Lane Kiffin Returns to Ole Miss: Can He Survive The Cauldron?

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1:01Second full week of the college football season delivered a ton of turnarounds, but here we peek ahead to week three. Because we've been peeking ahead to this week, oh, I don't know since some time late last season. This is the college game day podcast, Restavis, Pete Thamel, and Damwetzel and the college game day podcast is brought to you by Auto Trader. Trading coaches. Sometimes you trade coaches or hire new ones and then they have to go back to the old stop and grabs. We've seen it before. Nick Sabin went back to LSU and there was some vitriol that was shown when he returned. But there have been a hiatus in between when he was in the NFL. One kiffin is going back to Ole Miss on Saturday arriving probably in the greater Oxford Tupelo somewhere, Columbus, Mississippi area on Friday night at Parts Unknown. And then it will be an absolute scene in front of college game day.

2:07I suggested to some Ole Miss people and I do not think this suggestion would be taken seriously, guys, that the way Lane Kiffin craves attention, that the number one thing they could do to get back at him is virtually ignore him. Like, basically block him out of their contacts. Pete, what are the chances that you think that the Ole Miss fans will just bot lane out of their contacts and pretend that he never existed? You know, Reese, we often talk about one of the inherent beauties of college football as there is fueled by emotion, right? Decisions are fueled by emotion. College football ends up in federal court a lot more than the NFL and the NBA do, right? And the reason is there is a rational decision making all around. I don't know if there's a moment that epitomizes that's quintessentially college football more than this lane kiffin return and in the anger that's been built up for this moment.

3:07Now, credit to LSU, they somehow have sort of taken a little bit of the spotlight off lane these opening go weeks and put it on themselves, getting in the crosshairs of the SEC. Maybe that was some 3D chess from our friend Governor Landry, right? To try to distract and diverge. But, you know, this is a moment that's always going to be a thunder clap. We knew it. We knew it from the day the schedule came out and it built and it built. And lane hasn't reflected a ton on it. I mean, he's been asked about it a lot media days. It was a big thing. And, you know, he said he thought about it a lot early, right? Because, you know, you know, just, and then you get in the season, you get focused on your team and everything like that and pushing forward. Yeah, but what a, just what a scene it is going to be to just enter a, to enter a, a, a cauldron. And I thought Dan from the macro, you were to call him that last week that really

4:11summed up a lot of all field headlines well about the complications at LSU that have, not taken center stage, but they've been a nice side show. They've been a pretty active side show to, to all this. It was astounding. We may be in violation of federal law, but yeah, on the Sunday, game day podcast, guys are both traveling stuff. Lane Kiffin was not mentioned. And I believe that is a violation of all laws. He was not mentioned for one. TRO on that decision. I'm sorry. I, I, I may be in trouble. I think now look, he's great for headlines, but yeah, zero chance they're going to ignore him. Zero, obviously. That would be the most helpful thing they could do. Don't you think? I don't, I don't think this man can be hurt. I, I, I don't know. I guess it, yes, ignoring him is not, he doesn't, generally doesn't prefer that, but then he'll just switch it and be like, yeah, that's good.

5:11I'll just show up at the hot yoga on Saturday morning, get it, get it, work out with my old friends. I mean, you, you can't somehow what Lane Kiffin did it because it's Lane Kiffin, because so many other things happen since then. You can't, it's been normalized to what he did. He quit in the middle of the, arguably the greatest season in school history. He bailed out on a team that had a chance to win the national championship on the eve of the playoffs. He left. Now you can come up with all the things I've heard him. All the LSU clients want, well, he, he wanted to coach and do both. He couldn't, he left one job to take the other. He had a team. They spent all year talking about family and all those things that coaches probably do. And then he left. And he said, yeah, I'm going to go take a better job. Had Trinidad Chamble has done that. He would have been roasted forever.

6:11You know, I'm leaving to prepare for the draft after my, the regular season. I didn't sign up for the playoffs. Any player does it like what is the entire point of sport? Is it to win? Is it to create a team that you feel good about to challenge the world to try to do this, to, to be there with your brothers or your sisters or whatever, however, you know, whatever sport you're doing and try to win the chip. That's it. That's sport. Not, oh, I got a better offer. I'm out right now at an end. I'm not going to see the job through. So he bailed out on the guys on this team. He bailed out on the school. The people that had given them everything, given them the second chance. The fans had embraced him when nobody else wanted and everyone said, forget it. You know, it's Lane Kiff and he's going to burn you and they don't go, no, no, no, it's a new lane. It's a new lane. And this is what happened. Then he proceeded to take a bunch of the players with him. And obviously the fans are going to see it as, you know, tampering and all this stuff. And, you know, he didn't, he kind of tried to strip mine out the best he could.

7:15Soft, that's all fair game. And those guys went with them, not all of them. But you could see where he hurt feels. He told the story that the old Miss fans are so angry. They tried to run him off the road on the way to the airport. Like kind of attempted murder. I know it's kind of a joke, kind of funny. But like, what is that? The police said that never happened. I mean, he's, then he does the vanity fair interview. And I think he clumsily made some comments, but he's also a very smart guy. We kind of inspired that there was implied that there was still some, so in it, and you got to, I'm going to, I already know what the LSU fans are going to say. That's not what he said. He just said people mentioned Ole Miss and they don't want to send their kid to Ole Miss or their grand kid to Ole Miss Mississippi. That is part of it, but the way he phrased that, he then immediately talked about how there was no problems at LSU. It made an implication back on Mississippi. It was very painful for a lot of people who have done a lot of important work at Mississippi

8:16and at Ole Miss to try to change that. Like, he's not just a guy who left and came back. There's a lot there for the Ole Miss fans to be very, very, very upset about. And I think because of this year, scope of the incidents and things that fire everyone up, it's almost been normalized. There are a lot of coaches who have returned, I mentioned, going back to LSU. That was even different circumstances than Steve Spurrier going back to Florida. Obviously, vastly different receptions and circumstances. All of the things that you talked about, Dan, I think are my biggest issues with it and why. While I hope that there's nothing over the top, I know it's going to be loud and use the word again, vitriolic. And I know Ole Miss is going to be angry and trying to get their pound of flesh. I just hope nothing ridiculous happens out of it. People maybe keep their alcohol consumption within limits so that their judgment also stays within good limits.

9:17But the reason that this is a major problem and what you're talking about and why I often view a lot of this stuff as absurdly hypocritical is because one of the things that every coach talked about and understandably so is that you have to sacrifice for the greater good. Maybe you're a receiver who would like to be targeted 15 times a game, but for the betterment of the offense, maybe you only get seven targets. And you need to make the most of those seven targets. And the coach spends a lot of time telling you how important that is and how beneficial it will be for you in the long run. And Lane leaving, Lane leaving when he did flies right in the face of all of that stuff. It's what I need to do. It's best for me right now. I have no issue with Lane Kiffin deciding that LSU for him is a better job than Ole Miss. If that's what he thinks, gives him a better chance to win the national championship. History would indicate that's the case. But Ole Miss had every right to be mad.

10:19And so the reason I bring all of this up is not to rehash it, but is to ask you guys who needs to win more. It's a very, you know, sports center type question. I know they can't really be answered definitively, but I think I had to Saturday night. Games over results are in. Who feels the sting longer of a loss? Does it send Ole Miss and an inexperienced head coach into a little bit of a tailspin emotionally? Does it absolutely not at the very being of Lane Kiffin, which also could cause a distraction for LSU if printed out a template send the rebels avenge their coach who departed in the middle of the season by beating them on national television and announcing themselves as a primary national championship contender? How would you view that peat who's going to feel that loss more and longer on Saturday

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13:28This is a great question. I feel like LSU is you're going to lose road games in the SEC. So Elaine Kippen's got what he wants. He's got the program. He seemingly has the funding. They're spending like they have the funding for the long term. And he's one of those guys that never stayed anywhere for a long time. Ole Miss was the longest place that he stayed as a head coach probably by far. So sometimes you just need a new audience. You need a new place to go. I just think about what McAfee said when we were down at Batmur's the other day. He was like, oh look, the country just fell out of that tree. It was a good lie because it does it, but it kind of does. As that happens, if Ole Miss wins this game, it's eternal. It's a little bit like UNC ending coach case career.

14:28The stakes aren't going to be as high in the game when we clear about that. It's not going to be an NCAA tournament. But I do think that there is something that would last forever. There would be t-shirts in bar signs and pictures. If some random backup nickel picks up a fumble on a kickoff and runs it in, that guy won't pay for a drink in the state of Mississippi for the rest of his life. I think it's that type of just intense, intense focus is going to be on this game. It's interesting that right away off this game from a football perspective, LSU hosts Texas A&M. Which is going to be the best team that they played this season. I believe Texas A&M is better than Ole Miss. I think Ole Miss is very good. But all of a sudden, if one loss becomes two, this joy ride of the first two weeks in this, this just unrelenting positivity on the field that came from Clemson is going to be gone.

15:29That could happen really, really fast. That's the joy of college football. That's the emotional swings we started talking about early in the show. Who do you think feels it, Dan? I think Ole Miss needs to win more. I think for a lot of what you just said, this is their one crack at having that moment of like trying to embarrass Lane Kiffin and try to show their anger. I think again, if he had just left, Lane Kiffin has left town and he made a decision. I understand the decision to go to LSU. If it wasn't the timing and the things that happened after, it makes sense. It just does. Historically, the resources, all the different things, it's easier to win at LSU and everybody should have a choice on where they want what they want to do.

16:31Maybe just wants to coach LSU. In the end of the day, Lane Kiffin left town in the Ferrari with the beauty queen. He's leaving behind the ex-girlfriend or whatever. Tough break. So he's got what he wants and he's got great opportunity over the next few years to win big and win national championships and do all those things that at LSU, it is easier historically and likely in the present to do than it is at Ole Miss. Ole Miss has got one crack at showing him up. The idea that Lane Kiffin could come in, win with his new team and leave triumphant would be quite, I think, a painful night for Ole Miss fans that want their chance. It also would again send a program that we'll see what they have done a lot of work too in building out how their NIL collective works, their resources to be a place that isn't

17:34just about having one coach, but you would certainly obviously immediately have that like how good can Ole Miss ever be again? Was this a thing? So I think Ole Miss, it's a great question, but I think Lane Kiffin can survive the loss and just go on and say, look, I'm at LSU, this is what I'm doing now, which he's really good at. And over the next season, the next three weeks, the next three years, I'm going to try to get this thing right. So that's how I would say it. I say it means more to the Ole Miss fans. It really, I think, have a genuine reason to be upset with the way they were treated at the... It's a bad break up. Lane's a bad breaker upper, right? He's just a bad, he's just, you know, it wasn't... It practically broke up by text, right? He can't get it. I don't know. But long time since I've been following this stuff, but whatever the bad break... Whatever the bad break... They broke up with me. Don't do that with the... They finished close out on the streak. It was a little like with Jimbo put the tree, the Christmas tree. Wasn't that... Right, through his Christmas tree out there, probably like, okay, he's leaving.

18:36I think... Was that true? Yeah, and I just think... You go to all the stuff, the timing and then the comments to Vanity Fair and the things after. There's just a lot of reasons for Ole Miss fans. We got one chance to show you up and it's Saturday night and this is just an enormous, enormous emotional game. It's fantastic and as long as it's appropriate in the yell at them, boom, scream, do whatever you want. Don't throw anything, please. Let's look at the perfect match presented by Auto Trader and the perfect match for college football and the zaniness that we enjoy. Is Lane Kiffin returning to Oxford on a Saturday night with a new team? It's like the further dance analogy, it's like bringing the new girlfriend or the new wife back to the reunion in the Ferrari and showing off her brand new diamond earrings. And you know, you're going to go with the brand new stuff. You're going to be using the sapphires and everything and various other, various other,

19:42I'm trying not to get in trouble here. Yeah, let's end that right there. You know, perhaps you could make him appear to be pretty. Yeah, so you know, meet Sam, meet Jordan, my new love. No, or meet Debbie. We were married for 26 years after we dated as sophomores. Yeah. Yeah. How about the house thing in this? To me, like the stuff you can. Pete, I'm going to jump in here and ask you about what's true because all it's a podcast. The first thing was that he refused, at least in the rumor circle unsubstantiated, not being reported, being reported as a rumor here on this fun podcast was that he wouldn't lane me, wouldn't sell Pete Golding the house, didn't want to have the house. So somebody else bought it in a paper. That was a room. Okay. Pete was like, I let Pete live there so I could check on him with my ring cameras. So I mean, what's the deal? This is what Pete told me at media days. He said, quote, lane helped me on this one a little bit because he had another offer that

20:48he actually worked out to where I could where I could get it and the other person couldn't. So Pete said that lane kind of did him a solid and then lane joked that he was checking in on Pete on his ring camera. He said when his staff would say, Oh, I heard Ole Miss is at, you know, fill in the blanks school and for it, lottery or whatever. That's a hypothetical that I made up. He's out Ole Miss is on this guy out recruiting lane would be like, well, Pete can't be there because he's on my couch. I just saw him walk in. Yeah, but you literally have one coach living in the living in the other woods house. Now they seemed to have gotten over it, by the way, because they still talk and like they seem fine. Pete didn't lane. You know, they obviously know each other for a long time. They worked together for a long time. You know, lane convinced Pete to come from Alabama. So like those two, I don't think they're going to be like at each other. So now Pete Golding's fiery dude now. So I mean, he's going to be, yeah, he's going to be another level on Saturday night.

21:49He knows what it is for everyone. How do you guys think he will handle that? Well, that's the one aspect. I will say this Saturday night, during the game, making decisions within your own coaching personality, not being overly impacted by the outside noise and the desire to walk away Saturday night with the upper hand and this whole thing. I've got 100% confidence in lane kiffin to do the right coaching thing for him. Not might be a gamble. It might be, it might be wild. I just don't impact it. Expect him to be overly impacted. Pete Golding, great job in the playoffs, but I don't know. This is different. This is new for him. Yeah, how if things, if LSU hits them with something and it goes 14, nothing quickly? How does he react? I don't know. As you know, managing maintenance repair and operations is never easy. But for the ones who always rise to the challenge, Granger has your back.

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24:56Your doctor? Good luck folks. Or open your medicine cabinet and smile because you have a fully stock medical emergency kit from the wellness company. It's an urgent care and drugstore at home. It contains essential prescription medications in your name for over 30 common conditions. Strip throat, sinus infections, pneumonia, UTI, stomach bugs and more. Plus telehealth doctors standing by for questions. I trust my medical emergency kit and I can save $45 right now. Visit urgentcarekit.com slash sports promo code sports. That's urgent care kit.com slash sports promo code sports. I think it's a big it's a big question. We don't know and you want that experience if you can have it because I don't look at this as a playoff game as its own pressure. Obviously right? Winter go home. The stakes are huge. I equate this to sometimes something like an iron bowl, certainly a Michigan Ohio State game where the angst and the drama, the pressure is different.

26:03It's intense but different. Some coaches it takes time to learn how to go into this and others just walk in and it's no problem in these kind of rivalry games and you have to learn your way in. I would take Ryan Day as a perfect example of that. It felt at times like the pressure of Ohio State coaching in the Michigan game. The whole thing kind of overwhelmed him a little bit and then while he could pretty much beat every other team in the country and didn't have any problems. He's an excellent coach, does all those things but then he got in that game and it was like I don't know that fourth down call and everything gets so magnified. But then you'd have I mean look, Jerome Moore is already out but he won a couple of those games. He didn't have any problem. He was an interim coach and he was like yeah no problem. So you don't know whether Pete Langkiff and certainly I think has the experience of these kind of emotional games because he's been in him. He's been the target before. He went back to Tennessee and dealt with all of that. I think he's ready for it. Pete Golding may or may not.

27:03We just don't know. But I think there's a different sentiment that hits people in that week. It's not just a playoff game which has higher stakes competitively but not higher stakes emotionally. I think it's fascinating guys that they're both the play callers. Pete calls him on defense for Ole Miss and Lane obviously calls him. Well it actually Lane doesn't call him anymore. It's Charlie. Lane was the play caller. To an interesting compounding talking about Pete Golding on the play calling side is that he's going to have not only his finger on the macro decisions but also the micro decisions. What are they doing? What are Charlie and Lane doing? How can I counter them? There's a different level of emotional component that you have to like. It's a fascinating extra pressure I guess I would say in this game against this opponent. Those are the two guys you know so well from coaching with. How many hundreds of hours of practice? Where they going up against each other trying to move them all and stop the ball against

28:04each other and everything like that. They know what each other do so well. There's a sign stealing component that's fascinating here. Legal, all legal, not elicit stuff but you're going to know each other's signals to the hill. So just how that all gets decoded and unwinded in cat and mouse on the headsets is really fascinating. That's not like the big emotional drama that's going to unfold in front of America but that back and forth in that cat and mouse and how they call things and do things and play things. And you know you want to be aggressive but do you get too aggressive and does it hurt you? We've seen Lane do that as a head coach a lot of times right? You know, gamble too much on four downs. Like we said Dan Lane can do it a lot of times in his career. We saw him do it again on Saturday too in Stillwater. And so I think that's a fascinating kind of human test in the moment of decision making. Can you resist the urge to try to go for the kill and just stay steady and consistent?

29:07And you know kind of like Lane said to us on media days like he said he kept a card in his pocket said be boring. Don't be afraid to be boring. So in a lot of managing a game involves decisions that are a little bit boring. Do you think LSU needs to on the field? Do you think LSU needs to be boring Saturday night? Are they significantly ahead of Ole Miss Mattalant standpoint where they can afford in that environment against that team? You know which had some laps as defensively against Louisville which is also a good team I think. But can they afford to be boring? Well sure they can. That's fair. So one thing we've learned about Lane Kiffin over the years is that he can't help himself and that's not a criticism of its observation. Remember the time they're going to play Alabama and he said get your popcorn ready. Yeah. Like you know to the to the to the pregame popcorn. Yes. Yes. Yes. Lane Kiffin loves to touch the stove right? Loves to touch the stove. I have two small humans in my house who like I aim like to that they don't touch stoves

30:10and I can relate to that. He will always get his hand as close to like you can cure your skin like crack it. Like that's how closely Lane Kiffin wants to be to touch the stove. So he would love nothing more than to fake a punt or do some you know have some schematic pitchy pitchy whew whatever it is to have to be able to deliver in this game some seminal moment. Like that is that's just who he is. I mean this thing I remember at USC there was allegations of deflated balls. There was a very controversial Jersey switch. Like he's a guy who's looking for an edge and those were against like bad Colorado team. You know what I mean that was it wasn't in you know some one verse three match up or anything like that like Lane Kiffin's a guy who's who's always you know trying to be you know trying to keep an edge in in that sense and that is certainly going to going to happen here. But yeah managing the emotions. Hey start with a couple three and outs. What happens? You know like that is really going to be you know some fascinating things from from within the game.

31:12My favorite Lane Kiffin couldn't help himself was when he was final game at the Oakland Raiders and he thought they're playing the chargers. He thought they were going to he thought he was going to get fired. He knew he was going to get fired. And so at the one second left in the half he said Sebastian Janet Kowski out to attempt a 76 yard field goal. Which in modern NFL is like actually sort of reachable. But yeah, even now we ain't there. Even though but that 2008. Yeah. Everyone loves seeing if you've seen Kim little from my Jack toville Jaguar 76 is reaching in it. All right. Maybe a bit. Well, see bass Janet Kowski had a big leg but he also was like. What's like I think he had a you had quite a nightlife going like it wasn't like through training. Spear genetics. He tried the 76 yard or it would have broken the record by 13 yards at the time.

32:14Uh, it's just just because why not one of my favorite Lane Kiffin. Uh, things he's highly entertaining. I think he will be unbelievably boring this week. I think he will be very not boring on Saturday night. I think he's going to say nothing this week. Uh, if I was if I was his PR, uh, uh, uh, uh, it man and boy what a job that would be. Um, a lot of work get a lot of billable hours. This is PR guy. I would say be real boring. I hope you're not Lane. Chat, chat it up, man. Let's hear it. But I would be real boring and humble and all of that. I expect that's what you're going to get during the week. Just just another game and I love everyone. I know I'm going to be a little bit old miss and try to make amends. It's not going to work. They're going to be fired up. I think the biggest problem for Ole Miss fans and this is part of the scouting port is pacing yourself because they're going to be they're going to be all excited for a game day in the morning and then the game until 7 30 and then you know, I know you guys not to get after it in the growth.

33:15I'm not underestimate your abilities. Uh, I all do respect, but it's a lot of hours and you got to go pretty much all the way to like 11 30, old this game out. So you know, pace yourself, pace yourself, rebels. Are you ready for the signs, Reese? Yes. We had a meeting in the off season. Sorry, I don't know anything about that. With some people at Ole Miss, you know, and they are very concerned about how their university and their city is going to be represented. So you know, we can only we can't do anything about the signs that are outside the pit and the pit area meaning the blocked off area right behind the set. There we have some editorial control over the taste and tone of the signs there. Beyond that, that's on somebody else because there's you know, little thing called free speech. So, but how that's managed will be up to Ole Miss.

34:17So I was job is that on game day. I got some way I go. I'm sure at 4.45 in the morning is going to try editorial control over a bunch of trunk students who've been up all night. Just a little security. Our guys do a pretty good job of it. We got to get through great job. Yeah, we got to walk up to the, you know, let them walk up to the line. Sure. Maybe he's in a devil of toe over the line from time to time. Just don't go sprinting into, you know, full on poor taste of sanity, you know, kind of. So the team is there one person? I have questions. I have questions about this process. Yeah. I don't know how many. I think it's basically our security team and some, you know, some others like occasionally we want security guys Paul Dei, you're somebody, you know, Ken Williams will come and say, you know, we had this guy out here. You had this time we told him, yeah, you can't have that in there. So, you know, it's sometimes they'll be like, this was really funny, but we couldn't let it go. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So they do that too.

35:17They'll say, this was pretty funny. Sorry. You've had a pretty good column day and on like this confiscated signs from Saturday morning. That would be, yeah. Chuck Cole Pepper is going to be down there to write a scene story for ESPN.com. It chucks one of the best writers and brilliant in the country sports or otherwise. And it's going to be tremendous. I can guarantee you. Check for that thing over the weekend. The problem nowadays is back in the day, you'd have to get that thing on ESPN for, and I would watch game day and all of a sudden there'd be a little, you know, a sign that maybe he didn't wasn't appropriate. And then the immediate cutaway, right, it would be like the immediate. And then like, because it'd be like they'd be like, herb street would be talking or something and in an over the corner, you'd see something like, oh, and then immediately they just switched the Desmond. It's just sitting there, right? Let's listen. Yeah. Right. And it's like, oh, they got to get a new camera angle. You can tell what they're doing. The problem these days is you just can make the sign. You don't even have to, you just be anywhere near and you just post it. And it goes on social and you know, you get, uh, could go with your price.

36:22It's going to be, there's going to be a lot of, uh, it's going to be wild. It's going to be wild. If you ever got more of the sign. There are deep cut references, deep cut internet references too that can, that can get you. Oh, yeah. It's been so, you know, yeah. Yeah. There were things that had one meaning seemingly. And then if you consulted Urban Dictionary, perhaps there were other meanings. And you can get caught by that. That's a, that's a minefield that you're tiptoeing through too. There's always naysayers as you know. Always naysayers out there. Yeah. This, this one that I got caught on was even, even more, uh, I guess esoteric than that one. It was there. This was like, this was like way beyond the pale. The two people who knew it, you know, like, we're like, oh, oh, oh, and everybody else was like, what? You know, it's so. Have you done a game day at Ole Missories in your, yes, a little, okay. I have not done one. You know, I've not done it. How was it? Well, funny you should mention this, Pete.

37:25We'll see if we perhaps have a return of the celebrity guest picker the last time we had game day and I did game day in Oxford. So I wanted to judge them. The celebrity guest picker was Lane Kiffin. Oh, yeah. That will not happen on Saturday. No, we do know that. For the aggregators that is not happy. Did you ever be the guest picker, right? Yeah. He's the only coach ever be the guest picker. He was actually, oh, yeah. It was terrific. He was outstanding. He was really good. Of course he's good. Yeah, he was terrific. He's great at this stuff. Well, how are the students like, I want to say this about Texas Reese. I've probably my five years. I've been Texas three times now. I think the crowd Saturday was exponentially better than any other Texas crowd. He pulled up at like 530 Dan and they're my spend what 2000 students in line like pre-dawned darkness, the whole thing like that. For years then, I know you covered games like when MacRown was there. That was always kind of a white and cheese crowd. Oh, yeah. It was not that on Saturday night. It was great. And I would never would expect it reminded me of the 2019 crowd when Burle and LSU came

38:31in there. Yeah, they were really excited about that game and right was it was a great game. Thank you. It was. They did the same thing too. They shot Smokey the Cannon. They shot through the, I think the Joe Burrow jersey before the game is I recall and then they did the same thing as you know, Ohio State jersey on Saturday morning. Worked out better this time than it did for the last time. When you look ahead, you know, from all the years of working with the Louis Holtz, I always say you do not have the same football team from one week to the next. Obviously that was defined from week one to week two with all the turn arounds. Pete's guide through Mastemaker had a signature moment along with Eric Morris with Oklahoma State beating Oregon. By the way, I am, I have Pete with a big grin. I'm officially concerned about Oregon, not for this week that play Portland State. They've got USC coming up after that. What are the Trojan's going to do to them if Oregon kept figure this thing out, particularly

39:31on defense? Michigan turned around. I'm not white there yet on Michigan because I think that may have been as much a case as Oklahoma's offense being ungood as it was, you know, Michigan playing better. Michigan's defense would be exception of the 20 play drive. It allowed to Western Michigan has been pretty, pretty impressive through two weeks. And then within the game itself, Texas, you know, was just a, I got a, you, you, you, you guys know Paul being Cardi, right? Paul being Cardi, I would actually do a basketball analyst former BC assistant. Yeah. So I'm leaving the, I'm leaving the game on Saturday night. And I have time. I think I used the word catastrophic a couple of times in terms of the, of what Texas had done to itself. And Paul, I think his wife and his daughter, I think are Texas, Texas, as they say, are Texas alums. And he said, they want to know what you think about it. Got a stropping now.

40:32I said, I think it was still catastrophic. And they escaped it. But all I got by Paul's wonderful guy. And, but within the game, Texas turned itself around. That's the kind of game I think that can propel you forward and maybe help you reach your potential. Oh, how the state's going to be fine. What, what did you see from some of these moments this past weekend that gives you real pause going forward about a team or gives you confidence going forward about the team? For instance, I've got great confidence in Texas now more than I did before that game, not because they just won the game, but because they could, I mean, they were dead in the water. And they could have let it go. And the fact that they didn't showed me a lot, the fact that Ohio State looked really good for long stretches. They probably need to learn to finish the deal, not kick field goals like you just go ahead and put teams away when they've got them on the ropes. Feel great about Ohio State. Impressed with Michigan's win, good win, wait and see Oklahoma, unimpressed on offense,

41:37need to be better, gotta be better. And so, eh, so so Oklahoma State, just good win, you stopped the losing streak. Oregon worried, you know, going forward, something's not right there right now. It doesn't mean they can't get it right by the time they play SC, but something's wrong there. You can't, you'd have to be there every day and in the building to know exactly what it is. It's just one of those things that they haven't, you know, they haven't clicked, hit their stride, whatever metaphor or cliche you want to use, it just hasn't happened yet for them or is there something fundamentally challenging them to not play it their best? We haven't seen anything close to it from them yet. So you're going to posit this theory on Oregon. So first of all, they should be worried, right, especially especially on defense. So remember last year, I picked Penn State to win the national title, Reese, I believe you picked Clemson, is that memory served me correct? Okay, yes.

42:38So we both owned that those are terrible picks. The thesis on those picks was the core of great return players, correct? Right? Penn State, a drowler and a great offensive line. A bunch of guys back on defense. Clemson had, kid club, Nick, a bunch of NFL guys, whatever. And I remember a coach texted me like week five or six when the wheels are coming up the bus at one of those places. He said he had his personnel guys do a study and that the teams that were underachieving the most had the most players back, which is so antithetical to anything we've ever known about college football for years doing it. You'd be like, oh, yeah, they're returning 18 starters. They're going to be really good, you know, the team we're worried about is up. They got five news four to starters on the offensive line, et cetera. And the thesis for Oregon being good was simple. They have 10 plus NFL players for D lineman who might be top 100 picks on paper, right? And then a lead tight end, really good talent at tail back like you, you could go through Oregon's roster and very quickly name most of the players, you know, off the top of your

43:39head without looking at Phil Steele, which is just quite frankly in modern college football. You can't do much anymore. You can do a spot or two here, but like they had all these household names. For some reason, they are trending towards that Clemson Penn State path of, you know, a mediocre 500 type season. A lot more than they're trending towards what a lot of people thought they would be. Like I would not have flit anyone who said Oregon's going to win the national side. I said, good pick. Like there's a lot of sound ration now. They were probably the safest to pick to win the national title this year, like just in terms of knowns. So now the lie behind that theory, Dan, I have no idea, right? I have no, I have no idea. Just as, you know, as this world, you know, I couldn't bend my mind to, to like, I could spit balls, you know, some, some thoughts on it. But I just did think that was fascinating where, you know, you see one of these like shorefire contenders take a, take a stunning U-turn like that.

44:41And that just popped up in my, in my head is something that is, it's a symptom where we are. Excellent point. It's really interesting. And I did pick Oregon to win the national championship. All right. And I did pick them to win the big time. And I did pick Oklahoma to win the SEC and I did pick you an LV to, and I said this yesterday, I'm waiting for that AI takeover in six months. It's going to run everything. My picks are going to get so much better. We may all be dead or I apparently were no longer going to exist. But until then, my column is going to get better. The, I mean, this is kind of exciting, right? It's like, it's like, it's like, it's like trying the 76 yarders before you get fired. Right? You're like, humanity's going to end. My picks will get better though. So I'll have a moment, maybe if we get to next season before the internet kills us. Next week on the pod will have Adrian put AI Dan on it. We'll tell you. I'd be super. Let's just say this room.

45:41A couple of Red Sox references were good. There's room for improvement. Okay. There's room for improvement in my life in virtually every way. So, you know, so yeah, massive concerns about the ducks. Five hundred and fifty four yards they gave up. Twenty five first downs. I mean, they, you know, damn landing to his credit was like, this score was so good. Because not the game was not as close as the score. Like, he wasn't trying to sugarcoat this. And the question now is two weeks, you got your get right game, but in two weeks, can you get that bit with USC? And here's what fascinates me with what you just said, Pete. And I have not heard that before is college sports has changed dramatically, right? Everything's different. Things we didn't expect or the people didn't expect actually turned out to be opposite, right? Or so they'd say like, well, once, once players appear in commercials, the fans will

46:43stop watching. And it's like, what? No, that didn't happen, right? Like they actually got excited about Caitlin Clark and a commercial and the doctor, pepper commercial and all that. That isn't, that didn't happen. Or you can't, so you can't build a team with the 90 new guys or you can't build a team with a bunch of, maybe. In fact, we just had never seen it attempted and you're actually better off if everyone is hungry and scrapping and uncomfortable and trying to get a new, get their position where maybe when you're a lot of guys know they've got their starting job and they've got an eye on the NFL, they're a little more complacent. Obviously, we don't know whether that's true or not. It's just a psychological experiment until AI takes over. We won't know the answer. But maybe that's it, you know, and it's kind of interesting. It's a fascinating idea because what seems like a liability, I got all these new guys might actually be an advantage. Whatever the case is with Oregon, that defense is not nearly good enough to do anything.

47:43And you can't just, you can't be given a 554 to anybody. Let alone a team out of 12 game losing streak. I'll do respect to Oklahoma State. You're starting a new left tackle, by the way. Their left tackle got hurt for the season. He was by far their best player. He got hurt on the first series of the Tulsa game, Jacob Sexton. So that gummed him up a little bit in Tulsa. And again, they had a three new players. So you do need to give him some grace for getting things together in that time. But still that, it's a stunning result. Sorry to cut you off. Yeah. No, and I was just going to say we were talking earlier about the emotion of coaches making decisions. And I know that Dan Laning is noted for going for it on fourth down a lot, but they were down five points. Fourth quarter just under seven minutes to go. They're inside their own 35. What was it? Fourth in a foot. I probably said, yeah, go ahead. You know, it was like fourth and six or something like that. And they didn't get it. And now they, to their defense is credit and about the only time all day. They at least held them to a field goal then and preserved the opportunity.

48:44And then almost fittingly for the way Oregon played, they just dropped a pitch on a toss sweep and then had a chance to just pick it up and then just couldn't. And then the game was over and Oklahoma State recovered and that was it. But I don't know if that was indicative of Dan getting frustrated with the circumstances of the game or we've given up five million yards. If I give them, if I punt them the ball, they may go down his score, touch down and put us away. You know, so I think both theories could be true. It's easy to sit here and, you know, for me to go what the world was down landing thinking now I would have punted the ball. I think that that's also easy for me to sit here not involved in the emotion of the game. But you know, it may have been that he's like, we can't stop. We can't figure them out. And if I give it to him back, they're going to drain the clock and score, touch down. So you know, there, I understand, but that also is reflective of some questions about where

49:46they are right now. And I think it's very concerning. That said, I just finished saying, you know, five, ten minutes ago, different team every week. So maybe by the time they get to the end of September, they run through Portland State, you know, I think it's Friday night this week if memory serves. It is. And then they go to SC and you know, and then maybe the real ducks show up and, you know, they were, they cut it. They've had two weird games because they might have played a little better than the score. Even though boys, he stayed played well in the opener. They might have played a little better than the score. And that went for much of the game. And then they clearly played worse than the score. I mean, Oklahoma State jumped on them and credit to them the first team ever to, you know, end a 10 plus game losing streak. You get to team that was in the top 10. And I think only the third team, maybe, um, and certainly the first one since the mid-90s,

50:48when Akron did it to Miami, Ohio, to lose a game one year by 65 points or more. Remember last year, Oregon, Beto, Columbus State 69 to three. Yeah. And turn around and beat them the next year. I think they're the third team to do that in first one in, you know, 30 years or whatever, 30 some of years. I'm going to take the Liberty to invite Eric Morris if he retires this week. Because he said he might do in the post game interview to join our podcast. Is that fair? Like Eric, if you decide to retire off of off of your first win at Oklahoma State, you have a spot for us on the college. We have a spot for you on the college game, they podcast. So I'm sure all the Disney higher up so clear it very easily. Come on now. Good for him. I was glad he showed how happy you was. That was a good one. No, it's great. I almost state ran 75 offensive plays in that game and average 7.4 yards per play. Like Oregon couldn't stop. It couldn't stop. So I think that's probably one of the punt, but I agree. They got to get a lot better in two weeks as do a lot of teams.

51:49And then yeah, teams that look good in week one, not necessarily look great in week two, or didn't look good in week one. It's, it's early. A lot, a lot has to happen. Sneaky little G6. Now get here. Tulsa obviously beats Oklahoma State. That win looks a lot better. They have an FCS team this week and then they go to Arkansas next week. Which looks pretty vulnerable. So all of a sudden you can have two power conference wins. I don't think any G16 Reese, you can correct me if I'm wrong. But I don't think any G16 is going to have two power conference wins. There's very, there's been very few of them now. Like that would be, they'd be a bit of a unicorn I would think. I haven't studied the schedules on who's one of them and who has the opportunity, but I, nobody comes to mind, right? That'd be, that'd be old, that would be old David Carr Fresno State stuff. Yes. Back in the day starting three, you know, I know. They was David's team, not Derek's team that started and they beat three power conference teams out of the gate. I think, maybe, or at least they beat, I think they beat Oregon and Wisconsin and

52:53somebody else out of the gate. Yeah. Urban did it at Utah, Herman did it at Houston. Like there's been some times where like, you know, this has happened, but that, that's just going to, again, you got to go win the American right and win the championships. There's no doubt. But that, as you're starting to like compare, you know, it's going to be a very interesting argument. Like what is the pact? Well, we don't really know. Right? Like we know boys is good. But like what are they? And how do they fit into the matrix? It's just all so new. You know, Mountain West, obviously boys is going to have a, you know, a big statement in that stuff. So I just think there will be a plan for one of these teams. And I don't think when the, this summer, nobody was sitting around thinking about Tulsa as a candidate. And now you do have to, you know, you at least have to, they have earned their way into that conversation. Your catching, Jim, in a good time too, because Arkansas just went to Utah. They have a thing they're mad about, you know, the late game Utah, early game against Georgia. And you play two teams that are renowned for being physical back to back. And then you come off at that third week and you've got to deal with Tulsa.

53:53It's, you know, that's, that's, Tulsa's getting them at a really good time. In addition to the fact that Arkansas is, you know, rebuilding again and trying to get it going. So just, but just in terms of catching a power conference team at a good time, can't think of a better one for Tulsa to get Arkansas than after those two games. Just quickly too late did it last year. They beat Northwestern and Duke. Great point. Yeah. So did that. Yeah. And they did do it and they got in the playoff. Yeah. And I would imagine they were the only team last year that did it. Right. That was my way. It was like, it was a big deal at the time. But yeah. Yes. Um, and, you know, there's plenty of people said it is Northwestern really count. That was, you know, but they got, but his Arkansas going to count. But look, Tulsa also kind of gets a transitive victory over Boise, because they beat Oklahoma State, which beat Oregon and Boise lost Oregon. So there's a little bit of, this is the stuff that goes down. Let's talk, talk group of six playoff committee debate room. Points.

54:54That, you know, there are, I'll talk about TROs. I want to talk more about TROs. Lane and Ole Miss, that's going to suck up all the oxygen. This week and a lot of quarters. But if you guys really looked at the schedule, some of the things that we've got, we've got SMU and Louisville, you know, who's going to be able to challenge my Emmy. We've got, we've got quarterback prospect game big time. Llanora sellers against Camarillo Taylor, Mississippi State and South Carolina. And we've got a wildly underrated rival renewed, I think for the first time in six or seven years between Auburn and Florida. And then you throw into the mix. This is like, this is like many, many lanes, not the same thing, but, you know, there was all the flirtation with John Sumrell. There was their family connections to Auburn. It was going to be Auburn coaches, that he's to Florida coach. He comes back there. There are so many great story Steve Spurrier won the Highsman trophy because he kicked along field goal against Auburn and told Ray Graves to coach you ever to kick

55:59no, no, leave it. I'll make it. And he went out there and knocked it through and, you know, that probably gave him the Highsman trophy. West Chandler once scored a touchdown for Florida against Auburn and Tiger, the War Eagle came off of his perch and attacked West Chandler and like grazed his shoulder pads and the jerseys. You know, they beat number one Florida a couple of times. They beat Florida when the year Tim Teebo won the Highsman trophy. Yep. You know, Florida coach died. I was at this game 1990 show how old I am. Coach died talked a lot about how I don't know if Steve's passing off ends is going to work in the SEC and it went down there the first year in 1990. And Auburn was undefeated. I think they had a tie. They tied Mississippi State the week before but Auburn was undefeated top five in the country and Spurrier annihilated that beat him. 48 to seven and I mean just just destroyed them.

57:04So there are a lot of great games in there. I bow nicks is dad Patrick Knicks through a famous touchdown pass to Frank Sanders in the back of the intern in the swamp to knock them off. There's so much history in that game. And I'm glad to see it back and I will make it my mission this week that that game does not get completely overlooked in college game. That's good night. Can I add one on that too? Yeah. There was a fire at a. Remember there was a game Auburn played where there was a fire at the library. At the at the old barn at the Barnburner game against LSU. Yes, yes. And then Spurrier. I'm just throwing Florida in there because Spurrier had one of the great lines. He said the real tragedy of the fire at the library was 15. Or that 15 of the books hadn't been colored in yet. That was the. Of course. I think I bet the story was 20 books were lost in the fire. He said the real tragedy was 15 of headman code in you.

58:10So I love the new. You see man. He's the best. Oh, God. Absolutely best. Camario Taylor, Lenora sellers. You love to do those quarterback polls, Pete. I know I think Camario is probably got another year before. He becomes eligible. But what do you think your quarterbacks scout fellas are going to be saying about Mississippi state in South Carolina? So I'll say this at Manning Academy this summer. So you got 45 college quarterbacks in shorts and T-shirt, right? So you can judge things like arm talent and things. But you can also get wildly off every year. There's a quarterback or two of it who's at Manning Academy who like wow is everybody? And then actually when pads and shoulder pads and plays come into play, they don't really wow everybody. You know what I mean? They're like seven on seven kind of heroes. So Camario everyone standing on the sideline. There's NFL GM's. There's warm right in folk quarterbacks. There's much immediate. Every what you can't take your eyes off Camario tail. He is, you know, he's a prototype. He is how you would sculpt like the modern college quarterback.

59:13You shake Camario Taylor's hand. It's the size of an oven mitt, right? The ball just whips out of his hand and, you know, all these guys are throwing, right? So you're watching and it just looks and sounds different from from from Camario Taylor. And and from the moment he walked on campus at Mississippi State, people there told me he's gonna be our best one since that. He's gonna be a best one since that. In fact, last year, Reese, you remember a game day, I said on the air, going into the Arizona State game that he was going to use in packages and they think he's that good. And of course we go back to the desk and Mac, he goes, well, if he's going to be better than the desk, why aren't they starting him? Yeah, that's a great point. But credit Jeff Levy, who knows more about quarterbacks that a lot of us, they they wanted to ease him in, right? They wanted to, I was a little bit like how Tibo started at Florida, right? You run packages, you run goal line, you run short yardage and then you, you make the leap. But nobody there was like backing off their Camario Taylor calls at this point. And quietly, the, the Nora sellers just found a groove a little bit to Reese,

1:00:15you know, the Kendall Brow's offense, I gave him the browser game ball after the, after the South Carolina opener. Quietly, that, that operation has, has come around a little bit. There's an expectation that the left tackle peak and, and Dylan Stewart, the defensive end could be back for this game. They kind of had, they've been out, they've been pointing to it. Those are two of the best five players in the program. Dylan Stewart's probably top 15 pick if he's healthy. So, yeah, it will be Dylan Stewart versus Camario is the real like scout off to, you know what I mean, those, those are two guys that are, that are, are wow, but I do think Camario with what he did, annihilating the Minnesota and the Twin Cities has now put himself on that NFL draft 2028 greater, but what he's also done, maybe more important for Jeff Levy in Mississippi state is he has given them an adrenaline shot of hope, an adrenaline shot of hope. They've, they've, they've improved since Jeff Levy got there, but they haven't been competitive in the SEC and they now have a star. They have an identity. They are, you want to watch Mississippi state because you want to see what Mara Taylor

1:01:18is going to do next and they haven't had that type of magnetic star probably sense, sense stack. So that's, that's, that's going to be pretty fun. And look, let me know something about Palm Ball Place, do you know? I wonder if they didn't play him last year to keep the, the portal hawks off of him, you know, like you got to hide your guy a little bit. Camario Taylor is incredible and we said this is going to be a great game, but you know, we said he can't, everyone pencils in or inks in the, the win over Mississippi state when they're doing their preseason expectations of their team. I would not do that with Mississippi state this season. At all, I'm interested in this Houston, Texas tech game. I don't know if you had, oh yeah, that, yeah, Friday night, just a, you know, both teams ranked both teams beat Oregon state. But in some, some what's, you know, not neither blew out, Texas tech is shown a real vulnerability. They were struggling against Texas tech. Their defense is not where it was to be expected.

1:02:19And now they've got to go to go into Houston. I think it'll be a fantastic crowd down there. And Houston is rolling offensively. They're, they're playing really, really well. And Texas tech is not birthrighted to win the big 12 either. So this is a massive test. And I think Texas tech's got to play a lot better than they did. Saturday and it's Oregon state to win this game. And I think it's a great Friday night primer for what's going to be a great weekend. Now, totally agree. It's going to be awesome. We'll be back later on this week to break down some of those games and even more to tell, I imagine that LSU and Ole Miss will come up again on with all of these other ones we're looking forward to. Thanks for watching College Game Day podcast presented by Auto Trader. Be sure to subscribe so you'll never miss a single episode or download wherever you prefer to get your podcast. Music

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