What Can We Trust? Bill Connelly + College Football’s Biggest QB Problems

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Speaker 1: Welcome to the Solid Verbal.
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Speaker 2: The Solid Verbal. Come after me.
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Speaker 1: I'm a man.
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Speaker 2: I'm 40. I've heard so many players say, well, I want to be happy. You want to be happy for a day? Eat a steak.
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Speaker 3: It's that woof, woof. And now, Dan and Ty. Dan Rubenstein, I am back. I am in my humble abode. How are you, my good friend? How are you doing in my absence? Oh, man.
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Speaker 2: Whole family really misses you.
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Speaker 3: Is that true?
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Speaker 2: They were calling you Uncle Ty. They saw your gray hair and they were like, is that Grandpa Ty? And I was like, no, no, no. It's just something that happens when you're in your mid to late 40s. And it's going to happen to all of us. And you won't believe it, but I'm going to start showing my age at some point later in life. And no, they did ask where you went because you left in the middle of a kindergarten flag football, not in the middle of, but near the end of a kindergarten flag football game. And they were all very happy to have you in the house around and can't wait for you to return.
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Speaker 3: I do have a funny story about the flag football game, by the way.
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Speaker 2: Can we say we can save that for the bonus Thursday show?
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Speaker 3: We can save for the bonus Thursday show. We can. I want to send a shout out to our friend Adam Kramer, who I randomly randomly saw. I talked to him for a while. Great to catch up with him. Your exploits as a defensive coordinator.
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Speaker 2: Uh-huh.
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Speaker 3: We can unpack this a little bit more in the Thursday bonus. I just have to say, I know how seriously you've been taking it and how much you've been trying to coach the boys up, right?
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Speaker 4: Yeah.
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Speaker 2: How'd I do?
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Speaker 3: All you told me. in the run-up to this game is how you've been trying to coach them up to stay wide. Don't let anybody behind you or outside of you.
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Speaker 1: Yes.
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Speaker 3: I believe the first play from the game was like a 75-yard touchdown directly around the edge. I'm not wrong. You're not wrong.
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Speaker 2: Did you take that as a negative for me not being able to convince the kid, the five-year-old to set the edge?
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Speaker 3: I'm not even saying it's a negative. I just got a good chuckle out of it because I know that's the thing you have been worried about and immediately like a 75-yard touchdown around the edge.
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Speaker 2: All we've been trying to do is impress upon these awesome kids.
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Speaker 3: Truly.
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Speaker 2: They're all great. Is nobody gets outside of you. I, and this is technically football related. I'm trying to communicate with these guys on their level. Be like, you're an outside king and you're an outside king. Stay in your castle.
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Speaker 3: Outside leverage, right?
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Speaker 2: Nobody gets outside of your castle, right? Force them out of bounds. And you should, for the record, you should, to be complete with this, later on in the game, one of my outside kings leveraged a runner out of bounds because he basically had a foot on the sideline and the runner did not know what to do. And ran out of bounds. So I am getting through to these guys. But yeah, my diagnosis was correct. All they want to do is run outside. You got to leverage them in. You got to funnel them in. Hammer and smash. But we'll get there. We won the game. Everything's good. But we got some reps to take care of this weekend. Clean up and practice.
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Speaker 3: I did enjoy it. I appreciate the invite. It was a pleasure to see you and your family. Thank you.
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Speaker 2: Did I light an appropriate fire under my guys? Was I keeping them locked in?
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Speaker 3: I thought so.
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Speaker 2: Good.
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Speaker 3: I'm glad. I thought so. I thought you had a commanding presence there on the sideline.
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Speaker 2: That means a lot from you.
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Speaker 3: And I suspect a couple teams that we're going to talk about today could also use a commanding presence and presence such as yourself.
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Speaker 2: Maybe Tyson Summers too commanding for Colorado State? I hope I don't get the Tyson Summers treatment is what I'm trying to tell you.
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Speaker 3: Fair enough. Well, welcome one and all. It is great to be back here in the usual studio. It is great to be back with the footballer hood on today's episode of We're going to talk with our friend Bill Connolly.
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Speaker 1: Yeah.
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Speaker 3: We're going to try to talk with our friend Bill Connolly every Monday if schedules permit, because this is the time of year when his wonderful work in terms of analyzing stats and putting order to the college football universe has great value to us idiots. We love to lean on Bill to get his insight and understand what's going on around us. So we're going to talk with him a little bit, get a sense for what we feel we can trust or not trust. at this early stage, not as early as it used to be a couple of weeks ago, but now as we're into the second month of the season, what can we trust? What do we know? What do we not know? Bill will help us unpack that and much, much more. We also have a new Verballer Top 12 poll, which we're going to unveil here momentarily. Of course, you can vote every week at verballers.com if you want to sign up to help support the team. And then we're also going to talk about some trend lines, Dan. And this isn't necessarily an official type thing, but this is just off the cuff. The teams, the players, the situations that we are monitoring. I don't want to say buy-sell because buy-sell has been overdone. You had a Halloween theme thing that you wanted to go with. It is October now, and that's sort of the theme that we tend to gravitate towards when it comes to all things October. So we'll get into that and if there are any results from Saturday night. Saturday night was frenetic. We had a lot to discuss. We were recording differently because we were both in the same room. In many ways, that makes it easier. In some, it makes it harder. There's probably a little bit that we left on the cutting room before that we might want to get into. Does that sound about right?
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Speaker 2: Definitely. Absolutely.
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Speaker 3: So before we go any further, here is your Verballer top 12 as we enter week six. You know where we stand in our top 12, our top 25. We made that official on the Saturday night slash Sunday morning episode. Our Verballers out at verballers.com. vote. They take it very seriously. I feel like we have more people voting each week, which is fun. Here is the Rebollerhood's top 12. One through six, we've got Texas, Georgia, Miami up to three, Notre Dame down to four, Alabama up two, up to number five, and Ohio State down one to number six. Feels like the right grouping of teams, thereabouts. Then the back half of the top 12, the Rebollerhood has spoken. Indiana drops one down to seven. BYU up one to number eight. Texas Tech in this poll up three to number nine. Utah up three to number 10. LSU holding steady at number 11 where they were a week ago. And Ole Miss dropping two down to number 12. So that is your top 12. I was a little bit surprised at Texas Tech and Utah.
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Speaker 2: A lot of movement without playing games, right? With Ole Miss, with Texas Tech. And what did you say? Ohio State went on the road and beat a ranked team and dropped?
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Speaker 3: Well, relative to last week, yes. Dropped by one. But Alabama, it was clearly more a function of what they did. In their matchup with Mississippi State, they would jump up into the top five. People have spoken. The people have spoken. Yeah. This is the moment, again, where I encourage people, if you want to be part of the poll, you do have to sign up at Verballers.com. But we make that poll available every Sunday morning at 3 a.m. Eastern time. We cut it off at about 11 a.m. Eastern time on Monday, so you have a little bit over 24 hours to get in. 32 hours, I guess, to be exact, if my memory serves me, to get in and be part of the poll. But our folks take it very seriously. Our folks, I think, do a very, very good job. And I think maybe in your absence this coming Saturday, I'm going to put together something of a blue ribbon panel and use the Reballerhood out there on our Discord server as something of a sounding board. Because, you know, you're my right-hand man when it comes to putting the ballot out there. I've got my name on it. I got to make sure that I'm considering all angles of this. I know we're not perfect, but I'm going to see what I can do here this week and sort of in your stead put together, like I said, a blue ribbon panel.
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Speaker 2: I love that for you. I love that for the panel, and I love that for the world who are listening.
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Speaker 3: I mean, that's a little bit much, but.
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Speaker 2: I think it's terrific, Ty. I think it's a perfectly rational and reasonable way to look at it. Okay, where are we going next? Any thoughts on the top 12 otherwise from the Verballers?
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Speaker 3: I mean, we're going to talk with Bill Connolly in a little bit. And not to give away the game too much, we did prerecord the interview, but Bill's really high in Utah. And so when I look at this and when I see that Utah has now jumped up into this top 12, I am desperate to see Utah play in some higher leverage moments this year. Really, if you look at this poll on the back end of this, we've got BYU, we've got Texas Tech, and we've got Utah all in a row. I think those three can be interchangeable. It depends on the person, depends on how you view these results.
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Speaker 2: Could be the most consequential holy war.
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Speaker 3: It could be.
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Speaker 2: In quite some time, as we've mentioned. Yeah, with Utah playing like they have been. Yep.
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Speaker 3: It absolutely could be. So those three teams in particular, I think, hold the cards for a conference and are right now occupying three of these top 12 spaces in our poll. And I just feel like a lot could break there, you know, for the better in some cases, for the worse in others. That to me is my biggest question mark as I look at this. Not because I don't think any of these teams belong. I mean, Look, we said it on Saturday night, right? Like there's a big jumble of teams that we think could go a number of different directions. And I think these three are in there. But I just want to see them in more moments to get a better sense for who they are.
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Speaker 1: Fair.
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Speaker 2: All reasonable.
00:09:21
Speaker 3: Dan, what did you find when you went back, dug in, looked at the games that maybe were going on as we were recording? Or just games that we did not have a chance to discuss as much as you would have liked. Like I know Arizona ran one up on Cincinnati 34-7. That was a game that we didn't really have a chance to discuss. Baylor 55-19 over ASU. I sat next to a dude on the plane who was an ASU fan for some reason flying to Allentown. I don't really understand why. I'm assuming for business. But that he was like done too pleased with the showing that he saw from Sun Devils at home. We also had Fresno State winning by 20 on the road against Washington State. That's meaningful because it sets up a big match this week with Boise State, a team that they've had their number over these last couple, you know, seasons here. We had a Temple win over South Florida. which was a really nice win for them. And a couple other games here that we just didn't really fully unpack. So I'm just curious what jumped out to you before we move on.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, obviously the performances in both of those games, and I believe it's the Grand Canyon State by Arizona and Arizona State. Arizona, I believe, is now going to be without their number one receiver, Trey Spivey, which is a pretty big bummer because he was Noah Fafita's go-to dude. But Arizona certainly looked good if not very good, against Cincinnati. We talked about it a little. We were like, you think you're good? Go to Tucson at night. See how that works out. Deep in the Sonoran Desert. And Baylor thought they were good and took it to ASU. And that was a turnover thing for ASU. That was a sloppiness thing. And Baylor just jumped on the opportunities. When they were afforded those turnovers, they, I think, immediately scored on a number of them. And so a super impressive performance all around from the Bears, as we are talking about. you know, what the Big 12 could look like with what I think it's reasonable to say Texas Tech looks a little bit more vulnerable than we had thought going into the season. BYU looks strong, but didn't put up a huge offensive performance. Obviously, the weather wasn't great against TCU. But yeah, in terms of the night action, I think those are the two that stood out to me. San Jose State went to the islands and won that one. Hawaii has been pretty disappointing this year. San Jose State is slow start, but they've been all right. San Diego State was able to get the win against at least a good Texas State offense. And San Diego State has had an up and down season. You mentioned the Fresno situation, both of the Louisiana games at night. That would be Louisiana beating Arkansas State. Louisiana Tech with a nice win against Army, holding on to win that one. And I think that's sort of it from the night action, but it was another day. And I don't know if you want to get into this, the game after Bill or before Bill of sort of Checking in on quarterback confidence situations.
00:12:16
Speaker 3: Why don't we run our interview with the great Bill Connolly?
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Speaker 2: Yeah, let's do that.
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Speaker 3: All right, here to help us make heads or tails, try to make heads or tails of where things stand entering College Football Week 6. We are very thrilled to bring back our good friend from ESPN.com, who we have known for a good long time. Mr. Bill Connolly, welcome to the show, my friend. How are you?
00:12:38
Speaker 1: I'm very good.
00:12:40
Speaker 3: How about you guys? We are doing well. Missouri. Missouri. I could think of no one better to ask about Missouri than Bill Connolly. How good is this team? Is this team good? How should we rank this team? Because there was a lot of outrage, as you I'm sure remember, just a week ago about Mizzou being in the top 25. Yes, Dan picked Mizzou over Florida. I did not go to quite that. I didn't. To quite that degree with things. Apparently you didn't either. but they get the job done in very convincing fashion. And now suddenly, as we're sitting there on a Saturday night trying to put together a top 25 ballot, it feels like we've got a jumble of teams from like 12 to 30, let's say, that all kind of feel the same and no one has any idea what order to put them in.
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Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, I think that's basically, to some degree, I guess that's probably always the case.
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Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean, just.
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Speaker 4: Looking at SP Plus at this exact moment in time, I mean, you've basically got like Four and a half points separating number eight and 14. Then you've got like six points separating like number 15 and number 30.
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Speaker 1: Like they really are.
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Speaker 4: Just depending on home field and a bounce or two. Any of those teams can beat any of the others. And we're still trying to figure out exactly who we can count on from week to week. And with Missouri, I mean.
00:14:05
Speaker 4: It definitely confused me last week when Missouri falls just short on the road against another ranked team, falls six spots, and that's apparently proof of a national conspiracy against the entire ACC or whatever that was that was going on last week. It seemed like it was polls working exactly as polls have always worked. But, I mean, they were also 25th in SB Plus at the end of last week. I thought they were about where they should be. It was just we'd seen– We'd seen kind of the floor. We'd seen kind of the version of the program that Missouri fans were worried about against Troy, not against Mississippi State.
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Speaker 1: They were fine against Mississippi State.
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Speaker 4: They almost beat Mississippi State in Starkville, and they're not Alabama, but.
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Speaker 1: They're pretty good.
00:14:42
Speaker 4: But against Troy, you saw a team where the timing was really poorly off with the passing game. Run game wasn't– we're still trying to figure things out. It was coming along, but it wasn't great. And then the defense– Basically got burnt deep a couple times and missed a few tackles here and there, but nothing horrible. It wasn't a great team. Then on Saturday, you see the opposite of that. You see a team that is running like Missouri fans hoped they would run all year, even without Ahmad Hardy. We knew Jamal Roberts was pretty damn good, and he started the year slowly, but he wasn't slow on Saturday. Passing game was sharp. Defense was just mean. Didn't get burned over the top, but got hit by some misdirection during the scripted portion in the first drive, which made it really seem like Buster Faulkner is just the greatest play caller in the history of the world. But then the script ran out, and Missouri didn't fall for anything anymore, and it became just who's more physical, and they were way more physical.
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Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:15:39
Speaker 4: Um, yeah, you've seen ceiling and floor. I'm not going to pretend you're going to see ceiling every week here, but anytime they play like that, they're probably going to win.
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Speaker 2: So more to that, because you didn't necessarily have Missouri winning that game, especially with some of the injuries on the defense that were reported going into the game. What are five weeks in some of the more surprising performances, both to your brain and to what the numbers predicted, um, Um, and if you just want to like gloss over Oregon, Oklahoma state, that's whatever, um, that's your choice, not mine, but like, um, no, what, what are the surprising individual performances with obviously very limited data points?
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Speaker 4: Yeah. I mean, we've had, we've had kind of milestones along the way here, UMass, um, beating, uh, Rutgers in week one and then, uh, Oklahoma state beat in Oregon. It has been, I mean, I think the main story here from the last couple of weeks is like, it's really hard to be awesome twice in a row in the sec where.
00:16:33
Speaker 1: You look great.
00:16:35
Speaker 4: You pat yourself on the back a little bit and then some other teams ready to absolutely punch you in the face. So we'll see about Missouri A & M on Saturday.
00:16:44
Speaker 1: But I do think like Florida... looked incredible.
00:16:48
Speaker 4: The first four games their first four games of the season one of the outliers of the season in that regard they were first in points per possession towards last week and i was telling you all my buddies at the tailgate beforehand i'm like you know who were convinced missouri is going to lose by 64 or whatever um like a florida's defense isn't good missouri will score points and b we have absolutely no what happened no idea what happens if aaron filo gets pressured because he hasn't been pressured all year they haven't been It's like every second down has been second and three. Every third down has been third and one. So I said that's kind of the path there is you hurry him up and you frustrate Jane Baugh and there you go. And they certainly did that way more than I expected. But at this point, we know that Ohio State's awesome.
00:17:32
Speaker 1: Georgia's awesome. Yeah.
00:17:35
Speaker 4: Notre Dame's awesome. Indiana falls asleep, but is awesome. Alabama, I think, is awesome. Those five, for sure, are awesome.
00:17:43
Speaker 2: Miami, I think.
00:17:44
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, sorry.
00:17:46
Speaker 4: Miami, I thought I mentioned them. Third, Miami as well. Although, I mean, competition.
00:17:52
Speaker 1: Finally ramps up for them now. Yep.
00:17:54
Speaker 4: And so we'll learn maybe a little bit more about Miami. But I mean, those teams are just really good. And then after that, it's teams that can look really good and have obvious concerns like Texas's run game, LSU's run game, kind of, or just inconsistency on offense overall. Oregon's defense that, you know, last year it didn't really disrupt anything, but they swarmed and tackled well this year. We saw what happens if you don't disrupt anything, and also don't swarm and tackle very well against Oklahoma State. You know, Texas offense, I do not trust at all, and nor should I. So, yeah, you've got a bunch of teams that can look really good but have fatal flaws maybe in about five teams that are ahead of the pack.
00:18:37
Speaker 2: Are you ready to declare that you either fell for something again... Are you ready to declare that you planted the flag that you are seeing something change in this specific team? And even though everybody's saying, well, they're always going to do this. Good luck falling forward again. And then you are right. Like, are there any I don't know what the opposite of a victory lap is, but I guess that would be a like an L. I don't know. What, where do you stand personally after the first five weeks in terms of how you interpreted, interpreted possible changes?
00:19:16
Speaker 1: Well, I didn't think.
00:19:19
Speaker 4: Like there weren't any, there were many teams that I was just absolutely sure about, but there were teams that where I was like, you know, I know what I might be stepping into here and, you know, but I'm going to step anyway.
00:19:28
Speaker 1: Like A & M was a.
00:19:29
Speaker 4: Big one where I knew they had a remodeled offensive line. I knew Marcel Reed, there was no guarantee he was going to get better. Um, But I still saw a whole bunch of potential for a good defense. And I thought the run game was still going to be pretty good. I thought he had enough options that receiver that a couple of really good ones were going to emerge. And then a couple of guys got hurt, obviously.
00:19:50
Speaker 1: Um, but I still.
00:19:52
Speaker 4: It was one of those, like, I was totally fine with A & M being a top 10 team, knowing that they might look, make that look really stupid really quickly. Um, so that was certainly one where, You know what the downside is, and then you see more of it than you expected. But, I mean, otherwise, I wouldn't fall for USC. I hated the Gary Patterson hire. I thought that was a ridiculous hire, and it hasn't. I mean, granted, they looked okay against Washington, but only okay, and Washington.
00:20:16
Speaker 1: Has not had a good offense.
00:20:17
Speaker 2: Their own issues, yeah.
00:20:18
Speaker 4: Yeah, so I didn't really fall for that one. Tennessee was another one where I'm like, man, if they just kind of have a baseline, a bare minimum, a quarterback, then they seem.
00:20:28
Speaker 1: To have a whole heck of a lot else.
00:20:30
Speaker 4: And they were still trying to figure out if they have a bare minimum, a quarterback, and they had to make a change. So there are teams like that that I think we're still in wait and see mode. At Alabama, I was ready to, like, after about, like, I needed to see about three Keelan Russell drives, and then I was ready to absolutely bury Alabama, except then he looked awesome. So I'm like, oh, never mind. And then he just keeps getting better now. And so, you know, they finally catch a break. They're finally, you know, living up to their potential, apparently.
00:20:59
Speaker 1: But they're fantastic this year.
00:21:01
Speaker 2: Let's pull the string on pleasant surprises, right? Let's let's live in the positivity jacuzzi here. Like Northwestern's offense, Baylor's defense, by the way, we should like round of applause here. Like where are the pleasant surprises in terms of individual unit performances essentially through September and a week of October to you?
00:21:21
Speaker 4: So I was getting ready to post this on Twitter just because people always nag me about it. Um, but I, you know, we're still in the point of the season where preseason projections are pretty heavy in, in SP plus.
00:21:31
Speaker 1: And I do that. People keep telling me, well, that's wrong. You shouldn't do that.
00:21:34
Speaker 4: Like, no, I don't like it. I do it because it makes all the predictions better. Um, And if you just take off all the training wheels and leave the data to itself, your projections are going to get much worse. But it's kind of a good way of looking at early form. And the fact that Utah would be second nationally in SP plus with no preseason projections kind of. Kind of tells a story there. Number one defense. They've been absolutely dynamite so far. UCLA would be fifth in offense and 10th overall if we took off all the guardrails.
00:22:06
Speaker 1: You're right.
00:22:07
Speaker 4: Baylor would be ninth defensively, which is mind-blowing considering how terrible they've been defensively in recent times.
00:22:14
Speaker 1: They've just been absolutely dynamite.
00:22:16
Speaker 2: Their number performance-wise, by the way, they're 14th nationally in points per drive allowed.
00:22:21
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:22:22
Speaker 2: Unforeseen by even the brightest-eyed, bushy-tailed Baylor fan heading into the season.
00:22:29
Speaker 4: I mean, there was no reason to think that would happen. And I mean, I guess it's still relatively early, but that seems pretty real. Northwestern would only be 16th offensively, but 16th offensively, Northwestern, that's pretty wild in itself. So it is kind of a fun list. I do like looking at New Mexico being 13th. North Dakota state being 15th and James Madison being 16th. That's the world I want to live in. Um, and I am going to push as hard as I can. The idea of like, not that I have any power whatsoever, but game day needs to go to Albuquerque for North Dakota state, New Mexico here in about three and a couple more.
00:23:05
Speaker 2: Totally agree.
00:23:07
Speaker 4: Um, that would be absolutely incredible. Um, so like, those are all really, really fun pits.
00:23:13
Speaker 1: Pitt would be 14th and SP plus at the moment.
00:23:15
Speaker 4: And, you know, RIP, uh, Heinzel's knee, but, um, That's still a pretty cool thing, and they're doing it mostly with defense, so maybe they can hold on without Heinzel. So lots of really pretty fun early stories. It's just depth and talent usually win over 12 games, so we'll see who sustains what as we go along here.
00:23:34
Speaker 3: Bill, we get a lot of questions about the SEC and the Big Ten. We're starting to get more questions about the Big 12 and the ACC. So I'm going to pose two very specific questions to you about those conferences.
00:23:45
Speaker 1: All right.
00:23:46
Speaker 3: Over on the Big 12 side, Tell me the three best teams in your opinion, or I guess in the opinion of the spreadsheet, whichever you prefer.
00:23:53
Speaker 2: That's a command, Ty. Okay, this is a prompt.
00:23:56
Speaker 3: Do it. Build GPT. And then secondly, over in the ACC, who are the second and third best teams after Miami? Because those seem to be, I would say, where most of the questions that I've seen are centered. The top of the Big 12, and what is that supposed to look like? And then the teams after Miami in the ACC.
00:24:18
Speaker 4: Well, I do think Big 12 can still– like Houston looked really good the other day and they jumped up to 16th in SP +. So maybe there's still something. Arizona is still potentially top 20. Kansas State, I'm about to give up on Kansas State because they just– they refused to look the same twice and it's driving me crazy. And I thought I trusted them and then they looked pretty poor.
00:24:39
Speaker 1: So who knows?
00:24:40
Speaker 4: But I do think– I mean the top three is pretty clear to me in some order. It's got to be– Utah, Texas Tech, BYU still. I don't trust Tech, especially compared to last year. The offense really is just strange. Just kind of looks great and then makes a dumb mistake and then looks great and makes a dumb mistake. But the defense, I do think, is getting better by the week. So I do think they're still in that top three. I kind of go Utah. I mean, that is, I guess, a numbers pick because I just said where they would rank. But they're ninth overall in SB plus tax 11th and BYU six 14th. And I still think there's a little separation there. I need to see more from BYU's offense moving forward. I know it was super rainy and at TCU last week. So maybe that was just a one off. But that was at least a little concerning until we till we get another sample.
00:25:29
Speaker 1: The ACC, yeah. I mean, I figure we know who's number one. Sure.
00:25:33
Speaker 4: But I think what's funny from a numbers standpoint is Pitt emerged clearly like, okay, they're absolutely number two and then their quarterback gets hurt and we'll have to see what else. But beyond that, I still think Virginia Tech's good. That turned into a Pitt game for a minute there in the second half the other day and they didn't handle it well and then they responded. But I do think they still have um, a lot of things to like kind of wobbling on Louisville, even though they've been a little, uh, unfortunate. I, you know, so I'm, I'm, I guess it's either Pitt or SMU, but honestly, I'm, I want to see more from Duke. Um, they kind of disappeared there for a second. Like, was it a bi-week and a cupcake game or whatever?
00:26:13
Speaker 1: Right. But they started the year. Great.
00:26:15
Speaker 4: Nate Shepard gives, has given them a chance for, you know, the passing game that, you know, had to unexpectedly start over this year. Um, there's maybe starting to figure things out in that regard. Um, Um, they thumped Stanford, they beat Illinois back when we thought that was impressive. Um, like I do think they have quite a bit to offer and if they can now keep going, like beat Georgia tech, beat North Carolina, beat a wobbly Virginia, et cetera, then maybe they're the second best. But I think right now I'd probably trust SMU or Pitt the most.
00:26:44
Speaker 3: Dan, I can tell you definitively that checking my mentions over the last 24 hours, most of the conversation has centered around our handling of ACC teams in the poll. specifically Pitt.
00:26:58
Speaker 2: It's your name on the poll, Ty.
00:26:59
Speaker 1: I don't know.
00:26:59
Speaker 2: I just, I can't be held responsible. I'm just, I'm just here for the ride.
00:27:03
Speaker 3: I've been using we when I respond to people trying to impress upon them that this is a joint effort. However, because our good friends out of college football Reddit put their cool little graphical matrix together, and it's under my name, they've got the PSU logo next to it, which of course means conspiracy.
00:27:21
Speaker 2: The AP does that as well, to be clear. They're just reprinting, yeah.
00:27:25
Speaker 1: I do hate that, by the way.
00:27:26
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's very odd.
00:27:27
Speaker 3: But because of that, yes, all the Pitt people have come after what they believe to be a bit of a conspiracy on our end. So that's fine. I've been trying to be nice to people in response. But that aside, Pitt, Duke, SMU, Wake Forest, those four teams in particular, are the ones that I think I'm getting the most number of questions about. The Pitt versus Duke thing specifically, because we have Duke ranked, we don't have Pitt ranked, and there seems to be a fair amount of, let's say, confusion on that front. Now, we like Duke. To your point, Bill, we like Duke early. Nate Shepard's been really good. I think Duke has been solid in their own right. Pitt has now sort of emerged. They're 5-0. They're in the ACC. They're a P4 team. The questions are like, how can you not rank these guys? What are we doing here? So for sure, if they go and knock off UNC with a backup quarterback, a 6-0 P4 team, we'd be nuts to not put them in the top 25. I think Dan would agree with that. But as you look at those two teams specifically, how do you kind of grade them out and how do you make heads or tails of just who you personally, having watched all these games and keeping track the way that you do, how do you kind of suss out that matchup, hypothetically speaking?
00:28:41
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean.
00:28:42
Speaker 4: It's really hard to really differentiate between them so far just from a stat standpoint. Like Duke is 29th in offensive points per drive, 5th on defense. Pitt's 25th on offense and 10th on defense. They've been very, very similar teams. I guess maybe you could say– I guess Pitt's schedule has maybe been a hair harder now that they played at Virginia Tech. But it was funny also the kind of the dueling– The yelling about it. I think Virginia Tech made that field goal and they should have won. You are absolutely underrating Pitt.
00:29:13
Speaker 1: Right, right, right.
00:29:14
Speaker 4: You know, can't do both here. They're either unbeaten or they should have lost that last game. But you can kind of see whatever you want. And I mean, like, They're solid teams. You can rank them, but like the ACC is well behind the other conferences just in terms of like average SP plus rating. Or I think if I remember right, like how they perform in non-conference, ACC was, I think, pretty far below the biggest.
00:29:40
Speaker 1: 12 in that regard too. So like, you know, you don't have to rank ACC teams.
00:29:46
Speaker 4: They'll, you know, separate each other and they'll start beating each other up or whatever. And we'll find out who might be, who's more likely to be good. But the ACC is not exactly the best conference in the country. You don't have to rank a team just because they're, you know, six and O or five and.
00:29:59
Speaker 1: O or whatever.
00:30:00
Speaker 3: Okay. G6. You said earlier you want to live in that world where game day is going to Albuquerque.
00:30:08
Speaker 1: Yes.
00:30:09
Speaker 3: G6 teams, if you're giving me a ranking of the top five in your view, I would imagine Boise's in there. I'd imagine North Dakota State's in there. I'd imagine there's some conversation over JMU. What does that look like From your standpoint.
00:30:26
Speaker 2: Maybe just putting Jesse Legree as his own item.
00:30:29
Speaker 3: He's his own guy.
00:30:30
Speaker 2: For Oregon State.
00:30:30
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:30:32
Speaker 4: Oregon State's, like, they're playing a different, like, they think it's like 2012 offensively. And I'm absolutely here for it. New Mexico's kind of looking better and better by the week. Like, they're pretty shocking. And honestly, I mean, obviously, Oklahoma's not amazing top 10 caliber or anything.
00:30:53
Speaker 1: But, I mean.
00:30:54
Speaker 4: driving to tie the game in Norman, you're still going to get a little bit of credit for that. And if they want to start beating everybody 61-7 or whatever it was on Saturday, I think they'll make a pretty good case for themselves. But until last week, I was probably most trusting... of James Madison and North Dakota State and Boise State. So I think it's those three. I think it's New Mexico. I think it's– I mean Memphis is still– they've only lost to Boise. And they– it seems like one of those years where everybody in the American is going to take turns defeating themselves. And that's usually where Memphis is more than happy to do the same. But USF stepped in it. Army and Navy have both kind of eliminated themselves. So I think Memphis– UTSA looked pretty poor last week as well. So I do think Memphis has a nice path to 11-0-1 and 12-0-1. But I think if you're just asking me, Battle Royale, who's winning the most games, I'm probably still leaning towards New Mexico, JMU, North Dakota State in some order. I haven't decided what I think about Boise.
00:31:54
Speaker 3: Okay.
00:31:55
Speaker 2: Why have you not decided what you think about Boise yet?
00:31:57
Speaker 4: Well, I mean, first of all, they got dominated statistically by Oregon. Anytime I want to defend the G5, I'm talking about how they almost beat Oregon or whatever, but that was statistically not incredibly close.
00:32:08
Speaker 3: Okay.
00:32:09
Speaker 4: And so like, I maybe don't give them a ton of credit for that one. Like SP plus, like based on the stats, the game produced, that's they saw SP plus saw that as a 21 point loss, not a seven point loss. Um, and, and honestly pulling away from Memphis was, was very impressive, but I think just like, I don't know, I don't see them standing out anyway. They're like 40, they're 42nd and I'm points per drive 59th on defense. They're, they're, they're good offensively, but they don't make a ton.
00:32:35
Speaker 3: Of big plays.
00:32:36
Speaker 4: They give up a ton of big plays sometimes, um, Fresno State is going to tell us a lot this week. Fresno's been kind of all over the map, but if they can handle Fresno pretty easily, then that'll.
00:32:45
Speaker 1: Kind of confirm.
00:32:45
Speaker 3: And Fresno's had their number the last couple of years.
00:32:48
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:32:48
Speaker 4: So I think that'll be a big test passed.
00:32:53
Speaker 1: But all told, tell.
00:32:55
Speaker 4: Me who wins New Mexico and North Dakota State in a couple of weeks, and I'll tell you who my favorite G6 team is.
00:33:00
Speaker 3: Fair.
00:33:01
Speaker 2: Ty mentioned looking at the ACC and figuring out who's number two and three, a conference that I think has not an identical question, but an identically maybe fascinating tier is right now in this moment, it seems like there's a drop off perhaps after Ohio State and Indiana in the Big Ten that a number of the teams we figured would be either right there with them or maybe a tier below them. So Oregon, USC, Oregon with quarterback health and defensive issues, USC obviously with their own defensive issues. Michigan, we thought maybe that they could be in that second tier, but they've got their own issues. It's a long-winded way of saying there is a lane for somebody to sort of end up in that second tier, be that dangerous team, maybe not built and coached in the way that Ohio State and Indiana appear to be right now. But of those teams who are winning games right now, you're talking, I guess, Oregon USC, obviously. but Nebraska and Minnesota and Wisconsin and UCLA, if you want to count Northwestern in there after a dominant win against Penn State. I mean, you still have to have Iowa there, but it's not been a great offensive year for the Hawkeyes once again. I don't know if I'm forgetting anybody in that conversation. I think that's where the drop-off kind of is performance-wise this year. Who has that lane to maybe get to 9-3, 10-2 if everything continues to break right for them?
00:34:25
Speaker 4: Well, I think I'm really glad that both Nebraska and UCLA are playing really big games this week. Nebraska's got host in Indiana. UCLA's playing Oregon. That's really good because I can hold off on talking myself into them one more week until we see that game. But right now, I mean, we'll see. People fall for Nebraska sometimes, but not many teams exceed or overachieve against projections five straight weeks to start the season. And Nebraska's done that.
00:34:53
Speaker 1: Now, I mean.
00:34:54
Speaker 4: It's like by three points here, four points here. They're not pulling a Georgia State who is apparently like legitimately awesome.
00:35:00
Speaker 2: Shout out Del McGee. Yeah.
00:35:02
Speaker 1: Projected 137th.
00:35:03
Speaker 4: So they're just going to keep overachieving by 20 points or whatever. But, I mean, Nebraska, against a schedule that hasn't featured a top 60 team yet, obviously, they have treated mediocre to bad teams like a top 15 team is supposed to. Um, and sometimes, sometimes we find out that that just means you're able to take advantage of athletic advantages or whatever else. And then you play, uh, up here and you don't look nearly as good, or sometimes it means your top 15 team. So, um, you know, we'll find out with Nebraska. I'm, I'm betting, you know, I don't, I don't think they're top 15 team, but they've just from, from a stat standpoint, they've absolutely done everything they can. with the schedule at hand so far. So I'm really excited about how they'll look against Indiana, not necessarily if they'll win or not, but just if they, if they hold their own and they take advantage of the little lapses, Indiana seems to be given most teams and they lose by seven or 10 or something. I'm going to take that as a, a really good sign that Nebraska at least has a chance to 10 and two, their schedule's not awful.
00:36:04
Speaker 3: Like, well, no, nevermind.
00:36:05
Speaker 4: They'll have, they'll stop to be in either Oregon or Ohio state probably, but like nine and three is absolutely on the table.
00:36:12
Speaker 2: And you see the play. I was going to say, UCLA has been a machine. And Dan Lanning compared them, whether or not it was like the old Lou Holtz blowing smoke before a game. But he said they reminded him of where Indiana was, obviously, with the parallel between the James Madison connection with Cignetti and Bob Chesney. What do the numbers say? What do the performances on screen in person say about what UCLA's ceiling year one could be?
00:36:38
Speaker 4: They're kind of the opposite of Nebraska. Nebraska, all their stats are like, yeah, they're pretty good at stuff. They're pretty good at everything. They don't have any obvious weaknesses. UCLA, meanwhile, is first in yards per carry, first in rushing success rate. eighth in passing success rate. Let's see, eighth in passing success rate allowed, I should say. Eighth in completion rate allowed. They are dynamite running the ball. They're dynamite stopping the pass. They are 103rd in passing success rate. And I'm going to assume that catches up to them at some point. Kind of a Florida situation last week where we haven't ever seen them off schedule, so we don't know what happens when they are, but we.
00:37:15
Speaker 1: Probably won't like the answers when we see it.
00:37:18
Speaker 4: But if they continue to defend at kind of a top 30-ish level and their schedule is really, even if they lose to Oregon, who has their own defensive issues, and we'll see if.
00:37:28
Speaker 1: They can knock UCLA off schedule, I guess.
00:37:30
Speaker 4: But, I mean, after that, they don't have another top 15 team. They don't have another top 20 team in SP Plus until USC at the end of the year, and USC might not be top 20 by that point. So I think UCLA has the better path to 10-2, But they also have more absolute weaknesses. And it's going to be really interesting to see kind of the tension between the good and the bad there.
00:37:52
Speaker 2: Let's keep going there. Who do we know the least about? Who are you just like, man, I really hope it's something. And you mentioned that with Nebraska and UCLA getting big games this week, which obviously will inform a lot more. But based basically on schedule and circumstance. We haven't really talked Indiana and the defending champs and have not really played a team other than Northwestern that is sort of built similarly with similar expectations. Amongst those teams, who stands out to you?
00:38:23
Speaker 4: I mean, yeah, Indiana might be the answer, but I'm kind of leaning... Most of my opinion of Notre Dame is based on last year still. Okay. I mean, obviously, maybe that win over Wisconsin now looks better, although I think Wisconsin's just getting better. I don't think they were that good in week one. But now you at least have the one kind of top 50-ish win there, and they looked really good. North Carolina, they kind of let them hang around. Obviously, that was never in doubt, but they were also not really landing a knockout blow, and suddenly they're giving up points.
00:38:55
Speaker 1: But I still.
00:38:57
Speaker 4: look at the quarterbacks and look at the quarterback and look at the offensive line. And, you know, Micah Gilbert's going, like, making plays downfield. And that was my biggest concern is do they have a Malachi Fields? Do they have a guy who can get open deep? And if they have all those things, I'm just going to keep assuming everything works out great for Notre Dame. But we technically don't know, either because the sample's been kind of wonky.
00:39:19
Speaker 1: Obviously, the run game's still a question mark. But I'm just going to keep trusting Notre Dame.
00:39:25
Speaker 2: Where, just purely from a numbers perspective, you talked about outperforming.
00:39:29
Speaker 4: Who else?
00:39:30
Speaker 2: Has outperformed who else, you know, through a month and I I'll give you time to, to bring that up on your screen.
00:39:35
Speaker 1: Dial up the spreadsheets.
00:39:36
Speaker 2: Dial up the spreadsheets. But look, there's a case for all sorts of different hires or transfers that have made absolute huge, huge explosive effects on numbers, on wins, on performance, on vibes, whatever. Where are those out performances so far?
00:39:54
Speaker 1: This is a fun list.
00:39:55
Speaker 4: So the teams that are five for five this year in terms of over-performing against SP +, Georgia State at 24.7 points per game, which is amazing. Oregon State at 15.7 points a game. James Madison at 13.9. New Mexico at 10.7. Nebraska at 9.5. And Temple at 9.0. Temple lost a couple of super close games, which allowed me to drop in there like, hey, you might want to watch this USF game just in case. And then they helped me out.
00:40:27
Speaker 1: Yes.
00:40:29
Speaker 4: So those are the five for five teams. Four for four, you've got UCLA Northwestern still. You've got Sam Houston, strangely. And then Utah and Duke, which you would have figured Utah would be on that list if they were Second in, you know, no preseason projections, SP plus.
00:40:43
Speaker 1: But it's a lot of teams.
00:40:44
Speaker 3: It's really funny.
00:40:45
Speaker 4: I mean, SP plus is doing really well this year in terms of like median error or whatnot. But when I think with the, with rosters and everything else being what they are, when you're wrong, when, when one of the preseason projections is wrong, um, it could be extremely wrong and it could take quite a while for it to catch up to those teams.
00:41:01
Speaker 1: So we've got quite a few that are still, uh, beating their projections.
00:41:04
Speaker 2: Also, by the way, sorry, Ty, to interrupt on it. Do we just name the underperform list like the Texas A & M list or like the Oklahoma list? Like how do you like if I if I were to like pay money, could we do that? Like like as a branding thing, who are the the underperformers against projections?
00:41:21
Speaker 1: Unfortunately, it would be the Hawaii list.
00:41:23
Speaker 3: Oh, I was so in.
00:41:24
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was, which is not nearly as fun.
00:41:27
Speaker 4: The teams that are over so far are Hawaii Navy and Old Dominion. Um, USC is only one for six, so we can, we can call it the USC list. Um, and then we've got, let's see, um, we've got a whole bunch that are one for five, like South Carolina, Illinois, Washington, Cal, Texas tech. Well, Texas tech and Indiana are both only one for five. Um, but, but with Indiana, it was a lot of, you know, fall asleep and miss projections by three or four points kind of deal. But they're still only one for five. So, you know, we'll see if that means anything. Arkansas, Arizona, Purdue, kind of semi-predictable with a couple of those. But yeah, it's only Hawaii Navy and Old Dominion are over so far.
00:42:14
Speaker 3: Bill, I know you have a fond appreciation for all things college football and college football history. I've seen you write, I can't even tell you how many articles about how one season compares to another. Hmm. How does this season so far compare to some of the other seasons that we have seen in recent memory? We all want to go back to the days, the halcyon days of the crazy, what was it?
00:42:36
Speaker 1: 2007.
00:42:36
Speaker 3: Yeah, 2007 season where just everything broke and we had all these teams beating one another, jumbled at the top, resorting week in and week out. Where does 2026 rank in the Bill Connolly ranking of seasons and how does it compare to some others that at least come to mind?
00:42:54
Speaker 4: Well, here's where I always tell myself with 07, we only had the one giant upset in September. Things didn't really get going for a while. So you never know. But and I mean, coming out of the gate with UMass Rutgers and Oklahoma State, Oregon felt like just an earthquake. We have stabilized since then. But I mean, with the schedules being what they are. Like, Ohio State doesn't have to underachieve by that much to be 9-3 and end up in a weird place playoff-wise. And Oregon, obviously, I think I'm trust Oregon. Like, we were talking about Nebraska and UCLA. I'm pretty sure Oregon's third best in the Big Ten. But they have also now given away a lot of their margin for error. We could still end up in a situation where the teams are approximately as good as we thought, but also a couple of huge names miss the playoff, which would be fun.
00:43:37
Speaker 1: Um, sorry if one of those is Oregon, but, um, I.
00:43:41
Speaker 2: They had, they, they were given an opportunity to win that game. Just like every team has an opportunity to win the game they play in. And, uh, they did not.
00:43:50
Speaker 4: But I mean, yeah, there are a lot of just really fun teams. Like we could end up with a really fun playoff field. And I think that's kind of how we would judge things. Now you don't just want.
00:43:58
Speaker 1: Straight chalk across the board.
00:43:59
Speaker 4: But I guess depending on how chaotic this becomes really kind of depends on like Georgia. They don't really seem all that interested in letting anything get chaotic this year. Alabama, honestly, it might be in the same boat. But, you know, the other top teams, it's nice that Ohio State and Texas played because one of them was guaranteed to lose.
00:44:19
Speaker 1: So, you know, maybe.
00:44:20
Speaker 4: Ohio State's wobbly, but really kind of depends on if they actually show us any weaknesses because so far, especially Georgia and Alabama, I don't think they really have.
00:44:28
Speaker 1: All right.
00:44:29
Speaker 3: His name is Bill Connolly. You could find all his fine work out on ESPN.com. And provided that schedules make it possible, we're going to try to do a little bit of a Bill Tober thing now. The branding needs work.
00:44:43
Speaker 1: Okay.
00:44:43
Speaker 3: We had a conversation before this. I thought it was great. It was met with silence. So I'm going to read the room.
00:44:50
Speaker 2: Well, it doesn't rhyme with Ock, right? It's not like a poor man toe.
00:44:53
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:44:54
Speaker 3: Fair enough. Yeah. You can work on the branding, but provided schedules work, we're going to try to bring back Bill on Mondays here through the month of October. and and get more of the insight. It's good stuff as we're now, I think, learning to trust the numbers a bit more through the first month of the season as we get a little bit deeper into this. At what point, Bill, by the way, kind of along those lines, at what point is it safe to trust the numbers or does it vary from team to team?
00:45:21
Speaker 4: Well, I mean, I'm sure it varies. That's like the boring and probably correct answer. But I mean, at this point, we are like after five games, we are like it takes forever for the preseason projections to get phased out, but we're like 50-50 now.
00:45:35
Speaker 1: The data is real to some degree. And so if.
00:45:40
Speaker 4: You've been able to, well, if you've been able to, for instance, go five for five over achieving, that probably means you're much better than expected. And I think we can start to kind of loosely conclude that. Like we were saying, so many teams in the teens and whatnot are so close together that they're going to have ups and downs. But I do think we kind of, there's nobody outside of the top 50 who, who might actually be like a top 10 team or anything like that. I think we can start to trust the hierarchy a little bit here.
00:46:05
Speaker 2: I was going to say, just because Bill's going to be on the receiving end of conspiracies of a while. He's at ESPN. Obviously he is in the tank, blah, blah, blah. Can we call the segment, the Billuminati? I think we're closer. I think we're closer.
00:46:20
Speaker 4: Um, I mean, I, you know, if you want to lean into it, I'm, I'm honestly, if you want to call it Bill Toberfest, that, that makes me happy.
00:46:31
Speaker 3: Bill Toberfest.
00:46:33
Speaker 2: That's true. He likes pretzels and beer and bratwurst.
00:46:35
Speaker 1: That's right.
00:46:35
Speaker 4: It reminds me of happy, happy German things. So I'm good with that, but I will, I will not, I will lay down my veto power if.
00:46:42
Speaker 1: I have any. And, um, you know, you can, you can go.
00:46:46
Speaker 2: Check on the SEO of Bill Toberfest. Okay.
00:46:48
Speaker 3: I'll see what I can find. Bill Connolly. You are a legend. We appreciate your time as always. Thank you for your insight. And yeah, let's do it again soon.
00:46:56
Speaker 2: All right.
00:46:57
Speaker 1: Absolutely.
00:47:00
Speaker 3: All right, Dan. Bill Connolly. We'll do what we can to bring him back at some point in the very, very near future. Hopefully next Monday. Schedule permitting. Okay. We teased this at the top. A bit of a Halloween theme. I'm going to leave this to you. You're the branding guy.
00:47:17
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:47:18
Speaker 3: If you weren't before, you are now. My initial thought was buy-sell. You said buy-sell is tried and true. It's done.
00:47:26
Speaker 1: It's over.
00:47:27
Speaker 3: But it's done and it's over. How do we want to phrase this? What is our game here? How are we evaluating what we have seen so far through this weird Halloween-themed lens at the end of this episode?
00:47:40
Speaker 2: Okay, so I want to take a look at a bunch of quarterback situations across the sport and... I think with quarterbacks, you can't sort of be halfway, right? The, I think the worst possible thing is kind of what Kyle Whittingham said about Bryce Underwood after Western Michigan. Like he's our quarterback for now, but nothing is infinite. Like what kind of, like he's either your dude or he's not, there's no half pregnant and a quarterback can't hear that. Like a quarterback has to hear that he has his coaches in his corner. And so to me, in this very special month of October, which arguably best sports month. I know some that are into like golf, like one of the masters, April.
00:48:21
Speaker 4: Yeah.
00:48:22
Speaker 2: Cause you have like the NBA playoffs, NHL playoffs, start of baseball season. I think April's terrific, but it's not a football month. So October gives us NFL college, baseball playoffs, start of hockey, start of basketball. I guess your guy, Kevin Sullivan playing for the, uh, the U S men's national team, all sorts of fun goodies around October, uh, But it's also Halloween month, and so I think we can't be halfway with any of these quarterback situations. It's either full-size confidence, because we all appreciate the house on the block that gives out those full-size bars, or milk duds. Now, all due respect to the milk dud people out there, but it has the word dud in it. So I'm not a huge fan of milk duds.
00:49:03
Speaker 3: Yeah, we have to use it since it's got the word dud in it, right?
00:49:07
Speaker 2: So all apologies to people who are milk dud people. MDP. But I think that's what we're going to do. We're going to go through some quarterback situations, either because of injury, either because of performance, either because of whatever. situation is happening with the offense and go through our confidence level.
00:49:25
Speaker 3: Why don't we start at Tennessee? Let's do it. Faison Brandon looked very much the real deal early. George McIntyre played in this most recent game. They won that game 24 to 14. But this might be the situation that I hold up the most as like a major team quarterback controversy. So Brandon won the job in preseason, got yanked against Auburn after starting three of eight, no passing yards and an interception. So McIntyre comes in, Tennessee wins the game. Josh Heupel has declined to name who his starter is going to be moving forward. But there is clearly... some controversy around what goes on next at Tennessee. That's what I think of first when I'm thinking of quarterback controversies and just quarterback trend lines, because that's a big one. Tennessee is going to be in close proximity to a bunch of these teams trying to chase down the sec. My hunch is with this quarterback situation, they're not going to be part of that, but they will definitely be in a position to affect it. Right.
00:50:35
Speaker 2: Um, I have full size confidence, but it's more like I have full size confidence in the quarterback situation with the caveat is I'm not sure I trust the line in front of the quarterback after what we saw against Texas. But when you look at the last, I think seven games on Tennessee schedule, there's only a couple of definitely strong defensive ceilings. I think it's just Alabama and LSU and even LSU is beat up and we're not exactly sure what that's going to look like. So yeah, Given there, we know that when healthy with the Sean Bishop, they're going to have a running game. I have full size confidence that George McIntyre will be put in a position given that he has a little bit more age on phase on Brandon. And that's a way of saying older, right? That's a weird person's way of saying older that he has more age. I'm going to say full size confidence in the Tennessee quarterback situation moving forward.
00:51:24
Speaker 3: I have full size confidence too, because I have a lot of confidence in Josh Heupel.
00:51:28
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally.
00:51:29
Speaker 3: You know, Josh Heupel knows how to do the quarterback thing. And some years better than others.
00:51:33
Speaker 2: It's a system thing.
00:51:33
Speaker 3: Yeah. It is a system thing, but he is produced at a really high level at the quarterback position in his time as a head coach. So I believe he will get it figured out, but this is also harkening back to the biggest question we had in the preseason, which is what's the quarterback situation going to be? If they can get a baseline level quarterback situation there in Knoxville, it's still a pretty good team with, I believe... Good running game, went healthy. I believe a pretty good defense on the whole. This is still going to end up being a pretty good team by the time all is said and done, but there is a reason to at least monitor it. So I'm confident that they will get it sorted out, and I'm confident that it'll end up being a pretty good team.
00:52:17
Speaker 2: Michigan. I think we're in Milk Dud territory.
00:52:22
Speaker 3: Yeah, man.
00:52:22
Speaker 2: I think we might be in Dots territory. I don't know what candy is... universally thought of as pretzels you gave me a bag of snyders raisins yeah that's so my problem with the michigan situation i think is both bryce underwood's clear discomfort running this offense and also what is being asked of this offense i i just think it's too many things at once, and there's RPO stuff. It doesn't seem to fit him all of the time, and he is apprehensive. The offensive line hasn't been performing. I think the receivers are good. I think the running backs are very good. I think if you were to give Kyle Whittingham and Jason Beck truth serum that they would have looked at what they did in camp and at the drawing board and said, God, maybe if we had done this a little bit, or maybe if we had trusted our doubts in Bryce Underwood, if they had them in the off season, spring, fall camp or whatever, and made it a more open competition.
00:53:34
Speaker 3: I don't know.
00:53:35
Speaker 2: That's a weird position to be put in given what they're paying Bryce Underwood. But I am putting the situation in Dots, Milk Dud, Mounds territory.
00:53:45
Speaker 3: Yeah. And I feel like, I mean, the whole situation at Michigan.
00:53:50
Speaker 2: Not a controversial take.
00:53:52
Speaker 3: It isn't a controversial take, but the whole situation at Michigan has just been weird. The circumstances that brought Kyle Whittingham and his staff to Ann Arbor in the first place doesn't need repeating on this show. That's different. It was a different situation. He was seen as the adult in the room, someone who could come in and stabilize the program because clearly he had a pretty high functioning situation out at Utah.
00:54:16
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:54:18
Speaker 3: But it's weird now with Underwood because of Panama a lot. This is something we need to start considering given where we're at in college football. It took a lot to get Bryce Underwood to stay in the state of Michigan. And we have had moments throughout the course of the season. It was just like a week ago, their last game where we were having the conversation like, hey, when they turn more of the offense over to him, when he was able to operate a little bit more freely as a passer. when they weren't trying to do everything within a five-yard box, when they were letting him stretch it a little bit more, he was better. He did. He looked better. And so I guess my only point of contention, and to call it contention is to make it too strong of a point.
00:55:06
Speaker 1: It's not that.
00:55:07
Speaker 3: This is their first time on the road this year. When we saw him at home in the second half of the previous game, when he did have a little bit more license to operate freely in the offense, he did look better. I don't think it should be a long leash for Bryce Underwood because clearly what we saw against Minnesota was not better. It wasn't like he took great strides. But Minnesota's a physical team. I think Minnesota's pretty good on defense. Minnesota is riding something of their own momentum right now. I'd be willing to give it a little bit longer just because I think the talent is there. But I do think there should be a conversation about going to Tommy Carr because it wasn't all that long ago in this show when we were going through spring games and things of that nature that people were pretty high on Tommy Carr. He actually looked quite good. So at some point soon here, if you're Whittingham, you got to look and you got to be like, all right, we got to see what the other guys got. Because if it, if the trend lines, at least at home, don't continue and we don't see another step forward after, you know, what we saw two weeks ago now, I guess if I want to be specific, I think you gotta, I think you gotta at least entertain the notion of going to somebody else to see what you have. Cause it hasn't been good. Like it wasn't good a week ago. He certainly didn't put them in any better position to win the football game.
00:56:22
Speaker 2: Tommy Carr is an admission of such defeat on Michigan's end. And I'm not saying it's wrong, but he's also a true freshman.
00:56:30
Speaker 3: I know.
00:56:31
Speaker 2: Not only are you saying the Bryce Underwood thing and the investment in the Bryce Underwood experience and the investment in the Kyle Whittingham, Jason Beck experience.
00:56:38
Speaker 3: I mean, you probably lose Underwood. He probably transfers if you do that.
00:56:41
Speaker 2: Oh, he's gone. Welcome to Las Vegas, young man.
00:56:44
Speaker 3: I mean, but he's gone, right? I mean, if in fact they pull the ripcord and they decide they're going to start somebody else, I guess if it finishes up that way, or maybe even if it doesn't, you know, even if they go to Tommy Carr for a little bit and then they go to Underwood later in the year and things are a little bit better.
00:57:03
Speaker 2: They're not going to pay a backup quarterback millions upon millions of dollars anyway. But so, yeah.
00:57:08
Speaker 3: That's the point. So they're really in a bind here with this. And given the fact that the offense isn't producing otherwise beyond the quarterback position, it's definitely a consequential move. So I'm not going to go full milk duds yet, but I don't have a ton of confidence in Kyle Whittingham to figure out the quarterback position.
00:57:27
Speaker 2: What does Michigan have coming up? Michigan has Penn State after a bye. So there is time to sort of get right and adjust things. Indiana is going to be very difficult, even though it's in Ann Arbor. Rutgers on the road should be workable. Michigan State should be workable at home. Then they finish Road Oregon hosting UCLA Road Ohio State.
00:57:51
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:57:52
Speaker 2: So if he isn't showing big leaps by whatever that is, week 10, 11, when that stretch starts... It's hard to just like, all right, Tommy Carr, good luck against Oregon, Ohio State.
00:58:06
Speaker 3: And by the way, this is the bye week now.
00:58:07
Speaker 2: UCLA, yeah.
00:58:08
Speaker 3: This is the bye week. Right. And you typically would see changes if you're going to see them.
00:58:14
Speaker 2: So I'm curious. Maybe a quote like, both are going to play. I'm curious to see, yeah.
00:58:18
Speaker 3: Because Penn State's got the whiteout this week at home against USC. Their next game, as he said, on the road in Ann Arbor. That game with Penn State coming to town could be an interesting point of reference. in this Michigan season. Yeah. Do they try to make a change? Do they make any type of statement here this week? We'll find out, but yeah.
00:58:37
Speaker 2: And look, Bryce Underwood did not commit to Kyle Whittingham out of high school. He did not say, I'm going to go to Michigan. Kyle Whittingham is the coach and vice versa. Kyle Whittingham did not recruit Bryce Underwood to Michigan, right? That he's, he's looking at this immense talent and trying to figure out what is the best way to use them. And I think they messed that up. I think that's pretty clear that this goes both ways. And I just college football is littered with like, hey, we didn't each of us didn't sign up for this. Why don't we go our own way if it's not working out? And it seems like that's the direction in which we're headed.
00:59:15
Speaker 3: You did mention Penn State. And then I mentioned Penn State. I will reiterate what I said on one of our episodes. I don't even remember when. I think it's time to maybe at least consider going to the backup. And for Matt Campbell's part, he does not seem to think it's any kind of competition. And I think that's what makes it more frustrating. So I'm, I'm full like milk duds at this point. Um, I don't know. I don't know if it's Rocco Becht. Uh, and like I said, on, on the bonus that we recorded and posted out on Patreon, as we were walking back from the stadium on Friday night, I don't know if it's a yips thing. Like, I don't know if All the batted balls have gotten into Rocco Beck's head to the point where he's double clutching. But he's just not been accurate. And he hasn't really been accurate all season. So even if he's got guys and he's not behind a line that maybe is too tall for him to see over, I don't know. He's sailing balls. He's shorting balls. He's late getting the ball in there on time. Is it a jump up coming from Iowa State to the Big Ten? Is it the offense? Is it the yips? Is it he's just not that good? Is it everything combined into one? I don't know. But he's not been that good. He really hasn't. So I don't know where the season stands on the Penn State side of things. They've not looked good now for two straight weeks. It's been a huge bummer to watch from afar. But the offense is not performing. They're just not able to get the passing game going. Teams know what they're doing. It feels like it's telegraphed. And then combined with the fact that the defense, I know this isn't a defensive conversation. But the fact that you can run straight at the defense. Defenses can help quarterbacks, though. They can put quarterbacks into advantageous positions, getting off the field quickly, field position.
01:01:04
Speaker 2: There's all sorts of things.
01:01:05
Speaker 3: And they're not. They're not. Because you can run right at this defense. You can keep your offense on the field. We saw Northwestern run over 400 yards.
01:01:12
Speaker 1: Yeah.
01:01:13
Speaker 3: I just think it's time to think about what comes next. Let's think about what comes next. Maybe give it another week or so if you believe in Rocco Beck to... you can call him many things, is the most experienced FBS quarterback right now. Right. So if you want to stick with him, fine. I'm just not sure that Matt Campbell is able to grade what he is doing objectively because he has such history with Rocco Becht. Clearly, he's a guy he trusts. He brought him over with him from Iowa State for a reason. That is my big question. Like, are we seeing a coach in Matt Campbell who is able to evaluate this objectively? And not just looking at this solely from the perspective of this is a guy that I trusted for many years at my previous stop. He'll pull it together and he'll get it done. We haven't seen him be able to do that yet. So I'm like full milk duds here.
01:02:04
Speaker 2: Counterpoint. He ran into the buzzsaw. That is the Northwestern Wildcats.
01:02:07
Speaker 3: Counterpoint. Yes.
01:02:08
Speaker 2: But I don't think the Indiana offense was high flying against Northwestern.
01:02:12
Speaker 3: No.
01:02:13
Speaker 2: No, I mean, they weren't high flying because BB ran for like 200 yards against them.
01:02:18
Speaker 3: But to your point, like we saw what happened when Northwestern ran for all those yards, gashed them directly up the middle and put more pressure on the Penn State offense to go out there and score points. They couldn't do it. They just couldn't do it. And I'd like to say it's because of the Northwestern defense. And clearly there's been some improvement there. I'm not, you know, talking down to them or anything. but we also saw what Rocco Beck looked like with more pressure on him and he wasn't good. He was not hitting his guys and he had open guys.
01:02:48
Speaker 2: So the only, the only break pumping I'll do here is I don't think anybody had like a ton of confidence in Rocco Beck other than, or maybe high hopes for Rocco Beck other than the Penn state community. Like obviously they're rooting for their guy. They're like, this guy's experience. He's coming over the coach. They're familiar with each other. They're familiar with offense and rhythms and conversation and language, whatever that, I don't think there was like a ton outside of state college where you're just like, watch out for this Penn State offense. I don't think that was the case given how new everything was and different everything was with the new coach and the players that left.
01:03:22
Speaker 3: All that is legit. Everything you're saying is true. He looks worse.
01:03:27
Speaker 2: Yeah. Oh, he definitely does.
01:03:29
Speaker 3: He looks worse. And so you would think with presumably more talent around him. Yeah. There was a fair amount from Penn State that was still retained on this offense, not everybody. And they, of course, had losses to graduation and whatnot, the draft. He looks worse. So at some point, Matt Campbell, we need to look at this objectively. Maybe the next, maybe Alex Manske's not that good. Maybe you don't think he's that good either. But there needs to be some kind of change in this offensive structure. Otherwise, they're staring down the barrel of like a three and four start. which is not going to be great for Pat Kraft and his job security. Anyway, pick a different team. Let's go to a different team.
01:04:10
Speaker 2: Just on my final point on Penn State more broadly, not a horrific schedule moving forward for whoever's playing quarterback.
01:04:17
Speaker 3: That was part of the optimism. That was part of the optimism.
01:04:20
Speaker 2: I mean, the USC defense at home should be gettable on a certain level. Jakeem Stewart looks like an absolute monster in the middle, though. The Michigan defense is going to be strong all season long. Washington... has pieces for sure has played some good defense, but Purdue, Minnesota, Rutgers, Maryland, you know, Minnesota has pieces, but like has not been, you know, a standout. Um, I, I think there's opportunity there. I just don't think it's happening this year.
01:04:45
Speaker 1: Okay.
01:04:46
Speaker 3: Give me like one or two more, uh.
01:04:48
Speaker 2: Another quarterback situation.
01:04:50
Speaker 3: How about Oregon?
01:04:52
Speaker 2: How about let's play about Oregon. So Oregon's up in the air right now with regard to the return of their starter, uh, They are going to be starting at least, I think for the time being, Dylan Raiola after his performance, which was pretty impressive, all things considered.
01:05:09
Speaker 3: Can I pause?
01:05:09
Speaker 2: Can I pause you? Please, please, please, please.
01:05:12
Speaker 3: What happens if Raiola goes out there against UCLA and his nails?
01:05:18
Speaker 2: Give me more specifics. I don't think we're actually going to have this conversation, but give me specifics.
01:05:22
Speaker 3: You know where this is going, right?
01:05:24
Speaker 2: Yeah, you were like, what if he looks more confident and is going downfield more effectively and navigates the pocket with more confidence and ability? Continue.
01:05:35
Speaker 3: I don't presume that Dan Lanning is going to make a quarterback change. This whole thing is kind of built around Dante Moore. But what if? Let's play the what if game. What if Dylan Arreola goes out there and is money again, as he was when he came in right after Dante got hurt?
01:05:53
Speaker 2: So if UCLA, Nebraska, Illinois, Northwestern all fall at the hands of Oregon, I think Dante's going to be back before all of those games are completed. But that's when they get Ohio State in early November. I don't believe that at Dylan Raiola's best, he is as good as Dante Moore at his best. I think familiarity with the system, I think physical, the arm talent of Dante Moore, I think is just superior. I think Dylan Raiola has obvious talent, obvious gifts, but I'm not a big believer in this ultimately being a real question until we see Dante Moore come back and like struggle against somebody, right? If he struggles against the Michigan defense, uh, obviously that's not a homecoming, but, uh, he's from the state of Michigan. Um, you know, Illinois defense, Nebraska's defense is TBD against a real team. Illinois defense does not look good. UCLA's defense seems vulnerable at times. Um, If Dante Moore really does have a game like he did at times against Oklahoma State, especially in that first half, missing guys, not having a feel for the pocket, obviously had reason not to trust his tackles in that game. They were not good. Then there's a conversation. But I don't think the conversation begins in earnest if Dylan Raiola is merely good just because he also is surrounded by so much. He's in an advantage position. So I think if we go back and see Dante Moore and he struggles and that's coming off of a concussion, you're like, is this the best situation for Oregon? I think that's a reasonable question if he struggles.
01:07:35
Speaker 3: Okay.
01:07:36
Speaker 2: But I think he's afforded that grace.
01:07:38
Speaker 3: So you're still king size. You're still confident.
01:07:41
Speaker 2: I'm still full size, king size confident.
01:07:43
Speaker 1: Yes.
01:07:45
Speaker 3: Give me one more team, one more situation, one more quarterback that you're monitoring.
01:07:49
Speaker 2: One more quarterback situation that I'm looking at. We did Tennessee.
01:07:54
Speaker 3: What about Oklahoma?
01:07:57
Speaker 2: I'll say maybe Virginia, but I think Oklahoma might be a little more interesting. Because this was a package deal, remember?
01:08:02
Speaker 3: Yeah.
01:08:02
Speaker 2: The Ben Arbuckle, John Mateer thing from Wazoo. And he is... He is not obviously, capital I, it for the Sooners, to be kind.
01:08:13
Speaker 3: What do you do?
01:08:16
Speaker 2: They've got, what, Bo Bentley and... Whit, is it Whit Newworth? Right. Who does Oklahoma have coming up? Well, Red River this week, right? It's Red River this week.
01:08:31
Speaker 3: Red River this week is going to be meaningful. Yes. Because we've on occasion seen some weird stuff.
01:08:37
Speaker 2: And this is Red River coming off of a bye.
01:08:40
Speaker 1: Yes.
01:08:40
Speaker 3: Red River coming off of a bye. So Oklahoma right now, two and two. Relative to the SEC 11th in terms of standings for whatever that means at this juncture. Right. But after Texas, they've got a home game against Kentucky, who is nothing if not plucky.
01:08:55
Speaker 2: Whit Newbauer. Let me correct. I said Newworth. Whit Newbauer. Let me correct the record there.
01:09:00
Speaker 3: Then after that, they are on the road at Mississippi State. They are back home on Halloween against South Carolina. First week in November, that big week that everyone has circled, they are on the road at Florida in the Swamp. And their final three games are home against Ole Miss. Right now, top 10 Ole Miss. Home against Texas A & M on the road at Mizzou to close things out end of November. That is a very difficult schedule. That was part of what I think we tried to bake into the cake with Oklahoma.
01:09:32
Speaker 4: Yeah.
01:09:32
Speaker 3: When we did our preseason stuff. We had no idea at that point in time that the offense would look this bad. We were expecting it would look better. I don't know if it's looked better. They certainly haven't been able to run the ball. I think John Mateer has been worse when he's played.
01:09:46
Speaker 2: So, yeah.
01:09:47
Speaker 3: There's a real question as to what's going to go down because as they sit here two and two with losses on the road at Michigan, on the road at Georgia, there are a bunch more big teams on this thing. I believe at time of recording, they're about an eight and a half, nine and a half point dog this week in the Red River shootout.
01:10:07
Speaker 1: Yeah.
01:10:10
Speaker 2: I think this is it. I think if they lose this game and he's not good, I think it's it. Whit Newbauer was at Mercer. It seems like the moment, the stage, the fishbowl, the lumens shining down from the bright lights of Oklahoma may be too bright for John Mateer. He looks off. I don't even know if he looks off. He looks off from where he was in Pullman, but I don't think people were thrilled with him after last season and what the Georgia look, what the Georgia game look like, excuse me. I think that was kind of the final nail where Oklahoma people were like, can we just see what the rest of the room looks like at this point? Like, is that crazy that, you know, we're turning the page because it's been pretty, like the Michigan game was not good. I'm in a definite milk dud territory. There's just, there's a carelessness at times. There's the tunnel vision at times. I think it's just time.
01:11:21
Speaker 3: I mean, Ben Arbuckle was quoted as saying that they discussed benching him.
01:11:28
Speaker 1: Right.
01:11:28
Speaker 2: They let him finish it out.
01:11:29
Speaker 3: They let him finish it out. I've seen some other commentary that John Mateer just needs to get his swagger back. Maybe he's in his own head a little bit.
01:11:40
Speaker 1: Okay.
01:11:42
Speaker 3: The Texas game though is a big deal. Texas game's a big deal because I've been looking at all the other underlying stuff with regard to material, the quarterback grades for whatever you make of those have all been very low. He's got six turnovers in his last three games. The offense has averaged a little over 12 points per game.
01:12:00
Speaker 4: Yeah.
01:12:01
Speaker 3: And it's not just the turnovers and it's not just the production, but if you grade out fully turnover worthy plays and things again, for whatever that means to you, It implies that maybe Mateer has even been worse than some of those stat lines. Right. I think Whit Neubauer, who's a 6'6 junior previously at Mercer, has emerged as the guy who probably gets the nod over Bo Bentley, who's a highly regarded freshman.
01:12:30
Speaker 2: Starting experience, yeah.
01:12:31
Speaker 3: Yeah. It is meaningful to me that we have seen increasing reps at practice among some of those backups. They're thinking about it. They're not sure yet, but they're thinking about it. The Texas game is going to be the big storyline here, right? It's going to be the next storyline that we need to pay attention to in this big arc of the John Mateer saga.
01:12:54
Speaker 2: And if you remember last year, he came back sooner, no pun intended, than expected coming off of the whatever was hand thumb surgery. And that was a dud of a game, a milk dud of a game, if you will.
01:13:04
Speaker 3: Three picks, yep.
01:13:06
Speaker 2: And I don't think the other factor here that I just don't think it's nothing is you look around the SEC and Alabama's over the moon with where their quarterback is trending. Georgia's over the moon for the most part, I imagine, with Gunnar Stockton thus far this year. Obviously, Arch Manning is in good standing, whatever you think of him. Texas fans are very hopeful. that he is going to grow into a national championship caliber quarterback this season. Aaron Philo, training in the right direction. Kenny Minchie, Kamario Taylor, Trinidad Chambliss, Sam Leavitt, Austin Simmons. Like, they look around at who they believe their contemporaries to be, and it's all trending in very different directions.
01:13:45
Speaker 3: I mean, LSU, I'm not sure which direction it's trending at LSU.
01:13:49
Speaker 2: Sam Leavitt, at least you can say, like, he's won games, like, they've put up points. He does throw himself around kind of recklessly physically. But we know that the best of Sam Levitt, we've seen it. We saw it against Iowa State and Texas in the playoff. We've seen Sam Levitt make big plays in big moments, even if he's inconsistent, that LSU, the combination of Lane and Sam Levitt, there's a confidence there, I think, in the LSU fan base that he can make things happen.
01:14:16
Speaker 3: And the other thing that kind of cracks me up that I've seen talked about, and I understand it too because we had great expectations for this Oklahoma team. And they've clearly fallen short on the offensive side. But I've seen a lot lately almost this separation of John Mateer from Ben Arbuckle. And I kind of laugh at it a little bit because they were the package deal, as you said. Mm-hmm. And what I'm referring to is this idea that, well, how much of this is Mateer versus Arbuckle's offense? Brent Venables was signing up for both, right? He was hoping to get both because it looked very, very promising at Wazoo. We just haven't seen that. And so my sense is that they came as a package deal and they will probably leave as a package deal as well. Maybe not mid-season. But I do think we're trending towards some sort of quarterback change at Oklahoma. I don't know how else you could navigate this at this point. And probably at season's end, we're going to see a change at coordinator as well.
01:15:21
Speaker 1: Yeah.
01:15:22
Speaker 3: That's where this is trending. But yeah, this is not a great situation. milked out of a situation yep all right why don't we leave it there let us know your thoughts of course solidverbal at gmail.com is the email you can hit us up on social media as well verbalers.com if you want to vote in the poll if you want to play in this week's run the board game which we will unveil and talk more about when we do the Wednesday preview you also get Bonus episodes on Thursday. I'm going to talk about the flag football thing a little bit more with you, if that's okay. You also came and watched me play tennis. I did watch you play tennis. I have a lot that I need to get off my chest here. Observations, things you're doing wrong, footwork. We need to dissect a little bit. We'll get into that on the Thursday bonus episode. But verballers.com. Also, all these episodes without the ads. You get them early. You can take part in the Discord. Maybe if you want to be part of the Blue Ribbon panel, you can have a discussion. Yeah, definitely. We will be back on Wednesday. Big thanks to our guest of honor today, Bill Connolly from ESPN.com. We will hopefully bring back Bill very, very soon to talk more about what his spreadsheets are telling us.
01:16:31
Speaker 1: That's all.
01:16:32
Speaker 2: That's all I have.
01:16:33
Speaker 3: Yep. For that guy over there, Dan, for myself over here, Ty, thank you again for your ongoing support. Please rate, review, subscribe if you like the show. We'll be back on Wednesday.
01:16:41
Speaker 1: In the meantime, stay solid.
01:16:43
Speaker 4: Peace.