Welcome to the solid Verbo. Come that for me.
I'm a man, I'm forty. I've heard so many players say, well, I want to be happy. You want to be happy for day Edith State?
Is that? Whoa? Whoa? And Dan and Ty welcome back to the Soliburbal boys and girls. My name is Ty hilden Brand. I am joined as always by my friend and colleague and co host of many years, a fine gentleman over there in the good old NYC by the name of Dan Rubinstein. Sir, how are you?
I am really good? Ty, I am. I am genuinely very good. This is as rested as I've ever been when we recorded a show. We're recording ten am Eastern Time. I had a wonderful night's sleep last night because normally we record Sunday mornings, we're up late watching games, and I was up sort of late watching Bowl games. But or you know, after a long day's work, I really relish these shows.
Ty.
I'm I'm in the little Dan Cave and my apartments, and I'm feeling wonderful. People told us during the season it sounded like our Sunday morning shows didn't have quite the oomph of a Wednesday Show. True, you are punchy after a day's work. I will say that.
I see how. I see how people would get that impression. To your point though, about getting a good night's sleep. So I got an Apple Watch. I don't know if I've announced this on the show or not, but I bought an Apple Watch.
Not as good as MVMT for me for my money, of.
Course, guy. But I'm trying to I'm seeing what different applications are available to me, and one of the things I started trying to do was monitor my sleep. You know how I sleep, Dan, We've talked about this before on the show.
Like you've been in the hull of a ship for your entire life. I've been deeply.
Alarmed at the sleep quote unquote score that I've been assigned by some of these apps. Like, oh no, if it were in terms of a test that you take in elementary school, I'd get a constant f. My sleep score is like a sixty one one percent. Okay, these apps know how poorly I sleep, but they offer no suggestions for how to actually fix it.
So I guess that's the I offer you a suggestion.
Well, I've tried the apps, but but they get me to sleep. They don't keep me asleep.
That's a problem. Oh, I gotcha, Sere.
I'm going with this. I do.
I do see where you're going. How are you doing otherwise, ty how is your college football brain? My college football brain is great. I don't know if you saw, but a lot of people have tweeted us now thanking us for presenting this alternative theory for bull confidence pools how to go about it?
And I actually looked this morning. The solid verbal Among the many thousands of groups in ESPN's bull Confidence Pool, the solid verbal has the second highest average score so far through like five games. Mind you, but sure, but that's something we're doing, okay.
Would you say, because I don't think I've missed a game yet. I think I was five for five yesterday. I don't know what you record was yesterday.
I missed one. I missed the UCF game. Oh, sorry to hear it. I tried to convince you. Would you say because of the success that both we and our listeners are having that the solid verbal universe is having a December to remember. If you look outside, Tye, there is a there's a lexus with a giant novelty bow that I left for you, because Ty.
This isn't the seasons. It's not about me not sharing Ty and what you did telling people to invest big early in these ballgames. I think it really speaks to the holiday spirit that's not just within you, within all of.
Us, the lexus with the bow. You are too much, man. I don't know where you came up with that, but good for you.
That's the actual song I want to Yeah, I did a minimal amount of research for that, a goof and I found it.
All Right, let's get to some actual news out there. We are parking.
Can we start with personal news. Yes, we have a venue. We have tickets that will be telling you in a matter of seconds when you can get them for our January live season review show, And I would you like to do the honors tie?
Well, you pick the venue. The venue is Hill Country Chicken. Hill Country Chicken. What do we know about Hill Country?
Hill Country Chicken is a wonderful place. It is in Flat Iron District, Midtown ish of New York City. So if you're in the Greater New York City area or can be in the Greater New York City area, we'd love to have you. Tickets are pretty limited. We will be releasing them. You said Wednesday, This coming Wednesday.
This coming day, December twenty first, at one pm Eastern.
One pm Eastern, so ten for all the people out on the way coast who play on coming it'll be ten am year time, so one pm eastern. Hill Country Chicken I shot easy call there. They have exceptionally good fried chicken, and like mini pies and milkshakes.
They do them.
You know what they do tie They take their mini pies and they put them in a blender with their milkshakes. And this season has been I mean, the official confectionery treat of the twenty sixteen solid verbal college football season has to be the milkshake, right, I.
Would assume so, yeah, because the Adam Amane stuff. Sure.
So, they have ridiculously good milkshakes. And the cool thing about Hill Country Chicken. One, it's pretty central. It's near a bunch of trains. You can get there really easily.
Two.
They have like this ridiculous basement and that's where we're doing our show. You go downstairs and it's appointed like you would like a den or a basement from like a suburban home. In nineteen ninety four, it's there's like board game. It's it's great. It's a cool venue. I shot easy Call there. I interviewed notable Oklahoma fan Nathan ali Well from the Kings of rum Ye interviewed him down there in the basement. Shot easy call a couple of years ago or last year actually at other Hill
Country locations. It's a great place. They do great things. And eight pm Saturday, January fourteenth. Tickets go on sale this coming Wednesday, the twenty first, at one pm. You can find we will will tweet it out at one pm. We'll post it on Facebook at one pm. I believe if you google solid verbal and event right b our ite,
you should be able to get to the page. And I would stress try to move relatively quickly because it's a it's a pretty small space and we just want to have fun with some of our pals.
So the plan is going to be at that point to celebrate the national champion, because the championship game is the Monday before our live event, so we'll know who the champion is. I mean, I'll be celebrating Temple football, so we'll I'll be celebrating our own football situations. But in particular, the champion will know who it is, and we're gonna reflect on some of the central themes from the season, and we're gonna eat the chicken. And I believe there are drinks. Will there be drinks? They?
Yeah, absolutely. I don't know if we I don't know if we're offering a package, like if you get a ticket, we're gonna get you a chicken sandwich and a shiner. Right, But they have really good Texas beer and they have fried chicken sandwiches. They do I don't know if they still do this, so I can't promise this, but this just sort of speaks and they're they're not paying us to say any of this.
There what was it? It was?
They're mashed potatoes. They like these cheesy mashed potatoes. I'm generally not a big mashed potatoes guy, but they would just cut up French fries and put them in the mashed potatoes.
I'm great with that. Yeah, I'm wondering. I'm fine with this idea. Yeah.
This is also a place that when I went there with our pal Andy Staples, he had a person on Twitter after he posted a picture of his tray of fried chicken send him call the restaurant and send him a pie, Like like he was a charming dude across the bar sending a drink to a potential lover. Tye, he got sent a pie.
Wow.
Yeah, so that's pretty cool. So that's what we're doing at January fourteenth. It'll be at eight pm. Hopefully everybody in and around New York City that is interested can can make their way to Hill Country check.
In absolutely and more to come on this. We are trying to lilign some folks up to stop buy, maybe not be on stage with us, but to stop by and just because amongst the people. Yeah, Okay, what do we got in the way of actual college football news? Well, actually a fair amount, nothing to groundbreaking, but we've got stuff to talk about here. Yes, the big one is the Holiday Bowl. As it pertains to the topic at hand here, we're going to go through what the Military
Bowl through the Birmingham Bowl. So we got a bunch of games to discuss. But as it relates to bulls, Minnesota was threatening a boycott. Ten teammates had been suspended as part of an ongoing investigation. The football team thought that they were not given due process and they were threatening to not play in the Holiday Bowl. So there was a lot of scuttle butt on this, as you might imagine, in the days leading up to I guess they came to a conclusion, like yesterday or Friday evening,
would Northern Illinois take their place? Would it just be an outright forfeit? A lot of questions surrounding this. The boycott is now over, if you're wondering. The team met with some university officials, and I believe they're now at a point where yes, they're going to the bowl game. They're going to play against Washington State. All's well, that ends Well, I will be picking Washington State because this
seems like a bit of a distraction. H But with that being said, alas it will be Minnesota against Washington State in the National Funding Holiday Bowl. Yeah.
And I sort of got the intentions of the players trying to look out for due process and hoping that their teammates weren't railroaded because of something that they didn't do. But then apparently they read an eighty page report that is not an insignificant number of pages about the alleged incident,
and that sort of changed their minds. And the lesson here is if players plural especially are being suspended for something as heinous a sexual assault, give it a second, sort of figure out what's happening, you know, try to stay as informed as one possibly can, and the sort of rush to sort of defend your teammates needs to probably slow down until you're able to sort of gather as much information as possible. So I guess happy to see that players are seeing truths and recognizing that probably
they shouldn't be associated with certain alleged truths. Also, have we discussed WAKI leaks? Oh no, we haven't. We should talk about that now, we because we recorded earlier in the week, right before it came out, maybe the day before it came out. Wake Forest Who radio broadcaster Tommy L Rod I think his name is, yes, Tommy al Rod,
former assistant coach, was not retained. He was a GROB assistant and just not a good twenty sixteen for all things related to Jim Grove, former Globe assistant not retained by Dave Clauson turned radio broadcaster, and for at least two years, I mean I think two years of the allegation. Everybody knows this by now, but was giving proprietary information to demon Deacon opponents, which is one crazy. Two, he's probably not the only bitter person to do this with
access to information across college football. And three we know Louisville and was a Virginia tach Junia Tech. Yeah, we're both find the maximum number of dollars which was like twenty five thousand dollars by the ACC for being involved in illegal espionage. Man, And that was two years ago. That was the way zero zero game with Virginia Tech.
The one where Frank Frank Beemer's holding up his arms at the end of regulation zero zero.
Yeah, celebrating holding Wake to zero while at the same time scoring zero points. And it is like, it's such a huge bummer, And I don't know who's exactly to feel bad for other than Wake Forest fans and players who put so much energy and enthusiasm into their team without all sorts of good results recently. But man, like, how impossible is it to be a coach at an
average or below average place? You already have so much stacked against you if you're you know, the coach of Wake Forest, just because there are so many other teams in their conference with so much more in the way of resources and talent whatever, and then a story comes out with like, oh, your radio guys also sabotaging you because he's bitter. Well, what I want to know is this, Yeah,
what's the market value for Wake Forest game plans? It wasn't exactly like uh, or play in Alabama here right, because I can't imagine they're worth a whole lot.
It was Wake for.
Well, okay, so here's the thing. You can think about it in two ways. So you can think about it in that way that like, yes, it's Wake Forest, like how much can their game plans be worth? But ty, I would argue, how much is not losing to Wake Forest worth?
It's worth all?
If you are you know what Jimbo Fisher or whoever in the acc if you're Bobby Patrino, if your Dabbo. I mean, obviously Clemson was not implicated, but I would say not losing to Wake is pretty valuable.
Gosh, I just can't imagine someone wanting to give up too much to get these. But okay, and.
Now Notre Dame has their defensive coordinator one of like the big shining bright lights of twenty sixteen for Wake is now also gone.
That is correct, tie, That is correct. I like the move. I've been reading about it for a while now. But Mike Elko is the new defensive coordinator for Notre Dame. He's one of those guys that is very underrated. If you look at the numbers, he has improved Wake Forest dramatically on the defensive side of the football. He has absolutely made them better at getting to the quarterback, which is something that Notre Dame really struggled to do this season. So I think to bring him in is a huge coup.
I'm not sure if it's officially official, but they are in the process of finalizing the deal now to bring him in. All signs point to it being Mike Elko and South Bend next season, and that's absolutely a great move.
So he was there for three seasons, including this one, but something that stands out to me, and I'm gonna tell you right this is shocking. I did not watch a ton of Wake football, but I watched some this year. And when you look at the numbers, tie and what am I going to reference here? You're gonna reference d analytics again. I'm I'm gonna referenced analytics. This is just generally speaking, and the more standard stats reflect this as well. Wake didn't do a great job of stopping bigger plays.
But the fact that Wake's offense was so terrible and they were still able, you know, and on the field so much, that defense was able to be pretty damn good. That that always impresses me, not to a defensive coordinator, but a defensive coaching staff and the players themselves giving that much effort when the offense isn't helping them out a ton. So hopefully Mike Elko will have a better offense on the other side of the ball to work with and at Notre Dame and is able to show
his prowess. It's a really good move for the Irish. I think it's a really good move. They needed to bring him in. I thought Brian Kelly did a good job going out and getting him. So he's the new DC at Notre Dame. Steve Sarkeshan is back in the game. Yeah, he is the new offensive coordinator for Alabama this after Lane Kiffin took the job over at FAU. Sarks An interesting guy.
Dan. You know, Lane Kiffin I think vowed for him and brought him over to Alabama to be part of that staff in some sort of advisory role now as Kiffen leaves Sark takes over. He's obviously qualified to be an offensive coordinator. Did good things, I think on that front, So I think baggage aside. This is a good chance for him to get a new start, and obviously it's a role I think he's certainly qualified to hold.
He's qualified, and I just I hope for the best for him, that he is able to get healthy, stay healthy, maintain health, and other There are stories that were sort of going around the internet that suggested otherwise, but I hope they're not true, and I hope and I can't speak to this with any sort of authenticity, but we hope that a high pressure situation is something that he is able to navigate and has the supported Alabama to succeed.
All right. In grad transfer and other transfer news, a new Solomon is grad transferring Dan. This is interesting to me. I like the usage of a verb thank you. I just grad transf I just made that. Yeah, a new Solomon transferring away from Arizona. I have not heard if there is a favorite to land in new Solomon services.
I will say that I was underwhelmed by a new Solomon in his time at Arizona, he seemed the kind of quarterback who might be able to thrive in a rich Rod system, and between getting hurt and being inconsistent when he was healthy, I don't know if his services are going to be in that high of demand around college football.
When he was healthy, I think he played pretty well. I think he has been hurt for a long time, which is also just it's just a bad break that he has just struggled with injuries. I don't know where he ends up. I think he is probably. I think you're underrating him a little bit. I think he's good. I think he can fit, especially Ty. In researching today's Bowl preview, I had to do something that I never
liked to do. I had to look at big ten passings to take Oh gosh, so the fact that there is a at best pretty good quarterback out there's a pretty impressive thing. There's so many teams with bad quarterbacks and I don't know who it is. I looked at some of the seniors just across college football that might be in the market for a quarterback. I mean, Cal, you know they'll lose Davis web this year. Kansas, you
know there can't listen we laugh. Kansas is in the Big twelve, which has gone through some changes, and Kansas themselves they were in a lot of small things. Yeah, they absolutely were. I was looking up like short yarded situations. Kansas was very good. They were plucky, they were they were doing. They beat Texas, Tye, they beat Texas well. I don't know, Houston is Kyle Allen, So I don't think that's a landing spot. I'm looking around college football.
We already know we know Max Brown's going to pit as a grad transfer. Yep, that came out this week. You know what, Tye, Baylor, I know they have Zack Smith, but that's I think, literally the only quarterback that's going to be on the roster next year. Interesting and especially as they sort of moved to it. I don't think completely different, but I would imagine a more sort of ground based attack. If we were to look at what Matt Rule did at Temple, I think that might be
an interesting fit. I think there's available playing time in Waco. There is playing time, you know, uh, Texas A and m I mean, who is who is in the market for Trevor Knight.
I don't know.
I think I think you might be surprised at the type of suitors at a new Solomon may have.
I would be stunned if he ended up at a contender.
What about Nebraska?
If he goes to Kansas, that's one thing, But I don't think he's going to.
Was there anything about about about Riker Fife that that got you pumped up for twenty seven? I'm just I think it's gonna end up somewhere. What about Colorado? I mean, there are options.
You can listen out o school. There are options. I get you.
Colorado, Colorado has Stephen Monte.
I'm just saying I don't think he's that good.
Okay, I think it's I mean, God, you look at the names of teams with senior quarterbacks, and there's some there's some bummers out there.
All right. Jared Stidham, who's not not a bummer, not a bummer, not a grad transfer. He of course was at Baylor. He is transferring to Auburn, which I think is a fantastic move for Auburn.
Fantastic move for Auburn, fantastic move for Sidham. He is sort of forgotten because of the transfer and being a non factor, but he is excellent. He's a really really good quarterback, is as true a dual threat as we've
seen recently, accurate, poised. He's not huge, but he can move really really well and he should be able to step in and immediately And you know, Sean White at his best was pretty good and efficient, but Jared Stidham is He's way better, especially in a conference that moving forward they'll be improved quarterback wise, but hasn't gotten particularly good quarterback play recently. I think he has the opportunity to be pretty special at Auburn.
He is bigger than Seawan White. He is better in terms of being a true passer and probably a runner as well. So you have to imagine that Gus Malshan could find a way to use that skill set pretty effectively.
Who are the twenty seventeen SEC West quarterbacks right now? Jalen her Hurts, we have Jalen Hurts, Shaye Patterson, we have Shape Patterson, Ole miss very promising text A and M unclear unclear, su unclear and clear. I think Mississippi SA Nick Fitzgerald. It'll be Nick Fitzgerald, who showed a lot of promise this year on the ground and at times through the air. Arkansas Alan again, Alan, he's just one name for us.
Just Alan. Yeah, like Pele.
Yeah, it's nothing. It's nothing that Jared's Didham can't immediately overcome and be.
The best of that group. I agree.
Okay, And that's and that's saying a lot because Jalen Hurts is very good.
Anything else we got, any other news? We could talk about some of the game results. Actually, if you want to.
Yeah, let's let's quickly run through the first five bowl game.
First five Bowl games. You had New Mexico twenty three to twenty over UTSA, a better game than I think a lot expected. Utsa scored fourteen in the fourth quarter to make this one a little bit closer.
But you're just gonna gloss over all the Blake Shelton commercials for Gilda. You're just gonna gloss over that. Okay.
They were numerous, they were.
They happened often. New Mexo actually played some really good defense too, which was kind of a shock.
San Diego State wins thirty four to ten over Houston. As we predicted, Houston didn't show up for this game.
Yeah, Houston, they were pretty good defensively. San Diego State didn't move the ball in any like the scoring thirty four points, you'd think San Diego State was jumping all over Houston. Greg went threw four picks. It was the type of game for Greg Ward. Where by like the middle of the third quarter, I think it was it
was Jesse Palmer and Brent doing this game. They just started talking about what position he might play in the NFL, because even though he had an okay season and was just hurt throughout the all of twenty sixteen, it was San Diego State led the country in interceptions. They I think they picked him four times. Really nice way to
finish the season for San Diego State. And I believe don Alle Pumphrey set the all time NCAA rushing yardage record, which is sort of having an asterisk because postseason games didn't count for Ron Dame, But still an amazing career for Donald.
His ability to change direction very quickly, yes, is downright amazing. Yeah, he's got moves, so good for them. That was a nice win. Twenty four pointer for San Diego State. APP State one thirty one, eleven and three San Diego State eleven and three, San Diego State ten and three APPS State. Now after a thirty one to twenty eight win over Toledo. This is a good game, back and forth game. They wanted on a late field goal, like a thirty nine
yarder something like that. Had two hundred and what seventy I'm looking it up here, two hundred and ninety seven yards on the ground for app State. We knew they were going to try and rush the ball, and they held down Logan woodside as best they could. But a good game. And I believe we both had app State in this one, right.
We both had app State. So they have now won twenty one games in two years and are just dying for your respect.
Tie. I respect them, I don't respect them as much as you do. You haven't been like the Big Ten.
But listen, what has app State done against the Big Ten these past ten years?
App State would beat Rutgers, they'd give Maryland a game.
They already beat Michigan at Michigan well, okay in two thousand and seven. But yes, the bottom of the Big Ten is garbage.
Tie, all right? They won Southern miss wins twenty eight to twenty one over Louisiana Lafayette.
Good a good career for Nick Mullins. By the way, for Southern miss a bruiser. Yeah, really nice, nice career. I think about a three and a half four year starter for the Eagles and just very he's not a big dude.
Really good career there. And finally Arkansas State takes it to UCF thirty one thirteen. A success story for UCF to get to a bowl game. I thought maybe they'd look better playing a cinch a home game here, but Arkansas State jumped on him early. They were of seventeen to nothing after the first quarter and then they sort of cruised to victory.
The d analytics loved Arkansas State in this game. Great defense, really nice here for Blake Anderson. It was Kendall Sanders who had a nice day through the air, caught a bunch and I looked this up.
I believe UCF.
First of all, the third down numbers in this game. These two teams to go six of thirty five on third down not great. And UCF rushed Forero point four yards a carry, which is what a little less than a foot and a half. I also looked this up Tie because I wanted to see like a foot and a half, so we're talking about eighteen twenty inches.
It's roughly what they were rushing for.
That is the size of a pretty average lake trout, So that's that's what you see f ran for They ran for the length of an average fish. So there's that.
All right. We got to pay the bills here and then we're going to go through another wave of bowl games. Dan, have you ever heard of Texture?
I have heard of Texture because I pay attention to you.
Gotta check Texture out if you haven't yet. If you like to read, we know we got a lot of nerdy college football types that listen to this show. Sometimes you run out of podcast to listen to. My hunch is that we're not the only show you listen to if you're currently listening to us now. But this time of year, everyone's doing traveling, and sometimes time of year is it ty it's the holiday season, Dan, it's a
December to remember here on the solid Burbo. Yeah, but there's a pretty good chance eventually you're going to run out of podcast because not everyone's as dumb as we are and continues publishing all throughout the holiday season. So I would suggest you try out Texture because basically what they do is they digitize over two hundred magazines. All right, So whatever magazine it is that you're into, I don't know, Sports, Illustrated, Forbes,
Rolling Stone, Entertainment Weekly, People, Fast Company. There are a zillion magazines that you can cram into the Texture app. So what they do is they go beyond just digitizing an article. They've made it easy to find and enjoy all the articles you want to read with daily recommendations, exclusive interactive features. They give you videos, all sorts of cool knickknacks that you aren't going to get if you just pick up a magazine try and stuff it in
the suitcase. It is extremely searchable, I speak from experience. You can mark what you like, you check out back issues, view all the bonus content. They will even curate all this stuff for you to help give you a better idea of what it is they think someone like you might want to read. Also, it helps that it's digitized. You don't have to worry about carrying a bunch of magazines around. Now, all you gotta do is get Texture.
Got a smartphone tablet we all have them anyway. All you gotta do is fire it up and check out all the stuff it is you like to read. Right now, they're offering you a fourteen day free trial. So if you got some travel, if you got some travel ahead of you, here go to texture dot com slash Solid. You get a free fourteen day trial texture dot com
slash Solid. You can try this out. You may determine it's something you want to do longer term, but certainly if you got some travel coming up, I don't know, I mean, check it out. They're offering it for free, so check it out.
I'm in the middle of reading thanks to our pale Roshmarkazi tweeting it like a very old GQ feature. It's a very long GQ feature about Frank's Natra. Oh cool, It's wonderful and it just points like it just points to fact long magazine features. You're on a long plane, you're on a long train, car trip. Just get after it and sort of dive into that world.
I love it. You know, if you met Frank Sinatra in person, his voice would sound very different from the voice you hear when he sings He's He's dead tie. Well, yeah, I know that, but I'm saying if he were to show up like the ghost of La Guardia in Ghostbusters and talk to you in the dead of night, he would sound differently because he ran his voice through a number of different audio compressors and whatnot. So instance, is that true. It's very true. A little inside baseball here
from the audio world. I did not know that, all right. Oh yeah, the week, so look, we did okay, so far, so far, so good, so far, so good. I mentioned at the top the group's doing well. People are writing in they like the advice. So far you went perfect by for five. I went four out of five, so so far okay. Kind of it sounds like we know
what we're talking about. This is where the rubber really starts to meet the road, though, because some of those early games that we discussed are a lot of teams that are you playing more music?
Well, ty, I want to keep the December to remember, going fair enough, okay, continue.
The earlier games are are kind of the tougher ones, because truth be told, these aren't the teams that most people follow with any regularity. There's a lot less information out there on those teams. Now we start getting into teams that more people know. You know, we're going to start off here with the Military Bowl and Temple Wake Forest.
You know the deal on Temple. You know a lot about Wake Forest, We've been talking about these teams all year, so I think this is going to make it a little bit tougher for us to pick the winner of some of these games, and also justifies why you try to make your hay early in the conference pool. You put your points all the way at the top. All right, Tuesday, December twenty seventh, That three, three thirty pm. Excuse me? Temple is ten and three. They are a thirteen point
favorite over wake Forest. They are digging out from the Wakey League scandal. Temple ten and three, wake Forest six and six. Dan, So I'm gonna say this, according to my formula, this is a pretty big strike against taking Temple here.
Wait, can I call it something please? Statistics. I'm a very bad person.
TI, Temple's a thirteen point favorite. That was awful. Whatever that was. Yeah, Matt Rule left for Baylor, and you can say what you want about that being a weird fit and we have, but Temple now is without their vibrant leader, and anytime that happens, we saw it with Houston. I'm always a little a little tentative, right, a little tentative to jump in bed with that team. M hm.
I am reassured a bit though, by how Temple closed out at season in just destroying Navy, That to me gives me an indication that they're still playing hard down the stretch. And given the fact that this is a senior leaden team, I find it hard to believe that they're just going to take this game off. Plus it's pretty close to home in Annapolis. Wake Forest is, you know, a defensive minded team. I would say that, provided Temple
doesn't pack it in. I feel pretty good about Wake not having much success on offense.
As do I I like Temple a lot here. They had a good balanced offense all year. Raikwell Armstead was a legitimately very good running back at a huge game versus USF which arguably their biggest toughest game of the season. And Temple clearly had the best defense in the American And you know, it's losing Matt Rule and some coaches to Baylor, whatever it hurts. And by the way, Matt
Ruhle hired I think a significant high school coach. Yeah, two of them two in Texas a couple of them so yet and after the Texas recruiting scene in a familiar way, I would say early and Temple has Hassan. It's Hassan Reddick, and he is legitimate, legitimate, amazing defensive star and will be an NFL player and probably a significant one. So he will terrorize Wake Forest and their offense, which is awful. Wake Forest offense is particularly bad, and
Wake's defense was very good, especially versus the past. And they have a star of their own in Mark hell Lee. Markwelle just a destructive force as well. So two of the best defensive players may be unhralded in the country, and Hassan Redick and Mark well Lee. I have twenty four to ten Temple as my final so I have them covering.
But barely. I don't have a final score prediction. I don't even have and against the spread prediction. I do have Temple winning, though with twenty five confidence points. I agree with you. I think the Temple front's really good, really tough. I think they're going to bully wakes front, and I think they win this one at the point of attack. I'm not sure how Wake's moving the football here. Yeah, they might score ten points, but Temple's got a really
good defense. They're very fundamentally sound. They're not sexy at any position, but they're always really well prepared, at least they were under Matt rule. I would expect that to continue now in just one game here against Wake, I think they can pull this one off. So I'm pretty confident in Temple. I got twenty five confidence points. All right, sure, Dan, do you have the gifts for the Military Bowl in front of you?
Three hundred dollars Microsoft gift card. I don't know what you spend that on. Apparently people like, what is it? The surface?
Yeah, surface pro Yeah.
People like that. I think, yeah, no know, an under armour backpack and beanie and headphones. So they're not clear about it. And it's presented by Northrop Grumman. So I assume everybody is getting what an RPG.
Of something like that. Yeah, but yeah, three hundred dollars. What is available from Microsoft? What does Microsoft sell?
Xbox?
Oh?
Idea, get an expot that's a great idea. Yeah, grab an Xbox.
Seems like a good gift.
Okay, Yeah, that's a good ball.
Let's go to the National Funding Holiday Bowl. Dan Yes talked about this one a little bit in our news section. This one's also on Tuesday. It's later on in the evening at seven pm. It's on ESPN and Washington State at least of time of I guess jotting these notes down was a six and a half point favorite. I don't know if that's changed at all. They will be playing Minnesota, we know that now, but there are a lot of distractions here. We talked about it at the top.
That's a huge strike against Minnesota here. When I took my notes, I was all in on Wazoo for eleven confidence points. I am not going to change that because, quite honestly, the ESPN system mixes it up a bit if you go in there and start changing stuff around. So I'm going to leave it as is. Typically, this is a fun game, so maybe maybe it will confute. Typically there's a fun game, so maybe the outcome will
be a bit confusing. I don't know. I just feel like there's so much going against Minnesota with these added distractions. Washington State was a good team despite not closing out the season as strongly as they would have hoped. It feels to me like there'd be a ton of reasons to go Washington State here to not only win and cover. So I'll say Wazoo, I'm gonna keep it at eleven confidence points. But if I could make it more without screwing my whole thing up, I would.
Just to clarify, we hope. And as it relates to distractions that nothing bad happened, like that's much more important than the prospect of.
The holod well, I think that that should go without saying.
It does go without saying. But yes, and god, Minnesota just completely football wise, their schedule this year was such trash ti They were I think the only team in the Big Ten lucky enough they got four of the five, Like, if you were lucky enough to get five of the five, that would have been a miracle. But they got marilynd Rutgers, Illinois, and Purdue this year. It's somehow all worked out and they missed Minnesota missed, I believe, Michigan and Ohio State,
yes they did. They have Penn State they lost. That was an overtime early on in the season. Minnesota's schedule was the equivalent of being in socks on a freshly laminated and waxed wooden floor where you just sort of glide. Yeah, you just They just sort of glided through their Big Ten slate of nothing quarterbacks. So I just don't like Minnesota all that much in terms of being tested and
prepared for a good Wazoo team. Wazoo's offense was efficient, They kept charging on, they marched down the field consistently. They were very good against bigger plays, which Minnesota doesn't generate anyway. Their defense is fine, and when you have an offense that prolific as Wazoo does, that's totally good enough. That is, and considering where Wazoo's defense used to be, it's a big success story what they've done defensively with
Alex Grinch. Minnesota's defense was pretty good, but the competition was was pretty low. Just it's hard toge. I have thirty to seventeen Wazoo.
I think Wazoo is good enough on defense to keep Minnesota pretty one dimensional here. Yes, and I'm assuming that Minnesota wants to play in this game, they come out fired up. I think the way to beat Wazoo would be through the air, and Mitch Leidner hasn't done that all year. It's just not what he's good at. So I think that's a huge matchup disadvantage that goes against
the Golden Gophers here. I will go Washington State to win and cover and again I feel way more confident about it than I originally did when I jotted this down. So give me Wazoo to win and cover.
Mike Leach and those Cougar teams though have always they've never been able to pull away from teams, perhaps lesser teams in Bowl games. And last year obviously the weather was crazy in the Sun Bowl. But I'm gonna keep a track of I guess, but I like Wazoo.
Do you remember ten years ago in the Insight Bowl when Mike Leach played Minnesota.
You might have to refresh my memory.
They were trailing thirty five to seven at half and they came back in one.
Players in this game will be receiving a trip to a gift suite, a fossil watch and a new Era cap. And we've had a couple of people email us asking what a gift suite is, and I was pretty sure I knew what it was, but I verified. So if you're wondering when we say gift suite, with these bold gift packages whatever, there is a room set up somewhere, you know what a media hotel wherever it is in which players can come and there are products everywhere, and
you are allotted a certain number of points. So let's say you're given ten points. I think different products are given a different value points wise, So like if you're given ten points, you can get a bike for eight points and headphones for two points. You can just sort of figure out what you want to get from an array of products, which is pretty cool in.
The new age of d analytics. Yes, and certainly with the degree of nerdiness that I bring to the show, you and I would totally overthink that points process.
Oh absolutely we would.
We'd be going for efficiency. What can we get the most bang for our points from in neither one?
Where is their value? How much will you use at We would overthink that and screw it up.
Yep. Absolutely. The Motel six Cactus Bowl get hyped. You have stayed a Motel six, Of course I have. There's a Motel six in State College, PA that I'm not kidding has a toilet that runs like a jet engine.
One specific toilet or all of their toilets.
I would imagine it's all of them, unless it was one specific room. But I stayed in one. It was the loudest and most intense toilet I've ever witnessed.
One of the great things about traveling for college football is you develop an ability to make peace and or defend a decision to stay in a particularly bad motel or hotel and it's like thirty miles away from town. And not to say Motel sixes are bad, they're totally fine. I ride with Best Western if I'm going to stay in a motel if, well, but that's that's just made. But like you see the advertising, like, hey they have showtime. Everybody,
it's pretty good they have showtime. So yeah, Motel six is sponsoring the Cactus Ball.
This one's also on Tuesday evening ten fifteen on ESPN between Boise State. Boise went ten and two this season, and they are like a seven, seven and a half point favorite over the Baylor Bears. Baylor started out six and oh, ended up oh and six. They finished the year six and six. So this I think is another test of my theory. The theory is that motivation, you know, means something during bowl season. This is a pretty good test case. Baylor, as I just mentioned, started hot, finished cold.
Every Baylor reporter, every fan that I've talked to, they've all told me the same story. The team pretty much mailed it in mm hmm. On top of that, you've got a current coach whose term is set to expire. All the wheels are in motion for them to move on to the Matt Rule era. The only thing standing in their way is this game, and the game itself is completely meaningless, doesn't mean anything. It's a Cactus Bowl, it's in Tempe, it's a Chase Field, it's a nice
place to go. Otherwise, there's really no reason for Baylor to care about this football game. They're moving on one way or the other. So with that in mind, I feel very confident in Boise State here and like thirty confidence points.
I think that's why it's never a great sign when a team or group of players are a coach needs to clarify, oh, yes, we.
Would like to go to a bowl, thank you.
That's my point. It's it's never a good sign.
And Boise, you know, for their part, they sort of limped a bit to the finish, true, but across the board there's still pretty rock solid. The efficiency metrics love Boise and you've got a strong contingent of seniors on their team too. I got to believe they want to go out in style. So gimme, gimme Boyse here to win cover and for like thirty confidence points.
Boise, You're right. They were efficient scoring the ball. They struggled a little bit on the ground with consistency, but jere Jeremy McNichols was a terrific all purpose weapon. Two really good wide receivers, and Thomas Spurwack and Sie Druk Wilson. I know it's probably Cedric, but I like sing Zu Druck. When they were bad on third down, that's when they got into trouble. When they were unable to keep drives going,
that's when they lost or almost lost. I don't think Baylor's defense is good enough to force trouble for Boise States offense. Boise's defense, although took a step back against the run, very good against the past. Two really good defensive linemen and Sam mc kiskell, Sam mc caskell and David Moa. As we've seen, Poise just developed really good defensive players year in and year out, and Baylor was pretty
much average in everything that they did. Zack Smith, freshman quarterback, taking the place of Seth Russell when he got hurt. He had his moments, but was a freshman Baylor's defense. They stop some bigger plays, but they gave up a lot of points. I like boys here thirty four to twenty.
What's the gift situation? Here?
The gift situation? Excuse me? At the Cactus Bowl is a gift? Sweet visit and oh Gio Baha seventy backpack. I've heard wonderful things about the Baja seventy. A fossil watch, and a mixer bottle. I don't know exactly what that is.
Mixer bottle?
What is a mixer? There's no brand here, so it's hard to look up. So when we google mixer bottle for like a protein shake or something, I would assume. So, yeah, like it's something that you can. Yeah, it looks like it's a body building thing, which if you've seen a picture of tie in me. Yeah, that's why we're unfamiliar with mixer bottles.
Yeah, so I guess.
It's you can you can put a bunch of stuff into a bottle and shake it up.
All right, Where are we going next here?
New Era pin Strike Bowl? No, not this bowl? Yeah, baby, I hate this bowl. There's actually gonna be good weather in New York Wednesday.
I have a New Era pinch Stripe Bowl hat. Thanks to you, Pinstripe Bowl Champions.
Hat Pinstripe Bowl Champions.
Wednesday, December twenty eighth, two pm on ESPN. They play it in Yankee Stadium, which is a cool venue. I gotta say, I've seen a football game in Yankee Stadium's cool venue. It's between Pitt and Northwestern Pit eight and four, Northwestern six and six. Pits about a five and a half point favorite. So look, I was looking at this one when it did my studying earlier in the week. I could see this game going one hundred different directions. But if you look at both teams, talk about a
contrast in resumes here. Yes, Pit beat Penn State and Clemson this season. Clearly they already have more quality wins, but they played some tough competition. Northwestern, Dan, what's the best he can say about Northwestern?
They've got a really good, unpronounceable pass rusher in a f Eddio Dinegbo'. That's the thing. No, Austin Carr was Austin Carr is going to be like a fourth round draft pick and we'll catch like twelve hundred yards worth every year.
But in terms of their resume, Dan, right, I'm not talking players in terms of resume. They lost by one to Western Michigan and buy three to Ohio State. That's the best I can do. Want to beat Michigan State, who was a bad team. They beat Duke, who beat Notre Dame. They beat Iowa, who beat Michigan. A lot of transitive property going on here, but I'll big listen. Northwestern Math school transitive wins. Okay, we can count it. And Northwestern held pretty tough with Illinois State, but we
lost by two. So look, here is where we differentiate between a confidence pool where we're picking straight up winners and normally during the season, like we go against the spread. I think I put thirty five points on Northwestern plus five and a half here, Okay, because the thing that I think I'm most confident in, I'm with you there by the way is right, is that this is going to be a three point game one way or the other.
Is a tight game. So if I could do something like that, I would put a thousand points on just being a three point win one way or the other. But if I have to pick a straight up winner, I think it's pit. I think it's pit. I'm not super confident, thirteen points confident, But I think they close out their season pretty well, three straight wins over Clemson, Duke, and Syracuse. On offense, they look good in all three
of those games. The Syracuse game got a little loose loose defensively, but they've got momentum, and it's James Conner's final game before he goes the NFL, so I'm thinking, I'm thinking this is a pretty nice spot for Pitt here to continue the trend, continue building and pushing forward. I'm not super excited about that selection, but I am forced to pick one, so I'm gonna say Pit like thirty four to thirty one.
Let me tell you something, Ty, if you like open receivers, the Pinstripe Bowl is for you because these two pass defenses are trash. So Pit's gonna be without Matt Canada,
who is the new LSU offensive coordinator. We didn't mention that at the top, but I think a really nice higher although I would argue also the stars sort of aligned for Pitt this year in terms of experience and talent and depth everywhere on offense, but Pitt had I would argue, the clear best passing offense in the acc they were more efficient than everybody, and they played good teams. So I'm very high on the job that Matt Canada and Nate Peterman did all season long, especially against the
better teams on their schedule. They're excellent in the red zone. The defense is pretty good against the run and just atrocious versus the pass. It's slightly improved at the end of the year. But yeah, that Syracuse game wasn't pretty and Northwestern is just the consummate okay team, And I like Pitt here twenty seven to twenty three, but you
seem to like this game. Seems to feel like in your zone of everything to you is pointing to pit winning straight up and you're not going against that instincts as what brought you so much success this year. Well, so far, I'm eighty percent Bowl season, so I'm gonna yeah December to remember. It's different when you talk about point spread versus straight up winner point spread. I struggled mightily this season straight up winner. I think I would
have fared a little better. Should also add the worst possible gifting to me description anyway, Okay.
Is it worse than the Lockheed Martin Bowl that we talked about on the last show.
Okay, the Lockheed Martin Bowl, you get a holiday sweater, a football, and a bad and a gift suite appearance, which is not great, right, the.
Worst singular entity there is a sweater.
Officially, the official party line for the new Arapin Straight Bowl is a variety of New Era products the end.
What else do they make beside the hat.
Beanies? I have no idea, but hopefully New Era also makes iPads?
All right? So compare right, thank you? Compare Compare the gift suites again between Lockheed Martin a new era.
Okay, so Lockheed Martin once again is giving people a gift sweet appearance, which we don't know. At least there's some mystery of the unknown. Finnrods festive were holiday sweater, a football and a beanie?
What are they giving away at the pinch Stripe Bowl?
A variety of New era products? Huh, I'm almost inclined. There's no gift suite, noted.
I'm going New era. Oh dumb. Look, you're a football player. You don't need a football. What you need a football for you get any time? You wont it a beanie?
I'm just saying, just the presence of a gift suite trumps that a beanie and a sweater.
I'd take my luck. I'd press my luck with the hats man. At least you know you can wear a hat if you get.
The gift suite, might have awesome things in it.
All right, let's pay some bills here. All right, let's do that. Pay some bills. Talking a lot of bowl games on the last couple shows we've got, I guess two more shows to do previewing, previewing Bowl games. What I would suggest is, if you're looking to maybe go to any of these games, you can get some good deals. You can find those deals right now on sea geek. It is the smartest, the easiest way to find tickets for the football games you want to see up close
and in person. Nothing like being at a bowl game. We've been talking about the experience. If you're a fan, it's pretty cool to go to these games. Got a different feel to them, different vibe. But everyone I've ever met who's gone to a Bowl game has been glad that they've gone to it, regardless of where it is, who's playing. Just a lot of fun. People are there to have fun. If you get the sea geek app, it's free on your phone. You will find that it
is truly the easiest way to shop for tickets. You can be anywhere. Just takes a few taps. You can instantly find what it is you're looking for, whether it's a couple months from now or you know, what are we going to talk about next here? Want to go to the Russell Athletic Bowl in Orlando and Camping World Stadium. Mm hmm, I do. Let me check that out. You can get a good deal in that. Just go on out download the sea Geek app. They will grade all
the tickets in their system. So what they do is that go out there, they find all the tickets that are available from a bunch of different places, and then they give each ticket a grade, so you can always find the lowest available price get the most bang for your buck. Every ticket on the site is given a grade based on value, so if you want to get some value, that's where you go to get it. Every ticket you buy is backed one percent by their guarantee,
so you can also now shop with confidence. So far, Dan sounds like a pretty good deal to me. Absolutely all of our listeners will get a twenty dollars rebate after their first Sea Geek purchase. So right now, if you go download the Sea Geek app, it's free, Go in settings, click at a promo code and enter Solid sol Id. They will send you a twenty dollars rebate after you make your very first purchase. M h and that's it. It's all I got downloaded free seekst se A t G e e K free app promo code
is solid do it today. As I mentioned, Dan, yes, we're going to the Russell Athletic Bowl now. It is on Wednesday, December twenty eighth at five thirty pm Eastern on ESPN. And it's a pretty interesting matchup. I gotta say between the Miami Hurricanes at eight and four, they're about a field goal favorite over West Virginia, who went ten and two this season. Dan, who you.
Got, Well, I'm I got the hope that Blake Shelton will be doing Russell Athletic. Let me tell you about Russell Athletic. So, West Virginia had a really good offensive year, a good defensive year. They were a pretty complete team. They finished the season ten and two, probably not the end of the season that they would have liked, but all things considered, a huge success. For Daniel Holgerson in the Mountaineers Miami and Mark ricks first year. Not great
on the ground, They were fine passing the ball. The defense was really good in terms of limiting point limiting points. They were great in the red zone in West Virginia is sort of average in the red zone. I actually think and I know Miami is slightly favored here. I think Miami covers and I think they win. I think defensively they'll be able to keep West Virginia in check. I think maybe force a couple turnovers. I like Miami here. Twenty four to twenty.
You mentioned that West Virginia was pretty good on offense this year. Yes, you were complete a very good running team. Okay, I would argue that they did not have a truly great efficient game again against any team on their schedule with a decent defense.
I think that's reasonable to say they ran for a ton against Oklahoma in a loss.
They ran for a ton, and I guess you could count byu earlier in the year. That was pretty efficient, but otherwise just a lot to be desired. Miami, on the other hand, I thought they looked really, really good after losing the game to Notre Dame. After they lost that game, they went through a rough stretch, but they hammered Pitt. They beat NSTI State on the road. I still think this is a pretty good team, and I
feel like they're trending in the right direction. There's sort of been this aura this year around Miami being a program that's building something under Mark Rick that he knows what he's doing. I hope brad Kaya six around another year. I would imagine he could go pro if he wanted, but there's definitely a chance that he can be much improved if he comes back for another year of ripening under Mark rickt I just I like their momentum. I
think they win, I think they cover. I'm confident I'm going to Miami in twenty six points.
I think that that's right.
I think I don't.
I don't think that's an unfair way to view this game.
I don't.
I don't see anything on brad Kaya's I see leaning towards the NFL of two days.
He should he should come back. I think he should. I think his stock is not super high right now because who's coming out next year. Originally it looked like Josh Rosen was going to be the bell of the ball. But after this season, after this season, it was a rough year, a huge sophomore slump, and he was beat up. So what happens next year means to be seeing Brad kaya. Brad Kaye has got potential. I'm looking here, So next year we'll be a Lamar Jackson. Here'll be Brett Ripping
at Poise State. I'm looking at the notable sophomores. Trace McSorley if he has another big year. I'm telling you, I looked at that Big Ten quarterbacks list and it is Trace mcsorly and Disappointment. If he had a band, it would be called trace McSorley in the Disappointment. Okay, with other Big Ten quarterbacks. Yeah, it's not a particular I mean, Jake Browning's a sophomore this year and certainly against maybe not the best teams on Washington schedule, was incredible. There's there's just.
I'm looking at the juniors other than Brad Kaya. I mean Luke Fowk I think is going pro. Mason Rudolph is a junior. Baker Mayfield said he was coming back, but who knows about his NFL prospects. Yeah, there's nothing that really indicates all sorts of crazy depth of quarterbacks.
Good year. If he has a really good year next year, there's a case to be made for him to be first quarterback off the board.
I'm looking here, nobody, I mean no, next year it'll be Josh Rosen.
You know that no one's higher on Josh Rosen than I am. But I'm skept. Danny Etling, Yeah, Danny e Ling, moving on. Okay, all right, what's the gift situation here?
Rust Athletic bull very solid as our friendly ellis would say, three hundred dollars best by shopping trip. You could cut it there, and that's already a big win.
That's ready better than Lockheed Martin, already better than a new era.
Yes, you've got a timely watch company. Watch I slide sandals.
Slide sandals sounds try slide which, by the way, don't name your sandal company and have it sound like a lubrication.
Yeah, I just die. Just don't just do not. We have a beach towel and we have an athletic performance pullover. Fine, that's a big win.
That's fine.
If you're a Miami or West Virginia player, you should be very happy.
All right. The Foster Farms Bowl in Santa Clara.
Chicken is what it's listed on the Bowl suite.
Chicken Levi's Stadium. Also on Wednesday, eight point thirty in the evening on Fox Utah at eight and four about an eight point favorite over Indiana. Indiana finished six and six. Dan, We've been talking a lot about motivations, been talking a lot about coaches leaving. How about coaches being outright fired. Yeah, that factors in two. I don't like this situation at all for Indiana. Why the coach being fired for all field reasons. That's not a distraction.
I think it's it's somewhat of a distraction. But there's continuity with Tom Allen being there's continuity.
But here here's the larger point. Utah is the kind of team that if you do not play them with one hundred percent focus, they will beat you. Yes, that's the kind of team that Utah is. They're very fundamentally sound. They're going to come into this game ready. They're going to come into this game, I think, ready to run the football right down Indiana's throat. I am very confident
and then winning. I don't know about covering, but I do like Utah here to win the game outright to the tune of like twenty nine confidence points.
Okay, it should be noted this is, as far as I can tell, the one Bowl game not broadcast by ESPN, or at least the one Bowl game that Fox has. Does the Sunball still go to CBS. Let's say there.
Is a game that is being broadcast on a network I've never heard of before, and it might be the Sun Bowl.
Oh yeah, the American Sports Network is doing the Home Loans Arizona Bowl between Airports or South Alabama.
Yeah.
I don't know what the American Sports Network is, but CBS has the Sun Bowl. The only ball Fox has is this game. And I would love it if like Fox went above and beyond, like they had the desk on the field for the Foster Farms Bowl. They had like a crew of like eight people weighing in on this game, and like Bruce and Stu.
Let's go down to the field with Rob Stone, Matt Lionert, and Bredy Quinn. Yeah.
Yeah, they do some version of game day that morning for the Foster Farms Bowl. So it's hard to sort of fully understand Indiana with having interim made full time coach Tom Allen. Their defense is widely improved. Again heart to gauge against Big Ten offenses. Something that you pointed out about Indiana's scoring points. Indiana threw the second most interceptions in the Big Ten, and their their pass efficiency numbers are still like fourth. Yeah, exactly, That's how bad the Big Ten game is.
In general.
Utah's offense is okay. Joe Williams is very good. Their defense is okay against the run, and somehow attroches against the past even having Hunter Dimmick, you know, maybe the most underrated and dominant defensive lineman in college football.
But yeah, you're right.
I think Utah takes advantage of teams that are sort of everywhere in their focus. So I'm going to say Utah twenty three to seventeen.
All right, let's move on. Do we have a Bowl gift situation here.
Chick in in this game the Foster Farms, we have a gift suite of Fossil Watch and a tim Buck to backpack. Now give him Bobby pretty decent. I I tie in my daily life in real life. My messenger bag that I wear to and from work is tim Buck two. Really, it's been very solid for me. Yeah, I'm more of a targets guy myself. I don't know what that is.
Different kind of backpack. Pa. I'm reading here that Foster Farms, United States West Coast Poultry Company. It's been privately owned and operated by the Foster family since nineteen thirty nine.
It's Deshaun Foster's family company.
That can't be true. That can't be true.
That is not true at all.
Now, a lot of chicken representation here in the bowls this year.
Yeah, pretty good. I mean, if it's in this is what San Francisco, it is in Santa Clara, y Santa Clara, excuse me. I would assume that a gift suite in the Greater Silicon Valley area is probably be pretty good.
Okay, I'm going to assume that.
So I'm going to say that this is probably upper fifteen percent of gift suites.
That seems reasonable to me. Yeah.
Yeah, And I really like my Tim Buck Tubec.
The Advocare V one hundred Texas Bowl Dan m hm. After many years of not knowing a thing about Advocare V one hundred, I now know it's a vitamin company, Tye.
And I can't stress this enough Advocare is definitely not a pyramid scheme scam. It is definitely not Oh no, no, no, not at all.
They play this one at the nerg Energy Stadium in Houston. Texas Bowl is a clash between one team in Texas, Texas. A and M. At eight and four, they're a two point favorite over K State also at eight and four. They do play this one on Wednesday night, nine thirty pm Eastern on esp and Dan Okay, I am super tempted to go ky State here, Yeah, really truly tempted. A and M struggled down the stretch against the run,
and that's pretty much all K State does. The X factor here though, And why I'm not gonna do it is because I think A and M's going to be back and healthy again along their line. Miles Garrett will be back if he is back. And considering what A and M has on offense just out wide, I feel they are too athletic for K State. K State doesn't. They don't do that athletic thing very well. You can out athletic then that's not really a thing, but I'm
making it up. You can be more athletic than K State, and that stands for something K State also didn't beat a single winning team all year. They beat two teams that were six and six. It was a typical Bill Snyder kind of season where he just finds a way to cobble it all together, runs the crap out of the ballplays defense. I think A and M wins here. I'm not overly confident. I think they win and cover to the tune of twelve confidence points here?
Am I right? Did K State exclusively lose to the rank teams on their schedule?
I believe so that's correct.
It's I mean, it depends on who you're talking about, but that's still pretty good. They didn't lose to a team that they shouldn't have lost to. They lost to the Oklahoma schools, and they lost to Stanford in West Virginia, which they probably should have lost those games, but they didn't lose anything stupid. Whereas text A and M is in a place, they're like the complete opposite type programs and Texts A and M to me feels like a
car that the owner is bragging about buying. It's so expensive and flashy and beautiful and fast, but you have to like replace the transmission every three months.
And then you see the car facts on it.
Yeah, yeah, there's just so much, like you have to put in gas that's not available at every gas station. Like there's just so much that actually under the hood is not particularly good. I like KSE State in this game. Actually they've they won five of their last six, including teams that were against teams that were definitely more athletic than KSE State. K State runs the ball pretty well. They're dreadful passing the ball, but that's not terribly new.
They have the best rush defense in the Big Twelve, which isn't to say a ton, but they're so so against the past. Jordan Willis had a huge year for them on defense and text A and m. It just seemed like they would either have a very long touchdown or the offense would struggle, and their defense was average versus the run and bad all things, especially bad against the past considering what they should have been doing against
quarterbacks playing and play out. So I am just going to roll with the team that I can count on a little bit more.
I go.
I have Kansas State twenty seven to twenty three.
I just can't get past the fact that am should be healthy along their d line for this game. All right, I think I think that spells trouble for k State. But you're not wrong in saying that K State is a more reliable team.
Who has the better quarterback in this game. Trevor Knight, how confident are you in that?
I'm fairly confident. At least I know he can throw.
Well, he's beat up. I mean he's playing. I believe so. Trevor Knight, in the SEC Conference without particularly good quarterbacks, finished ninth in in pass efficiency through for six point three yards per attempt. He is approaching kyleer Shermer levels of productivity. He is approaching Kyle Shermer. A and M got to the red zone. We can cale Schumer as often, exactly as often as as Vanderbilt did in SEC play. Granted, Vanderbilts in the East. Text A and M is a February team.
All right, what's the gift situation here?
Sorry, text A and M. I still like you. Texas A and M and Kansas State players will be receiving a trip to a gift suite. A belt buckle, okay, in Texas thing Brian Kelly would love that. He would that an Adidas backpack and our favorite lubricating sandals, the eye slides.
Eye slides.
Can we look up here, let's look at ice slides.
Ice slide sandals. Mm hmm. Just doesn't sound safe.
It looks like they're a shark tank company.
I like that they have the little nubs for you. They do.
They are like shower sandal esque. They have licensing from major sports teams. It looks like but.
Why are they called I slide? I don't know, and slide around in them? See, I'd be worried that I'd slip and fall. I think it's to prevent sliding, which makes the title very It's like calling someone little John. Yes, all right? And then finally the Birmingham Bowl. You know where they play this game, Dan, Toledo. They played this game in Birmingham, Alabama at Legion Field. This is a Thursday game at two pm Eastern on ESPN. USF ten and two on the year. They're a ten and a
half point favorite against the South Carolina game Cocks. South Carolina and Will Muschamp went six and six. USF is a pretty healthy favorite here, Dan, Is there a reason I shouldn't blindly side with USF and the Bulls?
Oh? They lost their head coach.
H So there's that.
So us F is in. I mean, Charlie Strong won't be coaching this game. But USF is in a pretty good position. South Carolina and I did get better over the second half of the season, highlighted by the Tennessee win. USF scores quickly and efficiently. Quinn Flowers is the clear number two dual threat quarterback in terms of how good he is on the ground behind Lamar Jackson. He had
an incredible year for the Bulls. South Carolina is pretty good at preventing longer plays, but South Carolina's offense is worse than USF's defense, which was pretty bad without Tom Allen this year. So I'm gonna roll with USF ripping off some big plays. I think Marlon Mack is one of the really underrated running backs in college football. So I have the Bulls here thirty to seventeen. I've got
the Bulls around the same. Le't say, like thirty four seventeen somewhere in there, and I'm pretty confident, pretty confident of a winning cover USF twenty four confidence points.
Gift situation in the was Birmingham Bull Yes, Okay, the gift situation in Birmingham. We have a gift suite, okay, good start, an ESPN beanie Okay, it might get cold. I don't know, a power charger and USB adapter. I think that's thoughtful, Tie, I think that's definitely thoughtful. We've talked about the USB charger before.
Absolutely, I think it's one of the greatest gifts you can give somebody a portable USB charger for their phone and a souvenir football. So middle of the pack.
Hopefully the gift sweet is loaded. It's better than Rockheed Martin. Absolutely. All right, Well that does it, Dan. We've got two more Bowl preview shows to do, m hm. So our next one will be on Wednesday. We will record and push that guy out and then do stay tuned to the Twitter and the Facebook because we'll let you know what our schedule will be over the holiday season. We will be previewing all these Bowl games, yep, but we might have a little bit of an a regular schedule
here as we approach the holidays. Also, don't forget about those tickets. If you're going to be in the New York stay tuned to Twitter, stay tuned to Facebook. If you go to either of those spots. You can find the link right now to the event bright page. Event bright is the service that we're using to sell our tickets eve e n t b RI that's correct. Event Bright is going to take the tickets sale live on Wednesday at one pm Eastern time. As Dan mentioned at
the top, tickets are extremely limited. If you are fortunate enough to get one, we're excited to have you. It's going to be a lot of fun. I think we've got some cool stuff planned here.
How much we charge on turning like ten bucks?
Ten bucks? Yeah, we're not trying to make too much bank on this, No, we won't be.
Well, it'll basically cover our costs to rent some equipments.
And save your money and support the fine folks at Hill Country. Get a couple drinks and chicken sandwich.
Oh yeah, and also we will be using the profits tie and I say profits as I move my fingers together like Johnny Manziel. Yeah, we're going to buy some eye slides for ourselves.
We want you. We want your finest two hundred dollars sandals please yes, cool? Well, listen you enjoy the rest of your weekend. Hey, enjoy your week I will talk to you on I believe Wednesday we're scheduled again and we'll talk to more ball games, all right. I think that's a plan. Tie for that guy over there, my good friend Dan Rubenstein. For myself, Tie Hilton Brand. Thanks again for tuning in to the Solid Verbal. Check us out on iTunes at iTunes dot com slash Solid Verbal.
In the meantime, stay solid, Peace,