← Josh Pate's College Football Show
Josh Pate's College Football Show
My College Football Wish List + Fan Bases That Deserve A Title
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Josh Bates
This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human Latte Iced Coffee Espresso. Your new Nespresso Vertuo up machine makes the perfect cup for every morning. One button press and you can brew any coffee any size your way. New Vertuo Up Press to explore shop now@nespresso.com Amazon Health AI presents painful thoughts I I can't stop scratching my downtown. Mm yeah, but I'm not itching to
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Josh Bates
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Josh Bates
Visit your nearby Lowes do you want to find a stress free way to buy your next car? Start at CarMax and shop your way. If you want to browse with confidence, get pre qualified online with no impact on your credit score and shop cars within your budget. From luxury cars to family rides, CarMax has options for almost every price range, including more than 25,000 cars priced under $25,000. So hey, want to get started? Just head to CarMax.com for details and get pre qualified today. Want to drive Carma? It takes a sick man, Jesse to be in Fairhope, Alabama at 10 o' clock last night following a wedding. Congratulations Wyatt and Grace by the way. And to then say, you know what I want to do tonight? I want to drive to Nashville because I want to threaten the staff that if they don't produce a jam packed show tomorrow night, we're not even going to allow them to enjoy Memorial Day. And so a lot of pressure on Jesse and the crew in there. Absolutely zero sleep on my part and I don't want to make it all about me. That's the last thing that I ever want to do on the show is make it all about me. But I'm just saying, if I have trekked all the way up here for a terrible show tonight, someone's going to pay for it and it's not going to be me. We're jam packed. We're high atop a blessed downtown Nashville, Tennessee on this Sunday, May 24, the year of our Lord 2026. You want to know why we're blessed? Aside from the obvious reasons, there is not a whiff of college Football playoff conversation in the show tonight. None of it whatsoever. They can have their spring meetings all they want to. No, no, no positive vibes. I would say this is going to be one of the happier shows that we've done in a long time. And I would tell you if it wasn't because remember, just a week ago, I think it was, I came on the air and said we like to have happy shows, but tonight is not going to be one of those nights. Well, this is going to be one of those nights. So we got some predictions on the show tonight, bold predictions. I have got some brand new spreads on games of the year that have just dropped within the past couple of days and a couple of them really jump off the screen to me. I have personally placed some action on one of them that I'm going to tell you about. Also, some teams have been fortunate recently, Indiana, most recently, you've won a national championship. Very, very memorable for you and your fan base and whatnot. A lot of you out there have just been in the desert and you're starving and you're suffering and you want to taste playoff success and championship success so bad and you haven't been able to do it. And I got a question in the inbox about who I think deserves a championship most, who I would personally love to see win a championship most. And I couldn't narrow it down. I had like five answers. So we got a very, very, very much a variety based show tonight. But it's going to start on a very happy note. They're watching us in Pine Mountain, Georgia. Myra Slash Mira, Texas. Either way, they just punched their ticket to the Women's College World Series that we do know. They're watching us in Yuma, Arizona, a town I have longed to have a check in from. Maybe our first check in from Yuma. I do know I'm pronouncing that one right. And Springfield, Missouri, subscribe to the channel wherever you are. Thank you so much. And after you do that, you've done your job and now it's up to us to do ours. So it's May 24th. It's a little after 7 o' clock Central Standard Time on this Sunday night. You may be listening on your Memorial Day drive across the country. Wherever you are, stay safe, enjoy it. But what should we talk about tonight? You know, we could lead with A lot of different things. We could go the playoff expansion route if we wanted to. We could talk about spring meetings. We could do that sort of thing. But that's not been fun to me. That's not been fun. And if I'm gauging our audience correctly, I don't know that you guys are having fun now. You've listened to it, you've cared about it, but I don't think it's made you happy. And in a long weekend, we want to be happy. Bradley, here's your end point. Lost in all of the playoff expansion talk was the fact that we got inside 100 days to kickoff the other day. That's true. That's the fact. It's written right here. Stats and info tells me less than 100 days until the kickoff of college football season. And I had a long drive last night. I drove six and a half hours overnight. Savannah State just conked out of her mind, sound asleep in the passenger seat. So all it was was me and the road and time to think. And so what did I think about? I thought about the upcoming season. What else would I think about? Responsibilities, Finances. That's terrible. No, I thought about college football. And my mind, when I think about college football, does not veer towards the bad. It veers towards the fun, towards the positive. You probably do this all the time. You just kind of start daydreaming about the upcoming season. And here's where my mind went. My mind went a number of different directions, but the first thing I thought was, man, Saturdays in the fall are awesome. Okay? We know that most of us who congregate around this water cooler agree that this is the greatest sport on the face of the earth. And that's not changing this year. Even if there may be some things that we're unhappy about in the present moment, that's not changing this year. And so I think about Saturdays in the fall being what I love the most, even above and beyond the playoff. And I think about just examples. Like, I think it's week 10 this year, Jesse, where if you just, like, dial up a random Saturday and you look at the lineup of games on this one day, you've got Bama at lsu, same time as Georgia at Ole Miss. And then you got the Holy War. Cause the Big 12 doesn't want us to call it that. So the Holy War, Brigham Young at Utah is happening. And then as that's happening, Miami at Notre Dame is happening. And then if that's not enough for you, Oregon at Ohio State is the same day. Now Ladies and gentlemen, I know there may be some really, really, really high profile soccer matchups overseas. I know the NFL is a monster to me. There is nothing in the fields of entertainment or sports on the face of this planet that can provide something more fulfilling to me than that right there. That is what college football is about. So I think about that. That's not only the, that's not even the only weekend that looks like that. That's just one that I had them make a graphic for. But if you think about the title picture this year, think about the national championship picture. Some years, even when we're sitting here in May, we know there's going to be an absolute prohibitive national championship favorite. And then it's got to take care of them. They've got to fall for anyone else to have a shot. That's not the way it is this year. They're, Those are the FanDuel odds to win the national title this year. If you're listening on podcast, Ohio State, Notre Dame, Texas, Indiana, Oregon, Georgia, they all have really comparable odds. And if I ran FanDuel, I'd have Miami north of where Miami is. So I'd throw Miami in that mix too. So what would that be, Jesse? That'd be 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. That's seven teams just in what I would call the lead pack. And then not in that lead pack. A&M, LSU, Ole Miss, Alabama, Texas Tech. So you got some really high level talent rosters, you got some big brands there, but you've got a wide open national championship picture. And that's not even to make room for someone who could come in out of nowhere. Maybe Willie Fritz just crashes the party. Maybe that happens. But my point is that's the most fun starting point to a season. I would say last year was like that. Last year we were sitting around and saying, boy, it's anyone's guess as to who's going to win the national title or who even is going to be favored to win the national championship. And oh, by the way, if you look at that graphic, but we were to go back in time one year, how would any of us have known this time last year, Penn State, who would have been on this graphic. Clemson, who would have been on that graphic. Lsu, who would have been on that graphic, they're going to finish totally outside the picture. Two of them are going to fire their head coaches during the season. Now, I know that's not fun for those fan bases or those coaches, but for me, I don't love, I don't Love driving in fog. When it comes to looking towards a season, I love for it to be foggy. Those are the most fun seasons to me. Week two is a big, big week this year. Week one is low key, leaves a lot to be desired and that's a whole separate conversation about scheduling. But week two, especially because that's still the time of year where we have a lot of out of conference matchups, it's going to tell us a lot. Man. There's a lot of talk right now about the caliber of conferences and I always think that bowl season is kind of a joke when you use it to gauge relative conference strength. I thought that back when the SEC dominated bowl season, like the SEC may have been the best conference in college football, it wasn't because their bowl record was great. And even more so now that you've got opt out culture in bowl season, I don't value bowl results a whole lot. I do value regular season, conference versus conference head to head results. See, here's the bad part. A lot of times those can be misleading because if the Big 12 second best team plays the ACC's 11th best team and the Big 12 team wins, I didn't learn a whole lot about the relative strength of those conferences that day. But if you look at what we have in week two, when Oklahoma plays at Michigan, when Ohio State plays at Texas, and then I've got Tennessee playing against Georgia Tech, I've got Oregon playing Oklahoma State, Arizona State plays A and M that day. There's also another couple of really random ones that I think go a long way towards comparing conference string. Mississippi State at Minnesota is a good example. Like if you were to, if you were to rank teams top to bottom in the Big Ten, in the sec, I think it's pretty safe to assume Mississippi State would be much lower seated in the SEC than Minnesota would be in the Big Ten. So if, if Mississippi State goes to Minneapolis or St. Paul where they play, Jesse, it's Minneapolis. I think it's Minneapolis. Shame on you, Jesse. Mr. Big Ten. That's what he calls himself around the office. Not my nickname. It's his. If they were to go up there and win, that's a data point. But it could be drowned out if Ohio State and Michigan beat Texas and Oklahoma that day. Point being, there could be resounding results either way. That tells me a lot. For a month and a half or two months down the road, when we're talking about measuring strength of schedules, when we're talking about playoff debates and should a three loss team from this league jump over a two loss team or even a one loss team from certain other leagues. Well, that's. Those are the kind of data points I love to have in my back pocket. So that'll be a fun day. The aftermath of that historic coaching carousel we just saw last December, we're going to start feeling it this year now. I'm not even talking about hot seat. I'm talking about the seats that have been filled. So I don't ever remember a season last year. I don't remember in my lifetime at least a season like the one we had last year. I don't ever remember that much drama, that much movement, that many firings that early in the season. I mean you got Penn State hiring Matt Campbell. Finally you have got LSU hiring Kiffin. You've got Florida hiring Sumrall. Auburn then goes and gets Alex Goelish. Michigan gets Kyle Whittingham. Bob Chesney may be a better hire than all of them. Bob Chesney sort of off the radar I think because of how high profile some of these other coaching searches were and the fact that he went to the playoffs. So it lasted a little bit longer. He goes to ucla. UCLA just killed him. Just could not have really seen that coming. And he's not going to get as much fanfare because of some of the other names on this list right here. But my point is we start to see that yield results this year. We start to see which ones will and won't work out. Ryan Silverfield, what's he going to do at Arkansas? What is Morgan Scally going to do? They went 10 and 2 at Utah last year. Colin Klein inherits Avery Johnson at Kansas State. That's so weird to think two years ago that I would have been saying Chris Kleiman's going to be out, man. He's not going to be there anymore. It can move quick. It can move really quick. And then of course you got Pete Golding in his first full year as Ole Miss head coach and gets LSU in his building really, really early in the first month of the season. Do you think Stein has noticed that? He's the only one I didn't mention. I'm going to mention every name on the list. Will Stein. Is it Kentucky? Some people around this building, not me, but some people have whispered the word dark horse. Whispered. I haven't heard full throated dark horse Kentucky yet. But there have been whispers. There have been whispers. Irresponsible I think, but there have been whispers on the flip side of that. And this is the less fun part. So I'm going to skim over this really quickly. What kind of start does Florida State get off to? Or in other words, what I'm asking is all that stuff we saw around Florida and Auburn and LSU and Penn State last year, are we going to have that again? It seems that Florida State would be a likely candidate if Mike Norvell can't get off to a hot start. It seems that Wisconsin could be one of those candidates if Luke Fickle and Wisconsin aren't providing a noticeable uptick in their production level. And look, I am of the opinion that it is a playoff or bust sort of year for Lincoln Riley at usc. So now they're going to have, I think, a far better quality of team than FSU or Wisconsin will. So it'll probably take a lot later into the year, even if there were to be movement there. Or maybe there won't be because maybe he'll end up winning the Big Ten. All of these possibilities are in the cards. So that'll be fun to watch. You know what else would be fun to watch? Clemson. Just as a team. And I did make a promise that I was going to work on the pronunciation. It's one of my summer projects, actually, is to work on my pronunciation of Clemson. Still a hard Z in there. So it's a work in progress. None of us are perfect. But I have vowed to work on it. But in the meantime, I'm doing the best I can by saying Clemson Dabo's doing the best he can by hiring Chad Morris to come in there just like he did. And he's pointed it out several times. After a disastrous 2010 season, he hires Chad Morris and off to the races eventually. And Chad Morris is back there. It did not work out with Garrett Riley. He has moved on and Chad Morris is in. The problem is a lot of other talent walked out the door too, to the NFL and one of the big draft night, well, I guess draft weekend takeaways, once the dust settled and people started looking at how many players were drafted from which teams they were looking and they were saying Ohio State, of course, some of these other teams, like, of course. And then there's Clemson. Clemson had how many guys drafted, they won how many games last year. And so, you know, I've been sitting here for two years now pointing to 2025 for Clemson, saying, hey, that's the year they got to get it done. Because if they don't get it done in that year, I'm looking past 2025 and I don't see the kind of talent roster that they're going to need to compete at the highest levels. Well, here we are beyond 2025, and I got to be real with you, even Dabo's calling his rosters a bunch of nobodies. Now, he's doing that for motivational perpi. Plural of purpose. But I'm looking at it and I'm saying, well, okay, either I'm right or he's right. And he certainly knows his team better than I do. So it would be real fun and sort of just a quintessential college football moment for Dabo to go on some run to an ACC championship the year after the whole world expected him to. And it would fall right in line with sort of the identity and, and the way things, the way things were born over there, the way the Dabo era was born at Clemson, it wasn't born with tons of expectation. It was born of them, sort of circumventing everyone's expectation. Also Indiana, the year after Indiana just won a national championship. In the past, we've seen teams that win at the highest level, then they struggle with complacency, they win at the highest level and it's never quite the same. Well, Kurt Signetti, he's been a part of teams like that. I should have cued up that sound bite we had from him when we sat down with him a couple of weeks ago. Talking about winning a title at Alabama and then experiencing that stuff after that. Well, he gets to try and avoid it. They get to try and avoid it. We get to find out if Josh Hoover can not necessarily be Fernando Mendoza 2.0, but can he be a championship caliber quarterback? Can they backfill that kind of defensive talent that is departed to the Sunday game? Do they get the breaks? How do they handle the bullseye being on them now? To an extent, it already was last year, but that was just a magical season last year. Do they just go replicate that? The one thing about them this year, if you look at the schedule here or if you're listening, I'll read it to you right quick. The first half of their schedule. I'm not saying it's impossible for them to lose, but it would take upsets. They play North Texas, they play Howard, Western Kentucky. It's a garbage out of conference schedule. They play Northwestern, Rutgers and Nebraska as their first three in conference games. Two of those are on the road though. And then it's Ohio State, Michigan got usc, got Washington towards the end of the year. Don't want to overlook Barry and The boys, Purdue to end the season. Everybody else will. So I'm not going to. But my point is it'll take a while before we really start figuring out what Indiana is this year. Guys, I'm just saying this is where my mind goes. This is not a breaking news type portion of the show. I wouldn't even call this a segment. It's just a stream of consciousness. This is how my mind works. This was me driving through Saraland, Alabama last night. Millbrook made a brief stop in Millbrook, whomst amongst us hasn't. All the way up through Birmingham and then Coleman and then Athens and then Pulaski. I'm just naming off all the towns on I65. This is where my mind went last night. Rolling into town on a Friday before a big game, a big home campus college football Saturday game. There's nothing like it. There's nothing like feeling that energy continue to rise and continue to rise the build throughout the whole week. You guys, if you're an Oregon fan, if you're a USC fan, if you're a Texas fan, if you're a Georgia fan, when you got a big one coming up Saturday, you know that there's a way that Monday feels and it's different than the way the Wednesday feels. And then that Thursday, make sure the practice reports come in and there are no injuries. You got the coaches show that night, you may even call in. But at the very least it's the last shot you got to hear from your head coach. And then Friday you may be traveling or Friday you may be staring at the clock on the wall trying to get that thing to move because you're still 24 hours away from kickoff. And then Saturday rolls around. We're only promised 12 of them. We're only promised 12 of them. And anything above and beyond that you kind of got to earn. But there's nothing like that. There's nothing to me even like fall camp scrimmage intel. You know, when we open fall camp, which is late July, early August for most people and you got a couple of scrimmages and some of you have quarterback competitions. I mean, think about Tennessee this fall. Jesse, think about that first fall scrimmage and we're trying to find out. Faison, Brandon, how do you look? How'd McIntyre look? Is hypo going to announce a starter here? Is he going to wait to the second scrimmage? Are they going to get all the way to week one, Week two? Is it going to be settled in season? That is. That's like a Controlled substance to me is what it is, thinking about that sort of thing. And then the smells of a campus on game day. The. You know what also stands out to me when I think about a game day is the sound of faint sirens in the distance getting louder and louder, which of course is teams arriving. This is where my mind goes. Anyway, I'm looking forward to college football this year. We don't cover anything else on this sport. I'm looking forward to college football. On a related note, we were talking to Fanduel Mike the other day. Fanduel Mike said, hey, you may want to check the website. Some games of the year just dropped. We checked the website. Games of the year. More games of the year just dropped. Bradley, here's a good endpoint for you. We got spreads on several college football games of the year. Now, some of them had already dropped. Like we've already talked about some of them for a while, but we got more of them. I'm holding six more of them in my hand right here. For instance, you know LSU and Lane Kiffin go on the road to play Ole Miss in week three. You know that. What I can now also confirm for you is we know what the spread on the game is. Now, before I reveal it, I'm gonna give you guys like three seconds to guess. LSU at Ole Miss. What would you make it if you ran your own sportsbook? I'll tell you what. FanDuel made it. Ole Miss minus two and a half. To me, the big takeaway there is Ole Miss and LSU are viewed pretty close to even on a neutral field. And I don't know that that's what the preseason rankings will look like. I would assume preseason rankings would have LSU significantly higher, would you say? Jesse? My guess is LSU is going to be significantly higher. I disagree with that. I've got Ole Miss as a slam dunk top 10 team with Trinidad Chambliss playing. This is the first road game of the year for lsu. Also, how do you handicap the intangibles here? That that'll be as big a an external factor game, I think, as we'll see all year. Now, knowing Lane Kiffin like we do, I think he'll shy away from the spotlight a lot and I think he'll try and downplay that and try and temper things. And if there's one thing that I correlate with Lane Kiffin, it's a subdued nature about this sort of thing. But nevertheless, I don't think Ole Miss folks have forgotten three weeks later. Some call it the red river rivalry. We never would. It's the Red River Shootout and it is in Dallas, Texas, the Cotton bowl, one of very, very few neutral site games that we endorse as a community here at Pate State. Texas versus Oklahoma. Your best guess as to the spread on this game? Three, two, one, Texas minus six and a half. Does that surprise you? This is a neutral site game, by the way. There's no need to figure out mathematically what the number would be on a neutral field. This is week six now. So remember last year, Matier John Mateer, Oklahoma quarterback, got hurt and he came back for this game. And when you were watching it, it was pretty obvious, man, he may have. He may have come back too quickly because he was very ineffective, which hurt me because I had a Matier Heisman ticket. Felt good about it until I didn't remember. Also, this was the week after Texas had gone and lost at Florida and their backs against the wall and they won this one. And this year, both of these teams have multiple losable games before this one. Like our strength of schedule metrics, internally here have Texas and OU with top 7 strength of schedules. So whatever you think about your own strength of schedule metrics, you could have them 14th and 15th, whatever. They both have tough schedules to play and they both have tough schedules to play before this point. So they could both be undefeated, they could both be in wounded animal mode, or one of them could be in a much better position than the other one, and the other one's looking to salvage their season and they're facing their rival. Who knows? They could pretty much sledgehammer their head and their playoff hopes on this Saturday. And where else would you rather sledgehammer someone's head at the Cotton Bowl? Because then you just go out to the Texas State Fair and you could sledgehammer one of those chickens and get a little chicken head, which I know because I did. And funnel cake. Show me the run games. That's what I want to know by week six. Show me the run games. Texas and ou next up, same day. See, this is. This is. I don't suffer from anxiety, but if I did, this is where it would really kick in. Trying to figure out which of these games to go to. Georgia plays Alabama the same day Texas plays ou. Georgia plays in Tuscaloosa. What would you say? Point spread here, best guesses. What would you say? What if I told you Georgia is a 2 1/2 point favorite on the road at Alabama right now? Now that I think could shift pretty drastically given the Alabama quarterback picture. Because this game's happening like halfway through the year. So by then either Austin Mack or Keelan Russell or a combination of the two, whatever it is, we've seen a significant sample size of Alabama's quarterback situation. So I mean, if, if Keelan Russell ends up winning that job and just balls out, well, Alabama is going to be a favorite at home. If it's a mixed bag, especially if Georgia looks really good to start the year, Georgia could be like a five or six point favorite at Alabama, so a lot could change there. But you're looking at 11 of the last 12 SEC champions facing off in this game, including the participants in last year's SEC championship game. So Alabama couldn't run the ball last year. They did somehow find 117 yards against Georgia last year. I was at the game. I don't remember 117 yards on the ground for Alabama. They had to carry it 38 times to find 117 yards. Here's why they won in Athens last year. They were 13 of 19 on third down. Suffice it to say they did not come close to replicating that number in Atlanta a couple of months later. Does either team emerge from this game as a bona fide national championship contender favorite with Georgia? You could say they may enter the season in that category, depending on what your opinion is of Gunnar Stockton. People will not paint Alabama that way. Bama's got to earn the perception for whatever perception matters to you. And they will have by this point if they were to be undefeated here, they were to beat Georgia. So a lot will have been learned about both of these teams by this point. The next week, I think, is the biggest game in the history, the home history of Indiana football. And what a storied history it's been. Jesse, five favorite Indiana home games in history. Go. While you're working on that in there, let me tell you, not only is Ohio State going to Bloomington, Ohio State as of this moment is a one and a half point underdog at Indiana in week seven. Yes. Biggest home game in Indiana history. Ohio State as an underdog is a huge deal. Let me take you back four years, three years, whatever. And I just want to pretend with you for a second that you and I are sitting around, we're looking down the road to 2026. And I tell you two things. I tell you thing number one, Ohio State is going to be the favorite to win the national championship in 2026. Okay? Thing number two, they're going to be a point spread underdog to Indiana in a football game. These two things do not compute. If I tell you they're going to be a point spread dog to Indiana, even if disaster has struck at Ohio State, you're still asking how is that possible? And imagine then me telling you about Kurt Signetti and what's about to happen. So anyway, it's very rare, is my point. And this game is still a long way away, so it could cross zero. Ohio State could be a short favorite here, but this three or four years ago would be unfathomable. Number one odds to win the national championship and still a point spread underdog on the road to Indiana. I just think that we're going to get pretty deep in the season. And Indiana, there could be one of two things here. They could look dominant to start the year, at which point you still need to see it against the big boys, but because they've earned the respect now, you trust it will show up against the big boys. And so at that point they're one of a few favorites to win the title again. Or there's this other possibility, like FSU in 2014, the year after FSU won the title, they were winning games, but you could tell something was off. They were winning because the teams they were playing were inferior. Well, Indiana could do that this year. Indiana plays a lot of inferior competition to start their year. And if they're winning at 49 to 10, it doesn't matter. But what if they're winning those games like 26 to 19 and you find yourself saying it's a win, but man, something feels different here. Well, if the latter scenario were to occur, this is kind of where rubber meets. Road Week 10 is a monster Saturday in college football. Actually, earlier in the show we showed the graphic about all the games on this day. One of the games, prime time on this Saturday is Miami at Notre Dame. This line I've got problems with. What do you think? Miami at Notre Dame. How about Notre Dame minus six and a half? It's a much bigger number than I thought it would be. It's a significantly bigger number than I think it should be. So I've already got some action on this one. I know it's. It's like four years away at this point. I don't think anyone has business laying that many points against Miami this year. Unless I'm wrong about Miami. It's happened a time or two. But if Miami doesn't screw it up for me, and I'm right, Miami is going to be every bit the caliber of team that it takes to go in there and win Outright, So that's not a prediction, because that would be insane to do right now. But grabbing nearly a touchdown with Miami, as good as I think they're going to be this year, I'll take that. Now, here's what we do know, or we think we know. This is going to be a very, very tall task for them. Not only are they going on the road, they're going on the road way up north in November. So who knows what the weather's going to be, Although it didn't bother them the last two weeks of the regular season last year. But secondly, this will be by far the best defense I think Miami will have played all year. So that's the point that I really focus on more. But it's a revenge spot for Notre Dame, too. Look, I love Notre Dame. I got him number one in my preseason right now. So you don't need to sell me on Notre Dame. I'm just really high on Miami, too. So those teams are very, very close to being even to me, on a neutral field. Therefore, if I'm running Pate State Sportsbook, which does not exist, this looks a lot closer to three or three and a half than it does six or six and a half. And also if we want to go all the way to Week 13, Michigan at Ohio State. The curse is broken now. So it's just a normal rivalry game that happens to be the best in the sport to me. Ohio State, as of this Moment is a 12 and a half point favorite against Michigan. What is Michigan? By this point we have found out what Kyle Whittingham's Michigan version 1.0 is. We have found out Bryce Underwood, in his second full year as starter, what he is. We have found out, you know, about Ohio State, too, but like, Ohio State's a lot more proven a commodity. Although I guess I should stop short of saying that with all the attrition that they've had through the NFL draft. Anyway, that's a good number, I think, just for the perception of where these two programs are right now. But a lot's going to happen. I just want to let you know that's the last week of the regular season. But for those interested, Ohio State is a 12 1/2 point favorite over Michigan. My favorite thing in the meantime to let you know is, of course we've got new items. Not merch. We've got new items in the Pate State store. Alex shipped some of them to me and I tried them on around the office today. Jesse approved. And while I will not wear it on the show because we have a dress code. I will tell you that stuff feels good. There's some of the depth over dopamine shirts. I got some of the football is coming shirts. And I was wearing the sleeveless option today. A lot of people were banging the door down asking for sleeveless options. And I said, alex, why don't we have sleeveless options? And she pulled out a pair of scissors and said, and boom, we got sleeveless shirts now. And we do, we do really, really clean cut. They look really good. So you can go to paintstatematerial.com right now. Summer is pretty much here, so don't be wearing long sleeves this time of year. Don't. Mitch, come on now. We'll talk. But yeah, look, if you need to spruce up the wardrobe, you don't need to spend a ton of money doing that. Just go to paintstatematerial.com and spend a moderate amount of money. Amazon Health AI presents painful thoughts. Why did I search the Internet for answers to my cold sore problem? Now I'm stuck down a rabbit hole filled with images of alarmingly graphic sores in various stages of ooze. I can clear my search history, but I can never unsee that. Don't go down the rabbit hole. Amazon Health AI gets you the right care fast. Healthcare just got less painful.
- [35:39]
Malcolm Glebel
Hello? Hello, this is Malcolm Glebel from Smart talks with IBM. Today we're diving into a fascinating conversation with Stefano Pollard, head of fan development for Scuderia Ferrari hp.
- [35:50]
Stefano Pollard
Your pronunciation is strongly American. It's more Scuderia Ferrari.
- [35:56]
Malcolm Glebel
I'm still working on rolling my R's, but what I was able to learn from Stefano was the importance of engaging the Tifosi, the Ferrari superfans. In the digital age.
- [36:06]
Stefano Pollard
Ferrari fans and superfans want to be part of something, want to belong to something. So they want to be part of a community and ultimately they want to be part of a winning team.
- [36:17]
Malcolm Glebel
You've got Ferrari, which has a long history, design history, and now you're interacting in a kind of digital space. I'm curious how you balance those two traditions.
- [36:30]
Stefano Pollard
When it comes to fan engagement, it's really digital technology and digital channels are being able to create a deeper connection with our fans.
- [36:39]
Malcolm Glebel
To learn more about how Ferrari and IBM are using technology to build deeper connections with fans, visit IBM.comferrari
- [36:51]
Public Investing Advertiser
support for the show comes from public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On public, you can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto and now generated assets which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index with AI it all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year, you can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one of a kind index, and lets you back test it against the S&P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com podcast paid for by Public Investing Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc. Member FINRA and SIPC Advisory Services by Public Advisors, llc. SEC Registered Advisor. Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. Complete disclosure is available at public.com disclosures
- [37:51]
Jacob Goldstein
this is Jacob Goldstein from what's yous Problem? Business software is expensive, and when you buy software from lots of different companies, it's not only expensive, it gets confusing. Slow to use, hard to integrate. Odoo solves that because all Odoo software is connected on a single affordable platform. Save money without missing out on the features you need. Odoo has no hidden costs and no limit on features or data. Odoo has over 60 apps available for any needs your business might have, all at no additional charge. Everything from websites to sales to inventory to accounting. All linked and talking to each other. Check out Odoo at O D O o dot com. That's O d o o dot com.
- [38:38]
Josh Bates
Next up, one of the more polarizing games that we've been playing on the show lately, and that is we've been picking a bunch of teams and just trying to guess is that team going to be better or worse this year than they were last year? Pretty revolutionary concept. It's really advanced. Michigan, actually, since we were just talking about him, was a team that I wanted to start with tonight. They were 9 and 3 last year. Simple question. Is Michigan better or worse this year than they were last year? I think they're going to be better this year, but I don't know if the record's going to look that way. And here's what I mean. I do think that outside of Michigan circles, let me say it that way, the national college football public is probably underestimating how big an improvement it is just to to have competency and to have structure and to not have a bunch of internal drama and mess. And the guy coming in is a lifelong winner in Kyle Winning Ham. And he knows his stuff and his people know how to run things. They get their systems in place and you got a pretty mature program anyway. You got a bunch of players who were recruited there for a reason, and then you bring some of them in. I'd love to see a few key guys get healthy. I'd love to see that. But top 20 in returning production, but combined with a top 10 caliber strength of schedule. So that second part, that's why I look and I say, I think the team will be better than they were last year. Maybe the record will be better. But like, there's a world this year where Michigan goes 8 and 4 and I'm watching them saying, I still think that team's better than last year's. It's just, you play Oregon, Indiana, Ohio State, there's an Oklahoma game on there, Penn State, Iowa. You could easily lose four of those games, close and be better than last year's team was. So they're losing a lot on defense. And I really wonder, like, if you had to guess right now, are they going to have a top 20 run defense this year? Where were they 19th last year, Jesse? Yeah, so in the 15 to 20 range last year, do you think they can touch that? Because if they can, that's probably the difference in some of these games. That's what remains to be seen. But I lean better as a team than last year. Tennessee. This is tough. This is really tough. Tennessee went 8 and 4 in the regular season last year. I think this team is a year away from a big pop season. So either they need to be ahead of schedule for me to be wrong, or if I'm right, they may be slightly worse this year than they were last year. Slightly. And one of the underrated things about Tennessee is while everyone's focused on his quarterback competition, for the purposes of this conversation, I'm focused on the guy that's not there. Remember, they fought to get Joey Aguilar another year of eligibility and it didn't work out. So he's done. Joey Aguilar was a good player last year. When you consider the situation he was thrust into, it was a great result. He's not there anymore. And so you've. You've got a couple of guys battling it out and there is no surefire QB1 there right now. Sometimes, like, I think the Alabama quarterback battle and the Tennessee quarterback battle look worlds different. I think both the guys at Alabama would have Won the Tennessee quarterback battle already. So at Tennessee that doesn't mean a guy can't emerge. And if there's a guy that can do it, it would be Josh Hyple. That doesn't mean a guy can't emerge, but it means they still got a ways to go. They got to count on being able to pound the ball. They got to count on Jim Knowles defense clicking in year one, which historically has not happened, but they're trying to rectify by him bringing some players and staffers with him from Penn State. Can they control games is really what it comes down to. They got, they got a tough schedule but they play some big opponents at home. They got Bama at home, they got Auburn at home, Texas at home. They do go. They got LSU at home too, by the way. That'll be fun for Bill Martin. So that's really what it comes down to. I think this team at its best this year is locked in a ton of really tight one possession games and their ability to run the ball, their ability to get off the field on third down, Jim Knowles defense's ability to improve. They're going to have to be a team that noticeably improves throughout the year. The best teams do that, but especially Tennessee defensively this year is going to have to do that. It's a lot to ask, so I'm going to lean slightly worse than last year and hope to be surprised. Florida State 5 and 7 last year, regular season don't need to talk about the bowl game. Moot point because of 5 and 7. There's a lot of hot seat talk. I think they're going to be about the same as they were last year. That's the cop out. I go one cop out per four teams every time we do this. Florida State, I would say I think their roster is better than 5 and 7, but we're looking at Ashton Daniels at quarterback here. There are very few star players around him. Deuce Robinson not included. But outside of him there just aren't. To me looking at it from afar, there aren't a lot of game changing type performers there. Now this is college football, so every year guys emerge. So guys could emerge there but their offensive line replaces all five. Sometimes that's bad, sometimes it's not terrible. There are a lot of places that are replacing offensive linemen in those sorts of numbers this year that I think will have offensive line be one of the strengths of their team. I think Texas A and M has that potential. I think Miami has that potential. I don't know that we're talking about the same caliber offensive linemen at Florida State as we are those places. The other part if you look at the schedule Bradley just put up is they don't get to ease into it. They play SMU and they play at Alabama their first three games, two of their first three games are. Well they're going to be underdogs I would say in two of their first three games. We don't have the SMU FSU line yet. Right. But SMU is going to be a favorite in Tallahassee. Pretty sure. And they'll certainly be probably a double digit underdog on the road at Alabama. So my point there is if you think about pre Halloween, by the time the dust settles, by the time the clock strikes midnight on Halloween they will have already played smu, Alabama, Virginia, Louisville, Miami and Clemson. They could lose every one of those games and if they lose even most of those games then you could really, really start a downhill slide. You could have movement on the coaching front by that point and all it just goes into the gutter if that happens. So I'm saying same only because I'm trying to balance in my head that I think their talent roster is better than 5 and 7. But also there's a disaster scenario here where if they lose a few games early and they make a move then the season goes off the rails and they're going to be worse than 5 and 7. So I'm just splitting the difference and I'm going same. Utah was 102 last year. Utah. I would lean worse record wise this year than last year but I think this is going to be a good team this year. It's just hard to improve on 10 and 2. You've got a new head coach there although Morgan Scally's been there forever. It really is mind blowing. By the way, if you're not a Utah fan so you don't you're not like in the weeds with the team every day. The general public. If you live in Roanoke, Virginia for example, I don't think a Roanokean Where's Prez? How do people from Roanoke refer to themselves? Is Ronokian the Nokians for short. Yeah, I don't think the Nokis have any idea how long Kyle Whittingham was at Utah but He was there 30 years in some shape, form or fashion. Morgan Scally's been there a long time too. He's been there since 07. He's never worked anywhere other than Utah. So I say new head coach. Well his, his desk plate says head coach now so that's new. But he's pulling into the same building he's pulled into for a long time. Bradley, were you born in 2007? Bradley's pretty old. He's been around for a little while. So yeah, there's some newness, but it's not new. But what they do have that's new is they replaced the entire offensive line, a couple of first round draft picks at tackle, defensive lines mostly gone. They do avoid Texas Tech on the schedule. There is, and I'm not hating on this, I'm just saying it's kind of out of left field. There's a game against Arkansas in Salt Lake City. God bless everyone still practicing the radical concept of building college football stadiums and then playing games in those stadiums instead of building the campus stadium and then going to Denver or going to Atlanta or going to Orlando. Just mind boggling. I'm not touching on that anymore tonight. Immunity. I'm going to go slightly worse than 10 and 2 for Utah. Let's move on. They're watching us in Norman, Oklahoma. They're watching us in Seattle, Washington, and they're watching us in Dayton, Ohio. We had questions from the mailbag and I'll get to one right now. Do I really have to say this name on air? Florida doesn't suck from Vero beach, he said. Is Mario Cristobal building another Miami dynasty down there in Coral Gables? No, he did not define dynasty. Dynasties are hard to do. I don't know that anyone's building a dynasty anymore. I think the best you could hope to build is a powerhouse and Mario's building a powerhouse at Miami. So yes, I will answer in the affirmative there now. There are still some holdouts and I do have to acknowledge this. There are still people. So because I can't crane my neck and look at the live chat, but I will see the comments later, they're going to be quick to remind you. Well, he hasn't won anything, you know, because only playing for a national championship doesn't qualify as having won anything. So it is true that he hasn't won a national title yet. It is true he hasn't even played for an ACC championship yet. It is true they've lost some games they should have won. Yeah, those things are true. It's also true that it's one of the top programs in college football right now. It's also true that they're acquiring talent the likes of which very, very few, if any other programs in college football is are right now. There's a feeling of inevitability around them, even though I know that's sort of a mirage, because a championship is never inevitable, ever for anyone until you win it. But I think they'll end up winning at least a national championship down there. But here's the thing. The reason that it qualifies as powerhouse status and that I don't think that's going anywhere anytime soon is misunderstood. I think people look at Miami and they say, oh, either you hate on them and you deny reality or you begrudgingly acknowledge reality. But you say, well, yeah, of course they're loaded, they can go pay players. Well, that's true. Everyone else is free too. But it is true that this era of college football is right in Miami's wheelhouse. But here's the thing. Ten years ago, if you would have heard that someone was just going to go buy a bunch of players, what would you have said? You would have said, well, first off, that's highly illegal. You can't do that. But then once you got past that, you would have said, oh, what a bunch of hired guns, A bunch of mercenaries. This is a team sport. You can't just go pay a bunch of guys and throw them together like Jenga blocks and expect a tower to magically appear. That's true, you can't, because there are a lot of really, really high payroll teams this year that are going to lose four or five or more games and their boosters are going to be up in arms because why in the world did we pay all this money if we're not going to get results? Which tells us it is about more than just spend when it comes to the formula for winning. They call that culture. Miami's got a really good one, a really, really high level competitive culture. And if you saw the way they played against Ohio State, in fact, if you saw the way they got their season back on track last year and then down the stretch up to and including the playoffs, when you saw them play Ohio State and you saw him play Ole Miss and you saw him. Even the way that they traded punches with Indiana, there were three different knockout blows in that Indiana national championship game that I don't think any other team's getting up from. And Miami got up every time and they're at midfield with a chance to win the game. The reason is because of the way they practice. And there are a lot of teams searching for that out there. There are a lot of teams scared to practice the way Miami practices. And with good reason. Well, at least with understandable reason, because it looks like a war every day and then you think, well, man, how are we going to have any players left for the game? Well, they find a way at Miami, you know, so technically it can happen, it can be done. But the important part about them is I don't think they peaked last year. Just because they played for a national title last year doesn't mean Miami peaked. Peaking would mean that their best is behind them. I don't think their best is behind them. I think their better teams are still in front of them. In fact, I think this year's team is going to end up being a better team at some point this year than last year's team was. And I acknowledge last year's team ended up being really, really good at the end. And they had incredible dynamic pass rushers that didn't sacrifice an ounce in run stopping ability when they were on the field. I acknowledge all that. Here's what else I acknowledge. I think that wide receiver room is better this year than it was last year. I think the quarterback position is going to be upgraded this year relative to last year. I think offensive line, even with the attrition, could end up being a strength of this team. I think Corey Heatherman in year two pays dividends. I think in terms of ball skill, they upgrade at corner. So there are a lot of reasons to like Miami more this year, but it's the peaking part, not just holistically, but in season that they couldn't figure out for a while. You remember the last several years, they played really, really well out of the gate and they played their best football in September, it felt like. And then they faded down the stretch and everyone was trying to find answers. Mario Cristobal was trying to find answers too, and he did. We were down there two months ago. I actually sat down with him. I asked him about that. I think it's worth us taking a minute or so to listen to this. To an extent, the last couple of years was no problem starting fast as a team. But then there was this point a couple of times in the season where you feel, I don't know, it feels a little off. I'd watch you and man, that doesn't look like what it looked like in week one or week two. And last year there was this point, I was at the game, I was at the SMU game and it doesn't go your way and you're wondering, is
- [53:50]
Public Investing Advertiser
that about to happen again?
- [53:51]
Josh Bates
Is that in the process of happening again? And then end up playing boom, boom, boom, boom, your best ball four weeks in a row. I'm on the outside looking in, wondering, what changed? What's the difference? So what changed? Why are you able to do that last year?
- [54:05]
Lowe's Advertiser
Oh, I mean, I think that that team meeting after the SMU game really kind of changed things. We just weren't playing like we play. We were playing hard. Our effort, our care factor, everything was through the roof, but we weren't. It didn't look like us. And so, you know, when we met and talked about those specific things, all we did was take those first five weeks and clipped out us playing Miami football. Physical, violent, tough, relentless finishing plays. Just cut the lights and let it roll. And in dead silence, we watched 10 minutes of Miami playing Miami football. And by the time the lights cut back on, I mean, those. Everybody's eyes were this big. Everybody's. You could feel the intensity in the room. It's like we. It's not remembering who we are, it's realizing who the heck we are and going out and making sure that on the daily that that showed up in practice, every ounce of the standard. And so that led to a just a series of high level, physical, relentless play, particularly at the line of scrimmage, but also the dog mentality of our skill guys, their physicality, that was. All that stuff was contagious. And I think that combination led to our. Ourselves going on earlier.
- [55:25]
Josh Bates
So the trade off here is, yeah, you made it all the way to the national title last year. There's nothing that carries over. You start from scratch, you don't pick up, in other words, right at the doorstep, you pick up the same place everyone else does. However, the principles that you put in place that got you that far last year, you can carry those over, but I don't think they're slowing down. I was thinking as I was listening to him talk, one of the things the public will never get to see is you don't get to attend a Miami practice. But here's what's crazy. Sometimes they'll have recruits at practice, and I've watched this several times, they force recruits to come in there and witness a practice before they decide whether Miami's for them, because they practice in just a really, really violent manner. And so, you know, Mario or staffers, I mean, it's basically figuratively here. Taking the face of a high school kid and just forcing it into a drill and saying, do you see this? Is this for you? Does this appeal to you? Or are you a little trepidatious after you see this? I've witnessed them do that before. You got to kind of witness a Miami practice. Before you decide, yeah, I want to put myself through this for the next four years or maybe. Thanks, but no thanks. This is not for me. But yeah, I think they're going to be there every year, so that qualifies as powerhouse to me, not dynasty, because dynasty is like multiple championships and I guess that's possible, but I'm going to assume that that is a really, really, really minute possibility in today's sport. Amazon Health AI presents Painful Thoughts I I can't stop scratching my downtown. Mm, yeah, but I'm not itching to
- [57:11]
Amazon Health AI Voice
go downtown and tell a receptionist I'm
- [57:13]
Josh Bates
here to talk about my downtown. Some things you'd rather type than say out loud. There's no question too embarrassing For Amazon Health AI, chat your symptoms and get virtual care 24. 7 Healthcare just got less painful. Hello?
- [57:34]
Malcolm Glebel
Hello, this is Malcolm Glabel from Smart Talks with IBM. Today we're diving into a fascinating conversation with Stefano Pallard, head of fan development for Scuderia Ferrari hp.
- [57:45]
Stefano Pollard
Your pronunciation is strongly American. It's more Scuderia Ferrari.
- [57:50]
Malcolm Glebel
I'm still working on rolling my R's, but what I was able to learn from Stefano was the importance of engaging the Tifosi, the Ferrari superfans in the digital age.
- [58:01]
Stefano Pollard
Ferrari fans and super fans want to be part of something, want to belong to something. So they want to be part of a community and ultimately they want to be part of a winning team.
- [58:12]
Malcolm Glebel
You've got Ferrari, which has a long history, design history, and now you're interacting in a kind of digital space. I'm curious how you balance those two traditions.
- [58:25]
Stefano Pollard
When it comes to fan engagement, it's really digital technology and digital channels are being able to create a deeper connection with our fans.
- [58:33]
Malcolm Glebel
To learn more about how Ferrari and IBM are using technology to build deeper connections with fans, visit IBM.comferrari
- [58:45]
Public Investing Advertiser
support for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On public, you can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto and now generated assets which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index. With AI, it all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue
- [59:05]
Josh Bates
over 20% year over year.
- [59:07]
Public Investing Advertiser
You can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one of a kind index and lets you back test it against the S&P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's go to public.com podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com podcast paid for by Public Investing Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc. Member FINRA and SIPC Advisory Services by Public Advisors, llc. SEC Registered Advisor Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. Complete disclosures available at public.com disclosures this
- [59:46]
Jacob Goldstein
is Jacob Goldstein from what's yous Problem? Business software is expensive and when you buy software from lots of different companies, it's not only expensive, it gets confusing. Slow to use, hard to integrate. Odoo solves that because all Odoo software is connected on a single affordable platform. Save money without missing out on the features you need. Odoo has no hidden costs and no limit on features or data. Odoo has over 60 apps available for any needs your business might have, all at no additional charge. Everything from websites to sales to inventory to accounting. All linked and talking to each other. Check out Odoo at o d o o.com that's o d o o dot com.
- [60:33]
Josh Bates
Let's move along. By the way, I know Memorial Day is tomorrow. If you're listening live. Memorial Day is tomorrow and I know a lot of you are driving and a lot of you will maybe not be driving at all. A lot of you may be just sitting in the sand tomorrow. A lot of you may be sitting around the pool, but I know a lot of you will be listening to the show at your leisure and it would be a different day than normal. And I appreciate it. Just want to tell you guys, I know a lot of you are listening tomorrow. Appreciate it. Hope you're having a good day. It's a normal week for us, normal work week for us, but happy that you get to at least take one day off of whatever your normal is and please remember why you get to do it. That is something that we do not forget here. Thank you very much. Let's move on. This was a great question that we got. I spent an inordinate amount of time reflecting on this today. Casey went over to the FanDuel Discord where I asked some of you to submit questions and he said what are your top five college football fan bases that are most deserving or you'd be happy to see win a national title? Now, firstly because you asked it in the FanDuel Discord, I'm getting you some free stuff from FanDuel, so check your account. Casey in the Next couple of days. As for the fan bases that are the most starved, that are the most deserving, that are the most long suffering, how do I not start with Arkansas? I've got to start with Arkansas. Arkansas deserves better. The people of Arkansas deserve better. I will clasp my hands and look to the heavens. I will pray for Ryan Silverfield. They deserve better. They care so much. This is an outpost that is in the far northwestern corners of the sec. Most people in the SEC haven't been there. It feels kind of like a little, you know, mini country unto itself up there in northwest Arkansas. People are amazing. Underrated airport, kind of out in the middle of nowhere. Scary drive at night. Jesse but underrated airport up there. XNA not to be confused with bna. I think that if Arkansas ever were to just sniff the playoffs and America would be able to see that place come alive, it would be amazing. It would be a wonderful thing. They have not had a double digit win season in the College Football Playoff era. Not the 12 team era, the playoff era that dates back to 2014. So it's just been wilderness. It's. There's not even been like an oasis on the horizon. Nothing. No fake palm tree or spring. Just sand and desert and nothingness. And they deserve better and I actively root for them to experience that. Side note, their over underwind total is four and a half this year. We move on. Virginia Tech is on this list for me. I just want it to feel like it used to. I couldn't help but to think about this when we went up there a few weeks ago. We sat down with James Franklin, hung out on campus, spoke to some students. All the while I'm thinking about how this place was back when I was much younger, I would call myself a kid. I was in the building talking to Michael Vick because Michael Vick was there that day, had his staff there that day. And I was thinking to myself, oh, like I remember being in school watching Michael Vick, watching Virginia Tech. Not being able to talk about the national championship picture without mentioning Virginia Tech. And then you think about any, any current student at Virginia Tech has no idea what I'm talking about. They have no idea that that ever existed. Players that are being recruited by Virginia Tech right now, imagine telling some 17 year old kid from Chesapeake Bay, I don't know how good the high school football is in Chesapeake Bay, but I know it's good in Virginia in general. Imagine telling them hey buddy, Virginia Tech, that's a, that's a national championship caliber program. In the past he's like what? In what past in American history? In this country's past. Yes, it's just a little bit further back than we'd like to admit. Hey, doesn't mean it couldn't happen. In this post Indiana world in whence we live, anything can happen. Including you turning on your TV in round one of what at that point will be like a nine round playoff. But I digress. Turning on your TV and there it is. Lane Stadium getting set to host a home playoff game. All would be right with the world. Ideally it's because they've earned their way into a 12 team playoff and not a 48 team playoff. Do you hear what Belema said? Unbelievable. South Carolina. I could have put Illinois in here too. I absolutely could have. But I put South Carolina in here. If you blend what I said about Arkansas and Virginia Tech, you get my opinion on South Carolina. So long suffering fan base. Passionate fan base. Love going over there. I think South Carolina is the most underrated game day environment in college football. I think it's the most underrated home field atmosphere in college football. I didn't say the best. I said the most underrated. Because it's going to get clipped. I know it's going to get clipped. So the cockpit when it's at its best, Jesse, it's tailor made for a playoff spectacle. South Carolina's performance has not been tailor made for a playoff spectacle. But they almost got there two years ago. See, that's the thing. I don't mind people criticizing this man, Shane Beamer. I hit the microphone. Sorry. I don't mind people criticizing Shane Beamer for going 4 and 8. Like I said that he should be graded a little bit higher than some other folks did. The other day I saw Brad Crawford say, man, you can't be going 4 and 8. I didn't say you could. Of course it's inexcusable to go 4 and 8. All I was saying is it's not 4 and 8 at Ohio State like it is within the realm of possibility in the new age of college football that you're just going to have a clunker baked in there even when things are okay. The different cards in the deck of probability these days for South Carolina could include a 4 and 8. That's okay. It's not okay. It's hold your nose acceptable as long as it's bookended by years where you're within reach of the playoff. So the year before 4 and 8 they were within reach of the playoff. The year after 4 and 8, we don't know we have not seen what fills in this blank, but that's not what this segment is about. This segment is about me daydreaming baselessly, speculating and fantasizing wildly and whomst amongst us doesn't do that. A time or two about what it could be like if everything came together. If everything came together for South Carolina, I would see one of the fan bases that deserves it the most in one of the home field environments that I would love to see host a playoff game the most. I would see that all come together and it would be great. And you know who else I could describe that way? West Virginia. So, kids, let me take you back. The year was 2007. I was a local youth in Georgia and I swore West Virginia was about to win a national championship, ironically being led by the same man who is once again the head coach there in Rich Rodriguez. West Virginia was the top team in the country. It's late in the year. Earmuffs in Morgantown. I'll tell you when to take them off. And all they got to do is beat Pitt, Jesse. All they got to do is beat Pitt as like a three touchdown favorite and they go to the national championship game. That's all that had to happen. That wasn't one of seven hurdles. That's it. And they lost, I think, 13 to nine. And that was it. I was going to see Pat White, Steve Slayton and the boys. I was going to see him play for a national title. I thought they were going to win the national title. And since then it hasn't been close. Some of it you could attribute to being their fault, but a lot of it's not even their fault, especially the fans there. None of it's their fault. But the sport, it just. They've suffered consequences of things totally outside their control. The shifting plate tectonics in college football. I'm not saying they left West Virginia behind, but it's been a long time since we looked at the landscape of college football and said, oh yeah, man, any second West Virginia could be right back in this thing. Theoretically, they could. But realistically, you know, unless there's this big confluence of like, nil events that come together, their best shot at that was in yesteryear because conference affiliation, if you're not with the Big Two, leaves you to just basically pull yourself up by your own bootstraps financially. And it's tough. Not everyone can do what Texas Tech's doing. Not everyone can do what Miami does. But that doesn't change the fact that the folks around There are incredible. That place is a really unique game day environment too. And if they were to ever get on a roll, how special it would be. And lastly, it's a much bigger program, it's a much more high profile program and a lot of the suffering for this program is much more their fault. But Tennessee's on this list for me. I live in Nashville. I am with these people every day. Tennessee deserves it. Tennessee fans deserve it. The reason I've said this, and I've said this like a dozen times, is because even when things went terribly wrong and they've gone terribly wrong for a long time, up until very recently, they stuck around. They sold kneeling out. It was the Derek Dooley years, it was the Butch Jones years, it was the Jeremy Pruitt years. And they showed up and they were still leaned in and they were still invested and they were getting nothing in return. Nothing on their emotional and financial investment. And yet here they are. Now Hypo has pulled the nose up significantly. They made the playoff two years ago. They are a viable threat again. But there's a difference in being a viable threat and being a national championship threat if they ever get to that point. I look at all the research about what happened in 2019. In 2019, LSU's fan base exploded. But it wasn't because LSU's fan base didn't exist. It's that that perfect. I'm going to use the word again. Confluence of events in 2019 for LSU, it just ignited one of the most passionate fan bases in the country to be as engaged and as leaned in, like I like to say, as any fan base in America. And like everyone, my show was nothing down in Columbus. And since we got ahead of the curve on LSU and then LSU started winning, LSU folks picked up our show. LSU people put our show on the map before I was even hired by cbs. And my point in saying that is Tennessee would be that Tennessee's a huge fan base. And it's not like there's some no name program that's never done it before. But it's been a while since they were on the main main stage. But if they ever started to go on a run, like if Tennessee was ranked number one in the country in November or something like that, and it looked like they got a legit shot to win a national championship, dude, Tennessee would be on the front of every website, main page, they would lead every show. We'd have them plastered all over our SEO. Because Tennessee people can move the needle. They just got to have a reason to. And they haven't had them for a while. So yeah, those are the five that I went with Tennessee. I'm trying to think, Jesse, is the Tennessee Georgia Tech game, would that already be up at FanDuel? Trying to think about some games of the year. I want to say I saw it over there. You know what if it's not a lot of the games of the year are up at FanDuel and if Tennessee Georgia Tech's not there, Tennessee's win total is there. Tennessee's odds to win the SEC are there. FanDuel is not a Tennessee website per se. I'm just mentioning Tennessee a lot. But you go over there and you can talk about the University of Minnesota, you can talk about Washington for all I care. I just want you to know that FanDuel is the exclusive odds provider of this show, always have been, and we appreciate them for it.
- [73:10]
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- [73:55]
Josh Bates
Lastly, to wrap up the program this evening, what was the over under Jesse? Well, over. You thought just because I got 45 minutes of sleep that I was going under an hour tonight. Is that what you thought? Hmm. Interesting. Well, I've been doubted before. I'll be doubted again. Bold prediction season continues. Not mine. I don't have to make predictions legally until August, but you do. And we've got them by the bag full here. So the game is this. You want to make a bold prediction bold enough for me to rate 9.5 or higher on the boldness scale, however realistic enough to come true. Because if a nine and a half or bolder prediction comes true, you win a chalice of supremacy, which is more valuable than anything. There's a lot of gold in the world. There aren't a lot of chalai of supremacy in the world. Let's take a look at Our submissions tonight. Earlville, Iowa is checking in. Oregon wins their first national championship. Straightforward to the point. Fair enough. It's going to get an 8.75 for me on the boldness scale because I think Oregon's one of the best teams in the country this year. Now you are trying to predict the exact team that wins the national title. So even if I think Oregon's going to be really good, they are one team against the field in this scenario. They do have the fifth best odds to win the national title. They've been a playoff mainstay, obviously. Well, obviously to me, it's obvious that this year is their best shot that they've had under Dan Lanning. Quarterback. Really, really good defense, especially the depth along the defensive line. Wide receiver is going to be good here. There's a lot of really, really good. Their schedule is a question. Their offensive line is a question. And if, if offensive line especially doesn't hinder them too much and they can peak at the right time, that's a really, really important point there. Oregon could win it all. Wouldn't shock me at all. For all I know, I'm going to pick them to win the national title. That gets an 8.75 from me. Next up, this one's a little bolder. Logan in Louisville, Kentucky. Missouri wins nine games. Austin Simmons is a Heisman finalist. Paper popper. It's a nine and a quarter. It's a 9.25. I'm going to tell you why. All this really requires is Lane Kiffin being right last year. If we trust Lane Kiffin's offensive opinion, if we trust his opinion on quarterbacks. Lane Kiffin. Just a year ago, by way of starting Austin Simmons announced to us that he thought Austin Simmons was his best shot to win. Now, it turns out that Trinidad Chambliss was. But that doesn't mean that Lane was necessarily totally wrong on Austin Simmons. So a year later, Austin Simmons is at Missouri and the prediction here is that they win nine games and Austin Simmons is a Heisman finalist. Well, if Lane was right about this guy, we'll find out this year and he'll play well above over under six and a half, win total range and they'll win eight games, maybe nine games. If they do that, it almost certainly correlates with him putting up good enough numbers to be in the conversation. If they surprise, it's probably because of quarterback play. They did lose five of their top six wide receivers. Now they got a couple of them, especially one young one that I'm really high on Past that, I don't know about the depth overall in the wide receiver room. We'll see Ahmad Hardy still up there. So Missouri. Could be. Could be. Okay. There's just. There are more questions there than I'm comfortable with at this point. Eli's answered questions before. I'm going to put a 9.25 on that one. The next one is bold enough to meet the threshold. So Larry in Flatonia, Texas, beautiful this time of year. He said the Heisman winner this year will not be on a playoff team. He says that's about as bold as he can get. So the Heisman winner not being on a playoff team has actually happened three of the last four years, but this is still a 9.75 on the boldness scale. Here's why. Two of those years I think were four team playoff or. Yeah, and then you had, you had. Well, you had a two way player too. So yeah, Travis Hunter. I was trying to think of the last three. So Travis Hunter plays both ways. We don't have that this year. So there's not like an anomalous freak show type player. And outside of that, you're probably looking at a quarterback. Unless it's Jeremiah Smith. And how does Jeremiah Smith have that kind of year that it would take? But Ohio State doesn't make the playoff. I guess theoretically, since Ohio State plays that tough of a schedule, they could lose three really close games and Smith has like 2400 receiving yards. I guess that could happen. But it's far more likely that CJ Carr just wins it and Notre Dame makes the playoff. It's far more likely that Julian Saen wins it or Darian Mensah wins it. And Ohio State and Miami are in the playoff. So I think like maybe John Matiere, if he had a Big year, or Lenore Sellers, like Lenore Sellers could have individually a Big Year at South Carolina, but South Carolina is 8 and 4 or something like that. I just think it's. It's very unlikely. So I'm going to put a 9.75 on that one. Lastly, Joshua from Columbus, one has to wonder which Columbus. He says there'll be five state universities in the playoffs. Now he does not mean literal state university. He means a school with state in the name. So Oklahoma state, Texas state, etc. This is a 9.75 for me. So he said five of them. There are five fill in the blank states in the playoff. Let's just say Ohio State, Louisiana State and Penn State are in. It's not a gimme, but let's say they're in. I still need two more Kansas State going to get the job done for me. Is Boise State going to get the job done? Maybe Boise does. North Carolina State? I don't think so. Oklahoma State? I'm higher on them the most, but not that high. San Diego State, Texas State, we could have some G5 magic. Jacksonville State could do it. Could. Theoretically. This is a 9.75, so we had two 9.7 fives in the batch here. So two Chelli on the line and all you need to have happen is five state teams make the playoff and or a Heisman winner not make the playoff. It's that easy. That's our show. We appreciate it so much. We'll be back later this week. Got some surprises later this week too. I don't even know when we're going to air it, but a special friend of the program is going to make his presence felt in this very building, actually. And a long and long overdue conversation coming up. So sit tight for that and we'll have a regular show Thursday. Until then, enjoy your Memorial Day. Stay safe. Have fun. For director Bradley, for producer Jesse, I'm Josh Bates. We will see you later this week. God Bless.
- [81:35]
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- [82:49]
Josh Bates
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- [83:25]
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- [84:16]
Jacob Goldstein
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- [84:49]
Josh Bates
this is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.