College Football Live - CFB Live- 9/2 - Fumbled Expectations?

Episode Date: September 2, 2025

College Football is so back!! Join our crew Zubin Mehenti, Sam Acho, Tom Luginbill, and Pete Thamel as they discuss an eye opening Week 1 in college football. New AP Poll rankings foster new expectations... and the Buckeyes are back on top after taking down Arch Manning and Texas at home. Speaking of Arch, should the alarm bells start ringing, or was it just first game jitters? Should Alabama fans be worried after falling to Florida State, the new #14 team in the country? And Bill Belichick gave it the good old college try...find out what the guys thought of his debut and more on today's episode of College Football Live! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When you're flying Emirates business class, relaxing in an exclusive airport lounge, you'll see that your vacation isn't really over until your flight is over. Fly Emirates, fly better. Welcome to College Football Live. Let's take a look at this week's college football rankings brought to you by Chick-fil-A, hot off the presses. Ohio State bumps itself up to number one. Texas becomes the first number one team to lose its opener since 1990. They fall down to seven. Miami is in the top five.

So is Florida State and Florida rounding out the top 15, meaning Miami, Florida State and Florida, the triumvirate in the top 15 together for the first time in nearly 20 years. Bama, by the way, is at 21, their lowest ranking in 17 years. And that's because of the seminal shocker that took place Saturday at Doe Campbell Stadium. Last time Alabama was out of the poll 2007. And maybe that's next. Unlikely.

Texas, you saw the struggles they had for Arch Manning, finished with 170 yards passing, but 132 of them came in the fourth quarter. And as bad as it looked for Bill Belichick in North Carolina Monday night, this is how it looked even worse. Opening night for Bill Belichick, sort of like freshman orientation.

But Clark completely showing his experience and just baiting Lopez. Touchdown team. We see you 75 yards and the heels are getting the boot put right to their backside. Belichick hoping there will be better nights than this one. We're going back to work and we're going to get better. And with that, we welcome you to college football live. Samachot, Tom Luggenbill, Pete Thammel.

I'm Zubin Mahentie. North Carolina went more than two hours with completing a pass. Two hours of real time. We'll talk about the heels here in just a second. But guys, I want to get your thoughts on the poll. Tom, let's start with you. we did see four teams in the top 10 lose. It looks a little bit different.

What are your thoughts? Listen, I look at the new top 10, and I think all of those teams are deserving. I think you could put them in any particular order and feel like you've got a really good bunch there. I think you've got to look further down the list to really start asking yourself some questions. Iowa State moves up six spots

after beating an FCS school. Listen, it's a great FCS program in South Dakota, and I have a hard time believing that anybody who watched Florida State and Alabama and watched Auburn and Baylor thinks that Alabama is better than Auburn right now, and Auburn's sitting there receiving votes. So listen, it's highly debatable. We understand that.

It's polarizing, but man, I thought there were a couple of surprises there. Florida State has entered the chat. That's what stood out the most to me. This Florida State team, that was 2 and 10 last season, but they had eight new transfers starting on offense and a freshman, as well as Thomas Castellanos, who transferred over and dominated Alabama. It was impressive, not only the performance, but also now they're up to the top 15. We talked about the ranking the 14th team, and I think that they're going to be a major challenge this year if they play the way that they played against Alabama.

All right, as we mentioned, the one team that's going to need a telescope to see the top 25 is North Carolina. So let's do the discussion there. Pete, I want to start with you. The football world was watching it last night. You had the privilege of being there in person. Just tell us, if you could, what the range of emotions was from that start to that third quarter finish and empty. out by the fourth quarter. Well, Zubin, the vibes were electric. I can't overstate what a scene it was through the hour leading up to the game and through

the first seven or eight minutes of the first quarter. I mean, North Carolina was concise and flawless on their opening offensive drive. And the crowd was buzzing. Michael Jordan was in the house. There was a lot happening. But unfortunately for North Carolina, Zubin, they're just not that good. And, you know, going into the game. talking to scouts are on the sideline. They have about two players who will be considered NFL

draft picks. And one of those players, Coroner Marcus Allen, played poorly last night. What to me stood out the most once the game unfolded, Zubin, was this was just an indictment of the roster that Bill Belichick and Mike Lombardi put together. You don't pay Bill Belichick $11 million to not have a roster that can compete for the ACC championship. And I'm not saying that UNC's not going to win a game. They could certainly compete. They have a very easy schedule going forward, but you don't unfold this grand experiment

to go to the Birmingham Bowl or the Fenway Bowl. And right now, just what is on the field from a pure talent perspective, no clear quarterback, no stars, issues on the offensive and defensive line. This is not a team that's an ACC contender. Well, and the problem with that, Pete, is that we've made it far more about one individual

than we have about the roster in the football team and the collective parts that are actually going to go on the field. Bill Belichick doesn't have any eligibility. And so now you start to really start peeling back the layers. It's almost like having an expansion team without a draft, without a supplemental draft, free agency only, not a long training camp

and no preseason games. And now you go out there and you're trying to figure out what you have. The bottom line is this. They've got to identify on tape. Who was doing what they were coached to do, and who is not doing what they were coached to do. Who is playing effort? Who is playing without effort?

Who's got some passion and some care about their play and the execution and the discipline it is going to take to be a good football team? And so there's a lot of work to do. And Bill Belichick's going to go right back to the tape and he's going to say, guys, we've got to evaluate everything we're doing as coaches, as players, and reshuffle this roster if we need to

and start going with guys that are going to do what we coach them to do. Yeah, Lombardi, by the way, is making $1.5 million himself. He's the GM, as Pete said. I saw Sam, I saw the eyes pop there. I'm with you, man. But you got the toughest question of all. Give me a silver lining to what you saw last night.

The one silver lining of North Carolina and how they played last night is that they may have just found their quarterback. Max Johnson came in in the second half after quarterback transferred, Gio Lopez got injured, and he looked like a seasoned veteran. Remember, last year, Max Johnson won the starting quarterback position for North Carolina. He broke his leg in week one. And that was really when North Carolina's season

started to go downhill. They started a young player by the name of Jacoby Chriswell, who didn't play so great. All of a sudden, Max Johnson goes through this quarterback competition. He loses it, but when he got back in, he didn't miss a beat. So what stood out to me outside of all the miss tackles, and really, you could talk about poor play, but I would say poor coaching was the fact that North Carolina may actually have an opportunity to compete with Max Johnson behind center. Yes, all right. So if North Carolina fans this morning are wondering what's going on with their coach in a very small sample size. Alabama fans may be wondering the very same thing about their coach after what happened

on Saturday. Again, Florida State coming off its worst season in 50 years. They won two games and they have essentially gotten the last season's win total in half by taking out Alabama Saturday. And this has a lot of people talking about what we're going to see from Alabama moving forward. Look at this stat. Just look at this for one second. Four losses for Kael and Dabor against unranked opponents in 14 games. Nick Saven had four in his entire 17 seasons. Here's D'Bore with the best spin job he can offer. These guys have already shown me yesterday

how bad they want it and how they're going to respond. And so, you know, I really feel like the tone in the locker room after the game, at least from my standpoint and how I can address the team is completely different than it was a year ago. It feels different. There's more of a like just flat out upset. Take care of business this week and then that's going to set up the next week. And then we'll worry about that. That's been our philosophy all along, but we really got to live it now.

Okay, as I mentioned, Alabama with its lowest ranking in 17 years, they're sitting there at 21. They have ULM next. Sam, let's start with you. After watching Saturday, you really believe Alabama is going to get this. sort of performance from everyone they face every Saturday this fall. Why is that? Without a doubt, Kaelin DeBoer has to understand that this is not Washington anymore. This is Alabama. And when you're at Alabama, a premier program, you're going to get everyone's best shot weekend and week out. Back when I was at Texas, we were one of the top ranked teams,

went to a national championship. And every single week, it doesn't matter if we played the best team of the nation or directional school from east to west, wherever, we were going to get their best shot. Why? Because they would go home and say, man, we beat Texas. or in this case, man, we beat Alabama. You heard Thomas Castellano say that they don't have Nick Sabin to save them. Then he backed it up and said, I don't see how they can stop me when I'm just watching the tape. We watched the tape as well, and he was right. So no matter what, whether it's this year versus a Florida State team, last year versus Vanderbilt,

Alabama's going to get everyone's best shot, especially when they see weakness. Well, Sam, there's no question Florida State was ready to play with a chip on their shoulder. They were hot. They had the home crowd behind him. If you're Alabama, I think there's a few areas. that you've got to be really concerned about. You got whipped in the trenches on both sides of the football. And defensively, I believe there's some effort,

discipline, and execution issues that need to be addressed ASAP in terms of non-negotiables of what is going to be permitted to play defense at the University of Alabama. And that being said, we cannot discredit or discount how important the marriage of Thomas Castellanos

and offensive coordinator Gus Malzahn was in week one versus Alabama. It was a master class. and subterfuge, deception, window dressing, playing off of plays, and getting after it, and utilizing the poor fundamentals and techniques of Alabama's defense to gain an advantage. I thought it was unbelievable watching that tape yesterday

to see just how good a job those two did for that offense. And when you think about what's next, I think there's two things. Number one, the team has to take ownership. There needs to be a bigger sense of urgency in practice. When a situation like this comes about, there's no more, there's no more like, hey, we'll get it figured out. Like the players have to take an ownership. Yes, it's the coach's team, but the best teams I've been a part of are player-led. That's part one. And part two, though they

lost in an embarrassing fashion, you cannot discount Alabama just yet. Why? Go back to last year, Clemson got embarrassed week one versus Georgia. Well, fast forward, they still ended up, ended up making the college football playoff. And so the way that this thing does get turned around looking forward, it can't be about a coach or anybody else. The players have to take ownership. for themselves. Okay, one last thing. Remember, they were unranked in Saban's first year in 07. They beat Clemson, the 08 opener, and they stayed in the rankings for the next 16 years. Right now, they're sitting at 21. You heard Sam mention that Tommy Costellanos said, Nick couldn't save him back in the summer. He backed it up, and now you can back up a Venmo payment

to get that right across your chest. Nick can't save him at Tommy Costalanos.com. There's always a dollar to be made, and you better believe, this day. and age. Somebody will be making it. On a more serious note here, Pete, Alabama has much more serious concerns than just a loss. Looks like their best offensive player got a little nicked up. Give me the update here on Ryan Williams. Yeah, Zubin, Alabama has been pretty banged up. We'll start with Ryan Williams. He suffered a concussion late in that Florida state game. Kailin DeBore said he's day-to-day. Typically, when college players have concussions, they end up missing a game. We'll see what Alabama and Williams come to this weekend.

Obviously, Wisconsin looms after Monroe, so that could be a logical target for Williams to come back. Along with Williams, Jaden Roberts, who's a starter on the offensive line, is expected back after he missed the opener with a concussion. Tim Keenum remains out, one of their star defensive tackles, and wide receiver Isaiah Horan is expected back. So a little bit of fortification for Alabama as they were missing some key guys last week. Of course, Alabama lost to Florida State on Saturday on Sunday. He's a manbacker Ethan Pritchard was shot in Havana, Florida, about 15 miles northwest of Tallahassee. What do you have on his condition and how he's doing? Yeah, Zuban, obviously an awful situation down in Tallahassee.

The latest from just a few minutes ago from talking to officials at Florida State is that Pritchard remains in critical but stable condition. Florida State had yesterday off as a team. They returned to practice this morning, obviously with heavy hearts. told that a lot of the medical staff, the trainers and such, have spent a lot of time at the hospital with Pritchard and his family. Coach Mike Norvell was able to go over and visit with him a little bit recently. So obviously that has been central to this weaker Florida State. The health of Pritchard is at the front of everybody's mind. No doubt. Certainly hoping for the best for that young man. Thank you for that update. Still to come here on college football live. Everybody was talking

about what Arch wasn't able to do. Is it possibly because the play caller of all play callers wouldn't let him do it? An interesting angle on Manning's struggle Saturday at the Shoe when college football live continues. Black Friday is here at IKEA and the clock is taking on savings you won't want to miss. Join IKEA family for free today and unlock deals on everything from holiday must-haves to cozy at home essentials. All the little and big things you need to make this season shine. But don't wait. Like leftovers at midnight, our Black Friday offers won't last.

Shop now at IKEA.ca.ca. IKEA, bring home to life. We're back on college football live. As far as this is to believe, for the first time in 10 years in the regular season, Ohio State is the number one team in the country. That sounds strange, but they haven't done it in a decade in the regular season until now after their big win over Texas, who of course had been the number one team as we take a look at this week's college football rankings brought to you by Chick-fil-A. As I mentioned at the top of the program, Texas, the first number one team to lose their opener. since Miami did it back in 1990. Speaking to the Keynes, they're at five.

And again, I want to emphasize Miami, Florida, state, Florida, all in the top 15 for the first time since 06. They've been waiting in the Sunshine State for that for quite some time. Many people have been waiting for Arch for quite sometimes. But this wasn't exactly what they were waiting for. 37% off target rate. If you saw his first throw Saturday,

you knew things weren't going to be getting too much better. But Arch, as you might expect, taking full responsibility. I hold myself to a high standard. Recognize I got to play better. Got to lead more. Got to get our guys to play well around me. Ultimately, I'm good enough.

So, yeah, I am running. So just starting faster, getting completions, get into my guys in space, being consistent, just operating the offense and executing each play at a time. You know, it's amazing in the age of TikTok that message board culture is still a thing. And I wouldn't go on there

if I was arched on any of the Longhorn message boards with Pete. Let's start with you. Bottom line, you're saying there is no need to panic. So tell all those Texas message board fans that beg to differ with you, why that is. I don't know if I'm going to reason with the folks at Orange Bloods, but I will say this, Zuban. I was at Columbus on Saturday for that game. That was the most raucous I've seen Ohio Stadium in the 22 years I've been going to games there.

I mean, it was an electric environment. And my biggest takeaway from Archmanning's performance is that no matter what your last name is and no matter what your genetics are, he is still a human being. And he came out nervous and he came out a little jumpy. He skipped that first ball and he was just okay. The play calling, certainly on the goal line and inside the 10, did not help him. And I think he's going to be just fine. So the coronation can end. And I think the logical normal learning curve for a young starting quarterback can begin.

He is certainly a promising prospect. He now just has to go prove it. Look at my man, Pete, with some reasonable perspective. I'm with you, brother. And I also think that that first throw of the game, I think it spooked Sark a little bit. And, you know, I've come to believe that Steve Sarkisian is one of the most masterful play college in all of college football.

But one of the reasons why he is is because of all of the things he does pre-snap to create the best possible matchup for his quarterback. I thought he became a little bit vanilla. I thought he played conservative. This is an offense that generally has an epic screen game. There was really no semblance of that consistently. This was not all about Arch Manning.

And to your point about the youth and inexperience, yes, he's played a couple of games. But what Matt Patricia did and what you do to young quarterbacks is you change the picture post snap. And when that happened, it created hesitation and it forced Arch Manning to hold onto the ball a little longer than he'd want to. and then that leads to that off target mark of 37%. That's why some of that stuff took place.

And I think we also need to just double tap and dig deeper into the point that not only you, Tom, have made, but also that we heard Pete make about the environment, about Ohio Stadium, about how loud and how raucous that environment was for not only Archmanning's first start and in a road game, but also first start as the full-time starter. I remember being a 20-year-old or 19-year-old going to go play at University of Texas, going to play at Kyle Field, the loudest point. I never played. And I couldn't even hear the person five feet away from me. That's how loud that environment was. In the NFL, you don't really get stadiums like that per se, maybe one or two.

But in college, the environment for a new starting quarterback can definitely be a difference maker. I think we saw that when Florida State played and Ty Simpson was the new time starter. So for me, I think yes, Archmany has to play better. Number one, number two, I do think the environment affected it. And also number three, it could be an amalgamation of all the things, is that It seemed as if Steve Sarkesian wasn't leaning on the screen game as he did before. We used to see him run a ton of screens, yet for whatever reason, the run game wasn't working, and the screen game wasn't an option. Yeah, we should mention that things are going to get us to touch easier.

They do have San Jose State this Saturday afternoon. That'll be at noon on your local ABC station. So they'll have an opportunity to bounce back there. It's time for our rewarding performance brought to you by Capital One. And this is really interesting because it's just a reminder for a lot of fans out. there that Carson Beck did go 24 and 3 as Georgia's starter. And if you thought you waited a while to see Arch Manning, think about Carson Beck, waiting as long as he did with the last image of him with his right elbow dangling.

And now coming up with one of the biggest wins of week one. Still to come on college football live. Rapping up week one with the best of the rest from around the country, including maybe one of the best young signal callers way, way, way, way out west. At Desjardin, we speak business. We speak startup funding and comprehensive game plans. We've mastered made-to-measure growth and expansion advice, and we can talk your ear-off about transferring your business when the time comes.

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Number one falls as their horns are down again here in Columbus. And how good was that? He's going to get into the episodes. What a catch! Don't you want that he is the realist? Another edition of a tremendous rivalry game. Miami Hurricane football. I can't wait to get on the plane head back to Death Valley, baby.

What a weekend? mention coach Corso 6 and O on his picks out the door and we will miss Lee Corso. All right, guys, under the radar, so much great stuff happened this weekend. We'd have a chance to talk about. Tom, fire away. Your first. My man, I've been standing on the table for Devon Dampier at Utah. Offensive coordinator accounted for 293 yards against UCLA on the road in the Rose Bowl, completed 84% of his passes.

Guys, this dude is a problem. in a good way for them and a bad way for everybody else. And I was impressed by the depth of the ACC this weekend. Think it about it, the way that Miami got a chance to have a win over Notre Dame. Florida State over Alabama, even Georgia Tech earlier in the week over Colorado. The ACC really impressed me. And not only those three, some of the premier teams you're hearing about, but even in some of the losses, you saw some ACC teams stand out. Clemson still's going to be a dominant force as the season goes on.

and even Virginia Tech and a loss to South Carolina looked better. And so the depth of the ACC is what stood out to me this weekend. Well, Sam, I'll carry on that theme, and I will say to watch out for Duke in the upcoming weekend. They are 12 and 2 the last three years at Wallace Wade Stadium. Zubin, we may have to start calling it Cameron Outdoor Stadium. Darian Mensa, their high-priced quarterback transfer from Tulane, acquitted himself well in his first start.

Player to watch against Illinois this weekend, a playoff contender that comes into town, is Cooper Barcate. He's a receiver transfer from Harvard. He had big offers out of high school, went to Harvard for the degree, got it in three years, now he's getting a graduate degree at Duke, and we'll see a lot more of him on Saturday afternoon. No doubt. As you mentioned, the Cameron Indoor, there was another Cooper that I did flash for Duke there a year ago. By the way, it's look like we're going to have Brett Bealma join us on college football live tomorrow,

So that's an extra little wrinkle to Pete's angle between Illinois and Duke. And I got to give a shout out to Jaron Chiave Sakapitelli. He is a true freshman at Cal, and he was keeping all the draft nicks up late Saturday night with dime after dime after dime. And the late night went on ESPN against Oregon State. Find that on the web. It is well worth watching his cannon. And we'll see you tomorrow for more College Football Live.