With 2 weeks remaining in the regular season... what do we need to consider? Join InsideTexas.com: https://www.on3.com/teams/texas-longhorns/join/ This Video Brought to You By Our Wonderful Sponsors: This video is brought to you by Gabe Winslow. Call 832-557-1095 or visit his website to start your ideal mortgage process (www.mortgagesbygabe.com) Want Official IT Merch? Shop Here: https://insidetexasmerch.myshopify.com/ Listen to the Podcast: Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3P0cwAUPNZrsNrTOKOfa6x Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/inside-texas-football/id1721623113 Find Us On Social Media: Twitter: https://twitter.com/InsideTexas Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/InsideTexas/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/insidetexas/ https://www.on3.com/teams/texas-longhorns/
Inside Texas Football
Deep Dive: SEC Championship, CFB Playoff Race Heats Up
Greetings viewers and listeners, welcome to the deep dive. I'm Paul Blomington, that guy's Ian Boyd. Ian, what's going on, man? >> Not much. I'm glad that you got my text to match today and our show together. >> Yeah. I'm wearing blue, probably not appropriate given the opponent this week. But we're not just going to talk about the opponent this week. In fact, we're not going to talk about the opponent this week all that much. What we're going to talk about is the road ahead for Texas. So Texas sits at 9-1. If you look at the college football playoff rankings, we are, yes, Ian, we are recording. The clue is the upper left-hand box that says recording. >> Mine doesn't say that. >> Okay. The things that happen in chat that you guys are recruiting to. So, Texas is 9-1, the recent college football playoff rankings just came out, that highly scientific respected process by that august committee of football experts has Texas at number three. But as we're going to talk about, that's a little bit deceptive and kind of meaningless. If Texas doesn't take care of some business ahead of them in the regular season, and up to including the SEC title game. So what we're going to talk about is the road ahead, specifically the next two regular season games, a possible SEC title game, the implications of same. Then what that could mean in the college football playoffs, what teams do we want to draw if we do make it to the playoffs? Where might we be seated and all the rest of that? So you ready for the journey, Ian? >> I'm ready. >> All right, let's do it. So Kentucky, we play them this Saturday. They are one and two against SEC college football likely playoff teams, or playoff contenders, if you want to view it that way. >> Take some of that then. >> Sorry? >> It's actually not that bad when you put it like that. >> Yeah, they covered the spread against all three, and they lost those three games where they went one and two, by the way. They didn't lose those three games, they went one and two. 58-50 is the total score if you added up. So that's a win over Ole Miss, a one point loss to Georgia, a 10 point loss to Tennessee. So this is a team that plays up when they play good teams. When they play anyone else, they play down. They're 0 and 4 in their other SEC games, including humiliating blowouts to South Carolina and to, of course, Florida. Texas was up 42 to nothing on in Austin in the third quarter. So what do we make of Kentucky? And we're not going to do a preview here, but do you think this is a game that Texas is going to get by one way or another? >> Yeah. It's possible that Kentucky could pull an upset, but I just don't think Kentucky is going to score very many points unless the Texas offense gives them the ball multiple times. >> Yep. >> Which maybe, right? But probably not. And so just on that, I think a couple of good scripted drives by Sark, maybe a couple of plays otherwise. And you're going to be at 20 points or more and Kentucky will be too far behind. >> Kentucky, to your point, has not scored more than 20 points in an SEC contest this year. >> Oh my gosh, really? >> Yep. >> Probably not going to do that against the number one, at least efficiency metrics defense in the SEC in Texas at home. Here's how Kentucky could win and pull the upset. I think you're right. They get some short fields, maybe a pick six. And then Barry and Brown is the best kickoff returner in college football. And it's not even close. So, and they have the number one special teams in college football. So, can they bring back a kick? Can they get a pick six? Can they run the ball and get another seven to ten points and have their best SEC scoring performance? >> Yes, I think you'd also have to have the Texas offense just really lay an egg. Which is within the realm of statistical probability, but probably not likely. I think Texas takes care of Kentucky. So, should we talk a little bit about Texas A&M? >> Yeah, let's talk a little bit about them. First of all, they play Auburn on the road this week. >> Yes, at night. Which is a nightmare game to play before you play your rival for the first time in over ten years at home and highly. Like the odds, I said this on x.com the other day. The odds of A&M blowing it against Auburn. Reducing the stakes of this game and then defeating Texas in college station are way higher than anyone is properly calibrating. >> It would be classic Aggie, which is we destroy ourselves, but in so doing also destroy you. It's sort of a suicide bombing. You know, so I think that would be deeply satisfying to them. They probably would enjoy ruining in our season more than fulfilling theirs. >> Absolutely. What's interesting is they were asking Elco in the press conference on Monday. Hey, how do you keep your guys focused on Auburn? And he goes, well, we're not, we're completely focused. You know, we're not thinking about anyone else but Texas. I mean Auburn. So, even did the little subliminal Freudian slip there. >> Yes. >> But Auburn, not exactly a team you want to set your watch to. The spirit or in the last, I don't know, 10 years. So, we'll see because they may have been prepping Alabama for the last four weeks, Ian. >> Right. They have the iron bowl next week. >> Yep. >> That's a miss. So, yeah. But it is Jordan O'Hare at night. Auburn has good players now. >> It's just Jordan Hare. It's not the Chicago airport mashed up with dating. Is that right? It's not Jordan O'Hare. >> Oh, that's a good, that's hard to recover from. They have, they have good players. They're just not consistent yet. And they come in a lot of turnovers. But even like, it's just a bad draw. Even if A&M wins that game, you're likely to accumulate like body blows in that game that you wouldn't against, I mean, I don't know. It's hard to name an off team in the SEC, but it's not Auburn. >> Yeah. I think that's fair. Always true freshman quarterback on the road can be a little scary. Marcel Reed had a ton of composure. He's not turned the ball over. He certainly plays within himself as the old cliche goes. But if they have to do some playmaking, things could get interesting out in the plans. Of Jordan O'Hare. >> He did, I thought he did lose himself a little bit in the road game against South Carolina. >> Yeah, I think the Aggie defense got probably exploited a little bit more than they expected by their game plan and put them in an uncomfortable situation. And that's Auburn's, that's their blueprint, right? Hey, let's not turn it over. Let's not shoot ourselves in the foot for once. And let's go score some points and make A&M play, and make them open up their offense. And not just hand the ball off and run some single Reed boots. Lovey on Moss also going out for them, I think is material. He is a good tough runner. And I think that hurts them. They're pretty lucky in that they do have another decent running back. But I think Moss was a guy who did make a little bit of a difference for that offense. I think it's really tough for them that freshman quarterback going against the Texas secondary, and then not having Laveon Moss to just kind of hammer Texas so they can just double team, make Anthony and Leunga Lefal fit the ball right. >> Yep. >> Pound Texas with option plays, and I don't know if they can do that without Moss. They might be able to, but it makes it very tough if it's like we're going to have to lean a little more into Marcel Reed in this game. That's not where you want to be. Auburn may let us know some things because roughly speaking, their D line is somewhat comparable to ours. And then they just don't have the secondary and they're kind of dumb, they bust. But just straight up football, first in 10, A&M wants to run the ball. I'm very curious to see what that looks like. Is that second nine or is that second in five? And that'll tell us a lot. So what do you think about our matchups right now? So if you look at Vegas, A&M is a home dog, seven and a half points, was nine and a half. To me, yeah, I mean, that's, I would be tempted to bet A&M, right? >> Yeah. >> I mean, I wonder what that line does after the Kentucky game. >> We're going to see. I mean, if A&M goes out and struggles with Auburn and we blow out Kentucky or handle them easily, you know, 27 to seven, it could go under seven, right? We're actually, it could expand like that. >> Yeah, you got that backwards. >> Well, yeah. But I don't think it's going to. I think that line is really interesting. The interesting thing about A&M is people do talk about Texas's schedule and all that. A&M is not exactly fought a murderer's row. And some of the big contests that they have had, they've come up small. Whether that was South Carolina or Notre Dame, you know, teams that were physically really athletic and physical, A&M couldn't hold up for four quarters. So I think that is part of what that line is about. I think we tend to look under the hood a little deeper at Texas football. So we see all of our warts and the warts that A&M have are not as readily apparent because we're not living with them every week. But, you know, I could see the warts for A&M where they struggle in this game. But I also know that they are going to have a pretty significant crowd. And you know, they're going to be pretty fired up. I mean, they're already talking about A&M. This is their biggest game ever, like in history. So if you think about it, it's true. It's funny, it makes you smile, but it is true. And they've never done anything in the SEC, really. And this is a chance to go to the playoff for the first time in school history. So I think that- Unless they blow it against Auburn. Yeah. Well, unless they blow it against Auburn, in which case, they'll be just as fired up to ruin our season. I can assure you. I feel like for the Aggies, the only way they pull off the big upset win over Texas is if they first diminish it by losing Auburn. Yeah. It feels like it's not in their DNA to win both of those games. It wouldn't be very Aggie to win both of those and go play in the playoff for the SEC title game. Speaking of which, assuming Texas takes care of business against A&M and Kentucky- Which, what do the odds of that? What do the odds of that, you say? You would say? Uhh. Flip a coin? Yeah. I think that's about where I'm at, too. I think we're less confident than Vegas or most of the fans. Yeah, I think most fans would say 70% or 75% off the top of their home. Yeah. Yeah. I'd say we're a little over a coin flip. So that SEC championship, who does Texas want to play? I don't know who we're likely to play, Alabama, assuming they take care of business, right? They still got to take care of Auburn and they have to take care of OU in Norman, your favorite team. Yeah. So, Ian's like, "That's a pie." So, who do we want to see, and if we do see Alabama, what are the challenges posed in that game? It's a shame there's no chance of drawing Oklahoma. No, there is no chance, not unless you can flip their record wins and losses. I would love to play that team again this season. I think Tennessee is now out of the running. But I would have said, I want to give me Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia in that order. Yeah. I do not want Georgia again. They like doubled their production, their tight ends production in the last game. They're like, "Hey, we have three future NFL tight ends. What if, instead of throwing toward JAG receiver in court and started throwing to these three NFL tight ends?" And then they walked up on Tennessee. Yeah. I don't know if that will translate to future games if they'll continue to follow that novel path. But if they do, I don't want to have anything to do with them. Yeah. And also, we've gotten a preview of what their defense can do to us. Yeah. When they like it. Yeah. I didn't enjoy it. I didn't like it. That said, that was the best Georgia that's played all year. Some of that was matchup. Some of that was Kirby Smart's psychology and the weirdness of their team. But that is the best. We were obviously, Quinn was definitely not anywhere near 100% in that one. I think that's fair to say. So Alabama, interesting thing about that team. Kaelin DeBore with a little time to scheme Scary Dude, Jalen Milro, when they use his legs, Scary, a very good deep ball thrower, doesn't really play to their strengths going against our secondary, which is great at capping off explosives. Yeah. However, their secondary, secretly much more vulnerable than people think. They're disguising a lot. And if they can't overwhelm you at the point of attack, just with Dama athletes up front, you can throw the ball on them and you can throw the ball on them very successfully. They're pretty insecure about those guys back there. So I think this would be incredibly intriguing, very competitive SEC title game between Texas and Bama. And I think it would go down to the last possession of the game. Yeah. I think they're their quarterback lead run game. They would kill us. That's tough. Yeah. That's tough for anybody. And he's the kind of athlete where that's just not going for eight on third and four. He can go up 70 yard run. Yeah. Like for inside running, I don't know that I can easily think of another quarterback that was better. Cam Newton, right? Cam Newton. I don't know if you remember him very well. Mike, I'm thinking of, yeah, Michael Bishop, he was fast like that. I don't know if I was a very good inside runner. I thought he was a jag, not a jag, but overrated, more of a system guy, but a very good inside runner. Obviously, Tim Tebow. Pretty good. Tim Tebow is not as fast though. No, of course not. No, but he'll move the pile. He'll convert. Yeah. He was great. I have no disrespect to Timmy. He's very similar to Jalen Hurts, overall. Miller Owens. Yeah. But he's I think faster. Yeah. Yeah. And football field faster. So I don't know what is, he's going to time well in shorts, but you put pads on Jalen Millrow in a football game and adrenaline's pumping, he's the fastest guy on the field. He just is. And I think if one of his long runs against, what was it, trying to see, know what, who is it? They blew out. LSU. LSU. Yeah. His GPS was like 22 and a half, like he weighs 220, man. Yeah. Like that's legit. So yeah, I think that would be a fascinating matchup. And I think there'd be a lot to exploit on the other side of the ball for Texas and just to contain passing game, assuming we show up. And I think we would. I think that'd be a great game. Ole Miss, I don't know if there's any theoretical way they could make it, if crazy stuff happened. That would be a super interesting matchup for us as well. Yeah. That one, they always seem to be buried in the tie breakers. I think that would be a lower scoring game than people would think at first blush. So I think Georgia, if they keep throwing to their tight ends, is maybe the best team in the country or Oregon, I don't know, Ole Miss might be up there for me as well. They have these two weird losses earlier in their schedule, but when you watch them play, they are terrifying. When it's looking that they are, but historically, they just aren't very consistent. The defense is, though. The defense is very-- that's why I think it would be a low scoring game, actually. Yeah. Yeah. I think we would handle-- I think we would handle their play action with Jackson Dart. Yeah. And I think that we would have some struggles with their defensive one. You would really-- that would be a game where, like, one big play could sway it either way. Just matchups. Yeah. Yes. I think that's exactly right. Well, in a second, we want to talk about, should we either win or lose that SEC title game or, if we lose Kentucky or A&M, do we even go to the playoffs or if we go to the playoffs, where would we be, who might we play, who might we want to play? But before that, if you want to have success in the regular season, you better have a high floor. If you want to have success and win the whole thing, you better have a high ceiling. I got a high floor, high ceiling guy for you. His name is Gabe Winslow. If you're doing a mortgage, this is the guy you should call, A3, 2, 5, 5, 7, 1, 0, 9, 5. Why? Over 20 years in the industry, he's been on every side of the industry. He's had a title company for a long time as well. He knows how to troubleshoot in all aspects of the process, and he does it all the time. Read his Google reviews, like Kurt Signetty, Google me, I win, Google Gabe Winslow, read his reviews. He wins. He wins for his clients and all of his customers, and there's raves about him that last paragraphs about how he solved some complex problem that they thought was going to cost them their dream home. Give him a call. He's got a law degree, former national merit scholar, and of course, a lunatic Texas fan just like me and Ian. This is a guy you want to do business with. This is a guy you want in your corner for the biggest financial decision of your life. Buy in a house. A three, two, five, five, seven, one, zero, nine, five. All right, Ian, you know, I like to sports gamble a little bit here and there, and I want to know if I'm going to bet the house on Texas to win the national title, what's that going to look like? So do we want to talk about potential scenarios very quickly into the playoff and where that seating could result, or do we want to talk about possible opponents? Maybe the first, right? Yeah. Let's start on the first. I think a 10 and two Texas, not only is no sure thing to get in the the playoff, I think you need a lot of help actually to make our case to get us in the playoff. And I know people are going to say, we're a valuable property. We're Texas. We're an entertainment product and they're trying to go for ratings. Yes, but that's superseded by the desire and the need for the college football playoff to get enough big 10 teams in along with at least four SEC teams so that the two conferences that frankly power college football are represented. Do you think that's fair? Yes. So another way of putting it is that Texas is going to have a very weak case amongst all the theoretical two loss SEC teams. Yes. A case that me or you would frankly just not even make. I think we would both say if Texas loses to Kentucky or to Texas A&M, their resume compared to the other two loss SEC teams that would come out would be inferior and Texas would be rightfully left out. And the sad thing Ian is the team that we would lose to A&M is the team head to head that if you take the L, you can't expose their weak resume. Does that make sense? Yeah. So whereas Georgia has had a pretty tough schedule, particularly SEC schedule. Oh, yeah, fertile. Their win over Texas is very valuable, but A&M's win over Texas in this scenario would be very valuable. Now, would we actually be better off losing to Kentucky and beating A&M? Yes. Because you take A&M off the table and you take Tennessee off the table, and now you're arguing us as the fourth SEC team, right? So let's say Georgia wins out. Georgia is the name of Ole Miss, Texas under that scenario. Yes. And we would be like the 11 seed. Yeah, that's fine. You're in. Yeah. I think you're right. I think you're right. If you lose to Kentucky, if you have to, but beat A&M. So if our coaches are smart, we're not working Kentucky at all. We're just doing Aggie stuff. Yeah. And if we lose to Kentucky, we just chuckle and laugh because we know that we're going to whip A&M, right? Probably not quite like that, but seriously though, that adds up. That's pretty airtight. That is the scenario, man. So if you're going to have to lose between the two, you want to lose to Kentucky. Weirdly enough. Yeah. So we shouldn't even really sweat this weekend. In the big sense, no. If you have ambitions of seeding and being the one seed or two seed, you should sweat it. Yeah. I guess that would be better. All right. So let's talk about Texas is in. So we got in either as the at-large or we got in as we lose the SEC title game. Is there a scenario, Ian, where we lose the SEC title game and we don't get in? I don't think so. Neither do I. I think that when the TV executives come and tell the committee the right answer in the final playoff bracket, they're going to tell them, no, you cannot leave the big 10 or SEC champion at home. Loser. Yeah. The loser. That disincentivizes the game, which is a major entertainment product. Like, also, it's extremely unfair. The damage you would do to the competitive architecture of the sport. If you're like, actually it's better not to play this extra super hard game or you're going to get like, it's totally not. You would actively incentivize teams to tank to not make this title game. Yes. They thought that they were the significant underdog. Yes. I mean, so that that's not going to happen. So when let's talk about seating, let's talk about scenarios, Connor, look at that. He had his finger poised over it. All right. So this is the current seating and ranking. Again, I wouldn't put too much stock in this. There's a lot of football left to be played and several of these teams will not be in the playoffs. I can assure you of that. Yeah. But this is what we got to work with. This is what we're looking at. Here's one thing that I'll throw out. I'm almost certain the big 12 champion will be the four seed. There is a scenario where Boise could be the four seed. Oh, they threw that in here just for, see, this is all about, these are all about clicks. These things click driven, but we're above all that. We're totally, totally about it. We're, you know, let's dive into the specifics of this. Okay. Let's look at this. And again, this is just a construct. Some of these teams won't be represented. I don't think BYU is going to be your, your, your champion here, but, of the big 12. No, I don't think so, but I don't either. Who do you, not that it's super matters for our conversation, but who do you think will win? Colorado's got a good shot. Iowa State, believe it or not, is still alive. They need an upset of either BYU or Colorado, but I, I don't think it's going to be BYU. Hey, we'll see. I don't care. Frankly, I don't think the big 12 champs going very far on this playoff. So I actually, I kind of would want to see Colorado and just like everybody else, I think that's fun. It's fun. Yeah. It's the, it's the biggest TV draw and, you know, that their receivers running around is fun to watch. Yeah, they have amazing players that are fun to watch. So as we've observed before, Ian, there's a lot of value in that five seed, isn't there, buddy? Yes. The cheese. Look at that, look at that freaking draw. Yeah. That's what I'm saying. Now you could have a scenario where Ohio State and Oregon play three times this year, right? That's a realistic bracket. Yeah. And the other thing I like about this bracket that was smart, and this is what the committee would do. Do you notice how they have Georgia at 11 and Ole Miss at 10? Why did they do that? Uh, because they, I don't know why, why? Because in the second round, they don't want Georgia, Texas, rematched. They want a novel opponent for Texas. They want Ole Miss. If you power rank Georgia and Ole Miss, Georgia, even though they lost the head to head is still ahead of Ole Miss, right? Yeah. So that's why they're doing this. And then you get Georgia Penn State, with Penn State hosting, awesome, right? Wide out winter game, like, you know, Penn State's praying that it's 18 degrees and like drizzling, right? Dido Notre Dame, Alabama, too. Dido Notre Dame, Alabama. Absolutely. And the Ohio State BYU. And the New England Ole Miss would actually be a ton of fun, right? All right. Maybe. I mean, they're going to throw the ball around, right? Is it possible for Indiana to miss the playoffs? Yes. If they lose to Ohio State, 63 to 7, the shine goes off of the Indiana Hoosiers. But if this game is even competitive, and I mean like 35 to 17 competitive, they're fine they're in. I saw that. Because they've got to get their four Big Ten teams in. And it would be very Penn Statish to lose to Minnesota this week, which would be hilarious. But we're assuming Penn State wins out, which is why they've got this seating. So Ohio State, Oregon, Penn State are like locks, basically. Unless they seriously stub their toes. It was hilarious singing, and people have been mocking Texas' schedule and strength of schedule. Yeah. But Ohio State lost to Indiana. Yeah. They have a weaker resume than a 10 and 2 Texas. Yes. Our guy at a football scoop, oh my gosh, what's my guy's name? He was laying it out. He was like, Texas has seven top 40 S&P plus wins. Yes. And Indiana has like zero, which makes, because he caught me, because I think about Texas, they've not really beaten anybody great. But the middling teams that Texas has beaten are significantly better than the middling teams that the Big Ten top teams have. This is an important thing I've talked about before. People assume anyone under the top 30 is garbage. But there's a massive difference between the number 40 team in the country and number 110. Zach Barnett pointing this out. Okay. To the degree that when 40 plays 110, the spread is 20-something points. And so there is a risk anytime you play even an average football team for a good team, for a Texas, for an Alabama, for a Michigan, not Michigan, sorry, Ohio State. There's no risk when you play a very bad team. It's literally a riskless game in terms of the result. But every time you play Kentucky, every time you play Vanderbilt, every time there is a chance you lose, ask Ole Miss, ask Georgia who almost lost to Kentucky, right? So people tend to do this and against internet thinking, everything is amazing or it's trash. People can't think anywhere in between those two great Asians. So to get back to something I wanted to hammer out a minute ago, if let's say Indiana gets blown out by Ohio State, who is the fourth big 10 team that gets in ahead of a 10 and two Texas? None. So Texas, so only three big 10 teams get in and the SEC gets a fifth. Well, so presumably you'd have a fifth SEC team. That's how it should be, that'd be tough sledding, I think. I mean, now you could have a big push of like, well, Indiana is still reserving, everyone has a bad day, you know, whatever. But if they go out and get humiliated and it doesn't look like they belong on the field. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's just, that's going to be a real problem for them. So let me ask you, just looking at all this, not even looking at these matchups because we could play any of these teams, potentially, or not at all. What's the sneaky team that we don't want to play? And I think we might be on the same page on this one. Well, we already spoke to Ole Miss, I think. I don't want to play Ole Miss, well, I don't, I mean, I don't find them any more threatening necessarily than Alabama or, you know, that's fair, I mean, it's just, it's a playoff team at that point. I have said before and I will say again, I don't really want Miami. Yeah, and I agree. Here's why. One, matchups, two, what you fear in a playoff scenario is upside. Yes. I don't fear high floor teams. Like Indiana has a great floor because they're so well coached, Curtis Rourke is a really good quarterback. They play really hard, they play well together. But they're sealing, eh, it's always going to bump up right here. Miami's sealing is they can beat any team in the country. Yeah. Their floor is that they could lose to Wake Forest. Yeah. But that's not relevant in a playoff. What you fear is sealing and also matchups wise, very simple, they have NFL wide receivers and an NFL quarterback that threatens us enough to play an honest D and they can run the ball downhill with big power running backs. Yeah. Now I think their defense would be exploitable, but their defense has enough athletes that they can also make some plays here and there. Anyone else that would be like, I just don't like the matchups. What about Notre Dame? Notre Dame does not scare me because their offense is, well, they would, they would try to hammer Texas, but they don't have the Ryan Williams element that Alabama has. Penn State, similar in James Franklin, is just incapable of winning a game like that. Indiana does not scare me, BYU, I don't, they wouldn't scare me, but they wouldn't be the last on my list. I think Boise is like going to be a cake walk for somebody. Their defense is not very good this year. Yeah. Having their defense can't hold up. And then, I mean, Ashton Gente is amazing. But you give me a month, we will, we will not let Gente beat us. Or he might rush for 130 on 35 carries and they throw for 98 yards. Right. Right. Yes. Boise would be the kind of team that, this might be true of BYU as well, but I, for sure, I'm Boise, Texas comes out and they just run their screens all day and out and athlete them. And it's just easy. You just get them in space. Yeah. Yeah. Colorado would be similar against Texas. It would be a fun game and their defense has legitimately improved if you haven't watched them. Yeah. Yeah. Texas has too many, too many infrastructure pieces that, and I don't think people fully appreciate how much the big 12 is declined. And I think, yep, it's, it's a fun conference and it's competitive and there's some parody, but Colorado, they're, it's the top line of the waves that define their team. Those lead athletes that they have, but the supportive guys, they can't hang with Texas. They just can't. So I don't know if it's the, I don't know if it's that the big 12 is declined or they just Texas doesn't suck anymore. I mean, Texas to know you were gone. And then also I think they're down, like who should have been the standard bearers for the conference did not show up this year. Well, you taught, you taught us the one team. Yeah. Yeah. Oregon would be a problem for us. Yeah. I don't want to play Oregon. You know, they're just complete. Yes. And that would give us trouble. We can't pick a thing to pick on, right? Did you see Dan Lanning's jump around deal that, did you see that where like they, the song is really for us, like we were going to jump around or something. He like just mentally, he, he told them, I'm going to turn you into Pavlov's dog, where when you hear that song, you're ready to go get it, basically. And then it kind of reminded me of when Tom Herman talked about his team and compared them to Lenny from, uh, licensed men, only when Lanning does it. It's like really helpful to his team. And when Herman does it, it's like, you just compared. He's just saying that you have to be mentally deficient. Yeah. He just compared you to a large cognitively impaired. Yeah. You can't tell the difference between murdering a rabbit and a person. Yeah. Not to go too literary for everybody. Well, so that is the road ahead. That's the landscape. And that's what Texas is looking at. So you see Texas as a, as a, what a two seed here, you see them ranked third in the playoff rankings. It doesn't mean anything. If Texas loses to A and M, we're in a lot of trouble to even make the playoff. There's a lot of outs. There's a lot of football left to be played. Loose to Kentucky. It doesn't matter. As we've. That's right. Hey, let's just, let's just go loose. Let's just arrest everybody. I mean, man, it's funny how, I mean, obviously you don't do that, but let's, let's roll out arch manning. Let's see if John Tate cook wants to jump back on the team. We'll target him 12 times. Um, boy, I hope Sarkin knows this. I kind of think he does. Uh, Texas is actually a team that I think in the first round would be one of the last teams you'd want to see. Because Sark is going to take that month or two weeks or whatever and drop an amazing play script. Yeah. And if he's got you, you're just in a world of hurt. The game after that, when anything that's new is mostly on film, I don't know, it could get really dicey, but that's first game. This is a classic deal where if you follow college men, men's college basketball, there are certain NCAA tournaments in where you kind of know, all right, one of these two teams is going to win it all, right? Yukon is just better than everybody. Yeah. There's other years we were like, six seed is going to win it, whoever gets hot. I kind of feel like this is that year for college football. I just don't see the dominant team, and I think anyone that gets in the playoffs can make a run other than the weeklings. Do you want to end on this? Do you want to give me your four best bets on this bracket? Maybe not this bracket, but of these 12, or you can sub out. You can sub out BYU for Colorado if you want. I guess it probably doesn't matter. It does. Yeah. Which four teams would you say are the best bets? Quite literally Ian. I don't have it because I believe what I just said, which is, it's just going to be matchups. You can't even get four. No. I mean, Oregon is one of the four. Yeah. I bet you could do it. I believe in you. I mean, honestly, it depends on the first round matchup. Yeah. I mean, I think Ole Miss has an interesting upside, but I don't trust them game to game. Yeah. They just lost their center. Yeah. I mean, the cluster injuries on the O line, I mean. Left tackle answer. Unwill Howard to like compensate for that, right? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, Miami's upside is to be humiliated the first game they play or literally put a beating on Georgia, like they can do anything. So yeah, I honestly believe what I said. I think if you get in this, it's going to be your matchups. It's going to be where you have to travel, who you have to play. And injuries. I mean, I hate to use that as a cop out, but I mean, it's a wide open tournament. All right. I'll do it. You do it. Georgia, Ohio State, Oregon. You want to stay Texas, but you're not going to. Ole Miss. Ole Miss. All right. I think Texas is right there. It's the thing that we've been talking about for two weeks, right? It's that Quinn looks so inconsistent with his mechanics. And if he got like, if we got like the best version of Quinn that we've seen in the last two years, if we got that every game after Kentucky, because that doesn't matter, then you'd be like, yeah, Texas is totally favorite maybe. Yeah. Absolutely. But are we going to see that? I don't know. I don't know either. That's why we play the games. That's why it's fun. All right. Well, I am proud Texas graduate and Longhorn Lover at Paul Boblington. This is Texas Hader and negative pessimist Ian Boyd. And this has been The Deep Dog.
With 2 weeks remaining in the regular season... what do we need to consider?