WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - Four Man Front: Down Goes Mateer!

Episode Date: September 27, 2025

Week 4 upends expectations. Titans clash in week 5. John Mateer’s injury breaks the Heisman race wide open. Lewis, Marc, Patrick, and Paden cover it all.

Texas Tech rolls Utah with a backup quarterback. Indiana humiliates Illinois in a border battle and John Mateer falls, but the OU defense shuts down Auburn. It's Saturday morning and it's week five. I'm Lewis Thune and welcome to the four-man front, the show about college football and nothing else. So good to be back with you folks. Happy Saturday to you and welcome back to the show. I'm joined, of course, by Mark Ayers, Patrick Hamilton, and Payton Hughes. Mark to my left. Preliminary thought on week four in the ACC. Miami looked great.

Florida State looked better. And Clemson might be really, really bad this year. It might be panic time. Patrick, I know it was actually a pretty encouraging week there for the Big Ten. It was. A lot of good things coming out of the Big Ten. We saw Indiana embarrass what was the ninth overall. Illinois. We saw Michigan escape Nebraska. Bryce Underwood scored the first touchdown on the ground. Justice Haynes turned around and had another long

touchdown around and so did a second string Marshall. I initially assumed that it would be Bryce Underwood that put the Wolverines over and that's what I predicted. It was all run game. If you have two running backs who can tear up a defense, that's all I want to watch in college football. Don't pass the ball. But I know someone who disagrees with me is Peyton Hughes. And it was Texas Tech's ability to pay. the ball this week that put them over Utah, despite losing their starter in Barron Morton at quarterback. However, Payton, I presume the big story out of the Big 12 in the recent week was not Texas Tech. No, it wasn't. This week, Oklahoma State, my favorite team, fired the second longest tenured head coach in college football, Mike Gundy. He had only had two losing seasons in his entire 21-year career, his first and his last last year. I wish you could have finished out the season, but hopefully bright things are looking up and at least it was fun to watch texas tech it was a pretty spendy move there from oklahoma state to fire him right out right now because that buyout since he

hasn't finished the season is a little higher is it not about five million dollars higher five million dollars to get rid of mike gundy on a season that's already doomed already and you don't let the longest tenured coach in your school's history and the number two in college football finish out his tenure and the most winningest coach in your school history it was such a stacked week in college football, that that's going to be the extent of our conference review, because we just need to talk about the games that we witnessed. We previewed five, Oklahoma, Auburn, Texas Tech, Utah, Michigan, Nebraska, Missouri, South Carolina, and Illinois, Indiana. It felt like true suffering watching Illinois just get pummeled by the Hoosers again and again and again,

63 points. It's not often you lose 63 to 10 as a top 10 team. It was always the question with Kurt Signetti, can he beat a good team? He plays a lot of cupcake schedules. I don't think there's any debating Illinois is a good team. They're not a great team, but they're a good team and Brett B. Lemma is a good coach. I mean, they were ranked 9th for a reason. Kurt Signetti beat the crap out of Brett B. Lemma. At no point in that game was I watching and I think, you know what, Illinois has a chance. They just need a turnover, they need something to break their way. It was like they need an absolute miracle to even put themselves back in contention right now. Mendoza threw five touchdowns.

270 yards in the air. It was Mickey Rourke in Indiana last year, and then they brought in Fernando Mendoza from California. A spectacular showing from him, Signetti controlled that game from beginning to end. I said that's what he liked to do. Is he liked to rob morale from good teams, and he's, humiliate good coaches, and I thought Brett B. Lemma could do it better. Signetti ruled that game, and he definitely deserves respect as a college football coach. Another game we talked about Texas Tech, Utah.

This game was 10-3 going into the fourth quarter, and Texas Tech wins it on the arm of Will Hammond, their backup quarterback after Baron Morton, who was putting himself on the Heisman discussion, threw for 142 yards and two picks before getting injured. Payton, what allowed Texas Tech to win this game? It was a worn down Utah defense, just actually crammed down on Texas Tech for three quarters, play after play after play. Baron Morton gets injured, doesn't come in for the second drive of the third quarter. Will Hammond is the backup quarterback.

Honestly, watching Utah's defense, it looked like they hadn't seen this guy at all. He was doing any and everything. He walked away from the game, the leading rusher for Texas Tech after only playing for a quarter and a half and going for the most passing yards in the game, he demolished the Utah defense. They were not prepared. This was a closer than 34 to 10 game. This was a one, maybe two score game if you really want to look at it right.

It's exactly what I called for last week. Texas Tech and Utah are going to be the top two teams in the Big 12. You saw it in the first three quarters. Utah is good. They are for real. So is Texas Tech. That's what you got to take away from this. Utah just couldn't hold snuff on a shortened field.

those last three Texas Tech touchdowns that turn this game from a 1310 game in the middle of the fourth quarter to a 3410 win came from 24 yards out, 24 yards out, and 21 yards out. Normally when the field shrinks, that is to say, when an offense moves closer and closer to its end zone, the defense doesn't have to worry about what's beyond the safeties. They're covering less and less field. Texas Tech just turned that on its head completely. When it mattered most in the fourth quarter, quarter, Joey McGuire went deep into his bag and he called some great plays. Well, we knew that Texas Tech had a good defense. We didn't know how solid this run defense was. Like we said last week, Utah is filled with a powerful running game. They have a great offensive line and they run the ball through three or four running backs. They could do nothing this week. They're leading Russia at 37

yards on the ground. That's unacceptable from this Utah team. Texas Tech was able to shut it down entirely hold the Utes to 10 points. That's exceptional. Texas Tech would not let Utah run the ball. Nebraska couldn't stop Michigan from running the ball. You always know Michigan is going to have five absolute dogs lined up on the offensive line, and they're going to hand it to a freak athlete. But my goodness, 286 rushing yards between their two primary backs and their mobile quarterback.

Patrick, your Michigan team pulled out a hard. party win there in Lincoln. Justice Haynes. What a dog. I hope to see him for at least another year at Michigan defensively. Seven sacks. It was a lot closer than it needed to be. We missed a lot of key opportunities in the air. There's two times back to back that we had chances to score and our receivers just dropped it. It was a quarterback's duel in Columbia, not Columbia, South Carolina, but Columbia, Missouri, as the Tigers legged out a win against South Carolina. Lenora Sellers, as I suspected, made his case why he should have been a Heisman contender coming into the year, 302 yards passing and two touchdowns.

He was sacked five times, though, and South Carolina could not run the ball. A total of negative nine yards, their leading rusher, seven yards on the day. The other side of the ball, Missouri did what they wanted, and guess what? They ran the ball 285 yards and 171 through the air, respectable from Bo Perbuella. Bo Perbula, as we know, a premier dual threat quarterback, nine rushes, 72 yards. This South Carolina defense could not get him on the ground. That's exactly right. I mean, Missouri from that rushing game, like you mentioned, we said it last week.

They have two rushers, Ahmad Hardy and Jamal Roberts, both of whom over 10 rushes, 22 for Hardy, 13 for Roberts. That's what Missouri wanted to do, and they just got away with it. Yeah, Peyton, that's right. And this game is a good marker for this Missouri team. Hardest three games on the schedule are Alabama, Vanderbilt, and Oklahoma. Oh, three-scene. Throw A&M in there as well. This is a Missouri team that out of those four games, Bama, Vandy, A&M, and Oklahoma could easily win too. Watch out for a Dark Horse SEC pick here. You remember at the beginning of the year in our first episode when I said that Missouri was going to be an actual contender this year in the SEC,

and they were going to snakebite some very good teams. I do. You did say it makes me feel a little bit better about the Kansas loss. Eli Drinkwitz is a master motivator there in Columbia, and he's getting more than enough out of his players every week. They always walk into games feeling like they're the underdogs. Even if they're not, Drinkwitz somehow gaslights his team into believing they're being

disrespected by everyone in college football. But boys, the biggest game. from this weekend. Oklahoma in Norman, hold serve against the Auburn Tigers. It was a ranked matchup. It was a great primetime game. Jammatir, 271 yards through the air, 29 of our 32 rushing yards. That's going to be a problem. Not to mention he broke his thumb and will be out for likely the next three weeks. Oklahoma's running game really felt like the fight song. You're just repeating the same thing over and over. and over and over again and getting absolutely nowhere.

But that defense has got to be the number one defense in the country. Auburn could do nothing. Yeah, Peyton, I mean, we could talk about this defense all night long. Ten sacks in this game, including one to end the game for a safety. And here's a stat to look at. Auburn had over 10 more minutes of time of possession than Oklahoma did, and they could do nothing with it. Which means the defense was on the field for 10 minutes longer than they should.

have been, and they still dominated. The Oklahoma Sooners defense, despite being one of the best in the country, has not taken the ball away from an offense yet. It's been punt after punt after punt. Last I checked it was something like 53 and outs. They can match up man to man, go head to head with any offense in the country and still win. There was obviously controversy with the substitution that was not, the play that Oklahoma cleared with the officials.

They brought it up preseason and pre-game and in the game. But the SEC released a post. They did, they did actually. So now there's pressure on the SEC to issue an apology for their apology. I will say Cam Coleman, that Auburn wide receiver, their wide receiver one, should probably be in the same conversation with Jeremiah Smith. He is very good. He was giving the OU defense fits.

all game. And really, I think he was the only reason Auburn was close in that game. Arnold overthrew him three times on three clutch plays where he completely broke OU's coverage. They did not have an answer for him. He's going to be a high NFL draft pick when he reaches that point. All right, gentlemen, we'll jump to the second segment because as great as week four was, we probably don't have enough time to talk about what's coming down the pipe week five. We were all watching last year. Alabama, Georgia in Tuscaloosa, one of the best games of the year,

an absolute shootout in which it looked like Alabama had the game secured. Then Georgia rattled all the way back and put Alabama against the ropes only for Ryan Williams to save the day. Alabama escapes with a victory. This year, it's Alabama, Georgia, and Athens. And college game day won't be there. Because guess what else is happening this week, boy?

boys, marquee action in the Big Ten as Oregon travels all the way to Happy Valley to take on Penn State. In addition to that, we've got LSU Ole Miss. That's a top 15 matchup in conference. We've got Auburn, A&M, another top 10 team. You have Indiana taken on Iowa, could be upset alert there for Signetti's team. And then you have Arizona, Iowa State in the Big 12th. All right, so we're going to do same format as last week. I'm going to take you through our three in-depth matchups, and then the other three matchups, which will be pretty quick. You're going to tell me who you have winning and why.

First off, let's talk LSU Ole Miss, two fan bases that absolutely hate each other. One, two, go to hell LSU, as they say, down in Oxford, Mississippi. I'll go ahead. I'm going to pick Ole Miss, and this is completely out of spite for the fact that I do not like Brian Kelly. Despite the fact that I think LSU is a lot.

a fake team and a paper tiger. I think Ole Miss is even more of a paper tiger. And I've seen enough from LSU to convince me that they can at least sustain themselves. I think they have this one. LSU has one good win on their resume, and that was Clemson in week one. LSU won a one-score game. It jumped them up to number three in the country. And now everybody's looking and saying, wait, why is this team number three?

I don't trust Brian Kelly. I think he's out of his depth in the SEC. I do trust Lane Kiffin. He's been here for a long time. He knows what he's doing. Give me Ole Miss. I am also going to go with Ole Miss here. As a little cheat sheet for me,

I will always go with the team that runs the ball better. And Kwan Lacey there in Ole Miss's backfield is already looking like one of the top backs in college football up there with Justice Haynes. Ole Miss hasn't been reliable at quarterback yet this year. They benched Austin Simmons for Trinidad Chamblee. We're not really sure what Lane Kiffin is going for. But Kiffin went from the Quinchon Judkins era directly into this Lacey kid, and he hasn't

disappointed. I'm going with Ole Miss. It's hotty-toddy all the way. And now we go through the state of Alabama, into Georgia, city of Athens, where finally Kirby Smart will get to host the Alabama Crimson Tide. We have not seen Alabama play in Athens in quite a long time. Who's it going to be, boys? As the Alabama resident here, I said last week, I believe.

that I'm not comfortable picking against Kirby Smart. I'm going to do it this week. He can't beat Bama. It just doesn't happen. Listen, every year Kirby Smart walks in with one of the most talented rosters in the country, and so often they inexplicably drop a game. I think Alabama, despite that loss to Florida State, is a good team. I think they're going to show that Georgia is the iffy team that I think they are this year. Give me the tide. I criticize Georgia about a lot of things and everything that I criticized them on, they ended up doing really well. Their offense has been really the story. So give me Georgia. I'm going to take Georgia here as well. I'm going to agree with you. We know Georgia has a great defense that's been historical since Kirby Smart's been there. Alabama still

hasn't proven to me that they are the team that we want to believe they are. Georgia's coming off of a great nitty-gritty win over Tennessee. We know how strong Tennessee is both offensively and defensively, and Georgia showed me their ability to win a shootout. If this game devolves into that, I will trust Kirby Smart. If it needs to be defensive, I will trust Kirby Smart. I'll take Georgia. Yeah, Florida State really exposed Alabama's troubles in a way that no one was expecting. Tony White came in and he had a thought that no one had had since 2007, since before Nick Saven was there.

He said, you know what, let's test the Alabama offensive line. And that's exactly what he did. And they failed that test bad. Kirby Smart saw that and he was licking his chops the whole time. Ty Simpson is going to be running for his life all game. I think Kirby Smart's going to shut down Ty Simpson here. Don't think the Alabama run game is going to get rolling. If you can't move that ball on the ground, you can't move that ball at all.

It's Georgia in Athens. This might not be a close game. That crowd is going to be electric. All right. Penn State, Oregon, two top 10 teams. college game day is in Happy Valley. This is definitely the best choice, not even purely based on the rankings.

Penn State's fans will pack out college game day. And I think it's a whiteout too. It is the Whiteout game. It's a Whiteout game. It's the Whiteout game. It's going to be awesome. There's only one place, I believe, in the Big Ten that holds a candle to the SEC fan bases

with how crazy they are, and that's night game Penn State white out. That place is, the loudest you will ever hear. The toughest arena to play in. The question is, is that going to affect Oregon? Obviously, you have Dante Moore, who's not a young quarterback. He's been in the Dan Landing system for a while, but he hasn't started a whole lot of games.

He's been patient, but is Happy Valley going to get to him? What do you all think? I think it's going to, they have played nowhere this season. The West Coast atmosphere is not... It's not the same. It's not the same. And their only away game so far has been against Northwestern. This is going to be an atmosphere unlike anything this team is experienced.

This is going to be a level of competition, unlike anything, this team is experienced. And infinitely more than Dante Moore has experienced. Exactly. I think both of these teams are going to be playoff contenders. For sure. Definitely. Natty contenders. Yes.

They might have a rematch much later in December. In my opinion, I think that Penn State is going to really prove why it deserves that number three spot. I think you're going to see a blowout of Oregon. I could be very wrong. Oregon has a great offense, but I don't believe it yet. I have not seen enough. Give me Penn State. I wholeheartedly agree. What I love about this game is Penn State's defense. I watched Jim Knowles, the Penn State defensive coordinator at Oklahoma State for five years. He took a bunch of three stars and made that one of the best defenses in the country in 2021. Then I watched him go to Ohio State and give Ohio State a national championship.

And now I'm watching him go to Penn State, who's already notorious for their defensive line. And you're giving Jim Noles that team, and you're giving Jim Noles that team in whiteout night game against a top 10 team in the country. Penn State all the way. Dante Moore, he's been in college for a while. He knows the system, but he's not experienced enough.

Penn State wins this. I'm going to say 10 points. I just don't see Drew Aller right now with the efficiency that you would like to see out of a number three team in the country, especially considering they haven't played any good teams. He's 57 for 88. Fine. Only four touchdowns. He's thrown in interception. He is less than 700 yards. And I think this is going to be another James Franklin, cannot win in big games. I am going to pick the Oregon Ducks here in this game. Penn State has the best one-two punch in the country in Ketron Allen and Nicholas Singleton returning

their two backs from last year. The Jim Null's defense is spectacular. It always is. And it's for that reason that I have Penn State as my national champions. I do not have them winning this game, though. I think Dan Lannning has Jim Null's number. We saw it last year. I think Oregon's going to come in here. They're going to control this game. They're going to disappoint the crowd assembled in Happy Valley. They're going to steal the momentum, catapult themselves into the top three. But I think Penn State's going to learn from that. I think they're going to adapt. and I think you're going to see Jim Knowles and James Franklin take this Penn State team into the playoff

much better than when they entered the season and that as the year wears on, they're going to become a tougher and tougher team to beat until I believe they're going to win it all. All right, three last games to get to. These are flash points. Just say, who and why? Auburn, Texas, A&M.

A&M. I think they're fake, but not this week. Auburn. Auburn. Jackson Arnold didn't look great, but he didn't have any turnovers, so. that A&M defense isn't good enough. It's Auburn. Indiana, Iowa. Indiana. Indiana. Indiana. Signetti's got this team role, and the Iowa defense is good, but they're not that good. Give me Indiana. Arizona, Iowa State.

Ooh. Arizona. Iowa State. Iowa State is just the better team by literally every metric ever. But Iowa State has no momentum this year. I think every player on the team knows that they're not the number 14 and team in the country. They note that they're lucky to be ranked right now. me Arizona and Noah Fafita. I got Iowa State. I think Matt Campbell's going to revert to what works and that's running the ball. Abusama, Carson Hanson, one, two,

handoff. Take Arizona's offense out of the game. I would love to watch that happen. Iowa State is taking this game. And that's where we're going to leave the first half. Because we've got some hot topics to get to in the second half. The Heisman race has taken a hit. There's some very likely upsets coming up this week.

And we're going to talk about some best and worst five weeks in. You're listening to Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM, and this is the four-man front. Stay with us. We'll see you in six. You're listening to Radio Free Hillsdale, 101.7 FM. And this is the second half of the four-man front. I'm Louis Thune, our show's SEC Defender. To my left is Mark Ayers, Mr. A.CC. What's up, Mark? Nothing much. Ready for the second half. Right across the table from me is Patrick Hamilton. Big Ten junkie, but he mostly only cares about Michigan. It is true. And then to my right,

Payton Hughes, a morning Oklahoma State fan, but a slightly optimistic Big 12 fan. Isn't that right, Peyton? Yeah, optimistic about the Big 12th still sad about my pokes. And rightfully so. We're going to get into that and every other pressing issue in today's college football landscape. Let's start out, of course, with the Heisman race. Oklahoma quarterback John Mateer suffered quite. a broken thumb in the first quarter of the game against Auburn. He went on to lead Oklahoma in passing and rushing, playing the remaining three quarters, leading My Sooners to a 24-17 victory, but underwent thumb surgery on Wednesday and is expected to miss two, maybe three games, including Red River.

Now, we can talk about the implications for Oklahoma on a later day. They're going to be starting Michael Hawkins. What this really shakes up is the Heisman trophy race, as John Mateer was the odds-on favorite as of last week. Now things are looking pretty different. Mark, I believe you have the odds pulled up. Who does Vegas like? I do, Lewis. So Vegas currently has Indiana quarterback Fernando Mendoza at plus 850 as the favorite to win. Behind him, Carson Beck from Miami, Dante Moore from Oregon, Jeremiah Smith from Ohio State, Marcel Reed from Texas A&M, Gunner Stockton from Georgia,

Jaden Mayava from USC, Joey Aguilar from Tennessee, Josh Hoover from TCU, and Garrett Nussmeyer from LSU round out the top 10 in Vegas. A couple others I'd like to mention are Julian Sayan from Ohio State, Ty Simpson from Alabama, Tommy Castiano's from Florida State, and Haynes King from Georgia Tech, and Drew Aller from Penn State. Those round out the next closest from then on the list, tanks. So it's Jeremiah Smith versus the quarterbacks at this point. Yep. And I like to point out how many mobile quarterbacks we have on this list. I mean, I'm not going to read the list again, but if you were listening, you know over half of those guys can get yards on the ground as well through the air. On a regular basis. I don't dislike that list. I think we all agree that Tommy

Castellanos is undervalued there, especially within a Gus Malzahn offense. He's going to get his passing yards, and he's going to get plenty of rushing yards. Absolutely. Malzana's already shown he's not afraid to give Castellanos the ball on the ground. at any moment. Now, his odds will go up as we enter ACC play, and especially looking at that big October 4th matchup with Miami, he'll have his chance. But for now, he's a little lower on the list.

The real question in the modern day is, can your team go 10 and 3? Exactly. Because if your team can't get double-digit wins, you're probably not in the Heisman conversation. Most of the time, you're playing for a conference championship, hence 10 and 3 if you're winning the Heisman trophy. There have been some dudes who've won. it on a nine-win team, but that's rare. You have to be shining out on a very, very good team in

order to win the Heisman Trophy, which is inevitably going to eliminate a lot of those players. Who do you think is on a team good enough right now and is playing well enough that they could potentially be a dark horse candidate for the Heisman trophy? I'm going to have to agree with Vegas here. I think Fernando Mendoza for the Heisman this year. I mean, look at Indiana. He put up a whopping 63 points, five touchdowns against the 9th, Illinois. Yes, you can say, okay, Illinois could be overrated. Doesn't matter. Indiana came in, huge underdogs, and he's the second Indiana quarterback to throw five passing touchdowns

against the top 10 opponents since 2000. And the last person to do that was Michael Pennix Jr. in 2020 versus Ohio State. I heard he was pretty good. And so I sit here and I think, you know what, early on the season, Fernandez doing well, I'll take Fernando Mendoza this week. But we'll see after next week's game. We talked about Tommy Castellanos already. As a huge Florida State fan, I would love to talk about him more. But instead, I'll talk about my current defensive favorite for the Heisman.

If one was to win it, I think the only real option right now is Ruben Bain Jr., defensive lineman for Miami. Now, he has put up absolute numbers for the Canes this year, and he'll have the opportunity to do so again against Florida State come October 4th. From then on out, the list of teams that they play, It gets significantly easier. They have Louisville, Stanford, SMU, Syracuse, NC State, Virginia Tech, and Pitt. None of those teams are currently ranked. I think it's highly likely that Syracuse will be by the time they play Miami. But regardless, Ruben Bain will have the opportunity to stat pad like crazy.

And this Miami team will almost certainly go at the very worst 10 and 1 through the regular season. I'm sorry, 11 and 1 through the regular season. and we'll have a solid chance to end of the postseason, especially with the good performance against a talented Florida State offensive line. He could very quickly jump in our rankings. We should definitely have seen more defensive linemen in the Heisman Trophy conversation. It's an undervalued position. The closest to anyone ever came would be in Dama Kung Su for the Nebraska Cornhuskers,

went on to be an absolutely legendary NFL player. One of the greatest football players of our generation. I think that's as if I had to go for a defensive man, Bain would be the guy right now. He's the only defensive player out there who has truly shown himself exceptional yet this season. We knew there were a lot of good folks coming in this season, Simmons, Texas, Perkins, LSU. But Bain has shown himself statistically, at least, and that's what's really going to matter as the season moves on to be an exceptional player.

And I think he's the main reason that the Miami defense is holding up as well as it is. He's already got 11 solo tackles, two sacks, a forced fumble, and an interception, if you'd believe it. Wow. If you can keep doing that, and I know Miami loves to drop those D-Ns into coverage, because they're fast. They're glorified linebackers. If he can keep doing that, he's going to have to put up some more sacks, a lot more sacks. But it's possible. Payton?

I'm just going to have to, like, purely disagree with Patrick. I think a requirement for Hysman that we haven't really talked about is, media attention. While Indiana might be good, they don't have the media attention that you would get from Dion Sanders and Travis Hunter. I don't know what their schedule looks like. If they have three losses, there's no way Mendoza wins a Heisman. I don't see this happening. I'm going to go to the bottom of the list. Don't give them up yet. They still have both Oregon and Penn State on the docket. So Mendoza will have his chance. If they beat both, Mendoza is completely and totally in the running, because if a quarterback shows that they are completely and totally exceptional and they don't have the media coverage, then they

will get it. You need to see something exceptional. We haven't seen that from Mendoza yet. A 63 and 10 win over the ninth-ranked team in the country. You have not seen a quarterback other than Jean Meteer yet. Exactly. Establish himself as probably the most talented quarterback in college football. And you certainly haven't seen any Heisman moments yet out of those quarterbacks, those signature plays. With Mateer out of the race, that's why I don't hate. You could see an off position, meaning running back, wide receiver, even defense win it this year if what we're seeing with current quarterback play is going on. If there was a year for an off position player to win, it is this year, the person I want to highlight, I want to look at Haynes King, because as we looked at last week, that Georgia Tech

schedule is weak. They have a real chance to win the ACC or at least be a one loss team in the ACC championship. If Haynes King can take this Georgia Tech team to the playoff writing on an 11 and one season or 12 in one season, he's got to be in that top three conversation, period. Let me insert my dark horse for the Heisman trophy. If it came down to a pure passer, a Michael Pennix, a Cam Ward type player, it's just going to be Joey Aguilar. That hyperal offense is minimizing his weaknesses and emphasizing his strengths. He's going to put up gargantuan numbers this year.

But the man I have in mind is one who Vegas probably isn't even offering odds on, and he's going to take us into our next high. topic because he is the quarterback for the Washington Huskies, Demand Williams Jr. As I said previously, as I've heard it said, the man has demon in his name because he brings all hell with him. 700 yards through the air, 200 on the ground, undefeated Washington team. He's got six touchdowns throwing the ball, two running. He's carrying this Washington team into a matchup against the number one ranked Ohio State Buckeyes. He gets them at home.

Gentlemen, I think the Buckeyes are on upset alert this week, and I am going to take the Washington Huskies. I don't hate it. It is going to be insane up there in Washington as Dimon Williams has his Heisman moment against the Ohio State Buckeyes and sends the number one team in the country packing home three and one. Honestly, I'm going to have to disagree with you on this. I do not think this is going to be a DeMond game.

This is going to be Washington Huskies running back Jonah Coleman, 51 carries, 350 yards, nine touchdowns or three games. The only reason DeMond Williams is not in the Heisman conversation is because Jonah Coleman has phased him a little bit out of the running game because he's that good. This Washington offense has not missed a step. Jedfish came up there from Arizona after. turning the Arizona program around, and now he has Washington looking every bit as strong as the Kalin-de-Bore years. I think this Washington team could be a sleeper pick in the Big 12.

They have a chance to run the tables. They have a relatively easy schedule, and that offense is electric. Absolutely electric. I mean, this Washington defense, we talked a lot about their offense. They have a good rushing defense. They're only allowing 62 yards per game, but they're allowing almost 200 yards passing per game. That's 62nd in the country. And against this elite Ohio State offense with, you know, Jeremiah Smith, arguably the best receiver in the nation, we'll see how they hold up.

They might, it might turn into a shootout. But if it does, I feel a little more confident in the Buckeyes. Give me OSU in this one. Julian San, despite being a freshman QB, has played really well. I mean, I remember when we were, we were all worried about, that Texas game. He did have a bad game against Texas. Arch Manning outplayed him in that Texas game, hard as it is to believe. He looked inexperienced, but he was hardy enough, late game. He displayed some composure there, and that was able to pull them out. But this, I think, is what

makes it a trap game, because that game was in the shoe. Now you've got a freshman quarterback, still little jitters, little kinks left a workout. He's a good passer. He's in a good offense, but he's going on the road against a team that's secretly ferocious, sleeper contender, and the environment up there in Washington, when that husky comes sprinting out of the tunnel and the entire Washington sideline behind it. I think that the rushing game will struggle. I'm still going to pick the Buckeyes, but I'm really hoping that I'm proven wrong in the situation. Brackett Jeremiah Smith, that Ohio State offense weakens significantly.

The Ohio State defense and the college football world is not ready for the craze that DeMond Williams is going to insert this week. I'm a big fan of that call there, Lewis. He hasn't been in my radar, but what you're telling me, I think the media is going to have a field day with Washington being back. If he can have a Heisman moment, they want to look back to Kalin-Dabor and Michael Pinnock's. That would be glorious. I would love to see DeMond do something. I'm telling you he's the closest thing to Lamar Jackson I have seen since Lamar Jackson, a scary, fast and shifty quarterback who can throw the ball. Paired with an elite running back. The only other pairing that we see this is Oregon.

You'll notice. Elite running back and elite QB. Real quick, we're going to have to shoot through some bests, some worsts, some busts, and some sleepers. Before we get to the intentional grounding, this is going to be conference-specific. you are going to tell me the best, the worst, the bust, or the overrated, and the sleeper. It can be any position. You can tell me the best team in your conference, the worst wide receiver in your conference, the bust coach in your conference, and the sleeper crowd.

I'm going to go ahead and go first, if you guys don't mind. Make it quick. The bottom, UCLA in the Big Ten. My goodness, the worst team I'm thinking college football. Who's the best? The best overall, I am going to have to say Oregon. I think the sleeper is going to be Maryland. I think Maryland has looked really good.

Defensively, they are scary. And, you know, time will tell. I think that Maryland should be a ranked team. Who's the bust? That is already disappointing or are going to disappoint. This is tough because I want to say Ohio State, but they have a pretty easy schedule after Washington. So I think the team that is going to really disappoint everyone, I think it's just going to continue to be Illinois.

All right, I'll go second. The best quarterback in the SEC is Lenora Sellers. Unfortunately, he is paired with the bust coach in the SEC, who is Shane Beamer. Man's a coordinator. I don't think he's a head coach. He certainly cannot give his Heisman worthy quarterback an offensive line that can keep him clean. The worst team in the SEC this year. is going to be Kentucky. Mississippi State and Arkansas have shown themselves at least viable

teams. I think Mark Stoop's era at Kentucky is over and they're going to need some answers in Lexington. The sleeper to win the SEC right now is Missouri. We talked about it earlier. Bo Perbula and Eli Drinkwitz have built a resilient team that's capable of winning close games. I don't think Missouri is going to get blown out by anyone they play. No matter. matter how elite they are, they control the pace of the game. Give me Missouri, if everyone else proves unspectacular, to win the SEC. I don't think that's going to happen, but crucially, I think it can. ACC, best team Florida State Seminoles.

No, really? Yeah, okay. Wow, well, the Florida State guy picked Florida State. More points scored and less points allowed than Miami, even though Miami has had a whole another game for the bust. I'm picking Louisville, currently undefeated, 3 and O. I'm not convinced yet. I think they're going to have a mid-season falloff.

They play Miami and SMU during the regular season. I think those are two games they lose. I could have picked Georgia Tech, but I feel pretty convinced that Georgia Tech is going to win out from here on out. Worst team in the ACC is definitely Virginia Tech, which is sad to say... You sure it's not Pitt? Pitt is really bad, but Virginia Tech is worse.

Are they as bad as UCLA? No. No, that's kind of a hard one to clear. Yeah, Sleeper pick is in fact going to be, I was going to say Georgia Tech as the sleeper, but they're ranked number 16. We've talked about them before. Definitely top three in the ACCC. Let's talk about Syracuse as the sleeper pick in the ACC.

There we go. Give me Fran Brown. That's right. This team lost their opener to Tennessee, who admittedly we know is a very good team. And if you watched that game, that game was a lot closer than that final score makes it seem. Syracuse had many chances to win that game. Tennessee got a couple lucky breaks. This Syracuse team is good.

They can put points on the board. They play Georgia Tech, Miami, and Notre Dame at the end of the season. And I think they have a real chance, and SMU for what it's worth. I think they have a real chance to knock off a couple of those teams, and they could find themselves in the ACC championship. You know, we love the classics here at Hillsdale College. I've been reading all week about how it was Syracuse that basically won the second Peloponnesian war and sent Athens home tail between their legs.

That's right. Fran Brown's got those boys bumping in Syracuse. Kyle McCord had him rolling a year ago. They look great. Payton, tell me about the Big 12. Best team is pretty clear. Texas Tech has looked great. I've said it since week one. The offense started off slow against Utah, but Texas Tech stayed strong throughout the entire showing. Texas Tech is the best team in the Big 12. Worst, I'm going to try and be quick. I'm going to go worst quarterback in the Big 12. And it's got to be Garrett Rangel for the Oklahoma State Cowboys. He looks worse than Alan Bowman. Bowman, he looks like a D3 walk-on. It's honestly really sad to watch.

The dude is a deer in headlights anytime he steps onto the field. He has zero confidence. When asked about him, Mike Gundy said he works really hard. Sleeper pick, I'm going to say BYU. TCU's been getting a little bit more love. BYU is allowing five points per game. This is a team who had the best defense in the Big 12 last year. BYU is looking to set that up again.

BYU looks strong. They're at number 25. They go to Colorado this week. if they get a two, three score win there, I bet they jump up a couple spots in the rankings. I'm excited for them. Bust team in the Big 12. I'm struggling. I think it would normally be Kansas State.

I'm going to say Iowa State. They're 4 and 0, but they should not be 4 and 0. This is a team who, if they were playing any real substantive teams, any top 25 teams, Iowa State would be 0 and 4 every single time. Rock O'Bect has not shown me enough to be confident. That's the state of the Big 12. All right, gentlemen, let's get to the intentional. grounding and bring it home. We have to be rapid fire about this. You're really getting the ball out of

your hand this time because the rush is on. All right, gentlemen, intentional ground go. Yet another home retake. FSU beats Miami by two scores next week. That's in Tallahassee or Miami? In Tallahassee. Oh, that's not a bad pick. Night game, 7.30. My intentional grounding, this is, this one's going to hurt a little bit to some people on this panel, but I think that Oklahoma is going to have a tragic downfall. with Mateer being gone. Oklahoma's, really, their whole offense falls down to Mateer and you remove him out. I'm just not sure how you can really recover. And so I think that Oklahoma is sadly going to drop some games. They're playing, they've got a buy week and then they're playing Kent State and then they're playing Texas. Yeah, I think they'll drop this Texas game.

Moving into the Big 12, I'm looking at Arizona. I'm looking at this schedule. They don't play Texas tech and they do not play Utah. Arizona's hardest game on the lineup right now is BYU at the number 25 team in the country. Unless Baylor, Kansas, or Arizona State really get their act together, Arizona could make it through with one, sorry, two ranked teams. They face Iowa State, obviously, this next week. I'm looking forward a little bit beyond that. I already called them over Iowa State. You say that they drop one sad game. They're 11 and 1 and potentially make the Big 12 championship. I'm calling Arizona walks out of the Big 1210 and 2. Noah Fafita reminds me of Tuatago Viloa,

except I think he'll probably be an even better quarterback in the NFL. This could be a dude who could be starting on Sundays within the next three, four years. He'll take some time, he'll take some seasoning, but that's a guy who knows what he's doing. My intentional grounding is also going to touch on Oklahoma, but I'm going to take the opposite position. Even if John Matier isn't in for Red River, give me Oklahoma. Now, that run game is stagnant. It's been terrible all year. John Matier is really leading our rushing game, but John

Mateer isn't an improvisational runner. He improvises and he makes passes. He finds people downfield. Michael Hawkins, his substitute, already has some ranked wins under his belt from last year coming in for Jackson Arnold and pitching relief. But if it's panic time, that dude is making stuff happen with his legs. He's sneaky fast. He's tiny. He's hard to touch up. Texas, is going to have trouble with this guy. More so than John Mateer. John Mateer's a designated run kind of QB, the old school Tim Tebow, Sam Ellinger type offenses.

You line the quarterback up, you snap him the ball, he's taken one step back and finding the hole. Michael Hawkins can make a defender miss on a pass. He's running up there, he's gaining 18, and he's sliding down. Guys, I think this Oklahoma defense is good enough to lock down Texas. I think this Texas defense is better than Oklahoma's defense. but they're not ready for a quarterback like Michael Hawkins who can hurt them that much on the ground. Gimme Oklahoma and Red River. That's what we're going to have to wrap it up as we're

low on time, so I'll be quick about the outro. For Mark Ayers, Patrick Hamilton and Peyton Hughes, I'm Lewis Thune, and this has been the four-man front. We hope you'll be watching week five alongside us. Until next week, heavy football.