Shutdown Fullcast - Talkin Bout The Noles! Week 10, Reviewed

Episode Date: November 4, 2019

An actual discussion about Willie Taggart’s firing at Florida State after just 21 games at the job, everyone wondering what a grown man has to say to get kicked out of the Liberty Bowl, clowning on Nebraska because we can, a brief mention of that whole Georgia-beating-Florida thing in Jacksonville, extended wowing at how bad Arkansas and Chad Morris has gone,  and an appreciation of the only college football stadium that could be a level in Tony Hawk Pro Skater 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 man you're hearing this after a weekend in america's ninja warrior course if you don't know what that is it's duval county aka the city of jacksonville florida where a good number of us attended the live shutdown fullcast by us i mean those listening and those actually doing the podcast since you know we kind of had all be there and some of you some of you you all had to be there but some of you did not attend from what I understand

there are excuses about being hundreds and thousands of miles away those are excuses I'm just going to be like Will Mustchamp when a defensive lineman comes back and says he was being held don't come back and told me you tell me that you couldn't make it don't tell me that a job was holding you no excuses y'all

if you can't if you can't close in space and make the tackle and finish the pursuit. Well, the problem was you're set up before the play began, right? Correct. You had too much distance between you and the objective before the play even began. So you should have moved to Jacksonville a year ago. You know, there's a way you can make it up to us if you didn't go to the show. And what is that?

That would be to purchase a shutdown full cast Jacksonville Nights themed a t-shirt, which you can do right now on our. Forever Fave Sponsors, Homefield Apparel. That's homefieldapparel.com. Right now, you can go to our favorite website, pre-owned airboats. com, and you can see the shirt designed there. You can purchase it if you enter the promo code Jack's Cast. That's J-A-X-Cast, all caps, one word.

You can get $10 off. So go there. I was told by our sponsors last night that we have sold and I'm quoting here a whole bunch of shirts from people who in no way could have been at this show

and so you can just lie to people right? Oh yeah I was there what are some of those glorious locations that are now South Dakota we had South Dakota we had Vermont we had one in Germany no you never know somebody could have flown into randy savage international airport non international airport

i was very disappointed that they have an international airport in jacksonville i will say this about the jacksonville airport as we were circling and looking for jason it's a very quick loop if you're going through there none of these like five minutes state-to-state deals though in trying to speaking a quick loops talk about how we it's more specifically you and richard yeah enough with trip advisor let's let's talk about you and you and our oldest son yeah i called it america's ninja warrior course and i'm really not exaggerating because everything in jacksonville has to be surmounted via bridge ramp some form of hop skipping jumping over overpasses and under underpasses can i defend the bridges for a second

please they're preventing you from touching Jacksonville that's true that's true I do like I enjoy that Pittsburgh basically if you wanted to make Jacksonville you took the Sim City blueprint for Pittsburgh and said but what if more bridges um Jason by the way is recording this from somewhere in Orlando and he's in a conference room where business is done and someone is doing some sort of business behind. It continues to be done in real time. Yeah, we are here for Universal Studios. It was daughter's birthday present,

and I'm just making a regular work trip while also going to a theme park from time to time. Yeah. I said, hey, is there anywhere in this hotel, this complex, where there's no music happening that I can just sit for a little bit, and they're like, yeah, go sit in the business room. But people also come through the business room, so we're going to get some ambience anyway.

But that's the update on Orlando. Ask them questions about Rutgers football. Or ask them if they think that they can replace Willie Taggart. There is that, which, by the way, as a spell one can cast, finding the money for the buyout with Florida State Boosters in about 48 hours, that's a superpower and a spell. that's deep dark magic that's sorcery if you will and we'll get to that we did manage to traverse the wilds of jacksonville this weekend um all for not as uh as the bad guys one as the georgia bulldogs who in one of their two times they actually get out of the house a year and have fun as if painting by numbers woo i'm gonna say woo a lot jacksville is like a mommy and me pottery based economy it really is it's like it's like build a bear but but for a weekend of milk toast adventure, right? And the empty bins of animal skins are,

those are exactly the same. Exactly the same. So, yeah, Florida Lost and Richard Johnson of bannersociety.com. The website that this podcast is anchored to. The college football community website, you know, hive mind determining how we speak about the sport, the collective. that makes it sound like we're all boning but we're not that attractive yeah or that we have some sort of inefficient huge farm which that part completely true that's a genuine business goal of mind yeah yeah that's really the business plan behind all of this rudabegas for all the the game itself might have stunk the adventure afterwards was also pretty lackluster because um we had to tell everybody yeah we have to get back from the stadium if you've ever tried getting out of this stadium after the cocktail party you'll

know that like a roach motel it's very easy to check in very difficult to check out everybody is trying to get out at once and jacksonville as we said a series of overpasses underpasses draw bridges bridges and five lane highways leading to nothing in particular so you're going to be there a while richard and i decided to walk away from the stadium until traffic became something less than completely gridlocked how long a good game-based strategy for most for most college football environments. This is true. What did Richard and I have to do? We thought we'd have to walk 20, 30 minutes. An hour later, we finally stopped when traffic had thinned out and we had walked far enough away from the stadium. By that time, we had settled up next to

a graveyard. So yours truly and Richard Johnson were standing next to a graveyard waiting for an Uber or a lift to connect. Lyft finally connected. We got out of there thanks to Tiffany's fantastic white ultima with custom red leather seats,

by the way, as if you weren't like driving home the point that this was not to be our weekend. Yeah, Georgia red leather seats for the lift driver

who rescued us from the graveyard where I will say as an adult, I peed. I had to. That's in the notes right here,

peed in the cemetery. If you were really committed to the bit, you would have peed on the leather. I peed. I was not going to do that to Tiffany. She was our- That's fair. She can't help her raising. Yeah, no.

She saved us and red leather seats or not. I had to give her all due credit. I did pee in a graveyard in Jacksonville, Florida this weekend. I feel like it was the perfect way to really, like, cap the weekend. You know who else peed in Jacksonville, Florida? In some place they shouldn't have. Who? Todd Grantham.

That's right. Todd Grantham. This is a great time to tell you. tell you to subscribe to our read option, which is the Banner Society newsletter. And if you were subscribed before yesterday, you got to see Spencer put out a newsletter at like two and the, well, Jason puts out the newsletter because he does all the real work. But Spencer wrote the words, along with young Alex Kirchner, detailing all the ways in which young Todd Grantham, old Todd Grantham, excuse me, might be removed from our lives by various

cartoon methods. Leave them on ice flow, get him, lure them into a sack so you could pull them away. There's a lot of different ways to get Todd Grantham out of your life. All of them are basically

shorts from a Wiley Coyote scenario, but they're effective. That's why they're classics. We haven't done them yet, but really, we can't do them soon enough given going six for 12

on third downs and giving up everything from third one to I believe 3rd and 18 at one point and losing track of Georgia's best receiver on a formation that they hadn't shown all day. Yeah, real basic good high school stuff that we're just missing in the name of

Emotional Blitzing! You know, for somebody who's so fond of that one hot air balloon tweet, I feel like you would think this is funnier. If it were not my team, absolutely, absolutely. But instead, you know, if this were Canadian football, he'd be the greatest defensive coordinator of all time. Unfortunately. Then we'd have emotional second down blitzing.

Go! Then he could potentially give up a third and 119. Oh, the dream. Yeah. The only other thing I would like to say about this game is that Jake Fromm may be the quarterback who did the least to have the most impact. Jake was just going to break you off exactly as much as you needed to beat you. I can't decide if that's more frustrating than somebody throwing like eight TDs and going for 900 yards to beat you. or whether somebody throwing for like, you know,

250 and two TDs, but looking absolutely lethal in the process. I will point out how Georgia is this quarterback. He kind of plays golf. Think about that. Fewest shots to put you under? Yeah. That's, that's indeed.

Puts his way down the field. Jake Frawl may be the best quarterback Georgia's ever had. And I say that because he's got the most golf-like game. So kudos. Kudos to him. that's that's about the kindest thing i can say you know florida was on the whole absolute trash and todd grantham should be kidnapped and put into the bear exhibit at a zoo that sounds fun though they'll feed him

you know he won't have to wear pants seems like he would love that he can just mall things randomly right yeah i mean i guess if the goal is to find him somewhere where he can be happy without bothering anyone that would be the humane thing to do so it's good of you spencer well you know as as long as he doesn't have to do something a third time i think he'll be fine yeah my um i like that this game basically the decisive moment was georgia ripping off a big gain getting a very rare explosive play which sort of ties up a season long a plotline on this podcast about Georgia being unable to accomplish those, that it just so happened to occur in a game that, well, all of us were paying close attention to.

But it just so happened to occur in a game that would upset the mathematical majority of Banner Society podcasters. I find that humorous. Yeah, I as well. I also, there's that, and then there's also how it occurred, which was, what was the because they're just basically a drag route that had some weird. Oh, yeah, it was a drag route across.

It was a drag route by Cager across the formation that just turned up to kind of like a wheel. Yeah, kind of a downfield wheel. So, like, Fromm threw it like eight yards. Yeah, yeah. Also, the winning, the like game clinching completion, right? They're like, it was a long completion. That's a long completion if you've been, like, nibbling away.

So congratulations to Jake Fromm and the Georgia Bulldogs, the mighty nibblers, they are. You're the better team. You're boring as hell to watch. Oh my God. Like seriously. They really do mall you like a bulldog with. They just gum you to death. They do. They can't get, they can't get like that much

of your arm in their mouth. So they're just like, I'm going to take it one chunk at a time. They just slobber on your arm until it dissolves. Yeah, so the mighty nibblers, the Georgia Bulldogs. Congratulations. I hope you lose every single other game and have a miserable rest of your year. but you beat us. So that's your SEC East report for the week. Let's move on to more exciting things.

At least two far more exciting things happened this week. Do we want to go with the one that, what do you want to start with the one that happened on Saturday or the one that's happened mostly on Sunday? I don't know, let's get that fresh meat on Sunday. Okay, so how many games did Willie Taggart coach for Florida State University? 21. 21.

21. 21. 21 is that a lot that's not a lot jason that's not very many no they that's um that's that's that's barely uh let's see season and a little over season and half right yeah yeah that's that's weird like i saw uh a few people were saying like you know just objectively this is this is this is this is strange i don't think i've ever seen this before we're like you know we've seen a coach get fired after two years maybe we've seen a coach get fired during year two

we've seen this when there's like off-field circumstances but like strictly for football reasons as far as we know at time of recording that's a new one when the team is not worse than it was in year one like for as bad as they look right now they were way worse in year one the plot line that I love here is

or the one that I'm choosing to savor is that this happened on the heels of a baddish loss to Miami because it makes it seem as though they fired Taggart because they're just really petty about losing to the other big Florida schools. And I respect that. I'm not laughing. I respect that. I'm laughing in recognition. Yeah. I mean, it's not inaccurate. But an improving team. Like, that's the other things that there are so many things about this that do not make sense from the start right one thing is the short-handed firing i know i can name you know three four five coaches who are much worse at their job than willie taggart who did who got a lot longer than 21 games right mike locksley

at New Mexico, maybe the worst head coach I've ever seen got more games than this, right? But, you know, Michael Oxley didn't get another job, so we don't really have to worry about that as a point of comparison to do it. Yeah, and if he did, it would go great. I'm sure. Mike Loxley also had some other circumstances, which I think bolster your case, you know. As far as I know, Willie Taggart didn't punch anyone. Punch a staffer in the course of these 21 games?

As far as I know, no, he did not, right? So he's got that going for him. Yeah. There's also this, that, you know, if I think about people who receive chances that were much longer than this with much worse results, right? Anything they have in common? You know, I thought that was going to be it. And in part, yeah, yeah, because it would be really disingenuous to discuss this without noting that Willie Taggart is black. And as a black head coach, he was only.

given 21 games with an improving team. Not a great team. It's very fair to go ahead and say that you didn't like what you saw out of the team because it was below the historical standards of what Florida State was doing because it was hard to watch because they struggled to find an identity on offense because they have arguably wasted two prime years of Cam Acres career, right? that Cam Acres, a great player and a guy who could have been the anchor for that entire offense as a productive entity for a winning team, he doesn't get to do that now, right? This came up on PAPN, and I would be, although I'm loath to recognize that show, I would be curious to hear what you guys think.

What do you think this regime would have looked like without Cam Acres, and do you think he might have gotten the hook even faster? I don't know if you can get the hook faster. Like, can you think if somebody was fired after one season for anything other than, like, for anything that wasn't off the field? There was the, who was the Southern Miss? I mean, you have to pull off something like turning 10 and 2 to 0 and 12 or whatever that was. You got to be Ellis Johnson, right? Ellis Johnson, maybe one of, maybe one of the worst hires in the history of college football. I personally am on the, uh,

these stat nerd running backs don't matter train so like i don't know how much of a difference it really makes there like if you don't have an offensive line that nothing else matters and florida state hasn't had an offensive line since i don't know 2014 or so since uggle was a pup yeah and there's this too like did you did you also fire somebody in the middle of year two, when it is a known quantity, a fact that was not disguised either in the higher, in the process before, in research, or by data that this dude was a three-year project. And in both of his previous stops, we're talking extensive rebuild. We're talking drywall gets ripped out.

We're talking a process where in year three, that's when things start to congeal and they start to really work, right? You knew this was going for year three. And you knew that year two might not look that great. However, we didn't even get there. So what was the thinking? That's, so we asked this a lot at this time of year. And that, that is what brings up for me, what is the most baffling part of this, which is even if you are trying to be USC to the hiring punch unless you have a very specific target in mind who is going to you know tacker was an extremely or and i would argue still is a a promising a promising coach with a lot of a lot of good years left ahead of him who on earth is going to take this job don't say p j flax let's save that for next

episode but who wants who wants this job now knowing that uh knowing that a 21 game hook or less is lurking out there yeah also this also if you do get that right then what does that say about the administration that they gave you that what was the difference i would be interested to see what the difference would be between uh you the person who gets three full years and tagger because I bet the numbers aren't going to be that much different, right? That's not. And it's honestly not like, it's not like Taggart walked into a great situation. No.

No, no, no. Walked into a horrendous situation. There's an entire APR situation of Florida State. You know, there is an offensive line that it's still going to take two full recruiting cycles just to get them up to okay. Well, at least his predecessor is, you know, is. I can't even finish this joke. Yeah, his predecessors at Texas A&M. I was going to say at least,

his predecessors guaranteed $75 million at an SEC gig. Yeah. Also, by the way, it'll like just like, where was this urgency a week ago? I know y'all lost to Miami. That's the thing. That's the thing I keep coming back to. Is that how petty the Florida schools are?

I'm sure, Bud Elliott, uh, another fine member of Banner Society will have a better explanation for that than this. yikes dude i mean if you want to know where they didn't actually deliver in the way that i think mattered most recruiting like taggart was not a top 10 recruiter which is stunning to me if you want to go like oh it's stunning to me because of his history as far back as western kentucky yeah of getting guys

to western goddamn kentucky no dude dude completely and utterly recruited his ass off at those spots right at both recruited well at USF and he recruited really well um you know relative to the school size and reputation at western Kentucky so what happened there like that's that's another that one is a tricky one because 2018 that's that's a short yeah short time span class right right and it wasn't bad it's I think it's this one is the one you point too as you know it wasn't shaping up to be an excellent class and like I mean even with that like there's still time you know and even with yeah even with that

it's incomplete yeah well like I mean currently right now ranks 16th okay it's not not bad a lot of room to grow 16th with what 16th and 19 commits yeah that's potentially a top 10 class you know I don't know way to know You know, no way to know where it ends up. But, like, a hurting's not bad at all. No, it's not bad, you know. But it's probably, if somebody said, is it disappointing compared to what Florida State could expect? Yeah, I think so.

I think so, you know. That's that and that and the usual shuffling of offensive coordinators is probably, you know, a thing. Also, you know, they were sloppy on the field. You know, I know you're still learning to do things, but, like, not an impressive football team. No. at all not and to be clear though we're taggart enthusiasts certainly not up to the standard that you expect from a program with the pedigree and the resources of florida state however 21 games and now you're starting over again yeah that's for a lot of reasons we would have liked to see him at least get the full two seasons and then if you say it's not working well you know at some even if you have to make a quick cook if it's not working it's not working you know certainly it's agree this isn't fSU standard all that like not trying to be blind apologists here um and also recognizing that the new timing of the early signing period does completely change everything like if

you want to if you want to ever dig out of this at some point you know you need a coach who has the time to actually you know get started but like for the further complicated the irony's there is like you were literally starting over within a rebuild um the thing about the thing about this one is like Taggart's career is just very hard to assess like WKU accomplish things there that never been done before same with USF it took a while

like shit was not good for two years until it suddenly clicked two and a half years and then Oregon what in the world can we make of that he was pretty good when Herbert was healthy and then FSU is another just complete question mark because he had nothing

to work with on the offensive line so like the career to this point is just a huge huge question mark. And like, it was easy when he was hired. Most of us, most of people in our corner of the internet looked at like, you know, looked at the track record and said, you got to look past the win losses. You got to look at the context. It's great. This is going to work. This is a great fit. This is going to work at FSU. And at the same time, we looked at Mario Cristobal at Oregon and said, you know, eh, they hired a guy because the players liked him. That's not enough. He'll leave, you know. And now Oregon might go to the

playoff. Well, no, Oregon could finish with 12 straight wins. Yeah. Which,

by the way, that entire situation happened, right? Like, this is FSU getting first in on the big school

buyer's market, right? Like, getting first shot at a coaching search. In part, I think, you know,

at least, like, in terms of being first in the market, part of that pressure there is somebody else jumping in. One of those

schools that will jump in most likely is USC. right we don't know that for sure doesn't know who they're going to get and who again i'm not convinced needs to be doing anything other than taking deep cleansing breaths right now right on the other hand you know like we say yeah they're going to get rid of of clay helton okay you think you know what uc's going to do you can identify clay helton they have they have hired a former colorado athletic director who was once told to quit and

then said in the press conference i don't know why i'm leaving so i'm sure i'm sure everything will just totally snap into place there at USC that means Dan Hawkins Dan Hawkins to USC oh is time yes hey by the way has not doing as good as expected in the FCS this year but still find a fun program wait I didn't actually know Dan Hawkins wasn't doing radio still where's he at yeah he's uh which is it uh which you which you see is he at yeah it's uh Davis you see Davis I'm just looking after a record so one of those ones of a weird mascot. I think UC Davis is pretty standard.

I don't think they're like Santa Cruz. Yeah. Yeah, they haven't been near as good as expected this year, but still pretty good. But like the thing I wanted to say about Oregon and Cristobo and Taggart is like, I am just out for good forever from now on. I'm trying to predict coaching hires. It's a great. It's a roll of the dice.

Like I'll, you know, this coach is cool. This coach has a fun offense. This coach says funny things. Like all that is on the table. But like asking me to. predict who's going to succeed and fail i am out on that like even the very smartest people can't guess you know like no let's just have fun with it yeah i don't mean and by the way like USC they're they're doing this in part like florist is doing this in part go ahead sort of get

you know jump the gun on USC on a USC hired that we're not even sure is happening exactly like that that's another thing there's a lot of ifs here and you know if there is any competing for the services of whoever Florida State is targeting that that's also a real good question are they a current coach are they somebody who is coaching for another major power five school where it's going to be a dog fight in terms of contracts and bidding and outbidding right there's also the question by the way of like you know if you're going after somebody who has an existing job the security at hand given the volatility of everything that's happen at Florida State. Yeah, man, that might be a question. I don't think having a job at a Florida

school, by the way, is, you know, the automatic that it used to be. And I think that every single one of the majors in Florida has proven that, right? Like, it was like, okay, you get to Florida and you're either going to be what, you're going to be a Miami coach that goes to the NFL, you're going to be Steve Spurry, who stays there for 10 years. You're going to be Urban Meyer, who manages to win a couple of national titles or you'll be Bobby Bowden, right? You'll end up staying there for, you know, 20 years plus. These are dynasty jobs. They're not dynasty jobs. None of them are, especially Florida. You know, Florida and Miami, both, you know, have had a lot of turbulence over the last couple of years and have struggled to sort of adjust to whatever the new environment is, which I think the new

environment there is everyone's got a team in Florida now. Everyone recruits there. It's far more competitive than it used to be. And the three teams at once, all trying at once, makes a much more competitive, difficult environment to succeed in than they've ever faced before. So I don't know if it's quite the job that it used to be just in terms of how fast can I succeed, you know, because, man, Jimbo Fisher's a good coach. The end there, the end was not good. And that doesn't just go for the last year, you know, there was, there was an ugly downturn there. Once they, once he lost his, you know, generational talent of a Cuban. be yeah and i mean i think the era that we and most of our readers and listeners grew up and

we will probably always have the idea that one state florida can support three national title contenders at the same time for decades at a time and that's counting on a whole lot more than just good players which you will never again have the same monopoly on them that you had into 80s and early 90s and like you know FSU like where you go from here like I don't really want to get into

they could hire this guy and that guy and all that stuff just in general like you had a dude who was demonstrably a lifelong fan and left a really good job and he only got 21 games how many think you are going to get so I don't know man

like it's a it's a top it's a top 10 job but like I might stay put I mean I might stay put because there is one part of that that says we have standards

and then there's one evaluation of that that says you're delusional right and you know like that's and that goes by the way with any school that has ambition right that's it's true there's some fringe element

of whatever you expect of somebody that will end up being delusional right if you just have the highest possible standards especially for programs that have enjoyed success for as long as Florida State has historically, you know, there's always going to be an element of fantasy in terms of how good you could be, right? Because someone's going to be disappointed. It doesn't matter, right? That's how it works, you know? That's half the point. And it's whether you can sort of

tamp down the delusional. And I'm not just talking about fans, by the way. You know, you're talking about admins and boosters as well. Oh, yeah. I mean, I thought that like shown through pretty clearly. like the school statement was like we have no choice but to get rid of i know what we have no choice but to fire this guy means that means the money guys went rid of him that's yeah i mean and you know what it actually means like if you actually were using the words as they are meant to be used in the english language i have no choice to fire you means you committed a crime or you expose the university to liability on a scale that we cannot tolerate that did not have to look taggart as far as anybody he knows right that's you know who knows we might record this podcast could be like wow man willie taggart

was running an underground casino you know that's which to me i don't think you fire him for that i think you figure out a way to cut everyone else in in the administration on that right if you can do it in florida though it's going to be the whole thing's going to be underwater down there right that was the problem the university was about to cave in he's creating sinkholes with his casino oh you mean that kind of underwater casino wait a second i don't know i don't Yeah, literally underwater. I think it's that you were competing with other boosters underground casinos, right? Like, oh, man, big Jim Colkins, you know, he's been running Talley's best underground casino for years, Willie.

He'll never tolerate this. You know, that's typically what I would think of when you say, oh, man. Willie Tiger. I have to fire you. That's not what this means. You say we had no choice to. It means that somebody with a checkbook was going to close it, which is. It means FSU's actual boss.

whoever that might be. Which is just, man, that's, like, even at Texas, this is the virtue of having a bunch of money and a bunch of boosters checking in, right? There aren't many dudes who can do that at Texas, right? Like, maybe Red McCombs, and even then Red McCombs was, like, pretty patient. Charlie Strong got a good, long trial run at Texas

before they decided, they decided hanging up for good, you know? You can't, you know, you can do that at Florida State because you just don't have the same number of power players. It's smaller, and one checkbook pulls a lot more weight. I don't know who that was, by the way. It's not as easy as, like, used to be like, okay, Oklahoma State two years ago. If Mike only got fired, I know who wanted him fired. It would have been T. Boone Pickens, right?

If somebody gets fired at Tennessee, I'm pretty sure the Haslims were behind that, right? They at least pulled some serious strings to make it happen. That's not the case at Florida State. Oh, to finish the thought from earlier, by the way, USC is like responsible for this on like a couple of different levels because Clay Hilton's in trouble because Oregon ended up pounding to preview what we're going to talk about, cut off a little bit of it now. Oregon ended up pounding USC at home, embarrassing them.

Like, Holly had a great point. On Friday? On Friday about how they might not fire Clay Hilton because he's the one person at USC who hadn't embarrassed the university. With the information that I was working with at the time, that seemed very reasonable. It was. And then new information came to life. namely that USC got thrown around the Coliseum for three hours the other night,

and Oregon beat them by, what, 30 at home in L.A. in front of a good crowd? I don't mean a bad crowd. No, like a lot of eyes, but on national TV, they got destroyed by Oregon, a team coached by Mario Chris Obol, who got that gig because Willie Taggart left for FSU. That's the circle of life, y'all. We've talked about football for a while. We have. Weird.

It feels weird. Feels weird. It feels good. Let's dial it down. Let's let's step back from all this serious business and talk something lighthearted. How about SMU Memphis? Woo! That was just as advertised and I'm still kind of mad that we did not cannonball run it from the Jacksonville show directly to the Liberty Bowl. We're going from Jacksonville to Memphis.

We got direct flights Every Sunday Every Saturday morning We just wrote That's what we do On Mid-American Southwest Continental Championship Airlines Dot Biz

Direct from Jacksonville Semi-National Airport Now I'm trying to imagine him having to say Having to live in the dot-com Air and be like W-WWWWW WWW dot

Yeah I guess he said enough W's journey in his day. You get on them internet, then you come on now. We'll go to Memphis. It'll be SMU, the white collar strangler facing Memphis. Hey man, if I want a right color strangler, I'll call Ryan. Wow. It's right here. Uh, yeah, SMU Memphis, everything is advertised, man. Three hours, three hours of nonstop fireworks, negligent defense, exploding special teams in both the positive and negative sense of the word. At one point, an ESDN SkyCam that seemed to be devoted entirely to DAPS?

Yeah, they just followed the DAPCAM the whole time. A cameraman devoted to an angry Memphis fan who after a face mask call that was, or a non-call, that was like the worst uncalled face mask I have ever seen in my life. Again, Memphis, come for the rest, let's stay for the football. Through the ground. Yeah, through Gainwell to the ground by his face mask. distracting. He was the referee.

He's distracted by all these Memphis special team touchdowns. He's distracted by Antonio Bishop in his magnetic ways. Distracted by all of that, Gainwell gets thrown down by his face mask. And the camera, and I, like, the ESPN's very good at what they do. I don't think we really compliment the men and women. The camera people are, yeah, their production values are terrific. Their directors are terrific. Their production values, like the director, because they saw this angry Memphis

fan absolutely flipping the hell out right and Memphis's crowd and I'm going to put this kindly because I had a divorced uncle who lived in Memphis for a number of years half the Memphis crowd looks like divorced uncles all right I mean looks like are divorced uncles who are very passionate about the Memphis Tigers and they follow this one dude the women and children of course yes and includes them and they follow this one dude who is just heated over this call and let the camera sit on him. He was very theatrically putting his hands over his mouth and going, boo.

Yeah, doing like the theatrical Shakespearean mob boo, right? They follow him for like a minute as he just gets more and more incensed. And then a cop shows up. And they ask him to leave.

And I know the camera person is just sitting there like, no, no, no, this is good. This good. You need to stay on him. This guy's going to completely lose it. Also, Kirk and Chris had to spend the night in the Liberty Bowl, which just delights me. I don't know how you guys feel about it. I enjoy, I enjoy, I enjoy, that they had to, I enjoy that they had to endure some working class accommodations for a minute.

That's, that, that's what I'm very happy about. And I know they were unhappy about it for different reasons, too. Not that different. Not that, no, not that different. But what a joy. What a, what a blast this game was. Memphis ends up winning. and exactly the kind of like high-flying madcap shootout

that you expect the AAC to provide week in and week out. Jason is the AAC like our most barnstorm and freewheel and Mountain West 2000 kind of conference at the moment? Yeah, yeah, completely. I mean, if you want close games and wacky finishes, your best choice is the ACC Coastal. Unfortunately, now you're watching ACC Coastal teams. If you want that with a degree of competence, perhaps not as much money invested into the competence,

but competence nevertheless, you are turning to the AAC, particularly the West. You might want to sprinkle in some UCF in Cincinnati, but the AAC West actually grades out in lots of the computers is better than the ACC Coastal, and in some of them, even better than the one with Clemson in it. Yeah. Yeah. AAC, it gives you a medium-tier competence at maximum volume, and that's all we want. Also, variety. Do you want a true triple-option team, like a seriously true triple-option team? Congratulations, we got Navy.

Do you want like the next-gen-triple-option team playing in, for some reason, its own stadium in the middle of New Orleans with the best logo in college football? Yeah, go to Tulane. do you want undead SMU rising from the ashes like 30 years after dying as much as any program has ever come close to dying with an offense that scores 45 points a game and two extremely happy dudes who run a pony out on the field before the game yeah SMU come on down do you want like do you want fireworks exploding for three hours straight and at least one possibly two players on the team who can go for 350 total yards in three different phases of the game at any point hey Memphis there you go they got a quarterback named white Brady uh and they have a tight end named Joey Magnifico that's just bonus I'm just giving you gravy here at this point because Memphis and like when you get down you go oh man like who are the worst teams you go Houston and Tulsa you watch Houston and Tulsa play they're terrifying both to their fans and to the people

watching them. I love the AAC West. It's like maybe my favorite division in all of football. And then on the other side, you got Yukon. So something for everyone truly. They're contained. I enjoy that Yukons over there like

biohazard. This was very smart of Navy to avoid Yukon. Yeah, we want to yeah, we're fine traveling. We're fine traveling far away from Yukon. Where is it? Stores, Connecticut. Please note that Yukon football is even kept in quarantine in Connecticut, right?

It's getting far away. Nobody shops at. Yeah, that's what you? Stores, Connecticut is a dead mall. Is it the pottery barn? No, it's the notary barn. It's a driftwood clearance house. But yeah, this was a delightful game.

Memphis Forever. I don't really care what they get playoff. Like, they're like, could they make the playoff? Absolutely not. no it's just not it's not gonna happen they're not gonna let you all in because that's not how the system works it's not how america works right unfortunately you're too dope for the playoff yeah too dope for the playoff we just you know what there we go t-shirts available at homefield dot com too dope for the playoff really could make that happen so no i'm not to clip this

it would be actually very easy to make that happen so yeah clip this and just have those ready to go so we can sell them we can do that every year and the top the top G5 team's colors. So like just cycle it out. Last year it would have been golden black. Like it's simple.

We already know how this is going to go. But speaking of SMU their former head coach the one who was doing pretty good at SMU and then left it doesn't seem to be going all that

well for him in the SEC West. Chad Morris, Spencer, you jot it down a few numbers here. I did. I have a few numbers on this. In case you want to know, after losing, they've lost six in a row. Those first three losses, you know, they're all by like around one score. And then, I don't know, their girdle broke. The gut just came flying out.

Jeez. You know? That's evocative. Oh, here in Orlando at Harry Potter World, there's a gargoyle outside of the main castle. actually there's a pair of them they were big fat razorback board hogs

with huge angel wings well yeah because they're dead they've been dead for about three games now I asked my daughter who's like Harry Potter lore master like what are those

and she's like oh they're called flying pigs I looked it up and yep that's it but it just made me think about the razorbacks and all they're going through anyway that was that was a detour let's get back to it That's okay. We're going to, we're going to via flu transport back to the shutdown fullcast

where we are discussing a Dementor's worst nightmare that would be coaching Arkansas because they've lost their last three games by a combined 112 points. A hundred and twelve points. That would be a lot in basketball. Yeah, no, that'd be a real bad run in basketball, right? And the last one this weekend, you lost to Mississippi State, scored 54 on you, I believe. Mississippi State hadn't scored over 30 in like six games. They wanted to ship him off to Rutgers.

All he had to do was play Arkansas. It's not that bad. Exactly. Like, Chad Morris is dying for it. Chad Morris is dying so that you may live, Joe Moorhead. That's how blessed. then you are, that somebody is willing to go ahead. Now he is no more dead.

Yeah, exactly. Joe Moorhead? Obviously, brilliant coach, thanks to Chad Morris. Yeah, by the way, they have three games left. Western Kentucky. L. Louisiana State University. Massive L.

Grande L. And Mizzou, which, as far as I know, that's an L right there. That's Mizzou's ball game. Mizzu is going to care about beating you, Arkansas. Yeah. It could get ugly. I mean, it will get ugly. It's Mizzu Arkansas, but you know what I mean.

Yeah, like, I was like, oh man, does Mizzu have an ugly loss left this year? I'm like, nope, they lost to Wyoming, man. That's it. They took their medicine, right? Like, nope, got my recommended daily allowance of suck. I'm just going to go ahead and be a pretty average football team the rest of the year. They're over with that. And apparently, I don't know, in Arkansas, the dietary requirement.

for how much suck you can ingest in a year, a little different than the rest of us. Got some kind of lapping it up. Just laugh. Yeah, exactly. I don't know. Something about the climate. You need a whole lot of suck. Face down in the trough.

Yeah. Our actions are very intense. We need to rest extensively in between them. Between SEC wins, we need four, possibly five years. every single time. See, to me, I look at Chad Morris. If they fire him right now, I'm like, yeah, I get it. I mean, no problem there.

I mean, at least Florida State, you know, competitive, statistically improving, things happening. You know, still somewhat respectable in terms of recruiting, right? And could, I think, you know, do a lot better. That's, you know, there was at least potential there. And in terms of Chad Morris, you know, and the ongoing confusion about exactly what Arkansas has to do to be successful, right? So in the Massey Composite Computer Ratings, which compile together every rating, Arkansas currently ranks 112th behind Vanderbilt, ULMTSU, and Charlotte. They are the second worst team in all of them. the power five ahead of only records

Arkansas in recruiting rankings by the way currently sitting at 39th and you go ah you know that doesn't sound that doesn't sound too bad yeah that's behind Cal Kansas Minnesota Northwestern oh Iowa behind Northwestern that's

where I'm really like oh oh we got a problem Kentucky North Carolina yeah it's not good oh and and current 16th placeholder Florida State yeah yeah this this to me is what a two-year coach looks like

yeah like if they fired chad morris and somebody will go i don't know you guys said that you know florist date was racist for firing and we're like well uh you know what he was better than chad morris he's doing way better than chad morris chad morris

chad morris just and i don't really know what that deal is I don't know what happened. This is one of those disasters so complete that even if you had said Chad Morris was middling at Arkansas, right? If you had just said, yeah,

Chad Morris has been pretty mediocre. I could have gotten that because you go, I don't know, you know, like this is bad beyond like, this is bad even beyond any understanding of acceptably bad learning. This is one of those things where you just wonder structurally what's wrong there.

You go, I don't know, do you guys, do you not have fresh water? Is there no power in your facilities? Do you not have a wait room? Did you just not build a wait room for like 60 years? Yeah, I don't know. Could be. No, I'm baffled. Someone please explain it to me at Stephen Godfrey,

Stephen at banner society.com. Just send me your full diatribe about how this happened. Yeah, it's not that we are, racist against Chad Morris. We just hate everyone from Edgewood, Texas. Those bastards. Those bastards. It's a total population of 15.06 and we will fight everyone.

They stole our ceramics plant! There's a header in these notes, by the way, that just says Nebraska feels pretty right for jokes. Well, yeah. Yeah, tend to agree. There's a reason for that. Nebraska lost to Purdue.

A little bit of extra mustard on that, by the way. It's Purdue have it starting quarterback, no. Does Purdue did Purdue finish this game with its second string quarterback? No, Purdue's on his third string quarterback. In addition to a slew of injuries, literally too numerous to cover

in the span of time that anyone's willing to devote to Purdue football. Including their only like extremely good players still out. Oh yeah. Yeah, Ron Downmore out. So you're just right now it's just brougham just from it just like

doing what you do in NCAA football where you're like I don't know, is this play work? What does this do? That's pretty neat. Calling really good plays. Yeah, just calling some great ones here, buddy. Pick random. Oh, this is what Corso says I should call.

Nebraska lost to Lee Corso. Nebraska lost to Lee Corso. Amazing. Nebraska lost 3127 to the Purdue Boilermakers. This is, this takes man do you know what scott frost record on the road is i do go ahead one one and eight correct one and eight it's probably because his players are still wearing hoodies can't go on the road wearing a hoodie scowardly i don't want to see these guys in west lafayette

wearing hoodies you should be nude in west lafayette otherwise you're not a tough guy just like joe tiller be nude in the West Lafayette all the time. I bet Joe Teller was nude a lot in Wyoming. Oh, please. No one can see. No one knows. No neighbors. Go out here.

All natural. Yeah, it seems like it would be wasteful to wear clothing there. Yeah, it's just going to get blown off you anyway by the wind, to be clear. Hey, if you go to Cheyenne, you go out to Tiller's place, let me tell you yourself, that guy, no pants. He's a genius. He's a genius, but I'm telling you. note here that he invented the spread offense.

Yeah. When did you think of it? When I was nude! Yeah. And speaking of naked and lacking protection, you know, Adrian Martinez,

kind of regressed. Didn't throw a TD through an interception. It's been pretty lackluster so far in his second season in Lincoln. I don't

no it's one of those things where you just go like i man i don't know if like one thing's wrong with the brasca or if it's like 400 little different things i don't think a lot's changed i don't tend to think change things change a whole lot with the basic makeup of teams from one year to the other maybe over three or four years but not this is this sort of still feels like the same team i mean i i don't want to say i bought in like to the extent that you know people who had them in the national championship odds did. But, like, I figured they'd be quite improved. You know, maybe like a 7, 8, possibly even 9-win type team.

But, like, people had Adrian Martinez in the Heisman odds. Like, in the top 10 of the Heisman odds. That's the part that still amazes me. And, like, you know, he can still put some things together. I'm not going to win a Heism, but, like, you know, he could still prove to be a good college quarterback. Absolutely. I just look back at this offseason.

when like no one knew what to make of Nebraska and yet they were getting added to the odds boards as like you could clearly see when they were individually added because like you know the sports book puts out the 20 teams it figures people want to bet on and then it's like just literally tax on another one and it's Nebraska and they're like I don't know why people are giving us money on Nebraska winning the national each anyway it's been a long a long calendar year for Nebraska. Yeah, currently at 4 and 5. I mean, it could still make a bowl game, but you are pitching,

you're pitching hard uphill to do that, son, if you're Nebraska. Because sitting at 4 and 5, your next three games are in Lincoln, right? You get Wisconsin, which, you know what? I don't know. Screw it. I'm not saying that Wisconsin is capable of anything at this point. mad at y'all thought you

thought you might be good for a second then you just turned out to be Wisconsin good but Illinois is really good that's a quality loss now that's true Illinois is going to like a third tier big 10 bowl game

now so Lovey Smith's gonna beard's gonna get some sun on it it's gonna look resplendent oil it up it's gonna turn gold and love he's just gonna like

all of a sudden like look more biblical and divine with every single passing week, right? Like, when did he get a robe and a staff? That's got to be good for recruiting, right? Who would want to play for Lovy, the Allfather?

Yeah, who would want to play for Lovie? Literal Moses, right? Like, yeah, a sense of direction. Like, like, Illinois football, we're going to meander a little bit before we get to our destination. There's going to be about four decades where nothing happens, sure. Yeah, that's fine. but they get they're at Maryland

which that better be a win it really better be a win because Maryland who if you want to talk about teams people were way too excited about after two regular season games in 2019 yeah Maryland lost again this weekend

and then you get then you get Iowa at home and as always I say If you can't beat Iowa, then I don't know, you could still be pretty good because anyone can lose to Iowa at any point. There you go. So Nebraska, you are still pretty good. Yeah, still pretty good.

I think like getting, but if you're going to get to six wins, you're going to have to surprise somebody in either of the Wisconsin or the Iowa game. And if there's one thing that's surprising about Nebraska this year, is how not surprising their mediocrity has been consistently across weekend. after week after week. That's true. Oh. And if we do have some,

somebody was like, you know, Nebraska feels pretty right for jokes. That's the note Jason has in here, you know, which all I could come up with is, well, they lost to Purdue, which is getting hit by a train, which should be pretty relatable for Nebraska's.

I feel like that's the top five cause of death for Nebraska's. Right. So getting hit by trains. I mean Amtrak either, by the way. I mean like actual steam locomotives. Right. Right? It seems like it's a recreational activity.

It's like splashing cold water on your face. It's like Scott Frost, imagine Nebraska. Yeah. I think train accidents are such a frequent occurrence in Nebraska that you sort of write it off as like industrial shrinkage. You know, oh, we lost another four good men to trains this week. Oh, yeah. Uncle Steve's gone. What happened?

Train. Let's try and cut it down to two per week. Make that a goal. Yeah, call OSHA. We only killed eight people with trains this week. Oh, it's a good job, right? Well, if and I'm looking forward, there's a train. If I'm looking to the side, there's nothing.

I'd rather look at the train. Spent most of my day. Trench warfare against trains, except there's no trenches. Everything's flat. Yeah. How do you win? Stare that cyclops right there in the one headlight, buddy. Tom Osborne did it.

Everyone in Nebraska thinks trains are animals. Yeah, shoot it. It's got tons of good meat. I'm over my limit. It's already smoked and everything. Look at it. Good horse. Look at that horse go.

Look at that long horse. My God. Drew Breeze warmed up the game, warmed up the Purdue crowd before the game. And, you know, I think he showed up because there was a pyramid scheme involved, i.e. Nebraska football. You know, if you just tell one friend Nebraska football's good, then they tell another. Pretty soon we can get everyone to put

Adrian Martinez on a Heisman which watch list, right? Nebraska's lost two in a row to Purdue, even though the moon only let Purdue walk all over at once. These are real joke jokes. No, no, no. You want to jokes. I got jokes. Yeah. More like the porn Huskers, because I watch them get drilled. Yeah.

Yeah, more like the rip-torn Huskers because they were once great and they're now dead. And are you a Nebraska or are you a Nebraska cat? I argue you're a Nebraska can't. Now that was comedy. That was some jokes. There you go. I got all kinds of Nebraska jokes. Speaking of jokes that aren't funny and are very, very real.

UCLA. So UCLA, as we discussed last week, has a clear path to the Rose Bowl. Of course, Chip Kelly would dispute this because he is a predeterminist who believes that once your path is set in motion. And his full name was Calvin? Yeah, the higher power will leave you along that path. There's something far weirder. Oregon State controls its own path, destiny, whatever you would like to call it in theologian, Chip Kelly's Church. To the Rose Bowl.

Oregon State, which beat the absolute shit out of Arizona, scoring its most points in the game since 2012 against Nichols State. Yeah, Oregon State is apparently not bad. And that's cool because Arizona is. Like, the off season you looked ahead at Arizona's schedule, and it was like, all right, you know, they're going to beat Hawaii, and then they got some more basically gimmee wins, and then things get terrible, but there's this game against Oregon State.

they win that and they're going to a bowl Arizona will be fine. Well, they lost to Hawaii and they lost to Oregon State and they still got to play Oregon and Utah and Herm Edwards. So things are only going to get worse. But not for Oregon State.

No, apparently Oregon State did my favorite thing where they died and then they're like, yeah, we went to hell and now we're back! Now we're fine, apparently. Actually, actually, I'm skin's great i don't break out anymore i've lost like 15 pounds i don't know like so i hell's just a sauna yeah exactly i mean it's really not that bad y'all just you know go come back and start

kicking the shit out of people in the fact 12 in the second half of the season there's so many cool people down there that part is really true yeah no hey listen man i met a lot of really inspirational people down there you know um you know did you know mike riley's the devil wow wow they told us the great deceiver would be very charming yeah no

he's massively charming I this is you will know him as the nicest guy in football which is that's what it says

the this point in the season is so special to me because Jason you get to say things like yeah this team they're bad there's no longer

there's not well maybe they'll pull it off maybe things will change no man Steve's not good it's over for you I mean okay so like Arizona if you beat Utah and Oregon

we'll upgrade this to your confusing right that's that's your ambition now yeah yeah if you do that and win the state okay we'll call you pretty good actually we'll just call you a good

win for Hawaii somebody somebody said somebody asked me on Twitter today said is it too late for me to give up on Arizona you know or too soon for me to give up on Kevin someone in Arizona. I thought, you can give up on anybody at Arizona at any time.

Like, who's strung together two good years there in a row? You can give up on any team and any coach at any time. None of them have the right to make you feel like this. That's true. You're not obligated at all. I would say you're way less than obligated where Arizona is involved because consistency has not been thy name over the course of your history. So I suggest the best time to get really pessimistic about Arizona football

is right after a nine or ten win season. If that happens, yeah. Sell, sell, sell. Sell, sell. Sell, sell, sell. Sell, sell. Yeah, did you think about reading a lot this fall? Were you considering maybe rea, you know, like refamiliarizing yourself with a sport that you'd let sort of neglect?

Were you planning on, you know, catching up on the Criterion Collection, watching a bunch of wrestling maybe? Go ahead. Training for a triathlon? Do it. And then come back to Arizona football. The next season, after they've gone three and nine and fired their coach. Spencer, of that list, training for a triathlon and watching a bunch of wrestling,

which one is number one on your goals list right now? Watching a bunch of wrestling. Okay, just check it in to make sure. Triathlon's far too involved. Far too involved. I still, it got in my head while we were playing ping pong in Jacksonville that Spencer should become a biathlete. Which to become a biathlete, I would need to move to someplace that has snow. Yeah.

Right. And I would need to learn to shoot a rifle well. I will tell you that one is logistically difficult, the other physically improbable. We're going to get it done. Can I become a biathlete for some place that doesn't actually have winter sports teams? Right? Can I pay my way in? Yeah, you're going to join like the Costa Rican biathlon team.

Yeah. That is what that couple did from. From Dominica? No, from New York. They, uh, they're like, I mean, were their country. Yeah, yeah. They were like the biathletes from Dominica.

And I think they got like, they got like a stage in. And they were like, nope, later. I don't even know if she showed up. I think he bailed with like. The one who didn't show up is the smart one. Yeah. I bet that caused. I bet that caused friction in their marriage, though.

Like, I try for the country of Dominica, Dana. After all they've done for us. After all they've done for us, making us Olympians? please the other the other thing we have noted here our notes are fantastic for this episode

which is is San Jose State Stadium our most Tony Hawk Stadium so during this game they were hosting Boise State and they were competitive against Boise State they are not often competitive

against Boise State I don't think they've ever beaten them so everyone was watching San Jose State at San Jose State, which almost never happens. We're used to them doing things like going to Arkansas,

beating Arkansas, which that's real. But for whatever reason, everyone just sort of realized all at once what San Jose State Stadium looked like. It's a half pipe. They play football in the middle of it. And one of the

ramps on the side there has no stands, just grass up the middle. it's uh it it it just looks really fun to play video games on crazy taxi maybe some paintball you know all sorts of activities skate skate three where my character goes halfway into it and begins glitching right like oh yeah the yeah the terrible the terrible skating game goes flying out of it that probably is more like san Jose state football that's i think that's a way more representative slice of San Jose

football is it glitched and then it started making weird noises and then it beat Arkansas yeah the question I wanted to throw out there is if there are other stadiums that you look at them and you're like this would be perfect for fucking

counter strike or Tony Hawk or I think of the stadiums that I've been to that I thought man I would really like to I would really like to like do something other than this I think I would want to open up the hogs, feral hog statue for, to play, like, paintball on?

Is it like a capture the flag king of the hill kind of scenario? Right? Put the flag on top of the hogs and protect it. Yeah, defend the hogs. You do that in Arkansas. People will join in. I don't know if they'll be using the same equipment as you, but I would 100% play paintball inside the Jerry dumb.

Jerry might Jerry even got a jail they do have a jail they have like the weird like they have the weird like tears and rafters they've got they've got some really nasty choke points in there right which are really good for for paintball and point control

so yeah like I think that's the way I'm gonna go paintball and Jerry World who says no yeah the only other thing I've wanted to do in Jerry World is to is to play you know like a video game on the Jumbotron

on their massive on the Jerry Tron right because that's the entire stadium is built around a TV you don't get more Texas than that then hey we got a football game going on let's all watch TV yeah excuse me do we're going to just skip ahead to

Rutgers here yeah baby I think it's time to cover Rutgers week so we got a we got a a brainchild, it's getting born. A week or two ago, we looked up and realized, like, hey, we kind of have a lot of posts that relate to Rutgers in the works, which is never really an ideal thing to look up and discover. But we decided, let's actually make it, you know, make it look sort of intentional. So sort of hastily assembled a theme week.

Our first theme week is Banner Society. It's called Rutgers Week. And we're going to try and put out, say, an article or something. so a day on Rutgers stuff it'll be obviously not super reverent of football's mother but uh you know sometimes sometimes sometimes sometimes you got to sass your mom you know and i think that in that spirit i uh i tossed out the preview for Rutgers week today and i got a really interesting question back from reader scoop k at SMK 73 on twitter is Is there any other thing where the inventor of it is now the worst at it?

And a couple of the initial responses were Facebook, the Blackberry. I assume he meant the technological device dot the fruit. Hydrox was my favorite one. Hydrox came before Oreo? I believe that is the implication, yes. Wow. They fucked that up. can we add new york city rap music

oh yeah i was just going to say m&m because whatever m&m does he is now the worst at he invented being m&m that's he's terrible of being m&m there's so many better m&m's out there