Week 2 Reaction: Texas Over Bama + Miami Looks GOOD | Late Kick Live Ep. 427

That's the idea, how wide over the college football is this year. It's September 10th. It's not mid-September yet, and I got folks writing off LSU. I got folks writing off Clemson. I got folks writing off Alabama now, including some inside the Alabama fan base. And again, I want to reiterate. It's not even mid-September, long way to go. The things that will decide these conference championships and playoff races haven't even happened yet. And yet here we are. We are jam-packed, high atop a delirious downtown Nashville, Tennessee, because late kick is live. On Sunday night, September 10th, the year of our Lord, 2023, I was in Bryant, Danny Stadium last night. I was on the field, and I watched Texas beat Alabama, and I'm going to talk about it. I'm going to talk about what Texas A&M didn't do down at Miami that the Longhorns were able to do on the road. I want to talk about the SEC having at least three flat tires, if not a perfect four-for-four, and little side note. What's the best conference in the sport right now? What's the second best? What's the third best conference? Mel Tucker is cooked at Michigan State, cooked. Some of you have been out and about. Some of you have been at church today. Some of you have been at family reunions, and you don't really know that there's this bombshell story that's just exploded in East Lansing today. And I got to be real. It's crazy. I sat in front of that guy a month ago, and sensed nothing. So my spidey senses failed me, but don't worry, we're going to talk about all that. Not to lead the show, but we're going to talk about it. We got a bunch of places to go. I know a lot of people have been looking forward to this one today. I have two. They're watching us in Fort Mills, South Carolina, Kingwood, Texas, Riverside, California, Pikeville, Kentucky, the live chat's going to be slammed, participate, do whatever you want to do. And of course, but make sure you like the video and subscribe to the channel. Ramen noodle express went nine and three yesterday. And I don't know how else to tell you this. You made a lot of money if you watched Friday night lines. And if you didn't, you didn't make as much money. And here's how easy it is. It's free. You need to be following me on Instagram, at Lake Kick Josh, and you need to check it out on Friday night. And that's it. And that's all. And also a little side note, just a little bonus you get on Instagram. Some really good behind the scenes stuff. For example, I'm at Texas, Alabama last night after the game. We're close to Sark. We're over there. We're next to the Texas locker room. I'm getting you all kinds of perspective that you don't get on TV because the broadcast is already off the air. We get you before and after. We're on the field. I'm on the field every Saturday. I'm going to be at a game this Saturday that I'll announce in about 20 some odd minutes. A place I've never been before looking really forward to the once upon a Saturday toward this week. But at Lake Kick Josh, Instagram, just a ton of good stuff. A ton of good content. A ton of good value there. And it's great value because it's free. So check it out. All right. Let's dive in. There's only one place to start. But there are so many lead topics on tonight's show. We've got like four A topics on tonight's show. Wow. We rebranded any stadium last night. Texas 34, Alabama, 24. I followed Alabama on the road for a long time. They were at home last night. But I have been blessed enough to cover this sport. And I followed Alabama into some big games. And I've watched them go on the road. I've watched Alabama go on the road for years and make it a hallmark of theirs to get up on a team, to kill their spirits, to suck the will out of their bodies, and to start draining a stadium. Start just emptying sections of stadium long before the clock hits zeroes in the fourth quarter. And the reason I mentioned that is because for the first time in my life, I watched someone do it to Alabama last night. Texas came in there, and they didn't run away with it. But they controlled a vast majority of the game. When they didn't control it, they hit Bama right across the jaw. As soon as they dropped the lead, they regained the lead, and then they stretched the lead, and then they held on to the lead. That's football. That's how you win a game. So a ton of credit is about to be given to Steve Sarkisian. I'm going to talk about Alabama in a second. But you got to understand how surreal it is to be in an environment like that period. And you got to understand how much more surreal it is, having known Alabama as we've known them for a long time, to watch a team come into their building, and then look up in those stands, and look at those aisleways, and it looks like little crimson ants just headed towards tunnels all over the place. Texas did that. Never seen anyone do it to Alabama before. Texas did that. Here's what America learned last night. America learned a lesson we've been trying to teach. Dutifully on this show, I will continue the efforts. Whether it's in vain or not, I don't know. But do you at least somewhat believe me now that there is a difference between what a man and what a team cannot do and what they have not done? No one's telling me anymore about what Steve Sarkisian can't do. No one's telling me about what Texas can't do or what they can't be because he is, and they probably are. It was always cannot. It was a matter of time. As it turned out, there was never a barrier. There was never a stop sign in front of Texas winning big games or being back or Steve Sarkisian winning the big one. It was always a roadblock. It was always a hurdle. And then last night, they did it. And so now what? Now, maybe they make this their own calling card. Maybe Texas wins a national title this year. That's not a prediction. My point is that's the next chapter in this whole cannot versus have not debate. Now they won a big game. Well, they can't win a national championship. Well, they haven't in this era. They haven't. It's not that they can't. Texas can win it this year if everything falls for them if they execute. But I'll tell you, when I was standing on the field last night, man, I was thinking back to our Fall Camp Intel series when we were talking about Texas practice and we were getting so much good feedback about that defensive line, about that defensive front. And I thought this was the matchup of the game. And it was the matchup of the game last night. Texas, I thought was going to be very, very stout run stopping unit and they are. And we had been getting reports of that. And that's why I kept on telling you, hey, I think the difference with Texas this year may be not only do they have firepower, but if it doesn't click or in other words, maybe they're in a log jam, maybe they got 13 points on the board in the third quarter. Maybe defense can help them win games. Maybe defense can win games or at the very least, maybe defense can give them time until that offense clicks and wins a game. Yeah, that kind of happened last night. Now that's not, that's not Steve Sarkish's calling card is it? No, it's not, but that's a very well coached team. It's not a side of the ball. It's not what USC was last year in other words. And USC may be evolving in their own right there, but there's kind of a difference now. That's a good team. It's not a good side of the ball. Padlock stat. Oh, hold on a second. Hold on a second. There we go. Padlock stat from this one was 3.1 yards per carry. If you tell me Alabama's only putting up 3.1. If you tell me, Bama's putting up 3.9 yards per carry. I'm telling you outside of turnover misfortune for Texas, they're winning the game outright. That was it. It was, it was Bama's run game or lack thereof, even when you mix in quarterback run, which I thought would see more of, even when you mix that in, just really, really underwhelming on the ground, but it's not like they're running against air and tripping up. Texas has got everything to do with that. So Bama, 10 points off turnovers, you start to throw in those other things, those things you can't predict, but if you even just take that and put it in, it's own little isolated chamber over here. If you just tell me Bama's not going to win that individual matchup, Bama's offensive line got handled last night. I know a lot of you want me to talk about that as well, and I will in a second, but we talk about winners first on the show, Texas is the winner here. Steve Starkeens is the real deal. Now I know that some people already believed in him. I know a lot more people got converted to that way of thinking last night. Steve Starkeens been the real deal. Okay, he's been the real deal just because he didn't win big games immediately just because they had a bunch of games not go their way in the fourth quarter his first two years. It's not like he's any different a coach now, guys. It's just that he has built an organization instead of just building a team. Sometimes we got a guy in a ton of controversy right now at Michigan State who a couple of years ago, Mel Tucker put together a great team. They didn't put together a great organization and that's why it crumbled the very next year. Steve Starkeens built an organization. He's built a program at Texas. And so recruiting's there talent acquisition on on all sides of the fence is there, but he's got a tremendous aptitude for the game. If you're ever around him, if you ever listen to him talk, you know there are layers to him. It's it's not just surface base like you understand. There's psychology behind it like it's a little more cerebral. Also, I think he's built a winning organization both sides of the ball, offense and defense. And also he understood because he he worked for the best. He just played him and beat him last night. He worked for the best and learned what organizational structure at an elite program is supposed to look like out of curiosity. Sometimes if coaches will do it for me, I'll ask them, can you show me, can you show me an organizational chart? Those things are so big immunity. Those things are so big in major programs. And some of them won't do it and I understand why. But the ones who are nice enough to do it, it stands out so much. What a tier four, tier three, tier two and tier one program can afford in terms of organizational flow. Well, Texas is tier one. And so they got an army out there. But even them, it doesn't matter like Florida's got a ton of folks on their staff. How discombobulated did they look in week one? Texas last night looked like the home team. They made Bama look like the road team. Bama was the one with the ton of penalties. Bama was the one stepping on their own foot. It was Texas that looked ultra tight, well put together. It was Bama that looked wobbly. That's the sign of a well coach team. Texas is well coached and it's a well run organization. I'm just saying that and know it sounds commonsensical. I'm just saying that because everyone who has said the opposite is going to be quiet today, but they don't go anywhere. If Texas goes and loses a random conference game in two weeks, they'll be right back. And again, Sark will be no different ahead coach. They've got Wyoming this week. They go to Baylor in two weeks. That Oklahoma game looms on October seventh. Texas is a player here. They held the ball to final seven minutes of the game last night. Who does that sound like? Who used to do that a lot? Who used to live in opposing teams backfields? Who forced the other team out of their game plan week after week? Who looked like the better coach team by a wide margin? That used to be Alabama. Texas outbammed Bama last night in their own building, no less. It's a really big deal. It's one game. It's an out of conference game. But some of these games mean more because the lasting effect impacts the future and anyone who says otherwise in college football is kidding themselves. So Texas's not going anywhere. And when I say that, I mean, they're not going away. You're going to have to deal with them for a long time. Also I would be remiss if I didn't remind you when Sark and his staff got there. There was that misnomer that, well, Sark's inheriting a pretty loaded roster because Texas is recruited well. They've got good players. They didn't have, they didn't have nearly good enough players and they weren't nearly well enough developed and the talent wasn't evenly distributed across the roster. There were glaring holes, line of scrimmage, not the least of which. They physically went toe to toe with Alabama last night. You could say they were the physically superior team to Alabama. Now you want to tell someone that two years ago and say, hey, two years from now, you will go into Brandini Stadium and you will look like the physically superior team. And it won't be because Bama's physically dropped off. It will be, and this is very important, it'll be because you've elevated to meet that standard instead of Bama falling down to where you're just currently hanging out. That strength and conditioning staff, player personnel, everybody top to bottom, all the way down to player evals out of high school. That stuff matters and they got to write people in the building there. So what happened to Alabama? First thing to happen to Alabama is they played a really good team last night. I think this is one of those classic check back games and a month and a half down the road if Bama hadn't lost again in Texas's rolling, you're all of a sudden saying, huh? You know, I thought ill of Bama at the time, but close game, 10 point game against a really good Texas team. Maybe that wasn't the end of the world early in the season or or Bama could have two more losses by November and all of a sudden you're saying, well, maybe that went over Alabama isn't really as impressive for Texas as we thought it was. It's a check back game, but what happened to Alabama? Ten penalties for 90 yards happened to Alabama minus two in the turnover column, happened to Alabama, 10 points off of those turnovers, happened to Alabama. And basically what I'm telling you is a lot of the stuff that plagued them last year happened to Alabama. I think that's probably one of the toughest pills to swallow for Nick Sabin's coaching staff is I strongly believe they thought they had that stuff cleaned up as they say, which is a phrase I'm going to address tonight, kind of tired of it a little bit, not just with Bama. I mean, in general, A&M, tired of it with A&M too. So, Bama's offensive line was a crushing disappointment last night. Now, anyone who's watched this show knows I was fully bought in to this offensive line being one of the premier offensive lines in college football. Now, I still think in time that they've got the ability to be a very, very good unit, certainly nowhere near what I thought they'd be to this point in the season. So, and that's also, you know, when you start looking at what they should be versus what they were last night, what they should be is blowing folks off the ball, winning first down consistently, being able to move the ball on the ground when you can't do that. And I'm already sitting here telling you in fall camp, hey, pass pro will be what it is, but they're run blockings, what's going to be the difference. And it's second and nine, it's third and seven all the time, totally out of their comfort zone. That's when having a true freshman, a left tackle is really going to bite you. But also, at quarterback, I was one of the folks who was really surprised, Nick Sabin didn't make a move last night. And it's never easy to do that stuff. I know it's down to down, it's series to series, but standing on the field, sometimes it is wild. How vividly you can tell a quarterback is locking onto a guy, how vividly a quarterback is kind of zoned in over here and how defensive backs can see that because you're on the field, like I'm standing behind Texas, the secondary. I'm watching Jalen Milro and for what feels like an eternity at football speed, he's just locked on to either a zone of the field or an individual receiver. And I'm not saying it's easy to pick those balls off, but by high level college football standards, some of that stuff was easy for Texas, the secondary last night. And it didn't have to be easy for that unit cause they're pretty good. I was surprised. I was very surprised when we're sitting here talking about quarterback competition back and forth. And we got Thai Simpson, we got Tyler Butler involved in that thing. And you don't see even a series for those guys. I didn't think that they were putting the best position to win last night in the second half competitive game. I get all that, but no, I didn't feel that way. So Nick Sabin knows a whole heck of a lot more about his team than I do. I think the other thing I was talking with Dennis Dodd on our post game, rap on CBS Sports HQ, the other thing we can't know that Nick Sabin can know is it may be even with how poor Jalen Milro was playing Nick Sabin knows he does not have a better option, which suffice it to say is the leading candidate for the reason he didn't make a move. And if that's the case, it makes it even more glaring. How impactful those reports were back in the spring about Bama trying to feel out the transfer portal and who may end up being in the transfer portal, Tyler Van Dyke is he going to be there. No, he's just going to throw for five touchdowns for Miami yesterday instead. Sam Hartman, no, he's already gone to Notre Dame, Devin Leary, no, he's already gone to Kentucky. So what does Alabama going to do? They're going to go through spring and then they're going to be in Tyler Butler and he's not going to start the season and you got what you got. What's going to happen here? I think we know what's going to happen with Texas. They're going to be a really, really good solid contending team this year. What will the response be for Nick Sabin? They play, it's a weird game this week, by the way. They play at South Florida. They're favored by about 29 or 30. I got to tell you I have no clue where they'll go with the quarterback position. It, listen, there were a lot of things to be taken away that were positive for Alabama yesterday. I'm going to hammer this home later. This is not a conference game for them. This seems like a season more so than any in recent memory where even this early, I feel like there's going to be a path for two lost teams to make the playoff later at the end of the year. We're way long way from that. I'm just saying, I know we got some folks in the Alabama community who want to sell 2023 down the river. There's no way based on what I saw last night. Well, there are teams that end up contending every single year that look like hot wet trash in September. And so 34, 24 against Texas, minus two turnovers, nearly 100 yards and penalties, that kind of stuff. I mean, if it's not week to week and you tighten things up, maybe there's a quarterback change at Alabama. You know, maybe this is one of those places that you see one of those random out of nowhere sparks and all of a sudden they're a hot second half team. Also, which team on their schedule in the SEC West right now looks insurmountable? You watch A&M yesterday, you seeing LSU in week one, like, who's taking them down? On the other hand, I'll also tell you, they're like five loosable games on Alabama's schedule, so it could go any which way. I'm just saying, there's a long way to go. What kind of approach do they adjust? Do they feel the need to? That's what we can't know that they'll know in staff meetings. But man, what a night for Texas. I was, you know what was funny is Friday, I got down to Tuscaloosa Friday because we did some obligations down there and Texas was staying in Birmingham. So I went over, I drove over to Birmingham and met some of them when they came in, met with SART briefly, talked some of the coaches, talked some of the players. It felt like they were just going to play Oklahoma State. It felt like they were going to play Baylor. Like they were really, really bought in on this whole just another game thing and everyone says that. But again, we go to the biggest game in the country every week and a lot of times I'm around those teams before those games. Most of the time, it's not just another game. Most of the time people have said that to the media, but guys are doing all sorts of things different. They've added 5% to their routine. They're special trappings for this trip and this opponent. At what in Texas, man, they may have had a bigger traveling party. Like I look over at one point last night, we're on the sideline next to Matthew McConaughey. Yeah, that doesn't normally happen for every Texas road game. But man, they handled themselves like a professional unit last night. And that's why I really, I don't think there'll be any kind of let down. I don't think anybody will get too high on themselves. I just think they're a championship contending team and it was always there to be had. Let me make that clear and I'll say it one more time before the end of this show. Nothing about the sport had to change for Texas to be back. Nothing about the structure of this sport was holding Texas back. Only the structure of Texas was holding Texas back. Not Texas got out of its own way, hired the right guy and everyone's on board. And voila, what do you know? The sport was still tilted to Texas's advantage the whole time and they just finally caught the marble. Not going anywhere. Okay, earlier in the show than normal, I have in my hand the destination for a week threes once upon a Saturday tour. Let me take a sip from the chalice. I got to tell you, speaking of the tour, one thing that's very underrated as a risk is when you have to drive home from a night game. See, see how red the eyes are right now? That's because I got to Nashville at five o'clock a.m. and haven't really slept. And number two, when you, when we're at like a Tuscaloosa or somewhere in the south where I grew up, everybody wants to talk to you, which is wonderful. Love that. Please don't stop that. And there are 105,000 people in an, in a venue. It's loud. And so you don't realize how much you yell. You're thinking, I'm not yelling. I'm not a fan. I'm there just standing on the sideline watching the game. That's true. But if, if, if, if 75 people try and talk to you and you have to raise your voice, talk to every one of them, man, you don't have much of a voice in the next day. And that's how I feel right now. That's why some extra sip from the chalice will have to be taken. Okay. So I teased this earlier. The week two slate, it was, it was pretty clear to know where we were going. We were going to Texas, Alabama, but I do not think it's clear at all. In fact, I should have strapped hold the staff and said, staff, where do you think I'm going? The, once upon a Saturday tour, what we want to do is we want to get to as many places as we can. We want to see as many teams as we can. We want to be at an impact game that weekend. Hopefully we're at a game that comes down to the last possession. And this weekend, there were, as I saw it, three really evenly matched options. Now full disclosure, Penn State at Illinois was going to be the pick if Illinois beat Kansas Friday night, but Illinois did not beat Kansas Friday night. And so Penn State is going to roll into there as a 15 point favorite, but we will not be there. So where will we be? I have never in my life been to a football game at the University of Missouri dot, dot, dot, until this Saturday, because the once upon a Saturday tour is headed to Missouri. When Kansas State comes to town, more out of conference action does not bode well for Missouri, just because they have an SEC sticker on their helmet and the SEC is like 0 for a million in out of conference games. Well Tennessee beat Virginia, but by and large, it's been a tough, rocky start. Maybe it's Eli Drinkwoods and company that turn it around. I saw Kansas State in person one time last year, and they totally bodybagged Oklahoma state. So please be careful. Do not take these folks lightly. It's Kansas State. Kansas State's best football is in front of them. I know they've been kind of off the radar. They haven't played a marquee game yet. There is a not so quiet confidence inside that program. They love what they have right now. And there's always confidence around Missouri. So we'll be up there. It's an 11 a.m. kickoff. Yes. Look who gets to get home Saturday night. Never been there looking forward to it once upon a Saturday tour coming to Missouri. Okay. We were not in Miami yesterday. But there was a lot going on down there. So Miami beat A&M 48 to 33. If I told you Miami was hanging 48, you would have said, well, they must have run the ball for half a mile. They did not. They did not. In fact, they had a very, very subpar day on the ground running the ball, 77 yards. Miami had 115 yards and penalties as well. Didn't matter. They still hang nearly half a hundred. Absolutely insane. How different Miami looks this year. When we did that show down there, when we went and sat down with Mario, he let us in there to watch some stuff in the summer and talk to some people in the summer. Some of it I could tell you about some of you I couldn't or some of it I couldn't, but I was impressed. Okay. But here's the thing about it. That's summer work in shorts and t-shirts. Every college athlete looks good doing that stuff. When you've got two new coordinators coming in and you've got so many moving parts and you've got so many young guys, for instance, that you're going to have to rely on. They totally retooled their offensive line. It's just natural to think to yourself, okay, in time they'll be better, but I mean, how much better could they be right out of the gate? It's like night and day difference right out of the gate. I watched the whole game against Miami of Ohio and I was ultra impressed, but it was Miami of Ohio. So I didn't really come and beat the drum on the show. People think I'm a canes home or anyway, you know, cause all of us who grew up in Harris County, Georgia just bleed orange and green. We love Miami and Harris County, Georgia. Don't know what it is. Probably the beaches. We have the beach at Calaway Gardens, manmade, and they got the real thing down there. So there's that natural connection. Night and day different team could not be more impressed. And so yesterday, their fastball is not there. They cannot run the ball on A&M. And so what happens is Tyler Van Dyke just goes off. So listen to this. Here's how good Miami was offensively. They had 10 penalties for 115 yards. That's terrible. Okay, that's not good. That's terrible. They had a blocked punt that ended up being a touchdown. They had a muffed punt that ended up being a touchdown. These are things going against them. And this is a team that lost Duke last year. They lost the middle Tennessee state. So these sorts of things sound like recurrences of last year. And you would think against a quality team like A&M, that means blowout. No, they did the blowing out. Because Tyler Van Dyke goes 21 of 30, 374 or five touchdowns a week after he trademarks the name Tyler Van Dyke. Mind you, great business school down there at Miami. And that offensive line looks the way it does. And that James Williams and Cam Kitchens at Safety is about as good as it gets in the country right now. Just all over the place. It seems like there are four or five of those guys back there. So what I'm trying to tell you is, they upgraded. They totally overhauled their roster to the point where they're not close to play in fully disciplined football. They're not close to executing how they really want to. They're just, they're more talented to the point where they can do what they did yesterday. I sat down with Shannon Dawson. They're off into coordinator in the spring. He was adamant. Matt Tyler Van Dyke's a really good quarterback. If I put him in the right position, like if we can get these receivers to work in this offensive line, he can do whatever he wants to. And man, he pretty much did yesterday. They threw the ball to win. I did not think that was gonna be the story coming out of this game, but they did. So I told you last week, look at the nervous padding of the microphone. If you're listening on a podcast, this right here, this is the left hand pointing at the right hand. This is the kind of nervous energy that builds when Texas A&M loses the first game of the year. Cause you know what's coming. And I said, last week, you want to see it get ugly. Watch Texas A&M lose this game and you'll see ugly. Well, Texas A&M lost the game and it's ugly. It's ugly. And they got half a hundred hung on them and their defense looked woeful and they couldn't tackle. And the secondary got roasted. And DJ Durkin has taken a ton of heat. And people are writing thank you notes to Mike Elko because we never realized how much we appreciated you until now or should have appreciated you. There is no way that defense should look that bad. No way. Miami's got a lot to do with that. But man, let's check out how many other times Miami does that to other teams this year. I would guess not too often to that degree. I think this is going to be a standout performance. It could be a high water mark offensively for them. Who knows? And it comes against you, Texas A&M, and all that five star talent all over the place. The padlock stat here. Miami had 241 yards after the catch yesterday. Just horrific tackling the only thing that stopped. Miami half the time was the back of the end zone. They could have just run into the ocean. I was watching this game on a monitor that was muted. So I couldn't hear what Joe Tess and the crew were actually saying. Hopefully they were nice enough. But man, I was tough to watch. Just like again, again. The ACC is trending up pretty hard right now. The ACC, I have to do a radio hit with Danny Cannell every Monday morning. And what I thought would be jovial fun times for me. And it's just, it's pin another tail on the Cannell every Monday morning has really turned sour. I don't like this. I don't look forward to this because the thing about it is, it did not matter how many years the ACC was awful. When they finally re-emerged, Cannell was going to find the biggest bass drum in the room and pound that thing like there's no tomorrow and put ACC stickers on both sides of it. And shamelessly he has. And honestly, I just hope Dusty DuVorchek does most of the talking in that hit tomorrow. But A&M, here's what I was going to talk to you about earlier. They talk about cleaning up. This has become a very overused phrase in college football. Well, we just got to clean up tackling. I had a college coach ask me the other day, you ever think about how stupid that is? And I said, kind of, continue. He said, who cleans up tackling? Like think about it. Who's bad at tackling in football in week two and then all of a sudden good at it in week six? This is not the kind of stuff you clean up. This doesn't happen. If you're a bad tackling team in week two, you've got a, I'm not going to say it's always going to be equally as bad every week, but you're going to have a pretty consistent problem. Same thing with procedural penalties. The teams that are getting flagged in week two are usually the ones still getting flagged for the same stuff in week eight. Just the way it is. And so it's not a first year coach. It's not a second year coach. It's going to be very uncomfortable around there. I get it. I don't know what the outcome is going to be, like I said with Bama, long season ahead, but I heard our buddy, Billy Luce, I call him William, you can call him Billy Luce. I was listening to their takeaways. One of the very few, very few shows outside of ours that I will listen to on a Sunday. So I'm always interested what they have to say about the A&M scene. And he said, yeah, there is a long season left. Sometimes that is really good. Sometimes that means there's room to improve, but what people don't realize when they say, oh, it's a long season is they're also saying, that means there's a lot of time for it to get worse. It's not just automatic that there's nowhere to go but up. You could keep losing games. You could lose to Auburn. You could lose to Arkansas, Alabama, Tennessee, South Carolina, Ole Miss, Mississippi State, LSU. These are all loosable games that Texas A&M plays. So what's going to happen? Why don't know, that's why we play the games. But remember, all spring and summer, we talked about how things would be fine until it got wobbly a little bit, until they lost a game. Now, what we thought was we thought that they'd lose games just because of the offense not clicking. It was not necessarily foreseen that A&M was going to have touchdowns reigned all over them by Miami, but that's where we are. A lot of different ways to lose a game. And they're finding more and more ways. It seems like it takes a say in them. But congrats to Miami. That sets up, that it changes kind of the ACC helmet grid schedule was all the sudden games you weren't looking at, now you're looking at. And it could be a really fun time ahead. Now look, I got to put on my chapstick as has become customary, a product from a company that doesn't sponsor us yet, so they will get no shout out. Academy Sports and Outdoors has entrusted me to make a major announcement, and it's only going to be a partial announcement here. So you know that they are our exclusive partner. Academy Sports and Outdoors makes the show free. They've got all your outdoor sporting good supplies, they've got your tents, they've got your grills. We know these things, they've got baseball bats. One of you checked in the other day and you showed me a picture of yourself in line, you were holding up the big league chew, and that's always a staple in the checkout line at Academy. And if you can't get there in person, academy.com has your hook up. But the announcement is, Brenham, Texas, which is in the Houston area, you got yourselves an Academy on the way. Kyle, Texas, which is in the Austin area, you've got yourselves an Academy on the way. And those are opening this month. So more details are coming this week and next week. But I told you, if you just keep shopping them, we'll keep building them. And you have continued to shop them. And so you got an Academy Sports and Outdoors popping up all over the place. If you don't have one now, maybe you will soon. My hotel in Tuscaloosa was in the shadow of an Academy Sports and Outdoors just this past weekend. So a fun time for all. And I would encourage you, if you've never been inside one of these places, I don't even care if you don't buy anything the first time. I say the first time because you'll be back. You will be back. It's always impressive. You're never underwhelmed when you walk into an Academy. So academy.com, if you can't get there in person, we appreciate them as always. A lot of fall transitional stuff happen in fall sports. They've got you equipped, they've got you covered. Well, they did it. They did it Colorado one again. Colorado 36, Nebraska 14. I could talk about Jeff Sims, but I'm not. I'm gonna talk about Colorado to lead this off. We had a bold prediction during the series of bold predictions we had in summer. And someone predicted that Colorado would start off 2 and 0. I thought it was crazy. So I said that was a nine and a half on the boldness scale. And the scale only goes to 10. So what am I thinking at the time? Well, I have no clue how good Colorado's gonna be. And I'm also thinking to myself, TCU is gonna be favored by three touchdowns. At the time, Jesse, I think Nebraska was about a touchdown favorite. So I'm just thinking, what are the odds? Like what are the raw mathematical statistical odds that they pull that off? Slim, not none, but slim. And now they've done it. They have done it. And what I said in that video, because I had to go watch it earlier today to make sure I didn't say anything too egregious, is I said, hey, if they do this, Shudor Sanders is gonna have to play out of his mind. I got your padlock stat here through two games. 78% completion percentage, 903 passing yards, seven touchdowns, zero interceptions. He's also run the ball affair amount. So Shudor Sanders has played out of his mind. And it's really aggravated people when he has said so far, hey, this hasn't been quite the step up in competition. I thought it would be. Well, here's my motto and always has been about that sort of stuff. As long as you are going to play every Saturday, as long as you have to back up your talk, talk as much as you want to. What I don't want to hear is second string guys running their mouth. No one cares what you think you don't matter right now to that degree. Shudor Sanders is in the spotlight. He touches the ball every play. You talk as much as you want to. Because if you're wrong, you'll get humbled. And if you're right, you deserve to say whatever you want to. This was the largest crowd in Folsomfield for a football game in 15 years. Travis Hunters the headliner on this team and for good reason. And he had another good day yesterday. But man, it is not a one or two man show there. Like Jimmy Horn, Jr., really, really good player. Xavier Weaver back to back 100 yard games. So they've got names popping up all over the place that if you follow recruiting or the portal really hardcore, you already know. Most of you guys don't follow it to that degree. So you're watching a Colorado game. And you're saying, man, Xavier Weaver, what does Xavier Weaver, that kid's good. That kid's really good. It's not just Dion's kid in Travis Hunter, is it? No, no, it is not. And the more you watch him, the more you realize that. You know, they got Colorado State this week. Now this is the spot where Colorado gets to be the big favorite. They get to be the three touchdown favorite. And then they go to Oregon. Breathe that, breathe that fresh new Pac-12 air while you still can out there. Oregon's about to go to the big 10. Colorado's about to go to the big 12. They're gonna play a Pac-12 match up in two weeks. Just get past Colorado State. This is not a team that can be overlooking anyone. No one ever should, but Colorado can't be afforded to do that. I think they'll win Saturday. And if they go into Oregon for an O, how fun is that gonna be? How fun is that gonna be? So I warned you about something with Colorado. And it's happening. I warned you right before the season started and then again, after they beat TCU. There is a thing that college football fans sometimes do that's called recalibration of expectation. That's this thing where you win one game last year. Vegas puts your over under win total at three and a half or whatever it was. And people say you'll start O and two. Then you win the first game. Then you win the second game. And those same people who thought you'd lose start saying, well, yeah, but you only beat TCU. Well, yeah, but I mean, Jeff Sims is terrible for Nebraska. You only beat Nebraska. Stop that. You don't get to do that. If you expected them to come out on the short end before, you can't explain it away when they don't. You don't get to recalibrate your expectations. Cause what happens is Colorado ends up way over achieving relative to the preseason standard. But then you just change the standard on the fly in the middle of the season. And you retroactively get to call them a failure still. That's not the way that works, but it's happening. It's going to continue to happen. How many people, how many people have you already heard as Deon Sanders gets praised and his team gets praised? How many folks, if you started to hear us say, well, yeah, but they only beat TCU. Dude, TCU played Georgia in a national championship last year. This team sucked horribly. They were a one win team. Different teams entirely aren't they? But you don't get to say, oh, they, it was only TCU. You don't get to say it was only Nebraska. When that team was favored by a touchdown over him in the preseason odds market, you don't get to do that. But people are doing it anyway. Now, I do want to address this one thing about Nebraska. I've got some dear dear friends of mine who are noted mat rule unapologists. Or as you would call them on the streets, haters. And they're telling me mat rules are joke. They're telling me mat rules are fraud. He's been exposed. People just thought too highly of him at Baylor. He tricked people. They were seeing him from 50,000 feet, but didn't really see him on the ground level. And now everyone's seeing him. Everyone's not seeing mat rules in Nebraska. We haven't even peeled the sticker off this program under mat rule yet. They could go three and nine for all I care. They didn't tell me anything about how bad he is. They were terrible at Baylor's first year. Temple, where he was, I think they were terrible at this first year. It's always taken him a year to turn around. What are they doing year two? So my big question when Nebraska was, could the portals speed that up a little bit for him this year? It looks like maybe no? Still kind of early in the season. I have not seen a thing that dampens my view of mat rule. I think the dude's a wonderful coach. I think he will get it turned around there. And year one is year one. I don't know what else to tell you. I mean, how about this? How about the folks who are saying that, tell me what you think about Steve Sarkiesian right now. And then tell me what you were saying about him in year one. You know, so this happens all the time. You're not learning, or you're not drawing final conclusions on coaches. I hope you're not based on what they do at a college program in their first year. They're watching us in Wayne, Nebraska. Meadville, Mississippi is tuned in. Jefferson, Georgia is tuned in. Thank you guys so much. Remember, we got a big live audience tonight. Like the video and subscribe to the channel. That's all you have to do. It keeps it free. We don't ever make people pay for this stuff and we don't ever want to make you pay for it. There's a world out there. You have noticed this. You've noticed there's a world where more and more of your favorite content or your games are going behind paywalls. And you have to pay for them. Okay? They would have to do that over my dead lifeless body. But the only way I can ensure that is if we have adequate traffic on the channel, which means subscribe to it and subscribe to the podcast. And I don't really have to do much fighting. People just see the numbers and they speak for themselves. Whew, all right. Let's continue. What a game yesterday. Could be talking about a number of them, right? What a game in Lubbock, Texas yesterday. Oregon goes in there and wins 38 to 30. Oh, just a dagger to the ribs in the back door cover department, by the way. But if you don't bet on this stuff or you didn't bet on this game, you don't care about that. But I'll tell you what you should care about. You can always tell. You can always tell the folks who know college football versus the more casual mind him by how they view games like these. So Oregon's a better team than Texas Tech. Oregon's got a better roster than Texas Tech. Oregon was favored in the game. More is expected of them. They go in there. They're in an absolute dog fight. They end up pulling it out late. They are the beneficiary of plus four turnovers. In other words, this is a loss for Oregon. It just so happens in college football sometimes, you win some of your losses. It's a crazy sport. I know that sounds weird to you. This is a game that about eight and a half or nine times out of 10, Oregon loses. If it plays out the way it played out, but they didn't, they found a way to win. And here's where rubber meets road on that. If you lose a game, everyone's willing to question everything. But if you win a game that's played the same way the loss was played and the ball just bounces your way once, some people refuse to accept truth. That's what Dan Lanning's gonna find out about this team. There are messages that he would have been able to get across clear as day had they lost this game last night, but they ended up winning it. But they were a mess some of the time. Kenny still get it across. The best coaches can. The best teams are very receptive to it. The best teams are not outcome oriented. They're process oriented. So we'll start to find that out about Oregon. They allowed 5.4 yards per carry. They only put up 3.6 yards per carry. They had 14 penalties for over 120 yards. They did a lot of the stuff that you do to lose a football game, especially on the road. They were playing a team in Texas Tech that was in desperation mode, wounded animal mode. This is where if you know college football, you know why this was a fight. Texas Tech goes and loses to Wyoming. That was the worst thing that could have happened to Oregon. Texas Tech comes home and backs against the wall. We use wounded animal mode all the time because that's exactly what it's like. You ever dealt with a wounded animal? It will do anything it has to do to continue living. That's the same way desperate football teams are, especially when they're at home, especially at night. And Oregon dealt with it last night. The Oregon may find themselves in that position at some point this year. And someone will have to deal with Oregon. They don't hope that, but it does happen that way. Bo-Nix is going off, man. Like Bo-Nix is right in that Heisman early conversation as he should be, 32 to 44, 359, two touchdowns through the air, had another 46 on the ground. That's the third time he has led this team, passing and rushing. That's six explosive passes, by the way, yesterday of 20 yards or more. 317 yards after the catch. So Oregon's offense lost Kenny Dillingham. He goes and becomes the head coach at Arizona State. Through two games, they put up big numbers. The defensive tests will get a little more stiff. But Troy Franklin's also another guy that, look, I watch Troy Franklin play for Oregon. And I think that guy could win the Bolitnikov award. I think he's that good. And it's not like they're under utilizing him. I just hope he gets the opportunity on some big stages to make his mark. Cause he's good, man. Troy Franklin is really good. Their defensive line allowed rush yards yesterday, but they forced turnovers too. So they were plus four turnovers, and in large part due to that defensive line being disruptive, but the offensive line, kind of the same thing with Bama. You expect a lot out of them, and you got mixed results early in the season is this an offensive line that will round into form. They've got time. They play Hawaii this week, but then they got Colorado coming to town. It there's a difference in what you can be and what you are. And in a developmental sport like football, especially at the college level, units are ever evolving. And the offensive line, chief among them, it's ever evolving. You don't just sell on one, because it's not what you want it to be by mid-September. That's very foolish, especially with a bunch of new parts. Texas Tech's O&2 for the first time since 1990, and yet I feel great about the program. I feel great about the trajectory, feel great about Joy McGuire. Love where they're at is just, they've been on the short side of the stick two weeks in a row. Neither of those games are conference losses though. So not that I doubt the guy's ability to motivate regardless, but it should be very easy to continue getting those guys up cause everything they want to play for is in front of them. I don't really know many people who had Texas Tech going to the playoff this year. So like if this were Ohio state and they've got two losses already, it is a crisis in Columbus, Ohio. This is Texas Tech, man. They want to be a big 12 championship contender and let the chips fall where they may elsewhere. They've lost zero conference games. They'll beat Tarleton this weekend. And then they'll tune it up and they'll get ready to go into conference play. And it's, you know, it's not the toughest conference schedule in the world either. So there's still a lot to play for out there. I think Texas Tech's still a really good team. Oh boy, is it that time of the show? Oh no. All right, well, I guess we're gonna do this. I can't believe we're about to be talking about this. A hearty sip from the chalice is needed. If you have not been checking the news today, boy do I have a bombshell for you. Almost to the point where I have to be careful what I say. All right, let's do this. So Mel Tucker, as it turns out at Michigan State, has been being investigated for sexual harassment for a long time. And the details are some of the wildest I ever remember reading. So Mel Tucker was the big 10 coach of the year back in 2021. They had that magic season. It's been pretty rough since then. They bring Brenda Tracy. And this is reported and this is out there. You can go Google it cause there's some of the report. I'm not even gonna. I'm not even going to articulate on air. Some of this report, I kid you not. I kid you not. Some of the stuff Mel Tucker is accused of doing and has admitted to doing. The details he disagrees with or maybe the semantics he disagrees with. But the details he's admitted to. Some of the things he's admitted to, I'm pretty sure if I say them on air, it's an HR violation for me. What are we to do? I guess go read it on cbsports.com. I don't know if I can say it on this show. But they bring Brenda Tracy in there, who is a sexual assault activist and herself has been a victim of it in the past. Very, very high profile person and story. And does wonderful work. They bring her in to speak to the team. They bring her aboard as an ambassador of sorts. And Mel Tucker ends up being accused of sexually harassing the woman and doing certain things on this device. I'm holding a, this would be an eye tuck for him. It's an eye josh in my hand. And as I said, you want the details? Oh, they're out there. Go read them friends after the show. So anyway, they call an emergency press conference today. This news broke earlier this morning. And it was first reported he was fired. And trust me, he probably will be. But in the meantime, he's just been suspended indefinitely without pay. Harlan Barnett is now going to be the interim head coach up there. Get this, Mark Dantonio coming out of the garage. He's going to do something with the program. And I'm going to be blunt here. I'm going to totally dance around the key issue here. The key issues, the sexual harassment. But I also know you don't tune into this show to hear me talk about social issues. This is a college football show. So with immense amounts of due respect to the more weighty and more serious matters in the room, we're going to put those over there for a second, okay? Respectfully. Michigan State is going to probably end up benefiting from this massively. That athletic department was in no man's land. Because this football program was going nowhere. Their best players were transferring out. They are on the hook for a massive amount of money. His buyout was fully guaranteed. And you now have calls to fire him in all likelihood. And you're not going to owe him a dime. That's what's happening up there. That's what every fan's thinking. That's what everyone else is thinking. I'm just saying it out loud. That's the deal. It's a really serious matter. I trust it's being treated as such. But in the meantime, as it relates to Michigan State's Barton football, the programs probably in the long run going to end up benefiting if that's the way things go down. It turns out they knew about this for a while. They said in the report they'd known about it since last year. That means they went through spring practice and they were knowing about this. They came to Big Ten media days. We had Mel Tucker on the show. And I didn't pick up on it. For what that's worth, I didn't know. They went through fall camp. I always wondered by the way, when you find out about various scandals, it's never that they happened in the past week. You find out about them. And then you find out the investigation has been going on or the story itself centers around things that happened a year ago. And you're like, wait a second. This has been boiling under the surface for a year and we didn't know about it. Also, how do these people sleep at night? I don't mean that as the guilty conscience sort of thing. I literally mean with the stress that must put on you, which you deserve if you're guilty of that sort of thing. But nonetheless, it's stressful. And you're running a football program. How, that must be unhealthy. That's gotta be terrible. Again, if you brought it on yourself, you brought it on yourself. So I'm all about due process. Let's let it play out. It does not sound good for Mel Tucker right now. I'll tell you what's much better for us though. College football is just wide open this year. I'm talking about wide open. Like there may be a dozen teams that can win the national title right now. Jake hit us up and he said, does this season seem as wide open as we've seen in a long time? I think it does, Jake. I think it does. Now here's what we have not seen. Are there still some teams we have not seen challenged? We have not seen Ohio State challenged? Are we have not seen Georgia challenged? We've seen Bama pushed. We've seen Clemson. We've seen LSU. Now some would argue that, well, Duke shouldn't have pushed Clemson. My point is we've seen, we've seen them. There could be flaws in these other teams we don't know about yet. So we've seen Texas pushed. We know they're legit. Oklahoma played a really good SMU team yesterday. I know some of you were underwhelmed with that score. You shouldn't have been. SMU's better than half the conference opponents. Oklahoma will have this year. But the SEC's got several flat tires, man. Like they are struggling mildly. They are three and six in out of conference play. So far this year and the wins are Tennessee over Virginia. Mississippi State went to overtime against Arizona and won in Starkville last night. And Auburn was all the way out on the West Coast and they snuck by Cal hanging 14 on them. Not 14, 14. Excuse me. And we've seen, here's what's crazy about this. So the SEC thing notwithstanding, just think about the power programs and think about the fact that again, I'm holding my phone in my hand and Colcubic hasn't texted me. I hope he's okay. So I'm holding my phone in my hand. It's not November 10th, guys. It is September 10th. And we've seen Clemson fall. We've seen LSU fall. We've seen Bama fall. These are top 10 preseason teams by virtually any metric out there except the J people. And there's so much football left to play. And so how crazy is it? We're writing teams off already. I say we, I don't literally mean that. I mean, a lot of people are so much is about to happen. So the ACC I think is the biggest single story right now because that's a conference I've told you it has missed their opportunity as much as anyone over the last 15 years. Now all of a sudden, FSU's answering the bell. North Carolina, I don't look down on him for struggling against app state yesterday. We took app state and the points. I expected that to be a close game. They're 2 and 0. That's the point. Oh, there's Cubic. He did text me. He's good. Well, he meant to say we're good, bro. He actually typed we're hood, bro. So many ways I could take that, but I won't take him any which way because I want to get back on track here. The ACC could be the story of college football through two weeks. The Pag 12 has looked magnificent out there. And also, here's what's really fun. Penn State as shine so far. You got Ohio State still blemish free, but everyone's questioning the quarterback play and everyone's questioning the offense. And my point is, if there's one big if out there, if Michigan or Georgia don't stumble, then you're not gonna have a ton of competitive balance in the national championship picture. You're just gonna have a handful of teams capable of winning it like you always do. But it's early, guys. If we get to a point, like if Georgia goes to Auburn in two weeks and it's a dogfight in the fourth quarter, out of nowhere. Or if Michigan plays like who they play Jesse and Nebraska or someone like that, if they just out of nowhere against Minnesota, get tripped up. Think about what your national championship picture looks like. You could have the biggest field of potential contenders that we've had in any playoff year, like an 07 vibe, but that was pre-playoff. In the Pag 12, man, we're through two weeks. I think Southern cows played three games. We are no closer to figuring out that picture out there. Utah, Oregon State, Oregon, Washington. USC, anyone of them could still win it. NIL, though, and the portal. That's what I wanted to talk to you for a second about. I'm seeing a lot of folks say, oh, look at that. NIL and the portal doing exactly what we said they would do. We told you guys when NIL entered the equation, when the transfer portal opened up, none of these mega power teams would be able to withstand it. Look at Bama, look at Clemson. That's the NIL and transfer portal. First off with Clemson, they have voluntarily forsaken the transfer portal. That's not even a good comp. Without Alabama, Alabama hasn't lost their ability to recruit anybody. My point is the transfer portal and NIL has not thus far elevated any additional teams into prime time contention that weren't already capable of it. Texas never had the sport tilted against them. Texas just sucked for a long time. Florida state, the sport is built to their advantage. They just sucked for a long time. They just got their act together. They're like little, little privileged levers at the controls in those programs. All they gotta do is pull them. You can't do that at Akron. You can do it at Texas. You can't do that at FAMU. You can do it at FSU and they've done it. Okay, we're not all due respect now. We're not talking about teams that previously have never competed for anything, now competing for things. The TCU story was a good story last year. Start bringing me that every year. Then I'll talk to you. Like have Arkansas make a magical run through the SEC West this year, then I'll start talking to you about how Portal and the NILs fundamentally transformed the national title picture. Look, maybe it's still early. And maybe I'm just skeptical on that. I happen to think that the same well-resourced outlets will and outfits will always acquire the talent. And you're gonna have some anecdotal examples of guys going elsewhere where they normally wouldn't. But these are mega power programs that have gotten out of their own way and are now competing again. That has virtually to mean nothing to do with NIL and the Portal evening things out where little old Texas gets a chance to succeed or little Miami gets a chance to succeed. Man, they were the reasons they weren't succeeding. Now, the other teams I'm interested in, Oklahoma looks really good so far, Notre Dame. Looks really good so far. Notre Dame's got Ohio State in two weeks, by the way. Two weeks, you know what, Colin? I'm looking forward to it. And the reason I said you know what, Colin, I'm looking forward to it is cause that's where he's gonna cut out of the video when we put it on YouTube. But that is just a transition for me because I have another piece of paper in my hand. And it says R&E on it. Net stands for Raman, Newtale Express. Friends, we made a boatload of money yesterday. And if you didn't watch Friday night lines, you didn't profit as much. So make sure, at Lake Kick Josh on Instagram, make sure you're following there. But I got three early best bets. We moved on four games last Sunday. I got three of them we need to move on right now. Georgia Tech is plus 20 and a half at Ole Miss this week. Schedule, first off, Georgia Tech's not a bad team. Secondly, schedule. Model is looking at schedule dynamics there. Not surprisingly, you build up that two lane game and Ole Miss goes down there and takes care of business, okay? They got Bama next week. And you just got Georgia Tech sandwiched in between. Ole Miss is fine, winning by 11 or 13 this week. So take Tech plus 20 and a half. Central Michigan goes to Notre Dame. Another scheduling dynamic situation. Notre Dame's got Ohio State coming in. Get out of this thing healthy with a comfortable win. We're taking Central Michigan and Jim McElwain plus 31 and a half. And lastly, we just think this number's too high. Mississippi State opened as a nine and a half point dog. We got him at nine against LSU. 11 a.m. kickoff over there in Starkville, by the way. We're taking Mississippi State plus nine. Central Michigan plus 31 and a half. Georgia Tech plus 20 and a half. What a weekend of college football. We still got so many weeks ahead. So happy about that. Happy to have you guys along. I am also happy that I was able to power through this show because candidly, there's not a lot of voice left here. So I'm gonna go and eat some Los Angeles for dinner and drink some Thera Flu to wash it down. Even though I don't have the flu, I just think it really coats the throat in a nice soothing way. And I will be back here bright and late Tuesday night. Make sure you're following at Lake Kick Josh cause it feels like it feels like the kind of week where there's gonna be a lot of activity. Depth charts changing, scandals left and right and all the wild. We're just out here bathing and soaking it all in. So for producer Jesse for director Colin, I'm Josh Pate, take care. Have a great start to your week and God bless.