Week Seven

0:25 Music. And welcome back to the Boundary Corner podcast department College Huddle Network along my partners, Brian Siegler and Jonathan Talley. I am Curtis Wilson and this episode is brought to you by Doctor Jeremy Counts at the Counts Family Pharmacy in Blacksburg, your friendly neighborhood pharmacy, three O 1 S Main St. Fellas, it is a winning Tuesday.

1:08 How's everybody doing today? Winning Tuesday, buddy. I am, as they say in the biz, loving it. What a crazy ass weekend in college football, and I'm glad that we weren't part of that statistic. I can agree it was good to watch a game and relax, like be able to drink something and hold it down without throwing it up every 5 minutes. You know what I'm saying? And I'm just talking about water. I ain't talking about alcohol because a lot of times when you watching games, you can't eat and you can't drink. You don't know what's going up three hours. That's not, we ain't pregnant. We ain't supposed to be having stomach aches that, well, most of us ain't, you know, ain't supposed to be having stomach aches that long.

1:53 So it was good just to be able to kind of sit back, relax, watch a game. Things look the way they were supposed to look. People did what they were supposed to do. It's excitement. And we all go on load that tonight as we always we tell the truth on Tuesdays about the game. But can we just before we jump all into that and we do have a special guest coming on with us later that you all find out in a little while. It's going to be a lot of fun to talk to him. Let's go back 17 years ago. We were all in our 20s, all probably have a good time. Not not, not much care in the world. Here, there. Y'all remember 2007, right?

2:36 You heard that? Crazy ass freaking football year, dude. Look crazy. Look crazy? I remember it. I remember it. I remember it for good and bad. Yeah, say that. Because because we were on the side of some of that. I was like, yeah, we was up in there. We were really up in there, but I'm going to tell y'all Friday night you were starting with Syracuse, UNLV, all the way to 2:30 in the morning with Cal and Miami and all the upsets in between. That was one of the wildest days ever. And like Tally said, I'm glad we were not a part of it.

3:18 I am glad at a certain point in time of watching our game, I still paid attention, but I'm sort of watching some of those other things and it was just like, is this really going to happen? So, so so Tally had had people around your area been prodding you all year saying y'all lost a Vanderbilt. Oh man, it's been, that's the beauty of college football. It's a it's a week to week thing. And I'm so, I'm so hokey that it's like at this point I just take it for the week. You got these people that just are so excited every week. Oh, we beat Georgia. I can't believe y'all lost to Vanderbilt. When we lost to Vandy, I was getting messages from you know what?

3:58 I got more messages from Auburn fans than I did Alabama fans. The Alabama fans didn't even have Vandy on their radar. Like they were just like, OK, whatever, you know? But I had a lot of my Auburn friends was like, can't believe y'all went to Nashville and lost to Vandy. Oh, Oh well, it must be the SEC and all this. Like I heard that so much and I'm like, OK, I was like, I don't know who they going to get. They going to get somebody and they got somebody. They they got the head of the food chain is what they got. Oh man, that #1 ranking did not last long. Not long at all. It was they. They shouldn't have jumped taxes anyway. So that was that was like a come up. Inside. Oh yeah, it was. A self self correction. And it's been it's been very, very mixed emotions between Alabama fans that I've seen just putting up Facebook posts and kind of messing with them and, you know, talking to them. You got half of the fans to go.

4:56 What's his first year? We didn't expect him to go undefeated. And you know, we got a new we got a new program that, you know, we still can get in the playoffs. So we ain't tripping. We rather lose to them now than lose this. Then you got that other group that's going our deep. Our defensive coordinator sucks and we got players that ain't listening. It would never happen under nick. What are we going to do? So it's if you think we crazy like bro, I'm telling you like they they expect to win every game, every single game. So it's been a little nuts for just the people that I even know and like I said, just the kind of Facebook friends and things. Yeah, I've. I've heard some of the crazy folks calling into fire bombs, so I can only.

5:39 Imagine what you're hearing. Oh yeah, he got some. I know he man, I know he getting paid right now, you know, 'cause he know he, he, he live, he lives on them losses, man. That's what he makes the money when, when something bad happens. So yeah, he, he, he feeling good right now. Well, what a piece about watching that game because that was a 4/24/15 kick. So our game had gotten, we were kind of under control because kind of when, when the, when the first quarter ended, there was getting there halftime for our game. We come out of half, we scored a 21 and I'm, I'm going to be honest watching Stanford and I know we're going to talk about it, but it was like they ain't driving the field more than maybe once to get a touchdown. They're not driving 3 or.

6:24 Four times, never thought they were going to hit a big play on. Us no, they couldn't hit a. Big play. We're not. That's in the data. Once we had the two touchdown lead, it was like all right, so. So we're just. Going to keep them at least at arm's pace the the rest of the way because they they can't score quick. I'm not worried about that. They're going to try to methodically run the ball down the field and occasionally mix in a couple passes here there, but they're not going to do anything crazy. So you weren't really worried about them getting back in. And then I don't know about y'all, but I got hit up by Lavar, Our buddy Lavar, he sent me a message. He's like, hey, I know it's early 14. Nothing, Vandy. Yeah. But it was, it was. And that became our focus.

7:06 Then. I was paying attention to our game. I saw like Keonta's interception, some of the late John's kick and everything. But you saw Diego Pavia and you saw that offense start running. It was just like, can they really do this? But when Bama got close, it was like, I thought it was like, oh, that's it, that's it. They they toyed with them. So because of how good Vanderbilt is, because of how yo we like the 8th rank, was it 8th or 9th strength to schedule now? Yeah, it's something crazy. It's insane. And. And apparently, based on where we at now, the easiest going forward, one of the easiest going forward. Don't listen to it. They don't. Have. Changes. It changes every week. It does. Don't be.

7:46 Yes, I did. I did see that though, like you said, I mean, but. Just say it in general. And then it got better Saturday evening when Tennessee lost to Arkansas because they were running their mouth. That fan base had been running their mouth. We're going to be in about 100. We're going to smoke them like, no. And then the last play of that game is the brilliance of college football that kids running. And it's like stupid. It ain't no more time left on the clock. You need to you need to throw the football and he steps out of bounds. Takes a hit while he steps out of bounds. It's just like y'all dumb. Yeah, crazy dumb boy. You're earning this one.

8:27 Yeah, definitely. It was a it was a crazy good week. You're doing a weekend kind of like you said, Curtis. The thing that was so intriguing to me and, and just what first of all, with the transport portal, I feel like it does even college football out more because you have so many teams who usually wouldn't be able to compete. Now you really don't know because they have these players that probably wouldn't have been there that come in and can make a difference. But when you watch that Vanderbilt game, it's like they controlled the game the whole game. That was more like it. It's cool that they won, but the thing to me was like they controlled it, like they were the better team that day, you know what I'm saying?

9:15 So yeah, that was that was crazy. And it is true, it's the transfer portal. And I know a lot of people were thinking it's not going to make a difference because all the best players are going to go to these big programs. The whole piece is you can't do that with limitations. And the whole piece is also, if you're a really good player, what do you want to do? It's why we got APR right. You want to play. Because you can be the most talented person in the entire country. If you don't get on the field, you ain't making it to Sunday. And they can say, well, NIL is going to pay. You know what, if you don't get on the field. I got this eerie feeling, those NIL dollars that you might have got the first year that was six or seven figures, you know, Has he been on the field yet?

9:58 Now we still paying him $400,000. Yeah, we are. We ain't paying him $400,000 next year. We're going to pay him 5050 if he wants to stay, right? It's that thing that's going on now. I'm going to ask you all this before we get into telling the truth. Actually, this is a tell the truth moment. Did the ACC save Miami a second time? Yep, at least on two calls in that final drive, if not more, should have been targeting. They even looked at it. They looked at it again. No targeting on the the go ahead. You had like 2. Yeah. 6 yards downfield. Yeah, yeah.

10:44 It's like, I don't know, man. I do think that they they were helped again. But on the other hand, I'm like, Cal, if you got somebody and again, I get it, you, you still have to call the game the way it's supposed to. I know we were up on Miami, I think 10 points, but it was up on Miami. Big man at home. You're you're up big at home with game day there. You cannot squat. You can't even let them hang around. You can't squander that. So I'm tell you, when I thought it was a little freaky, though, I didn't say nothing, but I was watching it when the when the receiver, when they went for it on the fourth down, the the running back comes out of the back back field and catches that, that fourth and one little, you know, flat route and takes it like 60 yards or whatever.

11:32 And he's high stepping to the end zone like he's doing that. And then he goes and grabs the pom poms. I was like, I don't know if I'd be doing all that now, you know what I'm saying? Like I kind of was thinking getting a little bit too excited, you know what I'm saying? Knock him off, then we'll celebrate. But yeah, I went to sleep thinking for sure that Kyle had the game and woke up the next morning and they figured out they lost by one. I was like wow. It is what it is. It's college football. It's a crazy world. And to your point, you don't grab the pom poms until the scoreboard says 000 and it's over. Then you can grab the pom poms and play all you want. But let's get to the Hokies. Hokies take care of Stanford on the road, a 2.300 mile flight, 6 hours in the air for the boys to go out there and spank them 31 to 7 and it's a lot.

12:26 That went well on Saturday. We can be straight up with that. You can be real with it. But I'm going to tell you the one that I loved because we said it. I said it a couple weeks ago and we've been saying it on this podcast. We need an identity. We need an identity. I went further and said we need to run the ball 6% of the time passing 40. We were right on 6040. And how did Kyron look? Kyron look more comfortable. We rolled the pocket a little bit. He got some runs in. Tuden got some runs in. His accuracy was up 70%. One of the actually maybe the most accurate passing game in Virginia Tech history, if not very close to it.

13:08 You know, some big plays, some smart plays. Tally, you've been saying it for weeks. They finally let Kyron be Kyron. Let him be young man. So my thing is, you know, from watching the game and what I've seen all season and I don't know what the behind the scenes talks are. I don't know, you know, I know Karen wants to go to the NFL, you know, of course, you know, that's why they play the game. And I don't know what's been promised to him. I don't know what the what they want to do to developed him to be a NFL quarterback. But I do know the system they were trying to put him in at the beginning of the season wasn't working.

13:49 He is never going to be dropped back and passed the ball 40 times to these receivers, even if he plays in the NFLI. Don't think that's what he's good at, you know what I'm saying? He's got to move around. He's got to do some different things. You got to roll the pocket. He has to get comfortable. It's like I don't want my quarterback to take a lot of hits. But it seems like Kyron gets energized when he feels some contact, you know what I'm saying? Like he's not afraid of it. He knows how to fall forward. He knows when the. Oh, we got a frozen tally here. There we go.

14:31 Nope. He's still frozen. He's still. Frozen. Frozen in time. Brian, I'll let you continue the Grand Tare until Tally gets back. Yeah, I mean speaking to to to what Karen does. Well, I mean, you know, when we look at it it, it's really funny. I mean, we talk about trying to limit the quarterback getting hit and, and stuff like that. But the only time I've ever seen him come up gimpy is when he gets hit in the pocket or when a right tackle steps on his leg. So you know, when he's moving, when he's running, he looks like a different quarterback. When we play a game that runs through him and what he can do with his legs and what Tooten can do in the running game and let everything else kind of supplement and complement that, That's when this offense looks really good. And it, it's, it's helping because, you know, you're seeing that threat and you're seeing some of those things that weren't open in the game early in the year open up a little bit.

15:39 And I think some of that is that we're, we're being a little bit smarter with our, our motion. I'm seeing a lot of lot more misdirection with motion and being smart with the way that we're using the, you know, everybody was complaining about, OK, well, we're going, you know, east West instead of north-south. But when you're smart with motion, you can spread folks out and get people's eyes confused and, and, and make that work. And we're doing that a whole lot better now than we were doing at the start of the season. So that's, that's going to be some credit to Tyler Bowen making some adjustments with what he was doing early a little bit, probably too vanilla and being a little bit more complex with it now. Well. Yeah, and it and it's also the taking of the first four weeks of the season because again, I think we're going to I think there's going to be a lot of Tech fans.

16:25 I'm one of them and I'll probably ponder it all year is what we saw the last two weeks. If if that is the team that shows up in Vandy and I know vandability in Alabama, but I think this team would beat that Vandy team. I think this team would beat that Rutgers team. Why did it take so long? That's going to be our frustration because that doesn't need to happen. You've had this group ready for a couple years and I know I'm getting a little bit, you know, a little bit negative in that sense. But yeah, he did look relaxed in the pocket that week. And let's just be straight up with it. When he got relaxed in the pocket, what kind of was the issue? The first four weeks was it was only a few guys showing up in catching balls. Was not that way.

17:09 Saturday, five guys with catches led by Daquan Felton at Is he back? He's coming back in. Is he back all right? It's cycle before I get on that, all right? I'm back. He's back. Alabama Internet baby. Man, I'm telling you, they didn't like it. They didn't like that talking about Vanderbilt stuff. Oh. Man, they they. Cut it off. They cut it off. I had to reboot it everything. Everything while I was sitting here saying Tally, we would mention a little bit more about Kyra looking comfortable and everything, but I was saying here if we noticed the boss scores the last few weeks pre Miami won a lot of names interceding just a couple boss couple guys where this this Saturday?

17:58 Yeah, Daquan Felton leading the way. You had Steven, you had Jay Lane, you had Aiden Green making catches. You had little Gosnell making catches, five guys multiple catches. And I mean that that that catching the the the the catching pass to Daquan Felton there in the early third quarter. That's pretty because it won't. It was one spot he could get that ball through and he put it right on them it. Was a tight window and a great catch by Felton on that one because I mean, he had the where he had to put it in there. It was like a little bit behind him, reached back, snatched it off to the races, baby. Yeah, and that's kind of what I'm, I'm sure y'all were hitting on it, but kind of what I was saying before the Internet decided to act crazy was like, I understand they probably had a a lot of stuff they had to talk about before the season, you know, getting people to come back.

18:51 And I know everybody wants to shine, but at the same time everybody wants to win. You got to do the things that help your team win. You know, and Kyron sitting back there throwing the ball 40 times to six different receivers may not be the winning recipe, you know, especially when you got a running back like 2. And like, I feel like they knew that Stafford had a a good running defense, but they still say it. We got to go through we got to we have to go through two. He didn't have the 100 yard game like he's been having, but every run that he touched the ball, he punished somebody on that defense. He he put I mean, even the announcers were saying they cannot get him to fall backwards.

19:34 He was getting hit by two and three people. He kept falling forward. So you know, shout out to him for for going out and performing like he has being stable for us all season. But just those 73 yards he got were tough yards, man. But he did his job. And that just opens up so much for our offense. So when, when, when Tooten is going the way he's going, Kyron feeds off of it, then we open up the pass game. It's going to be hard for people to beat us if we play like that. Yeah. And, and to that point, I mean, when you look at what Tooten was able to do on the ground, and I think the big thing that we're seeing we we didn't, you know, we didn't weren't necessarily great on a yards per carry standpoint, or at least as good as we've been the last few weeks, but they were effective. There wasn't a whole lot of tackles for loss. It kept us on schedule and it it enabled us to do the things we wanted to do in the passing game to complement that rushing attack.

20:30 So I think that's the big thing to take away from that is that, you know, they do have a very good rush defense. We still put up put up a very good number against them in the rushing attack Despite that and we're able to really exploit them in the passing game. Yeah, they are an elite rush defense. They are a top 15 rush defense in the country. They given up under 90 yards a game under. You don't rush for 90 yards a game. You ain't doing much at all. We got over 50 more than that Saturday, but we kept going to it. We didn't just quit. It wasn't like, well, we can't run the ball that good. We ain't getting 15 yards. We ain't averaging A to carry like we did last week. Let's just stop.

21:14 It was like no tally. To your point, the identity is still to run the ball and punish. And they keep every time you get a little closer and you get 3 or 4 more, the safeties get a little bit more down. The linebackers try to take a step quicker to get there right because they're trying to get the tackle for loss. And that's what happened Saturday. They were out of spots a few times that the first touchdown, Steven Godnell a little inside slant because they faked it. That linebacker just bit up on the outside because because he saw the the the inside linebacker had basically took the gap away from 2 and he was coming to take the gap away If Kyron pulled and the second he pulled and he saw that linebacker step, Stephen was right there.

21:54 Perfect slant, slant touchdown. It's not a. Problem. What I loved. Go ahead. Yeah, What I loved about that drive was just. It was a methodical Dr. just I mean, you love to see big plays, but it was just like they just said, we're going to be bigger and stronger than you this game. If y'all want to be physical, we're going to be physical. And they just, we just worked our way down the field. What did you say? What did you say last week we needed to do? What did I say? Oh, punch. We had. You had to punch, man. I forgot. I said a lot of stuff. Crazy. Keep punching. Yeah, you got a punch, man. I was like, you gotta yeah, you got to drink that Red Bull and get pissed like that's what we did.

22:35 And you know, like even they had a long drive, they didn't finish with points. We had a long drive, we got an end zone. And from then on it was just like, OK, it's business as usual, let's go make it happen. So Yep, great to see they. They didn't get their job done. We came back and that first drive was scripted really well there. We saw a lot of different things. We saw some, I, I talked about it while you were getting your Internet straight there Tally, you know, some different motions thrown in with some of those East West plays that we were, we've been running a lot of that was getting the linebackers eyes a lot more confused and giving us an opportunity to get some plus yards on those plays that we weren't seeing earlier in the year.

23:15 You know, we mixed in a little little in and around on that one to, to Jay Lane. That got us a good like 20 yard gain on that. Should have been a touchdown. Yeah, should have been a touchdown. Should have, but I mean, it was, it was a I, I like the calling, I like the mix. I, I, I like kind of the way they approach that drive and, and really kind of, I think set the tone for the rest of the game from an offensive standpoint. I'm telling y'all, man, I don't, I don't know why I keep seeing it and feeling it, but they got to continue to like they got to get to car Heath involved in that offense. If I'm the defensive coordinator, like of course, I think I know they see what we see when he gets on the field. He just had something a little bit different, you know, like he hadn't been able to do much with the ball because we hadn't got him the ball much.

24:05 But if you go back and look at that play, he was the one that was motioning and when Karen took off, they look like they were going to run the option the other way. It was to Kai Heath that had everybody's eyes going one way and I'm like, I probably would have been following Jay Lane, which is who he tossed it to, and he went the other way. So I mean, with just a couple of things that he's done, people's noticing when he comes in the game, which is a good thing. I just want the coaches to continue to get him involved in the game because I think that when he touches the ball, he's going to be electric. And I mean, you know, when we look at that, I mean, there's a reason that somebody like, you know, XTB that had a good number of snaps last year, you know, most of those are going to Takahi this year.

24:50 And and there's a reason for that because he's got this like ability. I think that's a little bit more dynamic. And you know, you're seeing it on special teams and you're seeing it even even most of these, you know, some of these decoy opportunities on offense, you know, you're seeing them respect the play making ability to that he has. So it's going to be interesting to see if we can get him more involved in the offense. And obviously, you know, look at long term, you know, being one of those, you know, big options at slot. 100% Well, offense, we've been talking about the 1st 15 minutes here, I'll talk about the defense. Defense gave up seven points. 7 They gave up one touchdown. They they cause pressure all day long. Somebody asked how many sacks do we have Saturday? It seems like is it 5?

25:42 Could have been 8. Could. Have been eight, could have been eight. You know, Sheldon's always helping me on stats and stuff and the one they always talk about, he loves his habit Havoc stat. Our Havoc stat was basically 20%. So basically one out of every 5 plays they ran, we either got them for a loss, we got a sack, we tip to pass, we got in their face, we cause pressure 20, That's insane. I looked at the the data, literally that's a 94th percentile. That means it might be 5 or 6 teams in the country at that rate that was doing it Saturday. And I mean, you sit here and you say we had that many sacks, could have had more.

26:25 Let's be honest. Let's be honest, a period didn't get a sack Saturday and we got that many. We need Caleb Spencer to finish on his sacks. He he keeps getting there. He keeps getting there, man. Go a little bit lower, drop, bend, bend, bend in the hips just a little bit more. They ducking up, they ducking out of them, you know what I'm saying? But he's there. He's in the right position. That lets me know that it's the right play call. So shout out to Marv. I think he was the ACC coordinator of the week or Co ACC, whatever he was, you know, got to give him some props. Yeah, give him some props for doing doing what he's supposed to do.

27:05 Great game plan. And for the people, because we know some people out there to say, where's Stanford? They suck. You know, you're going to have those people who are always going to say something. Well, guess what? We play some other teams that everybody say suck and they still was causing problems. We wasn't putting a full game together against ODUI don't feel like we put a full game together against Marshall. I don't feel like we put a whole a full game together. Stanford, I feel like that was a complete game. You know, of course it wasn't perfect. No, no games are going to be perfect, but it was it was close. You know, it was a lot more put together than any other game we've played all year. So shout out to the team for being ready for having to go that far. Back to what Curtis said, talking about the defense causing havoc.

27:50 You know, another pick, Kiante Jenkins, we knew he threw it right to you, you know, but that's OK, you caught it. We needed to. So hey man, I I enjoyed what I watched. Yeah, to piggyback on that, I mean, you know, we we've looked at two weeks in a row where you feel pretty good about most phases of the team. And, and, and at least from a competitive standpoint, this is kind of the the quality of play that we expected out of this team before the season. You know, we we thought that this team could go toe to toe with the Miami that that's ranked in the top ten. We thought this team should be able to handle a Stanford for four quarters and keep them at arm's length and then finish the job in the in the third and fourth quarter. And we did that.

28:40 So we're starting to see this team play to the, the ability that we thought they had. And that's a very positive sign, right. So I, I like what I'm seeing. I want us to keep doing it. You know, when you, when you get to, you know, you, you'll call it a blowout. The final score is definitely a blowout in, in, you know, it's, it's a game that we handled start to finish. And, and I think that was a good thing for us to to do, especially how we saw most of September go for us. Yeah, this is one of those weird games. The score definitely screams blow out, but it wasn't like the blowout, if we had went up, if we had done 21 in the first half, I'd call it a blowout. It was a controlled game.

29:22 It was like AI always like to use boxing terminology because it's one of those it's we were the better fighter. We knocked them down early. They kept coming. We knocked them down again. We didn't really knock them out until like the eighth round. They got the shit beat out of them, but we didn't really knock them out to the eighth round. But I'm going to say this and it's great seeing this and, and we've already said it, young players are starting to make an impact. We've already mentioned Caleb Spinner. He was a transfer, but he was a freshman last year down in Miami. He is young. We saw most Phillips last week, this week playing good. And there's one that literally, I kid you not, y'all, right before we got on, there's one player on the defensive line that started to pop.

30:09 You all say, can we do it in? Can we do it in tune? 123. Stevens. Stevens and and Tally, you were mentioning just his look, so kind of go on to what you were talking about before we jumped on tonight. Yeah, so of course, being, you know, Virginia Tech fan, you used to seeing, I mean, I don't want to, I don't want to diss nobody, but you used to see him 5 foot 11, you know, 220 LB defensive ends and lineman. And that's OK. I ain't said nothing's wrong with that. Those guys play hard. But he just had a different look to him. You know, when you look across the line, a lot of our guys aren't the Super tall defensive lineman like you see in some of the SEC schools. But we have we're we're getting longer. But Stevens has a look to him.

31:07 When you look at him, I'm like that He looks, you know, he looks thinner than everybody else. But the reason he looks thinner than everybody else is because he's 65, almost 66. And you know, he may be two 4245 and he's quick. You know, he's moving. He he's got good moving. This wasn't the first week that he got on the field. He was on the field against Miami. So the the best in the ACC right now, you know, he he was on the field against them and he didn't look like he was missing a step, you know, because for the most part, when you play a team like Miami, they're going to be they're going to have playmakers and they're going to be fast. He didn't look out of place being out there, you know what I'm saying? He looks like he's a young player and he's getting some steps in, but he didn't look like the moment was too big. And then when you go to the Stanford game, you know, I'm really paying attention to his build and I'm looking at him. I'm like, oh, he quicker than them. Oh, he's moving.

32:03 Oh, he's, oh, he knows what he's doing. Oh, he's going to the right places. So to see that and then along with, you know, Q Reddish, you know, a true freshman, you know, that came in early, just got out of high school and he's on on the field. And probably I think somebody put it in the chat, said he had the cleanest tackle of anybody, perfect form tackle, running back, tries to jump through the hole. He comes in, puts the head on the side where the ball is, drives him into the ground perfect. Like that's what we have on the bench. That's some not just those players that we mentioned, but I feel like it's a lot more over there than what that came from.

32:44 So I ain't going to start talking about next year. But I mean, I'm excited for the future, man. And I think Steven said it, you know, I think Stevens was one of prize first commits or first recruits, but then he got hurt. I think he tore his ACL or something like that. So probably was a year behind where he wanted to be or what they wanted him to be. But he's a true sophomore, right? Curtis? Is he a true sophomore or is he a red shirt freshman? Probably a red shirt freshman. I think he's a red shirt freshman. I'll, I'll check and look while Brian, it's a little bit more on Stevens and what you thought of him. Yeah, and I think he's a guy that came in, you know, recruited as a as a linebacker, kind of kind of made that, you know, transition to to D line there. I think he was kind of playing as a tweener when we were recruiting him.

33:30 So we probably had an idea of we're going to start you here, but you probably go end up over there with JC's group and you know, he's somebody that's that you're looking at his bill, like Tally said, I mean, he's a guy that can go out there size wise and and and hang with folks. I mean, you know, 65 right around 250. You know that that's a good size. You know, he's probably still got some some growth potential there, you know, put on maybe another 10 lbs. You know, he can be a one of those big ends with with a little bit of a little bit of twitch. You know, I don't know if I'll I'd take him in a in a 40 yard dash, but he don't need to run 40 yards playing defensive end. He can get her.

34:12 He's he's got really good quickness, even if he doesn't necessarily have that top end 40 speed that you're looking for. So he's definitely going to be a guy to watch and I like, I like the future for him. Yep, and this is the honest truth right here. He has jumped some of the upperclassmen and the one thing I like about him, it's 65 is usually we see guys 65. If we ever get somebody that big, we always have to move them inside, right, because they don't have the bend. There were a couple plays in Tally. I feel like you mentioned this, you saw him, he got down a little bit and it's like, oh, that's, that's bend right there. Like that's, that's something that usually if you've got that bend, you're never going to play inside because there's only so many tackles that can deal with.

34:55 And again, if he gets to that 26265 range and he puts it like you said, he's muscle, He is not fat, he is muscle. His progression could be really good. Go ahead. What you got? One more tally. Yeah, I was just going to say, Asian Stevens, if you listen to this show, I'm going to give you some game. Oh, boy. If you want to be a hokey legend, you ain't got to do much work. We want you to do some work, but you ain't got to do much work. Put a little cut on your nose and have some blood running out of your nose and put a Band-Aid on it. Hey, you good to go? Hulking nation loved them white boys with the bloody noses. Hey, it's real easy, man, Just just, you know, loosen that chin strap a little bit, take a good one to the to the nose with the face mask coming down on you. It'll bleed a little bit.

35:45 So the Band-Aid on there, you all said. I think Tally done froze on us again. Unless he's just not moving. We'll see, we'll see. I think he froze on us again, but while he is frozen, I'm going to jump over. We've already talked about a stuff we because I don't think anybody was prepared for a non grind game. We've talked about things we got to do better moving forward. The two things that I want to see better moving forward but did go bad on Saturday. The first one was the defense on money downs when we were you back tally. I'm back all. Right, you're froze for a moment there. The. Defense on money downs were eight for 16. Now I know it was a handful of them that were later in the game when they were going for it, but it's one of those things I don't want that mentality right Y'all both played. I don't want that mentality of letting people get in, getting third down and making it a first down and getting the 4th and making it a first.

36:38 So that was my that was one of my couple quarrels here on it. The second one was procedural penalties. Now I hate false starts offensively. I hate false starts. It drives me off. It literally drives me out of my mind. It's like literally there is a cadence. You know the cadence, you have practiced the cadence all week. Why are you moving? Don't be stupid. Defensively, I have never had a problem with it. Depending on the situation, it's third and 12:00. You want to try to get off the snap, that's fine. Or third and seven shorter don't matter.

37:19 You've got those lineman thinking he is trying to time this up and if he times us up, we still got to get six or seven yards. We ain't going to get six or seven yards. Therefore, they're apprehensive and they might jump back at you. I don't know y'all see them, but I need to see those two things on defense and one on offense. Cleaned up the other piece of defense. Do that at the right situation. Go ahead and knock somebody down to say, oh, I'm coming and I'm going to get the snap count right to second time. Yeah, I mean to to me the money downs is, is frustrating. You know, we, we talk about all the time getting off the field is the most important thing for a defense. Get off the field, get the ball back to your offense. Complimentary football and it it wasn't AI. Don't think there was a ton here where you know, it was, it was a bad, you know, bad from a technique standpoint or anything like that.

38:15 You know, we had a couple where we were there. God just made a play right quarterback scrambling real good on on 1/3 long where we were right there for the sack. Next thing you know, that turns into a first down moving the chains. It's frustrating, but it happens, right? You know, so I think the one it's the it's the ones that you can't avoid where where you're already in place there and you you miss a play that that's the ones that they get frustrating for you. To Curtis's point, I mean, procedural penalties are are going to be frustrating, especially on the offensive side of the ball or in those situational things for defenses where you either put them in a situation where they can now, you know, make a call, whether they want to go for it or, you know, continue with, you know, potential punt situation puts them in a situation where they have a little more options with their their play call or in a lot of cases, give them a first down. Like, you know, you got to be aware on that from a defensive standpoint, offensively, it's it's frustrating. You got to have mental toughness. You got to go out there and understand the situation, understand what you're dealing with and stay focused on the task at hand even when things get a little bit crazy. Outside of that, whether you know, we did, we weren't dealing with crowd noise.

39:36 So that wasn't a factor. Only only factor was that guy across from you and you worried about him beating you. So keep on your mentals. Don't jump offsides. Ally you with us. Oh yeah, I'm here. Anything additional bad, anything you feel like we got to clean up because when you win 31 to 7 it's it's tough to find bad. Yeah, I mean, the only thing I guess don't again, this is nitpicking, you know, nothing super big, but on the 4th down, just get off the field like don't do not let them convert 1/4 down on us because if they don't convert that 4th down, which I know they have players that are there to make plays as well, but.

40:19 On 4th downs, let's get them off the field. If they don't convert that 4th down, we probably, they probably don't score. We probably get a shit out. So just that and and kind of what you said Curtis too, if we don't jump off sides and I think we did it a couple times, I think we got away with jumping off sides one time. One time we. Did it? Yeah. You know, jumping off sides, if you don't jump outside, just go, you know, go and and push somebody down. Don't just let them say, Oh my gosh, she jumped off sides. It's a free play, you know what I'm saying? Like go hit somebody, chase the quarterback, make him throw it out of bounds, make him slide down, do something, you know, get them uncomfortable if you're going to already be penalized. So I guess that's the that's the only thing which we did that a couple times too. I think you know whoever jumped outside, maybe Peebles, you know he. Oh, he got right in it.

41:04 He he got right in the quarterback's face. Yeah, he was. He was in there. So yeah, do that. I'm OK with that. Talk this shit, talk this shit. So again, as we wrap up, Tell the truth Tuesday of a 31 to seven win Hokies go to three and three on the season in in a bye week this week, y'all, we ain't got no game to talk about. So you know, as we move into the second-half, as everybody knows, we are brought to you by the Counts Family Pharmacy at three O 1 S Main St. in Blacksburg, your friendly neighborhood pharmacy. And tonight we do have a very special guest. And is he there? I don't see his face.

41:44 I'm going to hold off a second. Someone who is frequently in our comments section during all of our live streams here. And he's also been a guest on the pot. He was back. He came to a doozy of a warning. He decided to make his debut on the state of the program last December. So I'm going to try to hold off on it because I won't see his face before we pull him in here. I just shot him a text message. All right, which we told him 40. I was at 42 when we started it. Yeah.

42:25 So, Chris, if you don't mind, let you turn your camera on up. He's trying to get the camera on live streams here, baby. That's. It's it's, it's flickering. We will see what it would it do. We know it works because he's been here on before. Oh yeah, the beauty of Live podcast. And ladies and gentlemen, the beauty. Of live podcast and Tally says it's cold in Alabama. He's already got a stocking cap on. Too cold for him down. He's got a, he's got a prep, he's got to got to get his ears used to it. Getting ready man, and fall nights, you better be ready to roll.

43:11 Oh yeah, we had baseball tonight and it felt that it today was that first crisp one in Virginia. There, there was a nip, there was a nip in the air, had the windows down during the day, had the windows open at night in the house with a little little fresh cool air in hey, they don't get much better than that. Yeah, my son had a game last night and it was, it was cold. I think I said it was cold, but it was cool like it was. People had people had blankets out, you know, I had a short song and I was like, yeah, I probably should have wore sweatpants. So if I'm thinking that like it was, it was cool. So. Absolutely up. He hopped off. He will be back, but.

43:53 We got a good comment here. Oh, we go. That's. Going to be that's going to be cold. Oh man. While we can't be playing one of the further southern teams and not the northernmost team next week, we. We got, we got, we got Steven out there in in Cali. Oh, hold. On Oh my God. Jason owns on me. Oh, my God, I don't want to think about the. I'll tell you what, I'll feel a lot better than taking him than I did when they took Malik Willis, because I was not happy about that at all. I was like, man, no, this ain't gonna work.

44:35 But then he comes back and beats us. You know, he goes to. What was he with the Steelers or whoever he's with? Nah, Green Bay. Green Bay. Excuse me, Went to Green Bay and comes in and beats us. I'm. Like, hey, he was at Green Bay and beat the Colts too, so. Yeah, I'm like, well, maybe it's us, maybe it ain't them. They've been getting a nurse, man. Lavar. There he is. I already shouted out Lavar one time tonight. I didn't see it. It might have been when my thing. Was not that I'm saying for earlier when I was talking about him hitting us up during the when the vanity game was in the first quarter? Remember, I got Mike issues occasionally, so we'll see how we got some more people come in. That's accurate.

45:19 That's accurate. Yeah. Chris said he's restarting his phone. Give him 2 minutes. Yeah, give me a couple minutes here. We we got a lot of folks in here. And what about? Vamping, vamping. Let's do it. By the way, let's hit this one up. Where is the higher asking where's Shelton tonight? Shelton had to do a little travel for a little job interview today and he basically said I'm going to get back late. I'm going to be talking all day. I got a layout tonight which stinks because he he wanted to go off on special teams because apparently, per his notes, we are a top tier special teams. We just have a bunch of snafus. All right, and and here's what I would say to him if he were on here.

46:00 What he's telling me is that we got a Parker Clement situation with our defense is that with our special teams. I mean, it's not that it's not always that it's bad, but when it's bad, it's bad if it stands out. And you know, you know, we, we got some big snafus here and there, but we also, you know, this this past week played a pretty clean game on special teams. Didn't have any multiple numbers out there that that helps when you change the number of your your field goal kicker. We just leave John Love at. 25 Man let John love what he wanted. Well, like love is my that's my God, man. What is he?

46:42 Is he a junior? Oh, I think we got him for another year, maybe 2. I don't know. I. Think we got always there? No, no, the Sean print. This is perfect right here about Parker comments in the special teams unit. That's a good one. Sean. Got to write that one down. Hey, man. I like that. I like that. I do like this respect there. Yeah, you see what you see what you'll see it though. That's true. Get it in there. And yes, I mean, we, we had talked about that too because I was like, we got to get the special teams unit straight. He's like, yeah, it's somebody different every week, though. Yeah, like when I reprimand that person, he does fine, then it's somebody else, so.

47:30 Sometimes it's a player making a mistake. Sometimes you're out there, you got a you got a coach making a questionable decision. Sometimes a coach make makes a questionable decision because your head coach didn't take a time out at one point. So it's. Like. Sometimes it compounds on itself. So it, it's, it's a lot of things that I think, you know, the, the coaches seem to have cleaned up from a game flows perspective this week that we, that we, you know, we, we saw some problems against Miami. We saw some, you know, additional problems earlier in the year with some of the bigger snafus. And, you know, I, I like seeing a pretty clean game and you know, it's, I know it doesn't stand out as much when it's not close. You know, those, those little small things get compounded when you're, when you're the one score game or when you down one score and all that stuff.

48:13 So I'm just glad that we're not having to talk a whole lot about it. But our band is ready. Chris Lester's here, so we're going to bring him on here. Pull on Chris and real quick tally Chris. The phone got to working. Yeah, I turned around. I just did an update. I went to, I was 18, so I thought everything was fine. I had to cut the phone back off and do all that crazy stuff and I've been sitting here listening to y'all the whole time so. Blue Apple. By the way, do not know Chris Lester is the father of Brody Adams, true freshman down at Virginia Tech and friend of the pod. Long time friend of the pod.

48:53 He, like I, we told him a little bit earlier, Chris, first time you ever joined us. You came to state of the program last December. That was your introduction here. Yeah, that was a fun night. Yeah, that was a good one that that's still got that tequila bottle sitting on my on my bar stand messing with y'all that night. So my wife looking at me like I was crazy. I said I was hanging out with my buddies. We was talking football. Yeah. And this is, this is the thing about Chris too. Most of the people, viewers who don't know Chris and haven't interacted with Chris, he's not just a, a parent cause some parents are so stupid. You know what I'm saying? Like I'm a parent and I'm bum. You know what I'm saying? When I'm talking about my kid, I'm looking at a, you know, parents are stupid. Like he's a student of the game.

49:36 He studied the game. He's gone through the classes with his son while he's, you know, getting ready to go to college, to weight, picking up the weight, going and watching film. He does a lot of that stuff. So it's not just him being a dad, you know, it's him being a student of the game as well because his son hadn't been on the field this year yet. But he studies every single game. He's studying, you know, formations, different positions. So he is a really good person to talk to, especially with the wide receiver position. And guess what, His wife is better than him. Like I'll be on the phone with him.

50:16 She she, yeah, she, she's getting better. She's not better than me, but she she's a lot better when she, when we first started doing this thing, but she's a lot better. And just for y'all, if y'all ever see my wife, do not ever call him Brody. If you ever call him Brody to her, she will choke you on Spotica. That's her baby. Her baby's name is Keelan. Now, the Brody thing, yeah, you call him Keelan. And honestly, everybody else calls him Brody. She calls him Keelan and the staff calls him Keelan. And you know, Brody's his nickname. But even when he made the hokey, a hokey stone of the week thing, she's like, his name ain't Brody.

50:57 His name is Keelan. It's always like that. So it is how it is, man. It is how it is. But man, yeah, I've been, I'm a fan of all the y'all, man. You know, you guys in particular, you know, I listen to tales of the Terror Dome, you know, I listen BT4I listen to all of y'all. And I did that. Like y'all said, when I started, we were right in the process because I wanted to see where everybody what, you know, how they were going to handle everything. And y'all were just consistent, you know, and I love the way y'all talk ball. And then I was able to sneak in and hang out when nobody knew who I was and because I'm still just a guy, just like y'all. But it was, it was cool. It was real cool. Yeah, man, we, we loved having you on that first time. I mean, it was cool getting to see you in Nashville and I, I, I said it last time.

51:47 I, I, I don't think everybody knows you a tall dude, You a big dude. I, I won't. I was like, oh, all right, Chris, what's up? How you doing? Well. I mean, Keela's nickname for me is Big Fella. It's always been Big Fella. And you know, I, I didn't, I wasn't gifted as most of my children, like keep, you know, Keela's amazing athlete. My 25 year old daughter Jana, she played volleyball. My youngest daughter played softball. I just was, I was a Rudy, to be honest with you. I was blessed with height and size, but I was more like a Rudy girl. I had to go work for mine. So I had to go work really, really hard. And that's what made me a student of everything that I played. If it was softball, I learned it.

52:27 Basketball, I learned that football, I had to learn it. But yeah, man, I'm pretty big guy. I'm pretty big guy. Yeah, I was. Going to say Yost. That might be a no, but it's. Close though. It was I was I was not really paying attention to the height when I met Yost as more I was of the hands. Like Derpal? Yeah, you get. Me like. Yost looks like AWWE wrestler his body, don't it it it don't look real like his head on on his body don't look real. I'm like and and Yost ain't fat like some men like have bad bars. Like Yost is just big and white.

53:09 Like he look like he can put on some pads right now and just go block. So. Yost is a big dude. Man, he's got that big show, Bill. Yeah, he dude Diesel. That's what Yost look like. Well, Chris, we appreciate you joining us. It is the bye week. The the first thing I think I got to ask, and I'll say this because if your wife's listening, I ain't taking a beat down from her. Are you going to get to see Keelan this week? I don't know if they're allowed to come home or or or are y'all going down there where you know, it's an off week and a little bit more relaxed for him or? For us, this is listen. For us, it's business because they're they're, you know, they're preparing. You know, everybody was like, oh, is he going to come home?

53:51 We're we're big proponents of him not coming home. And I'm going to tell you why we're that way coming home. There's so many other distractions. And when you transcend, you know, these these guys, they have transcended where they're at. Y'all have heard me say this before. You know, everybody get to play high school ball, seven percent, 7% get to go play Division One and then you're trying to go be the one of ones. And in his situation, he's right in the middle of the season, You know, we're we're pushing to go to we're marching to Charlotte, we're trying to get in the CFP. So, and for him, it's like learning how to be a great student athlete as well as be a Division One ball player.

54:33 And we've been like, Nah, you know, we, we, you know, we see him enough. You know, when we go see him on the weekends, his Mama brings him food, she cooks for him. He asks herself, she brings it. I mean, I'm like, you know, I just be happy to get some macaroni and cheese or some 80 wings or something. So we're not going to go see him, man. We'll, we'll, we'll see him next week. We'll go down early Wednesday night, Wednesday, Thursday to see him and go to the most anticipated game I've wanted to go to since I started this whole entire thing. Thursday night in lane circle it is it it it hits different and The funny thing is I missed my chance to go on with Thursday Brian, did you make it to one Thursday and I. I made it to one Thursday.

55:19 And I know Tally's first game ever in Lane Stadium was a Thursday night against Miami, so. Yeah, it was crazy. It is. Like no other man. So let me ask this, and I know we got a bunch of questions, but you know, Keelan enrolled early. Yes. And and we talked about that and it was a lot of and it was a lot of you I can remember in December and yes, I know I was drunk and I was having a good time. But we talked about, but you were like, it is a lot of preparation to get ready to do. This is a big step, you know, because we always kind of say it. He should be, he should have been like having fun getting ready for prom. He's about to take this monumental step.

55:59 How did that go like drop off and everything? We know how much you trust this staff. But when you were if I'll say this as you and I don't know exactly where he's staying, but as you started pulling out of Blacksburg, going 460 back to the beach, it was just like, was it that moment in your head, man? He is becoming a man. For for us it it was I had to build up to that. Like he laughs that he picks at me. So he's like he said, I know you're going to cry when you get in the car. I said, yeah, I'm a cry when I get in the car. Because you got to realize for me and Keelan, this process, my wife was in nursing school from his junior to his junior, sophomore, junior year. So we did a lot of this together, me and him, our relationship, our bond grew.

56:49 And so we were like together all the time. So, you know, I was like lost because I was like, I, what am I going to do now? Because I ain't got nobody to drop off in practice. I ain't got nowhere to be. I'm like, you know, I got to work, I got to come home and I got used to being back at home. But the thing that I wanted most for him is you had to go to work and you had to grow up right here and learn everything. There's no longer I'm the, you know, I'm the big, the big guy on campus. I'm the coolest dude in the room. You're going against, you're going to go be one of one. So it was tough for him, you know, and nobody will know. Yo, he lost his grandmother doing spring ball and that was huge for him. So imagine you go away from you, you, you go, you get out of school on on the you go to school, you go through Christmas, you get out of school on Friday, right? You pack up your whole life, which it took us forever as you see his room here that I've made it to my makeshift studio. We packed them up, we took him.

57:54 We drive them up. You drive them on a Friday and come to Monday, Tuesday morning. You run around with dudes is 2018, 1921 years old and you got to compete. So that was huge for him. And so I had great trust in the, in the, in the process. I love the staff, but I knew he was going to go through his bumps and his bruises with it. And, and he did, you know, he did, he, he was like, I'll tell you say I don't, I don't like this Hunger Games stuff. You know, I, I play football. I said football is about competing. And so the beautiful part about the process for us was every day he would go through and then we would talk every day. We talked every day like he would get done with practice. And now I talked to him before he ate. So I asked my classes ago my ass and how he ate and I watched him start to get it.

58:48 And then he had to have a couple of wins. And so he had a couple of wins at certain times. And as he got more wins, he started understanding, becoming more confident. And so by the by the time he went from spring to summer and he got into his groove and then he just went and had a great fall camp, that's what he did. That's awesome. I love hearing that. I love hearing like, you know, when you first get in there, I remember as a freshman, like, yeah, you know, you're a guy, you're like, you know, you're a team captain. You're doing all this in high school. And then you get, you get even like, yeah, I played D3. But like getting there, I was like, all right, this is a, this is a different brand of football. All these guys did the stuff I did in high school.

59:28 So. Right, right. That adjustment is definitely really important. Sometimes it it it takes a little longer than you want to if if you don't get the start you want to. But let me ask you this, you know, you talked about talking to him every day. Was there somebody whether you know, staff, whether player, whether anybody else at Virginia Tech that that he leaned on there in Blacksburg during kind of that transition period? Like, the thing about it is that the the 10 guys that went in with him. So you got Josh Clark, Gray Johnson, you know the chance Wiggins, you know. You had all those guys, they all went in together and then, you know, Tyler Mason, although they were together so they bonded with each other.

1:00:10 But Keelan is a really, really quiet dude and you know, was like the staff, like Carrie Lynn helped him, you know, these helped him. And they all just, you know, they walked him through and he was going to and he's not a very, he's not a very vocal person. Like he's not a rah rah guy. So I'll tell you real quick. So one time Coach Mines called me and he was like, yo man, I don't know if he's getting it. I said, listen, he's not going to be a real responsive, OK, I got it. You'll tell him, he'll nod yes and then he'll go do it. He said. And he's getting it. He's just, he's not going to be that kid. So that was one of the things. So they, they walked him through it. You know, Cam Cam Phillips helped him a lot. So the spring, they're doing the spring and he's going through practice and he had one Thursday, he Friday, he called me, he was irritated, like I can't believe this. I said, what's wrong?

1:01:09 I said, man, I had 12 missed assignments, man, I had 12. I said, well, what happened? So I couldn't remember the difference between slider and slide. And so I had to figure out. And so we had to learn a new signal. So in high school it was just hey, do this. He knew it, he'd go to it. Now he had to read the slide certain things. So we had 12 missed assignments. So I said, well, and so me wanting to fix everything I'm like, well, who you think can help you? He was like, I don't know. I said, well, can't you talk to minds? He said minds minds is doing this all the other because now minds is an assistant head coach. So he turns around and says, hey, I say coach Phillips is there talk to Cam. So I reach out to coach minds.

1:01:53 Minds gives me Cams number. I say, hey Cam, what's going on? We you know, and we start talking back and forth. I said reach out to coach, coach, coach Phillips. So he coach wrote calls to Cam. So he comes back like that Saturday. I got a champ because it's never like Dad. It's like there's always big fella champ, he said. I got a champ, I got all the signals down. I went from there. He went from that point, man, I think he had three missed assignments from that point on. It's just like he wants to be the thing about it. He understands assignment man. He wants to be great. He wants to be really good and he's willing to work hard at it. And when he he can't get something, he gets frustrated. And so usually I'm there to try to help him. I said, but you got to go reach out and talk to other people to learn and that Cam really helped him out a lot. So I attribute a lot to his success to that And and just the whole staff man, you know, cheat cheaters on him. Coach prelude on them.

1:02:47 They, you know, they want him to be successful, man, and they going to push him to be great. And that was the biggest thing for you know, my favorite got one of my favorite coaches there and he's really behind the scenes and a lot, a lot of people don't talk to him is coach Brooks. Coach Brooks will coach Brooks is the funniest guy and he's going to push your right in a certain kind of way. So it it's it's the whole staff helps man. There's not a kid on that, on that team that doesn't have someone to look to, to help them progress and get where they're trying to get to. Definitely. Well, the question I ask kind of or not really a question just telling you to kind of take us through you being a, you know, a fan of the team and A and a parent of a player.

1:03:28 How does your game day look like? Because I know you went to a couple of games. Have you seen some losses? You seen some wins? Kind of how does that go? You know, getting up, going, staying overnight, How what, how busy are you? How much of your, your, your player do you get to see? How does that go? Well, because, and I think I've learned this and I think I'm going to pass this on to anybody else that's coming along. I'm definitely telling to my, you know, my young green run guys, their parents. I try to tell them and it's hard because you know, you come off like you're a know it all, but I'm like, no, I'm just telling you what I've experienced. So my biggest thing, I was like, oh, well, we can just come up that day.

1:04:08 It ain't no big deal. You know, it ain't that hard. We can do it man, Jesus age Christ. I will. Not ever. I'm telling you, come next year, I will be in town every week the night before because it is such a busy day. Because for us coming in and we live 4 1/2 hours away and my wife will not ever miss a hokey walk. She will not miss seeing her baby, touching her baby, then her hug her baby. That's that. The end of the day, that's that. So so our day usually starts. Nashville was cool, but then again we had Lake Nashville because I didn't get to hang out with y'all all day like I wanted to. And my wife is hard on me because she acts like she this is her speech before we leave.

1:04:55 Don't get up here, act like you ain't got a whole relationship, a wife and a family. Don't get up here with your little hokey buddies and act like you all know who I am and I'm like I understand. So I'll get up there. Me and James Clark are real close. Josh Clark's dad, Jerrod Johnson hit. We're cool. I know the fish and I know everybody. I, you know, like Chantelle Lovett knows everybody. I'm right beneath her because I try to meet. Everybody I. Mean, I try to meet everybody. Yeah, I met the people's I've met. Oh my God, Caleb Woodson's mom. I met everybody because I'm a fan of everybody. Shoot, I even met John Love's family. I was even, I was hyped to meet them. You. Know yeah, keep them happy.

1:05:37 Yeah, he got. He got a little brother we need to. OK. But yeah, I'm gonna start, hit them up. But so you start my day will start like for game day. If we're coming up on Saturday, I'm out the door about 4:30. I'm on the road, cars already gas. If I come up, then we'll get here like 93010 o'clock. So depending on what time it is, we'll go, you know, go to our tailgating spot. We won't even go to the to our room because we're already coming in off the road already, you know, doing that thing. We'll probably in Starbucks, brush our teeth, do our thing and we at the game, then we going tailgate. Then we come down, we go do the hokey walk. And then after you do your hokey walk, man, you, you Dang into the game.

1:06:17 And above all, with this team, I'm I'm an avid football fan. So my wife always says be quiet. But it's hard for me because I love the game so much and I'm watching certain things. And so when things don't go our way, I'm just as crazy as the next guy. I just try to keep it. I try to keep it contained because I can't be too crazy because my kids on the sideline and I've had to fight with that since he's been playing ball. Yeah, definitely. You know, I'm, I'm, I'm like, you know, a perfect example. When we played Rutgers, I was like, I was yelling at the refs and everything. My wife was like, you can't do that, I said, but you can see it. Yeah, but you can't do that, you know, when you know she said.

1:07:00 Yes, You. Can you're in the stands, you're a fan, you can do whatever you want. No, I really can't because at the end of the day, the people is like, yo, who's whose parent is that? And then I got to deal with that. That's about rest of my hokey parents said had I been to Miami, I probably went to jail, which I probably would have. I probably would have went. But yeah, that's that's the day. And then once you finish with that, the game is over. So then you want to see him. And then we're like, so when we saw when they played Marshall, we turned around, we let him go home, get dressed. We went to PK's, got something to eat, saw him just we just want to see our kid, you know, because he's not, you know, to everyone and to he's a football player, he's an athlete, he's gifted.

1:07:47 But he's still the kid that didn't clean up his room and I had to tell him to take out the garbage. You know, that that's that's who he is still. Come here for a second. Yeah. And and we go from there. So when we did that, then we'll come home, we'll hang out and like when you're recruiting, the coaches are all there. So I know all the coaches. But then during the during the season, though, you'll see him and then we'll go home, fall asleep, get up in the morning, go see him before you got to go to work, because I see you go to work, you know. Hey, what time you got to go to work? Oh, I got to be, I got to be at the facility at 11:30, twelve O clock. All right, cool. We'll come by and see you. Come by and see him in the room. Make sure he has what he needs. Ask him. He didn't do anything. You know, I'll buy him food, you know, even though he, you know, he got to cover dollars. You can buy food.

1:08:30 I said, you know when I used to tell, whenever you get some money, you know, think about you think about the big fella. He laughs and and then, man, I hug. We hug our kid. And then I man, we get back on the road, man. And we, you know. Try to give you next week. And we plan, Yeah, do it next week. Yep. I think for him, I think the biggest thing for him this year, this is the most he's ever sat on the bench in his life. So this has been the most challenging thing for him. That's been hard. For him. So we'll I'll go into something a little bit about that here next, just because you brought that up because we have so many and we kind of talked about it. I think we may have talked about it in space, We may have talked about it on here as well. We have so many. Talents, me and you have talked about it time to time again, but go ahead.

1:09:13 Yeah, yeah. So we have so many, you know, talented young players that are on the bench right now, you know what I'm saying? And it it is. So to be a coach, it's so hard to balance. Like when do I put this young player in over my experienced player? Or we brought this player back, you know, and all we talked about all offseason was we got 20 return starters out of 22. But then now I have a kid like Aiden Green that I can't keep off the field. I have a kid like Caleb Woodson that I can't keep keep off the field. It's it, I don't even want to say like, you know, how does that feel? But you just seeing it from sitting in your position, being a fan, but also being a fan, being a parent of a student athlete on the team. And you see somebody like AAG get in the game and you like, OK, they can't keep him off the field. Like does it ever pop in your head Like sooner or later that's going to be my kid, you know what I'm saying? Sooner or later, that or that position, that play, if he was there, that's his play.

1:10:17 You know what I'm saying? How did how do you feel like when you're watching the game and you see those little aha moments, I guess you would say? I think for me, so so me you've talked about this, so let me see if I can phrase it the best way. We're a third year and and if anybody's listen to me, be on y'all be in in the comments or ever heard me. I understand this is a build. This is not a rebuild. That's a build. So you had to go get certain pieces and get certain guys and they came in and they were, they had the experience and some of them have reached their ceiling.

1:10:58 Some of them have room to grow. The thing about it was they had to be here so that you can bring in your 23, your 24 and your 25 class, right? Because they, they had to see that they were growing and building something. You know you because you couldn't have, you know, when, when they went, when they won three games, you know, the kid was like, yo, they suck, man. I don't know if I want to go there, man, you know? And I got. Ohio State talking to me, I got Penn State. I don't know if I want to go there. So then it has to go to the point of doing the homework and and seeing it. But then the next year when they go, when we're starting to get, everybody's in there and everybody's making plays. And so for him to come and see, OK, I'll just go for his room. So for you to go into a room and have over 15 to 16 years of college experience there for you to glean from, it's amazing because my kid can become my kid can glean from a know it all, know every position, savvy route runner guy and a Steven Gosnell. He can get the physical tenacity of of a Daquan Felton, He can get the charismatic shifty podium podium guru but also a very skilled close range hands receiver and the Ollie Jennings. He can be and get get the love and understand how to be a professional like a Jay Lane in one year. Where on God's creation can you

1:12:29 go and get that and glean that much experience in a year and a nothing, nothing is asked of you but to learn the playbook, go to class and make good grades and come and practice your practice, your ass off. It's the greatest situation in the world for him. So it started to click for him in the spring, in the, in the fall camp where I was getting, you know, certain I was getting calls from people. I was getting people say, hey, he's starting to get, he's starting to get it. And he, you know, he's progressing, He's doing this, he's doing that. And then, you know, he would call me. He said, yeah, I haven't made a mistake in forever. You know, I know everything. So now it's to the point where he learns. And if you know, we all listening, it's wide receiver. You're going to be AXX is where Kwan plays, you'll be AZ where Ali Jennings plays, you'll be AF where Jay Lane plays. So now he's like, hey, I'm proficient in the ZI know everything from the ZI know the F because I have to know as the Z what the F doesn't do.

1:13:28 I'm starting to learn the X. And that's why if you look as a fan, if you go back and look at the snaps, who's the guy that never comes off the field? Y'all tell me? Stephen Gosnell. Never comes off the field. Stephen Gosnell, You'll see Stephen Gosnell go in there and pointing somebody, tell them to go there because he knows everything. So if you want to go into the next level, you know, and that's all these guys desire, you have to know everything. And being in a room like that with those guys, but then also having a Cam Phillips all, you know, one of the all time leading receivers in the history of hokey football there and then having Fontelle mines there to help him and he he's he's doing nothing but soaking it all in.

1:14:12 I know you want to play, but I think when he does play, you'll have that. And then you just have just a just a tenacious, you know, just just a guy that brews confidence in Aiden Green. You know, it's, it's just a great spot for him. Yeah. And with Aiden, it's one of those things is Aiden was probably in a similar to Keelan last year, learning, growing. And it's already like, boom, It's almost like that. You look and say, if I do what he did, I'm going to be on the field doing that next year. I'm going to be catching the football touch touchdown against Miami and things like that. I want to ask this, I wanted to catch it before, but Tally got a deep question. And it is PK's your spot down in Blacksburger. Do y'all have some?

1:14:57 Other food spots, Well, no, see, here's the problem because we come in on game day. My wife is like, let's explore. Let's just go and just explore Blacksburg and just go enjoy it. So that's what that's what we so P KS is one of the spots we go to. It's a it's a breakfast spot and I think it's another egg. I think it's some egg beat Bistro type thing we go to when we come there. But most of the time, man, honestly, you're so tired from that road, man, you just want to come in, get something to eat, go to sleep because you know, you know, I haven't hit the lottery. You know, I and if I did, y'all be rich with me. So I got to come back and go get after it, you know, the following week. Yeah. So you got to hit what you can get. I get what I take care of your business. Get back to it.

1:15:42 And get back to it, man. Get back to it. Yeah, that's it. So we we talked about, you know, some of the, you know, what, what Keela's dealing with. I mean, but we also know that that you've been, you know, a a feature player and you know, some of the spaces tally is, is open up there, you know, talking about some of the early season struggles. When you were looking at those, what kind of thoughts were coming into your head and kind of, you know, did you see the vision and, and, and do we start to see this team start to put it together as we kind of get into October now? I mean, I heard y'all early. I heard y'all tonight and what I what I had to liken it to so people can understand is when you guys first started doing podcasts, y'all were like, we have a vision of what we want to do. We want to be good at it.

1:16:29 And you kept doing it. You kept doing it. And then you start getting other people on and bringing things in. And even when y'all have difficulties, y'all be OK. He's out, he freezes, I can go get him. And so y'all had to learn how to be a great podcast, right? Here's the one. Here's the one thing about it. This is a football team that has to learn how to be a great football team. And Coach Pride alluded to that. Even with y'all in the beginning, you know, if y'all listen to me say we ain't did shit yet, you know what I'm saying? All this expectation is out here. We got all these guys back, but we hadn't done anything yet. So I think they had to continue to learn how to win. And I think what what all of them fought with coming in was, Oh yeah, everybody says we're this good, so we're just this good. So we just roll our helmet out or we're Virginia Tech and they know we good at returning and that, you know, they said they should bow down to us.

1:17:20 And now they started, you know, to learn how to do certain things and how to win. I truly believe what you guys said. Karen had to get back to being what Karen does. Well, I think he came on the Y'all Show. I remember him saying, yeah, we all came back because we want to go to the league. That's that was it. So he was already I'm in April, even though it was it was, you know, January and February, right. And so with that and then going and hanging out with, you know, with Cam and and and with Shidur and practice with those guys, we all got to the point like, yeah, he should come right back in and boom, be that guy. But we all forgot he had only had ten starts as a, as a college, as a Division One college quarterback.

1:18:02 So we looked at him to be where those guys are AT and they've got 2436 starts underneath their belt. And I think he tried to do certain things. But going back to your question, I mean to go off track, but I just saw them learning how to win. And I, and I told Talley this. I said, you know, they, they got punched in the mouth, they tasted their own blood. They liked it and they could be able to handle it. And that's what I that's what I saw against Rutgers, even though, even though everybody was pissed about Rutgers, I was like, yeah, this team, this team is they're coming together. And so I wasn't, I wasn't shocked what they did in Miami. I was, I wouldn't went to jail because I was shocked out of ref was out there, you know, trying to give it up.

1:18:45 But I wasn't shocked with Miami. I knew they could do great things. I just think, I think some of the younger guys you can't take off the field. Some of the younger guys are just that talented on the defensive side. Some of the, you know, the younger guys on offense who haven't had a chance to play, you know, you got to realize who they are. Yeah, I think too. And I think we've said it on here and you clearly have watched a lot, Brian and Tally playing is there's some guys who just do not practice. Well, they don't whatever reason. I know a lot of times you hear guys say it's up here like I can't go full bore and practice. And I think sometimes I wish the coaching staff would just roll the dice on a couple guys because you feel like I see his physical presence.

1:19:27 I think if you turned him out there and it wasn't orange and maroon on that other helmet, he would go shine. And, and I know they have to make decisions because they're getting paid a lot of money. And if a guy's not practicing, well, it's really tough to stake your job to say, oh, I'm going to play him because. You got to trust him. Exactly. You got to trust him, right? You got to trust him. So but, but I also, but I also think that it's, that's not about trusting him, but it's all he some of guys are just they're fit to do certain things. OK, so I'll give, I'll give you one of my personal favorites. Quinton Reddish is a favorite for me. One because he's from Charlotte and because I'm from Charlotte and I knew the house high school we played at and I always loved him. So Q Reddish was always one of my favorites. And when Q was going through camp and everything, he was like.

1:20:22 Because him and Kia roommates, he was like, man, I I can't, they're just on me. And I had to. I would hit them and tell them they're on you because you're the future. You fit. You have you have the frame and the body of a free safety. You have it. So you just got to go through your bumps and bruises. So some guys just when they got on the field and we all saw it, you're like, Oh my God, this guy's that. So when Caleb Woodson gets on the field, they're like, how the heck do you not play Caleb Woodson? Because you got to Sam Brunfield that you brought in through the portal. Who has more experience? And so you got to give this staff so much credit that they know what they have in the background, but they want to bring somebody in to keep them and mold them and shape them so they can be ready.

1:21:05 Let's go back. Derek Canteen comes in last year, right? Derek Canteen comes in and as a hokey, we wouldn't say he did a lot of things, but what he did, he helped mature Dorian. He got Monsieur to learn how to play, practice a certain kind of way. He could fill in in certain spots. So now you see Monsieur and and and Dorian and those guys going to go play Minion Sundays because they had a guy to bring them along. So we're looking at Caleb Woodson this year and being around the Sam Brunfield, he's been able to influence him. He's able to influence a Gabe, a Gabe Williams. He's able to influence some of those those guys. So I think it's the what the staff is doing. You know, everybody said, you know, the number one hit they made in the Porter this year was was Caleb Spencer. I don't think that.

1:21:52 I think every guy that they brought in has been a home run because he's helped mature a younger guy behind them that may be better long term than the person they brought in. Y'all catch? So he they're they're they're just some of those guys are that and this is as far as they're going to go, but some of these other kids that they're bringing in are going to be better than them and have a chance to go do that. And that's what I see. Yeah, you talk about Reddish and I mean, you talked about how he was, you know, hearing from the coaches and stuff like that. If you're a young guy, you want that attention from the coaches because if they're paying that much attention to you as a young guy, they really care about what you can do.

1:22:32 They do. But you've been. But imagine Brian is Brian. You've been great. Everywhere you've been, you've been amazing. You've been head and shoulders better than everybody. And every time you think you can't do nothing right, you see? I get it. I get it. So, so, yeah, we understand that. Yeah. As as guys who wish, you know, somebody, you know. Oh, yeah. We, we take it now, but as a young kid, man, it's tough. But he is, he's weathered that and he's, he's playing, he's playing really good ball right now. And I'm proud. I'm so proud of Qi. Don't know what to do with myself. It's just in that the thing that of course you don't want to just rack your brain about what could have been and this and that.

1:23:12 But I just think about some of the people that I've seen play against Miami, some of the people I've seen play against Stanford, if they had played against Vanderbilt, I feel like it'll be a different. Game I think. You, I feel like, I feel like we see a different game. I I think because you don't get a preseason in college football because you don't, you only get to practice against yourself. You don't know that. And that's why you know, these first, these first three or four games, you're trying to figure out who does what. Like we were all going crazy. Like, yo, man, why they keep switching the linebackers, Yo, why will keep this person here? And you had to figure it out. And so, man, my hat's off to Coach Marv, man, because he had to figure out, OK, I can play him here or I can play him here, OK, just a traditional guy. I can play Sam, but against a more mobile, fluid guy. I got to play Caleb.

1:24:04 OK, Caleb, I got to, you know, I got to bring in Keller, you know, hey, listen, how am I going to use Lawson? So, you know, just on that side, even with the online and you know, that's a that's a conversation we had to have somewhere, you know, for lemonade somewhere. But I understand the depth situation. But you know, you got to, you know, you got to elate them. You know, you don't know what he can do. You put them in because you're like, he's a talented guy. He's top, top recruit. He's got to get in and play. But right now and him being hurt, but it's good that you can fall back on a Bob Schick that understands, Hey, I got to get better. But but what Bob has to understand also, Brodie Meadows can play. Brody Meadows is a dog. Johnny Garrett is an awesome kid. And so and so and as many times as we people like, yo, this guy needs to go.

1:24:52 Well, you don't have the depth to do it. That's why for me, you know, the guy who's who's just had to put, had to do so much work and man, you know, turn, you know, chicken, chicken, you know, Yeah, the chicken salad. It's Coach Crook, man, Coach Crooked. Coach Crook to me has one of the hardest jobs because he's to the point he hasn't even had a chance to really get his guys in and all his guys are in the weight room right now. All his guys are with deeds. All his guys are getting technically sound and he's trying to make this thing work and he's making it work. So, you know, I just I just see number better things down the road and with these four games or down down the stretch, you're going to get to see some of those guys. We've been wanting to see that, you know, the the Davidsons, the the Aiden Lynches, you know, the Brody, you're going to get to see those guys.

1:25:39 Grant gets healthy. You're going to be able to see those guys and I think they're going to help us get where we're trying to get. To But Chris, I'm going to make a point about Crooks and we've said it here and you've heard us say it and you've kind of agreed a few times. The two guys who have had the most time with Ron Crook is Xavier Chaplin and Braylon Moore. And say what you want to say, that's the two best guys on the line right now. X is playing unbelievable and Braylon Moore to go from left guard to now primarily playing center has played awesome to be a second year starter. He is a red shirt sophomore and he asked to switch positions. I mean, listen, this staff, you know, no matter how much we try to bang on them for their being, you know, inexperienced in certain areas are really, really good coaches.

1:26:29 And they've coached a lot of football, a lot of different places. So, you know, with Coach Crook really being on the job 18 months now, right, You're 18 months, 18 months, you know, like when he got the job, it's spring ball, you know, so he he's trying to hustle and go out and recruit and talk to kids to get his guys in. And then he's just trying to take the guys He's got to grow. So yeah, Brett, you know, be more red shirts saw he's going to be he's going to be awesome. You know, I, I just think X is going to be X is going to be a Sunday, a Sunday guy, you know, and, and his big and his toughness, you know, his, his tech is him being technical. He's just going to continue to get better. So, you know, they got some other pieces. Like I said, I love Brady Meadows, I love Johnny Garrett. You know that they got, they got a lot of guys, man, back there that are going to be, you know, going to be very, very vital. They're going to be they're they're going to get you to love.

1:27:32 They're going to they'll never get you to forget Chris and Darisol, because you can't. You'll never forget, you know, tell her you'll you'll you'll love Brock Hoffman, tough guy. Yeah, there's. Wayne. Brown yeah, Wayne Brown Now see some some of those guys are just legendary. But those guys are going to be solid and they're going to help us get back to where they're going to help us get to where we're trying to get to. All right, so as we get near the end of the conversation here, first of all, Chris, do you want to hang with us and make some picks in a little few minutes here? Oh. Yeah, I can do that, yeah. I was hoping. You'd say, yeah, I can always get out here still online, you know, I ain't got no problem with that. You know what? I'm saying, who's going like? This You won't make the graphic, but we'll get you on record. You will get the pick first.

1:28:13 No straight up Chris though. We got six games left by week this week. Thursday night in Lane Boston College, I got 2. I got 2 questions and different ways taken. The first one is what game are you looking forward to the most between now and Thanksgiving weekend? And then what game is the one? I want to put this right. What's the sneaky one? What's the one is you watch football like we got to be careful here. OK, the game that I am most looking forward to because I'm selfish is Syracuse. OK all. Right, because that's Dad gum it. Yeah, that'll be the chance of my kid. My kid gets a play and, you know, that's what I'm excited about.

1:29:11 I, I, I, you know, I'm, I'm so happy for him and so proud of him as a young man and for him to have the opportunity that, you know, to go fulfill his dream of going to play Division One football, to actually go being on a snap at Division One level. Hey, man, you know, like I said, I cry a lot, but I'm, I'm going, I'm going to be emotional that day. I was emotional at the spring game when the first time I saw him run out. I'm emotional every time he comes out of here in the Sandman through the tunnel. And I'll definitely be emotional that day. So Syracuse is the game that I'm looking forward to. So I'm looking forward to that. And then ask for a team for the team, you know, I'm just looking at the next one because everything is laid out perfect for us as a program. We have the third easiest schedule, I think down the backstretch to get to Charlotte.

1:30:07 I'm just telling you how, how how confident I already got my room for Charlotte. I booked my room for Charlotte in August because that's how how good I think this football team is going to be. And I think now coming to the backstretch where you got Boston College is about to walk into something. They have no idea what they're going to walk into because now they know who they are. You know what I'm saying? It's OK. I'm going to give you all the reference. Tally will understand this. Brian. Y'all might not get this. Brian Curtis, you won't get this. So there's this movie called The Last Dragon, right? Right. And so this guy name was Bruce Leroy, right? So he's fighting this together. The villain is showing up, right? So showing up is whooping his ass, right? And he's dugging his head in the water. He's like, who's the master?

1:30:50 Keep pulling his head up. And so then once Bruce Lee realized who the mass is in, he raises up right out the ward. He says I am and he just I am. And that's what this football team is. They don't get their ass whooped. They felt like, and then they started remembering, Yo, I am that I am that team. We are those dudes. We are we are that squad. So I don't think I don't think Boston College has any idea of it. And and y'all listen in it. Y'all go back and look Bruce Leroy in the final fight, you understand? What I'm saying so you so Chris, you saying they got the. They got the glow, baby. They got the glow, man. They got the glow. Man, y'all got to go watch that movie. That's one of my favorite movies, man. Yeah, man. The Last Dragon. The Last Dragon, they got the glow, man.

1:31:31 I think they're going to come out Thursday night in that building, that electricity. And the way this fan base is this, it's going to be a movie. It's going to be a movie. Like I couldn't have imagined us being six and O coming in a Thursday night. I probably would have had to come to Blacksburg on a Tuesday because we probably wouldn't be able to get in. But then being three and three and being where they're at, I think the Boston College game is going to be huge, and that's how I feel. Yeah, we, we've been looking at it too. I've been, I've been talking to some of the some of the BC guys and they went from from beating their chest after that FSU game and feeling really good about this to not feeling so hot about it. Yeah, they, they, they got, they going to walk. I mean, they going to remember a lot of these guys that we beat, we beat them, we beat them in their own building like that, like they stole something.

1:32:19 Toot remembers that them jokes didn't even want to speak to him because he was supposed to either go go there or he came here. So I just think they're I think they're going to be a lot. They're going to be really a really tough, tough out from here on in. Syracuse is going to be tough. I think, you know, changing of the guard. Like like coach said, you know, we were Clemson before Clemson and and I think he has to get his signature win for me for this fan base to really buy into him. You know, he has to get a signature win. And that could like Miami would have been his signature win and then it would have been like it. But he needs his mouth. He needs his signature win that launches him. You know, coach Beamer had his the 95 Miami game. That's the one that launched him. I think this beating Clemson in lane launches him to the next place.

1:33:10 You know, and I think that I don't think we lose the game. Honestly, man, I don't think we lose another game this year until we go, you know, we go, we go deal in the I I just, I just believe we get to the I think we get to Charlotte and and we let the chips fall when we may I I I want to. See a little rematch there with the. Oh, because listen, I just want, I just, I just want, I just want them to have to turn around and say, OK, we're not going to we're only going to put two ACC teams in and it's going to be the two playing the championship and then watch everybody else go crazy. That's what I want to see. That's what I want to see. I want to see I, I love Bettman, I love chaos, I love mayhem. And I think that's what would happen if we go do what I expect us to do, go win the ACC all.

1:33:58 Right. Love to hear that. Tally, Brian, y'all got anything else? Chris? You've been awesome, dude. It's. It's man. I appreciate y'all, man. I appreciate y'all man. If. We can get Chris not to be a Cowboys fan, man. He might be hey. Hey, listen man, listen bro, some relationships you can't walk away with man. I put my, I put my, I put my Rouge on, I put my lip sync on. I fixed my wig and I tell him she loved me and, and I deal with I have been in that relationship. I have been in that relationship since 1977. And I, you know, I just can't let her go. I just can't man. Yeah, still turn it back now. No, I'm done bro. I'm done. You know, I'm done, God willing.

1:34:39 The only time I'm going to love another team is a God. God blesses my kid and he goes play plays at the next level. And then that will be my favorite team along with the Hoagies because I'm going to be a hoagie for life. All righty here. That's it. Yep. Well, Chris, thanks for just giving us all the insight, sharing your stories, your time, your emotions. And I am hoping me and I am trying to get to Georgia Tech. I'm trying. OK, I mean, I'll. Get your number from tally. Yeah. Man if I am. You you get to you get here when it and man, if you're in Blacksburg, I'll be in Blacksburg. It it was it was tough because we are I was planning to go to Miami, but I ended up getting a new position.

1:35:20 So I ended up having to back out and not go to Miami. And then I was never going to Stanford. I was never going. I wasn't doing that because the back your back like that because Oh yeah, because I figured with I'm just thinking down the road, I know we're going to have to travel a lot next year. So I said, OK, let's let's figure this out. But you. Got You got three years of traveling. You got three years of traveling. I got three more years of. Traveling three more years of. Travel. Three more years of traveling. Yeah, yeah. God willing. God willing, three more years. All righty, so Chris is going to hang out with us because as y'all know every week, well actually Chris, we've seen you put your predictions on here before so you going to keep rolling with us. We do big screeners, we pick some of the biggest or to us the most intriguing or sometimes just the ones that we think you know what that's a good gambling line.

1:36:10 We going to take this and we going to make a bet on it every week we do it and as usual we do have a certain order here. So Brian is leading us off with his game and then we'll let Chris pick and then we'll throw all our picks up here first game. Yeah, man, we had we had back-to-back screw jobs. So I had I had to pick the latest screw job on the Miami in here, get Cal against Pit. Pit looking a little a little good there. They got a little juice here compared to what we thought they would have. So, you know, look at this as line. It's a, you know, Pit's a three-point favorite there at home. Yeah, I'm going to take Cal here. I think Cal's going to win that one out, right? I like what I saw, what they put together against Miami before they kind of collapse late. They played pretty well so far throughout the season. Odd is him.

1:36:58 So let's see what they can do out there against Pitt. All right, I'm going to let I'm going to let our guests go next here. Chris Pitts laying three points. You going with the Panthers or you taking the second team that got screwed by the ACC? This. Year I'm I'm taking the more physical team. I like Cal. I do like Cal's game. Pitt has been you know, Pitt has been sneaky though, and they've got some really, really good players. I like their wide receiver core. You know, even though I don't like Narduzzi so much as a person, as many as many people are feel that way. You know, being a young, being a Youngstown guy and everything, because that's for my wife and and Kila them from but I I I like Cal, I like Cal physicality, but I I think that loss.

1:37:43 I don't I don't know how they're going to. I don't know if they're going to have the fortitude to say we were up by 25, we got screwed, or we going to keep looking back at that. So but I'm I'm going to take Cal and come across country and knock pit off because I need pit to get knocked off. So yeah, I'll, I'll take Cal. All right, and I'm I'm with I'm with you on this and with you and Brown and give me Cal. I think they have a bounce back game. That's good. Mendoza's good. Not until the fourth quarter when a lot of screwy shit started happening, did they not have Miami. So yeah, three points. Give me the points when I like the team outright. Sheldon, who's not in here tonight, He is getting back from his travel. Also going Cal Cal wagon tally tally. I'm going Cal as well, and it's just because I need Pitt not to be undefeated.

1:38:34 A pit is too close to our footprint. I need them to lose some games. I don't need them coming in here sliding and trying to get no kids or talking about how good they're doing. So somebody need to beat the shit out of them. I'm hoping this kind of there. We go. Got you. All right, All right. I'm Ryan. Kyle as well, and the Music Man is the only one. On the pit man, of course. Pit Pit of. Course. He's getting called out here. He's getting called out. He's in bed now. I think he he old I The game I am selecting this week is one of the all time favorite rivalry games. Oklahoma, Texas, The Red River Shootout.

1:39:17 It ain't no rivalry. It is the Red River Shootout at the State Fair in Dallas, TX. A place one day I hope to go at the Cotton Bowl because it is such a cool setting. Texas is laying 14 1/2 points. I'm going to let our guests go first. That is a lot of points to lay. You've seen this game a lot. I know you're probably like, you're like all of us. It's certain games. Unless the Hokies are playing, it's like I'm going to watch this one. Oh, man, I'm, I'm a, I'm a big First off with just a big football heads up. But 14 1/2 points, listen, I don't care what it is. You're not going to give. Oh, that, that is way too many points. But I'm, I know this sounds crazy. I'm going to take Oklahoma.

1:40:04 That's just too many points to give them. I don't think it's going to be a blowout. I think Oklahoma's going to stand up and that 14 points is too many. Now I think Texas will win the game. But gosh, I'm betting I'm taking OU. I'm taking them to those 14 points, so I'm going to take Oklahoma in this one. Yeah, ride with Chris there. If it was a maybe 10 and a hook, I might I might pull the trigger on Texas 14 and a hook is way too damn many points. So give me Oklahoma here. Yeah, I'm, I'm with you all on this as well. 14 a half is way too much delay. I've already seen Oklahoma's defense slow down Tennessee one time.

1:40:46 I do not think Texas's defense is near as good as Tennessee's. I don't think they can. I think it's going to be one of those memorable ones. I think it's going to be like a touchdown game and I'm not sure. I have not read it. First of all, I'm going to do this real quick. He's still here. He ain't asleep yet. It's the school night, Jason, go to bed. He can't he, he's enjoying watching and listening to us too much. But it's it's just, it's just too many points. Too many. Too many he's taking, he's saying it ain't that's. Yeah, I'm man, it was a hard game to pick for me because I actually did watch the Oklahoma Auburn game and Auburn's not.

1:41:32 The quarterback situation is not very good. It's the reason they lost to Oklahoma. So I could see it being 14 points. But the hook is what got me. You know, I think the Texas is the better team, but that 14 1/2 always scares me. So I took Oklahoma in that. Miranda. Miranda's riding with Texas Sheldon Miranda hey, Jason rode with us This time, though, he took. A time all. Righty. Sheldon's game this week is he is got the Penn State. It's some good games this week. I mean, it's it's wow, this is this is like the next two weekends. I am really glad we got the bye this week and I'm really glad we're playing Thursday night as a college football.

1:42:14 Fan. He has got Penn State, USC, this is out of the Coliseum USCA 5 1/2 point home dog Chris, who you rolling with here? I'm going to take Penn State in this one man Drew Aller man is really starting to progress, become who he needs to be the two running backs there and y'all know because well, just you know, you got #10 you got what's Nick, what's it Nicholas, what's it? I forget. I just know my guy's 13 Tatron, we call him fat man here in the 757. He's a 757 kid. He trains with Keelan.

1:42:57 So I'm going to run with Penn State. I think Allen's, it'll be fine. They're trying to make the tight end there like, you know, the greatest thing since sliced bread because he can do so many different things. And I think, I think Penn State goes out there and get their signature win. Coach Franklin needs this one. He needs to go out there, keep this ball rolling because he's trying to be in the group of 12. So I got Penn State, Penn. State. Yep. I like Penn State here as well. You know, USUSC has looked good at times where they haven't like super impressed me. I think Penn State is putting together a pretty good season. They've got, you know, guys kind of at a lot of different places can give a lot of different teams problems. So I think it's going to be Penn State here.

1:43:41 All right, I'm, I'm, I'm going the opposite of y'all, Penn State don't know how to play outside of Southern California or outside of Las Vegas, where it's nice and warm. If this was in Happy Valley, I'd be willing to lay 10, but with five and a half too much to lay. I do think Penn State's going to win this game, but I think it's going to be a unbelievable offensive showcase. Wow, 5 1/2, just too much to lay be OK with three or three and a half. I think it's like a touchdown. It's like a like a 3-4 point win. It's it's just going to be close. OK. Sheldon's riding with you, Curtis.

1:44:21 I am not riding with Curtis and I think Penn State in this game. I've picked Southern Cal a couple of times and I've watched them just a little bit. Like I said, one of my friends from here, son, plays on Southern Cows defense. So I watched him a couple times, and I just think Penn State's the better team and I think they'll win by, you know, 7 to 12 points in this game. All right, Miranda's riding with Curtis and Sheldon and Jason's riding with the rest of us. Here OK. Now now before we jump to Tally's game here, I do want to just bring up last week, last week Brian four and two Sheldon four and two Tally breaking 503 and 3 Brandon Jason to two and four and I was five and one but y'all say that I was at 5:00 and.

1:45:13 One with your chest. Curtis, I was saying here's for land like you know, Yeah, I'm, I'm the big boss of the Bible. Right now if if you have been riding with myself, Jason, Cali or Brian, we would have made you some money so far this year. OK, we ain't all wrong battling all of us slightly over 50%. That's what's up. Cali. You got a big one, man, You got. Yeah, man, this is going to be I think this is going to be a a good game. You got Ohio State versus Oregon. I don't know, man, Ohio State's while receiving calls just off the chains every year is they they'll send some people to the NFL and then they'll pull some people from another NFL.

1:45:59 I don't know where they get these kids from, but you know, it's Oregon's always a solid team. They're going to come out with some crazy jerseys on. I think this is going to be a very entertaining game, but I'm going to take Ohio State in this game because I don't know, I just feel like Ohio State, they're receiving Corp just impressed with them. Chris, what about you man? Big 1730 on on Saturday night. Oh, that's good. I'll be, I'll be in for that one. Listen, I'm going to go with Ohio State on this. Like Tally said about about the wide receiver corps. Yeah, you turned around, you've got a guy. I think I said I did say that to Tally. So we were talking about Jeremiah Smith.

1:46:41 So Jeremiah Smith is the number one player in the 2024 class, not number one wide receiver, the absolute number one player. And so I, you know, I had to watch all that transpired. The kid is he's amazing. He's really, really good. Like he's tough. But you got to Mecca Bouique and Mecca Bouique was the number one wide receiver in the 20, I think the 20, the 2021 class, he was the number one guy. There was another guy that was in his class too, Marvin Harrison Junior who plays in the NFL. So that's how that's they go get them, man. They they're going to go get the number one kid, Brian Hart. Coach Hardline is amazing up there and they got the guys there, they got him. They got Trevor Henderson, another 757 kid. And then you turn around, you got Junkins who was down in Ole Miss, Man, that's going to be great. And I think that's just going to be the pressure that's on coach day this year.

1:47:38 That's got to be his. That's going to be his. I'm that I'm that school. Like I think they'll beating Michigan that he has to do for the program. He's going to go out there and beat Oregon to say I'm the best team in the country because he's probably going to face that other team down in Austin to win the whole thing. And if you don't win it this year, he in trouble. So I got Ohio State. Yeah, I, I, I like all of that, but it's something about going to the Austin Zoo, man, it hits different. I think that the the fans are going to impact that game. I think Oregon's a damn solid team. They've they've got some some dudes out there that can make some plays.

1:48:18 I think they do just enough. You know, I, I, I could see Oregon maybe winning this out right, But I think it comes down to a field goal late. So give me Oregon. That's gonna be dope. I love the Austin zoo. The Austin zoo is one of those places. It's it's it it's you know, in a lot like lane stadium. It ain't the biggest, but she roars when she roars. But I can't do it. I cannot kick Oregon way Ohio State play this year. They they what they did to Iowa. Iowa is one of the best defensive coach teams. Y'all know this and and Iowa had it tricked down the first half and when they come out like 28 on them in the second-half, you know what's scary? You know what's scary?

1:49:05 That that's the scary piece. So give me Ohio State, I'll take I'll, I'll lay the points. Sheldon Scott. Sheldon, Ohio State. OK. Ohio State, Miranda and Jason, Brian, you all alone, man, You are. All alone, man, Real good or real bad? Beat alone won't be Go ahead. Beat alone won't be all righty. Our wonderful contributing writer is going with one of those classic SEC rivalries. Always a good time on Rocky Top. Florida, Tennessee laying 15 1/2 points. Chris, can you lay 15 1/2?

1:49:49 Or. Are you going with oh Rocky Top? And it's in Tennessee. It is at Tennessee. Oh yeah. Yeah, Oh. Yeah, 10, Yeah, yeah. My man's in trouble, man. God, he goes. Oh, God, what? What time's the game? Hold on, let me get you up here. It is a 7:00 night kick. They probably going to come up with those black and orange uniforms on 2O. God, God, 15 is a lot and but Florida hasn't looked really good at all this year. Yeah, what, 15?

1:50:29 God, that's a lot of points. Yeah, man, I'm I'm, I'm Jesus. That's a lot of. Points man Chris Chris, you want us to run through? Because Yeah, yeah, let me tell you, all of a sudden, yeah, yeah, yeah. Go ahead, Charlie. Somebody just let. Me think about it, Brian. We'll go through everybody and then we'll come back to you, Brian. Tennessee's pissed and they're playing at home. It's a night game. That's all I need to know. OK. Bingo, bingo, bingo. Tennessee is pissed. They got embarrassed down in Fayetteville against the Razorbacks. This is one of those. I think it's going to be about 24 to 28. I think they going to spank them. And I think Billy Napier might not have a job come Monday because you're right, Chris, he is in trouble. Shelton is riding with Tennessee as well. Tally what you got.

1:51:22 Man, I'm I'm going to go with Florida in this game, not because I think Florida's going to win. I just think that that's a lot of points to lay and Tennessee is upset about last week. I think that that may be, you know, first of all, they've had a lot of games in a row, but they've had to play, you know, like what They had Oklahoma, then we got Arkansas, and these games are physical, you know, they're hitting. And right now Florida's kind of a doormat. You know, that that that's kind of what the SEC is looking at. It's looking at them like. But guess what? After they play Arkansas and they lost, they got Florida. Guess what they got next week?

1:52:03 Alabama. They got Alabama. Do you know anything about those rivalries? Tennessee and Alabama hate each other. When Alabama went on, when Alabama got put on probation, that was Tennessee. They got Alabama put on probation. So you talk about Alabama and Auburn, AL and Tennessee is at that level. I just think Florida's going to sneak into. I'm not saying they're going to win, but I think they're going to make it more of a game because of all the stuff that Tennessee has going on. But that's my opinion. All right. Seeing a back door cover there Tally. Back door cover. Back door cover. Durant is rolling with Tennessee, and so is Jason. So, Chris?

1:52:45 That's all I needed that back story. There you go then I'm going I'm going Florida that that's that's it because they're mad think about it. They pissed off their laws of Arkansas, but they looking past Florida and Billy's playing for his job. So they're going to lose but they're not going to lose that bad. So that's just too many 15 1/2 points is a lot of points. Remember they they said we were going to go down and lose by 17 to Miami. I knew that that pissed the oh, yeah. So I, I, yeah. So I, I, I get, I'm, I'm going with Florida. I'm, I'm gonna ride with you all. He won't be the lone wolf on that one. Not the lone wolf on me. Not the lone wolf. He won't be the lone rider. All righty. Here, he won't be the Midnight rider on that one. The Midnight Rider All right, so I'm music Man Jason. He is going down to the Bayou and looking at the Ole Miss LSU game.

1:53:40 Jimmy do from the new and the place buzz people will come see he falls behind us. We dress in style. Woah, wound the old mound. So we're gonna let it fall now. Home bound. OK, Welcome back to guitar licks and gambling picks. I'm Jason Long. Now, you Hank fans have probably already figured it out. I'm looking at the LSU game this week. Ole Miss is travelling to Death Valley. I think LSU is going to win outright and Vegas is giving them 2 1/2 points, so I'm going to take the Tigers all day on that one. Now the best part about this matchup is the game starts at 6:00 Eastern and that's dinner time at my house. So I think I'm going to have and jump a light crossed. I feel it gone.

1:54:35 Of course, tonight don't sing my ship me you pick it up. If you jar and begin, Son of a gun will let it fun hold the fire. Son of a Gun will have it fun. Hold the fire. See you next week. All righty, so we got Ole Miss LSULSUA home dog in Death Valley on a Saturday night. Chris Lester, if you if you need to think about it, let me know. We let.

1:55:19 You guys in? No, I'm easy. I'm easy with this one. I like Lane Kiffin. I I think I think this is going to be a time for, you know, the emotional coaches sit there and say these are games that we should win and maybe you'll knock the water over this time. You know, I like Ole Miss in this one. I like Wayne Jackson Dart. I like that football team. I like that football team a lot. I like Juice Wells to go ahead and have another have a breakout game. And yeah, I like Ole Miss in this one. All right. Yeah, I I like Ole Miss as well. I think, I think darts going to handle some business in this one. That's a tough place to go into, but I think they've got the juice on the offensive side of the ball to go in there, handle, handle that pressure, take care of business, come out there with the Dub.

1:56:07 As much as I dislike Brian Kelly, it is going to be a hell of a thing for Ole Miss to go in and do what they did. We've seen Ole Miss against Ng defenses, right? We've seen all this against some stingy defenses. Kentucky slowed them down at home. I'm with Jason on this. I, I, I think LSU pulls it out. I think that crowd's going to have a significant effect on what Lane wants to do. And I just, I felt like they should have smoked South Carolina by more last week. Felt like 27 to 9. The way South Carolina looks, I, I just can't do it. So I'll take LSU at home.

1:56:53 Shelton's riding with you there, Curtis Tally. Yeah, I can't pick LSU until they bring back Nick down there. It's like the hope you need to bring back, stick it in. So I just think, I do think I do think Ole Miss is the better team here. I think Lane kind of thrives in certain positions. So I think that Ole Miss, I like them better in this game there. You go. Miranda's riding with us there. Tally. With. Jason, we know taking the Tigers. Taking the. Tigers all right. There's the rundown. There you go. By the way, we got to think about the last three weeks of our music man's genre range.

1:57:36 If y'all have not been paying attention, several weeks ago he did California Love. Last. Week, Chris. You Yeah, he did Purple Rain. He did Purple Rain Man. That was that was dope. I like that. That was nice. In this week going back to the 1950s, he bringing up some Hank Williams senior and some of the classic country music. Again, y'all check Jason out. He's always out here. We, we've known Jason pretty much. I've known him pretty much my whole life. So always check him out. Chris, my man, we appreciate you joining us tonight. I can't say much more than that, man. Thank you. Thank you all for having me man. I I really appreciate it man. I'm always rocking with y'all and I just appreciate everything y'all do for Hokey Nation man Y'all, y'all y'all take the y'all take the emotion out of it and let us to be logical.

1:58:28 So when we come and talk to y'all on a on a Tuesday night, we've had all the emotion. We did all the roller coasters and y'all come with great content. Shelton is my stat child. I love him. I just want to hear him talk stats. I'm going to adopt him one day and just have him run all stats for me and make me sound smarter, help me when I'm when I'm when I'm fussing with people. But man, y'all do do a great job man. Thank you for having me. Thank you for inviting me in and letting me be hang out with y'all tonight. Yeah, definitely, man. We always love when Chris comes through as well as everybody else in the chat, man. I mean, I every week it seems like we're getting more and more, you know, people talking in the chat, man, please continue to do that. The love, we, we appreciate the love, but we also couldn't do what we do without, you know, you guys throwing stuff in there for us, letting us know what you're thinking, showing us some new things that we probably didn't see. That's why this community is so great. That's why we are family again, so much knowledge, so much, you know, talent in in in the fan base them and we love to love to see it.

1:59:38 Yeah, Chris, Chris has got it's got a hat on that I'm kind of jealous of. I'm trying not to look. I'm trying not to look over that. Hey. Man, listen bro, my I told you and I told you. This is why I started following you, Brian. This is why I followed you all. Tally's hat game was so crazy. I was like, yo, I got to meet him. His hat game is crazy. So because before I came here, I wouldn't even wear. You know, just just know, you know, I wouldn't even wear. So I thought I was like, yeah, man, you know, back in the day, you know, I wasn't always a model citizen. So my kids laugh at me. So I said I don't wear orange. That was a big thing with tech. So.

2:00:19 But he hadn't had a hat on. So I got this one from the SWBA shop. Man shout out to this is that? The one with the rubber, that's the one with the rubber. I had it last year. He's going to the NC State game. So I just, I just try to pick up a different 1 here and there. I'm, I'm trying to, I'm trying to work to get to Tally's level. I'll probably will never pass him, but I'm working to get. To that you you already there, don't even worry about. It I just try to get, I just try to give, you know, much love to all the different creators out there. But the SWBA guys, they, they always, they look out for you to like if I see someone like, yo, I need that. And they're like, hey, yeah, meet me.

2:00:59 And they'll just meet me with it. And I'm like, that's, that's all. That's why I like these guys. Guys, man. They'll meet me anywhere. They got a little money for them, they'll bring me a hat and that's what's up. There we go. Love it, love it. All righty Well y'all, that is going to wrap up this episode of the Boundary Corner Podcast brought to you by the Counts Family Pharmacy in Blacksburg with our guest Chris Lester. I'm Curtis Wilson. Brian Siegler. Jonathan Talley. We are part of the College Huddle Network. Check out our website, boundarycornerbt.com to listen to all of our episodes. Check out Miranda's articles on the game and her insight each week on there. While you're there, do not forget to put it back up there. Brian, put Randy's back up there. I want to see it one more time.

2:01:40 Hang on, let me find it. Let. Me find. It it ain't that for. Do not forget why you're there. Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Subscribe to our YouTube Hit the like button. We are on all your favorite podcast sources, Spotify, Amazon, Apple Podcasts and everything in between. As always, he plays us a little guitar tune every week and he plays us in and out as well. Check out his website jasonlongmusic.com to see where he will be playing live down in the New River Valley. Also, get the links to all of his music on Apple, Spotify, his YouTube, and his Facebook pages. We thank you all for listening out there, and there's always Let's Go the.