Andy & Ari On3 - Georgia Tech SHOCKS Florida State in Dublin!

Episode Date: August 24, 2024

This show is sponsored by PrizePicks, America’s most fun daily fantasy game. Use the code STAPLES to play $5 and get $50 instantly. COLLEGE FOOTBALL IS BACK! Georgia Tech’s Aidan Birr hit a field goal as time expired to give Georgia Tech a 24-21 win in the first game of the college football season. Georgia Tech’s offensive line handled Florida State’s defensive line, and QB Haynes King was cool under pressure.   Meanwhile, Florida State will have to figure out how to threaten teams deep if it hopes to have a chance to repeat as ACC champ. Want to watch the show instead? Head on over to YouTube! https://youtube.com/live/_040wYxUV6sHost: Andy StaplesProducer: River Bailey

We talk about this stuff for nine straight months, and then what happens? An 11.5 point underdog goes to Dublin and wins on a walk-off field goal. Welcome back, college football. Greatest sport on earth. This is Andy Staples on 3, presented by Wendy's. Your instant reaction special edition to Georgia Tech 24, Florida State 21, and what a way to start the college football season. This is perfect. This encapsulates everything. We expect Florida State to come back. We expect Florida State to be the ACC champ.

Full disclosure, I recorded a segment with the biggest podcast in the world for next week. They asked me who I thought would win the ACC. I said, Florida State, but I said, I might look really stupid when this comes out because Georgia Tech may have beaten them. And sure enough, here I look very stupid. But that's the thing about this sport. You never know until they actually put the ball on the field. Georgia Tech dominated up front, dominated. You had people on Friday saying, Florida State's got the best D-line in the country.

I don't know where that sentiment came from, by the way. I think the thought was they'd have a pretty good D-line. The hyperbole was hitting this week pretty hard. But Georgia Tech's offensive line stuffed Florida State's D-line in a locker. Just dominated that game up front. Dominated the line of scrimmage. You heard Brent Key after the game.

Run the ball. They averaged 5.3 yards a carry. They didn't do anything crazy. You know, think about Haynes King had a lot of interceptions last season. He had zero interceptions on Saturday. Zero. He took good care of the ball.

They didn't do anything crazy. When he got under pressure, Buster Faulkner, their offensive coordinator, had built-in answers, and Haynes King knew how to find them. Just tremendous. Meanwhile, Florida State, well, a lot of us said, hey, they're going to be fine. DJ is going to come in. The offense is going to keep going. It may not be as good as it was with Jordan Travis throwing to Keon Coleman last year,

but it's still going to function. I said, I think they control the ball on the ground. I said that in the pick. I picked Florida State to cover. I said, I think they control the ball on the ground. They absolutely did not control the ball on the ground. Georgia Tech's defense, new coordinator, Tyler Santucci. They were much better tackling than they were last season.

But also also Florida State just didn't generate a push. There was no fear for most of the game of Florida State throwing downfield. It wasn't until late in the game when Florida State had that tying touchdown drive where they threw over the middle twice on fourth down to convert that you saw really anything dangerous down the field. Florida State was not trying to take a lot of shots early, and Georgia Tech just sort of pinned their ears back and came. And there wasn't much Florida State could do about that.

DJU did not handle the pressure well, looked rattled, wasn't moving very quickly in the pocket. So a lot of you told us DJU is going to be the same guy. I was saying, no, no, you put him in a different system. Maybe it's going to be different. But Hero1980, he was one of the people telling us about hey i think he's going to be very similar the same problem showed up the same good thing showed up too like i mentioned those fourth down conversions those passes look great and that is the story of dju at clemson at oregon state is you see those great passes and you think, okay, there's going to come a point where you get a whole game of this. And it just hasn't happened.

Lawrence in the chat, FSU just got dominated. Run the ball. Well, that's what people are going to try to do against Florida State. They're going to try to run the ball. Now, what does this mean, grand scheme? We'll find out. We're going to completely overreact to this because it's the only result we have available. We've got the rest of week zero to go, but not a lot of games of consequence.

So it won't be really until Thursday and Friday and next Saturday. And we start getting more results that we start trying to put this in context, but we're going to completely overreact to this. We're going to say Florida state's dead. Georgia tech's going to win the ACC. Neither one is potentially true. Both are potentially true.

Don't know yet. It's week one. And the thing about the way college football works now, like Florida State can still make the playoff. They could win out, get an at-large. If they don't win the ACC, they could win the ACC. Georgia Tech, very much alive. Now, I will say this about Georgia Tech. Georgia Tech has the hardest schedule in the ACC. It is bar none the hardest ACC schedule and the hardest non-conference schedule because they played Notre Dame and Georgia at a conference. It is a very difficult slate, but if they can

play with the level of athletes that Florida State has, guess what? They can play with anybody on their schedule. Maybe not Georgia, but I mean, they fought Georgia pretty hard last year, and this is probably a better Georgia Tech team. So it is going to be a fun season. This is a great example of why I always say we talk about this stuff for nine months, but we don't actually know anything. We don't actually know anything. But this was a great example of that because it wasn't really fluky. Georgia Tech didn't win in a fluky way. Georgia Tech went out and punched Florida State in the mouth over and over and over again. And Florida State was responding for the most part, but could not really do anything

dynamic to pull away. And then Georgia Tech takes the lead and Florida State comes back and then Georgia Tech just grinds out the game. That's why Mike Norvell had to go for it, by the way, on those fourth downs. He had no choice. He made the right decision there. Even if they hadn't converted those fourth downs, it would have been the right decision. He had no faith in his defense to keep Georgia Tech from just grinding out the clock. And that's exactly what Georgia Tech did anyway.

Because all they needed was a field goal. So they just ground down the clock until they had a shot and aiden burr hit the field goal it was very well coached game by brent key great game plans from buster faulkner and tyler santucci they're two coordinators seeing a lot of criticism of florida state play calling in the chat. Okay, here's the thing about the Florida State offensive play calling, because Mike Norvell has looked like a pretty good play caller when he's calling plays for Jordan Travis. So you got to call it differently for DJU, and apparently it limits some things.

Now, Florida State has a chance to bounce back from this. They've got another ACC game week one. They are playing an ACC game nine days from now, Labor Day night. Boston College comes to Tallahassee. So they have a chance to be one and one in the ACC at the end of week one. It's not what they want, but if they're 0-2, it's going to be a disaster, an absolute disaster. Georgia Tech, meanwhile, it's a tough road, but if you can do this, you can play with Notre Dame. You can play with Miami. You can play with NC State.

You can play with anybody in the ACC for sure. So let's not count out the Yellow Jackets at all. And that is what makes this fun because over the next eight or nine days, we are going to find more teams that surprise us in good ways and in bad ways. It's going to be a journey of discovery and it's going to be amazing. We love this sport because it's populated by 18 to 22 year olds who are wildly unpredictable, especially in large groups. We got a great example of that in Dublin on Saturday. Great example of that. By the way, this instant reaction show brought to you by PrizePix, the most fun daily fantasy game in America. Use the code staples. You play $5, you get $50 instantly. I am not in prize picks mid-season form.

I'll tell you that right now. I had a play on this game. It was three squares. It was 100 to win 500. Malik Benson, more than 60 and a half receiving yards. Great catch to convert a fourth down in the fourth quarter. But no, no, didn't get over 60 and a half. Lawrence Toffili had the long touchdown around the first quarter. I thought this 43 and a half rushing yards, no problem. Did not get going the rest of the game.

And then Haynes King, I had more than 195, 4.5 passing yards. Well, Georgia Tech was running the ball so well, they did not need to throw. Some of Haynes King's best throws were under pressure, dumping off to an open relief valve, a safety valve that got them first downs, but did not put up huge yardage. It is going to be so much fun. I'm not in mid-season prize picks for him, but I'm going to get going. I have faith. But use that code STAPLES. Play $5.

Get $50 instantly. All college football season, the board gets populated right before the games and in the days before the games. Pick the game you want. Pick the player you want. Two or more squares. The more squares you pick, pick the player you want, two or more squares. The more squares you pick, the higher the potential payout. When we talk about prize picks all season, we're going to have a lot of fun with that. We're going to have a lot of fun with all of this

because it is just a beautiful, beautiful game. Saturday was a great example of that. Saturday was a great example of why we watch. Because we can think we know something. We can go an entire offseason, January to almost September, saying this is true, this is true, this is true. We believe these things to be true. And then in three hours, it's all gone. Martin in the chat, don't worry, FSU fans. This game doesn't count because you guys got snubbed

from the playoff last year. Did I get that right? Yeah. FSU fans are going to have to eat this one for a little while because yeah, you complained a lot about getting left out of the playoff. Since you got left out of the playoff, you got beat 66-3 in the Orange Bowl by Georgia and just went and lost to Georgia Tech in Dublin. So that doesn't support the argument. Doesn't mean you should have been left out of the playoff last year, but it doesn't help your argument. So maybe now let's turn the complaints inward,

try to fix the offense, try to figure out how to go deep. Like who's, who's the deep threat? That's the question for Florida state right now. It was Keon Coleman last year. I remember being there against LSU week one last year in Orlando. And you knew coming out of the game, Keon Coleman's that dude. That's the guy everybody's going to have to worry about. Who is that for Florida State now? Is it Malik Benson? I don't know. He had a nice catch there on that fourth down late in the game, but they've got to find somebody who can stretch the field.

And they've got to take shots earlier. They basically spent an entire half where Georgia Tech had zero fear of them going over the top. Zero fear. You can't be that one-dimensional. Ryan in the chat says, Andy, FSU fans thought they would win by 21 points. Vegas thought they'd win by 11 and a half. We all got it wrong.

Except you guys who took the Georgia Tech money line. But I want to see receipts. Because I don't necessarily believe you if you just say it in the chat. But yeah, most of us got it wrong. You're going to listen to me. I'm pardon my take next week. And I'll be like, yeah, I. Like you're going to listen to me. I'm pardon my take next week. And I'm like, yeah,

I think Florida state's going to win the ACC, but at least I, at least I couched it. I'm like, I might look stupid because we're recording this before the Florida state Georgia tech game. So thank you, Georgia tech for making me look stupid, but thank you also Georgia tech for reminding me why we love this freaking game so much.

Because talk about it for nine months. Get all these things drilled into our heads. This team is great. This team is bad. This team is mid. We don't actually know until they tee it up. Well, guess what, boys and girls? They have freaking teed it up now.

It's college football season. It's going to be a lot of fun. We'll talk to you on Monday.