Shutdown Fullcast - Shutdown Fullcast 4.26.0

Episode Date: July 27, 2016

You know, just because we say you're getting two podcasts in a week doesn't mean you're getting a good pair of podcasts. This isn't entirely our fault: the random assortment of teams came up with not one, but TWO teams in the state of Illinois. This was doomed from the start. Topics include: --A quick discussion of the hierarchy of cheap-ass grocery store chains, and a reminder that HEB hands out beers to drink while you're shopping --A review of all the bad things that have happened to every single one of these teams --A discussion of South Carolina football that devolves into "Will Muschamp, hostage negotiator" --How Northwestern is exactly the team to start 4-0 and end up 6-6 --A thing that will get us at least two angry emails about how Chicago is a college football town --Oregon State gets fast-forwarded to next year, let's just come back and see how they're doing next year, y'all, look away, this is definitely something for 2017 and eyes away, please --Ryan talks very seriously about Baylor, and not about football alone 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. I am Spencer Hall, editor-in-chief of EDSBS, a title I just made up, because nobody really runs that thing, editorial director at SB Nation, and a host of this here podcast, the full cast devoted to college football. We are currently in the off-season, but round on the corner, so we are doing previews. And when you do previews, Ryan, my co-host, Ryan Nanny, joining me here in the booth in New York. When you do previews, it's a little bit like a box of chocolates, ain't it? Yeah, I mean, we have been endorsing the randomized version of previews where we've let the readers on Twitter pick the five teams without knowing which five teams they're picking just random numbers. Now that we're down to 10 teams, we basically are treating this like a restaurant and we have some fish that turned two days ago and we got to move it.

Yeah, in this case, the fish we have to move is this entire podcast. This entire podcast is not safe for human consumption, but it's on sale, and you get free side salad with it. That free side salad is, of course, the delicious, nutritious, and yet light presence of Jason Kirk. Hey, Free Side Salad, joining us from Kennesaw, Georgia. How you doing? Oh, hey, when I was in Indiana, there was this store that was, it looked like a

remodeled old house kind of thing that everything there was food that's already expired and it was super cheap is this a thing anywhere else i'd never seen this in the south and you know usually anything founded on extremely discount living you'd think you'd see it all over the south i feel like tampa had a entomans or something like some some similar mass bakery that had a small store and i honestly don't remember if it was just for like this is about to go bad or like this got fucked up in the bakery somehow but it was the odds and end store the second hand bakery basically yeah yeah we have like a day old bakery store but this is like everything i mean isn't that just there wasn't there wasn't like milk but like we we do have that in the south it's just called

food lion yeah oh sick food lion bird funny parts you don't have to make that up no i remember when a food lion opened down the street for me we all thought it was really cool because one it was called food lion. Right. It has like a regal logo. Yeah, it's badass. It's like food, but it's good, you know, it's the lion's food. What if Richard the Lionheart could sell you expired tomatoes? Yeah, or beef that was, you know, about four days past prime. Well, I mean, the Crusades were all about convert or die, so. This is grade A, B, for, ah! I'm vomiting everywhere. Southern grocery chain power rankings. Does it go Food Lion, then Pigley Wiggly, then Ingles, No, no, I'm putting, no, Engli.

All right. Inglis. English. I lived in Franklin, North Carolina for a while, which did not have access to your top tier stores. Right. But Engels and Piggly Wiggly, if you could just get over the sometimes downtrodden appearance of the Piggly Wiggly, solid stuff. Like, solid stuff on the shelf, the ingredients are generally pretty good. Engels, angles can just be flat out nice.

Right. Yeah, so if I'm putting, food line is... Food lines. Yeah, food lines the Purdue of this contest. I guess pigly wiggly has some character to it. And Ingalls is hit or miss, but food line is just trash. Yeah, I mean, if I saw somebody in New York City wearing a pigly wiggly t-shirt, I'd say, oh, that's kind of fun. And if I saw somebody wearing a food lion t-shirt, I would call the police.

And you get the wind, like, the Winn-Dixie coming in there, like, right at the put. Wind Dixie's the wild card. It makes it, because it can be real good. Yeah, Wind Dixie is the hotel casino that the pictures look so nice online, and maybe that pans out, and maybe It really doesn't. You might get an Albertsons, too, which, you know, Albertsons is, of course, a nationwide chain. I believe it's one that's been abandoned by their central office for years. Yeah.

And the outposts have just continued to function. Oh, Albert's sons hate him. Hate him so much. Albert was a son of a bitch, and I'm never running this store. That is, of course, Blaze State Stadium sponsor, Albertsons. It is. Which, that's a good match of Idaho and Albertsons. That's an ideal match of grocery store.

if you do by the way ever get to texas and you should h eb hb hb's just a beast that's a beast of a store i'm pretty sure it was h eb that has i i think our friend andy wall took a picture of this they have a cooler of single beers at the front of the store when you walk in that you can grab one drink it as you shop and then pay for it when you're done get a get a roadie a roadie a roadie for while you're in the store it's like the slowest episode ever of supermarket Sweet. Go find those turkeys, man.

I'm just cruising. Hey, man, it's all about the destination, not the journey. I don't know what I'm talking about anymore. Everyone in this place has become Matthew McConaughey. Unfortunately, we're not talking about Texas. We're not talking about any teams that excite me nearly as much as Texas. And I was... Texas can't save us today.

No, Texas can't save themselves either. No. Today, for your listening, not pleasure, but neutral. We have northwestern Illinois, Oregon State, South Carolina, and yeah, we threw Baylor on there. I would like to do this. Typically, we go through team by team. Yeah. I'm just going to address things that can go wrong.

Okay, okay. Okay. Yeah. One, weird things can happen with your coaches. Because if you look at all of these teams, something weird happened with all five of these teams. At one point in their recent history is sort of determined, okay? I mean, there is a glaring outlier here where Weird is charitable, but go ahead. Okay, no, no, I think we've got two, actually.

Because Northwestern, remember, they lose Randy Walker, who's the guy who really brings them up after Barnett sort of gets the program going, Randy Walker's the one who turns them into, like, the spread offense, vanguard kind of team. Randy Walker just drops dead of a heart attack. Yes. Like, what, 46 or, like 50 something? Relatively young, yes. Relatively young, yeah.

And that's how they get Pat Fitzgerald. Yes. Right? Who turns out has been even more stable than Walker was looking. Illinois. Illinois, remember, they fired their coach in August. They did. They brought in a new athletic director.

This was the interim coach who got a two-year extension on the strength of, and then got fired before any of that two-year extension could be played. For cause? For cause? And got nothing. For something. I don't know. For allegedly pressuring players to hide injury.

That was, of course, the scandal before Baylor, who, It just outdid everybody By making sure to throw it now You were talking about We're talking about two different Illinois firings Illinois's turned over this coaching position Twice within Less than 12 months, I believe

I legit forgot that Yeah Oh my God Bill Cubit I was talking about Bill Cubit And you were talking about He who shall not be named Because of lawsuits

And he has pending litigation Yeah But yeah I was talking about Yeah, well But now you have Lovie yeah and now we got lovey yeah all right then i feel like god just made sort of like a police composite

um tim beckman yeah and uh man that's the like the most five and seven coach imaginable he's about five foot seven half of all of the half of all of the police sketches on old unsolved mysteries look like tim beckman the other half ranzuk

yeah it's eerie it's like he was so friendly champagne arbona gets all the finest highway killers Oregon State, another example of this, because remember Gary Anderson flips out and leaves Wisconsin. Yes. An excellent working environment. Yes. I'm guessing after losing both Brett Beelma and Gary Anderson to whatever sort of like per string choking Barry Alvarez is doing. And then in addition to that, Oregon State loses Mike Riley, sparking this whole thing.

Mike Riley goes to Nebraska because Nebraska wanted to hire someone. A nice man, a nice stable man who would be nice to your mother-in-law. Second husband. Second husband, Mike Riley. Yeah. Maybe he doesn't make as much money as first husband. Maybe he's not as handsome as third husband. But he was there when we needed him.

There's what happened at Baylor, which we will talk about later in the podcast. Bad. As bad is the word bad can be stretched. Yes. And then there's South Carolina who, let's put this in context. It's not just that they hired Will Must Champ, which I think Spencer has stronger emotional feelings about than I do, and that's fine. It's that Steve Spurrier basically said, nope, I'm done. Midway through the season, I believe maybe only two other teams knew that they were going to be hiring a head coach earlier than that.

The best South Carolina could do was Will Mustchamp. With, with months, with months of time, it turned into Will Must champ. They did shoot their shot, though. They took a swing at Tom Herman. Yeah. He stayed at a mid-major. That's okay, South Carolina. They took a swing.

He took a mid-major over you. They took a swing at Rich Rod. Yeah. He stayed at a school with like a seven-and-five ceiling. You don't be too hard on yourself for the South Carolina. Carolina. And then decided to hire not only from a guy who got fired within the division, but somebody who took what had been one of the big gimmee layup programs where you would have to actively work hard to not win eight or nine games and proceeded to have the first losing

season in like, what, 25 years? Losing season is such a charitable term for it. Losing season suggests, oh, they went six and seven last year. What a shame. That bowl game was a real sign of a Bich. Losing season starts the Plinko game, okay? It's going to just tinkle down into further and further categorical specificities, like losing to Georgia Southern. Right. Yeah. Well, South Carolina lost of the Citadel last year. It ain't going to get no darker here. Listen. Are we sure about that? I will. Who's their FCS team this year? Look it up. Let's start with South Carolina, I bet they're lined up Woffer. I'm going to say South Carolina State, but that's No, I think that's Clemson, that is South Carolina State.

No, I'm saying Wofford. I feel like there are exactly four football teams in the state, pro college and high school, and they all play each other. It's true. It's true. There's some sort of, they can't cross the borders. Oh, oh, Western Carolina. Oh, the Catamounts.

That was not a good idea. That one's mustard-based university, right? Yeah. I always get the mat confused. I went to Vinegar Tech. ECU is Vinegar Tech and WC. C.U would be a mustard collard. Mustard A&M.

This is Culloughwee, North Carolina, if you're not familiar with it. So Culloey would mean terrible folk art, and about 80 pounds of marijuana buried in your backyard from an operation. Yeah, the Olympic cart bombers around there somewhere. Yeah, yeah, so, yeah, they'll definitely shelter religious domestic terrorists up there. Good, good. Okay. So, much champ sounds like the man to talk to these people. Yeah. This is a situation.

Can you imagine Will Mushchamp like, like hostage negotiator? He killed himself. It just makes you so mad you leave. And then, yeah, the, the, the, the suspect is standing there just too confused to act, not gaining any yardage, not moving, not moving forward at all. Well, he sure, he sure didn't shoot himself, he sure didn't shoot the suspect out of self-offense. I hate you. I hate you. I hate you

Detective Muschamps solved the case Yeah you just transfer it to another division All the cases that come to Detective Muschamps decks We're sending this to Chief McElwain Send this to Narcotic State You'll figure this out Dave Doran's a master So all five of these teams

Had some sort of serious head coaching turnover That puts them in a real bad spot A real strange spot A real strange spot For a northwest right yeah sure northwestern has fine i think northwestern has finally exited that constant will pat fitzgerald leave for a blitzier job i think that's over probably because no one actually believes they win 10 games a year right just never feels like they do there's also i guess if you look at the record

then it's like wow how is he not at a bigger job and then it's like well his teams aren't very good but they they win 10 games no one knows how there's also the sense that i think at this point Pat Fitzgerald truly does not want a bigger job. He is the Chris Kirkpatrick of the Big Ten, and he's fine. He does not need a solo career. Oh, listen, all Pat Fitzgerald wants to do is like, get a, I guarantee you. He's one of these dudes. He's like, yeah, I'm going to just do it, do it as hard as I can.

Right. I'm going to hit 50, and then I'm going to go shit on a boat. Yeah. That's it. That's all he wants to do. Wake up, take a big old shit on a boat, his own boat. Mind you, I didn't say, like, go. That's the Bud Foster plan.

It is. A boat in Lake Michigan because we're Chicago's Big Ten shit boat. Exactly. How we get to talk. Hey, this is the dumbest argument of all time. Who is Chicago's college football team? Well, it's a huge college football town with tons of top college football talent. Yeah, it's worth fighting over for Illinois and Northwestern.

You know who never has anything to say about this? Chicago. Because if the choices are Illinois or Northwestern, Chicago passes. Yeah, they're like, no, we got the. we don't have to be a cause we have baseball baseball's fine you have chance the rapper what do you need with illinois fighting at lioni football we have baseball and a transit system that's falling apart because of lightning so that is by the way the greatest excuse for your transit system falling apart not negligence or mismanagement destroyed like on monday they show up and

here's the report yeah report on the state of chicago's mass transit lightning sim city disaster Zeus himself destroyed our rail system. That's awesome. That's good. And you know what? Act of God. This is insurance fraud, which is Ryan and I's specialty as Florida grads. Any of an insurance fraud here.

No. No, it's just, I don't, I think Chicago should have more choices than Illinois and Northwestern. I think they should get any, screw the Big Ten, let them pick any team they want. Yeah, but I would stick to the Big Ten if I had to give it to them. It's Wisconsin. No. Wisconsin, no. What is more?

They're real drunk. Texas A&M is Chicago's college football team. Because you know who will jump on that as Texas. Hell, hell yeah, we are. Says Sawton Stadium. Said that for 20 years. I think all you need to do that is to tell Texas A&M that Texas is Big Ten Chicago team. I mean, then A&M claims it.

Do the Bears not play in Soldier Field? Can I give you a counterargument to all this? Sure. No team from Texas with a truck with a city that puts anything green on its meat. Wow. Yeah. They'd be like, that's too much sauce. But Ryan Tannahill feels like such a failed Bears quarterback in the future.

Give him time. In the future. I would also, I'm going to just stick and argue, Wisconsin is, Wisconsin is the team. That's Chicago's actual team. Chicago's Big Ten team is Wisconsin? Yeah, it's Wisconsin. Do you feel like you're green for the Packers? it doesn't matter you just take it from him I'm just giving you the most culturally

compatible one what about western Michigan also it's not like pro rivalries matter they're like ooh these teams hate each other no you don't yeah there's a few that they think do I guess and that's one that they seem to think matters raiders chargers I've seen people stabbed on camera for that boy this this has already gotten darker and waiter than I planned for it too so good job Yeah, excellent. Do we, so, all right, Jason, pick one of Chicago's two sad pageant choices for Big Ten team. And let's do a little schedule preview.

Let's go Northwestern first. Okay. Because they have better APR scores. They have better purple. I like purple. Uh-huh. They have more purple. They currently have the hat, don't they?

Sure. The hat trophy that these two teams battle over. The monopoly pieces that are divvied up amongst the Big Ten, and if one person can unify them all, they fight Gannon. I think that's how it works. Jim Delaney in a Gannon outfit. You have to collect the old brass spittoon to escape the Culver's Temple. Is the Big Ten really just one of those Lego genre games?

They're like, find a gold brick. Yes. Get your totems. I mean. Unlocked playable character, galloping ghosts. Oh, you got, you got On Solo in a green shirt. Man, listen, Barry Alvarez, ever since somebody mentioned that he kind of looks like Darth Vader. Oh, God, unmasked, Darth Vader.

And Anakin comes out, right? Ever since then, I've just imagined him with that Jedi, like, sheen, that glowing dead Jedi sheen. Hayden Christensen, Wisconsin Athletic Director. Let's make that happen. He's doing nothing. He has nothing going on this way. The only thing the man that I can recall the man ever said was, I hate him. sand they got no sand in wisconsin so i would i would do this if we're looking by the way

at one other sort of unifying factor to all five of these teams they're all kind of tweeners like they're all in places where they're kind of between obviously successful places right okay like for college football they're their success adjacent these are exurban teams okay right you got to commute a little ways to get to someplace real obvious for instance uh south carolina okay South Carolina. It's a football passionate state. Sure. There's 80 people in the state. It's not, there's not a lot of people.

And most of them are former Carolina Panthers. Uh-huh, correct. We're just trying to save money. Northwestern and Illinois, both sort of in a place where you would think there would be a lot of interest in college football. There's not. There's not. There's not. And that's okay.

Yeah, that's okay. I'm not judging. It's just a statement of fact. Chicago is not exactly a college football town. Champaign or ban. Oh, God. We're going to get letters for that. But thank you.

Yeah. Hey, that's fine. Send them to Ryan Nanny. God damn it. No. I didn't do anything wrong. Are we? Are we what? I mean, are there people who defend Chicago's college footballness? Absolutely. Huh. It's the internet. Never encountered this.

It's the internet. All things are possible. I mean, it says, yeah, somebody out there will offend anything, I guess. I mean, I guess there's a reason they fight over this title, but I think, I feel like it's more they're fighting over a thing because they just feel like fighting each other than there's like an actual prize. But if you've been to Corvallis, then you've been through Corvallis and you went right out of Corvallis. And you survived. But in the proximity thing, I mean, they're almost literally around the corner from Eugene. By the way, if you had to choose between Eugene or Corvallis, I'm going to pick for you, Eugene. Eugene Corvallis does sound like a very nice man who lives in Oregon with a dark secret. Or Corvallis, Eugene.

Corvallis, Eugene. That's much sexier. Northwestern has a schedule. They opened with Western Michigan, so... Right, how much research did... None. Oh, my God. For all the research we did for the last episode, we did none here, and I don't care. I'm literally looking at their schedule for the first time.

You open with Western Michigan, which is fun because... You might lose. You might lose. And PJ Fleck beating a Big Ten team to open his season on an ESPN network means... I don't know what he turned into... I feel like he would... explode into a very small sun, throw off the Earth's gravity as a result, and kill all of mankind. Or he'll take the Illinois job after he fired for one year.

Jesus. He was interested. I hear you. It's a real thing. It's mostly sad that Levy gets fired after one year in Illinois. We just can't find the right girl. I still insist PJFlex is going to get the Kentucky job. Kentucky.

Holy shit. Man. Don't do that to him. Throw the cat! Don't do that to our guy. PJ Ro the cat Wow

You've You've absolutely stopped me in my tracks here Just at the thought of PJ Fleck at Kentucky Cat's a boat Because this means Coach Cal is going to have to talk to him All the time

They get along fine No no no I'm telling you Oh yeah They'll start like an R&B group Yeah Or they'll chafe Like PJ Fleck seems like he'd chafe

A little bit Hey what's up Were you Casey and Joe Joe No. Now, Pete G. Blake has access to Drake. Oh, my God. All right, this is too intense.

We have to go back to North Western. By the way, PJFleck is the shirtless. He takes the shirtless. Obviously. Yeah. You play Western Michigan. You might lose that. You play Duke week three.

That's a night game on Big Ten Network. Great. I don't know if I care about that at all. The first half of your schedule isn't too bad. The second half of your schedule isn't too bad. The second half of your schedule isn't too bad, but the beautiful thing is you're Northwestern, so you're going to lose at least two games that you shouldn't, and you'll probably win one game that you shouldn't.

Yeah. I think that's a fair assessment of who Northwestern is in recent vintages. Solid offensive line. Always, like, good for me for like a win, right? Like, past average. Yeah, okay. That's fine. Because if you have continuity of the offensive line, it sort of settled.

battles, everything else, including your defense, because you can actually mount long drives. Yes. Right? And give your defense some rest. So you have to consider that, too. The defense, might be an issue. I would go ahead and say this. I think if you're looking at it, Northwestern, this, Bill C projected them to win six games.

Okay. All right. That's just a statistical projection. Right. Okay. This feels like a seven win team. Can you find something? seven wins on this schedule right now.

Yep. I mean, it's conceivable that they beat Western Michigan, right? Yeah. Conceivable. Conceivable. That they beat Duke, right? They could start three and out. They could start four and oh because I still don't know what Nebraska is, right?

I mean, the most Northwestern thing to do would be start four and oh and finish six and six. Correct. Okay. At Iowa, okay, let's assume that just like they get put to sleep by Kirk Farrant's, they're still at four wins there. They're still at four wins after losing in Michigan State. Okay. They beat Indiana, but oh, it's going to be like 48. Yeah, that's going to be a weird game.

Yeah. Like, Kevin Wilson will, like, punt the ball out of bounds, like, on a non-clock play. And that's how they lose this game, right? On second down. Right, on second down. Thought it would work. We had the numbers. They weren't expecting it.

And then pick up a game against Illinois, pick up a game against Minnesota, right? Okay. You know, even with first round, a first round quarterback. Yeah. Playing at Minnesota. He's not a first round quarterback. I mean, his foot, I don't. I don't know if you saw the photo of his post-surgery foot.

Oh, that looks like a first-round foot. Good. God. Frankenstein. Can you describe it? I didn't see it. Just imagine the most, like, 1980s Hollywood stitches. A foot with zippers. Yeah.

A foot with zippers. That's exactly it. So it stitched up with like someone drew with a thick sharpie? Yes, like comically large stitch lines. Like stitches that look like if you could see his face, he'd just have like X marks over his eyes. and, like, birds flying around his head? Yes, he looks like the oogie-buggy man from a nightmare before Christmas.

Just his foot. Something that walked out of an Alan Moore comic. Yeah, that's pretty much what it looked like. And then I said they win their first four or win their last three. Okay. So I got them at seven and five. Seven and five? Sure.

I mean, Jason, do you have any strong disagreement with that? I'll say Northwestern will be a six-and-six quality team because they always are. As far as number of wins, who can say? No one knows. It never matters. I'll say six and six, they'll somehow be 10 and 2. No one will notice or care.

What I like about that is that by calling them a 6 and 6 quality team, if they fall below that, Northwestern fans can point to you and say, yeah, but this team was better than its record. If they exceed that, you can say this team exceeded expectations. And if they hit 6 and 6 on the nose, then Jason is the most boring psychic.

Yes. I have exactly one power. to predict things that... I can tell you who's going to go six and six. It will be more average than they appear. I will tell you what I would like to discuss now. I would like to just bypass Illinois. Altogether?

Can we do that? I mean, if you want, we can. We did, if y'all want to run back in the archives, dear listener, we did have pretty much an all-lovy-Smith episode when that hire happened because there's nothing else going on. So just go listen to that. I don't know which episode it did. is we don't really label these things so go find it i mean the good news is illinois also we're going to

talk about them very briefly because they also play western michigan so there is a good chance that p j fleck could be in charge of chicago's college football team the western michigan broncos if they sweep those two games row the boat yep row the boat across the lake across the lake 10 west champs to a new job in canada whoops did it on purpose did it on purpose Yeah, we'll talk Illinois very briefly. They do draw North Carolina at home in the non-conference. They also have a fair schedule. They got to play Michigan and Michigan State.

They got to play at Nebraska. They get at Rutgers. They get Purdue at home. They get Purdue at home. They get Minnesota at home, Iowa at home. I don't know. I mean, yeah, I'm sorry. We should have skipped over Illinois.

You're right. I fucked up. I would just ask you us. Given what you know, they have a semi-decent quarterback, West Lunt, right? They're going to be dysfunctional as hell because there's a coaching change. Pick a game on here that you know they can win that doesn't start with Murray State. Purdue at home. Purdue at home.

Sure. I'll give you that. Right. Okay. No, you know what? I'll also go at Rutgers. At Rutgers. I don't feel that great about it.

Rutgers right now? No, I don't think Rutgers feels real great about Rockers right now. One thing that Lovie said today that I saw that was pretty good was he said even when he was an NFL coach, he sort of considered himself a college coach. I don't have that verbatim, but I think the gist is sort of he always wanted to try his hand at recruiting or whatever, but I also kind of feel like it explains the Bears' offense for about a decade. Yeah, that totally explains why he thought Rex Grossman was a good option for an entire season. Yeah, I can't believe this guy still has eligibility. Surely he'll, you know, progress as a 19th year senior.

What's your goal with the Bears this year? We're going to get Rex Gross and a Heisman? That's long overdue? We're putting the air rate in? It's going to be amazing. Maybe in that it's like game 13 and it's like, who, boys are tired. How much longer we got to go?

I'm going to steal from Jason and say that Illinois will be a four and eight quality team. Four seems pretty generous. Yeah, it is. I'm going to go three. Three and nine. This is a three in a quality team. I'm going high. I'm going five and seven.

Okay. So can we split it at four and eight? Yeah, I'll split it four and eight. Oh, boy. Should we talk about Oregon State? I think it's safe to say this. Oregon State, we'll talk about them in a year. Sure.

Yeah, sure. Because apparently they need people. They don't have a lot of people. They had three people throw the ball last year. guess how many of those three people are still here despite having more than enough eligibility to come back one yeah uh previewing oregon state at this point would be like taking a habitat for humanity family to the home after they've just put up half of the skeleton let's just just come back to no it's gonna there's gonna be a bedroom here you'll see just i think the saddest thing i can say about organ state right now is that they they had a player transfer out who had a was like basically their best weapon at passing, rushing, and receiving, and I can't remember whether that was this year or last year. That's the saddest thing about OSU right now for me, is I don't know whether they suffered that devastating loss. Now, then, it doesn't even matter.

I mean, so the problem with Oregon State is, I think the goal is don't be the worst team in the Pac-12 North. I don't know if that's an achievable goal. I don't think so. I think you've got to expand that to Pact 12, and even then Colorado, Colorado, the year ahead of you. I think maybe it's don't be the worst team in Cascadia. You know what? You can be better than Idaho. There is a path to Oregon State not being the worst team in the Pact 12 North.

And that path is Shico's real bad a cow. Shicko's real bad a cow. Always a possibility. So Sunny Dikes leaves in week three. Right. Yep. Yep. For the failers top.

No, not even. Just to take a consulting gig that paid $20,000 more. I think Sunny Dikes just leaves to like, he leaves to enroll at Baylor. That would be new South Carolina offensive coordinator, Sunny Dikes, who arrives there in week four. Just like, oh, just vulturing. Just vulturing. Hey, Will. Wouldn't he fit the Texas offensive coordinator thing?

Texas haven't done anything weird at offensive coordinator in a few months now and got a got to Got to keep it flipping. They've had about seven of those, and they've had one for, like, seven straight months now. And if you're going to be a Texas offensive coordinator, I feel like you need to be being sued in the process. And based on things that have happened at Cal, Sunny Dyke certainly is in line for that possibility. Interstate litigation. Uh-huh. Magnificent.

That's beautiful. You win the Idaho State game. Sure. And maybe win at Cal. Even Colorado on the road. Sure. uh this is uh man this is uh this is we'll give you two i'll give you two okay two i'll go with two it's a bad team two and ten it's fine don't worry about it you'll still get paid money by the pack twelve

because they have to pay you so do they we'll find out um speaking of have to get paid we'll must champ they have to pay them now because that's how contracts work did you not know that South Carolina? By God. Did you think he was like one of those lawyers that you just have to pay if you win the case?

Because I can tell you that is not the fee structure under which William Mustchamp operates. Which coach would take that deal? You only pay me if we win 10 wins. Houston Nutt. He would take that right now. Tommy Tupperville would probably

take that right now. No, no. Tubs ain't taking it. He owes people money. Oh, no, no. Here's what Tommy Tover he say you just put down a deposit it's not for me i just hold it in escrow and then he runs off with it so tommy's running the pyramid scheme yeah i'll win a game yep and then we'll bring in another coach who'll win the second game and he'll bring in another coach to win game free and i'll be on late martin i'll be sneaking off to cuba i'll be pooping on a boat everybody's pooping that's what i'm doing so all i want to do is wake up in the morning pull down my

pants and take a shit on a beautiful boat that I own. I even better. Somebody else's boat. Somebody else's boat. I just want to go shit on Nick Saban's boat. I'm going to be buried at this boat. Just kidding. South Carolina.

Who? Yeah. Yeah, well, let's see. You got two guys named Gerald Dixon on their defensive line, don't you? Don't you? Okay. Gerald and Gerald. That's very like Newhart knockoff.

very um in addition to that they're how is how we're going to tell us you guys apart though sky more coming back from an injury is likely going to be limited uh-huh so that's that's not good news for them not great uh they don't really have an established quarterback no they still have to play clemson that's bad uh they do i guess if you're going to draw if of the two teams you're going to draw from the west mississippi state and texas a and m don't see seem like the worst. It does seem like you're dodging probably the top, the top three in that division. So you've got that in your favor. The negative of that is, I wouldn't, as of where we're sitting right now, I would not right now say I favor South Carolina on the road in Starkville or

against Texas A&M at home. Because Texas A&M plays much better on the road than they do at home. I swear I say this for reasons. They go past their higher pet coach. This is going to be the ugliest team in the SEC next year. Wow. No team will play uglier football. I mean, like we said on last episode, we'll find out when they opened with Vanderbilt. It's a race. That's a race for the last place than being in a contest.

Whoever wins that game has the pole position at the ugly derby. So let's just talk about what the terms of success and failure are for this team. Success means you have to beat Vanderbilt. success probably means you have to beat either Missouri or Kentucky. I think there are paths where you can say Kentucky's a road game. Maybe this is the year Kentucky makes a leap. Maybe that's excusable. Missouri is kind of a team in flux that we've already said we know nothing about.

Maybe losing to them is excusable, but you can't lose to both. You definitely have to beat Western Carolina and East Carolina. I don't know if you're beating East Carolina. Carolina. You should at this point. I mean, this isn't the, this isn't the Lincoln Riley East Carolina anymore. No, this is a South Carolina team that lost the Citadel last year. That is true.

Where is that game, the ECU game? That is in Columbia. It is in Columbia. Okay, yeah, you better win that game. Okay. So that's, and you have to be UMS. You have to win at least five games. Mm-hmm.

Wow, that I inadvertently. set this a lot higher than I thought I was going to. Four and eight is your prediction. When you're like, man, you need to win five games. I'm like, I count four. Yeah. And one of the, there's going to be some stupidity in terms of how these get lost. So I'm going four and eight. I mean, coming up just short is every will must champ offensive drive. So, and here's the thing. In that, in that eight, there are going to be some hammerings. Tennessee may bring down the fire of the heavens upon South Carolina. Georgia may do the same thing.

Clemson, Clemson may go for 100 points. I count at least three games in the schedule. It will each be the least watchable game you see all year. And now we get to see if Will Mustchamp is subject to the new NCAA rule where coaches with, is it too unsportsman-like conduct? Yes. Penalties can be tossed out of a game. Leading wager.

leading the clubhouse okay well must champ okay three to two either him or bill Snyder bill smiter would just poison you i've purchased the mortgage on your house as the aristocrats did in the 1700s uh four and eight um yeah i'm fine the four and eight i'm sorry south carolina fans it's nothing against you personally but uh steve spurier didn't leave you in a great spot and will must champ is probably not gonna not gonna take you to a good spot let me put it this way. He will lead you through the desert, but it's going to be very much like Moses, where there's a lot of wandering and hunger. Yeah. And that 40-year plan? Yeah. He might not get to carry it out. Yeah. So, I have six and six here. What? How? Talk. Show me six and six. Yeah. Go,

show me the six. I'm going to be honest, I'm sitting on my back porch right now, so I can't point it out to you. But is it in the, are the two wins in the car. with the alarm going off right now. Is Will Must Champ breaking into a car for two wins? Someone's running away from it. All right, the alarms off. So the Outta Conference, you play Clemson, that's bad. Yeah.

Other than that, Outer Conference is fine. Yeah, okay. You play every permutation of the Carolinas and UMass. UMass, the northernmost Carolina. Yeah, the North North Carolina. Mass. Can I ask a totally under your main question? Sure.

Do you think Will Must Champ could explain the difference between Mass and Wait? No. I think he could describe it in a way that would make you think maybe he knows, but then he would say another thing that would make you think, wait, he's, he's talking about like sound or something. Mass is Catholic. That's the difference.

I never been the Vatican. I don't know what you weigh in Rome. That's your mass. Wait. Yeah, no, he could not do that, so. Okay. Four and eight. Yeah, Jason, I can't. I can't.

can't go with you to six and six i just can't though your cross-division schedule as noted is as easy as it possibly can be um a and them at home i mean a and m's not going to be very good but a and m a andm beats people they don't win in college station yeah like the home road distinction is totally well for kevin seven to win else for that's fair i i still i can't i could if you had said five and seven i could have maybe gone with you there six and six is just obscene yeah i realize I'm high on South Carolina, which that's a weird high. This is what SAC Media Days did to you. That's how you get popcorn long.

No, I was told, Vanderbilt's going to kick the shit out of South Carolina. So I should be low on South Carolina right now. And also I was told that Will Mustchamp lost a basketball game to Kirby Smart, which should further ding my apparent enthusiasm. I don't know. It doesn't feel that high, six and six, against with three gimmies in the OOC. Sorry, you see you. it didn't feel that outrageous to me

but I realize that's aiming high and I don't know if anyone else hasn't that high That would be twice as many games as they won last year Yeah twice as many And they got to play UCF quite possibly In contention for the worst team in FBS Well UMass will give Take a shot at that

Yeah and also last year they had a coaching change in October I will charitably bump this to five and seven. Yeah, I mean, I'll give them that too, only on the strength of, now that I'm actually looking at last year's schedule, they lost to Kentucky by four, they lost to Texas A&M by seven, Tennessee by three, the Citadel by one. Even Clemson, they only ended up losing two by five. So there is an element of, and in their wins, there's only one close game. And that's that awful UNC game at the start of the year that really should have been a loss. Yeah.

Close one. So there is some law of averages thing where if two of those five or whatever it was close losses turn to wins, that gets you to five. I still don't think six is there. Let me pitch this at y'all from a different direction. No. All right. It's a South Carolina is a baseball school, so that's fine. South Carolina we've just established was almost a playoff team last year.

So if Will Mustamp, if Will Mustamp goes six and six, that's a disappointment by Will Mustamp and a bad job by him. See? No, you can't do this. Yeah. We'll go five. You've talked us up to five and seven, and when they drop their first four games, I'm going to yell at you. Yeah. Well, now that's warming up.

Wait, hold on. Can this be, do you have a bet with Godfrey yet about which unreasonable team you're going to bet chicken on? Let's see. I feel like we could start up a Houston one. You could do that. That's almost too interesting. I would really like to see if you and Godfrey can get a South Carolina chickenback going. We've talked way, way too much about South Carolina.

I'm just going to hand us to Ryan for Baylor. Hey, Baylor. So Baylor's been a team that we have been happily avoiding all offseason just by random fate. It feels very odd to talk about Baylor in terms of what you predict their football team is going to do, given everything that's going on. And given that that requires either some very messy wrangling with. the football effects of a serious institutional scandal that affects far more important things than football, or ignoring it all together and talking about it as if this were any other change of coach, as if this were any other transfer of athletes, et cetera, et cetera.

The one thing I do want to say about the Baylor situation is this. It is very easy for those of us who have no connection to Baylor to point and gawk, and criticize. And we're not wrong to do that. I think there's a limited value to that. What happened at Baylor was shameful, disappointing, disheartening to say the least. I hope that it motivates us to ask more about what our college football programs are doing, the ones that we do care about, the ones that we do claim for ourselves. Because I guarantee you most people on the outside looking in at Baylor thought that this was a quote unquote school doing it the right way.

This didn't happen because there were evil people working behind the scenes to undermine that. This happened because people didn't ask the right questions and people didn't look to see if the rules were being enforced, if the rules made sense, if there were structures in place to prevent people from going outside of their lane and acting improperly. And the truth is that I can't point to Florida, for example, and say, oh, these are the structures to prevent that from happening. Here's how the police department is walled off from the athletic department such that there can't be any inappropriate blurring of those lines.

Here's what the athletic department has in place to make sure that people bringing accusations of domestic violence or sexual assault are heard and thoroughly and quickly investigated. I don't know what those are, and that's a failure on my part. My main takeaway is I hope we don't just look at Baylor and say what a dark spot on college football soul, burn it out so the rest of us can go about our business. It's a sobering moment that should make us question all of our other schools that we claim to love and make sure that they are not making the same mistakes that eventually blow up this horrifically and with this much human cost.