College Football Live - CFB Live- 9/18- Falling Short

Episode Date: September 18, 2025

Join our crew Zubin Mehenti, Sam Acho, and EJ Manuel as they look ahead to Week 4... Jackson Arnold faces Oklahoma this Saturday, and the guys break down how he'll stack up against his former teammates. A ranked matchup with Big 12 implications goes down when No.17 Texas Tech travels to No.16 Utah, and Florida looks to bounce back against a dominant Miami team. Betting analyst Joe Fortenbaugh joins to give his best bets for this weekend, and the crew discusses which QBs with high expectations have fallen short. All this and more on today's episode of College Football Live! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When you fly in Emirates business class and you're picked up by your private, luxury, chauffeur-driven car, you'll see that your vacation isn't really over until your flight is over. Fly, Emirates, fly better. Football Live is presented by Jocker Pepper. I'm fin to set the tone. Look at me now. We on a whole other level. My foot on the pedal, my eyes on a crown. Okay, okay.

And those four fingers normally mean the fourth quarter. We'll see if these three can go down to a late fourth quarter finish. We've got top 25 matchups in the Big Ten, the SEC, and the Big 12. We'll hit all of them on today's edition of College Football Live. Welcome inside with E.J. Manuel and Sam Macho. I'm Zubin Mahenty. Let's get right to it. One of the matchups you just saw is our Dr. Pepper Championship Drive game of the week preview.

And I'll tell you what. If this isn't peak college football, nothing else is. In this game, one guy got runoff, replaced by another. Both guys transferred from another school, and one is replacing the other. You've probably seen a lot more attention on John Mateer than Jackson Arnold, but all the attention this week seems to be on the latter. And that's because, of course, Arnold, the five-star stud who committed to play in Norman, is transferred to the planes and now heads back to Oklahoma.

Take us inside the mind of a quarterback. That was highly recruited, like you were. This is one of those deals where I'm sure the emotions. are flowing. Help us understand what this kid's going through. Well, part of it is the sweet revenge for Jackson Arnold to go back to a place where I'm sure he left Norman, maybe not with the best field. The fan base probably got after him a little bit, probably blamed a lot of the struggles that Oklahoma's had since he's gotten there. And so for him, go out there and continue to play the way you've been playing, which is efficient, which is smart, is protecting the football.

Now, he has been sacked a few times, I believe six times so far in the first three games in the season. So you've got to get the ball out fast. You saw that Oklahoma Front seven was able to get after a young quarterback in Bryce Underwood, but I'm thinking sweet revenge. If I'm Jackson Arnold, I'm going back home. Hey, y'all booed me last year. I'm getting a dub today. Hey, you can talk about sweet revenge all you want. Here's a great thing about Jackson Arnold and Oklahoma.

The Oklahoma team and defense and coaching staff, Brett Venables, they know Jackson Arnold extremely well. They know his strengths, but they also know his weaknesses. So there might be some revenge on his mind, but there may be this mentality of, hey, I know exactly what you do well and what you don't do well, and I'm going to try to expose what you don't do well. Oklahoma loves to pressure the quarterback. No one pressures the quarterback more in the SEC.

than OU. Jackson Arnold has played well, has been pressured, six times. Out of those nine times, he'd been sacked six of them. And so if I'm Oklahoma, okay, you think it's sweet revenge or homecoming, whatever you want to call it, I'm going to attack, attack, attack. This defensive front from Oklahoma is extremely aggressive. And Brent Venables, who's now the new play caller, he wasn't calling plays last year, he's calling plays this year. I'd call called their game last week. The coaching staff for Temple said that Brent Venables coaches as if his life depends on it. Yes, he does. And so Jackson Arnold needs to be aware. that the pressure is on.

Yeah, look, the pressure will be on. I played Brent Venable's defenses when I was at Florida State. He was at Clemson. So I know that pressure is going to come. But the other part for Jackson Arnold here is don't make this game bigger than what it is. Because sometimes you do go in, amped up, you're thinking sweet revenge. That's probably just selfishly. He's saying that as a former player.

How hard is that, though, for a kid of that age? It's very hard. It's not even the age. Zubin, I think it's more so you want to be perfect and you want to prove people wrong. You want to prove this, prove that. Just win the football game. And even if that's you running the football 10 times, you hand in it all. off to some of those really good backs that Auburn has.

Let those guys do their job too. You've got a team around you. And that's the best way. That's Auburn's best way to win this game is not to put the pressure on Jackson Arnold. They have a great running attack. They have some really solid receivers. But if you try to make Jackson Arnold the focal point of this offense, it's not going

to be a successful formula. You might think about that emotional piece. I think that's important. We have the emotions of, man, I want to go and prove these guys wrong. They should have kept me in. I'm better than the other quarterback on the other side. But that's not how you win. It's really about X's and O's.

The emotional part wears off. usually after the first quarter. Take me inside Oklahoma, though, because while all the attention is on Jackson and Arnold and his return, you could make an argument that the biggest star in college football so far this season is the guy that replaced Jackson Arnold. What can we expect to see here from Mateer in taking nothing away from Michigan, but this appears to be a pretty firm test in conference. Well, look, it's a huge test, like you mentioned, because it's a conference matchup now. But the other part that I noticed in that game, and that's why I'm chuckling, John Matier did two jump passes.

Yeah. Keep up. I mean, it was just, it's fun. Like, he has a level of, I don't care. I'm just going to go out here and make throws, make plays. His reads are solid and all those kinds of things. He's able to take off and run. But that's the other part.

Which quarterback's going to be the best quarterback that day? Ultimately, that team will probably win. Yeah, and I was on site for that game. I saw some of those jump passes. But what's even better real quick about, about John Materia is the things that you see him doing now, he was doing those same things in high school. I stumbled upon a tape of him in high school, playing against Jackson Arnold in high school. How about that?

College football play or high school playoffs. Really? And some of the stiff. farms that you see him doing the moves, it's the same. But before we even go any further, I got to get back to that Oklahoma defense. Because as I was turning on the tape and watching what they do, yes, they're aggressive, but they also communicate extremely well. Let's turn on the tape and see what Oklahoma does. You're going to see their first game of the season. I believe it's Illinois State. The offense looks to the sideline. What does the Oklahoma defense do?

They all look to the sideline as well. Y'all are going to check. We're going to check as well. All 11 eyes are checking. Okay, we think it's good. We're good. Kendall Daniels. He's a corner, Nichols, whatever you want to call him. Six-five, 242. An edge player. Watch them crash the edge of Illinois State. They're just a dominant defense. They're not going to let you do anything. That's part one. Part two, the communication.

Now you're going to see a middle linebacker in there. They're all going to signal, right? It goes to empty signal. All seven DBs and linebackers are signaling something. What are they saying? I don't know yet, but they're all on the same page. What it's going to be? It's going to be a blitz by Bowen number 22.

Peyton Bowen is going to come off the edge. But nothing here tells you that he's going to blitz. There's no one capping him over the top, no safety over the top. But boom, blitz by Bowen. you see the quarterback pressure, quarterback hit, boom, problem solved. But it's not just the back end. It's guys on the front. This is versus Michigan.

Look at these guys on the inside. Dominic Williams is communicating like, dude, it's tackle over, tackle over. Look at them talk before the snap. Making sure everyone says, look at this guy. It's a tackle. Boom. They're going to give up like a three, four yard game. And you're going to see Dominic Williams are 52.

He turns back around like, dude, you got to get the play right. So this defense, yes, they're attacking. Yes, they're aggressive, but they communicate. And that communication could cause confusion for Jackson Arnold. Yeah. You call that confusion. In the quarterback, we call it eye violations.

And the key for Jackson Arnold here is that's why I say, use your legs. If you get into a muddy situation, it's third and seven, third and eight, you know the crowd's going to be loud too. That's the other part of that 12th man here for this defense. Take off and run, make plays.

Don't get caught up in all the reading the coverages and stuff. It's overblown. If I just skate real quick, you can talk about use your legs all you want, but they got Oklahoma match two inside linebackers. Kobe McKenzie was one of those guys we saw on the inside who can go. And so number 10, number 11 are going to be spying Jackson Arnold. The biggest takeaway is this is not the first meeting between Arnold and Mateo.

This is pretty good intel to have if you're watching this weekend. Of course, Oklahoma for years dominated the Big 12. And now they're moving on. So is it time for maybe Utah to start dominating the Big 12 like many thought they would or Texas Tech who won the off season in college football? And now it's time to prove it here in the regular season and maybe the most wide open league in the country, they say. College football and any professional sport, as you guys know, is certainly built on routine. This is going to be, there are plenty of teams in the Midwest that have an 11 a.m. kick, I know. But this is a 10 a.m. kick. And the road team obviously is going to a different time zone here.

Take us inside the mentality of how that could affect things because of the way you guys are so structured. It's a huge effect because on a normal Saturday, if we have a noon kick game, we're eating breakfast, doing chair drills, which is going through the 11 on 11, the runs, the plays that we're going to run in the first 15 at 8 a.m. Four hours before kickoff. If kickoffs at 10 o'clock local time in the morning, That means we're doing all this at 6 a.m. So now your body clock has to get adjusted. And this could be a huge advantage here for the home team. You consider that Utah is going to be the home team here.

And now Texas Tech, I know that's what an hour difference coming from their time zone. But that's still something to pay attention to early in the football game. Guys, memory might be a little bit foggy. And I also believe most of these teams practice in the afternoon, too. So something to think about, look, I didn't do a 10 a.m. kick since like Little League of Football. Right. So we'll see.

No, and E.J. makes such a great point because athletes are creatures of habit. You have your habit. You have your routine. I get it, 11.8m. kicks. Sometimes they're 6 or 7 p.m. But imagine you're an hour earlier. You're on the West Coast. So it's going to be different.

But my focus for this game isn't about the time zone or the location. It's about the trenches, the offensive line for Utah versus the defensive line for Texas Tech. They brought in a couple transfers, David Bailey, Texas Tech did, and Romolo Height, who are dominant edge players. You're going to see them have a lot of pressure. They're going to see them specifically Romolo Heights, number nine. Just watch out for him. But Utah's got some tackles, some bookends.

and Spencer Fano being one of them that are going to be likely first round picks. Caleb Lomu is another one. So we talk about Devin Daniels, or excuse me, Devin Dampier, excuse me, all that we want. But the protection and the trenches are what my eyes are going to be focused on. The offensive tackles versus defensive ends. Well, look, Utah's trenches are stacked too. John Henry Daley is a defensive tackle.

He already has five sacks on the season. And he's going to have to get activated because Texas Tech's quarterback, I mean, I felt like he just threw another touchdown. Baron Martin. I mean, this guy just threw for 464 yards last week. so he's going to have a quick trigger, try to get that football out of his hands. So expect both sides of the defensive lines to make some place. But has tech been tested?

They haven't. They haven't. Oregon said. It would be Saturday. Like, haven't they been tested. That's what I'm excited about watching the test. Fair enough. And I know if you're watching at home, a lot of you are thinking, I eat breakfast at 6 a.m.

every morning. It's not that big of a deal. I can actually get up and do this. I hear you. The normal people like us completely get it. You know Texas Tech got to where they are because of what Sam said. They kind of dominated. the transfer portal, but there's been a major shift now happening in the portal.

You can pretty much write this in pencil. It'll eventually be in ink. The biggest thing you need to know is there used to be multiple transfer portal windows. That's eliminated. There's going to be one portal window where everybody, or for the most part, everybody is going to be able to make a move. And right now, it is slated to be in early January. But again, in this sport, until anything's official, it's never really official.

On the way here on college football live. Florida can't possibly stay within a touchdown of Miami after the way these teams have looked, right? Well, the guy that does this for a living says, I think they might be able to do that. We'll go inside his rationale. Get into all the gambling angles. College Football Live is presented by ice cold Dr. Pepper. College football, it's a pepper thing. This Giving Tuesday, Cam H, is considered.

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Does this Miami team feel different with game day heading there? Our Holly Row on the sideline says you're not the only one that's thinking that. Checking in with the hurricanes after practice on Thursday. They have a big rival coming to town. But linebacker Wesley Besant's, told me it is a nameless, faceless opponent this week. They just want to be the best version of themselves. He's been here since Mario Cristobal's first season and he said this team feels different. There is a hunger. I sought myself, several of their key pass rushers stayed late

after practice to get extra work in. Ruben Bain and Akeem Messador. They have been disruptive and they will introduce themselves to Florida quarterback DJ Lagway who's coming off a five interception game. Now, for Florida, I talked to some of their wide receivers and their senior leadership council actually took DJ Lagway out to dinner on Wednesday night for Mexican food. They put their phones away and just talked about how they can be better as a unit. It's not just one guy making mistakes. They all have to be on the same page. They're trying to get things fixed quickly when they take on the U here in Miami. For College Football Live, I'm Holly Roe. Holly, thank you. Great info. Our Joe Fortin-Baw is here. By the way, this is the first time

then Miami claims their back. So we'll give them the benefit of the doubt, but they've said this a couple of times before. So the question for you is the gambling guy. The number is seven and a half. The canes are favored by that. After watching Florida last week and after watching Miami, you really think the gators can stay within that seven and a half?

Why? I think it's the type of bet. We call it a pepto-bizball bet. It's going to make you sick. You're not going to be comfortable with this. I do like the gators here. I think it's a situation where naturally people are very high on Miami based on what we've seen.

We're very low on Florida. go inside that box score against LSU last week. The defense looked fantastic for the Gators. That was not the problem. Florida actually outgained LSU by 50 yards. They held the ball for 37 minutes in that game. So take away the astronomical amount of turnovers. Florida ends up winning.

What would that spread be? Now, I know what if, shouldas, couldas, all that stuff. But that's what you want to do. Study the box score. Florida was a lot better than it looked, but that's not reflected in the point spread. Gators plus the seven and a half. Uncomfortable, Zubin, though, very uncomfortable.

The pepto-bizmal bet. What is pretty uncomfortable? for opposing defensive coordinators is how proficient Miami's offense has been. And that's why I got the pepto-bizmo to that pig joke. I got to be honest, man, because look, you look at the efficiency of Carson Beck this season within Shannon Dawson as offensive coordinator. I mean, one, the play calling is really what's leading him to success. Right here, you're going to have a red zone play, which right now in the ACC, they're second.

They got 79% of efficiency rate down here, getting points. This is a mesh concept. So this number nine is going to go over top and try to slow down this linebacker. Watch that little bit of hesitation what that creates. An easy read offensive line straining all five guys on their guy, locked up within the protection, easy dump pass, walk in for a touchdown. And the other key about this Miami football team and Zubin going back to what you said about them being back, guys, I think they are.

I mean, CJ Daniels transfer player coming in from LSU, didn't do a whole lot of LSU, but boy, is he lighting up for the hurricanes. And this is just literally a 50-50 ball. Again, highlighting the offensive line. Look at the pocket that Carson Beck now has to work with. Did he have that at Georgia last year? Not so often, but then you put a ball really, and that's a bad throw. He puts it inside.

I'm going to show you the other side of this. Watch him go and make this catch. This is a receiver making his quarterback right. So now the Miami team has accountability. They have efficiency. They have discipline. And then you got guys having their quarterbacks back like that. I really like the user.

Yeah, I love the way that you describe the accountability, the discipline. But more than anything, just to compound on that point, this is a full team. It's not just an offense like we saw last year. Last year, they were one of the most prolific offenses, but their defense couldn't stop anyone. Their defense needed some pepto-bizmall. But this year, they're an offensive team that can throw the ball like you saw. They also can run the ball efficiently, but also their defense led by Rubin Bain has been dominant as well. So that seven and a half deal, I'm staying way away from you because I can't go that one going on. No, but I ride with you, but I can't do that

one. Every week when he goes the other way I lose. I'm like, oh, I'm going to score on this. All right, fair enough. Fair enough. I will say of all the quarterbacks that came back this year, maybe there wasn't a ton expected out of Carson back. After all, we saw the elbow. We saw kind of the way he transferred and a lot of people thought maybe the Georgia program would be better off without him. But the bottom line is he's played really well. We mentioned Langway. Guys, these guys, future first round picks, so called for future first round picks, have really struggled here. What's really gotten your attention on why some of these guys, go ahead and pick any of these guys, have really sort of underperform relative to expectation.

Clemson's quarterback, Kay K. Klubnick, I feel like he just listened too much to what all of us or what he might have been reading throughout the off season. He's just putting too much pressure on himself. And at times, you start to force when you get into these football games. And even some of these exchanges, this isn't one of them. But right here, obviously, not have a good ball security. That's just a good play by the defense. But even a couple where he just could have handed the ball off,

but he's trying to make a play going back to the LSU game. So for K, just relax, take a deep breath. And it's hard to do, man. It's easy for me to sit here and say that. But as a quarterback, once you start getting inside your own mind, that's when you start having some mission. Can I ask one question, though, E.J., how do you get, once you get inside your,

because that's what I think is going on with Arch. You listen to Arch Manning. Arch Manning said, man, it's mental. How do you get out of that? You just got to keep playing. And you know what? I think also the play caller, you communicate to him and say, I need stuff that's base stuff, spacing, out routes, very quick, like, quick game. Just get the ball out your hands because it's almost like a great shooter with Stefan Curry. He's having a cold night. He probably just wants to keep putting up some shots, get some free throws, see the ball go through the hoop. I think it's the same thing for a quarterback. We start getting those

completions and getting hit running the football too, gets you in the game. Situations are all different. Like we can throw Nussmeyer up there and say, well, you know, they're scoring low compared to the rest of the SEC. When you were on the road at Clemson and you also just faced a really good Florida defense, your numbers should be lower. Arch, I think we maybe overrated him a little bit to begin with, which was natural because of the last name. He's got time to grow into it.

Club Nick and Clemson, that's just a mess. Like to me, Dabo's starting slow too often at Clemson. That's something they got to clean up. But I do love your point how sometimes we love to lump all these quarterbacks in the same group and say, oh, they're all performing for, or not performing for the same reason. I think there are different reasons, right? Now, even going back to Arch, I'm watching the tape thinking, okay, Is he injured? What's going on?

And then you listen to him, say he says it's mental. And he look at the play call. It's like, man, they get the ball at the 40 yard line. They're on 40. And they call three, four straight runs. I'm like, and you see him throwing the ball in the dirt. So maybe it is mental for Arch. Maybe for K, it's pressing.

Maybe for LSU and Nussmeyer, it's been the defenses that he's played. The biggest word for quarterbacks is confidence. Like those two have to be synonymous east of these guys. Whether they've won games or lost games, they've got to keep building their confidence throughout the season. It's still early. Yeah, when it comes to quarterback play, actually, if you take a look at our weekend line, brought to you by Wendy's, There's a couple of other really big quarterback matchups

you should be keeping your eye on. I think one story that's really flying under the radar is the one between Michigan, Bryce Underwood, and last year's Bryce Underwood, Dylan Ryolo. So that's kind of an interesting matchup between two of the all-time great programs in the history of the sport. That's a Big Ten battle.

On the way, speaking of the Big Ten, that's hardly, though, the biggest matchup in the conference this week, why Indiana and Illinois could have some long-term repercussions after 60 minutes this weekend. The guys will weigh in on the big one in the big 10 next.

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and is the U back? They can take another step, both games on your local ABC station, back to back on Saturday. So if the conventional wisdom is that maybe Oregon, Ohio State, Penn State, our playoff bound, maybe. Next up, Indiana, or, Illinois to get that maybe coveted fourth spot.

Remember last year in the first year the 12 team playoff format. The Big Ten did get four teams. And that fourth team, of course, was the Hoosiers. And you believe that Indiana last year provided a blueprint, right? Lose a game against the tough team, beat everybody else. You kind of feel like Illinois might be able to copy that this year. Well, based off of their schedule, I actually am higher on Illinois than I am on Indiana. Schedule-wise, first of all, Illinois has a dominant defense led by defense quarter to Aaron Henry.

But second of all, they're 3-0 right now. a big win against Duke. They played an Indiana team that I don't think is as good as they were last year. USC is on the schedule. Ohio State's on the schedule. I don't see Oregon. I don't see Michigan. And so if you beat Indiana like I expect Illinois to do,

USC should be a tough competition. Even if you don't beat Ohio State, you still have a path to the playoff based off how you're playing on defense. And also with Luke Altmire on offense, they'll be able to spread the ball out a little bit more. So I think there's a blueprint for Illinois to make the playoff. Nine win team season, nine win regular season last season. so I think they're confident.

The U.S.C. team's pretty good. This is true. Coming around. I think they're going to have trouble this weekend, though. Game opened Indiana minus three. They got bet all the way up to six. A lot of money came in on them for good reason. Illinois maybe 3 and O, but again, you want to look inside these box scores.

That Duke game, Duke rolled up almost 450 yards offense in 23 minutes. They barely had the ball. Now, like Lagway in Florida, they turned it over a thousand times, so that ends up costing you. But I always like to look into see where the box scores are a bit misleading because that might not be reflected in the point spread, which could end up offering value. I'm thinking the over on this game. And the only reason is because looking at Indiana's quarterback, Fernando Mendoza, look, these guys are really, really good.

Omar Cooper Jr., their leading receiver had 10 catches, 270 yards last week, two touchdowns. So I'm assuming maybe a lot of offense in this game too. Yeah, points for sure. But to your point, the battle for fourth could be a bunch of different teams, and it's so amazing that we're at the point now where we have to remind people that USC is in the Big Ten and they used to be USC. You are billish on them. Joe kind of mentioned them.

So maybe if it's not Indiana or Illinois, maybe it's Lake and Riley's crew. I would love if we have a year where Miami's really good and USC's really locations. But the thing about USC quarterback Jay Mayaava is playing really, really well. He's playing concise. He's not turning football over. He's had 70 attempts. He only been sacked twice.

He was getting the ball out of his hands. They also have a linebacker, Eric Gentry, who you would probably like being a defensive guy. He forced two fumbles last week against Purdue. I really like where USC is playing. If they're good on all three phases, USC has a chance to then compete for the big 10 title, I think. Yeah. I would just say the point for USC is that defense has to continue to continue to stay at a higher level.

One thing you always want to keep in mind with the conference realignment, West Coast teams coming across to play East Coast team for early start times. Very difficult. There's no doubt. One last note, slide it in there at the end. I like that, Joe. The pro, that's been a bane of contention for college basketball and football coaches in the Big Ten. But it's simply a fact of life in the new world of college football realignment.

Enjoy the games. We'll see you next week.