Todd McShay (2:37)

All right, let's hit those beats. All right, man. Lot to break down here. You know, it's a Tuesday morning. Should be like a sleepy morning, you know, not a whole lot going on. Coming up, Monday Night Football. But all of a sudden the news breaks. Shane Waldron is out as the offensive coordinator. Not a big surprise.

Mel Kiper Jr. (3:11)

No.

Todd McShay (3:12)

And anytime news is breaking, we've got to. We've got to get to it. Especially when it, when it comes to the effects on a rookie quarterback and a quarterback, let's face it, that the, the vast majority, not everyone, but the vast majority viewed as a transformational talent in Caleb Williams. What's interesting to me is like the first three weeks of the season as Jaden Daniels is going like this. Skyrocketing, skyrocketing. His performance has been excellent. Right. We saw Caleb kind of sputter in the beginning, but then after, I think week three, we saw a lot of progress playing within the system, more decisive, showing that he understands where his eyes should be going through his reads, feet more comfortable. Right. That lasted about three weeks. Yeah, there we are about week six. But all of a sudden there was this regression. It was like, you know, two steps forward, and then over time it became three or four steps back and it really hit a valley, if you will, this past week against the New England Patriots. And we could go through all the stats. I don't think we need to. It was ugly. The one stat that I'll say. And it was in part the offensive scheme, in part this offensive line that has struggled to protect all week and in part on Caleb Williams from holding on the ball too long as a result of not trusting his reads and having a great feel inside of his offensive system. Nine sacks, nine sacks, nine sacks. You know, like throughout my career, and I know throughout your career, watching rookie quarterbacks come in and whenever they're taking that number of hits, whenever they're not comfortable in the pocket, you can see a regression in the confidence. And we saw it over the last several weeks with Caleb Williams, and it really, it was never more obvious than this painstaking game against the New England Patriots. Good defense, not an elite defense.

Mel Kiper Jr. (5:09)

No.

Todd McShay (5:09)

And then, and then you've got Drake May on the other side, who sat the first several weeks behind Jacoby Brissett, who, you know, everyone said, we're not going to play him as a rookie. That's not our plan. He's a first round quarterback. We see that plan. Get, get Trashed more often than not the vast majority of the time with these rookie quarterbacks that are drafted in the first round. But you see Drake May, and he is a work in progress, there's no question. Not there as a passer yet. Not there in terms of making his reads. Big adjustment from what he did in 2023 at North Carolina to what he's doing in the NFL. His tape in 2022 was better than 2023, but it's very obvious to me, and maybe it's because we're here in New England. Maybe you see a little bit more in terms of like, local coverage and press conferences and just a little bit more exposure to him on a weekly basis. I see a young man in Drake May who's improving incrementally. And I said, I put out a tweet in the middle of the game, watching that game, also watching Jaden Daniels throughout the season, but. But in that same window on Sunday and. And watching Bo Nicks in that same window, not his best game, but, man, does he look like a quarterback who knows what is being asked of him, knows where to go with the football more often than not. And you can just see from week one to this past weekend, the development, the progress, and that's what you expect to see out of these rookie quarterbacks. And with Drake May, you can see he's comfortable in his own skin. And I know that's not something that shows up on the stat line, but I also know it's so critical when quarterbacks have confidence, when they know when to run, when they have that running ability like Drake has. You can just see they're moving in the right direction in New England with Drake May. And yeah, it's. It's not a. It's not. You know, no one's sitting there studying New England's offense as something that they want to.

Mel Kiper Jr. (7:05)

No.

Todd McShay (7:05)

Right. Emulate.

Mel Kiper Jr. (7:06)

No right. I mean, the supporting. When you look at the supporting casts, when you look at. See who Caleb Williams has a wide receiver, and you look at who Craig May has a wide receiver, I mean, it's night and day, man. That's why there was such, I think such high hopes, is that Chicago was in a great spot to bring in a young quarterback. They were built to win. They had an offense that could move the ball. They had guys that can make plays. And it is. The dysfunction is obvious at this point. I mean, it's. They're just not on this. No one's on the same page. It feels like no one's on the same Page protection routes. The quarterback's not playing with any confidence. And again, the juxtaposition of Drake May without those kind of weapons, just trusting his instincts, finding guys late, making plays with his feet. And again, does he still have a long way to go? I mean, the week before he, they were, I think was Tennessee that he threw the interception at the end of the game. Just kind of threw it up, made a great play at the end of the game to get into overtime and then made a head scratcher to end the game on a, an interception. So.

Todd McShay (8:02)

But that's rookie stuff, right?

Mel Kiper Jr. (8:04)

Right. That's just a guy who's developing. But again, he's, he's not afraid to make the play. He's not afraid to let it loose. He's not afraid to let it rip. Like. And you, and you see the, for lack of a better term, that Chicago offense looks tight at times. They just look tight. Like no one disjointed.

Todd McShay (8:21)

Right.

Mel Kiper Jr. (8:22)

Someone needs to make a play. You know, we used to hear that in football all the time. Who's going to step up and make a play and get that momentum going our way and really get things to start to shift. And right now there's a lot of everyone looking at each other to see who's going to do that.

Todd McShay (8:35)

How critical is this hire now? And I'm not talking about offensive coordinator. Tom Brown comes in. He's the interim oc, right. There's not an expectation that anything is going to change or that he's going to be the solution. And God bless him if he is. Then, then, then wonderful, great. But, but even if, even if it looks like things are really good and progressing at the end of the season and you see, you see Caleb start to play with more confidence and start to develop and grow, I. To me, that's not the answer. Eber Fluss is a good, is a really good defensive coach. But from the jump, when they hired Shane Waldron, yeah, like, he's done some decent stuff. Did a nice job with, with, with Geno Smith in Seattle, but I never was sold on this. I can remember talking to an executive at a different company who's a lifelong Bears fan. He, he asked me point bre, point blank this summer, what do you think about Shane? I was like, like, I'm not going to sit here and say negative things, but I know this for a fact. If I'm running that organization and I'm bringing in a quarterback who's supposed to be the savior, who's a generational talent, I'm not entrusting Shane Waldron to be that guy, to develop him. And so here. Here we are. Right. And the writing's on the wall. Ben Johnson makes the most sense to me as the replacement head coach. Moving.

Mel Kiper Jr. (9:57)

If you can get them.

Todd McShay (9:59)

If. Exactly. And there's reports, and I don't know how accurate all of this is, that Ben wanted the Chicago job and that wasn't the case in the off season. Comes back to Detroit. I'm interested to see this. If it was a team, really any other team besides Detroit, but a team that wasn't in the same division in the same conference. And listen, contracts up. I believe Ben Johnson's is the offensive coordinator for the Detroit Lions. Done a phenomenal job. Not good. Phenomenal job with Jared Goff. Right. The whole offense, really.

Mel Kiper Jr. (10:36)

But yeah.

Todd McShay (10:37)

Yeah. And so there's nobody else that I would. That I would peg ahead of him that I could bring in in terms of being my head coach moving forward.

Mel Kiper Jr. (10:45)

Right.

Todd McShay (10:46)

But. But there's a. There's a grit, as Dan Campbell would say. There's a loyalty there, you know, and so, like, while Ben may want that job and if he decides it's his job, he'll go take it and that'll be a great rivalry. Right. Like Ben Johnson going up against Dan Campbell in the same division. But I just wonder if that's something he's willing to do with the amount of love and care that he's put into and has for this Detroit team if he wants to face his division rival twice a year. And. And so that's a huge question moving forward. I talked when the news broke just like an hour ago. I made a call to one of our guys in the league just, just to try to get some perspective. You know, it's always interesting to hear what, what personnel people from. From other organizations have to say about things like this. Not always positive, you know, taking cuts when they can, because that's just the competitive nature of the NFL.

Mel Kiper Jr. (11:41)

Right.

Todd McShay (11:41)

We had an interesting conversation about how concerning it is, how important it is to get this next hire. Right. And. And to bring in someone that there's true belief in so that like.

Mel Kiper Jr. (11:55)

Right.

Todd McShay (11:55)

It's not just the quarterback that gets behind this next hire, the whole organization. Right.

Mel Kiper Jr. (12:00)

Yeah.

Todd McShay (12:01)

And so we were talking back and forth about a bunch of different things, and we started putting together a list like, it's not over. It's not like, yes, in, in recent history in the NFL, we're seeing some guys that fail in the first place, that go to other places and have success the two most obvious. Baker Mayfield. Right.

Mel Kiper Jr. (12:21)

Yep.

Todd McShay (12:22)

And the. And bouncing around the way he. He did landing in Tampa and, and. And really in two different coordinators, two different coaches.

Mel Kiper Jr. (12:29)

Right.

Todd McShay (12:29)

Over the past couple years, the success he's had and continues even without Mike Evans. You know, even without. Without God. One like still seeing him play at that high level this past two weeks is remarkable. Sam Darnold's the other one. Bounced around the jets disaster, Panthers disaster goes in San Francisco, learns behind Kyle. Right.

Mel Kiper Jr. (12:50)

And then what about golf, too? I mean, golf.

Todd McShay (12:53)

And I was going to get to him.

Mel Kiper Jr. (12:54)

Okay.

Todd McShay (12:54)

Sorry. No, no, no, you're good. But those are. Those are examples of guys who have had to move around to find it.

Mel Kiper Jr. (13:01)

Right.

Todd McShay (13:02)

We were talking about who are guys that. That have been able to find. And I guess golf was the first one we came up with. And it. I guess because it was that Goff was sent somewhere else and McVeigh is a great coach and they is. McVeigh is helped. McVeigh helped with Baker for a minute.

Mel Kiper Jr. (13:20)

Right.

Todd McShay (13:20)

McVeigh made it perfectly clear. I thought it was one of the more enlightening quotes, and I'm going to paraphrase, but when McVay made that trade in the Rams for Matthew Stafford, the quote again, paraphrase was, I'm looking for a partner, not a mentorship.

Mel Kiper Jr. (13:36)

Right.

Todd McShay (13:36)

And so that made sense that he knew what he needed and he got that. And so golf was kind of like, you know, move on out, even go make it to a Super Bowl. But with Ben Johnson, golf has thrived. Give you a couple other examples just in recent history. Alex Smith, right. Sputtering his career is never going to be any good. Should have drafted Aaron Rodgers, same draft class, all that. But he gets with Andy Reid in Kansas City and they win. They win a lot of games.

Mel Kiper Jr. (14:04)

Yeah.

Todd McShay (14:05)

And he. And he flourished. They was never going to take him to the promised land. They knew it. Brought in Patrick Mahomes. The rest is history. But Alex Smith is an example of just a new coach and also I guess moving around to a Tonga by loa. The. The next two are prime examples of staying in the same place, getting the change in scenery, a change in coaching to a taboa with Mike McDaniel.

Mel Kiper Jr. (14:29)

Okay. Yeah.

Todd McShay (14:31)

Jalen hurts Shane Steichen, Sirianni to a certain extent. How much you want to give him credit. But. So I guess the point of the conversation was it's not like a lost cause, but there are also a lot of examples of guys that. It's just if the organization doesn't get it right with that change like the jets with Darnold. You know, like we go. The list goes on that. It may require him going somewhere else, but that's why there's so much pressure on this Bears organization to get this thing right.

Mel Kiper Jr. (15:03)

Yeah. I mean, I couldn't agree with you more. You've invested this, this asset. I mean, again, you and even the bigger picture, you spent two top 10 picks on offensive players. I mean, your quarterback is obviously a one, but you, I mean, you, You've invested now. And the other thing is, and we talked about this a lot too, is you want to win on your rookies, on your quarterback's rookie contract.

Todd McShay (15:24)

Yes.

Mel Kiper Jr. (15:25)

You cannot take your time here. This cannot be like we're going to give Eber Fluss another year. There's just. No, you cannot do it. You have to find the answer now and look. And if you don't, then you're. You're looking at a complete organizational reset again in two to three years. I mean, the pressure couldn't be any higher.

Todd McShay (15:47)

Yeah. You get to that year five and now all that money that you have for free agency for. For other players to, you know, to pay other guys up who are playing well, who deserve to stay there. Right.

Mel Kiper Jr. (16:02)

You start making tough decisions in year five.

Todd McShay (16:04)

Tyree Kill gotta go.

Mel Kiper Jr. (16:06)

Yeah.

Todd McShay (16:06)

Got it. We got to get better on defense. You know what I mean? So. Yeah, and that was because we got to pay Mahomes and, and we got. We better if we're not. It's Tyreek or build an entire defense, basically. You know, I mean, it wasn't that simple. But. But it was.

Mel Kiper Jr. (16:20)

Yeah. Chris Jones or Tyreek, you make, you keep it. Chris Jones or Tyreek.

Todd McShay (16:24)

Right. You start.

Mel Kiper Jr. (16:25)

Those are the conversations you start to have as a front office when you're no longer paying your quarterback on a rookie contract.

Todd McShay (16:31)

But those are, but, but if developed properly, those are the good conversations that you hope your organization has to have. And Brett Veach, the general manager, and Andy Reid, those were comfortable. They were difficult. They were hard decisions to make. But there were. There was a level of confidence in what they had done to develop Patrick Mahomes and where he was in his process and developing into at the time, if not the best and the second best behind Tom Brady in terms of quarterbacks in the league. And so now we can trust him to carry an offense that doesn't have Tyreek.

Mel Kiper Jr. (16:59)

Right.

Todd McShay (17:00)

Because the alternative.

Mel Kiper Jr. (17:01)

The alternative is who? We're going to draft a quarterback next year. We can keep all these guys. It's great. But we still don't have an answer at quarterback. So. Yeah, obviously that's a great. It's a great spot to be in. You're right.

Todd McShay (17:11)

All right. I mean, I don't know. I just, I get, I get fired up with this stuff. Like there's, there's a certain level of attachment with these rookies that come into the league and the amount of time that we have invested in a fraction of which, you know, college scouting departments and NFL organizations and general managers invest in it as well. But to see a guy with that much talent struggle the way he has is hard to watch. It's hard to watch. It's just, it's what we do and it's hard to watch. But I do think it's a good transition. Like anyone who's tuned into the show for the last. What we're Week four, I think of the show and it's been a blast and we love what we're doing. But I think some people are probably like, well, it's an NFL draft show. Where's the NFL? We focus a lot on college football and that's what we're going to do. But I also, for the last decade plus, I've been traveling for. To NFL or to college games on Thursdays and mission. Missing a good portion of the Thursday night game. Traveling back on Sundays and missing. I can't speak today. Missing a good, A good portion of NFL games. I love this new gig. Yeah, I'm home. I'm watching, watching games, studying more tape and so like the NFL stuff is coming. Like I think we have a lot to get into deeper dives on these rookie quarterbacks. I think we have like how about watching. And I know they lost last night, Monday Night Football against Miami, but how about watching the Rams and our, our good friend Les Snead, you know. Yeah. Watching with that scouting department and I just think of like the, the area scouts and then the national scouts and then the cross checks of these scouts and, and deciding to land on two defensive linemen that were two of the toughest.

Mel Kiper Jr. (18:47)

Yeah.

Todd McShay (18:47)

Best tape guys like motors revving physical players. And to bring both of them in from the same school, put them on the same defensive line and Braden Fisk and Jared Verse and to watch those guys like the way they've played and transformed that Rams defense. And I know last night again was a loss, but first was phenomenal.

Mel Kiper Jr. (19:06)

Yeah.

Todd McShay (19:07)

I mean he's been.

Mel Kiper Jr. (19:08)

I mean he's good as advertised.

Todd McShay (19:09)

Yeah. So. Well, we got a. I guess my point is this. I Also want to react. I don't know if you saw Bill Belichick came out, he put a lot of time and effort into it. Offense, defense, special teams, his mid season rookie report and he threw in some second year players who didn't play much as rookies. Circumstances. Yeah. So I want to, we're gonna do, we're gonna do a lot more of that get into NFL games as we get down the stretch. Especially when the college football regular season and championship ends. When we get that lull in the, in the college football schedule before the playoffs start. There's a lot of NFL stuff that we're going to get to and it's, it's how we always work, you know, in our little scouting department if you will. You know, you get into late in the season a lot more focus on NFL. What are the team needs, who's moving, who's going to be moving in free agency, what, you know, what, what's the draft order. So there's a lot to get in the NFL. Sure we'll have a lot of help from our friends at FanDuel. We'll start looking at games, we'll get into the playoffs. So there's a lot to get into in the NFL. But for now the focus is clearly on this, this race in college football and throughout the season. And we've profiled some other top quarterbacks and some other top prospects. But I feel like now's the right time to get into Shador Sanders.

Mel Kiper Jr. (20:24)

Yeah, we haven't really hit on QB1 yet. I mean we've talked about it, but we haven't really done the deep dive.

Todd McShay (20:28)

Yeah, I mean coach prime son Colorado was, was dead to rights. Almost lost in North Dakota State in the opener. Really didn't look that good. Lost two of their next five games. All of a sudden now they're on a three game winning streak and they control their, their situation. No one controls destiny, but they control their situation in the Big 12. And so I felt like now, now's a good time to get into Shador Sanders and what we're seeing as a prospect. With that in mind, I, I made the comment on Saturday night after the games that I, that I was really impressed with, with what I saw on TV from Shador and the adjustments he made in game against Texas Tech.

Mel Kiper Jr. (21:14)

Okay.

Todd McShay (21:15)

And, and I know we had a graphic at that point. I'm not sure if we still have it. You know, we can live with it or without it. But what he did in the first quarter of that game, what Texas Tech did to him in that first quarter of the game. There it is.

Mel Kiper Jr. (21:28)

Look at that.

Todd McShay (21:29)

Look at our guys.

Mel Kiper Jr. (21:30)

Best team in the business, man.

Todd McShay (21:31)

Best in the business. First quarters, 3 for 7, 27 yards. I even, you know, in game was kind of jotting it down. First quarter and, and the first drive, throwing the first drive of the second quarter, there were two sacks, I think it was four of four of nine, I want to say for like 29 yards or four, four of eight. I forget what it was, but it was. It was not pretty. And had two sacks. And the rest of that game, from that point, the second drive in the second quarter on, you see the final three quarters. 27 of 36, 264 yards, three touchdowns and was only sacked one time. So I. It begged the question and I kept saying on Saturday night, you know that late night show that we did, the reaction show, which was live. And I appreciate people tuning into. We're going to do that every week. Saturday night after the prime time game, we're going to be here to break down the biggest games. Typically that game this week, it's going to be Georgia versus Tennessee. And. And so please join us. We'll be live on. On YouTube and then the podcast will come out on Spotify and everywhere else that you get your podcasts. But I said to you that I really wanted to go back and study that tape because I wanted to see what the difference was. So here's what. And jump in where you want, as always.

Mel Kiper Jr. (22:44)

Okay.

Todd McShay (22:45)

Interrupt me where you feel it's appropriate, but I'm gonna just kind of rip through my notes for a minute and then when we circle back, I'll get into kind of big picture what I think pros and cons of him and maybe get into an NFL comparison.

Mel Kiper Jr. (22:56)

Okay.

Todd McShay (22:58)

In the first quarter when he was struggling and you just saw and heard the stats. Texas Tech throughout the game, not just the first quarter, throughout the game. Too high shell. That means two safeties back. You hear a lot of that in the NFL, you know, and Kuiper had the dumbest.

Mel Kiper Jr. (23:13)

Yeah, your guy wants to get rid of it.

Todd McShay (23:14)

He wants. We should ban two cover two. Two high shells. Okay, well, we'll get now quarters like.

Mel Kiper Jr. (23:20)

Yeah, make my life even harder at this point.

Todd McShay (23:22)

We're gonna get Mel on the next couple weeks and yeah, chide him on that and everything else, but too high shell. Okay. They mix their coverage a lot of two man. Some covered, two zone, some zone match where they're in zone, but they, they match. Pattern match. Exactly. They also mixed up their rush Pretty beautifully. A lot of exotic stuff like defensive lineman starting into looks like they're going to twist or run a. An end tackle, you know, a game. And all of a sudden one of the two drops into underneath.

Mel Kiper Jr. (23:54)

So simulated pressures.

Todd McShay (23:55)

Yeah, simulated pressures. All of it. It was really. It was impressive. It was risky.

Mel Kiper Jr. (24:01)

Right.

Todd McShay (24:01)

You know, they took chances. And Texas Tech is interesting when you watch them this year. Like, they've been really bad in past defense against average competition. They've been really good against better competition. I know. So, I mean, there's three man rushes, four man rushes, five and six man pressures like they were just mixing it up. I wouldn't say a ton of that bothered Shador, but there were some things that stood out in that first quarter. First quarter in the first drive. First of all, they can't run the ball, which is concerning. They could not run the football against a too high safety.

Mel Kiper Jr. (24:38)

Look.

Todd McShay (24:39)

And that's a problem, right?

Mel Kiper Jr. (24:40)

That's a problem.

Todd McShay (24:40)

Two safeties backed off like you should be able to run the football. They. They couldn't. Then wide receivers inconsistent, shaking coverage. They also had a couple of drops in those first four or five series and. And then there were a couple screens that were blown up. You know, like the easy stuff wasn't working against that cover. Two defense backed up, retreating, all that, but showing a lot of different games up front with. With different pressure looks. You should be able to run the ball. You should be able to throw underneath stuff and. And screen stuff. And you should be able. You hope that your receivers are going to shake coverage and make it kind of easier. Short to intermediate wasn't the case. But then. And I looked.228. This is a specific play.228 in the first quarter. There was a high. I guess my point is there. It was mostly circumstance with everything. But there were some things that should door was doing that didn't match the opponent and quite frankly was not his best ball.228 remaining in the first quarter. Quarter on the right side, they were running a high, low concept. One of the receivers going vertical. The other ran an out route to try to suck in the safety. It worked effectively. He had a receiver open, got over the top of coverage and he didn't put the ball on him. That was on him. That was an example also I thought in the first quarter, plus not on time. He was drifting a lot in the pocket. Some of the.

Mel Kiper Jr. (26:09)

Yeah, that was. That was weird. Yeah, go ahead. Sorry. I saw that too. I thought that. I love his footwork it more in this game than I had seen in a long time. Did he start to drift and kind of move around when he didn't have to and he climb again? I think that these are things that he generally does well. But within this game, he wasn't stepping up as much as I had. I've been used to see him do so. It was interesting that he was drifting and it affects his accuracy a little bit, but go ahead. Sorry.

Todd McShay (26:36)

I totally agree and I saw that. But. But what changed? First of all, it's almost like they, they came to the sideline, they looked at, they looked at some of the things on the, on the Microsoft Surface and they decided like, okay, this is what they're doing. Now we know what they're doing. How do we adjust? The first thing I thought, and I'll put it in like layman's terms, I thought he started to. After that, in that second drive of the second quarter and the rest of the game, he started instead of retreating in the pocket.

Mel Kiper Jr. (27:07)

Right.

Todd McShay (27:07)

Started. He started taking the fight to Texas.

Mel Kiper Jr. (27:10)

Tech, which is what we're used to seeing. Yeah, yeah, right, right.

Todd McShay (27:13)

Climbing the pocket, studying the linebackers. If I see their backs, that means they're in, man. It's not cover two zone, it's man to man. Now I'm going to climb the pocket, I'm going to take off running. I'll make this note. And I know that there was some, some chatter about him competing with his dad for the 40 yard dash running a 4, 21 or whatever that was. That's a joke.

Mel Kiper Jr. (27:36)

Yeah.

Todd McShay (27:36)

I mean, he apparently ran a 4, 6, 5 coming out of high school. I don't even see that. The dude ain't fast.

Mel Kiper Jr. (27:43)

Apparently those Colorado dispensaries have some pretty good product for everything.

Todd McShay (27:47)

Pocket mobile. He extends, he is not fast. He lumbers a little bit when he takes off running, but he was taking the fight to Texas Tech. So that was the first thing I saw the difference from that second quarter and the second drive in the second quarter on. No longer drifting, starting to climb, taking off and running when. And took off several times. The second thing, Colorado made a conscious decision, all right, if they're going to drop, if they're going to drop this many guys, whether it was six, seven or eight, but they're going to have two safeties, drop them back and they're going to, they're going to take away the verticals. We got to attack the short to intermediate. And it's not with slow developing screens. It's with the quick game and then a Lot of, like the. In cutting stuff, intermediate, like, attack those zones underneath if you've got the safety dropping off. And I thought Colorado did a great job adjusting with that. And I think his mindset changed. And then I. Thirdly, as his mindset changed and he started being more aggressive and taking the fight to Texas Tech, you saw the internal clock speeding up, because as he was drifting and waiting for a home run play, waiting for that hero ball stuff to happen, it wasn't working. And so it was like this shift in mindset of, all right, if you're going to back off, I'm going to. I'm going to take off running. If you guys are so deep in coverage, I'm going to take the short to intermediate. The clock was ticking better in his head.

Mel Kiper Jr. (29:06)

And that's right when we say speed up some. Sometimes I think you hear that so often in football that you can see it as a negative of, oh, the.

Todd McShay (29:14)

Game'S going too fast for me. Right.

Mel Kiper Jr. (29:16)

It gets going. No, no, that's not what you're saying. And correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm seeing the same thing. So he is now just. He's like, okay, if this is what you want to do, I'm gonna get the ball out quickly. I'm gonna get it to my playmakers. I'm gonna be accurate. I'm gonna put them in a place to produce after the catch. It's. And now I'm. Now I'm in a rhythm. Now I'm in. I'm feeling the rhythm of the game better.

Todd McShay (29:37)

Yeah, to me, it was a perfect example, was. It was like 14:30 remain one of the first plays of the. Of the third quarter, second half. Right. It was play 38 in the offensive tape.

Mel Kiper Jr. (29:49)

I got a note right here.

Todd McShay (29:50)

Okay.

Mel Kiper Jr. (29:51)

Yep, it was play. Play 38. 14:41, third quarter, go ahead.

Todd McShay (29:55)

It was like a bang eight route kind of down the seam. And you could see his internal clock, like, earlier in the game. I don't know that he makes that throw as. And makes that decision as decisively as he does. Tough throw into traffic. Had to thread it. Had to actually throw it an inch behind the receiver.

Mel Kiper Jr. (30:11)

Intentionally right?

Todd McShay (30:12)

Intentionally right. And that's when I was like, oh, okay, we're going to. This is going to be a fun third. Third and fourth quarter is going to. He's. He's on. He knows what he's seeing. Decisive. When he hit that bang eight, it.

Mel Kiper Jr. (30:23)

Was like, okay, feeling it.

Todd McShay (30:24)

Yeah, he's feeling it. And from that point on, the offense flowed it really did. And then they, all of a sudden they got up, was 34, 20. And that was. That was a ball game summary, not his best game. There weren't a ton of NFL throws in there where I was like, all right, let's cut those off for the highlight reel when we get to draft week. There just weren't.

Mel Kiper Jr. (30:46)

Right.

Todd McShay (30:47)

But my takeaway was like, you see Mahomes do this all the time. Now you saw Brady do it all the time. Not putting him in at a level of any of those guys, because he's just not. But. But the really good quarterbacks adjust to what they're seeing, make in game adjustments and. And find a way to grind out a win based off of what they're being, what they're being given, the opportunities they're being given. And that's exactly what he did. So to me, that's progress because it could have been good.

Mel Kiper Jr. (31:18)

Yeah, I agree. I mean, there's other things that, you know, that jumped out to me too, is again, you. You always want to self scout a little bit. And I'm wondering if I was low on his arm strength coming in when I first evaluated, or is his arm getting stronger, which can happen, and I don't think he has a cannon for an arm.

Todd McShay (31:35)

Well, I was gonna get it.

Mel Kiper Jr. (31:36)

It's not a liability. It's not. You know, and when you talk about those, like the, the play you talked about, specifically where you thread the needle, I think everyone again, looks at that as like, that's a pure arm strength thing. It's not. It's anticipation, it's accuracy, it's timing, all of those things, which I think are just great strengths for him, is knowing. Go ahead.

Todd McShay (31:56)

No, no, I was just saying I want you to keep going, but I want to pull up his. His player profile where we do the position. Position specific traits for quarterbacks here. The mental makeup. Accuracy, release and arm strength and pocket mobility. And those of you that are watching this, you can see. And we'll walk you through. The mental makeup is a one. And. And I say that. And one. Let's give you the scale again. One being elite. Two being good and above average. Three is average. Four is subpar. Five is marginal. And as you see in the screen, we color coded all the time. The mental makeup is. The mental makeup is a one elite, and that's a green. Because of several factors, I think he'll continue to develop in terms of going through reads. And we talked about consistency with his decisiveness and playing on time. But my goodness, do I Love his competitiveness and do I love his toughness. This might be.

Mel Kiper Jr. (32:57)

You see that hit when he got hit late, I mean not late, low. He got popped low, man. It looked, it did not look good for a minute and he just. The next play he's. He'll just stand in there.

Todd McShay (33:07)

He is as tough a son of a gun as you could find at the quarterback position. I, I just, I love that about his game.

Mel Kiper Jr. (33:13)

I think he's the easiest one mental makeup. I that it was the easiest one I've ever given for mental makeup because I think by every dynamic or every way you would grade that he checks, checks the boxes. I think he's smart. I think he understands his offense. I think he knows when to get the ball out. He takes the easy throws when they're there. He's tough. He handles all the off the field stuff well. I mean think about all the off the field things he has to deal with and then go and play football on Saturday and the way he's handled all of that as well. I think he's an easy one for mental makeup.

Todd McShay (33:43)

I agree and I. He's not perfect. No quarterback is. But I think, I think he's a one inaccuracy too. I really do. When his feet are right especially and even his ability rolling to the right, rolling to the left like he just. Some guys have it. They understand the anticipation, how to throw receivers open, the touch, how to layer the ball. I think, I think he excels in that area. I also think too. And we'll get into the arm strength in a second which we had the release arm strength. I gave him a 2 which is above average and I want to get to that in a second pocket mobility two because I think he has great instincts. He extends, makes a lot of plays. You see in the college level he's able to take off and pick up some first downs. Did that several times against Texas Tech. I don't think in the NFL it's going to be as much as we see in college because I don't think he has that speed or even that twitch that you look for. But with all that said, like I think, I think when you get into the arm strength and the reason why we always put release, slash arm strength, it's kind of. It's. It's start to finish. How quickly from. From when he starts to pull the trigger to when the ball hits that receiver's chest or hands, how quickly is that and what can speed that up is a. Is a compact, quick release. And I love his he's got a smooth, compact stroke.

Mel Kiper Jr. (35:09)

Right.

Todd McShay (35:10)

He really does. And then. So you go down like if you're doing pros. Pros is he's the best pure passer in this class. Another pro, the smooth, compact stroke, like, just gets the ball out quickly. Another pro, the toughness and competitive level. It's elite.

Mel Kiper Jr. (35:26)

Right?

Todd McShay (35:27)

Elite, as we just talked about. And then finally, football instincts. Some guys have it, some guys don't. He's been around ball his whole life. I'm sure that's a major part of it. You have to have instincts. You have to feel things that other guys don't. You have to have confidence in your ability. He's got all those things.

Mel Kiper Jr. (35:42)

Okay. Yeah, he's a killer. He. He's got that killer instinct when he needs it. He. I mean, he's. He's a.

Todd McShay (35:48)

There's no.

Mel Kiper Jr. (35:49)

It's the mental makeup, but there's a reason, too, why we stack those traits the way we do.

Todd McShay (35:53)

Right?

Mel Kiper Jr. (35:53)

Mental makeup one, accuracy. Second, arm strength.

Todd McShay (35:57)

Third.

Mel Kiper Jr. (35:57)

Because arm strength is not as important as. As accuracy. Mental makeup, right up at the top is mental makeup. Does this guy have it? Because we've seen other quarterbacks, man, Peyton Manning didn't throw the ball like Jeff George. Remember Jeff George, the quarterback who's like the gun for hire, who could just sling it.

Todd McShay (36:12)

Yeah.

Mel Kiper Jr. (36:13)

You know, it's not. I mean, Patrick Mahomes doesn't have the strongest arm.

Todd McShay (36:17)

I don't know.

Mel Kiper Jr. (36:18)

Josh Allen. You don't think Josh Allen has a stronger arm? You don't think.

Todd McShay (36:20)

Yeah, but I mean, you're comparing a cheetah to a leopard. Like, you know, fair enough.

Mel Kiper Jr. (36:28)

You know what I'm saying? Just back me up for a second. You know what I'm saying?

Todd McShay (36:31)

Fine. Even if I don't buy it, I'm gonna.

Mel Kiper Jr. (36:33)

Arm strength and release a third and pocket mobilities the last. All of them are important. But mental makeup's king, man. It's. It's right up top.

Todd McShay (36:41)

It's not great. I agree. Now, let's go down the con section, the pros and cons. Let's go down the cons. I. I support what you're saying. I think he's got a. He has a solid, an above average arm when you combine the release quickness and the stroke. But I, But I'll pull back a little bit on what you're saying. Yeah. I see instances where he's driving the ball down the field and maybe it has improved and maybe it's his footwork and tying it all together. But I Also have read people like, I've more time. I talked about more time on my hands. Like, and I try not to read. I do a pretty good job not reading. Not reading stuff from people that it doesn't matter. But usually I'll come across things and I'm like, eh, no. And I've read a couple people's, you know, rifle for an arm. I read something like he has a cannon for he doesn't. I just talked to an NFL scout. When was it? The Thursday before the Cam Ward, when we were talking about Cam because I wanted to really dive into Cam. But we also got. You can't talk about Cam without talking about Shador and some of these other guys. And we talked about Shador and his big thing was like, you know, his arm's fine with the quick release and all that. It's fine, but like it doesn't snap off his hand. Like, like Cam Ward, you know, like, you know, there's a difference when you watch it. And so like his ball is going to be in the air a little bit longer on certain throws. So I, I push back heavily on the cannon for arm comments that I've read. A rifle for an arm.

Mel Kiper Jr. (38:09)

Yeah, I'm with you on that one. I actually thought what I was saying was coming in. I was like, I was wondering if it was a liability. And I don't think it's a liability.

Todd McShay (38:17)

It's not a liability.

Mel Kiper Jr. (38:19)

It's got more than enough arm talent.

Todd McShay (38:20)

To plenty of arm, but it is not a pro. No, I don't think it's. I don't look at it and say, oh, he's going to make up for some mistakes with his ability to just drive it. He's not right. And so now, like, here's the hard part for me on Shador, okay. Because we just talked about all those great things. Accuracy, smooth stroke, anticipation, anticipation, ball placement, layering the ball instincts, toughness, competitive level. All those things that you love and are critical to playing the position. But you get into him physically and it's like, okay, solid arm. Not Josh Allen. Not the, you know, not someone who's not Matthew Stafford.

Mel Kiper Jr. (39:04)

Like, no.

Todd McShay (39:05)

When you start looking at the top quarterbacks in the league, it's typically with all of them. Accuracy is up there with all of them. But it's not like, like Josh Allen came into the league and accuracy was the biggest question mark. Lamar Jackson came into the league. Accuracy was the biggest question mark. They've improved. That wasn't always the case.

Mel Kiper Jr. (39:24)

We.

Todd McShay (39:25)

And we can get into a long Conversation about how mobility and buying time and learning over time you can improve those things. And for a long time in the league, you just. You didn't see many examples of that. But the two things that almost all these guys have in common are. Well, I shouldn't say two, but all the elite guys have at least one of the traits of big time arm. And I just mentioned Stafford, Josh Allen. I'll put my homes in there. You can push back a little bit. You go through the top guys in the league, big time arm and. Or now. And this is where the league has changed. Dangerous runner, not just like. And scrambling is part of it. Extending plays is part of it, but also some danger. Lamar Jackson. Lamar Jackson, Josh Allen, Patrick Mahomes. He doesn't run as much. He extends, and it's all about that. But when he takes off, he. He doesn't look pretty, get that upright run and all that, but he is effective running the football. Jaden Daniels comes in the league and it's a combination of being able to throw the ball the way he's throwing it, but also that speed is a huge factor, how you have to defend him. So I look at. I look at Shador and I'm like, doesn't have an elite arm.

Mel Kiper Jr. (40:36)

Nope.

Todd McShay (40:38)

Not a dangerous runner.

Mel Kiper Jr. (40:40)

Nope.

Todd McShay (40:41)

And then you factor in sometimes holding on to the ball too long. And that did the third.

Mel Kiper Jr. (40:46)

Can we get into that a little bit?

Todd McShay (40:48)

Go ahead, please.

Mel Kiper Jr. (40:49)

I hear. To me, it's. I get what you're saying. Right. Does he hold on to the ball too long? Watch the beginning of the Cincinnati tape. And he gets smoked. And I don't want to use the word casual or nonchalant, but there are just times. Oh, no, there's.

Todd McShay (41:03)

You can use those words. I agree.

Mel Kiper Jr. (41:04)

Okay. Okay. So there's times where he's just, you know. But I'll say this. When he has a guy, it's gone. When he has an option, when he gets a clean read and he sees an open man, he. He. It's gone. Ball's out. Ball's out. So he's not a guy that's, you know, skittish about pulling the trigger or not seeing the field. And that's why he's holding on to the ball. He's holding on to the ball to make a play. And there are just times you're like, bro, throw it away. Protect your body.

Todd McShay (41:31)

Check it down, Check it down. You know how.

Mel Kiper Jr. (41:33)

We know how tough he is? Because he gets. He gets absolutely smoked on something. Like, he had bad protection. He. He has These plays where he just holds on to the ball too long and he gets hit hard. So I just want to be clear about what. What I see, because I agree with you. I do think he holds on to the ball too long, but I think going more into specifically why he may be doing that is important because it's not a matter of him. I mean, there was times in this. In the on Texas Tech game, he got to his third option like that. I mean, he can boom and then right to his third guy. I. I think it's more of him wanting to make a play and not understanding it's okay to throw this ball away. And he takes sacks to put them in bad situations where if he had thrown the ball, There was a third and 19 in this game where he took a sack that he just needed to throw the ball away. And now you have a third and 10, and you. And you have a much better chance of getting it. So I hear what you're saying, and I agree with it, but I think that when I see it, there's a reason for it.

Todd McShay (42:27)

Yeah, I just. I watch it, and I'm always watching it through this lens. Is that going to work in the NFL, Right?

Mel Kiper Jr. (42:35)

That part of. Yeah.

Todd McShay (42:36)

And then can we correct it in the NFL? And I think with a lot of these quarterbacks we see. And Caleb's. Caleb's in the same boat. He's got a lot of correcting still to do. That's why we just fired an offensive coordinator, and that's why this next hire for Chicago is so critical.

Mel Kiper Jr. (42:50)

Critical. Right.

Todd McShay (42:52)

Shador is going to have to improve and grow up in that area. I mean, even the pick six against Nebraska just held on the ball too long and patted it one more. One. One more time than he needed to. But, but generally speaking, I think you're right. That was kind of an outlier, where he sees it open, trusts it, and rips it.

Mel Kiper Jr. (43:10)

Right.

Todd McShay (43:10)

But there are too many times. Yes. Nonchalant would be like kind of drifting a little, holding out for a bigger play. And we talked about this with Cam Ward, and it's a critical part of his game as well. That's going to have to improve. I said offensive coordinator, quarterback coach. When they get with Cam Ward, they're going to have to drill it in like it's okay. Let's. Let's. Let's take the seven. Let's take the change and make it into a dollar. Let's take the seven. And. And all of a sudden it's. It's second and three.

Mel Kiper Jr. (43:38)

Yeah.

Todd McShay (43:38)

Move the chain. So that's going to have to improve in his game, and I think it will. But when I watch him. Here's the example I'll give. When I watch Shador Sanders, sometimes in the pocket, holding onto the ball too long, I get the feeling like he's trying to squeeze every last drop out of that lemon.

Mel Kiper Jr. (43:56)

Yeah.

Todd McShay (43:57)

As I. And as I say all the time.

Mel Kiper Jr. (43:59)

Great way of saying it. Yep.

Todd McShay (44:00)

But sometimes the juice isn't worth the squeeze.

Mel Kiper Jr. (44:04)

Right.

Todd McShay (44:05)

So to me, like learning when to try to get that last little bit of juice out of the lemon versus, like, it's not worth having to squeeze anymore. Let's just take four here. Let's take five. Let's take a seven yard gain and get second, you know, second down and three. So that's where I am on, on Shador. Let's wrap this up. These are hard conversations to have, Mitch, and we're only in November, but we've seen almost all of his college tape.

Mel Kiper Jr. (44:32)

Yeah.

Todd McShay (44:33)

What is, what is he going to be at the next level? I'm going to give you two. Okay. I am. And I'm going to, I'm going to let you. Here's what I. Watching the tape over and over again. You know, if every general manager wants from the scouts, give me an NFL comp, like, what do you think he's going to be in the league? I see. And who does he remind you of? And all I see two. Two guys. I see a right handed, A right handed version of Tua in some respects. And I don't think it's a perfect comp, but I see a guy who's a distributor when he's, when he's decisive. Decisive and trusts his eyes. And he, I think it's the smooth, quick release.

Mel Kiper Jr. (45:14)

Yeah.

Todd McShay (45:15)

He knows where he wants to go with the ball. Like they're distributing.

Mel Kiper Jr. (45:17)

Like, not a cannon. Good job.

Todd McShay (45:19)

Not a cannon. Yeah, he does a great. And we talked about this before. Carson Beck makes his receivers work. It's a, it's a struggle. It's watching guys, like, with the bag over his shoulder, climb up a hill. Right, right. His receivers have it easy. Like they're at a resort, like, you know, pucking the ball, leading the yards after carry, throwing them open. That's what Tua does for his receivers when things are right and it's. And it's flowing. Right. The other guy, I think probably more, more of a comp overall, but there was just something about the, the quick release, compact and the ball placement and the touch that I saw into A But Gino Smith is the other guy.

Mel Kiper Jr. (46:00)

Interesting.

Todd McShay (46:01)

And I know he had a long career journey and arc and all this stuff, but if you take the last whatever four or five years, you take his best several years and you make that into a career when it's all said and done, if that's Shador's career in the NFL, we're like damn good career.

Mel Kiper Jr. (46:17)

Yeah.

Todd McShay (46:18)

I don't. But I want to say this and I know this is going to bring up like bring on a lot of water to the boat. Shador Sanders is not Patrick Mahomes. Shador Sanders is not Lamar Jackson. He's not Josh Allen. He's not Matthew Stafford. Give me the list of the elite guy.

Mel Kiper Jr. (46:38)

He's Joe, bro.

Todd McShay (46:42)

That. That will be his. That will be his ceiling.

Mel Kiper Jr. (46:44)

Absolute ceiling. Right? I'm not ready to go.

Todd McShay (46:46)

Absolute ceiling.

Mel Kiper Jr. (46:47)

I'm not ready to go there, but not either. I think it's an interesting. I'm not there yet. But if you were like, what is this? What could this kid. If everything goes right, what is it? Maybe Joe Burrow. Maybe that's the.

Todd McShay (46:59)

That's the ceiling that I'm willing to go. And I think, to be honest with you right now, Joe Burrow as the ceiling is a little bit of a reach for me.

Mel Kiper Jr. (47:07)

Yeah, I kind of agree. Yeah.

Todd McShay (47:10)

Real quickly, let's wrap this up. Let's look at our updated class of quarterbacks. Excuse me. The scary part, to me, Shador is the best that we have. And I want it to be perfectly clear right now. I'm in love with Shador Sanders tape. I'm in love with his makeup. I'm in love with his toughness. I think he's the best pure passer in this class. I think he's going to be a good starting quarterback in the NFL. I don't think he's Jaden Daniels. I don't think he's coming in. He doesn't have the speed and the explosiveness to overcome some of the issues that he's going to have to that all rookie quarterbacks have to overcome. I don't think he's that level. So like, so if Shador's number one. And I've talked to scouts and general managers who think he. He's the best that we have to offer in the 2025 class. I've talked to other guys. Cam Ward is the best that the class has to offer. I've talked to guys earlier in the process before the last two games, Texas A and M and Alabama, that thought Garrett Nussmeier was, was the best the class had to offer. And I think a year from now we'll be talking about Nussmeyer potentially as the number one quarterback in the 2026 class. But as I promised Saturday night after watching the last six quarter quarters of play, Garrett Nussmer, I love his game, I love his potential. He's not there yet and he needs to go back to school. So let's remove him from this list. So here we are with Shador at 1, Cam Ward at 2, Jaylen Milro. I'll continue to say it, the ultimate wild card in this class probably would benefit greatly from returning to Alabama for one more year and then followed by that. Carson Beck and Quinn Ewers are kind of in the same neighborhood. 4 and 5. Beck I think coming off despite a loss, it looked like he, the light kind of came on for him a little bit. So react to that real quickly and then we'll, we'll move on.

Mel Kiper Jr. (48:56)

Yeah, well, listen, I will, I'll say this about the Sanders comparison to Jaden Daniels. Obviously they're not the same mobility and I will say that I love Sanders.

Todd McShay (49:05)

And not even close.

Mel Kiper Jr. (49:06)

By the way, Jaden Daniels 2023 tape is different. I mean it's just, it's a scouting nirvana. Where do you, where do you, where would you fit Jackson Dart from Ole Miss in the, in the conversation. He's not in the top five. I agree with you. He's day three, just that second tier.

Todd McShay (49:24)

Yeah, I saw Nagging Kim had a tweet recently. They talked to 14 NFL teams getting ready to put out their final invites for the Senior bowl and all 14 teams really were interested in having him at the Senior bowl and that makes sense to me considering yeah, I agree they ran at Ole Miss. I would love to see Jackson Darton mobile. Let's see him in a pro style offense. Let's see him. Let's see him how he plays can how much does he adjust and it's just a week of practice, just a couple practices but does he pick things up quickly and all that. So, so I, I would love to see Jackson dart. My guess is if Jackson accepts the invite he'd be crazy not to that we'll get to see Jackson Dart there and there there are a handful of other quarterbacks that would be interested to see if they're there because let's face it, I mean I, it will be one of the all time great gets if Jim Nagy gets Shador Sanders the mobile right in January for that I think it's February 3rd is the February 1st or 3rd is the actual Senior bowl game. It will be interesting to see Cam Ward. I think Cam Ward would absolutely benefit from being there. Coming from, you know, a lot of air raid throughout his career. More advanced at Miami than it was, certainly Incarnate word and and more advanced than it was at Washington State. But still, I would love to see him down there. So I think all these quarterbacks would benefit greatly. And getting Jalen Milro if he decides to come out in Alabama like the it would be like the Beatles in Mobile having Jalen.

Mel Kiper Jr. (50:44)

Imagine with Milroe and Sanders at that game. Oh, paparazzi man.

Todd McShay (50:49)

Yeah, we're going to have to we got to get the Red Elephant Club to back Nagy to support. We get some some Senior bowl nil deals. But anyway, all right, so that that's where we are in the class. I thought it was important to take some time to get through Sedora and we did. For probably way too long. I'm sure everyone listening would agree with that.

Mel Kiper Jr. (51:10)

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Mel Kiper Jr. (52:03)

That's LinkedIn.com campaign terms and conditions apply. LinkedIn the place to be to be.

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Mel Kiper Jr. (53:12)

Okay.

Todd McShay (53:14)

Lane Kiffin wins the game that Lane Kiffin has not been able to win.

Mel Kiper Jr. (53:20)

Right.

Todd McShay (53:20)

Ole Miss wins the game that Ole Miss as a program has never one other time. This is just the second time against an AP top two team or a top, you know, a second a team in the top two. I think it was the second time ever Ole Miss has done that might be a caveat in there, but it was, it was a win unlike many if, if any others we've seen out of an Ole Miss program.

Mel Kiper Jr. (53:44)

Right.

Todd McShay (53:45)

I'm going to throw it to you for a second. I got a lot of thoughts here. But what jumped out to you? Ole Miss?

Mel Kiper Jr. (53:52)

Well, I mean even just and you saw it in this game. But let's big picture here for a second. If I asked you who gives up the fewest yards per carry in the country and has more sacks than any other team. If you're asking a guy who watches college football every year, how many people you think would say Ole Miss? I mean this defense is legit and they're still look, they're loaded at wide receiver. I mean Trey Harris is out for a few games and it's like they don't even blink. The pre scoring the tight end, he doesn't move like a, like a, you know, Colson Loveland, he doesn't move like that kind of a guy. But a big body. You can make plays. I think he popped for like seven catches and almost 100 yards in a game. I should look that up to get the exact numbers. But I mean he pops every once in a while. This offense could still strike fast, man. And there's all that. But I don't, I cannot remember an Ole Miss defense that is, they can kind of, you know, just end a game. That can just change the game. Hard to move the ball and I'm hard to, hard to run the ball. Hard to pass the ball. To me it's that defense and I know we're going to get into it. But that defensive front, specifically this did this is a Different group.

Todd McShay (54:59)

It's a totally different team than we're used to seeing from Lane Kiffin. Totally different team. I. Let me make this comment. I'm just going to start with this because we're going to. We're going to attack ole misses tape and we're going to attack Alabama State. The six quarters that I've seen from Alabama against LSU in the first half against Georgia, you can easily argue, and I will easily argue they're the best team in the country. And if not the best, they're up there in the top two or three teams. Those six quarters were some of the best.

Mel Kiper Jr. (55:30)

Based off those six quarters.

Todd McShay (55:31)

Just those six quarter. Okay.

Mel Kiper Jr. (55:33)

Yep. No, I'm fine with that.

Todd McShay (55:34)

Ole Miss. I. I've come to the realization after studying their tape. Got prepared for this last week against Georgia. Love what I saw watching them do it in that spot. From a program that's never been able or one other time, but never in our life, lifetimes. There's been a long, long time since they've been able to show up in that moment and play the way they did in that moment in that game with the pressure on them. With two losses, mind you, that's an elimination game for Ole Miss. Season's over.

Mel Kiper Jr. (56:03)

Yeah. Best receiver out. Quarterback hobbled. Tough start to the game. Did everything.

Todd McShay (56:09)

They didn't just win. They control. They put their foot down on Georgia's throat for four quarters. Dude, that was awesome. I'm going to say this about Ole Miss. They are talented enough and I think they finally have enough gumption. They can. They can win this national championship.

Mel Kiper Jr. (56:30)

I agree.

Todd McShay (56:31)

They can.

Mel Kiper Jr. (56:32)

No canon. And do you think they're the favorites? Are two different things. But they definitely can. Things have to fall. You know, the best team doesn't win every year. Let's.

Todd McShay (56:40)

We're gonna. Let's go with that. I'm. I'm never accused of. Of preparing and having a great plan. That's just not my. One of my strengths. But I've. I've already thought about this on, on Thursday in our show and I want to prepare for it. I want to like go in and attack it. I really want to do a playoff eliminator draft style. You and I are going to draft teams. Yeah. And I want to go through it like teams legitimately. We believe in. They can win the national championship and we draft them. You pick first up. Except we'll go and see not only who are you picking first, like how much. It's essentially an exercise and how much faith you have in this team. Down the stretch, big moments. And it's also an exercise in okay, how. And I don't want to go 12 deep. I want to only go as deep as we feel. There's confidence behind that pick.

Mel Kiper Jr. (57:29)

Right.

Todd McShay (57:30)

And I wonder if. Do we get to 5? Do we get to 6? Do we get to 8? That's going to be interesting. But I promise you this, Alabama and Ole Miss are going to be pretty high on my list based off of what I've seen. I know it's, you know, it's Tuesday and yeah. You know, Monday morning quarterback and over hyping and getting caught up in the moment. But I believe in both of those programs right now. So back to Ole Miss. Here are a couple notes that I wrote down. Okay. Offensively and we don't need to get into a big thing here, but offensively, the thing that stood out to me, that was different about Ole Miss than what I'm used to seeing is their pass protection versus Georgia, not versus Vandy, not versus Kentucky, not versus Mississippi, versus Georgia.

Mel Kiper Jr. (58:15)

Yeah.

Todd McShay (58:16)

Was exceptional.

Mel Kiper Jr. (58:17)

Right?

Todd McShay (58:18)

And it was. And it was the. It was the game plan and it was the offensive lineman. They're better up front than I thought.

Mel Kiper Jr. (58:25)

Not in the coming, by the way.

Todd McShay (58:27)

I didn't see it coming. I thought it was gonna be a tough day. I thought it was gonna be a grind. And it was a combination of Jackson, Dart and Simmons. Right. The backup who came in and was 5 for 6. Those quarterbacks knew the game plan. It was very. We got to get the ball out. We can't hold it. Like let's. If let's live with a second and 10 versus a second and 16. Like whatever it is. Like the ball's coming out. But it wasn't a rush. It was, you know what I mean? Like they. It's not like it was a bunch of three step, get the ball out short game. It was. They went through their reads like they. But they were decisive and didn't hold on the ball too long. But the protection held up. I, I thought Kiffin had a tremendous game plan and you'd expect him to to a certain degree. But I didn't expect Ole Miss's offensive front to protect as well as it did. Like the play action, quick game, the misdirection. They kept him just enough at bay and the quarterbacks had just enough of a internal clock. But it really was the protection that stood out to me and that. That's huge now the run game if Ole Miss is going to lose. And that's why the confidence meter and we'll get to that on Thursday. If they're. It's like a GM always asks the scouts, all right, tell me, if it all works out, what's he going to be? But then tell me how he's going to fail. That's the question. Talk about all the time. I got to go in the office and be prepared. I got to go to those meetings and be prepared. If. If everything works out, who can he be if it doesn't work out, why? And for me, Ole Miss, if it doesn't work out, I think it's the lack of a running game that they can really rely on. And that typically has not been the case. And you do wonder, and I talked to Connor about this yesterday. I think it was. You do wonder. Almost like a free agency situation. We talked about Mahomes. You know, where they were with Tyreek. Or is it Chris Jones?

Mel Kiper Jr. (60:20)

Right.

Todd McShay (60:20)

You almost wonder with the nil deal are quin. Sean Judkins. We're going to let him go to Ohio State so that we can load up on this defensive front.

Mel Kiper Jr. (60:29)

Right.

Todd McShay (60:30)

Intriguing, right?

Mel Kiper Jr. (60:31)

Yeah.

Todd McShay (60:32)

New age of college football.

Mel Kiper Jr. (60:33)

Ohio State's like, we'll take everyone. They don't care.

Todd McShay (60:37)

Yeah.

Mel Kiper Jr. (60:38)

And different budget.

Todd McShay (60:39)

They've done a hell of a job in the grove of raising money and bringing in guys, but. Right. But it's a different budget. But that leads me to. Okay, the defensive side, where they did put in the money. Oh, man, they recruited like the shift in the off season was if we're going to make a run at this, if we're going to be different than what we're used to, if we're going to win against Georgia, a number two team in the top two, top three team in the country, we got to be different on the defensive side. Pete Goulding, exceptional job. Defensive coordinator, cut his teeth with Nick Saban. I always question guys, like, I've sat in so many meetings with Pete Golding. Love him. Just love his approach. He relates to the players learned under Nick. But you always wonder when you sit in those meetings. At least I always did. Like, is this a Pete thing? Is he doing really, really well or is this just like he's. He's coordinator by name only. And so. You know what I mean? So to see him move on and have this kind of success. Give him a lot of credit.

Mel Kiper Jr. (61:40)

Yeah, but.

Todd McShay (61:41)

But also the recruiting. I mean, holy smokes, man. Five sacks from this defensive front, all from a four man rush from what I saw.

Mel Kiper Jr. (61:52)

Yeah, that's the thing, man. Right. That's the thing. They don't need to bring more than four. They can do four and then they can. And they do. They take advantage. They can bring more. They can mix up coverages on the back end because of that. Everything we, everything you talk about when a four man rush allows you to do, sure, it allows you to sit back and play zone and do all that stuff, but it also allows you to, to gives you the freedom of mixing it up. You know what I mean? So you don't always have to bring guys. Yeah, that's. It's so. It is so big for them that they can win with a four man rush. Let's throw up the five guys that I think can get to the quarterback.

Todd McShay (62:24)

So yeah, let's throw up the. They're. They're on the. They're feeling it today. Huh? The production room.

Mel Kiper Jr. (62:30)

Yep.

Todd McShay (62:31)

I said let's look at that. It gets ripped off anyone who's just, just listening this podcast. Our producers continue to excel the. We've got a graphic up here, right? Name me a time mention where we're talking about Ole Miss and, and we've got six draft prospects, six that are going to be drafted all in the top 10 at their respective positions in terms of our draft rankings. This is wild, man, like one or two, right?

Mel Kiper Jr. (62:58)

There's one or two talented guys that you like. He could develop into something. This is a diff. Just a wildly different group.

Todd McShay (63:07)

You throw Michigan up there as the backdrop. You throw, you know, the maize in blue. You throw, you throw. What is it? The, the garnet, Ohio State. You throw their colors up with their name. I'm fine with it. We come to expect it. Throw Georgia up there, Alabama up there. Even for a little stretch like throw Clemson up there. We got, we've, we're used to seeing those. It's weird to look at Ole Miss a graphic with six draft prospects that are in their top 10 and some of them pretty high up there. Let's go through it real quickly. Defensive front, two defensive tackles, two edges and there's some depth behind them. We Talked about the 210 pound guy with running a 4, 3 like it just. Yeah, we'll just, we'll, we'll, we'll bring them in as a designated rusher. But Walter Nolan, number three defensive tackle behind the two Michigan guys that I know you love, you love Michigan defensive tackles, but I think no one might.

Mel Kiper Jr. (64:02)

Be number two, by the way.

Todd McShay (64:03)

He might be. He might be and we can have. Yeah, we're, we got a lot of work still to do on our draft Rankings, but certainly in this neighborhood. And I, and I think the way he's played this year, potentially top 20, 25 pick, somewhere in that range could be okay. So probably the highest guy off the board in terms of defense. All defensive prospects for Ole Miss, all prospects for that matter. Walter Nolan, defensive tackle. Next to him, your guy JJ Pegis, who's the most, the most fun ball carrier. I think he has 1212 carries this year, all have gone for a first down or a touchdown. And his short yardage run the other day against Georgia to midfield almost went for a touchdown as well, but got him the first down. Guy was shot out of a cannon that a tackle should not run the way J.J. pegis runs. We got him as the number 10 ranked defensive tackle then at edge some games I think Jared Ivey is better than Prince. Sorry, but Princely and Jared are both just factors. We've got Ivy is. We got Jared Ivey is the number seven edge in this class. And it's a deep edge class. Really deep.

Mel Kiper Jr. (65:14)

It's a good edge class.

Todd McShay (65:16)

It's a good edge class. And then Princely we've got is the number nine edge. So two top ten prospects potentially at the edge position to flank those defensive tackles. In Nolan and Pegis, add another front seven guy who's coming out of nowhere. Chris Paul Jr. Arkansas linebacker. For a few years he's been awesome to watch. Absolutely awesome to watch. And 136 tackles with six sacks. The last the previous two years at Arkansas this year already 72 tackles, two and a half sacks. And the thing with, with when you're behind a defensive line like that. Yeah. You're going to get a lot of opportunities.

Mel Kiper Jr. (65:54)

Right.

Todd McShay (65:54)

He's been a flat eraser in the run game sideline to sideline. And the beautiful part watching him is in coverage too, man. Yeah, covers well. So we've got him as the number seven off the ball linebacker. And then finally Trey Amos who's having a great year. 61190 pound cornerback, not really known as a ball hot coming into this year. Wanted to see him make more plays. Well, he's done it. Three interceptions and a forced fumble this year. So yeah, six guys in the, you know, in the, in the top 10 of their positions. Five of them in that defensive front seven. What's different about Ole Miss this year? That's different.

Mel Kiper Jr. (66:34)

Absolutely. I love it. I love that the four defensive linemen are all a little bit different. I think Princely is a guy who could be a 3, 4 outside linebacker. He's a little leaner. He's a little more slippery. Whereas Jared Ivey is a power defensive end with just. He chooses violence. Every morning he wakes up, man, he is just a violent football player. Nolan's interesting to me because I'll watch him. I'm like, oh, he's. He's good. He's good. And then you'll see something like he. I think he took the Georgia center and just threw him like, four yards. And I was like, oh, okay, he's good. And then all of a sudden you see these flashes of, like, this dominant when he wants to turn it on. And my guy, J.J. bakis, he needs to work on some stuff, right? He's big and he's athletic. They play him inside, outside. I like, I love that he's like that size. And they play him a defensive end sometimes, too. He's got to be a little bit better with this pad level. He takes himself out of plays by getting too far upfield. But then you see him disrupt a play in the backfield. I mean, these guys, the talent level is just different.

Todd McShay (67:36)

Let's switch over now. Remaining schedule. Ole miss, they've got 10, 10 games under their belt at Florida. I mean, we saw Texas, Florida, like, God bless Billy Napier and what he's trying to do there. You're down to your third quarterback in the sec. Like, good luck. And then Mississippi State, obviously a rivalry game, but, like, just different levels. And. And you'd like to believe that they're going to be up.

Mel Kiper Jr. (67:59)

Please don't let them lose that one.

Todd McShay (68:01)

Yeah, yeah. So you'd think that they're gonna. They're gonna be in a position at the end. Yeah, they look good. Alabama. I mean, talk about I, I. Caitlin DeBoer, man, like, I, I. You can't love Nick Saban is more than. I love Nick Saban and, like, have the respect for him that I have. But how about DeBoer coming in, taking over for a, like, the legend? Not a legend, the legend. And has it been beautiful and perfect? No, but, like, 35 guys they lost from last year's roster and to. To be able to put this thing together. And most importantly, here's the thing that stands out to me with DeBoer, and it's not just been at Alabama. It's. It's been throughout his career. The dude beats Giants, right? He is. Listen to this. He's seven. And oh, now against teams coached by the best. Kirby Smart, Brian Kelly, dan Lanning, and Sarkeesian, 7, 0.

Mel Kiper Jr. (69:08)

I didn't know that. Yeah. That's crazy.

Todd McShay (69:09)

Wild.

Mel Kiper Jr. (69:10)

Yeah.

Todd McShay (69:10)

Think about that. So here, the first thing that stood out in the most important factor of that game against lsu, we talked about it, there was a bye week. What are we going to see from Jalen Milroe? We saw Jalen Milroe make huge progress in 2023 off of the bye week. Kind of a chance to reset, self scout, work on your footwork, come back in, show more decisiveness, understand the plan down the stretch run for Alabama. This year was different. Alabama's self scouting was brilliant. Okay, okay, Alabama, what did we talk about the most? It wasn't Jalen Milro, even the passer necessarily, although there are ups and downs and flashes of brilliance. But the thing that I've always that I said that was becoming weird to study is you never see quarterbacks in a slump as a runner, right? Runners run, right.

Mel Kiper Jr. (70:02)

Be aggressive, man, be aggressive.

Todd McShay (70:05)

We didn't see that. And some, you know, there's reports on the Internet about is he 100%. They're masking an injury, they're hiding it. There were times we took off running and I like yeah, he looks fine but, but he wasn't aggressive and he wasn't attacking it. And I think what we saw was Jalen Milroe trying to play within the construct of the offense. Caitlin DeBoer is, you know, what did, what did he do with Michael Penix Jr. And the progression that he showed from Indiana to Washington as a remarkable, remarkable. And so I think coming in here it was like, all right, we've got, we can always trust Jalen to when it's not there, tuck it and run.

Mel Kiper Jr. (70:43)

Right.

Todd McShay (70:45)

But we're going to develop him and we're going to get more out of him as a passer and we saw flashes of that. There were, you know, Georgia game, throwing receivers open, the anticipation. We talked to Nagy about that. There were things you saw where you're like, oh, okay, we're going to see a transformation like we saw with Penix, maybe not to that level because more developed as a passer and not as mobile as a quarterback, but we're going to see a big jump. But it didn't, that didn't last. Okay, so what happens? You get a bye week. Offense is kind of, it's, it's grinding, it's, everything's a struggle. Their self scouting was brilliant for whatever reason and it didn't dawn on me, but for whatever reason, Jalen is not an aggressive scramble to run guy, right? Jalen is an aggressive, awesome, fast, quick and powerful runner on designed runs, vision and patience.

Mel Kiper Jr. (71:38)

He's he has the best vision and patience on that team. Better than any of their running backs. I mean he is. The instincts that kid has on design runs are they jump off the tape.

Todd McShay (71:48)

So they come off that, that extra week to self scout, evaluate and put in a game plan and what do they do? They come out and they run. They run Jalen Milro 10 times on designed runs. Love their scheme. We could talk about the scheme all day long. A lot of 11 personnel, one back, one tight end, did a great job with the lead. Lead blockers, you know, almost like watching a handed off to, to old school football. Your tail back with a fullback in front of them. Follow the lead.

Mel Kiper Jr. (72:14)

They, they are way better when they go to their man gap scheme. Their inside zone struggles a little bit. It's that. That was something that really jumped out to me on tape. Not to get into the weeds too much on this. I will say they need to use uts as the backside blacker more than Dupree. I won't go into it too much, but I will say that the inside zone is not as effective. I think their backs are better when they get those guys in front of them. I think, I think Jalen's better at just reading those blocks. Jalen could do everything. Don't get me wrong about this. Jalen could do everything. He is a different kind of player and I'll get into this a little bit. He's grown on me this year because I don't know where that team is without him. And he's made some throws that I've seen on tape. You know, there's some inconsistency. He's a better passer than I thought he was. Throw out all the numbers and all the. What he needs to do for Alabama to win a championship. I, I get all that. But I'll say this, he's just a different dude. Their man gap scheme, when they get, when they. It's down, down and around, they pull an offensive lineman to get him in front the kid. Parker Brailsford, who's the center could pull. They need to get, they need to be running that more often in my opinion because I think it just suits what they want to do.

Todd McShay (73:16)

And so they, they did. And they did it with the quarterback and with a lead blocker and with the, the tight end kind of, you know, contributing as well some misdirection. Like they had variations of what they wanted to do in the design run game.

Mel Kiper Jr. (73:32)

Right.

Todd McShay (73:33)

But, but mission numero uno was we're gonna design run the heck out of. Out of this LSU team. And. And yeah, part of it was. Let's look at lsu and they struggled against Lenore's Sellers. Sellers, the South Carolina mobile quarterback, clearly struggled against Marcel Reed. We said prior to the game, like, make them prove that they. That they have their bye week and that they can stop it. But it wasn't the same. It wasn't a scrambling quarterback off the pass. That was the brilliant part. I'm watching. I'm like, oh, now I get it. He doesn't like to scramble, to run.

Mel Kiper Jr. (74:09)

Right.

Todd McShay (74:10)

He wants to know they've called my number. Listen to this. Listen to this difference. 10. He had 10 rushes in that game that were designed runs, 175 yards. The other. Bud. The other two were for 10 yards off of scrambles.

Mel Kiper Jr. (74:26)

Right, right. Averaging five yards of scramble. And like, it's whatever on the runs, but go ahead. Sorry.

Todd McShay (74:32)

17.5 on the 10 runs. I'm not a math major, so, like. And it seems so simple. But. But there's brilliance and simplicity sometimes recognizing what is the difference. Why isn't he running with the same aggression? Why does he get in slumps as a runner? Because we haven't called his number. Let's call his number. And they did that. And so you look at it. The. This graphic is great. 185 rushing yards in that game against LSU. The other eight games this year, just 380 rushing yards. That's 47.5 compared to 185 versus LSU.

Mel Kiper Jr. (75:09)

Yeah.

Todd McShay (75:11)

So this is what Bama is going to be. They better be. This is what Bama's gonna be. I've gotta. I mean, I. I get it. We gotta protect him now. 10. I don't. I don't see in the future coming up against Mercer in Oklahoma. That's. We. Who would have known that Oklahoma is going to play this poorly or even Auburn. I don't see it in the cards necessarily. Unless they need it to run him 10 times on design runs in those. Right. Because now we got to protect the investment. And I know he's big and he's powerful and strong, but, like, it just takes one hit.

Mel Kiper Jr. (75:44)

Yeah. You don't play with that.

Todd McShay (75:46)

But. But you better believe SEC championship game, assuming they're in it. If they're in it, and most importantly in the playoffs, you better believe that this is. This is now the offense that we're going to see.

Mel Kiper Jr. (75:59)

Yeah. So you're high on Alabama right now. You think that this is a. I have some serious concerns.

Todd McShay (76:07)

Okay. I'll make this statement and I want to hear your concerns. I, I am. I am very high on Alabama because I think they figured out who they are, and that's so critical. And, and, and when they lean into who they are, they have. I'm going to say it. They have the player that every def. If you were to pull every defensive coordinator in the country, which player, when he's on, do you least want to play? It's Jaylen Milro.

Mel Kiper Jr. (76:33)

I would agree with that.

Todd McShay (76:34)

Cam Ward's been brilliant. Ashton Ginty can win the Heisman. Travis Hunter can win the Heisman. All that stuff. One individual that you're most scared of could take over a game with his feet and then with his deep ball. It's Jalen Milro.

Mel Kiper Jr. (76:48)

Yep.

Todd McShay (76:49)

So, yeah, I think Alabama. I'm not saying they're going to win it, that I'm going to go to FanDuel right now and, and put a boatload of money on it. But if I look when I'm, When I'm playing around with FanDuel this week and looking around, looking at futures, looking at, like, chances, like they're on my short list, I'll put. I promise you that much. Why do you pull back on it?

Mel Kiper Jr. (77:10)

I'll say this. If they win and they. And they could. If they win, it will be because three things. Jalen Milro will have an. Just an unreal run, just an epic run. Their offensive line will play up to its standard consistently, which it hasn't done. And their defense will come up with Turnovers. They have nine. Do you have nine different players with interceptions?

Todd McShay (77:32)

Really?

Mel Kiper Jr. (77:33)

13 picks overall. They have. They. That defense can turn the ball over. Here are my concerns.

Todd McShay (77:38)

Okay.

Mel Kiper Jr. (77:39)

That game, you don't worry about it like the Ole Miss running game, but the only reason you don't worry about it like the Ole Miss running game is because of Jalen Milro. Those. You. You know, we kind of phrased the question earlier in the week of what's changed for Alabama, who. They've played that Missouri game. Depleted guys. I mean, they run away with that. That LSU team can't stop mobile quarterbacks. These. They look good right now, but I'm wondering how much of this is a little bit of a mirage. Because you look, you talk about trends. Those running backs are averaging 3.5 yards or fewer over their three of their last four games. They don't. They can't run the ball without him. Their offensive line is good and plays well at times. They struggle with movement. They struggle. They've been banged up a little bit. Guys have had to shift around. You know, Vandermark comes in at center. Vandermark's a guard. They've had some issues with movement up front and they've had some breakdowns. They have had their right offensive tackles. Had some problems in pass.

Todd McShay (78:33)

Bro.

Mel Kiper Jr. (78:34)

There are some. I look at that team and I'm like, how much are we putting into a Missouri win and how much we're putting into this lsu? Who is this LSU team? Because they can go and lose to usc. Which, looking back on how they can lose the usc, they had a meltdown against Texas A and M. They cannot stop mobile quarterbacks. They probably should have lost the South Carolina game. So to me, what the reason we're feeling better about Alabama is because of who they played the last two weeks. Now. Do I still think they're talented? Oh, yeah. And who are their killers on defense, man? Who are the guys that you're gonna. If you're. It's third and seven. It's fourth and seven late in the game. Where's my. Where's my Will Anderson? Where's my Dallas Turner?

Todd McShay (79:14)

Those guys pass Russia. Their linebackers are absolute dogs.

Mel Kiper Jr. (79:18)

Their linebackers are studs. And Campbell, John Campbell comes off the edge a lot. That's not his strength. He's effective. He's not dominant. So I don't see it like you. If you're playing Ole Miss and you got to make a play and you get backed up late in a game, watch out. How do you feel about that with Alabama? Alabama's a bend. But don't break defense this year. That's what they are. They're going to try and slow you down. They're going to try and get turnovers. They have some good, really good players. They are not an Alabama defense like we said we've seen in years past. So. Yeah. Do I think they could win it? Yeah. I'm interested to see where we take them in the draft, though, on Thursday. We'll see. I'm feeling better about other teams.

Todd McShay (79:58)

The annoying part of our relationship for 25 years is you are an offensive lineman and you're always the cynical bunch.

Mel Kiper Jr. (80:07)

Because it matters, Todd.

Todd McShay (80:08)

Every. Everyone's out to get us and grumbling as you're walking out and taking your pads off from the practice field. But you're also, as a group, usually either the smartest guy in the room or one of them. Yeah, it's just like. It's like the cynical Steve I always talk about, but more often than not, unfortunately, the cynical Steve. I mean, you told Miami's Fraudulent. Here we are and I'm giving you your nod. Clemson was a soft nine early in the season. We were like not buying Clemson when they started to have this resurgence and here we are. So I'm not taking what you're saying lightly. But. But I'll say this. I'm freaking fascinated by this sec. Texas. Could be like, could be all the talent in the world. Ole Miss. Love them. Alabama, they play like those six quarters I talked about. Love them. Georgia. Georgia. I don't care what you say.

Mel Kiper Jr. (81:10)

Yeah.

Todd McShay (81:10)

You know what I mean? Like, Georgia could turn that thing around. Certainly got their attention. Now. Tennessee, you know, like.

Mel Kiper Jr. (81:19)

They'Re my favorite team right now to talk about.

Todd McShay (81:23)

We got a bunch of time on Thursday. We're going to get to Tennessee. We're going to dive into that game. I can't leave it alone. But fired up. We got a lot of other things.

Mel Kiper Jr. (81:29)

They are fun.

Todd McShay (81:30)

Please join us on Thursday. We got. We've got a lot of things to cover. We talk. We're going to preview that game. Huge game. Tennessee, Georgia. We'll be back on the. On live on YouTube Saturday night reviewing that game. Instant reaction. Emotional. Fired up. A lot of caffeine. But Thursday is going to be a fun show. We got to preview that game. We're going to do our draft, our playoff eliminator draft style. Of course we, you know, that's just what we do.

Mel Kiper Jr. (81:56)

Of course. Yeah.

Todd McShay (81:57)

And, but, but also I want to get into this crowd at SEC. You know, the SEC Mensch could end the year with eight different teams tied with a 6 and 2 in conference record. What?

Mel Kiper Jr. (82:10)

I'm not. I'm not good at math, man. Like, I can't even.

Todd McShay (82:13)

And the play out. Like, we know in the play there's only 12 teams getting in. All of a sudden, like, we haven't even gotten into one year. It's like, is 12 enough because. Because we got to have an ACC representative, right? And we're not as psyched about that ACC representative as we once were. And you start stacking them up against some, some of these teams that might get left out in the sec. We're not as fired. We're not fired up. Would love Coach prime and Shador and Travis Hunter to be in the playoff. Like, how awesome would that be, right? Like stack them up or they do. They belong in over one or two teams that get left out in the sec and then. And then you get the other group of five, whatever we're calling non power four, you know, so like let's call it Boise State right now. Love the story. Love Ashton Ginty. First running back off the board. Could be a top 15 pick, but, like, do they stack up against some? So how many of these teams are going to get left out? You get like, Texas wins out. There'll be seven and one in the conference, 11 and one overall. Ole Miss wins out. We talked about Florida, Mississippi State, Alabama wins out. Mercer, Oklahoma, Auburn, both be 6 and 2 in the conference. Both be 10 and 2. Georgia beats Tennessee next week. And then.

Mel Kiper Jr. (83:25)

And then great problem to have.

Todd McShay (83:27)

Beats Georgia tech in Massachusetts. 6 and 2, 10 and 2 overall. Tennessee loses to Georgia, but then beats UTEP and Vandy. 6 and 210 and 2 overall.

Mel Kiper Jr. (83:38)

Georgia. Hell with two losses. Yeah.

Todd McShay (83:40)

Hell of Missouri wins their final three games against South Carolina, Mississippi State, Arkansas. I don't see them beating South Carolina, but I'm just saying, like 6 and 2, 10.

Mel Kiper Jr. (83:49)

2.

Todd McShay (83:50)

Texas A M still in it. 6 could be 6 and 2 in the SEC, 9 and 3 overall. So.

Mel Kiper Jr. (83:56)

Whoo.

Todd McShay (83:57)

This is gonna be fun. This is gonna be.

Mel Kiper Jr. (83:59)

Hey, listen, we forgot to go over the hypothetical odds. Oh, yeah, yeah, we gotta go. I mean, it kind of proves my point. So let's do that. What? Alabama versus Ohio State. Alabama versus Oregon. We got the FanDuel hypothetical odds. I gotta get into those.

Todd McShay (84:16)

Yeah.

Mel Kiper Jr. (84:17)

So Alabama versus Ohio State. What? Did you see it?

Todd McShay (84:21)

I haven't seen it yet.

Mel Kiper Jr. (84:22)

It's right on the. It's. It's on the right of your screen. On the chat. Top the chat.

Todd McShay (84:27)

Ah, FanDuel never lets us down.

Mel Kiper Jr. (84:30)

Yeah, it's lower than I thought it was. I thought that game would be six, so it's not that bad. But I have a state.

Todd McShay (84:38)

Ohio State -4½. Give me the points. Give me Bama.

Mel Kiper Jr. (84:42)

By the way, Vegas clearly favoring Ohio State over Oregon in every. Every scenario. We're saying.

Todd McShay (84:48)

Yeah. And that them.

Mel Kiper Jr. (84:50)

It's three. Yeah. I'm telling you, they're on to something, man.

Todd McShay (84:53)

Part of it's the name too, but. Or. And then Oregon. So just to clear it up, we. We asked Fanduel to produce these and we're going to be thorn in their side throughout the year. But I just. I love. I love having FanDuel as a resource. Alabama versus Ohio State. Who's the favorite? All in neutral site. Same as Alabama versus Oregon. Neutral site. The odds are Ohio State would be minus four and a half against Bama, and then Oregon versus Bama. Neutral site would be minus three. Those.

Mel Kiper Jr. (85:24)

Actually, you're right that it doesn't really back me up. Too much. So those are tight. They expect the game. Yeah. I thought they were closer to six, to be honest with you.

Todd McShay (85:34)

No, I, I, I like it. I think it's, I think it's right. This is gonna be fascinating.

Mel Kiper Jr. (85:40)

Yeah.

Todd McShay (85:40)

All right. We got a lot, we got a lot to get into on Thursday. We appreciate everyone joining, sticking around for this marathon. We talk too much.

Mel Kiper Jr. (85:49)

What else?

Todd McShay (85:50)

Kind of what we do. But, but yeah, looking forward to being back with you on Thursday and then Saturday night. Please, please, like, subscribe. All that stuff that drives me crazy when I listen to podcasts, when they say, but just, just let a friend know if you can. We'll talk to you again soon. See you, bud.

Mel Kiper Jr. (86:05)

That's it.

Todd McShay (86:07)

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