Andy & Ari On3 - College Football Week 10 Preview: Penn State at Ohio State, Georgia vs Florida, USC at Nebraska

Episode Date: November 1, 2025

Join Andy & Ari LIVE from Columbus, Ohio, as the fellas get ready for a big weekend in College Football. A huge Saturday in College Football and Andy & Ari have you covered here! (0:00) Intro: Thank you to Modelo(1:00) Penn State at #1 Ohio State(13:06) #5 Georgia vs Florida(18:00) #9 Vanderbilt at #20 Texas(22:00) #23 USC at Nebraska(26:20) Conclusion: Grab you a Modelo! This show is sponsored by Modelo! Some things in life are just made for each other. Peanut Butter and jelly. Macaroni and cheese. Modelo and college football. If you’re watching this, it means you live and breathe football. All season long. You know what that makes you? A Full-Time Fan. Which means you deserve a Modelo. Because football wouldn’t be the same without you. Modelo is the official beer sponsor of The College Football Playoff. Join On3 today and get one full year of access to The Athletic included! https://www.on3.com/subscribe/C Watch our show on YouTube! https://www.youtube.com/@On3sports Hosts: Andy Staples, Ari WassermanProducer: River Bailey Interested in partnering with the show? Email [e-mail]  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to Andy and Ari on three. We are high above Columbus, Ohio. Home of the horseshoe on the banks of the Olentangy. Feels good to be back, Andy. Not quite as cold as I thought it was. Beautiful day for football. Yeah, you're built for this. I'm not.

As you can see. Very bundled up. He's got his pinini beanie on. But we're here with Medello at the Panero lot. ready for a big game. Yeah, come see us. If you are listening to the show, watching the show as you're coming into the Ohio State Penn State game, we're going to be here until about 1 o'clock.

And this is going to be fun. It is Producer Rivers' first Ohio State game. Obviously, we were hoping for a little higher stakes in this game, but zombie Penn State is fascinating. Also, we got Madelo, Shellana, Lemoness, All. So back in the day, when I used to live in. Columbus, Ohio. That was a big Bud Light Lime guy.

Uh-huh. This is of the same ilk, right? Oh, this is better. This is way better. Let's see what we got here. Got to beat that competition. This is way better. Oh, that'll hit.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, I love this like for the morning. A beer walking in before press box action, I think is going to be good for us. Well, I mean, sports writers used to just have, you know, a bottle in their desk. I mean, I used to watch Mad Men and these guys would get hammered every day. way just right every story hammered yeah yeah okay we'll be fine yeah well i this is this is incredible the medella activation is so freaking cool they do this every home game uh we're at the panera lot and west lane avenue and so if you even if you can't make it for this one if you're at an

ohio state game come on by because this is so cool there are samples there are coosies everything you need to get yourself ready for game day to be a full time fan and of course ohio state Ohio State has kind of the ultimate full-time fans. We do need to start ranking the full-time fan bases because I think Ohio State is one or, you know, top two maybe. The SEC fan bases are going to argue, but we were talking about this as we came in. There's no SEC fan base that is, I'd say, more passionate than Ohio State.

Yeah. And I don't know that I'd say that about any other Big Ten fan base, but Ohio State is just on another level. And if we're doing the full time, I have a quick tale. Yeah, go ahead. Andy, when I was covering Ohio for the first few years of my career at the plane dealer, I had to cover the basketball team too. And it was a really tough thing to do because, as you know,

spring football starts right around the NCAA tournament. And, you know, recruiting season is kicking up and all the, it's a really hard thing to cover both. Anyway, I spent all this time writing this big feature about, former Ohio State basketball star DeAngelo Russell. I mean, talk to his family. This is while he was playing. Well, he was playing here, of course.

And they were heading into a season where they were, I believe, a top eight seed in the tournament. And he was the star. And could they make a run? And my plan was to drop it the first day of the NCAA tournament on newspapers. Oh, yeah, yeah. Stories when things would happen. Anyway, the backup left guard, like, tore his ACL in camp that day. And I had my stories up.

And that was back on the day when I could, like, track my own metrics. It was 10 to 1 for the 300-word newser that I had to write in order. And that's how you know you're a full-time fan. Right. When the backup left guard outweighs the tear-jurker feature on the great basketball player, who is the best player on the team. That is how, you know, I remember when I was a beat writer covering Florida. It was kind of the same thing.

They had the two basketball teams that won the national title. and so we're covering the run to the second national title and I was home in Gainesville in between trips to the tournament sites and covered a spring football practice and at the end of that practice me and the guy from the Orlando Sentinel this is when I was the Tampa Tribune got a chance to walk from the practice field back to the stadium with Tim Tebow nobody else we waited him out he'd thrown for an extra 30 minutes after practice and this is you know he's going into a sophomore year he's about to become a starter and so we talked to him for a while. I wrote a story off that blew everything basketball out of the water.

Yeah. And I don't know. Maybe it's just a football country. And that was Joe Kim Noah and those guys. But I think being a full-time fan is being locked in to the injury report of a backup offensive lineman in March. Yes. Like that's like that is full time. Right. Like literally quite definition. You are not just showing up here on game day. But I am so happy that we are here. I love this environment. I love Ohio State. because these people get after it every day of the year. And the Penn State fans do too. I mean, that's the thing I'm noticing.

And I had some Penn State fans on my flight here yesterday. And they're here to have a good time. Like they understand the circumstances of this season. They are here to have a good time. They are here to be full time. Right beneath here, Andy, there's a sign for, there's a Panera sign. And underneath it, it says James Franklin, money spent.

Instead of money well spent. I thought that was quite a music. But like, yeah, you know, this is part of it too. Like, even when your season's not going well, you only get 12 of these games a year, man. You better enjoy them, even if you're not going, you know, because the fun of it isn't just the game. It's the environments before it. And obviously, if you're a Penn State fan or any other fan, this is one of the iconic venues in the sport that you want to at least see once in your lifetime. So let us talk about zombie teams because zombie Penn State is here.

Zombie Florida is playing Georgia today. Zombie LSU doesn't play today. They'll be playing Alabama next week. But let's talk about zombie teams because it doesn't have. happen often, but sometimes when the coach has been fired, strange things can happen. And they can win some games that they're not supposed to. Penn State, unfortunately, was the victim of that. I think UCLA is like the prime example of what can happen when you fire.

UCLA is patient zero this year. Yeah. UCLA is patient zero. If we're using our walking dead analogy, Penn State was alive when it walked into the Rose Bowl and UCLA bit it and then it became a zombie. I wish I would have used that in the written column I had yesterday because I did write bitten but I didn't I never seen that so uh yeah the the entire point of like the the analogy though is like which way do you go right like do you die on the you know or do you come into Ohio

stadium going brains yeah and start eating Ohio State brains like now here's the thing no matter what happens on that field today Ohio State cannot die so like that's Ohio State isn't in that delicate scenario that used to exist five years ago where if you get clipped at home, you might be in a really bad spot, especially with Indiana and Oregon, both still kind of hanging around there, obviously. But at the same time, like, I wonder about whether or not Penn State has fight enough left to give Ohio State a good game. And the reason why Andy is, like, you know, I've covered this team a long time. I've covered this team a long time in the stadium at noon games. And there are certain days.

where they show up and they don't have it. Right. And I think a lot of times that happens and the reason why upsets happen in general in college football is because teams don't always show up with blood on their fangs. Yeah. And if Ohio State has allowed itself, and I'm not saying that they did, but if they have allowed themselves to start viewing Penn State as a team that's more in line with a Purdue or a team that's not very good. Yeah.

And then Penn State's been treating this game like their Super Bowl for the past two weeks. Don't forget, Penn State's got a lot of NFL players. players on their team still. I know that Drew Aller got hurt, but Ethan Grunkemeyer, too, the backup quarterback was a top 110 player on the on three industry rankings and he grew up five minutes from here. Yeah. So like there are the storylines that you could like say, well, I can't believe I didn't see that coming. If you try to see it coming, you can talk yourself into something happening here. Well, and there are, that's the thing. This is not a case of Ohio State just punching Minnesota and bullying Minnesota. This is this is a team with comparable

athletes. Maybe not as deep, but comparable athletes all over the field. And I think that's what makes Penn State dangerous. And I know, there are going to be some people like, you're just trying to talk this up because that's the game you're at. No, I feel this way about this game. I feel this way way about the Florida, Georgia game in Jacksonville. Yeah, and also to like, ease your mind if you're one of those people who thinks we're trying to guess up the game. Ohio State also could win 44 to 10. Like, I don't, like, that's on the table, too. We don't know which way they're going to go. that to everybody this year. That's that's the other question I have because I'm so excited to see this defense in person because what it looks like is one of the most dominant defenses that we've

seen. And it might be because the competition they've played or it might be because they're just that awesome. So like will you rattle off just for fun some of the best non-Ohio state players in the country? No, just do it like like Rubin Bain, Rubin Bain, Dylan Stewart, and South Carolina. Okay. Let's use those two. Yeah. Would you rather have Jeremiah Smith or one of those two?

Jeremy Smith. Now, they play different positions. I know. I'm just saying if you were starting a team, who would you pick? Jeremiah Smith. Okay. What about them or Caleb Downs? What about Carnell Tate?

Can I get to Arvel Reese. Okay. I want Arvel Reese. I might, I don't know if I want Arbel Reese before Jeremiah Smith. I don't think I'm that crazy. No. But Arvel Reese is a cheat code. cheat code so the fact like you might say what are you guys talking about of course rubin bain

you're fine to have that opinion and i'm not even going to argue about it the fact that it's even a question yeah trying to it tries and it's no it's no disrespect to ruben bain or to dylan stewart or like dylan stewart individually he's probably going to be drafted above these people yeah well i don't know where arvel rees ranks in the freak of nature that dillin stewart is he's up there but in terms of production yeah he's he's out i think he's having a better fiscal year than Ruben Bain. I'd have to go look and see Dylan Stewart. And they play different positions.

Like, you can do so many different things with Reese. You can make him a pass rusher, but you can also, like, he'll cover tight end if he needs to. He can run. And that's a kid that's like also an example of why Ohio State has maintained its excellence because he's just a Cleveland Glenville kid. Yeah. That's not a portal edition.

That's not somebody they paid to come from Florida. Like, that's just a kid that was in Cleveland. And Ohio State's done a really good job of that still. Like, they've not let that drop. the entire time that that is yeah they've maintained that throughout the nil era and so and and they probably still will be able to for a long time for sure so but like we are on lurd yes last night was Halloween um we watched a terrible football game we did and we can we can segue between uh this game and the next game with the the i don't even what to north Carolina syracuse congratulations to

bill bellich and company on the first uh power power four win first ac cc win uh Syracuse holy cow we knew they couldn't throw we knew that was the problem we knew since stevengelly got hurt they really struggled to throw the ball but wow that was miserable to watch they also can't tackle that that's another problem i don't know if we want to have a three minute discussion about fran brown's like candidacy for whatever jobs may be coming open i don't know this probably hurts that but i wanted to ask you this i was thinking about it before i went to bed last night he had a lacrosse player playing quarterback he did he did like in this era if you lose your starting quarterback.

Like, I know we always say that it is your job as the coach, but let me ask you, nobody has a good backup quarterback, okay? No one does, really. Aaron Filo at Georgia Tech's pretty good. Yeah, I don't know. He's at Syracuse. I don't think they're going to have like Terry Bradshaw on the bench. Maybe it should be somebody better than what they had.

Like, I'll give you that. But like, I don't know how much this goes into my calculus of like Fran Brown wouldn't be good with more. Yeah, I think he can probably talk his way out of that and into me. maybe something else. What's the position of the quarterback? He's a long stick middy. He's a dude on the lacrosse field. Did you know that?

What's that? They called River Long Stick Middy in college or in high school. They didn't have a lacrosse team though. That was the greatest part. That's the greatest part. He was a slot receiver. Yeah, he was. I walked right into that one.

I'm sorry. Slot receiver. I'm so sorry. It just derailed the show. Now, all right, back to zombie Penn State. Zombie Penn State is still here, still has a chance to make something happen that they will remember forever. Like the Michigan team from last year did not have the greatest year. They came to this stadium and they will always, they will tell their grandkids about the game.

That was less than a calendar year ago. And I don't know if I want to compare those two things because Michigan's a mental thing. The spread is now lower than the Michigan game spread from last year. Why don't we go to a zombie game that we actually think could... Okay, let's go to Jacksonville. We'll go to Jacksonville and a closer spread. Yeah. That's a rivalry game. Yeah, that changes the calculus a little bit.

It's on a neutral site. Yeah, this changes the calculus a little bit. Florida's first game since firing Bill and Apier. Florida, Georgia, we're talking about if you're not. Yeah, so Georgia's a seven and a half point favorite. I think I have to check the morning, see if it's changed at all. But that sounds about right. And we don't know what Florida's offense is going to look like with a new play caller.

It's Ryan O'Hara, the quarterback's coach. I really have no clue how this is going to work. Because I almost feel like it's going to be down to the wire. Maybe Florida can win it or Florida loses by four touchdowns. I think it's one of those two things. Yeah, I mean, Billy Gonzalez, the interim head coach. Yep. Does he have the ability to get the most out of the roster in a way that Billy Napier was unable to?

And that is the question. And it really probably comes down not just to play calling. itself because look they're not putting in a new playbook it's the same cheesecake factory menu you're just ordering things in a different order that's all it is yeah also you can with a menu that's as thick as cheesecake factories you can also order the wrong thing just get the chicken costaletta and quit getting cute with it you know what i mean yeah what's the one with the capers i don't know what that means there's a there's a there's a uh it's called chicken chicken piccata chicken cacotta chicken costoleta is the one that's got some white alfredoish sauce

they make a burger with a with a big hunk of mac and cheese on it oh that's pretty good too like call the mac and cheeseburger play for dj lagway and see if that works yeah like yeah who knows thing i don't know but like the galvanized roster scenario but and that that's the thing it is a very good roster and you talk to the the teams that have played like the coaches from the teams that have played florida have said this and it wasn't just lip service like oh we're sorry billy napier's getting fired Like, they meant it that they feel like this is one of the more talented teams they've played this year. And I think if you ask the Georgia coaches, they'd say the same thing.

Like, this is one of the more talented teams they've played this year. Yeah. And it's dangerous because of that talent level. And my understanding, though, is that Billy Napier, for his flaws on Saturday, built a good culture. Yes. And I think that, like, the players, when they played for him, even while they were losing, continued to play hard. Correct. So the thought process that all of a sudden they're going to come out and start playing, like,

and win one for the Gipper type of deal. No, they were playing like that all along. I actually had somebody asked me that the other night. They said, why did the players quit on Billy this year? When they didn't quit on him last year? They never quit on him this year. Yeah, they just played better teams. Yeah, they were playing really hard.

And they beat Texas, which may or may not mean something. I don't know. But like, yeah, so do you have, does it come down to, do you have a better offensive plan and do you, can you call the plays better? Yeah. But like, here's the thing. Georgia is a national title contender without question. We know that.

But a flawed one. dominant are they and can they get hit by a team talented like because like this is the florida trap i wrote about this on friday it's like there's so many things to get trapped by from a thought process narrative roster scenario right lorda like is any of that actually true and like is george is susceptible to getting hit by that today well here's the thing is can george's defense hold up can it get stops because it didn't get a lot of stops against old miss it didn't get offense has been awesome. It didn't get a ton of stops against Tennessee. They ended up winning those games because the offense was great.

Yeah. So I do think, you know, Florida's still got a little bit of a banged-up secondary. I think Gunner Stockton and company can have a pretty good day. The question is, can Florida turn it into a track meet and force Georgia to play that style of game again? Now, Georgia's won a couple of those. So it may be that they just get them into that game and Georgia still wins. I mean, Florida does have ability to hit you deep, right? They do.

They do. I mean, and Dallas Wilson's probably healthier than he has been in a couple weeks. This could be the Dallas Wilson game potentially. I don't know, but I feel like I could get myself where to a place where I'm expecting us to see a four-quarter game in that one, more so than the one that we're at. So we'll see. It's very interesting. So those are your zombie teams today.

We'll talk about zombie LSU next week when they go play Alabama because that's another very talented team that's under new management. And the zombie premise, Andy came up with this week was really good. Halloween I will suck your blood That's a vampire What? I don't know

Brains Oh brains They want to eat brains Brains Got it River 8 brains in high school I mean it was East Tennessee But

I mean Deepest East Tennessee I was like You know Zombies are only with coaches Who got fired And I'm like Well is Texas a zombie team

Which is a good segue To Art Channing is playing today I thought there was a chance That called well, the backup quarterback. What's his first name, are you? Say his first name. Okay. All right.

Just making sure. Does it matter what his first day? Are you testing me? I do this for a living too, man. You just didn't say it and it seemed weird to me. Oh, okay. Matthew called well. That dude could like has thrown like four passes this year and they're all dogs.

Every time he's come in in a, in a high leverage situation, he's thrown a freaking rocket. I thought that we were going to, um, I thought that we were going to get to see him play potentially. And I was like, is Texas a zombie team? Because I did have a lot of fun this week, like just envisioning a deal where Matthew called, well, came out and threw for 455 yards and just like dot in the field all over the place. And like the position that you were, that you were like Texas fans would have been put in had that happen. Like you win a game with your backup quarterback and it's not Arch Manning and he looks awesome in a year where you've been losing your mind about offensive inefficiency. Now, of course, Texas's offensive line would still stink with Matthew called.

well back there. There's no question about it. Right. So there's still going to be that problem. But the question is, can Vandy get after them the way Florida did? We don't know. That's what we're waiting to find out. The other question I have is, can Texas defense nullify what Diego Pavia does? Because we've seen them play really well, but I go back to the game. They lost the Florida game. Like, they were letting Jaden Ball run all over them. The one thing I will say is that in college football, and it's been proven time and time again as I'm like vastly below 500 in picking games this year, that once you trick yourself into believing that you know something you are shown that you don't know

anything well and i wonder if that's the next oklahoma game was prime example i was like oklahoma is just going to terrorize archmanning no it's like today the day where we we learn what like vanderbilt might not be as good or is today the day that we learn that vanderbilt's legit awesome like i don't know what we're going to learn from ls u and missouri we should already know that am i wrong i don't know yeah i mean i guess that's why they play the games and and i mean missouri's quarterback got injured halfway through it and lSU stinks so like i don't know maybe i mean i'm not saying that they're bad right i'm not implying that they're not a good team no no i i'm saying like as as we let me ask you this question okay is vanderbilt a team that could conceivably in your mind

win the SEC this year yet hesitation is what i'm saying yeah you're gonna you're not going to hesitate when i ask you that tomorrow because i think if if they are I can see them making the playoff, but it's hard for me to see them winning the SEC because that means they've got to beat Bama or they've got to beat Georgia. And we've seen them play Bama. They were close. Yeah. And lay it on Texas, you're going to snap call and say, yes, I can conceive of that.

Yes. Because we did watch the Vandy Alabama game and we go, okay, it's at a neutral site. Okay, they were right there until the, you know, the in the terrible turnovers in the game that hurt them. Yeah, two bad red zone turnovers. It was a closer-ish game. Like, I don't think that that was like, I didn't come away from. from that thinking Vanderbilt stinks, they're a fraud. But if they go down there and they lose by 14 points or 10 points to Texas,

a team that hasn't been playing well, you might be like, oh, well, if Andy's, Clark Lee's been great, he's a genius, they're much better than they were, but maybe we were a little bit too much on the, on the playoff SEC contender thing. So I think we're going to find out about that. And you know what, as much as we've joked about Matthew Caldwell coming in and throwing dimes and stuff, like, you watch your starting quarterback to play. It's good that he's healthy enough to play, Arch.

and I want to see him succeed too because I actually feel bad for the way things have gone this year and I think a lot of it's out of his control. And I feel like he's been getting better and he had a good game against Mississippi State. It wasn't his fault that they were down 3821. Yeah.

And if you think that he stinks, I think it's still premature. Now, he's not going to have the year that I envisioned, certainly, maybe not what most people envisioned, but like I still think that going into the offseason if they're a nine and three team at the end of the year and they go fix their offensive line and get a receiver that can get open. They still have a chance to be an elite level national title. contender in 2026. So, you know, nobody wants to talk about next year as we're on November 1st,

but here we are analyzing those games. But yeah, we've got a good set of games. And then, of course, Andy, the last one we want to talk about as USC Nebraska. Yes. I guess you were getting some hate on. We were, the two of us. I don't, was it from the main account? On three, yeah, on three's main account posted a clip of us talking about this game. And obviously, we both pick USC to cover in this game. USC's a six and a half point favorite on the road. And my thing on this game is, is if USC can run against Nebraska, USC's going to win. Because, like, when USC runs the ball well,

when they average more than four yards of carry, they kick people's asses. When they're held below four yards of carry, they lose. And that is pretty universal. I think USC runs the ball better than Northwestern, which average more than five yards of carry against Nebraska and as well as Minnesota.

So I wanted to ask you this, because you referenced, like, what teams, excuse me, what teams have done against other teams in the past? Yep. And I do think that, like, transitive property is stupid but at the same time taking elements of what happens in games like from a physical ability to hang isn't stupid like how much do you take because like for instance

Louisville beat up on Miami yes physically yes does that mean that Miami's offense and defensive lines are overrated is that is it well no because it's possible to have a bad game is it it is definitely possible to have a bad game you're absolutely right about that because as we know with Miami like that the the notice they're their line of scrimmage play was fantastic yeah so yeah i think it is quite possible that you can just have an off day now the question is who's going to have the off day like i don't think u sc had an off day running against notre dame i think notre dame is just better because i feel like if you're a good line that should just be the consistent thing every week they're not but they're not

a particularly good line they're good against teams at their level they're not good against teams that are more closer to elite. Yeah. And that's the problem. And the thing, too, you caught me on this a few weeks ago of like, you consider Nebraska as an old Big Ten West type team, but they do not play like that. It's kind of funny

to think that. No, that's what you said to me. You think that. It's like we're talking about USC beating up on somebody physically right now. Like, that's something that we can take for granted yet. But that's what's happened to Nebraska and their losses is they have been, they've been dominated on the ground and they have been able to protect Dylan Raola.

That's how they lose. That's how they lose games. So if their offensive line comes out and plays the best game of its season, and they're pushing USC around, and they're controlling the game on the ground, and they're protecting Raola, and they're stopping USC's running it. Because the thing is, like, Notre Dame control the game against USC. You can talk about it being kind of close. It wasn't really, though.

Like, if you kept playing, Notre Dame's lead was just going to stretch out because Notre Dame was averaging six yards of carry and holding USC to 2.7 yards of carry. Like, you're going to lose every game that happens. Yeah, and I think Notre Dame is a legitimate win games in January. So, like, you know, I don't know. I feel like U.S.C. is, like, roping me back in. And, like, I get roped back into that West Coast sexy a lot. And, like, you know how it is.

The weather, the weather's nice, the, you know. Oh, the weather's nice here. Yeah. Look at this. Sunrise over Columbus. Hey, it does not get more beautiful than this. Let me look into the camera and say this. I had maybe the, not the best decade of my life.

because the best decade of my life is the one where I met my wife and had my child in my 20s were freaking awesome dude like I had a great time and I lived here during that time yeah all right now let me finish living living above the bars on high street yeah but the ones I was on I was a Tinder I did I did the running man you know what I mean but I made Oklahoma fans on our show very upset when I said why wouldn't Lincoln Riley Lee for Norman and then people were like because LA is beautiful and then people were sending me like pictures of like beautiful like ranch style like and it's like pretty i would much rather live in l a than columbus ohio so like it's you know la is how dare you it's true

look at this look at that stadium you know how you know i'm right it's a lot harder to buy a house there than it is here yeah okay well maybe i'll just buy one here how's that sound we talked about that last night we want to mandi and i want to get a Airbnb business i don't know that pizza place you had me here. Massey's Pizza. Uh, we, that might be reason enough to move. Yeah. So this, this is going to be so much fun. We got, we got Buckeyes fans coming.

We got Penn State fans here. Come by. If you can't, we're at 300 West Lane Avenue right next to Panera bread. You'll see the giant Medello arches. We got, we got chelada, we got medello especial, we got Madello Oro. We got them all. We got games contests. It's going to be so much.

fun. Come on by if you're here in Columbus and we will talk to you after the game.