Welcome to the solid verbal hell 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 a day at the State?
Is that woo woom?
And then and Tye, welcome back.
To the solid Verbo boys and girls. My name is ty hilden Brandt. You know the drill. You know the drill. It's a Friday. You will hear from Dan momentarily because this is an excerpt from the show we did yesterday. College football Thursdays every Thursday, live five pm East, two pm West on Spotify. If you didn't join us this week, hopefully you can join us next. The game you're about to hear is one that Dan and I called trust issues.
Trust issues.
We went through a bunch of the big games, not all, but most window by window, and we examined each from the standpoint of trust. Can we trust bon Nicks? Can we trust Texas A and M? Can we trust James Franklin to put in the right damn quarterback? Stuff like that got about fifteen or so odd minutes of that episode for you. Hope you enjoy it, Hope you can stop by next week going out to solidverbal dot Com slash Spotify next Thursday, five pm East again two pm Pacific.
In the meantime, here is that clip enjoy your Week eight? Trust you little indecent proposal?
Right yeah, at everybody on the tip of everybody's tongue, I'm sorry. Is that Michael Douglas and Demi Moore from nineteen ninety whatever, it's Woody Harrelson.
I trust you, then we're even. Let's go through all that Week eight has to offer. Let's start in the early block, Dan, I want to frame all of these games that I'm going to mention, by.
The way, it was Robert Redford, not what Michael Douglass, the older gentleman. I am ashamed of myself and I apologize. I want to frame all of these around the issue of trust. Do we trust certain entities?
So, for example, twelve pm on Fox Iowa against Ohio State, Ohio State favored by thirty points. Now this line has grown significantly. The question is simple, do we trust Ohio State's offense to cover thirty points? Do we trust Ohio State enough against a good defense, maybe the best defense they've seen yet, to cover this large of a number.
Man, it's just I don't even trust either of those things fully that Iowa has a great defense. I think they have a good defense, but I don't know. It's one of those things where like, are they great? Would they be better with an average offense? Probably they'd be
on the field less, But I don't know. The Big ten is sort of all over the place in their schedule has been sort of all over the place that they've performed like a good defense, but I'm still I'm still not fully there, even though I think, what are they the number one SP plus defense in America right now?
Very good?
Very good?
Yeah, they're very good. So Ohio State will put it to the test. And Ohio State's own schedule is I don't know, kind of disappointing, like it just in terms of there the list of opponents, like Notre Dame that was their starting quarterback and the defense played well for Notre Dame and Ohio State's offense took a second to get going. But Wisconsin, Rutgers, Michigan State, Toledo, Arkansas State, Like, do you trust those results? I say not fully.
Yeah, I mean it's hard to say, right, it's hard to say. I mean, obviously, Ohio State at least the players on Ohio State don't have much control over who they play. They've taken care of business to the best of their ability thus far. We've got some activity here in the chat. Somebody's saying bucks by thirty five, Iowa can't score, They're gonna cover. I mean, it's all fair. I went Iowa in this one.
I went Iowa.
I thought about putting it in my Picks of the week here, I decided not to because I'm not that confident about it. But thirty just seems like an excessively large number and I can't get behind, so I do not trust oh So what is defense?
How many points do you think Iowa's offense can score? That's the question right now? How many points do you trust Iowa's offense to score in this matchup against a good but still kind of beat up and I mean flawed because of the injuries defense.
I'm going to say seventeen.
You think Iowa can score seventeen points against Ohio State's team?
Seventeen? Out your mind?
Ohio State wins like forty one seventeen and Iowa covers.
What what have you seen Iowa's offense? I mean, look, nothing, They scored how many points against Illinois? Six?
Say, six whole points? Yes, I don't see it, man.
I think it's sort of by default at this point, because I went back and forth with you on our preview show about Ohio State covering. But one thing you have to remember too, is against you know, Michigan State or wreckers of wisconsinever, they pulled their starters before the fourth cour right around then, right, Like it's the old adage, the old message board adage that like, oh they could have hung eighty, They're not going to hang eighty against Iowa.
But I'm just saying there is something about Ohio State where this is they're coming off of.
By yes, right, that's correct, So like.
Get a little bit healthier, right, I just I can't get there with Iowa of scoring more than ten or thirteen points.
Let me know in the chat. Let me know in the chat. Okay, what everyone thinks?
How many points?
How many points is Iowa scoring? I'm taking Iowa plus the points here, let's stick in that noon block. Here's another interesting game, a game that I don't know if we thought would be interesting at this point. Maybe I don't know eight weeks ago, right, Okay, eight, maybe even like three weeks ago. But Syracuse on the road six and oh ranked Syracuse, what are they fourteenth, thirteenth, something
like that. They're a top fifteen team right now on the road at Clemson, Clemson favored by thirteen and a half points. Do we trust Syracuse enough from home away from home.
To keep this one close against Clemson?
It's that last caveat there.
Away from home.
They've played one road game, it was at Yukon on an especially dangerous hornet's nest of a location. I trust them because of the number of things that they do
competently to keep it close. I think I still trust Clemson more because of their big playability on offense to separate, and you know we see it, you know, weekend and week out, even when Clemson's not excellent, that middle eighth thing where they're able to, you know, get that burst, that window of a burst, that burst of a window whatever, where all of a sudden they turn a close game into a not so close game. And I think they
can do that against Syracuse. I think they can turn over Garrett Schrader And the one thing I absolutely do not trust about Syracuse is if Clemson goes up twenty to seven. What does that do in terms of changing the calculus? Is there are patients from Syracuse and continuing to run the ball and trust that their defense is going to adjust and figure out Clemson on offense. That to me is the question, because I think if we're talking about which team is likelier to go up twenty
to seven, it's Clemson very clearly. And so that worries me that even though Syracuse is competent in a number of ways, and I do trust the different ways that Syracuse can succeed, I don't trust them to have the same kind of burst that Clemson does. So I'm going to say I trust Clemson a little bit more at home as they themselves continue to figure things out.
First off, Daniel, how dare you be smirch the name of good Renschler Field at Pratt and Whitney Stadium up at Yukon. You took time the hornet's nest that is Renchler Field.
You took the time during my answer, or you could have been soaking up brilliant insight to look up Yukon's home field name.
First off, yes, I did absolutely. Secondly, how dear, look, everything you said is accurate. Everything you said is accurate. I don't want to give away the game too much here because this is going to be one of my tie versus the World picks a little bit later on in the broadcast. But what I will say and something to watch out for. You know, if you're watching this game, either it gets out of hand or it doesn't.
Maybe it's close. I hope it's close.
But if you're at home, if you've got an adult beverage in front of you, one drink, let's say half of half a can of whatever, you got, whatever you're into. For every haphazard throw that we get from Garrett Strader, because for as good as he's been this season mm hmm, there are a couple stinker passes in him. Of course, there are a couple stinkers where it's like, wait, why did he what did he see there? Why did he? We saw it last week, We've seen it pretty much
every week this year. There's two to three of them every week where you cannot figure out, for the life of you why he decided to make the throw. And believe me, when you see them, you'll know them. You don't have to stretch to try and figure out what I'm talking about, you will see him airmail a couple of balls and be like, Okay, that's what time meant.
I agree. There's a number of underling things about Clemson that still has me a little bit worried that if Syracuse is in a better place creatively on offense than say, NC State, if they're in a better place in terms of creativity and effectiveness on defense than Florida State, that Syracuse can keep it close and just draft late behind the opportunity truck in this one, that they can hang around just well enough that there is a certain assumption I think I am making, and I think people are
making as well, that DJU is now good.
And I don't know if I'm fully there.
I want to see, and I don't know if it's fully his fault, to be clear, And we've talked about the receiving core not being anywhere near where it's been lately at Clemson, but I don't know. They're not generating a ton of plays downfield even still, and they did better against Wake Forest, but that defense is I think
considerably leakier than Syracuse's. Where I'm just not fully there that DJU has completely turned the corner by the way, for what it's worth, Patrick in the chat says he's been to East Hartford and it is a scary place.
So I believe that.
Have you know, mister Rubinstein, which of these four teams you trust the most? Kansas, Baylor, Duke, Miami if you had to rank them most trustworthy to least trustworthy. Kansas is squaring off against Baylor this week. Baylor now a nine and a half point favorite, which will believe me, We'll come back to that one here in a little bit. Also, Duke is a nine point dog on the road at Miami. So of those four, is it fair to say that Kansas is the most trustworthy at this point?
With a backup quarterback with a defense that I still have questions about. It's I guess it depends what you mean by trustworthy. Like I have a good amount of trust in what Miami Canon can't do at this point, I have a good amount of trust in what Who else did you mention mentioned? Duke, Baylor and Kansas.
Duke, Baylor, Kansas and Miami.
I think Baylor's the most trustworthy team that I don't think anybody's going to.
Blow Baylor out.
Like I trust Baylor to be competitive in all of their matchups and to do enough well to put themselves in a position to win even if they don't. And so will they play down two opponents. They absolutely will, They definitely will. But I don't think they're necessarily the team that they were in the first couple weeks of the season. So I think Baylor of that grouping, is the most trustworthy team to compete and win.
I think it's Kansas man. I'm going Kansas one, Baylor two. I think Duke is three. I put Miami four. Miami has been the least trustworthy of all these four teams so far this year. If you look at what they've done all of their six games, quite literally, all six of their games, they've underperformed their projections. This is a team that got up and was up for the entirety of the game last week against Virginia Tech twenty to zero, gave up fourteen points fourth quarter. Anyone who bet Virginia
Tech ends up getting the cover in the win. Now, of course they don't care about the point spread, but I just think that it makes them untrustworthy when you see them basically mailing it in the fourth quarter the way they did or throughout the course of the season. You know, it just feels like there are fits and starts with this team that make it hard to get behind.
And that's hard to say, especially given all of the offseason momentum of hiring Mario crystal Ball, of what he could bring on the recruiting trail, of we're getting money from the Miami Health Group whatever it is to build a new stadium and hire an ad and go pluck the best and brightest to be at this stage of the game now three and three, where we're seriously talking about Duke maybe beating Miami even with a nine point spread, I think it's realistic that to me seems like big
time underwhelming compared to what we thought so of the four And I cannot believe I'm saying it with Duke and Kansas in this discussion right now, Miami's the least trustworthy.
And if you're wondering who can you trust? Between me and between Ty, we're talking about a gentleman and Ty Hildenbrandt, who went nearly five hundred last week in his picks.
It's what can I say? Nearly what can I say? Yeah? What can I say? Let us know? In the chat.
Let us I see some face in the chat. Have we've got a Baylor, Kansas Miami duke?
We've got uh what else we got? Oh, we got some of the ones.
Okay, let's keep moving through and go to the afternoon block here. Let's you got to tell me who you trust between UCLA and Oregon. And the way that we framed it out on the podcast was bo Nix versus DTR. We alluded to it. I don't think we had a full opportunity to unpack it. So here here's where this stands. DTR has been in that UCLA system since god knows when forever he's been there. Yeah, and he knows it well, he's running that system with maximum efficiency at present. That
could change, but at present, DTR looks pretty good. That being said, he does have a bit of a reputation for going missing in some games, for being inconsistent, for some bad decision making. Right, some of that's his fault, some maybe the team around him, But that is like it or not. What DTR's reputation is. Bo Knicks is actually more of the same. Bo Nicks in his time
at Auburn clearly showed flashes. He showed flashes against Oregon, like his very first college game in that like the final couple of minutes to beat Oregon on Opening Night, And we've seen it throughout the course of his career, especially last season. The beginning part of last season, where it seemed as if he had turned a corner. The offense was a little different. They weren't leaning on him
as hard. He was more trustworthy, and then suddenly he wasn't, and then suddenly he was hurt, and then suddenly everyone was talking about Brian Harson getting fired. But alas bo Nix is now with Oregon, and I think we've seen more of the same from him. Although he has been pretty good in his own right, it seems as if maybe the team around him is a little bit better. He is starting to find his role within this squad.
Bo Nicks, dtr I know you're an organ guy, but which of these two, realistically is.
More trustworthy to you?
Bo Nex dtr Uh right now? Bo Nicks, And it's very strange to say that. I think he's played in more big games on the road, hasn't necessarily thrived, but there is something about dtr where I know he had a great game against USC was it last year of the year before in LA you know, three four touchdowns, fifteen yards per attempt. But there is something about there.
There's a medium game quality to DTR that he has played on a number of medium stages where at least there is a to me seeing bo Nicks behind a better line throwing to a deeper roster of receivers. There is something more seasoned about bon Nicks that there is there's more poise there, potentially potentially because we have seen different versions of him. I understand yeah that I think I have more trust in bow Nicks right now. I
certainly think under the previous regime. You talk about Mario christaball Organ loses that Washington State game and he willed them to victory in a pretty ugly performance in the red zone for the Oregon offense. But you know, turn that team around, kept them in it in that second half, and they poured on the points late. So I think I believe a little bit. I think DTR is terrific. But they've just been playing in LA a bunch. Washington hasn't looked good, so that win has aged not as well.
And it's not UCLA's fault. Utah, of course, I think is a pretty good team, but you know, has their own flaws. I think the big thing is I think UCLA's offense is gonna perform really really well. And ultimately I don't even think it's a dtr or bo Nicks issue.
I think it's which of these defenses can get off the field more often, and so I think I trust the Oregon defensive brain trust, especially against the run with a buy, rather than trusting UCLA's defense and that brain trust coming off of by Ian Oddson in the rain with Game Day there, I just think ultimately the juice and the talent went out.
Juice and the talent went out. Yeah, I think I go UCLA plus the points, but I don't. As I said in the show, these teams are very evenly matched to me, very evillly matched to me. It helps that it's in Austin. But this is a huge game, is a big deal. I'm pretty excited about this one.