Questioning Top 10 Teams + Camp Intel & Fall Tour Name

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Visit Optimum.com or stop by your local Optimum store today. Famously fast fiber for $30 a month for five years. You cannot beat it. Terms apply. See Optimum.com for details. I don't know about you, but there was a point today where I had 27 different windows pulled up in the browser. Just practice report after practice report after practice report. I don't care that you're not wearing pads yet. I am bathing in this stuff. We're jam-packed. We're high atop a very steamy, very humid, but still beautiful downtown Nashville, Tennessee on this Thursday, August 6th, the year of our Lord, 2026. You see a top 10. Some of you agree with it. Some of you don't. But the coach's poll is out. The AP poll will come soon. The JP poll will come soon. Immunity. But you think to yourself, oh, this is actually stone. This is dried concrete. That's not true. There are questions for every single one of you. I don't care how good you feel right now. And I know because I've got 10 of them written. One, at least one question for all the top 10 teams. I've got camp intel. We could have five pages of it, but I'll try and get through it in less than four hours tonight. It's a huge, huge evening on the campus of Pate State. We're entering the fifth year, because we can't count COVID. We're entering the fifth year where we will embark on a season-long cross-country tour. And every good tour has got a name. Guns N' Roses did it. Fleetwood Mac did it. Pate State does it. And I, tonight, am proud to announce that we have arrived at a tour name. I think it's the best tour name we've ever had. I can promise you it's the best tour logo we've ever had. But ultimately, my opinion doesn't matter. You will be the judge of that. We will announce it a little bit later in the show. All that, plus someone wanted some sleepers. And I circled four of them and got vehement disagreement amongst the staff on at least two pretty anti-American disagreement, if you ask me. But we'll talk about it tonight. Greenville, South Carolina is tuned in. Syracuse, New York. Spokane, Washington. And Flora, Mississippi. I, by the way, cannot pretend that I have not seen the rumors that we may be doing a show. Outside this studio next week. Maybe even on a campus. Maybe even, I don't know, sitting down with a coach. You know how you are when you're on various campi, plural of campus, across the country. But that's for next week. In the meantime, let's dive into the show. Appreciate you guys being here. Like the video and subscribe to the channel. That's really all I ask. It's free of charge. It doesn't sign you up for anything. And it helps us out a lot. The coaches poll came out the other day. A lot of people were upset about it, mainly because polls make people upset no matter what order the teams are in. But I don't really care. I don't really care about that so much tonight. That's for later in the show. As for right now, I started thinking to myself, self, being ranked number one in the country, being ranked number six in the country, that's pretty lofty. But it doesn't mean you don't have questions. Everyone's got them. So I was asking myself, what are my biggest questions for at least the top 10 teams? Because I think this is important as we roll through camps, because hopefully we get some of them answered. But right now, like at Ohio State, Ohio State's loaded. Ohio State may very well go. Fire to wire and win the national championship. If I had to circle a question for them, I would ask about difference makers on the defensive line, not talent or lack thereof. It's Ohio State. So this is all relative. I'm looking at difference makers on the defensive line. I'm looking at star power on the defensive line. You know, James Smith, for example, is a guy that was once upon a time at Bama, and he transfers into Ohio State. Am I watching at the midpoint of the season going, man, this is kind of like Caleb Downs 2.0. Not necessarily. Not necessarily because they play different positions, but just in terms of gaining big time impact players. Quay Rousseau kind of forgot about that. He transferred in from Alabama, too. But on the defensive line, I just want to know early on, like we're watching the Texas game and they're in town. What does it look like? Does it look like Ohio State? Does it look like a vintage Ohio State product? And I don't frankly have many questions with this team. So that's where I would go with them. Notre Dame. I'm just kind of rattling them off here, but we're going to hit all the top 10. How dynamic are they going to be at receiver? Because there are not a lot of questions with Notre Dame either, at least to me. Now, Jesse, when we were talking about predictions the other night in my college football playoff version 1.0 bracket had them winning at all. I was told I'm better. Someone, several someone said, Josh, you're better than this. Like predicting a top four preseason team to win the national championship. You're better than that. You know, they don't play anybody like schedules are not teams. Ladies and gentlemen. I'll remind you again, but for those of you who are schedule gazing and not looking at the team, let me spoil it for you. It's going to be a really good team. If you are counting on them to fall off into the ditch early and often, you're probably going to be disappointed. But if I were to circle a question, let's look at that receiver room there. Jordan Faison, Jaden Greathouse. These guys I said in spring, I thought had the potential to be the best wide receiver room that Marcus Freeman's had to this point at Notre Dame. They bring in some star power at tight end, too. But I'm looking spring. Specifically at receiver, if we get later in the year, if they got to go up against Brigham Young, if their back's against the wall and guys got to go up and turn 50-50s into 30-70s and whatnot, can they do it? Can they do it against Miami? Can they do it maybe even in playoff situations? Because I got a hard time not seeing them in the playoffs. So Notre Dame, I'd say how dynamic are they at wide receiver? At Oregon, I saw a lot of preseason number one hype for them. A lot of people are picking Oregon to win the national championship. I don't have a problem with that because it's. It's August. Offensive line certainly is going to be the key to how far they can go. But I would also say offensive line, yes, very fairly is the number one question. Remember the rule that Meemaw always taught us. Questions are not weaknesses. Questions are questions. Weaknesses are weaknesses. So this is not a weakness, but I just, in my worst of worst case scenarios, if I'm picking Oregon, I think, man, you know what I don't want? I don't want to get to that USC game. What is that, Jesse? Four weeks into the season or something like that. I don't want them to, yeah, go on the road at USC or maybe a couple of weeks later at Illinois or way later in the year at Ohio State. I don't want to be sitting there saying to myself, dude, this team's so loaded everywhere else, but this offensive line's holding us back. So that would be a question. And also remember, this is a very, very high level team that will have a first year offensive coordinator and a first year defensive coordinator. Now, they're not new to the program, but I think this kind of snake bit Oregon last year. They did such a good job that both of their coordinators got head coaching opportunities and Taj Lupoi took the Cal job and Will Stein took the Kentucky job. But because college football's stupid, our hiring season overlaps with the playoff, and so you had guys doing two jobs and whatever. I still think Indiana probably the better team out of the two, but I don't think it helped Oregon at all in that Peach Bowl matchup. So you could go the coordinator combo there as well, but I don't think Dan Lanning is foolishly elevating guys who aren't ready. Texas. Texas. Questions at Texas? Well, everyone's got them. I could say offensive line as a question at Texas. I understand all the hype. I understand all the promise. I understand all the hope. I've got it, too. Hype, promise, and hope. I'm willing to buy into it at Texas. But remember, the offensive line there, from a protection standpoint last year, these are unfortunate paper poppers. 61st in the country in sacks allowed per game. Second unfortunate paper pop. And you know how rarely that happens, especially with preseason top five teams. They were 90th. overall rushing yards per game last year. So again, hope springs eternal every single August, and there is definitely reason to believe here, but I go back to games like the Georgia game, because we were there, we were on the field for that one, and realizing, oh man, Texas has still got a ways to go to match up with that kind of team physically. But they've emphasized it, and they've certainly recruited, and they've certainly developed, but offensive line, they didn't go wholesale overhaul there. They liked what they had, just need to get another year under the belt. We'll see. Speaking of Georgia, same question every year. This is a really, really good team. It's a really high-level roster. It's an extremely high floor every year. I implicitly trust Kirby Smart to have a contender on the field every single year. And then you're going to ask, man, but do they have a star wide receiver? Do they have difference makers at wide receiver? Do they have a star wide receiver? You'll notice this gets kind of repetitive year in and year out. You're not really going to question them defensively. You could question pass rush. I mean, Amaris Williams, we thought was going to come in there, and he's hurt. He's out. But still, Georgia finds a way to manufacture production defensively in the years where they don't have star power. This year, they do have star power, even maybe if not at pass rush. They'll be fine there. This will be a high-level defense. But again, if it comes down to big-time championship or playoff-type situations, because that's probably the conversation Georgia's in again, do they have guys that can go over the course of one Big 12 play drive? Do they have a guy that can do what Indiana had guys do last year? Do they have guys that can do what Miami, not holistically, but in spurts, did? My default is wait and see on that. And it's not that Georgia needs it to win. It's just that's my biggest question if I'm asking if they can go toe-to-toe and win three games in a playoff-type situation. Indiana's outside the top five. Not my top five. But the coaches, the coaches across this country looked at Indiana and said, six. Six at best. You could certainly question Josh Hoover again. I want to repeat for the second time, but not the final time. It is totally fair to say, Josh Hoover, huh? Well, Kurt Cignetti obviously believes in him. That offensive staff obviously believes in him. Hasn't he turned the ball over a lot? Yeah. 13 interceptions. You see the graphic there. If you're listening on podcast, you don't. But Bradley is confirming there by punching that button at 13 INTs to his name last year. Now, here's the follow-up. He had to throw the ball a whole lot more last year than he will be asked to do this year. He had to shoulder a lot more of the offensive load, in theory, than he would be asked to do here. But outside of that, because that's what everyone would go for, and with good reason, I'd also say D'Angelo Pons last year was insane. Very, very high-level player. Very, very rarely did you see balls even go into his side of the field. It's not that they're going to fall off a cliff there, but when you have a good corner that rotates out of your program, you can go get another good corner, and you can largely one-to-one backfill. When you've got a lockdown-type guy, those are hard to replace. Not impossible, and sometimes you can go Oakland A's, circa 2002, just place them in the aggregate, but it's hard to replace. So I kind of wonder, not early, because no one will test them early, but when they get to the mid and latter part of the season, do we start to say, that secondary may be down a notch, especially at CB1, may be down a notch. Miami. I've got to be very careful here. So Miami, I think the question would be offensive line play, to an extent defensive line play, but when I say that, I don't know how you make an asterisk with your fingers. I don't have a pen. I got four of them, but I can't write. I can't write right now. The asterisk to that entire concept of it being a question is both of those may end up being strengths of this team, and Miami's O-line and D-line group of personnel have an opportunity to be among the best, respectively, in the country at what they do. So it's definitely not looking at it and saying, uh-oh. It's looking at it and saying, wow, hmm. But let's wait and see. You're going to start a true freshman at left tackle. Now, that true freshman looks like he could be in a second-year situation with the Baltimore Ravens right now, but it is a true freshman at left tackle. You are certainly replacing a hellacious pass-rush combo. But then again, lost production is relative in this sport, and it's relative to who you've got to fill those shoes. And in some places, iconic, game-changing, players walk out, and you've got no answer. They've got answers at Miami, or they think they do. That would be the big question, if it's big. It's not a big question. It's like a lowercase question mark. Texas Tech's very obvious. Texas Tech would just be the quarterback. Texas Tech would be Will Hammond, because this team's loaded outside of him. Now, he may end up being part of the loaded equation. Again, we don't know. Again, you have an injury situation that he's coming back from. And then you had the Brendan Sorsby story just dominate spring and summer. But Will Hammond, they believe in. And I remember, again, I'll remind people who weren't tuned in in the spring, when we went out there, and I sat down with Joey McGuire, it was during the Brendan Sorsby stuff. And it was before, you know, like the injunction, and before all the spectacle that ended up taking place. He and they were of the opinion that they probably weren't going to have Sorsby, which ended up being reality. And so, his viewpoint on it was, hey, I got a really good team, regardless of who the quarterback is, I got a really good team. So, like that, you could look at his coach speak. I didn't, because he didn't have to say it. But they think they got a really good team. But they had a really good team last year. And then they ran into a brick wall come playoff time. So, the whole question is, does Will Hammond offer them level up potential? Or do we watch them all year and say, yeah, I mean, they're big 12 good again. But what if they play Oregon? What if they play Ohio State? What if they play Texas, etc.? Especially what if they play Texas? Ole Miss? Ole Miss has got a tough schedule this year, but that's not the question. The question here, I think it's got to be pass rush. And it's okay if you're number three in sacks last year, it's okay to fall off a little bit. You got important guys departing for LSU and whatnot. It's okay to fall off a little bit. You're number three one year, you're number 13 the next year, that's fine. Is there a significant regression? That's a problem, if so. The other situation is the interior of their offensive line, I feel okay about. Replacing both offensive tackles, at the very least, is a question mark coming into fall camp. And look, I don't want to call Trinidad Chambliss a question mark. Far be it for me, too. I guess the only relative question you could have there for someone like me who thinks he's the most dangerous player in the country is, what kind of does the league make having seen him now? Everyone's trying to adjust. Some of these dudes are so good, you can't adjust to them. Like Cam Newton could have played five more years. I'm not sure the SEC would have adjusted all that much to him. How much adjustment happens to Trinidad Chambliss from opposing defenses? And then Oklahoma, very, very easily offensive line. I mean, if I had to circle question marks for Oklahoma, offensive line and run game. Now, the trick here is, kind of said with other teams, their questions could end up being strengths. Doesn't have to be the question marks at best become below average production units. Especially when you got a cat like Fasusi in his second year starting at left tackle. For all we know, they may have the best offensive tackle in the country by season's end. So it doesn't have to be that way. For all we know, they watched last year that their struggles run in the ball and said, no more. And it ends up being a net neutral or strength portion of their overall offensive output this year. But how do you not circle those two things as question marks for Oklahoma coming into the year? I think I did good, Jesse. It's 15 minutes and I questioned the entire top 10. Skepticism everywhere. So I'd like to welcome you all into the show tonight. I appreciate you watching, especially if you're watching live. We need to have special badges of honor that we hand out for that. I had a question, comment, I don't even know, a stream of consciousness. Come in and I've got to address this. Even though my instinct is not to, but I'm going to address this. Will from Princeton, Indiana said, I can't believe the SEC has seven teams in the top 13 of the latest poll. Notice he didn't say which poll. That'll be important in a second. He continues, it's really turning me off from the sport, I guess is what he tried to say there. This is where you really want to lean in. Why do you guys rig this thing for the rest of your life? For the SEC every year, despite the on-field results being what they are. Confiscate that dude's shoestrings is the first order of business. The second order of business, and just keep it up, Bradley, because I need to really dissect this. This is an example of a crime in search of evidence. Will is already convinced of something that he can't possibly be convinced of because the you guys that issued that poll was not media. The you guys that issued that poll the other day was nobody in this building. It wasn't the Associated Press. It wasn't anyone. It was the coaches, right, Jesse? So at the very worst, even if the coaches are shirking their responsibilities, it's their SIDs filling out the poll for them. In either event, it's a smattering of people who represent conferences and universities all across the country, none of whom cover the sport for a living, none of whom talk or write for a living. They coach for a living. They don't have a mic in front of them. They got a whistle around their neck. They're professionals at it. And the last thing on this planet, that group of people, hashtag you guys, the last thing those guys are looking to do is prop up the SEC. But Will's convinced that it's happening to the point where it's turned him off from the sport. So I would ask this. I would ask very simply for Will to, number one, just step outside for five minutes. When you come back in, take a deep breath. It's not the end of the world. And then I would ask you, Will, to pull out a pencil and paper, not a pen, because there's probably going to be a lot of racing going on. And I want you to number it 1 through 25. And I'd just be interested to see your 1 through 25 bias-free, SEC bias-free, 1 through 25. And I'd just be interested to know how different it looks from the coaches poll, the SEC bias-infested coaches poll. What do you have? Will, you got the poll, by the way, Jesse? Yeah, throw that up for me. So to refresh everyone's memory, the corrupted coaches poll, the SEC bias-laden coaches poll had Ohio State, Oregon, 1 and 2. That can't be right, Jesse. Is that right? Wow. OK, so Ohio State, Oregon, 1 and 2. You got Georgia, Texas, 3, 4. It's pretty extreme. Notre Dame's 5th, Indiana 6th, Miami 7th. So the next time I see an SEC team, there's a glob of them. 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, those are the SEC teams. Now, those teams are A&M, Oklahoma, Ole Miss, Alabama, LSU. Five teams. They all got pretty high-level talent rosters, which is largely what you're going on with a preseason ranking. They all did varying degrees of good last year. A&M, playoff team. Oklahoma, playoff team. Ole Miss, playoff team. Alabama, playoff team. LSU, went and got Lane Kiffin. Spent $400 bazillion. Become a playoff team. So if not them, who? Who? Because the teams behind them, to let everyone understand what we're talking about here, USC's behind them. Brigham Young's behind them. Michigan. Penn State. I just want you to stop me, Will, when you hear someone that has egregiously been omitted in lieu of playoff Texas A&M, playoff Oklahoma, playoff Ole Miss, playoff Alabama. You get the story there. Does SMU get the shaft here? Did Jed Fish and Washington get robbed of their rightful place above four loaded rosters, high spenders, with a playoff ticket punched a year ago? I think what you'll find is that just because you don't like something doesn't make it invalid. I despise speed limits inside the major metro area of cities on interstates. 55 miles an hour is a joke. I remember asking a buddy of mine who was a cop one time, how can you justify this? How can they justify this? And he laid it out. I did not like the logic, but there was logic behind it. Above and beyond just we want to make a lot of money pulling you over. And likewise here. Will, I don't get the sense that you have an SEC tramp stamp on your lower back. Could be wrong, but I don't get that sense. But it doesn't mean that seven teams in the top 13 being, from the SEC, is invalid or there's like an ulterior motive behind it. There's a pretty general consensus out there. Jesse, stop me if I'm wrong on any of this. The Big Ten is the best conference in the country at the top right now. There's a solid chunk of the SEC that is right below the highest tier of the Big Ten, but probably above the lowest tier of the Big Ten. That's reflected here by the coaches. Who knew the coaches? And then I saw a lot of reaction yesterday, last couple of days, really. Saw a lot of reaction to this. And it'll happen again when the AP poll comes out, I think in about a week and a half. You'll see people say we shouldn't have preseason polls. I hear people say that every year. In fairness, a lot of you guys say that to me every year. It's one of the most popular questions. Actually, when we ask for a Q&A is, do you think we should have preseason polls? Why do we have preseason polls? We don't have preseason polls. We don't have preseason polls in any other sport. Why don't we have it in college football? Buddy, we don't have buffalo that charge the field. We don't have ducks that ride motorcycles in any other sport. I don't care what any other sport does. It's college football. It's one of one. The reason we have preseason polls is because that's the way everyone's brain works in July and August. I wonder who's good. And then I wonder who else is better than them. And I wonder who else may not be quite as good as them. I wonder who's going to be overrated. I wonder who's going to be underrated. This is how this sport has worked since God created it. There's nothing wrong with it. It's fun. And if you outlaw it, people are just going to bootleg polls anyway. So you might as well try and do it responsibly. Preseason rankings in moderation never hurt anyone. Meemaw said that. She's right. And so I look at this, and I don't think the concept of preseason rankings is bad at all. Here's what's bad. Marrying them. Marrying your preseason rankings is bad. Take it from me, because I've learned this lesson. In a very, very, very bitter, hard way, long ago. I don't make this mistake anymore, as we all understand. But back in the day, summers were so long. So long. And I'd go get my Phil Steele preview and all the other magazines. Pick Six Previews was not around yet. And I would just read every word over and over and over again. And you're talking about April. Spring game concludes, and it is a death march to August. April and May and June and July. And August. And what do you do? You've got nothing to do but sit there, maybe spend time with family. But largely, it's just reading college football preview magazines. And you end up developing opinions. And then you end up really developing opinions. And then you end up verbalizing those opinions to your coworkers and your buddies and your family several times over the course of the summer. And before too long, you're married to them. And then week one happens. And there's a result that flies in the face of everything that you came through. You don't have to believe over the past three months. But you refuse to divorce it. Because mistakenly, you don't understand that one quarter of football in week one is worth more than months and months and months and months of a hard belief system that you developed over the course of spring and summer. If you can get past that, if you can have your beliefs and have your rankings and have your thoughts and predictions, but be nimble and understand, have your head on a swivel week one, week two, week three, nothing wrong with preseason. I don't care that they don't do them in any other sport. Like in what, how, how many times do I have to listen to that? College football should change to be like every other sport. And these people would look at you and have the audacity to say, boy, I love the uniqueness of college football. However, I would love it to conform in every shape, form and fashion imaginable to what the NFL does or what the NBA does. No, no, you got to shout those people down. No. Great news. We have a tour name. So I know, I know a lot of people are new around here. We've had like, I don't know how many thousand new subscribers over the past couple of days. Please continue to do so. It greatly helps us. It puts food on Bradley's table. It keeps Prez's lights on. Mitch, I don't know. I don't know exactly what it does for him, but it does something. So we appreciate it. Ever since we had a show, we have taken advantage of what we do for a living and we've gone on the road every week. Mike, one of the main perks of covering college football for a living to me is that you get to go to college football games on Saturday and claim it's work. It's wonderful. So I go, man, I've done it for five years now. Ever since COVID stopped and we can go back out on the road, we've had tours. We had the Renaissance tour, the Once Upon a Saturday tour, the Every Given Saturday tour, the whole new Saturday tour. Last year was the Fall Don't Lie tour. So we give them names. It's like a concert, basically. We make t-shirts for it. It's fun. And we're somewhere every week and we will be again this year. Now, what I like to do is I like to, sometime around March or April, I start trying to think, where are we? Where's our mind at right now? We love college football. Everybody who watches this show, you may not have a thing in common outside of this show, but if you're watching this show, you love college football. You live for Saturdays in the fall. And lately, there's just been a little too much noise around that. There've been some hands on it that have no business being on it. And you deal with a lot of mess in your life, Monday through Friday. You live real lives. You may have jobs. You may have all kinds of things going on with your kids. You may be struggling to make ends meet. You got people you can't stand that you have to interact with every day. Traffic sucks. You got so many things on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday that are only manageable because you know what's going to happen 12 times in the fall. You know 12 times in the fall you're going to have that Saturday. And as long as they'll just leave that alone, you can grin and bear the rest of it. And it's just felt lately like there's some people that are even trying to corrupt that. And there's some people that are even trying to mess with that. And that's the non-negotiable. For folks like us, you can mess with a lot of things. You can tread on a lot of things, but you better not tread on Saturday. And so it seemed blatantly obvious to me that we need to call this year's tour the Don't Tread on Saturday tour. And so that's what we're going to call it. And we'll be on campus every Saturday this fall. And we'll be standing right there on the sideline every Saturday this fall. Because Saturdays in the fall are why we got into this. Saturdays in the fall are what we love. Above and beyond almost. Anything else. Especially up to and including fall weddings. And so I'm very excited. Going to announce our week one location in the not too distant future, obviously. Because it's right around the corner. But this one's going to be good. And the t-shirts are going to be unlike anything that we've put in the Pate State store. And those will come very, very soon. See you soon. See you on campus soon. See you soon. See you soon. Like briefs, notes, files, feedback, calendars, data sets, or project plans. 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A brand new classic is back. Only at Taco Bell. I hate this because normally when I have a post-it note on a piece of paper, it's just the hometown shout-out. Like, they're watching us in Tucson, Arizona. They're watching us in Reno, Nevada. Chickasha, Oklahoma is always one of my go-tos. Valdosta, Georgia. You know. Long Beach, Mississippi. However, this post-it note is not a hometown shout-out. It's something unfortunate. So I'll get to it here. Fall camp intel is pouring in. Okay, first week of August. It's burn the boats time. Let's put a serious face on. And let's figure out depth charts. And let's figure out who's starting where. And it sucks, but we're going to have to deal with some injury news. We just got some today. But we start figuring out how much of what we heard post-it notes. Post-spring, throughout summer workouts, to now, was real. And how much of it was just false, manufactured hype. So I'm going to start at Oklahoma. And I'm going to preface. I ain't paying a whole lot of attention to Oklahoma's defense. Because I just take for granted that they're going to be good. So the questions I'm asking to our folks out in Oklahoma is, you know, wide receiver rotation. Maybe behind like Isaiah Cetegna. Parker Livingstone is a big name there. Parker Livingstone, formerly Texas, now Oklahoma. Like I've seen a lot of people pencil him in as wide receiver too, which it may very well be how it falls. But that's not what we're interested in. What we're interested in is putting our ear to the ground and listening for some hoofbeats, maybe, that other people aren't picking up on. So Manny Choice is 6'4", 190. And it would not surprise me at all if, come midpoint of the season, Manny Choice's stat line looks a little bit more robust and impressive, maybe, than your local preview magazine. Would you lead you to believe? And that kind of goes back into what the overall offensive production is going to be here. John Mateer coming off injury, of course. We could talk about health there. Look, I have full trust and confidence in John Mateer. At running back, that goes right back to what the problem was last year. Offensive line, rushing production, being way down. If it's a carbon copy again this year, well then John Mateer is being put in an untenable, sort of unwinnable position to me. But Jonathan Hatton is a top 100 true freshman. And he's 6'0", he's 215, somewhere between 205 and 215. You understand how water weight works this time of year, Jesse? It fluctuates greatly. This is a situation, because of the room he's walking into, where he could come in and elevate and be a difference maker really quickly. That is not me sitting here saying, there's RB1 in week one. It's not that. Who knows, maybe he will be. But it's going to be a difference maker. It's going to be very hard to keep that guy off the field this year. Out at USC, this is where the post-it note comes in. It brings me no joy. Killian O'Connor, as of like this morning, was the projected starting center for Oklahoma this year, or USC this year. And it was actually Lincoln Riley who confirmed this afternoon he's out for the season. Which, again, happens every August. There is no way to avoid it. You just climb. You just climb. Cross your fingers and hope it's not going to be your team. And this is a big deal, because the big takeaway that we keep hearing out of USC and kept hearing in the spring is, this is the first year you're going to have the size, you're going to have the depth that, frankly, Lincoln Riley hasn't had before. Now, why he hasn't had it is up to interpretation, but he hasn't. Now, he does. Look at us on the lines of scrimmage. And still, even with the injury, that is the case. It's just that hurts a little bit. It may hurt a lot. But there's no guarantee. See, here's the point. Early on in fall camp, what you're looking for is validation of your beliefs. Or you're looking to change your beliefs based on updated information. So with USC, if I believe, and I do, that this roster is going to be the most physically impressive, they're going to be the best and sturdiest along the lines of scrimmage, they're going to have the most quality Big Ten championship caliber depth that they've ever had, what I want to hear is I want to hear people who are at practice saying, man, this team looks different. Like, man, look at this size. Look at the guys running with the twos. Look at the guys running with the twos on this side. That's what you want to hear. That's what we've heard from USC so far. Now, here's the follow-up, important follow-up. That guarantees you nothing. That doesn't guarantee you any wins this fall. Not having it does guarantee you losses this fall. So that's where you are in the first week of fall camp. Also, kind of in the spring, we were talking about wide receiver at USC. And Hines and Anderson are a really good one, too. So those guys, I think they can count on, and did in the spring. My bigger question is, how does that wide receiver room shake out behind them? Because they've got some big-time talent coming in as true freshmen. A very heralded recruiting class. Number one ranked recruiting class in the 2026 cycle per on three. Maybe a bunch of line of scrimmage talent is not immediately able to be difference makers because they're true freshmen. Wide receivers can. And I think there are players out of that wide receiver group that are going to have to be impact players for USC to realize their potential this year. So that's what I'm listening for out of Los Angeles. In Athens, Georgia, there's nothing wrong with what I'm about to say. Nothing wrong at all with this. But it is a sign of the times. It looks like Georgia is on track to start a three-star true freshman at right guard. I want to pump the brakes. I want to pump the brakes really hard. People think that's some kind of insult. I'm trying to take some kind of shot. No, Zyke Helton is on scholarship at Georgia and probably making a little money on the side because he's a really good player. If he wasn't, he wouldn't be there. I'm just giving you his recruiting ranking. You can do with that whatever you want. The only reason I'm trying to make that point is because anecdotally, it's just not something that you would have heard yourself saying five years ago. Five years ago, even if he is a good player, there's probably a dude in front of him and maybe another dude behind that dude. And Zyke Helton's coming in and he's giving you good luck. looks and he's getting good reps in and you're saying, man, as a sophomore, he's going to be a player. As a junior, now I can see him starting. But now it's you come in and start as a true freshman. That's not confirmed, like he's running with ones right now. But it makes Juan Gaston a very, very important player. A lot of these offensive linemen in spring and summer got really good feedback. We heard good intel about the conditioning piece. Then again, how frequently do we hear guys got fatter? Guys are out of shape. Guys look sloppy. I guess that's just the guys you don't hear anything about. But we did hear really, really good returns about Georgia from a conditioning standpoint. I know what those guys are put through down there, so I don't doubt it. But Juan Gaston, if this is how the right side of the offensive line shakes out, it's a huge year for him. Because you got a guy at the very least who is green at right guard. And that just puts a lot of pressure on the offensive line. All the more emphasis on him at right tackle. I'm waiting on names to pop at wide receiver. That's going to kind of be an evergreen theme as you're following Georgia throughout fall camp. Not surprising at all, Elijah Griffin is a monster. You could see that as he played in high school. You could see it when he came to Georgia, 6'4", 3'10". That's the kind of guy that is supposed to wear a Georgia uniform. And once you see him play, he's the number two overall prospect a cycle ago. That's like a quintessential pumped right out of the lab on a conveyor belt type Georgia player. Dwight Phillips also at running back. They got Frazier back there. They got Bowers back there. Dwight Phillips just kind of interested when we get to November, how much production has he had? Because I think his skill set, just in terms of versatility, home run play potential, he's got a little different package of skill set maybe than your traditional Georgia tailback. Looking forward to seeing him play. Texas Tech. Texas Tech, the majority of the conversation will revolve around Will Hammond. He did practice, by the way. He has practiced so far. Brace on the knee, but has been practicing. So that's trending in the right direction. That's not really what I'm focused on because I kind of think he's been on the same trajectory for a little while now, and then ultimately we'll see what his top end potential is. But Micah Hudson, is a guy who kind of played some last year, but could be a star this year. 6'3", 205. That was the number 12 overall prospect in the 2024 class per on three. This is the year that I think he could blow up if he's healthy. That's the kind of guy who, midpoint of the season, you could be looking at saying, man, dude, Bolitnikoff conversation for Micah Hudson. And it is a crowded Bolitnikoff conversation this year. Defensive line, I know they lost a lot of production. I just don't know you to be surprised when defensive line is a strength of this team again. We counted 10 of their 11 starting on defense to be fourth-year players or older. I think their starting defense is going to be the oldest, at least in terms of returning production in the country this year, or right up there with them. If you did a blind resume and you looked at the amount of experience Texas Tech's going to have on the field defensively, you'd say that's got to be Brigham Young. They're old every year. It's got to be Brigham Young. No, I'm not saying they won't be that, but Texas Tech will also be that this year. And at Alabama, a couple of practices in the fall camp, I don't know how many questions we're getting about the quarterback position there. Unchanged. Very, very slight lean Austin Mack right now. Ultimately think it'll be Keelan Russell. Doesn't matter because nothing, all that meaningful has happened there so far. So I got a couple of scrimmages coming up and we'll ultimately see how that plays out. I don't think that's the biggest focal point of Alabama's fall camp, which is kind of what we said in the spring. Whoever wins that job is going to be a really good player. They got two guys they could start and win with. If, and then everything after the if, that's actually the biggest question there because there's a lot of newness, including the position coach on the offensive line. They've got a kid, five star out of high school, first name, Jesse Crowell, last name, Xavier Crowell. They talked him up immensely when they signed him. They talked him up immensely until the point where he got banged up. And then there was like limited spring action and he's been trying to recover throughout summer. And if you listen to the feedback from people who watch him, keep in mind what Alabama's weakness was last year. You listen to people who watch him. It's, I was looking at Clint Lamb talking about him earlier today. Yeah, he looks different than any running back they have moves different than any running back they had. Yes. Yes. That's what they needed. That's why even when they were signing that recruiting class, people were already penciling him into starting rotation looks at running back because that's how it works nowadays. That's what I'm watching for. I'm watching for continuity, offensive line. I'm watching for the kind of practice reports that indicate, man, it does look different. Wow. It's a noticeable uptick in against an old revamped and overhauled defensive front. And that's the other thing that people who are watching Alabama practice down there, uh, keep coming back and saying it's the stuff I went and watched him in the spring. It's the first thing I said, when I came back, that looks nothing like the Alabama defensive front from last year, they went and got Devin Tompkins. They went and got Terrence green. They're huge, man. They are big on the defensive front. It's the longest secondary in the country. So linebacker, obviously they're big question defensively. It's early. We have to pace ourselves. It's early in fall camp, but those are some of the things we're looking at some of the feedback that we're getting. I know several things about our audience. And one of the things I know about our audience is 100% of you eat, but not all of you eat healthy all the time. And that's unfortunate. It doesn't have to be that way. I'm also perhaps describing myself. So, um, great news over the past couple of months, one of the partnerships that we were able to form is with factor because like you, I don't really have many days that stack up exactly alike. If I did it, it'd be wonderful. And I could structure breakfast, lunch, dinner. I'd be good. That is not the way it works. So sometimes you sacrifice and you just eat terribly and you don't have to do that. You can actually eat real food in a time crunch. And that's how you do it. Those are chef crafted meals, Jesse, just in case you're unaware, chef crafted dietitian designed ready to eat two minutes, ready to eat. I know you have two minutes, no prep, most importantly, no cleanup every week. You can look in the entire catalog here. You've got over 100 nutrient dense menu items to choose from salmon burgers. One of Mitch's best-selling dishes. And I'm sure you've all heard about that. I'm sure you've all heard about that. Collard greens. There are chicken dishes in here. That'll get you 30 grams of protein with about 420 calories. Extremely difficult to beat that. So eat real. Let's all do it together. I'm participating in this head over to factor meals.com slash pate 50 off. You're going to want to write that down. P A T E 5 0 O F F use that code 50% off. Oh, and one free breakfast item per box for one year while supplies last through 10, 30 days. That's Halloween. Pate 50 off factor meals.com. You can see the website for more details. Always pro food on this show. So we're talking about camp Intel. A lot of lists going around, a lot of rankings going around. If you had to circle the breakout players this year, who would they be? I threw this out on Twitter earlier today, man. We got a ton of responses. A lot of Devin Sanchez fans out there. I'll get to him in a second. I circled a few of them like at Oregon. Kenyon Sadiq just went first round in the NFL draft at tight end. And I could find you some people inside the Oregon program who would get close to you. They whisper in your ear, Hey, Jamari Johnson could be better. He could be better. He's six, five. He's two 57, which if you hear that makes you think, Oh, probably not as explosive, right? Probably not as quick. Well, he's a former quarterback. He actually can move very well. Probably in totality has a better, package of potential than Sadiq did. And Kenyon Sadiq was a freak just goes to show you along with the wide receiver room up there, what they could have. And he played last year at 510 receiving yards last year. I just, you could call him the best tight end player in the country that most people don't know about, which is weird because he plays for Oregon. So I think he'll break out in a massive way this year. I think at Texas Sark's on the money. I've always said, Steve I do. And he knows his defense too, Jesse. So Jelani McDonald, he is going to be a key piece in their secondary. He's crazy. He's one of the younger players in their secondary, even though he's not young. It's just, he's, he's a really, really good player. Actually. He's a senior, right? Jesse. I'm thinking about, I'm thinking about Sanchez Sanchez at Ohio state. All of you got to Devin Sanchez today. We heard like 500, Devin Sanchez is today. Jelani McDonald. He was good last year. So if you're a Texas fan and you're listening, you're saying, I know about him. him. Yeah, I don't think the rest of the country does. And I think they will this year. Staff loves him. They talk him up constantly. So I'd go Jelani McDonald at Texas. Ian Premier, we threw around the pronunciation earlier today. Because this is the kind of guy, if I didn't know any better, I would just straight up throw a soft R. I would go Premier. But that's not his name. But he is a five-star, true freshman, tight end. 6'5", 240. The camp reports are really good. This is where it gets really interesting. The Notre Dame passing game. So you've got C.J. Carr, preseason Heisman favorite quarterback. You've got a lot of promise in the receiver room. But you don't have a returning 1,500 yard reception type guy. Which makes you wonder, what kind of stat line could he put up as a true freshman? I think he walks in a room, and there are other guys there. I think he's their most dynamic option there. So I'd circle him. I think at Miami, with all the talk about guys that are leaving. Reuben Bain's gone. Manakeem Mesidor's gone. And hey, we went and got Damon Wilson. That's been the talk. It's been like a 1-2-3. Everybody who describes Miami. And Marquise Lightfoot's just kind of there. 6'5", 235, just kind of there. Not all lost production is the same. I said that earlier. You lose production, the likes of which Miami is losing, and you don't have anything to replace it, well then, you're done. But they've got premier talent that's already been there. It's already been sitting there. He had two and a half sacks last year. He had five and a half tackles for loss. He played more rotationally. He would have been a breakout player for other playoff teams last year, had he not been behind who he was behind. I've got very little doubt, like barring injury, that he'll be a household name this year. Devin Sanchez already is. Devin Sanchez was like every other reply. When I asked you guys earlier today, hey man, give me some breakout players. So, Devin Sanchez, 6'2", right at 200, just prototypical player. He's a sophomore that's a youngest player on a more veteran-laden defense kind of deal, but yet probably their best defensive player, because he's just that good. He played as a true freshman, locked down corner, and it's not that we haven't seen that kind of skill set at Ohio State before. It's just the next in line. And I don't have to do much to convince people, because judging by our replies, everyone's already convinced. At Oklahoma, Michael Fasusi, last year, comes in, starts as a true freshman at left tackle, enters his second year here, 6'5", around 320. He could end up being the top offensive tackle in the country this year. Would not surprise me in the least. And if you listen to the people around Oklahoma talk, they'll be sure to talk up all his physical attributes. He's a professional. He's a professional in both categories. Mentality, physically, everything you would need. It's just a surefire future first-round NFL type guy that is working his way through the college ranks right now. And he's part of what needs to be a greatly improved Oklahoma offensive line. If it's not, it won't be because of him. At Washington, you know, not to overlook another offensive tackle here, Cody Green's coming in there. 6'6", about 3'2", 25, true freshman. He'll start immediately. He won that job in spring. There wasn't a whole lot of doubt about that. And that's another team that if you're asking for sleepers, you know, everyone has to go past the Big 3 and the Big 10. Well, then you get down to Washington, and he's one of the first names out of people's mouths right now. And at Michigan, Savion Hider is a name that I feel like he's a sophomore or a junior, even though he is a true freshman. It's just that they've talked about him so much since he got on campus that this, I put his name last, but he could have been first. He seems so inevitable. And it seems like he, barring injury again, like if he's healthy the whole season, he seems like such a slam dunk to end up being the workhorse for them, being a thousand plus yard guy as a true freshman, which is rare. Like, I understand what I'm saying, but I also know the kind of talent that we're talking about here. Jordan Marshall's still there, so he doesn't have to carry it 35 times a game or anything. It'd be fun to watch him do it, though. So, I'd say those are some breakout players. You know, we've been in partnership for a long time with Quick Trip. I will intentionally let the needle go a little bit past E and pass up other options, which are fine options, but there's only one right option, and that's Quick Trip. You know I love cold brew on tap there. Sometimes I think I work our audience into thinking they only serve cold brew at Quick Trip, and they do not. And I bring you great news tonight. The Big Q Fountain Cup, one of Jesse's favorites. 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They're the kids in this fight. That's why I'm proud to support Hyundai Hope on Wheels. For the past 28 years, with support from Hyundai, their dealers, and every new Hyundai sold, Hope on Wheels has contributed over $300 million to childhood cancer research, helping save more than 40,000 kids. But we're not done yet. Let's bring every warrior home. Join our fight at HyundaiWarriors.com Let's move along. Got a lot to get to. See, this is the kind of show, Jesse, that we clip a lot come November. Because they're breakout players, we got sleepers, we got toughest schedules, and I'm going to be right about a lot of this, and you will have been wrong about some of it, but nevertheless, it will get thrown back in our face in November. So, we need to proactively do it. They can't chase you if you don't run. What are the toughest schedules in the country this year? Now, we could do the thing where we just throw a bunch of SEC schedules out there, and a few Big Ten schedules. That's not as fun. So, I kind of wanted to go around the P4, and I wanted to look conference by conference, what are the toughest schedules by our own internal metrics here, conference by conference. Now, I will start in the SEC, because they have a lion's share of the toughest schedules in the country. I'd say, out of the entire league, Texas, Arkansas, and Kentucky, or Texas, Kentucky, and Arkansas, in that order, have the three toughest schedules just by the metrics we like to use here. Texas may have the best team in the country this year. They also, I think, have the toughest schedule in the country this year. They play eight of the top 17 teams in the FanDuel odds to make the playoffs. Incredible. And five of those games are away from Austin. So, Ohio State comes in there, but look at that stretch. Like, going to Knoxville, playing OU in Dallas, they got to go to LSU late, they got to go to A&M late. It makes you wonder what a 9-3 this year for Texas would mean. You guys hope to avoid that, obviously, but what would it mean? Because that is no joke. Arkansas, I know we have an entirely new coaching staff here. I know not much is expected of them. And I know this feels like evergreen topic when we do toughest schedules. It was like a birthright for Arkansas. But outside of that North Alabama game and maybe the Tulsa game, it's tough to find the wins because you're used to thinking, oh, in classical scheduling, you'll have eight league games and then four cream puffs maybe. Like in the old school, you could do that. Now they're going to play nine league games, including A&M, Tennessee, at Auburn, at Texas, LSU. They're going to play them. They got Georgia coming in there week three, but they're out of conference, sends them to Salt Lake City. Egregious. Can't happen, but it's happening. So Jesse, do you remember off the top of your head what their win total is? It's three and a half, right? And that seems low and you're like, oh man, Arkansas, they recruit decent talent. You got to go over there. Okay. I see two. I got to get two more to go over. And even the games you would normally circle, you would say, well, they play Vanderbilt. First off, Vanderbilt's better than Arkansas right now. Secondly, they got to go to Nashville. It's not easy to come in here, Jesse. It's not. Even the citizens around here avoid coming into downtown Nashville. So yeah, that's a tough road. And Kentucky, I want to know about Kentucky. How difficult does that close end up being? So they've got Alabama at A&M first three weeks. Probably going to be difficult. They've got LSU at Oklahoma, Vanderbilt. I want to know, starting with that Vanderbilt game. So 10-24 on. Vandy at Tennessee, Florida at Missouri-Louisville. Because you know a big criticism of SEC's strength of schedule gazers is they prop up all these teams in the preseason because of recruiting rankings and stuff. But by the end of the year, some of it was fool's gold. Sometimes that's a stretch. Sometimes it's valid. If it ends up being valid, there is a world where Florida's not that great in year one. There's a world where the Austin Simmons experiment does not work out for Missouri. There's a world where the Tennessee quarterback battle doesn't really yield anyone who's a big difference maker. And post-Diego Pavia, Vanderbilt's just not all that great. Point being, if any or all of that comes to fruition, third, I guess, of Kentucky's schedule doesn't end up being nearly as beefy as it looks right now. So that's why we write all this in pencil. In the Big Ten, Ohio State plays the toughest schedule in the Big Ten. I think USC, Michigan, and Oregon, in order, actually Ohio State, Michigan, USC, and Oregon, in order, play the four toughest schedules in the Big Ten. This is very rare because those are four of the best teams in the Big Ten. Normally, percentage-wise, it's a whole lot more likely that Northwestern or Nebraska or Purdue or someone like that plays the toughest schedules because Ohio State can't play Ohio State. You know how hard it is for Ohio State to have the toughest schedule in the Big Ten, knowing they can't play themselves? Or Oregon. Oregon can't play Oregon, whereas Northwestern theoretically could end up playing both of them. And yet, even with that being the case, there's such a round-robin nature about this to where they all end up playing each other. And so, I think, you know, it's a whole lot more likely to end up playing each other enough, plus Ohio State and Michigan have big time out of conference games. They got tough schedules, man. Ohio State goes to Texas in week two, but listen to these road games. At Texas, at Iowa, at Indiana, at USC, at Nebraska. That's not to mention they get Oregon at home, they get Michigan at home. That's an extremely tough schedule. I don't remember the Ohio State played a tougher schedule than that. USC plays a difficult stretch too, and yet, when people look at it, what do they do, Jesse? They say, boy, it starts September 26th. No, it doesn't. You have to fly to Piscataway, New Jersey for a conference game. Shake your head all you want, Mitch. It's not easy. It's not easy. How many times have you been to New Jersey recently as a resident of Southern California? Buddy, it's tough. I know they're not loaded up on covered wagon. I know that they have a United plane to fly in there and back. I think it's United. But I don't just look at a Greg Sciano coach team playing at home early in the year where they still believe in themselves and say, lay up. Having said that, USC should start 4-0. And then they play Oregon, and then they play Washington, and then they play at Penn State. That's a tough three-game stretch. And that's not even to mention Luke Fickle gets, well, they get him off of a bye, but Luke Fickle gets him in Madison. Again, that's another two-time zone trip there. That midpoint, that midpoint stretch here, you're playing Oregon, Washington, Penn State, Wisconsin, Ohio State, Indiana. There's a bye in there, but other than that, there's no break in there. At least they move San Jose State to week zero, so they do get to bake in a two-bye week year, whereas everyone else has one. Michigan plays Oklahoma week two. Big game, man. And then four of their final seven? Brutal. Indiana at eight, all lumped in. Penn State's there on the 17th, so it gets very difficult very quick. But this offers you the opportunity in the world where we still want to know what Bryce Underwood is, we still want to know, hey, man, five-star sensation, freshman tailback. If it doesn't click out of the gate, and you lose to Oklahoma at home in week two, you got the opportunity to regroup, get right against UTEP, get ready for Iowa to come in. Not an easy opponent, but an at home, you'll be favored against them. You should go to Minnesota and win. You should do that. And then the next time most of America watches you, it'll be Penn State coming in there. One of very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very few tests for Penn State this year. You ought to be ashamed. That's what you ought to be. So that's not an easy schedule. Oregon does not have an easy schedule, and Oregon's finish is really, really, really tough. At Ohio State, Michigan. At Michigan State, Washington. That's the final four. And the first time you'll probably watch them is at USC in week four. That'll probably be a tricky little visit to Illinois mid to late October. But yeah, Big Ten's got several tough schedules this year as well. Now, in the Big 12, we do have to mention the relativity of it all. In the Big 12, the toughest schedule is Arizona State. That's part one. Part two, is Arizona State's schedule would be the easiest in the SEC, and it would be well into the bottom half of the Big Ten. Again, just in the interest of relativity. Arizona State plays at A&M in week two. They play at Texas Tech later in the year. They play at Brigham Young. So their three toughest games probably are on the road. So that's not enviable. Five of the top seven teams in the Big 12 odds are on Arizona State's schedule. So that's our reasoning for having them where they are. And in the ACC, who else would it be? Of course, it's Florida State. Does anything go Mike Norvell's way? Florida State's got the toughest schedule in the ACC, at least as we see it. They go to Bama in week three. They've got SMU as the opener for SMU. It's their second game Bama. Back-to-back there, week two, week three, or I guess it's week one and week two to everyone else. This open includes those two games. They've got Virginia at home. They go to Louisville, to Miami, and they play Clemson on Halloween. So they could be a several-loss team by Halloween. And as you know, there's a little bit of a hot seat dynamic there with Mike Norvell. Oh, boy. So this is the year that we needed the layups at Florida State. This is the year that Mike Norvell needed a good eight and four, even if it's hollow. You can't fire the guy at eight and four, but it's a win total of five and a half, and we think it's the toughest schedule in the league there. Now, as you know, all of those games are going to happen in stadiums, meaning there are seats that you could fill, which means you need tickets. Unless you've got a really, really good hookup. If you've got a hookup, you don't need SeatGeek. The other 99.9% of you need tickets. And what you ideally want to do is save money on those tickets, which is where I come in. Because as you'll notice, with every brand partnership we take on, it just includes ways to save you money, because that's what we tell the agency. We want to save people money. Ideally, we just want to give our audience money, but if we can't just hand them money, we want to save them money. So you guys are going to go to games this fall. You may even go to concerts. You may go to a play, for all I know, on Broadway. But you're definitely looking at going to college football games. And at SeatGeek, they've got tickets to any event that you're trying to go to. Enter the code PATE10. That's back this year. A lot of you have been asking about that. The code is back this year. P-A-T-E-1-0. That gets you 10% off your orders up to $200. I know some of you are going to spend more than $200. I can't do anything for you past $200. So any order above $200, I'm just getting you $20 off. But anything go. Somebody asked about this whole Akron deal. I can't help but admire this. Brett from Marshall, Oklahoma hit me. He said, what's your reaction tweet? Or rather, he said, I saw your reaction tweet to the Akron giveaway. Why do you not like it? Oh, Brett, I love it. I love it. It just took me by surprise slash shock. A lot of you may not be aware of what Akron did. Did our system just go down? What happened? Or did the landing gift crash our system? So Akron looked around and decided, you know what? We're Akron. We're just going for it. And so they put out an offer where, like, if you, here's what the tweet said, okay? Because I don't want to try and paraphrase this. Make history and be the lucky season ticket holder to design the opening drive of the home opener when we host Robert Morris. And by the way, what a stray. Robert Morris. The stray to end all strays. Robert Morris just sitting there minding its own business, minding his own business. And all of a sudden it's like, hey, Joe from Dayton is going to call the first drive against you. And you know what? We're still going to body bag you. So the deal is a bunch of people started going and buying season tickets because they realized, wait, I can buy season tickets for 75 bucks. So Yahoo Sports reported on this. Akron's football suites are sold out for the first time. And program history following this promotion, wherein somebody who's a season ticket holder is going to get to call plays on the opening drive. The offer includes a pregame press conference, being mic'd up with a headset and play sheet, and being in the coach's box during the game. Several sports personalities have taken part in the promotion. It is one of the big regrets of my life that I didn't get in on this early enough, which is mainly on Jesse. The AD leaders are scheduled. They'll appear on McAfee, ESPN Radio as the popularity continues to grow. Anybody who knows me knows this is the kind of thing that's right up my alley. I don't hate it. I don't hate it at all. I love it. I especially think that this is a great reminder to people who are in similar positions out there. Look, if you're working at Miami, if you're working at USC, probably don't need to go this route. Probably if you're working at Oregon. You're not going to let someone from just down the road in Bend roll into Eugene and call the first drive against Boise. Don't need to. But if you're at Akron, you do. Because I don't really know. Jesse, they could have signed a five-star kid. They could have signed Jared Curtis. They could have got him to decommit from Georgia and Vandy and come to Akron. They wouldn't have sold suites out, would they? And instead, they're sold out. And I don't know how full they'll be, but it doesn't matter. That money, those checks, cash, either way, good for Akron. Great for Akron. Could we go on to SeatGeek? No, we couldn't, could we? I don't think we can buy Akron season tickets and still qualify. I don't think that's how that works. We need to call somebody. Quick reminder. I announced on the show the other night that many, many, many of you, for several years now, since we've had a merch store, you've asked to design shirts. And I didn't really know how to. I said, do it. And then Alex came to us and said, you idiot. You just started a design contest. She's talking to Jesse, not me. And so we started the design contest. We got flooded. Because one thing about our audience is we've never put a call to action out in the history of existence that you haven't gone above and beyond answering. Because the loyalty is off the charts around here. And I looked at some of the early submissions, and some of them are kind of insulting. Others are great. There's some really, really good ones. So this is going to go for, what, Jesse, like 11 more days, I think. Because we gave it two weeks. Go to PaintStateMaterial.com. You can also buy a t-shirt while you're there. But if you want to enter the design contest, I'm handing out cash to the winners. And you're going to determine who the winners are, not me. So you can go over there right now. Someone asked today, is it too late? No, it's not too late. PaintStateMaterial.com. By the way, follow the instructions. Alex tells me some of you submitted good designs. You didn't follow the instructions. Follow the instructions. All right, that's it. That's all. We move on. Important question here. Boy, it would have been important for us to know the answer to this last year. Michael from Philly hit us and said, I want to make money. Don't we all? There are 14 teams at FanDuel with plus 300 odds or better to make the playoff. Michael wants to know which teams below that could you see making it. And he said, please don't be super chalky. Love the show. Well, I love you, Michael, and I appreciate that you love the show. You could ask me to do one of these things. You cannot ask me to do both. You can't take the top. 14 teams off the board, but then also tell me, hey, don't pick team 15, 16, 17, and 18. So if I can't pick Miami or LSU or Oklahoma, if I can't do that, and I've got to pick from the best of the rest, it came to my attention that Penn State's not in the top 14 of the college football playoff odds, which surprises me, you know, schedule and all. So Penn State's got to be the team. Do they not, Michael? That's got to be one of the first teams that you circled, if nothing else, because of schedule. Now, I'm the first guy to sit here and tell you, don't be picking teams to go to the playoff merely on schedule, because the team is what makes the playoff. The schedule does not. But when you've got Marshall, Temple, and Buffalo sitting there looking you in the eye, when I can roll out of bed and start 3-0 and then need to handle Wisconsin at home, and then if it wasn't soft enough, my introduction to conference, play is at Northwestern. Now, that could be a little bit of a booby trap, because they're open in the new stadium there, so it could be charged. But still, where would you rather open conference play? That's going to be put in a hype video. That's okay, though. Matt Campbell can stand it. And then you come home and face USC at Michigan. If I split those games, and then I go undefeated the rest of the way, man, I could make the playoff. So yeah, I think Penn State's got to be one. This is where a lot of people. I think a lot of people took exception with my next team earlier today. Remember, we're looking for sleeper teams, okay? And remember, the playoff rules are a G6 team has to make it. And as G6 Josh, I'm sitting here saying, forget about the Power Four. Give me Navy. And man, I said it earlier today, and I got some of the most anti-American looks across the table that you could ever get. And I'm like, sorry. Sorry for loving. I'm loving my country. And in the process, maybe giving a look at Navy to make the playoffs. By the way, Navy has the third best odds out of any G6 team to make the playoff, Jesse. So how do they not qualify as sleeper status? No, I'm waiting on you. Oh, but I came with, I came with, I came with like ammunition above and beyond just, hey, I like Navy. Let's move on. I'm not a P4 shill, unlike some people behind the glass in there. I look at Navy. You want to know what I like about Navy, Jesse? You do want to know what I like about Navy. 21 wins last two years, which I rattled off the top of my head earlier today, and I did not need anyone to look any of this up. Brian Newberry, you think he's in his third year. He's in his fourth year there as head coach. And of course, we all know he was there before that. Veteran offensive line. They play Notre Dame. But you know what? They could afford to lose a Notre Dame. And still be in the playoff mix. I know that because JMU got housed by Louisville last year, didn't play anyone else in the top 50 in strength of schedule, and still made the playoff. So this could happen. I may have just talked myself into it. Houston. We're back in the Big 12. Houston. Conor Wegman is back. First 10 win season since 2021 last year. Love Willie Fritz. And Houston right now, their over-under is like eight and a half. To even make the playoff, they're plus 800. That's the 30th best odds. So they certainly fit the description here. They're at Texas Tech week three on a Friday night. So let's just say Texas Tech's going to end up being great. But maybe they're wobbly early. If you're going to play Texas Tech this year, you kind of want to play them early. Even though that's going to be a really tough environment on the road on a Friday night. Their three toughest are on the road. This is one of the most difficult. And that's why I think their odds are a little bit lower. So they go to Texas Tech. They go to Kansas State. They go to Utah. That's the difficult part of this. But again, remember, if they can somehow find their way to the Big 12 title game, anything can happen on any given day. And the other one that I look at is Florida. This is not a prediction for them to make the playoff, but it's my obligation to always insert Florida into the conversation. And with Florida, specifically, I want you to look at their schedule. Don't pay attention to them. Don't pay attention to over-under seven-and-a-half wins. It'll just scare you. Look at the schedule. They got FAU week one. They've got the Camels of Campbell in week two. Now I want you to think about how this could start for them. They go to Auburn in week three. Auburn, a lot of newness. This will be the toughest challenge for Auburn so far in the year. Let's just say they were to go in there and get the win. They come home to face Ole Miss. that's an Ole Miss team post-Elevation. LSU game. So at Missouri the very next week and South Carolina the week after that are both games that they could be favored in. And you could look up, if this falls the right way, you could look up and John Summerall's rolling into mid-October 6-0. Still doesn't make me love their odds at Texas. Still solidly lean Georgia against them. Oklahoma comes to the swamp. But think about at Texas-Georgia, if you were to start 6-0, you split those games there. OU's got to come to you. You go to Kentucky, Vandy at home, and at Florida State. You ought to win those three games. Florida's probably going to go 8-4 this year. But I just painted a path where I didn't even bake in the possibility that maybe Texas isn't as good as we think they're going to be. I didn't even do the thing where maybe Georgia's down a notch because I don't think they will be. But again, we're looking for dark horses here. We're looking for sleepers. Florida's got the 19th best odds to make the playoff, and they've got the roster to make a run if some things fall their way. We're not just making those numbers up, by the way. FanDuel, the exclusive odds provider of the show, everything's available over there. Everything. Including some of the numbers I'm about to give you in just a second. We had to hit up FanDuel Mike today. You could hit up FanDuel right now. Probably not FanDuel Mike. I'm not supposed to give his number out. But you can go to FanDuel right now, and you can bet a lot of these games. Florida may make a playoff run, but you can make a lot of money betting that over there right now, or just bet over eight and a half wins. There's a really, really robust futures market over there. You've got Heisman odds, a ton of week one games already on the docket. You can bet teams to make or miss the playoff. Do it at your leisure. FanDuel, the exclusive odds provider of Pate State. Must be 21 plus and present in select states. For Kansas, in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino, or 18 plus and present in D.C. First online real money wager only. $5 first deposit required. Bonus issued as non-withdrawable bonus bets, which expire seven days after receipt. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit fanduel.com slash RG. Call 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut or visit ndgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit gamblinghelplinema.org or call 800-327-5050 for 24-7 support in Massachusetts or call 1-877-8-HOPE-NY or text HOPE-NY in New York. Okay, this is what I was talking about here a second ago. I've got bold predictions from you guys in my hand. The rule is any of these bold predictions that are 9.5 or bolder and hit earned you a chalice of supremacy. Three out of the four tonight fit that description. Let's get to the first one first, as you often do. Travis from Springdale, Arkansas. Texas misses the playoff. Sark will not be the head coach at the end of the season. So not only does Texas not make the playoff, Sark is gone before the end of the year, a la Hugh Freeze last year, a la Billy Napier, a la Brian Kelly and the like. I'm putting a 9.25 on this. It sounds insane. It would be insane, by the way, unless Texas goes 100. It would be crazy. Sark's a great coach. And they're probably going to make the playoff. The only reason I hesitate is because of the schedule, not the quality of team. But you could believe Texas is the number one team in the country and still give this a little bit of air, still give this a little bit of oxygen, because I think it's the toughest schedule in the country this year. And even if you disagree, you'd have to agree it's like a top five. Toughest strength of schedule in the country this year. They play Ohio State, at Tennessee, Oklahoma neutral, Florida and Ole Miss before Halloween. So they get tested out of the gate and they don't stop getting tested the whole year. And if they go 9-3, which is very possible, and they miss out on the playoff again, there's a different standard at Texas this year. And I'm just telling you, a 9-3 looks good, especially against that schedule. It's a really good year. Those people would not care. A lot of them wouldn't care. So it would be utterly, utterly insane if he got fired for this. But I said what I said, and I mean what I'm saying when I say it's kind of a championship or bust kind of vibe around Texas right now, because those folks are looking at it saying, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. We've done everything you should ever need to do to win a national title. If you're missing the playoffs entirely two years in a row, you're the problem. You're telling me you couldn't hear people say that? I could. So I'm only making that a 9.25. I would immediately hire Sark if they fired him, by the way. He would be here coaching for us. And you'd never lose a game because we don't play anyone. Next up, Tyler from Wildwood, Missouri, threw this out here. Oregon will be 2-2 heading into October. That's a 9.75. That's bold. That'll get you a chalice if it happens. They play Boise at Oklahoma State, Portland State at USC. Now, you're not supposed to assume anything in the month of August, but I'm going to assume some things with Oregon because of how experienced they are. So I'm going to assume they're not going to lose against Boise. I'm going to assume they're not going to Oklahoma State and losing. And therefore, it makes it a moot point because I can promise you Portland State will not breathe more than one or two breaths before they're done, splattered all over the place. So if they start 2-0 this can't happen. But what if the improbable happens and Boise goes in there and beats them? Or what if they go to Oklahoma State and it's just crazy and Drew Mestermaker throws for 470, new coordinator on the road, blah, blah, blah. Well, then that makes that USC game pretty crazy. By the way, we hit up FanDuel earlier today trying to kind of map out Oregon's first four games. We know what the line on the Boise game is, but USC, they play them September 26th. What would you think Oregon at USC would be right now if you had to put a number on that? Well, we don't have to guess. FanDuel Mike hit us up. This number's not available yet, but he said if they had to put that number up today, Oregon minus six in the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. That's why I don't think this is going to happen. Even if Oregon gets upset early, they would be on fire in that game. And if they don't get upset early, it doesn't matter because the prediction is they're going to start 2-2. So I'm going to put 9.75 on that. Next up, not done with the hypotheticals yet. Everything School IU from Fishers, Indiana. That's not what I heard from the new Purdue AD earlier today. Sanford Stadium in week six and wins by double digits with Jared Curtis starting. Curtis beats the program he passed on. So Jared Curtis, five-star true freshman quarterback, was committed to Georgia, decommits, signs with Vandy, probably going to be their starter this year. This is a 9.75. This is an extremely bold prediction. Vandy going into Sanford Stadium and winning by double digits. I hit up FanDuel and I said, hey, this game, you don't have a number on it yet. What would it be if it happened today? Georgia minus 18.5. So we're asking Vanderbilt to go in there and not only win as an 18.5 point dog, they got to win by 10 plus. The last time Georgia got beat that badly at home was 2015 by Alabama. The last time they lost a game, period, it was at the hands of Alabama. It took. Ty Simpson was like 38 of 39 on third downs in that game. That's what it took to beat Georgia at home. And I'm about to watch true freshmen walk in there and do it comfortably. There's no way outside of like a minus four, minus five turnover day by Georgia. There's no way that happens. So I'm going to put a 9.75 on that. And then the last one, this one probably chewed up most of my time today. Andrew from Louisville, the ACC and Big 12 will combine for more playoff teams than the SEC. Now I'm going to put a 9.5 on this. So calm down, stop yelling at your phone and just consider this for a second. FanDuel odds to make the playoff. Out of the top 17 teams, eight of them are from the SEC. Two of them are from the Big 12 and ACC. So you got Miami in there, you got Texas Tech in there. There are SEC teams in there. Now I was thinking to myself, okay, what would the worst case scenario be? What would have to happen for the SEC here? Well, to me, it's pretty simple. Georgia and Texas are elite teams and the rest of the league is average. That's pretty much what would have to happen. So Georgia, Texas are undefeated or one loss teams. They play in Atlanta. They're both in the playoff. And then the next best team is like eight and four. The nine game league schedule just chews everyone up to their playoff caliber team. If that happens, then this is possible. Because you know you've got to have at least one from the ACC and one from the Big 12. So you'd already be two to two. But remember, the prediction is the ACC and the Big 12 combine to have more playoff teams than the SEC. So they need three minimum. Could happen. Here's what's more likely. What's more likely is even if the SEC's down this year, they probably get three teams in. That's more likely. Which means the Big 12 and ACC have to combine for four. And that's really where I have a problem. Like, you've got to have Texas Tech and Brigham Young. They separate entirely. And it's like undefeateds facing off in Arlington. Or maybe undefeated versus one loss. And the one loss team wins the conference title. And they both go to the playoff. And then Miami runs the league in the ACC. But SMU or Louisville or a surprise like Clemson, they're in the mix. That's kind of what has to happen. And it's just tough to have all that come together. So I'm going to put a 9.5 on that one. Lengthy show tonight, but necessary. Because it is August. And so we are getting very, very close to fall camp scrimmages, which is really when the season starts to me. But appreciate you guys so much. Do me a favor. You're doing it. So I appreciate it. Please just continue to subscribe to the channel. You can only do it once. But those of you who haven't, please continue to subscribe to the channel. And then grab a phone from a friend, a phone from a cousin while they're not looking. And subscribe on their device too. Because it doesn't hurt them. It doesn't cost anything. We won't spam them. I don't even get their email addresses anyway. So I don't know what harm we would do. But we appreciate it. It helps out a lot. We will be back Sunday night. Until then, for Director Bradley, Producer Jesse, I'm Josh Pate. Take care. Have a great rest of your week. And God bless. Must be 21 plus and present in Salisbury. Restrictions apply. Gambling problem? Call 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut. Or visit ndgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit gamblinghelplinema.org or call 800-327-5050 for 24-7 support in Massachusetts. Or call 1-877-8HOPE-NY or text HOPE-NY in New York. In business, there's the easy way with staples or the hard way. Hard means. New office opening. Kevin, find a cleaning supplies vendor. Frank, we need furniture. Susan, get someone to deliver coffee. Move, move, move. Easy means one vendor for all your workplace needs. Hard means. Okay, your break room delivery is. Confirmed. Great. For Sunday, 5 a.m. Great. Easy means next day delivery when and where you need it. 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