Speaker 1: Welcome to the solid verbal hell that for me.
Speaker 2: I'm a man, I'm for I've heard so many players say, well,
Speaker 2: I want to be happy. You want to be happy
Speaker 2: for a day at the steak?
Speaker 1: Is that woo? Woof? And Dan and Tie welcome back
Speaker 1: to the solid verb of boys and girls. My name
Speaker 1: is Ty hilden Brand. That fine gentleman over there is
Speaker 1: Dan Rubinstein. The podcast as per usual, driven by our
Speaker 1: good friends over at Geico. Dan Rubinstein, what's up, dude?
Speaker 1: How you doing, brother? I'm pretty good.
Speaker 2: I'm pretty good. The sun is signing. Uh, we've got
Speaker 2: the little guy in school. I you know, I can't complain.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna take a shower for the first time in
Speaker 2: a couple of days because the weekends can get away
Speaker 2: from me from a hygiene perspective. Sure, I'm excited about
Speaker 2: this show. I'm excited about all sorts of weird college
Speaker 2: football news that is either happening or seems to be imminent.
Speaker 2: I'm excited for we've got the proper or maybe the
Speaker 2: old proper signing day here happening shortly that we'll talk
Speaker 2: about after the fact. We've got I don't know, still
Speaker 2: moves to be made on the coaching front, and I
Speaker 2: think we still need to do a bit of digesting
Speaker 2: of the twenty twenty one season and maybe what we
Speaker 2: can learn from it from a very specific, specific perspective
Speaker 2: moving forward. So I just I don't know. I'm juggling
Speaker 2: all sorts of information chainsaws that I'm ready to hopefully
Speaker 2: keep tossing back and forth with you like.
Speaker 1: A college football snake. Dan. There is so much news
Speaker 1: and information we've swallowed it whole, yeah, and we're just
Speaker 1: slowly digesting as it works its way through. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: think that's right. I don't know if that's the right
Speaker 1: way to characterize what's going on right now, but that's
Speaker 1: how I feel. There's a lot to take in. Believe
Speaker 1: it or not. It's gonna be February the first, as
Speaker 1: a lot of people listen to this, and there is
Speaker 1: a lot going on, yeah, in the world of college football.
Speaker 1: So we're gonna dive in. We're gonna do that, We're
Speaker 1: gonna try and give further context for the season that
Speaker 1: was in twenty twenty one. Don't forget Verballers dot com
Speaker 1: v E R B A L L e r s
Speaker 1: dot com is where you can go get access to
Speaker 1: this show, all of our shows a little bit early.
Speaker 1: You can watch all of these shows on video if
Speaker 1: you are ever so inclined. You also get access to
Speaker 1: our weekly brew and a episodes as well as some
Speaker 1: of the other bonus stuff that we're going to continue doing,
Speaker 1: especially now as we get into February. It's full on
Speaker 1: off season mode. Dan, We've got a lot cooking in
Speaker 1: the laboratory, So one more time for Ballers dot com
Speaker 1: is where you can go to check that out. Don't
Speaker 1: forget also Solid giveaway dot Com. That is our monthly
Speaker 1: giveaway website. You just got to go through like four
Speaker 1: or five steps. Free to join, free to sign up,
Speaker 1: and if we draw your name at random, you will
Speaker 1: win a signed Reggie Bush mini helmet. Wow sign Reggie Bush.
Speaker 1: He and I joked about it before. I was only
Speaker 1: half kidding when I said that I might put my
Speaker 1: name in. I love Reggie Bush as a Notre Dame fan.
Speaker 1: Notre Dame fan, still love Reggie Bush. It's lots as
Speaker 1: an organ fan fan loved Reggie Bush. Yeah, I'm also
Speaker 1: with you. Awesome player back in the day. Wish she
Speaker 1: wouldn't have scored in two thousand and five, but nonetheless,
Speaker 1: so I'll giveaway dot com is how you get your
Speaker 1: name in the running for that. We're going to pick
Speaker 1: the winner on February the fourteenth, which coincidentally enough, I
Speaker 1: guess is Valentine's Day.
Speaker 2: Yes, it'd be a great Valentine's Day gift for yourself
Speaker 2: if you get fortunate enough to win it.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And finally, don't forget to subscribe and follow and
Speaker 1: like and share and rate and review the podcast wherever
Speaker 1: you can Apple, Yeah, Spotify, Google Overcast, podcast Addict, wherever
Speaker 1: pocket casts.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's all sorts of great options. Where are we starting, though, Ty?
Speaker 2: Where are we starting today's show? Because I think basically
Speaker 2: through May mid May. I don't know when all of
Speaker 2: the spring practices and games officially end, but we're going
Speaker 2: to have portal stuff. We're going to have movement across
Speaker 2: the sport, just because that's the nature of the sport.
Speaker 2: Right now, where do you want to begin? At the
Speaker 2: time of recording, Caleb Williams still has not officially selected
Speaker 2: a team. Obviously, there's going to be La Smoke. Considering
Speaker 2: Lincoln Riley's new home, there's going to be there was
Speaker 2: Wisconsin Smoke, or maybe there still is Wisconsin smoke. Depending
Speaker 2: on the reports that you choose to believe have credibility.
Speaker 2: It seems like Wisconsin's out of it, but who knows.
Speaker 2: They just hired what Bobby Ingram, who we talked about,
Speaker 2: is the father of a teammate, and that teammate played
Speaker 2: high school football in the DMV area. With with Caleb Williams,
Speaker 2: you know there's still going to be that'saw LSU smoke involved.
Speaker 2: I suppose with Caleb Williams, I don't know. At the
Speaker 2: time of recording, he has not selected a destination. And
Speaker 2: also tie the NFL SPECU relations with Jim Harbaugh vikings
Speaker 2: interest Dolphins interests, despite mega Michigan donor and Dolphins owner
Speaker 2: Stephen ross Uh saying that he was not going to
Speaker 2: be the one to take Harbor off from Michigan. I mean,
Speaker 2: what is interesting to you is you know there's Jackson
Speaker 2: Dart going to Ole Miss with Lane Kiffin. I just
Speaker 2: I want to know is what is stirring your your
Speaker 2: brain drink right now?
Speaker 1: Well? The Jackson Dart news. To me, honestly, I was
Speaker 1: relieved to see that he was going to Old Miss
Speaker 1: because we talked about it on a show before it
Speaker 1: made too much sense. Don't put yourself in the situation
Speaker 1: if you're going to transfer out, if you're going to
Speaker 1: try and maximize your value in your remaining eligibility, don't
Speaker 1: go into a situation like Oklahoma where you've already got
Speaker 1: another high profile transfer in Dylan Gabriel. Don't just don't
Speaker 1: do that. Don't do that and not the same Old
Speaker 1: Miss doesn't have other competition at quarterback. But right somebody
Speaker 1: put the quote out there. He's not going to Old
Speaker 1: Miss to just build depth on the depth chart. He's
Speaker 1: going because he wants to start at quarterback, and I
Speaker 1: think it's a good move. You combine that with some
Speaker 1: of the other moves that Lane Kiffin's made of the
Speaker 1: transfer portal. Lank Kiffin has made some hay on the
Speaker 1: transfer portal. Ole Miss has done extremely well on the
Speaker 1: transfer portal so far. So I like the move for
Speaker 1: Jackson Dart. Jackson Dart former four star out of where
Speaker 1: Utah draper Utah. I want to say, got a comp
Speaker 1: to Alex Smith on his twenty four to seven recruiting profile,
Speaker 1: which is all very very positive. Played six games for
Speaker 1: USC last year, sixty two percent completion percentage, threw a
Speaker 1: couple picks, but he was young. I think there's nothing
Speaker 1: but incredible potential, incredible potential for Jackson Dark go into
Speaker 1: Ole miss. I really like that move. But the Jim
Speaker 1: Harbaugh stuff, to me, is so interesting. It is so
Speaker 1: interesting because the rumors will just not go way. This
Speaker 1: has been a couple weeks running now where we've been
Speaker 1: talking about Jim Harbaugh potentially wanting to make that move
Speaker 1: back into the NFL, and then we heard some other
Speaker 1: scuttle but that he had actually told a recruit, Hey,
Speaker 1: there might be some NFL interests that I might entertain.
Speaker 1: I believe that was that's crazy. Yeah, he was entertaining
Speaker 1: those conversations. Yeah, And then it fell through with the Raiders.
Speaker 1: The Raiders are going to hire Josh McDaniels, I guess
Speaker 1: from New England. And it seemed like for a short
Speaker 1: moment in time maybe some of those rumors had quelled.
Speaker 1: But then there was reported interests and an interview with
Speaker 1: the Vikings, and now maybe the Dolphins thing has come
Speaker 1: back after all. Even given the ross connection with Michigan
Speaker 1: and the Dolphins, it just feels to me like there
Speaker 1: is so much smoke here and it's not about money
Speaker 1: otherwise we would have heard a lot about money, and
Speaker 1: this whole thing would have been put to bed two
Speaker 1: weeks ago. It seems to me like there is genuine
Speaker 1: interest on behalf of Harbaugh to get back into the league,
Speaker 1: to find a new team to work with, and to
Speaker 1: make the jump now. It would put Michigan in a
Speaker 1: really tough spot given the fact that it's so late
Speaker 1: in the cycle. As he said at the top here,
Speaker 1: National Signing Day, a time of recording is tomorrow, So
Speaker 1: that would be a difficult spot for the Wolverines, especially
Speaker 1: on the heels of winning the Big Ten championship and
Speaker 1: having a retool now going into the twenty twenty two season.
Speaker 1: But if nothing more, I can't say for sure that
Speaker 1: Harball is gonna leave because nobody knows that it feels
Speaker 1: that way though. It feels like he really genuinely has interest.
Speaker 1: This is not something he's just doing as a leverage
Speaker 1: play to get more money. Like this is a guy
Speaker 1: who was successful there before. I think he wants to
Speaker 1: take another crack at the NFL, so I'm buying on it.
Speaker 1: I don't know where he ends up, but I do
Speaker 1: think the interest is real, and I think if it's
Speaker 1: going to happen. It's gonna happen within the next couple days.
Speaker 2: It seems that not only is the interest reeal in
Speaker 2: going to the NFL, and these can be looked at
Speaker 2: as pretty similar things, but the interest is real in
Speaker 2: not being a college football coach, right like that a
Speaker 2: college football major college football job is an either fully
Speaker 2: in or not up to it opportunities. It's right, and
Speaker 2: it definitely has seemed that Jim Harbaugh has been fully in.
Speaker 2: The commitment to Michigan has been extremely real. And so
Speaker 2: I don't know in a lot of these situations, like okay,
Speaker 2: let's say the Vikings, So I think they just hired
Speaker 2: a new GM or president that he had a connection
Speaker 2: to when he was with the forty nine ers. I
Speaker 2: don't know his name. I'm not up to date with
Speaker 2: my like NFL front office guys, but he has specifically
Speaker 2: shown interest in that the story that he would entertain
Speaker 2: the Raiders job should that be presented to him, Like
Speaker 2: this is somebody who, if you were to believe the
Speaker 2: stories that are coming out, has not just like he
Speaker 2: could have just tweeted, I have no interest in pursuing
Speaker 2: any NFL opportunities at this time. Could be a money ploy.
Speaker 2: It could be, but it doesn't seem like he's.
Speaker 1: Driven by that. So this seems like a human who
Speaker 1: wants to be an NFL coach, and if you want
Speaker 1: to be an NFL coach on a certain level, for
Speaker 1: whatever reason, be it the changing ways of college football,
Speaker 1: doesn't want to be a major college football coach. And
Speaker 1: that leaves Michigan in quite a lurch. It leaves them
Speaker 1: and really, they're they're recruiting against killers. They're recruiting against
Speaker 1: emerging killers like Michigan State, and you have Penn State
Speaker 1: and Ohio State right there. And so right now with
Speaker 1: signing day, with recruiting twenty twenty three, twenty twenty four kids,
Speaker 1: how can Michigan look at them in the eye. How
Speaker 1: can Jim Harbaugh? How can any of these guys say like, Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's gonna be your coach And that's okay that you
Speaker 1: can't say that confidently, but you can't say that with
Speaker 1: any degree of realism that your coach is committed to
Speaker 1: winning a national championship at Michigan because it is a
Speaker 1: one thousand percent all in prospect and the expectations now
Speaker 1: that Michigan is officially a Capital P playoff program is
Speaker 1: for Michigan to continue being a Capitol P playoff program,
Speaker 1: and you can't be the one I want to go
Speaker 1: back to. I've never heard of it before where a
Speaker 1: coach is telling a recruit he would entertain NFL interest, right.
Speaker 1: I'm far more comfortable with the Brian Kelly or the
Speaker 1: Mario Cristobau method, where they know it and they tell
Speaker 1: white lies and everybody gets that aspect of it. That's
Speaker 1: what we're used to. But that shocking level of honesty
Speaker 1: on one half is definitely commendable. It's not something you
Speaker 1: hear a lot about. But I think it's also very
Speaker 1: troubling if you're a Michigan fan, if you want him
Speaker 1: to stick around, to just straight up tell a kid.
Speaker 1: That leads me to believe that it's genuine. This is
Speaker 1: a guy who wants to go back to the league
Speaker 1: if he gets an off or he's going to take it.
Speaker 1: But how many how many coaches have ever been in
Speaker 1: the position of Jim Not many? No, going from basically
Speaker 1: the top of the mountain in the NFL back to
Speaker 1: college where he could have just stayed in the NFL
Speaker 1: and pursued other opportunities. A unique situation for sure, given.
Speaker 2: That he played there and you know, has become this
Speaker 2: top coach. But yeah, it does seem like he you know,
Speaker 2: it's one of those things where the NFL season is
Speaker 2: what it is and it ends at a different point
Speaker 2: of time than when the college one ends, and the
Speaker 2: way Michigan season ended as late as it did, Like
Speaker 2: it's just you can't just quit the job at Michigan
Speaker 2: and say I'm just gonna wait for an NFL job, Like,
Speaker 2: you can't do that. So it is, it is precarious,
Speaker 2: and you know, Michigan has internal candidates. I think Mike
Speaker 2: McDonald is going back to the Ravens, right, He's going
Speaker 2: back to the Ravens to be their defensive coordinator. And
Speaker 2: so you have Josh Gattis and Mike Hart, and I
Speaker 2: get Harbaugh's son, who's like thirty three or something like that,
Speaker 2: who's on staff there. Jay Harbaugh is well regarded. But no,
Speaker 2: it's Michigan is in some sort of like program purgatory
Speaker 2: right now, and it's oh kind.
Speaker 1: Of a bummer. It is a bummer. It's a huge bummer.
Speaker 1: So a few points on this news. First off, we
Speaker 1: will continue doing what we've been doing. If there is
Speaker 1: any late breaking coach news that is find the right time,
Speaker 1: fire up a YouTube stream. Yep, bring on Michigan. People
Speaker 1: get comments from the verbolerhood that type of thing. So
Speaker 1: if and when this would break, I don't know anything.
Speaker 1: We're not privy insider information. It feels to me like
Speaker 1: things are building towards this. If it happens, we will
Speaker 1: be doing a stream. Please follow along on social media.
Speaker 1: Please subscribe to our YouTube channel if you haven't already,
Speaker 1: and then you'll be notified if in one we decide
Speaker 1: to go live and talk about this if it comes
Speaker 1: to fruition. The second thing that I would offer on
Speaker 1: this front is which direction would Michigan go dan that
Speaker 1: to me, outside of the fact that it's a huge
Speaker 1: bummer if Harbaugh decides to leave after winning the Big
Speaker 1: Ten championship after all these years, finally beat Ohio State,
Speaker 1: if he decides to leave, it does put Michigan in
Speaker 1: a big lurch. Like you said, they do have internal candidates.
Speaker 1: They've got Josh Gaddis to Got My Heart mentioned Harbaugh's kid.
Speaker 1: I don't know if that's true, realistic or not. There
Speaker 1: are also some outside candidates right, we heard about Bill
Speaker 1: O'Brien as a candidate. I don't know if I really
Speaker 1: buy that. But Bill O'Brien's a name, Matt Campbell's a
Speaker 1: name you brought up, Jeff Hafley. There are all sorts
Speaker 1: of names out there that could be willing to jump
Speaker 1: over to ann Arbor. So if when this happens, it
Speaker 1: would be fascinating to see which direction the Michigan brass
Speaker 1: wants to go, given the fact that the program's in
Speaker 1: a pretty good spot. It's in a good spot, yeah,
Speaker 1: and to have someone new take over at this juncture
Speaker 1: is a really, really tough ask. So and so many
Speaker 1: layers of fashion fascination here.
Speaker 2: Most certainly a program that has hired either internally or
Speaker 2: hired guys with Michigan experience. And the one time they
Speaker 2: didn't and they went after that flashy national name, it
Speaker 2: wasn't too long ago, but relatively, you know, it's not
Speaker 2: the most modern hiring. But rich Rod didn't work out
Speaker 2: and certainly left people feeling, oh, we need people who
Speaker 2: understand this place and can navigate this place. And you
Speaker 2: go to Brady Hoak who had Michigan assistant experience, and
Speaker 2: of course Lloyd Carr was an assistant there forever in
Speaker 2: Jim Harbaugh's connection, and so it's a question of, like,
Speaker 2: do those influences have that type of voice in the
Speaker 2: room where they're going to hire Mike Hart or the
Speaker 2: hire you know, Josh Gaddis somebody with Michigan experience, or
Speaker 2: will they go external to find the best long term fit,
Speaker 2: whether it's an internal or external whatever that there's always
Speaker 2: the fascinating politics behind the scenes at a place that large.
Speaker 1: More to come on the Jim Harbaugh stuff, for sure.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And if it's not this year, it's next year, right,
Speaker 2: It's this just Jim Harbaugh is not a long term
Speaker 2: Michigan coach.
Speaker 1: That's what we know. Now. What else is going on
Speaker 1: in the world of college football that you'd like to
Speaker 1: give voice to here very quickly?
Speaker 2: I don't know, man. I saw that Lane Kiffin tweeted
Speaker 2: out that some sort of image that a fan made
Speaker 2: that he's the portal king with the Tiger King. Oh yeah, imagery.
Speaker 2: They landed well, obviously, you know Jackson, I think they landed.
Speaker 2: I think Georgia Tech's best edge rusher, Jared I I
Speaker 2: believe his name is. And so they've they've built out
Speaker 2: their program and as a lot of top teams are,
Speaker 2: LSU is bringing in a bunch of kids. USC of course,
Speaker 2: continues to bring in kids.
Speaker 1: Did you see the Brian Kelly videos? Oh my god.
Speaker 2: Okay, so you see that Brian Kelly with those like
Speaker 2: three sixty degree cameras circling you like you see at
Speaker 2: weddings or movie premieres or something. And he's doing that
Speaker 2: and flashing l's or guns or something with recruits and
Speaker 2: then they're wearing his his tech vest, the tech vest, right,
Speaker 2: the official uniform of being cool at LSU.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's doing the grit. They're teaching him to do
Speaker 1: the gritty sure, of course, which I want to see
Speaker 1: more of this. Frankly, we're in the content business here. Yeah,
Speaker 1: on the solid verbal and for as cringe worthy as
Speaker 1: it does appear, I admire the hustle. I think we've
Speaker 1: come to know Brian Kelly is every bit as disingenuous
Speaker 1: as you might expect. So yeah, it gives me a
Speaker 1: little bit of pleasure as a Notre Dame fan to
Speaker 1: know that there's probably a great large part of him
Speaker 1: that hates the fact that he has to go through
Speaker 1: any of this. Who is, but he understands the value
Speaker 1: of it. He understands the value, which is why he's
Speaker 1: a successful college football coach. Who is in your mind
Speaker 1: the Power five or other you know, G five, fcs whatever.
Speaker 1: Who is the coach that is the least likely coach
Speaker 1: to debase himself socially in pursuit of recruiting clout? Like,
Speaker 1: who is the guy who will be the last one
Speaker 1: to do this video? I mean David Shaw, It could
Speaker 1: be David Shaw. I was gonna say Dan Mullen. Dan
Speaker 1: Mullen got fired because of his lack.
Speaker 2: Of whole Dan Mullen would do this in a second.
Speaker 2: Dan maull will do anything for this kind of clout.
Speaker 2: He won't necessarily grind for recruits. But when there's a
Speaker 2: camera or something like, sure is it Pat Fitzgerald, Man,
Speaker 2: we already know that Jim Harbas slept over at a
Speaker 2: kicker's house. It's not this, it's not on camera. We
Speaker 2: know that he did that.
Speaker 1: So who is that guy? Who is that guy that.
Speaker 2: Is going to be the fire Like I think I
Speaker 2: think Nick Saban is unlikely to do something like this,
Speaker 2: but he's also like, yeah, it can be fun.
Speaker 1: But he's also going arch Mannings basketball game.
Speaker 2: So it's not like that's that's normal, though, I know
Speaker 2: I think that's for a top, top, top kid. I'm
Speaker 2: talking about the dancing and the like trying to tap
Speaker 2: into a trend that is fifty forty years your junior.
Speaker 2: So it does have like big I don't know if
Speaker 2: you ever come across this on Instagram or TikTok. I
Speaker 2: know you're big on social media, now, sure if you've
Speaker 2: come across like a like a twenty eight year old
Speaker 2: doing dances with like their fifty seven year old husband
Speaker 2: sixty four year old husband, and.
Speaker 1: Like they say, age difference is that big deal.
Speaker 2: I try not to swim in those waters too much,
Speaker 2: but I've seen those and that had like big looking
Speaker 2: for or or trying to maintain a relationship with a
Speaker 2: much younger person energy and vibes to it.
Speaker 1: Do you think Greg Sheianna would try that? I think
Speaker 1: he would before Pat Fitzgerald. I think he would before
Speaker 1: David Shaw. Yeah, I think there's a certain amount of
Speaker 1: energy to Greg Ciano that says sure, sure, Mac Brown would.
Speaker 1: Justin Wilcox.
Speaker 2: Justin Wilcox seems more key, pretty still younger. He's like
Speaker 2: in his mid forties, mid to late forties or something
Speaker 2: like that. So see, I don't think you can do
Speaker 2: the age thing, though. The age thing is probably.
Speaker 1: Be Herwood for as long as Herm's still employed. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Herm would. Joey McGuire. I don't know how old Joey
Speaker 1: McGuire is, but he would. Jay McGuire, Arkwood, he would
Speaker 1: totally do it. Bim, Brett Bielma would do it. He'd
Speaker 1: be in. Brett Bielmo would do it. James Franklin, Franker
Speaker 1: Franklin would do it even if there weren't a camera.
Speaker 1: I would say Hypel, Yeah, Hypel would do it. Shaw
Speaker 1: might be the answer.
Speaker 2: Sean Fitzgerald, Shaw, Fitzgerald, Tom Allen would Allen's got that
Speaker 2: energy to him.
Speaker 1: Would Undy would? Yeah? And Riley definitely would. P J Fleck,
Speaker 1: Oh my god, PJ Fleck does it? He? Paul Christ?
Speaker 1: What about Paul Christ? Paul Christ is low.
Speaker 2: Paul Chris is absolutely low with how he responded to
Speaker 2: the turnover chain in the Bowl game, like he is.
Speaker 2: Just I don't I think he would be He would
Speaker 2: be an elite non debaser.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think I think he's probably My answer. Just
Speaker 1: to be a little bit different.
Speaker 2: Paul Christ is a good answer. I'm trying to think
Speaker 2: anybody else in.
Speaker 1: The A C. C.
Speaker 2: Den know, Babe, Tony Elliott, Mike Elko, Jimbo would do it.
Speaker 1: Jimbo, he would definitely do it. Yeah, of course he would.
Speaker 2: Leech would do it. But Leach would look weird doing it.
Speaker 2: He'd he had he'd have no idea what he's doing,
Speaker 2: but he'd do it.
Speaker 1: You do it? What about Schipper? Would Chipper do this?
Speaker 2: H I think he's on the Christ train of like
Speaker 2: he has been notoriously not willing to play the recruiting
Speaker 2: game as it exists.
Speaker 1: I feel like I feel like Chip Kelly would look
Speaker 1: at a move like that and feel like it's beneath him.
Speaker 2: Now that said, Chip Kelly did jump into that giant
Speaker 2: cold tub when he was the Eagles coach for your member. Also,
Speaker 2: he's down to have a good time and like for
Speaker 2: for as much as he thinks allegedly that recruiting allegedly
Speaker 2: agedly recruiting and debasing oneself in one's time to bend
Speaker 2: over backwards to the top recruits in the country as
Speaker 2: a fool's errand, and he wants to find guys who
Speaker 2: fit you know, does the big background checks. All all
Speaker 2: reports indigate from Eugene that players loved him, he loved
Speaker 2: coaching college kids like he got a He clicked really
Speaker 2: well with them. But the recruiting thing, yeah, I don't
Speaker 2: remember seeing a lot of you know him dancing in
Speaker 2: the locker room kind of Dabbo.
Speaker 1: Would do this.
Speaker 2: What about Nordoozy, he'd be low, he'd be low. But
Speaker 2: I don't I think he would do it before christ
Speaker 2: Shaw or Fitzgerald.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think I agree with that.
Speaker 2: I'm trying to think of like Chris Kleiman. Hard to
Speaker 2: see him doing it, but he would do it before them.
Speaker 1: He would definitely do it.
Speaker 2: Lance Leipold, hard to see it, would probably do it
Speaker 2: before them. Although he's pretty no nonsense.
Speaker 1: No, I like him. Matt Campbell, Yes, Campbell, Frost, Yes,
Speaker 1: we don't know much about Timmy Chang, but Timmy Chang
Speaker 1: being for that.
Speaker 2: Tucker's no nonsense, but I think he really is. He
Speaker 2: grinds out on the recruiting trucks, oh man, I mean.
Speaker 1: Jobs.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know if Troy Callahan's doing it, although
Speaker 2: although you.
Speaker 1: Know he does what it takes to get the hair
Speaker 1: did the hair thing right, Yeah, yeah, he does. He
Speaker 1: does what it takes. Oh man, this has been an
Speaker 1: important conversation. Yeah, I'm glad, No, it is.
Speaker 2: It is strange to watch. And if Brian Kelly strings
Speaker 2: together a bunch of top five classes, you tip your
Speaker 2: cap and you say more power to you. However you
Speaker 2: do it, it works good for you. But if he's
Speaker 2: doing this and it doesn't work, like bro, I don't know,
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I get it.
Speaker 2: I get you gotta do what it takes because Alabama
Speaker 2: and George are war machines. At this point, you're trying
Speaker 2: to keep up. But like the fact that he is
Speaker 2: how tall do you think Brian Kelly is?
Speaker 1: Brian Kelly five nine maybe maybe five eight, Okay, so
Speaker 1: he's about five eight. So he's just sort of ducking
Speaker 1: ducking under defensive lineman's shoulders, going pew pew pew and
Speaker 1: doing like the little dances in his vest. Man, there's
Speaker 1: just gonna be so many gifts if and when he's
Speaker 1: fired from LSU. We did we did the Padrigo Show
Speaker 1: last Thursday. One of the songs in there that we
Speaker 1: reviewed and compare I think I compared it to LSU
Speaker 1: the favorite crime song where you sort of are in
Speaker 1: something and you kind of lose lose yourself a little
Speaker 1: bit because you're into it. Brian Kelly right now is
Speaker 1: going through that stage. Yeah, he's he's just doing whatever.
Speaker 1: He's kind of going with the flow. Might look back
Speaker 1: on it, like you said, if it doesn't work and
Speaker 1: not feel great about it. But if it does work, Yeah,
Speaker 1: if it does work, there are huge spoils at the
Speaker 1: end of that rainbow. So we are tight, are we not?
Speaker 1: A show? That is?
Speaker 2: If nothing else, we respect bit commitment, Oh, total, totally
Speaker 2: absolutely respect Like Brian Kelly should be die his hair,
Speaker 2: Brian Kelly should be making appearances on you know, the
Speaker 2: mixtapes and music videos of local artists, like he should
Speaker 2: be giving himself to the moment as fully as humanly possible.
Speaker 1: And I respect it like I do. I do respect it.
Speaker 2: There is do There's always going to be whenever you
Speaker 2: see a coach doing this specifically, there's always like big time,
Speaker 2: I've never heard this song, but it's my niece's wedding
Speaker 2: and I'm hitting the dance floor. Like there is that
Speaker 2: energy to Brian Kelly all the time with these types
Speaker 2: of videos. But you know what, It's better than sitting
Speaker 2: at the table and being sour. It's better than sitting
Speaker 2: at the table during the wedding and not hitting the
Speaker 2: dance floor. So I'm good with it now.
Speaker 1: I'm okay, I'm okay with it. Look again, we are
Speaker 1: in the content business here, Dan, of course, this is
Speaker 1: what we do now, is what I do now. So
Speaker 1: if he wants to do that dance every day of
Speaker 1: the week and post it to social media, by all
Speaker 1: means I'm showing up for Kayla on her special day. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, it's great. Great to see, great to see.
Speaker 2: Is there any other news that we need to discuss
Speaker 2: before we get into our I mean there's always you know,
Speaker 2: this coaching hire stuff that trickles all over. Boston College
Speaker 2: hired what Notre Dames tight Ends coach McNulty. I saw,
Speaker 2: not Jimmy McNulty.
Speaker 1: That's a different one. Yeah, I saw that. Is it
Speaker 1: true that you may be in the running to be
Speaker 1: the new offensive coordinator for Mario Cristobal because that's still
Speaker 1: kind of in progress, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's kind of a weird situation. So Miami, and look,
Speaker 2: Mario crist of ball and I happened to know a
Speaker 2: good amount of about Mario Crista Ball since I am
Speaker 2: an Oregon fan and I was, you know, party two.
Speaker 2: What happened with new coach hires in Eugene, and he
Speaker 2: took his time. He always took his time. He interviewed
Speaker 2: a ton of guys for for coordinator roles, assistant roles,
Speaker 2: and really was, you know, by all accounts, thorough about
Speaker 2: who he hired. But he Miami brought him in on
Speaker 2: December sixth we're recording this on what January thirty. First,
Speaker 2: it's correct, Miami still does not have an offensive coordinator.
Speaker 2: They reached out to Jason Candle and he turned them down.
Speaker 2: The Toledo head coach. There were parent conversations and it's
Speaker 2: sort of a he said, he said, situation with Kendall
Speaker 2: Briles and making a move from Arkansas. But they are
Speaker 2: still without a defensive coordinator, without an offensive coordinator, and
Speaker 2: now they've lost their corners. Coach to I think Alabama
Speaker 2: Treveris Robertson. I might get gotten that name wrong. I
Speaker 2: apologize if I did. And Brian McClendon, who he brought
Speaker 2: from Oregon to be his receivers coach, is now going
Speaker 2: to be filling that same role at Georgia, and so
Speaker 2: I don't know with signing day here, with spring coming up,
Speaker 2: Like he hired his strength coach, which is important. He
Speaker 2: brought him over from Oregon, and he's got a couple
Speaker 2: other guys he brought over from Oregon, his offensive line coach,
Speaker 2: his defensive line coach.
Speaker 1: But it does feel like it's taken him perhaps too long,
Speaker 1: and that there is I don't know, there's a reason
Speaker 1: why coaches are not sticking or coaches don't want to
Speaker 1: stick that are you know, interesting that job at one point,
Speaker 1: I don't know. It's almost as if hiring a coach
Speaker 1: via your boosters and not an athletic director is sort
Speaker 1: of doomed to failure, isn't it just a little bit
Speaker 1: like maybe maybe there is some smoke to the program
Speaker 1: not having itself in order, And you know, I understand
Speaker 1: they've brought the guy down from Clemson and they're trying
Speaker 1: to get things together. And Mario's big fish. He's a
Speaker 1: good coach, he's a great recruiter. Like I don't mean
Speaker 1: to take anything away from him, but he will eventually
Speaker 1: find coordinators. I think my point is nobody should be
Speaker 1: surprised at this point if it feels a little bit disorganized,
Speaker 1: feels a little bit all over the place, because frankly,
Speaker 1: those are the circumstances under which Cristal Wal took the job.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and if you are an assistant in demand, if
Speaker 2: you're a coordinator in demand, and you interview with a
Speaker 2: couple different schools, or you go to Miami and then
Speaker 2: another school shows interest to you Miami saying this will
Speaker 2: be what the program is like, These are the plans
Speaker 2: for the program. Potentially, this is how the machine will
Speaker 2: be built in some time, and then Georgia comes to
Speaker 2: you or Alabama comes to you and says, flip a switch,
Speaker 2: We're ready. And so it's just it's it's the sort
Speaker 2: of perils that come with being a constantly rebuilding and
Speaker 2: being a program that doesn't seem to at the moment
Speaker 2: potentially will have a solid foundation.
Speaker 1: That there is.
Speaker 2: Just there are a lot of teas to cross and
Speaker 2: eyes to dot, and a lot of promises to be fulfilled,
Speaker 2: to be TBD, we'll see.
Speaker 1: With all that being said, we wanted to provide further
Speaker 1: context for what we saw transpire in twenty twenty one,
Speaker 1: So keep in mind. If you go back at the time,
Speaker 1: I had left the mysterious day job, and I was
Speaker 1: immersing myself in preseason college football fully to the extent
Speaker 1: that I could, with at that point in time only
Speaker 1: a limited amount of hours to really throw into it.
Speaker 1: And I was fascinated by over under tootals because, if
Speaker 1: nothing more, it gives you a guide, gives you a
Speaker 1: guide for where the people who use this to put
Speaker 1: their kids through college, where they think teams are going
Speaker 1: to be. Right. So, what we've got in front of
Speaker 1: us here, and you dutifully put this together, Dan, thank
Speaker 1: you for doing this. Of course, you put together a
Speaker 1: list of the teams that either exceeded or fell short
Speaker 1: of their preseason over underwin totals. Correct. So we've got
Speaker 1: a list here of the teams that overperformed, the teams
Speaker 1: that underperformed, at.
Speaker 2: Least according to Vegas expectations, right, not necessarily internal ones
Speaker 2: or fan base expectations. But like this is how Vegas
Speaker 2: set the line of saying we think half of the
Speaker 2: people are going to bet this way and half the
Speaker 2: people are going to bet that way. This is that
Speaker 2: enticing number. And these are the teams that completely outperformed
Speaker 2: or came way way underneath it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So we pulled a few of these out that
Speaker 1: I think are of interest, and I know you and
Speaker 1: I each have a couple that we want to talk about,
Speaker 1: But I think the intention here is to look at
Speaker 1: where some of these teams ended up, how they performed
Speaker 1: relative to that over under, and then talk a little
Speaker 1: bit about why.
Speaker 2: Yeah, by the way, looking back in retrospect, coming off
Speaker 2: of the weird, weird in a lot of ways awful
Speaker 2: twenty twenty season in terms of the variance of results
Speaker 2: and games getting canceled and teams going three weeks without playing,
Speaker 2: stuff like that, there were just going to be some
Speaker 2: absolutely awful lines being set. Oh that it were just
Speaker 2: like somebody's like, yeah, about five and a half, they
Speaker 2: win ten games, Like why, Well, twenty twenty was weird
Speaker 2: for everybody, and so we don't fully understand the scope
Speaker 2: of what a team could have been or could be
Speaker 2: at full strength with a much more normal experience, or
Speaker 2: a team just got lucky in twenty twenty, or a
Speaker 2: team had an inflated win total because of all sorts
Speaker 2: of things happening around them. So basically, what I took
Speaker 2: from this, if we're gonna be like prisoners of the
Speaker 2: moment is okay, You're gonna look at experience on a
Speaker 2: certain level. You're gonna look at schedule. You're also gonna
Speaker 2: look at conference. You're like, Okay, has this conference been
Speaker 2: down for a while and now have a bunch of
Speaker 2: teams with upper classmen who are just going to progress
Speaker 2: back to the mean or just like they're not gonna
Speaker 2: have as much bad turnover luck as they did last year.
Speaker 1: Like you're also just like looking at teams.
Speaker 2: Where you're like, what is the collapse potential? What is
Speaker 2: their Jenga potential?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 2: And so so like one of the teams here is
Speaker 2: USC who had I think it was a nine win
Speaker 2: total set in this one, right, and they finished the
Speaker 2: season at what five and seven USC or four and eight,
Speaker 2: like they were terrible. So the collapse potential was certainly
Speaker 2: high given Clay Helton's job status. But you looked at
Speaker 2: their actual schedule and you're like, they don't have anybody
Speaker 2: tough in the non conference part of the schedule, Like
Speaker 2: early on, it looks pretty good. Like they miss Oregon
Speaker 2: and Washington, the two best teams presumed to be the
Speaker 2: best teams in the North, like, nine games seems fine,
Speaker 2: So going you'd have to just bank on collapse potential
Speaker 2: because realistically it was understandable that USC win around nine
Speaker 2: games last year.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: The reason they didn't well injuries, and it turns out
Speaker 2: they just weren't good. They didn't have guys on defense,
Speaker 2: and teams got better in the Pac twelve on their schedule,
Speaker 2: like Oregon State. Oregon State is a team that should
Speaker 2: basically never beat USC. They moved the ball all over
Speaker 2: SC and the win in the Coliseum, which was their
Speaker 2: first win there forever and ever, and so USC is
Speaker 2: a really good example of just collapse potential.
Speaker 1: You knew they had it.
Speaker 2: There's some teams that just have that in their DNA,
Speaker 2: given the circumstance, is a coach or the personnel whatever.
Speaker 2: USC was a prime collapse potential that I guess we
Speaker 2: just didn't fully underline ahead of the year.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and one that I think is kind of on
Speaker 1: the opposite end of that spectrum where we saw the
Speaker 1: collapse potential, but a lot of folks didn't see it
Speaker 1: coming Washington, correct, Yeah, Washington's over under was nine And
Speaker 1: you know, I've talked about it for probably eight months
Speaker 1: running now, but a lot of the preview publications are
Speaker 1: very high on the Huskies. Phil Steele, Oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: he couldn't have been any higher on Washington. Right. It
Speaker 1: took a few weeks for me, certainly for you, for
Speaker 1: a lot of folks who follow college football to fully
Speaker 1: come to grips with the fact that what we've seen
Speaker 1: early from the Huskies is not a fluke. This just
Speaker 1: might be a very poorly coached team. And you know,
Speaker 1: you can never account for coaching circumstances and coaching weirdness
Speaker 1: in some of these lines, right, You can certainly account for, yes,
Speaker 1: I think this guy's a good coach or a bad coach,
Speaker 1: for whatever that's worth. But in this case with Jimmy Lake,
Speaker 1: we had real circumstances that went awry, and I think
Speaker 1: that contributed to the collapse that we saw from Washington.
Speaker 1: But Washington only winning like what they went four games, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, that was so far short of expectations that
Speaker 1: I don't think anybody could have seen it coming. You
Speaker 1: certainly could have gone into the year and said, I
Speaker 1: don't think Washington's going to get to nine wins. There's
Speaker 1: sure there are reasons why I don't feel like, that's attainable.
Speaker 1: I don't remember what you had with Washington. I don't
Speaker 1: think you were as high as I went under. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but even still this far under, nobody could have seen
Speaker 1: that coming.
Speaker 2: No, I mean, the only real sense was, like nobody
Speaker 2: really liked John Donovan as the answer for that offense,
Speaker 2: and so that was going to hold them back. But
Speaker 2: going into the season, you thought, Okay, they have an
Speaker 2: experienced quarterback. They had the COVID issues that prevented them
Speaker 2: from playing Oregon and playing in the Pac twelve championship game,
Speaker 2: but they have this reputation of having a solid defense
Speaker 2: and Jimmy Lakes being a defensive minded coach.
Speaker 1: They've recruited well.
Speaker 2: On offense, They've got this very experienced offensive line, They've
Speaker 2: got one of the best tight ends in the country,
Speaker 2: and like, even if they're not great, they should still
Speaker 2: be good and you can win nine games as a
Speaker 2: good team in the Pac twelve. What we didn't fully
Speaker 2: look at was maybe they were the beneficiary of the
Speaker 2: COVID year, the weird COVID year, and they won some clunkers,
Speaker 2: and also like they had a ton of transfers, especially
Speaker 2: on offense heading into the twenty twenty one season, almost like,
Speaker 2: you know, pigeons freaking out ahead of an earthquake.
Speaker 1: We're like, should we Is there something coming? Is there?
Speaker 1: Is there?
Speaker 2: A bunch of frogs won't shut up that there's an
Speaker 2: earthquake a half hour later. And I think that that
Speaker 2: was it, That that was the best we could have
Speaker 2: hoped for. That a pretty average offense wasn't going to
Speaker 2: get better. In the fact that all these receivers are
Speaker 2: leaving might be an indicator of ooh, things are trending
Speaker 2: pretty quickly downward in Seattle.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I that one I didn't see coming. The other
Speaker 1: the one that I didn't see coming was Florida, Florida.
Speaker 1: Florida was at Florida would have been tough to see coming. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Florida was at nine, they're over under was nine. They
Speaker 1: obviously got to six. And that was a huge disappointment,
Speaker 1: sort of in the same vein, though not quite to
Speaker 1: the same extreme extent as Jimmy Lake. But you had
Speaker 1: that coaching turmoil, You had that very clearly breakdown about
Speaker 1: halfway through the season where it just seems like Florida
Speaker 1: stopped playing. They stopped playing for Dan Mullen and I
Speaker 1: can't tell you the number of articles I've read, either
Speaker 1: on the athletic or through team sites or on message boards,
Speaker 1: what have you where Folks have been talking for the
Speaker 1: last couple of months about how this team just didn't
Speaker 1: play hard. That was kind of the book on Florida
Speaker 1: from opposing coaches, that they just they don't play hard.
Speaker 1: They're undisciplined. They can get up some of the time,
Speaker 1: but most of the time they kind of don't care. Right.
Speaker 1: There was no way to really account for that before
Speaker 1: the season. Nine wins in the SEC is difficult. That's
Speaker 1: difficult by any stretch, But even with a lot of
Speaker 1: the turnover, it seemed as if they had talent in
Speaker 1: place where they could get to that nine. I was
Speaker 1: very high in Florida before the start of the year.
Speaker 1: That clearly did not materialize.
Speaker 2: The the case against Florida would have been, and I
Speaker 2: didn't tap into it in the same way that you
Speaker 2: didn't tap into it was sometimes Actually no, every single
Speaker 2: fan base feels like the world is that, you know,
Speaker 2: the sky is falling right because they're not recruiting, they're
Speaker 2: not hiring the right coaches, they're not getting the best
Speaker 2: out of their players. Whatever, because just that's the nature
Speaker 2: of fans holding their own team to an incredibly high
Speaker 2: standard that it's unattainable for basically everybody, but Florida fans
Speaker 2: are an educated fan base because they know what incredible
Speaker 2: national teams look like, they know what SEC champions look like,
Speaker 2: and they know what they they don't look like. They've
Speaker 2: had a bunch of coaches who can recruit but can't win,
Speaker 2: or a bunch of coaches who won but eventually couldn't
Speaker 2: recruit and then couldn't win, a bunch of weird personalities
Speaker 2: that weren't going to be long term answers, and so
Speaker 2: Florida fans were very quick to say, it's keeping Todd
Speaker 2: Grantham around. Okay, that's not the answer. A defensive coordinator,
Speaker 2: it's not going to last. Florida's not going to win
Speaker 2: ten games a year with Todd Grantham calling plays on defense.
Speaker 2: Florida fans would say, they're not recruiting as well as
Speaker 2: they should be, and yes, Florida is stringing together top
Speaker 2: ten or top fifteen or top twenty classes or whatever,
Speaker 2: but they're getting killed in their own backyard, which is
Speaker 2: a recipe for a downward trend and so those types
Speaker 2: of things are that the warnings, the trends, that's saying
Speaker 2: like this isn't adding up for a long term solution
Speaker 2: for Dan Mullen, and so that you would have to
Speaker 2: believe and buy into that because I didn't. I looked
Speaker 2: at the classes and I said, they're still pretty good.
Speaker 2: They're not amazing, they're not Urban Meyer Florida classes, but
Speaker 2: they're still pretty good. You can still win a bunch
Speaker 2: of games. Yeah, But at the same time, and like,
Speaker 2: what do they do with Kyle Trask a year ago,
Speaker 2: Kyle Pitts, Caadarius Tony, all these guys were record setting
Speaker 2: guys on offense, but they're not necessarily guys Dan Mullen
Speaker 2: brought in.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: It's just one of those things where you're just like
Speaker 2: a lot of Florida fans had that sort of like
Speaker 2: sell high mentality.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I don't feel like Florida fans were unrealistic.
Speaker 1: I felt they were cautiously optimistic about what could happen
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty one. But I recall, in just going
Speaker 1: back through my own preview kind of what my headspace
Speaker 1: was talking about Florida. I was high on Florida. I
Speaker 1: would never have bet that over at nine wins because again,
Speaker 1: this is a team that played both Alabama and Georgia,
Speaker 1: which on the surface at that point in whenever we
Speaker 1: did this mid July, right at that point, it seemed
Speaker 1: like those were losses. Now, Florida played Bama pretty tight.
Speaker 1: Oh absolutely could right there, could have won that game,
Speaker 1: but that on the surface looked like two losses. If
Speaker 1: you're betting on the over at that juncture, saying those
Speaker 1: are gonna be two losses, they can't slip up at
Speaker 1: all the rest of the way, right, And I wasn't
Speaker 1: comfortable with that. Now, I think I had him at
Speaker 1: eight wins, eight and four. They fell short of that
Speaker 1: by a couple games, and you know, in many other ways,
Speaker 1: but the Florida one kind of snuck up on me.
Speaker 1: It really did, to the extent that they would only
Speaker 1: win six games and look as bad as they did
Speaker 1: down the stretch, That to me was I could not
Speaker 1: have foreseen that one coming.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, the big the big chakra was probably
Speaker 2: I mean, outside of the first half of the Samford game,
Speaker 2: it's the South Carolina game. It's that you look at
Speaker 2: Florida's schedule they beat an upcoming Tennessee team comfortably to
Speaker 2: go to three and one, I believe. So basically what's
Speaker 2: happening is Kentucky has always been, always been in the
Speaker 2: last few years, they've been solid to, if not good,
Speaker 2: a good team. So they look disastrous against Kentucky and
Speaker 2: just mistake prone. It's the South Carolina game where that
Speaker 2: was like the big indicator LSU it's back and forth,
Speaker 2: it's an uncharacteristic shootout.
Speaker 1: Whatever.
Speaker 2: You lose that game a bunch of turnovers. That was
Speaker 2: an indicator that things have gotten really, really sloppy. And
Speaker 2: that was only a few weeks after the Bama game.
Speaker 2: But you know, losing to Miszoo in overtime the way
Speaker 2: that they did and then South Carolina by twenty three
Speaker 2: or whatever like it just there was a I don't
Speaker 2: know if it's a stubbornness or if it's just I
Speaker 2: don't know what you could have seen ahead of time
Speaker 2: because you look at Emery Jones with the experience he
Speaker 2: had in the program. Dan Mullen still has the offensive mine,
Speaker 2: they still have receivers and just collapsed and I may
Speaker 2: have taken the under If we do this again, if
Speaker 2: we go back in time and do it again. I
Speaker 2: just don't know how much we could have seen this
Speaker 2: coming as outsiders. Michigan's a team that overperformed in a
Speaker 2: big way. Yeah, plus Michigan State in a huge way.
Speaker 2: I can stay in a huge way.
Speaker 1: And plus six Yeah, Oklahoma State also fared very well
Speaker 1: with this one that I would love to talk more
Speaker 1: ab as Baylor. Sure, Baylor's over under was five and
Speaker 1: a half before the start of the year, and I
Speaker 1: went on our Daily Bearers with our friend Peter Pope,
Speaker 1: the Pope, the og Pope, and I talked to him
Speaker 1: about where I was at with Baylor, And you know,
Speaker 1: I think what makes the Baylor result in twenty twenty
Speaker 1: one so damn impressive. And you've heard me say this
Speaker 1: is just the way that Dave Randa looked at what
Speaker 1: transpired in twenty twenty after the weird COVID year. He
Speaker 1: gave an objective analysis as to what he thought was wrong,
Speaker 1: and he changed it. He changed it. Most guys don't
Speaker 1: have the gumption to do that, so he swapped out
Speaker 1: offensive coordinator. He started going for it more n fourth downs.
Speaker 1: He had turnover to deal with, but he was able
Speaker 1: to kind of pull things together in a way that
Speaker 1: they were just really fundamentally sound. Over under again five
Speaker 1: and a half. I was I'm looking at this thinking, geez,
Speaker 1: I don't there are too many question marks here with
Speaker 1: the Baylor Bears. But he circled the wagons. He was
Speaker 1: able to get that team playing so well as a
Speaker 1: team to not beat itself. They had their moments, but
Speaker 1: they were just so solid. That was the theme of
Speaker 1: this past season. If you can have a solid football
Speaker 1: team out there, it will produce, it will produce. We
Speaker 1: saw that. We saw results time and again from teams
Speaker 1: that weren't great but were just really solid. And Baylor,
Speaker 1: let's be honest, Baylor very much fit that mold. They
Speaker 1: were really solid across the board and that's why they
Speaker 1: were plus four and a half plus four and a
Speaker 1: half incredible year.
Speaker 2: It was in retrospect, kind of a strange year in
Speaker 2: the Big Twelve. So I think you have to give
Speaker 2: credit to Baylor for overcoming that, you know, win total
Speaker 2: number in a big way. But at the same time,
Speaker 2: so they actually lose to TC.
Speaker 1: But you look.
Speaker 2: At where the Big Twelve has fallen to in terms
Speaker 2: of week to two week consistency on offense, especially because
Speaker 2: defensively there's some good teams. Sure, so Baylor probably shouldn't
Speaker 2: have beaten Texas Tech. I think that was a Donovan
Speaker 2: Smith lit them up. But they win that game with
Speaker 2: like a you know, a nothing win, like a four
Speaker 2: percent win expectancy or something like that. Texas falls apart
Speaker 2: and Baylor wins that game, and Texas defense is atrocious,
Speaker 2: like Texas is wildly and consistent atrocious. New coach at
Speaker 2: ut Oklahoma State really really good and they lose that game.
Speaker 2: But like West Virginia kind of falls off a cliff
Speaker 2: this year, Oklahoma in the way that they looked on
Speaker 2: offense for large swaths of this year, especially turning to
Speaker 2: a freshman who I think Caleb Williams has all the
Speaker 2: potential in the world, but he threw in some clunkers
Speaker 2: of quarters haves and just general game performances.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 2: I just some of it is Baylor just taking advantage.
Speaker 2: Like Baylor just found themselves on much more solid ground
Speaker 2: than much of the conference, and so I don't know,
Speaker 2: I could not have predicted that. I like the Jeff
Speaker 2: Grimes higher, I was unsure of where they were going
Speaker 2: to be at quarterback, but I figured it was going
Speaker 2: to be an upgrade over where Charlie Brewer was in
Speaker 2: twenty twenty. But yeah, I don't know how much there
Speaker 2: is in terms of lessons to glean from Baylor's twenty
Speaker 2: twenty one going into the year. As much as it
Speaker 2: is like weird, you're in the Big twelve and Baylor
Speaker 2: seems solid all around and took more chances.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it bodes well for Baylor moving forward.
Speaker 1: I think if nothing more, and you're right, there is
Speaker 1: definitely an atmospheric calculation that we need to make. I
Speaker 1: just sort of made that up, but oh, it's a
Speaker 1: good turn of phrase. I like it. You need to
Speaker 1: look at these surroundings, the other teams in the conference
Speaker 1: to figure out how much value you want to put
Speaker 1: on some of these results. There was some of that
Speaker 1: going on for Baylor. But yeah, if nothing more, I
Speaker 1: think you come out of the twenty twenty one campaign
Speaker 1: obviously conference champion. You'll take that. And if nothing more,
Speaker 1: you know that Dave r Anna can coach. You know,
Speaker 1: Dave Ranneck coach. Now you know you got to see
Speaker 1: a full body of worker. You know you can coach
Speaker 1: on that one snuck up on me. The Baylor one
Speaker 1: snuck up on me. One that didn't was NC State. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you liked NC State a good deal more than I did.
Speaker 1: Going into the air, I was all in on NC State.
Speaker 1: They're over under was six. They finished with nine wins.
Speaker 1: They had losses at Mississippi State, where they played like
Speaker 1: crap Week two. It was a horrible game. They lost
Speaker 1: a really close one on the road at Miami, and
Speaker 1: then they lost the shootout on the road against wake Forest.
Speaker 1: Those are their three winses, but every other game along
Speaker 1: the way they won. They had the big, you could argue,
Speaker 1: program defining win, even though it might not have been
Speaker 1: a full strength Clemson team because of their injuries and
Speaker 1: just some of their struggles early, but beating Clemson twenty
Speaker 1: seven to twenty one in the first month of the
Speaker 1: season was a pretty big deal for NC State. Of course,
Speaker 1: that was a game we didn't know about, and I
Speaker 1: understand why Vegas might want to look at that one
Speaker 1: and say, ah, that's that's probably a loss. But it
Speaker 1: was strange to me that they would not give NC
Speaker 1: State more credit than six wins for that line because
Speaker 1: it was a veteran team. Granted, we only saw Devin
Speaker 1: Leary here in their year ago. Yeah we didn't know,
Speaker 1: but yeah, we just didn't know. There were a lot
Speaker 1: of uncertain aspects to this team. But with all they
Speaker 1: had coming back and with what appeared to be a
Speaker 1: relatively favorable schedule, over six seemed like a lock. To me.
Speaker 1: I wish I would have bet it. I didn't bet it.
Speaker 1: I don't like doing over unders because then your money's
Speaker 1: locked up and I'm not betting a whole lot. But
Speaker 1: I wish that were one that I would have stuck
Speaker 1: to my guns and actually bet in real life, because
Speaker 1: I really liked the Wolfpack going into this season.
Speaker 2: Yeah they were so in twenty twenty they go eight
Speaker 2: and four. Twenty nineteen was a disastrous year, so it
Speaker 2: seemed like things were trending up, but they didn't do
Speaker 2: anything amazingly well. And I think largely that was because
Speaker 2: of Devin Leary's injury, and it was what Bailey Hawkman, yeah,
Speaker 2: took over. Yep, and so it's backup quarterback. So they're
Speaker 2: getting healthier, and yeah, it was a good move, especially
Speaker 2: if you figured the ACC was going to continue to
Speaker 2: be as topsy turvy that Dave Dorin is somebody who
Speaker 2: is right, he's a competence buoye in Rocky Seas, right,
Speaker 2: he's always getting that the eight nine wins. So that
Speaker 2: makes sense that you would have had that faith, but
Speaker 2: you would have also had to just be a Devin
Speaker 2: Leary believer. You would have to have been a believer there.
Speaker 2: And also in like you know, North Carolina given what
Speaker 2: they've lost, and we can get into them next if
Speaker 2: you want, given what they've lost, or Virginia Tech given
Speaker 2: like justin Fwente's status even after the twenty twenty season,
Speaker 2: you're just sure, I don't know NC State, just like
Speaker 2: they hire Tony Gibson, and like I just you were
Speaker 2: just betting on foundation. You were betting on consistency in
Speaker 2: a conference that seemed to have a lot of variants.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I get the NC State appreciation going into
Speaker 2: the air, I get that.
Speaker 1: Let me talk to you about in North Carolina, UNC.
Speaker 1: Excuse me. Yeah. North Carolina's over under was ten. Yeah,
Speaker 1: big number. And this is a team that had a
Speaker 1: lot of production go to the NFL, and so to
Speaker 1: set that at ten always felt high to me. Now,
Speaker 1: I really like Sam Howe. We both did. We're both
Speaker 1: Sam Howe believers. We like Samo a lot, and I
Speaker 1: think we both feel generally pretty good about the talent
Speaker 1: that Mac Brown has brought into Chapel Hill. It's done
Speaker 1: a good job in the recruiting trail. That being said,
Speaker 1: ten is still a pretty big number. Yeah, And I
Speaker 1: don't remember where you were exactly on North Carolina. I
Speaker 1: think you did the preview for the tar Heels, but
Speaker 1: I remember looking at that number and saying, Okay, I
Speaker 1: like you and C I hope UNC can rise up
Speaker 1: as the counterbalance to Clemson. At the time, we were
Speaker 1: all in on Clemson too, right, But ten wins feels
Speaker 1: like a stretch.
Speaker 2: And North Carolina, by the way, has been a decent
Speaker 2: counterbalance on the recruiting trip they have.
Speaker 1: Absolutely. Yeah, So did to what extent did North Carolina
Speaker 1: take you by surprise?
Speaker 2: A decent amount of surprise. I figured that a NFL
Speaker 2: caliber quarterback, a first round NFL caliber quarterback, was good
Speaker 2: enough to raise the level of everybody around him. The
Speaker 2: problem is that's true of receivers. It can be true
Speaker 2: of a running game, but when he is constantly under pressure,
Speaker 2: when you lose a line in college, there's only so
Speaker 2: much you can do to improve in a year. And
Speaker 2: it's not the NFL where you go into free agency.
Speaker 2: It's not the NFL where you can prioritize line in
Speaker 2: the draft or something like that. Yeah, and even NFL
Speaker 2: teams struggle with that a good deal. And so with
Speaker 2: it being relatively early in mac Brown's tenure. I was
Speaker 2: never a huge fan of the J Bateman higher. I
Speaker 2: thought he was merely okay, if not a little bit
Speaker 2: below average at Army. I thought North Carolina could have
Speaker 2: done better at defensive coordinator. And some of those cracks
Speaker 2: shown like North Carolina got completely torched in twenty twenty.
Speaker 2: In the back end, they ended up what starting a
Speaker 2: high school senior, Tony Grimes when he was a top
Speaker 2: recruit essentially who enrolled early. So that was a worrisome trend.
Speaker 2: They weren't covering a bunch of games in twenty twenty.
Speaker 2: The defense showed some cracks just up front. They just
Speaker 2: weren't as strong in the trenches as they probably should
Speaker 2: have been considering mac Brown's recruiting ability. They didn't necessarily
Speaker 2: hit the portal as hard as they should, I guess
Speaker 2: in retrospect. But ten, yeah, ten seemed like an inflated
Speaker 2: number and it's almost it's almost I was gonna say,
Speaker 2: it's compared comparable to where Iowa State was, where yeah,
Speaker 2: a program can be interesting and deep. In Iowa State
Speaker 2: was coming off of a bigger platform and winning I
Speaker 2: think the Fiesta bal the year before, where like, okay,
Speaker 2: they're returning everybody, They're just going to take the next step.
Speaker 2: They've got an experienced quarterback, the coach, the coaching staff,
Speaker 2: you know, the lines are intact. Like it made sense
Speaker 2: that people would be bullish on Iowa State. But North
Speaker 2: Carolina winning ten games with what they had to replace,
Speaker 2: it seemed like not unreasonable. But that is everything needs
Speaker 2: to go right. Every young player needs to hit on
Speaker 2: their potential and they need to win every single clunker,
Speaker 2: every single fifty to fifty game. And that's just a
Speaker 2: lot to ask. That's a lot to ask when you
Speaker 2: don't have the depth yet. It's a lot to ask
Speaker 2: when you don't have the defense to bail you out
Speaker 2: of turnovers, to bail you out of situations. And so
Speaker 2: in retrospect, it maybe seems a little bit more obvious
Speaker 2: to me, But no, I didn't see this kind of
Speaker 2: week in week out, Like you look at the Georgia
Speaker 2: Tech game. They gave up what forty fifty points? Did
Speaker 2: this Georgia Tech team didn't see that potential coming.
Speaker 1: Now, surprise, not surprised. Let's go through some of the
Speaker 1: other teams on this list here. Houston. Houston won eleven games.
Speaker 1: They're over under eight. I was not surprised by that
Speaker 1: at all. I was in on Houston.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I wasn't to this extent. I didn't think the
Speaker 2: defense would be as good. But it's one of those
Speaker 2: things where they were hitting the portal hard. And I
Speaker 2: think most of us believe Dana Holgersson is a good
Speaker 2: but not great coach, and a good coach in the
Speaker 2: American hitting the portal returning a quarterback, Yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 2: would have penciled him for nine or ten. I did
Speaker 2: not see eleven.
Speaker 1: Coming, Yeah I didn't. I didn't see eleven, but I
Speaker 1: was in on Houston. Oklahoma State's an interesting case. Seven
Speaker 1: and a half before the season obviously went three and
Speaker 1: a half over that number. YEP, just had the what
Speaker 1: one regular season loss? We felt good about the defense.
Speaker 1: The defense had been trending in a good direction. I
Speaker 1: have never been shy to admit my reluctance on the
Speaker 1: Spencer Sanders front totally. The defense had been trending in
Speaker 1: a good direction. I think we undervalued, frankly, how good
Speaker 1: it could be. It was very good defense, very good defense.
Speaker 1: That's why they got to the heights that they did.
Speaker 1: So that one surprised me a little bit. What about
Speaker 1: ole Miss?
Speaker 2: Dan uh ole Miss surprised, not dramatically so and by
Speaker 2: the way, Oklahoma States surprised, but not dramatically so too.
Speaker 2: I figured they'd be pretty good, but I didn't see
Speaker 2: the star power on offense, which made me think that
Speaker 2: they would win two three games or excuse me, lose
Speaker 2: two or three two, three, four games but still feel
Speaker 2: a really strong defense. And you know, the combination of
Speaker 2: not having the star power and a mistake prone quarterback,
Speaker 2: it worried me. And they gave me a reason not Tory. Yeah,
Speaker 2: Ole Miss was interesting. Lane Kiffin and a quarterback with
Speaker 2: talent is tantalizing, like especially in his first real season
Speaker 2: coaching the team, and where that defense was when he arrived,
Speaker 2: with where that defense ascended to this year to become
Speaker 2: pretty interesting. Not a full surprise, but dramatically over. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I think.
Speaker 1: I'm surprised that in year two. He won ten games.
Speaker 1: For sure. I didn't see it coming. The BYU result
Speaker 1: this year was what ten wins? They were good. I
Speaker 1: did not see this one coming to this extent six
Speaker 1: and a half. To me, I recall being very much
Speaker 1: on the fence because new quarterback, they've got some turnover.
Speaker 1: It was a great campaign. I didn't so I didn't
Speaker 1: see that one coming, not to this extent.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the BYU thing, you would had to have been
Speaker 2: extremely down on the PAC twelve. Yeah, you would have
Speaker 2: had to know that Charlie Brewer was not long for
Speaker 2: Salt Lake City, but they were going to play him
Speaker 2: in the Holy War week two and then cam Rising
Speaker 2: would have been a clearly better option. And so yeah,
Speaker 2: they were they were hard out and I definitely didn't
Speaker 2: see it coming. I definitely thought they had enough to
Speaker 2: still be decent.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's in the same boat. Yeah. They basically
Speaker 1: they lose to Boise State.
Speaker 2: And they lose on the road to Baylor. They get
Speaker 2: a disastrously bad collapsing USC A woefully I would say
Speaker 2: woefully disappointing, but a disappointing ASU team.
Speaker 1: But that game is in provo.
Speaker 2: They get Washington State, I think on the heels of
Speaker 2: Wazoo firing their coach, which is an incredibly difficult spot
Speaker 2: for Wazoo, and they get what Virginia was. Did Brendan
Speaker 2: Armstrong play in that game or I don't. I don't know,
Speaker 2: I don't. You can pull that up while I'm talking.
Speaker 2: It was just a weird year for b and things
Speaker 2: broke their way, but they I mean, they largely took
Speaker 2: care of business. I mean, there was a shootout against Virginia,
Speaker 2: but otherwise, Yeah, I guess you just could have looked
Speaker 2: at BYU and said they're a wild card, let's go
Speaker 2: over just because they look solid. Clonie Sataki is hired.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, but no, I don't I don't think I
Speaker 1: would have been confident in that over. Uh, Pitt did well.
Speaker 1: I don't know if that's terribly surprising. We liked Kenny Pickett.
Speaker 1: I you know, I don't know if I quite expected
Speaker 1: that kind of campaign, but the Kenny Pickett to Jordan
Speaker 1: Addison connection really blossomed. The Pitt defense. The pit Past
Speaker 1: defense especially sort of let them down but somewhat Yeah,
Speaker 1: this was definitely a good team led by its quarterback.
Speaker 1: So it's not all that surprising to me one that
Speaker 1: I I too that I was.
Speaker 2: In on pit by the way, a big There's no
Speaker 2: way I saw the Kenny Pickett thing coming that type
Speaker 2: of improvement. But it just in looking at their schedule
Speaker 2: ahead of time with Tennessee with a new coach, I mean,
Speaker 2: they end up losing to Western Michigan, but otherwise, like
Speaker 2: the non conference isn't terrible. And then you have Georgia Tech,
Speaker 2: which was lost into the season, it still appears to
Speaker 2: be lost. Virginia Tech coming out and saying, we're not
Speaker 2: firing our coach, but we do need to tell you
Speaker 2: that we're not firing our coach. Definitely didn't see the
Speaker 2: Clemson collapse quote unquote coming, even though they you know,
Speaker 2: got to a respectable number of wins in a quote
Speaker 2: unquote down year. But yeah, the Miami thing going to
Speaker 2: a backup quarterback who worked out for them, but Miami
Speaker 2: having the topsy turvy year that they did, I figured
Speaker 2: that they would be on more solid ground this year,
Speaker 2: returning Derek King, returning what they did on defense led
Speaker 2: by like Bubba Bolden, whatever. I just I didn't see
Speaker 2: Pitt as that other like competence buoy along with NC
Speaker 2: State within the ACC that like, look, they're not an
Speaker 2: amazing team, but they're a good team. The Good getsy places, right,
Speaker 2: It's sort of the Baylor Sea Places the Baylor theme. Right,
Speaker 2: Good getsy places in a season as crazy as twenty
Speaker 2: twenty one, where there was a lot more parody than
Speaker 2: I think we've seen in a lot of recent years.
Speaker 2: I do want to talk very quickly about Texas, Northwestern.
Speaker 1: And Nebraska, because I think each those is interesting. But
Speaker 1: we can't fully close the loop on some of the
Speaker 1: surprise teams to the Good without mentioning Perdue and Michigan State.
Speaker 1: Perdue was the giant killer. Perdue was the fun team
Speaker 1: that everyone wanted to root for, had a bunch of
Speaker 1: big upsets, led in large part by David Bell and
Speaker 1: George Karloftis, both of whom are going to the NFL,
Speaker 1: both of whom declared that they were going to the
Speaker 1: NFL before the bowl game. They opted out of a
Speaker 1: bowl game. Then they somehow beat Tennessee in the bowl game,
Speaker 1: which was I think a great testament to how hard
Speaker 1: that team has played all season. To be without those
Speaker 1: guys and still win was in my view, a pretty
Speaker 1: big deal. So nobody could have seen the extent to
Speaker 1: which Purdue would rise above their six win over under.
Speaker 1: Finishing with nine wins is an incredible campaign for them.
Speaker 1: The Michigan State thing, though, is just freaking eerie. Four
Speaker 1: wins always felt a little light. However, we didn't have
Speaker 1: much to go on. We knew that they showed some
Speaker 1: fight in twenty two, and they only won two games
Speaker 1: of twenty twenty, but one of them was Michigan was
Speaker 1: the other Penn State, like whoever it was right, Going
Speaker 1: two and five in that campaign was not necessarily a
Speaker 1: great portal into what we might see here in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty one. But this is a team that continuously played
Speaker 1: really tough, and they found ways to manufacture points. They
Speaker 1: were good on offense, not so much on defense. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but the Michigan State one above all others. To be
Speaker 1: plus six over there over under a four was just
Speaker 1: sort of the crown jewel of this past college football season,
Speaker 1: at least within this context.
Speaker 2: I thought the floor would be raised via portal via
Speaker 2: Meltucker's coaching acumen. I thought he made good hires when
Speaker 2: he was first there, and that it was going to
Speaker 2: take some time. Impossible to judge in the COVID year,
Speaker 2: you know, as it is for most teams that made
Speaker 2: a higher in the COVID year. But I looked at
Speaker 2: Michigan State as a team in a program who hadn't
Speaker 2: found a quarterback who was Northwestern. By the way, of course,
Speaker 2: Big ten West Champ twenty twenty Big ten West Champ Northwestern,
Speaker 2: whom Michigan State beat, not Penn State in twenty twenty.
Speaker 1: I figured the floora would be raised.
Speaker 2: I figured with the raised level at various positions, the
Speaker 2: floor will be raised. But I didn't see them as
Speaker 2: solving quarterback. And so no, I didn't expect anything anywhere
Speaker 2: near this. So you were just you were just buying
Speaker 2: low on Michigan State if you were a believer in
Speaker 2: them or a Michigan State fan, because unless you were
Speaker 2: close to that program and following them day to day,
Speaker 2: I think it was pretty difficult to see. Look and
Speaker 2: they you know, they sneak by in a couple games,
Speaker 2: you know, the disastrous second half against Nebraska and the
Speaker 2: weird game against Indiana, and they get the fortuitous fumble
Speaker 2: against Michigan, but even still they're comfortably hitting the over
Speaker 2: with those wins. So no, could not have seen that coming.
Speaker 2: I mean, look ahead of the season, you're I mean
Speaker 2: you're looking at the schedule and you're like, it's difficult
Speaker 2: to find eight or nine wins on this Michigan State schedule,
Speaker 2: like it was looking at Purdue schedule, like you're going
Speaker 2: to be a believer in Purdue on the road against
Speaker 2: Iowa and on the road against Nebraska. Yeah, this Perdue
Speaker 2: team exactly like it. Just I don't think a lot
Speaker 2: of people were in that headspace, and so yeah, I
Speaker 2: think Michigan State definitely overperformed, at least in my eyes,
Speaker 2: and I see that as a good thing.
Speaker 1: Let's close this conversation out by talking about three teams. Okay,
Speaker 1: Let's talk about Texas, who was minus three there over
Speaker 1: under was eight, they finished with five. Let's talk about
Speaker 1: Northwestern was minus three and a half, they're over under
Speaker 1: was six and a half. And let's talk about Nebraska.
Speaker 1: They're over under was six. They obviously finished three and
Speaker 1: nine with those nine to one score losses. Whatever it was,
Speaker 1: whatever the crazy stat was for the Cornhuskers. I'm curious
Speaker 1: to get your take on which of those three teams
Speaker 1: surprises you the most with the way they finished. I
Speaker 1: feel like It's a very interesting topic for discussion because
Speaker 1: and here's why. Okay, Texas had the new coach, but
Speaker 1: a ton of talent, And even if you were unreasonably
Speaker 1: high on the Longhorns the way I was, I was
Speaker 1: gonna say, like your heart, like I was, hmm, full disclosure.
Speaker 1: It still seems a little wild to me that they
Speaker 1: would only finish with five wins. That's very surprising Northwestern.
Speaker 1: I Northwestern were accustomed to them finding a way to
Speaker 1: win the Big Ten West. But I don't know if
Speaker 1: either of us was all that high on the Wildcats
Speaker 1: going into this past season. We had our moments where
Speaker 1: we talked aspects of that team up, but I don't
Speaker 1: remember us ever being all that gung ho on the Wildcats,
Speaker 1: So that one, to me, is not surprising. Nebraska. Nebraska
Speaker 1: had a brutal schedule, and so I was almost willing
Speaker 1: to accept pretty much any result for them in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty one. I didn't want it to be a situation
Speaker 1: where they only had three wins. I don't want that,
Speaker 1: but six. To me, it was like I could go
Speaker 1: either way on this. It's not surprising that they would
Speaker 1: fall short of that. I think of the three Texas
Speaker 1: is the one that surprises me the most because if
Speaker 1: we want to talk about atmospherics in the Big Twelve,
Speaker 1: as you did earlier, it really was a more gettable
Speaker 1: version of the Big Twelve this past season, and for
Speaker 1: Texas to be as disorganized as they were to have
Speaker 1: still have trouble tackling on defense despite that apparently being
Speaker 1: like a focal point going into the year, that to
Speaker 1: me is still the biggest disappointment of those three teams. Agree,
Speaker 1: disagree where you.
Speaker 2: At disagree to me, it's Nebraska. It's Nebraska because of
Speaker 2: the amount of time Scott Frost has now been in Lincoln,
Speaker 2: the experience of Adrian Martinez, the improvement of the defense
Speaker 2: since Scott Frost got there. Under I think it's Eric Shenander,
Speaker 2: the defensive coordinator who goes back to Oregon days with
Speaker 2: Scott Frost, and the schedule nowithstanding because it's a tough schedule.
Speaker 2: I just I don't know. It's the Big Ten West,
Speaker 2: which I think is fine, but you know, we're coming
Speaker 2: off of a year in which Wisconsin was extremely disappointing.
Speaker 2: Minnesota was extremely disappointing for a stretch in twenty twenty
Speaker 2: that like I thought Nebraska had enough continuity there that
Speaker 2: they would be able to close out games. And the
Speaker 2: surprise to me is this should be the surprise to everybody,
Speaker 2: because it's very hard to go three and nine with
Speaker 2: a competent offense and a good defense.
Speaker 1: It just is. That's true. It just is.
Speaker 2: And so I file Texas under the sort of like
Speaker 2: Lakers law that Vegas is always going to inflate a
Speaker 2: Lakers win total because you know, La guys always go
Speaker 2: to Vegas and they love betting the Lakers and betting
Speaker 2: the over, and they're just like, there's so much enthusiasm
Speaker 2: around Texas in the way that there's enthusiasm over like
Speaker 2: the Lakers and the Yankees and all these things where
Speaker 2: it's just like doesn't take much to bring them back.
Speaker 2: They're Texas, come on. And so Texas is coming off
Speaker 2: a Bowl performance in which they look like they maybe
Speaker 2: have a quarterback of the future and Casey Thompson and
Speaker 2: although they nam Hudson card the starter, so he's like
Speaker 2: compared to Aaron Rodgers, Bruce Fellman compares him to Aaron
Speaker 2: Rodgers his potential, his skill set, whatever. And then you're
Speaker 2: bringing in Sark, who was just with Mac Jones, who
Speaker 2: was just with Tua and you're just like plug.
Speaker 1: And play, plug and play. Turns out the defense was
Speaker 1: a lot farther away. Turns out the offense was a
Speaker 1: lot outside of like the emergence of Xavier Worthy and
Speaker 1: Bjeon Robinson until he got hurt. Line wasn't there, Quarterback
Speaker 1: play was inconsistent, injuries at quarterback, and so I think
Speaker 1: what happened is there's just always going to be swirling enthusiasm.
Speaker 1: Texas is capital be back, and so that they fell
Speaker 1: short kind of nothing new that Nebraska fell short in
Speaker 1: the games that they did Michigan, Michigan State, Iowa with Lee,
Speaker 1: like all those games where they had a lead or
Speaker 1: they were right there one possession and give it away
Speaker 1: Illinois to start the season. Like I don't know, I
Speaker 1: was surprised that Nebraska wasn't a bowl team this year,
Speaker 1: even if you go back to my expectation before the
Speaker 1: season started with that brutal schedule. Man that like Pat Fitzgerald,
Speaker 1: makes bad hires, like Mike Hankwis was awesome in two
Speaker 1: thousand and eight for a hire, and he was awesome
Speaker 1: for twelve thirteen years, but he was far too loyal
Speaker 1: to his offensive coordinator for far too many years, and
Speaker 1: then he hires I think Jim O'Neil, a failed defensive
Speaker 1: coordinator in the NFL. The offense, there's no it's just
Speaker 1: Hunter Johnson doesn't work out like Peyton Ramsey's fine, he's
Speaker 1: if not on spectacular, but like there was nothing about
Speaker 1: Northwestern that screamed, oh, I see this is the overhaul,
Speaker 1: right that. I think the surprise with Northwestern is like
Speaker 1: they kind of you can just blink and they're going
Speaker 1: to be a bowl team. That's just how Pat Fitzgerald is.
Speaker 1: Just like duct tape and chicken wire to bowl Northwestern
Speaker 1: sometimes nine when with Northwestern, right, I think the hires
Speaker 1: have been suspect there they have. I think the surprise
Speaker 1: with Northwestern, and you're right, I mean the surprise with
Speaker 1: Northwestern over the years has been that they've been so
Speaker 1: good that they find ways, like you said, smoking mirrors,
Speaker 1: the cape and chicken wire, to be as as good
Speaker 1: as they are when the Big ten West go to
Speaker 1: a good bowl game, that type of thing. The surprise
Speaker 1: this year is how bad they were.
Speaker 2: Well, they fielded the historically bad offense two years ago.
Speaker 2: I get it, but it was so bad. It was
Speaker 2: really bad, really bad.
Speaker 1: Where we're on this show, we're looking at Northwestern, We're
Speaker 1: thinking they got no shot in any of these games. Yeah,
Speaker 1: no shot, And keep in mind you and I are
Speaker 1: used to dunking on the Iowa offense. Mm hmm. Northwestern
Speaker 1: was horrible, horrible. So I just if I were ranking
Speaker 1: these in order of most surprised to least surprised, I
Speaker 1: would say probably Texas won for me because they've got
Speaker 1: a special place in my heart. What can I say?
Speaker 1: Northwestern two, Nebraska three. I wasn't surprised by the Nebraska result,
Speaker 1: if only because I knew the schedule was tough, and
Speaker 1: you know, I knew they're going to be hitching their
Speaker 1: wagon again the Adrian Moreartinez. And no disrespect to Adrian Martinez,
Speaker 1: but you know, we've seen a couple of years of
Speaker 1: what Scott Frost is trying to do, and it it
Speaker 1: spooked me out a little bit that it was all
Speaker 1: on him, or felt like it might all be on
Speaker 1: him again.
Speaker 2: So that one doesn't surprise me as much as the
Speaker 2: other two. Yeah, God, do you think Pat Fitzgerald and
Speaker 2: Kirk farrensh just get together in the off season, say like,
Speaker 2: how how can we win the West with an awesome
Speaker 2: defense and no offense? Do we just keep playing like this?
Speaker 2: Should we just keep doing this? Should we just be
Speaker 2: like silly little silly little boys, keep using this and
Speaker 2: employing this as our strategy. It's working and did once again? Yeah,
Speaker 2: I don't know the Nebraska thing to me, it's just
Speaker 2: the the mind blower.
Speaker 1: No, all right, well right in We're at soliverbotgmail dot com.
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Speaker 1: As a college football fan and watching some of these
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Speaker 2: UH San Diego State four and a half games above
Speaker 2: Indiana with a win total set at eight games heading
Speaker 2: into the twenty twenty one season minus sliding in at
Speaker 2: two and ten six.
Speaker 1: That one is tough. That one's tough.
Speaker 2: You mentioned Purdue Western Kentucky adding our guy Bailey, Zappi
Speaker 2: and Kittley at at offensive coordinator. I want to say
Speaker 2: George Kitley. Because of George kittle Zach Kitley at offensive coordinator,
Speaker 2: they go two and a half over the expected win total.
Speaker 2: Fresno State did a nice job with Kaylin de Boorr
Speaker 2: just and utsa worth mentioning they were they showed potential
Speaker 2: but were kind of a disaster in finishing out games.
Speaker 2: They make that that next step, I think in large
Speaker 2: part because of the passing game Frank Harris and just
Speaker 2: really Frank Big Frank, yep. So really cool to see.
Speaker 2: In terms of lessons moving forward with how I'm going
Speaker 2: to look at this, I think I'm going to look
Speaker 2: at returning production, consistency along the coaching staff, and just
Speaker 2: how much I buy a team's conference. I think that
Speaker 2: it's the common friends purchasing that that is going to
Speaker 2: be my big thing. Like if I am if I
Speaker 2: am just like not a Big twelve believer, I'm not
Speaker 2: an acc believer heading into the twenty twenty two season.
Speaker 1: I'm committing to that. I'm absolutely committing to that with
Speaker 1: my win totals. All right, Well, we've got months and
Speaker 1: months before we Yes, we do see the win totals
Speaker 1: for the twenty twenty two season, but we'll be all
Speaker 1: over that for sure. If it went that comes to fruition, Dan,
Speaker 1: Always a pleasure to speak with you, Hey, same, It
Speaker 1: was good to go through all the Jackson darts. Can
Speaker 1: I kind of have that sound one more time? Please? Oh?
Speaker 1: I really can't.
Speaker 2: Always you can just call me up on the phone
Speaker 2: and say can I hear the drop?
Speaker 1: And I will. I'll absolutely play it for you. I
Speaker 1: appreciate that we talked about Jackson Dart we talked about
Speaker 1: Brian Kelly, you talked about Jim Harbaugh, all the news
Speaker 1: in college football. Hopefully gave you a little bit more
Speaker 1: context here on the season that was. We will be
Speaker 1: back on Thursday. We'll be talking about National Signing Day.
Speaker 1: Yes we have to, of course I like to. It's
Speaker 1: the reason for the season for that guy over there,
Speaker 1: my good friend Dan Rubinstein, for myself, Tie hildon Brandt,
Speaker 1: will talk to you all in a few days. In
Speaker 1: the meantime, as always, stay solid, peace,