Geoff Schwartz Is Smarter Than You - Wildcard Round Recap, Caleb Williams GOAT Case, and Geoff Reacts to Oregon-Indiana

Episode Date: January 13, 2026

Geoff Schwartz and Gabe Goodwin discuss NFL and college football headlines. Download the DraftKings Sportsbook app and use code GEOFF to get $200 in free bonus bets when you bet just $5. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It is Monday, January 12th. I am Jeff Schwartz. This Jeff Schwartz is smart on you. We are presented by Draf Kings. Draft Kings, The Crown is yours. As I mentioned, Jeff Schwartz here. Gabe Goodwin is our Monday show. It's our recap of the week of football.

We still have one game left tonight. We'll talk about the one playoff game left for tonight. If you have able to catch us live right now, hopefully get this one right, Gabe, because I've gotten most everyone wrong. And such as life picking NFL sides. How was your weekend, sir? Great.

Watch plenty of football. won a three-on-three-kids basketball tournament. And I have to say, the Monday night edition in the playoffs is kind of like what the Saturday afternoon game used to be. Like back when it was like the ESPN streaming version of a game, that's what we got here on Monday night. It was, you know, I don't want to steal a bit from someone else, but I think it sums it up well, you know,

like Simmons and Sal talk about it being the Shaky's game, right? Like that is a great representation of what that game used to be. for national football. It was the AFCI. The Houston, Texas made a joke when they were chosen to play on Monday night. They put out a meme like a tweet about how this wasn't their usual slot

at 430 Eastern on Saturday. We have had incredible games so far outside of, unfortunately, the game late last night. That was not good. They're talking in my ear, Jeff, but I'm a pro, so I'm going to keep powering through. Okay, so we have five games. We have one more.

to talk about where would you like to start sir i want to make a confession okay can i come clean to you you may so you know we've been doing this show for a while and you've been very uh patient with me as i talk about my frustrations with tom brady over the years mostly as a jets fan in the past a little bit as a broadcaster but i have to say something he has reached and now surpassed Tom Brady and he was legitimately good to listen to yesterday. The diagram of how to throw the ball

in the wind, where he showed what he was doing, was one of the cooler things I've seen on a broadcast in a long time and I totally bought all the Tom Brady charisma. So for those who missed it, I have a footballer here. Tom Brady talked about how

it was very windy, the Eagles and the Niners again. That's the game he was doing, right? Eagles Niners. Yeah. And because I think Brock Party through a couple passes and it got kind of caught up in the wind. And he was talking about how when it's windy, you basically have to turn your hand more on top of the ball.

So you can throw the ball like almost like a dart and have the nose of the ball down. So it cuts through the wind better where you would normally throw the ball with your hand more underneath it and the wind would cast the front end of the ball and take it on a journey, which like I saw a tweet saying like that, we're not going to have that level of psychopathic quarterback ever again in National Football League. I mean, he literally was talking about

like he's moved his hand like 15 degrees north when he threw in the wind to make sure he kind of cut through the wind a little bit better. And that was, that was wonderful to hear because that's a great, that's why he's on the show, right? It's why he has that job. It's to tell us things like that.

On the flip side, Tony Romo just says nothing for three hours and that's why we like Tom Brady even more now. Look, my thing about the Romo stuff is quite simply when I listen to a game whether it's Tom Brady Greg Olson's great JJ Watt's done a really good job whoever it is I want to know what happened on the play that's what I want to know I don't want to I don't need someone who guess what's going to happen Romo guesses he just guesses what's going to happen we know nothing post snap it doesn't tell us anything post snap Brady Olson Watt you know Collinsworth Romo all these not Romo Akeman all these guys that tell us what

happen on the play. That's what I want as a viewer. I want to hear what happened on the play. And Romo doesn't give that to us. And Brady's getting much better at it. So, Bravo. Look, this is the first time I think for a lot of us. I listen to games with on mute for most of the season. There's too many games on at once. This is the first time all year. We have the volume on one single game. And that was the way it was the entire weekend. So I'm glad you can admit Tom Brady is good now. And the Patriots, man. I'll tell you what, buddy who I I sit there free gasey I took a lot of heat on social media I'm not even sure they're any good still but the Patriots might be back game they might have found a way to reload a

quarterback and coach before the Jets even did anything all right so we're going there we could have gone to a lot of games let's do the Patriots no let's get that out of the way so the Tom Brady gets us to the Patriots they did absolutely kick the crap out of the chargers and instantly our group chat turned into Hank and Matt trying to dunk on our boy, Justin Herbert. Well, Matt hates Herbert, yeah. He can't stand Herbert. Totally irrational hatred of Herbert.

Any normal person knows it's a problem with the offensive line. They show the graphics of how bad those guys are. They're all injured and the replacements are not good. But also this, Patriots linebacker says, one of the offensive players told him, we can't

understand your defense. We don't know what you're doing. We can't understand your games. Talk to me about that. How is that possible? Yeah, so a couple things here. Look, I think it's fair to say Herbert didn't play his best last night, but I think it's, it's sort of understandable when he goes into a game thinking he's going to get murdered. He got hit so hard on that second to last drive game. I thought he was dead. Yeah. I thought he was dead. He like fell backwards like he, the life had been taken from him. And he was pressured 30, times in that game, 30 pressures in that game. A good day is like 15, you know, he was hit

batter. He looked in, he had Lab McCawkey second play the game, just didn't throw him a ball on the screen. There were, there were parts of his game. He could have played much better, but I think he goes into it sort of worried he's going to get hit. And that's the worst part as a quarterback. I wish he would be more vocal to saucy about fixing the offensive line. Their center is ranked 41 out of 41 eligible centers. It's only 32 NFL teams, Gabe. So, that's not great. As far as the comment, Spillane,

so the linebacker said Chargers players told him that we didn't know what you guys were doing on defense. It looked that way. No one was open. So it was a whole plethora of things,

right? The offense line couldn't block. Herbert missed some throws and no one was open. And so all those things combined for the Chargers to stink away that game. It was still 9 to 3 in the fourth quarter.

As bad as that game went for the Chargers, they had an opportunity many, many times to when they came, because second, most pressure in the NFL is Drake May. Like their offense line is not good either. And he fumbled the ball. He didn't look sharp most of the game.

But I do think like here's a thing though. So, Drake May, bad offensive line, not a lot of weapons on offense. Justin Herbert, bad offensive line, not all weapons on offense. Drake may overcame that game. Now, is that because he's so much better than Herbert?

I think there's a coaching disadvantage for Herbert, right? Where Josh McDaniels, I think is so much better than Greg Roeux. and their offense coordinator. But you got to give credit to Drake May. He played through the, he played through the hits and the contact

and scrambled for 60 yards. It had that big run as one of the scrambles. He made enough throws at the end. Herbert hasn't got to the point yet where he can do all those things. That being said, Herbert has a broken hand. And he just went into that game very clearly, not very confident his offensive line.

Final play of the season, three-man rush, and the center gets beat, and he gets up a sack to end the game. Yeah, I mean, there were guys coming through the middle and just karate chopping him in the head. It was all kinds of contact. That was that was dead.

That was not a legal, illegal play there. He was tripped on another play. I mean, look, the officials weren't great. Chargers didn't get many calls in that game, but I don't know what to expect.

I will once again on Friday with Matt Ford, bet against the New England Patriots, whoever they play. They play the winner of tonight's game. I, I just, I don't think they're going to be good football team. And charges yesterday were not going to football.

Tim. Now, as a lifelong Chargers fan, I've seen worse, but that wasn't great. Glad I didn't pay close attention. Glad I had very low hopes. So let's say we're done with them. We'll talk about the Patriots in a week if they're still alive. I would like to talk about a quarterback I do care a bit more about the way I wanted to start the show. I texted you guys at 707 Pacific on Saturday. It just simply said, Caleb time. I saw it come. I saw it come. The rest of you didn't. I know, oh, uh, uh, uh, I bet on the bears midgame. I'm saying the comeback comeback.

The fourth quarter thing that he's been doing all season long. I bet on the bears plus four. Well, then here. Take your flowers. I want to know at what point do we stop acting like this is surprising and just say, well, this guy's really effing good. Okay.

All right. Calm down, buddy. Um, so the reason why it's still. surprised because the Bears have had seven comebacks this year when they were trailing under two minutes left the most NFL history. Yeah. For the single season. Like that's not normal, right?

What is normal now is that Caleb Williams very clearly can make plays at the end of these games. The fourth and seven throw was wild. I mean, look, there's some of the people, like, that's the greatest fourth down throw of all time. It's like a deep breath. It was a great play by Caleb Williams.

The thing that he used to work on now is the first 50 minutes of the game when he completes 50% of his passes. Like that's the next step, right, Gabe? So I think a lot of people look at that and think like, well, he's making these plays at the end because he's not playing well to start the game,

which is true. He was 2448 last night or two nights ago, whenever that was. And they scored three points in the first half, again against the Packers, or maybe it was six. So that is why there's still skepticism because it's not a complete 60 minutes

from him where we see other quarterbacks of his age or around him in tears. playing the full 60 minutes. When he is on at 100% Caleb Williams, he is great, but you can't continue to have a season and a career when all you do is come back in games. That's not sustainable for entire career. That's why people, I think, are so skeptical.

I'm not. I've liked him from the beginning. So some Bears fan tweeted me like, how dare you? I made some comment about, I don't know, what I said. And they're like, how dare you, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then he's tweeting me back. It was, just your name in Caleb Williams.

and you've been a defender of him. I'm sorry. I'm like, yeah, I've been a defender of Caleb Williams. I don't know. Like, what do you want for me? So that's why people still think it's not sustainable, the way he plays in the, just in totality. But very clearly, if Ben Johnson can clean up a little bit of,

of this completion percentage and a more an efficient quarterback to start the game, this guy's a limit for him. Okay. Thank you for saying that. Unlike that guy on Twitter, I can acknowledge you have defended Caleb at times. you're critical too, but that's how you are with most people. So now I would just like to have an honest conversation with the remaining eight quarterbacks.

Let's draft them. You need them to play for the remainder of the playoffs. The roster is just the same roster no matter what. You're just picking a quarterback. I'll let you have the first pick. Who's your quarterback? And we're going to go through all eight. Matt Stafford.

Okay. I think I would have taken Matt and Stafford first, too. I don't think it's that hard here, but I could consider Caleb, but I'll go Josh Allen. Josh Allen's firmly too. Come on. Okay,

I went with him. Um, I think Drake May is three. So you still take Drake May over Caleb Williams. Yes. Great. Caleb slipped to me at four then. I think he's four.

I think he'd be four. I would be okay with four, even though I, I, see, but here's the thing though, dude. I think Purdy's really good.

Okay. If everyone's healthy. Like I think, I think the very clear upper tier of this is Stafford and Allen. They're one and two. Like, then you break the tier off. Yep.

And you probably go with some combination of like May, darnold, Purdy Williams. Like that's sort of like the next group. I think maybe Donald's the bottom of that group. And then whatever is, I mean, but if Stroud wins,

I mean, Stroud's up there. I think he's, but I think Boe Nix is last, by the way. I think the rest of those other guys can just sort of dealer's choice at that point. Okay. But so here's the point I'm trying to make.

Aaron Rogers and C.J. Stroud at two opposite ends of their career, but are just that mid quarterback right now. The two worst quarterbacks in here are the one seats. Yeah. I think I think so. Yeah. Okay. So like we have winning teams.

It's time to just sort of like rethink these tears and these mountaintops and all these silly gimmicks that all our friends make. Caleb is basically in the list now. He's there. Where is he in the, Nick Wright Mountain? Oh, he's, Nick Wright's been all over, Caleb. He bought too high.

He might be the only person who likes Caleb Williams more than I do. So I think, I'm just thinking like if you, okay, so here's, so here's a question for you. Jaylon Hertz or Caleb Williams. You would take Caleb probably. Absolutely. Yeah. I take him over Dax.

I take him over all these other guys who've had a moment where they're a top five guys. Lamar, Lamar or Caleb? From what I saw from Lamar this season, the back half, Caleb. Herbert or Caleb? I'm, I'm going to fight you on all those. I like Herbert more than most people do, but. I think Dax really good. I don't know if I would do that quite yet.

But, yeah, I mean, I think if you have an upper tier of like Allen, Burroughs. Mahomes That's probably the upper tier, right? I don't think I'm taking any of those guys over Caleb Williams, but Well, I'm saying like if you have an upper tier of those your four upper tier guys, right? If you were to do tiers, you'd probably that'd be the top of your of your tier, right? It'd be Allen, Borough, Mahomes, Stafford, Jackson maybe. I don't mean your tier.

Caleb Williams is in tier, is probably in tier two now. Yeah, I think most of the guys you just named, I take ahead of Caleb Williams. Lamar Jackson's a hard call. I mean, I think we have to just assume it's like healthy Lamar Jackson. Like, we just, you know, but again, like that's healthy and motivated right now. Yeah, I think I don't like to hear that when they fired horrible, like, they're going to find a coach who reinvigorates like, you know, I was like, I don't want to hear that. I don't like that at all.

All right. So do you buy into this idea? I want to switch over to the Eagles Niners and we'll skip past the game a little bit. Do you buy this idea that I saw all over Twitter late last night? no no no not that one i'll get to the weird one in a second okay thank god the idea that the nineers are being screwed with the schedule no no i mean because they have given them a better deal i guess i mean they basically made them play once one day earlier but they it's i think they i think that's like the way they've always they've they've sort of always done this right they've always had the one

seeds play saturday so i think that makes that makes sense that's typically the way they've done it i thing. So the one seeds are playing Saturday again, correct? Yeah, Seahawks and Broncos. That's the way they've always done it. So that's not, they're not going to change the schedule for them, for them. Yeah. It just seems like they're making the Niners work extra hard.

It's not, I mean, they're not going to have Kittle. It's not, it's probably not going to matter very much. But yeah, I mean, that's what the postseason is. Sometimes you just suck it up and you, you're playing on a short week and you got to figure it out, right? It's, it's just survive in advance. And so, do the Niners, man, they're so well coached, dude.

It's, it's like Shanahan is, I think it went hit a championship at some point. I think he will. He's just such a good coach. That trick play yesterday they ran. So it's, you know, the end of the third quarter, you're in the, you know, the high red zone, which is like 20 to 30, I think it was. And you call this great, this great trick play for a touchdown. You know, their ethos of just running the football and being physical.

they're so well coached they can't rush the passer dude jaylon hutch was pressure on just six dropbacks yesterday and so they are such a good team if they had the eagles talent they'd be 20 and oh like that's a if shenahan was like if he goes eagles it'll be 20 and so i so such a great job the story of that game though is that i really think a traffic cone could do the same job next year and he does i think that's that's a fair take game there's you have a CEO head coach that does nothing, does nothing, screams at his players, his security guard is on a headset all of a sudden, like breaking up a fight between him and his best wide receiver. What are we doing?

I looked up. I just wanted to make sure, like, I was like, did I get like Dom's, like, big Dom's, like, job title wrong? No. Had a security and, like, advisor to the, to the GM. He's got a headset on on the sideline. it's just a team that should never bow the playoffs like that the way as talented as they are

and Nick Siriani has been saved by hiring good coaches in the past he's also whiffed many years he whipped in 2023 with both his coordinators he hit home runs in 2024 and whipped again in 2025 as is me in office coordinator I should say if financial is still good if you are a CEO head coach you can't have that many whiffs two last three years you had a whiff on your coaching hires. What does Nick Sierra do? Why is he still there? I don't get it. I just think that guy doesn't help their team win, doesn't help me get to where they want to be. And that's a big part

of the reason why the Eagles are not very good. All right. I was going to save this for later when we needed a little treat. Now I want to play it. So this is not FMK. The game everyone knows, F. Mary Kill. This is higher, interim, fire. Okay, so one of these three guys is your coach.

Another guy is just your coach for one game. You hope he can figure it out. Okay. The other guy is no shot. He's out. Okay. LaFleur, McDaniel, Siriani.

I would take LaFleur to be my head coach, McDaniel, to win me a game and Sir Ronnie gone. That was quick. Gabe. Gabe, how about this? If Nick's journey was fired today, would he ever be an NFL head coach ever again?

The exact same question came up among dads this morning, one of whom is a Big Eagles fan. And everyone has said, no way. No chance. Like, he's not even a play caller. So he wouldn't even be an OC.

You'd just be like a quarterback coach or an analyst or you go to college, Gabe, and figure how to call plays. Like, he wouldn't have a job. Can you explain this term you're using the CEO head coach? I've heard it. I know you've used it.

Just walk people through that. Okay. So basically, most coaches, I think it's now 31 of 32 coaches because Harbaugh is not a coach anymore. They have one side of the ball they specialize in their life, right? They're an offensive guy. And so their job is to either call plays if you're on offense for the most part, right? You're the offensive guy or you're a defensive guy, right? Now, you might not call play at either side of the ball, but I've always made this case that if you have a specialty,

you need to be good at that specialty on your team. So, for example, like, Aaron Glenn being a defensive guy and the jet's sucking on defense, terrible. Bad look, right? So if you have one side of the ball that you have grown up in, that side of the ball has got to be good and you hope to hire a better coach on the other side and you know, and you figure it out together as a team.

But those coaches typically get in practice, like they go to one side of the ball, right? They work on the defense or the offense. And a lot of times it helps for those coaches to hire someone, on to coach the other side of the ball with like head coaching experience. So they deal with that side. You deal with your side. And I think one of the things the chiefs did so well with Andy Reid and Spagnola is Spagnolla is a former head coach.

Like he's the head coach to the defense. And he's the head coach to the offense. In the end, Reed makes the decisions for everyone. But that's how most coaches that right, right? I mean, look, like Sean Payne, right? Offensive play caller. Mike Rabel, defensive guy, right? Ben Johnson, offensive play caller.

Shanahan, offensive play caller. you go down the list, you know, McDermott, right, defensive guy. Liam Cohen, offensive play caller. You just go down the list and that's what, you know, Michael McDonald's Seattle, right? defensive guy. Nick Siriani is, he does none of those things.

He's an offensive guy that doesn't call plays and never call plays. He's bad at calling plays. So he's a CEO head coach where he doesn't have a side of the ball. And you can do that. It can work, Gabe. But you have to hit two home runs

and coordinator hires, right? because you're not coordinating one side of the ball. And then, too, when things are going bad on offense as they were this season, most often the offensive coach would step in and give words of advice and help out. He can't do that. So what's the point? And also, too, when you're a CEO of a coach, you're a culture guy. The Sierra Leyen seems like a culture guy.

He cusses at fans and he yells at the camera and stuff. He makes weird faces like, and I don't feel like a culture guy. So if you're going to be a C. Like, Harbaal was a culture guy. Like he brought this culture to the Ravens that even if he's a CEO head coach, he brought toughness and physicality and all those things that, you know, good special teams for years. It fell off, obviously.

That's why he's not there anymore. But Siriani as a CEO head coach does none of those things. I mean, Big Dom is supposed to be the guy who's like a head of morale for the team. Like, it's just, I just don't like, I don't think he's there for any purpose other than just to sort of be a warm body for, you know, for the front office to have as a head coach. But there's no excuse for the Eagles to be as the last 10 plays of the game, Dan Arlofski, tweeted them out, dude. I think they've been like seven of the 10 plays, we're just repeat plays. They already ran the play before or two plays before.

It's just a poorly coached team, man. Very poorly coached team. Is there a chance that Siriani's out? We're going to go back to the Niners here. We like their coaching staff. We're amazed what Shanahan can do with so many injuries so often. Robert Salaf felt like the steal of the lifetime. Going from a head coach that he earned that job,

but got very bad luck. goes back to being a D.C. Does a great job again. Isn't it time for him to be a head coach again? Could he be the Eagles next head coach? Yeah. I think he needs, I think he needs like one more year of D.C.

But yeah, so here's the thing about hiring defensive coaches. And this is the hardest part of hiring defensive guys is there's such churned offensive coordinator that it's hard. So when you hire a defensive guy and they bring along the offensive coordinator, if the O.C. is really good. You get two years max. that's it. I mean, look in Seattle, like Clint Kubiak, like, he's probably out of there, right? Like, it's so hard to keep your OC.

The secret sauce to Vrabel, by the way, in New England is that Josh McDaniel's never leaving. Right. Like, he's never going anywhere. He's had his opportunity, coach, as a head coach, never going anywhere. So if you hire Robert Salah, you know, you ask him who he brings along his office corner, he probably brings along the Niners quarterback coach, right, or the OC in whoever that, or Mike McDaniel. I was going to say, couldn't he go get McDaniel? You could, like someone like that.

But then that person is going to leave after a good season. And that's the hardest part about hiring a defensive guy. Now, it shouldn't dissuade you from hiring a defensive guy. But the fact is, like, they have to hit home runs on the offensive coordinator because those guys are going to leave very often. Yeah. All right. You made it very clear.

You have no thoughts on this theory that the Niners are having injuries because they practice next to an electrical power station. The facility's been there like 30 years, dude. Like it's not like this is one of those things on Twitter that's like. So I'm not conspiracy guy, but but a good buddy of mine is. And we've talked a lot about like why people believe in them. And it's in the absence of information. And they fill the void with conspiracy, right?

Like there's no way to explain why the Niners are always hurt the last couple of years. And I just say it's bad. Look, I've been on bad. I've been on injured teams before. Just shitty luck, man. Like that's, there's no. power plant in New York when everyone got heard of the Giants in 2014. Like, you just, you just have, it's just shit luck.

But because there's no really explanation besides just shit luck, you fill that with a conspiracy that electromagnetic waves from a power station are zapping the energy to 49ers, which has been essentially the story that there is. But the practice facility has been there 30 years. The station's been there. It wasn't a problem 30 years ago. So, you know, I mean, I don't believe of that. I know that you might.

believe in that. I find it interesting. And a lot has changed in player health in 30 years. This is why I knew you would like this topic. That's why I didn't veto this because I have no real things to say on it. I don't know who this guy is. He could be a total quack. But he laid out a pretty compelling case that something about practicing next to this

place could be creating these tendon and soft tissue injuries. And we agree, right? they have an enormous amount of them with their players. They, they do. I also have something too where like the trees on one side of the street are like less leaves on the trees where the electric part is. Look, we looked for reasons why the giants are constantly having, you know, ACL problems. We talked about the turf there.

It's not conspiracy theory to say this. kind of a trend. What's going on here? What's the variable? I don't think it's it's a it's a power station. But look, Ben, certainly certainly worth exploring. Maybe the IRS moved next year and injuries go away. Okay. Well, we're not the guys to crack this case, but we have some friends who could look into it. You get Pablo Tori on it? Well, he is a great journalist. A lot of people are giving a journalist in Jacksonville a hard time because she complimented the coach and said to keep his head up after the loss. It was a nice moment, if you're a normal human, between a reporter,

probably isn't a very experienced reporter in national NFL media, said a few very nice things to coach Liam Cohen at the stand after the game, basically told him, good job this season, don't get down on yourself. Never really asked much of a question. And then the whole sports Twitter blew up. What do you think of that? I just don't have the bandwidth to give a shit. Okay.

I'm good with that answer. Why do I care? Why do I care? I think I saw her say like, yeah, I just thought he was a little sad, so I want to give him a pick me up. Okay.

Who cares? Well, I think the reason people are pretending they care is that it's not a very objective thing to do. The journalist is supposed to ask some tough questions. Hey, man, keep your head up. We believe in you. I,

and we're going to have, like a 24-hour news cycle where we break down that that freaking one-sentence statement that this lady very nice, she just seems like a nice lady just wanted to comfort the coach really quick. He said, she said, he looks sad. So I want to say something nice. I just, I don't, I don't have the outrage meter for that, Gabe. I just, I just don't. Okay. I just don't care. Well, I thought it was nice. And I don't think we should be outraged by it. I just wondered if you had an opinion. Because oftentimes these topics come up on our show and you surprised me your answer sometimes. So let me ask you this. Do the Jags need to go tap into the folks at UCF

who put out a very blatant tweet basically saying, hey, transfer portal kids. No state income tax here in Florida. Come on in. Now that they're getting paid that should save them, what, 40 cents on a dollar or something? So do the Jags need to broadcast this and get some star players? I feel like they seal it. They're, uh, they're going to go. They're a little bit. They're a little bit. good players. They played above their skis this year. Lawrence is just, you know, I believed it. I'm, it's my fault. It's my fault for believing in him. Um, yeah, dude, by the way, the portal stuff, man, it is absolutely insane. Like, Oregon loses. We'll talk about Oregon in a second. They lose, and that was Friday night. Saturday, Sunday, today's Monday. So Sunday, they, like 20 kids went

the portal gave on Sunday. Like trying to follow the rosters in college football now are so incredibly difficult. And then we have, I think, five kids commit today. I have no idea what's happening on my favorite college football team. It's just, it shouldn't, it shouldn't be this way. I get why it is. But to squeeze in coaches, two coaches on your staff and Ole Miss had this problem too, right? They're leaving, right?

So coaches are leaving on the staff. They're trying to do the job of coaching your team. team in a playoff game while also trying to make sure that their new jobs are set up with the right players while trying not to like poach players on the roster because your coach will get upset but sort of also doing that it's just the calendar's all screwed up man and um and it's it's while we're college football is out with this portal stuff and i again i'm i'm sort of pro one transfer i think that these guys transferring three or four five times is it's just not the way the sport should be.

But college of all stuff is crazy. And the Jacksonville driver was obviously having a hard cap. I mean, there's no hard cap in college football, right? So, you know, Jacksonville can say, hey, come, you know, come, come help us out. But they don't help Trevor Lawrence throwing a terrible interception to start the game.

And then Trevor Lawrence, and this thing about Trevor Lawrence, we talked about us on Friday with Matt. I believed in him because he stopped doing Trevor Lawrence stuff for eight weeks. And then he throws interception. And then, you know, diving short of the first down on the fourth down. They would have been,

he would have been 143, Gabe, if he had just not fallen down before he had to. And he did, and then Buffalo scored in the game was, became out of control.

So, justified the opportunities couldn't get it done. Credit Buffalo, man. Buffalo is a must-win game there for Buffalo, and they got it done.

Yes, they're all must-win games now, Jeff. We were basically about to dive into college football. So instead of talking more about the Jags, we'll have plenty of time

and talk bills next week. Let's take a break. Let's come back. Let's talk about your ducks, Indiana, holy hell, Miami, transfer portal, all sorts of good stuff. We're back on the podcast, Gabe. A beard and dragon might show up, by the way, my shoulder in a second. My kids are feeding the beard and dragons right next to me and they might bring one in, I think. We'll see if we want to make an appearance again on our show. Time for college football. Yes, my ducks, my ducks lost so bad, Gabe. that people are bringing up conspiracy theories about why Indiana is so good.

That's how bad we lost. Have you heard these conspiracies? I don't know which conspiracy you're referencing, but I know that their team is like 30 years old on average. They're very old. No, there's a, there's people think that Indiana is too prepared. They must be hacking the cloud where everyone keeps their college football practice tape.

I like that. And like, and practice tape and scripts. that they are like, they know the, they have four interceptions this year on the opening drive of games. Now, a couple of them are just like, they're just broken plays, but,

look, I don't think India is cheating at all. I think that they have, this season is unlike anything we've seen in the sport and maybe all sports game. It's an unprecedented season. It is breaking every single rule we have about winning games in college football. In the end,

this sport, for my lifetime, your lifetime, has been won by teams with the more professional football players on their roster. That's who wins a championship. And Indiana is breaking that mold. They're not that team game.

They're not as many pros as Oregon, Miami, Ohio State, any of those teams. They just don't. Mendoza's incredible. He's playing out of his mind. He has more touchdown passes and incompletions in two-point games.

It's incredible. They are, you mentioned, they're older, right? There's an older group of guys. I know people just, Jokin, their starters are almost the same age as the Packer starters right now. And that's part of the code they've cracked. 2023, Michigan was super old.

2024, Ohio State was super old. 2025, I should say, Indiana, super old. It's why Oregon, by the way, works so hard. They have their entire team, I think, coming back. We're going to have four defensive linemen starting for us in their fourth year and beyond. Next year. This is the new, this new mold in college football games. to be old and just be bigger and stronger than your opponents

and play more football. And look, when you have, Indiana had a player who scored a touchdown on that game, who caught a touchdown pass from Trevor Lawrence in 2020 at Clemson. That's good. I didn't know that. Yeah, E.J. Williams. And that's not taking anything from Indiana, by the way.

Like, this is, Sidney cracked the code, man. He built the team. Like, he knew what he was doing. He built the team. and they're going to steamroll Miami. They're going to steamroll Miami. They're going to have the best season in college football history.

They're going to win a championship unlike any champion we've ever seen this sport before. And maybe, you know, this would be like, you know, like, do you remember when Butler went to the championship to play Duke, I don't know, 10 years ago? Like that would be a Butler won the game, right? They didn't, they lost. Right.

Indiana's going to win. They're going to be Miami. They're going to be Miami. And it's an unprecedented story in college sports. Probably never done again in the history. All we're alive. people are going to take these grand conclusions away. You don't need blue chippers.

No, no, you still need them. You still need them. I promise you. You still need them. It's just a year when they have cracked the code for this season. And I mean, look, they're going to have the first three days of the draft, right? There's day one. Day two is two rounds.

So the first three rounds are they're going to have one player for sure. Mendoza drafted, number one overall. I would take the over under or like two and a half players drafted between then and the end of day two. Yeah. Oregon is going to have six guys in top 50 if they're all coming out. They're all coming back. But they all came out.

They'd have six guys in the top. Ohio State would have, you know, Miami, the right tackle, you know, the two pass rushers, the safety,

the wide receiver, Tony, who's going to be a superstar first round picking a couple years. It's unexplainable, dude. And so it was a, it was asking,

we keep getting to ask you these games, unfortunately. But so be it. And look, just from the Oregon side of this, you know, when losing this losing man, the internet just, it's, oh God. Dan Lanning has coach four years in college football, the head coach, 48 and 8. He is actually 41 and 2 against teams that haven't made a championship game.

Okay. His eight losses are six teams that play in the championship game. Yeah. Right. Georgia, Washington twice, Ohio State, and Indiana twice. And I've done a lot of research on this. If I were to tell you how many head coaching years cumulative, not at one place, but cumulative do you need historically to win your first championship? What would your guests be?

Oh, man. It's probably less than you think. Head coaching years of college football or football in general? College football. I would guess the coaches that. end up winning one have coached for eight to ten years before it happens? It's six years. Oh, wow.

Six years. So Ryan Day was year six. Kirby Smart was year six. I think Dabba was seven. Urban Meyer was six. He had two at Bowling Green, two at Utah, two at Florida, one second year of Florida. Sabin was like nine by the time he got his first championship of LSU because he was at Toledo, Michigan State.

And, you know, Ryan Day couldn't win the big one until he won the big one, right? Jim Harbaugh couldn't win the big one, so he won the big one. Kirby can win. Yeah, Dan Leighton can't win the big one. So he wins the big one. Like, that's the way it works. And so we have this moving target all the time when it comes to these things. He just finished his fourth season.

And, you know, of course, you're going to get it from USC fans or Washington fans. I mean, the is the one is the honest thing are Colorado fans. I'm like, Colorado, give it up, man. We beat you three years ago. Can you get over that by now? So it was bad. It was, oh, man. I mean, Friday night.

So I think my brother texted me to, too, like it was 51. to 13. He's like, what was a spread on this game? I was like, Indiana covered. Yeah, they're saying.

Don't worry. Don't worry. Don't worry. The spread. Man, it was such a fun year, too. And it just ends abruptly

and you move on. And you might call it football now is the off season. There used to be like a little bit of off season. There's like nothing now. The portal stuff happens right now, Gabe. And then there's nothing between now and,

and August. Like, there's just nothing. There's just no, no news, nothing happened. it's like this sport just goes dead the NFL is great job of like having these weeks and months of you know uh senior bowl east west shrine game for agency uh pro days draft visits o tas and

causeable just goes basically dormant between now and the next and the start next season i want to ask you about one of the pieces of news that did come out i think it was just earlier this morning, maybe he's yesterday, you got a new quarterback. So it's a little confusing what's happening with the old quarterback who you thought would stay. So Bill me, and Dylan Raola supposedly come to Oregon. What does that mean in the quarterback room? I mean, they claim he's going to be okay sitting behind more of more comes back.

Look, this is a tough discussion, right? Because Dante Moore needs to come back to be a better pro quarterback. I think he does. There's a lot of data showing if you don't have essentially 20 starts in college football, that your NFL career is not going to start good and probably won't end good. There's a lot of data on that. I think he's at like, I think he's at like 18 right now.

And very clearly, there are things he can work on to be better. Even with all the NL money, the insurance money, he's going second in the draft. Like, do you turn down second in the draft? money and

status to come back. And I know people say, well, injuries is certainly a risk, but it's actually pretty rare. I mean, right now, you know,

this season we had one quarterback get hurt who was going to be in Drew Aller, right? That was it. Like one guy get hurt, who probably wasn't even a first round pick anyways.

So it's really tough because you're selling Dante more in a couple things, right? You're selling him to come back on money. They'll pay him well. A Heisman campaign. Hey, look what we did for Bo Nix

who came back at Justin Herbert, who came back. back. Let's win a championship. But those are the reasons that you sell Dottenmore to come back. So it's tough for me to sit here and say he should come back. I get why he wouldn't, but he will be a much better quarterback to enter the NFL if he comes back one more year than if he will go out now.

I buy all of that. I have a hard time believing, though, that Dylan Riola, one of the more sort of commanding, he can command a lot more in NIL money than the average. you know, pretty good quarterback out there. If he's coming, someone must have indicated to him good things will happen. I'll just say this for like the hundredth time.

Oregon does not pay top dollar for their players. They just don't. And so, I don't think he's getting $6 million a year like Sam Levitt's going to go to LSU. or what I it's just not it's just it's they just don't pay as much as you think they do and so I don't I will is probably getting three probably to be a backup which is what I don't know what

don't know what Don't anymore got to be honest with you last year but I I I I just don't think they're paying them six million dollars a year to you know to be there all right I want to ask you one more question about portal stuff then and money and NIL. And I say we take a break and let's go back to the two teams going to the championship game. Because I want to make sure we hit that with enough time for people to put some bets in. So I read today, Ty Simpson, Alabama, reportedly is being offered six million plus to at least three schools. I read the U, Ole Miss and Tennessee. That seemed very surprising to me given the way his season ended.

But what do you think of that? I think Oregon is also in that mix as well. Not for $6 million. Not for $6 million. I mean, again, like, I think Ty Simpson's got to figure out, like, am I going, am I going Tyler Shuck? Am I going 40th overall? Or am I going in the seventh round, right?

Like, you know, he's in the same boat, Dante Morris. Like, he's a one-year starter. Now, Moore started UCLA a little bit, so that number is, you know, five games and more inflated than Ty Simpson. But the type, I would urge Ty to come back, man. I mean, I think that he could use another year. I mean, again, one more year in a good, like if he goes, I don't know, where are the schools again, you mentioned?

The ones I saw reported today were Miami. I mean, go to Miami. Tennessee. You got a chance of the championship, at least two of those places. Go to, go to Miami, run the football, you know, and be and have a run game around to you, have those weapons they have. And he might be a mid-first round pick by the next season. Yeah.

did Carson back help himself, you think, this season? I think he's probably where he'd be drafted no matter what. Okay. All right. Let's take a break. Let's come back. Let's talk about his team in Indiana. I want to go back to Signetti, a few other questions there.

We'll squeeze one more break in. We'll do the championship game next. All right, we're back here. Let's talk about Indiana and Miami. What's on your mind? Well, we already talked about the sort of imbalance of recruits and start. and Star Power at Indiana. Obviously, Miami has a ton of, you know, well-known players who came in there, and they got hot late in the year.

Now they're on this run. I have to read off a stat to you that blew my mind because I think it sets up a Mendoza conversation. He has five games this season with more touchdowns than incompletions. Yes. No other quarterback this century has done that more than twice. He's got five like that. Is he a system guy? or is he like some beautiful flower that just didn't bloom until he got here?

Like, in other words, it's hard to believe that this guy is this good. It isn't just the perfect mix with the coach and the program. Great question. I think both of those things are true. So here's my Rita Mendoza. He's not asked to do a ton in Indiana, but what he does is really, really good, right? I mean, he was surgical.

A lot of out of the numbers, throws. But then every now and then, he gets late in the down and makes a great throw over the middle of the field. He's got two touchdowns that way. Like, late in the down, late in the down, found out. He's a much better scrambling him credit for. You know, he'd make moments like a baby giraffe out there,

kind of just like all arms and legs. I wish Mendoza was more of an asshole. This is my Mendoza take. Like, after the game, the first thing he did was go shake Dan, landing's hand. Like, he sprints like off.

I'd rather him just like give us two middle fingers and go celebrate with this team. Is that, is that a poor take, Gabe? I love that take. It'd probably be better for his career if he had a little bit more Baker in him.

Like how many quarterbacks in that spot, the first thing they would do is seek out the coach or the opposing team. They wouldn't, none of them. They would celebrate with their team and find the coach eventually and like give him a handshake. I can't stand how nice he is.

It's just my personal preference. Like I would, I'm okay a little bit of asshole for my quarterback, a little bit of ego. He seems like the perfect kid, though, man. Like, it's just, it's a great story. His dad, you know, you know his dad play with Mario Cristobald High School. I remember hearing something like that. Yeah, Miami got coming back home for this one.

I think he's going to be a really good pro. I, I don't know if we ever talked about this because we weren't, you know, we weren't doing shows as regular last year at this time. But I have proof that I said he's a high-s-sman winning. Heisman S quarterback when he went to Indiana. Like his cal tape was really good. I thought he was legitimately a great talent. I talked about a packed-10 meeting soon.

Big Ten Meadee Day in August when he transferred, I got tweets about it. He was legitimately talented player heading to Indiana. He just, he elevated to another level. He did he see a lot of football. He's played a lot of football games. And that experience has really paid off. He is very good at what he does.

Yeah. Well, to think we, could have been watching him and Tron Griselle together all season long. I felt we cursed. We cursed old Tron, old Tron Griselle. Yeah. All right.

Well, the number will change, obviously, in a week. But you have anything early on looking at Miami and Indiana that you like? I'm just going to, I'm just going to take Indiana and be done with it. No matter.

How many points are they, they laying in this one? Seven and a half. I think I'm going to wait. I think I'm going to wait until, uh, until there's I think some I think there'll be some money on uh in Miami closer to game day all right I predict the tickets are for this game it's wild it's so

expensive that Mark Cuban of all people seems upset about the price right he's asking he's asking on behalf of other Indiana fans how you find tickets to the game that's his big thing on Twitter right now I said I respond to I don't know maybe you buy a few hundred and give them out man it shouldn't be that hard they're expensive and hard to find it's a Miami home game so I think it's going to be

a party obviously a major party for days that whole weekend is going to be madness people might not even make it to Monday night think about that you know what it's like

to go to a Super Bowl city people are dying by Sunday night I went to the chiefs nine or Super Bowl Miami yeah and like most people have partied themselves out by the time the game hits

it was the most fun. We went to, I think it was like Lizzo Thursday night, all right. Friday night went to this barlestone party out in like this where it was a terrible decision. But I wanted to say hi. It didn't matter why I was there. I went with Meredith though. It started pouring rain gave, like pouring rain. And we had to walk. And there were no Ubers. So we had to walk like a, like a mile in the rain. We found a parking garage. A guy picked us up in an SUV.

We said, hey, bro, like, we're so can we take our clothes off? So we sat like, I sat shirtless. My wife, I think, in her bra and panties. And we drove like, we were like an hour north of the city where we were Chief Seam Hotel.

We went, we went back home like 2 o'clock in the morning. It was, it was, we were soaking wet. It was a disaster. And then the next night we saw Rick Ross and Chain Smoker, on Saturday night and then Sunday the Chiefs played and Pit Bull performed

at the Chiefs after party. It's the best weekend. Well, I assume some of those guys will be in town this coming weekend. It was, it was, it was a lot of fun. And my, my biggest gripe by the way, about the college football schedule right now

is why is this game not Friday? I don't know. What is the reason? They're going to have two NFL games Saturday and Sunday. And we're going to, every show that's going to start that day, first take, first things first, you know, all those shows, they're going to start with the NFL first.

It calls for a ball second. Now, maybe if it was Ohio State Notre Dame, it's a little bit different. But like, it's, I guess that was last year, right? Like, it's just, they're not, it should be Friday. It should be, you should play the game before the NFL weekend. I mean, I agree with you. I, I'm trying to figure out why that wouldn't be how it was scheduled. Is it just availability of those, those venues?

What would either reason? Maybe they thought like, I mean, maybe the stadium has to be available for the Dolphins in case they have to host a home game. So that's what they schedule it that way. It would be after the NFL game. That's kind of what I'm guessing. But okay, so you're not going, are you? What would I go?

I don't know, man. You just told me how fun it was to go to the game. I mean, I would have gone, I would have gone, I would have gone, I would have gone, I would have gotten a press pass and not pay for tickets. Yeah. All right. Okay. All right.

Well, I will probably try to find some fun things to bet on in that game. You're telling me you like Indiana Lane seven and a half. That's a lot. National championship game being more than a touchdown. So there's a, so I'm going to pull up the tweet from Bear. So I always type it Bear on Twitter.

It's Chris Felica. There's a stat that it doesn't matter at all what the point spread is. the last six CFP championship games have been won by the favorite which is covered by an average of 18 points a game 15 of the last 18 BCS CFP championship games were won outright by the favorite

the favorites cover these games it's either it's either one direction like the underdog wins and wins outright or the favorite wins and covers so it's very rarely the very rarely the very rare as the favorite winning these games and then it are covers

yeah I understand what you're saying yeah okay then let me ask you this This is, I'm fine if I'm alone on this one. Okay. Oh, boy. We've already dabbled into the Tom Brady thing. You guys like to share croissants in the Fox green room. I know you were very careful there.

You don't want to say anything bad there. There's another guy might have once called a colleague. Maybe you still do. I don't know. I've had enough with Michael Irvin on the sidelines. Oh, it's too much. Yeah. Like, you're a grown man.

You've had your time. Get out of the way. Literally, get out of the way. He's like blocking cameras now. I think it's, uh, it's time to, uh, to put him on the band list. Oh, interesting. Well, we have an inexperienced person pressing buttons today. Although I will note many things went better without Hank.

Um, but we can't call up the band list at the moment. We did not have any horns up graphics today or whatever he puts up their horns down, horns up. So, um, I think we should add him to the band list, Michael over in the band. list. I'm good with that. Yeah. He's an entertaining personality. I would, I would happily have him on the show and talk.

I just think he does not need to be such a presence around all the rest of the players. Let's watch the game. Okay. So maybe we should put down Michael Irvin, Miami Hurricanes fan, just like that part should be banned, not Michael Irvin himself. Michael Irvin, guest analyst, just general. I bumped into him in a hotel. It's true story.

I won't, this is not even that big a deal. Bumped into him at a hotel lobby in a Super Bowl city. I forgot which one it was. I don't know him, right? But maybe we sort of know people in common. He stopped and he just started talking to me and my friend. He could not have been a cooler person to talk to. Totally friendly.

Asked us, which part are you going to? Oh, you know, so and so. Niceest guy in the world. And then off he went into the night, you know, did whatever he did. But like, I got nothing against him as a human. I just, I don't understand why he keeps on sticking himself in front of the kids themselves during these games. Uh-huh. Mm-hmm.

They let them have the access. Probably why too, right? I'll give him the access. All right. We have completed this. I think Houston wins tonight, by the way. Oh, good. There we go.

We covered it. All right. We'll talk to you guys on Friday with Matt and we're back on Monday with Gabe. Take care, everyone. I'll be a good week. If you subscribe, we'll talk. to you guys on Friday. Take care, everybody.