FiredUp Network
Wednesday September 4: The Sports Wrap Week 0
(upbeat music) - Back from the UK, so we can get back at it. Welcome into the fired-up network or sports wrap. I'm Gerald Bentley joined by Rudy Reyes, the rude dog. We're here on the fired-up network. The best place to get is that true TV plus app. You can download it anywhere you get your apps now. And Rudy, it's week zero of the college. But fall season. And we've actually gotten to see some pretty impactful games that are already having an influence on how the NCAA playoffs are gonna come together. And it's still week zero. It's been a crazy start. - Yeah, it's been a crazy start. You're talking about week zero. A lot of teams that are with zeros or goose eggs on the board. Of course, not really a big shocker, surprising. You have a lot of ships and a big 10, you know, big 12, ACC, SCC. I mean, NIL money is rolling in. So these guys are cashing in at the same exact time. It's roll the catcher, sometimes catch and then roll. You see Missouri just slaughtered all over Murray State. Not that anybody expect it otherwise, but the way that they did it, 20 in the first, seven in the second, 10 in the third, and then six in the fourth, just to add the cherry to the Sunday, it was bad news, Utah. Just green, southern Utah. Not that anybody was surprised by that one. But I look at this NCAA season, it was kind of starting up, right? Talking about week zero, and a lot of zeros on the board, a lot of goose eggs. Now this is an early season. This isn't for anybody to get packed over. You look at the betting lines and what those look like. Okay, fine. You can shiver me timbers all you want, but this season is far from over as we see, you know, USC and LSU battling it out at a 20, you know, to 27 now lead by USC with an extra point. That was good. So a lot of teams that were bigger, larger, got the killer contract negotiations in the odd season that will help them move and catapult them into prime time games as the season rolls on. And, you know, teams like Utah, teams like Kansas, teams like NC State all rolling over a lot of the smaller schools. I think it's the big guy with the zero on his chest and the two little ones with the percentile trying to bring him down. And we know that's not going to happen. We've already seen that and it's going to be ongoing. Yeah, hey, let's start though with somebody who I think can start to panic and start to own that meltdown that he was showing last season during his press conferences and his coaches call in show, Davos Sweeney, the Bulldogs, Aga, they rolled the Clemson Tigers. This is a game that was being built as one of the most influential and significant week zero games in minor college football. We're going to get a match up of two of the key quarterbacking stars of college football this year. Carson Beck for the University of Georgia, going up against Kate Clubnick, a couple of guys who were some of the highest recruited players in the country when they came out. And it ends up 34 to three University of Georgia, beaten down the Clemson Tigers and it wasn't as close as that. Have we hit the point where it's time to say that the game has passed you by Davo, not taking transfers, not giving NIL money, the only significant college football power team in the country, did not take a single transfer and they went and just got curbed stomped week zero by the University of Georgia. The gap between those two programs hasn't looked bigger and we can even go ahead and stretch it out one more level. The gap between the SEC and the ACC, save. The team will talk about it a little bit later. Looks pretty big too. What'd you think of that game? That was just a beat down. That was just a huge disparity. When you look at that offense, it just looked feeble and looked old and looked wilted. I mean, you couldn't prescribe anything worse to happen to Davo Sweetie and the Clemson team. There was no real defense, no real offensive, any kind. You maybe have expected down low to really kind of swing back for the fences. Unfortunately, the team just wasn't up to the task to handle a Georgia Bulldog team, I think, historically, 42 and change in an opening season against a team that was just shy. I'm getting a national championship and lost. Alabama, I mean, it just sickens me to death to think how badly this game really was. I mean, you can look at it on paper and it looks equally as bad as when you were watching on TV. There was no difference. There was nothing to save the life for this Clemson team at all, not even a life preserver available to pull them out of the ocean as they were drowning in the onslaught of Carson Beck and the way that these guys took care of business on every single possession. - Yeah, Carson Beck played with here, former University of Georgia quarterback, Matt Stafford level efficiency. Just cut them apart while on the other side, Clemson responded with a grand total of 188 yards of offense. That's in college football, where if you don't regularly watch college football, you just watch the NFL, there's a difference. The way the clock stops in college football, there's always an eternity of time to come back. You get the clock stomping on every first down. The game, the way it's played, it rewards you dinking and dunking and getting those first downs because you don't have to worry about time management. The clock stops every time you get a first down. The game's never end, except they ended for Clemson because they couldn't, they couldn't get those first downs. I mean, 188 yards when you consider three quarters of the game was garbage time, they should have at least gotten 300 yards of offense and it just wasn't there. And are we seeing the impact of, essentially a de facto salary cap? If the one school is willing to spend money and the other one isn't, you're not competing. - No, there's absolutely no way to compete and to be perfectly honest with you, it's not really the fact that they lost, it's how they lost. The inefficiencies on third down, not being able to run the ball, there was no creativity. There's absolutely nothing to really speak of to suggest that this team, now a one lost team, one in the L column, can even find a way back and even into a nanny conversation. Going back to the USC LSU game is still currently going on right now. You know, Newsmire looked really good, came in clutch situations as a deal in Daniel. So I want to give a shout out to you because he's from my hometown of San Bernardino, California. You know, where he kind of took, he took control of where he needed to and when he needed to and how he did it, down the field, marching down, putting him in positions to win. There was nothing formidable about this Clemson team being able to do anything with the ball, regardless of how many possessions, regardless of how little of first down yards they received even after the catch, it was just absolutely horrible. I don't think this team has anything to look forward to, especially when you're talking about a national championship conversation, considering the way that they lost, not how they lost, it's the way that they lost. And they looked absolutely pathetic, against a very dominant Georgia team who just shines year after year after year. - Okay, now let's move to another game that was a surprise in the level of dominance. This happened on Saturday, your Miami Florida heart gains, the canes. They played at a category five level against the Florida Gators, transfer quarterback, now it's a trench here, Cam Ward looked great and led Mario Cristobal's team to a big win against the Gators, 41-17, it wasn't that close. This was a game that was being billed as the hot seat game. Mario Cristobal, who's been kind of disappointing as the hurricane's coach, that's a program that historically, hey, win it all, be a top 10 team or you failed. And then Florida, which I have to put into that, they're in that category that's like you with, I wanna say Georgia, Alabama, the Ohio State University, Michigan, and on the UCLA, USC, you lose three games. Okay, that's your strike one and strike two. You got one more year, you better get it going. And Billy Napier's on strike three right now and I think he may get fired mid-season. - You know, he could. He definitely has TD propensity to do it. You think he would show up against a team like Miami, who for all the test purposes, nobody really had any free football conversation about how good they were going to be, how solid they were going to be under center. And the fact alone, this is almost a one-and-done situation as a head coach, he spotted Florida, ouch. I mean, again, it's hardly lost. And when you give up 17 points in the second and 13, of course, excuse me, 14 and a third, that doesn't say anything about your ability to stop the run. You can't stop the pass. And when you have a solid running game like Miami had, as well as some of that play action, I mean, you just can't, you can't stop that. You don't have any answer for what they're trying to accomplish unless they've all stepped, you have nothing. You have absolutely nothing you're going to find yourself being a ran through the ringer. Exactly what happened at 1417, or Florida, and unfortunately, if Florida doesn't write the shit, they can find themselves without, again, another situation in the SEC, where you look at the team we were just talking about. I think that there's a lot to be said for where they're at, at where Clemson is in that one L column. And if they don't, again, write that shit, they can find themselves, again, not any type of national championship conversation, context, or no context associated with it. Yeah, no, no. And in the SEC, I mean, here, just the reality, it was already the hardest conference in football. Now you add Oklahoma, you add Texas to the mix. If you don't win out your pre-conference games, you're toast, because it's really, really hard to win out in the SEC. I mean, it just is. You're going to have to consider Alabama, Georgia, Missouri this year is in the top 25, and they look really good. LSU, despite falling to USC in a historic SEC Big Ten matchup, LSU is a good program. You can't roll into the SEC and think you'll fix it in conference play. And here it is. It's not like Florida did Davos Sweeney's route and didn't take transfers. They did. Graham Mertz, the quarterback for Florida, he's from, he's from right where I'm filming this, from Overland Park, Kansas. I'm in Kansas City, Missouri. I'm about 15 minutes away from where Graham Mertz is from. He was a high-level recruit, went to the University of Wisconsin, a weird pick for a passing quarterback, but he went there. He was one of the first guys to really lean into the NIL money, has his own line of merchandise. He's a big money transfer to Florida, and he looked adequate at best. I mean, he made Cape Club Nick look good. That's not going to get it done. And I'd like to see Graham Mertz get it done, but man, it's not happening. - No, it's not, it's a really far cry. You know, I look at the DNIL portion of this, right? Because if you're not a shining star, and you don't answer the bell, all that money is all basically for not. And you'll end up getting less and less and less. I don't know the parameters and what that looks like from, you know, within the context of NIL money. But if you don't perform, you're not going to get any of that. You're going to get very little. Again, one of those guys in a situation where he needs, I mean, Graham Mertz isn't a, I'm sure he's getting a decent chunk of money. I mean, just for people watching this, put it in perspective, this is nothing like the old days of college football, where, hey, the local car dealerships paying you for being a car detailer, but you're not actually going to work or the low level division of one school that I went to, they would give us an envelope, a white envelope full of cash on road trips with like six or 800 bucks of quote unquote meal money while every meal on the road trip was catered. It's not that. This is a prepaid guaranteed money of like a million. And if we believe the reports up to five million dollars that a guy will talk about a little bit later are playing for the Ohio State University guy. This is a lot of money that's being thrown at these guys and they're expecting results because here in this game, Cam Ward, one and done, is a senior transfer, a graduate senior transfer. You got one year, Graham Mertz is in his extra year of eligibility. So I mean, these are guys who were brought in knowing, okay, you're an established talent, here you go, here's the money, get it done. - Different body. - Not so. Yeah, it's completely different. It's a night and day. I mean, you look at where these guys' mentalities are without that money. Imagine what they actually look like with that money, without amount of money. And, you know, sadly enough, I think that depending on how highly you're sought after and what that looks like as far as your bank account and what you have in there prior to going into the NFL, if in fact you end up being drafted and picked unfortunate, enough to play in the National Football League, if you could end up retiring without having to play it down. I mean, especially how good you are. It's more often than not when you find guys who are in a situation where they know they need the money because mom and dad and whatever situation they're facing requires from them to have that kind of money, but it's the same token. If they're not worth being paid the amount of money that they're getting, then that can very well fall about the fall by the wayside. And they're going to be on the outside looking in saying, "Well, more porridge, please. "They're not going to get some porridge." The only thing they're going to get is pennies on the dollar, especially if they don't perform at this level. - Well, and it does here to reference back to an earlier game, Carson back, he could have laughed. He would have been a, would have been right there, I think with JJ McCarthy in terms of draft status, but he's going to get a couple of mil to play for a dominant team loaded at every position with guys running high school wide open, pad those stats up and be able to walk his way to probably a number one, number two, number three pick in the NFL draft next year. That's not a bad place to be. - No, it's not at all, and you find quarterbacks, and of course you're one of the most highest paid positions in the National Football League, but he knows that it's not rocket science, but when you look at guys like Carson Beck, I think that his plan may award being a higher pick if he was to leave after this season, especially when he and another national championship. I mean, clearly, there is a learning curve. You have to recognize what that is, especially when he was seeking after the National Football League in a position with any given 32 teams within the NFL to say, "You know what, I am now ready." I hate to think that the fans, some of these guys, when they leave the college level, may or may not achieve the greatness because they didn't stay inside of the college system for at least another year, or max out their eligibility, right? Because perhaps they're just not ready at that point. So by Carson Beck staying, I think was probably the best thing he could have done, not only for his collegiate career, but how that will transition into the National Football League next year when he gets picked by a team who may not necessarily be in a dire need for a guy. We look at the New York Patriots, we look at other teams in the National Football League. So you know what, I'm going to think the best quarterback available. He may not be available, at least at that point, right? So you take the next best day. Carson Beck will be one of the slot after probably top five picks. Maybe go third overall by some team that actually does need him. But again, smart decision by him to stay at Georgia, at least for now. - Who knows he could get reunited with his number one receiver from last year Brock Bowers with the Las Vegas greatest. - That's good. - That's good. You're not working out on it. (laughs) - Yeah, that's good. - No, no, one of these things is not like the other. I had Justin Herbert, Patrick Mahomes, at the tournament here, that's not going to work too well. That's good to another game that was a big game last night in more ways than one. 'Cause one of the overarching stories of this season, there's going to be the conference realignment. There's going to be the impact of money. And then there's going to be the 12 team college football playoff making its debut. Well, it looks like we can already pencil one team in. Not today, on the basis of having two hard games all year, they win one of them, took out the Aggies, the Texas A&M, when the hardest game of the season, until their game, the final week, their traditional show off, show down against the USC Trojans, who obviously look pretty good in their week zero game against LSU. Are you okay with Notre Dame basically being able to sleep walk their way into the college football playoffs? - No, I'm actually not on camera. And there's a couple of reasons why, is because they need to be able to face adversity. They have to recognize that this is not going to be a cakewalk, so granted every team in the EFPS and SCS and throughout the NCAA landscape, we'll say, you know what, we need a tougher schedule. We need to test our medal. We have to understand that we have to, you know, be hit in the face with adversity. Nothing should be a given. Nothing should be a walk on. And unfortunately, this may or may not work to the benefit of where Notre Dame sees themselves in the long term, but I will tell you this. I look at Notre Dame in a 23-13 win over A&M. A&M is not an easy out. They haven't been easy out. They haven't been the best program, but they have never been an easy out. This right here was by far a very masterful game by Notre Dame. And it's almost as if they're picking up where they left off last season as well. When you think about how well they did down the stretch. So could this be a take-to? Quite possibly. Would you see Notre Dame in the top 10, maybe mid-season? I would say so, considering how they played yesterday against Texas. So, you know, I believe that Notre Dame certainly has something up their sleeve, but nothing should be a given at all in any college football program, no matter what. One now, again, to be fair. They don't play the games on paper, but on paper, Notre Dame has a 76% chance or better winning every game the rest of the way. They have another high-paid transfer quarterback, Riley Leonard, who left Duke. His head coach left as well. Mike Elko, he was the head coach of the team that they beat Texas A&M. So, you know, it's not guaranteed, but they got a pretty good path to go. Riley Leonard was a very good quarterback for Duke without a semblance of the talent that he's gonna be playing with at Notre Dame. And, you know, it's gonna be an interesting story because you're looking for the drama. You're looking for the matchup. You're looking for the intrigue and everybody fighting their way through to get one of those playoff spots. And it's week zero. We've had even in week one. And you could already see the lines forming and pretty good ideas of multiple teams that are gonna have playoff spots locked down. - Sure, absolutely. The lines are being drawn in the sand as we speak. And, you know, when we look at Notre Dame, yeah, they're gonna take on Northern Illinois. Yeah, that's more likely a win against Purdue. Their basketball program's better in their football program and no offense to, you know, to Purdue. But the women makers have not had some of the best records historically. I can't swallow any team. But, you know, I look at Notre Dame. And again, it really looks great on paper but they need to put 10 to the paper and translate that onto the football team in order to win out at that 76% or better or maybe in some instances, maybe less. What to see? - Yeah, and now, and to be fair, the way they are going to walk in, they have to beat everyone except USC. If they lose a game or two along the way, well, they're in the danger zone of getting bumped out because their strength to schedule is just not gonna be there. So, they do have a little bit of pressure on them. - Well, they do and USC is not gonna be an easy out, especially based on what I was watching tonight against LSU. This is not the same USC team that we had seen in the past. This is in the gunslinging, you know, first type of methodology that the Trojans are playing with. They're playing with a full deck on both sides of ball, including special teams. And I just think they're gonna be a very formidable team down stretch. I don't think Notre Dame's gonna get past them. They could, and it's some margin, maybe a three point field goal with maybe five seconds left. But I just think USC just has too much and it's going to flex their muscle on them. - Well, and it was a different looking USC team, not just the absence of Caleb Williams, who's going to be patrolling like Michigan shores for the Chicago Bears this year, but they actually played defense last year for USC to win. They needed Caleb Williams to outscore the other team. They actually had an offensive effort tonight, which is a change. - Yeah, it's definitely changed. They were crowding the line. They hit their blitz packages. They were great on the corners. The tackles did what they needed to do. I mean, they showed up in all three phases. And when you could do that, especially against the not so easy out team in LSU and the less miles led Tigers, that says a lot about you. Now they're gonna go up in the 1-0, you know, call them taking that winner. So one of those situations where you're seeing things form and you know what they always say, objects in the mirror look closer than they appear. So we're gonna see what the rear view mirror looks like for some of these teams a lot earlier than we might expect. - Well, use that analogy. A guy who's looking in the rear view mirror to see who may be getting on him. Ryan Day, the head coach of the Ohio State University. But guys, has to be feeling a little bit better. His team with new additions, offense coordinator, Chip Kelly, who made the astonishing move of resigning from a powerhouse college head coaching job to step down to become a coordinator. Maybe he was smelling a little blood in the water and Columbus, Chip Kelly and new quarterback, Will Howard transfer from K-State, where he wasn't even the full-time starter last year. They took a half to get going, playing against the fellow Ohio school, the University of Akron zips. But after the half, Will Howard and the Buckeyes, they pulled away, they win. They did what you'd expect a reported $5 million a year transfer quarterback would do. But there is no substitute for Ohio State this year beyond winning the Big 10 and advancing at least, I'd say to the championship game, because Day has burned out any bridges that he had in Ohio. He's gonna win or he's gone. And the replacement just so happens to be on the staff. He's breathing down his neck at every single waking moment that he's walking on the slide line. I look at Akron and I think to myself, okay, did they have a shot? No, not really, not against Ohio State. And an opening game where they basically got taken to the slaughterhouse in '50 to '60. And it wasn't even close. They hate to use that euphemism as opposed to, you know, it's true. Yeah, of course, the half, but again, you recognize what the team looks like, how they're looking and the ways that you can exploit them in all three phases. And that's exactly what they did. They did it early and they did it often. You know, when I suggest that the Zips had a chance, look, you always have a chance regardless of who you are, the minute you step on the field, you have an opportunity to win. It's not as if they were being counted out, maybe not by Zips fans all over the country if that even does exist, but I think, no, it's not. (laughing) No, for Akron Zips radio, no, they don't have any Zips fans. I used to do a weekly interview with former Notre Dame coach Jerry Faust when he was the head coach of the University of Akron Zips and was hired to try and bring attention to the University of Akron, which just for a perspective is about 45 minutes outside of Cleveland. So the thought was, hey, we're gonna be Cleveland's college football team, Division I. We've got the old Notre Dame head coach here, a guy who won high school national championships at Cincinnati-Molar. Here we go. And nobody. - Well, we see how that, well, we see how that happened. (laughing) And what actually happened was all said, that's not like they have any fans anymore. But with that being said, I mean, they were, they looked good early on, which I felt as though they had a momentum, especially going into the half. But again, we've seen this tale of two cities happen way too often when you look at college fields that look good in the first half, but somehow managed to fall apart. And here comes the volcano, you know, raining on their parade like it did in Pompeii. And it's just the way, any opportunity that they had. There, again, the tale of two teams, the way that they play and how they play, and especially against the Ohio State University, are you kidding me? You can't give them an inch 'cause they will take the entire field. And they did that early and often in that massive win. So what was it expected? Yeah, I think most people could probably say it was. I expected it, I know you did, at least based on what we've seen from Ryan Day and Ohio State. But going back to Ryan Day, I think there's a lot to be said for where he's at right now from a coaching perspective. He needs to win out and he needs to win big. And that's on every single game at every single angle. If he does not have a guy in the running for a Heisman Trophy, then he doesn't have a chance. He will be won and done at the end of the season. I'm just telling it like it is. I mean, look, the bottom line is this is, will he get into a playoff conversation? Well, that's hard to say. I mean, they do have a rough schedule, they do have a tough schedule, and it's not a walk-on schedule that we've seen with Notre Dame. So I think nothing for granted in the additional Ohio State. Hey, I wanna ask this because I've been thinking about this and just looking at all these high-level transfer quarterbacks. Do you think some of these top programs have just given up on developing a quarterback from high school, and they're looking to just pry ready-made starters from other programs, not even necessarily small programs, because I mean, Notre Dame pulled Riley Leonard from Duke. It's not like Duke doesn't have money. Well, Howard came from Kansas State, a big 12 school. School that gets, you know, $47 million a year or just TV money and sells out every game, they got revenue. Is it just that, hey, we're the big programs, we're gonna find somebody, or we're just gonna buy 'em. And if that doesn't work, we'll try somebody next year. I don't think Florida is all that concerned that they're not gonna be able to get somebody to replace Graham Mertz. They've got a booster probably that's already called up the AD and said, "Hey, I own a chain of car dealerships. "I've got a $5 million check here. "Get us a quarterback." I mean, do you think that's what it's come down to? - I think it does. Unfortunately, I'd hate to believe that, you know, we have now thrown the proverbial high school quarterback position under the bus at full speed instead of looking at it from a developmental standpoint. This is like the NFL, this is a win now. Not when is it, when are we gonna win? It's win now or don't win at all. And unfortunately, the days of being a custom tailor make a quarterback from basically nothing to understand the collegiate system and the college level of play versus the high school level of play is completely different and completely different. It's like saying, I'm gonna put a high school quarter back in the NFL. Well, we know that's not gonna work and neither will it work without training, without patience, without a high IQ guy under center to run the offense. I mean, and clearly, ones that have been taken in and put under the wing that have had somewhat maybe successful in the past, college, the colleges that they have attended, perhaps they've seen something in them. So I think that the days of nurturing, campaigning for a guy coming out of high school to be the next star quarterback, it's the thing of the past. - Yeah, and this isn't the first year it happened, obviously, because I mean, last year, Michael Penix Jr. and Bo Nix had transferred already. But, you know, it just seems to be jumping out. Now there's some exceptions, obviously, Carson back. And this is crazy to hear this phrase being thrown around, but he's a homegrown Georgia quarterback. It was a freshman recruit to Georgia. Brady Cook, the quarterback for the University of Missouri is a guy who's from Missouri and his dream when he was playing in high school was to be starting quarterback for the University of Missouri. So there is some of that, but it really seems like some of these programs have just said, "Hey, it's not worth risking it. "We're not gonna go with the freshmen. "We're gonna find whoever the best person is out there "that we've seen do it at this level." And we got enough boosters, man. Somebody's gonna struck a check. - Yeah, and sadly, you know what, I look at this, I look at Avery Johnson, talking about Kansas State and what he's done, Miller Moss at a USC. I mean, there's so many different options. Malik Murphy at a Duke, not known for their, you know, drafting a quarterback. We see what Daniel Jones has done in, you know, the Nashville football. He would basically nothing but one good season. So, I mean, there guys like, you know, we talked about Nussmeyer, what he's done, you know, what he continues to do despite the loss against USC, who's again, not to be taken lightly or for granted for Pac-12 team, no longer a pack of anything, maybe a pack of wolves. But, you know, by Olad and Nebraska, he reminds me of a young Patrick Mahomes out of Texas Tech, you know, there's, yeah, yeah. I mean, just this isn't his rollout, his instincts, his fast IQ, you know, of being able to get the ball out of his hands in a timely manner to someone who's wide open creatively. I might add, says a lot about his propensity of growth and where he stands, and Jalen Rayner, I mean, out of Arkansas State. The guy, I mean, 2,550 yards against the Red Wolves. I mean, he's an NCC guy. I mean, going to Arkansas. So again, there's a lot of shifts in motion. And of course, quarterbacks know that the best, right? It's all about the snap and the motion and the reeds and what that looks like to have field. But I think that the days of, again, under proponent of homegrown guys, I really am. I always have been. Of course, we do that, you know, Fresno State was gonna lose that game. Wyoming didn't look good yesterday. It's Arizona. But I think that the days of where the quarterback position is, is in every evolving position that we'll see further evolve as the years go on with this NIL money, with the reshifting of a now 12 game system. So there's a lot to be set for guys that have had experience in some success at other colleges now find themselves in a more of an equivalent type of environment where they can grow even more. Very true. And let's look at one other school that has definitely used the transfer portal and the NIL windows. Coach Prom, Dion Sanders and the Colorado Buffaloes. This was gonna be their year that they were gonna spring forward, right? They were gonna be an impact team moving into the new big 12. Well, they barely win week zero against North Dakota State to be fair, North Dakota State and the Bison are a very good one double 18 or division one football playoff division team. They are, they're really good at it. But the North Dakota State Bison, the South Dakota State Jackrabbits, I don't care how good they are in their division. You can't be a good major conference team and struggle to beat those guys. Colorado has, if Carson Beck's not the top recruiting quarterback for the NFL Draft. Shadar Sanders is Dion Son. They got traps Hunter, who's a tremendous two-way player. And then they got a bunch of other guys that Dion just got transferred in because he got sick of the guys that he recruited and said, okay, you guys go, I'm gonna get new guys. Second year in a row, he's done that. Massive turnover of the roster and they don't look any better than they did last year. - No, they told him very good. They almost look exactly the same. And I don't mean that necessarily from a schematic standpoint, but a personnel grouping, what does that look like in all three phases? Defense, offense. I mean, they're all different players, granted. But I think that, I think Coach Price still not happy. - Right, the results are the same. - Yeah, yeah, exactly. And they barely squeaked by in a DSU team as you stated. It has been very good, you know, it's part of the SCS. And I look at, I watch that game and I just talk to myself, man, Colorado, just too many mistakes. They didn't capitalize when they had possession. They're just things that they did not do well. I would think that when I look at the coaching, if there was like a coaching ranking of, you know, A through F and who did worse, you know, okay, fine. So the outsiders could have done better. He is something mentally. And of course, I wanna divert a little bit to the guy who was basically banned from asking Coach Price about why he didn't care for the ref calls during last years. And he was banned for life, I think, which is absolutely absurd and stupid to even think he would do that to somebody. Whoever heard him, freedom of the press, I don't know, last time I checked, that still was a thing. But I would give Coach Price a B. He could have done a lot better. Could have had his guys done much more better. But when you look at the individual playoff as such, you're a man, you know, 40 pass place and 17 runs, doesn't exactly spell offensive fluidity to me. I mean, you have to have a balanced run and pass an attack. And unfortunately, they just did not get it done. And again, all credit to the fact that they won, but it was a squeaker. It was a squeaker. If they had not converted and getting that touchdown, they would have lost to empty SEO and would have been an ultimate embarrassment. And the media would have basically crucified coach centers in regards to this loss and how they lost. It's not as if the bison did anything better, but they had better man coverage. And I think man coverage says a lot against Shador Sanders, who typically does a pretty decent job at being able to read man coverage. But, you know, 20 first half points, they did some confusion defensively against NDSU. I just think that when you look at where NDSU actually got better was in that run pass, you know, being able to recognize back off the defensive tackles. I just, I don't know, I have a hard time believing that Shador Sanders could be the next guy. Early season, early season, I get it, I trust me, I get it. I understand, but he needs to capitalize on opportunities in front of him at this level, because he's not going to be at this level very long and could be an NFL team calling him, but not be drafted in the position that he would like much less his dad would want him in. - Well, I do think he'll get a lot better coaching because there doesn't seem to be a lot of substance to the style of a Deon Sanders coach team. Because now that you're playing with, and hey, he did great job, Jackson State. But now you're at a different level of talent. You have a big step up, and you can't just roll the ball out there, tell some stories and lose it on guys and say, "Hey, you're not good enough, we're getting better." - He may be a victim of, I mean, how many times have we heard that great players don't make great coaches? - Oh, four or two, often. - Oh, you seem like a hard new flop. - It's hard for you to say, look, it's easy just to this, because you were so amazingly good, it was easy for you to just go out there and do this. And that doesn't seem to translate, and the frustration level he shows in just launching players out of there, that's not sustainable. I mean, it just is, at some point, you're gonna run out of guys that you can shuffle through. And also, heck, you'll run out of kids. Let's look at a little bit, yeah. - Yeah, you're your own kids, yeah, he's already died, he doesn't have any word of life. Let's take a look close to where I'm at here, as we're winding it down here, all three Kansas City area division one colleges are in the top 25 in football preseason. First time ever, the KUJ Hawks, the K State Wildcats, and the Missouri Tigers. They all played an assortment of no one, really. Missouri played the Murray State Racers. K State played the Tennessee Martin Skyhawks. They just ran out there. These were the old payday games. Hey, here you go, here's your check. Thanks for taking the beat down and enjoy your season in the sub belt. But they all look really good, and they should be factors going through the year. Out of these three teams, who do you think's done the best job coaching? Chris Klimann at K State, the school where only one other guy has really won, that was Bill Snyder, Lance Leepold at KU, where really nobody who's coached football outside of Mark Mangino has done anything in the modern history of college football, or Eli Drinkwitz at Missouri, a better historic program, but a program that's been playing in the SEC, so win the pressure cooker. Who do you think's done the best job out of those three guys? - Well, I look at Chris Klimann. I mean, he's making $50 million. Okay, fine, wonderful. He's done pretty good things. He's done some decent recruiting. Hasn't been kind of a splash coach, like a Dean on Sanders or anything, but he certainly has put his team in a better position because he comes in with a winning record, a 40 and 24. So you kind of roll that over into the following year. I mean, there's a lot to be said for being able to bring a program up. I mean, he was a former player. He played for Northern Iowa. He was a defensive back. So he knows defense. Now he's just has to incorporate that. We're talking about great players don't make great coaches. Well, he wasn't a great player. He wasn't a very good player, but it wasn't a great player. But what he does bring is the understanding of defensive formation. So we've seen defensive guys become head coaches. Are they defensive centric? Well, maybe you look what happened with Mike Toddley, it comes over from Minnesota as a defensive line coach and became a head coach for the Steelers years ago. So is he doing better? It's too early to tell, but I think he's done better so far out of the three aforementioned teams. Has he done great? Well, no, not really. I mean, his record won 12 and 37 and that speaks to something, right? He's been to two games, but two bowl games, but lost two bowl games. He's been to the SES playoffs, 18 and one in those tournaments. Again, he brings accolades. I just don't know that anybody else within the three or four mentioned guys are gonna do anything better. Will the program be better with him leading that? I don't know. And week one, it's just so much for a tape. That's hard to say. They're gonna do any better this year. They did less. He has the winning pedigree, because the reason we talk about North Dakota State University being a good program in the FBS level, well, it's because of Chris Kleinman. He was the guy who got that program rolling and have those wins. It was him. So he is doing, at K-State, what he did at North Dakota State. They're a very methodical, run-heavy, risk-averse football team. The Mike Tomlin comparison's good, because yeah, there's a lot of similarities in the coaching style between the two guys and even their mannerisms. I mean, very, very matter of fact, very calm, very, very, very, very methodical. And very, very much so. Will Howard, he got the bag of money from Ohio State, but he wasn't even the full-time starter last year. The freshman Avery Johnson was already getting starting knots, because of his running ability. So it'll be interesting to see what Avery Johnson does, because he's replacing a guy who got ran out and got $5 million locking off the door. KU, Lance Leopold, they got the new stadium going in in KU. Every game's gonna be a road game this year for the Jayhawks. They're driving 40 minutes down the road. They're gonna play their non-con games at Children's Mercy Park, sporting Kansas City soccer stadium in KCC. And then their conference games are gonna be played at Arrowhead, just across the river in Kansas City, Missouri this year. The new KU on campus stadium will be opened up ready to go next season. So that's something that is a credit to Lance Leopold, because after Mark Mangino left, I don't think anybody saw a $450 million football investment coming to Lawrence, Kansas. The place I've built, self-built. And then in Missouri, Eli Crinkowitz renovated stadium. And you got a team that's ready to make a big run at it with a burden, the wide receiver, five-star recruit. He's at Missouri. And man, he's elevating that program and bringing some other recruits in with him. - Yeah, no, absolutely right. And going back to Kyleman for just a moment or a climb, excuse me, he's doing great things. I mean, he's been coach of the year. He did it in 2017. He's on pace to do it again this year. This guy's in no frills, no chills, no spills guy. I mean, he spells it like it is phonetically, not a style. He said, tell you like it is. He has no euphemism going back to the entitlement comparison. So he brings his personality not only as a player, but to translate that into a better team environment, a better team outlook. And overall, I think this team would be one to contend with. Probably a lot sir that most people think. - Oh yeah, no, I think they're gonna have a very good year this year. And they are stepping it up at a level where I think they're gonna try to show that that traditional kind of smash mouth, option-run style can still make it work in this era of college football. Well, we're gonna have a lot of college football to talk about as we move into the season. This is week zero. And you already have lots of storylines being developed and lots of plot lines. It really kind of ties into the sister's station, wrestling spotlight where the storylines, the plot lines, the match-ups, determines so much of what happens in a week, in a season. So with that, let's let Laura Loca, Taya Valkyrie introduce weekly champion right here. - Hey, what's up guys? This is Taya Belkriula with Alokka and you are watching wrestling spotlight. - So here we go, weekly champions brought to you by wrestling spotlight, Laura Loca, Taya Belkri introducing it. Or Ritti, who's your champion as a week to wrap up sports wrap here? - Oh man, there are so many of them right now. I would say that if there was anyone who would be the champion of the week for me, it would be Lincoln Riley. It would be Lincoln Riley. And there's a couple reasons why. First reason is he's done everything he needed to do, all the talk, all the hype, all the conversations, the preseason, you know, at least the NCAA or week zero, and it went against LSU. Absolutely phenomenal. I didn't see that coming. I think only he did. So kudos to him and just USC overall would be my co-champ chair because they were gonna pull it off and just get it done in all three phases. And they did it continuously throughout the game. - It's good. I'm gonna go with Cam Ward for leaving and leading the University of Miami Hurricane in that dominant win against the Florida Gators. Headed out of Washington State, seen your quarterback for the hurricanes. And Cam Ward is probably Mario Christobot's best friend right now because off of the hot seat, he gets to shake the hurricanes against that bad ACC and a lot of pressure on the Florida Gators now. So Cam Ward gets mine a close second. Having just gotten back from AEW all in would be your CEO Mercedes Monet retaining the TBS title and the new Japan women's strong title. And they're going into all out. You can hear us talk about that on wrestling spotlight later on in the week, but the college football season's rolling along, really working people find some of your tanks and coverage of this football season. - Oh, wow, you can see it on TheReduckShow.com. You can see it right here on "Fire Up Network" as well with Gerald Belli. And you guys can follow me on Twitter or X as we are starting to figure out what that is now. At TheReduck Race, you can go to Instagram or the RAS and you can find me anywhere, paperbacks are sold. - Excellent. And I feel a lot better tonight than I did on Thursday night hosting timeout after spending 27 hours at the airport getting back for a blood dip. We'll be joined later on this week by Alex Campbell on timeout and some other guests covering Kansas City sports and also the National Football League. For Rudy Reyes, I'm Gerald Belli. Thanks for watching us on the "Fire Up Network." Go ahead and download that app. The True TV Plus app is the best way to watch it. You can get out of any apps available. You can also see us on sports.tv and Carman TV. Until next week, thanks a lot. We'll see you back here on the "Fire Up Network" for more sports and entertainment. [MUSIC PLAYING]