Week Fifteen

1:12 The. And welcome back to the Boundary Corner podcast along with my partners, Brian Ziegler and Shelton Moss in a late arriving Jonathan Talley.

1:55 He will be here in just a little while. Y'all. My name is Curtis Wilson. Boundary Corner podcast is part of the College Huddle Network and this episode, as always, is brought to you by Doctor Jeremy Counts down at Counts Family Pharmacy Three O 1 S Main St., Blacksburg. Your friendly neighborhood pharmacy. Season's over. All the regular season's over. The regular season's over. It went by fast, did it not? Such is life, man. I mean, we started the season, Sheldon didn't have a job. Now he's got a job. He's got a new apartment. He's writing articles for the key play Sheldon. He will feverishly be finishing out an article after we wrap up tonight for y'all tomorrow, Sheldon, just get a little tea on what you're going to be reviewing there for that article when it drops. Yeah, so I think it might be a two-part series, you know, Part 1 tomorrow, but because I got a lot of things to write about. But I would say, you know, I I just talked about how how much of an underachiever Virginia Tech was historical underachiever.

3:01 If you saw my tweet the other day, Okies are last 20-3 years. They had the highest point differential against FBS plus 6.9 point differential for a team that did not finish with a winning record at 6:00 and 6:00. So I think the the defining aspect of this team will just be, you know, underachieving. I mean, they they should have won more than six games, but they didn't found a way to lose every close game O and five. And I think I think the play on the field was a lot better than what the record indicated, even though we certainly do have some criticism of coaching. But you know, I I talked about the defense and how, you know, they did statistically improving a lot of metrics from last year, but it was also somewhat of a mirage just because they faced a lot of backup quarterbacks.

3:44 They didn't really win a game against any decent quarterback the entire season. You know, they gave us some big passing plays, a lot of explosives and they they struggled to stop the run consistently. So you think we look at those factors together, you kind of look at a defense that just really didn't. I think the the, the sum of the parts, you know, wasn't bigger than the whole, whatever the quote is. I don't know. But they just they didn't perform well enough. So there you go. All right, so definitely check that out tomorrow with Shelton. And you know, normally we will start with Tell the Truth Tuesday and review the game. But because we were waiting for Tally had to attend the basketball game and I can be sliding in here a little later, we're going to start it to be at the ending end at the beginning. So what we're starting with is we are going to start with our big screeners this week.

4:33 We have decided to pick every conference championship game, all nine of them straight up money line, no spread involved. Who you think's going to take home the trophy potential bids into the CFP playoff? We can. We're going to actually discuss that and the rankings once we get this wrapped up. So a lot of fun, a lot of games. If you're a gambler like Jason Long, our buddy, I have a feeling either Jason come Sunday is going to have a lot of money to the bet on the NFL. He's not going to be able to bet on the NFL Sunday after Friday and Saturday, so. This is a fun one because I, I looked, it's kind of where we fell and it's a, it's a very interesting, interesting week.

5:16 Yeah, after after a a few weeks here of having quite a few games where we're all in lockstep, we got a bunch this week that there's at least a couple stragglers here and there. There are some stragglers here and there. So let's get that graphic up and let's get it started. And we are going to start with one of the first games on Friday night where Jonathan Talley's alma mater, the Jacksonville State Gamecocks. But one Gamecock is going to have a championship this year. The other probably not going to be able to play takes on Western Kentucky. Western Kentucky is sneaking into this game after they beat Jacksonville State last week to get into the Conference USA title game, which is pretty crazy.

6:05 I think it's a 3 point win. 16/19/16 I'll get that up to confirm. So we're going to start here. It's going to be Friday night. 7:00. Get your get your gambling ready because you know that's what you're going to do on this game. Going to be on CBS Sports Network, we're picking straight up the line is Jacksonville -3 1/2 and it is going to be at Jacksonville State. So at their home stadium where the match up I believe last week if I'm not mistaken was at Western Kentucky and it was 17 or 1917 Western Kentucky with a walk off 50 yard field goal to beat Jacksonville State. So Brian, with all that being said. Teams this evenly matched.

6:50 Winning a game twice is hard as hell. So for that reason, we're going with the cops, man. Got winning against the same team twice usually it's tough to do anyway. Winning against the same team twice in back-to-back weeks, I don't find that data point. Is that ever been done? I can find it be. So we'll let you look that up while we're going through this stuff. But for me, I'm also with Brian, I I think a close win. Wilshire, Kentucky's home field definitely saved one last week. Jacksonville Statewood home field Jacksonville State wins Conference USA.

7:31 Yeah, I know Boise State and President State had a couple years where they they faced off back-to-back in the Mountain West because of the the championship game after regular season game. And those are some pretty good battles. I think. I think they split most of their meetings. But yeah, I'm taking, I'm taking Jacksonville State. I honestly don't really know anything about either one of these teams, but I'm just taking the home team. There you go. You know where Tally's. Going well, you know where he's going. And Miranda's going with Western Kentucky here. She thinks they can pull the double and. Jason's riding with the rest of the crew. All righty, Brian, where are we going next? Miami of Ohio and Ohio all. Righty the matching.

8:11 The matching, this is totally gut feel for me. I'm going with Ohio. I'm riding. I'm riding with the Bobcats here. Gut feel for me. This is going to be noon by the way, on Saturday, ESP NS carrying this one game is let's say I think it's at Ford Field, the wonderful Ford Field, which is wonderful. Now it's a fun place to watch football. Now these teams matched up in the regular season with Miami of Ohio beating Ohio and it's kind of funny though when y'all think about it.

8:55 So we have a Miami and an Ohio in conference championship weekend, but you know what? Is it either one we thought it'd be? Nope, not at all. Nope. I like Miami a little bit more and I'll tell you why on this one. Yes, they're going to pull the double, but that game was way back. When you take a look at their records this year, Miami's of Ohio's other three losses. They lost to Northwestern, they lost to Cincinnati and they lost to Notre Dame, and they were competitive in those games. So I'm going to want to go Miami of Ohio on this one.

9:37 All right, Sheldon, what you got? Yeah, I'm taking Miami. Last three games they've given up a total of 28 points. Their defense is on fire. I'm taking the team with better defense today. So Miami. All right. Tally's riding with Y'all, Miranda's on my train here and Jason is with Y'all as well, so it's kind of a split house here. Little 42 action. Little 42 action there. All right. Oh baby, next one, Sunbelt Conference where this legitimately looks like a really good game. Marshalls nine and three, usually Louisiana Raisin Cajuns are tending to this game at Cajun Field, so it is a home field advantage for the Raisin Cajuns. Will be on ESPN on Saturday.

10:34 Excuse me, yes, Saturday night 730 have a man cave set up. You don't miss any games, but everybody know that out there and and it's interesting. I'm trying to pull it up here. I don't think they played in the regular season because there's an East and West for this. Marshall coming off a win over JMU. They did not play in the regular season. So a first, first meeting of the season. Yeah, first match up and it's a good match up. They're both good, solid teams. Brian, what are you thinking on this one? You know, I've liked what I've seen from the Marshall games that I've watched all year. I haven't watched a ton of Louisiana throughout the year. Marshalls looked pretty impressive compared to what I thought we were going to get from them this year, so I'm going to take Marshall in this one. Yeah, Marshall, two of their three losses, obviously they lost to Tech and then they lost to Ohio State the following week.

11:38 So two of their three losses are to Power Four teams, Raging Cajuns one and one against. Effectively not one in one. But Raging Cage's biggest win this year. Beat Tulane early in the season. Should be lost to Tulane early in the season, but beat Wake Forest. So with all that being said, I don't know, I like Charles Huff. I think this is more I like Charles Huff. He might be the coach in a couple years. So get on with bandwagon now. Well, I like Michael Desermo. That's the head coach for Louisiana. OK, he was, he was a little bit similar to pride in the sense that he got really unlucky his first two years. But this has been sort of the big turn around year for Louisiana. He's done a great job.

12:20 They're they're tending to overall 7/1 of the conference. So I'm taking Louisiana. I think I just think they got a really good unit. Yeah. All right. Yeah. Tally's riding with you there, Sheldon, Miranda's riding me and Curtis and Jason they we got a full split here on this one. Hey Sheldon, just just a little background. Where did the Ormo come from? Where was he he? He's a, he was a first time head coach. He can't, he was an assistant there for a bunch of years and he actually came before that straight from straight from high school. So he was a running backs coach for one year and then switched over to tight ends for five years and then just moved up the ranks. Wow, that's that's, that's actually pretty impressive to do something like that. You don't see a lot of guys literally go from high school a straight into AG 5.

13:05 That's that's one of the more impressive things, unless you're at one of the big time, you know, high schools within a state or something, which could be the case down in Louisiana where he was. I'd have to go do that research, but but good for him, good for him with ten wins. So yeah, all righty now we're getting into some of the bigger games, and this one is just this one's a juicy matchup. So first of all, Brian, I'm going to need you to play weatherman. Give me the weather for what's the exact name of the town where Army's located? I know it's on the east the the river and everything.

13:49 Mitchy Stadium. Look up Mitchy Stadium. So this game Friday night it's 8:00 it's on ABC 2G5 teams like who are very good obviously Tech any if you're if you're a tech fan, you remember playing this two lane team in the bowl without players. A lot of players left last year Army what a great fucking season. Just straight up 10 and one the game the army Navy game is going to be incredible this year. They're both really good. They both run their offenses efficiently. I look forward to that game in a couple weeks, but this is a big one for the AACI don't think either one of the I don't think Army can backdoor its way into the playoffs with the win here based on where like UNL VS ranked.

14:35 But Friday night, 8:00, it's cold right now on the East Coast. Brian, let's get a little weather report. What's going to be the temperature at kick off on Friday night for this game? Let's see. I'm getting there here. Let's see. Looks like it's going to be 25. So 25° from a team that plays, I'm not mistaken, Tulane still plays in the Superdome. Yep, definitely against the elements in that one. Tulane also coming off a hard loss to Memphis, which my for some reason my oldest son, I guess he watched that game or saw the score.

15:24 He's like, yeah, Memphis won dad. Big win for Ryan Silverfield, Brian as well. It. Was yeah, it looks like it's going to be between 25 and 27 depending on what, where you, where you look at kickoff so. Cold, cold. All right. Well, with all that being said, Brian, who you got? Despite all of that, I I'm rolling with Tulane here. I think they just have a little bit more they're a little bit more dynamic both on offense and defense. So I I think that's going to be the difference in the game. I think they squeak one out, but army makes it very, very close. All righty. I think Army's going to win this game. I think Tulane, because if Tulane had won that game last week, maybe a shot potentially at a a bid.

16:13 If they had held on and beaten Memphis, I think Army, big bounce back for them. Army wins. Yeah, I love army, but I got to take I got to take two lane. I just think they got more firepower and I think the Black Knights have been kind of a little bit going on some some good luck here. So I think Tulane will win. Yeah, Tally's ride with Army, Miranda's ride with Army and Jason is ride with Army. So shelved me and you were out there on our own on this one. Curtis, you are on mute.

16:55 Listen, Throne team, 25° weather in the 15 mile an hour, winds falling off, but if they would, I'd speak to them. All righty. Finally, we get to the big ones because the next five games effectively are going to be automatic bids into the into the playoffs. Brian, you want to you want to talk about this one a little bit? Yeah, I mean, we got UNLV, we got Boise. Yeah. This is a really, really interesting match up. Like a little bit of contrasting styles there. I'm liking what I've seen from Boise.

17:37 I think Boise holes Pat in their their March into the College Football Playoff and in my opinion, getting one of those automatic buys as well. So give me Boise State and we'll talk about that later. But yeah, we. Will teaser teaser. All righty, y'all know these teams played one time already and it was in Vegas, It was at Allegiant, it was a little bit warmer. Did y'all know that was Ashan Gente's worst game of the season? He averaged under 4 yards to carry UNL VS rush defense, ranked 10th in the nation, only given up 101 yards a game. That was a 2 point game the first time. It is at Boise.

18:27 I'm sure it's going to be cold as hell there. I'm actually interested to see that. It's not going to change my pick, but you know, Friday night, yeah, you know, it's going to be about 40 at kickoff, so not terrible. I think UNLV shakes up everything because right now they're only two losses are to Boise in the overtime game against Syracuse very early in the season. Syracuse, obviously nine and three, had a great season. I think UNLV pulls the massive upset and shakes up potentially the CFP. All right. Yeah, I'm a I'm a big Boise guy, so I'm biased here, but I'm going Boise.

19:08 I do think to Curtis's point, you and Eveleigh is the one team in the country that can limit Ash and Genti. So I do think this will be a very close game, but I'll take Boise straight up. Tally's riding with us, Sheldon, as is Miranda and Jason. So, Curtis, you're out there on an island, babe. Got got got to roll the dice occasionally at the end here all righty plus I don't know where we stand picks wise. I think I'm under 500. So you got to go opposite and try to get ahead of y'all. All righty, let's get into the Power 4 where on Saturday at noon down at ATT Stadium in Arlington, TX, the house that Jerry built it is 10 and two Iowa State at 10 and two or against 10 and 2 Arizona State. I I think, I don't think anyone's shocked by Iowa State being a good team this year.

20:01 Matt Campbell's had numerous good teams since he has been at Iowa State for the last few years. But big shout out Kenny Dillingham. I think this is the biggest surprise of maybe the second biggest surprise. Maybe not maybe the biggest surprise of all the P4 teams in the championship game in my opinion, but what a season for them. And Brian, anything add on top of that anything you like, Sheldon, anything you like about these teams? You know, it's just an interesting match up. And I mean, we talked about how the Big 12 shook out and there was kind of really, you know, 5 or 6 teams there at the end that could have, you know, made a run here at the the conference championship game. Colorado probably notwithstanding, these are probably the the two best all year, you know, top to bottom. So you know, seeing them in here, I think it's a it probably the best outcome that you could have hoped for. And.

20:59 For this one, I'm going with the the the team that has shocked everybody all year. I'm I'm going with with Arizona State. All righty. I'm up next on this one again. I've already mentioned it. I think it's already there. My love for Matt Campbell, Hell of a coach. One of those guys two years ago, could we could we go get Matt Campbell and bring him to Vt? He'd be a good culture fit here. He had not been able to get over the Big 12 hump the last few times they played in the championship game. I think he cements this, let his legacy and gets to the playoff with Iowa State. close game, war. These teams, if you look at where they're rated, similar defenses, similar offenses ratings wise, but I think Iowa State takes this one in.

21:50 Matt Campbell Ginson, it's his legacy, is probably one of the better coaches in this era at a school that hadn't won a hell of a lot before he got there. Yeah, I'm taking Arizona State. You know, two programs here that really just are are solid but not flashy. I think I was really impressed with Arizona State's winner. BYU kind of handled a very physical BYU team and I think they can handle physical Iowa State team as well. So and they got Ken Scudaboo, who's awesome. Yes, Scataboo is pretty awesome. I'll I'll give you that shelf. Yep, and Curtis, once again, you were out on an island. It's because Tally, Miranda and Jason are riding with Arizona State as well.

22:32 It's the white running back effect. If there's a good white running back, people gravitate towards that. I'm just being real. Come on. Hey, hey. Peyton Hillis once made the cover of Matt. Yeah. He did. Wow he had like 1100 yards. You wouldn't even like the 5th best running back that year. He was white. At at some point that was more meme than it was anything real. But you know what? Sometimes you ride a meme. Sometimes you're out of meme. All right, Ron, I'll let you leave. This one is. It arguably the best team all year in in college football. Oregon, you got Penn State. Penn State's really had a year that I think was probably as good or better than they expected. I don't know if they necessarily saw themselves in this position with the schedule that they had, but they put themselves here and you know, Oregon's more or less handled their business all year. So one of those classic, you wouldn't really say this is a classic matchup from a a big 10 standpoint. You got Oregon in there.

23:45 But I think this is this is a a batch up that you expect when you talk about, you know, top five teams meeting in the big 10 for a chance to have that, you know, in this case a bye for the the first round of the playoff here, probably probably A at least a number one and #2 seed. So I like Oregon in this one. They've been the best team all year. I think they keep that up. Yeah, Brian, you, you said a lot. Oregon's been the best team all year, probably Penn State. I mean say what you will. Probably their best season since they won the Big 10 a few years ago because the Ohio State game, they did not basic.

24:26 They basically hung in there the whole game. They just could not get enough to finish it. Obviously. I like what Jim said. That is a Rose Bowl match up, but I favor Oregon in this one for one big reason. It's going to be inside. I think if this was in the elements, if this was let's think they moved it to Ohio and put it in Cleveland or put in Cincinnati. This championship game, I favor Penn State. But I think being on that wonderful Dome that Lucas Oil is that Ryan's so familiar with Give me Oregon and they solidify the number one and they solidify going to the Rose Bowl. Yes, I am taking Oregon.

25:10 I just don't trust Franklin enough in these types of games. And to Brian's point, Oregon is at worst a top two team in the country. Penn State is not on that level. There we go. Tally's riding with us. Miranda's going Penn State, Jason also going with Penn State. I mean, isn't, I mean, let's be real before we jump to the next game. I mean, obviously I think everyone was expecting Ohio State to be in this game and for the rematch from earlier in the season, which was an unbelievable classic. The the, the question is, where was Penn State? Where's Penn State's head? Because I think let's be honest, going into the end of last week as they prepared to play, who do they play? Somebody help me out here.

26:00 Y'all going to make me pull up? Efforting, efforting, efforting. Do it. You people like Maryland who fired their offensive coordinator Dane Josh Gaddis, 44, seven. The the question is, how quick can they get up? Because I think in their head was we're going to beat Maryland, Ohio State's going to beat Michigan, and we're going to be somewhere between 7:00 and 9:00. Where do we land? Are we on the road or are we at home? And now with this happening, Penn State's, if whether they win or whether they lose or they get to buy, they're guaranteed a home game. I do not see them go below 8 in this situation. There you go all.

26:46 Right. Thanks, Jim. All righty. Next we go down to Charlotte. Probably the game that has the biggest implications in terms of which got which team gets in and and which team doesn't in terms of at large. If you looked at the College Football Playoff rankings and the way they shook out today, very interesting to to see where a certain team from Alabama was located on the on these rankings. So this game, I think, has a lot of a lot of odds at stake for what happens here. Curtis, you're muted.

27:35 Yeah, 100%, Brian, this is, you know, like you said, it's so much riding. Where do teams fall? What happens in this case, based on what the playoff committee did tonight with their six different ways of explaining why people are wearing things. There's no fucking consistency. They have one goal, which is they're going to try to get Alabama in the best they can. That's all their goal is because they want that giant FPGA to be there at some point for all viewership. So with that being said, anything on this with Shelton before you give your pick, Anything that's caught your eye about either team?

28:18 Yeah, I think SMU is like really, really talented. Top five offense in the country per SP plus Clemson is a little bit more balanced. They've got a good offense and a good defense, but not not necessarily elites in neither 1. I don't know. I think I just think Lasha has done a really good job. It's kind of funny when when when SMU lost to BYU earlier in the season, we thought, oh man, they must be overrated and they almost lost to Nevada as well. But it turns out BYU was also really good. So you just never know early in the season. I think I think SMU has just done a great job. Brian early in the seasons and rankings. Don't get me started yet. I'll, I'll, I'll be on that soapbox here shortly when we start talking about who's who's going to make the College Football Playoff.

29:00 But as far as this one, I'm, I'm going Clemson for a lot of reasons. But number one, I think if if you, if Clemson wins, I think the ACC still gets two teams in. I think Miami's getting fucked at this point regardless. Yeah, this is going to obviously be SMU's toughest task to date. Clemson just got out of war with South Carolina, where they could have easily have won that game and been 10 and 2 coming into this game, probably ranked one spot behind them, probably pushed everybody down a little bit. And honestly, I think crowds going to be in their favorites of what, 90 minute drive up from Clemson up to Charlotte.

29:41 I think Clemson wins a game, but I think this is probably going to be the most entertaining game of the weekend. I think the game is going to go, it's going to hit the over, but I think Clemson sneaks out like a three to five point win. This one is tough. I think Clemson has the better staff, or perhaps I should say the more proven staff, but I just think SMU has more talent across the board. So I'm thinking SMU, but I'm I'm fully aware that Clemson might very well make this a game. Yeah, Tally. Tally is going with Clemson as well. Miranda, Clemson and Jason is riding with you, Sheldon.

30:21 Oh man. Yeah, saddle up. Yeah, saddle up on your Mustangs Air boys. Yeah, all righty. So one last game to pick and this is the one Jason's gambling on. So we have to put this last, but he's going to Atlanta for Georgia and Texas. Hey folks, welcome back to one more week of guitar licks and gambling picks. I'm Jason Long. It is championship week and here on the Boundary Corner podcast we're picking every game, but the one I'm most excited about is the SEC championship between Georgia and Texas. Now, a few weeks ago when this game was played the first time, I picked Texas, and of course, Georgia went on to win and I lost money.

31:18 This time around though, Texas is traveling to Atlanta. I think that's going to be a huge advantage for Georgia. So I'm going to flip it. I'm picking the Bulldogs to beat the Longhorns this weekend in the SEC Championship game and a move on to that College Football Playoffs. Now, before we move on, I want to take a look at my season. Now, I've done 14 of these. Technically I'm 6:00 and 8:00, but I did give you a / a few weeks ago that hit. That makes me 7:00 and 8:00. But that is still a losing season so I apologize to anybody who might have been riding along with me and lost money this year. That being said, hey, that's the risk you take when you're gambling, so I want to leave you all with the best advice I ever received. You got no one to hold, no one to walkway when run. You don't count your money when you'll sit and head table the man time and don't come when the demons done. You got nowhere to hold, nowhere to follow, no in the walkway and no in the run.

32:37 You don't count your money when you'll sit and head table. There'll be time in the count when the deal is done. So happy but responsible gambling this weekend folks. Now don't y'all forget. Check out my website jasonlongmusic.com to hear all of my music. Find out when I'm playing live. I've had a ball doing these and I'll see y'all next time. Have a good one. All righty. So Jason going with the dogs. Literally. And figuratively, literally and figuratively because the line, I do believe it is like a one point favorite. Again, that's another reason we didn't do lines this week because I think the biggest line, let me look this up. I just want to make sure I'm I think the biggest line is 4 this week.

33:37 Let me get up to my GAMBLING SITE here. I just want to confirm this. Yeah, I think, I think there was a couple 3 and a halfs. It's a 5 1/2 is the biggest line this week. This game is Texas 2 and A. Half, yeah. That's why we did it this way 'cause we're just two and a half, 3 1/2, even 55's, not a lot. You get to that areas where it's basically a pickle anyway, so. With so many teams getting rid of divisions, now you're you're getting the, you're literally getting the two best teams in in each of these conferences. There's not going to be that big of a gap in most of these cases.

34:19 So and when we look at it, you know, a match up like Georgia and Texas here that that goes double. I'm going back to the well here with my reasoning it it's hard to beat A-Team twice. He is. Texas, the first time they played in Austin was still one of the best things I've ever seen and should be done more. When referees buck up calls, just throw beer cans at them and eventually they will get together and make the right call. That should be done more at games. It should not be penalized.

34:59 You know what? Because for honest truth is, can we go back to Georgia, Georgia Tech real quick last week, those were three of the most atrocious calls I've ever seen. One way, the two PIS and the hold, the hold that was not called. I think people should be allowed to punch refs in faces when they blow that bad of a call. I think it's fair. You just hurt my emotions. I'm going to hurt your face now guys, how do y'all feel about that? Not going to say anything, are you? I do kid about that by the way. But there is no consequences. It's something that I'll say. You put that up there, James, the it's the big A they're going to put, they could lose seven games and they're going to put them in the year they put a six and six Alabama in is the year literally just quit watching college football because it's never about what's going on on the field.

35:51 But reality is if y'all had, I know some of y'all listen to Josh Pate. I occasionally do. Even if he gets in his SEC bag, He is right. There is an officiating problem in college and it does need to be fixed. But as far as it goes for this game, Quinn Ewers first time they played was coming off an injury. He is still a little banged up but not as bad as he was. Played a great game against A&M by the way. They should have blown out A&M. You fumble the ball multiple times inside the 10 yard line. I think Texas wins by a touchdown. Yeah, Texas lost to Georgia once.

36:31 It's not going to happen again. Taking Texas. There we go. Hook em, he says. Hook Em, Hook em Another another hooker from Tally. He'll come from Miranda and we know that Jason is riding with the dogs. Jason. Jason's on the ledge by himself on this one. Everybody else is riding with the Longhorns. All righty. So let's take that down and let's do a little brief discussion because we are what I did want to do. And Shelton, I know we didn't get yours, but I'm sure you've got it somewhere jotted down is what's your 12's going to be after the weekend? We're going to do that in just a second.

37:12 But Brian, let's go, man, because I know it. If you've listened to this program for the last five years, that's one thing. Brian Siegler hates, I mean hates with a passion. And Brian? We still see the preseason rankings rearing their ugly head this deep into the college football season. And I know it's hard to get away from power rankings and stuff like that. But when we put out these official like the, these are the top 12 teams in the country. And the the problem we get is that we base quality of wins off of data that we don't really know was good.

38:02 And it just, you know, it's, it's the whole bad data in bad data out philosophy. And it takes a while to really get to a point where, you know, you can actually make some, some, some some solid inferences from the, the winds that you're seeing on the field. And, and we end up making a lot of those inferences in September. And those really aren't telling us a whole lot. So now we're at a point where, you know, Alabama still hanging around with three losses. Two of them are, I would consider bad losses to, to teams that barely scraped into a bowl game this year in Oklahoma and and Vanderbilt.

38:42 And Vanderbilt definitely is a better team than I think a lot of people gave them credit for, full stop. But they are still a team that is 6 and 6. Oklahoma is still a seven and five team that, you know, got blown out by a, a couple of average to, to, to slightly above average teams throughout this season. So to go in there and just curb stomp Alabama, that, that that's a bad loss for them. And, and I think that the problem that we have with we, we talked about it last year. We're we're talking about it again this year. Is that with the, the problem with the committee in general is that number one, I think they still do.

39:26 Even though they don't put their rankings out until later, they are still colored and shaded by what pre season rankings are. And add to the fact that I don't think they give losses and the on the field outcome enough weight compared to the eye test. I feel like so much is eye test and OK, well, you know, who did you play? And, and, and it's kind of funny because we were looking at I think we were looking to strength of schedule, Curtis and you know, we compared I think it was SMU in Alabama and they're like 70 and 71 or something like that. You.

40:08 Were you weren't? You weren't looking at that. You were looking at something else. You were looking at another metric. It was not strength of schedule. I don't know what you were looking at. Shelton might know. Anyway, there there was a metric we were looking at that that had them, you know, within, within a margin of each other. And, and, and when we look at some of the other pieces here, like when we look at, like I said, Alabama in particular, but they're, you can make a case for, for, for some of these other teams as well as that, you know, we, we need to I think penalize teams for bad losses more than we are and more than the College Football Playoff has historically.

40:50 Losses in general. Yeah, losses in general, but bad losses even more so. So that that's my soapbox. I'll let I'll pass it on to Curtis and Sheldon here to to to add their two cents here. Well, I want to pitch to Shelton because Sheldon, you're our, you're our dad on stats guy. Do you believe there is something out there that is an unbiased metric that's not looking at polls? What do you feel like if if you were, if they called you tomorrow, somehow they, they, they found this and they found this as a smart kid. Let's put him in charge. Is there a certain metric or is there a certain data point out there? Do you say that could be the beginning of the methodology right here?

41:34 Honestly, look, there's no such thing as a perfect stat. Like at the end of the day, you know, there's always going to be different numbers that can portray something a different way. You know, you could look at, you know, top 25 wins or strength of record, strength of schedule. Like it's just, you know, when you're dealing with numbers and stats, there's always a different way you can present something. And so I, I certainly don't envy the, the position of the committee just because there's only, you know, 12 teams, A12 game season, pretty limited sample size. If we just don't have the body of work to really, I guess, hash out a, a true representation of, of what each team really is. Because, you know, I, I saw David Hale there, they had this tweet where he, you know, made a case for why every top 20, top 25 team was actually bad, you know, looking at all their bad losses and they're, you know, if they have a bad check of the schedule and so forth.

42:18 So I mean, I mean, everyone kind of beats everyone in college football. So at some point you do have to, you know, kind of acknowledge that. But, you know, I guess to answer the question, you know, I'm a big fan of strength of record, looking at the overall quality of wins in, in terms of a qualitative judgment. You know, I don't like looking at, say, for instance, win loss record versus top 20 teams or Top 40 teams or, you know, wins over 500 because that's a very narrowly defined subset. And it is sort of like a, you know, self self fulfilling prophecy. If you beat a team that finishes five and seven, you don't get credit for A500 win, but if you lose to them, they're six and six and that counts as a loss. So you know, that kind of makes itself. So I mean, there's ways I think, I think with, you know, today's analytics and everything, like there's ways you can have, you know, much better judgments for evaluating teams, again, like strength of record. But I just think it, it just seems like, you know, people, people are always going to be unhappy, I guess. And so I don't, you know, necessarily criticize the committee too much.

43:16 But I do think in general, they tend to sort of work backwards from their conclusions. Like they work backwards from like, OK, what is the best SC team? And let's try to, you know, vouch for them and they'll, they'll look at anything, any stat that would that justifies their argument, they'll, they'll go with that. So I don't know. I, I just don't think they have a very clear process for how they kind of evaluate things. It kind of changes every year. Well, you know what I dislike and it and it happened tonight with the committee chair is data value different things for different teams. That's where I get upset. Like this is they're really good because of this. Well, they're better than them at that. Oh, well, that we're not going to look at that. We're going to look at this for this one and then this for this one. It's like, So what you're saying is your real goal is you want the biggest brands in. That's all they should say.

44:03 I wish they would just say it. If they just fucking say it. Hey, is what it is. We get it. Hey, remember when we were in school and there was like, you know, you'd write a paper and there'd be a fucking rubric for the paper, right? Yeah, give me a fucking college football rubric and give me all right, this is weighted this many points. This is weighted this many points. So at least we can understand the process. And because when you when you have a boy more transparent process, you can at least say, OK, well, you can point to this and say This is why this team is better. You might not agree with it, but there is at least a justification behind that. It's not moving the goal post. It's not whatever the dollars and the ayes say. It's at least a very fixed matter of getting to the end point there.

44:52 You're on mute, Curtis. But here's the thing, if they did that in the beginning, then they couldn't justify certain teams because if one people in the the bad metrics and it's like, Hey, that's what you said you'd go by and we really like that team. We leave that team in like, no, but I'm with you, Brian. If you actually were to put a rubric out there like that and have everything in the way it's weighted, then there'd be no questions. Because then also as certain people fell into certain rubrics, they couldn't back off of it be like, no, this is this is your methodology. This is what you're saying is going to determine the best 12 teams. Yeah, there's always going to be that like 1 anomaly team that doesn't has a really good record, but doesn't check very many boxes. And then on the on the flip side, there's going to be a team that may not have the best record, but they check a handful more boxes.

45:48 And this at least gives you kind of a step by step way of justifying putting that one team in over the other or vice versa. Because right now we, it feels like we're cherry picking whatever stat we we can to get the, the lowest SEC team in that still has a chance into this thing every year, whether it's four or or 12. 100% I am looking currently at the AP poll at the beginning of the season. Let's see how good they were. You all ready? Yep, Georgia was number one.

46:29 They've had a solid season. Ohio State Say what you will, they've won 10. Games. Both of those are within the margin of error. Right margin of error. Marriage and error. Oregon ranked number three. Yeah. Texas #4 Alabama's five. Ole Missus 6. Notre Dame 7. Penn State 8. This is where it gets fun. Brian #9 y'all remember who the number 9 team was this year? This is the number Michigan. Michigan. OK, Florida State was 11, right? Florida State was 10. Florida State was 10. OK. OK, so there's that value where you're talking about now Florida State within the first month, no one value to win over them, might even do the doors off them. But you know what I could say?

47:17 Well, they were top ten at one point. Shouldn't that matter? No, no, no, that doesn't matter. Guess who 11 was? And this one's going to piss you off. Who's that? Missouri and Missouri still ranked 25th. Then we get to Utah. Bad season for the utes LSU fell out of the top 25 with losses. Clemson still hanging in Tennessee. Great season after being ranked 15th. Oklahoma was preseason ranked 16th. Oklahoma State was 17th. They didn't want a conference game. They didn't want a conference game.

47:58 Beat Arkansas. Arkansas beat Tennessee. So tell me how that makes sense, doesn't It's why you play the game on the field and wins the most important Kansas State, who just fell out, and then Miami. This is the bottom of the top 25. Texas A&M, Kansas, USC, North Carolina State, Iowa, they basically it's a coin flip if they've got any of them, a coin flip. And this is where Brian's point always becomes big. This is what we're basing things off of. This is what we're looking at the beginning, because in this sense, Missouri is 9 and three. Missouri is not a, is not a top 25 team. They really aren't, but they stick in there because they started at 11 and they never got below 3 losses. We're A-Team like Duke or Syracuse. I don't, I know they both beat us. Pisses me off.

48:53 They're both nine and three. Only Syracuse got ranked. So hey, all right, so real quick, we we've talked about the College Football Playoff. Let's lean into it. I'm going to start with you, Sheldon, because I don't have your stuff up here. So you've got your predictions in for the conference championship games. What do you think? Just go your top 12. Obviously, we can figure out who the four bys are by reading it down. Yeah, so bys Oregon, Texas, SMU, Boise, and then at large Penn State, Notre Dame, Georgia, Tennessee, Ohio State, Indiana, reluctantly Alabama, and then Arizona State as the final AQ. All right.

49:46 Which if you look at that, what's your most intriguing first floor matchup? Let me see Penn State, Arizona, Notre Dame, Alabama, George, Indiana. I don't know. I guess I'd go Notre Dame Alabama because that game is interesting. Because if I had to guess, Alabama, Alabama will be a slight underdog because they're on the road. But if that game were played on neutral field, I think Alabama would probably be favored. They've actually under, they've underperformed from their metrics a little bit. So I, I do think they're, they're probably qualitatively better than people think they are. But that would be a really, really close game. And I do think people are under selling Alvin a little bit. I know they aren't what they used to be, but they've still got some good football in them. So I'd be, I'd be very interested to see what, what would be into made of a matchup like that. All right, Brian, what about you? All right, so AQ buys, I've got Oregon, Texas, Boise, Clemson at large and this is in order of rank is going to be Notre Dame, Penn State, Georgia, Ohio State, Tennessee, Indiana, Arizona State, SMU all.

51:01 Right. So looking at your core or your your first four games, which one intrigues you the most? You know, looking at this man, it's going to be, I got a couple like, you know, clash of styles here. I think my most intriguing is going to be Arizona State at Happy Valley Penn State. Hey, White running back downhill. Yeah, exactly. I mean, it's, it's good. I think that's interesting. I could, I could point to Notre Dame and SMU for very similar reasons, but I think I'll go with, with Penn State.

51:44 Arizona State, probably least intriguing is going to be Georgia. Indiana could be interesting, but I, I feel like that's, that's going to be, I think Georgia handles them fairly well. Ohio State, Tennessee I think is going to be an interesting one as well. But in just in terms of like thinking of where it is, what the weather is going to be like, style of play, it's it's got to be Penn State, Arizona State for me. All righty. I'll give mine real quick here. So automatic qualifiers, Oregon, Texas, Iowa State, Clemson, those are 4A QS.

52:29 Then it goes as follows, Notre Dame, Penn State, Georgia, Tennessee, Ohio State, SMU and then UNLV. My most intriguing game of those is Tennessee, Ohio State. It really is. And the reason I say that because if I'm not mistaken, the 8-9 goes to the goes to the one, right? Yes, a nine goes to one. I'm more intrigued by that game there because a Tennessee is one of those places. It's in the hills, it's in the mountains, It's cold. There is no effectively advantage for a for them with Ohio State, Ohio State, Ohio is cold. But the question is, can Ohio State actually get to the level where they can play?

53:25 And I mean, when I say that, can they get to the level with all that talent? That's the one. Like, if, if you ask me right now, that would be your Saturday night 8:00 game, probably the Notre Dame. Look who's joined us, finally. Can can Ryan Day win a big game that matters? Who knows, man, But I think, hey, he's here. What's happening? Tally. I made it. You barely. You are barely bare. You all good, man? You all good. We just get in here telling lies about what the top 12 is going to be. Shelter's got Alabama in. I got them out. Everybody but have Alabama in, they're in. They ain't letting them out.

54:09 They got, they got to have that money. They got to have that better money. Tally's saying the whole team could get sick and die and they somehow put them in. Right. They put them in man, once. I once I knew they weren't going once they had a couple of convincing wins and I and they weren't going to the SEC Championship. So it was no way for them to to lose that game. I said yeah, they did. As as as soon as I saw them at 11 and not 12, I was like, they really going to try to get them in. They they, they really going to get them in. They going to try, they going to try their damnedest out. I think, you know, SMU losing could throw some some, some some janky stuff in there.

54:50 I think if SMU was behind, who is it behind Indiana? They would definitely. They wouldn't. They wouldn't survive it. They wouldn't. Survive a loss. I think being in front of Indiana, it's going to be interesting. It's. Going to be interesting because do you drop like in my position here I got UNLV, do you drop them two spots? That's it. You got you got UNLV jumping I and I. I get what you're doing. I don't foresee that scenario. Well, again, I looked at that game from earlier this season and when you hold Janetti to under 4 yards, you carry. I think they can do it again and that's why I think they can pull the upset because again, they got to beat them twice in the same seat. Yeah, and that's the thing that's. Oh, go ahead.

55:36 No. No, go ahead. I'll just say that's the thing like about Texas and Texas and Georgia, you know what I'm I'm saying it's like you got to play somebody twice. It's in the season. It's rough to beat you somebody twice, you know what I'm saying? But both of. Oh oh, we lost your mic tally. We got the Alabama buffer. Going y'all lose me? We lost your mic. That was weird. Like you're still moving normal and everything. Yeah, it's going to be interesting. I mean, and, and, and, and I don't know if you got a chance to get your who you think the 12's going to be. Obviously Alabama's going to be #11 or #12 per you.

56:17 Let's just put that on there Is you're looking kind of that in your head about what could break out because you've got, let me just put it up here, tally, just so you can get your points in the air because you got Texas winning, you got Clemson winning. You got found it out here. You got Arizona State winning, you got Boise winning. So you're saying boys is going to get a buy? Yeah, I think boys are going to win and get a buy. Boys are wins and gets a buy and you got Oregon. So I mean, as you look at the other teams that are going to make it, do you think I'll ask you this, do you think it's going to be Notre Dame, Alabama on that on the 20 or 21st?

56:59 Are they going to make that game that the the like the prized game of the week? Probably. I mean, that's, that's, that's a good, yeah, that's a good set up, you know what I'm saying? Because you're bringing two big money markets together and that's what they want. And it's got some history. Even though Manti Te'o's girlfriend wasn't real and I think the last time they played each other and all of that. But yeah, that they want, they want something like that. That's we'll probably see something like that. And that stuff we expect as fans to that stuff. That's one reason we all get excited about the playoff, that a a lot more teams have the opportunity to get a chance to go play, potentially win and then the big matchups. And then it's going to be big matchups not at bowl games, but at home fields.

57:51 Because tally it. It was like 56 down there today. It was like 21 up in South Bend. It's probably like 15 there tonight and that I think they make. That no, it was like, it's like 39 here. That was during the day. Yeah, it's like 30. I think it got up to like 42. It's been cold. Hey, it's cold here too, man. We What do we do? Here. I'm I'm wearing layers. If I'm wearing layers, it's cold out. It's. Cold. It's cold. All right. Yeah, There you go. That's the way. That's the way a lot of people are feeling right now, Robbie.

58:31 So you put it out there. Tally, tally, Robbie's on board with you here. Yeah, Think we'll let him loose. All right, well, let's get to it. We went through big screeners. We talked about the playoff. Let's get to what happened on Saturday night at Lane Stadium. Let's do a little tell the truth on Tuesday and y'all tell me tell me what y'all feel. I don't care who starts and what it's about. Just tell me what you feel. We go six and six. We make a bowl again. Yay. Guess I'm happy about that. Me and tally people get probably roasted us all them too, dummy Say UVA was going to win. I'm Yeah what we were in our feelings last week. Yeah, that's all I'm going to say. We were in our fields last week so but. What everybody forgot for a second that UVA is ass. There you go.

59:15 But what in what in y'all's opinion? Y'all love Saturday night? What went well for y'all? I love seeing the two best players on the team eat one last time. APR facial tube. Love seeing that. Sheldon, what about you? Man, well, I missed, I missed a good check of the first half. I caught most of the second-half. I did. I did rewatch the majority of the first half a couple days ago, but I don't know, I mean, I thought I thought Pop was really good. They it seemed like they kind of structured the passing game around the strengths, you know, kind of mostly rolling them out, you know, quick reads, nothing too complex and deep shots to kind of protect him a little bit.

59:59 So I thought Bowen did a really good job of kind of managing the game with Pop and they kind of maximize, maximize the skill sets. Yeah, deep shots, RP OS rollouts, I mean, that was basically basically what they went with. And they I mean, it was a it was a key to success and they did a good job executing. And I think pop the, the one thing I noticed about pop is in in this is I think even better compared to, you know, what we saw the week before with the week of practice against the UVA team. So we'll, we'll caveat it there. Pretty decisive with with whether it was running the football, whether it was keeping it, whether it was getting the ball out of his hands on the RPO.

1:00:43 He he made decisions pretty quick and kind of rode with that. It wasn't any second guessing or pussyfoot did the back feel like when when he made a decision to do something he did it. Kylie, what about you, man? What? What caught your eye Saturday? Sitting there at the hell? Probably eating some leftovers, having a drink. Yeah, no, a little bit of that, a little bit of none of that. But yeah, just they mainly, it was like they knew they was better than UVA. They went out and and played like they were better. Like the coaches coached like they weren't scared. They coached like they knew they was going to win. The players act like they knew they were going to win.

1:01:25 We just went in the game and played, you know what I'm saying? If we went into some other games like that instead of being like, well, shoot, we can't do this because this person might get hurt or we can't do this because we may lose. We probably would have won. So I just feel like they knew they would have better team and they just went, but they've been doing that like it's it's been happening. When they know that better than the team, they go play. If they think it's a chance that we could lose, we get a hold on, we might shouldn't do that. We may should try this. I don't know, man, but what went well where we just knew we were better than them and we went and played like it. Tally we, we've talked about this a lot with like the confidence of this team and maybe even specific players too. When this team plays with confidence, whether it's players coaches, they're a different team. They, they, they look like what we expected them to be from the start of the season to the end of the season, when they play with that type of confidence and when they coach with that type of confidence.

1:02:23 And you know, we talked about some games them getting conservative on offense and defense. And we didn't really, you know, when, when UVA started moving the football on defense against our defense, I mean, we didn't hold back on offense. We, we, we leaned on what we do. Well, we got up there, got another touchdown, put the game out of reach. And, and that's, that was that. I think we we didn't overthink it like we have in some of those other games where, you know, the asshole is a little tight and we're not playing with that type of confidence or coaching with that type. Of confidence. I love what you said, Tally right there about how when we know we're better than a team, the confidence shows. When we think about it, we have moments, but we also in those moments, there are some moments where it's just like go to Miami, 17 1/2 point underdogs. And we just played in that throughout that whole game, even up to the last Hail Mary throw.

1:03:19 We can win this game. We can win this game. Go to parts of the second-half of Vanderbilt way back in August, Think about it. And oh man, this isn't good. And then the second-half starts rolling. It's like we can win this game. And then what happens? We have one bad thing and then it just snowballs. And that to me is on coaching more than it is kids. These are 17 to 23 and some 24 year old guys out there. Again, Sheldon, you're like 25. You're just you're getting past that age. 26 Don't tell me short. You know, I was telling you a little bit younger, but you're 26. And The thing is, everybody has that when you're in your 20s. You can have you can, you can have everything going for you in the world. And then one bad thing happens and it you up, straight up, whether it be a bad grade fight with your girlfriend, fight with a friend, it can match you up. And these guys are asked to do this every week. I'm going to go same route.

1:04:11 Brian, you mentioned APR 8 because he was creating chaos. 3 sacks should have got that phone. I'm still trying to figure out how he did not get that fumble recovery in my life. But I'm going to ask you all this. To me, there's a Pantheon or a Rushmore, 4 defensive ends in Virginia Tech history that go up there. Bruce Smith, Corey Moore, Daryl Tap, and I'm blanking on the guy from Lynchburg to play the glass. Brown, Cornell Brown. With the seasons he's had, I love Daryl Tap. We've interviewed him. Does he bump Daryl Tap off to Rushmore and is he effectively the defensive end?

1:04:52 Rushmore. I mean you can definitely make that argument. I think if if he played one more season for the Hokies it would be a no brainer. If he even if he had a season like last year compared to this year, I think you'll be a no brainer. I think we're just looking at the the the two year sample size. You can make it argue it. I don't know if it if it quite gets there, but you can definitely make an argument. I think for him, because of the transfer portal and stuff, because most of the other guys came in and being like you want to say it's just because their college career, but it also has to do kind of how to get drafted and then what they do after they get drafted.

1:05:33 So for him going to Florida, then coming back to Virginia Tech through the transfer portal, and like Brian had said, if he had one more season, but he doesn't, I think it'll come down to where he gets drafted in most like Hokey's heads. Like if he goes first round or high second round, I think people would be like, yeah, you know what I'm saying? If he slips down to the third round or, or whatever the case may be, you know, then people will be like, you know, they won't really think about it. But if he goes high, like, you know, some are predicting he will, then I think people would 100% go, yeah, he's he's there. You know, you got to bump this person off whoever, anybody besides Bruce, you know what I'm saying? Like most people would say.

1:06:17 But that's just my opinion. Your music, Curtis. Oh, I thought it was me. No, tell him you. Yeah, yeah. So what was the what's the problem I was researchers on? Defensive end don't watch more tech Smith or more. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know if I'm qualified because I wasn't around for the glory days of BT football. So like my, you know, my top defensive ends are like obviously APR and then outside of that, I mean. Can a Kingdom?

1:06:57 Yeah, it can. Who? I mean, who Trayvon. I mean Trayvon Hill, honestly, like if you're just talking my time frame of watching BT football, that like that's who that's who'd be the Mount Rushmore. My daddy, Daddy. Daddy. Yeah, daddy. So I mean, there've been a handful of decent ones, but yeah, I'm just not. I mean, obviously, you know, Corey Moore, I don't know, I I just, I just wasn't around for the glory days. So I don't know if I can really comment. I love putting you always. Sheldon's always gets to throw that out every time. He's I was, I was like 3. I don't know. Yes, yeah. So in Sheldon's eyes, he gets 2 spots, he gets two. He gets 2 spots on Mount Rushmore because he's so, you know, he's young, he hasn't seen a a lot of, you know, defensive ends, but he.

1:07:39 Absolutely say they have to be there because of all the accolades. Then APR gets 2 spots. All right, where do y'all? Where do y'all want us to go for a bowl? Birmingham, Birmingham tell. Them tally. Tell them tally. Tally Walton. Just so Bolton. I don't want to go back to Fenway. Fuck Fenway. We've never been to Fenway. I don't want to go to Fenway. I don't. Want to go to Fenway? I could probably. Get I've been to, say, Yankee Stadium, but I don't want to go there either. I've seen somebody. One of the predictions had us like against West Virginia somewhere, maybe armed forces ball or something. Fort Worth, Yeah, I saw. That something like that probably I mean, I don't know about Fort Worth, but I feel like opponent like playing against West Virginia probably would be good for us anywhere they go.

1:08:31 It don't matter if we five and six, six and six, ten and six, Virginia Tech, Hokey Nation going to show up. So wherever they put us, they're going to have they're going to have Hoagie fans that for sure. Curtis said don't rain like it did last year. Oh my God, first bowl experience in a monsoon. We're not going back there. I don't think they're going to send us a Fenway just because for the simple fact that there's too many other good options where they can finagle us in. I'll, I'll go with Tally, get it to Birmingham. So that man go see his team play this year in person. We had a lot of stuff going on where we didn't get to make games this year.

1:09:15 Shelton made enough for I think all of us. But yeah, give me that. All right, let's talk about the bad because there's there is one thing that went bad in my opinion. Tony Musket was the only damn thing they have running the ball and then off of those runs making some intermediate throws. And it literally took us until early in the fourth, mid fourth quarter to finally stop it. Yeah, I was sitting over here drinking my OGD, worried like, we're going to blow this game. We're going to blow. They're going to do something stupid because we've done something stupid all year. And they're going to score a touchdown. And then we're going to fumble. And then they're going to score another one and we're going to get in our heads and we're going to do this.

1:09:55 Game Curtis saw another one score let down PTSD late late late in the third quarter he looked at the third he's like we're +2 in this quarter and I feel like shit I'm. Messing you that like we won this quarter but what? What else did y'all feel just watching the game? And I know it's like a 17 point win. It's like you can't find all the bad in that. But anything that just pissed y'all off made you want to throw shit. Yeah, you don't want to nitpick, you know, a good win like that, but just because we got to, that's why we're here. I feel like some of the offensive play calling was just unneeded, you know what I'm saying? Like a couple of reverses that we did could have went really bad.

1:10:37 I think we fumbled. One yeah, the green yeah Cam knocked it out of green. Tan you. Know we had a couple of times where I just felt like we did a couple things with that situation because I feel like we were better than them. We just lined up and you know, you could, you could use some, some motion and stuff. But I feel like some of the play calls we just was kind of throwing stuff against the wall and hoping it's stuck. And if we were playing anybody else besides UVA, it wouldn't have stuck. Yeah, and I and I feel like we. Didn't really that's just right. Like I think that's. That's the thing. Like, we didn't need to do that, like, right? Sometimes it was getting too cute, right? Right, I'd love. To do I Duke Mayo bowl. Yeah, yeah. I mean, Duke Mayo is probably my favorite.

1:11:18 Like non bowl any any bowl that doesn't really matter. Duke's my favorite so. Charlotte. Charlotte. Exactly. We want Charlotte. We do. Let's see if they'll give it to us. Let's see if ever get 2 teams into play all weekend. They flirt with us every year. They'll, they'll, they'll throw, they'll throw Lane in there every year and be like, hey, maybe. So, Sheldon, what about you? Data statistical wise? What went bad on Saturday? What went bad, man? I don't know. It's hard to really hard to pick too much. I mean, I mean 5 penalties for 61 yards, I guess like not, you know, not great. And then obviously a couple of big, you know, explosives towards the second in the second-half. But I don't know, I mean, I I thought it was a good performance all around.

1:12:04 Like I really don't have any too many complaints honestly. Like you know you're favored by how, how much should it? 5 1/2, it got down to 5 1/2 like yeah. And and 1 by 1 by 20. So I just, I'm not going to nitpick a win like this is. It but a third screen quarterback. Yeah, third screen quarterback. Too. Yeah, that's crazy. There was an argument going and and I listened to Hokey Hangover yesterday and like people and people have been saying how have they hid pop? How have they hid pop? What did we say at the beginning of the season? And this is when people don't listen. We said the best thing that Pop was third string was why he ran the scout team every single week. Pop got so many reps leading in the season.

1:12:45 That's why he didn't look rusty. That's why he didn't look funky. He'd been playing football every week as a scout team quarterback. Y'all know it was him because if you saw on Saturday all the stuff he does, it's like you can emulate that. He can put, he can throw the deep ball good. He sells fakes good. So Andrew Alex was like, why is he third string? Everybody on the Twittersphere? Oh, why is he third string? Why? Because he's a red shirt freshman all of y'all. If he had been too deep, y'all would have been losing your mind is like, why is the red shirt freshman to back up? That's not good. If you did that, you'd have everybody would have been critical of of even using wasting a scholarship on Collins League exactly. So somebody would have been bitching about something. I think the main thing is just his size, the way that he plays. If they're looking for him to be there for a while, they got to protect him, you know, and you got to get that nutritious point, that nutrition, playing in him as much as you can before he sees the field, so.

1:13:44 Yeah. We've seen him late in the season. I don't even remember what he looked like at the beginning of the season or even in the spring. I mean, I knew he's I knew since high school he was he was a he was good. He could ball. But taking the kind of hits and things like that is like it, it, it gets you hurt. You know what I'm saying? I mean, look at Kyron. Yeah, I mean, is he built for 12 games, right? Now. So with him, though, he went from 170 out of high school, he's up to like 190. He's getting. You wish you had one more year, right? You wish you had one more year of him to get more meat on the bone, a little bit of fat, a little bit bigger. Because I think the way he moves, it's not going to take that away.

1:14:28 You might. If he can get to 196 by, you know, start of fall camp next year, 197, you know, you might feel pretty good about it. Put that man on the steak and potatoes plan. You know another, you know, 6 to 8 lbs on him. I think you you're in a, you're in a pretty good spot there. I don't think you ever going to get him much over 200 regardless of what you do so. Who's he remind y'all of? Like just say, if you looked across college football right now, I think they said it during the broadcast. Who's he? Who's he remind y'all of? I'll see if y'all. You really reminds me of Tracy Mcsorley at Penn State. OK, that's the white. Quarterback like 511, like 100 and 95200 lbs. That's who he reminds me of in the weight with a better arm. Who Brian?

1:15:13 Who you think? Oh, let me, let me think of on this for a second. Sheldon. I'm, I'm going to go back a little bit. Give give me Denard Robinson. OK, shoeless. Yeah. Oh, Sheldon, who you thinking? I don't know. I think he reminds me of Tommy Castellanos. OK. The way that he moves, you know, he I think he's a has a little bit more skill throwing the ball and Castellano, but the way he he can maneuver and get out of stuff.

1:15:55 He reminds me of him, how he moves in the all right. I'm going to throw this one up. I can't put him in this category. He's got some wiggle. He doesn't have Kyler wiggle. He does not have Kyler Murray's arm. He has a good arm. Kyler was a center fielder in baseball. You got to have an absolute rocket to play center field in baseball, and he has a rocket to be as small as he is. So, yeah, All right, real quick, before I got one more thing we're going to do, tell him we'll get it to you in a second because I know you got some shit to get off. You caused a ruckus on Twitter, making people all sorts of mad. Obviously national signing day is tomorrow. We have to commit earlier today. Portal seasons open.

1:16:35 We've got 3 defensive lineman already there, probably more as we were sitting. We're going to come back next week and kind of unwrap that stuff because there's going to be probably more portal entries, maybe some other changes. So ain't no need to talk about it tonight. But Tally, the floor is yours because you go ahead and put it out now in spoken word. What you put in that tweet? No, SO most of the time for the season, of course everybody you got to have somebody that you got to put a blame on right. So I just like the debate. I'm not telling people that are wrong. I just want to hear what people say because I'm like y'all are telling me that Marv is the reason we lost all these games and I mean people was giving good stats. Well, we LED in this game.

1:17:20 Well, we LED in this game. I'm like well, if you look at the games, it was more than just defensive let downs. Sure. Marvel wasn't adjusting well in the third quarter, I agree. But if I'm looking at it from a holistic standpoint, right, our top defensive player is, I mean, our top player that gets drafted is going to be a defensive player and we're going to have more defensive players drafted. Is that because they were developed well? Is that because of the scheme worked for them, You know what I'm saying? And then we had all these pieces come back on offense. You got everything you wanted on offense. You paid people big money.

1:18:05 You got every piece back that you wanted maybe besides online, I guess they may or didn't get some online. But the pieces that we had you, you got them back. And we're still 6:00 and 6:00. So people say, well, you had this defensive, you had APR and you're still 66. I'm like, yeah, but the offense had as much talent, you know what I'm saying? I feel like it was more question marks on the defense then it was the offense at the beginning of the season and they said, well, people got hurt on the on the offense. Well, the starting safety got hurt in the first game, Stroman got hurt the first game. So it's you just I just don't understand how you pick one and not the other. You know what I'm saying?

1:18:46 I'm picking the head man anyway. I'll just tell everybody that I feel like it's the head man's fault, the games that was that's my opinion. But if you just say somebody got to fall on the sword, I just want I was just wondering how people say it's Kyron's fault and it's Mars fault. So, Brian? What you think about it, I know you seen. The tweet that they was killing. Me, I I saw the tweet. They were killing you. If we talk about somebody got to fall on the sword and it's got to be somebody that's not Brent pride and not with Babcock, right. So we're, we're talking about somebody down the down the pecking order. I do lean Marv over Bowen and I'll give you my reasoning and most of it has to do with it. It's similar to to pride the, the things that Marv doesn't do well, regardless of game day, I think Marv doesn't do a great job of adjusting, especially in the third quarter. I think those game plans have been been pretty rough. I think that Bowen, even when things aren't working, he does adjust pretty well or is at least quicker to adjust to try something new in the game.

1:19:56 But when I look at quarterback performance against linebacker performance, I think despite injuries and everything else, I think the quarterback still overall performed better individually at that position than the linebackers did collectively at their position. And then I look at the fact that Bowen can recruit and Marv can't. He, Marv is a minus recruiter, Bowen is a plus recruiter. So all that together, I think that puts Marv higher up on the on the chopping block then then then Bowen in my opinion. Show you go next. So I've, I've been a little, I've certainly been more critical of Marv this season just in terms of, you know, the, the Russian defense wasn't great. And when you isolate that, it's pretty clear the linebackers were a major, a major problem.

1:20:49 Linebacker plays just wasn't good enough. Tech finished 62nd in Russian success rate, which you know, is not terrible, but again, with how much you returned and the fact that you had a full year to kind of revamp that linebacker room, it just isn't good enough. So, you know, I think the linebackers it it might be a bigger issue with recruiting than is with coaching, just because you look at a guy like Caleb Woodson, who was, you know, pretty much, I mean, one of the best performing guys in the entire room, arguably be best performing and he's a young guy. So, you know, there's there's some potential there, but I don't I don't think they manage that room correctly. And and that's mark custody, like that's he's got to own that. So I think, you know, metrically, you know, there's some nuance there because the defense did improve from last year and the offense, you know, kind of plateaued in some areas. But I also think the offense was dealing with, you know, a limited offensive line and injuries to key skill players, including the quarterbacks.

1:21:43 So you kind of give going a little bit of the pass there. I just think I don't think the defense really maximized their potential. And I think the offense was a little bit closer to kind of doing, you know, as much as what they had. So I've been, I've been a little bit more critical of Marv this season. I like this because tally. Now I'll say this. Put up Robbie's. I'll throw this in too. Yeah, Robbie, thank you. That's my what? But I'll say this to him. Y'all. Excuse me, I'm eating some presses. You fine. Another thing that kind of threw me for a loop is like, OK, if we won, we won six games, right? So if we won eight games, if we won eight games and we lost four, we would probably be here in a lot different position and feel different, especially if those wins came against Miami and Duke. Yep.

1:22:34 Your defense gave you, if I'm not mistaken, I know they gave you 4 turnovers against Duke because people say, well you know, we scored this many points. I'm like it's OK if you score 35, but what if you can score 50? Like you got to take the layup points we we had. I know we got 4 turnovers and won the turnover battle against Duke. Still lost. We won the turnover battle against Miami. We won the turnover battle against Miami and I can't remember how many we had. We may have had three today, like one. But whatever the case is, I know we won the turnover battle there and we still lose. So it's like is the defense doing enough for us to win? Or is it like it's just to me, I feel like the defense and the offense never was on the same page. One would give us some stuff the other wouldn't. And then I feel like a lot of times again, I ain't trying to go down the rabbit hole with it, but this is just my thinking when I'm everything's done and I got time to analyze. We mismanaged injuries 100% and I wasn't in, I wasn't in the locker room, but I could on the outside looking in. We mismanaged injuries on both sides and we are where we are. So who does that fall on?

1:23:51 Like I just feel like everybody was quick to say it's Marv, it's Marv, it's Marv. And then what Robbie said made the most sense to me. Like y'all told me that Pride is a not y'all, but the world says Pride's a defensive guru, right? So if my defensive guy is having a problem because he's a young coach and this is the first time coordinator he's having a problem, you mean to tell me you couldn't step in and show us some things that's going to help the defense or hell, Bud Foster walking around, We can't ask him to come in and run some kind of something to help. Like, I just feel like it's some things the head coach should do, could do to help the defense more than if there is a great offensive coordinator out there and proud of the defensive coach.

1:24:40 I feel like we would we would benefit more from having a great offensive coordinator. That's just my opinion. Now, Curtis, I know you have some stuff that you want to go with what you got. You're on mute too. Get off mute first. Microphone, the microphone lights undone. This is what all of the point you're making is. There were times this year where the defense would like that. Opposite way is where there were times the offense just scored and scored. It would be like another score. Syracuse. In the Syracuse game, offense still put up, what, 31 was that, right, 31. I had to score for your second.

1:25:22 I got 31, 31, right? Yeah. The offense put up 31 in that game and the defense played a great first half and then they just fell. It was never. And Price said it and he said it and he tried saying this is what his preaching thing is, complimentary football. We had very little complimentary football this year. We had very little score, touchdown, make a stop, go, put a field goal up, make a stop, pin them deep. We didn't have that. We didn't have any complimentary football all year. That's why we're six and six now to this point. Robbie does make a good point. If Marv isn't doing well in your former head coaches of DC, he should be getting in that room.

1:26:10 How much does he go into that room is the question. And what we said, he go into that room, where do we see it more? But I'm like this, I'm like, I think both need to go because even though I like Tyler Bone as a recruiter and there are times where he's sitting at the blackjack table and he can't do no wrong, then there's times he does it and he busts every single hand in a row where he cannot put up anything. So, oh, there you go. That is a good question. Has anybody asked? Does he stand with it still goes back on pry here for the same reason Robbie brought up there, because if it prize in the defense that much and we're still having inconsistencies, then you know that that's still a reflection there.

1:26:58 It's a it's a reflection on Pry. Now, if he did do that, that's probably why Marv's going to get the hook. But I've said this, and I said it after the Syracuse game, and I'm going to continue to say it. Things have to be changed. We are were multiple games under 500 in the whole 10 year the last two years because I give the free pass to the first year. It probably was the single worst P5 roster in the country. Think about that. The last, the only argument you can say is did did we do enough to try to flip it year one? But as far as? What that What? We did with the talent we had, that's you're not going to get much better than. But that was a cultural decision. That was a cultural decision that was basically, and we'll give everybody an opportunity that's already here and put them on there.

1:27:47 The thing that needs to happen is you've got to change things in this staff. Inexperienced top to bottom is the killer. Yep, you've got to go find some old heads. And I don't care if it's a defensive coordinator, if it's an offensive assistant, if it's an offensive coordinator, you've got to change the dynamic in those rooms. You've got to put an old head that when somebody does some stupid, I mean, we all work with these people at some point in time in our life. They're older and you say something dumb and they just tell you straight up like that's stupid. Like don't, don't do that again. Now, some might do it in more gentler ways, but they need somebody in there smacking in the back of the head, right? Like, no, we ain't doing that. Why are you going to why are you going to run a cover 2 versus this? They're going to eat it up all day or why aren't you going to put a spy on the quarterback that can run? That was the only.

1:28:33 One, he's the only one running. He's. The only one doing anything. He was the only one doing anything Saturday night and it took us 3 1/2 quarters to stop it. That is I can't deal with that. I can deal with the quarter. I can deal with the broken plate, can't deal with the consistencies like that. The question now goes, as we kind of start wrapping it up here tonight is when are we going to see the changes? We're seeing the portal. They're they're doing the big signing day thing tomorrow starting at like 7:00, which I think we're going. I don't think there's going to be any flips. I don't think I think we're going to sign everybody. But I think I said to I can't remember. I texted all y'all this or you this or put this somewhere. There's going to be pissed off people when they see all the coaches in the room glad hand and making announcements tomorrow because people going to be like all these other schools right now are letting people go.

1:29:29 Josh Caddis got kicked to the curb today. Guy who was a quarterback coach for JJ McCarthy got kicked to the curb today. Plus, Miles on left, Jamie Chadwell's leaving, movements happening. We're just sitting here, oh, we're all good, everybody, everything's good. No, everything ain't good. You're an average football team with an above average roster this year and you epically failed. OK, so I have some some nuanced thoughts about this. So you talk about you talk about the assistance. Look, I do agree that you know, you have to make staff changes because I mean like there's no choice like you win six and six make staff changes. But I probably I probably learn more towards the tally way of looking at this because I think when you look at the overall body of work, there's just nothing that this team is really bad at, but nothing that they're also great at. And so I think you can make a case for keeping, you know, this assistant of that.

1:30:26 But the ultimate problem is that you have a head coach who's 1 and 12 and one score games and finds a way to lose and finds a way to snatch snatch defeat from the jaws of victory every single week. I just don't know that the the performance of the coordinators has been bad enough to justify an immediate like, you know, a reactionary decision. But it's like, it's just this weird situation where like the the play on the field exceeds the win loss record, but everybody wants to fire the assistants. But the main problem seems to be the head coach. I just, I think it's a weird, I just think it's a weird dynamic. So let me let me let me go here so. First of all, no, Brian, because I know you were doing that listening. So I think the problem that we're in is we're in a situation where from a buyout standpoint, it prize the problem. We can't move on from pry right now so that that we're starting at square 1.

1:31:24 So, so if, if, if that's where we're starting at, then do we ride with what Sheldon's saying and like, OK, well, they they haven't been good, but they haven't been bad enough to to fire them. What's the middle ground here? Is the middle ground, bringing in a analyst some sort of experience, seasoned game management analysts that can work with pride to season some of these problems that we've had throughout the year in terms of game management, in terms of crucial decision making in those those key moments in the game?

1:32:08 Because I mean, we talked about it, those those are probably cost us at least two, maybe three wins this year, right? It when we look at the, the cumulative effect, you know, this could easily be an 8 or 9 win team if a handful of decisions are made better on game day. So when we look at that, it is is the answer Stan and Pat and bringing in an analyst like that because you're not in a position right now to to scrap it again and start from scratch. That's a good question. Great question. And that's the thing I don't again, I'm not the one that's out here beating the drums saying fire pry, but I just know that I don't feel like Fire and Marv is going to make us win more games next year or the next year.

1:32:57 You know, I don't I don't I can't definitively say that because Pryor is still the head coach. He is the one that's losing. He's the one like again. And Brian, I know you want to go, so don't forget what you're going to say, what you what you think about saying. But it's like if we do bring in a new coordinator, of course, Oh, he's got to learn a system that's going to set us how many years back and it's going to do this and it's we're still making the same mistakes. Who? And it's a long list of things that went wrong, but who leaves the quarterback in when his foot is broke? Who makes that decision? Whose decision was it to not play Caleb Woodson? Well, whose decision was it to not play Caleb Woodson early in the season?

1:33:46 Whose decision was it to not get Q Reddish on the field earlier? You know, just little things like that. Like I don't know who it is. I don't know if it's the defensive coordinator, I don't know if it's the head coach, I don't know if it's the position coaches. I don't know, man. Like it's just a lot to think about. And again, I don't want people to thank anybody who's here listening, who interacts with me on Twitter. Like I'm not argumentative. I like to have discussions. So I genuinely was asking like I see this happening. I just want to know what do y'all think and why do you think that Brian, what was you going to say? Oh Curtis, you got some. You was going. Brian, Brian, I got mine.

1:34:26 I'll let you. I'll let you go first. Man, so I'm I'm with Brian, you have to make some change and Shelton, you have to make some change. If you don't do an overhaul, that's fine. But this is what you do. You do 3 positions. The first one is Brian, your point? You've been, you've been, you've been beating a hammer. Like if you're not going to make many changes, give him a Jerry Kill type figure to help manage the games, make decisions, all that crap. I'm good for that. I think what you do on both sides of the ball, if you feel to Tally's point and Deshaun's point, we aren't terrible anywhere. It really is true. We're not terrible anywhere now. We're terrible at times, we're awful at times doing stuff. You bring seasons we're rarely consistently bad at. Anything.

1:35:10 Exactly. Bring in that older voice. It's basically let 1 member of the staff on each side go bring in the older voice who has the experience. You don't have to name an offensive or defensive coordinator, but you come in and say, listen, your job is to improve this person. Your job is to improve this person. Like, you know, the name's been floated out there a lot. I love Pearson. Prelude to death. A lot of people know Pearson didn't want that coaching job. Let him go back to director, player personnel, bring in Bob Chute because one Bob Chute knows the systems. Bob been a safety coach for a long time. There ain't no learning curve. He's like 5758 years old. He may not help you on the trail, but The thing is, if you believe in Chris Marr, if you believe in Chris Marr can be a good defensive coordinator.

1:36:00 Get an old head in that room with him consistently and constantly. Other side, same way, bring somebody in, let go of Stu Holt, Ron Crooks. What was one of those two guys? Bring in somebody who's seasons, it's called plays. It can get you out of the ruts because with Tyler, it's never about when he's not on. It's when he's off. It's so bad. It's so bad. So let me let me throw this out there. You know, we talked about a Jerry Kill type, but I mean, what this staff is lacking, regardless of what position they are, whether coordinator, position coach, head coach, this staff does not have a lot of head coaching experience on it. One guy and and that doesn't really count, at least not at least not in a in, in, in, in the in the meaningful way that we're we're looking at here.

1:36:58 So and and that was a very short tenure as well, correct. So when we look at that, you know, do you do you two birds with one stone? You get a former head coach. That's fine. Being a coordinator that has that experience. Is that a, is that a half step where you're still spending the same amount of money and not having to hire a new coordinator and a Jerry Kill type? Whether you have the budget for that or not, I don't know. I'm, I'm, I'm wondering if a, somebody with that type of seasoning that's willing to be a coordinator underneath a, a Brent Pry could, could rub off on him and be kind of that kind of that right hand man from a game management perspective, regardless of whether they're running the defense or running a position group or whatever, whatever it may be.

1:37:54 Because I think, you know, I think the biggest problem is that just this staff top to bottom lacks experience of managing games because you've got fresh coordinators and a head coach that never did it till he got here. It's true. It's true. I think all of us here, Sheldon, anything you want to add additional as we get ready to wrap this thing up in the higher? Mac? Listen, Mac Brown doesn't know how to manage a game better than Brett Brown. I'll say that. So Sean, anything you want to. Yeah. I mean, I certainly think you could, you know, maybe consider adding some consultants or analysts and that'd be fine. But I just think when I, when I look at the data, I'm not seeing the the justifications for significant staff turnover.

1:38:35 If, if the team had performed up to their expectations, win loss record wise, like if if the staff had, you know, not bungled a bunch of games that we were seeing here, 8 and four, maybe nine and three. I think we'd all, yeah, we'd all be happy. And the stats would be the exact same. The data, the metrics would all be the exact same. But we're nine and three. So we're thinking, hey, man, it's all good. Let's keep it rolling it. May not have hit the the heights we expected, but it's at least kind of the incremental steps. It's the expectation, you know, levelling out at least. Yeah. And then the final thing is, you know, I think text coordinators are paid probably around the 35 to 40 range in Power 5, some in the ballpark. And I think you got to wonder like if you did decide to move on, you know, could you make a, could you make a legitimate upgrade with that salary range? I just maybe you could I just I don't, I don't know. And it is.

1:39:23 Yeah. And it is risky, you know, always making those changes because you just don't know. Maybe it turns out to be worse or or it's a downgrade. So I don't know. Anything else, gentlemen, before we put a wrap on this, I think anything tally Brian? Nope all. Right back up the brinks to Jerry Kill and let's see what we can do. I think it's just this, I think we all need to see changes happen. And I think Shelton, to your point, because of the way you look at the metrics is if we went on through, you'd all be happy. Maybe 6 and 6 was the best thing to happen to basically show this staff is not going to be the staff that gets us where we want to be. That's all I'll say. Now with that being said, that does wrap up this episode of the Boundary Corner podcast brought to you by Accounts Family Pharmacy in Blacksburg. I'm Curtis Wilson.

1:40:10 I'm Brian Sigler. German the tally. And I'm Sean Moss. We are part of the College Huddle Network. Check out our website boundarycornerbt.com and listen to all of our episodes while you're there. Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, all your favorite podcast sources. As y'all heard from him earlier, check out jason@jasonlongmusic.com. He plays us in, he plays us out all of his live gigs, all of his music's right there. Check it out. If you're down in the Roanoke area, see where he's playing. Go say what's up. Tell him you follow Boundary Corner and that you followed all of his gambling picks this year and he owes you money. He'd love to hear that. But as anyways, we appreciate y'all all for listening all the comments in the chats as always.

1:40:53 And as always, let's go, Okie. The.