Recruiting May Be Great Again + CFB’s Team To Beat Is…?

Josh Pate’s College Football Show Ep 642 features Josh Pate discussing potential chaos scenarios this season. Could the ACC see things go off the rails as early as week 1? Bold prediction season has returned with you calling your shot including UGA, Texas, Penn State, Clemson, Notre Dame, and SMU all returning to the College Football Playoff. What about Drew Allar winning the Heisman or Missouri winning 10 or more games? Which teams will be better and which teams will be worse this year than they were in 2024? Tonight we take a look at Michigan, Arizona State, Florida, and Georgia Tech. Josh also takes a look at the latest recruiting news including big weeks for UGA, Alabama, Notre Dame, and more. Does recruiting feel different this cycle?

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:13):
I'm so happy. I think it's going to be a
happy show. We like that kind of show. We're proudly
brought to you by Academy Sports and Outdoors Hi a
top a pulsating downtown Nashville, Tennessee, on this Sunday night,
June twenty ninth, the Year of Our Lord, twenty twenty five.
You know, it's been a long spring slash early summer.
There's been a fair amount to complain about in college football,

(00:34):
and we do from time to time. But what else
do we want to do? Children? We want to make
sure that we shine a bright white spotlight on things
that are going good. And I think something that had
gone bad for a little while maybe going good again, maybe,
just maybe? Do you do you pay attention to recruiting anymore?

(00:55):
And even if you don't care about recruiting in the
weeds per se, have you just noted the general flavor,
the general tone that recruiting has taken. Your answer may
be no, So I'm here to inform you recruiting may
be back. Recruiting may be back. So I love what
I'm hearing and seeing on that front. We don't talk
recruiting on this show a lot, so It's not like

(01:16):
I'm breaking down everyone's class per se, but I'm I'm
going to give you an early indicator that some of
the changes that are being made in college football may
be working. And imagine this for a change the way
we want them to. I want to also ask you
a question on this show here tonight, and I want
to ask you, as one of you asked me, is
there even a team to beat in college football? I

(01:40):
don't know. I'm going to leave the show with it.
I've got ten games that I personally am most excited about. See.
I learned over the past week when I did my
Toughest Places to Play in College Football that even if
you offer your opinion, it can be incorrect. Notice, my
opinion can be factually incorrect. So I can only imagine
Jesse and Bradley what the internet shall do with my

(02:02):
list of games that I myself personally am most looking
forward to. I had a dude, dead serious look me
in the not on Twitter at the gym yesterday and
tell me with a smile on his face that my
Toughest Places to Play list was incorrect. I said, but
it's my opinion. He said, yeah, but your opinion is

(02:23):
factually incorrect. Anna. Then he started talking about decibel readings
on home scoreboards in stadium, like, yeah, there's the science
I was looking for. All that plus chaos, bold predictions.
We got a jam packed show, as every show we
do here is. They're watching this in Saint Louis, Missouri, Eugene, Oregon, Hinesville, Georgia,
home of Raquon McMillan, and Crown Point, Indiana. There's a

(02:47):
lot going on around here. I can't tell you anything
about it quite yet, but there's a whole lot going on.
We are trying to maintain as much semblance of normalcy
as possible. That's why the set looks the same. Everything
looks the same, the T shirt looks the same. But man,
a lot of good change is coming to the show.
But that is for then. This is for now. Let's
dive in tonight. I don't normally lead with questions because

(03:09):
we want to lead with answers. I'm gonna give you
an answer. Jeffrey from Boise sent me a question that
I thought was good enough. I'm just gonna lead the
show with it tonight. He said. I love the fact
that y'all grind through college football content during the down months.
It keeps me sane. But after listening to your shows,
I've got to ask you, who's the team to beat
this season or your top team coming into twenty twenty five.

(03:31):
I'll have a top team. I mean, if you do
power ratings or you do rankings, either one of them.
Of course you're gonna have a number one, Jeffrey. But
number one is relative to what the rest of the field.
In other words, my number one in twenty twenty five
may have been like number six if that team existed
in twenty nineteen, or vice versa. Anyway, I say all
that to say this, Jeffrey, I don't remember the last

(03:54):
time I would have said this. There's not a team
to beat in college football in the preseason this year,
or may be one that emerges. Is in fact, I
would suspect one will emerge, or maybe two or three
will emerge during the season, there's not a team to beat.
The team to beat in my lifetime has been that
team that you look at in August or even July

(04:14):
or June or whatever, and that's that team you look
at in the spring or the summer, and you say
that team may not win the national championship. But whoever
wins it, I think is going to have to go
through that team. And normally it's a team that has
a start quarterback or they're returning like nine or ten
starters off a top ten defense, or their entire offensive line,

(04:35):
and the dominant tailbacks coming back. Got a couple of
wide receivers, each of whom you could see challenge for
the bolitannikof Award something like that. That doesn't exist this year. Jeffrey,
I'm not mad at you. I sound mad. I'm just
a little fired up about it, because that means we
could see a season that goes off the rails, and

(04:55):
in this case, derailment would be a good thing. Goes
off the rails early, you know last year was, and
we could be looking at more of the same, even
more so this year. So there are the odds to
win the national championship right now. If you're listening on podcast,
just to give you a quick rundown, it's Texas, Ohio State, Georgia,
Penn State, Oregon, Alabama, Clemson, notre name, LSU's a little

(05:18):
bit lower than I thought they were because I haven't
looked at this in a little while. So what the
team to beat is the team to beat Texas, is
the team to beat Ohio State, the team to beat Georgia.
They all got new quarterbacks. Those top three all got
new quarterbacks. They're no better than eighty second in the
country in returning production. Now, we had gotten conditioned for

(05:40):
a little while to think, oh, returning production is not
that big a deal for the Georgias of the world,
or under Nick Saban for the Alabamas of the world,
or Dabbo's Clemson teams of the mid twenty teens and whatnot.
And that was true. That is not necessarily the case anymore.
That is not necessarily case. You look at the ingredients.

(06:01):
The past two national champions have had Ohio State one
because they brought back a nucleus of guys that had
been there for a while. Michigan the year before, they
won with a nucleus of guys. Now, you're still pretty
new in this sort of portal era of redefining ones
thinking about rosters, because it wasn't that long ago. It

(06:21):
wasn't but like thirty six months ago, forty eight months
ago that you still saw Kirby and Georgia winning in
some cases with a bunch of guys who were new starters.
But that was when you could stack two or three
deep of future Sunday players. Nobody's doing that anymore. So
those returning production numbers, while they do, have to be
taken into the proper context. If you're eighty second or lower,

(06:45):
I'm not calling you the team to beat. Like You're
not the preemptive favorite in anyone's eyes. You may warrant
a top five consideration out of lack of other options
out there, But if you're telling me that Texas is
the team to beat, I could pick apart any of these.
Like I believe in Texas relatively speaking, I believe in Georgia.

(07:06):
I believe in Ohio State. Yet, sure I believe in them,
but to the point where i'd call them the team
to beat. I look at this list, Texas, you got
a second year in a row that you're having to
replenish the core of your defensive line. I don't know
definitively what arch Manning's gonna be. Hey, man, I don't
know about Texas winning big games yet. They went over

(07:28):
against Georgia last year. They got beat by Ohio State
in the playoffs, So do I know that yet? Georgia quarterback.
Do I know? Do I know they can run the ball? Again?
Do I know that they can play specifically on the
defensive line the way that Kirby's teams need to be
to be dominant, to be the team to beat Ohio
State same thing, defensive line, new offensive coordinator, new defensive coordinator,

(07:51):
entirely new team. There is no team to beat. So
I remember back to last year. This is where this
is all kind of going. I remember back to last
year and how crazy some of the stuff we saw was,
and then I think, well, that was kind of with
somewhat of an established hierarchy, at least we thought we knew.
I mean, I would have looked at Ohio State's team

(08:12):
going into last year and I would have said, that's
the team to beat in the Big Ten, that's the
team to beat. I think most of the country looked
at Georgia going into the season last year and said
in the SEC, that's the team to beat. We weren't
quite as high on Georgia last year, but we were
the exception. The rule was Carson Beck's the Heisman favorite,

(08:34):
George is the favorite, and whether people were right or not,
there was an established pecking order in the preseason. Okay,
so what if I would have told you in June
or July of last year, Hey, I think Bama's gonna
get out to a four touchdown lead against Georgia. They're
gonna go on to win, but they're gonna get beat

(08:55):
by Vandy the next week. You would have said, yeah,
maybe one of those things gonna happen, but both of
those things aren't gonna happen. Ha ha ha. Laugh them
out of the building. Yeah, well it happened. What if
I would have told you Northern Illinois is gonna beat
Notre Dame, but way for it. Notre Dame is gonna
go on to play for the national championship, you would
have said, one of them's gonna happen. Both of those

(09:16):
things are not gonna happen. In fact, you probably would
have told me, in no world is Notre Dame gonna
play for a national championship. Hahaha, laugh them out of
the building. Well it happened. What if I also told
you Ohio State gonna lose to Oregon Classic Game, but
then they're gonna also lose as nearly a three touchdown
favorite to Michigan, but then go on to win the

(09:37):
national championship. You would have said, in what world do
all of those things happen in the same year? Ha
ha ha Oh. By the way, Arizona State second worst
odds in the Big Twelve, They're gonna go win the
Big Twelve. They're gonna win the conference championship. Indiana's gonna
go to the playoff. SMU is gonna go to the playoff.
Every one of those would have been laughed at, which

(09:59):
go go back to Mimaw's age old assertion, and that is,
there are no stupid predictions in college football, because anyone
at any given point in the history of this game
who would have accurately predicted what was to come in
a season in July, by the very definition of how
insane this sport is, would have had to sound crazy
in the summer. Think back to the most structured year

(10:22):
where everything went according to script. Even in those years,
there's some craziness that you would have sounded ridiculous predicting
in July. So if we start to wade out into
the water a little bit and we don't have perceived structure,
there is no team to be There is no really,
there is no hierarchy to speak of. The likes of

(10:43):
which we used to have. There's no goliath to slay,
there are no monsters that you have to overcome. They're
just hurdles of differing degrees of height. But a bunch
of folks could clear them. If that's the case, and
if we're not just missing an elite team ready to

(11:04):
ready to sprout up during the season, then you could
have unforetold amounts of insanity the likes of which we
speak about. You know, with seasons like seven in the past,
I'd say twenty twenty one was pretty crazy. You got
Georgia winning a national championship after losing to the team
they beat the national title in the conference championship game,

(11:26):
and then the road to that title game was just
littered with upsets all over the place. I just think
a team to beat or two may emerge. But Jeffrey,
to answer your question, I don't know where the team
to beat is. I mean the top five of the
top six. Bradley, throw those odds up again, just to
hammer this point home one more time. You got a

(11:46):
FanDuel right now. The odds to win the national championship
look pretty familiar. I just read them to you a
second ago. Five of those top six teams are starting
new quarterbacks. There is no SEC team in the odds
market right now with a win total above nine and
a half. Do you realize that now? That means there's
probably going to be a whole lot of relative competitive

(12:08):
balance in the SEC. But that's the whole point. And
then the other thing to take home is where are
the proven commodities at quarterback? Penn State, Clemson? That's really
what we're talking about there. You know as well as
I do that you look at Penn State and Clemson
right now the same way you looked at Notre Dame
up until last year. They may make the National Championship Game,

(12:29):
but you're gonna have to see it to believe it.
I don't even have any problem with that kind of logic.
Penn State has not earned the benefit of the doubt
for us to say, hey got a couple of thousand
yard rushers, good offensive line, quarterback like what they did
in the portal at wide receiver, good defense happens there
every year. Yeah, this is the year I think they'll
make it to the title game. No, this year they
may possibly make it there, they're not team to beat

(12:51):
material Penn State's not team to beat material Clemson. Clemson
has not played the caliber of ball at wide receiver
or defense in a little while that you to play
to earn that benefit of the doubt. The difference is
you've seen Clemson do it before, so it may be
a little easier for you to buy Clemson. But be real,
I think it was Chris Drew I believe the other

(13:13):
day was making the point that, hey, the most stable
commodities Penn State, for example, in the Big Ten, or
Clemson in the ACC. They are these teams that nobody
has a problem anointing. Right now, I'm doing it Like
with Penn State. I've got no problem telling you, hey,
I think I think very highly of Penn State, and

(13:33):
I've got far more questions about Ohio State. But you
think I'm about to pick Penn State to win a
national title before I pick Ohio State to do it again?
Just blindly, I will give benefit of the doubt to
unproven players and coordinators all over the roster at Ohio
State before I give it to Penn State. And the
reason is because I've watched this sport for a long time,

(13:56):
so that doesn't mean you can't break through it just
means that's the task you've got to break through. And
that's sort of the beauty of the setup right here.
The setup is the place is where you do know
the quarterback and you've got continuity on the coaching staff,
or they upgraded the staffs, and Clemson and Penn State
both did that. Even then, do you really believe they're

(14:17):
gonna win a national title? Make a lot of money?
If you do believe that they're watching us all over
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Let's roll on. I want to keep a nice, steady
tempo tonight. Yeah. By the way, I got a lot

(15:22):
of people in the live chat asking about recruiting. Oh, yes, Oh,
I've noticed. Yes, friends, I've noticed what's been going on.
Notre Dame. I see what you're doing, Bama. I saw
what they did today, Georgia landing a recruit every hour
on the hour for about the past month. Yeah, I've noticed,
and I'm gonna talk about it, and I'm gonna talk
about something that even people who don't care about recruiting

(15:43):
need to stick around and pay attention to. I'm gonna
get to that in a second. Several of you have
asked us to do the schedule draft that we used
to do, and I'll probably do that closer to the season.
But I'll tell you what, Bradley, here's a good endpoint
for you in the meantime. I was looking at the
schedule earlier today and I got like fifty million games

(16:04):
on the board. But I was drilling it down. If
I just applied my own personal interests as a filter,
which games am I personally just the most excited about seeing.
I put ten of them on the sheet tonight. I
could go like fifty deep on this Ohio state at Michigan,
even though it's the very end of the year. I
don't know how you start anywhere other than that. We're

(16:26):
talking about a streak now, especially the latter stage of
that street last year that defies all explanation. I went
back and watched that game over the weekend, and knowing
the ending, it's even more baffling, just amazing. And so
they go to ann Arbor this year and they're replacing
a lot of pieces, and we've seen them favored by

(16:47):
a little we've seen favored by a lot that they've
gone over for several years against Michigan now, and so
I think about the puckering effect. There's the puckering effect,
and how much more puckering you have the closer and
closer that game gets. Here We've learned that the age
old adage you throw the records out the window actually

(17:07):
does apply in this game. So I'm looking forward to
that one much earlier in the year, so I'll reel
it all the way back into Week five. I think
it's the biggest rivalry in the SEC has been for
several years right now, or the most important rivalry in
the SEC. That is Alabama Georgia. They played last year
in Tuscaloosa. Bama goes to Georgia in Week five. That

(17:30):
one's way up there on the excitement scale. I think
the story between those two brands, I mean they're going
head to head and recruiting they do every year. There
is like there's like sort of a Cold War hostility
between one and the other. They're not historic rivals. It's
not like Bama Auburn. It's not like Georgia Florida. But

(17:51):
the Mark Rick thing, and then the Nick Saban coming
in and supplanting Georgia, and then Georgia taking Kirby Smart,
and then those two just going head to head and
Saban gets the better of him most of the time,
but then Kirby tops Nick Saban to win the national championship.
In all the while, you're just you got Georgia measuring
themselves against Alabama, and the fan bases border each other.

(18:14):
It's just I grew up on the banks of the
Chattahoochee River, and so I have very unique perspective in
the dynamic between Alabama and Georgia and Alabama, when's the
last time they went to Athens, like ten years ago?
Basically that one's going to be a really good one.
The same day as that happens, in fact, the same
hour that that game happens, we'll have Oregon versus Penn State.

(18:38):
It's one of the trade offs of this sport. It's
one of the trade offs of getting a Penn State
big game finally in white out primetime, is it was
going to overlap with another big game. That's okay, we
have dealt with this before. We do have the means
of technology at our disposal. Hey Dan landing in Oregon
replacing a lot as well, and they go into Happy

(18:59):
Valley pretty early in the year, and the you know,
the book on James Franklin and Penn State has been
what really good in a lot of areas not elite,
and part of the beef that even the home fans
have there is we got to beat big teams. Well,
here's your first shot. You really have two of those
shots this year. You know, James Franklin's got to take

(19:21):
every game seriously. But as far as people who just
get to sit in the stands or they get to
talking to microphone, you're looking at Oregon on September twenty seventh.
You're looking at at Ohio State November. First. It's not
that other folks can't beat you, but those are the
two opponents you'll be measured against. Can you go one
and two against them this year? That's the really good
shot against Oregon on September twenty seventh, and I cannot

(19:46):
wait to just look at that atmosphere. It's one of
those games where it's nice to have audio, but it
doesn't matter if you have that one on mute. Penn
State wide outs are the kind of game where even
if the TV's on mute, you can still hear it.
For it already, I can't wait for it. What about
week one? I didn't forget about Week one. LSU goes
to Clemson in Week one. LSU has had this ridiculous

(20:10):
stretch of not being able to win in week one.
Now I credit them because they could dial up a
cupcake and get themselves a w right now if they
needed to, But they keep scheduling up in week one.
That's the good part. The bad part is got to
win one of these things eventually. And this is not
neutral site. God bless them for it. It's not neutral site.
So they're going into Clemson, and I mean, I'm going

(20:31):
to talk about this later in the show, but you
think about how big that week is for LSU. Well,
I also think about how big it is for Clemson
and to somewhat lesser but still relative extent, the ACC
and then that matters way on down the road. But
the whole proven commodity thing at quarterback, we talked about
Klubnick a little while ago. You know, we talked about

(20:54):
Drew Aller a little while ago. Garrett nus Meyer's in
that category two. So I mean, we get two of
the most proven commodities at quarterback facing off against each other,
if you want to put it that way, in week one.
They're never on the field at the same time. But
you also, I mean, think about how bad Brian Kelly
needs this one. Think about the impact if Clemson goes
in there and wins that thing and the loser of

(21:16):
that game is not out of anything, you know, because
you can lose two or three games and make the playoff,
but just the immediate pressure cooker that you're under because
they're going to have sky high expectations at both places
and someone's got to lose in week one, and then
of course you ask, well, what was the margin? Three
point game? Not a big deal. If someone losing by seventeen,
that's a little bit different. The number five game I

(21:37):
have is in week six. Not many people are talking
about this game. It's got game of the year potential
written all over it, It's got atmosphere of the year
potential written all over it. Texas at Florida, I man,
I'm telling you, Texas at Florida has the makings of
a great one that no one's really talking about it

(22:00):
out of traditional rivalry. Texas blew a DJ Lagway list
Florida out last year, so it's not really on many
people's radars. But I was in Austin a couple of
months ago. I promise you it's on their radar, I
promise you. And no one's taking it. No one's taking
it for granted, no one's taking that trip lightly in Austin.
But I think the college football public is Florida will

(22:22):
have already been tested several times by the time this
one rolls around. Texas will have already gone to Ohio State,
and so this is the second really really tough road
game for them. But think about the fact that this
is either going to be mid afternoon or a night kickoff.
I'd put my money on a primetime kickoff. Florida is
not a bigger conversation piece in the national championship picture,

(22:46):
mainly because of their schedule. But the thing about a
schedule is you don't play a schedule any given week.
You play one opponent on that schedule, and that's kind
of the way you got to tackle that psychologically, Texas
going in there, You think about Florida just being up
ten to nothing late first quarter, going into the second quarter,
it's ten to three. I mean, think about what the

(23:07):
Swamp could sound like. I am waiting for the Swamp
to sort of be reintroduced on the national scene. A
lot of people when we did our Toughest Places to
Play list last week, they said, hey, if Florida is elite,
the Swamp should be number one. Well, you know what,
I don't disagree with that. It's been a long time
since Florida has been elite, so maybe that's this year.

(23:27):
We turned the paper over here. Number six. I struggled
with where to place this one. But this also could
be a game of the year. Texas Tech plays Arizona
State this year. I don't really know. The odds market
can say what it says. These are my two favorites
in the conference this year. Texas Tech goes to Arizona State.
Arizona State and Texas Tech sort of a dichotomy. And

(23:51):
the way these rosters were put together, you got the
Big Twelve chant from a year ago. You got a
program that is geared up to win one this year.
I mean they've on all out in the portal to
win one this year. Incredible time to be in Lubbock,
But this game's in Tempe and it's in Week eight.
It could be one of two times that they play
each other this year. The odds to win the Big

(24:12):
Twelve Championship have fluctuated a lot. You look on your
screen right now, you've got one, two, three, four, five,
really six teams with pretty comparable odds. So you get
half a dozen teams that are kind of like a
little accordion just packed together. Kansas State's won Utah, Texas Tech,

(24:33):
Arizona State all have the same odds. If I'm running
a sports book, it's Texas Tech, Arizona State one two
in any given order. But that one has instant classic
written all over it. It's got game of the year
atmosphere in the Big twelve written all over it. I
was in Tempe for Brigham Young coming in there last
year place is amazing. What about week one? Just go

(24:56):
back to week one for a second. I'm flying all
around the map right now. Notre Dame goes to Miami
in week one? Notre Dame at Miami, what do we expect? Well,
the whole thing about Carson Beck going to Miami is
it's a good move for them and probably a good
move for him as well. But he's coming off the

(25:17):
injury and you hear that he's throwing. I mean, Mario
came on our show and gave us an update. He's
he's throwing, and this is like a month ago. We
expect him to be full go for week one? Okay?
Is he full go for week one? And by that
I don't mean like, is he cleared medically. I mean,
when we turn on this game, is Carson Beck one

(25:39):
hundred percent of himself against Notre Dame. Now that's not
all it takes to win. Then you got to have
that Miami offensive line stand up. You got to have
receivers catch the ball for him, because he didn't necessarily
have that all the time last year. Oh and by
the way, they got to be able to move the
ball against a really, really good Notre Dame defense. And
then on the other side, we're watching CJ. Carr and

(26:00):
we're watching a new Notre Dame quarterback. There. We're also
watching hopefully a Miami defense that's playing a lot better
than it did last year with a new coordinator. Point is,
there's a whole bunch of if, and there's a whole
bunch of mystery and intrigue. And it's week one and
I know a lot of you like to dog the
atmosphere at Miami games. I bet you that one sold
out last time Notre Dame went down there. Go search

(26:24):
that one on YouTube. You will not believe that's a
Miami home game. And Miami smoked them. And it's just
this little taste of what even hard rock stadium can
be on any given night, any given Saturday night, although
I think this is a Sunday night game. But point
stands there, if you get a winning team on the field,

(26:44):
it helps if you have Notre Dame in town. So
I'm looking forward to that one also in week one,
earlier in the day the previous day, so Saturday at noon. Famously,
Texas at Ohio State. We may be at this game
for all I know. But Texas at Ohio State, I
don't really need to hype a whole lot. They just

(27:05):
met in the playoffs. Last year, they are in any
odds market fan duel included two of the favorites to
win it all. This year, they're the favorites and their
respective conferences, and yet question marks all over the place.
This is one where you know, if you're around a
tailgate scene on the Saturday of a big game and
you're interacting with the opposing fans, there're gonna be a

(27:27):
lot of Texas Longhorn fans in Columbus, Ohio for the
first time, and so you know they'll interact with the locals,
and I guarantee you this will be set a whole lot. Hey,
It'll be a good game either way. I don't know
if it'll be a good game. Someone could lose this
by thirty. I don't know. There's so much variance and
potential outcome here. If I simulated this game one hundred times,

(27:50):
do you realize how scatterplotted the potential outcomes would be,
you know, relative to that LSU Clemson game, Like I
think most of the time that's close game. I could
see Texas or Ohio State winning this thing twenty seven
to ten, either one of them. I could see that theoretically,
And that's what makes it so intriguing. Love it. What

(28:13):
about week three, we haven't had a whole lot of
ACC flavor. The ACC game I'm looking forward to most,
maybe the whole year, is Clemson at Georgia Tech in
week three, because as you know, I'm very high on
Georgia Tech. Clemson's going in there, and think about this,
So this is only week three. The Clemson's already played LSU,

(28:36):
not in a conference game, but they already played LSU. Now,
if Clemson won that game, then everyone's hyping them up
as a national championship contender even more so than they
already are. Georgia Tech's already played Colorado by now, and
so we don't necessarily know what that'll look like. Georgia
Tech will be a short favorite, I would imagine in

(28:57):
that game. But this right here, it's where if Georgia
Tech's going to be a player, we may find out.
Don't even necessarily need to beat Clemson. But I mean,
remember Georgia Tech last year they beat Miami at home.
They took Georgia to half a dozen overtimes. I wish
that was a joke, but that's a real headline. They
lost to Syracuse by three. I think they lost a

(29:19):
couple of games without Haines King. I think that team
was better last year than their record indicating, and I
think they're a dark horse player for a playoff spot
this year. So if I'm right about that, we will
start to find out in that Week three game, and
then also a couple of teams I haven't mentioned yet.
Just to sort of round out this list, which is
a list of my opinion. I want to stress this

(29:40):
this is not the opinion of any company at large.
It is just it's not the biggest playoff implication games.
It's just the games that I'm personally looking at, and
I've circled them I'm looking forward to and South Carolina
at Old Miss. That's just another game that's randomly thrown
in the SEC slate. That's in week ten. All right,

(30:00):
So so last year we watch Ole Miss. Inexcusable that
team didn't find a way to make it to the playoff.
So now this year, a little bit more questions. Defensively
Austin Simmons, what's it going to be at quarterback? But
that's in the preseason. This is by week ten, so
we've we've hopefully figured that out. Well, what if he's
really good? What if Leonora Sellers has wide receivers to

(30:23):
throw too, What if the tailback room gets figured out there?
What if those defensive departures didn't cripple South Carolina and
they're going on a road and these are two contenders
to go to the SEC championship game. What if they're
fringe playoff contenders. I just think that one is a game.
I also looked at ou South Carolina, but that's a
game in the interest of getting as many teams on

(30:44):
here as possible that I also think could carry a
lot of weight. So those are just ten games out
of the million or two million that I'm looking forward
to this year. All right, let's move it on. I
got to crack open the ZVA for this. I felt bad,
really bad about uh home, let me make sure that's
not shaken up. All right, we're good. I felt really bad.

(31:05):
Not that I apologize for touting orange creamsickles z Evia lately,
because it's incredible. I feel like I've thrown cream soda
under the bus a little bit, and so I've already
expressed this to him slash her privately. It's more an
androgynous can I think. Yeah, I don't know. I don't
know what it is. But I have expressed this to

(31:27):
cream soda privately. But I want to say publicly, there's
still plenty of room in my pantry for you, and
plenty of room in my fridge for you. I haven't
knocked you out of the running. Number two is still
a really good place to be on the power ratings,
and it's no knock on them. I'm look, does that
look like it was painful to do? If you're listening

(31:49):
on podcasts, Hardly any of that made sense. But Zvas
shipped me some orange cream sickle and it just it
rocketed up to the top of my power ratings. But
Cream so still right there. Cream Sawda my first love
of the Zevia brand. It was my first love, so
we appreciate them. Okay, Caine hit me from Bethany, Indiana.

(32:13):
I feel like we've gotten to know you pretty well
over the years. But I want to know what the
biggest regrets of your life are. If you don't mind sharing.
Oh no, Kine, not at all. Absolutely on this college
football show, let me delve deeply into my personal bag
of issues. So they're like half a dozen regrets that
I can't share on air now there aren't really I

(32:35):
don't have a ton of regrets. But Jesse asked me
this earlier today. I'm gonna give you one non football.
I'm gonna give you one football. So I was a kid.
It was summertime. I was over at Memo's house. I
stayed at me Moo's house during the day in the
summer and during the school year until my parents picked
me up after work. So I'm over at me Mo's house.

(32:57):
I'm on her driveway in Phoenix City, Alabama, thirty fifth
Street for those interested, And I saw roly Poly on
the ground. I assume most of you know what a
roly polyy is. You may have different names for him,
but they're just those little bugs that roll up in
a ball when they're scared. And I used to play
with the roly polies all the time, you know, you
let them crawl up your arm and stuff like that.

(33:17):
They mainly just tickle. They don't bite, and they're very friendly.
And I'm on my bike one day. Okay, so there's
one on her driveway. I've never done any harm to
animals like before or since. I rolled my bike tire
intentionally over the roly polyly. I killed it. I cried, still,
not fully over it. I don't know why it stuck

(33:39):
with me all these years. Mem did me no favors
that day. In the interest of teaching me a lasting lesson.
Mema said things like, what did he do to you?
Do you really think he deserved that? He didn't mean
you any harm? It worked. It worked. Not that I
was ever going to be prone to any kind of
animal cruelty, but if I ever was, Memo corrected the

(34:02):
behavior that day. I don't know why. Like I could
not tell you what I had for lunch three days ago,
but I remember the murder of the roly polly on
Memo's driveway in the summer of whatever year that was.
So that's a personal life regret. I wish I could
bring that roly Poly back to life. The football regret.
I have told you on this show before. I many many,

(34:24):
many times on these airwaves, have said that it is
my goal one day to have access to private aviation
where we can go to multiple games in the same day.
But in the meantime, what I was gonna need was
a noon game and then the ability to get to
a primetime game. And I wanted to go to like
two big games in the same day. So a few

(34:46):
years ago I go to the red River Shootout, a
game known by no other name than that on this show,
and that was I believe that's the game that Lincoln
put Caleb Williams in Ou comes back to win my
first red River game. So I'm at that game. If
I remember this correctly, I know I was in Dallas
at OU Texas, and so that game happens and it's

(35:08):
it's a phenomenal game. And then that's the night that
Bama was playing at AMM, so I had time to
get down to College Station. But if you'll remember, Bama
was favored by between three and four touchdowns. They were
in the twenties as a favorite. So I've gone through
this like decade plus worth of watching Nick Saban teams

(35:30):
lay waste to the competition. And I mean it was
very common to turn on a Bama game and they're
up forty two to ten in the fourth quarter. And
so I thought to myself, Man, do I really want
to pass up the opportunity to fly home and get
back to Nashville before the sun goes down versus going
down to college station and then you're watching a blowout
and then you got to wait till the next morning

(35:51):
to get back home on the same day you're going
to do a show. So I was weak mentally. I
was just weak enough at that moment. And so I
go over to the air Important Austin and I'm getting
on my flight and I'm flying home. Then we were
over I don't know where we were. We were over
like Arkansas when you realized, yeah, you've made a big mistake,

(36:13):
and then of course you're home. About the time Seth Small,
I think was the kicker he hits the game when
he kicked to beat Alabama. They stormed the field and
like an idiot. I've got a credential in my book
bag and I'm in Nashville while everyone else it looks
like they kicked over an ant bet on Kyle Field

(36:33):
and everyone's just swarmed the field. There I was. That's
a regret. That's a regret I still have to this day.
Can we do anything about it? No? Can we use
it to inform our decision making in the future, Yes,
we can, and we will. Let's move on. We got
something really important talk about here, really really important. Not

(36:55):
that that wasn't important. Don't murder roly pollies go to
multiple games in the same day if you can. All right,
I hope you wrote both of those down. Kids. We
try and be informative as a show here at Payton State.
We are an educational institution after all, so we do
care about teaching. Recruiting has not been what it used

(37:15):
to be for a little while. I've had a big
problem with it. I have felt like it's been one
of the more underreported problems in college football, and I
think people have hesitated to touch it because they've been
touching like the cause is instead of one of the symptoms. Well,
this has been one of the symptoms. Well, I think
recruiting is correcting itself in a major way. I think

(37:36):
recruiting is on the way to maybe, if not becoming
great again, becoming really, really really good again. So I'm
going to tell you what I mean by that. Let
me get you caught up on what's been happening. So,
what used to happen in January now happens in July.
Back in the traditional days where National Signing Day was
the first Wednesday in February, you know, you got done
with the season, and then there was like early January, January,

(38:00):
late January, you had all the official visits happening, and
people are like locking down their commitments and maybe somebody's
gonna make a decision on signing Day. Well, that all
happens because of the early signing day. Now that all
happens in the summer before those kids senior years. It's
a difference, but it's okay. If everything else stayed the same,
that'd be okay. So it didn't all stay the same,

(38:24):
and that's been one of the problems. But I'll get
to that in a second. First thing I've noticed lately,
just to get you caught up on what's happening, notre
Dame has the number three class in the country. Notre
Dame has been on a roll. It's a very, very
big deal, only because there was shake up there this
past cycle at the general manager position. You'll notice a
lot of the noise USC has been making. There's a

(38:46):
lot of talk and controversy around that. I don't care.
I just want to let it play out. And I
felt the same way about Notre Dame. A lot of
people had looked at Notre Dame and they said, hey,
Chad Bowden, he left there, he went to USC, So
that place they're gonna lose their way in recruiting. And
I was like, maybe they will, maybe they won't. Let's
just wait and see early returns. Our Notre Dame is

(39:08):
going to be just fine recruiting. Not that USC hasn't
improved as well, but it looks like both sides of
that coin right now are okay. And this is it
looks like one of the best classes Freeman will have
ever landed. Of course, we have to add it in, guys.
Let's toss up the red flair. Let's burn our first
and final time out. Let me lean forward for effect.

(39:32):
I know none of this is official until they sign
an enroll. I know, I know, I know. So if
you were thinking about going to the comment section and saying,
we'll see what happens in December, let me save you
the time. I know. Did everyone hear it? Was? I

(39:53):
clear enough? Okay? That is considered stated and understood. For
every comment that I ever make about recruiting in June
or July from now until eternity. We all know it's
not official until they sign an enroll. Having said that,
as we've said many times, vast majority of verbal commits
right now will enroll at the school they're committed to.

(40:15):
And you can't throw exceptions to the rule at me
and say, ah see, you were wrong. I'm not wrong.
I know, I'm not wrong. I offer the offer every year,
no one ever takes it. I'll give you one thousand
dollars for every d commitment if you give me a
thousand for every commitment that sticks in the history of
the show, no one's ever taken it. So verbal commits
must mean at least something, not everything, but something. So

(40:36):
Notre Dame's been rolling Georgia, I don't know. They've probably
gotten three more commits since the show started. Tonight. Georgia's
gotten the number two class in the country right now.
It is June twenty ninth. Georgia's got fourteen commits this month,
a lot of in state kids, a lot of in
state kids. We've talked to Kirby about that before on

(41:01):
how many in state kids you want to take. You
want to take the best kids. You'd love to have
them be from the state of Georgia. But even a
state is loaded as Georgia, it's not always going to
provide you a perfect recruited class, like a perfect subset
of what you want your roster to be. So you
got to recruit nationally, and you can if you're Georgia. However,
I think maybe even that staff would tell you. If

(41:22):
we're talking degrees of difference, and that head coach there,
Kirby Smart's talking about prioritizing guys that will go over
the cliff and play for the g you probably have
had to collect yourself a little bit and maybe look
back in state more, or maybe lean five or ten
degrees more in state than you would have been two

(41:45):
or three years ago. I think that's probably an accurate
way of stating what their strategy there is, and it's
paying off and it'll continue to pay off causes Georgia.
You want to know who else is red hot right now?
Alabama is killing it. And I have just headline after

(42:05):
headline here about how terrible Kaylin de Bor is gonna
find the way of recruiting in the SEC. I mean,
Kaylen de Bor is gonna have to basically, he's gonna
have to put a welfare roster together and just gonna
have to settle for the scraps of everyone else and
hope to, you know, play on the margins and light

(42:27):
all that on fire. They're killing it in recruiting. They
just landed Xavier Griffin today. That's the number one edge
player in the country. You got a five star running
back earlier this week. Look, there's a lot going on
right now in recruiting. I don't cover recruiting a whole lot.
I normally don't get in the weeds of it, but

(42:48):
I'm telling you at a more fifty thousand foot level.
I said something earlier today, and I want to triple
down on it right now. Show me the tweet. Bradley
and I actually put this out earlier today. I said,
recruiting has felt way more like recruiting again this cycle
than the previous several years. And I was smiling when

(43:09):
I type that. Of course, many of you asked, what
do you mean by that? Well, first I want to ask,
do you feel any differently about recruiting this cycle? Now?
I know that many of you have given up on
recruiting and you just stop paying attention to it. That's fair.
I did. I paid less attention to it, so I
get it, like many, many, many people had been turned

(43:32):
off by recruiting that they used to follow hardcore because
of what the total lack of structure in college football
had done to recruiting. We've had, we've had a critical
lack of structure in college football for a long time,
and it's hurt many things. One of the things that
killed was interest in recruiting because a lot of people
looked around and said, if it's just going to be

(43:54):
nothing but a bidding war and relationships don't matter, that's
not as fun to follow. Oh and by the way,
if if you're teaching me through my observed experience that
once a kid gets on campus, he may just transfer
three times in a four year span. And not only
does a commitment not mean anything but a signed scholarship
doesn't even mean anything more. Why should I invest my

(44:14):
time and energy and emotion into this. I know many
of you feel that way. The data backs it up.
I felt that way. I have been of the same ideology.
So I've got great news for you if you feel
that way. I think things have changed. I think things
have changed radically this cycle. I think things have changed.

(44:36):
And I can't quantify it for you yet because we
haven't even finished the cycle. But I'm telling you it's different.
I'm telling you, yes, yes, yes, there are still bidding
wars out there, but more so than ever before. Let
me tell you the word that I'm seeing reintroduced into
the recruiting lexicon, and that is relationship. So these new

(44:57):
rules that were just passed a bypropduct of the House Settlement,
multi billion dollar question was is everyone going to adhere
to these rules? Like You've got the revenue sharing number
twenty million whatever it is, and the University of Tennessee knows,
and the University of Georgia knows, they can divvy up
that money however much they want to. But after that,

(45:19):
nil has got to really be nil. You know, you
can't just use it as a pay for play mechanism.
Well yeah, but everyone kind of assumed when the House
Settlement was passed that's ripe to be challenged in court,
and it will be challenged in court. The good news
that I can give you is in the interim, a
shocking number of coaching staffs have voluntarily sort of chosen

(45:45):
to abide by those guidelines. Not all of them. There
are rogue exceptions. It is not even worthwhile to get
into it on the show tonight. I think if people
follow recruiting hardcore, most of you know which programs may
be the exception to that rule right now. But by
and large, a lot of these staffs have taken it
upon themselves. And I think maybe at the conference level,

(46:08):
a lot of these commissioners have, as me Ma would say,
jerk them not in a lot of people and made
them toe the line a whole lot more. And what
you're seeing as a result is this really really quick
like jolt back to the flavor that recruiting had ten
years ago, where hey, we're still offering kids a whole

(46:28):
bunch of money now, So you're still offering kids, relatively speaking,
way more than they will have been offered ten years ago.
But here's the difference. Like if I'm PAYT State and
I'm competing against Oklahoma, obviously this is a theoretical and
I offer the kid three hundred and fifty thousand dollars
to come to pay State and OU comes in with
a million, he's going to owe you. That's a ton

(46:50):
of money. Even if he loves the coaching staff here,
even if I have a proven track record of established
development in his position, it's a million dollars. He's gonna
go there. However, if paid State's offering him two eighty
and OU's offering him three ten, well that gap is
no longer enough to overcome all the advantages I have

(47:12):
because I'm doing business the right way. Over here. We're
seeing that a lot, is my point. We're seeing that
a lot. And as much as people want to just assume, oh,
it's still a bidding war, Oh all these kids, it's
just a bidding war. Money's involved, I can only tell
you the feedback I'm getting and my observed experience as well.

(47:32):
It's not anywhere close to what it was even last
cycle and even two cycles ago. And I'll let other
guys report on this. I'm telling you a lot of
these hot a lot of these top rated kids are
not going to the highest bidder, not even close. In
many high profile examples, these kids aren't going to the
highest bidder. They're going to a place that's gonna compensate

(47:55):
them enough. Those places have probably also sold them that
on the front end, we're gonna guarantee you less, sort
of an mg A minimum guarantee. That's gonna be a
little less. But you know what the hockey stick effect is,
that's your earnings potential down the road. That's your next
forty years instead of four years. If you come to
the place that develops you the right way, where you

(48:16):
have the best relationships, where you fit the best, and
that used to be a norm in recruiting, and then
it went away for a little while. That's back. That's back,
at least in the short term. That's back. It's very
encouraging to me because I'm not sitting here rooting for
any one team to have the number one class in
the country. What I want is classes that consist of

(48:41):
guys that committed to a place for the right reasons,
and the right reasons aren't always what landed their agent
the biggest commission. The right reasons are I'm a linebacker.
I'm gonna go play at this school because they've pumped
guys into the NFL at my position. I love that position. Coach,

(49:03):
my family loved the official visit. I felt at home
on campus. If I take care of business there and
I'm right about the developmental aspect and the relational aspect,
I'm gonna make a ton of money anyway there and
at the next level. But even if I don't play
at the next level, if I'm right on the front
end about my observation of that program, I'm gonna be

(49:23):
able to market my name until the end of time
as having played there, as having been a member of
that family that's recruiting. That's what it's supposed to be.
That's what makes it fun to follow as well, instead
of this ridiculous version of it that you've had force
fed to you. Lately. It's been so underreported because it's
been more of a symptom instead of the problem. But

(49:46):
it's been a huge, huge symptom, a negative symptom of
the problems of lack of structure in college football. And
I just look at the NFL. I mean, imagine the
National Football League if something happened to it that made
eighty percent of the audience lose interest in the draft overnight.

(50:06):
The NFL wouldn't disappear. Yes, you'd still watch Chargers versus
Chiefs on Sunday in the fall, but there would be
this critical layer of connectivity between you and the league
that was gone. That's happened over the past five years
in college football. You've got people who, in some cases,

(50:27):
they loved recruiting as much as they loved the sport itself.
It's that much of a second season, it's that much
of a second competitive arena for many people. I grew
up like that. I mean I was glued to message boards.
I was glued to recruiting rankings, player ratings. The passion
for that disappeared because college football couldn't get its back together,

(50:50):
and so you lost a lot of people. And you
didn't lose them. They didn't stop watching the games per se,
but the connective tissue weakened between your core audience in
your product. So it's up to you to rectify that.
And again, fingers crossed. It's still very early in what
may be a new era, but I feel really good

(51:12):
that a massively needed shift might be happening, might be
They're watching SNL Paso, Texas. Liverpool, England is tuned in Edgewater,
Florida is watching. Louisville, Kentucky is watching I got over.
Who knows how many thousand watching live right now? I
see two thousand on YouTube. We appreciate it. I mean, look, hey,
there's some people out there who think that we should

(51:34):
take several months off in the summer, recharge the batteries
whatever that means. No, No, We're just going to do
it year round. We appreciate the advice, though. I'm going
to appreciate it. I'm interested in several teams. Are they
going to be better or worse than they were last year?
We did this little project the other night. At least
we started it. I want to continue tonight. Let's talk

(51:56):
about Florida. Florida was seven and five last year. Florida's
over underwent total is seven and a half this year.
Are they going to be better or worse than they
were last year? I've got Florida as better this year.
I know a lot of this is about their schedule,
trust me, I know that. I think they played the
toughest schedule in the country this year. That team lacked

(52:16):
an identity at the beginning of the year. Last year,
they found one as the year went on. I don't
think they come into this season searching for that. DJ
Lagway is already somewhat of a star. I think he
could blossom as a household name nationwide this year. But
also I think that cause he doesn't have to do
it all by himself. I can trust their offensive line.

(52:39):
I can trust that they can run the ball. I
think the versatility of personnel they have defensively is really
potentially high level intriguing. But also, I mean, that's a
team with twenty underclassmen that played two hundred plus snaps
last year, and like I said, they got tests. We
don't have to relitigate their schedule. I just think they're

(53:01):
a really good team. Man. So I'm gonna go above
seven and a half wins or seven and five season
last year, so I'm gonna go I'm gonna go eight
wins or better for him this year. I think Florida
will be better. Arizona State's a little different story. Not
that I'm down on Arizona State, but Arizona State was
ten and two in the regular season last year. This
is just regular season that we're talking about their win
totals eight and a half. Right now, I'm gonna I'm

(53:23):
gonna cop out a little bit on Arizona State. I'm
gonna say same. I think of them as as kind
of a ten win caliber team. That's very lofty, by
the way, given the the volatility of the Big Twelve.
There's a lot to love about Arizona State. But if
you tried to ask yourself, okay, how could it go wrong?

(53:46):
The defense was good last year, not elite Campscattaboy's gone
at tailback. And also the intangible part is you never
know what the follow up is. We've seen teams burst
onto the sea dozens of times in this sports history,
and so then what happens, Well, naturally you expect a
follow up effort that's equal to or better then, especially

(54:09):
when you return a lot of your players and the
entire coaching staff's back, which is not to be overlooked.
That's great, that looks good on paper. This game's not
played on paper, and they've got They go to Baylor,
they go to Utah, they go to Iowa State. That
Texas Tech game at home could be one of the
games of the year. TCUs are really tough out sandwich

(54:32):
between Baylor and Utah. There's I think a bye week
in there. I'm saying same, and I think I think
they gets them in the playoff again. They gets them
right there in the Big twelve Championship again. What about Michigan.
Michigan's a weird team because everyone remembers how they ended
the year last year. So Michigan went seven and five,

(54:55):
but the last two things you saw them do was
beat Ohio State and beat Alabama. Okay, so that's like
an evil canevel ramp jump into the next year. But
that's also not how this sport works. Momentum year to
year is not a real thing. It's talked about a lot,
but it's not a real thing. They're over under went
totals nine and a half. So Michigan is a team

(55:18):
that I think is in sort of a year before
the year kind of mentality for me. That the vibe
is this is like the year before the year. I
still think they'll be better than seven and five, though,
So if I had to go better or worse, I'd
go better on Michigan. They feel one year away. But
they play Ohio State at home. They don't play Oregon.
They don't play Penn State at least in the regular season.

(55:42):
The whole question about Bryce Underwood is he going to
be their starter at quarterback? Well, if he's not, I mean,
Mikey Kings play a whole lot of football, so it's
not that they'll be. They certainly can't be any worse
at quarterback than they were last year. Let me put
it that way. I mean, they were abysmal at quarterback
last year. They were in the one thirties passing numbers
last year. So look, I think they may go under

(56:04):
their win total and still be better than they were
last year. And lastly, team I talked about a little
while ago, Georgia Tech. I mean, I'm going glass half
full on like everybody tonight, I got Georgia Tech is
better than they were last year. They were seven and
five in the regular season, so close, so close to
beating Georgia. They beat Miami. They had a couple of

(56:27):
losses I think against Notre Dame and Virginia Tech where
Haines King didn't play. He was hurt. But I think
they're an ACC championship dark horse and I trust the
identity of the team. I love the way their schedule
sets up. They get their two best opponents in Atlanta Clemson.

(56:47):
They play at home. Georgia they play in Mercedes Benz
Stadium because that's where Georgia plays every road game. Now,
outside of that, they could be favored in every game.
Like I'm very, very confident, and I've already bet this.
I bet it a long time ago. So I got
Georgia Tech is better than seven to five. They're over
underwent total is seven and a half, so we're basically
betting the total there over or under. You can drive

(57:09):
to a lot of those games. You know, you stop
at quick trip along the way. A lot of you.
I don't know what happened this past week, and a
ton of folks took pictures of themselves in a quick
trip parking lot. I'm not opposed to it. I'm just
saying it. It was like, I didn't remember did we
send out a call to action on that last week? Anyway,
when you do it, make sure you tag them, tag us.

(57:31):
You could get free gas out of it, but either
way it helps us. We appreciate them. They're fueling us
every step of the way. The entire tour, the Speaker
series in the spring, they fueled it up. All right,
let's continue. We got some chaos to talk about. Jesse,

(57:51):
I may make Jesse, I'm calling an audible. I'm letting
you know well ahead of time though. The thing we
were going to talk about after this, the BV thing,
let's save that for next show. I'm gonna put that
piece of paper over here. Okay, got that, that's well
ahead of time. In the meantime, we've been talking about

(58:13):
chaos a lot on the show. What are some of
the things that could really happen this year that would
throw everything into a blender? And I was looking at
the ACC and guys, not that it will happen, not
that I'm predicting it, but I'm gonna pop the paper here.
It could go really sideways for the ACC quickly this

(58:35):
year as a conference. Week one is so important for
this league because it could be great and it could
set them up to be a multi bid league, maybe
like a two or three bid league in the College
Football Playoff. But I'm telling you, if it goes south,
and it could go really south in Week one, they
could completely cut their legs out from under themselves and

(58:57):
be a one bid league max. And the thing about
it is listen to these out of conference games, so
we know LSU plays Clemson. Clemson's short favorite. BAMA is
a double digit favorite against Florida State. Georgia Tech's favored
by four and a half on the road, but they're
going on the road to Colorado. Notre Dame's favored by
three at Miami TCUs favored by three and a half

(59:21):
at North Carolina Tennessee. They'll probably be a two touchdown
favorite against Syracuse by the time that game happens. South
Carolina is nearly a double digit favorite against Virginia Tech.
And my point is it's unlikely that the ACC whiffs
here and goes oh to seven. It is not out
of the roman possibility that they could go to seven

(59:41):
or like one and six. And so the point there is, well,
that doesn't affect the conference championship race. You're right, it doesn't.
The question becomes if you get way down the road
and it's selection Sunday, the ACC champ let's say Clemson
won the league. They're in and let's say you got
like Miami and Louisville and Georgia Tech or something like that,

(01:00:03):
and they're they're fighting to get a second spot in and
it's like a seesaw that them against a nine to
three Florida or or them and get against Michigan or
someone like that. You know how quickly someone's gonna pull
out that out of conference record disaster of week one
up that should happen, by the way, that's the way
it should work. We don't always get a great sample

(01:00:27):
size of conference versus conference, but for the ACC, at
least this year, they're gonna have a really healthy sampling.
Not to mention, at the end of the year, you know,
you get Florida State, Florida, you got Georgia, Georgia Tech,
so Clemson, South Carolina, Like, you got a bunch of
it on the front end and the back end community.
You got a bunch of it that'll go a long
way in determining the relative strength of that conference. And

(01:00:51):
I just I look at week one and you want
to talk about chaotic, like think about how great the
ACC could set itself up up in the non chaotic scenario.
But in the chaotic scenario, if you come out of
that one and six and the one win is like,
you know, Georgia Tech over Colorado or something like that.

(01:01:14):
The kind of game where people look and say, yeah,
you beat Colorado. Colorado is not going to be any
good this year. The games that mattered, you know, the
games that really counted, you all got smoked. Y'all got blanked. Yeah,
that could happen, And if that happens, you got no
one to blame but yourself, because like Miami's bringing a
Notre Dame into their house, Clemson is bringing LSU into

(01:01:34):
their house. TCU is going to North Carolina. VA Tech
in South Carolina is a neutral site game. In fact,
almost none of these games take the ACC into hostile territory.
Bama's at Florida State, so I mean Georgia Tech Colorado
is the only really big one I think where the
ACC team goes on the road. So the more I

(01:01:55):
taught myself through it, you gotta get it done if
you're the ACC in week one, or I won't be
complaining at the end of the year. If you know,
if they're if they're not giving you benefit of the doubt,
and you may say to yourself, the canullification of the
conversation around all this is, oh, well, the SEC gets
benefit of the doubt. They're always going to old Big

(01:02:17):
ten gets benefit of the doubt they're always going to
They're deeper in better conferences than you are. They have
been for a little while, probably will be again this year.
So you've got you can't leave it in the hands
of the committee, is the point, Just like you don't
want to if you're favored by four touchdowns and it
comes down to the last second and there's like a

(01:02:37):
holding call and oh, the officials missed it. Don't leave
it in the hands of the officials. Or if you're
the ac C, you got a bunch of opportunities on
your home turf or at worst neutral site, you got
to take care of business in week one. Those games
are able to be bet right now because FanDuel already
has the numbers up. And also, let me let me

(01:02:57):
tell you something else that's happening. We've got a bold
prediction coming up in a second, Like it has to
do with a team winning ten games. Okay, Well, that
team's actual win totals only seven and a half. So
you would think to yourself, well, if you're predicting on
win ten, just go bet the over at seven and
a half. And you could do that, but you know

(01:03:18):
what else you could do at FanDuel right now they
have alt wind totals at FanDuel, So like take pay state.
For example, if our over under win total was seven
and a half, but you looked at it and said
seven and a half, Dude, they're gonna win eleven this year.
If you want to make more money than you would
betting just over seven and a half, you get a
FanDuel right now and bet us to win more than

(01:03:39):
ten games, and instead of returning it at minus one
ten juice, you probably return your winnings at plus six
fifty juice. Something along those lines. Just letting you know
there's a whole lot right now, a whole lot of
markets above and beyond just betting the spread and betting
normal win totals, both of which you can do. You

(01:04:01):
can do many things at fandel Exclusive odds provider of
the show. Sign up for FanDuel at FanDuel dot com.
Backslash CFB promotion must be twenty one plus and present
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(01:04:24):
issued is non withdrawable. Bonus bet that expires seven days
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RG call one eight eight eight seven eight nine seven
seven seven seven, or visit CCPG dot org backslash chat
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(01:04:47):
Hope is here. Visit gambling heelplinema dot org. Or call
eight hundred three two seven fifty fifty for twenty four
seven support in Massachusetts. Or call one eight seven seven
eight hope N why or text hop E n Y
in New York. Okay, let's wrap the show tonight with
bold predictions. I got bold predictions in my hand, not mine.

(01:05:09):
They're your predictions that you claim you would bet your
own hard earned money on. Well, let's see for ourselves.
Noel from Fort Myers, Florida said, out of the twelve
teams that made the playoff last year, only six of
them will make it this year, and he listed the
exact six. So Notre Dame, SMU, Clemson, Penn State, Texas, Georgia.

(01:05:35):
They're gonna make it. But that also means no Arizona State,
No Ohio State, no Oregon, no Boise, no Indiana, no Tennessee.
Basically we have like a twelve team parlay here. Yeh,
I suvered just thinking about it. This is a ten
obviously on the boldness scale. Now out of the many

(01:05:59):
out of the many holes I could poke in this,
just think about the Big ten conundrum that you have
on hand. If you're telling me that Penn State makes it, okay,
that's not crazy. But you're also telling me Ohio State
and Oregon don't make it at all. I want to
know what happened to them. You're telling me Indiana doesn't
make it either, So who makes it? Is Michigan in

(01:06:21):
is usc and like what happened in the Big Ten.
So this is a ten for many reasons. That's a ten.
Staying in the Big ten for a second, it's time
to talk Heisman. Well, not according to me, but according
to one of you, Drew Ahler wins the Heisman Trophy.

(01:06:41):
That prediction coming to us from Tampa, Florida. I'm going
to put a nine and a quarter on the boldness
level here is this even in Penn State's best interest.
I'm sure that'll love for their quarterback to win the Heisman.
But if Drew Aller wins the Heisman, and he does
have the fifth best odds at FanDuel, right now, is
what did Penn State do? Because I think about the

(01:07:04):
style that team needs to play, it's not really conducive
to Drewaler winning the Heisman. Now, it could be that
these portal additions they made at receiver, they just killed
it on all of them. And who knows, maybe they're
a little banged up at running back this year, or
maybe the defense is maybe a little more leaky than
we thought it would be. Maybe they have to score
a little bit more, maybe they have to throw the

(01:07:26):
ball a little bit more. I guess it could happen.
But they were seventieth in pass yards per game last year.
I mean, the amount of elevation in their passing game
and consistency in that passing game that they need to
have for Drewala to win the Heisman would be substantial.
So I'm gonna call that a nine point twenty five.
Next up, this is the team I was just talking

(01:07:46):
about a second ago, Missouri. According to DeVante out of
Columbia Missouri, he said that Missouri has an above average offense.
They finished ten to two or better. Well, their win
total seven and a half. So clearly you need to
go bet the house on the over if you believe that.
But also we just went over to FanDuel. We said,

(01:08:07):
what if we happened to know that Missouri was going
to be ten and two or better, you can go
bet the all number over there right now. You can
go bet Missouri to win ten or more games, and
it returns plus six fifty. Just an fyi, like, you
can bet them top twenty defense last year and they
are top ten in returning defensive production from a unit

(01:08:30):
that was top twenty last year, so they should be
good defensively. Quarterback portal running back portal probably got a
really good one, but portal offensive line portal pieces wide
receiver went to the portal there too. It could all
pan out, and if it does, they will probably be
a ten win team. They play three of the bottom
four teams in the SEC odds market. They play South

(01:08:54):
Carolina but they get them at home. They play Bama,
but they get him at home. They play A and M,
but they get him at home. There is absolutely a
world where this happens. I'm gonna call it an eight
point seventy five on the boldness scale. Not totally crazy though.
And lastly, this is pretty bold buster said, UCF is

(01:09:14):
Arizona State from last year, so I assume that means
they're gonna win the Big Twelve. Well, that's a nine
point seventy five. They got the worst odds in the
Big Twelve. That in and of itself doesn't mean a
whole lot, because Arizona State had the second to worst
odds last year and they won the league. Scott Frost
is back at UCF and he's got forty one new transfers.

(01:09:38):
No one has any idea what the team's gonna be,
including Scott Frost. There will also be, I believe a
Tier one that forms in the Big Twelve this year.
I still think it'll be a crazy league, but I
do think that there's gonna be two or three teams
that sort of kind of separate themselves in quality from

(01:09:58):
the rest of the league. And no, in fact, I
think I do know UCF won't be a part of
that this year. So for that reason, I'm gonna make
it a nine point seventy five. All right, really solid
show tonight. Getting into a busy week around here on
the campus of Pate State. I think we're gonna throw
a Tuesday show at you this week so that the

(01:10:20):
staff can get out of town for Independence Day. It's
gonna be a weird July. There's just there's a whole
lot going on here. It's all really good stuff, but
there's a whole lot going on here. So basically what
I'm saying is stick with me on the socials at
Josh Pate CFB. I'll let you know when we're doing shows.
I'll let you know where to find them. It's gonna

(01:10:40):
be a weird schedule. I'm just going ahead and let
you know right now. But that's what God made youly
Fort Media DA's coming up. We're gonna be on the
road a lot too. In the meantime, we got to
go home because Bradley's got to eat for Director Bradley,
Producer Jesse. I'm Josh Pate. Take care, have a great
start to your week, and God bless. Sign up for

(01:11:09):
FanDuel at FanDuel dot com. Backslash CFB promotion must be
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(01:11:53):
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