Is Ohio State in trouble after the loss to USC? Indiana escapes, Miami playing with fire & Top 10

Regardless of who the quarterback is it could be me as a 44 year old Smith has got to get chances down the field I'm in an airport restaurant. I started screaming at the TV. I'm like time out time out Is he not calling a time out? I'm talking to the whole restaurant I'm like he needs to call it time out inside of a minute tie game down three drilling clutch 60 yard field goals in college Come on now. How do you not love this sport? Hey, welcome into the program. This is the Joel Clutch. I'm Joel Clutch. This show is brought to you by Hilton Hilton for the stay What a week into college football. It was again every single weekend I think it gets better and it delivers. We got some crazy ball games that we've got to talk about here today Plus we've got playoff rankings coming up Tuesday night. So remember Wednesday show is going to be a reaction to those brand new Playoff rankings that we get from the college football playoff committee. Let's jump right in USC with a monster win as they knock off Ohio State number two Ohio State They beat them 30 to 18 Rainy night in the Coliseum, which you don't always see But this was exactly what every Buckeye fan would say was their worst nightmare right was when Julian saying went down against Indiana What were you going to get from the offense? What were you going to get from the quarterback specifically and could they continue to maximize Jeremiah Smith? Those were the questions coming into this ball game and unfortunately for the Ohio State Faithful It did not go well. It did not go well But it wasn't just the quarterback. Let's let's start with this. What did Ohio State do well who played well? Well the running backs played well Bo Jackson played great Isaiah West played great I know Bo dropped the one swing pass on on the outside But other than that the run game was very good. I thought that the backs ran hard. I thought that they ran as hard as they've run Since I've been watching them these this group certainly on the film this year And I did go back and watch the film. So that's what they did well They ran the football and if you if you were to say before the game and you were to ask Ryan Day or this team or any fan Hey, would you take running for over 200 yards? It's a oh absolutely and we'll definitely win that game Well, they ran for over 200 yards, but unfortunately for them other parts of the team did not show up They just did not show up. Let's go over this and and at some point, you know The coaching staff is gonna have to absorb this one because there were a lot of breakdowns I did not feel like the offensive line played very well. I did not feel like I did not feel like the special teams played well In particular after that that big return And then the defense while they did play well for the majority of the game They gave up a couple of big plays that hurt them and in particular the first one that touched down on the second snap of the game Looked like they were misaligned. So you look at this game. There are goal line issues again The defense allows the Mosley screen pass to go to the house on the second play now You're playing from behind with a young quarterback The offensive line in particular and pass protection was really poor really poor in pass protection They were getting driven back like they were on roller skates The interior of the offensive line was in the lap of Fahey almost the entire night In fact, they allowed 49% pressure rate on their dropback packs that passes That was the third highest pressure rate in the Ryan Day era behind the 24 Michigan game and that great defense of line and the 23 Missouri Bowl game so You know, I know that that's a frustration, but that's what happened I think there are a lot of people that that look at this performance and they think to themselves Well, where do we go from here? And you've got to ask yourself a couple of questions There's no doubt and if you're Ohio State I think that you've got to go back and you've got a look at What do we do? Well? What is our ceiling and how do we try to maximize that ceiling because what happened on Saturday night did not try to maximize that Ceiling the only through the ball to Jeremiah Smith once down the field was that a Luke Fahey issue was that a game plan Issue whatever it was whatever it was it has to it has to be fixed has to be fixed because Regardless of who the quarterback is it could be me as a 44-year-old Smith has got to get chances down the field now they did throw it to him He had the 10 catches, but they were you know generally at or near the line of scrimmage under 10 yards That can't be your game plan with with Jeremiah Smith So Arthur Smith is going to have to go back to the drawing board on the way that they try to utilize What is the best weapon in all of college football? Maybe one of the best wide receivers that we have ever seen Like I said the goal line issues creep up once again and they go down there They get a first and goal on the one foot line and all all of a sudden they're in shotgun I don't love shotgun on the one foot line They've got to go back and really look at what they they plan to do with this game and how it all materialized Let's talk a little bit about Luke Fahey Like I said, I did watch this film I don't want this to sound Negative because here's here's the absolute truth about it is he was making his first start and what did it look like? It looked like he was making his first start very typical If you see a guy making their first start in particular in a big game What you generally see is you're going to see some misses in terms of the ball going to the wrong spot or not going to the right place And you saw that several times on the film some overthrows clearly excited and not on platform from a fundamental standpoint in the pocket You saw that you saw drifting that The overthrows in particular McEwen down the edge some of the Passes that he threw late in the game out of the in zone those are things that you've just got a kind of swallow as a young quarterback And learn from those and hopefully for Ohio State he can learn from those quickly The thing that I think he's got to get better at Fastest is not actually the decision making although that needs to to be better. There's no doubt It's the platform. It's the footwork He was very antsy in the pocket and played very upright and when you do that you tend to fade away on throws So the one time they do try to throw it to Jeremiah Smith He wins He absolutely wins and if the ball is out and throw out in front and if it's thrown on time It's a huge win and you're going to get a big completion But you know he's dancing around he's upright He doesn't have a good platform and he fades away in the balls about 10 yard short and Jeremiah tries to adjust and it And it's just not there same thing kind of jumping at the throw to the McEwen So those are things that he's got to get better at and then they also have to go back to the drawing board And try to look at that plan and say to themselves How do we maximize what is the best part of our team because the best part of their team is clearly Jeremiah Smith Now they've proven that they can run the football a little bit So now they've got to clean up the past protection and they've got to find a way to throw the ball more efficiently down the field more specifically giving four chances And then that offensive line like I said they have got to play better It was not a great game from their offensive line the interior their offensive line played one of the worst games I've seen on film from them in a long time So that that narrative that hey this wasn't about fey he That's somewhat incorrect he played like a freshman making his first start Critical play sailing the ball over over some people's heads But again, you got to take a look at what you're sealing and what is your floor And rather than worrying about the floor at Ohio State now there's two losses So you just got to go in there and go for broke at this point They've got a pretty tough schedule ahead of them They've got Oregon coming in to Columbus They've got Northwestern coming into Columbus They've got to play at Nebraska and then they've got obviously the game against Michigan Not easy not easy every one of those teams poses You know some threat in some way So down the stretch here They've got to figure out what they are as an offense what they can do and then try to maximize that So where did I have Ohio State after that game? Listen, I know it was a frustrating game there's no doubt and and they have to play better in a lot of areas The effort was there but Too many mistakes special teams big plays on defense that they gave up just a couple And they ultimately lose the game So where do I have Ohio State? I still think that Ohio State can fix some of those issues and particular fey he should get better A big jump from his first start to his second start If he's able to do that, you know, I think that they can get some things done on the offensive side I've got them inside of my top 10 I know that the AP moved them outside of the top 10 I think that was a bit of an overreaction I've got them at nine So Ohio State is going to be inside of my top 10 and they are at number nine Now we look at USC and what a huge win that was for USC my goodness This is exactly what Lincoln has been longing for which is a big win That he can attach himself to and say look I can do it You know the top five win which has eluded him at USC And lo and behold it came after a game in which they looked as bad as they've looked in his entire time at USC the loss at Wisconsin was really bad They played poorly on offense the defense was okay But they gave up a ton of points to a Wisconsin team that couldn't do anything against I won the game that I just called So again, like Lincoln regroups and he gets this team to play an outstanding game It wasn't perfect not by any stretch And if you actually look at the box score, you know, Ohio State outgained them Yes, there were the two big plays for USC and outside of that the offense wasn't terrific During the course of that game, but man This is exactly what you would hope for the defensive line played pretty well Maybe not against the run, but certainly rushing the quarterback You've got big plays from young players I think that this team if they play that way, can beat anybody on their schedule. And this is exactly what we're seeing from teams all over the country, which is low floor high ceiling. We've seen it from teams like Ole Miss. We've seen it from Florida. We've seen it from Texas. We've seen it from Alabama. We've seen it from Georgia. We've seen it from Indiana. We've seen it from Ohio State. Now we're seeing it here from USC. The game that they played against Wisconsin, the game that they just played against USC, they don't compute what I'm watching them on film. It doesn't make any sense. The team that I just watched and we all watched on Saturday night can absolutely win the rest of their games. And they only have three of them. Remember, they played week zero. So now they're going into an off-week here. It's going to be their second off-week. No one else really has off-weeks unless you played week zero. So now they're getting a second off-week. They only have three games left. They're not easy. They're not easy. At Indiana, going to be very difficult. Indiana also going to be coming off an off-week after their win last weekend. Maryland at home, which you should be able to take care of. And then of course the rivalry game across town. This one's over in the Rose Bowl at UCLA. So only three games left. But the team we saw on Saturday can win all three of those games. There's no doubt. There's no doubt. And if you're really pinning a USC fan down because you guys have been all over the map. Sorry, but you have. And I live amongst you. I text a lot of you. And you want him fired. It's the best win that you've ever seen. It's just like the pendulum is wild. And yet, and yet, if you're being honest with yourself and you're a USC fan. If I told you before the year, you were going to have three games left. You're going to be seven and two. And you just beat Ohio State. Would you take it? The answer is yes. The answer is yes. Now you might have wondered where the second loss came before Ohio State. Sure. That's fair. But you would take this situation. It's real. The chase is real. USC is walking into November. And Lincoln Riley has this team on the precipice of. You can go to the playoff. You it's in your hands. It's in your hands. With the win over Ohio State, you go 10 and two. You are in. You've got three contests left. You've got three times that you can go out there and put together a complete effort. I know it's alluded this team for a long stretch of this season. But guys, it's real. It's real. And there are some elements of this team. And you're watching one of them on YouTube right now. There's some elements on this team that I've just got to say are incredible. And that's the freshman. The freshmen are incredible on USC. In fact, I know the tackles played old. Jakeem Scoot Stewart played well. Both defensive tackles played well. They played really well. And like I said, the guards for Ohio State were on roller skates all night. You had quarterback sneaks where guards are back into the lap of the quarterback. They played high. They played with poor leverage. Their backs were upright. They did not play well at Ohio State at all. Fundamentally, their guards played terrible. But some of that was the power and get off. And the effort of the defensive tackles for USC. So they played well on the defensive line. And then outside of that, you know who the other three best players are on their team. True freshman Trent Mosley, Wayful and Bowman. Those three guys are the best players on USC's team. Like they are impact players as true freshman. Now, my ava can throw the ball. There's no doubt, but you're watching right now Bowman on his catch. He was a 69 yard catch, 70 yard catch that he had catch and run really hurdles a guy. He's he's just bowling over Ohio State buck guys. Like these guys are real. Bowman, by the way, on film, he blocked his butt off in the run game. Now they weren't running the ball dominantly, but they were at least sticking to the run, which they weren't able to do against Wisconsin. The ability to stick to the run allowed them to get to some of that play action. Open up the seams allowed for that big play down the middle of the field of Bowman. He was outstanding. Mosley's outstanding outstanding. He's their best offensive player. Mosley is outstanding and he took the punt back and put them in good field position so that they have a short field and they can go and score a touchdown. Like these guys can play Wayful on every snap is the most dominant defender that USC has. Even more so than the tackles. He makes impactful plays all the time, moving quarterbacks, running down, running. Like these guys are outstanding. There's no doubt so so can they do it? Can they do it? It has eluded every team in the country. This idea of how do you put together consistent effort and consistent performances, but it is right in front of them. They would have no one to blame, but themselves. If they don't go to the college football playoff, because here it is. You beat Ohio State. You've got Indiana off of an off week. Yes, it's on the road, but they don't know what's going on at quarterback. You just got the backup quarterback for Ohio State. Here it is. You had the backup quarterback for Oregon come into your building. Everything is in front of you. If you're USC, you just have to go take it. You just have to go take it. You have one responsibility and that is consistency. Consistency of effort. Consistency of detail and consistency of discipline. If they can do that, they can win every one of these games and they'll be in the college football playoff. After the game, obviously a lot of stuff coming out, I don't know how you got, like, Zapruder film type stuff of Lincoln Riley screaming at some staff members. Was it the athletic driver? I don't know who it was. Listen, it's all speculation at this point. That was kind of weird in the tunnel. And then after his press conference, I got to say the written statement that he prepared after the game felt like a written statement that you would read if you were to lose the game. It was a bit strange. It was a bit strange after a win to say that. And I know I'm sure he had thought about it at length during the course of the week. And clearly he had he basically got it written down. I didn't think that he needed that there. But I will tell you this. That team that I saw on Saturday night, they've got juice and they've got three games left. And so where do they fall? Did they get all the way inside of my top 10? No. And here's how I'm going to do it today because obviously we have the college football playoff rankings coming out on Tuesday. Here's how I'm going to give you my top 10. I'm not going to expand it to 12. But I am going to give you a larger list of bubble teams. So I'm going to not call it the almost category. We're going to go to the bubble teams. And so USC is going to be in that almost top 10. And I'll get to them a little bit more after we go through the top 10. That's coming up later in the show. Some other great games around the country. Indiana survives the Minnesota Golden Gofers. That was wild. 2316 in overtime. And a game in which both offices were not doing a whole lot. And we had two 60 yard field goals. I mean, guys, this wasn't just 60 yard field goals. This was inside of a minute tie game down three, like drilling clutch 60 yard field goals in college. Oh my goodness. That was amazing. Luchter's wiki from Minnesota. Patty McAteer from Indiana. And Patty McAteer is not even their normal field goal kicker. Ratichets can't make those. He doesn't have the range. McAteer is their kickoff specialist. He's this Irish guy, right? And he comes in there and he's got the big leg. And so they throw him out there to kick a 60 yard and save the season and he drills it. Come on now. I mean, how do you not love this sport? First time in modern college football history that there were even two 60 yard field goals in a game. Much less inside of a minute. Come on. That was amazing. Now, what I thought was interesting about this. This whole thing is the whole end of the game was mismanaged by the guy that we would never expect to mismanage the situation, Kurt Signetti. I was shocked that Indiana was mismanaging the end of the game. Minnesota has the ball. And they basically get stopped with about 56 seconds left, right? And and they're on what was that? What would that be? The 43, whatever it was, right? 42, 43 yard line. And there's 56 seconds left. And Indiana has two timeouts. And it's a tie ball game. And I'm in an airport restaurant. By the way, I drove two hours to Des Moines. I'm waiting for my flight to fly back to Los Angeles. And I'm in the airport restaurant. And I'm standing up at the TV. And people are like, why is this guy standing? And I start screaming at the TV. I'm like, time out. Time out. Time out. Is he not calling it time out? I'm talking to the whole restaurant. I'm like, he needs to call it time out. And like I swear there was this lady sitting there. And she was like, um, sir, this is a Wendy's. And I'm where was the time out? I didn't understand it at all. It's a tie ball game. You need time. You're going to get the ball back. Here's the thing. Whether they were going to kick the field goal or punt it, you would want time. So I, I didn't understand that at all. And I can't get a great explanation of that. So that that was wild. So because they, they let the time roll off the clock, I see I personally believe that PJ Fleck. And I'm going to ask him this week. We're going to call the UCLA Minnesota game. I'll ask him this week. I personally felt like he was going to punt the football if there were 56 seconds left. Because you can't risk a 60 yard field goal and then give them great field position with all that time. And all they need is a field goal to go down there and beat you in a tie ball game. So if there's 56 seconds left or 55 seconds left, how, you know, whenever you get the time out, I think PJ puns the football away. And as the clock is, you know, just dwindling down and dwindling. to link down and now what was it? I got under like 25 seconds, 30 seconds, 25 seconds, I'm along those lines. I think he was like, screw it. Let's try a field goal. Now they barely have any time. Now they've got, you know, just a couple of snaps and let's go for it. Let's kick a field goal. And Drew's wiki drills it, bam! I was like, that takes an incredible amount of courage from your head coach, PJ Fleck. And how about the stones to step up and make the kick? That was, that was awesome. I mean, that was awesome. And then there's more mismanagement from Indiana with the clock. I don't, I don't understand it. So they get the ball back. Becker saves them cause Grant Wilson throws a ball down the sideline and he doesn't get out of bounds. But here's the thing. It's a first down. So the officials are always going to stop the clock because they have to stop the clock because it's a first down. But you have to know as an offense and a coaching staff, whether he was in or out of bounds because if he's not out of bounds fully which he clearly was not, he clearly hit the ground in bounds. Becker did on that play, which was a great catch by the way. Becker's insane. I love Becker. I think he's a top 10 pick in the NFL draft. Then the clock is going to start once they set the ball. And it's like Indiana had no idea. This happened to them last week, by the way, at Michigan or the last game that I called their last game. It happened at the end of the half, same exact scenario. And then it came back to bite them again. So they finally, you know, what did they do? They either threw an incompletion or finally got a time out. Maybe they didn't get a time out. They didn't, they didn't because I'm sitting there and I'm like, listen, if there's two seconds left and you're having to attempt a 60 yard field goal and you have two time outs in your pocket, something went terribly wrong with your game management. And it did. And yet McAteer bales them out and hits it. I couldn't believe it, man. That was wild. I'm in that, I'm in that airport restaurant. And I'm like, did you guys see that? Sir, would you like another sparkling water? Yes, I would, please, on ice. No one else was as excited as I was. That's trying, it is what it is. So now we go to overtime and boom, backer, dime. So now Indiana's got a, I think they've got a quarterback decision to make and maybe it's not even a decision. You had Josh Hoover who transferred in from TCU. And he clearly has not been right since the Ohio State game, the game that I called and he was wincing after some throws. He clearly has something going on in his arm because during the game that I called Gus Ginny and I, he was wincing after throws and he was, you know, and he's kind of favoring his, I don't know if it's shoulder arm, whatever it is, he was wincing. And ever since then, he has not been the same. Let me just give you, for example, okay. So I dealt with a very specific injury. I don't know what his injury is. I think it's clearly a throwing shoulder arm issue. Just based on the way that he was wincing in that Ohio State game and then what he has been since I, so you guys know, I'm even going to show it on camera. See this lump right here? I think you guys can see that in my shoulder kind of like that. Yeah, you see that. So that's the end of my collarbone. And I blew out my AC joint. And so like, you know, your, your collarbone, your shoulders here and your collar bones right here. And there's ligaments right here. And so mine got blown out. And so basically my collarbone sticks up like that. So it was an AC joint. And I tried to play through it. It was, it was totally blown out, couldn't hurt it any worse. So they're like, listen, if you can deal with the pain after a couple of weeks, you know, you can play your way through it. Well, here's, here was my experience is that when you have, and this, for me, in baseball and for me as a quarterback, when you have a throwing arm shoulder issue, what becomes difficult to do is get on top of the football. And, and basically it's like this. When you're throwing, you want to be a C-thrower. You want to get on top of the football and create a C with your hand towards the logo of your helmet. Okay? And when your arm, it takes everything, you know, you're coming up and you can see how my elbow is a little bit higher to get on top of the ball. If your arm hurts, what happens is you tend to drop that and you become more of a U-thrower. Because it's difficult to get up on top of it. So you throw with your body and you start using more rotation and you throw more three-quarters. That's what happened to me. That's what happens to a lot of guys that have kind of like arm issues at quarterback. Well, when you work under the football, rather than on top of the football, you tend to throw it flatter with less touch and you miss high. And what we're seeing at a Josh Hoover is that very thing. He's missing high in particular over the middle. When you've got to drive the football down on the frame of a wide receiver, when you've got to drive it and get that nose to turn over because you don't want the nose to stay up and stay flat. You want the nose to turn over. And when that doesn't happen, you lose accuracy. And when you lose accuracy, you can lose confidence. And that's what we're seeing at a Josh Hoover right now. So they make the switch at halftime and Grant Wilson goes in there and plays pretty well. And they were able to maximize their best offensive player, which was Charlie Becker. Okay, so Charlie Becker, I think they've got to go out there and maximize Charlie Becker and Nick Marsh. If you look at Becker and Marsh, these are, I think they're best two players on offense. I do think they need to run the football a little bit better, but Becker is outstanding. And he got three long completions in the game, all of them were with Wilson. And I think you've got to, again, what is your ceiling? They're a one-loss team. They're looking at a playoff run. They're looking at potentially getting themselves back into a spot in the championship game and the big 10 championship game. And so if Hoover's not healthy and if he's not going to be effective and if he's throwing that flat ball and he can't be accurate driving the ball down the field, then you've got to go with the guy that can do that. And it was clearly Wilson and he was able to make a couple of throws in that ball game and ultimately win the ball game. So where do I have Indiana after that win? Defense is still outstanding. Religia Hardy got banged up by the way in warmups in that game. And so they were playing without one of the main pieces of their entire defense. You've got Isaiah Jones and Religia Hardy and they're at linebacker. And those two guys are really the key to their defense for Bryant Haynes, their defense coordinator. And so Hardy was banged up and they were trying to figure it out on defense. They found a way. I don't think they played great defense. There was a couple of runs that Minnesota, was able to get loose on, but they made the plays necessary. It's one of those defenses that I rely on. And I feel like I can rely on if I'm watching that from afar. So where do I have Indiana? Listen, if you tell me that you're going to maximize Becker and Marsh, I think that this is a top five team. I think it's a top three team. I think Indiana is number three in the country right now. Indiana would be my number three team in the country. And by the way, this is my top 10 as I would go into a committee room. If I was in the committee room, this is how I would argue to rank teams. And so there's a lot of combinations of what we've seen on film, what we've seen from a resume perspective. So for me, Indiana would be number three by week, USC at home, at Washington and Purdue. So right in front of them, third straight playoff appearance, possibly coming straight down the barrel for Kurt Signetti in the Indiana Hoosiers. That was a wild game. Fun to watch, very fun to watch. How about Miami? Miami was trailing in the fourth to Bill Belichick. Woo! It was a wild night. Thankfully, our plane had great internet the whole time. So I was able to watch the Ohio State USC game the whole time on my iPad, my phone. I had the UNC Miami game going. The internet was strong. It was awesome. OK, so what did we see from Miami? Well, I went back and I watched the film. And I'm trying to think of myself to myself. Did Miami just look ahead in this game? Is this a classic look ahead game? You're on the road against the North Carolina team that you feel like you should beat. And you got Notre Dame next week. Yeah, it's a classic look at look ahead game. So should we write it off as that? Like is that the reason that Miami was in a fight in the blender on the road against North Carolina? I can't go there either. Yes, it could be a classic look ahead game. And yes, they do have the fighting Irish next week. But I can't give them that excuse when this is not an anomaly for their defense. This is actually what the defense has kind of been showing us. And that's what worries me about Miami. Now, I'll get to what I love about Miami. And there's a lot to love, a lot to love. And I'll give you exactly where I think that they're going to be ranked and where I would rank them in this top 10 this week. But Florida State, 35 points North Carolina, 35 points. Two of your last three games you gave up 35. And by the way, against Pitt, you almost gave up 30. And that was a backup quarterback. So I'm concerned with Miami's defense right now. They are not playing the level of defense that they played last year. And and maybe that maybe that's fine. And I don't think a lot of teams are Indian as defense is not quite what they were a year ago. Ohio State's defense, not quite what they were a year ago. Miami's defense, not quite what they were a year ago. But all these points make me nervous because they're putting their offense into a position where they have to be great. And there's less margin for air. Now, good for them. Their offense happens to be at least in my estimation, the best thing anybody does in college football. I think the best singular unit in all of college football is the Miami offense. Miami's offense is outstanding. Their quarterback is outstanding. Mal? Akitone is outstanding. This is the unit I trust the most right now. Now there are a few others that I'll get to, but this offense does everything pretty well. I will say the offensive line reminds me a little bit of Ohio State and that they don't run the ball great. They don't run the ball great. But here's what they, they do for Darian Minza is that they keep him clean. They're very good in past protection and specifically the guard and the two guards in the center, the interior of their offensive line does not get pushed into his lap. So Ohio State's guys get pushed on roller skates right into the quarterbacks lap. And for us a short young quarterback, that is like a non starter. But for Minza who's got size and he's got experience and he's not getting that pressure in his lap, that offensive line does a great job for him because he can stand there and be on platform, step up in the pocket, play on time, manipulate the defense with his eyes, throw, throw to the right spots, throw with accuracy. He's outstanding. Darian Minza absolutely should be a top five or six pick in the NFL draft. His film is outstanding. I love watching him. I think he makes good decisions. I wrote down just a couple of points on him. I'm looking at Minza. He's the real deal. He can hang in there and make good throws down the pocket. He throws a good accurate ball. He can throw it with touch. He can drive the football. He'll get the ball out quick to the right spots. He can process information really fast. He plays on platform with a great base so the ball can come out at any moment. All of those things are excellent, are excellent. And he can throw it to Malachite Tony on the outside. So again, I think this offense strikes fear in any defense that they would play, any defense that they would play. The defense is putting pressure on them. There's no doubt the defense is going to have to get better because at some point, there might come a time, just like a power hitting baseball team where a pitcher shuts them down. And all of a sudden, they're going to have to win a lower scoring game. Well, how do you do that? You do that with a good defense, with a good running game. Those are the two areas where I'm like, I don't quite know if Miami is great in those areas. In particular on the defensive side, like for instance, if you get up to South Bend and the weather is bad against Notre Dame and you've got to win 24/20, can you do that? Can you get a stop when you need a stop? Can you get off the field? And we'll see if Miami can do that. So where do I have Miami right now on my top 10? I think that's pretty easy. After last weekend, Miami is number one. I think you could have made an argument for Ohio State if they would have beaten USC. They did not. Miami is undefeated. They go up there at number one, even though their strength of schedule has not been great. I do love that offense. Speaking of of that offense and just kind of like the singular unit that I think is the best in college football. What are some of the other singular units aspects of teams that we, I think, are the best in college football. I'll mention a few Indiana's defense. I can rely on Indiana's defense. Every time I turn on the film, I know I'm going to get a defense that is physical, fundamentally sound. They're in position. They're going to tackle well. They're going to play with great effort and they're going to rally or pursue the football. I always say rally to the football. It could be pursue the football. They're going to play with great fundamentals, leverage the ball, make it difficult on the offense to drive the length of the field. Indiana's defense Georgia's defense. I can rely on Georgia's defense. Now, it might not be the Georgia defense from 21 and 22. Okay, but they're still very good. They fly around and all the things I just said about Indiana, you can say about Georgia, turn on the film earlier today watching Georgia play Florida and they got after the quarterback. Now those quarterbacks obviously helped them out a little bit with some of those turnovers. But again, what do you see leveraging the football in position, disguising coverage, changing up the fronts, being able to pressure, being able to stop the run, tackling all of it, all of it. I think those are the three best things in college football right now. If you're asking me Miami's offense, Indiana's defense, Georgia's defense. And speaking of the dogs, they got that big win. I don't know if you want to call it, it's a nice rivalry when 27 eight over Florida. So if you look at that game, and again, I went back and watch that game on film, I would I would go back to what we talked about on this show in the preseason. This is kind of what we thought Georgia would be a really tough out that might not have a ton of explosiveness on the offensive side. I know they're going to be good on the defense of side. I know that they're going to be able to run the football and beat tough and be disciplined. Like Kirby said, hey, the dogs didn't beat the dogs this week. They beat themselves against Auburn penalties turnovers. They go out and they don't do those things. They don't commit turnovers. They don't commit penalties. They're going to be very difficult to beat, even if they're not very explosive on the offensive side. Now, I know that they didn't have to be in. There was no reason to force the issue against Florida from an offensive perspective. And the same way that I credited Indiana for the way that they played against Michigan last week to win the game in front of them. I think there was a lot of that and what Georgia had in front of them against Florida. Because if I'm Kirby smart, and I'm standing on the sideline and I'm watching that Florida offense struggle to that degree, in particular, at the quarterback position, and more specifically turn in the football over. Guess what I'm going to do? I'm going to say, Hey, Mike bobo. Uh, uh, we, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, we aren't doing anything to put our defense in jeopardy. And they didn't, you know, that's one of the reasons why they only threw the football for what? 101 yards because they didn't need to. So they played the game in front of them. And that's to their credit. This is still an offense that if you look up statistically is one of the better scoring offenses in the country. That is a little bit skewed. If we're being honest because of those first couple of games against weaker competition, where they just blew people out and scored a ton of, ton of points. Can they be more explosive than what they were last weekend? I'm sure that they can't, they just didn't need to be. But I don't know if this is a team that I would trust to get into a shootout. Like, let's say they play Miami. All right. What a matchup that would be because the Miami Georgia game would go like this. If it's high scoring, I trust Miami. If it's low scoring, I trust Georgia. That's how I'd go. So which terms to the game get played on? That's it. That's it. I know I trust Miami's offense. I know I trust Georgia's defense. And that's how it would go in that game. So where do I have Georgia? They're number two guys. I tried in my head to make an argument for why they should be the number one team in the country. Couldn't do it. I couldn't do it because actually what's different about them than some of the other SEC teams in particular, a lot of these SEC teams that have two losses is their strength of schedule. Their strength of schedule is actually not anywhere near what like a Texas strength of schedule or an Alabama strength of schedule is. It's not even close to what Ohio State strength of schedule is. So I couldn't quite get up there because I was trying. I'm thinking I'm looking at this through the lens of the committee and I'm looking at Miami and I'm like, man, that strength of schedule is just no good. Aren't we going to reward, you know, good wins, quality schedules. And I tried in my head, but I just couldn't do it. I just couldn't do it. So Georgia's going to be at number two. The game I was at Iowa smashed Wisconsin 30 to nothing. Wisconsin coming off of that huge emotional win over USC. Huge win. Huge win. Iowa coming off of their uncharacteristic for turnover, getting a punt blocked day against Minnesota and they just bludgeoned Wisconsin to death. 30 to nothing. Very impressive. I told my crew and I told you guys, even in the preview last week, there was no way I was was going to Iowa was going to play the same way they played the previous week against Minnesota. It was not going to happen. That was so far away from their DNA. You knew they would get back to running the football, taking care of the football, playing great defense and playing special teams. Now here was what was different about their DNA. What happened to Hank Brown? Because all the I see I almost said it again. I might just, you know what, I might just say screw it. I might just say all the sudden. I'm so sick and tired of stopping now every time and being like, oh, it's all of a sudden. All the sudden. It might just my thing and I might even make a shirt. All the sudden, I can't suddenly and then all these people are like, just so suddenly, clat. You know what? This is why I never wanted to get into the comments and reply and all of a sudden my staff is like, no, get in there and mix it up. And then I realized this thing about the way that I speak and I now I hate it. Now I hate it. All of a sudden, Iowa decided to throw the football like they were the San Francisco 49ers with Joe Montana. That was wild. Hank Brown is throwing the ball to Tony Diaz. They're throwing drop back past their building on it. Tim Lester, their offensive coordinator doing a heck of a job. Vename their tight end doing a heck of it. If they played like that. Now again, again, again, I know I said this about USC. I know that we're not going to get the same performance weekend and week out. And Iowa is a great example of that. They played really poorly against Minnesota and lost in walkoff fashion on the road. Turn the ball over four times, not Iowa like. Then they come back and they play an Iowa game. It's like the blueprint of Iowa football. And yet all this suddenly they're throwing the football all over the lot. And now I look at that team and think to myself. myself. If they can do that, they can absolutely beat anybody on their schedule and they've only got two losses, which means Iowa has a legitimate chance at the college football playoff. They just do. They just do because they generally don't beat themselves. And I know we talk about this for a USC team and like, Hey, it's right in front of you for USC. You're only got three games left. But let's be honest about USC. If I were to ask you, what is the, is it above or below 50% chance that USC goes out on the road on the East Coast in a huge game, not East Coast, but Eastern time zone to Iowa, or excuse me, Indiana, you guys are all in my head right now. You go out to Indiana. Do we really expect USC to like put together the clean game? I think a lot of people would say, I don't know. They don't do that a lot. Okay. But for Iowa, I think that if we looked at the body of work, not only in the parents era, but even this season, you would say the anomaly is the Minnesota game. Now, yes, they got beat by Ohio State, but that was an Ohio state team that had Julian Sands. So what did they, what were they able to do? Maximize Jeremiah Smith, who went crazy in Kinnick and was the best player in college football. Well, other than that, they have one anomaly. I trust Iowa to play Iowa football. And if they play Iowa football, and they can throw it a little bit, Hank Brown to Vennami, Hank Brown to Tony Diaz. And they've got at Northwestern home to Purdue at Illinois, home to Nebraska. They can win those games. And they would be a ten and two. How many teams in college football are going to be able to say that they're ten and two. It's right in front of Iowa. This is why I love this playoff. I'm going to love the expansion. Sorry, sorry, everybody out there. I'm going to love expansion because the more teams that have real games in November excites me more fan bases that have hope excites me. This is exciting for Iowa Saturday was exciting for Iowa fans because it's real because it's real. If they're ten and two and they're a big 10 team, I know that they wouldn't have like extraordinary wins, but no one's keep them out of the playoff at ten and two. So it's real for Iowa. If they can throw the football like that, you know, watch out. I think that they would be able to beat just about anybody. In other news, Florida State decided to part ways with Mike Norville. So they're going to take on that $50 million buyout. Now it's got the tag of the third largest buyout in history behind, of course, Jimbo Fisher at A&M 77 million. Every time I see that is just wild Brian Kelly at LSU was 53. So Florida State eats the $50 million. It's a lot. It's a lot. In particular for a program that has the second most debt of any athletic department in the country, the program with the most debt is Penn State, but all of that debt, almost all of that debt is their construction project on Beaver Stadium. So that is infrastructure related. Whereas the Florida State debt, although yes, tied to a lot of the upgrades that they made to their stadium, it's still a ton of debt. And now they're just adding this $50 million to that. And as you guys know, this is going to be paid out in monthly installments until the end of the contractor is offset language. So it might not be the full 50 and it's not a check just written to him right away. By the way, none of these are. None of these are. By the even Jimbo Fisher, the 70 plus million dollars at Texas A&M, he got 25% of it up front. So I think he got like a $19 million check. And then he gets annual installments until 2031 with no offset language of just over $7 million. So these buyouts aren't always just a lump sum buyout. Like everyone says, like they're going to write a $50 million check. Not necessarily, they're going to basically write it into the budget until 31. And it's somewhere around $800 to $830,000 every month that Mike Norvel will get from Florida State until 2031 unless he takes another job, which he has to go try to gain meaningful employment. And then there's offset language. I know all that you guys don't care. Who should they call? I don't know, like Manny Diaz. I think he would have to take that call just because of the NIL budget at Duke. You're not going to get it a big boy from an SEC or big 10 school because the budget's just going to be different in the ACC based on the revenue share. I've heard rumblings that Jimbo is out there, you know, banging around saying, Hey, let's put the band back together. I think that would be fascinating. Yeah. So we'll see. I don't know who they're going to call, but they pulled the trigger. Let's go to the rest of the top 10 as I see it. Number 10 for me is going to be Alabama. Alabama was off this past week. Obviously, they got the huge matchup against LSU on the road Saturday. They're coming off that come back, went over A&M. Keelan Russell has gone through some growing pains here as a, as a true freshman or as a freshman quarterback, a first year quarterback. But, but Russell is a guy that I believe in in particular with his ability not only to throw the ball down the field, but also with his legs. As, as a first year guy, as a first year starter, I should say I didn't want to get into like classification like as a first year starter. He has shown me great ability in both areas. And now it's just about consistency. And in a big moment, obviously, in this LSU game is going to be a big moment. They were right there with Georgia three weeks ago. Ohio State was number nine. As you know, I've got Kentucky at eight. Will Steincrew's sitting on that one loss in the SEC. They control their destiny to get to the SEC championship game. Off this past week, they get a huge test against Tennessee. That's going to be a monster game at seven. And I know everyone's going to be upset about this. But you know what? I don't care. I got Texas seven. If you look at their strength of schedule, their wins. If I was in the committee room, I would have them up there. I would have them up there. They took care of Mississippi State 31 three. That team's just not the same without Camarillo Taylor. The defense was great. By the way, for Texas, obviously, they only gave up three point where she piles was terrific. He had three sacks, a strip sack that led to a scoop in score. You know, the offense was the offense was fine. That's a joke that like we have on our crew. If you say something is fine, it means it's bad. But it was fine. They had 280 total yards. Arch took five sacks in that game. They've got to get better net again. If it's not an arch centric offense, there are better offense. They've got to figure out how to run the football first. Like they were able to do it stretches against Ole Miss and they did have some guys get banged up. So I know I'm going to put them at seven here, but I'm actually a little bit worried about Texas. Last week, I had them in my playoff prediction. I had them inside of the playoff winning out. I don't know if they're going to be able to do that. Check this out. Cam Coleman left the game with the shoulder injury. Ryan Wingo. He picked up a shoulder injury as well. Hollywood smothers. He returns to the lineup. Then all of a sudden, I hate you all. And then he gets hurt again. Reportedly, he's going to miss the rest of the regular season. On defense, Kate Phillips could miss a few weeks. He's got a growing injury. Grayson Littleton. He's got a knee. Also could keep him out the rest of November. Not dimensions. Colin Simmons is still out. So I've got Texas at seven. I don't know if they're going to be able to hold on to that at six. I've got Utah. They ran all over Cincinnati 268 yards on the ground. Six per carry. They were up 42 six at half time. That's a week after Cincinnati beat Texas Tech. But what do we know about college football? Nobody wins a big game. An emotional game and comes back and plays well the next week. By the way, holy war this week. Boom. Love that. At number five, I've got UCLA. Nevada is not a great opponent. They shut them out 27. Nothing. Nobody has scored 17 points on this defense in September. They lead the country with 26 takeaways. They're playing great defense. They're second in the country with a plus 15 turnover margin. They had plus four against Nevada on Saturday. I know it wasn't a huge day for them offensively, but they lead the big 10 in rushing. Number four is Notre Dame. That's my last team that I'm going to reveal right there. Slow start against Navy. Trailed at half. Didn't love it. Classic look ahead. And I can't wait for that game either. Huge weekend of college football. By the way, we have you guys remember what I talked about to start the year in the offseason when I was talking about the best weeks of college football. And I said, Hey, if you have like a friend who invited you to a wedding on November 7th is always November 7th, whatever it is Saturday. Don't go just politely decline because like, do you really want to be friends with that person anyways? We have a guy on our crew. Literally on our crew. Young guy, one of his first gigs going to a wedding on Saturday. What are we doing? What are we doing? What's self-respecting college football fan is going to a wedding this Saturday? I mean, Notre Dame Miami alone would keep you at home. Holy war could keep you at home. Tennessee, Kentucky could keep you at home. Bama, LSU, I'm gonna be UCLA Minnesota, UCLA is going to a place where Minnesota like they take dreams to die. Michigan, they beat them there. Iowa, they beat them there. It's gonna be an incredible day of college football. Weddings? Let's take a look at my bubble teams here real quick before I get in trouble with anybody else. Like if you're, if you're listening to this and you're, you're getting married on Saturday, rethink everything, rethink everything. BYU is just outside of my top 10, kind of a disappointing performance against Arizona State. That Arizona State team, four and three, you beat them by seven at home. They got a break on the TD. The touchdown, if you didn't see it, the big 12 messes up again. Now we've had the BYU Notre Dame mishap where they should have reviewed the second left on the clock didn't. You had the whole kerfuffle of the BYU UCF game that they didn't know how to rule and made the wrong ruling on the clock. In particular, after the missed field goal, then you get the egregious roughing the kick call in that game. Now in the BYU game this week, all of them involved BYU, you get the scoop and score. You can't advance that. That's not advanceable. So I don't understand how they award that they were completely wrong. And can we please get nationalized officiating? This is crazy. So they're in my almost top 10 on the bubble. All misses on the bubble. They thumped Auburn by 30. Resume is good. They got wins over LSU and Missouri, but they also have losses to Florida and Texas. So a couple of losses there. LSU is on the bubble. I think there are a team that could make a push. If they play well, they could win the rest of their games. There's no doubt and they've got huge ammunition. Some of the biggest games in college football are going to involve LSU down the stretch. They're off this past week back to back blow out wins over Mississippi state and Auburn. They can easily play themselves into this thing guys easily, easily Bama, Texas and Tennessee all in the month of November. Wake Forest is on my bubble destroyed Virginia 51 seven. That's four straight wins by 24 points. Jake Dickert's team is top 10 country and scoring right now 39 per game. By the way, should Florida state called Jake, probably, probably they're sitting in second place right now alone control their own destiny to get to that ACC championship game. And then the last team on the bubble for me is USC because again, it's real. They've got three games left all in front of them a road game at Indiana and UCLA will basically tell the tale because we don't expect them, to beat or to lose to Maryland. Remember coming up on Wednesday, I've got all my reaction to what we see on Tuesday night. So we've got our first committee rankings on Tuesday night. I know everyone's going to be focused on like election stuff and blah, blah, blah, blah. Tune in on Wednesday. Let's take our mind off of all of that garbage and let's look at the college football playoff rankings because you know, I'll probably be more upset about that than anything else because that's kind of what I do. Now, I'm going to try not to and we're going to try to analyze them, but something's going to make me upset and I'm sure you're going to want to hear that and I'm sure my grammar will be incorrect and you know what I hate everybody. So that's the way that it goes. Thank you for listening to this program. Subscribe to the program, follow us on social media and I'll be back on Wednesday.