Week 8 College Football Previews & Predictions | BIG GAME BREAKDOWN

The core short from Viori is one pair I keep reaching for. Morning run, afternoon training, watching the game, does matter. Soft four-way stretch, built-in liner, comfortable all day. Plus, they look good enough to wear well beyond the gym. Ready to try a pair? Head to Viori.com/pod20 to get 20% off your first purchase. Exclusions apply, visit the website for full-terms and conditions. Welcome back to the Cover 3 podcast with your host, Chip Patterson, Tom Furnnelli, Danny Cannell, and Bob Elliott. It's your call for the best college football coverage from National Signing Day to the National Championship and everything in between. CBS Sports presents the Cover 3 podcast. And welcome back to the Cover 3 podcast here on CBS Sports. That's Tom Furnnelli, that's Danny Cannell, that's Bud Elliott. I'm Chip Patterson, coming to you live, youtube.com/cover3 and everywhere you get your podcasts on a man. Thanks for hanging out. Smash that subscribe, smash that like and come and join us in the chat. Hey, hey, the Cover 3 tailgate? Where they still are buzzing over DK's film review. Danny, I mean, I'm just going to take a minute here because we've had people reach out offline, you know, people reaching out here in the tailgate. Multiple, I mean, this was, I appreciate the hard work and I think that the best compliment I heard was, um, saying like day, day train Danny was like great, but the corky with muscles might be the DK film review. You know, like you've really taken it to the next level there. So we appreciate it. You know, you gave us the handwritten, um, exes and owes. Yes. Now we've leveled up. I just, I wanted to give you your flowers. Maybe I'll, next week I'll make, next week I'll really make sure because all I did was video that with my phone, I videoed my iPad, like, and I was a little bit like shit. It was moving kind of. I'm not like really dialing now and like really give some better one. I'm going to make sure the lines are like clear. I actually got an Apple pen or pen pro, whatever it is. So I can even get cleaner lines. So yeah, we could blow this thing up, make it a Monday afternoon special. That's awesome. I very much enjoyed it. Don't, don't put too much pressure on yourself. I mean, that's not the problem with doing something good. Around, around, I want to go with a board behind me and just have a screen there. And then I'll stand up and we'll just try to get to the screen. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. One other item from the tailgate that I noticed is we were ready to get and started with some celebration for buds. Tampa Rays. How great. Listen, man. Good chance to go get it. How are we feeling? Like just amazing. Like what walls to just turn and double plays all night. Obviously, you know, we're all to show up and then, you know, like the, I mean, that, like when you've seen the clip of Maddox talking to bonds and I like to talk about the old bonds about, it's like, that's a good pitch. It's a pitchers pitch. It's an executed pitch. It's just the wrong pitchstone situation. Like for Yarni to nuke that change up, which is just on the black, you know, 116 miles an hour off the bat is, that's beautiful. But hey, like if you guarantee a win, you got to come through and then he did, man. And that was, and I'm really excited. Like what if Camanero is out of this little funky's been in, you know, that's two games in a row that he's turned around a high-hard one, you know, like got good top end on it and, you know, hit hard. So maybe man, I'm excited. It's going to be cool. Yeah, Brewers raise game one Friday night, right? Yep. Yeah, game one Friday night in the World Series. That's will be, will be a very, very fun one for sure. We, as we can game one on Friday night, we have a load of games for week eight, where we're going to go inside the match-up, tell you what we're looking for. We like to call it the game breakdown. We begin in Austin, Texas, where, you know, Tom writes the anxiety rankings for cbsports.com, always read, Tom, it makes your life better and the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the anxiety around this Texas Longhorn's team. We've got reports of an uptick in first team reps for KJ Lacey. Danny, I remember you were talking about that as the way to maybe apply some pressure on archmaning, but no indication that we're going to have a change at starting quarterback for this game. So as we are doing our big game breakdown, expect that it will, at B, it will be at least for the first snap, archmaning with the first team offense going up against peak goldings, Ole Miss defense. The Rebels, as we mentioned, I've put together a couple good performances coming out of the buy, kind of been operating a little bit on the periphery, not leading big game breakdown necessarily, and they find themselves as an underdog to the reeling Longhorn's. Tom, as you start to pick this match-up apart, what do you think are some of the places where this one will be decided? First, I'm going to start with a super fun fact, something that I'm shocked of all people on the show that Chip has not picked up on yet. Texas scored three touchdowns in the third quarter of their season opener against Texas State. Do you know how many touchdowns they've scored in the third quarter since? Zero. Zero. Ole Miss third quarter. Go ahead and throw it on the call. There you go. I'm just throwing that out there for you, Chip. I appreciate that. Right now, I've still got, it was Indiana's 7.04th quarter points per game margin against Ohio State 6.44th quarter points per game margin was the one that was on the top of my mind. Thank you for bringing this to my attention. It's basically like a snaple fact at this point. Yeah, I'm not sure what Start's doing at halftime, but certainly isn't scheming enough ways to score touchdowns apparently. I think this game, ultimately, you look at the way these teams are. I know that the conversation has dominated the landscape here the last few days, but it's Arch versus Trinidad. Who do you trust a lot more right now? I think the answer is pretty obvious. We know Arch is going to start. Sark has been pushed about it in his press conferences. He said that he needs to see the better version of Arch Manning. Danny had the film breakdown yesterday, which showed why you need to see a better version of Arch Manning because there were plays there and he's just not seeing them. My bigger question. Does Arch finish this game? If Texas finds itself in a hole and they're trailing and they're kind of in a shootout and Arch is just missing plays, missing throws, missing open receivers, missing reads. Do they kind of make that change during the game or do they keep doing it? Statistically, I've gone over this before, but just to drive it home. Among 62 qualified power four quarterbacks, Arch ranks 42nd and EPA per dropback, 35th and passing efficiency, 39th and completion rate, 38th and yards per attempt, 49th and yards per dropback, 23rd and touchdown rate, but then 51st and interception rate, and he's 40th and Whoopsie daisy rate. This is at the power four level a mid to slightly below mid quarterback performance for March Manning. This is somebody who was talked about as a possible number one pick in the draft. This was the five star quarterback who we thought going into this part of his third season overall or in his second season as a full-time starter. We thought we would see a leap. We just have not seen it and now he's got to go up against a quarterback that has been playing far better than he is and has been far more productive and honestly, I just don't know that Arch has enough in him to lead Texas to a win here, even at home, even with their defense because that's the other aspect of this too. Colin Simmons ain't playing, man. And as good as that defense is, now everybody on that defense has to step up in a role to where Colin Simmons is not the focal point of every blocking scheme. He is not the focal point of what they're trying to do on offense to avoid. You are now. Can you step up and can you continue playing at that same level while Colin Simmons is out? We're going to find out because this is a really good offense, Texas is facing. I mean, look, you get a different version of your team every week. Lou Holt used to say this on that College of All Recap show. I'm a Reese Davis, you know, sites over there like we've seen good Texas. We've seen bad Texas, right? And we've also seen good old miss and we've seen bad old miss. You know, like old miss goes out there, like they, you know, obviously they crushed Missouri, which is a great result. You know, they also kind of had a meltdown against Florida, like despite kind of being in that game, like through 35 minutes or so, like we've seen them, you know, probably should have put away Louisville several times in that game and then have breakdowns in the secondary, right? So, like, man, I don't know if I'm fully sold at beating Missouri, like Missouri is better than I thought they would be this year. I don't think there were world beaters, you know, and obviously Vanderbilt looks like a pretty cool, you know, one of the worst teams in the SEC this year without Pavia. So, I mean, I, like anything can happen in these, like that the margin is, is so small, I put out a tweet last night. So 10 years ago, 65% of the games this weekend had a spread of two scores or less, right? This year, it's 92. Like the talent goes right out, like, and that's a big jump. Now, look, there's factors, right? Obviously, we have three fewer possessions per game now, so that's going to shrink your margins. Maybe this is a bit of an outlier week, but I just researched it after all the upsets we were having. Like, the sport is just way more competitive game to game. And like, it makes it really hard to predict and really fun to recap, you know, and I mean, would it really shock you if Texas was able to, to, to rattle trended at and play a kind of gross defensive game and, and hit some explosives and it's not. if Ole Miss secondary has breakdowns and arcs is able to hit him. Probably not. I mean, I think I still think Texas defense, even at Colin Simmons, is really nasty. And probably the best offense of test that Ole Miss has seen, especially when you factor in home road. Do you guys remember true that, Jamilis? No. Cause he's just like a guy. Cause he's 10 a minute. Cause like after three weeks, it was like he's the best, everybody's on TV saying he's the best quarterback in the country. Like, give him a heisman and then one bad game that they lose, that he didn't even play that bad in. Like he didn't have Q1 Lacey, just like forgotten about. I think he's going to play fine in this game. Like can they contain them? Let's throw him down potentially. Yes. I think without Colin Simmons, it makes him much tougher. But I think Trinidad could re-emount himself to the college football world. Like, hey guys, remember me? I'm like, I'm still here. And then as it goes, cause I think everybody is watching, like how bad does it have to get? Like Bryce Underwood had two picks. It was zero points. And they finally were like, we got to do something. Like if it's kind of the same as it's been where you maybe get a big arch throw early and then you get a couple, you know, three and out and then, you know, maybe like how bad does it have to get for Sark to pull the plug? I think it has to get pretty bad where it's so obvious you're like, yeah, you got to get him out of there. And then what does it look like with KJ Lacey? There's no guarantee like it's fixed. Like we saw Tommy Car come off the bench and it looks awesome and he runs the ball more than Bryce Underwood and it looks great and you're like, okay, that was the problem. What happens if it's not like what happens if KJ Lacey comes off the bench and they'll often still sputters then you've got a mess on your hands. That's why I think arch or Sark is probably so, you know, stuck and dug in with arch at this point. Cause I don't, I think he's kind of scared about what it could look like. The thing that I can't figure out is for all these different things like arch yesterday when he was asked about this said, I'm not going to quit living. I'm going to let it rip, right? And he kind of said, I'm just going to ask the only way I know how to play is let it rip. What I almost feel like he needs to calm it down a little bit with the rips like let's like be a more of a game manager. We saw Sark going into last week mentioned that they wanted to get arch's legs going more which you still haven't seen. Like what happened to that game plan? I've just, there's been an inconsistency of execution but also an inconsistent messaging. Arch had 10 rushing touchdowns this year, last year. This year he has zero on the season. We're halfway through. I just, they're lacking identity, they're lacking solutions. I'm very curious to see what happens. Potential for a little pucker factor here in terms of like home field disadvantage. This thing starts going poorly just. Here's my biggest question is how good is Ole Miss defense? I don't, do you, do you all have any idea because the way that they were able to shut down Missouri's run game and look, Austin Simmons moved the ball but like before they got in a scoring range, you know, was able to get some yards but it weren't necessarily consequential yards. That game they had established a pretty good advantage there in terms of slowing down the Missouri rushing attack, but Texas's run game hasn't been great. You know, it's kind of like, I don't know how these pieces fit next to each other, but do you have a read on that for the Rebs D? I mean, I think it's like top 25, you know, but the way they get there is like some weeks they play like a top 10 defense and some weeks they play like a top 45 defense. So it probably averages out to about top 25, but that's kind of one of the mysteries, like which Ole Miss defense do you get, you know, do you get Will Eccles showing up and wrecking them? You know, like Gillum for Tennessee has been a problem for everybody but he was definitely a problem for Texas in that game, right? You know, Texas obviously gave Tennessee a bunch of problems too. So like what Ole Miss defense shows up here? Like I think if you're Ole Miss you're like, hey man, we're pretty confident we can score in the upper 20s here, right? With Kennedad, with how we play this offense, like that'll be a good effort, you know, can you hold the horns to 20 or less? Because good teams have done so and like we're going to need that out of you defense, right? I think it's just like they have some really good pieces, they don't always play to that level. I guess it's the best way to put it. I do think they've been better though. It's, you look like they lost that game to Florida and they got completely run over defensively and you, but I do think you can't ignore the context of that game coming the week after the LSU game because obviously LSU was very much a super bowl like game for Ole Miss coming in going on the road to Florida, the letdown was not unexpected. It doesn't dismiss it outright or you know, excuse it outright, but I do think it's far more understandable. But then they went on a buy. I was going to say that week five buy week was the best thing that could have happened to this Ole Miss team to flush it and reset. Yeah. And since then, the defense has been markedly better, like going the first four games of the year, this team had a negative play rate of 29 and a half percent. Last two games since the buy, that's up to 43.1 percent. They're far more disruptive up front now. They've played Vandy and they've played Mizzou. So if you want to wave some of that away because of the competition, there's plenty of just ifiable reason to do that, but I will also mention, like maybe Mizzou hadn't played the most craziest schedule, but here's their rushing output by game on the season. 205 yards, 177, 122, 119, 220, 247, 39. 39 was Ole Miss. Ole Miss last week did something that nobody else Mizzou has played this year was able to do. They took Jamal Roberts out of the game and Chip, as you mentioned, Texas has not been effective running the ball at any point this year. If they can continue to make that the case and they put the game on Arches Shoulders, we have seen what this Texas offense looks like when it's on Arches Shoulders. It has not been good. So I don't know if they're as good as they have looked the last two weeks defensively, but I do think they have figured some things out and they use that buy to get some stuff in order. We don't have a ton of trust in that secondary, but I think the front seven's playing a lot better than it had been. Yeah. Fun game Saturday night out there in Austin. We'll see how the pendulum swings, a third loss in a row. When we talk about stakes and storylines here, I don't need to elaborate on that one. That would be Defcon, I don't know, Red, Green, Orange. Things would be problematic there in Austin. Ole Miss now really, as Tom mentioned, trying to continue to build this thing back and all the sudden, if they can get this win, they'd be staring at the potential to have a really, really exciting season the rest of the way. Anything else on Ole Miss, Texas, before we turn our attention to Salt Lake City. Danny, is there anything you would call differently if you do keep Archen? Well, from a coaching perspective? Yeah, after breaking it down, watching his limitations, is it fewer options? Is it more heavy play action stuff, fewer guys in the route? Is it more design run, what would you do? I mean, they tried, they were running the ball pretty well at a clip, and then they'd have a third and three, and they wouldn't convert it. I think I'd probably try to get its confidence up. You know what's interesting? When I was watching this, Tom got confidence up. They ran to like, I don't even shovel passes, like the little toss, like just, it's literally like, you only throw a half yard, but it's a completion. And it comes up, like, yeah, like no, like it's a fly sweep, he's up, he runs underneath them, instead of handing, he just flip it to him, because it's a completion. Like I almost feel like Sark is calling those to give him a confidence boost, like, hey, you look up, you're two for two, you know, you've completed two passes, like, I do, but I do think mentally that's where they're at with trying to boost his confidence. I would give him some layups early. I would also, I would try to run him more. I would have some design runs, and if the thought process before was, well, we have to protect him in case he gets hurt, well, at this point, if he gets hurt, he gets hurt, like, you just have to like, try to figure out what's best for him. Maybe some more design rolled out where you do have an option to run, but you also can take that, you know, we used to run a little smoke route where you'd have almost a smash concept where you'd roll out, and there'd be an easy hitch, and then a corner behind it, maybe a drag or come in there, but also like while you're on the move, if they're defending, it just run it. Like, do something that kind of uses his athleticism sum? So I think I would try to do some of those things, you know? Yeah. We'll see, look, Archa had the design run early against Florida, and the broadcast mentioned it. And Sarc told us during the week, you know, we're going to get him out and running, and I didn't remember. Never again. Never again. Yeah. Right. Yeah. They got away from it. Yeah. All right. I mentioned it. One of the biggest games of the season out in the big 12 features the Houston Cougars coming off. An impressive win against Oklahoma State. I think we did a good job of giving the Cougars their flowers, the defensive line holding up, getting after a mastermaker, wide receivers coming up with big plays, Kobe Young, Amari Thomas and more. Now they're going to go to take on a Utah team that has just been putting together a incongruent body of work. Okay. It's undefeated record. And at the beginning, they were pounding these teams. But I'm going to come to you first because I remember you starting to hint that we might have some some stuff under the hood where the youths are not quite the same. Listen, there's some vibes here where you're having to play in Salt Lake City right after playing that Oklahoma State game. Utah's got a lot of situational advantages. The must certainly be an among them. But what have you seen from Utah as the season has gone on? Yeah. I mean, look, the spot here is not great for Houston. They were just having all out wore off. obviously with Oklahoma State. Now they have to travel to Utah, which has pretty undoubtedly here, one of the best home field advantages in the sport. Two quarterbacks system they're running there, which is really interesting. I think what they're doing offensively, they're doing a great job on offense. As you see here on the screen, there's seven and one against spread, last eight home games, eight note, et cetera, score and shoot 47 points a game. But guys, and I know Candace is a good offensive coaching staff, and I know Candace offense is very boomer bust because that quarterback is kind of the definition of whoopsie daisy. But they did move it on Utah pretty consistently. And Colorado also moved it on some. Utah's offense was a little sloppy in that game, set up some good field position for the buffs. But also, even Colorado's offense is pretty trash this year, like had some decent drives against them. And I'm just wondering, are we starting to see some cracks in that Utah defense? I don't think Houston's defense is amazing. I think that was a really good effort for them to exploit in maybe an Oklahoma state offensive line. It's not that great. And they ripped off the edge, and they had constant pressure on a mess to make her. But I mean, dude, Wegman's playing exceptionally well. Kobe Young, coming up as a compliment to Amari Thomas on the other side, he just keeps getting better and better. And I'm just like, man, this is going to be a fun game. Because I'm pretty sure Utah is going to play well at home. And maybe they were looking ahead to this game last week as they were a bit sloppy against Colorado. But how old is Wegman now? Like 23, 24 years old? Like 45. Like that's a vet's vet, man. And like Fritz isn't as a tremendous coach. Like they know who they are. They execute really well. They have different makers, obviously, too, on the perimeter. I mean, sit in six and a half, I'm a little surprised by that. Like I get the spot. But also, I don't think on a neutral that I'm taking Utah to be Houston. You know, like Utah just hasn't played anybody yet. Houston's at least played some decent teams. - You mentioned Utah defensively. Like if you look at them, they've been giving up a lot of explosive plays. Like I think that's been one of the bigger problems that they've had these last few weeks. Like you mentioned Kansas hit a bunch of explosives on them. Colorado was hitting them. And I had the number show them one second. It is a yeah, in their first four games, they had an explosive play rate allowed a 7.6% in the last two games. It's been 14.2. So pretty much doubled as far as what they had been allowing compared to before. So that's something you got to figure out. And they've also they haven't had a sack in either one of those games against Kansas or Colorado after being a pretty decent pass rush to start the season. It's kind of disappeared. But I do think part of the problem for them is the offense has started to turn the ball over quite a bit in the last two weeks. And that has helped keep Kansas and Colorado in the game. And it's certainly I don't think has helped defensively for what they're trying to do. Not that that excuse is the lack of pass rusher explosives, but they've been put in worse places. But that's not really a good situation to be in here because like I assume most of our listeners haven't really spent a lot of time watching Houston. They're not really the kind, they're not the most popular team in the country. They're not really in the prime time spots on television. But you should know that this team scores 3.72 points per possession. That is second in the country behind only Miami. They are second in offensive success rate. They are fourth in EPA per snap. And they've typically done all this without being overly explosive. Like they are very solid, down to down team. They just stay on schedule and they move the ball. Now that's good, but it can also be a problem when you face a defense that maybe kind of is able to put you in bad situations if you haven't shown an ability to consistently hit big plays. And I do wonder going on the road to this environment where chips suddenly thinks that the must matters after for years saying that Utah had no home field advantage and that those fans were weak and boring. But now he suddenly thinks they're great anyways. But I just think going into this environment, like you're probably going to need to hit more big plays. I don't know if you can rely on just being super efficient when you're on the road in this place. So it is going to be a very interesting matchup. I feel better about Houston than I do right now, kind of to your point, bud. Whereas I think Houston's been playing better. But then also to your point when we were talking Texas Ole Miss, like college is looking more like the NFL, not just in the fact that the games are getting closer. It's just from week to week, you're never really sure what team is going to show up. So a lot of it could just come down to, hey, who comes out and plays well and who doesn't? I think if Houston can take away Utah's run game, they win this game by a touchdown or more. Ooh, I just think I trust Connor Wegman and Houston's ability to win kind of a different game. Utah's rush, I mean, they live and die by the rush and Wachon Parker, including Devon Damper's legs. That was one of the reasons they struggled offensively as they didn't get the run game going against Colorado, which was pretty surprising. You know, but I've seen Damper a couple of times whether it was last year against Texas Tech, you know, where he's kind of been made more one-dimensional that their offense really, really struggles. And I think that plays into Houston's favor. They have a really good rush defense where I think they should be able to kind of stack up and say, go ahead, try to beat us. I mean, they'll put Bird Ficklin in there and they'll run two quarterbacks at the same time, which I kind of know they're probably gonna run it when they do that with Ficklin 'cause he's a pretty dynamic runner. But I think that to me is probably one of the biggest, you know, biggest keys I'm looking at for is can Houston stop, Utah's run game. - Yep. Utah was obliterating opponents early in the season. Like they're sort of efficiency, like all the data on the Utes coming out of the gate, the raw stuff coming out early showed like a big gap. Whoa, whoa, Morgan Scally, like they're not missing a beat. This can go one of two ways. Utah shows up, they take advantage of a Houston team in a little bit of a, you know, tough road spot out of a big win and they pound them. And now you've got this huge win to try to make it to Dallas, which opens up a lot. You know, we, I mean, McKenzie Clubcans is talking about three big 12 teams in the playoff, you know? Like the Utah winning this one would certainly be a big step in that kind of direction. But this is also, as we looked at the way Utah's gone the last couple of weeks, maybe a chance for Houston, a team who, yeah, you're right. Maybe not everybody has watched Houston. Maybe you just watched that Texas Tech game where they fell on the two point try at the really at the end and have it really circled back. But well-rounded team that I think is, I tell you what, Houston would be more than happy to make this a shootout because I think Houston trusts its offense to be able to make this a shootout more than Utah does. Is that fair? - Yeah, Houston has shown it's probably better prepared for shootouts than it is for kind of slugfests. - Yep. Anything else here to keep an eye on? - No, I think they really nailed it. - Yep. I will let the record show despite Tom Fernelli's allegations that my appreciation for the mighty Utah student section is well-documented. And I got a little bit high on my horse in a lox pod talking some trash. I got screen-shat as Josh Tate likes to say. And I got turned into a big poster that was held up in the mighty Utah student section. So, you know, we all learn our lessons, Tom. We check the tape and we get better. - Just, you know. - You say let the record show. I think you just said what the record shows is you are not a must-respector at all. You have disrespected the must. - No, what would have been really disrespectful was for me to double down because I won the lock. Texas Tech won the game and I was right. Okay. - If I was staying 10 toes down, I'd be like, don't be running. - Well, because it's not my battle to fight. And I'll fund that. All right. Coming up on the other side, Indiana Hoosiers. Don't have a lot of time to be able to feel sorry for themselves for one misstep out of bounds. 'Cause now they gotta put on that chin strap. They gotta ready to go to war. It's Tommy Car and the Michigan Wolverines. Everything we're expecting from Indiana, Michigan, and more. - Next. - Back here on the cover three podcast, Danny, I think that if Indiana and Michigan played a game where they each got, let's say like 30 possessions, Indiana wins handily. But that ain't the kind of game that we're expecting in Ann Arbor on Saturday when the Hoosiers go in there because every Michigan game has been played in a phone booth. It's the way that Michigan has to play games in order to win them. And when Indiana has played tough defenses, the offense is not exactly like the scoreboard up either. Where's your mind going as you're starting to break down? A bounce back opportunity for the Hoosiers and a Michigan team that was able to get a gutsy win with a quarterback change against Penn State. - I think this is a tough spot for Indiana. You know, we've seen a trend. Teams don't handle the success real great, but they also haven't had adversity that great. Like scene teams get beat and then beat again. Clearly it was a physical game versus Ohio State, Joshua probably had his worst game yet as the quarterback. Now he's got to go play up against a Michigan defense, which is really good that I think can present some problems on the road. And then you've got the unknown. I mean, I don't think it's an unknown, What is the point? Tommy Carg and a look like with a game plan that's featuring him as the quarterback. Is he more consistent? Is he more of a run threat than Bryce Underwood was? Is he able to make those tough throws and situations that Bryce Underwood wasn't able to? You know, they weren't able to run the ball great against Ohio State's defense, are they going to be able to run against this defense? I think this is a tough spot for Indiana now. They're favored for a reason. They're probably better top to bottom, but I think it's a tricky spot for the Hoosiers. Oh, Danny, we don't know that Tommy Carg started, how winning Ham said he's not going to tip his hand. He doesn't want, he doesn't want Indiana to know who is starting quarterback, and if he does speak, and I'm sure there is a very real chance that after benching Bryce Underwood mid game last week, the Bryce Underwood will once again be the starter. Come on, we can't be certain. Did you say, signati, when he was breaking it down, he was kind of like as nice as he could. He is like, well, we watched the tape. So good, call her back, nobody said, we saw how they both executed. So I feel like we know who faced them. I mean, it was kind of, it was, it was interesting because he said what everybody would have said. Yeah. Yeah, it is interesting because like it's, and we've seen it a million times, it is one thing when the backup comes in mid game and the defense has not spent all week preparing for that guy, and that guy suddenly looks a little bit better than it is when the other team kind of knows what to expect, and I'm pretty sure Indiana will be spending the week preparing for Tommy Carr, expecting him to be in there for the offense to look however they think it's going to look with Tommy Carr. So we have to see how he performs. I got to say there are other defenses out there that I'd rather make my first career start against Indiana, like it's, it had been improving along the front seven, and we saw last week. Like I know that Jeremiah Smith had the, I'm Jeremiah Smith and you aren't moment. But on the overall, they did a pretty good job of keeping Jeremiah contained. He only had the four catches for the 64 yards, and his touchdown did prove to be the deciding factor in the game, but you still overall held a Ohio State to 19 points. So this defense is playing well, it is playing much better than it had to begin the year. So realistically, what can we expect from the Michigan offense to do against Indiana? Like yeah, they looked more natural with car running it than they had with Underwood in the previous weeks, but Penn State hasn't exactly been a juggernaut on either side of the ball so far this year. So how much stock can we put into it? And then the other is for Josh Hoover, like he has not looked good since the Northwestern game. He missed throws against Northwestern. He missed a bunch of throws against Nebraska. And I know that it was very windy in that game, but it wasn't that windy last week against Ohio State, and he was missing throws it really like even when he wasn't overly pressured, he was sailing throws over his target's heads a lot of the time. So what's going on there? Can they figure out a way to get him going because statistically, Michigan's defense has been very good against the past this year, they haven't gotten a ton of pressure. But if you look at the overall numbers, they're typically top 25-ish in most of the snatch you care about. But then that leaves you to wonder, is it Michigan's defense or is it the teams that they've played? Because I think right now you would argue that the best quarterback Michigan has faced this season is Drake Lindsay, who we like, but it's not like he's been the top record you've been. The passing offense as a whole, you know, I think something to be desired. You. Uh-oh. Oh. Hey. Hey. He probably didn't want to cough on us. Yeah. No, come on. That was it. More appropriate times. That's a little unfair. He's not. He's, we have no flu game right here from, but we're not digging ditches, man. We're talking college ball for a living, you know, this is, let's say I'm really sick, I'm going to show up. What do these teams have in common, right? Oklahoma, you tap, well, sorry, forget you tap, right, Minnesota and Penn State. I'm not making my point real clear here. Basically, every single team that Michigan has faced so far is going to go way under their preseason win total, like they're all having like crazy disappointings, like, like schedules. And I think Indiana is like a major step up in competition for Michigan, like one of the things that makes Michigan so just pointing is that the big 10 has been extremitous pointing as a league this year, right? Like they are way down from where they were last year. I don't think it's like the bottom and the middle coming up. I think it's like the, the second tier of teams being very disappointing, or Penn State way down. Exactly. Like, I'm not buying like, you know, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the middle, you know, Washington, Penn State, Michigan, like all these teams that could have been there. The big 10 simply cannot withstand a bad Illinois. Correct. Yeah. Illinois falls in so does Rome. It's, yeah, basically. So like I, I think there's some chance Michigan who win this game because I do think Michigan's defense is very legit. I do think Hoover, look like he was kind of wincing when he was throwing the ball there on Saturday. So that's kind of a variable. It's hard to, I'm sure he's going to play. But like, is he not 100 percent? What does that do? I expect that, you know, Michigan probably decides to come after him a whole lot because they're, they're probably going to need to force the issue and try to generate some turnovers. You know, does Indiana get the run game going here is another thing I'm watching for? But like Penn State's run defense is awful, guys, like awful. And I think running the ball against Penn State is a hell of a lot different than running the ball against Indiana. If you watch what Nebraska did to Indiana, it was a lot of QB run stuff. So I think you'll see it, like obviously Northwestern has a lot of option elements. They were able to move it on Indiana some. I think you're going to see like a big QB run game. A lot of option elements probably playing super slow as well. But man, like that's a tough ask for Tommy Carr, even if he's an upgrade as far as operating the offense, you know, operation wise. We've also seen guys come in and look good in relief duty. And then when you had like a half a game on him and you get to prep for him the whole time as a starter, it's a little bit different story. See also Dylan Raola, you know, he looked like crap against UCLA after coming in and saving them against USC. So if Hoover is not like seriously limited, I think Indiana is fine here because I do think Michigan has played a really soft schedule despite the logos on their schedule. And I think Indiana will be fine, but super low possession game to Tom's point and that creates additional variance. And you guys concerned Indiana hasn't ran the ball real well the last two weeks. Like they didn't run it great at Nebraska. No, yeah, I a little bit of a concern because I think that's why that's why I think this needs to be like a Hoover bounce back. There's the guy, you know, because he's got good weapons throws are there like he missed a couple against Ohio State or they probably win that game. We obviously talked about the touchdown that was missed at the end, but there were a lot of other plays that he just missed because I think they could struggle to run it again against Michigan's defense. And I think they're going to challenge him. So like I do think it's kind of similar to matter who's playing quarterback for Michigan. I think if you were going to like you want a low scoring game, you know, you're not going to go toe to toe with them scoring, but I think it's, I think that's the recipe that we could see. It's what 41 and a half the total. So I think it's going to be lower scoring. You want to play what's the number? What's the number Indiana would sign up for? 21. Yeah, I would say 21. John, do you want to play another fun number? Yeah. I created a stat and I have no idea if it's valuable or not, but it's amusing. We have first of all, Kirk fairness would be very proud of you because I'm calling it margin EPA. And I basically just added up the EPA like for penalties and special teams, no penalties and special teams. And we've given Michigan a lot of crap, you know, they're four and two and Bryce Underwood has caught a lot of heat for this team's problems because he just has not performed well. But Bryce Underwood has nothing to do with any of this. And we thought, you know, like, and I wrote about it a few weeks ago. We thought with this coaching staff coming in, they were going to clean things up. But around the margins, this team has been very sloppy. Michigan's margin EPA on the season is negative 40.45. That ranks 135th nationally. The only three teams they have been better than are Toledo, Georgia Southern, and in dead last, this will shock everybody Colorado. So for a team with very little margin for error the way that they have played this year, that is a whole hell of a lot of error. And now you're playing a much better team than you have faced at any point really to this season. No disrespect to Iowa, but Indiana is better. And then I just think, you know, your quarterback play has not been good and you're doing dumb penalties and your special teams have been poor. It's not really a winning combination. Who was it in the chat here said Indiana hasn't faced John Henry Daley or Dom Nichols? I got to talk to Tim Lester before the Ohio State game was kind of asking me, okay, I think you guys have a chance. You know, what do you think? He thought Michigan's defense, especially their defensive line was better than Ohio states. Just something to note, like I think this could be a challenge again for Indiana to handle the defensive front. I don't think it's going to be easy. I will also say, though, like hold on one second, I got to check something here, but Michigan's pass rush has not been great. I think it's more about running. Well, I think it's more about them. He was in the like the whole point of front. They're not holding the point of attack, not giving you any kind of room. Michigan's good at that. Yeah. They've got a good group undoubtedly. I mean, it's, it's going to be one of the first things you mentioned like Danny, gun to your head. Tell me something good about Michigan. You're making defense. Defensive front. Right. You're not raving about QB play right now. No, no, no. Not not whatsoever. Pressure rate. They rank 41st nationally, uh, EPA per rush. They rank 34th. Well, how do those stack up against Ohio State because I know, uh, Ohio State's pressure rate has been horrific like they are not anywhere. They were in like the hundreds going into that game. But against the run, Ohio State is EPA per rush is 14th to Buds point. I think this is credit to Brian Haynes and Garrett put it in there. Brian Haynes could go and to put cars, you know, in a blender that, that will be challenging for sure. Also, again, I would like to point out what's the best offense that Michigan's defense has seen this year, right? Not many. It's like your, your Minnesota, Iowa, Oklahoma, Penn State, Penn State, I think it's Iowa. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. And I'm not, and it's not even like a little bit say it, not Iowa with, with, uh, um, with Brown. Yeah. I think it's a fun game. I think we have fun game. Good. Nice, nice little start to your day, uh, right there. All right. We will, uh, pick up the pace, get a little more rapid as we reach, uh, reach our conclusion here on a Tuesday reminder, our best bets will be available in the cover in the week eight locks on Thursday, 11 a.m. Eastern time, uh, Lane Kiven coming out, a shut out win against Mississippi State. They're hitting the road and they're heading to the plains at one time. Lane Kiven was an Auburn coaching candidate. And at the time, the men's basketball coach was Bruce Pearl and Bruce Pearl said, Hey man, come here to coach, you'll win a game every single year that you're not supposed to win. That place is haunted. So we'll a spooky, Jordan hair catch LSU as Auburn returns home coming off the big rivalry win against Georgia. What did we see from Auburn in the victory that might be able to be replicated here against LSU? Ken, Ken, they push LSU centers, but into Sam Leff at while he's trying to run by him. Because if they can, they can replicate it. I had from the other side, I had a note yesterday that we didn't get to for a pawn for the review about Sam Leffet. I think him being banged up might have been the best thing that happened to him and to LSU because he has to stay in the pocket. Yeah. And so there's two things. One, he's had to stay in the pocket. He's also, we forget like he's still new to the system, like he's getting more comfortable with the reads. I think he's getting more comfortable like because you never know. Some of the throws I was watching him try to make against Ole Miss when he wouldn't see it. He just took it and run it. He might have forgot or not known as number two and just like got out of there. He's going through his progressions better. He's playing with more than the system and I think they're having a ton more success because of it. So we'll see competitions been a little bit lesser last week was kind of a joke, but I think he's getting right at the right time, which is what you need to have happen. I think maybe the best thing for LSU here is that Auburn beat Georgia, right? If you're catching a desperate Auburn team, fresh off getting pounded by Georgia, do we trust that Lane Kiffin will have these guys focused and ready? I think it's an easier task to be like, hey, these guys, they might have sucked early in the season, but man, they are a lot better now, right? They just went into Athens and beat Georgia. We've got to take these guys seriously, you know, starting on Sunday, not like, hey, wake up in the middle of the third quarter and start to play hard. So, man, Byra Brown has been getting a ton of, give me times you're in the ball against Georgia. 26? 26 carries. Now, that includes sacks, obviously, but I mean, can you just QB run LSU to death and hit him with some of the screens and the play extra stuff? Maybe so. Certainly. I was surprised this number opened under a touchdown, it was like five and a half and then it immediately like got crushed and went, went to North of a touchdown, which I think is probably more reflective of how these teams have played throughout the year. But, you know, look, Byra is a grown man and like I think his best attribute is clearly the running and maybe he's got another 20 carry game and like for a hundred in there and then they can mix in some explosive plays and make it a game, right? But that's, that's a big ask that he's already over a hundred carries on the year. Like he's on pace for 200, but that's, that's a lot for a QB. What, uh, what did we say earlier when we were talking about arch? If he dies, he dies, you can't, I mean, but that probably more so than anyone, they need him to do that because you're not going to rely on him to do it with his arm, you know, it's got, it's how they got to where they are. It's how Alex Goulaj has the job now because he rode that big physical quarterback a lot through USF. So I think that's what you have to. We don't apologize for winning on this show, but did you guys see the post game win expectancy for Auburn according to Connellese SP plus for this one? It was the least likely this, yeah, oh, it was, it was one of the least likely of all time. Auburn had a post game win expectancy of 3.3%. It went into SP plus the adjusted margin based on the numbers, how this game would typically have gone. Georgia should have won by 15. Again, those turnovers, one of which was just gunner stocked and possibly can cost running into his center's ass and fumbling the ball at midfield in the final minutes. Dogs beat the dogs today, yeah, I did it. I think no, come out and play hard. I don't know that Ella. She was like super trustworthy here, you know, right, not yet, but like it felt like Ella. She was in a war last week. Oh, small, small note here, but something that was left over from my notepad. I don't think we got, because we didn't spend much time talking about this game on Saturday night. But Jackson Harris was a name that was on a lot of people's expectations of what the passing attack could be, and he wasn't exactly gangbusters in the first three, four weeks of the season. It is very clear that either the way that the LSU offense is being defended, there's just more opportunities for him, not just to settle in and make catches, but also make plays after the catch. He's had six catches against Mississippi State, six catches against Kentucky, six catches against Texas A&M in his last three SEC games. That's a, that's a good sign. It's like him, Trey Wilson, you know, trying to get back into the routine as well. This is, you know, we said at the beginning, the best receiver on this team might be the tight end. They have needed their wide receivers to step up with green out. I think that that's an encouraging sign like whatever your video game expectations were for Lane Kiffin's offense, with the way he put it together with all these portal pieces, there have been a few of those individual players that have been having efforts that I think a little bit closer to the positive, more optimistic view of it. Prince Will, is he, he left the Mississippi State game, right? Was that just a were up or is he doubtful? We know. I don't think we've seen our injury report. I haven't seen. We, we get it. What? Trey does. When's he supposed to come back? They have any indication on that, too? Because like, that's again, where I think LSU is kind of just getting right. If they get some of those guys back at the right time. Yeah. Well, the end, into, you know, context on the where they are in the season, LSU plays this game. Then they hit the off week. Then they returned to action with that just monster Alabama, Texas, Tennessee for like three games in a row, all coming out of the off week. That is a run that starts on November the seventh. So anybody who's iffy, I think the LSU plan would be, you try to get through this game and try to be as healthy as possible when Alabama comes to Baton Rouge in early November. Yeah. Exactly. Look, that BAM LSU game, I think that's an elimination game. Could be. Unless LSU loses this, and then we just, you know, like, I mean, unless it really is haunted as Bruce Pearl suggested when he was trying to woo Lane Kiffin back in the day. Um, can, are you, are y'all in on the, um, the Alabama fan criticism of Ryan Grubb? Or is that just classic Alabama, like targeting the offensive coach after the Alabama offense is really started to spin its wheels here. 70% fans, 30% justified, because with the, and I'm not saying this as a criticism because if it was not for the passion of Alabama fans, uh, this, this industry, you know, like this industry might not be the same, but I, I found myself in like, ah, I'm gonna wait until we've got a little bit more of a full body of work, a healthier offense and, and a little bit more to work with. But did you see Michael Costa Grande took a screenshot of the, the Ryan Grubb press conference, which was also broadcast live on Facebook and the Facebook live chat, woo, we have a field day with, uh, they're, they're Ryan Grubb suggestions, um, so I, I just wanted to see where, where are y'all at with Alabama's offense, which undoubtedly, you know, hasn't quite been that downhill avalanche here in the last game, game and half. I mean, look, I, I, I think missing their center matters an awful lot. I think missing their, missing their best offensive lineman for that game, we talked about that quite a bit. Okay, we think Tennessee can run some on them, right, and you know, Tennessee's passing game is not there. And we think Tennessee's defense is good and has a chance to kind of wreak havoc on Alabama. So let's go ahead and take the under like we, we talked about on big game breakdown and on lockspot. And so, yeah, A&M stars are really good defense, right? I'd like, Bama is down a couple of weapons on offense. the skill spots and they're also, you know, down, down some offensive linemen. So like, but Canadian score at all. That's kind of the concern. Like, taking a show on the road, we saw A&M defense put up a great fight against Missouri for about 40 minutes and then it was like, "Oh, God." Like, the offense is just going to give us actually nothing, you know? So, I'm not really in on the criticism of Grub. I don't think there were a lot of movement in the run game, you know? I think Nick Sabin realized something that a lot of BAMF fans haven't realized, and that's why he quit, right? Like, he was not going to stop waiting like he was. But BAMF fans haven't seen to get that memo yet. Despite the fact we're like, you know, three or four years removed. That's the thing that I think still people are getting acclimated to. So you're telling me their offense struggled without their center, without their leading wide receiver, against two of the best defenses in the country. One of them on the road and one of the tougher environments to play with if they quarterback who's in his first year starting, and that's all Ryan Grub's fault. Yeah, like, he sucks. Yeah, I can't remove the ball. Fire that guy. Yeah, go get a job delivering Amazon. Pick it up. I'm sure there's an Amazon warehouse that needs somebody to sort packages out there somewhere. I would laugh my ass off if BAMF made some kind of knee jerk move, by the way, because like, you're going to get Kiela next year in year two. It's very clear, and they're saving up. Like, if you look at what they're doing recruiting right now, they're like keeping the powder dry to absolutely go ham on the portal. Oh, with the chips in next year. Yeah. But that you're assuming Kiela wants to continue playing for Ryan Grub if he's back. Maybe Kiela wants to do Kiela's office and says, it's him or me. One of us is going. Oh my god. Uh, thing, so let's see, where was this? Garrett is a been a long time member of the tailgate. I figured I'd highlight this one. He's a Texas A&M fan and things I like about this game. All the pressures on Alabama, things I don't like about this game. We still have to play it. Unfortunately, that's so we're going to need 60 minutes out of Aggie Saya. And I don't know how it's going to go for you. How is it going to go for USC? Wisconsin. Were you guys surprised at the number in this game? It's only feel goal. Well, you know what, Danny? I thought that that would be a good time for us to mention that now it's time for upset alert brought to you by DraftKings. The DraftKings Sports app is live in all 50 states. And this September, DraftKings is giving customers the opportunity to get boosted every football game day. New DraftKings customers can sign up with the Code Cover 3, C-O-V-E-R-T-H-R-E-E, then spend just five bucks and get 200 in total rewards within 21 days, including all markets. That's Code Cover 3 in partnership with DraftKings. The crown is yours. Yeah, I think USC is on upset alert, Danny. You think that's fair? You think this is, I mean, like small line, tough place to play. They've been off a week, which I don't know if that's good or bad. We're not traveling to the Eastern time zone, but we are traveling. What's it look like? How does this happen? USC continues to play on the road like it has played on the road in Big 10 play under Lincoln Riley? Five and six overall on the road in Big 10 play, two in nine against the spread. They are failing to cover the spread by an average of 5.9 points per game. They have not, they are averaging less than 27 points per game. Extremely mid when you get them outside of the Coliseum, at least according to the numbers there. So the weather for this game is not like scary Wisconsin weather. You know, the high on the day is 69. Nice. Very low precipitation chance. We got very low wind as well. So I don't know if like it's not going to, who did Wisconsin play last year? It was just like an absolute like just okay, that's a weather game. Was it Oregon? Yeah, it was Oregon. That was a couple years ago with Dylan Garbill when it was cold and rainy. Was it Washington last year? It might have been. And they beat Washington? Yeah, they beat somebody last year. They beat Illinois in a crappy weather game, but that Illinois, the weather was no excuse for it might have been Washington because they did upset Washington, but I know that I think that was in Seattle. I think the game you're thinking of was two years ago against Oregon. Yes, Oregon. Where it was just a really crappy weather game in Oregon barely survived. It was late season. I don't think that this is a weather. I think that the recent 1310 or Washington, November, November 8th. Was I? Oh, I thought that was in Seattle, my best. Demand 32 passes for 134 yards. Yeah, should have seen it coming. That was the planter was the leading passer for Wisconsin, remember? Yeah. So I know Luke Fickle talked to us about that. Hey, Luke, how did you pitch Colton Joseph? I said we had a win where our punter was our leading passer. So I don't think you're going to get that kind of weather. Like Wisconsin's offense looks legitimately pretty bad last week. They may not be that bad every single week. We've seen them play like okay in some weeks. USC's D lines, not that bad, you know, I kind of think USC, if they just show up, they should be okay, but you know Wisconsin is going to show up play hard. They just got embarrassed last week. I think to lose. Do you see all these backup? That's one they really wanted to get. I mean, can USC find a way to like put together a decent road performance? Didn't they do that against Penn State in a game where they were up in a whiteout, and I know Penn State's not very good, but Wisconsin not much better. Like the point spread is the same. I think you could see a similar. I trust like quarterbacks to get a roster of Penn State's roster. I would take Penn State's roster. I think the performance from Wisconsin has exceeded. I would take Wisconsin. I would take Wisconsin's roster. I think Wisconsin got the better Iowa State running back. Yeah, I think they got a mid look. Neither offense is good, but I think Wisconsin's defense is much better than Penn State's defense. Yeah, I would take Wisconsin, especially that like a boring. I think boring and uncharacteristic made my Ava poor game. I think USC should be fine. I'll watch what will happen, but I think they're kind of undervalued here. Preview. $3. $3 bet. Points spread is three. We'll put a fickle on it. And that was the upset alert brought to you by Draft Kings. Once again, new customers can use the code cover three on sign up, spend just five bucks and get 200 in total rewards within 21 days. Remember, the Draft King Sports app is now live in all 50 states. That means from Texas to California to Florida, every fan is in on the excitement in partnership with Draft Kings. The crown is yours. Coming up on the other side, rapid fire through some of the biggest notable and interesting games on the week eight slate and more. Next. Back here on the cover three podcasts, we continue to roll through inside the matchup points, what to watch in some of the biggest games in week eight for big game breakdown. We got some top teams that are heavy favorites. You've got UCLA plan, Michigan State Miami playing pit, Texas tech playing Cincinnati, BYU playing UCF, Tom Fernelli, which of those do you think is the matchup that interests you the most? One of those is not a heavy favorite. That BYU at UCF? Under a touchdown. Yeah. That was the one I had circled. We talked about the show. How does it happen? What's what are the keys here? Um, I mean, we've seen the let down, the emotional let down or UCF has been a better team. They're quarterbacks. He's a very up and down with Jenkins. Like can you get three picks last week? But he's kind of scary if he does get hot. I think BYU's got to be able to run the football and kind of do what they do. But I think it just kind of speaks volumes to the parody and it's a tough spot traveling across the country. It actually humidity could come into play. If it's warmer, they had altitude in their favor last week. If it is humid in Orlando, that could go against them this week. It's just a tricky spot. It is funny that you mentioned the weather Daniel because I'm looking at the weather report for this game in Orlando on Saturday. And right now the humidity forecast is 70% with temperatures at 77 degrees. But what's worth mentoring is there's a 44% chance of rain with 21 mile proper winds and gusts over 30 miles per hour in the forecast for this game on Saturday. Yeah, that's going to be like it's the one day coming up or it's not, it looks like it's not going to be nice here. I think UCF's defense is pretty damn good. They don't make a lot of mistakes. Like they're, if you look at UCF's depth chart, I forgot the percentage, but it's over 90 as far as they're two deep that are seniors, right? So like they just, they play well together. They do put pressure on you. I think they tackle extremely well. Like holding Houston to 27 points in Houston is a tremendous effort for a team like UCF. They gave up 42 to Oklahoma State, but it's not like they gave up 550 yards. It was like 420 or something like that, right? So they held TCU to 13. They've been playing pretty good defense now for a couple weeks, and I think like if, if, if, if. If they have a path to win this game, it's let down, as Danny mentioned, for BYU, BYU's offense plays more like they did in the second half against the Irish than the first. And you win in some like 20 to 17 type game. You know what else it is coming off a buy? Like that was what Auburn was coming off a buy going like it's just you're healthier, you're fresher. It does matter getting those extra, you know, extra days. If it is sloppy though, chasing around Barrett Bachmire could be a night. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Well, Bobo quarterback always something to keep an eye on. Any concern for Miami UCLA or Texas Tech? No, for Texas Tech, because I don't think Cincinnati throws it well enough to really be too dimensional on them. And since then, as the events has been awful. I think there's always some concern with the back of quarterback for UCLA. Like the potential for variance still exists there. What was the other one? Miami. Miami and Bill. It's a potential maybe, but yeah, I'm going to do it again. You ready? Yeah. The forecast for Saturday in Miami, 22 mile-prower wins, 36 mile-prower gusts, 74% chance of rain, I'm just saying that couldn't muck things up quite a bit. And you know who I don't want to play? Is that the game time forecast? Yeah, you know who I don't want to play in like a mud-wrestling match right now? I'm already doing something. I'm not doing anything. Yeah. They're already sned. They tried to steal Mason Haichel. I don't like it. You've tried to steal Mason Haichel. Pat might try to steal your undefeated season in return. You don't know. And it was a little sloppy against Florida State. Yeah, new and eastern time, funky weather. Are you all about to get the big sort of like the system that ushers in the fall? Is that what's happening right now? You'll get hit with this and then like true fall and it's going to come behind us. Just to cool off a little bit after this. But I think no. We got it. Like it's the humidity's knocked off a little bit, but this storm coming through is pretty bad. Danny's always like two weeks behind us, you know, like down there because we're like are high this week in Orlando until Saturday is 77 like it, it's beautiful right now. Hell Saturday was not like I thought we're going to get dumped on by that system from Tampa and then they just stayed south of us from all the humidity out. Like we did blankets on on the porous man. It was like had to put on some joggers, you know, it was a little chilly. Hey, listen, the Viori Sunday collection has a great pair of jocks. It is. I hear. Yeah. What about the, a lot of commentary in the tailgate. So want to make sure we at least acknowledge our friends that are hanging out with us live here on a Tuesday Tennessee South Carolina is generating a lot of conversation. The why the how all the way around right Tennessee was a favorite. Now they're an underdog. Yeah. Yeah. Is that just a lie? I'm just going to walk into this and hopefully I don't step on a rake. But is that just a lack of trust in Tennessee's ability to score points? There's just not that much difference between these two teams. Like Tennessee has like zero passing game right now. And you're, I think you're limited in how good you can really be if you don't have a passing game. Like you have really good defense. Some games you can run the ball. Some games you can't win today, not run the ball. Well, they didn't really run it down Texas throat. No, not done. I mean, South Carolina, what they do this past weekend on a bike. Bye. Tell him, man, it's back home. They're still celebrating that win. Tennessee off. I mean, it's, it's right out of the bright. Yeah. It's right there. It's like the Auburn Georgia theorem that you can apply to about three or four games this week. Yes. Like Tennessee, it's a major let down spot. You just want a big rivalry game. Even on normal circumstances, like Tennessee's not, not a touchdown better than South Carolina on a neutral field. You have to go to South Carolina. Maybe you call home field three and then you add another point on, you know, for. Situational. Yeah. Right. And you figured like Tennessee's maybe like like what a field goal better in South Carolina on a neutral. And you got four points of home field and situational. So then I take it, you know, Carolina favorite. Just the gauntlet that is the SEC favorites in conference games straight up, not against the spread. For only 19 and 14, that point 50 or 57.6 percent win percentage is the lowest of any conference in the country. Aren't we also tracking home field being a bigger deal this year? Yes. It has been. Yeah. Like your old 2.5 might be closer to three. Mm-hmm. It's been trending that way for about 12 years now. 12? The overall trend for not, not 12 straight years of the, right. But just if you look at it, like I, it was, go read the six pack last week. I have a graph in there. It is trending very clearly in one direction. That's interesting because my thought was going to be that as the teams become less experienced, you have more advantages of being at home. That if we had been to get, if you, if the four of us had been part of the same recruiting class, and if we had played together for three or four years and we have to go on the road, it's not going to impact us as much because we'd been through those awards together. But that trend even extends some of the, you know, roster construction changes that we've had at the last couple of years. It also matters more when the teams are just more even, right? Like if you look at it, so this week, 2017, Bama was laying 35 on the road at Tennessee, right? Like are we going to see a singles spread this year where an SC team is 35 or another SC team? I don't think so, right? So like when you have more, like the home field advantage is going to come into play more often when the teams are not like so mismatched on talent. And that does, that seems like a very different mismatched than the date that you pulled right there. Virginia Tech, Hey Clemson, does that get anybody's motor going? I think it's a interesting, interesting little tilt. I'm kind of, no, I'm very tired of the ACC, like disrespect in this show right now. Yeah, you tell them Tom Pritchett and Mr. Racist. Oh, wow. It's better than the American. Come on, guys. Virginia Tech, it Clemson. Who does that get the juices flowing? We got the Floyd Rose Dale on the line this week, boys. Iowa Minnesota, the best rivalry trophy in the country. And you want to talk about two mid-ass ACC teams having a pillow fight. These boys are fighting for a pig. So how does that happen? Break it down for me. Whoever fumbles the least and punch the best. He's going to get that piggy, piggy pig. Although fun fact. I was doing some other stuff. Did you realize that so far this season, Iowa only has like six points off of turnovers? Hmm. Interesting. So they're not having, they're not killing people in turnovers. Defensively, they are not forcing turnovers, yet they're five and one. And their offense looks kind of competent. This is a brand new Iowa we're talking about. I, I think they're a good football team, you know, they're just a good football team. This will be a minute. How about this? Questions that you get every year, bud pulling out the Lou Holtz quote earlier. Minnesota has given us about what, four different Minnesota's and six games. Yeah. That pretty loss is rough. Who knows, you know, what exactly we're going to end up having here. So I thought James Franklin, Davos, Sweeney, you tell him, Chip. I think that, you know, Clemson's still alive to make the ACC championship game. That's statistically. I mean, no, they're like 35 to one, they're like, there's like eight teams every day to win or to make, to make, don't, don't, don't, don't ever tell Davos, Sweeney, the odds. I see him at 40 to one to make or to win to win today's, today's, uh, well, we had, yeah, today's a draft Kings day, they're, they're seven Von Draft Kings to make. I talked to you guys about this in the group chat on Sunday. I tweeted out the stat. Who did Clemson play last week, Charleston Southern? How many yards per attempt to take Reynolds average three, three, like four point nine. Oh, it was three point three area yards, yeah, three point three area yards against Charleston Southern. Nothing tells me I have the utmost confidence in my quarterback that not letting him throw the ball past the line of scrimmage against Charleston Southern. Well, next week, you know, they have the buyout bowl until Hasse. That might be the game of the year where, like, like the most fans were against their own team game of the whole season, uh, the Clemson fans we see on, uh, at least on social media are like done dumb, but Davos. So I think that it's a measuring stick game for James Franklin and for genie tech. That's the thing that I think is truly interesting because if they go and lose, then you're going to probably be like, all right, that was pretty good. If they win the game, they could finish with eight or nine wins on the season. And I think that would be looked at as a check mark for like a good first season for James Franklin and Blacksburg. Did you guys see the thing on bone X with his area yards per attempt and like, how short it is? Like what you could do with each of those like, oh, no, it would be like one car length. Or then they had like across a dinner table, like how short it was and like how many times you would have to throw to cross like all these different things. That was pretty funny. All right. Danny is forgiven for not going the beard. The bonix pad had he has proven to have been. He was right. Yeah. He was MVP a year ago. Oh, yeah. Oh, the, the most iconic beard, Fitzpatrick did his, his job bearing bonix. So it, that, that beard took care of, uh, to care of things North. It was, it was three throws throws to retome plate from the pitcher's mountain striker saw that. So he and Tate Reynolds, if he Reynolds might be four throws to retome plate. Um, North Dakota state at New Mexico. Fun game. Big game. This is a banger. This is a really, really big game. I don't, do, I don't have a read on like the, the, where I, again, like Bud said earlier, great, great line, tough to predict, really fun to recap. I look forward to watching and I look forward to learning a lot, but I don't have a tip one way or the other. I loved Jason Eck in that Hawaii game. Just getting into his players, like tell him just like wake up like this, like this is not the time to be letting this slip away. It might have been a week with a little extra prep for the bison and a little bit short on prep for the bows. Maybe, um, but certainly one where I think that this game's got their full attention, especially with the chance to be able to pack it out now, but curvy a lot of season left to go. As of right now, New Mexico is averaging and the points off turn or points off turnover margin per game. They are plus 12.67 as far back as true media's data goes. Nobody has ever finished a season higher than 8.2 something. So they are four and a half points above that all time number as of right now. They have a 70. They've, they've got 79 points off of turnovers in six games. And they've only given up three. I'm glad you brought this up because New Mexico is number one and have a great in the country and it's by a country mile, right? And I'm like, okay, they actually do have a lot of good veteran defenders on this team, especially by mountain west standards. And I thought about it was okay. Who have they played who's not like a havoc allowing team so far? So I looked it up and central Michigan, which very kind of offense. Yeah. Mercyhurst don't have havoc great stats on Mercyhurst guys. We'll get back to you next week on that one. No mercy. Right? Which like, I mean, Oklahoma, like they probably like, did they have us really then or was facility already out? I think he was out. They probably have a great early in seven on. And then New Mexico state, which again allows quite a bit of havoc just by their own doing UTIP again, a lot of havoc and Hawaii, which like even stand for God after Hawaii. So it's kind of weird. Like I think New Mexico has a legitimately good defense for that league. They've also played a lot of teams that are just incompetent on offense. And North Dakota state's not, right? But North Dakota state also didn't look very good against Nevada, like the kick six and then the big turnover turn as well. Like Nevada on a down to down basis. I'm not going to say they had them, but they, they sparred with them just fine in the Fargo dome. So something's kind of got to give here, right? Like, you know, New Mexico is really that good on defense and a real cause havoc on, on North Dakota state and see what in DSU can do as far as passing the ball. And like, you know, maybe shut down the run a little bit or maybe to Mexico's defense is not quite that good. And North Dakota state can run it on. Something got to give Saturday. Yes. Anything else we want any quick one liners or anything else you want to give a spotlight too here going into week eight. I mean, it's such a ball. No, we're Saturday, man. Like you only have two real like marquee matchups, you know, but you got a lot of games that fans of these teams are in paying attention to. And obviously like, you know, we'll be washing them all including John mature and Billy Puckett. You gotta like Oklahoma there, right? I don't know, man. That's it. That's it. Without Camario, that's like a way different level of athletes. This is the game that turns it all around. Circle the wagon Saturday. Scooter, sooner, sooner, skater. Gracious. Oh, she can. Like, is NC state of Stanford like anxiety inducing frenzy state? Yes. Yeah. Stanford's been so bad. Yeah. Right. Like, call us in you, SMU lost the Cal last year. So I imagine they're going to have good focus for that one. But is JKS back starting? I assume. I don't know. Do they remember he's on the team? I don't know. Yeah. I'm not. Niers go to TCU. That's where they'll be dragged to hell. Yeah. TCU going put West Virginia in a headlock. Here's one you can be losing Boston College at Georgia Tech. That's one that Georgia Tech staff needs. And Boston College could win. If you don't get that one, I think you're in like real trouble. Y'all seen Mason McKinsey out here? Boys got wheels. I ain't gonna run around. He can run around. That's they had the they blows it was it the Virginia Tech game was the slot fest, right? Yep. Then they played their SMU tough, like a weather game. They just played them tough. And then they finally came back from the 12 O deficit against pit. I did not think that I would say that Boston College has found a form here in mid-October. But that is a dangerous Eagles team. Tough scenes. All right. We are going to be back with spectacular scenes given you our best best for week eight in the week eight locks. So come and hang out 11 a.m. Eastern time YouTube.com/cover3 and you can follow him on Twitter, Tom Fidelie. You can follow him @danikido, follow him @bidelie3. Follow me @chip_patterson, gentlemen. Thank you very much. Thank you. The world crowned its winner. Now the champions play. 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