WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - Bleacher Boys: New Cohost and New No. 1 Team!

Episode Date: September 21, 2024

Matthew Karten returns to the show but on a more permanent basis. The guys are also joined by special guest Joe Colaizzi. Joe talks Pitt football and a bit of Pirates baseball. Meanwhile, Karten embraces chaos while George tries to stay positive. As per usual, the guys give their picks for Week 4 and update their picks record for the year.

Here we go. They need a touchdown to win. They're a touchdown to go ahead. Rogers, option, pitch, didn't get it. They stopped it. You're listening to Bleacher Boys, where Paul and George break down the biggest stories in sports from the cheap seats, I guess, on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. Welcome into the Bleacher Boys with your host, myself Paul Marquette and George Ackle, and we have a new host for the show. We have Matthew Carton joining us again, and we have decided to bring him on as the third host of the Bleacher Boys. Welcome Matthew. Oh, thanks guys. Oh, let me get the clapping

sound effects in there. I'll edit that in post-production. No, please, not necessary, not necessary at all. I love being here. I love making absolutely horrible picks that will never pan out for anyone ever. But, hey, I'm just talking sports with the boys, so. Yeah, and we got you to sign that contract on Saturday night for free. We have you for the rest of the season. Very excited to have you along. Yeah, I'm glad I didn't hit the cap too much. And with those picks, we'll get back to Matthew Carton's record as well as George and I's from the previous week. But as well as Matthew Carton, we have Joseph Kalezi joining the show. I will put in a slightly less clap. Yes, thank you, George. Thank you everybody here. No, it's a pleasure to be on. I heard you guys were talking about Pittsburgh,

so I needed to throw my two cents in there. So happy to be here. Yes, Joe, a big Pittsburgh fan and we couldn't pass. Pittsburgh resident. Yeah, Pittsburgh resident. We couldn't pass up on the opportunity to have Pittsburgh's own Joe show up and talk some Pittsburgh football and maybe some pirates. But first, we got to start with some college football week three results. Friday night, we had

two big games for the state of Kansas. First off, we had Kansas State walloping Arizona. Underneath the Friday night lights, 31 to 7. We had Avery Johnson, the QB for Kansas State. He had a great game. Not too many passing yards with 156. And two passing touchdowns to go along with it, but he also ran the ball pretty well for 110 yards rushing, and they just rolled over the Arizona defense. Yeah, and I'll tell you what, you aren't really

a member of the Big 12 until Kansas State scores of special teams touchdown on you, because that's just, that's what they do, unfortunately. So welcome Arizona. Yeah, so in this wildcat showdown, we had Dylan Edwards returning a 71-yard punt return for a touchdown, and that just kind of reflected, not only were they getting beat on defense, but also on special teams. Nothing went right for the Arizona Wildcats. Who is that receiver that they have? McMillan. Was it McMillan?

Yes. Okay. He had a decent game. He had over 100 yards receiving, I noticed, but no touchdowns to go along with that. So after his week one performance of four touchdowns, he had none to add to that total. Yeah. Dang it, Titoa. I needed you, man.

After that, we had another big game for the state of Kansas. but a little less positive for the Kansas Jayhawks. Carton, any comment on that? Oh, you know I have comments on that. Get ready to hear my voice for the next. I don't know. 20 minutes. I don't know.

Shut up. Oh, you can't say it. This is a family-friendly, what, podcast, radio show. Yeah, this is a family-friendly. Don't say that, Mr. Carton. It's going to get canceled on the third episode. Oh, yeah. Yeah, of course I have comments.

As a Kansas Jayhawks football fan. As a Kansas resident in general. Well, yes, as a Kansas resident, close to Lawrence, the home of Kansas University. I have been a Kansas football fan my entire life. And when I was five, 2008, won the Orange Bowl as the best team that I think we've ever had beat Virginia Tech. Since then, it has been, for lack of a better term, absolutely horrible. Coaching Carousel, I mean, I was cheering for him in the David Beatty years, Turner Gill years. Less Miles.

Less Miles. It's been pretty horrible, honestly. No real sugarcoat in there. Our quarterback, Jalen Daniels, he's been injury ridden. It happens. It's not ideal. He looked amazing in the games that he played for us last year. And this year, yeah, he hasn't been it.

His ceiling hasn't been reached. There's also the new offensive coordinator. He lost Cottle Nicky to Penn State. So now we have Jeff Grimes. can't seem to run the ball, even though we have the best backfield and the nation, arguably. For the listeners at home, what Carton is referring to is the Kansas Jayhawks lost their second straight game this week to the UNLV rebels, which I don't know if you remember, George, but you called the UNLV team not a great school by any stretch of the imagination last week during our pick segment when we were talking about Oklahoma. That's big words. I can stretch my imagination very far.

We have George dissing on the UNLV Rebels, and they go in and beat the Kansas Jayhawks. And after a pretty decent season last year, they look like they're in the dumps. Yep. Back to our old home, as I like to say. They aren't a good team. We should have won that game, and we didn't. And I'm just sick. Well, probably not as sick as South Carolina fans this week after college game day comes to town and they

lose in a heartbreaker to LSU. Things started really fast for the South Carolina Gamecox. Game was being held in Columbia, in the cockpit, which their stadium is lovingly called. They were up 17 to 0 at the end of the first quarter, and they had an amazing punt block on LSU's special teams. I don't know if you guys saw it. It kind of looked like retro Troy Palomalu going over the O line and blocking that kick. I know you'll appreciate that, Joe. I did. Thank you.

But LSU scrappy team, they chipped their way back into the game and ended up 1624 at half time. Then we got into the slug fest of the second half and especially that fourth quarter. Yeah, I caught the end of this game and South Carolina just kind of fell apart. It was kind of sad to see. I don't really particularly care for either of the teams, but I'm just, I'm rooting for chaos now because Kansas won't do anything. So the more episodes that happen, the better, I say. Oh, you've just given up then. You're just team, team accelerates. They gave us-down with college football altogether, huh? They gave us a glimmer of hope, and then they said,

ha-ha, not anymore, and then they smashed it on the ground. I mean, you still have the Kansas Jayhawks basketball to look forward to this. Yeah, that's the upside. We've been incredibly lucky as far as basketball goes, as far back as, I mean, as far as I've been alive, as long as I've been alive, honestly. If you look at it that way, it's maybe not the worst thing in the world. But back to the South Carolina game, I think it's very interesting. Just because South Carolina was a pick by many to be a sleeper playoff team,

they really needed this game to prove themselves. They're just not at the same level with the other SEC teams, weren't able to finish down the stretch. Missouri almost found itself in that same position, being a top 10 team and almost losing to Boston College. Thoughts on that game? That was a close game. It was a 624 matchup in the top 25.

And Boston College kind of showed some toughness and grit. They lost the game, albeit, but only losing by six points against the top 10 team. I feel like they showed that they've got something and their team to look out for in the ACC. You know, they bullied FSU, but FSU's been a really bad team, so you can't really put much stock into that. But after this performance, you've got to keep an eye on the Boston College Golden Eagles. Yeah, it's too bad they lost. Even though Missouri left the Big 12, I still hate them with a burning passion. I don't like the Tigers.

This is a great episode for Carton to come in as a co-host. He's just hating on everything. Yeah. Burned down everything, you know. Yeah. Man, that would have been so awesome. I love rooting for the downfall of the Missouri Tigers. Well, for SEC fans, they were also rooting for the downfall of their top school, Georgia, almost losing to Kentucky.

That was a game that I don't think many people expected to be close. No, I didn't at all. I mean, that was kind of the Saturday night where you go, oh, you know, if you're not a major college football fan where you watch all the games or regardless of who's playing, that's one where you say, get the family together and watch a movie that evening because, you know, Georgia's going to go down and beat up on the Kentucky Wildcats. But, man, that was a gritty game. The defense dominated that game. You had a total of 10 punts for both teams, which is nothing compared to an Iowa game. Yeah, I saw the score and I was like, man, what is this? Northwestern versus Illinois. We had a tough one. A lot of field goals for Kentucky,

for total field goals was all the scoring they had. But it looked like their defense kind of bullied the Georgia offense in that first half, and both teams had less than 300 total yards of offense, with UK having 284 and Georgia with 262, but Georgia somehow still came out on top. The difference was Branson Robinson's five-yard touchdown rush set up by Trevor E.T.N., the brother of Travis ETN in the NFL on the Jacksonville Jaguars. His 17-yard rush set up that play for the Georgia Bulldogs to eventually win that game. Well, Joe's been awfully quiet. I think it's about time we talk about Pitt versus West Virginia. I know he watched that game every second of it, every commercial, just to make sure he didn't miss a minute of West Virginia. You're wrong. I only watched the commercials.

I took a break for the game. I guess he was getting pretty stressed out because that was a close game. That was. It's like it's the second week in a row that it's been a nitty, gritty close game. And I know a lot of people in the Pittsburgh circles. That's the kind of stuff we like to see. It's a very entertaining game. It's why I love football so much. But I mean, yeah, you had a spectacular performance from Holston. It's really funny because he had more rushing yards this game than their actual running back. So almost no running at all from Pittsburgh on the offensive side, which is weird because it's a high-scoring game as far as Pittsburgh's concerned. I mean, 38 to 34, you know, that gets pretty up there from what we're used to. But I mean, it was a spectacular

game to watch down to the last second. I'm looking at live win probability, but it's really funny seeing how close this got to the wire. I mean, you're looking at the end of the fourth quarter with West Virginia with a 96.7% chance of winning. They are stopped. It's a three and out. They punt, and it immediately falls into Pitt's favor. Pit marches down the field, scores a game winning touchdown, and that's, they get the ball back, another three and out, and they kneel the game to finish it. It's what we love to see. Again, spectacular performance from the quarterback. I think We can expect a lot more big things from him, especially looking at his performance last week as well. But I think, you know, this is definitely a sight for sore eyes, especially since Pickett left to join the NFL.

Not a fantastic, I mean, not a very consistent, that's a better word, not a consistent team that we can expect consistent results from. But, I mean, we're looking at a three and no season right now. Two of those games, we were not projected to win at all. They're all nail biters. They're all close. But, I mean, that's what you get with these smaller D1 schools, just roughing it. and I think it's looking like it's going to be a pretty good season for Pitt. I will say, too, the wide receiver play on Pitt was incredible.

Looking through those highlights, on the stat sheet, it shows that Eli Holstein went 21 for 30 with 300 yards, three todies, and no pick. There easily could have been two picks in that game, I think, if you don't have wide receivers coming back to the ball or getting PI calls. It was just really incredible. Well, that was the problem last week, the problem last week. And that's why Reed had to step up so much against Cine. Cincinnati was that the wide receivers for Pitt were just nowhere to be found. Everything was getting

called back. They couldn't move the ball up in a serviceable manner that they needed to score until like the very last half of the fourth quarter, similar with this game. But there was a lot more air time with the ball. But it is weird to see that contrast, especially with last week, where you had Reed getting close to 300, if not surpassing 300 yards in both receptions and rushing. And then he's all the way down here at 26 yards rushing, and that's all she wrote for him. So Holstein, again, definitely stepped up, definitely learned a little bit, I think, from last week. Same with the receivers. And I think that that ultimately is what led them to that comeback win, that they were, they were not supposed to win by any account, but, you know, they found a way to pull it off.

As we continue to talk with the Prince of Pittsburgh on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM, Curtin, what's your take on the game? Yeah, I mean, just from a West Virginia perspective, they fall to what? Is there one and two now? One and two. Yeah. And they're one of Kansas's tougher opponents in the Big 12 this season. Yeah, it doesn't bode well because they're going to be hungry.

And I don't want to face a hungry football team, especially when we're playing the way that we are now. Yeah, as Carton mentioned, the mountaineers of West Virginia are one and two. There are two losses coming from, of course, the Pittsburgh Panthers this week and the Penn State Nittany Lions. week one. We don't like Penn State. We don't like Penn State. Anyways, I thought this was one of the best games of the week alongside that LSU and South Carolina game, Eli Holstein. Bama quarterback transfer had a pretty impressive stat line. And as George mentioned, the wide receiver play was incredible. I remember watching one of those touchdowns where the ball just seemed to go into a circle of defenders, but the pit wide receiver, I forget who it was, just ended up catching that

ball. Another thing that was important that I noticed is the Bumble Recovery touchdown. down that Brandon George had for the Pitt defense. That made up the difference of the win for them, and they move on to 3 and O in that wide open ACC. It looks like they could have a shot at taking the conference title this year. Well, that's always been the issue with Pitt defense, well, this season at least, but like, you know, it is a motif, so to speak. I mean, they don't, the defense doesn't really show up until the fourth quarter, the third or fourth quarter, unfortunately. So that's why you get all these nail biters. It's like they, when they need to step up, though, they're pretty consistent. They'll get the job done, but that doesn't really happen until you get to the second

half of the game. Better late than never, you know. They sit behind many teams, you know, Miami and Syracuse being those two big ones to watch out for in the conference play as the ACC looks for its representative for the college football playoff. Not Florida State, though, like many people expected. Yeah, so Florida State is still winless as they fall to Memphis 20 to 12. It's interesting to see as fans are now wearing bags on their head to Doke Campbell Stadium down in Tallahassee. I don't know if you guys saw any of those images from the game that week. They also had a guy dressed up as a clown wearing a sign around his neck that said, We are cooked.

So just as Carton feels about- A very loyal fan base. Yeah, well, they feel betrayed by the college football playoff committee last year, and this year they feel completely betrayed by their team and their coach. So they should get in line with Carton and want chaos. See, the difference is Kansas fans. have been subjected to years of being absolutely horrible, and Florida State went undefeated last year,

so I have no sympathy for them. Florida State has a couple of national championships, and Kansas has exactly how many? Great question. We got five basketball ones. Okay. Well, zero in the footballers. I don't think that was the question.

I would argue, though, I think it is the hope that kills you, because Carton knows that after week three of the college football season, he can cancel his subscription to his TV service It's fine. Whereas when you're root for a school like Wisconsin or Florida or Florida State, you have to wait eight or ten weeks before you can do the same thing. Well, I feel like we can fairly be assured that Florida and Florida State

are not going to be in that college football playoff. Hey, shout out to my uncle Scott, though. Thanks for letting me mooch your YouTube TV. I won't actually have to cancel it. And then I don't know if you guys noticed Notre Dame after that upset loss to Northern Illinois just absolutely destroyed Purdue scoring 66 points against the boiler makers. They really had a good bounce back. Marcus Freeman got his boys in line and, you know, showing the world that they're not done yet. Too bad they couldn't do it against Northern Illinois.

Exactly. Meanwhile, close to home here in Hillsdale, we had the Michigan Wolverines, getting a close win over Arkansas State 28 to 10. After the devastating loss to Texas, this is not something that really inspires confidence in Michigan fans. Absolutely not. And one stat that jumped out to me is in the first three games, Donovan Edwards, who was supposed to supposed to be the standout running back, actually grace the cover of college football 25. He has had one carry over 10 yards this season. His long is 12 yards. That's not something that is worthy of a video game cover, but then again, maybe we have a curse because there's the Madden curse, isn't there? Yeah, the Madden curse. So they're now the NCAA and 5 curse. Happened to Quinn Ewers too. Just this week, as George mentioned, Quinn Ewers goes

down hurt and who was the third? Travis Hunter is the third player on that cover. So we'll have to Colorado, so that's punishment in of itself. Speaking of Texas Longhorns, Arch Manning took over for the hurt Quinn Ewers and really showed out and impressed. They won over UTSA 56 to 7, as expected, but now

people are looking at Arch Manning as a possible top-tier quarterback to keep an eye on. I don't know if you noticed this, but I saw some story today about how Arch Manning and Quinn Ewers now have equal odds for the Heisman Trophy. Yeah, I don't know

how in the world he came from the Manning family, but he reached a higher top speed than Tyree Kill did last week, which is quite crazy considering both of the Mannings and the NFL were pocket-only quarterbacks. Yeah, when you think Manning, you don't necessarily think freak athleticism, but Arch really showed that off. And he impressed many people with that long touchdown run, as well as his passing. So we'll definitely have to keep an eye on the status of the Texas Longhorns as they deal with two top-tier quarterbacks in their locker room. And they overtook Georgia, didn't they? They're number one now.

Yes, Texas is the new number one team on the AP top 25 pull. It is interesting to see after Georgia struggled with Kentucky and Texas cruised, despite having their, I guess you could call him their backup quarterback, even though he's a five-star recruit. New number one, and there's obviously a new target on Texas's back with that number one. Yep. It's about time, too, after all the smack they talked in the... the Big 12 without doing anything.

Well, they're looking good in the SEC so far, so we'll see how that goes. So maybe the Big 12 is the better conference. Maybe, George. Only time will tell. One could hope. Meanwhile, George's Wisconsin Badgers... Not much to jump around about there. Yeah.

In fact, Alabama jumped all over Wisconsin, 42 to 10, and the Alabama players even started partaking in the tradition of jumping around. as most Wisconsin college fans had emptied out of the stadium. I will say, though, I mean, we're Midwest nice in Wisconsin. So even to have the opportunity to host the boys down south, show them our stadium, show us our nice town, I think. You know, the fun, the friends we made along the way was probably worth it. Yeah, well, I think your fans want wins more than friends.

I was going to say, I don't think many fans will agree with that, George. George is in the Hope and Order camp. Carton is in the chaos camp. I think many of your fans, George, are going to move into the chaos camp. Does that mean you're in the Aristotelian mean, Joe? Yes, the happy medium. In true Hillsdale fashion. Virtue is found in the middle, there I say.

In true Hillsdale fashion, that's why we have Joe on this show. And last game that we should get to, the Colorado Buffaloes bounced back from their loss to the Nebraska Cornhuskers with their win over in-state Colorado State, 28 to 9. I don't know if you guys had a chance to catch this game. No one cares. Nebraska actually won something last week. Yeah, they. Oh, I didn't know that.

They're number 22 in the nation. Yeah, Nebraska's looking great. They're above pit right now. Yes, I know. Many such cases. We will be picking that game later on in this show. Yeah, you asked me if I, if I watched the Colorado, Colorado State game. I just as a rule don't watch Colorado athletics because there's nothing really to look forward to there.

It's just not good. They celebrated their win over. rival CSU, but that's not much of an opponent to write home about, so to speak, and they still have to prove themselves against major top-tier opponents. Yeah, just here in a couple weeks, you'll just catch me eating my words after Kansas loses in a blowout to Colorado. Well, now we're going to move on to some Major League Baseball talk. I don't know if you guys have been watching those playoff standings. Yeah, the Detroit Tigers have now a 30% chance of making the playoffs.

Who could have predicted that, but your very own, yes, George said in the pilot episode that with a couple big wins that I thought Detroit today would be squarely in the playoff picture, they just, as of recording on 918, they just took the first game against the Kansas City Royals. And now they're only two and a half back of the Minnesota Twins in a tight AL wildcard race. I really do think they have a chance based on the fact that their last series is against the White Sox.

which as that gets closer, as they approach the record for the worst team ever, we'll keep you updated on that. But yeah, I think really, if you haven't watched baseball in the last few years, as a Detroit Tigers fan right now is the point to tune in. Yeah, mentioning the White Sox there, I thought, I saw this story. They have a big plan to fix their team for 2025. I don't know if you guys had a chance. Oh, I saw this, yeah.

Here's how you fix the White Sox. They're going to be a great playoff team next year. They are cutting payroll, so they are going to pay players less. are going to spend less money on players. You think that's the recipe for success down there in the south side of Chicago, Joe? No. That's all you have to say.

Excellent insight. It's a great story to watch the White Sox just crumble and watch their fans basically hate their lives because they're doing with the money. Maybe a new stadium, but it's not like. Maybe they're going to sports betting. Maybe they're going to bet against themselves with it. Jerry Rinesdorf.

I mean, the White Sox did it in 1919, so it wouldn't be the first time. Yeah. But back to the Tigers, it is very interesting to watch, as George mentioned. They've got a pretty favorable schedule. They're only one and a half back. I wouldn't put it past them to sneak into the playoffs. The twins and the Royals seem to kind of be on this like treadwater phase, trying to stay afloat and in the playoffs.

Yeah, the Royals, they don't look very good. So, yeah, as of this recording, they've lost two games to the Detroit Tigers already. They lost last night in extra innings. They had the bases loaded twice and both times. just didn't score, which, I mean, that just doesn't bode well for a playoff team. You're sorely missing one of their top RBI guys, Vinnie Pasquentino. You know what? I'd rather lose now than in the playoffs.

So if we can get it out of our system, that'd be good. But yeah, right now, it's looking pretty all right for the Royals. I don't know. Chances say they won't because they have the third longest active drought, I believe, as far as playoffs go? Oh, they're going to get in. I don't know. I believe. If I was the white socks taking my money that I'm shaving off players, you know where I'd put that. Anyways, we'll look forward to this forming playoff picture and we will definitely break it down once the playoffs are set. Now, I wanted to talk a little bit about a standout performance this year that we've been

able to see in the town of Pittsburgh. We get to see Paul Skeen's, the phenom rookie, dicing up opponents. He is looking good and has one of the lowest ERAs in the league for a starting pitcher. And I'm so glad that we have Joe, our Pittsburgh resident, here to talk about it. Joe, have you had a chance to get out to any Pirates games? I did. I went to go see him like stomped all over the Phillies on Pennsylvania Day with Governor Wolf in attendance as well. Oh, I bet you felt real patriotic for the state of Pennsylvania. And for Pittsburgh as well, because Governor Wolf does not like Pittsburgh. But Joe here is the Pirates' second biggest fan, of course, after Livy Dunn, who's Paul Skeen's girlfriend

and viral TikTok sensation. But Paul Skeens is, I would say, a lock for a rookie of the year in the NL, but he is only third in the betting odds for the Sye Young in the NL. He is behind Chris Sale and Zach Wheeler. Is Zach Wheeler on the Phillies? Yes, Zach Wheeler's is a Phillies. Must not have been pitching on Pennsylvania Day. Yeah, I guess the Superior City got the best of the inferior one that day. They did.

Let's bring it back to college football. All right, so we're going to look at the top 25 pull and I guess each give our take on the most overrated team and underrated team in the college football top 25 poll. Can I just preface this by saying, I think this is one of the best AP top 24, five poles I have ever seen. In my opinion, the way that it rates teams, there were very few.

It was really hard for me to come up with an overrated and an underrated for this week, if I'm being honest. Well, it looks like George wants to cop out of this segment, guys. Yeah, I can start if you'll let me. Kansas lost to Illinois when they were still ranked. And as we know, Kansas is horrible this year. And Illinois ranks at 24, I believe. Yeah, I don't know. Honestly, they didn't look too good in the game that they played versus Kansas.

Kansas looked worse. So honestly, I personally wouldn't have ranked Illinois in the top 25. Well, I'm going to go ahead and pick Michigan here. I mean, three straight, uninspiring performances. One of them resulted in a loss, and that was a total beatdown. I'm sorry, folks, but the Michigan Wolverines are not the same team that they were last year. Your defending national champs are facing USC this weekend, and we'll talk about that game in a little bit.

but I cannot see this team making the playoff again. They've got rough offense and seems like a lazy defense, and I expect them to fall to the very bottom, if not out of the pole. If I have to pick one, I think I'm going to go with Miami there at number eight. All the teams in the top, I guess it's 15 now. There are no lost teams. Miami hasn't played anyone good, and I also think they don't have the same history of being successful programs

that some of the other schools do. in recent history, I should say at least. I think that USC, Utah, Oklahoma State, and Kansas State all have better resumes than Miami. So if I have to go with an overrated team, that's what it is. I think that I'm going to take the side that everyone's properly rated. Well, that's a very safe opinion to take. Now we're going to talk about underrated teams. Oh, I already stated my underrated team earlier.

Kansas? No, no. Not Kansas. They are actually properly rated. Underrated for me, I'm going to go Nebraska. They've looked pretty awesome so far this year. And they've got Patrick Mahomes lookalike at quarterback and Dylan Ryola. I think it's a little uncanny, a little weird, but I mean, I can't say I'm not rude for the guy as a chiefs fan.

Yeah, you're a big chiefs fan. Does that not make you uncomfortable that this guy has got the same hair, the same pregame rituals? You know, like I said, it's a little weird for sure. But Patrick Mahomes had an interview with the media a while ago, and they kind of asked him the same thing. They were like, you know, is it weird that you got this guy, like, doing everything that you do? And Pat was like, no, all it means is I'm just getting old.

People are starting to idolize me. And I'm going to spit out my underrated team. And I'm going to have to say it's the Boston College Golden Eagles. They lost a close one to Missouri, and they are still a good team. Missouri is a top 10 team. I expect them to continue to rack up those wins this year. They've got former NFL head coach Bill O'Brien as their head coach. And he had some great success at Penn State.

And I expect him to replicate that at Boston College. Yeah, for underrated, I think I'm going to go with Alabama. Right now they're number four. But if you look at who they beat, they beat Wisconsin by 32. And those are the big dogs right there, Wisconsin, Badgers? Well, compared to who Georgia State and Ohio State is playing. Yeah. Georgia and Ohio State is playing.

Georgia, we saw struggle with Kentucky. I would say that Wisconsin and Kentucky might be somewhat on par or comparable as far as, like, where they should be ranked. And I don't know. I know it's getting a little nitpicky, but I think they should be at two right behind Texas. I think maybe Texas is underrated too. Look, they're number one right now. How can they get higher?

I think they should be the 32nd team in the NFL. We degrade the Panthers right now. And I don't think the Panthers win the SEC. I'm going to be honest. Well, Joe, I have a feeling that I know who you're going to pick as an underrated team. Okay, real quick, I'd like to amend my previous thing. I think, I agree with George. I think Ohio State, just looking at their schedule, is definitely highly overrated.

Hey, better late than never. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Underrated, I'm going to go with, was Alabama already said? Yeah. Okay, well, I'm not going to say Pittsburgh. They've received one. vote? They've got a week schedule. Okay. I think that they're going to have a good season, and I think that's going to be great,

but they are playing a lot of, you know, sub-peer teams. The last three games that they've won, they're all against unranked teams, and they're winning them by fairly close margins. So, I mean, it's going to be a good season. It's going to be an entertaining season for Pitt, but I don't think that they're going to make the top 25 with that. That's fair. Well, is the time to move on to pick seven? Of course. Well, I just got to bring up last week's record. Well, George and I were the only ones on the show. George went 5 and 2, and I went 4 and 3 in our picks, and that leaves us with an overall record of George at 9 and 5,

myself at 10 and 4. And Carton, I believe your week 1 record was 4 and 3. Yeah, that wasn't very good. Can we just double that and make Curtin 8 and 6, so it's all kind of a level playing field? Yeah, we'll do that. I'm going to go 6 and 0 today, gentlemen. Actually, we have 7 games.

7 and 0 today, gentlemen. So we don't really have a competition going on, but it might evolve into that because I think it's fun to keep track of our records. And we've got another great top 25 matchup in the Friday night game. We've got number 24, Illinois. I think I know which Wade Carton's going to be leaning. Yeah, you'd be absolutely right. I've got Nebraska in this one by a mile.

I really see this game as a push. I haven't bought into the Nebraska hype. I haven't seen them play a full game of football. And the fact that they're favored by eight and a half points, I think is a little much. I'll pick Nebraska, but it's going to be much. less than people think. Yeah, Nebraska, just because, like I said, I was shocked that they're in the top 25.

I think that they've got a lot of hype behind them, and whatever they're doing seems to be working. So I think that this is going to be, I don't know, I wouldn't be shocked if it's above eight points or so, but I think Nebraska's going to win this one, if not pretty handily. I'm going to say this. Nebraska's a good team.

And I mentioned this earlier in another show that Matt Rule always does much better in his second year. They're at home. To kind of echo George's point, Nebraska hasn't beaten much of anybody either. And so I'm just going to go with Illinois on this one. I think they shock the world. They go in there and they beat Patrick Mahomes Jr. And boost their stock this year.

Next up, we've got the game in the big house. Number 11 USC goes in and faces the Michigan Wolverines. Ah, yeah, this one, it'll be interesting for sure. Michigan hasn't looked great. I don't know if USC has played anybody that would be on the level of Michigan. Michigan. LSU. Oh, they did play? Oh, that was that was that game. In that case, I'm picking, I'm picking USC kind of with fall. I don't have much faith in Michigan this year. So yeah, Michigan's passing attack has actually been outgained in each of the first three games. That's against Arkansas

State and Fresno State. I think USC has a pretty average run defense, but I think they can sell out with a run and they should. But I think that Miller Moss, USC's quarterback, he's a He's a Heisman candidate, has looked really, really good. I think he slices and dices that Michigan defense. I'm taking USC. I agree with George. I think that the defense is what's going to kill him on this game. I mean, you look at some of their past games,

like what are their victories this season? Fresno and Arkansas, and these are not by any stretch of the imaginations, very extreme marginal games. I think their defense is going to kill them. I think that the fact that the USC is going to be rested, ready to go, definitely going to put them on top, if not rather handily. I'm going to go a step further than Joe. I think Michigan's

offense makes any defense look good. And USC's, I'm pretty sure, is pretty good. They held LSU to 20 points in that week one showdown. And as George mentioned, they've got Miller Moss, but they've also got those talented receivers on the outside. They made some amazing grabs against LSU, and I look for them to just absolutely overwhelm Michigan's defense. Next up, we've got Utah at Oklahoma State. This is a top 15 matchup. Yeah, personally, just as a Big 12 fan, I'm on Big 12 Twitter. Utah, they aren't very, they are very nice on Twitter. They aren't very fun to interact with.

They keep wishing for the Pac-12 to be brought back, and they think they're just going to come into the Big 12 and run the whole thing. So I personally would like them to get shellacked. So I'm going to go with Oklahoma State based on my heart. It's funny that you mentioned the PAC 12 coming back because I believe it is coming back. You've got several teams from the Mountain West migrating over. Yeah, did we mention Wazoo beat Washington? I don't believe we did, but that was a big game.

Yeah, that was a big middle finger to Washington for leaving their counterpart in the dust, going to the Big Ten and then going back in there and getting Wallup. Yeah, impressive. Felt good for Washington State, I'm sure. A big we don't like you to our family-friendly audience. Yeah, my apologies. Yeah, so I think a big reason Utah isn't favored by more in this game because they've had great performances in the past

is Camarizing their quarterback has an injury on his throwing arm. For me, I look to their backup quarterback four-star recruit, Isaac Wilson. And do we know who Isaac Wilson is related to, none other than legendary NFL quarterback, Zach Wilson? Oh. I think he comes in, takes over, doesn't look back, and I think Utah takes this game pretty handily.

I think Zach sucked all the talent out. You look at things from like just an anecdotal perspective. I mean, they're running on their, I mean, regardless of his family ties, he's their second string quarterback. You're looking at past games. They're both pretty tight with these unranked teams. I just, I think that there's going to be a lot of rally behind number 14, Oklahoma State trying to get a step above in the ranking.

So I think that that's why they're going to come out on top. And I will say, Cammerizing is expected to play on Saturday. But with how much he's been injured, there's a lot of jokes that, well, he's going to be injured by the second quarter anyways. So I do think Isaac Wilson will come in at some point during that game. Well, and that too. If he's going to play, it's not going to be to 100%.

Yeah. I'm going to have to go with the Utah Uts here in this game. They always have a great defense historically, and they still figure out ways to win. Even though Cam Rising gets hurt, it seems like every year. I believe Utah has a better pedigree at winning big games. than Oklahoma State does. Oklahoma State played Arkansas earlier this year, and it went to double overtime. That was a close game. And Arkansas is not a top team in the SEC, and that is kind of a worrying sign for Oklahoma State, so I expect Utah to go in there and get the win on the road.

Next up, we've got the big SEC showdown. Oklahoma has its first SEC game when it welcomes Tennessee to Norman, Oklahoma. And it will have its first SEC loss as Tennessee comes in gets the job done. I do think this is going to be a really tight game as Oklahoma matches up very well against the valls. Tennessee has averaged 7.9 yards per carry on the ground, which is pretty much just allowed them to do whatever they want on offense, working out of the play action as well. Oklahoma has a really stout run defense, which is something that if you would have said that three or four years ago, would have been laughable as they were having teams run all over them. But yeah, I think it's a close game in Norbin, Oklahoma. Maybe it ends up with Oklahoma fans.

storming the field, but I'm going with Tennessee. Yeah, the, uh, the, uh, the balls were a, um, a close second for me for my, for my underrated pick. I think there's a lot of upside there for sure. I think, I think people are kind of sleeping on Tennessee a little bit. Uh, Norman's always a tough place to play though. I, I would love to pick my, my, my former big 12 Oklahoma Sooners, even though I don't really like them, but I am familiar with them. Uh, but I think I'm going to have to go with Tennessee on this one. It'll be tight for sure, but Tennessee. Yeah, I think Tennessee, I think Matthew covered all the points I wanted to bring up. I think Tennessee wins this one. You know, I think just looking at schedule-wise, Tennessee had a stronger schedule. Tennessee's

been performing better, and I think that's going to continue into this game as well. Yeah, I'm going to fall in line with everybody else, and I'm going to say Tennessee, Oklahoma had a struggle game against University of Houston, and University of Houston is a pretty mediocre team this year. They did handle business against Tulane, but I'd say Tennessee by a couple scores. And next up, we have Michigan State going to Boston to face the Golden Eagles of Boston College. Yeah, Boston College, we were just getting done saying they're looking pretty good. Michigan State is the opposite of pretty good, pretty bad, actually. I think some would say.

Yeah, I won't say they're reaching historical Kansas levels because they're not. Boston College comes away with a win there. I'm going to go to my corner and cry about Kansas later. So for Michigan State fans, they might have gotten some solace that their team beat Prairie View last week, 40 to 0. A little fun statistic is Prairie View barely beat Northwestern State. Northwestern State got beat last week by 77 points.

They lost 87 to 10 to South Alabama. Therefore, South Alabama could probably beat Michigan. Michigan State. And I think South Alabama loses to Boston College, therefore I'm picking Boston College. I think Boston College also, just to be, are we all Boston? I think we're online. Yeah, I just, again, looking at their schedule, they have one defeat. One defeat is top 10 team. Top 10 team, like Missouri. So I think that they, 56 and 0 shut out against Duquesne, Boston, walks away with this one pretty handily. Yeah, not to sound like a broken record, but I'm going to go with Boston College. I pick them in my underrated team and I can't really pick against them in the

next week. Next, we have number 13 Kansas State going to face BYU. It's white out for BYU and we all know Provo is, it's pretty electric. You've got their cougar mascot that everybody loves, just like doing pushups onto tables. He's pretty crazy. Willie the Wildcat on the other hand, is just a guy in a wildcat head, and there's not even a body to the costume. So we're just doing a mascot pick them here? So if I was only going to pick on the mascots, I'd pick BYU.

I think there's some real upset potential here. I'm not just saying this as an anti-Kansas State person. Yeah, there's real upset potential. In the end, I'm going to have to go with Kansas State, but that could be one to watch out for. Sounds like you're hedging your bets there. I have the same sentiments as Carton. I really do think that it depends what quarterback shows up for Jake Retzglaff.

If he plays like he did against SMU with 200 yards and two picks, they're not going to have a chance in this game against Kansas State. But he is an interesting prospect. I do think that if he plays like he did against Wyoming, where he was an efficient passer, they have a legitimate shot to take this game, ultimately have to go with the favorite. Yeah, I mean, I agree with Mr. George. Kansas State has been very much on top of it this season.

Like one game was close. I think that Kansas State walks away with this one pretty handily. All right, I'm going to play devil's advocate here. They mentioned the home field advantage for BYU. I think a big factor is Kansas State is coming off their first major ranked opponent in Arizona. They played really well, but they might be coming down off of that kind of like a big, win hangover. Looked for BYU to really turn up the heat and come into this game full of adrenaline ready to win against a ranked Big 12 opponent to kick off their conference play. And finally, last but not least, we have Georgia Tech facing number 19 Louisville in this ACC clash. I'm not a big ACC guy. I'll hand that over to Joe, but just based on Georgia Tech struggled with Syracuse,

was it? They lost to Syracuse. Yeah. I didn't even know Louisville was ranked in the top 25, but I'm going to, I'm going to side with the committee. I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt. I'm going to say that they know that Louisville is better than Georgia Tech. I think ultimately Louisville has more explosive threats on the outside, can open up that play action game, whereas Georgia doesn't quite have that. I will say Georgia Tech is potentially the most battle-tested team in the nation right now playing a tough game early in Ireland. I've gone back and forth on this one, but like Carton said, trust that the committee has done more research than I have, and let's go with Louisville.

I'm going to break sides with all of you probably. I'm going to go with Georgia Tech for zero reason. I think everything you guys said has been accurate as far as standings go. But I don't know. It's football. Anything can happen. and if nothing else happens with all the rest of my picks, this one, something will happen. So I'm going to go with Georgia.

Joe is not alone. I'm going to also pick the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets. If you look at the Louisville Cardinals schedule, there are two games that they've played. They've only played two. We're against Austin P and Jacksonville State. Meanwhile, Georgia Tech has played four games, so they have more experience. And they've played Florida State in the Neutral's height. They've played Syracuse.

They've got a good team. Louisville is well. rested. Louisville may be well rested, but that means they're tired and uninspired, George. They're lethargic. Yes. They don't want to get up. I would look for Georgia Tech to pull off the upset. And that is all that we have for today's show. Thank you guys for listening. I hope you guys have a great weekend watching all those sports and especially those college football games. Thank you for listening to Bleacher Boys

on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM.