December 15, 2025 • 21 mins
Listener Questions ft. Jim Knowles, Ohio State Offense, Indiana Hoosiers & More | Buckeye Weekly Podcast
Join Tony Gerdeman and Tom Orr in this episode of the Buckeye Weekly Podcast as they tackle listener questions about Ohio State football. Topics include Jim Knowles' move to Tennessee, Julian Sayin's quarterback sneaks, and Indiana's playoff chances with different quarterbacks. Don't miss their discussion on Michigan's recent controversies and Pablo Torre's potential investigation. All this and more as the team preps for the upcoming college football playoffs!
00:00 Introduction and Off-Week Plans
00:41 Listener Questions: Jim Knowles' Fit in Tennessee
06:50 Quarterback Sneaks and Offensive Strategies
11:28 Indiana's Potential with a Better Quarterback
15:33 Michigan's Troubles with Pablo Torre
20:56 Conclusion and Upcoming Content
Join Tony Gerdeman and Tom Orr in this episode of the Buckeye Weekly Podcast as they tackle listener questions about Ohio State football. Topics include Jim Knowles' move to Tennessee, Julian Sayin's quarterback sneaks, and Indiana's playoff chances with different quarterbacks. Don't miss their discussion on Michigan's recent controversies and Pablo Torre's potential investigation. All this and more as the team preps for the upcoming college football playoffs!
00:00 Introduction and Off-Week Plans
00:41 Listener Questions: Jim Knowles' Fit in Tennessee
06:50 Quarterback Sneaks and Offensive Strategies
11:28 Indiana's Potential with a Better Quarterback
15:33 Michigan's Troubles with Pablo Torre
20:56 Conclusion and Upcoming Content
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hello, everybody, Welcome to the Buckeye Weekly Podcast. I'm Tony
Gerdaman here as always with time or tub. How's it going, Tony.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
It's another off week in the middle of the Ohio
State season. We've gotten a couple off weeks in a
row here before we can officially turn the page to
the college football playoff quarterfinal in the Cotton Bowl.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
And when we have an off week, Tony, what do
we do?
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Do we step aside?
Speaker 1 (00:27):
No?
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Do we take a ton of initiative and come up
with a bunch of show topics?
Speaker 3 (00:32):
Also, No, what do we do, Tony?
Speaker 1 (00:35):
We pass it off to people to give us stuff
to talk about.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Boom, there it is, listener question show time. We asked,
you answered, and now you'll ask and we'll answer. The
first one from at chip Rous how do you think
Jim Knowles will.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
Fit in down in Knoxville?
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Of course, former Ohio State defensive coordinator turned Penn State
defensive coordinator, turned not Penn State defensive coordinator and now
Tennessee defensive course. And there h it's an interesting move.
You know, he's he's coached in you know, Columbus is
a little bit of a fish bowl. But man, Knoxville,
like there is There is almost nowhere in America that
(01:13):
is as crazy and uh you know, insular as and
as much of a fish bowl as the Tennessee football
media market. So how do you think things are going
to go for Jim Knowles down in Knoxville.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
Well, I think enough people know now that Jim Knowles
needs a little bit of tim like you got it
if you just give him. Don't expect a huge improvement
in year one, although I will say I think in
scoring defense, Ohio State was maybe thirty eighth the year
before him, and they were giving him like twenty two
(01:48):
points a game. Moved to twenty fourth in his first
year at like twenty one points game, so you know,
but then year two, they are never one in scoring defense,
never two. They are never two, never two in scoring defense.
Second year, number one at scoring defense his third year.
So he improves. You Now, you have to have a
bad defense to be improved in the year one. Penn
(02:09):
State didn't necessarily have. They certainly didn't have that last year,
so we kind of expected. Yeah, I mean, don't expect
Jim Moles come in and turn the number four defense
into the number one defense, especially without Abdul Carter. But
in terms of like total defense right now, Tennessee is
eighty nine and they're like in the you know, seventies
or eighties and yards per play and they're they're bad
(02:32):
and points per play or points per game. So I
absolutely think he's going to improve them. I have no
idea what their their personnel situation is right now. Tom.
We didn't have to pay attention to Tennessee this year.
We paid attention to them last year. We saw some
very good players, saw some very you know, okay players
on defense. I think he's going to do well there,
(02:56):
provided that the recruiting is there, and I think that's
always a key. But he's also shown he can put
together a defense two and three star guys. But again,
you've got to give him a little bit of time.
The better, the better your roster is, the less time
you need to give him.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
Yeah, and you know Tennessee just looking at SP plus.
I think everyone looks at the Penn State defense this
year and goes, that was a disaster.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
They're fine.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
They're thirty third in SP plus this year. Tennessee is
sixty first in SP plus. And yeah, I think one
thing that will benefit Knowles is this is a little
bit more like working at Ohio State than at Penn State,
where last year it was how far can the defense
drag the lifeless corpse of the.
Speaker 3 (03:38):
Penn State offense?
Speaker 2 (03:40):
This is going to be you know, Josh Hipel is
an offensive head coach, so this is going to be
probably a let him go work his magic on the
defensive side of the ball, and Josh Hypel will take
care of getting you thirty points a game, and you
can win a lot of games if you have a
halfway decent defense. I think Jim Knowles, can you know
again without having knowing what's going on with the personnel there,
(04:02):
specifically because obviously the transfer portal hasn't even opened up yet,
and we'll see how you know, recruits end up getting
folded into the team and how first year guys turned
into second year guys and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 3 (04:13):
There's a lot a lot of variables that we don't know.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
I think if you can go in with realistic expectations,
this could be a great hire for Josh Hipel and
Penn State. Like this is a this is a good
situation where that's a program that can bring in enough
talent to really sort of tee him up. You've got
an offense that should be scoring enough points to kind
of keep them from having to.
Speaker 3 (04:34):
Just carry the whole, you know, carry the whole team.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
If you give him a year or two, I think
that's going to be you know, I think twenty twenty
seven Tennessee, twenty twenty eight Tennessee, one of those is
going to be a top ten defense in SP plus.
Speaker 3 (04:47):
And maybe both.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
I think my level of confidence in Jim Knowles as
a defensive coordinator goes up and up and up, as
you know, as he's been there longer. I think that's
a I think he's going to be successful there. Ultimately,
you have to have a little bit of patience and
as we talked about on our last show, Tony, I mean,
what are the odds that a Southern fan base in
(05:09):
the SEC.
Speaker 3 (05:10):
Gets all emotional.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
And you know, I mean, can you imagine can you
imagine a fan base like Tennessee, you know, like getting
torches and pitchforks over a coach, Tony, a coaching higher
I can't even remember a single time.
Speaker 3 (05:23):
That's happened in the last eighteen minutes.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
Just don't give up more than thirty one points to
Kentucky or something like that, or else he might just
need to be fired. Yeah, now I think he's gonna
do very very well there.
Speaker 3 (05:36):
Yeah, that feels like that.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
It's going to be a good fit, and I think
he's His reputation took a little bit of a hit
this year, and it was that was a hit that
was sort of based on stuff that was a little
bit out of his control and him being in a
situation where they didn't have the margin for error to
have the jymnles first year. If you understand the gymnoles
first year, you'll be fine because then you'll get to
the gym noles second and third year.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
Do you think his is There was also the Ohio
State aspect where Matt Patricia comes in and makes them
even better. And I wonder if that's also a hit
on his reputation or his impact at Fenn State at
Ohio State as well, just something else there.
Speaker 3 (06:17):
Yeah, that's that's certainly.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
I mean, if Ohio State had gone off a cliff defensively,
especially with losing all the talent they had, you would
have been sort of understandable. The fact that they lost
eight starters off last year's defense and then got better
this year.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
That was pretty remarkable. That will be I think a
difficult thing for them to duplicate again next year.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
But yeah, it certainly didn't help the You know, that's
an easy juxtaposition for people to do. Well, you went,
you came here and we got worse, and you left
there and they got better, and that, you know, that's
a very easy narrative to sort of.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
Stitch together there next time.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
From at termin Eater thirteen, why did no one ask
saying about quarterback sneaks like how he and the offense
can prepare for them, if it's something he's comfortable doing,
how he thinks.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
Improve doing them?
Speaker 2 (07:01):
Would he prefer for a full on tush push? Seems
strange that it wasn't asked about after a couple of
failed attempts.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
Good After the Big Time Championship game, Ryan Day and
Julian Saying were the two people at the at the
podium and Ryan Day was asked about the sneaks and
he turned to Julian said how many have we not
gotten this year? And Julian said two? And when you
look at uh at his fourth down rushes this year.
For Julian saying, I'm gonna assume they were all sneaks.
(07:30):
He ran them ball five times, picked up four yards,
picked up three first downs on those fourth downs. So
we're gonna assume Michigan right, the fourth down failure there,
and then the fourth down failure against Indiana or your two.
Also on his third down runs third down and one
to go, one to three yards to go, he ran
five times. I don't know how many of those are sneaks,
(07:53):
certainly a few. He was four or five on those.
So assume he got all of his third down. Say
say there's two sneaks. You know they're they were. They
were good up until the Michigan and the the Indiana
games on the sneaks. So you know, I don't think
you think there's a problem going into this after the
Michigan game, when well, they were both slips, right, Like
(08:15):
both times Julians Stan basically slipped, and so this is
an issue where if he slipped, it doesn't matter if
you're getting pushed in terms of like, you know, asking
I guess he you know, no, No, there's no there's
no downside to asking him about it other than like
he's he's gonna say, I'm good with whatever I don't
(08:37):
have any preference. He's not gonna say I prefer to
be pushed rather than just sneak that these aren't. He
is very much not a robot in terms of his answers.
But he's not going to give you more than he
wants to give you, and he's certainly not going to
give you, know, necessarily his full thoughts. And I don't
(08:58):
know that he has necessarily full thoughts on preferences of this.
I don't know that any quarterback wants to be pushed
into all of that in terms of how he thinks
he can prove doing them. Just don't slip. I think
that's the key there, keep your feet. But he didn't
seem to have any concerns in terms of the sneaks.
(09:20):
They did it very well over the course of the season.
We've seen that where they would get three or four
yards on a sneak like third down in the middle
of the field when there's room we got and they
could do that, So you know, I don't think they're
gonna go away from it. And now could they do
the keynotes thing instead, perhaps, but I don't I don't
see them scrapping the sneak altogether.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
No, because that feels like that's one of the surest
ways to get what you're looking for there. And so yeah,
I think that, you know, the sneak itself is going
to stay in there. The one against Indiana, it certainly
looked like he was gonna have it if his knee
hadn't hit the ground. It was not like he got
tackled and his knee hit the ground.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
He just slipped.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
So so that's one where I think you just sort of,
you know, shake your fist at the sky and chalk
it up to the general bloody mindedness of the universe
and rather than like here was a strategic failing, like
it was there, the push was there, He would have
gotten it had he not had his knee hit the ground,
but it did. So yeah, I don't know that that's
a you know, this is a little bit of a
(10:20):
process versus outcome conversation where the process was fine, the
yard to gain was there, it just the way it
played out didn't lead to that. So I don't think
this is and it gets necessarily bad process. So I
don't know that you're necessarily going to you know, change
things around, because as soon as you put Lincoln keyholes
in the game and you do that, everyone in the
(10:42):
world knows that that's what you're going to do, so
you know, and then if you don't do that, then
you're taking your best throw passer off the field and
you're putting a different thrower on the field to throw
the ball.
Speaker 3 (10:52):
And yeah, is that is that in your best interest?
Not necessarily?
Speaker 2 (10:56):
So you know, believe me, the first time the Lincoln
keyholes thing doesn't work in the college football playoff, everyone's
going to be saying, why didn't you just put Juliansaye
in there and toush Pushham.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
So that my.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
Guess would be they will kind of stick with that
and just you know, work it and wrap it and
get everyone comfortable with exactly the footwork necessary and then
you hope they don't slip that.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
All being said, I don't think they're very they're they're
all that great at it, and they could get better,
but it's just you've got a couple of glaring misses,
that's all. Yep.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
Next one for Matt old Pete nineteen twenty six. How
good would Indiana be if they had a middle of
the pack quarterback instead of Fernando Mendoza Tony is this
answer as simple as did you watch Indiana last year?
Speaker 3 (11:42):
It feels like that might be the answer there.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
No, that's exactly what I thought. I was just like, well,
I saw them make the playoffs with Curtis Schwort. Now
what did they do against Ohio State? What did they
do against Notre Dame? There's your answer, fishball in terms
of that's what it would be like. The defense, the receivers,
the skill players. This is a very very good team.
(12:07):
Bernando Mendoza takes them to another level. Can he get
them over the top. I don't know about that, but
we've said it all year long, but he is a
substantial upgrade against your guy Curtish Work. No offense to
curtish Work. It's just the years at Ohio. Ohio University
did not treat him kindly. They wore him down bones
and ligaments, and certainly not the studies and all of that.
(12:29):
I mean, I think we all know that about Ohio University.
But there's a lot of wear and tear on them,
and I think it caught up to him a little
bit at Indiana, and certainly caught up to him against
Ohio State and Notre Dame. But he was he was
the very middle of the pack, and okay, he's better
the middle of the pack in the Big Ten, but
(12:50):
like nationally, he's the guy that can getch you place,
he's not the guy that can get you out of places.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
Yeah, I think you could probably he's a little better
than average. So this is a little bit of a
better quarterback than your you know, the question is asking about.
But also, this year's Indiana defense is a little better
than last year's Indiana defense, so you could probably sort
of adjust that a little bit and the defense is
a little better, but the quarterback's a little worse and
you're basically getting that. So yeah, I think Frando Mendos
(13:21):
was probably the difference between a eleven and one regular
season and being thirteen to zero and winning the Big Ten.
And you know, we'll see how that goes for them
in the playoffs. I think they are good enough to
win the national championship. I think it's going to be
a real challenge, and I would not bet on them
to sequentially beat, you know, the teams that they're looking
(13:42):
at beating. I think they can certainly win a game
and then, you know, but their half of the bracket
is challenging. They've got some they have some tough, tough
teams on the other side of the bracket.
Speaker 3 (13:51):
I would not really the first game.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
I think they I think they've got a pretty good
chance to win, but you know, Texas Tech, Texas Tech
and Oregon are both going to be very difficult challenges
for them. Texas Tech in particular. I think I think
Texas Tech and Indiana might play the first ever like
one to negative four game, Like that's gonna be a
an absolute rock fight. But you know, the Indiana is
(14:15):
good enough to pretend. You know, Indiana is good enough
to beat any individual team in the College Football Playoff
this year, which I don't think you could.
Speaker 3 (14:21):
Say last year.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
And I think a lot of that is Fernando Mendozo.
Speaker 1 (14:25):
Well, and let's look at this year's schedule. If it
was Curtis Ward, are they beating Iowa? Are they beating Oregon?
Are they getting that win over Penn State? You know
how many of those three now granted Fernando Mendoza to
have picked, are they pick and maybe each of those?
But is Curtish work enough to win two of those
(14:48):
three of those? And if they if they are ten
and two and they lose a big ten championship game
to Ohio State. If they're actually they probably would have
they would have been in there because Oregon would have
been in there, So they probably still they still make
the playoffs at ten and two. Maybe keep the Yellabama
Crimson tied. I don't know, but I'm or because I
(15:11):
guess they're in it anyway, But I think maybe, I
think ten and two is probably about the best he
could hope for with Curtis work this year. And I'm
not convinced they wouldn't be nine to three. I'm not
out of the playoffs.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
Yeah, definitely a much harder schedule this year and named
it up with a better result with a much harder schedule.
So that's that, I think is a lot of your
answer there. Last one and I need to remember which
tab this is in. This one's from at Lyle Lanley
Underscore Railco. It is an incredible, incredible handle. Is it
bad news for Michigan that Pablo Torre is now potentially
(15:42):
showing interest in the Blake krum LLC Tony feels to
me like the answer is not great, not what you're
really looking for.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
No, certainly not. This is not something that Michigan wants
to see in Pablo Tory. There are a lot of
people that don't know, and I don't really follow him
that much, but he's been showing up in the news
a lot because of all of the things that he's
digging up on with the clippers and various things once
he gets a gets on the stand. But he's basically
an ESPN panelist who also has his own podcast called
Public Pabloatory finds out, and that's what he does. He
(16:15):
investigates stuff, and he finds out stuff and so on
Saturday or Sunday, justin Spirou who does all these he's
a Michigan State fan who keeps digging into the Michigan
stuff and says he has all of this Michigan stuff
and mentioned something about the Blake Korum LLC that everybody
knows about but nobody kind of gone away, and then
(16:37):
Pabloatory chimes in on his Twitter like saying, you know,
I like, you know, searching up stuff on LLC's betting
to that effect. And now if Pabloatory does start to
dig around the Michigan stuff, I think it's some very
very bad news from Michigan. And in a time when
you already have one investigative firm now taking stock of
(17:01):
the entire athletic department. And it's Problatory then is also
doing this because time remember back in twenty ten and
even for probably a two years, two or three year
spent at Ohio State, ESPN investigators and national investigators, sports
sports exporters, sports investigative journalists would just just be living
(17:22):
in Columbus for a while at hotels or whatever, like
digging up stuff. During this whole tattoo gate, then there
was all of these the dealership cars and they'd come
up with all of these side violations because they're digging
up stuff. And when you dig and dig and dig,
you find and find and find. And this was the
(17:43):
Blake Corn thing just kind of went. It went away
with basically a chuckle from Blake Quorum and little else.
And now, I just if Pablatory starts digging into this
Michigan stuff, I don't think it's going to go well
for the Wolverines.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
Well, I think if something comes out of it. Right,
this is one of those things that right now, like
I understand, I've seen all the people who want to
connect all the dots and I get it, and that's fine,
and right now, I don't look at this as anything
that's going to be consequential. Pablo Tory coming in is
kind of the old equivalent of Mike Wallace showing up
on your doorstep of your business, like I don't know
(18:21):
what this is about, but I bet it's not good.
Like this is if there is something to be found,
he is the kind of person who will find it.
And you know, I know there is an internal investigation
going on there right now. I'm going to phrase this
very carefully, Tony. I have a great deal of confidence
that if something is to come out publicly, it is
much more likely to come out publicly from the Pablo
(18:42):
Tory investigation than from the internal Michigan investigation. That feels
probably safe to say. You know, this is not like, oh, man,
get your emergency podcast alarm set up and we're going
to be on standby, Like we're not talking about that.
But it's just kind of you know, if you know,
if if he if, if Pablo Tory expresses an interest
(19:05):
in you in a professional manner like that is generally
not a great thing and has not turned out great
for people because generally there's a little bit of a
there's a little bit of a basis for him to
start getting interested in these things. And then once there's
a basis, you know, he he knows how to you know,
he has a shovel and knows how to find out
where the stuff is buried, and it has a track
(19:29):
record of being able to, you know, dig stuff up.
And lord knows, Tony, there's been some stuff dug up
around the Michigan football.
Speaker 3 (19:36):
Program in the last few years.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
Yeah, And I think the the key thing to to
keep in mind in terms of like, if you're searching
Blake quorum, you're digging into that. And the concert for
Michigan will be that he could be shown to be
ineligible and playing an ineligible player during the title season.
(20:00):
That's where this could get really really murky. And this
is where and an investigative reporter would be like, boy,
this this is not that you're looking to like, oh boy,
I could I could ruin. It's like, well, this is
a very interesting thing and there are a lot of
interesting strings to pull, and that's basically what he does.
(20:20):
He'll just pull on strings and boom. The streak came
out with a receipt for whatever, and this string came
out with the text change from wherever and that's what
he does. So no, I don't think it's very good
news from Michigan. However, if nothing comes of it, then
that's good enough for me. Basically, it's it's if he
looks into it and there's like, well there's no there
there works for me. And not that I need a
(20:43):
pound of flush or anything, but it is this kind
of you whatever happened to that? And if you know,
if nothing comes of it from him looking at it,
that works for me. That's all yep, good, all right?
Then that will do it for this episode. If you
want hit thumbs up, we'd appreciate that. Subscribe to the channel.
If you're not, get done, so hit the bell to
(21:03):
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that we will drop this week as we patiently await
the playoff game between Miami and Texas A and M
to find out who Ohio State will be playing. And then,
of course, you guys know, we will be covering that
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(21:25):
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let me buck Ihad, a message board presented by Jeff
Ruby's Columbus So that will do it for here. Thank
you all for tuning in and we will talk to
you all later
Hello, everybody, Welcome to the Buckeye Weekly Podcast. I'm Tony
Gerdaman here as always with time or tub. How's it going, Tony.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
It's another off week in the middle of the Ohio
State season. We've gotten a couple off weeks in a
row here before we can officially turn the page to
the college football playoff quarterfinal in the Cotton Bowl.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
And when we have an off week, Tony, what do
we do?
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Do we step aside?
Speaker 1 (00:27):
No?
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Do we take a ton of initiative and come up
with a bunch of show topics?
Speaker 3 (00:32):
Also, No, what do we do, Tony?
Speaker 1 (00:35):
We pass it off to people to give us stuff
to talk about.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Boom, there it is, listener question show time. We asked,
you answered, and now you'll ask and we'll answer. The
first one from at chip Rous how do you think
Jim Knowles will.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
Fit in down in Knoxville?
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Of course, former Ohio State defensive coordinator turned Penn State
defensive coordinator, turned not Penn State defensive coordinator and now
Tennessee defensive course. And there h it's an interesting move.
You know, he's he's coached in you know, Columbus is
a little bit of a fish bowl. But man, Knoxville,
like there is There is almost nowhere in America that
(01:13):
is as crazy and uh you know, insular as and
as much of a fish bowl as the Tennessee football
media market. So how do you think things are going
to go for Jim Knowles down in Knoxville.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
Well, I think enough people know now that Jim Knowles
needs a little bit of tim like you got it
if you just give him. Don't expect a huge improvement
in year one, although I will say I think in
scoring defense, Ohio State was maybe thirty eighth the year
before him, and they were giving him like twenty two
(01:48):
points a game. Moved to twenty fourth in his first
year at like twenty one points game, so you know,
but then year two, they are never one in scoring defense,
never two. They are never two, never two in scoring defense.
Second year, number one at scoring defense his third year.
So he improves. You Now, you have to have a
bad defense to be improved in the year one. Penn
(02:09):
State didn't necessarily have. They certainly didn't have that last year,
so we kind of expected. Yeah, I mean, don't expect
Jim Moles come in and turn the number four defense
into the number one defense, especially without Abdul Carter. But
in terms of like total defense right now, Tennessee is
eighty nine and they're like in the you know, seventies
or eighties and yards per play and they're they're bad
(02:32):
and points per play or points per game. So I
absolutely think he's going to improve them. I have no
idea what their their personnel situation is right now. Tom.
We didn't have to pay attention to Tennessee this year.
We paid attention to them last year. We saw some
very good players, saw some very you know, okay players
on defense. I think he's going to do well there,
(02:56):
provided that the recruiting is there, and I think that's
always a key. But he's also shown he can put
together a defense two and three star guys. But again,
you've got to give him a little bit of time.
The better, the better your roster is, the less time
you need to give him.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
Yeah, and you know Tennessee just looking at SP plus.
I think everyone looks at the Penn State defense this
year and goes, that was a disaster.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
They're fine.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
They're thirty third in SP plus this year. Tennessee is
sixty first in SP plus. And yeah, I think one
thing that will benefit Knowles is this is a little
bit more like working at Ohio State than at Penn State,
where last year it was how far can the defense
drag the lifeless corpse of the.
Speaker 3 (03:38):
Penn State offense?
Speaker 2 (03:40):
This is going to be you know, Josh Hipel is
an offensive head coach, so this is going to be
probably a let him go work his magic on the
defensive side of the ball, and Josh Hypel will take
care of getting you thirty points a game, and you
can win a lot of games if you have a
halfway decent defense. I think Jim Knowles, can you know
again without having knowing what's going on with the personnel there,
(04:02):
specifically because obviously the transfer portal hasn't even opened up yet,
and we'll see how you know, recruits end up getting
folded into the team and how first year guys turned
into second year guys and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 3 (04:13):
There's a lot a lot of variables that we don't know.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
I think if you can go in with realistic expectations,
this could be a great hire for Josh Hipel and
Penn State. Like this is a this is a good
situation where that's a program that can bring in enough
talent to really sort of tee him up. You've got
an offense that should be scoring enough points to kind
of keep them from having to.
Speaker 3 (04:34):
Just carry the whole, you know, carry the whole team.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
If you give him a year or two, I think
that's going to be you know, I think twenty twenty
seven Tennessee, twenty twenty eight Tennessee, one of those is
going to be a top ten defense in SP plus.
Speaker 3 (04:47):
And maybe both.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
I think my level of confidence in Jim Knowles as
a defensive coordinator goes up and up and up, as
you know, as he's been there longer. I think that's
a I think he's going to be successful there. Ultimately,
you have to have a little bit of patience and
as we talked about on our last show, Tony, I mean,
what are the odds that a Southern fan base in
(05:09):
the SEC.
Speaker 3 (05:10):
Gets all emotional.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
And you know, I mean, can you imagine can you
imagine a fan base like Tennessee, you know, like getting
torches and pitchforks over a coach, Tony, a coaching higher
I can't even remember a single time.
Speaker 3 (05:23):
That's happened in the last eighteen minutes.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
Just don't give up more than thirty one points to
Kentucky or something like that, or else he might just
need to be fired. Yeah, now I think he's gonna
do very very well there.
Speaker 3 (05:36):
Yeah, that feels like that.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
It's going to be a good fit, and I think
he's His reputation took a little bit of a hit
this year, and it was that was a hit that
was sort of based on stuff that was a little
bit out of his control and him being in a
situation where they didn't have the margin for error to
have the jymnles first year. If you understand the gymnoles
first year, you'll be fine because then you'll get to
the gym noles second and third year.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
Do you think his is There was also the Ohio
State aspect where Matt Patricia comes in and makes them
even better. And I wonder if that's also a hit
on his reputation or his impact at Fenn State at
Ohio State as well, just something else there.
Speaker 3 (06:17):
Yeah, that's that's certainly.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
I mean, if Ohio State had gone off a cliff defensively,
especially with losing all the talent they had, you would
have been sort of understandable. The fact that they lost
eight starters off last year's defense and then got better
this year.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
That was pretty remarkable. That will be I think a
difficult thing for them to duplicate again next year.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
But yeah, it certainly didn't help the You know, that's
an easy juxtaposition for people to do. Well, you went,
you came here and we got worse, and you left
there and they got better, and that, you know, that's
a very easy narrative to sort of.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
Stitch together there next time.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
From at termin Eater thirteen, why did no one ask
saying about quarterback sneaks like how he and the offense
can prepare for them, if it's something he's comfortable doing,
how he thinks.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
Improve doing them?
Speaker 2 (07:01):
Would he prefer for a full on tush push? Seems
strange that it wasn't asked about after a couple of
failed attempts.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
Good After the Big Time Championship game, Ryan Day and
Julian Saying were the two people at the at the
podium and Ryan Day was asked about the sneaks and
he turned to Julian said how many have we not
gotten this year? And Julian said two? And when you
look at uh at his fourth down rushes this year.
For Julian saying, I'm gonna assume they were all sneaks.
(07:30):
He ran them ball five times, picked up four yards,
picked up three first downs on those fourth downs. So
we're gonna assume Michigan right, the fourth down failure there,
and then the fourth down failure against Indiana or your two.
Also on his third down runs third down and one
to go, one to three yards to go, he ran
five times. I don't know how many of those are sneaks,
(07:53):
certainly a few. He was four or five on those.
So assume he got all of his third down. Say
say there's two sneaks. You know they're they were. They
were good up until the Michigan and the the Indiana
games on the sneaks. So you know, I don't think
you think there's a problem going into this after the
Michigan game, when well, they were both slips, right, Like
(08:15):
both times Julians Stan basically slipped, and so this is
an issue where if he slipped, it doesn't matter if
you're getting pushed in terms of like, you know, asking
I guess he you know, no, No, there's no there's
no downside to asking him about it other than like
he's he's gonna say, I'm good with whatever I don't
(08:37):
have any preference. He's not gonna say I prefer to
be pushed rather than just sneak that these aren't. He
is very much not a robot in terms of his answers.
But he's not going to give you more than he
wants to give you, and he's certainly not going to
give you, know, necessarily his full thoughts. And I don't
(08:58):
know that he has necessarily full thoughts on preferences of this.
I don't know that any quarterback wants to be pushed
into all of that in terms of how he thinks
he can prove doing them. Just don't slip. I think
that's the key there, keep your feet. But he didn't
seem to have any concerns in terms of the sneaks.
(09:20):
They did it very well over the course of the season.
We've seen that where they would get three or four
yards on a sneak like third down in the middle
of the field when there's room we got and they
could do that, So you know, I don't think they're
gonna go away from it. And now could they do
the keynotes thing instead, perhaps, but I don't I don't
see them scrapping the sneak altogether.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
No, because that feels like that's one of the surest
ways to get what you're looking for there. And so yeah,
I think that, you know, the sneak itself is going
to stay in there. The one against Indiana, it certainly
looked like he was gonna have it if his knee
hadn't hit the ground. It was not like he got
tackled and his knee hit the ground.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
He just slipped.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
So so that's one where I think you just sort of,
you know, shake your fist at the sky and chalk
it up to the general bloody mindedness of the universe
and rather than like here was a strategic failing, like
it was there, the push was there, He would have
gotten it had he not had his knee hit the ground,
but it did. So yeah, I don't know that that's
a you know, this is a little bit of a
(10:20):
process versus outcome conversation where the process was fine, the
yard to gain was there, it just the way it
played out didn't lead to that. So I don't think
this is and it gets necessarily bad process. So I
don't know that you're necessarily going to you know, change
things around, because as soon as you put Lincoln keyholes
in the game and you do that, everyone in the
(10:42):
world knows that that's what you're going to do, so
you know, and then if you don't do that, then
you're taking your best throw passer off the field and
you're putting a different thrower on the field to throw
the ball.
Speaker 3 (10:52):
And yeah, is that is that in your best interest?
Not necessarily?
Speaker 2 (10:56):
So you know, believe me, the first time the Lincoln
keyholes thing doesn't work in the college football playoff, everyone's
going to be saying, why didn't you just put Juliansaye
in there and toush Pushham.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
So that my.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
Guess would be they will kind of stick with that
and just you know, work it and wrap it and
get everyone comfortable with exactly the footwork necessary and then
you hope they don't slip that.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
All being said, I don't think they're very they're they're
all that great at it, and they could get better,
but it's just you've got a couple of glaring misses,
that's all. Yep.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
Next one for Matt old Pete nineteen twenty six. How
good would Indiana be if they had a middle of
the pack quarterback instead of Fernando Mendoza Tony is this
answer as simple as did you watch Indiana last year?
Speaker 3 (11:42):
It feels like that might be the answer there.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
No, that's exactly what I thought. I was just like, well,
I saw them make the playoffs with Curtis Schwort. Now
what did they do against Ohio State? What did they
do against Notre Dame? There's your answer, fishball in terms
of that's what it would be like. The defense, the receivers,
the skill players. This is a very very good team.
(12:07):
Bernando Mendoza takes them to another level. Can he get
them over the top. I don't know about that, but
we've said it all year long, but he is a
substantial upgrade against your guy Curtish Work. No offense to
curtish Work. It's just the years at Ohio. Ohio University
did not treat him kindly. They wore him down bones
and ligaments, and certainly not the studies and all of that.
(12:29):
I mean, I think we all know that about Ohio University.
But there's a lot of wear and tear on them,
and I think it caught up to him a little
bit at Indiana, and certainly caught up to him against
Ohio State and Notre Dame. But he was he was
the very middle of the pack, and okay, he's better
the middle of the pack in the Big Ten, but
(12:50):
like nationally, he's the guy that can getch you place,
he's not the guy that can get you out of places.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
Yeah, I think you could probably he's a little better
than average. So this is a little bit of a
better quarterback than your you know, the question is asking about.
But also, this year's Indiana defense is a little better
than last year's Indiana defense, so you could probably sort
of adjust that a little bit and the defense is
a little better, but the quarterback's a little worse and
you're basically getting that. So yeah, I think Frando Mendos
(13:21):
was probably the difference between a eleven and one regular
season and being thirteen to zero and winning the Big Ten.
And you know, we'll see how that goes for them
in the playoffs. I think they are good enough to
win the national championship. I think it's going to be
a real challenge, and I would not bet on them
to sequentially beat, you know, the teams that they're looking
(13:42):
at beating. I think they can certainly win a game
and then, you know, but their half of the bracket
is challenging. They've got some they have some tough, tough
teams on the other side of the bracket.
Speaker 3 (13:51):
I would not really the first game.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
I think they I think they've got a pretty good
chance to win, but you know, Texas Tech, Texas Tech
and Oregon are both going to be very difficult challenges
for them. Texas Tech in particular. I think I think
Texas Tech and Indiana might play the first ever like
one to negative four game, Like that's gonna be a
an absolute rock fight. But you know, the Indiana is
(14:15):
good enough to pretend. You know, Indiana is good enough
to beat any individual team in the College Football Playoff
this year, which I don't think you could.
Speaker 3 (14:21):
Say last year.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
And I think a lot of that is Fernando Mendozo.
Speaker 1 (14:25):
Well, and let's look at this year's schedule. If it
was Curtis Ward, are they beating Iowa? Are they beating Oregon?
Are they getting that win over Penn State? You know
how many of those three now granted Fernando Mendoza to
have picked, are they pick and maybe each of those?
But is Curtish work enough to win two of those
(14:48):
three of those? And if they if they are ten
and two and they lose a big ten championship game
to Ohio State. If they're actually they probably would have
they would have been in there because Oregon would have
been in there, So they probably still they still make
the playoffs at ten and two. Maybe keep the Yellabama
Crimson tied. I don't know, but I'm or because I
(15:11):
guess they're in it anyway, But I think maybe, I
think ten and two is probably about the best he
could hope for with Curtis work this year. And I'm
not convinced they wouldn't be nine to three. I'm not
out of the playoffs.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
Yeah, definitely a much harder schedule this year and named
it up with a better result with a much harder schedule.
So that's that, I think is a lot of your
answer there. Last one and I need to remember which
tab this is in. This one's from at Lyle Lanley
Underscore Railco. It is an incredible, incredible handle. Is it
bad news for Michigan that Pablo Torre is now potentially
(15:42):
showing interest in the Blake krum LLC Tony feels to
me like the answer is not great, not what you're
really looking for.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
No, certainly not. This is not something that Michigan wants
to see in Pablo Tory. There are a lot of
people that don't know, and I don't really follow him
that much, but he's been showing up in the news
a lot because of all of the things that he's
digging up on with the clippers and various things once
he gets a gets on the stand. But he's basically
an ESPN panelist who also has his own podcast called
Public Pabloatory finds out, and that's what he does. He
(16:15):
investigates stuff, and he finds out stuff and so on
Saturday or Sunday, justin Spirou who does all these he's
a Michigan State fan who keeps digging into the Michigan
stuff and says he has all of this Michigan stuff
and mentioned something about the Blake Korum LLC that everybody
knows about but nobody kind of gone away, and then
(16:37):
Pabloatory chimes in on his Twitter like saying, you know,
I like, you know, searching up stuff on LLC's betting
to that effect. And now if Pabloatory does start to
dig around the Michigan stuff, I think it's some very
very bad news from Michigan. And in a time when
you already have one investigative firm now taking stock of
(17:01):
the entire athletic department. And it's Problatory then is also
doing this because time remember back in twenty ten and
even for probably a two years, two or three year
spent at Ohio State, ESPN investigators and national investigators, sports
sports exporters, sports investigative journalists would just just be living
(17:22):
in Columbus for a while at hotels or whatever, like
digging up stuff. During this whole tattoo gate, then there
was all of these the dealership cars and they'd come
up with all of these side violations because they're digging
up stuff. And when you dig and dig and dig,
you find and find and find. And this was the
(17:43):
Blake Corn thing just kind of went. It went away
with basically a chuckle from Blake Quorum and little else.
And now, I just if Pablatory starts digging into this
Michigan stuff, I don't think it's going to go well
for the Wolverines.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
Well, I think if something comes out of it. Right,
this is one of those things that right now, like
I understand, I've seen all the people who want to
connect all the dots and I get it, and that's fine,
and right now, I don't look at this as anything
that's going to be consequential. Pablo Tory coming in is
kind of the old equivalent of Mike Wallace showing up
on your doorstep of your business, like I don't know
(18:21):
what this is about, but I bet it's not good.
Like this is if there is something to be found,
he is the kind of person who will find it.
And you know, I know there is an internal investigation
going on there right now. I'm going to phrase this
very carefully, Tony. I have a great deal of confidence
that if something is to come out publicly, it is
much more likely to come out publicly from the Pablo
(18:42):
Tory investigation than from the internal Michigan investigation. That feels
probably safe to say. You know, this is not like, oh, man,
get your emergency podcast alarm set up and we're going
to be on standby, Like we're not talking about that.
But it's just kind of you know, if you know,
if if he if, if Pablo Tory expresses an interest
(19:05):
in you in a professional manner like that is generally
not a great thing and has not turned out great
for people because generally there's a little bit of a
there's a little bit of a basis for him to
start getting interested in these things. And then once there's
a basis, you know, he he knows how to you know,
he has a shovel and knows how to find out
where the stuff is buried, and it has a track
(19:29):
record of being able to, you know, dig stuff up.
And lord knows, Tony, there's been some stuff dug up
around the Michigan football.
Speaker 3 (19:36):
Program in the last few years.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
Yeah, And I think the the key thing to to
keep in mind in terms of like, if you're searching
Blake quorum, you're digging into that. And the concert for
Michigan will be that he could be shown to be
ineligible and playing an ineligible player during the title season.
(20:00):
That's where this could get really really murky. And this
is where and an investigative reporter would be like, boy,
this this is not that you're looking to like, oh boy,
I could I could ruin. It's like, well, this is
a very interesting thing and there are a lot of
interesting strings to pull, and that's basically what he does.
(20:20):
He'll just pull on strings and boom. The streak came
out with a receipt for whatever, and this string came
out with the text change from wherever and that's what
he does. So no, I don't think it's very good
news from Michigan. However, if nothing comes of it, then
that's good enough for me. Basically, it's it's if he
looks into it and there's like, well there's no there
there works for me. And not that I need a
(20:43):
pound of flush or anything, but it is this kind
of you whatever happened to that? And if you know,
if nothing comes of it from him looking at it,
that works for me. That's all yep, good, all right?
Then that will do it for this episode. If you
want hit thumbs up, we'd appreciate that. Subscribe to the channel.
If you're not, get done, so hit the bell to
(21:03):
be notified. We've got a couple more listener Questions episodes
that we will drop this week as we patiently await
the playoff game between Miami and Texas A and M
to find out who Ohio State will be playing. And then,
of course, you guys know, we will be covering that
game in the in heavy rotation as we always do
for in the Buckey. So continue to find us at
(21:25):
Buckeheadle dot com. Sign up, say hello to us there,
let me buck Ihad, a message board presented by Jeff
Ruby's Columbus So that will do it for here. Thank
you all for tuning in and we will talk to
you all later
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