WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - Bleacher Boys: Undefeated's Lose; Blue Bloods Escape Close Games

Episode Date: October 31, 2024

The boys talk exclusively about college football this week. They breakdown the the games from the previous week that have major playoff implications. As always, they make picks for the upcoming week.

Four with the goal line. They bring three. Daniel's backing up. He's just going to have to left and fly. Goes to the right side. Steps away from the defenders. Give themselves some time. Now, steps up, fires. Heads towards the end zone. It is... You're listening to Bleacher Boys, where Paul, George, and Matthew break down the biggest stories in sports... From the cheap seats, I guess. On Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. Welcome back, everybody, and you're listening to The Bleacher Boys. And this week, we're a little short-handed, just like some of these teams in the college football world are after many injuries. But we're missing our friend Matthew Carton this week.

So it's back to George and I, your original two. And we're here to have some fun, talk some college football, and see where this show takes us. Yeah, we just wanted to let you guys know early. So when you're not hearing about Cosmo the Cougar and Kansas football, you know why. While some people may miss that, I think our animal. are saying that we should have a good show this week because of viewership. Anyways, let's get into some college football. I think one of the most underrated games of the week happened, and I don't know if many people

are talking about this, so I just wanted to bring this up. Last week, the Liberty Flames lost their first game of the year to Kennesaw State, and that was a game that was tucked away in the midweek. That has huge playoff implications, as Liberty was the favorite to be the group of five representative in the college football playoff, and now they have a loss on their record. I think that opens the door for teams like Boise State or even Army as they try to get into the playoff. Liberty doesn't have a great conference, and now they just lost to Kennesaw State the Owls, who was winless until this game. Yeah, and that's the thing. I was looking there was a

statistic that I think it was since 2008. No team that was undefeated after a certain point in the season had ever lost to a team with no wins. And if you look at the game, you'd probably expect that Liberty played a sloppy game made a lot of mistakes, but they were six for 14 on third downs, three for five on fourth down. Overall, it wasn't kind of the fluky game that you might expect for a winless team to team to win. And let's see if Kennesaw State can, you know, maybe rip together a winning streak as they play Wednesday night, 730. Yeah, we have football. Every single day, we have so many days of consecutive football, and it was one of those games tucked away that nobody really pays attention to

except for some serious sports betters, but it had massive implications as the flames have essentially put themselves in tougher straits for the college football playoff. Yeah, they're not making the playoff after this. I mean, Boise State has a loss, but that loss is to the Oregon Docks who currently sits atop the AP top 25 pole. and right now, Boise State is sitting at 61% chance to make the college football playoff. I think that gives them a pretty good chance to be that representative.

I believe five conference champions make it automatically, and that fifth one will most likely be Boise State out of the Mountain West. And I think they would even make it as a wild card team or not the automatic bid. They've played really well this year, and they've actually been Oregon's closest competition. Oregon's going to finish the year as the number one team in the nation, assuming they take care of business at Michigan, at Wisconsin versus Maryland versus Washington. You can't write those teams off, but as far as the top teams in the nation, that's probably the

easiest strength of schedule that you're going to have closing out the season. Yeah, well, I think Oregon was technically closer in score against Ohio State. Yeah, one point compared to three with Boise State. But not a cupcake game against Boise State, that's for sure. and they proved their medal in that game in week two. Let's move on and talk about some other games that happened. I mean, I think we have to address this elephant in the room, George. You and I were very confident in our picks last week,

and we both picked Syracuse to beat Pittsburgh, and that was an ugly game for the Syracuse Orange. As far as a 28-point loss, that's about as close as you're going to see. What do I mean by that? Well, if you look at the total offense, Syracuse outgained Pittsburgh by 110 yards. They outpass them by, it looks like just doing some mental math here, 160 yards, 180 yards. And it just doesn't help when you lose the turnover battle by five, throwing three pick sixes and two normal picks. It was actually a turnover margin of four as Pittsburgh had a fumble, but they, oh, actually, no.

No, they did not. They didn't lose it. They fumbled it, but they regained it. I mean, Syracuse did have six yards of rushing net total, so that doesn't help, but Comacord throwing five interceptions, as George mentioned, not great. And Syracuse Orange did not fulfill our hopes and dreams of beating the undefeated Pittsburgh Panthers who have a big game this week. Yeah, and Pittsburgh moves up to 18 in the rankings. I feel like a little miffed by that game because I don't know if we actually figured out how good Pitt was. especially because the focus hasn't been on that defense.

Yeah, their defense might be a little better than we expected. But I think a lot of people wanted to see myself included what Eli Holstein could do, what that offense was capable of producing. And ultimately, he only had 11 completions. The rushing attack wasn't super formidable, averaging like three yards of carry or slightly more than that. So I still think they could be pretenders. Yeah, and the offense was only responsible for two touchdowns in that game as the defense got three pick sixes against Kyle McCord. And that's something that, like George said, you know,

the offense, while Holstein did get two touchdowns passing through the air, he only threw for 108 yards, only threw the ball 15 times, and completed 11 of those. And his QBR was only 35, which compared that to Kyle McCordes who had a 22 and threw five picks. That's very interesting that they're so close in QBR despite very drastic numbers in terms of turnovers, for sure but we'll get the chance coming up pittsburgh playing number 20 sm u on the second and clemson going to pittsburg for what might end up being a preview of the ac c conference championship clemson has looked very very good well let's not forget miami uh the hurricanes are definitely at the top of the acc um which they rolled over florida state this past week 3614 and

it's not one of the typical close miami games that were you to. I feel like Miami's playing it close with some of their ACC competition, but when you're facing a team that has one win on the year, you should easily roll over them. Yeah, you're right with Miami. I said earlier that Oregon might have the easiest road. I take that back. Miami playing Duke, Georgia Tech, Wake Forest, and Syracuse to end the year. Quite possibly the easiest remaining schedule for a college football playoff team. Yeah, and as a result, because of that, they do have the highest percentage chance of making the college football playoff, according to ESPN. playoff predictor at 90%, even higher than Oregon themselves, who only has 87.

Some close calls this past week for top five teams. I mean, first of all, we got to talk about Ohio State, only winning by four against Nebraska, especially after Nebraska absolutely destroyed against Indiana. They actually put up a good fight against Ohio State Buckeyes, but eventually lose the game. Yeah, for Ohio State, you cannot be happy with your rush attack. the leading rusher for Ohio State was Quinn Sean Judkins with 10 carries for 29 yards

you had Trayvon Trayn Henderson 10 carries for 25 yards and then Will Howard the quarterback 8 carries for 14 yards Nebraska the black shirts on defense have been playing well this season but I don't think they're going to be playing better than really any other team that you can expect them to face

in the top 12 teams in the nation for that college football playoff yeah I mean Will Howard definitely carried the brunt of the offense in terms of touchdowns. He has had some questions as of late, especially as a result of the Oregon game. But Dylan Riola on the other end, he was no touchdowns and 152 yards passing. So most of the offense for Nebraska came off the rushing attack. But definitely a close game within reach for the cornhuskers, but they fall short in the end. Can't get it done. and big win, big escape for the Ohio State Buckeyes.

Can we just hold on to the Buckeyes for a second? Yeah. Third down efficiency, they were one for 10 on this game. And if you're an Ohio State fan, Nebraska comes after getting walloped, absolutely decimated by Indiana, by 49 points. They're not coming off of a buy week. It's a tough game for them. They have to stay on the road.

Ohio State is well-rested from a close Oregon game. And then they came back home and they basically laid in. egg and they've got to get their stuff together because they play Penn State for that big noon kickoff and that's going to be a close one we're going to pick it later as we continue with bleach your boys on radio free hillsdale 101.7 FM but they have Penn State Indiana and of course Michigan to end the season the end of your schedule is no joke for Ohio State and if they get another loss they're probably still in the college football playoff but you don't want to give the committee any reason to leave you out.

Especially with this Penn State game coming up that is by far their biggest game, but not their only big game to end the year, as George mentioned. I think that they'll probably be fine, though there is some concern. It is not the same conference that it was in the past. In the past, you had obviously Michigan to worry about, but now there's a new cat in town or a new bird in town, and that's the Oregon Ducks. But I'm going to flip it over to the SEC and talk about Texas winning by only three points against the mighty Vanderbilt Commodores. They escape the upset. Despite this being a top

25 matchup, I think most people are kind of shocked at how close this game was. And a lot of the media coverage surrounding this game I saw was like talking about how this could be concerning for Texas as their team barely beats a Vanderbilt team that was ranked 25 last week. Similar to what we talked about with Ohio State coming off of a really close emotional loss, how they probably wanted to rebound. Yes, Vanderbilt was 25. We've seen them hang tight and even beat Alabama. But fundamentally, this is a team that Texas, the way that they've out-recruited Vanderbilt, heck, you have two quarterbacks on your team who are probably going to be top 10 NFL picks. A three-point game is not going to get the job done.

I definitely think that a lot of the concern is warranted, but it's not as concerning as it would be in years past. as the Commodores are definitely a legitimate team this year. Like they're a legit football team. It's definitely something that you go, yes, we should be better, but this is not some rollover Vanderbilt team of years past. I will say the thing that concerns me is the fact that Quinn Ewers, he had two interceptions.

And coming off that Georgia game where you had tons of turnovers for both teams, but especially for Texas, I think that's something that you probably would want to address. And your quarterback goes out there and throws two. picks. That's something that's definitely kind of going to be hanging over them an overshadowing problem for that team as they continue to press on towards the college football playoff. It feels like you're trying to throw Texas a little bit of a bone, but just think two weeks ago, they were the bonafide number one team in the nation. If you know anything about their

fan base, their fan base was celebrating like they had just won any major sports event here, Super Bowl, NBA finals, whatever, college football playoff. So to see them come out flat two games in a row after that highly emotional win in the Red River rivalry, I don't know if I feel that great if I'm a Texas fan, especially when your last four games, you have a Florida team, which is, I know you're a Florida fan, Paul, but has, I think, flown a little bit under the radar because they started so poorly. That's what you noticed in college football. First impressions are often made early, and then we forget about teams as the season progresses.

Arkansas is always a tough out. light underdogs against a good Ole Miss team. And then you have Kentucky and you finish this season with Texas A&M. Texas can probably lose only one more game. And that Texas A&M game at Kyle Field, you should probably keep that one as an insurance run, if you will. So I think it's going to be more difficult for Texas fans than they think, especially if they keep playing the way they do,

they will lose more than one game down the stretch. Yeah. And that's going to be something that, concerning, though this SEC is definitely up for grabs as most of the teams are getting battered and losing in conference play. With one exception, and that exception would be the Texas A&M Aggies, as they win the battle for the number one team in the SEC after defeating the LSU Tigers on Saturday night in prime time.

The Aggies are the only team in the SEC who have an unblemished record in conference play, the only blemish on their record being the loss to Notre Dame, but still undefeated in conference play. So they sit atop the SEC. If they can keep that and maintain that, they will definitely be in the conference championship. But their road ahead is no laughing matter. But that was definitely an impressive win for Texas A&M at home against the LSU Tigers. The Aggies just take it to them at home, take control in that second half, and don't look back. And as far as rents, thinking goes, Texas A&M is ranked number 10 right now. You said they lose to a very good Notre Dame team who's ranked number eight in the nation right now. And it's actually, it's kind of funny because of the

head to head, they have to be ranked below Notre Dame. But if you look at Texas A&M's quality of wins versus Notre Dame as well as their quality of loss, I know there's some weird calculus when you lose to a team that loses to a team. But Notre Dame did lose to NIU more recently than Texas A&M lost to them. I still don't get why. Tennessee is at that seven slot in the AP pool when they lost to Arkansas, and I don't think quite have the quality wins consistently week in and week out that Texas A&M does. They're really a dark horse, I think, just based on their talent, their recruiting level, the number of five stars on that roster to win everything, to win it all.

I don't see them as significantly worse than Texas, Ohio State, Georgia, or Oregon. They belong with the best of them in a way that I don't think maybe Miami or Tennessee or you why you do. Just not something you want to see as the LSU Tigers. Yeah, and maybe a little reminiscent of Ezekiel Elliott in that championship game, kind of showing that you don't have to be a great passing team. That was 2014, so fairly recent history, 2014, 2015. Someone fact-checked me on that.

But Ezekiel Elliott finished 246 yards and four touchdowns. And look, you didn't have to have a great quarterback. Cardale Jones. he has a lot of arm strength wasn't a super polished precise passer but when you have an offensive line that's dominating the line of scrimmage you're going to be a tough team to beat and i honestly don't see besides maybe ohio state a stifling defense that's going to make the college football playoff that's reminiscent of some past great units like clemson's front four for instance when they had feral wilkins and austin bryant which i believe were all first round picks

I know Clinton and Farrell was top five. Yeah, Cleland Farrell went to the Raiders. Yeah. SEC is definitely interesting. I think it's just being completely shaken up every week. There's something, and I'm hoping that the Florida Gators can do some more mixing it up if they can beat the Georgia Bulldogs this upcoming weekend. But I think another important game of note is that Notre Dame went out

and completely obliterated the U.S. Navy, 51 to 14, and sent them completely out of the rankings after Navy had just gotten there. But pretty impressive performance by Notre Dame kind of just showing they're here to stay, especially after that embarrassment earlier the year. And the set of the game for Navy, I remember watching it, and it seemed like they fumbled a lot. So I had to go back and check. Guess how many fumbles lost they had, Paul? Five.

Were you looking at the... No, I didn't. I just guessed. Yeah, they had five fumbles lost, one interstance. Throne. Because if you look at the stats, you expect, okay, Navy is a run dominant team. They must have not been able to get anything going. They actually played pretty well on the ground, 222 yards, 5.4 yards per carry. But yeah, there's five fumbles lost. That's a pretty big component of your game. And Navy's not a team that if they're going to get behind two possessions, that they're able just to air it out downfield easily. Yeah. And that's something where

the limited talent of a team like navy that kind of comes up and you face a big big name blue blood college football team like Notre Dame and they that team comes out to play fully expecting a challenge that's where you kind of see the different levels to this game but yeah i think really that was the two possession game that ended up being a 51 14 still two possession is pretty good win for the fighting irish one more game i wanted to talk about i feel like this team is kind of been like our little favorite team to watch is the Boise State Broncos. Yeah, they had a close one against the UNLV rebels on Friday night and our guy, Ashton Jeanty, he only scores one touchdown, but it's the touchdown that counts. A nice fourth and goal touchdown run that

puts the Broncos ultimately on top and allows them to win the game. So big, big game for Boise State, they keep their undefeated conference record and keep their playoff hopes alive. As I mentioned earlier, they have a 61% chance to make the playoff as it stands. And probably their toughest games upcoming would be a Nevada team, a San Jose State team, and then Oregon State team, which are all very winnable games in which they're heavily favored, especially when you've got a Heisman candidate in your backfield. absolutely and the teams they're playing down the stretch do not have great records Nevada three and six Wyoming one and seven San Jose State is five and three is going to be the most

difficult challenge but yeah San Jose State is the only team with a winning record and they get them at home that Boise State blue field which is so difficult to play on if you're not used to. Definitely been one of this show's favorite teams to track, especially considering the talent they have behind the quarterback in Ashton, Gene T. We'll have to, I guess, continually keep an eye on them as we already are want to do. Yeah, and we look at who's more likely, or most likely, rather, to win the Heisman. Right now, Ashton, GNT is fourth, which I don't think people expect them necessarily. these are just based on betting markets on aggregation so you have dylan gabriel in first place

Travis hunter and second cam ward which i find a little interesting he's second in passing touchdowns but i don't think he's been a game changer the same way other people i'm not surprised cam ward is in the conversation he he's just had a ridiculous stats because miami is simply all offense they seem to let other teams score all over them as long as they're not the florida gators and it just seems like they're constantly in close games and then I'm constantly getting notifications about how he leads a touchdown winning drive and whatnot. So I can see how he's in there.

They haven't really faced anyone of a top tier caliber yet and won't per se. Maybe that Duke team will give them a good run for their money. I've also seen Shadur Sanders. He's not in the top five. Interesting. He's even below Penn State quarterback, Drew Aller. who's hurt right now.

Oh, wow. So, I remember seeing Aller for Heisman signs at college game day in the early weeks. Yeah. I guess that may not come to fruition as those Penn State fans had hoped. Well, it is crazy, though, for G&D against UNLV, the big thing, 33 carries only 128 yards, which I think for most people is still a solid game.

The one thing for concern is just long. was 16 yards. So hopefully, and maybe the people who are looking at these odds and part of the reason they're betting the way they are is if there's something that UNLVE was able to do on defense to really limit him, you have to believe that other teams are going to copy it. But anyways, I think it's time that we start getting into our picks for this upcoming week. And in terms of record for last week, I had a successful 5 and 2 week, and George had a four and three weeks, so we're both above 500. Matthew, I don't really have his record, so we will

not be including that this week, but I improve to 36 and 20 overall and George 35 and 21. So hopefully we can both have a good week this week in week 10. First up, let's go with the biggest game of the week, I would have to say. Oh, Wisconsin, Iowa? Yeah, let's do that one. Yeah, Biggest game of the week. Wait, Paul, do you hear something? No. You don't? No, I don't.

We could maybe start that over. Oh, what? Paul, do you hear something now? Yes, I do. What would that be, Paul? Ah. Is that the Wisconsin Badgers jumping around after they defeat the Iowa Hawkeyes of Iowa by, um, I don't know, 40 points conservatively?

Look, Wisconsin is a very explosive. offense. They showed that by pounding Rutgers, and I don't know why they can't do the same against Iowa, despite it being three-point underdogs on the road. Cade McNamara isn't on the depth chart. He's currently in concussion protocol. Not that Iowa really... He was about as good of passing for that offense as probably like a punter would be. I mean... Cade, we know you listen to the show, so sometimes truth hurts. But I have to imagine, though, if he's playing games. He's the best quarterback they have, which is a little scary considering that he hasn't had the best performances. Yeah. I am slightly concerned. If there is one concern,

and I think why Iowa's favored, is Penn State rushed for 178 rushing yards last week? And that's Iowa's main offensive weapon. Yeah, is going to be running that ball. Penn State was able to be very effective against that, and I think it was a little surprising. Hey, George, I have a quick question for you. Yeah. I mean, you, you talked about. Wisconsin's explosive offense. So I didn't really pay attention to Wisconsin football this past week, but how many points did they score this past week? Yeah, so they scored 13 points last week.

But if you actually look at that breakdown, they were holding tight with Penn State. It was in the third quarter. It was 14 to 13. The intrinsic value of all their points was higher. I just think that the Wisconsin that we saw at the beginning of the season, who did they lost a really bad game early? Alabama. Oh, yeah.

And Alabama plays. players were jumping around when the Wisconsin Student Section was nowhere to be found. Okay. Wisconsin student section didn't leave. That's fake news. What else are you going to do in Madison? It just rhymed. I had to do. Yeah. What else are you going to do in Madison, Wisconsin? Losing by 32 to an Alabama team, which I would say that Penn State and Alabama, you might disagree because you like SEC football, but I think they're kind of comparable as far as talent levels go at the very least or, you know, competitiveness. So to go from losing by 32 to Alabama, they lost by 17 to USC, and then they only lost by 15 to Penn State, but really a lot of that came in the fourth quarter and a touchdown

came with two minutes to go. I really think they're improving. If they can get this run defense doing well, they win the battle for Paul Bunyan's axe when they go to Minnesota. They'll find themselves in a pretty nice bowl game where the Wisconsin Faithful can travel down south during those frigid winters. I have many questions, but wasn't the Michigan-Michigan State thing of Paul Bunyan matchup? We talked about this. Yeah, was it a jug? I know Paul Bunyan had presumably different artifacts. He didn't just have an axe or a jug. It's the Paul Bunyan trophy. Yeah, because Wisconsin and Minnesota, they have Paul Bunyan's axe and then they have the goalposts where the teams, when they win, they fake chop down the goalposts. And Wisconsin has won a lot of those battles recently,

but same thing. Whenever Minnesota wins, they take over our jump around. So all that to say, George, I think you're picking Iowa in this game? No, we got Wisconsin. Though I will say, I'm either going to be very happy or very sad. It's not going to be a three-point win. I think I'm going to go with the Iowa Hawkeyes on this one. From the state of Iowa. Yeah, from the state of Iowa. And as George mentioned, running defense for the Wisconsin Badgers versus running offense for the Iowa. Hawkeyes. Iowa's quarterback is hurt. They're going to just rely on that run game and Wisconsin's defense is definitely going to bend and I expect them eventually to break if not early and it's

going to be a rough going for the front seven for the Wisconsin Badgers. The one nice thing about playing at Iowa is it's kind of a win-win if your team's playing there because if your team wins, your team wins. But if your team loses, you gave a gift to the kids who are watching from the hospital. One of the coolest traditions in college football, the wave, is that after the first quarter where they wade back to the kids at the cancer hospital that was built over the stadium? I don't know exactly when it is, but it is one of the quarter breaks. So even if Wisconsin loses, you know, give those kiddos something to cheer for. That's very sweet of you, George. I'm glad that you could put in that heartfelt note on this show,

especially since you're rooting for their favorite team to lose. All that's. to say, let's move on to our next game. And that next game is number 19, Ole Miss, going to Fayetteville to face the Arkansas Razorbacks. Yeah, speaking of airing it out, we have to do an air check, which is why you're listening to Radio Free Hillsdale, 101.7 FM, this is Bleacher Boys. Jackson Dart, I bet he would give a great air check because he has been airing the ball out, throwing pretty well, though he hasn't stepped up in some big games.

He said in his press conference that they had to win out. There was a lot of memes made about that, but I believe him. I think Ole Miss has a really good chance to win out, and I think they take care of business. Arkansas has been like South Carolina in some ways where they've been really close. They've had opportunities. They're just not quite there yet, and I think maybe in a year they will be. Let's go Ole Miss. I also am going to go with Ole Miss on this game.

Sometimes my tendency is just to pick the team that wasn't picked, and since it's just George and I, I do want to kind of go contrarian and just see how that goes, but I don't think it's a good idea to pick against Ole Miss in this game. Arkansas always seems to play it close with these top-tier teams, and they may poke one out like they did against Tennessee earlier this year, but generally they tend to choke them away. And that's the reality, at least the past reality that I'm banking on. So give me the Ole Miss Rebels. Good offense.

I think Lane Kiven's probably a better coach than Sam Pittman, and I think that'll show on Saturday. Next, we're going to go with the Vanderbilt Commodores facing the Auburn Tigers. George? Yeah, Auburn is much better than their 3 and 5 record shows, and that's been the story of the SEC this year. A lot of the teams are very similar in skill level.

Any given week, any team can win. And they beat Kentucky, and they played Missouri very tough. Last week, they're running back Jarkwez Hunter rush for 278 yards. Though I will say Vandy's rushed east fence has been pretty good in some ways. They're saving grace. But Vanderbilt has had, they had ball state in the middle of Texas and Alabama, but those are in three weeks, two really tough games. I think the wear and tear starts to show on them.

And their quarterback, Diego, I want to say Ravioli. What's his last name? Pavia. Pavia, okay, has gotten away with a couple mistakes. I think they come back to bite him. And Auburn will win this game. This one is for Nick Trellia. Well, as much as I would like to agree with you,

as Auburn football has been in a state of depression for several years, I will have to pick the Vanderbilt Commodores in this one. I think Pavia's just kind of got a little bit of a winning attitude in him, and he's proved that in several games. This is not the same caliber of team they've been playing in terms of, like, a Texas or in Alabama or Missouri. Auburn has had quarterback problems this year trying to figure out who's going to be consistent starter.

They may have figured that out by now, but I'm going to lean towards the Vanderbilt Commodores, the success that they've had this year. They seem to have more momentum, and as a result, I'm going to stick with them. And next, we're going to go to Minnesota at number 24, Illinois. Illinois has been a little bit of a disappointment this year. Didn't they lose to Michigan last week? No, they beat Michigan. No, they lost.

Oh, they did beat Michigan. They beat Michigan. No, they lost to Oregon last week. I knew they lost to a top team, and I guess that wouldn't make sense if I thought they lost to Michigan. Sorry for that, uh, blue faithful. They just didn't really look good against Oregon. They only beat Purdue by one.

And I know that's before the Michigan game where they won by two possessions. When Michigan had a really a terrific. I went to the Minnesota Michigan game and they played with a lot of heart. So give me Goldie. This is an interesting game. Illinois is at home. Illinois is a ranked team.

Illinois's two losses are to Penn State and Oregon, two undefeated teams in the top three. And yet they are the underdogs in this game to the Minnesota Golden Gophers. That's an interesting little tidbit. despite the fact that that is the reality of the game, I'm going to go with the Illinois fighting a line eye. They have had disappointing matchups against top-tier teams of Oregon and Penn State, but they've had pretty good games. They beat Nebraska. They've beaten Michigan. They've

beaten several good big 10 teams. I just think that Illinois does well against this caliber of team if that makes sense. And I think they do it again. They probably win by anywhere from three to nine points. No more than 10, but kind of close, good game, fun to watch, exciting at the end, but Illinois ultimately pulls it out. And we've talked about how the SEC is really solid from top to bottom. Let's show the Big 10 a little bit of love with besides Northwestern UCLA and Purdue at the bottom, which are clearly worst teams than the rest. You have Rutgers, Maryland, USC, Washington, Michigan, Nebraska, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Iowa, Illinois, as those middle tier teams, which have all really showed an ability to compete in high-level games. And you do wonder if with Oregon, Penn State, Ohio State, and Illinois all ranked right now, if those middling teams could play spoiler down the stretch.

Yeah, it's definitely interesting. I mean, obviously you have teams at the bottom of the conference. that aren't doing so hot, and I feel like the SEC has a little bit less of those, but there are more teams in the Big Ten, so maybe that's just being bigger. You have more worse teams. I will say that the teams at the top of the Big Ten definitely have better overall records, three undefeated teams still in the Big Ten. And that could change this weekend, but before we talk about that,

let's talk about a little bit of SEC football. We've got Texas A&M, the number 10 team in the nation. going to face the South Carolina Gamecocks. South Carolina is favored in this game. Is that right? I think it's not the case. It's very close. It's closer than it should be.

It's 2.5 in A&M's favor. Which seems very small, considering the talent gap between South Carolina and Texas A&M. Who has South Carolina beat this year? That's good. I don't. They almost beat LSU. Yeah, that's the thing.

And they've beaten no, no ranked teams, close games against LSU and Alabama. Yeah, normally I think that because markets are pretty efficient, that there may be seen something that we're not. But you just mentioned it. Texas A&M beat LSU by quite a bit. South Carolina needed a lot to go right to come within a field goal of LSU. kind of seems like a no-brainer to me. I'm probably missing something. So maybe you uncovered something in your research.

Give me an A&M. I think they're a top five team in the nation. Yeah, it's definitely a head scratcher in terms of odds on this one. I think that this will play a factor in terms of A&M. Maybe they're factoring in a like sort of a hangover coming off of that big LSU win, especially since they were both undefeated in the SEC and, you know, big conference game there. top 15 matchup, but I just don't really see how this happens. Maybe it is where it happens. I mean, South Carolina's coach, obviously this is just hype talk, but, you know, they'll remember you in

November. He tells his team, and, you know, this is where they're going to make their big move. Texas A&M is by far the biggest team on their schedule. Obviously, they play the last game of the year at Clemson, but I think they're looking forward to this one and hoping they get it. But I don't know, they just seem to be the team that everyone's like, oh, their upset watch, their trap game for all these top tier SEC teams. And they just haven't been. And they just haven't been.

I mean, so one thing I was looking at is we talked about how the leading passer for Texas A&M last game had two passes for 70 yards. That was their leading passer. Right. And I was wondering, okay, maybe South Carolina has a top five rushing defense or something.

South Carolina has the 15th ranked rushing defense in the nation. which is good, but Texas A&M is ranked 7, so they outclass them there. And I just don't see any dominant statistic showing that South Carolina is going to be able to stifle the ground game for Texas A&M the way that they would need to be such a close matchup on paper. Yeah, it's definitely puzzling how it is so close. Texas A&M has a good defense, and they really shut down LSU in that second half. A lot of their big games have been at home, but they even lost one to, Notre Dame, I just think that A&M has the talent. And when I said they had 235 yards rushing

against LSU, I did not mention that that was like spread out over three or four guys. And so it seems like they've got multiple guys that they're running out of the backfield. And even the quarterback who ended up leading the team in passing Marcel Reed, he's kind of like their backup. He's a dual threat quarterback. And like if he's playing quarterback and he's throwing the ball well, it just adds another dimension that they have to cover. And I know South Carolina has a dual threat quarterback as well, but I think A&M's defense is probably better than anything

they've faced, maybe outside of Alabama. But even Lenores Sellers, or who's the quarterback? Is it Rocket Sanders or Lenora Sellers? Lenore Sellers. Lenore Sellers, even him watching him, I didn't find him that much more

impressive than other dual threat quarterbacks I've seen. Yeah, it's... Specifically, tailing green of Arkansas. I would probably actually prefer him over South Carolina's quarterback. I don't see it. We're probably missing something, but. Yeah, I mean, we'll have to see on Saturday when that game happens. But, I mean, we're both rocking with A&M on this one, so we'll just have to wait and see. The next game is kind of under the radar. Nobody expected this to be a top 20 matchup, but we've got

the number 18 Pittsburgh Panthers facing the number 20 SMU. Mustangs. This is a tough one, but ultimately, I kind of like to go back to the last matchup. Duke SMU, SMU had to win in overtime by a point against a not very good Duke team. Yeah, they beat Florida State by quite a bit. Florida State is not what we thought they would be. And Pittsburgh has an extra two or three, I guess two days to recover from playing on Thursday night. I just think they're Eli Holstein is the better quarterback than Kevin Jennings, who threw three interceptions last week. SMU defense gave up almost 300 yards passing last week as well.

So I know it's kind of lazy analysis to look at the most recent game, but I think in some ways you're only as good as that. And throughout the season, they don't have a signature win besides maybe over Louisville. Even still, though, I'll take the non-SMU Pittsburgh Panthers. This is a tough one, as George mentioned. SMU is the favorite. They're at home, games in Fort Worth. I tend to lean towards SMU in this one.

They don't have a win that stands out on their record, so to speak. But they do have something that stands out, and that's their loss. Their only loss of the year was to BYU. And this was before BYU was ranked. But they lost by three to BYU. They limited the BYU offense to 18 points. When it happened, the game was kind of like, oh, cool, two mid-team. your teams, you know, play each other, SMU and BYU.

SMU did enter this season with pretty high preseason expectations. You know, they expected SMU to be at the top of the ACC, and they're kind of sitting there right now. They're sitting at number 20 in the nation, obviously undefeated in ACC play, and now they face the undefeated Pittsburgh Panthers. A lot of the stats is pointing to Pittsburgh, you know, Pittsburgh being that team. They've got Eli Holstein, who's passed for 1,800 yards so far this year, 17 touchdowns, and five interceptions, and they've got pretty good wide receivers. They have impressive wins,

like the backyard brawl against West Virginia. I think my gut is just taking me towards SMU. I think home field advantage does it for them, and Pittsburgh hasn't really been tested too too much. I mean, obviously that win was impressive over Syracuse, but as you said, George, like outside of the interceptions and the pick sixes, Pitt's offense produced maybe two touchdowns and a couple field goals. So I'm going to roll with SMU on this one. Do we come down to our last game or do we have two left? This is our last game. Okay. So that must be Ohio State versus Penn State?

Yes. The number three Penn State welcomes Ohio State to Happy Valley. Is this a whiteout game? It's not because it's a new, they're doing the noon kickoff for this game, which is actually kind of frustrating. This seems like the type of game that you would want a Penn State white out at night in Happy Valley. This is such a close matchup. If the QBee situation for Penn State wasn't a little bit of a question mark with their quarterback, it's Drew Aller getting knocked out against Wisconsin and his status for the game. As of recording, not really known. They might have to use the Olentangie high native four-star freshmen to start the game for them. And I don't know. I was underwhelmed by both games last week.

I'm a big momentum picker, and none of those teams are coming off of momentum-filled games. I mean, Penn State over Wisconsin a little, but they probably feel like they should have taken care of that game earlier. Ohio State has a really good front seven. Penn State is going to become more reliant on their run game, especially if their quarterback isn't good to go. And the running game isn't great this year, so I think I got to go with Ohio State. Ohio State does have more talent on the roster. guys like Jeremiah Smith, Will Howard, Quinson, Judkins. These guys have all had really good games at one point in the season.

And obviously there's the Ohio State defense. They lost a tough one to Oregon. And if they want any shot at being a top-tier playoff team, they have to win this game against Penn State. Penn State, on the other hand, has not played a ranked opponent outside of Illinois. And they barely beat Bowling Green in week two, if you remember that one.

So that doesn't really inspire a lot of confidence in me. I'm going to go with the team that has more talent in the Ohio State Buckeyes because I just believe that in this sort of game, especially if there's a major disparity in the quarterback with Aller being out, I think that they're just going to take it and totally dominate the Penn State offense without their starting quarterback. I think that's about all the time we have for today.

Thank you for listening to The Bleacher Boys on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7.