Know the Enemy: FSU

We come off a bye still without a coach and facing one of the teams most linked to our top candidate James Franklin. We welcome Jesse from Plant the Spear onto the show to talk James Franklin rumblings and help us preview the Hokies road matchup at Doak Campbell Stadium.

Episode Transcript

(00:47):
The. And welcome back to the Boundary

(01:50):
Corner Podcast. And real quick, before we get
anything else said, happy veteran's day out there for
those who served. Definitely big salute.
I'm Curtis Wilson and along withmy partners Brian Siegler, John
Italian, Shelton Moss. We are brought to you by the
Counts Family Pharmacy, your friendly neighborhood pharmacy
three O 1 S Main St. in Blacksburg.

(02:12):
OC doctor Jeremy Counts down there tell him we sent you.
We are also brought to you by Moments on the Maury.
Start looking at Moments on the Maury next spring, fall and
summer for your weekend getaway on by Proud Hokie located just
outside Lexington, VA. All the fun stuff you can think
of being down in the mountains fishing, kayaking, canoeing or

(02:38):
just having a nice beer by the river with a good fire pit.
Check out the link right there in the comments section or visit
moments on the more on their Instagram page.
We are all back together once again.
Only took like 3 weeks. Tally Shelton.
Welcome back boys. Thank you, Sir.

(02:59):
Hello. What's going on fellas?
What's going on fellas? Always glad to get the, the, the
full boat here in the house, especially with, you know, a, a,
a big trip down to Florida Statethis week and shortly we'll have
somebody. On there that can tell some
more. About that.

(03:22):
Oh yeah, ingestible. We got a little bit all right.
We got a new little setup, don'twe?
New. Setup.
We got a new little setup, don'twe?
It looks different on my screen.The layout.
Is the layout different? Oh, do you have the the vertical
thing turned on? Yeah, that that's only for the
gram. Everything else is going big.

(03:44):
Yeah, yeah. Going if it's messing with you
like it did me last week, it messed with me hard last week.
I was like, Brian, what the you can hide.
You hit the little button on theleft, it'll hide it from you.
But yeah, you are right, Brian, in just a few minutes, we are
going to be bringing on Jesse Conger.
Hope I pronounced his last name right from Plant to Spear.

(04:04):
If I did, Jesse, I'm sorry, It won't be the first.
It won't be the last name I've mispronounced.
Going to bring him on in just a couple minutes.
We're going to tell the truth, not about football, but about
basketball. Shelton did a season preview
right up for the key play, if you hadn't seen that.
He's got thoughts. We've got thoughts on the
opening two games because something's brewing down there.

(04:29):
Going to give Shelton and Tally a little talk time when it comes
to the coaching search since they've been off a couple weeks.
Let them get in on that. And then, as always, we'll make
our predictions for the game andthen some big screeners that I
don't really want to talk about because it won't pretty last.
Week Curtis did not have a good week last week.
Big old doughnut. But yeah, let's tally Shelton.

(04:54):
Anything to add before we bring on Jesse here and start talking
about this Florida State game Saturday night 7:30?
Well, I'm glad that Hokey Hoops is back.
I certainly think, you know, weren't with.
It feels like another year wherefootball season, you know,
didn't really deliver. And so we're kind of just, you
know, trying to get through the winter season and unfortunately,

(05:15):
basketball has been kind of underperformed in the last two
years, but they're back again now.
So we can finally have somethingto look forward to as hockey
fans during the winter and and wrestling too.
Shout out to wrestling. They got some.
They got lots of momentum as well that.
Was a good start with them and obviously Neo is is is the
truth. He's showing out early, so
something to get the hockey fansexcited as we head into this

(05:35):
uncharted territory with this football program. 100% but let's
go into some charted territory now.
Again, like I said, Hokies, headdown to Florida State.
Let's get to know the enemy withJesse from plant to spirit.
Jesse, if I butchered your last name, I'm sorry, man.
It happens. It's fine man.
I answer to whatever, so it it, it don't matter.

(05:56):
I'm used to it by now. Hey idiot, moron, whatever.
I'll answer to just about anything.
It's all good. Kurt Curtis has such a layup
name he he screws up everybody else's.
It's most common names in literally the world.
What am I supposed to do? It's funny, like at this point I
just roll with it. Like if you call, if you say
whatever, I'm like, yeah, OK. Yeah.
No, you're, you're you're you'reclose.

(06:17):
I'll just go with Jesse from here on out.
But that works. Jesse, first of all, before we
get deep into it, give us a little background about
yourself, you know, how you cameto, you know, having Plant the
spear and your history of Florida State football.
Yeah, man, so actually like I'vebeen a Florida State fan my
whole life and I am a firm believer in one team, no second

(06:39):
favorites, no, nothing like that.
It's all it's all one team. So I believe Garnet and gold.
It's been an up and down fandom for sure.
Obviously I started, you know, II do remember the 90s.
I'm 37. So I didn't, I did, wasn't
really lucky enough to kind of really come up through the
Bowden dynasty. I was kind of there late towards
the end of it. Of course, I remember the, you
know, the 99 championship, sorryto mention that one.

(07:02):
But then also 2013, I was able to be in California for that.
That was pretty cool. I actually started when I was
about 10-12 years old. My brother would go to baseball
camp at Florida, Florida State, Mike Martin baseball camp.
And I was old enough to go. Yeah.
And so like he was there with Mike Martin and I was not old
enough. So my dad would take me around,
we'd go look at the stadium and things like that.
And so I've been hooked ever since I was a kid and then

(07:25):
around 2021 kicked around podcasting for years and just
never was really brave enough todo it.
Never really was brave enough toshow my face on YouTube or
anything like that. And so in 2021, I just decided
like, you know what, we're just going to go for it started in
22, had a great time. We jumped on the train at the
right time. We jumped straight into A10 win

(07:46):
season and then into a 13 win season.
So we were having, we were living a great life.
And then the frying pan of two and 10 came and smacked us right
in the face. And so that was a little bit
rough to talk about. And now we're four and five.
So we're going through it. But it's been a fun experience,
man. I mean, we've got to cover from
the highest of highs to the lowest of lows.
We've got to cover a once in a lifetime event with the snub in

(08:07):
23, which was not exactly a goodthing to cover.
But it was a very big week for us on the show.
It was very popular at the time.We were just raging and everyone
raged with us. But yeah, I mean, overall, man,
I love it. It's been, it's grown more than
I could even imagine. I was talking to Brian on our
show earlier about how it still blows my mind that people will
like see you at a game and be like, oh, you're the plant and

(08:28):
spear guy. And it like, it still blows my
mind, man. And then, you know, obviously
getting to do things like this with the the college football
community is one of my favorite aspects of this whole thing.
So man, I really appreciate you having me on.
Yeah, Jesse and you know, you talked about us being on the
show together. One of the things we talked
about was some some favorite moment moments in this rivalry

(08:48):
in this in this matchup series, but.
About We might have lost Brian Tally, Did you give them the
Alabama Internet? Man, I thought it was mine
acting crazy. Now his is acting crazy.
Yeah. His is acting crazy so well.
So I think he was trying to leadinto there that, you know,

(09:10):
basically starting with 99 and then now moving into the ACC.
Brian, you, you lost everything,man.
You frozen. Oh, what's up?
We lost everything you said. You froze.
That's fun. That's fun.
So you have to repeat what you just said.
Yeah, I was just going to say, you know, I, I was we, we were
talking on our on your show, just a just a few moments where

(09:31):
we jumped on here. You know, some of the history of
this match up, some of the history of, of Florida State,
Virginia Tech. Obviously, you already mentioned
the 99 national championship game or any moments in this
these this series that have kindof stood out to you that you
want to talk about a little bit before we get everything else
going here? Yeah, man, it's been a, it's

(09:52):
been a range of emotions in thisone too, right?
So I do remember 99, obviously that was a big one for us.
That was kind of the first national championship that I
remember. I was five years old for the
first one. So in 93.
So that was the first one that Ireally remember. 2005 actually
the ACC championship game in Jacksonville, FL was my very

(10:12):
first FSU game in person. So like I remember, I believe
that was Marcus Vick in that oneor something like that.
And so that was, that was actually my first FSU
experience. So I that's, you know, this was
the first team I ever saw FSU play against.
Then, you know, the not so fun one.
I was, I was there looking like an idiot swag surfing in 2018 in
the blackout, having a great time.

(10:34):
And then like I told Brian, I was like, man, it was one of the
funnest environments I had ever been in until we kicked off and
then it was all downhill from there.
So yeah, a lot of a lot of memories from Florida State,
Virginia Tech over the years. I love when these two brands get
together and play. I will say that I have yet to
beat AI have yet. I've been to Blacksburg.

(10:55):
I've actually been outside of Lane Stadium, but I've never
been for a game. I was just passing through and I
was like, I got to stop and see it.
It's one of my bucket list items, right?
I really, really, really want togo to a game in Lane Stadium.
I'm really disappointed because this game was supposed to be in
Blacksburg and then when they expanded and and shuffled the
board, it ended up getting movedto Tallahassee.

(11:17):
But at the end of the day, man, I think when you talk about
these two, these are two of the most I, I think iconic brands in
the ACC. When you talk about a, a fan
base stadium, the atmosphere andI just don't think they play
enough, right? Two times in Blacksburg since
like the 90s and, and only four times I think, since you guys
joined the ACC is, is criminal, right?
These are two brands that shouldbe playing, especially now that

(11:38):
we don't have divisions, we should be playing almost every
single year. Yeah, and slowly but surely that
is going to start happening moreand more where you're going to
see a team every roughly about every three to four years.
The next one is going to be in 2028.
Well, hell, if the conference isstill together in 2028, in 2028,
it's supposed to be in Blacksburg.

(11:59):
But I think going through the 9 game schedule, that's going to
help it out. And you know, like, like you
said, there there is, there is a, there is the, the sense of
rivalry there because starting in 99 and then 05805 still
pisses me off to this day because we were a fucking better
team. And y'all know, everybody knew
it on the field. We just played stupid the whole

(12:20):
game. I was literally my fraternity
had a huge party that night. I didn't show up because we were
in the the neighbors behind us. It was like a bunch of us tech
fans just packed in watching. So when everything happened,
let's just say a lot of bourbon was drank that night.
Yeah, yeah, it happened that night.
But Monk, that crowd. But let's get into this season

(12:41):
and this team and these teams and specifically about Florida
State because obviously we got our team.
We know our team. Brian's giving you some
background on them. But let's just talk, you know,
four and five, not the record that you won't.
But what is, as I was looking atthe data, it doesn't point to

(13:02):
four and five South. What's been the one thing for
you as a defence? Is it off?
Is it Thomas Castellanos? Because Thomas Castellanos never
won a game against Virginia Tech?
He's trying to break a streak right here on Saturday night
because he somehow he's one of the only quarterbacks in the
league that hadn't beat us. But what, what, what?
What's the frustration on your part thus far?

(13:24):
You know, it's it's really kind of shifted as the season
progressed, right? I mean, obviously you come out
game one and you can't ask for abetter game.
Like I still, I still wake up atnight sometimes and just sit up
in my sleep and go how in the heck did we beat Al freaking
Bama not. Only beat y'all smoked them.
It was not just we beat them by a Oh my God it's a miracle y'all

(13:47):
dominated that game. Beginning Italic called that
tally. I think you called that right
out the gate. Like Forest State's going to
beat Alabama. Like he's like.
It it was wow, man, I, I never expected that, right?
And we were there, we stormed the field and all that And, and
you know, like I told Brian, I was like, we're standing down
there on the field and we're just like, are we going to the

(14:07):
playoffs? And then little do you know,
we're now four and five. We just basically lost every
game against a powerful opponentsince then.
But you know, you start off withthat and, and I think the, you
know, it's almost a curse, rightwhen you beat Alabama like that
because you, you change the expectations coming into the
season, the answer, the goal wasalways 7 and 5 to 8 and 4 based

(14:29):
on what happened last year, 2 and 10, the disaster that we
were. Now I have a little bit
different feeling about that type of expectation because I
always look back to, well, 2 and10 should have never happened.
So yes, it's an improvement, butit's an improvement that should
have never happened because you should have never been 2 and 10
at a place like FSU. But that's neither here nor
there. So you, you, when you beat
Alabama, your expectations change.

(14:50):
And I think they should. That's what wins and losses do.
And so at that point, I'm thinking we should, if you can
beat Alabama like that, I shouldbe able to look at the schedule
and find nine wins. And so we should be that type of
team. You know, and then you beat a
couple of cupcakes and that doesn't really prove anything.
And then you go on the road to Virginia.
And really early on, it was a defense.
The defense was the problem. Like you go up to Virginia, you

(15:11):
score 35 I think in regulation and then the end up giving up 46
points. So defense was kind of the
problem there. Now offense didn't help.
Like we've had a really big problem with just shooting
ourselves in the foot mistakes this year.
Turnovers are crazy. A lot of turnovers, lots of
costly penalties, not only just penalties, but penalties at
crucial moments that either extend drives or kill drives and

(15:35):
just really, really hurt the team.
And so the defense was the problem early on.
You know, then you have you havethe pit game, right?
Pitt comes in here with a a freshman quarterback making a
second ever start, first ever start on the road and puts up 34
points on you in dope. That should never happen.
So there's your defense being the problem, right?
And then you go past that, the Miami game happens.

(15:56):
You know, Miami was like, if youlook at the box score, Miami
looks a little bit closer than what it actually was being like
2822. That game was 28 to 3 late in
the third quarter. That was actually the point
where I first tweeted like, it'stime to fire Mike.
I I think this is over and this is done with.
And I caught a lot of Flack for that because it was a little bit
early. Then Pit happened, then Stanford

(16:17):
happened and and then everyone, now everyone's ready to fire
him. But you know, the Miami game,
you just weren't really competitive in that Pitt was
unfortunate, but Pitt turned outto be pretty good, right?
And and the Stanford game is theone that you just can't get
past, right? That's got to be his second
worst loss at Florida State nextto Jacksonville State in 2021.

(16:38):
So which he's given us a lot of great moments.
You know, the first loss to FCS program in school history, the
first loss to Duke in program history, 4 losing seasons in
five years or at least to be determined or six years.
But then you lose that Stanford game and and then it has shifted
to the offense, right? The offense only puts up 13
points at Stanford. That is just, I don't know how

(16:59):
you explain that, right? And so then you come back
against Wake Forest, you have ifyou're coming off a bye week, I
don't know what happened. I don't know if they just
remembered all of a sudden that they do play, actually do play
football. They beat Wake 42 to 7.
And I know it's Wake Forest, butthat's a pretty OK Wake Forest
team this year. And then when you're looking for
consistency, you go up to Clemson, a bad Clemson team,

(17:20):
three and five at the time, and you get beat 24 to 10.
You were never blown out in the game, but once they went up 18
to nothing, you would never got back within one score.
You actually I think out gained them in that game.
But it's just it was another tale of mistakes.
It was this was one of the worstgames that we saw, right?
I mean, you out gained them, butyou had costly penalties.
Again, you had a lot of overthrows.

(17:41):
You had a wide open, like Mike loves to gamble on some 4th
downs, like it does not matter where we're at on the field, he
will go for it on 4th down. And so you gamble on 1/4 down on
your side of the field wide openand the guy just brick hands it.
And so it's just been one of those things where like I want
to blame Mike for a lot of this stuff and I do.

(18:01):
But at the same time, there's a lot of plays that are there to
be made and they're just not making them.
So Long story short, early part of the season the defense was
the problem. Kind of the later part of the
season, the offense has been inconsistent, but throughout the
whole thing we're just missed. Tackles, penalties, turnovers,
little things like that are how you look great on the stat sheet

(18:23):
but also lose games. Sheldon, go ahead.
Yeah, so Jesse, I kind of want to like bounce some some ideas
off you just that was a that wasa good, you know, long winded
rant about FSU. So we talked about last year,
you know, 2 and 10 just completely imploded.
They brought in a bunch of new transfers didn't work out
obviously. Then this year obviously FSU
started out good. But again, they they've lost a

(18:44):
couple close games. It seemed like kind of
snowballed. My thing is, you know, we've
seen as hokey fans, like when you bring in a bunch of new
transfers, it seems like often times when you hit, when you hit
a wall and you hit some adversity, it's it's not always
a guarantee that they respond towell because these are guys that
maybe don't know each other well.
There's not a lot of chemistry or continuity.
And certainly we we experience that as hokey fans.
When, you know, Tech lost to Vanderbilt, they just completely

(19:06):
quit on the coaching staff and got blown up by ODU and just
tumbled into a mess. When I look at FSU as an
outsider, I feel like they do not have a really good ability
to respond to adversity, particularly this past couple of
years under Norvel. Do you think that's a fair
criticism of this coaching staff?
Yeah, I do. I think in 2023 was when you
actually saw them do that well, right.

(19:28):
They responded to adversity at certain times, but a lot of that
23 team was player LED. That's when you had Jared Verse,
you had Jordan Travis, you had, you know, a lot of the guys,
Keon Coleman, you had a lot of the guys who were the leaders.
And then in 2024, we heard a lotabout the coaches had to push
the leadership. They had to force guys to become

(19:49):
leaders. So the leadership was never
there in 24 and now in 25, you've seen guys like Tommy step
up and and be a leader early on in the season, but we don't
really have the same level of leadership that we had in 2023.
And and actually, it's kind of afunny thing that you bring this
up because they're, you know, Mike Norvell loves to use the

(20:09):
word respond like we are so beyond.
I'm tired of climbing, I'm tiredof responding.
I'm tired of all this stuff. Like he says that after every
like we're going to respond and it's like.
Buddy, we've been responding forlike 8 weeks now.
What are we doing? Like we're, we're apparently
we're not responsive. And so there was actually
something that was leaked out ofthe locker room where one of the
players was joking about him saying respond like this is all

(20:29):
we say. And so there was a question for
after the Stanford loss that maybe he had lost the locker
room and maybe the maybe the players were it was the message
was falling on deaf ears. But then you see that after
wake, they come out and a lot ofthe players, four or five
players come out and say, like, we've heard everything that
everybody's saying about Mike Norvell in the locker room.

(20:50):
And that's not true. We're playing for our coach.
So I don't think they have quit on this season, but there has
been a few games where they havebeen flat it it looks like they
know there's nothing left to play for, but they're still
playing somewhat hard. And I say that because in 24 I
saw quit like I saw straight up loafing on the field guys just

(21:13):
like coaches, they're getting into it on the sideline.
You could tell there was they were not bought in at all last
year. So I think it has gotten better
this year. But you know, to your point, I
think with the transfers, one ofthe problems that we've seen
here under Mike Norvell when when people talk about the wins
and losses, yes, that is the glaring issue.
But there's a lot of other things like recruiting like he

(21:33):
is not been great at recruiting at a school where it's pretty
hard to be bad at recruiting right in the state of Florida.
And he has not landed the top ten class yet.
Like he and we just lost our recruit last week.
So he's had a problem with that.So what that leads him to do is
go dip in the portal every single year.
And so the problem is it feels like he's putting together

(21:55):
A-Team every year versus building a program that's going
to be stable for the long run. Like I understand the portal is
still part of college football and it is still important.
But when you look at teams like Alabama, like Georgia, like Ohio
State, the teams we want to be, they are built primarily through
high school recruiting consistently year over year and
developing those recruits. There is a lot of there is a lot

(22:18):
of mercenary to the portal, right?
There's a lot of mercenary factor in that.
And so you have those guys that come in, they get paid and you
know, that's that's all they really care about.
They just want the money. And so, yeah, I think the
portal, the over usage of portal, you know, when you bring
in, out of 22 starters, you bring in 16 new starters almost
every single year. It's almost impossible to build

(22:39):
continuity through that. The only, the only thing I will
say to, to where we're at right now is a lot of the problems we
saw in recruiting and development was under the old
staff. Mike Novell is the one constant
though. And frankly, if you know, to put
it like it is, if you're going to have a $10 million CEO head
coach, the least he should be able to do is recruit.
And Mike Novell cannot. And so that is why we're so

(22:59):
frustrated with him. But I do think the the
leadership, the cohesion and thedevelopment that you've seen
under the new staff with Gus Malzahn and Tony White and those
guys has been better. Like we are actually seeing
freshmen hit the field and be impact players now.
Whereas before, one of our biggest things with Mike Novella
is why are you bringing talentedkids here to sit for three
years, then bring in a transfer who you don't know if they're

(23:22):
going to be good or not? Like play the recruits, man.
You got to play the recruits because that's a culture killer.
And so, yeah, I, I think the culture is he flipped it after
last year and it's holding together.
But you know, the, as the lossespile up, man, it's going to be
hard to hold. It's going to be hard to keep
them motivated. But it yeah, I mean, when you
throw together A-Team every yearversus build a sustainable
program, that's just going to bepart of the problem.

(23:44):
Yeah, novel to me, kind of novelto me kind of mimics a a
basketball coach maybe like likeCalipari when he was at
Kentucky. You know, you build this great
team for a tournament run or fora championship, but then they
all GoPro to next year. That's kind of what it feels
like Norvell is. And then you go through, you

(24:06):
know, a bad year and then you maybe have a decent year.
You just can't do that at A at aprogram like Florida State, you
know, with so much prestige and history and culture that they
have, like you said, like it would be hard to be a bad
recruiter there, but he's kind of proven that that's what he
is. So Long story short that that we

(24:29):
went all around the world for meto just say, y'all are probably
going to be getting a new coach soon.
Who do you think that coach is going to be?
A lot of people have been, if you already see in the chat and,
and, and on the Internet, a lot of people have been talking
about James Franklin. Do you think a coach like James
Franklin comes in and upgrades y'all or is it somebody else

(24:49):
that you're more looking at? So I think he could.
Now. I will say what concerns me the
most over the last week is 1, there is a lot of smoke around
them. Trying to figure out whether
Tommy can come back next year. And the situation around that is
when he was a freshman at UCF, he played in five games.
One of those games was the AAC championship and the year after

(25:11):
that, they changed the ruling towhere the the championship game
would not affect your red shirt,right.
And so they're trying to appeal to basically be like, he only
played in four games. That counts as red shirt year.
Well, if you read the tea leaves, if they bring Tommy
back, that probably means they're bringing Gus back too,
which probably means they're bringing Mike back.
So that's the that's the situation.
We don't want to happen, right. And he also had a press
conference this week where he talked like a guy who thought he

(25:34):
was coming back next year. We, we won championships and
we're going to win, you know, more here and everything.
And so that does concern me thatwe might actually bring him back
for another year. But if we do make the move and
if we do fire him and I, I thinka lot of that does kind of
depend on the rest of the season, although to me, I don't,
I think the decision should be made.
We have enough evidence. James Franklin was actually my

(25:56):
number one choice at first, right?
Because I think right now the problem with Mike Norvell has
always been consistency, right? It's never been like 08 wins,
then 10, then seven, then 12. It's it's either like we went
three to five to 10 to 13 to 2 down to now 4, probably 5-6 at
the at the top right. And so it's never been

(26:17):
consistent. And so for me, when you fire
Mike Norvell, you now have to pay basically a head coach's
salary for the next 5 to 6 years, depending on when you do
it. And so I don't know that Florida
State can afford to screw this next higher up because if they
do, they probably can't afford to fire that guy for five to six
more years. And so I think you need a guy

(26:39):
who's almost a can't miss. And really James Franklin feels
like the guy out there right nowwho is actually obtainable, who
is kind of a can't miss guy. And I know there's a lot of the
thing with, you know, the four and 21 against top ten teams and
things like that. But you know, when you're
playing in the ACCI think he cancome in to a place like Florida
State. He's not an elite recruiter, but

(27:01):
he's really good, right? He's our averages 13 to 15 or
something like that. But he's also, I think in his
time at Penn State, he's put 56 kids in the NFL so he can
develop. He's also shown to to make good
hires from his support staff. And so I think he could be a guy
that could stabilize a program like Florida State, right?
He could get you 10 wins year inand year out and in the ACC that

(27:24):
means a playoff berth every now and then.
So I think he would be a great option for Florida State.
Now with that being said, hold on, let.
Me ask a quick question. Let me ask a quick.
Question. Yeah, go.
Ahead, does it concern you this recruiting footprint?
It is Mid-Atlantic, it is not, it is not Florida, it is not
Georgia, it's not Alabama. It's I don't even think it's I
don't even think he's got to play out of South Carolina.

(27:46):
Does that concern you? Can you walk from there?
And OK, go ahead. It does because when you look at
when we brought in Mike Norvell,the first thing was he didn't
have ties to the state of Florida.
And then he also took over the COVID year.
So he couldn't build those ties in the state of Florida.
The difference, I think, betweenhim and James Franklin is the

(28:06):
fact that Franklin's name carries cachet, right?
And Mike Norvell's at the time really didn't.
I think people, everybody knows who James Franklin is.
And if you put, you know, the Florida State logo on his chest
and you send him into some of the schools in South Florida, I
think he would be OK. But the recruiting really is
kind of the one thing that makesme step back on James Franklin
because right now the biggest problem we have is recruiting.

(28:29):
Now there's a whole another conversation about that where
people try and blame NIL, peopletry and blame talent.
And I'm like, guys, we spend more and we have more talent
than Stanford. I mean, we add more to
Jacksonville State. We add more than Pitt, all these
other teams that we're losing to, you were right.
Like you're beating Alabama. It's not NIL and talent, right?
So there is a disconnect there. But that's why I also look at

(28:50):
somebody like Brian Hartline at Ohio State.
Maybe you take a little bit moreof a chance on a guy like that.
Who? Has a recruiting prowess second
to none. Like he came down and he and he
pulled Jeremiah Smith out of Florida, right?
I would have loved to have that guy keep that kid in Florida.
And so you take a chance on thatbecause he doesn't have any
coaching experience. Maybe you got Glenn Schumann

(29:12):
there, ADC at George's, a guy, aname I like, Will Stein, they're
up at at Oregon, the OC there. And so I think those guys are
ones you could look at because you know, you look at Kirby
Smart, you look at Dan Lanning, you look at even Ryan Day.
These are guys that came straight from the coordinator
level and they're having a ton of success.
So I don't know that prior head coach experience is even really

(29:33):
necessary. But what I think that the
problem for Florida State is if you fire Mike Norvell, I don't
know that you can go and outbid a Florida team or whatever for
like a Lane Kiffin at 13 and a half, $1,000,000 a year or
whatever that the case is going to be.
I think you need to find somebody probably somewhere in
the 8 tops of $10 million range.And who can you get for that?

(29:56):
You know, there's also the other, the hot button name of
Jimbo Fisher, right? If you could retread that at
Florida State. I don't love that idea.
But he can recruit. That would be a story if y'all
went back to Jimbo. And The thing is with Jimbo, I
think the allure is he can recruit right.
Even in 2022 at Texas A&M, he didn't have time for that class

(30:16):
to flesh out because he got fired after 23.
But it was like the number one recruiting class in the history
of all recruiting classes. Like he could, I think he could
come into Florida State and he could get enough talent on the
roster to win in the ACC. And even during his bad years,
like we were still winning 10 games and making the Orange
Bowl. So I, I think you want to make a
splash because you know, when you talk about gaining NIL

(30:38):
dollars and donations, we're notgoing to love like an Alex Golis
from USF, another G5 coach or something like that.
I mean, he may be good, but it'sprobably not going to move the
needle. So I think it's James Franklin
is like the biggest fish in the pond that our bait can catch
right now. There's going to be competition
for that, but we're probably notgoing to go get a a sitting $10

(30:59):
million head coach. It's just probably not gonna
happen. So I think it's James Franklin
or you take a chance on the coordinator or you look at maybe
one of the better proven G5 coaches, like the guy from JMU,
the guy from Tulane or somethinglike that.
Those guys are probably already spoken for other places.
But yeah, I think that's probably the route you're going
to go. Or you hang on to Mike Norvell

(31:19):
for one more year. We have a tough schedule next
year. You hope because you don't know,
right? You don't know what the coaching
carousel is going to look like. Last year everybody says it's a
crazy year. This year it might be crazier.
Next year, we don't know. And so I think maybe you hold on
to him and you try again in 26 and hope things aren't as crazy
in the coaching carousel. This year is an alpha, though.

(31:40):
When I say this is an alpha project, this year is the first
time NIL has truly been in play when it comes to money.
Because you've already mentionedto us, Norvell's roughly going
to be 8 and a half million if you're paying him a new coach
11, there's $20 million gone right there.

(32:00):
And you've already said about buying out coaches if you don't
have the NIL pool, you, you're kind of in that situation where
it's like Florida outbid us, fuck LSU outbid us, Tennessee
just outbid us. How are we going to do this?
But I loved your takes on everything there.
But I want to hit a couple more pieces about the game before we,

(32:22):
we we let you go. But thanks for the insight where
you're coming from as an FSU fan.
I will, I will. I will say one quick thing to
that, there is the thought process with some people that
maybe we just save the money andhelp Norville get better players
because we've seen what he did in 23 when he had good players,
right? Like if you give him a $30

(32:42):
million nil budget, could he go produce those kind of results
again? And I certainly think that's in
the conversation. I think the problem is how do
you get to that number when a lot of the fan funding is going
to wane because people are goingto be like, I don't trust him to
give him money to go buy players.
Because again, like you chose topay DJ you $900,000.

(33:04):
You chose to pay Tommy C $800,000.
You're spending more money than a lot of the teams you're losing
to. How, how can I justify opening
up the checkbook for this guy? And so, yeah, you're right.
I think you could put money intothe roster and probably see
better results. But you should be seeing better
results based on we have a top 15 NIO budget and we're, you

(33:25):
know, probably the 60th ranked team in the country.
Yeah, 4:00 and 5:00 is y'all's current record and and I'm just
looking here trying to go to Saturday.
First of all, should the line? Was it 13 1/2 last time I
checked? 13 1/2, yeah.
It is still. Absolutely.
Generous. That is a massive line.
I think they're looking at the differential in talents there

(33:46):
and again, a three and six versus A4 and five in at home.
But as I look it up and down your roster, you guys run the
little crap out of the ball. Give me some info on Saw Chuck
and Chroma because it looks likeother than Tommy but I know we
know Tommy scrambles and runs a lot.
What do they bring to the table?Yeah, so obviously a Gus Mile's

(34:07):
on offense, the staple is the run game, right?
We run the ball a lot and you know when you look at this rush
offense, we're 13th in rush attempts per game.
We run about 40 * a game. When you talk about the the
running back stable that we got,Gavin Sawchuk is the guy that
came in from Oklahoma transfer. He was actually pretty good out
of Oklahoma. He just never really got a

(34:29):
chance to be the lead back. He got injured after he got a
start, got the starter status out there.
He was pretty good out there. He's not been real great for us.
The other guy, Chroma, is a freshman man.
He is going to be special. My biggest concern with him is
can we keep him on the roster, right?
We flipped him from Georgia on signing day.
That was a really, really big get, one of the biggest flips we

(34:50):
had in the entire class. And I mean, he looks like a
senior as a freshman now. He's still coming into his own,
right? He's still got some things he's
got to get better at. We also did see a name that
you're probably not going to seeon the stat sheet with Sam
Singleton. He is a guy that played against
Wake Forest and he I think had 91 yards rushing lead in that
game. So we have about 5 or 6 backs

(35:11):
that we will use. But your your top three.
They're hoping to have Cam Davisback again.
Former five star running back that's been out with injury.
He's supposed to be back for this game.
So you got about four or five guys.
I wouldn't say that any of them right now are like when when I
talk about like a Florida State running back, like a Dalvin
Cook, right? I don't think you have one of
those on the roster. Chroma could be someday, but you

(35:34):
have a you don't really have anybody that don't like either
other than I could, I could really not see Roy Doe Williams
carry the ball for the rest of the season.
I'd be OK with that. The Alabama transfer.
But then Tommy running the ball,man, he's been banged up.
He has been dealing with an ankle injury since the pit game.
It was literally the very first play of that game.
And he's not ran the ball as effectively as we would have

(35:55):
liked him to, right. He and I'll give it to Tommy.
He puts his body on the line. Yeah, he got like cartwheeled
against Stanford. I think he got literally knocked
out against Stanford on a dirty hit.
I mean, he's putting himself outthere, but the running has not
been the same as it has been early in the season.
So that's not great when you're considering that's a lot of what

(36:15):
makes his game special. But Florida State's going to try
and run the ball, man. I mean, they they are definitely
going to try and run the ball 1st.
And The thing is, when you talk about the like the rush stats, I
will say with any stat you look at with Florida State, the games
against Kent State and East Texas A&M do kind of cloud the
water a little bit, right? They muddy the water a little
bit because we just ran, I thinkwe put like 4 or 500 yards

(36:37):
rushing against Kent State or East Texas A&M, whichever one it
was. So it does skew the stats a
little bit. Like we ran for over 200 yards
in the first four games. We have not run for 200 yards
since in the last four games. So the rush game has slowed down
a little bit, but it's still effective.
And it needs to be because if you talk about the pass offense,
you know, The funny thing is themore Tommy throws the ball, the

(36:59):
worse we are, which makes littleto no sense, right?
And you know, I was telling Brian earlier on our show when
you talk about the passing offense, like if you want the
stat of the game, like this willliterally decide the game.
So in our four wins, we're four and five.
As everybody knows, in our four wins, Tommy averages 13 1/2
attempts per game with 0 games over 20 attempts passing

(37:20):
attempts. In all 5 losses, he's thrown the
ball more than 20 times and averages 34.2 attempts per game.
I think we threw it 40 plus times against Clemson.
So if the run game works enough to allow Tommy to throw the ball
about 18 times for around 100 and 7080 yards, that's what you
really want, right? But if he's throwing it 40 times

(37:41):
for 200 and 52160 yards, chancesare we're going to lose.
Yeah, we we were. Having that conversation.
Yeah, we were having that conversation and we were both, I
mean, when you look at Virginia Tech, it's a very similar
situation. You know when when Jesse asks me
what's, you know, Virginia Tech can win this game.
If I said if if we have it, you know, somewhere around 40
carries, we're at least going tobe pretty close to this game.

(38:06):
Every time we've seen Kyron get above that 25 number in
attempts, it's the offensive efficiency plummets.
Yeah, when he's right around that 2022, that means that he's
been running the ball more. Number one.
He's been effective with with his hand off.

(38:26):
So we've been able to get some some yardage on the ground and
he's been able to be judicious with the attempts.
And when we do that, we're a whole lot better offense.
And so I think there's a lot of similarities when you look at
some of the struggles that Florida State has had and some
of the struggles Virginia Tech has had, especially on the
offensive side where we haven't seen quite as much attrition due

(38:50):
to a mid season firing like we have on the defensive side.
Yeah, and I will say for our offense, the offensive line is
experienced. They're all red shirt seniors,
they're all big. They're not great, but they're
pretty darn effective. And then in our pass game, like
just get ready for a deep shot to deuce Robinson and and
probably Makai Danzy because that seems like about all we do.

(39:12):
I don't I honestly don't know that we have a mid level pass
game. I haven't really seen it very
much and usually when we do, we drop it anyway.
But man, I mean because like when you look at our offense,
we're 6IN yards per attempt and we're 97th in attempts per game.
So that pretty much kind of tells you where we're at.
Like we like to throw the ball deep and it's going to be Deuce
Robinson more often than not. The guy is 6 foot six.

(39:34):
He can run, he can catch, he's got great body control.
He's probably played himself into I think a first, first or
second round draft pick. So unfortunately we probably
won't have him after this year. He's had 400 yard games this
season. He's I think over 800 so far on
the year. So man, I mean, he's a really
talented receiver. McKay Danzy's a young guy, a
freshman, a track guy who's got insane speed.

(39:56):
You're probably going to see a reverse to him.
We ran it and I think the first six games before Gus finally
figured out that everybody else knew we were going to run it
too. And then of course, you have
Squirrel White, who has been in absolute bust so far this
season. Part of that's on the
quarterback, part of that's on him.
I had a lot of high hopes for that guy.
I think he has like 5 catches for 50 something yards and one
was a 40 yard catch against Bama.

(40:16):
So Douche Robinson is the one that you really need to know
about in the past game. But you know man, we got some
weapons. It's just last game was
overthrow here, drop past there.And so it's a lot of things of
you have potential, but can you not shoot yourself in the foot?
Tally, We got another six, six, 220 LB wide receiver to deal
with. Thank the Lord, right?

(40:41):
Yes, yes, that's what we want to, that's what we want to play
this. Is like the, I think the third
or fourth wide receiver that somewhere north of 6/5 and and
at least 215. That's tough, man.
That's tough. I mean, we had for a.
Quarterback room that has been decimated by a combination of
injuries and opt outs. It has not been pretty and we

(41:06):
and we've been struggling. Yeah, I told you when we talked,
man, like we've been struggling giving up big plays in the
running game, but we've been struggling getting off the field
when they're throwing the football and particularly in the
red zone. When they throw the football in
the red zone, it's going to be atouchdown almost every damn
time. It's it's one of those things
where we just, we do not match up well and we do not match up
well against guys like this thatare kind of those red zone

(41:28):
nightmares, those stick movers, those guys that can really kind
of do a little bit of everything.
Yeah, I mean, he's he, he's definitely, he's our our biggest
weapon right now. I think when you get compressed
into the red zone, sometimes I do worry because the problem
there is like, you know, Tommy does have that limitation.
He is 5 foot 9, right? And so we've seen a couple times

(41:49):
where they try and get the ball vertically, you know, more than
horizontally in that compressed field and it's turn into
turnovers that killed US againstVirginia bat of balls or
something that that, you know, if you can't get him outside of
the pocket, that that can be an issue too.
But I mean, if it wasn't for Deuce, our offense would be in
pretty big trouble, right? And he got hurt.
We didn't have in the second-half of the pit game.
If we if you if we did, I think maybe we do win that game.

(42:11):
But man, I mean, right now he's been one of those guys that
like, you got to have him on thefield because he is the best
player on our offense. Let's go to the defensive side
of the ball real quick and a name that kind of sticks out and
might even stick out the tally some is oh shit I had it right
here. Earl little transfer from

(42:31):
Alabama was a huge recruit for them back in the day and it
looks like he is tearing it up this year.
He's got 4 picks lead the team in tackles.
First of all where is he playing?
Anytime I see 57 tackles on ADB it meets me think is he playing
nickel or is he playing safety? But where is he lining up
because it seems like he is a bit of a one man wrecking crew

(42:54):
on that side of the ball. Yeah.
So he lines up at Rover safety. So Tony White runs A335 defense
is what he likes to run. Now we've had to switch a lot of
that and go to multiple and and run a four man front.
We've had to do that a lot. But in the in the base defense,
he runs the Rover safety and as you know, that's the middle of
three safeties. So he's basically allowed to
just kind of be like a little bit of a linebacker, a little

(43:18):
bit of a safety hybrid. Actually, the way the defense
was founded way back in the day at New Mexico State, I think
that position was Brian Urlacher.
So it kind of gives you an idea kind of of how that guy is.
He's he's a guy who's maybe not quite a great DB, but not, you
know, he's a little too undersized to be linebacker.
So he kind of has freedom to roam the field.
And then I mean, he came out on fire against Alabama, had an

(43:41):
amazing game against them. Then he really struggled against
Virginia. He had a couple of missed
tackles that really one of them,I can't say it cost the game
because you can't really put on anyone play, but he did have one
that he just tried to shoulder tackle.
The guy bounced right off of himand went in for a touchdown and
we ended up losing the game. He had another bad tackling
effort against Pitt. So like he's a really good

(44:04):
player. I mean, he is a really good guy.
The problem is, man, it's like he forgets he has arms when he
tackles, right. He is a big shoulder tackling
guy. And so really missed tackles is
the one thing that kind of hurtshim more than anything.
But I mean, he is one of the leaders of the defense.
He is one of the best players onthe defense.
He's an obviously a great athlete, A rangy guy coming from

(44:24):
Alabama, and since they moved him back to safety, he's done a
lot better. So as long as he doesn't miss a
tackle, he's usually in a good position to be on top of them
for one. So he's a really good one.
Our best cover corner is probably Jabril rawls #11 and
he's got an NFL future. He's a really good corner for
us. Other than that, we, you know,
we don't really have a ton of of, you know, really big names

(44:47):
there like we had in the past. Edwin Joseph is another guy that
kind of plays that nickel spot. He's been pretty good too.
You know, they all kind of have made some mistakes.
Safety is not the really strong point for us outside of a
little. I mean, you have some other guys
who, one was a veteran that got pushed down the depth chart and
kind of came back up. Another was a JUCO guy transfer.

(45:07):
So they're pretty good. But man, our secondary for a
little part of the season, especially against Pitt, was
just an unmitigated disaster in coverage.
So the fact that Earl Little cankind of come up and play the run
helps his numbers out a lot. But in the past game and it's
been our secondary has been pretty sketchy, which has been
pretty painful to watch. Like sometimes they just look

(45:27):
like they just don't know what they're doing back there.
Yeah. And I mean, we don't have we
don't really do a whole lot of we haven't stretched the field
very well in the past again thisthis season, to to say the
least. Most of that has been kind of
schemed off of, you know, our success in the running game and
things like that. I did like you tying the the

(45:47):
three three stack Rover to the Tampa 2 middle linebacker
connection there. They're basically the same
position. Yeah, but.
Yeah, it's, it's, it's interesting to see like, like I
said, I think there's a lot of, you know, there, there's some
corresponding elements to some of the struggles we have.
I think ours has just been exasperated even even worse by

(46:12):
the utter lack of. Pass.
Pass rush because of some of theopt outs.
Pass rush in general. Passing game in general.
Well, passing game in general because our pass rush has
struggled as. Well, oh, it's struggled as
well. If we had a couple of year guys,
we might be sitting six and three right now, but it's been

(46:33):
wide receiver wise that that's what the struggle been.
Tally anything else before we get ready to close this out with
Jesse here tonight. Tally I think froze on the I
dagged on Alabama Internet. I swear to God every time.
Froze. I'm sorry, I was froze man.

(46:53):
What was the question? Anything else for Jesse before
we get this thing ready to wrap up?
No, just tell him to go talk to Jesse.
Go talk to Tommy C and tell him that we don't want the Alabama
tummy see. We want the eight other game
Tummy See. So do I, I haven't.

(47:13):
Seen that in a while. Brian, go ahead, Jesse.
I was going to say I, I really think like the hardest part for
me when you look at this game and, and picking and things like
that is I just don't know who's going to show up, right?
We've seen Florida State play good at home.
They're four and two at home. They beat Alabama, they beat
Wake Forest 42 to 7. You know, they lost to a

(47:34):
talented Miami team at home. They lost to a good pit team at
home. So who's going to show up for
me, that's the thing. And and I like, I actually like
the matchups in this game for Florida State, right?
When you talk about what, when you say the past game is the
kind of the weakness, that makesme feel a lot better because our
secondary, our past defense is our weakness.
Our linebackers can't cover in space to save their life.

(47:55):
Our defensive line is pretty just okay.
I wouldn't say it's really special the names to know.
Darrell Jackson is the nose tackle there.
He's pretty good. The twins, the Desir brothers
are two freshmen. They are outstanding.
I hope those are two that we don't lose in a transition.
So I just don't know who's goingto show up.
But I like the way it matches upin this one.
Man, I'm excited to watch it play out.
If we were not at home, I would probably prick Virginia Tech in

(48:18):
this one, right? I mean, we haven't won a road
game since 2023. We've lost nine straight.
So I would definitely pick you guys if we were in Blacksburg.
And I do think that spread is a little generous, right?
I don't think Vegas knows what to think about us right now.
I think they're a little confused.
Maybe Mike Novell's betting the spread or something like that.
Hopefully our athletic department is so they can, you
know, boost up the money for thebuyout, put the put the booster

(48:40):
donations on the spread. But yeah, I mean, I, I, I think
that's a little generous. 13 1/2is a little much.
I think it's going to be a good game.
Yeah, I think it's going to be agood game.
I think the question is going tobe, can we do enough
offensively? Because I think you guys are
going to get a lot of opportunities on offense.
Whether or not you capitalize ornot that's that remains to be

(49:02):
seen. Curtis, you talked about at the
open show, I was like, you know,things might go well if we can
run the football and if the history with Tommy Castellanos
and Virginia Tech is something that carries forward.
I think we picked him off five times in those matchups,
something like that. So it's, you know, it's a pretty

(49:23):
good history for us on that front.
But again, you know, it's a different team.
It's at Doke, you know, I thought y'all, y'all have a
little bit more to play for thanwe do at this point.
So it's going to be interesting to see how that kind of shakes
up. But before we wrap up, Jesse, we
really appreciate you jumping onwith us tonight.
Tell all the folks out there where they can find you and

(49:44):
where they can listen to more. Plant the spear.
Yeah, man, I appreciate that. So you can find everything that
we do on our website at plant thespear.com.
We have links to our social media, We have links to YouTube.
All of you can watch all our episodes or listen to all our
episodes right there on the website.
So it's nice and easy. You can of course, always check
us out on YouTube, on social media, Facebook, Instagram and

(50:06):
Twitter. Twitter's where I'm most active.
I still call it Twitter where I'm most active at.
And then yeah, man, we have podcast only version and and you
know, we're we're the fans, right?
So we try to be the fans voice. So if you're a fan, if you're
Florida State fan, come hang outwith us.
We go to the games, we do all that stuff.
We don't sit in a press box. We get a little crazy and stuff
like that. When we get the opportunity, I'm
going to be down there on Saturday, you know, at at this

(50:27):
game and I can't wait for it. I'm excited, like I said, every
time these two brands get together, I, I just get excited
about it, right? It's a, it's a fun game.
And like I was telling Brian I was joking earlier, at least
it's not like 1 is up and one isdown.
Like maybe because we're both equally bad, it'll just be a
good game. And in a vacuum, we won't even
notice that we're bad, right? We'll just think it's too, We'll
just pretend it's two good teamsand we'll just go with it, man.
But I appreciate y'all having meon and I'm looking forward to

(50:49):
Saturday. Appreciate it, Jesse.
Take care of yourself man. Have a good one.
Now have a good one. All right, so I don't want to
jump to basketball quite yet because obviously we did some
coach talk there. Me and Brian have been.
We've laid out where we feel right now.
So Sheldon Talley, I just want to get tally.

(51:19):
James Franklin's bad for you, hey?
Where are y'all at right now? I mean, we are.
It's been forever where you're probably, I'm going to say we
all think 17 days from actually knowing who the next coach is.
If not sooner. If not sooner, sooner would be

(51:40):
better. Sooner would be better.
Where are y'all feeling just I mean who do you, I mean you
know, there's all sorts of boardreports and all this crap going
around where where are, where's y'all set space at?
I don't care who goes first y'all just start talking.
You got anything? Yeah, I mean, I've actually kind

(52:02):
of zoned out a little bit in thecoaching search.
I'm not not plugged into the message board as much as because
I kind of I kind of got burned out from it.
But I mean, it sounds like, you know, obviously James Franklin
is, you know, in the lead so far.
And I was thinking about this earlier today.
I think not only does it make sense from our perspective,
obviously hiring a guy like that, but I also feel like from
Franklin's perspective, Vt makesthe most sense for him.

(52:25):
Because if you think about it, Imean, you know, there's going to
be a handful of SEC schools thatopen up for sure.
But one, he doesn't fit that recruiting footprint exactly as
well as much as as well as he fits us.
And two, I generally speaking, SEC teams do not hire fired

(52:45):
former powerful coaches. I mean, there been a couple
exceptions, obviously, with, youknow, Steve Sarkeesian and Lane
Kiffin, but that was kind of a unusual situation where they had
some personal issues beforehand and then kind of went through
like a, you know, a reclamation project after that.
It just, it just doesn't happen very often.
So I know it's kind of it's different because obviously
Franklin's, you know, had such agood track record and like teams

(53:05):
are going to come after him. But you go through it like
Auburn, it seems like they want some role or you know, maybe
someone's going to make a play for Kiffin.
You know, Florida, same thing. Florida State, again, we don't
know what their financial situation is, so we don't open
up. So I think, I think on the
whole, like I just think Franklin makes the most sense
for Vt from both sides. So he's obviously my number one.

(53:30):
You guys know, I'm a big Bob Chesney fan.
I think he would be, he'd be theeasy #2 we can, you know, split
errors on that. But for the most part, I feel I
feel pretty good. Like I, I think that's a pretty
good 1-2 punch right there. If you if you miss on Franklin,
you could settle for a for a really good hiring Chesney.
Yeah, that's just I agree, uncle.
What about what kind of games? Yeah.

(53:54):
So, no, I, I mean, I agree with what Shelton is saying for the
most part, which I said it as soon as he was fired, you know,
that I thought James Franklin was a good fit for Virginia
Tech. Just from what we need
standpoint. You get so many people, we've
been through this like 10 million times.
But from what we need, we need to get to the next step, the

(54:17):
next game, not the big game. We got to get to the next game
before we get to the big game. And I think somebody like James
Franklin would come in and be, you know, have US playing
serious football off the field and then on the field, as in
money, recruiting, things like that, which in a sense gets you

(54:38):
to play a real, you know, serious football on the field.
I think he can do that really quickly.
You know, I haven't really paid attention to Chesney much.
I know that he's done a a good job at the stops he's been at.
I just think it would for him, he would have to build a little
bit more. And I don't know how much time
we have to build. I think chess needs a good

(54:59):
coach, but I'm just nervous about going after a coach that
would need, oh, like, we get pride.
Oh, we going to give him three years.
Like if Virginia Tech is sorry for three years, what's going to
be left? You know what I'm saying, like
we get left out of everything you need to build right now.
I think that's kind of the mindset that we're in one year.

(55:23):
I mean, you can do it in a year.Somebody like James Franklin
come in, bring in recruits, bring in, you know, transfer
portal kids to be competitive next year.
So in my mindset, that's of course what I think and what I
want. But I also think that there's
things that are already happening.

(55:45):
You know, there's all this stuffgoing on on the boards.
Everybody's seen it and heard it.
And now you got Arkansas saying that they got Franklin and you
know, you got people at Florida State.
Don't nobody fucking know, man, for real.
You know what I'm saying? Nobody really knows.
I ain't going to say nobody knows.
Somebody may know. I don't know.
I know what I want to happen, but I know that there's a lot of

(56:06):
smoke and mirrors out there because even somebody that I,
you know, really trust about football in general and, you
know, he's a coach in football and he talks to a lot of college
footballs. He says he don't know, you know,
he he said, hey, man, I thought this was happening and then this
didn't happen. And then we had to go back and
talk to the person about this. So things change a lot.

(56:28):
And then there's a lot of legality that goes on in these
in these contracts. Just like when you look at LSU
with Brian Kelly, you know all he's fired.
Then we got to go back and we got to because it's a lot of
money that's tied to these contracts.
So that's why it takes so long for these people to get things
done. But I said all that to say Uncle

(56:52):
James is coming home to Blacksburg.
All right, Tally, put the stamp on it.
The the I'm going to go to the Brian Kelly thing.
Thank you all both for giving you all his opinion.
Jumping out a couple weeks on it.
The Brian Kelly thing is showingthe biggest issue within college
football. They fired him.
They agreed to pay 54,000,000. Almost everybody can say, oh,

(57:12):
this is what happened. They went and looked at the
books y'all and they realized, wait a second, it's 54,000,000.
We got to give to him and hit itand, and now Jesse said
Norvell's isn't that Norvell's is a longer term play out.
It could be. Spread out over I think 3 or 4
years, something like. That all set language included,

(57:33):
Yeah, but it's Kelly's is 54,000,000.
His staff is probably 12 or 13 million, right?
Somewhere in there. Then you got to pay the new
coach and the new staff in and out.
LSU have looked at their books. They ain't got the money.
You know, and then this is another thing, yeah, this is
another thing too, car. This is what you got to think

(57:54):
about. All of the coaches salaries have
been reset this year. You got, you know, you got Rhett
Lashley that was down at SMU making 3,000,000, two and a half
million something last year and he just gets a new deal where
he's making 8 or 9. 8 or 9,000,000, yeah.

(58:14):
You know, I'm not saying he's got a good coach.
I think he's been good for that program.
But guess what? The next coach is going to look
at that and say it's just like any other sport.
It's going to say, well, I've been to the playoffs and he's
making 8 million. I deserve to get 9.
I deserve to get 10. You know what I'm saying?
So now if LSU wants to be a playoff team like some of these

(58:39):
other teams around them, how much are they going to have to
spend on the next coach? So like you say it, you're
right, Curtis. They went and looked at the
numbers and say it, oh shit, will you will you take less?
Will you take less? And he's like, no, I ain't
taking less. And they're like, we didn't got
the money. What are we going to do?
Because we need to pay him 54,000,000 and then we're going
to have to get the next coach what, 10?

(59:01):
It's a rough game out here, man.At least, Yeah, at least it's a
rough game. Out here and, and, and we are
now in the day and age, NIO is king because if you don't have
your NIO situated and funded, the coach don't matter.
Everybody says the coach matters.
Coaching matters depending on your talent level.

(59:21):
Because there ain't no way Brian, no disrespect to him, to
Sydney, Nick Saban couldn't go take him to Sydney's roster and
compete at the Division One level.
He's the greatest coach of all time though, right?
Why can't he? Talent matters.
It's always mattered. And if you ain't got the money
to pay your talent and you get your house in order on that end,

(59:44):
coaching only marginally matters.
Curtis, you don't think he couldturn me into a Remington winner?
I'm not saying that he going, he'll get you some arm
extensions. Maybe.
All right. So.
That's kind of where the coaching is and and it's kind of
to be honest, it's it's now sitting wait, it is what it is.

(01:00:07):
Some of y'all going to be happy,whoever it is, some of y'all
going to be pissed. It's gonna be fun to talk about
who the coordinator hires is in the next month or two as we see
that come down. It's gonna be fun how the portal
works, who stays, who goes. So just let's just sit back
because now I'm like Sheldon, I'm, I'm almost burned.
I'm like Sheldon Sheldon's burned out.

(01:00:29):
I'm like this close to getting burned out.
So luckily. Actual news.
Give me some actual news. Something to chew on.
I don't want to. I don't.
Want to have to scrounge throughthe the board like Reed T
leaves. I'm done with that.
All right, here we go. Here's the news.
The Virginia Tech Hokie basketball team is, too.

(01:00:51):
That's the news. Two and oh.
And not even that though, because that happens.
I ain't going to say that happens all the time, but that's
just, you know, basketball. It don't matter till you get to
ACC play. But the real but they.
Beat A-Team but hold on. Hold on.
But they beat A-Team. That's projected to go to the
tournament. Finish third in the Big East.
Still don't matter, still don't matter to me because I feel like

(01:01:12):
when you go, when you get into ACC play night in and night out,
you start to see who your team really is.
Now, I'm saying that to say the real news is Virginia Tech has a
legit basketball player on that team that will carry them
through that ACC slate. Because my knock on, I don't

(01:01:34):
want to say knock, but what I always said like about Mike
Young's roster was, man, we got to get some bigger guards.
Because when you start playing, you know, Duke and you start
playing North Carolina and Virginia, the man, they got big
guards for the most part, you know, 6465 guards, long arms to
jump. And then we will be rolling out

(01:01:55):
with Storm Murphy. No disrespect trying to play
against these guards night in the night out of this heart now
* Murphy did a great job. Like I said, no disrespect to
that kid. But if you want to win, you got
to you need to be bigger, you know, at that guard position in
the ACC. Well, Neo is bigger.

(01:02:16):
You know, I got to give the kid his props.
I try not to be on the hike train all offseason because I
was just like, yeah, I want to see him play.
I've seen some of the stuff he was doing.
But when you watch him on the floor, he moves like Luca, man,
I hate to say that because I'm aLaker fan, but people were
saying that he really does like 6-9 two 15220 and just he he

(01:02:41):
doesn't look like he's moving fast, but he gets to a spot and
he makes his shots and, and you can't, you can't stay in front
of him. It's like there is no defense
for a great offense. That's that's just real.
In fact, that you can be the greatest defender ever, but you
cannot really, really stop a great offensive player.

(01:03:02):
Neo seems like a great offensiveplayer.
When the game gets tough, you can give him the ball and get
out of his way. That has always been my knock on
what Mike Young has had. I'm like, man, he can't get
those type of players. I don't know what they paid him
and I don't know how he did it, but he got 1.
So shout out to Mike Young and his staff for bringing Neo to

(01:03:22):
Blacksburg and let them do his thing.
Sheldon, I know you got some information on that, right?
And you paid attention to Neo, right?
Yeah, I've been been following the interrupts.
It's pretty crazy. I feel like we sort of have an
Internet sensation on our hands with all the the buzz that
Nico's been getting, like lots of popular college basketball
accounts tweeting about him, youknow, doing deep dives and all

(01:03:43):
that stuff. The memes with Luca have been
pretty good too. So it's it's kind of fun.
Not only is Tech good, but they're also kind of nationally
relevant, at least so far. But I I'm really happy with how
things have gone so far. I mean, I try not to overreact
to, you know, college basketballtoo early, especially from like
a, you know, stats perspective because we're still kind of
figuring things out and seeing, you know, how the team performs

(01:04:06):
early on. But I mean, so far it's been
pretty good. The one thing I like, you know,
Tech has been significantly improved in terms of their
turnover rate. It was such a bad problem last
year. They weren't worse in the
country, but now they're 17th and turnover percent so far this
year. And I think the thing that Mike
talked about in the precinct wasthat, you know, he's got 3 ball
handlers between obviously Abdallas who's sort of like a

(01:04:27):
point forward, kind of like our our LeBron.
But then you've also got guys like Jalen Bedford who can
handle the ball a little bit andBen Hammond as well.
So I, I think we've got a much more, a much better compliment
at guards, at the guard spot at,at the one.
And you've also got more versatility at the, at the, you
know, center position between Toby Lawall and Imani Monte

(01:04:52):
Hansberry, who, you know, can kind of provide a good punch at
that four or five spot and some more positional versatility too.
So it's a much more deep and versatile roster than it was
last year. So I think what we're seeing is
that Mike, when he has his toolsto work with, he can be, he can
be a very good coach. Well, I'm.
Going to I'm going to make it. You brought up.
Can I say 3 points? So first of all you talk about

(01:05:14):
size wise two of the guys brought in this year Jaden shoot
65210 Tyler Johnson guard 65210.So not only I think Johnson was
here last year y'all have to getme.
But shoot was a transfer. I know you're talking about
bigger guards, so you got three big guards like that, but the

(01:05:38):
other thing in Charlie, I'll getit back to you Saturday and I
didn't get to watch it. I don't have Peacock sucked.
My buddy Robbie, he's in the chat tonight.
He's been a while. Football season's over down in
the mountains. He was giving us updates and you
know, watch the highlights. But watching the game flow that
first half, Neo kept this in thegame because we were only down 6

(01:05:58):
and half and it was him. It was him.
He had like what, 2019 to 20 in the first half, but then they
figured out what the adjustmentsin Hansberry in the wall and the
other guys in the second-half ofthat game.
Not only did he continue to score, but they picked up the
slack and and it's been so many years where that didn't happen.

(01:06:20):
So it was enjoyable seeing that.Go ahead, Tyler, what you got?
Yeah, no, I was just going to say, and you know, a lot of talk
has been about Neo, of course, because of how good he's been.
But you can go look at Hansberrywhen Sheldon brought up as well.
He's damn near averaging 20 and 20 and 10 right now.
I know it's only been two games,but when you got a big man

(01:06:42):
that's and I mean he's not thinking maybe like 6869
playing, you know, center or position.
Yeah, he's got some, he's got some some beef in the inside.
And I just when you watch him play, he's just got a little bit
different, a little bit different motor than I'm used to
kind of Virginia Tech big men having has good hands, good feet

(01:07:05):
and he get after the ball. You know, he's going after every
rebound. He's not shying away from any
contact. He just seems to be in the right
places at the right time, which helps when you have somebody
that's distributing the ball like Neo.
But again, I think he's averaging 18 and 12 right there
in those two games. I mean, that's a big deal, man.

(01:07:26):
And then like you, Sheldon and and Curtis as well.
You brought up a little while, like I think he's right around
13 and 12 or something like that.
He's just a, he's a athletic guythat's just on the rim and it's
a fun team to watch right now, man.
So anybody who hadn't been watching, because I'm a, I'm a

(01:07:47):
big sports fan. I mean, I'm a huge basketball
fan as well as football, but I just haven't had much excitement
watching Virginia Tech as of late.
This team has been exciting to watch.
And again, try not to get too excited at the beginning of the
season about stats and plays andwhere we line up and stuff like

(01:08:09):
that. But even if we lost that game
against Providence, it was exciting to watch.
I'm like, man, this team is fun to watch.
So I'm excited, man. I hope, and I never say it.
I know people will try to say I said I never said Mike Young
wasn't a good coach. I didn't ever say that, I think.
He's a good guy. We did say that.

(01:08:30):
I just think that I just said I thought he was old and outdated.
So I'm excited to see what he does with this talent that he
has and how these guys compete this year because they look
good. They they look like it's going
to be a fun year to pay attention to basketball.
Duke looks really good too. So I will be.

(01:08:50):
I got a kid that graduated from here in Grissom.
He's at Clemson, so I'm going totry to solicit some tickets from
him so I can check one of them games out this year.
There we go. I'm interested to see what a
Mike Young team looks like that isn't overly dependent on the
three and then having like one other primary score.

(01:09:13):
I feel like we've got enough people that can get their shots
in this offense. It doesn't all have to come from
the three-point line or go through one person, although Neo
has the ability to be kind of that take over a game type
player. So I'm interested to see how
Mike Young evolves with this roster in terms of what he's

(01:09:36):
trying to do from an offensive standpoint because you know, we
know what he can do when he's got shooters out there.
I'm interested to see what he can do with having a true
versatile mismatched nightmare weapon like Neo, and how he can
draw up some interesting things to play off of that.
Well, I mentioned this last week, or maybe I didn't mention

(01:09:58):
the last week when we go last week Tuesday night, have they
played the game? I don't remember.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, they played the game and he did it again
Saturday. And it's to Tally's point, my
young system can work, But everytime you draw up a player and
have a set play, which Mike doesa lot right, not all the time,

(01:10:18):
is it going to get you the best shot.
For years, at least as long as I've known Jonathan Gen.
Tech basketball, I just want to tell he's always say I just want
a guy that we're up three points, we need to extend it.
And you know what? You don't say just go, go score
a bucket. And we've seen Neo do that like
you've seen him just literally stop, step back, fadeaways, just

(01:10:41):
take him to the rim for a layup or playing A2 man game with
somebody and giving them an easyslammer, an easy shot.
And when that happens, it's those times where we had made a
bucket in 2 minutes, they cut an8 point lead to four.
He does something, cuts it back up, goes back to seven and you
killed him. You know what?
Yeah. And you know what else, Curtis?
If you go back and look at that Providence game, he plays good

(01:11:05):
defense. You know what I'm saying?
Like. He.
Has the length, yeah, he has thelength to play defense.
And I've seen a couple times where they tried to put him in a
bad spot and, and, and get to the rim on him and he knows how
to use his body to go straight up and didn't cause a foul.
So he's a very, very smart player, which a lot of times

(01:11:25):
those, those European guys are like years ahead of what how old
they are. They might not even be the age
that they say they is. He might be 30 years old.
You know, I don't know what I'm just saying.
Like most of those European guys, because they play with
such older guys for so many years, when they come over here,
they're like they're pretty muchpros already.

(01:11:47):
And somebody in the chat said itsucks that we haven't for one
year. No, that's a great thing in
basketball. You want to have a one and done
because that gets somebody at your school that has a great
year for him to be 1 and done and then he goes to the league.
We don't want him to go nowhere else and carry their name.
We want them to go to the leagueand carry Virginia Tech's name

(01:12:08):
and say, oh, that he was at Virginia Tech and that brings
more eyes to your school. So I'm excited to see what he
does this year. Sean, is there anything else you
wrote in your article or anything else you want to pump
because Saint Joe's tomorrow night?
Not the Saint Joe's of old, but another decent challenge there.
Yeah, they're a decent team out of the 810.

(01:12:29):
I think it'll be a good, a good,solid challenge.
I'd say on the whole, like we guys were talking about, you
know, Mike has said this will not be a great 3 point shooting
team. This they could be an OK 3 point
shooting team, but I think they're mostly going to play
through Nico, who can obviously,you know, shoot from outside,
but he's a really good mid rangescore, can get to the bucket as
well. And also, you know, run the
offense through Toby and Hansberry as well, because I

(01:12:50):
think I think Hansberry is very talented and him and Toby are
both very long and just have a ton of athleticism.
So, you know, they'll they'll get the ball inside a little bit
more and kind of just let Neo dohis thing.
So yeah, I mean, I think I thinkit'll be a good team.
It'll be a good team. Again, the big thing is really
just, you know, defense. How much of how much of a step

(01:13:12):
up are they going to take from from last year?
I think they'll be a better rebounding team.
And I think they'll also score alot more in transition just
because they've got more speed and athleticism than they did a
season ago. So, and, and typically in
transition offense has not been a big thing under Mike.
But from what he was saying at Charlotte in the in the ACC
media day, he thinks it's going to be a little bit more of a a

(01:13:34):
staple of his offense this season.
So very excited to watch that. All right, perfect, perfect.
Also go to T play. Check out Sheldon's preview.
Get all the insurance and outs of this team this year.
All right, real quick, get back to football.

(01:13:54):
First of all, does anyone have faith that we are going to win
Saturday night? Is anybody picking the Hokies to
win in US Four? I'm not.
I think it'll be competitive, but no, I'm not picking them to
win. OK, Dally.
Saying they're going to be competitive, think it'll be kind
of what we it's kind of a coin flip because you got two teams

(01:14:17):
that like don't know how to win,but I just think they got more
talent than us because we got somany people that are out and and
not there. So I'm not picking up to win,
but I'm I'm if the line would bewas 13 1/2.
Is that what the line is? 13 Half is blind.

(01:14:38):
Yeah, no, I think I would pick us to cover, but not to win.
Yeah. Yeah, same exact space.
I mean, I think it's going to beabout a 8 or 9 point victory for
the Seminoles. You know, I could push it to 10
if you if you said the line was 9 1/2, I might pick FSU against
the spread there. But you know, 13 1/2 is is I

(01:15:02):
think too rich. I think we'll keep it close.
I think we'll play it tough, butI think we kind of fade in the
fourth quarter and kind of let them get a little bit of
distance between us before the whistle blows there at the end.
Yeah, I think this is going to be similar to the Louisville
game. I think we're going to punch him
the whole time. But what he mentioned induce a

(01:15:24):
kid who has that sort of explosion in their other kid to
go over the top. They're going to run the ball
well enough against us. I know we have been doing better
against the run, but it's it's Shelton's 8 old adage, right?
They're going to hit probably 3 explosive plays.
They're going to hit 3 plays, 30yards plus something like 2717
we cover. But again, we just don't have

(01:15:47):
the passing offense right now tokeep up.
Literally, if a monsoon came through Saturday night, we'd
have a shot, but unfortunately we don't.
So you know, is what it is. We said Mike Norville saves his
job because he beats Virginia Tech.
There you go. All right, let's go because we

(01:16:08):
still got then I will say this, pull it up Sheldon Talic.
Y'all got to get over 500. OK, just so one person on this
podcast has a winning record because me and Brian ain't got
no chance in hell. Yeah, the math, I think math it
on my end. Well we've had now if, if y'all
haven't counted, me and Brian have had 3 / 4 weekends, 6

(01:16:33):
combined. That's impressive.
So fade us whatever we do. Tally and Shelton started rough.
They have been slowly climbing back and it's been it's been a
fun season of games, as it always is.
You know, it's always fun games.It's out here.
So regardless what happens, I can be mad with us.

(01:16:54):
At least now it's not the the point where it's like I'm angry.
I don't want to watch any other games.
I was at peace early in the season.
I'm at peace the rest of the season.
So let's make some picks. Let's see if either of us can go
really bad. I'm picking first here.
I thought this was an interesting match up with NC

(01:17:14):
State. NC State versus Miami down at
Miami, Miami laying 15 1/2. NC State either is ass or they
play like their hair is on fire.There is no middle ground for
them. They beat Georgia Tech, they
they lost to us though. You make that make sense.

(01:17:36):
In this case though, as much as I like Miami, I think NC State
does have enough talent. I think that's too big of a
line. I think this is somewhere like a
10 point game. Give me NC State.
I'll think that, points Sheldon.Yeah, I took NC State, although

(01:17:57):
in hindsight I might want to switch it, But I, I do think
that they're coming off a reallyemotional win against Georgia
Tech and I, I actually don't like teams when they're coming
off emotional wins. So for that reason, my brain
would kind of say Miami, but kind of like you said, Curtis,
15 1/2. That's a pretty big line.
I could see them losing by two touchdowns, but three scores
would be a little bit much. So I'll take, I'll take the

(01:18:19):
back. And and real quick, Shelton,
they did have last week off. So they did not.
They did. They did have to have that
buffer in between the big win. There's more time to think about
it even worse. Or is it better?
What do you think, Tally? Well, I my first mind was North

(01:18:40):
Carolina State, so I I chose North Carolina State.
But then now that I'm paying attention and Curtis picked
North Carolina State, I wish I could switch mine and fade him.
No, but I kind of had to say I kind of had the same mindset as
y'all. I just feel like that's too many
points. I think with how bogus the ACC

(01:19:03):
is, it don't even have to do with these two teams.
I just think that something has to happen to cause chaos.
So 15 1/2 is too much. It's got to be a close game.
I think Miami still pulls it off, but I think it's a close
game and North Carolina State loses by maybe 10, something

(01:19:23):
like that. You know what, Tyler, are you
going to see this and he going to wish you would definitely.
Think Miami. Oh boy, she was stuck with
Miami, man. Hey, so I will say this.
You know this is 1. If you'd have told me that line
was 12 1/2, you could probably talk me into taking Miami here.

(01:19:49):
15 and a hook just seems like way too many points.
There's way too many different ways that can fall where it's
it's 15 or fewer here, I think. It's you're up, you're up 4221
and you take everybody out and they sneak a touchdown in.
Yeah, it's it's it's goofy shit that you can get this one.
I I feel like it's going to be like I said about a about a

(01:20:10):
about a 12 point victory for thefor the Hurricanes here, but I
did not like that 15 1/2. So I'm going to state.
All right. Who's next?
Is that me? Did I just use that?
I think that's me. That is you.
Interesting game to me. You know, Georgia, I got a lot

(01:20:33):
of Georgia fans, friends here, so I, you know, kind of pay
attention to them. Georgia hadn't been super
impressive this year. I mean, compared to what we've
seen, they've been impressive, but I'm just saying the Georgia
old, you know, just going out and blowing teams out and stuff
and Texas is just a weird team. You know, I, I feel like I never

(01:20:55):
know what I'm going to get from Texas.
You know, I don't think the quarterback's that good, but I
also think that their team is pretty solid.
So I think it's going to be an interesting game.
But I did take you, I did take Georgia to win in this one and
to cover in this one just because I think that Arch is

(01:21:16):
going to give up some interceptions.
Brad. Yeah, I'm right there with you,
Tally. Oh, man, I'm riding with Georgia
with you Tally. I don't know what Texas team is
going to show up. And that's really the difference
in this. I mean, that's a Texas team that

(01:21:38):
lost to Florida by 8 at home. Georgia's a lot better than
Florida. Yeah, that's a, that's a Texas
team that, you know, was in a dog fight with Kentucky and then
turned around 2 weeks later and,and beat Vanderbilt.
So I don't really know what to expect from them.
But because of that, I am going to ride with Georgia.

(01:21:59):
I think they're the more consistent team.
I think they're the team that can probably take care of
business by a touchdown at home.All right, Yeah.
Does it mean Sheldon, you get togo forth?
Hold on young man Tally Shelton because I think I if I can
remember what Shelton picked, I'm going dogs on this one.

(01:22:22):
The reality is the the tally's like, oh God.
The reality is Texas could be like 4 and 5 right now.
They should have lost Mississippi State.
They should have lost to Kentucky.
The honest truth is that Vanderbilt had got their head
out of their ass for the fourth quarter.
They would have lost to Vanderbilt.
They are not a good team. The best game they played all

(01:22:44):
year was at Oklahoma neutral site when Mattie didn't have a
damn thumb. They get their doors blown.
If this was 10, I did no. Yeah, I just, I don't know how
much I trust Arch against the really elite defense.
I think George is going to be the the second best defense
that'll that he'll play so far behind Ohio State.

(01:23:06):
So just not just not sold on himgoing into that background and
coming away with the with the cover.
There we go. All right, there we go.
And Sheldon, it's back to you. Yeah, I just, I chose this game
cuz I thought it was kind of interesting.
You've got Louisville that's coming off just a horrendous
loss against Cal potentially cost him a playoff spot and then

(01:23:27):
the Clemson team that kind of had a get right game against
against FSU. So I'm going Louisville.
I think it kind of the opposite what I said the last time where
I pick against teams ahead and they're coming off an emotional
win. I am picking for Louisville
because I think they're going tobe really pissed off after that
loss last week and they're goingto they're going to have their
heads screwed on straight against Clemson.

(01:23:48):
They're going to take out the frustration on them.
All right, Tally. Yeah, I'm going to go with
Clemson in this game just because Dabo has the Lord on his
side and he needs to get to a bowl game to kind of salvage his
job a little bit. Think that he's going to do that
somehow, but I think that this will be a big win for him.

(01:24:11):
Dabo can coach. You know, I don't know how they
line up against Louisville on paper.
I haven't paid attention to the two teams, but I watched
Virginia Tech play Louisville and should have beat them, and
then I watched Louisville the next week play Cow and and lose.
So I feel like Clemson's going to go in there and take care of

(01:24:35):
business and win this game unless Curtis says the same
thing I did. Sally, I hate to tell you
something, it's not Curtis, but it is me.
I'm riding with Clemson on this one too.
I don't necessarily think that Clemson had a get right game,

(01:24:55):
but I just don't think Louisville is quite the team
that we think they are. I think they've been exposed.
Is that running back hurt? Is that running back hurt that
that hamstring injured? I think I don't know if he's
going to play or not. I haven't heard final if he's
going to be playing or not. But we, we.
Know that on Thursday. Yeah, yeah.
I thought I was saying that he was still hurting.

(01:25:16):
Yeah, you know. I think Brown's still out.
Yeah, I, I, I'm not, I'm not. I'm not too high on Louisville
as a team. I think they're going to be,
it's going to be a tight game, but I think I think Clemson
probably pulls this off. I think they went out right
probably, but it's going to comedown to the wire on this one.

(01:25:41):
Louisville's a better coach. Team Louisville's in a good
headspace. Louisville's playing for
something. I think they were 15th in the
rankings tonight. They still have a playoff shot
with a couple games left. They have still a child to go
to. The ACCI think they win by a
touchdown all right, because clearly the Lord ain't on Dabo's
side to have all that talent. The guy can't barely win four

(01:26:03):
games, so he ain't the Lord ain't on this side.
Man, you got to look at the whole body of work.
Curtis, he's been there for a while.
He. Said the whole body of work.
The whole body of work. The whole body of work.
Clearly he sold his soul to the devil for a few years.
That's why he got lucky and won all those titles.
There you go. That that may be, that may be

(01:26:24):
true too. He's sold, his soul sold to New
Spring. New spring church, by the way,
Tally, I sent you a text. February 11th, Tech plays down
at Clemson. That's the one.
I think that's the Saturday too.Had to check that out man, see
what I can do to make it there. So you can make it up.
You know what, I picked this andthen I've seen what what

(01:26:46):
Narduzia said. So I might have to go back on
this, but we got Notre Dame, Pitt plus 11 1/2.
This is apparently not a big game, guys.
This this. Not a big game, doesn't.
Matter at all. It's this opponent has no no
bearing because it's not an ACC opponent.
So we don't give a shit about them.
But Notre Dame is going to Pittsburgh nonetheless.

(01:27:08):
And The funny thing about this one is that line, I think if you
if you'd have bumped this down to 8 1/2, I might would have
maybe lean towards the Irish, but 11 1/2 is just too much.
So I went with. Pitt, I too went with Pitt way
too much like biggest game that Pitt since like 2005 or

(01:27:29):
something like game days there. It's a noon kick.
It's going to be like the Big 12O clock game and Arduchi can say
what he wants. And this is where it's like
you're in an era where, like games like this still matter
because if they went out and go 10 and two and they have a Notre
Dame win on their resume, they could sneak in again.

(01:27:51):
This is why, like, This is why all those people, when I know
Sheldon Tally got to say This iswhy all those people who said
the playoffs is going to kill the regular season?
No, because in no conceived circumstances 10 years ago would
Pitt have had any chance to get into a playoff playing Notre
Dame this late. They wouldn't have 7 and 2
million in. They do now.

(01:28:13):
This game's massive. And also if Notre Dame takes
another L, there ain't no way they're making it.
I don't know if Pitt can win. I hate Norduzzi, but I don't
like Notre Dame and I don't. I don't know.
Lemon has too much. Well, according to Pat and
Norduzzi, this game doesn't matter, so I will.

(01:28:34):
I don't know if you guys saw that on Twitter.
His quotes, yeah. But.
Yeah, I don't know how the the players are going to take that.
I I'd imagine they'll be pretty inspired after that, hopefully.
But yeah, Notre Dame will definitely win.
But I do like pits cover, so give me the Panthers.
Same premise I feel and I feel crazy now I need to go switch

(01:28:55):
these picks man. I'm trying to get the Curtis
wants me to get the 500 but he keeps picking with me.
Well, it isn't. Curtis and Brian.
Listen, Brian, listen. I'm usually the first woman.
To talk himself there. Brian started the year off
wrong, so we should be fading him.
I'm thinking the same thing now that Narduzzi's came on and said

(01:29:16):
his crazy stuff that he said. But that man is crazy.
So I don't even listen to anything he says.
He's probably, you know, he's smoking mirrors and he goes in
the locker room and gets high off cocaine or something.
Who knows what he does, but he'sgoing to be he's, he's going to
be dude. He's going to be out for this
game. You know what he probably did.

(01:29:38):
You know what he probably did, He probably had all the kids.
He probably said this is this issuch an important game for who
we are. We beat them, we knocked them
out, we get in. But watch what I'm going to say
to the press. Y'all going to get a kick out
this and he goes out. They don't.
Care. They didn't, yeah, they didn't
care about the ACC, so we don't care about them.
And I'm telling he's always doing something crazy, but I

(01:29:59):
think, I don't think they win this game, but I think they
cover. Yeah, I think they, I think they
battle them. All right, so there are the big
screeners bunch and there is more good games.
I mean, we didn't even throw Alabama, Oklahoma on.
Yeah, that's a massive bite thisweekend.
There's a couple of them, Lane Kiffin against Florida.
We remember what happened at this time last year.

(01:30:19):
Ole Miss was in, they're in the playoffs, then they shit down
their leg and they were out of the playoffs.
Love it. Anything to add tonight
gentlemen, before we wrap this up?
Oh, I. Don't.
Yeah, I think we're good. I want to throw one thing in
there. Hold on one second.
Curtis. Give me just a second here.

(01:30:44):
Trying to see who Curtis's best friend plays this week.
OK. Curtis's best buddy, Shane.
Plays. Texas A&N plays Texas A&M this
week. He's going to win the game.
Watch because you didn't put it on the board that was your big.
Screener So that was going to bemy question.
That was going to be my question.

(01:31:06):
He's sitting at 3:00 and 6:00, the same record as the Hokies.
Is Shane on going here and shot the number 3 Texas A&M Aggies
Curtis? No, no, although, although he's
done all the right moves by firing people ahead of time to
save his job for next year, I don't think he can win that

(01:31:29):
game. That's that's down there.
That line's 18 1/2. Nope.
I don't think the game's what about either one of y'all. 2:00
AM. I taking South Carolina.
Brian, what you think? No, this is fade.
Shane, you. Don't think he can go on it.

(01:31:51):
You don't think they're going inshock them.
We go fade Shane the rest of theway.
Fade Shane baby. Fade Shane.
Biggest win this year could be against a three and six Virginia
Tech team and you gave your daughter the game ball.
Fuck off. There you go, Shelton.

(01:32:11):
My audio cut out for a second, what were you guys talking
about? Talking about can, can, can they
beat Texas A&M this weekend? No, no, they they will not.
Texas name is legit man. They are, they are legit.
I I was done a great job there. He has done, could have been our
coach. Could have been our coach, but.
Hey, could have been our coach. Well, we're not going to get

(01:32:33):
into that today. We can get into that stay of the
program roughly 5 weeks away. We'll get into that, right?
All right, with all that fun night, a lot of people watching
a lot of stuff in the chat appreciate Jesse from Fear the
Sphere, a great name for a podcast.
Plant a spirit, Fear to spirit, plant a spirit, Chuck to spear,

(01:32:55):
whatever. He got a spirit planet.
Yeah, that's right. Listen, I'm tired of y'all.
I gotta go to bed. So I'm going to wrap up this
episode of the podcast brought to you by Councilman Pharmacy in
Blacksburg and by moments on theMorning in Lexington.
I'm Curtis Wilson. I'm Brian Siegler.

(01:33:18):
Jonathan Talley. And I'm Sean Moss.
Check us out at boundarycornerbt.com to listen
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Jason Long down in Roanoke. Play us in play us out.

(01:33:41):
Check out Jason Long music.com where you can see where he's
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