Texas' wild comeback, John Mateer's faceplant, a Bama first & Kamario love

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Will, the second that you turn your back on college football and you say, ah, you know what, maybe that's like, wasn't as good as we thought it was going to be or yeah, you know what, maybe this, this result is just, it's hay in the barn. It just reminds you, no, no, no, no. I am a crazy beast that cannot and will not be tamed. Oregon lost to Oklahoma State. The first time we've ever seen a team that had an FBS losing streak longer of 10 that ended it by beating a top 10 team. And that wasn't even the craziest thing that happened on Saturday because don't you know, Texas pulled off a historic comeback. Oh my God, week two was incredible. Connor, I'm so glad you brought that up. I felt like that upset was in a fever dream. It takes me back to that Oklahoma Army game from about eight years ago at this point where I had to get some kind of a USO cable package to watch Oklahoma almost lose the army back, gosh, 2018 ish. And yeah, dude, I had to watch that whole game on Skycam. Did you have this experience as well with the Oregon game? No, it's because of the rain delay that happened and it was a mess trying to find it. And so basically what happened was if you were trying to search for it, it was originally unlike the game that the pit UCF was, or at least that's how it was for like YouTube TV subscribers. And so like because that game was in a delay and then they kicked it over to another network. So the good news, if you're Oregon is like there are probably a lot of people that actually didn't tune in to a whole lot of that game. They might have just evaluated it. That didn't actually happen. Surely they could have lost to that Oklahoma State team who lost to Tulsa last week. And I cannot fathom how bad this Oregon team is. We'll have time to discuss that. But yeah, man, week two was absolutely unpredictable in the way that it played out, even if some of those results ended up kind of being what we thought. Yeah, no, I'm right there with you. It's good that you started with that. And that's why I started with that game because I ended up on like some guy campy to where I was doing like a necessary second scream. I have so much ADHD, dude. I have like a couple screens going. I would like to look at the main game. I would look down, there was no score bug. So I just had to keep me like, okay, this happened, then this happened. Here's a score that I felt like somebody's dad at a baseball game keeping score manually. I was just like, okay, wait, they scored the K back. So that was crazy. But then, yeah, man, to your point, like a couple of these games felt close to the beginning. They all kind of wind up. And just as I started to kind of be like, okay, I'm going to go play some video games, going to go do something else. This Texas game happened and Boyle did it. My God. All right. Let's start with that because we have a ton to get to. We have eight games that we're going to discuss today. By the way, the SEC is eight and two currently against power conference foes in non-conference play. Make of that what you will. While the Big Ten is three and seven if you include Notre Dame. Just saying, throwing out there in this game was a huge, huge part of that discussion. We knew it was going to be Texas completes a truly stunning comeback to rally back, score 21 consecutive points in the fourth quarter. They enter the fourth quarter down 23 to three to take down number one Ohio State. First win against AP number one in 18 years. The type of game that has just eluded Texas in the post Vince Young era. To win a game like that when you have everything still in front of you. Finally, Texas takes down Ohio State. Finally, Steve Sarkisian gets over the Ryan Day hump. What a moment for Texas. What a moment for Arch. We thought Texas would have that moment on this night. But Will, that wasn't the script. That was not the script at all. I mean, and this is just I could hear popular avatars saying playing the results in the back of my head because I mean, through, I don't know, three quarters, it was like, wow, Texas has gotten worse than last year. They can't move the ball. The defense is getting kind of like moved in the way they weren't last year. Because the thing about last year's game was it felt hopeless until it didn't, but it was so close because Ohio State couldn't really move the ball either. In this game, it felt giga hopeless. Like whenever we go back and look at this, like we do the thing with the voters and the committee and we say, how did we feel? The thing that I want to remember feeling in this game was just how screwed Texas felt. Like how it felt like I was sitting there questioning everything. Sarkis play calling, Coach Boom, top to bottom. It was like, this is a institutional failure at Austin. It felt like 2024 Georgia all over again, right? When Georgia came in to Texas, Texas is the number one team in the country and Georgia says, no, no, no, no, we're still the class of the SEC. And Georgia has that statement in 2024 after it had gotten off to just a really shaky start. And you're like, wait a minute, how could this possibly be happening all over again Texas on this stage where it just looks like they get blown out from the jump. Two turnovers in the first five plays, the Relique Brown Fumble was tough. It is a great play by Ohio State. We can get into a discussion about the East West concepts that Sark tried to run repeatedly against Ohio State that just did not work, that failed Ryan Wingo handoff thing on the end around whatever that was. It was certainly frustrating watching that play out. But then the Kam Coleman diving drop, which wasn't even ruled a drop in the final box score, where he's got two steps on the DB. It would have been a nice play if he had come down with it. It's also what the money's for. I thought it was a good enough throw by Arch to be able to go up there and get it. Instead, not only does he not come down with it, the ball hits perfectly off his elbow, bounces right to the Ohio State DB. Instead of a potential Texas touchdown, if it's a perfect throw, it was a good enough throw, Ohio State hasn't gone the other way. You're like, Ohio State just somehow turned Texas over twice already and Texas looked completely shell shocked. I thought from that point, this is just not going to be Texas' night. It took really up until three hours for me to think that anything other than that could be possible. Yes. And it's again, it was almost like the football gods were doing to Texas what they always do, right? This felt like watching the old Peyton Manning games where it's like, feels like you're doing a lot right, but yet somehow you're just going to lose this game. That was that exact minute where it was like, yeah. I mean, it's like, this is why Arch is so maddening as a prospect because you watch him and there are these throws where it's not really his fault. And your standby fans are going to not get it. And you're sitting here feeling like a hipster, like what's going on? That wasn't really, but no, the fact that they got buried kind of by their own hand and it just turns by order. It turns by things going as scheduled. It turns by people running the plays is called. I mean, what do you think swung this game? It's a good question because for so long, and it wasn't even just that. I mean, Ryan Wingo drops that pass in the end zone. And I literally said to nobody, oh, Ryan Wingo is still dropping passes that are really important. Like I told you, this guy was a bum. Yeah, look, Ryan Wingo is not a bum. Ryan Wingo is a good player, but man, that was a tough, tough drop on a night in which Texas dropped four passes, had those turnovers and still found a way to win this game. And it's a good question of when did things truly turn around? Because I think you could point to a variety of factors. One, the boring answer is that Texas found its run game identity. That was really just not there throughout the vast majority of last season. And this is really where I think you saw the difference between last year and this year with some of the tough runs. Like I don't care what the box score said about what Hollywood's mothers did. That guy was incredible. And I totally get why Texas definitely came in over the top and got him to flip from Bama while he was in the portal because the former NC State running back was great. He had the game winner, which I thought he had actually had on the play before. If we had had a microchip in the football, they probably would have told you that he was in the end zone. Nonetheless, he got in on the very next play to be able to take the lead or at least tie the game extra point pending. And I think they could have ditched the run. I think they could have ditched the run and kind of gotten into their own head. And instead, they really didn't do that. And they had more success in the ground game from an efficiency standpoint than what probably the score would have suggested early on. And it was a really smart move by Sark not to panic and to stick with it and kind of see like that Ohio State defense is spending a ton of time in the field. Your offensive line is getting pushed. Your running backs look like they're figuring some things out. Like you would be foolish to just go into pass only mode when Arch really didn't have much of a rhythm in the passing game. So I thought that part was really, really important. Did you see the night and day difference between like the Texas running game? Because I know a lot was made this off season when Sarkis like we cut basically Trey Weisner and CJ Baxter, two guys that we like, we cut them for cap space to make these moves. But I kind of thought he probably felt pretty vindicated watching it play out the way that it did with those guys. Yeah, exactly. And I think too, you know, sometimes Sark gets a little bit too cute for lack of a better term. He tries, you know, the fake reverses. He very much did. And, you know, it felt like, you know, it's like, hey kids, like no ice cream, we're going to call a game plan today. We're going to run the ball. We're going to call standard passes. Arch, if you can't do that, get on out of here, brother. Like, this is what you're here for. This is what this offense is here for. We're not going to try that, you know, all these, because to your point, like the drops, the reverses, it was out of sync, right? But when you go out there in these couple of fourth downs and you're like, hey, we got to have it. I trust my guys. The nerds that say momentum isn't real in sports. I just, I'll show them a game like this and be like, this is why. Within a game. Within a game. You see what I'm saying? When the offense starts firing and guys start looking at each other and they see that trust and they feel like, maybe not everything is going to go through the hoop because we've seen teams make mistakes on the other end. But it's more like if we just play our game. It felt like Texas started seeing finally their proof of concept, finally their game because we could see the playbook just starting to levitate out of Steve Sarkisian's head as this game went on. And just when it was out of his hands, he pulled it back and said, I am still pretty dang good at this. I also thought for a while in that game, we were going to be coming on this pod on Sunday and saying, Steve Sarkisian fired Pete Kwiatkowski and hired Will Muschamp to do that. Does he realize that Jeremiah Smith is the best player in college football and he's given him free releases? Does he know who number four is? Because he's an alien and he ain't treating him like that. And instead, you know, that was a huge part of the turnaround. Like the Texas defense as a whole played its tail off in the second half. They finally had the plan to be able to at least get in Jeremiah Smith's head a little bit and some ramped up pressure on Julian Sand, I thought was really important. Finally Colin Simmons. You're kind of waiting for him. You're like, is your preseason All-American? He's got to have one of these splash plays really soon. And then he had what I thought was a really big time sack in that spot. And then the Ohio State offense just had no rhythm because the Texas offense was willing to say, we're going to stay on the field. We're going to stay on schedule. They converted, I think, a combined like 11 third and fourth downs, which really started to wear on the Ohio State defense. And it took the Ohio State offense completely out of rhythm. And it was a huge flip of the script. So like, we're going to talk about a lot of the other offensive elements for Texas. Obviously, that's going to be a huge takeaway. But like, I need to give the Texas defense its flowers because for a very, very long time, I was saying, we'll must chant, man, what are we doing? Why did we think that this was going to be the answer? Yeah. And I feel like I was right there. The only thing that kept me from it was complimentary football and going, well, what is this defense supposed to do? They keep having to play defense, keep having to play defense. And then we saw in real time when they had something to play for, they started playing their butts off. I mean, it was like when the game changed and the offense started picking up their own trash, that we'll must chant defense started flying to the ball. It was like, okay, that we're actually going to be in this game, which is what you kind of hope for in your defense. But we got to talk Arch. Herb Schroeder said on the broadcast, and this is such a spot on point that I was going to make if he didn't. That game was a microcosm of his career, a perfect microcosm. Couldn't have had more build up to that game. He started horribly, disastrously, he started, and it looked like Matt Patricia had his number again, just like he did last year, and then he finally started to settle in. It was interesting that hearing Herbstreet share that Patricia told them, I think in one of the production meetings, that their goal, the Ohio State Defense was to just not let Arch play backyard football. That's a great assessment. Honestly, I'm mad that we haven't made that point after watching as much as we did of Arch last year. But when Arch just sits back in the pocket and he gets time to throw, which I guess maybe we didn't bring up this point because Lord knows, he felt like he was running for his life a little bit last year. But he had so much time to just sit back in the pocket. When he was doing that and just sitting in there, he misses reads, he overthrows guys, and he's just very average. He really, really is. That's not what you would think when you see his skill set and you would tell yourself, well, it's a Manning. You sit back in the pocket, if you give him that sort of time, he's going to pick you apart. No, that is not Arch Manning's game at all. I thought Texas's offensive line did a tremendous job of protecting him in this one. But in a weird way, a protected arch with time to sit and go through his reads, I thought it was the worst arch. I almost felt like every single time it was just three seconds to throw, four seconds to throw. I just braced for a bad Texas play. Did you have that feeling too? Yeah. No, it's a good point and I hate to do the network television segment, but it probably has a little bit more Eli in his game than Payton on that regard. I would agree with that. Yeah, just off script and I think part of it too, we often see this with specifically quarterbacks, they're more of like athletes where they start to lead on their natural talent. It's like, you can't really do that at this level. You can't just run people over, you need to go through your reads. With him, it feels like almost like if you're playing a CFB game and you're just like, I'm better than this team, I'm going to check it downfield to see what happens. The ball is coming off of his hands a little bit too hot, it's hitting guys in the hands. But then whenever he's under duress, it's like he doesn't have time to overthink it or he doesn't have time to get overconfident. It's like he has to make the right play. The best thing you could do defensively to your point is just let him make the read, let him get greedy. In a game he didn't really struggle with the turnovers. Texas actually put the ball on the floor four times. They're pretty lucky to not actually have more of those turnovers. The punch right off the dome too was just like, my gosh, they put the ball in harm's way. I thought Arch did a few times too and that's why I brought up one point about playing drop eight in the preview pod. I wonder if he's just going to try and do that and force him to basically try and make some of these tough reads into bigger windows and stuff like that. I felt like Patricia was really in his head. To answer your question of, what turned the passing game around? Once they started either rolling him out or getting him on some of those quick hitters, I thought he really started to lock in. The first touchdown pass that he had to Wingo was a really nice timing route on the outside part of the end zone, where Arch didn't have to think he could just trust the scheme. He could just trust that his talented receiver was going to run a good enough route where he was just going to get to a spot. He didn't have to go to his third progression or something like that. Then he could just trust his arm talent was going to get it there on time. It really felt like that got him going. Arch in the final 20 minutes of this game, Will, he was eight for, I guess is the, no, just the fourth quarter. Eight for 11 for 83 yards and a touchdown pass. Texas was a combined five for six on third and fourth down. The fourth down throw that he made to Mosley was a complete rifle. I did not expect them to go for it in that spot. I couldn't believe it that they were going to go for it, fourth and six from their own 32 in a 23 to 10 game. There was, I think, what, like 10 minutes left or something like that. I mean, it's the type of play where if it fails, Sark just gets dogged and instead you see that laser to Mosley who makes an amazing catch and you avoid the alternative. The alternative, if they don't pick up that play in a tight window, is Ohio State is very likely going to make it a 26 to 10 game. And maybe that was some of the rationale for Sark to go for it in that spot was, all right. We're screwed anyway. Yeah, like we're screwed anyway. But maybe our defense can hold up and we're still going to be in a two possession game and we're still going to need two touchdowns anyway. So like, what does it really matter? So I actually kind of get it looking back on it, but you know what the rhetoric would have been. And people would have said like, this is why he'll never win big time games like this. And instead it's a drive to make it a 23 to 17 game. And you know, obviously how it finishes with that drive and some of the throws that Arch was going to make. And man, what a moment for that kid. What a moment because I'm sure he enjoyed beating Oklahoma last year. They already had two losses. I'm sure that he took a lot of joy in handing A&M its first regular season loss last year. Doing that in DKR was probably sweet. But in their heart of hearts, they knew that at nine and three, they were already out of the college football playoff despite what Steve Sarkis did. Sarkis might have even had a little grudge against ESPN, which played out on Saturday night that we're going to get to in a minute here. That might have been factored into some of that. But that one was different and you could tell afterwards, he's running all over the field, he's celebrating, he's like, it's going to be a great night in Austin. I thought he was so present. It was cool seeing him look dead in the camera afterwards, something Sarkis wasn't willing to do, and have this like, man, I've waited so long to do something like that on a college football field. That's why I brought up the fact that Eli and Payton never beat a top five team in the regular season, Will. Arch has now done it twice. I'm not saying that all of a sudden that makes his legacy better than theirs or anything like that. We're not going there. But so much of the Manning conversation in the past has been, yeah, but great, great college players had better moments in the NFL than they did in college. And I don't know what awaits Arch in the NFL. I won't pretend to know that. But you can't take that moment away from him where you got to take down the number one team and just the most dramatic way possible on Saturday night. Yeah, I mean, maybe we have been waiting for him to become Peyton and he is in fact Eli and that's okay. I mean, if you look at these games last year, these games that were down to the wire for no reason, Mississippi State, Kentucky games, all that. Maybe that leads to a moment like this where you go, hey, we can lock in and play with anybody. We never feel like we're out of these games. Maybe these ugly turnovers and these moments that he has been in have made him feel like he doesn't have that same short circuit meltdown that Peyton does where things start going wrong. And it's like, I'm useless here. Maybe a pretty Arch Manning game looks chaotic. And maybe that's the environment he's comfortable in. I've been trying to figure out where he fits in this whole thing. And you know, he, I don't think is the kid that shows up three hours early and does all the different stuff. He seems to be more of a chill down to earth guy. You can kind of see he has the Will Ogburn eyes where he kind of doesn't get enough sleep. Maybe he isn't this perfect polished guy. And maybe he looks best when things go sideways. And we're trying to fit him into this square box that he's never really fit in. Because when you look, when he was effective whenever yours was there, he was this dynamic runner on these fourth down plays. He was there taking chances. He was not within the flow of the offense. So I think that that's what you get in Arch Manning. You get a guy that can be frustrating through two or three quarters. But when it's winning time, I think he's proven in these several games. And we can look at the ones last year ago, he shouldn't have been in that position. Well, he did it. And I think we have enough body of work to say, I think that's what he's most comfortable with. It's time to come back when Bleep's getting real. That's when we can look for Arch Manning. And he isn't his uncle. He isn't anyone but himself. And I think that's just fine. He just keeps playing. He does. Regardless of how you feel about him, I think you're allowed to feel that he's been overhyped, that he's not as polished as everybody would like to make you believe he is. I think what's undeniable is that he just keeps playing. And he's been in enough of these situations now where he doesn't really have a choice. And a lot of that is self-induced because it's just not always been there. Like he was really befuddled by the Matt Patricia defense again. Like I think Matt Patricia has had his number for probably six of the eight quarters. I mean, the first quarters one through three against the Matt Patricia defense for Arch have just been pretty disastrous. They really have. Arch admitted he had nightmares about that game last year. How could you not, man? How could you not after the things that he was missing? And I haven't looked at like the all 22 yet, but Herbstreet brought this up on the broadcast about how, even when he's getting time, he's just missing guys over the middle. And that's because he has some of these coverages are just doing things to hit to his process that are completely out of that having completely out of sorts. And I thought that was pretty pretty self aware to admit that who knows, maybe we're going to get Ohio State Texas for a fourth time in three seasons. Maybe we're going to get that again in the college ball playoff. Lord knows I wouldn't mind seeing that match up once again. That would be awesome. They've all been good. The one of them that wasn't a great game was funny last year. So I think they've all been good results for us. Yeah, exactly. I mean, all of them have in theory gone down to the wire. Okay, so let's ask some questions here. Will Ohio State still make the playoff? Because Julian St. crumbled in the second half of this game after I thought he came out hair on fire, totally locked in, I was going to apologize to him. But I think a lot of the questions that I asked about Ohio State proved to be true in that one is that the defense just kind of lacks an alpha. You need an alpha who can stop the bleeding. You had Jack Sawyer two years ago, you had Caleb Downs last year. The schedule is still a gauntlet. And I think that Ohio State blowing that game the way that they did, and just not having someone that could step up and make that big time defensive play. I think this team could have potential issues that the margin for error on that schedule is just not there. It's not there in the way that it's been in some years past. And I would have a lot of questions about this team being able to essentially, you know, this team is now kind of in a double elimination situation where if they lose two games, I think they'd be cooked at nine and three. And maybe the Big Ten not having a good non-conference showing is going to bode well for them. I don't know. But I think we will look back on that and say Ohio State blowing that game against Texas was what caused them a playoff spot. Well, you know, it's funny too. I mean, you know, if we're looking months in the future now, but Oregon does not look as scary as we thought they were. But if we get this Michigan team switch about, the schedule doesn't get any easier based on what we saw on Saturday. Yeah, we hit on this. We could do it briefly because it doesn't make sense, right? At Iowa, Maryland, at Indiana, at USC, Oregon. Pretty, I mean, it would be hard to find a team in the country that is a harder stretch than that. And when you lose a game, it gets a good, like, hey, understandable loss. But there are lots of understandable losses in this schedule. That's kind of the problem. And Ohio State doesn't have a three understandable loss season. That's just not how it works up there. So they actually have a hard schedule. They went outside of their conference. The Big Ten is getting deeper. They could find themselves in one of these, like, you know, 2010 Alabama situations and be like, oh crap, this isn't so fun. I think so, too. And we'll see how that plays out. But I think Ohio State fans are now looking at this because we're going, oh, it's not very fun to have a loss in week two with with what awaits. It's different when they were doing it in 2014 and they lose that game to Virginia Tech, knowing that the Big Ten was at a different place and where it's at now. And I think that sentiment could sink in or it could be the rallying cry that they need. And who knows, maybe there'll be a 10 and two team that's like, hey, we learned from that and we're going to be fine. We're going to be scary in the playoff. You know, Randy does have a second nipple to pierce. So he hadn't pulled out all the stops yet. He doesn't have them pierced. It's photoshopped. Everybody needs to know that. That is not real, okay? Ryan Day is many things. He is not that. Not to shame. That's a shame. You do you, but that is not Ryan Day. Confirmed. That was a how do you like me now game for Sark, right? Pretty undeniable. I mean, they were two and seven against top five teams under Sark. Finally beat Ryan Day, the comeback, all of that. We would count that as a Toby Keith win for him, correct? Yeah, absolutely. I think that again, it all just made sense. His back was against the wall. It was like same old Texas, same old Texas until it wasn't. And it's funny because Ryan Day winning this title in this era of college football where it never would have been close to possible again, is going to so shape his legacy going forward. Because if you eliminate that, which it's on the board, if the banner is hung, I understand that. But this is what we were used to seeing from Ryan Day as well, these insurmountable or inexplicable meltdowns. And so seeing these two coaches, one where you say, it's over, he won the title, we're done questioning him. No, we're not. That's the best part about what we do. We'll find a way to come back around. And with Sarkis, I think that again, I think he's a great play caller. I think he's a great game planner. I think he thinks he's smarter than he is sometimes. And we saw the entire gamut of emotions here. And in the end, it was just good enough. And I think they are what we thought they were. I think they're a complicated, personality filled team that has the ability to be the best team in the country when they lock in. It would have been funny if Ryan Day had gone full Denny Green at the podium after the game. Texas is who we thought they were, and we let them off the hook. Classic. Claire's got some thoughts on that. Claire's apparently weighing in. Apologies for those who are here in the background. She doesn't like hearing any Ryan Day slander. But that feeds into the other question that many people are asking on this Sunday morning as we sit here and record this. Did Sark act like a total psycho during and after that game? Because I think he did. I think so. Yeah. Okay. So it started with the very bizarre Laura Rutledge explanation of not getting him for the half time interview. And they came back from break. And just for those who missed kind of the first part of this before the Hollyrow stuff, Laura Rutledge got back from break and said, I just want to clear something up here. We were having tech issues and Sark stayed here and waited for us. And then he couldn't wait anymore. He had to get to his team at half time. And she kind of like basically defended him. And it was almost as if Laura, friend of the show, and Laura's a pro's pro, she's awesome. It was almost as if she like looked into the crystal ball and thought, if I don't give some sort of explanation, people are going to say that Sark is a psycho because he is. And maybe she was covering for him. Maybe that's really how it all went down. But then what played out after the game with Hollyrow made you kind of go back to that moment ago, I think Sark was just kind of in his own world because after the game, Texas fans are storming the field. It's a chaotic scene or whatever. And Hollyrow has Sark like right there and he's not even like surrounded by people yet. So it's not one of those situations where like she can't get the mic to him or something. That's a hard thing to do in that moment. Like it's a really hard thing to do. We've talked to Chris Budden about that before, about like the act of like being able to track down a coach when a storm is happening that sort of way, like an actual crowd field storm, whatever you want to call it. And so Sarkis just like, no, like I'm going to go celebrate this with my team. It basically just gives her the horns up and just is gone. And the moment that makes everybody start talking is Holly Rowe just like rolls her eyes at him and just clearly walks off frustrated. And so you might be saying, what is Sarko ESPN? Who cares? You just be the number one team in the country. Go celebrate with your team. You get to do that. To do that in that spot, you're like, man, do you even enjoy this or do you just think like the world is out to get you and you have some sort of axe to grind with the ESPN because it felt like that's what it was and that was playing out. And maybe he's still under the impression that a nine and three team deserved to make it in last year. He said in the post game, he's like, I don't know what that wind is going to get us. It's going to get you the best fricking win in the country. And instead of being this sour puss in this moment, where you just beat the number one team, you had the best moment you've ever had as a head coach in this sport. And you're just talking about like how, I don't even know like really what this did and I'm going to go celebrate with my team. I thought he acted like a psycho. And you know what, man, I think he'll look back on this 20 years from now and go, why did I act like that? Why couldn't I just be present? And then it was great to go cut to that interview with Arch, where Arch is just like on Cloud 9, soaking it in as much as possible. And Sarkis is just like, who doubted me? Who would ever doubt me in this? Like blah, blah, blah. I just miss me with how he acted in the postgame. Sorry, Texas fans, like your guy won and he deserves so much credit. I don't think that was the move. I really don't. So many parts of this, not to be the TV network guy, but what is Sarko ESPN? Millions of dollars. That's kind of how this works. It's like you make $12 million a year, whatever you're making these days because you have the media contracts that you do with ESPN. So just pretend that doesn't exist, I guess, if you want. Everybody wants to give out the lambos. Nobody wants to do the TV interview. But yeah, so much funny stuff you could call out because you have whatever they lost that game last year. He's like, maybe we should have played it. And so having that score in the back of his mind, being like, look, didn't matter we lost this year, doesn't matter what it is. It means you could go nine and three. It means you can go nine and three this year, Sark. That's exactly what it means because you just got the best win in the country. And if you want to lose three games with your nine game conference schedule that you spent all this time complaining about, you're going to get the right to do that. That's what this means. Are you so oblivious to all of that? Can you really not see any of this? Like some of these coaches just have no perspective whatsoever. And I think Sarkis one of them. I really do. And speaking of perspective, the cut to Manning where he's like, okay, yeah, Sarkis just walked off like a D bag. Okay. No, he didn't know that. Okay. Media training media. Okay. Going to Disney World? No. Okay. Great. When were my friends? Great. When were my friends? Okay. We're in here. I'm going to be the one they play on ESPN now. Okay. Good. Got it. I got it. Okay. We got the game winning drive. We got the interview. Okay. Like just watching, like, cause they cut obviously. I know you're right. He didn't know that, but just cutting to Archie and being like, okay, now I got to say the perfect thing cause that's all they have. So super, super cool. We're going to go to that cave just to see every part of this Texas thing. I wish we had seen Paul Assasin at the end of this one. I wish we had seen Coach Boomb. I wish we had seen everybody back there. Coach Boomb was wet in this one. He was wet from the jump. I almost texted you a screenshot of how sweaty he was. He was soaked. Oh my God. I am wet. Coach Boomb. Oh Lordy. Okay. Last question on this cause we got a lot of other stuff to get to today. Is Texas the new national title favorite? Miami, Georgia, Notre Dame, Indiana. They would probably like a word. I personally would like them to play somebody that we actually respect and think could be a team we're talking about in November. Those teams have obviously looked really, really good. And they've checked every sort of box so far to start off the year. But I mean, it's kind of hard to argue with it. And this is the first time really with Texas that we're talking about them having this marquee. Well, I shouldn't say that because obviously 2024, they beat Michigan on the road in Ann Arbor, that Michigan team, a ton of turnover. And we knew it was going to be a transition year. It was still a statement type victory. And then the year before when they beat Alabama, of course, that was a huge statement victory. Do you think this is better for Sarkis than the Alabama one? I think it is. I think it is because the sense of urgency is different going into this one compared to 23. I really do. And I think that that was the, I don't want to say we're back, but the Texas has arrived moment of like, oh no, Texas is really going to be a true national championship contender. They made it to the semi-finals that year. But just in terms of what's standing in the way of Texas much more established at this point in 26 compared to 23 and what happens if you don't win these games, the stakes were much higher for Sarkin this one. And that's why I would say this one was better. Yeah, it makes sense. I think I'm with you. The thing about Saban is he was around for so long that it felt like I will get another shot. I think those those wins tend to average age better every time. But I'll say too, with that win, it's wins against some not great Oklahoma teams. It's a weird game. Probably shouldn't have happened against Arizona State and that before this, right? Like it was, yeah, you're beating the Vanderbilts and yeah, you're beating all these different teams. But like you'll get there and Georgia is going to smoke you every time. That one Alabama fan, one Alabama win was kind of by itself for things to believe in Sark. But I think this is the book end of that. Like now that this one has happened, that one matters much less because it was really all he had in my mind. Does that make sense? Yeah, I agree. I would agree with that. And it just makes it seem like all of a sudden, okay, if Sark is going to get over this hurdle, this true hurdle for him, Ohio State, Ryan Day, then maybe he can get over other hurdles. Georgia fans are just sitting here smiling ear to ear like, buddy, no he ain't. Until he does, I'm going to pick y'all. No, but that being said about the title favorite show, if you're Miami Cots, they've looked so good. You know, I mean, they've been playing against Ayer, they've been scheduled HBCUs, they get that. You know, I understand the old school thinking of, oh, you know, Indiana, Miami, they haven't lost yet. But in terms of a marquee win, in terms of proving it, yeah, I'd put Texas, I bought this, easily best in the SEC. Yeah, I would say most proven so far. I still would have Georgia ahead of them in the power ring. It's just because I know the dynamic between those two. Let's go go. Yeah, until it's done. Look, it's a great spot to be for Texas. As we head into the meat of SEC play coming up here. Okay. Other big, big 10 SEC non-conference showdown, Oklahoma and Michigan. No extra second needed. I can do these highlights right now. Watch this, John Mateer. That was a fake fart, not a real fart from one Will Ogburn. That's my take on this one. Man, it was doodoo. It really was. Michigan did not need an extra second. All Michigan needed was to put John Mateer's head in a pretzel, put his arm in a pretzel. I don't know. Oklahoma could not muster a go ahead drive late. It instead had the fart throw from John Mateer that you just couldn't have. Just threw it behind his receiver and sets up a short field for the go ahead Michigan touchdown. It basically felt like a pick six more or less in the fourth quarter. We're going to get to the Oklahoma side in a second here, but I need to get this part out of the way. I want to credit Bryce Underwood for showing a lot of toughness in that one. I thought he used his legs really effectively, had a nice long rushing touchdown to get them going, didn't turn the ball over, which Kyle Whittingham praised immediately in the post-game interview. He was like, Oh yeah, we didn't turn the ball over. I don't think that was what we had hoped to do. Had a few of those chunk plays in the passing game. He did not get benched like I predicted. Glad for that kid that he got to celebrate that moment after the week that he had, which was probably not one that was memorable for him. Given all the things that he has done in his football life to make a play like that, to win a game and have everybody talking about literally everything else is kind of incredible and those are the only circumstances in which they would play out that way. But we get why it played out that way. It should have played out that way. I'll say this though. Michigan did one scoring drive longer than 34 yards. Underwood completed nine passes and he had two completions for 15 yards in the second half. Let's not pretend as Fox Sports tweeted afterwards that Bryce Underwood was dealing, okay? I know, we're not going there. Oh my God, Bryce Underwood is fixed. He's worth all the money in the world. We're not going there. He did outplayed John Mateer in this one. John Mateer had one good quarter, played really well in the third quarter. Then outside of that, it was rough. Unless it was a Rocky Beers chunk play, it was not happening for the OU offense. But let's not all of a sudden pretend that Bryce Underwood just proved all the haters wrong and blah, blah, blah. He played well enough to win that style of game against a really good, well-respected Oklahoma defense. You cannot take that away from that kid, but pump the brakes, everybody. If you're all of a sudden assuming that Michigan is just going to be fine because of the way that that played out. Well, I'll say this, right? I mean, we talked about, okay, this is Oklahoma team that wants to win games 17-10. Okay, Bryce Underwood, he is this glamorous quarterback. He's making all this money. He's soft. They're barely beaten. Directional Michigan is the choose worth the squeeze. His coach is mad. They get tied in this game. And he outgrits John Mateer. Yes, he did. Which is crazy. And how did he do it? On the ground, which is, you know, I wouldn't exactly call him a dual threat guy. He's got a little mobility to his game, but I don't think he's a past first quarterback, for sure. But the way that I don't think John Mateer is, and the way that he was able to just take hit after hit, and I think this is a good example of a game where the Fox Corps doesn't exactly tell the story because John Mateer had more carries. But as a guy who moved the football when they needed to, we knew this was going to be a rock fight. We couldn't say enough things about this Brent Venable's defense, right? But to be this young kid and have your back against all them, people say, does he even care? Does he even care? He's making all this money. He's a professional. And to see him go, all right, I think I'm just going to slam my head into this defense over and over again until we win. Got it, coach. Yeah, no. And again, I'm not trying to take away from that. I guess maybe it sounds like I am a little bit here. And Lord knows it is difficult to win a 60 minute game against an Oklahoma defense. So I think it's going to finish as one of the best in the country. That opinion did not change on Saturday with the game that they played. But yeah, I think that the biggest takeaway I had from this game was this Oklahoma offense, Will. Oh, Michigan defense really good. I think it's going to put up a great fight in every single game that it's in this year. I love Jay Hill coming over from BYU. I thought that was a really smart addition from Kyle Whittingham and that staff. They have the John Henry Daly personalities on that defensive line that have established that culture immediately. I think that's a really good thing for Michigan. But this Oklahoma offense was, couldn't get Zatania going. The non-Mateer rushing options didn't ever really get a chance to get in rhythm. I thought from a play calling perspective, Ben Arbuckle just had a weird game. Took too long for him to dial up the Mateer run game. Then the play at the end of the first half, what are you doing, man? Where they called a run, and Joel Clatt, I thought, assessed this very well. It was almost as if Arbuckle thought that Oklahoma was already in field goal range and they weren't, and Michigan completely stumped it out, and it ended up being, I don't know that it even counted as a sack because it was very clearly a Mateer run on this draw. But it was, and then they had to pun it away instead of what looked like a situation which they could have gotten three points. And with, you know, obviously the Lou Groza Award winner in Sandal as their kicker. But yeah, I just thought that Arbuckle got schooled by Whittingham and J. Hill in this one. I thought it was rough, man. Like Mateer is just, he's still too sloppy and he's healthy. You know, he's healthy and he still just does things that kind of madden you. The overthrows, the touch is not there. I don't know. I kind of go back to my initial fear with him coming from Washington State, Oklahoma, where I thought his mistakes were going to just be more costly at this level and he still struggles to play on time. He missed Michael Fasusi, his star left tackle. I don't want to dismiss that, but too many off-target throws, too many confusing decisions. He is not an elite player in this game yet. He's just not and he has some really enticing skills that can win you games. But if you were of the belief that John Mateer was going to compete for a Heisman Trophy, I think you watched this game and thought, oh boy, it's not there. Yeah, this is a rough one for Oklahoma for a couple of reasons. And I wasn't saying all that to contradict you. This is kind of my takeaway from this. I think this Michigan defense is solid. I still think the Oklahoma defense is better. I think the fact that the Oklahoma... I probably do too. I probably do too. Yeah. That's kind of the weird takeaway here as well. I was talking about the two quarterbacks. It's like John Mateer kind of beat himself to a degree here. And that's the scariest possible outcome if you're an Oklahoma fan. Because we could hear, oh, his hand was hurt. Look how good he played in the Michigan game last year. If he could just get back to that, buddy, we're at the Michigan game this year. He's healthy. What's your freaking excuse? This is a quarterback and a coach, John Arcbo, sorry, Ben Arbuckle. I keep turning him into Garfield's owner. Anyway, you know, Arbuckle who, they both looked over their head against top level competition. To your point about calling the game plan at the end and knowing down in distance where you need to be, both of these guys looked like mid-major participants who just got transported in the SEC. And in year one, that's fine. It's a little experiment. You're injured. We'll give you all kinds of excuses. When you spend all off season just taking shirtless picks, dude, you can't do this. You're supposed to be a veteran, gritty leader who wears the same suit and does all this stuff to be a team first guy and leads the offense on this defensive team. You can't be out here throwing these ham turkey sandwiches when Bryce Underwood is supposed to be this posh trust fund kid of making all this money and he's out there carved up the defense taking the hits and you're just giving the game away. And that's what's so, I guess it's scary to me because we see what the ceiling can be for this Oklahoma team. We see how good this defense can be. But we also see the floor and I think it is that they can only win these kind of games. And this one they didn't. And you can't play this many games like this in 2026. It's not possible. You don't want to be in games like this. And they do. And they've already lost one. And I think it's a big problem because ultimately when you always are playing with fire and your quarterback is always one turn of her way and you're not scoring 20 plus points every game, you're asking for inferior teams, which Michigan still might be. You know, that's the thing is that if John Mateer played an average game, I think this game can go a little bit differently. But I think that's what this proved to me. This is their identity. This is Oklahoma football. This is this version of it. It's not going to get better. I think this is a two or three lost team. Granted, they don't have any more eligibility for this. I think Arbuckle maybe comes back if we have another three lost team. But I think this is just a retry to last year. It's scary to me, man. Here's the most damning Arbuckle stat to this point. And you could say, yes, last year with Mateer with the injury, he wasn't fully healthy and so the offense was was limited. You could say it's a Brent Venables coach team. They're defensive focused. When they get a two score lead, they're going to be a little bit more conservative than maybe others would. Some other coaches that we're going to get to in a little bit here. But the most alarming stat, I think, is that if you exclude defensive touchdowns, which you should, we're talking about an offensive coordinator's performance here. Shout out Sam Levitt. Arbuckle's offense has not hit 27 points in 11 power conference games. 27 points in college football. You got to be able to win 28 to 14 sometimes, man. Every single game can't be this 24 to 17 playing with fire. Oh, you throw the wrong pick here. You can't hit the Isaiah Sotaniya button there. It all falls apart for you. And that's troubling. And I know that Brent Venables has gone all in with the Arbuckle Mateer experience. I'm not saying he's wrong to do so. Like it certainly got you to the playoff last year. You know, it has done things for you that you hoped it would to be able to turn around the disaster that was 2024. And I'm not here to say that that means nothing. It means something. But at this point, man, you watch this group and you just wonder, where are they going to get better? Where's the troubleshooting? Is John Mateer going to all of a sudden find that touch? Is he all of a sudden going to be a guy that's going to be able to layer some of these throws? And are they going to find this backfield identity that works for them? Because I don't think that feels really imminent, you know? And look, Oklahoma is still going to win a bunch of games this year. They could still be 9-3. They could still be the exact thing that I projected them to be. And ironically enough, like this was the game in the preseason, I said they were going to lose. And then I said that they were going to turn around and beat Georgia. They were going to turn around and beat Texas. And then I obviously saw week one and change this. So I don't want to pretend like this is all of a sudden like totally out of character. It's not. We thought that this was going to be kind of how they were going to have to play a lot of these teams. But I just thought a lot of the offseason talk about a healthy Mateer and some of the additions that they made on the offensive side of the ball with a more experienced offensive line to have one touchdown drive with extra prep. Because they had extra prep going into this one. Let's not pretend that they didn't. I thought that was a massive let down even on a hostile atmosphere. This is maybe the meanest thing I can say to you fans, maybe you're a muppet, but it feels similar to the Texas offense, except Mateer doesn't have the talent that Arch does when he gets back into a corner. It's like they both want to be back into a corner, but whenever Mateer gets back into a corner, he's like, and the ball just goes somewhere. Whereas with Arch, we just saw this, it gets probably better high with the defense where it's like, hey, when I'm uncomfortable, when my back's against the wall, I'm going to lock in. We just keep waiting to see that gear out of Mateer. I still think it's there. I think we're hammering the same things here. It's like, hey, yeah, we did see week one. I don't think Michigan got markedly better from week one. I think that's the easy takeaway to have. But I think to your point, first of all, it didn't play awesome in this game. It wasn't like he set the world on fire. It wasn't like, oh my God, here's the five star. It was like, he just kind of wanted it more and their offense knew where the ball was. And that's a pretty big deal when you're on offense. I felt bad for the Oklahoma defense. Taylor Wine played his freaking tail off, man. Like they lose, Kip Lewis goes down in this one. But like, I thought that Oklahoma defense made some big time plays and they play with their hair on fire. Their discipline is so good with some of the window dressing that Michigan tried to do. And all for not, all for not when you lose a game like this. And now with the conference like that Oklahoma has, it's going to be an uphill climb to be able to get back to the playoff this year. I really think that they have some big picture things to figure out on the offensive side of the ball. Okay. Alabama, Kentucky. For the first time in the Kalan Dabour era, Will, Bama shook off a half time deficit and won. They were 0-7 when trailing in half time under Kalan Dabour. And don't you know it, they found themselves trailing at Kentucky. Not only did Bama find a way to be able to overcome a half time deficit, but it did so with a 32-0 second half advantage that made us all forget that Kiel and Russell basically got off to a worse start than Arch, which is kind of hard to do. He would have been better off just being like, wait a minute, I thought the game was in Louisville. What do you mean it was in Lexington? My bad, wrong school. That would have been a better scenario than probably the way that he started this game with the tip pick six and some of the decisions that he was making. He was really, really bad in the first part of this game, and it was not a banner day for Keelan Russell as a whole. But Will, can I say something controversial? Go for it. I'm going to say this knowing I'm going to get some pushback. But tell me in your heart of hearts Bama fans that you disagree with me because I don't think you disagree with me. Bama delivered a very Saban era second half of football. Very, okay. Dominant defense, quarterback who I eventually settled in and made the throws that he needed to make. Okay. Wasn't necessarily the reason that they were winning. And then the ground game finally got going. Those were Saban era staples. Okay. And Bama even had a 30 yard run in conference play. Thanks to Daniel Hill. I brought up, I tweeted the other day how Bama had not had a 30 yard run in conference play. Key distinction there, because they had a 30 yard run in the playoff game last year against Oklahoma. But in conference play, they had not done that since October of 2024 against Mizzou. A game that Drew Pine started. All right. Yeah. That's what we're talking about. It had been a minute. 155 rushing yards, 104 of which were from Daniel Hill, who was excellent in this game. He is the clear go-to guy, even though seeing EJ Crowell only have what? Three snaps in this game. He had a touchdown, but I was like, really? Why? Why? Why can we not just see more EJ Crowell? Anyway, Bama was three yards away from matching its Ryan Grubb era high for rushing yards and a power conference game. That was all you could have hoped for if you are a Bama fan, to have those boxes checked in a game that just could not have started any worse for the tide. Yeah, I am actually going to agree with you here because I think it's as close as we can get to Joyless Murderball. Yeah, that's my point. Yeah. Kentucky caps off this second half or sorry, second quarter. They cap off the first half or second quarter with a field goal. Then the scoring summary is just Bama field goal, Bama touchdown, Bama touchdown, Bama touchdown, Bama touchdown. It's like, hey, you could be mad at the first half as I'm sure play people would. It's a very silent, you know, halftime discussions in the greater Birmingham region. There was just an eerie chill, but then it's like they just were transported back to like 2017 or 2020. And it was like, we're going to run through a bleeper face right now. We're going to run and we're going to just punch you in the mouth. And our defense is going to play physical. And I know our quarterback, you know, we were talking about Bryce Young. We should have been talking about Coker because that was the type of performance we got at Russell. He was delivering. He was running the plays as called. He was out there firm handshake, running this offense. And that's exactly as a Bama been, which you've been open for for years. So you can't be too bad, can you? Yeah, look, the Bama defense was the clear dominant force in this game. I mean, I thought they played exceptionally well. The shots that you kept getting of Cain Womack on the sideline, so fired up where he's like doing the pump up thing. I'm like, Cain, did you forget that you're actually playing this game in Lexington? This is not a home game. You don't have to pump up the crowd. I don't know why you keep doing that. But he was really, really fired up in this one. In ways that he's really like a pretty fiery guy, but he was kind of on an extra level of intensity. The Luke Metz pick six, I thought set the tone early for Bama. Caleb Woodson was everywhere. Bama's linebackers were tremendous in this one. Ray Hubbard was really good, banged up late, but still didn't allow a second half point. Allowed 62 yards in the second half. Didn't allow a third down conversion in the second half. Forced multiple turnovers in the second half. Shut down Kentucky's fake punt attempt. That was a run from a blocked first tight end. I didn't hate the decision to have a little trickery in that spot. Okay, I'll say that. Probably got to have someone else trying to execute that play. And I get it. Get a tricky person. Don't get, don't be boring and tricky. Be double tricky. Yeah. And look, the tough part is if you just bring out, I don't know, CJ. Baxter in that spot, he has easier running back. Everybody on the Bama defensive line is going, what's he doing? You're doing something. So I get why you're trying to, you're trying to execute that play in a tough spot and just try and catch them by surprise. Because at that point, Will Stein knows he's going to need to pull out something because of what the Bama defense is doing. And they need to try and flip momentum in some sort of way because in game momentum is real as we know. But look, at that point, 23 to 17, less than a minute left in the third quarter. And you're thinking, maybe we can have momentum going into the fourth quarter. And if you feel good about the execution of that play, maybe you've ran it a few times in practice before, I get it. But no, it did not work out well at all. And yeah, I do think that type of aggressiveness, even though it's very easy for us to say here and say, that was really stupid. Why do they think that was going to work with a blocking tight end? It's easy for us to sit here and say that was really dumb. But I think Kentucky fans appreciated the effort that their team put together. And that place was rocking in the second half. I mean, not in the second half, but in the first half when they got off to that start. And I was reminded of all the players who always say, yeah, Krogerfield's a really underrated atmosphere. Like they had the stripe out going. I thought the Will Stein comments on Fine Mile about like, yeah, sneak out all into this game. Shout out to the players. I was like, man, Will Stein kind of a throwback approach that he's trying to have for this one. And I think Kentucky fans at least appreciated that going in and appreciated the fact that they felt relevant and felt like they were at least not just laying down at the feet of this program that has dominated them throughout their basically their entire history. But yeah, it wasn't going to work out for Kentucky for 60 minutes against a Bama defense that could in Kentucky's defense did its best early on, but it was not going to be able to contain Bama for four quarters. You know, in the preview, I talked about kind of the night and day differences between Stoops and Stein. And I think this is exactly it. You played your first competitive half against Alabama. Congratulations. You made Alabama pull out all the second half, all the stops in the second half to kind of get rolling. So in the aggregate, I'm sure if you're sitting here through the whole second half, you feel defeated. But again, you felt better at the end of that first half than you have at any game. Vibes are great. Vibes are great. And that's why you brought in Steyr. That, hey, you know, losing 52 to 0, 60, whatever to 0, is very different from, hey, our guys are in this game and they belong. We got a little turnover where the offense is moving. We got this and that going on. We can build on this. And in year one, you know, we don't judge year one coaches other than vibes, great vibes first half. Again, would you have liked to not get curbstomped in the second half? Yes. But ultimately losing this game by 20 is the same as losing it by 40. Honestly, I think that once you get it kind of to that point, it's like we got the reps we needed to start off. No one's picking us to win the SEC this year, but maybe one day. And that's the rare win-win. Bama fans got to see Juelis murder brawl. They got to run the football. Kentucky fans got a half of fun at home and they got to see, Oh my God, we don't have to see Mark Stoops in the post game. You're right. I think the passing offense is a little bit Oklahoma-ish. Willie Rodriguez, tight end, kind of like what Oklahoma has in Rocky Beers. Maybe they just really did not want to test that Bama secondary and they just felt like their matchups in the outside were not particularly good. It was a struggle to get the ball to the wide receivers and that obviously just fueled Bama. I thought it made him a little bit of an easier team to defend. I thought Kenny Minchie was in over his head in some of those spots where you're not going to trust him to be able to navigate in elite defense just yet. I think Bama will end up having an elite defense. He will have one of the top ten defenses in college football this year. But yeah, for what it's worth, I have said very nice things about Keelan Russell. Very nice things. But I still have all the stock. I still have all the stock. The pick six and then some of the throws that he was trying to make as he was still going to the ground, he will watch that on film and puke in his mouth. And if he doesn't, I will for him because it was tough. He will puke in Kee-Lock Russell's mouth? No. You should be puke, I'm just kidding. Everybody puke in their own mouths. It's not a baby bird situation. We're not doing that. Point being though, I'm with you. I hate to say it, but he got the lumps out. You're going to see from your quarterback, especially as a five-star, how is he going to get over these moments? He did pass the test late in this one. Yeah. You still see his ability to extend plays. It's still there, it's still on display, and I still think that having to cover some of those Bama receivers for five, six seconds was too much, and you have a guy that has that ability. There was one time where he looked like he was dead to rights going to his left, and defensive end did a really good job of making sure he didn't break contain, and I'm thinking, this is going to be a really ugly negative play, and then he just sees the vision to be able to make him miss a little bit, or at least make him think, okay, I don't have a clear angle to this, and then he cuts it back to the opposite side of the field to the right side, and it was just really good awareness where he saw that right side of field. He didn't panic necessarily in that spot, got his legs under him, and then he was able to move the chains with his legs. He does stuff like that over the course of a game in which you just go, okay, that's going to play, that's going to keep this team on schedule. And if he's still able to do that after having really bad moments early on, then that's a good positive sign. I liked seeing what he said afterwards. I think it was, I can't remember who had the quote, might have been Nick Kelly. I can't remember who it was. Oh no, it was Scarborough. It was Alex Scarborough, who covers Bama for ESPN, where he said like, look, he's like, I basically went up to Cailin DeBoer and said that, I will work my you know what off this week to prepare for FSU. And I promise you, I'm going to put everything I have into that. Like he said that during this game as this lopsided second half is happening. And I think that he's wired the right way. So not selling Cailin Russell stock, still have all of it despite some tough moments. Yeah, I mean, this is one I mean, you know, if you're if you're better, don't bet on Alabama because I mean, like we had a checks notes Rico Scott touchdown here. Like they just continue to be like, Oh yeah, go well. Awesome. Not going to see the field. Like it's just we really do not know what we're going to get from a week to week. And it's funny because I was in line though. Like I thought the offensive line looked really, really good in this one. And I kind of found the joyless murder ball that they've been searching for for a while. And I was like, Will, I was getting ready to say, I don't know if you had this thought too. I was going to say, well, Kentucky just spent all that money on the offensive line. Why do they have such a better offensive line than Alabama? And then the second half totally changed my take on that. Yeah, I think the Kentucky defense, especially in the trenches, looked really good early, especially like not just making Keeler and Russell flustered but getting push. And that's something that in this game, it's like, how is this going to go? Both of these teams are kind of rebuilding their lines. But that being said, I think we're so far from the final version of Alabama. Because another weird game by Ryan Coleman Williams, a lot of books kind of there, not a great rushing. I thought that was a clean game for Michael Moyes. I thought that was a nice bounce back game from him. You see what I'm saying? It wasn't like he was a role player like we talked about in the preview. He was not taking over the game. He was not dropping passes. He was just kind of- Weird in that he just went out there and did his job. He just did his job. He just checked in. He needed to get in one of those Schroedmer little nameplates, right? Anyways, that being said, there wasn't a bunch of drama over there. So we could look back in three or four weeks so you could tell me, okay, who's the leading receiver for this team? Maybe Rico Scott, right? Could be all kinds of people, but I think we still haven't seen quote unquote the good plays out of them. And that's what SSE play is for, is not losing a game like this is for Snako and two against FSU. That would change perceptions, especially after we saw last week against FSU. But that being said, yeah, I think that this is kind of either figuring it out, but it's better to figure it out and it went into loss. Yeah, agreed. And Bama's offensive line having the second half that it did, that could be the type of thing that we look back on a few weeks from now and go. Yep, that's when things kind of started to turn in that area. Okay, Mizzou, Kansas. Let's go back to Friday night, or rather let's go back to the 1860s. Am I right? Dude, that hype video was wild. I could not believe. I still can't believe. I still think it's got to be... Somebody had to be fired for this, but probably not. No, dude, and you picked They Not Like Us as like the song for this, a Saturday soundtrack or whatever. And again, I was like, this is a great pick. It kind of takes off the board for the rest of the year, but this is where you should use it because we can't overstate how much these teams hate each other. And they were like, by the way, slavery, John Brown. Let the record show, I made that the soundtrack to this game. Go back and listen to the preview pod if you're sicko. I made that before Kansas released the hype video wherein they said, this rivalry dates back such a long time and let's not forget that Mizzou was pro slavery. Okay, I made that reference before. You were right. We couldn't understate how much these teams hate each other. And this is a great rivalry. I mean, again, we talked about state and Ole Miss is underrated in tech, probably could become properly rated. This is the next one, especially kind of in the SEC. These teams leap and hate each other. For a minute, it was back and forth. It was. Drink did not know that they would take it to those levels either. But he said afterwards, he thought it was bullcrap. He was embarrassed that Kansas did that, especially on 9-11. Like to have that kind of be the discussion of like, we need to be like 25th anniversary of 9-11. Like we need to be united. And instead, they're throwing this out there. Like, well, that's, there's a lot of cards that are being played by both sides right now. I didn't think about it first. That's an Apex trick move. No, he loves the highlight reel like that. He loves the little cork, the blanket guy. Okay. I don't know about that, man. I don't think Drake is going to those levels, although he did take to social media, turn off the comments to be able to clap back. And he said that he wanted to... Yeah, he said he wanted to embarrass them. And that's why he was throwing three scores late, up three scores late. I'm a little bummed because Will, I think if not for the slavery reference in the hype video, I think I would have had this score exactly right, 31 to 21, which that's a sentence I've never said on this show. There's so few unique sentences left Connor, we're just working through them today. Nonetheless, close enough. Austin Simmons and non-slavery topics. Let's talk about the pill that Austin Simmons was slinging on Friday night, man. So much confidence. The ball is jumping out of Austin Simmons' hand. He makes those long outside the hash throws look so easy. I'm fired up for that guy because we've liked Austin Simmons for a while. We liked him last year at Media Days. He was just a really good guy to spend 20 minutes with at the podium. We're like, that's going to be a fun guy to watch in the SEC, and then it plays out the way that it did. He gets Wally Pippt and all that stuff. But afterwards, and he joined in the celebration where he's waving goodbye, and he's embracing all these things in this new rivalry. You're reminded, as he said afterwards in the postgame interview, this is the first rivalry game that he's really been a part of, where he really got to be a central figure in it. He definitely took part in his side of it, and I thought that was good to see. Austin Simmons' man, stock on the rise. I thought that was a great performance, maybe against a woeful Kansas defense, but nonetheless, good for him to kind of look like a guy that I think, you know, many people thought he could be coming into last season. And Will Donovan-Alupade, man, start talking, start talking about Donovan Oluka free play. He shook off that early drop. Otherwise, he was great in this one, had a play where he was off to the races early, had a coverage bust that he took advantage of, and is just looking like a real weapon. Caden Lee, Austin Simmons connection that we thought was going to be there last year at Ole Miss. It is there this year at Mizzou. It is very real. That's a nice one to punch in the passing game with those two guys. Like, I don't know that all of a sudden Mizzou is going to be this team that, like, you can expect to throw for 300 yards in a given game in SEC play. Like, I don't know that they have that type of upside necessarily just yet, but I think that they have a lot of possibilities within the passing game that they have just not necessarily had. At least, you know, I don't want to say like in, because in the Luther Burden era, they of course had your boy Theo Weiss. I really just said that because I wanted to hear you say that for the first time in a while. But they just have like some nice versatility there that I think is going to be a nice thing for Chip Lindsay to be able to turn to in these games. So yeah, I mean, overall, like, a really nice offensive performance from Mizzou, who was obviously once again without Ahmad Hardy kind of TBD. And when he's coming back, Jamal Roberts is good. He's not Ahmad Hardy. Okay, like he had some good moments. I thought it was funny to hear Devin Garner say on the broadcast, like maybe Mizzou should, more or less, he said Mizzou should like ditch the outside zone. I was like, no, no, no, come on Devin. Like, this is Mizzou. They might have a different looking offense. They're not ditching outside zone here. And then like three plays later, Jamal Roberts outside zone of the house. This is a backup running back quote unquote 28 carry game here. And real quick, I think a lot of good things to hit on there. We might be kicking ourselves at the end of the year for, you know, the Kayden Lee look of free play, one, two. They didn't come off the board in our receiver draft. We had two teams, Tennessee and Alabama, that both receivers take it for a one-two punch in the SEC. You know, now, granted, we remember this game last year, folks. Mizzou looked awesome in this game last year. So let's not pump the brakes a little bit. But having the two receivers of almost equal numbers, I think the story of this game is rushing. Mizzou, 41 rushes, 177 yards. KU, 36 rushes, 81 yards. That about does it. Those boys got pushed around, specifically in the second half. I mean, Trick is that type of coach where if you get him angry, he will just run through your face over and over and over again. That's what I appreciate about him. In a game like this, he's built for it. Will, I have been waiting to anoint the next four local quarterback. Now that our sweet prince, Taylor Green, is off to the NFL, and I didn't want to necessarily, maybe we need to have a watch list for this as well. We'll add it to the Comeback Player of the Year watchlist that we've already drawn up here within the SEC. But this needs to be a national thing. It can't just be an SEC thing for a local quarterback in college football. Isaiah Marshall might just be the for local quarterback. The Kansas quarterback who, if you watched him play to play, he is the ultimate mash all the buttons guy. The throw where he's like jumping and twisting out of bounds, and he just threw it up to nowhere. It looked like when a guy is trying to save an inbounds pass, or not an inbounds pass, like save the ball from going out of bounds in basketball, he just throws it blankly behind him. You don't expect a quarterback to do that. He is a for local quarterback because he is not good enough to be truly, truly fun in a way where you want to root for him consistently. He is a, well, I just want to have a wild night and wake up in the morning and deal with that later. That's who Isaiah Marshall was in the Mizzou defense very much feasted on that. But if you're ever looking for a game to flip on the multiview, you're like, I've got an extra spot available on my fourth spot on my multiview right now. Get Isaiah Marshall up there. Just watch some of the wacky crap that guy's going to do. I don't know what a diet for local would be. I guess that's an oxymoron. Maybe like a buzz ball. He's like a buzz ball quarterback. I mean, Taylor was so unique in that way because he had the upside. But there were some dimes that the boy Marshall was throwing. It kind of made you feel that way. But yeah, overall, Paul was put on the ground seven times in this game. Just what a goofy game. But yeah, what a man for the moment in these just cartoon J-Hawk uniforms looking like Power Rangers. This is what non-Saturday football should be, Connor. It really should. Yeah, it went way too long on Friday night. But nonetheless, it was still an entertaining one. Of course, I had to stay up for, I was like, I'm going to get a drink in the post game after the slavery comments. I'm not going to bed for this. Come on, what are you talking about? Of course, if I had just gone to bed early, I would have just been up all night like, oh man, middle of the night. What do you think Drink said? I got to check my phone. So it's a good thing that I stayed up for that one. I'm suddenly really excited by the way, for Mizzou, Mississippi State in two weeks. Austin Simmons, Kamario Taylor. That's fun. That could be really, really fun. We don't wish away time in this life, but looking forward to that. Arizona State, Texas A&M. I said all week that A&M was going to get off to a slow start in this one and that it would be a one score game in the fourth quarter. And then it was, and then the final score would suggest that that was not the case at all because this one ends up being a four touchdown victory for A&M. Really, it was a nice Mario Craver route for six and then two pick sixes for the A&M defense in the fourth quarter. And that was all she wrote. Probably not the best plan for Arizona State to try and beat a top 10 team on the road with four turnovers. If I had to guess, I would say Kenny Dillingham would like to get that back. I'm sure that was thought of very often during that long flight afterwards to London. I did like what Cudder Bollie showed us and I did think that he showed enough in this game to make me think once again that Mark Stoops was out of his freaking mind for saying, Zach Calzada, you're better than Cudder Bollie. How? Why? I still can't fathom that one. But nonetheless, Cudder Bollie was not on the winning side of this one. The key development in this game, if we want to get nerdy with it, besides A&M's defense having some of these splash plays, which was really important on a day in which they were not at their best. I thought Holman Wiggins did a much better job of having feel for scenario in this one, where I criticized what he did in the red zone last week where I'm like, why are you drawing up a fade to Terry Bussey when you just paid that money to Isaiah Horton? This is what he should be used for. Then they had a sequence where they get into the red zone. I wonder how many times Isaiah Horton is going to be targeted right now. Then they went, boom, Isaiah Horton target first down, Isaiah Horton target on second down, target him on third down, and then third down was the touchdown. I was like, okay, he got it. That was good. That's probably really smart. Something with A&M, they just yearn for the back shoulder. I feel like I've been watching A&M through the back shoulder for my entire life. It's like, we're going to try this again. We're going to try this again. Sometimes we have the proper personnel. Sometimes it works. I don't know. Yeah, and Marcel Reed needs that guy. He just does. And I don't think that we can sit here and ever expect him to be this guy that's going to pick you apart with precision accuracy. She's not always going to be the number one thing about his game. Like he's got enough good things where you can still work around that. He had another slow start, I thought, throwing the ball in this one. But having that big target like Horton to be able to move the chains, he is going to need that if this A&M passing offense is going to take another step this year. So it was just a weird game overall, Will. Like it felt like A&M's defense didn't really play a sound game, but just capitalized on those opportunities when they were able to seize momentum and they did a good job of that. Like Arizona State lost by four touchdowns and yet it outgained A&M by 114 yards in this one, which A&M scored 48 points, but only had 255 yards. Short fields, defensive touchdowns, those obviously helped those sort of things. But yeah, just kind of a weird game overall that if you had this on, you probably didn't really get a very good feel for how this was going to go. And even how it played out at the end for A&M to win a game that didn't end up looking like it was close. Just a really all encompassing Will Ogburn preview here, because I told you guys about this run defense at Arizona State and then proceeded to completely incorrectly predict what was going to happen. I thought A&M was going to be able to lead on them. The run defense is pretty legit. It's actually been like a pretty low key part of what they've been good at. A&M never was able to get that going ever. But that being said, I'm right there with you. I think that the whole movement is actually called a really, really good game because it's easy to say, we're going to roll the ball and push forward. That's what they were lacking last year was the situational awareness. I think that was actually kind of Klein's weakest point where it was like, hey, right now I'm going to throw the ball. Okay. Do you see that that's not working? Do you see that this guy is kind of locked out? Do you see that we could do this? You see there's like a tornado that's happening on the field right now with the winds. You should not have Marcel Reed throwing into that. What are we doing here? This doesn't make any sense. We're just going to run a comeback route right on top of that whirling dervish. That's what the play says. That's what we're going to call it. But actually, this is like what you want to see at USC is like, nothing's really working, but we're just going to figure it out. Like, oh, this will work here. This will try this. Let's prod. Let's try. It's not cost yourselves the game. Let's not get married. Do it offensive philosophy. So yeah, I mean, this is a weird game. You know, again, we play the results. This might be a point. We just need to kind of bookmark this and look back and say, this was a point where I bet they thought they could out talent Arizona state. That never really happened, but they weren't. They didn't get cocky. They didn't try to force something. And that is how A&M got in trouble last year. It's just thinking like, hey, we will eventually figure this out. Let's just keep ramming our heads into the wall. They didn't really ram their heads into the wall of this game. And that's a really high compliment because I thought eventually this run defense would give and it just didn't. And and Marcel Reed was just good enough. And I love good. No, no, go ahead. You have our way. I think those are all fair points. Yeah. So so I'm just really kind of excited about the development team whereas I thought they'd take a big step back on offense. So that's encouraging because it can be because they really got going. You know, last year, I think that I think a Notre Dame game was a little bit of a bold gold last year and it made them look better than they were. I would rather have a gritty game like this against competition that we don't respect as much where it's like, again, we figure out in the wind, it's not this big dramatic thing where we start smelling our own farts and do a little Irish dances. I think this is good for A&M, man. It means a lot. I think they earned that win last year. I think they earned that one. I do, but I'm saying it set it too high. I think that was their best or another certain day in October was their best day of the year and it felt like, okay, we have these expectations early. Whereas here it's like you still have stuff to work on. Other people are not going to respect this, but within the context of this game, we know how tough this team was. They started off 11-0 with one of the better wins in college football. I think obviously your expectations are going to get that high. And I think they are very self-aware. To your point, I think Mike Elko, what you can always trust is that he is going to be almost to a point blunt with his assessment of his team. And you never have to worry about him being that guy that's going to all of a sudden just be like, oh, we're this, this and this. And he talks about some of the doubt post week one of Marcel Reed. I do think that he understands internally the areas that he needs to get better. He might say one thing publicly and then have one thing internally. That's entirely different. So I do think that that's been evident. But yeah, a really good showing in a spot that I thought could have been tricky and for a little bit looked like it was going to be tricky. So A&M hosts Kentucky next week. That's a pretty good matchup for the Aggies with kind of where both programs are currently at. Revenge game for Jay Bateman, by the way, the Kentucky DC and the former A&M DC who had play calling duties stripped from him post year one from Mike Elko. So just maybe a little bit of juice there, maybe a little bit of juice than what probably is going to be considered a sleepy game nationally. All right. Mississippi State, Minnesota. I am officially official with Kamario Taylor. Pause. I'm enamored with him. Absolutely enamored with Kamario Taylor, Will. He's a good serious with you. I'm serious. I'm fully on board. I thought this performance was beyond what I could have expected, and I know it's delicate. All he did was dominate Minnesota on the road from start to finish and be in complete control throughout. He didn't complete a pass in the third quarter. Still, he was very, very good in this game. I love watching Kamario so, so much that I'm dropping his last name. Henceforth, he is not Kamario Taylor. He is Kamario. That is it. He is a one-name guy. And yes, you can tell me he's got one power conference victory at his career. I don't care. I am just so intrigued by him. And you might say, Connor, why are you doing this so early? At least wait till we get to SEC play. Don't you remember last year, Mississippi State won that game against Arizona State? I'm not talking about just Mississippi State as a whole. I'm talking about Kamario. We're just focusing on QB1 right now. Is it too soon to do this yet? And I'd say no, rational person. You clearly have not watched Kamario play football because he can roll out and make the on-target throws. He can hang in the pocket. He can layer the football. He can turn to his legs. He can make people miss there. He does everything. This man is worthy of being a one-name guy already with the things that he has shown that he could do. And if you don't know, his name is Kamario, and you'd better know. Because now is the time to get on board with this. Otherwise, you're going to look back on this season and be like, I should have watched more Kamario. Now is your chance. I'm letting everybody know who doesn't know Kamario is worth your time. I mean, yeah, it's special, man. And you know, Mississippi State team that has felt kind of hopeless these last couple of years. Again, the Arizona State win, I would say certainly the high point, right? And looking at this guy, I feel like as we start to age and see more college football, we get a little bit jaded and we go, okay, yeah, there's a great dual threat guy. Can you layer the football? Do you have like, can you throw the ball or is this just some gimmick that's gonna get figured out? I like that you hit on that because he has pretty clearly NFL arm strength. I mean, the way that he's just skipping that thing down the field. And then he has the touch and the poise to where it's like, I'm not comparing these two players, I promise. But I remember feeling this way about Jaden Daniels where I was like, you're not just a runner, you have something going on there. And those players can be like all time greats where it's not just, you've been bigger than everyone, you've been faster than everyone, defenses didn't really care about you, college football didn't really care about you, the microscope got put on you and now we've stopped your legs and you're useless. But this guy is like, oh, you've turned this kind of hapless Mississippi State team into appointment viewing because we don't know what you're capable of in every play. And I can't wait to find out. I can't believe you made that comp because I held myself back from making that comp. While watching this game, I thought this feels like I'm watching 2023, Jaden Daniels, and I know that he is not at that level. Okay, I am not saying that Kamario is about to win the Heisman. I am not saying that he is about to do all the things that Jaden Daniels did. But how easy it feels for him and the things that he is doing well under control, make me think, wow, this is just like what Jaden Daniels would do in a given game where he would throttle a defense in the first half and make you think that you have no answers whatsoever. If you do this, he can do that. And you're just like, who is this cat? And how has he been doing this for so long? Now, obviously, Kamario is a redshirt freshman. Every time, second year player, I guess we're calling these guys now in this day and age. He's not even draft eligible yet. He is not Jaden Daniels starting in year five. So like some of the polish and stuff with him, sometimes he's going to take a sec that he probably shouldn't take. Like he had the fumble in this one, which he brought up in the post game. No, I'm not satisfied with his performance because I fumbled. Love hearing that. Love hearing all those things. But like the things that he makes look so easy were what Jaden Daniels made look so easy. And even kind of like his running style is kind of like him too a little bit. But I thought about this too, Will. I'm not again, he's not 20-23 Jaden Daniels yet. We're not saying that. But I don't think there are more than three SEC quarterbacks that I'd take over him right now. Trinidad for sure, I'd take over him. I would take Gunnar over him, just because I think Gunnar in some of these big time moments has been great. I think Gunnar under pressure is really, really good. For now at least, I'm still, especially with what Gunnar has done, I mean, just totally in control. First part of the season looks like a guy that's taking the next step. So I do not underrate Gunnar in the way that others do. I probably take Arch over him. But I'd have to think of, I would really have to think about that. The only reason that I would probably still take Arch over him is because Arch has had to come back in these games. And we just talked about his resilience and what he's done in some of these big time moments. Like a guy that is now already has a couple of top five victories in his career, like in his back pocket. But like, we're at least starting to get into these conversations of like, what does Kamario do that Arch doesn't do and stuff like that? I would take him over Lenora Sellers right now, you know? I would. And that's funny because they're going to be playing at South Carolina next week. And I'm really interested to see the side by side, different players with kind of like what they've done well to this point in their careers and what they've struggled with. But I'm serious. That's kind of like how I would put the hierarchy in the SEC right now. Maybe that's too soon. I kind of don't care. This would be a good week for some QB rankings. I think that might be a good week. Because it's rating like the Levy thing where it's like, I don't love him as a head coach, but he was pretty nice as an OC. And it's like, okay, comparing him to Sarkin that way. You can't lose a close game if your quarterback is just an alien and blows out the team in the first half. That's the thing. Yeah. It's like, oh, it doesn't matter if you just got a freak who could fall forward. Yeah. No, so I'm fascinated by Kamario. A guy that I thought we could see more of that I was excited to see in this game, Fluff Bothwell. Those two guys at the goal line, dude. I mean, Fluff is a guy who came over as a freshman from South Alabama. Unit, big old boy, 5'10, like 220, even like as a freshman coming in. So just- Not appropriately named. Not appropriately named. I don't like that name for him. Fluff. That's not a good running back, especially with his style type of name. Fluff Bothwell. He sounds like, I mean, again, some type of rugby player or something. But yeah, I think those guys inside the goal line are going to be just like NSFW throughout the year because if you can stop Taylor, this guy is meant to, again, he led the conference as a freshman in South Alabama in touchdowns and a lot of that was in the red zone because he just pushes the pile. So you almost got to look for that first in the red zone because if it's there, they're going to take it. So yeah, I'm fascinated by this offense. You know, again, we'll see on the defense, but let's get excited about it. Yeah, that's the other thing too, though, that is not going to be talked about at all because Kamario is Kamario. The Zekker net defense has looked great. I mean, they just went up to Minnesota and held them to 13 rushing yards at home. Minnesota has got a built offensive line. They pride themselves on the running game. To do that in their place, I don't think is a coincidence, man. They group tackled so well. I love some of the guys in the secondary too, like Isaac Smith and Kelly Jones. They have a group that is physical. There are a couple of plays in that game. There was one play where a Minnesota receiver caught a ball on the edge. I thought he was definitely going to have enough to gain. It looked like he had a lot of green grass ahead of him to be able to get the first down. It was like third and 12 or something like that. He catches it, I think, seven yards out. I'm like, oh, he's going to pick up the first down easily. You kind of mentally prepare for that. Guy's going to move the chains. And then like three Mississippi State defenders were on top of him, and they all laid the boom at the same time. I thought that has not been evident since Zacharnatt left. And it wasn't even evident when Zacharnatt was the head coach. That has not really been evident since 2022 with Mississippi State. I don't know that they're going to be one of the best units in the SEC, but I think their early returns so far have been really, really promising. So I'm fascinated to see what they do against South Carolina. Can you get after this South Carolina offensive line? Can you get after Lenora Sellers? Can you make those plays in space? Because they've checked a lot of these boxes already. And so I just feel like I'm having different overall projections for Mississippi State. The fact that they won that game as convincingly as they did, I don't think that's anything to scoff at. Yeah, I would love to be around PJ Fleck after a rushing performance like that. It's like evil ped lasso. That wasn't very road to you guys. All right. Look, we're all supposed to be pulling this one. No, I and team come on. Not one team, one heartbeat. None of that. They got pushed around. And so, yeah, I think starting to get interested by Mississippi State. Yeah, definitely. Very, very intriguing team to watch moving forward. All right, Tennessee, Georgia Tech. It turns out, Will, maybe you'll disagree with this. I don't think you will. I think Tennessee could have beat Georgia Tech without Arian Carter. Controversial take. It's taking a couple of guys at this game for Tennessee. They probably wouldn't have been fine. Yeah. Tennessee's second team defense might have been able to kind of put the clamps on Georgia Tech. Georgia Tech had one offensive touchdown on the first 58 minutes. So this game was not some like back and forth shootout. Tennessee dominated this game. And if not for one of the slowest developing rugby punts that you will ever see, where in Tennessee had a lefty punt blocked and Georgia Tech returned it for a touchdown, it would have been even more lopsided. This was a beat down in the trenches, Will. An absolute beat down. I don't know what the all 22 is going to show of some of these Deshaun Bishop runs, but man, did he have some running lanes to be able to work through. And he's obviously very, very good. You get him with a head of steam, forget about it. 299 Tennessee rushing yards. Faison-Brandon only completed 10 passes in a game that they put up 45 points. Josh Hyple will take that all day every day. I didn't think he had to do that much, but some of the tight window throws that he made were good. And it was a little bit kind of like Nico at Oklahoma 2024 in his first career road start. Like I thought that was kind of the positives, even though like the overall numbers aren't going to impress you that much. But man, he looked at least more, he looked like he had much more favorable surroundings than what Alberto Mendoza stepped into, where he was predetermining reads, Jim Knowles kind of had him in a blender. It felt like really good performance from the Tennessee defense, kind of what they could have hoped for, especially after the weaknesses Georgia Tech showed in that season opener. I think that the Vols could have a very 2024 like ground game. And that's not to say I think Deshaun Bishop is going to be the ICC offensive player of the year like Dylan Sampson was, but that offensive line was the backbone of that team. I mean, that offensive line, I should say, was the backbone of the offense. The defense was still really, really good, of course, two years ago. But that team averaged 226 rushing yards a game. This team might flirt with that. They really could. Two weeks that game against Texas, they host Texas. You know, Manning is going to be the guest picker, College Game Day, all that stuff. There'll be a lot of talk about that. But I am interested to kind of see what this Tennessee ground attack is going to look like moving forward, even though this was probably not going to be anywhere near the best run defense they'll see this season. So I love everything you just did to take away that putt block because you're right. Like, because in real time, that putt block was pretty nasty. It took 12 seconds for him to punt the ball. You're like, you're you're you got your back at your own end zone. What are you doing? You can't take this long. Get rid of it. Oh, guy claims to be Irish, hates Gaelic football. Look at this. Look at the appreciator of Gaelic football. Respect the strategy associated with the rugby punts. When it gets blocked, it's get this guy out of here, man. He doesn't get it. He's dang ginger. No, I'm just kidding. But I'm with you though. That is what the kind of ball appreciators viewed that as, because I'm right there with you. There's a block putt that went, man, come on, because it really didn't tell the story of the game. Like I want to see win rate on this game. This offensive corner for Georgia Tech is just in over his dang head. I feel like it's like Shula. It's like Shula 2.0. It's bad. Like it's bad. And Tennessee was just absolutely teeing off on them. And that's why I make the point. I'm talking to you about that. But you're right. It ultimately made the game almost not tell the story of the game for a second, because on a play to play basis, they were just getting cooked offensively, defensively. They couldn't really get anything going. And then boom, that happens. It's like, oh, we got a chance. It's like, no, you don't. Actually, Tennessee is going to get back out there. They're going to get their heads down and they're going to run the ball. So for that reason, I won't read too much into it because that's just he was just Georgia Tech was just neutered offense. We saw it against Colorado, which is kind of my take that don't think Colorado is very good. So when you do that back to back games, I think they just made a bad hire. And you could just see like the the remnants of what they tried to do last year with all the attempts and everything. But to be balanced, maybe just as Hayes is back there, he's literally the Marvin Harrison meme of like the Ferrari in the ghetto or whatever, the little trailer, because it's like every time he gets the ball, he can do anything. He's not really going to get the ball off because they don't know where to put the ball. But yeah, it's rough. This is as bad as is possibly. This is why hiring matters, because this feels like, OK, Mendoza's brother Hayes, how bad could it be? Pretty freaking bad. We're seeing it. This is as bad as it could be. So again, great win for Tennessee. They beat these boys at all phases. Put the third on the neck from the beginning. One little blip there, but it was kind of like comes in so bad for Georgia Tech that I don't want to over invest. But boy, Tennessee was better. When they showed the Mendoza parents again, they were in the crowd for this one. I thought, oh boy, they are in for such a different experience. Imagine going from watching your kid call play, have his play caller be Mike Shanahan in the Kurt Signetti offense, to having to watch whatever the hell this is that Georgia Tech is trying to do. Where poor Justice Haynes, his yards after first contact this year is going to be through the roof. I mean, golly, the beating that that guy is gonna have to take on just to get a four yard carry. I feel terrible for him because he's such a good player. But yeah, Alberto Mendoza is gonna be in over his head. And if he's gonna predetermine reads like kind of what he did in some of those spots where you're just not seeing guys, that's a sign one that you don't like, I mean, maybe it's a sign that you're trusting the scheme too much, but you need to trust the scheme less, I think at this point. Like you really do. Just get there and start freelancing. Just call direct staff. Just do your own thing, bud. Just, I don't know. Just kind of make up your mind as you go and you'll figure it out later. But yeah, it was rough for Georgia Tech. Really nice statement win for Tennessee to go on the road like that. And to do the things well that I would hope that if Tennessee is going to be a team that's relevant in November, they will continue to do those things well. All right. Arkansas and Utah, Will. All you need to know about this game, if you did not stay up until 2 a.m. Eastern like I did. Arkansas did not score a touchdown until the fourth quarter after it already benched KJ Jackson. And it let AJ Hill, the Memphis transfer come in and throw a ball that should have been an easy Utah interception, but instead, it was tipped into the arms of an Arkansas receiver. And who says Arkansas is cursed? That happened. Right? A little dessert. This is bad. Going from watching the drama of Ohio State, Texas and then turning on this game and seeing how bad it was. Oh, it was tough. It was really, really tough. Well, Arkansas is in year zero. I know year zero is kind of a thing of the past in this day and age of the transfer portal. And you could see a team like Oklahoma State that had 91 new players, an NCAA record, and they can beat Oregon in week two, even though they lost that game 69 to three last year. And you could say, hey, this is how quickly you can turn things around. That applies in some places. It does not apply at Arkansas, who is eliminated from SEC contention. I'm just going to say it. No chance. The first team in history to actually go to Utah and be eliminated in SEC is hard to do, but they did it. You cannot keep conference realignment straight. Who's in which conference? Who's in that conference? All I know is Arkansas going up to Utah and losing the way that they did eliminating them from winning the SEC this year. They're just a half game back. They're right ahead of Kentucky in SEC. Oh man, it wasn't quite as hopeless as the Notre Dame game last year, but it was too close to that, Will. It really was. This team has 1-11 written all over it. It does. Think about this too. I just brought up Oklahoma State having that turnaround. They have to face Tulsa. Arkansas has to face Tulsa. Tulsa beat Oklahoma State. Tulsa might just be a world beater. That's not good. They got the second most impressive win touch. Just kidding. The Morris line, the Chad Morris line, not the Mendoza line. It might be coming out. We might have to examine it post-year one, unless Ryan Silverfield's team makes significant improvements because they did not show up to Utah ready to go at all. We were joking about this years ago with how to hero check when they had a pretty solid team. It was like, oh boy, how do hero checks just say to these boys around the country loves to just schedule these road trips, get these boys some enrichment. Not fun when you don't have a good team, but you got to go up to the mountain to get your breaks off into it. It's not fun. Ma and Pa are asleep. There's nothing for him here. Don't watch this. You can go to sleep early. Arkansas fans were really upset. I went on with my guy, John Neighbors. I said, here's the good news. You have a chance to, in theory, have a team so bad that you're not going to have to be tortured the way that you were last year, and you could just get to go to sleep. Sometimes it's just better to go to sleep instead of be tortured and have to lose a one-score game. Your team's not going to be good enough to lose a one-score game against this Utah team that actually played a little bit sloppy overall. I thought their passing game wasn't really crisp early on. But that did not matter in the slightest. And I don't know what this team's identity is going to be. Last year, you had the four local quarterback. What's the best thing to do after a four local hangover? Just go to sleep. Don't go back out. Just have a year. Just go to sleep and try again. Wake up. Eat a bacon, egg and cheese. I had a bacon, egg and cheese this morning. The right bacon, egg and cheese that does the bacon the way that you want the bacon done. And everybody's different. But the way that you want the bacon done, it'll turn your hangover around. I don't have a hangover. I was thinking of people that had a bacon done their way. The Utah Utes anyway. Oh, Arkansas fans. You have other sports. You got other sports. All right. Saturday OG. I've got one. Bold. Good fellow by the name of Arch Manning. A guy that don't think he would say that was his best 60 minutes of football. But I do think he would tell you that was the most memorable 60 minutes of football that he has had in his career. I think that there are a lot of people that are still going to be out on him. I get why. You even saw it with the past of Kam Coleman. The throw that he makes where you already see the discourse of like, whose fault was it? Was it Kam Coleman's fault? Was it Arch's fault? Of course, that's naturally going to come up on an instance like that. But I do find myself feeling like this is a guy who has approached a lot of these things the right way. It's not to say that he has been immune to outside noise. I don't think he has been immune to outside noise at all. But I do think that he has approached a lot of things in the way that you would hope he would. I think that even going back to his decision to commit to Texas, when Texas is five and seven, he sees the end game and he doesn't just see, all right, well, where would be a fun place to go and have a college experience? Where do I feel like that coach is still going to be there? Oh, I know who my play caller is going to be. And like, I even thought that we might think that Sark has some issues at times as a play caller, but I think even that was kind of a smart decision. And, you know, the decision to come back at Texas and to not transfer and to do all these things that at this point of his career, I think he has earned criticism for the things that he has done on the field and his shortcomings there. And some of the things between his years within the confines of the game, I think you could definitely pick apart. But I just think that his approach has been the right one to have. So I found myself feeling like, man, good for that kid. I hope he enjoyed himself on Saturday night. He probably got a parking ticket somewhere because it's Austin, Texas. And why wouldn't you? But he's probably enjoying what was a very big moment in his football story. Yeah, Arch, Arch was that's the thing. Wasn't the best wasn't the worst played well enough to win. And I think that we have all these expectations. We have all these different things. But he showed he belonged instead of Texas. And on that note, Connor, you know, when you play fantasy baseball, like let's take Otani, you know, you have Otani and you draft him like pitcher, Otani batter, I'm going to do Steve Sarkisian, in quotes, play caller. I think that that was a big one. Like that was the story of the week in that, like I said, his back was against the wall. Everybody was against him. He hasn't exactly had like the late game stuff. He said like players make mistakes with turnovers and stuff. But I don't think he's had like the, oh, you can't manage a game from like a head coach standpoint. But from a play colleague standpoint, I think we've had lots of questions. It's kind of weird because usually it's reverse, right? And so I think on that Saturday, like I said, I could see the play sheet just being levitated out of his hands. He went up at the last second, just put two little fingers on it, grabbed it and said, hey, I'm still that guy. How do you like me now? And so yeah, so we love the sport, man. It's even in the expanded playoff era. So many things swing on one Saturday. I think for his career, doing what he loves is calling up plays, getting the boys celebrated in the end zone. He was able to do that in a way that hasn't been seen in a very long time since, Vince Young back in the day. Can you imagine if on that goal line situation, when they're down 23-17, he's got a chance to tie and take the lead. If he had tried to run some misdirection end around, and it was shades of 20-24 cotton ball, and it had gotten stuffed to lose the game, he would have fallen into a sinkhole at CKR with the pressure that would have collapsed under him. The things that would have been said about him nationally, as a play caller, as a coach, as a person in this sport would have been so significant Will, and he said that wasn't the case. They said, you know what? Our offensive line is feasting, this Ohio State defense is tired, don't get too cute right now. That would have been the worst possible moment to get too cute. And credit to him for recognizing, keep it simple, stupid. That's all you got to do in this spot. And it worked out. You're right. Him as a play caller, he's sitting there, what's the meme of the person that just is sitting there with a sword and it's an entire army that's coming at them? What's that? Is that from Game of Thrones? That's Sarkisian as a play caller pretty much at this point. Okay, even with his own fan base. So huge moment. You're right, and it's going to continue to be a storyline. Until Texas wins a national championship, just like it was with Rhyme Day, it's going to continue to be a storyline. Rhyme Day, of course, gave up play calling duties to Chip Kelly and now on a national championship. We'll see if Steve Sarkisian has a similar plan. But if you want to interview him, you got to sign up for Sark premium on the Longhorn Network, that'll be $20 a month, and then you can interview Sark. Great. Good Lordy. Georgia putting practice highlights behind a paywall. Welcome to the world that we're living in in 2026. But that's such a good business move because what fan base would you make more money off of? Practice highlights in Georgia. Actually, as a marketer, I do like that one because those sickos would buy that. I'd rather pay for dash cam footage of Georgia players than practice footage. I'm right there with you there. I would subscribe to that for lots of money. That would be electric. Oh, goodness gracious. All right, that'll do it. Email us, Yoji Kickoff at gmail.com. You got thoughts on today's episode. You think Sarkis overrated? You think Arch is overrated? We want to hear from you. Week three, Will, Ole Miss, LSU. I'm going to be there. You're going to be there. Can't wait for it. We have a great preview pod, loaded preview pod, a couple of star study guests. Ari Wasserman expected to join us. Hopefully, we're still going to be able to have Isaiah Stania join us as well. That's the plan. We'll see. We lost and change anything related to that, but that's going to be the plan for the preview pod. Please subscribe. If you're not already subscribed to The OG Kickoff, you should be subscribed. Subscribe as well on YouTube to the next round, as well as The OG Kickoff, where we have all of our shorts there. Follow us on Twitter. We have the next round. Follow that account, which everybody I'm sure already is. The OG Kickoff, CJ. Ogara. Go so hard. Thanks guys. Talk soon. Hi, I'm Andy Richter. I might not have won the Mirror Ball last season, but I did win the best gig ever. Dancing with the Stars official podcast. Get ready for all the inside scoop from the cast. All right, well, let's get to work. Behind the scenes secrets and more from every episode. That was smoldering. It's going to be iconic. All my dreams are coming true. Dancing with the Stars official podcast. New episodes every Thursday on Disney Plus and Hulu, and wherever you get your podcasts. This episode is brought to you by Caesar. If you're looking to serve your dog high quality dog food, just eat Caesar. Whether it's a protein rich beef recipe or savory chicken and vegetable dinner, Caesar offers a variety of delicious meals made with freshly crafted, slow cooked ingredients. All designed to support your dog's everyday nutrition without compromise. 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