Andy & Ari On3 - Tennessee-Florida | Penn State-Illinois | South Carolina-Georgia | Week 3 picks against the spread!

Episode Date: September 14, 2023

Tennessee-Florida | Penn State-Illinois | South Carolina-Georgia | Week 3 picks against the spread!Today’s show and all the lines discussed are brought to you by Fanduel, America’s No. 1 sportsbook!Visit Fanduel.com/Staples and use the promo code Staples. New customers can bet $5 and get $200 in bonus bets guaranteed. All customers can bet $5 and get $100 off NFL Sunday Ticket on YouTube and YouTube TV.Today’s show is brought to you by Birddogs. Live your most efficient life with a pair of shirts or pants from Birddogs. Visit birddogs.com/staples and use the promo code STAPLES to receive a free Hydro Flask-style bottle with your order. Want to watch the show instead? Head on over to YouTube - don't forget to subscribe!https://youtube.com/live/ZARPhSHyQDcWe’ve gone with our guts for the first two weeks, but now it’s time to crunch the numbers. Tonight’s guest is Parker Fleming (@StatsOWar), one of the best analytics guys covering college football. Parker hosts a podcast called Never Punt, Never Parlay, and he’ll help us find value when the numbers and the lines don’t exactly match. (0:00-6:51)Here are this week’s games…LSU at Mississippi State (+9.5) Total: 54.5 (6:52-12:38)Penn State at Illinois (+14.5) Total: 48.5 (12:39-16:14)TCU at Houston (+7.5) Total: 63.5 (16:15-21:50)Minnesota at North Carolina (-7.5) Total: 49.5 (51:56-55:24)Tennessee at Florida (+6.5) Total: 58.5 (23:17-32:58)Pittsburgh at West Virginia (+1.5) Total: 50.5 (32:59-36:35)Colorado State at Colorado (-22.5) Total: 59.5 (36:36-40:17)Kansas State at Missouri (+4.5) Total: 48.5 (40:18-43:42)Georgia Southern at Wisconsin (-19.5) Total: 64.5 (43:43-46:08)Alabama at USF (+31.5) Total: 60.5 (46:09-48:20)South Carolina at Georgia (-27.5) Total: 54.5 (48:21-51:55)Minnesota at North Carolina (-7.5) Total: 49.5 (51:56-55:24)Washington at Michigan State (+16.5) Total: 57.5 (55:25-58:33)Western Michigan-Iowa Total: 42.5 (58:33-01:01:03)National Disclaimer: Must be 21+ and present in select states. FanDuel is offering online sportswagering in Kansas under an agreement with Kansas Star Casino, LLC. First online real money wager only.$10 first deposit required. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable bonus bets that expire 7 days after receipt.Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visitFanDuel.com/RG in Colorado, Iowa, Michigan, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Tennessee, andVirginia. Call 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 in Arizona, 1-888-789-7777 or visitccpg.org/chat in Connecticut, 1-800-9-WITH-IT in Indiana, 1-800-522-4700 or visit ksgamblinghelp.com inKansas, 1-877-770-STOP in Louisiana, visit mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland, visit 1800gambler.net in WestVirginia, or call 1-800-522-4700 in Wyoming. Hope is here. Visit GamblingHelpLineMA.org or call [phone] for 24/7 support in Massachusetts or call 1-877-8HOPE-NY or text HOPENY in New York.NFL Sunday Ticket Offer ends 9/18/23. No refunds. Terms and embargoes apply. $100 off NFL SundayTicket, not YouTube TV. YouTube TV base plan required to watch YouTube TV. Redemption requires aGoogle account and current form of payment. Commercial Use Excluded.

Welcome to Andy Staples on three. It's time to make some picks. And again, I'm going to start tonight's show with the same disclaimer I started last night's show with. I do not want to hear anybody complaining about the slate this weekend. Because, one, cherish every college football weekend. But two, when we see weekends like this where it doesn't look like there's a lot of ranked on ranked matchups there's a lot of big home underdogs and conference games that's when the weird stuff happens so something will happen this saturday that makes us go oh my god i can't i who could have predicted it well we're gonna bring on a guy who probably could predict

it parker fleming is a data scientist. He works at Sumer Sports, but also on the side does all this incredible college football stuff, CFB graphs. You can go there and look at his advanced metric previews. Stats of War is his handle on Twitter. And it's just, Parker, do you ever sleep? Yeah, yeah, plenty, plenty. I automated these things while I was procrastinating in grad school.

And so a lot of this stuff is in the background. And I spent a lot of time that I should have been working on my dissertation working on this. But yeah, man, I'm very fortunate to get to play around with college football data and very fortunate that I've built up a skill set where I can think, hey, I wonder about this weird idea. Let me go look it up and put a graph out about it. Well, one thing I love about, we're doing a different guest picker every week. So we've really run the gamut so far. So our first week was Ari Wasserman, who is the type of gambler

that if he sees two snails on the ground, he will put action on which one will hit the next line in the sidewalk first. And so all guts, you know, just I'm feeling it now. That's what I'm doing. And then last week, Jacob Hester, former fullback sees the world through those eyes, you know, and now we've got someone who crunches the data and we're going to talk about success rate. We're going to talk about EPA, that sort of thing that, you know, this is what teams are also using and using them to figure out how best to deploy their talent and how to attack other teams. Yeah, absolutely. And Andy, I will say I like the numbers, but I'll consult with the divine spirits about a wager or two and get some vibes as well. So I can certainly empathize with that. We have some games this week where I think you're going to have to, just just looking at the slate like with washington and michigan state because of all the

weirdness we'll probably have to adjust our our feelings on that beyond the numbers but that but you're right that is that is what makes this fun is you can't always predict it by number um you know if you look in the chat, we have somebody who came out with just saying that the SEC is completely overrated and now it's shown this SEC fans have been brainwashed by the media in the flawed BCS era, led to tainted titles. Big 12 schools roasted the SEC. Hold on. Where is it? He mentions TCU. TCU just put up 50 on Ole Miss. Conveniently leaves out the last time TCU played an SEC team. But this is the sort of passion that we have. Fort Worth was on vacation all of that week. No one was there.

Well, that's another game that I can't wait to talk about because it's a weird one because it's Houston's first Big 12 game. And we saw Houston go down 28-0 to Rice last week. So we think we should know what's going to happen, but we don't. So that's the beauty of this. So, Parker, when you go into data science, how do you figure out that you're going to get into sports? So the company you work for is Thomas Dimitrov's company. He's the former GM of the Falcons who put together that team that went to the Super Bowl. Yeah. Yeah. So really, really fun. Great crew. A bunch of folks who are really football minded and analytically minded.

And so I was fortunate enough to to come on board there and work on their consumer side that we're building out some tools for for the public to help um you know some some great resources for fantasy football for uh understanding games for stats for reports all that fun stuff that i do for college we're going to be doing that with sumer for the nfl and for college as well um i i didn't go into data science frankly i kind of taught myself along the way i was was a religion major undergrad and took some math classes in grad school and decided to go get a grad degree in economics. And the math was super boring to me. And the only way that I could make it stick in my brain was to start to think about football. Obviously, guys like Bill Conley, Brian Fremau, Aaron Schatz at Football Outsiders, who gave me a gave me a shot to write for them for a little bit and just kind of, you know, asking and answering

interesting questions along the way and kind of teach myself what I needed. And it turned out pretty well for me. Brian Fremauw. I love any site that starts with points per drive. You go to his homepage. First thing you see is points per drive. One of my favorite stats in the whole wide world. So this is so much. So religion major. Was the ministry the first thought or wow sort of maybe maybe coming out of high school thought about that but i went to i went to tcu undergrad and their um religion department is like world religion uh kind of contemporary and so i studied like even history of evangelicalism new testament thought about academic route that way um wrote yeah wrote a bunch about paul in the early church, but decided ultimately to go back for economics

and get a grad degree there. Beautiful. Well, this is going to be fun. I can't wait to go through some of these games. We are going to be going with lines provided by our partners at FanDuel. And it is the number one sports book in America. And right now, you go to FanDuel.com slash Staples. You bet $5.

If you're a new customer guaranteed $200 in bonus bets, you bet $5. If you are any customer, you could be an existing customer or a new customer. You get a hundred bucks off NFL Sunday ticket on YouTube or YouTube TV. It's so easy. I was cruising through the FanDuel app today. Some of the stuff in the morning has changed.

It's the backyard brawl flipped on us today. So it's one of those you can look at all times and obviously anything you want to wager on, they've got it in any state where it's legal. So FanDuel.com slash Staples. New customers bet five, get 200 in guaranteed bonus bets, and all customers bet five, get $100 off NFL Sunday ticket. Let's get going. I want to start with some of these home underdogs, Parker, because that is the thing that I jumped out at me this weekend at home underdogs

in conference games where the spreads are actually fairly large. So let's let's start with with one of those noon central game or noon eastern games is 11 a.m. Central kickoff here in Stark, Vegas, LSU at Mississippi State. It's a nine and a half point spread right now. LSU is a nine and a half point favorite on the road. What do you think about this game? I've got this one just inside of a touchdown. I was a little bit underwhelmed with Mississippi State last week. Not from the overall performance, not they started well, but really just couldn't put away an Arizona team that I think that they're,

you know, demonstrably, should have been demonstrably better on the field. Obviously, we saw the result and it was pretty close there um definitely worried about Mississippi State's offensive identity um again in the beginning of the season I'm a little bit more conservative I regress these these numbers to the mean but uh Mississippi State 81st in offensive EPA per play uh 34th on the defensive side we know Zach Garnett has that side of the ball down but really going to need to see more of this offense against an LSU defense that as you know Brian Kelly said he was concerned about at the beginning of the season I think that's something I've been watching for them is that LSU defense the numbers are not great 132nd and raw EPA per play again that's just a descriptive

metric obviously they're not the 132nd worst defense of the nation but haven't played super great and as well when I when I look at Jalen Daniels, specifically, I'm worried about his ability to handle pressure. His pressure to sack ratio this season is 22.7%. Last year was over 30. When he's pressured, he does not make good decisions and, and does take a lot of sacks, even being that mobile with moving the ball consistently and being able to run with his legs so much. So I'm really interested in canvas, Mississippi state disrupt with pressure. If they're going to keep this thing within, you know, and,

and cover, which I slightly have with the numbers here, it's going to involve making Jaden Daniels very uncomfortable and minimizing the stakes on offense. So my, my thing on this is you mentioned Mississippi state's offense. I think they're trying to find themselves offensively. This is all so new.

Will Rogers attempted 17 passes last week, which is wild. I have to look up what his lowest attempted pass total under Mike Leach was, but I'm sure it's probably in the high 30s. And that's because he got taken out because they were in a blowout. So this is such a different world for them. And as far as LSU, it's hard for me, Parker, because I was at that FSU game. I saw them get worn down defensively, really because Florida State kept trying.

It didn't really work very well at first. They were always successful through the air, but the run game didn't work at first. But then they wore them out as the game went on and just demolished them in the second half. I think Mississippi State probably will keep that up. This doesn't seem, under Tony Barbais, like an offense that's going to abandon the run.

And obviously, if it were the late Pirate, he probably wouldn't be running at all. And then one other piece of it that I'm curious about, because again, I keep framing it with that Florida State game because there's only so much you can take from Grambling, but Logan Diggs played against Grambling and he didn't play against Florida State. And it felt like LSU's run game was Jaden Daniels scramble based against Florida state. That was pretty much all they could succeed with. Logan digs feels like he gives them a little more option in a run game.

Yeah, absolutely. And Mississippi state's defense relatively worse against the rush in the past 25th and EPA per pass 65th in EPA per rush. One other thing that I'm interested in looking at this game is I think, Andy, a lot about gravity on the field. And, you know, Johnny Wilson at Florida State, absolute dude, they bring in Keon Coleman and they have two guys that can really spread you out. Mississippi State's second leading receiver is Jaquavius Marks, a running back. And really, if you're trying to stretch a team out, you need a second option. I don't know who's going to emerge out of this second

tier of Mississippi State wide receiver to put a credible out, you need a second option. I don't know who's going to emerge out of these, this, this second tier of Mississippi state wide receiver to put a credible second threat on that LSU defense, because if you can't be multidimensional, they're going to be able to key in. They're going to be able to sit back and say, we'll defend the run and make, will Rogers meet us, beat us with passes. He's not comfortable making. So I think LSU can dictate a lot of the pace here. If they can button up kind of that second tier of Mississippi State receiver who hasn't emerged as a single guy yet. That's where Mississippi State really misses

Rara Thomas, who's at Georgia now, who was the type of guy who could stretch the field and would have been as a sophomore, you know, kind of coming into his own for them. So, all right, let's put it down. Who you got? I think that I'm going to trust my number here, and I'm going to take the home dog and go with Mississippi State. Didn't love what I saw last week, but I think they can get a get-right game here, and I think they can keep it within striking distance. I agree. I'm tempted to say Mississippi State wins outright,

but I don't feel that confident in them. But I do feel like that's a big number. So I will take nine and a half points if you're going to give them to me so i also will take mississippi state to cover uh yeah that's that's one that kind of popped off the page to me when i saw it i just like okay i thought this might be a six point spread but nine and a half i'm taking that one and that's one that when people complain you mentioned this earlier when people complain about the slate this week you can just point at this game and say like interdivisional rivalry, beefy matchup.

We're going to learn a lot about both teams. Love it. Yeah. 11 a.m. Local kick, like, which again, there are different schools of thought on how,

who that affects more, whether it's the home team or the road team, but I'm telling you thousands of cowbells at 11 a.m. Do not feel good on the ears. So hopefully LSU players get a good night's sleep because that is going to be unpleasant all right let's stay on this theme this is an even bigger number for an in-conference game with a team that had a bad week last week but was pretty good last year against a team that I think is going to be one of the better teams in the country this year

Penn State at Illinois. Penn State's a 14.5 point favorite going into Champaign. Most of us watched, because we're psychos, the Illinois-Kansas game on a Friday. Jalen Daniels just tore up Illinois' defense, which is a little surprising to me because they have some good defensive line. Johnny Newton is a dude in there. But Jalen Daniels made it look easy and then I I felt like Illinois really couldn't do they weren't

doing with Luke Altmyer what you can do with him it felt like they were going they were throwing at the sideline for most of the game they finally start throwing down the middle and it was like ping ping ping ping touchdown and then and then there was a great Luke Altmyer run of the game they finally start throwing down the middle and it was like big big big big big touchdown and then and then there was a great luke altmeyer run when the game had already been decided but i'm thinking you got to kind of unleash this guy if you're going to have a chance yeah absolutely i think luke altmeyer is kind of like a computer does very well with very clear if then statements right if this reads not there bail that's the big the big run was on it you know it's just an rpo with a there. And when he's forced to make multiple reads, I think things really get away from him on that offense. On the defensive side,

we knew they were going to take a step back. We knew that with losing Ryan Walters, losing multiple NFL draft picks, we knew they're going to take a step back. I'm not sure we really expected it to bottom out like it is. 124th in EPA per play this week. One thing I'm looking at with Jalen Daniels and his performance against them last week, 46.9% of his dropbacks for play action completed 78.6% of those 8.4 yards per yards per attempt. And two of his touchdowns there. So really, really well, well put together game by Lance Leipold against an Illinois defense that struggles on the backend. You talk about, I talked about gravity earlier.

You lose guys in the defensive backfield. It doesn't matter if your defensive line is really, really good. If you don't have guys back there, they're still going to be able to find holes. So I think that's a really big issue. I'm much less charitable to the Illinois as a home dog here than I am for Mississippi State. I think Penn State, very, very consistent team, very physical team, run the ball well, pass the ball well. Want to see a little bit stouter run defense,

but I think West Virginia has a better rushing attack than most people realize. I think Illinois should win this pretty handily. So here's my thing about Penn State in this one. I want to see how different Penn State with Drew Aller is from Penn State with Sean Clifford. And I feel like this is the kind of game that can reveal that. Because Sean Clifford, Penn State offense, they come in,

they probably fart around a little bit. They probably win this game by six or seven points. If Drew Aller is what we think he is, which is the super high ceiling potential to make their offense very dynamic, then they blow Illinois off the field. That's what I think is going to happen. So I think we're in agreement that Penn State covers this one, and it might not be that hard.

Now, the last time they met, they did play nine overtimes and Illinois won, but that was a while back. Yeah, and I think really it does come down to what Luke Altmyer will be able to do. You know, Reggie Love in Illinois's first game had, I think, three and a half yards after contact. I don't think you're going to get away with that against Penn State. Altmyer is going to have to face a defensive secondary that's as smart as he is, that can really mess up those, those reads as well. So I'm not optimistic about Illinois moving the ball well. And I think if Penn State comes out with that killer instinct,

they should put this game away early. So matchup near and dear to your heart. We go to Houston's first Big 12 game. The Horned Frogs will welcome the Cougars to the conference. Houston is a seven and a half point dog in this game. TCU, the world saw them get de-pantsed by Colorado. That's the last image we recall of TCU. Houston, Dana Holgerson apologizing to everyone after the Rice loss in double overtime.

So something's got to get, like somebody's got to get right in this game. Yeah, you're happy to have this one on your schedule for both of these teams, I think, to have an opportunity to get a get right game because some bad performances from both of these teams. I think the TCU defense, we know that they lost Dee Winters and Dylan Horton and Trevious Hodges Tomlinson.

And those three together, I mean, just take away so much from your defense. Those three covered up so many holes on this defense. People want to say, oh, the stack's not good. And I don't think it's the personnel grouping that's out on the field, you know, how they're lining up. I think it's the fact that you don't have a guy like Dylan Horton, who's so athletic and can make quarterbacks really, really uncomfortable. Donovan Smith, another mobile quarterback, a big old bowling ball kind of a guy. And TCU let Shador Sanders have 4.18 seconds to throw on pressure dropbacks. Can't do that against Donovan Smith. You got to get to him a lot earlier. You got to take away that threat. You got to force him to make a read. On the other side of the ball for TCU, Chandler Morris doesn't

look great. Their play calling in the red zone is predictably not great. And I think that they have some athletes at the wide receiver room, but we've yet to see the vision come together for how those athletes are going to work on the field. That being said, TCU's offensive line lost a couple good players in Alana Lee and Steve Avila. So that is definitely a weakness. I think Houston's defense, not as bad as maybe it looked in the Rice game. I think they're sleepwalking a little bit. That was what I would call the strength of the team. I'm looking for how much Matthew Golden can exploit this TCU defense. Can we get a Smith to Golden big play or two? That's really what Houston's trying to count on early to really spread this TCU defense out.

Currently with that performance to Colorado, TCU is 128 in EPA per pass on defense. Well, and this is interesting because, you know, Dana mentioned this in his press conference after the Rice game. He said maybe they're too excited about opening Big 12 play against TCU. It's an excuse, but it also might be real. It might be that they were overlooking Rice and looking ahead to this. This is a big deal for this school, and I'm sure the players have been told about how big of a deal it is by everybody they see on campus. So this is one I'm sure they've had circled.

I suspect they will play better than what we've seen, and I'm still not completely confused. Well, I'm a little confused after the way they beat UTSA. And then we saw UTSA beat Texas State. So I know the transitive property doesn't work here, but I think Houston might be a little better than we're giving them credit for. And they just fell asleep against Rice. Yeah, I think what I've said about this game earlier was like,

they just didn't show up until too late. They just got there after the meal had been served and couldn't recover. Um, yeah, I, I mean, I, it is, it's, it's a cliche thing for a coach to say, Hey, we're, we're, you know, we're tanking this for next week, right? Like we're, you know, we were focused on the next matchup and we got it. And you look at Kansas state in 2022, for instance, they, they got stuck in the Tulane game. They didn't, they, they sold out to beat Oklahoma and it worked, uh, and all's well that ends well, but they did lose a game that they probably should have won because they didn't prep for it.

And so there is some argument to that. That being said, you look at some of the market fundamentals with Houston and you think, okay, are you just going to flip a switch on and make Frank Harris throw three interceptions in a row? Do something absolutely bizarre that he's never done. Is that how you're going to win a game here? So I think that that UTSA game

should have gone the other way. My numbers have this by about four, four and a half. I'm actually going to disagree with them. And I'm going to take TCU as the, to cover here. I think that Houston relied on way too much luck to even be in that UTSA game. Well, also Frank Harris is hurt. That's the other piece of it. So that makes a difference.

That said, I agree with all your logic. hurt that that's that's the other piece of it so that that makes a difference that said I agree with all your logic and I'm gonna say that Houston just gets really excited and covers this spread I don't know if they're gonna win this game but I'm gonna say they're excited they're in the big 12 it's it's a huge moment I this is this first game of the Big 12, I've been looking at the different new schools and where they enter. So, like, Cincinnati gets Oklahoma at home next week. UCF goes to Kansas State next week. Those are tricky games for the team you think should win just because of that factor.

So, I am going to take Houston to cover. So, we finally disagree on one. I like it. This is good. It's about time. Oh, by the way, I do need to plug your podcast. It's called Never Punt, Never Parlay, where all your podcasts are available.

Go get that one. Puts you on Kirk Ferentz's enemies list, but that's okay. Well, if you looked at my Twitter this week, I think Iowa's the entire state of Iowa has, has put me on a list there. Yeah. That's a, that's part of the hammer network. You can get that on Tuesdays and then I'll plug just really quickly. The bet us podcast is Tuesdays and Wednesdays as well. Get that on YouTube,

bet us college football show over there with Gary and Kyle. It's a fun time. Awesome. Well, we have a trio of rivalry games to pick when we come back. But first, we're going to talk about bird dogs. We'll be right back with more picks. But first, I got to tell you about bird dogs. You've been listening to the show. You know I am a man who likes to live a life of efficiency. I like pants that already have the underwear included. That's right. Those are the fart Garfunkels. Some of my favorite shorts from Bird Dogs. And I've also got the Steven Jobs when I need to wear actual pants to something where I need to look respectable.

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Birddogs.com. Staples is your code. Welcome back. So we got some rivalry games now. We will start with the one that I will be covering in person because it is only a few miles from my house, but it is of radical significance to the local community and also to the James Banks Hail Mary at the end of the first half. I don't think anybody remembers that, but that happened. And it did set up the win for Tennessee over a Ron Zook-led Gators team. So six and a half point underdog, Florida at home in a game that Billy Napier needs.

We had Nick Delatore from Gators Online on the show yesterday. He explained that this is probably the most winnable of Florida's rivalry games. Billy Napier went 0 for the rivalry games last year. If you want to have the rivals be Tennessee, Georgia, and Florida State, 0-3. If you want to add LSU into that, it's 0-4. So this looks like the easiest one, and it's not easy. Of all of those, this year too, parker what do you think about this one

uh the the first thought that jumps out at me here is joe melton where are the deep balls my man we talked about it all off season we talked about the arm strength i saw you throw that orange you've thrown nine deep balls and eight of them have been over the middle of the field that's not the pi outside go Go get it. Either it's a touchdown or we get 15 with the flag offense that we've come to expect out of Hypo there. So I need to see more downfield from Joe Milton here. And I'm wondering if Tennessee is not an example of maybe holding a little things back,

knowing that they have this game early here. Looking at the preview, Florida's defense, 76th in EPA per rush. That does include some scrambles against that Utah team, uh, 72nd in EPA per pass. So not much better there either way. One thing that I'm really looking at Florida is good at the success rate, right? Again, I'm a little bit more conservative early with those success rate numbers. We regressed those to the mean, but Florida doing all right with the information we have, but they're allowing the big play. That's what's wrong with the EPA.

When we have that EPA higher than success rate, that means giving up those big plays. So I'm really interested in how Florida's defense can stand up if Tennessee is going to test them, if Tennessee is going to try to spread them out and put them in that PI or TD kind of scenario there. On the other side, I don't know what to make of Graham Mertz. A lot of big volume numbers. But if you look at that, he was down three scores, and most of those yards, I think 60% of those yards came in the last three drives of the

game against Utah there. So a lot of that was kind of losing effort, just putting up some stats. I'm not really optimistic about it. 23rd in EPA per rush, 74th in EPA per pass for Florida. I really am not sure they're going to be able to score enough to really outpace themselves if this Tennessee offense can get into that high gear. That being said, the voodoo of the swamp is not something that you can mitigate, you can forget about, you can just write off. We know that in a rivalry game, especially with Billy Napier needing it, there's going to be a lot of competition here. Yeah, I can tell you how the fan base feels based on just living in this town and hearing people talk. They're basically putting all their eggs into this basket.

And as a lady at the gym put it today to somebody else, she was working out, and I'm eavesdropping. She says, well, it's either we're going to be really happy or I'm going to see you next year. And that's probably sums up the whole vibe in Gainesville. And I, with Joe Milton, it's interesting because I think the lack of deep balls, I agree. It may be a little holding some stuff back, but it also may be a little fear of him air mailing some things. And then you get into bad down and distance situations when you can run the ball pretty well against Austin P and against Virginia. So just stay ahead of the sticks if you can. And actually they were pretty inaccurate early in the Austin P game.

I think he was one for his first 11. So that's the part I think for Tennessee fans, that is the fear is he's going to have that, that egg laying game where he's going to have that egg-laying game where he's missing open receivers or he's overthrowing and there's a safety sitting back there ready to intercept it. I think that's the big fear. And this will be a chance for him to show that he can do that

in a hostile environment. And I had completely forgotten about this. Graham Mertz and Joe Milton have started against one another before. Oh, that's amazing. Yeah, absolutely. 2020 in Michigan stadium in front of 600 people. What a weird year forever. Like, yeah, that's, that's, that's wild. And yeah, it's crazy. It's testament what the SEC has become where they're trying to you know get these guys on the second you know in

their in their second act there um that's really really funny i hadn't i i i hadn't put together that that they had started there i had completely forgotten it i had memory hold that whole thing i i remember graham mertz's first game the the one on the friday night when they you know they're just opening big 10 play and he was almost perfect i think he only had one in completion but then the rest of that season for him was a nightmare and and joe same thing game day the next week said and i won't i won't point any fingers at anyone game day the next week said is it more likely that graham mertz gets benched or wins the heisman and multiple people said wins the heisman. Oh, man.

Well, they did have like half the people picking TCU in the national title game last year too. So sometimes you just got to start a conversation. Exactly. We're just out here making content. I get it. I respect it. Absolutely. I am also worried a little bit about Tennessee's receivers.

Just take it back to the game there too. You lose Hyatt, you lose Tillman, and it's not like they have bad players there. You know, Squirrel White and Brew McCoy are fine. Keaton has gotten the third most targets there. Those guys are kind of far away, but you know, you do need dudes in the high ball offense. You need guys who can go up, who can position their body, control their body well, and really challenge. And so we've got to see that from these guys, an unproven group for Tennessee. If things are going wrong, it's because Joe Milton's not accurate.

It's because these wide receivers aren't creating separation. Yeah. And I don't know if anybody from Florida can get to Joe Milton. That's the other thing is Florida's pass rush. It may be the young guys have to come forward. Like Kelby Collins, who's a freshman, he's played some snaps so far. But he may need to be the guy that emerges because they don't really have, in the veteran ranks,

they don't really have anybody who's special off the edge. He could be based on recruiting height, measurables, all that stuff, and what little we've seen so far. But they need something like that. Meanwhile, Tennessee is very fast off the edge on defense and has been very disruptive so far. And that should scare Florida into trying to establish the run and not abandoning it.

Because that was, I think, one of the more frustrating things to watch in the Utah game was they couldn't get anything going on the ground and essentially turned the screen game into the run game. And that was, I mean, when you're playing as Kyle Whittingham, he sees right through that. Yeah, because with the screen, a lot of times you're hoping maybe I can just get an angle to make a play and then I'll get this defender to not make a sound fundamental tackle. And I'm here to tell you that that's not a plus EV bet against the Kyle Whittingham team there. And I love that.

I love that point, Andy. I think that's one thing I've really gotten from talking to coaches and really learning about college football a little bit more is the substitution aspect between the screen and the run game is so important to look at. Those aren't passes.

Those are designed runs that are just a little different. If Florida has to go out that way because of pressure or because of they can't get the running game. I'm really worried about it. Grant Mertz 38.5% pressure to sack ratio. He can get disrupted so easily. If Florida gets off their game plan,

really what is your recourse? Yeah. Another thing, Nick Del Tori reminded us of it. I think this is really interesting. You know, Florida has not played a team that goes lightning fast like Tennessee does. Florida's rotated a ton of guys in on defense, and that's been helpful because they don't have that special talent. They need to get the younger guys reps. They need to find out if any of them are going to be special.

But their noses are 360 pounds and 440 pounds. And if one of them gets stuck on the field and can't get off, that's two plays and they're done. Like if you run six plays in a row, four of those are going to be 11 on 10. Yep. Definitely, definitely a consideration there, getting the, getting the big boys out. And I mean, it's not like Tennessee's run game has been bad at all. They can go fast.

But 18th in EPA per rush, 9th in rushing success rate, again adjusted for kind of early season stuff. So Tennessee can run it all and really kind of confuse Florida, make Florida dependent on the situations, and then really ramp up the tempo. You could see this thing getting out of hand. I can, and that's the part. I don't want to see a,

a town entirely apathetic toward football, but I think that's probably what happens if that happens. I was optimistic about Florida. I drank a little bit of the Kool-Aid before the Utah game. I don't think like I'm going to need them to show it to me now. So I am going to take Tennessee to cover this one. Yeah. I think I'm agreeing with you there. It's at six and a half right now. I would go even up to a seven and a half here. Yeah, it was seven and a half. And so some folks got in on Florida and they were hearing some stuff I wasn't. So

maybe they know something we don't. But let us move to another game where the line has moved. Backyard Brawl, Pittsburgh at West Virginia.ia uh this one was well we got it on the graphic at west virginia plus one and a half i believe west virginia is now favored by one and a half in this game uh so and it could flip who knows at this point this this is essentially a pick them um this game last year i neil brown has been just buried at West Virginia. And games like the one last year have to frustrate him to no end because they're moving down the field to essentially salt the game away. They throw a pass to Bryce Ford Wheaton,

where if he catches it and breaks a tackle, he's going to score. Instead, the ball goes right through his hands, into the hands of a Pittsburgh defender for a pick six, and all of a sudden everything flips and Pittsburgh wins that game. But Neil Brown has to win this one. There's probably no return and no chance. He's facing long odds to keep the job anyway. But if he doesn't win this one, it's probably over yeah it's it's rough because if you look at their west uh west virginia's um non-con

i mean right as neil brown is trying to fill in the void of holgerson and kind of rebuild i mean they're playing penn state they're playing uh they're playing pit bringing the backyard brawl back and and just really really tough there when you have those two non-con games where some other people are playing you know southwest directional directional state and getting that win. So definitely rough for them there. West Virginia can run the ball decently. I like that offensive line. I think that maybe a little bit out ahead of our skis in terms of like the absolute quality of that offensive line relative more, more so to their experience and have played together a lot and they're good. So I think that goes a long way and they have a multiplicative factor. You know, they're 23rd in EPA per pass, 41st in EPA

per rush, but 24th in rushing success rate. They want to run against Pitt. And I think they'll try to, you know, minimize some of that variance and do what they do best. CJ Donaldson's a fine running back there. The passing game for Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh versus West Virginia, I really am not sure who I'm going to trust on either side of this. 128th in EPA per pass for Pitt. Looks like that one year was just, in fact, that one year blip. And then West Virginia's pass defense, 88th in EPA per play. So nothing really to write home there. I've been very low on Cincinnati. I think Pitt had their opportunities to win that game and didn't have that killer instinct. I am loathe to bet on Neil Brown here, though. That's what really comes down to is I'm not sure that the Nard Dog has a coaching advantage over Neil Brown, but I've got this

four points in Pitt's favor. I'm going to trust the numbers here and the coaching, and I'm going to take Pitt to cover. So, Phil Djokovic was battered by cincinnati's defense and there's no dante corleone on west virginia's d line and since like cincinnati has some dudes up front that i don't think people realize pitt also was doing some shuffling on the offensive line because of an injury they it sounds like they may do some more tinkering with that group. And if you get the right group, then that gets better, and he has more time to throw. But you know what? Screw it.

I'm taking YOLO Neil Brown. Every trick play, every fourth down, you got to win this game, Neil. You got to win this one. It would be very – Look, you know that Neil Brown is looking around too and seeing Rich Rod at Jacksonville State winning some games and thinking it would be really nice to be Pitt right now. That would go a long way for my mental health.

Yeah. Yes. Got to do it. Got to do it. This is a must win. All right. We move to the site of College Game Day. And I do wonder if you'd have asked the College Game Day crew nine months ago

if they thought they would be going to Boulder for Colorado State and Colorado. What would they have said? Colorado is a 22 and a half point favorite in this game. The total is 60 and a half. Parker, I think Colorado might be able to hit that on their own. Yeah, that's when I gave out on the BetUS show today and it was 59 and a half then. It certainly moved.

But I don't know if there's any reason, one colorado can't score it well against this colorado state defense and two coach prime knows about that the heisman race involves heisman moments and here you've got game day there you've got a big opportunity for both travis hunter and sugar sanders to put up astronomical numbers don't think he has any intention of taking his foot off the gas so uh definitely definitely a strong lean to the over here, even as we talk rationally about Colorado after that. Before I get into the Colorado specifically, I'll say Colorado State's making me sweat a little bit.

I really liked a four and a half over regular season win total for Colorado State. I thought with the offseason that they would have some opportunities to really get that offense going. We knew the personnel wasn't a match. The defense was sneakily okay last year. Looks like they're not taking that step and chalking that one up as a loss already. Colorado State really does not feel like they can get Horton the ball consistently enough that he is any kind of threat on offense and they're very one-dimensional. So don't see them challenging a Colorado defense that I'm still uncertain on. And I think that Colorado is just going to be able to score left and right here.

I always hate picking a big spread here. But if I'm going to take the over, I'm going to be okay taking the big spread and the favorite as well. So there's a look-ahead factor here because obviously Colorado has to play at Oregon next week. But we talk about a spread with an overmatched team. And I think Colorado State feels overmatched in this one. We don't know what Deion's going to do with a lead. He kept pouring it on against Nebraska. Does he put subs in to get them some experience?

I would assume he will, but I don't know what he's going to do. He may be trying to make a point with everybody there. So this one's tricky, but I will take them to cover. And I do think this game's going over for sure, because they're pick your poison on offense. And I think they probably will try to spread the ball around quite a bit. It was interesting last week because Weaver got most of the action. They tried to force feed Horn, but he just couldn't get going in terms of yak yards.

But Dylan Edwards did not have as big a game catching the ball out of the backfield, I would imagine, against a team like Colorado State. He'll have more success as well. So this will be one where I think we'll all watch game day to see the scene and all that and the interviews. I don't know how much of the game we're going to end up watching. Yeah, definitely. It's a lot there. And the hype is, I mean, Prime is someone who's uniquely equipped to deal with it

and keep those guys locked in. What's interesting here from this angle, more so than one, again, just watching football, I don't really like it. I'm watching Colorado. If Colorado comes out and wins this thing like 62-3 or something, I think there's going to be a ton of value on Oregon next week. I think that we're going to get skis out in front of our skis there, and there's going to be a lot of opportunity for Oregon

to be an interesting play next week as well. So keep an eye on that. A lot of public money will be pouring in on Colorado at that point. You're right. All right, let's going to be a lot of opportunity for Oregon to be an interesting play next week as well. So keep an eye on that. A lot of public money will be pouring in on Colorado at that point. You're right. All right, let's move to some games that are just kind of interesting. And I'll start with one where if we put up your advanced metrics sheet, Kansas State at Missouri. There is value here.

Missouri is a four and a half point dog in this game, but according to your score prediction, Kansas State is 10 points better than Missouri. Yeah, I'm very high on Kansas State in this matchup for a couple of reasons. One, I like the consistency on offense. 26th in EPA per play, their 30th in passing, their 30th in rushing,

a really nice balanced approach to filling the void left by Deuce Vaughn for Kansas State. They have Giddens and Ward, and they're kind of splitting them equally, letting them kind of, you know, do what they do best. Instead of trying to just replace Deuce Vaughn with another guy, they're getting some opportunities there as, you, you know, to, to, to, to let guys fill different roles. So I like that a lot. I like that they are, um, really stopping drive. So one stat I really like is this echo rate, this quality possession rate. Like how often are you getting to a point where it's more likely that you score rather

than you don't. And then when you get to that point, how are you scoring? So Kansas state rates very highly in both of those on defense. They're 18th in echo rate allowed. They're 8th in points per echo. Not only are they not allowing a lot of quality possessions, they are not letting you score very often on those two and kind of stymie it. One thing I'm specifically worried about with Missouri's offense,

I like the addition of Theo Weiss. He was on my dudes list for wide receivers. I think he could totally change the gravity and help them really feature birdie and be very interesting on offense. But when that field shortens up, I'm going to give the advantage to Kansas State there. So I think that if Missouri comes to this, kicking some field goals, maybe making some bad fourth down decisions like they did against Middle Tennessee State last week, they're going to face a very physical team who's going to play, you know, relatively mistake free football. I think that Kansas State on the offensive line is going to dominate

Missouri's defensive line, and I'm going to ride with the Wildcats. This is one of my favorite plays this week. Yeah, so I have a much dumber reason for taking Kansas State. I like the teams that have the best big people. It's a very simplistic notion, but Kansas State has a veteran offensive line, Cooper Beebe, maybe the best interior offensive line in the country. So that's the – I think unless they're playing an elite defensive line, they're going to be fairly successful.

Against Texas, okay. Then they probably got a problem. But against almost everybody else they play, they're just going to be better up front. And I feel like that buys you a lot of goodwill. Yeah, absolutely. And it gives you a lot of leeway, especially on offense. I like Will Howard.

I have joked that Will Howard has a PhD in beating TCU. He's had a great career at Kansas State. It's been a funny career, objectively. Good for him. That's awesome. I don't want him in third and long situations. I don't want him in obvious past situations. I want him to make the plays to keep us ahead of the chains.

That offensive line is going to give him a lot of room to breathe. I want to see a little more Avery Johnson. They've been sprinkling him in and I don't think Will Howard's in any danger, but there's a reason Avery Johnson was a five-star and the future is now it's it is it is now yeah yeah so I I'm with you on this I think Kansas State covers uh it is a fascinating game but maybe not quite as fascinating as the one where let's first let's play a little game of what would the total in this game been three years ago? Georgia Southern at Wisconsin. Wisconsin is a 19 and a half point favorite this year. 64 and a half is your total. A Georgia

Southern Wisconsin game three years ago, the total is 42. Yeah, this is absurd. I have a stat that I track, Andy, that's just rush rate over expected. So I take down distance yard line game score and say, all right, how often does the average team run in this situation? Georgia Southern is 11. They're rushing 13.6 percentage points less than the average team across situations. Wisconsin, 52nd. They're rushing 4.1 percentage points less. That's insane. We are looking at a new Wisconsin. We knew with Phil Longo, a guy who wants to run it. If you give him the run, he's going to take it. But man, we are going to see so much passing here. This total is absolutely hilarious because you've got two teams that have just dramatically changed styles in the last couple of years. Yeah. And

so Washington State was taking away the run and it looked like it took Wisconsin a little while to adjust to, hey, they're going to let us throw on these guys. But the other thing that's missing with Wisconsin right now that I'm sure Luke Fickle will correct is speed on the outside. There were so many plays against Washington State, especially in the second half, where if you have some of the receivers even that he had at Cincinnati, those are touchdowns and not tackled right you know, right where they catch the ball.

Yeah. So the yards after catchability is really not there. Looking at Tanner Mordecai under pressure as well, 28.6% completion. It really feels like they don't have the athletes for when a quarterback can kind of move. Can a guy get open and make something happen? They don't have that extra gear. I'm guaranteeing that Phil Longo walked in that wide receiver room and was like, wait, where, where are the dudes? They don't have, they don't have the athletes there right now. So yeah, definitely somebody to watch going forward with, with Wisconsin, how they recruit and how it changes. But I, you know, I, the, the total here is absolutely absurd. I really would lean towards Wisconsin, good opportunity for them to be more talented than an opponent, work some, work some of the mechanics of their offense out here.

But they really are suffering. I want to see, can they get a first option? Can they get a clear identity on offense here against a team that they should outmatch? Another one of those, how did this game get scheduled games? And the answer, simply enough, is this team wanted to play in this town and let its fans come there and recruit there and have a presence there. Alabama at USF. The Crimson Tide are 31.5-point favorites. They are opening the upper decks at Raymond James Stadium.

It'll be like a Bucs game, not like a Bulls game, and it'll probably be about the same amount of red in the stands as in a bus game so uh this is a get right game for alabama i'm curious if we see more than one quarterback or do they they just try to work the kinks out with jaylen milrow yeah it's it's hard i kind of wondered if they weren't you know letting the backup maybe win the job as a vote of confidence but i don don't think I don't think anyone's coming. I don't think the cavalry is there. I think that Milrow is what they've got. You saw some Tommy Reese's body language up in the up in the booth. And man, it just didn't look like they were on the same page. Realistically, Milrow was OK.

He was not great, but he did make those two passes that were just absolutely bewildering and plays you cannot make. I've affably called them the dink and bomb offense. And Milrow, you know, I want to chuck it deep to an athlete or I want to get it to my guy quickly. And Texas really forced some of those middle of the field throws, those 10 to 20 yard throws that Milrow doesn't really need to make. So I think you have an opportunity here with, with USF. Really let's, let's iron out the kinks of that. Let's know when people adjust, how do we respond? And then also let's get Milrow some reps in that middle of the field.

I wouldn't be surprised to see him play three quarters here and just get a ton of reps. USF on the other side, man. I like Jeff Scott. I think he's a great offensive mind and could just couldn't figure out the defensive side of the ball and Alex Golesh coming in. Same kind of situation. Great offensive mind. Can we figure out the defensive side of the ball and Alex Golesh coming in same kind of situation, great offensive mind. Can we figure out the defensive side of the ball? Can USF play any semblance of defense?

I think you're not looking for a capital W win this weekend, but you're looking for a lowercase W multiple wins. USF currently 84th in EPA per play on defense and 91st against the rush. So their, their best hope is really, can we stop a little bit of the rush and stand up to this passing defense? I don't know if I trust Alabama in the letdown spot after the game, but I want to see more out of USS defense where I could put any money on them.

We got to get to, I think Alabama is going to cover in this game. Okay. We got to get to the game that the people in the chat want to get to. They've been arguing about this for a while. We got Antoine. Georgia went from having the weakest schedule now. Carolina is going to beat them. And then breaking parallels.

Oh, no, he's talking about the Colorado. But they've been arguing about South Carolina and Georgia the entire time. And so here's Andrew. Interesting UGA versus Carolina. Georgia's looked unmotivated the first two weeks. Carolina has weapons. Expect to see the real UGA again, but never know. Sometimes it can be hard to flip the switch.

So South Carolina goes to Athens. Georgia's 27. a half point favorite Parker. Georgia's started slowly the first two weeks offensively, defensively, they're fine, but they have started slowly. Now the offense got, got figured out pretty like in the second,

in the second quarter last week, but that's the part I'm curious about. Cause if they, if they start like that against South Carolina, this will be a game for at least three quarters. Yeah, absolutely. Um, I think the way I'm thinking about this game is Andy, if I gave you South Carolina team total seven and a half, are you going to take the over on that? Um, and, and I think that that's really, it is like if South Carolina can score and make this a rock fight, they get into that beamer ball kind of, hey, we're going to score multiple offensive scores is what South Carolina needs here.

They they really need to not just rely on on that special teams play. They need to take advantage of those, but not rely. They really need to rely more on the down to down business of moving the football. Their offense is 27th in EPA per play, but their defense 127th right now. And particularly the run game has been not as effective. Again, these numbers have regressed to the mean. They'll separate as we go. But they're 111th in rushing success right now, 60th in EPA per rush.

So just have not really separated out of the middle of the pack and looked a little worse than average in rushing success. Got to get some space off of Spencer Rattler to make sure that he doesn't have to force the throw. Let Spencer Rattler make the throw. Don't make him have to make the throw. I think that's a very subtle distinction, but matters a whole lot for South Carolina. That being said, I do believe in the Georgia motivation switch. I think they flip it on in the hallway before certain games and other games, they don't flip it on at all. I expect us to be low scoring Georgia to get up and sit on it. Do I expect Georgia to get up in the almost to the

30s and then sit on it and totally cover? I think I'm going to believe that they're going to get the offensive firepower to get this done and they're going to stop South Carolina from moving the ball consistently on the ground, forcing Spencer Adler into some bad situations. So I'm going to go with the Bulldogs here. I am with you, and here's why. I saw what North Carolina did to South Carolina's offensive line. Spencer Rattler was running for his life most of that game. Actually played very well to only get sacked nine times. And so Georgia's going to be able to do that if they want to.

Georgia doesn't always want to sack you. Sometimes Georgia wants to disrupt you and make you make mistakes. I do think they're going to care this game. I think they will be interested, and they will blow them out. So I'm going to take Georgia to cover, and I'm sorry to all the Gamecocks in the chat, but Matt in the chat is very happy to hear this because he's a huge Georgia fan.

He's even got an rem album as his cover as his uh his avatar committing to the bed there i like that that's right that's right automatic for the people to sign it we've reduced chicken all right let's go to another non-conference matchup in the south minnesota going to north carolina tar heels are seven and a half point favorite they barely survived against Appalachian State last week. Obviously the Tez Walker thing remains in the news, but unless they decide to just defy the NCAA, he's not playing. So this is what they've got. I don't know, Parker, that the first game I felt like kind of fooled me into thinking that they are going to be just maniacally pressuring

quarterbacks all year. I don't know if that's going to be the case, but I'm not sure Minnesota's offense is multidimensional enough to do anything about it. Yeah. So that's, that's really where it comes down to is, is, uh, how much do you believe that the North Carolina's defense has taken a step forward? I'm very, very reluctant to believe that. I think some of the fundamentals from last year, they really got by on the skin of their teeth. Seeing that need overtime again to take care of App State, not a great sign for me. 122nd in an EPA per play on defense there,

but first an EPA per play on offense. So can you score enough to kind of stay out of the, to distance yourself from Minnesota offense that I wouldn't call explosive. They might be a little bit efficient. They're they're, you know, 60th and rushing success rate, but not very, not very explosive in the, in the run game, 126 overall. So Minnesota going to be seeing a little bit of a higher rushing floor out of

them consistently. But North Carolina's defense, I'm really, really not super excited about them. That performance replicating, especially a Minnesota team is going to be a little beefier on the offensive line, a little bit more consistent on the offensive line. I'm also looking at the distribution of targets here. You've got Pacehorn and Blackwell, you know, 28 of 58 targets. They're really, really concentrated and they're really, really making up for Josh Downs, you know, a guy who had a 30% target share two years in a row and really bailed them out.

I think that if Minnesota can get a little bit of pressure, they can get Drake may uncomfortable enough that he doesn't necessarily have the targets that he needs to extend drives, uh, consistently North Carolina on offense, uh, excuse me on, um, going totally backwards there. Sorry. Minnesota's defense. I will, I will help will help everybody. You just saw an image of Ethan Kaliak-Manis on the screen and everybody, nobody wants to say Kaliak-Manis, but it is pronounced exactly the way it is spelled. Kaliak-Manis, Kaliak-Manis, Kaliak-Manis. There we go. That's great. I got to get the tip of my tongue. Brad Powers was on the show the other day and just railed it. I just absolutely got it right on the first try. And I was like, shoot, I should have looked at the pronunciation guide, but, um, yeah, I, again, Minnesota creating some opportunities really well, fifth and echo rate

fourth and finishing drives there. Um, I think there'll be a little more balanced. I have them losing, but covering on the road here. So I like their consistency. I think on offense, you gotta get a learning curve for those new quarterbacks and, uh, you know, every game get a little bit better. So UNC still winning this one at home, but I'm going to take Minnesota to cover here. I'm going to take the Tar Heels to cover because I think they got a little full of themselves after that South Carolina game. They had game day in town, huge audience, watched them dominate against South Carolina. Everybody's telling them how good they are.

And then Appalachian State, you know how those games go, whether it's Appalachian State, East Carolina. Like when they get to play at the other team's home stadium, they like to come in and spoil things. So I think that probably has a lot to do with what happened. So I'm going to take North Carolina to bounce back and cover on this one. One more before we get to our extra and cover on this one. One more before we get to our extra point, but this one is Washington and Michigan State. Obviously,

Michigan State has been in the news all week because of the Mel Tucker stuff. We don't need to get into that here. We can get into Harlan Barnett's, the acting head coach. Mark D'Antonio comes in to kind of be the steadying hand as the assistant head coach. It's interesting to me, Parker, because I do think Michigan State is better this year than they were last year. You're not taking any play caller out of the equation with Mel Tucker not being there. So essentially, I don't know that we get a very different performance than we would have gotten. The question is, can they stop Michael Penix Jr. and those great receivers? Yeah. I mean, to some extent, obviously there's day-to-day stuff to do and there's game planning and there's culture and all that, but like you really, if you're going to lose a guy, you don't want to lose a play caller there. So certainly

makes it a little bit better for Michigan State than if it was a play caller. But yeah, you got Romeo, you got McMillan there for Washington who have 49.4% of targets. Both of those guys over three yards per route run, super, super explosive. Sixth in offensive EPA per play for Washington. They're eighth in EPA per pass. So I'm looking at this and I'm looking at the two guys, the two quarterbacks with the highest coverage snaps for Michigan State. And you've got Brantley with a 64.2. You've got the safeties, Mangum and Spencer with a 59 and a 58 PFF grade. I think we saw against Boise, Washington, you get stifled a

little bit at the beginning. They're going to keep coming after you. They're going to keep throwing it deep. And I'm not sure that Michigan State can sustain a defense against that barrage. Michael Penix, though, only pressured on nine dropbacks this season. So very, very interesting that their offensive line looks as good as advertised. Again, you adjust that for competition. The other side of the deal that I'm looking at here, Washington's defense, not great. Currently 76th in EPA per play allowed. Kim, when he's pressured for Michigan State, a 55%, not percentage point, 55% drop off in his completion percentage there. So can be absolutely disrupted just like you'd expect from a new starter there. So I'm leaning towards Washington. I've got this number about 12 and a half, 13,

right, right, really close to where the line opened. But I'm going to lean Washington, I've got this number about 12 and a half, 13, right, right really close to where the line opened. But I'm going to lean Washington. I think that just the cumulative effect of that passing game is really going to wear down Michigan state. Nate Carter has been very impressive for Michigan state so far, but he feels like they're, they're really only true offensive weapon right now. Perhaps I'm wrong.

Perhaps Noah Kim can find some of those receivers and they can like, imagine if Keon Coleman was on this team still that you put, but put him in that mix and all of a sudden everything changes, but the transfer portal giveth and taketh away as Michigan state has learned. So I am actually going to take Michigan state to cover here. I don't think they're going to win the game, but I do think this is one of those situations where they galvanize. Everybody gets together.

They play a little bit above where they galvanize, everybody gets together, they play a little bit above where they probably should, and they make it close. So I will take them to cover but not to win. And, Parker, that brings us to our extra point, which is just about points. We always pick the Iowa total. The drive for 325 is a very important thing on this show. Right now, Brian Ferentz is six points off the pace. They've not averaged 25 points a game. They've scored 44 points so far this season.

The total in this game, Western Michigan, Iowa, 42.5. Do we think, one, that this goes over? And do we think, two, that Brian Ferentz is on pace? I have multiple theories about this situation and whether that contract is a feature or a bug of the Iowa offense or whether, whether Kirk friends frankly can be boxed into, to doing that at all. But I'll leave those for,

for Twitter and for late night here, I have Iowa and Western Michigan totaled about 40.5 points, which is just abysmal, just awful. But the Iowa defense is legitimately good, and the Iowa offense is, again, can't do it. I'm not going to trust Iowa to score 30, 31 points at all here. I'm going to go with an under, which means that I don't think Iowa can cover just in terms of sheer arithmetic.

Yeah, I'm going under, too too because I always take Iowa to go under until they prove otherwise. And I got Iowa fans saying, no, no, no, the offense is really different this year, but Kirk takes his foot off the gas because he's very concerned. But that's also true. They're not lying when they say that. Kirk also could put them in a situation where they don't go over. They don't make the drive for three 25,

but I'll be honest if they win 10 games and don't average 25 points a game, he's still going to be in Brian's still going to be employed. I'm telling you that right now. I don't care what the contract says. Yep. Yep. I think, I think I agree with that. And, and yeah, the issue with this and I won't go on a diatribe or anything, but like the issue with it is, okay, you can do that against teams you're more talented than right like you can do that against certain teams you can do that against western michigan can't be ohio state consistently

like that you need the random flute game for that you can't compete for a national competition with that uh you know what except once every what 10 years at this point and so that's really that's really the big issue is yeah you can absolutely do whatever you want to a bad college football team and uh if that works out for you god god love them hope they win 10 games and don't score 25 a game because that's the funniest outcome it absolutely is parker this was amazing i know you got you got bedtime with the kids to get to but thank you so much this was awesome i really appreciate you having me on andy great to chat with you. All right. That is Parker Fleming. That was a lot of fun. I got a feeling that he's going to get more picks right than me.

We only disagreed on a couple, but I think he's, I think he's going to beat me on this one. This, it, he just, he's so sure. And he think about this. He got bored in college and automated systems to create all these amazing advanced stats previews every week. Like I wouldn't even know where to start. So that's the type of brain power we're dealing with. But that was a lot of fun. Hope everybody makes their picks. Hit that FanDuel app. Enjoy. You can go with me. You can fade me. It won't hurt't hurt my feelings i understand but it will be a lot of

fun this is the weekend where weird stuff can happen join us on thursday we have a very large man scheduled to join us and i think you're really really going to enjoy him he plays for a team that had a really big win last weekend. We'll give you that hint. It's been a lot of fun. We'll talk to you on Thursday.