The McShay Show - Bama’s Big Night, Miami's First Loss, and A Shedeur Sanders Check-In

Episode Date: November 10, 2024

After LSU’s dominant win over Alabama, Todd and Steve hop on to give their instant reactions to the biggest results from Week 11 of college football. They discuss Jalen Milroe’s electric performance, why this version of the Crimson Tide is scary, and whether Garrett Nussmeier’s performance proves he isn’t ready to go pro (01:04). Then, they discuss Ole Miss’ upset over Georgia (35:53), Miami’s undefeated bid ending (01:05:11), and Shedeur Sanders continuing to build up his Heisman-caliber season (01:11:58). 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: Conor Nevins, Dan Comer, T Cruz, and Marcelino Ortiz Social: Eduardo Ocampo Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The McShay show is live, Munch. What do you think? I'm excited, man. This is cool. Yeah, this is cool. Listen, we may not have picked the right game, LSU, Alabama, but we picked the right day for our first ever live show, recapping Saturday's games, coming in off the prime time game.

We said all along, when Herbie and Fowler are done, we're going to jump in here. We're going to recap some of the big stuff that went on during the day. We've got obviously two teams going down in the top five. two times we got to see field stormed, one prematurely in Oxford, Mississippi. Oh, what a mess. And that was before we even kicked off this elimination game, which was LSU, Alabama, and LSU certainly eliminated itself tonight. So let's get to all of it.

Let's not waste any time. LSU, Alabama, all the hype coming into this game. LSU, we knew Garrett Nussmeyer was going to have to carry this team at the quarterback position. We knew that Jalen Milrow coming in off of the by week, both teams coming in off the by week. He was going to have to be more decisive, more aggressive as a runner. He was going to have to have the kind of resurgence that he had a year ago coming in off the by week. And one team lived up to the bargain. And you could see it from the jump outside of that post penalty before play really even scrimmage.

This Alabama team was locked and loaded. And, you know, let me just start here. Okay. We've said all along, right? When we saw in the first half against Georgia, when Jalen Milrow and people, there have been rumors about his health, has he been 100%. I watched him in certain games since, you know, since people started talking about that. You know, we saw him when he was decisive, when he's aggressive, when he feels like he has the full, you know, full arsenal as a runner, he's the most dynamic explosive. a player in college football. Yeah.

There have been an electrifying player. I mean, they're more dynamic players in terms of like Travis Hunter, both sides of the ball. Cam Ward has been electrifying as a passer. Shador Sanders has probably put the best tape as a pure passer in all of college football out there this year. But when Jalen Milro is right and he knows what he's doing in the game plan in terms of like where his looks are and when his looks aren't there, take off and run and utilize that that mobility he has, there isn't a player in the country, I would want to play less.

Right. Roe at Alabama. So dangerous. Yeah, you could see it from the start. It was the same thing we saw in the first half of that Georgia game. It's like, nope, this is my game. This is my game. Right.

What did we learn from him as a passer tonight? Almost nothing. I thought he was okay. Yeah, he was. He wasn't bad. Yep. He wasn't bad, but it wasn't. It wasn't required.

No. You know what I mean? Like the way he was running the football, the speed, the speed he showed on that, it was a 35, the explosion out of the cuts. The cut he made, I think, on the third touchdown where he had, like, LSU, two defenders had him dead to rights and he just cuts up and he's gone before they even could react. I mean, so explosive out of that cut.

And we said coming into the week, right? LSU's Achilles heel defensively. And it was never more apparent than in the previous game prior to the by week. Texas A&M. Connor Wigman, they absolutely shut him down. I was praising. I tweeted out.

I got on the X with my thumbs. And I was all fired up about, about Blake Baker, the defensive coordinator. And this is the defense that, that we haven't seen from LSU, this vicious, violent,

swarming, attacking defense. We hadn't seen that since probably 2019. the national championship run. And it felt like it was back in that first half of A&M. And then all of a sudden, Nuss Meyer rolls out to his left, throws the ball up for grabs, kind of feeling himself in that moment. Everything was going right.

Let's take a shot. And then not only is the interception, which seemed like a bad play at the time, but nobody knew in that moment that it was going to kind of turn the entire season around for LSU the wrong direction. Because what happened then? Elko plugs in

Marcel. Makes a change. Yep. Makes a change in quarterback, plugs in Marcel Reed for Wegman, makes a gutsy decision. And it's like 12 plays, three touchdowns later that the whole thing is shifted, right? And then you go back and look like, all right, what's the history with this LSU defense this year? Well, two times prior to tonight, and we talked about this on Thursday, preparing for this game,

two times prior to tonight, LSU has faced mobile quarterbacks. Lenora Sellers, what was it, 88 rushing yards? I figured, and he got hurt in that game. Yeah, yeah. And two touchdowns in that South Carolina game. Right. And then Marcel Reed comes in and just tore.

I think A&M finished like 245 rushing. Hey, listen, I, you know, I don't, not to pat ourselves in the back, but I don't mind patting ourselves in the back. I mean, if you listen to the show on Thursday, we said what needed to happen, what what each team needed to do to win this game. And like you kind of said already, one team did it and the other one didn't. Even in the beginning in the pregame, the Alabama head coach, uh, DeBoer, Helen DeBoer is talking to the reporter. I forget who it was. Was it Holly Honor or Holly Roe?

Yeah, sorry. And says to her, he's got to get, he's got to make some plays with his feet. He's got to run the ball. He's going. He's got to make some plays with this. All new coming in. Jalen Milrow's ability to run the ball in this game is going to be a huge difference maker. And what did he do?

Hit a monster game on the ground. 12 carries, 185 yards, four touchdowns. I mean, that is insane. You know, he is in the last two meetings against, against LSU, eight rushing touchdowns. It was like 342. Like somebody's stupid. They put that stat up tonight. It was like over 340 yards rushing eight touchdowns in the last two outings against LSU.

And they knew that. I was just about saying. Like Blake Baker, I can't imagine how intense the defensive practices were in the meeting room. Let's go back and watch Sellers, what he was able to do with his, with his feet. defensive contain terrible linebackers getting off of blocks sifting through working working through linebackers with their teams and their reattles in that terrible and so for those two games like you saw the same pattern it's like all right we got we got fooled shame on us you know right shame on them however the however the phrasing go we got we didn't realize we were going to see another

seller's type and more and more explosive in marcel read against a and m but we knew and we know if you're in practice, you're in those meetings. We know what we're up against. We know that Milro, if he is 90%, it has been 75, 80, 90% in the last few weeks in terms of mobility, or maybe he just has chosen to not run and be as aggressive as a runner. Whatever it is, we know,

coming off a by week, Milro, the dude that we saw against Georgia, that's the guy that we're going to see on Saturday night. He's coming into Death Valley. He's coming into our house. We got a hard time. No offense to the other players. If you have a hard time slowing down sellers and you have a hard time slowing down Marcel

Reed, watch out when Jalen Milro comes to town. You had better have a better game plan and you had better execute better, more effectively than they did tonight. Yeah. And Alabama all year long, like, I think they were like fourth or fifth in the nation when they had third down, third and three or fewer, third and short, you know. And it was like 113th or something nationally, third and seven. or greater, right?

Or third or seven or more. Yeah. And so Alabama all, because of the running game, because of what they were getting from the quarterback position, like how many times did we see third in one? Third and two, third and three. It felt like all night long. I would look up as like second and two.

And they wouldn't get it there. It would be third and one. You know, like all night long. They were never behind the chains. All of a sudden, offensive lines playing better. And like I talked about on Thursday, I thought it was a strong group that needed.

to play up to the standard. All of a sudden, they're getting off the ball. I thought Booker, the left guard had a great game. They're playing with a little more attitude. The running backs are getting, you know, getting, being effective with the touches that they're getting. I think it'd helped the offense overall. You know, like, you know, when he makes plays with his feet, it just makes everyone else better. It opens up the offense. It makes the offensive line get that attitude. I thought, you know, it was just impressive performance. Can't say enough about it, to be honest. Yeah, it really was. And the weather was, you know, it was rainy conditions. It was like the perfect night for your quarterback who's a

right quarterback to say you know what like I'm going to take this in my hands right and even the the the Ryan Williams a throw to Ryan Williams down the middle deep shot it was great time to take a deep shot yeah in his arms but like extended effort but you could just like the soaked ball rain they had a great slow like slow mo of it just rain drops pouring down and it got out of his arms but it was like good throw great time to take that shot Great individual effort by Williams. He didn't make the play.

Right. But you can tell, like, yeah, we can take a couple of those shots tonight, but tonight's really about we need our quarterback to carry this thing, and he did. I mean, listen, and like to flip the script, what we talked about too is unless LSU was able to keep pace and force Alabama to throw the ball. And they just weren't. And once LSU, once Alabama started getting up, it was a no-brainer. If it's not broke, we're not going to fix it.

And let's flip it over to the other side. Right. The one thing we said coming in this game, I don't, you know, you're my offensive line guy. Anyone who's new to the show in our live show, the first time we're doing the live show and we appreciate everyone who's decided to join. As you can tell by the beard. The guy's a former offensive line. You're dead. He handles all the O line studies for us here.

But it jumped out to me as I was looking at this matchup. Like, all right, so, so where are we going to attack? Excuse me. LSU has not run the football very well. I thought it was very intentional. They came out. LSU had that great, the 50-yard kickoff return. They got out to the 50-yard line, midfield.

First run of the game, that freshman running back, they handed off the right, off-tackle, right side. And he goes down to like the seven or something. And I thought, and I check, we're on the group chat. I was like, all right, like, good sign. This is a positive sign. It's huge. Because not only have they not been able to run the football,

they've shown no commitment to running the football. Right. So I thought, all right, they're down seven, but, but like big kickoff return. First run is for like 40, 40-ish yards somewhere in that range. Like, all right, we're going to have a shootout, which is exactly what we thought. And if they can run with some consistency,

it's going to open up the passing game. This is going to be a blast, right? Yeah. Boy, was I wrong. They wind up settling for a field goal there. Right. Got one more field goal, and that was it. They got, they did get, they scored late.

They got one at the very end once we were getting ready. Yeah, I had my headset on it. That doesn't count. Yeah, I mean, yeah, it doesn't. It really doesn't. But yes. Listen, they had, so we said they had to run the ball better, right? 24 carries for 104 yards, but you got to dig a little deeper, right?

Because 45 yards came on one play. At one point. So they basically ran for 61 yards on 23 carries. And the thing that we- And O'Smeyer, he's third in the country coming into this game. We didn't even talk about this yet, but he's third in the country coming in the game and passing attempts per game, right around 42. How many does he have tonight?

42. Yeah. And they don't have, we talked about this. Kieran Lacey's a good player, man. Mason Taylor is a great tight end, I think, a great college tight end. They don't have those elite playmakers like we've seen at LSU in the past. This is not a team that you won't throwing the ball 42 times. Yeah, this is an.

Brian Thomas Jr. And, and Malik neighbors. Belique neighbors, no. This isn't Jordan Jefferson and I forget who was with him there. This isn't Jarvis Landry and, and Odell Beckham Jr. Yeah. It's just not. Jamar and Justin Jefferson.

Jamar. Yeah. Yeah. I mean that, yeah. You see Jamar the other night? It's not anywhere close. What's that? You see Jamar the other night?

Oh my God. Holy shit. She, Burrow? It looked like old LSU tape, man. Yeah. So anyway. But back to my offensive line thing, back to my offensive line point here. When I was looking at it, Gareth Deliger, Garrett Delinger, the left guard, is out.

Yep. That new, like, that new trendy something toe injury. Tightrope injury or? Tightrope, yeah. Yeah. Tightrope injury. So he's out there left guard. Chester is kind of the week piece because we've got, you know, we've got, what is

of Will Campbell and Emery Jones. Yeah. The two potential top 50 picks in the NFL draft. We've got the perimeter, you know, sealed off, feel good about that. But the interior is the issue for LSU. And when Dellinger's in there, it's not that big of an issue. But now Dellinger's out, you get an experienced left guards out. Chester, your center, has been the up and down guy.

The teams have been kind of attacking. So we said on Thursday, you just watch. Alabama's got a buy week. They know the personnel. If I know the personnel sitting on a stupid podcast, they have figured, they figured out like what they've got to go out. We know.

We know they know. So watch, watch the mugs, watch the A and B gap blitzes, like watch them come after. And sure enough, Jahad Campbell, one of the biggest,

I'd say the biggest defensive play to that point. Jihad Campbell, A gap blitz. And you see, you see chess. They fan to the left side, the left side of the offensive line, fanned out, right? And you see Chester, it's like, oh, I can't, like, I cringe thinking about tomorrow or Monday whenever they're watching the tape.

Right, just the blinders on. He's in-pass pro, arms up, but, like, looking left. And all of a sudden, Campbell comes charging up the middle. And we're blocking air to the left side, blocking air. The left guards fanned out left, the center's fanned out to the left, and Campbell comes charging in, strip sack and it leads to the touchdown right before the half. Now it's 21 to 6. By the way, yeah.

He got it. He did get a seam there. Campbell got a seam. It wasn't like he had to really beat a block. But the way he knocked that ball out, he had a monster game. It was so athletic the way he got that ball. He knocked that ball out. It was so, it was an impressive play.

Well, the two fastest rising off the ball linebacker prospects in this class, Jihad Campbell, Alabama. Deontay Lawson, Alabama. Campbell. What they do tonight? Campbell. monster game. Every big game, every time they're on big games. They not only are, you know, great versus the run, make a lot of play, but they make big plays,

game changing plays. You had that, that strip sack, which is a huge, and I'll go back to that in a second, huge play in the game at that point. And then Deonti Lawson with the interception. Right. Right. Two huge plays in that game when it was still really competitive. In the end zone, by the way, it looks like, yeah. Ellis, by the way, it's 216 at that point, right? LSU is like a touchdown away from making this one score game. That was so, so right before,

so these two off the ball linebackers that we're talking about now creeping into the like the first two rounds of the NFL draft, right? Guys that we didn't know a whole lot coming into the year. Right. Because this is their first year they're coming out, breaking out this season. And they just look different by the way. You can tell like, yeah,

they did right. They just look different. But if you go back to the key plays in this game, fourth and one, Alabama has the ball, three minutes and 40 seconds left, second quarter, they go for it. Stuffed.

Big stop. At this point, it's 14 to 6. Okay. Right. So LSU gets the ball with like 337 left in the half. And you're like, okay. All right, because it's been bopsided. But like we got our feet underneath us.

Big defensive stop. Now, now. Always momentum changes in college football games. And LSU is getting the ball in the second half. It's like that eight minutes, the key eight minutes in the game. Right. coaches talk about it all the time. Let's win the last four minutes of the first half,

win the first four minutes of the second half. Critical. So you get that big defensive stop. LSU gets the ball. Great field position, 337, plenty of time. Go down, let's score here. We get the ball in the second half. Very first plays that strip sack from Jahad Campbell.

Yeah. And then they go down quickly and score touch. They scored a minute and 30 because LSU had the ball back with two minutes left. You know. Unbelievable. And so now you're up 21-6 kickoff. Still a game, two-score game. Second half, they drive, LSU drives down the field.

Like you were saying, like, all right, there's some life. Let's make it a one-score game. And we saw a couple nice throws. Right. You know, Nussmeyer, a couple nice throws. I think that was that the one he started out of his own end zone through to Mason Taylor? I don't know if it was that drive or not.

A couple nice throws, they get down and looks like Nuss-Myers dealing interception right at the goal line. Right. And now Alabama's got the ball. It's 216. Wind right out of their sales. Win completely out of their sales. The fans, the stadium, there's not a real big belief factor at that point that they're

going to come back. I don't know what else to unpacking this. Outside of Alabama's defense is the best four quarter performance I've seen. Jalen Milrow, it looks like what we saw a year ago coming off the buy, time to like reassess, get healthy if he needed to get healthy. take a breather, focus on what he needs to do down the stretch. This team is frightening now. Yeah, well, let's just be clear.

I want to be clear that there's a number of SEC teams that we can say this about. Okay. I do not want to play this version of Alabama. I don't know. No, I'll play this version of Alabama. This version is also angry. This version is angry. This version is buttoned up on defense.

You know what? I didn't even see how many penalties they had tonight, but it seemed like a cleaner game from them. They had the one, I thought they had a delay of game on special teams that DeBoer was losing his mind about. Yep. But an overall cleaner game. I agree.

First of all, they had the false start, I think, on the first offensive snap of the game. And I'm thinking to myself, oh, boy, you know, here we go again. They're going to have all kinds of issues with communication. I mean, I thought they played a really clean game. So if they're playing, you know, mistake-free, Jalen Millrose making plays like that, you have that defense that's not maybe not as great as it has been in the past. It's still really good. I don't want to play that Alabama team.

Let me unpack one last thing before we get into the SEC standings and talk about how awesome of a mess this is, right? Chaos. I love chaos. Garrett Nussmeyer. We've talked a lot about him as a quarterback prospect. We talked about him early in the season. First year as a starter, let's see. Talked about him when he was absolutely rolling.

And through the first half of that Texas A&M game, Twitter, X, whatever you call it, was on fire. draft Nick in the world was coming out. He's my guy. Three weeks ago, I had him QB1. He's my QB. And then he was all the rage, right? And then that second half of Texas A&M happens. And it's like, pump the brakes. I'm not so sure. Let me say this, because I have a very clear picture in my mind after this game and after watching Texas A&M and going back and studying all of his tape. And if you remember when we talked about Cam Ward this past week, I talked to some people in the league, several people in the league, about this quarterback class specifically.

And I just want to say this and make this perfectly clear, and I'll take your opinions on what you think, too. Garrett Nussmeyer is not ready as an NFL prospect. And that's okay. Right. And that's okay. That's fine. Garrett Nussmeyer, if it comes out at the end of this year,

still could probably be a first round pick. But Garrett Nussmire is not ready to contribute as an NFL rookie. He's not there yet. And why do I say that? I say that because we talked about the three interceptions against Texas A&M. He got fooled on two of them. Things that like with game experience over time and he sees that more.

One of them was his own blitz with the linebacker dropping off. Another one was a, I forget, it was a linebacker dropping into coverage. Two things that he'll over time with game experience, Nussmeyer's going to understand what he's seeing. He's going to see the picture clearer. And when when you're not Jaden Daniels and you're not Lamar Jackson and you're not Josh Allen, you don't go into the league with this opportunity to fail the test in terms of your progression reads and still make up for it because I'm bigger and stronger or faster and I'm more

mobile. And so when I don't make the right read and I get the answer on that test wrong, I still have my feet to get me out of trouble. Nussmeyer does not have that. So when he comes into the league, he's got to have it. He's got to have more answers than those more mobile guys. Okay. Right. He doesn't have them yet. And that's okay. That's okay. He's old, Munch, this was his 10th career start. Now, everyone wants to say, coming into the year and when he was starting to play great, well, hey, he's, he's been in the program four years.

He played in 18 games. Yeah, he only started one in the bowl game last year, but he's played in 18 games. He's more experienced it. One year will be fine. No, no. It's not. It's not, and that's okay. That's the whole point in this.

There's a lot to like about his game. And you know what for Nussmeyer, his dad has been in football his whole life. His dad is a coach, his coach is quarterback for the Eagles, right? I mean, he's been around the game. He understands this. So he has a support system. And thankfully for him, and it's not always the case with any of these prospects. Thankfully for him, I think financially they'll be just fine.

And thankfully also for him, he's a quarterback playing in Baton Rouge. He'll probably get a few million dollars in NIL and they'll take out an insurance policy. Like he's going to be fine. but if I'm if I'm making if I'm helping to make this decision for Nussmeyer it's simple one because when I look on the sideline and I see Brian Kelly what would have been a Brian Kelly the old you know he's an Irish Boston guy just just you know just like myself when we get hot and we get red in the face and we get all worked up and he used to just like kill guys but but he's calm down I don't know if it's the gumbo I don't know if it's the weight loss I

don't know if it's you know what are all the things the new accent the new guy you said it, not me. But I look on the sideline, this is important. Why do I know that Nuss Meyer's not ready? Because I look on the sideline and Brian Kelly is stopping. He's not talking to his defensive coaches.

He's not talking to special teams coaches. Not talking in the office. He's doing this. Right. Get over here. Yeah. And he's talking to him. And you know, because they're showing, they do a great job, you know, the whole crew, Bill Bonell, the producer, you know, obviously.

Herb Street and Fowler, everyone knows it, but that is the best crew in football. And I've worked with them, like, the angles they get, the replays they have. They're showing, like, his reads and where he was off and how he didn't, he didn't, you know, check back to his initial read to make sure. And it just wasn't making the safe decision. So, right. When I look at Nussmeyer, go over the sideline, he's being talked to by Brian Kelly in a manner, like, it's a novice.

it's a guy who's learning on the job. And again, it's all right. That's what this year's for. And I get news for you and I've told this story before. I sat on the field with Brian Kelly before the Tennessee game back in 2022. Right. He was LSU Tennessee. And that's when they'd Hendon Hooker and they were rolling.

And he kind of knew it was going to be a long day. Wouldn't allude to me with that. But he was pissed off at the local media because local media kept saying he hasn't thrown an interception. Jaden Daniels from Arizona State. he's a runner, he doesn't throw interceptions. Like, this is amazing. But he was pissed off because he wasn't taking chances.

He wasn't trusting his reeds. And I was asking him about, I was like, listen, I see the arm, like the mobility. It doesn't take a super scout to figure out. This guy's just like electrifying as a runner. Super scout. But and I see the big arm. And I see when he sees the receiver open, very accurate throwing the ball. But can he anticipate it?

And he was pleading with me. Trust me. Give him time. We're working on it. He's not ready yet. And that's where Nussmeyer is now. Brian told me like he's not ready yet. He has to trust his reeds.

And I'm yelling at him. And I saw in the very first throw of that game, come back around in the left rail. And he was, it was in film study. I don't care if you throw an interception. In fact, if you throw a pick six,

it might be good for you to learn this lesson that like the world won't fall around around you. Like the sky won't collapse. It's going to be fine. We'll pick ourselves up and we'll move on to the next play. But you've got to start. start trusting your reads. If you don't trust your reads, you can't get to the player that you need to, you can't get to that level. And so I'm watching Brian Kelly on the sideline for all of his

faults and people can like him or dislike him. Brian Kelly knows how to coach quarterbacks and he knows how to develop them. And he's done a great job throughout his career. And so I watch him after these specific plays and I'm watching the highlights going, well, you know, Brian's there on a split screen talking to us. And I'm like, I know what he's talking about. We all can see the read. And We can all see it's going to be a process. It's a process with all these quarterbacks. And Garrett is just not there yet. But he's got a good arm, not an elite arm.

He's got a good arm. And my God, I love the way he plays the game. I love how aggressive he is. I love the arm angle changes. I love so much about his game. His it factor, his leadership, his toughness. He's going to be a good quarterback in the league so long as he enters the league ready and has more game experience.

It's not 10 games. He's got 10 starts right now. It's not, they're probably going to play two more games in a, in a bowl game, right? At this point, that's what it looks like. Three more games, maybe, three more games maybe, whatever. So three or four more. So he's going to have, yeah, yeah, because this is the ninth game this season. Yeah.

But there's 11 interceptions in nine games of tape this year. So he's got to continue to develop. And then he gets an off season to go back and self-study, study, study opponents, figure out where the reads were wrong, figure out what, and he can work with Brian and work with the OC. and they can figure out the better game plans. And you come into year two. And I'm not saying it's going to be a Jaden Daniels type elevation.

Yeah, that's right. But we're already talking about Nussmeyer potentially as a first round pick if you were to come out a few weeks ago. And so maybe if he would be a second round pick at this point because you're worried about all the mistakes and all. But all I'm saying is he's going into 2025, if he comes back to LSU, a lot higher rated on NFL radars than Jaden Daniels.

even was. Jane Dano's was like a third rounder coming into the 20, 23 season. Then he put out the best tape, including Caleb Williams, of any quarterback in the country, and it became the number two overall pick. And we see what he's doing now. So the lesson in all of this is game experience is critical. Nussmeyer's not ready yet, but that doesn't take away from anything that he can be and any of the things that we've seen that are great on tape. And that's where I am on Nussmeyer. And in fact, we put out our top six quarterbacks this past week. And I had Nussmeyer, two, a head of Cam Ward behind Shador Sanders.

When we put out our next top six quarterbacks, he's not going to be on the list. And it's not an indictment on him. It's that he's not ready. And if he should choose to come out in the draft, we'll reevaluate it then. But it's our job to be real with the situation and what it should be and to try to, in the smallest little way, help guide, you know, young quarterbacks. We're looking at all these things. He needs to know that like the time's not now.

Right. And so the next top six quarterbacks will be a top five quarterbacks. And it's a more round number anyway. And we'll start with Chidor probably and Cam Ward behind him. And Garrett Nussmeyer won't be on there because he's not ready at this point. There's no rush. You're the starting quarterback at LSU. The league's going to be there when you're ready.

And you're going to make some money with the NIL. There is zero rush. Everyone take a breath. Let's do what's best. for him long term. And I think we all agree at this point, or at least the two of us agree that that's going back to Liseo. And I apologize for

that rant. I know I went on long, but I feel like now's the time to get to that. You feel strongly. I feel strongly about it. I watched tonight, and I had this like ease come over. He's not ready and that's okay. And so I just, I wanted to get that out there. But now

let's, we've got to bring it back. Right? Yep. This SEC race is wild man yeah good luck it's awesome it's all it's awesome good luck trying to figure it out yeah i mean let's look at it there by my count there are six teams in the cc with one or two losses overall seven teams with one or two SEC losses so not only is it there's a great debate how many teams are going to get in it's how many teams are going to get in with two losses is there going to be a three loss team that gets in from the SEC.

And with all of this mess up at the top, and by the way, the three teams with one loss at the top of the SEC, the three teams that have one conference loss. There are two teams with one conference loss. There are three teams with, that doesn't even make sense. I've got it written down wrong. There are three teams with one conference loss. Thank you.

Texas A&M. This is why we pay you the big. bucks on this show, Munch. There are three teams with one, with one, one loss inside the conference. That's Texas A&M, Texas and Tennessee. Tennessee, there we go. There we go. Thank God. There's a live show. The first time we're seeing that this is a live show, I needed. I finally got the help I needed. All right. So you see the three teams with the one loss in conference. Tennessee, Texas, A&M, and Texas. Well, I got news for you. A&M and Texas play in the last week of the regular season. And Tennessee plays Georgia next week. And we're going to

going to get to that Georgia Ole Miss game in a minute. But this thing could be crazy. Yeah. It is going to be crazy. And like I said, there are six teams with one or two losses. It's just, it's remarkable to me. I mean, Texas A&M,

Texas, Tennessee, Georgia, Ole Miss, Alabama, all like legit right in it. Yeah. LSU, that was an elimination game tonight. was it yeah they're they're done south carolina's playing some damn good ball by the way that that that that pesky vanderbill team they yeah they just knocked them off to like at with ease six and three four and three

in the cc and they're not even in it but like but we've had this conversation before i think they can meet i i think they could beat a of i could i think they would beat every team i think they would win the big 12 yeah I think they'd beat Miami. We'll get to the Miami loss today, too. I think they could beat Miami. I think they could win the ACC. And we're talking about a three-loss South Carolina team. So it's as expected.

Like, we knew it was going to be good. But if I'm just being honest, true serum, I didn't know that the SEC was going to be this deep. And it was big 10 people and ACC people and big 12 people will sit here and bitch. And I get it. And that's their stance and say, well, you call it deep. We say that, you know, the parody means that there's just not, there's no great team. Nah, uh-uh.

No. I've watched football for a minute. I know what I'm seeing. These are really good. Yeah, Georgia's and knots below what we've seen in Texas has more flaws than maybe I expected it after the first couple weeks this season. But, but like these are all really good. Look at Alabama. They were left for dead, right?

Yeah. And you watch them tonight. Find me five teams in the country. shit find me three teams in the country right now and we'll ask fan duel this this week i want to know how many teams on a neutral in a neutral site situation are going to beat them would be favored yeah over alabama coming off of that win tonight i'm just curious we're going to find out we'll give you that answer on tuesday who's the best s c team you think throw out records okay throw just the the like watching tape watching everything unfold who are you most impressed by

I hate recency bias, but I'm telling you that Alabama, that version of Alabama tonight is the best team right now. Texas, I think, can be. Yeah. I think Texas can be. It's those two, right? Yeah. Yep.

It's those two. Yep. I think Ole Miss is sneaky, by the way. I think Ole Miss is really sneaky. But then again, like, George. All right, so let's ask this question. And I know my producer Connor, I think, I know he wants to ask this question. Who's had the most, whatever the question is.

But the most impressive win would probably be Georgia over Texas, right? Yeah. 30 to 15, right? That's a big, yeah. So if you give me that version of Georgia versus this version of Alabama versus Texas's best version. Now we're talking. But George, I don't know. Like that Spider-Man gift where all the Spider-Men's are like,

win at each other. That's what the SEC is right. And just, it's another thing to Connor, our producer brought up before we came on the show, had Tennessee not mucked around versus Arkansas, they're taking care of business in that game? And give Arkansas a ton of credit. That was the best game that they played all season and probably will play all season. But in Tennessee played up to its level. Takes care of business. Takes care of business against Arkansas.

Yeah. Like they're the undefeated. Like, we're looking at them. at the top. Recency biases is a thing, though, because I'm watching that Texas play a depleted Florida team, and I know that Texas defense is good,

and Quinn Ewer is, we'll dig into the tape, it'll be interesting to dig into the tape. But man, he looked way more confident today, and I know he threw, I think four touchdowns. He's getting the ball out. You know, it looks great coming out of his hand, and there was a great game playing by Sark.

There was a lot of misdirection, some busted coverage, but I was watching that Texas team today, and I'm thinking, I'm looking at the rest of their schedule. The toughest game is at Texas A&M. Texas A&M seems to have some quarterback identity issues right now. I think they win that game.

I know how good Alabama was tonight, but Texas is right there. It's one in one A in my mind. So before the game kicked off tonight, we had an emphatic win by Ole Miss. and it didn't look like that early in that Georgia game. I was like, yeah, here's Georgia again. We're going to see, we're going to see Georgia against Texas.

We're going to, like, I was kind of worried about this, you know, because I'm getting field goals, not touchdowns. And field goals not touchdowns. But like, let's go back in that Georgia old. You've seen this movie before, you know what I mean? Kind of that kind of deal. Yes. Yes.

And Lane's pissed off because this should be a night game. And then now it's pouring rain. Is that going to slow them down and all. He looked like he aged 10 years tonight. Even after the win, he looked like he aged 10 years tonight. I'm sure laying a love hearing that. All right. So it's not easy, man.

It's not easy coaching the SEC. I'm going to walk you through a couple of thoughts in this Georgia Ole Miss game and jump in whenever you want, obviously. I thought it was interesting Georgia came out. There was an emphasis on running the football. First 10 plays eight run, two pass. And yes, it was raining. And so could that have factored in?

But right off the jump, I was like, all right, a couple things that we wanted to see. We want to see where's Carson Beck mentally? He's had four, like four of the last five games, multiple interceptions. We talked about the regression being real. He's not having the season we expected. He's not playing as well as he played last year. We talked about a lot of things with Carson Beck. But there also was a lot of talk about there's got to be balanced in this run game.

So they come out and they have success early on, right? And they run the football eight times out of the first 10 plays. And Frazier, talented running back. And in ETN, very clearly, you know, he's a star when he's healthy. He had the big three touchdown game and that went against Texas. He hasn't been 100%. They're rotating him in and out. But Frazier was playing a lot more.

And Frazier is Compton, California, five star. His talent as a runner is so obvious. Yeah. But the fumbling issue. issues are obvious too. And that's the reason he didn't get a ton of run early in the season and fumbling in practice from what I understood. And he had two fumbles today, lost one.

And so that was the first thing that stood out was that Georgia came out. They looked sharp. They looked great early on. Right. On the flip side, you had Jackson Dart did not look sharp early on. I thought Jackson Dart was struggling with his reeds, right? Right. Interception, the one interception he threw.

But then even beyond that, like before he got injured, got knocked out of the game and was hobbling into the locker room where he got the miracle medicine and came out and was running beautifully through the last three quarters. Who's this Austin Simmons kid? What is that all about? His first pass. And that kid is having the night of his life tonight. His first. His first pass. My 10-year-old son is like, he's.

Meanwhile, I drove an hour down near Foxborough today for an NFL flag football tournament with my son Tate, who's 10 years old. And he's, you know, we went one and two, didn't make it into the final bracket. Let's put it this way. Loved his effort. You know, he played, played well, made a lot of big plays, scored a couple touchdowns. But he left a few plays on the field. Let's just say that. I'm not going to sit here and chop apart my 10-year-old son.

But we left a few plays on the field, right? But the beauty is we come back after going one in one in a tournament where he left a few plays in the field. We'll address that later with him. But he comes and sits down next to me on the couch and we're watching, start watching the game. And Simmons comes in and he goes, who's this guy after the first pass? Like your notes. Who's this guy? And I'm like, I'm working on it.

The first pass was terrible. He goes, this guy's trash. Right. I love it. Anyone who's had attention. year old son knows yeah yeah everything's so definitive it's like you know instant reaction is so definitive and i was like well right meanwhile he goes five for his next five passing looks brilliant the the passing game game operated the best in those in that one series the five passes he

threw then it did like really it was the most efficient it was all day long yeah so anyway like austin simmons the miami florida product came in he was dealing um and i thought i thought i thought jackson felt the rush. I thought that he wasn't going through his reeds. I thought he was off early on. And George is running the ball and there's balance there. And Carson Beck is in a rhythm. And then all of a sudden, the thing that stood out to me the most and it did for the rest of the game is this old miss defensive front. Yeah, all over the place, man. We got four, we got four guys we're talking about four guys we're talking about who were going to get drafted. The two edges were particularly saucy today. God, I love Jared Ivy.

Jared Ivy. The sack he had over Tate Rutledge, the offensive lineman for that. I can win off the edge. I can win between the tackles. This kind of guy, like when you want to go to that NASCAR package and you're kicking an edge guy inside, you're looking at Jared Ivy. And then on the opposite side, Prinsley, Uman, Mielin. The sacky had coming off of Beck's left edge.

and then later on the rotating guy that they bring in Santarin Perkins 210 pound edge runs a shot of a cannon though runs of four quick mentioned they said he runs a 4-3 which means he runs like a 4-4-2

but whatever shows up yeah and he's only 210 I get it but can we put like 25 pounds on him making a designated edge and he's a sophomore yeah anyway But so that to me was the difference in this game. And then the huge tip pass for the interception from,

and then Princeley ends the game with the strip sack and then gets another strip sack even when the game's already over. Yeah. They lead, the Ole Miss defense leads the country in sacks. We knew that they were outstanding. We got four guys along the defensive front who were going to get drafted. Walter Nolan, the defensive tackle is going to get drafted. J.J. Peggis. Dude, we talked about him on Thursdays podcast.

And you were, you were ranting and raven about him carrying the football. And then the graphic comes up before he gets his carry. He comes in the game. He's like, this 330 pound dude. Like, what is he doing? You know, right. Looks like he's going to come into buck.

But I read the, I read the graphic. And he's had 11 carries. Six for touchdowns, five for first downs. He's 11 for 11 on conversions. He comes in on like a fourth and one or a third. than one he he gets the ball it's not it's not like dude he was one he was one arm tackle away one guy chopping his legs out away from maybe taking it to the house oh he's so much fun to watch oh i was yelling your name in my living room it was awesome but uh but pegis walter nolan ivy princely

four guys that are they're everywhere and sometimes these guys like when it's when it's they're year to go in the draft like you don't always get these guys are playing their asses off. This is real, like, to do it against this competition and to do it on this stage, that showed me, like, I know Tennessee's defensive lines awesome. They might be a little deeper, but I would take this defensive front up there than anyone in the country. Yeah, listen, the only thing I'm going to, to quickly switch back a little bit. Really, Jack's Dart, given a hard time. What a gutsy performance today, my man. It was awesome. We haven't come back to it. I'm saying early on a minute. All right. I always want to make sure that we're

not, I mean, Jackson Dark eight carries for 50 yards, make a place with his feet, not sliding. He's all banged up. I thought it was, I thought, I love a great passing day, but it wasn't a great passing day. No, no, Trey Harris either today, right? I mean, no, no, Trey Harris again. They did this without the, maybe the best receiver in the country, by the way.

But I told you on Thursday. I noticed this with, Trey Harris leads the, leaves the country in receiving yards per game, right? Mm-hmm. but he's missed now three games in a row. And he's still like, I don't know, coming into this game after missing two games, he still was like fourth or fifth in the country

in receiving yards. Like he was that product. But sometimes as a quarterback, when you have that, when you have that dog, that alpha guy, you just, you cut,

you lock on. Sometimes you don't go through your reads. Sometimes the offense doesn't flow fluidly like it should. And so with him out of the game, like they weren't as explosive, necessarily. They didn't have that one connection with the big play that you could rely on.

But we talked about the last two games is the most offensive production that they had all year. We talked about coming in this game, their last outing, they put up 61. Yeah. I'd rather have Trey Harris in the field, though. There's no question about it.

But I do think when Trey Harris comes back, if Jackson Dark can continue to go through his reads and incorporate him and make it the whole picture with Harris there, That could be the best version of Ole Miss's offense. And this Ole Miss defense can play with anybody. Yeah. And so now, like, you're looking at Ole Miss, it's like this team.

And you think about after that stinker, we all thought the same thing. Some people said it, some didn't. That stinker against Kentucky, same old Lane Kiffin, front running sons of bitches. Five stars, NIL, paying them legally. Maybe they were paying them. It wasn't legally. every team in the SEC is. So don't get on your,

don't get on your high. Don't get on your high horse. We know this has been going on a long, long time before NIL. But we're all thinking the same thing, right? Five stars. Yeah, they brought in a bunch of great free agents, but it's like, yeah,

so did sort of the commanders for like 10 straight years, always bringing the high price free agents right before the deadline and it would never pan out. It's kind of what it felt like. And so now they get two losses. They got a horrible loss against Kentucky. And even since then, watching Kentucky just tailspin. But this team has turned a corner.

The offensive has come on. That's three straight weeks. And this is a game where your quarterback goes out, comes back in, not 100 percent, pouring rain. And they weren't big numbers. They were like four different guys who had four receptions. Like they didn't have any huge running numbers. They don't have a great running back or a great run game. Other than big east.

Well, Peggyz is really good, but he ain't great. You know, he's not. I don't know. Give him 20 carries. Let's see what happens. That's all I'm saying. Is he E.T.N. Frazier? No.

Yeah. I mean, obviously, I'm kidding. It's not even a conversation. Right. But so, going to be it in Frasier. How long do you think the longest run was for Georgia tonight? Ooh. Or today.

I should say it was afternoon game, right? So today. I know I know Frazier had like, I want to say 16, 14, something like that. It was 12 yards. 12. It was the receiver, Dylan Bell. Frazier's longest was eight. Etienne's longest was six.

And look, it goes to speak to that defensive front again. Yeah, I mean, look, man, it speaks to that defensive front again. Ole Miss has had some talented defensive lineman, but nothing like this in terms of depth. I mean, they got, they have four. That's interesting. Yeah, they had 33 carries for 59 yards. Now, a lot of that was Carson Beck losing 20 yards. But they, I mean, it was, it's, it was a rough day running the ball for a Georgia team that needs to run the ball with Carson Beck still trying to figure some things out.

Let's get to Carson Beck. I went on a long rant about, about Garrett Nussweyer, and I'm not going to do that with Carson Beck. But I am going to say this. I want to applaud. And Georgia fans do not want to hear this. Georgia fans don't want to hear a single bit of this. But I want to apart, strike that, I want to applaud. I want to sit here and applaud Carson Beck for going back to the drawing board, self-scouting,

taking a look in the mirror. Molly McGrath had a grip. I tell you all the time, people will eventually listen. Molly McGrath is as good as anybody out there because she knows what she's looking for. She knows what, like, the real stuff is. She understands the game as much as any sideline reporter. out there. And the report she had early in the game was like, hmm, okay, interesting. Now let's see if it backs up and you can see on the middle. She had a report early in the game talking about how

Carson Beck recognized that he was pressing. He was forcing things. He wasn't playing. He wasn't playing within the construct of the offense that first and 10 felt like third and 13. And he saw that on tape. And so he went back and he self-scouted and he evaluated and I'm sure he had a lot of help with coaches. But Carson Beck, I will take, and I know it was in a loss, and this is the part that Georgia fans don't want to hear, I will take this version of Carson Beck over the guy that we've seen the entire season. Truly, I will.

Yeah. Even in the best wins, even like, this is the Carson Beck I expected to see early in the season and then kind of building off of that. Right. So what do we see from him? there was nothing, there was nothing spectacular by any stretch today. No, but he looked comfortable. He looked decisive.

He looked like, okay, I have reads. I don't my reads. I'm going to go through them. I'm not playing hero ball. I'm not going to force something that doesn't need to be forced. And he was just more comfortable in his skin. You know, like when you talk to someone who's grown up, you see someone at a reunion or 10 years later. They're like, all that guys, that guys, he knows it's comfortable in his skin now.

Like watching him play tonight, I thought Carson Beck was comfortable within the construct of the offense. He understood what his role was. And when a play needed to be made, he did his dandest to make that play. Right. In a key situation, like there was a drive in the middle of the game. They needed to throw. It was a deep, a dig route or kind of an in-cutting route. And he stepped up and drilled it.

climb the pocket, drilled it. There were more throws, there were more of those throws in this game than I've seen in a little bit of a stretch here. Yeah. Right. Yeah. And at the right time. Like when they were needed, when the Reed was there, when he wasn't forcing it,

it was like he knew when his shots were there and he took his shots. And then a couple times when protection came, a guy flashed early. And it wasn't like rolling around, right, trying it was, okay, tuck it, climb, go pick up seven. Let's live in, now it's second and three. Or it's third and one, whatever the situation. I just, I like, I like that I can get on board with this version of Carson Beck. I want to see more of this version of Carson Beck.

Even the, even the interception. I mean, he's, he's hanging in there. He gets smoked. It gets tipped. It's fourth and 10. I mean, you can't not try to make a play. That's when you have to do that, those, that's when you have to press. And it was, you know, if it's not tipped, he might have, that might have been a completed pass.

So I do think I will, you know, of course I'm going to say this, but on the third and 10 pass, it was not a misthrow, but the ball policeman could have been better. It was a drop. The receiver could have made a play, but the ball placement also could have been better. But that stuff we've seen all along, what was really concerning was the decision making and the pressing. And I agree with you. It felt better to that.

So like, so it was just like, again, I've been doing games for so long. I've been traveling. I've been on the sideline as an analyst. I've been in meetings. I've been doing all that stuff. What I have been doing is sitting back and actually watching games the way I watch them now. And then we will go and watch the tape on Sundays and Mondays and all week and do our draft stuff and prepare for these shows. But it's interesting sometimes.

Like when you trust Molly that she's getting real information is actually like sat down and talked to the human being and figured out and asked the right questions. Right. Not just like, how do you feel? It's not the easiest thing to do, by the way. People are like, oh, just ask the square. It's not. It's a instinct. When you do it, when you do it at a high level, it is a talent.

And so when I hear that, it jumps out. And so I start to watch and I'm watching the game. And then Greg's there, McElroy, who I, we talk to Greg all the time. Greg has a great relationship with Kevin Whiteel who worked with us for years. We've always been on text trans. And Greg played the position at a high level. It played in the NFL, took him as far as his talents could bring him. and his mind and his acumen brought him further than maybe his physical tools because,

my God, this guy knows football, right? And understands the position. Yep. So when I hear Greg start to talk about what he's seeing when he's there live and he's got the clicker and he's reviewing it as the game's going on and seeing more things than I'm seeing on the couch and I'm seeing what I'm seeing, it's like, this is a different version, you know, and they documented it throughout the game. Greg did a great job of like following through on that and and what the differences were.

I just, I thought it was fun to watch. And Georgia fans like, they don't want to hear it. No. You know, like this is the, you know,

the sky. Spoiled. Well, any fan would, but any fan would be like, yeah, whatever. Multiple interceptions, you know, the previous four or five games and he threw another pick and, and he's not getting it done and we're not getting it done. Well, you know what?

A lot of the blame. a portion of the blame was on Carson Beck along the way. Why Georgia wasn't playing up to its level. But it wasn't all on Carson Beck. And today versus Ole Miss, that wasn't Carson Beck. I get news for you. It's something we've been talking about all along. They don't have the weapons.

No, they don't have the weapons. They don't have the running game. We just talked about the running game. Georgia does not have the weapons. They've got great defensive talent. they've got a good enough offensive line, but, but they, they missed. They missed some of the tight end acquisitions in NIL. They're just not difference makers.

And so when you have a Carson Beck and we know of his talents, he's tall, big arm, he should continue to be developing, right? And he hasn't developed this year. And some of that, like we have given him his fair share. I did a whole thing on the regression is real, right? Like we talked about it over and over again. And so we've given him his stake in this. So now let's put the stake in like really where I think it deserves to be.

And that's with the lack of offensive weapons. And yes, it's partly running back. But it's also in tight end. I like the tight end Eurasek from Stanford, but he had a drop. Yeah, but he, but, but in previous years, he's in number two or number three. That's like a nice, nice guy to have in the room. Yeah, I'm higher. He's a grinder.

But he's not, but he hasn't played to that level. So I can't. That's not, man. And that's not even what I'm, that's not even like where I'm going. Like at one point, at one point I looked up, Cass Jones, the running back had had the longest reception for them, 29 yards. Late in the game, too, this is, I don't know if the final stats, but late in the game, I'm talking like a two, I think it was two minutes left. Cash Jones, the running back had the longest reception for Georgia. This isn't a big game that they need. No what, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, has a reception longer than 29 yards.

That was cash zones. Yeah, it was the longest one. 29 yards. The highest average yards per reception was by a tight end named Lawson Lucky with 15, yeah, 15 yards per kid. Okay. Yeah. Wide receiver, Arian Smith is the guy, right?

Mm-hmm. Saw Nagy put out a post about Arian Smith. He's going to run the base off his 100 meter. Could, he's going to put out his vote now, you know, threw it out there. Who's going to run the fastest 40 at the combine? it's going to be Aryan Smith. Two, at the same point, I looked up those numbers, so maybe he had one more catch late

the last two minutes. At that point, he had two catches for nine yards. He had three for 32. He had a 17 yard late. So again, we're not, we're not talking about a big difference here. Three for 32 in the game. And when the game was still a game, right. He had two catches for nine yards.

We've been saying it all year long, man. You can't go from having Brock Bowers. And I get it. Like Brock Bowers is generating. Brock Bowers is an absolute star. Brock Bowers was arguably the best player in college football, but was never going to win the Heisman when he was in college football. Brock Bowers is a star for the Raiders on a real shitty Raiders team.

Yeah. Ladd McConkey. He's not like an elite five star, right? I love to be, yeah. No, I'm just saying like, but these guys like he, Carson Beck, all he knew is. He doesn't have anywhere near that. That's the bottom line.

That's the bottom line. But he's used to that. So like when I need a big play, I get two guys, not one, two, and two different versions. Ladd-McConkie was a small slot guy. So he's got to be West Welker. He's probably a four or five. Ladd-McConkey ran like a four-three-nine. A dude is fast.

Run after the catch. Great routes. All the, so he, what he knows in college football is I got a tight end who's awesome and reliable, who I can always go to in a pinch. And I've got, I've got this wide receiver who's awesome and reliable. And I can go to in a pinch. And if I throw him a five yard out, he might turn into 45 and six, a house call. And then all those other guys slot into a complimentary role that you can, you know,

you can use when they're open. But yeah, you don't. But Georgia has not. You need to play who you go on. It's the only position. I'm just going to say it's the only position. Tight end hasn't been the position. Running back hasn't been the position.

Quarterback's not been a problem. They've had multitude. They've had, you know, riches at the quarterback position. Defense, my God, like there's, they, they became the new. Alabama, right? Right. Wide receiver, it's not there. And it's, it's killing them this year.

It's not there. Couldn't agree with you. It may be the offensive system. It may be the emphasis on tight ends and running backs in the running game in the past and team. And if you're a five-star receiver, you're looking out there and you're saying, okay, I've got Tennessee. I've got more, way more so LSU. I've got Texas with Sark in that offensive system. I got Alabama where we had, we had all, you know, from Jerry Judy to Henry Ruggs to.

to Devante Smith and Waddle to Jameson, who went to Ohio State. And I didn't even mention Ohio State. The best of them all. You know, the best of them all and what they've done there. So you've got like five different programs that would claim were wide receiver you. And George ain't one of them. And it's affecting them.

It's affecting them. And that's why when I look at this SEC race and I look at all these teams and I say, like, what do I trust down the stretch? Texas, Tennessee, Ole Miss, Alabama. Yeah, I'm not saying it's all because of their wide receivers. It's not. But I just, I think they're more,

they're all more for different reasons, but they all have more explosive qualities to their offense. I think Georgia's lacking. Yeah. I mean, I wish there was something I could do to argue with you. I would say this. I think that maybe we're letting the Georgia offensive line off the hook a little bit too. I mean, your best player is supposed to be Tate Radledge.

And he got beat clean today in an important part of the game. He hasn't been healthy. But yeah, you're right. In fairness, you're right. He has not been healthy. That's true. But I don't see a, look, again, you can't, if you don't have the weapons on the outside and you're running the ball 33 times for 59 yards, and there's a problem.

I mean, you could, that defense is good enough that you could go in. And if you could control the clock with that running game and you put up 17. 21 points and you and you have long sustained drives. You can win football games like that. But they're not even running, and they have talent running back. They're just not running the ball well enough. How awesome is it for college football that we have a game like this tonight, right? A game like this with LSU, Alabama.

And then next week we just re-rack it. Right. You know, like Georgia's had a horrible loss. Like everything, it's over. It sucks. Georgia. But we re-rack it, man. Yeah.

Let's go between the Hedges. I mean, Alabama was dead after the Vanderbilt. And what I said it on Thursday, I said, it doesn't matter which team wins. Like, we're going to be, that's the best version of a, and here we are. Like if I get that version of Alabama. But next week we re-rack it.

And by the way, we'll be right back here live. And I'm fired. Like, this is my new favorite thing. The reaction show live right after the game. Hopefully we'll have a better game next week. But the beauty of this is that we had so much. to talk about we could have come on at 730 and done an hour and a half show easily you know and one of the reasons was the game we just talked about the other reason is we got you know

undefeated Miami goes down and listen we've been going for an hour and five minutes now it says and and I get it we don't want to go forever but I want to get into a couple quick things with Miami okay and you can take it wherever you want because this is this is where you get to shine I thought it was already shining. I wrote in my notes right here. I wrote in my notes today during the day when I was watching as the game was wrapping up. Mench was right.

You all but called Miami fraudulent last week. You did. I did. You all but called them fraudulent. I thought there were problems. I'm here to admit you were right. They're a good team. They're scary.

But they're not in the discussion with alphas of college football. They're not. Here's my take on it. You can take it wherever you want. One game is a letdown. And just about every team we've talked about that it's at the top of college football has had that one game. Just about every one of them, right?

Texas, you know, Texas, Georgia, Tennessee, the Arkansas game, but every single one of them, you can point to every single one has had a letdown. It's a mistake. Mistakes happen, right? Yeah. Two is a red flag. two performances is a red flag. Four is an identity.

That's an identity. You're talking about the falling behind? Are you talking about it? I'm talking four performances when you don't play to level and take care of competition that should be weaker. Not necessarily losses. One let down, not a loss, not a loss, but one game's a let down. It's a mistake. Two is a red flag.

When you play a game, when you, you're playing inferior competition, when you should be, according to what the national rankings are, according to what all the hype says, according to the talent that you've brought in, according to everything that all of the college football world is talking about, you should take care of that game. You can have one. It's a letdown. It's a mistake. Two, it starts to become a red flag.

Three, it gets really worse. Four, it's your identity. And I look at Miami, it's their identity. Ten point deficit against Virginia Tech that Hail Mary play at the end. Okay. That's a letdown game. And the fans still think they won that game. And you know what?

They may have. They might have, yeah. But it was a mistake. We can overlook that one. Every national champion, like, whether it was in a loss or a game that they just pulled out, whatever. You always go back and everyone gets a scare. We all, everyone gets a scare. And Nick Saban talks about like it's the greatest thing in the world when, you know, when.

Right. Yeah, yeah. Humble your team. Or he says, no, actually, he says it can be, it can be your worst nightmare as a coach. When you get a win and you don't play. well, you'd rather lose that game. So anyway, regardless. 10 point deficit in the Hail Mary Virginia Tech,

25 point deficit after that long day, game day out in Cal, right? 11 point. And you could argue this maybe doesn't fit the bill completely, but they were getting worked by Duke. Yeah. Into the second half, you know, into the third quarter. 11 points they were down against Duke. Now, they came back in 1 by 22 and all as well.

Right. But it's still, it's part of this identity. And then against Georgia Tech, that's the fourth one. And they find they don't have enough gas in the tank at the end to pull it out. So I'm here kind of bowing to you, Munch. You were right. I mean, we all saw the defensive woes, but it's your floor. 48 carries for 271 yards.

I think the most disappointing aspect of it is is how one-dimensional, old Georgia Tech was. This was in a balanced offense. They could spread the ball around and has playmakers creating after the catch. They had to bring in a freshman quarterback named Filo or Filo, Aaron Fylo, to throw the ball on obvious passing downs because the quarterback is injured and can't throw the ball. Can't throw the ball down field. I mean, it is, it's, it's, it's, that is a serious concern. If a one dimensional offense comes in and you cannot get them off the field. And I want to see it now because I don't see if I can find that time of possession.

I don't even know what it was. But the time of possession, I was sure, was completely slanted towards Georgia Tech. I mean, they just couldn't get him off the field. And then you are looking at that point like, oh, Cam's going to pull it out for us. Cam will do this. And Cam will do that. And that's a different topic. And we'll get into that once we get to dig into the tape was, was he holding on to the ball too long?

He lost a thumble at the end. I mean, the numbers look pretty good for Cam. But we'll get into that later. on. It's, I mean, this defense. This defense is a problem. You have better. And now the question for me is, can they win out? And does a two, two lost Miami team? Well, so I did some digging on this. I'll help you okay. SMU is the only team with no ACC losses, no conference loss in the ACC, okay? Right. One loss teams include now, Miami, Clemson. Although, hold on a second. We're live now. We were watching the other game. Pitt was in a close one. Virginia was up 2419.

We are a lot. Yep. So now forget that. So it lost. Yep. Miami and Clemson are the only one lost team. So you get one one undefeated team in conference play in the ACCC, SMU. Yep.

And two one lost teams in Miami and Clemson. And but like the way I look at it and I did the research and the digging tonight, it really comes down to this. while you don't like the loss, maybe it's good for Miami because maybe they can, they, like, they'll finally get the attention to their players. Maybe some things will get addressed and changed. And most importantly, nothing really truly changes for Miami. And you know why?

Because if they win out, they win the ACC, they're still the number three or four seed. Right. Because remember, we did this. Win the conference and you're good. We did this Tuesday night after the rankings reveal our instant reaction show. We walked through it. Miami could be, Miami was ranked, what, was it fourth, fourth or fifth?

Yeah. Fourth or fifth, whatever it was. But their seed, yeah, four. I think their seed was three. They were the number three seed because it's going to be the SEC or the big 10 with the one seed. In this, in this situation currently, it's Oregon with the one seed. Right. Coming out of the big ten.

Number two seed is going to be SEC. Number three seed is probably going to be the ACC, okay? Yeah. And then the number four seed would. will be the big 12. And then whoever's ranked, let's say number three will be the five seed. Whoever's ranked four will be the six seed and so forth. So on and so forth.

Right. Okay. So what did Miami lose out on today? Outside of if they lose in the ACC championship game, if they don't win the ACC, if they were undefeated, they still had a shot to get in at an as an at large. Yeah, they lost the safety net. They lost the safety net. That's what they lost.

But because Miami beat Louisville, just to play it forward and kind of put a bow on this, you got a SMU. SMU takes care of business during the ACC championship game. They're going to play most likely the one, the whoever's, whoever's the higher rated of the one lost teams if Clemson wins out and Miami wins out. Well, Miami beat Louisville and Clemson coming in this week is coming off that loss to Louisville. So it would be Miami.

Yeah, and Clems is going to play South Carolina about it. Right. But I'm talking about ACC getting into the ACC title. Right. Yes. So Miami theoretically, outside of losing its chances to get in as a one loss at large, had they been undefeated and lost in the ACC title game, that that's what they lost out on. But otherwise, they could still be the number three seed in the 12 team tournament.

But if they lose in that game, are they in? No, they're out. Yeah, right. That's what I'm saying. Yeah, they're out. So more doesn't play in the playoffs. Right. And it's brutal. It's what we do as evaluators,

and I talked about, we talked about this on Thursday when we did the Cam War breakdown. As evaluators, no quarterback in this class, do we want to see more in the playoff to see against better competition? I need to see him against a, you name it, an Ohio state defense,

shit, a Penn State defense, Oregon defense, a Georgia defense, Alabama defense. I want to see him. I'd love to see him win one game and then go to play another one, you know? Yeah.

because I want to see that level of competition because that's part. I don't want to say it's an incomplete, but it's, you don't have enough to feel great about some of the things because there, there are some question marks that we outlined in great detail. So that's the ACC race. That's the Miami loss. Congrats.

Mench was right. Mensch, you kind of, you're like our ACC correspondent this year. Now that I think about it. Yeah, it's a lot of negative. I mean,

you're, you're cynical, Steve, for a reason. I'm fine with it. I'd like to think of an optimist, but okay. All right.

Finally, I wanted to get to this because I'm just, I've become the Shador guy, the Shador Sanders guy. I think the show has. I think we're, we're officially on board. Yeah. That's fine. I just, I, I, I love, Colorado was left for dead. If you go back, they were left for dead. And I'll get to it all, but, but almost lost to, um, almost lost to North Dakota State in the opener. Okay. Yep. They messed around. They almost found out against NDSU. Then they lost two of their next five games. Right. And everyone's like, oh, there's sizzle again and Coach Prime and like the commercials. There's not as many commercials and it's just Affleck, but it's not the rest of them. And Coach Prime's not on game day. Like it's different this year, right? Yeah.

It's not as many prime time games for Coach Prime. Like, it's just, it's not the same this year. And so they like. Which I think it helps them by the way. But I totally agree. They kind of went, quiet and and all of a sudden they've ripped off three wins. Right. And they got a big win today. I watched that game as much as I could because we had the Georgia Georgia Ole Miss game on at the same time. Right. Early in that game, I want to start with this. Of all the tape I've watched of Chador, this was not his most impressive passing performance. I could rip off five or six different games where I've watched my God. Like you kind of watch last year. Yeah.

Yeah. Like a couple games this year like where he's just dealing. Honestly, since the Nebraska game, put in any tape you want. And it's just like this tape's different. I keep saying, Shador Sanders is the best pure passer in this 2025 NFL draft class. And you can see it on tape consistently since the Nebraska game. And that really since the pick six in that Nebraska game, because he played really well down the stretch in that game too. Yeah.

This game might be the most impressive Shador Sanders tape because of the version I got to see. The first quarter versus the final three quarters, This Texas Tech defense is deceiving because in big games so far this year against good competition, they've been great past defense. Lesser competition, they've gotten just chewed up. But the first quarter I'm watching this game and I'm like, oh, shit, this is going to be the one. You know, Miami, it's going to be Colorado gets knocked out, like top quarterback prospects, getting knocked out the potential to play in the playoff.

Right. As evaluators, we want to see Shador. the playoff. I'm not rooting for Colorado. There's no bias here. As an evaluator, I want to see Shador in the playoffs, just like I want to see Cam Ward in the playoffs. I want to see against that competition, big spots. So Shador comes out in this game early on. You see that up on the screen right now, three for seven for 27 for 27 yards. I went a little bit deeper even into the early second quarter, right? He was four for nine for 29 yards and two sacks. That's really like the first series of

of the second quarter. From that point on, or just look at this graphic for the final three quarters, 27 of 36, 264, three touchdowns. Only, and this is one that's not on the graphic because I looked it up. After taking two sacks in the first quarter in one drive, only one sack of the rest of the game. Why is that important? Well, as an evaluator, you love to see when things aren't going well for a quarterback.

How does he adjust? Now you've got the tablet. You get the tablets on the sideline in college. What's he seeing? He's getting with his coordinator. He's getting with his quarterback coach. He's watching the tape himself. He's going back.

Okay, what are they doing? Where's the blitz coming from? When they're showing five, are they bringing five or are they bringing six? Are they, is a cat blitz coming off the court? Like, what are the things they're doing? Why aren't we picking it up? And I've talked about all year long. Is it Phil Loddoll, the offensive line coach, I thought I heard today?

Whoever it is. I think that's right. Yeah. I think that's right. They're much improving. from a year ago and much improved from early in the season. He's actually getting protection. Well, it was like watching that first quarter against Nebraska again.

It was like watching last year again. I was like, oh, shit. Like, are there injuries up front? Whatever the reason was, he was under duress, holding on the ball too long, kind of scrambling and was out of sorts. And so it's one of those turning points for Sodor where I wanted to see, okay, can he find the answers quickly? And he did, man.

He did. You could see concerted effort. He realized today's not the day where I'm going to have time to throw. Right. Today's a day where I got a win here. I get a win between my ears. I got to make smart decisions and I got to make sure my receivers are on the same page. So now we're going in the quick game.

Now he's sliding his protection. Now he's sliding his feet. He's anticipating where the rushes are coming from. I can't wait to watch this tape in full on Monday because what I saw today was a guy taking the next step in his development. Right. Sador Sanders today was what you expect to see in a quarterback who we're talking about in the first round, who was getting his own answers.

Right. We talk about quarterbacks, we talk about quarterbacks processing, and I think people think about that as post-snap, but there's also how are they processing what's going on within the game when you get to the sideline? And, you know, every offense goes into a game and says, we run this formation, we expect to get a cover three look. and these are our cover three beaters. When you line up that week and all of a sudden you're getting quarters or cover two

or you're getting zero blitzes or whatever it might be, you then have to adjust. And can you process that information as you're going along? Can you, when you're offense coordinator or quarterback's coach or head coach comes up to you and says, we're not running that anymore. We need to go to plan B. This is our beaters for that coverage. If we get in that formation again and you see this, this is where you need to go.

I mean, that's a huge part of playing that position. So it's, again, processing during a play, but also within the game. I thought it was fun to watch, man. And again, I'm excited to watch the tape. But to see Shador, and you got to remember, too, like, there hasn't always been a lot of pressure in the last year or so. There's been a ton of pressure on Shador and the national spotlight. But in terms of like, got to win this game, got to keep our big 12. You know what I mean?

Like they're not little brother anymore right now. They're starting to come. Yeah. And they had a, they had the buy week. They had, like there's a lot of talk now. Everyone's getting kind of reinvigorated with this Colorado product. I love it. I'm excited about it.

You come out in the first quarter and things don't look good. Texas Tech is coming off a big upset a week before. Was it Kansas State, right? Yeah. No, Iowa, Iowa, Iowa, yeah. Iowa State. Knock off Iowa State. Play great defund.

So now you're like, uh-oh, is he running into the same buzzsaw Iowa State ran into? And he was for a quarter, but he turned it around and he did it. by changing the picture and working with his staff, like you just talked about and figuring out, okay, what are the new answers? Because the answers we prepared for, they're not the right answers. Because they're different questions that we expected, you know?

So that was awesome to see. By the way, BYU was down eight at Utah in the third. All right. We got a chance to win this pool. I've been in a pool for 15, 17 years. I'm not going to get rich. And it's not going to like pay a mortgage. off or help with the kids school.

But like, my God, there's a lot of pride in this thing. Like 47 people I've worked with and know, like, yeah. And I haven't won one all season. So if you would woke, if you would, the only thing we could have asked for was a better game tonight. Because if you would woke up today and told me that Indiana would, you know, find a way to beat Michigan, stay undefeated. So for that game in Ohio said a couple weeks, Colorado controls its own destiny.

You get an Ole Miss upset over Georgia. I mean, you get another top five. What else could you ask for today other than a close game tonight? I mean, it was a great Saturday. It was a great Saturday, man. It was. And just to put a bow on Coach Prime and Chador and Travis Hunter and what's going on in Colorado right now, like this thing's real.

I told you, they almost lost in North Dakota State week one. They lost two of their next five games. They've turned things around. Shador's been on a roll. They're on a roll. They've won three straight. Now, if the buffs went out. they're in the big 12 title game with a chance to earn a top four seed.

We just talked about it. The ACC is going to get probably the third seed. And Colorado now all of a sudden, you're talking about a team that almost lost to North Dakota State and lost two out of five could be the four seed in this 12 seat in this 12 team playoff. You better give clapback on here if that happens. I want to hear from him about it.

You'll be asking about his high school stats. Goodness. All right. Tape, tape that I want to study, I already talked about. A tape that I got to study on Monday. Ewers didn't get to see enough that game.

And there was so much going on, so many other, like, important games. It was a freaking blowout. I want to see yours. I want to see if there was a difference or if it was just the same shit.

I saw last time he came out with a lot of short game and easy stuff. There was. There was some of that, yeah. But hopefully there's, I want to see more, more of the tape that we need to see. Cam Ward,

go back and actually study that full game. because I'll be honest, I didn't watch the whole game. There were so many other games going on, but I watched the key parts at the end and what I saw. It wasn't that I didn't like what I saw from Cam. It was just, but there was some holding on to the ball too long and some things. But the circumstances dictated it. So there were some passes I'm willing to give,

but not until I watched a full tape. And then I just want to go back and watch the full Shador tape too. And hopefully I'm just as excited on Tuesday when we talk about Shador Sanders as I am right now because that was, that to me is like, kind of the next level stuff that you look for in quarterbacks and their goal. Yeah, it's exciting. Anything else on your mind, Munch? I think we, uh, we hit most of it.

I snuck in. Oh, yeah. Guess what? What? Spiders, eighth win in a row tonight. Richmond? Yeah, they kicked a game winning field goal with two seconds left or one second left. You see that?

You see the helmet right behind me? Offense coordinator Winston October, our guy. I love Winston. Yeah, man, they're rolling. He's a bad year row. They've gone on a serious role after losing a couple of games. Winston, you guys win out. You're coming on this podcast.

That'd be awesome. I don't care of no one tunes in to listen to it. The three of us will have a lot of fun. Now, that's awesome. Well, congrats spiders. Love it. That's it, man. Hey, we'll be back on Tuesday.

It won't be live, but we'll have our podcast on Tuesday. You can download it wherever you get your podcast. Hopefully it's Spotify. We'll be on YouTube as well. And we're every Tuesday, every Thursday. And this is a, we've been doing this for a few weeks now. We had to get the kinks out the first couple of weeks, but this is our first ever live show.

We did an hour and 25 minutes. What time is it? It's almost 1 a.m. Eastern time. I'm not falling asleep tonight. It's going to. No, not at all. Yeah. And I do want to rat out Rosillo before we go.

It should be good. Yeah, it's like, I texted them, hey, come on the show. It's our first ever live. Come on five minutes. Send us a video, like, whatever you want. The game sucked. And the ending. was horrible. And if you're in Baton Rouge, it's not going to be as fun at night.

So I get it. But, but yeah, we're going to get you back on this show. Come hell or high water. Little harsh. I mean, he was two weeks ago. He was on, wasn't it? Three. No, two. Whatever. I appreciate it. Thanks for joining us live. It's great when he is on. We'll be back next Saturday. I mentioned you're the best. We'll talk to you soon. Thanks, man. Bye.

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