Week One

0:23 Music. Back to the Boundary Corner podcast. Along with my partners Brian Siegler, Jonathan Talley, and Shelton Moss, I am Curtis Wilson and this episode is brought to you by Doctor Jeremy Counts. Down at Counts Family Pharmacy, your friendly neighborhood pharmacy located at three O 1 S Main St. in Blacksburg, VA.

1:06 Now for all of you guys listening out there who are either students of Virginia Tech who may know students, maybe it's your kids. Big, big giveaway from Main Street Pharmacy on Friday at Gobbler Fest, which will be out on the drill field. Count Family Pharmacy will be on site where any student can register for a potential winning of APS five from the Counts Family Pharmacy Shelton. No, you cannot go back down and use your student ID to try to get registered for this. He calls garbage, but definitely check that out. So again, we know there are some students that listen, we know a lot of you have definitely friends and family who are students down in Blacksburg.

1:52 So definitely put that out there for Counts Family Pharmacy. We have arrived boys. It only took one. How? How? It felt like forever. It felt like forever. It's probably only like 20 some weeks, but it felt like forever. 20 weeks now. Hold on. More than 20 weeks now. More than 20 weeks because it was raining like cats and dogs on December 29th. 30 weeks. 30 weeks. Call it 30. Weeks, 30 weeks, 30 weeks. But how's everybody been, Sheldon? How you doing man? Dude, I've been busy. I've trying to enter back into the workforce, been applying to some jobs, got some pretty good leads. That's some pretty cool places.

2:38 So excited about that and hopefully moving out here pretty soon. But yeah, I've just been enjoying enjoying the summer off and can't wait to to get back to the football season. I'll be in rally with some friends this weekend, so watching the game from there. So I'm pretty excited about it. Nice tally. I know man. You were mentioned just a couple seconds ago. Your house is pretty much going wild right now, right? Man, we got football going on. My son, my daughter's in college. We still got baseball that we're doing. We're going to some camps for baseball this this fall. So we got to do that. We are getting ready to head to Nashville. That is four day weekend, going to be off Friday, going to be off Monday.

3:22 And then my wife got sent home from work last night or yesterday sick. So we're trying to nurse everybody to health and make sure everybody's good to go so we can have a pleasant time in Nashville. Yeah y'all don't need to be sick and everything going to the game and so she just don't need to work the rest of the week she got. I think it's I think it's over for her. I'm sleeping upstairs though. Yeah, about to say you got you y'all, not you got to be awake because I know if she's still sick come Friday, she he's going to be like I love you but deuces. I got to go. I got to. I got to go. Mr. Siegler, what time's the flight leave? Thursday, man.

4:03 I will be checking in at at 8:20, so I will be ready to roll wheels up sometime right around 8:20. So I'm excited. It's going to be a pretty, pretty heavy, heavy time down there. We got kind of thing stacked wall to wall as far as activities and stuff on Thursday, on Friday and then we got the game on Saturday and then after that I I really don't have anything kind of books. I'm just going to really enjoy the rest of the town. Well that's good to hear man Y'all y'all definitely enjoy it down there as much as y'all can because it should be an absolute blast. I know tons of friends of the podcast are going to be there.

4:45 I know. Are y'all going to the Suns event on Friday night? I will be there. You'll be there, Tyler, you getting in? Planning on it. I'm planning on it now, yeah. So definitely if you're in town, they will be at our buddies at the Sons of Saturday's Pre party. Now listen, I'm gonna be straight up with y'all. We ain't young bucks anymore. Y'all need to get to the hotel by 9, OK y'all? Y'all got it? Y'all got to do it. If not because this is an 11:00 AM kick. This ain't like yeah. So it's. Going to be early man. Hey hey, the event is 6 to 9. I'm planning on leaving the event, going back to the hotel, going to bed good. Not necessarily going to bed right away, but I will be at the hotel. He said.

5:28 He said he ain't got no kids. He ain't got no kids though. He ain't going to straight to bed. I. Hear you, man. I hear you. All right. Well fellas, real quick news and note the guys already know about it, but we kind of wanted to make a quick introduction here use a note from Boundary Corner podcast is we are probably announcing a partnership with the contributor by the name of Miranda. Well, Miranda already writes for Draft Countdown native of RBA here. She is going to join us on the podcast hopefully either next week or the week after. She had some prior engagements this week. But here's what the deal is. She is going to be putting out some great written content on our website every now and again. You can go ahead and check out on the website. She's already there.

6:12 See a little background on her. Also her socials. If you want to follow her, she's got a pretty good social media account. I got to say pretty, pretty witty on her account. But it's something that we've been working at for a while here to try to get someone on, and we are proud to have her join us. So be looking out for that stuff. Brian, you have a visitor in the room there, just so you know. Yeah, yeah. It's it's, it's the nighttime zoomies, man. There you go. He's getting it in all. Right, well, let's start. We got a lot of stuff we are going to do know the enemy in a little while here. But we got to start. Today is the first time all fall we saw a depth chart, a depth chart. So I just want to kick it around this room.

6:53 Jonathan Talley, I am going to start with you. Surprises, shocks. What were you happy with? What made you mad? I mean, nothing really surprising. I think it kind of shook out how it's supposed to. First game we put your best foot forward, Benji starting, which is what I about thought, You know, I'd like to see Nick be a leader in that room. But kind of like I said when we talked last week, I mean, we don't know what Nick has, man. He's coming off of an injury and we've seen Nick play and we've seen Benji play, you know, so I think we're in good hands. I don't, I don't have a, you know, I don't, I don't see anything wrong with what happened in the tight end room. So I'm excited about that because that's, you know, that's my my group.

7:40 So I'm excited to see what kind of production we get out of those guys. But other than that, man, I mean, Bob's on the bench. He's going to be a good, good depth piece for us, so I might. Sean, what about you? Any shocks, any surprises? Anything that stood out to you? Yeah, I was pretty surprised to see Braylon Moore get the nod at center and then shift Kaden to to right guard. I know they worked with some of those combos earlier, but yeah, I mean, kind of just doing a little bit of shuffling. The only thing I could think of how that would impact you is if, you know, the the snap comes out differently from different players. So obviously the guys are used to, you know, seeing Kaden snap. So they're gonna have to adjust the seeing Braylon snap. And I'm sure they got some practice with it, but that might be a little bit of an adjustment early on to to watch out for in the season is how they snap the ball. All right, Brian, what about you? Anything on the depth chart?

8:28 Biggest surprise to me, I I was very interested to see who was going to be that will starter. I know we talked about that a lot. We saw the the Jayden Keller experiment is back for one more year, baby, one more year, one more year, the Jayden Keller experiment. So we'll see if it sticks this year. You got you got Kelly Lawson right behind him at will. I imagine we're going to see Kelly Lawson line up at least at will and star on any given down and we'll see if he works in at at Mike as well on some of the some some of those packages that we put out there. But that was the most interesting thing to me because, and I don't know how much of that has to do with, you know, Kelly missing most of the spring there or or what, but we're going to see Jaden Keller at least in the front end of that will position one more year.

9:19 And I'm hoping that having good old Sam, that Mike linebacker is going to be some of the pieces falling together for him. Because it's never really been about the physical attributes. It's always been about what's up here. It just seemed like sometimes he just didn't get it. And and hopefully having somebody like Sam in the middle is going to help with that. Yeah, that's where the hope is right. It's more if he doesn't have to think, just go instincts when you're at the weak side position. Let Sam do the calls. We know Sam, if you didn't see the interview earlier today with Sam Brumfield, a little press conference, Sam's going to have the the communicators in his ears. So he's going to hear all the calls from Marv.

10:00 While it is going to be GA responsibility, whoever is going to be the will is going to be responsibility to look on the sideline to make sure all the calls are coming in right. For me, there were really three things that caught my eye. The first one is a defensive tackle, Kelvin Gilliam getting the OR with Josh Fuga. There had been, you know, we, we, we saw Gilliam looked OK in the spring but didn't jump. But clearly something between summer and fall camp, something's clicking. He's now effectively the de facto starter. I'm glad to see CJ McRae on the depth chart after the leg injury. It's good to have him there. But here's the other one that kind of caught my eye. Look over to wide receiver room.

10:43 We talked about that last week. We kept mentioning names. Take a look who the too deep is effectively in the slot to Cahi. The Cahit has kindly gotten a little bit lost in the in the shuffle of everything over the last year with, you know, the amazing recruits that came in and some of the other guys stepping up. So he's continuing to fight, show good things in practice. So that is mine. Anything else from y'all just as y'all are glancing at it or thinking about it again. Not really. Man, not really, man. I mean, I think, you know, I think things kind of shook out about the way we thought they would, all things considered. When you look at the news that was coming out during fall camp, you know, we kind of knew that.

11:32 Yeah, they were, they were doing some different things. They were shaking up the offensive line. So we expected maybe a change there and not just running it back with the crew that we had last year. You know, they talked a lot about what was going on with different guys playing at different places at linebackers. So we knew to expect maybe some action there. Curtis, I'm kind of with you. Like the, the, the, I think Taka Heath is probably the biggest surprise, at least on the offensive side, just because I don't know if we've heard a ton about him outside of special teams. So seeing him in that depth chart is is pretty interesting. All righty. All right. Well, we're going to roll along because what goes along with the depth chart is if as we look, if you just look through the depth chart, it's so many names. And Sheldon, we know you've done some reading and some research about S&P.

12:21 Give us that final breakdown that came out from Bill Connolly. What caught your eye and what it really says about the potential of this team? Yeah, So Hokies came in 36 overall in the the final preseason SP plus rankings, which is pretty solid. I think that's where most respectable outlets have them qualifying that 43rd on offense and 35th on defense. So the analytics are a little bit higher on the defense, which is a little bit surprising. I thought they I thought the optimist would be higher. But yeah, so I ran some projections, kind of looking at some playing some formulas to kind of get an estimate for what the win probabilities look like.

13:01 So Vt would be favored in 10 games this year on the exceptions, obviously Miami and Clemson, and they would be projected to win about 8.3 games and five in the conference. So that's kind of the baseline that you're looking at, if you're looking at, you know, expectations based on what the models are saying. So can Vt over perform that? Obviously, we'll see. I will say though, I think the ACC as a conference is going to be a lot better than what they've been in previous years. So you look at the the rest of the rankings, ACC has six teams in the top 35. Louisville, it was almost six in the top 30. Louisville's at 31. So I mean, that's a pretty good, that's a pretty good contingent right there. Now, the good news for Tech is that they missed most of those teams, obviously with, you know, so many teams in the conference who can't schedule everyone. But I think the ACC could be a pretty solid league this year. I'm not saying it's SEC level, not big 10 level, but they could be a pretty solid league, especially at the top half. All right.

13:53 Can I ask a quick question? I don't know if the data is in front of you there. So we're favored in 10 of the 12 with the exception of Clemson and Miami. Does it give the projections like what's the what's the line on those games? Like we're going to Miami week 5 right now. It's projecting -7 Miami -3 does it give things like that? So I don't, I haven't calculated that I could. I could look up in a second, but I just have the win probabilities which I could pull up in a second here. But yeah, I mean, most of the win probabilities probabilities are kind of like in the 60 to 80 range. So it's kind of like you expect to win and if you play well, you're gonna win. But there's always some that could go wrong. It's not like we're talking about 90 plus percent win probability. It's very much a take care of business and play a clean game. You can win otherwise, you know, you could. You could come out on the losing end, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

14:42 What's the, what's the probability of wins for Clemson and Miami? I just want to know like where they, you know, are we that 90%? Are we the 10% for those two games? I'll give you a second. Chris, yeah, give me one quick SEC to look it up here. So I see, look, the stats say we're going to probably win 10 games, y'all see? Yeah, so, so Miami's at 30% and Clemson is at 34%. So like I said, we knew terrible. Yeah. So when you look at the kind of the range of outcomes, it's pretty condensed. Like there's really, there's not a ton of games in the conference where Tech is, you know, favored extremely highly. But on the flip side, not a lot of games where they're favored very lowly. So I think it's going to come down to just, you know, the the craziness of the sport, the lucky bounces and everything and just execution really. So I think I think there's going to be a lot of pretty, pretty close ball games this year.

15:33 Nice. And I mean, we saw it last year that the Hokies did pretty well, especially once Kyron drones got in the game of handling the games where you know those toss up games are those those 5050 games are the games that we were favored in. They manage those pretty well, especially at home. So hopefully that that trend continues for the Hokie this year. Yeah. And then just a couple of the really small notes. So looking around the conference, Rutgers is, I know it's not conference, but looking at the schedule, Rutgers is actually pretty solid. They're top 50. So that's gonna be, you know, right around a 69% win probability. You know, Stanford and BC aren't projected to be great. Georgia Tech's pretty solid, but, you know, more middle of the pack. And then Syracuse a little bit lower. Duke is actually higher than I thought they would be for some reason.

16:18 The SP Plus is pretty high on Duke. They have them at 51st. I'm not sure about that given how much production they lost. But I mean, we'll see. We'll see. We'll see how it plays out. Nice. Well, thanks again for that data, Sheldon. I know that probably something we would have gotten last week from you as we were running through everything, but it's always out there. It's good to know the seeing, I mean, it's, it's so many different ways you can look at a season. We look at the personnel coming back, you look at statistics, you look at the probabilities and all of it matters in some way, shape or form. But you know what else matters? Injuries and I got to say this from from watching the presser today, we are coming out of camp relatively healthy and if y'all didn't hear, the only guy that is like a toss up this week is tally the aforementioned Nick Gallo, which that's not shocking I don't think. I mean, guys coming off of me, right? Right.

17:15 So. Let's see. Plus he's like our age. I think he's like 30. So not saying he can't, not saying he ain't helping the team. I'm just saying like, man, if Sheldon get injured and I get injured, he's probably going to bounce back way faster than me. So the the youth helps. Can I say something else besides all this good stuff that we talking about? You know what still burns me up, man? You know what I've been looking at? I've been looking at a lot of social media and it's great to get like, you know, some hype. I'm not the kind of person. Well, we need to stay hidden so you know, we don't lose. Like give me all the hype if we deserve, if the kids have, the young men have earned it, give it to them all the accolades. Can y'all please get my quarterback's name right? Stop calling him Kyron.

18:05 Stop calling him that's not his name. So we might be small potatoes. Can somebody send this to most of these outlets and tell them how to pronounce his name? His name is Kyron. Like Byron with AK Kyron drones, please get that right. You're going to call his name, Get it right? I know he's listening. That one's for you, Kevin. That is for you, Kevin. Kevin in the house. Stop messing up, Stop messing up our quarterback name, all right? I'm going to do this our our musical guru who has a little something later. He's already Sheldon. He's paying attention. He sent me this message Right now. As it stands, Miami is an 8 1/2 point favorite for that game in September. Clemson is a four and a half point favorite now. That's November.

18:54 You. You knew. You knew. Jason knew it. Oh, I know he did. You, you knew he knew what the what the stuff was. Oh yeah, so. He said so. So he said eight one more time. 8 1/2 for Miami. 8 1/2 Yeah. Miami Land 8 1/2. And a flat 4 for Clemson. No 4 1/2 for Clemson, 4 1/2. OK, so I had I had close to 8 1/2 for Miami and closer to seven for Clemson. Oh, OK, not, not not too far off. And again, it's obviously it's going to change, you know, we'll see more games then but. Absolutely. More games get in the data, start shaping and reshaping and you know, you know, talk a little. You talked about Georgia Tech being middle of the pack. Let's let's talk about Week 0 real quick before we get into some other stuff.

19:34 We sure we want to talk about Week zero. I do. Yes, we do. Yes. We do. I'm sticking up to my quarterback again. Go ahead, Curtis. So let's talk about the Florida State Georgia Tech game. I got to watch about 2 1/2 quarters and DJ, that man can't throw the ball down field or he gets mine numbed and then forgets to throw the ball down field and holds it. You can't win football games that way. Go ahead, Tally, I know you. You itching. Hold on, hold on. Wait. Tally, stop. Some something went on here. Everybody is a super, Everybody's a superstar. They don't want me to say it.

20:17 Say it. Am I? Am I chopping up? Am I good? Can y'all hear me? We. Can hear you. Everybody's a superstar until you get hit it. DJ was getting hit, Georgia Tech was hitting his ass. But that ain't what I want to talk about. Florida State fans, first of all, you motherfuckers, they are the worst at jumping on people's shit, trying to talk about whatever they want to talk about. Man, I've seen that so many clips when they was Virginia Tech versus Florida State, like they went on, you know, when Karen goes on the, on the on the podcast and he's talking about #1 Y'all didn't watch it.

20:58 People didn't watch it. You just took a, a, a clip and start going crazy. Oh, he said Florida State wasn't that good. I was a day game. All he was getting beat. All this was his stat line. Go watch what he said, Go watch the clip. First of all, that's number one. But like I said last week, we're going to, I'm going to get off that for right now. I said I needed to see Norville's team this year because Norville is a coach that builds. He's not really a coach that reloads. It took him a while to get that team where they looked like they looked last year, three years, and this year they didn't look like the same team. That's all I'm going to say. I ain't going to beat them down too much.

21:39 I know we got Kevin in here. I know you got family down now, but I got to say fuck Florida State. What you got, Phil? Sean, did you freeze Observation Shelton from the Florida State Georgia Tech game? So unfortunately I was actually out getting some vitamin DI can. So I wasn't able to, to watch a ton, but I did see, I did see some of the, the postgame analytics. Bill Conley has the the postgame, but expectancy, I think it was 97% for Georgia Tech. So they, they actually really dominated that game. Pound for pound. I think the score was a little bit closer than than the, the disparity one suggested. So that was a pretty a pretty dominating win.

22:19 Ron, I know you were doing stuff Saturday, but I'm assuming you came back checked the. Bottle I came back in and checked everything out and you know, I I think it's going to be the latter of what you mentioned there. Curtis, we saw this at Clemson. It did rear its ugly head quite as much last year. We're back at it where DJ you just does not know how to get the ball down the field. He is risk averse with the football and he he is checking down. If it's not in that, you know, 5 to 15 yard range, he is either not taking it or inaccurate when he does take it. So at at some point you got to pull the trigger. You got to you got to take shots downfield. You got to make sure that you can press the ball and push the defense and stretch the defense and make them have to work. Because right now, where his bread and butter is, it's all clogged up because no one's concerned about him taking shots.

23:18 Just press man, leave one over the top, make him have to make decision and and it's not good right now for them. What I'll also say, Sheldon, I'm glad you dropped that stat on here because what we got to think about Georgia Tech, if your win probability is 97% and you win the game by three, that says something to me. Because if I'm hearing the way the analytics said is Georgia Tech should have won that game handily without an absolute problem. And literally, well, literally there's two plays that have to happen. A, You get very lucky that you catch a swing pass and the guy gets 18 yards up field to put you in field goal range. B. And I'm not trying to take up the Florida State here.

23:58 That kid stepped out of bounds. That stop should have that stop clock should have stopped with 40 seconds left. I don't think Florida State probably could have come back, but still, all that to say, everything in the data world says you should have killed this team and you barely scraped him by. Says a lot about Georgia Tech there. All right, let's flip it over to tonight game to the SMU Nevada game. Sheldon, did you make a comment or something? Because I remember reading something laughing my ass off about SMU during the ACCG 5 teams. I honestly don't remember. You don't remember so basically Shelton made the comment. I can't remember where it was.

24:40 We we chat on multiple devices. Basically Sheldon said hey look, SMU is getting the cordial the normal ACC welcome. You're playing AG5 team and you are getting you're looking like absolute dog shit. So that game also if if SMU brings that to the party this year, Dang, they may make a bowl game because they didn't look good at all. And that was I mean. That that's a, that's a team that was very offensive forward last year and it took them 3/4 to wake up in that one. Yeah. And they got a safety. Yeah. You also said that, Sheldon. I don't know what you were doing Saturday night, but Sheldon was like shotgun in the end zone.

25:25 That was beyond Beyoncé. See, I could, I'm not saying I could be an offensive coordinator at the at the at the power five level, but I know I'd be not stupid enough to do that. Shotgun out of the end zone when your online can't get a push. Man, some of these coaches dude. You can't get a push. You're you're, you've been struggling to move the ball now for a little bit and then you know that they're going to bring everything. I mean, what do they have to lose at that point? And then you know. I'll just do that. And, and, and that to me, that was the, that was the hinge point. Kelly, I don't know if you got the chance to watch that game, but that was the hinge point Saturday night when that safety happened. Yeah, I watched a little bit of it, but I mean the week one stuff or week zero stuff, you know, like I think somebody put it in the chat, you know, we better have the run defense fixed by, let's say Jim.

26:15 Jim said that. Jim West, he says we better have a run defense fixed before we face Georgia Tech. We ain't even seen the run defense. We don't know if it's good or bad. We don't we don't know what we got. I mean, I hope we play good Saturday, but we don't know. We don't know what we going to do. So can't have so much overreaction or you know, also you can't put some some stuff you got to you got to address it. Florida State has to address. I don't feel like it's an overreaction when you seen somebody play college football for seven years. He is who he is, the quarterback that's he's going to give you what he's going to give you. He kind of, you know, went off last year. But look at the defense he played against. Those defenses aren't as physical as over here. So that's not an overreaction for Florida State fans or people.

27:04 Look at Florida State and go, hey, if that's what he's going to roll out, they're not going to be very successful. But Jim, slow your roll. Let's see Georgia Tech when we see him. Exactly. And the whole thing is watching some of the Florida State linebackers make I mean, you know, I had like flashbacks watching some runs in that game because those that week's out linebacker stuck his head the wrong way like three times. And just outside. It's like I remember that from last year. Let's not do that again this year. But we got game one to see. So we are about to get into know the enemy. But before that, just a quick again, shout out to our sponsor Counts Family Pharmacy down on three O 1 S Main St.

27:45 Go see Jeremy and the crew down there when you are in town, hopefully next weekend. And again, I'm pumping this out for all y'all listening with if you're a student or you have friends or family that are students. Down in Blacksburg, Friday at Gobbler Fest on the drill fields, Counts Pharmacy will be on site where students can register to win APS 5 courtesy of the Counts Family Pharmacy. So now we get to know the enemy. So for the first time this year we have been looking up and down, looking at rosters, reading things, talking about different players and we are going to know the end of the the enemy in Vanderbilt and we are going to start on the offensive side of the ball.

28:28 Brian got in the film room this week. I know y'all were looking at stuff too. I know Sean looking at data, Tally looking at stuff, me looking at stuff, but Brian usually gets in the film room for a few hours and break some stuff down. So Brian, let's talk about this offense that was not that good last year. Wasn't that good and very much a new look offense this year. You got Tim Beck coming over. OC had the same role there at New Mexico State under Jerry Kill. Speaking of Kill is also on board as the chief consultant to Clark Lee. So you get you get two of those former New Mexico State coaches coming in and obviously Hokie fans know a little bit about Jerry Kill from his time here under the Fuente era and kind of masterminding the 2019 turn around, if you will.

29:22 So what to expect under Tim Back? It's going to be a rush heavy offense overall. Very much a quarterback is going to be active in the running game, whoever is behind center. We think it's going to be Diego Pavia, but he is the captain. So heavy, heavy quarterback impact in the run game, passing game is more about getting those explosive plays down the field off of play action and taking advantage of kind of those rush effective defense alignments and calls that will be in there because of their propensity to run the football. And so look for a heavy dose of those, those rushing attacks mixed in with some of those shots downfield. All righty.

30:06 Well, you mentioned his name already. Let's talk about Diego Pavia. Sheldon, you did a little dive on some of his stats and analytics. Obviously he played started at New Mexico State last year under Beck and Kill. What is? What's kind of it showing from a, you know, statistical side? So he finished 26 overall last year in PFF grade, which is pretty solid. That's for all FBS quarterbacks. Trying to break down a little bit how he throws the ball. His accuracy is OK, not not great. Not terrible either. Pretty good in the short game, his office line did a pretty good job of, of giving him time to throw. And he was also pretty good under pressure and he was pressured a lot. Although according to PFF, they, they attributed a pretty high percentage of those pressures to him.

30:49 So it remains to be seen. You know, how he's gonna, how he's gonna handle that and the decisions he makes in the pocket when he was pressured. But like Brian alluded to, he does run a lot. Second in FPS last year with 57 scrambles on the season. So if you get, if you get to him, he's gonna run. That's his, you know, that's his instinct. He's good guy out of the pocket. I don't think he was super efficient when scrambling just based on the the yards per carry there. But he's going to he's going to get a lot. So you got to make sure you you contain with your defensive end. And Brian, you then you obviously looked at the tape showing you got the data there. What's from here, What Sheldon's got to say on the data and you're looking at the tape what, what's kind of your take on Diego?

31:30 I like to call him a Teemu or wish.com Johnny Manziel. He's a lot slower, a lot less effective down the field, but still an effective thrower, but more effective with his legs than with his arm, in my opinion. Not super fast. He's got some pretty good wiggle and a little, little elusive, kind of, you know, breaking tackles and things like that. But he's not going to, you know, win any track meets or anything like that. As Sheldon alluded to, he's effective in the short passing game, but we'll take some shots and he he will hit on those not with great efficiency, but but not awful as either. He, he, he will hit on some of those and that's kind of where we need to watch out for those big plays just because it will be such a rush heavy attack. He will turn the ball over, but he's not exactly a turnover machine.

32:20 I think he had what, like 9 interceptions last year against, you know what, the 25 touchdowns. So not a not an awful ratio there, but he's not somebody that's going to be super protected with the football either. Yeah, and, and just a quick a quick note, he and Karen Jones are right next to each other in the PFF rankings in terms of turnover where he plays. So just to give you a feel for for the rate at which he, you know, makes risky decisions with the ball, he's pretty much right, identical to Karen Jones. All righty. All righty. So there's a little bit on Diego. Definitely someone to keep an eye on even though I'm trying to figure out how Vandy's saying that it's an OR situation with their quarterback room I.

33:03 I think that's you named him the you don't name a quarterback a captain and then not not play. Him. At least week 1. At least week one. All right. We know a coach who did some. Stuff shout out Grant Wills. What was that tally? We know a coach who did some stuff like that all the. Time. Just true, Just true. All right, I'm going to make this real quick even though he's not playing in this game. They lost one of actually, they lost a couple really good wide receivers last year. One went to Georgia. His name's escaping me right now. I thought I wrote it down. It didn't. The other one we're going to have to contend with in October and that's Jayden McGowan. He was one of their most versatile receivers last year, had some rushes. We're going to see him later in the season, but he's not on the team and then they lost one to Georgia. So you know that so Tally, who can they throw the ball to? But they.

33:55 Got a 6-7 tight end 67243 Cole Spence. So Cole was a three star, three star prospect. He had says he had about 23 offers. I'm looking at kind of the best offers that he had was maybe like UCF or you know me at schools like that. But I looked up and didn't find any stats on him from last year, but they saying that he is who they will be looking at to throw the ball to at tight end. What you got on him, Brian? Yeah. The big thing that I'm reading is that, I mean, they they really lost a lot of their production from a wide receiver standpoint.

34:35 They've got some pretty effective tight ends both on the roster and guys that came in. But apparently the guy that has stood out the most in spring in the scrimmages has been Cole Spence. Really good rapport with Diego Pavia. He's expected to be the guy that's going to be the targets in those intermediate passes that we talked about in in going to be the red zone target in the passing game. So look for him, he's he's a big target. He's a big guy. Tally, you spoke to him, didn't have any 2023 stats. He was injured in 2023, played mostly special teams in 2022. So he's a guy that is kind of really having his first season as a primary playmaker, but but it's by all accounts, he seems to be the guy that's flashed the most heading into the start of the season. Yeah, 100% any, any six seventies, 245 lbs, that is a big target to hit out there.

35:33 So even if Pavia does have issues with the short humanitarian passing game, somebody that size, it is going to be tough to miss. Let's be real on that. All right, I decided to do a little bit more digging, trying to find out what is going on with the rushing on this team. Obviously that Diego, but first time he's playing at Vanderbilt. He was at New Mexico State last year in the CUSA. I'm sure Shelton could dig up and tell me what rank the CUSA was last year. As far as conferences go, they're champion, not great. Their champion, if y'all don't remember, was Liberty and we saw what happened to Liberty when they played Oregon in the Fiesta Bowl. That was not an entertaining game. I need entertaining games during the winter.

36:14 If not, I get really bored. But let's talk about their run game. I want to talk about Cedric Alexander. He is their leading rusher when he came out in 2023. Five. You're you're laughing. Oh, Brian, are you going to pull up the stat? I'll let you. Pull up. You pull up the stat. I'll talk about it. You pull up, OK, I'll pull up the stat. You talk about it, but just a little background on Cedric Alexander. He was a three star recruit when he came out of, believe it or not, he came out of Austin, TX five, nine, £200. He was a three star at 87. And if you take a look here at his kind of recruiting list, it wasn't actually all that bad.

36:56 I mean, you know, you take a look, Iowa State, I always feel like Iowa State's gets they get good football players, UTSA, they're doing good things down here. But overall, for a guy to be rated in 87, the offer list doesn't say that. And I don't know if it's one of those things where Vanderbilt offered early, he committed early, he was done or something happened. But his stats last year, just so all you all know, he was their leading rusher, 96 rushes, 371 yards, 3.9 a carry with four touchdowns. Big Yikes. And Sheldon's going to get into that in a few minutes.

37:36 Why? It's a big Yikes. But Brian, you watch some tape on him. What's it say about him? A lot of it's not his fault. He's it's it's more his rushing style combined with what Shelton's going to talk about. And I'll kind of piggyback on here in a little bit, but this is a guy, I mean, he's very much a steady Eddie in the rushing game. He is not a game breaker. He is not a big play threat. He is a guy that's going to go out there and get the yards that the that the play is drawn up and he'll maybe get you a few more after contact. He's kind of wouldn't call him a plotter, but kind of a guy that that you expect to get between the tackles, get a few extra yards and and and go down.

38:18 Like I said, get good at getting some yards after contact in there and you sparingly in the passing game as well. More of a check down thread in the passing game. They're not using him as a dynamic weapon or anything like that. He's just he's a guy that would be a good like second or third option on most Power five teams, but he's their leading rusher. So there you go. He's their leading rusher. And so Shelton, when a team has a leading rusher of 371 yards, what does the offensive line data say for them last year? I know it's last year and they've got new players, but you know you can't flip everybody over. Yeah, boy, it was. It was rough for The Commodores. So we'll start off with this.

39:00 Last year they were 126 in the country in yards per rush under three. And I know that includes sacks, but still pretty rough 110th and PFF Rumbach and grade also pretty rough. So you know, they had some explosive plays, but you know, the real issue for them was their success rate, which is basically how you keep up with the sticks staying on schedule. They were 123rd in the country and success rate at 36%. So you know, that was that was their issue. They just couldn't, they just couldn't get a push, couldn't stay on track. Now, in terms of the individuals on the O line, they have a center transferred in from Mississippi State. That's Steven Lasoya and then a tackle Chase Mitchell came in from Liberty, started for the flames last year.

39:42 But other other than that, you know, you've got three returning starters. They're all seniors. And if I look at that as a tech fan, I'm pretty I'm pretty happy with that because that means that, you know, there's not there's not a ton of room for improvement there when you're bringing back three guys from, you know, one of the worst opposite lines of the country last year. And all those guys being seniors, they realistically. Don't have a ton of room to grow. So it's going to be, it's going to be a tougher friend to build. I mean, I know they've, you know, they got some new pieces in, but man, they were just, they were so bad last year. I think just based on, you know, kind of where they're at in their rebuild, it's going to be it's going to be a lot of tough slide. Just even get back to a common level of online play. Yeah, Yeah. I kind of expect baby steps in that for that offensive line versus any significant jump where you'll see statistically things that stand out to you just just just bad.

40:31 Like I, I really don't, I really don't have another way to to put it, You know, poor footwork for a lot of these guys, just not being at the right place at the right time. Pass pro, not very good. Sheldon Allude does, you know, some of those statistics even, you know, bringing them down even further when you factor in this, the sacs, the SAC yardage, adding into that, that rush yardage. So it, it was really not a good year for this, this offensive line. And and to Sheldon's point, they've addressed some things, but I don't know if they've done enough to take anything more than a baby step forward from a production standpoint. Yeah, and I'm going to say this, I mentioned McCown. McCown last year was their third leading receiver and he actually was the 2nd in total yards from scrimmage, but he went to BC. Their second guy, the one is London Humphreys who went to Georgia.

41:28 He averaged over 20 a catch and their leading receiver last year will Shepard. Do y'all think he's still on the roster tally? You're right, he ain't. Guess where he went? Not Georgia. He went to Colorado with Dionne. So in in. So they're returning leading returning receivers. Junior, Cheryl. Who? 20 passes for 293 yards last year and three touchdowns. That's their leading guy coming back. So you're talking about a team who was two and 10 last year whose best three offensive players clearly probably were good offensive players. Because I don't believe that a guy like Bill O'Brien would go get somebody.

42:10 I don't believe Dion would go get somebody. I don't believe Kirby Smart would go get guys and bring them in unless they showed significant skills. So you're talking about taking those three guys away along with the troubles on the offensive line that Sheldon and Brian are going here. So it's, you know, it's definitely tough sledding for that offense. So there's kind of the offense, by all means, we're looking at our breakdowns. We know it's a new season, but when it's a new season, you got to look at what's old. You got to see where they were last year. Can they improve? It'll be really interesting to see what Jerry Kiel can do for them. Now I'm a flip over to the defensive side of the ball. And Brian, let's talk about this because Clarkley fired some people. Yeah, Clarkley said.

42:56 Thank you. I will take the reins and and probably to his benefit, I think the defense has not had a great run here in the last couple years. And obviously Lee's background is defensive coordinator running that 425 defense, kind of that Elko esque style defense. They call the Rover the anchor now, though, So just, you know, that's obnoxious. Welcome to that. I'm I'm kind of getting a little tired of like rebranding a, a name based on whatever your, you know, your your theme is as your team. So that that gets a little old.

43:43 But yeah, it's a Rover, guy plays anchor, and the philosophy is kind of the same as those Mike Elko teams. You know, it's a focus on team defense. You want to limit the big plays, you want to skies pressure and coverages to create confusion in the passing game, in the running games. That's the big, big philosophies for them. And I think looking at it historically, at least before that Lee took over, the thing that they did not do well was limit those big plays. So that that's the thing to look at. Can they continue? Are they going to continue in that trend? Are they going to do something a little different to limit those big plays? Yeah, 100%. Real quick about Clark Lee, His three most prominent years were at Notre Dame before he took this job. And his highest ranked total defense in those years was only 18th.

44:31 Yeah, he did stay in the top 30 for all three. That's good. But it's definitely a talent. Sperry, from getting what you can get at Notre Dame, what you can get here. On to a quick shout out. We got Lavar. I have not seen him in a while. Lavar's back, everybody. Lavar. Lavar, thank you for rejoining us. We hadn't seen you a while. Hope all has been well. He's waiting on the season. He's waiting on see. And your boy Tally, he's a Miami boy. He back. King, thank you for tuning in. Man. We. Appreciate it. And you're right, September 27th can't get here fast enough. Take care of business. All right, Sheldon, Brian just mentioned it. He fired people. Can you tell us why he had to make this move when it comes to some of their defensive statistics from last year? Yeah, Vanderbilt was bad at pretty much everything. And in particular, you know, you look at the past defense, they had some Charles at corner this year. I know a couple other guys are injured. So, you know, not sure what we're going to see this year, but a couple a couple key stats with regards to their past defense.

45:35 They were 128th and open field yards allowance that looks at yards 10 plus runs or excuse me, runs of 10 plus yards overall. So 128th there. And then, you know, they generated very little, almost no havoc. Havoc prefers to sacks, hurries, you know, deflections, pressures, basically anything you can kind of do to annoy the point to get in their face a little bit. They just didn't really generate a ton of a ton of havoc in that in that department, especially in their front seven. And then they're like I said, they're bad at pretty much everything statistically, but there were statistic was their success rate on passing plays. So 132nd just a reference there.

46:15 There are only 133 yes, 133 FPS teams. They were 132nd and passing success rate allowed. So they they did not stop anything. I mean, you you dropped back to pass man you you got a pretty good shot, at least of you know, keeping keeping the six move and stand on schedule. So it was rough and I know they've got some guys banged up. So I don't know how much better it's going to get to pass with you, Curtis. Yeah, it is true, because there are what we'll talk about a little while, those names. But Tally, we still got to try to find. All right, who's somebody that might give us problems? And Tally, I know you. You looked up and threw something over to Brown. Who's the guy you looked at? Yeah, they got Mr. CJ Taylor.

46:57 He is out of Warren County, Tennessee. He was a three star recruit. He had about 59 tackles total tackles last year, couple of picks. So seems to be a pretty, you know, solid player. Brian, what you owe and you know, offers out of high school he had about 8 offers. Vanderbilt definitely was his best offer of the offers were Army, Austin P, Eastern Kentucky schools of that nature. Brian, what you got on Mr. CJ? Yeah, this seems to be a guy that is a one of those development monsters, a guy that wasn't really recruited highly. That is what kind of turned his game into something pretty big. Definitely their best player on the defense, far and away kind of a balanced. He plays at anchor safety that I talked about that that Rover position.

47:46 He's balanced against the run in the past. Like I said, really only impact player on their back end. They use him kind of all over the place. He blitzes, he's in run support, he's got a, you know, a couple sacks here and there. He's forced some fumbles and he got a couple picks. So he's a guy that does a little bit of everything for them, but he's really their only impact player on the defense other than a couple other guys that are kind of more kind of Steady Eddie. All right, yeah. So that's their best on the back end and they're back in. I mean, Sheldon, you already alluded to it. It was rough last year. So they went out in the portal and they got a guy by the name of Marlon Jones. Marlon Jones was an Eastern Washington guy. Eastern Washington always a pretty good FCS program. In the last really last decade, he had played in 40 games at Eastern Washington before he entered the portal. He had got 9 interceptions, 23 pass deflections in his rib. That is pretty good numbers at any level of football. But unfortunately for them, him he basically is out for the season, personal health issue.

48:47 He did not report to fall camp. So that is a huge loss because clearly you see that statistical, you know, you see that stats, it's like he's probably going to be competing for a starting job. And then if that wasn't bad enough, another transfer on this guy came from Southern Illinois and also went to Buffalo by the name of Mark Davis, had rotated in with cornerbacks, looked like he was probably going to have some sort of role in their cornerback room. Tears his Achilles a couple weeks in the camp. So now we're sitting here and you're talking about a bad pass defense last year. They clearly addressed it. They went out and found a probably a diamond in the rough and Marlin probably a steady guy in Mark.

49:32 And now they're gone. So they're almost back to where they were last year. And I mean, it's just, hey, it sucks. First of all, you don't want to wish injury upon any kid. And these kids are playing their hearts out and that stinks. But I mean, so they're going to have to roll what they had last year, which was 132 at 1:33. That's not good. That's not good at all. Yeah, it's going to be definitely an uphill battle for that defense. Like I said, you got one playmaker out there, you got a couple others, you know, pretty steady guys out there. But to to Shelton's point, nobody that's really creating a lot of havoc.

50:15 So this isn't A-Team that's going to disrupt your your schedule very much. Whether it's whether it's sacks, whether it's tackles for loss, you're not going to see a ton of that. They just got to hope that they can get you to 3rd down and get off the field. All right, let's talk about there is one more player. I always like to look at the linebacker room and tally. What information did you get on that, Mike linebacker Langston Patterson? We have Mr. Langston, the Patterson Langston. Patterson. That don't even sound like a football name, but he looks like a football player. That that it sounds. It sounds like a Vanderbilt linebacker.

50:56 It does sound like a Vanderbilt linebacker. So he actually was a pretty, he was a kind of high three star player by the 88 ranking. Had some good offers coming out of high school. He's a Nashville kid, so you know, kind of hometown kid had offers from Arkansas, Duke, Georgia Tech, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisville, Nebraska. So had some pretty good offers there. Also said he had a a Notre Dame offer. So he has a brother that played a four-star brother that played for Clemson and Kane, Kane Patterson, I think it's his name. So pretty steady Eddie there in the middle. He is a pre season third and fourth team all ACC player pre season.

51:44 So we've got a little bit of stuff there in the middle form as far as Mr. Patterson. Brian, what you thinking about him? Yeah, I mean, looking at him, I mean leadership is his biggest attribute. He does a good job of, you know, getting the defensive line good at communicating. You can see him out there communicating well with the with the rest of the team, technically solid player guy. That's kind of where he needs to be most of the time. Not really a huge threat. The blitz game, they don't blitz him a ton. He's just a guy that's going to get in there, get you a good tackle, 3-4 yard game, run it back, do it again. Nothing that like super stands out at you. But he's also a guy that's not going to make a ton of mistakes.

52:26 So he's going to end up racking up a pretty good amount of tackles in the middle there. All righty, so there we have it. A little Know the Enemy Vanderbilt edition the best we can with all of the last season's data. No tape from this season, trying to reach spring games and stuff. The first one's always tough, y'all Brian Brian always like bangs his head. Y'all don't know like he's like I I got to hopefully find these guys somewhere and obviously Sheldon, there's no fresh data from games and stuff out there and tally same way. It's it's like we're reading articles, we're trying to figure out stuff. So this is what we think guys that may you may hear the names of guys we feel like could be impact players for them that we feel like we need to stop or slow down.

53:08 But the reality of it is we've got to have our own self and we've got a set of hokey keys here this week and tally and we'll let you kick it off because when you when you when you texted me what you wanted to say, I was like, he got he got to lead it go. Ahead, it's pretty it's pretty simple man. You show up to Nashville, TN, it's a fucking country ass hit town with a whole bunch of country music playing. So if you come in now, you come in there and you, you do what you got to do and you get ready to play. Block out all the noise. The talking's over. It's just time to go play. Everything is set up for us to go be successful. It's just time to go play. Block it out. Let's just go get it done. All righty Sheldon, what do you got Any, any, any motivational, philosophical, statistical?

53:57 I mean, motivational, I feel like if you're if you need motivation for this game, man, you're in the wrong line of work. I think, I think everybody's going to come out motivated. But yeah, I just want to see, I want to see improvement from the areas that they kind of lacked last year, you know, particularly linebackers and safeties, you know, being able to to stop the run, prevent those big plays and just, you know, play good disciplined football in the back seven. I think if they do that, then they should have they should have a good time. I mean, look, Tech is a much better team. They have better time almost every position. It's a game you got to win. I'm not a big, you know, believer in you have to win by X amount of points, but it'd be nice to see them kind of take care of this one by a couple touchdowns at least. So just come up motivated, ready to play and and go into the stadium knowing that you're the better team. Bron Siegler.

54:39 Do not sleepwalk into this game. Do not, do not come into this game and not decide to play to your potential for two to 3/4. We saw what what happened to Florida State, we saw what happened to SMU. Don't do that. Don't do that. But the biggest thing for me is especially if Diego Pavia is the quarterback and starting significantly for Vanderbilt in this game, don't let the quarterback's legs beat you, especially on 3rd down. We don't need a bad offense extending drives because we get a little undisciplined on 3rd down and long because that's going to be frustrating. That's not going to be fun to watch. Don't do that.

55:27 If you take care of that business, I'm not really worried about anything else, to be honest with you. I'm not worried about anything else. All right, I guess I get to go last and it's similar to actually similar to what all three of y'all said. My biggest thing is do not play down to this team. Act like this team is the best team in the country and go out there and play your A game. And especially for me on the defensive line, in the offensive line, because basically what we see from what Shelton's given us, this is not that very good of an offensive line. Go take their damn lunch money. So take their lunch money, offensive line. Same way I'm looking at this. They lost their leading SAT guy last year to USC. Go take their lunch money.

56:12 Make them want to go to the sidelines. Want to look there and say, listen, just let them run this game in, but just run this ball in. Let this be the game. I'm tired of getting hit so. Don't lay down, let me ask you a question. I was thinking about this too, because we've interviewed probably a couple of times and and we can only go by kind of what he says. And he came in as a defensive coach and he took the reins kind of on defense. He had a defensive coordinator first year, but he kind of took the reins on handling the defense. And he said himself it was a lot of work. You know, it was times when he might or should have been in another room that he was focused on that defense and maybe offense may have, I don't want to say went lacking because I don't want to, you know, put the words in his mouth.

56:56 But you know, what we talked to and what he said. How much do you think that's going to affect them, that their coach is effectively head coach and DC all at the same time? And then you've got all of this stuff going on on your defense and you're going into a a game, you're going into a season against a formidable opponent. You know, like, how do you think that's going to affect them? I think for them, I think that's why he brought in kill because he feels like he needs someone to control that side of the ball. But I think what that could cause is issues within the locker room because you and Brian both played and if everybody ain't on the same page as coaching, getting everybody time, get everybody on the same page, that can screw shit up, they can screw shit up quick. I think for him, I think he did the move because he's in his fourth season.

57:45 They've not had any good season since he's been there. This is like this is the last ditch effort. He knows that if he can't manage probably four wins this year, he's probably got one more lame duck season then he'll fire so last and to be honest, so maybe he screwed up from the beginning. Maybe he should have taken the range and put his imprint on that defense the first couple seasons. Not when he gets to the point where you are one of the worst defenses in the country. You're now losing good players to bigger program. So that's my opinion on it. I don't Sheldon Brown if y'all got any takes on that. Yeah, I'm right there with you. I think it's the Jerry kill effect.

58:25 I think that's why you brought him in. You brought in a coordinator that you're comfortable with and now you got a guy essentially overseeing that, that coordinator that was the head coach for that coordinator at the previous stop. So from a, you know, tree perspective that, you know, it's still kind of flowing the same. I think the bigger thing is that now you essentially in some ways have two head coaches. You got a defensive focus head coach and then you got a de facto offensive focus head coach. I don't know if that's a good thing from a messaging standpoint because you don't have one unified message from the top down. You kind of are talking about this is the offensive lingo, this is the defensive lingo. And I don't know how they have it structured, but I could see it going sideways like that if it's not structured in a in a very succinct way.

59:18 So that that that's my concern for them with that set up. But I think it's also why Lee was OK with making that step is because he had somebody like Kill to kind of run the offensive side of the ship. You got anything that? No man, we we know that Jared kills. Never afraid to pull a punch if you know. Anything. Shelton Moss predicts Kill Lee are in fight by Week 3. Let's go ahead and put that out there. If he, if Jared Kill has an issue, we think he's going to let you know about it, that's for sure. Hey, at least kill him back. You've been known to coexist. Big day you go. Cannot be said. The same thing cannot be said for Brad or Nelson. So 100.

59:59 Percent. 100%. All right. Well, boys. We always get to a time in this program where we have to make our predictions for the game and we do it. We don't dance around it. We last year there were games we sat in here and we said we're going to lose this game there. Games we said we were going to win. Sometimes we were right, sometimes we were wrong, but always got to lay it out there the way we're feeling about this game. And I will let Jonathan Talley lead the way on this. Mr. Talley, what's your prediction open wise? Hokies by 17 man, I say score is going to be somewhere around 3434 to to 1734. Fourteen kind of what I'm thinking, yeah. So 17 like I said, 3414 for for the Hokies. Hey by the way guys, we are not picking this game against the spread anymore this year.

1:00:52 Everyone got pissed off at us last year because they got confused whether we were taking money line or spread. So they got. Pissed when it. Comes to Hokies, we ain't picking spreads. This is all who's winning and by how much? Right, there we go. All righty. So Shelton, what about you? As you're going to be, you said Raleigh, right? Yep, going to be watching from Raleigh. I will take the Hokies 34 to 20. I think it's made a pretty average pedestrian game. I think Texan get off to a hot start. Vanderbilt will come back a little bit, maybe get close to evening it up. But in the end, the the superior talent and depth of the Tech roster will carry them to victory by two touchdowns, and they will cover. Bron. Give me Virginia Tech 3717.

1:01:35 I like a good twenty point victory here. I don't think that offense is going to be able to do a whole lot against our defense. I I think that we'll be able to score pretty regularly. You know, we're not going to necessarily run it up like we did against UVA, but I think we're going to be able to score consistently against them. 3717 sounds good to me. All righty, and I'm not far from either any of y'all 3 on this. I am. I do have the closest score, but I told tally earlier today pretty much I was at 17, I'm at 3423 final. I think they get some garbage one minute left touchdown with nobody that's on that 2D chart playing, just getting some guys some reps and they give up a late touchdown and it looks a little bit closer than it actually is.

1:02:23 But you know what, Brian, you said something. If we get the opportunity, I hope we do run it up. You know, it's like make a statement, especially if you can get like Colin and you can get pop out there and then score a couple touchdowns, run it up. Because your nuts against SEC is always fun no matter who it is. Always fun. Please, let's do. That because as it stands right now, Brian has a score in the most at 37. Everybody got it in the 30s, but Brian's saying 37 and that's the highest than any of us think. We'll go on. We we are being. Very please prove what's wrong. Prove us wrong, guys. Yeah, put 60 up.

1:03:04 Please put 60. Please, all righty. So they're the predictions we're all going with the hokey wins all of us by double digits from with the biggest me with the smallest margin of victory and tally and Sheldon right in there. So there goes that. Now we get to turn to other games for this weekend and what we have. Brian got to play around Y'all. He got to play around. We are going big screen. Look at that y'all look at that. Look at that graphic. If you're watching on the podcast, go to YouTube, check out the beautiful graphic that Brian has picked big screeners week one. It is presented by counts family pharmacy and again, I'll just say this, if you don't know counts family pharmacy will be a gobbler fest four to seven on the drill field. Go send somebody there that can win that PS Five and then give it to me because I.

1:03:57 Ain't got? Because I told you about it. Curtis is now spitting this into him getting APS. 5. That's why you plugged it a third time guys, I'm. Going to plug it a fourth time. Watch. All right, so we got a bunch of getting. First of all, good weekend in college football starting Thursday night through Monday, Good games all over the place. But we're going to let Mr. Siegler kick it off. Brian, where are we going for this game? Yeah, we've got Clemson and Georgia. That's where we're going first. Yes, Hot Atlanta, baby, Hot Atlanta. Dome. And the line? The line is 13 1/2 in favor of Georgia. And you know what?

1:04:43 I'm riding with Georgia. I think Clemson is fucking down. I think Clemson is burnout. I think Clemson is done. And I think Georgia is going to go ahead and start the kindling that's going to be the fire that burns their ass the rest of the season. All righty, I'm opposite of you on that. I first of all, I'm not that impressed. So everybody loves Carson Beck and just what I've seen him it just it doesn't pop to me. 13 1/2 is a monster number. The one thing is Clemson that has not changed over these past few years is that damn defense is good. So if y'all remember a few years ago there was this game where there wasn't an offensive touchdown scored just one defense. I'm going to say Clemson covers. I don't know who's going to win it. I'm going to be I'm going to be watching the Hokies game. So I'm really not going to be paying attention. I'll, I'll figure out after that. Callie, what about you?

1:05:33 Well, when you don't watch that game and you figure out after it what happened, George is going to be done whoop Clemson's ass. Clemson's got too many chats and Eric's. They got to go get some Kwan's and Deshawn's. That's all I say. Georgia covers Sheldon, what about you? Well, I'm a little bit higher on Clemson than Brian is. I know they're not what they used to be, but I think that I still like their coaching staff. 13.5 is a pretty big spread. I think Clemson will lose this game, but they will cover. All right. And our newest colleague, Miranda says.

1:06:13 George. George we are a split family on this game so therefore we will not be putting our. Money. That's a nice little pattern there too. You know we. When did Jason pick this? He did not. Do you want him to pick every week? I guarantee you he will and lay money on. I'm just wondering because I mean, we're at a kind of odd number right there, you know what I'm saying? You know, I think if Jason gets in that we might really be split, you know what I mean? That's just my opinion. I was wondering, did he pick? I'd like I'll call him. I'll need to know what he thinks about this. All right, listen, we will get in touch with him tomorrow and see if he wants to start giving picks for all the games. Knowing him, of course, knowing him, you know he does more more action on Saturdays. All righty.

1:06:55 Well, I got the next one. Here, Jason just texted me and said he's taking Georgia. He's taking there we go, Jason taking Georgia with the 13 1/2. Tell him he's got, we got a few more to go here. So he's got to stay on the line with us. All right, I have got the next one up here and I'm going to Sunday night going out to Vegas, USC versus LSULSU, the four and a half point favorite kind of far away from home with the LSU fans are crazy. I'm sure that place is going to be dealt with purple and all that. And Brian, I want to see what you got with this one first. That line isn't big enough. Give me LSU all the way. Give you LSU all the way.

1:07:39 Yeah, that at least a touchdown, at least a. Touchdown All righty. Let me think about it here. Let me think about it here. You know what I'm I'm with you, I'm with you. I think it's just a little bit too big. LSU later 4 1/2 take the over. The over is only 64 and y'all know Lincoln Riley can score points, but he don't play defense ever. So 4834, take the over. LSU wins. Ali, what about you? I don't know much about either one of them teams, I'm going to be honest with you. But I do know I got a good friend's son that plays on USC. He transferred from Georgia State and he plays defensive end linebacker that his name is Jamil Muhammad.

1:08:24 Everybody give him a look. I'm going with Southern Cal just for that reason. I'm going to support my boy and I'm going to say Southern Cal. Al covers Sheldon, where are you laying on this one? Sunday after a weekend in Raleigh. That's a good football name, by the way. Jamil Mohammed. I like like Tally. I don't know what time about this teams. I just kind of felt like Lincoln Riley is going to come with a little bit of a chip on his shoulder trying to prove some people wrong. So I think, I think USC is going to take it. All right, USC says that, Miranda says. Miranda is riding with me and you, Curtis. And Jason texted me he's taking LSU with the four and a half tally. Do you need to make a change?

1:09:08 No, we got to talk to Miranda about her picks. She's coming. She's coming in wrong right now. She coming in wrong on this. One Miranda, if you watch it. No, because Tally follows Sheldon, so I'm following Sheldon. We good, but I got analytics backing me up, man. Hey, we can't lose. So Miranda, you need to get on the right board. You need to get on the right ship right now. Tally's sitting here saying if it feels good and then Shelton says the statistics. Feel. Come on now. He feels good. There we go, all. Right. Well, Tally, we know you've got a very special pick, not your typical big Screener, and I'm going to go ahead. Take the floor, my friend. Yeah, so my alma mater, Jacksonville State, will be playing Coastal Carolina.

1:09:54 As y'all know, or you should know, my daughter is a freshman at JSU. We went and dropped off last week. So this will be her first game as a She's been to a couple of Virginia Tech games, but this will be her first college game as a college student. So that is a Thursday night game. I've told her she better do everything she can skip class to get there to go and be a part of that because that's going to be an awesome, awesome atmosphere. And also, Jacksonville State plays Louisville the next week. So I'll be paying attention to kind of see what they have so I can so I can be rooting against Louisville when they play them. Nice.

1:10:36 All right, Well, let's go across the board. We'll get to you in just a second. Tally Brian, who you got? With the love of the game, give me Jacksonville State baby. Let's go right with my man Sally. I I'm with you because I want to see your baby girl see a dub on her first collegiate game, and I'm with Jacksonville State. And we are, as we, I'm going to put it up there, we already know. As we used to say when I went there in 2004, no, that's a long time ago. You can't beat our cocks. Go game, cocks. I feel, I feel about to know that I'm going against the green, but I might have.

1:11:16 I might have to take the L here, but I'm going coastal. That's OK, all right. He's going coastal. You got to switch it up to Alex because Miranda went coastal as well. She followed. She followed Sheldon. That's OK. I ain't going to be mad. I don't know. All righty, all righty. Next one. We did let our esteemed new rider choose a game. Why wouldn't we? And she chose the Saturday night 10. No, this is Sheldon next. My bad. Sheldon, our esteemed colleague, West Virginia, Penn State, what you got on this one man? Why you choosing? I'm going first. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, no, I just, I thought it was I think it's a really good game.

1:11:58 I know that the that crowd is going to be electric, you know, kind of a big time non conference matchup and I will take WVU to cover plus eights. I think the crowds going to get on low lift. I don't think they're going to win, but I do think they will cover. All right, they're not going, but they're going to cover. Brian, what do you have on this one? Yeah, You know what? Give me the Nittany lines. I think it's going to be a big home game. I think that that that home atmosphere is going to carry it. Give me Penn State. You know this is in Morgantown, right? I did not. Damn. Uh oh. Yeah, it's in Morgantown, buddy. It's in Morgantown, Brian. You know what I'm going to ride. I'm going to continue to ride with Penn State, continues. We'll continue riding with Penn State. I, I think they're going to, they're going to pull it out even though it's in Morgantown, like Morgantown. Yeah, this is like one of those, I don't know, like, thank you, Penn State for Pry.

1:12:54 I got a couple people at work that are Penn State alums. Always tell them thank you for Brent Pry. You don't know how much you have made us a happier society down here. But this game being in Morgantown, like Sheldon said, I think it's going to give a boost. I think it's going to be a war. Can I, can I do something? Can I go real off for saying I'm choosing West Virginia? I hate the schedule for this opening weekend. Clemson, Georgia's at 12, we're at 12. This games at 12. There's like three really good freaking games at noon and there's only like one at 3:30 and there's only one at 7:30 and there's only one on Sunday. Can they get that shit right? Like that irritates me as a fan. That irritates me as a fan.

1:13:39 I understand. Spread it out. Spread it alone. Like, spread it out. Like, I want to sit here from noon to midnight, eat a lot of bad food, drink a few beers and have fun. Instead, it's like, oh, it's going to be at noon. Hey, I will be sitting in a bar after our game anyway and watching everything that's out there, so whatever's on, I'll watch it. We either. Going to be drinking to have fun or we we either going to be drinking to have fun or we going to be drinking our sorrows away. So I'd much rather be drinking to have fun. I'm going to take Penn State just because fuck, fuck West Virginia and and them heels have eyes looking motherfuckers from over there. That's all I got to say.

1:14:24 And Shell's already told us he's got WVU here, and Miranda's riding WVU as well. So West. Virginia. Sheldon and Miranda. It's just, it's just like that. It's that stinky line. Like it's such a stinky line. And if. I had looked at the schedule wrong. I might would have went with the WVU, but I'm staying on business what I put out there. All right, let's go now to Miranda's. Yeah, I, and I forgot to mention Robbie, put it in the chat for us. What's that? Sorry, did I cut out?

1:15:06 I'm good. You cut out, but you get, I said, hey shit, you cut out again. Rich Rod is the coach at Jacksonville State. That's all. Oh, yeah, yeah, there you go. Yes, he is the coach at Jacksonville State. All right, so now let's go to the only big prime time matchup, Notre Dame, Texas A&M in College Station, TX A and M3 Point favorites. I think it's a straight up three, which is very awkward to be a straight up three. This is Miranda's pick, by the way. Yeah, yeah. Good game. Good, good. Solid choice, Ron.

1:15:47 You know what, I've given A&M a lot of shit in in recent years. Everybody knows that. It's well documented. I don't think this is going to be necessarily significantly different, but I do think they have the horses to cover this measly three line. So give me the Aggies. Here, All right, I am completely against you on this. I actually think Notre Dame is going to win this game outright, so I'm going to take the points just because in this case, Elko is a good coach that he's going to a situation where you feel like it's more horses. The question is, as we've seen throughout so many times, some guys can't just go in as a head coach and take the talent and win.

1:16:37 They can find the young, they can take the the lesser guys and build them up like he did at Duke. I got to wait to see what he's going to have at A&M. They did lose some stuff in the portal and I don't know, I'm just, I, I, I can't believe in Texas A&M until they actually do it in front of me. Fair enough, Tally what you got. I'm going to say Notre Dame. I'm just going to give it to the Irish on here. No real reason. I just I like, I like the Irish in this game and kind of what Curtis said. You know, I do want to see Texas A&M show me something before I pick them.

1:17:17 Shelton. I found a good stat nugget. So last 42 years, Notre Dame has never had a season opener where they have not started a senior on the offensive line. That's Shrek will end this year. So they don't have any seniors starting for them pretty young online. They're going into a Lion Skin and Kyle Field. I think the Aggies are going to be motivated. They've they've heard people talk some crap. You got a really talented roster. I think they're going to take this one in the season opener. And Miranda rode with me and Shelton on this one, taking the Aggies. All righty all. Right. I wish Shelton would give me the that before he makes. All right, before before we get to the last one, give. Me the stuff too, Sheldon.

1:18:00 Come on man. Give him to give him the gritty. Just a couple before we get to our last pick here, our buddy Robbie saying tech by 21 tally. We take that, wouldn't we? You know what I love? I love running it. Yes, Sir. Hi, Chris. Hi, Chris. Hi, Chris. We'll definitely take that too. All righty, so we got one more game to pick in this year as part of our Big Screeners special. Our music man Jason Long is going to be giving us a little something something every week. This week, he's going to Boulder.

1:18:59 Welcome to the 1st edition of Guitar Licks and Gridiron Picks. I'm Jason Long. You've been hearing my music on the Boundary Corner podcast for several years now. Well, this season the boys asked me to come on and talk about another one of my great passions, sports gambling. So each week I'm going to be matching up tunes and bets. Sort of like a. Degenerate hippie sommelier and week 1. We're headed to Boulder. And the car ride ride Mountain High, seeing rain fire in the sky and everybody 's high Colorado, North Dakota State is visiting Colorado on Thursday night.

1:20:10 Now look at this point of the season. I don't know who's making the playoffs, what the bold matchup is going to be, but I figured this should be an interesting game. The Buffaloes started strong last year, but they finished just four and eight. That has not stopped Coach Prime and his team from talking a whole lot of trash this summer. Time to see if they can bag it up. Now it's year two. Their depth should be better. And I keep hearing that QB Shidor is a Heisman finalist and a future top five NFL draft pick. And hey, I'm not hating. I want to see it happen. So no offense to North Dakota State. The Colorado should take care of. Business here at home, in prime time no less. So with my first pick of the 2024 season, I'm taking Colorado -9 1/2 points.

1:21:13 So go get them Buffaloes. And of course, let's go Hokies. See you next week for another edition of Guitar Licks and Gridiron Picks. All righty, so there is Jason. Jason taking Colorado, laying the 9 1/2 points with a little Rocky Mountain High. And we're going to be doing that every week. Jason's going to be throwing us games. He's going to be throwing us a little music in. Here goes the long way back with Jason. So glad to bring him on for one little segment. So he's picked it, played a little tune for us. Brian, who are you taking in this last big screen or Thursday night?

1:22:00 You know what, I'm I'm going to ride with the Buffaloes here. I just think even with some of the offseason shenanigans and kind of everything, all the hype, all the talk, all the trash talk, all all the silliness that we've seen, I still think in this case the Buffaloes just have too much talent at at a lot of key positions. I think they're going to take the win. Yeah, I'm with you. I definitely think they're going to take the win. And I definitely think, just hold on real quick here. There you go. Appreciate it Chris, I'm going Colorado taking the points 9 1/2, but I think it is going to be a dogfight just because of the clash of styles. As y'all know, North Dakota State loves to absolutely # the rock.

1:22:46 We know Colorado was subjective to giving up some runs last year. So Colorado later 9 1/2, they probably close them out mid fourth quarter went somewhere between 16 and 17 points. Before I get to my. Before I get to my pic, I want to know what was on that table behind you, Jason, look like a whole bunch of lotion, different types of lotion and why people don't be wearing lotion like that. I know what you're using that if that's lotion for look like Vaseline too. But anyway, I'm going to say Colorado. Jason, you need to be texting us and let us know what's on that tape. Sheldon, what you got?

1:23:32 So first of all, I know I saw Robbie had a question to chat. Is there really a difference between a Buffalo and a bison? There is. It's actually somewhat of a misnomer. Only bison. Bison are in America. Buffalo are not in America, they're in Asia. So with all due respect to Colorado, your name does not make sense. I never knew that. It's always a bison. It is not a Buffalo. So with that being said, I am taking, I'm taking Dion and the bus. I know this is a trendy pick for NDSU, but they do not have the speed to keep up with Colorado. They're going to wear them down in the second-half and they will win this game. And he will avoid embarrassment for now.

1:24:16 And finally, Miranda's on this pick. When we're riding the whole way back, by the way, Tally Jason said. It is a Lego set. Oh OK, OK I'm old man, my eyes is bad. I was just trying to make sure I was trying to see. You. You would have been real suspicious if you tried to say it was lotion, but not for the reason you think. So at least. At least he went with something else. It's a Lego set, everybody. I'll wait. You're the air. By the way, the gambler man Jason Long also says Jacksonville State, take Jacksonville State in that game. So he didn't get us all of them, but yeah, so. All right, we got we got a rundown here. Let's look at it.

1:24:59 Let's look at this. This is where we landed. All right. OK, Are we wrong? Did we get it right? Let us know. We're going to get them wrong. Don't worry. Oh yeah, definitely. I'm definitely getting them wrong. I think I had the worst. I know I had the worst picks last year. It was horrible. So I'm going to do much better this year. I'm starting off good. Y'all better follow me because we're going to make some money this year I'm telling you. Make some money. Somebody got to keep a record of this. Might want to do that for us. Curtis Curtis, you just gave yourself another job, man. Great job man. Somebody needs to do this. Somebody needs to.

1:25:40 Keep on this shit. Let's go. Let's go. Anything breaking in the last hour and 26 minutes, boys? You know what? I don't see anything breaking. I ain't got nothing breaking, but I do got a question I got to ask. I always ask a lot of dumb ass stuff, right? So I got to ask some dumb stuff. This is going to be starting with Shelton Sheldon, Virginia Tech Hokies first game of the season. How do we score first this year? What's the first score that we had? Let's see, because I'm a big fan of his. I'm going to go Jalen Lane. It's going to be let's go, it's going to be a pass behind the line of scrimmage.

1:26:25 We're going to get a good block in the perimeter and he's going to take it to the house for a 17 yard score. Oh, Dang, that was pretty. If this comes true, we going to have to. We're going to have to do something about Sheldon. I know something's up. Brian, what you got? Give me a Benji Gosnell slugo. OK all. Right. I'm going to go next and then Curtis, I'm going to let you finish it up. I got to go. I got to go with my quarterback, quarterback keeper. I don't have a certain amount of touchdown yards. I'm just saying Karen Drones quarterback keeper touchdown first, first score of the season.

1:27:09 First score of the season. All righty. Karen Drones is involved with mine, but he's not scoring a touchdown. He is throwing about a 45 yard bomb to Daquan Feldon as we pick on those inexperienced lap bad cornerbacks and he going to pull it out and what are you going to do? Like he was going down the pit last year. He going to let every single player on Vanderbilt's know what it's all about. All the Robbie's would be cool too. Put that back up there real quick. Robbie's would be cool too. Just house the first one. You want to talk? About get it out of the way, let's. Get it out of the way. Let's. Get it out of the way. All right. I like that tally.

1:27:50 You know what? That might become a statement at the end here how he scoring the first touchdown this week. Keep it going. Some weeks I'm so nervous, man, I I wouldn't even know what to do. I mean, you're nervous. This week though, the the nerves are off with week one, Especially when it's like, you know, games that it's not a conference game, it's it's not, it's none of that stuff that has like super long term impacts on you. You know, it's one of those games you want to win, you should win. You want to get over. Just aren't there because of the stakes that aren't. There's no real stakes attached to it, so. Right. But we want to get off on the right foot. Oh yeah, definitely. Want to get out, You want to get feeling good, you want to get to feeling good.

1:28:31 I know y'all can be like this. Y'all want to walk around Nashville all Saturday night with the hokey gear on with your chest out? Shelton wants to walk around Raleigh, downtown, wherever you're doing with the hokey gear on all Saturday night. And same here. That's what the way we want to feel and I think it's going to happen this week, boys. And with that, let's wrap up this episode of the Boundary Corner Podcast brought to you by Counts Family Pharmacy in Blacksburg. Don't forget Hokey Gobbler plus four to seven on the drill field. Go visit Counts Family Pharmacies set up there, register to win the PS5 from them and then give it to me 'cause I don't have one with. The Curtis, if you need his address, just hit me up.

1:29:12 I'll I'll get it to you all. Righty. So what you told me, I'll just drive to Blacksburg. I'll come up today, I'll buy a Marshall ticket and come and watch that game, right? My name is Curtis Wilson. I'm Brian Siegler. Jonathan Talley. And I'm Shelton Moss. Visit our website boundarycornerbt.com to listen to all of our episodes. While you're there, do not forget to follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Subscribe to our YouTube channel along with your favorite podcast source, Spotify, Amazon, Apple Podcast. He's played us once tonight he'll play us again. Jason Long, check out his website, Jason Long Music. Sorry about that.

1:29:53 Jason Long music.com where you can find the links to all of his music on Apple, Spotify and his YouTube channel, Facebook pages as well. Also checking out for his live events. He's always usually doing something on the weekends. Week one is here. College football is back. Thank you all for listening, and as always, let's go.