Full Transcript for Mike Norvell Fired, ACC Whiparound with David Hale + Winterizing 14 Teams

Speaker 1: Beyond that. 00:05:32 Speaker 3: Okay. 00:05:33 Speaker 1: Somebody, somebody deep in the management of ESPN has found my emails about this app. 00:05:41 Speaker 3: You think so? 00:05:42 Speaker 1: There have been many emails over the years. 00:05:44 Speaker 3: There are open tickets? 00:05:46 Speaker 1: There are definitely open tickets that are still open to this day. Me on my IT techie high horse, writing in, pointing out that something is wrong and nobody ever answering. Just saying. So I have thoughts and I will save those perhaps for the Thursday bonus episode out of Verballers.com. 00:06:04 Speaker 3: Okay, fair enough. Mike Norvell's gone. 00:06:07 Speaker 1: Mike Norvell was fired approximately 12 hours earlier After the 36-24 home loss to the Clemson Tigers, it was a tumultuous seven seasons in Tallahassee for Mike Norvell. This felt like this had been a long time coming. Clearly, this can catch many of us by surprise. The buyout is a big number, somewhere in between $ 47 and $ 50 million. His final record at Florida State was two games over $ 541 million. And 39 this season, he had slumped to three and five, just one and four in conference. I think the more notable number here since the year of our Lord, 2024, just 10 and 22 at the helmet, Florida state that follows a 13 and one season that they had back in 2023. We all remember that 2023 season. So yes, the loss to Clemson in the manner that they lost the final straw. on Halloween of all nights. Rick Stockstill, remember that guy? 00:07:15 Speaker 2: Of course. 00:07:16 Speaker 1: Rick Stockstill, the former coach for Middle Tennessee, is going to be the interim head coach. He was the director of scouting on the current staff. Also, Tony White was fired, as was safeties coach Evan Cooper. So a full cleaning of the house. Florida State going to go in a new direction. Dan, any thoughts on this? Again, not a huge surprise, but I think it's surprising to me that it took as long as it did because it felt like the writing was on the wall. They wanted to keep him around a little bit longer, maybe reinvest in the roster. That did not work. 00:07:50 Speaker 3: Look, this has obviously been a long time coming. It's been financial in terms of what's held this up. At least that's a factor of what's held this up and the hope for better vibes and better results this season, last season, whatever, that it's just enough seemed to be enough, especially against Clemson, a team that has struggled on offense this year mightily and has moving the ball against Florida state. I understand why it was just time. It's a fascinating job, obviously in the shadow of Miami being the number one team in the country, not nothing in terms of what Florida state's annual aspiration should be. And now seeing Miami accomplish that and Florida state be nowhere near that level of consistency or pop on either side of the ball, that this is an interesting job there. I, I don't know the ins and outs of what kind of

financial support Florida State could have. That was a complaint last time Jimbo Fisher was in Tallahassee. And I think they've definitely upgraded since then. But how willing is Florida State? And this is a great first move, a great opening salvo, paying dozens upon dozens of millions of dollars to move into a new era. 00:08:55 Speaker 2: But. 00:08:56 Speaker 3: What, what this job attracts in terms of applicants, in terms of somebody who is going to be empowered to make big name coordinator and assistant hires and build out once again, the, the recruiting department, it's going to be a fascinating, fascinating job with dominoes all over the sport. This is my annual plea to go after a coach who is on his way up and don't hire Jimbo Fisher because if you are a serious program, that we are in the shadow of conversations of how do you find the next Kurt Cignetti? How do you find the next Bob Chesney? Guess what Bob Chesney didn't know? The West Coast, Southern California. Guess what he knew? Winning, building culture, building upon what the last guy was doing, beating good teams. communicating, working the portal, working through NIL. Same goes for Kurt Cignetti. And so I'm not saying you have to find that diamond in the rough or something like that. Who's going to immediately turn you into an 11 and one program. Find the best person to win the most games in 2027, 8, 9, 2030. Don't find, he knows Tallahassee. He knows Florida. Look, Mario Cristobal knows Miami and knows Florida, but that's because he wanted to be there. He was winning games at Oregon. Wasn't my favorite experience at Oregon, but when you look at what he was able to accomplish and what he potentially could at Miami... Look, did Jake Dickert coach the Mid-Atlantic region and North Carolina? No, he did not. I think he went to Wisconsin somewhere for college and was coaching in Pullman, Washington. You find the best guy for your place, not the best guy who knows your place. So I don't know who that guy is. I'm sure we'll talk to David about this, but there's an opportunity there. the ACC is not top heavy. I don't think people would describe the ACC right now as like, how do you penetrate the top six of the AC Florida state could do that. I think that's not crazy. 00:11:00 Speaker 1: No. 00:11:01 Speaker 3: So I am just begging you Florida state to be detail oriented with who you're hiring and figuring out what their plan would be for Florida state, not finding the next, you know, guy who knows the area. 00:11:17 Speaker 1: I would sort of, Extend that same logic to the opening at NC State as well, because and I'm sure talk to David about the rumors surrounding Philip Rivers. The case for Philip Rivers, as I understand it, is he is legendary for what he did at NC State. He does have a son, high profile quarterback recruit currently committed to NC State, and Philip Rivers is seen as. As the type of guy who could excite the booster class, you know. 00:11:51 Speaker 2: Great. 00:11:52 Speaker 1: Excite the money man. Newsflash. Having money does not necessarily make you smart. Also does not necessarily make you smart as it relates to actual football decisions. 00:12:05 Speaker 2: Right. 00:12:05 Speaker 1: So while sure, there is a role for the money man to play in the current iteration of college football. That doesn't mean everything. That should only mean a little part of it. You need the money. You need to win first so you can get more money. That's how this now works in the year of our Lord, 2026. So I hope, yes, that same level of logic applies to NC State as well. We will talk to David about that opening. By the way, I'm looking right now at our friend Bruce Feldman's list of candidates. And there are many of these articles that are out there. But in addition to Jimbo, who he has at the very top of his article, Manny Diaz from Duke, Wake Forest's Jake Dickert, another name I think rightfully in that conversation, Eli Drinkwitz from Mizzou, Kenny Dillingham from Arizona State, and Willie Fritz from Houston. In addition, some coordinators, Glenn Schumann from Georgia, Blake Baker from defensive coordinator at LSU. And this would be interesting, Miami offensive coordinator, Shannon Dawson. So nice little list, a good spread there from Bruce. Like I said, we'll ask what David Hale from ESPN.com thinks, but no shortage of interesting names. And then a broader conversation about where the FSU job actually relates within this ecosystem of college football. Like, is it an elite job? Is it not an elite job? 00:13:32 Speaker 3: Also, there's a lot going on behind the scenes at Florida State, which is still up in the air. 00:13:36 Speaker 1: Yeah, as in who's making the hire, that type of thing. 00:13:39 Speaker 3: Yeah, that seems important as well. So should be an exciting and newsworthy next few weeks for Florida State. Hopefully, if you're a Florida State fan, you can get some degree of peace and optimism out of this process. But it's college football, so good luck, everybody. We'll kick it over to the interview that we did with David. We, as I said at the top, hit just about every team, including... some of the news of the day here with Mike Norvell. Please make sure if you made it this far and you want to support the team that you rate, review, and subscribe to The Solid Verbal on your app of choice. 00:14:13 Speaker 1: Also, verbalers.com. That is our Patreon. That's where you can go. If you want to sign up to support the team, get episodes a little bit early without the ads, hop on over to our Discord, play in our weekly run-the-board pick-em game, which is going to have a fabulous prize this week. We already know what it is, but it will be a fabulous prize for everybody who signs up. There is one prerequisite though, Dan, outside of signing up to support us at for ballers.com. 00:14:43 Speaker 2: Yeah. 00:14:43 Speaker 3: You can't be afraid to compete. 00:14:44 Speaker 1: Cannot be afraid to compete. 00:14:45 Speaker 3:

You cannot be afraid to compete. And I understand that some people are, maybe it's not the right fit for you, but if you are somebody who is not afraid of competing, my God, do we have the game for you? 00:14:55 Speaker 2: All right, Dan, joining us now. It's been a minute. It's been a minute. 00:14:59 Speaker 1: It's been far too long. Our good friend from ESPN.com, David Hale, joining us on this Monday. 00:15:05 Speaker 2: Mr. 00:15:05 Speaker 1: Hale, welcome back to the show. 00:15:07 Speaker 2: How are you? I am well. 00:15:09 Speaker 4: We were just discussing that it has been too long. I think it was last season, somewhere early in the year, maybe even in the offseason. And I was in like a tunnel in Kenan Stadium in Chapel Hill. And just how much water has gone under the bridge. Carolina is a borderline program. Bill and the love of his life somehow broke up last year secretly, despite still being seen together constantly. His son's gone. Michael Lombardi's gone. And now here I am, no longer in a tunnel. A lot has happened, and I'm glad we have this opportunity to catch up. 00:15:41 Speaker 2: Same. 00:15:42 Speaker 1: Is love even possible, David, now with this news? 00:15:44 Speaker 2: I don't know. It's heartbreaking, not, I think, just for Bill, but for America. 00:15:49 Speaker 3: Agree. 00:15:49 Speaker 4: Yeah. 00:15:51 Speaker 1: Agreed. Well, look, a lot has gone on in your neck of the woods. I know you are A fine purveyor of all wonderful things ACC, you know the conference inside and out. The biggest news story, I guess, of the last 48 hours has been the Mike Norvell news, relieved of command at Florida State. It's been a long time coming. This is not going to take anybody by a great surprise. I'm wondering, though, just given the tenor of this season, given the expectations of this season, the weight that was on Norvell coming into the 2026 season. Can you reflect a little bit on what we saw through the first like nine weeks of the season relative to Norvell and the Florida State program? 00:16:30 Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, this was, I said last week after Dave Doran was let go at NC State, it was a little bit of like an old yeller situation where like everybody loved Dave. It was just, it was time and better to get it over with instead of letting him get, booed by his fans for the rest of the season when you knew you were going to make a change. Um, with Norvell at Florida state, it has been sort of the opposite. They, they let this drag on probably way longer than any healthy human being should have had to endure. And I think we saw some of the, I think the pictures that were going around on Twitter last week of like how it started and how it's going, uh, for Mike Norvell. And he just looked like a haggard worn down, you know, much worse even than like the president's before and after situations. Um, it, Mike was set up to fail. Mike has certainly not, did not do a whole lot. 00:17:19 Speaker 2: To fix that problem. 00:17:21 Speaker 4: If there is a moment, though, that stood out to me in that game against Clemson that you said, like, yeah, there's just, you can't go another week with this. It was the Tate Reynolds long touchdown run where it just looked like that defense was like, cool, well, go ahead and run. I'm not going to bother tackling you. And that has been too much of what Florida State has been. Like, you go back to 2024 and you're coming off of that what happened with the playoff, and I understand where emotions get rattled there, but They lose the opener against Georgia Tech and Ireland that year, and the whole team just gave up. That was not a good team, but there's no explanation for that team finishing 2-10. 00:17:59 Speaker 2: And then you go out and. 00:18:00 Speaker 4: Beat Alabama to start the 25 season, and everybody's like, oh, we're great again. And then they lose in double overtime at Virginia to a very good Virginia team, mind you. And they just said like, oh, well, maybe we're not. We must be terrible. Nothing left to play for. And they go out and get washed in the next couple of games. 00:18:17 Speaker 2: And this year is another perfect example of like, When they were good, I mean. 00:18:21 Speaker 4: They played Alabama pretty good. I mean, they played better than Alabama for a half and still were good. They destroyed Virginia this year in a game that you say like, oh, that's Florida State when they're good. But there's just so many moments where they just didn't care. And that's for all of the other problems. 00:18:38 Speaker 2: You can't have that. 00:18:39 Speaker 1: What I have found interesting just in following the discourse online is the separation between, let's say, the college football pundit class and and perhaps to some extent, the Florida State fan base. And what I mean by that is we've got a fair amount of the punditry out there saying, hey guys, might wanna pump the brakes. This isn't as good of a job as you think it is. Meanwhile, you've got fans who, everybody who's been a fan has been in this Exact situation. There's a vacancy at your school. You want the best, the biggest, the most exciting name possible. Where is reality with respect to the value of that Florida State job? If you are a coach who might be, let's say you're Jed Fish, who's always looking, how would you value the Florida State job? 00:19:24 Speaker 2: Well, the most. 00:19:25 Speaker 4: Interesting name, of course, is Jimbo Fisher, who knows the job very well and those fans who know him very well. 00:19:30 Speaker 2: And somehow it's like maybe we should get back together. I don't know. Like maybe she's changed. 00:19:36 Speaker 4: That one is a whole other story. I think there's two comparison points that I would make. And one is the obvious one, which is Miami, because if you look at where FSU's rival Miami is, right now, it is light years ahead of Florida State. 00:19:53 Speaker 2: But go back three years and things were much different. different.

Mario Cristobal was hanging on by a thread. 00:20:00 Speaker 4: Everybody remembers not kneeling in at the end of the Georgia Tech game, and Florida State is rolling, and things look completely different. I think where the difference in those two programs was, though, is that Miami knew exactly who it wanted to be, exactly how it planned to get there, and was fully invested and aligned in how that was going to look. They were at the start of the journey, not the end of it, but they knew where the shooting at moving targets or however you want to phrase it for too long. And 22 and 23 were sort of these years where like it all worked because the pieces just fit. But as soon as you get one little cog out of place there, nobody knew how to fix it. And certainly the quarterback was a part of that. But like the investment, the alignment, it's all a problem there. And so the other comparison point that I would make is Virginia Tech. And Virginia Tech had been in very much the same situation coming into this year. And what it became very, I think, very obvious to people at Virginia Tech midway through last year was we can't have a puppet head coach. We have to have a strong head coach and we can't nickel and dime things. We got to be all in on money. And so they got the money. They cleaned house of everyone who wasn't willing to row in James Franklin's direction. And they went out and got James Franklin, who, whether you like him or don't, is a head coach. He is a guy who was going to come in there and run his own show. To me, that's what Florida State needs. They need a vision and a head coach who can get everybody pulling in the same direction behind that vision. And look, I like Mike Norvell. Most people who are around Mike Norvell really liked him. He had his legs cut out from under him from the start. And that may have been wise in some cases. I don't think he made a lot of great decisions. There's some things that Michael Alford did as AD that I don't agree with either, but none of them were really ever empowered to say like, go do this. 00:21:49 Speaker 3: The big winner, at least in the short term with Mike Norvell losing his job, maybe Dabo, because there's a little bit less heat, a little bit less light on the Clemson situation and the Clemson season as they again are in continuous attempts to find winning ways consistently. I think they're sort of going back and forth every week and they have been for a few weeks now, but they were the angel of death for Florida state. And you mentioned that run from Tate Reynolds. What is, what is the status of the Clemson program as you see it? And as they are kind of lumped in with a lot of teams with two conference losses, and there's going to obviously going to be a lot of interplay between a lot of those teams with Duke and SMU. Um, Virginia Tech is one of those teams, and a lot of those teams are playing each other. Where is Clemson right now in terms of security for Dabo, in terms of security for 2026

hopes and dreams? 00:22:46 Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm going to draw a little bit of a distinction here on Dabo because I think on one side, there's absolutely no argument that the way that he has tried to build this program has failed. not set them up for success, at least the type of success that. 00:23:00 Speaker 2: Their fan base has won. 00:23:02 Speaker 4: The other side of that coin, though, is the things that he has prioritized have them in an okay position this year when, by all rights, that team could be 2-6 right now. 00:23:14 Speaker 2: I mean, almost should be 2-6. 00:23:16 Speaker 4: Um, and, and frankly, they could be six and two right now if. 00:23:19 Speaker 2: They had just finished off, uh, Virginia tech. 00:23:22 Speaker 4: So like, I look at this and I say like, in some ways I totally understand why Dabo believes the things that he does because this team is weathered storms. 00:23:31 Speaker 2: Um, but I don't think that's what fans. 00:23:33 Speaker 4: Want at Clemson and it ain't getting you to the sec. I don't think to just weather storms, you've got to be really good. And so there's gotta be, I think there should be some happy medium, but I'm not sure Dabo wants to find it. And that to me is ultimately the question of like this year, look, Clemson will make a bowl game. And that's probably better than it seemed like when they were getting housed in Baton Rouge. They might even get to seven or eight wins and everybody else. And certainly Dabo will say, see, see. And if Tate Reynolds is improving each week, like maybe there is some some see to that. But I think the bottom line is you keep you keep rerunning the same story. And I kind of know where it all pans out now. Something has to change. And I don't mean that has to be Dabo, but maybe it's you bring in an empowered GM to help with player personnel additions or you find some more money in the couch cushions to upgrade it a few positions. You need better recruiting. You need to change some philosophy there. Like it doesn't even have to be these huge changes, but something's got to change. And Dabo to me has not shown he has any interest in changing. 00:24:37 Speaker 3: I promise this is going to be the last for a while of us bathing in the negativity jacuzzi. Um, NC state went its own way away from Dave Doran a couple of weeks ago. What went so wrong so quickly for NC state, which had been the sort of beacon of above average in the conference that suddenly the floor that seemed forever so high, if the ceiling wasn't all that high, um, Fully collapsed and it collapsed immediately in week zero and almost without warning to us on the outside. But what imploded, you know, essentially in Raleigh for this to all go down like it did? 00:25:20 Speaker 4: I think there's a long road that got us here as much as it seemed like it was happening quickly. 00:25:26 Speaker 2: I think one thing is that being above average used to mean you get to go to the Gator Bowl and everybody was happy. 00:25:31 Speaker 4: Well, now the expectation is no longer above average. In some ways, lowering the bar for success has put more pressure on you to reach that bar than ever. And so I think that was part one, is that everybody with Dave Doran has sort of been like, OK, fine, maybe this year. But there was always the not like there wasn't excitement about it. There was a reluctance and reluctant ambivalence to a certain extent. And then the other thing of it is, I think Dave understood that in this day and age, the the path for a team like NC State is to have a great quarterback surround them with just enough to win, play in a league like the ACC where you have a shot and then it can all work. And they tried to do that, and I understand why, because C.J. Bailey is a great kid, and when he's playing well, is a really, really good quarterback. But what you saw was a team that was basically all– they built the whole plane out of the quarterback. 00:26:26 Speaker 2: And when he didn't play well, it went bad quickly. 00:26:29 Speaker 4: And I think that there was a decision made that like we can't– and especially if you've watched some of these NC State seasons under Dave Doran where it started bad and somehow he always writes the ship and comes away like looking okay at the end with enough hope. 00:26:44 Speaker 2: I think there was almost a little bit of like we can't let that happen again. Here's our opportunity to make a change. Let's do it. 00:26:49 Speaker 4: Now– Is that change going to be Philip Rivers? Because that to me is almost the far more interesting question than what went wrong of like, is Philip Rivers the guy you trust to fix it? 00:27:00 Speaker 3: On the other end, Wake Forest has been a machine. Wake Forest has been that team that you understand to be sometimes kind of interesting under Dave Klaassen or sometimes fun and winning under Dave Klaassen. And Jake Dickert arrives and immediately is like, we're just going to win a ton of games. We're going to hire well. We're going to evaluate well. We know we don't have the most money in the world. But if your team is clearly flawed at something, we are going to whip you on a Saturday afternoon. Where is Wake Forest now in terms of its ceiling? And the schedule hasn't been the most incredible, the most like, oh, they've proven it over and over against, you know, these big dogs. But to you, if there is a secret sauce that I guess a lot of programs might be searching for come, you know, late November or something with Jake Dickert, if there is a secret sauce, what have been the ingredients this year? 00:27:53 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:27:53 Speaker 2: Well, you're right. The schedule has not been great, though. 00:27:55 Speaker 4: They did play Miami close and probably better than Miami for three quarters. 00:27:59 Speaker 2: Just they got behind early. Right. 00:28:01 Speaker 4: And while the schedule has been soft, they've won their last four, I think, 187 to 32. That's pretty good. 00:28:06

Speaker 3: Yeah. 00:28:08 Speaker 4: I think the secret sauce is is coming in again, knowing who you are. and knowing how you want to execute your vision. Like going out and getting Gio Lopez off the trash heap, but reuniting him with Rob Zell was a genius move. And it's paying huge dividends. They know, like Jake talks a lot about like, we're not trying to go out and get like the Jeremiah Smith's Deuce Robinsons of the world. Like we're going to go find speedy undersized receivers and stretch the field and screw people who aren't ready for that. And it's worked out really well. And Carlos Hernandez is a star now. The single, I would argue the single most underrated assistant coach in the country right now is Scotty Hazleton, who for two years in a row has turned Wake Forest into not a good and elite defensive team. And like what Langston Hardy and that defensive front are doing, like they're playing better defense up front than Miami is with Miami having a loads of five-star guys they just went out and found dudes that fit what they want to do and they execute it really well they. 00:29:09 Speaker 2: Remind me a lot of indiana last year and that we. 00:29:12 Speaker 4: Want to doubt them right and we want to say this can't work and yet what they do so well is not something that's like sexy or flashy or whatever it is that they are relentlessly good at doing the right thing at the right time and how much of college football is funny i was talking to a coach about this Because we were talking about NFL guys coming into college football and thinking they know what they're doing and not realizing, like, in the NFL, you script up a play assuming that 11 guys do the right thing in college you kind of have to script up your game plan hoping or expecting somebody to do something stupid and Wake just doesn't do stupid things and. 00:29:50 Speaker 1: Other teams do David noted NFL guy Bill Belichick maybe not the best at love Is what he is doing now at North Carolina actually working? 00:30:06 Speaker 4: I think it needs another year to be able to say. 00:30:09 Speaker 2: They're going to probably make a bowl game, which is success. That's good. 00:30:15 Speaker 4: Though Mack Brown was making a bowl game every year and people ran him out of town. 00:30:18 Speaker 1: Right, exactly. 00:30:21 Speaker 4: Like they played like the Miami game was such a great example of, I think what he has done well this year, which is saying like, I know who we are. I know where our limitations are and I know where your limitations are. So I'm going to do my best to exploit what you're bad at and, and focus on what we're good at. And look, they limited Miami to seven possessions, which is amazing. They were great on first downs, so they converted a ton of third and fourth downs to. 00:30:46 Speaker 2: Keep drives alive. 00:30:47 Speaker 4: Jordan Shipp and Jelani Thurman are two genuine weapons. 00:30:51 Speaker 2: They got the ball in their hands. 00:30:53 Speaker 4: And Miami's defense, their secondary is really banged up and they took advantage of it and found space. 00:30:58 Speaker 2: Like all the little things that you needed to do that all of it had to go right. 00:31:02 Speaker 4: If any one of those things hadn't gone wrong, I'm not sure that would have even been a close game. But, you know, look, I think he's the best coach in the history of the NFL for a reason. He is really good at this. I think what he's realizing is like, You still need some talent. So could they take what they've done this year? UNC comes out and says, we're behind Belichick now. 00:31:20 Speaker 2: We're all in. 00:31:22 Speaker 4: He goes out and has the money to get a real quarterback for next year who can move the offense consistently. They build up around what they already have, the infrastructure that they have, and they're pretty good. 00:31:32 Speaker 2: Yeah, like I can see that happening. 00:31:34 Speaker 4: But also like he fought tooth and nail to keep Michael Lombardi there when everybody. 00:31:39 Speaker 2: Else in the world knew that was a problem. 00:31:41 Speaker 4: Obviously, like what was going on with his son behind the scenes? Everybody in that building knew what was going on and they let it go. Like that speaks to Bill Belichick, too. So it's to me, it's two sides of the same coin. And it's like which you're going to flip it next year and see which side comes up. 00:31:56 Speaker 1: I was going to ask, you said we I'm wondering who is we behind the scenes at North Carolina at this point? There's been a lot of turmoil there. 00:32:04 Speaker 2: Yeah. 00:32:04 Speaker 4: And look, there's two people who I think really have a say in this. Lee Roberts, the chancellor who was critical in hiring Bill Belichick. 00:32:13 Speaker 2: So I think really. 00:32:14 Speaker 4: Wants to see it succeed because it's part of his legacy as the chancellor. And he's not the most liked guy there anyway. 00:32:20 Speaker 2: He is a Duke grad. 00:32:22 Speaker 4: Then there's A.D. Steve Newmark, who was part of the search committee that got Bill Belichick, but was not A.D. 00:32:28 Speaker 2: At the time. Bubba Cunningham was. Bubba quite notably, did not want to hire Bill Belichick. 00:32:34 Speaker 4: Steve is much more empowered, I think, in this football relationship than Bubba was last year. 00:32:39 Speaker 2: Bubba basically stayed away from the football building. 00:32:43 Speaker 4: And that relationship, I don't think it was bad with Belichick per se, but it was pretty clear Belichick was running football and Bubba was running everything else. I think that's not the case now. I think Steve Newmark has been empowered to say, particularly in the aftermath of the Steve Belichick and Lombardi stuff, like, no, I'm your boss here. You got to answer to me. From what I understand, the relationship has been good so far. Bill continues to. 00:33:05 Speaker 2: Want to coach. 00:33:06 Speaker 4: And I think Steve genuinely views this as

like, if there's a reason to bring him back next year, it is in our best interest to do it. But there's still, you know, five games left and we'll see how those go. 00:33:18 Speaker 1: David, since you mentioned Miami, I'm wondering what is the sentiment around the ACC about having the number one team in the country in the AP Top 25? And now with this gigantic game looming this weekend on the road at Notre Dame, will the league office be sending out any provocative social media posts? 00:33:38 Speaker 4: Yeah, I doubt they'll be replaying last year's game on ACC Network over and over and over again. 00:33:43 Speaker 1: I was just wondering about that. 00:33:45 Speaker 4: It is amusing, though, that in the long history of the ACC not being allowed to have nice things, that they have the number one team in the country. The damn near got knocked off in Chapel Hill the week before going to Notre Dame, and now everybody thinks the number one team in the country might actually stink. 00:34:02 Speaker 2: That's the perfect way for the ACC to have something nice. 00:34:05 Speaker 1: There was this sense with Cam Ward that they had unlocked something at the quarterback position on offense. Clearly, that went pretty well. Last year, this is a team that damn near could have won the national championship, maybe didn't quite get to the same heights at the quarterback position. But again, this sense of what they were building through the running game and certainly up front on defense, this is another step forward. Do we feel like we are seeing another step in that progression? 00:34:31 Speaker 4: Yeah, this is a great question, and one I was thinking a lot about it because I was in Chapel Hill for that game. First, I should say, Malachi Toney's a damn magician, so that's part of it. You put Malachi Toney on any offense and the quarterback looks better. But I'm watching this game happen on Saturday in Chapel Hill, and I'm thinking– damn, this looks a lot like 2024 Miami where the defense just cannot get off the field and they're taking away the one thing that Miami really wants to do offensively. And Cam Ward was so good and such a great improviser that he could just make some things happen. But he'd also force a thing a time or two. Then you flip to 2025 and I think overall the team was better. The defense was much better. But Carson Beck also would get impatient and force a ball. And it's honestly probably what cost them a national championship last year. It certainly cost them in games against SMU and Louisville in the regular season. What I saw was a UNC team that did everything it could to exploit Miami's weaknesses and frustrate them again and again and again, including seven offensive possessions. And throughout all of that frustration, not once did I see Darian Mensah look impatient, looked stressed, looked like he was going to do something stupid because he just wanted to do something. It was as tactically played a game by a quarterback as you would see outside of like, Drew Brees, Peyton Manning, Tom Brady. 00:35:56 Speaker 2: It was, I mean, at no. 00:35:59 Speaker 4: Point did he make a throw that he shouldn't have made. And every one of those throws to Tony, there's like two or three others that were barely not catches. And where only Malachi Tony was going to make that catch. And when I say only, it wasn't like only your receiver, only Malachi Tony of all receivers in the entire world was going to make that catch. And he delivered the ball where it needed to be. To me, that's the difference this year with Miami. And with Darian Mensah, like he is capable of maybe not quite the highs of Cam Ward, but certainly higher than the highs of Carson Beck. 00:36:30 Speaker 2: But he's never going to hit those lows. He's not going to make mistakes. 00:36:33 Speaker 3: So Miami atop the ACC obviously is no surprise to anybody heading into the season that we would find ourselves into November with Miami on top. Is there a team in either direction, I suppose, that you look at now as we enter into November that preseason you thought was going to be good that has been confoundingly bad or you thought was going to struggle that has shown a lot more life than you figured they would? 00:37:00 Speaker 4: I'm not sure this answers the question exactly, but I'll give you two teams that are frustrating and good at the same time. And those are Syracuse and Louisville. two teams that have lost a bunch of one score games. Louisville is nine points away from being undefeated right now. They probably have the most explosive offense in the country. And yet those three losses are all the Ole Miss. When you say like, all right, it was a bad first half from Lincoln Keene holds and. 00:37:25 Speaker 2: It was close. 00:37:26 Speaker 4: The next two are just bafflingly frustrating and how they managed to lose those games. They should be a playoff caliber team and they're not. Um, the Syracuse though, like what you saw them go do against SMU or what they did against Carolina. Like they're not great, but they are a team that should be in every game. Getting Calvin Russell, the greatest recruit in Syracuse history. Mind you, Calvin Russell back healthy and on the field, which by the way, this dude tore his ACL in spring ball and was back in October to play. He's insane. Um, and getting Steve Angeli healthy. That's a much better team than like what their record shows. Um, you know, but you know, they're, they're, they're not going to have a great record and people are not going to walk away from this season saying like, Oh my Syracuse, but their team is certainly capable of beating anybody else in the ACC, save maybe Miami. 00:38:19 Speaker 3: Are you a Duke believer in this moment? They've had a couple low moments, but by and large, they seem to be well coached and win basically all of their winnable games. Not all of their winnable games. 00:38:29 Speaker 4: Well, they lost to Georgia Tech, which looking back now is

baffling. 00:38:33 Speaker 2: Yes. 00:38:34 Speaker 4: Because Georgia Tech might be the worst team in the country right now. And in a league that also has Stanford, that's impressive. 00:38:41 Speaker 2: You know, it's funny. I do every Monday, I put out a little chart with. 00:38:45 Speaker 4: explosive play differential and successful play differential on a scatterplot. And Duke's logo was overlapping exactly with Boston College's. 00:38:53 Speaker 2: Logo, which is generally not seen as a good thing. 00:38:57 Speaker 4: But I do think Manny Diaz does a great job of getting the most out of what he has. I do think Nate Shepard is a genuine Heisman candidate type of player who– it's amazing how many different ways defenses have tried to stop him and he keeps finding ways to beat you right down to throwing a game-winning touchdown pass a couple of weeks ago um so like i i think duke is probably i pegged duke before the season is probably a five and seven team i think they're probably an eight and four team and that's a that's a credit to manny diaz and identifying like what we can do and how to get the most out of it. Now, I've certainly heard his name thrown around for the Florida State job too. 00:39:36 Speaker 2: I love Manny. I think he's brilliant. I do not think that's a great spot for him. Why? 00:39:42 Speaker 4: I just think like, again, he is not the– everybody in the room is afraid of him guy that Florida state I think needs. 00:39:49 Speaker 2: Okay. 00:39:50 Speaker 4: And I think, you know, you saw this in my, he was good in Miami. People should not walk away saying, Oh, he sucked as Miami's coach. 00:39:56 Speaker 2: He was good. 00:39:56 Speaker 4: And that came before they had any investment. But, and I've talked to Manny about this. There's just like the alphas that are in a locker room and there's different type of alphas because a different type of alpha, the guys who I think like and respect and, uh, appreciate the way that Manny views college football and views sports from a very smart guy, analytical perspective. When you go into a locker room full of like the Florida type alpha dogs, I don't know how much they relate to Manny Diaz. And again, that is not a knock on either side. It's just saying like, I'm not sure that there's a lot of overlap in their Venn diagrams. And so to me, there's a lot of places where I think Manny would be an extremely successful coach. 00:40:38 Speaker 2: I thought if Penn State had hired him, he would have done a great job there. I'm not sure I'd bring him back to the state of Florida right now. Okay. 00:40:45 Speaker 3: Fair enough. There's a team in the conference that finishes on the road against a team we thought would be maybe a little bit better, but has been kind of disappointing lately. They play against a terrible team. They play against the best team and they play against an incredibly disappointing team. The team playing those teams is Virginia tech. Do you have a handle on what exactly the Virginia tech experience has been in and will likely continue to be as the Hokies finish out 2026? 00:41:14 Speaker 4: It looks to me, I mean, to go back to as we were talking about Florida State, that sort of Miami and Virginia Tech comparisons, I see a little bit of the early Mario Cristobal in this Virginia Tech team, except with probably a softer schedule, and they're probably a little further ahead of the game because of all of the guys that Franklin was able to bring from Penn State with him, including Luke Reynolds, who is... Potential All-America type of guy. But you also see where they're just missing some pieces. Like, Grunkemeier's a fine quarterback, but he's probably not a difference maker. They're okay on the O-line, but they're not where Franklin would like them to be. 00:41:51 Speaker 2: One of the. 00:41:52 Speaker 4: Things that's been really intriguing is how much differently they have played defense this year, stylistically. 00:41:58 Speaker 2: Despite the fact that Brent Prye. 00:41:59 Speaker 4: Was last year's head coach and is this year's defensive coordinator, I had one coach say to me, what the hell kind of head coach doesn't have the defense that he wants to play on the field. 00:42:08 Speaker 2: When he's head coach? 00:42:09 Speaker 4: But he has been aggressive up front, and I think it's worked. But they're also really thin in the secondary, and so it's exposed them to some things. To me, it is a team that is– you can start to see like if it's a mosaic that you're putting together of what you hope it looks like in the end. You're starting to see the picture, but it's still clearly missing a few pieces. 00:42:28 Speaker 1: Uh, what's wrong with Virginia? 00:42:30 Speaker 4: Yeah, that's a shocker shocker to me because, um, I think Tony Elliott's a really good coach and that's another team that had a really good game plan for like, okay, here's what we can do given our resources and how we think you can best do it. 00:42:45 Speaker 2: And they did it last year and it worked really well. And this year against, I mean, every bit as. 00:42:50 Speaker 4: Weak a schedule as they had last year, it's not working at all. I've talked to a few coaches who have been like, and this was sort of one of my pet theories was like, go get veteran, big O-linemen and you'll be able to push people around and you might lose to some great teams, but you'll be able to push around most teams. 00:43:06 Speaker 2: And that hasn't happened at all. Their O-line is a mess, which is ridiculous. 00:43:10 Speaker 4: They were the most experienced team by snaps in the country coming into the season, and they're not good. Cam Robinson, who had first-round talent, and look, he's worked his way back from injury to try to get on the field, but he has not been the difference maker they wanted. And Bo Pribula, look, I mean, Eli Drinkwitz. 00:43:26 Speaker 2: Is a smart guy. There's a reason Bo Pribula was on the market, I guess. So it's been a

lot of things. I don't know that they had. 00:43:34 Speaker 4: And that's the problem with a place like Virginia and the resources they have. They have both enough resources to be good, but not enough that if your plan doesn't work perfectly, that you have a plan B. 00:43:45 Speaker 2: There's no plan B. 00:43:47 Speaker 1: Well, we're going around the whole league here. We might as well knock out the remaining teams. I'm thinking of three coaches in particular that when their name comes up, I think capital F football, capital G guy. Football guys through and through those being Pat Narduzzi at Pitt, Bill O'Brien at Boston College, Brent Key at Georgia Tech. How would you because like these are three programs that I think are in much different places right now. Obviously, Pitt had the quarterback injury, still a very, very solid roster there. We've got Boston College, who, look, I spent all offseason making fun of the Ted Roof hire. They've actually been better on defense and maybe better than a lot of people thought. And then there's Georgia Tech, who, of course, was coming off the Haynes King years. There was a lot of optimism about where that program was at. Alberto Mendoza comes in. It's been about a lot more than Alberto Mendoza this year, as you said earlier. We've had pretty much a bad go of things in Atlanta. So three programs there. three different coach personalities, three different spots right now, relative to the build, how would you assess where they're at? 00:44:57 Speaker 4: Pit you feel bad for, because I do think if Mason Heinzel doesn't get hurt, they might be sitting at undefeated right now. 00:45:02 Speaker 2: Uh, or if they have a loss, it's the one to Miami. 00:45:06 Speaker 4: Um, and so you, I, I tend to want to give Pat Narduzzi a pass because this was a pretty good team with a quarterback that I think everybody there really believed in. Um, The better comparison is between O'Brien and Key. And O'Brien was awful last year. 00:45:24 Speaker 2: They were awful last year. 00:45:25 Speaker 4: And that was not a sexy transfer portal class, but he brought in the right guys. Anthony Polano, the linebacker is just like old school, Boston College type of linebacker. And Mason McKenzie, like I would laugh because he would always say during the offseason, like, well, he won player of the year in the same conference Trinidad Chambliss did. And I was like, yeah, but Mason McKenzie has been good for what they want to do. 00:45:52 Speaker 2: And so they're competitive. 00:45:53 Speaker 4: And I think there's an appreciation at BC that like, look, We don't have– we're not even investing at– like we're the bottom of the barrel. 00:46:02 Speaker 2: They are the legitimate bottom of the barrel in investment. 00:46:05 Speaker 4: There's not a lot of excitement around the program there even in the best of years. 00:46:09 Speaker 2: But the flip side is there's not a lot of pressure either. 00:46:11 Speaker 4: And Bill, because he has long history in the city of Boston and family ties to Boston, that he wants to be there. Like to me, that's a marriage that just works until it's so bad that it can't work. Brent Key is fascinating because, I mean, he could probably be the head coach at Auburn right now. But he wanted to stay at his alma mater because he saw what he thought could be a much better future. He has had trouble retaining staff or working with some of the staff that he had. They obviously miss Buster Faulkner a ton. 00:46:38 Speaker 2: Alberto Mendoza, the interesting thing is he's not been the problem. He's not been exceptional, but he's not been the problem. 00:46:44 Speaker 4: They had a running back room that they invested in to be the best in the ACC and one of the better ones in the country. 00:46:50 Speaker 2: And they've been terrible. 00:46:52 Speaker 4: Like justice Haynes barely scratches the surface of being like competent right now. 00:46:56 Speaker 2: And he's a talented guy. 00:46:57 Speaker 4: The offensive line. And I know this has to like keep rent key up at night. The offensive line is awful, awful. Now they've also been banged up a lot and that's, there's some level of excuse making in that. Like you lost to Colorado in the opener before you were banged up though. Like there has just been a lot of problems there. And yeah, I think a good portion of it does start with the fact that like Brent key knew this was going to be a transition year. And a lot of the places he chose to invest, to rebuild post Haynes King and post Buster Faulkner have been the wrong choices. 00:47:32 Speaker 3: Let's go to the Bay area. Please clap. Please say something somewhat positive about what's happening in the far flung nether regions of the ACC. 00:47:44 Speaker 4: Well, look, Tevita Pritchard has Stanford playing not the worst football. They are not capable of playing 60 minutes of really good football most of the time, but they can, uh, they, I mean, they took Louisville to halftime in a close game and then it all fell apart. Uh, they don't have a lot there, but you can see what they're trying to do. And Tevita Pritchard is one of the most likable human beings you'll ever run into. 00:48:04 Speaker 2: And I What is happening in Cal? 00:48:10 Speaker 4: I mean, if it was a program that anybody gave a damn about, there would be a lot more uproar about this because you have a potential number one overall draft pick at quarterback, and you couldn't have. 00:48:19 Speaker 2: Screwed this up more. 00:48:21 Speaker 4: Like, hey, you have your introductory– Tosh Lapoi has his introductory press conference, leaves the press conference, gets to the plane, doesn't even change clothes, flies to Hawaii, gives the full court press to keep, Jaron Chiave, Sagapulitele. And then after they make this happen– hires an offensive coordinator who's never called plays before at any level. And then benches JKS for some other scrub that is nowhere near as talented and an already lost season. Like,

and then in a blowout against wake forest, when you're down 40, you say, Oh, our most valuable asset, let's put him back on the field now. 00:48:59 Speaker 2: Like all of it is absolutely head scratching. 00:49:02 Speaker 4: And look, we've all seen coaches and all kinds of sports who are in over their head. but learn lessons. I'm not, Tasha Lupoi is still a legend in Berkeley. People like him there. He was the absolute guy they wanted. So they've got him. There's been some growing pains. I think the entire question is, is like, is he going to learn lessons from this? My guess is he's not going to learn enough lessons to keep JKS for next year. And if it doesn't look any better next year, like I don't know where this goes, but not in a good place. 00:49:33 Speaker 2: All right. 00:49:33 Speaker 3: I'm going to empower you in a way that neither one of these universities is going to empower you. Hire Florida State's coach, hire NC State's coach. 00:49:42 Speaker 4: If I am at NC State, well, look, I preface all of this by saying if Lincoln Riley came on the market, I would open up a Brinks truck to get him to come back to the state of North Carolina. I think it would be a perfect fit there in a lot of ways. But if Julian Sane hadn't gotten hurt, that would be more likely to be the case. 00:50:03 Speaker 2: It's not. So here we are. I get why there's interest in Philip Rivers. 00:50:08 Speaker 4: And so much of NC State feels like untapped potential. I disagree. The potential hasn't really been there because the investment hasn't been there. And the upside to Philip Rivers is maybe he gets some people to open up their checkbooks. And I don't think it has to look like Dion or like Belichick. If he surrounds himself with the right people and understands what his role is there, then I think that can work. 00:50:31 Speaker 2: But me, I'm hiring Jason Eck. That's who I would want there. Sure. Of like reasonable candidates. 00:50:36 Speaker 4: Florida State, I think the guy who would probably top my list, and I hate to say like because I don't want to pull from one hand and hand to the other, but Rhett Lashley would be a guy I'd really have high up on my list there. He's been the offensive coordinator at Miami. He's a really good head coach. He is used to dealing with big, powerful personalities of rich people at SMU, and Florida State is a place where he, frankly, would have more resources. Everybody thinks SMU has a ton of money to spend, and they always forget SMU gets $ 0. 00:51:04 Speaker 2: In media revenue from the ACC. So I think that it is a job that would intrigue Lashley, and I think he'd be a really good fit there. 00:51:12 Speaker 1: His name is David Hale. You can find all of his fine work out on ESPN.com. David, we appreciate your insight. I think we hit every team here. I think we hit every team. We went the full whip around all things ACC. I'm getting a. 00:51:26 Speaker 4: Text here from Georgia Tech fans saying, could you have just not

talked about us? 00:51:30 Speaker 1: We will get those messages too, I am sure. David, thank you so much for your time. 00:51:34 Speaker 2: Pleasure, guys. 00:51:36 Speaker 1: All right, Dan, that is our good friend David Hale from ESPN.com. Been far too long since we had him on the show. And actually, I forgot to mention, I forgot to thank him because he posted an article way back when now, like in between the last time we had him on this show and this time he posted an article, the top 25 college football moments of the 21st century. And we were number 25, 25. for our role in bringing Clemsoning into the college football sphere. 00:52:08 Speaker 3: Well, he was the one who asked Dabo about that term, right? 00:52:11 Speaker 1: He was the one who asked Dabo about that term. I was the one on our show who said, who was that idiot? Who was that idiot? David Hell, he's fabulous. 00:52:19 Speaker 3: He's terrific he does a great job for espn.com but as you were saying the top 25 moments of like the college football like it was like off-field moments there was something some allusion to like weird moments um i just figured it would be the globe a tomato thing but right if not that clemsoning or talk to your kids about an undefeated iowa from was it 2015 something like that yeah uh I don't know the other solid verbal moments. 00:52:48 Speaker 1: Nick Foles in a losing effort was a big one. 00:52:50 Speaker 3: Oh, Nick Foles in a losing effort. The fake documentary we did from Glendale, Arizona and Phoenix, Arizona. There's lots of meat on the bone. But I'll take it. I will absolutely take it. 00:53:04 Speaker 1: We will take his insight anytime. That was wonderful. Fabulous. 00:53:07 Speaker 2: Yes. 00:53:08 Speaker 1: Absolutely fabulous. I believe we hit every ACC team. So please go out there. Give David Hale a follow. Make sure you read all of his fine work. out at ESPN.com. All right. Let's bring this thing home, Dan. We talked through, before we hit record, the idea of winterizing. 00:53:28 Speaker 3: Yes. 00:53:29 Speaker 1: I think you just like that word, winterization. 00:53:33 Speaker 4: I do. 00:53:33 Speaker 3: I do like winterizing, but I also understand that as somebody relatively new to living in a cold weather climate that steps need to be taken so that like pipes don't freeze, not a euphemism. Literally, you don't want your pipes to freeze. That could be bad news. And if they burst, it could cost a lot in repairs. You want to clean your gutters again, not a euphemism, but right. That you ought to clean your gutter. You ought to clean your gutters. 00:53:57 Speaker 2: Yes. 00:53:58 Speaker 1: I got, I don't know if you've ventured into this territory yet as, um, I guess you're a slightly newer homeowner than I am. 00:54:06 Speaker 3: Yeah. 00:54:07 Speaker 1: Have you ventured into the gutter cover territory yet? 00:54:11 Speaker 3: Not fully. I am familiar with them, but not fully. 00:54:15 Speaker 1: Right. 00:54:15 Speaker 3: That they allow water in, but they prevent against leaf encroachment. That's right. 00:54:22 Speaker 1: Water can penetrate. 00:54:23 Speaker 3: Thank you. 00:54:25 Speaker 1: But leaves cannot. And so I had a problem with, you know. Gutter's getting clogged. 00:54:29 Speaker 2: Leaves. 00:54:30 Speaker 3: You're going to have to hit that V harder, Ty. 00:54:32 Speaker 1: Yeah. Put the gutter cover on and now the leaves. 00:54:36 Speaker 3: Thank you. 00:54:37 Speaker 1: Have not been an issue. Not a sponsor could be. 00:54:40 Speaker 3: So you're happy with it. 00:54:41 Speaker 1: Not a sponsor could be. 00:54:42 Speaker 2: Okay. 00:54:43 Speaker 3: So you're happy with that decision you made. 00:54:45 Speaker 2: Okay. I am, yeah. 00:54:46 Speaker 1: Sometimes when it rains a little harder, or when it hails, no pun intended, in the summertime, sometimes it does sound like the house is under bombardment. 00:54:54 Speaker 3: It's crackling a little bit. 00:54:56 Speaker 1: But otherwise, it has definitely served its purpose, yes. 00:54:58 Speaker 3: But it is a time, right, that you are shuffling snow. You are putting down salt to get that snow melt, right? You're constantly taking steps to make your life a little bit easier so that things don't go wrong, and that's wintertime. 00:55:11 Speaker 2: So. 00:55:12 Speaker 3: My transition here is because we have, what, six, seven, eight Mammoth games this coming week. 00:55:19 Speaker 1: Dude, it's nuts. This is going to be, we're going to do like a four-hour show on Wednesday. 00:55:25 Speaker 2: Great. 00:55:25 Speaker 1: It won't be four, but it might be two. It's going to be longer than usual because we have so many games to discuss. 00:55:31 Speaker 3: It's going to be, you can see everything, colon, but college football. Right. I want to go through the teams playing in those games right now and just talk quick about vulnerabilities, exploits. You texted me last week. You're like, the internet might be shutting down. There's some sort of unknown exploit that's being exploited. I pulled our site down, but apparently everything was okay. One anonymous guy, some sort of developer was like, oh, I got this. And fixed it. You know about this? 00:56:00 Speaker 1: It's a little more complicated than that. I know it is. 00:56:02 Speaker 3: But of course I know about it. 00:56:04 Speaker 1: I was talking about IT tickets at the start of the show with an app that I have nothing to do with. So yes, I'm familiar with what's going on. 00:56:11 Speaker 3: But there was like a guy who was like central. Maybe he wasn't the only guy. But there was a guy who was like, oh, I can fix this. 00:56:17 Speaker 2: Right? 00:56:18 Speaker 1: We don't need to go into PHP talk here. 00:56:20 Speaker 3: We can. The floor is yours, Mr. 00:56:23 Speaker 2: PHP. 00:56:24 Speaker 1: Nobody wants that. 00:56:25 Speaker 3: There are people listening who want it. Anyway, I want to discuss. Let's go through. We can start with LSU-Bama.

When you look at LSU-Bama and you look at LSU or you look at Alabama, you can start wherever you want. What is the obvious exploit or thing that needs patching internet term? 00:56:43 Speaker 1: I think you got to protect your young quarterback from the elements. I think that's what it comes down to. Keelan Russell struggled in that loss at Tennessee. Now he's going to be in another hostile road environment, Tiger Stadium, LSU. They need to protect him better. They need to protect him better. They need to manage third downs a little bit better. And they need to put together an offense that doesn't require Keelan Russell to carry the full burden of it. Right. So if that answers the question, I think it rises to the level of protecting the quarterback from the quote-unquote elements. They're going to need to do that this week on the road at LSU. It just can't be a one-dimensional thing. Otherwise, they're going to lose. 00:57:32 Speaker 3: In terms of LSU, I'm not terribly worried about anything. Obviously, some late-game decisions with the end of the Ole Miss game, the end of the Kentucky game, and being aggressive in staying locked in and preparing the team for those moments. I would also say LSU is not the most explosive team in the country right now, but as they get healthier on offense, especially at the skill positions, being able to utilize some of that health, some of those players, I think they're particularly bad at staying out of third and long. They're good on third down overall, but those early downs right now against Alabama, I think are going to be pretty crucial here. I mean, they're always crucial, but LSU could do a better job And when you say protect, by the way, with Keelan Russell, I think it's sort of on two different levels. It's both the offensive line and it's also protecting him in terms of an offensive structure that's not as predictable. You saw Tennessee really jump on those big moments with a pretty confident idea of what was going to happen. And so Alabama back to the drawing board of sort of being more unpredictable with their offense in those big spots because Tennessee LSU's got a hell of a defensive coordinator and a high, a high level defense. So that's where I see the exploits. That's where I see the, the winterization needs. 00:58:45 Speaker 2: Okay. 00:58:45 Speaker 1: What do you got for me next? 00:58:46 Speaker 3: Notre Dame, Miami. 00:58:47 Speaker 1: No, no, this game's not even, we can't talk about this game. 00:58:52 Speaker 3: You are more tuned into Notre Dame than I, but I think we've got a good sense for what Miami is, which is largely great, largely looking for as much health as they can get. Um, but in terms of where Miami is, that's, Easier to answer because of some of their defensive struggles this year, tackling in the open field, uh, health and relying on depth on defense, especially in that backend that, that seems to be the case right now. And they're beat up along the offensive line as well, but they've been able to score points. So right now they have not played as good a defense as Notre Dame is. That's, I was, I was, Stumbling into non-English. Pause. 00:59:33 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:59:33 Speaker 3: Miami has not played a defense as talented and as high level as Notre Dame's, but they've been able to consistently be excellent on offense, even with some of their injury bad luck. So the worry is defense for Miami. 00:59:50 Speaker 2: Yeah. 00:59:50 Speaker 3: Talk to me about your Miami thoughts and your Notre Dame thoughts. 00:59:53 Speaker 1: Yeah, I was going to say, I give you both sides of this. I could give you a million things on both sides of this. I've been reading about this game. By the way, interesting bit of symmetry. 01:00:02 Speaker 3: Please. 01:00:03 Speaker 1: These teams have played 29 times. This will be the 29th time that Miami and Notre Dame will have played. You have to go back to 1988 to find the last time that it was number four, Notre Dame, hosting number one, Miami. It's actually a tie this weekend for the highest rated matchup between these two schools. In that matchup in 1988, Notre Dame won 31 to 30. So if this game this weekend on Saturday night is anything like that one, my heart's going to stop. You're going to need a new co-host. I'm just putting you on notice. Give somebody else a call. 01:00:44 Speaker 3: I really like David Hale personally. Well, David Hale was fabulous. Maybe he'll do it. 01:00:48 Speaker 4: Yeah. 01:00:49 Speaker 1: Because I just will not be available emotionally, physically, you name it. 01:00:54 Speaker 3: Will you commit right now to doing a reaction video either way? 01:00:58 Speaker 1: Will we be able to with our schedule? 01:01:02 Speaker 3: You take out your phone, you point it at your beautiful mug, you hit record, and you talk for 90 seconds to two and a half minutes, and you hit publish. That's all I'm asking. 01:01:11 Speaker 1: We might have to do just a live cam on me like I'm some sort of zoo animal. 01:01:17 Speaker 2: That's okay. 01:01:18 Speaker 1: Because there will be equal parts me trying to watch Notre Dame Miami- Tyler the Anxious Otter. 01:01:24 Speaker 2: Yeah. 01:01:25 Speaker 1: There will be equal parts me trying to watch the game, but then also trying to prep. So maybe just like a silent webcam that shows up on the YouTube. 01:01:33 Speaker 2: I don't know. 01:01:34 Speaker 4: All right. 01:01:35 Speaker 1: But yeah, I'll do whatever. 01:01:36 Speaker 2: I don't know. 01:01:37 Speaker 3: I mean, welcome to Gummy Saturday, right? You just pop it right after? We just go into that night mellow as hell? 01:01:44 Speaker 1: Oh my God. I might have to. Both teams have defensive questions. 01:01:49 Speaker 2: Yeah? 01:01:49 Speaker 1: Both teams have defensive questions. Like, Billy Edwards Jr. threw for 341 against Miami. They survived the close call against UNC. They also survived a close call in the rivalry game against Florida State. 01:02:05

Speaker 3: Florida State and struggled on defense. 01:02:06 Speaker 1: And struggled on defense. So C.J. Carr is better. I hope it is pretty well known at this point to our audience. 01:02:14 Speaker 2: C.J. 01:02:14 Speaker 1: Carr is a better quarterback than pretty much everybody they've played so far. And he will definitely present a major advantage challenge for this Miami Hurricanes defense also it seems as if they're trying to integrate more parts in the passing game so it's definitely not just going to be like Jordan Faison as I feared at the start of the season I they've now added some other guys that I think can be problematic for a defense that might have some trouble against the pass so if you're Miami you got to patch up those holes okay so. 01:02:41 Speaker 3: Where's the Notre Dame winterized winterizing. 01:02:44 Speaker 1: Place well they're banged up they're banged up on defense. I don't think they're going to have Drake Bowen. Thankfully, I think Leonard Moore is going to be back. I think it was just more of a precautionary thing that they held him out against Navy, but, um, not, not only are they banged up with their green dot linebacker and Drake Bro and the captain of the defense who had an ankle thing, it's going to be a longer term injury, but, um, there's plenty of other injuries throughout that secondary as well. Um, you know, they've, they've been playing without Tay Johnson. Um, It looks like there are some other injuries in the defensive backfield as well that I can get into as we go through our Wednesday preview on the next episode. So I think that part of it just on the injury side is problematic. The other thing that I would add, more generally speaking, is that it just seems like it takes them a long time to react to whatever the offense is doing. Go back and watch that Navy game if you're looking for an example. It took them a full half to figure out what Navy was doing. We all knew what Navy was going to do. Navy's done the same thing now for 50 years. Slightly different offense under Brian Newberry. Granted, OK, it's the same thing, dog. It's always been the same thing. Why it took them that long to figure out what Navy was doing and figure out how to stop it is beyond me. But it's a continuing trend. It's kind of always been this way under Chris Ashton. It was certainly the case a couple weeks ago against BYU. They never found their bearing in that one. Maybe BYU's just that good. I think that's entirely possible. Also, this has been a thing under Chris Ash where it just takes them a while to adjust. You're just not going to be able to do that against Miami. We'll see how long it takes them, but if it's going to take them three quarters, forget it. That's going to be a loss. So they've got to adjust a little bit quicker, and I think they have to figure out a way to deal with some of the injuries that they've got up. a blow on the front right now. On the front and on the back. That's a problem. 01:04:41 Speaker

3: BYU-Utah winterized. What steps are we looking for them to take? Not just against each other, but this last month of the season. Obviously two top 10 teams. BYU especially dealing with their most dynamic non-Bear Bachmeier offensive player. And LJ Martin having been out for a few weeks now. BYU-Utah. 01:05:05 Speaker 1: Well, I mean, the LJ Martin thing is pretty big, but that's been a recurring theme now. So they've, I think, managed fairly well. They just haven't looked as sharp since they beat Notre Dame. You know, like they had the double overtime loss to UCF. They had the Arizona State game a week ago. I think rightfully that raises questions about whether they're able to consistently generate the offense when they need it. Now, to bear Bachmeier, On that topic, Bear Bachmeier, again, was really good. I think Bear Bachmeier is getting better before our very eyes. I just don't want to put it all on Bear Bachmeier. I don't want to put it all on Bear Bachmeier, especially now with a game coming up against Utah, which is going to be very, very physical. I know that's BYU's brand of football. I know they're comfortable playing that brand of football. I'm just not comfortable putting it all on the young quarterback in a situation like that. It may have worked these last couple weeks. It may have worked, frankly, over the last year and a half, but Hostile territory on the road, rivalry game. You're the underdog. I'm just saying. I need to find some other like other weapons out there that we can reliably count on, even the running game. You know, they've gotten enough out of the running game in L.J. Martin's absence, but it's still not at the point where I'm confident relying upon it in a big game. So it's worked to their credit. They're a top 10 team. I think they're going to be a playoff team. They're certainly in that conversation. 01:06:35 Speaker 2: Yeah. 01:06:36 Speaker 1: I just, they have not been as sharp. I want to see something else beyond bareback Meyer. 01:06:42 Speaker 3: Um, the thing that stands out, both of these teams, I think need to address, need to address the exploit and patch pass rush a little bit because bareback Meyer and Devin damp here are so damn good with the ball in their hands, both in terms of pocket navigation and scrambling, extending, improvising, um, Both of these teams have struggled to put up numbers attacking the opposing quarterback. And so this game could come down to who is making those plays, who has way too much time to make those plays. BYU's schedule moving forward is not all that impressive in terms of teams that could give them four quarters to fight. Utah's is pretty tough. 01:07:24 Speaker 1: It is. 01:07:25 Speaker 2: It is tough. 01:07:25 Speaker 3: In terms of not starting out the season with a hugely challenging schedule. And now finishing out with the likes of like TCU, Arizona, West Virginia, teams like that, that do at least one specific thing pretty well. That's what I'm looking for. That's, you know, you're David Byrne. This must be the place. It's Talking Heads, excuse me. Home is where I want to be. Pick me up and turn me around. 01:07:46 Speaker 2: Come on. 01:07:48 Speaker 3: This is, it's who's getting home, right? Home's where they want to be, Ty. That's what I'm looking for in the Holy War. Early on and beyond for these teams. Where's that pass rush? Texas at Mizzou. From a Texas perspective, it's been obvious. It's been dependability from this offense. And this is a winnable moment for Texas. 01:08:11 Speaker 2: It's Arch. 01:08:12 Speaker 3: It's putting Arch in a good position when the offense is confident, when the offense knows what it wants to do and is able to execute. They're terrific. In these bigger moments, especially against ranked teams, they've been all over the place. 01:08:28 Speaker 1: Okay. 01:08:29 Speaker 3: Do you disagree? Is there something about Texas otherwise that you're looking for? 01:08:34 Speaker 1: I'd love for them to have a dependable rushing attack. 01:08:37 Speaker 3: Yeah. 01:08:39 Speaker 1: I'd love for their offensive line to finally not be a mess and to give them the protection that they need up front, give Arch Manning a little bit of help, keep them out of obvious passing situations. I think everyone knows that at this point. I don't think I'm really breaking any new ground. On the Mizzou side of things, Mizzou school. just three points against Ole Miss. Austin Simmons and the passing game clearly have a ton of explosive potential, but I think they need to prove that they can move the ball against an elite defense. 01:09:15 Speaker 3: I think they need to move it on the ground. Now, Ahmad Hardy's healthy and practicing. 01:09:19 Speaker 1: I don't know what the load will look like for Ahmad Hardy, but if they can get him back and get high leverage touches out of him, that would be a huge addition to Jamal Roberts. They've been very good at running the football. But I want to see what their offense looks like against a top tier defensive front. And we're going to have an opportunity to see that this weekend against Texas. Like Texas could very much force them into being a one dimensional offense. And I think that's a danger zone. for Mizzou. That's sort of where I'm leaning right now. It's only a three-point line. It should be a close game. 01:09:51 Speaker 3: I don't feel like Mizzou has been good at running the ball, at least not lately. 01:09:54 Speaker 1: Well, okay. 01:09:55 Speaker 3: Let me put it to you this way. 20 carries for 39 yards against Ole Miss. A not great Ole Miss defense in this moment. Let me put it to you this way. 01:10:02 Speaker 2: Okay. 01:10:03 Speaker 3: That was Jamal Roberts. 01:10:04 Speaker 2: Yeah. 01:10:05 Speaker 1: They have had moments. Clearly, they have potential. But in terms of efficiency, in terms of success rates, in terms of those types of stats that I know you and I tend to look at a little bit more intently. Yeah. No, those numbers

aren't great. So I agree. 01:10:21 Speaker 3: Yeah, when they can run the ball, I mean, the sky opens up. 01:10:24 Speaker 2: It's great. 01:10:26 Speaker 1: Kentucky against Tennessee. I am fascinated with this game, by the way. This is the game that I think I'm most interested in this weekend, other than Notre Dame Miami. 01:10:36 Speaker 3: Look, from the Tennessee side, right, it's still going to be trusting the passing attack. It's still trusting a green quarterback in a big game. with a lot still on the line, you know, trusting George McIntyre, trusting him within that offense, because otherwise, look, this is not a Tennessee team that has put forth a ton of explosive plays, but look, they're like anybody else in dealing with health stuff all over the field. But I think if they can get off the field some and play the run decently, which is not always a given, if George McIntyre is merely fine, they have a chance to beat just about everybody. 01:11:13 Speaker 2: Yeah. 01:11:13 Speaker 3: There's just enough on that team. 01:11:16 Speaker 1: I think I am transfixed by the idea that Kentucky is something of a flash in the pan or putting this season together with duct tape and chicken wire. 01:11:30 Speaker 2: Right. 01:11:31 Speaker 1: And I'm including myself in this because I have felt that way for a while having watched this team. But at the same time, they're winning. 01:11:41 Speaker 2: They're winning. 01:11:42 Speaker 1: Consistently winning. They're close games. They're not always pretty. Sometimes it's a late adjustment, a late play. Sometimes it's somebody else making a mistake and them capitalizing, but they're just, they're finding ways to do this thing week in and week out. And so I think if you're Kentucky, the winterization that would probably go the furthest towards proving to the doubters out there that you're a legit team would be winning a game without having to rely on those mistakes. Winning a game just in sort of a normal way. Just dominating for 60 minutes. It doesn't need to be the most statistically dominating performance, but you just win, baby. And it doesn't take any smoke. It doesn't take any mirrors. 01:12:28 Speaker 2: Now, if. 01:12:30 Speaker 1: You're a Kentucky fan, why? 01:12:33 Speaker 2: Why bother? Why what? 01:12:36 Speaker 1: You don't owe me anything. 01:12:38 Speaker 2: Right. 01:12:39 Speaker 1: You don't owe anybody anything. Just keep winning. 01:12:40 Speaker 3: You got one loss. 01:12:41 Speaker 1: You're potentially going to be a top five team after this week, for sure. After this week, if you beat Tennessee, who cares if you win without generating mistakes? 01:12:51 Speaker 2: Who cares? 01:12:52 Speaker 1: You'll take it however you can get it. I am just saying there is a narrative out there and we have spoken to it all throughout the month of October. Every time we bring Bill on, I feel like we're talking about this thing with Kentucky and are they sustainable? Are they not? If you're a fan,

you don't care. But from the national perspective- on the week where we're going to have some playoff rankings, I think that would help bolster the Kentucky case. That's all I'm saying. 01:13:16 Speaker 2: Sure. 01:13:17 Speaker 1: So I would love to see Kentucky win in some different ways, I guess is what I am saying. Not because I feel they need to, but because I think it would help them in terms of that national conversation. 01:13:29 Speaker 3: Yeah, I think it's a combination of defense and just everybody kind of has a dud of a game. National champions have duds along the way, and the defense has seemingly pointed to dud results, but the offense has been so clean. Kenny Minchie, I think, has only thrown one pick this year. 01:13:48 Speaker 1: He's been good. 01:13:49 Speaker 3: The worry is they just have a dud at Tennessee in a tough spot, playing at a tough place, and, or, I mean, even the rest of their schedule. I think they have, what, Mizzou and Louisville as well, right? 01:14:00 Speaker 1: Yep. 01:14:02 Speaker 3: And Florida. 01:14:02 Speaker 2: Yeah. 01:14:03 Speaker 3: So, like, they have potentially, in Florida's quarterback situation notwithstanding, they have potentially four pretty dangerous offenses left here. Defense that hasn't been great. And they really haven't had that full dud of a game because they're well coached. They have good players. Like, there's a reason why. That's the concern, though, to me. That's the exploit right there. That you just hang around long enough and things may not go right. 01:14:27 Speaker 1: Georgia Ole Miss. 01:14:31 Speaker 3: I think Georgia just needs to be clean, right? The evidence we have about Georgia this year is that Auburn game. And maybe to a lesser extent, the Bama game that they won, but it's the self-inflicted errors. It's that they haven't had the most explosive offense this year. And it's been fine. You pointed that out after their game last week against Florida. That's the, the, the winterization concern from Georgia. It's just taking care of their own business, keeping their own house clean. Um, Ole Miss-wise, it's still a defense thing to me. It's still a pass rush thing. It's still a tackling in the open field thing. They eventually handled Auburn, but that was pretty competitive for three quarters because Ole Miss just wasn't able to play over play, drive over drive, open that up until quite late. And to me, it was some of the defensive breakdowns. Byron Brown was able to get loose and extend plays. And the concern would be Gunner Stockton is athletic enough We've had two pretty dramatic games between these two teams last season. So that would be the concern right now with Ole Miss is that they themselves are not tight and always running away from inferior teams combined with some of those defensive struggles. 01:15:47 Speaker 1: I mean, if you're Georgia, you've got to prove you can win a shootout. And I think they can. Yeah. I think they can. But the passing attack kind

of struggled against a very vulnerable Florida secondary. Yeah. So I'd like to see a little bit more proof or proof of concept on that side of things. And you're right, Ole Miss is defense. It's defense. There's going to be a level of physicality assumed in this game with Georgia. And it'll be interesting to see how Ole Miss matches up. There's going to be this conversation about Georgia controlling the game, sustaining drives. Can the Ole Miss defense get off the field? You can't ask Trinidad Chambliss to bail you out all the time. Right. And you need to get your defense off the field. You need to give Trinidad Chambliss good field position, especially against a team like Georgia, if you want to have any chance of putting up points. So that's where I'm at. I think we're basically on the same page here. I have a bonus game here. 01:16:50 Speaker 3: Bonus game. 01:16:53 Speaker 1: Oregon, Ohio State. 01:16:54 Speaker 3: Now we're good. 01:16:55 Speaker 1: If you're going to ask me about Notre Dame. Now we're good. I'm going to ask you about this game. By the way, this would have been a monster matchup. I'm being told we're over time-wise. We're definitely over, but we're going to extend for this. 01:17:06 Speaker 3: Yeah. 01:17:08 Speaker 1: If you had told me back in mid-August that we'd be in this moment where Oregon's unranked, where Ohio State has multiple losses. 01:17:20 Speaker 2: Right. 01:17:22 Speaker 1: I would have said you're crazy, but things have really taken a bit of a turn on both fronts. Ohio State... and Oregon due to injury at the quarterback position. The Oregon thing is much more complex. They've now since fired their offensive coordinator. We have talked about all these issues ad nauseum here on the show. These are two big Big Ten schools. But winterization-wise, it's interesting because obviously Ohio State is still part of that conversation, the Big Ten and the playoff. Oregon, though they have three losses, stranger things have happened. Bit of a chaotic year. Yeah. We talked all throughout the month of October how it felt like there might be a three loss team that finds its way into the playoff. I don't think you think Oregon's all that good. I don't think you think that they're worthy of being a playoff team at this point. 01:18:13 Speaker 2: No. 01:18:15 Speaker 1: All that being said, it still could happen. It still could happen. It would take a lot of help, but it still could happen. So in terms of winterization, what do both sides need to shore up? 01:18:27 Speaker 3: They need to get their starting quarterbacks healthy and change some minds about playing. 01:18:31 Speaker 1: Okay. 01:18:33 Speaker 3: I think that's the easy idiot answer involved here. 01:18:39 Speaker 1: But okay. 01:18:39 Speaker 2: Otherwise. 01:18:40 Speaker 1: I'm going to pause you here. Let me jump in. 01:18:41 Speaker 2: Please. 01:18:44 Speaker 1: A moment occurred in that Oregon game last week where, as you pointed out, they just realized

that they could... just throw downfield. They could just start bombing it deep. 01:18:52 Speaker 2: And it worked. 01:18:53 Speaker 1: So is there another such calculation on the offensive side of the ball? Because the defense is okay. The defense isn't losing them games. 01:19:02 Speaker 3: Right. 01:19:03 Speaker 1: Is there another adjustment on the offensive side of the ball that you would like to see Oregon make that maybe now with a different play caller, they will see on tape and they will make that adjustment. 01:19:13 Speaker 3: No, I think they've arrived to their actual ceiling and potential with Dylan Raiola, with what he was able to do, you know, going for 10 yards per attempt and succeeding downfield. You know, they lose both of their running backs that they played an overwhelming amount of time. I don't know what the status of either one of them is going to be. Maybe D.R. Hill is a little in advance, a little ahead of Jordan Davison in this moment. But so they're going to be playing with some green offensive players due to injury. And I just think they're in a nothing to lose in this moment type situation where Ohio State still feels like there's more pressure there. They're playing at home. They only have two losses in this moment to at least quality teams, whereas Oregon can't say that about their losses fully. So Oregon, I think, is going to be playing a little bit looser, whereas Ohio State right now, we don't fully know what their defense is and... we don't know what their ceiling is with Luke Fahey. And I, I think we have a better concept after that USC game, but also in terms of like quarterbacks played this year for Ohio state, we don't have a good sense. Cause we thought that like, Oh, Indiana and Texas, at least right now, Indiana is not settled. Texas isn't settled. USC has been all over the place on offense. So we don't truly know what Ohio state with a new look defense is. has in terms of its ceiling. So I would say defense and quarterback for Ohio State, and basically just quarterback, because how do you go into a game starting Dylan Raiola and not say, ooh, that could be an issue? 01:20:44 Speaker 2: Yeah. 01:20:45 Speaker 1: I mean, I think it's fairly obvious. 01:20:47 Speaker 2: Yeah. 01:20:48 Speaker 1: I think it's fairly obvious. But I would like to see a little bit more explosion out of Oregon. I mean, they've got the players to do it, but if we can see a continued... focus on maybe doing more through the passing game, throwing more downfield. If we could see a commitment from Dylan Arreola to be the version of him that we saw this past weekend. 01:21:10 Speaker 3: Good luck. 01:21:11 Speaker 2: A commitment. 01:21:12 Speaker 1: Yeah. Listen, I know this has ever been the theme about Dylan Arreola, but can we get him to step into throws? Can we get him to make the easy throws consistently instead of trying to make highlight reel throws all the time? 01:21:24 Speaker 3: Jumping backwards, throwing it away from his body. Hey, that worked. 01:21:28 Speaker 1: That worked. 01:21:28 Speaker 2: Sorry. Sorry. 01:21:31 Speaker 1: There was a little bit of Egon Spangler trying to drill a hole through his head with that throw. But it did work. It did work. It doesn't always. And the ones that don't are ugly. But we need to get him to this point where it is not about looking pretty on YouTube. And it is more about winning and moving the ball forward and not doing anything stupid. I'm not saying there's an answer for that. I think we got who we got at this point. Yeah. 01:21:56 Speaker 2: I agree. 01:21:56 Speaker 1: He will be playing for a different team next year, personally. 01:21:59 Speaker 3: By the way, just in terms of what both of these teams have left, Ohio State has a lot. Oregon has less than it thought it would in the Michigan schools and Washington after this. 01:22:10 Speaker 1: Do you have a lean in this game, by the way? It's Oregon at Ohio State. Ohio State's favored by seven. 01:22:16 Speaker 3: I mean, I couldn't possibly go from hating the Oregon visual experience anymore to picking them in the shoe. But the Luke Fahey thing and how they looked for a chunk of that game against USC has given me pause. I'll say that. 01:22:34 Speaker 1: Right in solidverbal.gmail.com, let us know your thoughts on all of these teams. All of the 14, I guess, that we discussed here. 01:22:44 Speaker 3: The exploits. 01:22:46 Speaker 1: If you've got any other ideas for teams that you would like to winterize and how you would winterize them. Again, solverball.gmail.com. Hit us up on any of our social feeds. So look, we're going to be doing a long preview on Wednesday. It'll drop to your feed on Wednesday night. There will be a wonderful Pick'Em game. I am excited about giving away this gift. Verballers.com is where you can go if you want to sign up to play in the Pick'Em game. The Pick'Em game actually opens Tuesday at noon Eastern time. We will, of course, discuss it in more detail later. on the Wednesday episode. But if you want to get in early, want to be part of the fun, want to play for the prize, you can sign up at verballers.com, Dan. 01:23:30 Speaker 2: Yes, do it. 01:23:32 Speaker 1: Rate, review, subscribe. If you made it this far, we will be back on Wednesday. Big thanks to our guest of honor today, David Hale from ESPN.com. For that, go over there. My good friend, Dan Rubenstein. For myself, Ty Hildebrand. You know the drill. Stay solid. 01:23:45 Speaker 2: Peace.