The CFB All-America team is joined by Bryan Driskell of Irish Breakdown to preview the Notre Dame vs. Texas A&M matchup.
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Irish Breakdown
CFB All-America - Notre Dame vs. Texas A&M Preview
You've had Wendy's nugs dipped in sauce, but have you had them covered in sauce? Wendy's new saucy nugs take the crispy and spicy nugs you love and turn them up to 11. Choose between flavors like buffalo or honey barbecue, garlic, parm, or if you're a real heat seeker out there, you can try spicy ghost pepper only on Wendy's signature spicy nugs. Listen, I'm going to dare you to do it. I dare you. That's seven delicious ways to try the nugs that you already love. Take a flavor, grab some extra napkins, and then grab a few more napkins and prepare to nug like you've never nugged before. For a whole new way to nug, it's got to be Wendy's that participating U.S. Wendy's. Welcome and everybody to the CFB Nation All-American Podcast. I'm Bill Troci, Senior Editor at SportingNews.com alongside Bill Bender, our National College Football Writer at SportingNews.com. You can follow Bill on Twitter at BillBender92, and you can follow me at Bill Troci and keep an eye on the main sporting news account at SportingNews. Today, special guests, three-man booth. We always like the three-man booth from Irish Breakdown. Brian Driscoll is here. Irish Breakdown, of course, covers Notre Dame football, have tons of podcasts. If you are listening to this podcast on the CFB Nation feed, you need to finish listening to the podcast, but then go over to Irish Breakdown. Make sure you are subscribing to that podcast. If you're a Notre Dame fan, it will make your season a lot more fun, and you will be a much smarter fan. Brian, welcome in. College Football Nation, what's going on? Marking on the second here. Get inside access to the college football world and beyond every week. As three-time national champion head coach, Urban Meyer announced a Rob Stone, and I take you from the field into the locker room and beyond discussing the top moments in college and pro sports. Plus conversations with the biggest names from every corner of entertainment delivered to you at home or on the road. Watch Triple Option on YouTube or listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcast. Go! This episode is brought to you by Honda. When you test drive the all-new Pro Log EV, there's a lot that can impress you about it. There's the class leading passenger space, the clean, thoughtful design, and the intuitive technology. But out of everything, what you'll really love most is that it's a Honda. Visit Honda.com/ev to see offers. Thanks for having me, guys. Pleasure as always. I'm just excited that the season is now officially upon us. Officially. Week one is ready to rock and roll. You've got your playing tickets, you've got your reservations, you've got your dinner reservations, I assume. You've got everything ready to go from Texas A&M. That's right. That's right. Leaving Friday afternoon, ready to get down. My first trip to college station, so it's kind of one of those, you know, Bill, I know, Bender, I know you have these, Bill Troach. I don't know if you have these, but you know, you've got those bucket list places you want to cover a game. You know, you want to go. And Kyle Field is certainly on that bucket list of places that I'd love to cover a game. Yeah, I've never been there. That's one I definitely want to get to at some point. I've done, remember one year I did a three stop tour of Texas, and you'll remember the year I did Baylor's opener. It was the first game post-Art Riles and Jim Grobe was the coach. So that was easy. They put like Southwestern, Northwestern state. I did Alabama USC the following night when Alabama just annihilated USC 52 to six done with that story before halftime. And then the final night I did Texas Notre Dame. That was on Swoop's game. That was on Sunday or Monday, right? It was a Sunday night game. So I did Friday, Saturday, Sunday in Texas, drove all around that state, bring an extra shirt. It's going to be hot. Yeah. Well, it's been over a hundred this week in South Bend. Well, and not to, I know Bill wants to ask the trophy trivia, but I guess a preemptive question would be, it's been high here in Ohio. So how has Notre Dame, how do you prepare for the heat? You're a former coach. How do you prepare for that Texas heat if you're Notre Dame? It's not so much that you prepare for the heat. You just prepare for your body to be hot. You know, I mean, you can't, it's like coming to South Bend in November or December, if you have a playoff game, right? And you're from the South, you can't prepare for playing in 15 degree weather. You just prepare your body as best you can. It's about hydration. It's about making sure that your body's fueled. It's about making sure that you're in as best shape as you possibly can be. You know, so you don't prepare for the heat, but you practice harder. Maybe you practice a little bit more, you know, you really try to push them beyond that normal point of exhaustion and camp and then power through them. I mean, that's kind of what camp is about, right? Is you push yourself beyond what you think you're capable of. And that's how you get your body in great shape. I mean, honestly, bill preparing for a game like this is not something you do during game week. And to a degree, it's something you really ramp up a couple weeks before, but it's really something you've been preparing for all off season. It's part of your strength conditioning program. It's part of a lot of different things. And then the final piece is from the one thing you can do as a coach is to say, look, let's make sure our rotation is as deep as it can be and guys are ready to play. And that's one of the things is you go out there in that first, you know, let's say first quarter and you got Howard Cross playing every rep in the first three series, he's going to be he's going to be tapped out and you don't recover from that, right? And so that's why you make sure that you've got that rotation fresh. And if you can get through sort of that first quarter and a half when the sun is still kind of out and you can get that sucker to halftime feeling pretty good, that's when you that's when it gets a lot better because it's still hot, but it's you don't have that sun pounding on you. And that's what's going to work for Notre Dame. So as long as they are have done what they needed to do really the last couple weeks from a hydration standpoint and a nutrition standpoint, you won't see a lot of the cramping that that can tend to happen. Because that's really the biggest thing I'm worried about is you're not properly hydrated and and not, you know, properly fed and your diet wasn't what it needed to be in the in the week leading up to it. And so you have a lot of cramping issues in the first, you know, couple quarters, that's really what you want to try to avoid more than anything. You need to stay hydrated too, Brian. Just remember, yes. I don't want you cramping up when you're trying to write your stuff. No, I'm old, it's going to be hot, you know, I got to make sure I'm, you know, eating right and drinking right so I'll be on the plane pounding waters, man. I'll be ready to go next night. So yes, Bill mentioned the Trotche trivia question. We are obviously talking about Notre Dame opening against a ranked opponent. So the Trotche trivia question is going to focus on the last time Notre Dame beat a ranked team to open the season. I was in 2018, it was Notre Dame 24, number 14, Michigan 17 separate Trotche trivia questions for Brian. Can you name who scored the first touchdown for Notre Dame in that game for Bill? Can you name the person who scored the first touchdown for Michigan in that game? 2018 season opener Notre Dame beats Michigan 24 17. Each of you needs to name the player who scored the first touchdown one for Notre Dame and one for Michigan. Will we revisit that? When do we do that? We will revisit it at the end of the show. I see Driscoll's got a little smile on his face. It's a little more worried than Brian, but can I give Bill a hint? I'm pretty sure I know who it is. I just had to rewind the game. It was not an offensive or defensive touchdown. Okay. Okay. Okay. Now he's still thinking. So we'll see what it is. So Brian, I was reading, you know, one of the big storylines of the game, obviously, is Riley Leonard versus Mike Elko. And I was reading on Irishbreakdown.com, some comments from Riley Leonard on this, the cat and mouse game. He thinks each of them have some advantages. Where do you see the advantage and the kind of the match up of those two? I'm with Mike Elko. And I've said this on my show multiple times in the last couple of weeks, Mike Elko said this in his Notre Dame kickoff press conferences. In instances like this, the player has the advantage. And so when you look at it, what Elko said is exactly what I believe is I, he knows more of what we're going to do, because our system is going to be more aligned with what we, what we have done. You know, we're not reinventing the wheel on defense at Texas A&M. They're going to run what Mike Elko believes in. I've never seen what he does in Mike, you know, basing Mike Dembrock's offense. I don't know who his favorite targets are at Notre Dame. I don't know what, what specific run concepts they're going to do. I know some of the, you know, the past concepts that Riley Leonard may like, but you know, Mike Elko or Mike Dembrock runs a completely different offense at Kevin Johns. And he's got a completely different type of skill set. I mean, look, Riley Leonard and Duke didn't throw to the tight end a whole lot. Why? They didn't have very good tight ends, if we're going to be honest with you. You know, he's probably going to throw the tight end a little bit more at Notre Dame than he did at, at Duke. And, and so that was really coach Elko's point. And that's what I believe. I don't think there's a huge advantage either way, you know, because even though he knows what Mike Elko likes to do defensively, Mike Elko didn't have Nick Skowerten, he didn't have Schimart Turner. I mean, so he's going to have a little bit of a different skill set than he had there too. So I think that's a, it's a great topic of conversation and it's a storyline. I don't think it's going to be a huge, like from a volume standpoint opportunity, it's going to be sort of that one moment in a clutch moment where, you know, coach Elko knows, okay, I know in this situation, I know that Riley likes to look here or Riley Leonard's going to be like, I know in this situation, this is what they really like to do because we've done two minutes against each other a million times. It'll be something like that if it has any impact at all. And the only time I think that a coach has the advantage, a friend of mine brought up a counterpoint, he goes, well, what about, what about the Super Bowl where John Gruden coached against the Raiders and Rich Ganon? And I said, here's the difference, though, he knew the whole system. I mean, Bill Callahan was his offensive coordinator. So he knew all of him. He didn't just know the quarterback, he knew the system. If Notre Dame Zosi was Kevin Johns, then I'd be a lot more concerned. But it's not, it's Mike Denbrock. And so I think that's what, that's what really to me makes it either a non issue or if anything advantage Riley Leonard in that situation. What are your impressions of Connor Wigman? I mean, last, I've been high on him when he's on the field. He, you know, you looked at his stats from last year, 60%, completion percentage on throws of 20 yards or more on big on quarterbacks that can do that. It's obviously going to be tested by Notre Dame secondary. Is there something worth worrying about from the Notre Dame secondary with that you have to stop with him? I know you know how to work with quarterbacks. You know, the interesting thing is I actually, I'm a big Connor Wigman fan as well. Bill, so we're on the same page there. I like Connor Wigman quite a bit. I think some of the hype about going around him is a little bit like, hey, let's, let's pump the brakes and let the kid, you know, get to double digits and starts before we start talking about him being a first round draft pick and all that other kind of stuff. You know, you mentioned he was over 60%, he was one of three against Miami, you know, and, and when you look at a lot of his production from last year, I think he was 0 for one against Auburn before he got hurt. A lot of his success came against like Lumet, New Mexico, Louisiana and Roe. And that's really the, the part of the evolution that Connor Wigman is going through. And some of the, the, the, the tempering of the expectations I've tried to give people about him in this particular game. You're talking about a defense that's gone against CJ Stroud the last two years and held him to one of his lowest non 100 mile an hour wind performance of his career. You know, they went against Caleb Williams twice. He got him the first time. They absolutely dominated him the second time. They went against Drake May and blew them out in Drake May's home field. You know, they've gone Jaren Hall at BYU. They shut down. I mean, Notre Dame's gone against some really good quarterbacks the last two years and their past defense has been exceptional every time. And you know, the Ohio State didn't have a great quarterback last year, but they did have Marvin Harrison and the Meckig Buka and the Notre Dame secondary for the most part held them in check. And the guy that kind of gave up that one big play late is no longer on the roster. He kind of got forced down at the end of the year, not for that play, just because he wasn't very good. So I think this is going to come down to more of the Notre Dame pass rush than it will be the secondary bill. You guys know this. I don't care how good you are covering. If you don't get to the quarterback, he's going to find somebody open, right? I mean, Notre Dame gave Ohio State all kinds of problems last year thrown to football. But on that one fourth and seven, they couldn't put pressure, common quarters able to stay in the pocket, stay erect, and he finds Julian Fleming for a fourth down conversion, right? Like, you've got to get pressure on the quarterback. And if you can do that, Connor Wegman will have some of the mistakes he had against Miami last year. He'll have some of the mistakes he had against Auburn last year, you know, where he throws a ball off of his back foot and he misses a target. But if he's comfortable in the pocket, guys, and if he's able, he's a smart quarterback. He's got, he's got pretty decent accuracy, in my opinion. He's got a nice arm. He's got a live arm. And I actually think he's more mobile than he's shown so far at Texas A&M because he wasn't running a system that was going to ask him to move around a lot. And we're going to see Colin Klein ask him to run some read zone stuff and he's going to have to make some plays when things break down. And I think he's capable of it. It just comes down to experience, Bill. This is a kid that hasn't had a lot of game action against really good teams. And he's going to need a couple games under his belt before they start asking him to put this team on his shoulders and say, Hey, let's go beat Notre Dame and let's go beat Texas and BAM. I think I'll say this, I am glad Notre Dame gets him in week one and not week 10. Because I think by the time you get to that point in time, he's got a little bit more seasoning and he's a little bit more comfortable in the Colin Klein offense, which is very different from what he did under Bobby Patrino and Jimbo Fisher. I think this kid's going to be really good. He's just going up against a bit of a bus all this weekend in Notre Dame. Let's remember to Jimbo Fisher likes him too, because he essentially picked him over Haynes King. And Haynes King has gone on to Georgia Tech and had some success over there. But I still think that was the right move, by the way. I do. I think Connor Wegman, obviously the injury last year kind of kept him from, from really developing. But to Bill's point, if he doesn't get hurt, we're having a different conversation right now, in my opinion. I really do. If he would have been able to go through the entire year and gain all that experience, the ups and the downs, we'd be having a much different conversation right now about Connor Wegman. And I'd be like, yeah, I think he's got a chance to be one of the better quarterbacks in the country. I do. What is your opinion on the choice to start such an inexperienced offensive line and have some of the guys who have experienced her second on the depth chart right now? I think I saw the stat where the first string has six career starts. And the second thing has 26 career starts right now, or something like 27, because when you say the osh Baker had a start tied end against Ohio State last year. But as far as offensive lineman, yeah, 26 starts. Yeah, so interesting choice there. He likes what he sees, obviously. And what are your thoughts on that? It's a bit of a catch 22, right? I mean, there's there's two ways of looking at it. One is, do I really want to go to Kyle Field in that environment and have basically kind of five new starters? You know, I've got my you might use if I'm looking at it from another aim standpoint, right? I got my center who had started the last three games last year against Wake Force at home. At Stanford. So like what? 40,000 people in stands and then in a bowl game, it gets Oregon State, right? Like low pressure situations. That's my center, my right guard's career numbers. And and do I really want to go into Kyle Field with with guys that haven't been in that moment before that that's that's concern number one, right? Then the other concern is, but do I start guys who are my six and seventh best lineman at best because they happen to have experience? Like do I really want to put my not best guys on the field against Nick Skowerten and Chamart Turner and DJ Hicks and and and Chamart Stewart and those type of guys that that's really where you're at is you're going to play the guys that that basically you felt played the best throughout the season or throughout fall camp that you felt gave you the best chance to run the football because that's what it comes down to. It may seem kind of like what are you talking about, like Anthony Naps 294 and Tosh Bakers 325. Anthony Naps already better run blocker than Tosh Baker was. That's a big part of the reason he's playing left tackle right now and Tosh Baker isn't. So that that's what they went with on it. I'll be you know what's going to be interesting, Bill, is what they have made this same decision if it was still a 14 playoff or what they have said, hey, look, we just got to win this game and we can figure out the rest later kind of like what I still to this day believe that Notre Dame started Brandon Windbush against Michigan in 2018 with every intention of eventually turning it over to him book, but they knew they couldn't beat that Michigan team without Brandon Windbush's legs. And that's why you saw the offense change the next two weeks Brandon Windbush couldn't run it and then oh, I guess we got to go to, you know, we got to go to Ian book in order to get this offense where we want to get it to, but they knew they couldn't beat Michigan without Brandon Windbush. And I think that's the reason they made the move that they did and but I'm very curious if that factored into it or for a simple just like, hey, guys, these guys played the best every single day. There was no doubt about it, especially left tackle. It was an easier decision than it was a left guard. It makes it very interesting and we're going to find out if it pays off or not, but I do think they're playing the long game a little bit here as well. Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile. With the price of just about everything going up during inflation, we thought we'd bring our prices down. So to help us, we brought in a reverse auctioneer, which is apparently a thing. Mint Mobile unlimited, premium wireless, heavy to get 30, 30, but to get 30, but to get 20, 20, but to get 20, but to get 20, 20, but to get 15, 15, 15, just 15 bucks a month. So give it a try at mintmobile.com/switch. $45 up from payment equivalent to $15 per month. New customers on first three month plan only. Taxes and fees extra, speeds lower above 40 gigabyte CD tail. George Clooney and Brad Pitt's new movie "Wolves" is on Apple TV Plus, September 27th. That's where I want you to be now. So if you want to see George Clooney and Brad Pitt, go to Apple TV Plus. You got to start the story there. Or if you want to see Brad Pitt and George Clooney, go to Apple TV Plus. I am enjoying the show. And if you want to see their new movie "Wolves" you can't do it, win help yet. I can do it. Do it. Definitely go to Apple TV Plus. The Mint is cool. OK, five is very cool. "Wolves" stream September 27th on Apple TV Plus. Where did R? Well, I was going to say they don't... I'll tell you the 32nd story. When I lived in Charlotte, went to a South Carolina game once with my wife's boss. And these South Carolina fans were celebrating the fact that Notre Dame lost. And I was like, I don't even remember who Notre Dame played that day, right? So I was like, why do you care? Me being me, I was pretty blunt. I was like, why do you care about Notre Dame? Like, you're South Carolina, you know? Point being, this is a rare trip into SEC country for Notre Dame. I think that, you know, Georgia game, I remember, they don't go down there often. So what is the significance of that in terms of... You just mentioned the 14 playoff. A lot of people are pointing to this game, strangely, as they got to have it game for Notre Dame this year with their schedule. Do you see it the same way? Or is that Florida, well, Florida State diminished a little bit? Is this the go-to game, knowing it's in SEC country? It is, and it's for a lot of the reasons you just mentioned. I mean, there's a... So the battle that I've been having with Notre Dame fans is that, you know, Notre Dame just doesn't win games like this. What do you mean by that? And they're like, this quality team like, well, actually, Notre Dame's won a lot of games like this. This is a team that went 12 and 13 the last two years. Notre Dame beat an NC State team very comparable to this one last year by three touchdowns. Notre Dame beat a nine-win ACC title game playing North Carolina team two years ago. They were up 45-17 before North Carolina got a couple garbage touchdowns. But it's like, well, yeah, but that's NC State. What do you mean by that, right? Well, what they're saying is that's an ACC team. That's not a traditional program. This is an SEC team. And so immediately because they're an SEC team, they constantly get raped very high in the preseason. They get the number one ranked recruiting class a couple of years ago, which half of it's gone, you know, by the way. There's this perception that this is more of like an Ohio State type of win, a Georgia type of win, which it's not in practicality, right? It's not. But from a perception standpoint, it's very big for Notre Dame to have to win this game in a lot of different ways from a, kind of like what you talked about, you're going on the road. And if you lose this game, it's kind of like same old, same old Notre Dame, because Bama's not going to be ranked. If Bama, who's I believe ranked what one spot ahead of Notre Dame in the polls, was going to college station to play Texas A&M, do you think they're the underdog right now? I don't think that they are. But there's that perception that, yeah, no Notre Dame's number seven, but they don't win games like this. And so Notre Dame has to prove them wrong. And I think it's also big for Marcus Freeman, because you're going into game one of your third season at Notre Dame, and you inherited a pretty good situation. Mike Elko's going into game one of his tenure, an entire tenure at Texas A&M, and he inherits a team and went 12 and 13. If you can't be better than what they are right now, that what does that say about where your program is in three years? So I think from a lot of, a lot of different perception manners, this is important. Do I think it's important from a resume building standpoint to get into the playoff? No, to try to get a five or a six seed, absolutely. Because as you mentioned, even if Florida State runs the table, from now until the time they play Notre Dame, there's always going to be that perception, yeah, but they lost the Georgia Tech. They're there, that team that that loses when they play anybody good, you know, and I don't know if they're going to recover enough to where Notre Dame's going to be able to get that November top 10 win like we were all kind of hoping for. Were you shocked there? They were underdogs? I was. Like, I remember, I pull up, I do our picks for us each week at sporting is Brian, and I was like, what? And then like, wait, what? This is a, why are they a three point dog? I was a little shocked because I believe the defense travels. Agree. That old coaching cliche for you. I agree. Here's go ahead, Bill. No, yeah. Here's a study I did this summer, Brian, you know, I talked to Bill about it. I looked at every power five school in the last 10 years, and how they performed at home versus on the road against power five competition. Okay. To see who truly has the most home field advantage, the biggest differential between how they play at home and how they play on the road, Notre Dame and Texas A&M both in the top 10 in terms of differential between their home winning percentage and their road winning percentage, which tells me Notre Dame plays worse on the road at home. And Texas A&M plays better at home than on the road. That may explain a little bit of the two and a half point favorite for Texas A&M. I think I've got the numbers right here, even just the last two year. I did a 10 year study, last two years, Texas A&M at home, five and three on the road, unbelievably, oh and eight Notre Dame. I've got that they are six and two at home, five and four on the road. So I think that is what that was a large part of the of the point spread right there. Trivia, there are four teams, Brian and Bill, you might know this too, four teams actually power five who have better road records than home records the last 10 years. Better road records than home records. Better road records than home records straight up against power five teams. I know you're not really going to have a realistic guess, but I can tell you I just try to get one of them is Vanderbilt. Who Vanderbilt one of them? No, because I kind of feel like it's going to be some bad team that doesn't win any good. There is a big 10 school who is academically. Northwestern. Northwestern is one of them. I remember that from when I looked at the chart and they're bad teams, mostly, right? Actually, no, Boston College, Iowa, Iowa, shockingly, has better on the road than at home. And the number one team, Virginia Tech with the entertainment and everybody talks about the most overrated like home field advantages. I've watched Notre Dame beat them twice at that place. And like Bill, have you been there? Have either of you guys been to that Virginia Tech? It's like the whole thing takes so long to happen that it's way cooler on TV than it is in person. Well, that tells you right there, one of my pet peeves of doesn't mean the traditions aren't cool. Yeah, the entertainment thing's cool. The jump around it, Wisconsin's cool. The wave at Iowa is cool. It doesn't mean they're good. Right. I mean, the Wisconsin one in particular has become a running joke on one of my text threads. I said all that jumping to lose at home to Ohio State or all that jumping to lose. I remember Notre Dame skunked them and that was that is but that was on a neutral side, I think. Come on. No, 2021. Oh, Notre Dame annihilated them. I was like, are they going to play jump around? Oh, Virginia Tech. Yeah, Wisconsin. Oh, yeah, that was that was in Chicago. That was in Chicago. Yeah, they destroyed them. So closer to a while. But Notre Dame pounded them in the fourth quarter. Well, and that Brian, that kind of wrapped some of this into a bow is I'm one of those guys that thinks Texas A&M is a bit of a okay. Yeah, yay, sport says it's the toughest place to play in college. Well, I don't think it's the toughest place to play in the SEC. How to beat them there? You know, like, you have to be honest about something. No, the toughest places to play are where the best teams play. Not not it's not environments. It's where that like, okay, Michigan has become a really tough place to play in the last few years. Was it a tough place to play when Rich Rod was the head coach or when Brady Hoke was the head coach? No, it wasn't. Why? Because the team wasn't very good. Like, that's the reality of it is, you know, look at Alabama, right? I mean, it's almost impossible to go to Tuscaloosa and win the last 15 years. So wasn't as hard when Mike Schula was the head coach or Mike DeBose was the head coach or Bill Curry was the head coach. It's it really has a lot more to do with the quality of the team. And like you said, A&M, for the number one place to play, don't you think they'd have a little bit of a better record and because you only looked at Power 5 teams, you mentioned the fact that they lost at home to what like App State a couple years ago, right? So it's tough. It's a tough place to play when the team is good. And that's why I'm more concerned about playing there now than I was, you know, six, you know, 10 months ago, when I thought it was going to be a Jimbo Fisher coach team, because I think Mike Elko is was a great hire. I think he's going to have that team ready to play. I mean, you look at how quickly he turned around Duke, he's inheriting a much worse situation that were inherited a much worse situation at Duke than did Texas A&M. But I think some of that stuff can really get overplayed when a good team is traveling. But that's what Notre Dame has to prove though, Trotri, to your point is they've got to prove that they can go on the road and beat what is considered a top team on the road. And that's not something they've done enough of. They've got some good wins. But, you know, for every NC State North Carolina that I point out, you're going to be able to point to a Clemson last year, a Louisville last year, a Duke game where they played terrible against Duke. They just had better players. I mean, that's really the only reason Notre Dame beat Duke last year, right? I mean, we can all be honest about that. Their players are better than Duke's players. And at the end of the day, that's what's won the day. They'd say it's not that they played well or made any clutch plays. It's just our dudes are better than your dudes. And I always say. So, Trotri and I were having a back and forth about that this summer. I said, I mean, to me, the toughest place to play in the Big Ten is Ohio State. Because it's yeah, they have better players. You, in order to go win at Ohio State, your quarterback has to be perfect. You know, and I've been to most of their losses at home. And it was, you know, it was, with the exception of Michigan State's quarterback, you know, it was a O'Connor, Connor Cook was out. They kind of game managed Mark Dantonio out coach. It was like Baker Mayfield lit up Ohio State at home. JJ McCarthy lit them up. Anthony Brown at Oregon had a great game. I mean, to me, that's why this is a Riley Leonard game in some way. But you could remember all of it. My counterpoint with Ohio State is it doesn't matter where they play. And it was backed up. They have a 90% winning percentage at home and an 89.6 winning percentage on the road over the last 10 years. So I was going for the differential in my study. Obviously your Georges, your Ohio States are going to be 90% no matter where they play. Alabama actually has a little bit of a difference relative to Ohio State and and Georgia as far as home field advantage. A lot of savings losses came on the road versus at home. So anyway, we got to wrap this up. Let's get back to the trochete trivia question. And the last time Notre Dame won a ranked game beat a ranked team in week one was 2018 at beat Michigan 24 17. I asked Brian, who scored the first Notre Dame touchdown in that game? Your answer? Jafar Armstrong. It was a far arm strike outside zone run to the left. Ian book came in. And those are the red zone package in that game. He hands it off and he runs an outside zone. First of two touchdowns for Jafar Armstrong in that game. And then Michigan bill, you got I don't know who scored first because they were losing. So I probably checked out and it was I know Karen Higdon scored one. Yeah, it was a turn from Embry Thomas. Yes. Oh, yeah, that happened to I think that finally got him on the board. Yeah, it was 21 three at the time and it was like late and I think it's late second quarter, late second quarter, 99 yard kickoff return for a touchdown by every time. I mean, that made it a game. I mean, because if they don't have that Notre Dame actually runs them off the field. Is that a shape Patterson's Brandon one Bush game? I think that was shape Patterson's first game. Yes, Michigan was. So, yeah, why don't they play that game every year? Oh, that's a topic for another podcast, I suppose. Hey, you we've got a match up in the bracket already, Bill. We got them matched up in the bracket, right? Yeah, I did like that, though, by the way, Bill, that you had Notre Dame and Michigan playing each other. I have a sense of humor. I always tell people I when I do bull projections, as long as I do them, I always slip in a couple humorous picks, so to speak. So, you made Notre Dame fans happy about that one. The only thing you could have done to make it better is if they would have played LSU in the next round and won that one, too. Like, if you want somebody like, what's the dream scenario for Notre Dame, it's Brian Kelly to come play you in the opener and round one at Notre Dame Stadium, win that one, then go play like Michigan round two and play a high state. There you go. They'll suck it up to Notre Dame fans, too, with this confidence contest pick. He went with the five pointer. He likes the Irish plus two and a half. I worry, like, I'll close it with this for me, anyway, is, you know, when you have that thought doing these picks as I do, and it's just, I kept coming back to Notre Dame just a better team. Notre Dame has better players, Notre Dame. I think the biggest point Brian made that I agree with is Notre Dame's further along with Freeman. This is game one for Elko. Now, is there room for surprises on the road? Yeah, if you don't play well, you can get beat. Troy, I think the defense is the difference maker. They're all over our all American team. And we probably could have had, I know you like Riley Mills, too. Like, we don't put him on there. I wouldn't put him on your preseason list, because this production wasn't good enough. But he's a player, ejecting him forward. I won't be shocked if he's better in Howard Cross's this year. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. It was correct. The defense shows up. I had the Irish winning. I can't remember what my score was, but I have the Irish winning. I'm covering. So the good people at Irish breakdown should be happy with that. They're always happy with you, Bill. And I'll remind them about that next time you come on the show, remind them that you've got Notre Dame winning this game. So it's going to be great. We can't wait. Brian, have a great time this weekend in college station. I'll be at the Clemson Georgia game here in Atlanta. Bill will be parked in front of the TV before he goes on the road in week two to Texas at Michigan, which is going to be a heck of a game. So thank you to everyone for listening to the CFB Nation All-America podcast on Spotify and Apple podcast. Thank you to Irish breakdown, of course, your source for Notre Dame football information. Enjoy the rest of your day, and we will see you soon. [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] At King Super's pharmacy, care is making it easy to get vaccinated. Care is helping you stay protected from flu, COVID, and RSV. Seasonal vaccines are available seven days a week with evening hours. Care is giving you a shot at staying healthy this season. Walk in whenever is best and get multiple vaccines in one visit at your local King Super's pharmacy. 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