The Ryen Russillo Podcast - Dolphins the Class of the AFC? Plus CFB Top 12 and What’s Wrong With Alabama With Greg McElroy

Episode Date: September 18, 2023

Russillo opens by recapping Week 2 of the NFL season and giving his biggest winners and losers (0:59). Then, he breaks down Week 3 of the college football season, his top 12, and Colorado (21:55). He is then joined by ESPN’s Greg McElroy to talk about his rankings on the season, Michael Penix Jr., and the latest on Alabama (35:36). Finally, the guys close it out with some listener-submitted Life Advice questions (67:06). The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please check out theringer.com/RG to find out more or listen to the end of the episode for additional details. Get your tickets to the live Russillo show in Oxford, MS before LSU-Ole Miss on Friday, September 29th! https://wl.seetickets.us/event/The-Ryen-Russillo-Podcast/565925?afflky=LyricOxford Host: Ryen Russillo Guest: Greg McElroy Producers: Steve Ceruti, Kyle Crichton, and Stefan Anderson Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

is Miami. Actually one of the best teams in the NFL. Take a look at that. Baltimore's win Cincinnati struggles, Kansas city's defense. And I'll do my top 12 college football rankings, including where Bama is going and the joy of Colorado football. Greg McElroy. We'll talk about the top teams in college football rankings, including where Bama is going and the joy of Colorado football. Greg McIlroy will talk about the top

teams in college football, his Bama view, and also the Dion phenomenon. Live advice and a pick for Monday Night Football. And then a reminder, we're under two weeks away from the live show in Oxford, Mississippi for LSU Ole Miss. Come hang out on Friday, September 29th at 2 local time

at the Lyric Oxford. Me, Kyle Cerruti, and Ban Lathan is the headliner. Go to the Lyric Oxford.com to get your tickets while they last. That's Lyric Oxford.com. Week 2. Let's talk about it. Let's start with the headlines. Miami is

the best team in the AFC, the best team in the NFL. Okay. I'm not ready for that, but the fact that I'm even suggesting like, is it a topic? I think it's a real thing. These are two really nice wins maybe, but they're on the road. And I mean, that is, we know the Chargers seem to be a mess, but we know it's a very talented team. I think that Pat's defense is serious. I think it's a real plus for who they are. So you could spin this either way. You could say, hey, the Chargers are a mess.

The Pats aren't going to be any good. So is it really that big of a deal? But I think to start the season and have Tua have the game he had in week one and then a Dolphins defense that you like some of the pieces to do what they did in week two. They've won two games in very different ways, a shootout and then a defensive game against New England. And when they needed to close it out at the end,

they were able to close it out on the ground because it wasn't a great game from two of the fumble on the third and one, what they were trying to do. They kept it. The pick wasn't necessarily great because it was a bit of a pop-up, but at least we have the week one sample. And they did this also without Jalen Phillips, who I think is their best defensive player who wasn't active in the New England game.

I want to talk about Coach McDaniel because we've wondered, and I still think there's something to watching the NFL where most of us, despite how much we watch, how much we're into it, you're like, okay, but what is this guy actually doing that makes things work? Like, I don't know that it's explained to us enough from the people that are supposed to know everything. Hell, I'll see film room battles on Twitter. This is an example of a TV show. Somebody who studies film and then claims to know exactly what's happening and then gives us a take, and then it's immediately dismantled by somebody else who has a really good resume and will study film. This happens all the time. There should be a TV

show on some sports network where it's like film versus film. And then both guys will present the same film and then their original point. And then the audience is left to decide. And then we get to throw shit at screen grab Twitter guy who thinks everybody was open and that lanes were wide open to run through because I'm at a loss when I think I kind of know something and then I'll see somebody present something and go, wow, that's pretty compelling. That's really interesting. And then somebody else who played will go, no, that's totally wrong. And then this happened. And I'm like, I don't, I don't know what to believe anymore. All right. But I do know this when you pay attention specifically to the motion

that Miami runs in their offense, it is devastating against opposing defenses. I'm to the point, especially after last night's game, because it was something I was really looking for. I think I'd be telling my defensive guys in a matchup against the Dolphins, again, not a coach, not a linebacker, like, do not fall for the motion. Do not fall for it. Hell, be ready to go to the other side of the motion because it seems like motion is the best distraction in this Miami offense. I understand motion and the concepts

and what you do and you're trying to disguise or figure out. Well, obviously a lot of times it's just trying to figure out manner zone and that kind of stuff. Some of it can be a little more simple than we realize, but there's a couple plays in particular with McDaniel in this motion offense where when you watch it happen you you go, this is just really nice stuff. And it makes your life easier in this offense. The second and 19 Waddle conversion, they ran heel out in

motion. And if there was one thing that was very clear that New England was trying to do was take away the deep ball and they played deep, they played off and they moved when Hill moved and Hill moves out to the right side in motion and you can see waddle actually comes back to make the reception and it's mostly yak on this conversion but as soon as hill moves out to the right side three defensive players from new england on the right side move backwards they just move like it's magic. They have to move because they're worried about Hill. On the Mostert TD, the first one, they looped the running back, number 26, who had a couple touches in this game. They loop him back around to the right side. They run it left. touchdown. Tyreek's outside, but then Smythe goes to motion, number 81, the tight end to the far right. It pulls people away. And then Hill has a really nice one-on-one turn and catch where it felt like the defensive back was a little late to it, but you're so freaked out against Hill.

And then Mostert on the long TD run that closed this one off, there's motion all the way to the right behind Mostert. and it actually set up a block they didn't necessarily even need. Motion makes people move. On the second Moster TD, when you look at it from the back cam, three New England defensive players all shuffle to their left away from where the run is designed. And so there are times when I watch motion and it's just to run it and then have a guy set up.

Miami does it and they press the motion like right up until the snap and it's freaking everybody out. And it freaked out what ultimately I thought was a pretty good defensive effort from New England in this game after seeing what Miami did last week. There's a couple other things in here. New England might stink. We know the defense is going to be good, and I still have a hard time believing a Bill Belichick team

is just actually going to be terrible. Terrible is not 8-9. But oddsmakers had them as the fourth team going to the AFC East. We were curious what Mac Jones was going to look like. You could also say, well, wait a minute. If you think Philly and Miami are really good, which I think we all kind of feel is a safe bet, then New England lost, well, two home games,

but they lost two of the better teams in the NFL. Okay, we could do that. That's fine. I'll allow it. But on offense, I don't know what they are. It always looks disconnected. And sometimes it looks like a mess. There rarely will

be a possession now through the first two weeks of the season where it feels like New England has consistent rhythm for what they're trying to do. Some of that's the offensive line. Some of it's the lack of weapons. And some of it's Mac Jones. You have to think it's better than what they did last year just based on weapons than the coaching staff alone. So it's kind of not on one part of it, but it's certainly on all of it. I just, how many times you've watched them drop back and you think, yeah, this isn't comfortable. This isn't what they originally thought they were going to do. And now they have to kind of improvise. And I don't think Mac Jones is at a point where you want him improvising all over the time. I think Mac Jones even gets frustrated. Like the pick that he threw, I like when

guys will throw a pick for a 50-50 ball. I don't want to see somebody never throw any picks because that means you're just never going to give your guy a chance. But is Devontae Parker worth a 50-50 deep shot? And then Mac had another play later where he threw in a double coverage. And I appreciate that he knew he had to press the issue a little bit more other than checking down. It's like, cool, you lost by four instead of 11. But there's also times with him where I think his frustration alone makes him raise the risk beyond what's an acceptable level of risk. So I'm not a big Mac Jones believer long term, but I don't think this is really easy for him. And like we said, I mean, last year is never going to make any sense to me ever. I sit there and say no weapons. I look at

the salary cap breakdowns. They spent the most money of any team on tight ends and wide receivers combined last year. They spent the second most on wide receivers based on salary cap spending last season. And you're like, where is it? They spent the most on tight ends this year. Wide receivers more middle of the pack. The Matt Patricia part of it's like John Mayer deciding to have Miranda sings and backup. The, the Deandre Hopkins rumors were so dumb because you're like, yeah, receivers used to come there for a discount when it was Brady.

But as soon as Hopkins wanted to get paid, you knew they weren't going to get him. Ezekiel Elliott edition, you go, cool. It's like your dad drafting Des Bryant this year in your fantasy draft. You're like, oh, I think I'll take Des Bryant. So whether it's a draft picks, whether it's the coaching staff stuff, whether it's the fact that post Brady Belichick has been 25 and 27, and maybe it is playing two of the best teams in Philly and Miami. I don't want to doubt him. I think Belichick is a great coach. I'm not into the post Brady stuff as much as I've had fun with it over the

last couple of years of thinking this guy can't get it. But if they're bad again this year and the offense looks this bad and Mac looks like somebody you have to replace, if you did make a change at the end of the year, what would you really be changing from post Brady? One other thing here, two is now five and oh against the Pats. But when you look at the Dolphins schedule, I know Collinsworth was talking about it last night, how it finishes up really good because these first two road wins for Miami, they've got four of their five last games at home,

which means they're not going to be having to travel to brutal weather places except for maybe Baltimore on New Year's Day. But they have a brutal overall schedule. I mean, they've got Buffalo coming up. They've got Philly. They've got New England again. They've got Kansas City. They've got Dallas, Baltimore, Buffalo to finish. So I don't know if the record will match what we've seen from them in the beginning.

But I think the bigger point is that two weeks in, it's totally fair to wonder with how the rest of the AFC has looked if this could actually be the best team in the conference. Staying with that, Baltimore's 2-0, and they were in control of the game against Cincinnati. I know the final score would say that it was close,

but it just felt like they were really in control the entire time. Lamar doesn't have a TD yet, but he's completing 77% of his passes. This wide receiver group, 1-5, Flowers, who I love, the rookie, Odell, who I know left the game, but they're saying it's not serious, whatever, Bateman, who's decent enough, Duvernay will make you some plays, and Aguilar, who had a couple nice catches yesterday, going with Mark Andrews.

1-5, that's really good in the NFL. It's the best Lamar has ever had. But the defense that we didn't, I'd say going into the year, you wouldn't put their defensive unit at the top. But they did this without Marlon Humphrey yesterday, who's their best corner and probably in the second tier of best corners in the NFL. But since his offense now scored 10, or excuse me, since his offense has scored only 10 points before Jones,

that's what Chuck Sizzle with the return touchdown. Remember him? Iowa didn't have any catches. Purdue had a million catches before they got the Kirk Cousins TD, which is the down two score TD late. So it makes the final score 27-24, but they were in total control this one. Then Baltimore needed a run clock. They did it in seven plays.

They're taking a knee and winning this game. So Baltimore's defense stepping up. The conversion rate for Lamar has been pretty good, even though we haven't had the big dynamic production games. And yeah, you know, look, maybe Cincinnati's in trouble. The first game wasn't all that much of a challenge to Baltimore, but I just love the fact that you look at the receivers on the depth chart and you're like, this is so much better than previous years. On the other side for Cincinnati, Cincinnati's offense, we already touched that where the extra seven points is on the return. Since he has had some bad starts in previous years,

last year they started 0-2. 21, they started 3-2, which is fine. But then in 20 in Burrow's first year, they were 0-2 and then actually went 1-5-1. So maybe Burrow's used to this, but he's not used to this. Yards per attempt two years ago, 8.9, 7.4 last year, 4.3 through two games. You can talk about the Cleveland weather and it's completely fair. And I'm not like all of a sudden there's some Burrow jokes about the contract extension. I'm not talking about that. And it appears he re-aggravated the calf part of it. But it also looks like, and I give Barnwell credit for pointing out that Burrow was throwing so much outside the numbers,

a career high attempts outside the numbers in that game against Cleveland. But there was also something that he points out that Cleveland was doing where it's like, you want to go ahead and take those deep shots, go ahead. They're going to play it straight up. I felt like Baltimore was going, you're never going to have enough time for those deep shots. So we don't care. If you want to chunk away with mixing, fine, but you're going to get impatient. Your receivers are going to want the ball. And Higgins, who finally got some touches, and Chase, who still isn't there yet. But I don't know if that's the new formula against Cincinnati, where they will not have enough time to beat us on these deep shots.

And then Burrow has to speed it up. And if they want to run, they can go ahead and run. But at least that's what I'm seeing in those first two games. Not great, but certainly not like full alarm yet. Final thought, Kansas City's defense. Really nice win going into Jacksonville and holding them to nine points. Now, granted, there was a touchdown there late where if the receiver stays in bounds, maybe it's a tie score. Jacksonville pulls it out fine, whatever. But a year where the Jacksonville, this Jacksonville team, we feel like they're loaded up on offense and ready to go, and a Kansas City defense, which traditionally has not been a strength

during the Mahomes years, that I thought was really impressive. Four sacks, three of 12 on third down for the Jags. They've invested, I think, more than they get credit for in kind of overhauling this defense on the fly as they try to match all the talent with Mahomes. On the other side for Kansas City's offense, 18.5 points per game, the lowest since 2014, granted one game without Kelsey.

I'm never really going to worry about their offense, but I really liked what I saw from a defense that is always part of the, well, I wouldn't say part of the problem, but never felt like a strength with the Chiefs there. Nice win against another team that I think is still in the picture in the AFC. Best win, Giants coming back against Arizona. Largest comeback since 1949. But the biggest part of this is, I'll admit, I think like a lot of you,

when you're watching how bad it was, you're like, man, I can't believe they paid Daniel Jones all that money. And now you don't get to do that. I may still think it privately. I may say it publicly again at a later week when I don't think he's Daniel Jones all that money. And now you don't get to do that. I may still think it privately. I may say it publicly again at a later week when I don't think he's going to be that good. But at least you avoid all that stuff. That's why I think that's the best win and not Washington. Because Arizona's not really even playing for anything, even though you felt good at least for 30 minutes for Josh Dobbs.

So I have Giants' best win because of the historic comeback in the Daniel Jones part of it and not Washington because I have that as the worst loss so I wasn't going to just do the same thing Denver loses after being up 18 Sean Payton thanks to Mike Sando on this note was 72 and 0 when leading by 18 points not the case now after the 35 33 loss loss against the Commanders. And after it, listening to Peyton go, we're not getting to playing. It was the same stuff last year with Hackett. We're not getting to playing. He's not going to hold Russell Wilson's hand. He's not going to baby him. It's probably what Russell Wilson needs. I'm sure he doesn't really like it. But when I watch Russell Wilson, everything feels slow, whether it's him escaping the pocket,

him seeing the defense, and then even on some of those velocity throws where you've got to get it outside like you're at the opposite hash and you've got to get to the sideline, it just seems slow. And I know people that watched even late Seahawks, Russell Wilson said something was falling off. But last year, we thought collectively it was all a mess. I figured Peyton had to make it better than it was last year. So I was still actually holding out hope for him as a quarterback, giving you a better chance than just an average quarterback. But it's still physically, especially coming in fresh to start the year, I'm surprised just how slow the physical stuff and the processing stuff

looks for somebody that was so dynamic for so much of his career. Award season. This is the Dan Patrick I Have to entertain a nation award. There is a story from ESPN back in the day where we had to all wear our security badges. And then one year they decided to like set up all these, it was like the border. It was like really weird. You had to like swipe it to get in and then swipe it to get out again. And then I think a couple of execs were like, this is really dumb. Why are we doing this?

But way before that, when Dan Patrick was, was in his prime, he, I think walked through an area without his security guard pass as he was headed out to host the 11. And I think somebody may have made the mistake. I don't know if the story is true or not, but it definitely made the rounds where the guy was like, excuse me, you got to swipe your badge. And he was like, I actually have to go entertain a nation i want that story to be true so bad um because just thinking of dan patrick delivering that line is perfect and look everybody believes it because we used to talk about it all the time i and no one ever said it like as a negative no one was like oh it's an ego thing it was just the perfectly timed quip on your way to

host the 11 is the biggest star at espn at the time i love it i love the security guard was like, oh, it's an ego thing. It was just the perfectly timed quip on your way to host the 11 is the biggest star at ESPN at the time. I love it. I love the security guard was like, hey, the reason I'm giving out that award is the Gino Smith ref interaction where Gino Smith was talking to the ref as the ref was talking to America here. Excuse me. That ref splits the checks. That ref hits you up for Venmo after a four couples weekend. Um, he reminds me a bit of a guy. I remember he was bartending. Uh, this was like a summer bartending gig back home and i'm sitting there getting prepped up some guy came in he orders a drink he's like looking at me sizing me up a little bit he's like what's your story i was like uh cut some fucking limes dude and um he's like, well, and he just started giving me the full Navy recruitment speech. And I'm like, look, I'm 19 and I'm bartending at the hottest spot in Martha's Vineyard. I'm having an awesome summer. I'm not joining the Navy.

He's like, all right, cool. That's what I thought of when a guy, I mean, it's an incredible line, but the fact that that's what the ref chose to say, I think tells me a lot about him. Numbers you should know. Puka, Puka Nakua. How about this dude for the Rams? Part of the Ramley. Rookie record, 15 receptions versus the Niners yesterday. A Niners game that was actually a little bit closer. I still think Stafford looks really good here. And it also makes you think when Nakua here, he's like, can McVay do anything? Would I have three catches for 71 in this offense? He has 25 catches now through his first two games. That's a rookie record. And finally, this is a topic which would make its way onto the radio show

if I were maybe Wednesday, Thursday. And it's too early to even ask this question because we're only two weeks in. We're not even done with the two weeks. But when I look at the bad teams, the teams we think we know are going to be bad, Houston, we just brought in Stroud, so you don't know what to make of it. Carolina's probably going to struggle. We know Arizona's likely going to struggle. Chicago looks like a mess again.

I was thinking this when the Giants were down big to Arizona, so maybe it's unfair to put them in there yet, but I think it'd be more surprising if the Giants made the playoffs than didn't. Caleb Williams is so good. If he's the number one pick and you've invested, what if you're Denver and you have two years of money after this year of Russell Wilson? Well, you would take him. What if you're Arizona and you have three years after this year of Kyler Murray? Well, you would take him and hope to salvage something on the Kyler Murray end. I still am shocked to think that people think you get a first rounder for him.

But what if you're one of these other teams that just took a quarterback? What if you're the Giants? Like say, again, the Giants, it's the wrong exercise. But the point is this. This is Giants, it's the wrong exercise. But the point is this. This is going to become a really interesting conversation later. It'd be a better topic later in the season, but I'm jumping ahead of it now. That's why I called it way too early. I can't wait to see which teams that have spent either a ton of money or draft capital on quarterbacks are going to be in the race for the number one pick.

And honestly, any of those teams, I'd be like, I'm just taking Caleb and I'm restarting the whole thing all over again. Snap into action this NFL season with FanDuel, America's number one sports book. Right now, new customers get $200 in bonus bets, guaranteed when you place a $5 bet. That's $200 in bonus bets. Win or lose. Looking at the odds for tonight. Saints laying three at Carolina. I'm still kind of on this weird Saints kick, even though I know week one offensively, it didn't look that much better. Derek Carr, I'm okay with that. I think you lay the three here despite the home dog deal. And I would take the two and a half at home. This is the bounce back. If Pittsburgh is anything, bounce back plus two and a half at home.

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days after receipt. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. I'm going to start with my college football top 12 and then I'm going to talk about a couple other topics. Alright, so there you go. Number one, Georgia. We're already entering nobody's any good season except for the Pac-12

and if you want to tell me that USC you think is better than everybody else and Caleb Williams is that good I would agree you want to have fun with Caleb Williams go through and just type Caleb Williams throw into Twitter it's stupid like there's stuff from last year I'm like oh yeah that's right there's still this Utah throw that he had I think at the end of the first half it led to nothing but the throw itself was so insane that I couldn't stop talking about it. So I'm open to anything. I'm open to any suggestion.

Well, let's not kid ourselves. I'm not open to any suggestions here on some of these college football arguments, but I kept Georgia there. They were down 14-3 at home, at the half to South Carolina, but they had a really strange possession deal where if you looked at what happened, field goal, but they had a really strange possession deal where if you looked

at what happened, field goal, punt, missed field goal, and half. So the possessions ended with only four of them. One ends on the half, the other one's the missed field goal. So it was really actually only one punt, but still only three points. So it just wasn't clicking. And then you start to go, well, wait a minute, it's Carson Beck, not the guy. Did I make the same post Colt McCoy Tebow assumptions about Texas and Florida that we all made that were huge mistakes? Which I think is always a fair reminder that you should have for yourself when you're looking at some of these top programs. Being like, we're just assuming this next guy is going to be awesome. Probably like Beck was really good in the second half.

Next four possessions starting in the second half, touchdown, touchdown, missed field goal, touchdown. So they took control of a game that was a little weird at the half. They didn't lose to South Carolina, so I'm not moving them out of number one. Um, and maybe if Texas had destroyed Wyoming, I would have moved Texas up. Um, but that's not what happened for the very few of you that got to see what was happening against the Wyoming team. That's actually pretty good. Um, but they still, if Texas is going to be playing for a national championship, you wouldn't expect him to be tied at 10 going into the fourth quarter against the Cowboys.

Ewers had 80 yards total, I think, through three quarters, so I looked at that and was like, wait, what the hell is going on? And then they totally took over, 21-0 in the fourth quarter, still with the win against Bama, which we're now going, wait, how good is that win against Bama? I still think a win against Bama in Tuscaloosa on a Saturday night is an impressive thing. Maybe we'll look at the end of the year and say it wasn't really that impressive, but I have Texas too there ahead of Michigan because of it.

I debated the Michigan part of it, but them giving up 16 points in three straight games against not great teams, it proves what we already thought. The defense is going to be nasty. JJ hasn't really necessarily had to prove too much of anything at quarterback. We know all the talent. We've been over it again. It was funny because I'm like, how long is it going to take before you see them actually get tested? It may be 10 weeks into the season. What about 3-0 Rutgers on the docket? That's right. 3-0 Rutgers at the New York, Connecticut, New Jersey footprint for that cable deal.

There's your top three. Florida State in a dogfight at the New York, Connecticut, New Jersey footprint for that cable deal. So there's your top three. Florida State in a dogfight at the Heights against Boston College. Castellanos, that quarterback for BC, he can fly. He also threw for over 300 yards. There was a Travis Jordan scare quarterback that was non-throwing shoulder, so it was okay.

And there was a massive penalty at the end where you wonder if BC get the football back and a chance to win it. It was 31-16 going into the fourth. BC put together a nice little run there, but I'm okay with that because I think LSU's actually, should I say good, decent? No, I'll say good, and we'll get to them a little bit later because I do have them in my top 12. USC, they might be the best team.

They got Arizona State, and they're going to be at Colorado September 30th. We will find out. You know what? I'm changing it on the fly. I'm putting Washington five and I'm putting USC six. I'm open to either one of these teams maybe being better than everybody else. I just love the Pac-12 this year and I love that they know who their quarterbacks are. I love all the weapons and Washington has weapons and Pennix Jr. who now is the first Washington quarterback to throw for over 400 plus yards, three plus touchdowns in the first three games of a season for the Huskies. So I'm actually putting after the Michigan State dominance where you thought Michigan State would probably come in. If you watch them all this year, they're not

great considering everything that's going on there with Mel Tucker. How would they respond? They did not respond well. That was one i even thought about giving out i think it was 16 and a half at that point but i was like i don't know power five 16 and a half not going to do it so let me just move washington ahead just because even if we don't love michigan state a little bit better than the resume of usc's uh win so far uh number seven penn state it feels like i dropped him it's not really it's just i'm moving washington up a bunch of these teams like i've said they kind of the number may be different but I feel the same way about them. I think their defense is fine. I love Aller. I love the running backs and

the offensive line. They were dominant against Illinois. Illinois doesn't really have any offense to speak of. That's its own issue, but I still have them ahead of Ohio State. At number eight, I have the Buckeyes. We finally saw the offensive outburst that I was expecting. It was a winner against Western Kentucky. They could have named their number on Saturday, and it was nice. Look, I know it's a lesser opponent, but you just needed to see something like that ahead of the Notre Dame matchup this weekend to go, oh, right, that's right. Ohio State usually has more talent than everybody else,

and McCord is clearly the guy quarterback after a summer of wondering if the rumors of it being a tie were true. I'm going to remember that Brian day staff. I'm going to remember that after you sold us on this being close and you pulled the coaches and you said it was 50, 50, you didn't even do it. You didn't even split time with them against Indiana.

Number nine, Oregon, one of eight ranked pack 12 teams, not my top 12. That'd be a lot. Uh, eight AP top 25 teams, Oregon, number 10, Notre Dame.

Probably wasn't great to leave them out after the NC State blowout. So why are you putting them back in now? I don't know. They're 4-0, kind of running out of teams. And I probably could have stuck them in at 12. I mean, hell, I was even flirting with Kansas State, but that was an incredible win by Mizzou at home against a Kansas State team that I usually give the benefit of the doubt to. So I'm going to put Notre Dame 10 because I was kind of like running out of ideas here. And the thing I'm really looking forward to here is that Notre Dame, if you look at this, and I use a couple numbers from Matt Brown here from The Athletic, use a couple numbers from Matt Brown here from the Athletic, but Notre Dame is 4-19 in top 10 matchups since 1994. And it's true. If you're a Notre Dame fan growing up, they won these games and now they lose them. So we'll see. And with Ohio State looking like they did against Western Kentucky, I think it changes the entire conversation of the week leading up to

it. But Harmon's terrific. The running backs are terrific. Not really tested other than NC State. You know, you say, hey, they've got a good quarterback. It's a decent enough talented team, and they put it on them late. But, yeah, Notre Dame probably should have been at least 12th for me last week, but I didn't. And that's okay.

We're all learning together every day. Number 11, Utah. Nate Johnson is the guy until we find out what's going on with rising and then number 12 lsu i know what you're saying you think i'm only who do you who are you dying to put 12 over them because if you think florida state's number three number four number five and they were leading at the half second half got away from them but they put it on mississippi, who has its own offensive issues. I mean, some of those third and longs for Mississippi State,

it's like, what are you guys doing? Whether it was the wrong throw, the wrong route, a bad throw. Mississippi State's in a lot of trouble offensively as they try to install a brand new thing post-Mike Leach. And it wasn't working, at least for one Saturday. So I have LSU 12 because I think talent wise, especially where they're going to be in the SEC West and all the rest of the stuff, they're going to end up ranked again. So I'm jumping on it a little bit earlier.

So what does that mean? No Alabama. They were ranked in the top 10. This is now in the AP because they fell out of the AP top 10. They were ranked in the top 10 for 128 consecutive weeks. That was 10 weeks shy of the all-time record your Miami Hurricanes. They have been ranked, ranked for 249 straight weeks going all the way back to 2008. Now, I wasn't going to put Bama in, certainly, because most of us watched that South Florida game.

The AP has him 13. The coaches still have him 12. That game was awful. Their quarterback situation, they benched Milrow. Buckner's the start of the transfer from Notre Dame, who if you watched him, I don't know that you were like, oh, this will fix everything. And then Ty Simpson's the five-star kid who was the number four quarterback in his class behind Aller and a couple of the other guys. And at one point, I was like, even though I'm not a Milrow fan in this

kind of game, they might be better off with his running ability just to try to salvage winning a game against USF. So there's more depth to it where people are talking about the offensive lines and the tight ends and nobody knows what they're doing and they're not blocking. And I don't know if that's just stuff on Twitter. I saw Berger McFarlane losing it. I, at one point, even though I didn't think Milrow was the guy against Texas, and I'm not saying it was wrong to move on from Milrow. I'm not, but I think at least for a half against South Florida, Milrow's rushing ability may have been enough to give you a better chance. Granted, they won the game. I know the other part of my rant about Alabama was like, can we have them lose to a bad team first, which they never do? can we have them lose to a bad team first,

which they never do? Can we have them lose to just a straight up bad team before we start saying they cannot compete anymore or the dynasty is over? Because I think there'll be years after this one. This was basically for me watching it. It felt like a loss to a bad team, even though they've won. This is the first time in a long time I've thought about Bama differently. Maybe for you, you were able to get to that conclusion last year. Maybe for you, you were able to do it after the Texas loss. I needed something like this to now shake the core of my Bama beliefs because that was a struggle. And we'll see if Ty Simpson's the guy the rest of the way.

Okay, one last thing. I have to talk about Colorado, who comes in this week, ranked 19th in the AP and coaches poll. It was the late game. It was against Colorado State. We saw that Jay Norvell had the comment about Dion, which Jay Norvell wasn't Jay Norvell. I wonder how that comment would have been processed throughout the week leading up to it.

The hype, all of the shows are there, 60 minutes. We saw that graphic a million times. Hell, we even got a life advice email asking us if we wanted to go to a game as the show, just to go, just to go hang out. I'd love to hit up the Walrus in Boulder, but we had other stuff going on. I have a roommate this weekend, so I couldn't quite do it. I don't even know if we'll be invited now after this week because it just may be like ah that show does well but Kawhi Leonard showed up where everybody made the same exact Kawhi Leonard joke so here's what I want to ask or just just make the point of if you love it I love that it matters I love that people care I love that that there's something going on in Boulder and as much much as I love Boulder and would always love to see you back in the college football conversation, I love that this thing is even happening, even if I'm not sure how good the team is. And you could argue from a game standpoint, Colorado State absolutely blew it. The penalties shouldn't have given up a 98-yard drive. Although on the positive, Shador Sanders and the the stones this kid has a quarterback it's really something man uh and that's after losing travis hunter the best player to a late

dirty hit by number 11 the safety from colorado state so there was just a lot it was it was a nasty game there was all sorts of stuff going on but i think like for some of you you love it because you like that there's celebrities there you like the the swagger. You like the post-game DJs. You like a rapper in there performing in the locker room after. You like that one of his sons called Danny Canelo Ho. I get it.

Now, for some of you, you may hate it because it is different, because of the swagger, because of the celebs, and that his son called Danny Canelo Ho. You may hate it for all of those reasons. Honestly, I'm just glad you feel something about

it, right? Because there's too many times now in sports where, you know, whether it's baseball GMs that all sound like they're doing a Theo Epstein impersonation or the coach speak that we get that's the same shit or watching post-game. And the analysis is all of the same stuff. Game of inches, hit him in the mouth. It's not about the X's and O's. It's Jimmy's and Joe's. When you're watching that Colorado game, and it's even better because for those of us that care about college football, we're watching it.

And there's some of you that have never cared about college football, but you're watching it because you're interested by it. That we have something right now that was nasty all week, nasty out on the field, and an entertaining game, and it keeps the story going. Yeah, I kind of think Oregon and USC are going to combine for 50, or excuse me, combine for like over 100 points against a CU defense that seemed to have some real problems with those cross routes underneath. So there'll be that part of this.

But even being here where it is a conversation and people have some reaction, good or bad, to it, all of that is important for sports. And I love that we have it at this small program now, which, yeah, it's a Power Five, but you know what I'm talking about. We're talking about CU football. It's not Alabama. It's not Texas. It's not Ohio State. On and on and on.

We all know the list. I love that for a night, again, it owned it for an afternoon week one. It owned it for a night on Saturday night when there were no other games on and people I've never heard from talking college football are hitting me up asking me if I'm watching this. I'm excited to do this. It's been a while. Greg McElroy, national champ, college football analyst for ESPN and also always college football, his always college football podcast, joins us to talk some ball. So before we get to the Bama stuff, I just don't want to start there.

Let's start at the top. You know, I did my top 12. I kept Georgia there. I watched the South Carolina game. You know, I think the score was alarming, but the way the game ended up playing out in the second half, you're like, okay, whatever, they figured it out. But I do think that we're very, very early in the phase of every other part of the country

telling the other part of the country all their football stinks. Although I don't think you can say it to the Pac-12. But how do you feel at least about the contenders, the five or six contenders that we kind of land on at least this year? Well, I think Georgia, I completely agree with you. If I could get second half Georgia against South Carolina every week for 60 minutes, no one's beaten them. I mean, they ran the ball for the first time really all year. I mean, they'd run it, but not with a traditional running back. The offensive line has had their fair share of misses so far up to this point. so far up to this point. So I think that group's collectively kind of been a work in progress.

Defensively, they didn't really get challenged up until they played against Spencer Rattler and company. And in the second half, after Rattler went 16 of 18 in the first half, getting the ball out really decisive, really accurate, they started to tee off. They said, all right, forget about it, man. We're going to dictate.

And we're going to heat you up. We're going to pressure you. We're going to just bring them from everywhere. And you're going to start seeing ghosts and you're going to not be able to go through your progressions as quickly. So that I think was a significant adjustment that will pay a lot of dividends down the road. I would have them at number one. At number two, it's going to be probably a little bit more, I guess you could say controversial, for lack of a better word. I'd put Washington at two.

And I know a lot of people right now maybe need to see it to believe it. Maybe they don't respect Michigan State. Maybe they don't respect Boise, who they played in the first game of the year. But I look at what Michael Penix is doing, and Ryan, he's absurd. I mean, absurd. Down the field passing attack that is difficult to defend. The guy averages like 12 air yards per attempt. So on average, by the way, the college football average is about 8 yards per attempt.

So basically, that's kind of where they're at. The ball's traveling 12 yards downfield per attempt. And he's only been off target on 8% of his throws this year. The national average is like 17%. I mean, he is unconscious and his weapons are off the charts. And I know their defense maybe still is the question. Maybe they haven't been challenged yet, but I'm thoroughly, thoroughly impressed with what they're doing right now. Florida State, I would have three. I still think they had the best win of the season. If I want to be a prisoner of the moment, I can nitpick the performance against Boston College. It was a sleepwalk performance. Clemson's coming up next week. Can I put some stock into it? Sure, but probably not as much. It was a survive and advance situation for the

Seminoles, and their best win got stronger with how LSU played this past weekend. Texas, I'd have it four. Obviously, great win against Alabama two weeks ago in Tuscaloosa. Little bit of a sleepwalk situation against Wyoming, tied going into the fourth quarter, but pulled away. And I'd look at just their personnel.

I think they're extremely dangerous when they play really well. This will be a tough one this week on the road at Baylor. I think we'll learn a little bit more about them. Even though Baylor's one and two, I think they're a really good one and two. And anytime Texas goes on the road to Baylor, it's for whatever reason, a little bit of a tricky game. And then at number five, I have Ohio State. Defense has really been the calling card. I've never worried about Ohio State's offense. Well, in the first two weeks, I was a little bit worried. And they got it going against Western Kentucky. Probably a good get-right situation.

But the defense, really through all three games, has been tenacious. They are really good in the back end. They're relentless up front in the front seven. I think their linebackers are playing more instinctively than they did last year. So I would have Ohio State at number five. Notably absent would be Michigan. I don't think they've put it all together yet, and I don't think they've played good competition. So maybe the offensive line gets going. JJ McCarthy was amazing in the first two weeks. Not so much last week against Bowling Green. So they'd be number six.

So right outside the top 25, which is obviously a pretty significant difference from what the AP poll has. Okay, so no SC in that. Not yet, no. Partly because of level of competition, Ryan. I mean, I think they're better on defense than they were a year ago, but I just don't know yet.

And I think part of the concerns that I have with that group, I'm not going to be able to feel great about it until I actually see them playing against an offense with a pulse. So would you pick Washington straight up then right now? I mean, again, if we're talking, let's just say neutral field, make-believe, you'd pick Washington straight up against SC? I would, yeah. I think Washington has a first-round defensive end in Braylon Trice.

I think their front seven defensively is collectively a little better than USC. And then I think in the back end, that was the biggest concern last year. They've looked pretty good up to this point. Now, Michigan State, how good are they? I don't know, but they're better than anyone that SC has played at this point. So part of it has to do with who they've played against and the fact that they are just a little bit more tested than what we've seen from the Trojans. The Pennix Jr. story is not only the story of like, could he win the Heisman? And by the way, I don't necessarily disagree on the SC thing. I just wanted your perspective on it, because you're right. It's based on their competition, but at least I'm seeing like

absolute domination and I'm seeing guys run around with SC where I'm like, oh wait, who's that guy? Like, oh, that's the freshman. Like, oh, okay. You know, like it's like the beginning of the college football season. We were like, wait, I got to write down who's number three. And then you go look it up. You're like, oh, geez. Penix Jr., when he was at Indiana, now granted he's on his sixth season here. It was kind of that moment where it was like, man, Indiana is kind of fun. And like Tom Allen, like look at this stuff.

And then I still wasn't sold on him. Because I think we do become like we get almost tricked into some of the more athletic guys and I'm like all right but but can he sit back there and consistently beat you the entire time and I think there were some real questions and then the last year granted he had the injuries and stuff his run at Washington is like a completely different guy so even if we saw the the glimpses of what his talent could i think his story is a development story as much as anything because now it's like flawless as you pointed out with the incredible um off throw stat well it's it is flawless i i completely agree with you but i i think we and ryan we're all

you know we're all kind of victims of this and and i don't like that this is where we're all, you know, we're all kind of victims of this. And, and I don't like that this is where we're at, but it's the truth. It's, if you haven't done something by your sophomore year, then are you even good? You know, I guess we cast judgment on guys and it takes years for people to change their opinion on what a guy can ultimately be. For instance, the Joe Burrow example. Joe Burrow, even in his first year at LSU, was as average as the day is long. I mean, I think at that year in 2018, he was like a 61% completion guy.

He was obviously an offense that wasn't necessarily suited to the skill set. And now he's released prior to the big contract. One of the best players in the world at his position. Hopefully he'll get back to that, of course, not taking shots at Joe. But there are guys where the light goes on a little bit further down the road. And you don't have to be a superstar day one, day two, day three, year one, year two, year three, to ultimately become a superstar down the road. So I completely agree with you with Penix's development. But I also think a lot of it has to do with his coaching staff. I think his offensive staff, the brain trust that he can lean into, Kalen DeBoer as head coach, and then Ryan Grubb, his offensive coordinator, they're as good as there is in college football as far as making their quarterback comfortable and creating favorable matchups against the defense.

When you're looking for whether or not, and DeBoer, everybody's raving about him and Grubb, but I forget who it was recently. It was like, I think in-game, Grubb is like one of the five best guys at making it happen. You see stuff the rest of us don't see. What do you, it doesn't even have to be specific to Pennix Jr. or the staff, but when you're watching a game whether it's in game or prep what are the things that you

see where you go this offense does a great job versus an offense where you're like they're not doing him any favors well me i always try to play the game when I'm watching the tape, whether I've watched it live or I'm watching it back on the coach's copy, I try to just kind of play the game. And I try to predict before the snap based on formation, what they're trying to do. And they are really unpredictable. I mean, I know that their identity is to push the ball down the field, intermediate and deep ball passing attack. So you can kind of lean in that direction. But the best thing that they do

is they're able to consistently create issues for the secondary by identifying guys that are potentially liabilities in coverage and they put their best weapon, and they have three of them, which is super helpful, but they can take their best weapon and say, all right, well, we want that receiver, Rome Adunze. We really want to work him in the slot here against this safety. And when we get in this formation, this safety is going to be responsible because they're going to

check to it or whatever. This is an oddball formation. This safety now is responsible for our best weapon, Romo Dunze. And he's going to be able to beat this guy to sleep. And then you look at just how much separation their guys are able to create. I mean, they are so open almost all the time. And Penix, by the way, it's easy to throw to open guys. But the next level NFL accuracy, he's easy to throw to open guys, but the next level

NFL accuracy, he's hitting guys right in the face mask. And then the run after catch, because of how accurate he is, makes them even more difficult to defend. So they're really unpredictable. They always seem to create really favorable matchups. And they do a really good job, I think, as far as the protection's concerned. I mean, Penix has been sacked on less than 1% of his past dropbacks. I mean, less than 1%. I remember when we were playing against Tom Brady, and this was when I was in New York with the Jets, that short, albeit infamous, few-year run. And I remember Rex Ryan saying in the team meeting before we played Tom Brady, every time he hands it off is a win for us as the defense. Every time he hands it off, that's a win.

Well, the same can be applied to Michael Penix because every time he drops back to pass, the Washington offense gains 11 and a half yards. Every single time he drops back to pass. So they do an amazing job of, I think, keeping teams a little bit off balance. They spread you horizontally and they create really favorable matchups.

So it's a fun one to watch. but there's a bunch of really cool offenses in college football and it started to matriculate its way up to the nfl but it's not all the way there just yet just because the players are so much more capable all right that was a very good answer uh i think that's a good segue into bama the floor floor is yours. Well, we've kind of gotten to a world in college football. And I think in some ways you can see it maybe in the NFL too, as well, is that the offensive lines are just not as good as the defensive lines across the board. You know, defensive lines are just better than offensive lines right now. And Alabama is really struggling along their offensive line. Now, a lot of people will point to the quarterback

because that's going to be more of a lightning rod for clicks and lightning rod for reaction. And just take the quarterbacks out of it for the moment. If you can't block them, you can't win. Simple as that. And right now, the offensive line line which was supposed to be the strength has been a liability and you can win without an elite offensive line i believe that especially the way college offenses utilize tempo and scrambling quarterbacks and things like that

you can win with that elite offensive line but you can't win with an offensive line that's a liability and right now they're having a hard time with the athleticism of the defensive fronts they've faced up at this point they've given up 10 s athleticism of the defensive fronts they've faced up at this point. They've given up 10 sacks in the last two weeks. They've given up countless pressures in the last few weeks, and granted, Texas is good, but USF not, and the athleticism on the edges are giving the tackles problems. Both tackles are over 360 pounds.

They thought they'd be a physically imposing run team, but that hasn't really materialized up to this point So they have to be more efficient in staying out of obvious passing situations. That's one Number two, they have to get creative with their protections because right now They're just putting those guys on islands and they're losing Now it's starting to realize all right. Well, we got to make an adjustment now We can't just do it the way we've done it. We have to make an adjustment

We have to give those guys help so they have to make an adjustment now. We can't just do it the way we've done it. We have to make an adjustment. We have to give those guys help. So they have to make an adjustment with their formations and their protections to protect both tackles. Number three, they have to do a better job, I think, at wide receiver in finding matchups that are really favorable. But in doing so, they have to find the guys that are capable of winning said matchups. Receiver play, even though the USF game kind of throw that one away for wide receivers, it was pouring rain. The ball was wet. It was a tricky day for wide outs in the passing game in general, but they got to find out who are the two or three guys that we can really trust consistently win those one-on-one matchups. It might be Amari Nyblak, who's a tight end, kind of an overgrown wide receiver. It might be Jermaine Burton, who's a transfer from Georgia,

has been probably the most reliable at this point. And Isaiah Bond are probably the three that you'll probably start with and seeing whether or not they can do those things consistently. And then four, at quarterback, you got to figure out right now who you got. Because I looked at Ohio State in week one against Indiana, and it looked like Kyle McCord, who was the starter going into that game, was constantly looking over his shoulder, scared to make a mistake because if he made a mistake, which he did, he'd get pulled in favor of Devin Brown. Devin Brown went into the game after McCord threw an interception, went three and out,

and they gave it back to McCord. But if your quarterback's apprehensive about cutting it loose, he's not going to play very well. Even for a guy that's as good as Jalen Hurts. And how good has Jalen Hurts become? If you look at Jalen Hurts in 2017 at Alabama, he was hesitant. He was gun shy. He wouldn't cut it loose because Tua Tungvaluwa was breathing down his neck. So he knew, I don't want to throw an interception. I don't want to take an unnecessary risk. I'm just going to kind of shell up and run. Or unless the guy's completely wide open, I don't want to throw an interception. I don't want to take an unnecessary risk. I'm just going to kind of shell up and run, or unless the guy's completely wide open, I'm not going to cut it loose.

So I think they have to establish, this is our guy. You're number one permanently. You're number two. You're number three. And right now, given the issues that they're having along the offensive line, I really believe that Jalen Milrow

gives them the best chance to be successful. Now, you're going to have to do quarterback run game with him. You're going to have to do design quarterback runs, quarterback sweeps, zone reads, quarterback powers, and give your offensive line an extra blocker because it becomes very difficult to contain quarterback run because the running back or the fullback can now become a blocker and now you have an extra gap and it just becomes a lot trickier. So Jalen Milrow gives you the best option knowing that your offensive line has been really leaky, but he's got to be more decisive. And in the event in which he continues to turn the ball over, that's the one thing that Bama just absolutely can't do. You give away to Ty Simpson, who

has a really high ceiling, but maybe not yet the confidence needed to be the down and down out starter. He just needs to play. He just hasn't played yet. But in time, if you can work him in against top level competition, that would be beneficial. But you also don't want to do so by forcing the quarterback that's starting in Jalen Milrow to be looking over his shoulder. So I think you established that Milrow is the one right now. Then you go with Ty in the event in which Milrow turns it over. And then if Ty can't get it done, maybe you go with Ty in the event in which Milrow turns it over. And then if Ty can't get it done, maybe you think about going with the true freshman, Dylan Lonergan,

who's impressed everybody, but is really young and is probably as a true freshman going to be a little mistake prone. This all leads to a much bigger conversation. And it's kind of like, you know, um, arguing against plate tectonics, you know, where you're like, oh, I didn't shift today, you know, and it's like, what, what is your stance? Your stance is that one day they wouldn't move. And that's kind of how I feel about Alabama. It's like a Brady thing, you know, like Brady throws a pick against Tennessee year 17, 18. And you're like, oh, okay, you're going to have done the playoffs this time. That's how I feel about Alabama. So anybody that's like, oh, I don't know. I don't know now. And you're like, well, this time that's how i feel about alabama so anybody that's like oh i don't know i don't know now and you're like well wait what what like the 15 years don't

count i know nobody's actually that ridiculous but there was such i don't know you'd be surprised true there was such an urgency to write them off because as we both know working tv and i tell this audience all the time like the best you could do to get on the shows is be the first guy to say that BAM is done. Like it's kind of my Paul Feinbaum joke. Like he'll be like, hey, do you think any coach should be fired? Yeah. Okay, cool. We got you in the A's.

And be like, all right, sit down there and say the guy should be fired. And that's cool. We'll just keep it moving. So I just, I just don't believe that can like, it'll be over at some point. And maybe this is the bad year. But the bad year will then lead to, and it's already happening a little bit, that now this run is over.

And I'm always of the mind of like, they got to go six and six before I see something like that. What do you think about like the bigger picture part of this? Because there's another part of me is like if they have a bad year at quarterback, then Bama is going to crank up

the transfer portal for a quarterback like we've never ever seen before. But what do you think about the bigger picture? Where is the Bama ship going as you watch this play out? Which I think is a fair carryover, despite I think those losses are good losses and how they lost last year, but collectively that team wasn't as complete. It was a lot of Bryce Young. 100%. I think that it's all fair. It's a completely reasonable conversation to have. And here's how I've kind of poised it up to this point, Ryan, is that the gap that Alabama at one time had between everybody else is significantly smaller.

And that goes for pretty much every team in college football. The margins are smaller, partly because you no longer have the depth. For instance, back in the 70s, Bear Bryant could recruit 12 quarterbacks a year if he wanted to. There were no scholarship limitations, so you could just recruit as many guys as you want and stash them on your roster just so Auburn doesn't get one, or Tennessee doesn't get one, or Georgia doesn't get one.

And you're no longer afforded that luxury. Because if you aren't, I guess, playing or playing meaningful minutes as a young player, you're going to look for greener pastures. How do I get on the field? I'm going to transfer out. So what Alabama has always done a remarkable job of, they've obviously recruited really well. We understand that. But they've always really done an amazing job of developing the players. And it's a lot harder to develop now because you're not going to just sit there and be content with all the scout team reps that you can possibly handle. You're not going to be as content not playing meaningful minutes against top flight, or I can develop as a backup, get 20 to 25 snaps a game and be an elite player as a junior. Instead, I can just go and be a guy and play 60 snaps and hopefully

accelerate my development and get to the league faster. And that's happening at a lot of different places. So I think that's something that they're trying to juggle. And as a result, they've had to go really young at a few different positions. The left tackle is a true freshman. Jalen Milrow is a third-year player. Ty Simpson is a second-year player. I mentioned Dylan Lonergan, who could potentially find his way to the lineup as a true freshman. You have a bunch of freshmen and sophomore wide receivers. You have some freshmen along the defensive front seven. You have a true freshman starting at safety. So they're a lot younger than they used to be. And while Alabama's relied on freshmen in the past, they have had enough veteran guys around those freshmen to be able to kind of cover up what mistakes a freshman might make out there playing meaningful minutes. So I don't think Bama's run

of winning and being able to beat every team on their schedule is over. I think Alabama can beat every team they play. The problem is they used to be able to play their B minus game and still win. And no longer is that the case. They have to play their A game to win the game. And if they play B plus and the other team that they're playing against plays A minus, the other team they're playing against with an A minus performance is going to win. So the margins are much smaller, partly because of the portal, partly because their youth at certain positions they didn't have six, seven years ago. And the fact that everybody, their entire offseason is really dedicated to,

hey, here's how we neutralize this team. So when you beat Bama, you rush the field. I mean, it's a big, big game on every single team's schedule. And for a team that's young, yeah, for a team that's young, that's a difficult amount of pressure to kind of shoulder and to carry into you every single time you take the field. Okay, last Bama thing, and then I want to ask you about Colorado.

You know, you got to know Nick pretty well, I imagine, as a starter. I always kind of think it's funny because going into 2010 when you had three losses, which is like the other bad season, and I'm using air quotes. And I thought that team was more talented than the teams that won national titles around it. I thought that team was stacked, but you know, you lost to some good teams. The South Carolina lost the, the LSU loss, the Auburn loss still, I imagine haunting, but what, what always impresses me about Saban, if I hear like little stories, you know,

years later, just how clear the message is and how adaptable he may be to the team. So that even though from the outside it can feel rigid and inflexible, that actually there's a way that he'll still be trying to keep everybody's eyes focused on what it is they're doing. What is that relationship like when you feel like you're going through a stressful stretch with a program that's not used to these stressful stretches? What's Saban like in these moments? Well, dating back to my experience in 10, I mean, we lost two games by a combined four points,

you know, and we lost badly to South Carolina where Alshon Jeffrey just killed our true freshman corner, who was Dee Milner, who ultimately went on three years later to be a first round pick. But Alshon Jeffrey just killed our true freshman corner, who was Dee Milner, who ultimately went on three years later to be a first-round pick. But Alshon Jeffrey was a fourth-year junior and mossed on him every time they threw the ball his direction.

So sometimes those things happen. What I've noticed with Coach is when you're riding high, and believe me, there have been a million examples in which the teams I played for or the teams that have come since, when you're riding high, he's going to rip you to shreds. I mean, he's going to wear you out. And you can always kind of tell how edgy he is in the press conference based on the team's confidence level. And I think this team is really struggling from a confidence standpoint.

So as a result, he's going to take the other side of the coin where you'd think, hey, he's going to rip you to shreds because you're playing poorly. No, no, no, no. Very much the opposite. He's going to build you up and tell you how great you are when you're playing poorly. And when you're playing great, he's going to rip you to shreds

so you can come back to earth a little bit and understand that winning is not a birthright. So he does an amazing, I think that's why the program over the last 15 years has been so insanely consistent is because the guys are never too high with the highs and too low with the lows. He tries to build you up when you're down.

He tries to tear you down when you're up. And as a result, you try to stay as steady as humanly possible. So I would imagine with this group right now, there's a lot of love that they're feeling from coach. I think he's probably showing them all the things that how close they are on certain things. How, hey, if we do this, guys, look at the result, as opposed to if they win the game by 40. Hey, here's the play you screwed up on, even though it resulted in a sack, you screwed up this coverage.

You know what I mean? So he has a tendency to meet you in the middle and adjust his own approach based on what he believes the team needs. So I would imagine right now it's a lot of love going on in Tuscaloosa behind closed doors. I made the argument in the beginning

that no matter how you feel about colorado this is just great it's great for football i like that people are concerned about outcomes of a team's games that they would have never cared prior to deon showing up in boulder are they good though it's a great question um it's a it's like a pop culture, like phenomenon, you know what I mean? Like Deion Sanders is a phenomenon. I don't really know how else to describe it. And I've never, Ryan, I've been doing this 10 years and I've been around sports my whole life.

And my dad worked in pro sports forever. I have never been around a more polarizing team. And it's, it's truly amazing. a more polarizing team. And it's truly amazing. I personally, we remain unbiased when we covered the college football landscape, but I'm rooting for Colorado. I think it's drawn people in. And people that maybe never had an interest in the sport are now watching and caring. I mean, I turn on 60 Minutes after the afternoon games go final. Well, I didn't turn it on, but it stayed on

before I switched over to NBC to watch Sunday Night Football. And I got to watch this Deion Sanders interview. He's on 60 Minutes and you got game day there. You got Fox Big Noon kickoff there. I mean, you got all this coverage that is being heaped onto a team that really up to this point

has been nothing in college football for 20 years. And then you look at who's on the sideline. I mean, Dwayne Johnson's there. The Rock, right? I mean, he's there. You got Lil Wayne leading him out of the tunnel.

You know, you got Master P playing offset in ping pong in the locker room. You got Key Glock, who did a performance in their locker room after the game. And then you got Kyle Lowry. You got Chauncey Billups. People are interested, and it's really a remarkable thing. But I think they have major, major, major flaws. Shador Sanders is incredible, and it's a reminder that the quarterback position is the ultimate neutralizer in college football.

If you have a great quarterback, you always have a chance, always. And I think they are signaling more of a shift in college football to where if you have super elite weapons and you have super elite personnel at wide receiver, much like the NFL, I mean, look at what Justin Jefferson's doing.

Look at how many first round wide receivers have been taken in the last however many drafts because people now recognize this is a game that's played in space. So if I can get great, dynamic, catch-and-run dudes on the perimeter, it doesn't matter how good my offensive line is. And frankly, if the other team's doing it to me,

it doesn't matter how good my defensive line is. So I think their offensive line is as average as the day is long. So far, Shador's taken a ton of hits. I think prior to last week, I don't know exactly how many times he got dropped last week, but he'd given up 11 sacks in two games, a ton of pressures that he's faced up to this point. So I think the offensive line is a huge liability. I think the defensive line is going to be

susceptible against a team that can pound it. And unfortunately for them, there's a lot of teams that are going to face in the next few weeks that can pound the football. Oregon will be the first test. That's next week. Oregon's about three touchdown favorite right now. And everyone loves Oregon. They're the real deal. I totally, totally subscribe to the fact that they are legit. A playoff contender, a national championship contender potentially as well. Oregon's going to pound it. We'll find out then. Then they play SC. They can pound it. Other teams in the Pac-12, they can pound it. Oregon State, they live to pound it. UCLA, they can pound it. Oregon State, they live to pound it. UCLA, they can pound it.

So while they are so far ahead of schedule, Ryan, they are such a fun story. They are so, so exciting to watch. I don't know if it's going to be a steak and potatoes outfit. And in order to win big and make playoff runs and to win conference championships, you got to have some steak and potatoes outfit. And in order to win big and make playoff runs and to win conference championships, you got to have some steak and potatoes in addition to all the sizzle and speed that they have on the perimeter. So I think it could come crashing down here pretty soon. But my goodness, in the time that it's been alive, it's been truly a remarkable thing for college

sports. This was great, man. I enjoy you on the broadcast every Saturday and look forward to having you on again. Thanks, Greg. I can't wait, buddy. Appreciate it. We are supported by NFL Sunday Ticket on YouTube and YouTube TV. If you're a Displaced fan, NFL Sunday Ticket is an absolute must-have.

And now that it's on YouTube and YouTube TV, it's easier than ever to keep up with all of your favorite teams on Sunday afternoon since you can watch four preset games at once on multi-view. I enjoy the views, the multi-views. Four teams that I want to watch. Let's see how it's all packaged together.

Boom, I'm in the screen, and then I'm in and out. It's very easy navigation. As. I'm in the screen and then I'm in and out. It's very easy navigation. As I look ahead to week three, I want to see Denver go on the road against Miami. And I want to watch Sean Payton and Russell Wilson on the sideline. And I want to see Tua again, as I still try to figure this whole thing out. Is Miami actually the best team in the AFC? I want to see Justin Herbert on the road against Minnesota. I want to watch New England and the Jets because I want to watch New England and the Jets because I want to see if the Pats are going to go 0-3 against Zach Wilson.

And finally, I want to see a little... I think I want to see a little Justin Fields against Kansas City, perhaps a little later in the day because I am worried. I'm very worried. Thanks to NFL Sunday Ticket on YouTube and YouTube TV for sponsoring this segment.

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They say money can't buy happiness. Look at the fucking smile on my face. Ear to ear, baby. 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. Lifeadvice know what's possible. Let me tell you what's required. Life advice. Lifeadvicerr at gmail.com. What's up, Kyle? What's up, Steve? How are your weekends?

Yeah, it's been better. All good. Nice to see the Pats are practicing their late-game laterals, though. That's cool. That was pretty sick, to be honest. Almost. I'm not, like, even, I have no dog in the race. I just don't know how you overturned that call. You bet on dog races.

But yeah, it was a tough pod for you and Bill last night, so sorry. Tough week for me, by the way. I'm just getting shit left and right for my college football picks. They haven't been good. I hit my first week 0-3 since. Alabama let me down. That's why we did some stuff on Alabama today. My bad. I'll turn it around. It's all right. It's all hot and cold streaks.

Welcome to giving out picks and everybody reminding you when you lose and never telling you when you win. It's a fun game. Did I tell you the story about uh there was an agent thing where it was like a certain department that i wasn't sort of like really familiar with and it was like an intro and it was my agent and then he was connecting me with a different department so it was a different agent and then like a couple other agents and then it was like oh hey great to meet you and everybody tells you how great you are. I mean, it's be pretty silly for an agent to be like, not a huge fan, but let's see if we can figure something out.

And one guy who was obviously a little bit younger was like, oh, my God, used to listen to you at SVP all the time. Used to fade. You constantly made a ton of money. And I was like, yeah, OK. Thanks, guy. I was like, was 500 like five of the six years. You know, it's kind of a joke with me. All the last year was really bad. And I was like, it's always funny when I meet somebody and they're like, Oh, I made all this money when I paid you. And it basically like, I don't brag about doing great because I don't do great. But at the same time, like, what the fuck? And then I said it on the group email. You know, I i was like it's always funny when i meet you guys whatever we've not seen an email from that guy since on anything i have i have a feeling the department may have been like why don't you why don't you chill out a little bit

with the correspondents we're gonna sidebar over here a little bit without you sorry yeah we're gonna put you in the music space for a little bit sign yeah i don't know he's probably listening to this now sorry dude but yeah i just like we're all working on something else and i saw that i was like you know i'm gonna respond specifically i have thoughts to that okay uh question real quick one before we get to the two submissions love the pod 42 42, Leo. We're good on the, we don't need your, you did it. We read it.

That's not an invitation for everybody else to start doing it. 6'3", somewhere between 250 and 275. I refused to weigh myself. Player comp, Bill Wennington, but not freakishly tall. Love Bill Wennington. I'm taking my nine-year-old son to Australia next summer. Sorry, young Ryan. Okay. Stop. all love bill winnington i'm taking my nine-year-old son to australia next summer sorry young ryan okay stop we would be flying from toronto to brisbane via la my son suggested we spend three or four days in la to check out disneyland hollywood etc i immediately thought of popping

by the frolic room am i allowed or is anyone allowed to bring children to the frolic room um that's a question for kyle i wouldn't recommend it although like i said a lot of times the the bouncer who's supposed to be there just isn't there so um it'd be a roll of the dice but you know you risk now somebody's gonna tell you not to bring a kid in although there's plenty of dogs in there, which for some reason is fine. But I don't think it's. Well, I mean, I don't know. It's like, you know, animals around like consumables.

It's not really like, OK, but I guess for some reason, kids around beer is definitely not OK. So I would say it's not going to work out and you're probably going to get yelled at. So I wouldn't do it. I would. I mean, there's a Funko store, a Funko store like a block away. If he could entertain himself. No, I'm just kidding. He's not.

Nine, that part of town. So from Toronto. Yeah. I'd suggest it like twenty nine. It's not the safest. Am I wrong on that one? No. I think you just I think you're not gonna be able to do it man sorry okay all right so we had another guy just sending pictures of uh oh okay wait a minute

this is two different emails because there was just a million weird emails over the weekend i don't know what you guys were getting into but like one guy just sent pictures of a hot girl and it wasn't like to click on to virus it and then now i'm realizing wait a minute there was more emails here so it's just it's just hard to keep track of of some of the threads um we had a lot of people people pretty mad at saruti last week so we'll just we'll just let that go about the bama pic what no no not about the bama pick oh maybe bama fans but uh there was a few professors that were actually really upset with you suggesting because of the shane gillis commentary that reading makes you conservative and then somebody sent us a study

and some stats and stuff and um let's just say the input was appreciated and we're probably just not going to go through it all. Did I say that was definitively a yes? I don't think I did. I just think it's another example. I have like a 20-30 minute thing on this, but there's just something incredibly true about not ever mentioning anything political because all you're

going to do is piss off a portion of your audience and you know i'm sure some of you would be like well why wouldn't you want to piss off that side it's like yeah they're saying the same exact thing about you and if you're you know at espn in the beginning they were like what like that guy that guy said who he voted for like what the fuck's wrong with you you know just all you're doing is inviting a bunch of people that had been listening to you to question why they want to listen to you because people are so passionate about it so um even with the shane gillis commentary and us laughing about it and the fact the reason i even brought it up is because i saw shane gillis live and big cat nudges me while he's going on this rant about once you read history because big cat knows how much i love to read about history and he's just looking at it because

he's talking about you dude he's talking about you and uh i thought that was kind of funny and then it kind of turned into something else and you know here we are so wait i i don't even think it's worth it but go ahead go ahead i'm just could i at least what are they mad at me about that i that i that i was like that i had, this flag that I thought was the U.S. men's national team flag. Like what's there to be? I saw a couple of guys over the weekend that were like tweeting at me being like, dude, Tea Party started like five years before that.

You're ignorant. I'm like, you know, if I was real locked in on the Tea Party timeline, maybe that would be more of an indicator that I was a huge asshole. This is why I didn't want to do it. I'm sorry. Like I, I don't. I wasn't even talking about that. I was leaving that one alone because we had plenty of feedback on that one, too.

I was keeping it strictly to assorted professors that were upset that they felt like we were generalizing, even though we weren't. We were referencing the Shane Gillis joke. So I always wonder if people lie about their backgrounds in these things. I mean, it's not a tweet. So maybe they're sending you from the EDU email. But I always wonder if people are like, Oh, yeah, actually, my dad did this for years. And I'm also an expert. And it's like, well, maybe you're just upset about it, too. It's hard to verify some of these things. Are you like, are we getting.edu emails? Or are these just, you know, somebody who like would sound better if they were a professor? you know, somebody who like would sound better if they were a professor. It's a really good point on Twitter. I would not believe it. Uh, some of these emails were specific enough and I wasn't even looking at the.edu where I felt like it was professors just trying to give us a different perspective on it. And whenever anybody kind of goes resume on you

to win an argument, like I forget, I forget who it was, but somebody was making an argument about the economy. He was a public figure. And then somebody else told him that he was wrong. And then he was like, well, I do have an econ degree. It's like, so what does that mean? You're just right about everything now? Every economic debate, you just win? You know, imagine me arguing politics with somebody and then being like, well, I did study poli-sci at UVM.

Right, Tony Soprano. I got a semester and a half of college. I understand this psychology bullshit. Like, actually, the electric college does not work that way. I am a poli-sci major. Do have a degree. I would never, ever do that. So, all right.

Let's just get to balding. Way simpler. Everybody's on the same page with that one. Although some people aren't. All right. 27, 5, 7, 135. Quick. Inside slot guy.

Quick routes. Not a lot of great pickup hoops comparisons at my size. So, I'll go softball instead. Hit leadoff for my squad. And teammates have caught me to Tony Gwynn because I get on base all the time but only hit singles. That's great. Huge fan. Been listening since middle school when I put on Scott and Ryan while I did my homework. Well, this guy couldn't fade us because he was 12. He did it. This is

while he did his homework, which is a random fact we relevant later. So you did your homework watching us. All right. We're at Saturday morning and I need the advice of the council was shaping up to be pretty standard. One got out early to run a few errands before the college football games kicked off. And along the way, I decided to stop and get a haircut. Nothing major. Just wanted to get cleaned up ahead of a wedding I'm going to next weekend. I won't call out the establishment I went to, but I like the convenience of being able to walk right in and get a great haircut. I check in online while I'm at the store. When I arrive, I get matched up with the only

available stylist. I'm not really concerned about it. My haircut is pretty simple and things usually go smoothly. She sits me down in the chair and asks me what I want, goes to work. As she gets started, she's making no effort to chat with me. I'm fine with this for the record as I'm kind of an introverted guy and cringe every time I'm asked what I do for work or have any plans for the day. Strangers ask you if you have any plans for the day. I mean, I guess if you're getting your haircut, sure. My barber always asks me what I had for lunch. It's like he's tapped out if I'm like the fifth guy and he's just like, what did you have for lunch?

What are you going to eat for dinner? And I'm like, I don't know why. I'm uncomfortable. I had a roommate like that, though. We'd eat lunch and he'd be like what do you think we're gonna do for dinner he didn't even he just wanted to talk about it guy loved food but that's your friend right yeah I mean I've moved away from like a different part of the city now so I pretty much only see him you know outside of like that one-off beer thing so just when like we did we get over

like how are things going how are the rabbits still alive? Blah, blah, blah. And then it'll just be, like, quiet for five, ten minutes. And he's like, what'd you have for lunch? I'm like, come on, man. Come on. Don't. Don't do this. He cares about you. All right.

So midway through, out of nowhere, she says to me, quote, you know you're getting thin back here. Oh, Jesus Christ. I'm stunned. Don't know what to say before I can even respond. She says, it looks like it's still growing, but it's getting tight. Followed immediately by, you know, there's this product called Bosley that can really help with that. I think you'd be an ideal candidate for them. At this point, my head is spinning. Am I really going bald at 27? Is it bad enough that I need to start messing with the creams? Do the creams even help? I was just trying to get freshened up before Saturday on the couch watching ball. Now I'm

completely distracted by whatever is going on in the part of my head that I can't see. Still shook. I don't know how to respond. I eventually blurted out, thanks for the heads up, and the rest of the haircut continues in silence while I worry about something that's totally out of my vision and control. After after she finishes she walks me to the register ring me up on the way though she stops by the shelf with all the hair products they have for sale she points out the five-ish different bosley products they have on the shelf and lets me know which one she recommends for me saying if i use it i'll see results in as little as two weeks what is her name amanda Bosley? What the fuck?

At this point, my attention goes up. I've watched enough SVP and we're still on ESPN News over the years to know that's the exact line they use on their TV commercials. I'm now furious and more confused.

Was I going bald or she has some incentive to sell me the product? Well, clearly she has the incentive. I declined to buy the product, pay for my haircut, got the hell out of there. I just want to put this behind me.

Don't we all? But now I'm going to spend the rest of the weekend at least thinking about it yes you will and beyond that weekend likely so here's where I ask for advice what do you guys think should I be concerned about this or am I being scammed also should I ever go back to this establishment again knowing they made me worry about this but what was supposed to be a beautiful relaxing Saturday

attached is a picture for your review. Thanks in advance. He gives us some stats. All right, look, the pic is, he sends us a pic here. You know, kind of the root of the male scalp there where the hair is kind of growing out. Like I'm looking at the picture and you can see a little stuff, which you already know because you sent us the picture, but I don't see a surrounding thinning area. It could be the start. I'm not going to, you know, I'm not going to tell you a lie here. I just can't tell with

this picture. I mean, again, I can go through my own history where I started feeling it fall out like pretty early on in my twenties. And I was like, is my hair just falling out? Or, you know, like, cause your hair does fall out. Even when you have a healthy head of hair, you just would find hair. So it wasn't like at the bottom of the shower, all of a sudden it was like, what the fuck's going on there. And then a dude who was losing his hair was like five years older than me. He got so excited when he caught me at this angle. He was like, dude, I think you're losing your hair. And he did it right in front of everybody. I think he was pretty drunk. And of course I'm like, no, I'm not. I thought I could just, if I was just confident enough, it would stop the hair loss. I was like, I'm not, I'm not. It's like when I get sick,

I'll be like, I'm not sick. Nope it's like when i get sick i'll be like i'm not sick nope like wait a minute am i sick a little nope i'm not sick right i believe in that stuff it doesn't work with hair apparently so then there was a time where when i was working for the minor league baseball team i was there was a picture of me out in the field during a night game i don't know i was probably fucking fixing a fence in between innings and there was a picture of me and it was just under you know baseball stadium lights and i saw my head i would go whoa i'm like what the fuck is going on they are sick dude right i'm like that looks weird and then another buddy checked it later that year and i was like 26 turning 27 and then it was like okay this is on and then it was just that patch for a long time and so i remember even when i was still

in vermont it was falling out i asked the hairdresser i was like hey like sometimes i feel like my hair's like what's going on back there and i think she was a little sweet on me and that's the thing as i think if the the hairdresser in this case stylist bro are you blowing your nose on the show well i gotta do it because uh sometimes they don't if they don't see it then they won't fucking edit it out and then there's a bunch of sniffles in uh and a nose blow and so i need to do it where the producer can see it because otherwise if it's not super overt it'll just stay in there now that you know all right well let's leave that one in okay um okay but everyone got that one there was a lot of feedback there was a lot of feedback on on friday's episode that that you somebody they couldn't tell because it's audio

they're like was somebody dying the whole time? That's what I'm saying. It's got to be edited out to the folks behind the scenes here. Okay. All right. So to keep it moving here, she, I don't think, was telling me the truth because she liked me as a customer and whatever. So I don't think you're in immediate danger here. But if it's going to bother you this

much, again, when it happened to me, it was like 20 years ago. There are things that can, I'm not saying you get a book, a flight to Turkey here, but there are things that I believe can help as far as, you know, I've already done the rant a million different times, the foams, the creams, the whole thing didn't happen. I tried to get Propecia and the doctor like told me to fuck off. And then I was like, I think I want to start training MMA. And he's like, no. And I was like, what is going on? My shoulders messed up.

Can we get that fixed? And he was like, no. And I was like, wow, this has been super helpful. I'm going to be a pussy and bald. So, um, so I, I think you need to get to somebody who's not trying to sell you a ton of products on the way out. That's not going to make you feel great. Like the first time you realize it might be on, I don't wish that on my worst enemy. I just don't. And you know, whatever we had to go through for those of us

that lost our hair. And especially for me, it was like, well, at least I'm not on TV was always the joke of my friends be like, well, at least you're not going to work somewhere where losing your hair would be a problem. And they would all laugh. And I'd be like, yeah, cool. Um, it really bummed me out. It was something I was thinking about. It was something. So to avoid that potentially, and it may not be avoidable, but in this case, I think there are some things that are less dangerous that you can actually talk to somebody about here. Uh, the picture's not terrible, but it's undecided. It's also not great. It's also not great because I don't know what it looked like before that.

What does the back of your dome look like five years ago? Because I see a little spot, but I don't see the thinning rings. And some people actually have that sort of spot that little cowlick that little spot that just sort of exists where you're always at a certain angle going to see the scalp and that's what your yours kind of kind of looks like right now and i have no other comp because you probably didn't take this picture of the back of your head when you were 17 right because why would you it's definitely it's right it's it's definitely uh an incentive of this person to be like you know to prey on the insecurities of dudes by just blindsiding them with like hey just so you know it's not going

so great back here but in the same breath be like also this corner right here has got the 70 products this one's 100 if you really don't want to lose it and it's like that's probably not the place to make all your decisions but um would you be, would I be correct in assuming that this game is kind of a lot more about preventative stuff than regenerative stuff? Yes. Right. So it might be a good time to start doing this, but I don't think, you know, Pam at Supercuts or wherever you went is like the person to shepherd you through this. So I think, I don't know, go like make an appointment somewhere. So I think, I don't know, go like make them make an appointment somewhere.

And then, you know, with somebody who's like maybe some sort of medical person who like isn't just like trying to rack up their commissions on top of their, you know, $35 walk in haircuts. Yeah. Isn't there some sort of like online consultation thing you can do? And they'll just send I'm pretty sure they just send like creams to your door and just put them in your hair. And I don't know. The commercials look great. Well, OK, but I don't i don't know about any of that stuff i never dabbled in that world i got into the you know fuck them i got into the rogaine foam game and then didn't do shit and then that's when later on rogaine foam sent reps because they were doing a big buy at espn i saw the guy in the hallway and then he's like looks like you could use some foam and I wanted to fucking tackle him.

I could use a different kind of foam actually. I've actually been using your product and it sucks big time. I wasn't going to blow the deal for the sales guys because I like the sales guys other than they always keep all the tickets. Cillow's got a vendetta and they take the deal. I just was like right hand

trembling. Saving Private Ryan. Just like... was like right hand trembling um saving private ryan you know just like so look you can get on it but like to sruti's point i don't know that world i don't know that world i don't know if the these i see the ads for look the exact the ads exist back in the day like when vim pelt and i talked about it he's like did you ever order the dvd from the place and i was like yeah the transplant one like ordered it watched it seemed pretty great glanced at it yeah and then i then i saw a guy at the gym doing tricep pushdowns who had like the equator one inch above his eyebrows of stitched in seating. And I went, what is that? He's got like a Teresa from Housewives brow. And I'm like, I don't want that.

I was like, I'm out. I'll just try to have big arms. All right. I think we covered a lot of stuff. I don't know if you're going to feel any better. All right. This one's really weird. It isn't, but it is.

Okay. Uh, 27 male. Okay. Thank you for that. Six, four, 203 pounds. I like how guys are weighing in right before they send an email. Uh, I focus more on higher reps at the gym, so I don't have an impressive personal best. I can do 40 push-ups and eight pull-ups in a row. I'm surprised if you can do 40 push-ups in a row that you can only do eight pull-ups in a row. I mean, eight's good, but 203 pounds? Long arms, though, probably. So I broke up with my... So now that we've shit on your pull-ups.

So I broke up with my girlfriend, or excuse me, long-term partner, I guess in this case, the same thing because we have pictures. Four months ago, pretty serious, had a home together. The breakup was the best for both of us. And I've moved on pretty quickly because things weren't working. Anyway, recently I randomly received a follow on Instagram from a pretty girl. We started chatting and fast forward to this weekend.

She stayed over. Yeah, fast forward. I think she is physically stunning. She has a fantastic personality. It's obviously very early days, but things are going well. There's a catch though. She looks incredibly similar to my ex. I've attached photos.

Please don't share these. No problem. We're a vault. I've spoken about it with my best mates and every single reaction has been a mix of shock and laughter followed by the line, you obviously have a type. What do I do? My plan wasn't to rush into a relationship. I've been pretty happy being single, but ultimately I want to be in a relationship with the right person.

I've been presented with an opportunity to get to know this beautiful girl who seems like a great match for me. It seems crazy to just throw that away, especially because I don't care. All right, so what are we even talking about here? To me, they're totally different people i don't think i'm seeing my ex when i look at her but i understand that other people will have a different reaction part of me is like who cares what other people think great rule great rule if you can convince yourself of it um not because they don't care they don't care as much as we all think they do. But I also don't like the idea of everyone in the background making the same joke. It's not really that bad of a joke. If, if both, both of them are very attractive and they're similar in features, I, you know,

what's the joke? Oh, Stan's date, a hot girl again, brown hair, you know, it's not even a good joke. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. The guy has a real specific range. Might not invite him to stuff. I'm 100% sure if I were to start bringing her to things, people who I'm less familiar with refer to her as my ex, we would likely have to explain this multiple times. How do I talk about this with a new girl? Last twist, they know each other. What? Wow.

They follow each other on Instagram. My ex likes her photos. I've never met the new girl before. What? he's flying into la he wants to know if he can go to the frolic room to the frolic room has anyone ever got more exposure when we start getting some checks here seriously a couple jamesons a couple beers fall off the truck when i'm i'm there but that's about it uh but uh hey some guy just uh hustling dough donuts just sent a bunch of donuts when i wasn't there so i love it when they get good shit when I'm not there because I just, I mean, that just makes me feel great anyway. Yeah. You can totally come. No kids.

Okay. He wants to know if he can go and then he's Brian. Are you interested in girls like this? Apparently I attract them. I could set you up. Nice. He's got a, he's got a great name and he says his game is like Nene.

Hilario. Okay. Here's the thing. He sent in the two pictures, man. I don't think they look the same. I personally think one looks a lot better than the other one. And he doesn't let me know which one is which. Yes.

I was afraid at first when I was going through all of these way too fast. I was like, oh, this guy's got a, you know, a two face. Just like, hey, here's a picture of her in one event. And here's a picture or another one. Not to say that they're not both attractive. It's just one picture's better. I don't know that anyone would disagree with me.

It's whichever one you want it to be, man. Whichever one you're dating, that's the one I'm saying is better. Go ahead. I've talked too much already. I just have a quick question. All right. We got no background other than she just randomly followed him and they just started talking and now they're now they're hooking up

like she dm'd him she's uh you know no i know but like that doesn't happen all the time and she's also friends with your not friends or whatever but at least knows your ex through social circles like is anybody else kind of weird out by that girls follow each other for no reason more than guys do though you know i think it's like yes like oh there's a mutual friend here and you know whatever and and so they're up so pretty you look great hard eyes or something and i don't think dudes are like like the little cut of this guy's jib uh see look it says he knows todd says he knows Todd. All right. Maybe, maybe, maybe I'll follow him. So I think it's just, I think that's more, that's more of a woman thing.

That's almost said female there. Almost said female, but I didn't. I could tell you almost said something. I was like, what? This also could be they're from maybe the same area clearly the guy's not from the states so maybe we're talking about a a smaller city somewhere internationally hamlet yeah yeah a holla uh i don't so i don't i don't i think you're right serena at least like hey what's the deal but since they've already hung out and they know each other and there's a chance that you could actually

date her like if it were hey i gotta follow and i'm dming whether i haven't met up with her yet but she knows my ex or whatever like what do i do but i mean all you're really asking here is you know you're 27 so you're still probably a little bit more concerned what your friend group thinks uh than you should uh and you'll learn that as you get older which you've already covered but i mean this is really simple like if you like hanging out with this person and the only hang-up the only hang-up is that she is from the same family tree of attraction of the girl that you previously were dating and you apparently were living with i mean it's it could be it could be something that's challenging where you say to her, hey, just so you know, you look a little bit like my ex and people may screw that up.

And maybe that could bum her out a little bit. But ultimately, none of that stuff really matters if you're both getting along really well and you want to keep seeing this person. I mean, that would be one of the dumbest reasons ever to not continue to see somebody now if you start saying like hey maybe you should wear this sweater and wear this perfume yeah because some guys will like miss the person so badly that they'll like try to look for the clone replacement and that's not even what you're doing you know i think girls do that sometimes too a lot they'll like try to you know like dress the new guy or tell him to get the haircut or he's just a terrible dresser yeah that's also true yeah like overalls huh hey look i got some deodorant today at cbs

tommy bahama again oh interesting there's a pretty good chance your girlfriend's buying you deodorant that it's not a similarity issue well she did just get me to switch brands i don't like it i'm a degree guy but whatever no but, she did just get me to switch brands. I don't like it. I'm a degree guy, but whatever. No, but that's a lesson out there. If you start dating somebody and then they start getting you like toiletry products,

you know, like, Hey, I guess the toothbrushes were two for one portable mouthwash. You can bring it with you anywhere. It's alcohol free. Is that, was that the hang up here?

Alcohol. Uh, but, uh, I think the only reason this would have been weird is if the ex was, like, terrible. And, like, I don't know, it stole from you or cheated on you. Or, like, it slept with your friend group, like, five years. Everyone in the friend group, like, five years before you guys got together.

Like, unless there was, like, some terrible thing attached to this ex, there's really, like, it's not a big deal. Because that's when the jokes would get maybe mean and hurtful. It's like, oh,'s really like it's not a big deal because that's when the jokes would get maybe mean and hurtful it's like oh she looks like she's heading down the same path or something but because you said it was like a mutual breakup it was the best thing for everyone unless you know she was like a a nightmare for your friend group to deal with like there shouldn't there wouldn't be anything more than just like oh john's got a type like you know so i think in the absence of any of that kind of stuff that i think you're you're good to go here even if she you do have a type sounds

like you do have a type buddy uh that's okay i think we all have types i mean i have a type you know look attractive is attractive so if somebody were to say to you be like oh you wouldn't date somebody who looks like this and you're like well wait it's not rule start ruling stuff out but if i have a preference or like any one of us, male, female, I don't care who you are. There's something that you're more attracted to, less attracted to. And in this case, you know, again, I don't think these pictures, I can't tell if this guy's a genius for submitting it this way and not telling me which one is which just to see how it would play out. if i would specifically say something about it but i'm not going to say now i imagine he's probably going to follow up at some

point yeah well i personally might know i feel like he might i feel like he might know one pick is insane yeah okay sorry well either way i would just say five ten years from now if this ends up working out and you know you're you said you're like a boyfriend guy that's not there's nothing wrong with that i was kind of that way a little bit growing up um no one's out here like you just like to be a boyfriend you're not yeah you're just not i'm not like a you know i'm not like a just a casual dater like i like to be in a. You're not. Yeah, you're just not. I'm not like, you know, I'm not like just a casual dater. Like I like to be in a relationship. Right.

For in high school, I was kind of like that. And either way, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. I'll be alone. If this works out five or 10 years from now, no one's going to remember that at all. Like no one's going to care that she looked like your ex. Like she's your she's your wife or your fiance or whatever. Or the girl or the person that you have kids with.

No, that shit matters in five years. It's only in your head for like right now. So it's not a reason to be held up by it at all. Right. And because you're a guy, if your kids look like your ex science tells us you're fine. Okay. That's life advice.

Thanks Kyle. Thanks Steve. Thanks Stefan. Back Monday, Wednesday, and Fridays. Now for football season, please subscribe.

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