Welcome to the Solid Verbal home that for me.
I'm a man, I'm for.
I've heard so many players say, well, I want to be happy.
You want to be happy for a day?
Edith Steak is that woo woof?
And Dan and Tye.
Welcome back to.
The Solid Verbal Our Friday orbit, Dan Corrina through Space, Yeah, hurdling through the great Unknown.
I am one of your two co hosts, Ty Hilton Brandt. I am joined as always by that man over there in the heart of the Midwest to true Midwesterner No, the one and only Dan Rubenstein, Sir, how are you. How's it going?
I'm pretty good. I'm let's say I went for a run today. I got in ten minutes of equick, minutes of a quick meditation. Ty really centered myself, focused on my breathing. Great dough babies to pull out of the fridge in a little while.
The dough babies were in the fridge on Wednesday. Did you ever take them out or are they still in?
No?
It was a it's a seventy two hour ferment. They went in on Monday and today's Thursday. It's a three day fermentation, and I hope to have some quality tang when I pull them out of the oven.
So this is this is truly like time lapse podcasting right now.
It's correct. That is absolutely correct.
You have not made any progress since we last spoke with you. What kind of a pizza operation is this?
Ty?
The gluten formation is the progress. We're talking about formation, the microbes, the fungus, they're doing their thing. That's the progress.
I'm gonna give you a URL dub dub dub dot Dominoes dot com.
Check it out, listen. It just depends where your bar is.
Ty.
Dominoes is cool, Dominoes is delicious, Dominoes has a place, but you know my bar is not always Dominoes.
Wherever your bar may be. Thank you for downloading, Thank you for listening. Thank you for making the Soliverable podcast part of your end of week plans, weekend plans, whenever you may listen, We appreciate it. Don't forget to go on out to solidverbal dot com, where you can find all the fine stuff we've been doing, as well as all the subscribe links if you want to make sure that all of our episodes are delivered to the doorstep of whatever your chosen podcasting app is. Also, while you're
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dot com, slash, the soliverble dav the the solid verbal. Yeah, and finally give us oh four we eight verbal one four weight verbal one four eight A three seven two two five one. Got a big week of games on this here, Week five in the college football world. Call in stream of consciousness. Let us know what you're feeling in the moment, and we're gonna cut those up on our Sunday recap show and put together like three or four minute clip of our favorite stand.
That's the way it works in the Solid verbal, as it should, as it should, as it has for a long time. Would you like to get into some quick news before we play a space game.
Let's do it.
News. So we've got opt ins, we've got opt outs, we have transfer waivers being approved. There's lots of administrative goings on ty where would you like to start with this well, on the subject of long fermentation, the Joey Gatewood and Kade May's news man or for Kentucky and Tennessee, respectively, is nothing but good, it seems, although so obviously it
would have been nice to have them last week. Perhaps, but Cade Mays the tackle the offensive lineman for Tennessee, the transfer obviously now can play is eligible, and the same goes for Joey Gatewood. The more I would say physical, bruising quarterback option that Kentucky now has, perhaps he's a compliment. He's a big to something like that.
Least that so you know, when I did the Kentucky preview, one of the items that kept coming up was that even if Gatewood's not the starter, there will be a Gatewood package. They will find ways to use his kid, And it was a big recruit went to Auburn. Initially would have been cool if he were there and available for the Auburn game, but was it meant to be. Sounds like he's gonna be with the team now moving forward, so pumped to see what he can do.
As soon as that package is unveiled. Easy, Dan, easy, easy. We will come up with the name for the Gatewood package. Oh, whatever we will, it'll involve literation. I don't know if it's a gate Woody. You know what a woody is, Tie, it might be a cars.
In terms of cars, right, it might be a little too a little too riskue for the show. But I'm open, as I always am to here ideas.
A Woody is a it's a large it's almost a pre su v. No, this is this is totally rated, g Tye. It was popular with surfers in the sixties. It was called a woody because of wood paneling. Tie, Oh, wood paneling. It was a long enough car to fit surfboards at toime.
That's exactly what I think of when you say that, So.
Ty, I don't you thinking toy story. I don't know where your brain is.
Tie. I just don't Harrelson, right, of course, white man can't.
Jump, Okay, I don't know. I don't know where you go with this sometimes. So yeah, hopefully in terms of short yardage, we'll see some Joey Gatewood and Kid Mays certainly reinforces the Tennessee offensive line. I saw Paulson, a debo haralded corner at Stanford has decided to opt out of the season, Bateman made it official that he's opting back in. James Franklin clarified that Micah Parsons will remain
opted out. And I don't know if there are any other notable opt ins opt outs that happened relatively recently. Your reaction to any of those, the Michael Parsons pulse and the debo any of that.
The Micah Parsons one was I don't think unexpected.
Penn State fans holding out hope though I think a little bit, you know, because James Franklin had portrayed an ongoing conversation.
He never gave it a guarantees, but he had portrayed that there was at least dialogue between him and Micah, perhaps to bring him back. I understand the decision one way or the other. Michah Parsons is going to be a first round pick, but no doubt a bummer for Penn State now that there's renewed hope for this season and for their chances of playing some schedule potentially making it to a playoff. They've got a really good team coming back. So that was that was a bit of
a tough pill to swallow. I am excited about the Rashad Bateman news, though you know, well, we'll get to the game tonight. I'm going to talk a little bit more about Minnesota. But his presence on that offense will certainly be a very big boost in the passing game and you know, maybe help all round for new offensive coordinator Mike Sandford Junior.
He can believe.
Yeah, so we'll get to that a little bit. Former Notre Dame coordinator. The Mountain West released its scheduled. I almost said, in other words, it almost had reversed its schedule, which would be very strange. But the Mountain West did release its schedule, with games beginning on October twenty fourth, if you remember, that's when the Big Ten is starting. And interestingly enough, Boise State has BYU independent BYU in week three. I believe that game is at home in
Boise on the blue turf for the Broncos. So a renewed pseudo. I don't know if it's a rivalry per se, but former conference mates playing once again, so I like seeing that. Otherwise, I honestly have just looked at the schedule. About ninety seconds ago. Boise travels to Hawaii and the fighting Todd Graham's tie. Yeah and so yeah, I guess we'll have a better formed opinion of the Mountain West schedule.
I guess by the time we discussed the Mountain West in depth more I would say to expect even though you already know what the content of this episode is based on the title and description. We will be doing conference previews, probably in some form on UFOs in the future, for the conferences that have reversed and decided to play a season in some form this fall. But Mountain West teams,
it appears like they're playing eight games. Air Force, i'd see, has an open date, San Diego State has a TBA in there, but eight games looks like the schedule with the championship game on December nineteenth. So if nothing else tie, it means we get quality football even before the Pac twelve comes back later at night on Saturdays.
Have we ever seen Graham and Hawaiian shirt?
I know we've seen it, though it weirdly fits, though I don't think I've seen it, but it'll fit.
That's what I was thinking too, Like I'm looking at a Google image search here, and you know he's got the traditional lay around his neck. In the introductory press conference, and obviously he's got this fixation with the weird, you know, sham wow headset that he's worn recently. But I was looking for a picture of him in a Hawaiian shirt, like a Tommy Bahama type thing. I can't find any out there, but it feels like he would actually wear that pretty well.
Yeah, well, he's got the tan, which you know, somebody that spends a lot of time perhaps in the islands. That makes sense, so it seems like it'll fit him. Should also be noted about Hawaii, and I suppose we'll talk about this more when we talk more Mountain West football. Brennan Marion has been a name that has been He's interviewed for bigger jobs. He's the receivers coach and assistant coach, assistant head coach or no, he's just the receivers coach.
Excuse me imading this incorrectly, but he has had his hands on a number of high profile quarterbacks, including the Newton brothers, Cam and Kaylin, and has what he calls the go go offense. I read a piece about it, go Go Audense, The go go offense involving two backs in the backfield sort of next to each other in the h back kind of position. Give it's a it's a sort of pseudo triple option from a very different look,
and you can do a lot out of it. And Cam Newton, I guess, has been doing a little bit of it for the Patriots, So Hawaii's offense has a good chance of being inventive. He was doing it at the FCS level, so he is coaching receivers there.
The go goense. The go go offense got a great a good name, need a good name if you wanted the stick Man.
So I'm excited for Mountain West football like I am every single friggin' year. Clemson lost a blue chip running back to transfer to Marcus Bowman. Otherwise, I mean California in terms of COVID stuff, they raised their outdoor practice limits to seventy five players can gather, So that seems like a positive thing for major teams in California. We're
going to be playing football. Uh app State Louisiana next week has been postponed until early December, which was for sure a headline, if not the headline matchup of the Sun Belt season.
The only other thing I'd point out here, like I know, there was a healthy amount of skepticism around are they going to get the season in, what's it going to look like, how's it going to go? What do we expect? There's no denying the fact that this is a very weird and quirky season already. We've had multiple postponements, various schools have had issues with COVID cases and whatnot. But I don't want to lower the guard too much. It
does feel like they've managed it pretty well. It has gone, I think, at least to this point, a little bit better than I expected, and that is encouraging. I guess as we bring two more conferences on stream, I don't know what kind of complication that's going to add to the process.
But would you.
Agree that this, you know, it seems like they've been able to manage like it's going okay, maybe better than you thought for the most part.
Yeah, you know, the ACC has probably had the biggest issues early on in terms of quarantining players and struggling without a lot of players. I think what was it twenty three players and coaches at Virginia Tech were unable to get involved with the game against NC State last week. So there are bummers like that It certainly seems to have hit the group of five schools a little bit harder.
And I don't know if that's a resource thing or a repetition thing with testing thing, I'm not positive, but you know, we've seen some schools be hit pretty hard, you know, Memphis, in Houston, Louisiana Tech. So I'm hopeful that with more data and more knowledge, things will continue to improve. It seems like it has across many major sports, which college football definitely is. Baseball had early blips, for sure,
that's probably a kind way of putting it. But the NHL, and you know, baseball's going into a bubble now right for the playoffs. Orry is in a bubble. The NFL had, you know, they have a cancelation postponement with the Titans having an issue. But I don't think the Vikings tested positive, so hopefully that gets cleaned up. Well. It seems that practices are improving across all major sports, and hopefully that's
consistent with college football. So I'm excited to see how the Pac twelve and the Big Ten with its rapid testing is able to navigate their short season for sure.
Final point here, while we're talking about news, Yeah, a few weeks ago, we asked Arvar baller Hood for input on maybe what it would want to see from us if we decided to do the Patreon thing.
Yeah, exciting.
We are going to do the Patreon thing, correct, and that announcement is coming. But we heard what folks said. We've thrown in some new offers. We're putting everyone on notice that there is a Patreon thing coming, So stay tuned for much more information and more hints before our big reveal. If you like watching the bruin A, perhaps you'll get some additional hints.
Oh I like that. Where can people watch the bruin A.
People can watch the brune right now at YouTube dot com. Slash the.
Solid verbal correct, and what should they do once they're on that website.
You gotta tickle that tickle that subscribe button. You gotta tickle caress that bell when you're there.
Yeah yeah, grab that bell. Okay, this is all very exciting. Are We're just we're adding to the stockpile of quality somewhat quality college football content. I can't wait.
We announced a big partnership earlier in the week, we changed the logo the next day, and now we're announcing this and there is more to come.
And you've sworn that you are no longer visiting dark sites around the world. Sure, it's all happening.
Shall we get to our game? I am ready? So in typical UFO episode fashion, Yeah, there was much deliberation over what this week's you word would be. And one thing that has been on our minds if it wasn't evident through the early part of this episode already, is the Big ten and PAC twelve eventually coming back on stream. Sort of a unification, if you will, of the college football universe as we know it. Hence the unified Friday Orbit.
Daniel was born was born. So today we are talking specifically about those two conferences in their plight to unify, in their plight to be reintegrated into the college football ecosystem. We are looking at where teams were a year ago and examining the path forward. What do they need to do in twenty twenty if they want to be a better version of themselves from a previous year? Does that sound about right? Am I tracking with the game today?
You're tracking with the game. It's sort of a Rose Bowl handshake at the Rose Garden when we have a treaty when we have something like that, Larry Scott the Big Ten, what's Kevin Warren, new commissioner, shaking hands, agreeing to come back, and Larry Scott whispering to.
Him, thank you. We needed this, so ronouncing first, thank you.
Oh my god, you guys, they will not stop just harassing me. So we are going to go through, as you can hear, a pre launch check because certainly the processes and pre season fall camp is going to be very different for these teams. We talked about California and their rules, and so we're looking at a number of the more interesting teams, not necessarily the best, but some of the best and some of the more interesting teams
in both the Pac twelve and Big Ten. And now that they've had an extra long period of time to look at twenty nineteen and evaluate what went right and what went wrong, let's just double and triple check these things and make sure we can improve them. If we're looking to impress I don't know, the College Football Playoff Committee playing fewer games but looking oh so dominant that you can't ignore Arizona State Minnesota one of a team like that. By the way, did you see Larry Scott
was like, hey, what about eight games? Yeah, what about eight teams? And the playoff was like, you.
Know, I think we're good.
And I'm bummed about that. And I'm going to tell you this as somebody who doesn't love the playoff, I'm bummed that the Playoff Committee didn't commit to the very quirky, strange bit that is twenty twenty. They could still, it would have been a great opportunity. They could still put in UCF for Cincinnati. They could, They most certainly could.
They want to commit to the bit. That's one way they could.
That is true.
That's a good point, but a one off, just like the SEC is claiming that one off ten game schedule. They could have committed to just a free for all eight team or bit and they didn't. That's a bummer.
So what we've done is split up the duties.
Here.
We've got ten teams that we're going to discuss. We're going to go through rapid fire, I guess to some extent. But you've got Pack twelve, I've got Big ten. We've each picked out five teams that we are interested in for a variety of reasons. We examine their flaws from a year ago. I'm going to talk about what they need to do to correct that in twenty twenty. You want to go first, sure.
Let's start with ASU. I mentioned the Sun Devils, and I wasn't joking. I was perhaps exaggerating and talking about Arizona State and the College Football Playoff, but in terms of what Arizona State needs to double and triple check the hirer new offensive coordinator. And to be clear, this is not our Pack twelve or Big ten preview, but we just want to give some shine and some love
to the conferences that are preparing their comeback. Arizona State needs to double and triple check that they can run the ball because that's not what they did last year with any sort of consistency or efficiency. Jaden Daniels needs to, I would say, raise his floor, because good Jaden Daniels quarterback for ASU, was great. You look at the Oregon game, the Wazoo game, but his down games were sub seller, sub basement. That's you know, the Arizona game. It can't
happen in a rivalry game. The Utah game, he was woeful. So he needs to go from really good and to really bad from that to really good and not great but fine that needs to be his basement because he is, you know, incredibly talented, makes a ton of throws and should improve this year. The defensive line needs to make more plays. They need to interrupt offenses a lot more off and just ASU in situations and high leverage situations,
third down, fourth down, red zone situations. It's Zach Hill, new offensive coordinator comes in from you, has that Boise DNA. There needs to be a list of fourteen go to no brainer. We should pick up seven yard plays in his playbook and so if that exists, Arizona State will definitely be better. And so those are the double triple checks to me with Asu.
Yeah, and to your point about the running game, you know Benjamin gone. You know, Benjamin got something north of I want to say, two hundred and fifty carries a year ago, but yeah, only around one thousand yards average is like four something per carry. We expected last year to get more out of him, and there are factors why we didn't. But to your point here, I think it's it's something that would definitely assist in Jaden Daniels as he continues to improve as now a sophomore s roster.
Run the ball be better on big situations.
Don't be terrible quarterback.
Yeah, those are your checks.
I mentioned Minnesota earlier, and we can keep with the theme. Actually, it is a recurring theme. As I look across the five teams in the Big Ten that I've pulled out Minnesota, I would say Michigan and Ohio State. I had to find something with Ohio State and all of that. That's that's difficult. Good for you. All of them share, thank you, a common affliction in explosiveness in the running game. For Minnesota, it's it's an interesting proposition because they lose their offensive
coordinator to Penn State. They bring in Mike Sanford junior. They also lose Rod Smith and Shannon Brooks, two high achievers at the running back position. But Moe Ibrahim is back. Oh yeah, we loved ourselves from Moe Ibraheim love mo Yeah. Led the team in rushing two years ago. The line is intact, which is a big deal. And now with the addition of Rashad Bateman, you know, most of the band is back together. Before there was an open question about who is Tanner Morgan going to target to present
a real threat in the passing game. I think we have the answer to that question as a time of recording, so eighty eighth nationally in terms of running game explosiveness marginal explosiveness, if you want to be exact a year ago. I think the improvement along the line is going to help. I think the fact that they've got an accomplished runner will also help in that effort. I am I'm mixed
on Mike Sanford Junior. I liked Kirk Shiraka better, but I do feel pretty bullish about their opportunities here to improve upon that eighty eight number. So I'm encouraged.
I feel good.
Yeah, And don't forget why Kirk Shiraka got because we love saying his name on on the show. Why he got the attention of bigger places and got a bigger job even though Minnesota did beat Penn State is because the players performed really well. Minnesota has really good players.
You mentioned the offensive line, skill position guys. The offense should not take a step back when you have that kind of performance from Tanner Morgan, when you have a true number one receiver so's it reflects really well on the players playing offense, the offensive players from Minnesota that Kirk Sharaka was able to have an upwardly mobile career. So it's great for everybody totally.
All right, where are we going in the Pac twelve, Dan, you're up.
Let's stay in the PAC twelve South with the probably one of the more fascinating teams in the country.
USC.
So the Trojans in terms of double and triple checking, what they really need to make sure they get cleaned up, stay healthier on defense. I don't know what that means. Go to bed earlier, drink more water, do some more stretching. They had some difficulty at linebackers staying healthy. They get their replacing dudes, They're getting dudes back from major injuries. They have a ton of talent there, but the linebackers need to make a little bit more. I'm not going
to say more plays, but stay on the field. However, you can do that, especially against the run. You know, find your lanes, tackle the dudes that are running through the lane. Because USC you can march down the field on the ground against SC at times now it's Todd Orlando taking over the defense. Can they get off the field on third downs? That's a huge deal because USC's offense should be pretty explosive. So if you can find ways to get off the field quickly. That's just enormous.
I mean, it's enormous for everybody. But USC looks like a team that can score a bunch of points. They need to get better in the red zone, and I would say they need to get a little bit better
at throwing some changeups on offense. Now, this was a a really really strong offense last year, but they have talent at running back, so just I don't know, mix in some draws keep people off balance a little bit more because they have the dudes that can do that, and it would take them from really strong to full on war machine and that could be extremely fun to watch and give the Pac twelve a much needed attention
boost starting November sixth, seventh. So that's that's the double and triple check to me, because they're returning just a fantastic secondary, I won't say fantastic, but a really good secondary. It's all back and the weapons on offense look to be very strong once again. So that's the double triple check, double triple check. I like it, Yeah, fix it?
Should I go to Michigan?
Let's do it. I'm excited.
Same theme here. One hundred and thirteenth running game marginal explosiveness a year ago, how many big that they have the running game? Not many. Eighty second in running game efficiency, So this is not a good running game. They have good players, which is kind of.
Thee They were finding dudes too last year. They were trying to figure it out.
This year, Hassan Haskins Zach Chabanet are both back. The problem is that four of five offensive linemen are gone. It actually would have been all five if not for Jalen Mayfield opting back in. They've also got a new quarterback situation. It's I think somewhat questionable how much teams are going to have to worry about the past. A lot of this offense is going to be starting over.
I'm excited for Big Joe, Big Joe Milton. Yeah, big arm tie. Big arm can really spin it is what I've.
Heard sling it can spin it.
Yeah, So it's kind of a blank slate here. To some extent, defense should still be really good. Really good defense will not be the issue here. The problems on offense, though, do extend beyond just this efficiency and explosiveness in the running game. They got to they got to kind of find their way in real time no doubt, it's going to be harder, given circumstances to just try to bolt this thing together. There is talent, it's Michigan, but there
are a lot of unknowns here. The problem that I have with like being skeptical, at least within the context of our game, it's hard to go lower than one hundred and thirteenth in running back explosiveness. Like, they're probably going to be better in that sense than they were a year ago. So if you're using that as kind
of the bar, they will clear it this season. I am confident that they will clear it just on talent alone in a weird year where talent probably rules supreme, but the offense as a whole remains a great unknown because of the turnover.
Yeah, no, you're right. I mean that line needs to gel quickly. They I don't leave shape. Patterson was all that accurate last year. And Joe Milton, they're just gonna They're gonna have to find completable passes to get him in a rhythm early on in the season in a very strange year. And by the way, counterpoint to the running and explosiveness thing the Notre Dame game.
Oh yeah, that's the counterpoint, is it the counterpoint to that?
Yeah, so it's proof of concept, though Ty, It's proof of concept that they have. They have the running backs, they have, you know, the ability to develop a line into a place that and and maybe that's not the answer against Penn State or Ohio State, but to have that arrow in the quiver it seems important.
You know how big Joe Milton is.
By the way, this show.
Just dedicated to large men playing quarterback. We've already mentioned Joey Gatewood the Killers. Now Joe Milton, Yeah, large man six five Yeah, not boy man man. Yeah, that's a big freaking dude.
Yeah. Excited to see him sling it.
Really spin it. Talk to me about the PAC twelve.
Okay, let's actually know what screw it. Let's stay in the South. I tend to focus more on the North because of Oregon, but let's talk about the Utah Utes.
Tell me about the Utes.
The Utes of Utah. So Jake Bentley enters in, and I think has some promise. The corrections to me are almost like, because Utah has been so successful and so sound everywhere on the field, for you know, just to ignore the last couple of games against Texas, and Oregon last year. But you know when NBA players in the off season they go hang out with a cheim Olajuan and learn low post moves.
Just the baby hook, Yeah, did well.
The dream shake, Yeah, the up and unders. Just Utah needs a little bit of that. They're replacing their secondary. But the proof of concept with how well that defense replaces Dude's pretty obvious. On offense, though, I would say maybe had a little tempo. They're so deliberate and they're
so so at times at times predictable. Though their offense has been very good, and so just in those bigger moments and you know, maybe it's rolling out instead of just stuffing everybody to the line of scrimmage, just finding a little bit more unpredictability, a little more tempo, just adding that to their game. The linebackers need to be, probably after a really nice run of linebackers, a little bit more disruptive. But this is just it's dreamshake territory tie.
It's hard to look at Utah and says this needs to be an enormous priority or else you're in trouble, because Utah has just done so well in so many places. So yeah, I would say executing downfield a little bit more, and I don't know if they have the dudes necessarily to do that consistently, but keep teams on their heels in a way that I don't think they always do.
How long before an enterprising beat writer trots out the term driving a Bentley as sort of a oh Man, and this Bentley's got wheels overused pun. With Jake Bentley now taking over the starting rains, I.
Don't know if he'll be put in a position to be full on electric than deserving of a nickname. But uh, it won't be long time.
It won't be long.
All right, let me go back over to the Big ten and let's talk about Wisconsin. I'll get away for a second from the running back thing, because that was not an issue for Wisconsin, at least not in the running game. Passing is passing game, though explosiveness was a problem. Jack Cone a year ago I thought had a good enough season. I don't know if he wowed people, but he was a lot better than I expected him the
rose Ball. The question this year is now, is it going to be Jack Cone or is it going to be Graham Mertz?
Now I have a hard talk about this I have a hard.
Time with this one because I think eventually it's got to be Graham Mertz. Graham Mertz is probably the most talented quarterback that they've ever recruited. He comes in, there's no doubt that he can really spin it dan and so he gives them more. I think he gives them more as a downfield passer than Jack Cone. There are no obvious go to threats in the passing game, which does make the aerial will assault a little bit harder
to suss out. But I don't know the answer to this question because I need to know more about if we're going to see playing time for Mertz. If it's Graham Mertz, I think there will be an inclination to try and stretch the field a little bit more. That's more his skill set. If it's Jack Cone, I am not optimistic that even if they improve in terms of explosiveness in the passing game, that it's going to be light years better. It's hard to go lower than ninety
fifth in terms of passing explosion. But if they get up to seventy eighth or even sixty fifth, even though that would mark improvement, Wisconsin should be better and they could be better. I think if they want the Graham Mertz. So I don't have an answer to this question. I think they could get better if they want Mertz.
They've been consistently good at identifying, not great good at identifying guys, developing guys, and helping to put them in a position to succeed because of how dominant their run games have been over these past few years. Last year it was Quintez CEPHISI of course comes back after missing a lot of time with his legal issues and performed really,
really well. The issue is, after sifhis last year, the next highest receiver, and this is total yardage, which take it with a grain of salt, but the next highest receiver in terms of total yardage was Kendrick Pryor with nearly seven hundred fewery yards. It was nine hundred and one to two seventy eight.
It's true.
So it's it's finding those dudes that can keep a two safety look in place for the run game, and that hasn't always been the case. But yes, I would imagine if we are nitpicking, those are the dudes that help you beat Ohio State, which is where Wisconsin's bar currently is.
I'll stick with Ohio State.
Let's talk buck eyes and you're gonna nitpick the hell out of something.
They had a high I guess they gave a bigger ish run plays mm hmm, which I should have looked this up, but I believe was still improved from the year prior. That was one of the big issues. They gave up a lot of big plays on defense. I'm not really worried about Higo State at all.
No.
I mean, well, it's two new coordinators technically, even though there are co coordinators and whatever. So it's two new coordinators, which has not always in this early season been the greatest thing. When you have, you know, you don't have a preseason. Certainly, Ohio State is on some level fortunate. They had a good chance of beating Oregon, but they don't have to start their season in Week two or
whatever against Oregon. So Ohio State's in a good enough place where they should be able to communicate and learn new ways of operating on both sides of the ball. But that's nitpicking because they've got dudes everywhere. That's they just they do and you can look at little things well, so okay, so maybe this isn't about the big ten maybe this is about beating Alabama, Maybe this is about
beating Clemson. Maybe this is about beating whoever they might have to face in a potential college football playoff, semi final or championship game.
And so.
You look at the numbers, you watch some of their closer games in quotes closer, there's not much to be terrified of in terms of they need to fix this immediately. So this is a smooth launch high as far as we'reking something.
Smooth launch.
Yeah, I mean, I guess if you're going to try and nitpick the defense, you know, they lose some dudes in the secondary.
Yeah, maybe they lose the best defensive player in the country in Chase Young. That's a gravit.
That's it.
Okay, so let's talk about that. That's a gravitational issue, right, sure. Sure, that is absolutely great, like the fact that teams were double teaming, the fact that you know, the Fox broadcast is circling him as like, here's your problem, here's your problem, offense, And they don't necessarily have an obvious person on that level to do that for them this year.
So maybe it's developing a program changing talent. I don't know.
They do have a dude name. They have a dude named Tough Borland. Yeah, which is it's almost like Hollywood came up with that name to play middle linebacker.
It's amazing.
It's an amazing name.
I can't okay, I can't really come up with much for Ohio State. I feel pretty confident in their ability to get through you know whatever nitpicky stat I found.
I guess we could have saved people time and said, oh, those.
State's really good.
Everybody. We need the se boots and we need that Seoh yeah, we do need the SEO boost. Okay, let's talk about the Washington Huskies before going to my organ Ducks. I'm fascinated by what Washington's gonna look like. New quarterback, new head coach. Either consistency on defense should be really really nice John Donovan, who I hope will be somewhat better than how Penn State fans remember his time there.
The offense needs to be way better on third down, as in, they may have been the worst offense on third down keeping drives going, which is crazy considering it's a Chris Peterson team, but they just they fell off a cliff in bigger moments on offense and that's why they had the season that they did. They were predictable on offense, they had drops, they were just they weren't. Maybe that's the best word I'm looking for. So yeah,
maybe they change up the tempo here and there. I mean John Donovan the word that everybody likes to throw around is he's multiple.
So we'll see.
He doesn't seem like a hurry up kind of guy from what I remember at Penn State. No, it seems like, yeah.
Doesn't seem like a hurry up kind of guy.
Go on.
Yeah, I'm trying to be.
Nice and put very different, but John Donovan is John Donovan is John Donovan.
Yeah, and they just on defense because the secondary should be I think pretty excellent. They need to get back to being more havocy. I would say upfront. That's batting down balls, that's forcing fumbles, it's getting after the quarterback a little bit better. I know they've had opt outs up front, so that hurts. But whatever they're able to do upfront to I don't know, just get a little more juice going Ty's that's my evaluation of this pre
launch check for Washington. More juice upfront, more consistency on offense, something that I would imagine would be welcome improvements to Husky fans everywhere.
Close it out with Oregon, Dan, We're going to close it out with Oregon and Penn State.
Yeah, Oregon fans tore whatever hair they have out watching the offense last year and just very predictable in short yardage situations. It was sort of pistol left. There were moments where they improved, it was it was just maddeningly and consistent. So they bring in Joe mooreheads so with a new offensive line and a new quarterback, but surrounded
by a lot of talent. It's creativity, not just to open games, and not just the first two or three drives, but starting third quarters, middle of the second, late.
In the fourth.
It's just an identity on offense in terms of we're throwing something creative at you and if it works, it works. If it doesn't, it doesn't. But let's give our team every opportunity to execute. The running backs need to be a little bit better. I think C. Jferdell has been very good, but sort of in a sea lane hit lane, don't fall kind of way, and then field goal kicking. The fact that I am taught talking about field goal
kicking weeks ahead of the season. Tells you how terrified I was watching orgon line up for field goals, and I imagine everybody on the Organ sideline as well. So I don't know, inject all of the Organ kickers feet with spinach, whatever it takes to get a little bit more more zazz out of this kicking team would be great. Can you inject that's the free launch.
Check with the spinach?
I believe, I mean as far as I can tell.
Yeah.
I mean, they're also replacing a bunch of dudes in their secondary, but they've recruited well enough there and I'm not terribly worried about this defense. So those, to me, those are the second and third necessary checks.
Interesting, let's close it out with Penn State. Penn State gave up a lot of sacks last year. They are very bad on third and short. Both of those things point to an underperforming offensive line. I would also point to Sean Clifford, who I think got worse throughout the course of the year. Frankly, take these stats and throw them out the window. I don't care. I don't care about this. What I care about is the Shan Clifford get any better. Does he look more confident when he's
out there? He had We like to talk about moments. He had some really big moments where I think it was apparent that this kid can perform on a big stage. He can get the job done. Even if the numbers don't indicate that he's having a having a day. He does know how to win some moments. He also knows how to look like he's on a different planet once. Sometimes he's in a clutch situation, and I think we
saw that at times last year. I am optimistic now with I think a better offensive coordinator him getting better. I'm not going to say the name of the offensive coordinator because we already said it like five times a show.
Do you think he might be interested in sponsoring them solid verbal because presented by the Shark Family.
Yeah?
That God, we've done so well by him.
It comes down to Shan Clifford for me. As Dan, you said, we are going to do a Big ten preview at some point here relatively soon, probably on one of these Friday shows.
Maybe just we'll talk the rest of the Big Ten and rest of the Pac twelve on another show.
Yeah, we haven't.
We have not figured out what the format is going to be yet, because yeah, obviously twenty twenty is so weird. But at some point we're going to dive in and talk more Penn State and rest assured, Sean Clifford is going to be a recurring theme. And I got a lot of great things to say about the running game. I'm excited at calling in.
The plays though for Penn State's offense.
Who's calling that game?
Let me save that for the pre I save all that for the calls.
Yeah, dot dot dot to be continued.
All right, that doesn't unified Friday Orbit.
Dan, that's true, Thank you so much.
I think we did Einstein proud here.
So you had a what's the theory? It's the unified field theory.
Unified field theory, Yeah, what is that?
Explain it to the people.
I believe it was Einstein's sort of creation or idea for how he could marry up the theory of relativity with electro magnetism.
Did he do it? Did it work? Not spoiler?
Not fully? But the exploration of unified field theory has led to breakthroughs in quantum physics.
Is this something you pay attention to?
Like?
Do you?
I'm not saying do you have a Google alert for unified field theory.
I have a Google alert for the warp drive, but not unified field.
Okay, but if you were to come across on Twitter with whatever space and science follows you have in your feed, if there were like, oh, interesting breakthrough with unified field theory. Are you clicking the link? Are you letting it pass you by?
No, I'm clicking the link. The problem that I have is that I'm not smart enough to fully understand what's going smart enough to click the link. I'm smart enough to click the link, to read the article and to furrow my brow and say, oh, that's interesting. But I don't really know what any of this stuff means. It's just it's like how I used to feel about soccer before I got a little more into it.
You know, it's sort of you're you're basically a news anchor who out of nowhere puts on glasses to seem smarter, but in fact it's the same person.
I think that's all right. I think that's right pastcase. Okay, I'm very interested in it. I have no idea what most of it means.
Okay, that's okay. Life's all about trying to grapple with things you don't know and tournament of things you do.
Dan tell the fine folks where they can find more of the solid verbal.
Oh my gosh, lemon party, is that the address? I always forget solid verbal dot com. I want to be catch you off guard. Solid verbal dot com for all of the pertinent information Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube at YouTube dot com, slash the solid verbal and once again stay tuned for are some pretty exciting offers we have in mind, and we have down on paper and down on the website. Uh for a Patreon.
Subsequent fired off for the Patreon.
We are Yeah, we have been toying with this for a long time, and I think our internal pushback was I don't know what we have to offer, and then we just made a list of cool stuff and now we have cool things to offer, So we're we're genuinely pretty pumped.
Don't forget to go on out to our website soliverbal dot com. You can find all the links. They're all of our old stuff there. Give us a call this weekend. Four oh eight verbal one four oh eight eight three seven two two five one if you want to be part of the reverbs And what did I forget social media. Reddit subreddit, oh, subredd, it's fantastic. Also check us out on YouTube because right after we get done recording.
This, the BRUNEI Dan, Yeah, well you said you already cracked something over Dids' one deep. All right, I gotta go grab one. But yeah, definitely check out the bruin A well, I.
Think Easter eggs a little Easter eggs.
Not so obvious.
Yeah, for that guy over there, my good friend, the one and only Champion of the Midwest, Dan Rubinstein, for myself to Hilton Grant here in eastern Pennsylvania. We will catch you all on Sunday. Enjoy the games, enjoy your weekend, and in the meantime, stay safe and stay solid.
Nice