College Football Live - CFB LIVE - SEC BATTLES THIS WEEKEND

Episode Date: October 8, 2026

Join our crew Zubin Mehenti, Sam Acho, EJ Manuel, and Joe Fortenbaugh on today's episode of College Football Live. Discussion of Georgia v Alabama and Texas v Oklahoma. Alex Scarborough joins the show to talk the weather in Tuscaloosa this weekend. Acho and EJ break down what makes the Oklahoma defense so good, and what UCLA in doing in the trenches. Jordan Reid joins the show to talk about Jeremiah Smith. Finally an update about the status of Dante Moore. All this and more on today's episode of College Football Live! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to College Football Live, presented by Dr. Pepper. And as you may know, there has been as much attention on the Doppler radar in the Gulf Coast as there has been on Alabama, welcoming in Georgia Saturday night as they are bracing for the first hurricane of the Atlantic season. The game is scheduled to go off here at 7.30 Eastern time on Saturday. And for more on it, we're going to bring in our Alex Scarborough. who joins us from Birmingham, Alabama. Alex, give us the very latest, as you know, as we sit here on Thursday afternoon. Yeah, the kickoff for this game looked a little bit dicey earlier in the week,

but the last 24 hours, the weather models have consistently shown a faster moving system, one that as of late has shown that maybe they would clear out of Tuscaloosa, as early as midday. Alabama put out a statement late last night saying that the game remains as scheduled for around 6.30 local time on Saturday. And Georgia apparently is not changing its travel plans, still planning on flying over on Friday evening. All right.

And we should just mention it's a football game, but this is a hurricane and there's life-threatening conditions. So we're hoping for the best for everyone in Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida, and in the path of this hurricane. And that is our Alex Carbone. All right. So with the proper perspective at hand there, let's get back to football.

Georgia and Alabama for the 77th time. Alabama has taken the last five regular season. season meeting, so that might vote well for the home fans Saturday night at Bryant Denny. They are the two highest scoring offenses in the country. Georgia leads, 51.4 points per game. Alabama's just a tick behind at 49.6. That's actually tied with the Miami Hurricanes. But here's one area where nobody can match Georgia. They haven't trailed against anybody all season. They're the only team in the country to win every game by at least 20 points this season. And Gunner Stockton and the biggest

games last year with the brightest spotlight has been terrific, especially in that SEC championship game win over, of course, Alabama to get them into the playoff. To get into the SEC championship game, well, the loser is going to have a hole to dig out of, but considering the strength of their schedule the rest of the way, you can either put yourself in a further hole or dig out against some quality competition. And with that, we welcome to you inside college football live. Sam EJ, our normal Thursday crew, Joe Fortinball, will be here in just one moment. Let's just break this game down, position by position. Our resident quarterback, it only seems right.

Would start by giving us the quarterback at. Well, I'll tell you guys both this. This was really hard to choose the quarterback here because both are playing amazing, especially when Georgia's quarterback is named Gunner Stockton. What a quarterback name. But I'm going Keel and Russell here for Alabama. The big reason why his athleticism and his five starts, four of those starts, he's had a rushing touchdown.

And again, at home, he's played amazing. Seven passing touchdowns, zero intercept. and a 71% completion again at home. I don't care for it's raining or not. This young man has the wheels to be able to make some of those big plays now. I like that pick. Heel and Russell's been outstanding. For running backs, I'm actually going to go Georgia and they're stable of running backs.

The reason why I'm going Georgia is this. Nate Frazier, who's been injured these last couple games, got hurt in Arkansas. He's off the injury report. So he's back healthy. And there's also running back by the name of Dwight Phillips Jr. He's somewhat of a scat back back. Big time, speed has ability to catch the ball out of the backfield. So yeah, Frazier on the inside, Phillips being able to

motion and cast a ball on the outside last week versus Vanderbilt five rushes five receptions it's a big touchdown real quick I just want to mention Chauncey bowens is out for Georgia so that's a big injury situation for Georgia at running back just to let you know as Sam makes his pick you're up on wide receiptsubing that's huge but I tell you what all the receivers are ready to go for Alabama crimson tide these guys are playing amazing at that spot Ryan Coleman Williams obviously is the big name he's explosive as all get out but also Lottie Brooks Rico Scott he had two two passing catches for touchdowns last week again and then also the tight ends you

Got to mention him as well, Marshall Pritcher. He jumped over a guy last week in their game. And then also Caleb Edwards, they do a really good job of pushing his ball down the field, creating some explosives for this passing game. And you got two really good defenses on both sides of the ball. I lean towards Georgia, though, for the defensive advantage. In their SEC games, so thus far, haven't given up more than 17 points so far in SEC play. And I get it last week.

They didn't play so great versus the Vanderbilt team. Vanderbilt did play one of their best games. And oh, by the way, that a different quarterback than to be expected in Blaise Berlowitz. And so Georgia with guys like KJ. Bold. on the back end leading the charge. You see him right there. The pass rush there, downhill aggressive attacking. I lean towards Georgia on the defense side of the ball.

That's a tough one, no, Zuma, because I might have pushed back on that, that one with Alabama. Their defense's been lights out. Devin Tompkins and Keon Savvy had to pick six last week. So that's going to be a great matchup as well. I like that. We might do this all again for the SEC championship game.

You never know. This Saturday morning, college game days actually moving inside due to the weather we talked about at the top of the show. It'll be at Coleman Coliseum, home with a men's and women's basketball teams. and the celebrity picker this week, Bryce Young. All Saturday morning at 9 a.m. Eastern.

You said at Fowler, Red River's latest installment, the ninth time since the poll debuted 90 years ago that this game has been played with Texas, ranked in the top 10 in Oklahoma, unranked. Sooners have lost all eight previous instances. Venables off the by knows the stakes. Don't be a great, great challenge for our guys, and our guys are excited to have an opportunity

to go back out and compete. and have an opportunity to go eight straight here, starting with Texas this week. And a wonderful challenge, a wonderful opportunity, a big challenge, but again, a wonderful opportunity for our guys to get to playing our best football. We haven't done that up to this point in time. I've been excellent in some different areas

and different moments. But this is an opportunity for us to be able to play our best football. I'd say this about Oklahoma. I don't know that necessarily they haven't played well. I think, first of all, defensively, they played exceptional. I mean, these guys are phenomenal defensive football team. I think, unfortunately, offensively, they've had some untimely turnovers that have just hurt them.

We were in the same situation a year ago. You know, we were just coming off and losing to Florida. We were a two-loss team. We were a desperate football team and found a way to win and played a really good second half. All right, so let's break this game down. I'm not Pete Thammell, but I always love saying sources are telling. Sam Acho. And you can actually reveal the source here.

You have some really good intel here from the Texas side. So last night I was at an event, I got a chance to host an interview with the Manning brothers, Cooper, Peyton, and Eli. People know Peyton and Eli, but Cooper is Arch's dad. And one of the questions we got a chance to ask him was, hey, how do you help get Arch ready for a game like this? And the biggest message he said, not just to me, but to the entire audience, was reminding Arch to play free and having fun again. E.J., you know this better than anybody. There's such a difference when you're playing the game.

or doing whatever you're doing and having fun versus pressing. Now, the benefit of this Texas team is that there's a defense, that Texas's defense that would be able to be able to shoulder the load while the offense tries to get it figured out. But that idea of, man, like, you have nothing to prove and nobody too impressed. That was somewhat of the message that we heard from Cooper last night. Yeah, that's great stuff, Sam. I think the best part for arts, too, is that you have an amazing defense in this matchup, too.

The last time Texas lined it up, man, you had, what, 10 sacks against Tennessee, and now they're fresh. They're coming off of that. So I think that's a huge area for John Matier to be solid. on, but also Oklahoma's defense is damn good as well, too. They've done a really good job of getting after the passer and also causing some havoc when they get into some of these blitz packages. And so we got two plays here that I clipped off from this defense against Georgia.

We call this blitz in NFL, hey, diddle, diddle, three up the middle. So you've got two double eight mug linebackers. And then you got a free rusher here from the safety spot. That's going to be Reggie Powers, the third, who does a great job of timing this up. And then he puts Georgia into a position where they have an incomplete pass. Now, right here, Archer has to do a great job of reading. the zone coverage and not getting lazy. Really, Gunner Stockton should have just threw this ball out to the flat to his running back.

You got a lead block right there. Give it to him. Maybe he gets five yards. But he's tried to be a bit stingy there. And then Kip Lewis gets his hand on the football. Ends up being another interception there for this Oklahoma defense. So I know they're not having a great year, but OU is definitely capable on that side of the floor. So we ran that kind of coverage when I played.

And we didn't call it hey, diddle diddle. We called a triple middle fire zone, right? We hated it as an offense. We hated that blitz. And the reason why, to your point is that there's five offensive linemen. Usually they're sliding out. So now you're bringing three guys. guys up the A gap early in the B gap,

all of a sudden there's no one to protect the inside. So it's hard to protect for that. But to your point, Oklahoma's defense has been outstanding all season long. They'll have to lean on that defense and maybe force some turnovers in this game like they have in years past to be able to keep up with Texas and their defense as well. Points are going to be at a premium here. All right. The Vegas market, some call it the over under, some called the total 39 and a half.

Our database does not have a Red River game. Excuse me. It's not that hard to say Red River. We don't have a Red River game that low anywhere in the database. Closest is 99. It was 45 points. So when you see that sit in 39 and a half for a college football game, you think first, Iowa. No, Iowa not involved here.

Second, you think it's going to be about the defenses. Oklahoma is a 7.5 point dog. You're catching more than a touchdown in a game that's supposed to be low scoring with two very good defenses. I'm looking a little bit to the sooner's here. Two weeks to get ready for this game. You can put a couple surprises in the bag there. I can say one quick thing. So I played in this game four years during my time at Texas. And I've got, I live in Dallas. I got friends, Oklahoma fans, Texas fans. And everyone, not everyone, people can tend to think, well, man, Oklahoma's down this year.

Texas is up this year. The reality is it's a rivalry game. Yes. And in rivalry games, you really don't know what's going to happen. Yes, by all intents and purposes, Texas should win this game. If you just look at the statistics and the way that Mateer's been playing, but they have to go and perform and prove it on Saturday. And that's why Stanford Steve is saying from a desperation standpoint, he's actually, actually taking Oklahoma straight up. Take a look at the SEC triple header on your way with Texas, Oklahoma in the middle. Joe, why don't you get in here on Georgia and Alabama? We heard the fellow's thoughts earlier. Georgia started as a small favorite, one and a half.

Early money on Alabama to make them a small favorite at one and a half. Total dropping big because of the wind and the weather. 55 and a half down to 51 and a half. I find myself liking Georgia. Well-balanced team, most experienced team Kirby Smart has had since joining Georgia in 2016. I think that's going to be the difference in a game that could be. very messy. Love it. On the way here on college football live in the last 50 years,

only two wide receivers have ever been picked number one overall. Are we about to see a third our resident NFL draft analyst here with the answer on an all-time great? And Dante Moore, you probably know the deal with this condition and Ryola this weekend, but Joe

is going to hit you with an angle that nobody's talking about and everyone will be if it happens. College Football Live is presented by Ice Cold Dr. Pepper. College football. It's a pepper thing.

Welcome back to college football live. Presented by Dr. Pepper. So you know the situation with Dante Moore nearly two weeks after that vicious hit at the CLA. CMPs out. Dylan Riola is in and their game against UCLA. Really no drop off after Riola had to come in in place of Moore in that win over. U.S.C. Obviously, the team's still thinking about him, but they've now got to think about the

undefeated Bruins. And we have to think about an interesting angle that I have not heard. We mentioned it right before the break, and I want to get to Joe on this. I don't like the game theory these things out, but you've got a very interesting wrinkle here, short and potentially longer term with the Ducks at quarterback. Take us inside. Generally, as we all know, you watch the starting quarterback go down. You look to a point spread. You see a dramatic shift in the number. I remember the best example was Aaron Rogers in his heyday with the Packers. If he went down with an injury, seven, eight point move. He was worth more than a touchdown of the line.

Same with Patrick Mahomes. In college, Dante Moore could have come out last year. Many people believe he could have been a first round pick, right? He's got a lot of talent. So Oregon's an 11.5 point favorite. And then the announcement comes out that Riola is going to start, not more. Pointsbred doesn't budge at all. Now, part of that's still 11.5.

Now, part of that is people believing that, yeah, there was some thought that Moore can't play in this. game. But the other part is, Riola's a hell of a backup. He looked fantastic in that matchup in place of more against USC. And now a situation here against a 4-0 UCLA team that has been playing fantastic football. If Ryola steps in and plays

well, really well, you've got to ask yourself, do you go back to more? It sounds crazy at first, but there's guys I talk to in Vegas who power rank these things for a living. They see these two quarterbacks as close to even. Not all guys guys do, but some see these two as close to even if Ryola plays really well. I wonder

If we wake up come Monday, Tuesday morning, we start thinking about whether or not Oregon has a question that they might have to answer. Wow. Boy, Joe's staring up the pot here. And I agree with a lot of your points, Joe, but I just feel like with the way that Dante Moore got removed from being the starting quarterback with the injury and all of that, you have to give him an opportunity

to earn his job back, especially if Raola goes out and plays well. And look, I think this is more of a, you know, a recognition to Dylan Riola for his maturity to be okay being a backup. But also, you know, Dan Laning to, be able to have a guy like that on a team. I mean, he's a high dollar backup. And you would think he's really a starting quarterback. He's had 22 starts under his belt to this point in his career,

this being the 23rd this coming weekend if he does start. So I still believe you go with Dante Moore until proven otherwise. You got to give him an opportunity. And Dylan Riala did play well two weeks ago. But I feel like it was a lot of run game, a lot of quick game, right? There were a couple of really nice passes. Like a couple of Dons were like, man, that's like what you expected. You look at this time in Nebraska, et cetera.

But it's different when you are the guy. and teams are game planning for you. And so I get the excitement about Riola. He did have a solid performance. But a lot of those yards, there were some downfield passing. But there was a lot of, man, open receivers, right, right? Nice job by the officer coordinator getting things game plan. So not necessarily to say pump the brakes on Dillon Ryola,

but I still think that Dante Moore is the guy based off his experience, leadership. And oh, by the way, you saw the way that the entire team rallied around Dante Moore. That doesn't always happen for players on teams. Yeah, well, look, the most important key here for Oregon is that you continue to win. Right? Like if you lose another game in the Big Ten, that could cause some issues on the back end of the season. But, you know, look, Dylan Riola, you know, did play well in that game. Even if he plays here well against UCLA, I still believe that Dan Lending would do the right thing and give a Dante Moore, who decided to come back last year. That's another key to that conversation. He could have went off and been maybe the second quarterback drafted, which probably would have put him in the top 10 of last year's NFL draft, decided to come back, help this team win the championship. I believe you got to give him another opportunity. Got to kind of have the money to bring in a backup like this. Because you don't think the starter goes down. But when he does, he does it. does to have this is your security blanket.

But I think the ultimate story here, if teams can really invest into having a solid backup quarterback, that extends your season. It gives you a real chance to win a championship, whether your starters hurt or not. Ask the Ole Miss Rebels about that last year. It seemed to work out well for them. Let's take a look at today's fast plays brought to you by Goodyear. Fast moving up the charts in every single category at the wide receiver position for Ohio State.

Last week, Jeremiah Smith said two career Buckeye marks in the win over Iowa. And I don't think I need to remind everybody how good. good the wide receivers over the years have been at Ohio State. This guy seems like he could be the best. Our Jordan Reed's got a piece on ESPN.com about his top prospects in the draft. Jeremiah Smith clearly at number one. No real surprise there. You're looking at the top 10.

And with that, let's bring Jordan in. And there's an important caveat here, Jordan. There's a difference between being the number one overall prospect and the number one guy picked. Of course, it's all based on need. That said, very rare for a wide out to go number one. What are the chances this guy can do it? I think it's a realistic possibility, honestly, Zubin, just because he's mentioned in the same breath of some of the best receiver prospects we've ever seen, whether it's Larry Johnson,

or excuse me, Larry Fitzgerald, Calvin Johnson, Andre Johnson, Julio Jones. He's mentioned in the same breath of some of these players that have went with the second and third overall pick. And we've seen, or usually historically, the number one overall pick is reserved for players at quarterback, offensive end. But we may be in the dilemma for the first time since 1996 with Kishon Johnson, where I think a team with the number one pick, if none of these other quarterbacks emerge in this year's class, they have to really think about taking Jeremiah Smith at number one overall

just because, to me, he's far and away the best player in this year's draft. All right, last one for you. I'm sure you were listening to our convoy here with this whole Ryola Moore situation and what more situation was possibly coming out last year. How does Scouts size up these two guys moving forward with this little wrinkle joke kind of threw into the mix? Yeah, it's a really, really interesting situation just because I thought Dylan Rayola came in last week against USC and played really, really well.

But I agree with E.J. And what he was saying is that he's going to get an opportunity to prove that he still needs to be the starter. Just because we're talking about a high-end quarterback prospect coming into last year's draft of Dante Moore would have came out. He probably would have went up, been the number two overall pick to the New York Jets behind Fernando Mendoza and the Las Vegas Raiders. So I think they're going to give Dante Moore the opportunity to earn his job back. And I still believe he is going to be the guy whenever he is ready to return. but it is something to think about. But having two quarterbacks on the roster that are worthy of playing big-time snaps like Oregon has right now,

I think that's a great thing for Oregon. But I think Dante Moore is going to be the unquestioned QB1 initially when he does come back. Yeah, everybody can check out Jordan's piece on ESPN.com. And I will say this entire century, there have been 20 quarterbacks selected at number one overall and zero wide receivers. We'll see if Jeremiah Bucks the trend. Great stuff here from Jordan Reed. On the way here on college football live, he less than half a season in for Will Stein. but why it could be a program defining Saturday for him with the fighting tigers.

E.J's got some thoughts on that. Next. College Football Live is presented by Ice Cold Dr. Pepper. College football. It's a pepper thing. Did a very good job of hiding the total human being. Hello, Alabama wins! I'm driven to make ordinary people want to do extraordinary things.

genius. Trader. Champion. I just could call the ass chewing. He didn't get it. There was a method to that madness. Seven national championship. Right now is the time.

We fight. We fight. We fight. Wow. That was a sneak peek of Sabin. Presented by Verbo, the man the coach, the process. Six-part series starts tonight at Six Eastern on ESPN, streaming any time on the app.

For guys that have spent as much time in football as you guys have, everybody has a Sabin story. So regale me with your best Nick Sabin-isim. Yeah, I got a quick. So back in high school, my junior year, Coach Saban, came to visit me, but his mode of transportation was a helicopter. I'll never forget this. I was in science class. And all we heard was a chapter kind of circling the school for a little bit.

And sure enough, it landed on the 50-yard line. A couple other coaches had done this, but we didn't know it was going to be Nick Saban, get called out of class, and go meet Coach Savenan and coach Moore's office to talk to him for about 20 minutes, shook his hand. He got back on the chopper and off he went. Pretty cool. And you stood him going out of them after all that? That's right, right. This is true. Bobby Bound came as well.

Respect, respect. So my Nick Saban story actually begins in 2009, the year that Alabama won their first national championship, actually played at Texas. And we played in the national championship versus Nick Sabin as they began that historic run where he had six national championships as a head coach. But the hard part for me was we played a team where Mark Ingram was one of the star running backs. And all of a sudden came this freshman who's like six feet, 220, Trent Richardson. I'm like, man, there's like a stable of backs. Julio Jones at receiver, James Carpenter at left tackle, McElroy at quarterback.

And not to mention Marcel Darrys, some of the deep. defensive players they had. It was just they came in waves. Right. And so I feel like if they same would have been there, maybe I had a championship ring wearing right now, but unfortunately he started his dynasty. Great stuff from the fellas. Before we get out of here, let's take a look at our Dr. Pepper Trophy run game of the week preview. And this is a big one between Kentucky and LSU. That middle one, if you're too young, go on YouTube and YouTube, the finish of the LSU Kentucky game in O2. It's called the Bluegrass Miracle, one of the greatest endings college football has ever seen. All right. We got one minute.

I want to get both the in because we mentioned EJ is going to be talking about a potential altering win here for Stein. That in a second. First for you, what are you seen in this? I'm excited about the matchup of Kentucky's defense versus LSU's offense. Sam Levitt played outstanding last week, but the week before, he struggled. I'm looking at guys like safety, Jordan Castell, number five on the back end. He had Pixon back-to-back weeks versus A&M and versus Alabama. Also had essentially the game winning PBU versus A&M. And so it's the defense, I think, they don't have to slow down.

maybe confused Sam Levitt, caused him to hold the ball just a bit and pat it, and all of a sudden he tucks the runs you get a sack. Well, this could be a really a career-defying win for Will Stein. This young into his career, but also he has Kenny Minchie, his quarterback playing excellent. 11 touchdowns only one interception. The big key, though, defense, but can you stop the run? LSU rush for 376 yards against mixed knees. Kentucky's run defense, not the best, one of the worst in the SEC.

We will see you right back here tomorrow at 5 Eastern for more. College Football Live.