Andy & Ari On3 - Utah QB Cam Rising Out | Thursday Night Predictions | FSU Offensive Linemen Join | Andy Staples On3

Episode Date: August 31, 2023

Utah QB Cam Rising Out | Thursday Night Predictions | FSU Offensive Linemen Join | Andy Staples On3Thank you to BirdDogs for sponsoring this episode of Andy Staples On3. Don't look anywhere else for the best shorts or pants ahead of football season! Visit BirdDogs.com/Staples and use promo code Staples at checkout for a free hydro flask style water bottle!Want to watch the show instead? Head on over to YouTube - don't forget to subscribe!https://youtu.be/ln3DFqMcXwAThursday Night Games are upon us, and there's some news regarding a QB we were hoping to see.Utah's QB Cam Rising is expected to be OUT for Game 1 vs. Florida. Rising is recovering from a torn ACL suffered in last year's Rose Bowl Game. (0:00-3:06)The College Football Playoff Committee met for the first time since all of the realignment, and nothing really crazy came out of it. (3:07-6:10)Oklahoma QB General Booty has established a new NIL deal, and well... it's fitting. (6:11-9:45)Next up, we head back down to Tallahassee to talk to our favorite position group, the offensive line. Florida State's center Maurice Smith and guard D'Mitri Emmanuel joins to discuss their coach Alex Atkins, what it's like in the trenches, and how excited they are for the upcoming season. (9:46-23:48)We have Thursday night games right ahead of us and we link up with On3's J.D. Pickell of the Hard Count. We first start off with what potential storylines would cause chaos amongst the fan bases. Huge shoutout to the CFB Subreddit for this one. (23:49-50:00)Next, Thursday night games! First off, we discuss the marquee matchup on ESPN: Florida and Utah (50:01-53:30). We then discuss Matt Rhule's debut at Nebraska against PJ Fleck and Minnesota (53:31-56:20)Dave Doeren and the NC State Wolfpack also kickoff their season Thursday night as they head up to UConn for a match with the Huskies. (56:21-59:00)For the Extra Point, Andy reviews the wild Bishop-Sycamore documentary on Max (59:01-01:12-48)

Welcome to Andy Staples on three. We are one day away from the start of week one. We get big action Thursday. We get games all the way through Monday. It is going to be an extravaganza of college football. We have maybe a little more clarity about one of the bigger games on thursday though multiple reports out of utah also confirmed by pete thamel of espn cam rising probably not going to play for utah the starting quarterback who tore his acl in the rose bowl was trying to get back in time for the season open against florida but it looks like he's not going to be available now you will hear later in the show me and j.D. Piquel picking this game. That segment we recorded on Tuesday because I wasn't sure if I was going to have power because we were about to get hit by a hurricane. Fortunately, everything was okay here.

But we picked that game, at least I did, on the assumption that Cam Rising wasn't going to play. And here's the reason why. We talked about this with Paul Feinbaum on Tuesday. It's just that common sense would dictate if you've got a quarterback who uses his legs, that's a big part of his game, you're trying to win a third consecutive conference title, you've got a big non-conference game to open,

but it's not a conference game, I don't think you risk him. You get him as ready as you can for when you're playing conference games, trying to win the Pac-12. And Utah can still win this game without Cam rising. Vegas still thinks Utah can win this game without Cam rising, just not by as much. This game's moved around on the line a little bit, but it was seven and a half earlier this week. It dropped to six and a half. Now it has dropped to four and a half as of Wednesday afternoon.

So it is still Utah favored, but not by as much. So it makes sense. Bryson Barnes will be the starting quarterback. Most likely you saw him come into the Rose bowl against Ohio state when Cam rising got knocked out a few seasons ago. And then you saw him start a game against Washington State last year. Nate Johnson is the backup who probably you'll see him in a change of pace role.

And I recall my conversation with Rick Neuheisel, the former UCLA and Colorado and Washington coach, last week on the radio on his on rick's show rick thinks jaquind and jackson their their tailback who averaged 6.8 yards a carry should get a little wildcat action so i wouldn't be surprised if utah has a lot of different wrinkles that it can throw at florida because they've known that cam rising isn't quite ready they've known this for a while. So I don't think it's that big of a surprise to them. I don't think Kyle Whittingham and Andy Ludwig, the OC, are going to have to do much to change what they were already planning because they knew this was coming. So

we'll see what happens. But that is big news for one of the biggest games of Thursday night. Not huge news coming out of the college football playoff meeting. I don't know that we expected a lot to change, but this was the first meeting of all the commissioners who run the college football playoff since all the realignment stuff went down, where basically the Pac-12 got gutted by the Big Ten and the Big 12. George Klayavkov, the Pac-12 commissioner, was there. Not sure exactly what he was saying or who he was representing at this point. But they did not make any decisions on format. I know everybody's wondering, are they going to add another at-large spot, take away an auto bid?

Because right now it's the sixth highest ranked conference champs and six at large bids but if the pac-12 is is no longer a functional entity if there's nine fbs conferences essentially do you have it be the the five highest ranked conference champions and seven auto bids or do you go even further and try to get more auto bids? They didn't make that decision right now. They don't have to make that decision right now. My guess is they're going to try not to have 12 auto bids right now because that's going to invite antitrust scrutiny. That's going to cause a lot of problems. If they do anything, it's maybe take one auto bid away, add one more at large, which essentially makes it the same kind of balance as before

when you had five quote-unquote power conferences. You'll have four now and then five group of five conferences. So you still have the highest ranked group of five conference champion getting into the playoff. If they're going to take those auto bids away, you think maybe before the new TV contract in 2026, I don't even think they do it then. I think what you'll see is when they make that TV contract in 2026, they make it line up a little more with when everybody else's next TV contract, when the other conferences TV contracts are starting to run out. And then you'll see maybe some consolidation and some stuff like

that. So I don't think they're going to try to do that right away. I think probably the plan is have those five auto bids and seven at larges. And that way the other conferences do feel like they have a chance, because if you take the feeling of having a chance away, that's when you're going to have problems. And right now now the idea behind the college football playoff is to make college football more of a national endeavor get more fan bases engaged more of them involved if it's really only two conferences that have a chance at those bids that's not what's going to happen so I think probably you'll just see a minor tweak if they do that at all, but they don't have to do that yet. The only thing of consequence that

they approved on Wednesday is a travel stipend for families of players on the teams for the extra two rounds. So that's about it right now, but it's probably coming. They're probably going to have to make that tweak at some point. Other big news on Wednesday, and I don't know if it was big news, but it was all over the internet. General Booty. For those who don't know, General Booty is a member of a famous football family. I know you're wondering about the name.

The Booty family, though, you probably already heard of. Abram played wide receiver at LSU. Josh played quarterback at LSU. John David played quarterback at USC. They were brothers, and they all played in the 90s and early 2000s. Abram's son, his name is General. That's right. Abram named his kid General Axel Booty. Yes, Axel is his

middle name. General Booty is a quarterback at Oklahoma. He is probably not going to play quarterback at Oklahoma on the field in games because they've already got Dylan Gabriel starting and Jackson Arnold is the five-star freshman who is assumed to be the quarterback of the future there. But what General Booty is going to do is cash in on that amazing name with NIL deals. And he's got a doozy. On Wednesday, a commercial for the new General Booty boxers from Rock'em Sox dropped. And we're going to play that for you. We're not going to have the sound because there's a song in there that if we play it, we'll probably get a copyright strike, but it's the beat to Old Town Road, which once you see the video, you will see how well this fits. But here is the General Booty commercial from Rock'em Sox. so the boxers in the booty it is one of the best nil deals we've seen so far and it's from a guy who's probably not going to play it down at the position he's supposed to play it's it's truly

amazing if oklahoma gets a big lead i'm sure there will be many, many chants, General, General, General. And who knows? Maybe he gets in. Maybe he sells some extra boxers. Just a tremendous use of NIL. We salute you, General Booty. When we come back, though, we got to help get you ready for all of these games. J.D. Piquel is going to come.

We're going to outline some disaster scenarios for week one. That's what might happen where even if your team wins, you're going to the message boards and melting down. These are the scenarios that will just set you off, win or lose. We're also going to pick some of the Thursday night games. But before that, we'll get you ready for the biggest game of the week, which is happening Sunday. And that is Florida state and LSU Maurice Smith, the center for Florida state, Dimitri Emanuel jr. One of the guards for Florida state kind enough to join and talk about what it's been like turning that Florida state offensive line back into a respectable unit. That was the problem at Florida State. I mean, they had multiple problems for several years,

but that was the biggest problem area for the Seminoles. And it is now a position of strength for them. And these two gentlemen are a big reason why. So when we come back, we will hear from some of the big guys at Florida State. All right. I am here. Two members of the Florida State offensive line, Maurice Smith, Demetri Emanuel, his friends call him Meech. We will start.

So this show, we're trying to be the safe space for offensive linemen. And we've had Olufashu from Penn State on. We have Cooper Beebe from Kansas State. We're trying to get all the best O-Lime in the country collecting. But we ask them all the same question. Your perfect steak, cut, and how are you cooking it? I probably could say a ribeye medium. All right.

So everybody said ribeye so far. Yeah. I'm going to be different. I ain't going to lie to you. I like a nice little bone-in filet. Ooh. I like the flavor with the bone in, but I still like the tenderness of that filet. And you cook a medium plus. Medium plus.

Okay. I like mine. So we got a medium plus and a medium. It's been medium rare. I'm still the only rare. I haven't met another rare yet. No, no. When I was medium. It's been medium rare. I'm still the only rare. I haven't met another rare yet. No, no, when I was your age, I was medium rare. But the older I got, the more I'm like just, you know, leave it moving.

I'm good. So you guys have become one of the strengths of this team. And Maurice, I'm going to ask you because you've been here. How long did it take you to get here as a group? Probably it took, you know, say three years, two years. You know, the process, you know, took a long time. You know, bringing the right guys in. They're out, just working, you know, setting the standard.

And they brought guys, like in your case as a center, they brought guys in to try to take your starting job, and here you are. Yeah, man. It's always been the case, you know, to push me. That's the only thing you do. You just keep pushing me and driving me each day. Now, Alex Atkins is your offensive line coach. Meech, he was your offensive line coach at Charlotte.

Yes, sir. And then he left to come here. You kept playing at Charlotte but then joined joined him last year what was that decision like well it was a pretty easy decision for me I knew um being at Charlotte I had a new offensive line coach every single season so um that year coach Atkins left I had a good season and I was able to gain a lot of knowledge just from his coaching style and then when he left I could see the transition from, you know, maybe me knowing a little bit more than the coach or, you know,

trying to, hey, coach, you know, you used to kind of run it like this. What do you think about that? So, you know, it was an easy decision for me once I was trying to look for a new home in the portal, trying to come to Florida State. It was pretty simple. And what was it like with Coach Atkins again? Is it just like you never, you know, he never left? Or is it like new acclimation?

It was refreshing. Okay. It was refreshing because he's still the same as he was at Charlotte. He honestly, like, he's got a little – I ain't going to say he's soft, but, like, he's a little bit more understanding here just because I feel like here, you know, he done built the room up. Got guys from high school, and he's developing them at Charlotte. Like, he was just – he came in, he what he had was already there you know yeah you know so he was just

talking a little crazy to us but he still well i was watching him at practice today especially when y'all were doing like the the zone stuff and you know that's that's when we're coaches if you do something wrong they tend to blow up yeah but he he does a lot of teaching yeah yeah he's um he does a lot of teaching a lot of focus on fundamentals now once he teaches it to you and you keep messing up that's when you have the problem so it's uh you know it's a far line between you know growth and uh you know trying to keep getting better so what was he like when he first got here uh honestly you know when he first got here um the room was messed up so uh wasn't necessarily messed up but you know we had the wrong guys in the room was messed up. So it wasn't necessarily messed up, but, you know,

we had the wrong guys in the room. And, you know, he had to just, you know, take out the guys that was counselors and bring in the guys that are positive. He was still understanding, but, you know, he was more of a, you know, like trying to teach us and trying to like set a culture here. How did you figure out who the right kind of people were to have in that room? Like what is everybody like now versus before? Now we just got the people in the room that, you know,

that's willing to, you know, grow each day. They're not, you know, going past like, you going past their egos or accolades and anything like that. Everybody just had a head down the road, like Meech. We just talked about it today. I told him, I said, he told me, he said, I remember when you told me I mess with you, and you a good guy.

I told him that last year when you first got here i told him he had to have he had he had to have a good camp so it's like no pressure no pressure yeah so i told him i say man i think he wanted the guys and he stepped up and started and played and bringing in bringing in these type of guys like like him is the way we'll be right back with more from maurice and meech from the florida state offensive line but first i want to tell you about bird dogs Like him is the way. We'll be right back with more from Maurice and Meech from the Florida State offensive line. But first I want to tell you about bird dogs. My first taste of the combo lifestyle came with workout shorts.

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I've ever owned. Plus they've got that liner in there to make sure everything is where it needs to be. And oh, by the way, I am never buying or washing underwear to wear with them because it's already in there. Bird Dogs helps you live your most efficient life. They've also got beautiful polos like the Fidel Bass Pro here. So go to birddogs.com slash staples or use the promo code staples. Get a free Hydro Flask style bottle with your order. Get some shorts, get some pants, get get a polo you will be living the combo lifestyle you'll be living your most efficient life with bird dogs it's birddogs.com staples promo code staples how competitive is that room now because i mean there are guys who who have started before who may not start now. There are guys that have

been brought in to win starting jobs that guys who've been here are like, nope, not giving it back. I mean, I think it's a super competitive room. But I think, you know, one thing that Coach has done a good job is he lets guys know coming in

what it is going to be. There's no free handouts, none of that. But also at the same time, we are still a close unit because we know we're going to need every single person. So it's a fine line between, you know, everyone wants to go out there and play. Everyone wants to showcase themselves. Of course, we're all very competitive.

But at the same time, if you're not doing your jobs, hey, somebody's going to take your job. You know what I'm saying? And you know that. You know that coming into meeting rooms. You know that every day you've got to practice. So you've got to give your all. You know what I'm saying? And you know that. You know that coming into meeting rooms. You know that every day you've got to practice. So you've got to give your all. So we've got a center and a tackle.

Who has the tougher job? I'll say the center got the toughest job. He's got to get everyone lined up on the offense. He's got to be the field general, see the safety, see the defense moving. So he starts with the center. I mean, the tackle's hard too, guard, but everything starts up front with the center. How much better do you understand how defenses work than when you got here? Yeah, coming in, I see things way different now.

Yeah. Way different. At first, it was just learning what to do and how to do it. And so now I'm on the other side, looking at the defense and seeing pressures, corner catch, everything. Like, it's a whole different phase of this game now. When you're watching, like, an NFL game on TV, do you find yourself calling things out? More so. I just – I look and see what the defense is doing, but I just – I look at the center and see how he's communicating and looking at things. So where is there more trash talk, on the interior of the line

or on the exterior of the line? Interior, man. It gets bad inside. It's crazy. People be talking crazy. Is that because there's more double teams, because there's just bigger dudes? How does it work? Yeah, stuff like that.

You can get away with a lot more stuff just closer on the inside. Yeah. Sometimes the play going the other way, say something real quick, or, you know, gets a little shot or something, you know. The backside trash talk is fascinating to me, because that always feels like that could come around and bite you in the ass a play or two down the road if you're not careful. It always bites you in the butt on field goal, I'll tell you that.

You can talk all game, but field goal, goal hey it's a free shot for the defense so that's true you're just clamping down yeah they're coming at you it's always gonna be a free shot right there but i mean you gotta make sure you're on your p's and q's man okay i imagine just between the two of you i'm guessing Meech is the bigger talker in-game. Am I wrong? To be honest with you, I'll talk to you if you want to talk. We talk all day, but I'm trying to operate out there. So I'm trying to talk to my center and my tackle, make sure we're on the same page. So if the guy you're playing against is quiet, you're not going to mess with him? It depends who it is now.

Like sometimes I'll go – Last year, we played a team and there was a guy. I watched one of his interviews. He just seemed real immature, real childish. So I just... I knew that game. I'm coming in trying to get you out your game. It actually worked. What did you say to him?

I was leaving for the field. But I was just... You were doing homework? Yeah, man. I really was just – Man, you're doing homework? Yeah, man. I really was, though. Because, I mean, it's a competitive game, man, especially at this school, like Florida State. Like I'm trying to do everything I possibly can.

So it's actually one of our rivalry games. Do you have a note on your phone with like, all right, this dude's girlfriend just dumped him? Nah. This guy's got bad grades. I guess there's something to work on. I mean, just stuff I take on just from filming

during the week. But nothing crazy, nothing like crazy, crazy. But I'll do my research for sure though. Now, are you doing that on noses or no?

No, no, no. Me personally, I don't, that's not me. I don't trash talk. I don't say nothing. They say something to me, I be quiet.

They got it. I just let my game do the talking. That's it. I just feel like you have so much to do yeah i can't even worry about what yeah because you got to talk to the guards next to you you gotta you gotta talk to your quarterback and i gotta make sure everybody on the same page i can't let them distract me when you're in these stadiums like

like dope campbell or you know you'll have to play in the swamp and you'll have to play at clemson when you're in these stadiums where it's so loud that you can't hear anything, what is it like snapping the ball? Obviously, you're the one guy who can't jump, but that feels like there's a lot of pressure there. Yeah, there's a lot of pressure, actually. It's very chaotic. Like, everything, they shift, move, and talk,

and I'm hearing stuff, and, you know, you hear the whole crowd and everything. It's like that's when other things come in, things come in that helps you in the whole offense. That's when they bring in different types of things. So lots of expectations on this team this year. Y'all start with LSU. You'll be playing against Sunday guys on their D-line. How exciting is it to know that that's the challenge right off the bat?

It's very exciting. This is a big-time game like it was last year, but we just got to make sure we're taking it one step at a time. We're not worried about our opponent. So we're taking it one step at a time with us, trying to make sure we have that continuity in the room and making sure that we're always on the same page so we're not worried about our opponent right now.

Meech, this is your second year at this level. Yes, sir. What was the adjustment like coming from Charlotte? It was a big adjustment. It was a big adjustment, man, just the speed of the game, the things that the defenses are trying to do to get you out, and then adjustments during the game. That's something I just i think that

was significantly different from you know my first five years at charlotte so um now i would say those are those are some of the things that were i had to adjust to coming here and you had to get a waiver to to play this season yes sir wow was it nerve-wracking at all waiting to hear about that i just kept my faith you know i felt always always felt good about my chance of getting it. I still came to all the workouts, every meeting with the team. I actually did have to do pro day, though, just because we still didn't know by the time that came around. And, I mean, I think it just gave me a chance to be, you know,

showcase my talents to the NFL scouts before I actually entered the draft. I was going to ask. You're wearing the pro day shorts. I was going to ask you know showcasing my talents to the NFL scouts before I actually entered the draft I was gonna you're wearing the pro day shorts I was gonna ask you I was like I know they let people do stuff when they're underclassmen but no that makes that makes perfect sense yeah that's it's so strange though because it's two totally separate mindsets of the training for pro day the you know the guys basically trained to be track athletes for for two months and then get back to football yeah so can you imagine if you were in an NFL camp right now? Does that seem weird to you?

No, I can't imagine. I would be ready. Yeah. I'd be ready to go. I mean, I don't think it would be weird. I just think that was a great opportunity for me. You know, Coach – I mean, Coach Novell talked about halfway through, like, our winter workouts.

He's like, hey, Coach, you know, I still ain't heard nothing, but I just want to make sure I'm ready to go. So I actually – I stopped my training with the team. I started coming in early with some of the other strength coaches that we had, just training for pro day to make sure I was on point. So I think it just helped me out for next year. So you were – yeah, I was going to say, you were ready for anything at that point.

Yeah. Well, you all have to be ready for anything with LSU. So good luck in that game, and thank you so much. Yes, sir. I appreciate you. We welcome in one of our own from on three, J.D. Piquel, the host of The Hard Count. And J.D., you know, you watch The Hard Count. He's an overwhelmingly positive guy.

J.D., it's your nature. You really, you look on the bright side. The glass is always half full for you. So that is why today I am making you predict disasters. Love it. I want to get you out of your comfort zone. So I will fully admit that I stole this idea from the college football subreddit on Reddit. If you have not been

to RCFB, you don't know what you're missing. Some of the smartest college football fans all talking to one another, making fun of one another. It's a lot of fun. They had a thread over the weekend that cracked me up. And it's basically what could happen in your team's week one game that would have you ready to jump off a cliff and the the preponderance of the early answers were were from penn state fans going if drew aller looks just like sean clifford which i i can understand that they i can understand how they might feel that because you know they spent all last year going okay this is good this is fine but next year yeah drew takes over wait till you see

wait till you see we got in that quarterback room exactly so that's the one that i kind of used that as the touchstone for for these and j J.D., I had you do three, and I'm going to do three. And this is – it doesn't even mean your team lost. But it's one of those results that could be you are just going to spend the next week on the message board venting. Get the Twitter fingers ready a little bit. Exactly, exactly. All right, J.D., I'll let you lead off. I know you've got some really good ones in the pipe.

So lead us off the disaster scenario that we'll have a message board just crashing. So a message board that could be in jeopardy, depending on what happens in week one. Andy, what if A&M scores less than 35 against New Mexico? Because think about that. There was so much made about what Jimbo Fisher didn't do last year.

You bring in Bobby Petrino, and his track record as an offensive coordinator, and you think, okay, this is the fix. So much talent. We got Connor Wegman. We saw what he did at the end of last year. And then if you go out and don't perform the way you're supposed to perform against New Mexico,

even if you win the game 35-0, you're like, man, we couldn't hang 40 on this team? Oh, boy. When we get to SEC play, what is this going to look like? And so I don't know that it's like pound the alarm, you know, everything's gone to the dogs, but there would be some very real upset people on the message boards at Tex-Ags

should they not look efficient and potent and all those things that you're hoping they look like under Bobby Petrino in that first game. So that's what I'm circling, Andy. Less than 35? You got to score at least 40 plus in the first game, don't you? 100%. Like, they could win this game 24 to 3.

But if they do, every threat on Texags is going to be oh god it's happening again here comes five and seven what's going to happen against miami on saturday like that it will be doom and gloom because you're right it's i find in these these early season tune-up games it's not about the score it's about the. And the vibe you want is the offense is free flowing. Bobby Petrino is calling all the right plays. He's dialing it up. This is going to be easy. It's not going to look so hard like it looked last year.

But then if it does look hard, you will bring those memories flooding back. And it will be some juicy reading our friends at message board geniuses on twitter will have a field day oh yeah with a with a 24 to 3 texas victor texas a and victory in that game they would absolutely have a field day even if it's dominant like i mean wilt chamberlain numbers for message boards geniuses if they end up having that kind of showing 100 oh yeah yeah all right let me hit you with one too ready we this one we've already seen a game from this team so I think the fan base has actually already been set on edge a little bit it's USC and it's if Nevada gashes USC's defense a few times, and look, USC probably wins the game 47 to 21. But if you get a few more chunk plays, coverage busts,

missed assignment type things like you saw in that first game against San Jose State, there's a chunk of the USC, because some of the USC fan base obviously a little concerned during the game after the game they have some time to think about it to sleep it off and they go you know what okay they were trying a bunch of freshmen in a bunch of different places understandable you might have a coverage bust every once in a while but if it happens again against an overmatched opponent then they start start going, oh, God, what happens when it's Notre Dame? What happens when it's Utah? What happens when it's Oregon?

Oh, it will be just sky is falling. Because last game, too, you had Shevin Cordero, who's going to a six-year playing college football. And so to your point, Andy, you could reason and say, okay, there's some things here that need to be adjusted and I think it's honestly a pretty fair conversation if you are a USC fan that what you saw game one doesn't have to be what you roll out in that game against Notre Dame in South Bend but like you said if it's multiple games in a row where you're like okay there's something very seriously wrong here and you point the finger back at Alex Grinch saying

okay we got coverage bust against teams that we just shouldn't have coverage bust against. And our second week of playing competitive football, like what is going on? And Andy, we're aligned here. I'm sure when it comes to what USC could be with Caleb Williams, if you don't have a defense to go with him at USC, like you're wasting a generational talent. I know they have quarterbacks lined up to play for Lincoln rally. I understand that, but like you only got one more year of Caleb Williams. You got him now. You got to make it happen.

You got to make it happen. Yeah, and that's the thing I think they're most concerned about. They just don't want a repeat of last year because the Pac-12 is a tougher league this year than it was last year. And you saw them lose twice to Utah. Notre Dame is better than they were last year. They're a threat as well.

So the one thing you cannot have is the defense be the same as last year. So if that stuff's buttoned up against Nevada, you see that, that fan base breathe a sigh of relief, like, okay, all right. They're getting it figured out. This is going to be different, but if it's the same thing again, whoo boy, then it's going to be existential dread until they go to South Bend. What's your next one, JD?

Next one for me, we're staying in state. We're doing this show from the volunteer state just down the road. We got Knoxville. And I think there would be some very real rants on message boards. If we see Joe Milton with his cannon of an arm go out there in that first game in Nashville, no less.

I mean, right down the road from us, even closer against Virginia, an overthrow, three receivers on deep shots where the guys are open. Because that's kind of been the thing with Joe Milton. The talking point is tons of ability. He can throw an orange 90 yards, but can he throw the football to guys wide open

downfield and hit him in stride and not be the you know overthrow Joe that people like to talk about on Twitter once is fine two is okay it's a first game if I see it three times in a row though I got real concerned about Tennessee fan I think we would see a result of that oh oh my goodness that's exactly what it would start it would start which, which is unfair. It's not okay, but I think that's how the fan base would react. And, I mean, with Nico waiting in the wings, you can kind of talk yourself into that. I want Joe Milton to succeed because he's handled everything so gracefully in his career,

and he's dealt with a ton of criticism, fair and unfair, and he looks so good in the orange bowl yeah you know against a really good clemson defense and and so the hope is that all of that stuff is in his past that yeah he'll have the occasional overthrow still but the the frequent overthrowing the lack of a lack of an ability to put some touch on the ball on a mid-range throw you know as as we had big cat on the show uh he said you know basically mash the x button all the way down on the playstation controller and he's right that's that's basically what he's been in his career but i thought we saw more touch on the ball in the orange bowl but you're exactly right if you see it again like

when he was the starter at tennessee in 2021 at the beginning of the season, there will be calls for Nico. I mean, Nico's already a beloved figure at Tennessee because of what he represented in terms of coming to them. And you can say, oh, NIL, whatever. It doesn't matter. He came to them as a very highly ranked quarterback recruit when they'd not been able to get one of those for a very long time. So it's not just him, Nico Yamame-Alaba, the quarterback, it's what he represents as well in the future. So it's a very loaded issue if Joe Milton has any sort of hiccups early on.

Yeah, I mean, even if you have Coach Doug's calling the plays to hat tip to Big Cat, I mean, you still, you don't. Got to have somebody to dial it up and got to have somebody to hit Squirrel White in stride, hit Dante Thornton in stride. I mean, they got some weapons now. They got to be able to capitalize when they get those safeties where they want them.

That one, I think, is what everybody be watching, especially that first half, because that game probably gets out of hand. I would imagine. Although if you miss three wide open touchdowns, it's not out of hand. And that's another problem in and of itself. So again,

Vol quest, get ready. Maybe if you see him air mail to maybe get some extra servers at the ready, just in case. Cause you're going to, you're going to need to handle the traffic, win or lose. You're probably still going to win that game. All right, let me give you another one. Alabama's quarterback play looks like it looked in the spring game

when they were playing Middle Tennessee. Ooh, I like that. So I think the assumption is that Jalen Milrow will come out with the first team offense. I don't know that anybody's assuming that he is definitely the guy. I would assume we're going to see Ty Simpson or Tyler Buckner at some point during the Middle Tennessee game as well. And what I can't figure out, and I talked about this with Paul Feinbaum yesterday, is this like a Jim Harbaugh situation last year where Jim Harbaugh intentionally brought Cade McNamara out first. Remember, he did the start Cade the first game,

start J.J. McCarthy the second game. He intentionally brought Cade out first so that people would see J.J. second and go, oh, yeah, that's better. And I think Saban did that too in 2016 where they started Blake Barnett against USC and then brought in Jalen Hurts knowing that once they put Jalen Hurts in he wasn't coming out yeah I mean I think to your point with Jalen Milrow and and what he brings

to the table from a running perspective like that's huge for sure but also I mean if you can't hit Isaiah Bond downfield or you can't hit Isaiah Bond downfield or you can't hit Malik Benson downfield like you have to have those to win a national championship and it's not a thing where Alabama is just hoping to compete for an SEC title or go and win 10 games like I think last year turns up the heat on this year so I think exactly to your point if you don't have a guy that can capitalize on all the skill positions available, I mean, Bama Online is going to be popping. Bama Online, there will be a lot of Ty Simpson threads. Yeah, we think that – well, no, no, it's going to be Dylan Lonergan threads.

Tim Watts and I have talked about this. It is one of those things how you can become just a message board folk hero based on a couple series in the spring game. That's where Dylan Lonergan's at right now. Even he may not be under any consideration whatsoever by, by the coaching staff, but in the, in the minds of the posters, he's the guy. So yeah, I think it's going to be a strange one because the hope I think for Alabama

is that they become more of a run first team as opposed to what they've been the past few years where they were most decidedly a pass first team and Jalen Milrow you feel like you take advantage of that because the quarterback run threat you get the extra blocker you really do make the defense fear what you can do on the ground which should theoretically open some things up through the air. But if that's not working, then you're having to go to a complete kind of a completely different offense, even though Ty Simpson and Tyler Buckner both, we're not talking about AJ McCarron back there. They they're athletic enough to move around, but that's the thing. If, if Jalen Milrow is the guy you really wanted to build your offense around, but it's just not happening out there on game day, you're going to have very quick to say after his first interception,

should he throw one in that first game or even like first miss to an open receiver? It's like, Oh, see, there you go. We saw it last year. We see it again. Now like Jalen Miller, it doesn't have it throwing the ball downfield. Whereas like Ty Simpson can do the exact same thing, but you say, because of your idea with what Ty Simpson is in your mind, like, okay, maybe, you know, he's still figuring it out. He he's he hasn't played a whole lot so i'm with you i think the the jaylen milrow criticism is just waiting to be unleashed uh on message boards worldwide and i want to point out before we go to your next one we are talking about complete overreactions that are probably irrational and unfair to the person being criticized i fully

admit that that said it's what's going to happen if this stuff happens. Yeah, absolutely. Nobody's even making these predictions. We're not saying this is what's going to happen, but if it does, we are predicting the reaction, which I don't think either of us are off base here on what's going to be the headlines.

I think we soft-pedaled the A&M one. I think the capital campaign to raise the buyout money starts if they win like if they score less than 28 points they already start raising buyout money even like even if that sets up a season that goes you know 10 and 2 for the first few weeks of it they're going to be nervous until they see that offense performing it's all about the vibe like you said all about the vibe vibe has to be imm until they see that offense performing. It's all about the vibe, like you said. All about the vibe. Vibe has to be immaculate week one, for better or for worse. That's exactly right. All right, what is your last one?

Last one here, there is absolutely zero people that have a soft opinion on Deion Sanders. They either think he's going to win the national title in year one, or they think he's going to go 0-12 in year one. Andy, what would happen if Colorado looks at that 21 point spread that they're supposed to be dogs in and say, forget about that. And they just look dominant against TCU who played for a national title last year. I think the, the anti Dion folks would just be beside themselves. I don't know what message board that blows up. Maybe it's a Reddit thread that gets popping,

but I think it would just make so many people so unhappy because of the way they've hedged their bets against Deion Sanders all year long. Their heads would explode. And I don't like the rooting against Deion, the rooting for him to fail thing. I think that's stupid. I don't feel like you should root against anybody like that.

But the people who really don't like Deion are dug in on it and they want badly for him to fail so I I think it would be very funny one if this happened I think it'd be hilarious now realistically speaking given what he took over and the degree of difficulty of this job especially in the Pac-12 this particular season if Deion wins four games build a freaking statue of the man like that is a big accomplishment given what he took over but that group that wants him to fail if that happened to be see I told you he's terrible no that would be a really good coaching job they're not going to be a 9-10 win team they're not going to compete for the Pac-12 title but man if they came out and beat TCU whoo because we we've had Sonny

Dykes on this show. We've had Chandler Morris on this show. I am very high on TCU just because they brought a lot back from last year, even though they did lose a significant amount of talent. But I thought in the transfer portal, they went out and got a bunch of guys that can come in and play right away. Not, not people who just sat on the bench where they were before and didn't amount to anything and were high profile recruits and just had, these are guys who some of them were high profile recruits who didn't play as much as they wanted to, or didn't get the role they wanted to, but they played or their players like JP Richardson, who played a significant role where they were at Oklahoma state and wanted a

fresh start. So I am, listen, if Colorado can go into Fort worth and be competitive with TC, I don't even talk about beat them, be competitive with them. I think that means Dion's on the right track. Even with the loss of Max Duggan.

I mean, he wasn't the guy going into last year. It was going to be Chandler Morris's job. And then Max Duggan ended up mean, he wasn't the guy going into last year. It was going to be Chandler Morris' job, and then Max Duggan ended up getting his shot and never looked back. But, like, I have vivid memories of what Chandler Morris did to that Baylor team in 2020. Oh, yeah.

Yeah, I guess it was 2020. I mean, he looked like Johnny Football out there. I think he had, like, close to 500 yards of total offense. He was unconscious, and I was like, this dude's going to win the Heisman Trophy. He's unbelievable. And then he kind of came back down to earth. But so like the the Chandler Morris slander whatever of you know whatever amount of that that's out there uh I think it needs to be put to bed dude can play

there's a really good Bruce Feldman story this spring where he talked to to big 12 coaches who scouted TCU and who or who played against him last year And they said that one of their bigger fears was that Max Duggan got knocked out of the game and Chandler Morris came in because they felt like Chandler Morris had the bigger skill set of the two that you had to prepare for more when you were dealing with Chandler Morris.

Now, that's not a knock on Max Duggan, who obviously was incredible and was a Heisman finalist, but it's just a fact. When coaches look at Chandler Morris they say this is the guy who could do that what he did to Baylor to us and so I I think uh I think it's gonna be interesting but Shador Sanders you know we we've seen him at Jackson State we'll see him against a different level of competition Travis Hunter who was the number one overall recruit in the country in last year's 2022 class. Now he gets the chance to show that at the power five level.

And because they don't have that talented a roster, he's going to get to do everything. And we get to see him kind of be a Desmond Howard. I think that's pretty cool. Yeah. I mean, they're, they're really a, such a big question mark factor with colorado charles woodson sorry i'm getting my michigan heisman trophy winners yeah they're all i mean they're all doing something at the at the wider zero position interesting thing about colorado is we all just have no gauge for what they could because we have no like litmus test or any data point from a previous college football team that took an entire team out of the transfer portal and is now going to go try and play with them. Last year's Colorado wasn't great, obviously. You got to make it all mesh, but extremely fascinating just because we have nothing to gauge this off of historically. But no, Travis Hunter, like you mentioned,

he's going to be fun to watch. Definitely. And that's what I'm trying to figure out how we do gauge. i think tcu's been the same way because uh channel morris said that they were looking at alabama's defense because charles kelly came from there and we've seen charles kelly kelly as a dc at florida state before so you know maybe they're going back and watching some jimbo era floris florida state defenses uh sean lewis was kent state's head coach last year so do we watch colin schley trying to trying to carve up georgia's secondary by the way colin sleeve the most successful starting quarterback against george last year so uh you know that offense does work it's just a

matter of of how well you're you're pulling the trigger and how well you're you're timing it although what's interesting in this case jd it's the same offense on both sides of the field because Kendall Bryles and Sean Lewis are from the same coaching tree one's just blood related to the guy who started it yeah they're gonna dial it up a little bit Dylan Edwards too the running back for Colorado yeah stupid fast he looked really good in the spring game we were high on him here at all in three uh he's gonna be a guy for Colorado this year too. So I'm excited to watch that. Yeah, this was going to be a fun one. Let's go to my third one.

This is a game where the losing team's fan base is going to completely overreact. They will be off the deep end. It will be Katie bar the door. It's all over. We stink. This is terrible. Fire everyone.

Meanwhile, nothing will have changed with regard to their actual season goals. And I say this, no matter who wins and who loses, this is Florida State against LSU. If Florida State loses this game, they can still win the ACC. They can still make the playoff. If LSU loses this game, they can still win the SEC. They can still make the playoff. Here's where I think you're going to see. I think the Bengal Tigers message board is the one that's going to get the traffic because win or lose, I bet Florida

State is going to slice up LSU secondary. Florida State is insanely talented at receiver. When you add Keon Coleman to Johnny Wilson, when you bring in Jaheim Bell and can do all the things that he can do, and you have Jordan Travis throwing the ball. He is a very calm, collected, has kind of seen everything you can see in college football and just a smooth operator in the pocket. And this is LSU's probably least talented secondary in a long time.

This is a, you know, they're, they're playing transfers. They're playing freshmen. This was a position group that for decades was loaded for decades, but for whatever reason, even though when they fired Ed Orgeron and Brian Kelly came in, there were, there were guys committed on the offensive line who want up being awesome, and Will Campbell and Emory Jones. There were players on the D-line that were good. For whatever reason, the secondary was not stocked in that way,

and they had to go out and get transfers. They had to get more transfers this year. So that's one where I think Florida State can take advantage of it, and I think they can score a bunch of points. That doesn't mean LSU is not going to score on Florida State's defense, but I think no matter what happens, you're going to see Florida State have a lot of success throwing the ball, and the Bengal Tigers message board is going to be like, uh-oh.

What does this mean when we play Alabama? What does this mean when we play Texas A&M? What does this mean when we play Mississippi State and Will Rogers? What's it all mean? It means buckle up, folks, because it may be some track meets this year. Yeah, it's going to be a little bit of a baptism by fire here for the two transfer corners for LSU, both as Alexander and Deuce Chestnut. It's not like they're transferring from SEC schools.

We've got one guy from the FCS, no disrespect to the FCS, and one guy coming from Syracuse. And so it's going to be a little bit of a, whoa, okay, this is – so this is what we're doing here. And I think for that game, too, it doesn't have to be like limiting Keon Coleman to under 50 yards like I don't think that's going to happen to your point I think they're probably going to get theirs if I'm an LSU fan like don't look at the stat sheet look at the box score look at the timely plays

they make like if you get a breakup on third and goal hold them to three instead of seven like great we can work with that it kind of reminds me last year Andy what LSU had on the offensive line like it was pretty much just musical chairs pick a name out of a hat and you're starting this week on the offensive line for LSU and this game last year LSU's offensive line was pretty subpar I think they allowed like four sacks but you saw they improved a lot going forward it was it was after that game that they decided to slide Dellinger inside and make Emory Jones to start at right tackle and that's what started to calm everything down for them offensively so yeah there may be some some moving around in the pieces and let's be real here it's going to

be very difficult for florida state secondary to cover all that talent lsu has a receiver too but the florida state secondary a little more experienced you know a little bit more accustomed to these kinds of games so i just think that's a place where there they're going to be some warning signs that get thrown up and don't panic even though you're going to you're gonna panic and i understand but don't try not to because even if you lose this game and i'm talking to both fan bases now all your goals are still in sight. You're going to have to rally quickly and get it figured out, but your goals remain in sight. But yes, that will be a message board meltdown for the ages

if Florida State is just chunk play after chunk play against LSU because, let's be honest, LSU people aren't used to seeing that. For sure. And Andy, you have some people saying, wait a second, you're saying there's transfer DBs for LSU people aren't used to seeing that. For sure. And Andy, you have some people saying, wait a second, you're saying there's transfer DBs for LSU and they're going to struggle. But you got transfer wide receivers for Florida State

and they're going to shine? Like, how does that work? It is so much more difficult. Because one of them was the best player on his team. Yes, yes. And one guy was playing running back for an SEC team last year. So that should tell you how good of an athlete he is. So it's not necessarily apples to apples. It's also harder to walk into a new defense and know,

okay, am I, am I man in my zone? Are we switching here? What are we doing? As opposed to like, Hey dude, running out route, ball's going to be there. Make sure you catch it. Like very, very different tasks. Exactly. Exactly. All right, JD, we got to pick some games while you're here because so we have a Thursday night show that is going to run before the Thursday night games hit your television screen. But a lot of our folks listen in podcast form the next morning. So they those people will hear my reaction to Florida, Utah and Nebraska, Minnesota. So they'll hear what the score of the game was and who won before they hear the pick.

So this doesn't make any sense to pick those games on that show. So we're going to pick them right now. And this Florida, Utah game for me is very interesting. And the Florida folks historically will tell you that I'm pretty hard on my alma mater. And usually kind of have a little bit of doubt going in about them. I'm going to pick them. Not just to cover, but to win outright in this game.

I think, one, I'm just using common sense on the cameraizing thing. I think if you are Utah and you want to win a third consecutive Pac-12 title and you have a quarterback who uses his legs quite a bit in the way he plays, who's coming off ACL surgery, and you're not quite sure that you exercise some caution there and try to have him completely ready to play the conference schedule. So I'm guessing they see Bryson Barnes.

That doesn't mean Utah is going to lose the game, but if you're going to give me almost a touchdown, if you're going to give me six and a half points, I'm probably going to take those. Even if you get Cam Rising in this game, even if he's healthy, to your point, Andy, the legs are a big part of what he does so if you get a limited cam rising you got Austin Armstrong who's probably going to dial up

some pressure he did it to Florida in the spring game he was dying I mean Graham Mertz and Jack Miller just had a horrific afternoon from like uh time wise like they they had a very bad time playing their own defense in that spring game the scoreboard kind of reflected it but no I mean I think we're actually aligned here which I don't think there's many people picking Florida in this game Andy but I'm going the exact same way I think the run game of Florida is the difference maker I don't know why Trevor Etienne and Montrell Johnson aren't getting talked about more nationally they both averaged over five yards of carry last year I know Graham Mertz isn't gonna you know necessarily be like be like CJ Stroud for Ohio State,

where he was last year. He may not light it up, but if he can be, like we talked about with LSU's corners, if they can just be timely, if he can keep the box honest even a little bit, I really like what they have in that run game, and I think they're going to be able to win that game in Salt Lake. I think the concern with Etienne and Johnson isn't about them. They're clearly very talented. It's about what Florida's offensive line is going to look like.

And it's kind of up to Austin Barber and, you know, Micah Mazzucca sounds like he's ready to go. That's the Baylor transfer who had a shoulder injury in the spring, and it was doubtful whether he'd be back, but it sounds like he's going to be ready to go. So I think a lot of it depends on how that group performs. But it's interesting because, yeah, you might be the only other person I've talked to who feels this way.

I think everybody else is on Utah. Maybe we're both just completely nuts. But it feels like Florida can steal this one, which is exactly what they did last year. They stole a win from Utah. If they played that game three games later and there's three games of tape on anything Richard's in Utah probably wins so we'll see if they can come in and steal another one let us move

to the big 10 Matt Rule makes his debut coaching the Cornhuskers against Minnesota Minnesota is a touchdown favorite Jay I don't know how you picked this game because we don't know what Nebraska is. Yeah, ton of question marks around them, right? And Matt Rule, I think the question isn't so much what they're going to be this year, but it's more so when he gets his guys in there, when he builds it up. Now, they did a lot through the portal. Jeff Simms is going to be the guy at quarterback for them. I'm going to go ahead and pick Minnesota just because of what you said, Andy.

We know a little bit more about them. Now, they stopped some question marks, too, with what they're going to go ahead and pick Minnesota just because of what you said, Andy. We know a little bit more about them. Now, they still have some question marks, too, with what they're going to be at quarterback and no more Muhammad Ibrahim and all that. But I think just from a how far along is your program standpoint, I like where Minnesota is compared to Nebraska. Nebraska is going to be good here long term. I even think Nebraska makes a bowl game this year. But I don't think they win this one.

I don't think they win the opener. So I think we know what minnesota is going to be a tough defense you know they're going to control the ball uh that when their running game works they can have explosive passing and chris ottman bell back for year number 94 i believe he was committed well i know he was committed to pj flack at western michigan that's how old he is you know what though i think i'm taking the corn huskers here you've given me a touchdown matt rule has had all this time to get them ready they have tape on minnesota they're pretty sure they know what minnesota is minnesota does not know what nebraska is going to be because matt rule is kind of a chameleon. He doesn't have a, this is my system, this is my style,

this is on either side of the ball. So they're watching South Carolina tape from last year because that's where the OC was. They're watching all this different stuff. Give me Nebraska. Very similar in the way I talked about Florida stealing the win against Utah last year because Utah didn't have tape on Billy Napier's offense and Anthony Richardson running it Jeff Sims in this offense they don't know what that looks like yet and they're gonna have to

adjust to it so I yeah give me Nebraska at least to cover but maybe to win outright I like them to cover a lot more than I like them to win. I will say that. I think Jeff Sims is fascinating, but I'm still picking Minnesota to win, but I do think Nebraska shows. Okay, there's something to work here, but interesting. Taking them to win, I like it. I like it a lot.

Yeah, I just – Rule has a good – he has a way of getting his teams up. He's said that this feels more like year two at temple or baylor than year one at either one of those schools that suggests to me that he feels like he inherited some talent you know we know that under scott frost that talent wasn't always focused in the right direction but now it is all right one more game and this is one of those, how did this game get scheduled kind of games? NC State goes to UConn. UConn is a 14.5-point underdog at home. Always beware the home underdog on a Thursday night.

He can bite. I'll go bite you now. Those Huskies, they've been waiting for a minute now to have something to cheer for. Andy, I'm taking NC State, not just because, I'm going to take them to win and to cover. I love the reuniting of Robert and I, the OC at NC State, getting his quarterback back from Virginia,

Brennan Armstrong. I think it's going to be fireworks like a bad eighth grader on the 4th of July behind the middle school. I think that's the kind of situation we're looking at here. I think NC State, with Brennan Armstrong, what he was at Virginia when they were together last, I mean, we were talking about him maybe being a sneaky Heisman guy going into the 2022 season with what he did in that 2021 campaign. So I think them getting back together, we always know Dave Dorn's going to have a solid defense. It's just kind of been his trademark at NC State.

I think they win this game, and I think they win more than that 14.5 point margin. This is the thing. They've got Peyton Wilson back. They've got a lot of really good players on that defense. I love what Jim Mora did at UConn. I think he got them playing very hard. I think he's upgraded their talent.

I know they're going to be excited for this showcase game. That said, I'm with you. NC State wins and covers and then get ready for a matchup between Notre Dame and the Wolfpack in Raleigh in week two. That's going to be

a good one, man. Everyone's talking about Ohio State and Notre Dame like we find out a lot about Notre Dame when they go to NC State I think it's like a noon kick to Andy kind of sleepy you're walking in there after playing Tennessee State I'm very excited for that one it's it's gonna be fun and yeah but NC State I think UConn's gonna play hard they're not NC State is not going to be able to just roll their helmets out and win. So they will be seasoned a little bit when they get to Notre Dame, but I'm with you. I do think NC State covers that 14 and a half point spread. JD Piquel, we are less than 48 hours away from the kickoff week one. Can you feel it? It's time, man. It's time talking seasons,

a year round thing to a degree, but now it's time to actually talk about college football games being played. I'm fired up. Let's go. When we come back, we go back into the Cruton world, though. My review of BS High, the Bishop Sycamore documentary. We'll be right back. All right, today's extra point is another. Andy goes to the movies or rather andy

streams the movies while he sits in bed but this one was a fascinating one we talked about swamp kings last week i wasn't particularly impressed with the way swamp kings came out i thought it could have been a lot better the storytelling was lacking in in a lot of ways i feel the exact opposite about bs high this is the documentary on max formerly hbo about bishop sycamore which is the fake high school that was created essentially to to play against some of the best high school football teams in america And it was such a strange, strange story. One of those things that when you saw Bishop Sycamore playing IMG Academy on ESPN, it's like, what the hell is this? And so full disclosure on this one, because if you watch it, you notice I am

in the beginning of it. There's some clips of my podcast talking about Bishop Sycamore and Roy Johnson. And then if you watch all the way to the end of the credits,'s some clips of my podcast talking about Bishop Sycamore and Roy Johnson. And then if you watch all the way to the end of the credits, you see my name in there. The reason for that is because when Bishop Sycamore played IMG Academy, Ari Wasserman and I did a story for The Athletic about how in the hell this game got on ESPN. And that spawned three or four more stories that Ari and I wrote about Bishop Sycamore and exactly how it came together,

what it was, what happened. It was just trying to explain this whole thing to everybody. And so the production company that ultimately made the documentary got into business with The Athletic and they came to us and they said hey can you help us with this and i think the idea was they're going to have us do some interviews on camera we're going to help them track down some people that we had talked to for for our stories

and and that's really what it was we end up helping them with a couple phone numbers we had a couple conference calls where we kind of explained the world of big-time college football recruiting and elite high school players to the people making the documentary. But once we found out that they got Roy Johnson to talk, we realized that they probably didn't need us anymore. And having watched it, they certainly didn't. They got this right. They did this right.

They talked to everybody they needed to talk to. And from a storytelling standpoint, it was fantastic. It was everything you wanted Swamp Kings to be, but it wasn't. And I don't think Swamp Kings could have been this because you're dealing with people who are already very famous in Urban Meyer and Tim Tebow. And they're going to be able to help kind of guide some of the narrative. In this particular case, you got Michael Strahan, his company doing the documentary. None of these people are famous. None of them have the power or the juice to alter the narrative. The directors can just go in, find out what the story is,

and tell the story as they see fit. And I thought they told it in a really captivating way. I think probably once they started talking to Roy Johnson, because anybody who has talked to Roy Johnson probably gets the same impression, was, okay, we don't really need much else. We need this guy talking and we're going to let him just keep talking because that's what he does. He is a con artist. If it wasn't abundantly clear based on the stories you read about Bishop Sycamore, it certainly becomes clear watching Roy talk. And apparently it was over 30 hours of interviews with Roy Johnson. And you just get this sense because it starts off the same way. And I remember, so Ari was the one who got Roy on the phone

and his partner Andre. He got them both on the phone the day after Bishop Sycamore played IMG. And I remember listening back to the interview and thinking, man, this guy is really charming at first. And then every time you catch him in a lie, he gets a little more perturbed and a little more, you know, there's more of an edge to him.

And you see that in the documentary as it goes from here's this guy, good looking, charming, talkative. And then it all sort of unravels as you keep pulling threads of all the different lies he's told people. And the way they did it by basically letting him tell his version of the story

and then talking to the players and their moms about what really happened i think it just it really drove it home uh trillian harris the quarterback and his mother were very open and what i found really interesting reading about this documentary later is apparently roy said hey go talk to trillian harris go talk to J.D. Daniel, who was one of the linemen. And there were a couple other guys that he had told the producers to go talk to. And they went and talked to these players and the players just destroyed Roy. And rightfully so because of what he'd done to them. And Trillian Harris is a good example.

He thought he was going to get to go to Grambling. He commits to Grambling and then finds out he can't get into Grambling because he didn't go to a real high school at the end. Bishop Sigmar was not a real school. And so his grades were all messed up and he couldn't get into school. And so I believe he's at a community college right now trying to keep his football career going. But it was just fascinating to watch because the thing about con artists is they do keep talking. They never stop. You can catch them in a lie. They'll keep telling the story, keep spinning it

out, trying to distract you or try to just get you focused on something else. And clearly Roy did that with a lot of people. And one thing I thought, and they had multiple people saying this in documentary, and this is something I thought doing the stories too, is there aren't a lot of rules. Cause Roy kept asking, is it a rule? Is it against the law?

And it reminded me of the, the key and peel skit on the plane where the guy's trying to get up and go to the bathroom and he keeps asking the flight attendant, is it against the law, but it's against the law and it reminded me of the the key and peel skit on the plane where the guy is trying to get up and go to the bathroom and he keeps asking the flight and is it against the law but it's against the law that's what roy kept saying and i think bomani jones said this on the documentary like no it's not against the law because nobody's even thought to make a law because nobody believes anybody would be dumb enough or fool enough or crazy enough to try this. And really what Roy thought he was going to do was create or was he was selling the idea of an IMG Academy in Ohio to these players. Except he's about, you know, I don't know, $200 million short of actually creating an IMG Academy. There wasn't the infrastructure there to do anything like that. And you find out over the course of the documentary that PPP loans, which were the loans that the federal government gave out to businesses during the pandemic,

that there were PPP loans taken out in the players' names during all this. It is absolutely wild that any of this happened. The other guys I'm really glad they talked to. Andrew King from This Week News, who wrote six stories, a six-part series on Roy Johnson when he was doing a school called Christians of Faith, which was essentially Bishop Sycamore by another name. That was the first version of Bishop Sycamore. And Andrew nailed it.

The reason he did is he had a college classmate named Ben Feree, who is an investigator for the Ohio High School Athletic Association. And Ben had known about this for several years. He had tried to get some people to do the story, to expose it, and couldn't get anybody to bite. Couldn't get the government to do anything about it. Couldn't get anybody to do anything about it. And Andrew King wrote these stories, but clearly it didn't keep Roy Johnson down. Christians of faith ceased and Bishop Sycamore arose.

And so, you know, for Ben, I think a lot of it was kind of I told you so, but I'm so glad these two who knew this story better than anybody else and who knew the players in this better than anybody else, I'm glad they got a chance to, one, get the credit for it, and two, get to explain it all to everybody. Because reading Andrew King's stories were what helped me figure out what was going on. And Ben Faree,

we talked to him. He helped explain the world, kind of set it all up. And he'd been trying to do this for years. He recognized immediately what was going on, that it was a scam and just couldn't get anybody to listen. So if you haven't seen this doc yet, I'm sure if you're watching this show, you're into college football, into the recruiting world enough to know how all this stuff works, which I think it's even better for you. This is one of the things that's interesting.

When I was talking about Swamp Kings, the less you know about the world, the more you enjoy it because you don't realize what you're missing out on. This one, the more you know about the world, the more you will be intrigued by it because you'll see how well they did it and how just well done the storytelling is and how many people they talk to and how much information they gather. And so if you, if you understand this world, which is pretty much everybody watching or listening to this show, you're going to want to watch it. You're going to enjoy it. It's going to make you mad for sure. There are going to be moments where there's a moment when one player breaks down

crying because he just is at his wits end does not understand how any of this has happened to him and you just your heart goes out to him and and it's interesting because some of these players clearly they're smart guys like two of a couple of them then at the end of the doc you find out their walk-ons at louisville now and they're doing good. It's not that these people are dumb and got duped. They had this dream of playing college football. In a lot of cases, they didn't get recruited or they were in a bad situation at home or they were in a bad situation at school. And so this felt like the last chance. It felt like the only way out. And you're going to believe what that person is telling you. The most powerful moment. And I feel like I'm not

spoiling it. I can tell you about this, but you got to watch it still to truly appreciate it. There's a moment where you remember in the last dance, when you see Michael Jordan watching the footage on the iPad and them getting his reaction to it. So they do pretty much the same thing here. They take the players that Roy had said, go interview. These guys will tell you how great I am. They take those players' interviews. They play them for Roy.

And you watch his reaction. And it tells you everything you need to know about this person, every single thing you need to know. So I, I, you know, I need, I guess I need to get a star rating system. This is, this is on three after all, we should probably do it three to five stars when we rank the movies too. So if I gave swamp Kings a, a a two-star or a three-star review uh i'm definitely giving bs high a five-star review has nothing to do with any tangential attachment i might have to it they i had nothing to do with that they did a wonderful job telling a very complicated story and telling it very very well so if you've got a couple hours, you're trying to find something to do,

I don't know, between, well, not between games this weekend, maybe Friday happy hour before the games start. I don't know when you're gonna watch it, but if you got a spare two hours, check out BS High because it is worth your time. And it's a very different kind of documentary than the one we talked about last week. That'll do it's it's a very different kind of documentary than the one we

talked about last week that'll do it for today's show hope everybody in the path of idalia is safe and and just making sure that everybody's okay your friends and loved ones are okay just again be nice to each other be safe tomorrow we're picking games against the spread. That's what's going to happen on Thursdays this season. We will have a guest picker every week. It'll be that person versus me. It'll be me against the field. We're picking the games against the spread.

There are so many to talk about. There's so much to go over. We're here. The season is upon us. Week one begins on Thursday. We will get you ready. We'll have, remember, 7 p.m. Eastern time because we want to be able to watch Florida and Utah.

We want to be able to watch Nebraska and Minnesota. So we're going to go 7 p.m. Eastern time. We'll be off the air, win Florida and Utah kickoff, picking games, pick along with us. We'll be live on YouTube. It's going to be so much fun. We're here, everybody. Let's enjoy it.