Welcome to the solid verbal hull 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? Eta steak is that woo woof?
And them and tie Welcome back to the solid rebel boys. Girls. My name is ty Hilda Brandt, that fine gentleman over there in tropical Chicago, Illinois, the one, the only, still, the incomparable. Dan Rubinstein, sir, how are you? I'm not bad.
I had a good night's sleep. I uh stayed up far past my bedtime. On Saturday night, I went over to a buddy's house and watched UFC two seventy two.
Whoa you getting into a little mma?
Not especially, but I played tennis with this dude and he's super nice and invited me over. He had buddies over to watch the fight. Nice little cheese spread, okay, had some chocolate, had some chips, had a.
Beer, A beer, a beer, And I woke up Sunday morning.
Like, oh, I'm not in a good place. It had nothing to do with the beer, but I was worried for a moment that my extremely soft tolerance had hit me. But if you have any questions about you know, thug Nasty Bryce Mitchell.
I'm right here. I was gonna ask, so tell me about the conversation at said MMA party, Like what are yeah, what are you talking about? Did you do research before going over to your buddy's place to learn a little bit more about this? We would if we were going to a, you know, any other sporting event.
Not especially, but my buddy did tell me that he liked thug nasty from Arkansas.
That was his his guy.
No, I knew that the headline about the main event featured former good friends and so that it wasn't a title fight, so there was like bad blood on the line, but not necessarily a belt. So I knew that you who fought, if you want to bring it all the way back to college football, is Greg Hardy. Oh yeah, he's in this Miss Carolina Panthers. He's been fighting for a while. Pretty quickly dispatched, okay, quickly dispatched by a large man from I think Moldova.
So I don't know. I had fun.
It's one of those things where I pretended, not pretended, but was very agreeable. So it's like a lot of like sure, sure at.
Armbar uh huh uh uh huh. Three quartermount. Yeah, that's what I was.
That's what I was seeing coming as well. Yeah, uh huh, So that was fine. I'm not anti MMA, I'm not pro MMA. I'm just I'm there for the.
Spectacle, there for the spectacle. Well, with that being said, today's show is about the spectacle that was three and nine teams, Yes, in twenty twenty one. You may recall we did an episode like this a month ago. We released a show on February tenth, Allah to ten talked about two and ten teams, yes, on Wednesday. It is March the ninth, three nine a last here we are. So we're gonna be talking about all sorts of teams, not the least of which is Nebraska and Northwestern and
Temple and New Mexico. Who doesn't want to talk about New Mexico.
Yeah, you got Miles Kendrick thoughts, Rocky Long roles reversed, big.
Time thoughts, big time thoughts. We're going to dive in and talk about that. We're also going to go through the news here momentarily, but before we do, don't forget this episode. All our episodes driven by our good friends over at Geico. If you like the podcast, if you're just maybe finding us for the first time, thank you so much for downloading. If you've been here a while, thank you so much for your continued support. Please do subscribe to the show. We're doing two a week in
the off season. You can also rate and review wherever it is you get your podcasts. If you want more solid verbal you can go on out to verballers dot com. Verballers dot com gives you access to all shows a little bit early. You get access to bonus shows. You did an off topic show a week ago. We continue to do weekly brewin a episodes which are only available on Patreon, and last week we had a rather exciting
announcement about Extra Nuggets. Dan. Extra Nuggets is a trivia show that you are doing with our good friend Adam, a mean voice of the bulls. Thank you very much, brought We're going to use that sound today. Right to the annoying reactions, Yeah, calls NFL games, does baseball? Adam? You know, Adam. Adam's good. Yeah, good, dear pal. The show feedback so far, I think it's been really positive.
Right, Yeah, first two episodes on verballers dot com. More going up this month. And yeah, it's a really fun concept, easy concept, quick show. Each episode is about thirty minutes long, and we add additional context to every correct response from Jeopardy. So if it's Mickey Mantle, if it's Orion's Belt, if it's al Pacino, if it's the Prime Meridian, like, hey, here's what it is, here's something fun about it, and it just.
Goes pretty quickly. I like it. It's fun so quick listen a digestible podcast you can access that and let us know what your thoughts are. Again, over edver Bullers dot com. And last but not least, don't forget to follow along on social media. Okay, it has been a little bit since we delved into news on the college football front. True, and there are a couple of things
that we should mention. The I think news of the day is that Jaden Daniels, formerly of Arizona State, he announced his intention to transfer a couple of weeks back. He has now landed at LSU with Brian Kelly. This is of particular interest to me, knowing how mister Kelly tends to handle seeming quarterback controversies. He's going to have
one now in Baton Rouge. With Jaden Daniels coming to town, that means he's going to join a depth chart that also features Miles Brennan, Garrett nus Meyer and the early en roll Ly five star recruit Walker Howard Dan Good move, bad move? Where are you at with this? Jane Daniels tell us you, I mean it's great for LSU, not because I think he's anything crazy special, but because what's your phrase? More bites at the apple? Right?
You got more guys competing hopefully. I mean, so Miles Brennan coming off of a season ending a preseason ending injury last year. Garrett nus Meyer was the future at a certain point, but he's still relatively unproven. And then you've got the future future in Walker Howard. And so you've got a guy in right now, and if he's good enough to beat out presumably Miles Brennan Garrett us Meyer, then that's a good thing. That's a good thing that LSU has that quality of guy. Because Jade and daniels
ceiling is interesting. I think he's fine. Like I'm not as high on him as I think a lot of people. When he entered the portal, he was a bit careless. Last year, I went back and rewatched a couple of his games, and he was prone a bit to hero ball, you know, throwing a away from his body, throwing across his body, trying to make plays. There were times when the announcers were especially confused why he didn't make certain throws when a play was designed for a guy running
wide open down the field. And so, you know, maybe it was the architecture of the offense. Maybe it was ASU's offensive line at times in pass protection and confusion. But no, I mean, just in terms of a stop gap, you can certainly do far worse than Jade and Daniels and year one of Brian Kelly as you sort of assess what you want to do moving forward. I know LSU's offensive coordinator seems pretty well regarded. Sean McVay apparently had interest in him to take over the Rams job
on some level or some assistant job there. So we'll see. So Jadan Daniels at LSU, I he's betting on himself. It's a roll of the dice for him. And you're right about Brian Kelly's past with figuring out who should be playing quarterback. It sounds like a this is not an annual thing. This is going to be a carnival. It is going to be a carnival. This is the real Marti grad Dans are super low. This is not
Brian Kelly in year eleven or twelve. The stakes in year one, with the contract he has, with expectations in year one, they're basically no stakes right now. No, there's no added pressure.
Ie, He's not going to lose his job, right They just committed the entire family farm to Brian Kelly. But I fully expect that this quarterback controversy is going to last all season. And if history is any guide for Brian Kelly and what we've seen in his tenure at Notre Dame, having a number of good quarterbacks on the roster, all of whom could play, all of whom the fans want to see play, he will find some way to batch this. And that doesn't mean LS is going to
have a bad offense. I'm just saying the quarterback thing will remain muddled. Just get yourself ready for it now. I'm not even saying this to be derogatory. It will be muddled all season long. He will not commit to anybody until it seems too late. Just get ready.
Only the only reason why I would push back on that a little bit is the these aren't any of his guys, right, So there's no there's no sense of like Jack Cone wasn't his guy because he didn't recruit him out of high school, he wasn't with him for years and years last year, and the same those for all three of these guys, four of these whatever, however many guys end up in this conversation, there's no sense of Brian Kelly has watched this guy in practice for
two years, so he feels like he can really perform if given the opportunity. So there's a clean slate element having all of these guys where he hasn't sat in the living room with these guys his parents, and he hasn't, you know, formed these preconceived notions about any of these guys over the course of many years. And so I just I don't know how much allure there will be for any of these guys to jump in when things are going wrong for somebody else.
So we'll see.
But I just I think the situation is pretty pretty different from where he was at Notre Dame.
It is I hear you, I'll believe it when I see it, So okay. Elsewhere he mentioned Jack Cone. Jack Cone ran a four to nine at the com Dan, Who is that good? Is that bad? I don't know. It's faster than I thought he'd run. Oh okay, if I'm being honest with you. The combine happened over the weekend, a bunch of just factoids I think for college football fans that you may or may not be interested in. The big headline from the combine was Jordan Davis from Georgia.
Jordan Davis six six three forty one. Dude ran a four to seven to eight broad jump over ten feet ten feet three inches, which is believed to be a record for anybody over three hundred pounds. Also had a thirty two inch vert which is just mind blowing those types of numbers. Anyone who tells you that athletes now aren't better than they were five ten years ago is out of their mind. Jordan Davis definitely given his draft stock a bit of a boost. What else do we
got here? We had some other crazy numbers. Kalin Barnes, the defensive back for Baylor, ran the second fastest forty time ever, just a one hundredth of a second behind John Ross. You'll recall he ran a four to two two a couple of years back when he left Washington. Klin Barnes four to two three, just blazing fast. Baylor also had Taekwon Thornton run a four to eight. He was the fastest wide receiver this cycle. All told, there were eight receivers that ran under a four to four.
Your boy Cavon Thibodeau ran a four to five eight at what two fifty five, two fifty four something like that? Yep, yep. Uh. David o'jabo ran a four to five five, sort of the hybrid d N type from Michigan. It seems as if that gave him a needed boost to maybe get him up into the top twelve. Uh. Breist Hall seemingly doing everything he can do to remain one of the top, if not the top running back. Prosspect ran a four to three to nine, getting under that four to four number. Yeah,
And then we had some other news. We had Kenny Pickett with quote historically small eight and a half inch hands, But then he threw and he looked fine, and everybody stopped talking about the hands. Sam Howell looked pretty good throwing the deep ball folks are starting to talk themselves into Malik Willis as the top ten pick. Same holds true for des Ridder, not seemingly because of anything he did throwing the football, but because he ran a four
or five two. We always knew he was fast. I don't know if that is going to be grounds enough to get him into the top ten. We'll cover it to the extent that we can here, but does Ritter getting a little bit of steam? And we also found out that Derek Stingley is recovering from Liz Frank injury. Stingley one of those guys that I remember when he came out of high school. He kind of fell into that Adrian Peterson category of like, if he could go right now to the NFL, teams would pick him high.
And we know he's obviously very talented, but had some questions around white and play more. What's going on these deal with Liz Frank injury. So okay, claims they'll be fine by Pro Day, but another thing to keep your eyes on. Again, We'll try to cover this as best we can hear from the college football perspective, just because it is one of those rare moments of overlap between college and pro that a lot of college fans take great pride in a guy from their school going pretty high.
So we'll continue to keep an eye on this and talk to folks as we get a little bit closer to the draft. But the combine was a pretty big deal over the weekend. The only other tidbit that I have here, and it's very small and very minor, but something worth noting. I'm ready. They are looking at proposed rule changes with respect to saw this targeting, as well as implementing something to try and curb what they call fake injuries.
Yeah, and they're going to ban the shift, right, they're going to ban the Is that the wrong sport?
I think you're talking about Major League Baseball? Dan? Okay, gosh, okay, sorry, sorry about that.
Yeah, I mean there's no real good solution here for the fake injuries thing. That starts with coaches. It's not they're not independent contractors on the field saying they're not freelancing.
Like, oh, I'm gonna fake it.
I'm gonna fake it and I'm gonna screw everything up for the plans of the coaches and the defensive coordinator in the rhythm of this game.
I don't know. It starts with coaches.
I don't know what you do. It's it's a it's a very difficult issue to solve. We've seen it allegedly across the sport, and we've also seen crowds freak out thinking that players are fake injuries. Well, in fact, they were injuries, suggesting excuse me, are you suggesting anything untoward about the great fans of Iowa football who've had to watch Brian Farren's offense.
Did I say, I didn't even say excuse me?
It's I think it's gonna be extremely difficult to legislate and to parse what is and isn't fake. And you keep players out, and you know, sometimes there are very minor injuries where somebody rolls his ankle sure and is able to stretch it out and get loose a little while later. That's a real thing. So I don't know, I don't know what you do. Right answer is I saw.
There are some quotes from David Shaw, who is involved with this, and his point, his sentiment echoes yours. There is no good way to handle this. They've kicked around something like a video review after the fact, and then perhaps conferences or individual schools would be up to levy penalties against the player the coach. I don't know against whom you'd be letting the penalty. But how many non contact injuries do we see in the span of a
college football seat. Yeah, it happens every week. So it's just so hard to legislate that type of thing. On the targeting front. Again, it's it's equally as difficult without
taking the rule out entirely. One of the things that I saw kicked around was again this video review where a school a conference could appeal and then some larger governing body would take a look at it and like, say, for instance, it happened in the second half, if you appealed, perhaps you could get a suspension thrown out so that you'd have to lose a guy for the first half of the next game.
Saw that, right, which just seems I mean, targeting in and of itself is such a confusing kind of nonsensical, Like it's one of those rules where you're.
Like, well, by the letter of the law, even though.
What you're watching doesn't necessarily, you know, resonate in your own brain as something crazy serious that you know. So I suppose that's at least a step in the right direction. Do you have a memorable non contact injury of your own your you're living just oh my gosh, where do you want me to start? I mean, I have one that that immediately comes to mind about seventeen hours into the movie Contact.
If you remember how long.
That movie was with Jody Foster and Matthew McConaughey, I got a Charlie Horse in the world. You ever, just you ever silently yell in the middle of a Jodie Foster sci fi joint.
You know it hasn't happened to me recently, Dan Okay, I popped at Hanny one time running to first base in a softball game. The entire back of my leg turned BA. Well that's at least running. Yeah it was non contact. Yeah, that's non contact. That's true. Not quite for the contact Joey Foster level of the Charlie Horse.
But yeah. So anytime I see one of those instances of I don't know, let's call it a Missouri linebacker, let's call it a Washington State safety just out of nowhere going down, I don't laugh because I've been there.
I've been there, like out of nowhere. Ha, So that that resonates with me as something that could actually happen.
On that note, That's all I got.
For news, Dan, Yeah, all I really care about with the combine is which large man suddenly is like the f equalm all Star of the weekend. The force equals mass times accelerations, good physic. Jordan Davis didn't the I think the Rock tweeted out something about how crazy, exciting and killer that is that somebody of that size can move that quickly. So, I mean, we already knew Jordan
Davis and who he was and sure can be. But man, that type of and I think I want to say our pal Bill Barnwell has some sort of formula of like who actually ran the best forty based on force? And so I imagine Jordan Davis has to be a top that list.
All right, well, keep it right here. We'll do our best to cover any sort of draft slash college related stuff moving forward. Yes, shall we get into the three and nine game? Dan Noine? Yes? Absolutely? What is a three and nine game? Explain this for everybody.
It's about to be March ninth, or is March ninth when you're listening to this or was recently March ninth, three to nine when you're listening to this. So we're just gonna go and take a snapshot. It's not necessarily a c in recap.
It's not a.
Season preview of twenty twenty two, it's not a spring preview. It's just a where is this team now based on a number of factors? Where is this program now based on a number of factors after going three and nine in twenty twenty two. So these are, of course non Bowl teams, some of which have hired new coaches, or have made coaching changes, or have hit the portal especially hard.
So I just wanted to check in on the current three and nine programs with hopes that they will soon be I don't know, five and seven programs, and maybe next May seventh will be talking about them six and six BAWL programs looking at the odds of improvement. I'm going to give you a factoid about each of these teams. You're going to try and guess which of these teams I'm talking about, and we'll go from there.
Let's do the first factoid. First team, Dan.
All right, this team had awesome, awesome twins tweet twins. Sorry, this team we met awesome brothers, brothers. Arguably the best player on each side of the ball had the same last name, and there were brothers and still are all right.
Well, before we go any further, we should at least give a list of the teams, right, we should do? Oh, you want to do the full list. Here's the full list. Georgia, Jack Nebraska not alphabetic order, No, could be Stanford, Northwestern Duke, Colorado State, Southern miss Louisiana, Tech Temple, Georgia, Southern Ohio, and New Mexico. And we mentioned earlier.
Each side of the ball the best player was arguably you know, two family members. I don't know the answer to this, Northwestern, the McBride brothers. We're starting with America's team, Colorado State, Trey and Toby McBride. Trey is I think a relatively high end NFL draft prospect. Toby McBride really strong upfront for the Rams in a a very strange year. You know, Steve Dazio probably should never have been.
The coach for Colorado State. J Norvella is in.
A bunch of transfers from Nevada come in, including Matt Mummy, son of Hal the offensive coordinator now Colorado State was at Nevada. Colorado State lost their final six. They somehow were the only non Yukon team to lose to Vanderbilt last year. Their class was decent. In this recruiting class, you know, not a lot of time obviously for Jay Norvell to put together a class. They threw the ball decently enough. They had an awesome pass rush, Their pass
defense was largely excellent. Their defense overall was fine, but just too many turnovers. Couldn't run the ball, couldn't stay on the field on offense, and that is that is the RAM recipe to lose a bunch of games, and that's what they did.
Three and nine. Their second order wins count, which I like to look at, was five point six. The only other team on our list had a higher second order wins number was Nebraska because Nebraska had all the one score losses nine one score losses. Whatever crazy stat that was. But seemingly this would indicate to me that Colorado State wasn't nearly as bad as the record when you compare what the Rams looked like this year versus what they
looked like last year. For whatever that's worth, they only played four games last year because of COVID, but seemingly per sp plus they improved across the board ever, so marginally the offense got a little bit better, the defense got a little bit better. So this was a team that seemed to be headed in the right direction, but as you said, inconsistency is what got him, and the Steve Dazio thing, as you said, didn't make sense. I'm excited to see what Jane Norvell can do, because we
talked about this when they first made the move. But Colorado State, unlike a lot of schools in maybe that group of five tier, Colorado State invests in the football program. They care about the football program. Yeah, if you're wondering, yeah, why is Jane Norvel going from Nevada to Colorado State. It's a bigger budget program, and so what can a guy like j Norvel do? J Norvel very highly thought
of in the coaching world. So while this isn't necessarily a preview of what's to come in twenty twenty two, I am very excited to see what he can do moving on to a place that's got, i don't know, more of a commitment towards the football program.
Absolutely, and we're this close to beating Mountain West Champs, Utah State. Correct, So that's you know, I would be optimistic big picture about Colorado State and Fort Collins, which I did look it up. Some decent eating options in Fort Collins. So I'd happily find myself going to a RAM game.
That's all. Next one, Next team.
All right, Next team is a team that has, or at least had last year its own version at wide receiver of Harris Ranch two Harris's Hairrye so not Nase, not Nase, and Damian Harris but smoke and Trey Smoke and Trey.
Harris, Smoke and Trey Harris. And this program has a new coach. And the program has a new coach. Yeah, uh boy, I probably should have done more. Is this Duke is Duke with three and nine team? Yeah?
They were a three and nine team. No, it's not Duke, it's it's Louisiana tack. God, We're gonna get to some of the bigger schools in a moment. Louisiana attack. They lose future Notre Dame head coach Skip Holtz. They add Sonny Comby. Assistants have a heavy Texas flavor, which is to be expected to give in Sonny Cumby's background. They had a decent passing attack last year with Austin Kendall, who's no longer there. Matthew Downing on his third school now and goes back to TCU with Sonny Comby. He
comes in. They are at Missouri at Clemson, which is tricky for year one of a new head coach of a non conference slate. And the only other like kind of fun factoid I found about Louisiana Tech, which, look, they have a long ways to go, but this is not a disaster. It's a decent state of actually a very good state for talent, so they can rebuild relatively quickly. We've seen some really fun Louisiana Tech offenses in the
last you know, decade, decade and a half whatever. The big thing is their new offensive coordinator comes over from Navarro College in Texas, former head coach at Navarro College, home to the Netflix show Cheer Hey.
So there's that.
I don't know Louisiana Tech. So they you know, they're twenty twenty one. There's there are reasons coaches leave. There are reasons why, and that reason is it looks like they lost seven of eight Louisiana Tech last year to finish off the season with their only win over a not so good Charlotte team. The thing I can say is this team fought pretty hard. This wasn't a bunch of forty one fourteen losses. They were scoring points, they
were competitive, and just it just wasn't enough. It just wasn't enough for Louisiana Tech.
Yeah, I mean to your point, last season, last season, twenty twenty yeah, now twenty twenty one, I guess two seasons ago. Now. Second Order wins two point seven, yet their final record was five and five, So that indicase to me is a team that had some fight. I think you're right about that on the On the whole, though marginally better, got a little bit better on offense, a little bit worse on defense, so kind of stuck
in the mud a little bit. Three point eight. Second Order wins pretty much right on the number, So maybe a little bit unlucky, but by and large, the numbers say this is a three win team, and indeed they were three and nine. So I love when you bring over the coach from a really small college. I love that unknown factor. You know, it worked out really well for Western Kentucky was Zach Kittley last year, right, bringing him up from UH Houston Baptist. We'll see what he
could do in Texas Tech. But I generally love that formula. It at least gives me a little nuggets root for I get. Yeah.
Next next team a three and nine program? Who is playing two twenty twenty one three and nine programs? So two other teams on this list in the first few weeks.
Wow, twenty twenty two. Really I can.
I can tell you the opponents if you're interested. They're playing Northwestern in Georgia Southern in twenty twenty two.
The lank three and nine Northwestern and Georgia Southern. Yeah, gotta be duke, right, Nebraska Brass, I'm zero for three in this game. Be more thorough ty, I've been very I look, you saw the table that I put here. I've been very thorough one two thirty four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve. There's exactly twelve teams, right, I might go three and nine in this trivia game. That's okay. Damn.
The thing is about Nebraska is there like the second order win all Star squad of this list of teams they have that's been like the sagging Bill Connley has been like, Look, Nebraska went three and nine, but it was so difficult for them to go three and nine
with how well they mostly played. I saw another thing where Andy Staples wrote about how and he spoke to somebody who ran a bunch of models and simulated Nebraska's season given their statistical footprint, and said, if Nebraska played the season a thousand times, they would mostly go six and six, And it was like, hurt. The least likely outcome of a thousand simulations of Nebraska season was going
three and nine. My counter is they did a lot of things that three and nine teams do, whether it was the special teams, whether it was the offensive line play, whether it was the lack of a pass rush, whether it was giving up some big plays, whether there was some really bad high leverage moment decision making. Nebraska, for long stretches did also look like a three and nine team.
Whenever I'm about to do something, I think three and nineteen do that, and if they would, I do not do that thing.
See that's just good logic from Dwight Shrut, possibly edited. So Nebraska had really interesting moments last year. They made really interesting plays. They had really good players on all three levels of their defense at times, but they also would go entire halves without scoring. They would al like they were just the things where you could understand some
of the results. Three and nine may have been an extreme in terms of how that season played out, with how competitive they were against the best teams on their schedule, but still there or worry some chunks of their of the twenty twenty one Nebraska experience, and they made a bunch of wholesale changes, so they're approaching things in a serious way. What is your opinion of where Nebraska was is and can be?
Yeah, I mean the only teams they beat were Fordham, Buffalo and Northwestern. And you don't get paid based on close calls, correct, It's a results based industry. M hm. So in looking back at Nebraska, if we compare twenty one to twenty Nebraska about the same, about the same the results last year in an abbreviated season. I think we're a little bit more in line with that statistical footprint.
As he said, right, second order wins here off the charts. Yeah, second order wins has them as a six and six team, but thirty seventh overall in the sp plus thirty third best offense, twenty eighth best defense. So that in and of itself is not really the hallmark of a three to nine team, and it definitely indicates that there are some underlying things that are causing that inconsistency. I think is the big one across the board on offense on defense.
Right many weeks three, you couldn't really put your finger on it. And I think that's the frustration for Nebraska fans now as they look ahead, like the team wasn't horrible last year. It was decent at times, it just wasn't decent enough when it really counted, and that's why they lost nine times. So counterpoint, they were horrible to their own fans. They were a horrible experience to watch
as a Husker fan. I'm positive I just wonder, you know, I mean, everybody's going to go into the season with Scott Frost on the hot seat. Of course, it's just an inevitability. At this point. I go back and forth on whether or not it was smart to retain him for another year.
Well, whatever his I'm sure there were elements beyond like is Nebraska good or not? But yeah, continue right, your point all along has been. The reason they retained him is because no.
One else that they wanted wanted the job that they asked around and they couldn't find anybody else. Yeah, So I think there's probably an element of it. But you know, I think we've gotten to the point now where we're going to ask the same questions about Scott Frost that we've been asking for years on end now about Clay Hilton. How many games does he need to win in order to retain that job? In looking at the schedule, it
is fairly workable. It is not a bad schedule. Yeah, last year is nightmare of a schedule, just at least heading into the season what it appeared to be. Yeah, they had the fifth hardest schedule last year. This year, I don't know what the numbers look like. I'm sure somebody's run them. They've got Oklahoma at home at the end of September, which is probably going to be a bloodbath of sorts. But beyond that, it seems pretty workable to me. Why do you think the Oklahoma game will
be a bloodbath? I don't know. I think I love that phrase, and then they'll follow up, Okay, continue Maybe I'm just being a little bit biased against Nebraska. But yeah, I guess the game's at home, it's in Lincoln.
The hell do we know about what Oklahoma's gonna look like? All right, all right, okay, sorry.
I just wanted to know there'll be a healthy dog in that game. Okay, they should be a healthy dog in that game, fair enough? What? Okay?
So your opinion right now? So they make the changes that they make. They bring in Chubba Party and Casey Thompson Mark Whipples now running the offense. They hire a new receivers coach. Think it's Mickey Joseph from LSU. They hit the portal reasonably hard. They lose key guys, of course, Adrian Martinez to Kansas State. Like, do you feel like Nebraska from afar has patched up holes? Has done enough to?
Say?
Okay, I could see them, you know, not making the freak mistakes. And you know they hire a full time special teams coordinator and that was a major weakness last year. Have they done enough to And I don't know what that number is And I don't know what the competitive nature of Nebraska has to be for Scott Frost to
keep his job. But are you if you're a Nebraska fan, Are you reasonably happy with the job Scott Frost has done to try and make things right from a sort of administrative roster and coaching staff perspective, reasonably?
So? Yeah, he's kicked up enough dust that even if he hasn't, it's had a nice distracting effect. But I think, I think the quarterback thing is important. I'm very curious to see how he handles a quarterback position. Adrian Martinez. They tried to build the whole plane out of Adrian Martinez, and he just wasn't that guy. Yeah, he wasn't that guy. Right. I think Casey Thompson's a better passer, for sure. I
know he's mobile. We saw him at Texas. He can be mobile, but he's a different kind of player and son that's true. But yeah, okay, continue that's your opinion, go for it, right. He's not a runner, but he can move in the pocket. I just feel like the type of system that Frost wants to run is probably a better fit for a guy like a Casey Thompson than somebody like an Adrian Martinez. And so I think in that sense, in that sense alone, I feel pretty
optimistic about where this could head. But you know, then you start diving into like, all right, why are the weapons out? Why can they support a quarterback like that? That's a far more nuanced discussion, but I think on the surface level, to the extent that we can diagnose it here, I feel okay.
About Yeah it was. My question is, you know, is this fully mark Whipples offense? Is this still Scott when you have somebody who's had those types of fingerprints on an offense and quarterback preparation or quarterback teaching. Where Adrian Martinez is throwing four picks against Purdue, is you know making it look there are freak fumble opportunities. They're freak you know, not going for fourth down or fourth down calls.
It's just is Nebraska a team with a coaching staff ready to prepare an offense to win moments against equal or even slightly better teams. And maybe the addition of Whipple is some sort of advantage, but man, I don't know. It all feels a little bit too little, too late to me. All right, next team, Okay, this next team probably had the most precipitous fall on one side of
the ball. I use the points per drive metric, but you can use whatever metric you want on offense or defense of any of these teams.
It's got to be Northwestern's defense, right correct, thank you, yeah, thank you.
They were first in twenty twenty. If you remember how well they played against Ohio State in the Big Ten championship game. They win the Big Ten West, They completely silence basically everybody that they play on defense, and they fell from number one in the nation in twenty twenty to ninety eighth. That is as far as I can tell, as drama as it got in terms of twenty twenty to twenty twenty one. Obviously, the context of the twenty twenty season is part of things here. But Mike Hankwitz
retires as Northwestern's longtime, uber successful defensive coordinator. They bring in Jim O'Neill, who didn't seem to be a guy with the most accolades, but that's who they bring in.
They have this.
The revolving door at quarterback continues. You know Hunter Johnson a couple of years priors there. He has since now gone back to Clemson. Ryan Halensky supposedly comes is a guy who came in to stabilize things after Peyton Ramsay. That doesn't really work out at all. They just they have opportunities at times to win interesting games. You know, the Iowa game was one that comes to mind where they're driving with about two minutes left, win that game
and immediately thrown interception. There were pieces on this defense, you know, Chris Bergen there was you know, the Bergen brothers were were longtime Northwestern stalwarts as playmakers. Was a walk on and Joseph ops to transfer. He was a freshman All American. He ends up at he's at Notre Dame as Marcus Freeman brings him over to solidify that
secondary that lost Kyle Hamilton. So Northwestern's defense, just especially upfront, especially getting after the passer, especially running that really tight zone that they've run for the past few years, just fully fell off a cliff. Evan Hall stepped up on offense.
He was a bright spot at running back. But man, this Northwestern team, which had largely gotten the Big West and its own fans used to competing on an interesting level more often than not, just turned in another nightmare of a season.
It was bad. The defensive falloff was very precipitous, and that's not doing the team any favors, if only because the offense is always in a spot where we're questioning where the points coming from. What was the last time we talked about a Northwestern offense is electric? Oh wait, it's been.
There were Clayton Thorson moments, but not a full year of electricity. Just sparks.
And that's fine, right, that's okay. You can win like that, but it is contingent on you having a decent defense, and they just didn't have that last year. Per the sp Plus, they went from third to seventy second. The team as a whole because of that, dropped from thirtieth in the sp Plus all the way down to one oh six, right, mostly because of the defense. They went seven to two and twenty twenty three and nine obviously
this past year. So moving forward, I think a lot of what you mentioned in play here right, there are pieces on the defense that are going to need to be replaced. On top of the fact that they need to figure out a way to get better on defense. Whatever they tried last year did not help. On offense, they bring a lot back, so hopefully that side of the ball improves, But to go from one hundred and eighteenth up doesn't really acquire a whole lot. It just
now requires a little bit more competence. So I expect they'll get better. It's just a matter of can they get better enough to pick up the slack for the defense wherever that ends up, and then on top of it, on top of it, on top of it, they get both Penn State and Ohio State from the east in some of their cross divisional games, which is about as bad as you can do. Yeah, So I don't know. Man, Like I know, there's no rush to fire Pat Fitzgerald.
I don't expect they ever will. But on some level, if you don't see the improvement, you got to ask the question, what's the plan here? What's the what's the plan here? Another bad defensive effort in twenty twenty two could be a real deal breaker there. I don't know what a couple points here is one. I think you undersold how good a defense needs to be with an offense that's been so woefully ineffective. It's the half team
thing Northwestern's defense. They need to be great every year to hold up their end of the bargain and win six to ten games. Here's a factoid for you about the Northwestern offense. I look this one up before place, Northwestern had no quarterback on the roster throw for more touchdowns and interceptions. The best that they did was Andrew Marty. Yeah, he went six and six, six touchdowns, six interceptions. But Ryan Halenski three touchdowns, four picks. Hunter Johnson in the
limited action he saw four touchdowns, four interceptions. I could dive in more on the quarterback stats, you don't want me to, but let's just leave it there that they just didn't get anything on the quarterback front. Evan Hall, like you said, bright spot, Evan Hall had a nice year, but beyond that, just not much in the passing game.
The other thing I would add, just because we have what Stanford Northwestern duke on this list we talked about Vandy last time, is in this current era, this transfer portal era, this this movement across the sport in ways unlike what we've ever seen, is going to put these more rigorous academic programs at a pretty big disadvantage just because the barrier for entry academically for these schools makes it nearly impossible. I know Stanford picked up a transfer,
I don't know what Northwestern. They didn't hit the portal especially hard this year, right, and so Pat Fitzgerald runs this program out of and at times really successfully a sense of loyalty for his assistant coaches and his coordinators. Like how long was was Northwestern running at best underwhelming offense. He just was extremely loyal to the offensive side of
the ball there. And so if you're not able to make wholesale changes to improve your team because of that sense of loyalty because of the academic restrictions or it's not you know, restriction, obviously, it's just it's going to be tricky. It's trickier. It's going to be a small pool of guys who were able to come to your
school for an immediate infusion of talent and improvement. And so it's just Northwestern the margin for air of high school evaluation has to be so much better than everybody else. And that the same goes for Stanford, Duke, Vanderbilt, Georgia Tech.
That's another one of those teams. You know, it's just it's just more difficult and more difficult than ever. All right, next team, All right, I'm pulling up the list right now. This team went two and ten against the spread and didn't score more than fourteen points after October second.
Is that a real stat. That's a real stat. They did not score more than fourteen points in a game after October second, a date in which they had a decent but not huge sized upset. October second was a decent sized up and they did not score that more than fourteen points from that point thereafter.
Wow. I don't think it's Duke because I can't think of an upset that Duke was part of. And I don't think it was Georgia Tech or Stanford.
No, Stanford had a big upset, but no, they scored a little bit more better than that in some of those games.
I'll say, gosh, let's go Georgia Southern Temple.
So Temple beats Memphis. On October second, Temple beats Memphis. Rodkerrey no longer the head coach of the Owls. The hired Stan Drayton. He of I mean, he was at Texas, but he's been you know, NFL. He's he's been around and I think pretty highly regarded higher. Stan Drayton, who was you know, background as a running backs coach, to take over the program, Temple was just full on bat. They bring in Dwan Mathis from Georgia as a transfer, he enters the portal, but then has since decided to return.
It's going to be a complete overhaul. It's going to take time. At Temple, they just didn't do much well last year, and they're one of the that's I mean, aside from being bad as the primary reason and being
bad consistently. You can keep your job if you're somebody like Scott Frost when there's hope, when there's reason to say, Okay, we lost these games when it was closed and the results didn't really didn't really match with the performance of which there were a lot of good performances for Nebraska. They just came up short in big moments. Temple was just kind of bad at everything. Their past defense was okay at times but still gave up too many big plays.
Just bad, just not a good team and didn't recruit especially well.
I don't know.
The hope is that Temple has been a place where coaches can succeed. Philadelphia is not the middle of nowhere. You can get players from the Northeast. There is football culture in the Northeast, not what it is in the Midwest of the South. But with what Al Golden and then Matt Rule and kind of Steve A. DAZZI were able to do. You go to bowl games as a Temple owl, and it's going to be recruiting, it's going to be evaluation, it's going to be getting lucky with
other teams in the conference. But that's where Temple sits right now.
Temple's hired really well in the past. Yeah, they've got a track record for hiring, just not this time. It didn't really work out, and so to go a different direction. Stan Drayton, whom I never heard of before, I must admit, yeah, never heard of the guy. But the riding was on the wall that they were going to go in a different direction before last season, even before what we saw in twenty twenty one happened. This is a team that
was one in six in twenty twenty abbreviated schedule. All the numbers lined up with a one and six team, and again this past year they got worse pretty much across the board, and the numbers line up. The fact that they got the three and nine I think is sort of an accomplishment. So the riding is on the wall. It made sense. I echo your sentiment. It is a place where coaches have succeeded in the past, you can't succeed a Temple.
They hadn't they hadn't fired a coach since nineteen ninety two.
They've hired really well. It is just a place, as you said, that may not necessarily have that football culture like you'd find in State College Pennsylvania. Right, everybody in Philly cares about the Eagles. They care about Temple when they're on ABC.
I was just gonna say, there are enough programs in the area. Sure, in the portal era between Penn State and Syracuse and Boston College and pitt like, there are enough places where Temple is a and like they've had good dudes drafted. Oh my godn Reddick, who is the
recent edge guy? Like they've had guys so like if Stan Drayton is that guy, if he hires well, if he, I mean it proves too a hired well, if he recruits well enough and you know, sets up Temple as a destination, it's an interesting place.
No, I'm I'm with you. I'll remain optimistic. This is a program that's had some success. And who knows the Manny Diaz era, Like, who knows what that could have been? The Many era? Wow, Yeah, lasted all of like forty eight hours. Two weeks lasted all of forty eight hours. I didn't pull up Temple's twenty twenty two schedule. I'm not that concerned about it. You're ready for the next thing to it again. Let's do it again. So I am I am one, two, three, four, five, I'm one
in four in guessing these teams. Okay, hmmm.
This team's offense was historically bad and clearly the worst in America in twenty twenty one. Got to be New Mexico, right, it was New Mexico. Yeah, yeah, play the play that sound please, thank you. The defense wasn't great, but there is reason to believe now with Danny Gonzalez and Rocky Long switching. Daneganzelz played for Rocky Long at New Mexico,
coached for him at San Diego State. Rocky Long, if you remember, was flirting with just leaving the head coaching job to talk to like Syracuse and his former assistant there, or spoke with with with Syracuse just in general about becoming their defensive coordinator. As an active head coach at San Diego State, he takes over took over the defense at San Diego at excuse me, New Mexico and they made plays. You know that that three three five defense is always going to be tricky. And he was actually
good as a head coach at New Mexico. They went to a bowl game, I want to say, in like five of six years in the early to mid two thousands, the Lobos did. They just it's an uphill battle. It's not you know, a state that produces a ton of talent. They're gonna have to lean on Texas, lean on California good amount.
And just I don't know enough about the program, and I don't know enough about the program as a destination. But you're not going to attract a ton of names to go to the land of Enchantment.
So we'll see. They we know that they're ceiling. I think Bob Davey took him to a bowl or two. Mike Loxley was a complete nightmare and disaster as a head coach there.
Well, we'll see.
Is the best that I can offer. They haven't recruited especially well. I mentioned at the top Miles Kendrick, the quarterback transfer from Kansas, ended up as a Lobo. But man, they just they lost a ton in the portal, which is worrisome that this is not necessarily going to work out in long term, but it could have just been
been holdovers from the previous era. I just it's not a place like even Temple or some of these other schools where you can envision because of the local talent and because it appearing as a transfer destination that they could become a Bowl team in a year or two. It's hard to see.
With New Mexico. I think dream Point dream Style Stadium. I'm going a different direction. I have nothing productive to say about New Mexico. Okay, dream Style Stadium, which is where they play. Yeah, capacity about forty five thousand. I believe that's good. Dream Style Stadium has hosted two very famous artists musicians groups in his past. I was gonna say Georgia O'Keefe, no different, no still life here. This is in the nineties, mid to late nineties. Two acts
in particular moved through dream Style Stadium. Can you name one of the two?
Does it align with the fact that it's in New Mexico or is it just random?
Is it?
Are you just going to say Eifel sixty five or something.
They're definitely more well known of Thannifel sixty five. Two prominent acts mid to late nineties. Mid to late nineties, did Cheryl Crowe pass through dream Style Stadium? Cheryl Crow did what as an opening act for somebody else, But Cheryl Crow was part of the Bridges to Babylon tour. Thank you play that for yourself? The Stones? That was The Stones in ninety seven. Wow, okay, I just there's something very Southwestern about Cheryl Crow. Vibes Cheryl Croaking Up
the Sun October thirtieth, nineteen ninety seven. She was the opening act for The Stones. The other one in the nineties. I'm sure there were more, but the other more prominent one in the nineties, nineteen ninety four, August the second Metallica Metallica.
That's super prominent. Yeah, Stones and Metallica coming into the dream Style whatever it was called back then.
But yeah, Cheryl Crow out of nowhere, I could have picked anybody.
You're watching my eyes, you're here. I'm not tapp tapping, I'm not doing anything.
No, no, wow, boom, there's any nugget for you. I love that. Thank you very much. Next time.
Uh this oh man, This team, despite being pretty competitive in their losses, finished twenty empty two's class. So the recruiting class with the worst in its conference.
Is this power five team? You know it is not It is not Ohio. I don't know it is Ohio. It is play look at you, look at me. Let's go fire.
They moved the ball. This is another Rourk, not Nathan. I think it was Curtis Rorke. They moved the ball decently enough on the ground. Armani Rogers, the UNLV transfer came in as sort of a dual threat role couldn't really pass, so sort of a mono threat. They could run the ball, and they just couldn't finish drives worth anything. They could not get in the end zone at all. They would move it and just stop it. And so that's where the Bobcats really suffered. And then they couldn't
recruit Tim Alban in his first year. Frank Souliz retires relatively close to the season, So there was that weird you know, and that's gonna happen in year one in the recruiting cycle where you're not just not given time to to help form and generate relationships with with high school coaches and classes. But Miami of Ohio is a pretty good Win into their credit. They were once again competitive in those losses, which all things consider better to
be competitive than not. So Ohio is a place that has I mean, Frank Solch won a ton of games in Athens, and I don't know. I'm optimistic that Ohio can get back to that point because the max seems as open as ever. But I just the identity shift and the coaching and the high leverage moments, it's just going to need to get way better.
Did you know that the bobcat is a species that is native to Ohio? I did not know that it's one of seven wildcat species that is found in North America. Okay, what are the others? I don't know what the others are. I'm getting this whatever you're on on Wikipedia. No, I'm getting this from the Ohio Department bit of Natural Resources. I don't do Wikipedia. You know that I know Athens much more the Wikipedia. Dan come on, Athens has been
on a lot of lists. Athens, Ohio, not Athens, George Athens, Ohio has been on a lot of best college town lists. So there must be something correlated to the fact that Ohio has been able to attract winning football players and be located in a desirable place to go to school. So, yeah, Ohio is in a kind of a deep funk right now. But we'll see. We'll see next team. Are you ready, I'm ready, let's go.
This team looks to be starting a transfer quarterback who would be playing in games.
In his sixth year. He has played in games in five straight years and presumably will be playing in a sixth straight season. Now he's you know, injury, so we don't play the game or two in some of those years. But was a three year starter at his previous place. A three year starter at his previous Yeah, I gotta be honest, I don't know the answer.
Again, his coach is not easily recognizable in a Hudson News.
Oh, Georgia Southern.
Yes, correct, Kyle Van Trees playing. He transfers in from Buffalo.
Oh my gosh.
He had thrown balls in five consecutive seasons for the Bulls.
There's a Forrest Gump quality there where you're going to go back through the archives and just find him in black and white photos, like at prominent games. What's Van Trees doing here? Okay?
He started college in twenty seventeen. Goes now to State's Borough and plays for Georgia Southern, and we'll see what happens for Georgia Southern. They lost six of seven to end their season. They hire Clay Helton. By the way, their new defensive coordinator is Will Harris, who was the corners coach at Washington. An awesome corner for USC. So you have the USC connection at Georgia Southern. They didn't hit the portal especially hard, but to me, it's a
place you can win. Local talent is there. The conference becomes a lot trickier with the additions on the other side. Yeah, but true.
Georgia Southern interesting. They were an a win program in twenty twenty. They were pretty good. They were yeah, eight and five. The defense was not bad in twenty twenty is a top fifty defense. But that bottomed out. It all sort of bottomed out past season. That was the issue. Defense went from forty sixth all the way down to one ten. Yeah, and I think base largely on that drop off. That's how you go from seventy first overall in SP plus all the way down to one seventeen.
Second order wins count for Georgia Southern three point zero right on the nose. So we'll see what Clay Helton can do. That'll be an interesting story to follow.
As I mentioned, they're playing Nebraska at Nebraska and Georgia Southern. Just to correct myself, they are in the sun Belt East, the proposed hypothetical sun Belt East with the new so a bit trickier of a division. But I don't know, I'm reasonably optimistic with Georgia Southern.
I don't know. All right, next team, are you ready? Who do we have left? We've got that Southern miss Duke Stanford and Georgia Tech. This team has wall to wall murderers their schedule, and it doesn't seem like their coach is long for this place. You're refer you've got to be referring to Jeff Collins at Georgia Tech, right, I am, thank you.
They finished their season last year losing one hundred to nothing at Notre Dame and against Georgia. Having Georgia as an annual rivalry non conference is perhaps. I mean, there's a case for South Carolina. There's a case for I don't know, Florida or Florida State. One of the more disadvantage situations giving your own program and its own limitations. It's probably the worst. Can I read the schedule off?
Can I read this? I would both love to and hate to hear it? Open up the year, Labor Day weekend, the Monday night game in Mercedes Benz Stadium quote unquote facto home quote unquote probably quote unquote neutral site. But Clemson, Clemson comes to town, to Atlanta, They've got Old Miss at home. They go to UCF to pit They are on the road again later in the year at Florida State and at Virginia Tech on back to back weeks, followed up by a home game against Miami. Resurge at Miami.
Maybe we'll see North Carolina on the road, who knows what that's going to be. And then they close out the year on the road at Georgia. Brutal, brutal. Looking at that count right there, Clemson probably a loss, Ole Miss, I'm assuming probably a loss. Florida State. I'll take some liberties and say that probably a loss. Virginia Tech probably a loss.
Well, I don't know, I mean Virginia Tech's first year coach.
We'll say what the Georgia definitely a loss. So right out of the shoot you're looking at I think at least four or five losses.
Georgia Tech probably needs to go to a bowl game this year for Jeff Collins to keep his job, which means they will need to beat first year coach at Virginia first year coach at Virginia Tech. They get Miami at home with the first year coach, they probably need to win that game. They got North Carolina with changes on defense, with change at quarterback. They probably that like in Western Carolina, and then I got you gotta win at the Bounce House at UCF. You gotta win at Pitt.
Now it's you know, new offense, ish at Pitt, new quarterback, new coordinator. But they're gonna have to shock and surprise. They lose their best offensive player to Alabama and Jamior Gibbs. Yeah, that's just demolished in the portal. Georgia Tech kills them. They hired Chip Long to take over the offense, which say what you will, he is at least somebody who will stay like he's stabilized Notre Dames offense when they needed it. Sure, they got a lot better in the
red zone. So whatever Georgia Tech season looks like, it won't be because of an offense without a vision per se, they might not have the talent they you know, quarterback Will It's still a work in progress with Jeff Simms. I just it's hard to see it ending all ending in a bowl game for the Rambling wreck at this point.
I really want Georgia Tech to be better. I really really want Georgia Tech to be better. Do you I do? Okay, I do. I think football is more interesting, especially in the ACC, if you've got a competent Georgia Tech. And I think the one thing that has been consistent throughout the time that Jeff Collins has been there, we know he's all in on Atlanta. He's trying to sell that hard team seemingly plays pretty hard for him. It's just hard. At the schedule, man, It's so hard. It is so
hard to get ahead with the schedule like this. This is a team that if you look at what happened from twenty twenty where they played ten games, they went three and seven twenty twenty twenty twenty one, three and nine, obviously ninety sixth in sp plus, so slip by about twenty spots offense, marginally worse defense, a lot worse defense, Slipped by a pretty drastic number, so you factor in
the brutal schedule. I don't know, man, I'm not too optimistic that it's getting much much better, even that a bowl game is on the table. There's so many land mines here in the schedule that unless they have kind of like a South Carolina esque season where they find ways to scrape and claw and get six wins, I don't know. Like, I just don't see it.
I'm just curious because I've thought this whole time you've been talking. I'm just racking my brain. You did nothing but disrespect Paul Johnson and the Georgia Tech success that he had there because you disrespected the Triple basically.
The entire time.
You didn't take it seriously. And that's why you were sent a what I send you an Orange Bowl champion? Had Georgia Tech Orange Bowl champion in Mississippi state.
It's somewhere around here.
Yeah, So you do nothing but disrespect Georgia Tech during that time?
Correct? Correct?
And when Georgia Tech was succeeding before then, it was like the Reggie Ball unwatchable. Like when when is it that Georgia Tech has made college football better? Like of all the teams like you can make that point about Texas or Nebraska or Miami because there's something like there's there's branding their style. I just don't understand. Like, to me, college football has always been better when Georgia Tech has been bad, like because it's come at the expense of
other more fun programs with better environments. And now I understand that, Like it would be a cool story if like a local Atlanta team, which, by the way, recently discovered that that Atlanta's pronounced basically with two ends at the end of the.
Word, like Toronto, Atlanta Atlanta. Yeah. Uh, I just I.
Don't know, there's there's never really been that much flash to Georgia Tech football that has really like held up a side of the sport.
To me, well, I mean it's a historic program and it's in a great football city in Atlanta, I hear you. So for my money, even though we don't got a whole lot to go on recently, it would be cool to have a program in Atlanta Atlanta other than Georgia which is over in Athens, be be prominent in the ACC. The AEC is gettable, like it's there, man, it's gettable.
It's always in a bit of a tizzy, especially now with who knows what's going on with Clemson, Like there's there's a lot of intrigue I think as to the direction of that ofference. So I don't think it's happening for Georgia Tech. But I think with that being said, historic program. You know, Bobby Dodd Stadium is the oldest stadium in college football. I did not know that. You know, underneath, underneath the West stands are the old West stands. It's
like a hidden cavern. Is that true. There's a little one hundred percent trough. You can go down there and still see parts of the old stadium. There's so much history at Georgia Tech, not just with the stadium but with the program that I would really love to see them rise to prominence. I just don't see it happening. It's unfortunately not going to happen for Jeff Collins, all right, not in twenty twenty two. Yeah, I don't know.
I'm good with it happening, but that doesn't really register with me. I remember driving through Atlanta once and somebody's like, oh, there's Bobby Dodd, and.
Like, really, no.
Usually when you drive through somewhere and you're like Oh there's the stadium. Wow are you driving on I thirty five or whatever?
And you're also you're like, yep, there's DKR. Pretty cool. Kind of different.
All right, h next school, who do we even have left? Okay, this team was pretty awful and finished with the.
Number one recruiting class in its conference. Southern Miss Stanford. Stanford finished with the top recruiting class in the Panford Yes, so really? Yes?
So you have USC with the coaching change, you have Oregon with the coaching change, you have Washington with a coaching change. And so even though those schools salvaged classes to whatever extent, they were not large classes, Stanford did pretty well, especially along the lines they recruit nationally. I think they finished something like eighteenth in the country, which was good for number one in a very very much changing PAC twelve at the top. So Stanford, Yeah, they.
Go three to nine and finish with the number one recruiting class in the PAC twelve. All right, let me ask you a question, realistic question. Would Stanford ever move on from David Shaw? Yeah?
I mean I think it would take probably another couple of down years, but he's making something. Remember when the USA Today released there or there was some story that came out that finally released what he is making because it's harder to get the figures from coaches at private schools. It's been like nine million dollars a year, like high
eight's low nine, something in that range. And I just don't think you can justify paying those that kind of number to somebody going three and nine, four and eight, two and ten over you know, a three four year span, So I could see it. It's it's probably gonna take more because I think he is so beloved there than Yeah, that's something that's my brow or something like that.
That's my point. The offense fell off a cliff last year. Yeah, the offense fell off a cliff. This was a bad offense. They went from thirty first in twenty twenty again abbreviated schedule four and two in twenty twenty, all the way down to one hundred and fourth nationally, which is a huge drop off. If Northwestern was the answer on the other side of things, you could definitely make a case for Stanford on the offensive side of things, just really bad.
The defense also really bad. It was really bad last year. It got worse in twenty twenty one. YEP, variety of factors for that. I'm sure we could talk about it if we really wanted to. We don't. What matters is the second order wins total two point seven per The sp plus had Stanford pretty much right on the number at three and nine, So I think you layer all that in the recruiting is something we can discuss. But bigger picture, as we move ahead now into twenty two,
this is not an easy schedule for Stanford. It is not an easy schedule for Stanford. Brutal road schedule at Washington, at Oregon, at Notre Dame. That's all within the first six weeks of the season. Then there's a road tilt later against Utah. Obviously they play usc pretty early on as well, So it's just it. It's stacking up against Stanford making some sort of reclabation project in twenty twenty one. They could come on strong late, but they're going to
have some work to do early. I think if they want to prove to anybody that they can get this thing turned around in a good direction.
So they lose both of their running backs who carried the ball the most, who toted the rock the most, and Nathaniel Pete and Austin Jones. Pete transfers to Massoo and Austin Jones to USC And the big thing for Stanford is for Stanford. For Stanford is year over year, it always seem like whatever they were for better or worse, they would get good line play up front on both sides of the ball. They would have a good defense, they would have a good offensive line. They would get
guys into the NFL, especially upfront on defense, upfront. On offense, you know, they would develop an interesting running back, be it Bryce Love hitting home runs, be it Christian McCaffrey as one of the all time all purpose greats. And they would find these guys and develop these guys. And they haven't developed a receiver in quite some time. Tight end. They've had guys, you know, most recently Colby Parkinson was
was that guy. But they've stopped finding, they've stopped developing, and they've stopped really being able to weaponize specific players on offense. And they would find quarterbacks. But even like since Kevin Hogan, like it's been a while, and like they're pulling in four and five star kids like Tanner McKee I think was a five star quarterback and he showed flashes, but this was a predictable offense. It was one of arguably one of the worst defensive lines in
defensive fronts in football. Were they the worst run defense in football?
They were. They were in that grouping, they were rushed around. I can, I can pull it up, but they were.
But so I'm assuming they were the worst power five run defense in America and they It's what Lance Anderson on defense and Tavita Pritchard on offense as coordinators. They retained both of those guys, So they sew another one of those guys who doesn't make a lot of wholesale changes along his coaching staff and doesn't really have the ability to do so via the portal on the on
the roster. So's it's that same idea of turning around that aircraft carrier that you know, Stanford's in a better place because they can recruit on a much higher level than Northwestern, Vanderbilt duke programs like that. But man, I don't know. There's a stubborn streak to David Shaw, both in the architecture of the offense and play calling and decision making in those higher leverage moments that doesn't seem to improve.
He was.
He won a bunch of close games in twenty twenty, so it doesn't you know, that didn't seem like there was going to be pressure on his seat after twenty twenty, and they did have their starting quarterback against Oregon and that opener because of it, I think it was a false positive that it was Davis Mills I think received
but I don't know. It's really difficult to see when you look at this roster and you look at what they were or were not able to do on the field, to see them as an eight and four, nine to three program again any time time soon.
Yeah, the thing to watch on the Stanford front, and it's it warn't mentioning. Stanford is third in returning production for twenty twenty two, so bring it back nearly everybody on offense and most of the defense. Some of the other teams that we're talking about here are also on that list. We haven't talked about Southern miss yet, but they're in the top ten. Georgia Southern also brings back a lot. So there are reasons for optimism, I think
with some of these schools. But you know, Stanford, being as high up as they are, really the only Power five team that's that high, can they do anything with it? I don't know. I don't know. It's been a minute since Stanford was like a real, tried and true contender in the Pac twelfth. So we'll see. Yeah, and there's kind of a window right now, there is in the North. You have new coach at Washington, new coach at Washington State, new coach at Oregon. Oregon State should be decent enough.
Cal has had its own struggles. And then, by the way, the big games on the road this year coach at USC UCLA sort of. I mean that game was gettable for Stanford last year. It seemed like at times they had a lead. And you know, the Arizona schools are very much in flux in Arizona heading the right direction in Arizona State. Not Utah's really strong, but Colorado seems to be a disaster. So the window for Stanford is
they're relatively open. Yeah, it's just a matter of handling their own business and finding those difference makers on both sides of the ball, both sides of the ball.
So there's Stanford. This This next team was the only team on our list to win its final two games.
Southern Miss. Southern Miss is correct, Thank you, Dean.
Southern Miss a lot more active in the portal than a lot of these teams, and they have the luxury of having two major programs in their own state and Ole Miss and Mississippi State, which they very much took advantage of and added a number of Mississippi State players.
Last year.
It was an interesting team. So it was year one of Will Hall coming in from from Tulane. He was the offensive coordinator and pretty well regarded. I remember Oregon interviewing him a couple times for their open open job, in which I think they that was Joe Morehead who took it at that stage. But the defense was quietly
decent at times. They allowed too many big plays. Their big focus, and it makes sense given the number of junior colleges in the state and in the area, was on adding JC players and adding players via the portal. So they're looking to immediately turn things around. They as I mentioned, they went they won their final two, but last year did feature pretty bad losses. It's hard to go three to nine and not have a few bad losses, just in terms of who you lose to. Troy Rice,
South Alabama. You know, UTEP was improved but still not great to lose to the miners Middle Tennessee North Texas. And they do have this year in which should be a new look team. They they traveled to Miami and they host Liberty, So tricky early, early sledding for the Eagles. But Southern Miss a program that I'm confident can get better quicker than some of these other schools within the context of you know, who they play and where they play.
Yeah, and also, as I just said, top ten in college football in terms of returning production. Yes, so you can do something with that for sure. And it's it's a fairly workable schedule. I mean, you mentioned they've got game against Miami on the road, and there's some others here that are certainly problematic. But yeah, it's gettable, it's gettable. They can definitely approve a bit of a rotation at quarterback last year.
So and I don't think any of these three guys, Lang Keys or Trey Low for more touchdowns and interceptions. So a lot of work to be done through the air.
But I don't know.
Again, I have some optimism with Southern Miss and I know it's kind of you know, behind the scenes, can be a bit of a screwy place, but it seems like the activity and attention is there.
So yeah, so they're miss final team here is Duke. You could tell me in a second on what you wanted to say about Duke. But what jumped out at me when I was looking over the blue devils in Duke's case, they lost their last eight yep, North Carolina, Georgia Tech, Virginia Wake Forest, Pitt Virginia Tech, Willisville, Miami. Not the easiest road if you're Duke, No by any stretch, right, But we had talk going into the year like is this tire running out of air for David Cutcliff and
maybe it's time to move on. Ultimately they did. They go in the direction of Mike Elco. This is a team that pretty much quit, pretty much quit. Yeah, second half of the year. If you look at postgame win expectancy, they were nowhere close. The only game, the only game in all of those eight where their post game win expectancy was above a zero percent, which I cannot tell you is almost impossible, was Georgia Tech. They lost that game by four. All the other games that were pretty
much destroyed, they had no chance. So the time was right. They move on they go. Mike. Mike Elko is a good hire for.
Duke definitely, and given his time in the state at Wake Forest and ties to you know, finding you know, high level three star kids who can get into Duke and succeed and develop and take time. I think it's a strong hire.
Folks on some of the A and M message boards were betrayed by this. How could he lead leading Duke? Why would he leaved coaching job? Yeah, he could have shot higher than Duke. He could have gotten a better gig if he wanted to than Duke, But like you said, there's a bit of a connection there. He decides ultimately he wants to take that gig. Clearly Duke's program that's
going to give him time. Mike Elko has been a successful assistant for many, many years now, so you know, the extent to which he can turn that ship around, turn that aircraft carrier around, remains to be seen. But the time I think was right for a fresh start at Duke. And uh, you know, on both fronts, not just football, but at time of recording, we just saw coach ks scheme. That's true on the basketball side as well, So a whole new era for the two money sports on the men's side of things.
For Duke, Yeah, and the expectation isn't there. The expectation for Stanford, given recent results, I think is far more pronounced than it is at Duke, given what David Shaw specifically has been able to accomplish in Palo Alto and Jim Harbaugh before him. Yeah, it's you know, get to a bowl game sometimes that's good. That's good at Duke. And yeah, I get the move from Mike Elco. You get a head job in the acc you take it.
You take it. If you've been trying for a job like this, you were going to cook out, by the way, ty bit at a cookout or at.
No No, the fast food chain in the Southeast, specifically the Carolinas.
I think no cookout. No. It is.
Whatever it lacks in high level quality, it makes up for and then some in value. Really, you can feast for three dollars eighty four cents. You can get I don't, are you a milkshake guy? I know we had the whole thing with Adam Amin way back when.
On occasion it's not my go to, but I'm not. I'm not anti milkshake.
You can get there's like thirty flavors available at cookout. There's it's a huge menu. Everything is cheap if you are hungry and you don't have a bunch of cash. Not a sponsor could be. I just say this because I've only been to Durham once and I ate a cookout and I was thrilled with the experience. So, uh, maybe that's why michaelko went back.
Could be for cookout. Yeah, it could be for cookout. Yeah, Duke is I don't know.
They're in a nice position just because the expectations are so low. And David Cutcliffe did hire pretty well. You remember it was it was Cutcliff who brought Jim Knowles I think, onto the biggest stage at that time for him and got hired away by Oklahoma State at the time. But I did see I think David Cutcliffe might be heading to Texas and like a like a an advisor type le same way that Gary Patterson's being hired there.
And maybe can't hurt that Cutcliffe's relationship with the Manning family could come handy with the number one quarterback recruiting in the country currently, somebody with that last name. But uh, yeah, Cutcliff did a lot of good things for them as well regarded, but it just it wasn't going to be any sort of short, medium, or long term answer for the Blue Devils.
Yeah, and to your point about expectations, Duke's sort of starting over at a bunch of positions that they're near the bottom in terms of that returning production number. So it really is going to be a near full rebuild for Mike Elko starting in year one. He can build in his image.
Do you know who is awesome? Matteo Durant and nobody we us included. We didn't talk about it because it was just he wasn't playing in meaningful games at all. And I have no idea if this is going to be the case. I know nothing about the draft. I
know nothing about the NFL. I just know that guys like Matteo Durant, who are able to succeed on terrible teams can be guys who are you know, free agents or you know, drafted in the sixth seventh round, And especially at the running back position where value doesn't mean much.
You're like, this guy just.
Ran for fourteen hundred yards for the Steelers for the Viking. What oh cool? That's the kind of guy I think Matteo Durant can be from what I've seen of him.
Rush for twelve hundred yards nine touchdowns. Not a bad year. Yeah, not a bad year. Okay, Uh, that does it, Dan? So that's it. We went through all twelve teams. I don't know how many I got right, maybe five? Yeah, that went three to nine in twenty twenty one. Hopefully all of them get better. We have no reason to root against them. But as we said going through, some have greater obstacles than others. We're going to continue doing this so the next time around. Now you're the kings
of losers. We are the kings of losers. Yeah, for eight next month we can talk through. There will be more tea tea for us. What do we have? Who are the highlights? I don't have it in front of me, but I did look briefly, and there are more four and eight teams. I did check Lehigh and Lafayette Yeah, three and eight. Yeah, So I don't know if you have any weigh ins about any of those teams. Here are the four and eight teams tie four and eight
FBS teams from twenty twenty one. Are you ready? I'm ready please Navy, Okay, Rice, Yeah, Bowling Green, Buffalo, USC, Colorado, Texas State, Louisiana, Monroe. And that's it. So there are fewer teams. I think there might be fewer Yeah, okay, damn all right, never mind, it's murders row Dan. This is fun. I appreciate your research as ever, we would appreciate everybody stopping on by the website heliverbal dot com.
That's where you can find all of our links. For Bowlers dot com right now is where it's really popping off. I mean, geezs right, extra nuggets, We've got early access, We've got brewin a later this week, we're going to do a two part brew and a part that goes public, the other part that is private for Forballer's only Everballers dot com. You can go on out to the Patreon. You can also find the awesome show that we did
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