Shutdown Fullcast - September Awards Season

Episode Date: September 27, 2019

It's time to stop and reflect on the season that's been. (Yes, we know there's still a lot of season still to come. Hush.) We're talking September Heisman, figuring out what happened in the early part of the season that will stick in our memories, handing out some Assies, recognizing statistical leaders like Evan Weaver, Tackle Bear, and arguing about cake.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to the shutdown fullcast. This is the end of the first month of the college football season. It's a time to reflect. Some people wait till the end of the season to do that. But you know what? Some people are slow. We run the hurry up here because we play football and talk about it in the 21st century. Ain't that right, y'all?

Wait, we play football? We hurry. All of us. Speaking. I don't. I don't play football. ball. Which of us hurries? Ryan hurries.

I am constantly behind and there for hurrying, but that's different. I think Ryan hurries to and fro the office on public transit, or at least previously did. Now I assume it's more leisurely. Depending on when you're listening to this, yeah. I think that Jason probably runs a, you're the triple option here, right? You're just going to crank down the field no matter what. But yeah, even if we're down by 48, I'm still just going to run my scheme. Yeah.

And I am the University of Chicago's football program, just, you know, canceled until recently. But we, we are going to review the first month of the season because I think for a number of reasons, we need to look and say, nobody will remember this, right? Like nobody, there's so many things that happened in September that people go, oh, man. Man, that's so important. And by the time November rolls around, nobody remembers any of it. What will we remember at this juncture? Is there anything that you're confident? Like, yeah, this time in May, we will remember this thing that happened.

I will remember Hugh Freezes many bouts of Lumbago. Yep, yep. And his ever-upgrading furniture accessory, like a video game character, just saving more simoleons. I will remember Hugh Freeze eventually becoming a mech warrior. Hugh Free's Giant Walking Tank.

That's it. Yeah, that really is about it. I think I might remember I know that one thing I will remember and we can get into this in greater detail. I will remember LSU getting out of the gate like they have never gotten out of the gate before. And I'd like to think of him as my stepson

because he's Jason's son, right? Whoa. Wait, that's the wrong relation. God's son. God's son. He's my godson. So that would mean... It means y'all are married.

Yeah, that's sure. That's true. That's true. Honey, we're proud of our boys, what I'm trying to say. I would like to believe that we're going to remember the Colorado Hail Mary from, like, their own two, but I don't think that's true. No. I'm going to say the answer is no, because it was not a...

Hail Mary will we were okay will we uh sorry the flea flicker apologies see yep you're already already forgotten will we remember the pit special yeah yes yeah okay as we will remember UCLA was zoo yeah um we won't remember Michigan Wisconsin like oh but we will I don't think no I honestly don't think we will I think either by the end of the year, Michigan will have had other things that went poorly where we say like, Jesus, it all sort of blends together. Or Michigan will have turned it around and we'll just sort of be like, whatever, you know. I just, I don't know. That one stands out. Maybe it will. Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't, I'm not convinced that that will hold in memory. Maybe that's the like cusp.

Okay, sure. Is it more or less memorable than Michigan? playing against super michigan yeah but first we have some very brief podcast business speaking of hurrying jesus christ yeah we have a live show with tickets available at least as of now we they've started moving pretty quickly uh happening friday october fourth in charlotte north carolina at, I'm going to butcher the name, but I'm going to try it. Old Mecklenburg Brewery. Did I do it right? Like Carl Mecklenburg.

I don't know who that is. Denver Bronco, NFL Crunch Course Legend. Okay. Old Mecklenburg Brewery. Tickets are $35. With that, you get some nice snacks. We're getting some food set up for y'all. or you can bump it up an extra $20 and you will get a home field shirt out of the deal

that is $5 off what we normally charge for those shirts. There was some confusion about this. No, we are not charging you $20 for a $5 coupon. Although if we thought of that and we thought we could get away with it, we would have. Do crimes. Do crimes. We got to. Somebody did suggest that McGruff's Oklahoma brother crime,

the do crimes dog that should be called mcgrift so i like that very much mcgrift the do crimes dog steal things go go sooners boomer i mean land thieves yep so that's that's podcast business we'll keep you short we also have a jacksonville show happening on friday november first tickets for that are not on sale as of the time we are recording this but by the time it comes out they might be who knows um i will say that tickets are are going weirdly quick for Charlotte, so get on that if you want to join us. This surprises us. And if you would like either of these events to be your rehearsal dinner for a wedding,

because some people suggest that's why they wouldn't be able to come, you can turn our live show into your rehearsal dinner. That's fine. You just have to, you know, pay for the tickets. I'll do a speech. I won't. No, you don't want that. not one bit now i will dance the best speech at my wedding because it was short yes it's very short i will do

this i will dance i will get people out on the dance for or drive them off but nothing in between it will be one of the other okay so that's podcast business yep goodbye spencer will be your minister at your wedding is what we've learned uh has anyone else here conducted a wedding because i have yes wait have you really yeah who's we have dueling ministers. Yeah. I forgot to, we did not do a proper rehearsal because the bride and groom were sort of like,

ah, we don't need to, whatever. So I did not, in my notes, I did not tell the congregation to sit down. So they stood throughout the duration of the ceremony. Hell yes. However, because we had not rehearsed it, we did not realize that we only had 11 minutes of material. So it wasn't that bad.

That sounds like a great wedding. Yeah, it went fine. Remember, all anyone wants out of a wedding is cake and alcohol. Speeches, they're extra. Cake is pretty overrated, I got to tell you. They don't want that much. Hard to agree. Yeah.

Having just made a birthday cake for my daughter, cake sucks, man. Cake sucks, fuck cake. I had a terrific wedding cake. Sorry about y'all. Yeah, cake is all cake is trash. Yeah, it's not specific. It's not specific to wedding cake. Also, Holly, cake is not the thing that stands out from your, from your,

wedding it's dinosaurs and you had a grits bar right uh we had a we had a grits bar but i was actually laughing because i was thinking about um spencer's wife breaking a full martini glass with her bare hand against the chest of an extremely belligerently drunk friend yeah uh of mine i was just talking about the food and beverage but yeah that also happened anyway that's definitely my Get out of everything. Yeah. Cake sucks, though. No, it's good.

Sorry. Cake can go to hell. Cake can, good, sir. Good, sir. How dare you say that to red velvet? Oh, Christ, red velvet? I love red velvet cake. Okay, now you're on an island.

I'm always. Look, Jason, they're already turning on each other. It's just, yeah, we're all going to eat each other on Cake Island because we're full of cake. Made a cake. Red velvet is just regular cake that is red. Don't fall for it. You gotta be able, listen, it's food coloring. Either the elected can taste the red or you can't,

but the red is the flavor that makes it so good. And then, like, the next day you think you have poop cancer. Man, I fell for this shit when I was a kid drinking Kool-Aid and quarter water. Come on now. I've learned by now. Oh. It doesn't make it taste different. Oh, are you the guy who points out that there's people inside the Mickey suit at Disney?

Huh? Go with the magic. No, he's full of cake too because he sucks. Oh. It's just, you just tear off the head and he's like, No, God, there's cake in here! Are people to enjoy the magic now? What a conundrum.

Are we agitating against ruining things for people now? What a conundrum for a child that if they ripped off Mickey's head and there was delicious cake inside. Free cake! Free cake! But you got to kill the thing you love. I mean, I think once his head is off, the child brain is just cake. Yeah. I think that's probably where you...

It would be a shame to let it go to waste. Okay, we've got four here. Let's take... We've got two boys, two girls. let's take a parental poll. How would your individual children react to seeing a Mickey head removed and just a void of cake inside? Ryan, start with you because yours is the most recent cake consumer. She would just talk too much about, like, my child is just chatty as shit.

So she'd just find every stranger and say, hey, come look over here. There's cake. All right, Jason. Are we talking, like, costume person at Disney? Yeah. That person's head falls off. And it's cake. And it's all cake. It's all, cake all the way down. Yeah, I think she's crossed the age at which the brain would immediately swing to.

Look, cake. She would remember the origin of the cake. And I don't think she would eat it. So she would be horrified that what had seemed like a corporeal person was now cake. Yes. Okay. I have one child who would ask for permission to eat the cake head. And I have one child. and one who would not. I have one who would be the thing that pulled the head off.

Right? The one who said, when I ask, I'll say, hey, why did you do that? He goes, because I thought there might be cake inside. And I was right. I am the mouse slayer, father. Hail me, mouse slayer. I wanted it, and I made it happen.

Power is what you can take, father. That's not far off, man. This child, the. other day said the following line. In this story that I wrote, I use a hammer, and a hammer is something I used to fight crime in the 1990s. Sure. Spot the lie.

Sure. My daughter on her third birthday said, Pamcakes are my life. Again, where is the lie? I don't, yeah. Anyway, children are very different. I think it's what we've learned. we have some awards to hand out i know ryan in particular has but no cake no cake hell yeah whose side are you on because i keep the cake i'm turning this boycott my way see this is a win win win win

spencer's a fucking cake kingpin controlling the flow of cake see i'm doing the i'm doing the i'm doing the bootleggers thing where you're on one side of the state line you're a loose cannon haul there'll be no drinking here in Gainesville, Florida. We're clean. And meanwhile, I'm just running booze into town, right? The goddamn price-gouging cake baron. Actual cake boss.

Me, right? Big boss. Oh, my God. Actual cake boss. Running in them Valdosta red velvets. You know, I'm running in some of them Savannah butter creams. Yeah. He burned down the hand pie factory.

Yeah, that's right. You know what? Because that was a competitor. And I'm sorry if I'm trying to keep the good people of Alachua County, Underweight and happy. Damn it. Anyway, what are we giving out now? The Assis.

Oh, the Assis, yeah. Kind of named for El Asico, even though that's a game that might be done now? Speaking of things I will remember. Man. The possible end of El Asico, after we've just gotten the brand moving. Why are we laughing?

Oh, it's terrible. Okay. Yeah, no, it's not good, but, like, Like, damn. Just checking. At least it went out on middle. It's, this whole thing has gotten very strange, right? Because here are the things that have happened associated with this game.

The Iowa band, I believe, said that they had been verbally, sexually and physically assaulted by Iowa state fans. Serious allegation, fucked up, et cetera, et cetera. But I think they also were frustrated because if I'm right here, they felt Iowa did not take their concerns seriously. Wait, their own school didn't pay attention to it? I think that's right. I think they were pissed at Gary Barta. What the hell? Now there's all this, there's all this back and forth going on between like who knew what and who said what.

Iowa State released a surveillance video showing that, showing like where the band left and basically. Zeprudering, like, well, it'd be hard to interact with fans from where, from this gate. Oh, God. So, like, the whole thing is a fucking mess. And on top of that, we've already had the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the beer man dude had to apologize for bad tweets. Man, everything about this year's Iowa, Iowa State game was just a fucking mess. Wait, who apologized for bad tweets? Everyone should, but who did?

Some, some, some rando guy who I think at game day was basically, like, Like, need money for more Bush Light. Got a bunch of money. Said he was going to give it all to the Iowa Children's Hospital. Oh. But then somebody went and was like, hey, back in 2012 or something, here's some bad tweets from Facebook posts. So he apologized.

I think Budweiser formally disassociated themselves with this name. And in the same week... That's up there with being banned from Valdosta. I think Natty Light's spark like White Claw knockoff

became the official sparkling beverage of Iowa State everything is a mess man everything is a mess I wish it was the official beverage of the state of Iowa but hey they got game day

and hey and hey the game took 10 hours to complete he took 10 hours and the Lord did not want it to happen yeah but Kirk Curb Street wasn't allowed to of the entire time, which is great.

So now it might not, in all seriousness, Iowa, Iowa State, both sides are sort of like considering not playing this game going forward. Can't blame them? Yeah. Yeah. It's, I'm glad that this has launched. El Asico has now required a full, multiple week at investigation.

And a dis-contamination phase. And eventually on the Wikipedia page, there will be a section disavowal by- Bush Light. That's it. No more hurtful thing for an Iowan than Bush Light formally casting you out of the kingdom. What am I supposed to build my utility shed with now? John Thick, you are excommunicado.

No. You can go over there and drink Ultra. No! It's very hydrating. Anyway, we're going to talk about some of the. positive things, or at least interesting things, from this season to date. Should we just start with our most beloved, cherished son? The one, the only, the ultimate, Jason's boy, who's finally made him proud.

Well, you were proud anyway, but. Eh, I'm one of those, I'm one of those hardcore football dads, you know, where it's like, am I proud? You're going to ask the question, right? yeah it's it's up for you to constantly wonder you know until you're like 85 and then you're like i did make him proud you know and you've been treating your kids the whole way and guess what they're awesome in football too so i think we can agree joe burrow is our september heisman winner for this year right like i mean the the stats alone uh really the only other option would be jalen hertz and everyone is bored tired of oklahoma so you got you got you got to you got to pass the honor so

So to sort of, I think, set the stage for the discussion in this episode, 16 minutes in, is a look back at the past decade of Heisman, September Heisman winners, and I'll try and keep this pretty brief. But, like, each one of these guys, almost all of these guys, we looked at them at the end of September, like, wow, there's your Heisman winner. Book it. It's done. The race is over. Gino Smith. Yes, he's dead center in this list. So 2008, Sam Bradford. He does go on to win. That's a rarity. Put up about a billion yards against TCU in Cincinnati and Washington. A billion yards against 2008, Washington. That turned out to be pretty common.

2009, Case Keenham, doing as usual thing. Beat Oklahoma State in Texas Tech. Houston's flying high. And he begins October by throwing 536 yards, 5 touchdowns of year interceptions, and I lost to UTIP. Utep played football in those days. 2010, Denard Robinson, put 500 yards up at Notre Dame for an undefeated Michigan. You are the September highism in 2011. This is my favorite one. It's Case

Keenheim again in his 19th year of college football. Is he the, without, you know, chimney spoilers, is he the only multiple September Heisman winner? Yeah, as far back as, yeah, as far back as I took this stuff. The Archie, no, we'll just say forever. For history, we won't find another one. I mean, I haven't looked at Archie's September. Who knows, who knows how hard he started. 2012, of course, that is Gino Smith. 2013, Johnny Mansell, coming off an actual Heisman. I think this was the first time this has ever been done. The man so monopolized headlines

that even when he put up like 80 yards against Rice, it was still the talk of college football because he'd gotten himself suspended for that. 2014, the other most September Heisman guy. Kenny Thrill Hill. Wow. Trill, excuse me. Yeah, A&M should probably sponsor this trophy.

I forgot the Houstonness. 2015, Leonard Fournett, the Auburn Gifts. Book it, hands down. going to win the highsman 2016 Lamar Jackson he actually won that's cool uh 2017 sayquine barclay people noticed all the big runs and eventually they noticed there were no medium or small runs just big runs uh 2018 toa hit like looking at the numbers of his start it is insane that someone ended up with a better season because it's not like twoa got bad he just you know based tougher defense got a little hurt yeah but his first six games we did a post

last year, you compare those, his first six games to any six game combo by any previous Heisman quarterback and two us were better. That's completely insane. That brings us to 2019, Joe Borough, hands down, best quarterback in the country. Yeah, Joe. Greatest quarterback of all time, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So far, by the way, Joe Burrow, if you'll remember having my favorite thing, the inability to complete 50% of his passes, right, which took him from joking people's Heisman favorite to, oh, no, he's actually going to win the real thing because this year, Joe Burroughs completion percentage, 80%. He managed to improve, like, one person changing the way that they did things,

improved his completion percentage by like 30%. He improved by an entire college, Josh Allen. Have you seen that very, that very not great movie Lucy? No. The one where Scarlett Jansen is a robot or alien or something? No, she's not, no, she's a regular person, but she gets some sort of like experimental drug that unlock. It's one of those movies that's like, humans only use 15% of their brain. It was like, what if Limitless and Lisa Frank made a movie together?

My favorite quote about that movie is she said, even I didn't understand it. Yep. But that's Joe Burroughs season where you're just like, you can do all these things now. Why? Because we didn't have time for that exposition. Just accept it. at least joe burrow got his limitless you know season his moment the big turning point and something public that people could watch like somebody out there is having a limitless moment as like a cobbler right like damn this guy can shoe look at him go sold that bitch wow Keep going

Somewhere out there I want to hear more Have you seen this dude show? The greatest cobbler of all time That said If you are having a limitless month Please let us know I would love to celebrate

Ordinary people having their Joe Burrow Month Like you could go limitless in like Battletoads Which actually I would love Yeah That's a good skill That's just a yeah

That's just a A speed runner ranking I googled best shoe cobbler ever and it appears this no one has made this post so someone do that there's web traffic to be had yep um

so yeah we're very proud of Joe Burrow and Jason right now if you had to project where he will fall in terms of the end of the season you know is he if we're looking at a scale of let's call Lamar Jackson to

Kenny Hill sure probably I would say uh he probably won't like a transfer didn't Kenny Hill transfer shortly after that sounds right yeah yeah so let's say closer to Lamar than Kenny Hill okay okay speaking of are we going to remember the Derek King thing yeah Kenny Hill transferred to TCU are we going to remember the Derek King thing from this September I still haven't figured it out because he's like he's like yeah I'm just going to take the season off not transferring though And it's like, are you hurt? Like, I don't think anyone knows what's going on. Just going to cryogenically freeze myself.

Hyper sleep time. See you in 2020. Like, is Houston just simming to 2020? I think so. Yes, I think that is very much what's happening. Like, if they just come out and say that, then I'm like, okay. Like, I think, I think if Dana could get away with it, he'd just be like, yeah, we forfeit the rest. We'll see you next year.

Like, is he just going to go on Instagram and get around the world ticket and just? and just, you know, be a travel and influencer for the year, right? I'm Derek King, and this, this is Tonga. Welcome. Like, I would love to see that. Like, what if Derek King just was like, man, I just wanted to travel? Football is kind of boring. Need to recharge.

What if he is a travel Instagram influencer, but only in the Houston metro area? Sure. Even better. It's like, I've traveled to the exotic highlands region. We're over in, I plan on... Climb the highest peak in Houston. An overpass. I think I need a visa, but once that's approved, I will be taking myself to Sugar Land.

I think it's a really great illustration of how great it is to be a college student in general and how, like, shitty it is day to day to be a college student who's also an elite athlete. Wait, you mean I can be an elite? elite athlete without being on the football team and still be a college student. Awesome. It's probably the only good part about college college athletes not getting paid is you can do this and nobody can be like, but, but we were taking back your signing. Yeah. Like Melvin Gordon held out out. Melvin Gordon held out. Ended up being fruitless. Loss a bunch of money in fines and in uncollected game checks. Didn't work out at all. Derek King can hold out.

for the rest of this and like what oh how many game checks you can take cool they're going to take back that knowledge ryan yeah that's what's what's gonna happen i mean maybe it's just he said he wanted to maximize his time at the university of houston want to get that doctorate i don't know when we eventually pay players you know that the people who will be most tyrannical are the coaches with the smallest payrolls right like that the coach at the coach at alabama the coach in Alabama will eventually have to balance a pretty deep payroll, right, with people who make stuff, who make, you know, sums that are pretty comparable across the board. So it's going to

be hard to sort of balance all of those. But the people who will be the most tyrannical will be the people at, like, Temple, right? Or the people at Boise State. They'll be the ones who are like, you don't make $250 a game to loaf, son. Yeah, you'll be $250. ULM scraping, scraping dimes together. Yeah. Yeah, it's going to be great. Definitely not already tired thinking about it. Just some coach assaulting a kid over like...

Oh, just Twitter users being like, he makes 37 grand. And I apparently in this scenario, no one pointing out the NCAA is still clearing a billion a year. I mean, listen, the financials are pretty upside down for the NFL Players Association vis-a-vis the NFL as well, and people are still willing to tell you what overpaid spoiled babies NFL players are. Yeah, that's true. That's true. I think ULM's kicker should only get 14 credit hours. I want a situation, I want two situations to happen. One, I want a situation where the ULM kicker making 22 grand legitimately calls someone in the stands

broke boy. Right. Oh, I'm sorry. I don't speak broke. flexing on the entire flexing like he's like I got 32 grand now that's fuck you money because it like 20 that is kind of fuck you money right like I don't know

I saved up like eight grand I thought I'd just chill for a minute I'm good I'm on retire yeah yeah the other thing I want is for football to do this first so that basketball can see the sums involved and then go

shh no we all make more money right now stop don't stop Like, Calipari's going to be like, I don't know about that. Yeah, Calipari just openly stumping for his players. I can't have my guys out here taking pay cuts. Yeah, yeah.

I mean, he makes, listen, he's got a family to support. And he already makes $600 grand. That's a cruelty. You can't do that to my player. He says, coughing up hundreds. I love Calipari so much. Like, I like Kentucky fans because they don't even. even get mad about that they're like hey man listen he's a job creator he's a provider

that man puts food on the table man in college sports and like and like yeah you wouldn't like I would like would you trust him no he's going to get me pay absolutely um can I can I give out a few assies of my own yeah it's actually so because I'm a broken person I went through and I found the wins with a heavy what-the-fuck attached to them from so far in this college football season. And you'll see what I mean with this first example. This is the team. Now, for this one I did go Power 5. There was a group of five teams, San Diego State, that I could have pulled instead, but that just seemed unnecessary.

This is the game with the worst yards per play on offense in a win. It's a Power 5 team. Does anybody want to guess which... I'll even tell you, it's an ACC team. Does anybody want to guess which team this is? Miami. Nope. Wow.

The answer is Georgia Tech. Whoa. In their 14-10 win over USF, they average 3.7 yards per play in this win on offense. USF, the team they beat, a full yard ahead of them at 4.7. did this happen? Six of Georgia Tech's 21 first downs came by way of penalty. In the second half of this game, Georgia Tech scored both their touchdowns in the first half. They did not get inside the USF 40. So this gets the assy for most beleaguered offense in a victory. A very different

assy. This one goes for most turnovers in a win. I think Any of you, all, I know all three of you remember this game, but I'm not sure if you can identify it without any clues. But let's see, who do you think has the most turnovers in a win? This is not a Power 5 school. I hope it's Hawaii. It is Hawaii. Yeah, I was just, I was going to go, I was going to go that based off Cole McDowellon alone.

Yeah, it's the Hawaii, it's the opening game for Hawaii, Hawaii, Arizona, a game in which Hawaii had six turnovers. That's the most by any FBS team in a win. win this year. Nobody else even has five in a win. There are a few teams with four. I did not remember exactly how stupid this game was. Hawaii in this game, three of eleven on third down.

Arizona won the turnover battle by four. And scored touchdowns, mind you, on four of the six turnovers that Hawaii committed and Hawaii still won this game 4538. I'm so proud of them for to turn the ball over six times and give up a bunch of touchdowns because of those

turnovers and still win over a pack 12 team when you are not a power five team that's fucking beautiful by a yard that's like you have to always have the context there of yep yep they won it by a yard by a single yard yes by a guy who by who ran i believe 40 yards to make that tackle yes a defensive lineman yeah uh most penalties in a way win. Y'all are not going to guess this one, and that's okay. This is Louisiana 45, Ohio 25, a recent game. In this game, the Raging Cajuns had 16 penalties for 16 yards. So far this season, there are 13 teams that have played at least three games that have not, in total, reached 16 penalties. There are 32 teams that have played at least three games that don't have

161 yards in penalty yardage. The best part was how it happened. They had two penalties in the first quarter, four in the second, four in the third, and then six penalties accepted in the fourth quarter. Just beautiful.

Like, strong. Other than that, Louisiana won this game pretty easily on every other metric. They won the turnover battle, yards per play, they were better, blah, blah, blah, blah. But 16 penalties in a win. That's just like, that should not be ignored. And I didn't. I didn't ignore it. Um, my last assy is for most yards per play

allowed in a win. I'm going to let you all get. I don't think y'all will get this, but I will let you guess. Most yards allowed in most most yards per play allowed in a win. Can be somebody who's throwing haymakers and missing. I'm going to guess it involves Vanderbilt. Um, I'm going to guess it involves has Vanderbilt won a game yet? I think they beat fcest team i don't know i don't know if they've got a win i'm just going to throw a while at texas uh no it's southern miss UCLA is in second place with that wazoo game um so UCLA in the wazoo game they did that is the most total yards allowed it is not the most yards per play they allowed 8.8 yards per play southern miss 47 troy 42 Troy had 8.9 yards per play

and lost. This is in part because as bad as Southern Miss was on defense of this game, Troy was pretty much just as bad. Troy averaged 11.7 yards per passing attempt. Southern Miss, 13.8. In this game, Troy had scoring drives of 93, 97, 80, and 77 yards. But Southern Miss still won by five, and it counts. And I say this,

this mostly to illustrate that I am probably guilty of this more than anybody else on this podcast. We'll get to the part of the year where we start doing previews and to do that we start looking at how a team did last year. And normally I would just gloss over this and say like, okay, how did the Southern Miss look last year? Who'd they beat? Okay, they beat Troy in a close game. Cool. But I want to remember that they didn't just beat Troy in a close game. They beat Troy while allowing nearly nine yards of play. I want to hold that close to my heart. And those are my assies for this point in the year.

That's special. Little momentos. I think we got to get the Georgia Tech's penalty-based offense matched up against ULL, UL, Lafia, Louisiana, Lafayette, Louisiana. All of it. Yeah, that would be perfect, yeah. Jason, do you have a special mention? Well, here's a quick,

I'm going to give out the September Bryce Love to the player who has just peeled off the most big, just big explosions. Antonio Gandy Golden, an awesome name of Liberty. So there's one good thing about Liberty leads a nation in 20-yard plays and 50-yard plays and has two 60-yarders. Also, Liberty is the academic equal of Bryce Love's alma mater. Bryce loves alma mater. So there's that. Spencer, is it time to talk about total tackles? It's time to talk about the monster what lives out west.

The bear will just put his paws on you and drag you down. Yeah, you know, the bear who'll, frankly, according to the stats and the game tape, he'll show up just to drag anyone down, right? So if there's another bear taking something down, he'll show up just to clean up, just to be like, hey, brother, there you go. It's a good looking deer. I thought I might get to your lunch to you a little bit quicker. have a good one yeah that's because um that's because

cow as it stands and I say that because if you know Cal football you have to say at this moment because it's not like Cal will stay 4 and O no but by definition they can't right you have to play other games I think no they could do the Houston thing that's yeah we're taking the year off Simmons what are you doing and that would be a very Cal thing to do to be like four and oh good enough for me bro thank you like life's about adding life's about asking for just enough here's what here's what you do cal stop playing after this demand a playoff spot you're undefeated you're undefeated in power conference and you know what in the pack 12

it might be the soundest strategy right it really might to just go hey we're undefeated yeah but you stop playing after after game four yeah because we saw what utah did yeah imagine how healthy we are now we're playoff shape that's right yeah low mileage baby come on life's about management all right how many people do four things all year think about it yeah this is like when you know a good NBA team shuts down stars at the end of the year yeah to rest and for the playoffs so cal is just like a good NBA team all right cal's more like the uh Detroit Pistons from any year yeah they're kind of like the old pistons or the old like bully nicks right that's a good way to put They really are.

You're like, hey, do you like scoring? Cool. Cool. Instead, you can watch this. You should. You know, there's other things to watch. Meet linebacker Ben Wallace. So, yeah, so Evan Weaver's kind of our Bill Lambier.

Yeah. Evan Weaver is definitely the big bear. The guy who, the guy who will, you know, just out there wrapping him up, even if he's not going to take him home, right? Evan Weaver, lineman. for total tackles okay this is this is both solo and assists all right uh to this point Evan weaver has 63 total okay and that's an astonishing stat because number two number two has 47 at this point a full 16 tackles between them like standard deviations above everyone else against old miss in the 2820 victory by the bears over old miss which yeah take that

speaking of taking things to the bank hey beat an SEC team at home on the road that's what we did which SEC team we beat an SEC team on the road that's it want to know want to know y'all was it was it a very uh very scary environment it was an SEC town it was an SEC it was very moist. It was humid and very warm. Don't sleep on that part. Can we talk about what Evan Weaver said after this game? Please. Okay. So in the post-game, I believe after the game, a reporter's asking him, like, what was the message to the defense at halftime? And he said, I mean, there wasn't really a message. I'm just going to say it. He's not the greatest quarterback in the world. so he talked trash to us he obviously can't put his money where his mouth is we shut him up good that's

that referring to old miss quarterback matt um is he corral or coral sure i have no idea but i don't think we need to worry i'm i'm not going to watch enough old miss football for that to do anything this will be the last time we discussed their team mac he's like the he's like the xerox copy of Chad Kelly. You know, Chad Kelly was... Mimeographed. Yeah, he was like a fascinating... He was a fascinating quarterback with astonishing talent who kind of made

things happen and talk shit. And Matt Corral kind of does that without the beating Alabama part. I also liked Evan Weaser. Weaver also said. Evan Weaser would be an entirely different problem. He said, they're from the SEC. They think

they can bring it to anyone. We will up at 3 a.m. our time this morning. We could have played at 1 a.m. 4 a.m. 11 p.m. Devastating. Anywhere you go. That was always awake. That's Evan Weaver, man. He's the bear who's the bear who makes every dumpster unsafe at every hour because he's going to tackle it. Get into it. You have to hang your, you have to hang your food up high because Evan Weaver will take it at 3 a.m. I like it because this, in true bear fashion, this is the part of the year are where Evan Weaver's like, got to get as many tackles as I can.

Got to make it through the long winter. That's true. That's how football works. There won't be many chances to tackle people in January. About to get so for Cal. Get so sleepy. Fill that to me. Total tackles is like my favorite stat because

it's really close to meaningless. Like we're using it here. You know, Evan Weaver, clearly a good player. This is not to trash him at all. Like, once you're so far ahead of everyone else, you're clearly accomplishing something but like you look back through the leaders in total tackles from any particular year and you're like who who right like you go back through raw passing yards that sounds like total bullshit like you you should go by passer rating you

should go by yards like the the passer rating the the raw passing yards leaders over the last decade it's like suddenly they're all NFL starters Gardner menshoe is an NFL starter right like Case Canem is on seven NFL rosters at any given point but like you can do that with rushing yards receiving yards like these are not the best numbers and you shouldn't go by just numbers blah blah blah but those guys get drafted whereas here are the the last 10 total tackles leaders let's see one two three four guys were undrafted and never played in the NFL one converted to fullback and is still in the league a seventh rounder scooby right is an arizona hot shots legend and i think on the pats roster now of course shocks no one

two were fifth rounders and NFL backups. The one leftover, the one hot album every 10 years average, is Luke Keekley. Luke Keekley, the only exception to the racking up tons and tons and tons of tackles rule doesn't really mean anything. And the thing about him is he did it two years in a row with complete dominance being good at everything about football. Like with him, it wasn't just, you know, it's a big number. It was actually exemplary of his skills as a football player. Meanwhile, on the other side, the last decade, the first line. linebacker drafted off the board.

The only one of them to even rank in the top 30 in total tackles in his last year's college football was Luke Kikley. Most of the time, the best linebacker, according to the NFL draft, didn't even rank in the top 100 in total tackles. Like total tackle, this, like, it's a hilarious stat for this reason. Because, like, you have to do something with the number. And if it's huge, like Evan Weavers, you have to appreciate it, you know, but like, it's perfect because it means so very little.

I think my favorite thing about his is usually if you lead the country in total tackles, that means you're a linebacker for a defense that doesn't get off the field. But Cal's defense is great. But because of their offense, they don't really get off the field. Right. They are back on the field. It's a high performance defense. And by that, I mean, there's a high percentage of the time that they are performing on the field.

They got a tempo defense. I also like that to this point in the season, he is, likelier to keep up his pace than some of his high volume tackle peers because they play for actual bad teams that probably won't make bowl games there's a lot of those in there he also has a track record he was number seven in tackles per game last year so evan weaver i let's let's say fifth rounder will see some time in the NFL how about that i wasn't joking about him being like like the the point guard of bears right distributing evenly against old miss took 11 tackles for himself and had 11 assists perfectly balanced it's it is also like it is also extremely great to go beat old

miss in oxford and then talk about it but talk a bunch of shit about how old miss isn't that good at football specifically to talk shit about another player yeah i like it for two reasons because it's not like old miss fans are ever going to go to berkeley to come find you right the other is matt corral corral is from california and yeah so there's that He doesn't even look good and affid it. Damn. Damn. He has bad taste and energy drinks.

Oh! That dude can't skateboard. No. You can't even Olly. Cal, by the way, side note. They beat UC Davis by two scores on August 31st. And then one games against Washington. Washington by one point.

Oh, yeah. It's a real good team. That's understandable. Close game, 2019. Then they beat North Texas by six. and then they beat old miss a bad football team it's like old miss is branding old miss comma a bad football team I know that we're not really doing like previews and stuff anymore

I am going to watch Arizona State Cal a 1030 Friday night game just to see how how like locked in the mud we can get because man this this this this this has nine to four written all over it. Let's do it. Like, how much caffeine are you doing here? Oh, God.

I might have to, like, I might have to start using cocaine. That's a fucking northwestern Michigan State kicking off damn near midnight. Yep. Yeah, no, I'm staring the other way and seeing if I could come out the other side. We're going to do, you know, get some promethazine going. I'm the only person who'll be watching this and thinking, oh, this is fast. I am, I am, I am, I am. I recognize this will not happen.

I really want us to get into November with a still undefeated cow, who at that point will have beaten, if they get that far, they will have beaten Washington, Oregon, and Utah. And if they've beaten those three teams going into November, it's kind of hard to make a case for why they wouldn't just finish these year undefeated. I honestly don't know what we would do as a society with this Cal team undefeated. And being able to say things like, yeah, we beat all the top teams. in the pack 12 and we beat oldness they're not great but they're you know a power five opponent

beat them in a sure road game like i don't what would we do so i think my favorite part of it would be SEC fans trying to reconcile like yeah they play they play big boy defense with they are one to know against the SEC yeah with west coasters yeah there'd be a lot going on the SEC fan's brain. Yep, yep. Like, I've, I had a good time looking through records at this point and going, hey, which teams would be an appalling challenge to the playoff system in a waste of a slot who yet, who we could, who we could, you know, still comfortably say no, right?

Like, for instance, at this point, if Cal wins and they were undefeated and they were Pact 12 champs, based on the last five to 10 years of Pact 12 performance, they might tell them no it might just they would not they would not tell them no that's not true just no just no how about cal wisconsin rose bowl wow i hope the rose bowl the rose parade theme that year it's like something really swap throwback if we have a cow wisconsin rose bowl we should force like 20 michigan fans to go and watch the whole thing i think Watch it. Man, I'd go.

That's going to be 11-5. Oh, yeah. That'll be something special. And you know what? One of those coaches will win, and they'll have one more Rose Bowl win than Beauchamp. And after an hour and 47 minutes, the Rose Bowl is over. All of the people who just watched for the parade think, finally, finally, they get the stretch.

It came shorter than the parade. Yeah. How long is the parade? I don't know. The parade is, it doesn't matter. how long it is it's way more popular than the game yeah like garden like garden nation turns out hard for the oh yeah parade you know nobody wants to volunteer for the game but for the parade they have like armies of people ready to go who are like yeah man show me flowers on wheels

this is why we got to hope the um the academic scandal never touches the tournament of roses parade because that's where things would be like oh my god the corruption really good nobody cares at us is involved in a scandal if the rose parade be like that people were bribing their way into oh jesus other other teams that are currently undefeated that i believe would be an absolute horror and a choice a choice for a playoff committee with nose held firmly yeah yeah now the one thing that they can do with virginia is because because they just won the basketball title, the TV networks can be like, well, all right, we can play that. We can sort of piggyback that and make it like Virginia, the elite academic athletic

blah, but they can do, they can work with that. It's not ideal, but they can. Fortunately, that was but a ruse to get you to strike down my dummy, the bait of UVA, and reveal the real monster behind it from the ACC, and that's an undefeated for no wake Forest. Yep. The smallest fan base in college football, ACC champions somehow beating Clemson and going to the playoff and saying,

oh, we have a spot, don't we? Wow. The ticket allotment is what? Ooh, geez. 500. Okay. Let's do a Wake Forest Memphis semifinal game. If everyone calls their grandma, maybe we can do we could we could wake forest would be the only team in the

playoff where they would go so you guys need a bus all right for the record if there's a wake forest if wake forest makes the playoff we will attend we'll figure out a way to do like a group trip to that right so like what is what is a stat about like living wake forest alumni like could they even fill half of the peach bowl no like if all of them went think it's much more than 200,000 like it can't be that many total it's a very like ever including dead people yeah like I think total okay I don't I just don't think there is that all the wake forest alumni rise from the graves and the crypts that would be pretty fucking awesome yeah peach bowl full of dead demons the demon deacons powers reveal deacons yeah all right

on one board uh what else did we have here oh one uh one other very fun stat uh defensive players are very difficult to quantify with uh conventional statistics interceptions is another one that like it's fun to look at and it's fun to gock at but like don't put too much stock in it usually um similar to tackles and i think tackles for loss is pretty useful but So like, this dude has, this dude gets his hands on a lot of passes. Maybe he's a really great defensive back or maybe he just gets thrown out all the time, right? So like how most, I think most media people handle like, oh shit, I got to vote for an All-America. For All-America defensive backs, I only know of one is like you just sort of look at their stats, add them all up, whoever has the biggest number in a power conference.

Yeah, that guy, that guy. This year's September Interceptions leader in the Power Five is an actually very cool player, Airs, owner's jace whittaker who missed all of his senior year due to two back-to-back injuries but stayed fully engaged became like a sort of like a junior cornerbacks coach came back as a redshirt senior he was going to start at corner one day before the opener they say hey you should you should take a few practice reps at safety just in case guess what happens in the opener against Hawaii he has to play safety he gets two interceptions as a safety and they're like huh okay that's good to know so they move him back to his regular position and then two weeks

later moving back to safety again so they just they constantly move even during games uh that really doesn't have much to do with him leading the uh power five interceptions but i will say i hope he keeps it up and has that to show for all of his very versatile labors what you're describing is a situation that makes me think everything's fine in arizona the only good thing is the guy who will play any position on a moment's notice yes