BEST OF THE HERD – LeBron & 76ers Win On Opening Night | Wemby’s Struggles vs OKC

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Oh, it was a thing of beauty. LeBron even playing center at the end of the first half. We are live. We got a lot on the table. NBA debuts last night. LeBron's Philadelphia opener. Sixers at the Knicks. Wherever you may be, however you may be listening, thanks for making us part of your day. So for years we've asked about Philadelphia, why are they so bad in the playoffs? The Eastern Conference isn't any good. Why do they struggle in the playoffs?

Because they always had posers, nightclub guy, casually interested in basketball guy. They didn't have closers. Now they had LeBron, Jalen Brown, KCP. That's 13 finals. Big shot takers, big shot makers. Think about this. Think of all the continuity the Knicks have. All the continuity. And yet, isn't that amazing?

Philadelphia's got all the new pieces, and they didn't even play that great, and they won. How are you not impressed with that? And one of the great assets of LeBron has always been moldability. He can lubricate. He is the oil to the engine. I joked this morning with the staff. He's like a great politician. He builds basketball consensus.

So last night, the big four, and we worried about this. Oh, there's only one basketball. Maxie Brown, LeBron and Embiid, 74 points, 32 rebounds, 24 assists, seven steals, eight blocks. That's game one. That's game one. And I mean, just to give you an idea of the, if you're listening on radio and don't see all the box score here, LeBron had 14 points, nine rebounds, seven assists. The only thing he was selfish with was the pregame chalk. LeBron's like, I'm 41. I'm joining a bunch of young athletes. All right, I'm going to be the distributor in chief. And that's what he did last night. I mean, Jalen Brown didn't have a great night, but Jalen's going to give you effort, toughness, smarts. rebounds, steal, assist.

KCP was classic last night, invisible, and then all of a sudden, late in the game, two big threes. He has always been a guy that never shies away. I don't think Denver was ever as good once he left. And then you've got, we all know that Maxie and Embiid are talented. That's never been a question. Embiid has health issues. Maxie's terrific. But LeBron has kind of figured it out. This is the one thing with LeBron I think is really smart. There was only one place he needed to go. I kept saying, Philadelphia is the only place.

In fact, the NBA is the only league and the only business in America where if you joined the best law office, you get criticized. If you were an old attorney and you joined a young, smart law office, everybody would pat you on the back and go, you go, man. They made you a partner. In the NBA, it's like, oh, you're ring chasing. I guess we're all ring chasing. Don't we all want to play with good young players? And so this to me was always the perfect fit because the Sixers are athletic enough and young enough to hide LeBron's 41 year old body on the defensive end. But the Sixers have enough young athletic closers that they will be able to finish on his distribution so they can hide his weakness and elevate his strength. And LeBron thought

about joining all these teams, but we kept preaching. Philadelphia is the only one that works. It is the, and I'll show you another number last night. So, because we all worried about one ball, Brown, Maxie, Vijay Edge, Combe, Embiid, LeBron, somebody's going to get lost. So last year when the Knicks played the Sixers, the Knicks got a basket anytime they wanted to. They averaged 120 points against the Sixers.

Last night they had 100. So what does that tell you? It tells you the defensive adjustments, the switching by the Sixers, which people experiment in the NBA until like the trade deadline, the all-star game. You don't get great defense very well, very early in a season. But last night, Philadelphia, LeBron's like, yeah, I'll play some center. Switchable defenders. So, I mean, considering the Knicks, I mean, it's like Thanksgiving. You know everybody in the room. They got all this continuity and you're jamming all these Sixers together. And the defense was pretty good and they didn't necessarily play great. But this is what we always said with LeBron, the mold ability, the oil to the engine, one of the smartest guys ever.

And in a weird way, I don't know if this would have worked with LeBron 15 years ago because he would have wanted and could have scored 32 a night. But with this team, you get all the championship pedigree, and you get none of the young guy ego in the NBA and LeBron, and they all have it. That's great.

That's fine. That's what athletes have that makes them different. But LeBron could pull back and just say, I'm going to land the plane, these possessions, I'm going to set you up, I'm going to be switchable, I'm going to be a great teammate. So it just, I mean, it shouldn't have looked this good. It shouldn't have been this good.

Even when LeBron went to Miami with Bosh, and that was a high-functioning team with a great coach. Remember, it took him about 16, 17 games to make it work. This actually is the most talented team LeBron's ever played with, in my opinion. Like the L.A. team he was on, nobody played defense. I mean, Luka, Austin aren't going to play defense. You know, the Cleveland teams he played on, he made work. But Kyrie, before he got to Cleveland, you know, people were like, is that going to work?

I mean, Kyrie's best years are obviously with LeBron. The Miami team had no true center. The point guard was Mario Chalmers. This team's really got everything. I mean, Embiid's not a great rim protector, but they've got athletes. They've got switchable defenders. They have shooters. Maxie's explosive. And you just put LeBron in, and it just bakes the cake.

It just all culminates. kind of works here's lebron.

After another guy that can hold guys accountable uh because they understand they see that the guys got to the finish line um so and beyond the finish line i went through the you know the rope these guys that's been here is trying to be able to get to that point obviously this is a marathon and we're not going to do it in day one or day four or five six seven whatever the case may be so But the experience that we have and the experience that we've brought to this ball club, hopefully we can translate it to wins and even more of a culture shock as well of how you prepare mentally being a champion.

Okay, Oklahoma City in the night game blew out San Antonio. It wasn't as close as the score. Wemby, one for 13, did not play well. And once again... Wemby is much better defensively. It's miles ahead of his offense. At 7'5, he's got such a high center of gravity. You can put guards on him, make him uncomfortable and move him around.

That will probably always be the case. Here's the other thing with Wemby. If you take Jokic in Denver, he's a play initiator. You can run the offense through Jokic. You can't really do that with Wemby. Wemby offensively is more of a finisher. So he needs his guards to create... and to initiate offense. But Stephon Castle, sometimes OKC wouldn't even guard him. The guards for San Antonio are slashers, and they attack the rim, and they're aggressive. But right now, they're not always great play initiators, and that's what Wemby needs.

And so it's, you know, whereas I look at Oklahoma City, they know who their finisher is, and it's a very complementary roster. When I look at the Spurs, there's some holes. There's some duplication. Their offensive identity is a little odd. I mean, Wemby didn't have a free throw or a shot in the fourth quarter as the biggest talent in the league, right? Because he's not a play initiator. SGA is a quarterback.

Okay. right?

It all goes through him. A football analogy is Wemby's almost a great wide receiver. He's an athletic freak, but he needs somebody to set the play out for him. I mean, I guess you can do a bubble screen or a reverse occasionally, but he needs somebody to create it for him. And that's why the San Antonio offense, and it was last night, it's very uneven. They have really bad quarters. I mean, didn't they lead the Knicks in almost every finals game? And then they go into the desert. And it's like last night. So Wemby eventually may run the league. But if you go and look in the last 30 years who has run the league, it's a lot of play initiators. It's Magic. It's Steph.

It's Kobe. It's MJ. It's LeBron. Even Jokic is a play initiator. He is a finisher. He's much more Kareem than Magic or LeBron. And that's why this San Antonio offense has these like droughts. You're like, hey, Dylan Harper and Stephon Castle. And he got Wemby. And you're like, eight minutes, you're like, what is this? And I never feel with OKC I get that. They know who their finisher is. All the players have a role. By the way, Mara from Michigan, pretty good. Pretty good. So I guess this is the way to put it. I trust Oklahoma City late in games on both ends. San Antonio, I trust late in games on the defensive end, but I don't have as much trust on the offensive end. And again, that's why they'll be fine in the playoffs because they'll

just shut you down late. But I think last night was a little bit of what we talked about last year is that, you know, when B's offense is it, it half to half, you're not last night was ugly, like no shots, no free throws in the fourth quarter. And here he is after the loss.

It's obvious for me, I need to go back to playing the basketball. I like, you know, it's a, I don't like, this is not the sport I like. I wasn't decisive. It's, I might be overthinking it. And I feel like it's a chance for me that what I have to do is really let go. It's not, I don't need to do more. I need to think less, probably.

That's pretty smart. Also, Oklahoma City's really good. Okay, Oklahoma City's really good. So, J-Mac, that was a very good opening night. I'll get into my angst with Jason Tatum. Oh, yeah.

Oh, tough one.

Tough opener.

Hey, by the way, you know motivation's a huge thing in sports.

And last year, the Spurs kicked their butts in the regular season and then beat them in the playoffs. So the Thunder are coming for blood in every matchup this year. You could see that from the jump. This team was different.

Besides the SGA travels, you know, that were not called by the refs. No big deal. They play great. They look good. Spurs will be fine.

They'll be fine.

Well, you got to be better than fine to win a championship.

Game one of 82. I love to do this. NFL season's what?

17 weeks.

NBA, 82. So you do the division.

It's like 4.8 NBA games equals one NFL game.

Yeah.

So that was basically, what, less than one quarter of an NFL game? Let's not overreact, folks.

But that's the whole fun of the industry.

I know, I know, I know.

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Subscribe. Hit that thumbs up icon and comment away. Too fast young quarterbacks in football will meet here in Chicago. Drake May and the Patriots come to face Caleb Williams and the Chicago Bears. And I saw a headline this morning. We always talk about this. If you redrafted, who would you take first? I would take Caleb over Drake May. One, I think he's got more athletic horsepower. And two, in big spots, he's never thrown interceptions. High school, college, or pro.

Caleb just doesn't throw them. So I would take Caleb, although I think they're both great. It's like asking what's your favorite ice cream. There's no wrong answer. New York stripper ribeye. The meal is going to be great with either one, right? Again, I think they have really plus arms, big guys, incredibly coachable. I see leadership with both. And what's really interesting is how similar their careers have been, even though their styles aesthetically are different. Both got really bad opening coaching staffs. And both still showed a lot of promise, but they had turbulent rookie years. Then one got Ben Johnson, one gets Vrabel, and immediately one goes to the Super Bowl and one is second in the

NFL in big plays. So Drake May last year, what's remarkable about Drake May, with a bad offensive line, number one completion percentage, number one passer rating. Oh, by the way, they didn't have a true number one receiver. That's remarkable. So all the Drake May haters, you can lead this league in passer rating with a bad O-line. I don't think Brady ever had a bad offensive line. He didn't have always great ones. I don't think he ever had a bad one. One of the reasons he went to Tampa, great interior O-line. Then they drafted Tristan Wirfs. So that's pretty remarkable. And Caleb Williams, again, this is an organization that's never had a 4,000-yard quarterback before. I mean, Green Bay, that's a rite of passage up north. So I think

this is a prime example. Even if you're uniquely gifted, and I think Drake and Caleb are, where you land and the coach you get will change the course of everything. I mean, Drake May, rookie year, I think he may have made a Pro Bowl as like the third quarterback, but there were some rough games. And then he gets Rabel and it just smooths everything out. And Caleb had 20 touchdowns, six picks, but he took 68 sacks. And it's just this goes to young people. There are certain things they're really good at learning new languages much faster than older people. When young people take to coaching. And you can see Drake May and Caleb do. They get much better, much more quickly than older people that are

set in their ways. I remember talking to a guy years ago in the auto industry. He's like, I love young salespeople. I don't have to break any bad habits. Like, I'll teach them the way I want them to sell, and I can mold them to what I want. Same with quarterbacks. It's very hard to teach an older Peyton Manning, even though he's great. Hey, we're going to do it a different way. You know, Aaron Rodgers, he doesn't like a lot of motion. I want to walk to the line.

I don't want motion. I don't need a lot of groupings. That's just Tom Brady later saying maybe Peyton Manning. I don't like later in career. I'm going to yell Omaha. I don't like a lot of groupings. I don't need a lot of noise and motion. Young quarterbacks, you can mold and Vrabel and Ben Johnson have done just that.

Here's Drake May talking about facing one of the great peers for him, Caleb Williams Thursday.

Him in the pocket.

I don't know if I could do some of the things he can do. He's special in the way he can move and kind of you know, escape and evade pressure and, you know, throwing on the run is pretty cool to watch. So I don't know if I'm that, you know, shifty in the pocket. He can do some cool things, and he's got, you know, crazy arm talent, and.

It's fun to watch. This is kind of a tough spot for New England. Short week, on the road, missing multiple O-linemen. That is a really, really tough spot. I'll be at that game. And, I mean, oh, yeah, Chicago's treating it. This feels, it's got a playoff game feel. This is a big one. Thursday night, Drake May, Caleb, and your intrepid Big J journalist will be on the scene.

We've been trying to get Brady Quinn on for a long time. He does such a great job for Fox, seven years in the NFL. He's got a column on Michigan's quarterback change. And if you watch the game, it was really obvious that Bryce Underwood's got talent, but it felt dysfunctional and chaotic and hard. And they put the young guy, Tommy Caron, and you're like, yeah, that... That's pretty good. So Brady's let's start with that because there's so many unbelievable topics in college football. I mean, I got eight of them here. They're all great off. Maybe the best weekend I've ever seen a college football. So my eyes, you played the position. My eyes told me that Tommy Carr was just, Hey, listen, I can do

this stuff. The coaches want me to do. It may not have a huge ceiling. Maybe it does. That's what my eyes told me. You played the position. What did Tommy Carr do that impressed you?

He just operated within the offense right from the jump when he got inserted in in the very beginning of the second half of this past week's game. I mean, there's a couple of things that really stood out to me. He only threw the football eight times in this game in the second half. However, they started off the second half with him throwing an RPO over the middle. You know, typically coaches don't want to put, especially an inexperienced young quarterback in that position, throwing the football over the middle because that's where the interceptions comes. The tips, the overthrows, things of that nature. If there's a strike to J.J.

Buchanan and they're off. And then the next on the third down, he throws a nice little sprint out, completion to Andrew Marsh. If he just ran upfield, trusted speed, probably would have gotten the first down, didn't. But even a flea flicker then later on. So it's an assortment of plays that they're basically saying, This young man's capable, even though he doesn't have the reps, of doing all these things we're asking of him. And then you go look at the 22, 23-yard scamper he had for a touchdown, and it's like, oh yeah, he's got that dual-threat ability to running the football. So it's no surprise that interjecting a different quarterback in there, who I think did a better job with some of the run reads, but also

the reads and the passing plays, helped open up an offense for over 220 yards and 21 points in a comeback victory. Now, it's a different challenge this week versus Indiana with as much pressure as they like to bring. And there was one play in particular where I'm not even sure he saw the corner cap, the corner blitz pressure, but the opposite line, the running back did a good job picking it up. He's going to get a heavy dose of that versus Indiana. They're typically a team that doesn't like to bring a lot of pressure, but they have the past couple of weeks turning it up. And I would imagine they're going to test him often with his eyes and what he's seeing out there given his inexperience.

Brady Quinn joining us for the radio audience. So, I mean, there was an article the other day that said, and I like Sark. I feel like I've watched Sark coach for so long. He's never. He does the big stuff well. Sometimes on the details, he drives me nuts. I feel like all SART games kind of look the same. They have a great half, a bad half. You know, they do some things brilliantly like recruiting and flash. And then some of the other stuff, I'm like, it shouldn't be this hard. But everybody was saying, well, Arch Manning, when are we going to get the best Arch Manning? When are we going to see this graduation to an X class? And I'm like, folks, this stuff's hard.

And maybe this is what he is, that he doesn't see the field brilliantly. He doesn't see it like Brock Purdy. Some guys see it. Some don't. That he's super athletic. He's got good traits. He's a big, strong kid. He's got the Manning family. But it is possible that there, you know this, there's an it factor. They're seeing the field.

Maybe maybe he was a little overvalued dominating a smaller Louisiana high school. Or am I wrong that there is this massive ceiling? He's going to hit it. Or my take is maybe he's just, this is kind of what he is, which is he doesn't see the field quite as quickly in process. Herbert's got some of this that maybe as he, as other guys do, is it possible?

That's it.

Well, look, everyone's going to process at a different rate. And that comes down to the individual. And that's something that we don't quite have the ability to measure yet. You can kind of tell based on their decision-making and on film. But you referenced Brock Purdy. That's a guy who played a lot of football during his time at Iowa State. And he fell into a position where I don't know that he could have fallen to a better team, a better coach and offensive line in Kyle Shanahan. And you mentioned something in asking the question, talking about details.

If there's something that I'm concerned the most about this Texas offense, it is the details. It's the fact that their offensive line plays incredibly inconsistent, not only in pass throw, but also in one block. I mean, you see them turning guys free from time to time. You'd never see an offensive line that should be one of those dominant college football really highlighted in that way. And so to me, it starts up front with them in the trenches offensively.

Then you go back to the wide receiver group where they're There's not a ton of separation, which to me doesn't fall necessarily always on Wingo and Cam Coleman, two of their top receivers. It's somewhat of a scheme, too. It feels like when you're out there, you don't have plays building off of one another, where they're showing you the same formation, the same personnel grouping, and doing multiple things out of that to keep a defense on their toes. That's, to me, good offensive scheme and good offensive football. And so all these things add up to make it even more difficult for Arch then to make plays. And then when he has made plays this year, some of that stuff has backfired. I mean, I go back to the

Cam Coleman catch where he beat his defender by five yards downfield. He dives, catches, and all of a sudden the ball gets tipped up and ends up being an interception. You know, Ryan Wingo dropped a touchdown pass in that game. They were fortunate to come back in that game, but all that stuff ends up adding up to being thrown on Arch Manning's shoulders. So has he played perfect this year?

No.

No quarterback has. You know, I don't know, maybe outside of maybe you say Darian Mensah, who from start to finish had a really solid, consistent season. All of these quarterbacks have had their ups and downs, and this has always been the case. I mean, the fact that we're making such a big deal about it only speaks to, I think, A, what his ceiling may be, but also the fact of what the expectations were, not only for Arch, but also for Texas. And then it feels like it's more disappointing for Texas as a whole than anything else.

I'll leave you on this topic. Last year, too, we'd kind of written Arch off after the first half of the season. Well, we're halfway through now. And the problem was is everyone stopped watching, and Arch played phenomenal the second half of the season. So that's where we're at now. I'm not throwing in the towel on Texas or on Arch Manning. They've got some things to improve upon and fix, but it's not just him. It's everyone who's a part of this offense. They need to find their identity. They need to hammer back down on the details. They need to get better up front and also run the football and take some of the pressure off of it.

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Listen, I didn't like the calls at the end of the game. I thought Notre Dame got kind of homered twice. Be that as it may, they didn't play great. They blew some red zone opportunities on third down. They did not play Notre Dame football. I saw criticism yesterday or the day before. People were saying, you know.

They lose a lot of close games to good teams, and they beat up, because of their schedule, half a member of a conference on a lot of average teams. First of all, everybody loses close games to good teams. Ryan Day does. Kirby Smart does.

They all do.

I like where Notre Dame's at. But I do think now with super conferences, SEC and Big Ten, nobody wants to play these out-of-conference games. Nobody wants to play Notre Dame. They're getting on the phone and people are like, I've got to play Texas, Oklahoma, and the SEC now. I'm not playing Notre Dame. I'm not going to South Bend in November. Forget it. So it's a weird spot. That's why I think 2014 playoffs are good for them. Where are you on Notre Dame? I still think Notre Dame can play for the title. I still do. They're good at key positions. Corner, quarterback, coach. I think winning in Pro Bowl is hard. BYU's got NIL money. They got NFL guys. I don't think we think of BYU. I watched BYU-Notre Dame, Brady. They look pretty even. They were

both big teams. I don't think it's that punitive of a loss, but because of their schedule, it is. Where do you land today? Where are they going forward?

Well, I definitely think they have the chance to still win a national championship. I mean, they're that talented. That's their ceiling. The problem is there's no room for error. And we saw that after last year dropping their first two games of the season, running the table, but 10-2 wasn't good enough. And I think that's the concern here is it all comes down to the Miami game. Assuming they win the rest of their games, you know, they really need to be 11-1. They really need that win, I think, for their strength, the schedule, and to prove to everyone out there they deserve to be a part of the playoff. I think if you lose that game or if you were to drop a game to SMU or someone else along the way, you then once again

leave it up to the college football playoff committee and you might find yourself on the outside looking in. And so this past week's game, we can talk about the calls and officiating and why there should be more of a push for a national officiating group instead of doing it by conference. I have no idea how we've come to an agreement on an expanded 2014 playoff. and how we're going to play for a national championship, but we still have officials by conference. It just doesn't make any sense to me. We should bring it all in-house, all under one umbrella for replay, everything else, so everyone's understanding how we're trying to implement whatever changes it is, whatever calls we're doing this year, it's all under the same roof. That,

to me, would be a great step for all of college football. Last week, though, what was disappointing was this is a team that was a 10-point favorite on the road. And so I think that speaks a little bit about the expectations for this team that in a big game got off to a slow start. They didn't look good offensively.

C.J.

Carr didn't play his best game. He still showed me flashes of why I think he's the best quarterback in college football. There's a couple throws he made down the stretch that, I mean, there's no one else who was going to make those throws or was accurate. But he was off. He missed a few throws. He had some mistakes along the game, but so did everyone. I mean, the coaching staff, some of the play calling. You can look at Chris Ash and his resistance to wanting to play more man-to-man versus a team that I think you'd match up with very well. And I understand you lost your best edge rusher to start the game, and that can kind of be a shock to the system. But that was a very winnable game. I mean, you had

a botched punt. You had a fake punt, which was an awful call on the backed-up territory of And you couldn't take advantage of it in the red zone. So there's no one that Notre Dame should look nowhere else, but in the mirror and try to pick up the pieces, make the fixes they need to make, because they are capable of winning it all. They have the advantage of getting home field versus Miami, but you can't afford to lose.

I mean, they, you can make the case they're in the playoff now every single week, they've got to win and they've got to be able to, in order to advance into the playoff.

You know, the NIL is interesting. So I think it's hurt the depth of the Georges and Ohio States. A prime example that Ohio State once won a natty with Cardell Jones. Well, Cardell Jones would not be on their roster anymore because somebody like Oregon State would go say, here's money. You don't have a great third quarterback. That's not at least an experienced one. And so, you know, they've won titles with Craig Krenzel and Cardell Jones. But the Cardell Jones guys that are talented backups now, they want to start and they're going to play and they're going to leave. And so to me, when you lose Julian saying my take is they're not going to win.

They're out of the national championship. There's too many good quarterbacks. Notre Dame, Miami. There's too many good quarterbacks on good teams. I look at Ohio State and I'm like, Brady, NIL, you've got to play a three-star freshman. I don't even think Ohio State can win a natty now. I don't think it's possible.

Do you? I think it's still possible. I mean, you referenced obviously the season they did in 2014 with Urban Meyer. Now, they didn't have to go quite as long into the season in order to do that, right? It was a much shorter postseason for that team to win it all. But look, they're going to have to hang their hat on the running game. They have to get much more physical on the offensive line. And defensively, they have to start being more dominant on that side and getting more pressure, getting more tackles for loss and negative plays. which hasn't really been them so far this season. So they're going to have to lean on a lot of other people outside of the quarterback position. And for all those people

who aren't big Julian Sand fans, how are you feeling now if you're a Buckeyes fan? For a guy who completed his career over 70% of his passes, it's like now you're really concerned about whether or not you can even beat Michigan at the end of the season, let alone try to win a national championship. I'm still a believer in this team because I think they've got a hell of a coaching staff. They have a ton of talent, the best player in the country, and Jeremiah Smith. It just comes down to, can they put together a game plan that allows, whether it's Luke Fahey or Tavian St.

Clair or a combination of both, or maybe you use Legend Bay, who did use to play some quarterback during his days in high school. Maybe he comes in as a wildcat quarterback. Whatever the case is, putting together a game plan that might not be what the identity of your offense has been so far this year, But it plays to their strengths and allows you to be successful.

That's going to be the formula moving forward. And they've got to figure out what that's going to be over the course of the next week or so during their bye before they play a tough SC team. So I'm not counting them out because history has shown us otherwise. But the Big Ten now is wide open. And I think for the SEC, because you haven't won the national championship now in the past four years, the door is open.

You've got some teams that are going to be in contention for it, obviously, despite some of the struggles we've talked about. with Texas and Arch and whoever else, LSU and Sam Leavitt, the door's wide open now because Ohio State was the team to beat in the Big Ten.

You know, people forget John Wooden actually took a few years to get UCLA rolling. We're all impatient. We want you to be great. Ryan Day wins 88% of his games, and he's always under attack from Buckeye fans. I've told USC fans this. Listen, the NIL means you have to go to the boosters and ask for $ 35 million a year.

They just spent $ 250 million on facilities. You want to buy out Lincoln Riley? That's $ 70 million. And the new guy is going to cost you $ 12 million a year or $ 9 million a year. So NIL has actually helped coaches keep their jobs for a lot of these schools because you can't just blow them out. And my other thing is, I want your opinion on Lincoln. If I just said, Lincoln Riley, write a paragraph. Where are you today? Obviously, the defense remains an enigma to But they're just tremendous offensively, throwing the ball in a throwing era. Where do you land on his position and his space and his ascension right now?

Well, that's been kind of what he's been. He's a great offensive line. And I think that gets you only so far as a head coach. You have to be able to pair together with a solid defense. And how you go about constructing that is a separate conversation. But from his time taking over for Bob Stoops, who really built the foundation of that program and kind of just gave him the keys and let him run it, they obviously had success. And you have guys who are winning Heisman's and making a college football playoff berth, but you're never able to get to the pinnacle. And so then you go to SC and that was the expectation. I think that the tough thing for a guy like Lincoln Riley is you've had good recruiting classes. You've had now

Heisman trophy winner and Caleb Williams. You've had, other talented players come through there. But it hasn't equated to the postseason success. Never winning a conference championship, never having a college football playoff berth. And when you watch what Kurt Cignetti has done, where he takes an Indiana program that was arguably the worst ever in college football history and turns it around in basically two years' time to win a national championship, you have to be scratching your head if you're an SC booster, if you're an SC fan, going, Why can't we do this? Like, we're in a recruiting hotbed.

We're in an easy place to get guys to come to. We suppose we have enough money to do so. Why can't we do this? They just did it in the Big Ten. And so, you know, there's obviously some difficulties for both those teams and the challenge they have. But Kurt Cignetti has made it harder for a lot of Blue Blood programs who aren't having that quick turnaround like they thought they were going to that are well-funded. Where everyone's kind of looking at him saying, well, why can't you do what he's doing if you're such a good coach?

We're paying you all this money. And that's a legitimate question. So, look, he's a great offensive mind. No one's going to deny that. What they do this season, though, that's still all out there for them. They've got some big-time games ahead. I think at the end of the day, if they are a 10-2 team with their schedule, depending on who they beat, if it is Ohio State, maybe they don't get quite as much credit for it. Maybe that UCLA win, all of a sudden, it would look a lot better on the resume, given even their circumstance, even though they're playing with a backup, too. You still look at a couple of those teams and go, if they're able to be one of those two at 10-2, they'll definitely be in

contention for the playoff. And if they win them out, obviously, they're playing the Big Ten Championship, and that narrative is changing completely for him.

Finally, by the way, Indiana at Michigan on Fox. Brady Quinn, part of the big noon kickoff. That's a really interesting game. Michigan's secondary is pretty good. Indiana's got great ability to beat you down the field. That's a really interesting matchup for me. And Michigan's offense does look like it's more functional now. So the 2014 playoff, my argument is generally, Brady, that in life, if something, the quality is good, it could be a restaurant. It can move. You and your wife will still find it. It can expand and lose its charm. You and your wife will still go. College football's product is so damn good. Last week, Saturday, was so much better than NFL Sunday. The product's so good.

We can expand. We can move. It's going to be okay at 24 teams. Or there's the traditionalist that says, you don't love the romance of it, the charm of it. It's a fair argument. Maybe I don't. Where do you land?

I land on the inclusiveness of the expansion is obviously going to be a good thing. I mean, to your point, if more teams are making the college football playoff, it probably slows down the quick trigger to move on from coaches. You probably don't see as many players being as transient, although the Protect College Sports Act is going to limit that a little bit, too. reducing the amount of times players can transfer before they graduate so there's some caveats to saying that but I think the hardest transition for all of us is that you can lose a couple of games now and still feel like your team has a shot and that didn't used to be the case in college football that's where it really differentiated itself from

the NFL That was one of the hardest things transitioning to the NFL as a college football player when you win a lot of games. You're sitting there saying to yourself, I can't afford to lose five, six games. That's an awful season in college. Well, in the NFL, you're probably a playoff team. You're probably winning your division. So, you know, it's changing the thinking, I think, of how a lot of fans and even some of the coaches and players feel about it and their response to losses, knowing that in a 2014 playoff, you're going to have two lost teams, you're going to have three lost teams who are going to be a part of it. And that just hasn't been the nature of college football. It's traditionally been a

regular season sport where it comes down to it, the team that's undefeated or a team with one loss. And based on how that ballgame goes, that was how they're going to be voted or that was what it was going to look like. Well, we've strayed away from wanting to make it a regular season sport and it's becoming a postseason sport. So, you know, there's some different feelings I have about that in general, you know, but at the end of the day, if this is the direction that we're going, I think it will make the sport better.

having more teams involved in a world of parody right now where you just said it last week, we had five teams in the top seven lose. Like who's that great team right now in college football. I really, I really don't know. Maybe it's Miami, but you know, that was a controversy ending to that game. Like you're telling me Florida state shouldn't have, you know, had that touchdown for Deuce Robinson had a chance for a two point to extend that game. There's, there's just so much parody out there. I think it's going to make for a great 2014 playoff when we get there.

This was great stuff. 20 minutes of Brady Quinn, first-round pick, seven years in the NFL, Indiana at Michigan, big noon kickoff. I think that's going to be a really interesting game. Indiana off a loss. They don't lose much. Brady, I really appreciate you.

You've got to thank Dave Coelho. Dave was the one who was supposed to pound the bees, like, we've got to get you on this week. I was like, all right, let's just find a time to make it work. So thank Big Dave for that.

Big Dave, if you can hear us, thank you, Big Dave, for that. We appreciate that. Brady Quinn. Awesome stuff. Yeah, it's hard to get these guys doing big noon kickoff. They're traveling around the country. It's hard for us to get them on like Mondays and Fridays. So that is fantastic.

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