(upbeat music) - Hey, what's going on? This is the Saturday on South podcast. I am Connor Giro. Will week three, week three? I don't like when we already are realizing how quickly the season is going. And I'm not gonna do the, we're at the one quarter mark or any, I am not doing that. We will avoid the fact that we are already at this point. And it's the fourth college football weekend of the season technically. If we want to include week zero, I'm not gonna bring that up. But if I were to bring that up, that's how I would phrase it. - Listen, it's easy for me. I'm just glad it's not week one. - Amen, amen. Oh, she's got a shot if it's not week one, am I right? - Yeah, and guess what? Auburn fans, it's not week two either. - Not week two. Hey, week two can't hurt you anymore. - It's day to California. They're not walking through that door. - All right. - Bama fans, it's not week two. - USA? Not walking through that door for three quarters. Not USF, not Texas, you know. This is a very safe space, very, very safe space. Loaded pod today. We've got Laura Rutledge coming up in a little bit. Great to be able to chat with her as always. And then we have Lad of the Week that we'll close with. Week three, only two single digit spreads in the SEC, but I don't care. It's great week. I'm not gonna do the thing where I'd say it's a mediocre slight, no off. No bad Saturdays, great slate ahead. Let's get right to it, Will. Number four, Alabama, 16 and a half point favorite on the road, Camp Randall, Wisconsin. The overunder I have is four yards per carry for Wisconsin, pretty straightforward. And then, crazy, four yards per carry. All right, this is football 101. Four yards per carry for Wisconsin, historically speaking, would sound like a slap in the face because, right, what does Wisconsin do? Wisconsin runs a football. And that's not even digging into like the Bama side of this yet, but just for any game to say four yards per carry, what are you talking about? For all the great history that Wisconsin has, running the football, the Phil longo air raid, the very well documented, well dissected, Phil longo air raid transition in Madison, hasn't exactly yielded the rushing efficiency that they've been looking for just yet. Kind of a big fear going in. I'd say that's somewhat validated so far with the way that things have played out because last year, Wisconsin had 10 games against power five competition, ran the ball for more than four yards per carry three times. That's so bad. Not quite Basura, but borderline Basura, it was. So far this year, two games against cupcakes, 4.2 yards per carry, have not hit more than 4.3 yards per carry yet. You can say, all right, basic game plan, they're saving on the good place for Bama, maybe they are, that's what everybody does. Of course, if your team doesn't perform well, eight yards per carry against Bama, that means that's forthcoming. But look, there's just hasn't really been a lot of optimism about this offense yet in the Luke Fickle arrow. And I think we praised the willingness to transition because you have to be able to adapt to certain concepts. But the further removed they get from this ground and pound attack that they became known for, the more we kind of realize like, oh, it's actually tougher to have an identity than we probably give a credit for. And they don't have that, they don't have that. Tyler Van Dyke, your boy, he has not exactly lit it up yet. It's going against an Alabama defense that has yet to allow a 20 yard completion. One of two in all of college football that has not allowed a 20 yard completion for all the flack that I gave that Alabama secondary coming into the season, that so far has been a positive. Well, I know you're a big TBD guy, you are. Starting to think it might not just be the Miami thing that limited him. - Yeah, I think he is turning into a little bit of a, Brad Kaia, a little bit of a Christian Hackenberg where the first couple of years were so rough that they might have kind of given him a little bit of the, I hate to say the yips, you know, but when you're just kind of, you have that much responsibility. - Wait, their first years were good though. - That's what I'm saying. I mean, Van Dyke had a good start. And then, you know, the middle of his career, the way that it was managed, the way he was protected, the way there was so much change, then as they, basically, as they age, they got worse. - God, I think Van Dyke is turning into one of those guys. And yeah, I think as far as, you know, the air raid system with the long go goes, you know, if your quarterback is Drake May, it's a solid idea to do that, right? And North Carolina had come from, you know, having two good backs too. So it feels like they kind of moved with their personnel when they switched over to that system. But this does feel so far, you know, and speaking from their only good offensive game being against my team in a bowl game, basically, you know, they are kind of trying to fit a square peg into a round hole when it comes to the talent and the personnel they had on the team. Which exactly, which you just, you know, highlighted, is if you have this identity for, I don't know, our whole life is plus some into the Ron Dane, Barry Alvarez era. - Quarter century, probably about a quarter century. Oh, no, that makes me feel old. 'Cause that's only in 2000. Anyway, so let's say mid 90s, right? 'Cause I think Dane was around 2000. So 99, I think, was his last year there. That was his highest been season, if I'm not mistaken. - Yes, exactly. So he, you know, as this century was turning, they were doing that. - Yeah, there's probably, you know, even farther back than that, too. So point being, like, when you have that and you're told, okay, you know, you're tight ends, you're running backs, you're full backs, are gonna find a home at Wisconsin. You really have to change the narrative. And Luke Fickle, you know, bless his heart. He's very much giving, you know, young millennial that is like, hey, we're gonna change the culture here. We're gonna bring in summer Friday, is we're gonna get a kombucha machine. And I would love to see, I need to go check the Wisconsin's fan boards. I feel like I have enough fan boards to look at, but I would love to see if there's a lot of run of dang ball on there. - Could be, wouldn't be a surprise. I've got a few, like, kind of scattered Wisconsin fans in my life and haven't necessarily dug into their takes on how the Luke Fickle era has gone so far. But I think that there's definitely an expectation, you're too, that they simply have to be better. They have to be more consistent. But, you know, I think this type of game can serve as a launching pad for the Alabama offense in the same way. And I don't know that that's necessarily gonna be the case, but worth noting, last year Millrod put up better numbers on the road than he did at home, you know? Like, think about some of his bigger games, like A&M, he was awesome. - 'Cause he could pretend he didn't hear Pete in his headset or the sideline. I can't hear you, bro, I'm gonna run my own play this time. It's loud out here. - Tommy Reese. - Oh, sorry, sorry, I didn't know why he just called him Pete. Yeah, Tommy Reese. I was like, who, who's Pete, I turned him into Pete Golding, bro. I have no idea why. - The offensive coordinator, who was talking to the quarterback, yeah. - Pete Golding shouting from his job as Ole Miss defensive coordinator, saying, "Jail and Millrod, here are the plays that you should run." - Yeah, yeah, exactly. - Exactly, yeah. No counter-style games there. But, yeah, I mean, it's a good point, though, when you talk about, you know, the bypass defense is the strength, and now they're going against this Wisconsin offense that is just determined to throw the ball. - Yeah, it is very interesting, the way that things change like that. And, you know, I don't know what BAM's gonna try and do necessarily from an offensive standpoint with no row, like with the depth of target and what kind of looks they're gonna try and be able to get for him, what it's gonna be for Ryan Williams trying to find space in the passing game, but-- - Ooh, buddy, that guy. - He's been great. - He's been great. - As advertised, that Ryan Williams. - As advertised, for sure. Definitely don't feel great about 500 passing yards that he would have the under, or 500 receiving yards that he would hit the under on that. He's like 300 yards away from that with probably 12 more games, so that's not ideal. But anyway, the fact that we're talking about this BAMA identity is, I think, perfectly understandable with what we talked about with preseason expectations. I don't think they have to do anything particularly crazy to win this game and win it going away. Like, they're not gonna throw the football 40 times. If you have a ground heavy approach from BAMA against this Wisconsin defense, in theory, even in that hostile atmosphere, you should be all right. And I think that kind of takes some of the pressure off the offensive line with the communication issues that they've had so far with pass protection and what felt like a walking, holding penalty against USF. I don't think BAMA has to get particularly crazy. This can be a game in which Kayla Naboor goes, wait a minute, I don't think Wisconsin's got enough in that front seven to be able to handle this BAMA rushing attack. And even if you don't think that BAMA has particularly settled at the tackle spots, you rely on that interior offensive line and you say, you know what, Jan Miller, you know what, Justice Haynes and Jalen Milro as well, we're gonna run the football with you and we're gonna make them stop it. I kind of think that that's what ends up being the story of this game or Alabama and Naboor doing what we hope he would do, which is adjust to the personnel and don't try and round pegs square, I always mess that up. Square peg round hole? I didn't get to remember. Yeah, either or it plays. But I think this is where you trust in elite offensive mind to just see the mismatch, see the mismatch that you have, don't try and get too cute with it. I think Alabama might start off slow in this game and we're kind of asking some of those questions like, man, are they gonna kind of figure things out? And then they really put it on in the second half. I think BAMA wears them down, wins this one by three touchdowns 31 to 10. Yeah, I'm fully with you there. I think that Wisconsin lacked a little bit of that where we talked about with BAMA and the preseason where their leadership kind of got together and rallied around this new philosophy offensively. And I think that is just a work in progress over there. And that kind of goes down the points we've been making, which is that it was constant in 2024, you're not getting these level of athletes, right? You definitely get some diamond on the rough guys, some of them are to Iowa, right? But it's like, you're not getting guys where it's like, oh, well, we're telling some incredible, like, will Anderson level athlete to switch from a three, four to a four, three, for instance? Or it's like, okay, we have the guys that we got, they've lost the geo online, hit the portal. And don't think that guy was amazing or a world changer, but he's a space filler, right? And so that's the thing when you start off with a roster that's not super talented in the NIL era, and then you kind of go through the nutrition, I feel like they just don't have the size, especially again, it talks about recruiting offensive and defensive linemen when you have a ground and pound style. Well, if you're turning them all over more, or if you're punting more, you're getting their defensive guys on the field more. So the big guys that used to commit to Wisconsin and say, hey, we're gonna go fill lanes and try to keep this to a 10-17 game. So I think that funny enough, switching to the past, the area has kind of hurt them against being gap sound against the run, if that makes sense. - Yeah, and think about it too, from what Luke Fickel's trying to do defensively, go back to that playoff game, that's since Nanny played against Bama, he had more defensive talent on that team than he's got on this one. No doubt. I mean, saucecar, nerko, wee Brian, that defense had dudes all over the place, and dudes in the secondary, that could totally just take away in elements of your offense. And I don't necessarily know that this Wisconsin team has that just yet, they are at their best in the secondary, but you still kind of wonder like, all right, when are you gonna get those studs up front? Because Wisconsin, you gotta be able to play in the trenches, and obviously, you can have different variations of that if you're gonna try and do that offensively with what Phil Long was bringing in, but I do kind of wonder how long that's gonna take, and I don't know that this is gonna be the day in which we say Wisconsin has those guys up front, and look what they just did to the number four team in college football in Alabama. Yeah, I think that even in a difficult atmosphere, you know how much I love Camp Randall. Whenever someone asks me like, what's like one of your favorite places to go? I'm always like, dude, get up to Camp Randall, experience, jump around, fear for your life, the entire building could be crashing down because it's like nearly a century old. That's peak college football. Get there earlier in the year, too. Don't necessarily, you don't have to go there. You don't have to be a hard-o and get there mid-November. You don't need to be there with a snow or anything like that. Not for us. It's not. Look, native Midwesterner, and I could say I would much rather watch football in 60, 70 degree weather than I would, you know, with it being 35, if that makes me soft, so be it. But I do think that Alabama returning north of the Mason Dixon line for a non-conference home and home, what a crazy concept, something that used to happen. When they remember they used to at home and home with Penn State, then Saban said, why are we doing this? This doesn't make a lot of sense, but getting back to that scheduling philosophy, I do think that's fun in itself, but I think this ends up being game in which Bama wins convincingly and were reminded, yes, maybe not peak Bama number four team in the country, but still a good team nonetheless with some pretty obvious strengths. - Yes, and I will say, just to tack on one final point, this is the time that I feel like I might actually miss Nick Saban a little bit, because I do feel like jump around is just on that edge of pop culture, kind of similar to the Cupid shuffle. We probably noticed that so hung a little bit, so we might have missed out on a video of Nick Saban kind of doing a little jump, jump, just a little bit. If they're up by like two or three touchdowns, so I'm sad that we won't get to see that, 'cause I know the board has been very kind of like low-key and close to the vest, but it's a super cool tradition. And I mean, yeah, to your point, I'm right there. I think Bama will probably break this one up in late the way they did last week, and the ability they had to score that many points quickly is so wild to me. So yeah, I think Bama will probably get up in the 30s and probably win by about 10. If Saban had a game at Iowa during his time at Alabama, do you think you would have done the wave? - Man, I feel like you would have, honestly. See, this is what we're gonna get in the new era is like coaches seeing these traditions for likely will be, maybe the only time in their life. I mean, when LSU played USC, it was the first time since like, I wanna say the 90s, and it was like, wow, we're actually the 80s. Oh my God, I was talking to a fan next to me. And so it's gonna be really cool to see these teams that we haven't really seen before, as people aren't as scared to lose these out of conference games. - Agreed, fun non-conference matchups that we'll be able to see throughout, I think the 12 team playoff era. All right, well, number 16 LSU, seven point favorites on the road, Columbia, South Carolina. South Carolina hosting college game bay, how about it? Love to see it, absolutely love to see it. The overunder I have is 110 degrees at kickoff. Probably take the under, maybe. As Marlar always says, Columbia, South Carolina, hottest place on earth, it is. The alternate overunder that I had for this one was three and a half shirts that Herb Street's gonna sweat through. Yeah, they gotta get Ben the dog, the water situation on him going, if it's gonna be that hot, all right? - Yeah, I'll be interested to see what his accommodations are because I, look, I'm not hating on Ben and his desire to sleep in the booth. Look, it's been a long day for Ben. Probably been on his feet, probably getting a lot of boobs, fully understand. That's a lot to go through for a dog, being in the spotlight. Maybe he's an introvert. I don't even know if Ben's an introvert or an extrovert, not really. I think he's gonna have to get some serious, some serious love, some Uga-level accommodations to be able to stay cool because that is not for the faint of heart, Columbia, just in general, so. - Yeah, and speaking of people who need water breaks, I'm sure you'll get to this, but this is an offensive defensive line match up for the year. I mean, when you talk about Don Stewart, what he's been able to do, and when you talk about the LSU line that is underperformed objectively, I think this is a really big chance for both of those units and the fact that, you know, the pressure from South Carolina is kind of up the middle and the strength for South Carolina is on the... Sorry, the strength for LSU is on the outsides in the tackle spot. So, yeah, I think that that heat situation is gonna be a pretty big deal in this game is there's some massive humans that are really gonna be leading this charge on both sides. - Well, I think that matchup is a reason why game day can kind of justify being there. And I know it was an underwhelming choice for many to like, oh, you're gonna go to South Carolina and unranked South Carolina team, to face an LSU team that's already lost early in the season. Like, oh, there's not a better game. And yeah, I mean, the slate is what it is. Again, no bad Saturdays, but I think that's kind of the sell is that this South Carolina pass rush is already getting national discussion. And what I think is so fascinating is that this team has just not had an early season identity in a long time, a really long time. We had the moments of late season upsets with Beemer already. We've seen what that's looked like, happened in '21, obviously '22 with the Tennessee game, with Clemson and all that. You know, we've had these moments with South Carolina, but to like come out of the gates and actually show we deserve national consideration. And here's why. Here's something that anybody can see and know we have a real strength. That has been lacking for a long, long time. And, you know, if you kind of go back to it, 2014, obviously the last time that they hosted college game day before this, and that was a September game against Mizzou. And South Carolina is on the heels of three consecutive top 10 finishes with Spurrier. It's the golden era of South Carolina football. And it's even though it's first season post-Jadabian clowny, they're kind of thinking, all right, you could still kind of continue this. They started off in the top 10. They lose that game to open the season to Kenny Trill, Texas, A&M. But they bounce back by beating Georgia. And it's like, you're on the board. You're like right on the cusp of being a top 10 team again, maybe compete for a division title, all these different things. And you have a two score lead later that one against Mizzou. Mizzou rallies back and wins that game. Not only does South Carolina fall out of the top 25 with that loss, their second loss of the season to September losses comes from the territory. They have to watch Spurrier quit mid-season next year. Basically a year later, he quits. South Carolina has 109 of their next 112 games are played as an unranked team. - Wow. - Well, they're only three games that they played as a ranked team. We're losses. 2018 got destroyed at home by Georgia. 2022 got embarrassed by Mizzou at home, a game in which South Carolina should not have lost, but drink just kind of owns Beemer. 2022 with the bowl game against Notre Dame, a game that was very much up for grabs. So a game South Carolina was gonna win after the Clemson win and they're ultimately not able to get it done there. Success can be fleeting. Opportunities in this sport for those who aren't at the elite of the elite, they can be few and far between. And South Carolina has an opportunity on Saturday, a big time South Carolina opportunity awaits. If you had gone back 10 years ago, or 2014, talk to my guy, Brad Crawford, talk to anybody who roots for South Carolina passionately. Tell them that day that when they're hosting college game day, that they're gonna go a decade in between visits from them, say what you will about college game day, but it's a standard in the sport and it's a rite of passage, okay? Tell them also they'd still be searching for their first win as a ranked team, okay? They would have laughed you out of the room and they're not ranked right now, okay? So I'm not saying this like, oh, they have an opportunity to win as a ranked team. I realize that, but that's obviously at stake if you beat a team like LSU. I think you're gonna sense that urgency from South Carolina. Like all of that is gonna be there and it's gonna be evident in that atmosphere, which will be incredible. South Carolina edge rushers, as you mentioned, they're gonna be firing off the ball. It's such a phenomenal thing that we're gonna get this early season matchup with a couple of first round prospects on that offensive line for LSU with Will Campbell, Emery Jones. Very well documented. That'll be discussed a ton pregame. We're gonna get the film breakdowns of both of those guys. It's gonna be awesome. That's great. Here's what I wonder about. I'm so tempted to pick South Carolina to win this game and just say vibes are gonna be too good for them to lose. Mm-hmm. But the matchup that I would fear and this is what makes this LSU team a little bit different than last year's. I think Blake Baker is scheming against the South Carolina offense. It hasn't been particularly good yet. That's the biggest mismatch in this game. So I'm gonna somewhat reluctantly pick LSU despite the fact that vibes will be high. No doubt about it. I think the LSU ground game, dare I say. Gosh, I'm saying this with a little bit too much blind faith. I'm gonna say that the LSU ground game finds some success with maybe a bit of tempo. Breakout, Caleb Jackson game, coms. He gets a little bit more run. He hasn't got enough run yet. In my opinion, the first part of the season. - Correct. - A lot quicker in the passing game. I think LSU wins this one 28 to 17. Am I crazy? - No, I mean, I'm right there with you. I think we're pretty lined up on this one. And just to be clear, Dylan Stewart is obviously an edge, right? And he's kind of a lanky gentleman and he's young too, right? So when it comes to it, it's like, I'm not as worried. And I understand that one or two plays can completely make it with edge play. But where LSU struggled, like I said, was in the middle. I'm more worried about Tonka Hammingway. 'Cause that dude has also been a force. And so when you look at, you know, they're unable to run the ball up the middle. I kept thinking to myself in this game against USC. When are they going to start imposing their will in USC? And the tackles, yeah, we can talk about the fall starts. They held up fine. It wasn't like the pocket was caving in on us, Meyer. But it really was that like Bear Alexander in the middle of that defense were kind of, they were making up for a man advantage. Like it was as if Bear Alexander was being accounted for by two people and like the interior guys were getting through kind of despite what the tackles were doing and the tackles weren't doing enough to where they could just run outside. So that's kind of the situation is like I said, I know those are the big names on the outside, but objectively, just to be objective, if you want to go top 10 in the draft and you can't handle like, I, you know what I'm saying? That's a hundred pounds lighter than you and that young. - 18 years old, yeah. - You need to come back to school at that point. You know what I'm saying? Like the dudes who are going to be there in the NFL for you, brother, are going to be a little bit different. So I'm not as worried about the tackles just for that reason, but there will still like, I'm not telling you the line's going to play well. That's the different situation. So because that's what I realized at the USC, I was like, oh wait, the tackles are again not playing great, but that's not enough when the inside of the defensive line is going to be caved in and the run scheme is not good. So to your point, like that's a big deal, which is that, you know, when John Emery is, like I'm devastated that he's hurt, that's a big problem for a lot of shoes run game because it's not ever where you want to be as a school that kind of like Wisconsin has always had good running backs. And you know, on the other side of that, you talk about big game performances. I mean, I think Beemer has done well objectively. He's done better in big games than he has in kind of trap games, like an old Dominion, right? And Brian Kelly is a little bit of the opposite, right? I mean, Brian Kelly, historically, you talk about the Bama win. I think the Mizzouin gets kind of underappreciated because people didn't see what Mizzou was at that point in time. And we did, right. And I think that was probably the second biggest win he's had there. The ball games are a little bit nebulous 'cause of the opt out some stuff. But it's wild because a lot of the LSU media is saying, you know, this is the biggest game for Brian Kelly at LSU 'cause if they lose it, it's all going to come, you know, whatever. I don't really necessarily think that 'cause you know, we're three years into this thing, right? I mean, I don't think it's, it was fun to get clickbait every week during the first year or two, where it was like, oh, Brian Kelly's gonna lose the locker room. Brian Kelly is this. It's, you're just gonna, we're just kind of all used to it at this point, right? I mean, if he was gonna get fired for blowing a week one game, what have happened? So I think that this is a big moment for South Carolina though, for sure. You know what I'm saying? Because this is the type of a win that would save Beamer's job. I mean, off rip, it's almost like it wouldn't matter what would happen after that. If you beat Kentucky and then you beat LSU, you can do what he did in 2022 and beat Tennessee and Clemson and the rest of the season is just fun, right? And so it doesn't matter that you get cooked by, you know, Florida or whatever that year. Nobody remembers that. They just remember the big win. So that's a great place to be for South Carolina. And, you know, we talked about their, their kind of key here being unlocking these swamp monsters. They're gonna have two or three of these guys a year. Nick Harper is still not gotten going yet. Tell you who's DBs won't account for him on every play. So at least the Alexander is allegedly, I'm getting the Zylaxander Copium. That's how I know it's, it's bad. But it's like, well, he did really well against Nichols. It's like, well, let's get him on some D1 athletes. So, yeah, so, so I say all that to say is gonna be a nail better for LSU. I think everything is lining up for this to be a beamer game that he plays really well. If this team comes ready to go, I think that we need leadership on this LSU team. I think it comes down to the tackles, Will Campbell, Nussmeyer needs to kind of step up a little bit in the way that Daniels did. And even if you're not making the plays with your legs the way that Daniels did, you gotta set that tone and you gotta punch him in the mouth and you gotta get this team going and believing in themselves 'cause they really didn't in week one and in week two, I'm just not gonna count. Also worth mentioning as great as Dylan Stewart is, as awesome as he's been as an 18-year-old. Kyle Canard has very quickly been one of the most valuable transfers, not just in the SEC, but all of college football coming over from Georgia Tech. Like, that's kind of the reason why they've been so effective up front is that they have several guys that can beat you off the edge and that are just dominating these matchups. I mean, he was like, lights out against Kentucky and they have these guys up front, these, as you would call them, Swamp Monsters, that can just take over a game. So if they get those plays against LSU, when are those happening? Are those happening when it's third and eight in LSU is on the 25-yard line and it's a play where Nusmire takes a sack that he just can't take and it costs LSU three points in a key spot like that when it's a tie game and it looks like maybe LSU's got momentum. No, what are those plays coming from? Are they coming early on when the crowd is just hype and it's like, all right, you get them kind of behind the sticks and it's gonna be more of a dog fight down to the wire or are you as a unit capable of bringing this for 60 minutes? That's the question that I think South Carolina needs to answer and obviously they answered it in spades against Kentucky. There was really no doubt about it from start to finish, but against a team like LSU that I think is going to be conditioned pretty well to handle this. Well, Campbell, Emery Jones, those guys aren't exactly taking a lot of plays off, you know, stepping off the field. They kind of know what it's like. All right, you're gonna be on the field every single down, like, you're not just gonna get subbed out or anything like that. I'm fascinated to see that dynamic and it's going to be a pressure cooker game for Brian Kelly if this is close late. And all those questions will be asked because if you get off to a one and two start, while it is different in the 12 team playoff era, there's no doubt about it. You just know the rhetoric of what that's going to look like of, oh my God, Brian Kelly's not even beating South Carolina anymore, LSU regression, year three. That's something that could be a discussion if they obviously lose this game and if they lose this game convincingly. - Yeah, absolutely. And something else too is that, I mean, Nussmeyer has been surgical so far, which is not really good expected to see. And it's not just how he's looked. It's not just the stats, but it's how he's looked, the fact that I was ready to live with Nussmeyer taking too many risks and having bad turnovers. And I mean, that pick at the end of the USA game was so fake, right? 'Cause it was just like he, but the end of the game. But point being, I do expect one to three of those plays in this game. I think there will be, you know, he gets hit, there's a batted ball, something like that, exactly what you just said. But I also think, and it would get out of this way, but it's game day. I mean, this is kind of a big matchup, right? I also am very interested to see how Harold Perkins matches up with this run game. - Yep. - You know, and with kind of like the way that, how am I blanking on their quarterback right now? Boy, man. - Lenora Sellers. - Lenora's, yeah. The first name always gets me. So like, that's a guy that if you can take away his legs, he's not as effective, right? And that can take some of that pressure off of your defensive backs. So I think that Harold Perkins, I'm not like, a lot of people have talked about Harold Perkins. I pretty much discount him last year. Like I was just like, we just don't know to use this guy. This is a game that like we really need Harold Perkins as like LSU needs Harold Perkins, not we. But like LSU needs Harold Perkins, because as a QB spy, as that's what they didn't do against Moer last year. And you know, Sellers are just not advanced enough as a passer to allow that to happen. So if you're LSU, you have these veterans, say what you will, and defense, you know, Harold Perkins has been through the wars. He needs to be able to take that matchup personally and not let them get these chunk plays on the ground for sure. - LSU last year, really anytime they've been bad in the 2020s defensively, we've talked about just guys running wide open in the defensive backfield. LeNore Sellers still has a long way to go as a passer. The thing that he showed he can do against Kentucky was take advantage of some of those coverage busts. - Yep. - If LSU has those in a game like this, LeNore Sellers I would think would be able to take advantage of some of that stuff. So it's not to say that there's, that he's just a guy that's going to be overwhelmed and there's going to be nothing that he can do. That's gotta be taken care of. - Get that kick off return team. - Ready buddy. 'Cause it's gonna be a score. - Nick Harbor, gosh, just give me three defensive pass interference is forced. Let's start tracking those instead of catches for Nick Harbor 'cause that might be the more tackles. He's got more tackles right now. He's got two tackles and what? Yeah, I think he's got one DPI forced and zero catches on the season. - I need an 8K camera on Sage Ryan for this whole game as he tries to come on. - Do you want that, Will? - Yes, I do, it would be so funny. As long as Brad Kelly sees what I see. Anyway, yeah. All right, number 24, Boston College. Number six, Mizzou. Top 25 matchup, Mizzou's a 17 point favorite. How about that? You got like three total top 25 matchups and one of them is three points, or is a three score spread. Just to show you how different this is than the NFL. - Why is Boston College ranked? - Carter. - Why is Boston College ranked? Well, Boston College is ranked because a certain Florida state team could not stay on the field with them. - Correct. - That's that much we know. We all saw, never play on Monday night. You know what we're talking about? Like Brian Kelly shouldn't play Sunday night games. No, no favorite should ever play on Monday night. Just don't do it. If you think you have a favorable matchup, you're going to lose it. That's just how it works out. All right, the over on our half. 40 and a half Mizzou rushing yards. That's what Boston College is allowing so far this year. Part of that Florida state. Yeah, very much. Go figure Jeff Haffley leaves for the Packers. In steps in Bill O'Brien, offensive minded Bill O'Brien, allegedly. He hires a DC in Tim Lewis who hasn't been in college football in 30 years. And yeah, it's early, but suddenly it looks like BC kind of has a solid defense, which is, you know, I think newsworthy for those that have followed that program in recent memory. But I realize that's a very ridiculous over-under for anyone, 40 and a half rushing yards to take Mizzou to hit the over on that. But obviously, like we know the track record with this program, if you kind of go back and look at the instances in which they've been stymied, they've been you and far between 2020 Georgia, 2020 Florida. They held Mizzou under that 40 and a half rushing yards. But in three plus seasons since then, nobody's been able to do that. The only team who held Mizzou to less than 80 rushing yards was 2021, Tennessee, 2023, Kansas State. Go figure that game, that game of all the games, the game that launched Mizzou into, oh my God, we're not going to be just this frustrating six and six. Well, they realized they could throw the ball. They were like, hold on. Yeah, well, what's this? Money me was of course from deep. Speaking of those Mizzou backs. Well, I talked about how I regret saying Peyton Thorne is going to be the most improved player in the SEC. I think I'm already wrong about the SEC's leading rusher. I'm going to take an L on this one too. Not great. Marcus Carroll doesn't look like he's on that track. I don't even think it's fair to say that he's in a true timeshare with Nate Noelle. Noelle's been given RB one treatment and only five carries separate them. So if you just kind of look at that, you'll get the yardage, you're like, "Ah, it's not really that crazy." Noelle's played twice as many snaps. And I was watching that opener. Marcus Carroll didn't come into that game until it was 21 nothing. So yeah, that's not great. And I'm interested to see like kind of how this plays out, especially in a game like this, see how Drink kind of manages that dynamic because in my opinion, I think Carroll's still the better runner, but Noelle's been better in the passing game. They clearly trust him more with that. I think it could make Mizzou a tougher team to defend. Maybe that's kind of the idea, preserving them for the 12 team playoff. Talk about that a lot with with backs and how important that is in a year like this. Maybe it's just a bit of a trial period. I don't know. You know what Mizzou does have though? No doubt. A wide receiver one. - Yep. - Luther Burden. - Very quiet start. - Your boy Whis has been the better player so far this year, at least in terms of bushes. But Luther Burden feels like he's just going to have a monster game. Feels like that is coming for him because he's really been quiet since the first quarter. First quarter, it was like, oh yeah, he could have had three touchdowns in this one. Over throw, there's a DPI, and then he had an actual touchdown. Mizzou's first touchdown of the year, but he left that last game with an illness we found out. I hope he's back and good for this one. I think Mizzou's going to need him. I do. I'm surprised that spread is that big because while I very much need to put some respect on Corey Batoon's defense, who's been phenomenal so far, I'll be it against lesser competition. I think Boston College has a little bit of versatility with its ground game and the things that they're going to be able to do with Castellanos at quarterback. I think Mizzou wins and is leading throughout, but I'll take BC to cover. So this is like a 28-17 game. - Yeah, that makes a ton of sense. I mean, when you think about it, like as you explained that it's pretty funny, right? 'Cause it's like, okay, you know, RG3/ like Georgia fans, you guys kind of had this open-ended like, well, Mizzou can't get Luther Vernon involved correctly. And then they figured it out. And that kind of like, oh, we're getting a monster, right? Where it's like, yeah, we used to be talking about again, like lay around and treat the key to these games being pound in the air out of the football. And it's like everyone kind of dared to figure this out. And then he did it. And now it's like, well, now this is a problem for you guys. So you got what you asked for. And same deal here, you know, this is a lot more of a, you know, two-dimensional or maybe if we get, you know, Brady Cook Vic, maybe it's three-dimensional. We've seen that happen before. So point being, you know, this offense can hurt you in a couple of different ways. And yeah, this Boston College situation, super fascinating. I mean, this is something that can only exist in 2024. We got Bill O'Brien kind of bailing on his team in Ohio State because the other coach just decided these kids were getting paid too much money and he left. And then, you know, you got Tommy Castellanos from UCF who was like pretty solid, but lost the QB battle 'cause Gus is now at UCF and this managed that. - And so it's like, all of this coming together is so interesting. And it's like, so yeah, point being, I think Mizzou, like I am, I hate to say this to me, but I'm stoked for Boston College and if Andy should be stoked, but Mizzou just feels like they're kind of farther along in this process of rebuilding. And it's awesome what Boston College has done and kind of a short off season, right? They've already gotten the win against FSU. They've already gotten ranked, which feels like first time in a long time. It just feels like two schools that are at different places, but both, I mean, Boston College probably is gonna look a little bit away that Mizzou used to, you know, so maybe a little bit of a blueprint here. - Some are saying it's the glory years for Northeast college football. Some are saying that. - Yeah, 19-20 and now, look at that. The Roaring 20s are back, boys. - Yep, I mean, just had to take-- - Up backs. - In, come on. - Yeah, just had to take the Patriots just being a shell of their former selves for college football, to have a moment in the Northeast. Some are saying, you mass is gonna be on the rise this year. - Go get the seat. - Future to zoom a moment. I'm just saying, you know, Ryan Bamford probably is working on a pitch somewhere saying Northeast football, look out. Come to our house. - You get a credit card, conference. - Yes, I joined that conference. I would, in a heartbeat, let the record show. All right, Texas A&M, four and a half point favorite against Florida. The over-under I have four first half snaps for DJ Lagway. God, I hope it's over. I really hope it's over, Will. Billy has said that they're going with a two quarterback system. - Well, did he say that exactly? I don't know. I don't know that he officially said two quarterback system. - He said he's not starting lagways, what he said, but he's gonna play. - He said that they're gonna be, they're both gonna be involved. And he's very clearly keeping it close to the vast with Graham Mertz's availability, coming off of concussion protocol. We are recording this Wednesday afternoon, so by the time that people are listening to this, we'll have a bit more clarity on what that looks like with these new injury reports in the SEC. Maybe you won't have any more clarity. I don't really know. I would imagine that he's probably gonna find a way out of that clarity. But if Mertz is still coming back from the concussion, obviously like, you know, and lagways getting in the start, the over on those four first half snaps, that'll hit. But I put that in there with the first half distinction because I don't think Billy wants to run a two-quarter back system. I don't, okay? I'm not saying he should. Don't think you should. I think he doesn't want to be definitive about how he addresses it publicly, and he would rather leave the door open, not just for gamesmanship, but also because it appeases the fan base to say that that lagway's gonna be involved. Just like he said, the entire off season. The problem is what happens if lagway comes in and leads a touchdown drive after like a slow Mertz start? You're gonna put Graham Mertz back into the game? You're gonna get booed when Mertz comes back in the game and then now you got everybody against your QB-1? I don't know. Maybe that'll happen. Maybe it won't. Feels like a very fluid situation. And while I do think that Billy's allegiance is very clearly to Graham Mertz based on everything he has said and done since he brought Mertz in. Look, his allegiance is to not having to relocate his family, I feel. Yeah, I think that supersedes everything else that's going on here. But I do wonder, I would love to have truth serum of coaches that are on the hot seat publicly versus how they view it. Sam Pippen knows it. Sam Pippen is admitting to the production crew I'm coaching for my job. His athletic director had a vote of confidence late last season saying we are keeping him as our head coach. If your boss does that. His faucet graphic. Wait, say that again? I said, don't I hate his faucet graphic? Like one of those recruiting graphics that he was not firing, Sam Pippen. They should have like photoshopped him into a stadium. Oh man. If your boss does that, you might be on some borrowed time. Now Billy's boss hasn't done that because Scott Strickland is obviously very, his future is very much tired. It's a billion dollars. Also, coach it for his job. Yeah, I don't think just one of them gets let go. Yeah, I don't think so either. I think it'd be, I think it'd be both of them. Is Billy, does Billy feel like he's coaching for his job? Is he feel like he's making this decision at quarterback with his future in mind? Because I really don't think he's doing that. I think he's, for everybody that's like, oh well, you gotta give him legway. You gotta show the fan base some promise. And this is why you deserve to stick around because if you leave, then legway's gonna be, I don't think he'd use it that way. I really don't. We all might. And that's perfectly fine. I want to see more DJ legway. I have been saying, since this kid's side, I want to see him play a lot of football. That would make me happy as someone who likes to see great quarterbacks play football. And so far so good, he looks like he has all of the tools to become a great quarterback. I don't know he plays in this game as much as Florida fans want him to. I really don't. I think this is gonna be fascinating for the matchup as well with that Texas A&M defensive line. So we've talked about a ton. I don't know how legway would handle Shamar Turner, a Nick Scorton, rushing him. I don't know what that would look like. I do know that I watch Graham Mertz navigate, air quotes, Tyler Barron, that's he's an opener. And it wasn't particularly good. The hit from Tyler Barron is the reason we're having this discussion. And the reason why we're talking about Mertz being in concussion protocol, I feel like we're gonna see Mertz. I feel like we're gonna see a lot of Mertz. But the notion of Billy trying to like calm the legway buzz before his first SEC start, that could also be a thing. I won't dismiss that entirely. I'm gonna do something stupid here. Well, we don't have a stupid alarm, but if we did, it would be going off right now. Like the alarm that goes off when you're in your universe and your camera and your car is like, "There's a car coming. Don't go anymore, you idiot." That's going off right now. A&M has won a true real game in three years. October 16, 2021 at Mizzou. Something we talked about. I think that continues here because there's just no way, there's just no way that Florida can possibly be as bad as it was in that season opener. There's no way. A&M's offense is traveling for the first time. As much as I'm still a Connor Wigman believer, I don't think he's gonna go full-cam ward on Florida. I don't know that he has that in the tank just yet. You? I know, I know. You? Look, I'm gonna pick Florida to win 24 to 21. Murch starts three plays from DJ Lagway that we get. They don't make any sense. One of them's a handoff. Florida fans are really underwhelmed, but not underwhelmed. Totally because Florida gets a win. God, I don't feel good about that at all. I went back and forth on this one all week, man. Oh, man, that's okay. Is Billy a send lagway in for a handoff guy or like a play him at receiver type of guy? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I will boo from home if he plays him at receiver. I will boo from home. He will hear me from my rural central Florida basement that totally doesn't exist because nobody has basements here Billy. Yeah, I'll say this, right? We always talk about it's a scoreboard situation, right? And the things that people love about you when you're winning are the things that start to rub people the wrong way when you're losing, right? So like a guy like Sam Pittman, well, he's a players coach. He's one of the boys when he's winning. And when he's losing, it's like, well, he's in over his head, right? So give a couple more comparisons here. Dan Mullen, right? When he was snippy, when he was winning, it was cool. When he was losing, it became spiteful, okay? So I said this last time and I felt we believe it. Although they are incredibly opposite people, I think that Billy has found himself in an almost identical situation to what Dan Mullen found himself in. Yikes. And it's the opposite that's making him this way. See, Dan Mullen was started to play Anthony Richardson out of spite. It was pretty clear, right? Like he almost set up and they were just in to fail. First start was against Georgia. Yeah, like that's kind of like above the, like that's being a jerk. There's no. 2021 Georgia. Like maybe the best defense. The best defense I think we've ever seen. Yeah, like that was not setting up a kid for success. And hey, we could talk about how bad my grandma's bet was. But I also drafted Anthony Richardson in a fantasy league. That guy could play a little bit. So point being, I think that, you know, even though Mullen could be a little bit caddy and that kind of turned on him, Billy has been very confident over his whole career, right? And when you're making the game changer coordinator, when you're adding your staff as ballooning, when you're hiring all these people, when you're quote unquote poaching, your fourth and fifth choice from different schools, overhauling the nutrition program and getting 500 pounds of muscle twice. Now hold on, we're taking out the first time he overhauled the nutrition weightlifting program because it was sub bar and we got there, all right? Now he's changed it again. So point being, you know, it's confidence when you're winning and when you're beating Utah pretty much. But it becomes arrogance when you start losing, right? And I think you exactly hit the nail in the head here with legway, which is that unlike Mullen, who was like, here, damn, you know, take, take Anthony Richardson. You guys are going to see how smart you are. I think Billy is more of a position of like, I know how to coach football better than everyone. I don't care what the stimuli are. I don't care that merch was a guy who had weird turnover problems and now he has a concussion. I don't care that, you know, we have these lion issues and a quarterback that is my age and can't see pressure at this point in his career. I'm still going to play him out there because he's a veteran. And so to your point, like I joked about relocating his family, but I think when you're wired a certain way, I think you're exactly right. I don't think you can change your stripes at that point. And I think that for him, he's still going to go with what he feels gives his team the best chance to success, because I don't think he is the kind of guy, like Mullen, who is trying to take these little jabs. I think he truly just sees what's right in front of him. And I think he's a little bit confused as he lies not working at Florida, because I think at ULL, it worked out great for him. So I think he's just waiting on it to just spontaneously change. And so point being, you know, I really think I've actually kind of changed my opinion after hearing you explain this. It's like, yeah, I don't think he's going to come out there and play like way a ton of snaps to appease the fans, because I think that he, say what you will about him, has done things his way the entire time, right? I mean, he's hired these coordinators that are like recruiters, he's done things that are against the grain. And so he's not just going to go out there and be like, okay guys, we're going to do a fan vote. Who's going to call the next play? Like this is not bad control football. So in the back of his mind, he probably still thinks he has the confidence that he had when he interviewed for the job where you're saying scared money, you don't make money and he's showing, you know. Oh, well, I think he believes he's one of the best offensive minds in the sport. And so I think at the end of that, that's a fact, right? It's how he's done everything. When you talk about play calling duties, when you talk about that type of stuff. So I think we all try to relate to college football coaches as much as we can, right? And, you know, I blew a two point conversion last night in my online NCAA league and I felt like Brian Kelly, I get it, right? But at the same time, you know, it's really hard to relate to these humans because they're so different from us. And so whereas fans might see it as obvious, like, oh, you got to play a legway. He's this guy who's trying to still hope you were trying to keep your job. Debility, he thinks that winning is going to do that because he thinks that he can beat this team. Now that being said, going back to San Pittman briefly, is the first time Arkansas ever won in the swamp ever? Last year? Correct. Was that like the best Arkansas team you've ever seen? Or was it like the worst non-Badmores Arkansas team you've ever seen? It was pretty good among the four win Arkansas teams that I've seen, it depends on how far back you go. But yeah, I mean, like definitely not a Houston nut team, you know what I'm saying? That's even at five wins with the great run of X. But point being like, I believe in A&M more than I believe in Arkansas last year, right? So at the end of the day, like I think Florida has objectively got a little bit worse and say what you will about them getting worse. They don't have the quarterback. So it's pretty easy to say the worst of last year because last year they at least had their option A. And you could argue, oh, will it be better? You know, I mean, you never ever ever ever want to say this, but it's like, well, it would be better if, you know, March didn't wake up feeling great and like we just ended up playing probably, right? In terms of the actual X's nose of the game. But that's not the world we live in, right? It's the ability is probably going to play this guy. And concussions are one of those things, especially, look, look, man, you played football. I did MMA and should be real with you guys. Guys will never take themselves off for concussions. It's something that players and athletes see completely differently than fans. You can't evaluate a concussion unless you really take somebody in for an MRI or you really get in there. And most of it's about how do you feel? And so it's really hard for our coach to take a player out unless they're like seeing triple or they're like looking at the wrong sideline like Bryce Young or something. It's hard to take a coach to take a player out for that. So I think Mertz is going to try to hang on to that job because he knows this is his last shot at playing college football. So at the end of the day, if you have a coach and a player who are both invested in that, then I think it's going to create a liability, right? So point being, I actually love A&M. I think their pass rush is arguably better than Miami's or there's a couple of guys that you mentioned. I think their offensive line is just as good if not better than Miami's, right? And in terms of, you know, that's sort of a big fan of Mario. Yeah, it's not even fair to Mario, but I do think that A&M has kind of an underrated offensive line when you think about the guys that didn't stick around and kind of, you know, there's recruits, right? Not that they're getting good coaching. I think we're going to start to see that offensive line really turn around. So honestly, I think A&M is going to put Florida around. It's the easiest way that I put it. Maybe I can be wrong twice about Florida would be too high on them and then duo on them. That would be awesome. But right now, I just, I look at A&M and I think, hey, you know, you guys really hung with Notre Dame until, you know, the end of the game, right? But that just kind of breaks it open. But at the end of the day, it's like, I think that these might be the, we would talk about the different coaches. These are incredibly two different coaches. And I think Billy has been kind of brash and emotional in time. Whereas like, I feel like Elko is a lot more like just the facts, sir. And I think that that could really benefit him in this game. So I actually am going to take A&M to win and obviously cover, or not obviously cover, they're actually a favorite in this game, which is kind of funny. But I think they're going to win by a bot touchdown. Yeah, if Florida loses as an underdog and it's one and two and the offense just still looks like it's stuck in the mud, good Lord. Yeah, good Lord, man. I'll say this too. Like, would you trust, in a game like this, right? Would you trust the brash offensive guy with her quarterback at home in front of all those fans that probably want him fired? Or would you trust the guy who just doesn't ever show emotions other than when he wears weird shirts? Oh, of course. He's got some sideline blowups. He's got some sideline blowups. He's got some, again, Brad Kelly coaching tree, but like point being he's very like, I don't think he lets his emotions get in the way of his job, the way that Billy kind of has proven to, right? And so point being like, I think that in a game that's so emotional, sometimes being water, sometimes being sun-su is a good way to do this. I think that's what Elko brings to the table because he's truly playing with house money at this point. He's not getting fired for losing to Florida. Right, and that's maybe the reason why I think Florida comes out and is the more desperate team to teams that both have a boss already, could be kind of like, all right, you're still figuring out who you are and figuring out who you are on the offensive side of the ball. Maybe Florida somehow benefits from that. I admit, this is not one that I feel particularly good about and I'm kind of glad that we're on opposite sides of the spectrum because this-- One of us has to be right, dang. Yeah, goodness. Neither of these teams have really, really been particularly convincing so far. I'm actually just a little bit out of here. Who do you like better as a play caller, Kline, or Billy? Yeah. I mean, I'd go with Kline because I've seen it with different quarterbacks so far and I felt like he's been able to maximize. I mean, he had three different quarterbacks have a lot of success with Will Howard, with Adrian Martinez, and with Avery Johnson when he did at Kansas State. Yeah, if they were both three agents, yeah, I'm taking Colin Kline. Despite the fact that obviously you got to be able to show in the SEC if you're going to be worth the money that A&M ultimately paid him. But yeah, I mean, it's-- I think both of them have big questions in this game and need to be able to scheme well to win. I think it's a big win game. Anyway, on to the next big win game, definitely. All right, number 5 Ole Miss, 23 and 1/2 point favorite against Wake Forest. The overrunner I have for this one is 154 and 1/2 Trey Harris receiving yards. Big number, big old number. That's what he's averaging this year. He's awesome. He is 102 yards ahead of the next closest SEC receiver, Ryan Williams, ironically enough. I thought Harris was one of the five best returning receivers in America entering the season. I took him in our non quarterback Heisman draft. That's a steal. Yeah. Like, look, I'm not saying he's going to win the Heisman Trophy because if Jackson Dart keeps putting up ridiculous numbers, obviously he would be in line for something like that. But he is a phenomenal player. And I am telling you that as long as that guy is healthy, but she wasn't in the first part of last year after he got off to the blistering start in the opening, like three touchdowns in the first four minutes, that guy is capable of being the best receiver in college football. And I say that as someone who loves Luther Burton, I love me some T-Mac. Those guys are great. But Trey Harris, the things he is working in his favor with quarterback, with the scheme, everything at this stage of his career suggests he could be that guy. He's got 153.8 passer rating when targeted. That's darn near perfect. That is really, really good. That is pretty remarkable when you consider that he leads FBS with 7.2 yards per route run. And 12 of his 17 catches went for at least 10 yards. He has been making plays left and right. He does it with his route running. He does it after the catch. I mean, I'm not going to be surprised at all if he has a 200 yard game against Wake Forest. It will not surprise me. I don't think Wake Forest fans would be surprised because their past defense is Basura, 150 in the country against the past. It's been an issue for them for what feels like the last several years. This should be a field day for Jackson Dart. Even if he just wants to lock in on Trey Harris the whole time. Juice Wells has been good to start with these, but Trey Harris is the guy. He is that dude. The side by side of Jackson Dart and former Brian Harrison quarterback Hank Bachmeyer, it's not going to be pretty. It's not. Wake Forest fans know that I do. I think Ole Miss wins this going away. I'm going to say that they cover and it's 42 to 14. Yeah, I'm right there with you. This home this season. I mean, this is a fan base that has definitely seen all the highs and lows that college football can bring. Most of the season should be pretty stress free for Ole Miss. I think that continues here. And I think, you know, in terms of fan bases and loyalty and the atmosphere there, I think they can just have a cupcake schedule. So they're a cake schedule, whatever it would be. So I think this is going to be one of those. You know, you could talk about their schedule, but at the end of the day, you know, ask South Carolina, Alabama, even unless you would agree with Nichols, right? Like you don't have to take care of these teams. Plenty of teams are struggled with like these kind of like lower competition teams. Wake Forest was pretty good a couple of years ago. So yeah, it's not obviously their fault. So point being, I think they're going to smoke wake forest. So they fit right there with you 42, 14 sounds of all right. What's about a time? This would be really intriguing matchup. We were talking about Sam Hartman against Jackson Dart. Yeah, that'd be really fun. You know, shoot out. This is going to be really good back and forth game. And for whatever reason, the timing that that Ole Miss has had with some of their non-conference matchups recently and with like Georgia Tech and stuff just has not lined up particularly well to add to their strength of schedule. And this is another one that feels like, man, they, I mean, that spread on the road is feels like it's really telling. And I'm interested to see kind of can this Ole Miss defense keep it up because the numbers that they're putting up so far, I mean, they're stupid, they're ridiculous. Obviously, they are basing much less for competition than what they will see, even with a favorable SEC slate. But, you know, wake forest has still been able to put up points in years past. And is that going to continue in the, and you know, on the road? Are you going to be able to do that consistently week in, week out? Are you going to have some of these coverage busts that wake forest is perfectly capable of kind of exposing with the things that they like to do in the passing game? So, yeah, look, I think your boy, Pete Golding, confirmed not Alabama's offense coordinator last year. I think he continues what's been a really solid start with all of these movie pieces, all that talent that we've talked about coming via the portal on the defensive side of the ball for Ole Miss. All right, last one here. Number one, Georgia. 24 and a half point favorite against Kentucky. The overunder I have is five reminders that this is a reunion for Brock Vandegrift in Georgia. If I take the over, if I take the over on that. I've mentioned this here before, so I'm not trying to repeat myself too much. But spent a little bit of time with, with Brock at Kentucky at their facility back in February. Bush Hamden, I remember, was literally about to board the plane to come to Lexington. He had just gotten the job and he's just, you know, trying to learn everyone's name. Forget you're like trying to install an offense. He's just trying to like learn everyone's name. And I'm sitting there with, you know, Susan Lax, who does tremendous work as Kentucky's SID. And she's like, you know, doing like the faces with the names and stuff, just so that the offensive coaches like can figure this out, kind of come in and have an idea, look at a kid, and be able to identify who it is. That's the stage that they were at at this place. So I'm not saying that I was there when they felt like they had the offense figured out or anything like that. Because to that point, Brock Vandegrift is still just waiting on learning what type of offense he's going to be running. You could throw routes with receivers after practice and do all that stuff after workouts because it's February. But they didn't want to dig into at that time. He didn't want to talk about that Georgia matchup. Wasn't going to talk about that in depth. It's like you don't even know kind of who you're going to be from an offensive sample. You have an idea, but he said only super positive things about Georgia, of course, and his experience there and how when Todd Monkin got to Georgia, he's like, you know, he got he got there, I guess, after Monkin got there. But they get this playbook and it's massive. And he's looking around going, they're not going to dumb this down for us at all. Like this is what we got to learn. It's kind of like when you're in college and you kind of get that, you know, that syllabus and you realize like, we're going to be doing what every single week? Like that's, that's crazy. I'm really going to have to spend a lot of time on this. But one of the things that Brock did say about facing his former team, he said, it'll get here. And when it does, we'll be ready. It's here, Will. And I don't think he's already ready. I don't think you're ready. You just hit on why quarterbacks never give the good quote because you never know what you're going to be. You couldn't have anticipated a good book by South Carolina. But I'm here to tell you right now, even say we're ready. He sounds like a bitch. Yep. Sounds, I don't know that he's, look, I don't know that he's going to look like he's someone that is in mid-season form just yet. Because last we saw him on a football field, it was ugly. I mean, there's just no sugar coating it. It was ugly from top to bottom on the offensive side of the football. And yeah, they did a couple of things in the running game. But that was so bad from the Kentucky passing offense. There's just no world in which six months ago, when I had this conversation with him, that he thought he would be getting ready for Georgia while trying to move past the worst football game of his life. And those two things are very different beasts to try and conquer. And it's not ideal when they're coinciding with one another. Time will tell if Georgia or South Carolina has the best, the better group of past Russia's, I shouldn't say the best, but the better group. The good news for Vandy Griffith, if there is any, is that it doesn't look like Mike Hill Williams is going to be back. I'm pretty sure he's still going to be kind of banged up for this one early comments from Kirby Smart. He's in a walking boob, still working his way back from the injury suffered against Clemson. Not the full arsenal of Georgia past Russia's. I don't know that Kentucky's big blue wall, again, air quotes, the gate. I don't know that the big blue gate, yeah, I don't think they're licking their chops to face anyone at this point, okay? And that's not to discredit South Carolina and what they did, but they were so overmashed Kentucky was on the offensive line that there's no world in which those guys should be assuming that they're going to win one-on-ones with Georgia. They should be hopeful that the scheme is going to be tremendous, that they're going to get running backs who can pass protects, that they have rocked Vandy Griffith looking downfield and feeling like a guy that's confident and that can show mobility. I would be more, I would be more focused on that. You can talk about winning your one-on-ones all you want, but Kentucky will need that just to stay on the field with Georgia for 30 minutes to this one, much less 60 minutes. I already said randomness of the sport could yield some baffling results and watch Kentucky make this a fourth quarter game and we'll just be like, that makes no sense whatsoever. We just watched what this program did against South Carolina and now they're going to play 60 minutes against Georgia. Look, never rule it out. I don't see that happening. I'll take Kentucky to barely cover, barely cover, but it's a 30 to 7 Georgia win. That isn't exactly a game that's going to make Kentucky feel particularly good. Carson Beck is going to be working, I think, with some short fields and it's going to feel like it's over by the time they go to the break. And to be clear, as it was 24 and a half points spread, the whole, there is really no moral victory in covering from maybe standpoint. We could talk about what this means for stoops and all that after the game is played. I think it all depends on how it gets played, but it's starting to erupt. Do you think stoops has a pony up comment in the holster for this one or do you think if they lose this going away, it's not going to come up? I think that losing this game with the transfer quarterback is significantly worse than losing it without the transfer quarterback whenever you talk about. I mean, granted, they technically had a transfer quarterback last year too. They had two different, yeah, you're exactly right, but talking about, you know, the five star guy from the blue blind program, like when you go, there is a little bit of an Ivy League price difference between those two style of players, you know, even going back to Levis. It feels like they, I don't know, right? I don't know anything when it comes to this stuff. It's all behind the scenes, but it feels like Levis was like bargained in and it worked out for them. And it feels like next year it was kind of like, yeah, we'll see how this goes. And then Vanderbilt is pretty like, we know his name. He's been around. Those guys typically do better with NIL because they have more clout to them. So yeah, I think he was second. I bet if we're doing like starting price, which is actually a really interesting exercise of like, who was most expensive to acquire to least I bet Leary was most expensive. I bet second most was Vandergriff and then Levis was probably third. He had to be. Yeah, I think there's a big gap between two and three regardless and three is Levis. But yeah, it's interesting, right? Because well, let me say like this from a PR standpoint, at least from fans standpoint, they at least know Vandergriff, you know, maybe they were down to a little bit in Z-State. Sure. I mean, who doesn't appreciate Tim Beck, right? But at the end of the day, like, I think this is kind of a, you got this Viking. He's showing up from Georgia. He's here to save us. And in a way that, you know, especially with Levis, they're with Leary not working. So point being, I think that like this is going to be an interesting, like, like, so here's what I was going to say too. It's so rare that like we get to close the loop on a matchup the way that we will with South Carolina, Kentucky, right? Because there are truly three outcomes here. And by the end of this next weekend, we will know what the outcome is, right? So it was either South Carolina's pass rush is genuinely awesome, which is very possible. They're playing LSU at home. If they push around that offensive line, okay, good job, Beamer, you might have just saved your job. You have a great pass rush. Or is Kentucky unfixed because of blue broken, right? That's option two is the line so trash that they're going to get pushed around to like Arkansas levels last year. And like, it's going to be ugly fast. Okay. That's option two. I will present a third option, which is, is this the one, the three stoops puke on the shoes games that we tend to see every year. That's the third option because, and we can see that if they play well. You're saying South Carolina, if, if Kentucky, what would be the, the South Carolina loss would, we would look back as a puke on the shoes game. If South Carolina gets destroyed by LSU, is that what you're saying? No, no, no. I'm saying if the, if, if basically if Kentucky bounces back against Georgia and their line holds up and they look like they've played football before and at the same time, South Carolina plays well against LSU, then that was just clearly stoops puking onto shoes. Like it was, it was a, it was a good like matchup, but he just, they just didn't show up ready to play, you know what I'm saying? And so like, I think that's, that's the third option that sometimes can happen with stoops where it's like, Hey man, I don't understand this. Like sometimes there's a game where they just show up and aren't ready to play. So I think that because these two games are going on, you really could have an outcome where you go, yeah, I think Kentucky just wasn't ready to play last week. Like, I don't think this is really like anything beyond that. Cause we've seen stoops turn around seasons like that too. We saw stoops play really well with Levis in that game that they held Georgia to like a single score game. It was an ugly game that didn't feel like Kentucky was ever really going to win, but it was like that one Levis game, I believe that was in 21. The 21 game, they barely covered the spread because they went for it on the last play of the game and Wanda was diving into the end zone. I remember, but it was still a game that Georgia, I believe won by 15. It was something like that, but Kentucky barely covered because of what they did. And at the time, again, the 2021 Georgia defense, the story between the one that was like 10 to 16 in the, in the rain, like just a wire to wire slug. Yeah. Yeah. That was, that was a very low scoring game in which Georgia was up throughout, but it was, it was. Yeah. I mean, not a game that you ever. Just go ahead. Kentucky was going to win though. Yeah. Like they weren't getting curb stomped, which is like likely with a 20, with a 24.5, like that's a curb stomping, no matter how you slice it. So all I'm saying here is that we have like those outcomes where it's like, we'll be able to know about the Kentucky offensive line, the South Carolina defensive line, we'll be able to know about, you know, this quarterback like, is, do they have a problem with the undergriff? You'll be able to tell against Georgia. So like it sucks that it's a match out. Like you would think that, that, that South Carolina was in a position to get overwhelmed by a Kentucky team that had, you know, okay, we finally get everybody in the same room. These receivers are starting to not drop the balls off and we're starting to get on one page. Oh, just kidding. We're going to get smoked off the ball here. Is that an outlier? Because when you see Georgia, it's like Georgia is obviously going to be one of the most well coached DAP sound teams in the country, right? So it's like, they're not going to make mistakes. That's one thing that Georgia was like, Kirby will line up at a three tick if it comes down to it. If that's what it takes him to have a pass rush, he's going to do that. And so Georgia, you're right. Like Michael Williams and all that, like they really haven't had those guys post maybe like a 2021 where it comes to like, Oh, the top three, the top 10 front seven guys are all on Georgia. It feels like their defensive backfield has been a little bit more of their strength since then. And we kind of talked about that through all of 2022, like who is the, who is, you know, the guy on this team that is going to fill these gaps left by Davis and those boys and it really just never got filled. It was kind of a group effort. Yeah. Yeah. That's also very fair. Jalen Carter did do that, you know, but it used to be two, three, four guys, even going back historically with Georgia, they've always had those kind of guys and we get to learn those guys. That's the key. You know, it's, it's, it's sometimes because it's a group effort, you don't get like the hero, the situation of like a Dylan Stewart where it's like, Hey, that guy might not even have the opportunity to play at Georgia. Not that he shouldn't, but he wouldn't even have the opportunity because there'd be these guys who are like in the weight program know the play is a little bit better ahead of him. So point being like Georgia would rather be a group effort, right? Like, and you'd even see that with like the Alabama. It's like as much as, um, as great as like Will Anderson was, those Bama defenses were better when they were kind of like more of the Jonathan Allen mold where they had like all the front seven guys were coming after you. So point being, I think that's the mold that Georgia's trying to build here where it's not, we're leaning on one guy, one, you know, chase young slash Bosa that's going to either generate pressure or not. And if you erase that guy, we lose. So you have to be sound when you play Georgia, you just have to, it's not erasing one guy. It's not, it's not, you know, getting lucky. It's the fact that over the course of a game, we will see the talent level, the structure, the preparedness of his team. And like I said, I just unfortunately think that it could be a little bit ugly for Kentucky if we see the same version show up against South Carolina, because you're right. Like South Carolina really did get a lot of those opportunities. They converted a lot of those opportunities where it comes to hitting the wide open guys all that stuff. Carson Beck will not think twice about that. That's the thing. Carson Beck is known for and like say what you will about like the Bobo offense, but the whole scheme of the Bobo offense just don't make mistakes and hit the open guy, right? It's not even like a monk in offense where it's like, oh, you got like this middle screen going on. You got to read this guy and do this. It's like, no, we're going to throw it in slant route, a toss and we're going to make them stop it. And if you can't stop that, which is very possible for Kentucky right now, it's going to, it's going to tell a lot about where Kentucky is not so much Georgia. I think there are going to be some bad optics with three men rushes getting home against Kentucky. And that's going to spark the questions of what is Kentucky at this point? If you can't even hold up against that, that's the worst thing that we're saying about you. Where's the culture? Where's the identity of this program that was such a staple for such a long time for Mark Stoops. And if that group is struggling, it is definitely an indictment of where this program is at. And if they're not able to just do anything offensively, which after last week, yeah, some runs here or there, that's about it. I think that there were, we're going to be asking some very gloomy questions about Kentucky and with Georgia, obviously this would be business as usual. So I don't really think that changes the conversation, but Kentucky fans are bracing for it. They're, they're very much bracing for it. And that's why that spread is so unbelievably massive. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. Let's close with some lock of the week. Well, last week, your boy's going to ask us back, folks. Good God. I'm pounding the table. I just need to text my good reference, nice, nice call back there. I need to text my guy, Doug LaMarie, and be like, Hey, so did you see that an SEC team that beat a four win team at home who has not beat an AP top 25 team in seven years? They got into the top 25. Did you see an SEC team do that because Nebraska just did that? Just saying. Just saying. Um, whatever. First, I love the season. It was not a bet for Colorado was a bet against Nebraska, hand up, got it wrong, Dylan Ryola, looking good so far. Don't need the Pat Mahomes stuff. Still don't need that. Um, losing that hand up. Okay. Boy, can't win them all. I'm going to win them all from here on out though. So mark my words. One in one is about to turn in two and one because, well, UCF is a two and a half point favorite. We're going to go Smells on now. Well, when you put it like that, Fox seven, 30 Eastern kick little KJ Kendall Briles reunion. I don't know that he's going to be like, dude, you should have seen how bad it was with Danny, you know, Danny knows had me taken snaps under center. I hated this. Suck. I miss you so much. Um, UCF has faced nobody, absolutely nobody. So a little bit of some trust in KJ. I feel like I haven't said too many positive things about my guy this off season. I'm doing this just because I need to still be the number one KJ guy. I have nothing to back this up. No actual data. I don't know the exact splits, but my mind is telling me that KJ is a nighttime guy. And that will help in this game. When the lights come on, KJ is at his best. That's what I'm just going to be saying every time he does anything of significance on Saturday night. I've had some sneaky 12 team playoff buzz a little bit. I wasn't giving them that kind of love. I'm not putting them in the contender category in the big 12 or anything like that. But I am on board with the night being able to establish that ground game with a three, really four headed rushing attack that they've been able to establish and they're really going here. I'm going to take them to win what's kind of a pick them at minus two and a half. This is going to be definitely multi viewing for me on my YouTube TV. I made the switch. I may switch to TV. I have not been a multi view guy with games. I'm like, give me my one on my laptop, my one on my TV. I'll flip back and forth with another game. I don't like to just have like a million things going on at once. But I spent one Saturday doing the multi view thing. And I'll tell you what, it was on multi view for the majority of the day, not the first part of the day because I really wanted to lock in on Texas and Michigan. And I had Arkansas, Oklahoma State going on the laptop. But for the rest of the day, man, I think multi view is pretty solid viewing experience. I know it doesn't have the freedom that everybody would like it to be able to have. But for a first time user, I was impressed. And I felt like I was able to actually kind of lock in on the stuff that I wanted to lock into. Yeah. I'm a true like work from home, sicko. And I've, you know, cool thing about working in sports is like purchases like this. You know, you can get a little bit, you can write those off on your taxes because I truly just use it for game day. And so I write YouTube TV off on your taxes. Yeah. Cause you use it for work. Do you not? I mean, yeah, you couldn't do your job without YouTube TV dog. Okay. Think about it. Noted. Yeah. I mean, like, it just depends on, you know, the laws in your standard. I'm not giving anyone tax advice on this year podcast. But for me, I mean, that's a necessary to do your job, like, unless you want to use stream East or whatever, but I don't think that's a working way to do that. So yeah, point being, um, I, I have like the, the three TV set up. I got, uh, I got for prime day, I restocked on the, I had some TVs. We were joking about like, during media days, like if some, if I, I'm about to turn 30, like next week, anything that I still have from college, I'm going to find a way to get around it, like, either replace it or just stop using it because I feel like I'm getting to that age. And like, I had like an old burned out TV as one of my three, like, it was nice. People were just like, I have three TVs, but I pretty functionally only had two. So I was able to replace one and kind of like update one of the other ones. I was a little older. So I have, uh, like, they're all controlled from my, uh, phone and point being I do, like, I'll do a multi-view on one of them and it's super cool because I have ADHD. So my eyes are just darting back and forth. Um, this is the real sicko way to do things. So, um, but yeah, to your point, I, I don't exactly know what's going on with TCU. Uh, I feel like books will be written about what they did in year one under Sunday Dikes. I truly like how many just games as this team give it us that are close. It's like they're doomed to forever play in these close games. Like even, you know, Stanford game, um, like week one was like, Stanford almost beat them and had me thinking that Stanford had kind of turned it around. And like, so I do, this is kind of the inverse where it's like maybe, you know, betting on Gus can be a little bit finicky, even at this point, my as well betting of CCU because they had no business being in that game. They famously lost two Colorado and it got to put them on the hype train last year. So it feels like it's been a minute, like, I know they've had like some close game against Texas and such, but like, it's, it's just, they're all close games and they won all of them in year one. And they won none of them since they had almost, it's not a bet for Gus. It's a bet for KJ. Yeah. Okay. That's it. I want, I don't want that on record is like, Oh, hey, I'm, I'm all in, I'm all aboard the Gus bus. I definitely left sunny Dyke station, whatever that was. It was brief. It was fun. It was a trip. They had the, remember the, the, the horn frog with the, um, no, they hit me, they hit me toad. Yeah. That's what I was searching for the name for it. Yeah, good call. Um, they had the hit me toad. Remember that? It was wild man. Wild time. It's really was. Yeah, that goes in. Like we've talked about this a little bit before, but I would love to like interview search with media teams too and see they did so much work that first year that did well. And now that I'm involved a little bit more of this, it's like, what do you do? I'm sure they're wasting a ton of their efforts making these funny videos of the teams can go out there and, you know, puke on their shoes. So anyway, so point being, I, I'm so fascinated by the trajectory of TCU, especially in the new big 12. This is why these new coaches are always so hard to evaluate. We were joking the other day about putting dab on like number two vine curvy, which I hope we all realize is erroneous, but then the other side of that was doing all sunny dikes. He's like creeping up into that, like I'll eat tier after year one and it's like, it's not how this sport works. It just isn't. And so, you know, so point being, I, I, this is going to be a fascinating game. You've got to be definitely key into this or that'll be in the multi view for sure. Got to be on the multi view. That's, I mean, it's America's conference. Come on. Let's be honest. Yeah. Always got to have one game from America's conference on multi view. That's just the way that I roll. Mm hmm. All right. Let's kick to the Lord Rutledge. She has been everywhere these last few weeks. So great to have her perspective on all things Florida, the SCC nation jinx that may or may not but definitely does exist her career and a whole lot more. So here's Laura Rutledge. I'm not excited to be joined by a very special guest. It is Laura Rutledge, the one and only Laura tons and tons of stuff to be able to get to with you. But we've got to start with one of my favorite things and I am not exaggerating when I say that. As you can see here, I've got the honey baked ham helmet in my background. That's how much I'm a honey baked ham believer. You're partnering with honey baked ham. Once again, this football season. Tell us about all the new things that honey baked ham is doing and why it's become such a game day essential. Yeah. We have a lot in common with our love for honey baked ham and truly it's the best way to go about your tailgate or home gate situation. I think one of the things that I love most about the new edition this year, they have what they call a game day box, which is basically a one stop shop. It's a complete game day meal. You just roll up to your local honey baked store or honey baked.com/gameday and you get sliders, you get your sides, you get cookies. It's all in this great box that actually looks like a football field and there's even a little field goal game in there. It's like paper field goal, which is so fun and it just delicious and they've added a new slider option too that you can get as part of that, but it's the pulled pork Cuban sliders with their pulled pork and of course the delicious honey baked ham. It is just great. There's something for everyone. I love the sandwich platters, just so many great options for your tailgate or home gate and the thing that you can always count on is that it's going to be delicious. So you're not sacrificing any of the quality for the convenience and it's just always a crowd pleaser. Absolutely is personally endorsed to the ends of the world. I absolutely would. A big, big fan. Last weekend or actually, well this weekend, let's talk about your alma mater, Florida. You were there for the opener against Miami, fortunately, hopefully you were on the move for it for that game. Didn't necessarily have to stick around too much, but you were in Lexington last week when Kentucky got just destroyed by South Carolina. Dating back to last year, SEC nation is over five and it's last five on campus visits with four of those losses coming by at least 24 points. Why are you guys jinxing SEC teams? We did not want that to get out there, but I have been starting to feel badly about it. At first, we were kind of joking and we're like, "Maybe there's a curse." And then we're like, "No, couldn't me." After what happened last week, and this is no offense at South Carolina because I think they were probably better than we all thought, and they have really good defensive players, especially in the D-line, and I'm excited to see what Lenora Sellers can continue to do. But my goodness, to think that Kentucky would show up and play so poorly and all of that, I mean, that one felt like truly it could have been our fault. I don't know. It's so bad, and hopefully it ends. It needs to end this week. We're going back to Gainesville, Florida is going to have to beat Texas A&M, which is a tall task, but yeah, it's been pretty interesting. I mean, college football so far this year has been fascinating. I think even in the SEC, there's still a lot of question marks about some teams that we thought would be a little bit better. And then maybe some teams that have surprised some people, Tennessee, would come to mind as a team that I think people thought was a fringe chance to make the playoff. If they continue to play the way that they've played, they should be in the playoff. So it just always turns out this way, right? Like the preseason rankings are what they are, and then we see the actual football played and everything changes. It's still so early. There's so much time for a lot of these teams. That Florida would be better to start off the year, which really isn't saying much with how things have played out, but what's your take on how things have played out so far? Because I can't imagine there's any world in which you thought the Miami game would go that poorly. You know, I knew that Miami was a really talented team and Cam Ward at quarterback, I think, was deserving of all the preseason accolades that he got. So I knew it would be a challenge, but to lose that way at home, I think that was what was so tough. Tim Tebow actually told a story about being on the sideline with other Florida alum, and he felt like the alumni were wanting to get out there and even fight a little bit more than the actual players in the game, and that part's tough. I think there's some of that that's missing, and it's so hard to figure out what that exactly is, right? Is it the confidence to play so hard that you lay everything out on the line? Is it the ability, is it lack of a roster construction, is it lack of good play calling? Maybe it's just a combo of all of those things, and I think the interesting part is what you saw last week from DJ Lagway, which is, I think, Graham Mertz is really good, and I feel bad talking about this in a way of should Graham Mertz play again, but it's a little bit of a question after you see what Lagway brings to the offense, and I understand it was a lesser opponent, and that is very real, and it's important to keep in mind, but there were some things that Lagway can do with his legs, his incredible athleticism, and the ability to throw the football that really can stretch the field, which we haven't seen as much from Mertz. I just wonder what Florida's going to do when it comes down to their best chance to win. There's so much pressure on this coaching staff, so much pressure on this team. You got to think they're putting all their cards out there on the table and doing everything they can to make something happen. I'll trick you as it's a manage for a pregame show when you have a vibe that you know going in, it's not going to be at peak levels, and that feels like it's going to be the case at Florida, and it's not said that they want to advance there, tons of support and all that stuff. When you know going in, you guys are going to have to bring the juice, and you guys are going to be the ones that have to provide that vibe, because if you weren't, you just do SEC Nation from the studio, and it'd be like what 2020 was, so how difficult is that from your perspective, knowing that that's going to be something to have to overcome when you guys arrive? No, it's a real thing. It's something that every week I struggle with. I would liken this to, let's say you're going to be hosting a party and you're thinking, all right, I need to make this great for everyone, like how can they walk away from this feeling like they had a great time, and that is truly how I approach SEC Nation, not only for the people on the show, but like anybody who's there, anybody watching at home, I want them to feel like they are having the best time, they're getting great information, they're learning something, they're smiling, they're laughing, they're ready for what's going to be a great day in college football on a Saturday, so it's very real, and I will say this, we have some great things planned for Saturday, but I will be the entire time cognizant of the energy, cognizant of serving the crowd, but also serving the fan at home that may not be, you know, watching necessarily to hear anymore about Florida and Texas A&M, it's interesting, it's a constant balance, I mean even when we are at a place that has great energy, like last week pregame Kentucky, before they lost, everything, the vibes were high, you know, and everything was great, and just an amazing crowd in Lexington, and it's fun because, you know, you want to make sure you're serving that crowd, we did a show that was very much Kentucky and South Carolina, but then there's other great games to talk about, you know, Texas is going to Michigan, we had live shots of that because it was a noon game and all that, so no matter what the scenario is, there's a delicate balance of where you're at, and then also making sure you cover the entire league. You don't need production advice from me, but the break glass in case of emergency is just get the screen up, get the projection screen and just show Tebow running over like defenders left and right, that'll make Florida fans happy, that'd be good. It's true, I mean the one thing we can always count on in Gainesville is like hey, Tebow's here, you know, come on guys. Tebow up ahead of the crowd, everybody needs a little bit of a pick me up, is there one instance like that where that kind of stands out where you're just like, ah, it was really tough, you knew it was going to be going in, and the vibes were just not necessarily kind of what you were hoping, but maybe it worked, and maybe over the course of, you know, over the course of the show, you realize, okay, we actually feel like we picked these people up, and they were maybe not in the best place coming in. Yeah, that's a great question, and interesting because no one's ever asked this before, but we had a show, I believe this was last season, and I could be wrong because, honestly, my brain has scrambled eggs, but I think it was last season where week two, maybe it was the season before, but anyway, one of these times, week two, we were scheduled to be at Vanderbilt, and that was, you know, where we had said we were going, and so we're going to stay committed to that, but then there were other great games happening, there was one that was happening in, at Florida, and then there was another that was at Texas, so it wasn't in Alabama at Texas, so that's how to know what year this was, so it was two years ago, and we felt like, so at that point, Texas wasn't in the SEC, so we couldn't go there because we could only go to SEC schools, but we felt like we needed presence at these different spots, so we said let's try something creative, the main set, which was me and a couple of the other analysts, we are going to be in Nashville, then we sent Tiibo with Joe Tessator and Greg McElroy because they were there calling the game, we sent them to Florida, and then we had Roman Harper at Texas, and we were like, this is great, we've got the whole lead covered, this is massive, and it just didn't work. We had technical issues, and that happens in live television, as much as we have great people in our production crew, but it's just hard to make all this work, and we kind of bit off more than we could chew, and I get these crazy ideas, and our CP Baron Miller is awesome, and he's like, yes, let's do it, we're going to figure this out, and then real time, we were like, oh man, this is kind of flopping, and what I usually do in those moments is I'm like, how do we save it, what can we do, let's just move on, it is similar to playing in a game, I would think I've never played football, obviously, and I was a terrible athlete, so I can't speak to actually being in game doing this, but you play the next play, you put the bad play behind you, and I have found, as a perfectionist in my TV career, that truly the only reason why I'm probably even still doing this is because I finally figured out how to do that, then what I will do is beat myself up like crazy as soon as the show's over, but during the show, I'll try to be like, we just got to keep going, you know, and that has been a way, I think, to maybe salvage some of these that haven't always gone the way that we want them to. If you had an O-crap moment on air, besides that, it's like, yeah, if feeds cut, like that stuff happens, but an O-crap moment where you're like, I don't know what's about to come out of my mouth, things have just gone horribly wrong over the course of the last three seconds. I have had so many of those, I mean, there's so many, like, I think the worst one, though, and one that I still, this is not an exaggeration, like, I will have, I will wake up at 3 a.m. and think about this moment and think like, what is wrong with me, so this was, this was the few years, I mean, it's been years, I would say, like 2017 or 2016 or something, but I was doing SEC basketball, so we were, you know, on the SEC Network, and we were at a Missouri Kentucky basketball game, and I was going to get Coach Cal at halftime, and we were right in front of the Missouri Student section for some reason. I don't know why that's where it ended up, but that's just where their Student section is. It's a really difficult place to play, whatever. Obviously, Missouri has a storied basketball program. So I asked Coach Cal the first question, and he was always one of my favorites to interview, because you just never knew, like, it didn't matter what you were going to ask, and this is still true. We'll see it at Arkansas this year. He will answer it his way. So it was always just like a fun adventure, and I'm not somebody who goes into interviews with a ton of pre-planned questions, like, I will have options, but then I'll sort of react, you know, to what the person says, which I think is most of the time a great way to go about this, until you have a brain fart, or like, until you just take the wrong avenue, which is what I did here. So the second question, you know, the Student section was chanting something, they were so loud, and it was crazy, and I thought, let me see what he would do if I asked him about the Student section. I don't know why I thought that was a good idea, it's a terrible idea. I would not recommend doing anything ever of the sort like this, but whatever. So I do that, and he walks off and just like, you know, leaves me there, hanging, and I'm like, Adam Amin was the play-by-play, I'm like, back to you, Adam, you know, and then I'm like, ah, what happened? Like, I don't even know what happened. Well, turns out, the Student section was chanting, "Cal, you suck." But I couldn't tell that's what they were saying. So apparently it's very loud to the broadcast, right, and, but I've got all this in my ear. Like I'm hearing, you know, the producer, director, they're telling me, wrap it up, they're telling me this, that, and the other, and I'm like, I never even heard what they were saying, right? I don't even know if Cal heard. When I tell you, like, it was the worst. I was getting, you know, so much hate from Kentucky fans. I love Kentucky fans. I love Big Blue Nation, and I don't blame them for this hate. Like, that was a dumb question and should not have been asked. It got so bad that Cal in the press conference, post-game press conference, Kentucky wins, and he ends up saying to leave me alone in the press conference because he was like, it's no big deal. You know, whatever. I don't know. It'd be kind, but that was one that I learned a lot from because it was like, if you don't have something great that's going to come out of your mouth, just don't say it. It's better to be like, that's it. Bye. You know, and I still have, you know, just goofs all the time and mix ups, but that was one that I specifically think about still to this day. That's incredible. Absolutely incredible. One of your positive recent moments, I thought, was the Jayla Milro at the draft. Like when he's like, what up, what up, coach? Just infectious joy that I think anybody watching that, even if you hate Alabama, you're like, how can you not love this adorable little moment? Is there a memorable instance that you've had with, with Saban? I'm the desk being in this new role. And like, you know, I know SEC media days, you're with him as well. But like having him on that media side with you, I bet, is just a different, different type of animal to be able to tackle. I mean, he's so good. He's just so good. And it's not like any of us thought he wouldn't be because we had seen him on TV before, but I think maybe what doesn't get noticed as much or maybe not talked about as much is the preparation that he's putting in, which of course we would expect because it's Nick Saban. And this is how he is. He's maniacal when it comes to his prep. But one of my favorite moments at media days was that day one, you know, we were on the air from like 9 a.m. to noon or one, it was, it was a three to four hour show. And we get off the air, you know, we've done, we did the whole time. You don't really get up because you, you kind of can't, you know, we're, we're like just talking the whole time or we're waiting for somebody at the podium, then they come to the set and it's, you know, it's, it's a long show, right? Well, we get off, we're kind of breaking it all down in the production office and Saban's like, so that's it for the day, like, I don't have anything else. And we're like, well, yeah, coach, I mean, you, you know, you just did three and a half hours. It was kind of long. And he's like, well, I want to do more. I, I thought I was coming here to work. We were like, okay, you know, and then truly it was funny. After that, we added him to more stuff. We were trying to be, you know, like, respectful of his time and we didn't want to overdo it. And, and this guy's out here, like, no, I prepped all the teams. I want to talk about all the teams and, and, you know, by golly, he did. So just, I think that's been so cool. And he is truly one of my all time favorites to just talk to, to learn from, to hear stories from. I think he's a great storyteller and, you know, what, what we've seen that's been so cool is just how much fun he's having and you're seeing that on game day, which that they're doing a wonderful job, putting him in those spots and he's, you know, just taking it and running with it. But I, I think that's been cool and I've seen a lot of Alabama fans even who have been like, okay, I'm at peace with what's happened now seeing him smile the way that he's smiling on TV. It's been really fun to watch, really, really fun to watch and he's good, darn good. I mean, it's unbelievable. It really is. It's not fair. How good he is this early. I know. I don't want to like overstate, you know, TV is hard and all that, but it is, you know, in live TV is a whole different beast. This is not scripted. Like there's a loose plan on what's going to happen, but especially shows like game day, SEC nation that we don't, we're out in the middle of everything. There's no teleprompter. Like it is all just off the cuff and can be wild and crazy. Last one before I get to some rapid fire with you. I know you're happy with like your million different roles at ESPN. And I always think this is interesting to talk about with you because last year he talked about, you know, the one day maybe getting to do some behind the camera type production stuff. And that was something that that was in mind. But and I know that right now the way that it's set up, like Reese Davis is doing great things with college game day. But if he ever were, let's just say this world exists where Reese Davis says, I'm gonna do what Chris Fowler did. I'm going to focus on going to the booth. I want to call big time games and I'm a step step down from college game day. And if ESPN was like, Laura, we'd love for you to be able to host college game day. Would you do it? I would love to do it. Yeah. I mean, you know, the reality is like Reese is the absolute best Chris is the absolute best before him. And I think what's cool for me is being able to watch them and learn from them. And Reese and Chris both have been wonderful to me. And I won't name the person, but there was a ESPN executive that, you know, not long ago was saying, you're in the conversation with these guys and I'm like, what, me, you know, no, I'm not. I'm nowhere near the level of what they are. I still have so much work to be done and so much that needs to go into, you know, getting anywhere close to their level. But I think that there has been some acknowledgement of that, which I'm so thankful for and I wouldn't be the case if not for them at times showing me how they've done these things. I mean, Joe Tessator taught me how to do SEC nation years and years ago, nine years ago now, which is crazy to think. And so I think for me, it's just this reality of like these guys and girls should be able to do whatever they want to do for as long as they want to do it. And then if an opportunity comes because they've decided that they want to step away, I'll be ready. And the more time that I have to like get ready, the better because I'm sure there are things that, you know, would still need to be worked on and I mean, Reese is like his own worst critic too. He'll always be like, well, this could have been better. That could have been better. And I'm like, dude, you're the best doing it, you know, like, like to see somebody like that who holds himself to such a high standard and just the detail that he puts in. I don't get to always watch all of game day because we're on at the same time in their second hour, we come on as our first hour, but I always try to tune in right at nine because we're not on yet and just see how he opens the show. And I was telling him recently, his open and Dublin was just so cool. And somebody there like videoed him doing it because we never see him, right? You just hear his voice and like the excitement and his voice, but he's like physically doing it, you know, and I have a very different style. I can't do that, right? And I accept that. I can't beat him and that's okay, right? But it was just so cool to see, I told him, like, to watch him actually do the open of the show. And I was thankful that that person, I think it was like a local Dublin media recorded that. So anyway, I'm just, I don't know, this is all beyond anything I would have ever imagined doing. So I'm just thankful to even be asked a question about it or to maybe even be slightly in the mix way down the road whenever something happens. I want to get you out of here with some rapid fire. Just five questions. First thing that comes to mind is I work for you. Love it. All right. First one, when you are flying back from San Francisco to Connecticut, besides sleep, let's just say you do have something that you want to entertain you, like listen to music, listen to podcasts. What is your source of entertainment? Usually music and specifically on that flight, I was listening to Noah Kahn's live album from Fenway Park that he just released. Great. If you haven't heard it yet. Hey, that's a good answer. What's your, your pep talk for Reese after her very atypical O&2 start? It was so funny. She doesn't know. Like I explained to her that both of her pics have been wrong. And she's like, Oh, no, that's not right. She's telling me I'm wrong, like that, that she was right and that the, the, the team she picked won the games. I'm like, girl, they didn't, but okay, you know, and it's going to be interesting. We always film her pics on Wednesdays. So we're doing it tonight. Still pick Florida and am I'm going to be fascinated to see what she goes with because she usually will pick the Gators just for out of respect to me. But I'm going to have a talk with her before and say, you do not need to pick mom as team. If you don't want to, like, if you want to, that's fine and she may do it, but I don't know. I'm going to, I'm about to tell her that Jack's going to have to take over for a minute here. She doesn't get it together. She starts out in four. It's Jack, you're up. It's done. I know. Right. Okay. True or false, honey baked ham is normalizing, eating Hawaiian rolls year round. And that's a wonderful thing true, true, true. And I, I am somebody who loves Hawaiian rolls to the point that like, I'll just eat them out of the pack. But what I found with honey baked ham is that they are better with ham and Swiss or turkey and cheddar or pulled pork and ham and Swiss and pickle, you know, so true. Okay. Yeah. That was a softball. These last two are not softballs. I promise. This is still on your, your college football bucket list. Oh, I was just talking to somebody about this. I, I've never been to Penn State. So it seems like that atmosphere is crazy. I would love to go to a game there. That's good answers. Well, okay. Last one. What do we have to do to get you in college football 26? Because I am kind of baffled that you got left out of college football 25. Dude, they didn't put any women in there and I don't want to cause a whole thing. But I mean, put Holly Row in there. Come on. It doesn't have to be me, but you got Holly, you got Molly, you got Katie George, you got so many options. And I don't know what happened with that. So I think they're going to rectify that next time around fingers crossed. They do the right thing. They need to. They absolutely need to. Laura loved that you ran it back with honey baked ham. Everyone should go check out all their game day offerings. You really cannot beat it. I cannot endorse it enough. Thanks again and hope to be able to do this soon. Absolutely. Thank you. Appreciate it. Well, what's close with some latter of the week? We have the same latter week, right? Of course. I mean, Thomas Hammack, lad of the decade, lad of the year, early running for lad of the year. We need to keep a lot of the year tally, for sure. He's in the discussion. He's definitely. It's early. There's a lot of football left to be played, but man, it's going to be really tough to beat what he did at Notre Dame last weekend. First Mac team to ever beat an AP top five team. Some are saying return to the Mac. I'm saying return to the Mac. Oh my God. The fact that this guy, I wanted to go off on a tangent on return to the Mac lyrics and how they're actually ridiculous. And it's just a testament to the song itself and how it's an unbelievable bop, but we don't have to do that. We'll save the discussion for another time. But the fact that Thomas Hammack doesn't set his all in the water and we get this post game moment with him. It felt so genuine, so authentic. It was incredible. It was absolutely incredible. If you haven't somehow seen the clip yet, go watch it. I mean, the guy is just in tears and he's talking about, you know, they believe they didn't need any luck. You know, I told him, you play your game, you're going to be able to come in here and win. And it's just, it was one of those moments where you're just like, how can you not be romantic about college football? You know? Like, what I love is that a win like that instantly puts him in the national spotlight. And I'll be honest, look, I cover the sport nationally. I'm originally from the state of Illinois. Could I have told you anything about Thomas Hammack before that Notre Dame game? Nope. Okay. But since that victory, he's gone on a bunch of different shows. He's went up part of my take. He's, you know, doing interviews with CBS Sports. I think he's on McAfee. Like he's been, he's been all over the place. And for those just saying, ah, you know, that's what you do. You're just capitalizing on your 15 minutes of fame. We'll forget about you. Yeah. I get that, but you also owe it to your program. You owe it to yourself to soak in that spotlight because those opportunities do not come around very often. And again, for a max school, they come around never. I loved that he was just brought to tears too, because it's one thing. If you're like, you know, you're just rallying with the guys and it's, and it's like you get this cool post game, like little speech or something like that. The fact that he was already like that overcome with joy was, it was, it was awesome. I mean, like, we're still always talking about this too. Think about the moments in your life in which you've been brought to tears from joy. I thought of it before because I think it's a good exercise for anybody to do. And I've had four moments that, that's happened to me, clenching a trip to, to state with my high school baseball team, my brother, our all state first baseman made a grab over the railing. That still gives me chills. Just thinking about it. Um, wedding day, it's an obvious one comes winning the World Series, another obvious one, and then Claire being born, like, Oh, those are the four. Those are the four were just like, the joy is just exploding and you just like, you savor this and you don't know how you're going to react in these moments in life. And the fact that he was that vulnerable, I loved every second of it, loved every second of it. And I think you watched that one. That's pretty awesome, man. It's pretty awesome. Yeah. I fully agree. I mean, I think so much about this matters, right? Um, you know, to your point about like what we know about NIU, um, yeah, he's the running back that actually came before Michael Turner. Oh, yeah. Turn on the burner. My dad sold him a car back in the day. True story. Oh, that's fire. See, there you go. So there's your connection point. So yeah, I actually, it was funny because I was like, I just kind of like, played like after, but I forgot that like, that's, that's just like how life works. You know, we're kind of, we're getting a little older. It's like, no, that guy actually played before Michael Turner and, you know, love, love a chunky head coach. Um, on a more serious note, I think it is, you know, important to have, like, uh, black head coaches or people of color coaching. And so it's really cool to see a guy who played there, you know, I'm saying, and this is his home and, you know, he, he's led them to, you know, success. They've had, you know, nine wins. He's in, you know, it made like Kerbal, they've kind of been, you know, not as, as great as kind of like the 2010s era, but that was just a very special player in Jordan's time. Yeah. That's what I was going to say. The gap between Michael Turner and Jordan Lynch is like, kind of what we don't know, but he was right around there with Turner. So point being, yeah, and, and, you know, going and like winning the Mac in 2021. And it just feels like this is kind of the dream situation where you have a guy who played, you know, for this school, didn't exactly get it in the, you know, in the LFL was kind of bouncing around, right? And got like, you know, and we see these paths all the time, right? It's very rare, um, for an African American, a coach to have the chance that Marcus Riemann had. And that's why it's actually pretty crazy that these two guys are in the same field. You know, because usually it is the guys like a Billy Napier that would get those chances younger, like occasion looking guys. So, um, point being like, it's super duper cool to see that level of joy, that unfiltered joy where you see at the top levels of the sport when you have these guys are a little bit more robotic. Or if they are excited, it's, it's often more about, you know, higher power or about something like that. Whereas, you know, this dude is just so overcome with happiness that all of his efforts led to this moment, you know, the fourth down call of the resort that resulted in a touchdown. Um, you know, again, it's, it's, it's just, it's so interesting because Notre Dame, you know, I, I know we all got very used to rooting against them for our whole lives and specifically with Brian Kelly, because they were just good enough to kind of cost our team's chances to do things. Uh, but this, this Marcus Riemann tenure is going to be a very interesting thing, right? Because it's like, well, you know, we, um, we were told this is a guy that was going to come in and win the big game. And now it's like, well, he's losing the two Mac teams. Like, what are we going to do here? So yeah, this is just a very, this, this matters. Like this one really matters. I think it matters in the trajectory of NIU who has a former player at the helm who can now recruit off of this. Like there was a joke about like, they have a recruiting thing that was like, Hey, send this your tape. And like, so it was like, wow, Notre Dame got beaten by a team that's like recruiting on Twitter. And it's like, yeah, like this really does matter where you factor in like that they show they could compete on that level. Guys might start checking for an idea in a way that they haven't since kind of the 2000s. And then on the other end, it's like, you know, what does this mean for, for Marcus Freeman, where they just have these bizarre losses that are just like, you know, you beat A&M and everyone feels like this is the game that Brian Kelly would have lost. And then you lose the game. It would have won. So Notre Dame just feels like they're kind of in a treadmill no matter who's there. But I love the confidence to think that they were past all this. And in fact, you have one very jolly lad standing in their way and boy, was he blocking that marathon Saturday? It was. Yeah. I mean, just such a like, it's crazy to think that you can get that in week two of a college ball season. And without everything that's going on with NAL, Transportal playoff expansion, revenue trade, like all that other stuff to get a moment so authentic. And for a group of five team that has to deal with that on a yearly basis, guys are getting poached there. If they're they're good enough, they're either going to the NFL or they're going somewhere else. And are we going to be able to hang? Like, are we just going to cash these checks to go to places like this, truly get our teeth kicked in and be on our merry way and accept the fact that we're not even going to be competing at this level. And it's interesting, you know, like I saw what he said on PMT about having conversations with Marcus Freeman after and how he is kind of, I don't want to say like provided the blueprint for how to beat Notre Dame, but he's like, yeah, I'm willing to help him out. And he's already accepted the fact that he's not looking, even though NIU gets into the top 25, which if you're into the top 25 now as a group of five team, that's like, Oh my god, maybe we can get the group of five nod to be able to get his 12 team playoff and it's a different conversation with then what it used to be. But even he is accepting this reality of like, yeah, we're very likely not going to face each other again. Yeah, I'd love to be able to help my I want Notre Dame to be awesome because I want to be able to have them, you know, you know, continue to have success and make our win look look really good. I kind of like that transparency that he's willing to do that. And he's not just like, Oh, no, I'm not going to, you know, I'm not going to sit here and have these, you know, conversations and what we saw, why we were able to take advantage of certain things despite the fact that it's not a single four star on that roster. That was one. And they're able to do that against the top five program. Yeah, it was just a good reminder, especially in a slate, like what we have in week three, where we got some lopsided spreads, a whole lot of lopsided spreads on top 25 match ups. Never sleep on this sport, never, ever, ever discount the possibility of a crazy Saturday. I'm saying we delivered that for us. Yeah. You're right. I mean, that's the thing that we fell in love with about the sports. Good to see a little bit of it. Right. Kind of the brotherhood of these coaches. And I mean, beating Notre Dame on NBC has to be so special. That's just like going into the empire and blowing up the Death Star. But getting an NBC interview, yeah, after the win, South fan, man, that actually made it that much sweeter too. It's like the fact that it's their network and you're doing this. And like, I'm sure for so many people that just like hate the Irish, that was a big time moment, just to be able to just savor. And so then Notre Dame, I think the Notre Dame band was playing in the background too while that was going on. I was like, Oh man, I get the idea of that all the time. But a little bit of context, baby, maybe just pulling on any sort of music afterwards was exactly a music occasion after losing to it to NIU, but yeah, I love Marcus Freeman and I hate that he has to be in Notre Dame, but unfortunately, I got already good to you. It's true. This is true. All right. Week three, if you have not, please, please, please leave us a five star view. Try to our YouTube channel. We have so much stuff. We have all of our matchup breakdowns on our YouTube channel. So if you're like, Hey, I kind of just like to be able to listen to my team. Go watch our YouTube breakdowns of every single game that we talk about with our preview pods that we can do. Talk about all of our content, all of our interviews and stuff started on south on YouTube. Let's get that up to five thousand subs love to be able to get that within the next week or so. If you have not already done so, please also follow us on Twitter at the STS pod at set on south at T's your girl at go so hard. Thanks guys. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)
Week 3 is here! The guys have a full breakdown of picks and previews (1:00) for Alabama-Wisconsin, LSU-South Carolina, Boston College-Mizzou, Texas A&M-Florida, Ole Miss-Wake Forest and Georgia-Kentucky. ESPN's Laura Rutledge joined the show to discuss her renewed partnership with Honeybaked Ham, Florida's rough early-season vibes, working with Nick Saban, her career and more (1:16:00). The guys close with Lad of the Week (1:39:00)!
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