Welcome to the solid verbal coll 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 Dake Edith state is that woo woom and Dan and Tie.
Welcome back to the solid burb of boys and girls. My name is Ty Hilden Brandon, joining me as always over there in beautiful New York City. The one and only Dan Rubinstein, who graciously pinch hit for me last year. No, who graciously pinch hit for me last week as I was quasi dying from illness.
Thank you, Yeah, youth only sound like you have a hint of illness.
Right, well, that's sort of the beauty of modern audio editing equipment. Dan, let's just leave it at that.
Okay, how are you? I'm terrific, Ty, I am great. We haven't spoken since the day after the LSU National Championship because, correct, you fell ill. You were supposed to come to New York and got sick, and solid wife Kate was under the weather, all defensible reasons not to come to New York and eat Korean barbecue with me.
But I've missed talking to you. We have an exercise to sort of look back on the season today, and I'm excited for that, but I'm glad that Andy could pinch it last week talking about new coaches and their spiciness quotients. And today, if you're up for it, we are just going to talk about we spent a lot of the summer previewing and figuring out our thoughts about the season and how we felt about certain teams and what our expectations were fair, deserved, undeserved, and I think
it's fair to I think hold ourselves accountable. And I'm not going to ask you to rehash all of your predictions for every team, but I'm going to ask you and provide my own because that's only fair. We are going to discuss the biggest surprises of the season. We expected Team X to do blank, but instead they did why and that was shocking. Or we didn't expect Team A to do blank, but it turns out they were really good at doing this or had a terrific season
or a terrible season. So what I think we should do is we should go through the teams that we sort of talk about the most and probably not enough, and figure out where the pleasant surprises were and where the not so the e sort of surprises were and sort of admit where we overlooked teams good or bad.
So you're saying a good old fashioned surprise.
I love it. Oh and I like that you're pushing yourself almost excite bike style. Yeah.
I know you're holding down that B button and the meter is going red.
Yeah, but I appreciate it.
Yeah. So there's gonna be no voice later tonight, but that's fine. As you said, we haven't talked, actually talked in about two weeks. So it's good to be back in front of a microphone with you about all things college football. If you're just finding the show, Hello, I'm Tie, He's Dan. We're going to be with you all off season. We're going to be doing one show a week. We talk about all sorts of topics here in the off season. Go back and listen to the show we put out
late last week. Andy Staples, our friend from the Athletic, was kind enough to pinch hit talk some new coaching news with Daniel. Today. We're going to talk about surprises. We've got a bunch in store for you as we progress through the doldrums that is the college football off season. Please do subscribe. If you like the show. You can also find all of our old stuff out on solid verbal dot com. And if you really like the show,
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Daniel correct, we're recording this late January, just in case you don't see the date in your podcast app So we are under the I don't know, the working understanding that there's nothing crazy happening right now when there are new coaches that we haven't really you and I haven't really done a deep dive into I think we're still waiting for because we have what signing day, the official signing day, not the early signing day, in a little bit, all the dust to clear before making sense of all
of the transfers, all of the coaches. Obviously I did a preliminary version of that with Andy, but people want to know how you feel. TI sure you are at least twenty percent of this show, at least at least and so we are obviously going to touch on all of you know, the transfers and new coaches and firings, hirings and movements of the college football the early college football offseason, and how we feel about all those things.
But I think just because we're still in the after glow of the season, we should take a glance at things in twenty nine.
Yeah, man, I'm with you. So because my voice is in excite bike mode when you hold down the B button a little too long mm hmm, I want to try and avoid it cutting out during this broadcast. So if you would be so kind as to be our Shirpa here oh on this broadcast, this podcast and lead us through each conference all the areas that you think would be fun to cover here.
I have thoughts. I can do your part of the show too, though. I just can you do an impression of me. I can do something like Tye, I think my PAC twelve surprise, and this is true. I guess we could start with a PAC twelve because why not, Tye? I think my Pack twelve surprise is Oregon State? And then I will say from you Dan never heard of them?
Right right?
So okay, that's my best Why don't we Why don't we do that? Let's start with the PAC twelve. Okay, you go first.
What is your biggest surprise during after whatever time limitation you'd like to put on this? Yeah, relating to the PAC twelve.
So it's Oregon State. I didn't make it up with that little tell. Yes it was not as twelve.
There was.
There were a lot of surprises to me. So Jonathan Smith in his second year takes Oregon State to five and seven. Damn near Bowl team. If you especially if you watch the end of that Washington State game, and with how far they appeared to come on offense. You know, two good running backs splitting time, Jake Luton improving. Isaiah Hodgins was obviously very good all year. The defense at
least showed flashes of competence. I came away very impressed in a pac twelve that I wouldn't call it up for grabs, but I would call the third and second tier perhaps wide open for business, and Oregon State should be a bold team. And considering how they've done on the transfer market. Trey Low is a four star from Washington, Treyshawn Harrison a four star from the Pacific Northwest, but
from Florida State. They are more talented than people realize considering how low they got fifteen, twenty sixteen, twenty seventeen. I am quite excited to see what Oregon State can do moving forward and how competitive they were this year. I did not see coming. Pleasant surprise.
Yeah, pleasant surprise for me is Oregon State as well. For many of the reasons that you listed. I'll go on the flip side of the coin and I'll say not so pleasant surprise. Washington losing Chris Peterson, Yeah, perhaps that could be the center square on the Bingo card because I think that caught a lot of people off guard. But we can't do a show like this without talking about what that means. Now, clearly, Jimmy Lake steps into
that role promoted from within. If he's able to establish some continuity within the Husky program, that would be a good thing. But guys like Chris Peterson don't grow on trees. And we come back to the same thing that we set about the coaching transition at Ohio State. Sometimes it's a bit of a coin flip, and I'm always sure what you're gonna get. Jimmy Lake's been there, he sort of knows the system. At this point. We'll see what he can do if he can pick it up and
run with the baton. But losing Chris Peterson, I think is notable. I would also add that I'm sort of mixed on the retention of one Clay Helton.
And somewhat surprising. Yeah, you know, talk about there are a lot of eche surprises in the back twelve.
There really are talk about other items that could fall into that center square on the Bingo card category. The Clay Helton thing. We talked about that for months on end. Long before the season, we looked at the schedule, we said, wow, if they don't get past X nine wins, I forget what it was, They're not going to retain Clay Helton. And they didn't get past X. They still decided to retain Clay Helton for myriad reasons, many of which will
probably never know. But after maybe pursuing a guy like an Urban Meyer and some other hot commodities out there, they elect to keep Clay Helton. They also retain Graham Harrell, which I think is a nice move for them. I'm not sure which of those two things is better for the health of the program moving forward. But I think a lot of USC fans, to say the least, were very surprised that Helton was ultimately retained.
Yes and no. I would imagine that there are a number of USC fans who were so down on the administration and pessimistic about the new administrators that they, in some form weren't all that surprise that he was retained. I think you're right. I think my not so pleasant surprise was Stanford in the season they had, and they were so beat up that a certain amount of their results are defensible. I guess but they looked horrific at times.
They really did look horrific. And this was not a year where there was a robust middle class to the PAC twelve. After Oregon, Utah, and USC. I don't think any other teams had winning records in the conference. A lot of four and fives. Now, you know, Cal has an injury at quarterback. Washington State probably kind of a crazy bad surprise with their defense looked like this year, but this was a PAC twelve with winnable games, and so the fact of the matter is a team is
talented as Stanford. Not being able to survive a crazy amount of injuries, to be fair, was still pretty surprising. Washington State doesn't win a road game, a true road game. They beat Houston on a neutral field, But just how ugly the middle class the PAC twelve was was an ugly surprise as well.
Does it surprise you know that Jacob Easton left?
No? I think he won to leave as much to the imagination as possible before really leaving no doubt as to what he is or is not capable of.
That one sort of caught me off guard. I get why kids would want to leave. I don't begrudge him for doing that, but clearly flashes. Yeah, we've mentioned Purple Cutler countless times on this program over the last six months or so. I don't know if that's so much a compliment, But nonetheless, he's clearly a kid with talent. He can make a lot of the throws, and in
a clean pocket, he looks very good. But when you bring the pressure on, or when you mix up coverage a little bit, that's when things start to get a little bit more interesting. And certainly he falls into that category of having a ton of talent. Clearly an NFL caliber arm I'm just not sure it's NFL caliber everything else. And I caught me off guard.
Ty, when your temperature is ninety eight point six and you sleep for ten hours, you feel pretty good. Right, this is true? This is true? How often that happens? Okay, what conference do you want to go to?
Let's go to the ACC. So I want to read something here that I wrote about Sarahcuse preseason.
I'm ready.
These are my notes for Batim. How much do you temper last season's results given that it was sort of a down ACC in twenty eighteen? Fairness, I think a good question. I love the line I love the secondary. I loved Andre Cisco and the defensive backfield, who is already a star coming into the year. The defensive backfield was mostly freshmen and really good in twenty eighteen. They pretty much all came back this past season. The line looked as if it was going to be able to
get after the passer. Talked about Alton Robinson on many a preseason show. Sure, Kendall Coleman, those are some names that we were watching. I liked Syracuse with nine wins in the twenty nineteen season.
I was a little less in on the Orange.
But yeah, Syracuse did not win nine games, Dan, and at many points in the season they looked awful, downright, just dreadful. So from an analysis standpoint, as you said at the top, going back and reevaluating some of our preseason picks, Syracuse was a mighty whiff for me, to say the least.
They I'm looking right now did Syracuse did not win a Power Five game until November sixteenth, Yeah, when they beat Duke on the road. Yeah, it was a tough year Syracuse offensively without your boy grungy Eric Donee. Sure, who did so much they you could run on Syracuse you could throw on Syracuse and they couldn't do much of anything. When they had the ball. They generated some bigger plays on the ground, but other than that, yeah,
I was a nightmare for Syracuse. I have Miami as my unfortunate surprise, okay, and what the back half of their schedule looked like with as much as they returned on defense, a defense that was still good. But the surprise to me is that they couldn't get it figured
out with quarterbacks that were in the system. I know it was an open quarterback job going into the air, but with the experience they had all over this offense, and I know the line was rough, but with DJ Dallas and Cameron Harris at running back, with how promising I thought Jaron Williams looked at time the first half of the year, Yes, as a red shirt freshman, but still I was surprised they couldn't get it together and couldn't improve on offense over the course of the season
before losing to FIU Duke and being blanked in their bowl game against Louisiana Tech. And so that caught me by surprise, I thought, even though it was a first year coach of many Diaz, it caught me by surprise the wide swaths of ineptitude that creeped into the Miami bloodstream.
Okay, yeah, and you know, as we've now got into the off season, some of the storylines surrounding Miami are mixed.
Right.
We've got Jaron Williams. He mentioned I think the promise that we saw in him wasn't consistent per se. He has entered the transfer portal because Deeric King is coming over from Houston. The Tate Martel thing hasn't really yielded much fruit, to say the least has not, So we'll have to wait and see what Manny Diaz does in year two.
Pleasant surprise, but rtt lashly you know, yeah, some success as an offensive coordinator takes over Miami. My pleasant surprise is the new quarterbacks of the ACC. You mentioned the twenty eighteen season and the fortuitous road. I suppose that Syracuse had to whatever extent good teams take advantage of fortuitous roads, but the addition of Hendon Hooker, Michael Cunningham, and Sam Howell to the ACC was a breath of fresh air. I was pleasantly surprised by the ceiling of
each of those guys. Hendon Hooker becomes that full time starter into the year. Michael Cunningham is wildly efficient and appears I think he'll be a red shirt junior next year. I forget, I should look that up while I'm talking. And of course Sam Howell with his almost immediate impact into North Carolina's offense under mac Brown, I could not be more excited for that trio moving forward for a conference that sorely needed new exciting faces.
Well, you kind of touched on two of my pleasant surprises. Okay, North Carolina for starters obviously hired Mac Brown in the offseason, and as I look back here on my acc notes, I have marked pretty boldly five wins would be a revelation. Okay, a revelation. They finished six and six, that's a big deal. They didn't just dominate in the bowl game. They destroyed Temple by a fifty five to thirteen score, and a
lot of their losses were very close. They were within one point of the Clemson Tigers, within a touchdown, one possession, yeah, a touchdown of teams like app State, who were very good. Even Wake Forest too maybe had to dip down the stretch, but still looked pretty good for the majority of the season, Virginia Tech, Virginia Pit All these were one possession games.
So this is a team that fought hard, obviously caught lightning in a bottle with Sam Howell, and I think Mack Brown did a really good job coming off a two to nine year in which they obviously made the coaching change. North Carolina was.
A great story and we talked about it before the twenty nineteen season. The twenty eighteen season, pre mac Brown, that team was in games. The record wasn't there, but they were competitive, they fought. They just whether it's bad luck, ball bouncing the wrong way, whatever, they were in those games. So mac Brown should be commended for flipping Sam Howell and entrusting him to run the Tarhill offense.
The other team that I throw out there, and they were two to ten a year ago.
Is Louisville Louisville Louisville.
New coach Scott Saderfield. The commentary on them before the year is that they're going to want to run it, because Scott Saderfield was pretty run happy at app State. But yeah, it was a question of well do they really got the personnel to do that. They also had a really difficult schedule in that they played Notre Dame, Florida State, Clemson Miami. I had Syracuse down here, woe was me Kentucky obviously to close out the year in
that rivalry game. And it wasn't a situation preseason where I thought you could measure success in terms of wins and losses. He wanted to hope that Scott Saderfield could lay down a new foundation upon which he could build for the future. Never in my wildest dreams did I expect that we'd be sitting here late January talking about a Louisville team that went eight and five total with the bull win over Mississippi State, a Mississippi State team which you may get to a little bit later when
we talk about the SEC. But lo and behold, Scott Sadderfield comes in makes an immediate impact. Talked a lot preseason about trying to change the culture of that program. I'm not close enough, You're not close enough to know for sure if that's something that did occur. It would seem as if though through one year of Scott Sadderfield, he has done something right, and if culture is among those things, then clearly he's headed in the right direction.
Yeah, I was surprised watching my guy, Michael Cunningham, thinking this guy wasn't your starter. This guy didn't start the season atop the quarterback. Maybe it was an injury thing, but I was surprised that the most efficient quarterback in the country, not the best, the most efficient the ball in his hands on a per play basis was Michael Cunningham. Javian Hawkins goes forward fifteen hundred yards on the ground too to at well was terrific as a sophomore, little guy,
I believe, I believe it's a sophomore. I know he's totally but yeah, I think Louisville, Yes is included is in that pleasant surprise tent with Hendon Hooker and what Virginia Tech was able to do in the second half of the season in unc Where are we going next?
Where are we going next? By the way, Florida State's the center square in the bingo card there.
But is that a surprise the way that they looked late, I guess you could be surprised they didn't improve.
I'm surprised they didn't improve. I'm surprised they fired Willie Taggert before the end of the season. Yeah, and so Yeah, I'm not that I was expecting a ten win year out of Florida State. I wasn't, but just the manner in which the season all went down was surprising to me. It did not feel like they improved.
No, it seemed that you would think God for him to go in the middle of the season. Yeah, that's a surprise, and it is a surprise that they couldn't address the clear weaknesses that were addressable over an offseason. You can't all of a sudden snap your fingers and have a competent offensive line. But the discipline, the defense, the fundamentals, the clock stuff. Yeah, that's a bit of a surprise. They couldn't really figure that out given the months they had.
Let's go over to the SEC. Okay, what do you got in the SEC? What surprised you other than other than lsu.
Gosh, So, Kentucky is my pleasant surprise that they lose Terry Wilson when they do, they lose Sawyer Smith when they do, and they're basically completely without a competent throwing quarterback. They turn things over to maybe the most athletic player in the conference in terms of what he was able to do under center, and Lynn Boden and they are full on good. Kentucky becomes a full on good team when they turn the ball over, much like a high school team does to just the clear best athlete on
the team. They turn the offense over to Lynn Bowden, they are dangerous. They become one of the best and most explosive rushing teams in the country. The defense missing key guys I thought was going to I thought twenty eighteen was sort of a once every blue moon type season for Kentucky where they become a legitimate threat to decent teams, and it wasn't. The job Mark Stoops did with the entirety of the twenty nineteen squad was I think,
to me the conference's most pleasant surprise. What el the heights LSU reached was certainly a surprise, but considering the degree of difficulty differences between LSU and Kentucky, we knew LSU had, you know, an elite ability inside of them. But this Kentucky second half, especially, that to me, really blew me away. Yeah.
I love the way they steered into it because you know, they had Sawyer Smith available down the stretch. I don't know if he was one hundred percent healthy, but they elected to go with Lynn Bowden junior. They elected to stick with that offense, and it was a ton of fun to watch. Glad it worked out. It was a charm season in many respects. Yeah, probably didn't fully go the way Kentucky fans won it, but on the heels of their year that they had in twenty eighteen, I
thought this is a nice follow up. Yes, so I was a fan of what they did. I think quarterbacks as a whole in the SEC were somewhat surprising. We saw in good and bad ways, or in good and bad ways. Yang in good and bad ways. Kyle Trask is a story sure. Kyle Trask is a pleasant skiles for sure. Twenty five touchdowns, seven interceptions, threw for two hundred and forty five point one yards per game. And by the way, that was sort of on a whim.
The way that Dan Mullen reconstructed that offense after his starter went down, I thought was really admirable. And I'm not surprised that Florida would have a good season. I think we saw that coming. But I'm just pleasantly surprised in a manner that Dan Mullen was able to cobble it. All together on the fly, make Kyle Trask look really good, arguably like the second best quarterback. No, that's a little
bit too generous. Maybe the third best quarterback in the SEC and obviously put together a really good year for Florida.
Sure.
The other topic that I would posit here, Okay, I'm ready is Mississippi State.
Yeah, I have that down here.
Mississippi State. Mississippi State, I think caught us both by surprise. We were really high on Joe Moorehead when he was hired at Mississippi State.
Let the record show. I still am yep, that's fair.
Yeah, continue, it did not work out, he was let go. They're obviously going in a much much different direction now with Mike Leach. But where do you want to start with Mississippi State.
So I underestimated, or I suppose overestimated, the defensive issues that they would have losing what they did up the middle on all three levels and really upfront on the defensive line. After the twenty eighteen season, I thought they'd be fine. I like Bob shop as a defensive coordinator. I liked that the depth that they were able to acquire under Dan Mullen and the early part of Joe
Morehead's tenure in Starkville. I figured that their offense would improve with what I assumed would be more of a throwing threat than what they'd had the past few years. And I was wrong. I was definitely wrong. There were issues at receiver with drops. The one bright spot is Kylon Hill, but he couldn't do everything. He had a terrific season and did as much as he possibly could
within the offense. I was surprised that even if a step back from twenty eighteen was to be expected, with how talented that defense was, I was surprised that offensively, And yes, I know it's Tommy Stevens, it's Garrett Schrader, a freshman quarterback. I understand the issues and the lumps that either were going to take if thrown into the fire, but I just figured it would be schemed around and they lost to good teams. I have the schedule in
front of me. It's not like Mississippi State other than Tennessee Tennessee. You can make the case, and I know it was. I believe it was. In Knoxville. State had opportunities. They looked ugly in games, they looked lost in games they should have beaten Kansas State at home, and to lose to Tennessee the way that they did the manner
is the biggest surprise. You know, losing to this year's Alabama team by thirty, Okay, that happens, obviously, the ugliness with the bowl game against Louisville is not any way to finish out a season. It's certainly not a ten year for Joe moorehead. I was I think I was expecting more and I was wrong.
Let's talk a little bit about Missouri if we could. Let's yeah, that's a pretty enormous surprise. Missouri went six and six this season. Missouri was bad. Yeah, bad down the stretch. You could argue bad from the game go. Losing opening weekend on the road at Wyoming. Not a bad team in Wyoming, but not a team that missoo sho should have lost to. They started their year five and one, won five in a row. After that, Wyoming
seemingly got things back on track. Then they lose consecutively on the road at Vandy, on the road at Kentucky, on the road at Georgia, home against Florida, and home against Tennessee before eventually winning their sixth game on the road at Arkansas. One of the things that we like to look at is Bill Connolly's sp plus, and one of the measurements that he gives on a game by
game basis is something he calls postgame win expectancy. Postgame win expectancy looks at your efficiency in game and then grades out based on that how likely you would have been or not been to win a football game. Right, the Kentucky game zero percent. Yeah, the Georgia game zero percent, the Florida game one percent. The Tennessee game they only
lost that by four four percent. So what that's telling you is in the games when they didn't get blown out, mainly that Tennessee game, which they lost by four, they definitely did not play well enough to be within four points of Tennessee. By Bill's measure, they only played well enough to be within fourteen points of Tennessee. I'm not even going to talk about the Kentucky, Georgia, and Florida games. All of those were blowouts. So this is a team
that did not put its best foot forward. We had talked in the preseason about hey, watch out first week in November squaring off against Georgia on the road, Maybe they'll be unbeaten. No boy, no, Dan, this was not a good football team.
I don't know if you saw. But Bill Connolly obviously who're speaking of, and Miszoo fan, longtime Mizoo fan, posted a graph of the percentile performance of MISSOO so essentially and I'll probably get this wrong, but what their ceiling is and how close they got to their ceiling given their advanced metrics whatever, that's somewhere in the range of it.
And he posted the graph and basically said, by looking at this, you'd have thought that after I don't know what the old Miss game or something like that, you'd have thought all of their players got hurt. Yeah, all of their players got abducted, all of their starters all took a deeply aggressive jacuzzi in the wrong dup, something that infected the entire depth chart, because they really they
did fall off a cliff. And this was a team with a blessed schedule tie going into the season, getting West Virginia with a first year coach at home, having their road games in the East be Vandy, Kentucky, Georgia, and then a road split with the West at Arkansas. It's a beautiful, beautiful thing. I think they also had, Yeah, they had Old Miss from the West. So this was a per fixed ten in two season with I don't know, competence,
and it ends with disaster and they fire their coach. Unbelievable. Unbelievable, And I mean with Larry Rowntree, with Big Albert Oh with we weren't super high on Kelly Bryant but still led a team, a very talented team to the playoff, and he had injury issues. Cale Garrett was a star on that defense. He goes down, so they're affected by any number of things. But really, I know they were not allowed in the postseason. But to go six and
six with that schedule, where do you want to go? Okay, let's go to the Big twelve.
Big twelve is the center square Texas.
Here as the unfortunate surprise. Yes I've lumped Texas in with and I talked about this a little bit the Pac twelve. I have an unfortunate surprise being no middle class of a sort of entertainment value, which we always seem to have with the Big twelve. Good year, bad year. It always seems to be like, well, something weird is going to happen in TCU Iowa State, Well, something weird. It's going to happen with West Virginia, Texas Tech, And
yes there was. There were definitely weird moments. There were definitely fun players, individual players, be it Chewba Hubbard, be it Brock Purty, Jalen Rager, whatever. But to have nobody string together and entertaining September through December, I suppose other than Oklahoma and Baylor, but those are not middle class teams. That was a bummer. That was a pretty significant bummer.
I figured that a number of teams, even though there were a number of new coaches and Matt Wells, Neil Brown, Chris Climb and Les Miles, just an unfun middle class was something I was not expecting. Was pretty bummed out by.
Kansas State is a team that I think we should talk about. You mentioned the new coach, Chris Clemon, comes over from North Dakota State, had a previous stint working with the now athletic director at KNA the state, and you know, I don't know if we knew what to expect. It was a question of personnel before the year, personnel at quarterback, personnel across the board. What are they going to do to try and fill some of these gaps or take a step forward. They ended up being very
Kansas State in the end. This was a good football team. They obviously took down Oklahoma during the year, finished with an eight and four regular season record, lost to Navy in the bowl game. This is a team that I don't know that they did anything spectacularly well, but they were decidedly above average.
Yeah. I did not like watching Kansas State all that much. I didn't say like watching yeah, but no, I mean, there's definitely a lot to be encouraged by. But yeah, I'm speaking strictly from an entertainment standpoint. Other than the Oklahoma game, I didn't. I didn't love watching a lot of the middle class in this conference.
What about Kansas Were you surprised at all by the Jayhawks given the fact that they brought in less Miles and less Miles was a fun talking point right before the season started, because of course, the mad Hatter and the grass seating and his flowery personality. But Kansas won a couple games. Kansas was plucky.
Yeah, I mean it seemed a lot more encouraging after they went at Boston College. Is that a Friday night where they went into BC and ran all the hell over them. Oh right, yep, yep, and then they keep a close against West Virginia. They have the shootout loss against Texas. That was really that was one of the more fun moments obviously, that just game in general, the
ending of the Texas Tech game was very strange. It felt like as good as you could hope for from year one for less Miles, I wouldn't go as far as saying I'm encouraged that there was going to be consistent growth in Lawrence, but I don't know how other than the the offensive showings, I would say, yeah, pleasant surprise. I mean, the offensive showings have led to it becoming a pleasant surprise for me. Yeah. Sure.
The other team that I'll throw out here very quickly and then we'll move on TCU. I am never going to talk about TCU again.
Off watch.
I'm never going to talk about TCU again. I miss every year they missed a bowl game. They were five and seven this season. That's off of a seven and six season with the Bowl win, the legendary cheese At Bowl win over Cow. Yeah. I just can't predict this team. I think Max Duggan gave reason for optimism as we move forward, BEng quarterback. Maybe right, I'm looking for bright spots here because you know my saw spot for TCU. But five and seven, five to seven is not something I had on the radar.
It's very strange that TCU does not win nine games every year exclusively, especially with what the Big twelve looks like right now, That to me is just incredibly strange.
Anything else in the Big twelve. Oh Baylor, what about Baylor?
Baylor's my surprise in a pleasant way for Baylor, and I know certainly the outlook is different, could be better, could be worse, whatever under Dave Randa. But for Matt Rule to do what he did in Waco, especially with Phil what Phil Snow who has worked with Matt Rule for a number of years. Now, we have the snow is snow alert snow alert. Yeah, yeah, we have the snow alert. But I guess we can't really no advisor, no advisor, excuse me. What Baylor did this year was exemplary,
especially that defense. The offense wasn't a great watch, but generally did enough save for the second half of the Oklahoma game or games. Yeah, for what they're able to do to take advantage of a down conference, which is what good teams do to build out over those three years under Matt rule. How can you not be impressed with what the Bears look like most of the year.
For sure? For sure, this is a team that finished eleven and three. Obviously, lost in that Sugar Bowl to Georgia and made it to the Big Twelve Championship, lost by I think it was three in the end to Oklahoma. But defense, you're right to call out the defense because.
James Lynch tied James Damn Lynch. Yeah.
Entering the season, the problem was playmaking on defense. They didn't force a lot of turnovers all year. Last year they allowed twenty five touchdowns of thirty or more yards and eighteen touchdowns of forty or more yards. They were killed by big plays the year prior. So what did they do this year? Well, first things first, they came out and they improved their HAVOC rate, which is a number that you and I love to call out, but basically number of plays behind the line of scrimmage and
defensive line linebacker all on the front seven. They were very very good.
Tackles for loss, forcing turnovers stuff, right, yeah, yeah, stuff like that.
And in terms of allowing big plays. Again, as we look at this from an SP plus standpoint, very good both as a passing defense and rushing defense in big plays allowed, marginal explosiveness is way way down. I think they did a good job on that front. So what Matt Rule was able to put together, what Phil Snow was able to put together along that defensive side of the ball was really impressive. It was the engine that
drove this team. I'm sure Baylor fans are screaming for a little bit more consistency on offense, and I know Charlie Brewer got nicked up a little bit down the stretch, which didn't do them any favors, right, but nonetheless a hell of a year for Baylor. I remember talking in that preseason show where we previewed the Baylor Bears, and I had gone out to a Baylor blog I forget which one, and I remember seeing nine wins and commenting that I thought that was, ooh, that's a little ambitious.
Right there. I could see a pathway, but it's very narrow and it doesn't seem at all realistic. As the year wore on, it became very realistic. Like you said, the top not a big middle class, if any middle class in the Big twelve. So for them to get to that eleven win plateau in total, that's a pretty big deal. Kudos to met rule.
I Uh yeah, what a strange year that a team with an OK offense and a lights out defense is an overtime period away from winning the Big Twelve. No, strange season.
Strange strange season. Shall we move on to our final Power five conference?
Sure?
A Big ten, Daniel, the big big ten.
Uh, let's talk about the Northwestern Fighting Wildcats. We always figured that they had. They always seemed to have the highest floor. Like, Northwestern might not be great this year. I'll go to a bowl game, They'll go seven and five.
Uh.
They did not go seven and five. No, they most certainly did not. I don't think they won their first Power five game until the Illinois game? Is that right, am? I looking at their schedule correctly.
They did not win their first Power five game until the last week of the year.
Yes, the offense was a disaster. The injuries were a disaster. On offense, Hunter Johnson did not work out all that well. He's beat up when he's in does not work out all that well. They make a change at offensive coordinator after the season. They're unable to run the ball, They're unable to pass the ball, they're unable to score the ball. They're unable to move the ball in any sort of creative fashion. All season long, at least, I guess before
the Illinois game, they scored twenty points. I'm seeing zero times before November. This was a historically bad not just Big Ten, not just Power five, but FBS offense. And while they had their offensive struggles in years past, it always seemed like Northwestern was what you could count on in terms of competence, sheer competence, and you could not this season. That was a shocker to me.
Interesting now I think I'm I think I'm with you on that front. I'm surprised by a couple of things. I'm surprised that Michigan State didn't get better already been No I am, I am actually okay, No I am, I am for real. I wasn't necessarily expecting a nine win campaign from Michigan State, but I wasn't expecting what we saw. Like the defense was still pretty good, and of course they won the bowl game to get to seven wins, but six and six is is not something
I was expecting. I wasn't expecting a thirty four point loss or a thirty eight point loss against Michigan or Wisconsin. There were many games this year we talk about a zero percent postgame win expectancy. I'm looking at goose eggs at Ohio State, at Wisconsin, and at Michigan. These are really bad showings. This was a hapless offense that just
could not get going. We talked about before the year, how we talked before the year about how Mark D'Antonio was jumbling up his offensive coaching staff in hopes of jump starting things that didn't work out.
Well, what did you so you say you're surprised by the offense at Michigan State not working out, But what gave you confidence that it would when there was no significant change, There was no catalyst, there was no spark, there was no overhaul of anything.
Well, it's a fair question. It's a fair question. Perhaps it was a bit of wishful thinking, but I have a lot of respect in Mark D'Antonio. I still think he's a good football coach. Now recent Mark D'Antonio maybe unbiased based on past results, right, but I had more faith that he would be able to resurrect this situation and put out a better offense that just didn't happen, And be the jokes on me for feeling surprised by that, but I just I did expect more and I don't
think we ever saw it. So the Michigan State thing caught me a bit off guard. I was pleasantly surprised by Ohio State and Justin Fields. This is an incredible season and you know, to be three quarters of the way through the year to be in the playoff. Reading comments from fans, and it wasn't just our friend Dane, there were multiple fans who wrote in saying, this is the best Ohio State team I've ever seen. To do that a year after rbi Meyer leaves the program, hands
it off to a first time head coach. That was a hell of a debut effort, to say the least. So the way they look, the way they put their defense back together after a bit of turmoil the year prior. Justin Fields goes without saying I was very surprised, pleasantly not too too surprised, but I was encouraged. I was happy to see the job that took place at Ohio State.
That's boring tie. That is just a boring answer. I don't care, I know, I mean I was. I was more pleasantly surprised by revn to seven to drive for six, Illinois taking down Wisconsin in the last second Michigan state that crazy comeback, hanging with Michigan for as long as they did. For a team that loses to Eastern Michigan in what mid September, that win alone would have gotten them to rev to seven. They're close against Nebraska that
ends on sort of a not great call. This was a I'm not gonna say good, I'm not gonna say plucky, I'm not gonna say frisky. Just damn weird team all year long, and they were crazy beat up against Northwestern. They hang with Iowa on the road, I believe in November, and they take the elegance cal which is to be expected in the barry and the ball game. But the ups and downs of this season and the fight I
guess that they showed when somewhat healthy. Illinois is one of the teams that, strangely enough, will come to define the twenty nineteen season. If you dig far.
Enough, here's a hyper local answer. Okay, if you would have told Lehigh. No, not Lehigh, I'm not going to talk about Tyler Monico.
Okay. Sorry.
If you would have told September Tie that November Sean Clifford would leave him feeling this underwhelmed, that would have been a pretty big surprise. Remember the context here. Yeah, the all time winning his quarterback left the program. But to lose Trace and enter a new season with a lot of turnover you lose Miles Sanders. There were ready questions about the wide receiving core going into the year.
To lose a guy of that caliber and turn it over over to Sean Clifford after the Tommy Stevens transfer, there were questions about how are they gonna fare at this quarterback position? And I think to start the year. To start the year, he looked way way better than
he did as the year wore on. He had like a gosh, what was it like, a nearly four hundred yard game against Maryland who Maryland was found out by the point in time when they played them, but still he completed like eighty percent of his passes in that game and looked really good the first half of the year.
Towards the latter half of the season when they started playing better teams, he started looking a bit yippie and gave me serious like branded Wimbush vibes where he was staring at the offensive line sure and maybe not sure of the pocket and making some weird decisions. He had some of his own injury concerns. Didn't think he looked all that great in the bowl game. Got the job done,
but he has a lot of questions to answer. As we entered the twenty twenty season, I did not feel at all great about Sean Clifford, outside of maybe that Minnesota game down the stretch where he was able to rally late and put up some nice numbers.
You could argue the number of teams had surprising elements. I mean Indiana to have the success that they did. Granted, the bottom of the Big Ten was horrific this season. Minnesota's ascent this year, yeah yeah, also fortuitous situations, nothing that they could really control, and they took advantage like good teams do. They lose to tie those two teams together, they lose their offensive coordinator to Penn State. There's never
anything surprising about Iowa. I surprised Perdue and dealing with I guess Purdue is covers both. For me, I was surprised at some of the success they had with all of the crazy injuries that they were suffering, but also surprised that they looked as poor as they did at
certain times. The Nebraska that's a bit of a shocker still, and they're dealing with injuries as well, especially with Adrian Martinez his health all season long, but even when he was in there, A Nebraska was a rough, rough watch in twenty nineteen.
Yeah, no, I would agree with that, Dan, for sure.
A lot of surprises in the Big Ten.
Do you want to do a group of five? Quick? You got anything?
I'd love to?
Okay, how about Air Force?
I think you could only talk about the service academies with this situation.
Air Force had a legitimately good offense and run a different scheme. Granted, but they were pretty good down.
The street on the same scheme as they always run. But they run the same scheme tea.
Yeah, but closed out the year winning a bunch of games in a row, like eight straight games if you include the Bowl. Beat Washington State thirty one to twenty one in the Bowl them, Yeah, ran all over them. They're only two losses all year. Were at a Boise State and to Navy, both on the road. So I think by a large are really good year. Beat Colorado, beat a team like a Utah State who maybe wasn't as good as we thought entering the year, but still
a nice win the Army. Another team that made that category, oh for sure, Hawaii was a nice win on the road. Hawaii ended up being a pretty good team.
Mm hmm, I I love the hell out of watching. I think it's Caden Remsburg. They're back in the bowl game against Wazoo. They had a hell of a year and it was sort of I would go as far as saying like their defense in a number of ways led the way. They were very stout upfront against the run.
So really nice surprise there. I was surprised, I don't want to say fully surprised, but I would say I'm impressed by the bounce back here that Navy had almost getting themselves to the American Championship Game, especially with how
much better their defense got year to year. Also surprised by the dip Army took, and that was to be expected with the number with the amount of attrition from twenty eighteen, but still sort of surprised there and elsewhere in the G five, I don't know, pleasant surprise Hawaii continues to improve to the point where they lose their coach to a Power five conference.
I think Hank Bachmeyer was a pleasant surprise.
Yeah, I guess when he played.
When he played, showed a lot of promise and definitely, gay Broncos fans are reason to be excited.
I was impressed by Western Kentucky, especially that defense this year. Well, yeah, the lows that they fell to and then to beat Arkansas the way they did with a former Arkansas quarterback and tie story. I thought Western Kentucky and Tyson Helton did a really nice job. Any other surprises to you in the G five ranks.
It's tough to be surprised by app State at this point. Sure, Billy Napier did a good job at Louisiana. Yes, I don't know how big of a surprise that ends up being, but they were formidable a team that we liked in awful lot in bull season. Hopefully got a lot of confidence points for some of our participants.
I would say, I guess Georgia State bouncing back the way that they did, Yeah, a really nice surprise yeah, yeah, especially with how they start out the season. Yeah, I would, I would lump the Panthers in there.
All right, Well, I think that's it, Dan. Let us know your surprises again. You can do that by emailing unless it's so oliverble at gmail dot com. If you want to follow along on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram, you can comment in any of those places. There is also a subreddit, which I mentioned at the top of the show. It is solid Verbal dot reddit dot com. You can go out there and discuss your pleasant surprises not so pleasant surprises with other for bawlers who listen to the show.
If you like what we do, subscribe. You can subscribe on any of the podcasting apps, doesn't matter. If you really like what we do, you can leave a review. We always appreciate that. But beyond that, Dan, again, as we now enter this off season mode, one show a week most weeks.
Right, yeah, and that's not to say there will be zero one show if not more. If you really really like what we do. Tie's phone number is six one oh four. No, shoot, I'm reading this wrong, Okay, I'll stop. Ty. I thought you did great, Thank you, thank you. I'm a little bit surprised that I was able to get a newborn to one full year of life.
Congratulations, and happened to the little guy.
I'm surprised that after hearing that you had the flu, that I found out that you were in urgent care last night with a fully separate issue that yeah, recovery.
Well it wasn't. It wasn't the full blown flu. I came to find out later, but I was swabbed multiple times at two different doctors' offices to see if I had it.
Oh, okay, and then you went with some sort of respiratory situation.
I think I pretty much have everything wrong. The only thing working right now is to some extent my voice into a lesser extent my brain.
Okay, well listen, you go heel up, have some chicken soup, get some rest, rest those pipes. We got a long off season. We've got a lot of very strange shows in our future. As we have guests, we probably have
deeper conference looks that require some investigation. We have all sorts of fun plans for the off season, new stuff, old stuff, And you know what, why don't you go to solid verbal dot reddit dot com and tell us specifically what you want out of this Off Season from I would imagine the best podcasts in the world.
I want it titled off Season Dash, What you Want, What you Want, what you Want? Let us know.
Yeah, make it. Whoever starts that, make it as uncomfortable as time made it sound.
Yeah, what you want on that note or that guy over there, the proud Papa Stan Rubinstein for myself, Tie Hilton Brandt, thank you so much for listening to the show. We will be back a week from now to talk more college football. In the meantime, enjoy the rest of your week, all of your weekend. Hope y'all stay healthy and by all means stay solved.
Nice