Andy & Ari On3 - SMU LIGHTS UP Florida State | Mustangs handle Seminoles in ACC play after long power outage delay

Episode Date: September 8, 2026

Following tonight's game in SMU-Florida State, join Andy & Ari right here! After a long power outage delay, Andy details what it was like from Doak Campbell Stadium and explains what it was like to see SMU get their first win of the season vs Florida State, 27-24. Our show is presented by Polymarket!New User Offer: Deposit $10, get $50 upon sign uphttps://app.polymarket.us/S8ac/ON3Trade on College Football games every week on Polymarket. Download the Polymarket App with code ON3 for a $20 bonus upon sign up.18+ only. Restrictions and eligibility requirement apply. Not available in all jurisdictions. Trading is risky. 100% loss can occur.Join On3 today! https://www.on3.com/join Watch our show on YouTube! https://youtube.com/live/_AGPCZSOpMU Hosts: Andy Staples, Ari WassermanProducer: River BaileyInterested in partnering with the show? Email [e-mail] Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

On tonight's incident reaction edition of Andy Nareon 3 presented by Polly Market, SMU tries every possible way to lose to Florida State in the game where the lights went out. But the lights didn't go up for the Mustangs. They eke out a win by three points. But man, they made it really dramatic. And Florida state fans, I don't know if they know what to think. A lot of booze, a lot of war chant, a lot of booze, a lot of war chant. It's very confusing times in Tallinn.

We're going to talk about it all tonight on 80 orion 3 presented by Polymarket. We are sponsored by Polymarket. That's right, the world's largest prediction market. All the point spreads and the totals come from Polymarket where you can stake out a position on your team. If you've got a belief that they're going to win, well, you just say yes to that position. You think they're going to win by three and a half points. You say yes to that position. You're not working against the house with Polymarket.

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18 plus only restrictions and eligibility requirements apply, not available in all jurisdictions. Trading is risky. 100% loss can occur. Welcome to an instant reaction edition of Andy and Ari on 3 presented by Polly Market. I am on the field at Doe Campbell Stadium. I have just got done watching pitchy woo-woo. That's right, Florida State's final desperation play and Ari, you're not going to believe this. SMU tried again to lose the game in the pitchy woo-woo,

the guy who caught the last lateral, the SMU player who intercepted the last lateral. Who's running it. What is wrong with these people? He ran because he wanted me to run. Andy, there's a lot to unpack there, and I've never seen a team try harder to lose, but you look great, you're there.

You heard the fans, you heard the crowd. I could hear it on the television. What did Florida say? state fans want from their team tonight? Not this. Like this might have been the worst possible outcome because they got teased with the possibility of a win. And then all of the things that have been pissing them off for the last two years

happened in the final five minutes to cost them a win. And it's just, it was, it was crazy because they're just fluctuating back and forth. It's like, boo, war chant, boo, war chant, boo, war chant, boo, warchant, boo, warchant. I got a Nebraska fan here saying hi. But it was crazy because it's like, boo, ah, booah,

like they didn't know what to do because here's the thing. And I was talking to a bunch of people around here today. And yes, they want change, but then when the game kicks off, they're fans. They love their school. They want their team to win.

And it's just, it's really tough to reconcile. Yeah. And it just, to, they would have been, in 2 and 0 with a ranked win. I mean, you know, when you get into the heat of the moment, you got to want that, right?

Like, you have to want that. But I think the worst possible place for Florida State to be probably this year would be seven wins, right? Where it's not clearly good enough to reach the standard of what people want for Florida State, but at the same time, not terrible. And you could say an improvement. So, you know, it's, it's very strange. But the thing, Andy, I will say is, and I don't know how these, these odds makers do it, or how these people who project these lines do it, man.

But how do you see two turnovers in the red zone, a off sides jump that extended a drive when Florida State was trying to kick a fuel goal, a late interception, all these weird penalties. It's like SMU was clearly the better team. Like we talked about this before the game and it's like, well, how is this going to be a close game? How was this going to be a weird, you know, a weird game? And it was just like SMU played a terrible game.

it's like on one hand it's like you know you see people saying kevin jennings is great and you should be up for the highsman you threw for 400 yards and i also have texts and say he sucks like it was just kind of like a bizarre uh a game all around but you know i do think that if they were to play this game in uh Dallas next weekend like SMU would be like a 14 and a half point favorite it was just a bizarre game for turnover there wasn't and it was sloppy yeah it was a team playing its second game playing as a team playing its first game And I think that showed. But also, Florida State just could not take advantage. And part of it, they just couldn't throw the ball.

Like Ashton Daniels got booed on the final four plays that Florida State ran on offense. Because they just couldn't throw the ball. You know, they had the nice play to Samuel Singleton, but that was more Singleton doing that, that touchdown that tied it at 24. And they were 0 for 9 on third down. until they finally got a couple on that last touchdown drive. They had two in a row in that last touchdown, including the touchdown.

They were playing terrible too. This was a weird statistical game because Florida State, other than being able to run the ball fairly well, the U's main chroma, just couldn't do much else. Yeah. You know, I don't know if this is a real statistic, but Bud Elliott was tweeting, you know, from the cover three podcast.

But it's been raised tweeting, so let's warn him. Let's warn him. Okay, yeah, yeah. I know he's got an affinity. for Florida State, but he said something about how no team that has not gotten a first down on, it was like it was a stat, it wasn't an opinion. Yeah, had not converted a third down. Had ever won a football game.

So like it was like. It's sort of like the stat that came out after the Western Michigan game where teams were 108,000, 762 and 0. Yes, yes. And one leading with zero seconds left. But given what Florida State, you know, had been the beneficiary of. despite the fact that they weren't all that effective on offense, it was kind of a miracle.

And then when Jennings hit that long touchdown to go up by seven late, you thought, well, that's probably the damn breaking. They've needed every single break possible to remain in this game for three quarters. SWU just got an easy touchdown to go up seven late on the road. And then Florida State drove all the way down and scored to their credit. Like they stayed in the game all the way till the end. And that's the thing. They're not quitting.

And I'm not sure that's helping with their fans. It's like their fans kind of want something definitive. They want to be out of purgatory. And this game was all purgatory. Yes. Even the result is purgatory. Losing by three at home to a top 20 team is purgatory. Yeah.

You tell yourself you can compete with teams that are, you know, maybe going to be in the CFP race. And I know people are going to roll their eyes because SMU played poorly, but SMU is going to be in the ACC race and in turn going to be in the CFP race. I mean, if they play like they did tonight, they won't. But I suspect they will get cleaner. They can't be. I caught the between the third and fourth quarter interview with

Ret Ashley where he essentially listed all the things they'd messed up. It was a long list. It was a long interview. Andy, you lived through the weirdness of the beginning of the game. Yes. And I think that it is important to at least acknowledge the fact before I hear about your hour and a half in the powerless press box because I haven't talked to Andy. I don't know what happened.

I need to know what happened. I don't know if you saw my tweet that blew up a little bit about, follow me to freedom this sports center commercial be and charlie signer how much does because like i visited ls u or i mean smu sorry not ls u smu last week um and you know hung out with some people in the building and they said you know it's a it's a weird trip tallahassees a tough place to play ford a state hasn't lost like they listed all the reasons why you know going on the road would be a tough place or a tough test but when you go on the road and then you lose power and then you're in limbo for two hours and you're not sure about, you know,

communications with your coach and all these things. How much can that, you know, maybe be part of the reason why SMU played such a sloppy game? Did I say LSU again, SMU? Yeah. Florida State was dealing with all that too. And SMU, other than the fumble in the first quarter, wasn't as sloppy in the first half.

The third quarter was where they really slopped it up, where they moth the watermelon punt. And it was a tornado punt. I like watermelon punt better, but I'll take tornado punt. Daniel Hughes, by the way, is the funniest football player on Instagram. If you have not followed the four state punter yet, he's hilarious. But yeah, I don't know that that had as much to do with it, but it was weird. So I'm on part in my take tomorrow, Ari.

I did a hit from the press box. How to go. I was on with them for like 40 minutes. One minute after I hung up with them and my feed down, you know, uploaded all the way to their system. The lights went out. Like they flickered. They went out.

And it was like, whoa, what is it? What's going on here is like twilight zone situation? And like there was no power for a while anywhere. Then the lights on the opposite side of the stadium turned on. It was like, okay, well, that's good. But it's still not bright enough to play a game. And then I'm interested to hear the story of how they got the lights on the press box side of the stadium back on because that was, they called that a hail.

Mary, some of the Florida State officials called that a Hail Mary. I'm not sure what they did, but I was watching Jim Phillips, the ACC commissioner, down on the field with Michael Alford, the Florida State Athletic, Greg. I couldn't, I cannot imagine what they were talking about, what they were going through, because if Florida State had to say, we got to cancel this game because our lights are off, there were so many, oh, you didn't pay the electric bill because you're saving up for the buyout jokes. I mean, that, that joke got beaten into the ground within the first 10 minutes. Yeah, well, you know, it was interesting.

This is the worst case scenario for Florida State. Because you're at the game, obviously, and I'm at home, but you're up in the press box. You're having a hard time with your cell service and your powers out. And I felt like we were more informed at home about what was going on there than you were. You knew more than I did. Now, Taylor McGregor, for ESPN, did a really good job because she's down on the field, just running back and forth and talking to people. We didn't have field access before the game.

So I'm stuck up in the press box. No, we see the press box tonight, by the way. So we, we were, we were hot boxing it up there. It was, oh, my God. It was ripe up there. It feels great down here now. I can't imagine a box full of sports writers of people taking that okay. Like, how was it up there?

What was it like for the two hours? Didn't smell great. Didn't smell great. Yeah, I was hanging out with David Oven. Asked him if he was going to door dash some Buffalo Wild Wings. But it's not another wing place. So he, he's not going to door dash Buffalo Wild Wings to that. But, yeah, there was like,

a tweet that you both, you and David Ubin posted at the same time that I thought would be funny to bring up on the show. That's the one where the marching chiefs were playing at halftime. And so they're playing their usual halftime routine. And the announcer said, because the announcer had just come back on right before halftime. So they got the PA back before halftime. The PA announcer goes, marching chiefs, you can take a break. We have a very special announcement. Please look at the video board.

And Mike Norville's face pops up on the video. board and everyone booze. And all Mike Norbel was saying is the marching chiefs are going to play in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade. That's what he was there to announce. But they booed him for that. They did cheer the band though. Yeah.

If you are booing the coach for talking about your band, you're just probably in a bad spot. And I kind of feel for him too because like he's not an idiot. He knows the environment that he's in. He knew it in the off season. He doesn't have to be in a stadium for people, you know, to rain down booze on him for him to realize that people are ready for a change and you know he's been put in a tough situation a lot of it is because of his own doing

you know underperforming you know makes it harder for people to want to write checks for good players and then it turns into a chicken and the egg thing of like well how do you coach your way out of it if you don't have good enough players and you know and around around we go but it just seems like to me and I don't know uh to you Andy that it just like after what happened tonight it just doesn't seem like a tenable situation moving forward for anyone that's why I think the Florida State fans are really conflicted tonight because obviously they love their school they want to win every game. But they didn't deserve to win this game.

Neither at SMU, really. But I don't know that they want to be winning games they don't deserve. I think if they're going to play badly, they'd probably rather just get this over with. Yeah. And I hate to say that. It sucks because it's super awkward. And the players are playing really hard.

Like, Forest State players does not quit tonight at all. They were going all out the whole time. So it's a little frustrating from that, standpoint, but I understand where the fans are coming from. I can't blame them. And they're in a strange spot. Like they still, and you can tell like as the game got tighter when they still had a chance,

if you walked up to every fan in the stadium tonight and said, okay, you could, you one step closer to a firing or you can win this game. In that moment, they'd be like, I want to win this game, damn it. Of course. Of course. But I think that's a really good point that you made about if you win a game, you want to win it because your team was really good and awesome, not because the other team fumbled the bag to you four times.

You know, like you because when you are the beneficiary of the fumbled bag, that doesn't feel like something that translates to the following week in terms of momentum. And obviously we know what's next for Florida State, Andy. They have an open week and then they're on the way to Alabama. And so they want Bama. No, they don't want Bama, but they're getting Bama. Yeah, they're going to get Bama. I'm about to get chased out of here.

They've got to roll up the cords for the, from the ESPN broadcast. but I got to go to introduce some SMU players and coaches anyway and Florida State players and coaches. So it's been lovely, everybody. Goodbye from Tallahassee. Talk to you tomorrow.