Riff Ram Review
Episode 31: We're Back!! TCU Football and College Football Season Preview!
This is Texas Rangers radio broadcaster Jared Sandler, and you're listening to 88.7 FM KTCU, the choice. Welcome to Rifram Review, your TC Sports Talk Home right here on KTCU 88.7. Here are your hosts Seth Doudel and Ian Nepetia. Welcome back to Rifram Review right here on 88.7 The Choice, your choice for college radio. Ian Nepetia here alongside Seth Doudel and folks who are so happy to be back. Seth, how are you doing on this fine Tuesday evening here back for the first show of the semester? First show of the semester, a different vibe, a different studio layout. Obviously you all can't see it, but it's different. The microphones are a different color. There's another microphone in here, which might be utilized at one point. No spoilers for anything that's going to be happening this season. I have a Rifram Review, but I'm doing fine. I'm doing fantastic. It's good to be back in the saddle. Giddy up boys, it's time to go. Yeah, I know. Super excited. I mean, Seth and I have been waiting for this moment for a long time. Obviously, we haven't talked to you guys on the air for, gosh, over three months or so, dating back to spring semester of the 2024 calendar. But we're back here. Seth and I, Zion, again, he's not going to be joining us here this year. He's moved on to bigger and better things as well in his career, so we obviously wish him all the best, but we have no doubt that he'll come back and probably make a couple nice little return episodes too. Well, yeah, we don't know anything about basketball, which is so, and he always had the basketball insight. So he might drop in a couple of times just to tell us about how the basketball bounces. Oh, yeah, of course, of course. So, no, but very happy to be back. Again, we've got a new timeslot here on KTCU. It's going to be every Tuesday, obviously, weekly, from 7 to 9 p.m. Central Standard Time. So if you want to tune in, you can tune in right here on 88.7 on the FM Dial, or you guys can tune in after we upload the podcast. It also gets uploaded to Apple Podcasts and Spotify as well at Refram Review. You guys can also follow us on Instagram and TikTok and YouTube, just type in @reframreview for more content. We've got clips coming your way as well. So once again, very excited to be back, you know, for us again, it's another two-hour show, and we've got a lot of great stuff here tonight. Some TCU football previews as well as Week 1, or kind of, you know, Week 1, Week 2, however you want to call, but really the true Week 1 of college football. We've got some frogs in the pros that we want to talk about, the MLB playoff picture, MVP race as well, and then Seth is getting into soccer of all things now. So I'm obviously excited. He's going to tell you a little bit more about that, but before we get into kind of the rest of this episode, we just want to kind of talk about our summers this year, ease our way back in, tell you guys a little bit about what's been happening on our home front, but Seth, I'll let you start first because you had one heck of a summer. I did. I did. I, I mean, not to, not to, not to, you know, get too sentimental here, but I did go to the baseball hall of fame. So, so that was by far the second best thing to happen to me this summer. I also did tie the knot with a certain special someone who is hopefully listening to this right now. I love you, Callie. So shout out, Callie. I did, I did get married. So that was my, that was what I did, but Ian. Hold on. Hold on. You got to continue with your summer. We got too much time to fill. We tell us about Cooperstown Niagara Falls family time. Cooperstown, New York. Yeah. Now I did go on the good old honeymoon. I do not know how I swindled this, this end. I was talking to you all about it last year, whenever, you know, we started planning it and you all were like, oh my goodness, how did you manage to go to the baseball hall of fame on your honeymoon? And the way I did it is, I just have endless charm. And that's just, that's just the answer. I mean, it's just, it just oozes out of every single pour. And so we go to Cooperstown. It was great. It was a really, really fun time. It's a really quaint little town. It's the second time I've gone. Okay. And it's, it's, it's really awesome. If, I feel like these hall of fame's are in weird places, you know, Canton, Ohio, Springfield, Massachusetts. And then the hockey hall of fame, which I have been to, is in Toronto, Canada. And it's kind of in a mall. Okay. So I don't really, it's in a mall. Yeah, you can step out and there's a food court. Okay. But Cooperstown, it's like, it's in this old time you brick building on Main Street. There's, the streets are lined with like baseball themed shops, like too many baseball themed shops. I'm like, like, like, I don't, I'm a little overwhelmed. And there's an awesome, you know, ballpark there as well. Where every single time we walk by, there was adult league games going on with like people age probably from like 35 to 80 playing baseball. And so it was just a really, really pleasant time. Got to walk to the museum for about two hours, which is just a great glimpse into the sport. I love the most history. And then also got to see the Rangers World Series exhibit, which is only up for, you know, a calendar year from November to, you know, whenever the next World Series champion will be crowned. Unfortunately, it will not be the same team that it was last year, but it was cool to see that before, you know, that that goes away. Yeah. And then there's, if you go, if you ever go, please, please, please go to the theater and watch like the little, I think it's a 13 minute video that they have. Please go watch it. I don't want to spoil anything. It is a fantastic video. If you love baseball, you have to see this video because it'll, it'll, it'll make a grown man cry. It is that, is that amazing. So go, go watch that. And then we went to Niagara Falls, which personally was not as a, I mean, it's cool, but it's water. Was it, was it like pretty grand? Did you like enjoy the site or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or. I just gone to the baseball hall of fame the day before. And you know, I just was like, I just saw a sign to Deloise Garcia helmet. How is this even up to that? How is this comparable to v. Niagara Falls? Yeah. Niagara Falls is very cool. Go to that as well. But personally, my favorite part was, that was Cooperstown York. So, that was my summer. It was, this all happened like the past like three weeks. Yes. Not a lot happened before that. Honest. I mean, I went to, I went on a different vacation, but that's neither here nor there. All right. So yeah. What, what, what about Cooperstown? Did you maybe discover, you know, differently or this time around compared to the first time? It was, was there anything that you're like, okay, I didn't see this before or this was a part of the museum that I didn't really realize was here. But now that it's my second time, I've, you know, I've realized this and I can go look at this now. Well, what's, what's odd, what's cool about the museum, not odd, I should say, is that, um, I went 10 years ago or 12 years ago, 2012. Okay. And, I mean, I was nine years old. I don't, I don't know, nine years old, right? I don't remember much about it. Uh, but I, I don't, I don't know if they, I think they changed everything. Like pretty much they have like a basic history section. Like you kind of walk through the history is like, Oh, here's Babe Ruth, here's Ty Cobb, all those people, but they have different exhibits. Like they had a lot, they were, they had a Latin America exhibit that they had up. I don't know how, if that's up all the time, but it was, they had jerseys from all, all the different kinds of things. All the different countries in Venezuela, Cuba and this highlighting different players from, from those places. Uh, but what I think that, and this is the obvious statement, but what I like to change the most is there's been 12 years of Hall of Famers that have come in since I was last there. Yeah. And so that entire room is different because last time I was there, Adrian Belterate and Joe Maurer and Todd Hilton and all these different people weren't Hall of Famers, but now they are. Yeah. And that's what's kind of cool about it. It's, it's a very, it's a living museum. Whereas, you know, well, museum about World War II, we're kind of set in stone there about what we're, we're, it's still cool, but it's still, yeah. But this is like, we're going to have an exhibit about what's happening this season and we're sending things like, there was a, that Adores Garcia helmet that I mentioned. I was at that game last year that it was, and it was sent to Cooperstown and it was cool to see that. I was like, Oh, hey, I was there when he went five for five and hit three homers. Yeah. And now that's helmet that he wore standing is like sitting right in front of me. That's very cool. So that's what I would say is just like how it's, like how it changes, but specifically the Hall of Fame, like that aspect, not the museum, but the Hall of Fame is like that. You can go next year, you can go the year after that and it'll always be different because there's going to be new faces and new plaques to read and new stories to tell. Yeah. Yeah. And, and, and I feel like, I mean, this is, you know, for, for myself, I've never been to Cooperstown, but obviously I want to make, you know, make the trip as soon as I can. But I think that's one reason why so many people decide to go back so often too, right? It's, it's not going to be the same museum all the time, right? And you can go back, see the new class of Hall of Famers. Obviously this year, you know, with Agent Belcher getting in, Jim Leland, Joe Maurer, I'm missing one more. Todd Helton. Todd Helton as well. Right. So, you know, and, and obviously it brings those fans back, but I think for even fans that maybe go every five or six or seven years or like yourself from 12 years ago, there's so much more to see as well. Right. So, just like you mentioned, I think the living museum part kind of like hits it right on the head, but I definitely want to make a trip sometimes soon. You got it. The, the tough part, it's a little difficult to get to. That's what I've heard. Um, because it's kind of in the middle of absolutely nowhere. Why did they do this? Well, so, I mean, the, they, they put it there because they thought that baseball was invented there, which is not true. But anyway, let's see if they can or there. Why couldn't a baseball being invented in like Chicago? Goodness gracious. Exactly. A lot of flights to Chicago. That's a lot of flights to Chicago. It's, it's, it's, it's hard to get to, but it's very much worth it. And it's very beautiful, like a beautiful town. It's not like it's, you know, in the middle of the city. It's a very quaint small town that in the words of one of the two, like one of the shops that we went into, this used to be a tourist town. And now it's a baseball town. And you can tell that just based on how whenever we got there, there was camps going on at the field. Like they have like tournaments there all the time. Um, and there was games being played at that stadium too. Like all throughout the day, even though it was raining a little bit, they were, they were playing baseball. And I have heard rumors. I cannot, you know, confirm this, but I've heard rumors that you sometimes, you know, Hall of Famers will come up, see their plaque, and it'll just go play a game. I don't know if that's true. I hope it is because that sounds like that sounds very romantic. So that'll be awesome. You got to make it up there at some point. My goal is to go to all the Hall of Fams. I've got two down. So got two more to go. At least of the big four American sports. Sure, very nice, very nice. Yeah, it's, um, two percent definitely on my list. I want to go as soon as possible. I don't know. Maybe make a guy's trip out of it. Maybe go with my dad. Probably go with my dad. More so my mom's going to be like, I think there's enjoyment for, for people that don't enjoy baseball. Yeah. Uh, Callie really, really enjoyed the town. Yeah. So I think there's in small doses. You can't stay there for like three days and like people that don't enjoy baseball. Yeah. They're going to get a little burnt out. Sure. Sure. If you enjoy baseball. Yep. You could probably stay in Cooperstown for a week. Oh, I'm sure. I'm sure. Yeah. Well, talking about kind of that area of the country, I was also kind of more on the East Coast for more of the summer. I was going to say semester. But no, I was over there for the semester over in Maryland. I did some play-by-play stuff for the Southern Maryland blue crabs of the Atlantic League of Professional Baseball. So that's just an independent baseball league. Had a ton of fun in Maryland. I got to be honest. At first, I wasn't quite sure how it was going to work out, how I was going to feel about moving somewhere new. But I was, I was welcomed by some of the greatest people I've come to meet on this, on this earth from, from just the front office to the stadium staff as well. You know, just, I mean, the, the, the people that I met in Maryland were, were pretty fantastic. And, but no, I was doing some play-by-play for them, traveled a little bit, went on a couple road trips and then, I mean, dude, work in baseball. I mean, I know you called baseball for two summers as well. And I mean, you know, when, when your office is the baseball field or the stadium, I mean, it's a pretty sweet place to go every day. It's pretty nice, especially probably in your case when it wasn't 107 degrees. Well, was it still hot? Oh, yeah. Record breaking temperatures. Yeah. What are the, what are the vibes like in Southern Maryland? Oh, hot, humid, where I was, it was in a smaller town called Waldorf, Maryland. But it was, it was very suburby, very, you know, kind of like homey and, you know, like, like, a very, like good place where like families kind of, you know, where, where, where people raise families and stuff like that. So, definitely had a suburb field, but it was also a small town field too, because Waldorf isn't huge, but also what's kind of nice about that area is that it's about 40 minutes outside. 40 minutes outside of downtown Washington, D.C., 30, 35 minutes outside of Alexandria, Virginia, which is a really nice kind of an up and coming place. That's that whole kind of DMV area, which I told you about today. It took me about two and a half months to figure out what DMV stood for, but it stands for D.C., Maryland, and Virginia, like, not Metroplex, but, you know, the general area. Yeah, it's the, it's the Department of Motor Vehicles in every other place in the country. Unfortunately, every time someone said DMV, I thought that's what they were talking about, but it's, it, I mean, it, it really is a cool place. And, you know, for someone like me who's moved around a lot, you know, I mean, it doesn't make any move easy, but after about a week or two of just kind of getting settled in, it turned out to be a really cool spot, you know, and then obviously with the baseball. I mean, calling baseball every day, talking with players, talking with the coaches, you know, working closely with them and also learning about people, learning about what they do, learning, learning about what, you know, the front office does. I learned so much about, you know, the sales and marketing guys, you know, and what actually has to be done to get the game set up. You know, I learned about, you know, groundskeeping, you know, I became great friends with the stadium ops guys, you know, and then obviously getting to learn about the players, you know, on and off the diamond to getting to talk to the coaches, you know, pick their brain about anything, you know, because, you know, for, for, for guys like you and me, that's, that's what we thrive off of is just, you know, give me more stuff to nibble on, you know, about baseball, you know, so I had a really great experience, went to a couple baseball games, hit up two Nat's games, went to Camden Yards for the first time, which I really enjoy bucket list. Oh my goodness. I think that's, I want to say maybe that's my seventh or eighth stadium now, a little embarrassed that it's on the lower end, but I want to hit them eventually, but Camden Yards was awesome. I utterly failed the 999 challenge at the Nat's game. Yeah, I down three hot dogs and three beers until I basically kick the can. It was like, no, that's probably about, you know, the maximum human capacity for that challenge. People that succeeded that I have questions. Yeah. Me too. Me too. It was, it was hard. It was hard and I was sweating. I have a question for you about Southern Maryland blue crabs. Yes. Can crabs be blue? That's a great question. Now, are these just really sad crabs? They sad crabs. You know what? I think there are such thing as blue crabs. There are, actually there are blue crabs. Yes, the Chesapeake blue crab, which is regionally called the Maryland blue crab. And you were in Southern Maryland, so therefore that is how the team got its name full. Exactly. It is that simple. Sometimes, you know, team names are a little bit more convoluted, you know. This one's pretty straightforward. Yeah, it took them a while to get to commanders, but they got to blue crabs pretty quickly. Exactly. So how about that for Southern Maryland? The DMV gets a win in the name exactly. Exactly. No, no, and that was another thing that was great too. The seafood in Maryland was fantastic. Went to this place called the crafty crab. Got hands dirty with crab legs and all that good stuff. I don't like to get my hands dirty, but I did for the crab. But no, it was, it was a fun summer. Happy to be back though. You know, it was hot. We hit about 110 for about two weeks straight. Of course, record temperatures too. But no, lots of good memories, but more than anything happy to be back here. Happy to see folks around TCU. Happy to be back on air as well. You know, doing a radio show too. And yeah, I mean, we've got a great semester lined up set. This is your final semester as a student here at TCU because you're going to be graduating in December. This is, you know, obviously both of our senior years. I'll be graduating in May, but you know, for the time being, we're going to keep this riff-ram train rolling. And also, we've got a lot, you know, in-store as well for the show. We're going to be joined by two special guests next show, Jackson James, Luke Anderson. We're trying to, you know, figure out, trying to add some guys, have some different talking heads as well. Some guys that can add a lot to the show. So look out for that as well. But again, just happy to be back. Very happy to be back. There was about a three-month period where, you know, whether it was Monday night, Wednesday night, now Tuesday night, I always had something to do. Yep. I was going to hop on the mic here and I was going to talk to whoever wanted to listen about whatever we wanted to talk about. And that wasn't, that wasn't happened. I had to go to talk to actually real people and, you know, sometimes they didn't want to listen. And so now here we are, sit back in the chair and it's just, I'm just happy to be back. See you here with you. Ready to see how the semester goes and ready to talk about some sports. Because as you mentioned, there's some topics this week that are pretty hard-hitting. Sports are coming back in a hurry. The dog days of summer are almost over this weekend kicks off all of that. It's going to be a lot of fun. Yeah, I know. Really looking forward to it. And folks, if you guys want to stay up to date with us here on Reframe Review, be sure to follow us on socials. You guys can find us on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Spotify and Apple Podcasts at Reframe Review. That's Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Spotify and Apple Podcasts or tune in every Tuesday from 7 to 9 p.m. Central Standard Time right here on 88.7 The Choice. We've still got a fantastic show on deck for you all. Next segment, we will be talking about some TCU football, our season preview talking through what we expect from TCU, what's going to be a good season, what's going to be considered a bad season for this team that's trying to rebound after what was a tough 2023 campaign. So stick right here. You're listening to Reframe Review on 88.7 The Choice. So when you get to the corner of Smith and Orchard, you're going to want to take a look at what you're going to do. Then what you're going to do is turn on the mark and see, just broke up and go past the currently three lights and then take the next left. I don't really think five hair blobs and you should be in there. Go right to judge, right? I'll see you later tonight. It's hard to concentrate on two things at once, like texting and driving. Stop the text, stop the wrecks. How will you stop texting and driving? Tell us at stoptext, stoprex.org, brought to you by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the Ad Council. Welcome back to Reframe Review right here on 88.7 The Choice, your choice for college radio. In the patient here joined alongside Seth Doudo as we move into our second segment here tonight. We had some fun kind of talking about our summer recap, some fun things that were going on in the lives of us two. But now it's time to move on. We've got the hard hitting segments coming up, but we've got to talk about TCU football, Seth. Last season, the horn frog is going five and seven. They started off the season three and one. They lost to Colorado, then got three straight wins, a win against nickel state at Houston and then SMU. They would only go on to win two more games and end the season five and seven trying to turn things around this year. Obviously, there have been quite a few key departures, which we'll get to later. But yeah, what are your kind of initial thoughts and kind of maybe expectations perhaps as we move into this first game week of the season? Listen, listen, listen, everybody. Last year was disappointing. It was disappointing. There's no other way to face it. You lose to Colorado and then Colorado goes on to win no games. Three. I don't think they didn't win a Pac-12 game, did they? Did they not? I don't think they won a Pac-12 game. Anyway, disappointing, disappointing, disappointing. You go out there. You lose a lot of close games. Games you were winning in 2022, disappointing. But look at this. Look at this. Just like this show is turning over a new leaf, so will the TC1 frogs in 2024? Because they will bounce back. They were only nine points away from going eight and four last year. And what I mean by that is they scored just nine more points, not in one game, of course, but over the course of a couple of games, they are eight and four. They lost a lot of one possession games last year. And so I am very high, more high than a lot of people, including the person sitting across from me on this season. I view it and I've seen a lot of TCU pundits doing it the same way. This is a TCU program that has been boomer bust for over 20 years now, and I don't really see that changing. It's either going to be like seven and six, seven and five, or an awesome 12 in one year. And so me, as someone who likes to hope, will go for like 11 and one in a conference championship conference title game appearance. That is not my official prediction. That is just my... That is not your official prediction, but that is something that I can see. Like, when I look through the crystal ball, I look at it. I see it. I see Josh Hoover's face on the all big 12 team. I see Namdi Obazor on the all big 12 team. I see it. I see it in... I see Cam Cook rushing for a thousand yards. Oh, wow. I like that. I see... I know. I do too. I do too. I see... I see JP Richardson returning puns for touchdowns. I like that. I know. I see it all. Well, it happened, I don't know. Fingers crossed, man. Fingers crossed. Fingers toes, eyes, everything. I've heard in this is partially the fault of one of my favorite college football puns, Josh Pate, who I listened to yesterday, and who he said that TCU is the most underrated team in the country, and I started levitating. I was like, "Oh, my gosh." He just rose out of your chair. A man I respect has said that my school is good at football or underrated at least. That can mean whatever you want it to mean. Sure. But yeah, I think a lot of people are down on TCU, rightfully so. Obviously, this is a lot of the same key components of last year are on this team. With the exception of, you know, Joe Gillespie is no longer the defensive coordinator, which we'll talk about in a little bit, I imagine. So yeah, I see why people could be pessimistic. I will lean towards being optimistic until proven otherwise. That's kind of how it was last year, which is kind of how I go through with all the sports teams, except for the Dallas Cowboys. That is the only team that I think I've learned the lesson. But we'll see what happens. I'm very excited about Friday night. I'm not excited about it being at 9.30 Central Time. They're very, very excited about playing ACC Powerhouse, the Stanford Cardinal. Yeah. And we will get to that later for sure because ACC, the Atlantic Conference, my goodness, is picking out some West Coast teams, which is absolutely insane. What are your expectations? Because I know they differ from mine. Yeah, no, you know, I think, I mean, naturally, I am a much more, I don't like to, I like to say I'm a, I'm more, you know what's the word, not pessimistic, but... I wouldn't say realist either because sometimes it's not viewed in realism either. I like to think I'm more of a realist. I like to think that doesn't necessarily always translate. You're more grounded in your analysis and everything kind of skews itself back to the middle, I feel like, with your football analysis. I am always prepared for failure. Okay. That's what the Raiders have taught me. That's what the Oakland A's have taught me. No, you know, this year, obviously, I'm excited. I'm really curious to see how this team gets on. I really liked that at the end of last season. I think, I mean, I don't know how far into the spring this was mentioned, but, you know, when, when Savion Williams said he's coming back for another year, you know, that also kind of gave me a kind of more of a regain, a regained sense of confidence in saying, look, he's going to spend another year here. Obviously, he has things to prove as well, but he trusts this team, he trusts the program, he trusts his quarterback as well, right? You know, that was the biggest thing last year was just throughout the whole season up until kind of that maybe half point, three quarter point, it was between Chandler Morrison, Josh Hoover, right? And fortunately, this season, we can go into the season knowing what we're going to get from Josh Hoover, having an expectation as well, right? Last season, it was a bit of an experience maybe from Chandler Morrison, having to bring in Josh Hoover in certain games and say, hey, Josh, this is the team that you've got, again, with a new offensive coordinator, with a defensive coordinator whose defense just didn't work out last year. And frankly, the year before either, because it was really the offense that got the team to the national championship. But with that being said, I am excited because I think this team has matured a lot. It's got a lot of returners that have been a lot of key departures as well. The offensive line is a part that worries me a little bit, considering that Brandon Coleman and Andrew Koker are no longer here. And so nobody, there's obviously the offensive line from that national championship year is completely gone. Nobody from that starting line is here. But once again, it's a new season. You've got to establish yourself. And again, you know, kind of even speaking to the big 12 with the changes with Oklahoma and Texas, both going over to the SEC and numerous teams flooding into the big 12 as well. This is a chance for TCU and these other teams to assert themselves. It's a chance for TCU to say, hey, we need to come out of the gate strong, prove ourselves and try to take that take take an elite spot. You know, in the early, I do think that is key. And I, you know, there's talks about, you know, you con joining the conference now, which I just, I was, I was like, can we pause for a year on the conference for your alignment? But like, it's very important for TCU to almost assert themselves as a key player in this conference. And what is a new conference? This is a brand new conference at this point. It's almost like it's not even recognizable from what it was three years ago. And so to assert yourself as one of the top dogs, we know that Utah is probably going to be there. Kansas State looks like they're going to be there in Oklahoma State, obviously, as well. And maybe some other people. But you want to be a perennial contender in this conference. And what is a conference, though, that is very chaotic. And in this, every teams are very close to each other. Exactly. There is a world, I think, where this conference, and we, I guess I'll just talk about it now, where the team who finishes second, who loses the conference championship game has three losses. Yeah. And because there's just so much parity here, the, the, this is like, this is America's college football conference. If you, if you're, you want to watch this conference, if you're in, in the mood for chaos. Yeah. But this is, but TC needs to, you know, find a way to climb through that to the top. And you mentioned it, they're very mature now, or they're more mature. Yep. And it's, I, I, I kind of want to draw parallels to the 2022 season in that. That was a very experienced roster that had gone through a whole lot of stuff in the previous years. And now it's only been one year, you know, obviously of some turmoil, but a lot of the, this is a Josh Hoover's first year to, with a, with an, like he's had a year under the offense. He's going to start on Friday night. Everyone else, you know, is coming in and they've, they've had experience with Kindle, Brio's in the offensive end, at least, you know, people that were here last year. And then on defense, we're turning over a new leaf. Yep. We're going to turn over a new leaf. And we're going to see how it goes. And from what I heard in spring camp, a lot of, like it felt like the defense was the most improved part of spring practice. Now what this is about the offense is, you know, it's hard to always, you know, walk that Tyro book. Does this mean the offense is bad, or does this mean the defense is good or whatnot. But I've, I've heard really, really good things about Avilos and, you know, how people are fitting into a system that people really, really like it. And I think that it's going to hopefully work really, really well. But yeah, that maturity is important. I'm really excited to see how Hoover does knock on the full year under as well. Yeah, yeah, definitely. I agree. And kind of to your point about players buying into that system, especially defensively, not to undermine, you know, Gillespie's, you know, defense over the last two years, but part of me feels that the players didn't like that style. Rushing three guys, not getting pressure, puts a lot of pressure on your linebackers to cover in the middle, puts a lot of pressure on your DBs and your safeties to cover as well. We saw so many big time plays down the field because, again, if you can't get pressure, quarterbacks got time in your DBs and your secondary, they can't cover guys for six seconds long. They can't. They're not supposed to, right? And so I'm excited, again, just like you said, I've been really excited to hear the great things out of camp to hear that the players are really buying into and the Avilos is kind of style on defense as well. And, you know, and I guess maybe shifting over to the offense now, you know, Kendall Bryles, this is his second year. Hopefully we'll see, you know, some improvements in certain spots. I think the biggest thing that was my issue last year, my biggest gripe with the offense was just the struggles on the red zone. And that's what those struggles are the reason they went five and seven instead of eight and four. No, executing in those key moments in those crucial moments was really the difference. Yeah, it was very painful sometimes to watch the decision-making one from the players and also the play-calling as well. So you hope that that improves with some experience, you know, from the players and, you know, maybe Bryles has a better feel on, you know, what he can and can't do once he gets closer to the end zone. So certainly interested to see how that plays out. I mean, it's hard to even, it's hard to even, you know, quantify that right now where the season hasn't started. So we'll see how that, but if that improves, that's one of the things that I see in my crystal ball. If that improve, if like they improve on everything or most, not everything, but most things that they didn't excel at last year, they went a ton more football games this year. And you just have to improve on the red zone. The defense has to, you know, not do what they did last year. Goodness. And I will say that to give credit to Joe Gillespie, this might be a hot take, but even though they gave up, like, what was it, 45 points in the Fiesta Bowl? Yeah. The defense is the reason they won that game. Yes. Yes. Yes. And two pick sixes. Yeah, blah, blah, blah. Anyway, that's beside the point. No, no, I agree. Which is weird to say when you give up 45 points, that the defense is the reason you win the football game. It is, it was. But it was. The offense struggled big time. And the, I mean, D winners have the game of his life. Oh, yeah. I mean, they could not figure out, like, because that, that three, three, three, I don't know. Never mind, this is the whole story, but it, it, it fooled Michigan. Yeah. Michigan did not know what was going on. Yeah. It was specifically, their offensive line didn't, was very confused, but what the three, three, five was doing. Anyway, that's the, that's the, that's the rewatch pod for like 10 years from now. Exactly. We're, we're trying to ruin it. Yeah. But yes, very excited about the defense. Um, we'll see how it goes. Ian. I said 11 and one is my, you know, expect, not expectation, but what I see my crystal ball, but I think we, let's go into our record predictions. Yeah. We can maybe walk through the schedule a little bit where we see the wins, where we see the losses. I'll start with you. So I haven't, I mean, I've, I've looked at the schedule a fair amount. Um, but with that said, I, I don't really base my, my record prediction base off of going like, okay, I think we'll win here. I think we'll lose here. I kind of really feel like it's just a team thing. Um, I don't like to look at the matchups as much. And I know that might sound a little strange to people. But, you know, I, I think this season, I think what would be a good season for TCU, a big improvement season would be, first of all, just being over 500. I, I would like to see the team go seven and five. I think the team can go seven and five. So that's my prediction. Um, anything less than seven and five, six and six or less. You haven't gotten anywhere. Granted, you know, you are going to be playing some tough team, some new teams as well. So, um, you know, there's, there's not a lot of room for TCU to lose games based off of their own errors. And that's really what we've been speaking to as the problem for last season, right? So I think for me, I would like to see seven and five. I'm not going to expect a huge jump. Seven and five, eight and four, I think would be absolutely fantastic. Um, but, you know, me much more of a grounded, getting ready to be disappointed fan. I'm going to say seven and five just because, you know, there will be games that I think TCU will, will lose that they really should have won. That, that they really should have won. So I see the vision. I see the vision. Give me nine and three and if two and, and, and, and, and things go, and if things can go really, really well, eleven and one. All right. And then, without counting the conference championship game in the bowl game. Sure. Um, if they make it to the conference championship game at twelve and one, and then the playoff, they're going to finish sixteen and one. That's obvious. Oh, yeah. Of course. Uh, that's, that's, it couldn't be anything else. It couldn't be anything else. Now, so yeah, give me eleven and one in the twelve game regular season, or nine and three, sorry, in the twelve game regular season. And then I see a path to eleven and one. I see the path. Okay. Um, but nine and three is my official prediction. All right. And if I had to pick what the losses would be, I'll tell you right now. Um, I'll go with Utah, and I'll go, uh, I think tech beats them. Not for any reason other than just, sometimes that just happens. And, uh, we'll go, we'll go with a sneaky, uh, go into Cincinnati last game of the year. Uh, a little, you know. Yep. A little, some stuff on the line. Yeah. A little stuff on the line, get a little nervous. Okay. So those are your losses. So I said seven and five. I'll, I'll, I'll give you my losses. UCF just, you don't, I don't really know what to explain. And considering last season, UCF was, was fairly good. Um, I think SMU might get the better of TCU this year. Unfortunately, Utah, I'm looking at, and then Texas Tech and Cincinnati. Those are the five, those, if I had to pick five losses, it would be that. Maybe Texas Tech, I don't know. I think that they can be everyone on the schedule though. They can. I, I agree. I definitely can. That's what, that's why I see the, that's why I see the path. Yep. Because, and that was the same, I think it was the same last year. Yeah. They, they could beat everyone on their schedule. But the problem is with the big 12, if you ask Kansas that same question, they're going to say the exact same thing. Yep. If you ask Utah or Tech, not Baylor. Not Baylor. No. No. Oklahoma State or Arizona, they'd say that exact UCF, they'd say that exact same thing because this conference is so balanced. Which, it kind of sucks for in terms of a prediction standpoint because it's hard to even, you know, I don't even know what's going to happen. Yeah. But as, in terms of entertainment value. Very good. I agree. It's, you know, just like you mentioned earlier, it really is. I think the most competitive, you know, conference wide conference on any day. Any big 12 team can beat another big 12 team. Doesn't matter. It's a very physical conference. It's a very ruthless conference. And so, no, I think, you know, the big 12, especially in football, also basketball as well. I mean, we've talked about that at Nauseum too. But no, the big 12 conference, especially for football, it's a little bit all over the place in terms of how competitive each team is. And so, no, really looking forward to this season. Let's do some score predictions for this Friday. Oh, yeah. We see you at Stanford on August 30th, 930 PM. Central Standard Time kickoff. It didn't preview like any specific things. Not very familiar with the Stanford Cardinal other than that. They are ACC legends. If you had told me in 2015 that Stanford would be in the Atlantic Coast Conference in nine years, I would have said, no, Christian McCaffrey's alma mater will not be in ACC. That is a Pac-12 school. Stanford. I think they win. I think TC wins. I do not think that Stanford is very good. I agree. I see the vision. I see your crystal ball. The crystal ball, folks. What's the over under? Yeah, I haven't even looked at that, to be honest. I know TC's favorite, but like nine. I think that's the line. Nine over under 59 and a half. Okay. I'll go TCU. I think Kendall Bryles is often fluxes their muscle a little bit here. I'm going to go 38 to -- you know what? I'm going to do the exact same score of the Colorado game in 2022, '38, '13. Okay, '38, '13. All right. I'm very similar to that. I'm going less than 30. I'm going to go 27 to 13. That's my prediction. Either way, hopefully TCU comes out. On the winning end, you want to start off the season the right way. Get a much, much needed and much expected win against Stanford on Friday. Let's have some hubris here, folks, because let's flash back to a year ago this week. I don't remember what our score predictions were for the Colorado TCU game, but I remember that mine was very similar to '38, '13. I just want everyone to know that if that happens again in Stanford beats TCU on Friday night, that unfortunately means that TCU will go on an 11-game winning streak because my prediction is pretty much 11-1, so I'm so sorry for all the other teams on the schedule, but TCU will win. If we lose a Stanford but we do that, then fine. Maybe it was worth it, but we'll have to see. Again, excuse me, TCU against Stanford kicking off this college football calendar here in 2024. That's on Friday night at 9.30 Central Standard Time. That's a crazy kickoff time for the first game, but it's over in Palo Alto, California right near my hometown about 20-30 minutes away, so my parents are not going to that game, which is crazy, but they will be there watching it on the TV. So, TCU at Stanford on August 30th, this Friday at 9.30, folks, we still have a great rest of the episode coming. College football season preview, a little more in depth on some of the other conferences and some conference picks coming your way right here on 88.7 The Choice. Welcome back, everyone, to 88.7K TCU The Choice. This is a reform review. I'm Seth Dowdle, and that is Ian, the patient sitting across from me on the other side of this wonderful new desk that we have sitting in front of us. I just got finished talking about the TC Horn Frogs and their wonderful football season that they hopefully will embark on in the next couple of years. In the next couple of days, what am I talking about? It's my mic. Can you hear me? Yes. Really? Yeah, it's on. You know what's wrong, because I'm wearing the wrong headphones. Yeah, there you go, there you go. I cannot hear anything, and I was signaling over to Seth for a second, like, touching my mic. I'm looking at it. It's on, buddy. That's so funny. That's very funny. That's on me. Yeah, I turned up my volume all the way, too, and I was like, "I can't hear anything." Anyway, anyway, folks, anyway. Thank you. This is Apologies. Spring training. It's spring training here. Come on. Here at the RIF RAM. We just got finished talking about TCU football. Well, we're going to keep this college football train rolling, because it's the most wonderful time of the year, and week one is upon us. We just concluded week zero. Why does week zero exist? So strange, but it was fun. It exists for the Florida State Seminoles to lose to the Georgia Tag Yolo jackets. Love it. Love it. In Ireland. Fly all the way out there. That's kind of unfortunate for people. And then it exists for SMU to almost lose to Nevada after SMU were 28 point favorites. By the way, that would have been the biggest upset in the sport in like four years. Really? Like in terms of like point spread. Yeah. I was so upset to see SMU win that one. Oh, I was like, "There's no way that we get too huge upsets in week zero." But no, no. You, you, Ian, we're not waiting up for Hawaii Delaware State at 1059. I was not. Unfortunately, Delaware State could not pull off the upstate upset there, but the chances were still, you know, on the table for that, for that to happen. But yeah, week zero is over. We had four games that were either, you know, great, I'd say, to that was forgettable. And that, now we move on to the real meal. That was the appetizer. Yeah. It was underwhelming appetizer. And we move on to the real deal. Week one, it starts on Thursday, Thursday night. There's a lot of games on Thursday, a lot of games on Friday, and then, you know, always a game, a lot of games on Saturday, then there's one game on Sunday and another on Monday. So it's a Tuesday to Monday, week one, Thursday to Monday, week one affair for college football. It's going to be a lot of fun. But Ian, it would be remiss. And we kind of mentioned this a little bit when we were talking about TCU. The sport's a little bit different now. Yes. Very different. It's not the same as it was last year. No. Well, conference realignment's been crazy. The playoffs are now very interesting. I do like the expanded playoff, the idea of that. There's 12 of them now. Yes. There are 12 teams. 12 teams get to show up to the dance now. Yep. 12 teams in the playoff. There's a big 12 plus 4 now. There is a big 10 plus 6. 8. Oh, plus 8. SEC plus. Oh, well, there's no number, but. And then pack 12 minus 10. Yeah. Pack 12 minus 10. So it's rather the pack, too. Yeah. It's a lot of fun. This is a lot of fun. It should be also on the Pacific. It should be called the WACC. And DFW. The ACC also on the Pacific and in DFW. It makes zero sense. You know, this is what this is what it should be called. Are you ready? The A, B, A, DFW, C, C. The Atlantic Bay Area Dallas 4 Coastal Conference. Oh, I did this, so. It is crazy. No, I mean, you and I had a very long chat today over at McAllister's. Over lunch, and we're just talking about just how crazy it is that these college football, you know, higher ups have completely disregarded world geography for the sake of these conference realignment moves. It makes zero sense. You know, Cal, the Golden Bears, the Stanford Cardinal are in the Atlantic Coast Conference and they will travel and play Syracuse. And it just kind of makes my heart sad in many regards. It should be tough for the athletes, too. It's going to be tough. But that is... Well, that's not what they care about. Not the athletes, but the higher-ups. Yeah, they care about that awesome Cal Berkeley athletic money. Yeah. We'll see. We'll see what happens. Okay. But yeah, a lot of conference realignment. The playoffs are expanded, the SEC in Big 10 will probably get like eight of the bids out of the 12th. I'd imagine. Probably. Yeah. Anyway, that's neither horn or there. Because we, you know, let's not think about the playoff. It's week one. We... It's week one. Everyone's zero, 0 and 0 or 1 and 0 or 0 and 1, depending if you play it in week zero. So everyone forget about it. North Carolina, you play Minnesota. Who cares about the playoff? It's Thursday. Go win the game. That's one of the games that is on the radar. That's on Thursday. North Dakota State. They're going to Boulder. They're playing Colorado in Dion. North Dakota State. Aren't they, aren't they the team that is one of the FCS national championships? Yes, they are. Yup. Young, young child. They, they have one mini and they're going to play Dion. Well they win, probably not, but they could put up a heck of a fight on national television. That would be a lot of fun. Oh, then TCU. They said we want us some of that ACC action. They're going to go to Stanford and they're going to play the Cardinal. Oh, my goodness. TCU with two ACC schools on their schedule this year and neither of them were the ACC last year. Yes, exactly. So there you go. And then Saturday comes around. Oh, my goodness. It's like steak mashed potatoes and it's in some green beans. This is the real meal right here. Clemson and Georgia. Yup. In Atlanta? Can we play these games on home fields? You know what I mean? Oh, it's in Atlanta? Yeah. Oh, what? Yeah. Well, there's more. Okay. That's actually really interesting. I didn't know that. Okay. Well, we'll disregard that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Penn State going to Morgantown. That's going to be fun. Yup. That's going to be a lot Morgantown tough place to play, especially when Penn State comes to town. They hate nitty lines in Morgantown, they'll shoot them. Miami and Florida, a little rivalry action to start the year. Miami, is this the year that they finally put it together? Maybe you down is what Ian says. He says no to that. He does not want Duane, Duane, the Rocker Johnson School to succeed in football. Maybe people will show up to the games in Miami if they actually do good. Notre Dame, Texas A&M, ooh, is that the best game of the weekend? It might be. It's pretty dang good. Will the fight in Irish go down to college station? And I don't really know what Aggies do. They gig them. Yeah, I'm really hoping that Notre Dame takes care of business. Me too. Me too. This is a TCU pod we can be biased against Texas A&M. Very much. It is allowed. And then USC LSU, Ian, this game is not in Baton Rouge. I want you to guess where it is. It's also not in Los Angeles. Is it in Louisiana somewhere? No. It's not going to be in Shreveport. No. No. Where is this game, Ian? Oh, goodness. Can you give me a... That would ruin all the fun. Oh, gosh. Is it here in Texas? No. It's not in California? No. Hawaii? No. We're going to Allegiant Stadium. This game is in Vegas. Really? Is this in Vegas? Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Gosh. But it would be so much more fun if it was in, I don't know, Baton Rouge or if it was in the Coliseum. Yep. Yep. Anyway, that's neither here nor there. And then finally, just put this in there because our folks over in Tallahassee need to pick me up and hopefully the Boston College Eagles can supply them with that on Monday night. That would be crazy. Now, if you all recall, last year, week one Monday night game was Clemson at Duke and Duke beat Clemson to open the year. If you all remember that. Was that one their quarterback had like the note written from his professor or something like that? Yeah. Yeah. That was it, right? That was the game where Clemson got like to the three yard line four times and fumbled at each time and Garrett Riley's first game as their offensive coordinator. So that was funny. But will we see a big time upset like that happen again or will Florida State get back off the snide because and this circles all the way back to our college football playoff talk Florida State season in terms of making it to the college football playoff is not over. Yep. Because there is a world where if they went out, they win the rest of their games, heck, they will lose one more game. Yeah. And they could be seeing themselves in the college will play off by the time December rolls around. It's definitely a different vibe. I had to I had to change my mindset in after that loss because years prior, it's like, well, we disregard Florida State for the rest of the year now. We don't do that. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's it's very interesting. Actually, with with that, with with that being said, I wanted to ask you something. I thought about this very quickly, but I was like, you know what? That would be very interesting if this rule was, you know, perhaps put into place. So here, here, here's a hypothetical for you. What if college football makes a rule that says if you lose so, so, you know, if you pay a team to come play you, right? And you lose that first game of the season, which did not happen with Georgia Tech. Yes. Exactly. But either way though, if you lose your first game of the season, you. The only way you can get into the playoff is by winning your conference in the end. What if that was a rule? I feel like it's kind of like a it's not like a hard written rule, but it's almost a little bit of unspoken. Like, if you pay someone to come play you at home and then you lose, I'm looking at you texting him. App State. Yep. Yep. You all remember that? Yep. I do. I think about it every now. Oh, yeah. And if you do that, then you are we do not we shun you because why would you do that? It's you're just giving out charity at that point. That's interesting. I don't think it'll ever happen. I don't think it'll ever happen either. I really want it to happen. No. I just think it'd be kind of funny. It'd be kind of interesting. It's funny for certain moments, yeah, but there's a lot of moments from like, I know it's okay. Let's not apply this here. Yeah, but yeah, those are the games and those are our hypothetical scenarios that Ian has come up with about, you know, we're a team to, I don't know, we're TCU to lose the Long Island, for instance, and Lord forbid, Lord, please, please, please, for me. Don't listen to me. That would be very funny. But yes. So out of the games I mentioned, Ian, yes, I'm going to pitch you three of them for my main watch list. Okay. For your main watch list. Other than the TCU. Yes. That we're not going to talk about. We just talked about that. Yeah. We're going to go North Dakota State at Colorado. That's on the watch list. Okay. I'm apologizing to North Carolina and Minnesota. That's going to go on the back burner on Thursday night. I want to see what the buffs have improved if they've improved at all. Obviously it's against an FCS school, but it's against one of the best FCS schools. That's my, that's my, do you accept that as a good? I do. Okay. I do. I do accept. Yes. We, that is a game to keep an eye on. Hot take. I am not that interested in Clemson, Georgia. I think Georgia rolls. I'm going to, I'm going to be watching Penn State, West Virginia. That has college football vibes. When I think of college football, I think of, I think of those kinds of games. Yeah. So I'm going to be, keep my eye on that one at the 11 o'clock window on Saturday. And then I am interested about Notre Dame, Texas A&M. Yep. Those were my two that I picked as well. Yeah. I want to see, it's a tough environment for Notre Dame. That's a, it's a hard school to rank, I feel like, at the beginning of the year. Yeah. It has a lot of stage, but can they go into college station and pull off a win? They're not favored. No. All right. But it's only a three point spreads that tells me that it's kind of more like a pick them. Yeah. So we'll have to see. I'm excited about those three games in any other games of the calendar. Any other games, gosh, I mean, LSU USC, I think will be fun for sure. I don't really know who I would want to win that game. I don't really like either school, to be honest. I am interested in Penn State and West Virginia because I do have friends that go to both of those schools. So you know, kind of sitting as a neutral, just getting to watch them fight back and forth, I think would be a little fun, you know, but, and then also get Notre Dame, Texas A&M. I think that'll be a good game. That's probably it for me. I mean, I was pretty aligned with you with the Penn State, West Virginia, and the Notre Dame, Texas A&M. So. What's interesting about the USC LSU game, that's two schools that had quarterback drafted very high last year, one in two, with Kay Williams and Jane Daniels, and then now we're going to have to see who they bring in now. I'm very curious about that. See how that goes for the two of them. How do you replace that kind of production is, especially for USC, that's one of those things where it's like, he was the team. USC was nothing without Kay Williams. He was the team. Yeah. So we'll see how that goes. Let's move into our conference predictions. We're only going to do the four big ones, the power four, I guess, is what you would call it. ACC. The B-A-C-A, the A-B-A, D-F-W-C-C. The big 10 plus eight, the big 12 plus four, and then the SEC, which minus division, minus conferences. No more divisions for the SEC. So those, I'll start with Ian. You can just pick a conference, and then we'll just do that. We'll go back to it. All right. I'll start with SEC. I'm going to go Ole Miss. I like to see Ole Miss win, and kind of going back to our conversation off-air just before the show. Again, you know, I think without the conferences, sorry, without the divisions, just like you mentioned, the schedules are going to be very different. So you have some teams like Georgia, who are going to be playing a lot more different teams as opposed to the ones that they played last season, and, you know, again, you mentioned this, so I don't want to take it too much from your explanation, but it almost might come down to the luck of the draw with just your schedule, so I think Ole Miss has a good chance. I'd like to see them win. Yeah. Similar, my logic is similar, I'm going with Missouri, because they also have a really, it's not an easy schedule, but it is significantly easier compared to schools like Texas and Georgia, who, when I look at Georgia's schedule, I mean, they can do it because they're very, very good football team, obviously, but when I look at their schedule, they play Bama. This is a soft top of my head, they play Bama, they play Texas, they play Ole Miss, they play a lot of really, really tough opponents. And there's even more than that, I can't even, there's just so many good ones that you just go down the list and you're like, "Okay, I know I think they're better than Texas, I think they're better than Bama, but when you play all of them in a season, you know, it's tough on the body, it's tough on the, you know, it's, well, just got to have to see, I think that there's at least one or two losses in there for Georgia. That's why I'm going with Missouri, who I think, and I kind of hope is pretty good this year, just like they were last year, and so I think that they have the potential to at least make it to Atlanta and play in the SEC Championship game if not win the whole Shabang. Yeah, I like it, I like it. So Ole Miss for me, Missouri for you, let's move on to the Big Ten plus eight. Big Ten plus eight, let's do it. These are better names than what they have. They totally are. This one, I'm going to go with Oregon. I think Oregon has a lot to prove going into the Big Ten, or at least in the perspective of Big Ten schools. That's for sure, there's a lot of, there's a lot of, a lot of pride. Yes, there's definitely a lot of pride there, and you know, Oregon last year, 12 and 2 overall. They had themselves a great season, and obviously with the addition of Dylan Gabriel from Oklahoma, I think he can fit in really nicely there. So I'm really curious to see how Oregon does, I mean, again, they had a great season last year, then they also won eight and one in the Pac-12, but I'm really curious to see how they get on in the Big Ten plus eight. But yeah, I just think they're going to go in there and they have to be hungry. I think they're going to be hungry for wins, but there's going to be a bit of a chip on their shoulder probably because they know that these schools, you know, there's a big sense of pride going into the conference like the Big Ten. Absolutely. I agree with a lot of your logic, but I don't think they have the best roster. I think Ohio State hands down has the best roster in the country this season. They have a lot of players that returned from last year's team that I think are very, like you said, hunger for Oregon. If you think that Ohio State is hungry to at least try to, they have not beat Michigan in three years. They have not won the conference in three years. There are some expectations in Columbus this year that are very high. When I say hi, I mean, they need to win the national championship this year to meet expectations. I think they have the roster to do it. They brought in a lot of, the guys, it's not even the guys they brought in. It's the guys that they were able to keep that were draft eligible that wanted to come back another year because they wanted to win. I think that's very important. I think that there's a lot of drive there, so I'm going to go with Ohio State to win this thing. I don't, Michigan lost a lot of, we haven't even mentioned them. There's a lot of controversy around them right now as well, just off the field stuff. Of course. But I think that Ohio State has the roster to do it. It's just a matter of will the expectations weigh them down because that is certainly something that has happened there for the last couple of years. They've been good, but then the second they get to that Michigan game, it almost collapses in itself. We'll just see. I got Ohio State. You got Oregon. Let's go with the ACC. All right, ACC, actually, I got to be honest, of all the conferences that ACC is probably the one I know the least about, but I'm going to go Clemson. That's probably a fine choice, kind of lame, but I just... The ACC and the big 12 are very similar in that there is a lot of very similar teams, I would say. My pick would have been Florida State, but I have the benefit of having them play the game already, so I don't know if I will pick them. This is a tough one. This is really tough because there's not a lot of great teams, but I'm going to go... I think this is the year Miami puts it together. They have the roster. They have the players, they have it. They have been an amazing team in the transfer portal of the past couple of years, and then they have been at recruiting powerhouse, but the results have just not been there. I think Miami puts it together. Can they get consistent quarterback play? That's a big question, and can Mario Christoball manage his timeouts properly as well? Oh my goodness. That was Georgia Tech that was Georgia Tech that game as well, so we'll have to see if that happens for the good old you down in Miami. Finally, the big 12 VN are main event. R main event. Yep. I was in between Utah and Kansas State, I'm going to go Kansas State. Oh. Yeah. I don't want a new team to win. That's just me. Can you feel like they're stepping our total? Exactly. Exactly. We're talking about pride of the big 10. We do have pride here in the big 12 plus four. We have a lot of pride in the big 12 plus four. I've already mentioned in the previous segment that I think that TCU has the capability to do it, but for the sakes of hubris, I will not be picking TCU. I'm going to go Kansas. I think that they have the best quarterback in this conference. If you can say healthy, that's the thing. And I think they can do it. I want them and a part of me wants them to. It's so weird, though, because like three years ago, if you just said, I think Kansas can win this conference, you would have been laughed at. And now it's a legitimate thing that we're saying because that's how good of a job land is. Yep. So I'm going to go with the Jayhawks. They're taking football seriously. They are. And I'm very proud of them. Yep. So. To step up. So just to recap, Ian, big 10, you're going Oregon, SEC. You're going with Ole Miss, and then ACC, you're going to go Clemson, and then for the big 12, you're going to go K State. For me, big 10, I'm going Ohio State, SEC, Missouri, the ACC, who did I say for the ACC? Miami. I said Miami. Yes. And then for the big 12, I'm going with Kansas. Yep. So how about that? If that all happens, like we just said, sign us up, fan duel, or whatever, I don't know. Because we could make us some money. We're going to be ESPN analysts, man. The crystal ball is real. Yep. But that'll do it for our segment here about college football. It's going to be a fun season, I think. Oh, yeah. A lot of different storylines that are going to start playing themselves out with, you know, conference realignment and, you know, the expanded playoff. But next up, we're going to go back to TCU, but we're going to talk about some frogs that have made it to the professional ranks and just kind of walk through how some of them are doing so far in their professional career. That's coming up right, right, right, right after this break on 88.7 KTCU, the choice. Welcome back to Referem review right here on 88.7, the choice, your choice for college radio. Even a patient here alongside Seth Dattle as we continue here on our first show back here this fall semester. It's been great. We've had a fantastic first hour and some change, but it's time to get back to some of the good stuff. We're going to stick with football before we move into baseball, but this statement is all about frogs in the pros. So today, August 27th is the big day for the NFL, the 53-man roster, the final cuts were made for all the teams in the NFL. Obviously some more changes to come, maybe some final player additions and whatnot, guys getting, you know, put onto the practice squad, but we just wanted to walk through some of the guys that will be playing, some of the guys that unfortunately have been cut from their respective franchises. But as of a couple of days ago, there were 32 TC Horn Frog football players across 21 NFL teams and some of the guys that have made the cuts, at least some of the more relevant guys over the last couple of seasons include Amare Di Mercado, who got a place on the Arizona Cardinals. Andy Dalton obviously not a couple of years ago, but he's still with the Panthers. Josh Newton got a spot with the Bengals. He's a cornerback. That obviously was drafted this season, Tavante Turpin, still with the Cowboys, chaired Wylie made the roster for the Kansas City Chiefs and he got Derry Stavis and Quentin Johnson both going back to the Los Angeles Chargers. Steve Ovila going back to the LA Rams, I think he was one of the most underrated rookies last season, someone that played every single snap for the Rams as well. So now Trey Tomlinson back with the Rams, Trevon Merig, still with the Raiders. I think he's now entering his third season, Kendrick Miller, despite some of the injuries, I do believe Kendrick Miller made the Saints final roster, I might have to check on that. And then last but not least, he Winters made the Niners 53 man roster and then I haven't checked on this, but I have no doubts. I'm Brandon Coleman also made that. I believe he's going to be the starting left tackle. That's fantastic and he's going to have his work cut out for him, but he's definitely capable of it. You got to protect that scrawny little boy that's behind him. No, Jaden Daniels is a fantastic football player that he just, sometimes when he gets hit, it's like breaking a dry pasta noodle. Jaden Daniels is a dry pasta noodle kind of says, confirmed, but that does not, you mentioned some, you know, former ones, but that does not mean that I can't not mention. Oh yeah, of course. Our beloved saint, the red headed nightmare, red headed nightmare or dream, depending on how you look at it, Andy Dalton is still the backup quarterback for the Panthers. Now I wish we could do the red rifle a little bit better with, you know, where he is. He's unfortunately all the Panthers, but his time here is, you know, for Roseball, baby, Roseball. I want us a fricking Roseball, Andy. So shout out, shout out Andy Dalton. I feel like he's been in the league for forever. And then I remember he has. He has been in the league forever. One of the most stable backup options I think in the league right now. Yeah. And especially now in the NFL, I mean, if you don't have a more than serviceable backup, you're starting the season, you know, with, you know, shooting yourself in the foot to be completely honest. I mean, we've seen so much this season, whether it's for weeks at a time or for, you know, for a couple of drives during a game, you need to have somebody back there that knows the offense. But you can't afford to have backups now that are just, we just put them in and just run the ball. You can't afford to. No, Ben, the Nucci types. No. Oh, definitely not. Although it took a lot of unfortunate circumstances for the Cowboys to get that deep down there. Yeah. Yeah. Um, was that 20? 2020. Yeah. Andy Dalton got her day. He was the backup too. Yeah. Yeah. That was after Dak, you know, day. God, that feels like ages ago. It's so, I wish that, you know, Andy Dalton is like the perfect backup, in my opinion. Yeah. One of the perfect backups. There are several. Yeah. Like Chase Daniel, I feel like was a, like, you know, like a really good backup quarterback. Yep. Um, Easton Stick is not a good backup quarterback. I'm just definitely thinking, I'm thinking of Sam Darnell, the good backup quarterback. That's good. I even ventures say that Zach Wilson is a good backup quarterback. I did too. Zach Wilson gets a lot of unnecessary, not, maybe not unnecessary, but he gets a lot of stick that I don't think is necessary. Yes. Therefore, he's not. Yes. I agree. Uh, now, meanwhile, the, the, the Steelers employ two backup quarterbacks. Yes. It's, um, uh, Wilson starting fields is backing up and then that's it. That's it. Two backups though. That's my step, that's my step. I did not catch that. I was like, who else did they have? That's it. Two backups. It's Wilson starting, right? It has to be. I think so. Right. I didn't. I heard, but that's probably going to change halfway through the season. Well, I, I, I knew this was supposed to be a frog's in the pro segment, but any time I have an opportunity to talk about, I can't think of a nickname for Russell Wilson. I've been on the roll with the nicknames and I couldn't think of it. Russell Wilson, just cringy man, Russell Wilson, Mr, um, doing high knees on the plane, keep the blood flowing. That's pretty crazy. Um, I didn't, I didn't watch any Steelers, preseason games. I don't think I watched any preseason games, but I did like when I was like scrolling through Twitter and I know, I know a couple of Steelers fans and I follow some Steelers people like media folk and national folk. They were both like, everyone was like, man, the Steelers offensive situation from their wide receiver room to Russell Wilson and Justin Fields is, oh boy, yeah, this, this, this could be the end of, uh, Mike Tomlin's, uh, you know, winless seasons as, as, as, are losing seasons or losing seasons, not having, not having losing seasons. Yeah. Exactly. So anyway, frogs on the pros. Yeah. So any frogs on the Steelers? No frogs on the Steelers. We don't have to worry about that, but, uh, no, I, I mean, I don't know if there's a couple of guys you want to talk about here. I think, I think, uh, at least for me, the one guy that probably has the most approved and I think we all know it is Quentin Johnston, um, obviously last season just wasn't a fantastic first year by any means, but he's still there. Obviously the charters aren't going to get rid of a guy that they drafted so highly, especially in the first round. And again, it's just his second season and he's also in a, in a wide receiving room that is also now Keenan Allen-less and Mike Williams is less. Yes. And he's the, he's the guy kind of now him, uh, well, they're, they're going to mainly put, um, what's his name? Palmer. What's the Palmer? Oh yeah. Yeah. I forgot his first name. But he's higher up on the depth chart now in that he will be, he will be on the line right for you. Yeah. He'll be relied on more. Yeah. So Quentin Johnston's going to be there. Kind of that spot where my, where I was going to say Miles Williams who's a player for the blue crabs, Mike Williams, um, was very similar in stature, very similar, I think, um, you know, just type of player, but again, and, and, you know, I think wide receiver wise, they are, they're definitely a little, um, lacking there and again, with Herbert coming back from a foot injury, you know, that might take some time, but I think there's a great chance for Quentin Johnson to get more, uh, consistent playing time and get more consistent looks to. I think that's also a bit of a tough spot that he was putting last year, but good to see him there. Hopefully he can have himself a good season. Steve Ovila obviously was fantastic last year. Um, and then another guy that's going to have to be counted upon as we mentioned before is Brandon Coleman who had a really, really fine three years here. Was it three years? Yeah. Three years here at TCU. Um, starting left tackle for, uh, the Washington commanders. So I mean, he's going to, again, he's going to have his work cut out for him. But really excited to see, you know, what some of these guys do, again, Tavante Terpen, you know, he's hopefully going to light it up return wise. Same thing with Darius Davis. He had about a, what 70 yard, uh, little, little, uh, just a little 70 yard return for a touchdown. Just a tiny little one. Exactly. So, uh, no, really excited, um, for this season, hopefully, you know, on the football front, you can have some more successful guys. I think, you know, the, the, the, the definite disappointment was seeing that Max Duggan was cut from the Chargers. That one definitely, you know, hurts obviously, um, you know, but I, I still see where there's a place where he can be on the practice squad for sure. Um, perhaps maybe or at some point he gets resigned to another team. Um, but at the very least, someone like Max Duggan, that type of leadership is, is unmatchable. For someone that works as hard as he does and then, and that leadership, any team would be, would, any team would be lucky to have somebody like him in their organization at whatever level they wish to have them. Now, I have some, you know, you know, Max Duggan was cut and that is sad. Yep. But you know what is not sad. Stetson Bennett threw four interceptions in a preseason game. Oh, did he? Against the Cowboys. Wow. Unfortunately, that was not enough reason for the Rams to say, Hey, we don't want this guy. He will be, I, I just looked this up. He's going to be QB two for the Rams while Jimmy Garoppolo is suspended. Oh gosh. Jimmy Garoppolo. Cheese. Wow. So he's going to get a couple snaps in the first few weeks. I bet. I, I don't, I'm, I'm sure staff will, I don't know, jam a finger or something. Yeah. Exactly. But yeah, he's, that's Sean. The headline is Sean, Mc. This is five, 16 a.m. two days ago, Sean McVay confirmed Stetson Bennett will be the Rams QB two during Jimmy Garoppolo. Wow. Wow. Interesting. Yeah, not. He's like 35 now. Stetson Bennett. Stetson Bennett is a veteran. He's older than some, some other NFL veterans probably. Oh, here's a, here's a funny quote. I mentioned the four picks. First quote I see from McVay is he did a good job. He did a good job. I don't know what game he was watching. Anyway, the baseball team, yes, less volume in terms of in the majors, but a lot of volume in the minors. Yep. Yep. A lot of, it seems that the Cincinnati Reds in really enjoy their horny totes. They definitely do. Nick Lidolo, obviously with the Reds. Who else with the Reds? Okay. Brandon Williamson, Alex Young's with the Reds. I don't know if there's any other guys in the Reds organization, but that's three horn frogs in the majors for the Reds already and all of which are pitchers. Right? Brandon Williamson's a pitcher too, right? I think so. Okay. Definitely a little bit of a smaller sample size in the, in the majors, but some nice things going on in the minor leagues as well. I think today the biggest news that I saw just before the show kicked off tonight was that Tommy Socko Jr. was just called up to AAA Houston. So he'll be heading from Corpus Christi with the hooks over to Sugarland with the space Cowboys. So good for Tommy Socko. I had a chance to do a little interview and feature story on him a couple of years ago gets talked to him and really down to earth guy, really good guy and just, you know, love to see someone like him succeed who was picked, I think in the 13th round, 14th round or so and he's killing it. He's worked his way up through the Asheville Tourist and he went to, obviously the hooks. He's been unleashing that power bat more so this year as well and now he's getting a chance in AAA. So congratulations to him. And then, well, Luke and Baker's also, he can be a, he's a major leaguer. Oh yeah. He's completely forgot about him. Yeah. He was pulled up for a couple of games. Was he sent back down or was he still up there? I don't know. But last year he was called up for a couple of games too so he gets to call himself a major leaguer. Yeah. Totally forgot about Luke and Baker. Yeah. I was going to say Cole Fontenel and Brayden Taylor, you know, obviously the two guys from that 23 team that made it to the, you know, college world series. Fontenel is, if my, the information I have here is correct. He's in double A and then the same. But the trash panda. The rockets, the trash panda's and then Brayden Taylor still in the race organization and he is in double A I believe. Yep. So both in double A. So definitely good spots for those guys, you know, and for Brayden Taylor, I mean, he's been unleashing the power too. He's got 98 hits on the season, 16 homers, 52 RBI is batting 256. He's been playing a lot more second base with the biscuits too. I mean, we know of, of all people that he's a very versatile infielder, obviously has that power. Nice to have a left, left handed batting, a left handed power hitter in that lineup. Same thing with Cole Fontenel. I mean, he's someone that really impressed me coming to TCU in 2023 from MacLennan College. And he took up that first base role, absolutely killed it offensively and defensively, got himself drafted and now he's in double A with the trash panda's. So, you know, and obviously there's several more. I think a lot of the recent TCU draft picks or Siamese are also getting over injuries and dealing with injuries. I know Elijah Nunez recently had surgery for something. Cam Brown is still dealing with something. Ryan Vanderhigh dealing with a little bit Austin Crobe, who was picked back in 2022. He's kind of been a little stagnant, but he's been in single A for San Diego for a little bit. He came back from an injury. He's struggling a little bit, but Luke Savage just came back from an injury as well. He's in the Rangers organization. So, lots of guys, lots of pitchers, obviously. That's just kind of how it goes. But very nice to see Braden Taylor, Cole Fontenel and then Tommy Socko as well doing great things over in the minors. And who knows, man, maybe sometimes one of those three names will get called up. So, very exciting things for frogs and the pros, whether it's the NFL, the NFL will be also in several other sports. Obviously, we had the Olympics as well this summer. So, frogs, we're doing a nice job over in Paris for the Olympics, but that will bring an end to this segment. We still have just about 30, 35 minutes left. So, up next, we've got some baseball. So, stick right here. You're listening to Riff Ram review on 88.7 The Choice. Welcome back, everyone, to Riff Ram review right here on 88.7K TCU. So, The Choice set out here alongside Ian, the patient, our first show of the semester. Oh, yeah. Episode 31, if we want to go back all the way to last year. So, good to be back. It's very good to be back. Very happy. Got a half hour left here of the program. Tonight's program is brought to you by Riff Ram review. I know. This is like 1945. We just finished up talking about TCU players. This football and baseball that are in the pros, didn't get to basketball unfortunately. I'll just mention one right now, Kinder to Williams and Desmond Banhope. That satisfies everyone's basketball in the pros taste in a manual miller is on the isn't he. I think he made the maps. I did see that. Did he make the maps roster? Probably a two way. I saw him post something on his turn and was like, "Ooh, very interesting." Yeah. I tried to look it up. I just can't find anything. But, that tells me. It's probably some two way. Exactly. Yeah. But good for him. Yeah. But, that's basketball. We're going to talk about baseball now. We're going to talk about Major League Baseball. And I specifically, we have not talked about it at all since pretty much May or April. Right. Obviously, we haven't. And a lot of transpire. The entire season has transpired since then. And unfortunately for me, and unfortunately for Ian, things have not gone well for our respect to franchises. And because of that, I have been, let's say, a little bit more unplugged than I usually would be from how the Major League Baseball scene is going. That does not mean that I am not knowledgeable about what is happening. But I'm not as much in the know as I usually would be. And that's not to say that I'm not still interested. It's just that it's kind of-- Coming off of a World Series win. You know what? I'm a little World Series hungover. Yeah. And that's okay. And I just was kind of like, you know what? I'm going to take a break from baseball, and I'll get into something else, which we'll talk about next segment. But I still want to talk about the playoff picture right now, and maybe the playoff picture is the wrong word. I guess we are in August, so we've got all this. There's definitely some fun things going around, whether or not how much we want to get into it. That's really the question. Well, you know what? Let's try our best to paint as accurate of a picture of how things are stacking up right now in terms of the playoffs, where people might end up. We'll start with the National League first, because I definitely think that this has been more-- this is the less, at least-- this is less interesting than the American League, in my opinion. We have the Phillies at the top of the Annalist, which is surprising to me, if you would have told me that this is-- all of my perspectives on is this surprise or not, is based on my preseason expectations, not anything from the past month. The Phillies being at the top, I would have said the Braves were going to repeat. They've been dealing with a ton of injuries this year, so unfortunately, this hasn't gone their way. What is surprising, though-- and this is very funny to me-- the Brewers, who had their manager leave for the Cubs, are 75 and 55, and lead that game-- lead that division by 10 games. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely crazy. Oh, my gosh. What was his name? Craig Council. The biggest thing of the summer-- or, sorry, not the summer, my goodness-- of the offseason, I think, managerial-wise was seeing that Craig Council left Milwaukee for Chicago, and kudos to Milwaukee, man. I mean, they've been able to piece it together there, you know, again, a very small market team, a lot like the A's, but, you know, again, a small market team that's been able to find a way to win. Again, your 20 games over 500 with basically a month and some change left, and you've got a very nice hefty lead in the analysis. Well, it's not even that Craig Council left, except that they were kind of like, "Okay, we're going to go into a rebuild now because of this," and-- Yeah. And they really haven't. They have not at all. They have not at all. I don't think they're going to win the World Series, but they're going to make the playoffs. That would be something. They're going to make the playoffs, barring a collapse, and then in the West, it's the Dodgers. But not by much? No. Diamondbacks-- putting up a great fight. Diamondbacks and the Padres are right there. The Dodgers have been really good this year as we've all expected. I haven't seen a lot of Yamamoto because he's been hurt, so that's a little bit unfortunate, but we have seen a crap ton of Shouhei Otani. Yeah. What? 41 homers now and 40 Solon bases? Yeah. I saw something today where he's on pace to be the first 50-50 guy, which is crazy. And again, I think, you know, we can talk about this later, but MVP-wise, you know, obviously pretty much wrapped up and has been for the NFL. And he's not even pitching. He's not even pitching, and these numbers would get it consistently every single year without the pitching. Right? So, no. And crazy numbers from the Dodgers, it's expected, but I think, you know, especially for the NOS conference, not a conference, a division, still thinking about football. A division that's very tight, like historically tight within kind of that wild card pack, too, with, again, the Cardinals and the Padres. And I mean, obviously the Giants are, you know, 500 being 66 and 6, but still it's one of the more competitive divisions, you know, when you kind of look all the way up and down. And then obviously you see a big drop off with the Rockies, but what are the Rockies doing? We don't know what they want to do. Do they want to rebuild? Do they want to buy? What are those? I think, well, I was, so I was sitting there the other day, and I was just not thinking about anything. And then all of a sudden I thought, "Oh my gosh, Bud Black is still the manager of the Rockies." I think this is going to be like his fourth losing season in a row. Nothing changes if nothing changes, Colorado. I mean, shoot. I know. And you know what? I don't think... The ball should be flying out of that place. I don't think it's Bud Black's fault. No. Honestly, the roster he's been given is very poor, but also at the same time, you've got to... It's not how it works. It's not how it works either. Yeah. Yeah. Something has to change. Yeah. What has to change is, you know, internal is more internal than just Bud Black, but I could talk about the Rockies for a long time. Oh, yeah. Rockies are so interesting. They're very interesting. It feels like they're playing a different league than everyone else, or at least they think they are. They think they're playing chess all the whole league. They think it's playing checkers, and it's not even the other way around. It's... Oh my gosh. It's the most intriguing story in sports almost, because it's just like the... It's so much different than the A's, the A's and the White Sox, who are bad, but at least there's a little bit of a concerted effort in some respects to try and get better in some ways. To move things along in certain respects. To move things forward. Yeah. Maybe that doesn't mean getting better, but we're moving forward. The White Sox, obviously they've taken them, we were going to move backwards before we can move forward, but the Rockies have been treading water for like 10 years now. There's been like a couple of years, like they had that year where they made the NLDS when they went in 2018, but that are an auto story, those teams, you know. But now, I don't know, then they signed Chris Bryan, and I could talk about the Rockies for hours. Yeah. Rockies are very intriguing. I don't know. This kind of popped into my head last minute, but they remind me of a rat that gets trapped in those sticky pads, and it's like, but the rat's not eating the cheese nor is it trying to escape. It's like, what are you doing? I'm just going to sit there. It's just going to sit there. And you got to do something, you're also you're just going to sit there. And that's kind of what the rackets are doing right now. And what's even crazier? That ballpark is so beautiful that people still show up. Yep. Showing up and, what, 49 wins? Yikes, man. Oh, okay. Well, maybe I shouldn't be talking, but you know, still yikes, still, we've got seven more. Yeah. Let's move on to the American League. This isn't the more interesting to, I was at Converse, too. I know, I know. It's crazy. I got football in the brain. Rightfully so. It's bad. It is bad. League. Yep, League. It's so League. Because you got some, all three of the divisions are still in, you know, there's still question marks about who's going to win them all. There's definitely favorites, but there's definitely, you know, some like, oh, I could see that going this way. Yep. We'll start with the East. That's probably the most intriguing of them all. The Yankees Orioles battle that's been going on all year long has been fantastic and so intriguing. Just two powerhouses just going right out at it. You've got, you know, the Orioles, the young up in Converse, and then the Yankees who are just the veteran stall were paid so much money for this team. Two different approaches to roster building, but they're achieving the same thing. It's very, I like it a lot. Yeah. And, you know, not to mention the fact that the Orioles have had, I don't even know how many pitchers go down with injuries and season ending injuries too. And for the fact, for them to be able to stay afloat and not even stay afloat doesn't even begin to describe how well they've done without those guys, right? It's like they are still winning at a very consistent and, what's the word, consistent and dominant rate too. So really happy for the Orioles. Part of me, I don't know. Maybe I'm going to get stick for this. Part of me is happy for the Yankees that they're doing well. Like, I'm like, I don't know. They have some guys on the team like Aaron Judge, such a likable guy. I kind of feel bad that he's just been on a team. I feel bad that he hasn't been able to experience fun times and I'm not a Yankee sympathizer. I don't like the Yankees, but I'm glad that they're doing well. Now I hope the Baltimore Orioles win the East because I think that would just be great for baseball and great for Baltimore, but a very, very interesting race over in the alies. And so with the AL Central, who I'm very kind of, you know, it's pulling on my heartstrings a little bit with Stephen Vote being the manager of the Guardians, I'm very happy for him. This is the most intriguing division at the mall, which is funny because AL Central historically has sucked. This is the big 12 of the baseball divisions, I'd say. Cleveland, Kansas City, Minnesota, all separated by two and a half games. It's crazy. Kansas City and Cleveland are playing right now, actually, it's Kansas City's up 2-1 in the bottom of 5th that game is delayed, but the Guardians have a one game lead over Kansas City. Cleveland, though, just three and seven in their last 10 games, Kansas City's seven and three on a heater, their last 10, and the Twins are right there, they're right there sticking in it. So it's going to be intriguing. That's going to go down to the wire. And then, you know, the Tigers are 66-66, but that is a pretty good year, I'd say, for Detroit. It's a very good year for Detroit, yeah. So, and Terrick Scooble has 15 wins this year, good to see him pitching well. This division, though, it's safe to say, has benefited from the fact that the Chicago White Sox have given them free wins each team, each time that they played them, the White Sox. Goodness. 31 in 101. What's the worst... Oh, I knew this. I'll tell my head. It's the worst. I'll tell my head. It's the worst. Okay, before record. I believe it is... I won't say it. I believe it is the Cleveland Spiders. Yep. They won 25 games? 20. Okay. Yep. This was like 1890 something. 1899. Yep. 20 in 134. Holy cow. Goodness. Yeah. That record was so bad that the team stopped existing after that year. We'll have to have a conversation in Chicago. But 44 games behind first place. Yep. I don't think I've seen that before. Yeah, it's pretty bad. It's pretty bad. And yeah, I could talk about the Rockies more so than the White Sox. I feel like the Rockies are much more interesting bad team than the White Sox. The White Sox are just... There's levels to it. There's levels to being a bad franchise. Yeah. There's entertainment bad and there's the Chicago White Sox right now. Yep. Who just... Three years ago, we're playing in the ALDS against the Houston Astros. That's right. ALDS. Sorry. I was thinking back to 2020. Sorry. Yeah. Yeah, no. White Sox were supposed... Did you see... There's a graphic a couple weeks ago on Instagram and it showed all the guys that they had locked up basically for the years to come. They had a bunch of young talent that I thought was talent. Yep. Then almost all of them have left and even the guys that are still there, they just suck. Yeah. Man. I mean, I don't pity them. Shoot, I have a bad team myself. Well, they hired Tony Larissa. Yep. Yeah. So... There you go. That might be your fault, guys. I know. And then the ALS, which is a division. So anyway, the Astros are probably going to win the thing. That's okay. Unfortunately. That's okay. They're going to make the ALS... ALS again because that's what they do. But here come the Royals, who I'm putting my hat in the Royals camp for the rest of the year. Guardians, I got to go guardians. Okay. That's fine. Guardians are royals, but I will go guardians. We'll go, we're going to say, "Bye Wood Jr. and Savada Perez and let's name all the royals we can. This is going to be tough." Okay. Savada Perez. Cole Reagan. Brady Singer. Brady Singer. Vinnie Pascantino. Oh goodness. Melendez. M.J. Melendez. Gosh. That might be it. Lorenzo Caine. Michael Arinzen. There you go. There you go. There you go. Michael Arinzen. Eric Hosmer. Ben Zorrist. Crazy. Eric Gordon. No, who is Alex Gordon? Alex Gordon. Oh man. That was crazy. Jarrod Dyson. It is 10 years. It is 10 years. Oh no. No, nine years. Nine years. World Series appearance. Nine years to the World Series win. By the way, Jeremy Guthrie pitching game seven for the royals. That's crazy. That was insane. Goodness. Anyway. Yeah. No, royals. Very, very interesting. You know, great to see some of these, you know, different types of teams having success. So no matter what, however, the AL Central decides to wrap itself up. I mean, it's going to be a good end. I mean, for the Guardians, I was looking at their, you know, at the rest of their schedule. They have a four game set with the twins coming up later this year. But this is the last time that this is the last series that they're playing against the royals. So pretty much after that, it's actually no, they're playing the royals again. They're playing the royals for another three game set later on. That'll be a big time. It's appointment viewing right there. Yeah. Appointment viewing. Appointment viewing if you have the time. There'll be some big series. And we talked a little bit about the MVP race. Shouheotani locked it up, but then in the AL, you mentioned Aaron Judge. I mentioned Bobby Wood Jr. both having fantastic years. Who's your, who are you going with? Judge will win Bobby Wood Jr. is the most valuable. Wow. What, what poetic and exquisite statement that was. I think that it has some, I think that has some truth to it. Yeah. Absolutely. But if you look at what Judge is doing right now, he might, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's having a better year arguably than he did two years ago whenever he broke the home run record. So I got to ask you, and I know you weren't at that game, but okay, maybe then, then actually you'd probably have a completely different view than this now. Would you like to see Judge break that record? I don't because I was at the game. Yeah. Yeah. I'd be fine with it. Actually, you know what? No, I don't. You want to know why? This is why I don't. I want him to stop hitting homers because you remember that year I would be watching a college football game on a Saturday and ESPN would go to simulcast the college football game with an Aaron Judge at bat. That's right. Oh my gosh. That's right. And they cut off the audit of the game and they go to like Camden Yards and it's like, let's see what Aaron Judge does here against insert random Orioles pitcher. And it's like, oh, he grounded out now back to the TCU game. I don't. I do remember that. That was crazy. I don't want that to happen again. If that happens again, you're gonna be upset. Well, it's like, what are the one, no one, what's there, no one, what's there? Look at this. If you miss it, you miss it. Watch the Yankees game then tune into the Yankees game that yeah, no, very interesting to see what's going on. I mean, again, historic year. So whatever happens will happen. But Aaron, if if you if somehow you can get this message to you, please, please don't break it. What does he have? 51? I think so. Warren this month, dang it. He could do it. Oh, he definitely can, probably will, unfortunately, you know, I'm praying, I am praying. It was a 61 year old record. I want it to be another. It's not gonna be 61 years, but you know, who, who, who, I know this is sacrilegious of me as a baseball fan, but who he, I know Roger Maris, Roger Maris. Okay. Okay, Roger Maris. Right. Yep. And we're doing this whole thing again. We don't have to parade his son out to every single Yankee game for the last like two and a half weeks of the year. Because it's no longer that, you know, it's no longer familiar. Yeah, but I felt really bad because it was like, he kind of like got to a certain number and then he plateaued for a little bit. Yeah. And they were, they were taking this guy across the border. They were interviewing him on Yes network and it's like, can't we just let the guy watch the baseball game wherever he wants to watch the baseball game? Yeah. That's the thing. I'm not a professional judge too, because it's already his record, right? He doesn't have to break it. He doesn't want to. Yeah, exactly. So it's not like he's chasing somebody else. It's granted. Obviously he's going to want to break it. You know, he'll say he just wants the team to win and say healthy whatnot. But you know, that's obviously there. I mean, that was there that two years ago, you saw he was stressed now and every time he hit it, it just, you know, felt so much better for him. So. Yeah. Well, we'll see if you can do it. He's probably going to win MVP. Yeah. But by which, junior, if you do this, get next to your, you'll probably win it. 100% unless Aaron Judge continues to, unless Aaron Judge, it's like 77 home runs. At that point, he's taken steroids. Yes. And what's crazy that he's on piece for 62 and he hasn't even played the full season. Wow. That's crazy. It's crazy. I know. Attaboy, Judge. Attaboy. Aw. Rise. All rise. Never mind. That's a conversation for another. All right. We'll save it. I have an Aaron Judge comment that I'll save for another day. But that'll do it for our Aaron Judge talk, our baseball talk. It's going to be a fun end of the season. We've got a month or so left for the regular season. Oh my gosh. This regular season has absolutely flown by. But coming up next, just a nice quick talk, just real fast, going to be diving into what I'm going to be doing with my sports life for the rest of the, I guess, until May. Oh my gosh. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. That'll be coming up next right here on 88.7 KTCU. The choice. Welcome back to Rifran Review right here on 88.7, the choice, your choice for college radio in the patient and Seth Datto here as we get into our final segment here on our first episode back to kick things off here in this fall semester of 2024. We've got a very interesting and fun segment. I'm excited about this, Seth. Obviously, you're excited about this. Would you like to tell our listeners what your plans are in terms of your sports watching in some of your new habits? Yeah. It's a weird, it's certainly a more eloquent way of like, I'm going to watch soccer now. My new habits and my, I'm going to try to watch football now. Yeah. Football. Okay. I'm going to try to watch it. So, so how much, how much previous soccer experience in terms of watching? I'd say a fair amount of international experience. Sure. Every World Cup since 2014. Okay. Very nice. I like it. And I have played FIFA 18 and then now EAFC 24. Okay. There you go. I skipped about, I don't know how many games that is in between. But I played FIFA 18 pretty regularly that summer. Yeah. Like that World Cup summer. Yeah. Yeah. I played it a lot. FIFA 18 was a very good FIFA. And so I am very familiar with teams. I am not familiar that much with players. There's their origin and managers maybe. Managers is like the thing I'm the least experienced about players. I know all of like pretty, like if you play for your, like if you're like an English player, like I know the Jude Bellinghams and the Harry Keynes and the Harry Maguires of the world. I don't know why I don't know why I lumped him in with the other two. Yeah. But all those types of people, you know, I know the American roster very well as well. Because I've watched all of their tournament games since 2016ish. So I know that, but like in terms of like, hey, tell me what you know individually about Fulham. Yeah. I'm like, they're in London. They're Fulham. Yeah. Yeah. So that's about how much I've gone into it. Okay. So, yeah. And the team you're supporting is from North London, right? Right. Okay. Tell us. I have spun the wheel. Okay. I didn't, I didn't spin the wheel of all of the teams possible. I narrowed it down to a specific list that I feel like I would have a fun time with and then I spun it and I ended up with a Tottenham Hotspur. All right. A team that has a lot of different ways, you can say their name, you can say Tottenham, you can say Spurs, you can say the Cois, come on these Spurs, that's what it stands for. Really? COIS. Yeah, really. Come on you Spurs. Yeah. I thought it was just like that's not that bird. She called it Cois. It's just a hashtag. Yeah. But no, no. But there you go. So, yeah. There you go. I'm excited. Um, and two games ended the Premier League season. It's been fun. Yeah. Yeah. Tottenham right now is fifth. They, uh, just speed up on Everton 4-0. That was a good, that was a good game. It's good. Get right game. Exactly. Good. Get right game. After a tough first week, could they play Leicester? That's right. That was the 1-1 draw. That's right. So, um, yeah. That's the spot. They finished fifth. Sorry. They finished, uh, yeah. Fifth last season, um, had 20 wins, six draws and 12 losses. But their team that, um, as you will find it coming, is definitely going through the ebbs and flows of trying to rebuild. They are, you know, they do spend money. Their, their chairman is a bit, you know, less of a spender, but they do spend money on certain guys. Um, they have a beautiful stadium, too, and some really nice kids. And so, this is kind of where, you know, my, my, like, oh, he keeps, like, oh, why does she keep dating those types of guys, kind of person, like, like, I've picked almost a very, a very Dallas Cowboys-esque team, not, they're not entirely similar to one another, but there are a lot of things like, oh, you haven't won anything in a long time, but you're very wealthy. Yeah. And you play in a very nice stadium and you're where, right in blue colors and you have the capability to buy a roster full of players that is very good, but sometimes you don't utilize your money in the right way, and you have an owner that sometimes people don't really like them that much, but sometimes they do like them. I don't know. Sounds eerily similar. Yeah, it does, doesn't it? But I picked, I picked them without knowing a lot of that stuff, and then I've just kind of come into that. Yeah. And here's my, here's my thing, Ian. I'm just going to be a fan. Yeah. And that's just kind of what happens. I'm very excited to see how it goes. I obviously, I don't expect to win the league this year. Yeah. They won't, unfortunately. And that's, you know, that's fine. I didn't pick them, no, I picked them knowing that that was like the biggest possibility, but I picked them because they're a team where I can see some returns in the future, potentially. I don't know if those are there, but I see them, but I also don't see just terrible seasons where you end up in the relegated in the championship. Yeah. And I don't want to pick a team that's going to be in the bottom half of the table, you know? I mean, obviously it's nice to be competing and, you know, taught them as a place in some of the European competitions like the Europa League this year, you know. And so, you know, I mean, taught them is a very fair team to choose. Very, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm happy to see it here. You didn't choose Liverpool because I can't stand Liverpool. I can't stand Man City. I can't stand Arsenal. Liverpool was Liverpool and Arsenal were on the shortlist of the wheel. Okay. I'll give you my, I'll give you my shortlist. Okay. Actually. Yeah. So, well, some of these are based off of like, okay, I know that you have a chance to win the league. Others are like, I know you're not going to be bad. And those are vibes. Vibes. Okay. So we had some vibes. Okay. The potentially could, I could have had some vibes picks here. Yeah. So the full list, I think they're, I'll just go through them. I don't remember how many I've taught me, but I'm just going to list them. Liverpool, Arsenal, Tottenham, Fulham was on the list. New Castle. Yeah. That'd be a good one. Aston Villa. Yeah. Leicester. And Leicester was like almost exclusively because of Jamie Vardy. Sure. Not even checking. Yeah. And then I added in one championship team just to spice things up, just in case. Yeah. I put Portsmouth. Portsmouth. Nice. Yeah. Portsmouth, man, they haven't been up to the prep since like the mid-2000s, maybe mid-to-late 2000s, but have a chance. They did not land on Portsmouth. Good. The wheel landed on Tottenham. Thank goodness. There were actually some, several elimination rounds I will say. Okay. Yeah. Portsmouth did not make it to the final spin. I think the final spin was Newcastle, Arsenal, and Tottenham. Okay. Very nice. Well, I'm very excited to see how it goes. I'm very intrigued to hear how your soccer viewing goes. If you want, I don't know if you have Amazon Prime video or not. I do. Okay. So a couple of years ago, Tottenham was featured on All or Nothing. That might be cool way to, I mean, half those guys aren't on the team anymore. Yeah. Neither is the manager, but it is cool. Why is it history? Yeah. Learn some history. See some of the players. But yeah, one thing that's great too, that I love about soccer is that there's so many different players from so many different countries. From Uruguay, South Korea, Argentina, Brazil, Central America, Eastern Europe, you know. So I mean, there's always different players to learn about, different managers to learn about. Soccer is a long season. 38 games just in the prem, not counting Europa League, EFL Cup, you know, care about cup competitions like that. So, I'm really interested. If you ever want to watch games, man, you let me know. I will. I will. I will. I'm going to try to be awake as well. Other thing, I'm also also keeping an eye on all the clubs that the U.S. Men's national team players are on. So keeping an eye on Milan and Juventus and Fulham and all stuff like that. Yeah. Because, you know, I really like Christian, Pulisic. Not just because he's the best player on the U.S. Men's national team, but I just really enjoy watching him, and I honestly think I didn't watch really any of his Milan stuff, just seeing how basically people were talking about him. But his Milan season at Milan last year was probably his best and club this entire year. Yeah. His entire career. Yeah. No. He definitely has his most productive year goals growing and assisting. And he had a goal. His past game. His past game. Oh, very nice. All right. Look at you, Seth. Look. Soccer guru over here, man. And Weston McKinney signed a deal with Juventus. He did. Yep. And Tim Waya is not punching people anymore. There you go. There you go. Yep. Good to keep the punches down. I honestly think that was just like an active sacrifice just to get for a halter fighter. Yeah. That is a good thing that they did do. But yeah, no. A very interesting Mauricio Pochettino. Now the U.S. Men's national team and coach. So that's going to be very interesting as preparations begin for the 2026 World Cup. But that's just a little, little peek into Seth's, you know, little sports journey here along with soccer. But folks, if you're listening back at home, if you're tuning in, you know, the next day on Spotify or Apple podcast, thank you so much for tuning in. We really appreciate all this support. We've obviously had a bit of a summer where we've just kind of stepped back and, you know, focus on some other things, you know, other things going on in life too. But Seth and I are very happy and thrilled to be back on the mic. So if you want to stay up to date with us on Reframe Review, be sure to find us on social media, find us and follow us on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Spotify, and Apple podcasts at Reframe Review or tune in every Tuesday from 7 to 9 p.m. right here on 88.7, the choice but for Seth Dattle, I'm Ian Impeach and thank you so much for tuning in and we will see you guys next time. [Music] (upbeat music) (gentle music)