Andy & Ari On3 - Kalen DeBoer, Eli Drinkwitz, and the Black Hoodie of Death | John Mateer's Status | College Football Week 7: Best Bets

Episode Date: October 9, 2025

As the college football season is in full swing, it's YOUR questions on today's Dear Andy & Ari episode, and Missouri's Eli Drinkwitz kicks it off with a question to Kalen DeBoer: Will the Crimson Tide coach wear the "black hoodie of death"? Find out here in this LOADED episode of Andy & Ari On3. (0:00) On Today’s Episode(0:52) BetMGM(3:05) Intro: Alabama at Missouri(3:42) Eli Drinkwitz’s Question to Coach DeBoer(10:25) Diving Deep into Bama at Mizzou(17:53) John Mateer’s Status for Saturday(18:43) What we know about the Top 25(20:55) Omaha Steaks(22:08) Best Bets: Tyler Shoemaker joins - Indiana at Oregon(27:04) Purdue at Minnesota(29:49) Old Dominion at Marshall(31:40) Texas vs Oklahoma(35:33) Wrapping up with Tyler(36:11) PaniniAmerica.net(40:37) Dear Andy & Ari: Who’s going to the CFB White Elephant party?(45:42) The Disaster at North Carolina(47:33) More attendees of the white elephant party(50:02) Florida State, LSU, USC?(58:15) CFP Scenarios - Would you rather?(1:04:24) Friday Night: USF at North Texas(1:08:30) Thursday & Friday night Slate(1:09:36) Big 12 Coin(1:11:05) Thanks for watching & listening! See you Saturday! After evaluating Coach DeBoer's wardrobe, the guys break down the fascinating Alabama-Missouri matchup on Saturday. What would it mean for Missouri if the Tigers come out victorious at Faurot Field? On the flip side, how much validation would the Crimson Tide gain with a win on the road in the SEC? The fellas take a quick pitstop in Dallas to look at John Mateer's status on the availability report ahead of Oklahoma-Texas. Tyler Shoemaker from VSiN joins to give his best bets ahead of the jam packed week 7 schedule. Dear Andy & Ari provides some excellent questions... Who would go to the college football white elephant party?A fascinating would you rather question on the CFPWhat about Friday's slate? - USF at North Texas Plus we have a new Big 12 coin! All that and more on a loaded episode! Our show is presented by BetMGM! If you haven’t signed up for BetMGM yet, use bonus code CFB and you will get up to a $1500 First Bet Offer on your first wager with BetMGM! Here’s how it works: 1. Download the BetMGM app and sign-up using bonus code CFB.2. Deposit at least $10 and place your first wager on any game.3. You will receive up to $1500 in bonus bets if your bet loses! Just make sureyou use bonus code CFB when you sign up! Make this college football season one for the history books. Make it legendary. See BetMGM.com for Terms. 21+ only. US promotional offers not available in New York, Nevada, Ontario, or Puerto Rico. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER (Available in the US). Call 877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY). Call 1-800-NEXT-STEP (AZ), 1-800-327-5050 (MA), 1-800-BETS-OFF (IA), 1-800-981-0023 (PR). First Bet Offer for new customers only. Subject to eligibility requirements. Rewards are non-withdrawable bonus bets that expire in 7 days. In partnership with Kansas Crossing Casino and Hotel.Our show is sponsored by Rhoback, the most comfortable clothes on the planet! Use the code ANDY on Rhoback.com for a generous 20% off for all new customers through the end of this week. That’s 20% off all Performance Polos, Shorts and more with code ANDY We’re also brought to you by Panini! Panini delivers the most collectible sports cards and memorabilia on the planet. Check out the new exclusive Arch Manning collection or the Panini Prizm Draft Picks College Football series. Visit PaniniAmerica.net to start your collection today. Go to https://OmahaSteaks.com to get 50% off sitewide, plus an extra 20% off select favorites and more limited-time deals during their Early Black Friday Sale. And use Promo Code ANDYANDARI at checkout for an extra $35 off. Minimum purchase may apply. See site for details. A big thanks to our advertiser, Omaha Steaks! Watch our show on YouTube! https://youtu.be/_syuU5QE738 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.

On today's Andy and Ari on 3 presented by BetMGM, we turn over the show to you, the audience. Great questions from you, although we have a bonus question from Eli Drinkwitz to start out about Kailen DeBore's wardrobe choice for the Missouri Alabama game, which one of the biggest games of the weekend. Plus, a coaches and teams white elephant party, it doesn't make sense when I'm. I say it like that, it will make sense when you hear Lori's question. Plus, would you rather only have two of your teams make the playoff in your conference, as long as one of them was guaranteed to win the national championship? Or would you rather have five of your teams and not be guaranteed a national championship? We answer that question.

On today's Andy Narion 3, presented by BEDMGM. We are presented by BEDMGM. We use BEDMGM lines, bed MGM totals. And you can sign up for BetMGM today. If you haven't signed up for BetMGM yet, just use the bonus code CFB. CFB is in college football, and you'll get up to a $1,500 first bet offer on your first wager with BetMGM. Here's how it works. Download the Betmgm app, sign up using the bonus code CFB.

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bonus bets that expire in seven days in partnership with Kansas Crossing Casino and Hotel. Don't forget, if you haven't signed up for BetMGM yet, use the bonus code CFB and get your $1,500 first bet offer today. Welcome to Andy and Ari on 3 presented by BetMGM. It's a dear Andy, dear Ari show, but it's also a dear Kailen show, Ari. Yeah, we're pretty packed and ready for the weekend, I think. Like, you know, the Alabama, the Alabama stuff is there. And we got the drink stuff. Like, we're ready to go.

We got the, we got a lot of games this weekend. But, yeah, that noon slate kicks off with Alabama and Missouri, 11 a.m. local time. Great game between two teams in the SEC. One, one is undefeated. The other is Alabama. And Alabama can continue its run of playing really, really well. since that Florida State loss and possibly looking like a national title contender and SEC title contender, or Missouri can say, hey, we are going to be heavily involved

in this race at the end of this year. And it's a great way to start your Saturday. It's going to be a juicy, juicy Saturday all the way through. But we have an incredible question right out of the gate. This is from the SEC teleconference on Wednesday. usually what happens is reporters call in all the SEC coaches speak and each coach has about eight minutes and reporters ask the various coaches questions about their teams heading into the week well Eli Drinkwitz and Kalin DeBoer go back to back on the SEC teleconference

their time slots are set that they're the same all year so Eli Drinkwitz hung on the line on Wednesday and he had a question for Kalin DeBore Coach, it looks like your next question is going to come from Eli Drinkwitz of Missouri Athletics. Hey, Kaelin, are you going to wear the black hoodie of death on the sideline this game with us wearing black jerseys? Oh, Coach Drink. I got to fit in somehow. Yeah, I'm more than likely. We'll see what the forecast is.

I kind of know, but yeah, I'm expecting that. So it's kind of got its own life of its own right now. So we're rolling with it. That's the only question I needed to find out today. All right. See you. The Black Hoodie of Death. And if you're watching the YouTube version of the show,

you can see it right there. So it's the one Kailen DeBoer wears, black hoodie, crimson bar across the front that says Alabama has the Nike swoosh under it. I believe he wore this for Alabama's 34 to nothing win against Missouri last. year. I've seen a stat already that he's 12 and 2 in this hoodie, but I went back to some games last year. I was like, oh, did he lose the Oklahoma game in this hoodie? Because if he did,

you've got to burn that. But he wasn't wearing this hoodie for the Oklahoma game. He was wearing a hoodie, a black hoodie, but it had a different logo on it. So the black hoodie of death might actually be undefeated. Andy, did you see, and I'll wrap this back around, but did you see this week that somebody was asking Baker Mayfield about his growth as a human being and all this stuff and he was saying yeah i was like being who i am authentically when i was in cleveland i was an arrogant asshole and that's how i was viewed and now i'm a dog and everybody was laughing and it is so funny to me because i always go back to like how caleb de boar's attire was a topic of conversation when he first started but it's like he wore a t-shirt when

they lost to vanderbilt and people lost their minds right and i don't know about you but i think that the light hoodie is the t-shirt of the fall like i don't know like it's a much more uh and like it's just funny because now it's the black hoodie of death because they're winning. But the things that people like latch onto when things are going bad is so funny to me. And it's like now it's a source of Friday. I ate lunch yesterday with my buddy

who's an Alabama fan and he was like, dude, that hoodie is so sick. I'm like, dude, you guys wanted him fired for wearing a t-shirt last year. But like, did you think about this? It's the first thing I thought of. It was exactly was. Like the first thing that my

mine went to when when I started seeing things on the message boards bubbling up about the hoodie. Like you people freaked out over his t-shirt. There's there's the t-shirt. And it's literally the same exact thing. The same logo. Oh my gosh. Yeah, it's the same t-shirt. But yeah, they kill him over the t-shirt.

The hoodie, though, that's the one. So I am wearing my black roback hoodie of life. which, by the way, you can get an Alabama Roeback Hezzy hoodie that's actually cooler than Kayland DeBore's black hoodie of death. Go to roback.com, R-H-O-B-A-C-K, use the code Andy for 20% off your first order. But, yeah, listen, I think that Ro-Back one would definitely be undefeated.

But the Nike one's nice. I do like the look. I'm not just saying this. I like the Ro-back one better. It's like simplistic and it's... Oh, the Ro-back one's far superior. far spirit yeah i actually don't really like and you know i'm a nike snob when it comes to uniforms and stuff i don't really love that hoodie just the design of it in general so uh but you can't wear anything

different if you're winning like if you just went to went on the road and beat georgia and then you beat vanderbilt like you have to you have to break it out against missouri and you ride that hoodie until it it it doesn't work for you anymore it's the entire version of like not shaving a beard while things are going well right in or yeah the playoff whatever yeah um but someone did ask it might have even been you like has he put that thing in the laundry or do you use the competitive oh no that was will compton asked in that yeah oh he did okay uh or do you like do the competitive juices from previous battle have to be a part of this competitive juices smell after a while that's all i know yeah yeah oh he did not wear a hoodie in tallahassee producer river tells us

okay oh he went polo shirt in tallahassee oh look at that you guys wanted a collar You got one of the collar, the feature wasn't enough? You got your collar, boys. Maybe it was just all about comfort and feel and confidence. You know what, black is very slimming. That's why I wear it often. Absolutely. Part of it.

I don't know. So if you're wondering what the forecast is in Columbia, Missouri on Saturday, it is a perfect football day. So it's a low of 54 in the morning, getting up to 77 during the day. So probably won't even be to 77 by the time. The game ends because this game is kicking off at 11 a.m. local. So this is perfect hoodie weather. Perfect hoodie weather. I feel like this should have moved the line, Ari. It's Alabama minus three and a half on the road. Alabama's three and a half

point favorite on the road. This has got to be worth a field goal, right? Perfect. I mean, weather, black hoodie of death. I might be missed speaking and I'm looking it up as we speak, but I actually think that the line is moved. I don't, I don't think that it's three and a half anymore. I think it opened at four and a half, but let me see what it is. I've been in GM right now. uh yeah it's three it's gone down it's moving in the different no belief in the hoodie whatsoever yeah um which i think is a nice segue to talk about the game again because uh this is i you know i was thinking about this uh in the shower this morning and uh if the theory that the SEC is going to be a hodgepodge of two and three lost teams at the end of the year to come to fruition

this is kind of like do you think that Missouri needs to win this game to hand Alabama their second loss or do you think that Missouri needs to lose or to win to make sure that Bama has two at the end of year? I don't know which way you're looking at it, but it feels like Missouri doesn't have to do anything to do anything to Alabama. Missouri needs to do something for Missouri. But Missouri has one of the easier schedule draws in the SEC. Alabama does not. So that's the thing you need to consider. Like Missouri can probably survive this. Now, they're going to have to beat somebody good. They're going to have to beat A&M or Oklahoma along the way, but they can beat 10 and 2, and they'll have quality wins,

and they'll be fine if they lose this game. Alabama situation is a little bit tougher because their schedule is more difficult. Yeah. They also play Oklahoma down the road. They've got to play Auburn. and they've got to play Tennessee, they've got to play LSU. They've both got to play, or they, well, Missouri's already beaten South Carolina.

Alabama's got to play South Carolina. But it's a harder schedule. I mean, funny enough, if you are a person who roots for SEC chaos, you almost would want Alabama to win because then that would muck it up even more because of Missouri's, you know, runway for the rest of the year. Yeah, like this is this is going to be a game, buddy. I'm excited. And, you know, I think that Missouri is a trendy play.

The line is moving, obviously, in the other direction. And, you know, conventional wisdom and thought would be, hey, Alabama's feeling itself. Their coach looks very handsome on the sideline with his hoodie of death. Who cares what time to kickoff is and where it is, you know, Alabama is going to be able to win by three. And I don't know that that's the case. I was actually watching someone do a film breakdown on Twitter the other day of what Ahmad Hardy is doing. and some of the big explosive plays he's had this year and how it's a one-man effort a lot of the times,

like in terms of, you know, they're not blowing massive holes open for him. He's breaking tackles and making some of this stuff happen himself. Or making somebody miss after a lineman missed an assignment and then reversing field and going up 40 on a play that should have been maybe a two-yard game. And, you know, I've noticed, I think that you had him in your Heisman top 10 when we were voting this week.

I believe I did too. That's the type of thing, too, the dynamic players who can take a play that has broken down and turn it into an explosive is how you turn a game like this onto its head. So, you know, I'm very excited to watch this game. And, you know, we're October 9th as we're recording this right now. And I still think that we're in constant search of more context of who's good and who's not. I think Missouri is one of the final, you know, pillars here of like, hey, how good are they

that we're kind of uncertain about. So it's going to be a fun game. I can't wait to watch it. So I was talking about the difficulty of the remaining schedules. Both of them are considered pretty difficult, but Alabama's is more difficult. Brian Freeman, one of my favorite advanced stats guys, posted this yesterday. So this is the toughest remaining regular season schedule in terms of wins a top 20 to 30 FBS team. So this would be a team ranked number 20 through 30.

So this would be a pretty good team, like an 8 and 4 type team. This is what you'd expect in terms of wins against the remainder of the schedule. Alabama's at 2.7 which means they would finish like a top 20 or a number the number 25 team in the country would finish below 500 more than likely against what Alabama has left

on its schedule. So Alabama's got to earn it. Now Missouri is only at 3.1. It's basically saying that the number 25 team would finish 500 against what Missouri has left. But as a way of saying that if Alabama were to win five... That they are clearly above the threshold of the 25.

Yeah. Earning it. Yes. Yeah. Absolutely earning it. So this is what I keep saying, though, about Alabama. It's not that we're not moving the goalposts, their schedule is hard. Yes.

Yeah. I've never really understood the moving the goalpost mechanism or discussion point. But, you know, that's neither here nor there. They got off to an awful start this year, and they've beaten two very good teams in a row. Of course, the story is going to change. Yeah. Because their story, their season has changed. And if they go to Missouri and win this game, it is not them exposing Missouri, probably.

It is them winning another tough game. Yeah. And I anticipate this is going to be a four-quarter game. I mean, the line suggests that the over-under isn't very high. Like, this is probably going to be a competitive game, and it might look a lot like Vanderbilt game for Alabama last week. and I don't know if they'll be able to separate at the end, but that was a highly competitive game for two and a half, three quarters. It was, and again, I think Vanderbilt is better than they were last season,

and Alabama just had to play a great game to beat them, and they did. But do you think, let's talk about feelings for a minute. Do you think that Missouri, Missouri's been consistently good the last few years, too, and I hope that people acknowledge that. This isn't like Missouri came out of nowhere. They've been a 9-10 win team pretty consistently under Eli. But for a program that looks for tent pole altering wins, And, you know, I get into this, I think, more than you do in terms of, like, the message that, like, winning a game.

How bad do you think Missouri needs to take this one? Just for the program direction, the way that it's perceived nationally, all those things. We know that they're not so. This is a huge one. And there's a chance that the whole country could be watching this one. Because if Ohio State just boat races, Illinois, every TV in the country goes to this game if it's competitive. Yeah. As producer River puts it in our group chat, it's a Willie Wonka Golden ticket dangling in front of Missouri.

Missouri. And that's exactly what it is. Because everything, that's part of the problem with being Alabama's every time you go on the road. That's what that's what it is. I think that everything you said is true in terms of Missouri could lose this game by 10 and make the playoff. There's no question. They're not going to be dead no matter what. But in the court of public opinion, this is a huge, huge ability or opportunity, as you said, to make that statement. Now, I think that that also exists for Indiana, which is a game we're going to get into later in the show.

But there are certain teams that are very good that haven't earned the national respect yet. I think Georgia Tech might be a team that's on the fringe of that. If you look at the top 25, Texas Tech doesn't have a game like this until Georgia to actually earn that. If you look at the top 25, let's just do this real quick. We never know where the show is going to go. I'm going to go one through 25 and you tell me which teams you think people are like not sure if they're good. I think we all know that Miami, Oregon and Ohio State are. are good.

Ole Miss, I think, has proven it enough to where people are doing good. I don't think Ole Miss and Texas A&M are both on the, on, people are on the fence about. I think the next four are. Ole Miss, A&M, OU, and Indiana are all, we're not sure. Well, okay, you mentioned OU, this is a time to slip in. We were wondering where John Neteer would show up on the availability report. You were absolutely correct. He was questionable.

So questionable for the game against Texas. It could be a giant mind, you know, mind game that Oklahoma's playing. He's not going to play. They're just trying to get Texas unnerved. Or it's a guy from Little Elm, Texas, who's looking at realistically what the NFL draft's going to look like next year, and he probably has to go if he's playing really well, and this might be his only chance to play in this game.

Yeah. So, and I hope is that it's that. And I think it's that. We'll see. We'll see. I don't know. I, like, I'm really excited to be there eating a turkey leg. figuring out whether he's going to play or not.

It's going to be high drama. Let's go zip through the rest of the top 25. Yeah, yeah, okay. Let's do it. So Texas Tech, I think, falls in line with that. Now, this is an interesting one, Georgia. I think people just assume they're good because they're Georgia, so they're probably outside of that.

I think people are assuming it and not really paying attention. Wrongfully assuming that they are. They're on the opposite end of the spectrum. They need to beat Auburn. Like, if they lose to Auburn, that is a, bad sign for the rest of the way. LSU, I think people assume is bad, and they're probably somewhere in the middle. Tennessee, are we sure? Because the only thing we have for Tennessee right now is a really exciting game against Georgia. Georgia Tech, we mentioned, Missouri mentioned. Michigan is

interesting. What do people think of Michigan? Do people think Michigan's really good? Or do people think Michigan's kind of bad and hasn't been exposed yet? I don't know yet. But that's the hard part with OU. It's like, well, they beat Michigan, but no one knows what Michigan is. Notre Dame, I think people wrongfully assume is worse than they are. Illinois, I think people know is bad in comparison what we thought they would be because they got boat race, but they're probably much better than what we saw against Indiana. BYU, we don't know. Virginia, they beat Florida State,

but now we don't know as much about that. Vanderbilt, I think we assume that they're solid, but not great. We think they're going to win a few more that normally we wouldn't expect Vanderbilt to win, but this team should win. Like, yeah, like one of LSU or Texas, maybe they should beat this year. Yeah, and ASU, Iowa State, Memphis, South Florida, and Florida State are all kind of like, you know, group of five teams have a much harder threshold to break through to that.

And then Memphis and USF will see, like, the championing Americans going to the playoff. It's just a matter of which one, who it is. And Tulane will be in that mix as well. Navy might be in that mix as well. North Texas might be in that mix as well. We'll talk about North Texas and USF a little bit later in the show as well. Yeah. And then the big 12 will iron.

self-help. Yep. Now, coming up, before we get to the rest of your questions, we have questions for Tyler Shoemaker from Vison, because he comes on every few weeks. He gives us his best bets going into the weekend, and I love to pick his brain, and we're going to do that next. Before we get to Tyler, I got to tell you about Omaha Steaks. Go to Omaha Steaks.com for the early Friday sale, 50% off sitewide, plus an extra 20% off select favorites. The code is Andy and Ari for an extra $35 off. That's Andy, A-N-D-Y, and A-N-D-R-E, A-R-I for an extra $35 off. You are looking right there at steaks, burgers.

These are the steaks that producer river cook. These are the tenderloins. I believe we just saw the burgers, the tender, ground tender, burger that producer river cooked. We have some B-roll of my ground tenderloin burgers that I made a few weeks ago that are spectacular. And tonight, I'm cooking those tenderloin steaks on the grill. Cannot wait.

Omaha Steaks, the box comes. It's like Christmas every single day that that box shows up. So if the early Black Friday sale 50% off site wide, extra 20% off select favorites, use the code Andy and Ari and get an extra 35 bucks off at almost. Omaha Steaks, go to Omaha Steaks.com. And Tyler, I love this part because Ari and I, we pick the games that everybody's talking about, but you pick the games that have the lines that make your eyes light up. So what were the ones this week that got your attention?

I think first and foremost, Indiana, Oregon, obviously it's a huge game. You know, a lot of my best bets aren't always going to be on the big games, but this one happened to be. I actually have Indiana projected to win this game by two. I tweeted out that score projection yesterday, and that got quite a stir on X, as you can imagine. You know, I mean, you're going to be in a Dan Lanning speech, Tyler. Yeah, yeah, he's going to put that up in the locker room.

That's okay. I mean, I think Oregon's a really good team. They're in my top five, my power ratings, but Indiana has been really good. I mean, the metrics just love Indiana right now. So I'm very curious to see how this game goes. Yeah. The thing that I think is interesting about this is that the brain and the math are different.

Like my brain works the same way as everybody's brain on X does. Oregon's awesome. They've got these great players. And I hate that I'm saying X now on Twitter. It's always going to be Twitter. But that's not. always the case. Like what we think is just going to happen. As Oregon names that score, Indiana got blown out by Ohio State last year, there's still a tier below. What is it in the numbers

and the calculations that you've made that stands out the most? And what can you do to help people urge that what their brain thinks isn't always how football games play out? Yeah. I mean, just looking through some of the different metrics like, I mean, their opponent adjusted points per game is way better than Oregon's. You know, Oregon obviously took a in terms of all their opponent-adjusted metrics last week when Penn State lost to UCLA, because that Penn State win and performance from Oregon was really strong for them at the time. And now that Penn State has just continued to – Penn State just hasn't looked good all season, really.

So that is not as elevating as it once was. The Red Zone scoring on field, Indiana has been better there. That formula would favor Indiana by seven and a half. So, I mean, and again, there are some mixed numbers here. I don't want it to sound like I think Indiana is just going to show up and roll Oregon. That's not the case. I do project them to win by two, but, you know, there are multiple formulas here that I run that do have Oregon winning. But, you know, I look at the thing holistically, and I think Indiana should be able to cover the seven and a half.

And as you know, Ari, I hit this on Sunday at nine and a half. Yeah. Yeah. The thing I'm not good at math, as Andy can attest, but the thing that scares me about this formula, and I don't know anything about what you do other than you're smart, but is if you discredit Oregon's win over Penn State too much, because the Penn State that Oregon played was not the Penn State that lost to UCLA last week. I think we can agree on that. We know that things change. And then also, Indiana rolling Illinois. at a pace that, you know, was so big, the margin was so big. Like, can two results, because I assume that because Illinois turned around and beat USC after that, that that is also impacting the numbers. And I wonder how much individual results of games when we know teams aren't the same to impact the math.

That's the only thing that scares me. Well, that's exactly why, you know, for all of the consternation from media or just or people on Twitter, whatever, they're like, well, why do you, why do we have preseason priors? Like, let's just only focus on what we've seen on the field. Well, the problem is if you don't use any preseason priors, then you start the season with the assumption that everyone's starting from the same place, which is not true. We know that, you know, Ohio State and Georgia and those teams are starting ahead of the pack generally. So that's where, you know, especially at this point in the season, you still have to have some

preseason prior baked in to help smooth out some of those huge results. he mentioned like Indiana killing Illinois and Penn State losing, you know, as 24 point favorites to UCLA. So obviously those have to matter, but, you know, one game's not going to completely swing the whole thing. But how far were Indiana and Oregon separated in the preseason priors? I would have to look. I would imagine probably a touchdown or less.

I don't think it was a huge gap. I could be wrong. I would have to look. But, but for instance, you know, in my numbers, if I only use the on-field data, I would favor Indiana by six and a half. But because it's a blended formula with some preseason prior still baked in, it's only Indiana minus two. This is absolutely fascinating. And so I want to stay in the Big Ten because there's another game that you find very interesting in the Big Ten.

And Purdue, Minnesota, which we just watched Minnesota get dismantled by Ohio State. Purdue, obviously, in the middle of rebuild Barry Odom's first year, what do we think happens here? yeah so this this was one that like even before the lines came out i already and i have talked about this before i like to bet against teams the week after they play ohio state georgia alabama the teams that are big physical and and that you get up you know emotionally for like that's your super bowl because then you're in a huge letdown spot the following week obviously i wouldn't blindly do that but those are spots where i try to look and see if the number makes sense and in this case, the number was a slam dunk because I only project Minnesota as a one and a half point

favorite in this game. And the on-field data actually favors Purdue by three. So I really like Purdue getting the points here above a touchdown. Yeah. Purdue seems to be a team that you've been, you know, hanging around a little bit. The numbers for Purdue. Yeah, they've burned me a couple of times. But we'll see. Like I said, I do, in addition to the number, I do like the spot here of after Minnesota just, you know, got dismantled in Columbus last week. Yeah. Minnesota currently a seven and a half point favorite in this game, by the way. So for our podcast listeners who don't see the graphics on the screen.

But yeah, Minnesota's a seven and a half point favorite in this game. So that, but the body blow theory is interesting, Tyler, because it is, it is something when you see these teams that have to get up for the, for the massive game, for the Ohio State game. And then what is Ohio State do to you? Can you actually lose that game twice? Yeah. Yeah. And I think we've seen that historically. I know, again, as someone who follows Ohio State pretty closely, like, there have been big games for Ohio State where the other team looks really good and gives Ohio State a game. And then the next week they just go get destroyed by somebody mediocre because they just kind of left it all in the field in that big game. And then they don't have anything left in the tank for the next week. So I think that's potentially what you could see here with Minnesota. Also, PJ Fleck was absolutely dumbfounded in the post game interview room, too. like that's the best defense I've ever seen to my entire life.

And he wasn't even like, they got beat 42 to 3. He wasn't even mad. He was just like, what are we supposed to do? Well, that's a good thing to bring up because I think my general thought process on fanhood, this has nothing to do with gambling. But if I were a fan of a team, the only time I would ever be really upset is if I knew my team lost to an inferior opponent. But if my team went to the playoffs or my team was playing another team that was better

than it, then like that's the result that was supposed to happen. And, you know, that's what happened last week. Well, let's transition to the final best bet. It seems like Old Dominion is a team that a lot of people are undervaluing from your perspective. They're playing Marshall. I know that's not a game that's going to get a lot of the listeners excited. But if you see an angle here, you see an angle. Yeah, I mean, Marshall won, as we talked about before, like they lost a lot this offseason, coach players, everyone.

So this is a rebuilding year for Marshall for sure. But I tweeted earlier this week, Old Dominion is a group of five team that not a lot of people are talking about. has a pretty good resume already. They went to Virginia Tech and won. I know Virginia Tech fired their coach, but still for Old Dominion, you know, that's a big win. And they beat them pretty comfortably.

Tyler, Kurt Signetti was mad after this game when Old Dominion played Indiana in the season opener because Indiana only went 2714. I got a feeling Kurtzigni looks back on this one. They're like, wow, we beat a pretty damn good team because these guys had killed people the rest of the way. Yeah, well, I mean, as you can imagine, Indiana being so high in my ratings also helps Old Dominion

because they played such a competitive game them. So, you know, all that, all that goes, goes hand in hand. But I think this is a team on the rise versus a team that's in a complete rebuild. The numbers are, are heavy in Old Dominion's favor. I mean, some of these formulas are Old Dominion minus 38, Old Dominion minus 39, minus 45. Like, I think it could be a blowout. Hold on. Let me just type in something real quick. Well, Colton Joseph's been awesome, the quarterback for Old Dominion. You know, Ricky Ronnie has been the head coach there for a while.

He's done a good job with that program. Kevin Porter's their O.C. They've really put together a good crew here. And Colton Joseph has been kind of the very pleasant surprise. But, yeah, I'm interested to see what they do the rest of the way because they look like the best team in the Sunbelt right now, Tyler. Yeah, absolutely. The numbers bear that out as well.

Andy, before we let him go, I have to ask him. This isn't one of his best bets. But can you help us parse through this Texas OU line? because we were talking about it on the show yesterday, Tyler, and like we think that it's not just how teams have looked. Like Andy even brought me across the other way here. You know, I was high on Oklahoma before the season, but like Oklahoma seems to be just a better team top to bottom.

Why is Texas laying two and a half? And what do you make of this line if somebody wants to play it? Because most people just want to watch it and play. So it's gone toward Oklahoma, but hadn't flipped. Yeah, I wrote about this at vizn.com today on Thursday. and I wrote, show me where you have this line and I'll show you how much you have preseason priors baked into your number because, and as we know, odds makers still have preseason priors heavily baked in, which is why Texas is a favorite, on top of the fact that we obviously

don't know if John Mateer is going to play, which does make a difference. But, Ari, I was listening to the show earlier this week and I was proud of you for sticking up for the players are overrated from a point spread standpoint team because that's the you thing. Yeah. I, you know, sometimes you'll see a guy get announced out and the line would just swing five, six, seven points. And most players are not worth that. I would adjust about four points for John Mateer. But my projection on the game, you know, again, just based on what these teams have done, on field data, Oklahoma minus eight and a half, the blended version, Oklahoma minus eight. So, I mean, you're telling me that John Mateer is worth 10 points, 11 points. Because Texas, was minus three at one point. So I don't see that. We've seen nothing from Texas on the field that indicates that they're like, like I already said, that they're better than Oklahoma.

So it would be Oklahoma or nothing for me from a betting standpoint on this game. Woo! Woo! Boy. My town right now. A lot of sad longhorns in my town right now. Well, hey, it's Red River. I've been to a Red River.

Like, I was at Mack Brown's last Red River. river game and I can't remember what Oklahoma was favored by in that game. I want to say it was like 13 and Texas just housed them like weird things happen in this game. I get it. But I'm with you, Tyler, like when I saw the line come out for this game and this was when I thought Michael Hawkins was starting. I was like, have these people watch football at all this year? Yeah, it's like I said, there's just there's got to be a lot of preseason prior baked into this and the injury question. I'll be I'll be curious if Mateer gets announced as in because, you know, Pete Thamwell's been reporting.

He's trying to play this week. So if he does play, I'll be curious. I would expect Oklahoma probably closes maybe around minus three. If he does play, I think it'll swing that many points in Oklahoma's favor. But even at that, I just to have the certainty that, okay, he's going to play, I would still play Oklahoma even at minus three. What if they announced that he's out? Is Texas going to go back to three, three and a half, you think? Or do you think that people have caught on to this line being weird?

I think they will be because people people just overreact to news in general it's like even even if it's something you probably already knew in the back of your mind when you get that official report like just watch the market it goes crazy people just like react to news in such a crazy like reckless way so and Texas is a big public team anyway right yeah yeah well and in my standpoint on Texas I it took everything in me not to bet Texas against Florida last week I ended up not betting that game at all. Because I was like, man, maybe that preseason Texas team is in there somewhere, but the way they looked against Florida last week, I was like, all right, I'm out, I'm going to trust these, the on-field numbers for them. They just are not what we thought they were. And overall is very good. So some of us have better discipline than others, don't they? B-E-T-E-R or B-E-T-T-O-R discipline, Ari. Which one? Which one is it? Both. But he's got better of both. Tyler will tell you, I text him like at on Wednesday at night. It's like, I know you don't have a play on this game.

What side of my betting? Like I have to like have something. And last night, you know, worked out well. So, you know, thank you, Tyler, for being here. I know you've got a pretty busy day and you've taken time to carve out for us as always appreciated. And I'm excited to watch the games through your lens this week. Yeah, can't, can't wait. We've got some big ones. I'm excited. We'll see you, Tyler. Thank you so much. All right. Thanks, guys. That is Tyler Shoemaker from Vison. We'll get to your questions in a segment of first.

I'm going to tell you about Panini. This is at Panini, America.net, to start your collection, the most collectible sports cards on the planet. I have here the Ohio State Blasterbox. So there's an exclusive Ohio State set and basically six four card packs in this blaster box. We're going to open two of them right now.

And Ari, what am I looking for? What's the biggest prize I can pull out of this? There are some nukes in there. The biggest prize I think that you could pull out of that is a Jeremiah Smith color blast, which is, I believe, probably a four-figure, you know, mid-four figure card. So this is a set for Ohio State only. The only cards in there will be Ohio State cards. You might be getting women's college basketball players.

I've got volleyball, hockey, all sorts of. different teams, but you're looking for the Ohio State football stars. They've got the on-campus insert from Caleb Downs. They're showing on the screen here. There's some big, big cards in there. And we'll see. But this is like where you get Julian Sane and some of the young guys out there, Arvel Reese, I believe, signs in this.

So, yeah, it's going to be a fun ride. And if you see a white card with like what looks to be like dust, colorful dust exploding, you have officially hit a nuke. So let's see what we got here. All right. we go. We start off with Maddie Paz, one of their lacrosse players. We've got Mila Nikaronov, one of their swimmers, Quinn Sean Judkins' legendary contenders. Obviously, Quintan Judkins in the NFL now. And then this was probably the most interesting one out of this

pack, Ari. A college ticket, Tavian St. Clair. Yeah. St. Clair, the freshman quarterback, the future, they believe, after Julian Sayan, from Ohio. Yeah, he's the one waiting in the wings. You might want to hold on to that one. I will hold on to that one. The thing about these packs, too, it's like some of them you might rip through and you're not seeing anything,

and then boom, out of the back, you see something big. So keep ripping. Well, I see something very interesting in this one, a guy that we've had multiple conversations about on the show, but we'll get to him in a second. All right, we got a college ticket, James Peoples. College ticket, Kamaya Gibson, volleyball player.

Ella Hobbs, basketball player. Oh, oh, college ticket. Carnell Tate. Carnell Tate, who Ari and I have discussed. He's obviously wide receiver two at Ohio State because Jeremiah Smith is a person who exists. Carnell Tate would be wide receiver one on every other team, almost every other team. Just to be fair or safe, let's say all but three other teams. And then you can fill in the gaps if you're.

Yeah, you decide if you're like, if you're a Miami fan and you want to put Malachi Tony there, if you're a Florida fan, you want to say Dallas Wilson. Yeah. Yeah, he's really, it's most of them. It's most of them. It's most of them. So, yeah, go to PaniniAmerica.net to start your collection today. We'll be ripping packs all season long.

And because I don't have the discipline that Andy does to rip them on the show, which makes me a bad person, I think. I'll show you some of the ones that I hit. I showed you last week, I had a Jeremiah Smith one, and I showed you. a Julian San. But here's a Ted Ginn Jr. campus legends that I pulled out of there. That's to 199. That's a pretty important card. We got two private signing cards of current basketball

players. Ella Hobbs, who Andy just pulled as an auto. So you will get an auto in these boxes. And Brayland Nash is a men's basketball player. And then this one is a pretty card, is a gold shimmer of Greg Oden basketball legend. And that's a prism design. So, you know,

it's kind of a cool product because there's all sorts of different types of cards in there too not just players but types so keep we'll keep working them on you know as we go on and let's just hope Andy hits that color blast because I'm going to Gainesville and I want to rob his home

no it's going to be locked down it'll be in the safe I'll rob it is your safe bolted down to the ground no but it has something else in it so you don't want to touch so fine I'll pick it up and we'll figure that out when I get home you'd have a little trouble at the airport if you did that

All right, let's go to your questions. Dear Andy and dear Ari, first one comes from one of our favorites from Lori. And she says this is a better question for a couple of weeks from now. I disagree. I think it's a great question for right now. So we've probably all been to a white elephant party. Everybody brings something of some predetermined value

with the intention of walking away with something else of some of the same value brought by someone else. You all get a number and pick blindly from the rap presents. You can steal an open gift once, but a gift can only be stolen a number of times. the fun of it is that you sort of pick out what you end up with, but only sort of. Now, what if the coaches in the athletic departments were invited to a white elephant party? Who would choose to come and who would stay home?

This is the gist of this question, which I love. This is all entirely hypothetical, but what if the schools were told they could trade in a coach or coordinator for someone else who decided to come to the party? In this hypothetical, everyone, coaches administrators would have been told they're going to be paid or pay the same thing that they currently are. Kentucky, for example, would almost certainly come to the party. Would Mark Stoops come to the party? Would James Franklin come to the party? Would Penn State come to the party? Which coaches would pay being equal, roll the dice to see how they would like it at a different program,

which schools would roll the dice pay being equal to see what anyone else could do with their current situations. You can bake in already fired coaches and openings or not. Also, what is Bill Belichick doing with his life? That's my favorite part of the question, because Lori had this beautifully, like, drawn out situation that like I could never have come up with a million years and I can't wait to talk about and then at the end of it she goes but forget that like 300 word question what the hell is going on

with Bill Belichick we'll get the both but what would like Bill Belichick isn't coming to the party because nobody's grabbing him but North Carolina is definitely coming to the party. Yeah what happens if the coach can't go to the party but the school does that's what I think the James Franklin Penn State thing is perfect

because I think both might right I think James Franklin would absolutely go to the party like i think james franklin would say you know what i know my time here is tainted i need to reset the clock somewhere else because there are places where if they got james franklin they would very much appreciate having james franklin because they're in a different place than pen state is right now yeah the problem would be is jane like this is the thing with james franklin because before she even got to james franklin in the question my head was going james franklin james franklin james

like that was the number one person yeah um is that on one hand james franklin has seemed to continually hit his head on a glass ceiling above him and that glass ceiling is lower than the ceiling that the fans would want them to be but at the same time i also would agree with him and if he is internally resentful of the fans not being appreciative of what he's done there um so my question back to you and maybe even a lorry would be uh is james frank Franklin's White Elephant Party invitation is the intrigue of James Franklin attending that party to go to another place that isn't currently at the level at Penn State and build it again because that's what he did at Penn State. I think that's where he would have to go. So I'll give you a hypothetical.

Obviously, Bill Belichick's not going to the party because nobody's going to pick him up. But if North Carolina went to the party and went home with James Franklin, by the way, this sounds more like a key party than a white elephant party. But if North Carolina went to the party and went home with James Franklin, I think everybody's happy there. Yes. And like that's the most confusing part about James Franklin to me is when you get to the place that you've built, when you're successful in doing what you do, you eventually will become resented because you can't go further. Now, I think it's still premature. maybe it's not. They got their doors blown off by UCLA last week.

But they still have... And they get their doors blown off. They were getting their doors blown off. They turned it into a competitive game, but they still lost. I think they should have never been competitive in the first place. I'm comfortable with my categorization of the game. The score at the end was... But like, I feel like if you watched, you watched it, Andy.

You know they were getting diced by UCLA. So whether they won by... Lost by 1 or 30, like the fact that UCLA was running through them the way that they were, I would say, but that they still have an opportunity this year to prove people wrong. I don't think that they will. I thought after the Oregon game, they still had a much higher chance of doing. So obviously, the UCLA game changes the way you view things. But if James Franklin's genius is in the build, then James Franklin would go to North Carolina.

And if North Carolina made it to 10 and 2 every year, there would become a point at North Carolina where those fans would be like, okay, we can't get better than this. I've had enough. That point would be like five or six really happy years from now. Yeah, 10 years from now. But that's kind of the same timeline. How long has he been at Penn State now over 10 years? 11 now. 11.

So, you know. Now, North Carolina is not open. Yesterday was a weird day, guys. Weird, weird day. Talk about North Carolina. They, we started with rumors that they might make staff changes. To date, that hasn't happened yet. those rumors evolved

and we had people texting us and multiple people in our business had people texting them saying, well, I don't know if Bill Belichick's going to make it to the cow game, which the cow game is their next game. It's a week from Friday. That's not true. They put out a statement at 9.36 p.m. local time

last night. Bill Belichick's statement, I'm fully committed to UNC football and the program we're building. here 12 words took about eight hours to craft that statement also a statement from Bubba Cunningham Coach Belichick has the full support of the Department of Athletics

and of the university Bubba Cunningham probably laughing as he approved that statement because Bubba didn't hire Bill Belichick Bubba wanted John Sumral who would be winning at North Carolina right now so Bubba's laughing his ass off at the board of trustees members who went over

his head to hire Bill Belichick yeah really really great statement to have and the reaction to the statement was quite funny because everyone was just like okay pal everyone's like all right the most common gift that got posted with that statement was the the dog sitting in the burning building going everything is fine i did the hank schrader uh seeing the w w signature on the toilet gift i don't know what did you say this is totally normal just a totally normal wednesday night on the open day in year one for coach to get back to the question though

if you don't mind yeah i saw this question question earlier, knew we were using it, and I came up with a few white elephant candidates. I don't know if you've done this, but I have. Yes, I want to hear yours. I've got a few. Here are some of the ones that came up in my head. Clemson. Dabo. Dabo and Clemson. Because I think both would both go to the party? Who would go to the party? So I think both would given what Dabo said at the press conference a few weeks ago. Right.

Right. And so we didn't have this ready to put in the graphics on the show, but while we've been recording this show, I got an email from someone named John, from a listener slash viewer named John. Dabo to Arkansas a la John Caliperi, who says no? Does Arkansas say no? I don't know if they say no to that. Dabo probably says no to that, right? Can Dabo do better than that on the open market? I think he can. So do you think that public perception would land an air on the same side as the Clemson fan right now?

I'm not talking about public perception. I'm talking about people who work in college sports who hire college football coaches. Do you think people who work in college sports who hire college football coaches would err on the side of Clemson fan right now? Yes. Yeah. And I don't think that's airing and I don't think that's just a fan. perspective. I think you're genuinely worried because he's got what should be a really good roster and

they're not that good. Yeah, fair enough. So I think we'll go to the party. Here's another one. You ready? We talked about this on the show on Wednesday, but I just wanted to hear your thoughts again, Michigan. I don't think they're ready to go to the party yet. Michigan's not ready to go to the party yet. And maybe Sharon Moore. Yeah, I think if they lose this weekend, Michigan might consider going to the party, but I don't think Michigan wants to go to the party yet. I think they would like this to work. And I don't, like, I think that's pretty, all of the angst about Sharon Moore, I feel like is premature right now. Like, I haven't seen anything yet this season because they lost Oklahoma, but it might be that Oklahoma's just really good. So I'm not ready to throw that baby out

with the bathwater quite yet. And some of these might be bad examples and part of this game is you telling me I'm stupid and I'm fine with that. Here's another one. Ready? And I don't know, the answer to this. This one is just a blow up a building and walk away with it on fire behind you. Where is Florida State and Mike Norvell in this? Producer River just asked the same thing.

How did you get that graphic so fast? You had no idea what I was going to say. Because he was thinking the same thing you were. Were you River pop up here? Were you thinking that I was saying Florida State? Yeah, I just sent a text asking about Florida State in this hypothetical. He never reads his text. I don't read

the problem. He doesn't. Okay. That's crazy. I thought that you and I were mind-melding there. Okay, no. We were. We were. You were thinking exactly the same thing. I do think, especially after the Miami game, because the Florida state fans left the Miami game thinking that Mario is building a program that could win a national title and that Mike is not recruiting at a high school at a level good enough to win a national title. Let's see if we can do it again because I haven't read Rivers texts. Okay. I'm going to count how fast it takes him to put this graphic up. LSU.

Oh, he picked a different Tigers in the SEC. He said Auburn, but of course Auburn's going to the party. We already know Auburn. Auburn might literally be going to the party in the next few weeks. Auburn. Auburn is hosting that party, I think. Yeah. Yeah. So LSU is a more interesting one, BK, would Brian Kelly go to the party? Because I think that's another part of the question. I think they'd both go to the party. What an awesome question this was, Lori. Thank you. I love Lori so much. Lori gets it. I'm trying, oh, there's one other one, and this one's not as

high profile, but I think it's interesting. Kansas State. I don't think Chris Clyman would go to the party. I don't, like, would Kansas State go to the party if they knew it was their only way for Colin Klein to ever be their head coach because I do think there's a universe where Colin Klein gets a good head coaching job after this season. Colin Klein, for those who don't know, former Kansas State quarterback, former Kansas State OC, the current offensive coordinator, Texas A&M, one of the hottest names in coaching right now, is probably going to be a candidate for some of these open jobs. And so I don't, like Chris Kleiman's not old. He's in his 50s. Yeah. He's not ready to retire yet. I don't think so.

this, and I don't know that he's done what you would consider, he certainly hasn't done a bad job at Kansas State. This is not the year they wanted to have, but I don't look at this like he's done a bad job overall. So I have a hard time with the idea of Kansas State going to the party on him, but I think if they want to have Colin Klein as their head coach, they might have to go to the party. One more, USC.

Okay, so here's the thing. If USC wins this weekend, I don't think USC is to worry about it. If USC loses to Michigan, specifically if they lose the same way they lost to Michigan last year, the same way they lost to Illinois a couple weeks ago, I think the fan base, in general, that may be it for them. They may be done. The school's not done because the buyout's huge. Now, again, I said yesterday, if Kentucky's ready to pay that buyout on those terms, which this one wouldn't be like a due within 60-day situation,

If Kentucky's willing to pay that buyout on those terms, then maybe all the buyouts are on the table. But I don't think so. And I think USC, like since they hired Chad Bowden as the GM, since he started assembling this class of 26 that they've got coming in, I think they're fine with whatever happens this year. And I know USC fans got mad at me preseason for saying that. But I believe they are fine with whatever happens this year, even if that's seven and five. what about Lincoln I think he might I think he might go to the party

I do think because he went to whether he'll admit it or not he went to USC so he didn't have to go to the SEC with Oklahoma USC went to the Big Ten

I'm sure they told him they were going to the Big Ten when he took the job but he's realizing it's the same thing. Dealing with Oregon, dealing with Ohio State, dealing with Michigan,

dealing with Penn State. It's just like dealing with Alabama, LSU, Texas, Tennessee. Like, it's the same thing. We think that he knew they were going to the Big Ten before he accepted that job?

They had to have told him. How many months was it after he went, did they announce it? Six. Six months, yeah. Yeah, I don't know. It was in the works when he got hired. There's no way they didn't tell him.

Okay. Yeah. Or what if they hired him and they're like, oh, by the way, we've got a little surprise for you. That's what I think happened. If I had to guess, I don't know. You're more plugged into this stuff than I. I can't imagine they didn't tell him. Yeah.

Because like when he went to USC and we were analyzing it, it was like, oh, yeah, he's going to go out to the West Coast and run that conference. He's going to run the PAC 12. He didn't have to think about Penn State and Ohio State. The only team he had to think about it back then was Oregon and even Washington to a certain extent. But you add Ohio State, Michigan, and Penn State to that mix. And, you know, who knows who else, you know, pops up on a given year Nebraska. What if Nebraska gets good? Indiana is awesome now.

Like Illinois is good. They found out two weeks ago. Like, it's not an easy proposition. So that was a great question. I think we, unless I missed, maybe I missed one. I don't know, but I think we got to the juicy ones. Yeah. So, yeah, and to answer the last part, what is Bill Belichick doing with his life?

Yeah. He's continuing to build this North Carolina program, right? Sure. Sometimes, Andy, the best builds start with demolition. I don't know what to tell you. All I do know is that I found out, I saw that someone tweeted and they were talking about how, like, of the 50 Getty images that were available from North Carolina's game against Clemson's, like 20 of them or 25 of them were of Jordan Hudson. And I don't have to be quite amusing,

considering they were playing Clemson, which is also a very good team. But us weekly asked Getty, like, hey, can you, can you grab a few of these for it? That might be the case. And maybe there's more interest in Jordan Hudson than there is in their football program, which is bad. But I did discover something that I sent the group chat that I'm not sure you guys know. She has made.

Do we know this is for real? This isn't been altered or. I would not bet my life on it, no. But I think I saw it from the Getty images thing. I won't say it. It's a, well, it's a necklace. I'll say it's a necklace that appears to say the word band in the charm. And, but I don't, we can't verify that it is not doctored.

So. I'm fairly certain it's not, but I cannot, I won't bet my life on it. Yeah. If you can't find the original. image. These days, you have to be careful. But yes, B-A-N-N-E-D. It's banned. It's from getting images. Eric Rasker. So that would be the raw image. Yeah. Yeah. What an adorable, adorable piece of jewelry. I wonder if that's for sale on some website somewhere. I mean, Jordan made some hay with the banned shoes that he was making. You know,

some of the, we remember they were banning the, what was that? What was the, what was the, Yeah, Michael Jordan, they still call him the band, even though they weren't really banned. He just, they paid a little fine for him wearing him. He had to pay the fine for every game, though, didn't he? Every game he wore them, they paid the fine for him to wear him. Right, exactly. I think they might have been black or something. It was a color situation.

Yeah. But yeah, okay. Great question, Lori. Thanks again. That was incredible. All right. This is another good question from Nick. It's a would you rather?

Would you rather have two teams from your conference make the playoff and one of them will win it? or would you rather have five teams from your conference to make the playoff, but none of them wins the title? I'm looking for your answer, but also would love to hear what you think the perspective is from a league commissioner or from the perspective of a fan of a particular league. Before I answer this, I want to, I want to clarify something because the fan of a conference does not truly. exist. The fan that goes SEC, SEC, those are Mississippi State and South Carolina fans that will never get to celebrate a national

title that are glomming on to things that Alabama and LSU did and Georgia did. I'm happy you said that because I was going to say that doesn't exist unless you're in the SEC and my perception is that people in it. Because Alabama fans don't really give a crap if other SEC teams win the

national title. They want Alabama to win the national title. I'm going to push back just a little bit. You're right. You can't confuse a statement of regional pride because there is that. No. But it's not really that they care. What I'm going, no, Alabama doesn't, if, if Missouri won the national title this year,

Alabama doesn't take any personal pride over that. That's correct. There's no confusion there. Yeah, yeah. There is a state of inflated conference pride in the national discourse as it pertains to strength of schedule and merit in getting in the playoff that exists in the SEC. that doesn't exist anywhere else. And I think for a large portion of that,

it's because it was true. Like, it was harder to play in the SEC, and they were a better, deeper, more dominant conference with more national championship contenders for much of the previous 15 years. And I think that that's also kind of created this notion that the SEC is deep,

but like last year, they were not better than the Big Ten. And they might do this year. We'll find out. I don't know. But Alabama, Georgia, Ole Miss, the big, you know, Oklahoma, Texas now,

all the big teams, Florida, will be the first to beam and use SEC pride as a way to configure whatever argument they need to configure for their own team. And I don't think that that exists. For their own team to make the playoff, but yes. And I think that exists to a certain extent in the Big Ten because every fan of every team, you know, concocks whatever perfect story they can make to make their, like, I witnessed it with Notre Dame fans two weeks ago. But there is a certain level.

of conference pride that exists in the SEC, from my perspective, that doesn't exist in other conferences. Right. But it's, it's more of a regional pride. Now, I'll explain as someone who grew up in the South, you get, you spend your, you know, your whole life being stereotyped as a moron, everybody's stupid down there. You like being better than the North of things. You just do. And so that's where that comes from. But Again, I think that's fading over the years, and no LSU fan cares if another SEC team wins the national title, if it's not LSU. And, you know, Big Ten, same thing. Like, Ohio State is not cheering for Michigan to win the national title and vice versa.

No. Not happening. But a Rutgers fan might be rooting for the Big Ten team in the national title game. Just to strengthen the whole. So let's take the fan perspective out of it because I don't think I don't think the fans really worried about it. They want their team to win the national title or they want their team to make the playoff. That's not their concern. If I'm a conference commissioner, which would I rather have, would I rather get two in guaranteed to win the national title or would I rather get five in and no I won't win the national title?

I'll take the national champ every time because you have that you've got somebody there and they're talking about. one of your teams the entire time the whole month-long extravaganza is about your team and that's because I remember when we were at jerry world last year and Texas was about to play Ohio State and we went on fine bomb and Paul asks like you know what happens if there's no SEC team in the national title game I'm like what are you going to do all week and it's it's the same thing like because it feels like the conversation about the SEC sort of dissipated and you want a team in the national title game

you want a team winning the national title so if I'm Greg Sanky or if I'm Tony Petitia with the Big Ten or if I'm Brett Your Mark give me two teams in and give me the team that wins because I can make more hay off of that than anything else this always confuses me but from a financial standpoint does the SEC make more money if it has five teams in and no one wins the national championship or if it has two teams in

and one goes all the way. I think the five teams, as long as they advance a little bit, I think they would need more money. So I think that from a commissioner's standpoint, like there's a difference too between what's most lucrative and what's most advantageous long term. Like I always think, like when I read this question, I thought about Brett Yormark.

You know what he would rather have. I mean, he's dying for somebody in the Big 12 to not only make the playoffs. To make a run, yeah. To make a run to legitimize the entire league. Like a national championship for the Big 12 or the ACC, I think would go so much further than it would for the Big Ten in the SEC. Like if the Big Ten in the SEC get five teams in and they don't win it,

they're going to get five teams in at most years moving forward, both of those countries. It's just the way it's going to go. But like from a perception standpoint, the Big 12, if they won a national, like if Texas Tech went on to win the national title this year, it'd be massive. I think you could make the case that the Big 12 would be more likely to get multiple teams in next year than they are right now. Fair? Probably true.

Yeah. Yeah, probably true. So yes, the would you rather, I don't think it matters for the fan. but if you were in charge of a conference, you want the national champ. You'll take fewer teams in as long as you get the national champ. I agree with you. Next question comes from Drew. Friday night in Denton, Texas is a huge matchup in the American conference

to determine who will participate in the conference championship game and thus have a chance to make the playoff. South Florida travels to North Texas and what should be an absolute bar and burner. Can you give us an overview of what to look for this one? Also, is are he going to the game, given his proximity to the game? This is a fantastic game. Are you going? I'm trying to go.

Okay. I'm having a babysitter issue right now, but I'm going to try it. The North Texas pride is leaked into the Dallas community, though. I went to a happy hour last night for my life's work, and people were buzzing about North Texas. So I think that South Florida has obviously been more in the headlines this year, Andy, for you know pretty yeah for going and beating florida and then they well they beat boise state first and they beat florida uh and then they played miami the next week so we were just all over them but they they have been excellent and it's like alice golish was one yeah remember i put alice

on on that list of group of five head coaches who could get a power conference job yeah and some people push back on that in the business like you sure about that i'm like yeah i'm pretty sure he's been he's he's done a better job than you think and it's about to pop if Byron Brown stays healthy, and Byron Brown so far has stayed healthy. Now, his counterpart at North Texas, Eric Morris, has been awesome. And so he's got an excellent quarterback in Drew Mestemaker. And remember, Eric Morris is the guy who found Cam Ward at Incarnate Word,

took Cam Ward to Washington State, also found John Mateer when he was at Washington State. So Eric Morris, one of the best identifiers. of quarterback talent in America. I believe, if I'm not mistaken, Eric Morris was the Cliff Kingsbury assistant who said, hey, this Mahomes kid has something to him, too. Eric Morris, he played at Texas Tech for Mike Leach, so he's from that tree. Also, North Texas needed to fix his defense coming out of last year.

So Morris hires Skylar Cassidy from Sam Houston State, which was, Sam Houston State had an incredible defense last year. Schuyler Cassidy comes. He brings six starters from Sam Houston State. So basically imported an entire defense. And North Texas has been really good this year. They're kind of a jump all over you and hold on tight team. Like you saw the Army game, they just jumped all over Army at first.

And then Army comes back. go to overtime. North Texas wins. But also, little, they can jump on you and just stay on you. Because Washington State came to Denton earlier this year and North Texas won 59 to 10. And this is not a Washington State team that has been terrible otherwise. North Texas, I believe, ranks number eight nationally in points per game, 44.8 points a game. Yeah, Drew Messdemecker is that dude. that's the quarterback 1247 yards 11 touchdown zero picks for mess to maker so far this year so you know it's going to be an interesting quarterback duel because i think everybody knows who

brian brown is byron brown um i wonder if the world will know who drew messemaker is by midnight on friday night so this is such a great friday night game i'm so excited everybody this is one that i'm glad the bulk of the country is going to get to watch this thing there's and there's other decent games on friday as well like this is we're we're in the we're in the period now it started wednesday night of i believe 49 consecutive days 49 consecutive days of football on television every night yeah yep yep and uh it's that to me is the holiday season i don't know about it's so good there is nothing worse that when when football season starts and then you have tuesday and wed what a brutal yeah aren't they awful uh so

we have a thursday night we got college games tonight and an NFL game, and we are going to be consuming food and football in the Wasserman household this evening. I don't know about you, but I'll wait for you to get it. So Friday night also Rutgers, Washington, which was actually a pretty good game last year in New Jersey. So Rutgers has to go out to Seattle for this one. That's a 9 p.m. Eastern 6 p.m. local start.

And also tonight, again, we mentioned quite a bit going on. Louisiana Tech, Kennesaw State, East Carolina, 2 Lane, Jacksonville State, Sam Houston State, Southern Miss, Georgia, Southern. The East Carolina two lane games, kind of the feature there. That's going to be at ESPN, 730 Eastern. And then, of course, Friday night in the American South Florida at North Texas. Big doings in Denton. What a weekend this is going to be.

Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you so much for listening. Thank you so much for all your questions. Tell your friends, if you want a great college football show, come on down, your old pals, Andy and Ari. Oh, wait, one more thing before we go. One more thing. we have to thank Jacob

and we're going to get in touch with you, Jacob, and we'll get this all squared away, but this is from Jacob. He sent this last week, and this is awesome. This is so cool. We have to figure out how to reward Jacob for this. Hey, R. and Andy,

hope you both had a great week. My name is Jacob, and I'm a longtime fan of your show. My fiance and I, long before we got engaged, used to listen to you when you were at the athletic, then followed you both separately on On 3 and until Saturday, and now, of course, back together again. All of that is,

first and foremost, thanks for the joy, laughs, and football content you've brought us on the podcast and articles over the year. We really enjoy following me both. You mentioned at the beginning of the season the idea of a big 12 plus minus three and a half point coin. I went ahead and took the liberty of designing it and it's in the process of being made now. It'll be a laser engraved brass coin with a custom heads tails and some other little features etched in, a motto for the coin, et cetera. I'd love to send it your way as part of the show memorabilia. Is there a good way to get it to you? Thanks again for what you do. And I hope you guys have safe travel this weekend to cover the games or just enjoy from the comfort of home all my best

Jacob. Jacob, thank you so much. We will be in touch and we'll figure out because you will figure out how to get that coin to us and then we'll figure out we got to get something for you. We, you know, we got to repay you for this. Thank you so much. It's it's it means a lot when we when we find out, you know, that you guys spend so much time with us and I can't thank you enough for it and everybody like you know lorry with that incredible question uh jamie who keeps track of the scores for our quarterback fantasy draft which by the way i'm winning i don't know if you guys knew yeah you are we're having some injury issues on our teams though so yeah i know i'm not getting cocky yet but hey this is going to be an incredible weekend it's already started football

started Wednesday night. Let's just keep it going. We'll talk to you on Saturday.