Jason McIntyre (3:38)
This is Straight fire with Jason McIntyre. What is up, straight fire fam? It's me, Jason McIntyre, straight boy here for Monday, September 1st. September's here. Summer is over. Happy Labor Day weekend to everybody. Of course I have a podcast today because college football was kind of insane on Saturday and Sunday. We'll discuss all of that and I don't think we'll have a pod tomorrow unless something wacky happens. Bill Belichick, if they lose, you know, maybe pop on. Maybe there's some NFL news. So we're going to focus on, on college football. And I will be hosting the Herd again today. It's only one hour, the final hour. The, the first two hours are not on on air, but I, you know, there's so much craziness happened with college football, but there's nowhere to start other than with Arch Manning and his big debut against Ohio State. The much hyped. Oh my gosh, is this the best ever opening game? The best in decades. And the game kind of largely sucked. If we're being real, okay. My daughter had a beach volleyball tournament on Saturday. So I'm watching her play and on my phone, I am watching Texas Ohio State. And I gotta be honest, the 12 year old beach volleyball was actually better. I mean, zero points for either team in the first quarter. Texas didn't score until deep in the fourth. I mean, and here's the thing. I know I'm going to take some shots at Arch here. Ohio State had 215 yards of total offense. That's it at home. I mean, I got to be honest, neither of these teams look great. Ohio State running back James Peoples 10 carries for 20 yards, their longest play was 6 yards. If you remove the 40 yard bomb to Carnell Tate, their longest play was 16 yards. So if you just look at it from that, oh my gosh, either Ohio State's offense is garbage. Jeremiah Smith, six catches, 43 yards, had two drops, which I believe is more than he had all of last season. The Texas, either the Texas defense is amazing or the Ohio State offense is terrible. One of those two has to be true. A third thing can be true that I didn't see greatness from Arch Manning at all or anything resembling greatness. The best quote about him is of course from Brad Powers on this podcast. Archbanning, five star last name, three star recruit. I did not see any greatness. And folks, I watched a lot of college football over the weekend. I'll tell you right now, Carson Beck behind that line in Miami, he looked better and more comfortable than Arch Banning. And I know you'll say, well, oh, Carson Beck had started before. He's coming off a major injury, guys. Like a major injury. Massive. I thought the kid Sellers at South Carolina, who I love as a draft pick, I think, I mean, I mean hell Lewis Riddick said he looked like Josh Allen on a couple of these runs. Sellers looked real good from South Carolina. I thought the quarterback for, for Virginia Tech looked good. I thought, I didn't think Carr looked great. There was one other quarterback. Who am I missing? Oh, Nussmeier made some great passes. Club Nick, not so much. But like, I don't even think archbanning was one of five best quarterbacks I saw this weekend. And I know, I know that people are going, Jay, you're being too harsh. It was like his first real start, guys. He sat for two years. Two years. And, and, and, and my favorite is always facing a former NFL defensive coordinator. Like can we get a 20 second timeout? And just remind folks, yes, Matt Patricia was the longtime Patriots defensive coach. I believe that was when Arch Manning was in elementary school and then he got his head coaching job with the Lions. Flopped terribly. I mean there were, I think, I don't know if they came on the Herd or on this podcast and talked about how much of an asshole Matt Patricia was. Like taking away the ping pong table, like no fun. Nobody liked him. They were terrible. And after that he couldn't get another job. He was an, A quote advisor to teams. And after 2023 advising the Eagles, nobody picked him up. I'm going to remind you, Matt Patricia, this defensive mastermind who slowed Arch Manning, he was unemployed as a football coach to the best of my knowledge in 2024. Go look at his Wikipedia. Go see if you can find him assistant coaching anywhere, advising anywhere. He was unemployed, so don't act like some genius. I know he's a rocket scientist in real life. Actually, it slowed down Archbanning. Bottom line is arc demanding wasn't good. So Pro Football Focus had the breakdown on passes 10 to 19 yards downfield, the median passes. He was one of five. On the deep passes, he was three of six, had the touchdown. But a lot of that was down 14 in the fourth quarter. Hey, we got to just chuck and duck. He did hit the layups six or six behind the line of scrimmage or at the line of scrimmage. 13 of 18 under 10 yards. Hey, that's great. Check. He's a check down Charlie at this stage in his career. I mean, I get it. He's young and we should give him a break. Guys, I'm just going to remind you. Cam Ward last year at Miami, in his opener, I think it was against. Let me triple check here. I think, yeah, it was against Florida. And Cam Ward had been a starter at Washington State. This is him in the opener against Florida. 26 of 35. That's 74 passing arts was 17 of 30. Cam Ward had 385 yards and three touchdowns. He was unbelievable. That looked like a future number one pick, like right out of the chute against a good team. Cam Ward. Oh, shucks, this guy's got some juice. I didn't see juice from Archivanding. I saw maybe two good passes. Maybe. I, and I'm not bashing him. I, I'm, I hope he's good. The sport needs more quarterbacks, but I did not see a guy who looks like he's going to be an utterly dominant quarterback this year. Hell, I mean, again, you don't want to judge it off one game, but that's what we're here to do, right? How did our spanning look? Well, in his first game, if I'm grading him out, I gave him like a C minus. Like that's just real. I'm just being honest. I mean, we, we, we, we don't need to call it bashing. The, the facts are, the numbers were not good for him. 10 carries, 38 yards. Okay, he's got some mobility, but I'll be honest, I, you know, I don't think he's going to be coming out again. It's just based on one game. The next three weeks he's going to cook and then the schedule gets a little tougher. Let me just see who they have. So they have San Jose State. They'll smash. UTEP will be a runaway sh. Su. They're playing Sam Houston. Okay, fun. Then they have a trip against Florida which will be interesting. Florida actually looked solid in their opener. I know they didn't really play anybody and some of these games, you know, Long Island, I mean I could I have played wide receiver for Long island this weekend? I'm just kidding. And I know the quarterback everybody's going crazy for both their quarterbacks put up huge numbers but you know, they won 55 nothing. I don't know if Florida's going to be good but I'll tell you this Arch Van, he's got three weeks to get his act together because if he and we could say he had a C minus against Ohio State, he can't have a C minus against Florida and then Oklahoma. I mean he's got to face Georgia late in the season. A and M, I think it's early. I think Texas is going to be fine. But I didn't see superstar from Archbanding. Now I'll say this, I didn't see amazing from Ohio State. Obviously they've got players. The large picture takeaway from the weekend was just the lack of offense and the improved defenses and coaches being scared. It looked like they didn't trust Arch just like the Notre Dame coaches didn't really trust CJ Carr. Although weirdly I hated the Notre Dame game plan. I'll get to in a sec but just to put a bow on Arch again, you know, I'm not going to say his stock is dropping like cracker barrel but I am going to say Arch. Maybe he's not that guy. It's possible. I mean for all the hype like I just didn't see anything like any. There's no wow there. Now it's just one game, it's his first putting but he's a 21 year old junior. Guys, he's been around the block. This isn't some true freshman walking in true freshman face plants. Okay, he's a freshman, he's 18. He's got a lot of growing up to do. This guy's been around the block. I mean I'm rooting for Arch. I think he's going to be fine. Some of the memes were glorious but we'll see, we'll see, we'll see. With Archbannon for the next three weeks, nobody's going to hear about a damn thing he does because he's playing terrible teams. Let's Just wait for Florida and Ohio and Oklahoma. Sorry to render more of a verdict this Labor Day.