← Josh Pate's College Football Show
Josh Pate's College Football Show
Week 12 Reaction Show + Updated CFP Predictions & Major Announcement
01:46:31
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This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human. This is Matt Rogers from Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang. This is Bowen Yang from Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang. Hey Bowen, it's gift season. Ugh. Stressing me out. Why are the people I love so hard to shop for? Probably because they only make boring gift guides that are totally uninspired. Except for the guide we made in partnership with Marshalls, where premium gifts meet incredible value. It's giving gifts with categories like Best Gifts for the mom whose idea of sensible walking shoe is a stiletto or Best Gifts for me that were so thoughtful I really shouldn't have Check out the guide on marshalls.com and gift the good stuff at Marshalls.
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I can't even imagine the devastation. Can you imagine the devastation? Can you imagine a South Carolina fan? Nothing's gone right this year. And yet there you are in College Station, Texas against the team currently favored to win the SEC championship. And it's 30 to 3. And you're the guy with 30 and you're the one who lost the the game. That's why you got to pay attention every week. That's why you can't just skip to the playoffs in this sport. We're happy to have you though. We're jam packed. We're high at top a formerly sunny downtown Nashville, Tennessee. Now it's just dark outside. Sunday, November 16th the year of our Lord 2025. I've got week 12 reaction. Boy, do I have week 12 reaction. Got a lot of it. It's a shame the haters have shown up tonight from certain corners of the contiguous United States thinking I'm going to throw on the clown nose. We'll see if I do. Whomst amongst us knows, I do have updated College Football Playoff predictions, which is apparently a segment that we're going to have to do every Sunday, because no one can really get a grip on this sport. No one can really get a grip on the College Football Playoff. I saw some projections that have North Texas in the playoff as of 5:00pm today. So, yeah, I've got that. I got coaching searches all over the place. Look, listen, I know a lot of folks are paying attention to Lane Kiffin and rightfully so. I mean, that's one of the big talking points right now. And is he going to stay at Ole Miss? Is he going to go to Florida? Is he going to go to lsu? Is he going to go to the Miami Dolphins? For all I know. Hey, at some point, at some point, Ole Miss has got to put him on the table and Ole Miss has got to get an answer. And I think that some point is really, really close, like before the Egg bowl close. So we'll talk about that. Also, I think it's worth the paper, Pop. We got a major announcement on the show tonight. Not now, but in a few minutes. Probably like 20 minutes or so. We got a major announcement on the show tonight and so much more. Listen to this. That's a heavy stack of papers. We waste no time. They're watching us in Tucker, Georgia. Rochester, New York, Napa, California. Livingston, California. We are, as of this Sunday evening, less than 20,000 subs away from 500 subscriptions to the YouTube channel. So now more than ever, I ask you, check. Make sure. Are you subscribed? If your answer is yes, double check. I talked to no less than 20 people at Sanford Stadium last night who admitted to me, and good for you guys and girls for admitting it, that you thought you were subscribed and you weren't. You admitted it. I never pressed anyone on it. They admitted it. And I appreciate the honesty. And we rectified many of those situations last night. So thank you so much. Again, that's not the major announcement. I got a major announcement later in the show. Who is it? A major announcement. First of its kind around here. I hate talking with the pen in my hand. First of its kind around here, but that will be for 20 or so minutes down the road. In the meantime, let's talk about some games from yesterday. Where do you think I should start? Yeah, I'll start on this game. Oklahoma went to Tuscaloosa and beat Alabama 23 to 21. Some people me thought it wouldn't happen. Some people me picked Bama to win, pick Bama to cover. Pick Bama by double digits. Got to give the game four chow I maybe four and a half chow. Lie somewhere between four and four and a half chow I we don't do the quarter point system around here. Really entertaining game. Now there have been some rumors floating around the Internet today that since I sat here I had the audacity to pick Alabama to win the game and cover and win by double digits that I may throw on the clown nose. I'm not throwing on the clown nose for you people. I'm not. I did that one time already this year. Now what I can't stand, what makes it tough for me to sleep at night is thinking that I have turned anyone against me in the fine state of Oklahoma. As my fellow Oklahomans know I spend a lot of time in Oklahoma in the season and in the spring during storm chasing season. I love Oklahoma. It's not that I had taken some anti Oklahoma stance. I thought the matchup was bad for him. I thought the matchup really favored Alabama. So it was nothing personal. You could have thrown potato sacks on him instead of uniforms. It had nothing to do with the logos. It had a lot to do with the matchup that I thought I saw. So you watch the game play out? I watched the game play out and afterwards like a disproportionate amount of DMs flooded my inbox. Haters. Haters, Jesse. A lot of them were bots to be fair. But some people were real authentic people, like legit humans breathing the same oxygen as you and I and they said how could you have liked Alabama to win this game by double digits? Well I'll tell you how I liked Bama to win the game by double digits because of the way the game played out. You know like there are some padlock stats and then there are bad lock stats. This is going to sound like excuse making. It's not. I'm about to give OU a metric ton of credit in a second. I'm not trying to describe to you why this should have happened or didn't happen. I'm trying to describe to you how I thought the game was going to go. How it actually did go. And therefore my reasoning for picking the side I did There was a 406 to 212 yardage edge in this thing. It went the way of Alabama 23 to 12 first down. It went the way of Bama about a 4% post game win expectancy for Oklahoma in this thing. That's almost as bad as the Bama Vandy game last year. Bama had six drives longer than Oklahoma's longest drive. But those are bad luck stats. We call those bad luck stats on the show because if you had those in your hand Friday, oh, you would have made a pick on the game. You. You may have even bet money on the game. You would have lost. You would have lost because as we said in the game preview, in fairness, what little credit we're going to get for this week, it was a tough week around here. In fairness, all of that is mitigated by turnover margin. There was reason to believe that Oklahoma, if anything, would have the turnover edge tilted against them. Although we believe that stat is randomized because we enter this game and Bama's really good at home and Bama's top 10 in turnover margin and Oklahoma's 112th. But you want to know how randomized turnovers are? Minus three anyway. The team that looked like it had all the edges there, minus three anyway. And that means they lose a football game and Oklahoma wins. Now here's why I stopped short. Here's why I said, oh, it's randomized and a lot of it's luck and whatnot. I'm not using that word because this wasn't lucky. There was nothing lucky. It is a little randomized on any given play, any given series, any given quarter, half game. Yeah, it's a little bit of a randomized stat. Turnovers, it's a little bit of a randomized stat. However, man, there was a lot of intent with the way Oklahoma played yesterday. So I don't know how many games you watch on an average Saturday. Most of us, most of you who are watching this show, you probably watch a ton of football. So we watch a lot of games. You watch guys play defense all the time. You watch teams play defense. Everyone wants to force turnovers. It's not like a defense ever takes the field thinking we could do with or without getting the ball. Yeah, of course you want to force turnovers, but very few defenses play with the intent to force turnovers the likes of which Oklahoma played at yesterday. I have never seen it so glaringly obvious that that was the turnover coaching point during the week for Oklahoma or two weeks because they came out of a buy more so than yesterday. Just unbelievable effort. And as many as. As many turnovers as they forced, it felt like There were like 15 other balls on the ground that they could have recovered or that Came out right after the ball carrier's knee was down. Like they were after the football constantly. That is absolutely what a Brent Venables defense should be about. It wasn't that. It wasn't just that, though. None of the game was an accident. Every Alabama drive they had 11 of them started inside their own 30 yard line. Just phenomenal special teams effort here. Oklahoma was plus 22 yards in, in net starting field position.
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Just again, a masterful enough job. Not perfect. A masterful enough job all day. They were 3 for 3 on their field goals. Alabama's over one and I mean it was like watching an episode of Jerry Springer, watching Alabama's kicking unit out there. There's some bad blood. There's really. I, I think a couch visit needed, really a counseling session needed by. You got a, you got a long snapper just going absolutely nut job on a long snapper. Crazy stuff. Not Oklahoma's fault. Or maybe it is, but it's something to take pride in. Oklahoma also had a 42 yard punt return. They recovered a muff punt. So that's what you have to do to win a game where John Mattier is going to be 15 of 23 for 138 yards. That's what you have to do. If I were to have told you again, if I were to have told you Friday, if I told myself Friday that Mattier was going to come out of the bye week and he's going to throw for 138, he's going to run for 23. Like that's nothing special. You're never thinking to yourself, ooh, man, Oklahoma's going to victimize Alabama in several other categories. They're going to special teams them to death. They're going to turn over them to death. It just would not have occurred to me. And yet it did happen. That's where the credit is due. So it's very obvious coming out of the buy that you're not going to get pre injury John Matier. This is really what you're going to get. It's no one's fault. It's what you're going to get. Now you can choose to do one of two things there. If you're Oklahoma, you can either choose to have that implode your season or you could fight. And they chose to fight. Huge credit to Brent Venables and his coaching staff. There's so many imperfections on the team right now, but they chose to fight. And they're sitting here at 8 and 2. I believe they control their playoff destiny. This, this Game really opened up.
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A lot of the chaos scenarios that we talked about last week because Oklahoma's got Missouri and LSU left both at home. If they win those, they're 10 and 2, Oklahoma's going to the playoff. I had Jesse look up earlier today, what's the thing the playoff predictor that ESPN has? And I said, plug in those two wins. He said, with those two wins, I think it was 94% odds for Oklahoma to make the playoff. I don't even know what the other 6% is they're in to me if they win those two games. I mean, we were throwing around scenarios as recently as last week where a three loss Oklahoma made it in. So certainly 10 and two Oklahoma is going to make it in. The other chaos is, look, I don't do tiebreakers very well. I don't even mess around with the tiebreaker scenarios. So I just count on someone to tell me. That stuff makes my head swim. I was under the impression that if Bama went down to Auburn and won the Iron bowl in a couple of weeks, that they were still going to Atlanta. And that was a mathematical certainty. Apparently that's not. Apparently, you know, there's some like round robin tiebreaker scenarios that I don't want to even get involved in. Bottom line, Bama's not got to win out to make the playoff. They got Eastern Illinois this week, not doing great this year from what I hear. And then they've got the Iron Bowl. And look, I follow Alabama pretty closely. One of the things that I could do without from that program is every time the Iron bowl on the road gets closer, there's this. There's this malaise of fear and uncertainty that creeps in. I mean, a lot of people believe in dark magic around the Alabama fan base and I'm sure a lot of folks are going to try and inform that coaching staff over the next couple of weeks. So you don't even know what you're in for. Yeah, there's a little bit of a self fulfilling prophecy that goes on there. I watched it happen under Saban time and time again. You talk yourself into playing way tighter on the road than you have any business playing. And then the Jordan Harris Stadium stuff happens to you because you're kind of contributing to it happening to you. Like, go take care of business and if you can't win down there, you don't belong in anyway. So I didn't really learn anything about Alabama yesterday. Anytime a game happens, anytime Alabama loses a game, we get huge viewership on the show. And anytime Alabama loses a game, the message boards go crazy, and talk radio will be insane in Birmingham tomorrow morning. And it's like, what did we learn about Alabama? I don't really think I learned anything. It kind of enforced or reinforced some beliefs I have. Like, did we. Were we ever under the impression that they weren't tightrope walking?
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I wasn't at their best. Like, best case scenario, Bama's got to walk the tightrope. When you can't run the ball, it doesn't mean you can't win. When you can't run the ball, you just remove margin for error. You're living on the margins, really. Everything else has got to be really, really tight and buttoned up, and everything's got to work fairly seamlessly. You're not going to be perfect, but, I mean, you can't have operational breakdowns. You can't have muff punch. You just can't have that stuff. You can have the occasional missed field goal. It is Alabama football, after all. You can afford to bake that in. But a lot of the other stuff, man, like the. The overall losing of the special teams battle, it just can't happen. Drop passes can't happen. Procedural issues can't happen. Pass pro breakdowns can't happen. That kind of stuff can't happen. Now, if they take care of business in all those areas, they can win without running the ball effectively. Truthfully, I thought they ran the ball better yesterday than I expected them to. That's grading on the Bama rushing curve. But are they. Here's the question. I guess if there's one thing I learned. It's not one thing I learned, it's a new question. I add in, are they fading at the worst possible time? You hope to be peaking at the best of times here. And they came out of the buy, they played LSU, and I thought for a 20 to nine win, boy, there was so much meat left on the bone. Part of the ammunition that I had in my holster for trying to pick them to win and cover here was, I thought, a lot of the explosive plays that were barely missed through the air against LSU would be there. They're still not there. Still not there. So, I mean, in November now, we're well past thinking that someone is in the process of ultimately becoming like, yeah, you continue to hone, Georgia continues to get better. But to count on a fundamental facet of your team to show up in November, that normally doesn't happen. It normally doesn't happen. So as of last night, you know, I kind of got to check out a little bit on just expecting that layer of the Alabama passing attack to show up. And that's what makes it difficult because if they know you can't run it on them, they also know you can't stretch it on them. Not much left. You have to defend now. You're good enough at quarterback and you're good enough at wide receiver. You can still score somewhere between 20 and 27. But that, hey, these point totals here are pretty consistent. 24, 30, 27. Scored 37 on Tennessee. Six of that was seven of that was defense. So 30 offensive, you got 29, got 20. That's kind of where they're floating right now. Scored 21 yesterday. And until further notice, that's what you can expect from them, which means they got to kill it on defense and they did again yesterday. And it was a wasted effort, which is a shame because I thought that defense really came to play. So Oklahoma's in the thick of this thing now. They had to have this great credit for Brent Venables and his team. It's not. These two games are not layups that they got coming up. Far from them, actually. Missouri is still very much alive. They dusted themselves off and smoked Mississippi State last night. And then you got LSU coming to town. So those aren't layups. But the point is it's all in front of you. It's all in front of Bama, too. It's just again to circle back because I know people are tuning in by the thousands live here. I'm not sitting here and second guessing myself for picking a five and a half point favorite to cover that. Lost by two points being minus three turnovers. That's just predictive stuff. That's just randomized stuff that happens. You can give a ton of credit to Oklahoma and still not feel all that terrible about how you pick the game. Like, I mean, there are other games yesterday or games throughout the season where you pick it and you're flat out on the wrong side. I picked this one and picked the wrong team to win. Don't feel terrible about the side I was on. So that's about the best I can do. That's about the best I could do. The one. I guess the second question as I move on here that I would have about the impact that's going to have on Bama is the last time they lost a game. It served them very well. That's kind of what you got to hope for. You basically got to hope that that result yesterday due to you playing a certain way brings out the same thing in you that the Michigan loss brought out in Ohio State last year. Now that's an extreme example to draw from. So if you want to look in your own bag, you need look back no further than the Florida State loss this year and the reaction that brought out. I mean, because there is a lot of blame to go around. Look, Milroe was probably responsible more so than any single player for them losing the Oklahoma game last year. So if you're going to sit there and blame Jaylen Milroe, you got to, you got to shovel a pretty hefty part of the blame towards Ty Simpson. He did not play a good game yesterday. There is a ton on his shoulders. A ton of that offense is on his shoulders. You know that going in. You knew that when you woke up yesterday morning. And now for everyone else's part, I mean, if I'm a wide receiver, if I'm Ryan Williams and I know that's the case and I'm sitting out here muffin a punt and I got balls dropped here and there, it's just, it's never on one guy. I'm just saying you, it's November. These are all your players. If you're Kaylin DeBoer, Ryan Grub, like you're not, you're not scared. Guys are going to leave for the portal. These are your guys. It's November, tough love on Sunday and Monday and then get ready. And I'm not paying much attention this week. It's an FCS opponent, but you got 12 days until your last conference game and your playoff hopes are on the line down in Auburn. Some would say as it should be.
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What should have been yesterday was we made our way down to Athens, Georgia yesterday. Quick trip fueling us every step of the way. We appreciate them. The Fall Don't Lie tour has been rolling. Someone asked me yesterday down in Athens, hey, you know what you should do? Well, I guess it's not an ask, it's a. It's a suggestion. They said you should have sort of a concert themed T shirt at the end of the year that shows all the dates and all the stops you made along the tour. Yeah, that's kind of been the point. That's kind of been the point. We don't have it available yet because obviously we don't know all the stops we're going to make. But I do know the next one we're going to make. Man, this earpiece is too small. Jesse, I do know the next stop we're going to make. The next stop we're going to make takes us a long way away. So multiple quick trip tanks needed for this trip. But I did not go to Oregon earlier this year when Indiana was in town. And the reason I didn't go, ironically, has nothing to do with Oregon. It has to do with me having supreme faith, hope and confidence in Lincoln Riley and usc. And I had it, and it has paid off. So Lincoln Riley has come through for us here at Pate State and now we have a top 20 showdown, or maybe a top 15 showdown. I can't remember what the AP had in Eugene, Oregon this Saturday. USC at Oregon. Ton on the line. Yes, rain is in the forecast. Why not? Let's not bury the lead. Of course it's going to rain. One guy's going to wear rain gear, the other one's going to dress like a psychopath. I have no clue. I'll probably be a happy middle ground there. Happy medium. Happy. I don't know what the saying is. I'm not wearing a happy medium. I can tell you that. We are excited to go there. We went there in the spring. We went there last year. We go about once or twice a year. So here we go. Let me go and tweet this out, by the way. Now, look, I know some people are going to say, oh, you're just following college game day. Oh, why don't you go here? Why don't you go there? Guys, don't overthink the room here. It's the biggest game. It's the biggest game of the week. That's why we're going there. We haven't been there all year. We intentionally circled this one. So that's why we're going there, because quick trip allows us to go there, too. So I appreciate you on that. Looking forward to getting up there. Usually when we go to Oregon, usually we head up there Thursday night, spend the whole day Friday. So I haven't finalized our travel plans, but I imagine would be up there for a good chunk of the weekend.
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- [25:38]
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All right, let's continue to move on.
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Boy. Georgia to school Texas again. Last night, 35 to 10 was the final. This game was presented to you by Quick Trip. We were there. Star studded event down in down in Athens. Man, I met a ton of people last night. It was a great night. I don't list everyone because I'll forget a lot of people. Game probably wasn't all that fun to watch for you at home. We gave it one and a half chow eye, which is probably the best news of Kirby Smart's year. You don't want to be playing a four and a half chow I class. They already did that earlier in the year when Bama came in there. No, you want one where folks are tuning out and they're moving on to watch Boise State late in the fourth quarter. He loves that team. I've said that like five times this year and I want to reiterate it again because I'm gonna play some sound for you in a little while. He loves this team. It's peaking at the right time. That's an added bonus. But there, there is minimal distraction on that team. Minimal off the field issues for Georgian. Kirby Smart. Just a bunch of guys. Maybe not his most talented roster he's ever had, but it's so obvious. They're all in. They do what they're asked and they dominated last night. Dominated. It is a classic. What we call a she's all that moment.
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And if you've never watched the movie, I hate that because I got to go spoiler alert a little bit on you. Georgia found themselves in a classic she's all that moment and they're there right now. So at various times this season they've looked flawed early in the season. Like people were Pointing this out, pointing that out. And Kirby Smart himself sounded concerned about this aspect or that aspect. Rightfully so. Rightfully so. But in true Laney Boggs fashion, this is a she's all that moment for Georgia. And it kind of happened last night because Georgia took those glasses off and the world started to realize Georgia's kind of hot. Wow. Is that Georgia? Is that the same Georgia who. What could they turn into? Could they become prom queen? Could they win a national title? Don't know. Don't know. That's why God makes us play December and January out. But I will say this, just like I said last week, felt kind of vindicated last night. There was a lot that the model loved about Texas. Some of the numbers like Texas. And I sat here and kind of ignored the numbers last week. And I said, nope, nope, until further notice. This is a Georgia game. It's not a matchup game. I have a philosophy about these big program type games. I rarely ever get into, like, deep matchup type stuff. It's not an X's and O show to begin with, but a lot of times we'll throw some stats out there to back up an argument. But with Georgia and Texas, I didn't view it as a matchup game. It's more a referendum game. Like, for example, the finals 35 to 10. Do you really think there's a 25 point gap in talent differential between those rosters? Of course not. No one in red and black thinks there's a 25 point gap or 25 point difference. But it was absolutely a referendum on staff and it's a referendum on culture. For instance, you know, both of those staffs were well aware of who the officiating crew was on this game coming into yesterday. They both knew that that crew throws a ton of flags. And yet last night, Georgia had 1 for 15 and Texas had 9 for 58. Fourth quarter, Georgia owned it. And that's against a team coming out of the buy. And Georgia routes them 21. Oh, in the fourth quarter. Texas in their last three games in about a calendar year against Georgia, probably the paper popper of the year here. 83 combined rushing yards in three shots against Georgia in a calendar year. So again, finals 35 to 10. There are a lot of talented kids on Texas's team that Georgia wanted and vice versa. I mean, they recruit against each other. Can you look on paper? This stuff right here, it says it's supposed to be a close game. Vegas odds board says it's supposed to be a close game. Man, it's so glaring when you watch it play out. And I thought not only the game itself, but the Kirby Smart press conference afterwards was a classic. It was almost like it was delivered to American society at large, but especially football society. I just want you to take a listen. You don't even have to be a Georgia fan to appreciate this. Yeah, it's. It's. It's. It's the approach we take. We're going to. We're going to dominate and try to win the fourth quarter. It's what we do in practice. It's what we do in the off season. It's what we build our core culture around is being a more physical team. You have to recruit physical players, and they have to buy into that process. I don't know that A lot of these kids nowadays, they want to check. They don't want physicality. And if you. You have the check and no physicality, you end up with nothing. So we're not just getting checks at our place. We're hitting people. Our kids believe in down and dirty. They believe in, you know, the seal mantra of let's take them to the water. Let's see who can.
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Survive in the water and see who's going to tap out first, ring the bell and run from the contact contest. And they believe in that. Like, they believe in the physical toughness that it takes to win games.
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It's so great, man. You got a bunch of future millionaires on that team playing like they're Toledo. It's just amazing the mentality he gets them to play with. I'm around them a fair amount. I'm in a lot of these buildings, so I'm in a really good position to compare. Not granularly. I'm just talking about general vibe, general temperature, the way they go about things, the way walk through feels when you watch it on a Friday, like they're not tackling. It's just the vibe. It's just the standard. It's. It's like squeezing the sponge till it's completely dry and then going back and saying, I think we can get one more drop out of it. And you're just. It's the difference in the one percents that you find, just the fractions of inches that you find here and there. So then it bears itself out. Because then you play 12 games a year. Really, three or four of them are against rosters comparable enough to where you kind of look across the sideline. You see it's like a version of us over there. Physically. Physically, they look similar to us. So then let's find out. And oftentimes when. When Georgia makes you find out, it's normally you finding out. They're kind of just rediscovering what they already knew about themselves. So Mike Bobo and his offensive staff have been trashed relentlessly in the past, and yet those people have been nowhere to be found this year, including last night, when Mike Bobo and his offensive staff have done and then continued last night to put on clinics, free clinics. They're not even making you pay for them.
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I mean, it comes down to players ultimately, like last night, the padlock stat that we circle going into this game, remember it. It was broken tackles, yards after catch, broken tackles.
- [33:44]
Georgia had 10 and Texas had two. So, yes, players are making plays, but I don't know how in the world you watch them week one to now, week 12, and watch Gunner Stockton and say anything other than staff's just putting on a clinic. Man, he was 24 of 29 to 29, five touchdowns total last night through one pick, which could have been devastating, except, I mean, Georgia had enough cushion where it didn't even matter. And in the red zone, it's just. Just again, the inches that make the difference here. 4 of 4 was Georgia 28 points. Texas was 2 of 3 for 10 points. Nice little bonus. If you want to shift attention to the other side of the ball for a second. Think about some of the edges Texas was supposed to have, and this includes me. I picked Georgia to win the game, and I even thought Texas would have the edge and therefore Stockton had a little more burden on his shoulders because they can get after you. And Georgia's not really been able to get after the passer a whole lot.
- [34:43]
Georgia consistently, I thought, got more pressure on Arch than Texas got on Gunner Stockton. That's against an offensive line at Georgia that has been in tatters at various points this year. So again, it's almost like they took the plane off earlier this year, and by Georgia standards, there were alarms going off in the cockpit all over the place. And they never really landed it. They just said, no, we're not landing. We don't get to do that. It's just not spring practice. We've taken off. We got really capable people on board here. They paid a lot of money, so let's do our jobs and fix the thing in the air. And they have. They have. And now some of the rattling stopped and some of the red blinking lights have gone off and the alarms have died down. And now you start to look at it saying, wow, this thing could actually Fly. Not only can it fly, we may be able to go higher than we are right now. Let's pull the stick back a little bit. Let's just see how high we can go. That's kind of how I felt watching Georgia yesterday slash last night. I mean, there are a lot of big names on that Texas sideline that hit that tunnel well before the gun sounded. This should have been the best of Texas, by the way. Texas goes into the Buy a couple of weeks ago, and they're as hot as they've been at any point offensively this year. And the running back room feels like it's getting as healthy as it's been all year. And what would. What better spot to be in coming out of the Buy than going toe to toe against the team that humbled you twice last year? You want that. If you're a competitor, you don't want to shy away from that. You want that and you got it. And it was the same story as it's been on the road for them all year. Texas is. There's a different gear this organization's got to hit. They lost at Ohio State, they lost at Florida. They had to squeak past Kentucky and Mississippi State on the road, and then they got pantsed by Georgia. They don't play well away from home. They don't. And that's a critical part of what separates good versus even very good, much less good versus great in this sport, is being able to scale your performance level on the road. And Texas hadn't been able to do it. I mean, I still, I still think about that hallmark, like, program defining win, or so we thought when they went into Tuscaloosa. And that feels like 10 years ago now because it really hasn't been replicated over and over again. And I know there's a lot of talk in the abstract right now around Texas about everything from coordinators and position coaches to, like, front office personnel. And look, I truthfully, everybody's got to make adjustments after every season. Ryan Day won a national title last year and they made some adjustments at Ohio State. So of course Sartre's going to have to make adjustments. But the bigger picture issue is you still find yourself this far into the tenure asking the same question. So I was asking it going into this game, and you still ask it coming out of this game. What is Texas football under Steve Sarkeesian? I'm not asking what they want to be. I'm asking what they are. I mean, what is the tried and true can, like nail something against the identity of Texas Football under Steve Sarkeesian. Now, that's not me giving up on him. Far, far cry from that, actually. I'm just a believer that it's still sort of in an evolutionary phase there. That may not be acceptable if you're a Texas donor or, you know, you're a big Texas fan and you think you've given him long enough to figure it out. Well, if you believe that and he's not getting the job done, fire him. Of course that's not reasonable. I'm just kind of given an extreme response to what is a stance that many people probably have. So obviously you're not firing him. I don't think he's leaving. Although crazier things have happened. So if Sark's your guy for the foreseeable future, which I believe he will be, well, then it's just up to him to figure it out. Now, what Steve Sarkeesian's really good at doing is not panicking, like not freaking out. I always love listening anytime something goes wrong for Texas. I always love listening to his post game pressers because he always makes me feel better about what I just watched. And it's never. It's never like a smokescreen. It's never gaslighting. He put it. He put it the right way last night. He understood what had just happened to him. But it's never as bad as that. Kind of final score makes it look like it is. But the thing about it is this is another opportunity that you probably missed. This is you went to the playoff last year and we went out there to Austin. I sat down with him, had him on the show in the spring. What did he say? He said this is the year we've built towards.
- [39:29]
This is the group, this is the roster we've wanted on the field. This is our Texas. We got here a few years ago, but this is the first one where it's just fully us out there on the field. Well, this is the result you've gotten. That's not good enough. I don't think he would say it's good enough. So that doesn't mean that you just burn it all down, but it means you still gotta. You still gotta keep doing in the 50,000 foot sense what Kirby Smart's been doing in the micro sense to his team every week. Georgia never just is what they are. Georgia never just is what they are. They're always building, they're always adjusting, they're always tweaking.
- [40:11]
They got a building full of the best in the country at what they do, and they are constantly exhausting every resource imaginable, every angle possible to find those extra one percents, those extra fractions of inches here or there. It's how they refound that ground game. It's how 12 weeks in last night, magically, there's somewhat of a heartbeat of a pass rush on that team. They never just are what they are. It's always very, very commonplace in sports. Once you get halfway in the season, you look at a team or you look at a facet of a team and you say, oh, it kind of is what it is. That's not language that they use there. I mean, I don't imagine them sitting around a staff room on a Monday morning and they couldn't get after the quarterback like they wanted, or, you know, they couldn't run it to the right side like they wanted. And they just say, well, we kind of are what we are there. Nope, nope. We're not running a charity here. This is not volunteer work. That's not good enough to get paid. What we get paid to hold ourselves to the standard. We hold ourselves to. To wear that logo on our chest. That's not good enough. And it hasn't been good enough for them. And it's. It's refreshing to be around, is all I'm saying. To be around a place that holds itself to that kind of standard doesn't apologize for it, and it's become a little bit more of a rare commodity. Ohio State's the same way. When you're up there, it doesn't matter what the rest of the outside world is doing. It doesn't matter which way the rest of the sport's trending. They're just non negotiables at the University of Georgia and they never bend on them. Doesn't always mean they're nailing it perfectly. Doesn't always mean they're going to win every game they play, but it's refreshing to be around. Every highly paid staff thinks they are what Georgia is. Every place where they pay a lot of money to win football games thinks they're made of what Georgia is made of. And then they play Georgia, Texas, I promise you, got on a plane in Austin and headed over there and thought they were what Georgia is. They thought they were made of the same thing. They've thought that three times. They've probably been wrong about it three times. And it's both a compliment to Georgia and I guess that's a criticism. I don't know. I'm just saying one program is where the other is trying to get since an age old story in this sport. Look, Bama's given Georgia a ton of issues, okay? So it's not like Georgia is without. Without the ability to understand what I'm putting down here. But everything that bama has been to them, they are to Texas right now. And which is crazy because the way the sec is working right now, if we got some head to heads with Texas and Bama, maybe Texas would own Bama. Just crazy how the sport works right now. I have a major announcement to make.
- [43:00]
I was just giving you time there, Bradley, in case you needed to put a super up. You already got it up, okay?
- [43:06]
Our show has amazing numbers. We've done some amazing things with the show over the past four years. I am eternally grateful to you guys for even putting us in position to where we can own the show. We get to do whatever we want to with it. We get to broadcast it whenever we want. We get to go however long we want. Just kind of an amazing thing, an amazing place to be in the evolution of sports media and stuff like that. That's boring. I don't want to talk about that. There's something we've wanted to do with the show for a long time. For a long time. We wanted to take ownership of the show, right? And then we did that. So once you have ownership of the show, you can kind of do whatever you want. Then the next thing we wanted to do is we wanted to start having live events. I don't mean taking this show and doing the show live. I mean having live events full on stage, sold out theater, interactive live events. And I am very happy to announce that in about a month, a little less than a month, we're going to do that. And tonight I can announce that Friday, December 5th, the night before the SEC championship game at the Buckhead Theater in Atlanta, Georgia at 7pm we will have our first live show. Tickets are on sale as we speak@patestatematerial.com There's a live events tab there. We expect this to sell out very quickly. So to our friends there in Atlanta, maybe to our friends in college station who plan on being in Atlanta, maybe our friends in Tuscaloosa plan on being in Atlanta, maybe our friends in Athens plan on being in Atlanta. And even if they're not, it's a short drive, you could make it there anyway. Or maybe you just live in Macon or Columbus or Chattanooga and you're a friend of the program and you want to make your way down. Gonna have some surprise guests there, gonna have exclusive merch that you can only acquire at said live event. Gonna have tons of giveaways. It's gonna be really fun. It's gonna be really interactive. I want to stress again, this is not us broadcasting an episode of the show. There is no live feed of this. There is no replay of this. The only way you're seeing this one is if you're there in person. And the fun thing about that format is you can kind of say anything you want to tell, any story you want to throw, any staffer under the bus you want to. After all, no one's going to tell. No one's going to tell. It's just amongst us, right? So we're looking very forward to this night before the SEC championship game there in Atlanta, December 5th.
- [45:31]
We move on. We've gotten this deep in the show. We haven't even mentioned this game. Oh, man.
- [45:41]
We have a rule in the show. We always talk about the winning team first. And yet I don't even know how to. We may have to break our rule for this game. Texas A&M 31, South Carolina, 30.
- [45:51]
It was a five Chow Lai classic. I don't know what else to say. How did you look away from this? Even when it was a blowout in the first half, it was a blowout, in a sense, that made your jaw hit the ground like you couldn't believe what was happening. It's not like A and M got up by four scores and then South Carolina found their way back in it. This was 30 to 3. I want you to raise your hand. I mean, unless you're in class or something like that, or you're at the DMV listening to the replay tomorrow. You know, don't look like you're a psycho, but raise your hand if you gave up on this game. Did you turn it off? Did you go and run a quick errand, get some stuff from the hardware store? Did you go get lunch? Did you, I don't know, go mow the grass and get ready for the 2:30 Central Time kickoffs. And then look up and it was all of a sudden 31 to 30. Did anyone out there do that? I have it on good authority some of you fell into that trap. Paper popper stat. Since 2004, SEC teams were OH and 286 when trailing by 27. Plus.
- [46:57]
They are now 1 and 286. We reached full pucker if you follow me on Twitter during Saturdays. Every now and then, when there's an upset brewing, I like to update what I call the pucker meter. And I mean, look, if you're familiar with the human anatomy and you understand what it's like when things get a little tense, you understand what the pucker meter probably refers to. And the bigger the favorite you are, and the closer the upset gets, the higher the pucker meter goes. The highest we had been so far this year was, I think like a 9.5. And that was those Penn State games with James Franklin. Ladies and gentlemen, we reached a 10 in College Station, Texas on the pucker meter yesterday, and here's why.
- [47:46]
The first half was a disaster. I went to Jim Donen's house yesterday, Big friend of the program, former Georgia head coach. I was up in Athens, already, had to kill some time. So we went and watched the first portion of the Saturday, just sitting in Jim Donnan's basement. Good name of a show, actually. Jim done in his basement. And it was in that basement that I watched 30 to 3 unfold. A 312 to 132 yardage edge for South Carolina in the first half. They outrushed A&M 108 to negative 9 in the first half. They had a 3 to 1 turnover edge, which felt like more. Somehow there were multiple cat busters. Lenora Sellers found the deep ball. The cops couldn't even stop South Carolina. And trust me, they tried in vain to stop South Carolina. And all that happens and you feel like an entire season's worth of misery and bad breaks and busted coverages and everything that could go wrong has gone wrong for Texas A and M. To the point where I legitimately thought to myself, at what point was A and M informed? Kickoff was 11am because if you just experimentally, if you took a team and told them all week they were playing at 7:30 and then told them when they woke up, Nope, game's at 11. Get ready. That's it. Looked worse than I would think that would look. But here's the thing about college football games. Lots changed over the years. One thing has stayed the same. 60 minutes in regulation. They make you play 60. They make you play a full 60. And that was, as it turns out, horrifically terrible news for the South Carolina Gamecocks. First half went great, and then they wheeled the piano out to midfield and she came out of the tunnel. Her name, Sarah McLaughlin. The second half of this game is our Sarah McLaughlin Special. South Carolina up 30 to 3 at the half, outscored 28 zip the rest of the way. South Carolina was out, gained 371 to 76 in the second half, an 18 to 4 first down edge for Texas A M, four sacks to zero in the second half. Let's just go a little ping pong drive recap here, shall we? Touchdown A M turnover on down South Carolina. Touchdown. A and M, three and out. South Carolina. Carolina. They're still up two scores. Touchdown A and M punt South Carolina. If you just hold on now, you can still win this game. Touchdown. A and M, three and out. South Carolina took him less than 20 minutes and even then, Colin Klein. The offensive staff at A and M find it in the goodness of their hearts to offer South Carolina a shot. They run a gimmick play inexplicably down near the goal line and South Carolina can do nothing with it. It final score 31 to 30. A game that at one point reached 10 on the pucker meter ends up being labeled the unpuckering. South Carolina drops the game. And if you believe in snapshots and sound bites being what lasts the longest in sports and politics, it's going to be a long time before we can shake the image of Shane Beamer triumphant fist in the air, going into the halftime locker room room, only to come out and watch his team implode in on itself like a dying star. This was the Sarah McLaughlin special of week 12.
- [51:10]
They got to figure it out at offensive coordinator. This is not breaking news. They already fired Mike Shula. This is not something that's going to be figured out this year. But poor South Carolina, man, I kid because I care and I really do care. It's a 37 season. They cannot make a bowl game. Now, obviously, the Clemson game becomes your bowl game. It has to become your Super Bowl. This is why last year was so important for them. Um, last year, you know, I thought the committee got it right, so I'm not relitigating that part of it. I just remember saying, hey, Bama got left out. That's okay. They'll be back in the mix every year. Ole Miss got left out. Ole Miss has got a shot to be in it every year. Lane's got Ole Miss rolling. They'll be fine.
- [51:54]
South Carolina got close, though, in the playoff rankings. And I remember saying, this is a much bigger blow to South Carolina. South Carolina realistically cannot expect to just be in position every year. They can try, but I mean, history, even recent history, says that's not realistic. And as it turns out, it wasn't. So, I mean, there's Ole Miss right back in the playoff race. There's Bama right back in the playoff race. South Carolina's three and Seven. That's why last year, them missing out on the playoff was such a big deal. Also yesterday, keep talking about completely getting lost in the hurricane that followed it. Mike Elko extended with Texas A and M, which we expected, okay? Penn State had pursued him and that was, you know, all to basically serve Texas A and M to get an updated contract in front of him. He signs it and that's great, great news. Wonderful news. I don't care if they ended up losing the game. That's wonderful news for Texas A and M. They are now 99% probability to make the playoff. But the November air got to them. It's funny, I don't know how many times this has happened to me. You, you give these caution labels to a game or a team. So like last week, they go play Missouri. That was the week a lot of people kept saying, it's November, you're favored. Careful, you're ranked high in the playoffs. You haven't really been here. And they blow Missouri out. All of the stuff that you said last week actually applied to the week after that.
- [53:25]
I never, ever, ever saw this coming. I guess the good news for South Carolina is they covered. I never saw it coming. Marcel Reed moving forward, and I cannot emphasize this strongly enough, is still my pick to win the Heisman Trophy. I never gave up on Marcel. Notorious anti Aggie propagandist Brandon Walker gave up on him and actively attempted to throw Marcel Reed's Heisman ticket under the bus. I never cashed out. And I could have. I could have cashed out yesterday, but I did not. Marcel reed entered yesterday plus 850 odds to win the Heisman. At FanDuel, he was now plus 550, as I checked earlier today. Some say you shouldn't be rewarded for digging yourself a hole that you then climb out of because you're the one who dug the hole. Not my problem. I don't make the odds, I just bet them. Marcel Reed is currently still very much in the thick of the Heisman race. Fernando Mendoza, the favorite, I think Julian saying number two. And then it's Marcel Reed. I can't remember after that.
- [54:29]
What an experience that one was. I always think somewhere somebody's watching their first college football game in person or on tv, and any given game could be that game. This was someone's first college football game yesterday.
- [54:44]
This person is set up for crushing disappointment the rest of the way because eventually they're going to watch Rutgers and eventually they're going to realize, oh, it's a come to earth moment for me. Here, like I remember. Not that this is advice for any of you, please don't misconstrue. What I'm about to say is advice. This is a cautionary tale. When I discovered sports betting, I bet two parlays on a Sunday and I hit both of them. And I think the guy I was betting with, a local at the time, he returned 12 to 1 odds on 14 parlays at Standard Juice. So I bet, I think $20 a piece. I won $220 on them. I'm like 14 years old. So this is a huge deal. And I thought that's how sports betting worked. And so for a long time I just bet nothing but parlays. And I quickly realized, oh, oh, the odds on hitting those actually are about 1 in 16. So even if it returns at a 12 to 1 rate, it's a mathematical guaranteed loser long term. Actually, I didn't quickly learn that. It took me years to learn that, you know, basic math and stuff. That's got to be what this is going to be like if you watch that game yesterday. And that's college football to you. Maybe the best of college football. But yeah, Maryland exists, guys. Northwestern games are going to happen to you. So just prepare. It's okay. You got it. You got to let the bad with the good end. That's all. That's another line from she's all that. Ironically, we have more added takeaways. I got a lot of show left to get to. A whole lot of show left to get to. Appreciate you guys watching. We got like 13,000 watching live. Subscribe, check and see if you're subscribed because we're like 7. We're like 19,000 subs away from 500k. We need to get there quickly. Really, there's no rush. I would just like to get there quickly so that we can get to celebrating 500k added takeaways from yesterday. Notre Dame beat Pitt 37 to 15. I thought it felt fraudulent as a big game. It was a notable game. I watched the game. The, the buildup and hype that it got during the week, I just didn't really get. I never thought Pitt had much of a shot in this game. There was never a question, even after the opening drive, just never a question. Notre Dame victimized a young quarterback and it's just part of being a freshman playing that position. Notre Dame lost the turnover battle in this game and still was able to yawn their way through the fourth quarter. It just. All right, I'm going to say something here. I know how Notre Dame Twitter is. They're going to take it the wrong way. It's going to twist it out of context. This was not a test for them. They passed it with flying colors, but it's not a test for them as it relates to what they're going to have to do to win a national championship. That's what I mean. Like Ohio State plays Rutgers this Saturday. That's not a test for them. They may be the best team in the country. Notre Dame may be the best team in the country. But as you look, Bradley, do me a favor. Throw Notre Dame schedule back up right? Quick as you look at the path they've taken, I like, I strongly suspect Notre Dame is going to be in the playoffs by the time they get there. It's going to have been several weeks since they faced a team that is even comparable to, you know, what they're going to see in the postseason. So they may be clicking on all cylinders and show it come playoff time. Or you could have a situation where they get exposed in the first round in which they play. You just don't know. It doesn't guarantee, like when you're not being tested down the stretch, it doesn't guarantee anything. It doesn't solidify anything. It just means if something's crept in here that is a flaw, it may potentially get exposed in the playoff and surprise people. That's all I caution against and I'm mainly talking to myself when I'm like picking Notre Dame and characterizing Notre Dame, but they're doing exactly what they should be doing in November and so is usc. I'm so proud. I'm so proud. I took. Listen to me. I'm choked up. I took the stage last week and it's just. It's like two feet off the ground. I guess it's a stage. I took to this microphone last week and said something many people thought they would never hear me say. I said, I'm going to pick Lincoln, Riley and USC to win a game because I think they can be physical enough to win it against Iowa. This is a really big moment for Southern Cal and they were down 217 in the rain against Iowa. I mean, where else would I would rather have you? It's boa constrictor time at that point. And then it. Then it happened. They pitched a shutout the rest of the way and they went on a 19 to nothing run again in the pouring rain. And I was so proud. I mean, Makai Lemon played at a level yesterday. I don't Think I've ever seen him play yet. He's an extremely good player, man. I had like other. I had other staffers texting me. You seeing what he's doing? Yeah, yeah, I sure am. And then if you didn't watch the game, I got to tell you, man, I have not seen Lincoln Riley that emotional in a long time, but I get it. And he should be emotional. And he talked about it afterwards. He said this is a culture win, not an emphatic win. And they had a slow start again. And that's been a pretty chronic issue for them this year. They can't be letting that continue. But just you don't always have to immediately go to what went wrong when you win a football game. These are really hard to come by, and especially if you're Lincoln Riley, because what have you listened to? All these guys lie when they say they block the outside noise. Every one of them hears the outside noise. Lincoln Riley included is well aware of what people say about him and what they've said about him for a long time. And it hasn't been undeserved is his teams aren't tough enough to win games like that. And they've made a really concerted effort to change that. There full credit due to him. They've made a really concerted effort to change that. And it's not an overnight fix. And he's talked specifically about having to change his philosophy, how he runs a program that was last offseason, like last winter. They talked about it. It's obvious they meant it. They've gotten better defensively. But this kind of game, man, that's a. That's an identity game. That's just the way you carry yourself. Can you get down? And it's raining. And so when they come back and they win that game, that should have been emotional and it was so good for them. All that does is gives them a shot to go to Eugene, Oregon this weekend, probably maybe with their playoff destiny in their hands. Maybe we'll talk about that a little bit later on. We're going to be there. I know that. Ain't missing that game. We're going to be there. In other news, yesterday we have officially, for the moment, averted the ACC doomsday scenario.
- [61:27]
I'm not sure if I was pulling forward or not. I was just interested to see if it could happen. The ACC doomsday scenario is exactly what it sounded like. That was the scenario where no ACC team makes the playoff. And trust me, it could have happened. So that got averted because Duke Got smoked by Virginia yesterday. The game was 34 to 17. Take my word for it, it wasn't as close as the final score indicated. Virginia had 316 through the air, 224 on the ground. They had a 540 to 255 yardage advantage. And now University of Virginia in the driver's seat in the race to get to the ACC championship game. I'll show you my updated playoff predictions and whatnot in a little while. But Georgia Tech survived against Boston College. Louisville fell to Clemson. Hey, I got to give, I give a lot of credit to Dabo Swinney and his staff. There's been a lot of criticism of them this year. There should have been. They've been a crushing disappointment as a team. But I don't know if you watch Clemson, Louisville, Friday night, it was a mistake filled game. It was an ugly game. I'm not commenting on the execution level. It left a lot to be desired both ways. Clemson is not a good team this year.
- [62:48]
But the fight they played with is something that I miss. Like the feeling and the fight and the passion that Clemson played with Friday. I miss a lot of that because that used to be the old school, pre playoff era style of college football. Back when success or failure wasn't solely based on whether you make the playoff. Now there's nothing, there's nobody that follows Clemson football that will call this year a success. They could win the rest of the way. That's not a success. What I'm saying is there, there was this vibe up until fairly recently, like the last 15 years, there was a vibe in college football that like every game was a one game season. Every Saturday was this huge blessing or Friday in this case and you just played like for the, for the logo. It sounds really, really cornballish now to some people. Me, to me it doesn't. I love that that was Clemson. So I said that Friday night. Of course people come at you. Oh, you wouldn't be saying that if Louisville didn't miss some field goals. Well, hey, Louisville handed them the game. I don't care. It's not even the point I'm trying to make. I just appreciate that. I got dudes tapping out left and right coast to coast once their preseason goals are out the window as a team faking injuries. There are guys faking injuries all over the country to stay off the football field. And I got guys at Clemson crawling over broken glass to get on the field. So yeah, this season's a disappointment. But they hadn't given up. They hadn't given up. They are limited in their capability as a team, but they haven't given up. And I just want to say I appreciate it. That's all I want to say. Miami, Florida, NC State. We'll see where the committee has them. Miami. I still think clearly it's the best at large shot for the ACC to have.
- [64:39]
Georgia Tech's got to play pit this week. By the way, that was a game we thought about going to pit at Georgia Tech and then Pitt and then Georgia Tech then plays Georgia after that, which doesn't matter in the conference standings. But the ACC doomsday scenario looks like they're going to get a team in at least for now. Ole Miss in Florida was an interesting game yesterday. It was a really competitive game. Ole Miss stretched it late. It was right. It was very compacted, one possession type game up until the very end. The game kind of took a back seat. I mean, most people were talking about Lane Kiffin in this game more so than the game itself. And I'm going to talk about that later in the show. Ole Miss is pretty clearly in the playoff right now. I think they're sitting at like 99% probability to make the playoff. The Kiffin thing has to get solved and it needs to get solved sooner rather than later. I'm gonna talk about it and show a little bit later and G5 Josh coming to you live from Nashville here. It is my duty to inform you that now that Navy has taken down usf.
- [65:42]
Currently North Texas has the best odds out of the G5 teams to make the playoff, followed by James Madison, followed by Tulane and then a big gap and then everyone else. So this is going to be interesting. North Texas, let's say they go undefeated the rest of the way. They will presumably, well, they'll win the American and presumably they are in the playoff now. That's not my question. My question is James Madison. What happens to them? Because we're going to go over this in a little while. The AP poll is out for this week. James Madison is ranked like 21st, isn't it, Jesse? Something like that. So my point is James Madison, if they're already sitting there in the kind of top 20 to 25 range.
- [66:32]
The playoff committee rankings have kind of loosely mirrored what the AP is minor differences. So if the committee has James Madison ranked come Tuesday night, we got to ask ourselves if they beat Washington State and beat Coastal and win the Sun Belt against Southern Miss, I would assume how high are they going to be ranked? Could they be ranked higher like right now in the AP, they're the highest ranked G5 team is what I'm trying to tell you. So, like, if all of them win out, is the American champ at the very end gonna jump James Madison? Most people think they will. If they don't, James Madison is guaranteed a playoff spot. Yes. That's a real sentence coming out of my mouth. We're talking about. We're talking about a battle between North Texas and James Madison to make the College Football Playoff. Think of that what you will. I'm just here doing some big J journalism in the interest of bringing you all the facts. Facts, after all, are what this show is built on.
- [67:32]
And a healthy contribution from Academy Sports and Outdoors. Academy sports and outdoors. One stop shop for.
- [67:41]
I don't know, 90 plus percent of your life's needs. If you need hamburger meat, they don't have it there. If you need a grill, they do have it there. Okay, so you're never more than like one degree separation from everything you need. This is not this Kevin Bacon thing where you have to go six degrees. It's just one or two degrees. And you can get a tent there, you get a baseball glove there, you can get boots there, you can get big league chew there. At that point, really, I have what I need, maybe a white T shirt here and there, which, yes, you can also get there. And they've been a longtime partner of the show and we appreciate them. Now, they are aware that they don't have an academy on every single street corner yet. And so you can go to academy.com, you can do these things. That's okay. We prefer the in store experience. But you'll be okay either way. We appreciate it.
- [68:39]
All right, I need to do two things. I need to put on some lip balm. I hate this kind. No knock on Aquaphor, but they haven't paid to be a partner on the show. And it's also the kind that you have to manually apply. No.
- [68:53]
Give me Burts. Also not a partner on the show.
- [68:58]
Lane Kiffin's gotta decide on something here. Ole Miss has gotta decide on something here. I got a lot of people asking me, hey, is Lane going to Florida? I don't know. I don't think he does. The message boards do. Lot of information on the message boards out there. Look, I'm not smart. I'm not as smart as those people. So I cannot tell you definitively what's going to happen with Lane Kiffin. I think, number one, that I don't think he 100% knows what he's going to do again, contrary to message board rumor, I don't believe that. Maybe he thinks he knows. It's not time to make a decision yet is my point. But it should be very close to time. Number two, you got to understand when we assess the landscape and the situation here and you know that Florida is waiting on an answer from him. Ole Miss is certainly waiting on an answer from him. LSU may be waiting on an answer from him. Not to mention there could be NFL jobs that I know way less about. But theoretically, like they could be waiting on an answer from him. But even if the NFL didn't exist, the other still apply. You gotta remember Lane was radioactive for a long time. So anyone trying to put themselves in his shoes, good luck. But anyone who still tries to put themselves in his shoes, you need to understand.
- [70:15]
He for a long time sought this. When he went down to FAU and it was image rehab time and he did it. And then he came to Oxford and it was image rehab time. He did it and now it's done. For a while he tried to garner interest from other places. That's not even a guarantee he would have gone. I'm just saying he tried to garner interest from other places and it was a non starter for a lot of places. We are not pursuing him for what they would deem obvious reasons. They're pursuing him now.
- [70:50]
This is the first time, this is the first cycle that that level of pursuit has been there. That matters. Like imagine, imagine yourself pursuing something for a long time and all of a sudden, oh, what it's here. I can have it. Well, what's your instinct? That's the situation he's in right now. Now he's also in a really good position at Ole Miss. He's not, I'm not going to go as far as to say he's not performing because he absolutely is performing because that's his nature. He is not lying when he talks about how good he has it there. He'd be lying if he said he didn't have everything he needs there. That would be the lie. He's never said that. He is rightfully acknowledging man, we got it good here right now. He went full Andy Bernard in his press conference last night. Did you hear that, Jesse? He basically pulled the, you know, he didn't even say, I wish there was a way to know we're in the good old days before we've left him. He freely acknowledged, here I am in the good old days. Now it's looking pretty stupid if you're wearing a Florida gator hat a month from now, looking back on the good old days, saying adios. But that's another segment for another time. I have not thought about it from Lane Kiffin's vantage point this week. A whole lot I've thought about it, and especially this past weekend, I just thought about it from the Ole Miss perspective. Lane Kiffin's free to feel however he wants to and he's free to pursue opportunities. But Ole Miss is free to handle their business too. And I'm just telling you, this is how I would be if I were Ole Miss, if I were Keith Carter, if I were the big money people there, knowing full well I've given this guy everything he needs, everything he's ever asked for. There are very few no's that Lane Kiffin has gotten in Oxford, Mississippi. At some point, I'm getting an answer from him and it's going to happen before the Egg Bowl. I'm putting a new contract in front of him. Everything he says he needs is on this piece of paper and he's either going to sign it and we're going to move on and the noise is going to die down and we're going to put out a big announcement right before we play Mississippi State like A and M did with Elko yesterday, or we're going to understand, we'll wrap up this regular season and then we'll go our separate ways. And I'm just telling you, if I'm Ole Miss, Pete Golding is going to be my head coach in the playoff. If, if I'm not good enough for you to stick around in the future, then you're not good enough to stick around here when it comes playoff time. That's the way I would be. You got to be selfish at some point. You got to look out for your best interests at some point. And I'm telling you, if I'm Ole Miss. And I gotta acknowledge there's a big difference in the way I, Josh Pate, view this versus the way I would view it if I were Ole Miss. I watch it from a distance. And he's putting out the Instagram stories and he's putting out these vague statements here and there. Hey, I think it's funny. I'm not Ole Miss. If I were Ole Miss, it would piss me off to no end because it's like watching a 10 year old play games about which 4th grade class he's going to be in. Dude, I'm paying you millions of dollars, offering you millions more and have given you yeses to everything you've ever asked and gave you the opportunity to resurrect your image on my dime, by the way, and you've done your part. You've given me results, so it's been mutually beneficial. But, dude, like, we've both compensated each other very fairly, so there's been fair trade here. I got to worry about today, moving forward, and if you're going to jack around like this, I don't have time for it much longer. I mean, we've been through this for like a month now, and it's like, it's like watching a middle school play. This is not what that. It's just real life. So I got to get an answer from him if I'm Ole Miss. Because you know what else, you know what else has happened? We've given Lane everything he needs. He's given us everything we asked. But in the interim, what's happened is this job is a way better job than it looked like it was five years ago. So, all due respect, mountains of respect to Lane Kiffin, if I'm Ole Miss, I want you to be my head coach. But if it's not you, I'm going to be okay. I need to know sooner rather than later, and I'm going to be okay. Because you know what I think? I think I could be very competitive with Auburn in trying to pursue John Sumrall. That's what I think. Because there's aren't many places in the SEC right now that are set up better to succeed immediately than Ole Miss. A lot of people have been chasing Ole Miss from an nil perspective for quite a while. Like industry insiders kind of know that. I think prospective coaches know that. So I got to get an answer from him. Florida, I think he's their Plan A, and I think they're waiting. But also I think Florida would love an answer sooner rather than later. I have no clue what LSU is doing on the Lane Kiffin front. I assume that they're pursuing him as well. If I had to guess right now, my mind has changed on this a few times. If I had to guess, if I have to put my name on paper right now and then I don't get to change it again, no matter what information comes my way, my guess is he's going to go to Florida. That's my guess. No, well, no definitive knowledge. Let me put it that way. Maybe a little bit of knowledge. I do talk to a few people.
- [76:07]
But that's a guess I don't know. My advice to Lane Kiffin, though, would be listen to Yourself. It's always great advice. Listen to your heart.
- [76:19]
Now, if you believe what you've said publicly, you've already made a better case for staying at Ole Miss than Ole Miss has ever made for you to stay at Ole Miss. If you've been sincere about it. If you haven't been sincere about it, that's okay. I get how it works, man. I understand there's no perfect way to navigate this. So if you've been insincere about how good you feel about Ole Miss, you need to take another job. If you've been sincere about how you feel about Ole Miss, you need to not overthink the room and sign a contract extension. And let's move on.
- [76:51]
A lot of people thought action was coming today on that front. That was never happening again. I freely admit I don't know as much as the message board posters do. Those are the real insiders out there, not me. But that was never happening. But it could happen soon.
- [77:10]
I just want to remind you, I was looking at the piece of paper said sub, and we ordered like five of them for lunch today. And I completely forgot. This just stands for subscribe. So we do this show. It's free, it's year round, it's college football and nothing else. Just make sure you subscribe to the channel. Now, a lot of times what I ask is, I ask, you guys subscribe, and then I ask, make sure you're subscribed. Like, look down there and see if the button's been pressed. If it hasn't, please press it. But then a lot of you have just already done that, but you'll still ask, is there anything, Is there, like, any added step that I can take? And what do I tell you? I say, hey, wouldn't hurt to go get mom and dad's phone and subscribe for them. Because, like, I've tried to remind you a million times, it really doesn't do anything to you. It helps us. There's no money involved. You don't sign up for anything. Just subscribing to the channel helps us. Well, what I haven't really done probably enough is ask you to capture evidence of doing such things. But I think now that friend of the program Mike has sent us the video that I'm about to show you, I think this probably goes a lot further in demonstrating what we mean about commitment to the brand and getting us to 500,000 subs than anything I could ever say or beg of you in this microphone. So I'm going to have director Bradley cue up this Video. Because this was sent to us unsolicited the other day from Mike. This is paint State material. Roll it. Bradley. Dad's house.
- [78:46]
We have a very specific mission. Very specific. Perhaps. Perhaps chalice worthy. Maybe a chalice is filled by quick trip. I don't know. But we're gonna see, aren't we? A soldier waits at the door.
- [79:04]
He will not stop our mission.
- [79:08]
Watch out, Barley.
- [79:12]
Here we go. Be quiet. It's nap time.
- [79:16]
What better time to do.
- [79:23]
When he's sleeping? What could we be doing?
- [79:30]
Oh, okay. Let's see here.
- [79:38]
We have to be quiet.
- [79:40]
Can't wake him up.
- [79:49]
Golf clap for Mike. Chalice of supremacy being shipped tomorrow for Mike. Beautifully done. 10 of 10. No further notes. Let's continue. What's happening at Penn State? That's not a question to you. That's literally what Jesse asks me when he walks in the building every day. My default on this position was differently. We all remember James Franklin. Overtime against Oregon. They lose and then it's just kind of a dead on arrival performance against ucla. Then they dropped the Northwestern game. And he's fired. Just like that. The span of 17 days. He's fired. I thought it was ludicrous. Still do. But you know what? I'm not a Penn State donor. I'm not a Penn State alum. It's. It's not my program. It's your program. That's always my stance when this sort of thing happens. So you guys decided James Franklin wasn't good enough for you anymore? I just said I don't think it's going to be easy to upgrade from James Franklin. So I didn't like the firing. More a matter of principle. For me, my principle is always, if you don't have a definitive upgrade, don't pay someone not to coach. For you. It's a pretty common sense stance. So.
- [81:03]
I gather that Penn State thought differently and Penn State thought there was no other choice. We got to fire him. We got to get rid of him so that we can start our coaching search. And the plan was there. The plan is just in place. That's what everyone thought. Penn State folks thought the plan was in place and a grand slam was the plan. It's great. But that's not a plan. Hoping you can hit a grand slam is not a plan. Because if you swing and miss in baseball, it's just strike one. Okay? They give you at least two more shots at it in coaching searches. You swung for Mike Elko, you'll swing for Kalyn DeBoer. Pete Nacos of On3 has his hot board right here on our screen. Mike Elko. You can cross his name off the list. He just re upped with Texas A and M. I don't think Kaylin DeBoer is a series option for him. So what are we left with? And remember, we're looking to upgrade from James Franklin.
- [82:03]
As far as I can tell, there's no real contingency past the grand slam phase of the Penn State coaching search. So they missed on the grand slam. Now we got to hope for a home run. Do we think this list includes home runs? Do we think Clark Lee going up there would be a home run? Eli Drinkwitz from Missouri would be a home run. Jeff Braum, Matt Campbell, Manny Diaz, Brian Hartline, Will Stein, Joe Brady. There could be a future hall of Famer on that list for all I know. And I've got my candidate on that list, which I'll talk about in a second. Point being, there's no definitive upgrade there from James Franklin. Anyone who suggests otherwise is trying to fool themselves. You're not going to fool me on it. So right now.
- [82:48]
Out of all the coaches available on the market, you know who the best option for Penn State is? James Franklin. But you can't go rehire James Franklin. Which brings me back to my original point. What were we doing here? So what are the candidates seeing? This is one of the most critical pieces of feedback that I need to remind people about the Penn State coaching search. I love the program, so I got no knock on the program. I'm not looking to take over as head coach there. The people who are looking at the job that could potentially be getting offers and are qualified to be the head coach at Penn State, here's what they see. You're going to pay them a lot of money. That's great. They're going to compete in the Big Ten. That's great. You just fired a 10 win head coach, which means the replacement's got to do as good or better than that guy was doing. And you tore your recruiting class to shreds voluntarily. You didn't have to fire Franklin when you did. You fired him when you did. You've gotten very little traction, at least as far as I can tell on your coaching search. All you've done is find out who doesn't want your job so far and in the aggregate. Jesse, how many decommitments so far? 17 decommits. You normally sound like 25 or 30 in a class. 17 decommitments so far. So what prospective future candidates look at is, dude, I gotta be a double digit win per season guy just to make these folks happy. They're going to want to win immediately. I may have a really, really big rebuild on my hands and for what?
- [84:22]
That's what they see. I'm just telling you, that's what they see. So Bradley, do me a favor. Throw up the Nacos hotboard right quick. On three is Pete Nacos hotboard. Mike Elko. Not happening. Clark's there, Eli's there. Here's what's funny. I don't know, like I've heard the level of seriousness. Some of these other candidates are. The, the one like my guy on there's Matt Campbell and I've spoken about Matt a lot on the show. Matt Campbell's biggest flaws. He doesn't really play the game the same way other guys do. He refuses to be a candidate for this stuff during a season and therefore his name is not really involved in a lot of coaching searches because the earliest that he's going to allow his name to be involved in a coaching search is the end of November and even then you come check on him and he may or may not be interested. But the people who push back on Matt Campbell as a legitimate candidate just floor me. Their reasons just floor me. I'm not going to relitigate all this. Like Matt Campbell's a stud as a head coach. I think he is perfectly cut out for the Penn State job. Like the edge, the grit, the attention to detail, the different way you have to sell Penn State, the understanding of placing premium on eval and development, the magnetism that the guys programs have, how much discount players take to play for him and staffers. Everything you would want in a Penn State coach, he has. Here's what turns a lot of people off and this is what's really stupid about this whole process. Matt Campbell sucks at promoting Matt Campbell because he doesn't really care to do it. If I changed nothing about that guy other than publicizing the head coaching jobs he has turned down, he would be viewed as a premium candidate for some of these jobs. It's not my business to float that. He can have his representation do it if he wants to, or if his representation is comfortable with it being done, then it could happen. Matt Campbell's been the guy for a number of of the big openings over the past several years and I'm firmly convinced that there is a subset of maybe the Penn State fan base that if they were equipped with nothing more than that information would all of a sudden be totally open to Matt Campbell because All of a sudden it's like, whoa, he was good enough for them. Maybe he is good enough for us. That's how stupid some of this stuff is. Also, Pat Fitzgerald's just sitting there. As much as I tout Matt Campbell, Pat Fitzgerald, like, who really says no to that, especially if staffing properly, I don't know. They're watching us in Adams, Tennessee, Mission Viejo, California and Spearfish, South Dakota. Good people there. Let's move on. One more. One more request we got before I get to the Week 13 AP Poll and I've got a re. Re update. No, just update. Not re update. It's redundant. I've got to update my playoff predictions. I did a lot of critical thinking on the flight home last night. The 38 minute flight home last night. Oh, the Arkansas coaching search has taken some twists and turns. Look, they're trying to lead people to believe they didn't want James Franklin. Of course they wanted James Franklin. Doesn't look like James Franklin wanted Arkansas. So that ship, it looks like it sailed, but it hasn't really totally sailed until James Franklin takes another job or Arkansas announces a hire. Looks like, at least for this Sunday evening, that ship has sailed. Now, this one's always been a little bit different. I've tried to allude to this as much as possible. It's a very, very weird cycle. Cause you'll notice you've got a coaching search at Penn State and you got a coaching search at Arkansas, and you got one in Virginia Tech and Florida and lsu, Auburn. And when. When Pete puts out his hot boards, Pete's not making that stuff up. He's just regurgitating what insiders are telling him. It's like the same 10 names. And again, what drives me up a wall about this entire process and the reason, you know, it's so flawed in concept is this is a sport where thousands of people coach. This is a sport even at the higher levels where you've got dozens to hundreds of head coaches or people qualified to be head coaches. And yet, inevitably, when jobs come open, it's the same list of recycled names. And I'm not speaking ill of these guys. I'm just saying, does it not make it pretty blatantly obvious why the names are who they are? You don't have to really be a math whiz to put two and two together and understand how these names become names. Okay, that's like when I talk about Campbell, it's the reason why I talk about him the way I do. The only reason the dude's Name's not hotter is because he doesn't have the right people pushing his name. It's not because he's ill qualified for the job. So Arkansas is open. It's been pretty obvious for a while. Arkansas's got to be comfortable, kind of, kind of running number two or number three in the pack instead of leading the pack. Because if you're after some of the same guys that other programs with better jobs are, you've got to wait. It sucks. You either got to wait or you got to go a different direction. You're free to go a different direction. Candidly, I think they should. And I'll give you my feedback for what it's worth in a second. But here's the great catch 22 of head coaching searches at Arkansas. Really underrated job if it's harnessed properly. People at Arkansas get so tired of listening to this, but someone's watching in Richmond, Virginia that knows very little about the Arkansas job. The Arkansas job could be a rocket ship if the JB Hunts and the Tysons and the Walmarts are on board. And that means fully infusing the program with cash. That's what it means to be on board there now, in the best of worlds, that's happening. But I say catch 22. That doesn't sound like a catch 22. That just all sounds good. No, it's good. When you get big money investing in your program, the catch 22 is when big money invests in your program, they want oversight. They want say so in your programming or program. Actually in programming. It works that way in media as well. The downside to big money investing in your program and therefore wanting some input in Your program is 99 times out of 100, the big money did not make their money by coaching football or being associated with college athletics in any way. They made it selling chicken, they made it building a trucking conglomerate, they made it selling things wholesale. They didn't make it by coaching offensive line. And yet they want input on people who are going to do such things.
- [90:57]
I would imagine that the search at Arkansas is operating under those kind of parameters where you're asking for big money to be involved. Big money wants a say and who's going to get hired here. And it's not even unfair as a concept. Hey, if I'm giving you millions of dollars, I'm not just writing the blank check and saying let me know how you spend it. So I get it, I get it. It's just sometimes in like a utopian college football sense, you wish people knew what they don't know, but that's not realistic. So couple of different ways I think they want to go there. There are some folks who want to go Cal 2.0. You just went under unique circumstances to Kentucky and got John Calipari to come be your basketball coach. And there are folks who want to recreate that in football. And there's one way to do that, and that's to go get Dabo Swinney from Clemson. But I have no reason to believe Dabo Swinney is available or is in any shape, form or fashion looking to leave Clemson. And that's the only guy that would qualify as Cal as being someone who has an established resume and through some unique circumstances is a little unhappy where he's at and they're both ready to go their own way and you get him. If that's not going to happen, well, then you've either got to settle for fishing from the same pool of candidates that five other jobs are, or you got to go a different direction. So I tweeted out Friday I have the guy that I think Arkansas should hire, but I didn't give a name. And then people thought I was talking about Coach O. I wasn't. I was talking about Golish down at South Florida. Now, I've been high on him for a while, and I'll just fully tell you, if Arkansas isn't fully aligned and the big money up there isn't fully aligned, no one's really going to win there. Alex Golish or anyone else. When I look at Arkansas, okay, my opinion of Arkansas is I've got to have someone with an edge. I've got to have someone who's innovative. I've got to have someone who knows the league. I've got to have someone who has the ability to capture the imagination of the fan base and the donor base and someone who can attack Dallas in recruiting. I think Alex Golish can do all of those things. There's an attitude that he carries himself with that I think would fit perfectly.
- [93:13]
There's a level of offensive innovation. There's an understanding of the league from his time at Tennessee, and there is a relentlessness in that. I don't think that guy would be denied until he got the infusion of donor support he needs there. And I don't think, therefore, they would be denied until they got the talent that they need to get out of Dallas, which has become much tougher. And it is the key barrier that any agent that doesn't want their client taking that job points out. They Say once upon a time, Arkansas flourished in Dallas, okay? But there were a lot of kids who went to Arkansas cause they wanted to play in the sec. But now Texas is in the ACC and way closer to Dallas. Oklahoma is closer to Dallas than Arkansas is. And those are both better places to go, candidly. Not only that, in the NIL era, SMU has got its act together. And so you got all these places that are like siphoning the talent from Dallas and you can't get down there and get enough of it and you just die on the vine without it. So like, Golish, I think, is a serious candidate for the job. I don't know who leads. I don't think Arkansas knows who leads right now. I just think if he ended up being the guy, I think he'd do really good things there. I think you guys could do really good things if you went to pacestatematerial.com right now. Because the TIS the Season collection is there. And I don't even need to tout the Christmas sweaters anymore because they're moving just fine on their own. I'm just saying, if you're looking to update the wardrobe as November eventually turns into December, or if you know someone who watches the show and you're looking to purchase something for them, I highly advise the Christmas sweater collection there. Those things are moving. We have kept them in stock so far, but those things are moving. Let's move on.
- [94:59]
The AP poll has dropped for week 13 and we have some movement here. I got a couple of them circled that I need to talk about. There we go. Bradley, just put it on the screen. Look at number 21. I'll read it. My bad. I know a lot of you listen on podcasts. So 25 to 21 is Houston, Tulane, Missouri, North Texas and James Madison. Now, JMU being 21 is really interesting. They're the highest ranked G5 champ. Notice number 22 and number 24 are the two highest ranked American teams. I said. I said James Madison's the highest ranked G5 champ. They haven't won a championship yet. They're the highest ranked G5 team. Problem with them, theoretically is if they win out, it still looks like the American champ will jump them because I guess North Texas and Tulane are set to play each other. That's what they're on track to do. And if one of them beats the other, they'll get an added ranked win. And that'll be enough, I think, to jump them over jmu. But that's not a certainty. We don't know that for sure. So let's just keep an eye that. Number 20 is Tennessee. I'm going to point out something about Tennessee in a second. 19, Virginia. 18, Michigan. Texas dropped seven spots. They're number 17. I think. I think they're done. I think they're done. Not. They're not mathematically totally eliminated. I think they're out for now. That's, again, counterintuitive, but you understand what I'm saying. USC's number 16. Okay, so two things right here. Tennessee at number 20. Vandy's at number 12. So Vandy is going to play Kentucky this week. And if they beat them, Vandy may have a playoff spot on the line when they play Tennessee. Some people don't think that. Some people think Vandy is out no matter what. I don't know how you can say that right now because you don't know what else is going to happen. Here's going to be my problem. I guarantee you this is going to happen. Let's say Vandy does beat Kentucky this week and they go to Tennessee. You see Tennessee's number 20 there. This is really where you find out whether your worldview of college football and another person's worldview of college football are compatible.
- [97:14]
If Vandy beats Tennessee at the end of the season and the final AP poll comes out and Tennessee's unranked, did Vandy get a ranked win to end the season? Because there are some people who will look you dead in the eye and say no, if Tennessee's not ranked when the final poll comes out, that wasn't a ranked win for Vanderbilt. Which is insane because the only difference between Tennessee being number 20 in the second to last week of the poll and being unranked at the end is that Vandy beat them when they were ranked. But try as I might, I cannot bring people around to this way of thinking. So Vandy can go beat Tennessee and it won't be counted as a ranked win for him unless they beat him by one point. And the committee drops Tennessee to 25. And that'd be a nice little bonus for. For Vanderbilt. Georgia Tech's at 15. Miami jumped two spots to 14. Utah is 13. Just talked about Vandy at 12. Okay. Brigham Young is at 11. I've got a concern about them. I know that it's an unwritten rule that you don't get punished if you make a conference title game and you're in the top 12 and you lose the conference title game. That's not an unwritten rule. Well, it is at best an unwritten rule. We've had one year sample size on this, and each situation is unique unto itself. And I think there's a world where it could come down to it. And Miami's got two losses as an at large and Oklahoma's got two losses as an at large. I think they may run out of spots is what I'm trying to say. And I think Brigham Young, if they lose again convincingly in the Big 12 championship game and they're 11 and two, I'm serious. I think there's a world where the committee could bump them out. I'm not saying I would advocate for it, but I'm just saying there's a situation, I think, where they could. They didn't do it to SMU last year. It's not an apples to apples. It'll never be apples to apples. There's a lot of variables here. So I may be wrong about that. It may be that it's complete ironclad. If you're in the top 12 going into conference title Saturday, you could lose by 150. We're not bumping you out. We're not punishing you for playing in the conference title game. We'll see. We'll see. Bama drops six spots. They're at number 10. I imagine the committee will have them around there come Tuesday night. Notre Dame's nine, Oklahoma's up three to number eight.
- [99:41]
Texas Tech and Oregon are inexplicably tied at six. Like 47 million people vote on this thing and we have a tie. Oregon, let me ask you a question. If they lose to USC Saturday, how far do they drop? Remember, Oregon's got one loss right now. If they lose to usc, how far are they going to drop? Now imagine a world where Oregon's got two losses and Miami's got two losses and Oklahoma's got two losses and Notre Dame's got two losses and Brigham Young's got two losses and they lost their second game in the conference title game. You see what I mean? It can get really clogged here at the end, really quick. So we need to be careful before we just make these definitive statements like, oh, well, so and so's in if they do this. Yeah, some. Yeah, A and M's in. If they win out, Georgia's in, old misses in. Not everyone is just a slam dunk to be in. I didn't even mention Vandy. What if Vandy goes on to beat Tennessee and they're 10 and two? Who we leaving out? We only got 12 spots. We got to leave someone out the top five in five to one order. Ole Miss, Georgia up one spot to number four. A&M three, Indiana two. Ohio State is number one. Oh, man. I just. I look at it more and more, and I think we're. We're headed towards a very, very chaotic final couple of weeks here as it relates to those 9, 10, 11, 12 spots. That's what I think. In the interest of talking about that, I mean, we can just seamlessly transfer or trans.
- [101:14]
Wait. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Sorry, Jesse. I thought I had my papers in the wrong order. So we can just move on to this here. Every Sunday for like a month now, I've updated my college Football playoff predictions, which I didn't used to do. But man, it's so fluid right now that just this past weekend's results, it could have been a lot worse. Like A and M could have lost. So they didn't. But there's a lot that's changing here. So right now what I want to remind you really quickly is what we like to do is I like to go conference by conference really quick, like Big Ten. I'm not changing anything in the Big Ten. I'm still taking Ohio State over Indiana in the sec. As of now, I will stick with Alabama over Texas A and M. Cause that was my pick from a long time ago. So I don't want to come off of it until I absolutely have to. But Alabama is not mathematically guaranteed to be in that game, just if they beat Auburn now. So there's a lot of like, tiebreaker stuff that has to get figured out. A and M is probably going to be there. Don't know if Alabama is going to be there. If not them, it would probably be Georgia. So let's see. Acc. This changes every week. Right now, I'm just going to take the teams with the best odds. So give me Georgia Tech over Virginia as my, you know, 8:36pm Central Time, November 16th pick. And in the Big 12, still going, Texas Tech over Brigham Young. BYU dusted TCU yesterday, which is a good win. No one paid attention to it. That line was three and a half. So they got right back up off the deck. They performed well. They got Cincinnati this week and keep an eye on that one. So here is where the seating would be right now. This is where I'm projecting it. Ohio State wins the Big Ten over Indiana. Those are number one and number two. Since I've got Bama winning the sec, I think they would jump to number three. I think A and M would fall no further than fourth. So really it's a different order. Same concept though. The Big Ten champion runner up and the SEC champion runner up, those are still the ones that I project to get the first round buys in the playoff. Now that would be different if, say Texas A and M beat Alabama in the SEC championship game. @ that point, Bama would be down at like 9 or 10 or somewhere like that. So yeah, who wins that game all of a sudden because Bama lost to Oklahoma yesterday, who wins that game really matters a lot more. Number five, I've got Texas Tech. There's a lot of arguing out there about Whether a Big 12 Conference champ, Texas Tech would jump over an at large Georgia jump over an at large Ole Miss. I think they will. Like. I think that added data point of being a conference champ for Texas Tech, a team whose only loss came with their backup quarterback in which you can think whatever you want to about but the committee keeps pointing it out is going to matter. I think that enough to where I've got them projected at five, Georgia at number six, Ole Miss at number seven. I've got Oregon winning out right now. So I've got them at number eight. This is where it gets really, really, really muddy. Oklahoma, if they beat Missouri and they beat lsu, I think they're a playoff team and I think they're a nine seed and they truthfully, they could be above Oregon. They could be an eight seed. They could host a playoff game in Norman. Wouldn't surprise me at all. Notre Dame, I've got it number 10 because I think the resume argument would boost Oklahoma above Notre Dame. I've got Georgia tech as the ACC champion at 11. And I've got Tulane winning the American right now, much to the chagrin of Auburn fans who probably want John Sumrall to have a nice solid close to the season. But. But please report for duty if we hire you. We don't want you mixed up in the playoffs. We don't want that. Shame on you. No. We got two lane at 12. So this is what the bracket would look like. Oh, boy, here we go. Bracket right now. This is so unhealthy. We would send Oklahoma to Eugene in round one. We would send Tulane to Texas Tech. Notre Dame would go to Oxford to face Ole Miss. Georgia Tech goes right down the road to Athens to play Georgia. My winners there, give me Oregon, give me Texas Tech, give me Georgia and give me Notre Dame. Now let me tell you what that gives us in the second round. Again, our projections continue to indicate you are getting the shaft if you're the number one seed, I would much rather be the three seed here. The two seed Ohio State as the one seed gets Oregon. Now, you may be thinking to yourself, if you're a Buckeye fan, I think we're better than Oregon. Of course you are. That's not the point. The point is the caliber of matchup you're going to get compared to like, I don't know. I mean, I don't want to denigrate anyone, but anyway, so I would take Ohio State over Oregon. I would take Texas A and M over Texas Tech. Give me Alabama over Georgia, and give me Notre Dame over Indiana, which is going to be controversial. That's a replay or a rematch rather of last year's game that was in South Bend. And our final four there. Good matchups, man. That's Ohio State, A and M. That's Notre Dame, Alabama. I'm keeping my national championship game the same right now. So give me Ohio State versus Alabama. I'll still keep my national championship the same right now. I'll take Alabama to win it. If Ohio State and Alabama are on the field right now, I feel a lot better about Ohio State. I don't want to be the guy who comes off a championship prediction, only for the championship prediction to verify because that's just. That's a worse spot to be in socially. I would never live it down. I need Alabama to work on themselves. I need you guys to get right. Ohio State did it last year. Just use their blueprint. That's all you gotta do. Just use the Ohio State blueprint. Couple of more things and we're out of here. FanDuel, the exclusive odds provider of our show. There are a lot of things that you could check out there right now. Many of you bet on this. Not all of you bet on this, which is totally fine by me. If you got any doubts about whether you should be, don't. Don't. If there's a single doubt, don't be betting on this stuff. But that doesn't mean that you can't go. Just check out the numbers. I have a ton of you that tell me, yeah, I've never bet a dime. I just like that I can go look at the odds at FanDuel, you can. Not just the odds on, like who's favored Saturday between BYU and Cincinnati. You can go look at who the odds on favorite to win the Heisman is right now. You can look at who's favored to make the playoff out of the G5. It's very interesting. It's fluid. Those numbers move all week and you can sign up right now if you're a new customer and you can use FanDuel.com JoshPate to do that. Bet $5, win and get 150 in bonus bets. Just that simple must be 21 plus and present in select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 plus and present in D.C. first online real money wager only. $5 first deposit required. Bonus issued as non withdrawable bonus bets which expire seven days after receipt. Restrictions apply. See terms@sportsbook.fanduel.com gambling problem Call 1-800-Gambler or visit fanduel.com rg call 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org chat in Connecticut or visit mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit gamblinghelplinema.org or call 800-327-5050 for 24. 7 support in Massachusetts or.
- [108:49]
Hope NY or text Hope NY in New York Before I leave, I've got two additions to the Ramen Noodle Express for this week. Terrible day yesterday. We went three and eight. Now that's okay because we had a couple of winning weeks before that. So like we're still up this month. But yeah, not. Not good enough yesterday. I feel bad about it. That's why I can't criticize Alabama or South Carolina too much. I didn't show up yesterday either. Scratch that. The kids we bet on didn't show up. They're the ones who screwed up or the officials screwed up or the coaches screwed up. It wasn't me. It wasn't my fault. However, if we win this week, I will appreciate some credit. Give me Western Kentucky plus 22 and a half at LSU and give me Kent State. We're back prez. Kent State plus seven and a half weeknight match and I think that's a Wednesday game. My staff has bet on every Kent State game all year. I know there may be people watching there at Kent State who think we're not even aware that they exist. You could not possibly be more wrong. We are living and dying with every Kent State game. We are very proud of already, the vast overachievement that the team has accomplished this year, but we're a seven and a half point dog. This Wednesday night we got a shot to clip Central Michigan. Don't you think so Press? I think we got a shot. So we're going to take them plus seven and a half. Maybe just a little sprinkle on the money line maybe I don't want to get wild. I don't want to get reckless. But as for the Ramen Noodle Express, WKU and Kent State appreciate you guys so much for watching. Make sure you're subscribed to the channel. We're a shark fin offshore of 500k island. We're closing in rapidly. We can close this thing, get it wrapped up well before Christmas. Appreciate you guys so much. Tickets for the live show are now on sale. Patestatematerial.com Click the live show tab. We have to go an hour earlier Tuesday night because they're doing that thing where they unveil the playoff rankings early. So what we're going to do here is we're going to, we're going to go live at 6 Central, 7 Eastern and we won't react to the playoff rankings because they will not have dropped yet. I'll stay around the studio and record reaction after the playoff rankings. But we're not waiting until like 9 o' clock to do the show. That's crazy. So that's what we're doing Tuesday night. So, you know, Tuesday and Thursday this week the show will kick off a little bit early. All right, I think that's about it. Nice jam packed show. Hour 45 for Director Bradley. For producer Jesse, I'm Josh Pate. Take care. Have a great start to your week and God bless.
- [111:34]
Must be 21 plus and present in select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 plus and present in D.C. first online real money wager only $5 first deposit required. Bonus issued as non withdrawable bonus bets which expire seven days after receipt. Restrictions apply. See terms@sportsbook.fanduel.com Gambling problem. Call 1-800- gambler or visit fanduel.com rg call 1-888-78-9777 or visit ccpg.org Chatincenetic or visit mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit gambling helplinema.org or call 800-327-5050 for 24. 7 support in Massachusetts or call 1-877-8-HOPE NY or text HOPE NY in New York. Did you know Tide has been upgraded to provide an even better clean in cold water. Tide is specifically designed to fight any stain you throw at it. Even in cold butter. Yep. Chocolate ice cream. Sure thing. Barbecue sauce. Tide's got you covered. You don't need to use warm water. Additionally, Tide pods let you confidently fight tough stains with new coldzyme technology. Just remember, if it's gotta be clean. It's gotta be tied. Ah, greetings from my bath festive friends. The holidays are overwhelming, but I'm tackling this season with PayPal and making the most of my money getting 5% cash back when I pay in 4. No fees, no interest. I used it to get this portable spa with jets. Now the bubbles can cling to my sculpted but pruny body. Make the most of your money this holiday with PayPal. Save the offer. Offer in the app ends1231. See paypal.com promoter points can be redeemed for cash and more. Paying for subject to terms and approval. PayPal, Inc. And MLS 910457 okay, only 10 more presents to wrap. You're almost at the finish line. But first.
- [113:36]
There the last one.
- [113:40]
Enjoy a Coca Cola for a pause that refreshes.
- [113:47]
This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.