Week 8 Predictions & Updated CFP Predictions + JP Poll & Penn State Search

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
I feel like it's gonna be a great show. Already
threatened to sue multiple people in the live chat. One
of hooms, just did you see this, Jesse? Somebody just
gave us two dollars. Andrew gave us two dollars on
a superchat. I got news for you, Andrew. We don't
need two dollars. We already have two dollars. And on
a much more serious note, I keep meaning to turn
the super chat function off because you please don't be

(00:42):
giving us your money. The show's free. It's free for
a reason. We got quick trip for all that. We're
jam packed. We're high a top, lovely downtown Nashville, Tennessee.
Tuesday Night, October fourteenth, the Year of Our Lord, twenty
twenty five. What do we do on Tuesday? We predict games.
Got a pretty loaded schedule this weekend. Some people's lives,
at least they're playoff lives, could be ruined. Speaking of

(01:02):
playoff lives, mine has kind of been ruined at least
in some respects from the preseason predictions I made. But
you see, that's why God gives us redos in life.
And one of life's great mulligans is when you get
to around week seven or week eight. In the college
football talking sphere, you could just make new predictions. We

(01:22):
check the bylaws today, there is no rule against it.
So tonight I'm just re racking them. The playoff balls,
at least I'm re racking them, and I'm telling you,
as of today, how do I think the Playoff's going
to go? But just be forewarned, I'm not letting go
of some of these teams that are all but left
for debt. I'm not letting go of some of them.

(01:43):
So I've got that. I've got a brand new JP pole.
We got a lot to talk about with Penn States,
and people have called my takes into question Jesse, and
Jesse has done very little to stand up for me
in the Penn State world, So I got to stand
up for myself here. And we'll also discuss where they
could go. Are they going to hire Matt Random, Marcus Freeman,
rumblings out there, what's real, what's fake? We'll talk about

(02:06):
all of it. And they're watching us in Amarillo, Texas tonight.
That's not something we're gonna cover on the show. I'm
just telling you they're watching us in Amarillo. They're watching
us in Akron, Ohio, Gainesville, Florida, Baltimore, Maryland. I want
to give a rare one two three triple paper pop.
I asked you pretty forcefully on the show Sunday night,
subscribe to the channel. Please. Four thousand of you did so.

(02:29):
We got four thousand subs on Sunday and early Monday morning,
so I appreciate it. So if you're one of the
few remaining out there who love college football and haven't
subed to the channel, please do so, because it's free
and it doesn't cost you, sorrowing you up for anything,
It doesn't do anything to you. It just helps us.
Thank you so much. All right, let's go dive into
the show. I come to you on this Tuesday night

(02:51):
here in mid October begging you to let me repredict
the college football playoff, and I hear no voice of dissent,
raise your hand. And if you're against this, all right,
no one objected in the studio. So here we go.
The first thing you need to know is, at the
beginning of the season, reluctantly I predicted the playoff. I
say reluctantly because I don't think there's a whole lot

(03:12):
of skill in this. This is what it looked like. Yes,
that's the Florida Gator logo up there with the eight seed.
I don't think it's going to work out for Napier
and the boys. Yes, that's Penn State with a first
round by I'm not even feeling that bad about that.
I think most people, at least that I saw, had
Penn State in the playoff. And as we all know,
if you do something bad but a lot of other
people do it too, it's not your fault. It's written somewhere.

(03:36):
So let's see Clemson with a five seed down there,
not feeling great about that, We're probably going to have
to rethink that. You'll notice Nebraska has the eleven seed.
More on that in a second Arizona State not too good,
Texas not too good, not quite dead. So yeah, there's
some stuff in here that frankly I wish I had back.

(03:57):
But we can't go back in time. But what we
can do tonight is we can just say, let's just
repredict it. So I'm going to repredict playoff and I'm
gonna do it conference by conference, and then I'll show
you what my one through twelve would be. And I
know a lot of you listen on podcasts, so it's
not going to be strictly visual, and you got to
remind me of that, Jesse. I will lay it all
out for you. So here we go. In the SEC,

(04:19):
it's a jumbled mess. Well it's not a mess because
it's entertaining. It's just hard to figure out. The SEC
is what the Big Twelve used to be. Ironically, the
Big Twelve has become what the SEC used to be.
One of them is really easy to figure out, and
the other one. We've got ten teams with zero or
one conference losses. Yes, that's the state of the SEC now.
Of course, mathematically that can't continue. Ole Miss plays Georgia Saturday,

(04:43):
LSU plays Vandy Saturday, Tennessee plays Alabama Saturday. So a
lot of these teams are about to collide and we'll
see where it goes. I feel pretty good about two
of these. But you'll notice if you look at the
league standings, Ole Miss is right up there. For example,
they've got no conference losses so far, A and M
and Alabama only undefeated SEC teams in league play. The

(05:08):
odds right now, I think makes sense. So the odds
at FanDuel to win the SEC are Alabama, and then
A and M. There's a little gap between Bama and
A and M. George's right there, and then it's a
little bit of a gap, and then Ole Miss Texas
is still there. Then there's a huge drop off. So
you've really got a lead pack of five teams. And
I think it's interesting that LSU is not part of

(05:29):
that lead pack. Missouri is not part of that league pack.
So from a FanDuel perspective, from a market perspective, they're
saying Bama absolutely the favorite, A and M, Georgia, Ole,
Miss even Texas, we could see it. I will choose
those top two teams there. Bama was my preseason SEC
championship pick. They haven't even lost a conference game, and
they've gotten a lot of the losable games out of

(05:50):
the way. Still got a few to go, but I'll
ride with them. But I am going to switch up
the team that I think they'll play. I will put Texas,
A and M in Atlanta. That'll be the first time
they've been there since they been in the league. That
would be just a huge, huge feather in the cap
of Mike Elko even making it there in year two
of his tenure there. So give me Bama over A
and M in the SEC championship game, and then we'll

(06:11):
pause and we'll see what that means for seeding next
up Big Ten. It's not totally clear, but it's coming
into form really really quickly. Here. Ohio State and Indiana
have been the class of this conference so far. I
to me, I'm more worried about how does the rest
of the conference backfill? By that, I mean, if it
is Ohio State in Indiana one to two in any order,

(06:34):
then what is Oregon? What is USC? What is Nebraska, Washington, Michigan? Like,
how much of it's, say, are these other teams downstream
in the Big Ten standings going to have in the
playoff bracket? So like Nebraska, for example, I had them
in my preseason playoff bracket. I think it the eleven seed,

(06:55):
and right now they're sitting here still having to play
at Minnesota, they got Northwestern, USC, at UCLA, at Penn
State and Iowa. A lot of losable games, like Nebraska's
far from invincible, But the one that you kept looking
at after they lost to Michigan a couple of weeks
ago was, uh, oh, they've still got to go two.

(07:17):
Penn State towards the end of the year. Well, that
does not carry the same weight as a sentence that
it used to. So there is no one hurdle there
that you look at and say, there's the definitive second
loss in totality. Do I think Nebraska is a good
enough team where I can start penciling w's in there. No,
I do not. However, I predicted them in the preseason,

(07:38):
and I can't come off of this. So if there's
some team that's going to weave their way through there
as an at large team, I'm still holding out hope
for Nebraska. As for the Big Ten championship picture, Ohio
State in Indiana, and I have a sneaking suspicion a
lot of folks out there in very expensive suits are
pulling for USC to upset that there's USC could go

(08:01):
on a run here. You've got to wonder how meaningful
to the Big Ten championship picture will that USC at
Oregon game be a little bit later in the year.
For that matter, Oregon the week after, I think, plays
Washington this weekend, Washington goes to Michigan. That outcome will
start to determine how much weight that Washington Oregon game
could carry. That's a long way down the road. Give

(08:22):
me Ohio State against Indiana in the Big Ten championship
game until further notice. I will ride with Ohio State.
They are favored to win the conference. And then it's
Indiana and then there is a huge drop off, like
a roller coaster drop off to Oregon and then another
huge drop off to Michigan. So the Big Ten picture
as of right now, it's really in focus, and some

(08:44):
stuff has to go wrong, and by that I mean
Indiana has to somehow lose a football game or Ohio
State for things to change. In the Big Twelve. Here
we go with Texas Tech just a runaway freight train.
But Josh, I'm looking at the league standings on the screen.
They're one of three undefeated teams in conference play. Yes
they are. Now, I'm not taking anything away from Brigham Young.

(09:07):
I'm just saying, you see Texas Tech and Cincinnati and
Utah all there in the top five. BYU still has
to play all of them. They just hadn't played him yet.
So from a JP Pole power rating perspective, we don't
think as highly of Brigham Young as some of these
other teams. So I don't view them as a conference
championship contender at the moment, but upsets happen every Saturday.

(09:27):
They're really good at it. They play Utah Saturday. Actually,
so like this stuff could change in the next twenty
four forty eight seventy two ninety six hours. You got
to run the numbers here on the desk. Cincinnati versus
Utah could be a play in game for the conference
title game when they do face off. I think Iowa
State already with two conference losses, it's tough to see.

(09:50):
Plus they're really badly beat up. TCU in Kansas State
also have two conference losses. So for the Big Twelve
championship game, Texas Tech I think is going to be there.
They are the current fairly overwhelming favorite to win the
whole thing in the Big Twelve. I think they're gonna
be there. I think they're gonna have a rematch against Utah.
And it's very interesting that everyone's gonna remember, well, that

(10:12):
game already happened, and it happened in Salt Lake City,
and Texas Tech rolled half the game with their backup
quarterback and they still rolled. They did. There is no
catch there they did. I think you'd be somewhat surprised
at how low that point spread would be. Just keep
that in mind. Still a ways to go, But if

(10:33):
that game does happen, you had to blow out in
Salt Lake City, I think you may be surprised, relatively speaking,
how low that point spread would be. Because Texas Tech
plays at Arizona State this weekend. They're a double digit favorite,
So like you're having to lay a heavy number if
you're betting Texas Tech right now. In the ACC, this
is the conference where the weirdness could happen. It used

(10:56):
to be the Big Twelve. The Big Twelve makes a
lot of sense right now on paper. The ACC this
is where the weirdness could happen. Miami's looked like the
best team here so far, I will grant you that.
But Duke SMU, Virginia, Georgia Tech, they're all undefeated in
conference play right now, and they don't all play each other,

(11:19):
and they don't all play a murderer's row of a schedule,
So you need to also keep in mind in fact, Jesse,
do we have Miami's schedule. You need to keep in
mind how Miami season ends. It's very very clear right
now Miami is going to be favored over everyone they play.
They may be favored most weeks by double digits, but
they have taken their last buy. They play Louisville this

(11:42):
Friday night, I believe, and from that point on it's
all conference games and they do not take another bye week.
So count them right here with me. One two, three, four, five, six,
seven games in a row to end the regular season.
The last two weeks weeks are on the road in
cold weather cities, at Virginia Tech and at Pittsburgh. If

(12:06):
they are to make it to the ACC Championship game,
that would be a third consecutive week on the road.
We've been talking about this since spring. It is very,
very unenviable a spot to be placed in by the
schedule makers. Now, if you're an Oklahoma fan and you
know the schedule you have to play, you're looking at
that saying I would trade for that in a heartbeat.
I know you would. Of course you would. I'm not

(12:29):
sitting here saying that this is the toughest schedule you've
ever seen. It's a really weird dynamics based schedule, that's
all I'm saying. So if they go to Charlotte, which
I think they will. I've got Miami playing for the
ACC Championship game. They're the current minus one eighty favorite
to win the ACC. I think they'll be there. I've
got them playing the team that has the second best
odds to win the league right now, Georgia Tech. I

(12:51):
have not budged off that I had Georgia Tech playing
for the ACC Championship game before it was cool to
have Georgia Tech playing in Charlotte. You give me my
Miami to beat Georgia Tech in Charlotte. However, just keep
in mind, as we start to get towards what could
potentially tear the bracket apart, Georgia Tech's going to be

(13:12):
playing a team that may be beat up. Now. You
don't know about the injury situation with Miami. Miami is
a very star studed team. There are portions of that
Miami roster, just like with a lot of these high
level teams, where you remove the number one from this
position group or that position group, and there is a
fairly sizable drop off to the number two. Now, if
they stay healthy, that's a moot point. This is college football.

(13:34):
It's not a fairytale world. No one stays totally healthy.
She just never know what situation they may be in.
All right, let's take a look at what I think
the seeding will be. So I just gave you my
conference championship updated winners. Here is where I would have
the seating right now. I got Ohio State winning the
Big Ten, so they'd be my number one overall. I
got Miami winning the ACC they're my number two. Texas

(13:55):
Tech roles to win the Big Twelve, that's my number three,
and I got Bama as the SEC champ. I'm not
so sure. Bama may not lose another game though, just
a little bit tougher schedule than some of these other
teams here. That's why I've got Bama number four. If
Bama don't lose another game and they win the seced,
that'd be the two seed. But give me Bama as
the four seed. All right, Big Ten Championship game loser

(14:17):
Indiana as of now, I've got to assume that's their
first loss of the season, so they're going to be
right there in the five seed. A and M if
that's their first or even second loss of the season.
If a zero or one loss, A and M is
in Atlanta, they're not dropping past six. So I think
pretty solidly you're big ten in SEC title game. Losers

(14:38):
are right there at five and six. That's Indiana and
A and M. I got Oregon at the seven seed
as an at large. I got ole Miss as an
at large at number eight. I'm rolling the dice a
little bit there. Ole Miss could pop on the national
radar big time this weekend. They could be exposed as
a fraud this weekend. Like there's high variants in that
Georgia game. Ironically, I've got Georgia as the nine seed,

(15:01):
so give me a old mess Georgia eight nine. I've
got Notre Dame in the playoff as of now. There's
a lot of debate to be had there, and I
will have that debate in just a second. I'm sticking
with Nebraska at number eleven. I had it in the preseason.
I'm not coming off Nebraska. You've got to you got
to kill some of my predictions before I'm willing to
let them go. And I've got usf currently as the

(15:21):
G five team. Whoever the G five team is, they'll
be in that twelve spot. So the first thing that
is going to immediately come to the forefront here before
I show you the entire bracket is how will Notre
Dame get paired or compared with some of these other teams.
Notre Dame right now, so the two loss team, they

(15:41):
have Southern col this weekend. If they lose this weekend,
they will not be a playoff team. There are some
people out there who claim even if Notre Dame were
to win out right now, they still may not make
the playoff. Now, my whole philosophy on that is, consider
what we're saying there. Notre Dame right now is four
and two. Their losses are to Miami by three and

(16:03):
to amm by one. So theoretically, here that would be
two losses by a combined four points two playoff teams,
one of them being a conference champ, the other participated
in their conference championship game. So those are about as
high quality losses as you could have. And the committee,

(16:23):
I think will be looking at that and then also
looking at the fact that they just rattled off ten
straight wins, and they'll be saying things like they're the
hottest team in the country, and I think they'll also
be a talking point. Now, this is just priming you
for this. I think if Notre Dame rattles off ten
straight and they finished ten and two. There will be
a very popular sort of focus grouped talking point that

(16:44):
starts to circulate about how if Notre Dame would have
played Miami and A and M in the middle of
the season after they got hot, maybe one of those
games goes their way, and you can't disprove that. I
just think it'll be inition in the in the chamber
of someone who's already looking to make the Notre Dame argument.

(17:05):
I'm just wondering how they get compared to like a
three loss SCC team or even some two loss teams.
Just that's going to be a big debate. It's impossible
to know who A and B is right now. Notre
Dame would be A. It's impossible to know who the
B is right now. So you got that big twelve
and ACC championship game could completely tear this bracket apart
because right now, like in my projection, I've got Miami

(17:28):
beating Georgia Tech. But it doesn't have to go that way.
Georgia Tech could sit there and beat Miami and at
that point Georgia Tech is going to be in the playoff.
Miami is still going to be in the playoff. It's
the same thing that happened in the ACC last year
when you had Clemson end up winning the thing. So
you had two ACC teams in and that knocked somebody

(17:49):
out of a spot. Well, that could happen here. It
could also happen in the Big twelve. What if Utah
is the sixteen seed, but they go in the playoff
or in the conference title game and beat Texas Tech.
Texas Tech still going to be in the thing. It's
just that Utah is going to be in there as well.
And Heaven help everybody, if both of those things were
to happen, that's how you knock some of those at

(18:09):
larges out of the field. I know that, I know
that sounds fun, But from a media standpoint, like from
a media rights network standpoint, that's doomsday for those people.
Dooms day. I don't have a media rights deal. I'm
not broadcasting any of the playoff games on our YouTube channel.
I'm good. I'm fine with whatever come what may. But

(18:32):
the punishment for the conference championship game losers is the
other thing to keep an eye on. So here's a scenario.
As I'm about to give you my bracket, but here's
a scenario I just want you to think about. We're
still a ways away. It could be a moot point.
Let's just say Notre Dames sitting there at the ten
seed going into conference championship Saturday. Notre Dame's done, They're

(18:54):
season's done, so they're not playing in the conference title game.
Let's say Georgia Tech's number nine. Kind of similar to
what I was dealing with last year. Let's say Georgia
Tech sitting there, number nine, Georgia Tech loses to Miami.
Is Georgia Tech falling behind Notre Dame? Let's say they
fall out entirely. Is the committee willing to punish someone

(19:18):
for the audacity of earning their way into their conference
title game and playing in it, which Notre Dame doesn't do.
It's just it didn't happen last year. SMU didn't get
dropped out last year. That's one year. So the committee
sitting there telling you, and we're going to emphasize strength
of schedule. Remember we got that new criteria allegedly that
we're going to be going by, So it's going to
really emphasize strength of schedule and where we've got this

(19:41):
value monetarily that's baked into these conference title games. We
cannot afford to render them irrelevant. Therefore, we can't be
punishing people when they make their conference title game. You
can't do that. That's an optics nightmare. Ethically, it's a nightmare.
Value wise, it's a nightmare. So just keep that in mind.
All right, here is my updated bracket. I am so scared.

(20:04):
So here's what it would look like. The numbers actually
kind of should be inverted because I believe in home
team on bottom. So we would have Georgia go to
Oxford in round one, Georgia versus Old Miss. We'd have
South Florida going to Indiana in round one. We would
have Nebraska on the road at Texas A and M.
And Notre Dame in Eugene against Oregon. Here is how

(20:28):
I have those games shaking out. Give me Georgia over
Ole Miss, give me Indiana over South Florida. Give me
Texas A and M beating Nebraska. It was a fun ride.
It was a very fun ride. And give me organ
over Notre Dame. Although there is nothing that shocks me.
If Marcus Freeman a Notre Dame get in the playoffs,
I really value having been there last year, and there

(20:52):
is that aura that had existed about autsin stadium, but
it's deemed a little bit right now because of what
Indiana just went in there and did. So I don't
necessarily think Notre Dame would be rattled going on the
road to Audsin. Save that. Use it as a SoundBite
if you need to. Three months from now, Mario Christobaul
versus Dan Landing in the second round of the playoffs, Buddy,

(21:15):
that is that is popcorn. That is cinema. If you
just if you just think it through for a second,
just an unbelievable matchup there. I'm going to take in
the following order, Ohio State over Georgia. I'm going to
take Alabama over Indiana. That's de bor facing a team
I used to coach in Indiana. I'm taking Oregon over Miami.

(21:39):
And I am taking Texas A and M over Texas Tech.
Don't overlook that match up there in the second round,
Texas Tech versus Texas A and M. How about the
fact that we got two Texas teams in the bracket here,
neither of them have that longhorn logo. There's a little
bit of an upset if you predicted that in July.
All right, our semi finals are set. It's two national

(22:00):
championships basically, so Ohio State versus Bama, Oregon versus Texas
A and M. This got easy for me because my
national championship matchup preseason is still in play. So I'll
take Alabama versus organ in the national championship game. My
national champion is still very much in play. So give
me Alabama to win the national championship. So if I

(22:21):
can just get the bracket to fall that way, if
Dan Lanning can get Organs act together and Alabama can
continue to walk this tight rope, both of them stay
relatively healthy. Once I get in the playoff, it's going
to be a tall order to beat Ohio State. It's
going to be a tall order to beat A and
M because if both of those teams have gotten that far,
they're clicking and those are really good talent rosters. But

(22:41):
I'm not coming off my preseason predictions unless I absolutely
have to. Again, ethics, we teach it at Payt State.
So I started with Alabama and Oregon. I'm sticking with
Alabama and Oregon. And if it doesn't come true, it's
caused kids, coaches or officials screwed up. It's not cause
a meet, It's not my fault. Quick trip could fuel
you if you wanted to go watch either team play

(23:02):
this weekend. Quick trip fuels the falldon't lie Tour. Quick
trip fuels us every day of our lives really cold
brew on tap, gasoline, trail mix, pizza, whatever you need,
protein shakes. So the Faldn't lie shirt right there by
the way is available in the Peate State store. We
updated every week like we're going to Nashville, which we're

(23:23):
already in the city of but we're going Saturday. The
Nashville shirt is available there in the Peate State Store.
Paytstatemterial dot com. We appreciate quick trip though fueling the
Faulldont Lie Tour. This is the least amount of gas
that we'll ever need this Saturday. But in the interest
of honoring quick Trip, our partner, I will not walk
to this game. I will drive to this game. Crank it,
put it in drive, put it in part. Two minutes later,

(23:46):
we will drive to the game, just out of a
solidarity move with quick Trip. All right, let's continue. We
got games to predict. That's what we do around here.
What did I, Uh, this is a bad thing, but
I'm gonna tell you what just happened. Okay, So normally,

(24:10):
if you look at the live chat, now you know
why I'm laughing. Normally, I have a pre typed message
that I copy and paste into the live chat a
few times per show. Normally it says, you know, subscribe
to the channel like the video, thanks for watching. Just
before we went on air, some guy was arguing with
me on Twitter about how Indiana may not be good

(24:32):
because maybe they beat Oregon, but Organ's not that good
and they're being falsely inflated. I said, that's not all
Indiana's done. I said, they also disemboweled Illinois on free TV.
That's what I said, But I had to check and
see if I was spelling disemboweled right. So I copied
and pasted disemboweled, and I put it into Google really

(24:52):
quickly to make sure I was spelling it right. Then
the show started and I never unpasted it, or I
never uncopy. I never put my normal chat message in copy,
so I just went copy paste out of muscle memory
habit here and I wrote disemboweled in the live chat.
So if you're wondering why I wrote disemboweled in the
live chat. That's why. All right, Jesse, you got moderator

(25:15):
privileges in there. Tell them to like and subscribe, please,
Ole Miss at Georgia Saturday, three thirty Eastern kickoff on ABC.
This is the moment last year in this game in Oxford, Mississippi,
where I thought the Georgia halo sort of started to
fade a little bit. Maybe it got dented because Georgia
went on to win the SEC Championship. They went onto

(25:37):
the playoff and it was crazy. It was miraculous because
it was far from a perfect team, but they looked
vulnerable in this game last year. I think it was
a twenty eight to ten final. Ole Miss outgained them
by like one hundred and fifty or something like that.
Ole Miss out rushed Georgia one hundred and thirty four
to fifty nine in this game. It looked like they
were terminal flaws with Georgia. So all week, if you've

(25:59):
been listening Kirby Smart, he's been stressing home field. We
need this to be the best home field advantage we've
ever had. You may think to yourself, oh, they probably
got a lot of recruits in town. He's just saying that.
You know, they got a big TV game, They want
a really good spectacle for the crowd. Yeah, they want
all that. Yeah, all those things are true. Here's what

(26:20):
else you need to know. George has been really bad
in first halves. They have gotten off to poor starts defensively.
They have therefore let themselves get put in a hole.
They were able to climb out of it against Tennessee,
they were not able to climb out of it against Alabama.
They got put in and again last week by Auburn,
and somehow, some way got out of it. But it's

(26:41):
a trend you don't want to continue. Ole Miss is
number six in first half passing in the country. Georgia
defensively first half numbers here eighty fifth defensively pass yards
per first half. I don't think that's a stat we've
ever talked about. They are one hundred and thirtieth are
the Georgia Bulldogs on defense at completion percentage allowed in

(27:03):
the first half. So when you listen to coach Smart
there talk about how imperative it is you get their
show up early, scream as loud as you possibly can early.
It's because he understands if old Miss grabs a lead
on him, it could be a long afternoon there between
the hedges. Ole Miss has only been on the road
one other time this year, though, and that was against Kentucky.

(27:25):
Notably Lane failed to cover. Notably Mark Stoops robbed us
that day. But my point is it was a competitive game.
They didn't pull away. It was a weird looking point spread.
People kind of had to see it to believe it,
and they did so last week, they're coming out of
a bye. They got inexplicably pushed to the limit against
Washington State, and fairly people are looking at saying are

(27:47):
they hollow or are they legit? There's a world where
that Washington State outcome is a red herring, and then
they go get blasted by Georgia and everyone says, oh,
in retrospect, we should have seen it come in. There
is another scenario that you know, good and will exists
where they didn't pay two bits of attention to Washington
State and they've been prepping for Georgia for the better
part of a month and it shows Saturday. I think

(28:10):
you'll know early on which is which. So last week
Georgia played Auburn and I asked myself, what kind of
clues did that game leave? It was a weird game.
Georgia was down ten to zero, could have been seventeen
to nothing, ended up being ten to three at the half.
But Jackson Arnold was fourteen of nineteen one hundred and
seven yards, but he ran it fifty one yards in

(28:32):
the first half. Those are first half numbers. And they
controlled the clock. I mean Georgia at the two minute
warning portion. Inside the two minute warning portion. Actually the
first half had run twelve plays, so the game control
got away from him. Fortunately Auburn didn't pull away, and
they sat there and complained about officiating in the second
half instead of playing football, and Georgia took it from him.

(28:55):
Ole Mess has that quarterback run as well. That's an
element with Trinidad Chambliss that you come here with. The
difference is unlike Auburn, Ole Miss has the explosive play
capability through the air and on the ground. Auburn one
hundred and twenty seventh in that department, Ole Miss is sixth.
So what if you have to play catch up here
against Old Miss, you sort of invalidate what should be

(29:19):
a key edge for you because ole Miss defensively, they
are ninety eighth against the run. You should be able
to run the ball on Old Miss, but that's only
if you're not down fourteen or seventeen points, because if
you've got to throw the ball to beat them to
catch up. In other words, if Georgia just puts themselves
in that position. Again, this is a top thirty pass

(29:40):
defense and so again. First quarter, first half game script
as imperative here for Georgia as it will be all year.
The Georgia offense I think should be able to stay
on schedule here. They don't even have to start ultra fast,
they just have to start efficiently, because I think they
found something in the second half against Auburn. Stockton also

(30:00):
adds the running ability, obviously for Georgia. The run game
for Georgia much improved this year. It's not top ten.
I didn't need it to be. I just needed it
to be serviceable. It has been a serviceable ground game.
Ole Miss run defense can be had if you're not
having to come from behind. They can be had here. Ultimately,

(30:21):
what this could come down to is, I mean there's
a spot here where when you're facing a run defense
like that, I don't care if you're not vintage Georgia.
I don't care if Todd Gurley's not on the field.
I don't care if multiple future first round offensive linemen
are spread out left right there. At some point you
just got to remember, man, we're Georgia. Every now and then,
Kirby pulls that out. He did it against Texas last year.

(30:44):
I just call it a We're Georgia game where every
now and then you just have to reassert yourself. Maybe
not reassert dominance, although that's the goal, but maybe this
isn't a dominant Georgia team, but maybe situationally, there are
just moments where you look and there's a key down
and you say, that's Georgia, Harris, that's Kirby Smart, that's
Georgia for you. I think the game will be decided

(31:05):
in the red zone. Ole miss has settled for three
a little bit too much from my liking. So far
this year, they're in the sixties in red zone touchdown percentage.
Georgia has a top five red zone defense. So that's
one of those little stack CATEGORIESF you're gonna pull an
upset like this on the road, you need to invert
and the other thing that I think about is this
is Trinidad Chambliss's first road start in the SEC. Correct

(31:28):
me if I'm wrong, Jesse. He wasn't the one who
started that Kentucky game, and so this is it, Like,
this is a big ask for a guy going on
the road. It's not a vintage Georgia defense. They don't
get pressure like they normally do. So maybe he's given time,
maybe he gets confidence early. As you can tell by
the inflection points at various parts of this preview. I

(31:48):
have mixed feelings about this game. Let's take a look
at what the model thinks. Fan Duels got Georgia minus
seven and a half right now, we're a little bit
shorter than that model likes Old Miss a little bit more.
We got Georgia minus five, and I don't have a
strong feel on it. It's a desperation spot for Georgia.
It's a classic Ole Miss wants to win, Georgia needs
to win type of moment, same as Red River shoot

(32:09):
out last week. Doesn't always guarantee an outcome. But I
just even though I went to this well and lost
early on in the year with the Alabama result in Athens,
I always default to trust in Kirby Smart in these
spots at home, and I will take Georgia to win.
But I don't know if this is a pull away
game for them. I really don't. I think there's enough

(32:30):
that Old Miss has that that number right there, seven
and a half is a little bit too much for me.
I'm not betting the game, so I'm riding the fence
on this one. I'm taking Georgia to win. I'm taking
Old Miss plus anything over seven, which FanDuel is giving me.
Right now, let's move on. What a game? What a
game setting up in South Bend, Indiana this Saturday night,

(32:54):
USC Notre Dame seven thirty Eastern kick on NBC. How
big is this friend of the program, Kay Adams attending
the game? College football? Kay? How about that college football
playoff fate? That's what's on the line for Notre Dame here.
There is some debate out there that a two loss
Notre Dame is not getting in. There is no debate
about three loss Notre Dame. They are Pop Tart Bowl bound.

(33:17):
All due respect Team Blueberry. It was a statement moment
last week for some people when USC did what they
did to Michigan. Not me, I just thought it was
a very impressive win. As I said Sunday, as I'll
say again here on Tuesday night, this is where the
statement would be made. You don't make statements. In other words,
I view a statement as fundamentally changing what I think

(33:40):
about you. You don't make a statement as a favorite
in the coliseum. You make a statement by going on
the road. You are a nine and a half point
dog and you're facing the team that you know good
and well believes they can physically just lean on you
because until further notice, you're still USC, or, as Memaw
would say, compared to the Notre Dames of the world,
little two light in the bridges to pull this off.

(34:03):
If you prove that wrong, if you turn that narrative
on it's ear, that is a statement. The number there,
nine and a half makes it very clear the market
still has to see it to believe it. With USC,
the market also still fully believes in Notre Dame. So
what do we think about this game? Well, on the surface,

(34:23):
on paper, notably what the game is not played on.
But on paper, because that's all we have on Tuesday,
this looks like one of those games where there is
no total high enough the total is sixty one and
a half right now over under that's the total. So
if you just look on paper, USC's got the number
two passing offense in the country, Notre Dame in the

(34:45):
one hundreds in pass defense. Hold on, I'll be yelling.
There's no need to yell at a screen. I'm going
to get to it. I'm going to add all the
conditions in the caveats. In just a second, I continue.
Notre Dame number nineteen passing offense against a USC pass
def that's also in the one hundreds. So you may
think to yourself, oh, fireworks, fireworks, And we have seen

(35:06):
a game like that already this year. We've already seen
a game played in Notre Dame Stadium where the losing
team had forty points. That A and M game was
forty one to forty. So we have seen some points
be scored there. Now the follow up is you need
to know that, Yeah, they gave up forty one that night.

(35:29):
They've given up twenty seven their last three games at
Arkansas Boise, NC State. There is a working theory out there.
Maybe there have been some changes behind the curtain there defensively,
Maybe that coaching staff gets in that meeting room on Sunday.
It says, yeah, we're not doing this anymore, so we're
going to change this, this and this. That's one working theory.
Another working theory is, yeah, it was Arkansas and it

(35:52):
was Boise and it was in C State, not all
that difficult to flex defensively against them. I think the
truth is probably somewhere in between, but we'll find out.
A lot is going to be placed on the shoulders
of Jade Mayava. That's the USC quarterback. It's a guy
I'm extremely high on. They're high on him. They should be.
USC has down multiple tailbacks in this game, so he's

(36:14):
got to get it done. Notre Dame's good against the
run anyway, defensively, so it's going to have to happen
through the air. USC had success through the air in
this game last year, but remember that came with turnovers.
They threw two pick six's in this game. Notre Dame,
by the way, has forced nine turnovers in the last
three games, so they've been taking the ball away. US.

(36:35):
He gave the ball away in this game last year,
and that was in LA. This is in South Bend.
Leonard Moore number one grade per PFF in man coverage
at the cornerback position this year against Makay Lemon. If
you're not able to watch this game on Saturday, don't worry.
That matchup will probably happen on Sundays for years to

(36:55):
come as well. I just highly recommend you check it
out this Saturday. Lemon, by the way, leads all of
power for in receiving yards per game. So which way
does that matchup go? Because I believe Mackay Lemon can
do work against anyone. It's gonna be limited against Leonard Moore,
but I'm not look he may shut him down. I
just think it's very, very hard to shut that guy down.

(37:17):
I think he's the best, along with Jeremi Smith, excuse me,
the best receivers in the country. And if USC wins
that thing, then everything else working downstream of that with
those other pass catchers sort of falls into place because
elsewhere they're a place to be made against the secondary,
I believe. So that's one thing to watch. The other
thing is when we got USC out there defensively, how
much pressure can they get on CJ. Carr. Believe it

(37:40):
or not, they're fifth in sacks this year now, their
overall pressure rates not that great, but they have gotten home.
When they bring added guys Danton Lynn against Mike Denbrock,
that's a great coordinator versus coordinator matchup. They will bring
pressure they know they have to. Now with that opens
you up to the possibility that you make some mistakes

(38:03):
or it opens you up to the possibility that you
forced turnovers. I will just say this. I was on
the field in Champagne a few weeks ago when USC
went to Illinois last time. They had to travel really
and it was not good, not good at all. And
Luke Altmeyer, known by some in Nashville as Luke Altenheimer,
threw for over three hundred against USC. Now Michigan didn't.

(38:25):
But Michigan doesn't really believe in passing this year, so
they're going to get tested against CJ. Carr and it'd
be a very big surprise to me if if they
throttled him down, because I think that Notre Dame passing
attacks too good as well, So you're gonna have to
trade points at some point here. I think it all
comes back to the same thing with USC. Though you

(38:46):
notice how deep we've gotten in this preview without mentioning this.
It's none intentionally I haven't mentioned Jeremiah Love, I haven't
mentioned Price, I haven't mentioned the tailbacks. I haven't mentioned
the ground game, period, because that's what I wanted to
end on until further notice. The edge that the Notre
Dames of the world have on you is they're bigger

(39:06):
and faster and stronger than you. They're deeper than you,
they're tougher than you. Just all the stuff that you
read on the back of the college football serial box.
That's the edge that Notre Dame has on you. And
the thing that sucks about that is they're going to
say it about you until you prove otherwise. That's the statement.
That's what we're looking to see if USC can do here.

(39:26):
Let's take a look at what the model thinks. Let's
take a look at what FanDuel thinks. Fandel right now
has Notre Dame minus nine and a half, and that
moved at the early part of this week because we
agreed with it totally. Early on, we got Notre Dame
minus eight and a half. With the model. I believe
in Lincoln Riley, I believe in Danton Lynn. I believe

(39:48):
it's ultra personal for these guys, and you better get
this thing figured out, because if this is the last
time you guys play this rivalry for a while, so
help me. The Office of the Future Commissioner of College
Football will not look kindly on it. I hate doing this,
but I got to go with what I think is
the right way to go in this. I know it's

(40:09):
a popular sentiment out there that Notre Dame's rolling now
and so they're just going to like bury USC. I'm
not sure that happens, but I've also watched USC get buried.
Like there are some worlds where that Illinois game wasn't
even close, and they window dressed it and defensive plays
and turnovers kind of made it close. So there are

(40:29):
a lot of two way goes there. I think Notre
Dame is going to win a game. I will roll
the dice that USC is able to cover this number.
So that's another fence ride. I know. I did it
with Georgia ol Mess I'm doing it here. I think
both these games are close, though, so it just so
happens they're being played on the same day. I'm going
Notre Dame to win and I'm going USC to cover,

(40:52):
which in the end is just another possible one possession loss.
That USC looks at and says, oh, we let another
one get away. You do not have to let this
opportunity get away, though. The opportunity that I'm speaking of
is to go to Academy Sports and Outdoors and to
buy a jacket. If you don't get it from the
Peyte State Store. Of course, you could go get a

(41:12):
fishing rod. You could go get a kayak. I hope
you live in the South South if you're buying that
this time of year. But you can go get cold
weather gear, sporting goods, equipment. Obviously big league chewing the
checkout line. Academy has been with us for a long time.
We appreciate them. It is October, which means November is
about to happen, which means December's after that. If we're

(41:33):
doing the same calendar this year in twenty twenty five,
which means Christmas is not too far away, it is
never too early to go ahead and start stocking up.
You'd be shocked, stunned, amazed at how many things Academy
Sports and Outdoors has beyond the obvious that you didn't
know they have. And if you can't get there in person,
Academy dot Com is a close second. Let's continue prediction.

(42:02):
Tuesday going swimmingly so far. Tennessee at Alabama. Third Saturday
in October. On the actual third Saturday in October, Saturday Night,
seven thirty Eastern, six thirty Local kick on ABC. You know,
there was a period of time where the SEC schedule
got jacked up and this thing was being played second Saturday,
fourth Saturday. Nope, third Saturday in October. Both I believe

(42:27):
both you I am. I am of the opinion both
of these teams should wear their home uniform for this game, okay,
And I can't do anything about that right now. Maybe
one day I'm commissioner and I can just order this.
I don't really believe in the power of the pen, Okay.
I believe that the people should have the final say,
except with this because I think both fan bases would
want it. And I can't do anything about this weekend.

(42:49):
But I really wish we could just see the Crimson
in the Orange, no matter which venue they play this game. Anyway,
that's down the road a little ways. As for Saturday,
keep in mind Alabama goes to Missouri they win the
other day. Have you listened to a lot of the
noise that's come out of Tuscaloosa since then. If you
listened to Ryan Grubb talk and Ty Simpson talk, I

(43:12):
think they accurately have expressed how much meat they believe
was left on the bone, how much, specifically in the
passing game, they could have done in addition to what
they did, and I believe that. I actually thought one
of the biggest mismatches that should have existed in that
game was Bama's wide receiver corps versus Missouri's secondary. They

(43:32):
made some plays, but it was not a glaring mismatch.
But you want to talk about a glaring mismatch on paper,
check out Bama's wide receiver corps versus Tennessee secondary. This
is the number fifteen passing offense in the country versus
a pass defense in the one twenties, number eighteen in
explosive passes versus a defense in the one twenties in
that category as well. So once again we arrive at

(43:56):
this strange spot where looks like Bama should be able
to rip them if I think they got the best
quarterback in the country, or at least one of them
in Ty Simpson, which I do. If I think they
got one of the best receiving cores in the country,
which I do. There should be a lot of plays
to be made here. But again, this is not a
football field in my hands. This is just a piece

(44:17):
of paper. So what does Tennessee do to win this game?
Because that makes it sound really lopsided. It makes it
sound really one side of Bama is about to roll. Well,
how Tennessee wins this game, to me is instead of
getting caught up in the storm, you have to kind
of create the storm yourself. You lead the SEC in sacks,
do you not? Yes, you do? Stats an info already confirmed.

(44:39):
I think. Also, there is a world where Alabama's been
very good at not turning the ball over so far
this year, And there's a world where you get these
stats that are out there in your face, and you
think stats are static. So what is now always will be.
But if you've watched college football for any length of time,
anytime there's an upset period much less one of these

(45:00):
big rivalry game upsets, the nature of those outcomes is
that you ripped up the stat sheet that Saturday, something
happened in that game that flies in the face of
statistical wisdom. That could be one of Tennessee's edges this Saturday,
you lead the SEC in sacks. Alabama's offensive line, especially

(45:22):
on the right side, has been vulnerable as of late.
I think that you may see continued rotation over there
at that right tackle spot until they eventually, well maybe
they don't arrive at a conclusion, but I think eventually
they will. Three three defensive touchdowns in the last six games.
Number two in takeaways. The folks over at Ulquest did
a great job of just bunching a lot of these
stat profiles together to make the case for Tennessee. I

(45:44):
happen to agree with it. That's why I tossed it
in the show. So, yeah, Bama's only lost two turnovers
all year. They could lose two in the first half Saturday,
for all I know. That's one thing that needs to
happen for Tennessee. The other one is, let's say that
doesn't happen. Let's say the game is not going to
be fundamentally decided by turnovers or big special teams plays,
and you just got to you just got to trade

(46:05):
punches with Alabama in a conventional way. You got to
control the game on the ground. That's your other path here.
Tennessee is a top twenty five rushing offense right now,
and Alabama is in the nineties in run defense. Now,
if you've watched Bama games, you may think, man, I
knew they weren't elite, but they haven't felt that bad. Well,

(46:26):
that's because it hasn't been six yard run, eight yard run,
seven yard run. What it's been is a lot of
manageable stuff in boom explosive fifty yards they are one
hundred and sixteenth and explosive runs allowed. That's what's bitten Alabama.
So if you can rip some of those off, and
especially if you can mix tempo in which Josh Hypel
does very effectively. There were a lot of times last

(46:48):
year in this game where Tennessee won the game. But
there were a lot of times, albeit with Nico at quarterback,
where I thought they schemed guys open very well and
the guy just overthrew them. They still did another to win.
I thought Tennessee left a lot on the table last year.
So the other thing with Alabama is we don't know
the status of jam Miller. Jam Miller had to leave

(47:08):
the game last week. He's dealing with a concussion protocol
this week, so that's kind of in the hands of doctors.
And if he's not able to go, or if he's
less than one hundred percent, what does that possible lack
of balance do. Because Bama hasn't had statistical balance all year,
like they have seldom topped one hundred yards on the
ground with a tailback. I think they've done it once.

(47:30):
But even if that's not right, they have not run
the ball statistically effectively. What they have done is they've
stayed committed to the run because jam Miller is enough
of a threat that the defense has to respect it.
If he doesn't play Saturday, then you think about how
opportunistic Tennessee defensively looks at that and just thinks to themselves,

(47:53):
we think we can we can defend the run, maybe
with a lighter box than we normally would have to
commit to it if jam Miller was playing. Even though
we know they're going to be stubborn, Alabama will be stubborn.
Grian Grubb will run the ball. He knows he has
to to make sure his deep shots are open and
his passing games open. Really, we're not gonna get baited
by that. That kind of could happen in this game.

(48:15):
If you don't possess the balance in terms of making
the defense respect the run, that's real balance. If you
don't possess that, that's another way Tennessee could tilt the game.
I made a big case for Tennessee here because Alabama
is a big favorite. So let's take a look at
at the model things. Vanduel's got Bama minus eight and
a half. The model is right in line with that.
We've got Alabama minus eight. Here's the problem. There is

(48:37):
I think going to be a damn breaking spot in
the second half of this game where it really goes
against Tennessee early on. I don't think that's going to
be the case, but there are too many big plays
to be made. And I know goodwell there's an emphasis
in that building down there in Tuscaloosa this week about
what the strength of that offense is, how underutilized some

(48:57):
of the elements of that passing game have been. And
you just drool all over your play sheet looking at
what you got coming in in terms of Tennessee secondary
And you know that was a twenty seven point effort
last week that I thought could have been closer to forty.
I think this week's effort will be closer to forty,
and I think it'll be too much for Tennessee. So

(49:18):
I'm going to take Alabama to win. I will actually
lay the number here. I do think Alabama's going to
win the game by double digits. They're watching us in Northport, Alabama.
They're watching us in Tampa, Florida, they're watching us in Bogata, Columbia.
We appreciate it. Let's continue. I almost did the copy
paste thing again in the live chat. We can't do that.
We cannot say disembowel twice on one show. That's one

(49:40):
time's okay, like one time's a warning. But the disembowelment
quota on this show has been and always will be
once per show. So over under one and a half,
we want the under to hit. We will be right
here Saturday in Nashville, Tennessee. LSU at Vanderbilt eleven a
local kick. This trip a very short one, will be

(50:04):
fueled by quick trip fall. Don't lie to her in
the house over here at Vanderbilt, and LSU's coming in
here with some juice, maybe a fair amount of juice.
They just beat South Carolina last week. Speaking of leaving
meat on the bone, how about LSU ground game finally
woke up a little bit, didn't it? Five point five
yards per carry LSU in this economy running the ball?

(50:28):
Was that real? You guys really mean that? I hope
you do. I said about Tuesday of last week. You
remember why I tweeted out Jesse. We didn't even flex
on this. We could have. I said, LSU and Texas
are going to look way better this Saturday, And wouldn't
you know it, Texas goes and stuffs Oklahoma and LSU
runs the ball as effectively as they have all year.

(50:49):
In fact, that was their first time above four yards
per carry all season, five point five. So it's a
whole new day for the LSU run game, or is it.
Here's how bad it's been. Even with that rushing effort
baked in, there's still one hundred and thirteenth in rushing
offense and Vandy is number sixteen in the country and
run defense. So you're not just waltzing into Nashville and

(51:12):
running all over Clark Lee and Vanderbilt. I don't think
the potential is there with this LSU team, I said
coming out of last weekend's game. I know they didn't
put forty five on the board. But I've been critical
of Joe Brady and that offensive staff because I thought
they're capable of more. They did show more out of
the by It was very obvious there were a lot
of sleepless nights spent in that building, exhausting all resources,

(51:33):
and I thought they they did okay last week, but
more so they showed potential. Like I watched that LSU
effort and I said, well, there goes Nuss's usual one
or two inexplicable throws, which is just going to be
part of the LSU experience this year. But I watched
it and said, you know, this makes me a little
more confident than the usual twenty point effort from LSU.

(51:54):
So the potential is there. This is what I call
the thin ice theory. If it's water, it's water, and
if it's solid ice, you can go and do jumping
jacks on it and it's not gonna break. I'm trying
to figure out how thick the LSU offensive ice is
because I can see it on the surface after last week.
It's there, very solid. I just tossed a pebble out

(52:18):
there there were no ripples, So there's some ice that's
for him do I feel confident enough to walk on
this yet, I don't know. Let's continue in the grand
scheme of things, LSU versus Vanderbilt. LSU wants to throw
the ball to win. They're probably getting Aaron Anderson back
this week. Garrett Nussmeyer came out of the by where
fingers crossed. He has a little bit better help about himself.

(52:42):
I don't know that he'll ever be one hundred percent
of the entire season, Vandy is sixty ninth against the pass.
So look, Garrettnusmeyer has thrown interceptions in four of his
last five games. We can't be doing that on the
road or ever. We especially can't be doing that Saturday.
I mean, that's how Vanderbilt ends up getting you towards
the half where they've got a two and a half
to one plays, run advantage and time of possessions all

(53:04):
out of whack, and you can't even get your offense going.
Vandy's top thirty in takeaways, by the way, So that's
just sitting there. Vandy is stewed by the way. They
didn't disappear. You hadn't seen them in a couple of weeks.
You hadn't seen them since that Bama game because they
had a buy last week, and I noticed the country
kind of wanted to forget about Vanderbilt. I know the
AP voters did. They they may have dropped Vandy last

(53:25):
week because they didn't play, And according to the AP,
Vandy didn't play, that means they didn't win. We need
to drop them. You drop them three or four spots.
You're getting Vandy's best coming out of the buy. Like
they didn't go anywhere. They're a one loss team, They're
a top twenty five team. They got one loss in conference,
played just like a bunch of the rest of y'all do,
including LSU, So you are an underdog in their building.

(53:48):
In case I didn't state that off the top, that
number at the bottom of the screen if you're watching
on YouTube is not a typo. Vandy is favored by
two and a half against LSU. Just so we've properly
set the table here. LSU has seen some mobile quarterbacks
before this year. They saw Leonora Sellers and they bottled
him up. Last week. Trinidad Shambliss at Ole Miss had
a little bit better luck against them. Blake Baker's an

(54:11):
American hero at defensive coordinator, though so I think they'll
have a good plan Saturday. I think Vandy will have
a good plan Saturday. Frankly, I'm surprised the total is
in the upper forties, but I'm right at five hundred
betting totals this year, so I'm not touching the total.
But I'm a solid underlean on this one if I
had to. Each team is ninety fifth or worse in
penalty yards per game, so someone preferably more than one.

(54:37):
But at least someone's got to get their act together there.
Pavia versus Blake baker Man. This is what we pay
the money for. This is what we show up for
with the fall. Don't lie toy. We want to see them.
We want to see that LSU defense against Diego Pavia.
We saw Bama look good against him. But there were
also two red zone turnovers. And if it doesn't go
that way, if it goes Vandy's way, if they execute better,

(54:58):
who knows, maybe they put a much more crook number.
As Mima would say up on Alabama, Well, you've had
two weeks since then to get yourself right and to
get ready for LSU to come into town. And now
it's kind of super Bowl mode around here. It's Tuesday
as I'm talking to you, and Nashville's kind of ready
for this. Let's take a look at what the model thinks.
Vandy is a two and a half point favorite at FanDuel.

(55:19):
The model actually thinks the wrong team is favored. The
model is LSU minus one. I have as little a
feel on this game as any game out there. I Jesse, Jesse,
I think I may have changed my mind. I think
I may have possibly changed my mind. I walked out

(55:42):
onto the set tonight and I was going to pick
LSU to win. The more I think about Vandy season
and how it could go versus how it's gone so far,
it's a little bit of a crossroads moment. It's a
crossroads moment for both of them. I go back to
the thin ice theory. I need to say it one
more time from LSU on the road before I'm ready

(56:02):
to fully believe. Boy, I'm on the fence about this,
and we already made the graphic for LSU. I'll go Vandy,
I'll take out I'll take Vanderbilt to win. It's crazy
you're talking like this with a point spread favorite. I
liked LSU, man, I think Vanderbilt's gonna win the game,
all right, I'll take Vandy and cover. I guess there
it is. I changed it to Vandy. I don't know

(56:25):
how you guys just did that. I didn't even think
we had the ability to change graphics on the fly,
but that literally just got changed in the past five minutes.
We are, I guess we're no friend to people in
Baton Rouge right now. Look, you gotta follow your heart.
The head said LSU, the heart said Vandy. But as
for the rest of you, I mean in Nashville, if
you want to support the pick, my goodness, please do it.

(56:48):
We had a terrible, terrible thing happened today. We're moving
on here. We had a terrible thing happened today. I
am a big believer in October South Carolina football in
the month of October. Thus Cottober, I think is a
very dangerous combination. Now, they did lose to LSU last weekend,
and for the record, we picked LSU to win and
cover in that game. No LSU hating here anyway. That

(57:11):
has shaken a little bit people's belief in October. I'm
all in. I think that South Carolina is going to
give Oklahoma fits this Saturday, October comes to Columbia. The
problem is not everyone agrees with me, and so one
of you hit up Grok today. Free plug for Grot,
good for Elon Musk. He's going to make something of

(57:32):
himself financially. And they asked Grock if co October is
a myth perpetuated by me, and Grock comes back and
says yes, the stats show Coctober is more myth than reality.
South Carolina is five and nine in October under Shane Beemer.
Josh Pate does love promoting it, though. Cockvember thirteen and

(57:54):
four is the real deal. First off, Cotvember is inappropriate,
stick with October, and secondly, it doesn't roll off the tongue.
And thirdly, if they get buried in October, November is
not going to matter. We need Coctober. I'm not even
predicting the game on the show tonight. I'm just telling
you Twitter has fallen, X has fault, whatever you want

(58:14):
to call it, it has fallen. I'm not going blue
sky on you. I think I just may tap out entirely,
so you may not see me on there for a
couple of days, because I don't need AI attacking me.
I know, South Carolina football, and October is very much alive.
Let's continue. Jesse's in a bad way, and he's in
a bad way because he is coachless. He's got an

(58:34):
interim coach at Penn State. But Penn State is in
a state of flux right now. So Kyle from Harrisburg
hit me up and I wanted to address the two
things he asked. He said, you sounded adamant about James
Franklin not getting fired. How can you not see where
Penn State fans are coming from? Also, do you have
any ideas about the next guy for them? Kyle, I one,

(58:57):
one hundred and fifty percent understand where Penn State fans
are coming from, so much so that I think, I
said on the show several times I would feel the
same way. My vantage point was not one that was
attached emotionally to Penn State. I was looking at it
through what I thought were logical lenses. But I said,
all the while, I completely get the sentiment. I mean,
I could probably vocalize what you guys are feeling as

(59:19):
good as you can. And so I looked at it,
and you got to know something about me. I got
personal relationships with a lot of these guys. But it's
not even that because there are guys out there I
don't know. There are guys I've never met that I
would say the same stuff about. I always look at
Firings coaches as last resorts, and I didn't feel it

(59:39):
was last resort time at Penn State. Some of you
fundamentally disagree with that, Like some of you looked at
the colin Ward footage that we're showing on the YouTube
show if you're watching it right now, and there's nothing
between James or there's nothing behind the eyes there for
James Franklin, and they're booing and walking off the field,
and you know, you feel like the team's dead and
the season's dead, which I admit I thought it was

(01:00:00):
a dead season. It wasn't going to get any better,
to be clear, if they had retained him, it wasn't
going to get any better. I'm just always a believer
that things can get rectified, and things have changed across
the landscape of college football. But I completely get where
you guys were coming from. I had a lot of
people push back and say I don't agree with Peyton's
take because what he's saying is you should never fire

(01:00:24):
someone unless you definitively have an upgrade out there. And
what you guys were saying is, nah, we're willing to
take the risk. Yet, Yeah, there is no guarantee that
who we hire is going to be better than James Franklin.
But if the best we can do is just good,
we're not okay with that because we don't invest good,
we invest great. So we're going to chase great. We've

(01:00:44):
had enough good. We're going to chase great. I was
listening to Andy Staples talk earlier today. He put it
a really good way. He said he agreed that Franklin
should have been fired, So we disagreed on that front,
but the case he made made a lot of sense.
And he said the entire premise of James frank as
of late had been he wins the games that he's
supposed to and the only games he loses are the

(01:01:06):
few where he's an underdog. So he's like very very
properly rated, and that's why you keep paying him what
you're paying him, and that's why you keep defending him.
But the moment that dynamic changes, like the moment you
lose two games in a row as a three plus
touchdown favorite, well, not only then are you not winning
the games you're not supposed to, You're you're not even
winning the games you are supposed to. At that point,
all the value for defending him drives up. I understand

(01:01:30):
that logic. I disagree that the result should be that
knee jerk, or the decision should be that knee jerk.
I will also acknowledge this. I don't know that there's
a whiff of scandal around this. If there was, that's
a fundamental game changer. I will also say, since we
had the show on Sunday, the language and the contract
about mitigation clause is coming out. That's a game changer too.

(01:01:53):
That means it's very very unlikely Penn State actually has
to pay fifty plus million dollars in buyout money mitigation clause.
Those are just those clauses where it's in your contract
that if they fire you, you've got to make a
solid effort to go get another job immediately, and the
salary they pay you is offset in the buyout. Translation,
go get the UCLA job, make him pay you five

(01:02:14):
million a year, and then we're going to owe you
five million per year less. So instead of paying you
fifty over the span of a few years, we pay
you like fifteen or twenty. Yeah, that makes a lot
of sense. So now we're where we are. The second
part of that question was do I have any idea
where they're going to go? I don't think there's more

(01:02:34):
than meets the eye right now. It's early. Like if
you're looking at Pete Nakos, who is on the phone constantly.
I work in the same building as Nakos, so I
watch him do two things, go out in the parking
lot and shoot hoops and then sit on his phone
all day. And he was burning that phone today, and
so I'm sitting there. I mean, I got the cup

(01:02:56):
to the door and I'm listening. I know goodwell who
he's taught looking too, and I know that information is legit.
So when Pete Nkos tells you Matt Rule is the
lead candidate right now until further notice, Matt Rule is
the lead candidate, Kurt Signetti, I absolutely will be coveted here.
I told you I'd go after Matt Campbell. I think
he's on the list. The Marcus Freeman stuff's a little

(01:03:17):
interesting to me, Like I don't think Freeman would ever
go to Penn State that doesn't mean Pat Kraft couldn't
take a wild swing at him. So yeah, there may
be legitimacy there. And this is my opinion speaking. Now,
there may be legitimacy there in a sense that Marcus
Freeman's incredible at his job, So anyone who has a
job opening is dumb not to try and lure him.

(01:03:39):
I don't think he would be lured to Penn State.
But again that's just my personal opinion speaking. But the
thing with Matt rule, look selfishly, I hope Matt rule
stays at Nebraska because I think rule at Nebraska is
really good for college football. I think there's something to
be said in this entire you know, like this entire

(01:04:00):
coaching search snow globe, if you will, anytime it happens,
if you've ever been pursued professionally, it's one thing to
deal in fifty thousand foot theoreticals like oh, if so
and so ever offered me, I think I'd probably go,
Or if they offered me, I don't think I would go.
That means nothing when they put the paper in front

(01:04:22):
of you, here's the offer. That and only then is
when it's real. And so there's going to be a moment.
I think if things go the way they look like
they're going to go, there could very well be a
moment where, and it's two months from now, maybe Matt
Rule actually has the Penn State offer. And you got
to ask yourself, do you think he would turn that

(01:04:44):
thing down? Not when it's theoretical in October, but when
it is on a piece of paper in front of
him in December? Would he turn it down? Is his
team in the playoff like I predicted them to be,
Does that timetable have any impact on this? It's just
some stuff to think about. The other thing to think
about is, yes, it's the middle of the season, so

(01:05:04):
right now this stuff's going to garner big headlines. It's
not gonna garner big headlines after Saturday. It's like chalk
on the driveway once the rain comes through, or in
our case, all the chalk on the driveway is the
coaching search stuff. Franklin got fired. Well, we got a
Saturday Saturday's worth the game's coming through. That'll wash the
driveway off. Once that happens, Penn State message boards will

(01:05:27):
be talking about it, but nothing's going to happen until December.
This isn't like a mid season trade where Penn State
announces next week we're hiring Kurt Signetti. He will no
longer coach Indiana this year. So a lot of stuff's
happening behind the scenes. That's the way the coaching searchers
are going to work out. The second thing, and if
I'm a coach, I don't care who it is. I'm
very cognizant of this. The second thing is more jobs

(01:05:50):
are going to come open. I promise you Penn State's
the first major job to come open. By major, I
mean top fifteen. It is not the last top fifteen
job to come open. Anyone who is in demand knows that.
Anyone's agent who is in demand knows that. So you
want to see the entire landscape before you make decisions.

(01:06:10):
And a lot of these candidates are going to be
candidates from multiple jobs jai plural of jobs. So those
are just some things to consider it. But I do
think the early lists out there are pretty much on
the up and up. Like follow Nakos, Follow Pete Nakos.
He's very very in touch with this stuff and spends
twenty seven hours a day on the phone. Let's continue, Jesse,

(01:06:31):
what do we have jpeople. Yeah, I think we got
JP Pole. Okay, guys, I'll just intro it, Bradley. Here,
here's your intro point. We do the JP Pole every
Tuesday night. These are not rankings. These are power ratings.
And I am as beside myself with one aspect of
the JP Pole this week as I could possibly be.

(01:06:51):
For those of you who are new, these are not
my rankings. I do those on Thursday. I've got the
computer model over here, and it is built to spit
out teams in order of how the model would favor
them on a neutral field. Now, before you crap all
over the model, this thing has won us money seven
out of the last eight years we have used it
to bet. The ram Noodle Express is largely powered by

(01:07:11):
the model, but the JP Pole is as well. Now,
the model largely has our best interests in mind, but
it doesn't actually have a mind cause it's a computer.
So there's some times where we see things that the
model can't see. And trust me when I tell you, friends,
that's about to happen tonight. Okay, with that in mind,

(01:07:33):
let me show you twenty through sixteen. And I'm just
gonna say this out loud. If you're watching on YouTube,
you're already laughing. I'm just gonna say this out loud
for the podcast crowd. Then I'm going to come back
to it. Vandy is number twenty, Okay, Penn State is
number nineteen. Just hold your laughter for a second. Clemson
is eighteen, Southern Cows up five spots to number seventeen,

(01:07:56):
and LSU is sixteen. I am so irate that the
JPP and the model has Penn State top twenty that
I had pres who works graphics for us, manually override
the power rating, but I didn't tell him remove Penn
State because that would be unethical. I had him draw
on asterisk next to the Penn State logo and put

(01:08:18):
the reasoning behind Penn State being power rated top twenty
beneath it. And the reason is drugs. Drugs, That's the
only reason Penn State could be power rated there. Or
put another way, the model is high on talent and
it is taking Penn State's talent roster and saying, wait,
you programmed me to value this, and like, yeah, I

(01:08:40):
programmed you to value that. Do you also not understand
it's a dead team and I'm not talking to you
guys right now. This is just between me and the model.
I'll be with you in a second, Like, do you
not get how that works? Put it down, Put the
pipe down and actually take a look. Use your common sense.
You don't have common sense because you're a computer. Okay,
So yes, technically Penn State's nineteen. Also, yes, there would

(01:09:03):
be way more than nineteen teams favored over Penn State
this week. But if you think that the models alone
on this, I need to remind you Penn State's playing
Iowa this weekend. Do you know Penn State opened and
was briefly favored against Iowa before it immediately got bet
across zero and now Iowa was favored. Why is that? Well,

(01:09:23):
it's because the odds makers use the same kind of
intel that we do to feed into their systems and
their models. All of you drugs. Let's go fifteen through eleven.
Tennessee's number fifteen. They play at Alabama this weekend. Utah,
we are still high on the model has not sold
its Utah stock even after that blowout loss to Texas Tech.

(01:09:43):
Missouri and Oklahoma are thirteen and twelve. Now Texas Tech's eleven,
and I got to tell you again, I know you
guys may not believe this, or you may have to
see it to believe it. I've only got a two
point twenty five point gap, a two and a quarter
point gap between in Utah and Texas Tech neutral field.
I'm like you, Okay, if fan duel, if that game

(01:10:06):
were played today in neutral field like Arlington, for example,
and they gave me Texas Tech minus two and a
half against Utah, yeah, I'd lay tons of money on it.
It'd be a best bet for me. But I'm not
here to tell you which way i'd bet. I'm here
to tell you what the model says about these teams,
and then you can dissect it appropriately. Number ten is
Old Miss. They're down three spots after beating Washington State

(01:10:29):
very unimpressively. They go to Georgia Saturday. Texas A and
M's number nine. Texas is number eight. Now you'll notice
Texas didn't move up any for US after beating Oklahoma.
Why is that because we already had Texas top ten.
We got trashed for that last week. If you'll recall
this is so stupid, Well, the model is drunk on Texas.

(01:10:50):
That's an evergreen statement, but in this particular moment, the
model was right about Texas, and we believe Texas should
have been a point spread favorite over Oklahoma even with
John Mattier playing. We were adamant about that. Last week
we got crapped on for it. The folks who made
the comments are silent now, you see, because we had
Texas where they should have been. We had Oklahoma where

(01:11:12):
they should have been. That's why neither of those teams
really moved all that much. We got the result that
we thought we would get. We were keeping the teams
exactly where the model had them. We got Oregon at seven.
They are down five spots. We do not believe the
Penn State subsequent results after the Oregon game should devalue
the Oregon win at Penn State, meaning Oregon went to

(01:11:36):
Penn State and they killed Penn State as a team.
They killed them, and then Penn State played like a
dead team the next two weeks. Franklin got fired because
of it. I don't believe, nor do you believe, Penn
State would have gotten beaten by UCLA and Northwestern had
they beaten Oregon, So that sucked the life out of
Penn State. I am not retroactively devaluing or taking credit

(01:11:58):
away from Oregon beating Penn State because of it, because
they're the cause of it. So Notre Dame's number six. Again,
if you've doubted the model continuing to have Notre Dame
this high, I only ask you to look at this
game this weekend. All this is based on, by the way,
this thing's just who would be favored against two on
a neutral field by how many? Okay, well, Notre Dame

(01:12:20):
plays Southern cal this Saturday, not on a neutral field.
They play them in South Bend, so let's add three
points for home field. Notre Dame is a nine and
a half point favorite in that game, so even if
I subtract the home field value, they're a six to
a six and a half point favorite over usc Us.
He is not a bad team. We got usc at seventeen.
I'm not making the case here to defend Notre Dame

(01:12:43):
covering or anything. I'm just telling you if you think
because of two losses, Vegas is gonna have Notre Dame
plummet in their odds making, you're crazy. Notre Dame's way
up there right now. There are not many teams that
would be favored against Notre Dame. So they're number six.
Here's five through one. We're just five. Alabama's number four.

(01:13:03):
We didn't need to move them. We already had them
up here. So like, Bama keeps winning these games, but
we never dropped them, and we never dropped them beneath
Florida State, for example, after week one, remember that was
a while back. Remember week two, we still had Bama
way ahead of Florida State, and everyone was like, how
is that possible? This thing? Click bait, clickbait, bait, Florida
State crickets, Bama top five again. Sometimes the model knows

(01:13:29):
what it's doing. Indiana is the number three team in
the JP pole. I can't believe what's happening. They are
plus eleven points in their power rating from where they
opened the season. They are plus eight spots from where
they were last week. So the model looked at that
result and it basically said game on. Like all the

(01:13:52):
cobwebs that were over the model's eyes about Indiana have
been wiped away. It is perfectly understandable how Indiana would
be favored or be ranked top three in a poll
and a merit based poll. I don't really think people
properly understand how crazy it is that in a power
rating model power rating format like neutral field favorability format,

(01:14:16):
that the University of Indiana or Indiana University is above
Alabama and Georgia and Notre Dame in Oregon, in Texas
at any point in the season. I don't think people
understand how crazy that is. I don't even think I
fully understand it. We got Miami two, we got Ohio
State one. Some quick notes here, Ohio State is a

(01:14:37):
runaway number one. Right now, we have a four point
gap between Ohio State and number two Miami. To give
you an idea of how wide a margin that is.
There's four points between Ohio State and Miami. There are
four points between Miami at number two and the number
eleven team. So there's this wide a gap between number
one and two as there is between two and eleven.

(01:15:00):
So good for Ryan Day. Again, I don't really think
Ryan Day is in it for the trophies. He doesn't
care so much about the Big ten championship game, Michigan rivalry,
national titles, and playoffs. Ryan Day chases being number one
of the JP pole and for another week he's there.
It's a streak, it's a trend. Now. I don't know
what we should send him. I don't know if that's

(01:15:20):
challice worthy. But if you believe in the jpeople, and
you believe in Ohio State, and I know Goodwill, you
believe in at least one of those, you can go
bet at FanDuel right now, exclusive odds provider of the show.
I'm about to add a couple of best bets aboard
the RAM and Noudle Express for this weekend. But FanDuel
the exclusive odds provider. But also, if you'll notice, back
when I was doing playoff predictions at the beginning of

(01:15:41):
the show, Bradley was throwing up a lot of random
numbers on the screen. Well, those aren't random numbers. Those
are odds to win conferences and they aren't hypothetical. You
could bet every one of those. So if you saw
like Texas and you really think they're about to have
to ass a second half surge, and you saw they
are in odds to win the SEC, you can go

(01:16:02):
bet them right now. You could also just bet them
on the field. Who do they play? I think Kentucky.
I believe they play them this Saturday. Here you can
go do that. If you're a new sign up, by
the way, use that QR code or if you're listening
or don't want to use QR codes, you can get
a FanDuel dot com forward slash Josh pate. Lay five
dollars on the most sure thing you can find, and

(01:16:23):
if it hits, you'll get three hundred dollars in bonus bets.
Just a nice little welcome to the family moment from FanDuel.

Speaker 2 (01:16:30):
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(01:17:12):
text Hope n Y in New York.

Speaker 1 (01:17:15):
Speaking of I would like to take this opportunity to
close the show with two added best bets so so
far this week, let me make sure we have this.
We're on Syracuse plus eleven and a half against pitt
We're on Mississippi State plus nine and a half at Florida.
All right. We are going to add to that Arizona

(01:17:35):
plus one and a half against Houston. And we're gonna
again ride with Northern Illinois plus eleven and a half.
They are at Ohio. That's gonna be a tough game
for them. That's why they're being given eleven and a
half points so qs Mississippi State, Arizona, and Northern Illinois
so far, with plenty of additions to come throughout the week. Remember,

(01:17:58):
if you're watching or listen, we love you, every one
of us, even producer Jesse and Bradley, we love you.
Just subscribe to the channel. You don't even need to
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(01:18:21):
we're going to get to five hundred k, probably before Thanksgiving,
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even know, Like what she doesn't know in this case
really doesn't hurt her. All right, Let's go home and

(01:18:42):
eat dinner for producer Jesse, director Bradley. I'm Josh Pate.
We'll be back one hour early Thursday night, seven Eastern,
sixth Central Cublic. I'm told we'll join the show. We'll
see until then, take care, have a great middle of
your week, and God bless.

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