Shutdown Fullcast - Shutdown Fullcast 4.28: The Middest Of Major Episodes

Episode Date: August 10, 2016

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Welcome to the shutdown full cast. This is the internet's, I don't know, it's the only podcast for college football. Just that's, no, just only at all. It's the only one. I kind of like the internet's college football podcast, implying that they're like a newspaper college football podcasts or like academic college football podcast. Like like an like an analog college football podcast. They're like, you mean the radio? no

there's one for the there's one for the whiff and poofs right Ivy League Coral College Football Podcasts like it's like a what's the thing you put in a piano that plays itself you know oh yeah the scroll

that's really that's a really that's a really good tack piano Jason I was just thinking that before we had to get into the discussion of anything college football related that one thing you should know is that not everyone lives well because I'm sitting here we were trying to get everything together for a podcast and looking around my house and I was like I'm a quality of life you know your quality of life doesn't get any

better you should just know that like as you get as you get older if it's trash it just stays trash it's not like you're ever going to learn how to clean or decorate your house you're not you realize this is a very rough thing to be saying during our group of five podcasts right Unless if you're Unless if you're I don't know Louisville or something And you can ride the Papa John's Pizza rocket

All the way to the ACC But otherwise you are what you are Pretty much every human Peaks at age like six West Virginia got that big 12 spot No problem Yeah Going great

how's that going all right so you're saying the ideal situation the one that is the best of all worlds is one where you're promoted to your natural level of incompetence okay this is all checking out yeah god this thank you you've already made this sad that's good yeah that's great speaking of sad hey what are we talking about this week jason uh well we have gone and up and previewed the entire power five We've said at least one word about every team in those five conferences, the ones who are actually eligible to play for the national championship. So now let's talk about the teams who are not low enough to play in the FCS playoffs and not high enough to play in the FBS playoffs. The teams are just sort of here. We still love each and every one of them,

and they will score some embarrassing upsets against teams in the group that actually gets to compete. Um, probably, uh, probably Missouri will fall victim at some point. Um, maybe, maybe, maybe Oregon State, uh, surely Indiana will do something like that. But we're gonna, we're gonna run through these five conferences and, uh, try and pick out some, some conference favorites. I disagree that these are not, these are teams that can't make the playoffs. They can't. Uh, well, the thing is, they're not eligible. So, well, it's more that they are just, think of it as the presidential. line of succession. Bam is the president, obviously. Roll tied. Roll tie. And, you know, these are the teams that are your secretary of labor, your whips, your postmaster general. I don't think Postmaster General is on there anymore, but it was. These are just the guys who are like 18th down. They're that new Kiefer Sutherland show where he's basically playing Jack Bauer, but yeah. Yeah. How is that not Jack Bauer? They like, I feel like the show is called

like Jack Bauer with a W. Here's the thing I've learned recently about Keith or Sutherland. Every character he plays is Jack Bauer, and I know this because I recently, with my wife, re-watch the Disney film, The Three Musketeers, in which he plays one of said Musketeers.

And at one point, his character, pulls a gun on Chris O'Connell. Chris O'Donnell? What's his name? D'Artagnan. What's his name? Chris O'Bonnell. Chris O'Bonnell. Chris O'Obottle, yeah. He's so a bomber and basically tells him to leave the battle or he will shoot him in the face.

This is in the Disney three musketeers. He's always been Jack Bauer. Your wife has to do heroin. And also in true Jackbauer fashion, he's in love with a villainous female who dies. Yes, yes. Is that Mary Elizabeth Mastrontonio? a de mornay oh that's good too yeah i don't know why i don't know why m was my first poll probably you were just going with the like uh three three word name that has m at the end so that's fine

also it's melodious to say and she played and she played you know the sister and scarface so i really just kind of want her to be in everything that's fine um what oh we're talking about the group of five boy i derail this quickly now before we do that i would like to thank all of our listeners who root for a Power 5 conference for not calling us out too badly, except for Texas A&M, who was so mad about what we said about them that I had to go on one of our Good Bull Hunting podcasts and defend... You had to go to Aggie court. Not even...

Oh, my God, you did. You had to go to calling court. It wasn't even my opinion because they played clips from the episode, and it was mostly me cackling at you two talking shit. And I swear to God, on this episode, on this episode, one of you said something, and I laughed like an idiot, like I frequently do, and they said, so what did you mean by your laugh there? And I had to defend it. You had to go to a quasi-military tribunal. Even Notre Dame fans, who we literally didn't talk about, we're cool about it. And I say this with all the love in my heart. Thank you for being way crazier than anybody ever thinks possible, Texas, Zana. yes so what did they what did they say to you i mean they mostly asked me like what cities in

florida are trash uh and all all of them yeah all yeah i mean there was a little bit of that um and they you know i i here's what i told them the only valuable thing i probably said in any of these preview episodes all preview all college football previews are essentially useless with the exception of like four there are four people bill connelly is one of them and there are other people out there who do all the research and all the work and the rest of us are just cribbing off of them we're all for for for this episode show of hands how many people have bill's group of five power rankings open right now absolutely absolutely yeah yeah we crib from bill we crib some people crib from phil steel paul myerberg who you know whether it's um somebody like stew uh uh bruce and stew

over at Fox like there are people who put a lot of work into this and I'm not I don't want to discredit them but the vast majority of us are just copying off of somebody else's paper yeah we're just the talent

relies in being able to say it with more or maybe less flair like I really want Bill to just not do his 128 preview one year just to see the fallout from that or yeah or just rearranging

the names, randomize the names, and have us going on the radio, like, well, yeah, I really do like Eastern Michigan coming out of the Mac this year to win the playoff. Really? Really? Yeah, yeah, I read the other day, you know, the roster is, it's nothing but five stars up and down. Tom Coughlin's got these boys ready to brawl. Wow, that's amazing. This Big 12 round robin schedule something, but I think Rutgers is built to withstand it.

They just are. Just, I hope Bill starts seeding lies like that in all of his previous. I would, uh, where do we, where do we start with this? Like, where in this vast universe? Wherever, whatever you would like. What if we start with like the, the most semi-competent conference and work our way toward the glory that is the fun belt? What, why don't, before we do this, let's, let's, for the listener. in case you're just dipping your toe in this.

What do we mean here with our group of five? Well, these are the other conferences in FBS that are technically in FBS. These are Division I football programs. These are top-level football programs. These are in basketball. They're called mid-majors. And if you call them that in football, they'll get mad. So you have to call them the group of five because that's a name they made up for themselves

because the other ones are called the Power Five. Yes, which the group of five, in case you did not know, this stands for the American Athletic Conference, the Mid-American Conference, the Mac, the Mountain West, the Sun Belt, and Conference USA. You may hear us refer to the Mac as the Mac. That's the craziest nickname we've got for. Yeah. It's just the Mac. The AAC, no one's going to call them the AAC. that's the American,

aka the zombie, we call them zombie big east. Is that fair? And then the... Pits abandoned house. Yeah, they foreclosed on it. Pitt had to go. The foster home pit left.

Yes. Then the Mountain West, we don't really have a nickname for them. It's just the Mountain West. Basically, like, we're like, Boise, Sunbelt. That's the fun belt, y'all. The fun belt, because, man,

games can get off the rails easy there. and in fashions that at higher levels, that just can't happen. For instance, when was the last time you saw a punter playing quarterback, and the fun belt, you will. And then Conference USA, which I think is deeply underbranded. You might call that Cusa, I hear that from time to time. Conference USA, I think probably the most underrated conference in terms of, like, fun. Do you think they're pissed that the American sort of took their branding as like,

We're the United States Conference. We are Captain America of Conference. Yeah, I feel like they had like, you know, there was Captain America, and then there's Captain Britain. I don't know if you know if there's a Captain Britain. Yeah. And Captain Britain just can't compete, right? Even with similar branding. That's kind of what happened here with Conference USA and AAC.

Conference USA, by the way, is like the most 1980s branding ever, right? like conference USA Like Oh yeah It sounds like a game You ask for For Super Nintendo and hate Right

You invert it Like you translated it From French or Japanese right Conference USA Yeah And then the AAC Just decided to screw up By giving itself a mediocre name

And also a logo That kind of looks like an A with a butthole If you look at it Also If you're going to be If you're going to adopt a name that's going to confuse you with a top-level conference, make sure you're being confused with the ACC.

That's the one to go for. That's good. No, I like the AAC because they're like, you know what? We'll be first in the phone book. That's all the matters. That's good. It's like errands. When people want to rent a sofa for $8,000 after paying all the bills,

they'll do it at the AAC. Quadruple H-Oing. A-A towing. Best insurance in the nation. AAC, keeping the family's safe. I would I just like to say, going back to Jason's mid-major

versus group of five thing, group of five does not sound significantly better. You know, if your kid asked for a power wheels and you came home with a group of wheels, they wouldn't be, they wouldn't say like, all right,

this knockoff is good enough. A group of wheels, that's like a connects or something. Yeah. This is the connects, connects of conferences. I also like that we occasionally have to include our independence here, right? Right.

Which, you know, certain independence. Correct. We're still not talking about Notre Dame. No, hell no. No, no. Why would we do that? Our very good football team, if you're listening, by the way, we're not talking about them. They're an ACC member.

The other ones that we have to include under Independent, which would be BYU. Maybe the funniest mismanagement of a brand in college football. Let's discuss them when the time comes. Okay. I feel like there's a lot to say about BYU that's like good and bad, right? Like I'm not entirely negative about them. And I think a lot of the things you'd say that we were going to say about BYU are things that BYU fans, I think, think. They're not a monolith.

They're a pretty diverse group when it comes to how they think of BYU. But let's not talk about them. Just to wrap it up, the other independents, we have to sort of lump in here. BYU and my missing one? At this point, it's Army and UMass, and we do not need to talk about either of those teams. UMass because we covered them when we were talking about SEC schedules because they all play UMass. Yeah, that's true. And we don't talk about Army football out of respect for the Army.

What I do appreciate about Army is that as an independent, you know, you can go to BYU and even to some extent the UMass route where you try to schedule teams where you potentially, you're going to play a pretty decent schedule, try to play some name teams. Army is not doing that. Hell no, they play trash. Army plays Notre Dame in the Alamo Dome. Like I said. A game we talked about. And they have the Commander's Cup.

It's not Commander's Cup, the Commander Chief. The Commander and Chief Trophy, I believe. Yeah. So they have those two games. Other than that, they're playing Wake Forest. They're playing North Texas. They're playing Buffalo, they're playing U-TEP, they're playing rice. Army's laying nice and low.

Army is not looking to bother anybody right now. I feel like... Not in an election year. Army's always going to play, like, it feels like they play three FCS teams a year somehow. It feels like Army is secretly a member of the Patriot League. It might be right. And I'm sorry to Temple fans who are mad that I'm suggesting. Don't worry about it.

You're good. Yeah. Okay, we've covered the categoricals here. And I think we can get down to actually picking Which teams of these we would Consider noteworthy We could do them by conference or hell You could just salad bar them if you want to

You could just buffet table this And take the team of your choice and say Hey you might want to pay attention to them Because they're probably going to wreck some shit You know I'm talking about Houston That's really where I'm starting here We knew that's where you're going Yeah

Like America's most festive team at the moment Like nobody like they were so much fun unlike my team they've beaten Florida State in the last year in a bowl game no less in a bowl game

where Florida State did not want to be there gloriously apathetic so good but we could do it like that or we can do it by conference I'm open gentlemen now a salad bar

I like that we're not organized that sounds that sounds messier that's fine you want to say what else okay so that was Houston

last year Houston seems to be the consensus pick to say if somebody has any hope of crashing the playoff or at least getting a very nice bull bit outside the Power 5 is going to be Houston. Is that going to be, is there a reasonable path where Houston gets even close to a playoff spot? If they go 13 and 0, which includes wins against Oklahoma and Louisville and winning probably the best mid-major conference again then it would look bad to keep them out

but that requires going 13 and 0 it also requires who they play to be good I mean it helped I think it helped last year that not only was not only

not only were did they have a decent non-comit schedule but the rest of the American ended up being pretty solid if that doesn't happen again this year, even if it is the best non-power five conference, that would probably ding it in some weird, but maybe fair way? Yeah, go ahead.

I mean, we know how this works, right? How a mid-major gets in, but go ahead, Jason. I mean, in my opinion, the playoff still has to distinguish itself from the BCS. Like, yes, it's a TV thing and they want ratings and whatever, but they still have to establish some legitimacy and some. some precedent here, and if a 13-NO team can't get in, despite playing a pre-season conference favorite and Louisville and various other bowl teams, there's literally nothing you can do to make it in. It'll never make it in. I mean, to me, it would just look terrible

if Houston were to go 13-0 and no and not make it in, but Houston's not going 13-0. Okay, so let's say, for sake of argument, if they don't beat Oklahoma, it's not happening, right? Right. Let's say they do. Let's say Houston beats Oklahoma, close game, good game, whatever. We then have to, does Houston then have to play the very unpleasant game of not, we have to beat everybody to close the season, but we have to crush everybody to close the season. We have to be beating teams by five touchdowns.

We can't just, you know, it's not enough to just beat Navy or beat, meant this we have to destroy them pretty much like this is how this goes to my extremely cynical perspective on how one ends up as a mid-major in the playoff one if they beat oklahoma and louisville then they need to beat oklahoma and louisville decisively and they need louisville and oklahoma to recover and destroy most of the competition on their schedule because remember a mid-major never competes on its own merits it competes on the merits of the people uh that it beats alone right you'll come back and say well they play a schedule or whatever okay i'm not interested in having a conversation with you internet we've thought about this for a long time

and it hasn't changed um don't at me the way that this works is you beat big mate big teams like that and then at the end of the year you slide by because another couple of big teams have had absolute crap like town years right like they've just completely shapped the bed like you have like a two like a florida state loses two games somehow and clemson loses two games, then Houston's gotten in because people think less at the ACC. These are like inflexible things that don't change over time

because the same people are essentially voting these in, right? I'm getting really pessimistic about this, not just being the BCS all over again, just with more slots for people to make really terrible judgments about whether teams are good. That's how a mid-major gets in. So Houston has to

wipe the floor with everybody, and then they have to hope that other people screw up for them to getting at. If anything, it's somewhat worse than the BCS because at least the BCS had the computers that while they had their share of problems were not necessarily locked in

old ways of thinking that you're talking about. It's literally everybody on the college football playoff committee has to be locked in and it has to at least start from an old way of thinking, right? And there's

very little non-power representation among those members. It's lots of like Nebraska and USC, no more USC, but it's lots and lots of... No more Nebraska dog. Oh, oh, oh, right. We're starting

fresh, yeah. It's all, it's all new there, but I mean, to me, I still have hope. Like, I see, you know, year one of it, Marshall couldn't get in, despite being 9 and 0, and by in, I don't mean the playoff. I mean in the rankings.

But Marshall didn't play shit. Marshall didn't play a single team of merit. Houston, I mean, I don't have the schedule right in front of me at the moment. I could click on it. I'm looking at a link with their schedule in it, but I'm not going to. But they're probably going to play mostly bowl teams. They might play two New Year's bowl teams. That is, if you go 13 and 0, that's a playoff schedule.

If they're not in, we can raise holy hell. I mean, if they don't make it in, it'll completely expose a whole lot of bad stuff about the playoff. Yeah. Also, by the way, the good thing about Houston that you can always do this is they can run the ball. That to me is like if you're going to pitch a team and say,

oh, well, if you, I mean, you can say that. I think it's more that they could run the ball. They could run the ball last year. The potential for them running the ball this year is it's pretty high because of the of the top let me count here thank you again we'll see of the top six guys who got carries last year how many do you think are back uh quarterback yeah the answer is just great okay yeah but again who have who has who has a texasurer coming in injured for parts of yeah yeah yeah no i mean yes they they have de catalan coming

in um they obviously boy those Texas offensive weapons those will give you a shot man if listen if we're using the florida rule of was that blue chip school and has transferred then duke kettle on's going to go for 2,000 yards this season are you telling me mac brown recruited this dude and he did not find success at texas is that it he found success in texas so i think the rule still applies i think he's winning a hiresman

yeah um yeah so so you're right they might still be able to run the ball but that is a lot of carries to have walked out the door uh so maybe maybe it'll work it it helps that most of the receiving core is back they also lose a bunch of offensive line talent but sure whatever you say they'll be good i think we're looking at a situation a lot like boise state last year where everyone was convinced Boise State's going to win at least 11, 12, 13 games because they'd won a New Year's Bowl the year before. Whipped up a Power 5 team, everyone saw it, you know, and bring back a lot of players and all that stuff. Exact same thing with Houston last year.

Boise State went, what, 9 and 4 last year? Yeah. So these things are not guarantees. No. You know, it's real easy to slot Houston in as high, you know, throw them in the playoff at this point and all that. That's a long, long, long way away. And, you know, I have them in a New Year's Bowl right now. I did not feel great about it.

The Boise State still is kind of shaky, you know, not quite Boise State standards. The AAC has a lot of good teams, but nothing that really jumps up as immediate contender on Houston's level. But Houston is, I don't think it's anywhere near as rock solid as people talk about it. Let's do quick win-loss total. if we're looking at a Houston schedule and we go okay this is a team that you might actually want to familiarize yourself with because they might be doing things and can I tell you what an absolute crime it is that when you search

their schedule the Texans come up first gross that ain't right so gross I bet rockets are next the trash ass rockets nope no no no Cougars got it so Tom Herman if you want evidence for the success of Tom Herman nobody wants to see James Hardin play No, I ain't nobody trying to see that shit. Nobody's trying to see them cook.

So if we're looking at it. Where's Dwight Howard, by the way? So looking at a... I'm a Grizzlies fan, and our PA announcer was just, like, they just issued a warrant for his arrest, okay? So. Yeah, so looking at the Houston Cougars schedule, I mean, Oklahoma, I assume we're not chocking that up as a win right now.

I'll give you an L. Okay. Yeah, I'll take an L there, too. I love the Cougars and their knowledge of their local rap scene, but that's an L. And then you look down the schedule, and there are maybe four games where they should be, that could be interesting. I mean, I do think the AAC is still in pretty good shape. There are still some teams on here that are figuring. what the hell out is going on. SMU is in that group. Central Florida is in that group.

Tulane is switching to the option. You got you got you got at Cincinnati, at Navy, at Memphis. At SMU. SMU is going to be improved and Tom Herman's talking shit about SMU. So maybe they got a little fire in them. I don't know. But at SMU will be a lot tougher than it sounded in the past. I don't know, 30 years. Right. You know, Tulsa could put up a lot of points. You got Louisville.

Louisville could be really, really, really good. Yukon should have a good defense. There are a lot of games on here that you could lose. You know, this is likely a 10-win team, roughly, something like that. But there's just a lot of games on here that are tougher than it sounds, apparently. Yeah. I'll go 10. I don't feel awesome about it.

I feel like 9 is more realistic. because... I worry about that late stretch. About a late stretch where they go at SMU... Okay, they beat UCF. But they go at SMU, Tulane, which I just...

Playing a triple option team is hard. Playing a triple option team, you know, especially when you're late in the season and you think you know what you are and all of a sudden you have to defend somebody who's breaking in. It sucks. It sucks a lot.

And then you have to play Louisville. And then you have to go to Memphis, which that could still be a pretty good Memphis team. you know i don't know what nor i don't know how that's going to work out with norvel in year one but that's still a pretty good and talented team is that late stretch you know like yeah yeah i think this feels like nine and three okay uh you've talked me into nine and three okay who's next you want to talk about next you want to talk about usf let's talk about us yeah let's take us to tampa ran i mean i feel we're really going to do that in a few months that's true

Oh, my God, USF, the path is there for you, just went out. You can play at home for the national championship. I mean, sure, it starts with some slow games like Towson and Northern Illinois, but you play Syracuse and you play Florida State and you dodge Houston, so that's good. although, of course, you'd play them potentially in the conference championship. Yeah, I don't know. USF was a team that I think about a month into last season, we were just sort of like, well, Willie Taggart is pretty much done.

He hasn't done anything. He had recruited pretty well. He had won no games of consequence. And then they kind of turned it on all of a sudden and closed after starting one and three. closed with only two losses down the stretch. They lost to Navy, which Navy was a great team last year, and they lost the bowl game to Western Kentucky by 10 points. But in that stretch, they beat Temple, they beat Cincinnati,

they beat ECU, they beat Syracuse, they beat Yukon, like they were kind of free last year. Even that Florida State game for, I think, at least a half, they looked interesting. So, I mean, I would like to see, as much as I talk shit, about USF, I would like to see them do something interesting. They back a lot of talent on the offensive side of the ball in the skill position, so maybe. But, you know, it's also, I think it's also probably a little bit of a depth thing,

that any of these guys get hurt, anybody sort of failed to perform or have a swoon season, and maybe it all goes back to that sort of living on the edge of bowl eligibility that's not good well and here's the fun thing but uh get people back

and they have a lot of like they their backfield backfield's cool yeah they have a really cool like once they they were kind of muddling along

and then they kind of just decided let let those two dudes do whatever they wanted back there like okay we have a mobile quarterback we have a good running back let's just let people run around a little bit and they started to actually do stuff

and they were fun to watch like toward the end of last year they were fun to watch not at the beginning not at the beginning not at all yeah and they got good all at once and I feel like it wasn't just a mirage I feel like the last month or two of USF season

was I mean it really was more like two seasons as opposed to just sort of the team appeared to be better than it was for a few. I feel like we got to see like the real USF because if you look back at their recruiting rankings since Willie Taggart took over it like they've been really crushing

the rest of the group of five we talk about Western Michigan recruiting circles around the MAC. That's what USF has been doing around the AAC. I remember a couple years ago we did these all recruit teams after signing day for on a conference basis

and USF basically had the ACs like entire starting roster and those guys are becoming upperclassmen now. So, I mean, I feel like USF is, I feel like what we saw in the last half of the season, that's sustainable. Yeah, I mean, if you look at their four regular season losses last year, they lose to Florida State, they play terribly and lost to Maryland on the road. They lost to Memphis by a touchdown, and they lost to Navy. Like, three of those four losses at the end of the year, they're like, that's fine. Those are really good losses, especially for a team.

that they have one of my favorite things offensively, by the way. They have the 1,000-yard running back and 1,000-yard quarterback, aka the NCAA special, like when you play NCAA. I'm not very good at using the passing controls on NCAA. Correct. It also, they get both of them back. They're both juniors this year. Yeah.

And they're good for you. You go, okay, well, cool. I get 2,000 yards out of my backfield. Returning. That's before we assume that you might do even better. Before you get a factory in that they have a running back named De Ernest. And you play in a pirate ship stadium. You don't use the pirate ship, but it's there.

I wish they use that more. I wish they, like, you know, slap some bullhorns on it, as in, like, the horns of a bull, not, like, what a cop uses. And had it sort of, like, buck and snort. Cop. They tries to... Bull over. That's the pirate ship.

But all to the front of the far. So it's entirely possible that... It's entirely possible that USF kind of plays the Houston role this year, right? I mean, it's possible, right? Like, looking up and down, offensively, they're going to be pretty solid. They're going to be a run-first team, but they get their receiving core back. Most of their receiving core, like, sans-tide-end. You know, they get most of their receiving core.

They play in a league where I think their style of play could do pretty well, right? They're good at a lot of stuff. I mean, like, this is, tagger comes from the Harbaugh thing, so you think, like, oh, it's a Stanford offense or whatever, but, like, they've spread it out quite a bit. Yeah, no, they adapted. They adapted quick to the talent they had, like fast. The Florida State game in late September is going to be interesting. Home game for USF, so look out for the pirate ship.

Although, of course, being let it's in Tampa, oh, my God, Raymond James Stadium's going to be overrun with Florida State fans, a lot of whom I went to high school with. Noted, you said went to high school with, not graduated high school with, and I appreciate it. Isn't that? Everybody has their own path. Go Nulls.

Go Noles. Yeah, no, I like this team a lot. I don't want to say that, oh, man, they'll go, like, you know, they'll go undefeated. but they're a fun team to watch and they're pretty good at everything and if you're pretty good at everything and you're very well-rounded you stand a chance of doing that

as a mid-major playing where they do so yeah I want to look at the schedule a little bit before we go too insane on what they could be but there's a lot to like about this team I'm sure there are like 17 Houston fans listening here who are mad because we said well Houston they might lose this game and now we're talking about how awesome USF is or whatever but I think we're sort of

responding to the national hype levels and saying, let's bump Houston down just a peg, probably still better than USF, but... Stay humble? Stay humble. We're just trying to keep you humble, you 17 Houston fans who are on Twitter so much that it feels like there

are 8 billion people with H-Town takeover hashtags. Anytime anyone tweets about Dalvin Cook, you're there. Like, yeah, we know your team made some tackles. It's great. Everyone is happy about it. Just shut the fuck up and we'll stay happy

about it. One of whom, but yeah, we love you. Now, please don't make us hate you. That's what you always want to do with the team like Houston when they come along. You go, listen, I love everything your team does. Please don't make me hate them because of you. It's like Houston fans on Twitter. All four of you. We like your team.

Yeah. Yeah, that's cool. So, here we go. We got USF. When you look for games, you go, oh man, they could totally lose that game. Well, Florida State, September 24th, right? On the road at Syracuse the week before.

Yeah. I mean, look, Syracuse has some quarterback talent. It's obviously a long trip for USF, even though it's not a time difference thing or anything. And you know, Syracuse is,

as much as we talk shit about them, they're a fine team. They're not somebody we are ever going to talk about in the near future, winning that conference. But they're a fine team. I think if you lose on the road against the Dino-Babber's team, no, no huge shame in that. Right.

But it is... Then you got FSU. You're going to lose that. Yeah. Then you go to Cincinnati, which... At Temple is the one down the road. October 21st, at Temple. Like, they get most of their other ones at home.

They even get Navy at home, right? But they have to go to Memphis. And Memphis is kind of, I mean, I... That to me was such a... was such a turnaround that it also makes me think that maybe that was a patch job. Like, I don't know. Like, when you have somebody who turns Memphis around, you just kind of go, well, who else could have done that?

Yeah. Another Fuente's gone. I just have to make sure the next guy won't screw it up. And that's entirely possible because Memphis, your margins are pretty slim. You just want to make sure that the next guy understands that and coaches accordingly. Like, to me at Temple is the one that's really interesting to me. At SMU, I mean, if SMU wants to claim a, claim a trophy. late in the season after a hard start.

This is the secret SMU pump-up podcast. We got SMU knocking off heads left and right. No, no, USF wins this game. They just, you know, in the third quarter, that's when the talent wheels fall off, right? When SMU just runs out of depth that USF has been building. Because remember, USF was so totally at this stage years ago, right? Like under Willie Taggart, where they would stay competitive.

And after two quarters, yeah, that's all we got. Sorry. Oh, this is, oh, you wanted to play. Oh, I thought we were going to play a half-court. Oh, boy. I have not worked out lately. Yeah, man, my cardio, it's just not up to this. I touched the three-point line.

Can that be considered? No? All right, cool. Yeah, that game at Temple. Because Temple, Temple is, Temple's a very difficult team to play, especially because they, their line play is so consistent. Especially on the D-line. It's like one of the great college football secrets. I want to know is how Matt Ruhl manages to get excellent D-line play out of like two-star dudes who end up playing like three-star dudes every single time.

So that to me is what their season comes down to is at Temple. I know that's exactly what you want to hear out of podcast. This is too. Oh, my God. Everybody keep your pants on. Win total? What do you got? I think this is a 10 and two team.

Wow. So you are saying that they're going to do better than Houston, at least on paper. at least in the wind. Yeah, their schedule's easier, man. They don't play Oklahoma. They do play Florida State. They don't play Louisville. They do play UCF.

They do play Syracuse. Uh-huh. Those are the same teams. I like USF as well. I will only go nine wins, though. Ten wins would be fucking amazing. And if USF wins 10 games, Willie Taggart is going to get some,

either a huge raise from USF or some very big job. I'll go eight to set us at nine. Okay. I think that's still another positive step. Yeah. No, but I'm serious. If they win 10 games, Willie Taggart is not staying in Tampa.

No. Not a chance. Do you want to talk about Temple? Do you want to move on to another conference? What do you want to do? Let's talk about something real, real, real, real, real quick. Extremely quick. I'd vote we move on, but extremely quick.

Okay. Temple, looking at your schedule really quickly, boy, you play at Penn State, and that's fun. Other than that, you're giving us very little to work with. You play Army, you play Stony Brook, you play Charlotte. That's in the first month. Like, Temple, you are really putting all of your chips on that Penn State game for us to care about you early in the season. Because if you don't win that, then we just have, you know, a bunch of lower-tier FBS schools. and a non-FBS school to look at. And after that, it's like, yeah, they'll have the USF game

Spencer was talking about. That's about it. I mean, this is, Temple feels like... Yeah, go ahead. Curiously, Temple has devalued the one chip that they have to attract national attention in terms of schedule making by defeating them in previous years. Well, there is.

Right? That's it. Like, oh, let's beat Penn State. Well... Yeah. So I think Temple feels like, without really looking at who they've got back and acknowledging that they've done wonderful things with that defense.

I think Temple feels like a team that could put up a really nice win total, and it wouldn't mean a whole lot, because you'd look at the end of the season and be like, yeah, but did you beat anybody good? So, I mean, I'm willing to say Temple wins nine games, but I don't necessarily think that we'll look back and say, oh, that was a really good Temple team. I think we'll say it was a pretty easy schedule. Yeah, and I mean, if the strength of the team is, like Spencer says, was the front seven, they lost, like, the entire middle of it.

So that's good. Yeah, roughly, you know, I mean, they lost Madakevich. They lost three starting defensive line, and I believe. Yeah, I'm not super high. I mean, Temple will still be good, still be well coach, probably still beat Penn State. But, you know, I don't see a repeat of last year. But this time they're going to have to send. Three, right?

Three. They're going to have to blitz three. Get to the quarterback. Just remember, just remember that James Franklin is going to help Matt Rule get a really good job. That's true. The Penn State job. Might get that Penn State job, you know. A lot of people lining up for the Penn State job.

It's exciting. Okay. Let's move off that AAC. We've got a lot of ground to cover, so I think we need a cherry pick from, like, let's just talk about one team each. We talked a lot about the AAC, but we've got a lot of ground to cover. one team each. I think that's fair.

It's, I mean, that conference has, it was the most important last year, probably will be next year. Cusa, I would, what if we do? WKU, knock that out? Sure. Dude, yeah, you do it, you do a WKU, which is just, man, such a balls to the wall, thrill ride of a team. Speak on it.

Speak on it. Oh, hell, yeah, you need to speak on it. The fact that for some reason, Jeff Rowe managed to walk into this. job load up on as many amphetamines as a human being can inject into a single offense and if you look at their F plus progression it's hilarious it's absolutely yeah like one gigantic Viagra-fueled boner of football progress crazy crazy no it's like the dick that's what the eight you want your hill topped talk about a big red talk about a big red you know the throbbing success of this team

Like a motorcycle hurtling up a mountain. Exactly. Yes, it's exactly like that. Like a motorcycle hurtling up a dick. Can I remind you of the thrill ride this team had and how much goddamn fun they are, okay? Because, because the only games they lost last year, okay, with the 12 and 2 records that they eventually posted

scoring like a zillion points a game. Oh my God, they scored a lot. Take out that first game against Vanderbilt. It didn't happen. They scored 12. That's good against Vandy. I was going to say, that's actually like Vanderbilt's most impressive. They won't game, dog.

I know. The most impressive game that Vanderbilt played last year. Oh, right. Sorry, they did be it. Yeah, no, the most impressive game that Vanderbilt played last year was limiting Western Kentucky to 14 points. And I am dead serious about that because this team, plays with

premium this is not unleaded this is not cheap they average like oh my god put up 58 on middle Tennessee state 55 on north Texas 55 on ODU they put up 63 on Florida International

63 to 7 they did and against the pretty good that pretty good USF team we were just talking about yeah they beat the breaks off of them 45 35 in a bowl game they are a blast to watch.

So a lot of offense, not much defense. Don't worry about that. Defense is for troglodytes. Remember? It's not important at all. They do have to replace a 5,000-yard quarterback. We see through 48 touchdowns. 5,000 yards and 40, like, that's obscene.

Okay, so if we're marking their offense down a lot, they'll only pass for 3,500. Yeah, you're only scoring 42 points a game this year, WK, you spend them wisely. By the way, the guy who's probably going to start is named Nelson Fishback. They got a lot of options there. I mean, they brought in a whole bunch of transfers. Like, it could be one of those worth three guys each throw for 1,500 yards. Nelson Fishback is 1,000% the quarterback in a Cohen Brothers movie.

He is. Let me tell you, the quarterback in real life, though. Just name alone, Reese Ryan. He's the red shirt freshman, yeah, and he's like highly touted, blah, blah, blah. His name's Reese Ryan, though, so you know he's going to end up starting because his name is Reese Ryan. Well, or he'll transfer to you again. Because remember, what does it work in reverse, Ryan Reese? Look at this quarterback competition.

Tyler Ferguson, that works both ways. Stephen Duncan, that works both ways. Duncan, Stephen, yeah. Reese Ryan. And the best of all, Mike White. White Mike. Imagine a more Kentucky named the White Mike from Tampa.

White Mike from Tampa is here to take the to the topress to the top. Yeah. And who loses? Fishback Nelson. Although Fishback Nelson. Oh, that's badass as hell. The only actual loser is Drew Eccles Drew. Eccles Drew.

You can do it for that. I don't know. Good God. White Mike. That's what we're going to call. by the way, if it gets the starting job. It's White Mike. By the way, it's...

I hope he gets the starting job just so he can play at Alabama, the second week of season, and we have to see a lot of confused Alabama fans being like, boy, that white Mike sure does seem like a nice kid. That quarterback looks real confident. It looks like he's got a lot of work ethic. He's got a good head on his shoulders. He's a game manager, but he's cerebral.

Yeah. Yeah, I really, who, man, there's a lot to like about this team. There's a lot that's super in the air about this team, i.e. the quarterback. The approach, man, the approach is, the approach is not going to change. Although, yeah, their new offensive line coach, as Bill C. points out in his preview, Dale Williams, a guy who's spent the last four years as a high school coach. So he knows how to motivate kids. But he's replacing Neil Calloway who's trash, so whatever. And he does get a lot of experienced guys to work with.

They have, I think, three seniors on the offensive line. They return a bunch of guys who started at least 12 games. So if you're going to replace your offensive line coach, it helps to have a very established unit for him to step in and coach because maybe they won't meet him. That's the hope. Schedule-wise. Jeff Rome,

gonna rock. That's what this equals. Doesn't matter. Schedule-wise. W's. All W's? Just nothing but W's? How about week two at Alabama Crimson Tide?

Dubia. Dubia. Good point. All right. It's turtles all the way down, folks. I mean, Cusa sucks, and WKU is good. You know, maybe you lose at Marshall. FAU is improving.

Maybe you lose at LATC, but, I mean, this is a 10-win team. Okay, sure I will go Here's the question Are they going to be Vanderbilt again? Are they going to get a winning streak over Vanderbilt? You're damn right Because that's in Bowling Green

I think we're pushing 15 points this year By the way, in other news Vanderbilt has to go to Bowling Green this year Contracts are a bitch Contracts are a motherfucker man Yeah So 10 wins Everybody have it with 10?

Yeah, no, I'm going to give you 11 and 1 I'm going to say, yeah, no, they're 10 wins. It's 10 and 2. They're replacing their quarterback. They'll screw up one game based on like HR alone, right? Where they're like, so I'm going to go 10 and 2 for them, and they'll be awesome. And then they'll absolutely wreck the title game and their bowl game, right? Because teams like this, when you give them bowl practices, guess what?

They learn to score more points. Yay! So, yeah, this is 12 and 2. Jeff Rome's going to be the best next coach at the University of Florida. Did I say that out loud? I always do that. Oh, boy. Always, God.

Whoops. He's like Bobby Petrino without all the Bobby Petrino. Yet. Give it time. Remember, any football coach you like can turn into a horrendously amoral character of infinite villainy at any second. On a long enough timeline, all coaches are Bobby Petrino. Yeah, or worse.

Or worse. Sick em bears. I just want to point out one game you might want to watch for Slaughter and 100 point potential, Bowling Green, Kentucky, October 1st, Saturday, the Houston Baptist Huskies. You ever heard of the game? You will after October 1st. I mean, we already mentioned Baylor once in this minute. I was going to say Houston Baptist probably plays Baylor, but.

Yeah, no, no, yeah, I don't even think they're on Baylor. Damn. This is, this is ugly and awkward. Yeah, they're bad. Like, they're super, they're super fucking bad. And this might be, like, a hundred point warning. Okay. For my team, I'm going to, I'm going to give you the first of my five group of five trivia questions.

Are you ready? I'm ready. On a yards per play basis, who was the best group of five defense last year? Was it either Temple or Yukon? That is incorrect? yards for play defense yeah

hmm I am I'm gonna I'm gonna you know I'm just gonna throw it a weird one Louisiana Tech good guess the answer is San Diego State allowed

4.66 yards 9th in the country sandwich right between Florida at 8 and Florida State at 10 they they run 335 You know, they have some losses, but not a ton. They bring back most of their key starters on that defense.

I like the Aztex. I think they're fun. They get to play Cal very early in the season. A Cal team that has lost the number one overall pick to the NFL is in. Oh, there is no chance Cal wins this game. I mean, there is a, there are some questions, Cal. That's all I'm going to say. um so they have a chance to get a technically signature win early if they can get that one

and then you look at the rest of the mountain west and it's like what are what are we what are we worried about here i i kind of like san diego state just to just to be a fun team that you look up down the line you're like wait they're they're not to know what the hell what are we supposed to do with this team i haven't watched them all season except for cal fans sorry cal fans the the defense was the strength they return almost all of it the offense is just there tagging along right um and it who cares what they return probably enough to score three points that's what you need been your san diego state uh yeah i mean they're in a they're in a really weak division yes they might be the easiest division favorite in the country yes um may you know maybe you throw out i don't know uh wk u or

whatever but that's that's not a strong division and sds u looks like a clear favorite there i mean After the Cal game, they only play two teams that Bill has projected to be better than 80th, and that's at Northern Illinois and at Utah State. Everybody else they play the rest of the way is projected to be straight garbage. You even get Hawaii at home. You don't even have to cross the ocean. You do have to go to South Alabama, though. And they're like a run first team.

They are going to protect their defense, and they're one of the few teams that actually talks about doing that, that does that. they're actually like pretty fun to watch um and they like to grind people down and in addition to that their special teams are awesome and they have a great great kick returner rashad penny their leading tackler last year uh a two star he's a rising senior his name is Calvin Munson so this is a man named Calvin who was underrated who probably felt as though he was underrated and now he hits people on bad teams and that's fun yeah yeah you don't want to I I think this would be, this team hurts to play. Like, they're one of the things that, yeah, like, maximal pain when you play them.

So, they are your pick. I mean, I'm fine talking about this, DSU as our Mountain West team. Like, what is there to say about Boise State? They'll win 11 games. San Diego State's also coached by a retirement age man named Rocky. And the team is, by the way, everything that you would expect that team to beat, right? Rocky's team. Rocky's team.

Defensively tenacious. Run the ball. Occasionally pull some chicanery on you. Basically. I mean, they won 11 games last year. I honestly don't know that I tell you I watched a single one of them. But that's a thing that they did. That's the thing that a lot of teams didn't do.

So whatever, man. I remember last year they were kind of getting a lot of 10-win hype, and they lost three games at Cal. Okay, fine. At Penn State, okay, fine. South Alabama and everyone sort of wrote them off and then they peeled off 10 wins in a row and my favorite thing about Bill's preview on them is he has the performance versus Vegas in each of their games so one is okay they they missed by they were under by 14.5 the Vegas

line then by 24.5 the Vegas line and then for a couple weeks they were about even and then they're over 17 over 26 over 39 over 20 over 10 over 22 and in the bowl against Cincinnati they beat Vegas by 34 points it's almost like Rocky Long like tanked for a little bit and then and look at the look at the like a card shark look at the scores that they allowed after the Penn State loss where they gave up 37 points they gave up 7 14 7 14 17 3 14 I mean this is like watching a very nervous person at a blackjack table who's like I just don't want to bust I don't care if I win I just will feel bad if I go over 21 When you play San Diego State, you get to score once.

You get one score. Use it wisely. When Rocky was growing up, he only had half to score. It's a different time. You kids are spoiled. Spencer Picatin. I want to go to the Fun Belt. Fun Belt.

Fun Belt, Sunbelt, some of the finest late season viewing, I think that you can get. I wanted to kind of go on, like, in terms of. teams the perpetually underrated Appalachian State, obviously probably like the pick for the conference, a relatively seamless transition to FBS status, so much so that, oh, look, guess who's coming to town this year? Miami, is that who you're referring to? Before that, guess who they get to play to start the year right before a massively tight media game against Virginia?

I mean, they share sort of a common history in terms of, you know, the Heisman and things like that. Oh, that was, yeah, they play at Eland on September 1st on a Thursday. Yeah. On a Thursday, son? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So they, you're going to get to see App State early, and you're going to see a defense that pretty experienced, if nothing else.

else so uh have fun have fun Miami I'm sure I'm sure this won't be the thing that makes you immediately worry that Mark Rick's was perpetually underachieving at Georgia I'm sure it's gonna be fine you're gonna be great they also have a deeply Christian quarterback roster because the the starter is named Taylor Lamb and then they have a red shirt freshman named Jake Easter yeah I mean I assume that they're recruiting like Howard Advent or something. And then the quarterback who is not going to get playing time, his last name

is Thomas. He's his dad's abilities. He's doubtful. Doubtful for the game. Lack of, lacks confidence. Isn't he always? Stick your hand under the sinner's butt and feel the

risen ball. We got a good feeling about Juko transfer prodigal son. I think he's going to be good. yeah i this this team is this team is very fun that they're not going to stretch the field a lot you know they're not that kind of team but they will beat you up they're a very very like tennessee Tennessee has a very difficult game against them you don't want to you know like that feels a little weird to say uh but then again i remember when tennessee was consistently

good so damn you old so i'm real old i remember when tennessee could be wow That game has the hallmark of game that Tennessee wins, but doesn't win as cleanly or comfortably as certain members of the fan base or the media perhaps would like. And so everybody immediately starts to panic rather than saying Tennessee beat like a perfectly good team. Not an amazing team, but a good team. How many people going to come out of that game and be like, I can't believe we did that against an NFCS school. That Butch Jones, he's a motherfucker. or he doesn't know what the hell he's doing. We need to drown him tonight.

We need to do what we did with Lane and run him off. You didn't run off, Lane. We ran him off. We ran his ass off. We need to go get Kirby smart. We didn't make the smart hire. We made Urban Meyer quit because he was bored. Make his ass quit by laying limp and hoping he loses interest.

Yeah, who do you see his loss in this schedule? Because, by the way, Miami could leave him. lose that game. Yeah. Miami could lose at Ab State easy. Like that's the thing that could happen. Yeah. It would be weird but it could happen. It's a noon game by the way. A noon game at Boone, North

Carolina. Jesus. What did you do, Miami? What did you do? Noon and Boone, those folks will only been drinking for 13 hours. Shine don't count. It's a tonic. It's not blood alcohol count if your blood is mostly cheer wine anyway. Yeah. If you

want, by the way, if you want like the it's lit alert for this schedule because I think Appalachians and State can beat everyone on the schedule Yeah, Georgia Southern Yes, sir! Paul Stadium in Statesboro Below the Nat line.

Yeah, that has a lot of weird game potential. Yeah, man. If you haven't been to Statesboro, man, the Nats and the fried chicken, both peerless. Yeah. Yeah, it's a good team. It's a fun team. I will

I'm willing to say 10 wins. I feel fine about that. I'm going to say they knock off either. I'm going to say they knock off Miami. I don't think that. It's hateful, but man, it would, in terms of games that I want to see happen just because I'm a mean-spirited person, that's really high up there.

That's really, really high up there. Are you trying to say Mark Rick's going to lose a game? He shouldn't? I mean, part of me wants it to happen because Michigan fans will crow about it. and we'll be like, hey, man, at least Miami had the guts to play them on their field. Also, don't write off Georgia State. After all, they did whoop Georgia Southern last year.

Literally anything is possible. All things are possible. Yeah, I'm going to call 11-1. I think it's an 11-1 team. That's a shot you called. I like it. I'm still saying 10. I'll go 10.

I think that this is a good year for the Sundel. we can finally see some like these call-up teams Georgia Southern and App State I feel like they sort of like for a while it's been like okay Arkansas State what else but now they've got an actual sort of upper tier

they can build sort of an identity that's not just that's the football that's on on Wednesday morning we should note that Arkansas State plays Auburn this year so by the way can I give you the balls out team just real quick we can't talk about

them in depth but the team that's the most fun to watch in this conference, Arkansas State. Man, Arkansas State's so much fun to watch. They don't care at all. I have one thing to say about Mac. Roe the boat. That's it. Row the boat. Row the boat.

Roll the boat. Ro the boat. Can we end with my other four trivia questions for you all? Sure. Okay. Oh, yeah. All right. Okay, so we already answered the San Diego State question.

All right. We'll start with what I think is an easy one. What was the last group of five school to be a member? of a current Power 5 conference. I'm going to say they're in the American. Okay. Am I right? Sure, I'll give you that.

Yes, you're right. Okay. And I'll say that that team was... Man, it depends on what you count as that. No, Tulane, wasn't it? SEC? Yes, yeah. The answer is Tulane.

SEC until 19. 66. Great job. Who is the active group of five coach, the active group of five coach, who has the most bull wins in his career? Not necessarily as a group of five coach, but just career. Tommy Towerville. That is also correct. He has seven, although he's going three, at Cincinnati. What was the last group of five school to be ranked top ten in the AP preseason poll?

That's not out yet. The coach's poll is Houston is not in the top ten. neither is USF haters oh god it would be a USF and a Stanford homer all year this is going to be very strange so is it not Boise State get that your answer that's my question

I was going to say I'll go ahead and just like push my chips in and I'll say Boise State that is correct it's Boise State in 2011 and your last question who is the longest tenured group of five coach this used to be

yeah this was Troy yeah but he done he done retired so now this now this gets kind of complex after 84 years at Troy it's not Doc Holiday is it I mean he's got his name and his whole aura just makes it seem

like he's been places longer than he has I will tell you this coach has been his current school longer than every SEC and ACC coach currently in their job Wow, so like six years He's been there At least six years

Is it Middle Tennessee? Yes, it's not Rick Stock still Okay, so if it's not Rick Stockstill Give me a minute It's not It's not Mark Hudspeth No No

You guys almost slept I know is it David Bayliff The answer is No no no no no Is it Frank Solich? The answer is Frank Solich

Oh I heard in late 2004 And almost Outshines every Pact 12 coach as well In terms of Juanja Biddy Yeah man

And he's he's really Garnered the success To really stay there Yeah no it's been it's been a fine It's been a fine tenure At Ohio Yeah I mean I'm not being sarcastic

That came out really bitching and sarcastic but that's my normal sound. Oh, I think Spence, Nebraska would be happy to have his nine wins a year. You think? How have they been without him? How'd that go? Well, they carried on the tradition for a while, but... Yeah, are you saying they fired a coach who wins nine games a year?

Never done that before.