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Inside Texas Football
IT Live (11/19): Scouting the Kentucky Wildcats, Weekly Games of Interest
More than everybody. Welcome to the Tuesday show where we break down our upcoming opponent this week. It'll be the Kentucky Wildcats kind of a strange team. They have some interesting stats and some interesting stuff they put on tape. So we'll definitely take a look at them. So but first we'll do just very quick Arkansas thoughts. Then we'll dive into the Kentucky offense Kentucky defense and then finally opponent games of interest. We have two more games left, but there's some matchups we could get in the conference championship that we can kind of look at as well. Give us a little bit more options. Paul. How do you feel about Arkansas, man? And don't you say anything negative, dude. 911, 911 means you can't have any opinions. That's true. We can talk about the upside of this team or anything like that. Just be happy we won, Paul. First, I want to preface the conflict and and navigating being a guy growing up in Austin, where you get to pick your pro sports teams. Right. Yeah. So if you're born in Houston, like suck it up, be an Oilers fan and later become a Texans fan. You're an Astros fan, Rockets fan. It's all received. Right. You're in Austin. You get to pick your teams, but you can't be a fair weather fan. So the teams you pick when you're a kid, you got to stick with. So Texas Longhorns, obviously number one affiliation. Right. No. But then I'm a Houston Astros baseball fan. And I'm a Dallas Cowboys football fan. Interesting. The Astros baseball fan thing has paid off the last decade. The Dallas Cowboys football fan thing not paid off in about 25 going on 30 years, Connor. About when I was born was when the Cowboys are winning. Right. So, yeah, I'm like, Texas, I'm always Texas fan. There's nothing I can do. Doesn't matter whether we go 0 and 12 or win the national title with the greatest team has ever played. I am a Texas fan through and through, but Cowboys. I've stuck with them for 30 years. Are you decommitting right now? I might become. I just want an NFL franchise to relocate to Austin, San Antonio corridor, like New Braunful something. We got to have, we got to change up this up. And I can't continue to do this. I do make up for it by betting the props of whatever team is playing the Cowboys, so at least I make money off my misery. Yeah, you win either way you win money or you win the game. But yeah, man, that's my life. I wonder if any of you guys can sympathize. I'm from DFW. So I know how it feels, man. Yeah, it's all received. You're your Mavericks fan, whether like ours, Rangers, like it automatically just yeah, home based fan on all those teams. All right, so Texas Arkansas, I wrote my exhaustive thoughts at inside Texas. If you guys aren't members, you should go join. It's a great place for talking sports and of course talking all Texas sports, especially football. I thought the defense played really well. Obviously, Texas doesn't win that game if they don't have an absolutely dominant first half and they forced two big turnovers throughout the game. The interception and of course that Alfred Collins strip sack. Speaking of Alfred Collins and Jay Barron played like golden gods on Saturday. They were unbelievable. Just filled up the box score, both of those guys. And then second half on defense actually Arkansas did a pretty good job. They only got four drives. Three of them were good productive drives. The first touchdown. Second, ended in the field. Actually, so the first we stopped them. Second was the touchdown. Third was a field goal. Fourth, they were driving down the field. And of course, Alfred Collins stripped them on the 27 yard line. So defense held up globally, but a dominant first half and not as dominant a second half. Potentially, you know, a really poor first half. Quinn yours is 15 to 23 for 100 yards. Got sacked twice. Frankly, I thought they were both self sacks. And if you drop back 25 times and you get 87 yards a quarter back. And you're mostly getting good protection. I, you know, you got some issues going on. So I thought he played better in the second half. I felt decently at times too many negative plays inflicted. Not enough diversity in the run game or execution. Our tight ends. We played a lot of 12 personnel Connor. You probably noticed. They didn't play very well blocking. They didn't do a very good job ceiling or, you know, it's tough to ask gun or helm to, uh, to pin a six foot seven 280 pound guy who's going to be in the NFL next year. Yeah. I, you know, I wasn't in love with some of the aspects of the offensive performance, obviously, but went and got a double digit road win on the road. And you'll take it in the SEC right. Yeah. Yeah, we will. We will. Baron for president, I agree. If Quinn could hit a couple of those deep shots against Arkansas would have been great. They were open. Yeah, that really changes. Like 20 yards and that 20 yarder was the wide open bus touchdown to get golden where Arkansas safety bit on the fake screen. Yeah, when does that a lot he can be self sex. Yep. He does. When we lose again, due to Quinn's lack of mobility and pocket presence. I mean, there's some mobility pocket presence, no question, but there's also like open receivers that aren't being hit. Sometimes, you know, there's like, we're taking too long. It's like, there's a, and then finally when Quinn, like, makes a sick play. Like the bold and play right, you know, does something incredible, then we drop it, you know, so it's just like, there's a lack of cohesiveness here that's a little bit tricky for us. We'll have to see, man. We'll see versus Kentucky, and then I, I imagine, I think a lot of this ends up on SARC having to scheme really good shots for Quinn. Whenever I see SARC handle that, he does a good job, Quinn like that. So it's really, it's like, I'm not so focused on Quinn winning games from here on out. I'm more focused on Sarkeesian's offense winning games from here on out. That was interesting. We did break Tennessee and ran for it with Quinn. That's his own read. I mean, he can always do it if you're, you know, not crashing down. 88 is great. Yes, Baron Sorrell, hell of a game versus Arkansas. I know Ian's probably writing an article on that right now. As soon as you see Ian's gifts where he's talking about a player. You know, he's diving into it. Yeah, and tight ends also had some costly drops. They did. I don't know if the stats support that but I test felt that way. Yeah, there were some crucial points there. I think I had a bad drop that was a good throw by Quinn. I think that would have gone for 25 30 yards. You dropped it. Yeah, that's why it's like if it's whack-a-mole with some of these issues right, you know, offensive line can cause an issue Quinn can cause an issue wide receivers can drop it's like kind of all over the place. I also felt like there are a couple of plays that a veteran quarterback probably shouldn't be making at this stage. I'll give you a couple examples. So, he's 38 games and just starting for Texas right. So, we're near midfield Arkansas blitzes. They bring six. It's a third and six. And we pick it up and we're running a scrape route down at the bottom at the wide side of the field. That's the first read. It's the call. I don't know why, but I don't know why, but it's not going to happen. So, I don't know why, but I don't know why, but I don't know why. And I don't know why it's going to happen. So, I don't know why it's going to happen. I don't know why it's going to happen. I don't know why it's going to happen. And then I don't know why. And then runs forward. Sort of aimlessly into the back of Cam Williams and sacks himself. Right. I just don't really understand that because the the call play was open. He has golden deeper con and breaker also open. So you have the first read was the first down. So just throw that. Right. On play. The other play was the screen where Arkansas brought a stunt at the screen. And we ended up losing five yards on it. And you can see Sark was kind of lighting them up coming off the field. Obviously, Quinn wasn't supposed to throw that or he was supposed to change the call or he audible into that call. I'm not sure what what the deal was there, but you know, the screen was covered. It was going to be a negative play. At that point, if you've screwed it up, or if you made the wrong call, the wrong read, just turf it. So it's so throw it at Jaden Blue's feet or throw it over his head out of bounds. So yeah, they've been just kind of frustrating to still have those kinds of plays. Yeah, there's if you if you start trying to look for it, like I try to look for plays where Quinn throws it where the wide receiver has the leverage, but is draped. Yeah, Quinn almost never throws it. I mean, he does like for some reason, like if the players even near. And that won't work in the NFL, like you have to hit those throws in the NFL and I just rarely see those when someone's trailing like, but we still have the edge throw it, man. It's like, basically, there's if if someone's within range ever, he's not going to kind of throw it. He needs that like wide open intermediate or super deep or a screen where everyone's in front of the defense. It's just for some reason he's hyper cautious and I don't know really know why. It's tricky. Yep. All right, Sarc has to be perfect when Quinn is in, that's the problem due to him being unable to make the F schedule play. Yeah, sure would be nice to be able to improvise a little bit. He did that with golden on the TD. Technically, yes, but there's no risk happening there. Golden is completely on and out other he either throws out of bounds. You get what I'm saying. I want to see it in the middle of the field. So it's like, yeah, the receivers draped, but there's no chance that the only thing that receiver do can can our DB can do is long arm it and slap it down that down here. Yeah. So it's like, I want to see when there's like middle of the field. There's some some bracketing happening. Seems like he's struggling in the middle of the field, which is interesting because I thought he was best in the nation, like, including like NFL quarterbacks, like an intermediate passing. I thought he was really special there this year that's been completely wiped out. I don't know what what's going on, because we've seen that consistently for a couple years. He kills that. Would getting Quinn on the move help at all. Ian thinks so, right. And so, but remember who completely shut that down Vanderbilt. That's why you fire that nickel because Quinn has no roll out options. So it would be interesting if we do get them on the move again if a team remembers hey fire that nickel fire that nickel because that forces Quinn to freeze. And Vandy did a great job with that. You all see Arkansas had a better success rate than us this week. I did not. But I wouldn't be surprised. Sorry, yes, but our game plan was to cap their explosive plays, which is how Arkansas scores points. And that's why they had 10. They their longest play was 25 yards from scrimmage. Yeah, letting let making tail and green march up the field and play quarterback is a good idea, you know. What is it about? What is it saying about the team's outlook for the season that they're still winning with some pretty average quarterback play that we're incredibly talented. Well, you could spend that two ways. If we play better in the passing game, we've got upside still 10 games into the season right. You continue to play this way. You probably need to readjust your expectations. I mean, I kind of wrote that. You're winning 10 games and making the playoff is about your floor as a team. Winning a national title and winning the SEC is about your ability to hit some sort of ceiling. So I'd say we've more explored our floor. I think Texas has a pretty high floor as a team. The ceiling, you know, you're not going to win three playoff games or however many playoff games you got to play unless you can transcend and play at a really high level. We haven't seen that in a while in the passing offense. We're running offense to be fair. I guess we talked Arkansas a lot on yesterday's show Sunday show we so we got Arkansas stuff in. Let's move forward and look at Kentucky. This is we'll start with their offense. It is not a good offense. No, it is not. It's a really painful offense. And I have never been a Kentucky viewer previously, so you ever been to Lexington or been to a game in Kentucky or anything like that. Have you? Yeah, I've been to a game at Kentucky. Great old stadium reminded me of like DKR back in the day. And great tailgate. Good fans, definitely basketball fans. And Lexington is a great town. It's one of the SEC towns people never talk about. But it's actually a great it's a great little town. It's kind of a medium sized city, which there aren't a lot of anymore, right? Yeah, like, you know, 300,000 people feels like everything's well over a million or it's a town, right? It's that. It reminds me of Austin when I was a kid, you know, early 70s, 80s. But yeah, nice place. Yeah, I would like I need to go visit the SEC stadiums because just on TV man, the atmospheres are incredible in the SEC. But I tricked you guys before we keep going. Here's a word from our sponsor, Laura Baker. Hi, I want to tell you about Laura Baker. If you're looking for a new home in the 512 or even at this point, let's face it 737 area code. There's only one number to call. That's Laura Baker at 512-784-0505. As a member of the elite Andy Allen team with Keller Williams, Laura has helped Longhorns find the home of their dreams in central Texas. Just ask our resident sex symbol, Ian Boyd, who moved all the way from Michigan to Texas with Laura's help. Laura can help you find what you're looking for in the 512, the 737, or even parts of the 254 and the 210. Just, you know, give her a call at 512-784-0505. Her email is in the description as well as the rest of her contact details. She's a friend. Give her a call. I wasn't fating on last Saturday. Fans were bragging about money whipping UK for Calipari. They said the Tyson chicken fan flexed all over them. Does Arkansas have Tyson chicken too? They got Walmart and Tyson. They have some weird benefact, like some real powerful benefactors. I didn't realize Tyson was behind them too. Shouts out. So gently. Alright, let's look at the Kentucky offense. A lot of red here. Look at that time of possession though, Connor. I was going to say this is the only thing that they do well. They possess the ball. Yep. Yeah, they hold on. They hold on to the ball. So 116th in the country and points per game averaging 19. Super slow pace, right? 100th in the country and plays per game, 116th and seconds per play. So slow and plotting. This of course is going to boost their time of possession 23rd in the nation. Yards per play, 113th in the country. Offensive points for drive 107th. Success rate, not good at 84th. Not explosive at all. Not able to go over the top very often. If you don't get to hold on to the ball anymore, exactly because you'll end up, if you go on first down, now you're in second and 10 and these, you'll see these guys don't have the yards to be in second and 10. You don't want to throw a 70 yard touchdown because then you lose your time of possession. Yeah. They can't anyways, but it's a good cover to say like we're choosing not to have. Yeah. And then a hundred fourth and have it great. So they're a lot of, they're not doing a good job of like, they still have a lot of variance and bad things that can happen for a team. This style of play, right? This is basically Vanderbilt does what Kentucky wants to be right now. And Vanderbilt was able to beat Kentucky when they played them head to head. That game was really interesting because similar styles. All right. We'll talk rushing offense and then we'll go into their backs because they actually have the best back in the SEC right now statistically. 87th and yards for rush. So not great. Right. 3.9. You would think this is a rushing team. They'd be better at it. They're really not. What they're good at is their rushing success rate. So they'll move forward on you plotting at that 3.9 3.9 3.9. But that's about it. They just move at a snail's pace. Hold on the ball with heavy personnel. And then one of the worst teams in rushing explosivity. So they're not breaking the long run either. They're not breaking the long run. Non ideal in the rushing game. All right. Let's talk backs. So I want to talk about Jamarian Wilcox first, even though he's the second string back. Are you saying that just because you don't want to say. But no, actually this he's way better. Let me show you. I did found this yesterday. I didn't realize it. Okay. He's averaging 7.6 yards per attempt. That's first in the SEC. He's first in the SEC and yards after contact per attempt. And he's first in breakaway percentage. So he's he's he's a killer and I think he's young too. So whatever the he's a redshirt freshman. So whatever the SEC transfer rules are, baby, come on down. We need you. Okay, Lawrence needs you. I'm scouting every back, but Jamarian Wilcox has been an absolute killer for them. And he'll continue to be. What do you think of Demi Sumo-Kumbe? A starting FBS running back. Correct. Yeah, there's not much to it. He is 25th in the league with 4.6 yards per attempt. He's 18th in yards after contact per attempt. Second to last and breakaway percentage. So not a dynamic back right now. Wilcox statistically should be the starter there with ease. But I guess it's a redshirt freshman versus a senior. Kentucky won't be able to stay in any long drives against Texas and good luck trying to get an explosive. Yep. They are a slow team like Vandy, but not efficient like them. Correct. Yep. If they could, yeah, they want to be Vandy. They are not Vandy. How, what did they look like the previous couple of years? I've never, I don't watch Kentucky. Similar. They've been this like dysfunctional though. So they, so when they clean one thing and up on offense, then they have a deficiency elsewhere. So when they had Wil Davis, they had the ability to throw the ball, but they couldn't pass protect. And then they've got their two main receivers, Barry and Brown and Dane Key. Dane Key's going to play in the NFL. Like he, he looks like an NFL runner. He runs good routes. He's their main target. Barry and Brown is just this incredible athlete. He's basically Xavier worthy, but with even less receiving skills. And he's the all time SEC kickoff return touchdown leader. I mean, super explosive guy, like, dude, you'll freak out at how fast he is. But very, very poor skills as a just pure receiver, unless it's just an open ball hitting him and stride. I was going to say hit him and stride over the middle. He's a 10, four, five, 100 meter guy. He's most known for his returning abilities, kick returns. He will wig you out. But yeah, just not super polished, right? Yeah, and they brought in Jamori Mackman from North Texas, who was kind of like a star receiver there. And he's not made a dead part of that is just the Kentucky passing game is dysfunctional. They have a little bit of speed with Fred Farrier too. Yeah. So, yeah, so when you watch Kentucky, you're not going to be like, oh, these, you know, these guys are sorry. They lack athletes. You'll, you'll see an SEC team running around. And when they play their best, they show that as against Ole Miss, as against Georgia. But when they play their worse, I mean, they're, they don't have a floor. How, how bad they are is like hard to estimate, particularly on offense. Yeah, I do. Dane Keys, a good player, Barry and Brown's a good player. I like, I like their wide receivers. Like Ryan Nelson saying, I actually like the wide receiver core too bad. They don't have a quarterback that can throw it to them. That's what that was going to say. That's, that's the big issue. Let's look at the past game stats real quick. And then we'll talk about the one and only Brock, Brock V in the group. Not very solid. Okay. So a lot of right here, guys. Passing attempts for game 112th in the country. They don't pass a lot. Team completion percentage 126. So not an accurate passing team. 101st in yards per pass. Really bad. Passing success rate. Can they make passes when they need to down to down? No, they cannot. 126th in the country. Some passing explosivity. Good here, right? Because they can give it to Barry and Brown. They can hit you with Dane Key, who can moss you. You know, don't fall asleep on them. They can hit you there. But it's not enough. Like I said, they're still scoring. As an 11th most explosive team in the country, they're still averaging 19 points. So congrats. They're going to, they're going to get it to Dane or Barry in a couple of times. It's not going to be enough. That's a crazy dichotomy. To be that explosive in your passing game and have it not resulting points. It's really crazy. Yeah. Yeah, it is. But it's also just people fall asleep, right? Like run, run, run, run, Barry and Brown goes for 20, but does it? We'll say this. We're going to break down Brock Vandegrift a little bit specifically. But the one thing he can do throws a good deep ball. So we'll dig in on that a little bit against Murray State. You see his first two throws in that game and they were awful. It was the absolute duck died in the air. The guy dropped it and he came back again through it again. Absolute duck. So I don't know what was going on there, but if you watch, I guess it was Murray State. They played last week. He had two awful throws. I got a minute. I didn't watch the Murray State game. I only have to watch it because I have to check for injuries. I have to see who starts. So I only watch like the first quarter. And he looked ugly to start it out. And then quarterback sack percentage, 115th in the country, they get hit a lot. So let's talk Brock Vandegrift, the Georgia transfer junior, six foot three, 217 pounds. Paul, what do you think? Interestingly, he was a big recruit coming out of high school and he's a tool threat. He could actually run. He can use his legs. And Kentucky's offense is set up to run the ball and hit you on play action. And he's not good at play action, Connor. He is completing 48.6% of his play action throws. He has also five turnover worthy throws on those 72 attempts. That's the worst in the SEC, by the way, on play action completion rate. That's right. And then under pressure. Look, all quarterbacks tend to under perform under pressure under pressure. By the way, it doesn't mean blitzed. It means literally you experience pressure, whatever, whatever's going on in the play. Maybe there was the blitz. Maybe the Russian three. The point is the guy gets through and you're now throwing under duress. He is 17 of 62. 27% completions for 236 yards. That's 3.8 yards per attempt. So that is the worst stat line I've ever seen under pressure. He's. Vandegrip is not a playable quarterback right now. I mean. It's, it's a tough thing that if you can't do play action. Or if you get a rushing offense. But I'm telling you. He is 14 of 32 on throws 20 plus for 464. That's 14 and a half yards per attempt. He has a PFF terms 11 big time throws all on those passes. And it is the only thing he can do. He can get you deep. If Kentucky can free a guy deep. Brock Vandegrip has a pretty good shot of hitting him. Murray state accepted. But that is what he can do and that's the only thing buoying his offensive performance to even. Startable and which as you said is debatable at this level. Yeah, he's a professional hand offer right now that can hit the deep ball occasionally and not occasionally. I mean he's top five in the SEC for deep passing. Like Paul said, so good deep passer 14th in the league and intermediate and he's about six short. Right, so he can do some things short, but it's mostly he's going to hand the ball off and then he's going to throw a bomb. And that's Barry and Brown getting wide open. Like when they came back, I think it was old miss on the sidelines. Barry and Brown made an insane catch towards the end of that game. And then Dane Key also can can go up and get it. He's a big wide receiver. So it's not always too like throwing dots. I've seen his wide receivers like make plays for him as well. So you have to be kind of aware of that. But like we said, still averaging 19 points a game. So they might land, you know, in the boxing match, they're going to let they might land two knockdowns on you, but it doesn't. You're going to win the fight. And so that's kind of the tricky part. He's top five and time to throw as well. So he holds the ball too long. Probably related to his sack data. Hey, Brian Nelson in the chat asked thoughts in the Kentucky backup quarterback. Believe it or not, I do have thoughts, because he used to be the starting quarterback at Rutgers. And Rutgers kicked him to the curb in the off season. His name is Gavin Wimsatt and they replaced him with Nathan Kalyak-Manus, who if you know anything about college football. He was one of the worst quarterbacks in college football at Minnesota last year. But Rutgers thought Nathan Kalyak-Manus would be an upgrade over Gavin Wimsatt. And you know what, they've been right. Yeah, you know, Nathan Kalyak-Manus is still not good, the Greek rifle, but he is better than Gavin Wimsatt. Gavin Wimsatt can run the ball. He's pretty effective with his legs. And that's it. So if they put Gavin Wimsatt in quarterback run. Yeah, Wimsatt is exactly it. He is a, he's a wildcat quarterback, essentially. You'll see him. He's a big, I'm trying to show you guys a picture. Big dude dreads, but he comes in. He also, he can't pass either. So that's what's interesting, right? Because it's like, to me, Brock's not a playable quarterback right now. But he has to be. Which is scary, right? If you're Kentucky, you're like, "If Brock's our best option, man, we might be in some trouble here." And I think that's, that they are in some trouble here, clearly, statistically. So yeah, Brock, I just, I hate his game. Like, when I watch him, I just don't like him as a quarterback. I just, I, I don't normally feel very strongly negatively about quarterbacks. I am just not a vander grip believer or buyer at all. Not a fan. All right. So we saw the horrible passing offense. We know that they have some good receivers. Brock can hit you deep sometimes, but then that a highly dysfunctional team. So why are these advanced statistics, they're not good, but they're better. Is it simply because Kentucky's played several good defenses? Yeah, I mean, their efficiencies, I guess, are all right. They're not. When you play such a low amount of plays, right? Like you're going to score 19 points, but it might have been like you still scored on X amount of drives, right? There's just such a few amount of drives. So it's like their efficiencies could be okay. Like they're scoring. Say like they're so slow, they're only having three drives a game, which equals like 19 points, right? But they're still scoring on two of three drives. That's an exaggeration, but. So I'm looking at it more like the advanced offense numbers there are not in the red. Just because they're playing Ole Miss, they're playing Georgia. They're playing even Auburn or opponent adjusting so heavily for it. Well, yeah, and you're just, those are really good defenses. And so you're kind of getting credit for sucking against them, but it doesn't scale up. So in other words, when Kentucky plays Vanderbilt, you'd be like, oh, okay. Now they're going to explode because they're not playing Georgia and Ole Miss. You scored 17 still. Yeah, these are a lot of this stuff you'll see itself inflicted here too. And look at the situationals. I mean, just the least clutch team possible. When you see this much red, there's poor coaching involved. There's culture involved. Like this is not good. You don't want to see your situationals this bad, right? You said coaching and stuff like that. Yeah. Kentucky became semi-relevant as a respectable team that goes to a bowl every year, in part because Mark Stoops was able to recruit there, was able to get some good players. If you pay attention to NFL draft, it's not uncommon. Kentucky will put out five guys, you know, usually on defense, but, you know, that off-season flirtation with A&M was a little more than flirtation. I think they got in bed together. Correct. Yeah. And then the wife came home and interrupted them, but I just think that I think him coming back to Lexington, like, yeah, I was in college station. Just, you know, I like to winter there. I like to go hit the sidewalk cafes in Brian. Yeah. College Stations beautiful this time of year. A little Paris. I like to see the leaves turn. He comes back. I like to see the Apple bees in Kylefield. I'm wondering if he kind of got the side eye from his team and his players and sort of that affected by him, not just that, but also staff, right? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, clearly that seems like what's going on here because they're not playing for him. And this drop off is insane. So 93rd in the country and standard down rate. Standard downs, it just means you can run or pass credibly and the defense doesn't know what you're doing, right? It's not a passing down. So it's advantageous. As an offensive, as an offense, you want to be in standard downs. They're putting themselves in a lot of passing down rates. And they're not good when they're in those passing downs. 3rd down, 83rd in the country, 4th down. Real clutch moments, 127th in the country. Yep. Early downs, EPA, really bad, right? First and second down. Not able to do what they want to do, 114th there. Now, when it's time to finish in the red zone, 103rd, not able to close either. 100 and second and interceptions thrown per game, 123rd and fumbles per game. So just really a nightmare offense that I don't even, like, even if they rise, like, for them beating old misses, insane, like with these numbers with old misses defense and that offense, like, they're able to do some magic here, right? Sometimes in drag teams down into the muck, but, I mean, these numbers are absolutely horrific. And also, like, I think as the seasons gone on, there's been much more give up and acceptance of not being a good team. It's rough. So as a fan, Hope Brock doesn't hit, like, six explosives because that's what they'll need. Well, if you're going to score, you're going to win, you need explosives and you need methodicals. You know what? You need that in every phase of your life. You need that in your mortgage guy. You need a guy who's explosively bright, but also methodical dots, every eye crosses every tee. That guy is gave one slow. You could reach him at 832-557-1095. He is not the Brock lander grip of mortgages. He is the DUI of the mortgage game. And he dominates the great state of Texas, just like our favorite number 10, also licensed in several other states. So if you're not blessed enough to live in Texas and it's mighty confines, you can still give him a call. And even if he's not licensed in your state, he'll just help you out, just because he's a cool guy. Tell him that we sent you and he'll help you coach you through your mortgage process and get the best deal possible. Call him. He's great. Gabe Winslow, 832-557-1095. Yep. And we had a viewer refinanced with him and they gave a great review. Yes, they did. So your fellow viewers are utilizing Gabe. All right. Paul's elite. This is where Paul really shines. Five star segue. This is the content we are here for. Sometimes he's so natural with it. He catches me off guard. You know, I'm like, we are, we're talking about deep. Oh, no, no, no, we're going, we're going to the segment. Paul, that's great on that. All right. Let's look at the defense, right, which I think is more of a respectable unit. Lot more green, a lot more green, right? Opponent points per game, 26. So they're holding teams pretty low, man, about 21 points. Really interesting. Opponent points, plays per game second. So they, on defense, they're able to squeeze the life out of offense as well and shorten their plays. And when your plays are shortened, what does that mean? You need either hit explosives or you need to be hyper-efficient. No, like wasted can't be wasting five drives. When you're playing these type of teams, you have to execute when you have the ball. All righty. Opponent yards for play. This is interesting, right? 69th about average, five and a half. Defensive points per drive, 58th in the country. Defensive success rate, I think Paul is kind of to some of your explosiveness argument with them, with them limiting explosives, right? Yeah. Their success rate's bad, 180th. You can kind of move the ball slowly forward on them. But they're not going to give you the shot, right? 20 second in explosiveness. So kind of like Mark Stoops for 10 years. He does not allow shots over the top. That's just not happening. So they will play off coverage and let you, you know, dink and dunk. So, you know, we're going to have a little bit of Quinn Ewers of the last four games versus that. And, you know, we should expect to see a lot of checkdowns, a lot of short stuff, unless Stark has something specifically schemed up that he sees. That's weird. That doesn't sound like our offense. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Also, if they aren't stopping explosives, we will also still check down and throw screens. It's just we enjoy it no matter what. It's a passion of ours. Rushing defense. 43rd in opponent yards per rush, averaging about four yards per rush. Once again, defensive success rate, they'll let you move forward. But they're not going to let you, you know, hit an 80 yarder. Which I like that fall. In the run game, love that philosophy. I mean, it's like, yeah, let them get four. Let them get three. Who cares? Just don't let them hit the home run. Although. What? I'm surprised that held up because there was a game against Auburn. Where Jarkwez Hunter ran for two 80 on them. Yeah, he's nice. Yeah, he's nice. Let's look at some defensive players. So what was really interesting last week versus Murray State. Some of these guys are hurt for real. And like out for the season, like I believe the day Eric Jackson, the will is out for the season. But there we're in the first phase of load management. Yeah. So like the unwalkered in play, Saunders didn't play. I think Weaver is actually for real injured. The mic could be injured, but I think he's coming back. But I saw like Barry and Brown was out for that game. A lot of guys were out. Like you see the Reds here, right? A lot of red. From Murray State, not all of the like half of those guys were not on injury reports. Two weeks ago versus Tennessee didn't appear to get injured versus Tennessee. They're being held out to rust. Correct. So any other media kind of. And got suspended. Yeah. So either some type of like discipline issue or whatever, but most likely we're seeing the beginning stages of holding players out. Holding players out simply because Dion Walker is not going to risk draft stock to hurt his knee versus Murray State. You know, there's that kind of stuff too. So we're seeing some load management, most likely here. So even though you see a lot of red, most of these guys will be returning far a few of them there. They're all right. Like as far as like personnel, like effective run defense. You just have to watch for Dion Walker on the interior. The edge have no top half runstoppers. Mike Johnson is okay. He's been injured. The DB's do all right. Ty Bryant, JQ hard away. Alex Safari. They're all right. Runstoppers, but not, not a crazy. You'll see that this is actually more of a path rushing team than it is a. Staunch run defense. It's pretty. I didn't even realize they were going to be this good at. In the path rush. What is interesting though, they're not holding up great on rushing power success rate. So those thirds and gotta have it and stuff like that, they can get bullied a little bit. Which I wouldn't have thought because you just kind of heard going into this year Kentucky's D line Kentucky's interior is going to be crazy and it's not as crazy as you think. Yeah, what's weird is beyond the stats. The way that Kentucky hung with Ole Miss and beat him and the way that Kentucky hung with Georgia and made that a four quarter game. Just I thought it was D line front seven just being super physical. They're big and big. Yeah, they're big. Like I'm trying to show you guys some looks. Yeah. Like a lot of people were hurt versus Tennessee, but it's kind of the look. They're kind of a three, three, five team and then they'll have this. They can. This is nickel children's, but they'll like detaching outside linebacker. They can come up on the line over there. But you look at like Matthews here, right? No, I think Noah Matthews is named 55. Look how big of an outside linebacker that they're putting on a Tennessee receiver. Like that's not a corner or a nickel. Like that's a legit big boy. So it's a big team. They play pretty close to the line of scrimmage. As you can see here, right? This is going to be important versus Texas. They're going to crowd that those kind of looks. So a lot of guys near the line and then some man look up top. Single high safety look. Probably end up being covered three when the time is said and done, but. That's a great big honor. They crowd and then they back out of it. Right. No, that's they're trying to show you one look and get you to, you know, throw it over the top. No, they got a bunch of guys in the box. Let's throw it over the top. All those guys are dropping. And that's going to mess with Texas, right? Yeah, because basically what you're going to do is crowd. And so crowd your crowd line against Texas. It's the secrets out crowd line versus Texas of Texas decides to go to a screen. Great. All your guys are near the line at that point. You can you can do it. Now, if you see the crowd in the line and Quinn goes, okay, I'm going to hit the deep shot. Doesn't matter. We're going to drop out anyways and be able to stop that deep shot. So now we're going to make Quinn think he saw it freeze, slow down, check down again, and then we can rally. So the answer is like at first teams were answering SARC by saying, like, keep everybody back. And now it's turned to like crowd the line and then fall back and it's been effective, but Kentucky's going to crowd the line, but they're still not going to give up explosives. And but they're a big physical team. It's like an absolutely SEC team. We're working with here. That's been the most interesting part is watching games in the SEC just realizing how much overall teams are bigger. You just seeing seeing dudes. All right. In the passing game. Teams aren't passing a lot, right? Because they're not getting a ton of plays, right? So third in in the country and opponent passing temps per game. So very limited options, right? You can't afford to be an in an accurate quarterback with these few opportunities. Like you're going to have to hit or you're going to have to hit five or six explosives. But teams are doing that. That's crazy, right? Yeah. Yeah. But that's kind of the trick, right? It's like we need efficiencies. Yards per pass. This is what's crazy. Eight and a half, right? It's 117th. So passing success, right? Teams are able to drive pretty well. And even with their schematic design of not giving up explosives, they're still pretty average at it. And also too, right? Like if you're dealing with dropping safeties, like we don't really do this well, but if we were any other team, you can still hit explosives on comebacks. Explosive doesn't always mean behind the defense. You know, and we think it always means like you got to beat the safeties, but safeties are corners playing way back. Okay. Run the line and then come back and you can still get 15 yards on a comeback. Yep. But this was a really good quarterback sack rate. 9% of the time their sack and quarterbacks, ninth in the country. Of course, we have to be hyper aware of these things because Quinn has shown some issues getting sack. So be wary of that, right? Like the fear, the fear here is how this game could go sideways on offense is we're not efficient in the early run game because they're all right at it. That puts us in these passing downs. They're able to tee off in the pass rush. And then we have such limited passing opportunities that we're not efficient, right? And Quinn's not hitting explosives a ton right now either what you would need if you're not efficient. So there's there's recipes here for potentially an offensive stall. The flip side is there's really no recipes for them to beat our defense on offense unless they just have an insane unlike them performance, right? But that's, that's kind of the recipe here. They're going to slow down game hope, hope our offense stalls out and hope Van de Graaff can hit Barry and Brown or Dane Key several times deep, which I don't see happening as the number one pass defense in the country but could get weird, right? What do you think I think their formula for winning is that their defense really frustrates us. We get short, they get short fields. They kick field goals off of it. And then Barry and Brown brings back a kickoff. Yeah. Oh, and they are. Guess what? We'll pull it. Maybe we throw a pick six something that's, that seems like that's how they can get 21 points on the board, 24 points on the board to be enough to win. Right. Against this defense. Yeah. Can't see them scoring unless there's weird stuff. So guess who's the number one special teams in the country. Yeah. Yeah. So we do have to be aware on special teams right because they're as elite as it gets their number one in special teams in the country so super solid. This game sounds like an under. It does, right? Yeah. I don't think Texas is going to go crazy offensively and I know they aren't going to go crazy offensively. So defenses are defensive efficiencies 43rd in the country doing pretty well there. They have weird situationals though, right? This is what I didn't expect like 88th and 3rd down. So weird in that weird. I know it's like I don't get what's going on with some of these numbers. But yeah, 109th and 3rd and 4th success rate. Now, this is where they're really, really, really talented, but it's weird to have this let normally third down and red zones hang out together because they're situational. And when you're good at situations, generally you're pretty good. But so it's weird to have a really bad third down defense and then turn around and have a top 10 red zone defense. So they're really good here, right in the red zone. That's important to know. Yeah, Silver and Walker, those are their nose and their defensive tackle and then Dion Walker is a first round guy from last I checked at least. Yeah, he had a huge year last year and this year, my understanding he's just been good. So, I don't know, I had to drop to talk even though. Yeah, I only with Dion. I just remember going into this season, everybody was like first round. I mean, it looks good when you watch him on tape. It's huge and he's mobile. A good pass pressure. I was worried about this game in the off season because I thought Kentucky wide receiver could give our corners trouble, but with Baron and money Muhammad's play this year, I have no concern with that offense. Agreed. Yeah, I felt Kentucky might be a trap game because of where they are on the schedule right before AMM that, you know, stoops plays good D. I thought they had some offensive upside is like, Hey, what a Brock Vandegrift pans out. What if what if he's actually a five star and nope. No, no, no, no, no, very talented team were used to this NSCC now right 24th in the country. That's a good sax per game. 37th average at getting interceptions. Pretty good 40th at causing fumbles, but ultimately with the offense hurting them, they're 87th and turnover margin. So they don't, they don't win that battle. But, you know, they've been tested. They failed to test, but ninth strongest schedule in the country. And then a little bit below average and penalties per game. So they're four and six. Is that right? Yeah, they are. You notice I put the win in the Murray State column before even watch the game. Yeah, they are one, two, three. Yeah, they are four, two. Yeah, four and six. Look at that. Like, they just sometimes don't play like South Carolina and Florida humiliate them. And they go out and they beat Ole Miss. It wasn't flooky. Like they physically were the tougher team. Georgia was nip and tuck. They were kind of cowardly late and stoops. Just like his nuts proceeded into his body cavity late in the game. And close win, but I mean, physically, honestly, they held up better against Georgia than we did on offense. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So it's, that's a weird team. And I think it gives some credence to the stoops stuff of like things start to go awry. And I think that, you know, they're like, Oh, whatever, you know, what are we doing later tonight? Yeah. I think they were healthier back then. Yeah, that's true too. I mean, they've been really beat up injury wise. It also feels like I can never, I have this weird theory. I don't know if bad, like teams are bad because they get injured or if bad teams get injured more. I don't know what, but it feels like bad teams like start to rack up injuries. I don't know if there's like something to it that it's not always the injuries are proceeding them being bad. They're like, there's something about like, you get hurt easier when you're a bad team. I don't know why. They're really beat up right now. Yep. They sure are. Yeah, you saw all the red here when we're looking through. They got some guys back luckily, but Barry and Brown didn't play either, which I just need to see if that's a load management thing. The problem is when they're playing Murray State, I don't get the reports and also their media doesn't cover that game really well and talk about injuries because who cares that doesn't matter. So that's why I hate the dreaded FCS or whatever game in the middle of season because you kind of end up in an information black hole for a week. But JJ Weaver is a good player. You'd want him back. Saunders is good rotational depth. You want him back. Dion Walker, of course, didn't play, but I think that was load management. Both of their starting linebackers are out. Derek Jackson, I think, is out for the season. Yeah, he's lost. Jamal Dumas Johnson has been awesome for them. So that's the five star from Georgia who has panned out. He was actually a star at Georgia two years ago. He was up for the butkus transferred out to Kentucky. He's been really good for them. Super physical dude. Like he brings it. So imagine if David Benda was three inches taller and about 15, 20 pounds heavier. He can run. He brings pop. He's a big physical dude. And he's listed at 61245. He plays even bigger than that. Yeah. Yeah, it'll be important to see what they're doing at their linebackers because that'll be helpful too in the run game for Texas. And then returners Maclin out of UNT will be their prime return and then Barry and Brown will be their kick return. Yeah, just kick it to Barry and Brown. Kick it out. Kick it out. If you can kick it out of the end zone. Great. If you can skip kick it and they start on their 30. That's fine. I just don't want to give him the opportunity to go 100 and because they're going to need that. That's how they win the game. If they're going to upset Texas, that's how they do it. Yeah. Let me see. This here's an ounce still. Let me see if he was in the game. No, he's back. He's he started Murray State. So the second corner is back in the game. And DJ Waller. So give you a serious example of the SEC that people don't get. There's no one in the big 12 that would money whip a Texas player that we like and want to start and bring them to Oklahoma State. That's not happening. Right. They'll get a 13 guy who might have upside that we like, but he's lost the depth chart. Freaking Kentucky, who's not exactly a football powerhouse in the SEC. They went out money with DJ Waller. He was going to start at corner for Michigan. Yeah. They went out and got Jamon Dumas Johnson. Now, did Georgia fight super hard to keep him? No, because they had other good linebackers, but they wanted to keep Jamon Dumas Johnson and start him. But they were like, well, Kentucky will pay you this. We can't match that. We got to manage our salary cap. So, you know, understand that in the SEC, your number 11 program or whatever Kentucky is in that league, they could go out and like money with people with NIL. And, you know, trust me, their further is 10 X for basketball than what it is for football, but it does give you an idea of like the new world that we're in. Yeah, it's a different paradigm for sure. Yep. So, Kentucky, right? There's a reason they're not winning a lot of games. They're not a very good team. But be aware of them dragging you into the mud, shortening the game, using those talented wide receivers to get in the hunt. And then most importantly, can they make the Texas offense stalled out in the run and in the past. But those are things going to be wary of. But other than that, there's a reason why we're what 21 point favorites currently. Which, are you taking that? I don't, I'm not taking 21 points. I would take Kentucky if you got up into like 23. But it's a shortened game too. Yeah, that's what I mean. That's why there's value in that. Texas can beat their ass. 28 to seven. Right. Yeah. And if that line elongated, you could still cover with Kentucky. I think it's 20 and a half everywhere I've looked. And there's a reason. I just looked earlier in the week. So you have more recent than I do. Yeah. So I think if you compress a game, you can really beat someone's butt 27 to 7. And you still don't cover, right? Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, are we hugely incentivized? You know, so also with games like that, when there's a truncated game, does the SARC jam it in at the end of the game and offer a big FU to the opposing coach or does he kneel it three times? That's not really SARC's MO. SARC's MO is like, hey, play the game correctly. Don't humiliate your opponent. We're going to kneel it three times inside their 10 near the end of the game. Same thing as Arkansas. You know, obviously I would have thrown three times to the end zone. So I'm a jerk, but sorry. I think it's situational like versus tech run up score. You know, like when SARC did, you know, like the nicest guy in the world. Yeah. So it's like, there's really no point like versus tech when they're talking noise run up score. Oh, you always run an auto run up. But like if you're a respectable coach or whatever, then yeah, you don't need to run it up. Stupes is a good recruiter in his built a physical program. He has the most success against Florida for any Kentucky coach and recent memory. Game management is an ideal, but good coach. Watching his presser yesterday. I just like that guy. He's just like, he answered stuff like very upfront and was like very clear and very honest. And I think he rat poisoned us with some of the stuff he was saying about us, but no weaknesses Connor. Yeah. When he was like, Texas has no weaknesses. I was like, Hey, man, give me a call. I'll give you a couple weeks to join inside Texas. Yeah, exactly. Stupes like, Hey, man, all the weaknesses on our channel. There's there's a couple weaknesses here. Interesting thing about Kentucky that you're going to laugh at this, but let me develop my theme. Part of the fall of Wisconsin football has to do with Kentucky. And here's why proceed. Kentucky, for those who don't know, is right on the Ohio border. Ohio, it's not Florida, it's not Texas, it's not Georgia, but they still turn out a lot of pretty good football players. Well, guess who is it very interested in Ohio football players. The Ohio State Ohio State football team is comprised of a bunch of guys from Texas, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, California. They recruit nationally. They supplement with a few Ohio guys, but they don't really recruit their guys in state. So who used to clean up those guys, those lower four stars high three stars in Ohio Wisconsin. You have these sort of second tier good program big 10 teams. Well, that kind of faded. Kentucky has been the team, a border state. They come in and they get really good Ohio town. They also are good at signing their home home grown Kentucky guys. There's not a ton of elite talent, but, you know, it's, it's a state that plays football. And they can dominate it. And so they've actually been able to make big inroads in the Midwest. Now, they still go down and recruit the South, because you have to, and you're in the SEC, so you've got a good story to tell. But they've actually benefited a lot from Ohio State's choice of not really recruiting Ohio athletes. They're interested, Ohio State plays in the big 10 for all purposes, they're a SEC team, right? Fan base fervor. The athletes actually on the field. You know, how many big Texas players have we lost to Ohio State in the last five years. So anyway, Mark Stoops has done a good job identifying that and exploiting it. But they can't really get over the hump because he is the guy who's very interested in his, in his floor. Like, he's trying to go to bowls. He's not trying to construct teams that are going to freak and go 10 and two or 11 and one. When they catch lightning, he's trying to consistently go to bowls. So. Yeah. Kentucky has done well in Detroit. Deanna Walker is from Detroit. You can find a few high level players there as well. I haven't looked at their roster in depth at all. So that's interesting. I didn't, I did not know any of that. That's cool. Same with OU for years and years. There are more Texans on their team than from anywhere else. But yeah, that's, but that's natural. Oh, you have program at OU without. Yeah, you can't, you can't win with just Oklahoma players. All right, let's look at some opponent games of interest. Do it. And these are theoretical games of interest, right? So basically, we have to know the structure of the playoff. So if Texas wins out, they're in automatically, right? They're in it. Most likely against Alabama. But there is one situation like if Alabama loses the Auburn or whatever, then it's Georgia. Okay. So we're looking at the, basically the, the options that will end up playing. Tennessee completely out of it through all permutations. I functionally, yes, I can't guarantee because I didn't put it like, you know, click every button. But yeah, they're functionally out of it. So baby, got the Texas Aggies against the Alabama Aggies. Yep. And night game, right? And, and I was watching the Luchador podcast, Billy Lucci yesterday. Because I'm getting to jump on an imprep. And they've said, and I watched a couple of A&M guys. Basically, they're like, is this Texas A&M, Texas game, the biggest game ever for Texas A&M? Jesus. So it's like, because they've never, they've never been in a situation where if they went out there in the SEC conference, they've also never been six and two in the SEC. I mean, this is a, there's no bigger game ever. And it's a win if you're in. Well, the week before you got Auburn, right, who just constantly shoots themselves in the foot. But if they would remove the bullets out of the gun, occasionally, they could probably upset some teams. As you see here, Texas A&M is only a two and a half point favorite here. And they're on the road at night versus Auburn. And Auburn likes to play spoiler historically when they're not having their weird, like every fifth year elite season. All right, well, let me ask you this. So both teams have their huge existential rival. We know for a fact, I can tell you for a fact Hugh Freeze will skip prep for a big game that following week. So does A&M get Auburn's best shot, or is Auburn running Bama stuff all week? And they're just going to go out and play and try to play well, but they don't have anything special prep for A&M. They're going to hope that the home crowd and a young quarterback melts down on the road, right? Yeah. A&M can't, they're not afforded, but they would have to be completely insane to just prep Texas this year, right, or this week. If they have ambitions of playing the SEC title game, right. Now I understand beating Texas is far more important than beating Auburn, but is it far more important than their season goals. Well, I heard Lucy say too that he knows for a fact that they're holding stuff back for Texas. Oh, there's no doubt. I mean, the whole stuff back. But my question is, are you just running specific prep like, is Auburn doing Bama Scout team two weeks in a row? Yeah, three weeks in a row, because they just played, didn't they just play their FCS team? I don't know. Well, so it's like tricky, right, because A&M had what they had a buy. So they had a buy FCS Auburn to Texas. So theoretically, they can be prepping Texas for a month. That's a good. No, you know, so it's like, and this, Lucy said two things that I thought we're interesting. He said, he was, he was watching the Murray State game to see, like, look, are they holding stuff back to try to trick Auburn and trick Texas? And, you know, hey, we're going to break out some stuff. And he says, there's absolutely some wrinkles that they're going to break out for Texas at least. And he said, mostly what he saw was like, what they actually need to do because, right, Marcel Reed, it wasn't a consistent passer versus South Carolina. So versus New Mexico State. So I think I said Murray State earlier, but New Mexico State, they made an added emphasis to give him a lot of passing reps. So they're doing a lot of things. I don't think they're, they're being super sneaky. I think they're actually trying to get reps for the Texas game. It's going to be interesting to see, but there's always going to be subterfuge involved in this game. But can, can they, they've never, my point to they've never had these stakes ever. No, you know, and their media is like literally saying we've never had these stakes, and it's not known for their road success. No, they're not known for handling. They're not known for handling any success, right? They beat LSU. They said, Marcel reads the second coming and then they go get embarrassed by South Carolina. So it's, they can lose this game, you know, they're only two and a half point favorites. Yeah, the wild thing about Auburn is if you actually watch their games, they're kind of in it. I know. Self destruct. Yeah. They'll kind of quit sometimes. It's just weird. So early success, it's going to be a great football game. If A&M comes out and stakes a lead, I think Auburn lays down and starts getting ready for a demo. Yeah, they'll tap. And, and two men, like I don't want A&M to lose this game. I want A&M like I want this Texas A&M Texas game to be crazy, you know, and the way to do that with stakes is to have Texas A&M and Texas win and get in. So I want them to beat Auburn. And actually, I'd almost want them to beat Auburn handedly like I like A&M how they play after a confident win. You like these Aggies? I love confident Texas A&M. So it's like, Hey man, go in by 20 versus Auburn and I want you all feeling great going into Texas. Comments. I always want A&M to lose unless they play OU. I do not. That's kind of how I feel. Well, also just practically right from running a YouTube channel business, I would prefer A&M's viewership to be at its highest. So there's also some like this. Oh, okay. There's also. It means here, right? I like it. I'm higher mistakes. The game is the better it is for for business as well. But also I want to win. I just want the fight to be sold well. And then I want to win it. All right. Let's look at some other options that we could have, right? So most likely if we went out and Alabama wins out, it's going to be a Texas versus Alabama game. Yep. It's just a fun way to talk about Oklahoma right now. So Alabama is 14 point favorites on the road versus Oklahoma. Oklahoma. What's going on, baby? What's up, baby? What happened? Not having a great year in their debut and the SEC. They, uh, Alabama's weakness is if you can get to their secondary, you can throw the ball. Oklahoma can't get to anybody's secondary. And then on offense, if they run mill row, which they like to save and preserve, right? As much as possible. I don't know that OU has a, has a, has an out there. I don't know that they're going to, they can stop that and still cover, you know, Ryan Williams. So yeah, I think this will be kind of an ugly game. And then Bama's just trying to survive in advance to Auburn and take care of business. So the line strikes me as about correct. You would, you'd think Bama would just blow them out, but it is at Oklahoma. And I think Bama, their, their focus is just getting out of this game of the win. So. Yeah, Bama has the pressure right of winning out and they'll likely make the conference championship. And then Oklahoma, like they're, they need to win their next two to even be ball eligible, right? Yeah. So there's, there's two motivations, very different, but both teams do have motivations, but Oklahoma just wants to, in year three, make a bowl. Alabama, of course, has bigger pressure here of trying to make the conference championship. And they extended balance. Yeah. It's, yeah, Homer thinks with as well, a good man. Yeah, at least I'm transparent, right? Other medias are not as, not as transparent on why they want a good fight next week. UMass versus Georgia, right? Georgia could be another opponent. Alabama drops a game to Auburn or something like that, right? Which is possible because Auburn does like to play spoiler against them. Where I'm predicting right now, I'm going on record. I think Georgia beats Massachusetts. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. I'm going to be doing that game. And at 42 points, favorites, I think maybe the betters agree with me a little bit as well. This is not really to argue about who's going to win this game. It's more to kind of talk about Georgia here. I don't think there's any question to me that Georgia is a playoff caliber team. It's just, it's going to be interesting to see how the playoffs kind of shake out. What do you think, Paul? What do you think of Georgia? Do you think they're a top 12 team in the country? Taking away the structure of like the four top bids, get in automatically, blah, blah, blah. Yeah, they are. Especially if Carson Beck plays like he did against Tennessee. Yeah. UMass just fired their coach, so they might get that little bump from the interim. Which is such a weird phenomenon, right? It is also, if you're UMass, why are you firing your coach before the season's over? Like you're trying to get in line. You're getting a jump on like some high school coach. You're going to get Kurt Signetty or something? What are you doing? Yeah, exactly. We're going to lose our 1 millionth ranked recruiting class. Oh my goodness. Yeah. I just think that Georgia, when they come to play is incredibly dangerous, right? But they don't always come to play. They'll, they close with Georgia Tech, right? Yeah, they come to play based on how hurt Kirby's feelings are. That's what I've noticed. That's probably about right. Yeah. So it's like, he was like, how dare we be disrespected versus Texas? It's like, cause y'all looked horrible leading up to Texas. Like what do you expect? And then they came out and played awesome. They crushed it. And then Kirby started feeling that disrespect again before Tennessee. Right. Yeah. Old Miss killed you man. Like every time you've been disrespected, it's earned a disrespect. But it is funny to see. I do love the disrespect angle. Oh, I know. Yeah. I like it when like, so Kirby was trying to do that two years ago when Georgia was the preseason number one. I know. You know, is this one of the best college teams of all time? And he's like, we hear all these people saying Georgia can't get it done that we're a one. We're a flash to the past. Like no one's saying that. Literally no. Everyone's saying, wow, every player on that team is literally just making all this up. He's doing the Michael Jordan, the Michael Jordan technique where they. Yeah. Nonsense perceived slides. People always say that I'm, I'm a worst player than Patrick Ewing. It's like, no one plays that Michael. Yeah. That's what, yeah. Luckily, Georgia's been able to do it. And they've earned every time people have doubted them. Sure. All right. Auburn doesn't win it. Brian Denny Stadium, unless they have Cam Newton. I don't think Peyton Thorne is Cam Newton. Pretty bold statement. I actually think Peyton Thorne is clearly a better player than Cam Newton. He just has not got the opportunity. I think Peyton Thorne has been injured and that's what's holding them back. That's it. From being Cam Newton. Let me ask you this Connor. If we have a things sort of play out as they're supposed to. There's six SEC teams with an argument for a playoff bid. Ole Miss, Bama, Tennessee, Georgia, A&M, Texas. You might only get four SEC teams. A&M's out. Just like I think Texas, this is not going to be popular on a Texas. To Texas has some risk. I was going to say. So this is not going to be a popular opinion on a Texas YouTube channel. But here's the reality. A&M hasn't played anybody. Texas hasn't played anybody. Is it Texas' fault? No. They scheduled respectfully. Do they know Michigan drop off a cliff 10 years ago when they signed the deal? No. But Texas' only ranked game will be against A&M. That's just the truth of it. And so if you lose that, I mean, if you take off the Texas jersey and you put it on A&M, which we're about to do, because A&M's in the same situation, you have to use the argument both ways, right? I'd kick A&M out because they only played Texas and they lost. So I have the inverse also has to be true. Even though I think the eye test is clearly Texas is a top 12 team, but you can't lose. You can't use eye tests. You have to use these like resume techniques. That's where the playoffs goal to build an entertainment product as well as the top teams would actually benefit us, right? If you can, the tiebreaker for Texas' television sets, Texas appeal, et cetera. No. But yeah, there's a lot of scenarios where 10 and 2 Texas is in trouble. Yeah. So yeah, that's what's unfortunate. You got to win. The interesting part is like, but if we lost the SEC title game, that's irrelevant. Yeah, well, if I helped it honor that. But to me, you shouldn't get penalized for, you know, losing in a conference championship game, but it seems like they might end up doing weird stuff. Not with SEC teams. I think that'll apply to like big 12 and ACC teams. That's an eliminator. But SEC are big 10 teams losing in the conference title game. That's not going to count against you. Unless you lose like 63 to seven and you have a bunch of injuries or something, whatever, right? Yeah. This is an interesting topic. It makes no sense to me that ranked wins against teams that they were ranked when you beat them, don't count. So here's my, it makes total sense to me because it's like we're using all available data. You know, Michigan was a ranked team. They're not a ranked team. But here's the interesting part on the border, right? So say like this team would be ranked if Texas did not beat them. That's where it's interesting because if they played an FCS school that we had or not. And yeah, if they played an FCS school that week and not Texas, they would be ranked. So it's those borderline ones that I actually do have questions about. Now, if they were ranked and they go on to be 500, like Michigan can't count it. But if they're only reason they're not top 25 is because I beat them. That's an interesting conversation to me. Yeah, the caveat I would offer for a Michigan is if Michigan had, they were driven by a dominant quarterback. And he missed that game. That is relevant. Right. Or he played in that game and Texas beat an amazing Michigan. But then they lost their star quarterback and they've since degraded. You do have to give Texas credit for that win, but that, as we know, Michigan's just an average football team. And that's what we know now based on more data points. Similar deal for OU, we thought we're going to get a lot of credit for beating OU. And then all of a sudden they start to have their quarterback issues and then you realize OU is not good. And so suddenly a couple of games that we had circled as like, Hey, these are important resume builders Michigan OU. They don't mean anything. And that's truthfully, that's fair. And the tough part too is like a lot of Texas wins are discredited too because we've had like a really nice run of not facing starting quarterbacks. You know, so even like a lot of our wins don't even have a lot of oomph to them. You know, you can only play your schedule. I mean, people are like Texas. Oh, what a joke. It's like, yeah, we didn't schedule Bama, Michigan and Ohio State in our non con. For the next, you know, for the last couple of years and for the next three years because we're trying to duck people. We're playing awesome teams. It's not our fault if they don't go for the bargain. And so OU fans who are like Texas has a weak schedule. It's like, yeah, you're the big reason why I know I've heard. Yeah. Oh, he's like, you didn't play anybody. It's like, I know we wish OU played well. It's like, Oh, Paul got a tough guy when I thought of me beat my ass. I know that's like, yeah, shut up. I beat your ass. Why are you talking? Yeah. But I think here's the important part, right? We're also talking about all this right before Texas gets to play a ranked A&M. Yeah. And then if they do that, then they're going to go to the conference championship. If they win that, all these conversations are totally done. Yeah. Yeah. So it's like, luckily, it would be sadder if like Texas was finishing with an FCS team, like everybody else in the SEC or something like that where you had no chance to prove, but Texas, this will all be done. We'll know what's up in the next two weeks. So that's what's nice. I think Drew Kelston sums it all up nicely, Connor. Life is so much easier when you just win all your games. Yeah, Drew actually knows what that feels like. Yeah, Drew does know what it feels like. All right, fans, that was fun. I hope you guys learned about Kentucky shouldn't be a crazy game potential to get weird, but likely not going to get weird. So, you know, like the coaches say, make sure you guys are looking ahead to Texas A&M next week. Don't even focus on Kentucky guys. Don't even watch. You have to be intentional, Connor. That's true. Yeah, be intentional guys with overlooking this week's opponent. But anyways, there could be some fun matchups there. They got some wide receivers fans. Thanks for hanging out. We enjoy it. Paul, thank you as always. Welcome y'all. [MUSIC]
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