Shutdown Fullcast - The Gruntle Episode

Episode Date: October 16, 2024

Investigating degrees of gruntlement, up and down the college football rankingsThe games of Week 8, previewed in various degrees of loving detailFullcast theme song arranged and performed by James YerbyListen to Ryan's other, less harrowing show, We're Not All Like This, and check out his new narrative podcast with Steven Godfrey, Who Killed College Football? https://www.wkcfb.com/Jason's free CFB Watch Grid newsletter and other stuff: https://www.jasonkirk.fyi/Find Holly and Spencer writing and chirping at https://channel-6.ghost.io/Purchase only the finest Fullcast gear at sunny https://preownedairboats.com/

Ooh, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Whoa. Whoa. Ladies and gentlemen, like the early days of NASA, not every launch is successful over here at shutdown. Asa Spencer has a roast beef sandwich smuggled in his clothing. Hey, bud, you okay? That one blew up on the launch pad. I'm sorry about that.

Here's what I want you to do. Here's what I want you to do. Just give me like a 40% welcome. Welcome Great To the shutdown forecast That's coaching We got to say

What's the throw Spencer can make right now Yeah, that's coaching That is, you know what, that is great game management That is understanding context, that is understanding Where the team is at And what you got to do, Brett Venables That's right I don't know why Brett Venables can particularly

way, but sure. Dude's going through it. Okay. He's down there, Ryan. And you know where our boots are? Right there. We can kick him while he's down. People say, you shouldn't kick someone while they're down.

To which I say, when are they going to be closer to your feet? Speaking of the Big 12, can I read an email from Reader Austin? Please. Folks, if you want to get your email read on the show, you can email us if you want at shutdownfulcast.com. One of us will almost certainly read it. But as with the disaster episodes, the way to get on the show, So it's usually to keep it brief. Here is Austin.

It is my favorite kind of email, which is a subject line with a message in it and a blank email body. Turner Gill never started one in five. To be fair, Turner Gill only had two shots at it. Yeah. You know what? You're absolutely right. Yeah. Sorry, Austin.

I think on a long enough time, like Turner Gill could certainly have started one and five. I think Turner Gil would have started all kinds of one-ans. We're not turning. We're not turning on Lance, are we? Oh, God, no. No. All right, by we, I mean Kansas fans, right? Kansas fans are not turning on Lance Lippold, right?

They might be, does, can we move? Austin is, I think. Can we move them over from gruntled? Let's move them over a little bit of gruntled. That's fine, yeah. into ungruntled and not quite disgruntled. Oh, I don't, to be clear, and I think this is obvious based on how Spencer and I act. I don't think recent or even near past success of your football team means you don't get to complain and feel bad feelings.

You can feel bad feelings if you're Kansas, but this would be a very quick like turnaround, right? I think so, but I also understand because. if this were a different, a completely different looking set of toys and a completely different outcome, then yeah, like if they had to replace a quarterback or if they had to replace like, you know, a whole bunch of pieces. But Jalen Daniels' struggles, I think, have made it more cartoonishly unbearable because he was so good. And then under new offensive management, they've not been good at all. Does that make sense? Yes, with the caveat that they have lost every, The TCU game is the only exception.

Four of these losses have come by six points or less. And they have been to Illinois, UNLV, Arizona State, and West Virginia. West Virginia is the one where you're sort of like, maybe that's the one. But like three of these are two teams that are having a pretty good year. That's all. Who would be somebody, though, who legitimately disgruntled? Like if I was saying, not just to ungruntled. Like, I think we would put Kansas categorically in, from gruntled to ungruntled.

He was moved into disgruntled. Auburn. Auburn. I'm looking at the standings to figure out who else might be in gruntled territory to figure out what the other. And by the way, gruntled just means you're cool. You're not great. You're cool. Who here is comfortably riding on the bike seat of expectations?

Not killing it, right? Not killing it by moving too far forward. Not relaxing by moving too far back. and not, like, killing it by moving too far forward. Do you think Auburn counts in this territory? In being gruntled? Yeah. No.

Yeah, I think if they had won the Oklahoma game, they'd probably be gruntled. If I'm scanning the list of possibly gruntled teams, I think Cal is gruntled, like, three and three with some just, like, the losses are unpleasant. The losses are just deeply unpleasant. Like, the flip side is you were in it with Miami, you were in it with Pitt, you got game day, and you showed out for game day. Cal is probably, like, I think they're not clearly in a, like, this isn't working and we're over it,

but they're also not clearly in a, oh my God, we did it. The turnaround, we're here, like, Euro and 3 in ACC play. You can't be. Tennessee is gruntled because we're insane. Okay, that's fair. Do you know who the last guy before Heipel to beat Florida and back-to-back home games was, and this is kind of a trick question

because we don't have one of those hundred-year rivalries? Give you a hint. There's only one in program history. And his names on the fucking stadium. Okay. That guy. Taylor Hicks? Yes.

And what are we talking about in talk radio all day, Monday in Knoxville? Should we bench Nico? That's okay. Sure. I'm going to say, I'm going to try to pick one from each conference. So I'm going to say Cal is our gruntled team in the ACC. In the American. It's like, wait, what?

You're gruntled team. Can I, one more note on them, Ryan, that I think is brilliant. Justin Wilcox is going to give him the same season that he's given them pretty much every year as head coach. It's just going to feel so much different. The numbers are going to, like, he's done something absolutely masterful here, which is, now with Retson. And some of that is conference realignment. It's like, oh, you're playing that Pitt game would have been, I don't know, Oregon State last year, but now it's Pitt.

So it's different, right? Yeah, really. Yeah, exactly. Like, it's a more, it's a different novel, more exciting kind of five and seven. Yeah. If I'm looking for a gruntled team in the American, South Florida is an interesting candidate. They're two and four. They did like, again, they gave a little scare to Alabama.

They were in it for some period of time with Miami. But two and four is not necessarily showing program improvement year over year. But last year was good enough that probably you're just gruntled. your big 12 gruntled team there's a lot of interesting candidates here I know who it's not it's not TCU TCU is not TCU I think is firmly and disgruntled at this point no I think concerned about them if they weren't

frankly yeah yeah TCU Baylor you are disgruntled I think at this juncture in time yes I think that's firmly into dis territory and not un Holly I think you probably are the best source on this is West Virginia disgruntled yet or is there still time. The answer to this question is written in wingdings. Okay. Because, and if you look at what West Virginia has done this season, you will

understand why. Like the answer, if to say this question in human speech, it would sound like an activation code for a sleeper cell. Yeah. Like, hey, everybody, how are you feeling about West Virginia football? Cirrus traveler, iron fortress. Hello. Oh, onk, onk, cloud, nine. The pumpkins are hummus. Triangle. The car is a Mazda. The tulips are red.

Stonehenge. Stonehenge. It suggests some sort of Morgantown stargate that we're activating right now. I got to tell you, it kind of feels like being in a stargate right now. It's the PRT, right? It's the little train. That's how you do. Yes.

Yes. Yes. So my runner up would be four into Utah. Not obviously not disgruntled. But I think Utah was the team that hoped Cam Rising would be healthy for the first time. That's clearly not true. Was like, you know, we've done so well on the Pac-12. We're going to move into the Texas Oklahoma list Big 12.

And like, this is the opportunity. We can immediately step up. And they're not bad, to be clear, but they're not running away with it. Yeah. So I give them gruntled. Yeah. And this is where. Give them Ronald.

Yeah. Um, where, the Big Ten. we have so many choices because there are 18 fucking teams this changes every week right like I would at one point I would have said Minnesota's gruntled but now they've beaten both the southern California teams so maybe that moves you closer to what is the opposite if it's gruntled disgruntled what's at the top hmm in gruntled ingruntled yes yeah extremely ingruntled I upset myself I think Minnesota is in gruntled. I think... Pink with promise. Oh, I think Washington is gruntled. Washington is gruntled because you have to deal with...

We beat Michigan, and that feels good, especially after last year. And then we looked like shit against Iowa, and we lost the Rutgers, and we lost the Apple Cup, but it's not a complete disaster of a season. And also, we know all the talent that left for the NFL and this, that, and the other. Like, I would say Washington feels gruntled. Jetfish is not trying to get the Florida job based on what Washington is doing. I'll tell you that much. I think in terms of being a perfectly neutral feeling, Wisconsin's also right there, four and two, two and one conference.

Yeah. But hasn't been, the two in conference don't feel absolutely awesome. Right. And the one doesn't feel great either. So I think we've managed to balance those two out. I think they're pretty much steady Steve. You know what's gotten, you know what's weird about Wisconsin too is that I think if you look at the Alabama loss in week three, and you said, okay, it's Alabama, you lost your starting

quarterback, whatever. But now, with the benefit of time, it's like, wait, lots of other teams are not losing to Alabama by 32. Uh-oh, that feels bad. Are we that much worse in South Carolina? Maybe. Maybe we are. That's doing a lot of work off of two games, but you go Because remember, transitive winds aren't data, but they're definitely a feeling. That's true. But they are vibes. They are data. Yeah, yeah, they're maybe not valuable.

It's not really what data means. Yeah. They're information for sure. This one's easy. Conference USA, Gruntled team, FIU, you're two and four, but you got pit bull. Like, it's fine. It really doesn't matter at this point. It really doesn't matter at this point.

gruntled independent okay this is not the case but Connecticut is four and two we haven't talked about that at all I don't know if we ever will including this moment right here I don't know if this counts but but the path the path to bowl eligible Yukon which I think would be their second bull that they have made under Jim Mora they would have to be one of the two of the falling Wake Forest, Rice, Georgia State, UAB, Syracuse, and UMass.

Syracuse, I don't think so. UMass and UAB, those seem doable. Rice, that might be doable. Like, this is, it's not hard to sort of see, it's interesting because I think everybody sort of figured like, okay, that first year, that was just like, you know, dead cat bounce thing. Maybe not. Maybe not.

I don't know. So they're not the gruntled. I don't know if there's a gruntled independent right now. Notre Dame's doing okay. Wazoo is having a good year. Oregon State's having a good year. UMass is 1 and 6. No gruntled independent.

That's what I'll settle on. I can go with that. All right. Holly, can you just say gruntled Mac for me, please? Gruntled Mac. Thank you. Your gruntled Mac team is probably Miami of Ohio. won the Mac last year

two and four this year one and one in conference favorite yeah like just not not showing a lot of progress barely beat aforementioned UMass lost Toledo a Toledo team that has shown it's not invincible by any means

opened with a 136 lost to Northwestern which is just kind of grody I'll say gruntled for Miami of Ohio. Yeah, yuck. Yeah. I would go in the state of firmly disgruntled.

Mm-hmm. Like, you just go ahead and lop off like the bottom three and go straight to Bowling Green. Go, they can't, more of this shit, they can't be happy with that. It's tricky because Bowling Green will, I feel, I know they did this against Penn State, and I want to say they did it. Yeah, they only lost it to A&M. by six. Like, they can be sneaky competitive, but then it's like, yeah, but you've only won two games

and one of them was against Fordham. And the other one was a touchdown win over Akron, who's not having a great year either. So I don't know what to make of that. Yeah. This isn't split zone do. Everyone calm down. Yeah. Gruntled Mountain Westie.

I'm sorry I'm taking so long on this segment, but you sold me on it. No, I'm fascinated by this, but defining our most okay, the most okay. team like I think yeah I would can we call San Diego State gruntled yeah I think that's probably right that feels right happy like happy with the new management thus far interesting they're two and oh in conference that might even put them they might they might be in gruntled they're they're approaching in gruntled Mac and Mountain West teams look at the rest of the entire college football universe at this time of year and they do this thing where they go oh Poor thing. A loss. You're worried about taking a loss in week seven, right? They're bloodied. They've already taken their paycheck games.

Spoiled fucks. Spoiled fuck. Like they've already broken their brass knuckles over somebody's heads. Like, I need to do ducks. There are three teams in the Mountain West that don't have three losses already. That's it. Yeah. Everybody else, get your black eye. Okay, I'm going to, you two will have a better sense of this. Who is the gruntled SEC team? Hmm, like the most okay. The most like, yeah, vibes are okay, not amazing, not burn everything to the ground.

It's probably Georgia. Okay. Walk that out for me because that wouldn't have been my first guess, but I'm open to it. If I'm Georgia right now, I am looking. at everybody above me and everybody below me like we lived bitch right yeah

I say this by the way they're about to go play Texas yeah well that's I think your answer is absolutely correct today a week from now it will be one or the other I don't think it will just sit and gruntled yeah no they're moving I think I'll make one exception of that

if you lose in Texas to overtime you can probably stay in gruntled place where you're like we're not as good as I would like us to be, but we're not as bad as I were worried we might be. No, yeah, I think that's fine. I think if I'm, and again, I'm ascribing like rationality to these teams, which is difficult for me to do, which is why it's difficult for me to pick one and say they might be handling anything okay because we're talking about our peer teams and we know what they're

like. But if I'm a top shelf team right now and I'm looking around at my peers up and down and we're coming off of Blood Week and whatnot. I'm just happy we haven't done anything real stupid. And like the Bama Loss sucked, but it wasn't mortifying, you know?

South Carolina is an interesting gruntlement team right now because you have you haven't lost a game you weren't supposed to. I think like you were whatever metric you look at, you were supposed to lose to Bama, LSU and Ole Miss. And like you've had to play

all three of those in the first half of the season. You have two of those games, Bairman LSU, where it's like, you could have won. It doesn't take that much of a stretch to see how you win those games, but you didn't. And that sort of, like, that gets into the weird sort of territory

of like, how many moral victories do you have to stack before they actually start feeling bad? Right. Could you just say that one thing again, though? You're so close. Which part would you like? The part where they could have won, the games, but then what happened? Yes, they could

have beaten LSU. They could have at least taken LSU to overtime, didn't do that. They could have beaten Alabama in regular games, and they didn't do that. They didn't do that. And they got hammered by Old Miss. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, you're welcome. That's three and three South Carolina. Thank you, Coach. Yeah, by the way, South Carolina

already, it is October 15th. What are they in conference? One and three. That's, it's a hard life, man. It's a hard life being so, because I've watched way too much South Carolina already this year and I came away thinking oh man that's a tough team they're very tough they play very hard what's the record

one one um not to jump to the schedule but South Carolina Oklahoma will be a gruntle bowl I think it will be a change in gruntlement a changing of the gruntle guard yes yeah Holly's thinking Ollie is so unhappy that we're saying this worked so much.

We're going to have to move them little gruntles around. We're going to have to reapportion. Jason's not here right now because he's traveling and he's never made a better decision without knowing it. Yeah. Can I give you the team that is is straight up disgruntled? In the SEC? Yeah.

Oh, yeah. Okay. Okay. Straight up disgruntle. It's got to be Auburn. Yeah. And Oklahoma. I think Oklahoma is very unhappy at the moment.

Do you like just on the, On the face of things, Oklahoma, points scored, points against, 45 points scored, 80 against in-conference play, 80. And that leaves one conference for gruntlement. The sunbelt, I don't think, I think outstate has to be indiscrental territory, unfortunately. I think two and four, oh and three in conference, tumbling out of contention. that just probably makes you disgruntled. Worst season ever, maybe. Yeah, yeah, that's not good.

That's my high-level analysis. I'm going to say Arkansas State is gruntled. I think we forget that Arkansas State had a really good run where they were maybe not consistently king of the Sunbelt, but like they could do stuff. And we are now, what year are we with Butch at Arkansas State? Is this year three or four? Three?

Great. I believe this is year three. It's fine. It's just like, if gruntled is fine, that's what this is. It's just aggressively fine. It's just aggressively fine. Yeah. I'm going to go with the team that,

the team, by the way, that is in gruntled. Uh-huh. The George's Southern baby. Wrong, wrong. Wrong. You don't think? Of the Sunbelt teams, listen, they might be it, but they are not the team. No.

The team in the Sunbelt that's in Gruntled is ULM, 100%. It being way further along than they had any dream. Yeah. They're five and one. The losses to Texas, the number one team in the nation, and they have beaten, and the teams they have beaten. far in conference play include Troy and JNU. So not only do you have three wins, the other one's Southern Miss. We'll just leave that to the side.

Not only do you have three conference wins, but like two of them are pretty important. Two of them are pretty good. ULM, I'm just realizing now, plays Auburn on November 16th. Holy shit. Is it time for podcast business? Podcast business? What's the business? podcast business

answer business podcast business let's go make some cash pfum fum have either of you seen the Reddit math and I realize I just led

with something that might not sound that enticing the Reddit math that somebody on the shutdown forecast Reddit user Dr. Funky Chicken who has a Michigan state piece of flare

did about hoodie season No. As you might recall last week, I declared that hoodie season was a state of mind and not a time of year. And I hypothesized that there was probably enough hoodie material on home field apparel for you to wear a different home field apparel hoodie every single day for an entire year. I drastically underestimated. If you were to acquire every home field apparel hoodie that's available on the website, you would have four. 423 total hoodies, 318 from FBS schools, 90 from non-FBS schools, 12 plain, 12 unadorned with school logo, but very comfortable, two Homefield branded and one Arrow McLaren. Not only did this person, did this user do all that math, but also worked out if you were to go alphabetically starting on January 1st, 2025, here is what you would be wearing on certain days of the year. on Memorial Day, 2025, you would be wearing your Indiana University hoodie.

On the 4th of July, you'd be wearing your LSU hoodie. You'd go trick or treating on Halloween in your Rice Owls hoodie. On Christmas Eve, you would go to bed in your UCLA hoodie.

What would you wake up to receive? A Yukon hoodie. So I just want to thank this brave user for doing the math here and remind you that if you want to purchase 423 hoodies from homefield apparel.com

and you've never purchased anything from homefield apparel.com you can use offer code fullcast and get 20% off the cost of 423 hoodies which would be 84 free hoodies basically which would get you through March

I feel like that's probably about right pretty close so you can go see All 423 of those, and they're always adding more. So by the time you listen to this, it might be higher than that, and it will just continue to climb. And you can embrace the hoodie season challenge? Challenge sounds a little aggressive, but let's just call it that because why not? I feel like Jason could do that.

I have faith in Jason. 423 hoodies? I think you could do it. What's the storage, what's your storage solution there? house made of hoodies like you're just continually stacking and restacking a wall of them have you ever read um an interesting little story called the three little pigs not familiar no okay never mind i like let's try let's try your hoodie house idea then blowing the hoodie house down connor and josh if you're listening if you want to

build a hoodie house for spencer i think spencer would sleep in a hoodie house for for one night If you built it. Listen, it's going to be warm, right? It's a home field hoodie. Yeah. Yeah. And since most people from the South believe that a hoodie is rain gear anyway, it's also going to be rain-safe, rain-proof. Yeah.

Okay. Spencer will live in the hoodie house for one day. That, of course, brings us to our other sponsor. Prize Picks. Did you almost do the music again? You almost see the music? No, I just wanted to trill into it, you know? Okay.

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Prize picks run your game. Who would like to play more or less today? Me. I'll do it. Okay. Okay. Server and Spencer, today's more or less, is about an important ranked math. this week in college football. I'm speaking, of course, about Michigan versus Illinois.

I am not going to give you hardly any footballs in this more or less, but I am going to ask you some questions about Michigan at Illinois, mostly as states, not entirely. I'm going to start with the football one to warm you up. Does Michigan have more or less members of the Pro Football Hall of Fame compared to Illinois? I'm going to say less. No, more. Server is correct. Michigan has 11 members of the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Illinois has six. Illinois is still pretty highly up there for a lot of... I had some like I had some outsider bet on guys who played in the NFL before you had to weigh 200 pounds. Oh, it's almost entirely what Illinois's contribution is. Okay. Okay. Does Michigan have more or less electoral votes than Illinois? Illinois.

I think it's less. I'm going to say less. It is less. Illinois has 19. Michigan has 15. All right. We're going to make it harder now. Does Michigan have more or less beef cattle, specifically beef cattle than Illinois?

I'm going to say less. Yeah, less, for sure, less. Okay. You're both correct. It's 101,000 to 331,000 for Illinois. Damn, it's a commanding beef lead. A lot of dairy. Yes, yes, yes, milk production much higher in Michigan, I believe.

Yeah. Okay. Does Michigan have more or less doctors than Illinois? I'm going to say that Michigan has more doctors. The state of Michigan or the university of Michigan? Sorry, I should be clear. This is about the state of Michigan. Michigan has less.

Michigan has less. Spencer, do you want to change your answer based on that clarification? I'm going to say Michigan has, I have, again, I'm outside betting here, more. Okay. It's close, but I'm sorry to say that Illinois has more doctors. It's $46,000 to $40,000. That's of course why the hit film The Fugitive All About Doctors is set in Chicago. All right. Last one. Does Michigan have more or less Applebee's locations than Illinois? More, less. Serber, great job today. I think you might have swept. Michigan does indeed have more Applebee's locations. It's not.

even close. According to Applebee's, at least when I looked this up a couple days ago, there are 32 locations in Illinois. Michigan has 82. 50 more Applebee's than Illinois does. Michigan is fucking crazy for Applebee's, which is not a sponsor on this show. More or less is, of course, brought to you by prize picks. Applebee's, if you're interested, email us at shutdownfulcast at gmail.com. Until now, you get no more free advertisement other than us telling people that they're, at least, according to your website, 82 Applebee's locations in the great state of Michigan. Server?

So my band, Killer Ants with Z or Z, if you're in Canada, the UK, or Australia. We are playing a Halloween costume party show at Hoots in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, on October 25th. We've decided to make this show a benefit for Beloved Asheville to help with recovery efforts in Western North Carolina. after devastating effects of Hurricane Helene. So we'll be donating all the proceeds from this show to Beloved Asheville. I'll have a limited number of Killer Ants T-shirts printed up and available in all sizes. I shared this on my Twitter. It's posted to the top of my page.

There's a link for tickets. Typically, I would say, don't come all the way to Winston to see my band. But in this case, I do want you to come all the way to Winston to see my band and Di Morty, who is Daishiree and Mortimer playing together because the dudes from Code 7 have another show. So they had to create a new band for this show. But nonetheless, we're trying to sell this out. We're trying to raise a lot of money for Beloved Asheville. So please come out and support if you can. And once again, you can find the link for tickets to that show on my Twitter page at the top. We'll put it on pre-owned airboats.

Do it. Yeah, we'll put on pre-owned airboats.com too. I mean, you can go to server's Twitter page, too. I'm not telling me, I'm not trying to kill servers, Twitter presence or anything like that. I would like to, on a more capitalist note, I would like to point everyone to Channel 6. That is correct. The newsletter run by Holly and myself, we give you during the season every Monday, the top whatever, where we rank, whoever we want to rank. Also, hey, a little thing we do on game days, just at 11 o'clock, get together, talk about your questions, which you can submit to us if you are. for just $10 a month, and all of the things that we plant on watching that day. It's a novel thing.

We get together on game day, and we talk about stuff before the game start. No one's ever done it before, and frankly, I think we do it better than anyone else. Wait, I don't understand. How do you do it better than everyone else if no one's ever done it before? Those two sentences exist in the same universe, and you're just going to have to deal with it, Ryan. Ryan, you have a little something that you did with Stephen Godfrey. Yeah, we're still working on Who Killed College Football. We have two full episodes out now. We have bonus content that's been coming out next. We've done television and conferences. And next is the NCAA. And I have listened to so, so many media appearances by Mark Emmert working on this episode. So whether or not that makes you want to avoid it or go listen to it because you feel sorry for me, it's not out yet. So you don't have to do it right now. But you can find that at WKCFB.com.

And, yeah, we'll link all our other projects in the show notes as we usually do. Is there any other... Do I hear any other podcast business before we close these proceedings? Gavl, gavel, gavel, gavel. Okay. It is time to look at the schedule. Hey, Ryan, what week is it? I don't know

Eight I'm just guessing That's pretty good I've never gotten to ask that question before Oh I hit it Yes good job You did I have a two year old man

I don't know anything My brain is so soft Week Moving into week I want to go ahead And say this is this is silly Because by the time we record And edit and drop this podcast

three games will already have been played three of them because uh not just not just sunbelt tuesday but conference usa tuesday um by the time you hear this kennesaw state middle tennessee state will have already played no you wouldn't have had to have watched it just it vanished didn't happen probably don't want to watch it anyway um we do have some Wednesday and Thursday games. Can I skip to Friday because we have college football's rainy night at Stoke? Can you do it on a rainy night at Stoke? Can you truly become a member of the Big Ten and take care of business in West Lafayette, Indiana, Oregon?

Oregon is going to play a one in five Purdue team that just scored 40 points and a half of football and still lost. I don't like Oregon don't leave the pack 12 and turn around and join the big 10 and then go on get to number two in the nation and then turn around and lose to Purdue you could have done that in the pack 12 you did do shit like that in the pack 12 Purdue was called Arizona when you did it so just don't don't don't don't don't don't don't Yeah, don't don't even flirt with it. Don't even look at it. You know, it feels like a difficult game, same night. Oklahoma State is going to BYU. Yes, that will be difficult for Oklahoma State. But BYU, watch your ass because Oklahoma State,

I never know which team's going to show up. Thus far, it hasn't been a particularly impressive one. But they have a habit of getting things at least back to okay the second half of the season. So just you're the better team, playing home. watch your ass this is this is a watch your ass special i have to back you up to wednesday sam houston is five and one they're playing western kentucky who's four and two sam houston did not have a very good time uh in their first year at fb s last year they're doing much better this year and i just want to say great job that's all

congratulations sam houston state um also florida international and pit bull that they will play on day as well. Who are they playing? It's U-TEP. It's fine. How many games is U-TEP won? Don't worry about that. That doesn't seem like your problem. That seems like U-TEP's problem. And it is. It is very much their problem. Yes. Saturday! Nope. Can't do that far either. No? No. Who are you getting? Thursday night. Hmm. ESPN. Boston College, four and two, having a better year than I think most of us thought they would. under Bill O'Brien, goes to Blacksburg to play Virginia Tech, who's 3 and 3,

and is, if they lose this game, if they lose a Thursday night game at home to Boston College, who they already don't like very much, to drop to 3 and 4 and 1 and 2 in conference play, that really will, like, that will put whatever possible shine could be salvaged, this season and throw it completely in the garbage can, I think. Yeah. That's all. Yeah. They have to this is, this is very much

when we move our gruntles around. This is one of those games. Yes. Gruntle mint is at stake. Yes. Yes. Sorry. This is my gruntle mint. Yeah. This is my gruntle mint is a gum flavor that is

banned in the United States and in most European countries. But legal in Luxembourg. noon on Saturday. What do you want? A double shot of the ACC. That's what I want. That's what I want to wake up to.

Miami will be going to Louisville and Virginia will be going to Clemson. And listen, two teams here are undefeated in conference. And at the end of the day, around 3.30, 4 o'clock when these games end, still going to be two undefeated teams that are in the conference. because, man, and I don't think either of these are a real contest. Serber, is Clemson for real? Because I look at, like, yes, 5 and 1 is good. Four and O'N conference is good.

But I look at, like, who they have been beating up. And it's almost all, it really is all schools that are like not having a year that they will remember finally. Yeah, they're disgruntled. Yes, it's almost, like, I don't know, Stanford, I don't think Stanford is invested enough at this point into the program to be gruntled in any direction. I think they've farmed that out to some sort of AI robot. We're on a gruntling mission, though. And I don't know. I saw Kate Klobnik throw the football in person for the first time over this past weekend.

And I really like him a lot more. I mean, I already was, he'd already kind of won me over with playing really well this season. I think he's really good. And I think the receivers have played much better. Surprisingly, my concerns are on the defensive side of the ball and defensive consistency. I think if someone really, like, if I think of the Pitt game where they shovel past us to death, if somebody kind of figures something out on us, like we are vulnerable, I think, to give up a bunch of points, which is something that has not been the case for a while.

But I just don't know if there's anybody besides Pitt left on the schedule that's going to do that. That game's going to be a, that game might be to decide who goes to the ACC Championship game. I think they're for real based on like everyone else they have to play as far as it matters other than Pitt like this is a toss-up game they're gonna cruise otherwise I think okay that's not a good answer that's not an answer no no that's fine

because I don't know I don't really know I know because like you said but to be fair the Clemson teams that won national championships beat the shit out of a bunch of teams like the teams we're beating the shit out of now so that's true it's tough to tell the difference okay yeah statistically

You heard it here first. Michael Serber says Clemson is in national championship form. We're letting everybody fucking it now. Of course they are. BYU is in national championship form. Damn. Okay. Clemson BYU National Championship game.

Book it. Yeah. Cam Ward already has 22Ds, man. Just passing. It's absurd. Yeah. Kate Klobnik has 17, which is insane. He's been tidy.

He's a 17 to 2 touchdown interception ratio. It's a different kind of. watch experience this season. Words that I did not think would be coming out of my mouth this season. 5 of 1 Nebraska travels to 6 and O Indiana. That makes me so happy. The dawn, Curtis Rourke. Again, I'm going to continue betting on Indiana until I can't bet on them anymore because

it just feels so right. you wouldn't yeah i'm not going to talk you down from this obviously this is this the big nude game uh this is the big nude game on fox yes big nude indiana three words that make the heart sing yeah big nude indiana that feels like uh john mallocamp beside unreleased I love this is also in another improbable sentence Curtis Rourke

Why don't you show this Why don't you show this young man Dylan Riola how to spin it Which Yeah Why don't we watch that happen Indiana is the more complete team This is awesome

I love saying these things Because they're true Nebraska is not bad To be clear No Not at all Not at all And they still get to

play UCLA. So even if they don't win this game, I feel better about, I feel pretty good about Nebraska breaking their bowlless streak this year. Let's get them back. Let's get them back. I think that's still happening. I think you could even flip it and get it to seven. Sure. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Because we're going to have to do that with some of these undefeated or one losses to go, hey, you're five and one. That's awesome. Let's get you to six. Now it's the second half of the season. It's all conference games. You're going to have to do some real work. That could be ugly.

So let's get you to bowl eligible. Nebraska next week. Not next week. They play Ohio State next week. How's the week after that looking for you, Nebraska? How's your schedule looking? I think that's more promising. That would be UCLA.

Yeah. There we go. We're all getting bowl eligible off UCLA. Let's go. Okay. Good. Let's go. What else catches your eye, Ryan?

In the early part of the day, weirdly Wisconsin Northwestern, like Northwestern has been, A, it's in Northwestern. It's at the Lakeside Death Trap. It is, Northwestern is just a real annoying team. Like, the games that they have played are, they're kind of prototypical Northwestern in this way where they're just sort of like, hey, what if we wrestle in this closet for 58 minutes? and the lights are out, and we're both real sleepy because we ate too many ribs. So maybe a little too extended, but that's what they feel like. And Wisconsin just sort of, like, look, it's great that you beat the hell out of Rutgers. It needs to continue.

Like, I don't think people are going to feel great if you walk out of here with, oh, we beat Northwestern by four, and there were 26 points total scored. Like, I don't think that's going to have people feeling like Wisconsin is fixed. Should they, though? Because I think that's kind of the game you play against Northwestern.

For instance, Maryland did the wrong thing against them by continuing to struggle. Don't do that. Yeah, I don't think Wisconsin wants to feel like Maryland at this point. Let me put it that way. Who does? That's all. You know, my goal today is to feel like Maryland. No, thanks.

We mentioned South Carolina, Oklahoma. A lot of gruntlement on the line there. do we want to let's talk about Notre Dame Georgia Tech we'll come back to Bama Tennessee in a second here okay um Notre Dame has kind of like quietly gone under the radar since since they lost to Northern Illinois it doesn't help that Northern Illinois has not been world beaters since then but they have you know they played Louisville close Louisville was a ranked team at the time and feels like, I don't know, Louisville feels like a top 35 team in the season.

I think that's probably right. Everybody else, like, they just absolutely took care of business with Purdue, Miami of Ohio, Stanford. Oh, and by the way, they still have the opening road win against Texas A&M. I am less interested in this from a, like,

who will make the college football playoff perspective, but between Georgia Tech this week, ranked Navy, a fun thing to say next week ranked Army later in the year and

you know the sort of like ACC top toss-ups of FSU Virginia and USC not part of their ACC deal but that doesn't matter

who knows who's in what conference we're entering like the pivot point I guess is what I'm saying for where you're going to figure out is this like good Notre Dame year where you win 10 games and you are knocking on the door for something, you know, something pretty good.

Or is this, eh, Notre Dame here, where you lose three games and you go to a bowl game and hope that you don't look stupid. Yeah. I would like to attack the Georgia Tech angle of this. Why are we playing this in Mercedes-Benz Stadium? Okay. Can we talk about the other thing that was announced today that's fucking infuriating? Mm-hmm. Is it next year's clean old-fashioned hate that's getting moved to the Bens and not being played on a campus?

It is 2025, 2025. What are we doing? Why? Well, I'm going to read you a related list. Which is, this is from Sportico. Sportico is giving us all kinds of data on programs that are currently in debt. And one of them, Cal obviously, because Cal had to make sure that their stadium built on a fault line didn't fall down. And they had to do so at California prices, which makes sense.

They're number one. But if you look down, number six in terms of running outstanding athletics debt, 2022 to 2020, 23, $285 million in the operating hole is Georgia Tech. Georgia Tech is also a program that over the past six years has managed to add $62 million in debt. If you're wondering why this game has been moved to the Bens and clean old-fashioned hate, which is by far the biggest draw on Georgia Tech schedule year in and year out, is being moved to the Bens. The answer in both cases is money. They got to pay some bills. Okay. Yeah.

That's why. Is it dumb, Ryan? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Did this become a necessity after the market dictated certain things to Georgia Tech? Yeah. Okay.

Cool. Yeah. Michigan, Illinois. Like, no, actually, I don't want to preview this one. It's fine. Like, if Michigan lost Illinois, Michigan fans will be upset, but, like, it's fine. Like, this is not a bad Illinois team. This is a Michigan team that is.

in transition like it's all fine you won the national championship last year while everybody yelled at you and said you were bad people and you got you got to like play the villain it's fine if you lose this game it's not a big deal it was really not yeah i would second that but also with i think illinois fans kind of they really want to take this one oh yeah yeah that side of it yes that that part i agree with um they have not beaten michigan since 2009. So. 15 years.

Yeah, they want this one. And it's there for the taking. That's got to, is that Ron Zuck? Is that Ron Zuck, Illinois? I believe so. Is that later stage, Ron Zuck? That is.

That's man, man. Hey, Spencer, what do you think Illinois's record was the year they last beat Michigan? Four and seven. Four and eight. Three and nine. Three and nine.

Wow. Three and nine. They had, this broke a five-game losing streak for Illinois in 2009, including getting blanked by Ohio State 30 to zero, losing to Indiana 14 to 27, and losing, where they never scored more than 17 points in these losses, and then they come out and they beat Michigan, 38, 13. They came off that, they let that's a five-game losing streak that they snapped by beating Michigan. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. God damn. So, yeah, that's our non-preview of Michigan, Illinois. In the name of Aurelia's Ben and all that is holy, goodness.

To go back to gruntlement, if Kansas loses to Houston, add to the disgruntlement pile. It's quite bad. Houston has started to, like, figure out a few things, but Houston is not a team. Kansas should be losing two this year if they are any if they're even a fraction of what we thought they're going to be it also is like weird that because they're doing stadium construction they're doing all this they're playing all their home I think most of their home games at Arrowhead in Kansas City so there's I think there's probably something extra unfun about like I had to travel to go one in five this sucks I had to play on the biggest

stage I've ever seen yeah professional football stadium yeah and play really what looks like a pretty standard year of Kansas football after hitting the heights of 20, 23. Yeah. This is additional additional not good territory at all. Going back to a little bit earlier in the day, also

in not good. I know that Brady Cook, we've kind of gone, hey, he hasn't exactly come along. Let's just keep that little improvement curve moving against Auburn, because this is not when you want to drop and for some reason because it's at noon and they have to be writing

an 0 and 3 in conference Auburn off. It just feels like they might have a little something extra for you. You might not be looking as hard as you want. And the zoo's been a pretty slow starter as well. So what am I saying? In other words, don't let Auburn hang around. There. Or do because Auburn does funny things in close games. It's true. Do you like comedy? Do you like laughs? pretty funny when you let Auburn like Oklahoma let Auburn hang around and look how funny that turned out yeah um I would say pay attention to NC State Cal but guess what it's not on the CW so so it's not real so it's not real if it's NC State and they're not on CW don't even talk to me

about it. You know it is on the CW? Hmm. Hawaii Wazoo. I like parties. Do you like the party? Sure. Sure. Watch beloved yeoman quarterback, John Tear, get freaky at 3.30 on C.W. We're talking about how happy they were. Somebody's going to be real unhappy because you got 5 and 1 James Madison and 4 and 2 Georgia Southern. That there's your split zone special of the week, you nerds. Yeah, that's true. That's true. What if USC loses to Maryland? I would so buy that if I had not seen how utterly broken Maryland was against Northwestern. Yeah.

But I'll follow the directions here. What if they lose? Lincoln Riley will cut a reporter off and suggest that they're doing their job wrong in the postgame press conference. It will be a tight game because USC thus far has played only tight games and lost their like in several single score games, three of them. So, yeah, that's how it would happen. It would have to be tight. It's not like they're just going to come out and belly flop. For one reason or another, they're not getting a lot of, they're not getting a lot of the luck that I think that like, in other words, if there's like three or four plays this season that go a different way, we're not having this conversation about USC at all because they've been so close.

But there's a reason they're not close, right? Like there's something structurally missing there. yeah i mean the flip side of this is that if you uh i'm double checking this to make sure yeah okay if you flip if you flip a couple of things like the lSU game is very flippable they were losing to wisconsin at half time pretty badly by 11 points like there's a way this season is even more of a like oh no what's happened here holly you and i were talking about this the other day about how like to sort of summarize it briefly a lot of lot of the Lincoln Riley talk has been, I think, at USC, the first stage of it has been,

oh, my God, the defense. But that really all turned into Alex Grinch. That was all what he was about. And then it's been a lot of, oh, my God, he's so bad with the media, and he lives in L.A. Like, what are you doing? But, like, just in terms of win, loss and, like, success, this is not a major improvement so far over his predecessors. Who, Who, like, I think he was widely expected to be a successful hire in a way that Lane and Sark and Clay Helton were not. And, like, it's just about the same. Does that feel right? It feels right here.

I think that's about right. You know, I don't. There's also this, that just in terms of where they sit statistically, where they're going to be, like, overall. they're kind of around like they're more like Michigan than they are or they're more like Washington State and Oklahoma than they are your even your Texas A&Ms or your Kansas states, right? In terms of overall being effective football teams. Yeah.

So what needs to get better? Everything. Everything. They need to be they need to be a little bit better at everything before I think we can even take the bold step of being disappointed at them. Okay. Yeah. It doesn't matter because at this point in the day, you're going to watch the butt bowl anyway.

You're going to watch Baylor, Texas Tech. You're not going to watch it because Baylor's a lot of fun to watch. They're not. They're actually pretty frustrating. You're going to watch it to see if Texas Tech can get six and one and continue its undefeated streak in the Big 12. That's Big 12 leading Texas Tech. On thing we all expected to say. Right there in the spot where we thought Utah would be.

Because we definitely know things when we talk. about the big 12. We're very smart and we're very handsome. That's right. We're getting so close, by the way, Vanderbilt's bowl eligibility because they play ball state. We're going to come out here with five wins. I feel remarkably safe saying that. I think that's, that makes sense. Yeah. You won't be watching that though, because at 7.30, at 7.30, get the tables, get the chairs, clear it out. Turn that TV up. Turn that TV up because it won't be very loud

because it'll be in Texas that will be enjoy a quiet candlelight dinner with the crowd noise from Darrell K. Royal Stadium and the Georgia Bulldogs at 5 and 1 making their

first conference visit to play the Texas Longhorns. It's this is going to be a bad it's going to be a rough night. This would be a very, very rough night. Although I feel good about

one element of Georgia keeping up and that's Carson Beck because I have now watched Carson Beck just continue firing in two games where he was harried and playing I think a more pressed version of the game they would like to play due to the score and that would be against Alabama and against Mississippi State in both cases Mississippi State did not go away and Carson Beck was the answer so and he was very nearly the answer in the Alabama game because after playing a crap game of football in the first half, he was nails in the second. So this is me saying, we will put some respect on Carson Beck's name before we completely rule them out of this contest against what has demonstrably been a better team in the Longhorns.

Do you know, if we're just going off of yards per attempt, do you know what the highest ranked team that Texas has faced passing the ball is? it's Mississippi State who's currently 34th in the nation and I believe a lot of that has come yeah a lot of that came Eastern Kentucky and they put up a good showing against Georgia which that is another thing like file that away be like huh Mississippi State just threw for eight yards past on us

that seems bad the next highest like you got to scroll down into the hundreds they're all here. UTSA is down here. Louisiana and Monroe is here. Oklahoma, way down here. Michigan. Michigan has the next to worst passing attack just based on yards per attempt this year at 5.2. I say that because I don't, I am interested to see how much of these stats are based on you play Texas and Texas shut you down versus Texas has played teams. that don't have that that are that are by their nature somewhat one-dimensional Georgia might be a little bit more one-dimensional than they would like to be but it is not because they can't throw the ball no so it's 2019 all over again we're going to get a we're going to get a shootout between an SEC guest and Texas live in the middle of Darrell pay Royal Stadium I think this is like super

high scoring I think this this feels like yeah especially because I I think Steve Sarkesian sees a lot of the inconsistencies in Georgia's defense and goes, ooh, I'll like that. I'll take that. I'll take that. And they have the pieces where they're going to be able to take advantage of all those little things. And a veteran quarterback who's not going to, like, they have such a good quarterback situation right now. I know we came into the season going, oh, man, Quinn Ewer's got to be looking behind him.

They made a whole ad about how Quinn Ewers has got to look to the bench because arch is right behind him. And now it's like, well, when yours gets injured, we'll just put an arch. Turns out this doesn't suck at all. We're good. We're so good. Yeah. Yeah. It's all pretty good for Texas right now.

Just savor this. We also have, man, this is so dire. It's not as dire as you think, but go ahead. I was just going to say, if you want some unhappiness, okay? Because there's one fan base who's already basically got the headstone for their coach planted. And they're waiting to pat the dirt. And then there's Kentucky who increasingly,

increasingly unhappy with a coach who's been so good to them for the better part of a decade plus. It's weird to say this. Kentucky, don't lose this game. Don't, don't lose it. It's gone from expect to lose this game for 30 years straight to, well, well, now you win this game year in and year out. I think you should absolutely be terrified of losing this game, Kentucky, especially because it's in Gainesville. Not that you've had problems there recently, but still.

Kentucky has won this game last three years, a thing that they had not done since the 40s. Yeah. The last time Kentucky won this game four years in a row, they played two games in Lexington in 48 and 50, one game in Gainesville, 1951, and one game in Tampa in 1949. I like

yeah this has gruntlement and I regret to say there's a lot of gruntlement in this game because if Kentucky breaks if Kentucky doesn't keep up that winning streak which again feels so weird to say against this like pretty broken pretty mismanaged

Florida team who at least played a lot better on defense last week that'll feel bad plus you drop to one in four in conference play and if Florida can't beat a Kentucky team that is not having a like wow what a season at home and effectively like we don't the one the one nice thing about Florida losing to Tennessee is we didn't have to then turn around and be like well here's how they can get bowl eligible if they can beat Tennessee they can no like we don't have to play that game and if you lose to

Kentucky buddy that game is done like we don't even have to to look at the rest of the schedule. There is nothing to find. If they beat Kentucky, there will still be a little bit of like, well, you know, if they can steal one against LSU or Ole Miss and something. But if they lose to Kentucky, it's just like, yeah, can I go home, stop it. Yeah. I mean, we all know what's going to happen with them anyway.

Like, we're talking about this like it's a done deal because it's a very done deal. Do you know how many passing touchdowns Brock Vandergriff has for Kentucky this year? I looked, five. It's five. That's not enough. I'm just going to go and say, I would pass for more than that, yeah, that's correct. Yeah, if I, I am built different, I would pass for more than five. And additionally, typically when Kentucky has a quarterback who only has five passing TDs, it's something in the manner of like, oh, that's because we're running the single wing.

I have Lynn Bowden back there. It's because we have a tight end at quarterback and he is so big and fast. This is a former five-star quarterback that you have back there. Who at Georgia? Who was on the Georgia roster? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Famously like best pros with Carson Beck.

Fell into a situation where we can't tell his stats from those of a tight end at quarterback. It's not ideal. No. No. To go back to one other little horror show in the evening slot, man, Kansas State, West Virginia. That's just going to be like two dudes hitting each other in the face for about that. three and a half hours. Yeah.

Yeah. I have no idea what to make of that game. None. We would like to establish the run. We too would like to establish the run. But we would also like to bomb the ball occasionally? Yeah. Like Kansas State did that thing against Colorado where they go,

the deep ball is going to work. And they threw like seven of them in a row until they did. Yeah. Yeah. It was some AI play calling on their part where they go, should work. deploy should work deploy and unfortunately for Colorado

it eventually did and that's why they lost the game if you like to see the most stubborn play calling you will see all season long live on Fox at 730 from Morgantown West Virginia Kansas State at the Mountaineers

but instead you should turn to ESPN and you and watch 5 and 1 North Texas play 5 and 1 Memphis listen I've got the team real excited about this we obviously respect the opponent a lot and where they're from since Memphis has generated so much of the music we teach here at North Texas. Just a fantastic heritage both in terms of the gridiron and in terms of the performing stage. A lot of respect for them. We're going to work real hard. And we're going to trot out the 11-8 time signature, I think, is what we're going to be. The 11-8 offense is going

to be what we're working in. Don't tell anybody, you know, that's just between us. Chandler Morris is up to 20 touchdowns thrown this year. Cam Ward territory right there. Yeah. And in three years at TCU, he threw 16 total. So granted, like, you know, this is in a much lower, not a huge number of games overall. But yeah, this is a good, it might be a little bit of a stretch, but this is a good, like, who might face the winner of Army Navy in the AAC championship game, maybe. Maybe. Unless the loser of Army Navy plays the winner of Army Navy in the AAC championship. Also entirely possible?

Also entirely possible. Yeah. This is all part of our goal to get one of the service academies into the playoff for year one. Yeah. Just so I can watch someone on a very cold campus attempt to defend the triple option, like in their first round playoff game. That's not saying that it couldn't happen, but please, peruse with me, if you will, in the files of the potential outcomes of this season. A picture of James Franklin with his head in his head. his hands, wondering why Navy is still in this game in the fourth quarter and what they

have to do to get it off their face. Please, please get this thing off of my face. The old Navy facehuggers. Anchors away.