Welcome to the solid verbo. I'll 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? Whoo whoom? And Dan and Tye welcome back to the solid verbal boys and girls. My name is ty hilden Brand, jutting me as always over there in beautiful New York City. My man Danrew Beansteinzir, how are you?
Ty I'm terrific and I'm told a little birdie told me that you have extensive thoughts on this quick lane Bowl match. I do guess the floor is yours?
I do No, we'll get into that when we get to the bowl matchups a little bit later. So just to peel back the curtain. Normally we record this recap show about nine to thirty Eastern Time on a Sunday morning, but because of the playoff announcements, because of the Bowl announcements that are still coming out as we're doing this show, we decided to record it for Eastern so that we had a more complete set of data to present to over ballers.
Is that right correct? Yes, that is true. We could have recorded this morning and just talked about the conference championship games and any updated coaching stuff. But you know what, it didn't feel right to cheat everybody of our strong Bowl thoughts. That's correct. The playoff rankings that became pretty not the rankings, but in terms of the four teams who would make the playoff pretty obvious after all was
said and done yesterday. As we record this Sunday, it's important to date this by the way, Yes, so if something crazy happens Sunday, four pm Eastern, we wanted to give you the full scope, as full as we could give absolutely, so as we are recording this show, we're going to save some of the bull announcements for the very end if we can.
Hopefully we'll get a full pallette here.
In shout out to everybody waiting to see the bull match ups and hear them on this show. If you're hearing them for.
The real times, if you're hearing them for the first time on our show, we will do our best to present them in their entirety, at least as it becomes available to us, probably by the stages of this show. But hello, hey, welcome. We made it through the college football season. If you can believe that. There still is the Army Navy game next week, which we'll talk a little bit about at some point in time. But for the interim, we've got all of our conference championship games
in the books. We're going to go through all of those. We're going to play your reverbs here momentarily. Don't forget. If you haven't already subscribed, you can do so by going on out to Soliverble dot com and clicking on any of the subscribe buttons or whatever podcasting app you prefer. You can subscribe to the show. We are available, I believe on just about all of them by now. It would be awesome if you subscribe, because we've got a
bunch of Bowl content that we're gonna present. We've also got a bunch of offseason stuff that we do each and every off season. The long slog towards the next regular season starts in effect around now, So make sure you are subscribed not just to the podcast feed, but also to all of our social channels as well as the subreddit and a lot of doreddit.
Dot com, Solid verbal dot reddit dot com is correct, and if you want to get a sense if you're new to the season or new to the show. A lot of our off season content is dedicated to Q and A's in which Ty says things like, Dan, I gotta tell you, I've never heard of a pine apple a pine Ty, Dan, I just that sounds that sounds kind of made up to me. So stick around for that.
All right, Why don't we start where we have started all year. Let's many folks styled into our reverblind four waight verbal one. They also sent in voice memos to the reverbline at gmail dot com. And our boy Ryan, who's been cutting these up for us most of this season, did an admirable job.
Have a listen.
The lady throwing overhanded and that doctor Pepper toss one.
That's awesome.
Hey, this is Chris calling from Waco, Texas.
Daniel from Oklahoma here, Colin.
Hello, In. This is Sewn from Seattle.
Hey, this is Dylan. I'm calling from ben Ridge.
Hi. This is Hayden and Notre Dame, Indiana. Hey, this is Amy from Portland and I'm married to a man from Oklahoma. And all I gotta say is Okay, Boomers go dock. So it's halftime of the TAC twelfth Championship game, and my youths Well, I'm researching airfare to San Antonio.
Hi, this is still from Salt Lake and got the pain hurts.
So I tried to put my emotions down to taper and I wrote a poem. I had a football team called the Youth.
They died, They died. It looked like our offense was sleeping.
I cried, I cried, go.
Youth, Got this hurts.
Utah's uniforms were clean as hell, but they certainly did not play that way.
They're going to need some extra serotonin to get over this championship Saturday.
Hey, didn't hi to Alex calling from Santa Clara after the Packfield Championship in is Arizona State the best team in the Pac twelve?
Just kidding?
Oregon wins, Go Duck?
Do you smell that? It's the fresh aroma of Roses?
We took the pack Go Duck tight, Dan, you guys, do you smell that?
Is that.
Roses? Go Duck? All of the Bears down in Waco loved Christmas.
A lot, but Alex Grinch, who lived just north of Waco, did not.
I witnessed my Baylor Bears almost beat the perennial powerhouse of the Oklahoma Sooners with a third string scout team quarterback and Jalen Hurt giving two terrible turnovers.
But now we shall see.
This is David from Columbus calling to say I am emotionally and physically exhausted.
After the most stressful fourteen point conference championship win.
I've ever watched.
Let's hope the Bucks remember how to play the first third me.
Into a football game, and hopefully we can beat up on some tigers. Go Bucks. Hi. This is Hayden and Notre Dame, Indiana watching as my team doesn't have a conference championship game, just like Alabama.
Joe Irish, Hey, yow, I've been alive long, se safe, I am looks like our day answers getting pretty advanceder I may neh everybody as always Tiger bad hat.
Right, baby's sec and I starting this state clearly this year. It's Sunday morning in Athens, Georgia, and the sun did rise, only to shed more light on the fact that Jake Frum does not at all have Thaker Mayfield is It's.
Not a good run for Georgia when you have more players injured and points cord in that SC championship.
I feel like the Georgia Athletics staff is just going to trudge out like a World War two doctor at this point with a cigarette in one hand, saying, Oh, it doesn't look like you're gonna have too good of a time. But what about those Notre Dame Irish?
Huh Dan?
How about Dan Tigers?
How about the Hawaiians blow roasting ladies and gentlemen? The Broncos bar back? Guess who's back back again? Playne Kiffin's back, Tell a friend.
All right, there you go, out there, there you go. Thank you to one and all for calling all season long. It was a ton of fun. Again, thanks to our boy Ryan for cutting those up, and thanks to all of her ballers, the hundreds, if not thousands of people who called in throughout the course of the last fifteen weeks. It's been a ton of fun to listen and relive some of these college football moments with you. So, Daniel, Yes,
Captain Tye, thank you. By the way, did you catch Gus Johnson going all Captain Jack on Jack Cone?
Of course I did, Tye, Captain Jack. The two's cruise is permeating the college football lands. Whether you like it or not, it's all very real.
We're going to walk back through the weekend in chronological order. It's a quasi oral history, if you will. It was the best way I could think to do it.
But okay, let's start just counting on each other.
That's correct, Tale, that's correct, Okay, sitting around the campfire here.
Sure.
The day after, we framed this weekend out as sort of the and one scenario, Like, there were three teams that we knew were on an elite level, and then there was that one more spot left in the playoffs that the committee would have to fill and we didn't really know what would happen. We had a few options that we presented. It could have gotten crazy. It didn't,
and alas it was pretty obvious in the end. But first up to try and claim that spot was the Utah Utes in the Pac twelve game on Friday night. Coming into this, they were ranked fifth. In hindsight, they got to be sick because I think a win would have almost definitely put them through into the playoff, but not meant to be. Dan, your Oregon Ducks. You're defending red box ball champion Oregon Ducks. Yeah, they're now packed twelve champions.
Where's my hat as well.
They win by a thirty seven to fifteen score.
Walk me through this, Dan, I may I just say, I am supremely disappointed that when you said it had an and one flare to it, that you were not talking about skipped to my lou and the professor.
And no, no, I thought about that, baby, no, no, no no no.
I baby shack well s we oh god, I'm forgetting all my guys here. But my reaction to Utah Oregan is somebody who was pretty confident in watching both of these teams for a good chunk of time and knowing that Oregon had the higher ceiling because they just have the I think higher collection, the better collection of talent,
but Utah just had fewer questions. Like we talked about, I was somewhat surprised by Oregon coming out the way they did, but I suppose it shouldn't have been that much of a surprise because we saw them play up or sometimes down to their opponents all year long. We saw the defense look rocking against Auburn and USC and not necessarily against Washington. But they came to play against Washington. They came away, especially away from Audsen, with some pretty
big wins or performances. I'm not going to talk about the end of the Auburn game. So what they look like almost immediately against Utah was both familiar and surprising all at the same time. So I just I came up with the offensive line just completely pulverized Utah upfront,
which nobody's really done this year. No, justin Herbert first of all, keeping the ball on runs early to actually run the pistol as intended, because you're supposed to have at least a threat of a quarterback running, and that's not anything Oregon and Herbert offered leading up to this game. So that was a new but expected wrinkle if you're running a pistol offense, and then Oregon's defense just completely swarming Utah and coming up with big stop after big
stop on third and short and fourth and short. And it's something we've talked about across the sport. Winning moments. We saw it across every one of these huge championship games, Conference championship games. Oregon won moments, whether it was you know, batting down passes on our just third and short, fourth and short, Brady Breeze coming up and leveling a runner, or picking off that pass in the end zone. Oregon just came to win the moments and Kevon Thibodeau was
terrific shorting a punt chasing down Tyler Huntley Utah. It looked like the moment was just too big for Utah, who had a seriously, very very good season. But the best of Oregon came to play in Utah was just they weren't on the same field. So now, hold on.
You say the moment was too big for Utah, and that may have been true early, but there was a moment in this game late in the third quarter totally Utah came back. They made it an eight point game, twenty three to fifteen with a whole quarter left. Yes, or you have Auburn flashbacks, because that was a near identical situation to what happened in that game.
Yeah, Oregon ran out to a lead and then made some decisions poor decisions, didn't get out to any sort of impressive offensive start in the second half. And I was so that it was a new look Oregon, even though they sort of kept it somewhat conservative at times. Busting out long runs is fine, Yeah, sure, busting out CJ. Verdell goes for over two hundred with three touchdowns. I believe he is one of just a handful of running backs since two thousand or something who's done that and Oregon.
When I talk about the moment being too big for Utah, there were specific instances of UTA. I mean, Tyler Huntley made a couple of incredible throws, Zach Moss had a few incredible moments and runs himself. But Utah was held
scoreless for three quarters in this game. Yeah, and so Utah had a moment in the third quarter where they they looked competitive that they were going to come back, but for Oregon to just rise again was as an Oregon fan, it was pretty incredible to watch them really step up in this moment because I really do anticipate this being a point of the Mario Cristobal era. That is,
I think it's base camp. I think Oregon has a higher ceiling with how they're recruiting and what the defense might look like.
Well, to your point, Kyle Whittingham made the same comment about the line of scrimmage. He was disappointed, said they'd been undefeated in that area all year, and he's right, they just they didn't win the line of scrimmage. I thought the Oregon defense is super impressive. Six sacks of Tyler Huntley pressure all night. You mentioned Kevin Thibodeau two and a half sacks. He blocked a punt, wasn't like a punt block was intentionally called there, No through the
line got it done. And only the second game this season in which Zach Moss, the record setting running back for Utah did not score a touchdown the other one USC. They lost that game too, So right, the Ducks move on onto bowl season. I should say thirty seven to two fifteen is your final. They're going to square off against Wisconsin in the Rose Bowl. So very narrowly missed a solid verbowl if you want.
I believe he got hurt in the USC game, so that's at least defensively, only had I think six carries. He was hurt pretty early.
So with a chance to go to the playoff, Utah falters, which means the Big Twelve Game. The Big Twelve Game was high noon on Saturday, Oklahoma thirty Baylor twenty three in overtime. So unlike the first game between these two, this one was neck and neck the whole way. Each team won two quarters, so it was actually quite fitting that it went to ot again. This one was there
for Baylor with a little better execution sort of. I don't think to the same extent as the first game, right to be fair, but they did go to overtime, and I think with a few more moments of better execution they could legit be thirty teen and oh was not meant to be the finish eleven to two.
Fair enough, great year.
After watching both of these Oklahoma Baylor games in their entirety, I think it's clear that Oklahoma is the better team, also clear that they should have been winning these games by more, and the reason they didn't is because of a good, opportunistic Baylor defense and an offense that capitalized on Oklahoma mistakes the whole nine yards. But at this point, I keep coming back to what you said about Jalen Hurts. He is truly an equal opportunity hurterer, isn't.
Yeah, who hurts you well, both teams? Jalen Hurts.
Yeah, he mostly hurts other teams and his talent's undeniable, But when he hurts his own team, it really stings.
And he did it again in this game. Dan, correct, So where do you want you want to begin? With Oklahoma.
Let's start with Oklahoma. Yeah, yes, the.
Best of Oklahoma is Jalen Hurts. It's Ceedee Lamb. It's how much pressure Oklahoma got up front against this Baylor offensive line, which has been fine, nothing crazy, but this is sort of a different look for Oklahoma. Obviously, Kenneth Murray has been, you know, the strong point of what has been at times a weaker unit this season and in the past few years. So it was nice that everybody sort of gathered around him to rise to or hope to rise to his level. So that was an
encouraging sign. Obviously, Oklahoma gifts Baylor a short field for their first touchdown. Was a twenty twenty five yard short field for the Bears, but that's fine. They took advantage and that counts. It was a nice pass from Jerry Bohannon. I'm pretty sure it's Jerry. Jerry, No, it's Jerry. It's Jerry, which is a great name. He comes in once Charlie Brewer takes a hit where he looked super wobbly and it was very clear that he was not okay, so
he leaves the game. Jerry Bohannon isn't great, but he makes a couple of plays, he was beat up. And then it was Jacob Zeno, Yeah, baby, who comes in for Baylor, who I think has been sort of pegged as the quarterback of the future, a true freshman who has not seen a lot of action this year to maintain his red shirt. And he comes in and he despite the Oklahoma defense looking very good for this this this championship game, he found some soft spots in that home defense.
Two consecutive passes one and fifty nine yards and a touchdowns.
First two.
Yeah, first two passes. So talk about starting things off on the right foot. I believe he was three for three passing headed into this football game, So start to bail our career a perfect five for five. Interestingly enough, though, to your point on the Oklahoma defense, he did not complete a pass after that.
He finished something like two for six.
Oklahoma was able to really tighten things up, and as he saw on that final series and then again in overtime, they were bringing pressure. They were not taking it easy on the young freshmen. They were bringing pressure, and they were forcing him to change his rhythm and you know, make some good decisions.
Absolutely absolutely what you should do. And it almost underscored at the same time that Oklahoma is a running team. You know, the Jalen Hurts throws downfield to Ceedee Lammer wonderful. These past couple of years with Baker Mayfield and Kyler Murray were sensational. But Oklahoma is at its best on the ground, as we've seen, whether it's samaj p Ryan or this year Kennedy Brooks and Trey Sermon before he got hurt and Jalen Hurts like on the ground has
been incredible. They couldn't run against Baylor, and that's what kept it close. They couldn't possess this game, and Baylor came up big after big after big time on defense and stayed in this game. But there's only so much
you can do with that much inexperienced under center. And they came into this game with some offensive limitations in terms of consistent drives, and I think all credit goes to Oklahoma for playing as complete a game as they possibly could have when things weren't popping necessarily at all times offensively.
Oklahoma ends up being your fourth seed in the playoffs by virtue of this win. The Wisconsin thing didn't happen. We'll get to that game momentarily here. It was interesting for at least a half, but Oklahoma is the one that prevails here. They are going to square off against LSU, which we'll talk about next. I believe I saw that the points spread now has Goost all the way up to like eleven or twelve points in favor of LSU, which does not surprise me one iota.
Can we use the word goose now moving forward for the way lines move? This one's goosen down all the way to three? I love it. Did I say goost? I used usage like this one, this one goost all the way up to ten? Or that means don't know how that happened? I mean Oklahoma.
Congratulations they're going to the playoff, and on the Baylor's side, congratulations to them on a great year. They're going to the Sugar Bowl to square off against Georgia. It as their first trip to the Sugar Bowl since I believe the Heyday of nineteen fifty.
Seven, if memory serves. Wow, okay, cool, so good on them.
Good season. Fun game was meant to be. As Matt Ruhle said, I want you guys to feel the pain, feel the pain and use that in the off season to drive. You Yeah, in the SEC title game, we had LSU thirty seven Georgia ten dan. So the great part about Championship Week for everyone and especially for us, is that you can watch all the games from start
to finish. Normally, we're leafing through box scores or reading game caps, trying to piece things together after the fact as best we can, because we can't watch all these games in the morning before we record. I actually could watch this game. I didn't just jot down stats and things that jumped out at me. I jotted doubt what I was feeling as a man whoa okay?
How this game?
Because because it's it's an emotional sport it is we try to tap into the passion here on the solid ribble, What did you feel? First off, I didn't feel for one second like Georgia had a shot, okay, and I know I picked him. I got a little crazy twenty eight twenty seven in the preview, but whatever that went out the window. On ls's opening drive, when Joe Burrow went four or five passing, he threw a touchdown, he was calm, cool and collected. I knew then this Georgia
defense straight up elite. They're good they're great. Maybe they'll force some plays the rest of the way, but they weren't stopping LSU, and LSU shredded them, absolutely shredded them. Joe Burrow had four touchdowns, almost three point fifty passing. He's gonna win the Hives and he's gonna get picked by the Bengals and go back home to Ohio. It's been a remarkable year for him and it just keeps going all correct. Secondly, yeah, this LSU defense was something huh.
Yeah, well, any team that can claim Derek Stingley as one of their own, pretty good spot to be in.
Georgia couldn't run at all. It was basically all on Jake from who was into a bunch of backups to be fair, but yeah, he also missed a bunch of throws the defense though for LSU, that was the thing that as we sat here all year trying to split hairs, trying to find the weak spots, that was the most obvious thing. And I'm not going to pretend that this is a high power Georgia offense. It's not, but still a total shutdown, Like this is why LSU got that number one seed.
They played and this is one of my favorite turns of phrase in football. LC defense played like they had their hair on fire in their ears back. They had third in California's that they forced. I think they held Georgia completely down on third down as well. They came up big in those moments. But LSU was the very this is not controversial, clear better team in this matchup. And I like that Georgia took some shots early and we had you know, we had a drop to open
up the game. We had a decent enough throw that was you know, catchuple out of bounds, but it was it was very clear once Georgia wasn't connecting with those that there wasn't a CounterPunch that there wasn't a receiver who could take over the game and the way that you know, Jamar Chase or Justin Jefferson did and they you know, LS you had a pretty big drop too on what looked like it was gonna be like a seventy yard touchdown. But ellis, I don't know, whatever it is.
Joe Burrow has it. Yeah, I mean we saw that play where he bought all that time in the backfield and rolled out and you know, hit a guy downfield and there was just there's just something about LSU and the confidence with which they play in this offense against the Georgia defense that's incredible. But they can only do it for so long if they're going to be on the field that long because of their own offense.
Have I used the comparison before of like the end of the Matrix, the first Matrix when Neo is fighting the agent after he becomes the one. I've used that, right, Yes, you have. I felt like that watching Joe Burrow because nothing at all rattled him. It didn't seem like he was at all at all confused or panicked or anything. He was very calm. His pocket presence was incredible, and he was delivering passes on time and at the right spot.
Yeah, and it was what seventeen three at half time and it shouldn't have even been that close. It was basically LSU from start to finish. And I tweeted this out that the way LSU plays where they just ripped the brake out of the car and they're just constantly on the gas. We saw it at the end of the Texas game. We've seen it each week that they play, that they are trying to score touchdowns on every play.
That might sound like an obvious thing, that might sound like, yes, of course, we're trying to score a touchdown every play. No you're not. You are sometimes going into a shell. LSU doesn't have a shell, and they have been incredible to watch all year, going thirteen to zero. They are my number one seeded team. The case isn't the strongest. Even make a pretty strong case for Clemson. You can make a pretty strong case for Ohio State as well.
But with what LSU did against their opponents, against the talent level that they faced, I just I was not impressed by a team more than I was this season. No, I agree that I was with LSU.
So in effect, we are merging the SEC and the Big Twelve as we move into bowl season. We've got LSU Oklahoma. As we said before, LSU goosed all the way up to about a twelve point favorite.
We've got Georgia and Baylor playing in the Sugar.
I haven't seen that point spread yet, maybe it'll be up by the end of the show. Take the under. Not a bad bet Georgia Baylor, Yeah, not a bad bet over in the Big Ten. So this one was on Saturday evening and there was some doubt here. There was some doubt here about what could happen. Could Wisconsin give Ohio State a game? And the answer, at least early was yes. Ohio State came out flat, turned it over on downs, punted, fumbled, and then scored a touchdown before halftime.
Yeah, fumbled deep into the Wisconsin red zone. But deep into the Wisconsin red zone. The buck guys went into the locker room down twenty one to seven.
As I said before Gush Johnson's yelling out Captain Jack for Jack Cone, I still felt confident. I didn't believe what my eyes were seeing. And sure enough, Wisconsin did not score the rest.
Of the way.
Ohio State just ripped off twenty four unanswered. They won by thirteen. They will be your number two seed in the upcoming playoff, Dan.
They will. And the way it happened, and if you're listening to this, you probably watched, but Wisconsin came out incredibly. They rushed the pass, they rushed us in fields. They overwhelmed the Ohio State line offensively, even when they would get behind the sticks, whether it was third and eight or something like that, all of a sudden, Jack CON's rushing for twelve yeah, Jack Cone Man, Yeah, Jack Cone was wonderful. In the first half, Quintes Cephis was getting
open and making plays. They were doing those short little slants against the Ohio State defense. And then Ohio State started blocking. Ohio State started dropping guys directly into those passing lines, and the CounterPunch that Wisconsin needed to have in addition to not dropping a snapped punt and just generally going into their own shell just wasn't there. The CounterPunch didn't happen, and it was what twenty four to
twenty one. At a certain point, Ohio State takes the lead and you're like, Okay, this is where a championship caliber team, which is what Wisconsin showed themselves to be in the first half, makes their adjustment and regroups. And this is what Wisconsin did. As soon as they went down twenty four to twenty one. They punted after three plays, and then they went down ten and they punted after three plays, and then there's still plenty of time left and they turn it over on downs and just it
was the separation of great from good. And that's if there is a theme, I guess, I don't know if it's Oklahoma separating themselves from Baylor, but we saw it with Oregon and Utah, we saw it from LSU and Georgia. It's definitely saw from Clemson Virginia. At a certain point, talent takes over. And whether it was Chase Young opening things up for both himself and the defensive line up Ohio State, whether it was Chris o'lave and Benjamin Victor
for Ohio State. JK. Dobbins finally got going in the second half there needed to be and this was something did we talk about with Clemson Virginia, like these are the things? You know, Virginia needs all seven of these things to happen to be in this show.
Yeah.
Yeah, Wisconsin needed two or three of those. They needed that scoop and score. They needed that punt return touchdown, they needed that broken play and it didn't seem like it at twenty one seven. But at a certain point, talent is just going to inflict itself and that's what happened. It is what happened.
And to your point, from one of the shows we did last week, Justin Fields did seem a bit off early and it might have been because of that knee injury he was wearing the bulky knee brace. Wisconsin came at him. They sacked him five times on the night, but most importantly, he did regroup in the second half. Talent did prevail. Yeah, in this sense. He went twelve of seventeen in the second half when Ohio State came charging back.
Do you know what his ratios are in the year?
No?
Tell me.
He finishes the season with a forty to one touchdown to interception ratio and his first year as a starting quarterback.
It's pretty good. I'll say it right now, I'll plant my flag. That's pretty good.
It dawned on me yesterday watching this game that both Justin Fields and Trevor Lawrence are going to be in the same draft class next year. They are perhaps with Jake fromm if he stays, Sam Ellinger, Jacob Eason, some others that I don't have time to mention. So yeah, looking like a loaded class next year.
I think Justin Fields and Trevor Lawrence may separate themselves from those other guys.
I would agree, but I'm just saying some big names if you're a college football fan that could be coming out. By the way, do we know is Jack Cone dead? After that last hit?
I don't mean to laugh. I hope he's okay. I hope he didn't break a rind with somebody. I hope he didn't get the wind knocked out of him.
Somebody sent me a tweet with the clip saying that, yeah, you can barely see him getting up in the background, so we're confident he's still breathing, but it would have been courteous for someone to at least confirm that he's still alive, because that was a hell of a shot he took on that last play.
I saw him running towards the pylon, and it all slowed down for me once I saw the angle that Ohio State had on him, and I just let out a no. I was watching it because man, that came right after that wild catch, right that he sort of threw up and got them down near the goal line, and then him trying to run for a score, and it was just not going to happen. You're just like, oh God, they're going to separate his spleen from his body,
aren't they. They look like they turned his ribs into truros, and I hope that's not the case.
So he said before Wisconsin going to the Rose Ball squaring off against your defending Red box Ball champion Oregon Ducks.
I was there the last time they played. Terrific ex experience. Let me know, Wisconsin fans or Oregon fans if you need Alli food recommendations, always here.
And Ohio State finishes as the number two team in the country at least according to the playoff rankings, and they're gonna square off against Clemson, your ACC champion. Clemson wins sixty two to seventeen over Virginia. It is their twenty eighth straight win, their fifth straight playoff Berth.
I think we expected this kind of game.
I don't know if we expected it to be this ugly, but thirty one to seven at a half never close. Trevor Lawrence sixteen of twenty two three oh eight, four touchdowns, A monster game for t Higgins nine for one eighty two and three touchdowns. Dan. There was a moment early when Virginia tied it at seven on a nice pass from Bryce Perkins, and I believe Bryce Perkins did about all in his power to try and make this one close. Clemson's just that much better. Forty five points to the victor.
I think was an intentional statement by Dabo Sweeney. I know he's been trying to feign some sort of like outrage about what's going on and.
They don't want us in the play.
Yeah, like we're third, we're defending champions and we're getting toy bus.
I get it.
But they're gonna give Ohio State all Ohio State can handle Ohio State. I believe open as a small favorite there, the line quickly shifted in Clemson's direction that time of recording. They might be about a two or three point favorite.
Now. Trevor Lawrence's numbers I think since the was Louisville where he had the really slow start and throw a couple of bucks, since that those picks has been lights out. The way Clemson plays is that it really looks like they treat every opponent like a nameless, faceless team. On the other side, there's there's no emotion, there's no This
almost sounds like a negative thing, but like it. They look so well trained and so well practiced that whether it's Tan, whether it's Justin Ross, whether it's Traves Ytn, whether it's Trevor Lawrence, that whatever they're facing in practice is harder than what they're going to play in the ACC.
So they're going through the motions in the most and I mean that as a compliment that it doesn't matter that you're trying to tackle them, it doesn't matter that you're trying to hang with them on these passing routes. They're just concerned with the ball and getting into the end zone. And when you look at how efficiently they do it, whether they score two touchdowns every quarter, yep, like it's it's not like their offense's job is to move the ball. It's just like, Okay, we need to
get our fourteen every quarter. That's who we are now, and they're just their machine. And I think right now Clemson's best might be better than anybody else in the country's best because of how complete they look. Now it's an ACC schedule. The best team they played in the non conference part of the schedule was Texas A and M. We don't know how good Clemson is when measured against the best, but buddy, they are a machine out there.
The best tweet that I read about Clemson all day today and kind of the build up to seeing where they would end up in the playoff matchup, was from a friend, Spencer Hall, and he said that he wants to hop on the bandwagon that Ohio State better watched themselves because Clemson's just starting to play for real.
And yeah, we saw that last year. That was a very much the same time last speaking at the right time. Yeah, absolutely.
So Clemson wins big, they win the ACC Championship. They're going back to the playoff, as we said, for the fifth straight year. They will square off against Ohio State. They're a small favorite. That game will be out in Glendale, Arizona mm HM at the Fiesta Bowl. The other matchup between Oklahoma and LSU is going to be played at the Peach Bowl in Atlanta.
Okay, cool. I like all these things.
So that's where we stand in terms of Power five games. Yes, Daniel, there were a few other matchups here that I'll run through very quickly. We had in the American Memphis winning That was actually a really good game, amazing game, great game, came down to the wire. Memphis won by five over Cincinnati by a twenty nine to twenty four score.
Mike Norvel and Florida State made.
It Facebook official after the game. He is headed to Tallahassee to coach the Seminoles in twenty twenty.
I believe he is staying on for the bowl game against Penn State. Yeah, I think I saw that, but yeah, I'm not positive. Antonio Gibson was terrific on the ground. Normally we're having this conversation about Kenneth Gainwell, but I don't know if you saw that sixty plus yard touchdown run of his. Oh, incredible, ridiculous, and they needed it because the passing game wasn't necessarily there all that often.
I mean, demonte Coaxley was great, but otherwise it was a matter of I thought the Memphis defense actually did a terrific job. As soon as Cincinnati seemed to get momentum Desmond Ritter returns as starting quarterback, but Cincinnati would get a little bit of juice or goose as you would like to say, they would goose up the scoreboard a little bit. And Memphis did a terrific job, whether it was on third downs, whether it was forcing fumbles
or interceptions. It was a really nice and if you're a Florida State fan, it's hard not to feel encouraged by what Mike Norvel has accomplished at Memphis on both sides of the ball. And really cool season for the Tigers.
So Cincinnati will be squaring off against Boston College in the ticket Smarter Birmingham Bull. Okay, cool since he against Boston College. And on the Memphis side, as we said, it's a Cotton Bowl and they're squaring off against Penn State.
Yeah, Boston College obviously does not currently have a head coach of the future. A lot of smoke has surrounded Jeff Hafley, the secondary and associate defensive coordinator for Ohio State, who is incredibly regarded there and what he's done a short time in Columbus. And we'll see what happens in that bole.
In the Mountain West, it was Boise by a thirty one to ten final over Hawaii.
Mm hmm.
We've got Boise now squaring off against Washington in a bowl game, the Chris Peterson Bowl.
Yeah, sort of final game for Washington.
Interesting plot shift in the Subishi Motors Las Vegas Bowl.
Yes, I cannot recommend not playing Boise State enough in the Vegas Bowl. It's a pain in the ass. Hopefully late and vander ash does not have any younger siblings. The good news is if you're a Boise fan, Jalen Henderson made plays for the Broncos, which was helpful because Hawaii did a nice job against George Hallani and the rushing attack on the ground. But really it was the Boise defense the story here, holding Hawaii to ten points.
And yes it was home. Yes it's far away from Honolulu, but Boise a very quiet twelve and one impressive season finishing I don't know, the top fifteen somewhere in there. Yeah, yeah, so really cool to see white.
By the way, going back to Aloha Stadium in Honolulu for the SOFI Hawaii Bowl. They play it on Christmas Eve and BYU is going to be making the trip.
Great cool, I'll watch.
In the Sun Belt, we had app State going up real big, real early against Louisiana, and Louisiana came charging back. It was too little, too late, but forty five to thirty eight is your final here. As app State continues a really good twenty nineteen campaign under Eli Drinkquitz.
Yes, Eli drinkquentz, Eli Drinkquitz. Excuse me has done a terrific job with app State. In year one, they, as you mentioned, also jumped on Louisiana or Louisiana. Laughya, I always forgot the Raging Caguns. We'll say early, but really good job by the Raging Caguns jumping back and making this a game. Levi Lewis did a good job, always like a good lefty quarterback. And I don't know what there is to take away beyond it'd be cool if Eli Drinkquitz stayed for a while, but it doesn't seem
like that is necessarily the case. He's gotten a lot of interest and it looks like he and Miszoo may be hot and heavy. We'll see and uh yeah for year one to keep the train going for the Mountaineers. Impressive.
The Mountaineers are headed to the RNL Carrier's New Orleans Bowl to square off against the UAB Dragons.
Their mascot is a dragon, but they are the Blazers.
And on the Louisiana side, they're squaring off against Miami of Ohio in the Lending Tree Bowl. Hmm, okay, good year for them. Ten and three, Yeah, absolutely, Miami of Ohio. Miami of Ohio wins the map. Yes, they do twenty snibles to twenty one over Central Michigan.
Dan Yeah, Jim mackoin did a terrific job bringing the uh bringing the Chips back to this game. But yeah, Chuck Martin, your guy, my boy, Chuck Martin has done. I don't think they had an amazing season. They went seven and five, but they did really well in the MAC. They had a I don't know who they played in the non conference portion of their schedule. I'm bringing it up right now. Oh, they had Iowa and Cincinnati SO and Ohio State. That's legitimate. Those losses. I'm going to
go out on a limb and say legit. But Miami really impressive season, go to a bowl game, win the MAC. Outstanding, Miami goes to the bowl game.
Central Michigan go into a bowl game of their own. It's the New Mexico Bowl.
They are squaring off against San Diego State. Is it Russell Athletics still or no. They had a whole controversy, right, It was a whole ball with a potentially non existent company sponsoring the New Mexico Bowl. We could do that, right, we could. We are definitely a non existent company.
In Conference USA, FAU a big, big win over UAB forty nine to six. The big story here was actually that the lane train Link Kiff now has now arrived in Oxford Mississippi, Ole Miss making the move bringing Lane kiff In back to the SEC. And you know what, I actually I was very curious. I went back and I found one of our old clips from many moons ago where we actually fleshed out what the Lane Kiffin over underline was for head coaching jobs in his career. The line was not four and a half the line.
The line was five. Oh okay, So he is sitting on that number right now. And the question which we can ask at some other point in time, is will we get to six?
I think it's possible. If we get to six, do you think it means he has crashed and burned at Old Miss or is advancing once again? So from the ashes of what happened at USC, coordinator at Alabama and then the head job again at FAU, making his way back up obviously all Miss and upgrade over FAU in terms of college football status. Which direction from here?
Man?
I could go either way? Well, there's only two. I'm inclined. I'm inclined to say up.
Okay, I'm inclined to say I don't feel strongly, but I think he did a pretty good job at FAU. I think he's done a pretty good job sort of, you know, rectifying his image, and he should be able to recruit at ol miss. We know recruiting has always been a strength of his. At a minimum, he'll keep things interesting. He'll talk about you can recruit at all miss. I don't know what exactly happens to get things done,
but you know he can recruit there. It's been done before Dan correct, so I think he'll be all right there.
What is the upward mobility at a place that is fast and loose enough to say, yeah, we want Lane here is I Florida State Miami and I don't even know.
I guess Notre Dame. No, I don't think, mmmm, oh that would be wonderful. FAU again wins by a forty three point margin, a big win. I think I saw their second Conference USA title in about three years. They are squaring off against SMU in the Cherubundi Boca Ratone Bowl.
Cherub Button Day. Yes, a terrific job Conference USA play for for FAU. Chris Robison was a Malcolm Davidson had a nice game. B jmmons. Obviously people know that name, so yeah, very very I mean, it's it's an impressive job. He's done at FAU. It's you can't say it anyway other way.
And we already mentioned UAB the Blazers scoring off against app State, and I believe that's it. I think I got them all. Oh, and then there's this one.
The Mule at Burg Mules, baby.
Woo.
Pennsylvania's one true team.
Let's not get crazy, but Eastern Pennsylvania's one true team at this rate. Okay, Muhlenberg wins twenty four to eight over Salisbury. They are the last remaining undefeated team okay in the Division three bracket. The next game against a team called North Central from Illinois is going to be played up the road here about fifteen minutes on Saturday. I'm thinking about making the trip up really Scotty Wood Stadium, baby, thinking.
Of making the trip. Okay, good for you. So on ESPN three, make sure you watch, even though the Patriot League is long out of it. In the FCS playoffs, James Madison stomped Monmouth Northern Iowa close over the Jacks of South Dakota State. North Dakota State comfortably over. I believe it was Nichols Austin Peke took it to Sack State sax State, I think had a bye the first round, so there was an upset there, and I don't know
if there's anying. Montana laid it on Southeast Louisiana. Montana State over Albany, Kennessas State, who had themselves a year goes down to Weber State. I don't know if that's it out to do, but I know it's in Utah and Illinois State over Central Arkansas. All right, Well, there you have it, Dan, Yes, Can I ask you some questions please? Okay? First of all, one through four college football Playoff? Are you okay with how they how everything was seated and played out? Yeah? Yeah, I think so.
I think this year maybe more so than any other that I can remember, it seemed pretty obvious after conference championship week what the seating was going to be.
I'm I'm totally cool with it. Okay, do you have specific matchups? I mean, obviously Ohio State Clemson is going to jump out a little bit more than LSU Oklahoma at this point, with how Oklahoma's played some closer games and looked a little bit more vulnerable and what you said, it was goosed up to like ten and a half eleven points now we're at twelve. Now we're at twelve. Now I said twelve? Can I say twelve and a half? That damn pots? Can I ghost at the ten and
a half. In terms of Bowl matchups outside of this New Year Six matchups? Yeah, what's tickling you so? New Year's six matchups?
A couple here to read off, I already mentioned a couple of these. But the Rose Bowl Wisconsin against Oregon to me feels maybe a lot more defensive than sure then the last time.
Oregon was here. Yeah, the injuries are like too, was it? Wisconsin's linebackers go down in the game certainly affected Wisconsin's defense. Hopefully they're back. I don't know how their prognosis is on in front of me right now. Capitol One Orange Bowl is Florida against Virginia. I'm happy for Virginia being in this game. I don't particularly want to watch this game though. Yeah, this could be a rough TV.
We mentioned Georgia Baylor could also be a very defensive minded football game to say the least.
Penn State Memphis Penn.
State Memphis could be interesting actually because one of the issues that we've seen come to light for Penn State in last couple of weeks has been their past defense.
And we know Memphis likes aired out Penn State or Wisconsin in the rows. Do you think they got that right?
I I don't know.
I could go either way.
I heard what Rob Mullen said. I understand that they feel Wisconsin did enough in the Big Ten championship game to warrant staying in front of Penn State. I mean they got drilled the first time. They played Ohio State by thirty one, and they gave away a fourteen point lead in the second half.
Six quarters, It went on long enough time. I'm good.
Yeah, I don't know. I mean, obviously I would have preferred Penn State.
But Wisconsin has the worst loss Wisconsin losing to Illinois, but they have probably the better wins, and that they really did separate themselves from Michigan. And you know, a big Penn State loss to Minnesota, I mean it was close, but that it was a meaningful loss to Minnesota. Wisconsin left no doubt against the Gophers. So if you are placing the value of good wins over bad losses, Wisconsin
seems like the choice. And I you know, you definitely don't punish them for that third loss because they had the pleasure of going up against Ohio State again in the Big Ten championship game. So I think I'm okay with it, and I think it's it's sort of raiser thin to me. Other questions, other questions non New Year six Bowl games that simply jump out to you as television you'd like to watch? Between what is it? When
did the games start? Like December eighteenth or something? The games start actually on December twentieth, twenty, Okay, so between the twentieth and I guess the thirteenth being the National championship.
Sure, well we mentioned the Chris Peterson Bowl boise against Washington is intriguing just because there's that added storyline to it.
For sure.
I am interested in the Texas Bowl Oklahoma State, Texas A and M.
Yeah, that feels like it's going to get weird for sure. That looks like a fun game.
I'm obviously interested in the Camping World Bowl between Notre Dame and Iowa State, which figures to be a fun matchup.
Yeah, how do you feel about that? I you haven't looked into it extensively, but as a have not opponent.
Into it extensively. Feels like the kind of game that Iowa State carves up Notre Dame secondary and it goes the route of a shootout.
Mississippi State Louisville. I think they always play in bowl games. Is that how I feel, how we're operating, feel that way? Red box Ball is Cal Illinois and I still haven't received my hat. But a nice story because well, I guess Cal's playing basically at home. But Illinois in a bowl game is always something that I appreciate. Virginia Tech Kentucky Lynn Bowden, Oh, good game, Bud Foster. Yeah, Virginia Tech just I think promoted from within to replace him
their secondary coach, Justin Hamilton. I want to say his name is Florida State, Arizona State, herm and al Paso Odell Haggins. Yeah, I don't know. I mean I just love the Sun Bowl in general, the Navy, Kansas State and the Liberty Bowl. Does that do anything for you? No?
But Minnesota Auburn in the Outback Bowl does.
Yes. I'm excited about that game.
And to that end, another New Year's Day game, the VRBO Citrus Bowl Michigan Alabama is to heavyweights. I think Alabama will kill Michigan Michigan.
Not the greatest track record under Jim Harbaugh. No in bowl games. No, but an interesting matchup on its face. Indiana, Tennessee the Tennisans. Can we continue it in Jacksonville? Not bad? Tax Slayer Bowl, Tax Player, Gator Bowl.
Excuse me, yes, So there's not a time that jump out. But here's the way that we do this for new listeners, for people who have listened for a while, we run a bull pool. It's a confidence pool, which means you pick the winner and then you assign a certain number of confidence points, from one if you're at least confident, all the way up through forty if you're most confident.
We'll talk through all of this again. You don't have to take notes, especially those of you writing in your vehicle, but we're going to go through all of these bowl games a couple shows from now and all throughout the offseason. Here the early part of the offseason, as we're doing coaching news and other stuff, we're going to break down all these games to the best of our ability.
It's a huge bullpool.
Will send out the links as soon as it's available, but make sure you are ready to go and jump on in.
It's a lot of fun.
We're gonna go through all these though, and they're still coming out. As we said at time of recording, I think most of them are in place now. But we're excited to talk Bowl season. We also are excited to talk about Bowl gifts, which I think secretly we get a little bit more excited about than the actual matchups themselves.
Memphis has named Ryan Silverfield interim head coach, which makes me think that Mike Norvell will not be coaching Memphis and the Button Bowl against pemp State almost a double letdown matchup pep State thinking they're going to the Rose, Memphis losing their head coach, mentioned Eli Drinkwitz and Miszoo. Sam Pittman has emerged as a leading candidate at the time that we are recording this to take over at Arkansas, where he had a ton of success under Brett Bilmah.
Just if you remember November from what twenty fourteen, it can be real fun. Yeah. In Fayetteville, Mike Bobo will be the new offensive coordinator at South Carolina quote barring a last minute change of heart. According to the Post and Courier, I read that as unless Georgia that's going to happen again. But he does have connections to both Wilmas Champ and Kirby Smart, Ricky Ronnie and South Carolina
defensive coordinator Traveris Robinson. Excuse me, are the candidates in the mix for the old Dominion head coaching job.
I can tell you Grittenberg firsthand that there are a lot of Penn State fans who are desperate for him to take this job.
Who I mean, James Franklin otherwise has had a pretty good track record of hiring assistants. I mean, he's had a very good track record. No, the Brent actually hire seems to have been pretty good, right, It's been very good, saying Ael moorehead.
There are a lot of Penn State fans right now who are really really burning up the phone lines trying to get ODU to hire Ricky Ronnie away.
Mike Norval gets a six year deal at Florida State, which I think it's I think is a good hire. I think it's just flat out a good hire. A lot of sort of a weird situation at Stanford. I think like five or six dudes have entered the transfer portal in like the last two days, Okay, and that I don't know if it has anything to do with it, but David Shaw is a leading candidate for both the Washington Redskins and Carolina Panthers job. So maybe I don't know.
I just I don't know. I'm just I'm reading some tea leaves here. Joe Brady said after the SEC championship game that he absolutely will be in Baton Rouge next year, So it sounds like he and the Tigers will work out a what I can only assume a very lucrative contract. Obviously. Yes, FAU obviously now has an opening and they will scour, you know, the coaching ranks to find a new OWL head coach Lane Kiffin. All I saw was he brought over his strength coach from FAU to Ole Miss. But
apparently his staff should be gangbusters. What if he brought Sark oh Man, that'd be crazy. Rutger has hired a defensive coordinator away from Temple, Greg Ciano, sort of starting to fill out his staff, and Graham Harrell is a hot, hot, hot commodity with what he did for the USC passing attack this past year. Apparently ran into Tom Herman. How that happens, right, Yes, So there's obviously a number of dominoes yet to take place with the coach and carousel.
We will discuss any and all of these because we're gonna have some time on our hands. Oh next few weeks, we are going to make it a December to remember. I hope you're ready for this. Daniel should also mention Jeff Tedford is expected to step down at Fresno State. It seems like a pretty good job given the talent in California and success both he and you know, San Diego State have had on the G five level in the Mountain West so and even San Jose State bouncing
back this year. So I think that's it. It's I think that's everything we've got. You know, Premieer coordinator hires to be made Missoo Arkansas open at the time of recording Memphis FAU, but Florida State hires Mike Norvell, Lane Kiffin to Ole miss are the big, big headliners, and we'll see what happens. Still another couple jobs open for a replacement. I have one thing to do here.
I want to send a dood to alert out to Destiny Alfred who went overhand and won the Doctor Pepper tuition.
To Friday night. So I saw this, and I gotta say she did a terrific job. She was very, very good. She was awesome. Now, it doesn't necessarily pay to bet on Team USA Olympic Hockey every year, right, correct, you're probably if it's your own money, thinking maybe I'm going Sweden or Canada. Sure, maybe whatever the Russian grouping is calling themselves if they're not actually eligible to represent their country.
It's a great story, Tie, It's a great story. Chess passers came out on top overall overall, but we.
Had that one, and that's why I sent my duodlelord out to Destiny Alfred get that cash, winning it the right way. Dan, there are still some of us out there.
Ty, you've got your trio of kidlets. You would do the same thing in this position. We already talked this true, This is very true. All right, any other dudes for you, I mean, all over the place. I mean, Joe Burrow is a retired dude. He has to be at this point. I think Jacob On Thibodeau, Yeah, Caveon Thibodeau, certainly. Jacob Zeno, well, I mean it was a very brief moment in time he had that moment though, it was like moments it was a dude. It's like a story, like dude, story,
dude to Jason. Yeah, he's a pre dude, right, like he's the quarterback of the future. That was a nice dude preview. Otherwise, I mean in the in the Ohio State game, I would say JK. Dobbins continues Chris Olave kJ Hill kJ Hill Obviously, I mean Jonathan Taylor tailback we've retired, but he was sensational in that that first half. We haven't mentioned t Higgins a whole lot this year. No, that the catch he made against Virginia was was something special.
CJ.
Verdell goes for over two hundred and uh and three touchdowns against the best or one of the best rush defenses in the country. Yeah, I don't know how much we have to I think, you know Kenneth Murray for for Oklahoma, sure was was all over the damn place. So yeah, dude's all over the place. Well, look, here is the deal.
We've got another two's cruise m hm coming your way. Dan and I are excited about the twos cruise this week. Yes, that'll be out on Tuesday at six am. There will also be a show out on Thursday correct six a m. But after this week we switch up the schedule a bit. There's not as much to talk about, so stay tuned. We'll talk more about what that schedule looks like. Don't worry, you'll still get us multiple times per week, at least
through the end of bowl season. Thank you so much to one and all for being part of the show, for downloading, listening, subscribing, you know the drill. We will be back another Tues cruise Tuesday morning, bright and early. Congratulations to all conference champions, all bull participants, and all members of the playoff. It's exciting. I'll talk to you soon in the meantime for myself, tie for that go over there, my good friend Dan Rubenstein talkie all in a few days.
Meantime to day solid peace,