The Press Box - Ep. 180: College Football With Mallory Rubin and Ben Glicksman

Episode Date: September 8, 2016

The Ringer's Mallory Rubin and Ben Glicksman break down a fantastic Week 1, the implosion of the SEC, Texas's "18 Wheeler" package, and the Deondre Francois experience. Then, they preview the less-than-stellar slate of games for this weekend. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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any given Wednesday, which runs every Wednesday night at 10 p.m. on HBO. And reruns on HBO Now, HBO Go, and, HBO on demand. Welcome to the Channel 33 college football show. Week 2 edition. My name is Mallory Rubin. I'm the deputy editor of The Ringer, a wonderful website that we would love for you to check out and then check out again and again and again. And I am joined once again by Ben Glickman, articles editor, college football enthusiast,

wonderful human. Ben, hello. How are you? I'm good, Mal. How's everything going? Ben, it's football season. I mean, how else could it be going? It's great. Yeah, we got quite the, quite the. the week one, lots of upsets. The preseason rankings obliterated in about like the span of six hours. So we got off to a hot start. It was pretty incredible. A lot of action. Part of what made it

so fun, of course, was just a sheer number of days over which we got to enjoy football. It started in pretty entertaining fashion on Thursday. We all thought it was going to be a bit of a snoozer of an opening slate, but Tennessee kind of fucked around for a little while there before pulling it out. And then things stayed interesting the whole time. We got to watch Christian McCaffrey and Stanford on Friday. Saturday was absolutely amazing. Sunday gave us the Notre Dame, Texas, thriller of the ages. You heard it here first, folks. Texas pull off the upset as predicted. And I don't care that I got a lot of other stuff wrong last week. I am going to claim this one for the rest of my life. And then Monday, Florida State with an astonishing second half comeback against Ole Miss.

So it was awesome from start to finish. And I think because there was so much joy, so much sadness, so much intrigue, we should just start with a little recap before we look ahead to week two. Who are your winners and losers from week one? Give me one of each. So my winner from week one is a team, well, really the coach of a team that we sort of both knocked a little bit in our preview edition of this podcast. I'm going with Tom Herman of Houston.

I guess. They went against Oklahoma. They just basically kicked the crap out of them for 60 minutes. They had a kick six. Greg Ward looks great. Duke Catalan at running back looks great. They had this freshman Ed Oliver, who's the highest ranked recruit in program history

and just looks like he is going to be a future number one NFL draft pick in a few years. So, yeah, I mean, basically they lived up to the hype and more. any job that Herman wants sort of after the season is basically his at this point. And Pete Thammel from Sports Illustrated actually wrote a really good piece about sort of behind the scenes with Herman and Houston heading into this game. But one of the notes from that piece is that if Houston gets into the Big 12, Herman is due for a $5 million raise. He gets a $5 million bonus, $2.5 million in each of the next two seasons after they join a Power 5 conference.

So a lot going right for Tom Herman and Houston. Decent chunk of change. How many grills can you buy with $5 million? And just to be clear, I don't mean like grills that you used to cook meat. I mean the grills that you put on your teeth. The pall wall grills, yeah. I don't know exactly. I would need to get an exact estimate, but I am 100% certain that you will use all $5 million on grills.

I can tell you that definitively. Probably so. Probably so. I'll give you my winner. And then we can go negative and switch to the losers. My winner, Ben, it's not a team. It's not a coach. It's not a player.

It's a network. Showtime because a season with Florida State for two quarters looked like it was going to be instantly irrelevant as a season-long television enterprise. And then Florida State saved not only its season and championship hopes, but also this show, which is great because this show is going to be fun. I loved a season with Notre Dame last year. I thought the premiere of a season with Florida State was pretty fun. It was full of a lot of reveals, including the fact that Jimbo Fisher is somehow even shorter than I realized. But they've got a, you know, a vibrant freshman star at quarterback to basically focus on all season, which is pretty cool. You know, my title pick still looks good, Ben.

It was dire there for a while. But holding on, Heisman pick looks okayish. The Knowles have life. And so does this TV program. It's a big win. It's a big win for showtime. Big win. And, yeah, I think as far as Hison pick, you may have picked the wrong player on that team.

But you may have been right with the Seminoles, but you may have just picked the wrong offensive standout. Give it time. Give it time. Plenty more Florida State talk coming on this podcast. I sure you know. My thing more Florida State talk. Talking about the Knowles. Talking about the Knowles.

Ben, what about a loser? Who gets the loser, the loser, not award, dishonor from you this week? The loser dishonor. There were a lot of choices here, which is very exciting. I am going to give it, though, to LSU's offensive line. I think LSU's loss, I mean, there were a lot of top teams that lost this weekend. Oklahoma obviously lost, Ole Miss lost. Tennessee almost lost to Appalachian State, which would have just been amazing and totally predictable all at the same time.

But I'm going with LSU's offensive line. Brandon Harris obviously did not look good. He went 12 of 21, 131 yards with two interceptions. Leonard Fournett was held in check for a lot of the time, but a lot of that was because, the offensive line just was completely dominated by Wisconsin for most of the game. And if you look, if you watch the replay, last night I was watching the replay of Harris's backbreaking interception to end the game or that sealed the game for the Badgers and Lambo Fields. And the difference on that play was that Vince Beagle, who's Wisconsin's really good outside linebacker,

was totally unblocked on the play. Like he got to Harris within seconds. Harris tried to do a little pirouette and then floated the ball down the line. side line and it was picked off. I mean, Harris needs to have the wherewithal to be better than that, but when the offensive line is just sort of letting really big, fast, formidable pass rushers right through to the quarterback, it makes it a lot harder. So I think LSU as a whole is a big loser from week one, but the offensive line in particular really needs to be better moving forward. That's a good one. We thought about this in slightly different ways. You really focused in. You identified

something specific and you said this is the problem in a big way. I went broad, Ben. I didn't say LSU's line. I didn't say LSU's offense. I didn't even say LSU. I said the entire SEC. The SEC is my week one loser. I know this is sort of like the the hot take de jure right now and like a bit of a in vogue troll move. Which I love. So I fully encourage. I'm totally support that. But hot take de jour should be one of our segments moving forward. I'm really concerned. I'm concerned about the SEC.

Alabama looked like the kind of unstoppable force that might be so far ahead of the rest of the teams that we should actually just cancel the season. So good on you for your title pick, Ben. You're looking pretty smart right now. It was a bold move. It was. It was bold. You've been rewarded for your courage. Thanks.

Other than that, though, the SEC showings ranged. really somewhere from uninspiring to downright alarming. So let's quickly go through it. Our boys from Tennessee need to wake up. We still believe. I think I think I can speak for you and say that we still believe, but they were sleepwalking through the opener. Let's give a quick shout out to Amanda Dobbins' dad, a big Voss fan who listened to the podcast. Vanderbilt lost, but weirdly helped the SEC in doing so because Vandy lost to an SEC foe. So at least South Carolina got to win. That was something. Missouri lost to West Virginia. Worse, Missouri lost to West Virginia while West Virginia was wearing those really bad alternate helmets,

which is not cool. Kentucky blew a 25-point lead to Southern Ms. That was amazing. Stumble was so embarrassing that Mark Stubes actually had to apologize after the game. When you were apologizing for a loss period, that is terrible when you're doing it in week one. That's about as damning a sign for your season as you could have. Mississippi State missed a last second field goal and lost to Southern Alabama, not regular Alabama, Ben, Southern Alabama. Arkansas survived by one point. Ole Miss crumbled against Florida State, going basically from looking for the first half of this game, like, oh, this might be the only team that can actually hang with Alabama territory to this team probably couldn't beat South Alabama in the second half.

And then worst of all, as you already talked about, LSU lost, which is a huge blow for the league because LSU was one of the top title threats. And more distressingly, this instantly rekindled the less miles hot seat talk, which is probably my least favorite thing in the sport right now. A&M managed to hold off UCLA and looked okay, but only just, barely survived. They almost blew that game. Auburn made Clemson sweat, you know, and what I would say is like simultaneously. impressive and baffling fashion that we can get into a little more later. But all told, the narrative for the league switched overnight in a kind of shocking way. And suddenly there's a lot of work to do to kind of get the reputation back to where it needs to be instead of an assumed path to the

title game. That's weird. Yeah. The good thing about college football is narratives kind of have a tendency to change within a week as you just pointed out. I mean, I think Texas A&M and Auburn, you mentioned both of them are both interesting cases. Because both of those programs for the past few years have been known primarily for their offense. And in both games, for the most part, their offense, or in both week one games, both the Aggies offense and the Tigers offense was not super great.

But their defenses both looked really, really strong. So I actually am very intrigued by those teams. I think a loss to Clemson was to be expected by at least one of us on this podcast. But yeah, overall not a great week for the SEC's death. Yeah, and you wrote about this, people should go read your piece from Saturday night. Like the nature of the sport is it's the impulse to overreact, which is simultaneously dangerous and often wrong and misguided,

but also kind of a point and part of what makes it so fun. So you were encouraging people to really embrace the overreaction to go all in on saying the SEC is doomed or Alabama is unstoppable. Yeah, it's wonderful. I think, I think obviously, Obviously, it leads you to be wrong a lot of the time, but that is most of the fun of this sport is basically making wild predictions. And I mean, the sport for years and years, basically for as long as it's existed, it's been

based on a random sort of arbitrary set of rankings. Now we have a committee, but the sport is basically founded on making stupid judgments about one team being better than the other. So I'm fully behind this. Okay. Speaking of rankings and stupid judgments, both of which you just mentioned, let's get to the next segment, poll watching. Let's each quickly give an overrated, underrated, and properly rated pick from the newest set of rankings that came out a couple days ago. Why don't you start?

Who's your overrated pick for this week? So I think the easy answer here would have been Wisconsin, but that is not what I'm going with. I'm going to go with Georgia at number nine. I think I am a believer in Kirby Smart. I think Jacob Eason looked really good in the opener. And Nick Chubb rushing for 22-year. Yeah, that's a delight. The clip of the sermon or the preacher basically giving a sermon about his return was a thing of beauty to fully encourage anything, anything that's praising Nick Jeb, I'm 100% down for. But I still think there's a lot of question marks on this team. There's a lot of newness on this team.

And if we're just going based off of what happened in week one, I think it's probably misguided to rank Georgia who beat North Carolina ahead of teams. like Wisconsin who beat LSU and Texas who beat Notre Dame in what I thought were more impressive week one win. So Georgia's got a pretty manageable schedule. They have a lot of talent on that roster. They always have. But I want to see a little bit more before I'm willing to call them the number 19 in the country. All right. I respect that.

You know what, though? I am going to go even higher in the polls. And I am going to say that my overrated pick for the week is easy. number two Clemson. Wow. All right. What's the explanation here? Okay, so we should say like Clemson didn't actually move in the polls, right?

But I think Clemson should have moved down in the polls. The Tigers really struggled, which I, as we talked about last week, actually expected, you expected. But as you were just mentioning, almost in the exact opposite way that we expected, which was surprising. You know, the defense lost so much talent to the draft and how. had us concerned, actually managed to completely confound Auburn offensively, though you could argue that Auburn confounded itself, which we will discuss more soon. We could argue that. But Clemson held the SEC Tigers to 262 yards, forced three turnovers.

The problem was that the ACC Tigers struggled on offense. Clemson only put up 19 points, barely avoided the upset. This was a one score win. Deshaun Watson, presumptive Heisman favorite. and presumptive number one draft pick was 19 of 34, 24, 248 yards, one touchdown, one pick. If you're into QBR, which I am not, but hey, you know, you're all free to make your own choices. His was 53.8, which is not good. He only rushed for 21 yards.

Mike Williams, the receiver, looked incredible in his first game back from the neck injury the custom last season. That was awesome to see. But in general, this was not the lights out attack that we were expecting. And worse, more alarmingly, and I think, you know, part of what should have influenced voters to knock Clemson down a peg or two, Dabo didn't just bring his own guts to this game. He brought a lot of seriously questionable judgment. I mean, the decision to go for it on fourth and four late instead of taking the points in icing the game was absolutely baffling.

Could have cost them and probably should have. So, you know, my thing here is that Clemson didn't even look like the best team in its own conference, because I think Florida State did. So how can it be the second best team in the country? Yeah, I really like your strategy of doubling down and just basically crushing Clemson on a second straight podcast. When Deshaun Watson is like hoisting the Heisman trophy and then the National Championship Trophy,

it will be really fun to listen back to these podcasts when we're saying like, yeah, they sucked against Auburn, but still somehow found a way to win. But I fully encourage it. I'm 100% behind it. I really appreciate your support. six and six. I'm with you.

I'm behind you. I'm behind you. I'm behind you 100%. All right. Who's your pick for an underrated team of the week? I actually mentioned this a little bit in the preview episode of the podcast too, but my underrated team is number 24 Oregon. I guess.

They played a juggernaut in week one in UC Davis and somehow found a way to win. So I don't know how that did it. Really hard fought battle. But Dakota Proocop, their new quarterback, the go to you through for 270 yards and three touchdowns. I'll repeat this time and time again. Roy's Freeman is one of the most underrated running backs in the nation. He should be mentioned in that conversation with Chubb, basically right behind the level of Fornett and McCaffrey of the best running backs in college football. They have some good skill position players in Darren Carrington and Charles Nelson. I just think

there's no reason they should be number 16 in a team like Iowa should be number, or they should be number 24 and a team like Iowa should be number 16, although shouts to Kurt Farrantz for getting another extension to the year, I think, like 2080. So good on him. Unbelievable. Unbelievable. Unbelievable. I just don't know how he does it. What a legend.

My pick, Notre Dame, 18 in the AP poll, 21 in the coaches. That is an 8 and 12 spot drop, respectively for those two polls as a result of losing in overtime on the road to a team that's now 11th in the AP. pole, and as you noted, should probably be even higher. So the Irish lost, yes. They have to move down, yes. But they weren't bad. They looked really good, in fact. And they looked good enough to probably have beaten most other teams in most other games

over the weekend. They didn't turn the ball over. They won the time of possession battle. I don't understand what they did that really justified to drop that severe. Here's what I'll say about Notre Dame. my, if you remember, I picked them as one of my four playoff teams. Oh, I remember. They did a good job of really getting off to a really brilliant start for me.

So thanks Notre Dame for really coming through. Here's what they did. They didn't know how to stop Texas despite knowing what was happening on basically every play. Like, you knew what Shane Bichelle was going to do in Sterling Gilbert's new Baylor offense. That's how that works. And then more infuriating is when they brought out Tyrone Swoops, when Texas brought out Tyrone Swoops and the 18 wheel. package, which quick note is just already my favorite thing about this college football season

is that Texas has an 18 wheeler package, which is just terrific. But you know he's going to run the ball. Like he does the same thing every play, and they just could not stop it to save their life. I thought Deschion Kaiser had, in my opinion, the most impressive quarterback performance in week one of anybody, period, like hard stop. I think there was a lot of really, really good quarterback play. I thought Kaiser was brilliant.

He had that one throw to Josh Adams for a 17-year touchdown that temporarily put the Irish ahead. It was just an NFL throw. But yeah, the defense has more questions than I thought they had when I originally predicted them to go to the playoffs. The 18-wheeler thing has a real bell-dozer feel. Like remember every time Bell would come in for Oklahoma and it's like, you know exactly what is happening here. And then every time it was a touchdown, very strange. But yeah, you're right. They couldn't stop Texas.

but Texas couldn't stop Notre Dame either. It was just that kind of game. That's true. I think it's just, you know, they should have dropped maybe just in my mind, not quite that far. What about who's your properly, properly rated pick? Who's just where it should be? My properly rated pick is Louisville at number 13. They were at number 19.

They jumped up six spots for just totally annihilating Charlotte, which seems like an appropriate number of spots to jump up after kicking the shit out of a row. really bad team. So Lamar Jackson looks great. He put up like 400 plus yards and eight touchdowns in the first half. But again, he did it against a low level team that's not even a good low level team. So I think putting them in the number 13 spot is is really good for now. They play Florida State in a couple weeks. We'll really see what this Louisville team is made out of. But yeah, I saw number 13 next to Louisville. And I was like, yeah, that makes sense. That's a good spot for this Cardinals team. My only counterpoint, I considered going with Louisville as well, but my only counterpoint is that they should have moved up eight spots instead of six because they should always move up or down as many touchdowns or interceptions as Lamar Jackson has. I just think that would be a fun way to play out the season. That's my suggestion.

It would make about as much sense as the current way that we do the polls. Exactly. So I am, yeah. Why not try something new? I don't really have a counter there. That's fine. Let's keep this fresh, people. Okay, my pick is Michigan, fifth in the AP, sixth in the coach. is this ranking perfectly reflects our assessment of Michigan at the moment.

Still just a shade behind Ohio State in terms of reputation and trust level. Not quite yet in the unanimous this is a playoff team grouping, but right on the fringes of the conversation waiting to slide in the second any of the teams above it happens to have a bad day. You know, beating Hawaii at home isn't going to convince anyone that you're a title contender, but in general a 63 to 3 romp, that's a top. five-team level result. So, you know, the Wolverines didn't punt.

They only allowed 2.2 yards per rush. They looked great on both sides of the ball. Harbaugh was incredible. Go read Katie Baker's Harbaugh-Bah piece, people, if you haven't already. It was number five team stuff. Yeah, the defense is not going to allow a touchdown until, like, November. Michigan's defense looks amazing. The other player on Michigan, who is going to be a problem for opponents this year,

is Chris Evans, their new running. I mean, I think we knew a couple of the players on Michigan who would be key to that offense. Wilton Spate looks pretty good. Again, he got off to a rough start, but then he settled down. Again, it was Hawaii. But Chris Evans looks like he's the truth. I think he's going to be a big factor in how far Michigan ultimately goes this season. Satellite Camp Kid.

Satellite kid, you know, hey. We'll revisit the satellite camp. discussion when we need to fill podcasts like for the seven months of the offseason. We'll just talk about them week after week. So I want to save all this fodder until then. Great idea. Maybe we'll hit the road, do a little satellite camp tour of our own. This is a great idea. I like how you're thinking.

You're always looking ahead. It's really, it's admirable. Yeah, that's what I do as an editor. All right, guys, we will be back with some quarterback talk and week two preview after a quick break. Hey, it's Bill Simmons. I want to let you know about our political podcast. It's called Keeping in 16. It stars John Favreau and Dan Pfeiffer, two guys who used to work for Obama.

They have a lot of opinions on a lot of stuff. They had so many opinions that we had to branch it out. And now we also have a second version of the podcast with John Favro, Tommy Vitor, and John Lovett. Again, all of them work for Obama. They have the inside stuff on the White House, the election, everything you want to hear. People love it. Check it out. Keeping it 1600, only on the Ringer Podcast Network.

And now back to your podcast. All right, Ben, it's time to talk quarterbacks. We've already mentioned a couple of the people that we need to discuss in depth. But in many ways, unsurprisingly, the quarterback play defined the opening slate, specifically some of the new faces we saw and specifically some of the weird timeshares that we saw. So let's talk about a couple of these things. First, tell us which first-time starter you're buying into the most. So I think there were three real options here.

Unless I'm totally overlooking somebody, which is possible. But I think the three real options are Shane Bichelle, Texas, Dione, Francois at Florida State, and Jalen Hertz at Alabama, who all put on really, really impressive performances in their opening games. I am going to give the edge to Francois. I thought Hertz looked great, but he went against in a USC defense that was based, basically just stadium decoration by midway through the second quarter. Like they just sort of arranged a couple of ornaments. Like it was like an obstacle course.

It was a fun game for the Crimson's Hide to play while they were just absolutely destroying everything that had to do with the Trojans program. And we didn't mention winners and losers, but quick shout to Elaine Kiffin for that tweet. Oh my God. And hashtag 314 LAX. So good on him. So I thought he was great. I thought Bouchel was great.

We already talked about the 18 wheeler. but to me, Francois had the most sort of adversity in his start. I mean, he started off looking really shaky. They fell behind 28 to 6. And then he just got it together. Like he, that passed to Travis Rudolph where he got absolutely crushed towards the end of the first half, really turned it around. And he sort of did everything, both his arms and his leg the rest of the way. I think if any of these guys is actually a Heisman candidate beyond just being the most impressive,

quarterback of these newcomers in week one, I think it's Francois. But I'd love to hear which one of these guys impressed you the most. Ben, I think that in general today, we have done a good job of not just agreeing on every single thing and saying the exact same thing as each other and just repeating the same points back and forth for 45 minutes, which was a nice bonding experience last week, but maybe not ultimately, you know, as interesting as saying different things. However, our streak has come to an end because I'm sorry. Sorry, I am all in on the D'Andre Francois experience.

I was all in on this before I'd even seen him actually play. So now that I have seen him play and have seen him lead to come back against the number 11 team in the country, I'm smitten. I'm completely smitten. He took so many hits in this game, but he stayed strong in the pocket, hung in to make tough throws, new went to scramble, showed real zip on his passes, serious arm strength, the ability to make pretty good fast reads. it was hard not to, I really, as a general rule, I hate, hate, hate the tendency to always be like this guy reminds me of this guy, but when the camera kept cutting to James Winston on the sideline, it was hard not to think about that, about the last redshirt freshman quarterback who came in and led this team to the promised land, you know, to a championship. So I agree that all

of these guys were pretty awesome. You know, Michelle was way more impressive than I was expecting. I mean, we didn't even know if we were going to see him. And then he, you know, he started and played well. I don't think there's any doubt that he's a more capable passer than swoops. And ultimately the quarterback that Texas needs to ride. But it's that weird thing where the other guy in that timeshare actually got the glory. And the 18 wheeler package is like the storyline is going to remain a key part of what Texas does. So he looked good, but he's not really like in the, oh, this guy could lead this team to a title.

position that Francois instantly has occupied, I think. You know, it hurts. He's the one that I left the weekend, actually, with like the least clear read on, partially because, I mean, watching that game, it felt like watching like a farce or a tragic comedy more than an actual football game. So it's hard to really know how seriously to take anything you saw. I mean, he looked poised. He looked confident.

Turn the ball over twice, but accounted for four touchdowns. And one of those turnovers was literally on his first play. So he recovered from that in pretty impressive fashion. Right. But he didn't start. Saban hasn't said that he'll start week two against Western Kentucky. Now, obviously, like, Sabin, to his immense credit, flat out owned the fact that he didn't reveal his quarterback plans heading into week one because the whole entire point is to gain an advantage over the opponent not to make reporters jobs easier, which I thought was both very amusing and very true. So this could just be more gamesmanship on his part, but I don't know.

Hertz is so young and an experience still that even in a blowout, I think that was like every snap matters and his precious experience territory. And the fact that Steven not only started Barnett, but then put him back in late, it was a little surprising. So maybe Alabama's not totally done with the Barnett experience yet. I don't know. I mean, Hertz looked awesome, but it's hard to say that he is at quite the same level of like this is this guy.

team that Francois is. Yeah. I mean, Hertz only attempted 11 passes. That's the thing. I mean, he looked really good. Obviously, he made a plunge of place with his legs. But that game in particular, it was so hard to get a read for it in the second half, just because things were spiraling so quickly. I mean, the amazing thing is that USC was leading 3-0 midway through the second quarter and then was outscored 52 to 3 the rest of the way.

I mean, that's like being stuck in traffic for like 20. minutes and then deciding to go 110 miles an hour for the next 40 minutes. It's like deciding to make your car fly so that you can just skip the traffic. It was insane. I mean, everything just happened so quickly and then, and then, yeah, and then it was 52 to 6. Maybe it was a result of the Jabari Ruffin's stepping on Minka Fitzpatrick's nuts. I mean, maybe that shifted the whole thing. But yeah, I agree. I think Francois, was the one that I have the most, was the performance that I have the most faith in sort of moving forward.

I think the other ones were both really impressive and very intriguing, but I am, I'm not 100% bought in yet. So many karma tweets after the nut stomping. So many karma tweets. Okay. There was another team out there that sort of had the opposite problem. Not too many good quarterbacks, but too few or at least too low.

clarity on how to use them. What the hell was Auburn doing and what the hell should Auburn do moving forward? So for that second question, is it, is it what should Auburn do moving forward in order to win or what should Auburn do moving forward in order to be the most entertaining for me personally? I'd love to hear both answers. Okay, so let me start with the second one. I would prefer that Gus Mileson just flips a coin on every single play. Actually, maybe he needs like, a die, a die, just because he has so many quarterbacks. Like a coin, it's sort of like you're picking between two guys. Yeah. A coin is far too restrictive for what we're not trying to do.

Maybe we need like a wheel, like a spin a wheel and then it has more than those three guys. Like he can pull guys from the stands like maybe did. Maybe he puts himself in a QV. Maybe he's got some eligibility left. I don't know. Maybe you write the names of the quarterbacks inside a roll of toilet paper. Like you unroll it. You write down the names on every ply. Then you re-roll it. then you roll tumor's corner, okay?

And then whatever reply comes up last, that's the guy you put in. But you have to do it every snap to keep things interesting. Do you think the game would take too long then? I don't. I think that's better than any of the ideas I have. I'm 100% behind you once again. But yeah, I mean, anything that's just basically leaving it up to random chance is the way that I would prefer this to go. If they're looking to win, however, I would probably say,

say if you had decided on Sean White is going to be your Starboard going into the season, maybe give him a chance to start. Like he played for, I don't know, he played for like 39 plays or 40 plays or something that was so minimal for a guy who was named the starter before the game. I think if that's the guy that Gus thinks is going to give Auburn the best chance to win, then he actually has to let him give Auburn the best chance to win. Yeah, I mean, look, sometimes we can be hyperbolic just for the sake of drama, but it is actually not an exaggeration to say that Gus Mileson, supposed offensive genius cost Auburn the game here by changing quarterbacks as frequently as he did against Clemson. It was relentless.

It was dizzying. And it wasn't just that we didn't really know what we were watching. You kind of had to assume that the players didn't know what we were watching. you kind of had to assume that the players didn't know what was going on either, because how could that not have been completely confusing? Like, how can you get into a rhythm either as the quarterback or as the guy or guys around the quarterback when that is happening? You know, his quote was like a little unknown right there. Throw in a lot at the opponent. That was his justification for what he was trying to do.

The problem with that approach is that it was also a little unknown. for his own team. Like, you, it doesn't, it's not okay to stump the competition if you're stumping yourself in the process. So, you know, he's saying now that Sean White's going to start and that John Franklin's going to be the backup. It sounds like Jeremy Johnson's the odd man out, but I personally am not quite ready to let the, the Johnson dream die.

But here's a little fun fact, right? Jalen Ramsey, Lord and Savior of not only this podcast, but all ringer podcasts, through insane shade at Franklin. That was nuts. That was nuts. tweeting and I quote, John Franklin left FSU as a third string and ended up at Auburn. Still,

and still is in all caps, a third string. Maybe it's not the program, my dude. Wow. Wow. If Jalen Ramsey hates you, how can America love you?

Yeah. Jalen Ramsey was not holding anything back there. So, uh, yeah, Auburn. I mean, Auburn's defense looked really good, but yeah, maybe pick a guy. Maybe the best decision is to just pick a quarterback. All right. One more team that ultimately picked a quarterback, but initially it looked like

maybe it wasn't going to pick a quarterback, Notre Dame. I would like us to both give a, we're going to, we'll go in a little more depth, but I want us to give a one-word answer first, okay? Should Malik Zaire ever see another snap? One. two, three. No. No. My answer was actually going to be like just a deep guttural growl. Like some, you know what I mean?

Just kind of like a, I'm not going to do this on the podcast. It's going to sound horrible if I do. But basically it was like I said last week on the podcast that Notre Dame couldn't go wrong at quarterback because they had two good options. That was an incorrect statement. I would like to apologize to all of you listeners for saying that it could be either or because Malik Zaire looks like he had completely forgotten how to play quarterback and just shown Kaiser looked like Jesus.

So there was a point of discrepancy. I think he got to go with Kaiser from this point on. Yeah, I mean, look, I feel for Malik Zayer. I really do. He was amazing against Texas in last year's opener. It's not his fault that he got hurt. It's not his fault that another player came in to replace him and that that player is better. But that is what happened.

You know, Kaiser, he didn't just look good. I mean, you've said this already. He looked transcendent against Texas. He was playing at the, oh, maybe Deshaun Watson isn't actually the best quarterback in the country level. And it's pretty simple. Notre Dame already has a loss on the books and can't afford another. So Zaire can't play because fucking with what Kaiser has going, it would basically be like, bordering on like negligence that is a fireball offense.

Yes. The thing is with Texas's two quarterback package, right, they had very defined roles. Like when Bachel was in, they were going to run the Baylor offense. He was going to be airing it out all over the field. When the 18 Wheeler package was happening, Swoops was just going to go. He was just going to run. You knew that each of these quarterbacks had a very defined way that he was going to be used. with Notre Dame's quarterback situation, they were sort of both using the same playbook except one guy was doing it far superior to the other guy. So it's not a sort of,

it's not a situation that's suited to a timeshare. Yeah, there's nothing to be gained from it. All you're doing is taking snaps away from the better guy. All right, I think we're on the same page with this one, and I think probably, hopefully, Notre Dame is too. Then it is time for our final segment of the week. We're going to wrap this up here. it's time to polish the week two turd because week two sucks man there are no good games this is lame

there were so many good games in week one so i guess we got spoiled but i think even if week one had sucked we would still think the week two slate looked terrible let me share with you a little nugget that uh esPN stats and info tweeted weeks weeks with no ranked matchups in the last 10 seasons okay okay 2012, week two, 2009, week 12, 2008, week two, and 2016 week two. That's it. Yeah, that's not great. I mean, I think, yeah, so last week, it was being touted as the greatest opening weekend in college football ever. Like, you may have heard that one or two or 285 times within like a four or five minutes span. I really wish that the networks this week were touting this as the worst week two slate ever with the same aggressive nature.

Yeah, you know what? Like you played up how great week one was. Now please play up how terrible this week slate of games. The thing is sometimes a really feeble slate can actually be super fun because that's when the things that you aren't expecting to happen actually happen, right? So let's try to find some positivity here. Let's give the readers. No, you're not reading this.

You guys are listening to this with your ears, not your eyes. Let's give the listeners. I need another coffee. Some things to look forward to. Let's start with which game might not suck. Why don't you go first? So let me begin this by saying that I was, I spent most of my sort of childhood living in central Pennsylvania.

Ben, can I stop you for a second? You can. Yeah, you can stop me. there. What's going on? Did you grow up in a town by any chance that had a maple syrup festival? It did. Yeah, it was, yeah, I lived in Cowdersport, Pennsylvania. I'm proud of Cowder'sport, Pennsylvania. It had a maple syrup festival. It was wonderful. It happened once a year. And yeah, I, I've been hooked on, I've been hooked on maple candy ever since yet. Don't talk bad about maple syrup festivals. You can talk bad about a lot of things in college football, but

if you talk about about maple syrup festivals, I might just have to go. But yeah, so all of this is a way of saying I am very excited about the return of Pitt versus Penn State. These teams haven't played in 16 seasons. That's crazy. It's crazy. This is a rivalry that is really good. I mean, basically all of the rivalries with Pitt football have sort of fallen apart now that like Pitt WVU doesn't happen on an annual basis, and Pitt Penn State hasn't happened in.

a generation, basically. So yeah, I'm really excited about this. There's a lot of storylines in play, too. For James Franklin in particular, this is a really important game. I mean, I think people at Penn State are starting to get frustrated with him. He's breaking in a new quarterback, Trace McSorley, who's taking over for Christian Hakenberg,

who I'm not sure if you've heard now plays for the Jets. But, yeah, I mean, I think Pitt enters this game as a five-and-a-half-point favorite. We've got to see James Connor at running back. for Pitt, who is a truly inspiring story and scored a touchdown in week one against Villanova. We get to see Sequin Barclay at running back for Penn State, who was one of the more underrated tailbacks in the nation. We get to see Jordan Whitehead. I think this is a game with stakes with the return of a rivalry. I'm excited to see it. Ben, I really admire your ability to find just enthusiasm and joy. Anywhere you look, it's wonderful. It comes from the maple syrup.

Have you ever seen the movie, Elf? You know how like Buddy just pours maple syrup on everything? It really is the better way to go through life. I would encourage you to eat maple syrup as much as you can. You've just got that sugary goodness coursing through your veins. I'm very jealous. I do not. And so I had a really hard time picking a game that I was excited about this week.

But I got inspiration from Ringer intern, Zach Cram, who made the following observation about Arkansas TCU. Ringer preseason letterman, Kenny Hill, our chosen quarterback, facing off against Ringer Letterman coach, Brett Bielma. That's about as good as it can get for this week. So I'm just going to go all in on our Ringer Letterman and say that both of these teams played like shit in week one

have a chance to redeem themselves and the team that doesn't do that is going to be in pretty bad position, and the team that does can really jumpstart the season from there. So let's see what Kenny Hill can do against the Arkansas defense. Yeah, Kenny Trill versus Burt. Amen. All right. What about an individual matchup?

Not the teams, but a player on one side against a player on the other. Is there anything that's particularly intriguing to you? So I sort of cheated here. I have a player on one side just going to. against a defense on the other. I'm excited to see Texas Tech quarterback Patrick Mahomes against Arizona State's defense. I think they play at 10 p.m. Eastern Time on Saturday.

There is a high possibility for Pac-12 after dark in this game. The over-under heading into the game was 79, which is an eye popping over-under. Yeah, it's really amazing. That's incredible. But, yeah, I mean, I think- That's not a real over-under. That's insane.

It's 79, yeah. That's the number you pick when you're trying to make a funny joke. It's incredible. And the sort of gambling right up I was reading, I believe it was on CBS Sports, heading into this week was actually recommending taking the over. So it's really going to be something to behold on Saturday night. If you're just in the move to watch, team score a combined 147 points. But yeah, Patrick Mahomes, I think, is one of the top quarterbacks in the nation.

that we don't talk about. He threw for 4,000 yards last year. He ran for 450 yards. And he's in that Cliff Kingsbury offense. We know Texas Tech can score. So I think in week one, he had a really impressive performance, but it was against Stephen F. Austin, which is not really a good indication of anything, except that you played Stephen F. Austin and succeeded.

Where Arizona State, I think, will actually get a little bit of a lens about how he really is going to fare this season and whether this guy could potentially be a dark course highsman candidate. I like that. That's a good one. I'm going to go with a player against a player because that was the assignment and I'm going to follow the rules. Good on you.

Ben, I don't know if you've heard. Virginia Tech plays Tennessee at Bristol Motor Speedway, which is a racetrack. Some people have been talking about that. I've heard. Oh, okay. I think that the instinct here is to wonder how Tennessee quarterback Josh Dobbs is going to bounce back against Bud Foster's D. But I'm actually equally curious about the other side of things. I really am eager to see Virginia Tech wide receiver Isaiah Ford go up against Valls Corner Camp Sutton.

You know, Ford set single season records for receptions, yards, and touchdowns last season. and he is one of the more underrated offensive players in the country, and he's going to go up against one of the more underrated defenders. So I think this could be a really cool player-on-player pairing and match-up in a week that is kind of light on intrigue. Yeah, no, I think that's a really good choice. I think that game might not be particularly thrilling, but I think the atmosphere will be freaking awesome.

So, I mean, that is a game that I think may not be a, ton of fun to watch on TV, but being there would be a hell of an experience. Will it be more or less fun to watch on TV than the actual races that take place at Bristol Motor Speedway? I mean, I personally prefer college football, so I'm going to give it the edge, but only ever so sad. There you go, guys. We still have something to be grateful for.

It's college football, not racing. All right. Last question, and then we're going to bounce. Who should be on an upset alert? All right, you ready for this? You ready for this upset prediction, Mal? I am. Illinois, the University of Illinois, which last week I said did not have a football program,

is going to beat UNC this week. Wow. Tate is going to be so pissed at you. I know. I'm sorry, Tate. I apologize in advance. Well, I guess not in advance. I just made this.

I apologize in advance of the upset. Lovie Smith. I don't know if you've heard this amount. Lovy Smith is the coach. Illinois right now. I have heard. And he has sort of inspired the offense, which is led by quarterback West Luntz. I don't know if you remember him.

He played at Oklahoma State previously to take more of a rushing approach. And they had this running back, Kendrick Foster, who ran for 118 yards on four carries in week one. I mean, they played a bad opponent, but

look at what UNC allowed from Nick Chubb, which was all of the rushing yards. I think this game is going to be close, and I think Illinois is eventually going to pull it out. I mean, the game's happening at Illinois. The spread entering this game is nine points, which may sort of open some eyes for teams that just are familiar with UNC's 2015 season in Illinois's past however many years of football existence. But I have faith in the Illinois. I think they pull a big upset here. I mean, too. All right, Ben. My pick is not based on football or football reasons. My pick is Iowa losing to Iowa State because while Iowa

State is definitively not good at football and while Iowa is definitively good at football, the idea of the Hawkeyes losing immediately after Kirkman signed another contract extension is just just the most beautiful thing to contemplate. So I kind of want this to happen because I I think it would just be sheer comedy. But I also kind of think it will, because these are the things that sort of have happened to DeFerons in Iowa. Yeah, that would be not only a glorious turn of events, but also a very, a very feasible turn of events. I could see that happening pretty easily. The other team, real quick, and I won't get into this too long, I think USC, Utah State, I mean, Utah State's not a game game.

USC looked like total garbage in week one. I think USC will ultimately win, but I think that game's going to come down to the fourth quarter. That's a good one. I wonder what Lane Kiffin will have to say about that. I'm sure how allowed us now, with a bitmoji, probably. Probably so. All right, Ben, this was fun.

Enjoy the games as best you can, and we'll do it again soon. Sounds good, man.