Speaker 1: Welcome to the solid verbal hull.
Speaker 2: That for me, I'm a man, I'm forty.
Speaker 1: I've heard so many players say, well, I want to
Speaker 1: be happy.
Speaker 2: You want to be happy for a day?
Speaker 1: Edo State is that woo?
Speaker 2: Woof?
Speaker 3: And Dan and Tie.
Speaker 2: Welcome back to the salid verbal Boys and girls. My
Speaker 2: name is ty Hildenbrand. That guy over there, the one,
Speaker 2: the only still being comparable, Dan Rubinstein, thank you for
Speaker 2: coming back to our college football podcast.
Speaker 1: Dan. Yeah, how you doing. I'm pretty good all things considered.
Speaker 1: You know, Thanksgiving has coming gone. Stomach is feeling great. Great.
Speaker 1: My coach at my school, which is not my coach
Speaker 1: or my school, but I attended there. I'm gonna alumnus.
Speaker 1: He's still there. I mean by the time this is released.
Speaker 1: Maybe he took fourteen million dollars from Miami or something.
Speaker 1: I don't know. But you know, in these wild days
Speaker 1: and these carousel days, stability is not the worst thing.
Speaker 2: The coaching carousel, as I like to say, has been
Speaker 2: spinning ever so chaotically. We will get into some of
Speaker 2: the breaking news on that front. We have done three
Speaker 2: live streams in the span of about ninety six hours. Dan,
Speaker 2: because big name institutions keep hiring big name coaches or
Speaker 2: keep making news by the guys they are hiring. So
Speaker 2: we're going to get into that here momentarily. We're going
Speaker 2: to have Bill Connelly on to talk about the weekend
Speaker 2: in front of us here in week fourteen, Championship week,
Speaker 2: what he expects to see, what kind of takeaways he
Speaker 2: has from the season that was, and maybe offer some
Speaker 2: insight as well into some of this news in the
Speaker 2: coaching sphere. Oh yeah, before we go any further, though,
Speaker 2: do subscribe to the Solid Verbal Out on Apple podcasts
Speaker 2: or on Spotify, Google, anywhere where fine podcasts are sold.
Speaker 2: Believe me when I say that really truly does help.
Speaker 2: If you'd like to throw your hat in the ring
Speaker 2: for a chance to win an RG three signed mini helmet,
Speaker 2: you got about five more days to do so before
Speaker 2: we pick a winner. That url is solid giveaway dot com.
Speaker 2: It's free to enter. There are a few quick steps
Speaker 2: that you got to follow to get your name in
Speaker 2: the running. But one more time, Solid giveaway dot com Tomorrow.
Speaker 2: Solid Saturday dot Com is the url for our Saturday
Speaker 2: livestreamer doing it one more time. I got one more
Speaker 2: big Saturday to discuss. We do it on the YouTube
Speaker 2: channel every Saturday morning at eleven a m. Eastern time,
Speaker 2: So go on out subscribe to the channel. You'll be
Speaker 2: notified when we hit the button to go live, which
Speaker 2: is usually around ten forty five. And last, but certainly
Speaker 2: not at least for Bowlers dot Com. Yeah, man, a
Speaker 2: short while ago we did our brewin a episode which
Speaker 2: we do only on Patreon every Thursday, exclusively available to
Speaker 2: our Patreon for Bowlers. You also get to do an
Speaker 2: AA show to be clear. Yeah, it's a Q and
Speaker 2: A show, sure, but I was drinking tea out of
Speaker 2: my samoid mug as I like to he the Brew
Speaker 2: and A get access to this show early. You get
Speaker 2: access to a bunch of perks.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: We've talked about those time and again here on the show.
Speaker 1: Dam Yeah, it was a terrific show today. I I
Speaker 1: had a fun time. It's largely college football, but we
Speaker 1: got into I don't know, holiday, alcohol, We got into
Speaker 1: food and mine, apples on pizza, relationships, gifts, yeah, all
Speaker 1: sorts of stuff. Before we go any further though, and
Speaker 1: talk about the games this week, we should talk about
Speaker 1: the news this week. You know what, I ain't gonna
Speaker 1: yell at again. My voice is ready breaking. Thank you.
Speaker 2: Beep beep, beep beep on its last leg. Notre Dame
Speaker 2: has not officially named its new head football coach, but
Speaker 2: per reports, per numerous reports, it's gonna be Marcus Freeman.
Speaker 2: So on the Wednesday preview show, we talked through the
Speaker 2: news at that point that Brian and Kelly announced. I
Speaker 2: guess on Monday he was going to be leaving nd
Speaker 2: going down south into the Bayou, trying to take LSU
Speaker 2: to a national championship. It let Notre Dame in a
Speaker 2: position where potentially they're playing in the playoffs in a
Speaker 2: couple of weeks and then have a coach. So Jack Swarbrick,
Speaker 2: he urged some patients, said that there will be a process,
Speaker 2: that they were going to do a search. It was
Speaker 2: important to get the right guy. I don't know if
Speaker 2: it's because Gary Barta, as part of the College Football
Speaker 2: Playoff Committee, said that they were going to factor in
Speaker 2: Notre Dame's lack of a coach into their final rankings.
Speaker 2: I don't know if it was just that they like
Speaker 2: Marcus Freeman so much. I like to think the latter.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it was.
Speaker 2: Yeah, regardless of the scenario though. Marcus Freeman, per reports,
Speaker 2: they're working on putting a contract offer together and he's
Speaker 2: going to be the next head football coach. So this
Speaker 2: came about very quickly. We did a live stream which
Speaker 2: you can go out and view on the YouTube channel
Speaker 2: Solid Verbals. YouTube channel is YouTube dot com slash the
Speaker 2: Solid verbal the But what'd you think, Dan, how'd you
Speaker 2: feel about that?
Speaker 1: I felt good. I'm always enthusiastic. I try to be
Speaker 1: enthusiastic about new hires, and at first, and before I
Speaker 1: think about how it might not work, I think about, Okay,
Speaker 1: what does this look like in a working scenario in
Speaker 1: which Notre Dame succeeds under Marcus Freeman. It's not difficult
Speaker 1: to see. I think if you have an opinion of
Speaker 1: Marcus Freeman in a detailed prediction of how he will
Speaker 1: do at Notre Dame, you are either somebody who knows
Speaker 1: Marcus Freeman really well, or you're just guessing, or you're
Speaker 1: just because Look, he was at Cincinnati. He is a
Speaker 1: defensive coordinator not that long ago. He's been the defensive
Speaker 1: coordinator at Notre Dame for not even a full season.
Speaker 1: He has not been the public face of a school yet,
Speaker 1: so we don't have a really good concept of how
Speaker 1: he is publicly or what his vision is like as
Speaker 1: a head coach. We can be optimistic, there are things
Speaker 1: to point to that should make you feel optimistic about
Speaker 1: the hire, but also how green he is, the inexperienced,
Speaker 1: the size, the magnitude of the job. I don't know
Speaker 1: the last time we had a situation like this. I
Speaker 1: don't think it's fully analogous, but I am kind of
Speaker 1: reminded of Manny Diaz taking the Temple job and then
Speaker 1: immediately turning around and taking the Miami job, and you're like, well,
Speaker 1: the market kind of said he was a Temple type coach,
Speaker 1: and now he's the coach at Miami and a lot
Speaker 1: of ups and downs at Miami. Not that the market
Speaker 1: has deemed Marcus Freeman a G five or an up
Speaker 1: and down G five level head coach, but it just
Speaker 1: it wasn't really in the conversation for Notre Dame beyond
Speaker 1: like Brian Kelly saying like he's going to be the
Speaker 1: coach here someday, well, and that was the extent of it.
Speaker 2: It makes you wonder.
Speaker 1: It makes you wonder.
Speaker 2: Because there's been some anecdotal evidence along the way. Right,
Speaker 2: we had that Freudian slip, whatever you want to call it,
Speaker 2: when Brian Kelly made comments about Marcus Freeman being the
Speaker 2: next coach here. We had Jack Swarbrick at his press
Speaker 2: conference talk about the anxiousness or the restlessness. I guess
Speaker 2: was his phrasing that he saw in his friend Brian Kelly,
Speaker 2: with whom he had worked for a good long time.
Speaker 2: Brian Kelly again was at Notre Dame for twelve seasons.
Speaker 2: There is part of me in the galaxy brain. I
Speaker 2: don't know, wondering if Brian Kelly knew all along that
Speaker 2: he wanted out, that they brought Marcus Freeman on knowing
Speaker 2: that he would be the next guy, that maybe it
Speaker 2: wasn't truly just a slip of tongue, that maybe there
Speaker 2: was more to it. I can't substantiate that I am speculating,
Speaker 2: but it does make you wonder, after the fact, after
Speaker 2: what we've been through over the last few days here,
Speaker 2: whether or not there was a plan in place that
Speaker 2: we didn't know about right. Only time will tell.
Speaker 1: So you're saying there may have been Nate the Great
Speaker 1: ted Lasso type crumbs laid along the way. Maybe maybe
Speaker 1: by the way, I think you're not wrong. But two,
Speaker 1: I guess to my point, I don't know, like, did
Speaker 1: you see anywhere you're closer to this than I am.
Speaker 1: As somebody who pays attention to Notre Dame where they're like,
Speaker 1: Florida should talk to Marcus Freeman. Alice, you should talk
Speaker 1: to Marcus Freeman. Us you should talk to Marcus Freeman.
Speaker 1: Was his name coming up in really big head coaching
Speaker 1: jobs like that? I just don't remember seeing it.
Speaker 2: His name wasn't coming up in really big head coaching jobs.
Speaker 2: His name was coming up in really big defensive coordinator jobs.
Speaker 1: Sure, absolutely, which he already in habits.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there were no shortage of programs that would have
Speaker 2: loved to have Marcus Freeman on staff. And totally if
Speaker 2: you listen to any of the interviews that he's given,
Speaker 2: he talks openly about that. He talks open not about
Speaker 2: all the places where he's interviewed or gotten some interest,
Speaker 2: but enough of them, you know, from sea to Shining Sea.
Speaker 2: So from my standpoint, I think I was pretty open
Speaker 2: about the fact that I didn't have a strong opinion
Speaker 2: on which direction they should go. I was fairly confident
Speaker 2: that Jack Swarburk was going to make a good move.
Speaker 2: You know, I didn't buy what he was saying at
Speaker 2: his press conference that he didn't have a list in
Speaker 2: the top drawer or anything like that. Maybe he didn't
Speaker 2: have a list, but he had something in the back
Speaker 2: of his mind regarding what he was going to do next.
Speaker 2: Maybe that was Marcus Freeman all along. I don't know,
Speaker 2: but I do know this is a move that many
Speaker 2: people out there are gonna view as hasty. Sure, many
Speaker 2: people out there are gonna view it as a huge
Speaker 2: risk because Marcus Freeman does not have the experience. I
Speaker 2: am here to tell you that I freaking love it.
Speaker 1: I love it. I mean I love that you love it.
Speaker 2: I love every single solitary bit of this hire. I
Speaker 2: love it to its core. I love it because it's
Speaker 2: a risk. It's high risk, it's high reward at a
Speaker 2: program that you know in Earnest has tried that, maybe
Speaker 2: thought it was trying that with Charlie Weiss, but is
Speaker 2: trying it again now at a different stage in the program,
Speaker 2: when it is on more stable footing. Totally, if you're
Speaker 2: gonna try it, if you know that recruiting is not
Speaker 2: going to take a dip because of this move. Now
Speaker 2: would be the time to try it, to try and
Speaker 2: get to that next gear, that next level. I love it.
Speaker 2: I love that they're keeping Tommy Reese now a show
Speaker 2: ago he said, we think, Brian Kelly, we think LSU
Speaker 2: can probably do better than Tommy Reese at this stage
Speaker 2: in his development as a twenty nine year old offensive coordinator.
Speaker 2: That is probably true. The thing that I like about
Speaker 2: Notre Dame retaining him is a he's got a great
Speaker 2: rapport with the players that are there. He's done a
Speaker 2: better job each and every week with this offense bringing
Speaker 2: it along. They have gotten better throughout the course of
Speaker 2: the season. And I love the fact that he gets
Speaker 2: to be CEO of the offense and Marcus Freeman gets
Speaker 2: to be CEO of the defense. And at least in
Speaker 2: the short term, that means that the on field product
Speaker 2: for Notre Dame is gonna look a lot like what
Speaker 2: we've seen so far. It's not gonna be different. The
Speaker 2: bottom's not gonna fall out on this thing. If they
Speaker 2: do end up playing in a playoff game, they may
Speaker 2: get boat raced by Georgia, right, but buying large the
Speaker 2: product on the field is not going to take some
Speaker 2: hard left turn and make you wonder what the hell
Speaker 2: am I watching? So I love that continuity aspect of
Speaker 2: it as well. And I just think he's a damn
Speaker 2: impressive guy. Sure, I think he's way qualified. I love
Speaker 2: the fact that Notre Dame is trying to put itself
Speaker 2: in this position now to get to that next level.
Speaker 2: If it fails, and fails spectacularly, at least we have content, right,
Speaker 2: it could be worse.
Speaker 1: It's it's a swing risk, it's And I saw this
Speaker 1: phrase by somebody, some sportswriter, and I apologize for not
Speaker 1: knowing his or her name off the top of my head,
Speaker 1: but it was Sure, it's a big swing. But is
Speaker 1: it a bigger swing not to when you have this
Speaker 1: guy within your program as somebody who is beloved by
Speaker 1: people in the program, who is attracting people to the program,
Speaker 1: who calls a good defense, who improved his side of
Speaker 1: the ball dramatically over the course of the season, what's
Speaker 1: the bigger risk letting him go or promoting him? And
Speaker 1: it's a good question. And the Tommy Reese thing is
Speaker 1: interesting too. Continuity counts, Continuity matters, and I believe Tommy
Speaker 1: rees called an offense. It's championship week, right, not one,
Speaker 1: not two, but three non garbage time points against Clemson
Speaker 1: last year and the championship game.
Speaker 2: That's correct.
Speaker 1: You can't let that guy go. You just can't let
Speaker 1: him hit the open market. Do everything you can.
Speaker 2: This also now puts us in a very very interesting,
Speaker 2: unprecedented space where if Notre Dame gets into a playoff game,
Speaker 2: they may have the backing of otherwise Notre Dame haters.
Speaker 1: True, that's a nice new novel concept within the sport. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because the.
Speaker 2: One thing that Notre Dame haters hate more than Notre
Speaker 2: Dame is the snake of a coach. And I'm not
Speaker 2: here calling Brian Kelly a snake.
Speaker 1: Your mom did on one of our live stream My.
Speaker 2: Mom did on one of the live streams. I believe
Speaker 2: it was a creep, but snake's synonymous for sure, correct, yep.
Speaker 2: But the snake of a coach who abandons his team,
Speaker 2: who chases the bag, leaves with a three and a
Speaker 2: half four minute speech that guy. People always hate that
Speaker 2: guy more than Notre Dame. So the fact that he
Speaker 2: left Notre Dame in a lurch, I would not at
Speaker 2: all be surprised if Notre Dame makes it into this
Speaker 2: playoff if they don't, weirdly have the backing of people
Speaker 2: who would otherwise say I hate the Irish. Now suddenly
Speaker 2: they're on their side rooting for them to pull it off.
Speaker 2: Crazy turn of events.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think this week has shown us that people
Speaker 1: like commenting, at least people I've seen in social media
Speaker 1: commentary like I don't know whatever amount of worth you
Speaker 1: want to put on anonymous people weighing in, including me.
Speaker 1: People don't like snake coaches, and people say things, people
Speaker 1: like saying things like you couldn't pay me to live
Speaker 1: in California in response to Lincoln Riley, Okay, good to know, Thanks,
Speaker 1: thanks for weighing in.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well that's it. It's been. It's been quite a
Speaker 2: turn of events in South Bend, and I'm excited for
Speaker 2: them to finally take the bubble wrap off this thing
Speaker 2: and announce Marcus Freeman. I'm excited to hear what he
Speaker 2: has to say. I'm sure there will be some sort
Speaker 2: of introductory press conference and he's gonna have to hit
Speaker 2: the ground running, right because if it's not the playoffs,
Speaker 2: it's gonna be a New Year's six Bowl game against
Speaker 2: a good opponent. So we'll find out I think pretty
Speaker 2: early on what it looks like. We'll find out a
Speaker 2: lot more in the offseason and as we build into
Speaker 2: twenty twenty two. But even then, an early game against
Speaker 2: Ohio State. Welcome to college football, new head football coach
Speaker 2: Marcus is alma mater. Yeah, yeah, we will find out
Speaker 2: in very short order what this guy's got up his sleeve.
Speaker 2: I am very excited for this next generation of Notre
Speaker 2: Dame football. You know, even if it fails, at least
Speaker 2: they could say they tried.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, this is this is your year. This
Speaker 1: is in a shell, in a I forget what idiot
Speaker 1: I'm looking for, but in a nutshell like right, it's
Speaker 1: you could go comfortable, or you could take a big swing.
Speaker 1: And here's ty Hilton Bran out there quitting the day
Speaker 1: job taking a big swing. Fortune fires the bold, Fortune
Speaker 1: Fair is the bold? Any other news that we should discuss.
Speaker 1: I saw Adrian Martinez, Yeah he's in the train. Medazio
Speaker 1: was fired. Yeah, Adrian Martinez in the portal. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: I think we'll just more do a portal specific show
Speaker 1: in the coming couple of weeks of guys who have
Speaker 1: entered guys who have made the official switch, like Jake
Speaker 1: Hayner has gone from Fresno State presumably, it seems. I
Speaker 1: don't know if I've seen anything official at the time
Speaker 1: of recording, but there's an assumption based on transfer rules
Speaker 1: because he's already transferred once if he can immediately become
Speaker 1: eligible at a place where he used to play in
Speaker 1: Washington and I Yeah, there's a lot to be discussed
Speaker 1: with the portal. Interesting quarterback Spencer Ratler's in the portal.
Speaker 1: We talked about that a little bit. Just there's going
Speaker 1: to be a lot of new faces at new places
Speaker 1: that I think deserves its own show, or at least
Speaker 1: large swath of a show.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, And Oklahoma is still without a coach. There is
Speaker 2: I think a lot of speculation that it could be
Speaker 2: Brent Vennables, but that has not been openly reported anywhere.
Speaker 2: We'll see if that will come to fruition or not.
Speaker 2: Brent Vannibles, a guy you know, has a long history
Speaker 2: with Oklahoma, has done great things at clemsed hit it
Speaker 2: would make sense that they'd want to bring him back.
Speaker 2: But when that news breaks, I think we're going to
Speaker 2: try to handle it the way we've been handling all
Speaker 2: these other big openings and we'll just flip on the
Speaker 2: cameras and go live on YouTube. So that is why
Speaker 2: it is important if you like what we do, going
Speaker 2: out to YouTube dot com, slash the the solid verbal
Speaker 2: and you'll be notified whenever we go live. We get
Speaker 2: an email.
Speaker 1: A lot of interesting names, not even just menibals right,
Speaker 1: a lot of like hot coordinators, especially defensive coordinators. And
Speaker 1: you know Dan Lanning and Mike el Coo. Lanning obviously
Speaker 1: is going to be with Georgia for some time because
Speaker 1: of the playoff, but you know, Oklahoma should attract kind
Speaker 1: of best of the best, who's who of interesting head
Speaker 1: coaching candidates.
Speaker 2: An enormous job, absolutely enormous job. So do stay tuned.
Speaker 2: Make sure you subscribe to the show and subscribe to
Speaker 2: the YouTube channel. We're doing our best here in this
Speaker 2: on demand universe of podcasting to cover these things in
Speaker 2: as close to real time as we can. It doesn't
Speaker 2: always work out timing wise.
Speaker 1: YouTube hit the YouTube channel. We're going live with big news.
Speaker 2: We've been going live with big news, and we've also
Speaker 2: been posting that audio and podcast form out on verballers
Speaker 2: dot com for a patriot. Sure again, those who are interested,
Speaker 2: shall we get to our guest of honor. I would
Speaker 2: love to joining us. Now, we're old buddy from ESPN
Speaker 2: dot com. We've known Bill Connolly forever. Bill.
Speaker 1: How are you?
Speaker 3: I'm very good? How are you? I'm very tired. Let's
Speaker 3: not let's be real here. Yeah, we're yeah, we're ready
Speaker 3: to to wrap this up a little bit. But I'm excited.
Speaker 1: Poor us. We watch college football and talk about it professionally.
Speaker 1: Please pity our struggles.
Speaker 3: And I am very excited though about this weekend. This
Speaker 3: has a chance to be a very very cool playoff,
Speaker 3: and I'm hoping for the best here.
Speaker 2: Well, let's start there. What is the most likely chaos scenario?
Speaker 1: Oh this weekend?
Speaker 3: Well, the thing is like the non chaos scenarios pretty
Speaker 3: feels pretty chaotic. When you think about the possibility of
Speaker 3: a Georgia, Michigan, Oklahoma State Cincinnati playoff. That's kinda it
Speaker 3: feels like the most likely situation right now. Not that
Speaker 3: any one situation is extremely likely, but that kind of
Speaker 3: feels like the most likely scenario. That's amazing. That's four
Speaker 3: rise slash redemption stories to talk about it, and I
Speaker 3: realize it all ends with Georgia winning two games by
Speaker 3: twenty four points or whatever. But that's an amazing story
Speaker 3: and I'm hoping that's how it plays out. Obviously, obviously
Speaker 3: we could still end up with Alabama, Georgia and Notre
Speaker 3: Dame taking three of the four spots, and then you know,
Speaker 3: one amazing story crammed in there too, I guess. But no,
Speaker 3: just the thought of like Michigan, Cincinnati, Georgia, Oklahoma State.
Speaker 3: That's just cool and it's something we needed a little
Speaker 3: bit more of. So I'm hoping that's the way it
Speaker 3: plays out.
Speaker 1: The thinking fans for some and that thinking fan is
Speaker 1: one of the few people who could name all four
Speaker 1: quarterbacks for those four teams.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Spencer Sanders playoff quarterback.
Speaker 1: Yeah, wow, just incredible. Stetson Bennett Stet's first. First of all, Okay,
Speaker 1: you're going to get back to your questions. I understand,
Speaker 1: I just cut you off time. But Stetson, then it's
Speaker 1: really really good at college football.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I just wrote about this for my Friday call
Speaker 3: him too, But you know it's amazing. Well number one, yes,
Speaker 3: I mean he's like second in total kbrs and passed
Speaker 3: like one to eighty nine or whatever, like, he's done
Speaker 3: so well. But it's amazing that we have gotten twelve
Speaker 3: games into the season, like thirty eight different ways. In
Speaker 3: the offseason I asked the same question, which is basically,
Speaker 3: can Georgia score when they need to score? Right, And
Speaker 3: the answer is, we don't know because they've never had
Speaker 3: to score yet, and it's twelve games into the season
Speaker 3: and they might not have to score ever. And so yeah,
Speaker 3: I mean, he's been awesome. He's had the easiest job
Speaker 3: in America. He's done it really well, and he might
Speaker 3: end up winning a national title. I wrote about death
Speaker 3: of the game manager in the offseason, and then a
Speaker 3: game manager might win the title the very next year.
Speaker 2: Well, Dan, I'm glad you brought up Stetsan Bennet because
Speaker 2: that was going to be my question. What's Georgia got
Speaker 2: to do to prove the people that it can also
Speaker 2: play offense? Because look, we know about the defense. The
Speaker 2: defense is one of the all time greats. The offense
Speaker 2: in your sp plus is I believe second. Yeah, nationally
Speaker 2: showed me, which is still pretty damn good. You just
Speaker 2: don't care about it because, like you said, they don't
Speaker 2: have to score. They haven't been in a whole lot
Speaker 2: of high leverage situations. Do we expect Is it realistic
Speaker 2: to expect going up against the number eleven defense per
Speaker 2: your sp plus and Alabama that the results are going
Speaker 2: to be any different than we've seen all year?
Speaker 3: Right? I mean, so much of it depends on can
Speaker 3: A help him to protect Bryce young enough to make
Speaker 3: this a game like that? So much of it's going
Speaker 3: to come to that, because like the most shocking I
Speaker 3: knew this was going to say something to this effect,
Speaker 3: but total second half drives. I pulled this up for
Speaker 3: the column and I tweeted it out a couple days
Speaker 3: ago or yesterday, Total second half drives this season with
Speaker 3: a scoring margin like under plus fourteen, So basically, you're
Speaker 3: either behind or you're up by less than fourteen points.
Speaker 3: The top three teams in the country in this war
Speaker 3: Western Kentucky actually, which kind of threw me a little bit,
Speaker 3: But Western Kentucky has had thirty one such drives all
Speaker 3: year where they're not, you know, up at least fourteen points.
Speaker 3: Cincinnati is second. They've had twenty eight of those drives.
Speaker 3: Those are both pretty wild numbers. They've been in control
Speaker 3: of games Georgia's had six drives all year where they
Speaker 3: had the ball in the second half and they weren't
Speaker 3: up at least two touchdowns, and five of those came
Speaker 3: against Clemson, So in the last eleven games they've had one.
Speaker 3: They were up seven against Kentucky at half, they took
Speaker 3: the ball, they drove like five or six plays seventy
Speaker 3: two yards or something like that. That was the one
Speaker 3: semi high leverage drives thattsn't been in has had all year,
Speaker 3: and he was great and then you know, the right
Speaker 3: down and scored on Kentucky. But that was it. And
Speaker 3: I mean, obviously Alabama's defense is good, obviously Alabama. Obviously
Speaker 3: Alabama is good, but they've showed just enough glitches on
Speaker 3: offense of late that are are are they going to
Speaker 3: be able to score enough or keep Georgia down enough
Speaker 3: to actually makes Detson minutes score in the second half.
Speaker 1: This is an Alabama team, by the way. I mean
Speaker 1: I mentioned the underlying numbers about how successful they can
Speaker 1: be that if Georgia beats then they're likely not even
Speaker 1: in this playoff barring some sort of crazy crazy stars aligning.
Speaker 1: Who is the team that seems likely to be in
Speaker 1: the playoff that can force those higher leverage drives and
Speaker 1: second halves. In your mind, both from what you've seen
Speaker 1: with your eyes and what your your numbers dictate, well,
Speaker 1: I mean.
Speaker 3: I guess the most likely answer is nobody, but you
Speaker 3: could see of the ones we're talking about, I mean Michigan.
Speaker 3: Michigan's basically Georgia liked, right. I mean, they play very, very,
Speaker 3: very good defense. They want to run the ball as
Speaker 3: much as you'll let them. They can throw on they
Speaker 3: can catch back up to the chains, they can catch
Speaker 3: back up on passing downs. And I think they've done
Speaker 3: a really nice job this year with Kay McNamara of
Speaker 3: just sort of slowly opening the playbook as they've gone along.
Speaker 3: It was really safe early in the year. They've added
Speaker 3: responsibility as the year's gone on, and he's responded. So
Speaker 3: theoretically they just might be good enough to do it.
Speaker 3: It worries me that they really are basically Georgia with
Speaker 3: four stars as opposed to five stars, and you know,
Speaker 3: it's hard to find actual matchup advantages they have. They're
Speaker 3: just almost as good as Georgia had everything, but not
Speaker 3: as good as them at anything. But that could be
Speaker 3: interesting just because they're a really good team. Cincinnati and
Speaker 3: Oklahoma State could both force a lot of mistakes too.
Speaker 3: If they can force turnovers eertly and somehow and get
Speaker 3: some easy points on the board one way or the other,
Speaker 3: that could make things pretty interesting for a while at
Speaker 3: least by how I think the most likely answer is
Speaker 3: nobody if Alabama can't do it.
Speaker 1: Oklahoma State is a fascinating team because we usually find
Speaker 1: them to be a program with a pretty high floor
Speaker 1: that they're going to win eight plus games most if
Speaker 1: not every year. But it is interesting that traditionally speaking,
Speaker 1: it has been the offense leading the way, in these
Speaker 1: past couple of years it has been defense leading the way.
Speaker 1: Is this an Oklahoma State team in your mind that
Speaker 1: has outperformed and over at cheat or you know, if
Speaker 1: it were another year, are they going ten and two,
Speaker 1: nine and three? But the stars align in a certain
Speaker 1: way this year? What is I mean now that you
Speaker 1: have twelve games of data on Oklahoma State, what is
Speaker 1: your read on the Pokes?
Speaker 3: Well, I think basically, first six seven games they were
Speaker 3: prety well first they started six and oh they were
Speaker 3: pretty lucky obviously, you know twenty three sixteen against Missouri
Speaker 3: State twenty eight, twenty three against tulsaverely beat Boise, and
Speaker 3: Boise wasn't very good early in the year, so clearly,
Speaker 3: I mean they've they've had a good defense all year,
Speaker 3: but that offense was just not doing nearly enough, and
Speaker 3: so they were really lucky to get to about four
Speaker 3: and oh. But once they lost, and they really should,
Speaker 3: I mean, that was a straight toss up at I
Speaker 3: would say they easily could have won that game, but
Speaker 3: once they lost, they came home and like they found
Speaker 3: another gear. Since then, you know, fifty five three against
Speaker 3: a Kansas team that improved against everybody else, twenty four
Speaker 3: to three against West Virginia sixty three seventeen TCU, they've
Speaker 3: been a playoff team I think over the last five games,
Speaker 3: or at least like top six or eight, right, So
Speaker 3: it does feel like now they're legit. They were not
Speaker 3: legit early in the year, but they survived enough that
Speaker 3: they were able to, you know, buy time and find
Speaker 3: another gear and now they're a very very good team.
Speaker 2: Bill how do you handicap the matchup then against Baylor?
Speaker 2: This is obviously a rematch, right we saw it earlier
Speaker 2: in the year. Oklahoma State won that game by ten.
Speaker 2: It was a matchup in which Spencer Sanders threw three picks,
Speaker 2: and I said on our preview show that that version
Speaker 2: of Spencer Sanders the inconsistent What do we expect from him?
Speaker 2: Version of Spencer Sanders, that's the version we've seen the
Speaker 2: most over the last three years. Now. Obviously in Bedlam
Speaker 2: he looked incredible. Which version do you expect to see
Speaker 2: against Baylor? The version we saw a couple of weeks ago,
Speaker 2: or maybe this was two picks with two picks right right.
Speaker 3: Like that was the thing, and like even last week,
Speaker 3: they're like, oh, he's doing such a good job playing
Speaker 3: with them them so oh that was a terrible pass.
Speaker 3: They just baded it right into that interception. He's basically
Speaker 3: two horrible plays a game he's going to continue to make,
Speaker 3: and if you can make them pay for that, it's
Speaker 3: going to be really hard for them to win. Although
Speaker 3: then again, they just beat Oklahoma while handing them sixteen points,
Speaker 3: which was almost more impressive than just beating Oklahoma. They
Speaker 3: like they completely fell apart for eight minutes and then won. Anyway, Well,
Speaker 3: I mean the thing about Baylor is in that first game,
Speaker 3: the reason Oklahoma State won anyway, was because Baylor had
Speaker 3: two good offensive plates, Like they had two plays the
Speaker 3: game ninety nine yards and their other fifty whatever snaps
Speaker 3: game I think one hundred and eighty two if I
Speaker 3: remember right, Like, they just completely shut down Baylor, and
Speaker 3: that was a Baylor team that had a healthy Jerry
Speaker 3: Bohannon in charge, and so like, I don't know, I
Speaker 3: don't know. I mean, I think the way Baylor wins
Speaker 3: this game is by taking full advantage of the Sanders' mistakes,
Speaker 3: keeping the game close, and then just making things, you know,
Speaker 3: things get weird at the end, and they at the bounces.
Speaker 3: They're clearly a really good team. They're not what are
Speaker 3: they eight or ninth in the playoff rankings, They're not
Speaker 3: that good on paper, but they're a top twenty team
Speaker 3: on paper with a top fifteen or twenty defense. So
Speaker 3: they they're just a good team and that, you know,
Speaker 3: that's how they win is by being a good team
Speaker 3: that takes advantage of the other team's mistakes. I think
Speaker 3: it's not that you know, s PPLUS has it as
Speaker 3: like a one or two point game. I think I
Speaker 3: think the trends certainly favor Oklahoma State. The s PPLs
Speaker 3: ratings take those early season games into account. They don't
Speaker 3: know that Bohannon's hurt. You know, obviously, you know, things
Speaker 3: kind of point in Oklahoma State's direction in that regard,
Speaker 3: but it's still really close to being a toss up
Speaker 3: fair enough.
Speaker 1: And when you look at teams, I mean, Oklahoma State
Speaker 1: is obviously the team that is the best example of
Speaker 1: being able to survive mistakes and win comfortably or just
Speaker 1: win at all. And you mentioned, I think you had
Speaker 1: a couple of tweets yesterday about Iowa and their ability
Speaker 1: to win games without quarterback play, without it average quarterback play,
Speaker 1: the absence of quarterback play. So you can talk about Iowa,
Speaker 1: but who else this year? Because this has been like
Speaker 1: a pet phrase of ours of winning your clunkers, right,
Speaker 1: winning despite down performances. And you have you know, when
Speaker 1: you have a metric that looks at coaches who have
Speaker 1: the ability to win losable games, who are the teams
Speaker 1: this specific season that have been the best at winning
Speaker 1: losable games?
Speaker 3: Well, I mean Oklahoma States certainly, you know, put that
Speaker 3: bar set that bar pretty high early in the year
Speaker 3: at the very least. That's interesting. I'm pulling up here's
Speaker 3: where I pull up spreadsheets.
Speaker 1: On a pun and please do it the most. This
Speaker 1: is what we look before that.
Speaker 3: My my second order win total number is something we
Speaker 3: talk about sometimes where it's basically, you know that post
Speaker 3: game win expectancy, how frequently you would you have won
Speaker 3: this game with these specific stats. You know, you add
Speaker 3: that up and it pretty much tells you who's pretty
Speaker 3: fortunate to be where they are? You best coaches in America? Yeah,
Speaker 3: or luckiest. It takes a lot to separate those two.
Speaker 3: But like UTSA was extremely lucky to get to eleven
Speaker 3: and out, they s P plus views them as more
Speaker 3: of like an eight win team. They won a couple
Speaker 3: of games they really probably shouldn't have, and then suddenly,
Speaker 3: like regressing to the meme, just destroyed them all at once.
Speaker 3: Wake Force is another team like that. You know, obviously
Speaker 3: their offense has been really good, their defense just hasn't
Speaker 3: shown up sometimes, but they've managed to get to ten
Speaker 3: and two all the same. Fifth on the list is Iowa.
Speaker 3: Looks like an eight and four team on paper, but
Speaker 3: they've gone ten and two because of those early runs
Speaker 3: of turnovers. Most interesting team, well, I don't know about
Speaker 3: most interesting, but I've gotten yelled at a bunch this year,
Speaker 3: which isn't new, but I've gotten yelled at a bunch
Speaker 3: this year by Utah State fans.
Speaker 1: I was going to say that was my team that
Speaker 1: in previewing the game, like, oh, they beat a bunch
Speaker 1: of good teams by like two points a game, right,
Speaker 1: bad teams? Excuse me?
Speaker 3: Yeah, their second order. Let's see, so that postgame expectancy
Speaker 3: number they won. Let's see, they beat Washington State in
Speaker 3: the first game of the year. Their postgame went expectancy
Speaker 3: was twenty four percent. On paper, it looked like a
Speaker 3: six point loss at Air Force. They they beat air Force,
Speaker 3: which won them the division. Postgame went expectancy twenty two percent.
Speaker 3: They beat Colorado State the famous blow the field goal
Speaker 3: attempt at the end and then blame the players for
Speaker 3: it moment of the season. Utah State won that game
Speaker 3: twenty six twenty four with a four percent postgame expectancy.
Speaker 3: So they've been mostly awesome over the last five weeks.
Speaker 3: They're still crazy vollattle because they have no offensive consistency.
Speaker 3: It's just how many big plays do they generate. They
Speaker 3: suddenly generated none against Wyoman and got their doors blown off,
Speaker 3: But otherwise they have risen in SPPLUS over the last
Speaker 3: five weeks, but they just the SPPLUS basically views them
Speaker 3: as a six and six team that accidentally went nine
Speaker 3: to three. That is certainly the biggest range of the year,
Speaker 3: and I can kind of explain it. It makes it
Speaker 3: a hard game to figure out this weekend because I mean,
Speaker 3: if they make two big plays, they get destroyed. But
Speaker 3: if they make five or four even, they absolutely have
Speaker 3: a chance against San Diego State and their non offense.
Speaker 3: So it's a tricky It makes them hard to predict,
Speaker 3: but they do seem like they've been extremely fortunate to
Speaker 3: get to nine and three.
Speaker 2: Dan brought up Iowa and the absence of quarterback play.
Speaker 2: It is hard to see them winning a big game
Speaker 2: without a I guess competent quarterback situation, let's say. But
Speaker 2: as we've been discussing it, though I do that's all
Speaker 2: they do.
Speaker 1: That's not the Hawkeye way.
Speaker 2: As we've been discussing it is the Hawkey way. Ten
Speaker 2: and two, Yeah, regardless of how it looks on paper,
Speaker 2: ten and two is the final tally They're going up
Speaker 2: against Michigan this weekend. Iowa was calling card early as
Speaker 2: basically just a half team that plays really good defense,
Speaker 2: creates turnovers, and gives its offense a short feat has
Speaker 2: been creating those mistakes. Michigan doesn't really make that many mistakes, right.
Speaker 2: That's been one of the reasons why they've been having
Speaker 2: as good of a year as they have. They're in
Speaker 2: the top thirty thirty five nationally in terms of turnover margin.
Speaker 2: If Michigan goes out there and plays its game and
Speaker 2: does not do anything stupid, is there a path for
Speaker 2: Iowa to win this game.
Speaker 3: It does feel like they need to. I mean, at
Speaker 3: the very least, they need to be on the plus
Speaker 3: side of the turnover margin, and if they're not, they
Speaker 3: just have to create those extra possessions basically, like they
Speaker 3: can Michigan into just kind of a rock fight. I
Speaker 3: don't think Michigan mine's taking its time pulling ahead of
Speaker 3: teams by any means. Like they're the Rutgers game earlier
Speaker 3: this year. They're better than they were that obviously, but
Speaker 3: they're still like they can be kind of sucked into
Speaker 3: a very plotting, Oh wow, it's already halftime and it's
Speaker 3: seven to three kind of game, And so that's part
Speaker 3: of it is just I mean, they they won't need
Speaker 3: to like create it a bunch of breaks early, they
Speaker 3: just need they can probably take their time doing it.
Speaker 3: But yeah, it's hard if they're not in the positive
Speaker 3: turnover margin, if they don't get at least one easy touchdown. However,
Speaker 3: that turnover or random play action bomb or whatever, it
Speaker 3: does feel like, you know, Iowa basically defines the game
Speaker 3: for you. You have to play their game. They're going
Speaker 3: to play their softs, their their their zone defense. They're
Speaker 3: going to trick you. They're going to run the ball
Speaker 3: and punch. Even though they don't run the ball well,
Speaker 3: they're going to do it a lot. And they just
Speaker 3: basically hope that their quarterback makes two good plays instead
Speaker 3: of zero. But they make you play that way. They
Speaker 3: make you settle for shorter passes, they make you take
Speaker 3: your time, and it makes guys, it makes teams uncomfortable. Sometimes.
Speaker 3: I don't think it'll make Michigan uncomfortable, but it could still.
Speaker 3: I could still certainly see it be in a situation
Speaker 3: where all they need is one or two bounces and
Speaker 3: they're right there at the end.
Speaker 1: By the way, I feel as if with Iowa, you
Speaker 1: can just if you if if I were to give
Speaker 1: you or you anybody was to give anybody a number
Speaker 1: of like how many combined awesome plays do Tyler Goodson
Speaker 1: and Charlie Jones account?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: Is it more than four and a half? I was
Speaker 1: probably gonna win?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Is it fewer? Not likely?
Speaker 3: Yeah? It was crazy. Just the you know, the tweets
Speaker 3: that we were talking about over the last two years,
Speaker 3: they are if their quarterback rating is higher than one
Speaker 3: hundred and one hundred is terrible. Like not for the year.
Speaker 3: The worst quarterback rating for a team is Yukon at
Speaker 3: ninety two. One hundred is a terrible passer rating. If
Speaker 3: they are over one hundred, they're fourteen and one over
Speaker 3: the last two seasons. Like that's where the bar is.
Speaker 3: They just have to And it's so frustrating because one hand,
Speaker 3: you're like, wow, that's it's amazing that they they've crafted
Speaker 3: an identity that doesn't require a five star quarterback. They're
Speaker 3: gonna win games. It's just so cool. And then at
Speaker 3: the same time you're like, what if you just tried
Speaker 3: for decent quarterback play? Yeah, Like how much would you
Speaker 3: really have to change to just if you could just
Speaker 3: figure out to be decent at the quarterback position. How
Speaker 3: many games would you win?
Speaker 1: Is there another Farans that he can hire? Was there
Speaker 1: like a Sharon Farrens.
Speaker 3: That was their funny conversations that was happening, And I
Speaker 3: mentioned was you know this is if they would just
Speaker 3: fire Brian Farns, is like, well, then they'd bring in
Speaker 3: John Donovan or something, it wouldn't change.
Speaker 2: Well, and it goes back to the argument that we've
Speaker 2: made on this show. You know, over the years with Oklahoma,
Speaker 2: much different team, much different circumstance. But if Oklahoma could
Speaker 2: just get marginally better on defense like some of the
Speaker 2: some of the teams over the last five years, think
Speaker 2: how much better those teams would have fared come playoff time,
Speaker 2: come Bowl time.
Speaker 3: And it's funny too because last year they got there,
Speaker 3: but they got there after they had already lost twice, right,
Speaker 3: and so they weren't even they weren't part of the conversation.
Speaker 3: But that was the highest level that I think he
Speaker 3: achieved was the second half of last season, where they'd
Speaker 3: already been eliminated from the race altogether. Which actually, now
Speaker 3: that we're thinking about it, that's Iowa stored to last year.
Speaker 3: They lost their first two games of the year by
Speaker 3: like four combined points or whatever, and then they had
Speaker 3: a great offense for most of the rest of the year.
Speaker 3: They ended up like tenth and sp plus, but again
Speaker 3: they had already lost twice and it didn't matter. And
Speaker 3: then this year they do much better overall, within much
Speaker 3: worse offense. Because this all makes perfect sense.
Speaker 2: So Bill, talk to me about something here. Okay, we
Speaker 2: have done more interviews than I could probably ever count,
Speaker 2: and all along the way, given your intense passion for
Speaker 2: college football, your eye on the analytics and all things
Speaker 2: scientific in the game, you have had a I think
Speaker 2: deep love for a group of five teams. We're finally
Speaker 2: at the point now or a group of five team
Speaker 2: in Cincinnati appears that it controls its own destiny with
Speaker 2: regard to the playoffs. We've arrived here, and what I've
Speaker 2: found very interesting is all the folks along the way
Speaker 2: who have been proponents of chaos and we want to
Speaker 2: break the system. Now that Cincinnati is on the doorstep,
Speaker 2: a lot of the same people are out there like
Speaker 2: they're not good enough. We should probably give it to
Speaker 2: Ohio State instead, Like where are you at with Cincinnati?
Speaker 2: How good are they? Does Houston have a realistic shot
Speaker 2: of beating Cincinnati. Do you want to see Cincinnati win? Like,
Speaker 2: where are you at with this whole argument about the Bearcats.
Speaker 3: Well, I mean, all I can say is in the
Speaker 3: NSP plus, which is tempo and opponent adjusted and conference adjusted.
Speaker 3: That was one of the big changes I made a
Speaker 3: couple of years ago, like basically, how you know your
Speaker 3: how your house price is affected by your neighborhood. It
Speaker 3: kind of you know, the overall conference you reside in
Speaker 3: moves you up and down, and the AAC is not
Speaker 3: very good this year, so just by the company they
Speaker 3: have to keep until they moved to the Big twelve,
Speaker 3: it's kind of dragging them down a little bit. And
Speaker 3: they're fit overall in SP plus. I don't know, I
Speaker 3: don't remember where the highest ranked Boise State and TCU
Speaker 3: teams were a decade ago before they moved or before
Speaker 3: TCU moved, But since that I was fifth, they're they're
Speaker 3: barely behind Michigan. And this is with that conference effect
Speaker 3: in place. They physically destroyed Notre Dame in October. They
Speaker 3: now Coaches kind of hate when when a mid major
Speaker 3: makes a run like this, because you know, Cincinnati like
Speaker 3: openly took a month off, basically after the note, after
Speaker 3: the UCF game, and they go up to touchdowns and
Speaker 3: just coast as long as humanly possible. Didn't show anything
Speaker 3: that isn't something that like an Alabama gets to do. Well,
Speaker 3: that's not a good example, but you know a more
Speaker 3: mortal team gets to do in a power conference. So
Speaker 3: you want to complain about that, that's fine. But everything
Speaker 3: we've actually seen from Cincinnati is when they're in a
Speaker 3: situation where they have to hit the gas, they hit
Speaker 3: the freaking gas. And they matched up physically with Georgia
Speaker 3: last year and they're really, really, really good. I just
Speaker 3: I have no problem whether the road was hard enough,
Speaker 3: Like we can talk about that if we want to,
Speaker 3: But what we've actually seen on the field is that
Speaker 3: they're a really good football team. That's aid Houston COMPETI
Speaker 3: them because Houston is suddenly a top thirty team too,
Speaker 3: and Houston top thirty teams beat top five teams all
Speaker 3: the time. But that well occasionally, and they have a
Speaker 3: defense that forces tons of mistakes and it's super aggressive,
Speaker 3: and they feel like a very good underdog candidate and.
Speaker 2: They but they bring a ton of pressure. Dan and
Speaker 2: I both had trouble on our Wednesday preview show, trusting
Speaker 2: the offense.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, it's a pretty inconsistent offense. They can make
Speaker 3: some big plays, but they go three and out a
Speaker 3: lot in Cincinnati forces a ton of three and outs,
Speaker 3: and you figure that alone tilts the field enough to where,
Speaker 3: unless unless Desmond Redder throws three picks or you know,
Speaker 3: the sack and strips get involved or whatever, it's going
Speaker 3: to be really hard for Houston to win. They absolutely
Speaker 3: have a chance because they are a good team too.
Speaker 1: Yeah. The thing that's sort of hard to parse or
Speaker 1: hard to explain or hard to put into context because
Speaker 1: you just never have time when you're trying to defend
Speaker 1: teams or put down other teams' performance or whatever. Cincinnati
Speaker 1: was a Power Conference team. They are not considered a
Speaker 1: Power Conference team anymore, a Power Conference program because of
Speaker 1: the way the sport realigned a decade ago or twelve
Speaker 1: years ago, whatever. But they were in the Big East.
Speaker 1: They went undefeated, They've played in major bowl games. They
Speaker 1: attract like top thirty ish forty ish type classes that
Speaker 1: are comparable to like pit Virginia Tech. Right, Like, they're
Speaker 1: not a cute story right from top to bottom, they're
Speaker 1: just not from top to bottom. They're a power program.
Speaker 1: They just happened to play in a conference that's not
Speaker 1: considered to be for I mean, justifiably so in some instances,
Speaker 1: a power conference. And so that's hard to sort of
Speaker 1: say quickly when talking about the program, right, Yeah, No,
Speaker 1: that hit me earlier this year, and it made me
Speaker 1: really mad, like we're openly punishing them for their for
Speaker 1: their week schedule when a they.
Speaker 3: Didn't choose to have any schedule, Like that's what That's
Speaker 3: one of the parts that always like they scheduled how
Speaker 3: they were supposed to a non conference. They can't control
Speaker 3: how good the AAC is. But then with cincinnat it
Speaker 3: was doubly infuriating because they didn't even do anything to
Speaker 3: merit being in a group of five conferences to begin with,
Speaker 3: they were two years before realignment. They almost made the
Speaker 3: national title game. Like if Colt McCoy's passed flick flutters
Speaker 3: in the air for another half second, where was that
Speaker 3: stand in tent wherever that game was? Then Cincinnati plays
Speaker 3: for the national time. They get whooped in the national
Speaker 3: title game, but they still play for the national title.
Speaker 3: And then two years later or three years later or whatever.
Speaker 3: They're a mid major team and that's just and then
Speaker 3: we punish them for it when they're actually really good.
Speaker 3: So the whole thing is obviously really, really frustrating. And
Speaker 3: hopefully they can, hopefully they can actually make the playoff.
Speaker 3: And hopefully they can, you know, they've already acquitted themselves
Speaker 3: well enough to be a playoff team, but hopefully with
Speaker 3: the world watching and ready to judge them and say, well,
Speaker 3: I knew they weren't there all along, then hopefully they
Speaker 3: played really well.
Speaker 1: And to bring it full circle, to be clear, Brian
Speaker 1: Kelly abandoned that team. Major Bowl game parallels.
Speaker 3: Here, we got we got the ten year anniversary of
Speaker 3: Oklahoma State barely missing it. We've got Cincinnati, We've got
Speaker 3: Brian Kelly coming in in a weird way.
Speaker 1: It's a it's a circle of life, Yeah, circle of life.
Speaker 1: Notre Dame is what I was gonna ask about, just
Speaker 1: because they are this and I don't know what it is.
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess I have some concept of what
Speaker 1: it is, but they are this team that's not spoken of,
Speaker 1: and maybe it's the loss of Cincinnati, and maybe it's
Speaker 1: the assumption that, like, well, they're not going to jump
Speaker 1: Cincinnati basically no matter what happens, unless I guess Cincinnati
Speaker 1: gets truly blown out by Houston. But Notre Dame is
Speaker 1: a team that I mean, in my eyes, that I've
Speaker 1: watched that the back half of their season, and Ty
Speaker 1: has been adamant about this. They've just been a different
Speaker 1: team since that. I mean, all things considered pretty tough
Speaker 1: early road, right, having the defenses that they had early on.
Speaker 1: Is Notre Dame in the same way that Oklahoma State
Speaker 1: has turned it on the back half? Is it? In
Speaker 1: your view and your estimation, is Notre Dame a team
Speaker 1: who got better or did their schedule get better these
Speaker 1: last six games?
Speaker 3: Yes? This is one of the ways that like a
Speaker 3: postgame went expectancy kind of thing can help too, because yeah,
Speaker 3: I mean their last four games weregans teams NSP plus
Speaker 3: ranked one oh five, fifty ninety four and one o
Speaker 3: four like not good. Only Virginia is is decent in
Speaker 3: that bunch, but they're but they completely and totally dominated
Speaker 3: in the way that a top five team would in
Speaker 3: those games. And that's of course, after you know, beating
Speaker 3: North Carolina. Obviously North Carolina is sort of a mess
Speaker 3: to but they still beat the North Carolina in USC
Speaker 3: and they the stats suggested that they should have beaten
Speaker 3: Virginia Tech by far more than three. They very much
Speaker 3: controlled that game. It's been it's been funny. So you know,
Speaker 3: you know on Twitter at some point, you know, anytime
Speaker 3: you say something that turns out wrong, somebody's gonna dunk
Speaker 3: on you for it. And that's fine. I'm wrong a lot.
Speaker 3: But the thing I've gotten, you know, dunked on the
Speaker 3: most this year is in I think the Notre Dame
Speaker 3: preview over the Summer, the Indies preview over the sum
Speaker 3: I said, like, the middle stretch of their season from Wisconsin, Cincinnati,
Speaker 3: Virginia Tech, USC North Carolina is an incredible run that
Speaker 3: even a good team would lose a game or two
Speaker 3: on and it's going to be really tough for them.
Speaker 3: I've gotten dunked on NonStop for that, and I don't understand,
Speaker 3: like I stopped responding because that's like, but hey, they
Speaker 3: did lose a game that lost to Cincinnati in that stretch.
Speaker 3: I was definitely wrong about Virginia Tech USC being I
Speaker 3: thought they'd be much better than they were, and that's fine.
Speaker 3: They also almost lost to Florida State in Toledo to
Speaker 3: start the year, which I also didn't predict. So it's
Speaker 3: been it's been strange, but I mean, you know, dunk away.
Speaker 3: But either way, no, I at this point in the year,
Speaker 3: obviously we don't know what the Brian Kelly leaving thing
Speaker 3: is going to do exactly, but they have I think,
Speaker 3: like Oklahoma State, they've played like a top five or
Speaker 3: so team over the last four or five six games,
Speaker 3: and I think they would acquit themselves pretty well. They
Speaker 3: made the playoff.
Speaker 1: Who is underachieved not the teams that obviously that were
Speaker 1: expected for whatever reason to be really good. But I
Speaker 1: know the Nebraska is the obvious to hear because of
Speaker 1: the defense they field it. But I would argue, and
Speaker 1: I have argued, this Nebraska certain performs like a three
Speaker 1: and nine team at the end of game exactly, and
Speaker 1: so their record is actually who they are right like
Speaker 1: they are an actual bad team. They do things, they
Speaker 1: do certain things that good teams do, but the difference
Speaker 1: is they are happy to have the appearance of a
Speaker 1: non bowl team for large swaths of their game.
Speaker 3: Three quarters, they're a top twenty team and right in
Speaker 3: the fourth quarter they're a bottom twenty team.
Speaker 1: Which which is exactly what bad teams do. So they
Speaker 1: are a bad team. I don't want to hear about
Speaker 1: Nebraska being like the best three and nine team. They're
Speaker 1: just another three and nine team.
Speaker 3: They are, however, the best three and nine team.
Speaker 1: Who in your mind, and this could actually be good
Speaker 1: teams who should have been great, but who in your
Speaker 1: mine didn't get their act together in ways that they
Speaker 1: should in ways that they performed. We were like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I know, they went nine and three, like Penn State
Speaker 1: to me is an example of that. Like the distance
Speaker 1: from Penn State going seven and five to ten and
Speaker 1: two is so absurdly slim that it makes me think, oh, no,
Speaker 1: they are a seven and five team because they did
Speaker 1: what seven and five teams should do to not go
Speaker 1: ten and two.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, obviously with Clifford that Penn State's hard
Speaker 3: to talk about exactly because it sure seemed like they
Speaker 3: were about to win the Iowa game, to take complete
Speaker 3: control of the Iowa game when he got hurt. They don't.
Speaker 3: If he can actually you know, move his legs, he
Speaker 3: probably they probably don't lose to Illinois. That was pretty
Speaker 3: easy to just you know, quarterback injuries. Therefore, their record
Speaker 3: wasn't as good as it was supposed to be obviously,
Speaker 3: you know, I guess Clifford wasn't one hundred percent against
Speaker 3: Michigan and Michigan State. But either way, they still figured
Speaker 3: out ways to drop points in those games that they
Speaker 3: didn't have to, even you know, with Clifford being limited.
Speaker 3: So they still, even with Clifford being limited, they should
Speaker 3: have probably been at eight and four, nine and three
Speaker 3: team and they blew it. But but they're certainly on
Speaker 3: the list. Mississippi State's an interesting one of me. They
Speaker 3: when they looked good, they looked awesome, but their defense
Speaker 3: kind of dropped the ball down the stretch, you know,
Speaker 3: thirty plus their last three conference games. It was a
Speaker 3: really really good defense there for a while, and it
Speaker 3: kind of started to stumble a little bit. I thought,
Speaker 3: right when I started thinking that, you know, this team
Speaker 3: could be, like, could go to a different level down
Speaker 3: the stretch, they did the opposite, right, So that felt
Speaker 3: like a team that had an opportunity for more than
Speaker 3: just seven and five and didn't get it. Let's see, not.
Speaker 1: That weird ability by the way, to go down like
Speaker 1: twenty four to ten every week and they're like, well,
Speaker 1: they're either going to storm back and win this game
Speaker 1: by eleven or they're going to lose this game by thirty.
Speaker 3: Right, We're very used to to no lead being safe
Speaker 3: in a Mike Leach game matter what, but certainly had
Speaker 3: that feel as well. One tim I wish had a
Speaker 3: different non conference schedule because we'd had an opportunity to
Speaker 3: talk about them a lot more. Is Western Kentucky like
Speaker 3: they even when they were losing in non conference you
Speaker 3: can tell, like man, once they start playing like for
Speaker 3: like here, it's gonna be. But they barely lose to Army,
Speaker 3: They barely lose to Indiana. They I mean, they lost
Speaker 3: by seventeen to the Michigan State, but Michigan State could
Speaker 3: not keep them down. They continued to score and score
Speaker 3: and move the ball. But then as soon as they
Speaker 3: start one and three, they'd lose that narrow game to UTSA.
Speaker 3: And they have just laid waste to everybody else in
Speaker 3: Conference USA since then. And it would surprise me if
Speaker 3: they didn't destroy UTSA or at least win comfortably. On
Speaker 3: Is that Friday or Saturday? That's Saturday?
Speaker 1: I think Friday night, Yeah, Friday, It is Friday night.
Speaker 1: Friday night, so yeah, that one.
Speaker 3: I'm really if they just had a pretty kky non conference,
Speaker 3: they'd be like ten and two or eleven and one,
Speaker 3: and Bailey Zappi would have like an six hundred yards
Speaker 3: and he'd be at like you'd have a legit chance
Speaker 3: at six thousand for the season if they hadn't. Because
Speaker 3: that's such a fun story, well fun for everybody who
Speaker 3: is a Houston Baptist. I guess we are kind of Hey,
Speaker 3: did they just destroyed this football player and Houston Baptist
Speaker 3: by by the good offensive coordinator and all the good
Speaker 3: players leaving that kind of songs? Yes, but it was
Speaker 3: great for Western Kentucky.
Speaker 1: It's great. I mean, he was on this show. He
Speaker 1: was great. He like what they were able to do.
Speaker 1: And I'll be surprised if that doesn't happen more. I
Speaker 1: don't have FCS rankings in front of me or I know,
Speaker 1: like Southeastern Louisiana had a great year, like we can
Speaker 1: talk it. I'll truth be told. This is I'm gonna
Speaker 1: put my cards on the table here. Oregon is gonna
Speaker 1: be hiring a new offensive coordinator right and I couldn't
Speaker 1: find somebody in the Western footprint that I loved and like,
Speaker 1: I don't want Mario Chris Ball to hire like Dan
Speaker 1: Mullin or Tom Herman because their names and they'll recruit
Speaker 1: Like I don't want that. And so it's like, Okay,
Speaker 1: who is the next like woonderkinned Chip Kelly, Mike Yer Sich,
Speaker 1: who's that guy? I don't you know, Like I know
Speaker 1: Eastern Washington fired their offense or he resigned at some
Speaker 1: point during the season. I know Southeastern Louisiana is good.
Speaker 1: I think Dan Hawkins might have a guy at UC Davis. Like,
Speaker 1: are there like coordinators on the G five level FCS
Speaker 1: level where you're just like, hey, hey, Bill Sie's telling
Speaker 1: you in late twenty twenty one, keep an eye open.
Speaker 1: So here in the same way that Houston Baptist had
Speaker 1: that dude who now affecting wins.
Speaker 3: Here here are some names to write down for you
Speaker 3: to google afterwards. Done so, Yes, the in the offensive
Speaker 3: sp plus rankings for FCS right now, Southeastern Louisiana is
Speaker 3: number one, yeah, and number one ten in defense, which
Speaker 3: is also fun. Eastern Washington is number two and eighty
Speaker 3: seventh in defense.
Speaker 1: Is that is that Cole Kelly at Kelly guy six?
Speaker 1: He's a power forward playing quarterback.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, and he gets James Madison this weekend, which
Speaker 3: could actually be kind of cool. Yeah. That's Eastern Washington,
Speaker 3: Montana and Southeastern Louisiana and James Madison too. Just bangers
Speaker 3: at the FCS.
Speaker 2: Love.
Speaker 3: It's gonna be a lot of fun. Incarnate word is
Speaker 3: another one there. Third, Okay, Sanford is fourth. We saw
Speaker 3: what Sandford's capable of true true a couple of weeks
Speaker 3: ago on so on Saturday, Missouri State, I don't remember.
Speaker 3: I think they have a young up and.
Speaker 1: Cover at quarter just a nobody.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I can't remember what his name is, Robert something something, Yeah,
Speaker 3: Robert something. So yes in Missouri State was fifth, South
Speaker 3: Dacost State six. That guy is not going anywhere, but
Speaker 3: Western Illinois is another one. So I just write these
Speaker 3: now down. We can we can talk D two and
Speaker 3: D three afterward if you want.
Speaker 1: Man, I just don't Victorio's going deep. I think Mario's
Speaker 1: just gonna hire. He's gonna pay Jeff Grimes or something
Speaker 1: and they'll be yeah yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, which yeah, because I mean he really doesn't like
Speaker 3: fun all that much.
Speaker 1: No, he's going to run what he wants to run,
Speaker 1: and then the offensive coordinator gets some third down wrinkles.
Speaker 3: They're still going to be very good and a little
Speaker 3: bit frustrating because you think they could be a little
Speaker 3: better and a little more fun. But they're kind of
Speaker 3: when you got top five classes, you can do that.
Speaker 1: That's true. I don't know if I had. I'm trying
Speaker 1: to remember, like what I was curious about heading into
Speaker 1: this interview. I'm just looking across the sport. I just
Speaker 1: I'm trying to figure out. I always like putting things
Speaker 1: into a bucket and into a box and the closest
Speaker 1: I can get to this season, and maybe you have
Speaker 1: thoughts on this is it's kind of in the year
Speaker 1: of the backup quarterback or lack thereof, Right, it's kind
Speaker 1: of been like a lot of these powers either turned
Speaker 1: to a backup quarterback and he helped them keep winning
Speaker 1: even if he wasn't great, like Baylor with Blake Shapin
Speaker 1: or something like that, or the backup quarterback wasn't at
Speaker 1: all ready, or there just wasn't anybody behind there. Obviously,
Speaker 1: Stetson Bennett highlights this phenomenon. Ye, is there anything that
Speaker 1: you see as cohesive now that we have the regular
Speaker 1: season done? With about the twenty twenty one season.
Speaker 3: It is hard with the number of important quarterback issues
Speaker 3: teams had. And it's funny too because you think back
Speaker 3: to August what we might have been talking about then
Speaker 3: about how like everybody returns everybody and so many teams
Speaker 3: have experienced quarterbacks but Alabama, Clemson and Ohio State don't.
Speaker 3: We don't know about Georgia yet. Like technically that kind
Speaker 3: of summary was bang on for what a lot of
Speaker 3: what we've seen, but I think the way it unfolded
Speaker 3: was in no way what we expected to see just
Speaker 3: when these issues popped up or who they popped up for.
Speaker 3: But that has been interesting, I do think because quarterback
Speaker 3: plays has dropped off. I mean I saw the total
Speaker 3: QBR this morning, Like nobody's above ninety this year, and
Speaker 3: at least a few were last year, like CJ. Stroud
Speaker 3: still number one and stetson't ben it's number two right now.
Speaker 3: Because quarterback back play does seem to have dropped off,
Speaker 3: It's hard to tell for sure how much to make
Speaker 3: of the kind of defensive renaissance of certain teams, but
Speaker 3: we've definitely seen two different strains of defense have more
Speaker 3: effective as even against like Patrick Mahomes. You know, teams
Speaker 3: doing a very credible bind, don't break kind of approach
Speaker 3: and tack clean well and keeping things in front of
Speaker 3: them a lot of obviously that's the big ten way,
Speaker 3: but teams are particularly good at that this year. And
Speaker 3: then you've had the Oklahoma States and Houston's of the
Speaker 3: world figuring out how to generate crazy pressure with outblitz
Speaker 3: in all that much. And you know, Oklahoma State I
Speaker 3: was liking in them to the legion of boom teams
Speaker 3: where they basically dare the refs to call a penalty
Speaker 3: on every single play knowing they won't, which you know,
Speaker 3: is a little on the cynical side, I guess, but
Speaker 3: it is also very effective effective and it's super fun
Speaker 3: to watch him. They're so physical and just so mean
Speaker 3: and it's and it's really fun. So that is the
Speaker 3: other story, and it's hard to know which one to wait,
Speaker 3: but I do feel like defenses took a nice step forward,
Speaker 3: and it makes sense that Oklahoma State kind of, you know,
Speaker 3: Gundy always wants to be on the like the cutting
Speaker 3: edge of offense, but there is no cutting edge of
Speaker 3: offense this year, and so it kind of accidentally circled
Speaker 3: around and now he's on the defensive side of the
Speaker 3: cutting edge. But that has been the other story. It's
Speaker 3: just yeah, I mean, if quarterback play improves next year,
Speaker 3: maybe we find out that the defenses really didn't do
Speaker 3: all that much different. They just had a better time.
Speaker 1: Now the cutting edge of offense is have Chris Olave,
Speaker 1: Garrett Wilson, Jackson Smith and Jigla and Trevon Henderson on
Speaker 1: your roster. That's right, I meating edge.
Speaker 3: That is always interesting me to me in recent years
Speaker 3: to look at, you know, look at the top of
Speaker 3: the offensive and defensive rankings, and like the top three
Speaker 3: in offense this year, as you mentioned, Georgia's second, Ohio
Speaker 3: State's first, in Alabama's third, Oklahoma State, Oklahoma's excuse me,
Speaker 3: it's fifth. Only Virginia and Wake Forest among the top
Speaker 3: ones are kind of unique in terms of it's not
Speaker 3: just pure talent that they're up there. But you've got Wisconsin, Iowa,
Speaker 3: Oklahoma State, San Diego State, Houston, Cincinnati, Minnesota had an
Speaker 3: awesome defense this year. In c State had a much
Speaker 3: better defense this year. It feels like the tactical, the
Speaker 3: interesting tactics are kind of on the defensive side right now,
Speaker 3: and it's just we'll see if better quarterbacks next year.
Speaker 3: You know that's all that.
Speaker 2: Bill, Let's get you out of here on this. Obviously,
Speaker 2: the news of the week has been coach movement, coach
Speaker 2: Hiringslincoln Riley and Brian Kelly and most recently Marcus Freeman
Speaker 2: and Sunny Dykes and Brenton Brown. I think you could
Speaker 2: go on until you're blue in the face.
Speaker 1: Jerry Kill, Jerry Kill, Thank you Mexico State.
Speaker 2: When we hear that a guy gets hired, people tend
Speaker 2: to react very subjectively as fans, and I'm assuming you
Speaker 2: do as well. You're a fan at heart. However, Bill,
Speaker 2: you built this amazing thing, this marvel of college football science,
Speaker 2: the sp plus, and so you have a lens that
Speaker 2: you view college football through that most of us really
Speaker 2: aren't privy to. How do you program that thing to
Speaker 2: react to new coaches? How does that thing reprogram you
Speaker 2: as a fan when it comes to reacting to new coaches?
Speaker 2: How are you doing this week? Is I guess what
Speaker 2: I'm asking?
Speaker 3: Well, I think overall, like leaving us P plus out
Speaker 3: of it for a second. I think generally I hate
Speaker 3: being wrong about the same thing twice, whatever this situation is.
Speaker 3: And so you know, I try to learn when I
Speaker 3: was wrong about this one thing. I try to learn
Speaker 3: from it and understand like, Okay, well maybe the world
Speaker 3: doesn't work that way, and you know, venture through life
Speaker 3: like that. Well, when it comes to coaching changes, it
Speaker 3: takes like two years for you to realize you're wrong
Speaker 3: about everything at least once, because nothing makes sense with
Speaker 3: what who does well in which jobs. Sometimes when you
Speaker 3: think about just all through the years, like Scott Frost
Speaker 3: was an absolute slam dunk, like like the perfect hire
Speaker 3: for Nebraska in every possible way, we're still waiting for
Speaker 3: him to make a bowl. And meanwhile, not that you know,
Speaker 3: I think you know herm Edwards and Mack Brown both
Speaker 3: had some we'll say, regression to the mean seasons this year,
Speaker 3: but they've still done at least a little better overall
Speaker 3: than I think any of us who just were appalled
Speaker 3: by those hires. And I was absolutely appalled by those
Speaker 3: hires and the process that led to them, but done
Speaker 3: better than I expected. So basically at this point, I
Speaker 3: have no like when it comes to quality, I have
Speaker 3: no opinions on any high or whatsoever. It just comes
Speaker 3: down to like process and logic behind the moves and
Speaker 3: all that. And if I understand the logic, then fine,
Speaker 3: like I just I go with it all. And I
Speaker 3: definitely understand the logic of both USC wanting Lincoln Riley
Speaker 3: and Lincoln Riley looking at USC going actually, this would
Speaker 3: make a lot of sense if I took this job
Speaker 3: and taking that job. I can understand the logic of
Speaker 3: LSU wanting Brian Kelly too, although that one seems a
Speaker 3: little more. It would be great to have a reality
Speaker 3: show for your just cameras following around everything that happens
Speaker 3: over the next year with Brian Kelly and LSU.
Speaker 1: But so you basically you need a WSD plus metric.
Speaker 1: You need an evaluating coach hires. You need who's a
Speaker 1: weird shady dude. That's my double USD. It's like if
Speaker 1: you do a homework behind the scenes, like you know,
Speaker 1: out of one hundred, this guy's kind of a ninety seven.
Speaker 3: TP ready terrible process reading, which would have certainly brought
Speaker 3: up or raised some red flags regarding Colorado State Hire
Speaker 3: and Steve A. Dazio a couple of years. As we've
Speaker 3: learned since no but but no, like it's it's hard.
Speaker 3: I end up every single year, I've become like even
Speaker 3: more non committled than before when it comes to you. Yeah,
Speaker 3: maybe maybe it'll work yep, but as far as yeah there,
Speaker 3: but there are numbers here, Like I've always wanted to
Speaker 3: go down this road, and I know there are some
Speaker 3: people out there who do kind of rate coach effects
Speaker 3: and whatnot, and I think there's absolutely value that I've
Speaker 3: never figured out a way to do it that makes
Speaker 3: s P plus better, but I'm open to finding that
Speaker 3: way at some point because the obviously some coaches are
Speaker 3: better than others.
Speaker 2: I know you've written extensively about two things. One when
Speaker 2: you hire a new coach, it's basically a coin flip. Yeah.
Speaker 2: And two when a program fires an offensive guy, they
Speaker 2: to overcompensate and go defense or vice versa.
Speaker 3: Or they fire an angry guy for a nice guy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, right right. They always kind of go the opposite
Speaker 2: to overcompensate for what they think was wrong. I feel
Speaker 2: like there's a lot of value though in that first
Speaker 2: statement with it being a coin flip, because even in
Speaker 2: great circumstances, you know, the Jimmy Lake thing may be
Speaker 2: a great example recently, everybody was gung ho on Jimmy
Speaker 2: Lake when he took over that gig at Washington. You
Speaker 2: can't factor in all the off field stuff. Nobody can
Speaker 2: predict that. But obviously that did not work. That was
Speaker 2: sort of disastrous in the end, And it only furthers
Speaker 2: the point that even if it looks great on the surface,
Speaker 2: you just don't know what's going to happen once they
Speaker 2: roll up their sleeves and get in there.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I think the two things that I have kind
Speaker 3: of that have helped at least helped me form logic
Speaker 3: in my own head about this stuff. The two things.
Speaker 3: There are two conclusions that I've reached over the last
Speaker 3: couple of years. Number one is like, instead of just
Speaker 3: judging the hire based on oh, yeah, that's great, who
Speaker 3: do they hire as coordinators? Yes, and not only especially
Speaker 3: who do they hire as opposite ball coordinators? Because when
Speaker 3: Jimmy Lake was hired, the first thought was, oh, this
Speaker 3: makes perfect. Peterson signed off, He's he's a great recruiter,
Speaker 3: this is going to work out. Oh wait, he hired
Speaker 3: John Donovan.
Speaker 1: That I would like Immediately You're like, yeah, no.
Speaker 3: Like the best I always try to spend things positively.
Speaker 3: The best thing I could think of was like, well,
Speaker 3: he's been in the pros a couple of years, Like
Speaker 3: maybe he's he's maybe he presented a new vision of
Speaker 3: what No. No, Jimmy Lake got hired and decided, you
Speaker 3: know what I want the twenty fifteen pence state offense,
Speaker 3: and he got the pen to twenty fifteen pence state offense.
Speaker 3: And when they got fired after two seasons, so that
Speaker 3: is one thing, like we obviously you don't know everything
Speaker 3: you need to know, but basically you can at least
Speaker 3: figure out like where where's their head at when they're
Speaker 3: hiring these guys. That'll tell you a whole lot. I
Speaker 3: think about how things might go.
Speaker 1: Especially and how quickly they move on, right, which, like,
Speaker 1: so Jimmy Lake had that opportun unity after last year
Speaker 1: and now it's COVID year. Maybe he thought it was
Speaker 1: that's weird, we have potential whatever. David Randa was like, Nope,
Speaker 1: this isn't it. This is not it right, Larry Fedora,
Speaker 1: is not it right when.
Speaker 3: You're a first time head coach, right, you haven't made
Speaker 3: these hires before, and maybe to find pretty quickly that
Speaker 3: your logic was flawed. But yeah, LIKEX, it FX it
Speaker 3: quickly and we'll see where we're at. And even like
Speaker 3: Larry Fedora made sense sort of at least on paper,
Speaker 3: it wasn't quite the Donovan level what are you seeing
Speaker 3: here kind of thing? Right, it still was it it
Speaker 3: ended up working out terribly.
Speaker 1: Any move that is all I hate anytime I see
Speaker 1: like well, like if somebody were to hire Dan Mullen
Speaker 1: as an offensive coordinator, I don't think it'll work right.
Speaker 1: Dan Mullen wants to be a head coach. Dan Mullen
Speaker 1: hasn't called plays in that specific role in a long time.
Speaker 1: And same thing when you hire somebody like Les Miles,
Speaker 1: so you hire somebody like Kevin Sumlin, you're like, look,
Speaker 1: they would rather be at their old job succeeding, and
Speaker 1: they're not, and so this is a consolation job for them.
Speaker 1: How much energy are they putting into their job? Larry
Speaker 1: Fedora would rather be at North Carolina succeed He's not.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I wasn't worried about that. Was basically like he
Speaker 3: just tried to be the Baylor head coach. Ye, He's like,
Speaker 3: this is what I'm used to. I'm going to take
Speaker 3: control of it now.
Speaker 1: It didn't work so mine Southeastern Louisiana's coordinator. That's insane.
Speaker 3: So here's my question. By the way, Yeah, and I
Speaker 3: realized I said there are two things, and I've only
Speaker 3: listened one, so I'll do the other really quickly. Heear
Speaker 3: in a second. But here's my question. What does Gary
Speaker 3: Patterson do? Where does he? Is he going to be
Speaker 3: like a Power Conference defensive coordinator somewhere and how amazing
Speaker 3: would that like? I have no idea whether that's a
Speaker 3: great thing or a terrible thing, but what would he
Speaker 3: be like as a P five defensive coordinator?
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 3: He might still be awesome.
Speaker 1: He might be TCU had an all time awful defense
Speaker 1: this year. Yeah for TCU.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I'm I'm willing to believe that that was
Speaker 3: because of talent and depth because last year they were
Speaker 3: awesome and suddenly when everybody has a great defense, suddenly
Speaker 3: they don't. It was just overnight. Like I'm I'm willing
Speaker 3: to believe that it was a talent and depth thing
Speaker 3: and not a he's lost his basketball thing. I could
Speaker 3: be very wrong about that. We'll find out real quick
Speaker 3: whenever he goes somewhere else, but I'm very.
Speaker 1: Sure he should do television. He should be a new
Speaker 1: coworker of Bill Time.
Speaker 3: He would be fun.
Speaker 1: That would be would be he has a personality, he's smart,
Speaker 1: he's engaging. I think that's the move.
Speaker 3: So the other thing, real quick, just so I can
Speaker 3: you know, bug me, if the circle remains, let's do
Speaker 3: it open. The other thing I've learned over the last
Speaker 3: few years is judge the school, not judge the school
Speaker 3: making the higher, and not the higher itself. That explained
Speaker 3: Scott Frost or Nebraska to a certain degree. They've they've
Speaker 3: struggled to make a couple good hires. They're just they're
Speaker 3: in a really weird place. And therefore Scott Frost probably
Speaker 3: inherited a bad situation, just as Oklahoma has made two
Speaker 3: bad hires in seventy years. They just lost Lincoln Riley.
Speaker 3: They're probably fine. Yeah, And you know it makes when
Speaker 3: I frame things like this, it makes the Lincoln Riley
Speaker 3: move really interesting in that he's leaving his school where
Speaker 3: everybody succeeds. Yep, He's going to a school that's made
Speaker 3: one successful higher in forty years.
Speaker 1: Correct. I mentioned that on a Q and A show
Speaker 1: that like. Here is the full list of coaches who
Speaker 1: have worked out in the modern era at USC and
Speaker 1: other worldly charismatic super Bowl Championship coach the it yeah,
Speaker 1: and I.
Speaker 3: Mean he's still like it's easy to see how Riley
Speaker 3: could absolutely kick fuck here, but it is. It was
Speaker 3: easy to see how Scott Frost was going to turn
Speaker 3: things around in Nebraska too. It just really the number,
Speaker 3: like Ohio State hasn't made a bad hire since before
Speaker 3: World War Two, Like Woody Hayes, Earl Bruce was still
Speaker 3: awesome even if he wasn't wood But we.
Speaker 1: Can have a John Cooper conversation.
Speaker 3: Right, but once he reached there, he got really high
Speaker 3: and should have probably won a national title in ninety right,
Speaker 3: but even he was, he was still a good hire.
Speaker 1: Nothing right, right, he wasn't home but yeah, totally.
Speaker 3: Russell urban mind. Like nobody has failed at Ohio State
Speaker 3: really by any like reasonable measure since before World War Two.
Speaker 3: They're probably fine if Ryan Day leaves for the Pros,
Speaker 3: but then, yeah, USC is weird. Texas is extremely.
Speaker 2: So hold on, does this mean that it's some future
Speaker 2: state We're going to have a column on the sp
Speaker 2: plus spreadsheet for athletic directors or just like e squoozers
Speaker 2: or recruiting intangibles.
Speaker 3: I do think like if I was ever to come
Speaker 3: up with a good way to adjust for like when
Speaker 3: you when you change coaches, Like one of the ways
Speaker 3: is just going to be like when a coach leaves,
Speaker 3: where you above your historical average, where you below your
Speaker 3: historical average, because you're probably going to start regressing towards
Speaker 3: that average with the next guy. I mean, maybe you
Speaker 3: make an even better higher, but maybe you don't, so
Speaker 3: chances are revert to form and that'll be kind of
Speaker 3: interesting to see if I can ever figure that one out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, fair enough on that note, Tye Bill, thank you
Speaker 1: as always. Yeah, this has been illuminating. I don't have
Speaker 1: any tennis questions because the season is over, and I'm
Speaker 1: sure ty has some sort of question on like a
Speaker 1: nine year old Salvadoran kid who has dual citizenship and
Speaker 1: is the twenty thirty six World Cup going to reflect
Speaker 1: the America's dedication to the cause, and so this is
Speaker 1: the floor? Is yours?
Speaker 2: Tie? No, I was just gonna ask you, what's Christian
Speaker 2: Polisic's best position? Get any thoughts on that?
Speaker 3: Man? Yeah, no, I I feel like he's better in
Speaker 3: the middle, like he's obviously a good winger, but I
Speaker 3: feel like he's like one of his best assets is
Speaker 3: his vision, and like he's got the speed technically when
Speaker 3: he's got too healthy legs at least to do well
Speaker 3: on the outside. I like his vision more than anything else.
Speaker 3: And it seems to me that that vision, you're in
Speaker 3: those half spaces, if you're in the middle, you're in
Speaker 3: zone fourteen. I think they call it like that. That
Speaker 3: seems to maybe be the best place for him in
Speaker 3: my view. You disagree.
Speaker 2: I did not expect that answer, but I don't have
Speaker 2: a reason to really disagree, because you know a lot
Speaker 2: more about he showed his work.
Speaker 3: He did show now, Yeah, not like center forward, more
Speaker 3: like just the attacking midfield behind the center forward in
Speaker 3: the middle.
Speaker 2: All right, Well, his name is Bill Connolly. Find his
Speaker 2: work out at ESPN dot com. Bill, it's always pleasure
Speaker 2: to have you here talking all things college football. Enjoy
Speaker 2: the final weekend of the season. Hopefully we can get
Speaker 2: a little bit of sleep, a little bit more rest. Yes,
Speaker 2: as we move forward, I know we're excited about that,
Speaker 2: but we absolutely will talk soon.
Speaker 1: Thank you again.
Speaker 2: Absolutely all right, Dan, there you go, Bill C stopping
Speaker 2: on by giving us his take on the Weekend. Bill
Speaker 2: c always always a fan of chaos, always looking for
Speaker 2: chaos wherever he can find. It. Has been trying to
Speaker 2: will two thousand and seven back into existence since the
Speaker 2: start of the year. I don't know if we quite
Speaker 2: got to those same levels that was pretty extreme in
Speaker 2: two thousand and seven, but it has been the most
Speaker 2: chaotic year college football that we've seen in quite some time.
Speaker 2: Just a lot of.
Speaker 1: Follow it's been. It's been a terrific year, which is
Speaker 1: why I've been a big proponent of just give the
Speaker 1: national championship to Georgia and let's figure out four other
Speaker 1: teams to have just a wide open, nonsense playoff. Let's
Speaker 1: get Cincinnati, Michigan, Alabama, Oklahoma State in and like, let's
Speaker 1: see what happens and just really reward Georgia, who is
Speaker 1: unquestionably the best team in the country. Why prove it?
Speaker 1: This is so we have leagues that do this. EPL
Speaker 1: does this.
Speaker 2: Right in that circumstance, who does Georgia play if everybody
Speaker 2: else is playing bowl games? Does Georgia play the Jets?
Speaker 2: Who would they square.
Speaker 1: Off those four teams? Georgia's the national champion and we
Speaker 1: just give them a trophy and they have a parade
Speaker 1: in Athens, and that's that they've earned it. You win
Speaker 1: the SEC against Alabama, which is their final challenge, and
Speaker 1: they've left no doubt. They beat everybody by seventeen twenty
Speaker 1: four to thirty eight points that they haven't had close calls.
Speaker 1: So I'm good with just awarding them. You could also say, okay,
Speaker 1: they all wait the winner of the four team playoff
Speaker 1: that I just mentioned, right, They sit on their high
Speaker 1: and mighty throne in Indianapolis has all great thrown are
Speaker 1: and they await whoever comes out of Michigan. I mean
Speaker 1: they would in this instance already play Alabama. So whoever
Speaker 1: that team is Michigan, Notre Dame, Cincinnati, Oklahoma State. Kind
Speaker 1: of thing.
Speaker 2: I do like the idea of defeating the final boss
Speaker 2: of college football, Nick Saban, and then just getting something
Speaker 2: like you have now won the thing, whatever that thing is.
Speaker 2: Let's play the music. Let's do that.
Speaker 1: They get the Mario whistle, they can travel through time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, well right in solid verbal at gmail
Speaker 2: dot com, let us know your thoughts on yes what
Speaker 2: transpires this weekend. Also, don't forget to give us a
Speaker 2: phone call. At four zero eight Verbal one your last
Speaker 2: weekend for a while. Maybe we'll open it up during
Speaker 2: the National Championship. Four oh eight Verbal one is the reverbline.
Speaker 2: Our guy Dylan cuts those together, mixes them down into
Speaker 2: a three and a half four minute segment that we
Speaker 2: play every Sunday morning as part of our recap show.
Speaker 2: We've got eleven games on tap this weekend starting tonight,
Speaker 2: as many of you listen to this on a Friday,
Speaker 2: to games nine more on Saturday.
Speaker 1: We forgot one thing, it's Is it not the Doctor
Speaker 1: Pepper tuition throw weekend?
Speaker 2: Oh wow?
Speaker 1: So I don't know if it's all the championship games.
Speaker 1: I know it's a lot of them.
Speaker 2: Well they used to only do the big twelve game,
Speaker 2: I think. And then I don't know if they found
Speaker 2: they've expanded, they found more marketing budget or what I
Speaker 2: what I enjoy about the whole fun I'd say, throw underhand,
Speaker 2: get that money however you can. And I know some
Speaker 2: people are like, it goes against the spirit of throwing
Speaker 2: a football.
Speaker 1: To throw a football, I don't care. I'm here to win.
Speaker 1: The thing that always doesn't rub me the wrong way,
Speaker 1: But it's always just a little cheeky is like, how
Speaker 1: do you get a scholarship to go to college? You
Speaker 1: get good grades, maybe you have a really tough life
Speaker 1: and you have good grades and you know you don't
Speaker 1: have the money or whatever. I think that's all terrific.
Speaker 1: Those are all terrific candidates to receive scholarship money to college.
Speaker 1: I like that. Doctor Pepper says, Look, we understand you've
Speaker 1: gotten terrific grays, You've got this story, and it's been
Speaker 1: really difficult for you to pay for college. We are
Speaker 1: going to put up one last obstacle for you this money.
Speaker 1: We are going to put you through a series of
Speaker 1: challenges on National TV. Doctor Tremper, of course, has all
Speaker 1: of the money in the world where they could just
Speaker 1: give these candidates. They could just like two finalists, they
Speaker 1: have this exhibition and they do whatever. But they're like,
Speaker 1: you're gonna have to defeat Andrea from El Paso in
Speaker 1: order to get this money. And we understand you want
Speaker 1: to go into robotics. Hopefully you can throw these footballs
Speaker 1: into a ginta flatable soda cant to realize your dreams.
Speaker 1: WHOA is it a fun odd message. It's a great,
Speaker 1: great cause that with the obstacle. You're like, look, you've
Speaker 1: done everything in your ability to get this money. There
Speaker 1: is why more challenge. In front of the world in HD,
Speaker 1: in front of ninety three thousand people at Jerry World,
Speaker 1: We're gonna have to ask you to throw footballs into
Speaker 1: a fourteen foot soda can in many ways for our entertainment.
Speaker 1: In many ways, it's noble, but at the same time,
Speaker 1: it's man, can we just kill him the cash? Can
Speaker 1: we just he wants to Andrew wants to study robotics? Yeah,
Speaker 1: oh god. I always think about that. I always think
Speaker 1: about that. Doctor Pepper's like, we have the money, you're
Speaker 1: gonna have to earn it. I always have that line
Speaker 1: of thinking. I'm just like, could they just spend one
Speaker 1: fifty instead of seventy five?
Speaker 2: Just give them the money.
Speaker 1: I'll just give them. They just write it off, man,
Speaker 1: and they don't need us. It's a rounding error to
Speaker 1: Dr Pepper. This month the big lunch and the CEO
Speaker 1: is there. I'mware with like the giant novelty check or
Speaker 1: some representative of doctor Pap Borrow was like, all right,
Speaker 1: you've passed the challenge. You're now now you can now
Speaker 1: study mathematics.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Always, that's always my thought. I'm like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: that the hoops that these these two worthy people have
Speaker 1: gone through to get to this point. And yet still yeah,
Speaker 1: that's all.
Speaker 2: Oh. Every year, a lifetime of academic achievement crystallized down
Speaker 2: into one ninety second.
Speaker 1: It says here, it says here, you have a four
Speaker 1: point two and you took eight AP classes. You just
Speaker 1: I get it that you don't. College is expensive. It's
Speaker 1: more expensive than ever. So no, no, you're not gonna
Speaker 1: take a time.
Speaker 2: How do you feel about throwing a football through a hoop?
Speaker 1: Yeah? The soda can the soda can challenge. That's where
Speaker 1: we are.
Speaker 2: That's all all right, Dan, this has been fun. Thank
Speaker 2: you to one and all for bearing with us this week.
Speaker 2: A busy week at college football. We'll see if it
Speaker 2: settles down at all next week, but in the interim,
Speaker 2: we've got a big forty eight hour stretch coming at
Speaker 2: you here in week fourteen. Don't forget to go on
Speaker 2: out to verbawlers dot com so you get access to
Speaker 2: our recap show a little bit early. We do that
Speaker 2: live every Sunday morning at ten am. Our Patreon for
Speaker 2: ballers are able to watch that live as we do it.
Speaker 2: They also get access to that show early before it
Speaker 2: hits the public feed six am Monday morning. Again, that's
Speaker 2: Verballers dot com, Solid Saturday dot com. We've got a
Speaker 2: new picture of a Jack Chris Fowler that we're going
Speaker 2: to share on us believable, unbelievable, maybe six Jackfowlers. So
Speaker 2: stop on buy we'll break that down in alarming detail,
Speaker 2: I promise you. And also Solid Giveaway dot Com is
Speaker 2: how you can go on out enter for your chance
Speaker 2: to win that RG three signed mini helmet. And hey,
Speaker 2: if you haven't already subscribed to the show, it's going
Speaker 2: out anywhere you get your podcast Sapple, Google, Spotify, Yeah,
Speaker 2: hit subscribe, follow, whatever the nomenclature is. We'd love to
Speaker 2: be back in your podcasting app of choice on Monday morning.
Speaker 2: Can't wait for that guy over there, my good friend
Speaker 2: Dan Rubinstein, for myself, Ty Hildon Brandt, thank you so
Speaker 2: much for downloading, for listening, for playing along at home.
Speaker 2: We'll be back at you on Monday.
Speaker 1: In the meantime, stay solid, peace,