(upbeat music) - Hey, what's going on? This is the Saturday Down South podcast. I am Connor O'Gara. Will, you saw someone last night who is on my bucket list of people I need to see. You saw Zach Bryan, how was it? - It was amazing, man. It was amazing. I was like joking off air with you that, you know, it's like he's putting out just an unhealthy amount of music now. Like I got John take his first birthday with John and Andrea and it was so funny because I feel like me and John are not like day one. Zach Bryan has like day two. You know, like I would leave that to like Emory and the guys that were like really on him early. But that being said, it was like, I think it's 22 songs. That was when you like six or eight songs. I will give you guys a pro tip. I guess in some like a Southern micro influencer. If you guys go see Zach Bryan, it's awesome. For his encore, it's really good. I'm not gonna tell you the song, but he moves to the middle of the GA, like the middle of the floor. So as soon as he, as soon as the lights go off, just start meandering to the middle of the venue because there will just be a big crush of people trying to find Zach Bryan. But yeah, it was amazing. It was a back-to-back show. I went the Sunday because it was a little bit cheaper. Got to see him play something in the orange, which was sick. He's not even playing that in this tour. That's the crazy, he has so much music. He's just not even really playing the hits, which I respect because people knew like, I felt like the jerk, which was the crazy part. I guess if you could use to say it's like, are we the jerk here that we don't know 80 Zach Bryan songs? But yeah, I guess it was very all, every song live was good. I'll say that. - That's kind of the name of the game. If you're Taylor Swift or Morgan Wallen or Zach Bryan, just put out as much music as possible so that your streaming numbers are insanely good. And that's, I mean, Luke Holmes, I think puts out a lot of music, but maybe not to level that those three do. And that's how you start playing in football stadiums for being 100% honest. But Zach Bryan, in concert, I know a lot of people have been able to see him. It feels like he's been everywhere this summer. Would love to be able to see him. - Very, very soon. So yeah, now I got the number one. - And you guys could tell the difference is in me and Connor because I said, yeah, he's been putting out a lot of music like, and in my mind, I felt future. And Connor's like, Taylor Swift, Morgan Wallen. I was like, yes, correct, all good answers. This is why we were all together. - Yeah, exactly. Same exact thing, right? Yeah, for sure. All right. So today we have loaded loaded Joe coming up. Matt Hayes in a bit. Pre-season look at the top 25 coordinators, both side of the ball. A little bit of Link and Riley, Brian Kelly talk with him as well, kind of related to the news that he broke a couple of months ago. But first, well, we have a pre-season AP, top 25. It is finally out. So I thought instead of just, well, we're gonna do a little bit of padding voters on the back, but instead of calling out anyone individually, we will instead just talk about what the AP poll as a whole got wrong in the pre-season because if it's not our way, it's the highway. Last I checked. So that's pretty much the logic that I've been subscribing to for a very long time. But if you, for whatever reason, did not see it, we won't go through the entire top 25. Let's just go through the top 10. 10 is number 10 is Florida State. Number nine is Michigan, eight Penn State, seven Notre Dame, six Old Miss, five Alabama, four Texas, three Oregon, two Ohio State and number one is Georgia, which means that Georgia will indeed try to become just the second team in the last two decades to start number one in the AP pre-season poll and win a national championship. Good luck with that. You know that Alabama 2017, that's the only other team that has done that since 2005. That's not really news. Felt like Georgia was pretty obvious to be pre-season number one when they're 28th in the country in percentage of returning production from a 13 win team. Look, just lost at the right at the wrong time last year. We've been over all of this, so we won't spend much time on Georgia. Just an overarching thought, okay? I've said this before, I will say it again, just it bears repeating when all of these pre-season polls come out. If at any point someone is talking about strength of schedule with a pre-season ranking, now again, not trying to prick the playoff, prick the playoff, that's actually important, but if anyone is talking about strength of schedule with a pre-season ranking, they're doing it wrong, okay? They just are. I hate it so much, because what do you do week three, week four, well, what do you do? Are you also like, oh, well, now I actually have to go based off resume and not what I think their future schedule looks like, because everything is up in smoke by the end of September, because that's the way that this sport typically works. I hate it, I hate it, just don't do it. If you're in a position where you're coming out with your own rankings or something like that, don't factor that in. When I do my rankings for SDS, I do not have an AP poll vote, by the way, I should probably say that disclaimer, not part of this separate. We do our own rankings at SDS, that's going to become a weekly staple. We're gonna have our consensus rankings that come out on a weekly basis, but I did do the pre-season top 25 from SDS, which were not, like I was part of that ranking, but I wasn't all of that ranking. But when I come up with my rankings, I do it based on what a team did last year, the track record of a head coach, the assistant hires, the transfer portal moves, and then as you've heard me reference already on this show in a million times this offseason, Bill Connolly's percentage of return production, and I try and go to the post spring version of that that came out in May, and not the February version of that when he's still figuring out what the portal's going to look like. I do that because I've gotten in trouble with this before, where maybe I give too much of the benefit of the doubt to a team that's got a returning starting quarterback I like, certain Sam Howlett, North Carolina a few years ago, comes to mind, but I do that so that I can try and factor in all those other things and not just focus on one thing that I like about a team, a returning quarterback can break a tie, but if I'm using that as like the majority of my argument for why a team should start off in the top 10 or something, I'm probably doing it wrong myself. Does that make sense? - Yes, how do you account for if a team has that dog in them? - You know, it's high, is really high. It's gotta be because I'm not ranking a team that doesn't have a dog in them top five, top 10, no way. I mean, we'll get to a team that, in my opinion, didn't deserve to start off in the top 10 'cause I don't think they have that dog in them. He probably took a wild guess where I'm going with that one, but it's gotta be heavily, heavily weighed. The bigger the dog, the better the preseason ranking. - Yes, and that's where the dogs are on top. No, but I will say this either just to kind of set the table here. I clicked on a people, you know, the official website, seeing a fresh AP poll, seeing my face be blinded by the bright white AP screen that says new AP poll week one. So exciting, also funny to see the biggest risers and droppers since the last AP poll. Just wanna talk, am I getting ahead of myself here? Should I say this? - No, I just don't care about that, like at all. I always see that they will make note of that, which is actually a really good indication that you're looking at a current AP poll because while I do think the AP poll kind of does the Lord's work in a lot of ways, I also think that very oftentimes when I click on it, it always defaults to the previous week's poll, and I hate that they have something with their cookies or something like that, where you gotta like delete your cash to be able to get the new poll, which that's too much work for me. Sorry, they need to make your cash. I don't know what they're doing, but yeah, it's very refreshing to see a new poll world out. - You click three wrong buttons on the AP site, suddenly Alabama's in the national title, it's really scary, you have a portal, you know. So, point big, I'll say this. I'll say, this is just a funny thing to look at, because you could directly see from last year, this year, kind of the Hopium started to rise and some of these teams. So, the teams that have risen the most with zero games being played, starts with Ohio State, 'cause the last time we saw them, we're getting strolled really like a fish out of water to put up points with the backup quarterback I understood, with the backup offense, I guess, technically, right, with the backup offense against Blake Baker and Mizzou, who was already about to be out the door, but let's not talk about that, right? So, a trader who was about to be gone. So, point being, Ohio State moved up eight, okay? Notre Dame moved up seven. It's exactly what we always joke about. It's like watching you see a team blow it in front of you and then over the course of the offseason, they get talked into Notre Dame again, up seven, after the last time we saw them. The biggest dropper would be Michigan at minus eight, which all makes sense, right, cool. And so, a couple of things that were just a little bit of shooting a little bit to it is Texas. So, Texas, as a minus one since the last time we saw them, first time that's got to have happened in like 20 years, where Texas starts off the season at a lower ranking than they finished the last season. That's actually news, I think. That's a good point. That's a good point because everybody's talking about how Texas just isn't in that category. They don't belong, how dare you include them among national championship contenders. And Texas is starting off one spot lower than where it's finished, despite the fact that they return one of the household names in the sport. They have coordinator continuity. They have 67% of last year's production back. And while I do think the CJ Baxter injury is significant, I don't know how many of these AP polls were cast before that. I don't know how many of them would change if they knew that information. So, I don't necessarily know how much that's going to make or break things. But yeah, for all the over rating of Texas that we, we in the college football public have done over the course of the last decade plus, yeah, Texas, disrespected, dropping, yeah, hey, by falling to that four spot. - That's actually pretty bits, 'cause side of respect really, that they started off higher last year. They actually did what they said. They were going to do kind of a couple of really funny ones in here. I misspoke Arizona dropped 10 spots without playing a game. We see why coaching staff. We get no fafita disrespect, nonetheless. But we see it. I will say very funny that like you could see who is liked and not like. Very funny to me that USC is at 23. Because it's like, okay, you guys have decided that like you're right on his trash, but you're going to end up ranking him for this whole year anyway. But you're going to find a way to have him hanging at 23. So let's not lie to ourselves. Texas A and M and Miami are right next to each other at like T to 20. - So funny. - So funny. - I've got thoughts on that. - So funny. - Just wanted to drop that. We'll cut to the bigger thing. But where else would you put them but right next to each other? That's all I got to say. - Yeah. You start to get past like 16, 17, 18. And it thins out. It thins out in a hurry. It really does. And if you haven't put one of these rankings together, I would encourage you to be able to do so. But yeah, a lot of, okay, I got a lot of thoughts. Let's actually start in that range there because Miami coming in at 19, I expected to be a little bit more upset with Miami's ranking than it actually was because I did indeed put Miami at number 22. So this isn't like some massive discrepancy despite the fact that I've spoken pretty outwardly against the Miami hype train coming into the season. But I included them in this discussion because if they are able to come away with a, here's what I foresee happening, right? Miami, if they come out in beat Florida in that season opener, there will be people banging the drum that Miami is a top 10 team. And you can see that. You can see that playing out and I will roll my eyes and they will go all the way to the back of my head. And I will go, oh, we're doing this. We're going to give Miami that much credit. Now, if they come out and win that game, 35 or nothing in the swamp and they make a very loud statement, what I say, oh yeah, they may be better than what I put them at for number 22, okay, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt. That's what teams in that position should do in theory. But again, it's still a team that I think has a lot of question marks because the history, we've talked about it. Like last 15 years, Miami is one finish better than number 19 in the country. That's with five different head coaches, Will. Five different head coaches. And their current head coach, Mario Chris Ball, 12 and 13 at Miami, okay. Yeah, inherited situation from many Dias that wasn't exactly a total overhaul, but again, exposed to the 30 day window. I'll give you a bit, a little bit of the benefit of the doubt 'cause I don't like to judge your one coaches, okay? So that is what it is. But again, like, here's the thing. He's got one finish better than 19. In those six seasons at Oregon and at Miami. And it was with a pink Justin Herbert, okay? Everybody loves Campbell's greens. Not that Miami, not that Oregon team. No, that Oregon team had a little bit more of a pro style field. Like different than what Will sign is doing now and catering to their offensive strength. So I'll give them the doubt there. But I think so much of this is because everybody loves Cam Ward. He's a big part of this preseason ranking. A lot of people are really high in the backfield, which added Damian Martinez from Oregon State. One of the most noteworthy post spring window transfers that we had. And then I think the fact that Miami has all this production back, their top one fourth of FBS and percentage of returning production. Like all those things positive. But again, if I'm talking about a Miami team in the top 10 after week one, I'm gonna lose my mind. I'm gonna lose my mind and say, why do we do this? Why do we just get so ahead of ourselves with these teams? But I'm not as mad as I thought I was gonna be with Kings. - Yeah, I just feel like I'm stuck in the Twilight Zone with Miami. We've talked about it before. It's like these coaches all come in and blame everyone that came before them. I've said it before, I'll say it again. It's, you know, they had Tyler Van Dykel. I think it's a great college quarterback and I think he's been horrible. - Good college quarterback. - Good college quarterback. - Fair, that's tough. - Fair. I think he has the tools to be a great college quarterback and he has been mismanaged like four bad different ways. And the thing is we've seen him be great for a game or two. And then suddenly I mean under many Diaz who was a bum. We don't like many Diaz anymore. We think he was a terrible coach even though he was joking. - We like many Diaz. - I love many Diaz. And I think you won the Broils Award last year at Fred's State, right? He's a good coach, but suddenly it's all his fault. So point being like, I do push back a little bit on the Miami. Oh, it was Miami they had nothing to work with. Every time they sell us this opium and then they start over and they're like, we'll see we had nothing to work with. You guys were selling this kind of like these James Williams. He's like a six, five. Looks at the Avatar played safety. Every single in high school and being like, I don't know how you throw in this guy. And they just can't make him work. Like it's the same story of a never again. So yeah, I'm with you. People are still doing the top 10 Miami thing after one win. Can you just like like take the cassette tape out of your TV? 'Cause it's not the TV you used to see in brother. - Take the cassette tape out of your TV. - I don't know what data you're pulling from, but it's not on DVD, right? - You're too, you're way too young to know how the whole VCR thing works. - I'm not that, I'm not that young. I hate Lion King on cassette out of the Disney. Come on now. - We call it on VHS. - VHS. - Yeah, yeah. 'Cause cassette music. - Oh, you're right, you're right, yeah. - See, you are too young. - It's not VHS cassette, all right? - Sure, sure. All right, speaking of things that haven't exactly modernized, Iowa 25 is underrated, well. (laughing) - Now for the VHS tape. Oh, of course. - Exactly, literally. That is Iowa. And look, I know this is the post-Tory Taylor era, okay? I'm not gonna make light of that. Iowa might actually have to play some offense this year. Early indications coming out of their scrimmage. I don't know if you saw that over the weekend. Oh my God, some of the stat lines that you're seeing from Kade McNamara. Not great, not exactly the most promising thing, when literally the only way to go is for Iowa's offense. But again, it is a 10-win team that is top 10 in America and percentage of returning production with no more Brian Farron's, okay? No more Brian Farron's. You've got to set it and forget at defense with Phil Parker. Look, I have fewer questions about Iowa than I do about teams like Miami and USC. And I know that's kind of crazy to be able to say. But even, I think you could point to perceived strengths of Miami and USC and say, well, no, I'd actually feel better about Iowa's defense being the more consistent unit than even a Lincoln-Riley coached offense that has a ton of new pieces. Or Miami's trying to make all these pieces work with all the portal additions that they've had with their offense, which is supposed to be their strength. Iowa, I'm not going to worry about that defense, man. Like, forget about it, they're going to be top 20 unit. Like, that's still going to be their bread and butter, even if this offense still is Basura, which there's a very good chance of that. But I do think that there's a little bit of this, what do you do well? And if you don't do the things that people like to talk about in the preseason, then they're like what they talk about in Iowa, which is punting, TBD on that. Again, that's the work in progress. But if you don't do those things well, you're not going to get the benefit of the doubt. I had Iowa all the way up at 15. I did, despite the fact that I realized throwing a forward pass still might be a struggle. I accept that. But they just do so many other things incredibly well. And I would tend to give them the benefit of the doubt over some of these less proven teams that are ranked out of them. - I know we have talked a lot about Brian Farron since he's no longer on the team, but I just wanted to update you guys on something. - Brian Farron is currently an offensive analyst on Maryland. And that's a head coaching staff, which has Loxley, right? He has an offensive mind, great offensive mind. Their co-offensive coordinators are Josh Gaddis and Kevin someone. What do you guys think that Brian, Brian Farron, Mike Loxley, Josh Gaddis and Kevin Sullivan are just shooting the crap about. That has got to be the most fascinating room in America. Anyway, I can't, well, I don't know if I can think of an offensive room that would take less responsibility for their actions than that one. - They have six different coaching, like, how do you have a Gaddis offense next to a someone office? Those are fundamentally different things that you throw in to guys on either side of that too. Anyway, so I'm gonna be two out of the Maryland now. Anyway, so yeah, no, I'm with you. It's like, it's one of those things where Iowa has shown, right? Like, we know that with certain schools, you're gonna get certain things, right? And with Iowa, we've seen they can develop a line and they could just find some dudes on defense. And they're, it's never about, you know, oh, we got this great recruit. It's like, you know, we found this guy in a mine shaft. He's awesome. He's been here five years. He's a great student. And suddenly he's just playing like a five-star athlete. And sure, they have some guys that have been like a little bit higher recruited lately. But I think that it just really is, I didn't forget it with like that whole defense. And to your point, yeah, maybe they won't be a defense so good that they could buoy that bad offense, but having an offense, not that bad. I feel like it's just, I genuinely feel as though me and you with YouTube could do better than they did last year. So like, I think that there's nowhere to go, but up other than the Big 10 getting a little bit harder. Question mark. - Flirting with mediocrity is all I ask for. All I ask for. That's simply what Iowa should aspire to do on the offensive side of the ball. This year, and I do think that's maybe possible, but again, just should be getting more than borderline top 25 love. I think they should be firmly in there. Okay, same region of the country. Nebraska got 16 points and was in the others receiving votes category, which they also signed Pat Mahomes. So that's huge for them. - Yeah, Pat Mahomes is playing quarterback this year for Nebraska in case you haven't heard Dylan Riola, Pat Mahomes. Same person as far as I'm concerned. I don't need to see anything from him other than his high school tape. He looks like him, he walks like him. I think he gets the same haircut as Pat Mahomes, checks all the boxes necessary for me. Let's just put him in the hall of fame right now. But I actually think that's more egregious than Colorado getting one single vote. I do, and here's why. We're talking about a five win team that has zero ball appearances in the last seven seasons. Zero AP top 25 victories in the last seven seasons. Matt Rule, solid coach. Not a coach that should have blind faith with something like this. And again, they have Pat Mahomes at quarterback, which is cool, that's great. Last I checked, that's not the thing that instantly gives you that shot of life. We're talking about him in year two, we're talking about him in year three. Okay, that's fine. We're even talking about him in November, like that. And he's got a little bit of experience. That's fine, but no, I'm not exactly banking on Nebraska being worthy of that to start off the season. And if you tell me, well, they're gonna be much better offensively, I will very quickly remind you that they have Marcus Satterfield as their offensive coordinator. And that man has not exactly put together comps and offenses in recent memory. Only one season as an FBS offensive coordinator with a top 50 offense. And it was 2022 South Carolina, which greatly benefited from the fact that it's six non offensive touchdowns that year. And it was actually 77th in FBS in yards. Oh, we watched a good year for him. Yeah, that's what got him the Nebraska job. So. Okay, cool, good luck with that. All right. Sorry, any time you tell me like, Oh, this is just destined to be so much better. Marcus Satterfield sustained, sustained, your honor. Yeah, no, I'm fully with you. I think that like, it's funny. Like we've talked about, like you talked about Nebraska because you just know so much about Nebraska because you covered it in a way that you've kind of dialed into like where they struggle. So yeah, wait till November. Yeah, if you wait till November, buddy, Nebraska's circled. That's the thing about Nebraska. They're only gonna be helpful for a couple of weeks. So yeah, I mean, they were like with lists inside of the continental US one time. So yeah, I think they just it's one of those things where I think that rule is trying to build a culture kind of like what Billy Napier did when he first got there, which is kind of lowering expectations and not having people talk about scrap online. So I would probably think that he would not want them right either just kind of like sneak up on people and kind of build that culture because things are just so broken there. But I do think I like him a lot. I didn't think I don't think this is the year. - I don't think it's the year, but I yeah, I think this would be a good year for them to sneak up on some people and starting them all Frank that high is probably not a good way to be. - Yeah, that rule went on McAfee. And McAfee is like, you know, how do you feel about not being ranked to start off the year? He's like, I love it. - Right. - And I'm like sitting here dry-heaving like buddy, if we're ranking you, we're ranking everyone. That's the way this works. When you're five and seven, who do you think deserves to be ranked? Like, how do you think this whole thing works? But anyway, I do like Matt rules. So I don't necessarily say that as like a, oh my God, they're destined to fail forever. But yeah, just in terms of the preseason poll, earning, actually beat someone that actually like could stay on the field playing in a competitive football before we have that conversation. Okay. A team that gets everybody riled up in the preseason, and I'm not too riled up about it, but A&M at 20 is too rich for my blood. I did not have A&M starting off in the top 25. I didn't. I love kind of Wigman. I love the defensive line. And as you know, as anyone that's been listening to this show since like 2018 knows, I love Mike Elko. I love all these things. I love con client too. Those things can all be true. And still, we have to acknowledge the history, the recent history, which is not entirely Elko's fault. In fact, very little of it. Can you actually hang over Elko? Only a very small part of it. But this is a program that's trying to get to nine wins for the first time since 2020. That's a thing. A&M is 11 consecutive true road game losses. Well, their last true road game victory was October 16th, 2021 at Mizzou. Can you name the starting quarterbacks who played in that game? Texas A&M at Mizzou, October 16th, 2021. Oh my gosh. This would have been like pre Brady Cook. Would it not correct? Oh, no. So it was between him and Locke, which no. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Between the arrows. It was like a two or three year goodness man. I, yeah, I don't know that one. And then in 2021, gosh. And then, and then what's it called? Our boy from IMG left in 20. So I actually don't know either of these. Zach Calzada for A&M. Mm hmm. Auburn legend who could forget. Of course. And former guest of this show, who spells his name correctly, Connor Bazelak. The other Connor. Yep. Yeah, just a couple of Connor's who ended up in Indiana. Yeah, the, it's been a long time is what I'm trying to say. Yeah, they just won a true road game. Okay, that's, that's significant. A&M, by the way that day, 283 rushing yards against the Steve Wilkes, Mizzou defense. I had to go back and look at that box score. It was, yeah, it was what you, what you would think of that Mizzou team in 2021. But anyway, too many questions on that offensive line for A&M. I'm not sold on the backfield yet, especially after the unfortunate season ending entry to Ruben Owens. And I have questions about this past catcher room that lost Evan Stewart. I like Jabrae Barber coming from Troy. I thought about like him as like one of those guys that, oh, is he like a dark horse to lead? Yes, he's receiving. He's still working his way back from an injury that he suffered in spring that look, that was a little bit more serious. So kind of put that, that's TBD, but they need him to kind of be a thing in that room this year. And I don't know that you can bank on that just yet. But I think a part of why A&M is starting off in the top 25. As much as everybody's going to say, it's just because they have all this money. It's because they have a million fans that show up to their game. And we just love over rating A&M. Yeah, that's probably part of it. I think the other part of it is actually Elko's year one at Duke. I do. And I think there feels like a little bit more justified blind faith in that than the typical A&M preseason rhetoric where we're like, we're just getting ahead of our skis. I actually think having a coach that did the things that he did at a program that very much was a rebuilding job, year one, probably was factored into at least some of the rationale for this ranking too rich for my blood to be number 20th in the country. I would have liked them to be in the others receiving votes category, beat it seem like Notre Dame, obviously, then that takes care of it. But I just didn't like A&M being ranked ahead of more proven teams like Arizona, like Kansas, for different reasons why they're not getting the benefit of the doubt. I really respect your level of credit. You're giving these AP voters who bet they remember his first year at Duke. They do. To be honest with you, do you exactly remember how many wins you get his first year at Duke? I think they just did brand out of names. I think give it hell if we look up it down the rest of this. But yeah, she just goes kind of to where you do a ton of research and I think you assume all the people do the same research you do. Right. Because I don't think they're thinking about that. But yeah, you know what's so interesting about this team? It's that they are going to be like, and this is just my very humble, like, let me just be honest with you. I was going through, I was like, come and start playing a game with every SEC team in CLA. And the thing that stuck out to be with A&M is they don't really have a ton of speed. Like, there's nothing, there's not an exciting athlete on this team, which is crazy when you think about the exciting athletes that have come through there on both sides of the field. Obviously, they've ever been defensive playmakers. They've ever been offensive guys. So many guys, we could think about A&M, Christian Kurt. How do we get this guy at the ball? How do we, like, this guy is just a force in space? It feels like they don't really have that guy. So it's kind of an interesting, quote unquote, rebuilding team that feels like the offensive line is going to be pretty good. It feels like the defense line's going to be pretty good, which are like the two things of the hardest to build. But there's just not a guy that I'm really like, I'm scared of this guy. You know, I mean, South Carolina's going to take harbor. You know what I'm saying in terms of like guys I'm scared of, but not to just do that. The zoo has burden. Like, you go up and down and go, there's 50 people to be scared of in the SEC, and I just don't feel like A&M has one. After having only those guys it feels or having everything and they're not working. So I'm really fascinated because I think the way that they're built is going to prevent them from like embarrassing like puking on their shoes type of losses. But I think when it comes to like getting up and down the field with good teams, I just don't know if they have the horses for it. So yeah, I think they probably will settle out about here, but it's kind of weird to expect that from them now. - Yeah, and by the way, I think A&M steps onto the field with Notre Dame and plays a true four quarter game with the Irish in the open. - Right. - So like I'm not saying that Notre Dame, a team that I had, I think I had seven in my preseason rankings, which again, like you get into some of the stuff. It's a 10 win team. If you love the transfer edition of Riley Leonard, you're going to be high on them. It's a year three markets for the defense. Like you can get into all these different things of like why you rank teams as high as you do. But to say that A&M like is going to just struggle and get blown out by teams like that, I don't think that'll be the case. I think that they can actually hang with them despite the fact that they may not have those dudes just yet that you look at and say that guy's scary, that guy's scary. But I do think that the Elco factor, I would like to think that was part of this AP poll vote, but you're right, maybe it just wasn't. And it's like, yeah, A&M's rich. They got a bunch coming back probably talent-wise and probably paid a bunch of guys in the portal, which they did well in the portal. Like let's not get it twisted, but still, I would still think that they're getting a little bit too much though. - And it is one of those things too, where their offense might all kind of be one amoeba, like they could run some of that similar stuff to a Kleinman as a quarterback or whatever in Kansas state, which is their Trump plays are five and six yards. Kind of like we talked about with Utah. It's five and six yards, but they're getting it every other play. It might be one of those where it's not exactly one guy and it's just the whole offense. It's like one of the things from Stranger Things with a bunch of arms, maybe that's the case. I've not tried to disrespect any of their players. They have some talent. I'm very interested to see who's gonna be the game breaker. - Oklahoma at 16 feels like voters peaked into the schedule a little bit too much. And I don't think that there are 15 teams in the country that you would line up and say they're better than Oklahoma. I just don't. I've been on that train this entire offseason. I had this when there's at 12. So just outside of that top 10. If we thought that Oklahoma had a schedule like LSU's, which I think LSU's schedule is pretty middle of the pack. Correct me if I'm on there. Like I- - That's all right. - Yeah, it hasn't been one of the most difficult that we've discussed. It hasn't been one of the easiest that we've discussed with like Ole Miss and Texas and Mizzou. But if it had just a middle of the pack schedule, I don't think there's any way that Oklahoma has only number 16. I think they would be ranked higher. I don't really know that there's an indication that Clemson is better than Oklahoma. Like what the AP poll would suggest. Clemson coming in at a 14, Oklahoma coming in at 16. I'd love to get Brent Vanibold's unfiltered thoughts. You'd be a great person. Little bit biased. - Buddy, it was me. I don't know if you'd think that that was the reason why that you guys should be just, 'cause they were another huge riser from that playing a game. I was gonna pick them up. Like what have you seen from them that makes you think that anyway? - Yeah, like Oklahoma was the team that saw its weaknesses, went into the portal, got guys like Dion Burks who's gonna take that Drake Stoops role. You get a tight end and bow or sharp. Yeah, I know that is a weird thing to say. Take the Drake Stoops role. Was a valuable player for what? - It was he was a valuable player. It's actually a good point. - Yeah, and like said, okay, defensive line. We know that's an area that we got to be able to get some of these dudes up front. The Dominic Williams thing was well documented. Kate and Wool is the guy that comes in that we didn't really talk about as much, comes in from the five level, but somebody that's a bit more proven at the FPS level. And then Clemson got nobody in the portal because again, yeah, like what would you expect? Like what, what true change? And I get it, if your receivers are healthier this year in theory, you should be better if Garrett Riley gets to run his version of the offense. But still, I look at Clemson and I'm like, I'm, I'm just not of this belief that they're a set it and forget it top 15 team anymore. I'm just not like going four and four in the ACC with as bad as it was last year. To me that just doesn't really bode particularly well. And look, Clemson lost five players on the defensive side of the ball to the NFL draft. To talk about how important that was for a program like Mizzou, Clemson recruits better than Mizzou. So I will give them that for the doubt there. But it's, you continue to get further and further away from the Brent Vanibals era at Clemson. I just, I don't really have as much confidence in that group. So yeah, I think Oklahoma is a better team. I had Oklahoma at 12 in Clemson at 20th. So I, I, I definitely did not agree with that. - Yeah. And the funny thing about that is that I think you're right here about our people looking forward too much to the Oklahoma schedule. So let's go. Well, I would implore people to use that same logic on Clemson who is traveling to Atlanta, Georgia to get likely smacked by the number one Georgia Bulldogs to start the year. You really don't have to look too far into the future to see Clemson's first loss. So if you're going to make Oklahoma based on what you think they can lose, let me start with Clemson week one. So it's pretty fun not saying either of them is correct. I'm just saying if you're going to do one, I don't know why you wouldn't do the other and, and you give, and that, that feels like a little bit of the television like, oh, well, this is going to be, I have a matchup if possible, which is fine, but it just feels like if Clemson beats Georgia, it's going to change everything we don't know. It's just to be honest, it doesn't feel like that game's going to be competitive. It would be honest with you with, with, like, you know, the talent Georgia is bringing back in the way that they finished last year. Like they're probably going to treat them like they treated an FSU. Anyway, yeah, Georgia is a two touchdown favorite and neutral site against that Clemson team. So maybe the odds makers disagree on that. And they're at FSU, right? Which again, who's to say, like, I say what you love FSU, Clemson lost their team that could not kneel the football last year and it was from Florida. So I don't really think we could just assume they're going to lose, or they're going to beat FSU in a binge last year when they lost at home. So yeah, this is a decently easy schedule, but it's starting very hard and it's going to start with a loss and it's funny that they've kind of set them up to be to strengthen Georgia's case, which if you're a Georgia fan, it's like, hey, thanks. Again, where was that last year? But it's ultimately not going to matter in the end because it's week one, you know? Yeah, yeah, the week one rankings. That's why I like to go by end of season stuff and try not, you know, not always the time of the matchup. I mean, there might be a time and case where time of the match it makes a little bit more sense, but I am not one that likes to favor that as much. Okay, Mizzou at number 11, I don't think that's really disrespectful. I had Mizzou at nine, despite the fact that I feel like I've been pretty adamant that Mizzou will struggle on the defensive side of the ball. I won't repeat myself too much. Mizzou fans have already made it very loud and clear that they're frustrated with my assessment of this team, but starting off at number 11 is perfectly fine. It's perfectly fine when you have as many questions on that side of the ball. It's still the program's highest preseason ranking since 2008, a year in which, yeah, Chase Daniel coming off of the 2017 when they should have played for a national championship of fluid against Oklahoma in the Big 12 championship. But it's like, I don't think there's anything wrong with that. And if you're looking at this going, well, Mizzou should have been a top 10 team coming into this season. Yeah, I would agree with that. But putting them at 11 is by no means egregious. And I don't really know that that's all of a sudden bolts import material for electric ones. Yeah, no, I'm right there with you. And I'll do you one better too. You lose probably the two most impactful coaches on the defensive side of the ball. You lose some leadership from that side of the ball. Fine, OK, that could be a little bit of a work in progress. Also, Schrader, right? I mean, that was a guy that was every third down, was truly, there were a couple of these wins that were back and forth that I could just see him putting down his head like one of those dinosaurs with the hard heads and just getting a first down on third one. So yeah, I think everyone knows who was to the podcast. I'm the largest Marcus Carroll stand there is. I would never forget his name or anything. I think he's going to come in and help them out of time. But that being said, you're losing leadership on both offense and defense. And not to say Brady Cook is not the leader of the team. I think he's a great leader. But I think that when you have a guy who you can physically hand the football to, it's a go over there. And he goes, yes, they get to make the only close games that they historically have not done well at. And last year, it seemed they figured something out. Mizzou is coming off of the 11 win season. And they are 18th in the country and percentage of returning production. And one of the things that I like that Bill Connolly does with these rankings is he highlights the teams that finished in the top 20. And of those teams, the teams that finished in the top 20 in terms of percentage of returning production, the only team that's ahead of Mizzou is Oklahoma State, which is kind of crazy. Like Mizzou is 18th in FBS, but their second among the teams that finished in that top 20. So like that's just, I think a very interesting metric. And if you're trying to say, well, why are them? Would you rank them outside of the top 10? Yeah, fair point. I don't necessarily see pushback on that. I didn't rank them outside of the top 10. I had them at number nine coming into this season. Well, the beautiful thing about Mizzou is they can control their own destiny, right? I mean, in 11 ranking is exactly what you want. It's not top 10, right? It's not going to put a bunch of expectations. But it's certainly going to put you in the conversation, especially for a 12 team playoff. So I think that's pretty-- they were at five. I would be going, oh, it was Mizzou fan. I think that's just about perfect. Yeah, nothing wrong with that at all. I think Florida State at number 10 behind Penn State is slightly disrespectful. I do. I had the nulls at seven. And I am higher on Florida State than I think the average person, which feels like a massive 180 from where I was at about four years ago, where I loved talking about the do something hashtag, real ones, no. Die hard college football fans know what I'm talking about. Certain Martin Luther King doing the job, you know. But I think Mike Norvell has earned blind faith. And I will take blind Mike Norvell over James Franklin with 2020 mission. I will. I'll take a little blind Mike Norvell being stricken down, being led to the field with his hands out. I would take him up there. I would expect that I would draft to the coaching draft because I have no spine. Yeah, I mean, how about that, right? Penn State in Notre Dame, Hopping, Michigan, and FSU and Mizzou, who all of which did every single thing they could have included going to feed it if we Michigan and FSU would have defeated us well until we played Georgia. You got to be furious, going like I always joke with you. Hey, we all remember the Joe Moore had 2016 game. That was a fun time outside of that. There was not really the time where I felt like Penn State had the ability to really like be in these conversations. They want you to think that in the big 10 media. But starting them above Michigan is so funny because it's like, well, they started the year of both Michigan, where Michigan came from behind to beat them. But it's like, OK, man, did you see last year? They didn't need to throw the ball. And here's the thing. If you're going to make the case, well, Penn State, look at what they returned. Look at what Michigan returns. Michigan's bottom five in the country and percentage are returning production. What about the fact that Michigan went into Happy Valley with Jim Harbaugh down the road, suspended? And who was the coach that day? Oh, yeah, it was Sharon Moore. That's right. The guy who has the Michigan job, and he already beat James Franklin and did it by shoving it down their throat and just say, I'm going to run the football. I'm going to run the football. I don't care if you know exactly what we're going to do. I am still going to beat you. And they did that. If I'm a Michigan fan, like, I know I like to poke one at Michigan fans and their desire to always wear two pieces of flair in public. That is 100% true, literally everywhere I go. And I see someone that is wearing Michigan fan, that is wearing Michigan gear. There is another piece of Michigan gear that is on them somewhere. It can be in the middle of February. And they're still like, yep, yep, got to wrap it. That's what they do. But Michigan being ranked behind Penn State is that's a tough pill to swallow. If I'm a Michigan fan, I am really, really upset. This is the first time in the last, like, oh, I don't know, ever that I think Michigan actually deserves to feel a bit jaded by anyone or anything. Yeah, and I think, too, man, it's like, I get it, you know, man, Harvey was gone. Again, we have just proclaimed. We like many Diaz and think he is a good coach. We're just going to pretend like him leaving. Does it matter? Suddenly, many Diaz brings this dog to a James Franklin team for the first time since-- I don't even think the 2016 team had a ton of dog in it. They were just a fun offensive team. Maybe it was just like, Randy? They dog. Yeah, but that was a fun-- I mean, they had to take one part, please. Like, Chris God, we didn't trace-- Do you trace because we only had that dog here? It just totally was awesome. I'm just saying, they didn't need to, like, win every inch that dude was throwing people sideways. So like, that's all I'm saying. That was a win for the next team last year that really chopped Robinson and many Diaz. Like, replacing those guys is just as important, getting them-- we know who James Franklin is. We know it's not more as a guy who has beaten his stake. We told them, we know what James Franklin is. That's all I'm going to say on that. Yeah, the replacement of Tom Allen as the DC is fascinating. And look, I like Tom Allen, obviously, as an anti-guy, but that will be really interesting to see how both of those guys handled the egos in the room. Very interested to see how that plays out. OK, Will, could you make the same argument, though, for Ole Miss and Bama about, look, you have to factor in the head to head. Why is one team ranked ahead of the other if that's the case? Because I don't necessarily have a problem with Bama at five and Ole Miss at six. That's the way that it played out. I think some voters did indeed look at that. And so you know what, I get it. It's no longer Nick Saban. But still, Ole Miss hasn't gotten over the Bama home since Lane has been there. Let's get Bama in the benefit of the doubt. Quick Bama slightly ahead. I had them flipped in my preseason reigns. I actually had Ole Miss at five and Bama at six. Look, I'm not going to sit here and tell you that I think that those teams have a definitive result, like every single time that they play, where Ole Miss would absolutely beat Bama 10 times out of 10 or anything like that. It's like, nah, Ole Miss. Maybe they'd win six times out of 10? Something like that. Maybe it's a true split. Maybe it's five and five. I had them finishing. Take that for what it is. Finishing is different than an AP poll for the preseason. I had Ole Miss finishing at number nine and Bama finishing at number eight. So I actually had Bama finishing ahead of them, even though I both have them getting to 10 wins. But I do think that if you are going to make that case, that Ole Miss deserves to be ranked ahead of Bama. Despite the fact that we haven't seen that head-to-head that has benefited Ole Miss, you would point to the fact that Bama was exposed to the 30-day portal and Ole Miss was the team that took advantage of the portal as a whole and beyond whatever sort of Nick Saban bookie man thing that lingered with Lane Kiffin last year, you can look at the fact that Ole Miss at least controlled some of that game and maybe factor that in. I don't know, but I just love the portal editions a lot and think that Ole Miss returns a really, really good team as does Bama. And I've got both of them making the playoff anyways. - Yeah, I know I've been talking to that a dozen but since the last time we saw them, but I will say that the teams that have not moved at all are all hilarious on this list. I'll be able to make one of them because they could truly could not have changed more. Like I just objectively, last time we saw them, they were failing to snap the ball as they gasped the ball backwards and just fraying into a Michigan front that was functionally laughing at them in the last play. Now we have this like offensive, like I'm serious, like offensive mastermind in the ball who I say again, he's been that, like that's, he's an offensive. Like if you saw the time of your offense, delete that from your brain. I think we could all stay to do that, but it's just they've completely changed. They couldn't snap the football. Now they could have like a first day of all the CC center. You know, I mean, everything is different. And yet we're still like, I don't know what to do with them. So yeah, I think these teams are exactly where, they'd say they would both like to be. 'Cause one thing lean does not like is rat poison. We've talked about, again, ad nauseam. Being ahead of Bama, the worst thing that you could be is Ole Miss and be the first Ole Miss team in the last like 20 years. There's this like Eli Manning, probably to be ahead of Alabama in a preseason poll and then be like, oh, now we got the target on our back. I think now is like, Jeff, and you could be like, "Look guys, we did all this last year. "We got a returning quarterback." And yet, Alabama changed everything and they're still ahead of us and you can kind of use that. So yeah, and I think from Bama fans to endpoint, they're like, "Hey, this talent's still here." Like at the end of the day, like say what you're able to do. These recruiting rankings are still here. These guys are still here. So I'd get the Ramma roster. Maybe it was not optimized last year by guys like that. But point being, I'm just very interested by this matchup because it's two separate things, right? It's like we've talked about the bullies just graduated. You can't go back and reset that score. But this is kind of a new conversation where it's like the young hot Sean. He's like a PC, like a sterile version of what Lane Kevin once was. He's the young offensive mind. He was coming to the conference. So there's Guy Allen, one of the athletes, Dave Paul. So I think these guys are gonna be jockeying for position in a situation where we're not seeing guys take these Bama discounts anymore. And there might be a little bit more of a bidding war on the portal between Alabama and Ole Miss where Ole Miss got everybody they wanted. So I think this is kind of an audition to your offensive players, skill position guys where it's like, where do you wanna play? You wanna play for Ole Miss? You wanna play for Alabama? Both styles are fun. Like this is, do a lot for the kind of pecking order in the SEC and recruiting. If you're ranking Bama eighth or ninth or something like that. And if you're saying they don't belong in the top five to start off the season, that means that the teams that you're ranking ahead of Bama are teams like Notre Dame and Penn State. And then a Michigan team that again, has even more turnover than Bama does. Michigan doesn't return a player of Jalen Monroe's caliber. They just don't with all due respect to Mason Graham on that defensive line. Like maybe you could make the argument that he's a better player. You could make the argument he's better player overall, but impacting the game like a quarterback, obviously different Donovan Edwards, not impacting the game quite to the level that Jalen Monroe does. So you start to get into those conversations. You're like, all right, well, then would I rank like four state ahead of home? I love Florida State and I still wouldn't necessarily be willing to, well, I'm not gonna rank like Tennessee ahead of them all of a sudden, you know, they were eight and four in the regular season last year. So like, you start to get into, I'm not necessarily saying that it means that Bama finishes in that spot. But just in terms of the preseason conversation, once you start to dig into what it looks like after those first four, because I do feel like that is a consensus top four, even if you didn't have it exactly like that. But in some order, you're having Georgia, you're putting Oregon in there, Ohio State in Texas, like that for however you kind of want to mix it up, obviously more people put Georgia at number one than anyone else. But once you kind of get beyond that, you're gonna ask these questions about everybody. You really can. And Bama in my opinion deserves to be part of that conversation. If you want to say that Ole Miss deserves to start off better than them, because of those moves that they've made in the portal, because Bama being exposed to the 30-day window, no problem with that whatsoever. But don't get crazy. Don't get crazy, because then you really start to put yourself in a stupid position to be like, oh, I'm gonna rank Penn State ahead of Bama. Like for what? Why would you do that to yourself? Don't put yourself in that spot, because even if you're skeptical about Kayla Naboor working out long-term, we taking James Franklin over Kayla Naboor, doing that, we're not, at least not here. No, I can't even form my words as a hater to say that. Yeah, and I will say this, too. Like, yeah, there's a first place both there for Oregon, but I do think the tear splits after Texas. I think those are like points, however you want to tell me that I don't know how points work, but I know that there's a hundred points split between Texas and Alabama at four and five, and between Oregon at three and Texas at four. It's only like a 20, roundabouts, like a little bit less. So point being like, it's pretty razor thin in that three, four margin. And the voters are kind of saying like, these are the four teams we think are definite contenders. And a fair question of Alabama, you got a new coach except Ole Miss, you've never done this before. Notre Dame, you keep screwing this up, we're going to keep giving you another chance to be seven, Penn State, you screwed it up even more, you get to be eight, and then at the seven point, being like, yeah. That top four has almost across-the-board coordinator continuity as well. Chuck Kelly coming in as the OC, that's not necessarily coordinator continuity, but it feels like a potential upgrade, or at least it can be. And I think that probably makes that top four feel a bit more stable with what each of those programs are trying to do. So I've talked about that a lot at many days of why Texas feels different, maybe than in years past, and coordinator continuity is certainly a big part of that. I guess, I mean, Georgia loses must jam, so that's part of it, but at the same time, like you still have Glen Shuman, you still have like, Bobo, you know what I'm saying? - Enough people are screaming, I feel. I don't think this presence will be missed. They, what are the good, I think I might admit to this, but one of the good quotes from Beck was like, talking about coach Bobo, doesn't understand, he's like screaming into the new headset microphones, like kind of your dad talking on a speakerphone, he doesn't understand that the microphone's up. So Beck is like taking his helmet off, listening to Bobo's scream at him, so he doesn't go deaf. That's hilarious. I think they'll be good with Elba's chip, 'cause they still have Kirby, and it's Shuman, but we'll see. - Yeah, you always, look, you always love the Shulman. The Shulman card, 'cause it's a damn show. - I have to say this time, all right? - Yeah, no, you corrected. You're great, we're on the record. - All right, let's go talk about Dange, let's go talk about Glenn Shuman. I almost said Dan Shulman. See, now you got me, you got me over the place too. That's why I'm out of some coordinators with our guy Matt Hayes. Great combo with him on all things coordinators. And an update on his future, sad to say, an update that he will share. He's gonna share more details about that at a later date, but I kind of danced around the issue. So, here's Matt. (dramatic music) - What I'm excited to be joined by a very special guest. It is Matt Hayes. Matt, let's start with the elephant in the room. You are unfortunately leaving us. TBD on the announcements of where exactly you'll be. Let's just say you'll be writing nationally. But tell us about basically why you are leaving me as a teammate and why I'm really upset right now. - I don't know why I'm leaving you as a teammate, actually. (laughing) I should just drive you along with me, right? - How could you deal, man? Like twins coming out of high school, go to college, let's do it. - Right, right. Just, no, I'm just really excited about where I'm headed. No, shortly. One of the little announcements shortly, but really excited about where I'm heading, what we're doing. And what the future holds, yeah. Pump, actually. - I say it all the time, but in all seriousness, in my nine years of being with this company, like for those who don't know, Matt is one of the best teammates I've had. And we've had countless times where C. Wright has reached out to us about breaking news or something like that. And we've both are in a position where we have to react and we usually react differently enough, even if we don't communicate directly, which is kind of a crazy thing that usually doesn't happen like that. We don't really do a whole lot of stepping on toes, which is what I've always liked about you. And you always bring such a unique perspective, which I love. But just because you got a new gig doesn't mean I'm gonna stop bothering you like every other month to be able to come on the show. You know that, right? - Of course, of course, we'll be happy to, man. You know that. - Well, Matt's still gonna be a fixture, Jacksonville radio as well, that gig as a bright, unless you want to break some news there and tell us that you're quitting your day job to be able-- - You do the entire radio day from nine to five. Just do it. - Yeah. And no, no, still doing radio two to four, 10, 10 XL and Jack's bill. - Love it, love it. And they do great work over there as well. So for those that want to hear Matt's voice all the time, that's the place to be able to catch him. Okay, let's talk some coordinators, Matt, because we just got-- Yeah, the top 25 week is over, which for both of us that do this, it is a lot to be able to come up with these rankings, all the different things that we come up with for not just teams, but of course getting into U-Ranks coaches, U-Ranks coordinators. But I think the coordinator element is a little bit more interesting and not something that we maybe talked about quite as much. Top 25 OCs, top 25 DCs in college football. If you want to see the full list started on south.com. Spoiler alert, long time Iowa defense coordinator, Phil Parker, he is number one. He edged out Glenn Schumann for that number one spot. How close was Schumann to being number one on that list? Because I think if you were just making the argument, I want to start a team and pick any coordinator in college football to be my DC, I think Schumann would probably be number one. - I think if you were just talking just strictly Xs and O's, I think I might take Phil Parker. Honestly, I mean, look, I don't want to downgrade what Glenn Schumann's done or what that entire staff has done over the last four or five, six years on defense. And he's been a part of that. I just think you look at what the personnel that Iowa has compared to the personnel that Georgia has and the way Iowa plays defense and the way they're so fundamental and they're so smart, they take great angles and they don't get beat. It's impressive the way they play the game. And then you add in on top of that, the fact that they were playing offensive football last year with a full back at quarterback who completed 40-some percent of his passes and the ball couldn't go down the field. I mean, how do you not just stand there in awe of what Iowa did? I mean, they were kind of averaging like two points, something yards per play last year on offense. That's like, that's ridiculous. And they still were in top five defense. They still were the reason Iowa won 10 games. I'm going to say this again. They had a full back-paying quarterback and they won 10 games in the big 10. I don't know, what else you got to say after that? Okay, there he is. Number one with a bullet. - That's fair. And it's an accomplishment that Glen Shuman could be at Georgia for 200 years and never probably have an offense that's quite like that over his defense has to be on the field that much. I think what Georgia fans are wondering is not, whether or not Glen Shuman is going to be at Georgia as long as Phil Parker is at Iowa. That just seems unrealistic for someone that's 34. It is all over everybody's radar to be able to get one of these head coaching jobs. But the note that you had about Shuman, it feels like he's going to be holding out for the perfect opportunity to become a head coach, just like Kirby did, you know, staying at Alabama until Georgia came along, just like landing did, staying at Georgia until Oregon came along. What could that perfect job be for Shuman? Oh gosh, I mean, I think it's going to have to be a big job. I mean, could it be something like Florida? Of course it could. I mean, there are any number of jobs out there. I mean, we say like maybe South Carolina, I don't know where Shane is right now. Shane needs to win some games. There's no doubt about that. It's just like Billy Napier does. What do you go to South Carolina? I don't know, I don't know. Billy Napier turned down South Carolina. He didn't want that job. So there are reasons you go for some and not the others. But I expect he will be a high commodity. I expect he will be, he will take a big job at some point in the relative near future, maybe even after this season, after Georgia wins it all again. And the defense once again plays lights out. Yeah, he's going to be high combined, much like Dan Lanning was when Dan went to Oregon. - Can I throw a few at you? We got to play some sort of hypothetical game. That's what we always do. Okay, so you mentioned Florida, I'll take that off the list. North Carolina, is that good enough for Glen Shulman? - I like what North Carolina has. I also think North Carolina will eventually be in the SEC. So I think if you're looking at it down the road, yeah, that's a really good job. I don't know how quickly Max is going to leave. Max may have a little research, they may win 10 games, he's not going anywhere. They win 10 games, they got a chance to be in the playoff. The playoff now, Connor, has expanded everything. It's not only expanded the ability for teams to get in and compete for the national championship. It's expanded the lives of coaches too, of some coaches. Now, other people will look at the other side of it and say, "No, now the bar is the playoff "and if you don't get in, you're out." - Exactly. - But that's the negative way of looking at it. I mean, if you're a coaching, look at I think the positive way is, there are now 12 spots for this thing. So if you can figure out how to navigate your schedule and get 10 wins out of your schedule, which a lot of guys have done of late, and then their teams have kind of filtered away over the next couple of years. But if you do that and you get to those 10 wins and you get to the playoff, you're going to get an extension, you're going to get some nice cash out of it. - And Mack would clap back if that happened. There's no doubt about it. - Oh, yeah. - Especially-- - Yeah, I still don't go straight, Mack. - That's not ready to go, man. There's no way. Mack is not ready to go. - Okay, how about one that's a little bit more popular, a little bit more well-documented, the coaches job security. What about Arkansas? Is that good enough for Glen Shuman? - Ooh, I love Arkansas. I do, man. I love that town. I love the fan base there. There's a lot of money there. The facilities are fantastic. I think you can win there. It's just going to take the right guy. You and I both thought the Sam was the right guy. And he maybe, who knows? He may pull it out. But if it's not, it's not. I think he's very grateful for what he had and the time he got and the ability and the offer he got and the chance he got. I like that place, man. I do. I think that would be tempting. If I were him, that would be very tempting for me. And I know it's difficult because it's an SEC job and it doesn't have the resources of the other jobs. But I don't know if I would believe that. There's a lot of money in Arkansas, the state of Arkansas. A lot. - Yeah, people know about the chicken money. It's very much there. - Oh, it's minerals. There's all kind of stuff there, man. There's a lot. Walmart, if you get the right coach and the right coach, you can get everybody aligned and on board, they're an IL money will skyrocket. - Okay, here's an intriguing one because not on the hot seat, but I've gone on record saying, I think this is gonna be his last season there. If Mark Stoop steps on in Kentucky, if he just gets kind of fed up with what college athletics has become in his specific role and there is a vacancy there. And let's just say hypothetically speaking, John, some are all the guy that everybody and their mother is kind of projecting is the coach in waiting at Kentucky. Let's just say he's like, you know what? Time he's not right. Kind of want to stick it out of Tulane. Really like what I'm doing here. Maybe if the opportunity comes along later, I would listen to that. But let's just say in theory that that was a vacancy and they put on the full for press to be able to get a glunch human. With that fit makes sense. - I don't know. You know what? I don't know why you've been throwing stoops in there. It's odd that you're doing that because that's kind of your program. - Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. - Those are kind of your boys. You like those guys. - They've been, I've talked, they've been very good to me. So I think it should, I'm just saying, I think it should be, it should come with a little bit more of a, hmm. If I'm coming out and suggesting this. - Okay, so here, let me just say this. I don't think stoops is going anywhere. I think, I don't think he's walking away. I think if he's going somewhere, it's the Iowa to take that job. Because that's just, I mean, it's his own moderate. They're going to throw all kinds of money out of my curk friend's leaves. That will be intriguing for him. I don't think there's any question about that. So let's just say in your, you know, what if scenario that happens. Is that a job that glunch human would take? I mean, what's the difference between Kentucky and South Carolina? If you're strictly looking at it. And I'm not trying to demean either job. I'm not, okay? I'm just saying, what's the difference between those jobs? If you're a glunch human and you're an elite assistant and the last elite assistant got the Oregon job, I mean, are you going to take Kentucky or South Carolina or are you going to wait for something bigger to open up? - Just depends, that Kentucky's paying a football coach and I'm million dollars right now. - No, I know that. I totally get all of that. But it's also about the ability to win and the ability to win enough to where if you want to get that next elite job, you can jump. And look, Kirby waited and waited and waited for his job to open and he got it. And Dan Lanning waited and waited and waited for his job to open and he got it. So if I'm glunch human and I'm sure he's being told this by Kirby, it's you got to be selective, man. Don't just jump at the first thing. - The job that I don't think is going to come open, even if that week when result doesn't go their way, but you know how these conversations work. You probably know how your boy Leon Cersei's going to be talking about this as well. What about Miami? Would Miami be good enough for glunch human? - Absolutely, absolutely. Because I think Miami, what some point being one of the two big conferences too, also it's Miami. It's the recruiting footprint. It's everything is there and available waiting to win. They got the mega booster John Ruiz who allegedly is going to build a stadium for them close to campus. - Yeah, Miami is a great job. By the way, you're now starting getting a little bit more on my side about this. What we talked about this four months ago and I said that Florida Miami game will be the biggest game of that first weekend. And by the time it rolls around, everybody's going to be saying, "Oh my God, this game is like literally like when it, when it lose, you know, liver die for each one of these coaches." And that's kind of what it looks like right now. - It's good though. I think we need some of that in college football as everybody's talking about how the 12 team playoff is going to diminish these games with massive stakes and stuff. And even the Michigan Ohio State game, it's like, all right, well, if Ryan Day loses that but still wins a national championship, it's not really due or die. If you're looking at it from that standpoint, to have something like that, I'm not necessarily going to be of the belief that it is quite make or break for both of those coaches but it's going to dominate conversation. It's going to be kind of hard for either one of them to shake that off because it is that marquee game early on the schedule for both of them. - Especially for Miami with how favorable it looks like it sets up this year. - Yeah, that game is going to be huge. - I think Mario could withstand it because it's on the road and because the schedule is so favorable, like they could go 10 and two, then win the ACC championship game and get into playoff and he can withstand that. The reason why I shouldn't say I don't think Billy can withstand it, I think it's going to be difficult for Billy Neighbor and that program to withstand it is you've got nine months of feeling really good about where you're headed. You know, they're talking about we're going to shock the world and people don't know what it's like here in this locker room. We know where we're headed and we feel great about this team and everything is great, right? You feel really good about yourself. You get into that game and you lose 26 to nine and it looks the same and it's still an operational mess and it's going to go south quickly, quickly. - Okay, let's talk about another 34 year old defensive coordinator. I'm really intrigued by Danson Lin and you see somebody I've talked about throughout the offseason, Lincoln Riley hires him from UCLA after he've really overhauled that unit. And if like, if you weren't paying attention and you were just kind of focused on the chip Kelly Saga, whatever that was, you might've missed out on the fact that UCLA turned into one of the best defenses in all of college football. I'm really interested in what his next step looks like because you had him at seven on this list and if he turns around the USC defense, the much scrutinized USC defense in a post Alex Grinch world, he's either going to be top four on that list of defense coordinators next year or he's going to be off the list all together because he's got a head coaching gig maybe one and done. He doesn't really have like the geographical ties though because like he grew up in Texas, he's a Penn State grad and even though he's like spent that time on the West Coast, like where would you think he could end up? Like he could he be an SEC candidate to watch if we have three or four vacancies in the SEC? - Well, you know how crazy the coaching carousel is in college football and how hot you can be hot one year. You know, let's just say one year USC is the top 20 defense and they're 11 and one and they get in the playoff and it's crazy and look at USC, they're back and however they lose in the playoff. Yeah, I mean, absolutely I can see him getting a major job because he's the reason he then becomes the reason they're there. He then becomes, because all I got to do is look at the, look at Lincoln rallies track record defenses both at Oklahoma and at USC. It's very clear what's going on. So then you say, yeah, this guy clearly knows how to coach, right? He clearly knows how to organize. So he becomes a high priority candidate, I would think. And yeah, I would think of course in the SEC and I would think in the Big Ten as well. Yeah, because look, let me let's let's be honest about this too, Connor, is there are levels now of the game and there are levels for players to play at. There are levels for coaches to coach at. If you're a coach, you want to coach at one of those two big conferences, the SEC or the Big Ten. If you're a player, you're a high school player, you want to get a offer, a scholarship offer, from one of those two big conferences. Or if you're in the portal, you want to go to one of those two big conferences, you want to play where the mega games are, where the eight o'clock games are, where the big ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, all those games are. Let's look. These guys are all about their brands now, the players. So they want to push themselves as much as anything. So yeah, I think if you're talking about de-athalinity and what he could do, how he could take a one-year wonder, let's just call it a one-year wonder, but it's not a one-year wonder, a one-year huge turnaround at USC, and what he could do with it. Could he parlay that into a big SEC job? Hell yes, he could, yeah. Especially this crazy age of player and coach movement. - Dancinland and peak holding are probably the coordinators, at least on the defensive side of the ball, that have maybe the most pressure on them, albeit for kind of different reasons, but somewhat similar. It just feels like both will have so many eyeballs on them, and you had peak holding at 12 on this list. This was probably higher than what an Alabama fan might've assumed, but what he did at Alabama was, not nothing, it just wasn't at the level that Alabama fans had become accustomed to know. And obviously, so much of his stock will be determined by this year, handling all that talent and Ole Miss, very well documented, but it feels like he's the widest range of outcomes. Like, if they have a bad year and it's just exasperated lane, defense, letting up points, left and right, doesn't all come together, he could get fired and spend a year as an analyst somewhere, or there's a world in which he's a Royals award finalist, and he gets his first head coaching opportunity at the group of a while. - Next afternoon, coach. - Maybe like, is it kind of crazy to think about, like, how does this, if you had to look into the crystal ball, like, how do you think this year plays out for people? - By the way, sorry, Shane. I feel like I keep burying Shane. It's good, you know, not trying to bury him. - He's not gonna like that. - Well, he knows it, man, he knows he's gotta win. Can I see that happening, of course? I guess he'd happen in both ways. But they've got, they're better on the lines of scrimmage now than they've ever been. Even Nick Saban was talking about that at SEC Media Days. And Lane has talked about that. So, you know, can they be in a situation where they get off the field on third down? It's all about getting off the field for them right now. They can't get off the field. That's what their biggest problem is in big games. They just get worn down. Can't get off the field, get worn down, and then, all of a sudden, on offense, you almost have to be perfect. And, you know, how many teams are almost perfect on offense? So, that's what's difficult. Yeah, I think there could be a situation where you can see that. I could also see a situation, Connor, where they go 11-1 and their offense is just crazy good, and they get to the semi-finals, and they lose the semi-final 45-41. And Charlie West Jr. is a head coach somewhere next year. So, that one surprised me at all. He may lose both coordinators. Let's talk about that guy, because he's at number five on your list of offensive coordinators in college football. A lot of people don't realize that technically Charlie West Jr. has primary play-calling duties. Lane takes more of the CEO approach. Obviously, he still has his hands in the mix of the offense, but it is technically Charlie West Jr.'s to run. That is what Lane has been saying ever since he hired him, ever since he had to replace Jeff Levy. Tell me why you're so high on the 31-year-old offensive coordinator. Two things, well, actually three things. Organization, recruiting, and play-calling. He's the most organized guy in a long time for that age, how old he is. One of the most organized coaches in all of college football for that matter. It's funny, so this is even crazy for me to say this, but I'm gonna tell you this great anecdote. I was talking to Gil Brand about him, okay? Gil Brand, God rest his soul. This was probably five years ago, six years ago when Charlie Jr. was 26. I think 25 made it. - At FAU. - Yeah, yeah. He said, I sat down and talked with him, and there's two guys that I've talked to that I felt got it, understood football, as well as anybody, or better than anybody. One of them was Bill Belichick. The other one was Charlie West Jr. Right, right, right. And understand this too is he's in demand by NFL teams. Like they're NFL teams that wanted him to soft season, wanting to be their OC. So he's making a lot of money to all miss. He's happy there's families happy there. And I think he's playing it smart. I think he's thinking, you know what? I like the college atmosphere, I like the college game. You know, I'll see how it plays out. If I'm a college coach, that's great. If that leads to something bigger in the NFL, that's great too. But he's on a fast, fast track to be a head coach very soon. Autonomy is a phenomenal recruiter too, by the way, which is what all 80s and presidents will love. Yeah, he is intriguing and probably somebody that needs to be more on my radar with those conversations and putting him is, you know, when I come up with these list of candidates and stuff like that, he's definitely a name to keep in mind. Different point of his career, but Robert Patrick Petrino, aka Bobby, you call him Bob, which I was like, oh, we're getting. - Everybody calls him Bob. Everyone calls him Bob. - Not me, I call Robert Patrick. - Bobby, people in the media, everyone else calls him Bob. - It's so much better. - I didn't say he calls him Bob because Sam's just a good old boy. My, Bobby, one of those things. Everyone else calls him Bob. That's his name, Bob. - He's a good, if there is a Bob in college football, it's gotta be him, right? - Like, think about this. - Everybody calls Stufti Bob, except for Spurrier, called him Bobby. All right, Bobby. Bob, his name is Bob Stuft. It's the same thing with Bob, we try, whatever. We're getting way too, now I'm starting to say Bob, so much doesn't sound like a word anymore. You know, that goes? - It's a verb, actually. People forget that. It is. - He's in a fascinating situation at Arkansas because the hand-picking of Tailin Green, it's coming into a situation that, you know, for all the things that we can talk about with the reunion with Arkansas, we're just talking about it from a football standpoint. It's, how is this guy who has been one of the best offensive minds in college football in the 21st century, probably? How is this guy still doing it in the year 2024? And what does it look like now that we're really not questioning the amount of control he's going to have? Like, you can dig into how much he had at A&M, what was there for him, what was not there for him. Total autonomy is his now in Fayetteville. - You had him at three on your list. So that means you're projecting huge things for the Arkansas offense this year. - It doesn't mean that I'm projecting huge things, okay? What it means is the guy knows offense. That's what it means. And he's an unreal play caller. So I, it's, you keep you asking me, why does he keep getting jobs? He keeps getting jobs despite some issues in the past off the field because he's a brilliant offensive mind. And the game is now a vertical game. And it's all about the quarterback and it's all about pushing the ball vertically. And he is tremendous at that. So my guess is he'll continue to get great jobs. Let's say Arkansas goes five and seven and that whole staff gets blown up. Bob will find another job somewhere else. Someone else will hire him. There's no doubt about it, they will because he's too good at what he does. - He would be the most fascinating. And I know I've used the word fascinating a lot, but interim coach ever, maybe, if he were to get that interim job. - All right, so let me say this real quick. If Connor Wigman doesn't get hurt, I think Jim was still a coach there because that offense is gonna be really, really good with him. - I agree. - So, so if it gets to the point where Arkansas starts off what, I don't know. I feel so bad doing this to Sammy too. And you know, he's our boy. They start off like one of four, one of five. Yeah, I get four to the bi-week, two and four. - Two and four. - And they blow them out. - Yeah, and then Bob would be the interim. Let's say he gets an upset here or there. Maybe two upsets. Could I see them go and screw it? Let's just bring it back. Yeah, I could see that, yeah. - I'm here for those conversations. - I'm here for, I'm not shutting that door. I will not shut that door until absolutely necessary. - Before he went on the ditch in his Harley, by the way, the best part about that entire thing, okay, was when he went to the press conference after and he's got the neck brace on. I know by the way, he's wearing the sugar bowl hat just to remind everybody. I'm the guy that he got you to the sugar bowl. Remember that? - That's a really good point, Matt. And nobody's looking at you for it. - Yes. - Nobody's looking at his hat. - Oh, that's the first thing I did was look at Bob wearing that sugar bowl hat, man. That's Connor. - That's the first thing I looked at. You didn't look at the neck brace? - Well, I mean, yeah, I saw the neck brace, but it's his head. So you're seeing his head and I see the hat. And the first thing I think, see this is like how my mind works. The first thing I think of is, oh my God, that's a great move by him. He's basically telling everybody who's watching this, you may not like the way I act off the field. I may look like a turd, but I'm the guy that got you the sugar bowl. Don't ever forget that. - What happened? - And I guarantee you, I can guarantee you there are fans out there going, you know, we got us to the sugar bowl. - If he gets the interim job, which again, we're not rooting for Hope Sam Pippman has a long future at Arkansas. - No, of course not. - I feel like this is a sign thought episode. Of course not. But if he does show up, not with the neck brace, but with the sugar bowl hat, that will be his loud message to the Arkansas brass, 100-year-a-check to all the chicken people, to the Walmart people, to everybody involved. Hey, buddy, you know, you remember, you remember the sugar bowl, it was a good time, you know? - Let's do, well this way, he's not gonna do that, but I will say this. If he does get that job, I can't even say anything, 'cause I don't know if I'm a very Sami. I feel like we're killing Sam and Shane Beanie right now. So if that does happen, then that sugar bowl hat, or some token of the sugar bowl will be in that office for the next five, six, seven weeks, so that every time someone, if any consequence comes in to talk to him, they're gonna be staring at something sugar bowl. - I don't blame him, I do the same thing. - Well, I do the same thing, man. Hey, this is what it was like, remember me? - All right, last one for you, Matt. Is USC gonna look like a team that actually wants to be in Vegas against LSU, or as you reported with Lincoln Riley trying to get out of that matchup, is this going to be a USC team that embodies the mindset of its head coach? - Okay, so first of all, I don't blame Lincoln for trying to get out of that. I mean, he's in a rebuilding mode right now, so I don't blame him at all, but the fact that he sat there big to me that he's denied it is laughable. It's absolutely laughable. You know, it's, we've gone over this many times and it's, believe me, he tried to get out of it, he tried to get his aid in Trace Armstrong to talk to Brian Kelly, who's also Trace Armstrong, was a hustle Brian Kelly's agent. To get out of that game and it didn't have Brian's and that's not it, I forget about it. The whole point is though, I think this is as big or big a game for Brian Kelly, and I'll tell you why. I think Brian, who I believe I had a third on my top 25 coaches, is that right? I think it was third I had Brian. - I think so. I don't, I have the coordinators pulled up, I don't have the head coaches. Let me check that out. - All right, so I think Brian's a terrific coach, okay? But I also think Brian now realizes he blew it last year. I think, you know, you only get so many chances to win a national championship. He had an offense in this day and age that could win a national title. He just needed to be like on a scale of one to 10, a five and a half on defense. He needed to have the Auburn defense of 2010, you know? And they would have won the national championship, but they couldn't stop anyone. Had they had any semblance of a defense last year, they would have won the whole thing. So now he's starting over, and I like how he's very confident in SEC media days and he's saying this offense could be better than last year. Garrett Nussmeyer is not rushing for 11 hard yards, okay? Garrett Nussmeyer is not the threat to Jaden Daniels. It's not gonna be better than last year. Unless Garrett Nussmeyer becomes the thrower that Joe Burrow was overnight, and he throws for 5,000 yards and 60 touchdowns like Joe Burrow did. Then I'd say, okay, and then it's better. But that's not gonna happen. I think he realizes that he probably missed out on a big, big opportunity to win a national championship last year. And he can't start this season with a loss to USC, a marquee team in a big game, a neutral side game. And this is the new SEC, the new 16 team league. He asked to win that game right out of the gate to show, not only one, yeah, we're still here, we're still a national, a legit national title contender, and we don't care about Texas and Oklahoma, bring it on. But you lose that game, then all of a sudden it's, uh-oh. You know how we are in the media, Connor? You know, we're creatures, prisoners of a moment. So you lose that game, then all of a sudden it's, does LSU, is LSU part of that future of the SEC, now with Texas and Oklahoma? Of course, that'll switch by week three or four, but until then, you know. - Yeah, you can see those Sunday night headlines. - Yeah, of course, yes. - That's the irony, and by the way, you and Brian Kelly, at three, you were correct. The irony is that Brian Kelly's the one that should have looked at the schedule and been like, wait a minute, a Sunday night game? Let me get out of that. Why am I playing another Sunday night game? For everybody to just mock me after I potentially lose, this is a terrible idea. He's the one that probably should have been getting out of it. I realize we'll play anybody, anywhere, anytime. - He loves those games. He's like, next, same thing, he loves those games. Like the FSU game, and on Labor Day night, what was that, like three or four years ago? - When they won on the two-point conversion. - Oh, the Mackenzie Milton one, when he was at Notre Dame, yeah, because I was gonna say, like, we've had, you know, last year, obviously, that game on, that game he played on a Sunday night was, you know, made for everyone to just lock in on how bad LSU's defense was, and it was something that hung over in the entire season. - Horrendous, and quite frankly, it hasn't been in the last couple of years. It was better in '22, 'cause you got that, and '23, just, wow, wow. Just not good in any way, shape, or form. - Number three defensive coordinator in college football, according to Matt Hayes, a certain Blake Baker, should be in position to turn that around, one would think. But, again, wait 'til that Sunday night in Vegas, and then we'll come up with sweeping generalizations and all the takes about LSU this year. That's the way it works. Matt. - It works, man. You're the best success and nothing less at your future, national job covering college football across the country. - All right, brother. Thanks, Connor. - Well, latter of the week, I'm gonna guess that we're both gonna go with Olympics, probably. And we might just cover pretty much everything here. I couldn't narrow it down to just one latter of the week, so I went with the entire USA track team, which I feel like is very worthy of this, because I'll admit, I came into the Olympics not really being all in as a track spectator. It's just never really been one of my favorite sports to watch. And I covered three state track events in Nebraska. High school state track in Nebraska is a huge, huge deal. Like a very, it is a bigger deal than the state championship in high school football. Like I can't do not. It is awesome. Like it is like a premier event in the state. If you know, you know, probably nobody listening to this, knows that, but so I've seen my fair share of track and have watched like awesome competitive races. And it's not to say that there aren't like, you know, fun things to be able to watch for, but like I was blown away watching track. Track, especially the US team, was just, it was musty TV. It really was. It was so good that I could not pick one lad or lass. If I did, lass would have been Sidney McLaughlin, Sidney McLaughlin, Lebroni, who, look, if I had to say that name every single time on the call, I would probably be in trouble, but shout out Kentucky, she would have been the lass, and then the lad would have been Ry Benjamin, who was just incredible as well. But McLaughlin is a certified goat in every possible way, six-time world record holder in the 400 meter hurdles. Just, she's insane, like watching her in the screenshots of how far ahead of the field she would be. I mean, she's just unbelievable. She had just an incredible Olympics. And just turned 25, wonder if she's gonna compete in LA. It'd be a popular story for a lot of these athletes. The most iconic image of the entire Olympics, should carry Richardson looking over at the end of the relay. I mean, like, put that on a Wheaties box. That's probably a 20th century approach. That's gonna be a meme forever, I think, as far as I'm concerned. That moment was absolutely incredible. Like, Rywanda watched it several times back just because it was that good. And then Big Ten Legend, Ry Benjamin was unreal. Big Ten Legend because he went to USC and UCLA, who could forget. How about Katie Ledecky, the ACC, trying to claim Katie Ledecky. And then having the context thing on Twitter. - Wait, come on, we're gonna see a ton of that, by the way. Yep, third choreographer's gonna be so confusing. The bath is not gonna work. - Just, I think these accounts need to just go for it. - Yeah, sure. - Make it as egregious as possible. Your goal is to get engagement, it's social media. Like, who cares? Get that engagement up, get people talking about it, get the quote tweets going. I love all that. But yeah, Ry Benjamin was so fun to watch. He got redemption of the 400 hurdles after he lost in Tokyo. And then he was, I don't know if you saw the end of the four by four relay, but the anchor leg to be able to win gold. He was just absolutely insane. He is awesome. He did like a feature before the start of the event where it was before the start of the 400 hurdles. And he basically produced an entire three minute video for NBC, where he's saying, this clip should go here. And then do a montage of me talking about this. And, oh, go back to Tokyo and now get the clip. Which, for those of us, like, well, we're in the media business. I can't even do that. That is so difficult to put together from production standpoint to like properly, even if you're putting together a reel on Instagram. This is like way above that pay grade, even so. A million bonus points for him for being able to do that. And yeah, I mean, it was just incredible up now. Quincy Hall, that moment where he looks like he's just dead. And I would have bet the farm on that guy being absolutely cooked. And then down the stretch in the 400, he just comes out of nowhere to win. Man, the, Cole, Cole Hawker, the last one, last shout out. Shout out to Indianapolis, by the way. US distance running as a whole kind of had a moment at the Olympics. Cole Hawker coming back in the 1500 was insane. And we had been traveling all day on Tuesday. And after Claire had finally gone to sleep on the plane, we were watching NBC Prime Time on the plane, we'll screen the back of the seats. And Lauren and I are both like trying to celebrate while not waking up Claire. And she's like passed out on Lauren's chest. And yeah, it was just amazing. How about the fact that like they had two, they had US had two people on the podium in the 1500 for the first time since 1912, didn't realize that. But yeah, I mean, USA track, it was just, it was musty TV every day. It was awesome, the Olympics as a whole was awesome. Favorite Olympics of my lifetime, hands down, was sad to see them end, then was very, very happy to see Snoop and Dre perform together in LA being able to turn the page to LA 28. Yeah, that was man. I loved, I locked in on this Olympics more than, I don't know why the Olympics just has not lined up with my viewing habits. It's very interesting. I might just be like terrestrial, there's something to it. Maybe I just need to settle arms. I'm not great at that. I have like my stuff I watch. But this time I really did lock into it and was able to see, I mean, I love the break dancing stuff. That was very funny. The Australian woman, goodness. That was one of the funniest things I've ever seen in my life. You guys haven't looked at it up, look up Ray Gunn, the Australian break dancing with Snoop. Like, Snoop, like signified, like, tap that off or whatever, tipped up, so that was cool. And yeah. Snoop had just crip-walked, would that have been better than her routine? I think it's no cover on that. But yes, I think he's, I think he's, I think he's been great to be corporate. Like, Snoop actually is so, it's cool. Like I say, we talked about him as, you know, last of the week earlier. So yeah, to put a close on this and see, this is great because I actually did not have a chat about track and field in here, so this worked out great. There has just been this overall feeling in the Olympics. And I think the Olympics, and this is not, you know, I'm not an expert at this or anything, but it feels like the Olympics has built to crown young athletes and kind of exposed them to the world. And it feels like among Team USA, we see a lot of these teams at a crossroads and we see the American athletes, the Old Guard was able to come through again and again, and again, and then you talked about that track and field. I think some great examples, you know, Simone Biles, the way that she had her, like a bunch of all struggles with the Twisties or the GIFs, this would be called another sports, being off the team, you know, for the personal reasons, covering back, being great at that. Ledecky is just unstoppable. If these names that you've seen and the question was, could they be dethroned? And the answer was, no, pretty much across the board, right? Sure, there were some here and there, right? But when you look at like, you know, the men's and women's basketball teams seeing, you know, these great WNBA players start with the women, right? So the whole thing is, are they going to bring Caitlyn Clark and/or Angel Reese, do they need them? Well, you know, they kind of silence all those doubters in a way, right? A little bit closer than they'd probably like, but it all comes down to Asia Wilson, right? It all comes down to this, you know, squad of women that have been together for a long time. The answer, Ossie, everybody was in a dump it on her for going into the Olympics and I guess taking quote unquote Caitlyn Clark's, but just six-time gold medalists. That's nuts. Starting at 04, it's Sydney. I don't even remember there's Olympics. So it's crazy what she's done. She wasn't obviously like a massive factor or anything, but that leadership means something. I think people that are just kind of new to women's basketball and I'm not going to say I'm a, you know, a long-time expert or anything, but the people that were climbing for the Caitlyn Clark stuff didn't really understand what Tarasi meant to the team and he might have been a moustache. She couldn't have stored Caitlyn Clark, too. She was on the team with Dawn Staley. That's how old I had Tarasi is at this point, that they were on a team together playing and Dawn Staley obviously very, very established as a basketball coach and was on the call in this. But that was a weird thing to process. They should have brought up a picture to be able to show that. - Yeah, I mean, it's super cool to watch the A1 player signify how far women's basketball has come, right, where Tarasi's leading scorer of all time in the W, which is really cool stuff. And again, I always just want to credit age roles. So if you guys haven't seen her, she is unstoppable. She looks so sick. She has a really smooth game. So check her out. She's kind of the unheralded star. I hate to say that, but hopefully that put people more on bar there and then man the basketball stuff. I know I talked about the men's basketball stuff, right? Like I know it's just called basketball. He was like, oh, that, but the men's side of it, we're seeing these guys and like, I was able to, I talked about this a lot of the week. Like we were both just generational LeBron haters. We make no, you know, bones about that. But seeing him represent America, seeing kind of that ending scene with LeBron, whose beard is noticeably greater than I've ever seen it, seeing Steph who's kind of starting to get the age lines on his face. And again, still looks great. Still crushing all that different stuff. Seeing Kevin Durant and seeing him take over Melo's record, we're always just about a joke about Olympic Melo. Well, it seems that Kevin Durant has also found the Olympics to be this bastion of his career, the way that Melo did, where he could find peace, they could be respected as a period. And I think, you know, say what you all about, Steve Kerr, I know the Celtic fans from Matt about Jason Tatum playing. Measuring that dog in you, and if the universe has that, I'm not sure that Jason Tatum does. I think it's also really cool to see Devin Booker step up and choose to be a role player the way he was on Kentucky. I think that kind of led to that. But seeing the old guard say, you know, not so fast, young man, like, and we're still going to stay here. We're still going to get our gold medals. This is going to be our farewell tour. It's not going to be a crowning or a passing of the torch. We're going to go out on our terms. I think we got to see so many Olympians that as we already would process that we saw them play for America for the last time, especially on those big stages when you talk about NBA players, and you talk about these team sports that they have other obligations and families. And they've given it up to their sport. So if you talk about these, you know, I mean, Simone Biles is only 27. It's so crazy to really just turn 27. It's crazy that we think of her as like this old head, but she's been in the national circuit since 2013. So yeah, just a long rambling way of saying like USA's traditional old school athletes that we all grew up playing got to write us a love letter, give us a farewell tour. I think it was very cool. Seeing the events that France was competing for a gold medal and how incredible the crowds were, maybe that much more excited for 2028. Because like everybody, you know, dogs LA, it's like, ah, it's on a good sports town, whatever. I think the Americans will show out to be able to make that a fun atmosphere. And I also had another thought about like the US hosting in Olympics, which it hasn't hosted a summer Olympics. It's 96 with Atlanta, obviously. Something that I'm sure a lot of people listening to this will remember really, really well. Marlar always talks about like the fact that he got to be there and got to actually like take in all the scenes, which is so cool and I'm extremely jealous of. But how the people that are competing in LA in 2028 on the US side probably don't, probably weren't alive for it. Or if they somehow were, they have no memories whatsoever. Which is crazy. I feel like 96 in Atlanta is one of the seminal moments of my childhood, like watching all the different things that happened through that and like the bombing and all that stuff is like, it's such a, I remember that summer so well. I was like going to a new school right before, or like right after that and stuff. And it made me really excited just for what it's going to be. And I know that it was really cheesy watching Tom Cruise go from Paris to LA. Just doing Tom Cruise things, because why not? But yeah, it was an awesome Olympics. And I'm all in, man. Like I kind of had a little bit of time in my life in which I was not all in on the Olympics. And I am brought back. I'm like, I felt so patriotic watching this last like two and a half weeks. It was incredible. Yeah, I think Paris showed exactly, you know, in a big city, you know, was able to host. I think they did an amazing job hosting. I think the visuals are amazing. I think Paris does a great job. I mean, opening ceremony a little bit weird, but we didn't really talk about that. People were not fired up about that. I get disconnected. Like, yeah, like not for everybody. Yeah, I get it. I personally, if you're ever going to cut to a beheaded tyrant from that to like liking death metal, I'm in personally. I'm not going to speak outside of any of that part of it. But that part of it, I like, I think that's interesting because you talk about '96. I think that that was a big crossroads for the city of Atlanta, right? Because you could talk about how Atlanta was kind of seen as not exactly a tier one city before that. But then all these things happen at the same time. Ted Turner was CNN. You know, the Braves becoming this big power. Southern hip hop, talking about outcast, TI, all that stuff, you know, living in Atlanta. A lot of the things that I love about Atlanta came from that huge surge coming in the early to mid '90s where Atlanta was just a cultural center, all this stuff. And it hasn't stopped in a lot of ways, right? You still hear, you know, Drake getting this, you're going to run and do Atlanta. So like point being like, it was such a big moment for Atlanta, but LA is not, they don't need that. There's no crossroads for LA. It's going to be a lot more like Paris, which is, okay, let's show the best example of this. Let's show maybe we'll build 40 lanes of traffic this time. I don't know what they're going to do, but there's nothing to really improve the city. It's as big as it can be. So it's going to be really interesting to see how the local municipality is going to change everything around to make it the best it can be. Because Paris really set a high bar. Yeah, driving around in LA during the Olympics, buddy, good luck. Yeah, good luck. That is not going to be fun. But yeah, very much looking forward to those games in four years. Olympics being over means, hey, our next sport, college football, we're less than two weeks away from college football, Will. I'm going to be in Vegas, watching a disappointingly ranked USCT. I'm sure things will go perfectly fine for Brian Kelly, week one, Sunday nights. Nothing bad will happen at all for LSU. Will is already valid, by the way, to never go to an LSU opener again, if they lose this one. That'll be designed. I said I'm done watching Brian Kelly on Sundays. This dude, wait, this is the third one of these in a row. We're open to, I thought we would go win the first one. I thought we would go win the second one. Now everybody's mad at me, because I'm saying we will lose the third one. You can't, you know what George Bush said, you fool me three times, you can't get fooled again, all right? So I got to get one of the, at least I'll be trying something new, all right? If they prove me wrong, if Brian Kelly could just never make me happy on a base level, if he always got to do something weird, then at least I'll get my pick wrong, and that's fine. But I can't do this again. This is, it's the definition of insanity at this point. - We'll just, we'll just begging for a dub. I love it. That's, that's when you know we're in mid season four. Very much. - Oh yeah. - All right, if you have not, leave us a five-star review. Subscribe to our YouTube channel where you can watch every single episode of The Started On South podcast. Follow us on Twitter at the STS pod, @SightDownSouth, @SightDownSouth, @SightDownSouth, @SitanYourViewer, @GoSoHard. Thanks guys. - Bye soon. (upbeat music) You
It's preseason Poll season! The preseason AP Top 25 is out, and the guys have thoughts on that. What did they get wrong? The guys answer that question (3:00). Matt Hayes joined the show to dig into his coordinator rankings and Lincoln Riley wanting to back out of matchups (50:00). The guys close with an Olympics-heavy Lad of the Week (1:20:00).
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