America's BEST Conference + Week Three Upset Potential | Late Kick Live Ep. 429

Auf der Suche nach dem perfekten Match. Eigentlich brauche ich nur ein Shop-System um meine Produkte online zu verkaufen. Mit Shopify kannst du einen Online-Shop erstellen und gestalten und hast die volle Kontrolle über dein Geschäft. Ja, den perfekten Match gibt es. Test der Shopify-Kostenlos auf Shopify.de-LashRadio. Bereits 10.000 Deutsche Unternehmern haben sich dafür entschieden. Gemacht für Deutschland. Powert bei Shopify. few Or could be Wyoming Thai with texas midway through the fourth quarter. It could be South Alabama or South Florida, whichever South Alabama plays this. It could be an upset coming out of nowhere. That's what it could be. These kinds of weeks always make me a little uneasy. And not even coaching or playing in the games but I'm buy standard. And I haven't predicted any major upset. Florida over Tennessee's not major' and yet here I sit with the rest of you 48 hours out unless you think Bethun kookman has a shot against Miami tonight it is Thursday night September 14th. Let's double clap this thing as of the last hour in the paid state store, finally, finally we have our first, hopefully of many, paid state strength and conditioning t-shirts that have dropped. Now look, this is open to interpretation and if you're listening on podcast, just imagine a flexed fist holding a dumbbell, you think to yourself, those are plates on the side of that dumbbell. I like to think of them as train wheels, not training wheels, the actual wheels you would see on the side of a freight car, to each his and her own. And also in the paid state store as of the last hour, we've been paying attention to Dion Sanders as you could clearly see. Now I'm not going to have a Colorado segment on the show tonight, but that doesn't mean we don't have two brand spanking news shirts next day we kept the receipts in the paid state store. I think they're glorious. I think they're beautiful. I'll probably buy 10 for family and friends as soon as I find out if I have any in Colorado. So paidstatematerial.com. Those are there right now. My advice by them as quickly as you can. All right. The other bit of breaking news as we dive into the show is I found out moments ago director Colin once sold popcorn at Bristol Motor Speedway. And I don't know what to do with the information. We don't have photographic evidence, but director Colin who is a real living breathing boy. Once sold popcorn at Bristol, how about that? And once worked in Bristol, just a different one. That's all you need to know about him. Let's dive into the show tonight. All right. So a debate is raging in college football circles about conference strength. This normally is reserved for bowl season, but now everyone's talking about it cause the SEC seems like it may have a flat tire or three. And that means that conference supremacy is up for grabs. It's like a ladder match and all of a sudden everyone's reaching for the belt. I think this is an impossible debate, but so many of you have asked me, hey, who do you think is the number one conference in America right now? That I'm going to wade into these treacherous treacherous waters right along with the rest of you. I think it's impossible only because I'm not so sure we all value the same thing. A lot of you look at this and you say, well, how many teams out of your conference could make the playoff? How many of them could win a championship? A lot of the rest of you just care about rankings or conference records. So here's the first thing. Ultimately in December, it's going to come down to who has the most title contenders. And the way I see it right now, and I'm free to adjust this as are you in your own mind. I think the SEC's still got to be considered to have three of them. I think Georgia and Alabama are certainly up there. I think LSU is still up there because the thing about it is you can't be knocking LSU out of contention, but also tell me Florida states a bonafide title contender when that's the team they lost to. Ditto with Alabama. They lost to Texas. No one's knocking Texas. They're a title contender and so on and so forth. In the big 10 clearly they've got three of them up there or at least we think it's clear that as of now Ohio State Michigan Penn State. So by that prism SEC big 10 kind of similar. Now here's my question to you. How would you view the pack 12 right now? Because I can make two arguments. I could make an argument there are like five teams out there that are alive for championship slash playoff consideration or you could come back at me and say no they actually have one or none. You just haven't seen all the carnage start to take place once conference play starts which which either one of them could be true. We're so early in the season one of many reasons by the way that this is a totally irrelevant conversation. Naturally I'm leading the show with it. Big 12 is the same way like Kansas State hasn't lost a game. Should I consider them a playoff contender? We're going to see him in 48 hours. Should I consider them a playoff contender? Because I consider Texas one and I've seen Texas in person. I consider Oklahoma one. But if you shot back at me will you only think that because of what the Vegas odds say? Kind of yeah. I mean you are right about that. Oklahoma has has not played a marquee opponent yet. And so the ACC that's tough because right now as much as I don't believe in writing Clems and off. I've temporarily taken my hand and I've just I've just pushed them to the side. And I got Florida State alone in the playoff contention bracket for the ACC. But I could be wrong about that. Like I said I reserve the right to add teams and subtract teams at my leisure. But here's the here's the reason I don't take part in this conversation in bowl season. In bowl season you know how back in the day before people used phrases like meaningless bowl game. Casuality before people did that though. We would have what did what did ESPN call it capital one bowl mania or whatever it was where you just compare conference records. The pack 12 is six and one in bowl season the SEC is two and seven in bowl season. And you know that was the most low hanging fruit imaginable. But it was used around the Christmas dinner table and the New Year's Eve whatever in the world you gather around on January 31st or December 31st. It was used to tout conference supremacy. Well I never looked at it that way. I thought the only way and I still think this way. I think the only way that you could measure true legitimate conference supremacy is if you had some tournament where in every conference was seated one through 12, one through 14, one through 16. However many of me have find the number that would fit them all. So 14 I guess every conference every conference has at least 12 I think or 14 right now. Take the top 14 teams out of every conference. See them one through 14. And then if I'm going to watch an ACC versus pack 12 game, I want to see number four versus number four. So far this year what's happened and this is going to sound like sour grapes half of you already think I'm an SEC home or anyway. So I don't care at this point. That's fine. We all know where I grew up. That's fine. The SEC's three and six right now and out of conference matchups which most people would tell you means the SEC is down and I don't disagree that the SEC's down. What it doesn't tell me is how they measure up shot for shouting against any other conference because what we saw in case you hadn't been paying attention is FSU LSU. Okay that was the ACC's number one against the SEC's call it a three. I think that's safe to say North Carolina beat South Carolina. Okay that was supposed to tell me something about ACC SEC what it told me is the number three team in the ACC beat the number 10 team in the SEC as they should. I'm not I'm not downing the accomplishment. I'm just saying that tells me nothing about the conference against the conference Florida by most discernible metrics was the 11th or 12th team preseason in the SEC Utah even without camera rising who is in the production suite as we speak. Even without camera rising five maybe in the pack 12. It doesn't tell me what you think it tells me this is not the flex you think it is to quote the famous meme of me that's floating around. I think the most powerful arguments against the SEC right now are that an Miami game and the Texas Bama game. Those mean something to me at least it means something team versus team to me now there may be a steep drop off once you get to the middle tears of those respective conferences versus the SEC but the rest of this stuff is just. It's just match up stuff it's just tells me North Carolina is better than South Carolina it tells me at least to start the season FSU was better than LSU by a wide margin in the second half as it turns out. Don't really tell me much about the SEC so conference record I don't care about head to head I don't care about I never care about it bowl season so I especially don't care about it in the regular season and anyone who's watched me for a long time thank you I mean from the bottom of my heart thank you. Anyone who's watched me for a long time knows that I've used this against the SEC for years even if the SEC were to tout this stuff I would remind SEC fans. I would say well was it evenly seeded no it wasn't so therefore I don't care I don't care if Alabama goes and beats Duke I really don't it didn't tell me anything tells me Alabama's better than Duke. Love to see that match up at the moment but I don't really care about anything past that rankings I also don't care about so right now the AP is just littered with pack 12 teams which I got no problem with. The JP poll has how many Jesse we got six pack 12 teams in our top 25 so yeah I agree with that in theory here's the difference you want to know the difference between rankings and power ratings here's the difference follow me here on this little mental exercise so the AP has UCLA at number 24 right now I got no issue with that I got UCLA a little bit higher but I've got no issue with that. So for argument sake let's just say the AP is dead on the money it's right about every team it's not obviously but for argument sake let's say that is that is the gospel all these words are written in red take it to the bank. If that were the case that would mean UCLA has seven pack 12 teams ahead of them in the top 25 Southern Cal Colorado Oregon Oregon State Utah's up there Washington's up there Washington State is ahead of UCLA so all those teams are ranked ahead of UCLA right. Let's say UCLA played every one of them in conference play just as a mental exercise and they lost to every one of them would you keep UCLA 24 if they lost in direct proportion to how much higher ranked their opposing team is than them so Southern Cal beats them by a two touchdowns Washington State beats them by one point in other words the AP poll plays out on the field exactly as it says it should. What would you do with UCLA the JP poll wouldn't bump them down a single spot I keep them number 24 because what I would see is validation that my power ratings are right but in rankings land you can't have a five and seven team ranked inside the top 25 absolutely not no no no so that's dumb to me that's why I never believed in ranking teams because the the merit or the punishment just because you win or just because you lose has never made sense this is not pro sports this is college sports. And also that's why I do power ratings so the best I can tell right now and I really hate to do this because I know a lot of folks really really dialed up and ready to bash the SEC like a piñata the SEC still the best conference in college football that's one truth the other truth is I do think it's now and I do think it's much closer to the pack than in most years but here's the separator. You hold them to a different standard in your mind and most of you know you do but even if you don't know that in that subconscious of yours you do you hold the SEC to a different standard you look at them and you criticize them for things you would totally shut your mouth about if you saw the ACC do it big 12 because you don't expect as much from them but if we're doing an apples to apples heads up scenario right here you can't do that you got hold every one of the same standard so right now we got i'm just looking at my power ratings you can think what you want to about i got three SEC teams in my top 10 I got three big 10 teams in my top 10 but when I get to that second tier there's a pretty sizable drop off I don't have a lot of big 10 elsewhere in the top 25 I got some SEC I got six pack 12 teams but my highest pack 12 team is seventh I got four from the big 12 I got four from the ACC and so as much as you want to not the SEC's depth the SEC's depth shouldn't be not it's just that when that depth gets tested against the ACC's number three team or the pack 12's number four team yeah it's gonna get exposed a little bit cause the SEC's not as good this year as they are most years but here's the thing there was a there was a wide swath there was a big gap a chasm if you will between where the SEC had been and wherever the next best conference was and the only contender really was the big 10 in years past and look it may still shake out that way this year I love what the pack 12's done I think the pack 12 could end up reasonably being the second best conference top to bottom in college football this year they're not going to be better than the SEC no one will be better than the SEC this year no one will be better than the SEC for the foreseeable future I know that's unpopular it also happens to be truth even in a down year for the SEC the quality in the conference top to bottom is better than the top to bottom quality in any other conference I'm sorry but that's the way it is we're going to see last year's big 12 champion this Saturday though the once upon a Saturday tour is headed to Columbia Missouri first time ever in Columbia for us to see a football game sold out first time since 2019 there and so yeah 11 a.m. local kick Saturday you know how much I love those it's not big noon kickoff calls Fox doesn't have the game I think I think it's SEC network I think friend of the program a list of laying will be up there on the sideline with us so we look forward to that and I also look forward for about two more days to having that once upon a Saturday stop in Columbia t-shirt in the paid state store paid state material dot com just a fair warning we've never been to Missouri before I don't know when will be there again that shirt's going to be there two more days and then it's gone so if you want to commemorate that trip to for a field and I got to check on the pronunciation because I never get those words that end in t right that's where it is paid state material dot com speaking of just games all over the place this weekend the upset meter to me peaks the hardest in weekends like this weekends where your casual cousin for example we'll call him Carl not read tells you oh this is a sleeper of a weekend I'll just fast forward to week four and believe me week four is loaded we got some decisions to make with the once upon a Saturday tour next week but here's the thing about weekends like this they always are tough to see because you're in like a fog and then all the sudden you come out of the fog and it turns out oh there's a mushroom cloud where that come from oh a great big bomb and college football just went off we got carnage everywhere chaos left and right I never would have seen it coming well here's think about it we try and see it we try and see around the corner but it's difficult like Penn State plays Illinois this weekend the line on the games 14 and a half is drew allers first real road test as the starting quarterback Penn State it's on 11 a.m. local kick Illinois totally off everyone's radar calls they lost Kansas last Friday night meaning they got a little extra rest for this one of course they're in wounded animal mode one of the most important metrics on this show Penn State according to my research from producer Jesse they they did let that West Virginia quarterback run on them a little bit and Luke Altmeier can do the same for Illinois so what this thing go to about 19 over times last time they played what a memory I mean what a memory they didn't play last year so Penn State at Illinois I think the upset meter a six on a one to 10 scale so in other words keep your eye on it next up this is just disgusting I can I can smell this off the piece of paper South Alabama is only a seven and a half point underdog at Oklahoma State so that's with home field baked in South Alabama a seven and a half point dog it's been bet down from nine I looked at the model the model slightly leans Oklahoma State and I said no thank you we bet Oklahoma State last week we won we are not on the Cowboys this week do you know they've played three quarterbacks this year like Oklahoma State has three quarterbacks who have thrown 15 or more passes it's week three that's wild that that's actually pretty crazy they got to figure it out do you want to be figuring it out against South Alabama I know most of you think that South Alabama is a nothing program and they got a clip art mascot logo this is a good team it's a very good team and that coaching staff is going to be getting attention on a broad scale from a lot of more major programs I say the same thing about the Troy coaching staff I got some really good coaching staff in Alabama at the G five level Trent Delphur's the head coach at UAB so there's all kind of entertaining things happening down there I'm going to put this upset alert like an eight I'm very nervous about it and this is half of my big 12 championship game prediction Oklahoma State it's not a conference game but if they drop it to the Jags of South Alabama it would not go very far and give me comfort as they enter conference play next up this to me is one that is far enough off the radar to where I'm just putting the the bright blinking red light emojis all over it Washington is laying 17 on the road at Michigan State what's Michigan State been in the news for this week their head coach is suspended pending as sexual harassment investigation no one's talking about football and also everyone's just of the opinion the team's terrible quarterback best wide receiver transfer it out there bad no one's paying attention to Noah chem no one even knows what he's been doing at the quarterback position no one knows that Michigan State is plus 74 in point differential so far through two games that's their best marks since 1931 and Hoops amongst us could forget that 31 Spartans squad I got to hit my buddy Jim Donner enough and ask him if he was on that team so I'm looking at this and Washington sitting there in the top 10 and they're going across the country and they're laying 17 and I am nervous because sometimes it's called the uing effect producer Jesse was talking to me about it today a lot of times when you lose star players and you know about it all week it doesn't happen on a Friday there's this galvanization that happens in the locker room and a bunch of folks play at 105% and collectively that more than makes up for the loss well when you lose a head coach that not only happens with your player roster sometimes it happens with your coaching staff too and that's not even to mention there could just be some folks up there that didn't like Mel Tucker now I'm speaking purely hypothetically here I don't know any of that to be true but sometimes there just happens to be resentment for whoever is out or got suspended in the locker room and there's an added motivation to play at your best because you want to show everyone without this person and we're better oh and by the way you want to defend home field in any scenario so I'm nervous about that when that's like a seven and a half maybe even seven and three quarter on the upset alert scale Colorado State goes to Colorado yeah that's happening so now what we have is we've got Colorado in a potential let down a look ahead spot they go to Oregon next week and you would think this is going to be a sleepy little game that only people in Colorado cared about and then all of a sudden this happened and I sat out with you as opinion today and I don't care if they hear it in Boulder I told them I took my hat off and I took my glasses off and I said when I talk to grownups I take my hat and my glasses off that's what my mother talks so you know they're not going to like us no matter what we say or do it doesn't matter okay so let's go up there and play once again why would you want to talk about us but we don't talk about nobody and all we do is go out here work out but so we do our job on set but when they give us ammunition they unmess around it was just going to be a good game they are mess around and made it it was going to be a great test some battle of Colorado but they are mess around and made it personal guys they messed around and they don't made it personal what you just heard if you're listening on podcast was Colorado State Head Coach Jay Norville breaking news Jay Norville is the head coach Colorado State and you heard Deon Sanders wearing a hat and wearing shades while talking to us you know I think this stuff is stupid however I also think it's thoroughly entertaining and so I will wait into those waters as well if anyone gives me an opportunity to college game day is at Boulder this week at Boulder in Boulder and I saw ticket prices for this game the lines in the 23 and a half range it's insane what's happening out there utterly insane now we're talking about upset potential here Colorado State somehow is coming off a buy again I say somehow because it's only week three and secondly yes it's been a double dose of really high emotion high leverage situations for Colorado weeks one and two they beat TCU they beat Nebraska they got Oregon and Southern Cal on deck so in normal world college football this would be a let down look ahead trap whatever you want to call it spot sandwich spot nothing about Colorado's normal and I don't think they're thinking like a typical championship contender team is thinking I still think they view all these as equal because they weren't expected to do anything it's different like they look at this thing and it's just the next challenge I get what I'm trying to say is I don't think they get let down I don't think they suffer to this point from the same potential pitfalls that other teams do I just think they're wired a little different this year's version that's not to say in the future they won't revert back to the kind of semi normal form of college football I think they're gonna run it up on Colorado State that's what I think so I've got this like a two I don't think there's much of a thread of an upset here I'm the same person who laid 20 with TCU in week one and had them victimize me so I wouldn't be taking my opinion on Colorado games to the bank just yet there's money to be made elsewhere but conference play is on deck conference play beckons two conference games right here LSU is laying nine and a half at Mississippi State obviously I think the upset alert meter is very high on this one because we took Mississippi State and the points it's a romen who'll express best bet for us it's pretty simple for me I got Mississippi State power rated in my top 25 so I'm not gonna watch them in good conscious BLA and nine and a half at home and not jump on it and I also watched the Arizona game last week and they were horrific which as you know the theory on this show is if you're bad I don't expect you to try and replicate whatever your your ill-fated game plan was I expect you to go another direction but but if they do attempt to go the same direction Mississippi State can run the ball on LSU at least if statistical profiles hold up from so far this year now while Mississippi State may be elderly or as you might call them experienced defensively it's not the fastest defense in the world to LSU is gonna have plays they can make to probably a little bit higher scoring game than the total indicates I'm not taking the over I'm just saying that's my feel on it I've already got a side on this one I am taking Mississippi State plus the points I didn't pick the outright upset but obviously if I think it's gonna be in the single digits I think there's a shot at it and also that South Carolina at Georgia game this game's already broken down on the channel we've already got an individual video on it it's all about pressure talked about it with Spencer Ratler it's all about Georgia's opportunity to either explode or be exposed either could happen here and if you're exposed it doesn't have to be a loss like I don't think the upset potentials particularly high it's a four touchdown spread so I don't think the upset potential is particularly high but the thing about it is if you beat South Carolina 26 to 20 there probably still a lot of things that Kirby smarts having to talk about in that post game press conference that don't feel real well and don't make you have the warm fuzzies in your belly and then you know you're saying to yourself man if Texas would have come in here they would have beaten us just like they beat Alabama only thing saving us is a softer schedule right now or Georgia's up 30 to three at the half and that past rush gets to Spencer Ratler and those wide receivers do break out and block really well on the perimeter and Carson Beck has himself an afternoon and that crowd does what Kirby smarts ask him to do literally either one can happen and would not surprise me so my upset meter is not especially off the charts on this one it bears watching to me even in a win for what Georgia could look like many different versions of Georgia we could see also I think Florida is just going to beat Tennessee I picked Florida outright to beat him so that's the upset I'm on this weekend I spoke my piece on this the other night I just think Tennessee is going to probably be seen by America most of America for the first time and you're going to expect Tennessee to be throwing the ball all over the place and that is not their offense it is not they've got two pass plays of over 20 yards so far this year they have more rushing yards than passing yards some of that's caused they've been playing in blowout games I will grant you that I'm telling you even in a tight one possession game I think that's their offensive profile that's their offensive identity right now difference is Tennessee can get after you a whole lot more defensively themselves and so I'm the one who stood on the sideline in Salt Lake City and watched Florida struggle to even get pass a line of scrimmage on the ground are they really going to be able to put up 125, 130, much less 170, 180 on the ground against Tennessee and if they can't is Graham Mertz about to win me a ball game through the air somehow I think it's going to happen so that's that upset meters all the way at a 9, 9 and a half for me upsets or they're good for the soul unless you're pulling for the favorite there should be not a single not a single TRII nobody upset at this news in Brenham, Texas which is in the Houston area starting tomorrow through Sunday we are opening a brand new Academy Sports and Outdoors and if you want the address it's 1041 Nolan Street now Academy Sports and Outdoors is your one stop shop for all things outdoor sporting goods plus they are our exclusive partner and they make the show free of charge to you and they've got a whole lot of stuff you need in your life but if you live in or around Brenham, Texas or you just feel like a road trip this weekend I'm giving away five chalai of supremacy to people who proved to me publicly that they were there use your imagination don't do anything illegal snapshot of a receipt or standing outside the store will suffice make sure you get there if you're in the area and then next week if that's a little bit too far down the road for you down in Kyle, Texas that's in the Austin area 922 through 924 5755 Kyle, Parkway, Sweet 200 we're opening one up next week in there so as I told you I promised you guys Academy Sports and Outdoors locations just popping up all over the place and I love it number one because if you've ever been in there I don't need to sell you one they got all kinds of incredible stuff and big league chew in the checkout line and number two like I said they make the show free so amazing product on the shelves they make sure this product is free to you what do you have to lose? you got to buy this stuff anyway make sure you do it at Academy and if you can't get there in person academy.com alright right before we get Cole Kublik in here and he and I have several bones to pick tonight really good conversation coming up with Kublik in just a second let me remind you ramen will express first off I'm going to give you another best bet tonight make sure you're following on Instagram at Lake Kick Josh that Instagram story will fire up Friday night for Friday night lines I announce it in the story about an hour before we do it so come one, come all immunity alright let's take a look at which games we're on so Georgia Tech plus 20 and a half at Ole Miss ironically that's the game Kublik will be calling Saturday I'm on Georgia Tech plus the points I'm on Central Michigan plus 31 and a half they are by the way playing Notre Dame I am on Mississippi State plus 9 at home against LSU we are on Arizona minus 17 and a half believe they're playing UTEP out in Tucson I'm on UL Monroe plus 36 and a half and they're on the road at Texas A&M alright Colin what do we add in tonight paper pop why not let's just go with the Western Michigan Broncos and for the record we love all the directional Michigan schools this weekend so Friday night lines could really be hanging out in the state of Michigan tomorrow night so Western Michigan UL Monroe Arizona Mississippi State Central Michigan Georgia Tech remember Friday night lines tomorrow night for plenty more and there you have it and then we have a dude I'm always willing to bet on the back it's week what three now you persevering you weathering the storm fairly well it's a good okay last week was a little rough we had overtime in start fill and I thought to myself okay cool I missed the the BAMMA Texas traffic but about ten miles outside of Hoover I hit the BAMMA Texas traffic so we were dead still there again had a couple delays on Sunday so we're a little behind on sleep but other than that we're good yeah basically waved at you and that BAMMA Texas traffic all right so Texas is to some degree back Southern Cal under Lincoln Riley they're a contender we saw what FSU did with Norvell so you and I were on the phone the other day we were kind of talking about this because everybody's got to take on NIL everyone's got to take on the portal and what it's done to college football so there's this overwhelming thought out there that that's open college football up and I think that's true I don't know that it's true the way people describe it like people describe it as if Minnesota at any given second could just randomly appear in the playoff picture and I don't think that's what NIL in the portal is done what I think and you can give me every thought you have on this is yeah it may have shaved like the top of the trees so it may have shaved ten percent off of elite rosters any given year but that ten percent's just going to other historically elite programs so it's not South Florida coming to the table it's FSU it's not San Diego State coming to the table it's USC and so the folks who want parity you're going to get it but it really just circles back to the same teams that have been historically good and then you got the Texas' or the FSU the USC's that always should have been good but couldn't get out of their own way the process back to the main table that's now kind of been expedited that's all I see is there something I'm missing here is there something the Portland NIL is doing that's truly revolutionizing the sport and putting new seats at the table or is it just seats that always once were there they're pretty much there again I think a lot of what you described I would agree with and say that it's accurate I think there's another big portion of this where when people see Texas beat Alabama when people see maybe Georgia not being what they were last year of the year before we viewed as national championship contenders or teams that were super talented either lose or even have games that were too competitive for their fans liking what is happening also in my opinion Josh is that it's not allowing the Ohio State Alabama Clemsons to be that much further I've had everybody else so the two lap lead that the premier schools once had I feel like that's been shaved down greatly and that distribution of wealth as you said I think the majority of it is going to other schools that at one point in time have been relevant or a bit of school that we would consider to be a power and then you have teams that yeah they can make a little bit of a jump the other thing I noticed there are a couple things in college football this year and I think the portal plays into this the continuity of college football teams is nowhere near where it needs to be oh that's interesting that's interesting I would never interrupt you except this one time I want you to basically merge these two things so the continuity thing there a lot of folks thought NIL and transfer portal would fracture locker rooms so you can tell me what you mean by continuity but also there's this other thing you and I were talking about the other day I want you to expound on just the overall max effort that you would have seen 20 years ago and to what degree we're still seeing that go on that I think those are a couple of things that all go together so continuity whether it's offensive lines being able to play together trade off a twist being able to pick up a pressure understanding protections it's why we have a slide protection epidemic in this country right now and you can call it slap slide protection you can call it gap protection you can call it jet protection quick protection whatever it is but when you see an offensive line all in sync just move one way and then stop that's quick protection there are way too many teams that are overly reliant on that in college football right now and it's getting people beat they're just overly reliant they don't want to let their guys block people up and I think that goes to the physical portion and the continuity portion of not understanding how pressures are going to hit you not understanding man protection if you will as in if my man doesn't come where do I go what do I do in slide protection what happens is guys are taking their one step to the left and they're just sitting there there's no playing with your eyes anymore there's no understanding of I don't have to go as far I can stay here and help this guy he comes off the corner I can leave late and go pick him up my quarterback still has time I think that's reps playing football together that's being in the same locker room being in the same film room it's practice time together that's all been limited so it's gone away then there's the physical portion of it the physicality is very different right now and this could pick up across the course of the year I think back to I can't remember what year Trace missed last year at Tennessee and he was on medication but he couldn't practice when he was on medication so he'd come off and then he'd play and like week seven eight we get Tennessee again totally different player he looked like the dominant guy that he was two years prior and we had him and I just asked him I said were you essentially using games as practice he said I had to I couldn't go out there and hit on Monday through Friday so when I got into a game that was my time to reacclimate myself that was my practice time so to speak and when I say practice time in games I don't mean that people are taking teams lightly or they're pretending like they're playing it's not that it's just that like macaroni and I were talking about this the other day and he actually stopped me on it and his his points so I'll give him credit for he doesn't steal ideas like you do I'll say or I guess I don't steal ideas like you do but he said he was like call I can't believe as a guy that loves line play you're kind of missing this he said these kids aren't ready for the season right now and you combine that with all the things you were just talking about he said think about five years ago eight years ago ten years ago fifteen years ago he said through two weeks of games we still had when we played him not as far along as I was I a lot longer ago than he did we still had more plays not game plays not practice plays but combined in full pads where we hit each other then these teams right now probably already do through two games so we were just more physically acclimated to go play now go back to the continuity and the physicality I think there's a comfort level that some teams just have think about Texas all five of those offensive linemen played together last year Quinn Eur has been throwing seven on seven in practice in the summer out there in shirts and shorts and messing around with these guys in the locker room like they've been around those guys for almost three years now they know each other extremely well that non non-verbal communication is there they don't have to worry about it and then I think the max effort part also comes in understanding and guys who have been around it now there are very few teams that I see on film Josh that are just part of my friends playing their asses off there's just not many of them go watch the Miami film against Texas A&M yeah there was a lot of scheme involved in that those guys played like their hair was on fire like they literally played like their families lies were on the line I haven't seen a lot of teams play that way this year it's one of the reasons I was so gonna go into that Mississippi state game their defense plays a similar fashion like they almost look like they're playing to knock you out of the game and it's not dirty at all it's blatantly obvious that Chuck Cecil's a member of that defensive staff like because they play like he is so I just think that it's taken away I don't some people would say buy in investment are they truly invested are they at that place for the right reasons whatever all that it could be a little bit of all of it but there's not a lot of teams playing a hundred miles an hour right now and it will be very different when you and our sitting here five six weeks from now because some teams are gonna grow into that and some teams are gonna gain that continuity and it's all gonna make sense and that's gonna add to what they can do and what they can prevent other people doing when they're played against here's what's wild now people in some cases have watched the sport for a long time some of them have even played it and I got them sitting here on camera or on radio or pottery or the internet saying in terms this team can't do this that team can't do that and in some cases they're talking about really skilled rosters that like you're talking about probably just haven't gelled yet Mimo used to make jello all the time there's a reason she wouldn't let me open the fridge five minutes after she put it in there differences that fridge time used to be fall camp and now it's like week one two three it's happens every year though even more to a degree now than it used to but some teams starts to scale and you find yourself saying this coming well you don't necessarily have to have seen it coming on an individual basis but you don't have to be totally blindsided by it either learn lessons from the past and know Clemson, LSU, Bam like one of these teams is gonna end up in the thick of contention in November and half y'all have already written them off shame on you couldn't be us couldn't be us okay well also maybe going into seasons moving forward we should all take a little bit more of a and I'm not saying all the way to this into the spectrum but a little bit more of a Colorado approach where we went into this season and some of us went into this season of I don't know can't tell you I have no idea and I was not afraid to say it by the way I was not afraid to sit there and tell you guys I don't know if college is going to rent two or ten I don't know haven't seen them play together 80% of the roster has been flipped we got a good head coach that knows how to do the things that he does extremely well but we're talking about playing football those aren't all those things so we didn't know what that was going to be and there's going to be more of that either in the super positive direction or in the super negative direction because we're at a max turnover level in college football right now annually and that includes staff I mean we got guys going different places at a rate that we've never seen and way ahead of where it's ever been and stuff that happens that we hadn't was going to look that way are you talking about rivalry games not weeks but a rivalry game in the SEC are you as bothered by me when people just gloss over these games like Tennessee Alabama or they did it with Tennessee for a while Tennessee, Florida they just kind of gloss over it I love love love that we got a massive college audience that watches this show they're working with one hand tie behind their back because if you're 19 years old you have no concept of why this is even called a rivalry or why it's so storied like they'll bring it on on ESPN Saturday night and I guarantee you they'll pre-package footage from the spur your era or the former era and you'll be watching it and you'll say is this even what era is this and what planet was this played college football it's always pride ourselves on history and tradition right well in the modern age it feels like there's this portion of the college football public that if a game if a matchup hasn't been playoff relevant in the last five years it's just a trash game it's just a garbage game this has a ton of intrigue man like I don't know that any coaches under more pressure this Saturday or this weekend and Billy Napier is I actually went out on the limb of picking them to win the game because I happen to think the dynamic with Tennessee's offense is a little different than how people perceive it and man that's a total like back against the wall moment for Florida this Saturday big recruiting weekend down there I'm not going to go as far as to say must win but I'm not stopping well short of that it is a really big game for them and I look you know my thought I think we're training towards a season where we got massive upsets every weekend it's not going to be a one or two weekend deal so think about this though like you're in Birmingham on radio you guys take calls about this do people even talk about Tennessee Florida right now in the vein they used to not the way that they should and we had a great example of what you were talking about last year Damien Mitchell one of the producers on our show in the morning God love him I think he's 22 but his brain is 11 when it comes to college football and he lost his mind last year when Greg and I started talking about how cool it was to have this game back like this game actually means something some real relevance with this game as in things to play for and things at the end of the season where this might be the game we look back on and say remember what happened and that one that's why this team is here I'll educate some of the younger listeners this was a freaking playoff game before there was a playoff you go 96, 98, 99, 97, 89 like this this was a playoff game the amount of NFL talent in the mid to the late 90s that took the field when these two teams played and another was disgusting it was LSU Alabama 09 Esk every single year and not just quarterbacks and receivers tailbacks, offensive linemen, defensive linemen corner safeties and big players made big games seemingly every year in this game and that was maybe that was like the Daniel Moore painting and I don't even know if there's a Daniel Moore for Tennessee or Florida because I don't know if Daniel Moore paints his Alabama pictures but if they did have an artist whoever the Monet for Tennessee is it would come from that game if they won it every year and they would have the two players with the jerseys of what the score was trying to hide that in the background and like Smokey would be jumping right next to the coach even though we know he never really gets that close to the head coach but this game's huge man and it always will this is why I'm upset we're getting away from divisions that's a whole nother show you and I can do another day but I have said for a long time we stop the word rivalry when we talk about college football way too soon boom way too soon because we take rivalry and it's all the games that we get Thanksgiving day and for the rest of that weekend and then we don't talk about it oh well maybe Georgia for it okay that one okay I'll give you that one but then there's no more and I'm just like it's not just the civil war it's not just the iron bull it's not just the game games have meaning because you are emotionally invested in them and if an Auburn fan has gone a lifetime of back and forced with Arkansas and he remembers what Derek McFadden did to them and he remembers double-duty Davenport catching three touchdowns against somebody also remembers Booker McFarland getting five sacks and how happy he was after that and if you got beat you knew you were getting them the next year and if it happened on the road you knew you were getting them at home but you are so emotionally invested in how those things happen when those things happen why those things happen that it meant more to you that it meant more to you there was more of your brain and heart that cared about that game than all the other games even if they were teams that were better and more important and would actually mean more to your ranking that year this one has a ton of that a boatload of that and it will for a long time even if a 17 year old doesn't think that right now I promise you it's still done yeah here's the other thing like down at Auburn it play in Bama but yet the names that get remembered around there the names that get remembered around LSU or the names that get remembered around college station you can pick it it usually coincides with the fact that they put up really good numbers but in these games these circle rivalry games they did something or they did a platterful of some things and the thing about it is like someone will do that Saturday if I'm telling you right now what if one of those Florida tailbacks just goes for like 138 and three touchdowns after they put up like 13 yards total and in week one and Florida wins 30 to 27 and that's what gets them back on track and all of a sudden we fast forward to week 8 or week 9 and it's Florida plus 8 against Georgia and all of a sudden that's a competitive game out of nowhere that's the kind of stuff they write about a generation from now and all of a sudden the same folks in the past right now are telling a 17 year old 17 years from now you need to respect this game that's what you need to do you need to learn some respect for this game where do you come up with this sometimes that's why I hate watching your show because I don't know how you like how your brain gets to these places but what you just said about certain players who in the grand scope of that school that university and that team's history I'll throw a couple of names out Cecil Collins not a lot of people know who Cecil Collins is but he ran for like 289 against us in Death Valley one night in Arondale Mealy added like 187 to that game and we found a way to win Damien Craig drove us down and we won the game but he had some issues off the field he didn't play a lot of football there but he was huge that night Jamie Howard there are a lot of young LSU fans and Auburn fans know about Jamie Howard right now looking around from like four touchdowns down in the second half and win the game at Jordan here at Stadia like those are the kind of names you're talking about that will live on forever and ever and ever but just because they're not in that team's hall of fame or the college football hall of fame or play 10 years in the NFL not a lot of people know why that player had the meaning that they did and that's what makes them beautiful that's what makes them great so you didn't necessarily get a ton of the Alabama Miss or a Texas traffic you got caught up in a little bit of it the game happened so while you were over in Starkville last week going to overtime I was in Tuscaloosa at a game that did not need OT by the way picture this now picture standing in Bryant and you're looking around and it's emptying out midway through the fourth quarter and you're thinking oh I saw that against middle Tennessee state week one we've seen it many times what you haven't seen is you haven't seen it cause the home team is getting beat by double digits and you can see about that so everyone's had their take on this this week I got to tell you what was pretty surreal so earlier in the week I kind of relayed some feedback I had got I know it sounded like I was just coming off the cuff but there are a lot of folks who think the Bama coaching staff below Nick Sabin is not on par with some of the ones they've had in the past which is easy to tell because the ones they've had in the past were like all-time staffs so here's what's crazy overwhelmingly people around the program agreed and then Sabin steps to the podium what are we Thursday so last night he steps to the podium and he said yeah people have been calling me all week saying hey these guys are jerks for criticizing you but I'm like they're not wrong we should be criticized which was real funny and I just took it upon myself to let everyone know he's probably talking about our show cause that's the kind of guy I am but you and I were big on this offensive line rough performance for them the other night no explosive plays on the ground hardly and the game plan or maybe lack thereof to feature Jalen Milro just a lot of stuff look discombobulated so I've spoken my piece on it what are your thoughts about what is wrong with Bama if you think there's something wrong with Bama I don't know if it's that there are a lot of things wrong let's also think about that this team the most possible turnovers was miserable on third down and wasn't a very balanced football team throughout there's a lot of other reasons that you could point to and say these also contributed to why they lost the game the offensive line didn't play well Texas has a really good D line you and I talked last week 93 and 90 were going to be a problem I didn't know if 95 was going to be that much of a problem as he was for that Texas front but they were Texas defense Texas is offensive line took it to that Alabama front 7 they've been a most non-factor in eight quarters of football against Steve Sarkisian so for him to be able to remove those guys that have played on that Alabama front that's a problem it doesn't allow you to do the things that you need to do offensively motion-based match-up offense that's what Sark runs he utilized it and found the match-up steady wanted he liked them they took their shots they got them they won that's a play right there the running back goes low and you slide gap the protection whoever you want to call it okay the running back goes low that's quick protection by definition what would quick protection tell you common-sense football people even if you never played you should understand that get the ball out that's got to happen like it's just there are little things like that where a lot of folks don't seem to be on the same page and to me that's just not understanding all of your offense in the house and the wise of the inner workings of what you're doing everybody can understand their individual assignment but you go next level when everyone understands conceptually what you're trying to do and why you're trying to do it that's the part that i see missing a little bit from Alabama's offense now do they get pushed around do they get bullied yes they did i mean Texas like i said they took that game from Alabama they didn't Alabama didn't give it away Alabama didn't fumble it away they did some things to help with that and it took the fight to them this is a cause football playoff team we're talking about in Texas now i think Alabama has some forks in the road i'm not going to be one of these guys that's walking out on that plank of talking about the end of Nick Sabin or the end of the era or the album of football programs falling off a cliff but as regards to this individual season Josh they are facing multiple forks in the road right now they have big decisions to make and need to be made fairly quickly of what did we think we were going to be what are we and what can we realistically be for the rest of this season there's not a ton of time to figure that out and then after you make those decisions who is best suited to give us the best chance to go be those things that might mean a quarterback change that might mean some changes in the offensive line that might mean some scheme changes it might mean change it linebacker a defensive tackle i don't know where those are all going to come from but you've got to find first and foremost what your personality is and you're not going to utilize an elite set of skills and he brings to the table more often i have to bring that into question and wonder why you're not doing that and if the quarterback competition was as close as it was it can't be that you're worried about putting him in harm's way it just can't because you would feel like the next guy was pretty close and even if there's a bit of a drop-off that's okay because he was right there with him so some of that just it doesn't equal up to me with how they called it and how it's looked but i also don't think that you know i'm not i'm not printing their tombstone just yet there's a lot of talent on that team there's a lot of guys that want it the talking's going to be a tad much just go do it i don't need to hear you talk about it anymore just go do it and see what you can put together over the next few weeks if you had to guess would you how would you guess they handle quarterback against us i think you'll see more than one and i think because at least have to begin preparation for the ifs now down the road because the ifs may have been something in the back of your mind previously they have to be forward facing in your brain i don't know the names of all the cortexes but they need to be up in this one right here this general facility is where you need to be thinking about if things go haywire again we have to go to a different option and what will that option be so i don't think it's going to be one series and then you see buckner or two series you see buckner it's not a good football team they're playing so when they get a decent comfortable lead two three touchdowns i think you'll absolutely see somebody else get some meaningful snaps alright so as you would expect anytime a high profile team loses there is a national freakout and conversation in that order about play calling so bama loses or it could be a Ohio state that loses Clemson loses whoever loses if Georgia were to lose to South Carolina we would have a national freakout national freakout slash conversation about play calling and it would start at the ground level it would start with that fanbase then it would kind of mushroom and it would permeate and all of a sudden the entire country is thrust into talking about something they really to a 98th percent i'll know nothing about so i've always been wise enough to know where my lane is on the show so we've never done a play calling questioning segment very rarely well i even question personnel but that does not stop Carl from Childersburg from doing that and a lot of times they'll call into shows and it's really entertaining to listen to but i just wanted to do something so and i'm not talking about during the show but sometimes even when i'm off air you'll call me up we'll talk about this we'll laugh about this let's just bring it on the show so i was telling you a story i think i told you this story about three years ago and i wasn't doing it to be a jerk i was saying hey please explain this to me because they had a wide receiver that i thought should have been a focal point of their game plan and he had no catches he had no targets but he was on the field so he says well tell me what you think so i give him i give him my whole spiel i barely even cracked the ice in terms of intricacy but i give him my whole spiel and he says hey what if i told you he had no targets and he was out of contention to catch a pass we were never throwing him the ball but we loved him as a decoy and we ended up winning the game and he could block we trusted him the block but we could not throw him the ball because he had two dislocated fingers now i can't talk to the press about that and i can't go tell anyone that and even after the game he's not going to go to the media and say i couldn't catch a ball today i had dislocated fingers and i said i'm never questioning play calling again i'm just not doing it that was something that was actually that was in terms of injury but there's also like a million different things percentages play into this tendencies play into this you put yourself in a look that you think is a 73% winner and all of a sudden the 27% happens and at second and 10 was it a bad play call or did things just not go your way all kinds of different things like 100 layers to a play call that starts in the spring game so when you hear this stuff how do you react to it because you probably hear it in the stands behind you all the time every Saturday that's why watching games in the stands is really hard to be honest with you it's terrible i've watched one game in the stands with two games in the stands with my wife our first game we ever went to was the Arkansas state game and it got mad every time the quarterback ran the ball when's he going through it who was that quarterback who was that guy he did okay he did okay run the ball that year he only led the SEC in rushing and won the husband trophy but yeah it was okay i actually went to i walked up to the tunnel and watched the rest of the game in the tunnel she's like this isn't a fun date and i was like no exploitive i can't be next to you have to do is remove individual matchups from your brain so if you see if a receiver beats the same corner nine times sure it's okay to say why didn't we get him some help it's fine but you also have to go back and look at what was the formation what did they motion to shift to to get to that formation that potentially left them where they were and how often had they done that before Dan Moell has been the master of having success offensively against Nick Sabin because he knows how to their safety is where he wants them and he can take advantage of that Sarc pretty much the same way does some of those things injuries do come into play like you said but if you call a play and the left tackle gets beat and are you looking down the field to see what was there do you know if the routes were open and then when there are plays like that it's a guard and he gets a sack do you take the time to look at what was there or what was going to be there inside of that play I would probably believe most people do not perfect example with the Alabama game which I think where a lot of this conversation is being generated from I would ask you to go back and watch that offense and when you watch it only watch the middle of the field when Alabama is throwing the football and then take the amount of plays that failed when they did not have success they wanted to throw the football and tell me what you saw in the middle of the field that was either there when it failed or what was going to be there quickly before it failed and you will probably see something very different just in that one game that's the only game that I'm talking about there are so many internal and external factors that go into an actual play call here's the other part this is why I hate PFF you don't know what checks were made you don't know if somebody called the wrong front you don't know if somebody called the right front you don't know who they identified as the Mike Leimecker you don't know if they moved the Mike front side or back side if they checked it off did somebody call slide protection and half the line I missed it is a quarterback putting the running back on the wrong person does the running back even hear the call and then to tell me that you can grade secondaries at half time of a game is absolutely obnoxious with the amount of calls and checks and things it literally cannot happen it's not humanly possible to know exactly what was happening in those scenarios so it's also easy to say play call was terrible but what if real risers came up and got into a totally different play and then flipped it to the other side to run in a different direction and brought a guy in motion that he shouldn't have is that on coach Barbay at that point in time it'll be so now you could say that's not a plus conversation at that point in time how do you decide how the impersonation of the caller is going to sound because you don't always use the same language you don't always use the same tone of voice I mean how many of them do you have dialed up in your head we actually had a guy call in to macaroni and cubelet like two weeks ago and he was mad he said I think it's disrespectful that every time I talk about again that's not doing something right or that you don't like he sounds like a redneck and I just said thank you because I feel like you kind of just proved a point there but cool yeah but Greg made a good point he's like every coach has Southern accent that's like what yelled at us the most of the time like my whole life whether it was in homewood high school or at Auburn so when I picture someone yelling about football that's what kind of creeps into my brain first yeah man the late Tommy Park who coach just down at Harris County High School first thing I ever got yelled at me as a ninth grader was don't just stand there like a bucket of water paint do something I never even observed a bucket of water the same way after that they don't talk like that in North Dakota I don't think they do so yeah fun times yeah I have a couple things and these are going to be regurgitated just because I feel like the answers are going to be so much different now the one I asked you before I'll start with this one better chance Texas A&M finishes first or last in the SEC West it's last what did I say the first time did I say first yes I was stupid no forget that it's last I think most people would have said that now I'm changing this and I'm removing the big 10 maybe I should leave the big 10 but I think this is a little earlier training right now so this is not totally regurgitated it's altered and regurgitated better chance to get two teams in the college football playoff the SEC or the PAC-12 I cannot believe this is about to happen the fact that you even had to think about it think about where we are right now I think the answers the PAC-12 I think Vegas would disagree I think odds makers would disagree with it obviously and you're fighting the perception like every benefit of the doubt is going to be given to the SEC none of it's going to be given to the PAC-12 and we really haven't gotten into the carnage of PAC-12 play yet so maybe I'll flip flop on that five more times as of this moment southern cow quietly looks a lot better defensively you know my thoughts on Oregon if I'm wrong about Oregon Washington will fill the void if they don't Oregon state will fill the void Utah is just there as they are every year haven't lost a game hey guys we're just here cameraizing Jesse he's right in the control room right now he looks better and better every day I think it's the PAC-12 do you disagree with me on this? I don't know Washington state's got a pretty good quarterback they're growing it around Arizona is going to be a problem for a lot of teams they're not going to the playoff but I think they're going to help some resumes based on what they do through the course of the year and Colorado is undefeated and has a first round NFL quarterback who's wowing a lot of people so I just think somebody asked me about USC earlier by the way if you really go take a close look at that defense they played this weekend that's exactly what it should get you right there but I don't like the way they're moving Caleb Williams around I don't like this sort of let's run into the alley maybe pop pass maybe keep I don't like how they're putting him in harm's way and I said this and I had to catch myself earlier today I said I don't know if they're built wow I'm going to say it for what the PAC-12 is going to offer physically this year yes we made it let's blow this whole thing up now that it's a quality conference that's how we'll do it hey I got a question for you go for it shoot me first better album Southern playlist Cadillac music surfacing or octane baby off the top of my head I don't know who any of those are from oh wow I didn't expect you to go there Southern playlist of Cadillac music is outcast by far their best album for the youngsters that don't know about Tennessee and Florida you should go back and listen to that one because hey y'all miss Jackson ain't their best work surfacing is Sarah McLaughlin who I've heard you reference multiple times but I didn't buy the album no I would never buy the album I just buy the singles I don't need to lay any farther than angel down on this show octane baby is you too Greg Sanky would be disappointed that you didn't know that you might not get credentials to your next album again I don't care for any I will lose all street credibility if I say McLaughlin but I probably know more songs by her it's cool you can just vote to opt out of that one we've been doing it for years alright look please I don't have time to talk about this with you right now I'm gonna miss this weekend okay you see my index finger pointed at you please be good over there I will do my best to stay safe you always do thank you sir and thank you all for watching us I'm Josh Payt for director Colin for producer Jesse take care have a great weekend enjoy the games we'll be back here Sunday night until then God bless you