The McShay Show - A Shedeur Sanders Deep Dive, Caleb Williams Concerns, and Bama and Ole Miss Surging in the SEC

Episode Date: November 12, 2024

Todd and Steve open the show by discussing what Shane Waldron’s firing in Chicago means for the Bears and Caleb Williams moving forward. Then, they talk Shedeur Sanders’s tape, his place as the QB1 in the 2025 draft, and what his NFL ceiling could be. To cap the show, the guys discuss how big wins by Alabama and Ole Miss could shake up the College Football Playoff race. (0:00) Welcome to The McShay Show! (0:10) Today's Show: Caleb Williams, Shedeur Sanders, Ole Miss and more! (1:15) Bears Fire OC Shane Waldron (3:05) State of the Rookie QB Class: What have we Learned? (6:55) Caleb Williams Needs More Support (15:30) NFL Week 10 Takeaways (18:45) Evaluating Shedeur Sanders vs. Texas Tech: 291 Pass, 4 TD (33:30) 2025 NFL Draft Prospect Profile: Shedeur Sanders (43:55) NFL Comps for Shedeur Sanders (45:35) Todd's Top 5 QB Prospects (50:25) (16) Ole Miss Upsets (3) Georgia: 28-10 (52:45) Ole Miss is a Contender (1:05:30) (11) Alabama Defeats (15) LSU: 42-13 (1:12:45) What was Different with Alabama against LSU? (1:18:10) This Week on the McShay Show (1:21:20) Hypothetical Odds: Alabama vs. OSU [-4.5] & Alabama vs. Oregon [-3] (1:23:00) Thanks For Watching! The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit www.rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Host: Todd McShay Guest: Steve Muench Producers: Tucker Tashjian, Mark Panik, Conor Nevins, and Daniel Comer Social: Eduardo Ocampo Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome back into the McShay Show. We've got another jam-packed Tuesday, a lot to react to, including the news out of Chicago. Shane Waldron, the offensive coordinator, is out. Obviously, you've watched the struggle so far with Caleb Williams. Seems like an appropriate time. We'll break that all down. Shador Sanders, draft profile. We're going to get into him, a deep dive.

Mention I have studied the tape. It's about time, right? Shador's on a run. Colorado's on a run. Really want to dig into his tape and discuss what we're seeing. And then finally, another deep dive, we're going to get into two of the resurgent programs in Alabama and LSU and where we think they stand coming off of huge wins. And finally, we'll try to make sense of this beautiful mess that is the SEC playoff hunt. It's week 12 in college football.

It's week 11 in the NFL and just 163 days until the NFL. Ments, you good? I'm good, man. All right, let's hit those beats. A lot to break down here. You know, it's a Tuesday morning. It should be like a sleepy morning, you know, not a whole lot going on coming up Monday night football. But all of a sudden the news breaks.

Shane Waldron is out as the offensive coordinator. Not a big surprise. No. And any times news is breaking, we've got to get to it, especially when it comes to the effects on a rookie quarterback. And the quarterback, let's face it, that the vast majority, not everyone, but the vast majority viewed as a transformational talent. and Caleb Williams. What's interesting to me is, like the first three weeks of the season, as Jaden Daniels is going like this, skyrocketing, skyrocketing.

His performance has been excellent, right? We saw Caleb kind of sputter in the beginning. But then after, I think, week three, we saw a lot of progress, playing within the system, more decisive, showing that he understands where his eyes should be, going through his reeds, feet more comfortable, right? That lasted about three weeks. And so there we are about week six.

But all of a sudden there was this regression. It was like, you know, two steps forward. And then over time it became three or four steps back. And it really hit a valley, if you will, this past week against the New England Patriots. And we could go through all the stats. I don't think we need to. It was ugly. The one stat that I'll say, and it was in part the offensive scheme,

in part this offensive line that has struggled to protect all week. and in part on Caleb Williams from holding on the ball too long as a result of not trusting his reads and having a great feel inside of his offensive system. Nine sacks. Nine sacks. Nine sacks. You know, like throughout my career, and I know throughout your career, watching rookie quarterbacks come in, and whenever they're taking that number of hits, whenever they're not

comfortable in the pocket, you can see a regression in the confidence. And we saw it over the last several weeks with Caleb Williams. And it really was never more obvious than this painstaking game against the New England Patriots. Good defense, not an elite defense. And then you've got Drake May on the other side who sat the first several weeks behind Jacoby Brissette, who, you know, everyone said, we're not going to play him as a rookie. That's not our plan. He's a first round quarterback. We see that plan get trashed more often than not, the vast majority of the time.

with these rookie quarterbacks that are drafted in the first round. But you see Drake May, and he is a work in progress. There's no question. Not there as a passer yet, not there in terms of making his reads, big adjustment from what he did in 2023 at North Carolina to what he's doing in the NFL. His tape in 2022 was better than 2023. But it's very obvious to me. And maybe it's because we're here in New England, maybe a little bit more in terms of like local coverage and press conferences and just a little bit more exposure to him on a weekly basis. I see a young man in Drake May who's improving incrementally. And I said that I put out a tweet in the middle of the game, watching that game,

also watching Jaden Daniels throughout the season, but in that same window on Sunday. And watching Bow Nicks in that same window, not his best game, but man, does he look like a quarterback who knows what is being. asked of him knows where to go the football more often than not. And you can just see from week one to this past weekend the development, the progress. And that's what you expect to see out of these rookie quarterbacks. And with Drake May, you can see he's comfortable in his own skin. And I know that's not something that shows up on the stat line, but I also know it's so critical. When quarterbacks have confidence, when they know when to run, when they have that running ability

like Drake has. You can just see they're moving in the right direction in New England with Drake May. And it's not a, it's not, you know, no one's sitting there studying New England's offense as something that they want to emulate. No. Right. I mean, when you look at the supporting castes, when you look at see who Caleb Williams has a wide receiver and you look at who Great.

May has a wide receiver. I mean, it's night and day, man. That's why there was such, I think, such high hopes is that Chicago was in a a great spot to bring in a young quarterback. They were built to win. They had an offense that could move the ball. They had guys that can make plays. And it is, the dysfunction is obvious at this point.

I mean, it's, they're just not on this. No one's on the same page. It feels like no one's on the same page. Protection, routes. The quarterback's not playing with any confidence. And again, the juxtaposition of Drake May without those kind of weapons, just trusting his instincts, finding guys late, making plays with his feet. And again, does he still have a long way to go?

the week before he they were i think it was tennessee that he threw the interception at the end of the game just kind of threw it up made a great play at the end of the game to get into overtime and then made a head scratcher to end the game on a interception so but that's rookie stuff right right that's just the guy who's developing but again he's he's not afraid to make the play he's not afraid to let it lose he's not afraid to let it rip like and you and you see the for lack of a better term that chicago offense looks tight at times they just look tight like no one Disjoicted, right? Someone needs to make a play.

You know, we used to hear that in football all the time. Who's going to step up and make a play and get that momentum going our way and really get things to start to shift? And right now there's a lot of everyone looking at each other to see who's going to do that. How critical is this higher now? And I'm not talking about offensive coordinator. Tom Brown comes in. He's the interim O.C. Right.

There's not an expectation that anything is going to change or that he's going to be the solution. And God bless him if he is, then then, then, wonderful. Great. But even if it looks like things are really good and progressing at the end of the season and you see Caleb start to play with more confidence and start to develop and grow,

to me, that's not the answer. Iber Fluse is a really good defensive coach. But from the jump, when they hired Shane Waldron, yeah, like he's done some decent stuff, did a nice job with Gino Smith in Seattle. But I never was sold on this. I can remember talking to an executive at a different company who's a lifelong Bears fan. He asked me point blank this summer.

What do you think about Shane? I was like, I'm not going to sit here and say negative things, but I know this for a fact. If I'm running that organization and I'm bringing in a quarterback who's supposed to be the savior, who's a generational talent, I'm not entrusting Shane Waldron to be that guy to develop him. And so here we are, right? and the writing's on the wall. Ben Johnson makes the most sense to me as the replacement head coach moving forward.

If you can get them. And there's reports, and I don't know how accurate all this is, that Ben wanted the Chicago job. And that wasn't the case in the offseason. Comes back to Detroit. I'm interested to see this. If it was a team, really any other team besides Detroit, but a team that wasn't in the same. division in the same conference and listen that these contracts up i believe ben jonsons is the offensive coordinator for the detroit lions done a phenomenal job not good phenomenal job with

tariff right the whole offense really but yeah yeah and so there's nobody else that i would that i would peg ahead of him that i could bring in in terms of being my head coach moving forward right but but there's a there's a there's a grit as dan campbell would say there's a loyalty there you know and so like well ben may want that job and if he decides it's his job he'll go take it and that'll be a great rivalry right like ben johnson going up against dan campbell in the same division but i just wonder if that's something he's willing to do with the amount of love and care that he's put into and has for this Detroit team if he wants to face his division rival twice a year and and And so that's a huge question moving forward.

I talked when the news broke just like an hour ago, I made a call to one of our guys in the league just to try to get some perspective. You know, it's always interesting to hear what personnel people from, from other organizations have to say about things like this. Not always positive, you know, taking cuts when they can because that's just the competitive nature of the NFL. Right. We had an interesting conversation about. how concerning it is, how important it is to get this next hire, right?

And to bring in someone that there's true belief in. So that, like, it's not just the quarterback that gets behind this next hire, the whole organization. Right. And so we were talking back and forth about a bunch of different things. And we started putting together a list. It's not over. It's not like, yes, in recent history in the NFL, we're seeing some guys that fail in their first place that go to other places and have success.

The two most obvious Baker Mayfield, right? Yep. And bouncing around the way he did landing in Tampa and really in two different coordinators, two different coaches. Right. Over the past couple of years, the success he's had and continues even without Mike Evans, you know, even without, without Godwin. Like, still seeing him play at that high level this past two weeks is remarkable.

Sam Darnold's the other one, bounced around, the jets, disaster. Panthers disaster goes in San Francisco learns behind Kyle right and what about golf too I mean and well I was going to get to him okay sorry no no no you're good um but those those are those are examples of guys who have had had to move around to find it right we were talking about who were guys that that have been able to find and I guess golf golf was the first one we came up with and it I guess because it was that golf was set somewhere else and McVe is a great coach. And McVeigh is helped. McVeigh helped with Baker for a minute. Right. McVeigh made it perfectly clear. I thought it was one of the more enlightening

quotes. And I'm going to paraphrase. But when McVeigh made that trade in the Rams for Matthew Stafford, the quote, again, paraphrase was, I'm looking for a partner, not a mentorship. Right. And so that made sense that he knew what he needed. And he got that. And so golf was kind of like, you know, move on after even go make it do a Super Bowl. But with Ben Johnson, Goff has thrived. Give you a couple other examples, just in recent history. Alex Smith, sputtering. His career is never going to be any good.

Should have drafted Aaron Rogers, same draft class, all of that. But he gets with Andy Reed in Kansas City, and they win a lot of games. Yeah. And he flourished. Right. It was never going to take him to the Promise land. They knew it. Brought him Patrick Mahomes.

The rest is history. But Alex Smith is an example. of just a new coach and also, I guess, moving around. To a Tungabai Loa. The next two are prime examples of staying in the same place, getting the change in scenery, a change in coaching, to a tongue of by Lola with Mike McDaniel. Okay.

Yeah. Jalen Hertz, Shane Steichen, Sieriani, to a certain extent, how much you want to give him credit. But so I guess the point of the conversation was it's not like a lost cause, but there are also a lot of examples of guys that it's just if the organization doesn't get it right with that change like the Jets with Darnold, you know, like the list goes on, that it may require him going somewhere else. But that's why there's so much pressure on this Bears organization to get this thing right. Yeah, I mean, I couldn't agree with you more.

You invested this asset. I mean, again, you and even a bigger picture, you spent two top 10 picks on offensive players. I mean, your quarterback is obviously A1, but you, I mean, you've invested now. And the other thing is, and we talked about this a lot, too, is you want to win on your rookie's rookie contract. Yes. You cannot take your time here. This cannot be like, we're going to give Iber Fluse another year.

There's just no, you cannot do it. You have to find the answer now. And look, and if you don't, then you're looking at a complete organizational reset again in two to three years. I mean, the pressure couldn't be any higher. Yeah, you get to that year five. And now all that money that you have for free agency, for other players to, you know,

to pay other guys up who are playing well, who deserve to stay there. Right. You start making tough decisions in year five. Tyree Kill, got to go. Yeah. We got to get better on defense. You know what I mean?

So, yeah. And that was because we got to pay Mahomes. and we better, if we're not, it's Tyreek or build an entire defense, basically. You know, I mean, it wasn't that simple, but, but it was, yeah, it was the premise. You make, you keep it Chris Jones or Tyreek. Right. You start, those are the conversations you start to have as a front office when you're no longer paying your quarterback on a rookie contract.

But those are, but, but if developed properly, those are the good conversations that you hope your organization has to have. And Brett Beach, the general manager and Andy Reed, those were comfortable, They were difficult. They were hard decisions to make, but there was a level of confidence in what they had done to develop Patrick Mahomes and where he was in his process

and developing into at the time, if not the best and the second best behind Tom Brady in terms of quarterbacks in the league. And so now we can trust him to carry an offense that doesn't have Tyreek. Right, because the alternative is who we're going to draft a quarterback next year. We can keep all these guys, it's great,

but we still don't have an answer to a quarterback. So, yeah, obviously, that's a great, it's a great spot to be in. You're right. All right. I mean, I don't know. I just, I get, I get fired up with this stuff. Like, there's, there's a certain level of attachment with these rookies that come into the league and the amount of time that we have invested in a fraction of which, you know, college scouting departments and NFL organizations and general managers invest in it as well. But to see a guy with that much talent struggle the way he has is hard to watch. It's just, it's what we do. It's hard to watch. It's just, it's what we do. It's hard to watch. But I do think it's a good transition. Like anyone who's tuned to. into the show for the last, what, we're week four, I think, of the show. And it's been a blast and we love

what we're doing. But I think some people are probably like, well, it's an NFL draft show. Where's the NFL? We focus a lot on college football and that's what we're going to do. But I also, for the last decade plus, I've been traveling to NFL or to college games on Thursdays and missing a good portion of the Thursday night game, traveling back on Sundays and missing, I can't speak today, missing a good portion of it. NFL games. I love this new gig. I'm home. I'm watching games, studying more tape. And so, like, the NFL stuff is coming. Like, I think we have a lot to get into deeper dives on these rookie quarterbacks. I think we, like, how about watching, and I know they lost last night,

Monday night football against Miami, but how about watching the Rams and our good, our good friend, less need, you know, and watching what that scouting department? And I just think of like the, the area scouts and then the national scouts and then the cross checks of these scouts. And then the scouts and and deciding to land on two defensive linemen that were two of the toughest best tape guys like motors revving physical players and to bring both of them in from the same school put them on the same defensive line and braden fiske and jaredes and jared verse and to watch those guys like the way they've played and transform that rams defense and i know last night again was a loss but verse was phenomenal yeah i mean he's been i mean as good as advertised yeah so

I guess my point is this. I also want to react. I don't know if you saw Bill Belichick came out. He put a lot of time and effort into it. Offense, defense, special teams, his midseason rookie report. And he threw in some second year players who didn't play much as rookies. Interesting. Yeah.

So we're going to do a lot more of that, get into NFL games as we get down the stretch, especially when the college football regular season and championship ends, when we get at that lull in the college football schedule before the playoffs start. there's a lot of NFL stuff that we're going to get to. And it's how we always work, you know, in our little scouting department, if you will. Right. You know, you get into late in the season, a lot more focus on NFL. What are the team needs?

Who's moving? Who's going to be moving in free agency? What, you know, what's the draft order? So there's a lot to get in the NFL. I'm sure we'll have a lot of help from our friends at Fanduel. We'll start looking at games. We'll get into the playoffs. So there's a lot to get into in the NFL.

But for now, the focus is clearly on this race in college football and throughout the season, and we've profiled some other top quarterbacks and some other top prospects. But I feel like now is the right time to get into Shador Sanders. Yeah, we haven't really hit on QB1 yet. I mean, we've talked about it, but we haven't really done the deep dive. Yeah, I mean, Coach Prime's son, Colorado was dead to rights, almost lost to North Dakota State in the opener, really didn't look that good.

lost two of their next five games. All of a sudden now they're on a three-game winning streak and they control their situation. No one controls destiny, but they control their situation in the Big 12. And so I felt like now is a good time to get into Shador Sanders and what we're seeing as a prospect.

With that in mind, I made the comment on Saturday night after the games that I was really impressed with what I saw. on TV from Chador and the adjustments he made in game against Texas Tech. Okay. And I know we had a graphic at that point. I'm not sure if we still have it. You know, we can live with it or without it.

But what he did in the first quarter of that game, what Texas Tech did to him in that first quarter of the game. Look at that. Look at our guys. Best team in the business, man. Best in the business. First quarter is three for seven, 27 yards. I even, you know, in game was kind of jotting it.

down first quarter and the first drive throwing the first drive of the second quarter. There were two sacks. I think it was four of nine, I want to say, for like 29 yards or four of eight. I forget what it was. But it was not pretty and had two sacks. And the rest of that game from that point, the second drive in the second quarter on, you see the final three quarters, 27 of 36, 26, 264 yards, three touchdowns, and was only sacked one time.

So it begged the question. And I kept saying on Saturday night, you know, the late night show that we did the reaction show, which was live and I appreciate people tuning in. And we're going to do that every week. Saturday night, after the prime time game,

we're going to be here to break down the biggest games. Typically that game, this week it's going to be Georgia versus Tennessee. And so please join us. We'll be live on YouTube. And then the podcast will come out on Spotify and everywhere else that you get your podcast. But I said to you that I,

that I really wanted to go back and study that tape because I wanted to see what the difference was. So here's what, and jump in where you want, as always. Okay. Interrupt me where you feel it's appropriate, but I'm going to just kind of rip through my notes for a minute. And then when we circle back, I'll get into kind of big picture what I think pros and cons of him and maybe get into an NFL comparison. Okay. In the first quarter, when he was struggling and you just saw and heard the stats, Texas Tech throughout the game, not just the first quarter, throughout the game, two high shell that means two safety's back you hear a lot of that in the NFL you know and

Kuiper had the dumb yeah your guy he wants to get rid of it he wants we should ban two cover two two high shells okay well we'll get Mel on like yeah make my life even harder at this point we're gonna get Mel on the next couple of weeks and yeah tried him on that and everything else but um too high shell okay they mix their coverage a lot of two man some covered two zone some zone match where they're in zone, but they match to a receiver in their zone. Pattern match, exactly. They also mixed up their rush pretty beautifully. A lot of exotic stuff.

Like defensive linemen starting into, looks like they're going to twist or run an end tackle, you know, a game and all of a sudden one of the two drops into underneath zone. Simulated pressures, all of it. It was really, it was impressive. It was risky. Right. You know, they took chances. And Texas Tech is interesting when you watch them this.

this year, like they've been really bad in past defense against average competition. They've been really good against better competition. I know. So, I mean, there's three man rushes, four man rushes, five and six man pressures. Like they were just mixing it up. I wouldn't say a ton of that bothered Shador, but there were some things that stood out in that first quarter, first quarter and the first drive. First of all, they can't run the ball, which is concerning.

They could not run the football against a too high safety look. And that's a problem, right? That's a problem. If you get two safeties backed off, like you should be able to run the football. They couldn't. Then wide receivers inconsistent shaking coverage. They also had a couple of drops in those first four or five series.

And then there were a couple screens that were blown up. You know, like the easy stuff wasn't working against that cover two, defense backed up, retreating all that, but showing a lot of different games up front with different pressure looks. you should be able to run the ball. You should be able to throw underneath stuff and screen stuff. And you should be able to, you hope that your receivers are going to shake coverage and make it kind of easier short intermediate.

Wasn't the case. But then, and I looked, 228, this is a specific play, 228 in the first quarter. There was a high, I guess my point is there, it was mostly circumstance with everything, but there were some things that Shadour was doing that did. didn't match the opponent and quite frankly, it was not his best ball. 228 remaining in the first quarter quarter on the right side, they were running a high, low concept. One of the receivers going vertical.

The other ran an out route to try to suck in the safety. It worked effectively. He had a receiver open, got over the top of coverage, and he didn't put the ball on him. That was on him. That was an example. Also, I thought in the first quarter plus not on time. He was drifting a lot in the pocket. Yeah, that was weird.

Yeah, go ahead. Sorry, I saw that too. I thought that I love his full work. More in this game that I had seen in a long time that he started to drift and kind of move around when he didn't have to. And climb. Again, I think that these are things that he generally does well. But within this game, he wasn't stepping up as much as I had, I've been used to see him do. So it was interesting that he was drifting.

And it affected his accuracy a little bit. but go ahead, sorry. I totally agree. And I saw that. But what changed, first of all, it's almost like they came to the sideline. They looked at some of the things on the Microsoft surface, and they decided like, okay, this is what they're doing.

Now we know what they're doing. How do we adjust? The first thing I thought, and I'll put it in like layman's terms, I thought he started to, after that, in that second drive of the second quarter and the rest of the game, he started instead of retreating, in the pocket. Right.

He started taking the fight to Texas Tech. Which is what we're used to seeing. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Climing the pocket. Studying the linebackers. If I see their backs, that means they're in man.

It's not cover two zone. It's man to man. Now I'm going to climb in the pocket. I'm going to take off running. I'll make this note. And I know that there was some chatter about him competing with his dad for the 40-yard dash, running a 4-2-1 or whatever that was. That's a joke.

Yeah, I mean, he apparently ran a four, six, five coming out of high school. I don't even see that. The dude ain't fast. Apparently those Colorado dispensaries have some pretty good product for wherever that is. His pocket mobile, he extends. He is not fast. He lumberes a little bit when he takes off running. But he was taking the fight to Texas Tech.

So that was the first thing I saw the difference from that second quarter in the second drive in the second quarter on. No longer drifting, starting to climb, taking off and running when and took off several. times. The second thing, Colorado made a conscious decision. All right, if they're going to drop, if they're going to drop this many guys, whether it was six, seven, or eight, but they're going to have two safeties dropping back and they're going to, they're going to take away the verticals. We got to attack the short to intermediate. And it's not with slow developing screens. It's with the quick game. And then a lot of like the in cutting stuff, intermediate, like attack those zones underneath if you've got the safeties dropping off. And I thought Colorado did a great job adjusting

with that and I think his mindset changed. And then I thirdly as his mindset changed and he started being more aggressive and taking the fight to Texas Tech, you saw the internal clock speeding up because as he was drifting and waiting for a home run play, waiting for that hero ball stuff to happen, it wasn't working. And so it was like this shift in mindset of, all right, if you're going to back off, I'm going to take off running. If you guys are so deep in coverage, I'm going to take the short to intermediate. The clock was. ticking better in his head. And we say speed up.

Sometimes I think you hear that so often in football that you can see it as a negative of, the game's going too fast for me. Right. It gets going. No, no, that's not what you're saying. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm seeing the same thing. So he is now just, he's like, okay, if this is what you want to do, I'm going to get the ball out quickly.

I'm going to get it to my playmakers. I'm going to be accurate. I'm going to put them into place to produce after the catch. It's, and now I'm, now I'm in a rhythm. Now I'm in, I'm feeling the rhythm of the game better. And like, to me, it was a perfect example was it was like 1430, one of the first plays of the third quarter, second half, right? It was play 38 in the offensive tape. I got a note right here.

Okay. It was play 38, 1441 third quarter. Go ahead. It was like a bang eight route kind of down the seam. And you could see his internal call. Like earlier in the game, I don't know that he makes that throw as, and makes that. decision as decisively as he does, tough throw into traffic, had to thread it, had to actually throw it an inch behind the receiver's numbers.

Intentionally, right? Intentionally. And that's when I was like, oh, okay, this is going to be a fun third, third and fourth quarter. He's on. He knows what he's seeing. Decisive. When he hit that bang eight, it was like, okay. He's stealing it.

He's stealing it. And from that point on, the offense flowed. It really did. And then all of a sudden they got up was 34, 20. and that was the ball game. Summary, not his best game. There weren't a ton of NFL throws in there where I was like, all right, let's cut those off

for the highlight reel when we get to draft. There just weren't. Right. But my takeaway was, like, you see Mahomes do this all the time now. You saw Brady do it all the time, not putting him in a level of any of those guys because he's just not. But the really good quarterbacks

adjust to what they're seeing, make in-game adjustments, and find a way to grind out a win based off of what they're being given. The opportunities they're being given. And that's exactly what he did. So to me, that's progress. Because it could have been a good. Yeah, I agree. I mean, there's other things that I, you know, that jumped out to me too is, again, you always want to self-scout a little bit. And I'm wondering if I was low on his arm strength coming in when I first evaluated or is his arm getting stronger, which can happen? And I don't think he has a canon for an arm. It's not a liability. It's not. And when you talk about those, like the play you talk about specifically, when you thread the needle, I think everyone again looks at that as like, that's a pure

arm strength thing. It's not. It's anticipation. It's accuracy. It's timing. All of those things, which I think are just great strengths for him is knowing. Go ahead. No, no, I was just saying, I want you to keep going. But I want to pull up his, um, his, his, um, his play. player profile where we do the position specific traits for quarterbacks here, the mental makeup, accuracy, release in arm strength, and pocket mobility. And those of you that are watching this, you can see and we'll walk you through. The mental makeup is a one. And I say that.

And one, let's give you the scale again, one being elite, two being good and above average, three is average, four is subpar, five is marginal. And as you see in the screen, we color-coded all the time. The mental makeup is, the mental makeup is a one elite, and that's a green, because several factors. I think he'll continue to develop in terms of going through reads. And we talked about consistency with his decisiveness and playing on time. But my goodness, do I love his competitiveness?

And do I love his toughness? This might be. You see that hit when you got hit late? I mean, not late low. He got popped low, man. It looked, it did not look good for a minute. And just the next play, he's held to stand in there. He is as tough a son of a gun as you could find at the quarterback position.

I just, I love that about his game. I think he's the easiest one mental makeup. It was the easiest one I've ever given for mental makeup. Because I think by every dynamic or every way you would grade that, he checks, checks the boxes. I think he's smart. I think he understands his offense. I think he knows when to get the buck. ball out. He takes the easy throws when they're there. He's tough. He handles all the off the field

stuff well. I mean, think about all the off the field things he has to deal with and then go and play football on Saturday and the way he's handled all of that as well. I think he's an easy one for mental makeup. I agree. And I he's not perfect. No quarterback is. But I think he's a one in accuracy too. I really do. When his feet are right especially, and even his ability rolling to the right rolling to the left. Like he just, some guys have it. They understand the anticipation, how to throw receivers open,

the touch, how to layer the ball. I think, I think he excels in that area. I also think too, and we'll get into the arm strength in a second, which we had the release arm strength. I gave him a two,

which is above average. And I want to get to that in a second. Pocket mobility, two, because I think he has great instincts. He extends, makes a lot of plays. You see in the college level,

he's able to take off and pick up some first downs. did that several times against Texas Tech. I don't think in the NFL it's going to be as much as we see in college, because I don't think he has that speed or even that Twitch that you look for. But with all that said, like, I think when you get into the arm strength and the reason why we always put release slash arm strength, it's kind of, it's start to finish, how quickly is from when he starts to pull the trigger

to when the ball hits that receiver's chest or hands. hands, how quickly is that? And what can speed that up is a compact, quick release. And I love his, he's got a smooth, compact stroke. Right. He really does. And then so you go down, like, if you're doing pros, pros is he's the best pure passer in this class.

Another pro, the smooth compact stroke, like just gets the ball out quickly. Another pro, the toughness and competitive level. It's elite, elite, as we just talked about. And then finally, football instincts. Some guys have it. Some guys don't. He's been around ball this whole life. I'm sure that's a major part of it.

You have to have instincts. You have to feel things that other guys don't. You have to have confidence in your ability. He's got all those things. Yeah, he's a killer. He's got that killer instinct when he needs it. I mean, he's a different. It's the mental makeup.

There's a reason, too, why we stack those traits the way we do, right? Mental makeup, one. Yes. Second, arm strength, third, because arm strength is not as important. as Accurstein mental makeup. Right up at the top is mental makeup. Does this guy have it? Because we've seen other quarterbacks, man.

Peyton Manning didn't throw the ball like Jeff George. Remember Jeff George, the quarterback who's like the gun for hire who could just sling it? Yeah, you know, it's not, I mean, Patrick Mahomes doesn't have the strong strong. I don't know. Josh Allen, you don't think Josh Allen has a stronger arm. You don't think. Yeah, but I mean, you're comparing a cheetah to a leopard. Fair enough.

You know what I'm saying. This back me up for a second. You know what I'm saying. Fine. Even if I don't buy it. There's a reason that arm strength and release a third in pocket mobility. The last, all of them are important. A mental makeup king, man.

It's right up top. I agree. I agree. Now, let's go down the cons section, the pros and cons. Let's go down the cons. I support what you're saying. I think he's got a, he has a solid, above average arm when you combine the release quickness and the stroke.

but I but I'll pull back a little bit on what you're saying yeah I see instances where he's driving the ball down the field and maybe he has improved and maybe it's his footwork and tying it all together but I also have read people like I've more time I talked about more time on my hands like and I try not to read I do a pretty good job not reading not reading stuff from people that it doesn't it doesn't matter but occasionally I'll come across things and I'm like yeah no and I've read a couple people who's, you know, rifle for an arm. I read something like, he has a cannon for an, he doesn't. I just talked to an NFL scout when, it was the Thursday before the Cam Ward.

When we were talking about Cam, because I wanted to really dive into Cam, but we also got you can't talk about Cam without talking about Shador and some of these other guys. And we talked about Shador. And his big thing was like, you know, his arm's fine with the quick release and all that, it's fine. But like, it doesn't snap off his hand like, like, like Cam Ward, you know, like, you know, there's a difference when you watch it. And so his ball is going to be in the air a little bit longer on certain throws.

So I push back heavily on the cannon for arm comments that I've read a rifle for an Yeah, I'm with you on that one. I actually thought what I was saying was coming in. I was like, I was wondering if it was a liability. And I don't think it's a liability. It's not a liability. It's got more than enough arm talent to play. Plenty of arm, but it is not a pro.

No. I don't think it's, I don't look at it in. say, oh, he's going to make up for some mistakes with his ability to just drive it. He's not. Right. And so now, like, here's the hard part for me on Shador. Okay. Because we just talked about all those great things.

Accuracy, smooth stroke, anticipation, anticipation, ball placement, layering the ball, instincts, toughness, competitive level, all those things that you love and are critical to playing the position. But you get into him physically and it's like, okay, sorry. solid arm, not Josh Allen, not someone who's right, not Matthew Stafford. No. When you start looking at the top quarterbacks in the league, it's typically with all of them, accuracy is up there with all of them, but it's not like Josh Allen came into the league and accuracy was the biggest question mark.

Lamar Jackson came into the league. Accuracy was the biggest question mark. They've improved. That wasn't always the case. And we can get into a long conversation about mobility. and buying time and learning over time, you can improve those things. And for a long time in the league,

you didn't see many examples of that. But the two things that almost all these guys have in common are, well, I shouldn't say two. But all the elite guys have at least one of the traits of big time arm. And I just mentioned Stafford, Josh Allen. I'll put my homes in there. You can push back a little bit. You go through the top guys in the league, big time arm,

and or now, and this is where the league has changed, dangerous runner. Not just like can scramble. And scrambling is part of it, extending plays is part of it, but also some danger. Lamar Jackson, Josh Allen, Patrick Mahomes.

He doesn't run as much. He extends and it's all about that. But when he takes off, he doesn't look pretty, get that upright run and all that, but he is effective running the football. Jaden Daniels comes in the league. And it's a combination of being able to throw the ball,

ball the way he's throwing it, but also that speed is a huge factor, how you have to defend him. So I look at, I look at Shador and I'm like, doesn't have an elite arm. Nope. Not a dangerous runner. Nope. And then you factor in sometimes holding onto the ball too long. And that did the third part of- Can we get into that a little bit?

Go ahead, please. I hear, to me, it's, I get what you're saying, right? Does he hold onto the ball too long? Watch the beginning of the Cincinnati tape. and he gets smoked. And I don't want to use the word casual or nonchalant, but there are just times. Oh, no, there's, you can use those words.

I agree. Okay. Okay. So there's times where he's just, you know, but I'll say this, when he has a guy, it's gone. When he has an option, when he gets a clean read and he sees an open man, it's gone, balls out, balls out. So he's not a guy that's, you know, skittish about pulling the trigger

who are not seeing the field, and that's why he's holding on the ball. He's holding on to the ball to make a play. and there are just times you're like, bro, throw it away. Protect your body. Check it down. You know what? We know how tough he is?

Because he gets absolutely smoked on something. Like he got bad protection. He has these plays where he just holds onto the ball too long and he gets hit hard. So I just want to be clear about what I see, because I agree with you, I do think he holds on to the ball too long. But I think going more into specifically why he may be doing that

is important because it's not a matter of him. I mean, there was times. in the Texas Tech game, he got to his third option like that. He's like, boom, boom, and then right to his third guy. I think it's more of him wanting to make a play and not understanding it's okay to throw this ball away.

And he takes sacks that put them in bad situations where if he had thrown the ball, there was a third of 19 in this game where he took a sack that he just needed to throw the ball away and now you have a third in 10 and you have a much better chance of getting it. So I hear what you're saying, and I agree with it,

but I think that when I, I see it, there's a reason for it. Yeah, I just, I watch it, and I'm always watching it through this lens. Is that going to work in the NFL? Right. And that part, yeah. And then can we correct it in the NFL? And I think with a lot of these quarterbacks, we see, and Caleb's, Caleb's in the same boat.

He's got a lot of correcting still to do. That's why we just fired an offensive coordinator. And that's why this next hire for Chicago is so critical. Right. Shador's going to have to improve and grow up in that area. you. I mean, even the pick six against Nebraska just held on the ball too long. And yeah, patted it one more, one more time than he needed to. But generally speaking, I think you're right. That was kind of an outlier where he sees it open, trusts it,

and rips it. Right. But there are too many times, yes, nonchalant would be like kind of drifting a little holding out for a bigger play. And we talked about this with Cam Ward. And it's a critical part of his game as well that's going to have to improve. I said offensive coordinator, quarterback coach, when they get with Cam Ward, they're going to have to drill it in like it's okay. Let's take the seven. Let's take the change and make it into a dollar. Let's take the seven and all of a sudden it's second and three. Move the chains.

So that's going to have to improve in his game. And I think it will. But when I watch him, here's the example I'll give. When I watch Shador Sanders, sometimes in the pocket holding onto the ball too long, I get the feeling like he's trying to squeeze every last. drop out of that lemon. Yeah. And as I say all the time.

Great way of saying it. Yep. But sometimes the juice isn't worth to squeeze. Right. So to me, like, learning when to try to get that last little bit of juice out of the lemon versus like, it's not worth having to squeeze anymore. Let's just take four here. Let's take five. Let's take a seven-yard gain and get second, you know, second down in three.

So that's where I am on, on Shador. Let's wrap this up. These are hard conversations to have Mitch, and we're only in November, but we've seen almost all of his college tape. Yeah. What is he going to be at the next level? I'm going to give you two.

Okay. I am and I'm going to let you. Here's what I've, watching the tape over and over again. You know, if every general manager wants from the scouts, give me an NFL comp. Like, what do you think he's going to be in the league? Oh, this is good. I see, and who does he remind you of?

and all. I see two guys. I see a right-handed, a right-handed version of Tua in some respects. And I don't think it's a perfect comp. But I see a guy who's a distributor when he's, when he's decisive and trust his eyes. And he, I think it's the smooth, quick release. Yeah. He knows where he wants to go with the ball. Like they're distributing. Like, not a canon. Not a canon. Yeah. He does a great. And we talked about this before. Carson Beck makes his receivers work. It's a struggle. It's watching guys like with the bag over his shoulder climb up a hill, right? Right.

His receivers have it easy. Like they're at a resort. Like, you know, pucking the ball, leading the yards after carry, throwing them open. That's what Tua does for his receivers when things are right and it's flowing, right? The other guy, I think, probably more of a cop overall. But there was just something about the quick. release compact and the ball placement and the touch that I saw into a but gino smith is the other guy interesting and i know he had a long career journey and arc and all this stuff but if you take the

last whatever four or five years you take his best several years and you make that into a career when it's all said and done if that's chador's career in the NFL we're like damn good career yeah i agree but i want to say this and i know this is going to bring up like bring on on a lot of water to the boat. Shador Sanders is not Patrick Mahomes. Shador Sanders is not Lamar Jackson. He's not Josh Allen. He's not Matthew Stafford.

Give me the list of the elite guy. He's just... Joe, bro. That will be his... That will be his ceiling. Absolute ceiling, right? I'm not ready to go there. I'm not ready to go there,

but I think it's an interesting... I'm not there yet. But if you were like, what is this... What could this kid... If everything goes right, what is it? Maybe... Joe Burrow. That's the ceiling that I'm willing to go.

And I think, to be honest with you right now, Joe Burrow is the ceiling is a little bit of a reach for me. Yeah, I kind of agree. Yeah, I don't hate your comments. Real quickly, let's wrap this up. Let's look at our updated class of quarterbacks. Excuse me. The scary part to me, Chador is the best that we have.

And I want it to be perfectly clear right now. I'm in love with Chador Sanders tape. I'm in love with his makeup. I'm in love with his. toughness. I think he's the best pure passer in this class. I think he's going to be a good starting quarterback in the NFL. I don't think he's Jaden Daniels. I don't think he's coming in. He doesn't have the speed and the explosiveness to overcome some of the issues that he's going to have to that all rookie quarterbacks have to overcome. I don't think he's that level. So if Shador's number

one, and I've talked to scouts and general managers who think he he's the best that we have to offer in the 20-25 class. I've talked to other guys. Cam Ward is the best that the class has to offer. I've talked to guys earlier in the process before the last two games, Texas A&M and Alabama, that thought Garrett Nussmeyer was the best the class had to offer. And I think a year from now, we'll be talking about Nussmeyer potentially as the number one quarterback in the 2026 class. But as I promised Saturday night, after watching the last six quarter quarters of play, Garrett Nussmeyer, I love his game. I love his potential. He's not there yet. He needs to go to school. So let's remove them from this list. So here we are with Shador at one,

Cam Ward at two, Jalen Milrow. I'll continue to say it. The ultimate wild card in this class probably would benefit greatly from returning to Alabama for one more year. And then followed by that, Carson, Beck and Quinn Ewers are kind of in the same neighborhood, four and five. Beck, I think coming off despite a loss, it looked like he, the light kind of came on for him a little bit. So react to that real quickly and then we'll move on. Yeah, well, listen, I'll say this about the Sanders comparison to Jaden Daniels. Obviously, they're not the same mobility. And I will say that I love Sanders.

And not even close, by the way. Jaden Daniels' 2023 tape is different. I mean, it's just. It's a scouting Urbana. Where do you, where would you fit Jackson Dart from Ole Miss in a conversation? He's not in the top five. I agree with you. He's day three.

Just that second tier? Yeah, I saw Nagy Kim had a tweet recently. of 14 NFL teams getting ready to put out their final invites for the senior bowl. And all 14 teams really were interested in having him at the senior bowl. And that makes sense to me, considering the office. They ran at Ole Miss. I would love to see Jackson Darton Mobile. Let's see him in a pro-style offense.

Let's see him, how he plays. How much does he adjust? It's just a week of practice, just a couple practices. But does he pick things up quickly and all that? So I would love to see Jackson-Darton. my guess is if Jackson accepts the invite and he'd be crazy not to, that we'll get to see Jackson Dart there. And there are a handful of other quarterbacks that would be interested to see if they're there.

Because let's face it, I mean, it will be one of the all-time great gets if Jim Nagy gets Shador Sanders, the Mobile, right? In January for that, I think it's February 3rd is the, February 1st or 3rd is the actual senior bowl game. It will be interesting to see Cam Ward. I think Cam Ward would absolutely benefit from being there. coming from a lot of air raid throughout his career, more advanced at Miami than it was certainly an incarnate word

and more advanced than it was at Washington State, but still I would love to see him down there. So I think all these quarterbacks would benefit greatly. And getting Jalen Milrow, if he decides to come out in Alabama, it would be like the Beatles in Mobile having Jailen. Can you imagine with Milro and Sanders at that game? Oh, Hoperati, man. Yeah.

We're going to have to get the Red Elephant Club to back, naggy to support. We get some senior bowl NIL deals. But anyway, all right. So that's where we are in the class. I thought it was important to take some time to get through Sodor. And we did for probably way too long. I'm sure everyone listening would agree with that.

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this i want to talk about old miss first okay lane kiffin wins the game that lane kiffin has not been able to win right miss wins the game that old miss is a program has is never. One other time, this is just the second time against an AP top two team or a top, you know, a second, a team in the top two. I think it was the second time ever. Old Miss has done that. It might be a caveat in there. But it was, it was a win unlike many, if any others that we've seen out of an Ole Miss program. Right. I'm going to throw it to you for a second. I got a lot of thoughts here, but what jumped out to you, Ole Miss? Well, I mean, even just, and you, saw it in this game, but let's big picture here for a second.

If I asked you, who gives up the fewest yards per carry in the country and has more sacks than any other team? If you're asking a guy watches college football every year, how many people you think would say Ole Miss? I mean, this defense is legit. And they're still, look, they're loaded at wide receiver. I mean, Trey Harris is out for a few games and it's like they don't even blink. The pre-scorn, the tight end, he doesn't move like a, like a, you know, a, you know, Colson Loveland. He doesn't move like that kind of a guy, but a big body you can make plays. I think he popped for like seven catches and almost 100 yards in a game.

I should look that up to get the exact numbers. But, I mean, he pops every once in a while. This offense could still strike fast, man. And there's all that. But I don't, I cannot remember an Ole Miss defense that is, they can kind of, you know, just end a game. That can just change the game. Hard to move the ball. And I'm hard to pass, hard to pass, hard to pass the ball.

to me it's that defense, and I know we're going to get into it, but that defensive front specifically. This is a different group. It's a totally different team than we're used to seeing from Lane Kiffin. Totally different team. Let me make this comment. I'm just going to start with this, because we're going to attack Ole Miss's tape and we're going to attack Alabama's tape.

The six quarters that I've seen from Alabama against LSU in the first half against Georgia, you can easily argue, and I will easily argue, they're the best team in the country. And if not the best, they're up there in the top two or three teams. Those six quarters were some of the best. Based up those six quarters. Just those six quarters. Okay.

Yep, no, I'm fine with that. Ole Miss, I've come to the realization after studying their tape, got prepared for this last week against Georgia, love what I saw, watching them do it in that spot from a program that's never been able, or one other time, but never in our lifetime. There's been a long, long time since they've been able to show up in that moment and play the way they did in that moment in that game with the pressure on them with two losses, mind you.

That's an elimination game for Ole Miss. Season's over. Yeah, best receiver out, quarterback hobbled, tough start to the game. Everything. They didn't just win they can, they put their foot down on George's throat for four quarters, dude. That was awesome. I'm going to say this about Ole Miss.

They are talented enough, and I think they finally have enough gumption. They can win this national championship. I agree. They can. No, can. And do you think they're the favorites of two different things? But they definitely can. Things have to fall.

You know, the best team doesn't win every year. We're going to. Let's go over that. I'm never accused of preparing and having a great plan. That's just not one of my strengths. but I've already thought about this on Thursday in our show, and I want to prepare for it. I want to, like, go in and attack it.

I really want to do a playoff eliminator draft style. You and I are going to draft teams. And I want to go through it. Like, teens legitimately, we believe in, they can win the national championship and we'll draft them. You pick first, I'll pick that. We'll go to and see not only who are you picking first. Like how much, it's essentially an exercise

and how much faith you have in this team down the stretch, big moment. And it's also an exercise in, okay, how, I don't want to go 12 deep. I want to only go as deep as we feel there's confidence behind that pick. Right. And I wonder, do we get to five? Do we get to six? Do we get to eight?

That's going to be interesting. But I promise you this, Alabama and Ole Miss are going to be pretty high on my list based off of what I've seen. I know it's, you know, it's Tuesday and Monday morning quarterback and overhyping and getting caught up in the moment, but I believe in both of those programs right now. So back to Ole Miss. Here are a couple notes that I wrote down.

Okay. Offensively, and we don't need to get into a big thing here, but offensively, the thing that stood out to me that was different about Ole Miss than what I'm used to seeing is their past protection versus Georgia, not versus Vandy, not versus Kentucky, not versus Mississippi versus Georgia. Yeah.

It was exceptional. Right. And it was the game plan and it was the offensive linemen. They're better up front than I thought. Not in the running. By the way. I didn't see that coming by the way. I thought it was going to be a tough day.

I thought it was going to be a grind. And it was a combination of Jackson, Dart and Simmons, right? The backup who came in and was five for six. Those quarterbacks knew the game plan. It was very, we got to get the ball out. We can't hold it. Like, let's live with a second and ten.

versus a second and 16. Like whatever it, like the ball's coming out. But it wasn't a rush. You know what I mean? Like they, it's not like it was a bunch of three-step, get the ball out, short game. It was, they went through their reads, like they, but they were decisive and didn't hold on the ball too long. But the protection held up.

I thought Kiffin had a tremendous game plan. And you'd expect them to do a certain degree, but I didn't expect Ole Miss's offensive front to protect as well as it did. Like the play action, quick game, the misdirection. They kept them just enough at bay. And the quarterbacks had just enough of the internal clock. But it really was the protection that stood out to me. And that's huge.

Now, the run game, if Ole Miss is going to lose, and that's why the confidence meter, and we'll get to that on Thursday, if they're like a GM always asks the scouts, all right, tell me, if it all works out, what's he going to be? But then tell me how he's going to fail. That's the question. You're going to talk about all the time. I got to go in the office and be prepared.

I got to go to those meetings and be prepared. If everything works out, who can he be? If it doesn't work out, why? And for me, Ole Miss, if it doesn't work out, I think it's the lack of a running game that they can really rely on. And that typically has not been the case. And you do wonder, and I talked to Connor about this yesterday, I think it was, you do wonder, almost like a free agency situation.

We talked about Mahomes, you know, where they were with Tyreek or is it Chris Jones? Right. You almost wonder with the NIL deal, Quinchan Jenkins, we're got to let them go to Ohio State so that we can load up on this defensive front. Right.

Intriguing, right? Yeah. New age of college football. Ohio State's like, we'll take everyone. They don't care. Yeah. Different budget. They've done a hell of a job in the grove

of raising money and bringing in guys, but it's a different budget. Right. But that leads me to, okay, the defensive side, where they did put in the money. Oh, man. They recruited, like, the shift in the offseason was if we're going to make a run at this, if we're going to be different than what we're used to, if we're going to win against Georgia, a number two team in the top two, top three team in the country,

we've got to be different on the defensive side. Pete Goulding, exceptional job defensive coordinator, cut his teeth with Nick Sabin. I always question guys, like, I've sat in so many meetings with, Pete Goulding, love him, just love his approach. He relates to the players, learned under Nick. But you always wonder when you sit in those meetings, at least I always did. Like, is this a Pete thing? Is he doing really, really well?

Or is this just like he's, he's coordinator by name only. And Nick's running this. You know what I mean? So to see him move on and have this kind of success, give him a lot of credit. Yeah. But also the recruiting, I mean, holy. smokes, man. Five sacks from this defensive front, all from a four-man rush from what I saw. Yeah, that's the thing, man, right? That's the thing. They don't need to bring more than four.

They can do four. And then they can, and they do, they take advantage. They can bring more. They can mix up coverages on the back end because of that. Everything we, everything you talk about when a four-man rush allows you to do. Sure, it allows you to sit back and play zone and do all that stuff. But it also allows you to, to gives you the freedom of mixing it up. You know what I mean? so you don't always have to bring guys. Yeah, that's, it's so, it is so big for them that they can win with the four man rush. Let's throw up the guys that I think can get to the quarterback. So. Yeah.

Let's throw up the, they're on there, they're feeling it today, huh? In the production room? Yep. I said let's. Look at that. It gets ripped off. Anyone who's just, just listening this podcast, our producers continue to excel. We've got a graphic up here, right?

Name me a time. I'm Munch, we're talking about Ole Miss, and we've got six draft prospects, six that are going to be drafted all in the top 10 at their respective positions in terms of our draft rankings. This is wild, man. There's one or two, right? There's one or two talented guys that he could develop into something. This is a wildly different group. You throw Michigan up there as a backdrop. You throw, you know, the maize in blue.

you throw, you throw, what is it, the Garnet, Ohio State, you throw their colors up with their name, I'm fine with it. We come to expect it. Throw Georgia up there, Alabama up there. Even for a little stretch, like throw Clemson up there. We got, we're used to seeing those. It's weird to look at Ole Miss, a graphic with six draft prospects that are in their top 10 and some of them pretty high up there. Let's go through it real quickly.

defensive front two defensive tackles, two edges, and there's some depth behind them. We talked about the 210 pound guy running a 4-3, like, it just, yeah, we'll just, we'll bring them in as a designated rusher. But Walter Nolan, number three defensive tackle behind the two Michigan guys that I know you love, you love Michigan defensive tackles. But I think no one might be number two, by the way. He might be. He might be.

And we can, yeah, we've got a lot of work still doing on our draft rankings. but certainly in this neighborhood. And I think the way he's played this year, potentially top 20, 25 pick somewhere in that range. Could be. Okay, so probably the highest guy off the board in terms of all defensive prospects for Ole Miss, all prospects for that matter. Walter Nolan defensive tackle next to him, your guy,

J.J. Peggis, who's the most fun ball carrier. I think he has 12 carries this year. All have gone for a first down or a touchdown. and his short yardage run the other day against Georgia. At a midfield almost went for a touchdown as well, but got him the first down. He got a shot out of a cannon. A defensive tackle should not run the way J.J. Pigeese runs.

We've got him as the number 10 ranked defensive tackle. Then at edge. Some games, I think Jared Ivy is better than Prince. Uman, Uman, me, Ellen, sorry. But Prince Lee and Jared are both just factors. We've got Ivy is, we got Jared Ivy as the number seven edge in this class, and it's a deep edge class, really deep. It's a good edge class.

It's a good edge class. And then Princeley, we've got is the number nine edge. So two top 10 prospects potentially at the edge position to flank those defensive tackles in Nolan and Peggyz. At another front seven guy who's coming out of nowhere, Chris Paul Jr., Arkansas linebacker for a few years, he's been awesome to watch. Absolutely awesome to watch. And 136 tackles with six sacks the previous two years at Arkansas.

This year already, 72 tackles, two and a half sacks. And the thing with when you're behind a defensive line like that, yeah, you're going to get a lot of opportunities. Right. He's been a flat eraser in the run game, sideline to sideline. And the beautiful part watching him is in coverage too, man. Yeah. He covers well. So we've got him as the number seven off the ball.

linebacker. And then finally, Trey Amos, who's having a great year, six one, 190 pound quarterback, not really known as a ball hot coming into this year, wanted to see him make more plays. Well, he's done it. Three interceptions and a force fumble this year.

So, yeah, six guys in the, you know, in the top 10 of their positions, five of them in that defensive front seven. What's different about Old Miss this year? That's different.

Absolutely. I love it. I love it the four. defensive linemen are all a little bit different. I think Princeley's a guy who could be a three, four outside linebacker. He's a little leaner. He's a little more slippery. Whereas Jared I mean, he's a power defensive end with just,

he chooses violence every morning he wakes up, man. He is just a violent football player. Nolan's interesting to me because I'll watch him. I'm like, oh, he's good. He's good. And then you'll see something like he, I think he took the Georgia Center and just threw him like four yards. And I was like, oh, okay.

He's good. And then all of a sudden you see these, flashes of like this dude's dominant when he wants to turn it on and my guy j jay bickese he needs to work on some stuff right he's big and he's athletic they play him inside outside i like i love that he's like that size and they play him a defensive end sometimes too he's got to be a little better with this pad level he takes himself out of plays by getting too far off field but then you see him disrupt a play in the backfield i mean these guys the talent level is just different over.

Remaining schedule, Ole Miss, they've got 10 games under their belt at Florida. I mean, we saw Texas, Florida. Like, God bless Billy Napier and what he's trying to do there. You're down your third quarterback in the SEC, like, good luck. And then Mississippi State, obviously a rivalry game, but like just different levels. And you'd like to believe that they're going to be up for that game is. Please don't let them lose that one. Yeah.

Yeah. So you'd think that they're going to, they're going to, they're going to, going to be in a position at the end of the year. Yeah, they look good. Alabama. I mean, talk about Kaelin DeBoer, man. You can't love Nick Saban more than I love Nick Saban and like have the respect for him that I have. But how about DeBoer coming in taking over for like the legend, not a legend, the legend? And has it been beautiful and perfect? No. Like 35 guys they lost from last year's roster and to be able to put this thing together. And most importantly, here's the thing that stands out to me with DeBore. And it's not just been at Alabama.

It's been throughout his career. The dude beats giants. Right. He is, listen to this. He's seven and oh now against teams coached by the best. Kirby Smart, Brian Kelly, Dan Lanning, and Sarkesian. seven and no i didn't know that yeah that's crazy while yeah about that so here the first thing that stood out in the most important factor of that game against lSU we talked about it there's a bye week what are we going to see from jalen milrow we saw jaylin milrow make huge progress in twenty twenty three off of the by week kind of a chance to reset self scout work on your footwork come back in show more decisiveness understand the plan down the stretch run For Alabama, this year was different.

Alabama's self-scouting was brilliant. Okay. Okay. Alabama, what did we talk about the most? It wasn't Jalen Milrow, even the passer necessarily, although there are ups and downs and flashes of brilliance. But the thing that I've always, that I said that was becoming weird to study is you never see quarterbacks in a slump as a runner.

Right. Runners run, right? Be aggressive, man. Be aggressive. We didn't see that. And some, you know, there's reports on the internet about is he 100%? They're masking an injury. They're hiding it.

There were times we took off running. And I, like, yeah, he looks fine. But he wasn't aggressive. And he wasn't attacking it. And I think what we saw was Jalen Milrow trying to play within the construct of the offense. Kailen DeBore is, you know, what did he do with Michael Pennix, Jr? And the progression that he showed from Indiana to Washington as a past. Remarkable.

Remarkable. And so I think coming in here, it was like, all right, we can always trust Jalen to, when it's not there, tuck it and run. Right. But we're going to develop him and we're going to get more out of him as a pastor. And we saw flashes of that. They were, you know, Georgia game, throwing receivers open, the anticipation. We talked to Nagy about that.

There were things you saw where you're like, oh, okay, we're going to see a transformation like we saw with Pennix. Maybe not to that level because Benix is more developed as a passer and not as mobile as a quarterback. But we're going to see a big jump. but it didn't that didn't last okay so what happens you get a buy week offense is kind of it's it's grinding it's everything's a struggle their self scouting was brilliant for whatever reason and it didn't dawn on me but for whatever reason jalen is not an aggressive scramble to run guy right jalen is an aggressive awesome fast quick and powerful runner on design runs. Vision and patience. He has the best vision and patience on that team, better than any of

their running backs. I mean, he is. The instincts that kid has on design runs are, they jump off the tape. So they come off that extra week to self-scout evaluate and put in a game plan. What do they do? They come out and they run Jalen Milrow 10 times on designed runs. Love their scheme. We can talk about the scheme all day long. A lot of 11 personnel, one back, one tight end, did a great job with the lead, lead blockers, you know, almost like watching a hand it off to old school football, your tailback with a full back in front of them, follow the lead. They are way better when they go to their man gap scheme.

Their inside zone struggles a little bit. That was something that really jumped out to me on tape, not to get into the weeds too much on this. I will say they need to use oots as the backside blacker more than depree. I won't go into it too much. But I will say that the inside zone is not as effective. I think their backs are better when they get those guys in front of them. I think I think Jalen's better at just reading those blocks.

Jalen can do everything. Don't get me wrong about this. Jalen can do everything. He is a different kind of player. And I'll get into this a little bit. He's growing on me this year because I don't know where that team is without him. And he's made some throws that I've seen on tape. You know, there's some inconsistency.

He's a better passer than I thought he was. Throw out all the numbers and all the what he needs to do for Alabama to win a championship. I get all that. But I'll say this. He's just a different dude. They're a man gap scheme. when they get when they it's down down and around they pull an offensive line and to get him in front the kid parker bralesford who's the center could pull they need to get they need to be running that

more often in my opinion because i think it just suits what they want to do and so they they did and they did it with the quarterback and with a lead blocker and with the the tight end kind of you know contributing as well some misdirection like they had variations of what they wanted to do in the design run game right but But mission numero uno was we're going to design run the heck out of this LSU team. And yeah, part of it was let's look at LSU and they struggled against Lenore's. Sellers. Sellers, the South Carolina mobile quarterback, clearly struggled against Marcel Reed.

We said prior to the game, like, make them prove that they have their buy week and that they can stop it. But it wasn't the same. It wasn't a scrambling quarterback off the past. That was the brilliant part. I'm watching it. Oh, shit. Now I get it. He doesn't like to scramble to run.

Right. He wants to know they've called my number. Listen to this difference. 10, he had 10 rushes in that game that were designed runs, 175 yards. The other, but the other two were for 10 yards off of scrambles. Right, right. So he's averaging five yards of scramble and like whatever on the runs. Go ahead.

Sorry. 17.5 on the 10 runs. I'm not a math major. So, and it seems so simple, but, but there's brilliance and simplicity sometimes, recognizing what is the difference? Why isn't he running with the same aggression? Why does he get in slumps as a runner? Because we haven't called his number. Let's call his number.

And they did that. And so you look at it, this graphic is great, 185 rushing yards in that game against LSU. the other eight games this year, just 380 rushing yards. That's 47.5 compared to 185 versus LSU. So this is what Bama's going to be. They better be. This is what Bama's going to be.

I mean, I get it. We got to protect him now. 10, I don't see in the future coming up against Mercer and Oklahoma that's, who would have known that Oklahoma is going to play this. poorly or even Auburn. I don't see it in the cards necessarily unless they need it to run him 10 times on design runs in those. Right.

Because now we've got to protect the investment. And I know he's big and he's powerful and strong, but like it just takes one hand. Yeah, you don't play with that. But you better believe SEC championship game, assuming they're in it, if they're in it. And most importantly, in the ploff, you better believe that this is now the offense that we're going to see. Yeah. So you're high on Alabama right now. You think that this is a, I have some serious concerns. Okay. I'll make this statement that I want to hear your concerns. I am, I am very high on Alabama because I think they figured out who they are. And that's so critical.

And when they lean into who they are, they have, I'm going to say it. they have the player that every defense, if you were to pull every defensive coordinator in the country, which player when he's on do you least want to play? It's Jalen Milro. I would agree with that. Cam Ward's been brilliant. Ashton Jinty can win the Heisman.

Travis Hunter can win the Heisman, all that stuff. One individual that you're most scared of could take over a game with his feet and then with his deep ball. It's Jalen Milro. Yep. So, yeah, I think Alabama, I'm not saying they're going to win it,

that I'm going to go to Fanduil right now and put a boatload of money on it. But when I'm playing around with Fandul this week and looking around, looking at futures, looking at like chances, like they're on my short list. I'll promise you that much. Why do you pull back on it? I'll say this. If they win, and they could, if they win it will be because three things. Jalen Millro will have just an unreal run, just an epic run.

their offensive line will play up to its standard consistently, which it hasn't done, and their defense will come up with turnovers. They have nine, do you have nine different players with interceptions? Really? 13 picks overall. They have,

that defense can turn the ball over. Here are my concerns. Okay. And you don't worry about it like the Ole Miss running game, but the only reason you don't worry about it like the old miss running game is because of Jalen Milro. Those, you know,

we kind of phrased the question earlier in the week of what's changed for Alabama. who they've played. That Missouri game depleted guys. I mean, they run away with that. That LSU team can't stop mobile quarterbacks. They look good right now, but I'm wondering how much of this is a little bit of a mirage. Because you talk about trends.

Those running backs are averaging 3.5 yards or fewer over their three of their last four games. They can't run the ball without him. Their offensive line is good and plays well at times. They struggle with movement. They've been banged up a little bit. Guys have had to shift around, you know, Bandermark comes in at Senate or Vandermark's a guard. They've had some issues with movement up front,

and they've had some breakdowns. They have had their right offensive tackles, had some problems in Passbro. There are some, I look at that team, and I'm like, how much are we putting into a Missouri win and how much are we putting into this LSU? Who is this LSU team? Because they can go and lose to USC,

which, looking back on, how, they can lose to USC. They had a meltdown against Texas. as A&M. They cannot stop mobile quarterbacks. They probably should have lost the South Carolina game. So to me, the reason we're feeling better about Alabama is because of who they played the last two weeks. Now, do I still think they're talented? Oh, yeah. And who are their killers on defense, man? Who are the guys that you're going to, if you're at third and seven, it's fourth and seven late in a game? Where's my, where's my Will Anderson? Where's my Dallas Turner? Those guys

pass rush, yeah. Their linebackers are absolute dogs. Their linebackers are studs. And Campbell, John Campbell comes off the edge a lot. That's not his strength. He's effective. He's not dominant. So I don't see, like you, if you're playing Ole Miss and you got to make a play and you get backed up late in a game, watch out. How do you feel about that with Alabama?

Alabama is a bend, but don't break defense this year. That's what they are. They're going to try and slow you down. They're going to try and get turnovers. They have some good, really good players. They are not in Alabama defense, like we said, we've seen years past. So, yeah, do I think they can win it? Yeah, I'm interested to see where we take them in the draft, though, on Thursday.

We'll see. I'm feeling better about other teams. The annoying part of our relationship for 25 years is you are an offensive lineman, and you're always a cynical bunch. Because it matters, Todd. Everyone's out to get us and grumbling as you're walking out and taking your pads off from the practice field. But you're also, as a group,

usually either the smartest guy in the room or one of both um yeah it's just like you it's like the cynical steve i always talk about but but more often than not unfortunately the cynical steve i mean you told but miami's fraudulent here we are and i'm giving you your nod clompson was a soft nine early in the season we're like uh-uh not buying clemson when they started to have this resurgence and here we are so i'm not taking what you're saying lightly but but i'll say this I'm freaking fascinated by this SEC. Yeah. Texas could be, like, could be all the talent in the world.

Ole Miss, love them. Alabama, they play like those six quarters I talked about. Love them. Georgia. Georgia, I don't care what you say. They got the defense, yeah. You know what I mean? Like Georgia could turn that thing around.

Certainly got their attention now. Tennessee, you know, like, I, they're my favorite team, right? now to talk about. We got a bunch of time on Thursday. We're going to get to Tennessee. We're going to dive into that game. I can't wait.

Fired up. We have a lot of other things. They are fun. Please join us on Thursday. We've got a lot of things to cover. We're going to preview that game, huge game, Tennessee, Georgia. We'll be back on live on YouTube Saturday night reviewing that game, instant reaction, emotional, fired up, a lot of caffeine.

But Thursday is going to be a fun show. We've got to preview that game. We're going to do our draft, our playoff eliminator draft style. Of course, we, you know, that's just what we do here. Of course, yeah. And, but also, I want to get into this crowded SEC. You know, the SEC, Minch could end the year with eight different teams tied with a six and two in conference record. What?

I'm not good at math, man. Like, I can't even. And the playoffs and the play out, like, we know in the play. There's only 12 teams getting in. All of a sudden, like, we haven't even gotten into one. year. It's like, is 12 enough? Because we got to have an ACC representative. Right. And we're not as psyched about that ACC representative as we once were. And you start stacking them up against some of these teams that might get left out in the SEC. We're not as

fired. We're not fired up. Would love Coach Prime and Shador and Travis to be in the playoff. Like how awesome would that be? Right. Like stack them up or do they belong in over one or two teams that get left out in the SEC? And, And then you get the other group of five, whatever we're called non-powerful, you know, so like what's called Boise State right now. Love the story. Love Ashton Jinty. First running back off the board.

Could be a top 15 pick. But like, do they stack up against some? So how many of these teams are going to get left out? You get like Texas wins out. They'll be seven and one in the conference, 11 and one overall. Ole Miss wins out. We talked about Florida, Mississippi State. Alabama wins out Mercer, Oklahoma.

both be six and two in the conference both be 10 and two Georgia beats Tennessee next week and then and then great problem to have beats Georgia Tech in Massachusetts six and two 10 and two overall Tennessee loses to Georgia but then beats Utep and Vandy six and two ten and two overall Georgia's hell of two losses yeah hell of Missouri wins their final three games against South Carolina Mississippi State Arkansas I don't see them beat in South Carolina but I'm just saying like six and two, 10 to Texas A&M still in it. It could be six and two in the SEC, nine and three overall. So who this is going to be fun.

Hey, listen, we forgot to go over the hypothetical odds. Oh, yeah. Yeah, we got to go. I mean, it kind of proves my point. So let's do that. Okay. What Alabama versus Ohio State, Alabama versus Oregon. We got the Fandle hypothetical odds.

I got to get to those. Yeah. So Alabama versus Ohio State, did you see it? I haven't seen it yet. It's right on the right of your screen on the chat, top of the chat. Ah, Fandual. Never lets us down. Yeah, it's lower than I thought it was.

I thought that game would be six. So it's not that bad, but Ohio State. Ohio State minus four and a half. Give me the points. Give me Bama. By the way, Vegas clearly favoring Ohio State over Oregon and every, every scenario we're saying. Yeah. Isn't that one? Them, it's three.

Yeah. I'm telling you they're on to something, man. Part of it's the name too. But, and then Oregon, so just to clear it up, we we asked Fandual to produce these and we're going to be Thorn in their side throughout the year, but I just, I love, I love having Fandual as a resource. Alabama versus Ohio State, who's the favorite, all in a neutral site.

Same as Alabama versus Oregon, neutral site. The odds are Ohio. state would be minus four and a half against Bama. And then Oregon versus Bama neutral site would be minus three. So you're right. It doesn't really back me up too much. So those are tight. They expect the game.

Yeah. I thought they were closer to six, to be honest with you. No, I like it. I think it's right. This is going to be fascinating. Yeah. All right. We got a lot to get into on Thursday.

We appreciate everyone joining, sticking around for this marathon. We talk too much. What else? Kind of what we do. But yeah, looking forward to being back with you on Thursday and then Saturday night. Please like, subscribe, all that stuff that drives me crazy when I listen to podcasts and they say. But just let a friend know if you can. We'll talk to you again soon.

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