(upbeat music) - Hey, what's going on? This is the Saturday on South podcast. I am Connor Guerra. Well, it is a rare night recording for us, COVID household. Wanted to record when Claire went to sleep. So if I'm a little bit quieter, if the boy sounds a little bit deeper, that's kind of why also again-- - I'm gonna give you the Tim Tebow Swamp Kings. You gotta be like, I'm so excited for ACC football. - That was so weird. That was so weird, how quite? It was almost like Tebow was trying to be a little bit too diplomatic, and it got him out of his element or something. Yeah, we talked about that last year. It's crazy to think Swamp Kings was already a year ago. - It's not. - Oh my gosh. - No. - Yeah, I know. I'm not looking forward to the Connor stallion stock. I am looking forward to the Steve McNair Dock and the Home Solo Dock, because I have a lot of thoughts on Hope Solo that I'm not gonna get into on these airwaves, but Steve McNair is fascinating. What are we talking about again? What are we talking about? - Playing for today? - Oh my voice, yeah. - There we go, sorry. - Connor is COVID and he's like kind of the brains behind this operation, so now it's kind of like, would you leave the kids at the house to come down? - Yeah. - When I get him off target, he didn't know where to come back. - COVID brain. - Yeah, look, it's taken full force. We have a very fun interview coming up with Peter Burns in a bit, just a very unique scene that he will be joining us from, and then we have pitch me the best game of 2024. But first will, Jim Phillips, the ACC Commissioner, delivered I think the saddest flex I've ever heard during talking season, okay? And I try not to speak in absolutes too much, but look, I love talking season. I really do. In some ways, if you think about it, it's kind of like the media's version of the purge, right? Sort of anything goes, no consequences. That's talking season, you know? If you say stuff during the season, it's a little bit different, saying something before the game that comes back to bite you or something like that. But talking season, you can fire off opinions that don't make a lick of sense, and just chalk it up to talking season. And then the games happen, and then more times than not, you know, people forget about it. You might get all takes exposed or something like that, but even that is a bit of a rite of passage. For the most part, the vast majority of bad opinions that happen during talking season, don't get circled back to. Even when Desmond Howard had that historically awful prediction that Texas A&M would win a national championship in 2022, and then they went five and seven. It wasn't like he lost his job or anything like that, because that's not-- - I don't know. - Stalk in season, it's fine, whatever, don't worry about it. But I feel like I need to hold ACC Commissioner Jim Phillips accountable for the talking season thing that he said at ACC Media Days. In case you missed it, he said, "There's not a more exciting collection "of teams in the country than in the ACC." In a lot of years, that quote is not even worth tweeting out. If you're there, you're live tweeting in, something like that. Like, nah, don't worry about it. Much less turning into an aggregated story, or better yet, an entire segment on a podcast, like what we're doing here today. So why is it worth picking apart? Why is a somewhat throwaway comment from Jim Phillips just worth actually digging into? It is quite possibly the saddest attempt at a flex that I have ever seen once you actually dig into what he said. And I know what you might be thinking, Connor, I can't keep realignment straight. Did the ACC add some exciting teams? Did I forget about that? It's been a long off season, I don't know. Nope. The ACC added Cal, Stanford, and SMU. Who, look, SMU, exciting last year, number eight offense in the country. First ranked finish since the Pony Excess Days of the mid 80s, pre-death penalty. Yeah, been a minute. SMU on the up and up, you got the Dallas market, we were just in Dallas. Good things coming, all right. Cal and Stanford don't have Aaron Rodgers or Christian McCaffrey walking through that door. They don't. Fair. And SMU, I gotta give the ACC credit there, 'cause that's like a weirded digital servitude deal. We talked about that where it's like, if they aren't good, they basically make no money. Yeah, and SMU, while they did get the Dallas market, you can kind of dig into some of those things that they're still gonna really have to elevate to get to that level where we're like, oh, hey, they're like a real player in the ACC. I don't mean just simply from being able to go, you know, six and two in conference play or whatever. You know, I'm talking about an actual staying power. They're building it up. They look like they're one of the premier teams in the ACC. That's kind of a separate discussion. So, exciting. I don't think really would apply to Cal and Stanford who are just trying to have their first winning season in the 2020s. They have fallen off cliff. Exciting. You could describe them as maybe different points in their existence, but I wouldn't say that those three teams vault the ACC brand into a more exciting one. The irony of what Jim Phillips said is that the ACC had a team that just became the first and only team in the four team playoff era to get shut out of the playoff because it wasn't exciting enough. Think about that. If Jordan Travis has an exciting backup, 13 and out Florida State doesn't get left out. - Yeah. - That's undeniable, okay? If they had somebody that came in and just garnered a men's shoot, the joint. Florida State in the playoff? - Yeah, with a funny name. That's such a good point 'cause it's not that their quarterback was even bad. It was fun to watch. Like if they had a guy throwing pigs out there, it might have been something actually. - Jackson Arnold was fun in that bowl game. - Yeah. - It's some turnovers, but exciting? - Yeah. - Yeah, he absolutely was. Instead, the selection committee Fair or Not looked at that and decided that if it put that Florida State team in the playoff, it would be setting itself up for something so unexciting that it would make everyone want to turn back to that decision. So Florida State got left out of the playoff and shipped off to the Orange Bowl where the word excitement was about as far from that FSU locker room as the North Pole, okay? If FSU had been a bit more excited to play in that football game, 63 or three probably doesn't happen. I'm just gonna say, definitely doesn't happen, but I digress, okay? It's not what Jim Phillips is really talking about. FSU's playoff snub made it four consecutive years in which the ACC failed to win a playoff game. But, okay, drought's happened. Drought's happened to the Big 10. I remember when the Big 10 had three consecutive years in which it's conference champ was left out of the playoff. These things add a little bit touch and go outside of the SEC. You know what else the ACC has yet to do during the 2020s decade, okay? So we're talking about just the start of the 2020 season. The ACC has failed to win a New Year six bowl. - Stop. - They are all in five. Fire ACC has not done what random kind of schools have done. That is crazy, actually. - O and five, five double digit losses in New Year six bowls. Not playoff bowls, New Year six bowls. That's what we're talking about here. That's playoff and non-playoff, right? 'Cause we're including-- - I think the amount of Big 12 teams that have done that, including a semi-final game as well, is actually kind of shocking, yeah. - Or is it actually O and six even? Oh, I think it's O and six because we have to include Notre Dame, don't we? - I think we have to include Notre Dame. - Oh, man, that's bad. Ofer, and if you want to compare that to the SEC who has 14 New Year six bowl victories in the 2020s, that's not necessarily the best. Look, speaking of the SEC, the word excitement should probably be reflected in something like, I don't know, whether or not fans want to show up and watch that football attendance, okay? I think that's kind of important. Last year, the SEC had nine programs that averaged at least 65,000 fans per home game. That group even included Arkansas, which essentially treated its fans to three and a half hours of the voice of Gilbert Godfrey. If you don't know what that is, Google it or don't just take my word for it, it's torture, it's hell. The ACC had two such teams. And by the way, those two such teams that had north of 65,000 fans per home game, Florida State and Clemson, who just so happened to be involved in an ongoing lawsuit with the ACC and aren't exactly making brunch plans with one another. But let's add those new exciting teams into the mix. For the SEC, adding Texas and Oklahoma would make it 11 teams with at least 65,000 home fans per game last year. They'll probably be there this year, okay? Unless a meteor strikes one of those two places, they will have 65,000 fans, or unless there's another pandemic that's in the works, that will be a guarantee. For the ACC, Stanford, Cal, SMU, they would give the ACC, still two teams with 65,000 home fans per game. Those three teams weren't even in the 40,000 club. Well, the only SEC team who's not even in the 40,000 club, you know who it is, it's Vandy, okay? Man, sorry. Yeah, didn't mean to take those shots. You knew they were coming. So they were like kind of functionally, I'm not being mean, they've kind of functionally added Vandy in the modern college football landscape, 'cause Stanford does not spend the way they should. They're like the richest, one of the richest universities in America. If they just decided to take some of their endowment and put it in an IL, but they don't do that. So they're pretty much just until they decide to get serious, they're just kind of long flight Vandy. And don't look at that Cal debt, that they're facing right now. You think the A&M debt is bad, buddy, look at Cal. Yeah, it ain't pretty, it's just not. But let's hear Jim Phillips out because those weren't necessarily the points that he was making when you're talking about how exciting this collection of ACC teams is. There's probably a way that he can explain it. That's gonna make sense to all of us. It's gonna be like, all right, that's what he's talking about. Maybe we look too far into it out of context, whatever. Jim Phillips' basis for his argument was explained in this quote. And I hope you have a tissue nearby because it's sad if you're an ACC fan. And if you're anything but that, it's pretty darn funny and you're probably gonna be crying tears of laughter, okay? Quote, we have elite coaching leadership. Six ACC head coaches named to the 2024 Dodd free season watch list. No conference had more. Two of the three active coaches in the country to win a national title reside here in the ACC, Davos Sweeney in Mac Brown. The combination of our proven veteran coaches combined with our dynamic young coaches is incredibly powerful. A few things here. Flexing about a 72 year old coach who's gonna be 73 by the time the season actually starts, who won a national title nearly 20 years ago is pretty sad, especially when you consider that Mac Brown while I am a fan of the guys 301 to win a national title. I don't think he's adding that to his resume anytime soon despite the fact that this is a pro Jeff Collins podcast. You get that. The other coach from Mac Brown, I actually think he had the best code of talking season. Did you hear what he said the other day? He said, and I can't remember who initially tweeted out so apologies, but everybody in the ACC says that I'm retiring and like six of those coaches have been fired. Yes. Every coach who gets this as I'm going to quit and six of them have been fired that said that already. So they don't worry about themselves. Love that. I won't sit here and say Mac Brown's gonna quit. I will sit here and say that Mac Brown is gonna win another national championship. He's not gonna win another national title. Yeah, that's not happening. If you're trying to tell me on why he is more exciting than others, I'd say that argument falls a little bit flat. That's not necessarily the worst part of this argument. Oh, by the way, just in case you were wanting Davo, 40 to one to win a national championship. The guy that has multiple rings, 14th in those odds, not exactly great. I am not picking Clemson to be able to win a national championship but go on record saying that. The other part of the Jim Phillips attempted flex is, it's worse, it really is. When I think of excitement off season hype during these eight months, it's a long off season, it is. I don't know about you, Will, but it is fueled by the Dodd Trophy pre-season watch list. When we do pitch me later for best game for 2024, if both teams that we're talking about in a given game don't have a coach on the Dodd Trophy pre-season watch list, I don't wanna hear that pitch, get that away from me. Uh-uh, no, no, it's all about this list. He is right that the ACC has six coaches on this pre-season watch list, which if you're following along at home, you wanna pull up the Dodd pre-season watch list. I encourage all to be able to do so. It's on the internet, on their website. He is right in that no conference has more. You know which conference has just as many coaches on that watch list? It's the SEC, also with six. But the other thing about the pre-season watch list for the Dodd Trophy is that if you're at a new program, you're not eligible to receive the award, you can't get it until your second year with the program. That means Kayla Dabour is not on that list. Like the guy who was the finalist last year. So that excludes him, but this list does include seven and six Mario Cristobal, seven and six Brent Pry. Jeff Brom is on this list as well, which great season at Louisville. He also got smashed by Mark Stoops, who is not on this list. Look, clearly great barometer for declaring the ACC the most exciting collection of teams, because man, those coaches are great. They're good, they're really good, man. Just in case that wasn't them. Phillips busted out the thing that I actually think plays a bigger part in pre-season excitement than just about anything else. It's quarterbacks. Quarterbacks generate so much of this conversation. You're gonna see pre-season top 25s that are gonna come out. So much of it is about quarterbacks. He said, quote, the ACC is the conference of quarterbacks. 13 enter the season with over 20 career touchdown passes and 3,500 passing yards. Eight quarterbacks are projected to start in week one of the NFL. That's 25% of the league. Believe it or not, I'm not going to pick apart the whole ACCs, the conference of quarterbacks thing. That's actually the least, what's the right word? Inflammatory, that's maybe a little bit too severe. You get what I'm saying. I'm not gonna dig into that. I instead wanted to focus on the stats that Phillips ordered up as his flex. 13 ACC quarterbacks enter with over 20 touchdown passes and 3,500 passing yards. I applied that to the SEC quarterbacks for a return just to see kind of how that would look. Here are the names on that list. Tailing Green, Peyton Thorn, Graham Mertz, Carson Beck, Blake Schapen, Brady Cook, Oh, but wait. Casey Thompson, Jackson Dart, Quinn Ewerz, Diego Pavia. Only 10 ACC quarterbacks. ACC wins, nice flex gym Phillips. But you'll note that I included Peyton Thorn and Oklahoma backup Casey Thompson on that list. You know who didn't make the cut for Jim Phillips's barometer for flexing? Jaylin Milro, AKA the guy who finished higher in the highest in trophy voting than any returning player in college football. But Peyton Thorn and Casey Thompson, according to Phillips, those are cards to play when it comes to preseason. Excitement, all right? So, by the way. Who's incredibly close to that, by the way? A.J. Swadd. - Oh, yeah, he is pretty close. - He's like a couple of hundred yards short. Just if you guys are wondering how real this list is, Milro did not make an A.J. Swadd almost did. - Robbie Ashford is not quite there 'cause of the passing touchdowns. Yeah, the 20, like the 20 passing touchdowns, man. You're a grizzled bat if you're getting 20 passing touchdowns. I'm not trying to diminish how hard that is, but seriously. By the way, Phillips avoided speaking in absolutes about the ACC's projected NFL starters because the SEC, if we wanted to push back on that, is projected to have more with nine. And that's not including guys like a Jaylin Hurts or saying like, "Oh, Bonix counts for the SEC." No, no, no, like those guys finished their careers away from the SEC, they do not count for the SEC. So, you see what I'm getting at here? This is sad. This is really, really sad. It's sad because the ACC is probably at an all-time low in terms of excitement, despite the fact that I think there's depth in the ACC. I actually do. I think they're gonna cannibalize each other. I think they're gonna kind of beat up on one another. I think there are gonna be a lot of teams that are like eight and four, maybe nine and three, and I'm like, "Hey, they're pretty good." They could beat a lot of teams in college football. Maybe they're gonna be like a top 15 type team. It's like, I'm not even doing this to say that the ACC is garbage. I'm really not. Like there will be depth there that probably I'm overlooking the preseason. Like I'm admitting that when I come out with my preseason, top 25, I fully get that. But did the ACC pivot as well as the Big 12 did? No, absolutely not. And that's the other thing. You might be wondering, well, Connor, like you're just gonna tell me that the ACC is the most exciting collection of teams in college football, or that the Big 10 does because of the additions that they made with the four West Coast teams. If Brett Jormark had come out and said this about the Big 12, I'm not ranting like this because I already told you how electric the Big 12 was. It's America's Conference. If you wanna tell me, Brett Jormark that the Big 12 is the most exciting collection of teams in college football, I'd be like, huh? Yeah, I mean, it's kind of anybody's race, you know? No, Fafita, DeShadora, Zander, wait, like, you can sell. You could have put all of the points that Jim Phillips tried to make and just copied and pasted with the Big 12 and I would have been like, yeah, okay, I can actually sign off on that. Maybe not the coaching, but you get what I'm saying. It was just a weird choice of words and it felt like such a sad misplaced bit of Hopium for a conference that is lacking that in such a severe way. It's not Jim Phillips's fault entirely that things are this way because he didn't agree to that grant of rights deal. That was before his time. That was John Swofford. So I'm not sitting here saying that Jim Phillips is the one to blame for all of this. What should he have said without getting people like me to wanna rant about it and people want to aggregate that quote and treat it as an actual headline because of how noteworthy it is? Always, come on, say, probably is. I couldn't be more excited for this collection teams in the new look ACC. That's it. I just did your PR for you. That would've been, that would've taken care of your issue. You wouldn't have gotten out there. You wouldn't have been making a bold take, but you could've said all that other crap right after and I wouldn't have noticed. I wouldn't have noticed that you're hyping up the Dodd preseason watch list as why your teams are so exciting. Instead, he forced me to remember that not only is this a random collection of teams, but it's definitely not even close to the most exciting collection of teams in sport. - Yeah, I think you absolutely nailed that with the big 12, right? Which is that the big 12 has decided to just become the new like perpetual pack 12 after dark, like the sickos conference. And that's great for them. I mean, they got a coach with four fewer wins than Davos Sweeney talking about being pro drunk driving at their media days, which is at a football stadium. Like it's at a football stadium. It's not at a press room. The mascots are doing tick-tock dances for the big 12. I see the vision of what they're doing out there. It's why we all love football. It's all the clips that have come up from the NCAA football game of random teams and creative colleges playing each other. You get that kind of action in the modern big 12. They have a space in modern football. The ACC is just like some schools I think they're smarter than you. Some schools, I think they're better than you. Some schools, I think they're richer than you. And a couple of people out West. Kind of it's so random. It's so random. I am going to have to do so many different, like-- because one of the things that's difficult sometimes is when I do the playoff metrics and I start doing those in November, just to try and track record against power conference teams we're calling for now and trying to figure out wins against AP top 10 teams, all those different things. But really, when I focus on the core for average scoring margin, I'm going to have to do so many things where I'm like, oh, wait, SMU is? OK, no, that was a conference game. That wasn't a conference game. And I'm looking at these schedules. And I'm going to have to be reminding myself of these teams that Stanford and Cal are playing against. And I'm going to get it wrong. We're all going to get it wrong. To say that it's anything but random is wrong. And yeah, that's where, obviously, Jim Phillips isn't going to come on and say, yeah, that's pretty random. Pretty random what we become as the Atlantic Coast Conference with teams that are on the Pacific Coast. But yeah, what are you going to do? Realignment, am I right, guys? Wasn't going to come out and say that. But at the same time, talking season is perfect for little sound bites like this, that now we have so much access to. And it's going to be hard for me to forget that. It'll be hard for me to forget that if the ACC continues to struggle in this new world of college football, which they don't really have that way out, that it looks like others have. And that's, I think, the desperation that's being felt by so many. It's not just the lawsuits that are going on right now with Florida State and Clemson, and what happens if that day comes? And what is the reaction of a Jim Phillips if you all of a sudden finds out, oh my gosh, there's somebody that's willing to pay to get out of this or this legal action is being taken. And here's how this is going to play out. There's an exit strategy that's actually going to happen. And so I think it's coming from a place of trying to sell you. He's trying to sell a lot of people about this exciting collection of teams. And if I'm an ACC fan looking around, I'm not excited. I'm just not, despite the fact that it is the conference of quarterbacks, and I will not push back on that for Jim Phillips saying that. Yeah, I think you kind of hit the nail on the head there, which is, you know, it wasn't the best statement. For me, it's Matt Brown, when he said, it's not the worst statement, that was new UCLA head coach, DeShawn Foster, who did you see his press conference? I did, so Will, here's a question. Did he mean to do that? No, no, that is a person who was scared of public speaking. And I hurt for him, but man, is it the only conspiracy theory that I thought of was what we talked about with Lane Kiffin with the FAU promo. It was shades of that. It's a good throwback. It was shades of that. But DeShawn Foster looks like the guy who knows that he's winging it at the wedding, giving the best man speech, four or five years deep. He's thinking he's just gonna be fine. He's gonna get up there. He looks out and goes, buddy, I got nothing. I got nothing. This is unfamiliar territory. I have never done this before. I'll admit, I don't care. I wrote out a speech. I didn't sit there and read it word for word the entire time. I brought that piece of paper up with me, because I didn't want to end up like that guy. Yeah. You like to make eye contact with someone, completely lose your theory of thought, and then just end up with, we're in LA. Any questions for it? You guys might not know. Might not have ever heard of this place called UCLA. Right there in the name. Anyway, but it wasn't the best speech. It wasn't the worst speech. It was a very middle of the pack statement. Gave me a little bit of vibes of the Jeb Bush, please clap in a way, which is a statement that in itself is probably fine. But when you put it in context, and I mean, you think about this, right? It's like, you know, Davo is not this big scary bear that he used to be, right? Like we talked about it in ASEAN. This is after died. To this point, he has kind of not adapted. I'm not gonna say he's died, obviously. But it's not like you have, back in the day, let's say, 2016, where the SEC was quote unquote, "Bama and everyone else." When the big 10 was, "Oh, Iowa State, everyone else." The reason why this conference feels so useless is because the longtime standard bear in Clemson is not scary, even though they might be kind of happy there, kind of, right? They're just kind of doing their own thing. The next up, FSU does not want to be there to the point where they're exploring literally every option, you know, signing with whoever to get out of that conference. So yeah, I think it's just hard and just to really quickly go on the coaches thing. Like if your whole thing is coaches, like Miami fans will tell you, they have already resolved themselves to the fact of, Mario Cristobal is a CEO. We don't trust him as an on-the-field coach. We trust him as a recruiter or program builder, not an on-the-field coach. That guy who didn't know how to kneel at the end of a game, beat Davo last year. So if your whole thing is going to be, our coaches are just better and smarter than everyone, that would be like if Nick Saban lost to like, oh man, like badly to Mark Stoops. Like badly, like just never got off the bus. And I'm not dumping on Stoops, but that would be the equivalent where it's like, you're just never going to cross this hump. That's kind of how it felt with Cristobal. And so point being like, I just don't really see like, I would almost rather an academic thing. I would rather almost be like, well, we have plenty of member institutions that have a GPA of this, at least that's real, at least you could say, Duke is a great school. Yeah, you know, Cal and stay for the great schools, UNC is a great school. But when you come up and like, just make up these weird quarterback stats and talk about the Dodge coaching trophy and all that, it's like, okay, you don't even believe what you're saying. This will just be hard, hard. - It's really hard to find the juice. And if you saw the story from John Talty about Davo, allegedly dropping an F-bomb talking about, why can't we have an F in buy mom? This is kind of a separate deal. So I don't know if this, I guess that is specific to the ACC and ACC network and what they're trying to build. And I think ACC Network does a good job. I actually tune into it, probably more than the average person would realize and stuff like that with games that are, you know, Haynes Kings on late, babe, we gotta flip it on. But you go to say like, there are so many people across college football, one of whom that we're gonna have on early next week that we'll dig into the subject more, who is realizing that you need this discourse. Discourse adds juice. Discourse adds juice to talking season. Talking season in the SEC is always going to be loaded with juice. It just is because people talk about that stuff year round. There is a F-bomb show wherein you can actually be critical of these teams. If you watch any of these other network media days, tell me there's anything like the lane and Paul back and forth, which might have to share a story at a different time about that interaction, but we won't get into that. Tell me that there are people that get on those airwaves that are actually willing to fire up spicy opinion and stuff. That isn't just the most pro team stance possible. And that to me is so unbelievably obvious because when you're not necessarily at the top, like the ACC is right now, you're not really in position to knock each other down. And that's kind of the issue that I think so many of them struggle with and that insecurity comes out with a lack of juice during talking season, like it really does. And I just think there's something to be said for it. Dabbo's 100% right, by the way. Say what you want about Dabbo. That's actually Dabbo adapting and realizing that everybody should have been doing this 10 years ago. - Come on, man, I've got TikTok for this conference. - Dude, guys, if Dabbo's telling you this, this is a problem. - Mike's live shook off all 14 SEC commissioners who said, no, I don't want a Paul Fine-Bombs show. And trust me, SEC fans, like whether you watch Fine-Bombs or not, and I realize I have a different impression of this, that makes the SEC so much difference than all of these other places, including the ACC, who, look, if we had heard Greg Senke in that position, okay, and we're putting Greg Senke into the ACC, into the ACC with the context and all these things. And then you had people that could get up there on the desk and criticize what he just said. There would be tons of people in the ACC that would just be willing to blast him and say this is unacceptable. And this is a commissioner who is accepting his fate as someone that is very much staring up at the rest of college football. But you don't have that in the ACC. - And to the Fine-Bombs boy, we had like a really good combo during media days about the SEC network crew and how they're so good at walking the line of being a professional while still having fun. And like same deal with Fine-Bombs, Fine-Bombs was, I can't exactly put him in this category but he used to be a very serious journalist guy with that background. He knows when to kind of pull back and not let it go off the rails, right? And like, he's not, you know, Pat McAfee. Like he has always been able to kind of rain that show in and not make it into a big farce. And so I think that the amount of personality is in one thing. But I mean, the SEC network headquarters is in Charlotte, right? - Yeah. - Okay, so I mean, it's right there. Like you really, it's not like you gotta go outside of your own like footprint to find these people. I think it's number one not being, not taking risks, which you gotta do as we've talked about 30 to the big 12 then to try to fakely be the SEC. But the other part of it is, you know, there are some pretty solid brands in the SEC. But the thing that makes the Paul Fine-Bombs show great is the plight of these fan bases that are just so locked into losses. Like, okay, Tennessee over the last 20 years and like we love what Josh Hypels built, it's so awesome. The Paul Fine-Bombs era has been completely just bookended, bookmarked by, okay, this is the year for Tennessee. The fans are gonna call in, they're gonna talk crap and then it's gonna not work out for them. In Georgia until, you know, until the States and Bennett years. Oh, this is the year, it's 2007, it's 2003, it's whatever, like we're gonna put it all together. No, you're not. Having fans that bought in, where it's not, oh, we're right forest and we're gonna be good once every 10 years and our fans are gonna kind of show up but no one's gonna kick us while we're down and make us feel that way and make us feel like, oh, well, we're gonna flex when we get on top. And so, you know, there's some really passionate fans that is here, of course, Duke, Clemson, FSU, Miami, like say what you all about Miami fans, they're still, they're sticking through some stuff, right? But point being like, there's just not this ability to just switch from team to team and have that same buy-in, like there is in the SEC where it's like if Oklahoma or Texas gets here and struggles, it would be actively amazing for this podcast, like just to be honest with you, whereas like if Cal and Stanford struggle in the ACC, it's a disaster. - Yeah, that's the biggest difference. And again, like I said, we have a guest that's coming on Monday and we will discuss a lot of those elements because he's very entrenched in that space right now, not in the ACC, but in the Big Ten, actually. So be on the lookout for that. But yes, it's a really good point and it's one that's worth remembering. I wish the ACC had great things during talking season that weren't sad, I really do. And maybe we'll get to that place. Maybe things can change in a few years. Maybe that does end up being the case, but as of right now, man, that was just one of the sadder quotes that I've seen once you actually peel back the layers to it and realize what he's talking about. - Okay, ready for ACC Commissioner Tim Beck. He'll turn it around. - Love it, which Tim Beck? There's like six now, dude. - The wonder keeps failing upward. It's like, guys, we're gonna turn this around. We brought in Tim Beck. - Coastal Carolina Tim Beck, yeah. - Coastal Carolina Tim Beck, there we go, yeah. - All right, let's kick to one of those SEC network people, let's kick to Peter Burns. Great to catch up with him. And he was kind enough to be able to join us from a very scenic international location. So apologies for a little bit. We have some little bit of reception issues with the Wi-Fi nearby at the pool with BB, but so great of him to be able to join us. So curious, Peter Burns. - Not excited to be joined by a very special guest from a very special place. It is Peter Burns. PB, you got to set the scene for the audio-only crowd of where you are right now, because you're not the first international guest that we have had, but this is rare form to be able to get you in this setting. - I am, so I'm down as a Bahamas with one Christopher Doring who, it's funny. It's like watching Saban Capp Crow, the sidelines of an SEC Championship game. Just see Chris Doring in his element here in the Bahamas. You know, we've talked about this counter for like years of, hey, me and CD doing SEC this morning. We had to go on like a guy's trip once. And finally, we have made that thing a reality. And it's, I'm like, seriously, it is interesting to see the man who is like the mayor, the unofficial mayor of the Atlantis resort down here Doring. Like I'm just, I'm in awe. It's like what Kirby is doing to recruiting is what Doring does down here at the Bahamas. It is fascinating to watch. No shoes, no shirt, no service does not apply to one Chris Doring in the Bahamas. - Oh, the shirt was off. Like the shirt was off legitimately 30 seconds after we got here to the location. And I'm like, my man, I appreciate it. You're 62 years old and you look like you're, you could go play right now. And I'd recruit Chris Doring on my NCAA video game. We'll put it that way right now. - 62, he's 50, he just started 50, he's 62. - No, no, no, no, don't give him credit. He is, I think he's at least 52. So let's not give him too much credit. - All right. - Wait, who was the other international guest? Was it George Somerville? - Of course it was George Somerville. Yeah, obviously. That one just made all the sense in the world to be able to have him on. Because like seeing Sankey shout him out to start off was, and you know, I got in touch with, you know, and saw George pretty much every day at SEC Media Days and like talk to the fine-bomb people. It was like, Danny, like you need to get him on. He's like the perfect late-week person to have on. George is the best. So he is technically more international than you. - Yeah. - Yeah, and he's got the cool accent as well too. But it is, you know, it's one of those things too. It goes to show you like when you're there last week and we're there last week about like, I watched all the other media days that are happening and you real, it's like, I know we just say it just means more, but like just the way that event, every single year, and I think it felt different with Texas and Oklahoma coming this year, where it just, it felt even bigger than it's ever been before. - Okay, PB. So let's along those lines. Last week, I gassed you up by saying, I don't think enough people are talking about how you're going full-doring and becoming like kind of jacked. And I've definitely noticed. So let's stick with storylines today that are getting enough talk. We just got through SEC Media Days. We now have a pretty good idea of what's being talked about, what's not being talked about. - That's all I want to talk about with you. That's a very open-ended thing to discuss today, but I feel like there are a lot of things that aren't necessarily being talked about enough. Bobby Petrino coming back to Arkansas, talking about Kirby Smart and this schedule, that is an absolute gauntlet that Georgia has, that if it were anybody else we'd be talking about is one of the two most difficult schedules in all of college football, but what's the thing that you've noticed that you feel like coming away from media days that people aren't talking about enough that we should be giving more love to during talking season? - Yeah, I think just kind of that middle tier of these. About how different we talk about these teams when it's East and West, right? Like, we used to, we talked a lot about Kentucky or who's gonna be the second best team in the East or second best team in the West or whatnot. And I don't feel like we had those conversations this year. So I felt like we didn't talk any about the Wildcats. I felt like we talked nothing about Mississippi State. Like, I think, you know, Jeff Levy, Jeff Levy over at Mississippi State, I think is a fascinating conversation because it reminds me a lot of 2020 on this, you know, kind of where it's like, "Hey, the defense may not be great, "the team may not be great, "but I think they're gonna be fun as hell." And, you know, Levy was the architect of that offense. So I did notice adding Texas takes a lot of the oxygen out of the room to not only Oklahoma, but to A&M. I mean, think about it, this is first year in the Mike Elko, no Jimbo Fisher. Like, the schedule is there, like, and I don't even know how many times we talked about A&M as an actual team versus, "Oh, I can't wait for Texas to go to A&M." So I think it's, you know, there's that middle tier that kind of falls by the wayside on media days when we have 16 teams in the conflict. - I think it's refreshing not to be talking about A&M as much because I think A&M fans even don't mind it. I truly think that they are embracing having a year like this where it's not about Jimbo Fisher and the buyout, it's not massive expectations coming in. And yeah, massive expectations, that's good. You'd probably rather have those than not, but I do think A&M fans are kind of looking at this going, like, "Actually, this isn't that bad. "Is it annoying that everybody's talking about Texas? "Yes, but maybe that's the thing "that we should be talking about more, "is the fact that this great rivalry is coming back, "but then you see, I just did the thing "where I just made it about Texas." - No, but I mean, and again, I think if you look at the two coaches that are coming in that are both, you know, that are not gonna be talked about enough is gonna be Brent Vinnables in Oklahoma and Mike Yelko at A&M. And I think both of those guys, Connor, as you pointed out before, those guys like to play, they're not the wallflowers, but they don't need to be at every single headline. Like, they're football coaches that don't wanna have to deal with their BS that goes all with it. So it actually comes at a perfect time. And, you know, you started looking at Oklahoma, which is, I think, a very interesting story because this is a 10-win team last year. So you don't know, you know, like, and they beat Texas eight of the last 10 seasons, which is crazy about. So, I don't know, I'm probably more jazzed about this upcoming season than I have been about how to season than probably the last, I mean, since I started, you know, working for the SEC Network, for sure. - Are we talking about Kentucky leading the country, leading the SEC, rather, and Bill Connolly's percentage of returning production? Are we talking about that enough? Or are we talking about that maybe not enough because this is very often the time when it feels like Mark Stoops is going to kind of pull a fast one and do the Youngstown thing? - Yeah, which is like, hey, you don't respect me, I'm gonna beat your ass in a dark alley. You'll think that's what Kentucky certainly does. I don't know, like, I go back and forth about like returning starters and returning production 'cause I once had a coach, he was no longer in this conference, he once told me, I won't name names, but he said, I said, man, you know, you guys got like nine returning starters on defense. Like, you gotta feel good about your defense. And he's like, just because their returning doesn't mean they were worth the shit. And I was like, what a great line. And I forever have thought, we thought about the production. And when I look at Bill Steele's like, oh my God, look at how much this production is, where Bill Connolly's got these numbers, like, just because their back doesn't mean that they were great, right? So, I think that's why I'm fascinated, not only for the 12 team playoff at Texas Oklahoma, but like, what about these teams that are transfer teams? You know, and Ole Miss being that litmus test. Like, can you put together a, I wouldn't call them a team of mercenaries, but, you know, they kinda are. And 'cause I don't think it worked well for A&M and Jimbo when Jimbo was trying to win the number one recruiting class against Saban. But for whatever reason, it feels like it could work with Lane because I feel like it's more of a mindset of like, this is transactional. Like, you're here, I want you here, I don't know what your future is, but damn sure if we're not gonna win together. So I think that's why I'm really interested in Ole Miss in that year of like, it's a bigger story than just the SEC. It's a story about all of college football of, can you quote unquote, recruit a transfer portal playoff bid or do you have to build the culture around your program and add one or two guys? - I don't know. I think Mike Norvell has kind of already proven that you can do that. And I think the job that he did at Florida State last year, to me, even though they didn't get into the playoffs, still going 13 and O with that roster and the way that they plugged in pieces, all the draft picks that came from the portal. I kind of think Norvell has already, has already shown that you can do that. It's just not necessarily going to work for everybody. And it's going to be interesting to see that way that it plays out. - You are repping the Penny Lane shirt right now, which is an SDS original. That was with, I think we did a deal with Breaking Tea in like 2020, I remember. And those shirts came out and they sold like hotcakes. I remember, could you imagine having these conversations about Lane back then, back like 2020, going into all this stuff like before everything and thinking that he's going into your five at Ole Miss. And there are people saying Ole Miss can be semi-final type good and maybe who knows, like everybody's kind of favorite dark horse for a national championship. - Yeah, I think we could. And I think that was why it was intriguing when he went there. I think the question was whether or not Lane was going to use this as a catapult to a different program or if he was going to be true to stay at the CIF. And I think now that's why this year is so big for him to be like, all right, like, can I showcase? Because, you know, can I showcase all the money that we spend in their collective at NIL? Does it actually equal success? Because if it is, then I think the same boobs here step up because they love it. But what happens in a lot of places is, everybody's going to step up for the first year or two of collectives. What happens if you don't get a return? What if all of a sudden the guy at NC State who's giving money to their collective says, hey man, we went 84 or I paid a bunch of money to a recruit via the collective and then it doesn't work well, then they transferred out. Are they going to be like, well, I'm never going to give money to this program again? Like, that's why this is all kind of a pilot program to see what college football is like right now. And I think, like, I look at shrink has done a great job of it. Where in the fact of, I think he's built a program, he's recruited really well, but at the same time that they have used their collective like, you know, let's be smart about what we do. I think college football teams now are going to be more like NFL teams where it's like, how are we smart with the money that we spend in good put-of-put free agency versus just blindly spending like the New York Mets do and that they don't have any success. - Dang, shots fired at the Mets. Look, they're always getting straight. - Yeah, they're out taking straight. I'm here in the Bahamas and they're taking straight out here. By the way, on a scale of one to 10, how bad is my connection here at the pool? Like, is it like... - Not so bad. - Is it? - No, it's actually like, it's, I'll give it like a seven or something like that, which I've had worse. We've had like a couple, like a, you know, two or three second pauses and people don't give us a one star view for that, but no, we're working through it, we're perfectly fine. I'll get you out of here with this last one because it's something that I've been thinking about a lot. Like, are we not talking enough about the year two Hugh Freeze arc and how this has typically been when he has figured things out and all his teams have to lose. And Auburn's gonna be one of those teams that's gonna lose some of these tough games. Maybe they lose that game early on against Oklahoma and that makes people say Oklahoma is for real in the SEC, whatever the case may be. But the combination of Jordan Hair Magic with what they did last year and a weird year one with Hugh Freeze's history of figuring his roster out in year two, is that something that we are not talking about enough in the SEC? - Yeah, I mean, I'll be honest with you, this is why I don't like doing this podcast because every single thing I think of and like either you tweeted first or I tweeted it and we're like the Spider-Man meme talking about each other 'cause I love this week and I'm like, you start looking at Auburn's schedule and you're like, they can win a lot of games. And, you know, I saw Hugh and Hugh seem oddly confident. They're like, the only thing that I had an issue with is like, all right, Peyton Ford is he the dude. Like, you get a chance to meet these quarterbacks down there and I was blown away with Quinn Ewers. I really like Jackson DeDart. And I like Peyton Ford, but also Peyton Ford looked like a Miami nightclub promoter and I'm like, man, am I gonna, like, it's just who he is. Like, and I, it was fine. Like, is that the guy? I don't know, I think that's fascinating, but to your point of Hugh Freeze in year two or Bobby Petrino at going back to Arkansas or, you know, Brock Vandergrip going out to Georgia where we don't really even talk about him. Like, how many of these storylines get washed away because it's all about Texas and Oklahoma or Kalen DeBore taking over Alabama or, I will tell you this, I don't think we talk any about Georgia. 'Cause I think, honestly, at media days, Georgia's like the IRS of the SEC where we're just like, all right, we know that they're gonna be great, whatever. Like, that's fine. We'll see them in the playoffs. Like, no one talks about Kirby's part. Like, Kirby's part is like the most charmed life because he operated and had success under the shadow of Nick Saban. And then now, with the 12 team playoff in Texas, Oklahoma, he can still operate under that same shadow. So, again, I'm just fascinated about the whole situation coming up. Yeah, I couldn't agree more. And I do think it's going to be a fascinating year. It's, there's 16 teams. You can only get to so many of them. Apologies, by the way, if you can hear my daughter, his, like, just hysterical. I can't hear anything. There's like, his fool in the background during the LMB because my margarita's ready. Oh, gosh. All right, get the margarita. That was going to be the last thing I was going to ask you. What's, what's, what's the dream? I'll come up, I'll come up the last thing. We might lose it. So, he's probably playing, like, $500 hand flag. Yeah, right now. But I just want the list of views to be able to go see here what it looks like whenever I, whenever I see my man that just circle it from the podcast. Look at that. Oh, I'm real. Look at that. Oh, I'm real. All right. The man knows, like, those people don't, I mean, I got a nice ball. He's got a nice ball that will be on Sunday. Okay, so. We're going to blur that for the YouTube audience. Cheers, gentlemen. Enjoy the trip. Safe travels. See you, buddy. Take care. All right, pitch me time. We are talking the best game of the 2024 season, which going into it is obviously tons of candidates and it doesn't just have to be from the SEC for what it's worth. You sell us on one that is outside of it. I will gladly listen to that pitch, but it kind of feels like we're going to end up with one from the SEC because there are a lot of really good games in the conference. And I guess, do we have non-conference mentions in here? I don't think we have any non-conference mentions that we settle on, do we? We got a couple of mentions on Instagram, for sure. Okay. I don't know if they'll win, but we got some mentions. Yeah, so this was kind of sparked. And by the way, if you saw the graphic, Emmanuel Ocho, brother of Sam Ocho, who, let's just say he made the rounds at SEC Media Days by saying, well, okay, let me provide some context here. So Sam Ocho said at SEC Media Days that the Iron Bowl was not a national rivalry. He initially said that, yeah. I heard it so many, like we've talked about it's still funny. I'm sorry. So he said this off air, initially. And Will and I, where we were sitting at media days right next to the desk, the SEC Network desk. This was on Thursday, the final day of SEC Media Days. So I'm thinking he's just kind of like busting jobs. He's not going to actually say this on air. SEC Network, right? Again, we're talking about like what you could say on certain conference networks, what you usually don't say. He gets up there and doubles down. And not only does he double down by saying this, but he goes into this long diatribe about how great the Red River rivalry is with Red River rivalry. It's a tough thing to be able to say fast. And don't get it twisted like it is. This is not a place where I'm going to push back on that in the summer here to do today. But goes off about how great all of this is and says, I'm from Dallas, Texas. Let me tell you why the Red River rivalry is national, but the iron bowl isn't. And you're just like, dude, you're hearing yourself talk, right? Terrible pitch, awful, awful pitch. I don't disagree with everything. Sam Ocho says. And again, Sam Ocho, not a manual Ocho. I don't disagree with everything he says, but I disagreed with this so much will that as they are filming this, I turned to the camera like, and I didn't know that the camera was like going to be like in our area. And you can see me mouthing what the. I don't know if you saw it on the clip that awful announcing tweeted out, but we're in there. Like we're in the background right there. And it was actually quote tweeting like, my initial tweet of what he said 'cause I heard him shout this like right next to me. - Yeah. - And so that night I was texting, I texted Cole 'cause I was like, you showed great restraint to not just want to just jump out at him and just go off because the quieter person in the argument usually has the upper hand. That's a little trick, but Alyssa texted me. And she said, I saw your face during that. And she's like, I broke, like watching. I saw your face and I couldn't believe it as that was happening. It was making sure that everybody else was like processing what was going on. And I'm just glad that you can't actually see me on camera saying this. But it kind of would have made it a little bit better to react that way. It's a Sam Ocho saying that the iron bowl is not a national rivalry. And let me tell you why the Red River rivalry is so much better for my perch and Dallas, Texas. - Right, weird pitch, weird, weird pitch. We will have better pitches today. That is a guarantee. - Yep, that was actually just so funny because like we were up kind of in the front, you know, before the last day. But you know, I came in late, lost my wallet long story. And I saw that Connor and Derek were kind of like posted up in the kind of like a random corner. And I was like, okay, this is great. Like we're kind of like taking it easy today. We're not going to be up in the front. Like I asked some questions today. And then I realized to your point, I kind of at the end of the day, and we were just all this easy network all day. And I was like, take it, I was like this much. 'Cause I'm sure I was up in there, you know, cleaning my face, doing whatever I was doing, looking at the mirror, but like whatever. So it was so funny because we heard that, like you said, we heard it live. Like it was like someone yelled that. But that is the most incredible use of SCC network. 'Cause that's like the group chat thing. Like I don't know if you've ever seen this, but it's like, you have a conversation with your buddy. And then you get in the group chat, you tag up, and you're like, yo, tell me what you just said. And everyone just starts talking to the back, they do know that it is so funny. But yeah, it's nuts. I mean, it's just one of those things where it's like, hey, you got to respect, you know, the iron ball. You just, after that documentary or fall pine Bob, Paul pine Bob, it's just nuts. Like I said, like I'm middle shoe fan, or everybody's second biggest rival, I get it. I would never, ever, ever say that any rivalry is better than the iron ball, especially growing up or growing a high school in Hoover. So you just got to remove your own, your own situation. 'Cause the whole like, well, I've heard of it. So it must not matter. It's like the worst way to approach any victim. - Yeah, like, oh, Auburn's been down at times. It's like, buddy, do we just block out Texas? Yeah, yeah. - You win with or no? - You're just ignoring the magic of Jordan hair by saying that. Also, by the way, we're just like gonna ignore Texas in the 2010s, like what are we talking about here? 'Cause I just, I heard that and I was like, all right, that if you want to make the case that it's the best game, by all means, go ahead. Just don't necessarily go that route. That was just such a weird, weird move. Anyways, so we have pitches from the Saturday on South podcast Facebook group, which you go join right now, if you are not already a member of that. And then Saturday on South on Instagram as well. Let's start with, so we've got two from the Facebook group, one shorter, one longer. Let's start with the shorter one from Michael Dark. Michael Dark says, Georgia Bama, that's the best game of 2024. Prime time on ABC, Georgia has all the pressure in the game. If they win, they can finally bury the narrative that Bama owns them and rightfully clean it. Yeah, exactly, rightfully clean the title of the premier program in college football. If they lose, everyone will say Dibor and the Bama program are in Georgia's head, it will continue to be the boogeyman in the SEC. First time Georgia will play in front of a non-COVID crowd in Tuscaloosa since 2007, shout out Matthew Stafford. I added that, not Michael. Back versus Milro could be the data point that decides the Heisman winner. Also interesting, features two of the last three national championship winning teams. Two of the last, yeah, that makes sense because Georgia obviously won back to back. I was thinking 'cause Bama won, yeah, that place. It's good pitch, he's right. Look, a ton on the line. I love when Georgia and Bama play in the regular season. I do, I think it's great. I think that there are obviously different elements to this now that it's not the Kirby Saban thing or whatever, but just the Georgia revenge angle of this going into this year after the way that the SEC Championship played out, how's Kirby gonna game plan against Milro? Is game plan against Bryce Young? The second time that he faced him was so much better. Like, what is that gonna look like? I think it's a really important game for Kirby early on despite the fact that obviously the playoff is different, but if you're that guy and if you run the sport, that's a game that you win, it just is. - I actually think I'm gonna push back on this 'cause I think this game was all about Georgia. I think it would be insane for Alabama to win this game. That would be catastrophic for Georgia if Alabama won this game. - Well, yeah, that's my point, yeah. - Yeah, no, I agree with you. I agree with you. I'm pushing back on it being the best game because it's really one side of this game about Georgia 'cause at the end of the day, okay, I understand next year, Dan Manning is gonna try to say when he beats a shell of a Washington team that, oh, the rivalry is now, okay, that's not how this works. It is not about the program, it is about the coach. - Agreed. - Alabama does not own you. Nick Saban does, he's playing golf. So unless you want to go get your putter out, you're not gonna, you're not gonna give it that series. Feeding to board is not gonna change that. It's like feeding to four two times in a row but it's not gonna change that 'cause again, like, I got getting his feet under him. I think that if Dvor finds a way to upset Georgia, which is what it would be, now you have big problems. Now it's Alabama, it's almost like the Jordan Hare thing in reverse where it's like, well, it's not just Saban. So, and I would, I think that this Georgia fans would love you to believe this is a chance for them to do that but I think that this, if you're Georgia, if you're Kerber Smart, this should be business as usual. This should be, you beat this team up 20, you get out of there, you keep dominating this 20. - 20? - Why would Georgia not beat this Alabama team up? Like, that's what I'm trying to tell you, Georgia, this is the expectation that we should have on Georgia. This is the expectation that Georgia fans would want. They should beat Alabama by 20. They have a new head coach, they've replaced their entire offensive line, they have a new offensive coordinator, new defensive coordinator, everything is new. Kerber Smart is a-- - Not an entirely new offensive line, they have three starters back in the offensive line. But yeah, the moral aspect I think is interesting. I think it's very interesting. If Melrow beats Georgia twice in his career, huge, huge for his legacy. I'm not saying that makes him all of a sudden like, number one, Bama quarterback of all time or something like that but to beat Georgia during this time in which we view Georgia in this high of a regard would be an unbelievable feat for a guy that obviously at this time last year, we're like, is he gonna hold on in a starting job? What's this gonna look like? And figuring all that out. I think that'd be huge for that. But yeah, I mean, I do think obviously, the coaches dictate this. They do. - Yeah. - It is a different chapter in this rivalry. It just is, like there's, I'm reading right now, I'm gonna show it. This was what I was reading during my week that I was just chilling in this office. So blood in the garden. Yeah, Chris Herring, shout out. Book in the 90s, Nix is just very up my alley and I've already read it once but I'm rereading it again. Like when the Nix are going back and forth with the Bulls, the Bulls have that upper hand and then the Nix finally like break through when MJ is not there. It's like, yeah, you exercise those demons but like, did you really, right? Did you really, come on. It is definitely different. But I understand what you're saying and that it takes on a new life and it's not necessarily a continuation of what it was last year. - Yeah, and furthermore, like Jalen Milro only like to this point, like, okay, I love Jalen Milro. He is one of, it's not my favorite player in the SEC. That was Carson Beck's Heisman invite. That was not Jalen Milro's, okay. So that's what I'm saying. Like this is Carson Beck's year. Quinn Euer should be the second best quarterback in the SEC. If Jalen Milro puts himself in the position to be up there with Carson Beck, that's not good for Georgia. 'Cause that means that things have kind of like shifted because it is, yeah, that's all I'm saying. - Yeah, good quarterback matchup could very well decide, you know, a trip to New York as well. Okay, this one's a little bit longer, but it's good. Grant Haney, Grant says the best game of the 2024 regular season will take place for the first time in 4,755 days. I'm hoping he did all that math himself. With the eyes of all of Texas, as well as the rest of the college football world, turning its collective attention to college station taxes and the return of the Lone Star showdown between the Aggies and Longhorns. With all due respect to the other big-time SEC games this year, this one truly does mean more. This game will be flexed to the prime time 6 p.m. start and seen immediately after the Iron Bowl, the game will see the nine and two Aggies. So about it, with losses at Florida and Auburn, defeat their in-state rival led by Arch Manning out of 41-yard game-winning field goal 31-28. Why 41-yard, you might ask? It's one-yard further than the just-intuck 40-yard field goal he hit. He to nail the aforementioned 4,755 days prior when the schools met to add insult to injury, a fumble by last year's Iron Bowl hero Isaiah Bond sets up the game-winning kick. I love that he's got all this played out. This is my kind of pitch. The epic conclusion of the game will ensure three things. One, Mike Elko's place in the Iowa notebook for coaching buyouts with his new mega contract he receives following the game. See John James Fisher Jr.'s reward for beating Bama in 21. He got the extension before that. Yeah, he got it after that place. Number two, Texas and the big dumb villainous Steer Bevo are still not back. Three, the Aggies win catapults them over the Longhorns in the SEC standings and earns them their first trip to Atlanta to square off with the reigning defending pitch me winning quarterback of the SDS podcast, Jalen Milro and the Crimson Tide away. Mm-hmm. Jeff's kiss Grant. That's good, man. No notes. No notes. That's great. Should we just have it right there? No. No, that's a great-- and see, 'cause we learned something there. We spent the whole week here in about Texas, Oklahoma. This is such an underrated rivalry at this point. 'Cause you can really hate each other. There's an old, like, in-state, bad blood rivalry that I think has been overshadowed over a shadow. Can I go with the Red River Shootout? I will just never be able to say Red River rivalry. It-- I feel like it's like-- For those who talk fast, it's tough. If you speak slow, Red River rivalry is even-- God, it's even tough then. It's still hard. It's still really tough, isn't it? Yeah. But there is lots of bad blood between those two from, you know, A&M leaving the conference. All of their stuff. So yeah, I'm actually-- see, you've convinced me. This is good stuff. That's a great pitch. All right, let's go to the Instagram. Starting on South on Instagram. Let's start with this one from the Nothing Finder pod. Shout out to Emery, who says, "It's got to be Georgia at Texas." The weekend F1 race in Austin is the same weekend. Two of the top five teams in the country. And the fact that Georgia's playing in Austin before playing in college station. Oh, Greg said that, by the way. Yeah. Well, what are your thoughts? Like Greg Senke. OK, yeah, yeah, thanks Greg. Thanks Greg. What are your thoughts on that? OK, so I like this way. But I feel like I was too mean about the Bama thing. This is the best opportunity to be worried about. This is a team that, you know, was in the college with World Play-Off last year that got exercised at Demons. They're the other heir apparent in the SEC to the Nick Saban dynasty. And they finished the season on a little bit more of a high note, a little bit of playoff loss versus smacking FSU and not making it. But, you know, at the end of the day, like these are the two teams truly jogging the position at the top. And like I said, this is where we can start talking about, OK, high has been match up here when yours. This is the guy who's already has the momentum, right? Like I said, Boer gets in there, something's gone awry. This is where you start to say, OK, well, cool, Texas. That's where you get to call another team of fraud. That's when you get to say, look, Texas. Oh, your accomplishments are in the big 12. This is the SEC now. We're going to smack you, none of that counts. That's where you start changing the narrative. You know, it'd be what Georgia hopes to be, which is alone at the top. I think this match up is going to be massive. But I think the F1 thing is a big part of it. So yeah, I think that also like the Austin part of it. Super cool. So yeah, I think it's a great match up. I think it's a pitch. It's solid, but I think it's a great match up. It's a grateful circle match up, too. 2018, when that Dumsdier Bevo decided to charge at our beloved Prince, Bugga. And you think about how different things are, because that night it was, man, not only did Georgia not get back to a national championship to be able to play for one, despite all this hype coming into 2018, but man, and I guess they didn't have that much hype because they lost a ton on defense. But it was still like, hey, Georgia, they're going to be competing for national championships on a yearly basis. This is the new norm after 2017. And the way that it played out that night where Texas dominated that game and the final score would not indicate it. Like final score is going to tell you, like, oh, yeah. No, Georgia was close. Georgia's trailing the entire time of that game. And I didn't really feel like there were any moments in which I thought Georgia is about to win this football game. And for Texas, after that, to have the Sam Ellinger, very infamous, we're back, which he holds the A, like eight seconds, why? It made it so much worse that he did that. After a four-law season, when Texas was undoubtedly not back, it's wild to see the path that these programs have gone on to get to this point in what could be a one-verse two matchup. I think that's very much on the table. If this is one versus two, TBD with a high-of-state, a high-of-state could have a say in that. One-verse three matchup on the table, not crazy at all. This is my, what's the right way to say this? I don't want to say, like, mark your calendar game because that's cliche, a mark mark calendar for every Saturday, and that's just what we do. But it is my buddy starts a finish, whatever you're doing, no distractions whatsoever game of the year. It just absolutely is, I cannot wait for it, and probably because obviously I have Texas starting off 12. And oh, I have Georgia winning an national championship. So there's, like, obviously a part of me that's like, hey, I've said, I think these teams are gonna be awesome. This game itself should be awesome. It's gonna feel different than 2019 LSU. It will. Texas is a different team than it was in 2019 because it has different leadership. And I think that's a big part of it. - They sure went from we're back to, we're gonna shoot Joe Baro's jersey with a cannon. - I still can't believe they did that well. - Good knit, like, why? - Just why? (laughing) - I remember seeing that this over me, but it feels a little bit disrespectful, and they got the obviously smoked by LSU, but it's like, yeah, so there you go. So kick these guys off the ballon. What about these guys? - Just think about the person that Joe Burrell became, not even just the player, but the person, all time awful move. All time awful. - Smash cut to Joe Burrow's dad doing the horse down. (laughing) It's like, what happens when you're a jerk for no reason? Anyway. - Oh gosh. Okay, let's go to this one from a cool guy. An A, like how Fonzi would say, like A. With the 12 team format, some of the Goliath's lose a tiny bit of luster since they will probably make the playoffs regardless. So let me give two potential bubble teams. How about this? Okay, Arizona and their quick strike offense have to overcome a stout Utah defense in Salt Lake City in what may be a one bit conference with playoff by implications. I love that. Trust me, you had me at Arizona, all right? - Right. - You know that. That game will be great. And that is the beauty of this. For everybody that is saying, these rivalry games are going to lose their luster, which some will not be as significant. There will be awesome do or die type games like that. And that, like what do you do the preseason projections and stuff? That does feel like one that'll have an awesome atmosphere, maybe college game days in the house. I haven't looked at what specific weekend that is compared to the other competition, what that would look like. But like two quarterbacks that I love that I think are so fun to watch, so fun to be able to root for. And if it is a one big conference, that race to get to the conference championship for these teams is going to be everything. And it is a little bit similar to like the mid major thing in college basketball. But I guess, you know what, no, it's different because how much is weighted on the regular season in college basketball. It's all about the postseason tournament for those mid majors if you're a one bid league. But I like this pitch. I'm glad that we got a non-SCC one thrown in there. Maybe not a game that would be on the top of everyone's list for game of the year, but could end up being one of the most significant games to shape the playoff picture. - The interesting part of the pitch here, right, is like a game you have to watch. Well, okay, let's be like completely literal here, right? Alabama, or sorry, Alabama, Georgia and Texas, right? Well, technically, you know, either of those teams could lose that game and see each other again. - True. - The pitch here is that both of these teams need to win this game to make the playoff. - And the others, that'll be watching them too, potentially, and like, oh, hey, you don't mean love for you. If it's a blowout, maybe Utah gets knocked out or something like that. If you're, you know, if you're sitting there on the border for like a big 10 or an SEC team and you don't have that path necessarily to a conference championship, you're rooting for conferences to become one-bid league so that opens up a spot for you. - Exactly. And it's like, hey guys, it's like, you know, if you're not a, I guess what, Georgia, Texas, again, maybe Alabama, totally gonna count them out, but like, if you're not one of those teams at the top, it's great, like these bigger matchups don't really affect your team. But if you are a Tennessee, you know, LSU, Ole Miss, Texas A&M even, this game is going to affect you. So I actually love this as a sneaky pitch. I think this is, this is exactly, this is already an all-time pitch me. - It's good, I like these. Let's go to this one from Swag C16 Money. A little wordy, a little wordy swag. Well, it's gonna be Georgia at Alabama. It's always been close and rarely any blowout just because the goat coach is gone doesn't mean they're gonna roll over and die. - I agree with that, I do agree with that. I don't think Bama's gonna roll over and die. That spread will not be 20 points, it won't be. I don't necessarily know that Georgia covers that spread, whatever it ends up looking like. But yeah, I mean, those games have felt really fun going into it, like going into, you know, at any time that they've played really the last 17 years, there's been a lot of excitement for them. And even though they aren't annual rivals, like, yeah, Georgia Bama in a non-SEC Championship setting, sign me up. - I will say really quick on that game too. I don't think it's even possible to happen this year, just 'cause they're all sure never and everything. But if the board does work out, there will be a singular game. I've never seen him have this game several times, where like it was two of the three Oregon games last year where everybody picks against them, everybody's sure they're gonna struggle and they come out and it's like they're playing in a like movie theater. Like it's like the crowd noise doesn't affect them. They're just hitting these deep strikes down field. Like the board, when it's working, is one of the scariest things in the world. Because it's as if they're playing on like freshmen and everybody else is playing on Heisman. This is a chance to be that game where Alabama just comes out and it's like, oh my God, this guy is just a football savant. It doesn't matter how many, like, 'cause that's what it was for Oregon. It doesn't matter how many, but I'm just told you guys that, they just have all the good plays. - Let's remember too. Kirby Smart's gonna have to adjust to what Kaylin DuBour is doing on offense, which is different than what Alabama's done in the past. And definitely different than what Alabama was doing last year, which was tough enough for Georgia to be able to stop. So it's a good point. And who knows? That could be considered a coming out part. Did you say that they played three times last year? They played twice. - They played twice? Oh, no, sorry. They played three times in a row that Washington won. My bad. I imagine three wins in a row for Washington, somehow that that happened in the same year. - Oh, I see what you're saying. I see what you're saying. You combined the A, yeah, yeah. Okay, yeah. That makes sense. - 'Cause letting just never be down. This is just like, boom, boom, boom, but it kept me. No, you're so right. It was both of those games. It was, they were supposed to lose the first one. And it was like, well, that was a gimme. And the next one, the championship. No. (laughs) - Sooner or later, yeah, people would stop picking Oregon to be Washington. This year, a little bit of a different story. Daniel J. Swanson says, "You know what? No, actually, let's circle back. "We're gonna end with that one." Let's go to this one from Ed West in '07. Ed says Miami F Florida losing coach doesn't survive this season. I want to see what those odds are. I'm the first coach fired before this game and after this game. Mario's bio, it's different. And because Miami's private, we don't necessarily know all the ins and outs of what that looks like, I think. But I think based on the initial numbers that were reported in the athletic, it was gonna be, God, what was it? I had this number at the beginning of the offseason and I forgot it. Eight months of talking season, they'll do it to you. But I want to say it was like between 40 and 50 or something like that. I'm not as sold that a loss makes him a goner. I am sold that a loss in this game all of a sudden is like, why do we still think Mario, Chris Ball is one of the 10 or 15 best coaches in sport. Especially when Dan Landick's been able to do what he's been able to do at Oregon at a level that Mario Chris Ball could not do. Yep. With Justin Herbert, just saying. Yep. Yeah, the thing about that is they're in like a very, I have lots of friends that are in Miami Feds, it's weird. But they, and they're some of the smartest people I know until they start talking about Miami football. And I think they were just such a weird little box about this 'cause it's very similar to the Lincoln-Riley thing where it's like, well, we fired Manny Diaz who is probably a good coach and a very good recruiter. So we have to explain why Mario Chris Ball is better than him. And the answer is not, like I said, that he's an on-field coach. It's these are recruiter, program builder, da-da-da-da. So it's almost like they've totally taken the results away from how they evaluate Mario because if you start to actually evaluate how he coaches, it's not good. But like they're so married to like, 'cause he's a Miami guy, it's very similar to Vendables, right? He's a Miami guy. He won the National Championship, da-da. It's like, so, well, you know, just not a recruit. We need to bring in another guy. It wouldn't be that they were on fire. It would be that they would want all the coaching duties taken away from him and make him like a weird Jim Beyheim situation. - I've been workshopping to take that Mario Chris Ball is the Tom Green of college football. Might have to dig into that a little bit more. Great recruiter. - Yep. - Great recruiter. Gets these jobs, gets to what's considered a premier program. And then you kind of realize X's and O's during the game. Not knowing how to kneel the football. Not great. - Yep. - You're like, wait, how did you win more with that player that you're probably going to brag about forever? You discovered Justin Herbert. Yeah, I get it. How did you not win even more than a Rose Bowl with him? - Once you discovered him, you knew what he was. - All right, let's end with this one. Daniel J. Swanson says, "South Florida versus Alabama, "a long-awaited rematch of one of Bama's closest "got-see-est games from the previous season. "This game should bring tension and excitement "as only a game between these two fierce rivals "can to Bryant Denny." Shout out to our guy Alex Goldish, by the way. That line of Alabama and Miami got to play South Florida. That's, love it. Absolutely love it, man. You know what, you're right. That's what you say in that spot. That's the type of talk to the season that I can get behind. Okay, because you know what, you did play them tough. And you did get to say, "Hey, we were able to hang with Alabama." And not a whole lot of people can say that at the group of five level. They just cannot. So, love out of schools. - Yeah, I think like Alabama, really, I'm sure, Alabama fans. No, I've been actually decently pretty nice 'cause I'm saying give 'em a chance in year one and don't hold 'em up to save in standard. It's like Alabama last year, completely reifying the expectations of what an Alabama team could be. Because it felt like every game that had the exact opposite where I thought there'd be like South Florida was the game. It was a game that was generally struggled in. Like, I remember being at the door of South Carolina game, keeping up with that and finishing it out in a bar and being like, "They really need to run the ball here." Like, they really, it's all to James McClellan 'cause Booker's not gonna do it at whatever. So, point being like, all I wanna say here, I'm not saying that's gonna happen. I'm just saying, "Man, Alex Goldish has just turned "that program around. "I think South Florida will be better "than they were last year. "I sure hope Alabama is in that game specifically too." Because if next year's South Florida team and this year's, or if last year's Bama team and next year's South Florida team show up, it'll be bad. But it's totally different coaches, I get it. - If Alex Goldish wins that game, which, yeah, not sitting here saying that, I will not sell any of my Alex Goldish shares. I will hold on to them. Should have bought it and I'm Bitcoin. Was laid on that. Never got around to it. Still not investing, should probably be investing. But my Alex Goldish shares, buddy. Yeah, you're gonna have to pry those away with my cold dead hands, okay? - The homie, he's gonna be out here shirtless after that game. He's just gonna be like, "Look guys, love it." Oh, I didn't actually go background and be nice to them. But what I was gonna say is, what I expected to be able to roll over teams, they didn't do that. But what I expected them to lose, they didn't do that either. So it was like, "Okay, yeah, this is the game." All right, it's over with. Nope, the Georgia game, this is the end of it. Nope, the LSU game, nope. The Ole Miss game, nope. So like same deal, it's like, I felt like whatever Alabama team I got. The Burton game, I guess, Texas, nope. We couldn't have disliked that player more, and yet he completely just powered them to this big win, which they were very much in doubt of. So yeah, Alabama fans would like a little bit more of a chill. I think the board is exactly perfect for them right now, 'cause he's not gonna make any headlines. People are gonna keep trying to trip him up. He's not gonna take the bait. It's just gonna be like, "Let's just sim," like it's the only sim at the end of this year. Get very recruited to figure it out, and then we'll try to go with a championship after that. Bama's last loss against an SEC team was against two. Here's an SEC team. I mean, that would have had to be in '22, right? So that would have been Tennessee. Was it? LSU. Yeah, it was, Will. See, I didn't choose violence today. I got you out of here on a positive note for you. There you go. There you go. Yeah, a compliment to Bama, a compliment to you at the same time. How about it? There we go. There's a nice recruiter right there, buddy. He's like, "By you, Splash, this weekend, guys, tune in." Exactly. All right, I think our winner's great, Haney. Oh, yeah, it is. Yeah. Sorry. That was so good. When he called Bivo, you know, what he is. That's, come on, that's. He knew he was winning with, he didn't even have to finish it, but big dumb villainous steer. I'm gonna have to add that. I think I will. That's a great pitch. So Texas and Texas A&M, that game coming back. I am so excited for that. I don't have like these distinct memories of that. We're not gonna get into what's a national rivalry again, okay? Like I have a lot more memories of watching the iron bull and consuming that from afar as a kid and knowing how big that was as opposed to like, I mean, I always tell the story, watching the cam back while I'm sitting on my living room couch with food poisoning from Taco Bell. And that was the last time I ever had Taco Bell. And that game was on Black Friday. I'm pretty sure that was that year. It was weird, the way that that set up. I went out late night after Thanksgiving and like had, you know, some like Taco Bell and I was watching the cam back the next day and it was unbelievable. But yeah, we don't need to get into whether or not Texas A&M is a national rivalry. It's a rivalry that I'm here for and I'm here for that pitch. That's all that matters. Who am I gonna root for in that game? (laughing) - I'll pick a bull. - That's easy for me. I don't know here. Anyway, I agree with you. I think that's the winner. I think that this Arizona Utah pitch is as possibly good as it could be for like, if we talk about like a top, or like an SEC, right, we're gonna have to have a website and like kind of like, we're an SEC podcast. It's a convince me to have the degree that you did. You did as well. You punched really far above your weight class. You taught me something. I just think this was a new, like we didn't pick a Georgia game. We didn't pick Georgia Babbage or Texas. We picked Texas, Texas A&M, 'cause we haven't really thought about it, talked about that on the level of those teams. So we, the education element puts me over the edge for the other one, but I was equally impressed and educated by this other one. It just, there probably are zero contenders there, but there are two programs being built. - One SEC, SDS podcast, Game of 2024, one non SEC, SDS podcast, Game of 2024. Simple as that. - Easy. - So we're going to get a camera rising, let's go. - Oh, we'll be dialed in. That's the thing. I know we'll be dialed in. - Of course we will. All right, if you have nots, leave us a five-star review, subscribe to our YouTube channel where you can watch every single episode of The Saturday Down South podcast, follow us on Twitter @BSCSPod, @SethDownSouth, @SethDownSouth, @CJogara, @GoSoHard. Thanks guys. - Talk soon. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)
It's talkin' season, which meant ACC commissioner Jim Phillips offered up quite the take about the ACC heading into 2024. Connor and Will dig into just how sad that attempted flex was (2:00). SEC Network's Peter Burns joined the show to discuss underrated SEC storylines coming away from SEC Media Days (33:00). The guys close with Pitch Me: What's the best game of 2024 (48:00)?
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