# Post-Spring Questions with Bill Connelly: Wildcard Conferences, G6 Sleepers & the SEC Logjam

An episode of [The Solid Verbal College Football Show](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/270037732), 30 Apr 2026, 1 h 12 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/21437ee1-47d9-4b16-8696-b30d011a2c26/395a1f38-8e98-4705-8a5c-b43b012cd822/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=51c7e0eb-425c-4d93-b5a8-b30d011a2c46

Bill Connelly from ESPN.com stops by to walk us through the post-spring college football landscape, fresh off turning in 7,000 words on the MAC and kicking off his annual conference preview series. We get into how the portal era has transformed his prep work, why the SEC has become a "horizontal" conference of strong middles, and which conferences are hardest to make sense of right now. Bill evaluates the Big 12 after the Brendan Sorsby news, talks up a few mid-major teams to watch, and explains why he still doesn't fully trust Texas the way the rest of the country does. We also dig into the Bob Chesney's roster build at UCLA, Oklahoma State's full offensive transfusion, Lane Kiffin's quarterback insurance policy, and what to make of the pairing of Bryce Underwood and Kyle Whittingham in Ann Arbor. Bill also shares his Alabama skepticism, his read on Indiana's encore, and why he's increasingly intrigued by Texas A&M. And, to close things out, a little World Cup talk in advance of this summer's tournament. Timestamps: 0:00 - Intro 4:05 - Bill Connelly joins the show Support the show!: https://www.patreon.com/solidverbal See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:02] Speaker 1: Welcome to the solid verbal Hell for me, I'm a man,
[0:07] Speaker 1: I'm forty.
[0:08] Speaker 2: I've heard so many players say, well, I want to
[0:10] Speaker 2: be happy. You want to be happy for Dake Edith State.
[0:13] Speaker 1: Is that whoo whoom?
[0:14] Speaker 3: And Dan and.
[0:16] Speaker 1: Tie Dan Rubinstein, welcome back to the podcast, my friend,
[0:20] Speaker 1: how are you good?
[0:22] Speaker 2: I can't believe you agreed to do a live watch
[0:24] Speaker 2: along for the Madrid Open and Raphael Hodar absolute local
[0:31] Speaker 2: Spanish sensation taking on Yonick Center established killer. But I
[0:37] Speaker 2: think it's a step in the right direction for both
[0:39] Speaker 2: of you and for the show in general.
[0:41] Speaker 1: When you say it's Hodar or Hodor, because Hodor was
[0:44] Speaker 1: a character and Game of Thrones.
[0:45] Speaker 2: I think it's Hodar. I think it's j O d R.
[0:49] Speaker 1: That's not spelled at all the same as a character
[0:51] Speaker 1: I'm thinking of from Game of Thrones.
[0:53] Speaker 2: Now, this dude played a year at Virginia. We're talking
[0:56] Speaker 2: about acc pedigree on the ATP Tour and looking like
[1:00] Speaker 2: a top twenty player as a nineteen year old.
[1:02] Speaker 1: Is he better than Bo Prabula, though, I guess is
[1:04] Speaker 1: the operative question.
[1:06] Speaker 2: I mean, is Bo Pribula even the best quarterback on
[1:09] Speaker 2: that roster?
[1:09] Speaker 1: Don't know? I don't know.
[1:11] Speaker 2: Are we being seen for whole steam.
[1:14] Speaker 1: That's not that good.
[1:16] Speaker 2: But I think if you were to call Raphael Hodar
[1:21] Speaker 2: the bo prabula of recent Virginia athletics, that would be
[1:25] Speaker 2: an insult to the tennis player.
[1:27] Speaker 1: Okay, okay, well we're talking tennis, and I guess full disclosure. Yeah,
[1:32] Speaker 1: we should inform the audience about how today's interview came
[1:36] Speaker 1: about because there is some like tennis chatter involved with that.
[1:39] Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I was texting with our friend Bill Connolly,
[1:42] Speaker 2: ESPN dot COM's Bill Connolly about tennis, and he mentioned
[1:45] Speaker 2: he was like, by the way, it's never too early.
[1:48] Speaker 2: I have a Mac preview coming out soon, and preview
[1:52] Speaker 2: season has started, so if you guys ever want to talk,
[1:55] Speaker 2: let me know. And we didn't know what we were
[1:56] Speaker 2: going to do for today's show, and I said, how's
[1:58] Speaker 2: tomorrow nine Central and he said great.
[2:01] Speaker 1: Yeah, for anyone interested in how the sausage gets made,
[2:04] Speaker 1: that this is how this show got made. Bill Connolly,
[2:07] Speaker 1: our wonderful friend, a college football luminary, and that is
[2:12] Speaker 1: putting it mildly. Our good friend from ESPN dot com
[2:15] Speaker 1: before that esp Nation a hell of a guy, Bill
[2:17] Speaker 1: Connolly going to be stopping by here momentarily a wide
[2:21] Speaker 1: ranging discussion about all things mid major and G six
[2:25] Speaker 1: slash G five to power conferences, to transfer portals. We'll
[2:29] Speaker 1: talk a little bit about we have to talk about
[2:31] Speaker 1: the Brandon Soresby news and how that impacts how he
[2:34] Speaker 1: is looking at the Big twelve. We're going to talk
[2:37] Speaker 1: about as much as we can muscle up here with
[2:39] Speaker 1: Bill Connolly in just a few moments.
[2:41] Speaker 2: Yeah, can't wait. He just yeah, he just released his
[2:43] Speaker 2: post Spring questions about both teams you know in the
[2:48] Speaker 2: new look Mountain West and you know major conferences like
[2:51] Speaker 2: the SEC and Big ten. I saw he wrote about
[2:53] Speaker 2: I think both Notre Dame and Oregon as you know
[2:56] Speaker 2: some of his items in the eleven post Spring Questions.
[2:59] Speaker 2: So by all means check that out, because I think
[3:01] Speaker 2: this episode is you know, I'm planning on looking at
[3:04] Speaker 2: it through the lens of like post Spring questions. He
[3:07] Speaker 2: just wrote post Spring Questions, And so this is where
[3:09] Speaker 2: we are sitting now. I have a lot to ask Ty.
[3:14] Speaker 1: Well, we shouldn't waste any time then, No, we appreciate
[3:18] Speaker 1: the audience stopping on by here supporting what we do. Obviously,
[3:21] Speaker 1: the audience's time is valuable as well. If you like
[3:24] Speaker 1: what you hear, hit follow hit subscribes that you don't
[3:27] Speaker 1: miss any of the episodes. Right now, we're still in
[3:30] Speaker 1: the twice a week mindset. As we get a little
[3:32] Speaker 1: bit closer to the year and we start doing previews,
[3:35] Speaker 1: that's when we'll flip the switch and go to three
[3:37] Speaker 1: a week. But not there, not there quite yet. We'll
[3:40] Speaker 1: let you know when we do arrive. Also, overballers dot
[3:43] Speaker 1: com is where you can go if you want to
[3:45] Speaker 1: further support what Dan and I do. That's the Patreon.
[3:49] Speaker 1: If you sign up there, you get access to ad
[3:51] Speaker 1: free episodes, a whole bunch of bonus perks, like early
[3:54] Speaker 1: releases you can get on our discord. You can submit
[3:58] Speaker 1: questions and such for various episodes for ballers dot Com.
[4:03] Speaker 1: Check that out. Yes, Dan Rubinstein, it is that time
[4:07] Speaker 1: in the off season where we start looking back a
[4:10] Speaker 1: little bit at spring. I guess it's not fully over yet,
[4:14] Speaker 1: but enough is in the books that we can sort
[4:16] Speaker 1: of reflect on what we've seen. We start thinking about
[4:20] Speaker 1: the dreaded P word preview, more specific previews, start talking
[4:26] Speaker 1: about the season ahead. As I understand that our guest
[4:30] Speaker 1: of honor today. Just turned in seven thousand words to
[4:33] Speaker 1: the editor on the MAC. Is that right, Bill Connolly
[4:36] Speaker 1: from ESPN dot com.
[4:37] Speaker 4: That's correct, And honestly I felt kind of underwhelmed, like, oh, man,
[4:40] Speaker 4: I thought I was going for at least eighty year. Man,
[4:42] Speaker 4: I've sure I haven't served the MAC community well enough
[4:45] Speaker 4: with this thing.
[4:46] Speaker 3: But there's a lot of information in there.
[4:48] Speaker 1: What is the longest preview you've ever written?
[4:50] Speaker 4: Well, the freaking Big Ten previews now, uh yeah, right,
[4:54] Speaker 4: are like it's eighteen teams, and I try to write
[4:58] Speaker 4: at least like three fear for about every team, and
[5:02] Speaker 4: so this then suddenly you have like a fourteen thousand
[5:04] Speaker 4: word dock on your hands. So I I every year
[5:08] Speaker 4: that goes by, there's more reason to dislike what huge
[5:10] Speaker 4: conferences have done to.
[5:13] Speaker 3: College football. But really I was a when it's done
[5:16] Speaker 3: to me and the.
[5:17] Speaker 1: Same it's it's a lot because I know, just having
[5:21] Speaker 1: followed your work over many years now, your previews have evolved,
[5:27] Speaker 1: right because initially, at least when I first came to
[5:31] Speaker 1: know of you and your work, it was very team focused.
[5:35] Speaker 1: But now it's sort of like bigger picture, more conference focused.
[5:40] Speaker 1: It's all very rich content that I would advise everybody
[5:43] Speaker 1: go out there and read if you're into college football.
[5:45] Speaker 1: But how did that evolution take place? And was that
[5:49] Speaker 1: at all driven by expansion or a conference realignment, what
[5:53] Speaker 1: have you?
[5:53] Speaker 4: Well, yeah, I mean an despination when you could do
[5:56] Speaker 4: whatever the hell you wanted to do and take up
[5:57] Speaker 4: as much real estate as you wanted. Obviously, writing three
[6:01] Speaker 4: thousand words about Louisiana Monroe on a Tuesday in February
[6:06] Speaker 4: was something that could be done, and I love doing it.
[6:09] Speaker 4: And so yeah, they used to be team by team
[6:11] Speaker 4: at Espionation, and it was one of those things where
[6:14] Speaker 4: it's a labor of love. I like being the person
[6:16] Speaker 4: who does it, and if there's ever a shift that
[6:20] Speaker 4: causes me to not do it anymore, that's probably okay too.
[6:23] Speaker 4: And that's how things played out. So I go to
[6:25] Speaker 4: ESPN and obviously there's a lot more you don't The
[6:29] Speaker 4: real estate is different on the website, and so now
[6:32] Speaker 4: it became conference previews instead of team previews, and you
[6:36] Speaker 4: know I was doing I was breaking everything out into
[6:39] Speaker 4: two previews per conference when we had divisions, and then
[6:42] Speaker 4: we didn't have divisions anymore, and it became really awkward
[6:44] Speaker 4: little combinations of teams that just didn't make sense. And
[6:47] Speaker 4: then I had to wait until May to start them
[6:49] Speaker 4: because the May portal, you know, there was absolutely no point.
[6:54] Speaker 4: I So remember like three years ago writing an AAC
[6:56] Speaker 4: preview and I had like my ten favorite players you
[6:59] Speaker 4: went up in a April, and in May seven of
[7:01] Speaker 4: them left. So then I started started the whole preview
[7:06] Speaker 4: series in late May. Now we don't have the portal.
[7:09] Speaker 4: We don't exactly know how things are going to work
[7:11] Speaker 4: here at the end of the semester, because I assume
[7:13] Speaker 4: still guys are still going to leave. But apparently you know,
[7:15] Speaker 4: there's gonna be pretty onerous punishment for some of this stuff.
[7:18] Speaker 4: So now we figured, okay, let's put the difference. We'll
[7:20] Speaker 4: start it in April. This will get me mostly done
[7:22] Speaker 4: before the World Cup starts. That's kind of the thing
[7:24] Speaker 4: this year. Yeah, but we're gonna try We're gonna try
[7:28] Speaker 4: this out, and it's still your conference by conference, one
[7:31] Speaker 4: giant preview per conference.
[7:33] Speaker 1: I've been trying to get out ahead of it for
[7:35] Speaker 1: the same reason. A the World Cup, I'm gonna be
[7:39] Speaker 1: going to a game. I'm excited about watching that, and
[7:41] Speaker 1: I don't necessarily want to be as distracted as I
[7:44] Speaker 1: am normally come June because a lot of times we're
[7:47] Speaker 1: cramming and we're working off of the previews that you
[7:50] Speaker 1: and many others put together this year. I'm trying to
[7:53] Speaker 1: get out in front of it. I would be interested
[7:55] Speaker 1: in knowing what you feel is the hardest part of
[7:58] Speaker 1: putting this stuff together, outside of trying to get rosters
[8:02] Speaker 1: that are accurate, because it seems like that's the bedrock
[8:06] Speaker 1: for all of this, and if you can't get it,
[8:08] Speaker 1: or if teams are late putting him out there, it's
[8:11] Speaker 1: almost like a non starter.
[8:14] Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's all.
[8:15] Speaker 1: You know.
[8:15] Speaker 4: Certainly waiting until this point in the offseason has helped
[8:18] Speaker 4: in that regard to I don't think we're we have
[8:19] Speaker 4: all one hundred and thirty eight rosters, but we're close
[8:21] Speaker 4: at this point. But that has been, I mean the
[8:25] Speaker 4: biggest the prep has been the biggest change because I
[8:28] Speaker 4: you know, I started doing a little my little roster
[8:30] Speaker 4: files and everything back in probably about twenty fourteen or so,
[8:33] Speaker 4: and maybe before that, but I had, you know, spreadsheet
[8:37] Speaker 4: I'd go in every off season, I basically take last
[8:41] Speaker 4: year's you know, at update last year's class information and
[8:45] Speaker 4: go through and have the roster pulled up, and I
[8:47] Speaker 4: could tell pretty quickly who's who's back, and there weren't
[8:49] Speaker 4: many guys. There weren't many surprises because guys weren't transferred.
[8:53] Speaker 4: It was a big deal if you lost you know,
[8:55] Speaker 4: eight or something. And so that process updating the team
[8:59] Speaker 4: spreadsheet center in the recruiting class that probably took twenty
[9:01] Speaker 4: five minutes per team a decade ago.
[9:04] Speaker 3: Now it took.
[9:05] Speaker 4: An hour and twenty minutes per team this year. And
[9:08] Speaker 4: there are more teams, you know what, I think first
[9:10] Speaker 4: year I did the previous years, there was like one
[9:11] Speaker 4: hundred nineteen or twenty teams. Now there's one hundred and
[9:13] Speaker 4: thirty eight, which no complaints whatsoever. That's I'm a more
[9:18] Speaker 4: the merrier guy. But it just it took so long
[9:21] Speaker 4: to update rosters that I didn't even have you know, previously,
[9:25] Speaker 4: i'd have like guess Peo plus projections up in early
[9:27] Speaker 4: February and then you know, we'd update them in May.
[9:30] Speaker 4: After the portal, I just did one thing. I'll do
[9:35] Speaker 4: it again in August, but it took so long. I
[9:38] Speaker 4: didn't finish the rosters till into March and so the
[9:41] Speaker 4: original s P bus didn't go up till late March.
[9:44] Speaker 2: So every year spring gets a little bit more vague
[9:48] Speaker 2: in terms of what we can actually learn because of
[9:50] Speaker 2: new players, new coaches, and obviously guys being held out
[9:53] Speaker 2: of spring games if there even is a spring game
[9:56] Speaker 2: post spring ish as we record this, which conference, as
[10:01] Speaker 2: you look at the landscape, is the most up in
[10:06] Speaker 2: the air, not in terms of like who wins or
[10:07] Speaker 2: necessarily who's good and who's not good, but just like
[10:11] Speaker 2: the most difficult to make sense of for whatever reason
[10:15] Speaker 2: interests you the most. And also we have what a
[10:18] Speaker 2: new old conference in the PAC twelve. We've got new
[10:21] Speaker 2: Mountain West teams, new sun Belt, Like, there's a lot
[10:24] Speaker 2: new as well.
[10:25] Speaker 1: So where who's scratching you? Where you itch? Yeah?
[10:28] Speaker 4: I mean, if we're talking about purely hard to grasp,
[10:31] Speaker 4: you know, the PAC twelve, who's in the PAC twelve
[10:33] Speaker 4: and who's in the Mountain West is gonna screw me
[10:34] Speaker 4: up one hundred and forty eight times yeap, just before
[10:37] Speaker 4: the season starts.
[10:38] Speaker 3: Even so that's you know, there's that I don't know.
[10:41] Speaker 3: I mean, I think.
[10:43] Speaker 4: As a whole, the SECS might still be pretty hard
[10:47] Speaker 4: to figure out, I mean Big twelve in ACC, there's
[10:50] Speaker 4: a bunch of guys, a bunch of teams that could
[10:51] Speaker 4: make runs to the title game. But we have clear
[10:54] Speaker 4: heavyweights in both conferences. Now, even with this week's could
[10:58] Speaker 4: Brendan Soresby news, Texas tex still has the best roster
[11:03] Speaker 4: in the conference, and unless BYU does, but I'm pretty
[11:06] Speaker 4: sure it's still Texas Tech.
[11:07] Speaker 3: And so there it is.
[11:09] Speaker 4: Like they're the they're the kind of the North Stars
[11:12] Speaker 4: of speaking Miami obviously, and the ACC has more pieces
[11:15] Speaker 4: coming back than anybody else. So that makes those conferences
[11:18] Speaker 4: it's at least a little less interesting, even if they're
[11:20] Speaker 4: like nine other teams that can make title game runs.
[11:23] Speaker 4: SEC that was in a really weird place. It is,
[11:28] Speaker 4: you know, the the the Twitter experience of acknowledging anything
[11:34] Speaker 4: good about the SEC is not very fun right now
[11:36] Speaker 4: because Big Ten fans are chesty. It's pure like Vandy
[11:40] Speaker 4: fans chanting SEC. SEC now for like two thirds of
[11:44] Speaker 4: the of the Big Ten. But you know, it's it's
[11:48] Speaker 4: it's a weird place. But you know, in terms of
[11:50] Speaker 4: average s P plus writing, SEC was still comfortably the
[11:53] Speaker 4: best conference.
[11:53] Speaker 3: Last year they.
[11:54] Speaker 4: Had their worst team was better than seven Big Ten
[11:56] Speaker 4: teams in s P plus even if the Big Ten
[11:59] Speaker 4: also I had the top three. But it isn't a
[12:03] Speaker 4: weird place. I mean, in terms of SP plus they
[12:05] Speaker 4: have the numbers four, six, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, fifteen, sixteen,
[12:10] Speaker 4: nineteen and twenty teams in the country. But the Big
[12:13] Speaker 4: Ten has the top three. And it's just like a
[12:17] Speaker 4: vertical conference and a horizontal conference. And to me, you know,
[12:20] Speaker 4: half the games of the SEC were in SEC play
[12:23] Speaker 4: where decided by one score. Last year it was Dynamite
[12:26] Speaker 4: follow It's just they might not have the best team
[12:30] Speaker 4: in the country. Again, they might not have a team
[12:31] Speaker 4: capable of winning three or four playoff games.
[12:34] Speaker 2: It's also an interesting year for however, we want to
[12:37] Speaker 2: qualify G six or mid major just because of the
[12:40] Speaker 2: coaches gone, the coaches entering post spring.
[12:45] Speaker 1: Who is that.
[12:45] Speaker 2: School, be it in the Sun Belt, beat in the
[12:48] Speaker 2: American be it in whatever. The Mountain West and back
[12:50] Speaker 2: twelve are comprised of team wise, who is that new
[12:54] Speaker 2: coach or new situation where you're like, I can't wait
[13:00] Speaker 2: you highlighted like North Dakota State and USF and your
[13:03] Speaker 2: you know eleven questions. I assume that's up there for you.
[13:06] Speaker 2: Who is that team where you're just like, man, there's
[13:08] Speaker 2: a lot new about this situation and it's going to
[13:11] Speaker 2: be supreme.
[13:13] Speaker 3: I don't know, well, I think yeah.
[13:16] Speaker 4: I mean, North Dakota State is fascinating to me for
[13:18] Speaker 4: very obvious reasons, even though they did I wish they
[13:21] Speaker 4: would have come up last year. I think their team
[13:23] Speaker 4: that last year was gonna was better than this one
[13:24] Speaker 4: will be, but still super interesting there for all the
[13:28] Speaker 4: obvious reasons. I guess I'm I guess I'm really curious
[13:33] Speaker 4: about this isn't a new coach, but u NLV is really.
[13:36] Speaker 3: Interesting to me.
[13:37] Speaker 4: You know, they do have more you know, former Blue
[13:41] Speaker 4: Chippers than a lot of Power Conference rosters do. I
[13:43] Speaker 4: think if anybody is going to coax potential out of
[13:46] Speaker 4: Jackson Arnold, it's going to be Dan Mullen. So they're
[13:50] Speaker 4: a team that I think has a particular amount of upside.
[13:53] Speaker 4: And honestly, we're very biased by recency, biased by the
[13:58] Speaker 4: last thing we see, and billion Apier James Madison is
[14:02] Speaker 4: kind of underwhelming. I think it's very easy to be
[14:05] Speaker 4: underwhelmed by that, especially when they were one of the
[14:07] Speaker 4: schools that always hired the next guy, the up and
[14:09] Speaker 4: coming SCS guy, you know, Signetti. I think Chesney's going
[14:13] Speaker 4: to do well at UCLA, So kind of falling back
[14:16] Speaker 4: on a fallen SEC coach instead doesn't quite feel right.
[14:19] Speaker 4: But also, billion Apier built a Louisiana team that was
[14:24] Speaker 4: way more talented than the rest of the Sun Belt
[14:26] Speaker 4: and way bigger in the trenches than the rest of
[14:29] Speaker 4: the Sun Belt, and I think he can do that
[14:31] Speaker 4: at James Madison too. And if they have the line play,
[14:35] Speaker 4: then they're going to be well positioned for quite a
[14:37] Speaker 4: while to make runs towards playoff berths. So those are
[14:42] Speaker 4: super interesting. Those are kind of boring picks. Those teams
[14:44] Speaker 4: have been good, so of course they might be good.
[14:49] Speaker 3: I guess if we're looking for a little a bit
[14:50] Speaker 3: more of a wild card.
[14:52] Speaker 4: You know, I love my guy Eck At New Mexico.
[14:57] Speaker 4: They have a lot back this season, you know, from
[15:00] Speaker 4: last year's fun team, so let's see what they can do.
[15:03] Speaker 4: They had a bunch of freshmen and sophomores on the
[15:06] Speaker 4: offensive line. They still had a pretty good offensive line,
[15:08] Speaker 4: so you know, for of those guys are back, the
[15:11] Speaker 4: defense is going to be pretty experienced. At least by
[15:13] Speaker 4: G five G six standards. So they are a team.
[15:17] Speaker 4: I'm really curious what they're capable of as well. So
[15:20] Speaker 4: you know, I guess that means I'm interested in the
[15:22] Speaker 4: Mountain West.
[15:22] Speaker 3: Is what we're hearing.
[15:24] Speaker 2: So, yeah, it is what we're hearing when you look
[15:27] Speaker 2: at the coaching changes, because you did bring up Bob
[15:30] Speaker 2: Jesney briefly, it was a very clear exodus year of
[15:35] Speaker 2: those very successful coaches from the American from the Sun
[15:40] Speaker 2: Belt whatever to bigger places. Bob Chesney, James Madison, UCLA,
[15:46] Speaker 2: Auburn hiring USF coach Alex Goulish, Ryan Silverfield from Memphis
[15:51] Speaker 2: to Arkansas and so forth. I'm sure I'm forgetting some
[15:55] Speaker 2: names as well. What are when you saw school A
[15:59] Speaker 2: hired co a, what was your what was your big
[16:04] Speaker 2: reaction to, Like, I love this for them, I love
[16:08] Speaker 2: this for him?
[16:10] Speaker 3: Well, I thought Chesney.
[16:11] Speaker 4: I was a little concerned with Chesney basically being one
[16:14] Speaker 4: of those he's a Northeast guy. Suddenly he's in southern California.
[16:17] Speaker 4: Is there like it does another recruiting terrain?
[16:19] Speaker 1: Is that an.
[16:19] Speaker 4: Actual problem in twenty twenty six, or you know, is
[16:22] Speaker 4: he just gonna bring half his roster and that's all
[16:24] Speaker 4: that matters.
[16:26] Speaker 3: So I was curious about that move.
[16:29] Speaker 4: But then when I saw what they actually they actually
[16:31] Speaker 4: spent money UH in the portal.
[16:33] Speaker 2: It's been really fun to watch. From my bar, I
[16:37] Speaker 2: didn't see that coming.
[16:38] Speaker 3: All I've ever heard is that UCLA is kind of broke.
[16:40] Speaker 4: But they went out and not only brought in the
[16:45] Speaker 4: customary huge load of jam you guys, which made a
[16:48] Speaker 4: lot of sense because Jamie was way better than then
[16:50] Speaker 4: last year, but then he got creative. He brought in
[16:54] Speaker 4: some power conference guys, but he got like I'm trying
[16:58] Speaker 4: to think, like heat some.
[17:00] Speaker 3: Defense.
[17:01] Speaker 4: Especially he brought in some really fun defensive backs Johnson
[17:07] Speaker 4: from Utah. It was a fun one and just you
[17:10] Speaker 4: look at the roster that you look at the additions,
[17:12] Speaker 4: he got all the right JMU guys, and he just
[17:15] Speaker 4: added some really fun other pieces, some young former Blue
[17:18] Speaker 4: Chippers who might stay for a couple of years. And
[17:21] Speaker 4: so I I, that was way more impressive than I
[17:24] Speaker 4: expected from uh from Chesney right out of the gate.
[17:28] Speaker 4: I think, I mean in terms of who who I love,
[17:32] Speaker 4: you know, I love this for the list has.
[17:34] Speaker 3: To start with Oklahoma State.
[17:36] Speaker 4: Yeah, like that's I that was my Every year there's
[17:40] Speaker 4: a team that I got to figure that I kind
[17:43] Speaker 4: of had to step back and like, how am I
[17:44] Speaker 4: going to project this team or how am I going
[17:46] Speaker 4: to alter a projection system that can so so that
[17:49] Speaker 4: I can handle a team that just basically brought in
[17:54] Speaker 4: the number one offense in the country to a team
[17:56] Speaker 4: that was absolutely destitute in every possible way last year.
[18:00] Speaker 4: I don't know if you OSU is going to have
[18:01] Speaker 4: nearly the defense to be a good team, but clearly
[18:06] Speaker 4: their lot in life changed dramatically from last season, so
[18:09] Speaker 4: I'm looking at how transfers impact things previously. I do
[18:13] Speaker 4: think I'm pretty happy with where the projections are. OSU's
[18:16] Speaker 4: like borderline top forty if I remember right, that feels
[18:19] Speaker 4: right to me. If they have a you know, a
[18:21] Speaker 4: top ten offense and a top eighty defense, then that
[18:24] Speaker 4: puts them in that neighborhood. But they were the team
[18:27] Speaker 4: that just love you know, I hate it for North Texas,
[18:30] Speaker 4: but you know, I love the pieces they added, and
[18:35] Speaker 4: I think they'll be we'll call them dark horses right now.
[18:38] Speaker 4: They're one of seventeen dark horses in the Big twelve.
[18:41] Speaker 1: It'll be annoying and competitive. Yeah, yes, at the very least. Yeah,
[18:45] Speaker 1: I was just checking earlier. I think you've got them
[18:46] Speaker 1: like thirty eighth or something in your preseason sp plus
[18:50] Speaker 1: bringing over like fifty four players via the transfer portal.
[18:55] Speaker 1: And I'm glad you mentioned it with Oklahoma State. You
[18:57] Speaker 1: also talked about it a little bit with UCLA. I
[19:01] Speaker 1: could go further. We could talk about Matt Campbell at
[19:04] Speaker 1: Penn State. It's very much a trend now. It's not
[19:07] Speaker 1: just getting the coach, it's getting the coaches old players,
[19:10] Speaker 1: and so I'm curious from your standpoint how you factor
[19:12] Speaker 1: that in. I know we've talked about this before, but
[19:15] Speaker 1: my hunch is that since the rules keep changing, it's
[19:19] Speaker 1: an it's an evolution of sorts on your end when
[19:21] Speaker 1: you're trying to figure out, all right, how exactly do
[19:23] Speaker 1: I project out an Oklahoma State team that has basically
[19:27] Speaker 1: gotten a full offensive transfusion, Like, what does that math
[19:31] Speaker 1: look like? On your end to figure out, Okay, this,
[19:34] Speaker 1: this will work, this won't work?
[19:36] Speaker 3: Right?
[19:36] Speaker 4: Yeah, I think that's gonna be after this year, especially,
[19:38] Speaker 4: we'll definitely have enough data to start playing with the
[19:40] Speaker 4: idea of Okay. He brought in next number of transfers,
[19:43] Speaker 4: but also its first year coach who brought in next
[19:45] Speaker 4: number of transfers of his guys.
[19:48] Speaker 3: What does that mean?
[19:49] Speaker 4: I did, I have brought in coaching effects, so to speak,
[19:55] Speaker 4: over the last couple of years into the into the
[19:56] Speaker 4: preseason projections from the standpoint of if you you underachieved
[20:01] Speaker 4: dramatically last year and changed coaches, you're probably going to
[20:05] Speaker 4: quickly gravitate towards the mean again like Oklahoma State. And
[20:10] Speaker 4: on the flip side, if you over if you had
[20:13] Speaker 4: your best team in the history of your program, like
[20:15] Speaker 4: North Texas and then lost your head coach, that probably
[20:17] Speaker 4: means horrible things for you and you're probably going to
[20:20] Speaker 4: go a long way down. That doesn't specifically talk about
[20:25] Speaker 4: this guy brought this many transfers, but it kind of
[20:27] Speaker 4: it brings the concept into play. And obviously it does
[20:31] Speaker 4: have do nice thing to mid make sure projections at
[20:33] Speaker 4: the moment, because you know, it's it's hard to be
[20:36] Speaker 4: a mid major at the moment. But it does I
[20:38] Speaker 4: do think that that concept kind of helps me with
[20:40] Speaker 4: projections a little bit. You just assume UCLA, Oklahoma State,
[20:44] Speaker 4: those guys now brought in a new coach and a
[20:48] Speaker 4: successful batch of players from a new team that's going
[20:51] Speaker 4: to help them gravitate upward.
[20:52] Speaker 1: Yeah, and even going like a step deeper with it.
[20:56] Speaker 1: And of course this is like the sixty four million
[20:58] Speaker 1: dollar question. You're talking on it right now from a
[21:00] Speaker 1: team perspective. But if we zoom in on a player,
[21:03] Speaker 1: take Drew Mestimaker just as an example, if we want
[21:06] Speaker 1: to keep it with Oklahoma State, how do you project
[21:11] Speaker 1: at least what is your process for trying to project
[21:14] Speaker 1: whether any of these guys are going to hit? Like
[21:16] Speaker 1: everyone sho trying to figure that out, and I don't
[21:18] Speaker 1: think there's a hard and fast formula for it. But
[21:21] Speaker 1: other than the eye tests and other than knowing that
[21:23] Speaker 1: there was some production at the previous stop, Like, how
[21:26] Speaker 1: the hell do you figure that out?
[21:28] Speaker 3: Yeah?
[21:29] Speaker 4: Right now it is hard with the G five to
[21:31] Speaker 4: power conference translation, because we know there have been guys
[21:34] Speaker 4: who moved up and kind of disappeared to a certain degree,
[21:37] Speaker 4: but there have been loads of successes too, and right
[21:41] Speaker 4: now I haven't figured out. Basically, I'm looking for a multiplier,
[21:44] Speaker 4: like for when you bring in an FCS guy, you
[21:46] Speaker 4: get half credit for his production in the returning production formula. Right,
[21:49] Speaker 4: that's easy enough. That seems to work pretty well. You
[21:51] Speaker 4: get a whole credit for bringing a guy up from
[21:53] Speaker 4: G five to to P four right now. Maybe that
[21:56] Speaker 4: should be zero point nine or something like that, but
[21:59] Speaker 4: what but I've been happy with projections doing it that
[22:01] Speaker 4: way still. So if you're a three thousand yard passer
[22:05] Speaker 4: or whatever mess maker was, four thousand yard passer, Oklahoma
[22:09] Speaker 4: State now gets credit for your four thousand yards. Maybe
[22:11] Speaker 4: it should be like thirty seven hundred or something, but
[22:13] Speaker 4: that's not going to really make a difference at the
[22:15] Speaker 4: end of the day.
[22:15] Speaker 2: So every every D two quarterback to the SEC now
[22:19] Speaker 2: is automatically projected as excellent right after last year sample
[22:23] Speaker 2: size of one.
[22:24] Speaker 1: Yeah, that MathWorks.
[22:26] Speaker 4: I love all the things I don't love about Lane Kiffin.
[22:29] Speaker 4: I love that even at LSU now he brought in
[22:33] Speaker 4: Elon's quarterback just in case, Like he brought just in
[22:36] Speaker 4: case he's got this of it. That's fine, that's that's great.
[22:39] Speaker 4: But then he got a landing clerk from Elon too.
[22:41] Speaker 4: It was like a two thousand and six or two
[22:44] Speaker 4: thousand passing yards, like five six hundred rushing yards guy
[22:47] Speaker 4: brought him into just in case there's magic there to
[22:50] Speaker 4: be found. So okay, let's pull this string on, Let's
[22:53] Speaker 4: pull this thread whatever a little bit more so, something
[22:55] Speaker 4: that's interesting. And you wrote about the MAC, you will
[22:58] Speaker 4: write about the American and Mountain West and Sun Belts
[23:00] Speaker 4: and so forth.
[23:02] Speaker 1: A lot of the.
[23:03] Speaker 2: Teams, a lot of these mid major teams, G six whatever.
[23:06] Speaker 2: They have the interesting ability of scouting guys not working
[23:10] Speaker 2: out in major power conferences at major places, and they
[23:15] Speaker 2: have the ability to scout FCS players D two players.
[23:20] Speaker 2: Is there a team recently? Is there a team this
[23:23] Speaker 2: year that has gone in both directions successfully and can't
[23:29] Speaker 2: necessarily complain or is the answer to the coaches who
[23:33] Speaker 2: are complaining that they're losing everybody you can go from.
[23:36] Speaker 2: You can take Oklahoma transfers, you can take fair estate transfers.
[23:40] Speaker 2: Is there somebody that has gone both directions successfully in
[23:43] Speaker 2: your mind?
[23:47] Speaker 1: Are the answers no? Or the answer is I don't know.
[23:49] Speaker 1: That's a very specific question.
[23:51] Speaker 4: Well, I do think it's hard when you got bro
[23:54] Speaker 4: when you bring guys down, it is hard to know
[23:57] Speaker 4: are those guys duds or where they just back ups
[23:59] Speaker 4: to good playlayers and.
[24:00] Speaker 3: Right maybe totally.
[24:02] Speaker 4: Those are really hard for me to figure out, and
[24:04] Speaker 4: so basically, like with the MAC preview, I was just
[24:07] Speaker 4: kind of with each team since it's you know, with
[24:09] Speaker 4: the MAC especially, you're saying the same thing, like the
[24:11] Speaker 4: eighty percent, the same thing about most of the teams.
[24:14] Speaker 4: It was kind of you're looking at who they bring
[24:16] Speaker 4: up from smaller schools. Everybody got like an ace pass
[24:18] Speaker 4: rusher from D two or something in the MAC, and
[24:21] Speaker 4: then they brought in, you know, a few sophomore high
[24:23] Speaker 4: three star guys as well, just in case for you know,
[24:26] Speaker 4: athleticism purposes. But it's hard to know what to make
[24:29] Speaker 4: of those higher profile guys. I when I was doing
[24:32] Speaker 4: my favorite transfer classes thing a few weeks ago, Florida
[24:35] Speaker 4: Atlantic stood out, okay, like really really disruptive defenders. Now
[24:41] Speaker 4: he had to go down to like living Stone to
[24:43] Speaker 4: find this guy, Kenyon Garner living Stone at D two
[24:46] Speaker 4: school tended.
[24:47] Speaker 3: Garner had twenty eight tackles for loss last season.
[24:50] Speaker 4: And so and he's not like, you know, one hundred
[24:53] Speaker 4: and sixty five pounds linebacker.
[24:55] Speaker 3: His size is good. So you think, okay, well that's you.
[24:57] Speaker 4: Know, watch a little film. But I'm pretty sure that
[25:00] Speaker 4: guy is gonna be good. Like he's just you know,
[25:02] Speaker 4: if you can do that in D two, you can
[25:03] Speaker 4: have you can make nine tackles for loss in the
[25:07] Speaker 4: American Conference, that probably translates pretty well.
[25:09] Speaker 3: So he had a few of.
[25:10] Speaker 4: Those guys, a good San Diego linebacker, a couple like
[25:13] Speaker 4: a good Fair Estate cornerback, stuff like that that really
[25:16] Speaker 4: he seemed to seek disruption in a really, really nice way.
[25:19] Speaker 4: So I liked what Florida Atlantic did a lot and
[25:21] Speaker 4: then bringing back like their entire offense. So it's one
[25:24] Speaker 4: of those where by the time the off season's over,
[25:26] Speaker 4: I'm going to have talked myself into FAU was like
[25:28] Speaker 4: a playoff contender or something, and I.
[25:30] Speaker 1: Gotta, yeah, let's go. That's right.
[25:34] Speaker 4: I like what Washington State did. I think they did
[25:36] Speaker 4: a pretty good job. I think of kind of balancing,
[25:39] Speaker 4: moving guys up and maybe grabbing the right guys on
[25:41] Speaker 4: the way down. Obviously, you know, Moore was in the
[25:45] Speaker 4: SEC last year, so he got a little exposure to.
[25:48] Speaker 3: Some of those guys.
[25:49] Speaker 4: But yeah, it is it is interesting to try to
[25:53] Speaker 4: figure out, you know, the well, and honestly, like I
[25:56] Speaker 4: hate all the the inequality of the day, but also
[26:01] Speaker 4: it's really fun to follow all the different ways that
[26:03] Speaker 4: guys are trying to find edges with their roster management.
[26:08] Speaker 4: Whether it's you know, a G six guy going all
[26:10] Speaker 4: the way down to D two or in AIA or
[26:12] Speaker 4: something and bringing up super disruptive guys or whatever it
[26:15] Speaker 4: has been, everybody has a slightly different approach.
[26:17] Speaker 3: That's really fun.
[26:19] Speaker 2: So one of the other things with a lot of
[26:21] Speaker 2: these programs in the MAC whatever any of these G
[26:24] Speaker 2: six mid majors, is we and we alluded to this already,
[26:29] Speaker 2: we're looking at a landscape in which a lot of
[26:31] Speaker 2: the schools who have been very successful recently lost longtime
[26:35] Speaker 2: coaches or semi longtime coaches to bigger jobs. I don't
[26:40] Speaker 2: know if you feel like there's now, like you know,
[26:43] Speaker 2: a wide open environment of teams that could potentially make
[26:47] Speaker 2: it to the playoff or win conferences or whatever. But
[26:50] Speaker 2: when you look at potential new teams to occupy spaces
[26:55] Speaker 2: abandoned by you know, John Sumrall or Ryan Silverfield or
[26:59] Speaker 2: Eric Morris, who are those new programs who now have
[27:02] Speaker 2: that continuity and stability that those types of programs now don't.
[27:07] Speaker 4: Well, I'm gonna start with this scrappy underdog named Boise State.
[27:12] Speaker 1: Right of course, of course, yeah, I.
[27:14] Speaker 3: Think they might be pretty good this year. Yeah they were.
[27:17] Speaker 4: They were strange last year, like they're good, they're clearly
[27:19] Speaker 4: good and talented, and then just randomly just no showed
[27:21] Speaker 4: for a half and yeah, and and.
[27:24] Speaker 3: It held them back.
[27:25] Speaker 4: But out of the teams that we that necessarily haven't
[27:27] Speaker 4: necessarily been, you know, close to a playoff bid yet,
[27:31] Speaker 4: you know, I do think UNLB in New Mexico, whoever
[27:34] Speaker 4: kind of comes out of the Mountain West, is in
[27:35] Speaker 4: really good shape. I'm struggling to talk myself out at
[27:40] Speaker 4: UTSA if we're looking for a genuine wildcard. Okay, they're
[27:44] Speaker 4: a team that has had a good offense every single
[27:47] Speaker 4: year under Jeff Trailer. It's kind of shocking the Jeff
[27:50] Speaker 4: Trailer is still there. He might be what was that
[27:53] Speaker 4: Gary Darnell was at the Western Michigan coach who basically
[27:55] Speaker 4: waited too long and then fell apart and never got
[27:57] Speaker 4: to move up. In fact that Jeff Trailer is still
[28:01] Speaker 4: there is kind of odd. But also they have O
[28:03] Speaker 4: McCown back, They've got most of their receivers or a
[28:05] Speaker 4: good number of their receivers back.
[28:08] Speaker 3: Defense took a hit because.
[28:10] Speaker 4: Something they always going to take a hit, but they
[28:12] Speaker 4: don't need a good defense necessarily, they don't use they
[28:14] Speaker 4: have a good defense, but so they have a lot
[28:17] Speaker 4: of the things that UTSA normally has, uh and they're
[28:20] Speaker 4: more experienced than the last season, so you know they
[28:24] Speaker 4: you know, they play Texas, they're not going to be Texas.
[28:27] Speaker 4: They're not going to be able to have one of
[28:28] Speaker 4: those huge marquee wins. Because that is one one of
[28:32] Speaker 4: the first things I do in the off season is
[28:33] Speaker 4: right this piece of like, you know, based projecting the
[28:36] Speaker 4: playoff basically based on rules in my role for the
[28:38] Speaker 4: G six is do you play did you happen to
[28:40] Speaker 4: schedule two Power Conference teams a decade ago?
[28:43] Speaker 3: Because you're only you're eligible for a playoff.
[28:45] Speaker 4: Bid with the way the committee works, So UTSA is
[28:48] Speaker 4: not eligible, Hawaii's elegible.
[28:51] Speaker 3: So that's that's that's the other.
[28:53] Speaker 4: Dark horse I've got going here is a nice Hawaii
[28:56] Speaker 4: run late at night on Saturdays.
[28:58] Speaker 2: So okay, So post spring, is there a team that
[29:03] Speaker 2: is usually being spoken of as a top five, top twelve,
[29:08] Speaker 2: top whatever team nationally your more known powers that people
[29:13] Speaker 2: are penciling in to be like oh yeah, yeah, they'll
[29:16] Speaker 2: be in that conversation. But you've looked at their roster,
[29:20] Speaker 2: You've looked at what is and what isn't returning, You've
[29:22] Speaker 2: looked at coaching questions, and you're just like, I'm not
[29:25] Speaker 2: sure I'm buying it the way that other people are
[29:28] Speaker 2: buying Oregon, Texas, Notre Dame, Ohio State, whatever. Is there
[29:32] Speaker 2: that team where you're just like, I can see the upside,
[29:34] Speaker 2: but like, I don't know.
[29:36] Speaker 1: By the way, we had this conversation a year ago
[29:38] Speaker 1: when I was all in on Clemson and Bill was like, cool, like,
[29:42] Speaker 1: I'm kind of not good luck with that, you do
[29:44] Speaker 1: you It's okay? Who is this year's Clemson for you? Bill?
[29:48] Speaker 3: Yeah? I love that.
[29:48] Speaker 4: It was when we're talking in these terms, it's all
[29:51] Speaker 4: about closest to the pen Because I still thought Clemson
[29:53] Speaker 4: was a top fifteen team. I got a lot of
[29:55] Speaker 4: credit for being a Clemson doubter even though they were
[29:57] Speaker 4: so much worse than I thought they were going to be.
[30:00] Speaker 3: So that's cool.
[30:00] Speaker 4: I like that of those teams, of those teams that
[30:02] Speaker 4: we know are going to get a lot of top
[30:04] Speaker 4: five consideration. This is a broken record because I'm pretty
[30:07] Speaker 4: sure I sent them last year too. But I'm not
[30:09] Speaker 4: as sold on Texas as I think some okay, and
[30:15] Speaker 4: I think and I mean whatever, it's Texas. They I
[30:18] Speaker 4: know who they got. This skill core for Arch Manning
[30:21] Speaker 4: is going to be four thousand times better this year,
[30:23] Speaker 4: or at least the start in skill cores. I don't
[30:26] Speaker 4: like that he basically pushed out like fifteen running backs
[30:28] Speaker 4: and receivers to sign like four proven guys and you're
[30:34] Speaker 4: like two injuries away from having a whole bunch of
[30:36] Speaker 4: freshmen out there and having all the same. I feel
[30:38] Speaker 4: like Sark kind of fought last year's war. Last year
[30:41] Speaker 4: he needed new receivers and new offensive linemen and he
[30:45] Speaker 4: didn't get them, and Arch didn't have what he needed
[30:47] Speaker 4: for a while. But then he developed these guys and
[30:51] Speaker 4: they were much much better at the end of the year.
[30:52] Speaker 4: Then he pushed him out for new guys. I don't
[30:55] Speaker 4: love that, and I don't love that he fired his
[30:58] Speaker 4: defensive coordinator instead of firing himself as offensive coordinator, because
[31:02] Speaker 4: the offense has been worse than the defense for a
[31:04] Speaker 4: few years now. So I don't trust all that. But
[31:07] Speaker 4: I also know, in terms of raw talent, if they
[31:09] Speaker 4: don't have a bunch of injuries. Arch was really good
[31:13] Speaker 4: at the end of last season, even though he's shockingly
[31:15] Speaker 4: still can't throw on the run at all. Just a great,
[31:19] Speaker 4: fantastic athlete who cannot throw accurately on the run. Rayley
[31:23] Speaker 4: Brown and Hollywood smothers are awesome. Cam Coleman's awesome. Like
[31:27] Speaker 4: I understand everything I'm supposed to see there. I don't
[31:31] Speaker 4: necessarily the defense will see of the transfers he brought
[31:35] Speaker 4: in Biles from Pitt's awesome. But you know, the linemen,
[31:39] Speaker 4: I don't really know about the secondary. We'll see if
[31:42] Speaker 4: they have enough there. They lost two They lost their
[31:45] Speaker 4: two starting corners and only brought in one, so you
[31:47] Speaker 4: know sophomore is gonna have to pick it up and
[31:49] Speaker 4: all that.
[31:50] Speaker 3: So I get it.
[31:51] Speaker 4: Like, if they're really, really good, I won't be surprised
[31:53] Speaker 4: at all, But I'm still not. I don't trust them
[31:56] Speaker 4: as much as I trust O High State in Oregon.
[31:58] Speaker 4: I don't trust them as much as I trust Georgie
[32:01] Speaker 4: Notre Dame, for sure, I trust more So.
[32:04] Speaker 3: I don't know. We'll see that obviously.
[32:05] Speaker 4: You have in Ohios day right at the start of
[32:07] Speaker 4: the SEASONNNA, It's gonna help be interesting it's quite a lot.
[32:11] Speaker 1: Yeah, what about the other way, Bill, Are there any
[32:14] Speaker 1: teams that are sort of like Bill C's pet teams
[32:17] Speaker 1: maybe that are being undervalued or a bit off the
[32:20] Speaker 1: radar right now, not.
[32:21] Speaker 2: Still early stilarly in the preview process. Absolutely, that's right.
[32:26] Speaker 2: We're not holding you to this or anything like that.
[32:27] Speaker 2: I know we just talked it through a little bit
[32:29] Speaker 2: on the G six mid major level. But are there
[32:32] Speaker 2: any power for teams that sort of are on your
[32:35] Speaker 2: radar right now in the periphery that you're really interested
[32:39] Speaker 2: in that you haven't heard enough about.
[32:41] Speaker 4: Well, I was annoyed when everybody picked up on Notre
[32:43] Speaker 4: Dame because I was hoping because I realized real quickly,
[32:46] Speaker 4: oh man, I'm going to be so high on Notre
[32:48] Speaker 4: Dame next year and then national champ and then they
[32:51] Speaker 4: also they lost their running backs, so therefore I thought, maybe,
[32:54] Speaker 4: you know, that would scare people off and that could
[32:56] Speaker 4: be my team. No, they're clearly going to be like
[32:59] Speaker 4: a top three or four team, So that's that's disappointing.
[33:03] Speaker 4: You know, we haven't talked about the defending national champions yet.
[33:06] Speaker 4: I do think people are really struggling to figure out
[33:09] Speaker 4: where to place Indianda this season, because obviously you can't
[33:12] Speaker 4: go up any further from one, but you know how
[33:16] Speaker 4: far are they going to fall? They're going to fall
[33:17] Speaker 4: a third or sixth or tenth or something. I kind
[33:20] Speaker 4: of feel like that's still a top five roster, well
[33:24] Speaker 4: roster plus coaching staff. So I'm still feeling pretty good
[33:27] Speaker 4: about them, And maybe that puts me at odds with
[33:30] Speaker 4: some people. I've seen them in their way too early,
[33:32] Speaker 4: as they're all over the place, and understandably so, how
[33:35] Speaker 4: the hell.
[33:35] Speaker 3: Do you.
[33:36] Speaker 4: Know we didn't see them coming the first time? How
[33:39] Speaker 4: the hell do you predict what happens now? I think
[33:43] Speaker 4: with the SEC talking about just this giant middle class
[33:47] Speaker 4: that the SEC has where they have maybe no top
[33:49] Speaker 4: three teams and everybody's a potential top fifteen team, I
[33:53] Speaker 4: don't know if I've seen quite as much about A
[33:55] Speaker 4: and M or quite as much positive about LSU as
[33:59] Speaker 4: I think they're KPE. I'm really curious where they end
[34:02] Speaker 4: up in.
[34:03] Speaker 3: The preseason polls. That could be.
[34:05] Speaker 4: Anywhere between about seven and twenty, I guess, but I
[34:07] Speaker 4: see them as borderline top ten. A and M for sure,
[34:10] Speaker 4: we know what they're capable of. We know what Marcel
[34:13] Speaker 4: reads capable of in the negatives sometimes and maybe that's
[34:17] Speaker 4: always him and he's never gonna get away from kind
[34:20] Speaker 4: of that one crippling mistake in the biggest game of
[34:22] Speaker 4: the year or whatever. But they have a lot to offer,
[34:25] Speaker 4: and LC's not hard to figure out. I mean, we
[34:27] Speaker 4: all know the hazards of adopting LSU in the preseason,
[34:33] Speaker 4: but Blake Baker's defense was awesome last year. A lot
[34:37] Speaker 4: of it comes back, and lame Kiffin always has a
[34:39] Speaker 4: good offense. So not to say that those that's going
[34:42] Speaker 4: to be a perfect marriage. You know, plenty of inherited
[34:46] Speaker 4: defensive coordinators have found themselves struggling under a new coach,
[34:50] Speaker 4: especially an offense friendly coach, so maybe that doesn't work out.
[34:53] Speaker 4: But just fundamentally, Blake bafer Baker defense plus Lameekiffin offense
[34:58] Speaker 4: equals top ten team, So I could see them having
[35:00] Speaker 4: a pretty high ceiling despite you know, the seventy transfers
[35:03] Speaker 4: or whatever.
[35:04] Speaker 1: We mentioned the Brendan Sorsby news in passing, and I
[35:08] Speaker 1: think you're right to point out that Texas Tech still
[35:10] Speaker 1: probably has the best roster in the Big twelve by
[35:13] Speaker 1: a considerable margin. But if he is out for any
[35:18] Speaker 1: extended period of time. Dan, you know this. We had
[35:22] Speaker 1: this conversation in our slack yesterday. What does this do
[35:26] Speaker 1: more broadly speaking to how you look at the Big twelve?
[35:30] Speaker 1: Does it bring other teams into consideration that maybe you
[35:34] Speaker 1: hadn't considered before as being on the periphery of some
[35:38] Speaker 1: sort of title chase or title consideration. How has the
[35:42] Speaker 1: Sorsby news reframed how you look at that conference.
[35:46] Speaker 3: I guess it hasn't really number one. I like Storsby.
[35:51] Speaker 4: I wasn't struggling to get all the way to the
[35:54] Speaker 4: top of the trust scale with Sorsby so but I
[35:58] Speaker 4: figured he was going to be in up grade over Morton.
[36:01] Speaker 4: You know, now we don't know if they have an
[36:02] Speaker 4: upgrade over Morton. That hurts them in the playoff for sure,
[36:04] Speaker 4: But I don't know. I mean, I think that offensive
[36:07] Speaker 4: line is gonna be dynamite. Those running backs are dynamite.
[36:09] Speaker 4: We know already.
[36:10] Speaker 3: We know their.
[36:11] Speaker 4: Defense is going to be good again, Like obviously it'll
[36:13] Speaker 4: probably come down with what they lost, but it's still
[36:15] Speaker 4: gonna be really good.
[36:16] Speaker 3: Adam Trick.
[36:17] Speaker 4: Some of the new guys they brought in awesome, like
[36:19] Speaker 4: they they I trust them completely with the transfers they
[36:23] Speaker 4: bring in, so I still think they're easily the surests
[36:26] Speaker 4: bet in the Big twelve. But I mean, if you're
[36:28] Speaker 4: just thinking about, like if they had an eighty ninety
[36:30] Speaker 4: percent chance to make the title game before, you do
[36:32] Speaker 4: have to bump it too, like seventy percent or eighty percent,
[36:35] Speaker 4: and that opens at least the door for one of
[36:38] Speaker 4: the other dark horses, and the race for the other
[36:40] Speaker 4: spot was already going to be super, super interesting. I
[36:43] Speaker 4: think the only thing I don't trust about BYU is
[36:45] Speaker 4: that I'm always wrong about BYU. Like every single year,
[36:48] Speaker 4: I'm a year behind, and I think they're going to fall,
[36:51] Speaker 4: and they rise, and I think they're gonna rise and
[36:52] Speaker 4: they fall.
[36:53] Speaker 3: I think they're gonna be awesome. Therefore they're screwed. But
[36:56] Speaker 3: assuming that's not a.
[36:57] Speaker 4: Thing, they do have a ton off or they were
[37:00] Speaker 4: the three most physical teams in the conference by far
[37:02] Speaker 4: were tech BYU in Utah. Utah has obviously got some
[37:05] Speaker 4: change to deal with, but they're still going to have
[37:07] Speaker 4: a lot of upside. The OU has a ton of
[37:09] Speaker 4: upside and they kind of lead the pack, but man,
[37:12] Speaker 4: I mean it's still the big twelveth, Like Texas Tech
[37:15] Speaker 4: made it a little more boring by being so good,
[37:17] Speaker 4: but it's not gonna surprise me at all of Kansas
[37:20] Speaker 4: State makes a run, Arizona could make a run. Houston
[37:23] Speaker 4: kind of dark horse, awesome in the trenches now as well,
[37:26] Speaker 4: and really putting together some nice recruiting wins transfer and
[37:31] Speaker 4: you know old school freshman route TCU.
[37:34] Speaker 3: You know Jayden Craig. I love that he brought in
[37:38] Speaker 3: an FCS guy.
[37:39] Speaker 4: I love my FCS guys, but that's still like new
[37:41] Speaker 4: coordinator and FCS quarterback. That could go in a lot
[37:44] Speaker 4: of different ways. But if it clicks, defense shild be goods.
[37:47] Speaker 3: So there you go.
[37:48] Speaker 4: Okahoma State just talked about Arizona State when they're healthy,
[37:51] Speaker 4: are still going to be good. They might never be
[37:53] Speaker 4: healthy again apparently, but they have a lot to offer.
[37:57] Speaker 4: So this was already a case where a lot of
[37:59] Speaker 4: teams could talk themselves into making title game runs. I
[38:02] Speaker 4: guess just the Tech news makes those other teams slightly
[38:05] Speaker 4: more likely to be able.
[38:06] Speaker 3: To win the title camera something.
[38:07] Speaker 1: I find myself a little bit more interested in the
[38:10] Speaker 1: ACC this year because as I look across the seventeen
[38:14] Speaker 1: teams and I'm still not used to saying that. In
[38:17] Speaker 1: the conference, I'm looking at cal Clemson, Florida State, Georgia Tech, Louisville,
[38:25] Speaker 1: North Carolina, Pitt We'll put Stanford in there, We'll put
[38:30] Speaker 1: Virginia in there, Virginia.
[38:31] Speaker 3: Do I need to put Stanford in there? I don't
[38:33] Speaker 3: think we need to put Stanford in there, but go ahead.
[38:34] Speaker 1: Well no, No, that's eleven teams. And the reason that
[38:37] Speaker 1: I mentioned all of them is I almost have no
[38:39] Speaker 1: idea what to expect from any of them. Okay, okay,
[38:41] Speaker 1: Because like I know the players, I know what each
[38:44] Speaker 1: of them has done in the transfer portal, and I
[38:46] Speaker 1: can make a case for and against improvement. I have
[38:50] Speaker 1: no idea what to expect. The varios when Dan and
[38:53] Speaker 1: I do our previews in July for the ACC is
[38:56] Speaker 1: going to be wide for all eleven of those teams,
[38:59] Speaker 1: because I genuinely don't know what to expect. And I'm
[39:02] Speaker 1: wondering if you feel the same when you look out
[39:04] Speaker 1: at the ACC.
[39:05] Speaker 4: First of all, the number seven team makes me angry
[39:07] Speaker 4: or every single year, Yes, it's just so because a
[39:11] Speaker 4: loong other things. So I have this piece coming out
[39:12] Speaker 4: in a couple of weeks about like my thoughts on
[39:15] Speaker 4: a twenty four teen playoff and getting rid of conference
[39:18] Speaker 4: title games and all that, And I have this idea
[39:20] Speaker 4: for a flex week where like kind of what the
[39:22] Speaker 4: Big Ten wanted to do in twenty twenty before all
[39:25] Speaker 4: the positive tests at the end of the year kind
[39:26] Speaker 4: of screwed up the idea, but basically like what the
[39:28] Speaker 4: Pac twelve's doing the week before the conference title game
[39:30] Speaker 4: this year, having basically pairings for the last week where
[39:33] Speaker 4: you can have a conference title game and everybody else
[39:35] Speaker 4: plays a game and it's the twelfth game for everybody,
[39:37] Speaker 4: so we've gotten rid of the thirteenth game. I think
[39:39] Speaker 4: that's a really fun approach, and I kind of I've
[39:42] Speaker 4: simmed out what the SEC would look like like a
[39:45] Speaker 4: championship flex week would look like. Can't do it for
[39:47] Speaker 4: the ACC because somebody's not playing like that's yeah, odd
[39:52] Speaker 4: numbers are infuriating, but to your point, you could really, yeah,
[39:58] Speaker 4: anybody could be the second best team in the A.
[40:00] Speaker 4: We know who's going to start off in first, although
[40:04] Speaker 4: they managed to fall from first the last two years,
[40:07] Speaker 4: so they're certainly not sure things. But from an SP
[40:11] Speaker 4: plus standpoint, it starts with Clemson which I don't love.
[40:14] Speaker 4: Sp plus is dow Clemson's biggest supporter a year after
[40:16] Speaker 4: being its biggest detractor. But Louisville, if Keen Holes is
[40:21] Speaker 4: the quarterback, Louisville is.
[40:22] Speaker 3: Going to be really good.
[40:24] Speaker 1: S Mu.
[40:25] Speaker 4: I hate that he lost both coordinators. That was kind
[40:27] Speaker 4: of his superpower these last few years. And and we'll
[40:31] Speaker 4: see if there's any sort of He basically replaced each
[40:34] Speaker 4: coordinator with like four co coordinators.
[40:38] Speaker 1: SMU my in in my little uh list of teams there,
[40:41] Speaker 1: but yeah, sure you can include by the way.
[40:43] Speaker 3: Well, dear king offensive co coordinator at.
[40:48] Speaker 1: Wow.
[40:49] Speaker 4: Sorry sorry for that, but they're going to be They
[40:53] Speaker 4: weren't really all that far away from their form last year.
[40:56] Speaker 4: I mean, hell, if they didn't get upset late by Cow,
[40:57] Speaker 4: they're in the title game, right, so there're not that
[41:00] Speaker 4: far off. Virginia Tech is a complete and total wild card.
[41:04] Speaker 4: Like with James Franklin, you know you're going to get
[41:07] Speaker 4: a high floor, but ceiling it's a whole bunch of
[41:11] Speaker 4: unknown guys who are going to provide the ceiling.
[41:13] Speaker 3: So we'll see.
[41:14] Speaker 4: Florida State can't really talk myself into that, I don't think.
[41:18] Speaker 4: But Ashton Daniels is an upgraded quarterback. I really like
[41:22] Speaker 4: Ashton Daniels, at least compared to the guys of Florida
[41:26] Speaker 4: State it's been using the last couple of years. September
[41:29] Speaker 4: Tommy Castellanos is great, but after that obviously never really
[41:33] Speaker 4: worked out for him. I do like Virginia's class like
[41:36] Speaker 4: that was my biggest concern for them is he threw
[41:38] Speaker 4: this giant transfer portal Hail Mary last year and it connected.
[41:42] Speaker 4: But then he loses those guys, that has to bring
[41:44] Speaker 4: in another brand new set of thirty guys or whatever.
[41:46] Speaker 4: But I at least like the guys he brought in.
[41:49] Speaker 4: Might be hard for them to hit double digits again,
[41:52] Speaker 4: but I do. I was a little reassured by that,
[41:56] Speaker 4: And yeah, on we go Georgia Tech. I love Mendoza
[41:59] Speaker 4: at Georgia Tech. I think that a great match, and
[42:00] Speaker 4: I think he was as good as he could possibly
[42:03] Speaker 4: be in the tiny.
[42:04] Speaker 3: Sample he had at Indiana.
[42:06] Speaker 4: Duke is gonna regress offensively, but probably isn't gonna stink
[42:10] Speaker 4: defensively again. So I mean, you're right, cal You know
[42:14] Speaker 4: jksill have receivers. I don't know if he'll have a defense,
[42:18] Speaker 4: but I do like the what Tosh Lapois did in
[42:20] Speaker 4: the portal. So it is funny, it really is. The
[42:22] Speaker 4: ACC and Big.
[42:23] Speaker 3: Twelve are very similar now in terms of we haven't
[42:27] Speaker 3: known heavyweight. We got a whole bunch of satellites just
[42:29] Speaker 3: orbiting around and we don't know how that's gonna work out.
[42:34] Speaker 2: So one of the more interesting teams, if not one
[42:36] Speaker 2: of the maybe the most interesting teams in terms of variance.
[42:40] Speaker 2: We sort of talked about this earlier Michigan. Michigan has
[42:45] Speaker 2: their obviously off field situation was shown more the late
[42:49] Speaker 2: hire of Kyle Whittingham. They're piecing together in like a
[42:53] Speaker 2: Frankenstein's Monster kind of way, some of the best returning
[42:58] Speaker 2: pieces that they could have brought back they you know,
[43:01] Speaker 2: Kyle Whittingham convinces it to come back. And then a
[43:04] Speaker 2: lot of the upside that we would have assumed out
[43:07] Speaker 2: of Utah if Kyle Whittingham were still in Salt Lake
[43:09] Speaker 2: City is including the offensive coordinator and now an edge
[43:14] Speaker 2: rusher Smith Snowden. I think at safety Nickel JJ Buchanan
[43:19] Speaker 2: like a big upside sort of hybrid tight end receiver type.
[43:24] Speaker 2: What do you make of a Michigan team that is
[43:27] Speaker 2: sort of attaching double program upside at the same time
[43:33] Speaker 2: with like Kyle Whittingham's first true blue chip quarterback opportunity.
[43:37] Speaker 4: I changed my mind about Michigan every time I think
[43:40] Speaker 4: about them, because I mean, on one hand, like the
[43:44] Speaker 4: hard ass coaching blue Chippers doesn't always work frequently does
[43:50] Speaker 4: not work. In fact, when you go to the successful
[43:53] Speaker 4: program that you built by hand, Oh, I guess he inherited,
[43:57] Speaker 4: you know, stuff from Urban, But after twenty years you
[43:59] Speaker 4: get credit. I mean, that was his program in every
[44:03] Speaker 4: possible way. And now you go to a much bigger
[44:06] Speaker 4: program that that certainly has the same kind of physical expectations,
[44:10] Speaker 4: but is just different in every way, and so many
[44:12] Speaker 4: more blue Chippers and guys mak an x million dollars
[44:16] Speaker 4: a year, and that's just going to be different. And
[44:18] Speaker 4: there's no guarantee he passes that test. He's an old
[44:20] Speaker 4: dude's and going from sort of under the radar and
[44:24] Speaker 4: succeeding all the time at Utah right to the radar.
[44:28] Speaker 2: That's what Michigan is. It is the exposed program.
[44:31] Speaker 4: Yeah, and Utah was at least worried enough about him
[44:35] Speaker 4: being a little too old for the job that they
[44:37] Speaker 4: let him go so like, that's not this could all backfire.
[44:43] Speaker 4: He could very clearly backfire in those kind of broad terms,
[44:45] Speaker 4: But then you get specific and you're like, oh, that
[44:47] Speaker 4: there's a lot to like here too. I mean, he
[44:49] Speaker 4: did bring all the right Utah guys except one with
[44:52] Speaker 4: Bettle Minton in a second. But I love smith Snowden.
[44:55] Speaker 4: I hope they continue to randomly experiment with him on offense.
[45:00] Speaker 4: I'm Henry Daily was the most Utah story ever. He
[45:02] Speaker 4: was nothing as a redshirt freshman, and then you know whatever,
[45:06] Speaker 4: he ended up with eleven and a half sacks as
[45:08] Speaker 4: a sophomore. So he brought in, you know, some some
[45:12] Speaker 4: key Utah dudes. So yeah, I mean you can certainly
[45:16] Speaker 4: there's a lot to like. The defensive line obviously got
[45:19] Speaker 4: hit pretty hard by at Tritian, but you got a
[45:20] Speaker 4: couple guys back, you got Trey Pierce back, You're gonna
[45:23] Speaker 4: have size. The offensive line had it survived a whole
[45:27] Speaker 4: bunch of freshmen and sophomores last year. They're not freshmen
[45:29] Speaker 4: and sophomores anymore, so there's there's plenty of that. Like
[45:32] Speaker 4: I will say though, like Jason Beck is one of
[45:35] Speaker 4: my favorite offensive coordinators but he has to have a
[45:38] Speaker 4: dual threat guy to be one of my favorite offensive coordinators.
[45:42] Speaker 4: He really gets creative and how he runs the quarterback around.
[45:46] Speaker 4: We know Bryce Underwood can run. He had some nice
[45:49] Speaker 4: longer runs last season. But is here's where I just
[45:53] Speaker 4: stereotyped the blue chip, five star future pro guys. He's
[45:56] Speaker 4: gonna want to run ten to twelve times a game
[45:58] Speaker 4: because that's kind of what it takes, and I don't
[46:02] Speaker 4: know like that's I would almost feel better about this
[46:05] Speaker 4: specific Michigan team if he had brought Dan Pier with
[46:08] Speaker 4: him from Utah, because we know what he can do
[46:12] Speaker 4: in that system, and that would have been a nice
[46:14] Speaker 4: bridge under what's going to be interesting. I know better
[46:17] Speaker 4: than to ever even pretend to look at spring game
[46:20] Speaker 4: stats anymore, but under it once, we're so bad that
[46:23] Speaker 4: it became a little bit of a storyline. And that
[46:24] Speaker 4: didn't exactly that very least didn't reassure me. So we'll see.
[46:29] Speaker 2: Other stray thoughts where Spring did nothing to answer any
[46:34] Speaker 2: of your questions, or Spring went a long way to
[46:38] Speaker 2: answer a very specific question or confirm some thoughts, or
[46:44] Speaker 2: completely change how you were thinking about a program specific
[46:48] Speaker 2: to h Spring.
[46:50] Speaker 4: So I do find mom like once a month, and
[46:53] Speaker 4: he kind of knows now to ask me about Alabama
[46:55] Speaker 4: because he knows I'll say pretty negative things about Alabama.
[46:59] Speaker 1: Got to get those calls coming in, right, That's.
[47:01] Speaker 3: Right, they have been.
[47:04] Speaker 4: I hated what they did in the offseason just in
[47:06] Speaker 4: terms of general like he brought in lineman like he
[47:09] Speaker 4: needed to, but like one guy with who was actually
[47:12] Speaker 4: an FBS starter like that that he's basically coaching like
[47:17] Speaker 4: he knows he's going to have a job in twenty
[47:19] Speaker 4: twenty seven, which I guess. I mean, he just signed
[47:22] Speaker 4: an extension which shocked the crap out of me too,
[47:25] Speaker 4: And he's still a good coach, so whatever, Like he's.
[47:28] Speaker 3: You know, he'll have a chance here.
[47:29] Speaker 4: But I really the Keelan Russell was amazing in the
[47:33] Speaker 4: spring game storyline was vital because like that'll all the
[47:39] Speaker 4: cracks are. Like if you have a genuine Heisman level
[47:44] Speaker 4: red shirt freshman quarterback and plenty of red shirt freshmen
[47:46] Speaker 4: had been Heisman level guys, if he's really, really, really good,
[47:50] Speaker 4: then I'm less worried about the running back position and
[47:52] Speaker 4: the absolute black hole that was the Alabama run game
[47:55] Speaker 4: last year before they lost all five was starting offensive lineman.
[47:59] Speaker 4: You know, Ryan, if he just remember Coleman Williams, Sorry,
[48:02] Speaker 4: Ryan Coleman Williams. If he just starts catching balls again,
[48:06] Speaker 4: he had by far the worst drop rate of anybody
[48:09] Speaker 4: with his number, with like seventy or more targets last year.
[48:12] Speaker 4: If he just gets the yips out of his system
[48:15] Speaker 4: and starts doing Ryan Williams things again, that's that's great.
[48:18] Speaker 4: But if he doesn't, I don't know, like he didn't
[48:21] Speaker 4: didn't bring in any chansfers.
[48:23] Speaker 3: That blew me away.
[48:24] Speaker 4: So you've got to have Dine in my quarterback play
[48:27] Speaker 4: for any of this to work, and they might have it,
[48:29] Speaker 4: so I guess I'm one percent more confident. I didn't
[48:32] Speaker 4: like that they were like eleventh n SP plus I
[48:34] Speaker 4: thought it was going to be more like fifteenth, which
[48:37] Speaker 4: would have been a little better to me. But obviously
[48:40] Speaker 4: if they have a new Bryce Young at quarterback, then
[48:43] Speaker 4: they're going to be pretty good.
[48:45] Speaker 1: So okay, let me play devil's advocate then. Speaking of Alabama,
[48:50] Speaker 1: we all knew at the end of last year that
[48:52] Speaker 1: if this was going to get better in twenty twenty six,
[48:55] Speaker 1: there needed to be much more of a running game
[48:57] Speaker 1: that we can speak of right because it, just as
[48:59] Speaker 1: he said, was non existent. I know you wrote about
[49:01] Speaker 1: this all last year. Is there not a case to
[49:03] Speaker 1: be made for what Bama did this offseason? Granted lost
[49:08] Speaker 1: a lot along the line, but I've heard you say
[49:10] Speaker 1: many times in the past just because you have guys
[49:13] Speaker 1: back from the previous team doesn't necessarily mean they're going
[49:15] Speaker 1: to be better. It just means they're a little bit older.
[49:18] Speaker 1: So there was clearly a focus on the offensive line.
[49:21] Speaker 1: They are rebooting in terms of offensive line coach. They
[49:24] Speaker 1: bring in Adrian Klem, so they're trying actively trying to
[49:27] Speaker 1: get better in the trenches. Is there at least not
[49:31] Speaker 1: a case to be made that, even if it doesn't work,
[49:34] Speaker 1: at least the attention is being placed on the right things.
[49:39] Speaker 3: Here's one of the things where since we don't know
[49:41] Speaker 3: the numbers.
[49:43] Speaker 4: Involved in how much you spent on which or how
[49:46] Speaker 4: much nil you spent on which guy and everything, like
[49:50] Speaker 4: I if you just if I just look at what
[49:51] Speaker 4: they brought in number one, I feel like I'm saying
[49:54] Speaker 4: when I saw it said about Lincoln Riley a year ago,
[49:56] Speaker 4: where it feels like he's building for two years from
[49:58] Speaker 4: now because he brought in like Miss State started left tackle.
[50:01] Speaker 4: He's a junior, that's fine, Like a sophomore from Texas,
[50:04] Speaker 4: a red share freshman from Michigan, two redshare freshmen from Michigan,
[50:09] Speaker 4: a junior FCS guy from cal Poly who you know
[50:12] Speaker 4: good size, might be good, but might need a year
[50:16] Speaker 4: in that sense, you know, especially when you added to
[50:18] Speaker 4: a new offensive line coach, Like if you told me
[50:21] Speaker 4: he's just building to have a top five team in
[50:23] Speaker 4: twenty twenty seven, and then then all of this starts
[50:25] Speaker 4: to make sense to me, right down to probably having
[50:28] Speaker 4: a red share freshman quarterback. So in that sense, sure,
[50:31] Speaker 4: like focusing on this the way he went about it,
[50:35] Speaker 4: and if he landed those guys because he wanted to,
[50:38] Speaker 4: not because he got outspent for all the good guys.
[50:40] Speaker 3: Right, Okay, so that's the part I would love to know.
[50:43] Speaker 2: Well, he probably got outspent for Hollywood smothers who was
[50:46] Speaker 2: there for about an hour and a half.
[50:47] Speaker 4: So right, yeah, Texas is going to jumping in and
[50:50] Speaker 4: out spending you at the last second in ape Is
[50:52] Speaker 4: But no, I I if we just know that he's
[50:57] Speaker 4: not going to get fired this year no matter what.
[50:59] Speaker 4: Which I again, when you sign an extension in April.
[51:02] Speaker 4: Then that certainly appears to be the case. Then fine,
[51:06] Speaker 4: like let him build for twenty seven and maybe they
[51:08] Speaker 4: really are going to be phenomenal. Then I just don't
[51:11] Speaker 4: see it this year. I don't know how, even with
[51:13] Speaker 4: last year's problems, losing all six of your top seven
[51:16] Speaker 4: guys and replacing them, replacing them with other people's red
[51:19] Speaker 4: sure freshmen and sophomores, that does not sound like a
[51:21] Speaker 4: plan to get quickly better.
[51:24] Speaker 1: This is just for Ty, This is just for Bill.
[51:27] Speaker 2: I don't know that you're going to be on the
[51:28] Speaker 2: show before the twenty twenty six North American World Cup,
[51:32] Speaker 2: North American hosted World Cup.
[51:33] Speaker 1: Let's go. I don't know. Maybe you will be.
[51:36] Speaker 2: Maybe we will do a Bill c specific World Cup
[51:39] Speaker 2: preview and stash it on our Patreon and give you,
[51:42] Speaker 2: give the regular listeners just a slight hint on it
[51:46] Speaker 2: at the.
[51:46] Speaker 1: End of the shore the world, and then not do it.
[51:48] Speaker 1: By the way, we will do it. No, we'll do it.
[51:50] Speaker 1: And by the way, we just did a fantasy football show.
[51:52] Speaker 1: We did a draft preview shown we can spread our wings.
[51:56] Speaker 1: It's not gonna submarine the whole operation. If we go
[51:59] Speaker 1: a little bit off time topic in advance of a
[52:01] Speaker 1: very big tournament.
[52:02] Speaker 2: Yes, so, at the risk of asking too broad a
[52:06] Speaker 2: question dot dot dot thoughts when you look at this
[52:11] Speaker 2: World Cup for people who are interested and will be watching,
[52:15] Speaker 2: I E me but I'm just like, I'm rooting for
[52:19] Speaker 2: the US men's national team, and I'm excited to see
[52:23] Speaker 2: who are the players.
[52:25] Speaker 1: The footballers who pop.
[52:27] Speaker 2: Elsewhere and you know, may not be a household name
[52:30] Speaker 2: to just general sportsmans like myself. So when you look
[52:34] Speaker 2: at this World Cup, first with the US team and
[52:37] Speaker 2: then with just like, here's where the flash is, what
[52:40] Speaker 2: are your thoughts?
[52:43] Speaker 4: Well, okay, so my first thought is that for anybody
[52:46] Speaker 4: who watched the friendlies in March and came away with
[52:50] Speaker 4: all the good feelings from the fall removed from their
[52:53] Speaker 4: system and back to we stink. I went back and
[52:57] Speaker 4: looked at basically every March before every World Cup, the
[53:01] Speaker 4: US stinks against some European team.
[53:03] Speaker 3: So no predictive.
[53:07] Speaker 4: Capit like, and then they went on to do well
[53:09] Speaker 4: sometimes in the World Cups, sometimes went on to do
[53:11] Speaker 4: terribly in.
[53:11] Speaker 1: The World Cup.
[53:12] Speaker 4: No predictive value in what we saw in March, especially
[53:15] Speaker 4: combined with the fact that when their starters were and
[53:17] Speaker 4: they were pretty good. Basically when the subs started happening,
[53:21] Speaker 4: they were losing both matches one nil Polistic Whift on
[53:25] Speaker 4: chances in both matches that he could have easily. So
[53:27] Speaker 4: it wasn't that bad. It really wasn't.
[53:29] Speaker 3: I got to go to the Atlanta match and write
[53:31] Speaker 3: a little bit about it. It was fine. Like there.
[53:33] Speaker 3: It did not make me more encouraged, didn't make many
[53:35] Speaker 3: less either. The thing that's mostly interesting I think about
[53:39] Speaker 3: the US group is that when the draw happened, I
[53:43] Speaker 3: think a lot of people are like, well, this is
[53:45] Speaker 3: a pretty easy situation.
[53:47] Speaker 4: You know, no Spain, no whoever. It's like four teams
[53:52] Speaker 4: that are exactly the same from a quality standpoint. Turkey
[53:55] Speaker 4: might be a little bit better, but it's probably the
[53:58] Speaker 4: most from top to bottom. It's probably the most evenly
[54:01] Speaker 4: matched group of any in the World Cup.
[54:04] Speaker 1: It's the middle of the acc.
[54:07] Speaker 3: A little upside and a lot of rap yeah, with
[54:11] Speaker 3: each team.
[54:12] Speaker 4: So from that perspective, like there's there's a non zero
[54:17] Speaker 4: chance to finish fourth out of four, but there is
[54:19] Speaker 4: still a chance that even if they're still figuring things out,
[54:21] Speaker 4: if you get a result against Paraguay, should be able
[54:24] Speaker 4: to beat Australia. I think I think Australia is probably
[54:26] Speaker 4: the weakest team in that group. Then you're good, You're
[54:29] Speaker 4: gonna you're gonna make the knockout rounds. Since we brought
[54:33] Speaker 4: back the whole. Some third place teams make a thing
[54:36] Speaker 4: with the giant grid of If it's these teams, then
[54:39] Speaker 4: you know it's hard to You can't make any sort
[54:41] Speaker 4: of projection as to who they might play if they
[54:43] Speaker 4: finished third. But you know, there's nothing between failure to
[54:49] Speaker 4: advance and quarterfinals is gonna surprise me all that much.
[54:52] Speaker 4: The draw is gonna be extremely important, But I do
[54:55] Speaker 4: think the odds are in favor of making the knockout rounds.
[54:57] Speaker 2: So there's are they I mean, are they playing in
[54:59] Speaker 2: a or that makes sense for who they have?
[55:02] Speaker 3: Like?
[55:02] Speaker 2: Are they coached properly and are they utilizing their dudes properly?
[55:06] Speaker 3: Yeah?
[55:07] Speaker 4: I mean, I think again, if Polistic makes in each game,
[55:11] Speaker 4: he had a chance that he's converted millions of times
[55:13] Speaker 4: in his life. If he converts those and they the
[55:15] Speaker 4: subs start coming on, both matches are one to one,
[55:17] Speaker 4: Like they were better than Belgium early, they were as
[55:20] Speaker 4: good or better than Portugal early and and and if
[55:23] Speaker 4: that's really all you can take away from friendlies is
[55:25] Speaker 4: that that's the only time game plan and starters had
[55:27] Speaker 4: a roll, then all the subs come in and of
[55:29] Speaker 4: course Portugal had better depth. Like, if that's all you
[55:33] Speaker 4: worry about, then I think they're being deployed.
[55:36] Speaker 3: All right, he's still.
[55:41] Speaker 4: I know when you go down the form formation talk,
[55:46] Speaker 4: it can really we can overdo formation.
[55:48] Speaker 1: Talk on back four back three double PITVT. Yeah, there's
[55:52] Speaker 1: a lot. There's a lot.
[55:53] Speaker 4: And because then when you see them in, they'll pitch.
[55:55] Speaker 4: First of all, we talk about a formation when everybody
[55:57] Speaker 4: has two formations?
[55:58] Speaker 3: What do you do in possession? What do you do
[55:59] Speaker 3: out up? And almost everybody's the same out of possession.
[56:02] Speaker 4: You have four back there, whether it's a three man whatever,
[56:06] Speaker 4: So that that alone makes it kind of tenuous. I
[56:10] Speaker 4: did think it was interesting that he put the three
[56:14] Speaker 4: in the back thing in his pocket. You know, there
[56:16] Speaker 4: have been times like.
[56:19] Speaker 1: You read.
[56:19] Speaker 4: I've read every World Cup book in history. There's a
[56:22] Speaker 4: really good one by Jonathan Wilson last year. There was
[56:24] Speaker 4: really good one by Simon Cooper last year. You know,
[56:27] Speaker 4: there's been millions of them. I think it was England
[56:30] Speaker 4: in sixty six where he kind of fiddled with the formation,
[56:32] Speaker 4: found something and then went and put it away and
[56:36] Speaker 4: played the rest of the friendlies running up to it
[56:38] Speaker 4: in this other formation, and then when it mattered in
[56:41] Speaker 4: the World Cup, like halfway through, he introduces this tweak
[56:44] Speaker 4: and it works beautifully, kind of still almost thinking that
[56:47] Speaker 4: the Pachatino comes out with three at the back.
[56:49] Speaker 3: In the World Cup, it.
[56:51] Speaker 4: Was it was a very the personality put out there
[56:54] Speaker 4: worked really well for it in the fall, and then
[56:56] Speaker 4: he suddenly didn't do it against two really good teams
[56:58] Speaker 4: in the Spook.
[56:59] Speaker 1: By the way bell from who they might end up
[57:00] Speaker 1: playing in the knockout if they end up winning the
[57:02] Speaker 1: group teams that they could. Yeah, yeah, So I'm with you.
[57:07] Speaker 1: I'll tell you what I've been struck by, and Dan
[57:11] Speaker 1: knows this like I have been. I have been fully
[57:15] Speaker 1: on board since the Year of Our Lord nineteen ninety
[57:18] Speaker 1: four with the World Cup coming back to the United States,
[57:21] Speaker 1: and in part I have been very discouraged by a
[57:25] Speaker 1: lot of the storms surrounding the World Cup. It's kind
[57:29] Speaker 1: of hard to see past that, I think if you're
[57:31] Speaker 1: a rational human being, because there's just a lot there
[57:35] Speaker 1: with obscene ticket prices and parking and transportation, and just
[57:39] Speaker 1: like there's a million things that can cloud your view
[57:42] Speaker 1: of it from that perspective. Secondly, there's an added layer
[57:48] Speaker 1: of the online US soccer fandom, which is just horrible.
[57:52] Speaker 1: It is. And I mean, we've been in this business
[57:54] Speaker 1: now forever. All three of us have the state of
[57:57] Speaker 1: online soccer discourse in the States, which maybe is not
[58:01] Speaker 1: a proper air quote soccer country is abysmal.
[58:05] Speaker 3: I mean, first of all, I think that makes us
[58:07] Speaker 3: a proper soccer.
[58:08] Speaker 1: It might, that's right, Yeah, And so maybe I'm just
[58:11] Speaker 1: used to like dipping my toe into what goes on
[58:14] Speaker 1: in SEC country, and that's kind of what I'm used to.
[58:17] Speaker 1: But it's like a completely different animal with respect to
[58:20] Speaker 1: how it is covered and how it has talked about online.
[58:23] Speaker 1: All of that being said, I could not agree more
[58:27] Speaker 1: with my reaction to at least the last two games,
[58:32] Speaker 1: because my group chats are filled with friends who are
[58:35] Speaker 1: wondering the same thing, like, hmm, is he just not
[58:38] Speaker 1: showing cards here? Because it felt like so much of
[58:42] Speaker 1: the momentum that we saw at the end of last
[58:44] Speaker 1: year was completely gone after the friendlies, and I understand
[58:47] Speaker 1: that this is like an important build up to the tournament,
[58:50] Speaker 1: and there will be more friendlies before they actually, you know,
[58:54] Speaker 1: put put this team in official action with the World Cup.
[58:57] Speaker 1: But I do wonder if there was a little bit
[59:00] Speaker 1: of gamesmanship there, not so much trying to figure out
[59:02] Speaker 1: who should be on the team, but almost wanting to experiment,
[59:06] Speaker 1: see if you can find something new, knowing that you
[59:08] Speaker 1: have something else in the back pocket. That might be
[59:10] Speaker 1: the most optimistic. Look at what we saw against these
[59:13] Speaker 1: two teams Belgium and Portugal, as you said, but that
[59:16] Speaker 1: was sort of my read as well.
[59:20] Speaker 4: And every time I go back, you know, whether it's
[59:23] Speaker 4: for stats or whatever. And I look back at the
[59:25] Speaker 4: US performance in twenty fourteen at that World Cup in.
[59:30] Speaker 3: Brazil, I'm like, the stats were, they're good. In that
[59:36] Speaker 3: World Cup.
[59:36] Speaker 4: They got dramatically outshot by Belgium. Obviously Tim Howard had
[59:39] Speaker 4: to make a kajillion saves, but in the group stage
[59:42] Speaker 4: that might have been their best overall group stage.
[59:44] Speaker 3: Performance in a World Cup since they started making it
[59:47] Speaker 3: again in nineteen ninety.
[59:48] Speaker 1: And they played that game in Manoos in the middle
[59:50] Speaker 1: of the rainforest, and everybody was like sucking wind right.
[59:54] Speaker 4: So my memory of experiencing those matches in real time
[1:00:00] Speaker 4: because that was peak Twitter, was the US was horrible
[1:00:04] Speaker 4: in that tournament because that was like peak twitter misery
[1:00:08] Speaker 4: with the US. I started to realize by like the
[1:00:10] Speaker 4: third game, like I can't be online. I just have
[1:00:13] Speaker 4: to close the laptop and watch because this is not
[1:00:17] Speaker 4: like the impressions were come so completely dramatically different.
[1:00:21] Speaker 3: It was.
[1:00:22] Speaker 4: It was a dismal experience online and it was a
[1:00:24] Speaker 4: really a pretty decent performance. So I and right down
[1:00:27] Speaker 4: to the toxicity towards Wando for missing that shot at
[1:00:30] Speaker 4: the end of the Belgium and the regulation even though
[1:00:33] Speaker 4: we had no business winning that game like that. That's
[1:00:36] Speaker 4: always been my consolation is like that would have been
[1:00:38] Speaker 4: just absolute theft.
[1:00:39] Speaker 3: We should have gone to jail if we had won
[1:00:40] Speaker 3: that game.
[1:00:41] Speaker 1: Yep.
[1:00:42] Speaker 3: So that that is I learned my lesson on that one.
[1:00:45] Speaker 3: I know better than to look online now.
[1:00:47] Speaker 4: Not that not that socials nearly as fun anyway or
[1:00:50] Speaker 4: useful anyway as it used to be.
[1:00:52] Speaker 3: I do.
[1:00:52] Speaker 4: I think I'm gonna have a piece coming out before
[1:00:54] Speaker 4: the World Cup about since we have stats going back
[1:00:56] Speaker 4: to sixty six for the World Cups, OPTA went back
[1:01:00] Speaker 4: and charted at all the World Cup games going back
[1:01:02] Speaker 4: to sixty six, and it was a really fun resource
[1:01:04] Speaker 4: for the last tournament. I'm gonna walk through starting in
[1:01:07] Speaker 4: ninety walk through all the US matches and just the
[1:01:09] Speaker 4: stats that went along with those games, because it's hilarious,
[1:01:12] Speaker 4: like ninety four ridiculously lucky, shouldn't have made the knockout
[1:01:16] Speaker 4: rounds at all, But that became a thing where we proved, were,
[1:01:19] Speaker 4: you know, a player in the in the in world soccer,
[1:01:23] Speaker 4: we had no business being in the knockout rounds. Ninety
[1:01:25] Speaker 4: eight severely unlucky, horrible, toxic narratives and underperforming team and
[1:01:31] Speaker 4: they really probably should have won two of those three
[1:01:33] Speaker 4: group stage games two lucky again six unlucky, like it's been.
[1:01:38] Speaker 4: We create such dramatic narratives off of every single World
[1:01:41] Speaker 4: Cup and the stats have never really matched up with
[1:01:43] Speaker 4: the actual performance. So that's been really interesting and that'll
[1:01:47] Speaker 4: be an extremely anti social piece that I write.
[1:01:49] Speaker 1: Great, Well, I'm going to the game in Seattle against Australia.
[1:01:54] Speaker 1: Are you able to go to any games? I?
[1:01:58] Speaker 3: Yes, I do not know which.
[1:02:00] Speaker 4: Yeah, we're still probably the credentially and in trying to
[1:02:03] Speaker 4: I haven't seen my official schedule yet. I don't know
[1:02:05] Speaker 4: if I'll be at US matches, but I will be
[1:02:07] Speaker 4: at quite a few matches.
[1:02:08] Speaker 1: All right, Well, keep in touch. We will have to
[1:02:10] Speaker 1: do something as we get closer to you. Well, and
[1:02:12] Speaker 1: by the way, this goes for anybody else out there
[1:02:14] Speaker 1: who's going to any of the games, hit hit us
[1:02:15] Speaker 1: up on the email. If soliverble at gmail, if if
[1:02:19] Speaker 1: you're going to be going any of these games. Would
[1:02:20] Speaker 1: love to hear from you. So why don't we leave
[1:02:22] Speaker 1: it there? Bill Connolly, ESPN dot com, Keep up the
[1:02:25] Speaker 1: good work. I look forward to reading all seven thousand
[1:02:28] Speaker 1: words on the back and every other conference and team
[1:02:31] Speaker 1: that you write about, as ever, the essential reading for
[1:02:35] Speaker 1: the college football fan out there, certainly the verballer's out there.
[1:02:39] Speaker 1: We'll talk soon. All right, sounds good? All right, there
[1:02:42] Speaker 1: you go, Dan Rubinstein, Bill Connelly from ESPN dot com
[1:02:46] Speaker 1: or good friend. Thank you for indulging me there with
[1:02:48] Speaker 1: a little bit of World Cup talk. I appreciate that.
[1:02:51] Speaker 2: Yeah, well, thank you for indulging me with up and
[1:02:53] Speaker 2: coming Spanish and Brazilian tennis player talk. I don't don't
[1:03:00] Speaker 2: think I always forget this come the springtime, I don't
[1:03:03] Speaker 2: think I recognize how many things are happening at once
[1:03:06] Speaker 2: in the sports world. Come April and October are the
[1:03:10] Speaker 2: I think the two Biggies of Memory serves obviously weren't
[1:03:12] Speaker 2: a World Cup year, but just in April and springtime
[1:03:16] Speaker 2: in general, having you know, major League Baseball start having
[1:03:19] Speaker 2: spring games, having the NFL Draft, having both the NBA
[1:03:23] Speaker 2: and NHL playoffs, the WNBA is starting. I know they
[1:03:26] Speaker 2: just had their draft. We had the Masters obviously in April,
[1:03:30] Speaker 2: that the tennis clay court swing, the College World Series
[1:03:35] Speaker 2: is is not yet, but the college baseball season is
[1:03:38] Speaker 2: in full swing.
[1:03:39] Speaker 1: A ton happening yep in April.
[1:03:42] Speaker 2: And kids are into like the NBA and NHL Stanley
[1:03:45] Speaker 2: Cup playoffs. Like I really really do respect this time
[1:03:50] Speaker 2: of year from a like every night there's something on.
[1:03:53] Speaker 2: I know we celebrate when we go to Macchin on
[1:03:56] Speaker 2: Tuesday and you get like the Tuesday through Sunday or
[1:03:58] Speaker 2: I guess every day sports. I was saying Tuesday through
[1:04:01] Speaker 2: Sunday and then you get Monday night football and Tuesday night action.
[1:04:04] Speaker 2: But there's something to be said about the variety. The buffet,
[1:04:07] Speaker 2: the Smorgasburg boards, morgas.
[1:04:09] Speaker 1: Boards, Smorgage board.
[1:04:11] Speaker 2: Yeah, there used to be a food thing in Brooklyn
[1:04:14] Speaker 2: called Smorgasberg in Williamsburg and I always get confused morgas Board. Uh,
[1:04:20] Speaker 2: there's a lot going on. There's a lot of my plate.
[1:04:22] Speaker 1: I love it. Yeah.
[1:04:23] Speaker 2: Well, and uh it was sorry Mets fans, there's no
[1:04:26] Speaker 2: Mets baseball apparently.
[1:04:27] Speaker 1: No. No, no, well they did win. I saw they
[1:04:29] Speaker 1: won last night.
[1:04:30] Speaker 2: They finally did something.
[1:04:31] Speaker 1: Yeah, they won like a nothing last night. But yeah,
[1:04:34] Speaker 1: to the point, it's great to bring Bill on now
[1:04:38] Speaker 1: before things really start going haywire in terms of preview season.
[1:04:44] Speaker 1: Obviously he mentioned the World Cup. He's invested in that
[1:04:46] Speaker 1: as well. But yeah, we we try to catch up
[1:04:49] Speaker 1: with Bill as often as we can, just to get
[1:04:50] Speaker 1: his insight on things. I know he released Returning Production
[1:04:54] Speaker 1: a few weeks ago. As you mentioned spring questions and whatnot,
[1:04:58] Speaker 1: So hopefully we gave some clarity to the college football
[1:05:03] Speaker 1: fans out there who are trying to figure out their
[1:05:06] Speaker 1: team's place in the college football universe. That is ever
[1:05:09] Speaker 1: the question this time of year. Still after spring, you've
[1:05:14] Speaker 1: got a ton of questions. In many cases, we've answered
[1:05:16] Speaker 1: some of them, but a lot remains to be seen
[1:05:19] Speaker 1: just as a Notre Dame fan, as a Penn State fan,
[1:05:21] Speaker 1: I can speak to that. I mean, though we know
[1:05:24] Speaker 1: a lot, there's still plenty that we don't and that's
[1:05:26] Speaker 1: part of what makes this time of year so interesting.
[1:05:28] Speaker 2: So did you watch the Notre Dame Spring game.
[1:05:31] Speaker 1: I didn't have a chance to watch it, yet I
[1:05:33] Speaker 1: have read probably seventy thousand words on it.
[1:05:38] Speaker 2: No highlights. The only thing I saw with CJ. Carr
[1:05:41] Speaker 2: was like, errand I don't know if that was the
[1:05:44] Speaker 2: right term. I think I don't know if he had
[1:05:46] Speaker 2: picks or was just off and trying new things and
[1:05:48] Speaker 2: having new responsibilities. But it wasn't wall to wall CJ.
[1:05:53] Speaker 2: Car highlights Now well, and CJ.
[1:05:55] Speaker 1: Carr at this point is assumed, Yeah, of course has
[1:05:58] Speaker 1: assumed he's going to be very good. I mean, I've
[1:05:59] Speaker 1: read any of practice reports here about scrimmages that they
[1:06:02] Speaker 1: did in advance of the spring game, where people were
[1:06:05] Speaker 1: Pete Sampson our friend and many others were like, yeah,
[1:06:08] Speaker 1: it's like it's like he stole the playbook from Chris
[1:06:10] Speaker 1: Ash and knows exactly what's coming. So that's reassuring that
[1:06:14] Speaker 1: there's not a whole lot that can throw at him
[1:06:15] Speaker 1: that he hasn't seen. I've really been encouraged by what
[1:06:19] Speaker 1: I've read about the left side of the line. Will
[1:06:21] Speaker 1: Black now stepping in as their left tackle. He has
[1:06:24] Speaker 1: gotten rave reviews. I've really been encouraged by what I've
[1:06:27] Speaker 1: seen about their defensive line, the likes of like Rodney
[1:06:31] Speaker 1: Dunham and some of these new players that could factor
[1:06:34] Speaker 1: in here as well. I mean, they've already got a
[1:06:36] Speaker 1: ton of returning production along the line. But there was
[1:06:39] Speaker 1: something of a question about, like, all right, what about
[1:06:41] Speaker 1: the interior line they added a transfer to what about
[1:06:44] Speaker 1: you know, some of these guys that are coming in,
[1:06:47] Speaker 1: Kean Keeley, Rodney Dunham, the freshman, what is that line
[1:06:50] Speaker 1: going to look like? So my concerns on that front
[1:06:54] Speaker 1: have definitely been alleviated a bit. And just with what
[1:06:58] Speaker 1: they've got coming back in the second and I think
[1:07:00] Speaker 1: this is going to be a really really good team.
[1:07:02] Speaker 1: Like it gives me the steves a little bit when
[1:07:04] Speaker 1: you say, oh, everybody's high on Notre Dame, and Bill
[1:07:07] Speaker 1: was high on Notre Dame, and you might, I hope
[1:07:09] Speaker 1: you don't pick them as a national champion.
[1:07:11] Speaker 2: Well, it's just that they're they're they're a pretty stable place,
[1:07:14] Speaker 2: very place.
[1:07:15] Speaker 1: They've got a ton coming back there. There's really not
[1:07:19] Speaker 1: a whole lot in terms of like genuine holes that
[1:07:23] Speaker 1: I think you worry about now if a quarterback goes
[1:07:25] Speaker 1: down or something. You know, that's a different conversation. But
[1:07:28] Speaker 1: to what end are you encourage discouraged keeping your head
[1:07:33] Speaker 1: down with respect to Oregon.
[1:07:35] Speaker 2: Well, they had their spring game. I'm very encouraged. Receivers
[1:07:39] Speaker 2: should be stacked. The defensive line looks absolutely stacked. They're
[1:07:42] Speaker 2: deep with killers on the edge. Secondary looks great, and
[1:07:46] Speaker 2: they brought in you know, a good amount of depth
[1:07:48] Speaker 2: there to hopefully and the youth coming in looks really good.
[1:07:53] Speaker 2: The the takeaways it seemed from people who you know,
[1:07:57] Speaker 2: went more granular with it was or the big takeaway
[1:08:01] Speaker 2: was like Oregon has a bunch of monsters on this
[1:08:03] Speaker 2: defensive line and they like completely overwhelmed the Oregon offensive
[1:08:07] Speaker 2: line combinations. So then on the flip side, you're like,
[1:08:10] Speaker 2: what's this offensem not gonna look like like they might
[1:08:12] Speaker 2: have the best center in the country in Poncho, but
[1:08:15] Speaker 2: the tackle position is very much like wait and see,
[1:08:20] Speaker 2: we'll see if like Fox Crater works out at left tackled.
[1:08:22] Speaker 2: I think there's a lot of promising thoughts about him
[1:08:25] Speaker 2: at left tackle, and he came in and spelled Isaiah
[1:08:28] Speaker 2: World last year when he went down injured a couple
[1:08:30] Speaker 2: of games. But right tackles an open question. One of
[1:08:35] Speaker 2: the guard spots is an open question. They've got like
[1:08:37] Speaker 2: two blue chip freshmen coming in, one of whom was
[1:08:39] Speaker 2: there for the spring, who I guess looks very positive
[1:08:42] Speaker 2: and Tommy Tophy, and they're like the five star tackle
[1:08:46] Speaker 2: coming in in the summer. I assume we'll compete on
[1:08:49] Speaker 2: a certain level for playing time. But if the offensive
[1:08:53] Speaker 2: line is fine, they're you know, they're stacked at running back.
[1:08:56] Speaker 2: Tight end should be a very good place. Receivers like
[1:08:58] Speaker 2: Evan Stewart was exploded game.
[1:09:00] Speaker 1: It was nice to see him out there because this
[1:09:04] Speaker 1: can he play a full year? Well? Can he play
[1:09:06] Speaker 1: a full year? But that's sort of the secondary question
[1:09:10] Speaker 1: to can he reboot his career. He's going to aid
[1:09:13] Speaker 1: this year if he wants to go totally anywhere significant
[1:09:17] Speaker 1: on the next level, and so it's you know, he's
[1:09:20] Speaker 1: had injury issues. It's good to see him out there.
[1:09:21] Speaker 2: Dylan Rayola had a couple of nice throws.
[1:09:24] Speaker 1: Did I read something about him looking like he put
[1:09:26] Speaker 1: on a few LB's.
[1:09:28] Speaker 2: I don't know, man, you take a picture of any
[1:09:30] Speaker 2: of us from the wrong angle on the wrong time,
[1:09:32] Speaker 2: all right, just wondering.
[1:09:33] Speaker 1: I'm not I'm not looking for a defamation suit here,
[1:09:37] Speaker 1: I just read social online. Look, the big question about
[1:09:40] Speaker 1: Oregon is not one that can be answered in spring,
[1:09:43] Speaker 1: and that is from my money. You mentioned the line
[1:09:46] Speaker 1: that's important to internal promotions, offensive coordinator, defensive coordinator. How
[1:09:53] Speaker 1: does that hold up under the pressure of a Big
[1:09:55] Speaker 1: ten season, a full college football season with this much talent. That,
[1:09:59] Speaker 1: for me is the big question about.
[1:10:00] Speaker 2: Yeah, they claimed it was apparently a thing where like
[1:10:04] Speaker 2: they didn't run any new plays on offense, and they
[1:10:08] Speaker 2: didn't play a ton of the guys up front on
[1:10:10] Speaker 2: defense that we'll be starting, and so the defense seemed
[1:10:14] Speaker 2: to dominate with backups, which is not the worst thing
[1:10:18] Speaker 2: to hear going into the summer, I guess. But yeah,
[1:10:22] Speaker 2: Oregon is an open January question at this point, and
[1:10:26] Speaker 2: we'll see how they get there, if they get there,
[1:10:28] Speaker 2: and what they look like once they're there. Because they've
[1:10:31] Speaker 2: only lost to national champions the last couple of years,
[1:10:34] Speaker 2: Indiana twice, in Ohio State once and they beat Ohio
[1:10:37] Speaker 2: State the first time they played them. Yeah, that's the
[1:10:41] Speaker 2: sort of missing piece because we assume they are of
[1:10:43] Speaker 2: you know, semi final quality, and what do they look
[1:10:46] Speaker 2: like If they are indeed that?
[1:10:49] Speaker 1: All right, well, why don't we leave it there Solid
[1:10:51] Speaker 1: Verbal at gmail dot com. If you have any thoughts,
[1:10:54] Speaker 1: you can, of course reach out to us across all
[1:10:56] Speaker 1: of the social platforms. We do that as well. Everybody
[1:10:58] Speaker 1: has to if you are in this line of work.
[1:11:02] Speaker 1: Big thanks to our guest of honor today, Bill Connolly.
[1:11:04] Speaker 1: Make sure you're going out to ESPN dot com and
[1:11:06] Speaker 1: read all of his fine work on both football and
[1:11:11] Speaker 1: the World Cup, and I guess tennis. He does tennis
[1:11:13] Speaker 1: coverage too, covers a little bit of everything. Yes, dot com,
[1:11:17] Speaker 1: go and check out Bill Connolly. Follow him on all
[1:11:20] Speaker 1: of your social platforms as well. We will be back
[1:11:23] Speaker 1: next week. Much more to discuss here in the world
[1:11:26] Speaker 1: of college football. As Dan said, a lot going on
[1:11:29] Speaker 1: right now. Will do our best to keep you up
[1:11:32] Speaker 1: to speak for that guy over there, Dan, for myself
[1:11:34] Speaker 1: over here, Ty, do you know the drill? Enjoy your weekends,
[1:11:37] Speaker 1: Stay solid peace,

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