The Ryen Russillo Podcast - Allen vs. Mahomes and Spencer Rattler's Future With Trent Dilfer, Plus Bama's Historic Loss and Fury-Wilder III

Episode Date: October 11, 2021

Russillo shares his thoughts on two of the biggest NFL matchups of Week 5: Chargers-Browns and Chiefs-Bills (0:30). Then he talks with Super Bowl champion Trent Dilfer about what makes the Buffalo Bills a Super Bowl contender, Patrick Mahomes's recent struggles, scripting plays vs. in-game adjustments, younger QBs taking hits on the run, the QB situation at Oklahoma featuring Spencer Rattler and Caleb Williams, and more (12.25). Then Ryen runs through some CFB headlines, including Alabama's loss to unranked Texas A&M, Oklahoma's win over Texas, and Iowa's win over Penn State (50:50) before briefly discussing Fury-Wilder III (1:01:00). Finally, Ryen answers some listener-submitted Life Advice questions (1:08:05). Host: Ryen Russillo Guest: Trent Dilfer Producers: Kyle Crichton and Steve Ceruti Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

today's podcast is are the bills the best team in the afc to do that and the struggles with the chiefs a little on the browns chargers and more with trent dilfer including spencer rattler what should he do at oklahoma Now the bench Heisman favorite. Little college football headlines, reactions to Tyson Fury's win against Wilder, and life advice. The biggest headline matchup was Buffalo at Kansas City, and that was kind of the game I think a lot of us were looking at. And the headline that I take away from that is the Bills are the best team in the AFC.

Now, Chargers fans, I'd imagine you're going to push back on that a little bit. That's fine. I totally understand. That's fair, and you might end up being right after this is all said and done. But Baltimore's, I think, good, not great. We're still trying to figure out what the hell's going on with Tennessee. As far as the rest of the divisions, I don't really know what to make of the AFC South after them. I mean, the Colts are in second place.

They're one and three. Las Vegas now has lost two in a row. 3-2. And there's really nothing in the AFC East that scares you here. And I think Cleveland can make an argument. Should we really be 3-2? We're going to get to Cleveland and the Chargers here in a little bit in their shootout from yesterday. But if I

have one headline, it's that right now the Bills are the best team in the AFC. They're 4-1 with that one loss against Pittsburgh. That one loss against Pittsburgh, even watching that game, it was kind of weird. So I'm not really that worried about it. In the first half, the Bills averaged 12 yards per play in the first half.

At one point, Josh Allen had nine completions. He had completed nine passes for 261 yards. We'll get to the Chiefs' defense here a little bit because the showdown was what's going to happen, Mahomes, Allen, and we know how bad the Chiefs defense has been and I do have some time that I want to spend on that. So we could look back on this result in a few weeks and think, oh wait, everybody was all over the Bills, but what they didn't realize is the schedule is really easy and they beat a Chiefs team that's been the worst they've been all season long if the Chiefs can figure out a way to improve themselves defensively. I mean, this is a bad Chiefs defense, but they're also missing their best player, Chris Jones,

and then Ward, one of the other starting corners. So that's not going to help you. And it was a weird game on top of everything else, but it just wasn't close. You didn't watch any of it going other than the Mahomes factor where you're thinking, all right, well, whatever, Mahomes is going to get him back into this. And I'll admit, I even thought that was going to happen. The roughing the passer play on Josh Allen, although the roughing the passer on Mahomes wasn't that get him back into this. And I'll admit, I even thought that was going to happen. The roughing the passer play on Josh Allen,

although the roughing the passer on Mahomes wasn't that great of a call either. But Kansas City picks it, and you're like, all right, is this going to get weird here? And then it didn't because they got the penalty and the Bills pull away in this thing. All right, so if we look at the Bills, we knew defensively, I don't know that it was the personnel. It felt like some things were correct from 2020,

but it wasn't some amazing defensive line, offensive line team. Well, maybe the offensive line will be an issue against a better defensive team, but it hasn't been to this point. The defensive line, there's talent everywhere. Starla Tule's back. Rousseau, the first-round pick.

The kid out of Miami that was a receiver in high school that had the pick off to the left side. They have a top corner. They have good linebackers. They were missing Milano last line on top of everything else. And as I mentioned, they have a number one receiver. And with Josh Allen, who, again, I'm not going to go crazy here the Monday after the win and say,

I'd rather have him than Mahomes. But he's in the group. He's in that first tier, right? He's in that first tier of guys. So you add all of that up, and you're like, okay, well, how good are the Bills really when you look at that opposing schedule? Well, here's what we know they're doing. They're killing everybody they beat. Their point differential is

plus 108. That's number one in the NFL by 42 points ahead of only the Arizona Cardinals. So in a league where you'll be sitting there watching the one o'clock window games close because I know it happens to me every Sunday where I'm like wait this is a one possession game like what's wait this is this is a game when you like how is this team even in it because that's really what this

league is and that's what the product is and why we love it and why the gambling part of it is so hard it's because there's just all these things can happen team goes up 14 nothing we act with it's not really just two to zero and we're just like well how how did this team get back into this game and then it's always one of my biggest pet peeves when a losing coach the previous season goes six and ten whatever and he's like you know we had nine one score losses you're just like so what everybody has like half half of your schedule is going to come down to a one possession loss and with the case of the bills okay, okay, fine. Schedule's easy.

Defensive number's off the charts because of the opponent. But at least we know defensively it's improved. At least we know defensively the resources that they've put into the defense, the defensive line draft picks that they've added up that some of these guys are going to work out. And if you're just destroying your opponents, that's all you need to do in the NFL to prove it because it just actually doesn't happen that much.

And on top of the division being a mess, New England, they'll have weeks where they're impressive. Then they have a week where they almost lost to Houston. Miami's way worse than I think we thought they would be. And nobody's going to be scared of the Jets, even if the Jets defensively have time. But I'm telling you right now, good defenses in the first month with no

hope at quarterback, those defenses don't play the same way in the second half of the season. They don't. They're just going to get sick of it and be like, we have no chance to win, and they're not going to play with the same intensity. It happened to the Denver Broncos for years when they were trying to figure out anything post-Manning. If you look at the New England blueprint, the playbook for them, what was it? It was beat up on the division and getting some single elimination football. If the Bills do that, I'd rather play three weak opponents six times,

stay clean, not be beat up like so many other teams. Because even a month plus in, some of the things we think will be right, but it won't matter because the teams are going to have massive injuries. That's the survival of an NFL season. It's not, hey, what happened to that team other than, well, they're missing six guys that played major snaps, and that's a big deal. And if your opponents are as bad as the rest of the AFC East or Buffalo, it gives you a better chance to stay clean throughout. Now, let's look at the Kansas City side of this because we knew that Kansas City was bad defensively. I mean, we've been talking about it awful last year,

but then I'd always bring it up and go, you know, Mike Sando had these numbers where it was like, no one wins when your defensive output is this, you know, below a certain threshold. And Kansas City still was almost 500 with like the worst performing defenses. And now the problem is they're having

some of the worst defensive performances by game they've ever had during the Mahomes era. I went through every opponent's yards allowed per play. So yards per play allowed by the opponent defensively. Kansas City's last in the NFL, allowing 7.1 yards per play. I went all the way back to the 2003 season, which is this one sort that I was able to find because I couldn't go back prior to that. There's only one team that's close to allowing what Kansas City is allowing right now defensively. So all the way back to the 2003 season, nobody's worse than what Kansas City is right now. And again, yes, some of it is a slight evolution of the game and more yards and all that stuff,

but nobody's watching this going, hey, this is good. This is a good time on defense. We know that they're a mess there. Josh Allen had nine completions for 261 in this game at one point. The other part of this that I think last night and I've noticed it at other times, and I'm trying not to play the results here too much because some of the Mahomes numbers are still really

good, but he had six picks last year. He had five picks in 2019 on really good. But he had six picks last year. He had five picks in 2019 on the season. He's got six picks already. And I'm wondering if he's reverting back to the Texas Tech Mahomes that I saw that I knew had a huge arm, but I was like, what's up with the decision-making? And again, it's not that,

because that was a very erratic quarterback. It was a very skilled quarterback in college, but it was very erratic. And so when he got drafted, I was like, like I say with a lot of the quarterbacks that go in the first round, I'm like, I don't know. erratic quarterback. It was a very skilled quarterback in college, but it was very erratic. When he got drafted, I was like, like I say with a lot of quarterbacks that go in the first round, I'm like, I don't know. I'm like, man, he threw some stupid balls. Then he explains it afterwards and goes,

well, I had to because we're giving up 60 a week. I'm like, wow, this guy's not only really good, he's really smart and everybody likes him. All those attributes. This isn't a what's going on with Mahomes as if the previous couple of years were a fluke because we're still one

off sides away from this guy being in three straight Super Bowls. And the fact that even with last year's disappointing defense, I keep repeating this, in the games Mahomes started, Kansas City was so bad on defense they went 14-1 in his starts. And so he is somebody who I'm going to have a really hard

time ever quitting i'm just telling you now i'm not quitting him i'm not taking josh allen ahead of him all right but there seemed to be some either frustration throws or desperation throws or just some looseness to his game that when it was loose it always worked and now i see a quarterback who's who's just playing a little bit more desperate that's led to more mistakes when before he could do whatever he wanted. He could still play loose and do no-look passes, and everybody loved it because it didn't matter because the margin for error was so much greater back then,

and now it isn't. Buffalo's aggressive with the passing game. They don't necessarily need to run it. We're going to see what happens. They're going to stretch over the next five weeks where they play, I think, the third easiest stretch of quarterbacks. They're going to have a terrific record.

Yes, I think there's a part of this where maybe the Chiefs correct some things, and we'll say that win at Arrowhead was when Kansas City was at its rock bottom, or maybe Kansas City never figures it out on defense, and Buffalo's playing in a Super Bowl representing the AOC. Okay, out of the Mahomes discussion, I want to bring this up. I mean, Cerruti and I were thinking about keeping track of these and then ranking them

and then see which ones could jump up. But on the Fox pregame show, Jimmy Johnson said he'd take Justin Herbert over Mahomes. And I guess Strahan agreed with him. Let's not lose our minds here, all right? And Herbert's amazing. The Chargers are 4-1. They had the weird loss against Dallas. They win a 47-42 shootout with Cleveland.

He's got 11 touchdowns, 0 picks. He's clean sheet the last three games since that weird loss against Dallas where he had two picks. He had one in the red zone there where I think they showed that he'd never thrown a red zone pick. And as soon as the graphic goes up, you know what happens. But the other side of this that I want to bring up is just cleveland because cleveland's sitting here at three and two going you know the chiefs loss was a game where they couldn't do anything with late possessions

the bears game was a blowout was a disaster um the vikings game last week was weird where i felt like what's going on with these second half possessions and then the chargers game where they've scored 42 points all right and they're missing their left tackle. Odell, by the way, I don't know how many of you guys are watching Browns games every single possession. Browns fans that listen to the show. He's a mess.

I mean, it's just drops. I know Baker missed him for a touchdown two weeks ago against Minnesota, and that was on Baker on that throw. But Odell is not exactly bringing it. So I don't know if we're going to get a sit down with him

and little Nas X talking about Baker not being good enough a quarterback. but I look forward to that one. But here's what I've noticed with Baker. And I had research look this up, but if you go first quarter completion rate, Baker's almost 80%. Second quarter, 60%. Third quarter is 88%. So you're like, all right, here we go. In the fourth quarter, it's by far his worst completion percentage at 55%. And if you look at his QB rating by quarter, it's 110, 88, 133, and then 76 in the fourth quarter for Baker. So they had 15 points, I believe, in the second half yesterday against the Chargers. So we can't, excuse me, they had 22 points in the second half against the Chargers. So it's not like this offense fell apart. 22 points in the second half against the Chargers. So it was a lot like this offense fell apart. Nick Chubb's a big part of this, as always, 161.

His fourth quarter numbers are incredible. But Cleveland did have two possessions in the last three minutes where they got 25 yards. One was a three and out. One was the eight plays on downs, 21 yards or something like that. I don't know if that's a Baker thing. I don't know if that's a, hey, we actually can't just hand it off to Chubb here because it's a passing league and we're trying to figure it. But it just feels like some of these later positions.

And again, I don't know if it's a real thing. I don't know if it's something where we're going to go, hey, Baker can't do it late. But the numbers are showing you, if you're watching these games, it's showing you that this is a real issue at this point. And by the way, I just wanted to point out too that the Browns had a 94% win probability in that game. They lose, go to 3-2. Not writing them off, but just noticing some of the stuff with Baker late.

Coming up, we're going to talk with Trent Dilfer. Another visit from our guy. His Beyond the X and O's podcast out. We'll go beyond it here. Trent Dilfer on a Monday. Okay, we're going to start with where I started, and that was Buffalo going down to Kansas City to beat the Chiefs. I'm going to get to the Mahomes part of this first,

but look, we've talked about Josh Allen. We've talked about who he is and how he's improved, and now that he's a dude, which is one of your favorite terms. What are you seeing in them? What are you seeing in Buffalo as a whole as a real Super Bowl contender? They're growing. One of the things that happens in the NFL,

I'm sure you've talked about this, is you get to a certain level, you're pretty good. You're darn good. You got some stars. You've gone to the playoffs. People are talking about you. And you lose that kind of burning desire to get better at stuff.

Your coaching staff starts resting on willies and joes instead of X's and O's, not always giving them the best plan possible. And I see Buffalo growing. I think they know who they are defensively. They're way better at the line of scrimmage than people give them credit for. McDermott's always done a great job of what I call 11-eye defense. He's got 11 eyes on you. It's terrifying as a quarterback when you drop back

and there's 11 set eyes on you. Even some linemen are rushing but looking through to get their hands up. Linebackers are zone dropping, and they know where your receivers are, but they're looking at you. The secondary's dropping, but they're looking at you. And you're like, wait a second, I can't manipulate any of these dudes. They're looking at you. The secondary is dropping, but they're looking at you. You're like, wait a second. I can't manipulate any of these dudes. They're looking at me. They know who they are, but offensively, they kind of became one-dimensional and they became too reliant on

what I would call, and this goes to last week's conversation, kind of falling in love with the spread offense. You go four wide receivers, you go three wide receivers, a tight end, one backs in the backfield, all your formations are spread offense. You can go four wide receivers, you go three wide receivers, a tight end, one backs in the backfield, all your formations are spread out. You're putting your offensive line in a tough position. You're throwing a ton of short passes. If you watched them last night,

they did a really good job of condensing their formations, adding extra surface players, bunching it up to throw it deep. You know, one of the secret sauces of throwing the ball deep in the NFL is to get all tight, make people think it's run, and then spray everybody out and play action and throw it deep. Well, you've got to be able to run the football

to do that. Well, their offensive line is built for pass protection, not downhill run. So what did they do? They added some of this triple option stuff in, and they did it some really creative ways. Chris mentioned it a couple times in the broadcast and showed some replays some of the baltimore raven stuff but really this is more university of oklahoma this is more kind of college spread triple option stuff where you're reading the guy if that guy gives you the give look you give it to your back well now you've gained a man advantage

in the run game and your offensive line kind of run zone tracks, kind of run what you'd call Alex Gibbs type wide zone action and you don't have to cut off the backside. And now what they've added with Josh Allen is,

okay, you can pull it and run, but you also have a third element and you saw it on the big third down run. I think it was late in the game where you saw the tight end was open in the flat, but instead he piped it up the left side. Well, he can run it there or he can throw it out to Dawson Knox who's in the flat. You saw it on the touchdown pass where he kind of throws the back shoulder inside skinny corner route where he's pulling it.

He's going to run and he sees the corners kind of playing the flat and opens up the corner. So he kind of sidearm flicks it to the inside corner route. And what I like about that, it's not just a scheme thing. It's that they're growing. What they've said internally is my guess is, hey, we're never going to be able to just get two backs and pound. We're never going to be able to just be a team that can run the ball down your throat, set up action pass. But what we can do is we can really make you respect the run if the quarterback's going to be a runner. And if you notice, they had 28 run plays last night, 26 passes. And get your key researcher on this. When's the last time they had more run calls than pass calls? I can't imagine. I mean, because they were the most aggressive pass team

tied with Kansas City last season. Yep. So 28 runs, 26 passes. So you're going to see yards per pass attempt go way up, which it was last night. 26 attempts, 300 and something yards. So that number is going to get higher. So you're going to see more chunk plays.

You're going to see them have a higher conversion rate because one thing that would get Buffalo in trouble, especially in the playoffs, is you get those third and mediums, those third and shorts that they're kind of, yeah, they're probably 60% pass downs, but man, they're really good teams can run it there too. Well, they're 100% passing those. Well, now they're not 100% passing them.

And that's really where college football has most affected the NFL. And this really goes back whenever we say, no, this isn't going to last and i was one of the few that says yes it is because it's very hard to defend is when you add your quarterback as legitimate runner in those third and mediums and you use all the eye candy with motions and cross action the backs and sometimes your your guard and tacker are pulling sometimes they're on zone tracks. You're gaining a gap and you're tricking the defense on their gap responsibility. So it's not just the dumbed down way of saying,

hey, we're gaining a gap in the run game. You're not just gaining a gap, you're also creating enough eye candy to change the keys of the inside backers, the outside backers, the defensive line as they're moving and reading offensive linemen. So sometimes, you saw it last night, you gain massive amounts of space in the run game

because of what you're doing with your creative run game. And that's not going to go away. You can do it with an unathletic quarterback, but you're doing it with the 6'4", 240-pound dude that can run 4'6". So in many ways, it's more dangerous than one of these running quarterbacks because you're not game planning for it all week it's not something it's not their fastball it's like the dude that strikes everybody out with the changeup he only throws it nine times

a game but he gets seven strikeouts out of it you know what i'm talking about right like his friend he throws 96 he throws, he can touch 98, he's working the corners, he's got a dirty breaking ball. That's what everybody plans for. And then he throws the split finger change-up nine times a game, but he always throws it on a two-strike count. It always hits the plate

and you always see these world-class batters swing right over the top of it. And you're like, how do they not know that's coming? It happens every two strike count. Well, because you're not prepping for it. Because you've got to prep against the heater. You've got to prep against the breaking ball. And now the split finger change comes at

you and you've got no chance. That's Josh Allen in the quarterback driven run game or whatever you want to call this. People call it read options more than that. I think it's genius. We're doing it here with our quarterback. We have this free quarterback, and we don't run him a ton,

but when we do, it's dirty because they ain't planning for it all the time. On the other side with Mahomes, and I always kind of feel this way when I watch quarterbacks, there's tight and there's loose on the spectrum. If you're really tight, I'm worried about it. You're too robotic. And if you're loose as hell, it's like, hey, man, what are you doing? I've never seen anyone play as loose and still be tight as Mahomes is kind of the way.

Nobody can say it better than that right there. Totally 100% agree. And yet, it's looking real loose again. And I don't know i i look this isn't like it's hard for me to even be critical of the guy um so i guess what i would say is it looks you know when it was loose and it was tight it was great and now there's i think there's loose because of all the factors around him but what are you seeing out of him so far yeah i do think it's really important to notice all the some of it's all the factors around him so far this year. Yeah, I do think it's really important to notice some of the factors around him.

So I think this is less Patrick Mahomes. Yes, I agree with what you're saying, and I see the same thing, but I really will take the burden off of him on this one. And I'm going to take everybody inside of a Monday morning, 11 a.m. offensive staff meeting in the NFL. All right, what do they do? Well,

they do A, B, C, D, E, and F. Who are their best players? This guy, A, B, and C. Great. Let's look at their negative plays against their opponents. Boom, it's blitz, it's three technique killing them, it's whatever it is. Okay, what are the explosive plays against them? uh okay what are the explosive plays against them oh the explosive plays are amazing spread them out jet motion this cross switch these guys run this guy on a stutter this guy comes off the top like we can do everything against this team right and if you know we see and nor was great at this would sit back and go yeah but all that is five and six man protection. All that is spread. All of that is risky. All that, none of that mitigates damage. All of that, none of that is boring, fundamental, good football that sets us up to be more efficient and make bigger plays when we need them. Yeah, but it's so cool. This is Andy Reed in Philly when he was getting

criticized for never running the football. That's the easy way of saying is they don't run the football enough. They throw it too much, but it's bigger than that. It's falling in love with X's and O's. It's falling in love with all the things you could do because you have incredibly talented people, because you have a quarterback that's absolutely Superman, because you've done it. You've won a Super Bowl and you've gone to the Super Bowl doing it. And it's so easy to fall in love with all the flash and sizzle offensively when you have so much potential. Now, should you still do a lot of that stuff?

Yes. But what makes that stuff better and more effective and keeps you in that middle between tight and loose if you're Mahomes is boring, fundamental, six, seven-man surfaces, run the football just enough. I'm not saying run it all the time.

Let your offensive lineman go forward instead of backwards and sideways all the time. Make the defense respect your ability to beat them death by a thousand cuts. Just create that aura enough that guess what? They're not as wide. They're not as deep. They're not as willing to play 11-eye defense on you and get soft like Tampa did in the Super Bowl. And like Buffalo did last night.

Like pretty much everybody does that contains them. Now, all of a sudden, they got to creep closer. They got to get up there. They get antsy. Every defense coordinator in this league hates when you run the football against them because it affects their pride. It affects their ego. It affects their identity.

It gets them fired, to be honest with you. So it affects their pocketbook. So all of a sudden, now you get that safety coming a little closer. You get those little tighter defensive ends. You get less pass stunts by the defensive line. And all of a sudden, now Tyreek Hill, who's amazing, every time he's called one of the best receivers, I kind of go, well, I don't know if anybody's more dangerous than him. Every time you get a little closer, guess what? That's more space for Tyreek Hill.

That's more space for Kelsey. That's a little bit easier to run these incredible plays they have. They'll just be easier to run. And guess what you'll say? And what I'll say? Oh, Mahomes is back in that nice little balance now. Where he's still doing the cool sidearm stuff and creating space with his legs and making

some big runs and flicking stuff around and making all of us go ooh and ah. But man, he's also hitting his fifth step in the ground and throwing this eight-yard hitch and then running after the catch. Oh yeah, he did that cool run action fake where he'd come up and threw the screen and that went for 30.

Everybody's doing it. I do it. Lincoln Riley does it. Everybody that loves offense and studies offense is good at offense. We all tend to fall in love with the cool stuff too much and not, and get away from the stuff that's worked since like, you know, 1932,

that still works. And you got to have that blend. So as my homes is leaning more loose, I think it's because the offense is leaning more loose. I think they just had become more frenetic instead leaning more loose. I think it's because the offense is leaning more loose. I think they just have become more frenetic instead of more fundamental. I want to ask you something because I heard this question brought up before. I've had my own

theories on why it doesn't happen. I think it's kind of a dumb question, but I still want to hear your explanation. We see teams that come out that first possession and it's crisp. The balance is there. The protections are all locked in. and it's crisp the balance is there the protections are all locked in and then it's like hey we script the first 10 we script the first 15 and it's like okay and then i'll hear say people say well why can't you just script more like

nobody was better than someone at a and m where i swear to god every saturday when when someone was at a and m it was texas a and m on the scroll seven 7-0. You know, like 12-30 to go in the first quarter. Texas A&M, 7-0. Whoever. It was always... They were just as crisp as you could possibly be on everything. And I don't want to give any of my answer. I want you to explain the prep process

of scripting those plays and then realistically how far you can go with the script part of it during an NFL game. You've had some great questions. This might be my favorite one because I think I've shown you this. I mean, I think this is this week right here. Could we play?

No, it's two weeks ago, but it doesn't really matter. It's like this is the script, right? And it's 20 deep. Here's your base. Here's your base. Here's your critical. So your third force, here's your red zone. Here's your must pass long yards, two minutes. And I think what it is,

I've been around some of the greatest players of all time. And for our listeners real quick, it looked like you had maybe 15 plus on the scripted. I script 20. Okay. All right. And I don't call them off you know i'm not gonna call them 1 through 20 but they're the 20 plays i want to call in base situations um and i think what happens is you study if you're a prep freak like most these guys are that have scripts you've prepped so well and you know the other teams so well

and you've created advantages for your team within the script that if they do what you think they're going to do, you should have a significant advantage. And your players know these plays because if you're smart as a scripter, you're not just doing the coolest stuff, you're doing the stuff you practice the best, that your guys own the most, that they have all the answers to the test on.

Like give me somebody at a geometry test and they had taken the, on Friday, but they took the test Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday with all the answers and got 100% each time. And they're like, well, then Friday is going to be super simple, right? So that's what you're trying to do. I think two things happen.

One, NFL teams especially make really good adjustments. In fact, all levels. Coaches are just so much better these days than they used to be. They're going to make good adjustments and figure out what you're trying to accomplish and then make a subtle change here or there. And all of a sudden you go, okay, play seven was supposed to be this really cool screen.

Well, they're hugging our screens. So yeah, it worked on play four, but I can't call it on play seven or a play like it because they've made an adjustment. So that's one reason. And I think the second reason is you start falling in love with stuff in game instead of sticking with your conviction of your preparation.

Emotions change once the whistle goes off to start the game. And I think that's a big thing in football is the best ones I've been around go back to Thursday instead of getting caught up in Sunday. And you don't let the emotion of the game and guy has a banged up foot or their backer's playing better than we thought he was going to or they changed their front to this or they changed their coverage to that. No, you go back and you trust Thursday. And you're like, well, Thursday we went over all this stuff and we did really well at it and our guys really understand it.

They're going to make the adjustments on their own. And instead you get caught up in all the,, crap, this is happening to me Sunday stuff. And there's a lot of negative stuff that goes on the sideline in the NFL. There's a lot of fear. There's a lot of fear of failure that goes on on the NFL sideline. And that fear, that emotion dictates your decisions more than your preparation dictates your decisions. I know that happens to me at times. I know it happened to coaches I played with.

I know it happened throughout my career. Um, and when I see it happen on, because I see the same thing, you, you roll, you get up what? 14,

nothing. You score on your first two drives. Other team answers gets 14, seven. Now, now you come out for your third possession and offense changed. And then, well,

wait a second. Those first two looked pretty good. Why would it all of a sudden change? Well, you're reacting to something that happened in the game instead of dictating terms based on your preparation. Does that mean you think you could actually script out 10 possessions?

That seems to be kind of ridiculous to think. Yeah, that's ridiculous. I've been around some really good ones where you have a first half script that is say 12 to 15 deep because you're really probably not going to get past that um because you add in all your third down plays your long yards please those aren't on the script right you're really scripting first if you wanted to run a draw and you had a false start, like your script now is off script. Yeah. It just doesn't.

So you're always going off script. And maybe the fan needs to know this. Maybe they don't understand this, that, you know, even if you have like the famous bill walls, first 15, right?

So the first 15 are the first 15, first and second down base situation call. So first and 10, second, and let's say seven to three. And that could also maybe fit into another first down call. So a lot of your second down base calls also fit into first down calls. So that's really what you're scripting. Anytime you get to a third down, a second and long at post penalty plays are different because you might have tendencies on them post-penalty. A lot of teams have post-penalty tendencies.

So you know what plays to call to take advantage of it. There's get out of jail plays where you're just trying to get out of jail. It's first and 25. You're trying to get back to second and 12, right? So those become a whole nother part of your call sheet. That's where you turn it over. When you see the guy go, okay,

here's the, Oh, I got to go to the back page or like Sean McVay's now using a book and you see him turning the pages of the book on the sideline. That's what he's going to is another section of situations. When you hear all these announcers say situational football is everything. Well, it is,

but what are your situations and how have you prepared for these situations and what are their tendencies on situations? And what's the analytics guy in your ear telling you about their analytics in these situations? So that's how the script works. So could you have a script that, a second half script that took you all the way home? Yeah, I think you could. I think if you had a long enough halftime, if you had a beat on what your personal groupings and formations were doing to them, I think you could get to the second half and be like, okay, here's what they do in 12. Here's what they do in 32.

Here's what they do in 10. Let's script out 15 base first and second down plays and then carry us through the second half. And hey, are our third down calls still good? Yeah, but we have to change these protections. Our second long call. Yeah, let's go to the draw instead of the screen because they're playing the screen. Yeah, I think you could

I think that's hypothetically possible. Yeah, I guess it just I mean, it seems possible. It also could be somebody who's an expert in this too much prep. Yeah, you go over prep. So much is not feel to like I'll give you a great example. Home

grid 93 blast. You had a Hall of Fame left side offensive line and Steve Hutchinson Walter Jones and everybody knew we were running 93 blast in 2004 when I was still there. We were really good on third and fourth down, right? We only ran 93 blast and fullback is the only two runs we ever

ran and I think we're I could be a little off of a 26 of 33 or something in those situations oh five i leave i go to cleveland but i'm still really good friends with matthew and all these guys so i'm kind of following the seahawks and they go to the super bowl and i want to say there were 34 of 35 and third and fourth and short situations on the year, and they ran 93 blasts. And my point being is that Holmgren was really good at just trusting his gut, too. They had other calls, right? They didn't just go into the game with one play call for those situations.

They probably had six. Stump Mitchell was the run game coordinator in those situations. He was awesome at it. But at the end of the day, Mike, he's the one calling the game. And he was like, I'm going to give the ball to Sean Alexander over Steve Hutchinson, Robbie Tobeck and Walter Jones. Two of them are going to be in the hall of fame and they might know what's coming, but my gut tells me we're going to be able to get a yard and a half.

And I think it's a kind of a boring story but my point being there's also that gut feel like hey this play they can't stop or this situation they can't stop this guy or i'm going to this play because this play always seems to work like every time i call spot spot works i'm gonna keep calling spot um so i think that fits into this script conversation too is you can't get so into preparation that you got to get to the next play before you've worn out the play that keeps working. This is a bigger question about the younger guys and it happens. It's classic.

It's kind of my Jackson dart theory. So I watched Jackson in that first game against Washington state where SC came back and unfortunately Jackson got hurt, but he got hurt because he didn't give a shit in the best possible way. Like he was like, I'm out here and I'm ready to ball. Like I didn't, there are restrictions. There's, you expect me to like, yeah, like what are you talking about? And then he was, he was basically on one leg by the end of the game.

And that's my college example of it because I loved watching him that entire game, even though I'm like, this poor kid is getting this shit kicked out of him. That's what we saw this past weekend with the young guys. Now Daniel Jones has been in the league long enough but he looked like Tommy Hearns at one point which was scary. The Trey Lance keeper to the pylon I can't believe he survived

that one. Then he had another play where he came back inside to try to get a couple yards and even the announcer was like you don't do that in this league. You don't come back into the traffic. Who else? Who else? There was one other one there, too.

Oh, Burrow got killed trying to convert a third and 12 on the ground. How many times do you have to get your ass handed to you before you realize, even though guys are quicker, you know, and Kyler kind of changes almost anything because Kyler's like, but even he got, you know and kyler kind of changes almost anything because kyler's like and but even he got you know popped last year rg3 is a great example um even though he always tried to blame the offense it was his inability to protect himself that prematurely ended his career so some guys don't actually figure it out. And after this past weekend, that scared me a little. A little bit of a contrarian here on this answer.

In context, I'll say it. My answer all is under the umbrella of knowing the situation. So down 14 with two minutes to go, protect yourself, right? You're being heroic and trying to get an extra yard and a half going forward and trying to run over a safety is kind of stupid. I appreciate that some of these guys are bringing back an old school competitive mentality.

And I'll use John Elway as an example. John didn't slide. He played 12 years before he started protecting his body. They were still big and fast and strong back then. Now, maybe not as much. So I do think you have to understand that modern day football athletes are superior than they were back then.

But there is something admirable about this young group of quarterbacks and their competitive temperament and they're willing to put it out there and not always protect themselves. And I think it's a balance. Again, I know nobody gives a rat's what about my high school program here, but it matters to me and my quarterback matters to me.

I think he's the best in the country and he's low on his shoulder and hitting guys. And then he runs out of bounds when he knows the situation. And I think he's found a nice balance of knowing when to be competitively dominant and put his body at risk a little bit when to protect himself. Now it's escalated a thousand percent in the NFL but I still think the same principle holds up.

I think when you have to fight and scrape and it's life or death and everything matters goal line situation Trey lance um i'm okay with a guy putting himself out there and trying to do that um the burrow one i did not see live actually saw i i flipped over right as they were showing him kind of out of breath out on the field so i didn't get to see the play but third and 12 to get an extra yard and a half i could see where that might be one where you just eat it. I don't know.

I didn't see the exact play. I just think there has to be discretion. But I am pleased to see this modern-day group of quarterbacks show their toughness, show their commitment to their team, take some chances with their body. Here's the thing. They don't get hit in the pocket like the old guys get. So that's the only time they're going to get hits.

And I can't say this enough. And I, this is not to defend my career. I've told everybody I was average at best, but you listen to Steve Young and Troy, the hall of famers, just take your hall of fame. What's war.

I've had them all in my podcast. It comes up every single time is, Hey, I'm not trying to make them look worse, but these dudes play a game. That's totally unfamiliar to what we play. This is the Hall of Famer speak. I mean, Brett Favre watches the NFL

and it's a game that he's unfamiliar with. Warren Moon watches and he's like, I don't even know what this game is. Troy Aikman watches like, I got killed. Literally, they tried to kill me. The Philadelphia Eagles were trying to murder me. And I had to keep getting back up in the pocket and throwing the ball. These guys don't get hit in the pocket.

They get protected. So the only time they're really getting hit is when they become aggressive runners. So also take that into context a little bit too. We are 6'4", 235 pounds and lift weights. It's not like we're weak, small dudes. We may not have a chest like you and all that, but we're big dudes. We're physical. We're football players, but we're not just skinny little dudes that throw a football. So it's okay if we get hit every once in a while.

It's okay if we lower our shoulder every once in a while. And by the way, every time your head gets hit, it's not a concussion, man. Like every time you see the helmet get hit, it's not a concussion. You might get hit in the head a hundred times and never have a concussion. So it's also this narrative that, oh my gosh, his head got hit. He's got to be dead. No, that's not true. Now, Daniel Jones, that was awful. I watched it. I love the kid, but I think the kids can be great once they help them. But yeah, so for every one Daniel Jones, there's 30 other times your helmet gets hit that you don't get a concussion. 30, it's probably 100, you know what I mean?

Like whatever that number is. Exactly. So a lot of it's just kind of overdone too. It's like the wrong announcer on the wrong national game gets overprotective and anti-contact in football. And now the whole country's like oh my gosh nobody should ever get hit it's just not realistic and by the way you don't get hurt every time you get hit you know what um i think there's some runs where you go you can peel this one off

yeah and lance was on fourth down you know he was he was going for it and so you've you converted me i don't think that was you know i did a segment years ago and you sent me a text afterward so i go you know i'm at the point now with the football concussion stuff where i go you did sign up for it and i'm gonna accept that it's part of it and i'm gonna keep watching and you know i had another talk show host in the radio lineup that came on monday deciding he'd had this awareness where he was like i'm complicit at this and i'm like well fucking stop watching it then you You know what I mean? Like, give me a break. Stop taking a paycheck for covering it. Right. Your

point, I'm a convert because there was a hit in the Sunday night where it just, every now and then when they get flagged for going low, like the defensive lineman is already on the ground. He's got a 350 pound tackle lying on top of him as he's going to the ground and he'll

like grab at the knees and it's like he went low and you guys used to be able the shit guys could do to you once you got rid of the ball and the two-step i'm gonna blast dilfer on the way out the number of times i saw steve young because he moved more than you did obviously the number of times where steve would flush out to a lane and it was like, hey, the ball's been out and I still get two full steep, and I get to crush you and it's part of the game. You're right. We don't talk about that part of it,

that that's been eliminated and the only hits are out really, look, some guys are going to get hit still, but you used to be okay to hit you 30 times after the throw was out, just even inside inside outside the pocket you would get hit if you threw it uh say 30 times just an easy number if you threw it 30 times in the 80s early 90s mid 90s you were gonna take 10 kill shots a third of the time you threw it

you were taking 10 kill shots let me explain a kill shot the kill shot isn't the impact from the player hitting you while you're standing up those don't hurt people unless they get you like underneath the rib pads or underneath like in your armpit you're throwing and they get you into that lat area where you're not just plate doesn't always feel great yeah the inside the groin you know you're stepping you're pushing off your right foot the guy hits you right in the groin where there's no pads those hurt what hurts is when the 300 pounds lands on you and your body compresses like an accordion that's what hurts we 10 times a game, you had to get up from that.

And if you're Troy Aikman, his rookie year in Dallas, I'll just use it because him and Stan Humphreys, nobody ever got hit harder than those two quarterbacks in the pocket. And every quarterback listening

is going to giggle because they're going to be like, yeah, that's true. Those are the two that got killed the most. They would take these shots and it would be these massive humans

running 300 pounds, 280 pounds, 250, running as fast as they could. Troy had thrown the ball, his arm had finished down at his left hip. He's standing there watching the ball. Then the guy comes in and hits him and lands on him. And guess

what his job was? Get back up, go to the huddle, play the next play. And that was very, very common. These guys have no idea, none. And they're great. I think it's the greatest time of modern day quarterbacking we've ever seen in our lifetime. And I've talked to other Hall of Famers about it, and they agree.

However, they play a game that is very unfamiliar to the guys that have the gold bus in Canton that earned it a different way. And that way was very, very physical. So put a ball in all this. If you run and you get hit a few times a game, you gonna be okay you know i mean it or you're soft or you're not lifting enough you know i mean like it's josh allen can take on any safety in this league head to head both of running full speed he takes his head out of it the defender takes his head out of it shoulder pad your shoulder pad it's a huge collision guess what both of them go oh that was good hit get up go back to the huddle they're not gonna die i like it all right one college question i want to ask about one of your guys spencer rattler who uh i had mentioned in my college or i'll mention it my college segment a little bit later in the podcast today you don't have many heisman favorites who get benched he gets benched for a five-star kid and caleb. I'll leave this one to you because he's in this weird spot

where he still has a ton of eligibility left because of the 2020 year on top of everything else. He was projected to be the number one pick by some. Others pushed back on that immediately. Obviously, nobody feels that way. I think his personality is always part of the conversation. Again, you've been around him. Your Elite 11 coaches have been around him.

What do you make of the entire Spencer Again, you've been around him. Your elite 11 coaches have been around him. What do you make of the entire Spencer Rattler story now at Oklahoma? One, I don't want anybody to think this is Spencer Rattler criticism. He's a fantastic player and a really good kid, but he is a kid that likes attention. He is a kid that looks at football as a means to something bigger than just football. It's always been that way. He was huge on social media,

coming out almost obnoxiously. Every time there was a camera, he found it. He doesn't alienate. He's not a bad teammate. He's not a bad leader. So he doesn't do it to hurt his teammates

or to set himself different than his teammates. He's just looking to capitalize on the success he's had. He's done a very good job of it. He's got a huge NIL deal. He was very outspoken about NIL in the offseason. He was definitely going to take advantage of it. I think some of this is the narratives that go with that. When you put yourself out there like that in college football,

especially when you're young, when this is new, sorry, when NIL is fresh, better way of saying it, when NIL is fresh, you're going to have half the fence that's sitting on the great. This is great for the kids. They should go do it, make all the money you can, set yourself up, and you're going to have half the fence saying you're a college football player. You're part of the pageantry and the goodness of football. That's distracting and that's not good. Well, as soon as you don't play up to expectations, which his expectations were enormous, then that 50%, that crowd that is, hey, you shouldn't be doing this NIL thing is going to turn on you in a vicious way.

And I think that's what you're seeing. Now, put all that on top of Caleb Williams is a freakazoid. Spencer Rattler is a, uh, trying to give an, I'm trying to think through my head of an analogy here in the NFL. He's a super, he's Baker Mayfield. He's twitchy. He's super accurate. Uh, he's a passer. He can create some time and space. He's got a dynamic personality. He's got a big personality. He's Baker Mayfield. Caleb Williams is, I told Joey the other day, I said, he's the one guy that can throw the

ball with the horsepower off platform. Like Patrick Mahomes, he's Josh Allen, Patrick Mahomes, uh, who are some of the other freaks out there? Russell Wilson. Um, these guys that can just do things that nobody can think about doing. He is in rare air with his physical giftedness. It's way too early. I don't know if anybody gets the RPMs on a football the way Trey Lance does.

I'm talking about the entire league. So another guy that's just a freakazoid, Trey Lance. These guys are just so physically, Justin Herbert, they're so physically gifted. The horsepower is the term I use. It's kind of a simple term. They just have so much horsepower in them that you're like, oh my gosh, that's Caleb Williams.

He's a gifted runner. Here's the thing about Caleb Williams. He is so humble. He is such a team above self guy. He is all about everything that college football stands for us, not me. Now there's this polarizing difference between Spencer Rattler and Caleb Williams, not just from a physical trait standpoint, but from a personality trait standpoint. So everybody's going to want to root for Caleb Williams when they're not necessarily going to have a reason to root

for Spencer Rattler if they've chosen not to. I think it's unfair to Spencer, but I think he can't win this. You can't win this one. Caleb Williams is too talented, too humble, too opposite of you. He just showed it. The two throws he makes off platform, one to his left, one to his right, where that ball is, it's Mach 5 going 60 yards. I'm watching the game, and my jaw's like, what? What was that? I saw it in person.

He was our MVP, too, at Elite 11. He just can't win this one. Caleb's in rare air from a physical standpoint and from a personality standpoint and the narrative has been set on Spencer. I don't think he can win this one. I think Spencer goes to the NFL.

I doubt he would go in the first round at this point, but he's a talented kid. I think he can play a long time in the NFL. I'm not knocking him. Again, I started this with him. I'm a Spencer Rattler fan. I'm just giving you context

to why it's gone sour there and what that looks like going forward. If Spencer Rattler went to another Power 5 school where he became the savior, he could have another great year and maybe climb into the top 10. You don't think he's going to transfer, though, do you? It's going to be hard not to play Caleb Williams.

And Oklahoma is going to be really, really good. I think what you'll see here probably for a couple more weeks, I don't know who's on their schedule. I haven't looked at their schedule. I can see both. Okay, so they're both playing a little bit. Or maybe just like, hey, listen, we got to keep Spencer on the roster, so we're going to play him because he's going to have wild success

against who we're playing. But you're talking about one bad half away if you're Lincoln Riley where you got to make the move. And once you make the permanent move, Caleb is not going to fail. And when he fails, he's going to look a lot better failing. That's the other thing too. When Caleb Williams makes a mistake, it's going to look like Russell Wilson or patrick mahomes making a mistake we're like oh okay i can forgive that because he's also going to do some incredible stuff doing making that decision he just made

that's trent dilfer beyond the x's and o's you can check out his podcast with basically every great quarterback you can imagine and uh lucky enough to have him every couple weeks man so thanks love it thanks for having me man do some college football headlines because we have three major ones apologies to Ole Miss and Arkansas I'm just not going to have time to get deep into that game right now even though that was an incredible shootout it starts with Alabama losing to an unranked team at Kyle Field, Texas A&M. The first loss to an unranked opponent since 2007, Saban's first year. That had been 100 straight games. And if you remember, too, that first year with Saban was kind of weird.

Remember the guys that were on that team that were older? They're like, hey, we got a way of doing things here. You're like, do you? What way is that? Losing to Louisiana Monroe. And then Saban goes on to put together the best run ever. I'd love to interview one of the seniors that came in Saban's first year that was like, yeah, I'm not really down with this.

Who's this Saban guy? Barely won 500. Sucked with the Dolphins. Okay, great. They were 24-point favorites to Louisiana Monroe, so this is the second worst point spread loss of Saban's career. They were 19, 19 and a half favorites against A&M. Saban was also 24 and 0 against previous assistants. I got to tell you,

I love that one every time. I'm like, Derek Dooley never got him. Nope, he didn't. And Jimbo Fisher finally does. Let's break this game down a little bit because as Bryce Young is a young quarterback, whenever this happens, it's like what happened to him? Well, they still scored a million points. Bryce Young in Alabama had 312 yards of offense in the second half. I would say this about Bryce Young. One of my favorite things of watching him at Bama this year has been that he has a weird ninja-type awareness of what's going on around him. He feels pressure in a way that someone as young as him shouldn't have those kinds of instincts, and he does. He didn't have them against A&M. They got after him, and that's an A&M defensive line that doesn't exactly have the rotation of some other people.

Now, how does this happen? How does A&M beat an Alabama? Because my good friend Danny Connell had just a string of tweets where he was like, enough of the eye test. He's like, everybody said it was Georgia and Alabama. Yeah, right. We all watched Georgia and Alabama. We watched everybody else this year. We're like, yeah, we think that's the first tier. And then it starts after them.

And guess what happened? Somebody lost. We were so conditioned and not thinking any good teams were ever going to lose that we started just looking at win probabilities and going, all right, well, they'll be 13-0 and they'll be 13-0 and they'll be 13-0. It's like, you know what? Actually, the sport doesn't work that way, even though that's the way the sport has worked the last five years. So I don't know that you can blame any of us for getting conditioned to it, even though I kept arguing at some point it has to change. And that's what we've had in 2021. College football has changed. Spare me the 2007 comparisons,

though. It's just not there yet. Let's talk about Calzada, the quarterback for A&M. I've watched every A&M game this season. I don't know how that happened, but I did, except for New Mexico. He was 12 of 20 against Mississippi State with a pick. I think he had like 120 yards. He has been the backup to Haynes King, who got crushed in the first week. And Calzada has been a guy that I've talked about probably way more than I ever thought that I would, just because you're looking at A&M and you're looking at the talent. It depends on what draft projections you want to look at, but between Leal, who's maybe my favorite defensive player in college

football, the big defensive lineman, Weidmeier, a tight end who's been on the side of a milk carton all season long because Calzada can't find him. They're two running backs who I love. And Aeneas Smith, who caught the touchdown that tied it late against Bama.

One-on-one throw. Great throw by Calzada. Here's what happens. This is still an incredibly talented A&M team. Again, based on draft projections, whatever you want to read, they've got like five guys that are first or second round picks. They were preseason number six. They've had the number six ranked recruiting class in the last three seasons.

So if you're going to beat Bama, you still have to be crazy talented. But this was a crazy talented team that was extremely disappointing because Calzada had not played well. And yet he showed everybody that there's another gear to him. He took a massive hit on the game-tying touchdown pass and then hit Spiller on a great throw late. I mean, he put together 10 points the last three minutes in two possessions, and they end up winning this game. So it's always been a very talented team that was disappointed because they were on a second quarterback who lost the job to another freshman,

and he had a night. He had a night. And the real story here isn't about Bryce Young or any of that stuff. I mean, we still know that Bam was loaded. But the defense, the Florida game, I was willing to say it was a fluke, but that was Emory Jones and their rushing attack with Dan Mullen, who's a terrific coach, dicing you up. And then Jimbo, who's also a really good offensive coach,

but with Haynes King out and Calzada in, he answered. I mean, Bam, I think went on a 21-0 scoring stretch. You're watching it going, okay, this is crazy. This is crazy. All right, they blocked the punt. Oh, they gave up the kickoff return. All right, Bama's going to come back. Bama's going to come back. Oh, Bama came back. Okay, whatever. They escaped it. They're fine. This is two games

now, not even with a halfway point here. Well, maybe a halfway point, but two games now where Bama looks defensively like a mess, which is very different because in August, we were saying it may not be the offense. It could be the best defensive unit Saban's had in five or six years. That has not been the case.

Now, am I writing them off? No, I'm not writing them off because I watched the number two team in the country in Iowa beat Penn State at home. Now, let's get to that game. Penn State led this one 17-3. Sean Clifford goes out. He hasn't been my favorite quarterback,

but I think the stretch was 9-0 and the numbers are actually pretty good. So they're putting together some wins and he was playing good enough with what I think is a really physical, fun front for Penn State and their safeties. I just really like so many of the guys

personnel-wise on Penn State's defense. Iowa won it in perfect Iowa fashion. Grinded this thing out. But Clifford not playing. This is not an anti-Iowa thing. Everybody knows how much I love Waterloo. But when Taquan Robinson comes into the backup, it was a disaster. They couldn't do anything.

He was throwing it to the flats on deep third downs. He would want to run it in spots where you're like, I know he's only looking because he's doing one read and then he wants to run. I couldn't help, but during that moment when I'm watching Iowa-Penn State

play out and I'm going, how does this compare when you're watching teams like Georgia and Alabama? There's just no dynamic. There's not that much dynamic stuff. Is Charlie Jones the fastest kid in Iowa? I mean, Jahan Dotson's a terrific player and he can play anywhere, but there's just a lack of explosiveness around it. However, having said all those things in Iowa, because I don't want to dwell on it. I don't want to take away from Iowa's win because now they're the number two team. The Iowa Hawkeyes are the number two team in the country.

But I still think Penn State would have won it if their quarterback had stayed healthy. But shout out to the Big Ten. That may be the best conference in college football. Are we ready to do that? They have five teams in the top ten. Michigan State hasn't really played anybody. They're still undefeated. So we're not going to worry about it too much. Iowa's rest of the schedule, they might end

up 12-0. They got Purdue at Wisconsin, at Northwestern, Minnesota, Illinois, at Nebraska, and shout out to Nebraska, who actually, in a tough, tough loss, again, get used to that one. Nebraska's a much better football team this year. They're just better. They're better. The record doesn't show they could have beat Michigan. Maybe Michigan isn't great, but as far as the top of

the Big Ten now, we got some things here in play and they may even have a better chance at getting two teams into the playoff right now than even the SEC. Bama has to stay clean the rest of the way. If they were to beat Georgia, okay, but if Bama has two losses, then we got to see what else is happening around it. We finished with the Red River rivalry, which used to be the shootout, but now is the showdown.

I think in 2035, it'll be the Red River friendship competition game. I don't know why changing the names of something like that. I don't know. People just go, hey, let's keep changing it. Let's keep changing it. And Red River rivalry was just such a hard thing to say. Trust me, I tried to do it. I said it wrong forever. They were down 28-7. The Sooners were 55-48.

We already talked to Dilfer about the change from Spencer Rattler to Caleb Williams. Look, Marvin Mims, the receiver for Oklahoma. I mean, look, Drake London, incredible. Boutte at LSU, I love. Jamison Williams at Alabama is a stud. Mechie as well. Garrett Whistlin at LaVey. The Ohio State kids.

Traylon Burks, Arkansas. I don't know where Mims will end up being in comparison to the rest of them, but I love that kid. I love him. And the catch that he made in the corner of the end zone was unbelievable. The crazy thing about this game is that, you know, up 28-7, Casey Thompson's throwing bombs

all over the place. Texas has the best running back in the country in Bijan Robinson. They may have actually found an NFL worthy receiver. I mean, I know Duvernay got in the league, and he's pretty good, but like Xavier Worthy, nine catches, 261, two touchdowns. He's a freshman.

So now you're looking at Texas going, all right, look, they've got a number one finally that's really standing out. They've got the best running back who Herman brought in, and they're going to beat the Sooners, and they're good to go. And this game just turned into an absolute shootout. Oklahoma stayed patient. They actually kicked field goals too for a little while there. And Caleb Williams brought them back because no one's defense was going to bring anyone back.

Shout out to Stanford Steve because of the call of calls. We usually get on the phone every few weeks and just talk college ball. He goes, you know what? He goes, when's the last time the Heisman favorite got benched? He goes, I think Rattler's going to get benched for Caleb Williams at some point this year. I was like, dude, that's a little too bold. That's a little too bold for me. And he was right. He was right. Rattler got benched.

We'll see how it plays out the rest of the way. Oklahoma does have an easy schedule. They'd finish, of course, with Oklahoma State, who's ranked. I don't know that we're quite sure how good Oklahoma State is, but they're ranked because they're clean to this point. But Texas, I think, is better than they were and how we felt about them at the beginning of the year. But Oklahoma wins this. And at this point, if you're Oklahoma, hey, we're number four in the country

and we still have a chance at this. We don't have to apologize for getting invited to the playoff and thinking now everybody's going to stay clean the rest of the year would be a mistake the way the first half of the season has gone. So it doesn't matter as long as you keep winning those games, even though Oklahoma is held to a different standard than almost everybody else in the Big 12.

So even though they're fourth, there's kind of this meh after the fact, and it's going to happen to some of those other teams because we're not used to this. Let's not just predict cleanliness the rest of the way because we definitely didn't get it in the first half. I want to talk a little bit about the trilogy. Tyson Fury's win against Deontay Wilder. 11th round, he gets him.

This was an unbelievable fight. Fury went down himself twice in the fourth. If you've watched it, it kind of felt like Wilder was going to lose in the fifth, the sixth, the seventh, the eighth, the ninth, the tenth. He kept going, this guy can't possibly survive this. And he kept surviving every one of these rounds until he couldn't. And when he was out, he was out. And it was over in the 11th.

There's really nothing like heavyweight boxing. Boxing will never be what it was. I share this with you at other times, but you run through it and you go, John L. Sullivan, John Jeffries, Jack Johnson, Jack Dempsey, and I'm not going maybe in perfect order. And then how the world would stop with Louis Schmeling

and the rematch and everything that was going around. I mean, it was just crazy. You go back to some of those Jack Dempsey fights, which again is kind of one of my favorite eras in the Jack Johnson stuff where guys would just get on trains with their one pair of pants and train across the country and

everybody be heading there and there'd be these people. And I guess, you know, I'm not like glorifying the pickpockets and the whores, but it just was this lawlessness where the world would stop and literally everyone would have an opinion about it. And here I am reading about these books, you know, reading about these stories in these books, a hundred plus years later, the John L. Sullivan stuff is insane. I mean, the guy, guy loved a soda, fell off the back of a train, pop right back on, and then eventually stopped drinking. But, uh, I, I don't know. I just love it all the way through, you know, reading after Lewis and, and, you know, there's still some holes there, but the Floyd Patterson run, and then Ali, Ali Frazier, Sonny Liston, and then, you know there's still some holes there but the floyd patterson run and then ali ali

frazier sunny liston and then you know tyson and as i mentioned we're going to have don stradley on who did the haggler hearns definitive book that just came out uh which is is probably the greatest fight we're ever going to see but the reason is is that we've had these moments we don't get a ton of them but we have these signature moments in the history of boxing where they live forever i don't know if fury Wilder will live forever. I don't know if it'll be something that transitions outside of just a hardcore boxing fan. But the fact that it even has a chance with so many distractions speaks to how great this product was because the first fight was fantastic.

It shouldn't have been a draw. The second fight was still a battle. And as I watched those two fights and prepping for the Fury interview, I mean, there was one thing, because I'll admit, look, I wasn't the biggest Wilder guy because I felt like there were always excuses. I felt like he was a little one-dimensional, which is probably being nice about it. And then the pre-fight was I've changed my diet.

I have this rule whenever I hear about somebody who's an athlete, and it's like, oh, I changed this, I changed that. Sometimes it does work. Shout out Chris paul who was hurt in the finals but there are a lot of times where it's like you're just you're just telling us all these different things like if you're telling me you just now as a professional athlete or keeping track of what you're eating in your 30s like well what what what were you doing before that like hey i'm lifting and even lennox lewis excuse me lennox lenox Lewis, who has a new pronunciation going back a year. Shout out to Brian Kenney for surviving trying to pronounce his name the new way correctly throughout the entire fight. By the way, Lennox Lewis on the call.

Sometimes I feel like he makes A-Rod sound like Kirk Herbstreet. So back to the buildup of it all. I mean, when Wilder had said, and it's not like I'm even the biggest Fury fan, although he's just so weird. I mean, a guy's out there playing air guitar to ACDC with a Jesus trucker hat on, and you're like, what the hell is this guy's deal?

This is not new. He's not being introduced to us for the first time. But when you see it again for however many times you've seen it, like you're going, is Fury this much of a badass? Like, is he this comfortable? Because are you maybe even too comfortable? And it's all added up. And yet with Wilder on the losing side,

I think he gained more fans than he's ever had before in a sport where we only care about you winning. And that's very hard to do what Wilder did. I think he had way more people going, you know what? I respect the hell out of him. Probably lost all three fights. And, you know, Kellerman, who's an expert on boxing, a historian, far more so than I am. He does seem to like Wilder a lot where he's like,

you know, he's still somebody we'd be talking about a hundred years from now. I don't know if that's the case. I'm not even sure we'd be talking about Tyson Fury a hundred years from now. Okay. But the product, the product for a night,

which again, there is nothing like fights. There is nothing like it. If you're a casual sports fan, but still, you know, have a curiosity about boxing and you have the means I'm telling you, go to Vegas for a big time fight. And then it's over. And then it's 10 o'clock on Saturday. sports fan, but still have a curiosity about boxing and you have the means, I'm telling you,

go to Vegas for a big time fight and then it's over and then it's 10 o'clock on Saturday. And the energy in the fight casino, everyone walking around, it's different. I don't really know how to explain it. It's kind of the angst that you have before maybe a big college Saturday kickoff. But then after the fact, there's this elation. There's a different energy when you're at a fight and this moment where you're trying to remind yourself to breathe all the time. And that's, look, I was at home on the couch by myself, watching the fight, taking my notes. And I kept thinking Wilder was done.

I know that when he said that his costume was too heavy on the way into the ring for the second fight i was like all right whatever and then he added on even more weight which i thought slowed him down in the second fight but if we knew this and as i mentioned you know watching those two fights again he's really tough man he is an absolute beast of a guy and i don't think he got enough credit for that but now no one would deny that after him lasting the 11th with fury um he comes out jabbing like crazy and i give fury credit for this because it's like all right you're gonna jab at my body like you're not gonna do this for 10 rounds so go ahead get your jabs out and while

they're actually didn't land many of them if you look at some of the stat numbers there but you're still afraid you're still afraid of that right hand the entire time. So, you know, Wilder, he goes down, he gets up, he goes to his corner. I think it was like the eighth or ninth round. His corner's like getting tactical with him and saying, you know, but then his corner was like, wait, what round is it? And then there was a time where he thought he had broken his hand, but he kind of does that where he pretends he's like reloading his right hand

and he keeps his left wrist over the top of his right wrist. But guys always hurt their power punch hand very often. And then they went to the corner. where he pretends he's like reloading his right hand and he keeps his left wrist over the top of his right wrist. But, but guys always hurt their, their power punch hand very often. And then they went to the corner. I can't imagine an in fight interview going to the corner. You're like, Hey,

just here with, here with, here with Showtime. Just wanted to check, uh, how's his hand? Is his hand messed up? And it's like,

get the fuck away from us. We're in the middle of a fight. Um, when Wilder went down, you were like, okay like okay this thing is over but i do think that while they're getting more fans and now fury you know ends up with steve ioki just crushing it late night um with his shirt off because the guy does not wear a shirt for post-fight celebrations or interviews. You want details? Bye. I drive a Ferrari 355 Cabriolet.

What's up? I have a ridiculous house in the South Fork. I have every toy you could possibly imagine. And best of all, kids, I am liquid. So now you know what's possible. Let me tell you what's required. Life advice is lifeadvicerr at gmail.com. We had a lot of reaction

to could this guy's group of friends, no, he and his brothers beat up Conor McGregor. An epic level of interaction. We also had a kid who played on Derrick Henry's high school team, checked in and said I was in those drills with Derrick Henry.

And trust me, your buddy wouldn't just get him at the ankles and get lucky one time out of 10. And look, sometimes you say a lot of dumb stuff. I think my dumbest one I ever had is when I told Tim Kirkson, I said, you don't think I could get it out of the infield once out of 100 pitches against Clayton Kershaw? And he was like, no. I go, yeah, but he was like, he throws perfect games. So pro hitters don't do it. I go, yeah, but they don't see 100 pitches in a row. I was like, you don't think I could just guess fastball for 100 straight

pitches and just dribble something out there that touched the outfield grass? And he was like, absolutely not. I don't know. I don't know if I've given up on that one yet. Any thoughts from you guys on that? I mean, does that sound... Even when I say it out loud, I don't feel that I don't know if I've given up on that one yet. Any thoughts from you guys on that? I mean, does that sound... Even when I say it out loud, I don't feel that stupid,

even though I know the reaction will be pretty stupid. Yeah, it seems like you're acknowledging that, like, yeah, it's one of those things, but you really do think you can do it. Yeah, I kind of do. I mean, if I had to... I'd have to look at one... I guess I'd have to guess fastball the whole time,

but the chances are... I don't know if it were November guess I'd have to guess fastball the whole time, but the chances are I don't know if it were November. Would I have a better time? Just kidding. I don't like doing that to Clayton Kershaw. I used to defend him like crazy because he had one bad outing that skewed all the numbers and then actually the bad outings kept happening. He had a nice stretch again

and then it was whatever. We're not going to keep doing that. A lot of guys chiming in. Here's a guy named well, maybe we won't use his name here because I guess he likes to fight. I'm six foot 210. I fight not professionally or anything, but I've been to jail enough times for fighting and the fights don't stop when you get there. All right.

Jail fights. I lift. I was a Marine. I fought three pro fighters in my life. All three beat the living shit out of me. One of them, the one with the least professional experience beat me and two other guys simultaneously numerous times over the course of three years i guess they sort of would just get shit-faced i'm guessing here and fight because i don't know that you'd be like hey let's fight that guy that kicked our ass again um i think

after like the second time you go maybe we're not going to get him. So I'd have to imagine they were friends with the third guy. He mentions Kyle Stewart. He's a UFC fighter that's gone one in three in the UFC. I'm bigger and stronger than him. He whooped my ass in about 25 seconds. We went again and again and he beat me over and over. I've beat him before but only in complete flukes. Pro fighters are pros. I think these

three would struggle to beat anyone let alone the greatest, one of the greatest ever three dorks have no chance against mcgregor wow he's called out that he called them dorks guys well there is a big difference between like the caliber of dude if it's three of me you know 5 10 160 dripping wet then like mcgregor is going to knock six of me out in no time. But if it's, you know... Did you say 16 or six? Six, but 16 might even be...

Again, I would pay to watch that. But if it was like three guys that are your size or Kyle's size, like, I don't know. It just depends. He's going to take out three of us. I don't know what... You don't think like three of you could just get McGregor

on the ground? How mad am I? Are we talking baseball? I don't... No, I don't... Hardwood Mizuno's? I don't think... I don't think so. No. I don't.

I respect that out of you. A younger you, I don't think, would have said that. Older me has a better chance because younger me would have said it. No, I don't think it matters. It just doesn't matter. I mean, he's grappling with guys that are enormous, that are professional grapplers, training for his own ground,

which is the weakest part of his fight game. So, I mean, we make tons of assumptions. So, yeah, I think back to the emailer, the Derrick Henry one is 100 times more probable, although also unlikely. But it's just that there's three. I mean, again, unless the emailer had followed up saying, no, these three guys are like fight. But if they're just three regular 175 pound guys, that's a really it's a really dumb thing to say and that's why the guy who goes to jail and fights but isn't great against pros who's so mad about it the email

and called them dorks and honestly i don't i don't know i'm going to call them out on that although i don't want to call listeners and their brothers dorks either even though i think it was a bad a bad take and the thing is is nobody changes their mind right those guys will listen to this they'll they'll talk about it amongst their friend group. And then they're going to be out at a bar in like three weeks saying we're all wrong. Here's the deal. Pick a really tough guy who weighs 170. And then fight him.

Get back to it. See what happens. Yeah. Jump him. You and your buddies, you jump him. And, you know, leave out no detail okay uh this is a long pot already so we're gonna go back to an old faithful here 62190 i'm looking for some advice as a 20 year old kid who just got dumped i've been dating this girl for two years and i really thought she was the one i know that sounds naive coming from a 21 year

old in his first relationship but we seem to fit perfectly. We talked about spending our lives together and getting married. So obviously I was heavily emotionally invested. We were at separate colleges and she seemed to want to have more experience beyond just me. And she also didn't like the long distance. It's understanding. It's my understanding. She has already hooked up with someone else. It's your understanding. She has. Sorry, man. She definitely has. All right. That's a bummer.

Don't let there be anything where you talk yourself into, well, maybe. No, she did. A couple times. And I'm not doing that to bum you out. I'm doing it because you need to get out of your own funk here. All right. Oh, she hooked up with someone else.

It's only been a few weeks since the breakup. I'll cut to the point. What should I do? I see a couple different choices. I can try to immediately go out with someone else to get my mind off of things even though I know I'm not ready for that. Or the other route would be to heal emotionally

and just focus on school friends, et cetera. The second choice of waiting to heal is really difficult for me as I know my ex is living it up with other guys. Even if it was a long shot for our relationship to work out due to our age, I still feel like a part of my future has died along with the relationship as this is my first breakup. I don't really know what to do. What do you think the best way for me to get over this is?

The best way to get over this relationship? Thanks in advance for the input. Keep up the work. Hey, man. Sorry I'm a little harsh, but I feel like you're going to have to get some tough love on this one, but it's also very understandable. When you're younger and you go through an epic breakup like this, it affects you in a way that it's probably never going to affect you again because it's like the first time it happens.

I've mentioned this before, but the things that are important to us when we're younger, think of every life experience as a sentence on a piece of paper, right? So for you, when you're this young, when you're in your teens and in college or early twenties or whatever, like a lot of your page is blank. And if you wrote down a couple sentences, a really good chance you could memorize all those sentences. For me, I'm a few pages into the legal pad and all the things I'm writing down, like there's going to be very few that are as impactful as the first few sentences, because I'm going to forget some stuff along the way, because I've got so many different things that are going on,

all these different sentences. And so I had it happen to me too, man. The first time it was like a real bad breakup. It took me way longer than I would have ever thought. And I know the way I come off in the podcast and be like, wait, what? And I'm like, no, yes, definitely. It sucked because it was my first one. I had never felt that feeling before. I didn't know what to do. And chances are you're going to go through it again at some point. You'd be a little bit more callous to it. You start to understand, okay, this is why I felt this way. And now I'm heading down this road. And I remember when it happened again, I was like, oh, all right. Well, now I already know what this is like. This isn't fun.

Kind of sucks. But it just was different. It was the second time. And it didn't matter who I cared about more or cared about less. It was just that I had other stuff. And then your career starts to take off and whatever. You just kind of get up and you get out of bed and you just go through the day and i think there's some value in letting yourself you know feel bad for a little while um i know that can be a little tricky too where then you start getting used to feeling

bad and then you're almost kind of glad you feel bad because then it's an excuse for everything else that isn't working out which i think is kind of sometimes the bullshit part of it, where it's like, do you just want to feel bad about everything? Because it's just, you know, an easier way to kind of have excuses for everything. Cause that's, that's not road you want to go down. And I think again, I've got my own philosophies on, on some of that stuff where it's like, well, how long are you going to feel this way? And how long do I have to defer to you? You know, whether it's a family member or somebody at the workplace, like how long do I have to keep deferring to you because you are not feeling great about something? So I know it sucks, man. I know it sucks, but the reason it hurts more

isn't just because of her and whatever you think she is as the one. Um, it hurts more because it's, it's, it's early in your life and it's the first time that you've had this happen to you, and everybody's different. All right? Some guys, here's a good example. Okay. One of my roommates dated a girl that was a little bit younger, and it was long distance, and he really was into her. Okay? And he really was into her.

Okay. And he, something was off. Something was going, something was working out. But again, she was like younger. She was in college. She had already graduated. So I think it was like a four or five year gap. So she was going to be starting college as he was finishing.

But he really, really dug this girl. And, you know, she would come up to visit back and forth, back and forth. He was all about it. And those of us on the outside were kind of like, all right, maybe this works out, but it's also much like your situation here, even though there isn't the age gap, she wants to have her experience at school. You appear to not care about your experience at school as much. And so as we were watching this relationship play out, we're thinking like, I wonder how this is going to work out as she gets a little bit older and starts

thinking like, do I really want a boyfriend who's not in my college, who's also older than me as I want to have these four years, five for others to have this experience and I'm never going to happen again. I mean, when older people tell you those are the best years of your life, we're not lying to you. All right. They really are. They're incredible years because you just also don't have most people don't have all the pressures of everything else that happens when you when you start to become a grown-up so they're having some difficulties they're kind of breaking up sort of i don't know he and i were road tripping back from boston to go back up to vermont and he was he had made her like a table like a an end table you know like you put next to your bed and he'd made it for her and he had some stuff

that he had left there and they had broken up and he's like, Hey, do you want, do you want me to, um, did you mind stopping at her apartment? And I was like, I really don't feel like doing that, man. But he was broken up about it. He's like, can we stop at her apartment? She has some of my stuff. I want to get it. And that's what I want to do. So I was like, all right, fine, whatever.

Let's go. And so we go, we grab some of his stuff. All right, fine, whatever. Let's go. And so we go, we grab some of his stuff. And as soon as we walk in, we see the end table in the hallway, not next to her bed anymore. Like it was a real nightstand that he made for, was next to her bed. And when they broke up, she moved the nightstand to like the greeting area. And then there was a dude there so it sucked for him it sucked and

it's always terrible as the friend because there's no way you don't feel one percent of the emotional stuff that's going on that your buddy's going through because you're watching it all and you're just like god this sucks this sucks so bad for him like i don't want to be here though you know selfishly you're kicking in be like can we just get your stuff and get out of here like please i don't want to deal with this anymore and he actually said to her he's like oh so you move the nightstand outside huh she was like oh and then he's like who's this and then she introduces him she's like you heard me talk about he's one of my friends from school he's like oh hey and then we're like walking i think a pair of skis and some clothes out and then we have to

drive now four hours back to vermont three and a half depending and we get back to our apartment and he's bummed out and i was like what what's up and he went upstairs he showered and was like we're going out and we're going out huge and And that's how he handled it. And he wasn't a big go out drinker guy, but he was like, I'm going out for a month straight. So I'm not telling you to do that either. But some people enjoy this part of it where it's like, I shouldn't say enjoy, but what you have to be careful of is getting too used to being bummed out. And I think at 21, it's very simple for everyone to give you the advice that has nothing to do with how you're feeling emotionally and say, hey, go out all the time or, you know, but don't sit around for too long. All right. Don't sit around for too long. Don't start thinking you can't get into another relationship just because that's unfair to the new person. Maybe you can be upfront about the whole thing too,

although that's not usually the first thing you would want to start with. Be like, hey, I'm super devastated right now emotionally because the girl that I thought I was going to marry is now hooking up with other dudes in another college. Would you like to do something on Friday? Don't do that. But I guess as I'm talking this out, maybe this is one of the worst rambling bits that I've done here on the podcast. It's just that it's okay to be upset about it, but don't let it overtake every part of your life, which definitely can happen. And if it does, be aware that after a month or so, it's time to jump in the shower and put a nice shirt on. Yeah, I think you probably overstayed

your sadness welcome already. But I would have said, throw on some 2006 John Mayer for a day or two. But then, instead of the go out thing, what I would say is hang out with your friends. He was like, should I put all my energy into going out? Because what's going to happen is if you have those going out, try to find find a woman thing and then you strike out a couple

nights in a row and then you're thinking about how you struck out and she's like you know accepting offers left and right or whatever is running off in your head like that's that's no good and if your friends aren't three dudes who fantasize about beating up connor mcgregor they probably will run into some girls anyway. So I think that like, I think that's, I think that's probably the, um,

that's the route you should go because it's the stakes are low. And then the other thing is, is like when you change schools and, and like, you know, go to college, it just happens. Like I broke up with my girlfriend when I thought I was going to community college.

Like we were going to be in the same town. And I was just like, you know, I'm going to be meeting a lot of people. Going to school 15 minutes away from my house. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. You broke up with your girlfriend because you were going to be commuting to taking classes 15 minutes away? Oh yeah. Oh yeah. There was going to be like five other high schools worth of girls there who just couldn't get their shit together and was going to be at Dutchess Community. So I was just like, you know, it's just going to be, she had one year left in high school. So I was just like, you know, it's just not, we're not going to be spending enough time. She's like, are you serious? So that happened.

And then when I got accepted to, um, Potsdam, I broke up with my girlfriend then too. When I, cause I had like, had like a summer thing going on with a girl and we were both going to be going to Duchess and then I found out I was going to Potsdam like late right before the semester started I broke up with her too it's just what a lot of people do so it's just it's unfortunate that you're at one of those change points in your life it's just kind of what I thought you were supposed to do I know some people don't do that but it's just it's probably not as personal as like it's just what people do like there's nothing wrong with you dude this is just what happens when people go to college yeah that's the thing like there'll be a point where you're gonna actually realize what you did makes way

more sense even though it hurts now you don't have that clarity you can't do that now but you're going to have a moment i promise you you're going to have a moment where you're like you know what that actually made sense i mean i didn't want to hear it from anybody. Everybody's telling me their stories. I'm like, fucking leave me alone. Stop talking to me. Hey, let's go over and visit Ryan. Fuck off. Get out of here. But I also had nothing else going right in my life. Nothing. Nothing was going right. So on top of the breakup, I didn't have any foundation to feel good about. At least in college, you're never going to be around more friends. It gets so much easier to meet people. You're just meeting people because you're in college. Try doing it when

you're 26, 27, and you're living on Marthatha's vineyard the winner by yourself all right so um and you don't have a boat you know so i i it just sucked it's one of those massive disconnects because everybody's going to tell you the right things they're not lying to you they're being your friend they're saying the right things but it just it's easy for everyone to give advice when they have no emotional attachment to what it is that they're giving advice about. So like we just did here for way too long. I don't know. I don't think we have anything. People have to have turned the podcast off at this point.

They're like, get to another fight one. That's it. We went too long. We will be more efficient. Look, our guy was bummed out. We wanted to check in on him. All right. Thank you for listening to most of this

podcast. We have a couple pretty big guests, I think, scheduled for later this week. Looking forward to it. Please subscribe. Thanks to Kyle and Steve. We'll talk to you on Wednesday. Thank you.