The Herd with Colin Cowherd - Snaps - Scott Frost to blame for Nebraska loss? Jim Harbaugh's crazy plan, chaos at Auburn

Episode Date: August 29, 2022

T-Bob Hebert and Aaron Murray discuss Nebraska's shocking Week 0 loss to Northwestern and whether the blame should be placed on Scott Frost, Jim Harbaugh's plan for Michigan's quarterback situation, and Auburn athletic director Allen Greene stepping down from his role. #HerdSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Yo, what's happening, everybody? Welcome back, dude. Welcome back here to Snap's the premier college football podcast. And I can say that as an unbiased source because I'm a part of the show. Now just don't look up what unbiased means. I hope you had a wonderful weekend. I know I did, Aaron. I'm very excited to be back here on the volume YouTube channel.

Go ahead and like it, subscribe, you know, all of the things that please the algorithmic gods that rule our existence. And we're going to have a hell of a show today, boys. That's right. Week zero. We have actual college football to break down. A lot of Frosty Boy Talk. Tough, tough scene for the Frost hive right now. We'll also talk about some starting quarterback that decisions that have been aid.

Jim Harbaugh, maybe not making our guy Aaron Murray too happy. But we'll get there. Brian Harson and he who would be king has Jimbo found his guy. First off, let me welcome in my esteemed co-host former Georgia Bulldog. Great. Noted nut toucher. That means quarterback. Aaron Murray, what's up, brother?

Man, it was so good to watch some real football this weekend. I had a little bit of a panic attack. So I'm watching the Nebraska game on Saturday. Then all of a sudden, Fox decides that a preseason falcons game is a little bit more important than keeping that game going over there in Dublin. So I'm freaking out. All of a sudden, it just goes to pregame coverage. I'm like, why does anyone want to watch the pregame for a preseason game when we got this awesome game going? in Dublin.

So freaked out a little bit, but cooler heads prevailed. Thank you to those on Twitter. Just had to download a little Fox app. It was good to go. But overall, man, it was a great Saturday. We already got controversy. We'll touch on that. A lot of fun this weekend.

Obviously, great nightcap for the SEC. Vanderbilt looked like Alabama of the islands, for goodness sakes. That was fun to watch. Yeah, it's good. And, Teabobobbaw, how was the mini week zero vacation at the beach? You're rested. You look nice and tan. Perfect. I feel nice and tan. I was kind of looking like I feel like a little blonde thing going on,

little tan going on. The beach is great, man. The beach was great. I used it to form my college football analysis for the weekend. The ocean was so calm that it was very clear that Poseidon was asleep. Okay. Hammered Bandy to cover. Obviously, big play there.

Now, what did not go well was trying to make. make myself into a leader of the Frosty Boys last week because that Nebraska game was something. And yes, look, I'm learning, okay, on this job like everybody else is learning in their job every single day and watching meme compilations of Arnold Schwarzenegger's Mr. Freeze puns. Watching those and using those as justification for going all in on Nebraska, maybe not a solid foundation for analysis because as we learned, uh, Scott Frost can't really get out of his own way.

He can't really, uh, he in other words, he cannot hold his beer. We'll talk about what went down in the stadium. Shout out to the Irish. Irish hospitality big winner over the weekend. But Aaron, I'll let you start. Uh, Nebraska falls to Northwestern. It is an NCAA record. 7th.

One score loss in a row. and it all goes back to this on-site kick. Aaron, what was your main takeaway from the Huskers struggles on Saturday? Well, Nebraska is the best one-loss team in America, according to our boy, T. Bob. It's sure to look at it. Issue along with everyone else in the country is this is year five for Scott Frost. And I think Scott Frost is a very good head football coach. I had an opportunity to cover Coach Frost back when he was getting going there at UCF

in Orlando. I was like, man, this guy is going somewhere. He's, he's a player's coach, brings a lot of energy, played the game. There's that respect level to it. And I thought he was ready to take that next step in Nebraska. And they just keep knocking on the door, knocking on the door. But year five, you can't be making those type of mistakes as a coach. You may give a coach, year one or year two. They got to learn. You know, I was with a coaching staff there in Philadelphia, their first year when, when, you know, I moved from the chiefs over to the Eagles. And, you know, Doug Pearson was his first year head coach. And he had. And he had, admitted it throughout the year like, hey, man, I made a mistake here in this two-minute drive.

I made a mistake going forward on fourth down. I will learn from that. Turns around in year two wins a Super Bowl. You got to make sure that you're learning as a head coach, when and not, win and when not to make certain situations because those are the type of plays and those are type of decisions that cost you wins and ultimately cost you your job. So you're up 11 points. You're feeling good.

Your defense just got a massive turnover. Your offense turnaround scored a touchdown. down everyone's high five and you're feeling good on the sideline Nebraska fans are cheering whether it's in Dublin or home and you decide to go for an onslaic kick and you and I have both looked at some of the coverages that Northwestern was was showing on film and guys really weren't budging they weren't moving I don't know what Scott Frost is looking at a sound bite here soon but year five it is okay look look here it is there you're you're watching right here and if you could pause it right when

the foot is about to meet ball here, Brum. What you want to look for here. Like when you do this is when like Aaron's alluded to, when you see a team that as the kicker is running up to the ball, they start to flip their hips and they start to preemptively run to set up the return. After the game, Scott Frost tried to claim that they had the exact look they wanted that in a

previous rep, they had seen them do just that. I went and watched every Nebraska kickoff before this one. Northwestern never moved. They had one guy on the edge who started to flip his hips, barely before that ball was kicked off. Every other time, they were hyper disciplined in their stance, wait until the ball was actually in the air until they started to get back. So like right there, you have visual proof that like even what Scott Frost is telling you to justify what he called his decision after the game. Aaron, it's just simply not true.

There's nothing there. It isn't true. and to kill the momentum of your football team. And listen, they didn't play great on defense. So I understand, like, hey, you're up 11 points. You want to maybe help your defense. I mean, Ryan Holinsky looked like an all-conference quarterback. A couple touchdowns, 27 and 38.

They're running the ball well, and that'd be about 214 yards overall rushing for Northwestern. So they were moving the ball well, but still you have an 11-point lead. Your defense caused the turnover. Why give a team any sort of hope? Why give them any chance a short field to be able to punch it in there. At the end of the day, as we know, I would say the scariest lead in all of sports,

especially football, is a two-score lead because you feel really good. Like, okay, we got to control this game right now. You get a little bit cocky. Hey, they just got to score two points. All of a sudden, if they can score fast, if the opposing team can score fast and make it a one-possession game, all of a sudden, your team who was up by two scores, the butts get tight. Guys get nervous. coaches get nervous guys start making mistakes and no better example of that was kasy thompson he was playing great and all of a sudden he goes to crap with things got a little tight so um just just like once again those are the decisions that cost you your job you're already on the hot seat people are questioning or should you be the head coach this season you get another year

uh you got a quarterback that that was an upgrade and i thought he looked really darn good for three quarters of that football game and then you make a mistake like that as a coaching coach so this is northwestern i know they've been up and down the past five years uh they only won a few games last year but if you can't beat northwestern how are you going to win other games in that conference that's that's my worry now of a sudden i'm saying can this team get to a bowl can this team get to six wins when you look at how good that conference is i question that and honestly right now with the decision like that does six or seven wins even say? his job.

I mean, it's tough, man. No, I think with the, I mean, Vegas has the over under set at seven and a half. Now that is an inflated number, right? But I think they were also the second best odds to win their half of the big 10. That ain't happening, right? But what that is is indicative of where fan expectation is at. And what always determines your job security is not the results themselves. where do they land in relation to the expectation.

And here after week one, it feels like they are going to land far short. I want to take you back, though, Eric, because the most fascinating part to me about Saturday was the game flow. And how ultimately, no matter how good, you mentioned the word hope, right? Scott Frost has made it an art form in terms of giving his fans hope only then to grind it out of existence. I mean, think back, guys. Okay, so we have a full off season of change and promise, right? You finally hire a special teams coach. You hire Whipple.

You get a Texas transfer quarterback. You're, you can actually, you do pretty well in the transfer portal, right? There's kind of an undercurrent of positive momentum. You are here on this amazing stage. You're in Ireland. You're playing in the only game that matters of the day. You got that great noon slot on Fox. You got millions of people watching on a literal international.

stage and then you come out and you go right down the field dude. I mean, you are marching, big third down conversion. You finish it with a beautiful 30 yard touchdown pass the receiver mosses the corner. At that point, all of your dreams are coming true as a Nebraska fan. Like, it's all happened. It has finally happened. And then the game goes on and you're like, oh man, I don't know, dude. Okay, they're starting to come back a little bit. And it's an interesting flow. right. Nebraska goes up early. Northwestern takes all the momentum back, gets the lead right for half. That's your Nebraska and started to come stressed. But then all of a sudden in the third quarter, Nebraska takes over. Surely now, surely now they would not do something to blow it. And then

Scott Frost got involved. And look, man, I know he went on to kind of blame the offensive staff a bit afterwards. It's hilarious one game into a new OC's reign. He was like, I think our offense learns, You've got to be a bit more creative to hang in this league or, you know, adaptable. But at a certain point, it's you, Scott. I mean, you're now five and 21 in games decided by one score. Whipple wasn't there for that. Whipple wasn't there for the first six games of this stretch. I mean, I don't know how many people are my age out there listening to this.

But to me, Scott Frost, watching a Scott Frost football game is like watching an episode of that So Raven, right? If you've ever seen that's the Raven, she can see the future. But she sees something and she's like, oh, no, I don't want that to happen. So she tries to do all these things, prevent it from happening. But what does she do? She creates the very scenario she was trying to avoid, right? It's a time period. That's Scott for us.

He's like, okay, we want to play not, you know, we want to play not to, we want to play aggressive football. We want to try to win. We're not playing not to lose. This onside kick, that's it. That's going to be aggressive football. And instead, with that aggression, he created. the very situation he was trying to avoid. I don't know that you could have scripted a worse way for this game to go in terms of

angering the Husker fan base. And so, yes, where we sit today, what is it, August 29th, it feels very tough to think about Scott Frost continuing as the Nebraska head coach. Like this has the potential to spin off in the middle of the season, right? If they don't respond well to this loss, Aaron, he could be gone before the season's over. Well, good thing is they get North Dakota next. So you get North Dakota. You get Georgia Southern.

It would have been nice to, it would have been nice to be three and no heading into that game versus Oklahoma. You bring Oklahoma into your stadium. You got some momentum. You're three and oh. You're winning close football games. And then maybe you have an upset. I mean, Oklahoma stills a lot of questions. You're talking about a brand new coaching staff there for the Sooners.

Maybe you find a way to get upset because you've built some goodwill inside that locker room. And now of a sudden, the players hear the noise. Let's make sure we all understand that you and I have been in a locker room. You know when certain positions are on the hot seat. You know, when your coaching staff is on a hot seat. And we always talk about, oh, well, you know, as a fan, oh, the players will play harder because the players love Coach Frost and they want to support him. Yeah, I get that.

But it is a distraction. And these kids have, you know, they're 18 to 22, 23 years old. They have enough on their plate already. They're trying to get ready for a football game and one of the toughest conferences in America. You know, now they throw school into the equation. They got NIL. I mean, they're getting pulled it this way, that way, this way, that way. And I guarantee when they meet with the media this week and when they're on campus talking with their friends and when they're talking with mom and dad and uncle, the thing that's going to be brought the most is, hey, is coach, is Coach Frost going to be your coach this year?

Is Coach Ross be your coach next year? Why did Coach Frost decide to kick it on-site kick? All these people are starting to put more and more doubt into these players' heads of should it should Coach, it should Coach Frost be your head football coach. And all it takes in this league is just having a little bit of doubt for that to trickle through the entire football team, for that to then affect your play each and every Saturday. So that's the territory we're getting into now. You know, these players have been behind him for four years.

They believed in him. They keep believing in the notion of, hey, we're right. there that we have these close ball games we have these one score games we're going to push through in year five with coach frost and in the first game it doesn't happen and one of the big reasons why it was because of a decision made not from a player not from a mistake on the field and yes there were mistakes on both sides of the football for Nebraska but from a coaching decision that put their team in a bad situation that is going to be the headline this entire week so at some point you're going to see it affect the football team.

You're going to see it affect the locker room. And that's why I don't think the Braska going forward is going to have a good year. Because they've had chances to rally for their coach. And it hasn't happened in year five. It ain't going to happen now. No. And well, it's like I said,

it's a tough time for me and the rest of the Frosty Boys. That dream may have died on the vine here in week number one. Also, last thing here, horrible quote, when he gives the quote about his O'Lyman throwing up four to five times of practice. Like that's a positive. And then you come out in game number one and you literally look like a heavyweight fighter that used all of their energy up in the first couple of rounds. So Scott Frost, it's an awful Monday to be Scott Frost.

We go figure out if Jim Harbaugh is going to have an awful Monday next week as Aaron Harbaugh coming out. And I'm going to read the letter. I'm going to read the letter here. This is from Jim Harbaugh. This is officially released Michigan letterhead, right? We have made a decision. Both quarterbacks have played great, done everything they could have,

and in every way to win the starting job. Coming out of camp, I just feel we have two quarterbacks, Cade McNamara, JJ McCarthy, that we feel very confident we can win a championship with either of those two behind center. It's great for our team, but there's only one ball. And only one quarterback can be out there at a time. So we're not ready to say who that starting quarterback is.

But the decision that we have made is Cade McNamara will start the opener against Colorado State. And J.J. McCarthy will start the second ball game against Hawaii. And then after week two, we will make a decision going into week three on the starter and backup. Aaron, you are a former quarterback. Excuse me, quarterback. I think this irked you a little bit. It did. And I know all of people were saying, oh, well, Coach Harbaal is coached the position. He's played the position. He knows what he's doing. But just go look at the track record since he took over at Michigan and look at the success. And there really hasn't been any success since 2015 for Michigan and quarterbacks. The best one has been Shea Patterson, for goodness sakes. He has not had any elite quarterback at all. And maybe that's part of the decision of why, hey, I'm not sure who I want to go out there and be my starter week one. But being a former quarterback and being a guy, that I've been in quarterback battles a lot in my life

and not having the confidence from a coach saying, either way, who's going to be the starter? Who's going to be the leader? Because you and I both know this. You're an offense alignment. The quarterback has a certain leadership role in the locker. He has obviously a major leadership role inside the huddle. And it's that one voice that kind of dictates the tempo of the team.

It kind of dictates the tempo of the entire offense. You know, you need the reps. You need the timing down with your receivers. you need the communication with your offensive line. You need the timings with the tight-ins and the running backs. There's a lot to go into it. It's not just simple, hey, here's a football, go out there and play. If you want to be in a team like Michigan that's trying to repeat as Big Ten champions,

as a team that's trying to get to the playoffs, you need every opportunity to make sure that your guy taking the snaps is ready to go each and every week, especially as conference play gets going. So I hate the decision. I hate it for the team. I hate it for the quarterback. to me it seems like you're so worried about possibly and this is a this is this is this is real world now the transfer portal coaches have to worry about this because the quarterback is a different

position it's not a receiver it's on offensive linemen running backs or guys on defense where you can create some kind of rotation where hey you're the starter but I guarantee you hey back up you're going to get 30 40% of reps you can keep guys happy that way quarterback it's it's one you always talk about the old saying is hey if you get two quarterbacks you have quarterbacks. I think this is a situation here. Or maybe it's a situation of the transfer portal, hey, I'm worried about one of these guys transferring. If I tell them, hey, you get one game, you get one game. Most likely they're not going to transfer at that point. So I think this is, that could be playing to it a little bit. But overall, like I said, I hate this decision. I think

it's unhealthy for that quarterback room. And I think it's unhealthy for the football team. And I know you could still get away with winning those first two games. And if Ryan could bring up the schedule real quick, it's an easy schedule early on for Michigan. But once again, every rep is valuable. Every opportunity to take a snap is valuable in this league. So we saw Hawaii this past weekend. You know, that game September 10th is going to be a big win. Most likely a win versus Colorado State.

You get essentially a third buy versus Yukon once again. But you want to talk about building some momentum. You pick a quarterback. He goes out there and has a killer first three weeks. And all of a sudden, this offense who you know needs to be better this year because of what you lost on the defense side of the football is saying, hey, man, we're an offense that is humming. No, you're going to be an offense.

It's still trying to figure out who the hell your quarterback is come that third game, Rishu Khan. Look, because both quarterbacks are going to play well. The schedule and the opponent dictates that you're going to have success. So then what do you say week three when you have both quarterbacks, like so, okay, well, each of you're going to get a half for Shukon. I, I, I know, look, the bottom line aired, you hit on it. The bottom line, if you look at Harbaugh's time in Michigan since 2015,

Jim Harbaugh sucks at developing quarterbacks. It's ironic. He played quarterback in the NFL. He should know it better than any position. He got successful quarterback play in the NFL out of the quarterback city coached in the league. Like it is wild. It is less Milesian. And I can say that because I saw Les Miles tried to develop quarterback's firsthand. And I saw a year in 2008, in which Jared Lee threw a lot of pick sixes, and it led to losses, right? Where Miles became so conservative,

so terrified of turnovers that all of a sudden, he was never empowering that position. He was threatening them. The only thing that mattered was not throwing picks, which led to a way over conservative offense, kind of from a philosophy standpoint, but also guys holding on the ball, pass shakes you get hearted, you're less threatening, less dynamic. All of these things. As you said,

you don't have the confidence to go out there and play if you think that you're going to get pulled at any single moment. Jim Harbaugh is like as bad as less miles at developing quarterbacks. That's not crazy. The record shows you that. And so to the why. Yeah, go go ahead. Well, two right now, at this point, you've had spring, you've had summer, you've had fall camp. If you want to consider yourself an elite coach, one of the top coaches in America, I'm sure he thinks things like that. And he is a top, I would say 15 coach in America, especially after the season they had last year. And being a guy like you alluded to that's played the position, that has coached the position, that should know the position. Well, you're telling me, after seeing these quarterbacks play last year, once again, seeing them play in spring, seeing them play in fall camp and seeing them in scrimmages, you can't properly have.

evaluate the position well enough to say who you believe should be the starting quarterback. And then once again, it goes into the game right now for these quarterbacks saying, hey, the decision hasn't been made. I don't know if I'm going to be the starting quarterback throughout the season. How tight am I going to be in these first two games? Once again, I think the schedule allows these guys to still go out there in Excel. But once again, like you are, you pride yourself on being a quarterback guy. You should be able to at this point in the season, this point in camp,

I guess on season this point at the end of camp be able to say who is the better guy for my football team. I think I honestly do. I think I have to do a transfer portal. I think he's worried about one of these guys picking up, taking their ball and hitting the portal and leaving. And this is his way to combat that.

Look, the cynic in me says yes, right? You always have to be aware of that sort of thing. In fact, Brian Kelly just where the show started announced that LSU will not be announcing a starter. Now he was up front saying like, it's for a tactical advantage.

We have named. it, but F is you going to play a warm game. We did not. So maybe it is about the transfer portal. But it's like you said, you said, you're telling me that this guy with all this quarterback experience can't pick a quarterback. And that's where it gets so crazy and hard to understand. Is that is exactly what I'm telling you. For whatever reason, Jim Harbaugh sucks at getting good college quarterback play. I don't know what it is. If I wanted to play devil's advocate on this situation. And again, I don't love this type of deal because as a player, especially at that position, Aaron, I agree with you. You want

rope to play with, right? It's like being an employee in any other instance. You want to know that your boss has your back and that, you know, you're going to be empowered to make mistakes as you try to accomplish that goal. I've been in situations where I was only one MA away from being pulled and it sucked, dude. It applies

all sort of extra pressure. Makes it hard to operate in. But if I want to play devil's advocate here, I do kind of like Harbaugh going with like the full on Joker tactics. Like, if you think about dark night back in the day when uh joker breaks and i could gamble i think it's like gambles gang or whatever and and and he kills gamble and then he has gambles two henchmen there and he snaps the pool stick and he drops it down in front of him and he's like hey we're having tryouts

but we only got one spot available harball going full joker here and with the easy schedule again to play devil's advocate here with the easy schedule you could almost treat this like an NFL preseason. Now, I don't know about Colorado State, but Hawaii looks like they are very much the rebuild that we thought they were going to be. Yukon, while improved under Jim Mora Jr. They looked fine last week, but they're still one of the worst teams in the entire country. I guess it's going to be game three. But the point is like, this could be viewed as a bit of a preseason. My only problems. Okay, this is what I would say. The only way I think this works, Aaron, is if you stick with whoever you stick with in week three. Right. Like, I don't think you

really have, I don't think you really have a quarterback controversy until you're making midgame switches. If, if, if, if this is a true tryout deal and then we're going to make a choice and then give that guy a few games of rope to work with the second that you have a bad series and you take him out and put the other guy in, that's when all bets are off and you officially have no quarterbacks. Well, I want to go into you said, T. Bob, about having a little bit of rope to play with. You look at the most successful quarterbacks in any league right now. There's a certain line of, I would say this for most positions and both athletes across all sports.

There's a certain line of cockiness and confidence that you have to type up, especially at the quarterback spot, you have to walk on the field as a quarterback, feeling like you're the baddest dude out there. Like you can make every throw. I don't care if I'm rolling to my left. I don't care if I'm rolling to my left or right. I'm going to make some Patrick Mahomes, Aaron Rogers type stuff happen. Like that's what you need to feel like when you walk out there.

Obviously, you got to be smart. Don't be an idiot. Don't try to throw the ball 40 yards across to feel like Patrick does. But have that mentality that you can, you couldn't accomplish anything. Yes. I think right now I'm a little bit worried about these quarterbacks of what their psyche is. It's a valid point of how confident can I go out there? How confident do I feel ripping a 18, 20 yard dig across the middle of the

field. How comfortable do I feel trying to fit a ball between defenders? Because I know if I make a mistake, that that's, that's enough. That may be my last chance as a starting quarterback at Michigan this year. So you want to be able to play free. You want to be able to play with some confidence. You want to be able to play with some cockiness. And you can't do that when you're battling a quarterback, I'm not saying controversy, but a quarterback dilemma here where a quarterback has not been named. A coach obviously is alluding to not having confidence in either one of those guys and that's why the decision

still is yet to be made. So overall, I am worried about Michigan. Once again, I said it earlier. This is a team that had to rely in offense being better this season. Your star defense event is gone. A lot of guys

on the defense side of the football have moved on. It will still be a good defense, but offense is going to have to play a lot better. If you want to be able to compete, what's the goal? The goal is to beat Ohio State. If you're going to beat Ohio State this year, you better score 40, 50 points. And right now, looking at the quarterback spot, I guarantee you, Michigan will not score 50 points, even against a, you know, so-so Ohio State defense. You know, it's, it's kind of funny because, you know, the quarterback coach relationship, right?

Like you said, you want to create that irrational confidence in yourself, in the relationship itself. And this is almost like Harbaugh is coming to a long time girlfriend and being like, you know, I kind of want to try something new, a bit of an open relationship, right? Like how it's a sister wife. He's doing a sister wife's thing. I don't know if it's going to play out. We'll see again, the only way. I have no faith in Harbaugh to develop a college quarterback, as we said. But the only way it maybe works is they stick with the week three guy.

We will see. speaking of sticking with guys well will Auburn stick with Brian Harrison as Auburn's AD steps down on Friday the man who orchestrated the deal to bring Brian Harrison into Auburn

Auburn also names a starting quarterback in T.J. Finley which will get to that but what does a new athletic director Aaron what does that mean for Brian Harrison's future on the planes? Well I think Brian's on the hot side they see wins. I don't think an athletic director, even though, you know, I'm a little bit surprised with this Alan Green move. I thought Alan Green, especially

look at the hierarchy made on the basketball side and how well the basketball team has performed. Yeah. With their new head coach, you're like, okay, you know, this is, this is a, I think, once again, I think a very good athletic director, you look at the other sports there at Auburn. They've all been performing decently well. Baseball, dude. Baseball made. Baseball. Gymnastics. Yeah. Gymnastics. So you're talking about a program where baseball's moving, gymnastics, basketball had, it was the number one ranked team in the country last year at one point. So I know this is a still football first conference, but Alan Green should not be stepping away right now, in my opinion. So I don't think Alan Green staying or Alan Green

leaving has anything to do with Brian Harsen having to win and having to win right now. And once again, the more I look at this, this roster for Auburn, the more I'm like, okay, they have an opportunity. They do have an opportunity. to be a won a bowl team, which I think is a good season by Auburn Center. But I do think they have a chance to be eight and four, seven and five. Is that going to make Auburn fans happy? No. I mean, no SEC team that is named Texas A&M, Alabama, Auburn, LSU, Georgia, Florida,

is going to be happy being a six and six, and six, seven to five football team. But being second season, I think you will be awarded a. a third year if you get to that seven and five part. So I'm the one thing is, you know, counter to what we just talked about with Michigan. At least they have named a starting quarterback. You alluded to it.

T.J. Finley has been named the starting quarterback. I, that was the kind of guy that I, if I had a bet on it, I would bet on him just based on what I saw last year from his limited time. And then seeing what Zach Calzada looked like at Texan. I thought T.J.

Finley was going to be the guy. And I do think we have a sound bite here as well to go along with what happened with that decision. But I think they have a good, they have good pieces where you need it. They get a good running game. Offensal line, I think, is, is adequate. Defensively, they got good guys at every single level.

They can win some football games, that's for sure. So I don't think, once again, this Alan Green leaving necessarily concerns me too much of what the future lies ahead for Brian Harsen. He just got to win. You don't win. You're gone regardless. It's a merit taxi. Matthew Cherry says,

Auburn really should fire Brian Harsson and send him packet. He's a total joke. He's a poor recruiter. He's not good enough to coach the SEC. I think there's a common sentiment among Auburn. But when I saw the question, what does this mean for Brian Harson? My immediate reaction is, how the hell am I supposed to know what it means, man? Trying to figure out Auburn politics, it's Byzantine.

And I mean that literally. Like the Roman Byzantine Empire, like where everybody's constantly trying to stab each other in the fact. There's religious hypocrisy. It's a culture unto itself that I don't really understand. Like asking me what's going on with the political dynamics at Albert? I have no idea what's going on because I don't understand the finances. Just two years ago, they spent $72 million getting rid of Malin bringing in Harsin. Now we've spent over a year talking about getting rid of Harsin.

And I cannot fathom. I mean, I got to imagine that he's still safe barring like a three and nine disaster because I cannot fathom that in the age of NIL, where you need all the resources you can that you would fire this man and pay even more buyout money. Like on top of buyout money already being fundamentally dumb and basically just lighting money on fire,

like in the NIL era, it actually becomes demonstrably worse because you are taking away from the coffers that it could be paid to get better players. So I don't know what this means, Brian Harzen. I still don't think you'd go anywhere, but Auburn's also insane.

Now, I do want to talk TJ Fenley. And Brum, if you go ahead, here is Brian Harson on why T.J. Finley won that job. And then I think just fundamentally, you know, he's gotten better as a proer, as a decision maker. And, you know, that's the one thing. I mean, it's from last year to this year, amazingly enough, people get better. And Auburn quarterbacks improve and they get better.

And so he's a guy that's done that. He's taken this offseason and worked very hard. on trying to be a better player, have a better understanding, improve his mechanics. And that showed up through the summer. It showed up through fall camp. And ultimately the reason why he's the starting quarterback. Oh, wow.

Come me doing my hair there, Brum. Now just look at your hair. Woo! Baby. I'm absurd right now. Here's a deal. You look like the damn joker. Wait, hold on, dude.

Why is Scott Frost being a dick answering that question? with they like imagine this he got better of them quarterbacks get better Brian harson you can't be a dick yes what I say Scott Frost why did Brian Brin harsen you can't be a dick you haven't earned that right like if Sabin wants to be a jack off people that's fine go ahead you have not earned that right yet secondly I'm actually a big TJ Finley fan okay I watch his cat very closely his true freshman year I know you're very high on Max Johnson here. Although Max Johnson had the much bigger wins

than Finley did that freshman year, when I watched those games and watched the film, I did not see that much of a demonstrable difference between the two different skill sets, certainly. Finley with a much more live arm, Johnson with more running ability, but when the O-line protected Finley, he thrived. When they didn't, he did not.

When the O-Line protected Johnson, he thrived as well, right? And so like it's not T.J. Finley's fault that he had to play A&M and Alabama while Max Johnson got to play a Florida team that would just, I couldn't get out of their own way. He was pretty great that night. But then an Ole Miss team whose defense is just absolutely horrid and putrid that year. So like I've always been very high on T.J. Finley.

And I'm excited to see what he can do now as an older, more experienced guy, as he's starting quarterback. for Auburn, but I just still, I mean, it's, it's still just so hard for me with the toxic culture and the Byzantine politics of Auburn for me to sit here and think that they're going to be an eight win team. Seven and five is pushing it, dude, but, but, but maybe I'll grant him that. Seven and five gives him another season. I think that to me, that's as a coach in this league that, that is just starting out. And let's not forget, Brian Harsons, not from the SEC. If he can get the seven and five in his second season. It leaves, buys him, okay, one more year to see if I can get this thing going

in the right direction. Going back to the TV Finley discussion, it's, the quarterback spot was not the issue last year. Bo Nicks, a majority of the season. I thought Boe actually was a really impressive in year three. They had no talent around him besides the running backs. They really lack talent on the outside. Receivers were average at best. tight-ins were okay, but still made some big drops and some big games. Look at the Georgia game. The amount of drops that occurred throughout the game there in Auburn really gave them an opportunity to make that thing close,

especially late in the game. So if they need to find support around TJ, TJ can be good, DJ can be bad, I don't care. If you don't have receivers that can create separation, if you don't have receivers that can at least catch a football, you're not going to have success. So I, I, it is funny what he said because it is sure everyone does hopefully get better in every single year. And let's not forget, TJ was a young guy at LSU.

TJ was young last year. It was his first year in the system. You were talking about a quarterback that hopefully is matured physically and mentally. A guy that is a better understanding of the playbook is able to get through his reads a little bit faster because he does have the tools you want. He's a big kid. He's six, seven, big arm. It's now we have a quarterback. Can we find the pieces around him to complement what he's able to do and have success?

And it's still going to be very much a run first team. You got two of the best running backs, probably the best tandem of running backs in this conference. I think you have a very good defense. It's not out of the question to go seven and five with that recipe. But if you start to lose games and lose confidence, and once again, it gets back to the confidence in the head coach. what we talked about with coach frost if the team loses confidence in your head coach you could see this team start to spiral down really really quickly and if they are five and seven and not making a bowl game then all of a sudden those boosters who seem to have a lot of control

there in alburn will be making decisions about who's going to be the head coach of 2023 for the operant tigers uh more like bryan farts in uh but in all seriousness i have heard lumber prices are down so i know yellowwood's one of the big boosters over there I don't know. Maybe, maybe he's not going to be able to swing it anymore. Maybe, maybe he's going to be the new athletic director. And I would, again, in the politics of Auburn, I don't think anything is beyond the pale. So we were talking about T.J. Finley, one guy that he was competing with was Max Johnson,

somebody that me and you, Aaron, we've talked for both pretty high on, right? Well, did it shock you at all when Jimbo Fisher came out and named a king, But it was a man literally named King, Haynes King, the starting quarterback for the Texas A&M. He's not Max Johnson. I was a little surprised, unless Haynes King has just absolutely taking a massive step in the right direction and throwing the football. Because what I said, it was limited. Once again, I hate the judge quarterbacks on, you know, one or two games early on in the career. You know, just like Carson just said, these guys are going to get.

better. They're going to see they watch the film. You got really good coaches. They can be nitpicky. They can say, hey, this is what you need to work on. And I'm sure he went in this spring and summer and fall camp, worked his tail off to become more of a natural pastor. But all I can go off as an analyst is based of what I've seen on film. And last year, watching him for essentially a game in a quarter before he got hurt versus Colorado was not very good as a thrower. Yeah, he's a hell of an athlete. But when I think Jimbo Fisher, and I think what fits best and what Joe best of what Fisher wants to do as a as a head coach and an offensive mind is throw the football is have a quarterback that can get through his reads make everything go throw from a slant to an out

to a deep dig to a corner post all that good stuff and and and based to what I've seen from haines I don't think he can do that at a consistent level he can run really fast but jimbo to me is not shown at me that he wants to run an offense that is a zone read type offense it's still very much of a pro style system. So who fits better in that scheme? Why I'd give the edge to Max Johnson. What I saw from Max last year at LSU was a guy that can throw the ball, can make every throw you want, has the legs to get in outside the pocket, very similar to a guy named Kellyn Mon, who was successful there at Texas A&M, a passer first, athletic enough to be creative with his legs, but can make the throws that you want. Max fits more that that

mode than Haynes King does. I'm a little bit surprised there. Obviously, he's seen something in Haynes to crown him the starting quarterback the past two years heading into the season. I will say this. I will not be surprised at the end of the day if Max Johnson is named the starting quarterback at some point this season because of the lack of ability to throw the ball from Haynes King. Oh, spicy boy.

We'll see. I, okay, so my takeaways from the Hank's King situation or this. If I was an A&M fan, I would actually be feeling pretty positive about this for everything Aaron just told you, right? Like both me and Aaron actually believe that Max Johnson is pretty damn good. I think if you look at his numbers from last year, he had a completely respectable touchdown to pick and or race. I think it might have been like 20 to 7 off top my head. But as someone who obviously has to cover the LSU program as closely as I do, I can tell you he was working out of an offense that was. fundamentally and operationally flawed,

like horribly flawed. He was dealing with the first time play caller Jake Pease. I watched that offense called timeouts coming out of TV timeouts. Hell, I watch him call timeouts coming out of timeouts. Like the amount of times that they would get to third and one or fourth one, not be able to make a decision, the amount of times that Max is ever to look to the sideline

and be like, I need a play. Like for him to still have success, I think he's really good. So if Hanks King is winning that John, then if I'm a M fan, I'm actually gaining more juice today. I'm a little fired up. Like from where I sit,

I'm a little more worried now about Texas A&M than I maybe was previously, although they may be one of the biggest conundrums in the entire sport right now. It's kind of insane. It's just such a disconnect between how the polls view them and how like when you talk to other media members and everybody else,

just kind of how they're viewed on the streets. Yeah. Well, I think one thing that is going to be based on this quarterback decision, it also may be a sign. And once we'll bring this back to Auburn, a sign of what's around them for the receiving spot. You know, big question for Auburn this year is who's going to be the receivers? I think big question too from A&M is who's going to be the receivers? Who's going to be those top guys?

I mean, A chain's a, a guy that you move around, but is he a true number one zero X receiver? I wouldn't necessarily say that. So do you have that consistent playmaker on the outside to run your process? run your pro style offense. I think that's the question mark. Maybe that's why you lean more towards a Haynes King of, hey, guys, as a coach that's getting paid this much money, and a guy who's supposed to be an offensive mind first, I got to find a way to have success. And I don't have that true, once again, that that big six three, six four, you know, a couple receivers that can go win on one-on-one battles. I got some young, I got some speed guys, guys that you can move from

the slot, you can move in the backfield. You can maybe, you know, maybe play a little Z and X. but not really that consistency on the outside that we've seen from A&M. So maybe Jimbo's looking at this like, hey, I may not be able to throw the ball 35, 40 times and have success. Maybe I do have to run the football and maybe having a guy like Keynes King, maybe I dabble a little bit in the zone read RPO world to give my offense a better chance. So there's two ways to look at it. One is like you alluded to, if he beat Max out,

that means that his ability to throw the ball has skyrocketed because that's, more of what you think about with Jimbo. Or I'm more guessing that because of the lack of true receiving talent on the outside, you go with a quarterback that maybe gives you some more options. And maybe this offense for A&M is going to look a little bit different than what we're used to seeing Jimbo run at FSU and during his early career here at Texas A&M for the Aggies. So I'm a little bit more concerned about the skill around this offense. And then if that's the case, to me, this is a team that could be.

be the third or fourth best team in the SEC West and all of a sudden Jimbo in his fifth year, that ain't good enough either. But they are spending a lot of money on him right now. So I don't see, you know, obviously he's not on the hot seat right now. Yeah. The last thing goes to in the Max Jots situation is simply that it also thankfully

shut down, shuts down something that I got very sick of here in this offseason, which was you didn't transfer in to ride the bench. Okay, whatever. Of course not. you think you're going to win the job, but there are no guarantees. We are seeing more and more in the age of the transfer portal that, yeah, you can transfer and have it not work out.

In fact, Alabama released a depth chart today and Eli Ricks was a backup to Kool-Aid McKinstree. Okay, now they had the slash on there, so maybe it still remains to be seen a bit. But the point is you don't automatically win jobs just because you transfer. That's what it should be, right? You bring in competition. And then Haines King is now better than he was for having. we competed with Max Johnson and vice versa. Aaron, week zero of college football in the books.

Week one beginning now. Week two of snaps. Very excited. Huge thank you to Fandall. Shout out to you, Aaron. I believe two and O'No on your picks last week, right? Would you take Fannie in the over?

Oh, the over to be over in Vandy, which hit big time. No, I took Nebraska with the points. Oh, you followed me in the Frosty Boys. That's right.

Yeah. I did I was on that's on me dude I was feeling good at 11 point lead I was like there's no way I know no no no no I'm a big boy I just I just got so excited you know freeze cold ice all that it's it's it's a bad football analysis but whatever whatever we're okay best o one team in the country still going to get bowl eligible we'll see coming up this week though guys we got lsu fs you we got cincinnati Arkansas we got organ uGA we got utah we got Utah Florida we have Don't know. Dame Ohio State. Oh, thank the Lord. Football is here. Aaron, thank you so much, man. Ryan Brumley, our excellent producer back at Mission Control. Thank you.

Of course, thank you to the volume YouTube channel, Papa Colin. And subscribe to the podcast, like, share with your friends, rate it, review it, all of those things that help please the algorithmic gods. We will see you tomorrow, 2 p.m. Eastern with a brand new edition of Snack. Have a great day.