Andy & Ari On3 - Auburn STUFFS Baylor at the goal line to survive week one | Alex Golesh WINS in his Tigers debut

Episode Date: September 5, 2026

Auburn and Baylor played a sloppy game that ended in thrilling fashion as Auburn safety Eric Winters stopped a two-point conversion attempt at the goal line to preserve a 17-16 win..Andy and Ari break down Dave Aranda's decision to go for it and the issues that popped up for Baylor and Auburn in the first 55 minutes of the game.Our show is presented by Polymarket!New User Offer: Deposit $10, get $50 upon sign uphttps://app.polymarket.us/S8ac/ON3Trade on College Football games every week on Polymarket. Download the Polymarket App with code ON3 for a $20 bonus upon sign up.18+ only. Restrictions and eligibility requirement apply. Not available in all jurisdictions. Trading is risky. 100% loss can occur.Join On3 today! https://www.on3.com/joinSubscribe to On3!  ⬇️ youtube.com/on3sports/?sub_confirmati...Welcome to On3 | The best of college football and recruiting https://www.on3.com Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to a Martin position of Andy and Ari on 3. It was supposed to be a nice boring Saturday with lots of really giant spreads. It was what a finish between Baylor and Auburn. Andy, I don't know if we'd be live right now if it was anybody other than DJ Lagway. But you know, you had an SEC coach making his debut. You had a thrilling finish that came around to a two-point conversion on a completed pass that was just short of the goal line. I thought that that was a very entertaining game. Yeah.

It was like the Rams Titan Super Bowl that ended with the tackle on the goal line. Yeah. You know, I don't know enough about football to like understand this, but if you're running that route, you got to just run it into the end zone, man. And then maybe it's like a rub that you have to be short and then you're open enough to cut it in. The thing about routes is they're usually very precise.

Well, this is an air raid offense. So they're not necessarily set to a certain yardage. Yeah. I mean, he found the green grass. If we're doing air raid principles, he found the green grass. Yeah, I don't know. That is. I'll have to watch that again.

That was just bad place. Yeah. Inches. Eric Winters drags him down. And Will McLean in the chat, Lagway, you could have led him a little more. That is true. That's true. I think that's probably worth.

He said that at the end of the game. Ari, how do you feel about Dave Ranah's decision? to go for a two-point conversion there rather than go to overtime. You know, I haven't really given it much thought because it was so electric like the fact that he did it. I'm glad he did it.

From an entertainment standpoint, I'm glad he did it. My thought process in the moment was what an idiot, why is he going for it? So like, I don't know, you know, what it means in terms of like the analytics or what they would have told you to do.

If you're a seven point dog and you're one play away after momentum, like I think that maybe they, like the analytics would tell you to do that. So I don't know, but it felt like Dave Miranda in general really needed that. Because, you know, he's had a few rough years there and, you know, hot seat discussions and all those things. He goes in and he takes a major risk in bringing DJ Lagway in. We spent the entire offseason discussing whether this new environment back in his home state would unlock something that he did not have at Florida.

You know, can you imagine also, I don't know if coach is thinking these terms, but if DJ Lagway, you know, won that game with that final drive, because it's not just the final play, Andy. He had like three or four NFL level throws on that final drive. It was what DJ Lagway does to you. Like, he makes a few of those, and you forget about all the other ones that happened. Yeah, and I know he was banged up in the game, and it looked like he wasn't really able to plant his feet.

He got hurt the first series. He twisted his ankle first series, yeah. But there were a lot of head scratching throws, like throws that didn't have enough on them during the game, and it, like, infuriates. you and then you go down the field and throw those 40-yard dimes. I think three or four of those passes were 40-yard NFL level dimes.

And you get inside the five-yard line there. Obviously, they would have tied the game earlier had Porter not dropped the first one, but Porter redeems himself, gets them inside the five. They score the touchdown. I think that if you're Dave Randa, you think if DJ Lackaway can win this game and will us to a victory on this drive, that could set the tone for the entire season. You know, like I think that maybe there's some of that. but, you know, man, like I just like, I know that you and I put our necks on the line,

you know, last off season that we declared that DJ Lagway was going to be the best player in college football. We've spent the last year taking our lumps for it. We do. Yes. But I hope that anybody who thinks we're stupid was watching that game because it's the things that you see at the end of that game that make you go, holy crap, if this kid could ever just put it together. And at the beginning of his career, he was so young, you thought he hadn't put it

together because he was young. Now it's becoming a personal, I mean, a characteristic of his game, not saying that it can't be repaired or that it's impossible for him to ever put it together. But we took that as he's young, he's learning, new offense, new speed, SEC football by year two, he's going to be great. I hope that you can at least understand how we were so wrong. Like, I mean, because the- - Sorry, stop apologizing for it. We were wrong. We messed it up. Yeah. But it's another- He's not- I know, but the other illustration of like, I got sucked right back in today.

Of course he did. I was right back to where I was here. It was interesting. It was really interesting. So he finished 27 and 54, 333 yards, two TDs and one pick. He had a fumble and a pick right out of the gate. Yeah, first two sessions. Then settle down.

Yeah. Then settled down and was throwing dots for the rest of the first half, but they still couldn't score. Right. It was, you got, you got the entire. higher DJ Lagway experience. In fact, his best game to this point in college also came on one leg. Yeah. When he beat LSU as a freshman in 2024.

I mean, it would be great if he was just on two legs for a long period of time. Like, I would hope that for him. But I got to say, I know that Baylor, their season is still relatively young and they can turn things around. It's not devastating. I think if Auburn would have lost that game, Alex Golich would have been in a, in a world of hurt. He's still in a world of hurt.

Did you see the interview after the game? Yeah. I mean, he looked shell-shocked, like this was not how this was supposed to go. And we can talk about how wrong I've been about coaches porting their offense to new teams. Because Alex Gulles got lucky to win this one. Eric Morris did not win. They lost to Tulsa at Oklahoma State. And the only one who ported a big group of people.

and had success today was Matt Campbell and Penn State looked great. But maybe it's a lot harder than Kurt Sigdetti makes it look. Yeah, that's a good. I mean, can I write that down? I got some thoughts. I'm going to write that column. Stop it. I'm still going to cut and paste from it.

Okay. All right. What are you going to do? Yeah, that's a really good, good thought process. But I also think that because it was a rough day, doesn't mean that that's not the way to do it. You know, like it just, well, maybe it's not just the.

Byron Brown is a really interesting case study here. So 26 to 35, 259 yards, zero TDs, three picks. He did not play well. And the thing that was interesting to me, and this is, you know, we saw this with Lagway where the final drive suddenly he just blossoms. Byron Brown finally started running the ball well on the final shot. He was not running it well at all. Like he was getting chased down by Baylor's edge running. Yeah, yeah.

I'm happy you brought that up. I remember him being a lot faster. but when he needed to, he ran away from everybody and scored. I also had an envision, I envisioned him being bigger and stronger looking. Like, I, I didn't remember a lot of broken tackles in this game. It's not like we've never seen it. He ran for 108 yards against Alabama once. He beat Florida in the swamp.

Like, he's played against this level of competition before. Yeah. Yeah. Like I thought of my brain that maybe you'd be getting, and I always do these stupid ratios where I give you 20% of them. an amazing player, but I thought it's going to be like 25% Cam Newton where he just like wills your team down the field by being un-tacknable. And like that wasn't who he was today. You're not saying that's not who he can be, but like he wasn't just like physically mauling people

in that game. But did you a touchdown run, the 11-yard touchdown run that put Auburn up seven with what three minutes to go? Yeah. It was outstanding because he made he made moves. He broke tackle. Like that was what you were expecting the whole game. Yeah. 1,000%. So, you know, this doesn't maybe feel like a huge game

because we didn't perceive either of these teams to be playoff or even, you know, national championship contenders, but it is a huge game. And don't forget, guys, like we didn't get a lot of big time power four versus power four games in week one. The scoreboard for conference supremacy has begun. Like the Big 12 needed that, ma'am.

They did. They needed that one. They had it. They were inches away. Now, the Big Ten almost took a pretty big hit, but they did almost only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades. Oregon, ho! Playing with fire against Boise State. And so let me ask you this, Ari.

Does this mean Oregon could be shaky in the Big Ten, or does this mean we could see Oregon to Boise State play again in the playoff? What does this mean? Fun fact, the last time Oregon was scared by Boise State in the season opener, they went undefeated and the regular season and won the Big Ten championship game. Not season opener. It was game two. Game two played them. Idaho played them tough in the season opener.

Oh, yeah, that's right. They played bad in their opener too. Jason Eck, baby. So I know Dan Landing was mad. I know that they did some pretty dumb penalty stuff type things. I didn't watch that game thinking, wow, Oregon is just completely discombobulated. I watched that game and I thought Boisey played awesome. I thought Maddox-Madson looked great.

Yeah. I am a little concerned about Oregon's defense because there are moments where Boise State was just marching down the field. Yeah. Yes, they did get the muff punt and that gave him a short field, but they still went down the field on him a couple of times for scores and kept punching back. I thought Oregon might knock them out because remember Boise State was up 17-7 and then Oregon takes me what 24-17 lead and you're like, okay, it's over. It was not over. You know what your point was magnified is when Oregon took the lead and I believe they were up 27 to 20

and you're like, okay, you know, they're out of it now. They're probably going to win the game by 14 or 17 and it'll be fine. And then nope, Boise ran all the way down the field on them. And it was a, there are methodical drives, you know. So I think that this is what I would take away from it, which is Oregon has some things to clean up. Oregon will probably be fine. You know, we've seen them struggle early on in the season and turn out to be very good. My thought process here is that if there is any discussion of who should be the favorite to make the CFP from a G5 standpoint, I would probably say Boise should step in there as the.

You're feeling good about Boise State. Remember, for those who haven't been paying attention this offseason or just missed it, Boise State is now in the Pact 12. The Pact 12 has been reborn. For a while, it was just Oregon State and Washington State. But Boise State, San Diego State, Fresno State, Utah State all went there. Texas State came in. And so Colorado State moved over there. So now they have these guys to be.

And look, this is a team, or this is a team that can win this league. They should win this league. You saw Oregon State play Houston tough, but Boise State should be able to win this league. So if they win it, there's a good chance, especially based on what we saw today, like they can go hang with a playoff team. So I'd be very interested to see how that goes. Ari, before we go, we do have to talk about Oklahoma State and Tulsa. Yeah.

Holy cow, Tulsa and Trey Lamb. great coach beat Oklahoma State last year got my gunny fired this year was more dominant like they they eked it out last year against that terrible Oklahoma State team they dominated this team and you warned me don't go

don't go so overboard on Oklahoma State and I did not listen yeah they were so far behind last year but that should not have mattered because like you said they brought their whole team with them basically. And obviously, Drew Mestemaker was viewed as, you know, I mean, I saw him in the first round of mock drafts coming up.

You know, like it's not like you're alone in the thought process. It is kind of an interesting dynamic because losing the Tulsa last year was the last straw or the breaking point for the Mike Gundy era. And you thought, okay, we're going to go get Eric Morris. He did really well. North Texas is going to bring Mastamaker. He's going to bring some guys over. And they might not go win the Big 12, but they're going to be competitive.

They're going to beat Tulsa. And maybe this is just. just a reminder that, you know, like you said at the beginning of the show, you can't just always 100% of the time just bring your whole team from a lower level with you and then be competitive at the highest point. But the thing that's confusing to me about this more than anything, Andy is it's not that he brought his team from North Texas. And then they played a big 12 team or another power team and they got their ass kicked. Like this is a level that North Texas would have, like they could have beaten Tulsa last year at North Texas.

Like that team would have been very competitive in that game. Did they were playing in the same league? Did they play each other? I can't remember. I think they did. Yeah. North Texas, Tulsa. I'm looking it up.

I'm looking it up. You van, I'll look it up. I'm just kind of surprised by the fact that they They did not play Tulsa last year. They didn't just lose, but it didn't even look like they were going to win for much of the game. Like it was just kind of like they got beat. It never looked like they were going to win. Never.

So, you know, I don't know what that does for Oklahoma States build. You know, I don't know if it matters. in terms of, but like, I know that, like, sentiment, when you think about sentiment of a team and a sentiment after losing a game like that, I don't think we're going to find a bigger, you know, 180 in week one, I don't think, than that. So, you know, we'll see how it goes, but that was, that was tough. Yeah, because I, I mean, like, that's bad.

That looks, that makes me wonder what it's going to be like the rest of the way for you. Because you, you, you, they didn't even put up a fight. and that's unacceptable. You know, college football is weird though and it's like they're playing Oregon next and of course they'll probably be more competitive

in that game because you think that everything is, you know, everything's the same every week, but things change. You just couldn't lose that game and they lost by two scores. Ari, we got a weather delay in Baton Rouge.

Do we? How delayed is it? Producer River. Show us the video of Tiger Stadium with everybody singing Purple Rain. We don't have any sound. We don't want to get copyright strike here, but you know,

Purple rain, purple rain. So it's lightning? Yeah. They always say that it never rains in Tiger Stadium, but it is very much raining right now. So you can keep watching. I would go back and watch the Keelan Russell video we did earlier today. Yeah.

Talking about his first start at Alabama. If you're looking for something to watch. But also, Michigan has kicked off against Western Michigan, Florida and Florida Atlantic about to kick off. You got some stuff to watch. Andy, with the 3,000 people that are in here right now watching in totality, I'm sure there's a large chunk of them that are going to be back tonight. Do you think we should make an executive decision about pushing back the show

if this is delayed a really long time? The show will be after LSU Clemson or if somebody's kicking the crap out of somebody at the end of the third quarter and we know who's going to win, then we might. Then we'll do it. fired up then. But. Yes, I think that is that is absolutely necessary.

And it's going to allow us to get more of the Cal UCLA game in because that's a late game. That's an old Pac-12 after dark game. Hey, chat's here. You're here. Andy, one last question before we go. Yeah. Before I do something dangerous. It's right.

Like that cow is the underdog, right? Like they should be the underdog tonight. I mean, it kind of moved around. It moved toward a pick-em. because everybody loves Bob Chesney. Okay. Wish me look. Everybody loves Bob Chesney.

No, I mean, look, I don't know who's going to win that game. I picked Cal. I think you picked UCLA, but I don't think either of this has a high degree of confidence. Yeah. My picks suck. I don't even want to. We'll review that on Monday.

Hey! Hey, you won Baylor-R-R-A-O. No, you picked him. No, I didn't. Yes, you did. I can go check the graphic. You picked Auburn to cover. That's what I'm saying.

I didn't win. Yeah, I know. That's what I'm saying. I was confusing the pick show in real life. Yeah. Well, real life, things change because real life happened in the middle of the second quarter. Yeah. So, you know, I have to wear those.

But you do have Clemson to cover. I have LSU to cover. I have Cal to cover plus one and a half and you have UCLA to cover minus one and a half. So that's going to be an interesting. night. I'm looking closely. So so far, I'm still alive for the winless graphic. You are. Yes, you're 0 and 3.

I am 2 in 1 right now. I'm 0.6 to start the year, guys. What am I? I'm 4 and 2. Right now. I'll take it. I'll take it. The trend is continuing. But the one game I can't miss is that last one, boys. All right. Go watch some other football. Go watch some other Indian Ari videos.

You got like an hour. So maybe maybe longer. It's a pretty big storm. But we'll see you after that game.