We're excited to announce our latest video series College Town, the series that dives deep into the heart and soul of Southern football culture. I'm Wes Blankenship, your guide as we embark on an 1,800 mile adventure across five legendary college towns. From Gainesville to Chapel Hill with unforgettable stops in Athens, Tuscaloosa, and Clemson, we explore the rich traditions, passionate communities, and electrifying game day rituals that make each location a pilgrimage site for college football enthusiasts. Join us as we discover local hotspots, connect with devoted fans, and soak in the excitement that elevates these towns to legendary status every fall, all powered by the powerhouse Toyota Tundra. Buckle up, it's time to hit the road with us and uncover what sets Southern College football apart from the rest. Watch every episode at SaturdayDownSouth.com/college-town or hit the link in our bio. Hey, what's going on? This is the Saturday Down South podcast I am Connor O'Gara. Will? Welcome to 30, man. How's it feel? Feels great, man. Appreciate it. Yeah, I brought in 30 like the best way I know how, which is Drew Page came down, Brady came down. We all just like watch college football all day. It was just a super fun. That's the thing, man. And you just kind of talked about the amount of responsibility we all have. And it's like, that's the stuff you start to like kind of cherish the most is just hanging out with your boys, no responsibility, phone on D&D. It's like, that's, that's, you know, that's that I made it. That's, it's impressive that you, I think you have more of a voice this week after your 30th birthday and last week after LSU South Carolina, which look, if anybody's given you crap for it, think about how you all felt the day after your 30th birthday. Well, I guess two days after, you've had a two day recovery period. So Friday, Saturday birthday. Yeah, that's right. I love a good weekend birthday. Nothing like you just get the entire weekend. And it's like, oh, yeah, it's, it's still my birthday. It's Sunday. As far as I'm concerned, it's still your birthday. Well, so glad you guys say. Cool, man. So if I mispronounced a weird name, just be like, you know what? That's his name now, whatever. If we get a Kirian Lacey from Will, a Kirian Lacey who can't stop, you know, with the drops. I'm on it. I'm on it. Great player, can't stop with the drop. Yes. 100%. All right, we got a lot to get to a lot to get to. We're going to do overreaction and proper reaction at the end. So we'll clean up some of the stuff. That's not part of our, our main five year, but you know where we're starting, Will. Josh Hyple told me like me now. Keith, win. I'll tell you what, he's not on his way. He's there. He's there. As he said afterwards, if you, if you saw the post game speech in the locker room, look, even for people that didn't have a dog in the fight, chills watching it, he says it wasn't about him, but it meant a lot to him that Tennessee brought a little something extra for him. Perfectly said, perfectly said, because Tennessee goes into Norman, beats Oklahoma 25 to 15. Weird score. Very, very weird score for this game. Yeah. Can't say that was last weekend. Yeah. Yeah, it was like a Berman. It was like a Chris Berman score. That's what, that's what that was. Uh, wins, Tennessee was their first road game. He has an AP top 15 team since George W. Bush administration. Will W. W. Yeah. Yeah. More relevant for this team currently. Entering Saturday, Josh Hyple was one and 12 as a head coach when his teams did not hit 30 points last year that win against A&M. Uh, game at home in which we're like, it was pretty gross. It was pretty gross. Yeah. Tennessee showed up and played well defensively that game. I think we looked at the A&M quarterback situation with Max Johnson starting that game. And the takeaway was, boy, this Tennessee offense is really, really limited. Will I watch this game? And, um, I, I came away from it thinking, even if Oklahoma ends up going seven and five, which we're going to get to the Oklahoma side of this in a second, I'd still say that was so much more impressive with that atmosphere and to do so in that fashion when Tennessee just had all of these different layers to it. Oklahoma was its biggest home underdog since 1998, something we talked about in the preview. And Tennessee covered and won that game by double digits. I think it felt even more bobsight and want the final score indicated. If we're being honest, they finally allow a touchdown. Tennessee did after 19 consecutive quarters of not allowing an offensive touchdown alone, touchdown. Of course, the pick six that NC State had, but to, to do that in that place, man, unbelievable. And to, to force Jackson Arnold to the bench before halftime. Yep. More on that in a second. This Tennessee defense, we knew it was good. Will we knew it was good, but I came away so much more impressed with that group. 222 yards allowed. Oklahoma had two yards per carry with sack adjusted rushing yards, 11 TFLs for Tennessee, three turnovers forced. Of course, all of which happened in the first half against Jackson Arnold, human peeling, Jerma McCoy, those guys were everywhere. Joshua Joseph's forcing that, that the fumble right after the Niko in a lot. Yeah. Wow. This whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, big game. Got there. Good Lord. Right after the Niko Yamalayava turnover. Biggest sequence of the game, biggest sequence of the game, because Tennessee has that strip sack. They're dealing with issues on the left side of that offensive line with Lance heard out. They're trying to shuffle things around. And Oklahoma looks like it's got a golden opportunity down 10 to three. And then boom, right after they take over in the red zone, Jackson Arnold gets the ball poked away in the pile. They didn't even know on the broadcast, it was a fumble. But now that was when I don't know about you. I looked at that moment. I'm like, Oklahoma's cooked the same. You know, dude, it's so funny because we did the exact same thing. We were actually at Peyton's old restaurant. So Peyton's in South Carolina now, my buddy, that's a chef. And we were at his old restaurant, and we had two phones like propped up in the corner. It was such a cool setup and everything. And so basically me and Brady, like looked at each other, we're like, okay, if they don't score here, they're an unserious football team. And it's like, that's so true because they were given such an opportunity that didn't like, they deserved it, obviously, because they forced it, but they were not moving the ball down the field. They would not naturally gotten themselves in a position to be that close to the red zone. And they're that close to the goal. And it's like, yeah, you get one play in Jackson Arnold. Like I was, I was joking about it in the free game. I was like, I don't think they by themselves can destroy Oklahoma. But I think Jackson Arnold's going to help. And he did. Did he in this game? He was a Tennessee asset through golly golly. Can you think and the Tennessee defense deserves immense credit for putting them in those spots, saw a lot of instances on Saturday, especially in that Auburn Arkansas, the Arkansas Auburn game in which beauty of the game? Well, we'll get to that. You saw instances in which quarterbacks looks looked just lost, and they're throwing in to coverage that you're like, what in the world are they seeing? Even Arch Manning did it at a couple of points in that game. And that was an instance in which you realized, oh, this dude is all in his head right now. He's he is so unbelievably flustered by this Tennessee defense. Think about how comforting that is for Nico to know that every time that dude takes the field, he's like, yeah, I can play with him myself. I can trust this scheme. I can trust the past catchers. I know that my running back very likely Dylan Sampson. If there's any sort of running lane, just mark him down for at least six yards. Like, and he didn't get angry on their man. Yeah, this is a fun Tennessee team. You're so right about that. Like Tennessee continues to prove themselves. And it's so cool watching Josh Hyple. You know, we talked about that was kind of the first thing we talked about on the podcast was how is just Hyple going to do? And the SEC, and he has literally rebuilt this theme through the trenches, the point where they can hit the road and just conquer Oklahoma. Like that was was a big man. Yeah, it was. It really was like Nico playing with that kind of confidence. And I realized that the numbers weren't anything to write home about. This isn't necessarily a game where all of a sudden you say Nico's the favorite in the Heisman Trophy discussion or anything like that. But the confidence that that kid showed in his first true road start to me really stood out. The ball that he ripped to Dante Thornton for the first touchdown in the game was a thing of beauty. And it's one of those plays that if it's 15 yards fewer than what it was, it kind of looks a bit like some of those two of the Jalen Waddle RPO slant touchdowns that we used to see on the first play from scrimmage or something like that circa 2019. But those guys diagonally it's over. Yeah, this this pass was 32 yards, 32 yards on a line in stride to a guy that I think Tennessee fans would admit. That's where you want to put it. What's on say Thornton? That's all I'll say about that. But to have that throw in that moment, I thought that just allowed everybody on that Tennessee sideline to kind of exhale on the offensive side of the ball. I liked that Hypel had a relatively conservative game plan. This one, what did Nico end up with like 13 completions on 20 attempts or something like that with all of that build up instead of being like a we're going to need you to throw the football 35 times. Hypel talked about that in the post game. He realized very early on my defense came out hungry and I'm not going to need to necessarily worry about trying to like have my guy do something on the road against a really good Oklahoma defense. And in my opinion, improved its stock. I'm not going to have to worry about asking him to do those things. Now they still needed to hit on those chunk plays. And there were the three chunk plays that really stood out that one to Thornton and then two to Broomacoy. Great to see him getting involved for this Tennessee offense after he's still kind of working his way back from that ankle injury that Holly Rowe was talking about all the things he went through in the off season. But you weren't going to methodically drive the football down the field against this Oklahoma defense. And we saw even the opening script. What do we always say about the Josh Hypel opening script? It'll score against the 85 Bears. Yep. Best scripted coach of all time. I mean, I do it. I mean, like he's an all seriousness. He's up there. Yeah. And to see the Oklahoma defense come out and actually kind of put the clamps on early. Like, all right, this we're going to have ourselves a ballgame. But I thought it was a tremendously coached Tennessee team in every facet. And you know, they obviously had to overcome some of those issues. Like I talked about on the left side of that offensive line. If there's kind of an Achilles heel, maybe maybe that's it. But man, like even in a day in which it kind of felt like a grind for the Tennessee offense where Dylan Sampson's held under 100 yards. He doesn't get to four yards per carry with how hard that dude runs. And they still felt like they were in control of that game. And yeah, man, it's we're going to probably say this a lot. So I apologize if this is going to be repetitive. But Tennessee has a championship level defense truly. And you can think that the Oklahoma offense has a lot of issues to work on. And I won't push back on that whatsoever, obviously. But so far, in this college football season, for my money, nobody's been more impressive than Tennessee. Nobody. Yeah, I feel I agree. I had to look this up really quick. There's just like talking about we joked about Vandegrift against South Carolina. And like, so ESPN QBR is like that total stat, right? He was a 1.4. In this last game, Jackson order was a 1.3 QBR. So he actually beat the Vandegrift record of words. QBR is it? Yeah, they had like nine consecutive plays that went for zero or negative yardage before he got benched in this one. Like, just to put a bow on this for Tennessee for a second. Most impressive so far in September, it to me suggests that this team, gosh, if they don't go 10 and two at this point with what they have shown us so far, I'll be stunned. Obviously, they still have George on the schedule. They still have Alabama on the schedule. And even Florida has been their boogie man, Florida fans, I'll remind you of that in two seconds. But in Gainesville, true, very, very true. That's where they've been the boogie man this year, of course, that game in Knoxville. But I just think that this Tennessee team is so multifaceted. And if you're ranking Ohio State ahead of them at this point in the season, I would say why when Ohio State has just had a preseason in Tennessee, has looked as good as it did away from home twice against teams that yes, NC State is straight basura that defense is not particularly good. But teams that we at least thought coming into the season. All right, like preseason top 25 teams in doing so away from home and showing all the strengths that they have, like it's so hard to find weaknesses with this Tennessee team. Even the secondary that I'm like, you know what, coming in all that turnover, they're hitting dudes in the mouth, man. Like Tim Banks has that defense feeling so confident playing downhill. And I'm really impressed. Like didn't have Tennessee in the playoff coming into the year. Mike go down as my my single worst take. I'm like, I'm trying not to get ahead of myself. I'm really trying not to because obviously there's room for improvement with this. But at this point, man, if you're not putting Tennessee among those national championship contenders, I'd say, what are you turning to besides pre 2024 history like that, that would be my biggest thing at this stage. Anything else on Tennessee before we get to some Oklahoma stuff. Yeah, I mean, I'm right there with you. It's weird. Like I said, I kind of almost feel like proud of Josh Hypo the way he's like developed this team. I was talking about that with obviously Brady went to UCF and it's like, you know, he kind of has these three pools of talent he can pull from, right? Like, so he's really good at finding like diamonds in the rough style guys, right? Like he had that UCF and he can kind of find that Tennessee guys. You're like, Oh, well, this new role for this guy. Like I couldn't imagine him playing this well, right? At Tennessee, he also has like NIL. So you can see that with Amalayaba. He can go up and get some of those like high four star like low five star recruits, right? Yeah. And then like, I think he also is crushing the transfer portal, right? So the guys at the top are always good. So when you look back in like 2022, it was five or six really impact players and they didn't have the depth. So they, and that's when he was like scripted play king, right? Now it's like, you know, you can take this on the road. Like I said, go to Oklahoma and it's not, oh, we have this offense. It's really flashy, but it runs out of gas and we put our sail, which we're never legs when we run. It's like, no, we got Dylan Samson. He's just crushing you every other run. It's like you don't, he's running angry on the road in Oklahoma when this was a finesse team, right? Like all the questions about Josh Hypo work, finesse guy, he's got Dylan Gabriel, he's got, you know, how is he going to respond to SEC size and speed? Like we said, the way he's rebuilt these lines is crazy. I think that Tennessee, they don't strike me as this seems better than 2022. I think it's, I think it's that simple. I won't push back on that. I won't push back. Obviously, a lot to be determined. There are people listening to that going, ah, you know, same old, you know, they're going to go, they're going to go up against Georgia and they're going to get smacked and they're going to go, they're going to have that loss. They shouldn't have possible college football, man. Tennessee, like Tennessee still does some wild stuff. They're new to the game, but in terms of just being sound, I think a team that I feel confident picking just did a lot for that. Yeah. Like when we do all these matchup breakdowns, we try and figure out how's this team going to get got, you know, how's this team going to get exposed this week? It's just difficult to find the way that you're going to do this against Tennessee. I'd say, yeah, if you get off to a 14 to nothing lead against them and see what it looks like to have Nico try and rally back for the first time in his career, which he really hasn't had to do yet. Yeah. I guess that formula might might be good. Good luck. I mean, the thing is too, it's like, I was, I was kind of like being, you know, like jumping on Jackson Arnold, but it's like, at the end of the day, the other side of that is like, Tennessee said, you know what, right now, Tennessee, Oklahoma has a breath of air. They are starting to come up from air. We're just going to step on their neck really quick. That's even scarier, right? It's easier to believe. Oh, Jackson Arnold did XYZ because if not, it's like, oh, Tennessee got the ball for the first time in kind of a bad situation and actually got better and forced to fumble and then took right back over. Can let's, let's do a quick exercise before we get to Oklahoma. Can you pull up their schedule right now? Oklahoma schedule. We're going to do a, we're going to do a rare recap over under here. Okay, cool. So we're at. No, pull up Tennessee schedule. Okay, Tennessee schedule. We're at Arkansas. Right, which, I don't know that Taylor Greene's going to like running into that defensive line very much. I am very much pivoting away from that preseason prediction that Arkansas would be Tennessee. I'll say that right now. Okay, your boy was wrong. If I set the over under for regular season wins, 10 and a half for Tennessee, knowing that Bama still is there, knowing that George is still there with what we have seen so far. Willow, what'd you take? I mean, yeah, I think those are the only two games they could potentially lose. I think I'll probably split those to be honest because you're not, you know, scared of Florida, Kentucky. Yeah, it's just those two games. So I think, I think they'll split them, man. I mean, I don't think you can go out in two with how talented and well coached they are. I think, yeah, yeah, the beauty is that the difference between this team and 22 is you can be 10 and two with Tennessee schedule and make it into the college for all playoff. And if they do that, what a nightmare team to have to prepare to face. I mean, in every facet, especially late in the season, if you're dealing with depth issues and the tempo that they try and run, all those different things. Yeah, I'm fascinated. I'm absolutely fascinated with the trajectory of this program right now. Okay, then versus Alabama is going to be fascinating. We have plenty of time to talk about that. That's that one feels a little bit more likely when then at Georgia again. But yeah, maybe with what Michael Hawkins showed coming in for Jackson Arnold, if there's like an Achilles heel, and this is something that Herb Street talked about on the broadcast, like maybe the mobile quarterback, something that Tennessee hadn't really seen to that. Exactly. Maybe that's the thing where where they can get got TBD on that sample size, obviously really, really small. And they weren't preparing to face him. They absolutely weren't. They were preparing to face Jackson Arnold and will they did buddy, they were ready. They were ready. We had a lot of questions about the Oklahoma offense coming into this because through three weeks, it had just not been there. It hadn't even in the temple when it had not been there because of the lack of success on third down. And I think I've been critical of Jackson Arnold to say that I thought he would get benched before halftime in this game would be wildly incorrect. No way I would have believed someone who looked into the crystal ball and told me that. And I'll be honest, I didn't really like the move at the time. And it aged better than I thought because Hawkins steps in as a true freshman. After he kind of settles in, he has the too late touchdown drives when Tennessee, in my opinion, had already put the game away. I don't know how much we should look into to that versus the game plan that Tennessee came out with defensively. But the thing that bothers me is that's Jackson Arnold's first SEC game, right? Yep. He's had a he's been the one that's had to answer all these questions after you let Dylan Dylan Gabriel hit the portal. You let him go to Oregon because you put your eggs in this basket. This is the former five star recruit that you brought with you to SEC media days. This is the guy that you said he's going to be the first one first Oklahoma starting quarterback to start and finish here since Landry Jones. Yeah, yeah, that's right. Just an absurd thing that people need to remember. But to have that, look, I don't want to say lack of belief in him felt unfair because obviously the results supported the decision that Brent Fennables made. Okay, they absolutely did. There's no way around it. I thought that they had a little bit of juice late that they just did not have and they were stuck in the mud when you are just beating your head into the wall the way that Oklahoma was offensively. Even when the defense is doing everything in their power to set you up, you're like, just give me guys, I'm not going to turn the football over. I don't care. Just I can't I can't watch these turnovers anymore. You freeze, you can relate to that. But I didn't really get at that moment what Brent Fennables was expecting with that change other than just don't turn the football over. Hold on real quick. Well, I just realized this is like the other day where I realized why people are corporate. This is why they don't bring quarterbacks to SEC media days. Kind of. I mean that we had a lot of SEC media. We did this time. But when people like wouldn't name starters and stuff because they weren't sure this is the alternative where it's like, oh no, this was my guy. I said this outrageous stuff about it. But now I'm here. But yeah, I'm with you. I think switching quarterbacks was the right move because to your point, it's like this one in Oregon. It's pretty simple. Nico wasn't at SEC media days and Jackson Arnold was right. Exactly. It's wild to think that these two guys are both same class, five star guys, top 10 recruits nationally. And I'm not going to say that they have the same surroundings because that's not fair. They don't. They definitely don't to say that Seth LaTrell is on the same level as as Josh Hypel and and and Joey Halsey is just like not that's that's not right. It's not okay. But at the same time, like, I don't know. I think that's a very early hook on a guy that they have invested a lot of time and energy to back and they built this offense around him. I think part of it too. And this isn't really as much on Arnold, but their team has changed. It's different than what I thought it was going to be coming into the year because the receiver room already looks so much different than what we thought it was going to be. Nick Anderson returns for this game. And then he leaves second series with a string quad again. And that guy was expected to be your home run hitter. He was going to stretch out defenses. He was going to open up stuff underneath for Dion Burke's who also, by the way, leaves this game with a soft tissue injury. And your other deep ball guy was expected to be Jaden Gibson, a guy that they're really high on coming into this year. He's out for the year after an injury in fall camp. And Jalil Faroo, he breaks his foot in the opener. He's out for extended time. Like the personnel is just different. And I think it's really obvious. I mean, and I'm not saying that that personnel would have all of a sudden made this the Oklahoma offenses of the 2010s or anything like that. And I'm not just saying that you could snap your fingers and correct all the mistakes that Jackson Arnold is making. But I think part of that decision that Brent Venables made a controversial one at the time, and I'm sure one that he's like, God, I really hate having to do this. I'm sure it pain him to have to do it. But I'm sure that was part of it. He's like, we can't be the team that we thought we were going to be. And who fits our personnel better right now? I feel like we need to be able to kind of get on the edges. We need to get the quarterback run game going a little bit more. Jackson Arnold has some of that, but not at the level that Michael Hawkins Jr. does. And you know what, maybe, maybe that's the reason that they're going to pivot to them. Maybe they will. I don't know definitively that they will. I think Brent Venables sounded pretty non-committal about that afterwards. I don't know. I do know that this offense still lacks an identity. And that is daunting for the schedule that awaits them. It really does. They haven't had to go away from Norman yet. And I think that seeing what they're going to go up against on the road at Auburn, a place that yeah, Cal and Arkansas have gone into and won. Would it surprise anybody if we saw multiple quarterbacks playing for both teams in that game? Over under a quarterback started for quarterbacks, getting legitimate staffs in that game will probably be three and a half. Yeah, that's, that's kind of reality with where they're at. And it's pretty simple for Oklahoma at this point. I think any path to the Sooners keeping their head above water and SEC play include, it's just winning these 21 to 17 type games. Like, yeah, defensive, grinded out, short field, ground and pound. I don't think this passing game is going to be anywhere near what they hoped it could be coming into this year. Seem that's got a lot of questions to answer a lot of questions and their depth is really hurting them at this stage of the season. I'll say like, I don't think, you know, I mean, like, okay, we can see what's like right in front of us. I don't think this guy, like, I don't think Benables is less miles. I don't think that he is just going to have bad offenses. The offense was good last year. I think to your point about, okay, he might have made the wrong decision with Arnold, but I think you make another point, which kind of fits with that. It's like, yeah, okay, you already have Benables who has a good defense. You know, he's not the type of guy like a Kiffin that could edit an offense on the on the fly, right? Obviously you chose your coaches to do that. But when you have this much turnover, when it comes to new starting quarterback, guys in and out of line up, new offensive line, new offensive line, like, you just can't build an identity. So like, as much as I love to, like, play like the hitter character, actually, this is probably going to be fine. You know, they're probably going to get embarrassed a couple of times this year. But I think just the guys they brought, you know what I'm saying? Like, I trust this staff to build an offense. It will probably happen this year. They're going to be ugly and tilled in. But like I said, it's not like he's lost. It's not like the times have passed and by. It's not like, you know, this is a smart team at times that just kind of has some rough quarterback play yesterday on Saturday, whenever you guys listen to this. But I think it's just hard to start. You know, you got to put one foot in front of the other and Jackson arm just didn't let them do that. So I don't think they're cooked. I don't think there's anything too bad long term going on. I just think like they need to pick a strategy and just stick with it. If they're like, look, we're going to run the ball 30 times a game, do that. Cool. But just do it. Defense is nasty. It's good. It's really good. That's the thing. Like, and there are times and it's kind of crazy talking about Jackson Arnold and how unpalish he looked, right? Because we saw Ray Ola look really polished until the end of that game with Nebraska. We've seen the Amalea like look polished and you can see those moments in both of them. And that's what's exciting about college football is seeing, you know, the fumble by Nikko and he had like missing right before that too and how they overcome those things. Jackson Arnold has not been allowed to progress because he's just been like seeing ghosts for lack of a better term to quote Sam Donald Bull time. So yeah, I think I just got to put one foot in front of the other. Easier said than done. Yeah. And all those questions about, hey, are you going to be ready for this conference or are you going to be SEC ready when you have elements that are not or that we view are not ready, you're going to get criticized for it. And I think that was a humbling experience. I do still think it's going to be really difficult to move a football against Oklahoma. And if they have a top 20 defense at seasons and definitely won't surprise me. It felt kind of like a Bob Stoops error defense. I mean, that's that's kind of what they they felt like. Yeah, Bob Stoops. Early Bob Stoops. Yeah, definitely not like mid 2010s. Yeah. Early 20. Yeah. Or much earlier, you're right. That's a good point. Bob Stoops, I had the midlife crisis, got the Corvette, so we're in Heisman's. Yeah, but it still looks good. Stoops looks good. Stoops looks good, man. They look good. Those guys have aged well. Yeah, a lot of Barry Switzer shown in this game, but great for hype, man, great, great for hype, hype for him. It's weird. I feel like it's like these characters, you feel like you almost know them. It's like, I guess we could talk to him in the media days or whatever. But yeah, it's cool to see you guys progress like that. Hype will most likable Tennessee coach since Fulmer. More like more than former, more likable. He has he is genuinely aw shucks. Like he's genuinely kind of goofy, like awkward. It's cool to see him in big moments. He's like, guys, could you believe this? Yeah, no, he, he definitely was soaking that in. It was cool to see him kind of get emotional after. And I thought he played that well. I thought he played it really well. No bulletin board material just went about his business. He's got himself a program. There's no doubt about it. Program program. All right, well, let's talk about the almost the biggest stunner of the day. We got to have a conversation about Mizzou because Mizzou fans, you get to exhale. That's the good news. You avoided the loss that would have been a drink punchline for years, years. That's, that's good. That's positive. Okay. No bad Saturdays. That was pretty close to being a catastrophic Saturday, losing in home to Vandy while you're a top 10 team. Vandy shanked a kick so far left that I thought I was watching game day with McAfee, having people attempt kicks who have never kicked before and then pretending that's the same thing as having paid professionals misskicks. Thought I was watching that. I wasn't credit Vandy. They truly do have a different energy with Diego popular. Like man, that guy rules. He's he's fun. He is so, so fun. He is probably everything Vandy fans have been hoping for like, why can't we just have a guy like that? Okay, we we're never going to get the nicos of the world. We're never going to get these guys who are coming in and making NFL throws. And I mean, even even Jay Cutler at the time, like he ends up being a first round prospect and all that stuff. But like, if I'm Vandy, this is everything I've wanted at that position and offensively, they're just never out of it. They just don't care. They play some of these possessions like, yeah, we know the spot that we're in. We know who we are. And we know that like literally nobody thinks that we belong on this field. And they're like, we don't care, but we'll play with absolutely nothing to lose sometimes to their detriment a little bit. Diego Pabia, Tailon Green have the mash all the buttons syndrome a bit very much. But man, they got some big time defensive stops in this game, even though two or three best defensive players were kind of in and out with injury with with different injuries. And CJ Taylor kind of seemed to get the better of Luther Burden a bit. But man, Clark Lee has got to put that guy in the ballot. You know, just a lone Vandy player of the All SCC preseason ballot. He deserved it. CJ Taylor. Good. Good player. Good player. I would ask Luther Burden about that. Maybe not in the heat of the moment, but after the fact that he has a chance to kind of settle down. Clark Lee, to your point, he does look like he has a chance to weather the storm with this very unique formula, especially with a quarterback that he can't mess up. And lest Diego Pabia gets hurt, Vandy has like a legitimate chance to win an SEC game or two. And Clark Lee has a chance to be able to survive this season and kind of move on from all the hot seats. So that's a good news with Vandy. No moral victories, whatever. This is a moral victory for Vandy. You went on the road against a team that is ranked in the top 10, even though they're not really a top 10 team. And you took them to double overtime. That's a win for Vandy in my book. Yeah. What was who's not a top 10 team? Well, it's so obvious. Well, hold on, hold on. So Vandy, I'm with you on Pabia. He, you know, that's the thing about Vandy. And we joked about this with the Florida mistake game. It's like, if you're going to be kind of like bad, be fun, bad, be fun. And Vandy right now is fun. Like he has, it's like he has a couple of different things I've seen from different SEC quarterbacks. He gives me like the mentality of like Garcia with like, where it's like, whenever Garcia was in big games, it was almost like, I prepared specifically for this game and not the other games. And like, that's the vibe you almost get from, like, because I like, I worked with Garcia, funny enough, but I could just like see that and be like, okay. And then the other side is like, kind of like Stetson, man, the way Stetson could get those tough first downs on like the scrambles. And obviously, like, Pabia is a more mobile quarterback community to these guys. But watching him play, it's like, he is fighting for every single yard. He is never going to go down. And to exactly your point, it's not gaslighting. It's like, we are Vandy. We know we need to do X, Y and Z to do this. We already have the formulas. We have the whiteboard behind us. We've done it. Here's, we're going to do it right now. And so like, yeah, I think they have an identity for the first time since they were pounding the rock forever ago with Mason. I think Aldi MacKorral. All the MacKorral. I was thinking I came up for him a few weeks ago after the Virginia Tech win. Aldi MacKorral has a chance to turn around. MacKorral is another one. He has that like bleep human tally. Like, I can, I see all those guys together. And yeah, it's pandy nonetheless. Yeah. I don't know that Diego Pabia is taller than five nine. I don't think he cares. Probably on this tender. He's a, he's a classic six foot tender guy. Oh yeah. Like some of the side by sides that I was seeing, I'm like, buddy, that guy is, that guy is my height. Okay. I, I, if we, if we were standing, you know, face to face, we'd be looking at one or another. There's no doubt in my mind whatsoever. I don't think they care. I think they truly believe in that guy. I kind of, it's, it's kind of a unique thing to prepare for too in Mizzou. I thought struggle with this. This is a question I had with Mizzou coming in, especially with how their schedule sets up with all of these quarterbacks. It'll call their own number. Like he just puts a lot of pressure on you because gosh, you think you have a stop on third down and you know, it's a quarterback draw or that he picks up eight and he needs five or, you know, you turn your back in single coverage and, and he just finds a way and he's very savvy. He's played a lot of football at this stage of his career and he's so fearless. Like he just does not care. He's not gonna show up to your point. That's another good point where it's like, yeah, it's not there all the time, but wait, it's there. It feels like it's right when you need it. Yeah. It really is. And he's going to be fun to watch. And I think for those who have been able to kind of take in what he's done so far, you've been like, dang, okay, my, my team is not going to have fun defending him. It doesn't mean that you're going to lose the band or anything like that, but it's just not going to be a fun 60 minutes to have to chase that guy around. Mizzou. Here we are again. Forget the top 10. Forget the top 10. I don't want to talk about the playoff with Mizzou. I'm trying to figure out if Mizzou is even a top 25 team because the Boston College win showed some nice grit. He came back after falling behind by double digits. That was based on said again to Boston College. They were done double digits to Boston College. Yeah, that's what I mean. That's what I mean. I know. I'm just like, that's a funny thing. Oh, yeah. It's like Boston College is a big one. But we applauded it because Boston College had gone into Tallahassee and beaten for the state. And so that's kind of some of the things that you can trick yourself with with some of these early season victories that all of a sudden, like you look back on two weeks later, like that's already a different strength of win than what I thought it was going to be a Boston College to its credit. They beat Michigan State. But still, like I think you would look at the way that that played out and go, okay, what do we really know about that? Boston College is going to be a fine club. But it's a fall behind double digits at home and have to rally back. You have to look at the flow of the way that things that things developed. One, obviously Mizzou in that game specifically should have had that sense of urgency to be able to come out and say, or the top 10 team, and we're going to look like from start to finish this game. But that's one thing that Mizzou simply will not do now or ever. Well, it's almost like you got to tell Mizzou like, no, you suck. You're going to be six and six this year. And then all of a sudden like that's when they dial it up, like just historically with Mizzou, that is when they thrive. This is not when they are at their best. Even Chase Daniel days, like this is not what, you know, just go to a national championship. Oh, then you get who was it? I think it was Oklahoma blew him out and like preventing them from beating to a national championship that year. Like this, this team has a lot of flaws, a lot of flaws right now. And just eliminate the number seven while you're looking at Mizzou and just look at them for what they are. If we were just talking about a team that's trying to get into the top 25 or something like that, I think all of these criticisms of them would still be fair. Whenever Brady Cook makes a downfield throw that's on target, it feels like exasperation. Listen to those Mizzou fans when he finally hit someone like 20 yards away. They're like, Oh, it's, it's a vibe. I'm telling you, like there is this expectation that he's going to sail these throws that it's not going to be on target or that it's going to be into coverage. And that Mizzou's not going to pick up this third down. That's not good. And it doesn't feel like the design runs with him go anywhere. He's not looks particularly good throwing off platform. And obviously he's not all to blame for this. I'm not just going to make this a pile on Brady Cook thing, but somebody that I said coming into the year, I think he's one of the 10 best quarterbacks in college football, he has not looked like it so far. There are too many stretches where either burden or wheeze, boy, wheeze, that boy, we who doesn't know, doesn't involve that boy, we that's all I'm saying, doesn't ever receiving touchdown on a year yet. Hey, that's the problem. I know. I mean, how much of that is him not getting separation? Do they need to be a little bit more versatile with him? I thought they were going to be a little bit more versatile with Luther burden. Instead, it's like, no, we're still going to keep him almost exclusively in the slot. We used to still line up on the outside. Do they need to have more movement? I actually, the design that I loved in this game was the first touchdown that burden had where it's a play action. And I think burden was lined up either in line or in the slot on the left side. And it looks like it's a zone run to the left, which you've seen from Mizzou a billion times and then some. And then all you need to be able to succeed on that play is for Brady Cook to sell that play action enough to where that safety is going to bite and burden is going to get a step. And then that's all she wrote. It's easy pitching catch. And that's what it was. There needs to be so much more of that in this offense of just design looks that make life easier. And there is not that right now. And it was great to see the little out and up that burden had for that touchdown and overtime. Great to see your superstar kind of feel good. At the end of the day, I talked about the need for burden to kind of have a drama free game, which debatable. He's getting into it with CJ Taylor. He's been hot early in the season, man. Like, he's been, he's been really hot. Maybe they need that at this point. I don't know. Mizzou just lacks the juice that they had last year. It's, it's very simple. I thought that was pretty obvious through three weeks. It was really obvious in this game. And I want to say that a team that needs double overtime to beat Vandy is destined to miss the 12 team playoff. TBD on what all those resumes are going to end up looking like down the road here. But Mizzou has to find some answers during this bi-week that it's got coming up because I don't care how easy that schedule is, they are leaving way too much meat on the bone at this stage of the season. That's, I mean, you kind of hit on it too. It's like, okay, there are flaws in this team. I agree with that. What are the flaws, right? Because like, that's what's so interesting about them. Like, I could point to certain other teams, okay, they're offensive lines a week. Okay, they're blacking this from Mizzou. It's like, so Brady Cook just regressed in year like seven of college. Like, how are we doing this? Like, the downs aren't there. And they're not good enough to methodically move it down, down the field, even though Nate Noel has looked really, really good so far. And it's kind of supplanted Marcus Carroll for that, that RB one spot. But like, they're not disciplined. I think they were bottom 25 in the country in penalty yards per game. They actually didn't get penalized a whole lot in this one. And they just like, don't do these things to help themselves. They don't convert in the red zone as often as they should. They don't know if the kicking came even that they did last year with me, because they're like missing kicks all over the place. They missed the actual thing. Yeah, no, like, I'm with you. It's just like, it's crazy how much that stuff is fixable, right? Because at the end of the day, it's like, arm strength is a trait. You either have it or you don't, right? More likely to your point, I think, they're just in their own heads. Like, I think at the end of the day, I mean, you see how much Mizzou is celebrating and living and dying on every down against Vanderbilt. And it just makes sense. That's the worst way I could say it. It's like, or the most accurate way I could say, it's like, hey, you guys are acting like you belong in this situation. You need to stop being this team that is in this back and forth, all timer against Vandy and just handle business. And I think exactly to your point, right? The burden touchdown is like, hey, like, I know this guy wants to be an NFL wide receiver. You don't have to make him run an FL route tree on every play. You're already playing him in the slot to your point. Like, get him, just get him going outside, get him in space, get him, like, some type of a little bubble screen or something. Like, we know he was, like, underutilized in year one. But it feels like they're overthinking and trying to make him in the, like, Megatron now. And it's like, bro, just get him involved. Like, you can be a little bit gimmicky if your offense isn't working. Because exactly your point, when you look at it, it is working. It's him just cooking guys one on one. They have the talent. Like, they are this old team, everything that we thought about them in the preseason is correct, technically, and all of their goals are still ahead of them. But at the same time, it's even more maddening, right? Because we're talking about a team with injury. We're talking about a team with, oh, wow, our extra offensive lines trash. We can't stop false starting, something like that. Like, no, this team has all those pieces. And they have the, you know, the staff in place, basically, from last year that over exceeded our expectations. Maybe the weight of expectations is just what's crushing them. And that's a mental problem to me. I think I can't really feel sorry for them because they have the talent to be not even playing their starters against Fannie in the second half. So that's what's crazy about the zoo is if they get out of their own way, I still think they can be a very good team. Yeah, I don't necessarily just agree with that. You're right. Those things are still there. It's still so much of that offense from last year outside of obviously Cody Schrader, a couple of pieces on that offensive line. But Nate, no, well, dear points, 80% of it, 85 sometimes, you know, because, yeah, different runner than than Cody Schrader, I think. But the carriers are coming all the same if you play for drink. Yeah, they are. They absolutely are. And he has definitely exceeded my expectations. Someone that said Marcus Carroll is going to lead the SEC in rushing after the CJ Baxter injury. But the lack of urgency, the inconsistency from a zoo fans, it's maddening. And you can just tell. And they know, they know if you're going to be one of these teams that hangs out in the top 10 all year and you compete for a 12 team playoff spot, you got to look better than this. And I think that's the standard that they're trying to live up to. And so far, they have been able to do that. And really quick to your point, a lot of us on Brady Cook, right? I mean, like, he's been there forever. He is a, like, you know, you're talking about quarter. This is a quarterback, they trust to, you know, attempt 40 passes. This is a guy who should be putting you in the conversation because he can at least hold serve with a Carson Beck or one of those guys like a Moero. This is your flag carrier. So this guy needs to honestly be a little bit better leader. I hate to say it like that. But it's like, hey, like, do you want to win or do you not? You have the dudes. This is your dream. It's right. You are in the backyard. This is what you do. Now, let's, let's make it happen. Pretty quick. Cause everything he could have ever wanted. Literally. This is, this is it. Bro, do everything. Yep. Right now. Yep. Got to get a ton. Welcome to college town, a series where we explore the heart and soul of southern football culture across five iconic college football town in the powerhouse Toyota tunnel. Football. Is everything here? No dogs, baby. You can see things that you wouldn't see anymore else. We can be very loud when we're excited. From Gainesville to Clemson, with stops in Athens, Tuscaloosa and Chapel Hill, we'll uncover the rich traditions, passionate communities, game day rituals that keep college football fans coming back for generations. All these people come back to town, graduated 50, 60 years ago. This city lives and dies with what their football team does on Saturday. It's really crazy to think about how dependent we are on kids playing a sport. There's that small town feel that just erupts on game day. It's like you're at a car when you first see it. Don't miss out. Watch every episode on Saturday down south dot com slash college town or click the link in our bio. All right, let's talk Florida and Mississippi State. Well, Florida wins this game. This game was some good crappy pizza. This is a birthday present. I love this game. I'm not going to name specific brands here, but whatever good crappy pizza comes to mind for you personally listening to this, just insert that into this comp. It was a game that like with good crappy pizza, you get out of convenience, right? This game was on because as I said, that noon slate was thin, real thin, like some good crappy pizzas sometimes. Like with good crappy pizza, you're not going to tell anybody about that meal or that game in a week. You also probably have the element like with good crappy pizza where lips, you know, you don't feel particularly great afterwards, physically. Okay. Like, yeah, I can tell I just ate some good crappy pizza. Florida fans, I'm happy for you that you got to experience a win against an FBS team, which by the way, hadn't happened since last October against South Carolina seven consecutive losses against FBS competition. That is no longer we can no longer make one of you for that. The offense got whatever it wanted much like Toledo did in Starkville the previous week. Mississippi State didn't have an answer for merch didn't have an answer for lagway. Both of those guys looked really comfortable. They were completing passes at will. It beat the hell out of the alternative for this game, which was losing to a Mississippi State team that had just as I said, lost to Toledo in Starkville and got whatever it wanted. But if I'm Florida, I'm appreciating those things. When as a win, I like wins. Winning is fun. It's fun to not suck for an afternoon. If I'm Florida, I'm getting food poisoning thinking about that run defense, man, buddy. I did that that over under on the on the on the on the midweek pod for a reason, okay, where I said the over under was 45 Mississippi State rushing yards because that's what they had average and they're two games against FBS competition, 1.67 yards per carry in those two matchups, which were against a team picked to finish last in the big 12 and a max school that was bottom 15 of the country in percentage of returning production. Big Mac here, though. It is a big Mac here. Some are saying return to the Mac. I'm saying that. Huge. Bowling green, taking A&M and Penn State kind of down to the wire and present. Some are saying Connor Baselac is a stud and it's and it's a testament to him because he spells his name correctly. I'm saying that return to the Mac. Mississippi State had 55 sack adjusted rushing yards. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Well, I misspoke. Mississippi State had 255 sack adjusted rushing yards. I think it's actually worse that Mississippi State didn't do that with a single run of 20 yards. You can't just be like, Oh, we'll take away that 80 yard run. Then it was like three yards per carry, something like that. For the vast majority of that game, Mississippi State had twice as many rushing attempts as it did passing attempts. There were instances where Jeff Labby would be like, Oh, I've got third and 10. I'm going to run the ball twice. Easy. Mind you, that is any game that Mississippi State never led. I'm going to say until I'm blue in the face will. I don't really care as much about what Billy does with the quarterback situation. All right. I'm it's not worth wasting my breath when I think, OK, we very clearly see if Graham Mertz is healthy, he's going to get the majority of the reps is two out of every three series with his game. That's good. I like watching DJ Lacaway. He's good for my my entertainment. I'm not going to lose sleep over the quarterback situation right now. Florida might win one SEC game because they have zero and I mean zero answers whatsoever to stop the run. This might have been their only SEC win because if you didn't know any better watching this team attempt to get off blocks, you would think this was late November and they had a rash of injuries. They haven't even gotten to the gauntlet yet. I was about to say that's the thing. The gauntlet is it's now. Will a tweet of this out and it's it's worth repeating. You're going to hear. I'm sure your tweet that I was about to reference to you. Wow. This guy's a news baker. Good to see you. Florida. The gauntlet starts now. And if you're like, wait a minute, is it UCF next on the schedule? Um, yep. UCF number one non- service academy rushing attack in America. Second in FBS. Who's who's after UCF? That's what I told you. The thing about that too is one of those like, if I wasn't really sure of myself, like if I was doing the meme, you know, you're pointing at yourself in the mirror, say, you could stop the run. Last thing you want to see is Gus Mausan with KJ Jeffress. RJ Harvey. They've got a four-headed rushing attack. They've got a legit four-headed rushing attack and it's not just UCF because who's right after that? Tennessee. Tennessee came into this week, ranked third in America and second among non-service academies in rushing yards per game. So in other words, Florida, after it just allowed 255 sack adjusted rushing yards to Mississippi state, will face the two non-service academy rushing attacks in America in their next two games. Not great. Not great. If they had any answer whatsoever, we would have seen it on the field on Saturday. It's bad, man. Like it is really, really bad to think that they're at this place and there are going to be so many games where it's just like A&M. We're like, yeah, I mean, I guess offensively, it was it was okay, but it's kind of hard to judge when you you're allowing 300 rushing yards and you can't get off the field and there's nothing you can really do about it and you can't get in any offensive rhythm. That's the problem with this team. It's so obvious. They're not in the right spots and they can't get off blocks. It's a very, very simple formula for why Florida is bad and why this game might have felt good for an afternoon to win a game and I get that. But if you're all of a sudden thinking, oh, yeah, Florida is good now. They figured out the offense. You're ignoring the biggest possible elephant in this room. Listen, I'm just saying when you bring in an assistant to the sense to the defensive coordinator, you got to let that guy have at least two seasons to get to work. So I think they need to go back, stop it. No, what? This is the guy he's finally showed up that people believe it. No, I'm just kidding. This is watching him play defense is funny. I'm right there with you. I mean, it's just I'm more sad about Mississippi State than anything because I thought they would be fun. But we kind of talked about this in the pregame. I was like, look, these are fun bad and there's not fun bad. This was a fun bad game. Exactly your point about the, you know, the bad pizza or the good cold pizza. Good crappy pizza. Yeah, like, you know, and so I think we it's fun to watch football happen, right? A lot of football happened in this game. Yesterday was a big day for the Y button. We were joking about there was a hurdle in this game. You know, there were two very fun touchdowns. Grimverts honestly looked awesome. But again, that's kind of just against air. That's, you know, in the, you got to free indoor practice facility day. It just wasn't that, you know, so point being like, this is a fun game, but exactly your point. I agree. I mean, like I said, watching Billy have to kind of eat his medicine coach. This team is going to be so funny for the people that never believed in Billy because it's like, yeah, this is exactly. This is it. This is the master plan here. We have we got the amazing, beautiful recruit. He's seven or seven. We are just out here playing a two quarterback system against Mississippi State and our best win. So yeah, no, I'm right there with you, I think. But I will say much more intrigued by the Florida FSU game. I think we're, you know, maybe one of these teams gets better. I'm very locked into that game because I think it's still one of both sides. Yeah. Big day for FSU yesterday. They got their first win. They have one more to catch Florida. Yeah. Goodness gracious. There are that game. A lot of things can happen between between now and then. I'll say that. Yeah, Mississippi State real quick. The the day that started fun and we not just we didn't just have a tight end hurdle. We had a tight end hurdle fumble recovery in midair. Yep. Very rare. That's if you're going to be like fun bad that that more of that, please. Unfortunately for Mississippi State, fun bad looks optimistic at best. We found out afterwards that Blake shape and needs shoulder surgery. He is out for the year. That is a bummer for a team that doesn't have a whole lot of strengths at this point. And defensively speaking, it's it's rough and it's even more daunting when you think about the remaining quarterbacks that they're going to face in SEC play. This list is oh boy. So they're either going to face arch manning or queen viewers, depending on on your self man, then Carson back either or honestly. Yeah, who cares both, both maybe. Yeah, could be. You're either then Connor Wigman or Marcel Reed, TBD on on Wigman's health as well. Tailin green. Okay. And then you still have Niko Yamelayaba. I almost botched that twice in one podcast. That would have been really bad for me. Brady Cook, Jackson Dart. Not great. Not great. Don't think that Jeff Levy's getting on the board and SEC play this year. I think Mississippi State is pretty clear. I think this game showed that they're pretty clearly alone at the bottom of the barrel and they showed some nice fight in the first half. I'll give them that like when it's 28 to seven and it's like, all right, things can go really, really bad. And they kind of made it at least a game going into half and then at the start of the third quarter because Florida's defense is Florida's defense. But at the same time, man, now with the backup quarterback, this year zero, just keep telling yourself that Mississippi State fans, it's rough. It's year zero. Better days are ahead because they're probably not going to get much worse than this. Yeah, you know, I'm sad that LSU missed their broke the rivalry with Mississippi State. This game actually used to be on my birthday for most of my life. Like, yeah, it's about the first 25 years. And it was crazy because LSU actually had this weird record against Mississippi State where they won like 19 of 20. And like that was or 19 of 21. And like, that's basically the game the Florida got. They just got a lucky game with like a team that was a little bit more disorganized as them. To your point, I do, I thought I believed in Levy, like I kind of started there where it's like, hey, you know, there's a guy that a lot of people have kind of blessed. He's another part of the UCF coaching tree, but also the lane part of it, like a lot of people like. So yeah, I mean, again, maybe you got to get your own players in there, but like this is a team that we're at least going to say, okay, we're excited about your offense, you're tied in curling people. But I don't know. I mean, it's just weird, right? Because that's just a weird game. It doesn't super matter. I think both of these teams, we kind of know where they are. Yeah. All right, two teams that we're still figuring out who they are. Well, yep, Arkansas and Auburn. Oh boy. We're going to spend the majority of this game talking about what's wrong with Auburn instead of probably what's right with Arkansas. So Arkansas fans, I'm not trying to take away from from winning a game on the road in the SEC. Again, wins are fun. It beats the hell out of the alternative. So let me let me first say this. Travis Williams real quick because there's something real quick. Yeah, go ahead. So I love tailing green so much. I might he brings me such joy. Tailing green like, okay, the things we don't like about how Jayden Daniels runs. That's the only way tailing green knows how to run. It is at times banging your head into a wall. He kicked the guy in the chest for no reason. We had three guys hurtle someone successfully and also tailing green just hitting the B button on on super smash brothers and kicking a man in the chest. He is the most electric football player. I we have him and Bobby in the same season. That's so happy. He attempted to hurdle. So that that was that was his logic behind it. He did the Antonio Brown on that putter. He just went, yeah, Ben Watson talked about this on SEC final. Like it's kind of an epidemic going on right now. Like everybody just wants to hurdle. Everybody's just all about the hurdles. I get it. It can look cool. And when you're six, six and you hurdle someone and if you'd cleared, if you'd cleared the defender, but you better believe we would have been talking about it. Instead, not so much overall, pretty rough day for tailing green. Even the ball that he throws to satania where he just screw it. I'm chucking it deep. I'm going down field. He kind of under throws him a little bit, but it ends up being obviously the biggest play of the game for Arkansas's offense. I'm here for the tailing green experience. I'm here for it. I could not be what's a kind of way to say this without making it sound too bad. I could not be on the side of rooting for him because I think it would be bad for my health, but I am all for consuming tailing green. And so far, it's been a roller coaster, man, roller coaster, but the Arkansas defense, Travis Williams, Arkansas defensive coordinator. It's not a full Josh hypo Oklahoma homecoming, but he did get a chance to face his alma mater and shut them down. He absolutely did. I continue to say that this guy needs to be getting his own program very soon, because once by the time that final year with Barry Odom in 22, that Arkansas defense was one of the worst in the country. Like they were a disaster and he has stepped in. And I think really exceeded expectations. They don't win that game last year. They definitely don't win that game two years ago. The turnaround in that group is so evident because even like, even though Auburn obviously made just inexcusable mistakes at the quarterback position at the root of it is because they're clearly confused pre snap. You know, like you had Hank Brown throwing into triple coverage multiple times in this game. There's something there that he's predetermined and he thinks he sees it pre snap and it's not there or he's not he's not realizing that it's actually his own coverage. He thinks it's man and he's throwing into that. So Arkansas defense like deserves credit for that because outside of a couple of the plays that they made in coverage, they're the one counter Lambert Smith touched down that they allowed where they're in they're in cover zero over the top and the safety comes down and just takes like the worst angle you can possibly take on that play. We're like, dude, did you have any idea what kind of coverage you were in? Outside of a couple of those instances, they played well enough to win that game on the road. Big, big game for Sam Pittman in his future. You can see the emotion in him afterwards. Great for a guy that I thought really needed to avoid that two and four start needed to avoid going into that by week with having only one games against UAB and Arkansas Pine Bluff and getting that third win for his future, I think is very important. Okay. So those those are the nice things about Arkansas. Bad things about Auburn. Well, there are many. There are a lot. Worst case scenario is an understatement. If you had said in this crease in this preseason crystal ball, well, I think Auburn is going to lose September home games against Cal and Arkansas with the latter coming by double digits. That's such an insane thing. How do you lose to both of those schools at the same sport? Like, that's what sport is that? Even acceptable. Yeah. In that place, in that place, if you had said, Hey, we're not even going to be at the end of September and Arkansas or Auburn, rather, is going to already have had two unsuccessful starting quarterbacks and not by injury, that laughter of being laughed out of the room, that would have turned into helpless tears. And I think that's all you're seeing from Arkansas, not Arkansas, Auburn. I keep doing that. Wow, I don't know why. Our room is gracious. Auburn's reality is grim, and everybody knows it. And Hugh Freeze deserves blame for that. A considerable amount. Will you share the tweet with me about how upset he was just at halftime of this one? And this was via AU family. The quote was, I got to find a quarterback that doesn't turn the freaking ball over. We got receivers running open and we're throwing it to the other team. That is code for on scheming my face off and you're all blowing it. I can only do so much. He vowed afterward that he'll do whatever he can to get it fixed. I don't know that there's a fix. This is year two of a situation that Freeze has never really been in. And that is having a healthy quarterback room that he cannot get to compete at an SEC level. He never really comically Google who's calling the place for Auburn. But I couldn't even do that without laughing. The whole we're out here doing the things wrong. It's it's freeze. It's not next. Come on. What are we doing? I know. I know. I know. It's like my brother. You were brought here to do specifically this thing. It's like last year when Pippen struggle with the offensive line and we kept saying it. Look, if you're going to lose, at least have a good offensive line. If you're going to lose, snap the football, throw it down in the field. Hope someone catches it. We've seen we saw bad teams like that under Hugh Freeze it all missed that we enjoyed. Golly, it's it's so troubling. It really is. And when you have to turn to Peyton Thorne to save the day, bad news bears, because even if he had come in there and let it come back, he's still Peyton Thorne. Okay, this isn't that classic 90s Disney show that was really underrated that probably would age very well if I went back and watched it. But remember the show the Jersey? That might have been a little bit before your time, a little bit before your time. Basically, these kids would like get a jersey and then they would transform into someone and be like, Oh my God, I'm playing as Emmett Smith on Monday Night Football or something like that. Oh, heck yeah. That's a fire concept. It's a good show. Real ones. No. If you're the above 30 crowd, which here now I am. Now I'm learning my culture. Exactly. You might know what I'm talking about. There's no transformation that was going to happen for for Peyton Thorne in this one in the interception. In my opinion, that was on cam Coleman cam Coleman kind of alligator arm this ball over the middle that looked like it was on target. And I think that's again, one of the things that when you're a true freshman receiver playing in this league, your mistakes are magnified and better days are ahead probably for cam Coleman. But look, I know that Auburn fans want to see holding Garner. And it's Garner like Turner with a G. I do too. Say it again. That's it. That'll fix it. Like, come on, bro. Like what you need to hold your girder. I wonder how much he's struggling in practice. If it's if he's not even able to get into a game with with what's transpired so far, because he's he's not a huge freezer crew. He was the Harson regime. So and I don't even remember when he verbally committed it. That was even Gus. Could that have been it's possible? But I want to say he was he was Harson through and through. Speaking of Harson, wouldn't Taylor Greene a Harson guy at Boise? Because that would have been like three, four years ago. Like, yeah, I looked it up in a second, but that's kind of bumbling. I think he was. Yeah. And I'm not sure how many games he started for Harson, but probably not. I'm saying like a guy. Yeah. That's yeah, that is a bit ironic looking at this game. And to see Robbie Ashford do what he did for South Carolina, probably didn't make Auburn fans feel particularly great. I think you could probably look back on that and know that Auburn did some stuff with Robbie Ashford and try to maximize his abilities and ultimately it wasn't working. But still, I don't know, man, you're going to have to just start going through one by one and just having, look, this week, it's your turn. This week, it's your turn. Oh, we've got to walk on you got a true freshman. Okay, bring him out there could it can't be worse than that. It can't be worse. Okay. And I don't care at this point about the practice stuff. I don't want to hear about your practice evaluations, because so far, those have told you that Peyton Thorne was worth making this investment in. And that investment has not been anywhere near what you hoped it could be. So look, if you're freeze, you have to find some sort of answer, or else you're going to end you're going to end your two, just as we talked about within April last year is not that I think he will be fired in year two, but you're going to be on every hot seat in America going into year three. If you don't figure this quarterback situation out, it's very, very clear. And the problem with not figuring this stuff out when you were supposed to figure it out, the next defenses you're going to face, Oklahoma, Georgia. Good luck. I love the new SEC, because every time a team is just kind of lost, it's like, and you got eight rate teams zero coming up, buddy, get ready. Yep. Oh, it's brutal. It's absolutely brutal. And that's why I think if you're one of these teams, that's the struggling and you know, Oklahoma, we just talked about in Mizzou, we talked about it like struggling to find that identity early in the season and knowing what awaits brutal, absolutely brutal. And Auburn, you've had a whole lot more optimism at different points of the freeze regime, we could say that. Yeah, I mean, so also this, right? Like, it's kind of funny, like, so, so, you know, not to like stick back, but it's my birthday. We disagreed on two games, right? One of them was this game, and there was was Tennessee in Oklahoma, and that was two and one of these. I just had Tennessee, I Tennessee winning for the record. I just had Tennessee not not covering the spread. I had a emotional point game. 2824 was the final I had. So it wasn't terribly off. But yeah, you were more right on that one. Yeah. So like, the thing here, right, is you kind of see the transfer portal in both directions, right? So St. Pittman is a guy who coached with desperation, right? He brought in Bobby Petrino. He brought in Tailing Green. He said, look, I'm not exactly sure what Tailing Green is, but I know he can run the football, right? We've seen, I've joked about that with Robbie Ashford at different points where it's like, hey, it's kind of ironic again, right? It's like, hey, at least you can run the football. They did enough in this game. And again, I'm not saying Tailing Green is some great player. I said, he's entertaining. I get that. He made some incredible, like, off decisions that you wouldn't expect from an older player. But all I'm saying here is on the Auburn side, man, this is the other side of the transfer portal. It's like you bring a guy in that is, you know, that veteran quarterback. I mean, dude, look at Graham Mertz and look at Peyton Thorne, right? I think if he had Graham Mertz, he'd probably be fine. Gosh. I don't think you're wrong about that. I really don't because I'm good. I don't think you're being good, but I think you'd be fine. I don't think you'd be losing to Arkansas at home. Yeah, I don't think it all of a sudden turns Auburn into a nine and three team, but with the weapons that they that they had that they brought in that they should be able to target in space, gosh, it's there are so many guys. I did this exercise a couple of weeks ago for SDS of like, in addition to Cam Ward, the other transfer portal guys that would have looked so good in an Auburn uniform, like Jordan McLeod, what he's doing right now at Texas State and coming out, like a guy that was in the portal for like nearly three months and ends up going to Texas State from JMU. Like, you mean to tell me Auburn couldn't have gotten kind of a deal with him and then still been able to spend on some some receivers? I does the other thing too. As others have, the choice for portal also applies to receivers, right? So you can get like a veteran, like not super athletic, but just trustworthy pass catcher. If you want to start the unquarter back, which obviously, hey, the plan wasn't to start the unquarter back. So already we're off the plane timeline, right? And they did they did that though. Like they rebuilt it in the portal with with receivers. Like they they they did it not like they brought in the guy from Georgia State as well who I don't know why I'm blanking on his name right now. But and then the country Lambert Smith post that and that's the problem. That's what I'm saying. It's the fact that they've gone Oh, for whatever on the I'm sure some of you go over knows this guy you forgot about you. Okay, sure. And how's that going? Not to be that guy, but it's like, Hey, ever Smith was it's good. Labor Smith. He looked the part yesterday for sure. And like without him, I'd be like, Oh gosh, they'd be I mean, they're they're bad with with the passing offense. But I mean, he was their only spark. You're right. I'm not I'm not dumping on him specifically. I'm just saying like in terms of their overall strategy is not cohesive, right? So you're right. Like Labor Smith had a great game. I'm not dumping on it. In fact, he was kind of the only thing that went right. So I will, you know what? I owe them an apology on that. I was not familiar with their game. Moving on from there, right, in terms of the overall offense, what we're talking about here, when you miss a transfer quarterback, it's so brutal because then they're stuck in this weird. It's almost like a coach. It's like the week in this guy. Do we trust this guy? Do we bring in another guy? Allah, like, Allah, she was able to get a guy like swan, you know, that's pretty rare in the stay and age, right? That's almost betting against the starter or betting on their injury. So now you're kind of stuck with him. And you know, I mean, I never like paid in Thorne, but that's why I use the Graham Mertz comparison, because I like Graham Mertz either, and I think he's played really well despite everything in Florida. So the decision to bring in paid in Thorne, who had played better than Graham Mertz, I guess I see it, right? Q free is obviously smarter than me when it comes to quarterbacks. But then when it comes to evaluation of self, right? That is kind of what we run into with these older school guys. We saw it with drink, you know, bringing in Kirby Moore and kind of putting that down and then being more of a head coach, I think the hue at the end of the day, like, they said, no mess. This is not the teams, the fun, bad teams that we were, you know, oh, he's got, you know, the NCAA to his tail, the kill, look at this guy. No, this is like, yeah, you're right. You're sorry. It actually makes it sad. I'm looking at this box score just sad, because you're right. Like Lambert Smith played really well. Chuck Rose Hunter rules. The young guys are also awesome. Like it's, they do have receiving talent. They do have guys to get the ball to you. They just can't run jet sweeps. They can't put throw the ball forward. Teddy Roosevelt would be disgusted by this football team. Gosh, you would. Teddy, Teddy would roll in over in his grave, watching them. Yeah. And that's the thing is like, it's not that freeze has never had the portal quarterbacks. I mean, Swag Kelly. Yeah, Willis. He was a trailblazer. You're so right. He just missed on this one. That's the thing. He missed. It's just, it is a whiff. And when you were brought in to do the things that Hugh Freeze was brought in to do, it is felt so much more. And that's the problem for Auburn. It's only going to get more challenging. That's, that's the daunting thing. I think Auburn fans know that. All right. Well, let's close with your game. My game. I hope this was my game. UCLA and LSU. When this game went to the break and it was tied. I had a few thoughts. I'm sure you did as well. Death Valley looked thin. So I did an investigation into this. It was cut in half because of the heat. So the side that was in the sun was completely like people were leaving. They said they had like 40 people pass out because of the heat. So out because I was right there. So nobody shows up. I was like, wait a minute. It's the heat index is like one to only out there. Yeah. And I know I'm going to talk about this as well. It's like the afternoon games at Death Valley this early season. Yeah, I get it. But at the same time, so that just automatically gets play at night all the time. It's I think so. Yeah. I respect your unbiased opinion. No, I'm just kidding. But it's a good point. It's like, yeah, it's rough because it sucks. If people pass it out, it's like, I don't really blame you for watching the cotton course. You're at the game or you're on the other side. Everyone's just like kind of anybody. People call it Death Valley for a reason. Yeah. Say that. Like I and you so you watch this game and the way that it starts off and UCLA goes into the break tied and their players are firing up their own fans who have made the long trip. And I was wondering why UCLA looks so disastrous against my alma mater last week. And all of a sudden at LSU, it made itself at home and they were making plays that just were not there the previous week. I thought Ethan Garbers was playing out of his mind that touchdown pass that he made where it looked like he was going to take off and then he steps up and he takes a shot. I think it was Swenson who got to him. But like that play and that touchdown going into the half with like two seconds left in the first half, it made me remember that LSU has an unbelievable unbelievable ability to give quarterbacks the confidence that they can be the best possible versions of themselves. And even when LSU does what it's actually supposed to do, it still can't get stops. And so I'm like, this is about to be a 60 minute game. And I'm wondering if Brian Kelly is about to lose as a 24 point home favorite with again, the east side of Death Valley just not there or passed out unfortunately. And what a bad visual that would be. But I'm going to say that after that that halftime moment in which UCLA went into the locker room feeling good about itself, I think it's fair to say water found its level a little bit, a little bit. I know UCLA, not exactly a world beater defensively. But I love, love, love, love what we have seen in the first part of this season from Garrett Nussmeyer, man, I have been wildly impressed because I think he has been everything LSU fans like you have hoped for and then some with how control he feels, how aware he is that he has one of the best, probably the best tackle duo in all of college football. Emery Jones leaves this game and then comes back in. When he gets that protection, it's surgical. It really, really is the Kyle Parker ball placement on that ball down the right sideline. Even a ball that was a little bit wobbly, they said on the broadcast, like, Joe test was like, you couldn't have handed that ball in a better spot. That was a bad Joe test. But you get what I'm saying. I think Nuss is already a top 10 quarterback in college football, just as you drafted him to be and probably got some homer comments for even I was like, Oh, of course, you're going to take Nussmeyer. I think you're right. I love what that kid has done and how he can shake off some of these slow starts. That's been kind of what LSU has done this year, even in the Nichols game, they get off to a slow start and then kind of settle into the game. There's no panic really. It doesn't start forcing throws, kind of lets the game come to him a bit. He doesn't go away from a guy if he has a drop like Lacey or something like that. But I think Nuss has just been the difference with this team. A very Herky Jerky start for this defense, I think, with Blake Baker. But Nuss has kind of been the constant that LSU has hoped for and kind of the guy that they have needed. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's funny, right? Like we've jerked about where I'm like, okay, like the stuff that people call me on their home, call me a homer about it. It's like, well, that's the stuff that I'm the most keyed in on because obviously I'm watching my team. And it's like a level of like, to me, objectiveness where it's like, hey, I can tell you where else you struggle. And what I said about the ability the other time is like, tell me what I was wrong about, right? And with Nuss, like I've said, you know, he, I texted the studio the other day. I think he's going to end up being the best quarterback out of this draft class from the SEC because I think he's going to go to a better situation. I don't think he will go the highest or maybe in like top three or four. But I think that the things he has, or you talk about his arm strength, we talk about like his leadership ability, the attainables, obviously a coach of sun, like offensive coordinator. And the way that he can exist within this mental prison, that is this LSU offense, and still look good. Like, if you look at, you know, his picks, it's like one was at the end of the game, like last by the game, there's really count instead of push the body yards. The other one was like, why were you throwing the ball there? Right. It's crazy that we're giving this guy 44 pass attempts and he's so surgical. One of the questions coming in on him were about his turnovers, right? And he's not made those bad decisions. Now, think about how terrible this team would be if he did. That's kind of the crazy thing is actually, yeah, yeah, because like Josh Williams is terrible, this team can't run the ball, right? And I'm not even trying to, you know, dump on him or whatever, but I'm more mad at Brian Kelly for not letting him Durham play. You can see it when he gets out field on that receiving touchdown. He starts to swing the game open. Both of these last two games, Kid Durham has won the game, but yeah, these six carries, right? So this is what Brian Kelly does. But, you know, he survives this one. And I think we're learning more and more about this team, which is that, you know, sometimes the adversity is in the room with you. Right. Sometimes it's your own play calling. Sometimes it's your own, you know, players getting like fall starts or whatever. But I think this offense is getting a little better. They have a couple of weeks for Ole Miss, and that's what we're really going to know. Yeah, I'll be interested to see kind of how Nussmeyer treats the NFL stuff. If and when that time comes, I think the NFL is kind of suggested we like the two-year starters more than just kind of the one-year guys and he's in that unique spot where maybe he's going to kind of follow the Carson Beck path and decide, you know what, I can prove myself even more and I can come back and not necessarily. But then, again, with this quarterback class that many people are saying is thin, it doesn't have that elite guy at the top. Maybe that elevates him to want to go into the drive. I don't know. That's too early probably for me to seriously give that consideration. But gosh, the things that he's shown so far, it is such a great proof of concept for the "stick it out and learn" philosophy, and he has elevated that team. There's just no other way to view it. And if you were skeptical of a post-Jaden Daniels LSU offense, you see how quickly they have formed this new identity, and it's very much built around Nussmeyer. And if you're frustrated with some of the running back carry sometimes, which I absolutely am, I like you would like to see more Kaden Durham snaps. I thought even in that South Carolina game with Josh Williams finishing it out and getting like almost twice as many snaps as Durham got, I'm still like, gosh, I want to see these guys more. Part of the reason that we don't really see these running backs as much is because like Brian Kelly is sitting there going, well, why wouldn't I want to have the ball and Garrett Nussmeyer's hands? Yeah, you could take a team apart. And that's an asset. Not everybody can do that. And I think that that has been really evident in the first part of this season. We got to talk about the negative though. Yeah. Harold Perkins goes down in this game. Bummer, bummer, bummer, bummer. He was making a play over the middle on like a little crosser. And I thought for sure the way that he reacted initially that it was a shoulder, but it turns out that it was his knee. No diagnosis yet. For what it's worth, he did walk off under his own power, albeit with a significant limp. And also for what it's worth, LSU has South Alabama, then a bi-week, and then they'll have their big headline or game against Ole Miss. I do think, and by the way, I shouldn't dismiss South Alabama putting up 135 points in the last two weeks. They've clearly figured some things out. Their quarterback's fun. I kind of want to talk about their quarterback during this week. They've got like this little lefty who just makes plays left and right. He's electric. Yeah. They got a game runer will be the other day. They did big time. Yeah. When he put up, well, they put up 87 points against, what was it, Northwestern State, I think? Yeah. Some random team. Yeah. Yeah. And then App State, they went into on Thursday night and just dominated. But the Perkins thing, it still sucks because even in the South Carolina game, their SEC opener, they had six players in different positions from where they started the season. A lot of games. Safety, basically. Here's playing star. It's playing that star spot. You're like, all right, what's you're going to move weeks over to this inside linebacker spot. Blake Baker is still trying to figure out which guys need to be where and how to push the right buttons with this version of Perkins, which I'd argue so far. Hasn't been necessarily the guy that we hoped he would be coming in this season. A lot quieter. Yeah. I mean, to exactly your point, it's like Perkins is one of my favorite college players. I think that he has struggled kind of the last two years to, you know, really not a fault of his own. You know, I hope he gets better. I think to your point, like this defense is always going to be no work in progress. We talked about that in the post in the preseason. It was probably going to be a situation where he was going to play himself in the role that best worked for him and then have a strong finish this season. So I'm just hoping he can get on the field for, you know, for no other reason than to get some tape out there and say, okay, like, I can do this because he's been asked to do a lot of things. He's been asked to, you know, cover some guys. But yeah, that goes into it where it's like, you know, we talked about it like I said, in the preseason, it's like, this is a blitz heavy defense. We saw that. We saw them effectively get to the passer going throughout the season so far, right? The passer has been pretty good, right? Like, and especially that guy's coming in their own there. Guys are developing as a pass rush. The DBS are always going to be a work in progress. You're sat Alexander kind of can't stay healthy. And you know, like I said, man, it's going to take this. This team is going to play itself in the shape. This is literally exactly what I expected at this LSU season given Brian Kelly is just kind of going to put you in every game. Every game has been in the game. And this was always going to be a stop gap year for me. I had no expectations. It's all about rice under wood, moving on getting his defense installed. Because like I said, man, it's like they didn't have DBU, they didn't have the personnel. They're getting, you know, DJ Pickett, similar guys in to where they can start playing the puts heavy defense without looking lost on the back end. Okay, if you can't cover UCLA, guys, man, like, I'm just happy we didn't go 0 and 2 against UCLA, all right. So Los Angeles. Yeah. Oh, I mean, I'm talking about, you know, coach. Oh, yeah, this one. Oh, yeah, because the DBS are like, that's what I'm saying. This is a multi-system rock problem. It's like, it's almost like a losing like basketball sensation. We go trade guys and start over. It's like, just because guys have not been receiving proper instruction, you know, exactly to the Grand Mario Perkins. Same deal having, you know, the DBS coach change out and be younger guys. So yeah, I think I was just going to figure this out. It'll probably be a little bit later this year to where things already kind of behind them, where it comes to their expectations. But those were always my expectations because I knew this team was going to struggle in some pretty key areas. And I think that's has been almost exactly what I expected and that he's better than a lot of people think that he's kind of trapped in his prison, right? So he's not going to do like, like, and really quick, I'm going to close on this, like it's becoming more clear to me at this offense. And we see the noted aim to, you know, Denmark is over there. They need to have a quarterback that runs the football. And that's why there's not that, right? And we've seen their name struggled so they can't have easy rushing. Same deal with LSU. So hopefully even with, you know, they have two great pass protecting tackles, but their run scheme doesn't make a ton of sense. So it's going to be really fascinating. But like I said, Ole Miss is going to be the game, right? Yeah, Ole Miss will probably, I mean, it's it's going to, it's going to fuel a lot of discussion about both of these teams, where they're at, I don't recall it a playoff elimination game because that's just not fair, but a game in which it feels like we're going to have some pretty strong takeaways either way that it plays out. All right. That game in Tiger Stadium. It is very much. And we don't know the timing of that yet, but for the sake of LSU, hopefully it's not in the afternoon. It'll be a night game. That's what I'm saying. Yeah, it'll be a night game probably. All right. Let's end with some overreaction or proper reaction will. Overreaction or proper reaction, archmanding should start versus miss to be state no matter what. I mean, what's yours health situation? Exactly. Exactly. I think that it's, I actually think it's a proper reaction. I would want to be really conservative with youers because of how that injury happened. It was like kind of a non-contact injury. Scariest words in sports, right? It was, it was just a weird play that I'm like, that could, that could happen against anyone. I mean, it did. It happened against UTSA. It's the level of competition doesn't really matter with that. And I want that guy to be right. And I'm not, if I'm sorry, I'm not worried about, oh my gosh, if I don't start in this game, he's going to lose the Heisman. By the way, the stat that I always like to, to, to already going, say it again. I said, it's already gone in a few miss games. Yeah. No, um, the only player to win the Heisman trophy after missing a power five game in the last 40 years was Charlie Ward, missed one power five game. So I, I don't, I didn't like the youers Heisman conversation coming into the years because of the durability questions, whatever. Let us play against miss to be state. Let us play against miss to be state. You're at home but anybody can score against miss to be state. I mean, you prepared for quarterback controversy, because if he goes out there against miss to be state, it doesn't matter. Don't care. You don't have a quarterback controversy. You have a guy that was the Heisman trophy favorite before he got hurt because that's what you were as was. And he got you to number one in the country, a spot that was very well deserved after what he did against Michigan. And somebody that took you to a college well playoff last year, won a big 12 championship. You don't have to worry about a quarterback controversy. Everything that's been handled like internally from Texas, even with the mannings, what they came out and said, they're like, no, like this is youers job. Like he's this isn't like a battle or a situation. There's a reason that that he went to Texas, that he followed this plan. It's more so just for people that can't find any other nuance way to talk about arch mannings. They're like, oh, I guess our chance to start now. It's like, what are you high? Like, what are you talking about? Do you, are we just pretending that when youers was like Jalen Hertz, like his sophomore year when he was struggling in the Brian Dable offense, and he had one read Calvin Ridley and literally couldn't do anything else. And that's why they got destroyed by Auburn. And they actually didn't have a very good offense that year. Like, this is not that. This is not that in any way, shape or form, youers will be the guy when he is healthy. But when I still start arch in this game and be conservative with youers, knowing what Texas is trying to do in a potential 16, 17 game season. Yes, I would. I would have no issue with it whatsoever. Yeah. And that's me playing the character of the sports talk guy. You're like, cool, QB controversy. Like, right. But I think it's also the answer is run the ball. That's the question they write because it looks good. I like Jane. Yeah, so far. Yeah. Yeah. Mississippi State's going to give up those yards, no matter how you choose to take them. So just don't, no reason if you're shocked to have five, six touchdowns, you're supposed to be a state without you, but that's what you could do to mitigate that. Yeah. Agreed. Okay. Overreaction and proper reaction. Trey Harris deserves to be in the Heisman Trophy conversation. I'm just saying, Will, the non QB Heisman man for sure. Maybe a slight overreaction because they haven't really played anybody of significance just yet. Okay. Unless you are a demon deacon enthusiast that are in through playing the dragons and the cyclopses. Yeah. Let's just say that let's just say Georgia Southern did not have someone that could cover Trey Harris much to my surprise. 225 yards in that game. Will he's got six hundred twenty receiving yards in the season. He's got like two hundred eighty receiving yards more than the next closest SEC receiver, which is Andrew Armstrong, I believe. I'm not mistaken. He's been insanely good. I mean, and I know the degree of difficulty with some of these catches. You could just point to scheme and you point to the fact that he's got Jackson Dart throwing him these looks, but I'm going to continue to bang the drum that Trey Harris is phenomenal. And he is as long as he is healthy, one of the best players in college football. Look at the catch radius and understand that there's a reason why he's getting this type of separation. It's not entirely scheme, but just keep an eye on it because by the time that they actually play in a meaningful game, he's going to already be like past a thousand the thousand yard mark. He's been that good to start off the year. He's been incredible. Yeah. I mean, like we talked about the schedule sets up beautifully for them, right? And that's kind of what happens. Sometimes you're a good team. That's what people never talk about. So you go all the way. I mean, the Georgia never scheduled the way it's like, he's the best worst in them. There's only like five to ten teams. It's like match ups. Well, yeah, we're like, no, we're not going to we're not going to play it next year. Exactly. Like, that's the thing that is chasing pro. Like, okay, yeah, sort of you play a top 10 team every week because that's if they play a top 20 team, it's like, what are you playing? I don't know, Duke, he crushed it of Louisville. Yeah, because that's what that looks like. So anyway, um, yeah, I think, you know, there's a point being they're going to be favored in who man, I mean, every game probably until Georgia, um, including LSU. Yeah, will they be favored at LSU? I'm, I'm that could, I know, like in all seriousness, like, I'm, I think some of the, some of the injury questions will, will answer that and maybe could, could shape that line. I may be a slight favorite at LSU, but either number five right now and they're not going to lose until that game. So that's the thing we can have upsets around them there. I think they probably will be considering that LSU will find a way to make South Alabama game. Yeah. So no, that's not time to speak on the outcome of that game. I'm just saying like, they'll probably there's, it's the Georgia game. It's kind of a pass fail for them. Um, they do kind of like go on the road a little bit here. But yeah, I'm interested by it. I think this offense is going to be awesome. No matter what, you look at cumulative stats, you look at the play designs. I think, um, they're really special place. Yeah. And obviously Trey Harris being in the Heisman Trophy conversation would probably need Jackson Dart to, um, let's, I don't want to say miss a game. That would definitely open the door for him, but Mack Jones didn't win it in 2020 because Devante Smith was just so insane, so unbelievably insane in the Jalen model injury, kind of added to the, the notion that this guy is just playing at such a, such an absurd level. And I don't think that all, all of a sudden, if Juice Wells, who has looked great in the first part of the season, um, and looks actually, number two receiver. Yeah. Juice Wells being a number two receiver on this team is pretty crazy. Oh, no. Oh, if he sits down, they got to have Juice Wells out there. What are they going to do? Yeah. With all due respect to Juice Wells, I think losing Jalen Waddle mid season for Alabama was a little, would be a little bit different if all of a sudden Juice Wells went down, but no, no, that's what I'm saying. Like, I think Juice Wells rules like it's just too, like, Ole Miss is a wagon. Yeah. Very much. All right. The coach looks super happy to me. How about you, Connor? Wait, set again. The coach looks super happy to me. I don't think he's going anywhere. Wait, different discussion for a different time. Well, overreaction or proper reaction, Connor Wigman has lost his job to Marcel Reed. You know where I'm going with this. I think it's a little bit of an overreaction. Wigman was in street clothes in this, like coming out. Yeah. So it wasn't like he was dressed. So I don't think you can definitively say he lost his job to Marcel Reed. And the thing that that's kind of driving me nuts is like, we're judging Connor Wigman based on facing Marcus Freeman and Al Golden with eight months to prepare to throw exotic blitzes at him. And the Notre Dame defense, yes, they lost to Northern Illinois. The Notre Dame defense is still really good. It might be the best secondary in all of college football with Xavier Watts. And we're judging Connor Wigman off of that. And we're like, oh, well, Marcel Reed, look what he did against Florida and look what he did against Bowling Green. By the way, the efficiency against, against Bowling Green went way down. I'm not hating on Marcel Reed, because I think he's a fun player. And maybe he is a quarterback of the future there. Maybe he does end up being the starter. But like this notion that, oh, Wigman played his way out of a starting job based on that start. And we've seen more than enough to suggest Reed as the guy. I'm not there yet. Maybe I'll be late on this take because of my Wigman love. And I know that there are a lot of people that are kind of out on him. And it's like, what's, it's not, it's not a fair sample size that we're judging these guys based on. Yeah, it's weird, right? Because he feels like he's been around for a minute, but then at the same time, so he's played in 11 games and trying to find starts, but then really the best thing possible. So yeah, it's weird. And if it's true freshman season, and then start of his true sophomore season, where the, those were the eight games, essentially, the eight game sample size of his starts. And then obviously the first two games of this year. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, in terms of, man, I mean, it's interesting, right? Because he's a guy that we have a lot of video, I hate to say tape because that's just, I get to know why you just tape anymore. But it's like, we have a little tape on him, but we really still don't know exactly what it is due to, you know, the Jimbo era rotating and rotating. And we think there's a pretty smart offensive coordinator here in Colin Klein. So yeah, I mean, I don't know. I mean, I think it's a talented guy. The tear point, it's one of those, like, no reason to make a controversy. I have it situations. I think let's just show the kids and patients at this point agreed. All right, let's end with this one. Overreaction or proper reaction Colorado's Hail Mary will lead to a bull birth. If they end up being good after all that, not good, but hitting the over here, which I need to go check on what it started as. But man, that is just because that it's almost like the writing was on the wall for the pretty good last year. And then they imploded is like, if the writing was on the wall for them to be terrible this year, and then they are a little bit better, like if they get to six wins, it's like, I mean, man, we've seen some bad football played in the Big 12. So my biggest takeaway from that game was like the probably number 12 on the list of actual takeaways. But I was like, I think that's going to be a game that Dave Miranda was really going to want back. If and when he gets fired this year, that was tough. Those are the types of games that you're on the wrong end of if you're a fired coach. That just that having that sequence play out the way that it did where like you didn't defend the Hail Mary properly. And then they get a chance to correct it. And then they convert was just, oh my gosh. And yeah, I mean, brutal to have that the fumble in the end. So Travis Hunter forcing the fumble Travis Hunter Heisman odds eyeball emojis. Look, that's the thing if you're if you're kind of betting on Colorado, that best paying off so far, because they're winning the games at keys going to keep playing as long as they keep winning. Yeah, I don't think I don't think all of a sudden I'm there yet with Colorado getting the six wins. I just think they still have too many issues. But that's the beginning. You got to start winning. And they, you know, to their credit actually came back, biggest comeback Dion has had down 14 points. We haven't been able to come back and win that one. But so next week, they're at UCF. Don't bet on that game. All right. After that, we get Kansas State. We've seen that they already struggled. These are last weekend at it. Like, so I'm going to just read their schedule at Arizona Cincinnati, Texas Tech, Utah, Kansas, Oklahoma State. Kansas Oklahoma State have already proven they're kind of eatable. Texas Tech, I don't expect great things out of them since now he has struggled. So yeah, I could actually see them winning two or three games. I think it's right there. I think they're fighting for that bowl berth. Yeah, they could be. All right. And that five win five six one, because over under forever was that five and a half wins, I believe, which I think still sitting right there. Yeah, definitely. All right. Well, that's a pod that'll do it in week four in the books. It is officially Georgia Bama Week. We will have a lot on that on Saturday on south.com as well. Tons and tons of coverage. Not so sudden turn of events to see college game day heading there for next week. That'll be four SEC trips. First five new game in Columbia, they could have been instead. No. Yeah, they're like, Hey, I don't think there's any surprise. But yeah, we'll be there. I think Reese announced that on the show. That was the most obvious thing in the world. No, they will not be at a new Columbia game this week. If you haven't, leave us a five-store review. 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Week 4 is in the books! The guys discuss Josh Heupel's statement win at Oklahoma and why Tennessee has blown our preseason expectations away. Plus, Oklahoma's got an offensive problem, Mizzou looked like a mess against Vandy, Florida bounced back but still struggled in a key area at Mississippi State, Auburn doesn't have a QB and LSU shakes off a slow start. Plus, Overreaction vs. Proper Reaction!
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