Andy & Ari On3 - LSU FINALLY Wins a Season Opener against Clemson | College Football Week 1 Instant Reaction

Episode Date: August 31, 2025

It's been an INCREDIBLE Week 1 of College Football and Andy & Ari break down every bit of the action right here. (0:00-0:24) On Tonight's Instant Reaction(0:25-2:37) BetMGM(2:38-16:29) Intro: LSU FINALLY WINS an Opener(16:30-18:26) Subscribe to YouTube; Starbucks(18:27-19:19) Previewing South Carolina vs Virginia Tech(19:20-40:31) Florida State 31, Alabama 17(40:32-51:32) Ohio State 14, Texas 7(51:33-57:10) Auburn 38, Baylor 24(57:11-59:33) USF throttles Boise State(59:34-1:01:59) Tennessee & Georgia Tech's big wins(1:02:00-1:03:39) Conclusion: See you tomorrow night! Our show is presented by BetMGM! 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. Gameday starts at Starbucks! Join JD Pickell and Devin Hester at Starbucks on August 31st before the Miami v Notre Dame matchup to celebrate the return of the football and pumpkin season!https://www.starbucks.com/menu/featured/?%243p=a_custom_838078477923275313&~customer_placement=youtube&~campaign=fy25fallcustomcontentprograms&~creative_name=on3&_branch_match_id=1211104932562219397&utm_source=YouTube&utm_campaign=fy25fallcustomcontentprograms&utm_medium=paid%20advertising&_branch_referrer=H4sIAAAAAAAAAyWMyw6CMBBFv0aXgC0ENGlcGOMH%2BEhcNUMzQENfmRYNG7%2FdRrf3nHOnlEI8lGVMQP2i5lhACIXRbi6f5l5drucbe%2FTHDat5ECDVEpO3suNd1XZ12%2B4ZZ23Dd3z7UWAD6NGJYWXNAMb8XeVdQpcC%2BZHAxuz9ZiQZDCi0mYnVL2npMTNCSPqF0oFF4V2%2BJRyQSLtR9uTfEUmcJsr9F5TVt5y5AAAA  Join On3 today and get one full year of access to The Athletic included! https://www.on3.com/subscribe/C Watch us on YouTube! https://youtube.com/live/QURvRKypdF4 Hosts: Andy Staples, Ari WassermanProducer: River Bailey Interested in partnering with the show? Email [e-mail]

On today's episode, Andy Arion 3, we got a lot to talk about. LSU finally wins a season opener. Alabama gets creamed by Florida State. Archmania hits a giant roadblock in the form of the Ohio State defense. All that and much, much more on Andy and Arion 3. Andy and Ari on 3 is sponsored by BetMGM, for Bet MGM today, use the bonus code CFB. That's college football, CFB, or Ari, A-R-I, and get up to $1,500 paid back in bonus bets if you don't win. If you haven't signed up yet, use the

bonus code CFB or the bonus code Ari, and you'll get up to a $1,500 first bet offer on your first wager with BetMGM. But that's not everything. Once you've already signed up, on Thursday, Friday and Saturday of week one. So August 28 through August 30th, they've got a no sweat parley boost token. So you go for the end zone without breaking a sweat with a college football no sweat parley token. You will get your stake back in bonus bets if you don't win. Also Thursday, Friday, and Saturday of week one. There's another college football parley boost token. And no matter where it is, there's nothing like you get on the game and leveling up your next parley. So use the Parlay Boost token to boost your potential payout from a winning college football parlay.

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Call 1-800 gambler in the U.S. Call 8778 Hope N.Y or text Hope N. Y. 4673369 in New York. Call 1-800 next step in Arizona. Call 1-800-3-2-0-0-0-0-0 in Massachusetts. Call 1-800-off in Iowa or 1-800-9-1-0-23 in Puerto Rico. First bet offer for new customers only, subject to eligibility requirements, rewards are non-withdrawable 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, of course, by BetMGM. And yeah, my picks just took a bath, Ari, because I believe I picked Clemson to cover. I picked Alabama to cover. I picked Syracuse to cover. I picked Texas to cover.

This is a bad. bad day for me. Yeah, I can't remember. But a good day for college football fans. Yeah, no, this was a day, man. You know, we've been going at it. We've been watching football for 13 straight hours. And by the way, what a great existence that is.

And it's, you know, groundbreaking results. And I know that we came into the Ohio State, Texas game, specifically not thinking much about the winner and loser of that. We found out a lot about Arch Manning. We're going to talk about Alabama lost a Florida state today. Yeah. They lost a Florida state today. There's a lot to unpack there, but there's a lot to unpack in what we just watched here at Memorial Stadium.

I guess the Real Death Valley is in Baton Rouge because LSU came up here and they played great. That was a very complete game by LSU. I thought their defense. Their defensive line looks so fast tonight, Ari. Oh, yeah, yeah. You know, I mean, Clemson's offense was supposed to be explosive and there was nothing explosive about it. Plotting would be the word I would use. Yeah, yeah.

I mean, it felt like, you know, for a while there, Andy, that Clemson was, you know, in control the game right before halftime when LSU tried to go for it. And I think they probably should have taken the three and they didn't get it. And they went in 10-3. You know, it felt like Clemson, you know, had a good stranglehold on the game. And then the boa constrictor of LSU came out in the second half and just, you know, took the life out of Clemson little by little. And they had a touchdown that I believe should have been a touchdown to Barry and Brown. Yeah, that's the thing. This might have been worse. This might have been 24 to 10. Garrett Nussmeyer was awesome. The, the ball placement

on these throws is premium level, NFL quality, and he even, I mean, he got hit. He was limping going into the fourth quarter, but then he throws the touchdown pass to trade as green to give them their first lead of the game. He was outstanding tonight. And it just, LSU was the better team. They were the better team all around. They played well. They've made a couple of mistakes early. They had a couple of fumbles. But for the most part, they were mistake-free down the stretch. and I thought they looked like a team that can beat anybody. Yeah, and this is what you wanted. I think this is what both sides wanted, right?

A proof of concept game that shows you that they are able to not only win early on in the season, because going one and O was never really the thing with LSU. The thing with LSU is at the 0 and 5 streak during the Brian Kelly era, it's been four, right? That was a statement that they weren't there yet. them winning this game is more than just ending a season opening lose streak. It's like losing streak. It's like now like you could conceive a world where LSU was the number one team in the country in three weeks. Like that could happen. So, you know, I think that, you know,

we came into this game and neither of us have written off of this yet. We've done a lot of writing today thinking that we were going to understand, you know, whether Clemson could do it the old-fashioned way, whether, you know, LSU could compete with the best teams in the country. I think we got our answer definitively when it comes to LSU because that Clemson team that they dominated down there has a lot of really good players. I feel like I'm left with more answers about Clemson than

I am LSU for obvious reasons and questions. Yeah, is that what I said? You said answers. I need, I have questions about Clemson because I thought well, if Clemson comes out and they look overmatched against an elite level opponent again, it's like Dabo Sweeney's way might not be the right way. They weren't overmatched. I mean, they were in the game, yeah.

Inside LSU territory, had had a couple fourth downs where if they make those fourth downs, maybe they punch one in maybe it's a tie game so this was not a blowout by any stretch of the imagination you see these teams play again down the stretch maybe it turns out a little bit differently but i thought we were watching two pretty good teams and that's the hardest part about week one and we'll talk about that over and over again today because that is the struggle in week one what are you watching because you have nothing to compare it to yeah you know and you know this is the first week of evidence

as we start compiling resumes and start compiling you know notions of who's very good and who's not you know like and he said we're going to talk about that quite a bit as we get to some of the other games but i do think that it's a pretty it's a certainty to me i don't know that either of these teams is going eight and four this year so no i think i think we're you know probably safe in saying that i mean i don't know i'd after after fourth state alabama i'm questioning pretty much everything are you yeah yeah i mean i don't know that this game is a line in the sand of like oh my god clemson's broken you know i thought no i don't think if clenson would have lost 38 to 14 or something maybe we could have that

discussion. But, you know, without having a real grasp of how good LSU really is, I ranked them number two in the top 10. I think that this is a team that is going to compete very, very well in the SEC. And, you know, I think it might have been Garrett Nussmeier's best game as a starter. And I think that's the footnote of the game. I think the game is that LSU found itself a defense. And Harold Perkins coming out and making that huge, you know, play to the game. Yeah, he's the one, he's the one chasing Garrett Nussmeier who throws it away at the end of the game. And, you know, I really thought you looked at who was pressuring Nussmeyer and it was, or excuse me, pressuring Cade Clubnick at the end of the game. And it was different guys all the time.

Like it started out with, go back to the first quarter. First pressure comes from Jack Piborne, who transferred from Florida. P.J. Woodland on a corner blitz sacks him for the first time in the first quarter. And then he just goes down the list. You've got a bunch of guys that were in Cade Clubnick's face all night. And really, they kept him under wraps. He had one drive where he had three carries, I think, for 19 yards. But for the most part, and remember in college, sacks get backed out of the rushing total.

But Clemson only rushed, I believe it was 20 times for 31 yards. Yeah, the rushing was definitely a problem. And I think Clemson in general at the end of the game, I haven't looked at the final box score yet because we were scrambling to get this camera set up. But I think they had 250 yards of total offense in the entire game. Yeah. So it wasn't like an offensive onslaught. And it's like you would think, oh, they got Brian Westcoe and Brian.

They got, you know, K. J. Moore, yeah, got T.J. Moore. They've got all these guys. You would think that they would have been able to muster a little bit more production on their home field. And I, again, left with the question of, was that Clemson telling us that their offense is going to be, you know, lethal in the ACC and not against other great teams? Or is that just LSU's defense showing up and being that good? You know, I think we'll get more clues of that as a result.

Yeah, I mean, week three, when Florida shows up in Baton Rouge, I think we're going to have a lot better idea of LSU's defense is. Yeah, and obviously LSU has a tougher go of it going forward than Clemson does. Clemson, you know, to me, it's still like you can fall asleep and wake up and Clemson will probably be seven and one and right in the thick of the college. Like, you know, a Clemson fan who watches the show actually came up to me after the game and he goes, well, what do you think of the reffing in this?

Because I thought that a lot of the people in the stadium felt as if Clemson got a job. They're mad about one pass interference call, which we both didn't feel like it was past interference call. Well, I watched it again. The people watching on TV said it was very much pass interference. There was a pass interference no call when Clemson had the ball that they didn't like. The pass interference call on Clemson, though, that was the one where they started throwing trash on the field. You did not do it as well as Texas did Clemson fans because the Texas fans got the game stopped and the call overturned.

You got the game stop, but you didn't get the call overturned. Well, Clemson also was the beneficiary of what was the most questionable call in the game. That was Barry Brown's touchdown. Right. Did Barry and Brown score a touchdown? or not, which we would have been analyzing endlessly if Clemson had won this game. This week, maybe we can have a segment of what is a

catch and we can try to teach it to ourselves because I honestly don't know what it is. But the point that I made to him, he goes, what would be your takeaway of the game if it's not the refs? Well, the takeaway to the game for me is it was a very high level football game between two very good football teams and someone had to lose. But I think that LSU won in convincing fashion. Like I don't, I know, I can say these two things with certainty. LSU was the better team tonight, but both of these teams will be in the playoff mix. So, you know, just because they weren't better than LSU doesn't mean that they can't get better as a season goes on.

And if you've learned anything from Dabo Sweeney, after watching them the last three or four years, you cook them in the early part. Sometimes it doesn't work out, but most of the time it does. I think it's still a fair, I'm almost fairly certain that Clemson's going to make the playoff this year. Like, and that's maybe not something that you should say after week one. Although you are the person who said after the week two lost to Northern Illinois that Notre Dame was going to, to run the table last year, and you were right about that. I don't have any grand statements like that. I think, you know, Florida State beat Bama, which we're going to get to,

I still think that Clemson's probably safely the best team in the ACC going into conference play. So far, I mean, we'll see because we don't know what Florida State is after that. They could be awesome. They could be okay. They could be above average. Like, we really don't know what they are yet because we kind of don't know what Alabama is. But it's all interconnected, and we're going to find out because we'll get more connective tissue as we go. Ari, this was your first trip to Clemson.

Yeah. What did you think of Death Valley? One of the louder stadiums I've ever been in. Beautiful setting. The lakes around the campus as you're driving in are beautiful. Could do without the one mile walk uphill to the stadium. There's a lot of heat. If you are a Clemson student, you must have the most sculpted calves in America because you are just walking up and down hills all day.

Yeah, my problem area on my body is like the torso area. I'm still working on that. but I've got killer legs. I don't know if you know that about me. Check out these thigh muscles or these calf muscles. You're not showing it to the camera. Nobody knows. You know what?

Can you take a picture after the show's over? Yeah, we'll put it on the internet. Well, yeah, well, the internet. You don't need calf implants like that one good on the MTV show. I got four compliments in on vacation a few weeks ago.

On your calves? My calves are. Yeah. I'm not joking. Wow. They're elite. Well, I think that's because of all the steps I've had to take over my life being a

severely overweight man. You know, there's sort of benefits to them. They've done the work. They've done all the work. He's hoffing it all the way, dear. But, no, I, Clemson's a wonderful place. I don't think that they're cooked by any stretch of the imagination.

It was a tough loss. I would imagine that Clemson fans are pretty upset right now. After a year of hype and seeing the team kind of take a corner or turn a corner at the end of last year, they played Texas fairly well in the playoff. You would have wanted to see some more offensive production. And, you know, I'm not trying to be a cop out here. I think LSU's defense is very good. If we start seeing that more and more often, I'd be very ill.

alarm, but I think that that Clemson's defensive line is really, really good, and their offense will come along. We'll see. For LSU, though, I am curious to see what now winning one of these games does for a season, because last year they lost to USC to open the season, which when you look at the end of the season and how things to work out for USC, it's a shocking result looking back. But then they rallied, and, you know, they had a tough first half against South Carolina, but came back and won that game, went on a winning streak, you know, look good really until the Texas A&M game. So now that they've got this piece of momentum,

how much does that help when they have their SEC opener two weeks from now against Florida in a game that is going to be huge for both teams? Yeah, I mean, you want to play the game if we don't know what teams are. I mean, all the SEC teams that played overmatched opponents in week one, I mean, didn't Florida drop 50? 55, it is Long Island. Yeah, I mean, I don't know. That basically was a scrimmage.

It should be a name your score. Here's what I do know. There were three favorites to win the SEC. coming into the year, and two of them lost on Saturday. Yeah, Georgia, Georgia's like, woo. Georgia played Marshall, who guaranteed victory before the game. I don't know if you saw that. It wasn't close to being a victory for them.

But Texas and Alabama losing and you having one of the two marquee wins in the season through one week, I think is a pretty great place to be sitting. So LSU should be happy. Clemson should be sad in-depth analysis, but I don't think that Clemson's cooked. So if you're a Clemson fan, stay with it. I think they'll be fine. Ari, Nico and UCLA down 20-0 to Utah in the second quarter. So obviously that game is going on as we record the show.

So this is the hardest part for me in week one, though. I joked about this earlier. We were talking about Alabama and Florida State on a video we did right after that game. And I was at that, or maybe it was after the Ohio State Texas game. Yes, it was after the Ohio State Texas game. I was at that famous Notre Dame Texas game in 2016 when Joe, test was like Texas is back baby and it turned out both teams stumped and that is weighed a lot on on me psychologically through the years like because that night I was like I remember my friend

Anwar Ruscian who works for Orange Bloods it was his first game on the job and I turned to him and said well at least you won't have to cover coaching search at the end of the year after Texas beat Notre Dame he did have to cover coaching search at the end of the year and Brian Kelly who the LSU coach now was the other coach on that side of the field and they they went four and eight he ended up doing that was the most change I've ever seen in one off season without firing the head coach and Notre Dame ended up getting better but the stakes were much higher for Brian Kelly coming into this game yeah he had to win this game uh I don't think that you could have started a year four this way especially coming off a year in which Notre Dame played for the national

title I think that it was a a huge emphasis for LSU to try to get this thing and I think they did and you know I can't remember information the way that you do Andy from three or four years ago but I know LSU played in the SEC championship game under his leadership. Is this the single most important win of his LSU era, I think? I don't know. No, it's still the Alabama game his first year, but this is a very close second. Guys, if you're watching on Twitter right now, by the way, head over to YouTube. Much more fun.

You can interact in the chat. The chat is very lively tonight. It is hopping. So just head on over there, and we will be fully on YouTube. right now so and i'm bleeding over trying to to be in touch with you guys because you're you're down here let's see the chat people okay uh we got a lot of anti neko sentiment which i kind of expected that imagine why oh you're way back that's why uh yeah um Oklahoma fan i have Texas at nine and three is this a nice segue you know 20 minutes into the pod to go well before before we do that

i uh i do need to talk about something that's going on uh tomorrow Well, later today in about seven minutes on the East Coast. Producer River, we've got to talk Starbucks. So let's talk about the coffee kickoff in South Florida tomorrow with our guy J.D. Pekyll and Devin Hester. So for those of us who love college football, the fall begins the moment toe meets leather, even if it's still 90 degrees outside. For coffee lovers, fall begins the moment pumpkin returns to Starbucks. Well, guess what?

both of those things are happening now you've got football you've got pumpkin spice you name it pumpkin spice lattes pumpkin spice or pumpkin cream cold brew that's the one you can try tomorrow at the starbucks coffee kickoff in south florida at the starbucks on northwest 27th avenue jd piquel will be there that's right devon hester the greatest return man in football history and a former canes great We'll be there. So it'll help get you ready for Miami, Notre Dame in South Florida tomorrow night. So I don't care what the calendar or the thermometer says. It's fall now.

We got football. We got pumpkin at Starbucks. So grab your favorite Starbucks pumpkin beverage, hot or iced and settle in for the greatest college football season ever. Ari, I am very pumped about that game. Also, we are going to see Lenora Sellers in person as South Carolina takes on Virginia Tech in Atlanta tomorrow. Part of the reason we're in Clemson right now is because this is one of the most interesting games we could have gone through this weekend. The other reason is it's a very convenient drive to Atlanta for a Virginia Tech,

South Carolina tilt in Atlanta. So I can't wait, although I'm not looking forward to driving back into Atlanta, the worst place on Earth. Oh, be nice. Atlanta's awesome. It's probably a great city. It's just the worst place to land at rush hour at Ford. People who fly into Atlanta at 3 p.m. on a Friday, get what they deserve.

Yeah. There are other flights that you can take. You do not have to land at 3 p.m. on a Friday. Yeah. No, I get it. It was a rough afternoon for me. All right. Do we want to go to Tallahassee or Columbus next?

Tallahassee. Let's go in succession. Let's go to Tallahassee. This was just a wild result because, okay, I'll say this about Florida State. This is something that talking to people who love Florida State, talking to people who hate Florida State, talking to people who are indifferent, who just follow the sport and try to do their best to predict what's going to be. to happen. Everybody said, we're not touching Florida State with a 10-foot pole. We don't know what they are. We don't know if they're good. We don't know if they're bad. We don't know. Because no one predicted 2 and 10 last year. I think the one thing we safely predicted is they're

not going to be that bad this year. But nobody knew where they're going to be between. Most optimistic people said 8 and 4. Yeah. Nobody knew where they'd be between average and and above average or good. They put it to Alabama today. They took it to them. They ram the ball down their throats. Alabama, after a great first drive where they ran for 55 yards and kind of marched down the field, they had two more rushing yards between that point and the 151 mark in the third quarter

when they had a three-yard gain that up that rushing total to five since the first drive. Yeah. So speaking of the game show, we don't know what anybody is. This is two teams. I still don't know if we know anything about. I know for certain that Alabama lost to multiple six and six teams a year ago. So I don't know that this means that Florida State is back or that they're going to compete for the ACC championship. But I do think that it showed a lot of things in terms of, you know, the number one thing to me,

which is not letting a season define who your program becomes. Like how many times have we seen teams have rough years and then that rough year ends up defining that tenure of that. coach and you know i hate to say it but in the memory of the entire world people remember florida states two and ten season last year more than they remember their unbeaten season the year but that's the part that makes it so wild is they go 13 and oh and win the acc and then lose the orange bowl so 13 and one and then two and 10 like it makes no sense we've not seen that precipitous of fall yeah a Auburn had it over a two year period from the 2010 national title to going 08 in the cc and you could have explained it because all

transfers that were developed or you're talking to Florida State you could explain how I mean still two and ten is drastic but you could explain how they could have fallen back um but it felt like the program was slipping in general because the recruiting wins weren't happening you know you didn't really know what the direction was the pro the program was they had to bring in 23 transfers in the off season uh that you know a lot of these players max olson from ESPN did a story coming into the year about most production returning amongst portal classes in florida state was 12th, which I think is a lot of production to bring in and you have to put those pieces together. And I think maybe it's possible that we at least found out that Mike Norvel's very

good at taking, you know, there's some certain teams this year that are waiver, wire-ass teams. Yeah. Who picked up a lot of pieces and they looked like they picked up a lot of pieces. Right. Like the one thing that I think I'm comfortable saying about Mike Norvel right now is that he's probably one of the best in the country in scraping together a new roster in one offseason and making them look like a functional team because what I saw on TV on Saturday against Alabama was a team was fighting was all on the same page was hungry didn't want to be defined by last year like these are all characteristics of things that you want to see from your coach if he's supposedly you know on the imaginary hot seat like i mean when we were doing hot seat he's not on the hot seat

because they can't afford his buyout but he's on the imaginary one everybody's like where's mike norvel yeah did hot seat content in the offseason they didn't understand the buyout situation but that's the way people were viewing him and i think that even if florida state turns out to be at best eight and four this year we don't know how it's going to go but even if they do coming out of the gate and playing that way at home now showed some pride showed some some gumption about your own program and not putting your foot down on those things Tommy Castellanos by the way we owe him a giant apology I mean we made fun of him all summer that's BDE he has yeah for all the stuff he said we we made fun of him and guess what

I made fun of him oh no we it wasn't like we just kind of laughed we know no I made fun of actively mocked him. I legitimately wrote a column. Do you remember this? Because it was in June and it's been a long time since then, saying like, you don't get rich by picking on Alabama. And it's like,

oh, that didn't age. Diego Povey is like, sure you do. Yeah. Vandy? Yeah. Maybe Alabama's that.

I don't know. The thing that I do know is I'm very, at least if I'm a Florida State fan, proud of my team today. Yes. And I don't know if you have to have any great, you know, declarations of success to come,

or if you have to scream CFP or bus now, that's not the point. Those people look so happy and they're standing there and it's, you know, they were getting rained on in the second quarter. They're just, but they're so happy because they had a team that they could be proud of today. And if you were one of those people, Andy, because I saw some of this on Twitter, like making fun of them for storming the field. Do you know what these people went through? Yeah.

Let them enjoy it, man. Because 3-2-1-0 didn't eat the dog poop. He said he would eat. Where is 3-2-1-0? They suffered through 2-10. What do you think he did today? Do you think that guy was so happy? Oh, he was so happy.

Don't you re-activate your account and come back after? No, because I think the other Florida State fans will attack at that point. Now, the guy who, remember the guy who ate the dog poop in November was not 3-2-1-0. There was another guy who ate dog chip and video. We ran it on the show. Oh, God. But it didn't help. But maybe it was like time-released dog poop.

And now it worked. I mean, you're the one who said it was a- guy's a hero of statute of limitations it was a season curse not a program curse clearly it wasn't a program but but i want to think the guy who took the took one for the team and ate the dog group in november even though it wasn't his bet in the first place to to fulfill i i think he should be properly honored bring him out at halftime in the next game yes bring him out at half time in the next game please give him chocolate cake and just go just like cleanse your palate by the way that's you know i don't know that person and i got to

say that's probably mild mental illness. Here's another person I'd like to apologize to because I have been openly skeptical of Gus Malzon coming to Florida State as the offensive coordinator. He was not in good shape as the head coach at UCF. His job was in jeopardy. He goes and steps down, saves them the buyout money at UCF, goes to Florida State. And the thought is, okay, I'm just calling plays. It's all ball now. It's going to be. But if you've watched, If you watched Gus's UCF teams, like they didn't run the Gus offense the way he used to run it. It wasn't fast. It didn't, it didn't scare you with the run game into not really being able to cover anybody in the past game.

This is a Gus Malzahn ass box score right here. So, 49 carries for 230 yards. Tommy Castellanos only attempted 14 passes. He completed nine of them for 152 yards. That's 10.9 yards per attempt, which would have left. the country last year if he had enough attempts, which he won't if he's thrown 14 times a game. It's a Gus Mousin' ass box scores.

He's a Gus Mouson ass box score. I know River has this. Is this the time to put the Gus Malson tweet up onto the screen from F for the game? Oh, if he has it great. He just tweeted with the Seminole's logo felt like old times, which was like the perfect tweet. And by the way, I mean, Gus had more success against Nick Sabin,

the Alabama Nick Saban than any other coach. That's why I was almost anti, I know they had to make a change there at Auburn, but I almost felt like be careful what you wish for because anytime you can get a coach, what was he, I think you 30% against Bama. I don't know off the top of my head, but it was about one out of three. Yeah, I mean, that's a pretty good clip for Auburn. And we're going to get to Auburn, I think at the end of the show here, Andy, but, you know, that was a really, really well, well-called game.

And, you know, maybe we're throwing apologies out. I'll throw one out to Mike Norvell because I thought he was cooked, dude. I thought he was cooked. Norvel I hadn't quite lost faith then because, again, I saw him do that where he built the team into the one that went 13 and 0. I thought Tony White was a good coordinator hire. I did say that. Tony White came from Nebraska to be the defensive coordinator. I don't know that I lost faith in his ability to coach football.

I lost faith in his ability to build a roster because I lost faith. I thought that they caught, if you would have asked me a week ago, I would have said that Florida State caught lightning in a bottle. with some of the transfers they brought in for two years ago, and that unless they routinely get back to signing top 10 classes on an annual basis, they'll never be able to be as good as they were consistently in the past. And I still think that I believe that. I'm not here to say that all is forgiven. Florida State's going to make the playoff this year,

and last year was a complete blip. I still have questions about Florida State's program building. But the one thing I don't have any questions about is whether or not he's able to execute a roster-filled. with transfers. God, that was impressive. I mean, I just like the way it looked. And, like, I tweeted this, too. I was like, it's one thing for Alabama to come out in Florida State and lose a

fluke-ish-type game. But, like, that wasn't a fluke. They would have played again. Now you're getting to the conversation we need to have about Alabama. Yeah. Because I know Caitlin DeBore said this year's not last year. You can say that all you want, but you lost to Vanderbilt. You lost an Oklahoma team.

that ended up going two and six in the SEC, and you lost him by 21 points. You lost to a Michigan team where all of its best players opted out of the bowl game, and yours didn't. It is just like last year, and you keep getting beat this way. And again, it's not a fluky loss. Like the one loss that Kailin Abor has at Alabama of the five he has, that you'd say, okay, I understand that one, is Tennessee. That was a playoff team.

you were on the road that's a tough game it was a close game that's fine all the other ones nick sabin never would have lost those games and i realize that's a high standard to hold you to but you chose to take millions of dollars to replace nick sabin so guess what you're going to be compared to him yeah uh you know and you go into that job knowing you're going to be incessantly compared to him and you don't want to be compared to him in this way you might go make the playoff a few years and not get out of the first round and get compared to the fact that you're not elite elite anymore but you don't want to be compared to you said it was a hundred games in a row against unranked teams that's saving one yeah between 2008 and when they lost to texas

a and m in 2021 haines king uh Zach how's that was that calzata my mom sorry yeah we're gonna get to that later in the show yeah we're probably not uh but it's but congratulations kentucky hell of win against Toledo best thing about being one and i was the chance to go two and oh but yeah no i oh boy uh uh Because we bought it. I bought it. I said they're going to win the SEC. You talked me into it, I think.

Well, I'm officially talked out of it. Do you remember my analysis of the game coming into it? I said, how many, somebody asked me, like, oh, yeah. Listen, 24 hours ago, Tommy Costalanos was a guy who got benched at BC and opened his mouth when was being ridiculed. Okay. So let's not like reverse what we thought about him last night when we went to sleep. somebody i was talking to somebody's like a good buddy of mine this morning named kevin and

he he texted me give me one reason why i shouldn't put my life savings on alabama and i gave him two one being nobody on earth has picked florida state in the points and that's weird none lee corso oh yeah in his final episode of college game to the sunshine scooter florida state alum former florida state player was the only one did you know and jd piquette By the way, J.D. Pekyll also picks Florida State. I want to talk to Jady about that. That's some psychotic crap right there. Like, what was the analysis of that?

But maybe he's just fading everyone. Okay, okay. If that's your analysis, that's fine. But I think I said that Florida State, like, because people are making fun of Florida State's roster on Wednesday. Like when they release their official to-de, people are like, I've never heard of anybody. And I know that there's a lot of names on there that should be recognizable. I say, if you follow recruiting, you've heard of all these.

No, I know. But like, there's a lot of, I mean, if you want to went down the list and asked the people who are listening to the show right now to name 10 starters on this team. I don't think half of them would get the 5. I don't know that I could get the 10 yet. We all saw Gavin Saw Chuck running a ball at Oklahoma. Yeah, that's true. We did. We saw Squirrel White at Tennessee. We did. River saw him for sure. But you get my point. Yeah. Like Alabama had a, you would think, a talent advantage at least at 18 of the 22 spots. Yes. And I don't know. Like, if I would have asked you straight up on Friday, would you take Tommy Castellanos or Ty Simpson? you probably would have taken Simpson.

I might have. Yeah, and Simpson wasn't great. I wouldn't say he was the problem, though. There were a lot of times where Ty Simpson dropped back in this game and had ample protection to make a throw and didn't throw it. And I don't know if that's his fault or that nobody's, it's hard to tell from TV if no one was open. And there was a third down late in the game where he could have just run for the first down,

tried to throw it to Ryan Williams, and skip it at his feet. And I'm not going to nitpick single plays. Although that game, if you would have ran for it, they might have won, honestly, because they got back without seven. There was a chance they could get back in it. But that's, again, also impressive by Florida State when Alabama did get within seven, Florida State mounted a drive where they just ran it right down on his throat again. Yeah. I mean, I just feel like if you say Simpson was definitely the problem, you're... Well, Brad and the chat says Simpson would definitely be a problem.

Talking to you, Brad. I think that's... Okay, all right, I want to ask Brad in the chat or any other Alabama fans in the chat. Was Jalen Milrow the problem last year? He's the problem. I don't know. Was Kalyn DeBoer the problem? I think it's the easiest thing to do is to say that the quarterback was the problem.

Also, Ryan Williams got injured and then he missed some time. Right. But Jeremy Bernard had 150 yards receiving, and I guess the stats looked better because Simpson threw the ball a lot, but it didn't seem like they had, every time Simpson dropped back, I never felt confident he was going to complete the ball down field. And then they couldn't establish the run at all.

which obviously made the job harder for the past game. The thing that set the tone in this football game was Florida running through Alabama, like go shit through a tin horn the entire first half. Let's not forget about that. Like, that's the whole problem. Yeah. Everybody that I know that's an Alabama fan that was texting me about it,

was like, I cannot believe what I'm watching on defense. Florida State, Florida State's offensive line much maligned for years and years and years and years. And they were, they were mulling people. And then all the way to the fourth quarter when they had that fourth and one, and Norville went for it on fourth and one from his own 30-something. and Alabama was only down seven at that point. That was a hell of a gamble, and they got it, and then they went on to score on that drive.

From start to finish, like it did feel like Alabama had a real shot to win there at times in the fourth quarter, especially right before that fourth and one was called. But Florida State asserted itself from start to finish. And I don't know that Alabama played a bad game. I think Florida State made them play a bad game, which brings us back to Kalin DeBore. And, you know, what's acceptable.

it's not like they don't have good players so that there's something else happening and when you have good players they have a lot of good players that Nick Sabin's still recruited. College football is a really interesting thing to analyze because no matter what it's the coach's fault. If you have a personnel issue it's the coach's fault for allowing that personnel issue

to exist. But the thing that's most frustrating and I think Notre Dame fans got a taste of this last year is that when you have a personnel advantage and you still lose these games, why? Right. That's like an alarming thing because on the surface Alabama doesn't really have much to fix from having good players. So why do you keep losing to teams that you shouldn't be losing to?

And that is the most frustrating thing because there's no defined answer to that. Like Marcus Freeman did have a defined answer for what they lost in Illinois last year? The answer for a lot of the offseason for Alabama was, okay, Ryan Grubb and Kail and DeBora reunited. So the offense is going to be fine. The offense looks great for a series and then completely shut down, completely shut down. Yeah. No, they were a complete non-factor for two and a half quarters of that football game. maybe three yeah it it's bizarre to me beyond stunning to me and if we look at

Alabama schedule the rest away now they got Louisiana Monroe which hey even Nick Saban lost Louisiana Monroe so we got that one Wisconsin coming to Tescaloisa if you watch Wisconsin put that evil out there if you watch Wisconsin the other night against Miami of Ohio they did not look great feeling pretty good about that one yeah did not look great so I'm still fairly confident Alabama there then it gets very gnarly at Georgia which Alabama beat last year but around to win that game probably aren't they in athens i don't know it just seems like it just seems like i don't know maybe i'm just redoing he comes to tuscalo did you imagine if anything tomie castellanos

beating alabama is going to further emboldened diego pavia yeah he is going to be on one the week of this game i mean he didn't come back to vanderbilt to mess around he came back to win a national title that is what he said yes um but it would be so funny missouri tennessee south carolina ls you If you can't beat what we think, because we think Florida State is probably a, could be a pretty good ACC team. Yeah, I mean, I think so. Well, if you get beat like that by a pretty good ACC team. If Florida State plays the way that they played today, they could beat that Clemson team down there. Okay.

Right? Okay. But if you can't beat a pretty good ACC team or if you are beaten badly by a pretty good ACC team, when you play at Missouri, Tennessee, at South Carolina, LSU, Oklahoma, at Auburn. Smells on there. This could be some problems. This could be lots of problems. You know, it's so easy to make predictions at the offseason.

But I did say that I thought that, you know, Alabama or Georgia would be, would have some issues this year. And I think we're getting a pretty clear look. You should be feeling, you know, what you said the other day about the field, winning the SEC. LSU made me feel a lot better about that. Because what it was is over the assumed top three, which was Texas, Georgia, and Alabama.

I think you should be feeling very good about that. None of these games obviously matter, but yeah, you do feel good about the results. But yeah, Kailen DeBore, I would not want to be him getting off the bus in Tuscaloosa right now. No, no. And look, he has a $60.7 million by it. like he's not getting fired he's not getting fired tomorrow he's not probably not getting

fired after this year what if they're eight and four you have to think about it but it listen Alabama is not Texas A&M they do not have cash on hand to pay that level of buyout maybe there's no oil in Alabama hmm there's no oil in Alabama not that I know of oh there's some there's some good music up up north northern part of the state there's you know got some nice beaches in the southern part. What if Cody Campbell offers to pay the buyout if he strong arms the brass of the SEC

to make sure there's no Super League? He can afford it. Rounding error for him. Like, get, if you put Texas Tech in the SEC, I will fund it. I will fund Alabama's buyout. Maybe.

Maybe. I don't know. I really don't know how this goes, though, because what concerns me is just the way they keep losing to teams in this way, because Nick Saban lost to really good teams when he lost, and he beat average to above average teams, usually pretty handling. Oh, yeah. No, it's not just losing. Losing is not tolerated at all in Tuscaloosa. Losing to teams that you're supposed to beat, you know, is certainly not tolerated. So, you know,

last year is not this year. We'll see if they can bounce back, you know, sometimes teams, lose early and the sky's falling and they go on a run and they win five in a row. Notre Dame lost to Northern Illinois and played for the national title. Like, strange things happen. Yeah, I mean, you just can't come off of a season in which you like... The problem is this look too much like those three losses less. You know what I really resent more than anything? That that team that we saw lose to Florida State this year was the driving force

in the entire bullshit of the offseason discourse we had about the playoff making the wrong or right decision. And I know that they're two different teams and two different years and you can't go back and relitigate what happened last year based on. results of this year. But it's like that looked a lot like the team from last year that lost those games. And it's like, why are we doing this about the playoff right now? And, you know, I don't know. Maybe I'm not the most popular person in SEC land all the time, but like, I got to be honest with you here. It ain't 2020 anymore. No, things have changed. Things have changed. Now,

LSU did strike a blow for the SEC tonight, but one team that didn't, the Texas Longhorns. Let's go to Columbus. Dakota in the chat says the same fans that say preseason ranking shouldn't exist, say that Ohio State should have been number one because they beat number one. If preseason rankings don't matter, then it should be who impressed the most in week one. So far, who is that? That is a great question, Dakota.

I hate the rain on his parade, but it's Ohio State, right? It's Ohio State's defense. Ohio State or LSU. Yeah, I was very impressed with LSU tonight, too. Because if the thing, too, is like, yes, preseason rankings are made up and we don't know, but I think we have a pretty general idea of who's pretty good. And it's like, do I have to explain to you why LSU's victory over Clemson is more impressive? Well, I think what Ohio State did Texas defensively, if we're just talking about units,

probably the most impressive performance by any unit this week, because they are replacing eight starters. This isn't entirely a new coordinator, new everything, and they looked like they'd been playing together for 10 years. I just want to finish what I was saying to his point. though. I think we definitively know that beating Texas is more impressive than Georgia beating Marshall. Right. So as we do. Or USC beating Missouri State, even though USC looked awesome. I mean, who do people think should be number one? LSU, if it's not Ohio State? I would think so. If you do the, your friend Doug Lae-Maris, I think he does the best ranking method of once the season starts, just use only data from the season, which makes it

look really weird the first few weeks because it's like Florida State could be number one yeah you put Florida State you're probably going to wind up putting Florida State in the top three this week it doesn't matter it all works itself out the same way in the end so you can you can you can come at it from whatever direction you want I like to do it this way because I just one I think it's more fun and you're only supposed to consider this year's ranking or you know this year's action you know we don't know anything but we know a lot does that make sense and I think that we do know that Texas is probably one of the 10 best teams in college football. And I know that we're going to have to get to that, but beating them at home and

holding their quarterback to 38 yards passing midway through the fourth quarter is a pretty impressive feat. And also, do we really need more proof that their offense is going to put up points with Jeremiah Smith? They didn't, he wasn't a productive player today. Carnell Tate had a catch of the game. Do we think Ohio State's offense is going to struggle to score in Big Ten games? No, we don't.

You know, I think that it's interesting because rankings are so fun. And they're so, like, intoxicating to consume. They also always, always, always, whether you disagree that Ohio State should be number one or LSU should be number one at all, by week seven, they become more precise. Every single week that we have data, they become more precise. You know, Florida State, I put in my top 10 that I did because of their win. It's one of the three best wins of the Saturday. It might age poorly. And if it ages poorly and Florida State ends up losing or they keep winning in Alabama's eight and four, then we'll adjust it accordingly.

but like getting wound up about rankings right now is such a miss under it's i want you to get wound up because we do what joe wants to know how far does bama fall how far is texas fall how far is clemson you wouldn't even rank bama at all i didn't rank bama in the top 10 at all i do this every saturday night and i'm not like the end all be all i'm just telling you my method yeah um Texas and clemson both remained in the top 10 for me which probably is going to look fine in a few weeks we'll see i mean i feel pretty good about it just take them out i mean like Here's the thing, too. Do I not take into account

that Texas has Aunt Hill and Colin Simmons on their team? I know they lost, but isn't that part of it or is it only results? Well, also, Texas's defense played a good game. Texas had the ball down seven with more than enough time to tie the game on the road

in an opener with a first time starter. Stephen San Antonio, who asked the great Texas Red Zone question in the mailbag a few months ago. Andy, I'm done with the UT Red Zone issues. I poo poohed you, Steve, because I said, they're so good at getting your red zone. If they just get a little bit better, they'll be a national champion. I'm with you now, buddy. It is kind of funny. I am on your side now. And I'm using to think that they were two inches

away from this narrative being completely gone. But that's football, right? That tush push was not the best tush push I've ever seen my life. Let's get to the game. It's 0 and 2 in the red zone tonight. But we have to, I mean, we made it 44 minutes into the video. And, We haven't even said Arch Manning's name, I don't think. So Ohio State's very good. They'll continue to be very good. They're the Big Ten favorite. Cannot wait to see them play Penn State.

Can't wait to see Auburn and Penn State play in a few weeks. It's going to be great. The more interesting thing here, and I know that Ohio State fans are going to hate me for this, is like Texas, right? Well, it's Arch because we spent all offseason talking about Arch. And look, we did a video earlier if you want to watch a more in-depth discussion of Arch. It's at the On3 YouTube page. you will see a more and in the feed I think kind of granular detailed discussion of arch and and potential nipple piercings which I don't believe are nipple piercings yeah we do need to get

into the nipple piercing we don't need to do that what you don't uh well don't you think Ryan day should come out and say if we win the national title this year I will pierce my nipples okay that's fair he doesn't have pierced nipples but yes are you sure I say lean into that would you bet your life on it I would I would bet my life on that now then what was that if you look at my against to spread record today? Maybe I shouldn't be. I would have bet my life on it. You know, maybe they got into some freaky things in the summer. Listen, Ryan Day, let me give Ohio State fans just a little bit before we get into Arch. Ohio State is very good. They're the defending national champion.

And Ryan Day has done more to flip his narrative in a six game or a five game stretch than any other coach that I can remember, maybe outside of Jim Harbaugh in 2020. And that comes with a whole other secondary discussion. and we're not going to get into. Although I did see a really funny comment that made me laugh on Twitter today that Michigan is ass against everybody but Ohio State and Ohio State is ass against everybody but Michigan. Not true. I thought it was funny that they don't play up to their potential sometimes.

Ohio State is not ass against everybody with Michigan. No, no, I'm saying Michigan is, they're not ass against everybody but Michigan. And then Michigan plays like ass against everybody but Ohio State, which maybe doesn't play. They won the national titles years ago, but 15 and 0. No, but Michigan is underwhelming in how they look sometimes. They were underwhelming in the New Mexico game. I think you get the point.

The point is, but Ryan Day, we can make fun and tease you about your nipples because you're on top of the world right now. Ohio State fans, you've got to be really excited about it. Cannot wait for the Michigan game this year. Seems like a footnote for the time being it will become more and more valuable discussion as we get closer to November. Ohio State's peaches right now. Okay. I don't really, I mean, Julian Sane, I thought, looked great. You know, they have plenty of options.

Their offense didn't light the world on fire, but that might have been one of the three best defenses in college football, Ohio State. You're good. Panic button on Arch. D. Moore. Now y'all know why he couldn't beat out yours. Okay, here's the thing. I would absolutely be probably about to depress the panic button had the last eight minutes of the fourth quarter not happened.

I think you've got to go up to. with Arch. It seems like he's a much more comfortable in that pace. And if that's what you need, then do it. But he looked very uncomfortable early. He did. So I'm the person that has to account for all this. And you are the one who was egging people on. So you can sit. I was, but I see, I was not, it wasn't like I was super skeptical of Arch. You cut and pasted a clip of a bold prediction that I made. I did do that. And I should be ridiculed. for it. I said it was a virtual certainty that he would be in New York, and now that's certainly not the case. He played poorly for the first three quarters of that game, I think, or at least

Ohio State put him in a situation where he had to, like, he didn't really get comfortable to the end. It was the Texas fans watching that for three quarters plus going, oh, those few plays he got thrown in the first Georgia game last year, maybe that was him. I think I put, if I remember correctly, Arch number one of my best quarterbacks in the country list this offseason? I think we both had DJ Lagway, which looked. Oh, I had Lagway one. But that also could go terribly wrong, too. But he didn't play like a person that belonged on the list at all. Okay. And we have to, we have to acknowledge that. We can't live in a world where, you know, you do something and you're right all the time. I think the one thing that I'm pretty good at, Andy, is acknowledging when I'm

off. That said, some of the throws that he made, the touchdown pass he made late, and then that one that he dropped in the bucket down the sideline when they were trying to tie the game late. I thought was a glimpse of what he's probably capable of when he gets more comfortable. And I also believe that, you know, starting on the road at Ohio State is a hell of a challenge. So while I am concerned, and if I were a Texas fan, I would be concerned by what I saw because if you're expecting a top five quarterback in the country, you're expecting top five production or at least more than 37 yards passing midway through the fourth quarter. That said, like if you like there was a parade of hate towards him today and ha ha, he sucks.

You guys are idiots. I'm sick of hearing about him, sick of us predicting how great he was going to be. I get it. Yeah, and they piled on him. I think that that is premature. I don't know that I'd be taking Arch Manning sucks victory laps right now. But if he plays like that and they lose three games and he never looks comfortable and, you know, people are like, yeah, I understand why Archie predicted he's coming back next year. It's like, okay, get your jokes off.

That's okay. But like, if you think Texas is cooked, buddy, I'm telling you right now, you're going to be wrong. So, he does have to play at Florida, at Georgia. So this is not the only hostile environment he's going to have to play. And at least he doesn't have to go to A&M this year. They got to come to him. But I mean, if he looks like that against Georgia in mid-November, then it's going to be bad news.

Then it's going to be really, really bad news. But I think now that he's got three games against San Jose State, Utep, and Sam Houston coming up before going on the road to Florida, like I would bet, I don't know about my life. You're the only one who gambles on their life. I would bet a pretty sizable chunk of money. It's my life against Ryan Day's nipples, and I feel pretty good about it. Andy, he's going to have a much better game in Florida.

Florida's defense isn't as good as Ohio State won, and he will have enough experience and probably get more comfortable, gain some confidence. I don't know that that's, you think he's going to have 37 yards passing in the swamp in the fourth quarter? I don't know. I thought he'd have more than that today. I don't know.

All I'm saying, and you can clip this river and you can put it on there, if you're one of these people who made a tweet and got all your likes off about how Archmanning sucks and you're taking a victory lap. I think it's premature. I think it's premature. Can we talk about another quarterback that everybody abandoned, that everybody thought was going to be great, and then he became the starter,

and he was at a horrible season. Things really didn't go his way. He went to another school, and it was like, well, he was bad last season. He can't possibly be good now. Can we talk about him? Jackson Arnold. Jackson Arnold.

Oh, yeah. Tyler O'Neill, Jackson Arnold was not the problem. I watched him in person last night in Waco. He was great. It will be a major problem for Oklahoma. So let's talk Auburn because we didn't get a chance to talk about the Auburn Baylor game. Raise your hand if you waited for Auburn to be down three nothing and smashed. I had a great weekend.

Thank you, Tyler Shoemaker. But that wasn't one of his plays. Jackson Arnold is interesting. I wrote a column about this. He played really well. I don't know if I'm sold. No, listen, he was not the greatest thrower of the football. They ran the ball down Baylor's throat.

There was nothing Baylor could do to stop them from running the ball. It was comical how easy it was for Auburn to run the football. There was a person who got mad at you, me, all the cover three guys, and Josh Pate for saying that Baylor had an undersized defensive line, which we didn't say. I think Josh made actually said it. Josh should be like, yeah, I said it. I was right. I think this is why people hate me, but I like take stock of what people say.

to me in the middle of the week, and then I go back and, like, reply to them after the game. No, I think keeping receipts is important because they keep the receipts on you. You know, I went back and I said to that guy, said, hey, I never said that, even though you got mad at me for saying it. And I got to tell you, I kind of wish I did. Oh, yeah. Like, I just like that was a correct. And here's all you need to know. They're facing a key fourth down trying to put the game away.

And it was one of those that last year, this was the place that Auburn would have melted down. Hugh Fries calls time out. and I'm like, okay, what's he going to cook up in this timeout? Nothing fancy. Yeah. Under center. Cubey sneak? It was a sneak, really.

What is it? The touchdown run? Yeah. It was a shotgun. They fake pitched a receiver motion. That's right. And then he ran up the middle. They were under center before that.

Yeah. Before the timeout. But so, and the C's part. and he scores. And I remember Hugh Freeze distinctly last year saying, I probably should call more designed runs because he was calling RPO's for Peyton Thorne, which the quarterback has the choice to throw a run,

and Peyton Thorne kept choosing to throw when Auburn was running successfully, and sometimes you'd throw it to the other team. And Hugh Freeze, after multiple just horrific interceptions, goes, maybe I should call more play. where he just has to run or we just have to hand off and it's like yeah you should yeah that's coaching um and and that's what they did like they didn't they didn't force jackson arnold to make that or jackson arnold was just making the correct choice whichever one it's great jackson arnold did not throw the ball particularly well he's 11 of 17 for 108 yards that was a very you know kind of blah

throwing day it doesn't matter he ran for 137 yards he average 8.6 yards of carry and Auburn average Six yards of carry and ran for 300 yards. If you do that, most of the time you are going to win, even when your defense cannot cover the tight end to save its life. I think people in Oklahoma might throw rocks at me for saying this, but he reminded me of 50% of Baker Mayfield the other night. Now, the other 50% is... There's a 50% of Baker Mayfield was really...

But here's what he... Okay, we can't lay this at the feet of Brent Venables and Seth Latrell completely because their offensive line at Oklahoma last year was not nearly as good as the sovereign offense. Well, here's the thing. and this is this is the truth Jackson Arnold played a great game but I think it's easier for a quarterback to play a great game

and not throw an interception when you are mashing your opponent up front and they ran the ball at will all night I mean there were certain you know camera shots on Dave Aranda where it was just like oh there's nothing I can call to stop this what will be interesting is the first time that Auburn that Auburn plays a team that they can't run through and they pressure him and he gets put in a really important situations is he's going to revert back to the turnover prone person

that got benched at Oklahoma, or is he going to illustrate the growth that Auburn hopes he has and be efficient in those moments? Because I'm very impressed with what Auburn did. You know, we're talking about a, we can't just go back. I also want to see Auburn's defense play better. Like Caldrick Falk showed up there at the end with a big sack, but they could have been better the entire game. Here's the other thing, too. We spent all offseason talking about Cam Coleman and Eric Singleton Jr. I don't know that those two did more than 50 yards of total receiving in that entire game. So when you think about things that are still under the hood, you know, there's there's

untapped potential there and you have three targets for four catches for 43 yards. Yeah, right. So like I think still think that you are in a pretty good spot. So I think that it's a good first step. And listen, if you're an Auburn fan, you're probably happy to get out of a competitive game on the road against a team that some thought was good enough to compete for the Big 12 without having a crippling turnover. Like just that and it by itself is a huge thing. There was no turnovers, I don't think. There weren't. And in all the spots where there used to be those turnovers, Auburn just ran the damn ball. It was great. Yeah, they ran the damn ball. Now, do they have a quarterback that can win them a game when they cannot run the damn ball? But here's

the other thing. Auburn ran the damn ball really well last year, too. So that's one thing that we know they can do. Growth. Growth is good. For week one, I'll take growth. Edgar in the chat, this is a great question. Transmission from USF fan from the future. Hey, I know we're going to miss Alice Gullish, but how do you think Kailen DeVore will do here? So we didn't talk about this Thursday night because we get a chance to. Alice Golish, USF's coach, great job. Byron Brown back healthy.

They slaughtered Boise State. Made Boise State look silly. Turns out Ashton Genty was pretty good. Now, we are going to- Everybody who put Boise State in their playoff bracket, which was 85% of national writers. You know who has two thumbs and? never did you yeah that's right i went i went james madison and then i've now flipped it once jake russell went to two lane i flipped it to lane yeah and two lane beat the crap out of

northwestern on saturday usf has an opportunity to get itself into that mix and here's how they play florida next week they play miami after that if they could win one of those games and then win the american they are in the playoff is uh byron brown uh senior is he done after this year or is he going to be a really highly paid transfer next year Well, here's the thing. I had a lot of Tennessee friends texting during that game going, how did we not steal him? Yeah.

And it's more like Josh Heppel's probably not going to do that to Alice Golish. That's probably why. I would. He knows the offense. There's no friends in football. But I would steal your quarterback in a second if I needed him. He struggled with injuries last year. That was the issue.

But healthy Byron Brown is really tough to tackle. Yeah, he was really, really impressive. Again, another quarterback that you're not 1,000 percent. certain is going to error it out much this year. You know, he had some good throws. He had some ones he wishes he could have back. But there were plays that seemed dead that he would, and the next thing you know, it was a touchdown. And there was even one, I think, that was called back.

So, um, you know, it was just, uh, Onakuno says, turns out last year, Boise State was just Gentian 21 raccoons in a trench coat. Yeah. But the Raiders might be able to run the ball. I saw a tweet that went viral and said, where did God go? Is it gentie left? Because like, you know, they're very, you know, um, but yeah, That was a really, really interesting game the other night. And Boise, I mean, I think we can probably put a red marker through them in terms of the playoff.

I don't know. The Mountain West is still up for grabs. I don't know, man. They do play Notre Dame. They had some, their offense stunk. It with a capital. Their defense wasn't much better. Yeah.

So what are some other, because I know we're getting to the tail end of this here. And I know that this show is usually a recap of the entire day. Listen, guys, we've got shows. all week and there were some pretty crazy results so forgive us but there also weren't a ton of really critical games i mean we're traveling but like michigan one i'm going to go back and watch brys underwood i'm very excited to see what he did kansas state almost lost to north dakota organ won by a hundred georgia had no problem just annihilated yeah so there's other teams know that we know um you know texas tech one by 60 and then got a five-star commitment

from tennessee covered that 17 point spread i told you guys a little bit of tennessee i I thought Joey Aguilar looked, we watched that whole game. I thought Joey Aguilar looked really good running that offense. Georgia Tech, Colorado, too. Yeah, Georgia Tech, Colorado was a great game. I just assumed when Georgia Tech turned them all over three times in the first eight minutes, it was over. Yeah. But they hung in, came back, and then held on to win.

Haynes King, I got a text and it went viral from a friend. And I'm going to use the F word here, so whatever. We're very late in the show. We're very late in the show, but it's also, we're all adults here. I'm looking at the, I got a text from a friend the other night. The Utah UCLA score. It is halftime. I saw that Nico overthrew a wide open person downfield on the first drive of the game,

and everybody was celebrating that. Devin Dampere, so far, very efficient. Yeah, I got a text that I'm trying to find. Devin Dampere's averaging six yards of carry and averaging seven yards per throwing attempt. This should be Haynes King's Twitter banner. Haines King may or may not be a good quarterback, but that motherfucker is a dog. That came from an A&M fan. Well, you know how much I love Haynes King.

Haines King is the only quarterback in America who ever completed a pass to me. Yeah. So, no, I mean, he is a dog. Oh, yeah. Also, you know. Because he was limping around. Like, yeah, it didn't matter. He didn't stop him, but never injured.

I love that. Georgia Tech was a tough team. I thought Colorado, you know, was a pretty functional looking team still. And a great environment still. A great environment. People are excited, you know. And that was a huge. I like Hayton Salter.

I thought he looked good. Yeah, I don't understand why his helmet. Is it just his hair that causes it to do that? Why does his helmet always look like that? No, that's a different style of helmet that he chooses to wear. It looks like there's like four inches of foam right above his head. So this is, but this has been such a fun weekend and we've just plunged back. And we're not done yet.

That's the greatest part is Ari and I are going to see South Carolina, Virginia Tech in person tomorrow. We're all going to watch Miami, Notre Dame tomorrow night. I think we'll be live twice tomorrow, right? Once after, I don't know, at least once. Probably after Miami, Notre Dame. Okay. We'll wrap everything up. But then on Monday night, we had Bill Belichick's first college football game.

Whoop, whoop. TCU at North Carolina. So plenty to talk about, yeah, that's going to be wild. Monday's going to be wild, too, guys, because we're going to do a live pick show on Monday. And then we'll probably come at you after the Bill Belichick debut because I have no clue what's going to happen. And I'm like, if I learned anything today, it's that I really don't know anything. Yeah, it's going to be great.

Cannot wait. And Andy, this sport never disappoints. If this was an indication of anything, this season is going to be crazy. I think we both have predicted that this would be the best college football season in recent memory. And already I think we're off to a pretty tremendous start.

So who knows what's going to happen down the line, but a lot of quarterbacks to track. Don't look now, Electric says, but Colorado State is tied with Washington 14, 14 at the half. Guys, it's not even over tonight, but Ari, we're done. Yeah, I'm sweating profusely. We've got to drive ahead of us listening to Colorado State and Washington and Utah and UCLA. Everybody be safe tonight.

We'll talk to you tomorrow. Ryan Day's nipples are pierced. They're not. Bet my life on it.