.
(36:42):
Because it's not that simple, right?
There's nuance involved in here.There's interpersonal
relationships that are have to be ongoing.
These are the things that keep our social morays in check.
This is the reason why being sports talk show host, you get
this guy, Hey, here's here's howmuch the asset player.
I hate that. Here's how much the asset is
worth. All you do is deduct this from
what you were going to pay. And then all of a sudden the
(37:04):
asset is valuable again. No, because people are people,
dummy. And when we start treating
people like they don't matter, we lose their interest.
And when we lose their interest,they don't want to give us their
money. Because that's the part of this
that I think is really getting under people's skin is the
money's so big that for us regular people, you talking
(37:24):
about millions and billions got us feeling some kind of way cuz
that's life changing money. But another way, Brian Kelly was
able to throw $1 million at the 2025 LSU roster cuz he got that.
Some people will never see $1,000,000 in their entire life.
Most people will not see $1,000,000 in their entire life.
So Rita just gotta be able to kick that in, write that off.
(37:48):
That's not going to hit the way you think it's going to hit with
most people. LSU fans getting it's great
because they just want to win. But that's just it though.
That's all you get as a fan. You don't get no national
championship ring, you don't getno bonus, you don't get no money
for plan. All you get to do is say my team
is better than your team and when the calculus for that gets
to be so offsides and ridiculousthat we're having an argument
(38:11):
about a SEC, just play the same number of conference games.
Everybody else 9 and they're going no, our ACC schedule is
harder than your nine game conference schedule.
Eat it. No, we can't all get along.
By the way, I LED with that Reginald any quote because if
y'all do your history on that. Do you remember what happened
after he said that or before he said that?
(38:34):
No. Well, the college football
version is Georgia, TCU 20/22 and he was not Georgia.
At SEC Media Days. DJ Lagway had a sentence that I
(38:56):
thought was just kind of funny. And I think it also speaks to
where we are in the DJ Lagway experience and why people feel
good about Florida going into 2025.
(39:18):
What's up, Kim folk, it's RJ Young.
I am not on a step mill. If this is your first time
watching Adapt and respond, thank you for joining us here.
We talk college football year round.
That is something you're into. Go ahead and hit that subscribe
button. Like this video and answer the
question in the comments below. Is it really about DJ Lagway
just being healthy in 2025 that could see us watch or I should
(39:41):
see, could see Florida return tothe kind of team that we came to
associate it with even during the Dan Mullen years, let alone
the Urban Meyer years. I think it's kind of that
simple. And I think DJ had a funny way
of getting at it, like when he was surrounded by reporters and
media day, he had a really great.
Line that was hey guys, I don't have a prosthetic arm.
(40:04):
I'm coming back. I've been coming back.
I feel great. But this is also kind of the
story with DJ, right? He had a shoulder injury that
had been basically nagging him since he played high school
football. Willis, TX 5 star quarterback,
one of the great quarterbacks ofthe last five years in high
school and shows up to Florida and immediately we all want to
(40:27):
see him play, right? We think he's the best player on
campus and it would be criminal not to see him on the field.
Which Billy Napier would say, hey DJ, trust the process.
And he led SEC media day last year by just saying how grateful
he was to Graham Merch and how Graham Merch is going this and
that and everybody else is going.
Ain't enough of the merch stuff with the Lagway kid.
(40:47):
Can can we get the Lagway kid? And eventually Graham takes an
injury that forces DJ Lagway into this game.
And you know what the Sanford game is the one where I got to
see, oh, OK, this this do different.
The one I think that convinced everybody was 259 on I think 14
or 24 against Kentucky. And what was a route you could
(41:09):
see it all on display. He can move.
He can. He's got a cannon for an arm.
He sees the field well, He's balanced in the pocket.
He knows where his receivers aregoing to be.
He knows how to get them in and out.
And if they are as good as they showed themselves to be in the
second-half of the year, it's noquestion they could be what
Tennessee was last year. This year especially, because
(41:32):
Florida had to play a bunch of younger players than it would
have otherwise wanted to. Which means going into 2025,
that team is much more seasoned than it was a year ago.
And that was really what it was about in 2024 for Billy Napier.
Perhaps he doesn't say this, butall of us thought that man was
going to get fired by October. And it flipped.
(41:53):
And it flipped in a hurry. So much so that when DJ Lagway
played, they were six and one. They won eight games when he
played. When he started and finished the
game, they're undefeated 6 and Othat one loss Georgia and that
game looked like a one that Florida was going to win if DJ
Lagway did not come up with the gimpy hamstring.
(42:15):
The lady having to play the third string quarterback who
didn't look terrible didn't lookgreat.
Georgia ends up doing what Georgia should do against third
string quarterback and basicallya bunch of underclassmen who
ain't played a lot of games. That bodes well for the future.
And that's one of the reasons I think close watchers of Florida
football have been going. Yeah, we're we're good this
(42:35):
year. We got it.
Trey Wilson is going to be an absolute stud.
Jaden Baugh is an absolute stud.We know what we got defensively,
Know what we got offensively is humming in the right direction.
The question that I have for Florida and frankly, DJ Lagway,
is can he be healthy for the entire year?
It feels like an unfair criticism because everybody
(42:58):
wants to be healthy and injury prevention is the biggest part
of exercise and sports science and being a strength
conditioning program is to prevent you from, or at least to
help prevent you from suffering these sorts of injuries.
But when I have a guy that's gota shoulder injury and a guy
that's had a twitchy hamstring, I asked this question in harness
(43:18):
because Quinn Newer's great at Texas, did not play a full
season at Texas for one injury or another.
Is that enough to get Florida towhere they want to go?
Because when you was able to getTexas to Big 12 Championship and
win in the College Football Playoff and then get them to the
College Football Playoff once again after getting them to the
(43:39):
SEC Championship game in Year 1,if that's who DJ Lagway can be
and miss a couple of games, great, awesome, sweet.
But I don't think that's what itis.
I think when you was also blessed with the best offensive
tackle in the sport, Kelvin Banks or season offensive line,
and I believe had four starters on it last year that had started
(44:02):
the year before. He didn't have the running back
room that he thought he was going to have.
But Trey Widener still rushed for over 1000 yards.
Ryan Wingo was great, DeAndre Moore was great and he had a
defense that was pretty phenomenal.
That's all you got to do at Florida.
I say all you got to do at Florida, but that's what it's
about, right? It is.
Can you put it together in the first half like you did the
(44:22):
second-half? Because if they play the first
half like they did the second-half, we are talking
about 11 win team. It's that simple.
I think that we're all right to ask him questions about how he's
feeling and the program that they've had him throwing on
because I believe they got quarterbacks thrown three days a
week according to Billy Napier, and he's been throwing well.
I think the pitch count and needing to cite it, I've never
(44:43):
been excited about that. I don't like citing pitch counts
in baseball. How many pitches the guy throws,
how many pitches the guy throws.Now the the statisticians and
the accountants and the folks that really want to do the
science and nerd stuff in both of those sports, they'll tell
you after a certain number, there's the diminishing return
(45:03):
and you can only ask so much come late in the season.
I get that. I understand, but one of the
reasons that I love college football like I love baseball is
that at its core, it's simple. Block and tackle take care of
the football. C ball, hit ball, right field
the ball with two hands, make the throw.
(45:23):
If you don't have the talent to play, you won't.
I guess just that easy. So when Florida says what I
think only a few talented peoplecan say, we're going to make
this game as simple as we can. We're going to be a leader.
All the things that don't require talent.
That's it. My favorite example of this.
And I would always kind of give this one out because there's
always this recognition with therest of us that aren't playing
(45:46):
major college sports or in professional sports that we are
just not that good anymore. And it's got nothing to do with
effort. I'm all effort, right?
But the hoes that I had in Little League ain't the hoes
that I need to have in high school.
OK, Some of these dudes are throwing lasers.
It feels like everybody throws 100 miles an hour now.
(46:06):
And I don't mind telling you kids, when I was a child, 100
miles an hour was a circus act. That was that was that was just
a trick. Troy Percival was close as you
got to that. And now it feels like
everybody's got an absolute flamethrower in the bullpen just
waiting, right? Everybody's got a rawdest
Chapman out there, man, It's wild, but that's what it was.
(46:28):
It was after we know that you could do that.
Can you hit your spots? That's it, or your mechanics,
things that can be relied on. Can you repeat the action?
That's why I also state championbowler sports where all I needed
to do was practice and repeat the action.
I'm I was excellent at because the talent was there.
Like as a bowler, I'm a snapper,right?
(46:48):
Like this is what I'm going to do.
At any time that there's a, there's a bowling ball in my
hand, I'm going to be able to dothis and I'm going to get the
ball to I think the kids call ithooking, you know, like it does
a hook. But that's really about how many
revolutions are making contact with, with the oil in the wood,
the kind of wood, whether or notit's synthetic wood or whatnot,
(47:09):
and just how dry or wet the lanes are.
And frankly, I'm always going tobe to the left of any of, of any
head pin. Like I'm always going to be the
left of it. I'm always going to be breaking
back because I'm going to get the most bang for my buck.
I'm going to get the most pin movement, yadda, yadda, yadda.
But I could do that because I had the talent to do this with
my wrist, right? Same thing, would be able to
(47:31):
throw a football 60 yards. I could flip my wrist.
Baseball. I learned a lot about throwing
hard playing catcher because youhave to be able to generate so
much momentum from your feet down and get it out very
quickly. It's about hips.
It's about leg strength. And then, you know, if your
right arm is also a Thunderbolt,it's easy.
(47:52):
So when Barry Bond says something like I can hit 100
miles an hour, that's not that'snot a thing.
People go, wait, what? You're telling me that a guy
that can catch a baseball, all you got to do is this and he
catches the baseball 100 miles an hour?
Why couldn't I just put a bat where that where that MIT is?
Well, Barry, because the rest ofus are human beings and not
gods. So it ain't working like that
(48:14):
for us. I keep telling people realize
that after 92 mph you physicallycan't track the ball with your
eyes means that you're catching or you're hitting where you
expect that thing to end up. You have to see into the future.
First time I've caught a Major League curveball because I
thought I'd caught, you know, tough curves.
I thought I'd call it, you know,stuff that broke, you know, 11
(48:35):
to five, couple 12 to sixes. But then I got a real 12 to 6
from a dude that ends up playinghigh a ball, not even Major
League Baseball, but had a MajorLeague curve.
And I came out of my stance because I got fooled.
I thought the thing was going togo over my head and it came down
like mule nor into my hands. And I said, Oh my God.
(48:56):
I mean just a Thunder clap of ofa just it's not a drop.
Like I hate that we say this. It's not dropping.
It's, it is torpedoing at you and you, Oh my God, I get
animated about this stuff because there's movement that
you see on television and then there's movement that you see as
a catcher or a hitter and you get to see guys go, oh, no one,
(49:17):
they're about to get hit and it's a strike.
That thing that goes behind yourback, it snaps back wizardry.
I'm trying to tell you, I just wish the pitchers were smart
enough to tell, to let me tell them when to throw that stuff.
Because sometimes there's a there's a hitter up there that's
just to tell if there's a pitcher out there and he's going
to hit it for a nuke. And now we're down.
(49:41):
Can you tell that I've had pitchers shake me off?
Can you tell that I've had managers call in pitches that I
look over and I look down and I go, OK, serve it up.
And that's what happens. He ain't seen my slider, dog.
Not only has he seen your slider, he's seen it 1000 times
on film and he's been practicingto smash that thing on a 22
(50:03):
count cuz he knows that's what you're going to go to when you
got to have it. So you threw that slider and
Lord help you, you didn't put itright where I told you to put
it. And now it's 513 feet that way
and it looks like it's still going as a matter of fact.
Is that. Yeah, I think that just hit a
star. Yeah, it's exploding star right
there. See that you did that just
(50:23):
grapefruit at that thing up there cuz he grew the hell out
of it. Florida can be that, right?
Florida. Florida can be elite.
It's there. DJ Lagwe is elite.
It's can he be healthy? Can we get him for an entire
season and then Gators become fun as hell?
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Special Summer Offer: Exclusively on Apple Podcasts, try our Dateline Premium subscription completely free for one month! With Dateline Premium, you get every episode ad-free plus exclusive bonus content.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!