Andy & Ari On3 - Can the EA Sports video game ratings predict real-life performances of 2024 college football teams?

Episode Date: June 28, 2024

Andy and On3 national writer Jesse Simonton use the EA Sports offense and defense unit rankings released Thursday as a jumping-off point to discuss the how the real-life versions of these units will fare.(0:00-2:26) Intro - EA Sports Offensive and Defensive Rakings(2:27-3:24) Jesse Simonton joins to break down the rankings(3:25-6:51) Colorado ranked too high?(6:52-8:23) USC Rankings(8:24-11:07) Ohio State(11:08-15:11) Georgia's Ranking(15:12-16:39) Liberty on the game(16:40-18:23) Miami(18:24-22:47) Alabama(22:48-28:34) Omission of Tennessee(28:35-32:24) Clemson(32:25-35:15) Ole Miss(35:16-38:09) Florida at #25 on defense(38:10-42:19) LSU(42:20-45:51) Sneaky Defense: Texas A&M(45:52-50:09) Penn State(50:10-53:20) SMU Ponies(53:21-55:10) UCF Knights(55:11-57:45) Big 12 Outlook(57:46-1:01:48) Wrapping up with Jesse(1:01:49-1:04:10) Who is YOUR Dynasty Team?(1:04:11-1:05:09) Conclusion, see you Monday!Do Georgia and Oregon really have the best offenses? EA Sports didn’t have Tennessee in its top 25 on offense or defense, but where should the Volunteers actually fall? (Andy and Jesse will remind game-makers that James Pearce Jr. is a person who exists.) Is Colorado really going to be as good on each side of the ball as the video game rankings suggest?Also, will LSU and USC improve enough on defense in real life to be among the top 25 units? Because if they are, then those programs might be looking at College Football Playoff berths.Want to watch the show instead? Join us LIVE, M-F, at 8 am et! https://youtube.com/live/ZoVfZQPTg5IHost: Andy StaplesGuest: Jesse SimontonProducer: River Bailey

Welcome to Andy Staples on three. Today, of course, we're going to talk about the thing everybody was arguing about on the Internet on Thursday. Oh, wait. Well, one of the things everybody was arguing about on the Internet on Thursday. That one thing. Nah, there's enough shows that handle all that stuff. Bronny James getting drafted 55th. Not a real hot take on that either.

Because, you know, second round draft picks, especially that low in the second round, don't tend to do very much. So if daddy wants to have him on the team, eh, whatever. No, no, of course. I'm talking about EA Sports, College Football 25, the top 25 offenses and defenses. And these rankings were, well, they were a little different. They were a little odd. There were some in there that you just kind of wonder, huh? Like LSU's defense is probably like, wait a second.

We're in here? How? Tennessee's like, wait, where are we? We're not in here at all? Colorado, way up there in both. It was very strange. Very, very strange. So I got to thinking, we can talk about these

ratings, but remember that's for a video game. We still haven't done the who are the best offenses and defenses in college football show this year. That's a great off-season topic. So let's just use EA Sports rankings, which are kind of weird. Let's be real here. As a jumping off point to talk about the real life versions of these teams, who's going to surprise, who's going to live up to their lofty billing? Because some of these, like if they work out the way the EA Sports ranking went, you're going to be so happy with your team, and everything's going to go real well for you this season.

And then some of these, they're just not going to come to fruition, and you're going to have a much better video game team than you will have an actual team in real life. So let's kind of parse those. Let's figure that out to do that we bring in jesse simonton on three national writer jesse texted me when this those rankings came out yesterday and said these are something uh something you kind of teed me up that they were that they were coming out and that this was because I had missed the initial release deal. But, man, we talk about, you know, J.J. Reddick used the term engagement farming.

That was about as well, you know, you could use as an example of engagement farming was what EA Sports did with these rankings from Tennessee's omission in both of them, which either felt like a diabolical troll or just kind of an oopsie-daisy oversight, let's just release them anyways. To Colorado's ranking, I mean, there was folks flooding my mentions yesterday, Andy, but there's not a galaxy in which they finished with a top 20 defense in the country next season. I don't care if they signed an entire defense of all Americans. You're not going from maybe the second or third worst Power 5 unit in almost every single category and then climb up into the top 20.

It's just absurd. Having said that, some of these other units, I think, were fairly ranked. And, you know, I'm glad that they gave shine to Memphis and an SMU and kind of some of those programs that maybe get a little overlooked. Yeah. And now Yosef in the chat, thinking along the same lines I was yesterday,

maybe Colorado's initial rating is because casual fans will use them online. And that's what I was thinking. These guys are making a video game. Like they want to sell video games. They want to make it as exciting as possible for people who are going to play it. And I think a lot of people are going to play as Colorado because it's Coach Prime's team. Shador Sanders is really good.

Travis Hunter's on the cover of the game. Like that is, I would think, why you would do that. You'd say, because like the offense for Colorado, which they had at number eight, we don't know what that offense is going to look like. Like everybody who says they know what Colorado's offense will look like good or bad is just guessing because they totally overhauled it. Like they, their initial idea when Deion Sanders got hired was I'm going to hire Sean Lewis.

He's going to come in and install the veer and shoot offense, which will help because you can't necessarily get a bunch of really good offensive linemen right off the bat through the transfer portal. It seemed like a decent idea. It looked okay at first, yet they still couldn't protect Shudder Sanders. So they panic at the end of the season, pull a ripcord on Sean Lewis, bring in Pat Schirmer.

What you saw at the end of the last season was not Pat Schirmer's offense. It was Pat Schirmer calling Sean Lewis's offense. Now you will see Pat Schirmer's offense, and we don't know what that's going to look like. We don't know what that's going to look like in college, Andy. We've seen what it looked like in the NFL, and it was not pretty. It did not work out at multiple stops. So I am not particularly enthused by Colorado's upside in terms of being a top 10 unit offensively or a top 20 unit, I mean, I think that they have done enough and Deion's done enough with the roster that they can get to six wins, which would, which would be a victory considering what the program was just a couple of

years ago. I think the biggest thing you're probably right. This is, you know an initiative to maybe get more people to play with the buffs. The biggest thing is that, you know, these rankings will be adjusted or ratings will be adjusted in real time. And so if they get shredded by Nebraska, who somehow was not among the top 25 defenses, even though Tony White had one of the best defenses in the country a year ago,

if they get just completely demolished in that game in week two, then you probably see Nebraska rise up the rankings and you see Colorado drop way down. Yeah. And so Willie in the chat with a really interesting point on these two, this day, no sense to me either. USC had a higher defense rating than their offense rating. So they were, they were number 23 on offense And yeah, Caleb Williams is gone, but we saw Miller Moss in the bowl game. He looked pretty awesome. And Lincoln Riley never has a bad offense,

but Lincoln Riley historically has always had a bad defense. And I realized they overhauled their staff. But so you're guessing that they're going to be the number 16 defense? That's a lot of faith in dan ten lin and history doesn't suggest that's going to happen so is that another one of oh usc is just a big brand we want you to play as you i don't know but that was that was weird because like even though usc lost some some very good players on offense,

like Zachariah Branch is one of the most exciting players in the country. We think Miller Moss is going to be good. If Miller Moss is not good, then Jaden Maiava could be very good. We saw him at UNLV last year. I joked in my piece. You did a couple videos yesterday. I did kind of a takeaways piece. I joked that the

creators must be big danton lynn fans they must be huge danton lynn fans because otherwise there's little explanation again for for for usc's ranking defensively they've done a couple nice things they also uh completely much like lsu kind of whiffed in the transfer portal in terms of adding impact defensive linemen. And so, you know, they tried to bring in several guys. It didn't come to fruition. And now they're, you know, looking at a depth chart that I think is fairly thin, especially when you're considering the fact they're having to play in the Big Ten, you know, this fall. Yeah. Cousin Eugene says their ranking shattered my faith in the game i

don't i don't feel like it should shatter your faith like jesse said they're gonna fly in updated rankings so we can talk about what they're gonna wind up flying in because that's what i want to talk about what these real life teams are gonna look like and who has the best offense the best and i think we should start at the top because i will say their highest ranked unit is ohio state's defense at 96 overall i feel like that is the the biggest no-brainer i that one is easy like they're not on out on any limb they're picking ohio state's defense as the best unit in the country is probably correct because they were really good on defense last year. They bring back almost everyone. They add a guy who, as a freshman, might have been the best safety in the country

in Caleb Downs through the transfer portal. Everything that could have possibly gone right this offseason for Ohio State's defense went right. Yeah, I mean, I did unit rankings earlier this spring, Andy, and I think it's, you know, I broke them up into several different things, but if you even combine some of that stuff, corners, safeties, they have the best secondary in the country with all the guys they've brought back. They probably have the best defensive line or among the top two three four defensive lines in the country combo of inside

guys and edges yeah it's there are others with better inside guys others with better edges but the the whole is maybe the best and then i think you, when you add in the fact that JTT and Sawyer came back specifically to improve their draft stock, these are two guys that probably were going to be day two type picks in the, in the 24 NFL draft, but they have day one, they have Thursday night, you know, upside. And so why do they do that? Because they want to be first rounders.

And so they come back, they're going to be super impact players coming off both edges. You have the defensive tackles there. I think a guy like Walker is going to probably make even a bigger impact this year. Sonny Stiles, a former five star safety, is now playing linebacker, kind of a rover role for them. Buckeyes are loaded. And then when you also add in the fact, Andy, that they're playing in a Big Ten, that yes, while it does bring in Oregon and USC, which are going to have some offensive firepower, a lot of the times why you see somebody beat these Big Ten teams at the top of the defensive rankings is because the offenses in that conference right now are just

kind of pitiful. And so they get to just feast on those too. So them being the number one defense, no quibbles there, real life or the game. No. And, and George is up there too. George is the second best defense and Georgia also had the highest ranked offense tied with Oregon. Jordan had a 94 overall on offense. And it definitely seems like the game makers value quarterbacks who've had a full season under their belt, who they could kind of wrap their arms around and evaluate. So they clearly love Carson Beck. Now, Oregon, Dylan Gabriel hasn't played for Oregon,

but we've seen Dylan Gabriel as the starter at two other programs, and he's been very successful at both of them. You know what? There was some – I saw a a lot of folks you had some of your former colleagues at the athletics some other people a bunch of folks were releasing like their own you know top 10 units um yesterday in light of these ea sports rankings and it was funny to me and i kind of i i put out a tweet uh a lot of folks had Ole Miss, you know, two or three. Right.

But notably had Ole Miss ahead of Georgia. And I pushed back on that. I think people, you know, it's easy in our brains. We love Lane Kiffin's offense, have thrown up the play sheet, the explosive plays, the touchdowns. Ole Miss has had a really nice offense the last couple years. I don't think people understand just how good Georgia's offense has been both the last couple seasons with Stetson Bennett and Todd Munkin

and then what they did a year ago. They were top five, Andy, in almost every single category. We're talking top five nationally, success rate, scoring, explosiveness, yards per play. This is just a ruthlessly efficient offense. They don't do it the same way that an Oregon or an Ole Miss or some of these tempo teams do. But Georgia, what makes them so scary is not only does Kirby Smart build these, you know,

this defense full of monsters, but offensively the last couple of years, they have become among the best, whether it's one, two, three, four units in the country. Well, and it's an offense built to complement the defense, which exactly a lot of a lot of teams in this era don't do that. And this is one of our criticisms of USC. It's one of our criticisms of various other programs that are very offense centric. And it's like, okay, we're going to score 55 and hopefully we'll only give up 45. That's not how Georgia operates. Georgia has an offense. They want that offense to be able to gain a lot of yards every play, but maybe not run at a high tempo until it needs to. The thing about Georgia's offense is it can beat you any

way you want it to beat you. Let's say you're going to load the box and take away the run. Okay, that's fine. They're going to go over the top to love it and rah-rah Thomas. We'll see what Colby Young looks like as a red zone threat because he's a big old receiver from Miami who he's going to head top some people in the red zone. Like that's what they got him for. Benjamin Urosik, the tight end they got from Stanford physically resembles Brock Bowers. It's too much to ask anybody to replace Brock Bowers, but it's pretty easy to see they're going to try to do a lot of the same things with him. Yeah. And then, and then when you add in the fact, the one guy you didn't mention there was ETN. I

mean, he probably has as much wiggle of any running back they've had in that room since Deandre Swift. Um, and you know, they've been churning out yards with guys the last couple seasons. And so now you bring in, uh, ETN, you bring in a couple of five-star freshman tailbacks. It's Georgia being ranked number one or having perhaps the best offense in the country is, is I think that's well, well merited, you know, Oregon's right there to love what they have with Evan Stewart, Tez Johnson. You know, some of the, the offensive line guys, they were able to convince to come back to school this season.

So it would not surprise me if we see both those programs up there. One of the programs I think that was omitted that I noted in my piece, Andy, is Liberty. Now, I don't know how many people are going to play with Liberty, but in real life, Caden Salter, what Jamie Chadwell did with him in year one, they also have a loaded room of tailbacks, just a bunch of dudes that they can hand the ball to. Chadwell runs that fun, kind of modern option, spread option. I actually played as Liberty when I played the game, Jesse. Oh, nice.

How was it? Yeah, because I wanted to see what that offense felt like to play as. And I was running a lot of the two-back option stuff, which is what they do. Because they'll have two backs and a tight end, and it's formations that if you just move a guy a few feet, it'll look like the old I formation in the 90s. But the things they do out of that look so different and confuse defenses so much, put defenses in conflict.

They lose C.J. Daniels, their best receiver, to LSU. But they're still going to be way more talented than any team in Conference USA. I do think, and look, I'm not going to harp on anybody for being too reliant on recruiting rankings. We work for on three, for God's sake. But I do think a lot of it is recruiting rankings play into this as well. And Liberty's talent level is not what these other places are. So that's probably why they're not up there like that. I'll say one team, as we kind of just highlight some various teams that

we think are going to be, you know, good or bad offensively this next season, best units, one team that was on very, very highly ranked in EA Sports' rankings, which I think surprised some folks, but I could at least see if in terms of projection, kind of where they're coming from, and that's Miami. And we'll know that Miami's going to be that good. I know that you're high on what they've done in the trenches. You certainly have spoken about that more than once this offseason. They have the offensive line. They bring in running back with something that I kind of pinpointed very early

in the spring that, hey, they have to do some stuff here. You're hemorrhaging bodies. You see Parrish go to Ole Miss. Your Fletcher guys hurt. Well, you go out and get one of the best running backs in the country, all-PAC-12 running back, Damian Martinez. You bring in Cam Ward. Miami hadn't had a 1,000-yard passer, I think, since 2017,

last time they won 10 games. The pieces are there. Restrepo and some of the receivers that are coming back. I don't know that they're going to be a top 10 offense, but I think that if you're looking for upside and potential, if Miami is going to fulfill their season of hopes this year, I think that's where it starts. It's going to start with can they become a really explosive offense and then can those pass rushers, Bain and company, kind of create havoc off the edge when they get a lead. Yeah.

Now, we've got one on the offensive side that I thought was really interesting, and it's one of those if it is true, this team's going to be a national title contender for sure. Is Alabama at number three? And we saw Alabama in the playoff last year. Obviously, we saw Jalen Milrow do good things toward the end of last season, but have a bad Rose Bowl. Now, you can say that was because of the snaps.

That situation has been addressed. Seth McLaughlin has transferred to Ohio State. Parker Brailsford comes in from Washington to be the center. But Alabama is under new management, new offense. Kalen DeBoer, obviously, he's an offensive guy. You saw what he did in Washington with Michael Penix Jr., but Jalen Monroe, a very different quarterback than Michael Penix Jr. So what happens there?

I will say some of the guys that Alabama has brought in, like Jeremy Bernard, who came with DeBoer from Washington, I think is going to have a big year catching balls from Jalen Milrow. Caleb Odom is a freshman who had committed to Nick Saban or signed to play for Nick Saban, who they are very excited about. He was kind of recruited as a tight end, gets there on campus and they're like, yeah, you're still huge, but man are very excited about. He was kind of recruited as a tight end, gets there on campus, and they're like, yeah, you're still huge, but man, you're fast. We're just going to play your receiver. They are going to be very tough to deal with in the pass game,

I think, Jesse, because they're going to be so tough to deal with in the run game. You get Caden Proctor back from Iowa, so it's like he never left. Brailsford, we talked about coming in to man the center position. Elijah Pritchett is back. Then you got Jim Miller and Justice Haynes running the ball. How terrifying is that, that Milrow or one of those two guys can have the ball, or Milrow can throw it to a group that can stretch the field? Yeah, I'm someone that, you and I are both high on Alabama going into the 24 season. I think their upside is absolutely championship caliber.

The offensive line, if it's not Georgia or LSU, it's probably Alabama in terms of being the best in the country. I probably have a little bit more concerns or at least I'm not quite there yet to see what the passing game is going to be. It's not that I don't think that they don't have that potential. I like Bernard. I just think they may have to rely on some freshmen, and so whether it's Ryan Williams or Caleb Odom, who you mentioned,

how ready will those guys be early in the season? That's TBD, I think. But, you know, Kevin LeVore has proven that if he has a quarterback that has wheels and will run, he will run him. And so it would not surprise me at all to see Jalen Milrow get 150, you know, touches in terms of just running the ball this year. Because he is an athletic freak and is one of the most gifted, just pure athletes, you know, in the country. And so when you do pair him with an offensive line that I think is going to be mauling and you have Jam and Justice Haynes back there, that's a formidable group. And so it would not surprise me if Alabama kind of plays bully ball early in the season and then kind of figure out what they have from a passing game when they

have some of those bigger games, you know, kind of middle of the year, Tennessee, Missouri, LSU down the stretch. How, how wild would it be Jesse, if Alabama goes to Madison in week three and Alabama is just running the ball and Wisconsin's airing it out. Cause that's their only chance to stay in the game. That would be now. Look, Alabama just running the ball historically would be very accurate.

But it's just one of those things that given the last few years, it'd be a little weird to see. And I don't think people understand that, you know, again, because they saw what Kalen DeBoer did at Washington with all the high-flying offense in terms of just Pennix's precision passing. He'll do it with whatever personnel he has. And so if there are some concerns or there are some unknowns, so to speak, with Jalen Milrow early in the season, you lean on that ground game. Now, would that be good enough to beat a Georgia in week four? I don't know.

That's probably when you're going to need some of that complimentary offense, but we'll see. Alabama having a top five, top ten unit, that's probably a little rich in terms of EA's rankings, but I absolutely can see them being one of the best in the country, especially from a yards per play perspective. Let's stick in the SEC, talk about one of Alabama's rivals, the most notable emission on both sides of this Tennessee's offense and Tennessee's defense, not included that

Tennessee's offense, because it is changing because you're, you're switching to, to Nico Iamali Aba quarterback. You can say, well, we don't know what it's going to look like in this iteration. I would argue you can probably have some faith in Josh Heupel's offense to be explosive. And also you've got a lot of your offensive line coming back. They were a pretty good running team last year. I would imagine they're going to be able to run the ball. Okay. And then we'll see what happens in the pass game. I actually think the omission of Tennessee's defense may be a little more egregious,

considering a lot of these defenses, because it feels like a lot of these are being carried by a few good players, like LSU being up there, like Harold Perkins, great player, clearly carrying LSU's ranking. But James Pierce Jr. might be the best defensive player in the entire country. And Tennessee's very deep on the defensive line. Elijah Simmons and Omar Norman Lott would have been kind of starter quality players for Tennessee going back a couple of years ago.

They're rotation guys at D-Tackle now. They're going to come in when Omari Thomas needs a breather or Bryson Easton needs a breather. And that's different than what we were used to seeing from Tennessee. Yeah, and Tim Banks' unit has kind of continued to improve every season he's been there with Josh Heifel. He came over from Penn State, and the first season he was there, they created a ton of havoc, but they were terrible in the red zone. Then they got better in the red zone, the havoc stayed. Then they were terrible on third down, they kind of improved on third down. This next

year, Andy, I think the focus is in the secondary. They've completely overhauled the personnel there. Can they be better at kind of stopping teams in obvious passing down situations? They have the edge rushers. They have the defensive line. Like you said, Pierce is on probably most Saturdays is going to be the best defensive player on the field for either team. So their omission there, I think Tennessee's absolutely going to have a top 20 defense

this year. Could perhaps flirt with top 10. Offensively, we both believe in Nico. You know, he again, he has kind of that wow ability. He's a guy that can change the geometry of the field with his ability to kind of you know get long and and both stretch the field vertically with it throwing the ball but then running the ball I their receiver room is going to be so much better this year I think Andy with the addition of Braswell you bring in Mike Matthews the five star you have some of these guys maybe you know

a little healthier Brew McCoy uh Dante thornton and so i i think if tennessee struggles offensively it's because they've lost some of those offensive linemen um you know that they might be that they lack some depth there so they can't really afford any injuries but i think tennessee is is a top 20 team on top 20 unit on both sides of the ball this fall yeah lance herd comes in at left tackle. He was at LSU. He was a freshman last year. The only reason he left LSU is he's behind Will Campbell and Emory Jones, like two first round, probably first round offensive tackles. That's all it was. It wasn't like any LSU did anything wrong or anything like that. He just

was looking for a place to play right now. And Tennessee benefits from that. The two people I would say are most important for Tennessee in terms of they got to stay healthy for this to work. Cooper Mays, their center. Yeah. Cause he, he is critically important to them. You saw them last year when he was injured, their different team when he's out there and when he's not. And then Keenan Peely, the middle linebacker who transferred from BYU before last season and was going to be the starter, but then got hurt in camp and missed the whole season. So he was going to be a volume tackler, kind of leader of that defense. He's very old, like he's old, old. So I'll be curious to see if they can keep those key positions healthy how far can they go because this is a pretty pretty deep team otherwise but those

two positions you got to watch one other guy i'd say to look at for tennessee who's a newcomer is holden stays the the tight end transfer from notre Dame. They're very excited about him, too. So these are. They lost. To your I was just going to say to your point to kind of put a big exclamation point on your point there about Keenan, the linebacker, you know, hit Elijah Herring was the guy who led Tennessee and tackles this past season. He leaves the program and transfers to Memphis because Keenan's coming back. So, you know, he wasn't assured of a starting spot, but now they've lost kind of that quality back up there.

So it is important, very important for Keenan to kind of stay healthy because they lost kind of their second best option behind him. Right, exactly. And so that's where you might have a little trepidation about Tennessee, but I'd still put them in the top 20 in both of these categories. And, you know, we'll see with Nico. I think, I think Nico changes the dynamics of the offense. He allows them to throw over the middle more. It will be a tougher offense to defend because he's just capable of doing a few more things than Joe Milton was.

He cannot throw the ball as far as Joe Milton, but can anyone really throw the ball as far as Joe Milton? Another offense, Jesse, that I thought was interesting, Clemson at number 10. If you told Clemson fans you're going to have the 10th best offense in the country, they are over the freaking moon because that will mean they're a playoff team because their defense is going to be really good, but their offense is the question mark. If they have a top 10 offense that Davo might be throwing another pizza party. Oh yeah.

Oh yeah. I mean, that, that, that, that is a national title team. Probably if Clemson, I'm highly skeptical of that, Andy.

What offense are we going to see? We did not see Garrett Rowley's offense last year. We saw a version of Clemson's offense, which has been kind of trotting. It's been antiquated and doesn't create a ton of explosive plays. We've all heard, or we've all, you know, written, discussed, you know, kind of the lack of versatility and kind of, you know, what they have at the wide out position just isn't what they used to have. It doesn't look like kind of the basketball, you know, where you have all the different body types.

They've had a lot of, you know, way too many similar type players, perhaps let's go. And some of the freshmen they've brought in are going to change that. You know, Davo has been pretty outspoken that he really likes that receiver room this year. So we'll see, it's going to hinge on quarterback, Kate Klubnick, who was a five-star, but just hasn't quite lived up to that billing yet. I'm skeptical that they'll even be, you know, uh, top, they'll be top five in the ACC, but they're not going to be top. There's no way there'll be a top 10 offense in the country this fall. I would be, I would be highly skeptical. If TJ

Moore or Bryant Wesco, why just winds up being off the charts? Great. Like suddenly it looks like they have the receivers that they used to have, maybe. Because Phil Moffa is a good lead back. But yeah, I think you're right. I don't see it. They have not been able to develop receivers like that. Really, it feels like since Jeff Scott took the USF head coaching job.

And now Jeff's back in Clemson, but he's not on the staff there. And I just, I don't know. It feels like that they just lost their receiver mojo. And you think about like, it's hard to watch because you saw for more than 10 years, they were just loaded at that position. You know, you can go back to, to new Hopkins, to Adam Humphries, to Hunter Renfro, to Sammy Watkins, to Mike Williams, to T Higgins. Like it just, it just continued unbroken. And really since T Higgins and Amari Rogers left, they haven't had anything like that. Yeah. I mean, it was, they had, they were the Alabama wide receiver factory before Alabama.

Yeah. I mean, that's what it was. And that was such a – and it was so critical, Andy, and this again, we've harped on this, but at least bears mention, it was so critical because it masked the fact that Clemson really wasn't churning out, you know, NFL offensive linemen. Yeah. And so the offensive line were better than they are now,

but it wasn't like Clemson, especially for a national title team, it wasn't like they were churning out even first and second round picks at offensive line. And so it was because they had such explosive playmakers on the perimeter. Well, when you take away those guys and your offensive line development hasn't gotten any better, that's how we see the offense has really spun its wheels in the last three or four years. Another team that we talked about a little bit earlier, but I feel like was incredibly low

given what we've seen, Ole Miss is number 13 on offense. They've got them below Clemson, below Penn State, below Utah, below Colorado, below Miami. They're not even on the top 25 in defense. And I would argue that no defense reshaped its roster

through the portal more than Ole Miss this year. Now, we know what Pete Golding's scheme looks like. You're now adding Walter Nolan and Prince William Manmiel on the line of scrimmage. You're adding some good players in the secondary. How do you not feel like this has gotten better from a group that wasn't bad last year? Yeah, I mean, that was a stark, stark

and striking omission. Not as bad as Tennessee for both, but certainly no Ole Miss in the top 25. With the amount that they've invested in NIL funds to build that unit, it is a bit of a mercenary unit, but if they don't finish in the top 25, something's gone horribly wrong, especially against the schedule that they're facing. I mean, you mentioned Nolan and Princely, but then they bring in, you know, Poof, the linebacker from Arkansas. They bring in all sorts of secondary help.

You got the kid, the transfer from Alabama, Amos, who I think is going to be a key safety there for them. Just up and down the two deep depth chart, Ole Miss is going to be a lot better. And then you bring back a JJ and a Jared Ivey and kind of some of those foundational pieces that Pete Golden was able to use a lot better. And then you bring back a JJ and a Jared Ivy and kind of some of those foundational pieces that Pete Golden was able to use a year ago. So when you add what they've added against the schedule that we're looking at right there, it would be very surprising if Ole Miss does not produce a top 25 defense. The fact that you get to skip Alabama, Missouri, and Texas on the schedule,

probably three of the better offenses in the conference. You do face Georgia. LSU is going to be probably a very tough game, I would imagine, at Tiger Stadium. But otherwise, it's a very navigable schedule for Ole Miss. And so offensively, they're going to be really good. They're always really good under Lane. 13th is too low in terms of EA's rankings. I would not be surprised to see Ole Miss flirt with a top 10 unit,

certainly a top 10 unit among Power 5 schools this fall. Defensively, though, that's going to be the key. Did they do enough in the trenches? They believe they have, or they can maybe get to the SEC championship game for the first time ever and compete for a college football playoff spot. So sticking in the SEC and defensive rankings, I was surprised by.

They have Florida at number 25. Like if you're going to put one of the Florida units in this, I probably would have put their offense in there somewhere in the 15 through 25 range. Their defense, I would not unless somebody had explained to me how things were going to be different from the past three years. Florida, LSU, and North Carolina being ranked in the top 25 defenses by ea sports i you talk about i

think they just got enamored with some helmets uh because otherwise there is little explanation i think florida is going to be better defensively in armstrong second season because how could it be worse because it was awful last year right it was really bad last year. Yeah. And so it's kind of like USC. If you just go from, you know, you know, abject failure to just bad, that's still an improvement. And so top 25, no way. I do think that, you know, they, they, they got up, you know, pup Howard, he's going to be the transfer linebacker from South Carolina that, you know, the kid from Jacksonville who kind of spurned Florida out of high school ends up coming home.

They're super excited about him. They believe some of the beef they have inside is maybe going to be a little bit more productive than it was a year ago. You get the five-star. They like Justice Boone replacing Prince Liam and Miellon too. Yeah, yeah. You got Boone on one edge and you bring in McCray, the five-star. So they're going to be better.

But you're right. I mean, if there was two units that you would pick, Florida was actually kind of sneaky pretty good offensively last year. They just couldn't always convert touchdowns in the red zone. But Graham Mertz had a nice season. You now have maybe the two-headed game there. I think at least DJ Lagley is going to get some run, one would imagine. They've kind of upgraded the receiver room with Badger from Arizona State.

They lose ETN, but they still like Montrell Johnson, and they feel like the offensive line is going to be better. So of the two units, I see florida certainly having a top 25 offensive things kind of click right i i don't see it at all uh defensively for the gators yeah that's what and if their defense is better that will be the improvement that they need to manage this schedule you know keep billy napier employed all that stuff like so if if ea sports is correct about that defensive ranking then that's great news for florida fans i just again i need to see that on the field before i'm going to believe it because it's it's been

and it you know it extends past this current administration the the defense at the end of the Dan Mullen era was also bad. So it's not like this is a new thing. So they got to get that figured out. You mentioned LSU. Let's talk LSU's defense because as good as LSU's offense was last year, LSU's defense was as bad. And it doesn't feel like they did that much to upgrade the personnel. We've talked a lot about what they tried to do on the defensive line, that the premium you have to pay for even serviceable defensive linemen in the transfer portal is so high that LSU, Brian Kelly said they weren't willing to pay it. I understand that.

I don't understand why he says we don't buy players because you do you just didn't like the price on these yeah and there's a consequence to that and that's why what what kelly said wasn't wasn't wrong but it doesn't mean that there aren't repercussions for not willing to come to the table and what that means for lsu this fall is that while he did upgrade the defensive staff i think considerably bringing in Baker from Missouri and Bo Davis is coming home and a bunch of other assistants, I think, are nice hires. It's still a game of personnel, and they lack the beef

and the bodies up front. And in the SEC, that typically spells disaster. And so in a year three, which I think there is some pressure on Kelly because of what he did in year one with the Tigers and what his predecessors have done in terms of championships, I don't think they got it done where the defense is going to be good enough. We don't know exactly, you know, can Perkins be a super impact player playing inside linebacker

where they didn't flex him out as kind of a situational edge rusher? We'll see. He certainly was a flash as a phenom as a freshman. Last year was a bit of a disappointment. He's still an impact player, but there's not a ton of other impact players, I think, around him defensively. The secondary, Andy, they continue to just try to bring in guys from the portal. That has not worked the last two years. As well as LSU has done

offensively, that secondary seems to give up as many plays as they're scoring. So when you add that plus defensive line concerns, it's hard to be really enthused about LSU's defense yeah I mean LSU's defense will get better definitely when LSU gets back to being what they've historically been which is a program that always has some freshman corner coming in who can play like that just that's how you operate in that state or in that region, because you can usually get somebody out of Louisiana, but also you can go to Houston, you know, you can go elsewhere on the Gulf Coast, you can go into Florida. They've always been able to have somebody who could step in and play right away as a

freshman, at least on one side of the defense. And it's just, it hasn't happened in the last few years. If that, if they ever get back to that, that's where the defense starts to get back. And, and like you said about Bo Davis, like, yeah, that defensive line because of Bo Davis is going to get better, whether it's the existing guys that were already there or who he signs going forward, but that's not a right now solution. Unfortunately for LSU. The Harold Perkins thing is funny to me, though.

I was thinking about this, and I talked about this in the video I did on the defense rankings yesterday. In the video game, you can use Harold Perkins however you want. And so for people like me who've been very critical of how they used Harold Perkins last year, I can play as LSU in the preseason and I, and I can use Harold Perkins as a pass rusher on every down if I want to, which I probably will. And you know,

it's probably going to happen, Jesse. I'm going to realize there's a reason I'm not a football coach and I'm going to shut up. Well, you know, it's funny because maybe if you play against the computer, you can get away with it,

but you play, you go, you go in an online dynasty mode and you're playing against somebody and suddenly you realize they're running power right at you and Harold Perkins can't make a tackle. Yeah. I'll tell you a sneaky defense. I'll tell you a sneaky defense that's going to be awesome both in the game and in real life. They were rated in the top 25, but I think that they have top five to 10 potential in the defense nationally,

and that is Texas A&M. Oh, yeah. Welcome back home, Nick Skorton. With Nick Skorton going home, you got him, Shamar Turner, Shamar Stewart. They added another transfer that I think had eight or nine sacks a year ago as well. Then you got Des Ricks and a bunch of guys they added in the secondary. That's going to be, I think it's a unit that's been a bit underwhelming, and yet a year ago they were still number one in the SEC in sacks and run defense. I think they could be even better. They can't be better than one, but I think they could actually be a better overall unit, you know, under Mike Elko and kind of the new regime there. So I'm

high on the Aggies as potential. And if they have a top five defense in the SEC, if Connor Wegman can do anything and stay healthy, that's's a team as I wrote a column earlier this weekend on three that's a team that I think could at least be a kind of a sneaky sleeper contender you know their schedule or a scary team yeah a scary team that you have to play let's say if you're Texas and you're trying to secure a spot in the SEC championship game at the end of the season that's not a that's not a team you want to have to deal with if they are what they could potentially be no and you know we want to tie this all it's all about engagement andy so if we want to tie this to ea sports's other you know uh news drop this week that they garnered a lot of eyeballs you know cow field being number one uh toughest place to

play a little skeptical about that. You know, you lose three games. You know, we're a year removed from them going four and three at home with a loss to App State. But, okay, well, let's say that's true. Well, Texas A&M plays their four toughest games at home this year. They get Texas, obviously, to end the season, but Notre Dame to start the year.

LSU comes to town. Missouri comes to town that's your fourth toughest game you go three and one or you know uh something like that against the schedule you're feeling pretty good if you're an Aggie fan yeah it is going to be interesting to see what what they are because the last time we saw a healthy Connor Wigman it did feel like A&M was was ready to turn a corner offensively and it it just fell apart after that. The defense has had to carry them for the last few years, which is odd because they had an offensive guy as their head coach at the time.

But now they have a defensive guy as their head coach. They bring in Colin Klein, who ran some very efficient, very good offenses at Kansas State, even if he didn't have the most dynamic playmakers. He had a good quarterback in Will Howard. They had pretty good offensive linemen. But Deuce Vaughn, as great as he is, is not the type of person you normally build an offense around and they had a good offense. Like, so I, I think Colin Klein's got a lot more to play with than, than he's had before. And that's going to be fun to watch. Uh, another new offensive coordinator coming from the state

of Kansas, going somewhere else. You like that segue? Uh, that was perfect. Well done. Here is, here's another EA sports ranking that if this comes to fruition in real life you're gonna have a deliriously happy fan base that is the number 12 overall offense penn state if penn state has the 12th best offense in the country penn state is making the playoff penn state is actually competing for the big 10 title game it might not be oregon and ohio state in a rematch in the Big Ten title game. It might be Penn State and somebody in the Big Ten title game because I have the utmost faith in that defense. Even though Manny Diaz is gone, I have faith in Tom Allen coming in as play caller. I have faith in the

players they have. Abdul Carter will be used to rush the passer most plays, sort of what we say they should do with Harold Perkins at LSU, but Abdul Carter is a little bit bigger and definitely equipped to do it. They're going to be good defensively. If Andy Kotelnicki, coming in as the offensive coordinator, can make that offense dynamic, can make Drew Aller into a, I don't know, a less risk averse, but still careful with the ball passer. If that makes sense. It's, it's tough because one of Drew Aller's best traits is he doesn't turn the ball over, but one of his worst traits is he is so risk averse. It probably leaves

a lot of plays on the field. Like, how do you, how do you manage that? If you're Andy Kotelnicki? I'll tell you what you said you said they'll be delirious that it I almost when I saw those rankings yesterday I I chuckled and was like well this is just another you know pressure point for uh for Mr. James Franklin there because if the expectation is that Penn State has a top 10 defense and a top 12-ish, top 15 offense. Yeah, they should be beating – they should maybe win the Big Ten or at least playing Ohio State for the Big Ten championship game and certainly winning a college football playoff game or two. We'll see.

Offensive line, I think that's been kind of the biggest bugaboo outside of quarterback for Penn State, even though they had Olu a year ago, and yet the running game really wasn't that explosive. They do bring back Allen and Singleton. Have they kind of upgraded at receiver? You know, you lose Lambert to Auburn, but you bring in some other guys. I love Koltanecki's offense. It's funny because I do not like Penn State's personnel all that much, Andy,

in real life, and yet I would be very intrigued to play with them in the game because I do love Koltanecki's offense so much. It's so creative in how he kind of moves guys around. There's tons of motion. He's got some trick plays. He certainly has done a ton with, you know, more with less, I guess, so to speak. What he did with Jason Bean, if he can get something, you know, out of Drew Allers, just phenomenal upside,

one would think that Penn State would at least be a lot better offensively. Top 12, I would be stunned. And so they found ways at Kansas to use Jason Bean and Jalen Daniels when both were healthy. Now, Jalen Daniels wasn't always healthy. But that leads me to wonder, what might they do with Bo Pribula, who is Penn State's backup quarterback, who is a dynamic runner, who it feels like he's been

slotted into that will levis role like you run when you come in you can't throw then will levis goes to kentucky and it turns out oh wait he can throw maybe we should have thrown with him but pervula might give them more options and kodal nikki has not been shy about finding ways to get it when he has, he feels like two capable quarterbacks finding ways to use them both. That's spot on. I also wonder why, why don't they just use drew Aller in the run game? Some he's big as hell.

He's six, five, like two 40 and he can move. Now he has, as you kind of mentioned in terms of passing, he's shown a reluctance to maybe push the ball vertically. There's also been a reluctance to run. I just think that that's something that should also maybe be explored or tapped into if Penn State is at least going to, you know, kind of change the trajectory of their offense. Christopher Jordan in the chat says,

a lot of folks are going to quickly find out about the SMU ponies. I am very fascinated with SMU as they move to the ACC because Rhett Lashley is their head coach. You know, grew up playing for Gus Malzahn, working with Gus Malzahn. And I talked to Red at the ACC spring meetings and he said, he talked to Gus about what UCF's first year in the big 12 was like. And he said, Gus, you know, what would you have done differently? How would you change things before you went into the league to make sure that you were ready? And Gus said, I would have beefed us up on both lines of scrimmage in terms of depth,

because that is where UCF got caught last year. And they had a six and seven season, which was Gus's worst season as a head coach. If you look at that schedule, they should not have collapsed against Baylor. They should have beaten Oklahoma. It should have been a much better year. And they go into this season feeling a lot better about it. Well, Rhett Lashley took that advice to heart beefed up on the offensive defensive lines in the portal we don't know exactly how good that's going to be against the rest of the ACC but it

feels like they you know talking to Rhett he feels comfortable that they have some depth on both lines of scrimmage and then you also get Preston Stone back from injury at quarterback but even if he's not quite ready, you have Kevin Jennings, who led you to a win in the American Conference Championship game last year. Like they managed to keep those guys, which is pretty impressive. And you look at their schedule, you know, they got to win that iron skillet game against TCU, even though that's not a conference game or anything else.

Like that's, that's a kind of a prove it game. But then they get Florida State in their ACC opener that's gonna be a lot of fun in Dallas at Gerald Ford but not that not that Gerald Ford Stadium it's interesting that you kind of mentioned that conversation you had with Brett I had a similar conversation I sat down with him for a while at the uh coaches convention uh back in january and he mentioned a similar plan then that he wanted to kind of pick gus's brain his former mentor also mentioned that he wanted to kind of talk to gary patterson you know about tcu's transition uh into the big 12 what that first season was like and back then uh it was notable because he felt that from a roster standpoint, SMU, like you mentioned, Preston Stone's back.

They have some nice playmakers. Running back's really good. But he thought that competitively, you know, you're talking about just your 22, starting 22. He felt really good about their chances to compete immediately in the ACC. He was concerned, notably, about their depth and kind of where that was. And so they did lose some impact offensive linemen. You know, their starting center, who is an all-conference guy,

goes to Oklahoma. They lose one of their tackles. But they were at least able to replace those guys with some other bodies so that it wasn't like a complete loss. They did bring in some defensive linemen from several power five schools. So I think that they're going to be a team that's going to scare some folks in the ACC in year one. Ordinarily, it seems like we see these units struggle or these teams struggle in that transition season. SMU may be a bit of an outlier.

Cody in the chat says, speaking of Gus, UCF Big 12 talk, please. Yeah, UCF is actually. Cody in the chat says, speaking of Gus, UCF big 12 talk, please. Yeah. UCF is actually number 21 in the offensive rankings on the EA rankings. And I think this is a good place for them. I actually think that's a pretty good spot. Uh, you know, they bring back RJ Harvey, they bring in Penny Boone, they bring in KJ Jefferson at quarterback KJ Jefferson is Gus Malzahn's create a quarterback. Well, I guess Cam Newton's probably Gus Malzahn's create a quarterback, but you know, it, it, if you take superhuman people aside, KJ Jefferson is probably what he designed as the quarterback he would want in his offense. So I am very excited about what they might be able to do in the run

game. And KJ Jefferson has shown at Arkansas when he was in that Kendall Bryles offense that when that run game's cooking like when he and Rocket Sanders really had it going they were a threat to throw down a field because you just had to load the box against they'll be fun to play with in the game too you what you rock astronaut uniforms and you're running Gus's you know uh option mentioned there, I mean, Harvey is one of the – has to be one of the most underrated players in the country. And he comes back to school with, you know, he did monster season. Then you add a Penny Boone. They're going to be fun. I don't know how competitive they'll be in the Big 12 because, as aforementioned,

you know, I think they still have some depth concerns, especially defensively. But they'll be better. They'll be better than they were a year ago. And KJ and kind of the three-headed monster they have at tailback, I think is going to be a big reason why. Yeah. And it's, can they stop anybody defensively? And they completely revamped their linebacking core through the portal, completely revamped the secondary. So the defense is a mystery. We're going to have to wait and see what that looks like. It will have to stop. You know, it's interesting that the Big 12,

for those who don't actually watch the Big 12, everybody thinks, you know, those people still think that it's all air raid. The Big 12 is a ground and pound league now, Jesse. I think about Oklahoma State with Ollie Gordon state with ollie gordon coming back and alan bowman coming back and that is an old old offensive line like they're gonna run the ball a ton at oklahoma another ea sports omission yeah yeah they know they had their defense in the top 25 did not have their offense in the top 25 which that's a scary offense and you know oklahoma state one of the three kansas state utah know, Oklahoma State, one of the three,

Kansas State, Utah, Oklahoma State are kind of the three co-favorites in Vegas to win the Big 12, although I can go about 10 deep who might win the Big 12. And that conference is going to be, it's a wide open league, but it's going to be fun. It's going to be super fun because, yeah 10 i don't know if 10 can win it uh but 10 teams think they can win it right exactly and that and and one of those 10 might be the one that screws it up for for somebody who's about to make the championship game in week 11 like that that's the part you've gotta you've gotta be careful with. I mean, so Arizona, maybe Colorado, maybe Iowa state,

but definitely Kansas state, maybe Kansas, definitely Oklahoma state, maybe Texas tech, Utah, definitely, definitely West Virginia, maybe UCF. And then what if TCU is good again, TCU played for national title two years ago. What I think Cincinnati is going to be a lot better. They don't have it. They don't have, they don't have any chance to win the league, but I think that they're going to be much friskier in their second season was kind of some of their,

their portal additions. I'll tell you a sneaky, sneaky dark horse team. That'll be both super fun to play in the game. And it's also going to be awesome offensively this year, and maybe a little bit better defensively, which could be an interesting g5 team to play with especially when folks are looking to like oh let's can we build up

a program into a national title contender how about south florida you know you bring in byron brown baby i mean he'll be super fun to play with us in the game and then watching in real life i mean he's you know you talk about these smaller schools, Preston stone stays at SMU. Well, Byron Brown, he could have gone. But he was, you know, Alex Golish, and he and Alex Golish, the head coach there have a great relationship. He stays in Tampa. I think, you know, they have that game against Alabama, which last year they almost, you know, scared the tide. I don't know if they're going to go into Tuscaloosa, but they're going to pick off some teams,

and they're going to be a real conference title contender, which is rather amazing, considering where that program was before Golis got there just two years ago. I would agree with that, and I'm excited to see. We talked about Alex Golis on Dear Andy because we got asked about who are the coaches that we should be watching who might be active in the carousel or might be big targets in the carousel. And what Alex Golish did in year one at USF certainly puts him in that category.

One thing about the game, and this is something I was thinking about yesterday, and Clark Brooks, our colleague at On3, brought up an interesting point. It may be that the game designers don't quite know what to do with the veer and shoot offense. And that's why Tennessee and Ole Miss are ranked, you know, to Ole Miss is ranked too low. Tennessee is not ranked at all. You don't have USF ranked in the top 25 offenses like it might be that it's hard for them to recreate that offense in the video game uh as clark pointed out you can't have like maybe maybe they can maybe they will eventually get to this point but there's probably not a lot of situations

where you have the receiver who's not running the deep route just running in place on plays or that you can just immediately switch to a tunnel screen that operates at this massively high tempo like i do think because of the custom audibles you can probably operate at the tempo that real life josh hypel real life alex golish operate at but you got to practice that pretty hard and get pretty good at that to do it. Isn't that what makes this game so interesting though? Is, is that they are,

is that they have, is that so many of these offenses and defenses that they, it's much more, I mean, you've, you did a big video about it. I know other folks have talked about it as well, that,

you know, that there's all these individual playbooks and scheme-specific stuff just for Tennessee and just for Oregon and just for a UCF. So it may be difficult to replicate. It certainly seems like they've tried to or have or are trying to. So we'll see. TBD, I guess we've got a couple weeks to see when it comes out but certainly it's gonna be interesting to explore let me throw a little piece of video game news at you oh this is i'm told i am told i have not seen this with my own

eyes yet but i'm told that since i got to play the game last month and between then and when the game actually drops, there will be even more of UNLV's go-go offense in the game and even more accurate depiction of UNLV's go-go offense. So just, just keep that in your back pocket dynasty mode players. I thought you were going to say that uh colorado continued to move up in the rankings because they just somehow somehow there's that number two on offense the new cycle the new cycle flips and all of a sudden the buffs are yeah top five listen we're pretty good at engagement farming which is why we can spot it when we see it and that's absolutely what happened here our producer river just put in the chat who's your dynasty team ulm warhawks

general booty baby we're general booty will be the foundation for a ulm national title that's what's going to happen here that's going to be hard. But in that part of the game, because it is going to be so much more realistic with the recruiting and some of the other stuff, that it's going to be much harder for you to lead the Warhawks and the Booty Charm to a national championship in the game? I think probably, especially when you have to do it with the transfer portal and with high school recruiting. Our guy Christopher, he's heard G.J. Kenny on the show, so he's going Texas State. He's going to take the Bobcats all the way.

That's a good pull. North Texas is a good pull because for some reason they were always super overrated in the game. They were not actually that good as a program, and yet your ability to kind of take the mean green all the way. They're an interesting one. I, I,

I haven't, I haven't centered on my exact G five dynasty one yet. Georgia. I feel like this is going to be a fun one. Yeah. The Sunbelt is going to be a popular destination just because there's a lot of teams that, that people love.

And, and like i don't know if you saw the the news at appalachian state once again sold out all its season tickets like people who love like those teams love those teams those are not like oh we're a commuter school you know we can't we just we started a football team we'll'll see what happens. These are people who were deeply embedded in football when their teams were FCS teams and they've moved up and now they care a lot about their football team. Well,

and app state is, is fun too, because you get to play in that stadium. That's like, they just plucked it in the middle of like the forest of Lord of the rings. And there's just like mountains and everything around it it and then there's a football stadium just sitting there I I can't wait to see this I can't wait to play in all these stadiums uh yeah I do think some of these things wrong but listen I'm sure they disagree like the developers of the game when

I put out my top 25 I'm sure they disagree with it too so that's okay that's part of the fun of doing this but this has been a great conversation great primer for the season because I'm even more excited about what these teams look like in real life and look I'm telling you right now Jesse like Penn State fans Clemson fans they're just they're crossing their fingers hoping man hope those video game people are right about our offenses. Yeah. And USC and Florida are saying, man, if we got top 25 defenses, we might be cooking. Yeah. We might be cooking. We got, we got, you know, some, some hot fish oil grease going this year. That's exactly right. Jesse Simonson, thank you so much for joining us.

And thank all of you for coming and hanging with us for an hour every day. We love you and we appreciate you. Listen, this is the college football off season. We are very much enjoying EA Sports, giving us lots of different things to talk about this week. So I want to thank them too. But coming up next week,

there's a couple teams moving to a new conference officially on Monday. There's actually a run in Norman that ends about midnight on Monday to celebrate the move. Texas and Oklahoma going celebrate the move. Texas and Oklahoma going to the SEC. Moving day is Monday.

We'll talk about how they got there, everything that happened between when they decided to go to the SEC and now, and what it's going to look like with them in the SEC on Monday. Moving day. We'll talk to you Monday.