Andy & Ari On3 - I watched the Connor Stalions documentary on Netflix! | Big Ten could use a ranking to break ties

Episode Date: August 27, 2024

Welcome to Andy Staples On3, presented by Wendy’s! Wendy’s New Saucy Nuggs take the Crispy and Spicy Nuggs you love and turn them up to 11.Choose between flavors like Buffalo. Honey BBQ. Garlic Parm. Or, if you’re a real heat seeker, try Spicy Ghost Pepper, only on Wendy’s signature Spicy Nuggs. This show is also sponsored by PrizePicks, America’s most fun daily fantasy game. Use the code STAPLES to play $5 and get $50 instantly.(0:00-1:06) Intro(1:07-20:05) Review of the Untold: Sign Stealer Documentary(20:06-22:02) Fries in Frosties?(22:03-30:00) Big Ten Announces Conference Tiebreakers(30:01-31:52) PrizePicks(31:53-47:34) Virginia Tech Hokies DC Chris Marve joins(47:35-48:18) Continuing Virginia Tech - Vanderbilt conversation(48:19-49:11) FAU at Michigan State(49:12-51:22) Temple at Oklahoma, Toby Keith's song?(51:23-51:58) TCU at Stanford(51:59- 53:35) South Dakota State at Oklahoma State(53:36-54:24) Old Dominion at South Carolina(54:25-55:32) Southern Miss at Kentucky(55:33-56:17) UTEP at Nebraska(56:18-58:30) Fresno St at Michigan(58:31-59:59) Boston College at Florida State on Labor Day(1:00:00-1:00:44) Conclusion, See you tomorrow!Want to watch the show instead? Head on over to YouTube and join us LIVE, M-Thursday, 8-9 am et!Host: Andy StaplesGuest: Chris Marve, Virginia Tech DCProducer: River Bailey

Welcome to Andy Staples on three presented by Wendy's. I have been up for a while this morning because I got up really early to watch the Connor Stallions documentary so we can talk about it. And you can decide if you want to watch it or not. 87 minutes. Untold Sign Stealer. sign stealer. And you heard me and Jesse Simonson yesterday talking about the untold series where Jesse, you know, talking about how some of these should have been called told, but some of these have had new information. Like the Manti Teo one had a plot twist in there where you're like, okay, this explains it so much better than I could have explained it back in 2012.

Now I understand what happened. And that's the first shot of the catfisher in present day. The Johnny Manziel and the Florida ones, yeah, they should have been called told. They didn't tell us anything new. Like Johnny Manziel was a good quarterback, Texas Indian. Yep, we know. Florida was good at football from 2006&M. Yep, we know. Florida was good at football from 2006 to 2008. Yeah, we know.

This one, there's some new stuff. And that's very interesting. Now, if you want to watch it because you want answers that will help you decide what's going to happen in the NCAA investigation, yeah, you're not getting that. There's a reason the notice of allegations came out two days before the doc came out, because there's nothing in the doc that's going to be a smoking gun that the NCAA could use against Michigan. There's nothing in the doc that's going to exonerate Michigan. There's nothing that's going to exonerate Connor Stallions. But what it is, is a deep dive into the central figure in one of the most interesting slash absurd college

football stories we have ever seen. So I guess that's where we start is Connor Stallion is the person we talked about him. We wrote about him. We read all these stories. We didn't hear from him for all of those months. Now he gets his chance to tell his side of the story. And so you have to come at it from that perspective. You have to understand that that is perspective that this is coming from. This is Connor Stallion's version of the events. Now there are other folks in there. There's a, there's an Ohio state blogger called brohio

or a message board poster who's in like black clothes, sunglasses, ski mask. Like it's, it's a little weird, but like he's in there to provide the counterbalance. And then you've got your Dan Wetzel's from Yahoo and Nicole Hauer back kind of explaining and narrating what's going on. But I'm, I was there for the counter stallions comments. Like I want to hear from that guy. I want to know what makes him tick. I want to know how he became what he became. What was the sequence of events, how did all this work?

That part, I was very interested in. That part, I was fascinated by. Because Connor Stallions, according to himself, his parents, and this is them putting the most positive spin on it they can. Like, Connor Stallions basically devoted his entire life to becoming a Michigan football coach. Like, he talks about how in the history of coaching, the best coaches all served in the military, and that's what inspired him to go to the Naval Academy. Like, that is interesting, because there are a lot of reasons you would go to the Naval Academy. Like that is interesting because there are a lot of

reasons you would go to a service Academy, a lot to become a coach and specifically to become a Michigan coach is not one of them for most people or any people probably. So let's, let's, let's go here. Here are the reasons you go to a service academy. One, you've wanted to serve in the military your entire life. You feel like you want to help defend the country and you want to be a leader in the military. That's an obvious one. Two, they're very academically prestigious. They're tough to get into. They provide a great education and that education is free that's another major reason three graduates tend to move on when they finish their military service to very good jobs they provide great training for whatever profession you want to go into that's another big

reason now you could say that that's the reason Connor Stallions chose, but I mean, everything was directed toward becoming a football coach at Michigan. So he goes to the Naval Academy, serves in the Marines with the idea that it will make him a better football coach at Michigan eventually. And maybe it did, maybe it did, but that's how single-minded this guy was. That's how laser focused this guy was on becoming a football coach at Michigan. Like there's video of him dressed as Bo Schimbechler for Halloween at seven years old. It's adorable. And then you realize, oh, this, he's been thinking about this for this long. And he talks about going to the Naval Academy, walking into Kenny Amatololo's office saying,

I'm a student here. I'd like to help out. And within a short period of time, he's on the sidelines trying to decode Ohio State signals. And of course, it was Ohio State. First game that Navy played when Connor Stallions was a student. But this, of course, because it's told really from Connor Stallions' perspective, makes it seem like he is the Benedict Cumberbatch in the imitation game. He's the one. He's cracking all these codes. He's the secret sauce. Whether that's true or not is another topic for debate.

There's a lot of Ohio State fans who think he's the reason that Michigan got good in 2021. That is, by the way, when he was hired as a staff member and not just as a volunteer. But that's also when they basically revamped their entire staff. They fired Don Brown. They brought in Mike McDonald. They moved Sharon Moore to offensive line coach. There were some other things going on then. It was a pretty big overhaul. But how you feel about that probably depends on how badly you want Michigan to be in the wrong here.

So it was very interesting. Now, very disappointed. He did not explain the vacuum cleaner thing. If you remember correctly, he had the vacuum cleaner repair business and vacuum cleaners just all over the porches of his house, the porch of his house. Never explained that. Highly disappointed that that was never explained

in the documentary. He did explain the manifesto, though. That was really interesting because, remember, our friend Richard Johnson was writing in Sports Illustrated last fall, talking to somebody who was an acquaintance of Connor Stallion's and found out there's this massive manifesto. I believe in Richard's story, the estimate was 600 pages. It's actually thousands of pages according to Connor Stallions. It is multiple thousands of pages. And it's basically everything he's ever learned about coaching, quotes, philosophies. It's spreadshe. He mapped where every player who got drafted in the NFL

since 2010 is from. He coded it. He came up with a scoring system. Now, as the person who mapped where all the colleges source their players for SI back when Connor Stallions was in middle school, I felt particularly seen by that part of it. But this is the sort of thing he was just obsessed. He also went into how he figured out the signs, how he created the visual aids that allowed coaches and players to decipher what was going on. I thought that was really interesting. He explains how he took his, he stood against a white background. I took his phone and basically took pictures of himself doing all these different signs that he'd seen on the sidelines. And then how he made essentially a cheat sheet that says when they do this, it means this. And it was really interesting.

And it also speaks to his ability to one, decipher the information, two, to explain it to other people so that they can then use it quickly. So these are all skills skills that are very helpful. Like could be helpful in any industry, but you use it in this way. Now you're, you're probably saying, okay, but get to the part with the NCAA investigation,

get to the part where you find out what's going to happen to Michigan. You never really get to that part, but what you do see is that Connor Stallions did interview with the NCAA in April, and they show you a good chunk of that interview. And I thought that was really interesting. A couple parts of the interview. He admits that he bought tickets for other people to go to games that didn't involve Michigan. And again, this is the part that matters because that's what's against the rules. You can look across the sideline at your own game at your opponent and decipher their signals, and that's not against the rules. If you have TV copy of the game and it shows the coach's signaling and you can put things

together, that's not against the rules. The rule is against sending people to games that aren't yours, having them independently record it. That's against the rule. It was a cost-cutting move put in by the NCAA in the mid-90s. They actually considered repealing it a few years ago. And that's where it got interesting because my wife was actually getting ready for work while watching this documentary with me. And that was what her question was about. Like those, that was her biggest question is like, okay, who cares? Like, why is this even against the rules? And I tried to explain the whole cost cutting thing, why it's against the rules. And she's like, why are they

acting like this is a criminal offense? Like who cares? And I think that's probably how most people who aren't knee deep in college football, when they watch this thing are going to feel. Remember these are aimed at very broad audiences. So a lot of the people who are watching this are not aware of the vagaries of NCAA rules. So I thought that was interesting. I thought her response to that was interesting because she's sort of the target audience for this documentary, not me. And so I do wonder how many people are going to watch it who don't really follow college football that closely. We're going to go, who cares?

Why do we care? So he says that he bought tickets for people to go to other games. He also says that some people sent him video from those games, which is very interesting because that's kind of the problem. Now, what he's accused of is having this network. The accusation that would get Michigan in big trouble is if Jim Harbaugh, Sharon Moore, any of the other people were involved in it, were directing it. I can tell you right now that Connor Stallions did not say that anybody did that. We know that. My guess is that the NCAA did not find that anybody did that either.

We'll find out what's in that notice of allegations, but we've seen the draft copy through ESPN's reporting. And based on some of the conversations I've had since the NOA hit Michigan on Sunday, I don't think they established that link. I don't think the NCAA investigators established that link. So essentially this is Connor Stallion saying he was the lone wolf here, but now he's saying he didn't, he wasn't having people go to games and record them.

But he is admitting that people went to games with tickets he bought and sent him film. So if you're the NCAA, that's probably enough for you. Because remember, it's not a court of law. The standard is not beyond a reasonable doubt. And when Connor Stallions, when you hear him say to the NCAA investigator, to my understanding, there are some people who attended games using tickets I purchased and recorded parts of games. Sometimes I would receive film from them. Then they cut to him in an interview separately saying, it's like when your aunt gets you a Christmas present, you already have. He's like, I already

knew this stuff. I didn't need this stuff, but that's probably going to be the enough for the NCAA with Connor Stallions himself. And then the other just totally hilarious part is the NCAA investigator asks him, was that him on the Central Michigan sideline in the Michigan State game? And he goes, I don't recall attending a specific game. Translation, yes, that was me. And earlier in the doc, you have Dave Portnoy, the founder of Arsenal Sports, who is a Michigan grad, saying, Connor Stallions told me it was him. Like that's in the documentary. And then immediately it cuts to Connor Stallions holding a picture of the guy

on the Central Michigan sideline and just kind of smiling. And then cuts to another part of his interview, not with the NCAA, but just separately, where he says, I don't even think that looks like me. It's just hysterical. Again, a lot of this is just so absurd. But what I took away and what I thought was really interesting is he did spend so much of his life trying to get there. And he got there. He became a Michigan

staffer. And then he did something that caused him to have to quit his job at Michigan. The NCAA is going to hit him for being uncooperative. That's how this all works. Based on what answers they showed us, and that's Connor Stallions and his attorney, allowed that video to be shown. Based on what they showed us. And based on how previous NCAA cases have gone, they're going to hit him with being uncooperative. They're going to issue a punishment that will make it very hard for him to be hired in college football. And the difference

is like, we've seen college coaches get fairly severe NCAA punishments and come back from them. Bruce Pearl, probably the best example of that was the Tennessee basketball coach got punished for lying to the NCAA about Aaron Kraft being at a cookout, not a barbecue, but a cookout. But then he comes back as the Auburn coach. Now, the difference was Bruce Pearl had a very decorated history of being a head coach before that happened. And he was proven as a winner of games as a head coach. So somebody was going to hire him again. Connor Stallings was a low level staffer. It's unclear how helpful he actually was. Not sure anybody's going to take a chance on him whenever, whatever NCAA penalty gets handed down is over. So chances are he's never going to take a chance on him whenever whatever NCAA penalty gets handed down is over. So chances

are he's never going to be able to go back to Michigan. He's the defensive coordinator at Mumford High in Michigan right now. The alma mater of fictional graduate Axel Foley, but he's working in football now. And maybe he becomes a great high school coach. Maybe eventually he gets a chance to go back to college, but he's probably never going to be able to go back to Michigan. And that's the craziest part of all this. John in the chat says, Andy, are you going to talk about when Dan Wetzel said he has proof

at least five other teams did the same thing Stallion said? Dan didn't say that. Dan said other teams did it. If Dan has proof of it, Dan will publish it. Dan would have already published it because that's how Dan operates. So I don't think you quite understood what Dan said there. And that was the other thing. The rumor was that Connor Stallions was going to name some names of people who did this at other schools. He didn't. He said there are people who share information, but it was very vague. And if I were Connor Stallions' attorney, I would advise him not to name any names because that would expose me to a lawsuit. So that's where he could have probably put

something juicier into the doc and didn't. If you've got proof of it, present the proof. You've had nine months. No, you've had 11 months, 10 months. If you've got proof of that, go ahead and present it. What they did do is accuse someone of hacking into Connor Stallion's email. And so they're saying an investigative firm that was hired by somebody, they're accusing Ohio State of being the ones who hired that investigative firm. They're saying they used an illegal means to get information from Connor Stallion's. We'll find out about that.

We'll see if that ever comes to fruition. But yeah, if you've been saying for 10 months you have proof and you're going to name names and you haven't actually done it, you're not going to do it. So that's where that is. But I came away somewhat sad because this is a 28-year-old guy who spent his whole life trying to get to this one place. And he's never going to be able to get back there. So can he channel that obsession?

Because let's be real. This was an obsession. Can he channel that obsession in a different direction that allows it to be positive? John in the chat, Andy, why did you use a goofy voice when you read my comment? Because it was a goofy comment, John. You really want there to be names of other people, but you're not using common sense here. If someone was going to name names, they already would have. So that'll probably be all we hear from Connor Stallions for a while. But it's really interesting.

So if you want answers for the NCAA case, you're probably not going to get them. If you want to try to understand this person who's interesting, who we've been reading about for all these months, then perhaps you will be interested. I was fascinated by this guy. I find him endlessly interesting. And like I said, he's 28 years old. I hope he can channel that obsession into something else that allows him to live a fulfilling life without getting back to Michigan football, because I don't know that that's ever going to happen. Now he's a cult hero among Michigan football fans. So that might be enough, but there's a lot of life left to go. A lot of life left to go.

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John says, Andy, do you dip your fries in Frosties? I did not read that one in a goofy voice, though I probably should have because I find that to be somewhat goofy. If my wife were here, she would slap me upside the head for saying that because she was a massive fry and frosty person when she was pregnant with our two kids. That was what she craved is fries dipped in frosties. So I understand where you're going. And then look, the kids turned out great. So I will not criticize the fry in the frosty. I like the Fries and I love the Frosty.

I just don't put them together. I eat them separately. But I do understand if you do love them together because I do love my kids and they are partially made of Fries dipped in Frosties. All right, now we got to talk Big Ten. We've moved from Michigan, a a member of the big 10 to the entire big 10 we finally have conference tiebreakers in the big 10 we waited and waited and waited for

the sec to do it they gave us the tiebreakers last week now we get the big 10 tiebreakers this is how we find out how to decide who the top two teams in an 18 team league are if the records are tied and not everybody played everybody else and that's probably going to happen so here are the tie breakers in order the tied teams will be compared based on head-to-head matchups during the regular season that's that's great head-to-head great hopefully that the regular season. That's great. Head-to-head. Great. Hopefully that's what it is. And it's really easy. It's probably not going to always be that easy. Number two, this is the same as the SEC.

Tied teams compared based on record against all common conference opponents. Also very logical. The problem with an even bigger league, because the SEC's 16 teams, Big Ten's 18 teams, there's not going to be as many common conference opponents tiebreaker number three tie teams will be compared based on record against common opponents with the best conference record proceeding through the common conference opponents based on their order of finish winning the conference standings also matches the sec also the other leagues this is exactly how you would do this because you just say, okay,

we've got three teams vying for two spots, or we've got a couple teams vying for the final spot in the championship game. We're going to see how they did against the next best common opponent. Number four, this is also matching the other leagues the tied teams will be compared based on the best cumulative conference winning percentage of all conference opponents makes perfect sense and i think that's probably the one that's going to decide it like how tough was your conference schedule and basically schedule degree of difficulty is your tiebreaker and that seems fair. That seems like a very fair way to break it.

And the other leagues are doing that too. Number five is the one where it gets interesting. The representative will be chosen based on the highest ranking by sports source analytics using the team rating score metric following the regular season. Now, this is where they divert from the SEC. The SEC has a relative scoring margin formula, which I explained last week. And please don't make me explain it again because you know this is a bad at math show. But it is basically you are taking stats, putting them into a mathematical formula that the SEC has published and determining who would get the spot.

What's different about this is SportsSource Analytics, and this is the company that also provides data to the College Football Playoff Selection Committee. So I think that's why they're doing it, is basically using a lot of the similar data that the College Football Playoff Selection Committee is using. This is a way to try to guess at what the CFP ranking is going to be because you can't use the CFP ranking in this because the regular season will end on a Saturday. The following Saturday is your conference championship game. You can't wait until Tuesday when the CFP rankings are released to say who's

going to be in your conference championship game. And remember, we saw this in 2008, where the Big 12 used the BCS rankings to determine who won the South division when you had Oklahoma, Texas, and Texas Tech all tied at the top of the South. And the reason they use the BCS rankings is they wanted to have the best chance of putting one of their teams in the national title game, which they did. Oklahoma went up playing for the national title that year. That's what they're doing here. The idea is to have the two highest ranked teams in the CFP rankings, which they can't wait for. So they're going to use the source that they think will approximate those rankings the best, because that gives you the best chance of both of those teams getting in. Now, I think with the big 10 being as deep as it is, I don't

even know that that's going to be an issue. I think most years, both teams in the big 10 championship game are going to get into the playoff, but you want to give it the best chance. And you want the teams that play in your championship game to be seated the highest of your teams because you want them rewarded for a good season so i think that makes sense though i would argue that the sec method with a formula that is published that we all can understand, even me at a bad at math show, I think that probably would be preferable. I don't like it when it's a proprietary formula that I don't get to see that doesn't, you know, isn't, can't be fully explained because the company's not going to let you see the formula.

So I think that is, that is going to matter. Christopher Jordan says rip Northwestern and Vanderbilt stats may factor. So dominant teams are going to keep the gas pedal on. Now, remember you're going to make me explain the SEC one again. I hate you. I hate you guys. No, I love you guys. Love you guys. But that SEC formula, and I think the sports source one will be fairly similar in terms of margin of victory where it's not going to be uncapped the sec one it's basically how much did you win by relative to how much that team normally gives up and how much you normally score in a game again there's a mathematical. You can go back to last week's show where I

explain it, but the short way of describing it is if, say, the other team usually gives up 21 points and you score 42, that's 100% of the relative margin. So you're going to get full credit for that. Whether you score 42 or 82 doesn't matter. You get 100%. Now, whether you score 35 or 42 does matter because that gets you up to 100. But once you hit 100%, once you double up their score, their points allowed average, then it doesn't matter. Now, if you're playing a team that gives up 40 points a game and you're trying to get

to 80, that's a different matter entirely. Then you get into some of those. Remember some of those games when Brett Bielema was coaching Wisconsin? It was, yeah. So we might see some of that. But it's going to be fascinating to see how all this works. I don't know that they're ever going to get down to that tiebreaker. It's number five in the Big Ten. I believe it's number five in the SEC as well.

I don't know that they're going to get down. It's E in the SEC, which is number five. I don't know that they're ever going to get down that far. I think the one where you're basically deciding based on conference strength of schedule, like strength of your own conference schedule, like what was the combined winning percentage of your conference opponents? I think that's the one that's going to break the tie in most cases.

And that's fine. I am good with that. I feel like that's a good way to do it. If we get to the Southern, we can talk about it then. But yeah, it's a possibility. And oh, by the way, just as with the SEC, the last one is a random draw. So if you want a big 10 college football sorting hat, remember we invented the college football sorting hat for the SEC. If you want a big 10 sorting hat, here we go. Bucky Badger!

Yeah. Sky Yuma! Can't wait. Cannot wait. Don't think it'll ever happen where they do the random draw, but by God, please televise it if you do. You know, we'll be televised this week. All these great week one games, amazing week one games. We're so close. Real games starting Thursday. PrizePix is already populating the board for week one. So if you haven't downloaded the PrizePix app yet, do it now.

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You've got Georgia Clemson squares. You've got Florida Miami squares. You've got Texas A&M and Notre Dame squares. You also have a free square, a free square featuring Jalen Milrow, the Alabama quarterback. If he passes for half a yard on Saturday, if you've picked that square, you are going to win that square. Remember with prize picks, you pick two or more squares. The more squares you pick, the higher your potential payout.

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play $5 to get $50 instantly. Another interesting game on Saturday. We picked all the biggies, but there are some really fun under the radar games that are coming up in week one. One of those is Virginia Tech at Vanderbilt. So Virginia Tech dramatically improved last season over Brent Pryor's first season. Now they're coming in as the team that you talk to people in the ACC and they are saying, this is the one you got to watch.

They're headed to Vanderbilt. Remember Vanderbilt has Jerry Kill, former New Mexico State, former Minnesota, former Northern Illinois head coach as an advisor to head coach Clark Lee. But who came along with Jerry Kill? Diego Pavia, the quarterback from New Mexico State last year who was electrifying. Remember when he beat Auburn at Auburn? Well, he's Vandy's new quarterback. That's what that Virginia Tech defense has to deal with this weekend. Who runs the Virginia Tech defense? Why, it is former Vanderbilt star Chris Marv. We talked to Chris Marv about

the improvement of the defense at Virginia Tech and heading back to his alma mater to face the commoners. We are joined now by Virginia Tech defensive coordinator Chris Marv. And you've got a unit coach that between the year before last and last year, learned how to put the quarterback on the ground. You finished second in the ACC in sacks last year. And I heard you talking about this and I I'm fascinated by this you said hey we got there in 2022 but we couldn't finish those sacks like how do you teach somebody to finish a sack yeah really good question first of all man thank you guys for having me on you know really no problem what you do and what you stand for. And I appreciate you noticing, you know, the work and the guys really seeing the fruits of their labor from a year ago. You know, the way you get better at football is by playing football. Right.

And so we drilled it incessantly, how to get to the quarterback, how to finish at the quarterback and and really not allow the moment to get too big for you. Just in your training, finishing where you need to finish and knowing the personality of the quarterback that you're going against, right? Does he like to spin on the back shoulder? Is he a step up guy? When he scrambles, does he look to run or does he look to throw the football? All those things are imperative, knowing your opponent going in so that you have a really good plan of attack and so you can react well. So I was watching a lot of the plays from last season, and a lot of those sacks were a result of some interior pressure. Now, you've had to replace a lot of the interior,

and you've done a lot of that through the transfer portal. How difficult is that when you're trying to blend guys because your edge guys are guys you're bringing back, your interior guys, you've got a lot of transfers. How long does it take to get that chemistry right and figure out what the best combinations are the biggest thing you know for us it defensively you know from a program standpoint from a philosophy standpoint it's about getting guys who want to play extremely hard extremely hard right within a system within

the structure of the defense but playing like their hair is on fire. You know, we're going to play a fair amount of guys up front because we want guys to have the opportunity to play fresh, put good stuff on tape, but ultimately who can get it done. And so that's what you can see with us. You know, we got guys who are just going to go and play really hard and put their best stuff on tape because we talk about, you know, if this is something that you want to do, how much are you willing to sacrifice for your brother next to you? Right. And a lot of

that, you know, equates to effort and what that looks like on tape. It shouldn't be a question about how hard you're playing. If you're changing speed, you need to show up in the end zone copy and that's the bottom line. And so we do a lot as it relates to showing that, reiterating that concept and that mentality. and we hold the guys to that standard it is what it is so when you guys started it because last season as the season went on it felt like everything started to come together for you guys and and by the end of the season it felt very different than it felt in the beginning. Could you guys feel that happening as a coaching staff, as a team, as that was going on, as everything was sort of clicked together? As a coach, you're really trying not to zoom out, right? And look at the macro. You need to be

extremely myopic and the things that you know equate to success and equate to winning, right? That's being detailed, that's holding each other accountable, staff and coaches. That's being intentional about what does work. How can you get the guys to play as fast as possible consistently? And what you want to do is make sure that the progress that you gain, it continues and that it's sustainable and that you understand to be successful, that progress is going to be incremental. Like it's not going to happen overnight, particularly when you have 11 young men

out at a time playing the guys that we play and expect it to happen that quickly. So over the course of time, the guys were able to just continue to improve and we kept challenging as coaches, challenging ourselves, challenging them. And it just got better as the year went on. Well, and the other thing is this defense did grow up i mean you've got a bunch of guys who two years ago were playing as freshmen and redshirt freshman like your corner man sort of lane this is a guy who had to play a bunch as a freshman and now here he goes into his junior year and you're seeing him you know in the first round

of mock drafts for next year how big is it just some of these guys had to learn by playing you get better at football by playing football i really believe that i mean this is a grown man sport um it's a lot of speed and mass moving at the same time i mean you get better by playing it and so you know throughout the course of the first season we were here in the course of the last season that we had, you did watch a lot of maturation show. You saw development happen on the field, both in positive ways and negative ways, right? Nobody played perfect. You learn from mistakes and you grew with things that you did well, us as coaches as well. And so, man, you're going to continue to see that. Football is an imperfect game played by imperfect people. But the standards that we set and how we hold each other accountable and how we decide to play and coach on a daily basis, that's going to be indicative of the level

of success that we can have. You talked about one of those guys that play with their hair on fire, APR, Antoine Powell Ryland. Tell me a little bit about him because it seems like he's one of those guys. He absolutely is, right? And he's somebody that we push. I mean, he loves the game. He loves rushing the quarterback. And he came back this year and we challenged him in certain areas and he's worked his behind off to grow in those areas. And so we're asking him to lead by his influence and by his play, how he approaches each day consistently.

And we've been asking him to do it and he's done it. And so we're excited to continue to push him and work. So you guys opened this week at Vanderbilt and it's an interesting situation because they're bringing in a new quarterback in Diego Pavia. He was the New Mexico State quarterback last year. The viewers know who that is because we talked about him a bunch last year at New Mexico State. But for you, when you're watching a quarterback who you saw play for another team last year, going and joining a new team where you've got film of those players but not necessarily that offense that quarterback

how hard is it to prepare for something like that yeah first games are always challenging i mean i think there's some overlap between a first game and a bowl game, particularly one that's later in the bowl season. Because there is a level of newness and novelty that you just have to plan for. And so when you look at a young man and the quarterbacks that they have on their roster, I have a tremendous amount of respect for them. You look at production, you look at ability, you talk about young men who know how to play football with grit, leadership. It jumps off the tape again. So we know we have a challenge in front of us, and we're excited.

So I have a question. I always wondered this about Virginia Tech, and you've now assumed the role of defensive coordinator, which, of course, Bud Foster held so well for so long, he introduced the lunch pail and Coach Beamer introduced the lunch pail to Virginia Tech. How do you decide which player gets to carry the lunch pail? Yeah, I can't give away house secrets, but what I can tell you is that the guy who's carrying it, he is certainly emblematic of what we stand for and the ideals and values that we teach. Is there actual snacks in there? Can't give away house secrets.

All right. I had to ask. I had to. All right. So you're a guy who played at Vanderbilt. You played in a bunch of cool SEC stadiums. You worked at Florida State. You've worked at different schools across the country. But what's it like when you get to Virginia Tech and you're out there and that inner Sandman starts playing for the first time? What does that feel like? Yeah, I can take you back even before the first game in 21. I guess it was 22. We had a spring ball, the spring game, excuse me. And you talk about the level of excitement, engagement,

just buy in and ownership that the community has for the program. I felt it at the spring ball game. And so you fast forward a couple of months, just in 2022, and you go to the first home game and you feel the energy and the connection between the community and the program just on an entrance. I mean, it's very unique, very unique, unlike anywhere else I've ever been, quite frankly. Yeah. I just, I can't imagine what it's it's like you know in the tunnel as you're getting ready and and as all this these people are just jumping up and down can you hear can you feel

them can you hear them jumping on top of you oh yeah that's incredible that is incredible all right so we mentioned you played at vanderbilt Your senior year was 2010. That was the year that Bobby Johnson retired. 2011 was the last season. Oh, 2011. I'm sorry. Yes, that's right. So Bobby Johnson retires, and Robbie Caldwell takes over as head coach, which I was present for Robbie Caldwell's SEC Media Day press conference,

which may be the greatest press conference of all time, certainly the first press conference I've ever been involved in, uh, where a coach talked about being on the Turkey insemination crew. But I gotta ask you, what was that year like in terms of speeches, pre-game, post-game, pre-practice, post-practice, like what kind of speeches does Robbie Caldwell give as the head coach? Yeah, man. So I love Coach Caldwell, man. He was he's actually one of the men that I called when I became very interested in becoming a coach. Somebody who I respect immensely. And when he was the associate head coach, if I remember correctly, associate head coach, offensive line coach before Coach Johnson retired.

His role was that of the disciplinarian, right? And that of the guy that you don't want to see if you kind of got into trouble. And that was what everybody really thought about him until he assumed the role of head coach. He couldn't have been more of a player's coach connected to the inner workings of the day-to-day life of a young man who's a student athlete on that campus. And just somebody who really cared about the longevity of you as a player, but also your life after football. So he's somebody that I have, again, tremendous amount of respect for him and his wife and his

family and was really good to us as players. And he went on to be a very good offensive line coach on those really good Clemson teams. And, you know, when you call him and say, hey, coach, I'm thinking about getting into that business. What kind of advice does he give you? Yeah, it's kind of like the advice I got from everyone. I mean, I call Coach Spry amongst a number of other coaches. And the first thing that the question you always get is, are you sure you want to do this? Because there are a number of challenges with this profession that most people don't really see that are behind the curtain,

the sacrifices that come with your family, the time allocation that's necessary to be really good at this job. If you want to be really good in the dedication that's necessary in order to see it through. And so that's the first question that you get. And then the second thing that came out of his mouth was a statement and he said, I knew you and I always knew you're gonna be a coach, you're gonna be really good at this. And to get affirmation like that from somebody that saw you as a young man

playing football who had no desire whatsoever to get into coaching for him to immediately say that um was certainly affirmation for me to go right go down this path and i'm glad that i have and you mentioned asking coach pry about brent prior your current boss at virginia tech at that point i mean you're probably not thinking, this guy's going to be the head coach and I'm going to be the DC for him someday. But could, could you tell, Hey, this he's keeping an eye on me? Well, coach Brian, I've always had a, a really close relationship. I mean, I was a star Mike linebacker the year that I was with him. Um, he would have us over to his home all the time and take care of us in terms of meals provided. When we get I had the opportunity to do what do you call those?

I forget those meals that you can have. The occasional meal, I believe. That's right. That was over. He'd also have us over on Thanksgiving. Take us out. There was a time there was an occasion where I actually couldn't make it. I was studying for an exam and coach got me a meal and actually brought it to where i was staying that day so you talk about somebody who has a tremendous amount of investment in his players who cares about their well-being and even when i was no longer playing for him but still living in nashville not in coaching yet he would uh he would inquire as to how I was doing, how my fiance, who's my wife now at the time, was doing, and still invite me over to just come fellowship. And I no longer played

another snap for him. So you talk about somebody who's extremely invested and interested in you. I mean, so that just goes to say who he is now as a leader of our program, as a head coach, if that's who he was as a position coach so man we're we're lucky and thankful how excited are you to get this thing kicked off this is you got a team that you know i talked to other people in the acc they're they're scared of you slash excited about what you can be you've seen it from the inside how excited are you for this season yeah i'll tell you what man you, a lot of people outside looking in, look at what we do for a living, coaching football, working almost incessantly year round 24 365 for

12 guaranteed opportunities and just don't understand it. But man, we love what we do. We're really excited about this first game. We've been banging and had in camp for the last month or so, and we're ready to suit it up and go have the opportunity to play against another opponent. And so, man, that's all we're focused on right now. I can't tell you anything about the season.

I couldn't tell you who we play. I mean, I don't know. All I know is about is this week that we're laser focused on what the opportunity we have in front of us. And we'll talk about the next one when it comes. Chris Marv heading back to Nashville to face the alma mater. Good luck. Thanks, Andy.

Good talking with you. That's Chris Marv, Virginia Tech defensive coordinator. Those guys got really good at sacking the quarterback last year. We'll see if that continues as they still got the edge guys, APR, coming hard off the edge. How will Aeneas peoples and some of the interior guys that they've imported through the portal help with that? Will it, will it change? Will it be better or worse? We're going to find out. And they start out with Vandy. We're Diego Pamia playing QB. There's a few under the radar games in week one.

Some fun stuff. There's a lot of ones that I kind of want to watch. Maybe you're going to be a second screen situation. Just because I want to see what things look like in the new era. FAU at Michigan State. Good example. Friday night. This is Jonathan Smith's debut at Michigan State.

We're going to see Aiden Childs starting at QB. Jonathan Smith brought him from Oregon State. Now remember, DJ Uyungle was the starter at Oregon State last year, but Aiden Childs was a freshman. Came in periodically. You saw the ceiling. You saw what Jonathan Smith saw in him. And so he comes with Jonathan Smith to Michigan State. We're going to see what that era is going to look like.

Now, Michigan state kind of had ripped things down to the studs, new quarterback at Florida Atlantic too, though, Tom Herman's team going to have cam Fancher, the Marshall transfer. So we all left the action going in the Florida Atlantic mission stay game.

Plus, I mean, given what we talked about for the first 20 minutes of the show, you never know who's going to show up on the visiting sideline at a Michigan State season opener on a Friday night. So why wouldn't you tune in? Another Friday night game, Temple, Oklahoma. We're going to see Jackson Arnold as QB1 in Oklahoma. Now we saw him in the bowl game. He had a lot of turnovers, but also you saw some of the throws. They're like, okay, this is what they see in this guy.

This is why they're willing to let Dylan Gabriel walk. So we get to watch him play. Also Oklahoma planning to debut a new tradition this year. They're going to have a Toby Keith sing along between the third and the fourth quarters. Now, Toby Keith obviously passed away this year. Son of Oklahoma, huge Oklahoma fan. We've seen this before. Florida did this when Tom Petty passed away.

Tom Petty, Gainesville native. When he passed away, Florida added the fans singing, I won't back down right after they finished singing. We're the boys of old Florida between the third and fourth quarters. And it has turned into a very cool tradition. They turn the phone lights on. It's, it's really cool in a night game.

Hopefully Oklahoma will be able to, to honor Toby Keith in a similar way, in a fun way. They've not revealed the song yet. That's the one I'm trying to figure out. You know, is it going to be like courtesy of the red, white and blue?

Is it going to be, I, I, I think it's your red solo cup personally. That's what I'd go with. I'd love to hear 80,000 people singing Red Solo Cup at once, but I don't think they're going to do Red Solo Cup. Maybe he should have been a cowboy.

It was one of his first hits. Feels very appropriate to Oklahoma. You're right, Stephen Wilson. There's no way they can do should have been a cowboy. Why am I not thinking of this no way they can do should have been a cowboy why am i not thinking this uh you can't do shouldn't should have been a cowboy because it would imply oklahoma state the cowboys you're right so maybe this is is it well it can't be i i wish i didn't know now what i didn't know then like that that's not gonna to work. What's it going to be? This is going to be fascinating. Cause you're right. Should have been a cowboy would make the most sense. If Oklahoma state's

mascot weren't the Cowboys. Ooh, I guess we'll have to find out on Friday night. TCU at Stanford, another Friday night when you got Joshosh hoover's the qb1 at tcu now uh three nfl guys potentially in tcu secondary abe kamara bud clark and jace oliver and they'll be playing as lk omen or one of the best receivers in college football for stanford he is a freak you saw him against colorado last year basically single-handedly win Stanford that game. Can't wait to see that. Stanford may play three quarterbacks in this game. Ashton Daniels is probably your starter.

Justin Lamson and Elijah Brown could play. That's going to be very interesting. We go to Saturday, South Dakota State at Oklahoma State. We talked about North Dakota State against Colorado yesterday. We picked that game. This is another one of those FCS games. Like why on earth would you schedule this? Like Mike Gundy, he probably furious at his AD for scheduling this because South Dakota State, the two-time defending FCS national champs. Now remember what happened the last time a two-time defending FCS national champ played a power

conference team in the season opener the following year. Well, that would have been Appalachian State at Michigan in 2007. We all remember what happened there. Now, this is a little bit different situation because that team, that Appalachian State team brought back a whole lot from the previous season. South Dakota State does not bring back as much like last year, South Dakota state brought back all 11 starters on defense this year. They got to replace five starters on defense.

They still do bring back Mark Granowski, the reigning Walter Payton award winner quarterback, but their top three receivers they've got to replace too. And Oh, by the way, you still have to figure out how to tackle Ollie Gordon. That's not going to be easy at all. And we'll see Alan Bowman behind the very, very veteran offensive line of Oklahoma State.

But I think that could be a fun game. It's only a nine and a half point spread, which is much lower than you usually see in an FCS versus a power conference team game. But again, South Dakota state is pretty spectacular, really good FCS program. This is one you just don't schedule these games guys. Old Dominion at South Carolina on Saturday. Another interesting one, Jason Henderson, the linebacker for Old Dominion is a tackling machine. One of the best linebackers in the country. And we're going to get to see Lenora Sellers make his debut for South Carolina as QB1.

We talked about the rec specs. We've talked to Cody Belair on Three's National Scout about how much he loves Lenora Sellers, what his ceiling could potentially be. Because if Lenora Sellers is really good, South Carolina's fortunes may change. Also, this is a good one as you're getting ready for week two, as you're preparing week two, South Carolina plays at Kentucky week two, big, big early season game for both those

teams. So you get a look at South Carolina, get a look at old dominium by the same token. You're probably also going to watch Southern miss at kentucky out the corner of your eye on saturday because we want to see what brock vandegrift looks like as a starting quarterback this is a guy we've known like if you if you're a recruit nick and we're all on three people here so of course you've been following recruiting for all these years you know that brock vandegrift was the guy who was committed to Oklahoma and Lincoln Riley before Caleb Williams. That Brock Vandegrift flipped to Georgia, which is basically right next to his house,

decided he wanted to stay home and go play for Georgia. And then Lincoln Riley went out and got Caleb Williams. Brock Vandegrift never won the starting job at Georgia. Obviously, Carson Beck is very good. So it's not like Brock Vandegrift never won the starting job at Georgia. Obviously, Carson Beck is very good. So it's not like Brock Vandegrift can't play. It's that he was behind a guy who's excellent. So Brock Vandegrift goes to Kentucky. We'll get to see him start against a Southern Miss team that I think is going to be quite a bit better than it was last year.

Will Hall, very good coach. I think he's going to have a little bit better team than he's had. And so can they give Kentucky a scare? That's a 27 and a half point spread. Big number, big number for that game. UTEP at Nebraska, another big number, another 27 and a half point spread. But yeah, we're all tuning in to see Dylan Raiola. Let's be real here.

We know Nebraska's defense is going to be good. We have no idea what Nebraska's offense is going to look like. We know Dylan Raiola is a super hyped freshman. Can he be the guy who makes Nebraska's offense dynamic? Because if he can, we're talking about potentially very good season at Nebraska, because again, we know that defense is going to be good. This is another one where you're prepping for week two. You want to see how that offense looks because you want to compare it to what you saw Thursday night in the Colorado North Dakota state game because Colorado coming to Lincoln week two in one of the more interesting games of week two. And then obviously Fresno state at Michigan. We talked a bunch about

Michigan at the opening of the show. The defending national champs bring back a ton on defense, probably the best defensive line in the country. Will Johnson, probably the best corner in the country, but we don't know what they're going to be on offense. So we know that Donovan Edwards is there, but we know they're replacing their entire offensive line. And at quarterback, we don't know who's going to start. Could it be Alex Orji or the former walk-on Davis Warren?

These guys, essentially, you make that decision. You're deciding on a different offense, depending on who you pick. Alex Orji, much better runner. Davis Warren, probably the better passer. Alex Orji, if you run that offense, it probably looks a little bit like what Alabama did with Jalen Milrow last year. I think Jalen Milrow probably evolved a little bit like what Alabama did with Jalen Milrow last year. I think Jalen Milrow probably evolved a little bit as a passer throughout that first season. And now he's had a full off season as QB one. So, you know, probably a little more what you're going to get from Jalen Milrow, even though he's got a new coach, but that might be a good blueprint.

If you decide Alex Orji is your guy. If it's Davis Warren, that's going to look a little bit different, but I can't wait. That is going to be an incredibly fluid situation until they decide where it is. But the thing is, it's not like Michigan schedules the past couple of years where they had these three games, this long runway to figure out what they were and what, you know, two years ago, it allowed Jim Harbaugh to do the Cade McNamara, JJ McCarthy thing where he started one, then he started the other, then he evaluated and decided who the next guy, it was basically, he was going to start JJ McCarthy. Cade, Cade McNamara had helped them win a big 10 title the year before as the starter. You can't just pull him.

You got to show everybody why you're making the change. That's what they did. Michigan doesn't have that runway this year. They play Fresno State, and they're playing Texas week two. The Longhorns are coming to Ann Arbor week two. So you got to get this figured out. I cannot wait to see what happens because I want to know what this offense is going to look like.

And then Monday night, Boston College at Florida State. I would not have included this game if not for what happened to Dublin on Saturday. Florida State losing to Georgia Tech. Florida State looking very mortal on the defensive line. DJ Uyungle not playing particularly well under pressure. I would have assumed Florida State blows out Boston College before that. Now I'm making zero assumptions.

Florida State has to win this game. You can't be 0-2 in the ACC going into week two. You just can't. Meanwhile, Bill O'Brien takes over at Boston College. Thomas Castellanos is like a must-see TV quarterback. It's boom or bust with him. But I go back to O'Brien when he took over at Penn State and how good he made Matt McGloin right off the bat. And then he got the most out of Christian Hackenberg that anybody got out of him. It's going to be pretty interesting what he can do with Castellanos. So that one, Labor Day, at first, it didn't look like that very of a game. Now I'm very intrigued,

very intrigued because I simply do not trust Florida State anymore after that Georgia Tech game. So it's not just the mega blockbusters week one. There is a lot that we're going to watch. We're going to take notes on. We're going to have a lot of thoughts on. And of course, we'll be talking about it every step of the way. We have our group of five preview with on On3's Caden Smith coming Wednesday.

Who might be that top-ranked Group of Five champ? Is it possible two Group of Five champs could make the playoff? What are the big games involving the Group of Five and the Power Conference schools? What are the ones that can decide who winds up in the playoff and maybe who winds up getting knocked out of the playoff because they lost. We'll talk about that with Caden. We're so close. Two more days. Week one kicks off.

We'll talk to you tomorrow.