College Football Live - CFB LIVE - Week 11 Preview and Joe Fortenbaugh Joins the Show

Episode Date: November 6, 2025

On today's episode of CFB Live, Zubin Mehenti and Sam Acho breakdown and preview Byu and Texas Tech. Joe Fortenbaugh joins the show to give his best bets for Week 11. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Get no frills delivered. Shop the same in-store prices online and enjoy unlimited delivery with PC Express Pass. Get your first year for $2.50 a month. Learn more at pceexpress.ca. Please keep hands and feet inside the ride at all times. All clear. Enjoy your ride. Touchdown!

How about it? In Miami's playoff hoax on life support. Here they come. Back with the upset. Then the end, Steve Sarkasian's team hangs on. And welcome to college football live with Sam Acho. I'm Zubin Mahenty. Even for the lone top 10 matchup of the week,

it's been a roller coaster ride for BYU and Texas Tech to get here. Let me give you some numbers about why this game is so critical. Sam is going to dig into the Cougars here in a second. BYU is undefeated. But Texas Tech needs this game. If they get it, their chances of making the big play. 12 title game Skyrocket. If they lose, they plummet.

And Sam, that is so important because this is the all-in year for tech. They were talking about making the playoff in a loss. They might not even make the conference title game. So there's a lot of pressure on the Red Raiders. But BYU is where they are. Undefeated and number seven, the top ranked team in the Big 12, according to the committee, because they are as complete as big. Yeah, they're good on offense or good on defense.

It's Bear Bachmeyer, but it's also the defense. I'm going to show you a little bit about why little movements make a big, difference. So we'll start with the quarterback bear Bachmire. He's going to see there's going to be pressure. So he's going to evaluate the defense. He's going to see these two safeties are about six or seven yards deep. So he sees that blitz coming. She's going to move his tight end Carson Ryan to help get ready for the potential of a blitz. That's a smart thing. A little insight that leads to a big movement. But watch six man rush, but there's seven in protection. So Bachmire, watch his feet. He doesn't step into a throw. He throws us off

of its back foot pressure in his face right to number 11. That's Kingston, right there. Parker Kingston for a touchdown. But it's not just offense. It's defense as well. It's going to look like man, but it's actually going to be his own. How do I know what's own? Because you're going to see all these guys are going straight back. Their eyes are on the quarterbacks. They're going backwards, but their eyes are looking at the QB. But I want you to keep your eyes on Satuala number 11. He's in a zone defense. He's going to undercut this route because he knows he has help over top. Quarterback Rocco Bex throwing it from the far hash undercut by Satuala. The defense struggled. Oh no. Chase so, so it.

thought it was bad to play too. The defense struggled, but that turnover shows that they're opportunistic. It's little things. They struggled early in that game to stop the run, but it was a turnover on special teams, a turnover on defense. That's how this BYU team's able to be effective as a complete football team. One last piece of good news, and you broached us on college football live yesterday, the condition of LJ Martin, the BYU great runner. He is good to go this week. Great news for the Coogs, maybe more adversity for Tech. And that's because Tech has one snap away for playing their third string quarterback. From the biggest game of the Big 12

to the biggest game in the Big 10. Oregon and Iowa, it's your Cudoba players to watch. Dante Moore will wait to see how healthy he is. He got banged up in their last game against Wisconsin, wasn't able to finish Mark Grinowski much healthier now for the Hawkeyes

as well at the quarterback position. Iowa lost to Indiana. Oregon lost to Indiana. The commonalities and the identities abound for both. The one common denominator is like, you know, Indiana doesn't beat themselves, And if you open the door at all for Oregon, you're going to pay it real quickly. So, you know, they did a good job of, you know, making Oregon and having to work in all three phases.

And this league's got more variety than people realize, so every week's a little bit different. But this is certainly one. When I talk about Iowa, you talk about a team that has an identity. And if they've had an identity for a long time ever since Coach Ferrens has been there, it's been really clear. You know, they're going to play great defense, be really good on special teams, be physical in the run game, you know, and be able to take advantage of shots and opportunities there. team certainly has an identity. I'll say that. Iowa City, one of the toughest places to play Kinnick Stadium. The Ducks will be there. Want to dig in a little bit here on Oregon because over the years,

we've talked about all the great quarterbacks they've had, all their great running backs, all their great wide receivers. They've had a lot of guys like Tibido drafted on the front line of the defense. What we don't talk as much about is the back end for the ducks, and you have some concerns there. Well, it's not just the back end. It's what leads to the back end. I'll start with the offensive line for Oregon. There's a couple transfer offensive tackles who people are excited about but are still trying to develop. And you turn on the tape, you're going to see a lot of sacks and pressures given up by Oregon, especially when it comes to pass pro.

So if they're not able to run the ball, you're going to see sacks, quarterback's hits, quarterback hurries, quarterback pressures that show up over and over and over again. Oregon has allowed 73 pressures on the season. Though Iowa's only tied for 65th in the FBS with 17 sacks, they have 97 pressures. So if Oregon's not able to run the football, so it's not an obvious passing situation, It could spell trouble for the offensive line. And Max Llewellyn, who's that past rush that was that player to watch, watch, he's going to have a big day. All right, let me ask you this about Oregon here.

You might remember week two of the season. Mike Gundy made a big stink about Oregon spending all this money in the NIL. Dan Landing responded, Oregon won 693. Both of these teams have been on the buy. So there wasn't a ton of discussion last week when I was Phil Parker essentially said the same thing. He was effusive in his praise of Oregon, then added in to the back. You know, they are well-funded, though. And both of those fan bases blew that comment up.

Take me inside the mind of a player. Someone tried it. It blew up in their face. Someone's trying it again. What does it all mean? Well, the mindset is about matchups. It's not about the conversation on the outside. It's about, okay, can I beat the man in front of me?

You paid that guy $5 million, $2 million, $1 million. Watch what I'm going to do against this All-Star Stud, who you think is going to be your new hero. Go back to Maxwellan, who has six sacks for Iowa. He has an unbelievable long arm. He doesn't care about it. Isaiah World or the other tackle on the other side. He's trying to win his matchup.

And so I understand there could be a lot of outside noise and a lot of transfer portal players and a lot of, you know, people talk about a salary cap. But if I'm a player on that Iowa defense, I relish the opportunity to go against an offense and has so much star power. All right. Let's move ahead to the Dr. Pepper. Game of the week. This one's going to be in the SEC between Missouri and Texas A&M.

And you kind of know the story here with A&M, the lone undefeated team left in the SEC. Meanwhile, Missouri is hanging on for dear life, but they have had about as much adversity as anybody could ask for, and they are still hanging tough as a two-lost team for Eli Drinkwitz. I want to start with the quarterback situation here, because Sam Horn goes down in the opener. It's going to be Bob Ruehler's job. He goes down. They're still trying to get to Atlanta. The odds don't favor them, but I can't think of too many other teams that are trying to make the playoff or on the periphery with a third string quarterback. And not just a third-string quarterback, a true freshman in Matt Zollars.

Zollars does have experience he played a little bit this season. But if you have a true freshman at quarterback, what's the best friend of a young quarterback? Running game. It's a running game. And what does Missouri have? They have the number one rushing offense in the SEC and the number 10 rushing offense in the FBS,

led by the guy you see on your screen, Amad Hardy, number 20. So the running game's going to be big. But what's going to be even bigger, excuse me, 29. What's going to be even bigger is if I'm a defense, I'm going to try and get after that young quarterback. quarterback, and that's what A&M is going to try and do. A&M has a guy by the name of Cassius Howell, nine and a half sacks on the season. This team has 32 sacks.

That's tied for fourth. So you want to get into a young player's head. You know they're going to try and run the ball. In order to rush the quarterback, we always talk about it. You have to earn the opportunity to rush the quarterback. So you must, if you're A&M, you have to stop the run and stop this top-ranked rushing offense to earn the opportunity for your top-rank pass rush to show off. One quick question about A&M.

Last year, they started out hot, lot forward to their last five. Is there any reason to think there could be a second half swoon? I would say no. And the reason why I go back to the maturity of Marcel Reed. If you look at his decision making and the maturity, it consistently shows up on tape. He's developed as a passer, but watch how quickly he tucks the ball and runs if nothing is there. It's almost like that growth you saw from Jayden Daniels in his second year at LSU. There's just big swing and better decision making.

So offense, defense, even the coach and Mike Elko second year there, that's why I don't think they'll have a big drop off. Yeah, Marcel Reed was once the third string quarterback, and you saw what happened in that second year for Jayden Dan. has ended with the Heisman trophy. Reed has certainly been one of the best quarterbacks so far in the country. Just a reminder, you'll get to see Marcel and Company in the middle game of our ABC. Triple header, VYU Tech. We talked about that at the top. And then LSU after a tumultuous couple of weeks, off the by with interim coach Frank Wilson,

taking on Bama, who's off to buy as well. On the way, Indiana. When Fernando Mendoza's done, get ready. Because we're not done with Mendoza's. How the future and present, bright, under center. for one family and college football live is presented by ice cold dr pepper college football it's a pepper thing you can't stop authenticity boy yeah Stewart was exactly like you saw him on camera, off camera.

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Welcome back to college football. Live, presented by Dr. Pepper. You know, a couple of weeks ago, UCLA lost to Indiana by 50 points. The Hoosiers were rolling that day. Fernando Mendoza scored three touchdowns left in the third, giving way to his brother, Alberto, who finished with a four-yard touchdown run in the fourth. In today's age of NIL and the portal, Fernando could have went anywhere he wanted with his skill set.

But because of his brother, it was a near lock. He was going to go from Berkeley. to Bloomington. But who's your offense will come out of the field for the first time with Fernando Mendoza. At the no. Pressure coming. Mendoza airs it out to the end zone. Touchdown. Fernando Mendoza fired up and he should be. And the Indiana offense is rolling right now.

Fernando, how did you end up in Bloomington, Indiana? That is a great question. And it's been a fantastic journey that I'm so grateful to be on. The Cal quarterback Fernando Mendoza has committed to Indiana football. The second Mendoza in the quarterback room, that's going to be fun. I love Berkeley, but I had three different offensive coordinators in three years and wanted some continuity. The transport was like speed dating. With Alberto being here at Indiana, it helped accelerate the process. I told him, take me out of it wherever you think is going to set you up the best.

That's where you should go. I felt really comfortable in my decision. He knows him firing his strength. He's got his friend. He's into the end zone. We knew he was going to come in here and be the start, and I was going to back him up, and it was just going to be great. I wouldn't want to learn from anybody but my brother.

Your mom told me that they made you guys share a room, you and your brother, Alberto. What do you remember about sharing a room with your brother? I definitely thank my parents and my mom for that because it rose our competitive levels and rose our resilience. Definitely a lot of fights, physical, unverbal, but it really brought us that much closer. She also told me that you guys used to dress it like.

How fun. Oh my God, don't get me started with that. I used to hate when you dress is up the same. Like, I don't want to dress like him. I want to be my own person. People would be like, oh, the twins. Try a joke. I was fine with it because I'm not a big fashionista.

Is there a picture that you're thinking of right now where you guys are wearing the same thing? Yeah, I do. This is me and this is my brother. We're wearing the same things. And, you know, it was a pretty snazzy red striped shirt on here with some flip-flops. Growing up in South Miami, I was a very, very shy kid.

Everybody wants to be the star. I didn't really want to be the star. I wanted to throw the ball. Although I was a pretty terrible football player at that point in time, I still had the confidence that I could be a good quarterback one day. I went to a middle school in high school. They were running the wing T system, which means

only throw the ball two or three times a game I wanted to play college football and all I could think about is I think I need to make a change I went to the other school work my way up the third string the starter and the backup get hurt end up playing and avoiding the first state championship in school history that risk has allowed me to take larger risks later on including the transfer portal what is it like now sharing the quarterback room with your brother it's like we share room back in the day. I feel bad for a quarterback coach sometimes just because there's a little bit of brother, you know, going back and forth. Just having him there through all the meetings, I've just seen how he takes notes, how he watches film. So it's essentially like two starting

quarterbacks working together in order to try to crack the code. Fernando Mendoza has announced himself as one of the defining players in college football this year. I don't know that there is a ceiling right now. He's improved immensely. But as much as he's a lot, he's improved immensely. But as much as he's He's improved. He's got that much more improvement he can make this season. You're having a lot of success this year. With that obviously comes all sorts of hype. How are you navigating that?

Well, my phone is LinkedIn and iMessages. These are only basically social platforms on my phone. And it basically keeps all the criticism in the building. Because it's never as good as you think and never as bad as you think. If you let go for one second, you're slipping to the bottom. So you heard Jen Ladder there talk about all the hype and, of course, the Heisman talk. He is right there in contention with Julian Sayan. So let's talk a little bit more about the Heisman favorites.

I want to mention that UCLA game where they won 566. When he left the field in the third quarters, Joe Fordenbaugh joined Sam and I. The crowd was chanting Heismundosa, which is a nice little combination of both words. Look, Sayan is completing 80.7% of his passes, but you can't put an intangible on story. I know you're a numbers guy, but Mendoza's story combined with his stats is going to be a combo that's hard to beat as far as I see it. I think you're exactly right. And I think you hit on the most important element of this award at this time of year. Who is going to make the most noise in front of the biggest audience over the next five weekends?

Ty Simpson from Alabama is someone I would look at. Here's why. this weekend, LSU, 7.30 p.m. Eastern ABC. Good company man, plug as well. But that's not the point of this segment. Next week, 3.30 p.m. Eastern ABC against Oklahoma. Two weeks after that, the Iron Bowl, then potentially the SEC championship game. Recency bias has a way of factoring into these awards because voters will heavily put more weight, I should say, on what they just watched.

This is when the award can be won. So if you're Mendoza, this next month is going to be huge. Huge. Ty Simpson, 20 touchdowns to one interception. And as you realize, as I just said, they're going to have a lot of big games the rest of the way out on TV for the voters to watch. Mendoza, 25 touchdowns to four interceptions. And I think recency bias can play somewhat in Mendoza's favor. Why do I say that Indiana was, we talk about it all the time, one of the losing his programs, the losing his program in major college football. And all of a sudden, because of Kurt Signetti, and now also because of Fernando Mendoza, they had a great season last year

as well. But they're still in that conversation as the number two or potentially number one team in all of college football. And Mendoza is a huge reason behind that. So an opportunity for Indiana to even play in a big tan championship, you perform well there. And all of a sudden, the story starts to matter even more. Huge. Yeah. And as I've said, about 900 voters, the majority of them are journalists and journalists have nothing more than great stories. And it is really hard to deny the losing this program of all time most important player becoming college football's most outstanding player. Indiana, of course, is looking for the top seed overall in the bracket.

Whoever the group of five team is is likely going to be getting the 12 seed. As for the moment on Tuesday, the committee thinks that team is Memphis. But according to ESPN analytics, when it all gets shooken out, it looks like James Madison will be the choice by a hair over those three other teams from the American. So that sets up. You saw USF taking on UTSA tonight on ESPN. You saw the Bulls on that screen for a large portion of the season. And after that upset, especially over Florida, they were in pole position.

But take me inside the numbers. I was looking at the American standings right now. There are actually six teams with one loss other than East Carolina. Every one of those teams has seemingly been in the mix for that position at the top of the American and therefore the G5. How do you see the numbers tonight? Opportunity is there. Tonight you want to put on the showcase.

I think one of the best ways to look at this game, you're going to see a lot of points here. Total sitting in the 60s. I think South Florida hangs a big number. north of the team total, which is sitting 41 and a half. They're averaging 40 points per game on the season. They've gone over this mark in four of their last five games. The key is their tempo. They play at a frenetic pace.

The fastest of anybody in the conference, they get up to the ball, they snap it and they're moving down the field. UTSA's defense has been all right. 30 points per game allowed. You're going to see South Florida explode tonight. Well, you hope so because UTSA defense has struggled, but offense they put on a show last week versus Tulane and John Summerall. And so what's going to be important for this USF team,

it's going to be their defense forcing turnovers. Right now, their top 10 in FBS when it comes to taking the ball away. But their last game, two weeks ago, they ended up having zero turnovers and a loss to Memphis. They had no takeaways. They actually gave the ball away with their quarterback Byron Brown. So it's got to be number seven are you on your screen. Jalen Schuller and number 24, Matt Harris.

Those two linebackers have to make, create more turnovers and get more possessions to their offense. UTSA is playing feisty. Huge win last week. Another opportunity, oh, by the way, James Madison, the reason they're probably ranked number one with that opportunity is that Memphis plays Tulane as well. So there's a lot of opportunities for Memphis and USF to lose. Small little thing, and that is it's actually not really a short week for UTSA. They did have the full seven off, as you said, because they played a week ago today.

Could be a tiny factor. We'll see. On the way, Joe's going to stay here for our friendly wagers where he's actually going to hone in on one team on the gridiron this week. But that team he's selecting is actually owned the hardwood. Lizzie Pickett. Talk about that next. Biggest game in the Big 12 this season to date. Game day at 9 a.m. Eastern, flip right over.

Your local ABC station kickoff at high noon Eastern. It's time for friendly wagers with Joe and Sam. And I think we just referenced, right, that TechB. Is that where we're going to start here? That's where we're going to begin. We like Texas Tech. This game opened around 9, 9.5. BYU is undefeated and off a buy and the money coming in on Texas Tech.

It's all about the defense. 17 or fewer points allowed in seven of nine games. They haven't given up more than 22 all season long. We go with the Red Raiders. You said we like Texas Tech. You like Texas Tech. I like Bear Bachmeyer and BYU. L.J. Martin, their running back is back healthy.

Bachmire. They love to move the pocket. So watch when they're on offense. He's going to move in the pocket. And he has a cannon for an arm. Real quick, Joe, they just have a way of staying in games. I don't think they can win, but they always hang late in the fourth, 10 and a half likely too much.

I'm familiar. I bet Iowa State. They burned me quite a bit this year. Let's go to game number two here. We are going to play LSU in a surprise. When you fire your head coach, you can go one or two ways. Team packs it in, kind of what we've seen from Penn State or the team can rally, like we saw from UCLA, like we saw from Florida, who was very feisty against Georgia.

But if you listen to Todd Simpson talk, he sounds a lot like, statement. Give me Alabama on this one. This Alabama team, they're coming off of a by week, so they got back focused, whether it's him, Caden Proctor, some of the leaders on the team. Ty Simpson, don't cover my man's face. Ty Simpson is going to get his team correct. Unless this is Joe Burrow, which it's not. Got to go here. Okay. Keep it moving. Where are we going? We're going to, okay, Georgia. Fantastic this year. We're going to take the points. Mississippi State plus nine and a half.

It's been moving up, but the thing is eight and one against the spread this year. The market hasn't It's a lot of wees. It's you and it's me. I want Georgia again, right? I think Georgia doesn't win big. They win all these games close. This is a true. That's a true statement. Mississippi State is on a one game SEC winning streak. So I am going to. Yeah. Okay, final one. This is the spot of the week. Be very careful here. Yukon. Off a huge win against Clemson. Big one with Virginia on deck. Non-con wedged in between. Tough spot. We're finally together. Give me Yukon as well. There's six and three this season. They were nine and four last season. It's a game at home. They're undefeated at home right now. Give me Jim Moore, Jr.

A lot of points. Come on, Zubin. Come on, Zubin. Got to do it here. Come on, Zubin. Yeah. Got to do it here. They've just looked so good.

I know Clemson is not Clemson, but when you have Duke's history, you haven't won there since 1980, you get it done. It's great stuff. You ready to go this weekend? I got to tell you, Duke's another team. If I bet on them, I lose. If I bet against them, I lose. They've been killing them all season just to let the audience now. Enjoy the college football starting tonight.