Shutdown Fullcast - Shutdown Fullcast 2.12

Episode Date: November 19, 2014

This week, the Shutdown Fullcast reviews the college football rankings and finds out UCLA and Minnesota are the two greatest teams in college football; examines the precise levels of "Fuck Marshall" contained in those rankings; examines the mysterious concept of GAME CONTROL; answers reader questions, including telling you the exclusive secret to avoiding paying your student loans; looks at the week ahead and weeps tears of boredom. 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 for this week, a week where we have another bumper of playoff rankings that mean nothing at this point, nothing to discuss, which is why we're going to discuss them. Joining me, as always, from indoors, for once, not outdoors. That's how cold it is here on the barrens depths of Georgia. That would be Jason Kirk. It is below 60 degrees outside, so you're crazy if you think I'm going out there. And from an even frostier climb, but from always indoors, because that's what you do when you live in New York, you go to New York so that you can live indoors.

Yeah, you go from indoor where you live to the transportation system that's indoors, to your work that's indoors. And that way, we are, if the sun burns out, it won't affect New Yorkers in the slightest. Never liked it anyway. Like, like, Mets games will get canceled. Nobody cares about that anyway. The sun's a scam. Good. The Mets suck. I'm glad the sun burns out. Night games were always my favorite anyway.

Billy Joel only plays at night games. He does. Do you think you need sunlight to see him in the garden? Nope. That's why I paid $340 for my 18th road ticket. I do have to say this as a brief aside. Out of nowhere, Alex Rubenstein, Dan Rubenstein's brother, came up to us the other day and said, you guys, you ever listen to Billy Joel? He's got some really awesome songs.

No, he was, he was, he was, he was, he was, he was, he was messing with you. He was messing with you hard. It's, I promise you he wasn't. How old is he? He is like 25. Come on. And he was like, Taylor Swift, she's got nothing on Billy Joel. So maybe that's like the, well, there's the mid-20s thing where you're like,

I'm going to figure out why people like Bob Dylan. And then you're like, I have no fucking idea. I can't figure it out. Beats me. Maybe I'll try Billy Joel. Maybe that's easier. Maybe you have to like lyrics and people who can't sing. Maybe you have to.

Maybe you have to like songs with 48 verses. This song is about Bob Dylan's inability to love and also a man who was falsely convicted of murder. That sounds like a great song. I'd love to listen to that. Can you put some tweedling a nept harmonica over it? And that's maybe his best song. Yeah, that may be his finest song. What's his best work?

Well, it was where he was still doped up from a motorcycle crash and his voice was all screwed up. so it didn't even sound like him. That's his best work. It's like Mark Hamill. It's just like Mark Hamill. Really only noticeable after he was maimed in a car crash. Speaking of maimed in a car crash, the playoff. We have rankings.

We should discuss them. I'm a big fan of number 10. I want to go ahead and spoil that. Jason Kirk, what stellar team with outstanding quality losses managed to limp into the 10th. the spot you must be referring to the georgia bulldogs who have lost to to steve spurrier that's a good coach and that's one of the five best coaches ever and georgia lost to him and also georgia lost to a school with excellent directors cup standings they lost to florida florida has many championships

in many sports. Many, in many sports, not football, but many, recently, but many, many, many sports. It's a quality arrival. Got a bomb-ass baller. Georgia lost at Jacksonville. That's an NFL team. Jags, don't lie.

You know that thing where you always say, well, I don't know, I think they'd do well against a pro team. It's not true, and guess who proved it, the Bulldogs? Jacksonville, the London of, college football. Really waiting that strength of schedule, which I understand Florida being a quality loss. If you view strength of schedule as a heavy, a movable object, incapable of any action whatsoever, which would be Florida.

So good job. Great job, playoff committee. An inspiring pick at the 10 spot. Who do we have at 9? It gets better. Oh, oh, oh, go on. at nine we have a UCLA a team that if anyone can off the top of your head recall a good thing UCLA has done this year please please let it be known they they beat Memphis and that actually is that's actually a pretty good

that's actually not bad that's a pretty that's a quality win this year we're not lying Memphis is their best non-conference win sorry Texas and UVA and who knows Memphis's coach may be coaching at UCLA next year. He's like, well, y'all know the secret. You got to tell me? That delicious blend of spices and herbs? Bring that on over from Memphis to UCLA. UCLA did beat Colorado in double overtime.

And did beat Cal by two points. So we are definitely talking about the top 10 team here. Be Cal by two points when Cal decided to basically just drive into the of a building. That's what Cal does. Hey, no, that's fine. There's a lot of quality wins on this schedule, okay? They beat a championship caliber team in Washington.

I'm not saying what decade, but that's a championship caliber team. Yeah, that's previous number one, Washington. Previous! They beat... Also, previous number one, Colorado. Listen, they... Previous number one, Texas, previous number one, Virginia. They beat Utah. They beat Bama.

Utah beat Bama once in a bowl game. That happened. They beat Arizona State worse than several other teams have beaten Arizona State. It's true. Arizona State, a quality team who lost to Oregon State this weekend. In that charity win, you know, because Mike Riley's so nice,

I think the Pac-12, after they get off the coach's call, they're like, okay, reporters are all gone. Like one reporter, Pac-12 media, stay on that call. And one day you will hear all of the coaches in a cabal going, all right, so who's given Riley one? Like when things start to look too hot for Mike Riley, right? Mike's like, bye guys. And they're like, yeah, we're all hanging up now.

They all hang up. They're like, okay, Mike's like the nicest human being on the planet who's going to lose to him. Todd Graham's like, I'm leaving anyway. It's funny. Yeah, I'm out of this one, suckers. No, Todd Graham all owes them for something, something nefarious that they're covering up for him everybody's got dirt on top gram yeah

that's his game nobody can spoil him because everyone has the equal amount of dirt on him right he wants that florida job so bad that he said no guys i'm not i'm not i'm not this team's too good and they're like hmm tijuana 2007 and he's like shit he's like i was only in Tijuana from 2003 to 2006, sir. Todd Graham stinks. I know. It's like, do you let Jason have that one? Or do you just hop on to the easy one?

There you go. I'll take this. Tight down the middle. Todd Graham, just the traveling charismatic hobo. He's like the music man, except, you know, he only steals your children. Monterell. Oh, so yeah, that's UCLA at the nine spot. just a panoply of success and excellence uh who we got at that eight spot

that'll be yeah the old miss uh the old miss dr bows yeah hey an actual good team that's a that's a pretty good team imagine if they didn't still run you know that briar crest high school offense that they run at old miss the things they could have accomplished oh well uh who's at number seven? Number seven, that's when we're getting into the tier of argument. We're getting into the realm where people actually

care about where teams are ranked. Number seven, we have Baylor. Yeah, like, if there's one team that can actually legitimately claim, yeah, we're down a couple of spots from maybe where we should be, I'd ride with that for Baylor. Yeah, I mean,

it's all fuzzy about how these things are actually calculated we have no real way of knowing but uh i mean beat tCU which is uh way up there the real beef for baler fans has to be who's at number six right well and who would that be that would be ohio state who was behind baler but jumped ahead of baler on the strength of beating minnesota and uh we should note that minnesota retained its intercontinental title Minnesota is still ranked number 25. Did not move. 25, man, 25 is just, what is 25 in terms of rankings?

It's, um, it's an honorary degree. Frozen in place. What Minnesota is doing is when the plane is oversold and they're like, hey, we need three people to give up their seats and we'll give you $300 and delta dollars. And Minnesota's like, nope, I want to get home. and it's like all right Minnesota you're you're stuck because you did not volunteer to leave just waded down by all those dilly bars

they let Notre Dame and A&M leave instead of them they're the honorary spot they're like they're like the ghost that you just let sit at the dinner table 25 come on in you set a place for the gophers it's what they would have done for us damn it

I'm going to pour one out as you, like, pour this big thing of heated lard. Just get the big tendness in there. Who do we have at number? Since we sort of agree that Baylor might be sort of screwed by, what I think is a good Ohio State team, they'll undoubtedly disprove that and prove us all wrong over the next two weeks or something, given that they play a quality opponent, former national champion Michigan

former number one Michigan co-national champion I haven't looked all the way where is Michigan in this poll rankings aren't everything that's true and we have no way of knowing who is just outside so we can assume Michigan is 26 yeah I'd say they're about 26

okay good right there they're tied with Marshall I'd say oh why why do you have to bring it up I totally forgotten we'll get We'll get to Marshall it a little bit. Okay. Who do we have a... Yeah, we all will. We all will.

Because we're talking about the rankings. Therefore, we'll get to Marshall later. We'll get to Marshall much, much later. Quite a bit later. At that five spot. At that five spot would be TCU, which lost to Baylor, almost lost to Kansas, but is buffeted by wins over Oklahoma and Kansas State. Oh, and Minnesota.

Don't forget that. Sorry, sorry. Minnesota, which has somehow lost. to every team here. The golden link holding college football together at this point. That's a funny thing to me. People complain about A&M and LSU and Auburn taking on a bunch of losses and the teams in the SEC rising because of beating teams that were previously ranked.

What about Minnesota? They lost to Illinois. You know Minnesota is going to play Georgia in a bowl game, right? No, no, no, because Georgia has to play Nebraska. in a bowl game. I thought we broke that curse. I thought we apologized. I thought we apologized that gypsy.

Nope. Two things have to happen every single year. One pit football must pay a repeat visit to the courtyard suites in Birmingham. Even if they're not playing there. Even if they're not playing. They just go to say hi at this point. They've made friends. They've probably had children.

They probably have to go for visitation. I mean, have you ever. around Christmas called Birmingham, and, you know, Birmingham says, when are you coming home? And you say, oh, can't make it this year? Oh, God, the nagging. You just got to go to Birmingham, Pitt. Just get it done with.

I guess your new family's better than us. There's going to be something that gives away this cross-cultural pollination that's happened between Pitt and the city of Birmingham. For instance, at one point, someone in Birmingham will just make a sandwich and then reach for the fries and smack them right into the sandwich and go, I have no idea why I did that. Is it not already a Pittsburgh thing? That's a Pittsburgh thing.

It's just going to pop up in Birmingham. I would buy that as either a Pittsburgh or a Birmingham thing. It sounds sloppy enough to be a Birmingham thing. Just put the fries right in the sandwich. That or you're going to see somebody get arrested in a Steelers jersey who shouts Roll Tide. Yeah, I was going to say drinking like 24 beers on a week. on a weekend which town

really could be either yeah although being public about it's pretty Pittsburgh not want your pastor to know about it is a super SEC thing so yeah so maybe the shameless

maybe if we go to Birmingham at some point and they're like yeah I'm just drinking Iron City here in a corner whoa it's happening the cross pollination's begun but yeah

Georgia plays Nebraska in a bowl game write it down Matt Repchack by the way is the guy who came up with that and he's correct so credit to you matt who did we have at that four spot uh number four is mississippi state which uh lost abama and has done nothing otherwise

but they're sitting pretty at four man it really did not matter that all of their good wins lost and badly did it yeah we were just sort of like hey they mean lSU and ober what happened to lSU and auburn you ask a lot of questions you must be a cop get out of you We don't want no cops. It wasn't even like, let's see, A&M lost, Auburn lost,

and they didn't lose to SEC U.S. teams. They lost the SEC East teams. And LSU got shut out. Yeah, but Bilema. Yeah, but well, still, I mean, Mississippi State played both LSU and Arkansas, so it retains all of that quality that transferred between those two.

Here, you want to, you want to. But it hasn't played Georgia or Missouri. You want a magical. Those winds were totally sapped, and it didn't matter at all. You want a magical phrase to explain that away? It's amazing how whitewashing this phrase will be for LSU's loss to Arkansas. Well, you know, Arkansas was due. Oh, 95% of people you say that, that's like, oh, oh, yeah.

You're right. There's a mythical force that said, oh, well, time to collect on that debt. Because, you know, you put 17 losses in the kidding. you get a, it's going to spit out a win eventually. See, Arkansas had deposited 3% of its paycheck every Saturday. And finally, that paid off. See, in my opinion, you always hit on 17th. It sounds like an illegal workplace.

It sounds like an illegal workplace lottery. That's, that's, that's, I hadn't thought about that. But yes, somebody pointed out to me, oh, man, you know, they lost 17 in a row. And they beat 17th ranked, uh, They beat 17th ranked LSU on the 17th. And I'm like, no, that's actually Monday. But, but yeah. But it was the 17th somewhere in the world, was it not?

You're two-thirds of the way to a really awesome numerological fallacy. And I really appreciate the effort. But that's awesome. And what was the score? Well, that'd be 17-0. I think that was actually what they were trying to say. That's probably less Miles' idea. And what did, what did they play in the Arkansas locker room after the game?

17 by winger. Stevie Nix, edge of 17. Oh, okay. Well, Brett Bielma is a sultry man. Oh, and he and Stevie have done some, uh, done some fun things back in the day. Oh, Fleetwood Mac didn't break up by itself. I'm just saying, neither one of them has a septum. Nope.

Wow. His was mostly for utility, though. Just gets the oxygen right in there. They snip them out on Iowa farm boys. increases their work capacity. Let's see. Well, that's number four. If we could just, let's see, number four to number two.

Number two is Oregon. Based on the committee's wins against top five, losses against top five, all that stuff, they're right about where they should be according to what the committee presents as its evidence. It's a good thing the committee seems like UCLA, because that really makes Oregon. So just before we get to our number one team, which we all know who it is, but before we get to them, let's just consider the most valued franchises under this system of evaluation. UCLA, because if you beat them, whoa, oh, golly, you beat something. Minnesota, that's the other building block of this house of cards. Yeah, you're the one with the Jerry Kill on it.

kind of wonder why Illinois can't get, can't get a ranking. Well, they haven't. If they beat UCLA, they're in. Okay. You're like, wow, man. Illinois just trash UCLA. And it's not too long ago that that's a bowl game that actually happened. Another one would be Clemson, seven and three, one lost to Georgia Tech, one lost to Georgia.

So if you're in the state of Georgia and you beat Clemson, hey, shoot, Clemson plays Georgia State next week. Wow. So done. They're going to be top five. Based on precedent, if you beat Clemson, you're ranked. Wow. And then we have our number one, which is Alabama. Probably the shakiest number one Alabama team I've ever seen.

Don't tell that to those fans, ma'am. Which fans? Bam fans. That's right. I'm not going to tell them those Bama fans. Come on. Number one's number one. What's shaky about that?

you on top I just know this that you watch them and say I've seen them lose already they appear to be beatable what did you see what did you really see sir you know everything you see

is delayed from when it happens until it gets to your eyes so it could be changed by any number of facts like when you look at something's red it's not actually red it's every color but red So how do you even know which team won? So really, you saw everything but a loss.

Jaden and Willow Smith on the playoff committee. That's what I'm hearing. Yeah. Roll eye robot. Roll prana braithing. It's prana breathing. It's from the belly. Just like Brett Bilema does.

Well, Bama didn't lose. They prana lost. That's right. And you know what? If you look at a loss. If you look at a loss, it's got a hole right in the middle. And that's where the energy goes through. How can you be number one if you don't have a one, and that one is your loss?

Because if we were perfect, we'd be zero. Thought about that? Oh. Yeah. And I mean, if you have zero losses, then you're Marshall and you're not ranked. Oh, man. Can we talk about this now? That's the ranking we can give Marshall.

So we've discussed the rankings for this week, and I think we agree that on pretty much like the top three. we're okay with right like one two and four yeah yeah yeah that whole group yeah yeah more or less i'm not over i'm not two definitely and then before eh but baylor the four the four has time to shake out baler getting a little jacked but i could understand your schedule concerns about them i would take tc u sate or baler over mississippi state but the the other the other top two in the top four sure it does feel like the playoff committee is just trying to see how mad they can make baylor fans at this point.

Which, you know, that's not, not to just, not to sort of diminish the overall size of the Baylor community. But it seems like there would be larger fan bases one might want to anger in order to stir interest. Yes, but Baylor fans have been really good about using math to get angry into, instead of just relying on some, like if, if Alabama fans were mad, they'd just say the SECs, the greatest conference and that's it. But Baylor fans trot out all kinds of equations and formulations. And I think the playoff committee is hoping that eventually Baylor fans will be so

angry that they will develop interstellar travel. Huh. On accidents. See, look, if the cornerbacks playing off, you throw the screen, which goes directly to a wormhole where Baylor is in the top three. And now we have clean energy for everyone. So this is all just a big ruse. This was all, yeah, it's one of the movie things where they tricked us into being smart. I don't appreciate that. The college football playoff is a Macuffin. I knew it, Barry Alvarez,

the bold scientist leading us to the fringes of the other. Yeah, that is a good point. The Baylor fans do seem to have the most coherent arguments out of all the teams that are doing the arguing. I mean, a team like Marshall that's won a lot of games and has like a big winning streak going back to last year or whatever. Nobody cares about winning streets going back to last year, Marshall. But a team like Baylor, they're bringing out like we beat this team, this team, this team, according to the metrics, we should be ranked here.

I do wish they would take a large team and just bump them down to 14 for a week just for the hell of it to see what the reaction would be. Like a team goes from like number one, you just throw them down and see what happens? Like to number like, I don't know if they were like a number four. Yeah, no, I don't think that's what we think. Like Ohio State. Take Ohio State and knock them down to 14 for a week and see what catches fire. I mean, does USC going from unranked to 19 because they barely beat Cal? Does that work in reverse?

Well, now here's the Intercontinental Title Belt Theory. Look who they play this week. They play UCLA. All of a sudden, hey, that's a big important top. Oh, yeah. As one of the most valuable tests in college football, UCLA. Yeah, that's a huge game there. They could rock it into the top four.

So are we talking about if USC beats UCLA, USC's like 11th? probably yeah oh easily that's where they would bump them yeah you're just remember this I know remember this is like the search for Jim Morris lost gold USC's going to be like

12 next week they will be because this is dumb oh man it's it's it's fantastically stupid and then Oregon will drop because they haven't played USC

yeah well USC I mean UCLA only be like 13th you can't you can't drop NCLA too far well I mean although I don't know remember Oregon they almost be Oregon's gonna play well yeah Oregon's gonna play Colorado who's another one of those like you know hoarders of the gold bricks of college credit evidently because UCLA beat them so I don't know Colorado I mean Colorado State beat them and Colorado State is

is right up there in the the fuck Marshall rankings so Yeah, so, see, maybe they're on to something we haven't even considered. I have another question for you, which is, we wanted to discuss a rather odd concept, correct, Jason? Yeah, yeah. This is a concept sort of introduced by a playoff committee chairman, Jeff Long, sort of references a few other things floating around, but when he's explaining why Alabama ranked number one on the ranking show, he used the term controlled the game.

Alabama has, he said, controlled the game more than other teams have, which shares the name of a stat ESPN has that no one has really figured out, game control. And it's kind of curious because the committee isn't supposed to be using advanced stats and whatever game control is, it appears to be an advanced stat.

So either he's using the same term or they're sneaking in numbers. Or he's referring to the, like, title of an awful mixtape. Game Control. Uh, well, that could be a joint collaboration between Janet Jackson and the game. That might be okay. It would be, it would probably make more sense than the notion of game control. If you've watched a, if you've looked at a chart of game control from the Florida, South Carolina game, it looks like a very high, wavering line indicating.

blue for Florida, right, floating at the top, and a little one very low for South Carolina. And then, in the last minute, it flips like it means anything. So, so is that just like win probability percentage? Maybe. Maybe. Maybe. No one has explained what it meant that, like, ESPN doesn't explain the stat, really, all that much.

They have a page on it. Because Jeff Long sure didn't explain whatever he meant by it. Okay. Also, like, if the notion of game control means, anything at all, what does that mean for teams that are bend but don't break and quick strike? Does that, you know, teams where they don't have much time of possession, where you let the other team just kind of dittle the ball for seven or eight minutes at a time, watch them kick a field goal, and then you do what Oregon does, which is go down the field and three plays

and score, that's not going to look good for them, right? If that's at all a part of the equation. Yeah, I guess. I mean, like, what does this do about, like, a, team that just like goofs around all game and like falls behind and in the third quarter it's losing and you think oh this is the week when they lose and then you know they look up when they're winning like Arizona yeah like does Arizona have good game control that's the first team I think of you know when when you mentioned that scenario I wouldn't think so I think you'd probably end up if you were using any sense at all they'd be out of top four if they were undefeated right you know who should be if we're going to just say game control matters and just use that

itself. Iowa State deserves to be ranked because I have never felt like an Iowa State game was out of control. Nope. I have always felt like, yep, the levels are right. We can just go ahead, take a nap. You don't have to watch, you don't have to watch the meters for this one. It is not, it is not about to go hyperreactive or anything. Now I've seen the pattern and I understand the system because that's why Minnesota is so overvalued in the system. They have a astonishing game control. They're not going anywhere quickly. None of them.

Those games are not going off the rails at all. And, of course, Minnesota Home of Prince, who has a famous song about control. Football control. Let's also be aware of a few submetrics that are at play here. There's shame control, which Bo Polini has to do a lot of that after what happened to his defense this past week. Uh, there's, there's, there's, there's name control, which, uh, Texas A&M lawyers are very good at that.

Uh, let's see, flame control, West Virginia ranks very well in that. I would put the, in a way. I would put the very low, probably the worst now that I think about it, but. Auburn's still the all-time, all-time losers on flame control done burn down to gym, son. I don't know. That didn't disrupt the football game. Hey, that's a control of flame. That's number one flame control right there.

Right there. Game control also sounds. like it should be a 2003 hip hop album that nobody bought yeah yeah that's it's your bad mix tape right like is that one of those we've discussed this before is it one of those 28

track no limit albums by like an eighth degree relative of Master P no it's I think it's more of it's definitely from New York whatever it's yeah it's more of a second it's more of a secondary Wu-Tang member I think it's like a Or like a bad, fabulous album?

I don't know if they're good, I don't know if there are good fabulous albums. He's more of a greatest hits kind of guy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, when I, game control, to me, that sounds like, that sounds like one or another Mob Deep member going solo. Possibly G unit. I can see that that being a G unit out.

I think that's a really, that's a really good one too. Yeah, that's agreed. Also, the concept's kind of vague and meaningless. and nonsensical. So I think it's perfect for the committee. Keep using it. Yeah. Why not?

Why not? What are they going to do? Sue them? Yeah. That might happen if they were... That might, I was going to say. It bumped up pretty soon. That's how this ends.

It ends with Ken Starr. Ken Starr suing the living daylights out of someone over this. Tell us for game. He will still wear his sweat sweatshirt into the courtroom. He don't care. Have we really thought about this, by the way? that Ken Starr, who prosecuted the Bill Clinton-Monica Lewinsky case, could possibly end up suing Jeff Long,

current president of the University of Arkansas, and thus squaring off again against the hornet's nest of political intrigue and viper behavior that is the Arkansas Illamaddy. Southwest Conference rivalry, isn't it? It is. There's a lot of, there's a lot of awesome matchups here in this lawsuit. I heard he slashed one of the Walton's tires. Dr. Pepper versus Walmart. My God, this will tear the South apart.

This is the Ozark. This is the Ozark Mafia. Oh, shit. Did we just spoil the new season of Justified? I think we did. Who kill Raylan? The bear. The bear and low prices.

My favorite thing about Baylor being involved in like the huge, the uproar and all that is if you were to ask our rouse about this, he'd just shrug. He would have no clue what you're talking about. He probably doesn't even know there's a playoff. I haven't read a paper in 38 years. You know what's in that paper? Nothing will help me win. I'm focused on this team, getting them ready.

We prepared damn hard. All of us. You know what that paper doesn't have? Work. Paper can't keep you anything about hard work. Last I checked, it had gasoline alley in it. And I didn't get that comic to begin with. mostly because it didn't smell like gasoline

sick them I would like to go ahead and move on to a discussion a quick examination it's almost like our weather I'm just going to check in Jason this week and fuck Marshall what are our fuck Marshall rankings

they are again chart topping higher than they've ever been before we're up to last week I would say we're up to our knees This week we're up to our waste. I think if Nebraska is still ranked, then, yeah, it's getting pretty treacherous. I would add the spice of having Doc Holliday, their coach being considered at least a candidate for the Florida job, giving, I think, an extra, just an extra pinch of fuck Marshall in there.

Yeah, because now we're talking about, you know, hey, here's a report. you know a pretty legit report from football scoop of a power conference program considers this guy a good head coach nah let's not rank his team nope yep i think uh all-time highs for buck marshall with no signs of climate change for this in the future well jeff long did say they're close which okay maybe they beat another team by 50 points they'll be 25th great that is that is what you tell a child that you're sort of gaslighting where you're like hey did I do enough work that I earned a new bicycle? You're close. Not quite. Go out and mulch some more.

Hey, Ryan, you're going to get parenting just fine. Did I eat enough of my mac and cheese? Two more bites. Was that two bites? I meant two big bites. Oh, is this a big bite? That's a little bite. You need one more bite after those two bites. Why, Daddy. Take two more big bites, Marshall. Do you want that popsicle or not, Marshall? But there's only one game left. Oh, well, maybe next Christmas. Well, it's bedtime. Sorry.

Bedtime, Marshall. Sorry. That is, you've already got this down, Ryan. Congratulations. Let's go ahead and go to reader questions for this week. I would like to start with a question. We asked for both life and football questions. So Jordan Shank, at Shank Jordan on Twitter, asks,

what is the best way to avoid paying my student loans? And the obvious answer, Ryan, is, fake your own death or actually die, But if you don't want to die, definitely fake your own death. Yep. Steve Sarkisian did it. Yeah, it used to be Bruce, Bruce Sarkisian. He's not the best of this, but it has kept them off his back for a little.

The most amazing part about that is that Sarkesian could be a real name to begin with. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I mean, it sounds like an alias. And believe you me, USC's had people with alias's coach before. Pete Carroll John Robinson Sean Robinson

Paul Hackett Please Has anybody Has anybody seen in real coach Other than Ed Oron of course No Ed Ortron is the only Completely authentic one

Along with finger quotes Lane Kiffin Is Pete Carroll on that list Because like he doesn't want the government Knowing where he is You're damn right Because 9-11 you see Yeah

It was an inside job I would really like it if you were like, okay, Ed Ordron, we want you to pretend to be somebody else for like 10 minutes. I don't think he can do it. Ed Ardron, give us your Barack Obama impression. Give us your David Letterman impression. Just the president, Coach, I saw this bill in the law. The alligator vote me in the office.

So now I go rasseled Congress. Coach, coach, can we hear your mark? Martin Lawrence impression. Uh, uh, Jeter, uh, hustle plan,

uh, that's horrible on so many different levels. I bet Edward Duran does one really good impression. One, and that's it.

And it's probably of a friend of his you don't know. And it's probably perfect, right? Like, oh, let me do my Linda.

And it sounds just like Linda. And you're like, wow, that's a great impression. Now do this. And it's just more Ed. He's actually Linda

on Bob's Burgers. I don't know if you knew that. Wow. Yeah. do you have a reader question jason let's see i have two uh here's one a little curiosity comes to us from a practical cat is the twitter handle the twitter username is weird wuss can you talk about UCLA i think we just did yeah we already done that so moving on wow we mainly just wanted to note that

some dude named weird wuss with the name a practical cat asked us to talk about UCLA which I think a practical cat is as good and encapsualization of the UCLA experience from football this year as anything. Should also be noted this individual's Twitter backdrop is Denard Robinson, so no clue what's going on here. I think it's entirely possible the playoff committee could use a practical cat as its next made-up metric.

Be like, well, yeah, we just felt TCU had a more practical cat than Baylor did, and that's why they're ahead at this point. Of course, there are many cats left. What do they mean by a practical cat? This stat, mysterious as it may seem. And again, that goes back to Pussy Control by Prince. Practical Cat Control. That's why Nebraska's 23rd, because their cat was, like, lofted by Boclini.

And that's not practical at all. I don't know, though. I mean, that's serious cat control. Yeah. That's not a metric. You're conflating metrics. But the cat is not practical. That's a deeply. What cat really is? It's the least practical species in a manageable sense. If you really want a practical cat, you have to get the kind of backyard. Our cat's pretty practical. I mean, look, why do you think LSU dropped all the way from 17 to unranked? Impractical cat. Practical cats.

Speaking of impractical and nonsensical, I do want to cut Ryan off because he would be in the rotation. But another really fantastic nonsensical tweet I got from at Perry Badger. It goes by the name Tony Snark on Twitter Whose avatar is Guy Fierry in a Cincinnati Reds jersey Throwing out the first pitch in a game. We're already like, we're already two steps off the pavement, but we're about to go a lot further. Asks us, how many wins for AU? And that's four number AUBORNU, Auburn University,

under lowercase Gene Cheese Dick, after UF.NABs, lowercase, Gus, hashtag talking about the knolls, attached image file in the tweet, which is the Star Wars title with Return of the Cheese Dick. I believe made at the verge.com. So thank you. Thank you to our sisters, said. Thank you to our sister, said, The Verge. Fellow Fox Media partner for enabling this.

Without you, return of the cheese dick would not be possible. Which, I don't even know where to start with this other than to say this is the most perfectly incoherent question we've ever gotten. Congratulations. I think you just praise every single component of that from the Twitter handle to the avatar, to the 4AU, to the Florida, to the cheese dick, to the verge meme. Nothing else was included in there. So just all of those parts are actually. All of those parts, yeah. You've given me a completely, a tweet completely devoid of information. And yet filled with pleasure.

This is eroticism. It's perfect. Is this like that Twitter user who frequently tweets at the SB Nation account that we can't figure out if it's a bot or not? No, she's like in half French, half English. Right. Yeah. And she's a huge Tim Duncan fan. She's a massive Tim Duncan fan.

So we did determine that as a real person. I've always thought she's real. Yeah, she's real. Yeah. She's just possibly schizophrenic. All right. possibly an android she might be an android uh your question ryan uh this question comes from the faba uh his his name is just faba and his question is which member of the playoff committee

is most trill uh i i know when we brought this up off the air spencer thought it was going to be a very easy decision uh i am going to go with barry alvarez uh because i think it is extremely trill that Brett Beelma left Wisconsin as Wisconsin was going to the Rose Bowl, and Barry Alvarez said, yeah, I'm just going to step in there. I got this. I know a lot of you guys worked hard and made you feel like you deserve to be the interim coach, but yeah, I'm going to do it. Yeah, and what he did was he said, also I'm just going to pay myself as much as I would have paid Brett Beelma. Hey, what's more trill than possibly double dipping? Not possibly. That just is.

You know what Killer Mike said? He said, kill your boss. Even better than that? Literally being your own boss. That's true. The only thing that would be... Being above yourself on the org chart. The only thing that would be Triller would be Barry Alvarez killing himself.

Do you think after the ball game, Barry Alvarez had an interview with himself to discuss his possible retention as full-time head coach? Damn right, he did. Did he paint himself as different identities so he could just flip to one side? right like he painted half his face as like one character oh you know what he did he totally did this

like every rapper eventually does this like ti versus tip and emin versus slim shady and all that you know and I'm sure every Wu Tang member has had like a whole battle royal with all their alter egos he totally did that Barry versus Alvarez yeah that mix tape

yeah that happens game control game control by Barry Alvarez you should really listen to it no I'm just trying to get on the subway just get out of my way man yeah thanks uh but but who who would you two say is the most trill well i would i would probably say that it's lieutenant general mike gould oh good pick you know command pilot with three thousand plus flying hours retired three star general sure yeah but who's he play hmm good point you know what more people than marshal not even looking at his resume

also he was an assistant men's golf coach and do you know the corruption that a assistant men's golf coaches get into hustle doing dirt doing dirt out on that course i'll tell you what uh another consideration is tie trillingham who uh i i have to veto this answer absolutely no no he got paid he got paid by seven he got paid by seven different football programs at once at once he was running running numbers coaching for none of them i'm not i'm not even sure he knew that like that's most trill of all do you do you think that he sometimes got checks in the mailbox and went oh i think i think it's entirely possible that's a little wayne lyrics still spending money off my first album tie william still spending washington money i think

it's entirely possible if you go to tie willingham's garage it's full of uncash checks because he just forgot like he and charlie weiss go to hearties and just laugh about that together And they go to Hardee's because they spend no money, none, neither of them. Remember, like, Ty Willingham didn't even drive a car when he was at Notre Dame. And remember, he was at Notre Dame, too, in that long chain of failures that Nighterame had. But hey, let's fire Brian Kelly. You all have fun. Actually, actually, I got a new answer.

It's Archie Manning because he said, peace out, y'all. My back hurts or whatever. Too trill. Too trill to travel. Two trill for the committee. I can't even do this part. later let's go ahead and now that we've done that go look at the games for this week eight a this is a meager this is the so-con challenge week for the SEC yeah where they test

their medal against the finest football conference and all of this southern conference in all of the uh southern part of fCS that doesn't include the southland because the Southland's better now. Yeah. So, yeah, there's nothing, there's very little this week. Sort of an interesting game on Thursday, Kansas State at West Virginia, much less interesting now that the two teams have managed to pile up some losses, but still something at stake here, particularly for Dana Holgerson,

who would, you know, like to keep his job. And weirdly, this probably impacts the TCU Baylor argument, because if Kansas State wins, that looks better for TCU. But if West Virginia wins, that somehow looks better for Baylor. But keep in mind, if Kansas State wins, it looks better for TCU, but then Baylor gets a chance to annihilate Kansas State in the last game for them. If only, it's a shame that there is no way to determine the one best team in the Big 12. We have to do stuff like

deduce a Kansas State, West Virginia game. It's like playing a board game from a foreign country. You're like, I think you're supposed to move the thimble three spots and then slap your partner. I'm not really sure. I would like to have a whole go explain how to play go. All of these instructions are in, all of these instructions are in Catalan, so I can't tell you. Speaking of obscure languages.

Well, also, also I just want to point out Thursday, and I had an important ACC game. I was about to get to obscure languages, aka football in the ACC. North Carolina at Duke. Yeah, and that actually matters. It does. That's so sad.

Because one of these teams is in the running for a division title to go on to the ACC championship game. And it's not North Carolina. It's Duke. It's Duke. Duke is the team here that has a chance to win the ACC championship. The saddest argument I have seen on Twitter over the last day or two is that somebody on, usually ESPN, will say the ACC coastal is one of the worst divisions in college football.

And ACC coastal fans will get super hyped up and be like, no, we are not quite that bad. Yeah, they've gotten a little defensive. It was for the first half of the season, it was like, ha, ha, we'll all lose to ECU. And now it's, uh, that's like, hey, hey, we, we have at least two. We've toughened up now. We've got a team ranked like 16th. What do you have? What do you have, what do you have, ESPN?

You don't even have a team. Except for the teams that aren't Georgia Tech. They're all bought and paid for by ESPN. They're at that scary breaking point in a teen frontier, or outdoors drama, you know, where, like, Lord of the Flies, they're let loose in the wild, and one is mocked and protests and then become silent and then please into the jungle and comes back a killer, which means that we're just, we're like probably two chapters away from an ACC team becoming a ruthless killer who's just going to come back and take vengeance

on us all. I would say we need to take the ACC coastal down a pig, but how can you? No, there's always lower Fleeing into the woods as a child And emerging a killer Is exactly how Frank Beamer got the Virginia Tech job I was going to say Sounds a lot like David Cutcliffe at Duke

Who a little spoiler We had him in the studio today To talk to Dan on camera And Dan asked him Who his left field candidate was for the Florida job And he said David Cutcliff of Duke uh yeah seriously david cutcliffe won't do that he's only you know 60 years old with heart problems dude i don't i don't even think he's 60 like he might be 62 is that no he's 60 i looked at oh i thought

you meant like he might be like 45 no yeah no he's yeah he's 60 but he's already had like heart surgery in a stint put in oh he's he's an old 60 yeah he's definitely an old 60 which jonathan crompton did that to him i'm only half kidding. Just please stay at Duke. Actually, Eric Aange. Eric Aange did that.

I think I've made that joke before, and Eric Aange on Twitter said, L-O-L-L, yeah. Like, he kind of owned it. He's like, yes, I live off the life force of others. Saturday, we have a game day is going to Harvard, you know. That's how bad this is. They're going to Yale at Harvard in Boston, instead of going somewhere, anywhere else.

Please pick where they should have gone. Like, what do you think they should have done? How about Syracuse Pitt? Virginia Tech Wake Forest, Louisville, Notre Dame, George State Thompson, Miami, Virginia. I'm just looking at the ACC games. You know, it's real hard. It's real, like, we make fun of the SEC

for putting all their Socon games on all their FCS teams on this weekend prior to rivalry weekend but man it's not like looking at the ACC's a whole lot better I would have liked if they had gone to Utah just to see what game day in Utah looked like I was gonna say they I don't think they could keep the setup it would just be stormed

yeah I would suggest that they would go to Stanford at Cal you would suggest that I would because these because it's it's because it'd be like nine people sitting around like demonstrating there wouldn't mean signs yeah they'd be weird the only reason i like silent we're protesting snapchat the only reason i like that idea is because lee fitting would announce on

twitter like game day is heading to california and you see UCLA and USC fans would get super hyped and then he'd be like look out stanford cow may be like fuck actually for massive shit talking purposes and an order to undermine chris fowler's insistence that they try to be as objective as possible Ole Miss in Arkansas because Arkansas fans have won one game one in 17 in the SEC

right under Brett Bilema and I guarantee you if game day showed up after one victory it would be the funniest media reaction and Twitter store you have ever seen and Arkansas fans would be hype and I mean if if they were going strictly strictly by business strictly by interest

in the game strictly by how much fans care, that might be the answer. That might be the answer. I mean, just like, you know, we're also a media company. We also have to think about what's the biggest game. What are people most interested in and all that? I'm guessing Ole Miss Arkansas is going to be one of the two or three biggest games this weekend, based on how many people care about it. I'm serious. If they went to Wisconsin, Iowa. No, that's not the answer.

Are you guys excited? We all care. Kill us. Lee Corso throws away a bunch of corn, and they're like, whatever. This Iowa team, you know, they really like to, crickets, crickets, staring. What does this Iowa team like to do? Bunt. Let's go down to Sam Steele. She's just taking a nap.

Just Sam Steele sitting there thoughtfully studying with the University of Iowa Chem major. Oh, yeah, Sam Steele's just, she's getting a creative writing. while we filmed this. Wow, she got in. It's amazing. Is there, Oklahoma State at Baylor? Hey, Oklahoma State. Remember that upset win of Baylor last year that froze me to just icicles and shattered

Baylor season? Well, guess what? Baylor needs to prove a point, and you're going there. And you're helpless. Think about it this way. Of the top teams, which is the... the top team that is like in the toughest game you know like where are we most likely to see upheaval Alabama's got west Carolina western Carolina one of them at home Oregon's got Colorado at home

Mississippi State is Vanderbilt at home fire state is Indiana at home Baylor is Oklahoma State of home and Ole Miss is headed to Arkansas it's it's like the only game in the whole top 10 other than the USC UCLA thing that matters basically there's nothing like that late slate do you this this is a This is a bad late slate. Oh, you're staying up for UNLV, Hawaii. Don't lie. But you know, where's... Well, yeah. We're going to watch it all.

I'm just, we're just saying it doesn't matter. It's going in our mouth. I know it's poison. Don't you worry about us staying up till 5 a.m. watching this. I'm not supposed to eat this Arby's, but it's stupid. I know. I'm not supposed to eat this Arby's, but I am going to eat this Arby's. Look, they were five for five, so I kind of have to. You're like,

Arby's, you guys? Listen, if Hawaii is Arby's, twice on Saturday. They do serve Hawaiian rolls, from what I understand. Delicious. Delicious. It's the Robert Kakala connection we never saw coming. But yeah, it's a bad, late slate, Boise State at Wyoming, Fresno State at Nevada. Boise State, Wyoming, that sounds excellent.

I mean, you know, it's a fun. By Mountain West standards, Boise State's good, and Wyoming is our capability. of you know tripping up anybody that's true and uh would you like to would you like to hear the forecast for laramie wyoming for this saturday is it even a number but nope nope gonna get down to 18 it's just it's just a it's just a picture of a of a dead ox that's it just a just a dead ox which will still probably be more interesting than trying to watch oregon state win two games in a row because they go to Washington and that's not happening.

Washington tends to be a mayhem team, so. Well, I mean, if that's how you'd feel, I mean. Washington kicking off at 1030, that's going to be absolute may. And it's on the Pact 12th Network to know when you see it, so it'll definitely be. Here's a serious question I have been thinking about

pretty much all season. If you could go to Boise State, Washington, and USC and say, we're going to wipe the slate clean. Chris Peterson goes back to Boise, Sark goes back to Washington, USC, you're just coachless, and you get to, you know, be in the mix this year. Would the fans of those teams rather have that or have the status quo?

Boise State fans would probably be all in. Yeah, I think they'd take it, yeah. I don't think Washington fans are thrilled right now. I think if they're patient and they're looking toward the future, they... I don't think you raise many Washington messages. Those are two things that one shouldn't expect from college football fans. Well, Ryan, as somebody who scans these as part of his job, they're not exactly thrilled with the hire, no? It's bad out there?

It's not great. I think they had talked themselves into the idea that Sark had brought in a lot of talent and had no idea what to do with it. And now Chris Peterson is six and five. So, yeah, but without a quarterback. and all that. Yeah, they also thought that was going to happen, so. Well, there's their problem. That's the thing.

If we're going back in time and all that, we say, you know, USC, you can have a mulligan on the coach thing. Boise State, you get Chris Peterson back. Washington, listen, you don't have a quarterback. Remember, who is the last serious quarterback prospect out of Washington? Jake Locker. Jay Locker. Who?

Whose team looked very good. good on Monday Night Football under an LSU quarterback, so under Zach Mittenberger banned banned from the city of Balcester. Do you know how many

people found that randomly on Twitter were like, can you be banned from a city in the 21st century? Yes, Zach Mittenberger did it. It's been done. It's been done. It's the SEC, leaders, legends, and Larson. And ban

from Hogville. Ban from Hogville. Ban from Valdusta. All right. We all belong outside. We're drawn to nature. Whether it's the recorded sounds of the ocean we doze off to

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