Andy & Ari On3 - The SEC joins the Big Ten & BANS NFL players from returning to college football: Next steps for LSU | UNLV vs Memphis Picks | Brooks Austin on Arch Manning, Bryce Underwood, Keelon Russell
Episode Date: August 26, 2026After the Big Ten set up a rule to ban NFL players a return to college football, the SEC and Greg Sankey joined in and did the exact same thing. Now, with LSU working to get former NFL players on its ...roster, what’s next for Lane Kiffin and the Bayou Bengals? Watch here as Andy & Ari breakdown this bizarre story in college football. (0:00) On Today’s Episode (1:08) Presenting Sponsor (3:30) Intro: SEC joins in (5:04) Are the rules enforceable? (8:57) Players worth it? (15:25) The difference in this case (21:58) Rhoback (24:14) Week 0 Picks: UNLV vs Memphis (31:15) Previewing Brooks Austin (31:53) Brooks Austin Joins (35:55) Arch Manning, Texas (48:17) Bryce Underwood, Michigan (57:52) Keelon Russell, Alabama (1:10:20) Closing out - new schedule (1:13:25) Thanks for watching! After the SEC news, Andy & Ari dive into one of the more interesting matchups in the week zero slate: Memphis at UNLV. As these two programs both are vying for the group of 6 playoff spot, this game could have some big CFP implications towards the end of the year. Next up, Brooks Austin from the Film Guy Network joins the fellas to analyze some of the more prolific quarterbacks in the country: Arch Manning, Bryce Underwood, and Keelon Russell. Are these QBs set to have a big year ahead? Brooks explains why. Thanks for watching! Dear Andy & Ari returns TOMORROW! Our show is presented by Polymarket! New User Offer: Deposit $10, get $20 upon sign up https://app.polymarket.us/S8ac/ON3 Trade 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. We are also sponsored by Rhoback! Use the code “ANDYARI20 “ on Rhoback.com for 20% off for all new customers through the end of this week. Rhoback.com - 20% off all Performance Polos, Shorts and more with code: ANDYARI20 Join On3 today! https://www.on3.com/join Watch our show on YouTube! https://youtu.be/Efpk--8w8dw Hosts: Andy Staples, Ari Wasserman Producer: River Bailey Interested in partnering with the show? Email advertise@on3.com Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
Transcript
Discussion (0)
On today is Andy Naurion 3 presented by Polymarket.
The rules have come rolling in from leagues banning former pro players from coming back to college.
We talked about the Big Ten being about to do it on yesterday's show.
They did it.
They issued some penalties as well.
The SEC later Tuesday night added their own rule, and they have clarified what some penalties would be.
And they are quite draconian if you want to break them.
So we will find out if LSU is going to go through.
through with its plan to bring some guys in who might have been in infel training camps last
weekend. It'll get very interesting. Plus, we pick the UNLV Memphis game. There's a crazy
couple of quarterback battles in that one. Also, our friend Brooks Austin, new partner at On
3, the Film Guy Network, breaks down three quarterbacks for us. Arch Manning from Texas,
Bryce Underwood from Michigan,
Keel and Russell from Alabama.
You will not want to miss this.
All on today's Andy and Arion 3,
presented by Polymarket.
We are presented by Polymarket,
and Polymarket has a great sweepstakes going on right now.
Thank your commissioner.
That's right.
Your fantasy drafts are all going on right now.
You want to thank the folks who are helping,
but not even just the commissioner,
just all of your buddies.
And wouldn't you like to get together
in Las Vegas because that is a possibility.
You can get paid to bring your friends along to Polymarket.
$25 for you, $25 for them after a $10 deposit on Polymarket,
plus a chance at a Vegas trip to the Hardwood Suite with your crew
for up to 11 friends for every qualifying referral.
Here's how it works.
When you hit that Polymarket app, there will be a banner.
You can opt in and start inviting friends to Polymarket.
For every referral, you get $25 and they get $25 when they deposit $10 at Polymarket.
That's how you do it.
And then you start trading.
We're going to be talking about a lot of college football games.
We talk about Week Zero games.
We're talking about Week 1 games.
We're going to tell you how you can trade on those games.
It's going to be a lot of fun.
So thank your commissioner.
Thank all your fellow fantasy football players by inviting them to Polymarket.
you can both get $25.
You get $25.
They get $25 when they deposit $10 at Polly Market.
Polymarket will give you $25 for every friend you bring on
and your friend gets $25 to after depositing $10.
Plus every qualifying friend you refer gives you another chance
to win a Vegas trip with your crew.
Thank you, Commissioner Sweet State.
No purchase or deposit necessary 18 plus only.
Open to legal residents of 49 U.S. states,
excluding Nevada and D.C.
void were prohibited or restricted runs August 21st,
2006, at Midnight Eastern to September night,
2006 at 819 and 59 seconds, PM Eastern.
Official rules at t-yc.polymarket.us.us slash rules.
Thank you, if you commission.com.
Sponsor Blockertize, Inc. DBA Polymarket.
See Polymarket's rulebook for more information about restrictions and eligibility.
The Polymarket app is an independent affiliate of Polymarket U.S.
and not CFTC regulated.
Trading always involves risk, complete loss.
can occur.
Welcome to Annie and Ari on 3 presented by Polymarket.
Ari, we talked about maybe some conferences making some rules yesterday that would
ban players who've been in NFL training camps from coming and playing college football
this year.
That has happened.
The Big Ten did it shortly after our show dropped yesterday.
They will suspend the coach for half a season if you do it.
If you play one in a game.
and then also they could issue some fines.
Meanwhile, the SEC, they came out with their rule last night.
They said Greg Sanky would have wide latitude to punish a team that puts on its roster,
someone who appeared on an NFL roster, an NBA roster, or a WNBA roster.
We get more clarity on that on Wednesday afternoon, Wilson Alexander from On 3 reporting
that if someone violates the SEC's professional sports rule,
there will be a 50% of the season's suspension for the head coach.
So that would be six games in football and I guess about 15 or 16 games in basketball.
50% of that sports annual operating budget as a fine.
And your SEC voting privileges or business matters revoked.
Or your SEC voting privileges on business matters revoked.
Essentially, you can't vote for any new rules, can't vote for anything.
The league's doing.
That is a lot.
Andy?
Yeah, sorry.
Are they actually enforceable?
I know that you were all, you were all wound up.
It's a great question.
You were all wound up about like,
right when they announced that the SEC,
the SEC initially announced
that they were having these rules,
then your first reaction, rightfully so, was
what are the penalties?
Yeah.
Well, you've got the penalties.
So now what's next?
Because I think that everybody is,
is trying, like the thing that's so confusing about this, can I just be honest with you?
Sure.
And it's something that even got me off kilter a little bit is that the players who are in question here, although good,
and possibly people that could help a team in some way tangentially, aren't main characters.
They aren't guys that are going to come in and be the face of your team.
They're not guys that are going to come in and be probably the difference in whether you make the playoff or not.
And it seems like a hell of a lot of trouble to go through.
Both for them, though I understand why they would go through it more than I understand why Lane Kiffin or anybody else on this side of the coin would go for it.
Why people are going through such hell, so many steps so close to the season to try to get these guys when they're not difference makers.
Like that, it's weird.
Remember, there were no penalties as of yesterday.
And now there are.
But I still, even before there were penalties, just like, why are we going through this?
Because there were no penalties.
Yeah.
I mean, like, yeah, go ahead.
And you want to know why the penalties are so draconian?
Why they make them sound so serious?
I mean, think about the dollar figure there, half of your operating budget for your sport.
So I looked up LSU's most recent financial disclosure to the Department of Education.
It was from the 2024-25 school year.
So this number is going to be low because it doesn't include any rev share.
It was $50 million in operating expenses for the football.
team. So that number is significantly higher now. So at the minimum, you're talking about $25 million fine.
You're talking about losing Lane Kiff in your biggest investment for six games. If we're using
LSU's an example here since they were the ones that were going to take the players.
Ari, I don't know if the rules would hold up in court, but are you going to chance it
for two guys who are depth and not main characters? No. That's the point. Yeah. That's why.
That's why you, now, I suspect the players will sue.
I suspect the players will challenge this, and they might even win.
Yeah, I mean, just because these rules were put in place,
doesn't mean that these guys aren't playing for LSU this year yet.
Right.
Like it's still too early.
The Big Ten rule almost completely mirrors the NCAA's ghost transfer rule,
which is that the ghost transfer is when you just withdraw from university
and enroll in another one without entering the transfer portal.
That rule was enjoined in the,
the temporary restraining order in the Louisiana case that was going to allow these guys to play.
So because if you sue the SEC, which I assume is the next step, and the lawyer talked to Ross Delinger
at Yahoo about it and said they're going to basically try to paint the SEC in Big Ten as colluding
with the NCAA and tell the judge, hey, look, you've already, you've already said the NCAA can't do this.
So how about you say the SEC can't do this?
I wouldn't be shocked if they do that.
if they try that and I have I have no idea what the judge would say but I also would be
shocked if they were correct yeah or exactly it's it's so we'll keep you post on whether this
actually goes through um but before the show you wanted to ask me a question yeah and I think I
had an answer but I think it might have just changed in real time okay okay because go ahead
go ahead let's let's say these penalties do hold up in court let's say it or actually better better
question. We don't know if these penalties are going to hold up in court because LSU's not
going to try this because these players aren't worth it. So LSU's not even going to try it.
They're going to be like, guys, go sign somewhere else. Like we're done here. So if you are
one of these schools, is there or has there ever been a player in college football history
who would be worth trying this for?
So my initial reaction was, yes, Cam Newton, but then you were talking about the financial penalty.
And the funny, curious thing that we have to our disposal now that we might not have had when Cam Newton was playing is how much are these players worth exactly?
And it's not just losing Lane Kiffin for six games or whoever the coach may be.
You're also talking about a fine that might be north of $30 million with the updated numbers.
nobody in college football to my understanding is making $30 million.
So I guess the question has just now evolved to is Cam Newton worth $30 million.
You know what my answer is on that?
Is it yes?
2010 Cam Newton?
Hell yes.
Like we're going to sit Gene Chiswick down for six games.
We're like Gus coach team and we're going to go win a national title.
I would absolutely do this.
Yeah.
So I and now here's another secondary question as we're riffing.
How much money do you think?
think a program would pay in totality if you could guarantee them the championship.
Do you think that somebody would pay $150 million for their roster to guarantee the championship?
Yes.
I was going to say $100.150 I'd say yes to as well.
Yeah.
Maybe not much more than that.
Yeah.
Because you're already paying $50 for the chance to in some cases, 60, right?
Yeah.
So I guess $3xing it for the guarantee, you know.
But you would have to pay that much money if you would pay Cam Newton that much money.
So, I mean, I guess.
I don't, you don't even have to, for Cam Newton in 2010, and by the way, you know, the rumor,
because nothing was ever proven, was that it was 180 grand.
Biggest bargain in sports history of truth.
Especially knowing what we know now.
Right, right.
But 180 grand is what you're getting at, the best players are getting at lower level
program.
That's going to buy you a backup corner.
in the SEC.
Yeah.
Of course, inflation has happened in the time since.
So maybe there's another number there that we can better compare it to.
But it is interesting because the entire conversation would be, in my opinion,
even more interesting if the player was Cam Newton.
And I'm trying to come with, come up with examples of the reason.
But the reason they did this is because the player isn't Cam Newton.
Yeah.
Because they know, or at least they suspect, that no school, and we keep picking on
LSU, but let's say it was Kentucky or let's say it was Missouri or Tennessee, any other ones.
They know that no school is not going to do this for a player like the ones we're talking about,
the ones who are not going to make NFL rosters.
No school will try it and risk it.
It's not worth the risk.
So now, if the player sue and a judge says the SEC rule is unenforceable or a judge enjoins the SEC rule, then maybe try it.
But guess what?
If that happens, the SEC is not only going to appeal in the state court, they're probably going to file a federal lawsuit of their own to test their rule to see it to see if it can hold up.
Yeah.
So it's not worth, the juice is not worth the squeeze here.
And we also should be rooting for the SEC collectively.
Because like I, you know, I do think that what's interesting about this is like the notion from a lot of people that if this were to happen, that it would be some sort of a front to the, you know, sanctity or the longevity of college football, which I kind of fundamentally disagree with.
Well, these players know.
but the thing is if you let these players do it,
you set the precedent,
what happens if it's somebody who is a badass college player
who maybe their game does not fit in the NFL as well?
So they would make an NFL roster,
but they wouldn't make that kind of money.
Who are we thinking?
Who is that player?
Is that like...
It's a quarterback.
It's Diego Pavia.
Diego Pavia.
It's Diego Pavia.
Diego Pavia is worth, right now,
Diego Pobvi is worth $5 or $6 million.
to any college football program.
If you could start him right now.
So that's what they're trying to avoid.
So you want to slam the door shut
even if you feel like the players
who are filing this specific grievance might have a case.
You just don't want anybody to get through
because you want to set a precedent.
I am sympathetic to them because they were screwed
by the NCAA.
Yes.
Had they known last November,
they could maybe get another year.
They never would have entered the draft in the first place.
Got it.
But you also want the door to get slammed in these faces,
even though you are sympathetic because you don't want there to be any sort of precedent to...
Right.
You don't want there to be a...
Yeah, it doesn't...
You don't want this street to flow both ways.
You don't.
Yeah.
Well, the thing about it is, like, Lane Kiffin is certainly the villain here,
but he's not in the courtroom.
So we'll see what happens.
You've got a root...
Exactly.
It's not over yet.
Yeah.
It's not.
And I'm very curious to see because...
Because, you know, Andy, you and I were theorizing about this.
Before this specific instance, where five for five opened the door for people to feel like they got screwed,
we did have conversations in the past about players who, you know, weren't going to make it in the NFL who would sue for further eligibility.
Like, we knew that this day was coming.
And eventually they're going to have to win those lawsuits.
And I don't know how or when they're going to do it.
And maybe.
I actually think if you get into federal court antitrust law, which is where, you know, would supersede state courts.
and I think that the leagues have a pretty good chance.
Yeah.
I think the NCAA rule has a pretty good chance
because the difference between this and the compensation stuff
is the in-consumer doesn't really care about the compensation,
and they've proven that over and over again.
And you can just look, you can just ask people,
and you know there are very differing opinions on that,
and there's a wide split.
There's no split of opinion on this.
The public doesn't want guys from the NFL or the NBA coming back to college.
They don't.
Let me take this a little bit off course here a little bit,
just for the sake of getting back on it in a very relevant way.
Yeah.
For the most part, Andy, do you feel like most fans are on board
with the idea of collective bargaining agreements?
I don't know if most fans are.
I think if you explain all the alternatives,
most fans would say that's the most logical in game.
Because in my head, and I'm no legal expert like that,
you, but I'm trying my best year. I'm not a legal expert. I'm going to continue to say it,
and you're always going to deny it, but it's not going to stop me from saying it.
You know, guys, Andy is basically a lawyer. No, I'm not. Andy. No, I'm not going to lie.
I did possibly search on the internet to see if, like, you could do like an after work law school
program for like when my kids go off to college and I have spare time again. Like, would I maybe try
that? Who knows?
What it was the answer. Can you?
You can. They certainly exist.
I mean, they're not the highest rated law schools in the world,
but if I wanted to get a law degree, I could do it.
I may be imagining this,
but I thought I read somewhere on the internet that there are certain states
that say you don't have to pass the bar anymore in order to practice law.
Is that true?
Not the one where I live, so I don't know.
Well, you would think it would be the one that where you live.
I know. You don't have any rules here.
All right, let me get back on the point, though.
If you are a person that thinks that everything,
in college football is broken, that everything in college football is nonsense, and that the NCAA can't
even enforce the most simple, obvious rules, and that the only solution to the issue of fixing
college football is to collectively bargain with the players. Do you need the NCAA to be put in a
position where it has no choice but to do so? And I think that this position, which is not being able to
rule players who have gone to the NFL from coming back to college to make a living playing
football. I think that in this specific instance, and I'm not even talking about the guys that
are trying to get back to LSU in this moment. I'm talking about the Diego Pavia's of next year.
If we ever get to a point where in 2027 and 28 and 29, a player who is very good in college
who flames out in the NFL has the opportunity based on the law and court proceedings to return
to college, is that the point in which the NCAA has to stop pretend?
administrators have to stop pretending,
and it forces them into the change that ultimately feels like we need to get to.
They're already headed that way.
I mean, Tennessee's athletic director, Danny White's been banging this drum for over a year now.
But if they get thrown into a corner where they have to stop pretending.
The SEC presidents already had a presentation given to them during their spring meeting
about what collective bargaining in college sports would look like.
So they're already talking about it.
They're already thinking about it.
They're moving down that road.
So then let me offer.
this then, Andy, if you believe that we are eventually going to get to that point, I don't know
what the time frame is on that, but that that is the ultimate destination of college football,
then for the next few years, you don't have to worry about the demise of it. Like, I don't need
to hear people say that it's never. Look, I don't care about that. People who say whatever they
want. Yeah. Like, I, somebody called me a moron the other day because of, I said, when the
game starts, you're not going to be worried about any of this. And he said,
Haven't you listened to all the people over the last few years saying that this is going to ruin the sport?
And I said, idiots listen to what people say.
Smart people pay attention to what they do.
What have people done, watched college football and bought tickets to college football games in greater and greater numbers?
But if there are a lot of people out there...
It's not ruining the game to them because they're still devoting their time and money to it.
Andy, there are a large segment of fans.
who listen to our show and who don't listen to our show who fear the demise of the sport.
And all I'm saying is whether or not you and me believe that,
because I've never bought into the notion that it's going to go away,
there's too much money and interest in it for that to happen.
But if you are one of those people who fears that,
or that the sanctity of the game is being challenged with players coming back
and it's damaged irreparably and all these different things that you will read on Twitter,
if collective bargaining is at the end of the road,
I'm just saying if you are one of those people,
you can go to bed and rest well tonight
because there will be a time where we get back to places
where rules and reason are enforceable.
It's just not going to happen until we get to that point.
But if that's the ultimate destination,
then there's nothing, who cares on what happens in the courtroom this week.
They're not going to ever allow the sports to continue.
It's still going to affect things.
Yeah, it's still going to affect things immediately.
Again, like I said, if these players sue and they get the TRO they want
or they get the injunction they want.
I think the SEC would then strike back with its own lawsuit.
I just find it hard to believe we're ever going to live in a college football world
for the long term where NFL players can come back at their own.
I don't think we are because I can guarantee you if they do go the collected bar in your route.
That's going to be a non-negotiable.
Right.
And it'll be fine.
Right.
It's going to be fine.
That's all I'm saying.
Because it is game week, Andy,
and this might make good for a transition for our next thing.
real quick, but it is game week.
And I'm just hoping that while things like this are happening,
we can transition into the football aspect of this
and get out of our offseason, the world is ending college football
is going to be broken forever mentality.
I guarantee we're going to have games to talk about on Saturday.
And that's it.
And way more games the following Saturday.
That's it.
We use this and people use the sport as being ruined.
Woe is me.
The sky is falling to get themselves through the off season.
Mm-hmm.
My brother, the off-season is over.
All right.
So, by the way, less the LSU fans think we're ragging on them too much,
I want to give you an opportunity to be the best-looking LSU fan you can be.
See this?
This is the Hesi hoodie from Roeback.
Look at that.
Glorious.
It's black with the gold logo, the purple strings.
It's a beautiful hoodie, beautiful hoodie.
Oh, look at this.
Look at this.
Look at this.
The Florida helmet stripe
Huseep.
That's beautiful too.
The Ohio State version of this is badass
as well.
How about this?
The Texas
Hezzy hoodie from Roebuck.
River asked for that one.
He wanted that one in his closet.
I know he does.
I know he does.
But I think actually
we might be giving some of these away
to some lucky listeners and viewers.
as the season goes by, because we love you and we want you to be the best-looking fans in the stadium,
which you will be if you go to rowback.com, R-H-O-B-A-C-K, use the code Andy R-A-20.
That's A-N-D-Y, A-R-I, the number two of the number zero, for 20% off your first order.
Ro-back.com promo code Andy R-E-20 for 20% off your first order.
The Game Day collection is amazing, incredible team gear.
They just dropped a bunch of new designs for a bunch of new schools.
Producer River grabbed himself some balls gear that looks amazing.
He has the he has hezzy hoodie, the orange one with the power tea on it.
But the one he got this really cool is the gray crewneck sweatshirt, little Heather gray with a perfect orange power tea on it.
I'm telling you, you are going to look amazing.
And so you get the polo, your team polo, for the guy.
games in the next few weeks, the ones where it is ungodly hot.
Then you get the hoodie, we're going to get it's a little bit cooler.
Roback.com, Andy Ari 20, 20% off your first order.
Do it now because trust me, everybody's going to come up to you and go, where'd you get that?
Where'd you get that?
Just tell them, your old pals Andy and Ari sent you to rowback.com.
All right, Ari.
Let's pick a game.
We're talking football.
There are games this week.
to talk about this. And this one, one, it's two group of five programs that have been good of late.
So that's fun. But what makes this more fun, Memphis at UNLV, is the quarterback competitions for both,
don't appear to be decided yet. The two coaches have not named a starter. And we might see two
quarterbacks playing for each team, not at the same time, but who knows? But Dan Mullen at
UNLV trying to decide between Jackson Arnold, formerly of Oklahoma and Auburn, and Alex Orgy,
formerly of Michigan. That's the quarterback conundrum at UNLV. At Memphis, where Charles Huff is
taking over, Charles Huff, by the way, 13, three years, wins the league at Marshall,
takes the Southern Miss job, makes them better better immediately.
Now he's at Memphis replacing Ryan Silverfield.
His quarterback competition.
Aaron Nolan, who once signed with Ohio State and then transferred to South Carolina.
Not the favorite, though.
The favorite, West Florida transfer Marcus Stokes.
Ari, I don't know what the hell is going to happen in this game.
Andy, I don't know what the hell's going on in the game.
When you think about like entertaining quarterback rooms,
is this like the most entertaining quarterback room matchup in college football this week?
Like I'm trying to think of like collective.
rooms. We just don't know what the, we don't know what's going to happen. So,
you know, uh, UNLV is a four and a half point favorite on polymarket. And I wish I could
break down that line, but I think we probably, if we had both coaches on and gave them truth
serum, they'd be like, wait, we don't know. We have no idea. This is me saying, I don't know.
Um, what I do know is is that both of these teams have been circulating in potential
G5 CFP
contention circle.
We've both said
group of five.
It is group of six now
because the PAC 12 is back
as a living in-
Is it group of six now?
I can't keep up with this, man.
Neither of these teams
are in the PAC-12.
UNLV is still in the Mountain West
and Memphis is still in the American.
Group of six.
Yeah, we got to say group of six.
We just got to add that extra league.
Group of six and power four.
But yes, Memphis is a team
that because of Charles,
Charles Huff's history and his ability to turn a program around very quickly.
He's really good coach, yeah.
It was also good under Ryan Silverfield.
It wasn't like that, it wasn't like Memphis was bad.
So Memphis didn't need a lot of work.
And then UNLV, Dan Mullen has done a really good job since taking over for Barry Odom.
Barry Odom had it in a good place, and Dan Mullen put it in an even better place.
They played for the Mountain West Championship last year.
So this, yeah, this could be teams that might be in the mix for a playoff berth at the end of the season.
Fox. This is going to be so much fun. Ari, we're being honest with the people here.
We could pretend to give you expert analysis on this game, but again, I'm not sure the team's
own coaches could give you expert analysis on this game right now.
Yeah, well, expert analysis here is just all four of the quarterbacks that are in competition
have spent their time in the limelight for one reason or another. Sometimes it was good. Sometimes it was
bad, but they're all interesting names.
Well, we can just, we don't dance around.
Marcus Stokes was committed to Florida at one point in high school.
He was then found him to be on video saying the N-word while reciting a rap lyric and had his offer pulled and wound up at Division 2 West Florida.
So that's what happened.
If you're wondering how that, because if you're Googling that name, that's what's going to come up.
So.
And then Jackson, R.
Before that happened, we talked about him a lot on this show.
Marcus Stokes was a, I believe, high level four-star prospect.
So it's not like he couldn't play.
And if you're trying to figure out, how does former five-star Aaron Nolan lose a job to Marcus Stokes?
Just take into account that his path to Memphis was in large part impacted by what Andy said.
So we'll see what happens, but I'm going to watch it.
It's the latest game on Saturday night, right?
We got a, is that the late game kickoff?
Stanford, Hawaii are playing too?
I think Stanford and Hawaii actually funny enough kicks off before them.
Oh, does it?
Okay.
I think.
Stanford,
Hawaii was highly entertaining last year,
so that's another one I want to see.
But this one is the one I think could be the one we went up talking about at the end of the night.
Like, wow,
that was nuts.
Yeah.
Also,
both coaches could be power for candidates in the near future.
Because Dan Mullen was good at Florida.
Yeah.
He got fired over the, you know,
one,
but the recruiting world changed, the whole world changed, right after that happened.
So I do wonder if in this environment, it works differently for him now.
That's been our theory from the same one.
Working his way there.
So everywhere Charles Huff has gone, they've gotten better.
I mean, that's pretty good indication that he might be a candidate.
And both of these teams have been in the group of more interesting G6 teams the last few years,
because you did it.
I did.
I know.
I'm a fast learner,
believe it or not.
Both of these teams
have been in the playoff
hunt the last few years.
They've played in
instrumental games
in October,
November that were helping
decide which G6 team
got into the playoff.
So it is certainly an interesting
opening day matchup.
I love that it's in Sin City.
Oh, you got, Ari?
I'm going to take UNLV.
Fine.
I'll take Memphis.
Again,
don't know.
But you're going to give me
four and a half points.
I'll take Memphis.
Yeah.
Are these going to go on our permanent record?
Yes, they are.
Okay.
Well, I'm happy that.
Ari.
This is how we get to week one and we're doing 10 of these next week.
It's equally a mystery.
I mean, there's some teams that we know because they've brought back a lot.
But most teams haven't.
Most teams are going to look completely different.
This is going to be, the early season is going to be like this.
You just have to accept it.
Yeah.
And I don't know.
I'm ham.
I'm excited to watch this.
Obviously, we're all excited for Bella Check Mania.
You know, that's going to be the star of the show on Saturday.
But freaks like us, sickos like you, we're all going to be watching this together on Saturday night.
I can't wait.
We absolutely are.
Ari, let's shift to quarterbacks who we know have won the job.
Our friend Brooks Austin is going to join us.
We've had on three, have established a partnership with Brooks and his channel, the film guy network.
If you haven't been watching Brooks, he is one of the best at breaking down game film.
in the world. He's so much fun. You're going to enjoy it. If you haven't already subscribed
to the Film Guy Network, do it now because it's going to be a lot of fun. But we are going to
talk to Brooks about three different quarterbacks. We're going to talk to him about Archmanning,
about Bryce Underwood, and about Keelan Russell. Here is Brooks Austin.
Honor to be joined by our newest partner here at On 3, the Film Guy, Brooks Austin.
If you are not subscribed to his channel, the Film Guy Network, what are you even doing?
Do you even like college football?
What's up, Brooks?
Nothing much, boys.
Glad to be here with you.
Yeah, got to be a little ball curious to enjoy what we do over there on the Film Guy Network.
Glad to be here with you guys.
The first channel on On 3 to have me, except for J.D.
J. Pekyll had me on before I was even a teammate.
So shout out to JD.
He's a day one over there, but glad to be here with Brooks.
We like to wait until T's are crossed and eyes are dotted here at this show.
Brooks, but you and I have been on a show together on the On3 network.
When Crane and Cohen is on debating, and I wanted to tell you.
We were pitted against one another.
Hey, SEC hack and Big Ten hack, let's go at it.
Let's see what we can do here.
I wanted to say that it's going to be a pleasure to have you on without having to be adversarial.
So I'm very curious about some of the things that you have to say.
And frankly speaking, I don't know.
I think Andy will tell you this.
There are two ways of knowing Ball.
There's like Knowing Ball, the Feelings version, and there's Knowing Ball, the
X as and O's version. And I'm going to yield to you because you know the X's and O's better than I
will ever know. There's not actually a knowing ball feelings version. It does make for good shows.
So knowing ball feelings version, let's dive into that real quick. I understand how the playoff
mechanisms work. That's the feelings version. I understand what makes people upset and what to talk
about on shows and what to write about. I understand how quarterback battles work.
like all the things that aren't just what does cover two look like what's a rat defender arey um
that's what my wife would call me every time i eat the last oreo you know what i think here's my
looks says no one's got himself into and brooks you tell me if i'm nuts i think that my actual
x's and o's ball knowledge is probably in line with the super fan no i'm talking about you
The average fan.
The average college football fan, and I feel like the people who watch your show are smarter
than me when it comes to that stuff.
And I'm okay.
I think Lee Corso said this best, right?
It's entertainment, baby.
Like, that's what it is.
And I think a lot of people that try to do what it is that we do from a film analysis
standpoint, they talk way over the heads of the audience.
That's hard.
I'm not one of these people that claims to know football more than the next guy.
I think what we do is educate football the best.
I think we educate football at the highest rate on the internet
because that's not what we're trying to do.
I'm not trying to have someone leave my film study go,
oh my God,
that guy's the smartest football person I've ever met or ever watched.
No, that's not the point.
The point is to educate, right?
We always say on our network,
the goal and the bar that we're trying to meet every time
is try to take someone that knows football at a calculus level, right?
Like a football coach.
entertain that guy and then take someone that knows football at a kindergarten level and educate that person.
We're trying to meet them in the middle. I'm not trying to talk over the head of the audience too often.
I think at times when you do that, you can lose them and their eyes will glaze over.
Just trying to be a good educator. That's what we're trying to do on our network.
So, but at the end of the day.
I think I'm at the eighth grade level.
So at the end of the day, this is this is entertainment.
It's what we're trying to do. We're trying to entertain audiences.
So whether you are a ball knower or whether you are a college football knower, which is what you are, Ari, that at the end of the day, you have to be entertaining.
And that's the bottom line.
So you guys do that at a really high rate.
And we do the entertainment stuff at a high rate.
Just do it a little bit differently.
That's all.
Well, what I love about yours, Brooks, is your film breakdowns very much explain the why.
You know, we can start with an Arch Manning when you did recently because I think it's if you, if you're,
watch that, you will understand, one, why Arch maybe didn't live up to all that hype
that he had going into last season, but two, why it's possible for him to be considerably
better this year depending on some things, because you pointed out a lot of stuff about Arch,
but I thought the more important takeaway from that for me was you were pointing out a lot
of stuff about Texas as offensive line play. And you were breaking down the bowl game. So this was
the last game of the season, and Texas's offensive linemen are making communication mistakes
that you shouldn't even be making week two in the last game of the season. And Arch's
clearly had been dealing with that all season. Yeah, we called him a pincushion late towards
end of the year last year. I mean, the guy was just getting lit up left and right. And look,
I do think some of that was on him to an extent because I'm a firm believer that the more
and more we play the quarterback position, the more we should be responsible for our own protection,
right, getting mic identifications correct, making sure our offensive lines on the same page.
Some of that's on the quarterback.
But young quarterbacks, we don't want to give them all of that because there's a lot of other
stuff that they're trying to pay attention to do defensive coverages, pre-snap and post-snap
alignments, you know, progressions that we have to work through.
We're intaking a lot of information.
So whatever we can take off their plate, we should do.
But you're right, Andy.
like there were basic things that they were messing up at a really high rate last year at Texas,
and it ultimately led to the detriment of their offensive execution rates, just basic stuff like
blocking power pass incorrectly, right?
Like we got our eyes in the wrong gap.
That's not okay.
It's one thing to get beat as an offensive alignment.
It's a whole other thing to beat ourselves.
And I felt for the last couple of years at Texas, man, there has been a consistent rate of
we're just not doing the right thing.
It's not that we don't have great football players.
It's not that we don't have, you know,
elite first round tackles like Goosby over there left tackle.
And then you turn the tape on it.
It's like, well, yeah, no,
you haven't given up a sack technically by PFF standards,
but your eyes were in the wrong gap right here.
And it created a quarterback pressure.
And now all of a sudden, the quarterback's running around trying to make a play.
And I left with a tremendous amount of respect for Arch's
toughness, his willingness to stand in there and continue to deliver strikes.
I think Steve Sarkisian said it best.
He said at some point last year it was just like, F it.
I'm just going to go out here and play.
Well, he had no choice.
He had no choice but to say F it.
Like, I'm just going to go do this on my own because a lot of the times last year,
he wasn't getting a lot of help, man.
So when you look at the way that Arch Manning is being treated this year,
a lot of hype again, you know, obviously from me.
but a lot of people think that he's going to be having a really good season,
especially considering the fact the pieces that they've installed around him,
obviously the offensive line is still a question mark,
and Trevor Goosby and his health is up in the air,
although it sounds like he won't be a prolonged injury.
When you see on tape,
do you see somebody who more closely resembles a first round NFL draft pick
or a top 10 pick,
or do you see an average college quarterback?
Look, I think he has NFL ability within the pocket, right?
Like, playing on the NFL level is a lot about being able to,
manipulate pockets and not bail out of pockets, right? Like, hey, our left guard's getting beat like
a steel drum. Let's make one little minor movement, stay with inside the pocket, keep our eyes
down field and let it rip. He does that at a high level. The problem with, with Arch's game right now for
me is we still, we don't play with a lot of touch. We won't play with a lot of what my dad would say
coof. We don't play with a lot of finesse. Everything has to be ripped 110 miles an hour. So all that like
15 and in work, he struggles with.
a lot. There's not a lot of ability to take gas off of it, just a tad bit. He can make all the
quote, unquote, NFL throws. What he messes up a lot is like, hey, we're running mesh. We got a shallow
cross running across our face. Just put it on them, man. Like, we don't have to rip this
hundred amount hour. And then he throws it three feet behind Ryan Wingo or three feet in front of them.
And we just, we miss the easy stuff. He does the hard stuff really well. He doesn't do the easy
stuff really well right about now. So if we can clean a lot of that up, I do think we'll,
increase our efficiency rates, we'll increase our completion percentage. Honestly, he's like
the complete antithesis of Julian San right about now where Julian San does all the easy stuff at
the highest rates anybody has ever done it, right? Some of that extra stuff, if he can unlock
that, that guy's got it in the bag, whereas Arch has got to figure out like all this touch stuff,
all this layering. Which one you think's harder, Brooks?
I think it's like physically, it's harder to get the top-notch horsepower unlocked
because we just may not ever have it.
Right.
Like we can put on weight, but we're six foot one, we're 205, 210 pounds.
We might not ever be a 100-mile-hour thrower, right?
Whereas like, I can teach the 100-mile-hour thrower, hopefully, how to locate and hit
spots if I can cross over into baseball a little bit.
So if I have the tools, it's easier to.
to shape them down, whereas I might not be able to just give you the God's gift of the tool.
Does that make sense?
Well, and you pointed out something really interesting, I thought, in the breakdown of Arch,
is that in the Texas offense and in the menu they give him, it's a lot of Athelanus scrimmage
stuff, and then it is 25 yards down the field.
Like, they give him, they give him the kid, to use your analogy from earlier, they give
them the kindergarten and they give him calculus.
Yeah, there's not a lot of easy work in that offense.
It is very pro-style.
And there's not a lot of hots built in.
Like everything is like Steve Sarkeesian's screen game is great.
You'll see a lot of coordinators steal from him.
We call it trailer, one of the screens that he has put in.
A lot of coordinators have stole it from him.
But all that, although like real quarterback work that they asked that kid to do,
it's all 15 to 30 yards downfield.
It's all in that intermediate to deep range.
There's not a lot of easy work for him to get through.
So, yeah, I would like to see a lot more of that.
They had one game last year.
I felt like they actually gave him quick, immediate answers.
And that was against Oklahoma and the Red River rivalry.
And I think I don't have the stats right in front of me,
but I think he completed like 20 balls for 186 yards
because a lot of that was like close to me.
It's like right now.
And it's like, hey, just keep applying that
because you guys can't protect to save your lives.
Like we all saw that last year.
And then you would turn games on later in the season and you're like,
why are you asking the quarterback to hold the ball for three and a half seconds?
Like I always like to pause the film when the first receiver looks for the football
because I know that's when he's coached, hey, this is the timing of the offense.
This is when you're supposed to get the ball.
And you'll see guys look for the ball and they're all like 17 yards downfield.
And you're like, that requires time.
That doesn't make much sense.
It's why I do think the Will Mush Champ edition was so huge for this defense.
Like, yeah, they were good defensively last year.
They were all right.
But it was clear to me that Steve Sarkesian felt he had to oversee some of their defensive stuff last year.
So wait a minute.
You're the head coach.
You're the offensive coordinator.
And you feel like you've got to oversee the defense.
Oh, no wonder you weren't calling plays at the rate that you normally do.
No, no wonder you weren't shredding up defenses like you always do.
come third, fourth quarter.
You're absolutely dialed up.
And you've got explosives left and right.
And then I hear him talk about,
it was right before the Cheez-I bowl,
they announced that they're higher
and Will Must champ.
And the first thing he said was,
I'm so glad to be able to hand over the defense
and allow Will,
I think his words were,
to be the head coach of the defense.
That set off alarms in my head
where I was like, oh,
he felt like he had to oversee that defense last year.
He's wearing too many hats.
I wonder the hat that was offensive coordinator's spot
was a little bit too tight for him last year.
That was to me one of the worst jobs
Steve Sarkeesian had done as an offensive coordinator,
and I think it was because he was a little bit overstretched
with all the responsibilities over there.
Yeah, you know, I wrote a column a few weeks ago,
feelings column, Brooks,
about why people might doubt him despite the fact that Andy and I
perceive that he's done a quite good job of building up the Texas program.
And a lot of it came down to offensive play calling,
and we were going to ask you about that.
You did a really good job of breaking it down.
But there aren't a lot of head coaches in college football
who call offensive plays and win championships.
What's your perception of how well he has done traditionally as a play caller?
And when you watch the film,
do you have confidence that he'll be able to do a really transcendent job again?
Or do you think it seems what you see that maybe he should consider giving that up?
Yes, I'm a big, like,
head coaches shouldn't call plays guy like most people are like the history says you should be.
But I think it's important to categorize these things, right?
Like Brent Vittables calls his own plays on the defensive side of the football,
but you know what Brent Vinnibles doesn't do?
Brent Vittables doesn't handle roster management.
He doesn't handle any of that.
Jim Nagy's a GM.
He doesn't he hands that completely over to him.
He doesn't meddle in the offense.
He's handled that completely over to his O.C.
Right?
Just like Steve now is doing with the defensive side of the football.
will handle all of that. I don't have to worry about any of that. He's got that. He's got that under lock. So it should free him up to be a much better offensive coordinator this year while maintaining the ability to be a head football coach. I even see this in like Hypole over there at Tennessee, right? Like you're calling your own plays, but you're horrendous in two minutes. Why? You're awful in timeout management. Why? Because we're over there with the Waffle House card figuring out what the defense is doing to us. We're looking at the iPad. We're doing all this.
this other stuff where we should probably be managing the game. Like that's what we should be doing
where if you do too many things, if you stretch yourself too thin, you're going to create problem
areas, right? So it's good to hire these guys to alleviate a lot of this pressure. I do think Steve
will be much, much better and back to his normal self as a play caller when I go to study it.
I also do think like some of that stuff, the more cracks you get at Steve, the better it is to like,
obviously it's easier to defend him.
When I watch him, man, like the whole entire deep passing game is based off play action.
Okay.
It's based off deep overs and posts.
Everything crosses the field.
Everything takes a while to deliver.
And if you can't run the football, you ain't going to be able to throw the football.
Like that's what happens to these play action-based deep passing tax.
So, and you'll see that when they play teams like Georgia.
When Georgia has boxed their running game, everything gets.
boxed. So there's a lot more there than just like we got to call good plays.
We got to be able to run the football at a much higher rate. We got to stop being
107th in penalties because we constantly get called for holding penalties, which I also
think is due to the fact that their primary run scheme is wide zone. And when we're trying
to stretch defensive ends, we're going to get called for a lot of holds. Like that is,
that is the history of football. And Andy could tell you that. It's a lot easier. So their
Their offensive line is big for, they're physically big for a wide zone team.
Like wide zone offensive linemen look like Iowa's offensive line.
Or Missouri's.
Yeah.
The guys that can get out and move a little bit.
But yeah, it's, it is an interesting situation.
It also explains why they, what you just said explains why they flip their running back room.
Get that run game better.
It gets everything else better.
But, okay, you made a lot of hay off the citrus bowl because I want to flip to another breakdown you did that where you really studied that game.
It was the other side, the team on the other side.
Bryce Underwood and Michigan.
This is one of the more controversial figures of the off season.
He said what he said about the Ohio State game.
That's feelings.
I would like to talk about how he plays on the field because what you have is a guy who's the number one overall recruit.
winds up starting as a true freshman, put under intense pressure.
Obviously, there was more going on behind scenes than we knew.
And now he's got a new offensive coordinator, new head coach, and it feels like a new lease.
But based on what you saw from Bryce Underwood, what do you expect to see different and the same this year?
Well, I'll start with this.
And you guys, I know y'all hear a lot of things and you'll talk to a lot of people, especially in the Big Ten worlds.
but like when I talk to people from Michigan
and the things that I hear about how assonine
that football program was last year and how poorly ran it was,
some of the things I hear, I'm like, no way.
That can't be real.
It can't be that bad.
It's a powerful football program.
No way that head coach was doing.
Yeah, it was.
It was absolutely wild.
It was hard for anybody,
especially an 18-year-old freshman,
to have success in what they were doing.
Like when Kyle Whittingham gets there and he's like,
I was stunned to find out,
the kid didn't even have a quarterbacks coach.
He didn't have anybody responsible for his day-to-day development and growth.
Oh, no wonder he developed bad habits.
No wonder he was out there in the citrus bowl, in the cheeszo bowl,
just like doing whatever.
He felt like he could to get away with things.
But I do think some of that is on Bryce, right?
Like some of the bad habits that we created,
we got away with our entire high school career
because we were the best football player on the field
and we could do whatever we wanted.
and we're immensely talented in the arm,
arm categories. So we could just do whatever with our lower body
mechanics. We could do whatever with our reeds. We can do
whatever with our eyes. We could stare things down because
that safety ain't getting over there because I'm about to rip the
laces off this thing and fit this into a tighter window.
Well, when we get to college, we can't do that stuff.
So when I watched that film from last year, right?
And I watched the early stuff against like Central Michigan
and Oklahoma. I'm like, okay, this kid's going to be really,
really good. And then by the end of the year, all the bad habits became worse. And we added new ones.
And you just can't win that way. I don't care how talented you are. You're not going to consistently
have success if we're not doing the right things as a quarterback when it comes to our mechanics.
And it's simple, right? It's tying our feet to our eyes, right? And John Materia has a terrible
habit of doing this as well. There's older football players that can't quite get rid of it. But I always
explain it to people this way. You don't have to know football at a high rate.
everyone, everyone's tried to swing a golf club.
Go try to swing a golf club and move your feet completely differently
every time you swing it.
Tell me if you have consistent results.
The answer will be heck no, you will not.
You will spray the golf ball all over the place.
Same thing at quarterback.
If we don't have consistent mechanics in our lower body,
we're going to spray the football all over the place.
And I saw that a lot with him last year.
It got to a point where I'm watching that against Texas.
And I'm like, they just need to start from scratch.
They just need to start from ground zero.
And from what I hear from Michigan people, that's what they're going to do.
They're going to start from ground zero with this kid.
I've taken golf lessons before.
And literally the first step in golf lessons is where do you put your feet and how do you hold the club?
And I'm always marvel at how their step in quarterback lessons too.
Yeah.
That's the point I'm getting at that.
They're very similar.
It's why most quarterbacks are good golfers because it's a ground force thing.
All we're doing is from a.
like explosiveness and from an accuracy standpoint,
it's tied to our lower body, believe or not.
Which is why I marvel at how that's possible at this level.
How to get to a point.
So Brooks is not kidding about how immensely talented Bryce Underwood is.
There's a play in the bowl game.
And like I laughed out loud when you,
because I remember watching this play live when it happened.
Basically, the protection breaks down completely.
He has no time to throw.
he throws completely off his back foot,
but rips it into the corner of the end zone,
and it's a freaking touchdown.
Like,
if you're that talented and you can get away with stuff like that,
it makes sense why you might develop bad habits,
especially if you're being poorly coached.
Yeah.
I mean, it's almost bad that you get away with it
because you think you can continue to get away with it
until it goes wrong.
And then you're like, oh, crap.
But I do think there is another,
like very similar to arch.
There needs to be a development as a touch thrower, as a layerer of the football.
I always worry about quarterbacks when every ball is a one ball, right?
We separate the throws into three categories, right?
A one ball, you can put it on a close line.
A two ball is like a little bit of layer.
It's got a little bit of arch.
And then that three balls, that moon ball, that Russell Wilson,
it ought to scrape the sky and come back down on these deeper routes.
He's a great one ball thrower.
and everybody who's ever thrown a football is a pretty good three ball thrower.
The development and the growth and the rocket growth of a quarterback comes,
where we can actually throw those two balls,
when we can throw underneath, you know, over underneath defenders
and back underneath safeties and third level defenders,
that's when we become elite thrower of the football.
I always get really, really worried when I watch a highlight tape
or I watch a shorts and t-shirts thrower,
and every ball looks like Will Levis
and that indoor facility that we see go viral every year.
It's like every ball looks like he's throwing it 110 miles an hour.
Well, buddy, that might be the only ball he can throw.
And if that's the case, we're not going to live.
We're not going to live very long playing this position
and we're not going to survive.
So I always worry about that when I see with quarterbacks.
Like, do we have touch?
Can we throw with a little bit of touch?
I don't know if he can right now.
And that's something he's going to have to figure out.
Who is going to improve more this year, Arch Manning or Bryce Underwood?
Well, to me, like, Arch, Arch doesn't have, like, it's the underneath stuff that we talked about,
but, like, the stuff around Arch has to get much better.
All right.
So there's not a ton of, like, honestly, there's not a ton of room for growth there that I see on film
because I thought the dude was playing good football towards the end of the year last year,
despite what the internet and box sports scouts might tell you about him.
So Bryce, to me, Bryce has all.
the room to grow because it was it was pretty bad from a from a quarterback playing standpoint
last year. I mean, I know the coordinating was bad, right? But it's got to be a little bit of both
where like if you watch that breakdown like you guys have and the audience, if they go watch
that Bryce Underwell breakdown, what you will notice is about midway through the study. You're like,
oh, my God, they're repeating concepts left and right. They're repeating concepts over and over
again. It became a spamming four-verts type of offensive coordinating call. And sometimes I wonder like,
okay, OC obviously bad, right? Coaching obviously bad. But is that also a retention thing? Like,
were we not able to give him the full slate of the offensive play call because he couldn't
execute it at a high rate? Do we have to give him the vanilla offense because all he can
absorb is the vanilla offense? Those are questions I don't know. I don't know the answer to. Maybe I could
call around and get an answer to. But that's why I would say Bryce has far more room to grow,
so he probably will grow at a higher rate. So if he does grow, I mean, that's the thing,
because there is such immense talent underlying here. If he does grow, what's the ceiling for Michigan
this year? Well, I mean, guys, they won nine football games last year with the history. The history,
the college football's history's most distracted head football coach of all time.
Now, I think a lot of that was due to the fact that the schedule was relatively
manageable last year, this year, not so much.
This year, the schedule is a little bit tougher.
So you might see better play from the quarterback position and better play from the
offense as a whole.
Meanwhile, they might get the same output in terms of win totals.
So I think those things could be a little bit misleading when you look at it at the end
of the season or you're just stacking wins this year versus wins last year
because I do think the schedule is a little bit tougher this year, right?
And you guys got it thrown up on the screen right there.
You play the big three, right?
You're one of the schools in the big 10 like Nebraska and like USC that drew all three of them.
You got to play Indiana, Oregon, and Ohio State good luck.
So at the end of the year, it might look like the same wins total with a different output
at the quarterback position and more growth of that position.
So what does the ceiling look like?
Maybe you win every game except those big three football games, right?
and maybe you play those a lot tighter than you did a year previously, particularly that Ohio State matchup.
So I think that's what I would look at this year is more like, hey, is he actually doing the right things at the quarterback position?
Or does he still look like a five-star high school talent trying to play college the way he played in high school?
Those were the things that I would be looking for.
One more that you just broke down and you had a limited sample size with Keel and Russell.
But I'm fascinated by what you saw.
saw because some of the little things, well, they're not little things. Some of the fundamental
things you notice with him, specifically the release and how quick it is, I just, I'm drinking
all the Kool-Aid at this point. Like I asked Ari this question when he was named the starter.
I said, does this make you want to have a mulligan to re-rank Alabama? And Ari's like,
I don't know if it, it does for me. And I'm just curious what you saw.
Obviously, small sample size from when he played last year.
You went back into his high school tape too.
But what stuck out to me is something you said about,
there are certain things with a QB that you notice,
this is how they are.
This is how they're going to be despite the level.
And he seems to have some pretty good habits
when it comes to how he is.
Yeah, and I even talked about it in that breakdown.
And I talked about it last night on our show is like,
most five-star high school tape,
like quarterback tape, you can throw it away.
Like most of that stuff's not going to apply.
Most of those things that you're doing in high school,
you're getting away with because you're an elite specimen.
Like you are the best talented athlete on the field, right?
Like there's a five-star quarterback that has lit up the circuit this off season
that might may or may not be committed to a Big Ten school where I watch his tape and I'm like,
man, I wish I'd get to see you play quarterback a little bit more.
Like you're running around and I don't think.
think you're going to be running around when you get to college, you're going to be asked to be
a thrower and you're going to get asked to play the position. Whereas like with Keelan, you turn on
Duncanville High School football tape. You're like, oh, he's at Duncanville. He's got like 17 division
one football players with him. All these things are going to be perfect. All these pockets are
going to be clean. No, they were not. And you talked about a habit that he has, a great habit.
He steps up. When you watch him, when tackles are getting beat, when guards are getting beat,
he doesn't have a propensity to bail out of pockets and start running around and just using his legs.
He has a propensity to step up in pockets, keep his eyes down field, and find pure progressive reads.
That's playing the quarterback position.
That's not just being a great thrower, which he is.
He plays the quarterback position at a high rate.
And look, this is something that Ryan Grubb and Kalin DeBoer, that is their skill set.
If they have a skill set better than anybody else, in my opinion, it's identifying high school quarterbacks that are
actually playing quarterback, not just running around winning. All right, that's great. That's great,
Jackson Arnold, that you have five-star tape and you run around and you win. That's great, Brock Vandergriff,
that you run around and you win. That's awesome. I'd rather see you make somebody miss inside the
pocket, keep our eyes downfield, find the second, third, fourth read, and they rip the football because
that's what you're going to have to do when you actually play Saturday football. So if you ever wonder
why some of these guys don't hit at a high rate when they get to college, despite the fact that
they got elite traits.
They can't see the field.
They literally cannot look through the defense and find the right answer.
This kid has shown good habits throughout high school when it's a time period where
we can just win off traits.
And he wasn't doing that.
He was winning with his mind.
He was winning with his pocket throws.
And again,
I think that's what Ryan Grubb and Kaylon DeBoard do best.
If you go watch all of their high school takes, right, the guys that they take in the position,
it is 15 minutes worth of tape of them throwing out.
absolute dots from the pocket, not running around, making plays.
I'm talking about playing the position from within side the structure of the offense,
because that's what they have to do at Alabama.
They asked those quarterbacks to play it at a really, really high rate.
They're not RPO in their way down the field.
They're playing pure progressive football like Sunday quarterbacks are asked to do.
And this is something I got tipped off with watching their tape against,
oh, you know, when they were at Washington with Michael Pennix.
And it's why I was so high on him coming out of college.
I'm like, whoa, whoa, this guy's playing the spot.
This guy, this guy is playing the position at a really, really high rate.
He's not just RPO and KonaVision football.
This guy is clicking through reeds, tying his feet to his eyes,
playing for inside the pocket, getting the ball out on time,
throwing anticipatorily.
Like, this dude's playing at a high rate.
All their quarterbacks do, all their quarterbacks do,
which is why, if you were to ask me, does it change my predictive outcome of Alabama football?
No, not really, because I think Austin Mack was going to be that.
too. This kid's just a little bit more of a playmaker. So when things break down a little bit,
he might be able to, as their quarterbacks coach said, make good shit happen. He will do that at a
high rate. But his first thought on every single play is first read, second, read, third read,
where's my hot, then the exit strategy, which is my legs, right? Like, this is a four by one hundred
meter runner in high school and won a state championship. Like this dude can go, but it's the last
ditched effort for exit strategies for him as a quarterback, and that's the way you need to play it.
Brooks, the biggest question about Alabama last year, or biggest shortcoming, I should say,
is their inability to run the football. How much of that was personnel based, how much of that
was scheme based? And obviously going with Keelan's a big boost, but if they can't run the ball,
they're probably going to have issues. How confident are you that they're going to be able
to figure out how to fix that? Well, the thing that I love most about what Kaylin did this offseason was,
he didn't wait around to curve the miss and make himself right, right?
Like he got rid of basically everybody in the room, whether it be NFL draft or sending
them to Texas A&M, and he brought in a bunch of new bodies.
Okay, so we changed the personnel.
We also changed the office line coach.
We fired the office line coach, brought in Clem.
So we changed everything about it.
We recognized the problem, and we didn't wait around and go, hey, let's just give it another
year.
Nope, and needs to be fixed right now.
Let's clean house.
And that's exactly what he did.
You talked about personnel.
I did think there was a disconnect between the types of football players that they had last year and the first year that he was there and the type of offense that they actually want to beat.
Right. And look, I've been known as like this Caden Proctor hater or whatever, but let's just take him for example.
Caden Proctor was a 385 pound left tackle. Okay.
Their tackle at Washington, Troy Fontenew, he was quote unquote, an undersized offensive tackle at Washington, used his athleticism at a high rate because,
Shocker, they were a wide zone counterbased football team.
That requires athletes at the position.
I think that's what they want to be.
They want to be a more athletic offensive line.
They want to be a stretch football team.
They want to build their play action,
rollout game off of that.
And they couldn't do that because they had Caden properly.
The only athlete they had up front last year was Parker Brailsford.
Shocker, a transfer from Washington, an undersized center.
That's what they want to be.
So when our,
when our personnel doesn't match our actual intentions from a
basis, we're going to have problems.
Like, we're going to have problems where our skill set does not match our identity
what we want to beat, where this year I think they're going to get back to this, right?
They're going to get back to more athletic-based linemen and have guys that can actually
move and get after it.
So I do think they're going to match what they want to do at a little bit higher rate,
whether or not they actually get it executed as a whole other different discussion.
We talked about Texas offensive linemen having bad eyes last year.
Alabama might be a close second for worst.
Like Alabama couldn't do the basics last year.
They couldn't identify mics correctly.
They didn't know who they were responsible for in past protection.
Andy will tell you this,
the number one way to get fired as an offense
coordinator or an offensive line coach is to have run-throughs,
have guys that are running through your offensive line
being completely untouched.
And I would venture to say it's not a stat kept by pro football focus,
but I would venture to say Alabama led the nation
and run-throughs last year.
guys that are just getting to Ty Simpson without even being touched.
And we can't have that, man.
We had Josh Chavez.
And I think they get that addressed.
We had Josh Quavis on during the Senior Bowl.
And Josh was a starting tight end for Alabama last year.
He was not trying to throw shade or anything.
He was just saying what happened.
And he said the communication was awful.
It just, it wasn't good.
They had to fix that if they were going to protect better.
And that's the truth.
And that's why, you know,
You change the line coach, you change the tight ends coach.
Perhaps the past pro is better.
You mentioned the body types, the athleticism that they would prefer on their offensive line with these coaches.
I'm going to give everybody a name.
Brooks, I already know this name.
Racing Delgaddy.
Center from Cal Poly.
And people are like, oh, Cal Poly to Alabama.
Go watch this guy against Utah last year.
Go watch this guy against future NFLD lineman.
He's fun.
You're going to like him.
And he's, to your point, what they're looking for.
Yeah, 6-3, 300 pounds, quote unquote, undersized,
but the Duke can flat go at the offensive line position.
So, yeah, those are these types of offensive linemen.
They're not, you know, not to crap on Caden anymore.
But the guard that they had last year was 340.
pounds. It's like,
Nick,
Nick's even wanted a certain type of offensive linemen.
Like,
yeah.
And you look,
you watch Georgia.
They,
Kirby wants a certain type of offense that they have a,
they have a preference.
But if you build your scheme around that type of person,
that's great.
But if you're trying to run a scheme that that person doesn't fit,
everybody's going to look bad.
It's just the truth.
Yeah,
your identity has to match an attainable talent.
Like,
they have to coincide.
right like not to i stole this from mac campbell i thought like matt campbell is one of the best football
coaches i've seen from a standpoint of oh wait a minute so we're not going to be able to get twitched
up offensive linemen we're only going to be able to recruit corn fed middle american folks uh so guess what
we'll be 13 personnel football team we'll just line up and be big oh wait so we're not going to be
able to go down to southeastern uh areas of the country and recruit four and five star corners that
can run four threes okay we'll run a three three five five
and we'll just be the biggest, tallest, longest,
slowest football team that there is.
But we're going to cloud windows by being big, tall, and long.
It's one of the questions I have about him going over to Penn State
where it's like, okay, well, now you will be able to recruit the DMV.
Now you will be able to recruit Twitch sub athletes.
Are you going to change how you play football based off the types of players
that you're actually able to recruit?
I would imagine he will.
I would imagine, you know, they'll look a little bit different than they did at Iowa
state from a schematical standpoint because they're able to actually recruit blue chip
caliber football players now, not players with certain deficiencies, whether it be speed
or whether it be size or whatever have you. These things have to tie in one another.
They have to make sense. And I felt for the last two years, especially the first year at Alabama,
where it's like, you know, they've never recruited, Kailen DeBore and Ryan Grubb have never recruited
a quarterback like Jalen Milrow ever.
and they never will.
They will never recruit a runner first.
They will always recruit pure progressive passers,
guys that can sling it, right?
Like, that's not what Milro is.
And I felt like they were extremely uncomfortable
their first year as play callers out there at Alabama.
And they got much more comfortable last year
when Ty Simpson took over the helm,
but they just didn't have the parts up front
on the offensive line to match it.
So now we're in year three,
and now all these things are making a little bit more
sense where our talent pool is matching our intended scheme and you should get better results out of it.
Well, I cannot wait to see. We got Alabama, East Carolina week one. They go to Kentucky week two.
That'll be a very interesting test for them. Brooks, this has been a lot of fun. I cannot wait to
have you back on once games start because we're going to have refresh off your film breakdowns.
And I just want to make sure everybody understands. Click that QR code that's on the screen right now.
take you to the Film Guy Network on YouTube, you hit subscribe
because Brooks is going to tell you the why.
That's very, very important.
Brooks, thank you so much.
No doubt, gentlemen.
Appreciate you all.
That's Brooks, Austin, and I'm now probably even more excited
about Keel and Russell at Alabama.
He did a great job.
That was a great segment.
That was fantastic.
And we'll have Brooks on throughout the season,
especially as we get more fresh game film for him to break down.
This is going to be a lot of fun.
And again, if you aren't subscribe to the Film Guy Network,
hit that subscribe button on YouTube.
If you're not subscribed on 3 on YouTube,
well, hit subscribe.
Please.
We'll give you a little push notification every time we come on.
And remember, we're going to start going live on Saturdays now.
So this particular Saturday,
we'll be live right after the North Carolina TCU game.
On most Saturdays, once we begin the regular season schedule,
11.30 p.m. Eastern time is when we're going live to break down the whole day.
And of course, if there are crazy results, then we are going to have emergency shows.
Andy, can I tell you something?
I just want to be honest with you.
I know that we've gotten into a little bit of a groove, and I know that we're pre-recording our shows in the morning and then putting them out in the afternoon.
I really do have a, I miss going live and being able to interact with people while we're doing the show live.
So, you know, we will have emergency shows because those are more common, obviously, in the fall than they are in the off season.
but I am super juiced about our Saturday night shows returning.
Those are, I think, my favorite shows to do of the year.
We're also going to add a phone number.
Yes.
It allows you to call in and leave us voicemails.
So be prepared for that because we want you,
we kind of want you calling in right after your team's game ends.
We want it completely fresh.
We want your absolute fresh take.
We need you to teach River how to be a crazy vol in public.
Yes.
He's a crazy vault privately.
We need to bring it out.
him.
You know, I've been texting him trying to egg him on to be like more crazy and like more,
you know, out there.
Come on, River.
I don't know if he has it in him.
Soon.
Soon.
I'll have more hope infused in me after the first few weeks.
And then you want to see phase on against Furman.
I see how it is.
Yeah.
I just think that the biggest blunder in Andy and Arion three history was not having Rivers
meltdown recorded for our show when Nico entered the portal.
I rolled out of bed.
It's like, oh, he's in the portal.
You're just too nice.
I don't think River's situation was typical.
Because remember, River works.
Yeah, on three with us.
River had to get ready for work.
River had, but River had inside information that the typical
Volfan didn't have.
Because remember the typical Volfan was yelling at us
and made like Danny Connell yelling at us.
And I, like, I'm texting Danny Cannell saying,
hey, you might want to take that tweet down
because it's going to look pretty dumb in a couple hours.
And, you know, it did.
Yeah.
So.
What a time. What a time.
Well, I guess there's nothing better than pure real reaction to a heartbreaking loss or a big time win.
We'll see.
Last year, Georgia was close.
Tomorrow, five bold predictions for me for the 2006 season.
Also, dear Andy, dear Ari, Ari, I've already got one.
I know where I'm reading.
Somebody's asked me to plan their wedding.
I would trust you with the food.
I don't know what else you would do.
Yeah, I don't know that I would trust me with anything.
Because you know my take about wedding food, right?
Like, just get burgers and fries and chicken fingers and pizza by the slice and everyone's happier than with the stuffy, like, pre-made steak.
It always comes down to mall food court food with R.E.
You know, you go to a wedding and you're sitting there and they, you know, those tins, they pull it up and they give you your freaking.
Oh, yeah, nobody wants that.
Nobody wants that shit.
It's more expensive.
If you had an in-and-out food truck and a pizza by the slice guy, you know that every wedding has the late night food?
You ever see how people flock to the late-night food at the end of the night when it's chicken fingers and fries?
that they put out after dinner like four hours later.
That should be the main course.
Anyway, we'll get into that tomorrow.
Absolutely.
We'll also talk about football too.
Yeah, five bold predictions coming.
Spoiler, I was a, that's 40% last year.
That's good.
You'll have to guess which two are right.
We'll talk to you tomorrow.
