Andy & Ari On3 - Nick Saban names Milroe as Alabama QB | Mel Tucker to be Fired | #DearAndy with YOUR Questions

Episode Date: September 19, 2023

Nick Saban names Milroe as QB | Mel Tucker to be Fired | #DearAndy with YOUR QuestionsToday’s show is sponsored by Rhoback, maker of the most comfortable hoodies, polos and quarter-zips known to man. Visit https://rhoback.com and use the promo code STAPLES to get 20 percent off your first order.Want to watch the show instead? Head on over to YouTube - don't forget to subscribe!https://youtu.be/C0yYIHZF9awIt's a Dear Andy show, but First we have some news to take care of:Alabama's experiment with Ty Buchner as its starting quarterback was short lived, as Nick Saban announces that Jalen Milroe will take the reigns for their conference opener vs. Ole Miss. Speaking of Ole Miss, Lane Kiffin made some comments about Alabama's defense that caught Nick Saban's attention. (0:00-7:42)Colorado's schedule picks up this weekend as they hit the road to take on Oregon in Eugene, but they will have to do so without one of their best players. Two-way star Travis Hunter suffered a lacerated liver against Colorado State that will leave him sidelined for multiple weeks. (7:43-8:30)Michigan State athletic director Alan Haller has announced his intentions to terminate Mel Tucker with cause (8:31-10:10)We catch up with our good friend Jim Nagy to figure out players on his radar entering a massive week 4 in college football and some under-the-radar players to keep your eye out for. (10:11-26:00)It's time for Dear Andy where we answer your great questions this week:What is the craziest realistic scenario for this college football season? (26:01-32:10)Our next question comes from George in the principal's office about the Miami Hurricanes and where they currently sit (32:11-36:30)Mike asks if there's any better looking Quarterback and Head Coach duo than Sam Hartman and Marcus Freeman, and Andy finds some candidates, mainly from out west (36:31-40:10)Our next question comes from Bo who is frustrated with the start of the Mississippi State Bulldogs in Starkville (40:11-47:25)Our next question comes from Nick in Charlotte who is watching the slow decline of Oklahoma State and Mike Gundy. He wonders if there's any turn-around in sight for the Cowboys (47:26-53:47)Next up we have a question about the high-tempo offensive approach that Tennessee runs and what Baylor used to run (53:48-1:03:07)The final question of the episode is one that regards a conference that will soon be no more. Is the Pac-12 the deepest league in the country? (1:03:08-1:06:38)For today's extra point, we go back to Justin who requests a random ranking of the lunches eaten in the movie The Breakfast Club (1:06:39-1:10:25)

Welcome to Andy Staples on three and a mystery solved right off the bat. Not something we expected to happen, but on Monday, Nick Saban, in the midst of a quarterback situation, just announced who his starting quarterback would be. You know, from a quarterback standpoint, this is all I'm going to say about this. You know, Jalen really showed the leadership that I was looking for, you know, during the game in terms of supporting his teammates and doing the things he needed to do. He's had the opportunity to play, so has the other guys. Jalen played the best of all those guys, and so I think he's earned the opportunity to be the quarterback. So it's a Dear Andy show. I'm going to answer your questions later.

All of those questions about who's going to be Alabama's quarterback didn't need to answer them because Nick Saban answered it on Monday. And that was just not what I was expecting. Not something Nick Saban has really done. I just figured he'd let us wonder all week, and then maybe they'd reveal it on Friday like they have, where sources would say who was starting, or maybe they just wouldn't tell us,

and then we'd see who trotted out against Ole Miss on Saturday. But Jalen Milrow, your starting quarterback after Alabama, tried Tyler Buckner first in the USF game, and that didn't work. And then they brought in Ty Simpson and it worked a little bit better but it looks like Jalen Milrow is the guy from this point forward and we've talked about this a couple times now there's an offense that can be run around Jalen Milrow where Alabama can be successful it's not like he's incapable of running a good offense but it didn't look like the offense incapable of running a good offense.

But it didn't look like the offense they were running earlier in the season, especially in the Texas game, was designed for him. They didn't see a lot of design quarterback runs, which he's incredibly athletic. Probably something you could do and have a lot of success with. He's got a great deep ball. So given the way Alabama has been running the ball, they were actually very successful doing that against USF. You have some read option

where Milrow has the option to give it to the back or keep it himself. That's going to keep that defense honest. You could do some RPO stuff where he's got the option to give it to the back, keep it himself or throw it. And then all of that can set up some of those deep shots because defense is going to have to come in and account for Milrow as a runner. So it's possible to do more with him than they have. And I think we're going to see that because if they say, this is the guy going forward, I imagine Nick Saban has said to Tommy Reese, all right,

let us build this around his skill set, not around in case we put in Tyler Buckner or in case we play Ty Simpson. That's not the only thing that Nick Saban said, though. This was very interesting. So Lane Kiffin on Sunday night had a conference call with reporters kind of going over the Georgia Tech game, looking ahead to the Alabama game. Lane has worked at Alabama before.

Lots of the Ole Miss staff has worked around the SEC before. Kevin Steele, Alabama's defensive coordinator, has worked around the SEC. Traveris Robinson, the cornerback's coach at Alabama, he's worked at South Carolina. He's worked at Florida. He went to Auburn. He's worked at Auburn. So obviously all these guys know each other. Lane Kiffin was watching some Alabama film on Sunday and he noted something very interesting. So I will quote Lane Kiffin. There's no video of this. This was on a conference call,

but this is what he said. We've been against Kevin a number of times, worked with him in Alabama and against him at Auburn and LSU. There seems to have been a, there seems like there's been a change there. I don't know what happened after the Texas game, but our guys watching the TV copy and schematically in this last game certainly seems like T-Rob's now calling the defense. We played him before at South Carolina, so we're preparing accordingly for him calling the defense. He's done a good job too, and they've got really good players. That, of course, didn't go over well in Tuscaloosa. So Nick Saban, having heard that on Sunday, came back with this on Monday. On this other thing that I hear floating around out there, I'm sure you've seen the same reports that I've seen, is Kevin Steele is the defensive coordinator. He has all the

defensive coordinator responsibilities. The only thing that we tried to improve on from an administrative standpoint was game day administration of getting the signals in quicker. All right, so that's the only thing that you know we worked on together as a staff the whole staff made a contribution to it and i think it was a lot better in this game than it was in the texas game so that's the end of it right no of course that's not the end of it because Because Lane Kiffin had his press conference on Monday. This one there is video of. And he got asked about what he said and then what Nick Saban said. And this was Lane's response.

Lane, what did you see on film that led you to make the comment last night about Coach Robinson coaching their defense? That was, again, I was asked the question, what was it like going against Steel's defense? So I wasn't really trying to start this big thing. We saw things on TV copy just where it was different, you know, of first off of what the play looked like, the calls and stuff, and then so we looked into that further, and then, I mean,

ain't no secret, we kind of, people in these buildings know each other, so obviously got some information that way, too. So, you know, it just is what it is, kind of like the quarterbacks. You got to prepare for a different quarterback, prepare for a different play caller. So we got a game film of that. I'm not sure whatever transpired after Texas, but we're going to have our hands full no matter what.

Lane Kiffin is not backing down off that statement and his response was was pretty classic because yeah everybody in the SEC knows everybody else in the SEC everybody's worked at multiple schools in the SEC there's so much cross-pollination there you're not going to be able to sneak something like that through and people know especially offensive play callers like Lane Kiffin know what they're watching defensively and who they're watching because they've matched up against all these people so yet another wrinkle to a game that even though it's not amongst the highest ranked teams that's that's Ohio State and Notre Dame is one of the more intriguing ones this week.

Even though Alabama's quarterback situation now is settled, it's still fascinating because you've got Pete Golding, the former Alabama defensive coordinator, coming back to Tuscaloosa with a chance to show, hey, you ran me out of here, but maybe I wasn't the problem. And then you've got Alabama with Jalen Milrow, who's going to be coming in and saying, all right, now it's my offense, it's my team.

We've been through all this. You've tried somebody else. Let's go. I cannot wait to watch this game. There is so much drama, and it doesn't look like it's going to abate anytime soon. And with Lane Kiffin just pick, pick, pick, pick, pick, pick, pick, picking at Nick Saban, yeah, it's going to be fun.

No idea how it's going to go down. No idea who's going to win, but it will be fun. In other news, Travis Hunter, Colorado two-way star receiver slash corner. He's going to be out for three to four weeks, suffered a lacerated liver on that hit from Colorado States, Henry Blackburn lacerated liver sounds incredibly painful, but it sounds like if he heals up or covers, he can be good to go later in the season. Unfortunately for Colorado, that means he's out for this week against Oregon. He's out next week against USC. As the schedule hits the hardest part, they will be without their best player. So it takes a little bit of shine off

that Colorado-Oregon game, but glad he's going to be okay because that was a tough, tough watch on Saturday night, seeing him get hit and finding out he's been sent to the hospital. One other piece of big news on Monday, Michigan State Athletic Director Alan Haller announced that they've given seven day notice to Mel Tucker that they're going to fire him for cause. So this is the 10 year, $95 million contract Mel Tucker signed. Had roughly $80 million left on it. Michigan State is saying, we're going to fire you and pay you nothing. This sucker is going to court. So basically right now,

Mel Tucker has seven days to give them reason why they shouldn't fire him for cause and that he should be able to collect a buyout if they fire him. My guess is Michigan State won't be satisfied by any reason he gives. They will fire him for cause on September 26th. And then I imagine this is going to court.

This apparently does not affect the hearing that Mel Tucker is supposed to have in October. Remember, he's accused by Brenda Tracy, who is a person who comes in to various college football teams, speaks to them about how they treat women. She's a rape survivor. They had developed a relationship and she claims that he sexually harassed her over the phone. He claims they were having a consensual relationship and a consensual conversation. This thing is going to court because that is an awful lot of money to be leaving on the table. So we will see what happens going forward. There could be a lawsuit. It could be the next thing we see from Mel Tucker,

but my guess is this is not quite over yet, even though it is very clear Mel Tucker will not be the coach at Michigan anymore at Michigan state anymore. So we will find out what's next. Probably going to be messy. Probably going to be nasty. Because this is, again, so much money involved. When we come back, though, we'll talk about the guys that are making themselves money this college football season by increasing their draft stock

and by impressing the folks who run the Senior Bowl. Jim Nagy from the Senior Bowl will join us to talk about who he's seen, who impressed him, and who he's going to be looking at closely in this week's big matchups. We'll be right back with Jim. We're joined now by Jim Nagy, the Senior Bowl Executive Director, basking in the glow of having won Cole Strange from Chattanooga

in his game a few years ago. If you saw the athleticism from Cole strange, grabbing a lateral for the Patriots last night that I do want to ask about that, Jim, because I think it's funny because that was the Cole was the pick that the Patriots made first round. And the Rams brain trust was like, Cole is strange.

And they started laughing, but you guys had him in your game. When, when you're scouting a guy like that, how well do you know, okay, this person's going to hit? Well, for Cole, it was a pretty easy eval. We watched him that year against Kentucky. It was the first game we put on.

And Kentucky had a couple D linemen that year, Josh Paschal, McCall. They had a couple, you know, two, three guys that played in the NFL. And Cole was frigging awesome, man. Like we turned off the tape and I turned to the guys from our staff that were in the room watching it with me. I'm like, well, he's getting an invite to Mobile. We can throw on a couple other SOCON games just to say we did it.

But this guy's getting invited. So he was easy. He was really easy to do. Would I would I be saying? I'd be lying to you. Had I known when we watched him, he was going to be a first round draft pick. But he certainly looked like a day two guy when we watched him. And those guys are those guys are always easy to do. So to see him doing what he did the other night, kind of a big man athlete move for him last night. But yeah, really good player. His best football is still way ahead of him. I think the Rams brain trust will end up regretting their take when they kind of snickered at that pick.

Well, they don't like first round draft picks, so it's no big deal. But you've got a huge week ahead. You've got your scouts going everywhere. I just want to go through some of these matchups and see who you guys are looking at the Notre Dame, Ohio state. When to me, I'm most curious about Notre Dame's offensive line versus Ohio state's defensive line. How many guys are you looking at in that matchup alone? Well, you know, not many on the Notre Dame side, just because they're younger guys. They're good. It's good matchup. Right. But, you know, on the, on the Ohio state defensive line,

they've got Hamilton, you know, we're really looking at a bunch of their linebackers. So like steel chambers had a really good game this past week, Tommy Eichenberg. So we will be focused in on that box area for sure. And then even like Latham ransom the the safety coming up you know inserting in the box i mean those are those are some of the guys on the ohio state defense that we're really focused on uh all four of those guys could end up with invites so that'd be big it's just not a huge year at notre dame um in terms of volume we've had a lot of those guys here over the years um in terms of like senior all-star game eligible guys it's just not a huge year for notre dame because they are so young up front even though they're pretty good Sam Hartman's an interesting one

though because he's I don't know he's super super senior super duper see what I don't know what we call six-year seniors but uh he's an interesting one too and where where does he fit with with these quarterbacks well he's he's in that mix. We've talked about it. It's a huge class, right? I mean, there's so many of these guys came back for that extra COVID year, NIL year, whatever got them back. A lot of guys returned. And so far, Sam's done everything he can do. You know, we had a scout at the game a couple weeks ago against NC State.

That was kind of his big first test coming off that Tennessee State and the Navy game. So he's played well. He's played well, but obviously not a situation like this with the Buckeyes coming into town. Another huge prove-it week for Sam. We'll be right back with more from Jim Nagy. But first, let me tell you about Roback.

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Remember, roback.com. The code is STAPLES. So going out west, you guys were looking at colorado and colorado state last week now colorado heads to oregon i'm interested in in the ducks they've got some older guys that seem like they've been there for like brandon dorlis feels like he has played at oregon since chip kelly coached there yeah and. And he's, he's the guy that we invited to the senior bowl last year that ended up going back. I mean, we had a number of defensive linemen, Fabian Lovett from Florida state Ruka Roro and Tyler Davis from Clemson,

all these guys had accepted invites to play in the senior bowl. And again, it's just a different landscape now with NIL all these guys got paid to go back and great for them. But yeah, Brandon's a guy that we've had our eyes on. We've liked him for a long time. He's got inside pass rush ability. His weight's kind of fluctuated a little bit. You know, it looks like he's back up to where he was two years ago. Last year, he looked like he slimmed down a little bit. When Dan Lanning came in, it seemed like they had him cut weight a little bit. But a really good football player. He can impact you on all three downs. You know, we're looking at Jordan Burch, who's a transfer from South Carolina, who finally got himself a sack this week.

And then Popo. There's like three guys on that Oregon defensive line that we'll have our eyes on. Well, and Burch is an interesting one because a former five-star recruit went to South Carolina, did not really like the world on fire at South Carolina. But how does he look in Dan Lanning's defense? Well, he's one of those guys that even going back to South Carolina, now you grade the flashes and you see why he was a five-star. Because there's a lot of talent in that body, as scouts like to say. Explosive, athletic. And it's just putting it together and being more consistent, you know. So,

you know, I know when he was coming out of high school, Georgia was kind of the runner-up behind the Gamecocks in that recruiting process, and that's why Dan Lanning ended up with him, you know, because I think he stayed on and maintained that relationship, which everyone in college football is doing these days. It's not the worst thing to come in number two right now in recruiting because that's usually where guys end up if they jump in the portal so you know we haven't watched too much Oregon early tape because they really haven't played anybody yet so this will this will be a big first test with with our guys out there watching them well and then you get into the SEC and Ole Miss Alabama all we keep talking about is who's going to play quarterback for Alabama Nick Saban

solved that mystery today and now he and Lane are going back and about is who's going to play quarterback for Alabama. Nick Saban solved that mystery today. And now he and Lane are going back and forth about who's calling defensive plays. But let's talk about the players on the field. Who are you excited to see from Alabama, you know, to compare this tape to the Texas game? Well, probably Malachi Moore. You know, he's the guy that one guy in the secondary that has played a lot of football with Kool-Aid and McKinstry. Other than that, they lost all those guys from a guy we're going to be looking at. I think Chris Braswell showed up in the, in this USF game, at least on the stat sheet. So I'm looking forward to watching that later this week. And then, then when you flip it over on the Ole Miss side, we, you know, we had the most players of any school, Ole Miss had 20 players on the

watch list. And a lot of those guys were, a lot of those guys were transfers. So we kind of stayed in the boat with some of them. That's why they had 20 looks like a really bloated number. But again, some of those guys are starting to shake out. You look at Trey Harris week one, the receiver transfer from La Tech had four touchdowns, broke the school record, right? So that was a big one. And then this week with Judkins being down at running back, we're going to see Ulysses Bentley.

And he had a big game this past week against Georgia Tech with a couple touchdowns. And that forced us to go back this morning and watch some of the SMU tape when he was a young guy. And he came out of high school with 900-plus yards as a true freshman at SMU and some really good tape. We're talking about a high-end athlete that can really run. The gear is noticeable when you put on the tape.

So some of those Ole Miss guys, some of those transfer guys are starting to shake out. Well, and one other transfer guy I'm curious about is Isaac Uku, who was a very good pass rusher for James Madison last year. He's gone to Ole Miss trying to raise his draft stock. What have you seen from him so far? Again, they haven't played a lot. They had that big matchup against Tulane.

Other than that, we're waiting for a lot of the SEC tape to roll in. I mean, from a scout's perspective, what they're trying to do right now is really focus on small school tape because all those schools are playing up, and you're really not focusing too much on the big schools until they get in conference play. So that's kind of how we've treated a lot of these big schools. So I haven't seen a lot there yet.

But, again, we'll have someone at the game in Tuscaloosa this weekend keeping close eyes on them. Who have you really liked? You mentioned the small school guys playing up. Who out of those guys have kind of caught your eye in the last few weeks? Well, you know, it wasn't like a play-up game, but we had a scout up at the Yale game this weekend against Holy Cross. And I'm going to butcher Kieran's last name.

I don't want to do it to him, man. I have to learn his name because right now he's their left tackle for Yale. And he's our highest graded small school player coming out of the summer. And that puts him in the same company as like, not Cole Strange, but Trevor Penning that year from Northern Iowa, who ended up being our highest drafted player a couple of years ago out of the game. First round pick. Let's see. You know, Cole did go in the first round. Last year, Cody Mauck from North Dakota State won the first round. So we've got a bunch of FCS guys beat top 50 picks.

And we think Kieran's got a chance to be that guy this year. Well, and interesting if Yale-Harvard, if you get them matched up on Thor Griffith at all. Thor's more of an interior guy, but you never know. We had Thor on the show. That guy is wow. Maybe like a backside cutoff block or something. Yeah. Well, that'll test kieran's

athleticism like yeah i saw you i saw your interview with cole man or uh with thor that was awesome yeah it's a lot of fun and that's that's the thing is getting to see you know some of these guys that that we're not seeing on tv every day and uh i think that's a lot of the fun part of it you know like a cole strange who know, people who are really sharp eyed might have seen him when Chattanooga was playing Kentucky. But you guys are on these guys early and understand. Because I remember talking to you last year and you were telling us about Tyson Bayesian, you know, at Shepherd College. And now he's the backup quarterback for the Bears. And it's amazing to me how quickly you guys zero in.

Cody Mockett at North Dakota State was another one that, you know, you saw right away. Yeah, it's been a huge part of the senior bowl's history for a long time. And, you know, unfortunately, I think some of that might be going away a little bit just because of NIL. I think in portal, I think we're seeing guys go up and want to test themselves for that senior year, maybe make a little NIL money, you know, at the same time. So we'll see. But there's some young guys popping, man.

We were at a game at Campbell University this weekend for a big corner. It's got 34-inch arms. I posted a video of that the other day. I mean, that's some of the freakishly longest arms I've ever seen on a quarterback. He was a transfer from Central Connecticut State. So, yeah, we're on a bunch of these small school guys, and it is.

It makes it a lot of fun. When you see him play up, too, I mean, then you really get a feel for, okay, this is a real guy. We're not just dealing with a good small school player. One other SEC game that I wanted to mention, because you were at Auburn last week and they're going to play Texas A&M this week. And you mentioned on you tweeted about Jalen Simpson, their free safety. He's got interceptions in each of the first three games. What what can he do with, you know, for this defense and and for himself, the rest of this SEC schedule? Yeah, it's pretty topical. You asked me that question. I just got done watching him upstairs like an hour ago. You know, he's not the biggest guy. He's like five, five, 11 and a half, about

180 pounds, but a high end athlete. I posted some of those, those video clips of him dunking today. Someone on the staff up there, good buddy of mine, Trovon Reed. Oh yeah. Yeah. So we, we got him as a free agent when I was with the Seahawks and man, he's like a, like a son to me. I love him. And he sent me those, sent me those pictures of, of Jalen Duncan. So you're talking about a guy that's going to blow up the combine. You see the range, he's got true center field skills and probably athletic enough to play some nickel nickel and i think that's what a lot of teams right now are looking for that that nickel free um type of type of player and they've got so many good ones for like last year we talked about guys that went back to school we invited nehemiah pritchett and dj james who play on the outside we love kiante scott who

plays the nickel who looks like he's going to be out for a couple weeks then you then now you had simpson into the mix um and e Eugene Asante at linebacker. I watched him the other day. He was unbelievable against Cal. Unbelievable against Cal. And to think that he was on the bench last year and on the scout team, crazy to think. Because, right, like they had Owen Papo a year ago as an off the ball linebacker, who was the fastest guy at last year's combine.

Eugene Asante is every bit as fast on tape, and he's a more natural football player than Owen Papo was. And this guy didn't even play, like wasn't even on our watch list. So there's some pieces on that defense. You've got Rodgers, the big tackle, coming over from Kentucky. You know, the Jones kid coming over from Oregon at the defensive line. So it'll be interesting to see if it all clicks for Auburn. You know, they're still patching that thing together

with all these new faces and new coaches. But there's certainly some parts. Yeah, they'll give you some good tape to watch from College Station and enjoy all these games as conference play starts to hit and you start getting maybe that valuable tape for the big school guys. Jim, thank you so much. Yeah. Andy, thanks man. It's a, it's going to be a busy weekend. We're going to be inviting players like in four or five weeks. So it's a,

it's, it's busy. Here we are. Can't wait. This is going to be so much fun. Thank you, Jim. Thanks Andy. It's now the time of the week where you guys take over the show. is dear andy and your questions this week i gotta tell you out freaking standing we start as we usually do with nathan in jerusalem dear andy a few weeks ago you gave us your predictions for the season who would win each conference who would make the playoffs so on. But after a few weeks with so much insanity happening, I wanted to ask you a slightly different question. What is the craziest possible outcome within reason for each conference and the playoffs? So, for instance, Duke wins the ACC.

Ole Miss wins the SEC. Kansas comes out of nowhere and wins the Big 12. Things that could rationally happen, but no one is expecting, a la TCU last year. What do you think is the insanity scenario? The craziest possible outcome, the one that would blow everything out of the water, it should be obvious at this point. It would be Colorado winning the Pac-12 and going to the playoff. Because if you can have The Rock and Lil Wayne and Deion's mom and everybody there for Colorado State, what is it going to look like when you're about to play a playoff semifinal in the freaking Rose Bowl?

That would just take the sports media landscape off its axis. It would be incredible. That would be the craziest one. Now, obviously, we will have a lot better idea how realistic that is after Colorado plays Oregon. It may be that it's not realistic at all. But if you'd asked me before they played this season, will you be considering them potential Pac-12 contenders or considering them to even be on the same field as Oregon and USC? I'd have been like, eh, probably not. But given what we've seen so far, sure. Why not? Now,

Travis Hunter is out, so it's going to make it pretty tough. I probably wasn't going to be picking Colorado to win that game anyway. And I probably wouldn't have picked them to win the Pac-12 anyway. But you're asking what the craziest scenario. That would be crazy because it would require them to run through an incredibly deep Pac-12. And then again, the lead up to the college football playoff semifinals would be just wild with all of the Colorado stuff. And again, if they can put on that sort of show for Colorado State, imagine what it would be if they were about to play Michigan in the Rose Bowl. It's just, it's incredible to think about. Well, let's talk about the other conferences though. That is definitely the craziest one.

I thought about this one for the Big 12. This one would be nuts and it also involves Colorado. What if TCU suddenly puts everything together, makes a run through the Big 12, but then doesn't make the playoff because of its head-to-head loss to Colorado. Let's say Colorado in my crazy, crazy scenario did lose one game, but was a 12 and one Pac-12 champ. And then TCU was a 12 and one big 12 champ, but there were undefeated teams elsewhere. So they're, they're fighting over the fourth spot and TCU got left out because they lost to Colorado in week one. Now, I don't think that's going to happen either.

You look at the way Texas and Oklahoma are playing right now, it's looking like a doomsday scenario for the big 12 office where you might have those two playing for the big 12 title, but who knows? It's a, it's a crazy league, and we got four new teams in there. You're going to get to see Cincinnati playing a Big 12 game this week against Oklahoma. Anything can happen right now, but that would be the wildest. Duke winning the ACC absolutely would be crazy, and if that happened, what it means for Mike Elko, well, Steve Spurrier is the other guy who won the ACC at Duke. If you're looking for a head coach to come to a potential sleeping giant type program where you would want to win multiple conference titles, potentially a national title,

the guy who can win the ACC at Duke is probably a guy you want to talk to. That would be crazy, even if they don't. If they do well against this very tough schedule they've got this year, it says a lot about Mike Elko. In the Big Ten, how about this one? Iowa wins the Big Ten, but averages less than 25 points a game. Now, I know the drive for 325, currently they're 10 points ahead of the pace. But let's say they get into some tough games. They have to kind of rock fight them out.

And they don't get to that 25 number. But they do win the West and then win the Big Ten championship game. Come on. How crazy would that be? That would be incredible. And the Brian Ferentz interview afterward would be spectacular. Just imagine a Big Ten championship game where Iowa beats Michigan 19 to 17. The Brian and Kirk Ferentz interviews would be incredible after those games. And then one more of those Texas A&M wins the SEC. It feels like the offense is maybe fixed. The defense seems to be the problem based on the Miami game. Again, we will know a

lot more after they play Auburn this week. We'll know even more as they get further down the schedule, but let's say they magically put everything together and they win the SEC. So you could go from after the Miami game, people talking about realistically raising $76 million to buy out Jimbo Fisher to Texas A&M winning the SEC. That would be quite a leap for a two-month period. So I love it, Nathan. Those are incredibly wild scenarios. But this feels like one of those years where, I don't know, maybe one of them can come true. Who knows? Next question from George. He's the

principal. I wouldn't want to be sent to this principal's office. I'm telling you right now. Dear Andy, question about my beloved Miami Hurricanes. I grew up in the 80s, falling in love with college football when Miami was dominant. It's been tough times, tough times these last 20 years. I am wondering, are we on our way back? Do we have a shot versus the Clemsons and the FSUs of the ACC? Do we have the depth to participate and actually compete with these teams towards the end of the season? So I'm hoping you'll give me the answer I want. After last year's fiasco, I was ready to give up. Andy, on my

Hurricanes, on the way back, can I actually get this excited again? Thanks, Andy. Principal Carter out. I like the way our friend, the principal, phrased this question because he didn't say, are they back he said are they on the way back and i think that's a good way to phrase it because the way miami's playing right now i do think there is a lot of room for hope look at the way they protected tyler van dyke against texas a&m look at the way they've run the ball so far look at the athletes on the field i thought shannonson, the offensive coordinator, said something interesting the other day.

He basically said, there is enough talent here. It's not a, oh, woe is me, we need two more recruiting classes. No, they feel like they're good right now with what they have. Xavier Estrepo being healthy certainly helps that receiving core, but it feels like that group is deeper. We know about their offensive line recruiting. We know Francis Maunoa is starting right tackle. Samson Okunola is not a starter right now, but that's potentially another five-star freshman who could wind up playing a role, especially if somebody gets dinged up and they need to bring him in.

They're playing a lot of guys early in the Miami of Ohio game, the Bethune-Cookman game. They got to play some guys early. I think that helps. They'll be playing Temple. They'll be playing Georgia Tech before they get to the really rough stretch where they play at North Carolina and then Clemson comes to Miami. So I think they'll have had a bunch of players with a bunch of reps at that point where if somebody goes down,

I don't think you'll feel that uncomfortable bringing in the backup and putting them in the game because they'll have played some. And we'll see if they can get enough people into the game against Temple and Tech, but I do think those are games they should win too. And then you go to Chapel Hill for a game that could be between two teams

that are playing down the stretch for a berth in the ACC championship game. What we've seen from North Carolina, from Clemson so far, it looks like Miami can certainly play with those teams. Florida State, we'll see. We'll see. They got blown out by Florida State last year, and Florida State obviously has that win against LSU, is one of the best wins in the country so far. But the thing about that game is it's so late in the season. A lot of these younger players from Miami will be a lot more seasoned by that point. They'll play a lot of football. So there's a chance that they're still in the mix for the ACC title game at that point. And

the way the ACC set up this year, we don't know. I mean, if Miami were to win against North Carolina and Clemson or to even split those two, Miami and Florida State might be playing the first of two games against one another this year. I know that probably is a little bit getting the cart ahead of the horse. They've still got to show that they can do this consistently but i do think the reason for optimism is legitimate with miami i i like it when teams severely upgrade their offensive line you know that sort of thing travels and miami's done that and you know that mario cristobal seems pretty confident not just in the group that's starting but in some of the guys they have as reserves so if they were to get dinged up a little bit it feels like

that group would still be pretty good and that's something that a lot of teams just can't say so yeah principal george by all means get excited and again i like the way i like you you're taking a measured response to this you're not saying they're back You're saying they're on the way to being back. And I think that is exactly right. Next question from Ryan. This is a good one. Because if you listen to the old show, my co-host Ari Washington and I, we had a theory about, you know, you have to be pretty good looking to be a good quarterback. You need to be an attractive human being to be a good quarterback.

Also doesn't hurt if your coach is good looking. So Ryan brings up this question. Is Sam Hartman and Marcus Freeman the best looking quarterback coach duo in America? Ryan, there's no question. Notre Dame's duo of Sam Hartman and Marcus Freeman, the number one quarterback-coach-handsome duo, the handsomest quarterback and coach combo in America.

I don't even know if it's close. Sam Hartman with the beard, that's a good look for him. And then Marcus Freeman, nobody feels out of cues up like Marcus Freeman, nobody. Roback needs to make a special one for Marcus Freeman that I don't know if he's allowed to wear it because of Notre Dame's apparel deals, but promise it would sell a lot of Q-Zips. So who else is even close is the question because these two, again, very handsome. I don't know if that helps them beat Ohio State, but it probably should.

The other duos I considered in this one, interestingly enough, all in the Pac-12. It's a very good-looking conference. It may be going away, but it's going to go away and leave a beautiful corpse. So Caleb Williams and Lincoln Riley at USC. Caleb Williams, very photogenic. You see him in all the commercials. Lincoln Riley is a good-looking head coach. And as a bonus to this, remember, the analyst working with the quarterbacks at USC is Cliff Kingsbury.

So there's a whole lot of handsome going on in Troy. In Eugene, Bo Nix and Dan Lanning. Dan Lanning does the stubble thing. He looks younger than he is. He's pretty young as it is, but he looks even younger. And then Bo Nix is kind of like central casting quarterback look and Instagram influencer look. Maybe he could have been in a boy band too.

I don't know if he could sing, but definitely a good looking duo. And then at Utah, now Cam Rising has been hurt. He's coming back from the injury, but since Cam Rising, I'm not talking about Cam Rising at Texas. I'm talking about since Cam Rising grew the hair out because he realized I've got a look that works for me. Cam Rising, Kyle Whittingham is a very handsome duo. Kyle Whittingham, I finally figured out who Kyle Whittingham is because I couldn't figure out who he reminded me of. And I was sitting there after the Pac-12 championship game last year. We were waiting on Kyle Whittingham to come in for his press conference. And I was watching video of him taking the mic on the field as they presented him

the trophy. And it occurred to me, he looks like Sylvester Stallone since he's growing the hair out and Stallone has gone gray like you put them side by side the it's not perfect they're not ideally identical in the face but like the the body type both of them are jacked and then the the longer haired Whittingham gives off Stallone vibes. Kyle Whittingham, underrated handsome coach. Cam Rising, once he grew the hair out, I'm telling you, maybe that's why they've won two Pac-12 titles in a row. Maybe it's just all the handsome. We move from handsomeness and happiness to existential dread.

Our friend Bo is a Mississippi State fan. He watched the LSU game. He came away with some questions. Dear Andy, week three. Got some Mississippi State questions. Many fans and many pundits, the most vocal of this group anyway, are calling for Will Rogers to be benched. Will Rogers, the most vocal of this group anyway, are calling for Will Rogers to be benched.

Will Rogers, the starting quarterback, holds the record for most passing yards at Mississippi State. It's top five all-time SEC, and this being his senior year, he was supposed to only pad his stats, but things are not going as planned. So they're calling for him to be benched and trying Michael Wright to back up. Are these people being stupid? And a related question, in the offseason, Zach Arnett, the new head coach at Mississippi State,

instead of building on the air raid foundation that Mike Leach himself put at Mississippi State over three years, instead of building on that and maybe getting receivers that hold the ball better in the end zone or in a field goal kicker who can hit 35 yarders consistently, instead of improving on these things, he decided to flush the entire air raid concept and has gone in a different direction. Was Zach Arnett being stupid when he did this? And before I go, quick shout out to Colorado State,

who ran the ball or moved the ball up and down the field on a power five opponent with NFL talent. And yet they scored some points and almost pulled out a win. Thank you. All right, Bo. I like that Bo just goes, is this stupid or not? For both of his major questions. So we'll start with the question about Will Rogers,

but I think both of these questions are related. Will Rogers was a very good quarterback in the air raid. He may not be a good fit for the offense that are running now under Kevin Barbay. I don't know how much better a fit that, that Michael Wright is because we've seen Michael, right? He's a very good runner.

We saw him at Vanderbilt. There's a reason they went with AJ Swan instead. They thought he was a better thrower. Will Rogers probably the, you know, definitely the better thrower of these two. So we'll talk about the offense itself because the quarterback situation that's more of a just what you prefer at this point but what but Michael Wright is definitely

more mobile and if Mississippi State is struggling to protect Will Rogers then perhaps that's your answer but you've got to just like we've talked about with Alabama, if Alabama wanted to start Jalen Milrow, there's a better way to do that. There's a better set of play calls you can run compared to what they were running. And we'll see if they do that going forward. But same thing with this. You change the way you call the game if you go to right. But as far as the offense in general. So Zach Garnett gets the job,

obviously a horrible circumstance because Mike Leach passed away. Zach Garnett gets the job and is told, this is your program now. Do with it what you will. We trust you. The thing is, you're either going to run the air raid or you're not.

And if you're not going to run the air raid, you do need to change things immediately because you're going to be changing the type of offensive lineman you recruit, what they're good at. You're going to be recruiting tight ends because the pure air raid doesn't really use those. You're going to be recruiting different types of receivers, different types of quarterbacks. It's not a quick transition. It's maybe not as drastic a transition as going from the triple option to something more conventional, but it is still a big transition. So if you're going to do that, you do that immediately. Do it in year one. You don't just

sort of, because you can't be half in the air raid and half out. So that decision by Zach Arnett, it makes sense why you would do that. You wouldn't want to sit around and kind of halfway run the air raid for a year or two. You're going to have to deal with these growing pains at some point, you know, air raid offensive lineman pretty much exclusively working backward. They're pass setting almost every play when they are run blocking. It's usually coming out of a two-point stance.

It's kind of an inside zone. There's definitely more technique work that is done with different offenses that maybe those particular linemen aren't as equipped for. So there will be a serious adjustment period that you have to deal with. And if you're Zach Arnett, you'd rather deal with that year one where you say, look, it was year one. Let me get these guys in here who I recruited to run this offense that I hired Kevin Barbater on. You can kind of get away with it now. So that's why the air raid was flushed the way it was, because you couldn't halfway run it. That wasn't going to work either.

So you can either build up to running the offense that you want with the kind of players that you want, which with the transfer portal, you should be able to do that by next year. It's reasonable to expect you to do that by next year. It's reasonable to expect you to do that by next year. But you have that kind of cushion slash excuse built in that, hey, this was going to take a minute to adjust to. So don't kill us if we don't have the best season this year. Don't start putting us on the hot seat because the offense is slow to get going. The offense will be there next year because we'll have the personnel to run it the way we want to next year. That's what you're saying if you're Zach Garnett right now. But it's a tough situation because that was not obviously a planned coaching handoff. It wasn't like Mike Leach retired. It wasn't like anybody was planning

on this. Everybody thought Mike Leach would be the coach this year, and then he passed away. So it's a tough situation for Mississippi State, the program, for the fans, because there was always going to be this adjustment when Mike Leach wasn't the coach anymore, unless you went out and hired an air raid coach, which probably weren't going to do. So it sucks that you got to go through this right now, but it is probably, I mean, it was inevitable. You were going to have to go through it. And so you're going to have to deal with it this year. And hopefully the offense gets better as they get used to running it. I'd say the defense probably needs to be better anyway. The defense giving up a million passing yards to Jaden Daniels

and Malik Nabors, I think that was your bigger problem against LSU. So I know it's frustrating, but it could be more frustrating. And with that, we go to a question from Nick. Nick's an Oklahoma State fan. So let's read what Nick wrote. Depressed Oklahoma State grad and fan here. I feel like I'm watching our program imploding right now. The funny thing is I've seen many of us that followed Oklahoma State football

have seen this coming from a long ways out. You have a coach that is incredibly stubborn, an offense led by an inept and first-time offensive coordinator that has led regressing offenses in each of his four years, both in yards per play and scoring per game, and a D3 defensive coordinator. Combine that with recruiting classes in the 50s and 60s and poor NIL usage, and it creates a recipe for disaster. My question to you is, what can Oklahoma State realistically do at this point to salvage the football program? Does Mike Gundy need to make in-season firings of his friends at OC and O-Line?

Does the AD need to interject? Is Gundy going to hold all of us hostage until he can finish coaching his son, and we continue this downhill plummet? Please help. So this one was always going to be an interesting one, because if you watched Oklahoma State over the course of the past couple of years, it's become increasingly clear. Mike Gundy probably isn't built for this type of college football environment. He was incredible. For most of his career, and I don't, I'm not, that's not hyperbole. Mike Gundy at Oklahoma State

is on par with, say, Bill Snyder at Kansas State in terms of the job he did, the difficulty of the job versus the results that he got. He did an amazing job for all of that time. But in the era of NIL and the era of the free transfer where you can play right away, I'm not sure that the way Mike Gundy does it is going to work. Perhaps he can

change, but he's seemed pretty steadfast that he does not want to change that much. So I don't know that that's a possibility. But the thing about it is the way that Oklahoma State has set up his contract, he's going to coach there for as long as he wants. He has to decide, I don't want to do this anymore because here's how his contract works. A five-year deal, perpetual rollover. So every year, a fifth-year adds to the contract. Right now, the buyout is 75% of the remaining total. So whatever year it is, you're talking about a shade under $26 million and it goes up as the salary goes up each year. That is a lot of money, a lot of money. And remember, Oklahoma State is not moving to the SEC or the Big Ten. They're not getting a massive extra windfall. The money

they're getting in the Big 12 is kind of an incremental increase to what they've already been getting. So unless somebody with really deep pockets wants to step up and foot that bill, it's going to be very tough. So Mike Gundy just has to decide what he wants to do. Does he want to keep coaching in an era when maybe he's not the best suited for it? Does he want to change to make himself better suited for it? Or does he want to say, hey, I've done everything I can do here. I had a great run. I'm going to go enjoy life. It's his choice.

It really is. Because the way the contract is set up, I don't see how anybody's going to make the choice for him. It would require, again, somebody with a pretty hefty bank account to write a really, really big set of checks. So that's sort of the problem right now at Oklahoma State is Mike Gundy has to decide what he wants the program to be. And it probably will take a little bit of adjustment if he wants to keep going. If they want to keep being successful, they can't have some of the best players on their team hitting the portal every year.

They need to find a way to make them want to stay, whether that's through NIL, whether that's through the culture of the program, probably a little bit of both. But it would have to be different for them to turn this around. That game against South Alabama, like Nick said, a lot of Oklahoma State fans saw that coming. They've been warning about this for a couple of years, and there isn't much you can do at this point. The roster is what it is. I think you saw at the end of last season

what they lost versus what they picked up out of the portal. That wasn't a net gain. And you can't be a team that suffers a net loss every year in the portal. It's not going to work. It's not sustainable. So Mike Gundy's got to figure it out. He has to decide what he wants that program to be and whether he wants to be part of it. And other than that, and as Nick mentioned, he's very stubborn and he may decide, you know what, I'm sticking this sucker out. Well, then somebody's going to have to write the check because, again, that contract perpetually rolls over. So it's a very, very difficult situation in Stillwater right now. We'll see if they can get it turned around.

But that South Alabama game, again, yeah, there were a lot of people in Stillwater, a lot of Oklahoma State fans who said this sort of thing is coming. It's on the way, and now it's here. I feel like we're just a bunch of downers. This question from Tanner, probably not as uplifting either. But it's an interesting one because it's not something that I had thought about. It is a complaint about scheme that isn't one you'd think because he's complaining about it from a viewer standpoint rather than a schematic standpoint. He's complaining about it from an aesthetic. This is what I want to watch on TV versus what I don't want to watch on TV. And this is not an offense that I had ever heard anybody say, I don't want to watch that on TV. But I imagine that Tanner's not alone in this. So this is, this is an epic question. So buckle up.

Am I a wet blanket for having grown pretty tired of the Tennessee turbo style offense and others who run a similar system? My words, not his, by the way, uh, this is. This is the old Baylor offense, essentially. This is the one that Art Bryles used with Archie Three and with Bryce Petty that was very effective in the Big 12 that they were pretty secretive about for a long time. But since Bryles got fired at Baylor, his old assistants, when they needed jobs, were more than happy to tell people about it. And this offense has kind of proliferated. You've got it at Tennessee. You've got it at Ole Miss.

You've got it at Oklahoma now. It's at Syracuse, or was it Syracuse? Dino Babers has kind of messed around with some stuff. Colorado is running a version of it. Back to Tanner's question. For context, this is coming from someone with dual Florida-Iowa fandomship. So I am both A, always happy to see the Vols lose, and B, don't necessarily derive a ton of my self-worth

from watching up-tempo, glamorous, high-scoring offense. Beyond Tennessee specifically, I just feel like wide alignment, count the numbers in the box, and either hand it off or throw a screen go ball has grown increasingly stale to me as a viewer. I realize this is an oversimplification of things, and either hand it off or throw a screen go ball has grown increasingly stale to me as a viewer. I realize this is an oversimplification of things, but as someone who prides himself on appreciating the variety of styles that make college football the beautiful sport that it is,

is this particular flavor just doesn't do it for me. And he draws a parallel to the Mike D'Antoni Houston Rockets offenses in the NBA that were very effective and didn't win a championship. And we saw it with the Suns too. The Omari Stoudemire, Sean Marion offense, it was the same thing. Steve Nash running it. But it's interesting to hear this question in football because I think the

assumption is any offense that has a lot of vertical passing is exciting to the viewer. And I think it is exciting probably to most viewers, but I do realize that people who watch a little more football, understand the scheme a little bit more, probably do get a little tired of that because it is a fairly simplistic offense. It is, we are going to count the box. If you have fewer than seven in the box, we're going to run. If you have more than seven in a box, we're going to throw. We're going to line the receivers up outside the numbers, and you're going to move your DBs in a way that tells us what we should do. And this works until it doesn't. And here's where it doesn't work. It

doesn't work when you're playing as a team that has a front four good enough to stuff your run game, even when you have a lighter box. It doesn't work when you have DBs that are good enough to tackle in the open field and can grab you as soon as you catch the ball instead of letting you break a tackle and get some yak yards. Because if they cover the severe vertical threats,

then they're not getting beat deep for a touchdown. And then you've got to check it down. And if they tackle you after you check it down, you might gain six yards. But then your quarterback might be off target the next time. Or the receiver might drop the ball. Ultimately, that ends up in a punt. So that's what Georgia did to Tennessee last year. What Florida did to Tennessee is they stopped the run. And once the run was stopped,

Tennessee couldn't get in rhythm passing the ball. You know, they hit a long touchdown early in the game. They didn't really get vertical again until late that they had the long touchdown to brew McCoy. And then they were just trying to take shots into the end zone. And you kind of wonder, okay,

why didn't they mix this up more in the middle of the game? Why not in the second and third quarter when they were either falling behind or trying to come back? Why didn't they mix this up more when they had time where you could throw underneath, throw vertical, throw underneath. But the problem is, again, in this offense, you're running when you're supposed to run.

Like you count the box, you run. If that doesn't work, you're behind the chains. And then the defense can cover all your receiver. They can, you know, they know you have to throw now. And so they'll rush three and drop eight or they'll rush four and drop seven. And it just becomes a very difficult situation. And it's a difficult defense to defend, or excuse me,

a difficult offense to defend when that run game is working. I think Ole Miss Alabama will be a good example of this this week. If Ole Miss can run the ball, they have a very good chance of moving the ball effectively against Alabama and scoring a bunch of points. If Alabama's D line is dominant without a lot of extra help from somebody coming down in the box, then it's going to be very tough for Ole Miss. And they're going to get put in these second and long, third and long situations where you don't see the same kind of defense. And so the way it works the best is you run the ball, run again, get them tired, they come up, put a safety further down,

throw over the top, go real fast up the line of scrimmage, run it again. Those are 10 free yards. You're probably in the end zone by this point. That's how you do that. You get them very tired, very fast. But as Tanner points out, it's not as schematically complex as people think. And you kind of see that after a while. And you also, I think because it's proliferated more defenses and figured out how to stop it better than they always, than they ever did. Because when, when it was just Baylor running it, you only saw it once a year and it was very tough to stop for most of those defenses. Now you may see it, depending on your schedule, two and three times a year.

All of a sudden, that changes the math on it. So I'm with you. But the thing is, the way football tends to evolve, so Austin Armstrong is Florida's first-year defensive coordinator, did a really good job stopping Tennessee's offense on Saturday night. You're seeing more defensive coordinators who know how to stop this offense. It's going to require them to tweak it more. It's going to require them to do different things. You know, I'll take you back to the air raid question we just got, you know, Lincoln Riley is an air raid guy. He's a Mike Leach disciple,

but what he runs looks nothing like what Leach runs because they had to evolve it. They had to do something different. And when Lincoln Riley was at Oklahoma, he took what he had, which was some pretty good offensive linemen and some really good backs and said, you know what? We are going to add some gap scheme running to this offense and it's going to be on another planet. Defensively, you're going to have to prepare very differently for this than you will if you're playing a pure air raid team. And so I think that's what's going to happen is you're going to see different evolutions of this offense. So you're seeing it now already with what Lane Kiff

is doing at Ole Miss, but you will see this evolve into other things. And also, somebody else will come up with something that is the magic bullet for a minute, and then defenses will adjust. So I think the good news for Tanner is that this is going to keep evolving. And because the defensive coordinators are starting to catch up with this one,

it's probably not going to proliferate much more you're probably not going to see that many more teams running it because again the other side's caught up so now you're going to see evolutions of it or whatever the next new thing is so you might like that better i i keep bringing up like jamie chadwell's offense he He's at Liberty now. He was at Coastal Carolina. It's a triple option based passing offense, which is unusual. And if it keeps working, like it seems to be at Liberty so far, they're undefeated. Then you'll probably see people trying to steal that, trying to do a version, their

own version of that. Don't worry. It all comes back around. And you said you have dual citizenship in the Florida and Iowa fan bases. Those actually probably overlap more than you think right now in terms of what they want to be offensively. Florida wants to control the ball on the ground. What you saw on Saturday was actually what Billy Napier would like to do most games. So I think you will probably like that brand of football. And here's the thing. Let's say that works. Let's say Billy Napier continues to recruit well, and that becomes a successful way of moving the ball at Florida. Somebody will probably copy that too. So don't worry. There will be schematic diversity

in college football forever because there's just too many teams and too many people trying to solve whatever the hot offense of the day is. It gets solved and then things change again. So don't worry if you don't like that offense, somebody else will have to come up with something else very soon. Our final question comes from Justin, and it's a football question, and then a second question that we'll save for our extra point. But the football piece of it, so far into the early stretches of the season, could the case be made that the Pac-12 is the deepest conference so far? Yes, I think we can absolutely make that case. Now, I don't know if we'll be able to continue to make that case,

but what the Pac-12 did this year, as opposed to many past years, is the Pac-12 went out and won non-conference games. That's the difference. You saw Pac-12 teams go, you saw Oregon go to Texas Tech and win. Like, they have not been able to do that in the past. Now, last year it was Oregon against Georgia.

If you put Oregon against Georgia this year, it probably would have been a Georgia win too. But when USC plays Notre Dame this year, USC could win that game. USC won that game last year. So the marquee matchups, Washington beating Michigan State each of the past two years, that stuff matters. That stuff matters in terms of conference superiority. Even Oregon State beating San Diego State this past weekend is a big deal because San Diego State gave a lot of Pac-12 teams trouble over the past few years. So Oregon State beating them,

another good sign. And I will tell you right now, let's look at the depth of the Pac-12. Who do we think right now could legitimately compete for the conference title? I would say it's USC, Utah, Washington, and Oregon. I feel very good about all four of those being potential Pac-12 champions. Who else could be in the mix for potentially making the Pac-12 championship game? I think UCLA is one we'd think about there. Oregon State is another one.

They're very good up front. DJ Uyunglele seems to be doing fine at quarterback. That team seems built for, like if you get them in a bad weather game in November, they're going to be really tough to deal with because they can run the ball. So Washington state is undefeated right now. They beat Wisconsin at a conference. That's a lot of good teams. It's a very exciting time in the Pac-12. Like that Oregon State-Washington State game,

the Utah-UCLA game this week, those look awesome. And then we've got Colorado. We've got the coach prime factor. I didn't mention them with that other group, but I think we can put Colorado in with that group of maybe non-title contenders that can beat you on a given day. And that's not a place I thought they'd be this year, but it is definitely where they are. So I just I'm so excited to see this conference race play out. Like, again, Utah, UCLA is going to be a fun, fun game this weekend.

And there's a very good chance one of those teams is going to wind up fun, fun game this weekend. And there's a very good chance. One of those teams is going to wind up in the PAC 12 championship game. I can't wait to see USC get to play some of these better teams. I can't wait to see USC play Notre Dame. So yeah, right now I'd say the PAC 12 definitely feels like the deepest league in the country, which a couple of years ago, can't imagine saying that. But the bittersweet part of that is then it breaks up after this year. So it stinks, but at least it's going out with a bang. Now, Justin's second question.

Who had the best lunch of the members of the Breakfast Club? So what you're asking for justin is a random ranking so our extra point is going to be the random ranking of the lunches for the members of the breakfast club we'll go from five to one number five molly ringwald's claire she brought sushi i don't think there was a refrigerator in detention. I don't want sushi sitting out that long before I eat it. I'm sorry. I think Claire probably got sick after she ate that. Number four, Judd Nelson's bender. He didn't bring any lunch. Did not bring lunch. The reason he's putting his fist up at the end of the movie is because he knows he's going to get

something to eat, but it's still better than getting sick off warm sushi. Number three, Anthony Michael Hall's Brian. Soup, PB&J with crust cut off and a box of apple juice his mommy packed his lunch. I kind of need to know what kind of soup it was. And I don't recall immediately if the movie shows you what kind of soup. PB&J and soup, not my soup sandwich combo. I love PB&J. I would eat PB&J all day. If Brian had three PB&Js in his bag, he might actually be number one on this list. But with the soup, no.

Now, if you go grilled cheese with tomato soup, that's a good one. But also, again, no microwave, no fridge. You can't heat up the tomato soup in the grilled cheese. That's not going to be good. So this one, it's mid. It's number three. Number two, Ali Sheedy's Allison. Remember, she takes whatever meats on the sandwich off and throws it away and then opens up some pixie sticks, pours it on the sandwich, then adds cap and crunch.

Basically, I'm pretty sure this was the inspiration for everything Buddy the Elf ate in Elf once he got into the human world. And man, that sandwich would probably taste terrible, but you would be very energized for a solid 20 minutes after eating it. And of course, the best lunch, Emilio Estevez's Andrew three sandwiches, a full bag of potato chips, not a, not a fun size, not a lunch size,

full size bag of potato chips, quarter milk bag of cookies. And of course, cause he's got wrestling to worry about. It's gotta be healthy and apple and a banana. That's the way to do it. If's got to be healthy. An apple and a banana. That's the way to do it. If the three sandwiches were PB&Js, that would be just off the charts.

But that is definitely the number one breakfast club lunch. All right. Great questions for you. Love the Dear Andy segment. Love it when you guide the show in the direction you want it to be guided in. We have more for you. We got the Godfather, Dante Corleone, Cincinnati defensive lineman,

first team All-American, potential first round draft pick. The Bearcats play their first Big 12 game this week. That's right. Oklahoma is coming to Nippert Stadium. We'll be talking to the Godfather tomorrow. We'll also have the SEC stat cat, Clark Brooks, breaking down what is Alabama going to look like with Jalen Milrow now that he is definitely QB1.

And also, what about that Auburn-Texas A&M matchup? So much going on between Notre Dame and Ohio State, Colorado, Oregon, Utah, UCLA. There's a lot of really interesting games, including that one between Auburn and Texas A&M. We have so much to talk about this week. It is loaded. Can't wait. We'll talk to you tomorrow.