Jeremiah Smith: Best Buckeye ever? Are Michigan’s problems fixable? DeBoer’s Bama is here & Top 10

Not everything has to be about the playoff. I've kind of lamented the fact that we have shown the entire definition of success and meaning into those 12 spots in the College Football Playoff. Is Jeremiah the best buck I ever? Russell has all day to throw, and if he has all day, you're dead. Hey, welcome out of the program. This is Joel Clutch, I'm Joel Clutch. This show is sponsored by Hilton Hilton for this day. We had another great day at College Football. I was at one of the better days or games, I should say, of the entire day, Minnesota, and Michigan. I'll get to that, obviously. Lots to get into. My top 10, Jeremiah Smith, what he did, USC rallies, Bama. They're looking absolutely dominant. So a ton to get into here. On a big day of College Football, I've got to eat some crow along with everybody out there, by the way. I'm going to raise my hand first, but a lot of us took off on Missouri. They got a huge win. All of those thoughts coming up, but I'm going to start with the game that I was at. It was amazing, and it was emotional, and it was the quintessential College Football Day. It really was. I was there in Minnesota for their win over Michigan. They win the little brown jug for the first time at home. Since 1977, I got to tell you that was on everyone's mind, and they were talking about it the entire weekend. From the time I got to Minneapolis, until Saturday, when they actually ran over to the end zone and grabbed the little brown jug, they were talking about, hey, we haven't wanted here since 1977. Hey, we haven't done this in 18 straight attempts. They wanted to break that streak, and they were able to do so. I'm going to start with Minnesota, because that was a great scene, and I just wanted to remind everybody that, like, this is still College Football. And let me tell you why that was so awesome, is there was so much buzz around the program. I go to practice on Friday, obviously, meet with PGA and the coordinators and go to practice, and there was just something in the air. I go to a lot of practices. I get to meet with coaches and players all the time, but I can always tell when there's something special going on in a program within the locker room when I sit down, and they're all saying the same things. It's like they're operating with one heartbeat, and I loved it. I could just feel it, even on Friday, and we had our meeting on Friday night, and I told our whole room, I was like, you know what, this is going to be a closer game than people realize in Minnesota's, I tell you, they're primed for something special, and certainly they went out and proved that. PGA Fleck is the right guy at the right place. You know, listen, I hear a lot of the comments out there, and I know that he's not everybody's speed, and I don't listen, I understand that, but PGA is a really good football coach, and his unique nature and his unique energy is perfect for Minnesota. They need that, right? It's not a program that's going to have all the resources that other programs around the country are going to have, so he's got to infuse energies, almost like a restaurant owner. You know, restaurant owners, if you talk to any of those people, in particular, if it's like a one-off, like a family-style restaurant, they've got to breathe life into those restaurants on a daily basis. Well, at Minnesota, to some degree, you've got to be the energy to the program all the time. It's not just going to circulate without you, and PGA is that, so he's unique, yes, and yet he is the right guy at the right time and the right place for a place like Minnesota, and it's coming together for them this year. There's no doubt. It felt a lot like old school college football, and that's something that I appreciated a lot. Listen, I didn't play on the most talented teams, and so we had to focus on having one heartbeat. And what does that mean, Joel? I know that sounds like super lame. It means that you have a greater purpose and a greater mission other than yourself. That's all it means. And so you're all pulling in the same direction, okay? And that's what Minnesota felt like on Friday during the meetings, talking with the guys like Drake Lindsay or Anthony Smith. You know, these guys have not transferred, and I'm not here, you're saying like, oh, they've done it the old school way. No, no, no, they pay, guys, and you know, some of them are being paid very well through the revenue share. They have transfers. I'm not saying that it's just old school football, but the core of their team, guys like Greg Johnson, their offensive lineman, their center who played so well, Drake Lindsay, their quarterback, Darius Taylor, their tail back, Anthony Smith, their defensive in, Maverick Baranowski, Zach Harden, the safety, you had a couple of big plays including Interception, like the core of their team is Minnesota guys. And now you bring the transfers in and they're all pulling towards that same common purpose and mission and it's greater than themselves. And it was something that was at least for me refreshing because again, it felt a lot like old school football in that regard. And I got to tell you one of the things that I just want to remind everybody, not everything has to be about the playoff. Not everything has to be about ranked wins and this and that. I totally get that that we watch the sport through that lens. I understand that. And at times, you know on this program that I've kind of lamented the fact that we have shoved the entire definition of success and meaning into those 12 spots in the college football playoff. You know, outside of those 12 spots, we don't really deem you successful anymore. And yet, and yet Saturday was awesome. Do I think Minnesota is going to go to the college football playoff? Probably not. Okay. I'll just I'll just say that. Now, they're in a position right now that's a great position within the big 10 and they're four and one. Yeah, they got that bad loss to Mississippi state who got after them in their home stadium. So does it have to be about the playoff? No, it doesn't. It doesn't always have to be up about the resume. And all you have to do is listen to PJ Fleck after the game, watch him react after the game to know how special a moment that was to win the little brown jug at home for the first time since 1977. Here he was talking with Jenny Taft. That was insane, right? And by the way, I believe in him. I don't think that was stick. You know, like that was that was incredibly cool. And you know how hard they had to work. They were not the most talented team on the field on Saturday. And they went out there and earned a hot hard fought victory. And they did so, by the way, through outcoaching their opponent. And PJ and his coordinators, his coordinators were outstanding. Here's, by the way, him taking the little brown jug you're watching on YouTube. If you're not, please go subscribe, watch on YouTube. So he chugged some water out a little brown jug and then he crowdserves into his locker room. They do that after every win. Very cool, right? Again, quintessential college football. Like I said, it doesn't always have to be about the playoff. It doesn't always have to be about ranked wins. And he and his coaching staff did an incredible job real quick on the game from the Minnesota perspective. Greg Harbo, the offensive coordinator, Danny Collins, the defensive coordinator. They were outstanding, in particular after half time, the adjustments that they made in the way that they attacked Michigan. Now, was it a dominant win? No, of course not, but they had to find their pockets of success. And they had to find ways in order to one move the football to get some stops. And here's what they did on offense. They started to come out and get really direct and downhill on first down to try to win first down and stay out of obvious passing situations. Michigan was getting after them early in the game. They caused a couple turnovers. One of them was a pick six. Drake Lindsey was not comfortable in the pocket. So what they did, they didn't sit there like, how do we protect our quarterback? You know, how do we throw the football more efficiently? No, no, no, they said, how do we stay out of that situation? And they did that by finding formations and run schemes where they could run it just a bit more effectively on first down. Stay on schedule and then move the chains after that. Then when they did throw the football, it wasn't on long yardage situations. So what were they able to do? This is what I love as a former quarterback. They were able to get everybody out quickly. Drake Lindsey is a very fast processor of information. So he understands what he's looking at. As a quarterback, if you can process fast and you know what you're looking at, you would always rather more routes out quickly than guys in trying to protect you with only two or three routes out. You don't want max protection if you're a guy that can process fast. You want all five out by me by I hope you understand. So 11 guys out there, you're the quarterback. You got five offensive linemen. You got five potential wide receivers, free releases, check releases, all these different things. I want them all now so that I can protect myself. So that's what they did. They started doing what's called scat protection. That means that the back is not responsible for anybody in protection and all your blocking are five guys. So the five offensive linemen, you direct them, you know which five guys you're blocking in the defense of front and then you handle the rest as a quarterback and it allows you to get the ball out of your hand very quickly and they were able to do that. They got a couple of hot routes to TJ Thomas. So that was a great adjustment on offense and then on defense, they got upfield and they attacked that slow horizontal offense for Michigan and that created all sorts of problems. They got an interception on the RPO. Bryce Underwood was not comfortable. They could not run the ball horizontally and that attacking style did wonders for them. Then what they did is they realized that everything was going to be a half field read for Bryce Underwood. They were never going to be threatened really down the middle of the field, even the seams of the field. If they were throwing the ball down the down the field, it was going to be on the outside. So their safeties came way down into the box and you can't account for those in the run game. I thought that was a great great adjustment. So Danny Collins, Greg Harbour, well done. Now, let's go. let's move on to the Michigan side of things. Okay, there's obviously there's gonna be a lot to talk about about Michigan, but let me get through this fairly quickly. When things are bad and when problems arise in any program, okay? And by the way, I think that you could extrapolate this out to any group. It could be in business, it could be anything. But specifically in football, let me tell you what the good coaches do. And you'll see these types of signs and coaches offices quite often if you're ever in them. It'll say scheme, players, coaches. And what does that mean? It means that when things go wrong, that's how you evaluate it. Is it our scheme? Is it our players or is it our coaches? So Michigan's gonna have to evaluate that. And let's just do that right here from our point of view. I have watched the entire film and I obviously called the game and let me tell you right now, on the defensive side of the ball from Michigan, I do not see any problems. The defense is fine. In fact, even though they were on the field basically, the entire time from the 1035 mark of the second quarter until about what, five, four minutes left to go in the third quarter, they were on the field the entire time. It was like at one point, it was like 32 snaps to three. And guess what, Michigan still had the lead. It was 1413. Michigan's defense had scored a touchdown. They had created interceptions. They had done their job. They had created short fields that their offense was unable to capitalize on. They've got the right scheme. They've got the right players to execute that scheme. And obviously, Jay Hill knows what he's doing. He's been running that defense for a long time. So I do not see any problems on the Michigan defense. Now we get to the offense. And on the offensive side, I see massive problems. All right, let me just start with. I believe that there is a fit problem between the scheme and the players. And because there is a fit problem between the scheme and the players, that becomes a coaches problem. So the problem now for Michigan lies in all three categories. Because it's both scheme and players, it becomes a coaches problem. And the only way forward is to adjust either the scheme or the players. That's my estimation. Now, you could be saying, if you were on the Michigan point of view, Joel, it was fine against Iowa will play better moving forward. And you know what, that's fine. Now, Iowa ran a very different style of defense than Minnesota ran. Minnesota ran a very similar defense, not completely in structure, but in style and philosophy, like Texas Tech did the Utah a year ago. Upfield with the edges attacking the quarterback. Utah could not handle that. They lost that game at home to the Texas Tech Red Raiders. And now, Minnesota used that defense, very similar to even Western Michigan ran. That slow horizontal offense doesn't deal with that very well. Plus, you've got this fit issue that I was talking about. You've got a scheme that goes back to the Utah where it was very successful. And yet, the Michigan players don't really fit that scheme. You see, Utah's offensive linemen were athletic. And they played a lot of teams that they could overwhelm at the line of scrimmage. But now, it's very different. You don't have that. At Utah, they had quarterbacks that had the explosiveness to be the explosive rushers of the offense. If you go back and you look at all the 20 yard runs that Utah had a year ago, a lot of them, the overwhelming majority of them were from the quarterback. And Bryce, as talented as he is, is not an explosive runner. Okay, so now you've got these Michigan players, and this is a program that was built differently than what this offense is trying to do. They were more direct, they were more downhill from the offensive line and the backfield. And now they're trying to run this different style of offense that is a lot more horizontal, stretch the defense, and then cut. So it's a lot of cutting, it's a lot of stretching horizontally. And quite frankly, it's not really working. Then you get to the more of the quarterback issues and listen, when Bryce drops back, and he's got to be a drop-back passer, there are times when he predetermines when he, where he wants to throw the football. I think that the interception that you're seeing on YouTube right there is a great example of that. He had Marsh wide open. If he just reads it out, he's, the read is the corner. You've got a wheel right behind the go route. And so all you're trying to read is, is the corner goes with the go, then you've got the wheel. If he sits on the wheel, then you've got the go route. And he throws it on a sitting corner. Like you can't really do that. He locks in on those wide receivers. And so they're drop-back passing game. It's a lot of half field reads. He predetermines where he wants to throw the football, and that has to get better. When they're at their best, he's rolling out reading progressions versus zone movement keys. I know this is a lot of technical speak, but the basic issue is that there's a fit problem with Michigan. I don't think that they've got the players to execute this scheme on a weekend and a week-out basis. And it has to adjust. I believe that they need to get more direct and downhill at times in the run game. And you see it at times. There are moments during the game when you're like, okay, like there's some downhill runs, and you're getting four and five. And then all of a sudden, it goes horizontal. And what, at least I have been used to with Michigan. And I know it's a different coaching staff. And so I understand that there's got to be at least some type of marriage here. But what I'm used to is that Michigan was very comfortable in the threes and fours and fives being direct and going at that time after time after time. Rather than you get one, now you try to go horizontal and you try to stretch out the defense. They've had trouble with the mesh in the backfield. So right now, there's going to have to take a hard look at what's going on. And I do think that there's going to have to be some adjustments. So again, scheme players, coaches, and right now, without a fit between the scheme and the players, at least in my estimation, it becomes an issue for the coaches. And at some point, you're going to have to adjust. Everyone's going to have to adjust. It was sloppy. And it certainly got to get better if they want to improve. Let's move on to the game at Iowa, Ohio State at Iowa. And really, the story there was Jeremiah Smith. My goodness, I mean, they went 31, 14. And a lot of people thought like, ah, that could be a tough place to go play. And yeah, historically it has been. Now, if you listen to our picks and previews, I told you that that was a tough matchup actually from the Iowa perspective, because their style of defense, the one antidote to playing an Iowa style of defense is a guy like Jeremiah Smith, who can kind of threaten you from the wide receiver position. And that's exactly what he did. Goes for over 200 again. He's the best player in the country. I don't think that there's really any question about that right now. It is, I think, a fairly wide gap. I know Malachi Tony is outstanding. There's no doubt. And I watched every play that Miami game as well. He's outstanding. But Jeremiah is just totally different, totally different. 'Cause it literally doesn't matter what the defense tries to do he can still succeed. It's as big of a gap as I've seen in a long time in college football between a player and his opponent. And one of the other things that I think is working so well this year, you know, I've had people ask me like, well, why don't they just double cover him? Well, one, he can beat that. And two, I think this year is a little bit different. If I'm watching their film and I do, I watch every snap of their film, actually. This year is different because they have an NFL offensive coordinator and Arthur Smith. And Arthur Smith is, he is so much more accustomed to playing a match-up game rather than a system game. You see almost every college out there, both defensively and offensively run a system. Because it's really difficult to find a player that you can just say like we can scheme him open. And by the way, trying to scheme a guy open takes a lot of time. You gotta know what you're doing. You've gotta have time. He's gotta be smart. Your quarterback has to be smart. There's a lot of moving parts in that because that player has to move around. There's not as much meeting time in college football as there is in the NFL. So it's difficult. But Arthur Smith, he understands how to create targets for Jeremiah, a lot more so than other guys out there that are just like, we have this great player in the system. And we're gonna try to make sure we're calling concepts where he's involved. And we hope the ball goes to him. But with Smith and Arthur Smith and Jeremiah Smith, they can find opportunities where it's like, yep, we've got it. Boom, we can target him short. We can target him intermediate. We can target him down the field. It's very NFL style. He's not beholden to that system. So they can find opportunities to attack with him. He's playing chess, Arthur Smith is. And at times, the college game can be a bit checkers. It can be system, it can be volume, it can be tempo. And you're just out there and you kind of running plays and running plays. And here's a guy that's like, I understand how to move this piece around. Almost like he's a queen on the chess board. He can move everywhere. And I can get him based on motions and movements. And I can get him opportunities. If you want a little bit of a deeper dive last week, I did some film study on this. If you haven't watched it, go back and check it out. It's on all of our social medias. You can find it at Joel Class Show on social media. but I did a little bit of a film break down on a couple of snaps for Jeremiah Smith on how they can get him open scheme him to get a match up scheme him to get space. That's all last week. Now he owns all three career receiving records. He's the first with back to back 200 yard receiving games in Ohio State history. The last seven games going back to the Indiana game in the big 10 championship. He's got 59 catches for 11 hundred and 24 yards and 10 touchdowns. That's an average average his last seven football games. And by the way, that was like big 10 championship playoff game Texas earlier eight for 160 and a touchdown. That's his average four of those seven games were against top 15 teams. That's remarkable. It's remarkable. And I think we're in this territory. Let me just talk first of all about like awards this year. Jeremiah is the best player in college football and it's not very close. He absolutely should be the bulletnikoff award winner. I don't care if some receiver somewhere goes for 2500 yards. Jeremiah Smith is the most outstanding wide receiver in the country. He should win the Heisman trophy. But as we know, it doesn't always just go to the best player sometimes goes to like, oh, he's the quarterback of the number one team in the country. He should be the Heisman trophy winner. He should be the number one draft pick. Who knows if he will be based on need and who's picking up there and whether they need a quarterback or not. I think what's also fascinating to me though is is thinking about this program. There has not been a more consistent college football program in the country than Ohio State. And they've had some great players, some like Mount Rushmore players. And now you start to like wonder yourself. And I've seen this question posed out there on social media and the like, is Jeremiah the best buck I ever? Is he starting to get into that territory and you know what I think he might be entering the chat. He might be entering the chat. Here's where I would sit with that. I think he has surpassed a lot of the buck eyes that had singular great seasons. Zeke led him to a championship chase young had the 16 and a half sacks. There've been some consensus all Americans that have had remarkable years, right. Remarkable years Chris Carter had a couple of great years. Eddie George had an incredible year 24 touchdowns. And I think if you look at his entire body of work, he is wide receiver one at wide receiver you. And all of them would say it every one of these guys from Chris Carter to to Chris Olave to Garrett Wilson to Jackson Smith and Jigba the Marvin. All of them all of them would be like, yeah, he's the best one. He's the best one. A mecca of Buka stayed in school an extra year just to play with him. Set it to my face. Right. So now you're starting to get into this territory of like, okay, I can think of two buck eyes where it's like, is Jeremiah in the conversation with Archie Griffin and Orlando pace? I know that sounds crazy. But is he starting to get there? And here's the deal. I can't give him the nod over those two guys and specifically Orlando pace, but here's what I can do. I can tell you right now if this guy wins the bulletnik off and wins the trophy. He's already got a national championship under his belt. I believe that then it becomes a question of, is Jeremiah Smith or Orlando pace the greatest Buckeye in history? Orlando pace finished fourth in the Heisman trophy voting is an offensive lineman and won the Lombardi twice like Orlando paces. These two guys, I believe if you're just talking about singular talents and dominant players at their position in this sport, I think it's Jeremiah Smith and Orlando pace as the greatest Buckeyes ever. That's what's that's wild. I'm telling you man. For Ohio State in general, I thought it was encouraging for them. First team to score 30 at Kinex since 2016. That's something they finished the game with the ball for the last nine and a half minutes of the game. That's encouraging for that offensive line. They totally shut down. I was run game. That's encouraging for their defense, which gave up a lot of rushing yards to Illinois. That was a question going into this game. Jacobi and Bo Jackson combined for 30 carries 142 yards for over four and a half yards per carry and staying through for over 300 yards again. He was using his legs a little bit. I'm like, okay. Well, you're answering a lot of questions right there for Ohio State. So let's, let's reveal Ohio State. Obviously Minnesota Michigan, not my top 10 Ohio State is going to be in my top 10. They did not move. I can't put them over Texas because they did not beat Texas. So Ohio State is number three Ohio State is still number three. In my poll right there more of my top 10 here as we get later in the program. Now I want to move out to LA USC rallies to beat Washington in a wild and sloppy and somewhat ugly game at times. They win this one 2521 mistakes are the constant with this team. They really are. And I said last week before this game, because of the outcry after the game against Oregon. Like it was nasty around here. I live in Southern California, as you know, and it was nasty. People people want Lincoln Riley fired, which I got to be honest like hang on for a second. I'll get to that in a moment. I thought that they would be either at their best or at their worst. And I was wrong. It was somewhere in between because you got some really good things from USC and then some just ridiculously sloppy things that touched down. They gave up down the right sideline. No one's tackling. And I'm like, what was that? The penalties again. They should be going up 17 to seven. They get any legal formation because their tackle is not lined up on the line of scrimmage because their left tackle gives away pass run as much as anybody in college football. He's straight up and down way in the backfield. And it's like, this is obviously pass. He gets a flag and that touchdown gets taken off the board. And guess what? One more penalty for a face mask on Luke, Luke Waifel on the ensuing drive and all of a sudden it's 14 10 Washington. It should have been 17 seven USC. So sloppiness and penalties continue to plague this team. And yet, they're still good enough to win. And I will say this, their defense is better than people give them credit for. Just go look, if you're looking at the way defenses have played and just conference games this year, they are way ahead as a scoring defense of a lot of like SEC teams, you know, the Florida's in the old misses of the world. And I know that those teams aren't playing great defense, but they don't get the scrutiny that this USC defense gets because the history of Lincoln Riley, which is understandable. But they got the stop when they needed to on fourth down against them on Williams and and demon Washington played what I felt like was a valiant game. A lot of it was his scrambling and USC didn't do a great job against his scrambling, but they got to win and they desperately needed it. Now they've got a couple of games ahead of them that they've got to go out east. They're going to go to Penn State. They're going to go to Wisconsin. And these are massive games because they typically do not play well when they go east. And that's going to be big for them before they play Ohio State. If they can take care of business, they're better than Penn State and Wisconsin. We know that they're better than Penn State. I think that they're better than Wisconsin, even though Wisconsin is playing a lot better more on them on Wednesday. But like if they win the those two games, then they're exactly where we thought they would be entering into the Ohio State game when they welcome the bus guys into the Coliseum, which is what would they be seven and one at that one. Whether it be seven or one, I think they would be seven and one. Am I doing math correct? I don't even know if I'm doing math correctly. That's where they're at. They've got to fix the penalties. And then you get to this idea of like the crowd chanting fire Lincoln. I'm sure you heard it. I could hear it as watching the game on Saturday night. I think that would be a rash decision. I talked about this on big noon kickoff on Saturday. Let me tell you what the reality of a decision like that is for a place like USC. Okay. And this is not me defending him or saying that everything is fine or anything like that. Let me just give you the actual nuts and bolts of what that would mean. If they fired Lincoln Riley, it would be a $70 million buyout plus his assistance. Let's just call that round number seventy four seventy five million dollars to buy him out. That's just for him not to coach at your school. Okay. Then you've got to buy out your next coach from his current contract. Most really good coaches. I think you know of the one that coached on the west coast and did a really good job at like let's say Washington and played for a national championship. And now he's doing a nice job at his school down in the Southeast conference. Most quality coaches have a very large buyout somewhere between eight to fifteen million dollars in order to leave which they're not paying that. That next school is paying that. So let's just say ten round numbers. Now we're up to eighty five million dollars. This is just to get your coach. Now you've got to get another coaching staff and you've got to commit resources to the next coaching staff. Let's call that now another four to five million. And that's I think I think that is a conservative number. So we're up to ninety now. All right. Now you've got to rebuild the roster. Guys, have you not seen what people are having to spend right now? Let's just go anything above what the revenue share is. So let's take the twenty one and a half million dollars out of it and just say how far above twenty one and a half million dollars. Would you really have to go to put a competitive roster on the field right away? Well, let's just look at LSU. What did they have to do? Well, they spent about forty four to forty eight million dollars. Okay, so that's what? 28 million dollars. Let's call it 30 million dollars over the revenue share. So we've gone from 90 to 120 million dollars. That's just the dollars. Now you look at the roster. You don't think that every coach that is worth their salt wouldn't park their GM in Los Angeles. And I know that USC has done a nice job trying to lock up their young players with multi-year contracts and so on and so forth. Like I understand that. Dan Lanning, Ryan Day, Lane Kiffin, Steve Sarkeesian, Kirby Smart. I already said Dan Lanning, Kaelin DeBoer, all these guys. Their GMs would be there because USC has the best freshman class in the country. They just have the number one class in the country. Luke Waifull is one of the best defense events I've seen as a freshman a long time. Trent Mosley, you know how I feel about him, even though he's banged up. Kaden Dixon, why it is terrific, Bowman the Tide and Terrific. There's other players on that roster as well. And they're young players. So I just don't think it makes sense. In particular, when I've seen some growth, they weren't as close to Oregon last year as they were this year. Now let's see them go out east. Now if it falls apart, we can have the discussion at that time. But they've got these two huge games coming up. This is where I think the rubber meets the road. At Penn State, which will be a wide out, that's going to be an incredibly difficult place to play in particular with their sloppiness and operation on the offensive side. And then they've got the off week. And then they go to Wisconsin before Ohio State is at home. So that's just some thoughts on USC. Let me talk about Bama really quickly because I'm going to tell you this right now. I wanted to get to this Bama team. So I flipped through their film as well. And guys, it's really good. Bama is excellent, excellent. I thought they would be a defensive lead team because I didn't know how quickly this young quarterback was going to come in and be able to really operate. And guess what, he is operating. Q and Russell is outstanding. He's outstanding. I'm already all in on Russell. This guy is one of the better quarterbacks in the country. He throws with leverage. He throws with touch. He can layer the ball. He can drive the football. He throws into tight windows. He's fearless. He's explosive. He can run. He manipulates the pocket. And guess what, they give him a lot of time. And they've got all these deep routes going and it looks so much, so much like that Washington team with Michael Pinnix, with Roma Dune Zay out there. And they could throw the ball against anybody. And that's exactly what Alabama looks like. Exactly. Except Michael Pinnix couldn't run like this. No, no, no, maybe early in his career, but not after the knee injuries. Now you've got Russell and he's making people miss and still throwing the ball down the field. They've got speed on the outside. That is dynamic, man. I'm telling you, man, this looks exactly when Kaelin DeBoer went to Alabama and you had this inkling in your head. And I can remember, I even told you guys before the hire. I was like, Kaelin DeBoer is going to be the next coach at Alabama. And in your back of your head, it's like, what could Kaelin do with like Bama athletes down there? 'Cause we saw what he did at Fresno and we saw what he did. Really his whole career, but specifically at Washington. And this is it, and this is it. Now I actually think their defense needs to play a little bit better. The offensive line, which was a worry for me, is okay in the run game, great in protection. Russell has all day to throw. And if he has all day, you're dead. You are dead. That's why the only team that was able to beat that Washington team was Michigan who could get after the quarterback. That's the only reason that they were able to win that game is because Penix was under duress. Somebody's gonna have to put Russell under duress. Is it gonna be Georgia? Is it gonna be Texas if they match up at some point with Colin Simmons? Is it gonna be, you know, who is that team? Is it Miami? Is it Ohio State? You know, what team is gonna be able to put Russell under duress? 'Cause right now, if you don't do that, you will lose. You will lose. It's from some movie, I can't think of it what it is. Bama's the first team to start the season with five straight games of 45 points or more since the 19 Oklahoma team. That was Jaylin Hertz with Lincoln Riley. Russell's the first quarterback in the country to do that in his first five starts since Tua. That was 2018. I'm kind of all in on Bama. Like, I kind of love it, guys. I really do. Bama's excellent, where are they at in my top five? They've gone all the way up to number five. After that dissertation, you might have been like, is you gonna put them number one? I put them in number five. And candidly, my top five teams interchangeable. Totally interchangeable. Maybe even I could say that with the top six. I think my top six teams are probably interchangeable at this point. Bama is right up there. They are excellent. A team that I did have in my top 10 last week because I loved what they did the week previous and then they rolled out and got crushed, was Florida. Let me start with this. I hope you guys know and appreciate that I will be the first one to say I was wrong. Let me give you an example. Way back when right before Sabin, like one three more national championships, I went on Colin Coward and I was like, I think, you know, Alabama's got a Nick Sabin problem because he hadn't adjusted yet to the new school offense. Lane Kiffin hadn't come in. He hadn't moved towards the Jalen Hurts of the World and the two as of the world. And they were still trying to run this old school offense and yet beat to Sean Watson 45-42. And I went on Colin Coward and said that. And now it's like, that was the dumbest thing I've ever said. And guess what? There will be more because I do this for a living. And I want you to know that I'm going to give you exactly what I think at every moment about these teams, about the year. And I'm going to be wrong sometimes. And last week, I was wrong. There was a lot of us, but man, I'm holding my hand up. I lamented Missouri as a team that doesn't beat anybody and Eli Drinkowitz doesn't beat anybody and yet they're getting the benefit of the doubt because they're in the SEC and I cried myself a river over it and guess what? Good on you, M.I.Z. Good on you. That was a performance. Awesome. I love it. Power of a common cause from Missouri. Everybody is throwing dirt on them and they just, they just, they didn't say anything back. They just went to work. And I'm like, yes. The old school part of me loves that. Loves that. My dad was a Marine. Like, I love that, man. I love that. Good on you, Missouri. That was awesome. They got all that bulletin board material. They went out and they shut Jaden Bob down. They're offense ran the football. They were explosive. They played in a great environment. I've played it for Ofield. That's a great spot. We got beat there. I threw a late interception. Should have been a PI. But I threw a late interception. Like, that's a great place. That's a great college football environment. They used that to their benefit and went out there and just drums Florida, man. That was, I just give it up to you. Eli, that was a terrific job. And again, I'll be the first one. I was so wrong about that team and good on them. Florida, that's just way too inconsistent. You've got to get stops and they can't do that. The defense is allowing 37 points per game in SEC play. This is one of those defenses I was talking about. Like, if you actually look at the statistics, versus just conference opponents, like USC's defense is much better than Florida's defense. And now we sit here and it's like, OK, now we're starting to get a little bit of a theme. This year in college football, we have seen four teams. Four, try to win back to back games after winning over a ranked team and then being in a ranked matchup again the next week. OK, it's happened four times. And guess what's happened in all four blowouts blowouts. Ole Miss beat LSU rolled out to Florida lost by 24. Florida beat Ole Miss rolled out to Missouri lost by 28. Iowa beat Michigan in Ann Arbor. Rolls back home gets beat by 17 to Ohio State. Mississippi State beats Missouri. They come out get beat at home by 23 against Alabama. It's just hard to do. Consistency is hard. And I've said this before, but you treat winners like losers and losers like winners as a coach. And you do that because when a team wins, they are so full of themselves. And the reality is that nothing's as good as they think it is. They went out there and won and they're like, man, we are so good. And guess what? There are problems on that film. There are problems. And so you've got to treat winners like losers to fight complacency and get urgency during the course of the week. It is so difficult to drive and grind on a team that comes off of an emotional high and plays so well. This is what was so great about Minnesota winning on the road at Washington in an emotional win. They're wipe them blood on their face and to come back and play that well. Credit to PJ Fleck. He got urgency, a common cause, a common purpose. And they go out there and they worked really hard and got to win the next week. But this is really tough. And you know what? So I'm a nerd. I like flip through the socials. And we have some really cool stuff here at Fox. [BLANK_AUDIO] including Tom Brady's like one of my favorite athletes of all time. So it's been so awesome to actually work, you know, not necessarily alongside him, but in the same building and getting to meet him and pick his brain about things and talk about broadcasting, talk about football, we sat down with him and had a big noon conversation last year. And he does this awesome thing for us called Ask Tom on the Fox Sports YouTube page and social platforms. And he gave this great answer about kind of this exact thing that I was talking about and I was watching it and I was like, you know what, I want to play that on my show because it relates to college football. Here's Tom talking about complacency in and around that type of topic. - I think, and what I noticed so much in the NFL is there's so many people that are telling everybody how great they are all the time. I don't think a lot of young people are understanding that the best way to learn is getting outside their comfort zone and learning from coaches that are really pushing them. Coaches should be the one that's telling you the truth every day and I was very fortunate. I had the greatest coach in the history of the NFL. He never let me forget when I would throw an reception. He didn't glaze over it, he didn't move on. He let me know about it, create awareness around it and they let me sit in the pain of letting the team down for a day or two before he moved on. I think it was great learning from me. Even though it was painful, it helped me grow up, it helped me toughen up and it helped me gain the respect of my teammates and coaches. When they saw that and then I was able to move on and put it behind me. Man, like he's the greatest of all time. He's the greatest to ever do it and he's talking about how his coach grinded on him to make him better. I'm sure that didn't feel good, I'm sure. I've been in those shoes, right? Your coach starts getting on you for stuff and you're like, what about all the good stuff that I did? Human nature is to arc towards, behave towards, tend yourself towards being comfortable and being comfortable is the exact spot where you get beat. And so I was struck by that because I also think that what he didn't get into there is his part in that is being a player that enjoyed that, wanted that, responded to that. And in college, I think that's where we miss out because in college you recruit guys, you tell them how great they are, you give them all this money. And then there needs to be a period of de-recruiting because it's so easy, it's so easy to just think that you're great in college football and no one ever gets on you. Well now you have unlimited transfers. And so in college football, it is so difficult to really coach guys hard because they can leave. And this is why I'm a big proponent of limiting transfers to like one during your career or something, but because I think that there is something beautiful in those uncomfortable moments and teachable moments when you can really get on a guy and get him out of his comfort zone. And the coaches that can do that are really the only ones that find consistency. And this is why consistency is so difficult to find in college is because the structure of the sport lends itself towards being comfortable and coaches not leaning on players. And then there's a couple of these programs in here where it's like, well, how do these programs do it? Well, let me try to like dig a little bit deeper than taking off of that. By the way, check out Ask Tom with Tom Brady each week on Fox Sports, the YouTube page, all the social platforms, some questions, it's really cool. So just a plug there for that. But there are some programs that can get consistent results like for say Indiana, they've won 21 straight games. Ohio State is incredibly consistent. Georgia, incredibly consistent. Bama has been consistent, was incredibly consistent under Nick Saban. So what do these have in common? And then I was like, you know what? When you're looking at the recruiting rankings and you're seeing all of these programs and they're getting like elite classes. And you're like, man, they must be doing an incredible job in recruiting. You know, they either have a large budget or like, because it doesn't make that much sense. It's like, well, why would they be getting all of those? Because they're not the best programs. You see, the best programs actually have leverage over some of these top recruits. And because of that, Ohio State can say, listen, we're going to be Ohio State with or without you. Georgia can say, we will be Georgia with or without you. We'd rather be Georgia with you, but we will be Georgia without you. Kurt Signetti could probably say that about Indiana right now. Like, hey, we'd love to have you. We think you can help, but we're going to be fine without you. And so the type of kid that you get at those programs are the ones that do want to work hard and do want to be coached hard, right? Like Jeremiah Smith, I know this for a fact is the hardest worker on the team. His standard is above everybody else's. And what's difficult is is some of these programs who don't have that, who are like begging the kids, like, listen, we're not going to be our best unless you are here with us. And so then those players go there and they know they have leverage over the program. So it's like, how do you lean on those players? I think the most consistent programs are the ones that have leverage over their players that those players know, listen, if I don't work hard, my backup is just as good as me. And this program is going to be the same without me. And then, so you've got to just like pour your whole self out. You've got to take all the criticism. You've got to do all of those things. That might be taking it way too far. But holding players accountable into an uncomfortable standard is a very difficult thing to do. It's the only way that you can produce urgency as a coach and some programs can do it and some can't. Squeezing the most out of a roster is super uncomfortable. It's very uncomfortable. Guys like Kirby Smart and Nick Saban and Al Ryan Day and Kurt Signetti, they're the ones that do it. They're the ones that do it. Indiana has won 21 games in a row. Meanwhile, you know, we can't get a team to win back-to-back games against ranked opponents. So I just think that that was fascinating. And I really, I loved that comment from Tom. Let's get into the top 10 as I see it right now. All right, here we go. At 10, making an appearance right here. And listen, you're going to be mad even though I included you. But here you are in the top 10 because I know that you're a good program. I didn't think you played your best against TCU, but here's BYU, they're going to go in at number 10. So BYU is in at number 10. They had to grind out that 17 to 10 win. L.J. Martin did go down in that game. I am not thrilled about that. Hopefully it isn't serious. Isaiah Glasker, he also had to leave the game. Bachmeier just found a way. He's kind of a gritty. Almost Max Duggan from TCU. He's kind of a Max Duggan. Kalani Sataki, he just wins. He just wins, and that's another one of those programs very consistent. 26 and 4 over the last three seasons. So BYU is at 10. At 9, I've got Utah. They were off this past week. But all they've done is taking care of business. Who do the thought that I'd be sitting here with Utah on my top 10 and Michigan not even close right now? Man, I'm already circling that holy war, by the way. The Utah BYU game is going to be fire. That's November 7th. Winner of that one, I think, is definitely in Dallas for the big 12 championship game. And I think the winner of that one likely wins the big 12 championship game. So the winner of that game, I really like in the college football playoff. At number eight, I'm going Oregon. They were off this week after that big win over USC. You guys know how I still feel about Oregon. They can walk on any field in America. And they can tell themselves if they play their best, they can win. So the top eight teams are just different than everybody else right now in the country. And Oregon is number eight. At seven, I've got Notre Dame. And listen, maybe I can even say like the top seven or maybe interchangeable. I think Notre Dame could be the best team in the country. They've just been a little bit inconsistent and at times some sloppiness. They were sloppy early against North Carolina, but they win it 37.26. They gave a kickoff return for a touchdown to start the second half. But they have won their 15th straight game. CJ Carr has five total touchdowns in that game. The rainstorm made it kind of sloppy and it was interesting, but 30 rushes for 166 yards, five and a half per. I've been wanting them to run it better. They have and did in that game. At six, I've got Indiana. So like any other program in the country, if they were the defending national champion and undefeated and we're on a 21 game winning streak. Would they be number six? I'm just kicking myself for having them number six right now. Turbo Richard was back. He ran for over 200 yards. Lee BB ran for over 100 yards. Over 300 on the ground. Nick Marsh, Charlie Becker. They both win over 100 each. Hoover is playing well. They've got a couple of shutouts. They're basically shutting out Rutgers until the about the fourth quarter in that game. I don't know, it's just Rutgers. And listen, their schedule has not been great. But the Northwestern win looks a lot better now than it did when they beat them. What was that? Not last Friday, but the Friday before. So like Indiana 21 game winning streak number six, that's just, that is just like fuel for Kurt Signetti. Bama is number five. At number four, I've got Miami. Miami is is impressive, man. They destroyed Clemson 41-13 on the road. Mensa continues to look like a dude. He's really good. They upgraded as good as Beck was last year and he took him to a national final and lost that game, but minces an upgrade for the Canes. Tony didn't have the biggest day, but like he doesn't have to because they can do a lot of things. They can run it. They've got some other players. They can get the ball too. The defense was outstanding. They got after the quarterback. Like Miami is going to be an issue. And they should absolutely win the ACC. They've separated themselves out in the ACC by quite a large margin. Louisville lost again. So like, I don't know what's going on with Louisville. SMU won, but it wasn't pretty. So, you know, maybe it's Duke. Maybe it's, maybe it's pit in the ACC Pat Norduzzi. He had a lot to say after his win. Ohio State was number three in the end of poll or in my top 10. Texas number two long horns were off. They got Oklahoma coming up. Nobody else has two wins over top 15 teams. They've got Ohio State and Tennessee on their resume. So they're there. But I saw Georgia number one. There's just something about this Georgia team. It's not as infatic of a statement as it was last week against Oklahoma, but they took care of Vanderbilt. The game there was a seven point game at half and then they ran away within the second half. Bulldogs have a big one this week, though. That bam a game. If they don't get pressure on Keeling Russell, they will lose this week because Russell is outstanding. And I think the winner of that game will be at least for me and the driver seat in the SEC, even with Texas out there with their two top 15 wins. Hey, and our next show on Wednesday, I'm going to have a film review of Michigan. I'm going to evaluate some of our first year head coaches. How is it going? Here, almost to the midway point of this season, at least in the regular season for our first year head coaches at their new places. Not first year head coaches. Coaches at new places is how I'll say it. So that's coming up on Wednesday show. We're going to have picks and previews of a big weekend college football. Gus Jenny and I will be in Nebraska as Indiana. Indiana goes on the road to face an undefeated corn husker team. So that'll be awesome. What else am I missing? Subscribe on YouTube. That would be sweet. Follow us on social media. That would also be sweet. Leave a comment. I'll try to get down there as well. And you know what? Enjoy your week. I'll be with you on Wednesday for some film. Please tweet.