← Middays With Matt
Middays With Matt
Show Rundown (Mon 8/6 - Seg 2)
00:19:01
Matt gives a rundown on the show, recaps Cubs vs Royals, and talks about Nebraska last season.
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- [00:01]
Grainger Announcer
Grainger knows. When you're a procurement manager for an office park, you're not managing one building, you're managing all of them. And to stay ahead, you need to see through walls and around corners. Lights about to fail, filters ready to clog H VAC on its last leg. If you wait until something breaks, you're already behind. Count on Grainger for quality products, easy reordering and 24. 7 support. Call 1-800-GRAINGER click grainger.com or just stop by Granger for the ones who get it done.
- [00:30]
Matt McMaster
I need your help. I can't tell you what it is, you can never ask me about it later. And we're gonna hurt some people. One years old. Whose car are we gonna take? I have a lot of things I wanna get off my chest. That's an absolutely horse crap call. Make room for daddy. But they are who we thought they were and we let them off the hook. CH. This is middays with Matt on 1620 the Zone. Middays Matt live and rolling here on the 1620 Zone radio network. Matt McMaster joined today by Jake Janicek. Double J, you will be in the chair for Mr. Odson this week. It's going to be a fun one. Jo on a well deserved, well deserved vacation as. One second, Jake, I apologize. I forgot to set up my camera and I look awful. Plug this in real quick. I hate this computer. This computer, dude, like today, dude, like it it. All of a sudden my camera started working today and I had no idea it was working. I forgot to plug it in during our, our break there as we're all set up here. Well, I was making sure first off, look at that Boston Celtics hat. I'm not going to be able to wear this at the next couple of months. That's the rule. Jake, a lot of people get upset at me for wearing other teams hats when I don't root for them. My rule is this, if my team that I root for is not in season, I can wear other teams of that league's apparel. So the Bulls are currently not in season. My rule is that all other NBA teams are in fair play if I own their hats. Now I will say the National Basketball association is probably the least hat league I have. I don't, I feel like how many people are really walking around with NBA hats? Not many, I don't think. NBA isn't a hat, that's a jersey league. But it's like jerseys or other teams all the time. Like how many times I've seen like fans of other teams were like, Vince Carter Raptor jerseys. See, I am somebody who famously. Not famously, but very, very notably. Baseball is probably on the lower list of sports that I have a passion for, but I undoubtedly have the most baseball hats out of all of the leagues that I have an Ace hat, I have a Tigers hat. I have so many variations of a Cubs hat. I got a. I, I never wear it, but I do have a Milwaukee brewers hat that I got from the 47 era. Do you ever do those mystery boxes? This is where I got this. I've not done the mystery boxes, but I know you've talked about them. I've definitely been interested. I have not done them. I, I guarantee you. Because they used to be $17 for a hat. Does a 47 do it or. This is 47 now. There's different hats you can get. Like, if you wanted to get, like fitted hats, you could do it. If you wanted to get. This is a, like. I forgot what this is called. I think it's a. It's one of their. Well, it's obviously the one where it's like, look, it's got the strap back here, right? But it's. I forget what they call it. I think it's like a classic or a fr. I think it's like a franchise hat or anything like that. I like the ones, the adjustable hats, obviously. Hey, they actually lowered their price. Oh, shout out to 47. You can get a. A mystery non fitted hat for 16 bucks. I might have to do that again. I haven't done one in a while. They now do shirts as well. I think they've always done shirts, but I've never picked them up. See, that's one thing. I don't have a lot of shirts of other teams. If I have a shirt, it's more than likely a. One of the pro teams or like Nebraska that I root for. I don't think I've ever really bought like a Baltimore Orioles like, shirt or anything like. Like that. But anyway, this is why I'm wearing the Boston Celtics hat today. And I'm excited for football season because then when baseball season ends, then I can show off all of my hats that I have because it's just like I. I feel like I'm betraying the Chicago Cubs, who hell of a series this weekend in Kansas City. Thanks to all the people who came out. You're welcome to the Kansas City Royals for potentially funding you an outfielder that you can buy in the off season, which may not exist because of the lockout, but we'll just kind of skate Right. By that as it was. It was a fun little atmosphere the last couple of days at the K. The Cubs brought in two. Two wins catching up to the Brewers. I think they're only. They're four or five games back now right now from the Brew Crew, who still have the best record in all of baseball. There were moments where I was like, God, good happen to homer. Like, let's turn around. Let's get him going. There are moments I was like, all right, Zephyr John, like, looked pretty good. Like, you know, you know, and the. I think he's pitching the Nathan yesterday at that Sunday game. Or Mozart was like, all right, hey, the Cubs are still rolling hidden bombs, you know, having a good time. Pca. He's got a higher WAR than Shohei Otani, by the way. There's some. I don't know, There's. There's a lot of social media people. They're trying. They're trying to push PCA for mvp. It'd be very cool for the Cubs to have a most valuable player of the National League for the first time since2016. But then there were moments where I was like, God, the Royals are bad. They are. Royals are really bad. It was. It was a tough outing for the Kansas City. Had one good game, though. Yeah, he did take it. What he had. He had a homer and a double on Saturday. Yep. So, yeah, good stuff. Fun little weekend for the Cubs in Kansas City. We're going to have a fun show for you today. We have plenty to talk about. We are getting closer and closer and closer to the start of college football season, which means that we are getting closer and closer to the start of Husker football season. Little bit under a month away from kickoff versus Ohio at Memorial Stadium. I am not giving my record prediction today. I am not. There's still a lot of fall camp to be had. Unfortunate. Unfortunate reality in. In. In football could be injuries that affect the season. Right. That happened in training camp. Maybe not just for the Huskers, but also for the other teams Nebraska will be playing this season, so you have to kind of just monitor that. Wait on that. So I'm not. I'm not going to give you my record prediction today, but I am going to tell you where I am at, where I am currently processing what I think so far based on just what I know about Nebraska football coupled into what do we know and what have we learned about opponents as we read and taken this material and read the reports and listen to their coaches talk at their podiums. I will give you a baseline of where I'm currently sitting when I have the outlook to Nebraska football season. I will say as a little spoiler that my floor and ceiling prob are much closer than many people's floor and ceilings, if that makes any sense. I think that some people might say, oh, they got a, a floor five and seven and maybe a ceiling of nine and three. Right. I saw a joke in Haper's chat today that Nebraska's got a, a floor of 9 and 3 and a ceiling of 10 and 2. And you know, it goes to show you how much you don't know about this football team. I, I do think, I do think that, you know, we, we know a good amount about this football team, but there's still more information to procure and to potentially get before we go ahead and say this is what I think is going to happen. But I, I, I think that it really lies within the feet of is Anthony Calandria the guy? Or do they have a year like 23 where the surrounding parts of the team are pretty good but the quarterback play is just kind of your consistent detriment to what you're doing. I, I, you know, say what you want about Dylan. I think that, you know, they won games because of Dylan at points last year. Right. I, I still hearken back to that final drive against Northwestern. I mean he was, he looked like everything you thought he would be in that final drive. They had multiple third and sevens that he, he came in clutch and could be converted. Had that one where he rolled right, found Linden Meyer for the first sound like there were that throw he had to Barney, you know, with the wind against Michigan State. When I remember I was thinking about that Michigan skate game. I haven't gone back and watched it, but I remember I was here at the Zone studio. I did it with Haer, we did the Big Red overreaction together. And msu, I think they took the lead where Aiden Child just ran through everybody and scored a touchdown. And they either took the lead or the score. They might have taken the lead, but I remember getting a text from Gary and being like, and Gary was like, hey, good luck with B R O R, you know, good luck with that, you know, and, and they're like, Nebraska seemed like they were poised to finally, you know, to lose that game. And we were all like, we're all a little nervous of like, how crazy is this Big Red overreaction to be and how many people are going to be very pissed off that they won this insanely windy Game versus the Michigan State Spartans, a team that, you know, they were, they were favored to beat that day. And then they turned it around and they figured it out and they put some really big plays together. And I thought Dylan, you know, I mean, statistically wasn't his great game. I think that had a lot to do with the elements. But his clutch performances, you know, last season definitely propelled them to beat a team like msu, to beat Maryland. And all this to say that the quarterback position with Dylan most definitely could have been better, and his performance against Minnesota definitely ended up sinking that ship against the Minnesota Golden Gophers. But I don't think that the quarterback play was a detriment to the team last season. The detriment to the team last season was the offensive line play and just simply the, the unorganization of the defense as a whole against the run game, especially in the final couple games of the season. Or I look at this team this year and I say that, like, yeah, the D line could be, could be rough. Again, I do have a little bit more trust, I think, than others because I think the experience that they have throughout that entire defensive line, whether it be from, you know, Van Poppel and Lenhart, are always the guys that we point to. But when Aries now got a full season of games under his belt to share Winnington, you know, he's played in the acc, Anthony Jones, he's played everywhere across the country. They have a ton of experience and a, a system now where the focal point and the emphasis is going to be how can we put the guys on the D line in the best possible position to help this team and for them to be successful. And I think that they have the right mindset that will the D line. Am I saying that the D line is going to be a strength? Am I saying the D line is going to be, you know, what it was in 23 with Nash and Ty, and you're going to have that same renaissance that you had a couple of years ago. No, I'm not. I'm not that confident, but I am confident. The fact that I don't, I don't think it's going to be because of those reasons. The new coaching, the new system, the emphasis on putting guys in the best positions to succeed. Also just RVP now knows, all right, this is what it's like being the, the catalyst of defensive line. Game in, game out, series in, series out, snap and snap out. Lenhart knows that, too. A lot of those guys were pretty limited behind T. Rob. They were pretty Limited behind Nash Hunt Maker. They were put in very specific roles and specific packages against very, you know, specific circumstances to help them have those moments that God is very excited about their future at one point. Now I think that they have that experience of like, no, this isn't necessarily all about specifics. It's about I gotta be the guy, right? And so I think that experience with the coaching, I'm, I'm, I trust that it won't be as big of a detriment this season as well was last season. But I do get a little nervous about Calandra, man, I do get a little nervous. If you go back and you look at some of his, his, his play against Boise State, especially in that conference championship game when that was UNLV's, that was their best competition, right, that they played last year and they ended up, you know, losing those games and played pretty fine in the first time that they played Boise State. But it's one of those things where you go back and maybe some people would say, ah, it's tough to, you know, judge him off the tape versus Virginia when he was playing at Virginia, but you know, when he played smu, when he played Notre Dame, when he played these high level teams, you know, who overall had more talent in totality than his team, you know, you didn't get his best stuff and that's a hard position to put a guy in. But Nebraska is going to be in those positions this year. Like that is going to be a thing. Nebraska is going to play teams, you know, that overall have more talent than them. At least three, probably four you can put on that list. So I, I think that that guy, when we talk about where I'm at, what's my ceiling, what's my floor, what do I think that this team can accomplish? It's really going to come down to a lot of like, can ampy the guy, can he take that next step? Can he do. We've had this conversation on the show multiple times. Can you do and produce 80 of what he did at UNLV? Can you produce 90 of what he produced at UNLV? Can he limit those turnovers? He still had plenty of turnovers when he was playing in the Mountain west and his turnovers are a big part as to why he's no longer playing in the acc. Can he limit those? And this will be the second time that Matt Rule and his staff, albeit a new staff with a new quarterbacks coach, a new offensive coordinator, but this is the second time that he's going to bring in A quarterback that is a dual threat can run play for an ACC team who had some turnover problems, who had played a lot of college football, too, up until that point. And, you know, can he fix this guy in a way that he didn't fix the other guy? And can Calandria stay healthy in a way that Sims wasn't able to stay healthy? And, and that really derailed the season. And, you know, I, I do. I think there is a part of me that worries about that potential possibility, which is why I continuously say this Quarterback 2 battle, you know, and, and who ends up being quarterback, too. It's not necessarily who ends up winning the battle as much as, is that guy ready to go? Is that guy ready to play? Is that guy. Because there's a possibility that they're going to need him in some sort of capacity, you know, do I. I talked about this with Haberd. I, I would. If Anthony Calandria played the season and ended up getting benched, I would be shocked. I'd be, I'd be. Be like, wow, this really, this really went away. That maybe you didn't foresee coming. But the difference between 6 wins to 7 wins and 7 wins to 8 wins very well could come down to did a Calandria interception happen? When did it happen? Where did it happen? How did the defense responded to that? That's what I did. Like about Tony White defenses, I don't have the number in front of me. I'm sure Savir probably has it. He'll. He'll text me. But I did love that there was an attitude that when there was a turnover from the offense, it's almost like he. The guys were, they embraced it. They're like, all right, we'll. We'll get it back. We'll get it back. We'll be. We'll be fine. Right? And so it's, it's one of those things where, when you're talking about these margins, right, the margins for Nebraska, especially when they play these teams that they are closer to in talent, when they play a team like Iowa, that they are closer to in talent, when they team play a team like Illinois, who they may be more talented than them, when, when they play those teams, what's it going to come down to? What are the margins? Oh, turnovers and special teams. And frankly, I mean, until last year, where they got blown, you know, they got their bricks blown off. With Iowa, it has come down to special teams and turnovers, right? And in particular, a turnover that happened on special teams, which did occur in Iowa city. And so it's, it's we'll have a fun little dive deep. More into that conversation a little bit later in the show. We'll also talk about the hall of Fame Roger Craig incredible speech. Talk about the former Nebraska Corn Husker, one of three NFL players to rush for and receive a thousand yards in one season. An incredible accomplishment. And we'll talk about a loaded, loaded, loaded 2027 hall of Fame class that includes guys like Adrian Peterson, Ben Roethlisberger, Andrew Whitworth, Richard Sherman, Rob Gronkowski, Antonio Brown, along with the fact that Terrell Suggs and Frank Gore are still waiting to be enshrined one day in the NFL or in the Pro Football hall of Fame. We'll also get some updates as well. Currently, College Football Playoff executives are scheduled to meet virtually today to explore expansion. This is from Ross Ellinger. Leaders continue to focus on the 16 and 2014 models with growing momentum for a larger field. No decision is expected and the debate is likely to continue into the fall. Dellinger continues. This was a tweet from him from an hour ago. Espn, the rights holder of the playoff, is socializing with College Football Playoff leaders and a 16 team format with four playing games for the final four spots into the field so seeds 13 through 16 would play one another to then get into the final 12 team field. There is an expectation that will that will be discussed during today's meeting. There is a tweet from Heather Dinach of espn. She revealed that here's a quote from her, a tweet from her and there's Is there another CFP format option on the table? No guarantee they will talk about it today. It's something floating before they've done a deep dive on 24, but it's not the first time she has heard sources to that they will probably discuss today during Monday a 20 team model for the College Football Playoff. We've heard a lot about 16. We've heard a lot about 24. Now DNICH reported earlier today that a 20 team model might potentially be on the table. So we'll discuss some more details as those are revealed. As CFP executives meet today, we'll get some training camp Updates from the NFL. Luther Burden, Jacoby Brissette, Carson Back, J.J. mcCarthy, Kyler Murray. A couple of names that we'll talk about today along with the Bruce Feldman freaks list from the Athletic how many Nebraska Cornhuskers made it and how many freaks will Nebraska play this year? We'll talk about that. All that and more on a fun edition of Middays with Matt. We'll kick off the show with some Husker Talk here on the 1620 zone radio network.
- [19:32]
Grainger Announcer
Granger knows when you're a procurement manager for an office park, you're not managing one building, you're managing all of them. And to stay ahead, you need to see through walls and around corners. Lights about to fail, filters ready to clog H Vac on its last leg. If you wait until something breaks, you're already behind. Count on Grainger for quality products, easy reordering and 24. 7 support. Call 1-800-GRAINGER click grainger.com or just stop by Grainger for the ones who get it done.