Transcript of Gen CFB: No One Believes in the Dawgs

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Hi, Jennifer.

Jennifer, how was Athens?

Athens is just a great city. It's really awesome. It's such a great college town. I toured there when I was in high school, and I was like, Man, I could have had a lot of fun here and would have been a much happier football fan had I gone here. But I did not. Great time, though. Wonderful place. You guys got to check it out If you haven't been. Great game. It was just all around great across the board.

Good vibes. So many bars there. No Lucy Curse this past weekend. The light show was fun. No Lucy Curse.

I keep getting comments. I got multiple comments this weekend that were just like, Wow, your first win ever. No. What do you mean? You think every single week I've lost? What is wrong with you? It's been a lot of the weeks, but not all of them.

That's true. Not all of them. Is it the best Athens? Is it better than the other Athens, you think, or no?

The one in Ohio? Yeah. I'm sure it's better than Athens, Ohio, but I haven't been there. I've actually heard wonderful things about Athens, Ohio as well.

Oh, maybe we should do a tour of all the Athens.

Yeah, Athens, Ohio, Athens, Georgia, and I think those are the only ones.

Yeah, I'm with you, though. Athens is a great college town. I was shocked by how big it was when I went there for a game. I went to the Georgia Notre Dame game a few years ago, right before COVID. Shockingly spread out in large place.

Yes. It is like you get your steps in there, which I didn't love as much, and it's so hilly that my calves were hurt by game time.

But I'm glad you got to see a win. And now we're in the throes of some of the most toxic college football playoff discourse that we've had in a long time, Lucy.

Yeah, but there's one thing that isn't toxic, and that's Cheez-It. No. They only bring joy and cheese into our life and crackers. So this season, we are feeling the cheesiest with cheese-its. So if your team is in the conversation, they're not in the conversation, just snack on some cheese-its. Just eat your feelings. Exactly.

We're not going to do a college football ranking reaction today. We're just going to talk about some of the best moments from this past weekend. But I do think we should start with Herbie Smart's comments after Georgia beat Tennessee, which Lucy, he's been on the offensive all season long because he doesn't think Georgia is getting enough respect.

They never do. They're always constantly doubted. A team that's always in the top five consistently. No one ever believes in them. No one. No one. That's why we didn't go to the game there that weekend because we didn't believe in them. That's why College Game Day wasn't there because they didn't believe in them. No one believes in the dogs.

In a week when there's been a lot of conversation about your tough schedule, playing on the road, some of the struggles that you guys have had, but also some of the positive moments, what do you think you showed the committee tonight?

Well, I don't know because I don't know what they look for.

I really don't know what they look for anymore.

So I would welcome anybody in that community to come down to this league and play in this environment.

It's a tough place to play. So do you think this was the game that Georgia needed to have? The way that they won, the style they won, and Carson Beck had a much better game this weekend. Is this what the doctor ordered for the Georgia Bulldogs?

Yeah, absolutely. An emphasis on the Carson Beck moment. I think it was funny. We sat in the stands for this game, so we were just around other Georgia fans. The way they talk about Carson Beck, I would really never hope to be spoken about in that manner. Oh, no. It was just really like, they've had enough of him as of lately. Just to see him throw the ball to the right team, although I do think Georgia has had a ton of issues just with their receiver's not catching what they should, offensive line not doing necessarily everything they should. This was really the game they needed. And it's weird to say, but this loss would have ended their college football playoff hopes, most likely. Three losses, you're really, really pushing it, but they looked good this year or this game. Tennessee, the way they rebounded after Tennessee's opening drive where they just were completely dominant, moved very efficiently, I thought was really, really impressive. Tennessee hurt themselves a lot throughout this game, but it's a good win for the dogs. I think they're pretty much... I won't say a playoff lock at this point. They still have Georgia Tech on the schedule, which they have been known to ruin a season or two.

But it was a really good win for Georgia. It's what they needed, the SEC. God, it's crazy this year.

It is. I thought, yeah, the most important stat, Tennessee didn't register a sack. Georgia's O-line played really well. Beck looked a lot better. Like you said, he had two touchdowns and one rushing touchdown. The Georgia offense, EPA per play, 89th percentile, EPA per dropback, 92, 92nd percentile. That's pretty good. So very impressive offensive production against a stout Tennessee defense. And now, like you said, they are right back in it. Tennessee's offense didn't look very good, Lucy, especially the second half. It was rough. I think my favorite meme in college football this year, but every year is the Christian Bale, like now that's very good. Let's see the unscripted drives meme. I don't know if you know. We'll put it on the screen. But yeah, like you said, they got off to a hot start, and then Georgia just really played well, dominated the rest of that game. So awesome, awesome game. I'm glad you got to see a fun home win in Athens. And now Georgia gets to play UMass because this is the time of year where all the SEC schools, for the most part, they get either their lower G5 opponents or they get to play an FCS team randomly at the end of the season.

I hate that so much. Every year this week rolls around, and I'm like, There's no reason Alabama should be playing in Bursa right now. What are you doing?

It's absurd. Okay, moving on to, I think, one of the most underrated games of this past weekend. Clemson and Pitt played one of the most insane college football games, Lucy, that I think I've watched in a while because of how many errors there were, how many weird officiating moments there were, the fact that Cade Clubnik single-handedly won this game for Clemson by a 50-yard countdown run at the end when they needed something. Lucy, it was absolutely crazy.

My favorite stat of the entire weekend was this Cade Clubnik 50-yard countdown run, because Jess, I'm sure you probably know the answer to this. How many rushing yards Clemson had before that?

They had 17, I think, the entire game, right?

Something like that. It was eight.

Oh, no. That's way worse. It was eight.

It was your two hands, so you could count it. That does include sacs, so it's not technically accurate. But eight rushing yards before Cade Clubnik, who you cannot be letting Cade Clubnik run on you like that. That is just crazy. Absolutely stole this game for Clemson, especially because the thing that was so funny to me was the officiating was obviously questionable at times, but it's the way that Pit would just lose on the dumbest possible penalties ever. Having that trip to the red zone with an illegal formation, delay of game, and false start. All of those are your fault.

All of those are on you. We need to talk about that red zone possession for Pit. So first there was a false start, but the refs didn't call it, and everyone on both lines of scrimage were super confused. So then Narduzzi was like, Okay, we need to call a timeout because everyone's freaking out right now. But Pitz still snapped the ball and scored a countdown. So then the timeout happened. So obviously, the countdown didn't count. And then timeout, coming out of the timeout, illegal formation. And then after the illegal formation, delay of game. And then they were on third and goal from the 16 and had to kick a field goal because they couldn't convert the third down. So, yeah, that was absolutely hysterical to watch. But, yeah, the officiating in this game with the various ruffings of the passers that were called and not called was batshit. Narduzzi was going nuts. We'll play the video of Narduzzi freaking out on the sideline. But it was a really funny game that does maybe have some... I mean, definitely has playoff implications for Clemson, although a lot of their fate will be left in other people's hands, I think, depending on how SMU and Miami finish the season.

But really tough stretch of losses here for Pitt, especially the improper snap in the Virginia game last week. Then going into this shit show, man, if Pit finishes the season seven and five, no one's going to be happy, Lucy. I'll be a little happy.

Except Lou is funny.

I'll laugh a little bit, too. It's a little bit funny.

I'm sorry. It's a little bit funny.

Should we talk about BIO finally losing a game this weekend?

I didn't necessarily think that Candice was the team that was going to beat BIO. I had my money on Arizona State this upcoming week, which could still very much happen. But this has been the same game that BIO has played the whole year. They've been playing with their food. They've been messing around. It was only a matter of time. The omens were set pretty early in this game. I think they knew that BIO was going to lose when Cosmo did a... Was it a front flip or a backflip? He did a flip over or like a round off, whatever. He did some gymnastics over a golf cart, timed it out a little poorly, and just got concussed on this golf cart.

Yeah, it was a tough scene. It was like, Oh, this could be... Oh, no, this is not what you want to see from your team's mascot before one of the biggest games of the season. But But yeah, Kansas is a weird team this year. Like you said, Lucy, they've had a bit of a resurgence these past few weeks, but all their games have been close this year. They just haven't been able to finish a lot of them. I think Jalen Daniels is playing a little bit better. He's gotten it going in the run game the last few weeks a little bit more. And so now, yeah, they've got some big games coming up where they could play spoiler again. So the Big 12 right now, as we've been saying all season, there's so much parody. Every team is so close to one another. And so down goes B-Y-U, another unbeaten done out of the college football ranks. We hardly knew Yee.

Tough.

It happens. I don't know what to say. Sorry. Another game that was funny depending on who you are, is a game that I think we also predicted. We said if DJ Lagaway was going to play for Florida, ipsy, ipsy, this might not be so good for LSU. And as it turns out, Lucy, did LSU look like they even wanted to be They were just so sad the whole time.

So we went out to a bar and watched this one in Athens. Shout out to all the Athens bars. We're such a huge fan. The final score of this game is unbelievably funny, given my favorite set of this game, which is time of possession. So for those of you who did that watch, Florida beat LSU 27 to 16. So you're probably thinking, Well, probably 35 minutes, Florida, 25, LSU, whatever. I think LSU over doubled Florida's time of possession. Lsu had the ball for 41 minutes and lost, compared to Florida's 18. Lsu statistically dominated this game, but they gave up seven sacks, which is more than they had given up the entire year combined. And that ended up being the real just like, Ah, moment for LSU. But it wasn't like Florida played a perfect game by any means. It was just straight up LSU lost, and LSU was bad, and you held the ball for 41 minutes, and you couldn't do shit.

Yeah, and Florida's offense was super efficient. I mean, they had 91th percentile in yards per play and the explosive play rate in the 85th percentile. Plus, every time they went to the red zone, they scored Lucy. And LSU couldn't stop them. So yeah, the Florida offense was not on the field for very long, but when they were, they made it count. And so now LSU is... The fans are freaking out about these yellow jerseys they're going to wear at home against We're built this week. I don't know if you saw that, but Florida is having a weird year. I think one thing in college football that is hard to measure is teams' trajectories. We picture teams as either they're getting better throughout the year or they're getting worse throughout the year. But the reality is most teams have peaks and valleys throughout the season. Florida, I think, is just one of those teams. Last weekend against Texas, they looked so terrible and bad, and Texas just kicked the shit out of them. And then they go in and play this game against LSU, and you're like, This team has some life. They're out there fighting.

And so it's one of those things where any Saturday there can be a upset like this. But this is a really mentally tough place for LSU because now it's their third loss of the season. They still have a couple of tough games left, Lucy. Brian Kelly's 10-game season win streak is no more. It's probably gone. It's goodbye.

I definitely listened to all you said for sure. I listened to all the words that you just said right there. But Florida, incredibly efficient offense. I'm ringing in my brain for the last 45 seconds. Just something I didn't think we'd say on GenCFB, and I'm happy there's a first for everything. I like Florida. They sent me stuff. Oh, yeah, that's true.

They did send you that nice box of stuff. We love them. Yeah. Cuit. The funniest loss of the weekend was Louisville, correct?

Yes. Absolutely.

Yeah. Want to paint the scene for us?

Yes. I want to start off with a moment that was only funny to me. It wasn't funny to one other person on the planet. Was just like watching a halftime ESPN show, and they're showing the score. You know how they always just had the little score bug that's like, you know. Tiger's. Versus Bulldogs or whatever. It just said Cardinal versus Cardinals, and that made me laugh. So I said, Oh, we're already off to a good start. Just a funny-looking little title card there. So yes, Louisville was at Stanford. They were all of 17 people in the crowd. Louisville was able to get out to an early lead. Stanford came back. So Stanford got the ball. This is late in the fourth, at their own 45. All right? So they needed to go a decent amount of yards just to get in field goal range. Obviously, they went on a a two-yard game-winning field goal. I think they ran. It was a one-yard play. They got a one-yard play, which ended up turning into a 15-yard play because Louisville was called for unsportsmanlike conduct. All right? That's not great. And Then they got another penalty, which put Stanford in another position to win this game.

It was a 52-yard game-winning field goal from Stanford to beat Louisville in just the most like, Just dumb penalties you've ever seen.

So dumb. I thought this game was for sure going to overtime. Louisville has screwed up the ending of several games this season that they've been in. All the games that they've lost for the most part, they maybe had a shot, maybe, and then just have completely botched the finish. So it was very... Look, I'm not laughing because like, Ha ha, Louisville, you suck. I'm laughing because the visual of a Stanford kicker kicking his career high distance field goal into a net in front of four fans in the stands is actually pretty funny. So that was your classic ACC, Cardinal versus Cardinal's matchup, Lucy. We're going to have this rivalry in college football for a long time. Thank you, conference realignment.

So weird. It's just insanely dumb. The whole thing is just insanely dumb, and those penalties are so dumb. I don't know what you say in the locker room after that. It's brutal.

Oh, my God, it's so brutal. Speaking of dumb penalties, there was a very funny moment in the Texas A&M, New Mexico State game where New Mexico State scored, and the player that scored just punted the football into the stands and got penalized for it. I just wanted to mention it because that's hilarious. There was a similar thing in the Notre Dame game this past weekend where Bradley Leonard threw an interception. I think Notre Dame was up 35 to zero. The Virginia guy that caught it ran up and stood on the bench and was chirping the Notre Dame fans in the sideline with the football. We're like, Okay, yeah. You got us. But that was a funny reaction to have. Fran Brown gets to shower this week, Lucy.

Congratulations. That's huge. That's huge for the whole town of Syracuse, New York. We're happy for everybody.

We are happy for everyone. We should probably talk about the Oregon game, though, right?

Yes. Oregon only won by three. I thought they'd win by a lot more. By the way, Iowa won by a lot more, so I'm not trying to say that.

Who did Iowa play this past weekend?

No, but when we played Wisconsin, we- Oh, right. Who did you...

Did you have a buy week?

Yeah, thank God. You can't lose that, even though we always lose coming off a buy, so we probably did.

The meme of Mike Norvell, the Florida State by Week, Florida State zero, buy week 50, and then Mike Norvell, Taylor, put that in in post. Very funny meme. I laughed.

Very good. Yeah. So this game, it happened the same time as Georgia, Tennessee, so we were only able to watch bits and pieces. Just let me say a quick shout out to every stadium that during a media timeout puts another game on the Jumbotron. We love you, and Georgia did that. So we're very grateful for whoever operates the Georgia Jumbotron. It just seemed like Wisconsin had a pretty good defensive game. They were able to get the stops they wanted. Something that Dan Lanning said that I thought was funny and weird is he talked about how jump around now had the Pavlov effect to them because he tried to preach. That was funny. Yeah, he tried to preach that jump around means it's time for you to bunker down. When you hear jump around, you know it's time to go. I feel like it takes more than a week to prep for that. How many times have you guys been doing the jump around? But whatever.

He's a football coach. He can say whatever he wants. Not a lot. I've been drinking the Dan Lanning Kool-Aid for two years now. So far, the season hasn't let me down. But you're right. Oregon, offensively, wasn't very good, but Wisconsin was worse. Which is why Wisconsin couldn't pull off the upset here. But Oregon just couldn't score or touch downs in the red zone, Lucy. They just couldn't finish the job. But once that, we should also mention, Wisconsin fired their offensive coordinator, Phil Lago right after this game. So that was a failed experiment. But one stat that stood out to me, Luke Fickle is 2 for 25 in his last 17 games against top 25 teams. That's not good. Wisconsin is 0 and 6 in the Luke Fickle tenure. In these games. Yeah. That's not good.

This year, they've led three top 25 teams at half and have lost every single one of those games. Wisconsin is one of those teams I'm incredibly fascinated by because the Luke Fickle hire, and this was that weird... Everybody was hired coaching cycle, but 2020, 2021, whatever it was. He was the widely consensus that was the best hire to make. Then he went and just completely was like, All right, I'm at Wisconsin. I'm going to change the identity of what Wisconsin football is. And Wisconsin is not a school you can do that at. The air rate isn't meant to see Madison. They don't belong together. And so the Phil Longo hire was terrible. The decision to just completely abandon what Wisconsin has done has been terrible. And so I don't think he's near the hot seat. I'm not trying to say that, but Wisconsin was very much a school that's like, If it ain't broke, don't fix it. And It wasn't really broken. It just needed some fine-tuning. I know Paul Chris was disappointed, but they were still winning eight, nine games a year.

Yeah, but they also like when the divisions existed in the Big Ten, the last few years for Wisconsin, they should have probably been better, right?

No, they should have been better. But I also think at the same time, it wasn't... Wisconsin didn't need an identity rebuild. It wasn't Indiana. It wasn't a completely bottom of the league football team. Needed to just spruce up what they did. And instead, Luke Fickle came in and said, We're going to change the entire makeup of Wisconsin. You don't have the talent in that state to do that. You need to stick to what works. Wisconsin has made their living off running the ball, doing it incredibly well, big beefy lineman. It's just he's tried to do too much where it was just like, I think you need to microdose the fun offense for Wisconsin. It's a team I'm incredibly fascinated by because I think it's just an experiment that has gone poorly because you're just doing too much. That team has no clue who it is.

The best headline I saw was that the Derry raid went sour. But yeah, I think the blueprint for Wisconsin is try to be more Michigan than you are Ohio State, I guess. Exactly. But I don't know how to do that. Luke Fickle has just got to win some games. He's just got to stack some wins next year. It's also tough when your quarterback gets hurt in the third game of the season, so we'll give him that, too. But yeah, tough tough season for Wisconsin. They've been in a lot of close games and then have just totally crapped the bed in them. Before we move on, Lucy, anything else you want to talk about from this past weekend? We've got some big games coming up. Big games coming up in week 13.

The only thing I really want to talk about it, which it's weird, I'm sick of talking about the Big 12. Arizona State. What a season, man. Yes.

It's been great point.

It was talking to somebody about it today where if Indiana wasn't having the season Indiana was having, Arizona State would be that we're talking about.

Taylor is clapping right now. He loves this.

I don't know why. Honestly, I think the Arizona State turnaround is even more impressive, just considering that the situation they came into is one that was riddled with NCAA penalties, losing scholarships. Herm Edwards left that program just in hell, like with the Sun Devil. But big win against Kansas State this weekend. Skatebu has been amazing. He's been one of the best runningbacks in college football, and they're just winning They're seven and two. They've got BIO this weekend, and they've just become a really, really solid football team that's going really under the radar. Obviously, Kansas State shot themselves in the foot, turned the ball over three times. They just couldn't convert when they needed to this weekend. But Arizona State, weirdly enough, still in the play for the Big 12, but it's just been a really wonderful season for them.

Yeah, and their quarterback, Sam Levitz, playing really well, too. You know what's underrated in college football? Having a very competent College football quarterback, Lucy. And if you got one of those, you can do great things. Shout out to Kenny Dillingham for that. Notre Dame plays Army this weekend at Yankee Stadium. I went to the last Yankee Stadium, Notre Dame game. Not going to lie, one of the funnest Notre Dame games I've ever been to. I'm not a huge neutral site person, but something about it. It was electric. I had a great time. It was so much fun. I got in trouble for having too much fun while being a Sports Illustrated employee. That's a story for another day, Lucy. But this is going to be a tough game for Notre Dame. And Army has not faced a defense this good this season. They have not faced an offense this good this season. But Army plays the option. They are going to try to run the ball for 18 plays, 14 minutes, 80-yard drives, and just choke Notre Dame out of it. That's the game plan. If they can execute that, I think the upset is possible.

But Notre Dame is a two-touch down favorite. They've already care of business against a different Service Academy earlier this season. So we'll see what happens in Yankee Stadium. But I think the even more exciting game for people that aren't a fan of the triple option is Indiana. At Ohio State.

Yeah, this is the biggest game in Indiana history. I'm not that familiar with Indiana football history, so I can't say that confidently.

I think that proves your point. I think that proves your point then. Yeah. Yeah.

Biggest game in Indiana football history. Kurt Signetti just got what an eight-year extension this week. Well deserved already. Yeah, this is like the game that everyone's looking forward to. One of the biggest games in college football history, not college football history, Indiana history, Big Ten, new Big Ten history. Winner pretty much goes to the Big Ten Championship game. There are still things that could go wrong. But we'll either get an Ohio State, Oregon rematch or we'll get Oregon, Indiana rematch, which is not rematch, but game. I do think Ohio State wins. I just think that Indiana hasn't really... Michigan is the best team they face, and they did struggle against them. Their offense wasn't able to produce like they normally do. But I don't think it's going to be a blowout by any means. I think it's maybe a 10-point Ohio State win. But we're sleeping on how good Indiana's run defense is. They're allowing just two five yards per carry. This is going to be like, it's a weird game because we feel like we've already seen a lot from Ohio State, which is crazy. You've played Oregon, Penn State, and Indiana all in a month span, which is just absolutely brutal.

But we're finally starting to see Indiana against that big, worthy competition. I think that Ohio State wins. The game is in Columbus, but I'm excited for this one. I'm excited. I'm not going to probably put money on it, but I'm excited.

Yeah, I'm excited, too. I think two weeks ago after the Michigan game, I was like, Ohio State is going to kill this team. But the more I have thought about it and the more I have slept on it, I think it could be close. I was looking at College Football Insiders, too, which does amazing previews of games. And obviously, you have to take every stat with a grain of given every adjusted metric means something different. But it convinced me that this one might be a lot closer than I was thinking it would be. So I'm with you. I'm not sure. I think I still favorite Ohio State. I think their best players are better than Indiana's best players. And I think sometimes the college football just comes down to that. Jeremiah Smith is electric. But Ohio State, they've struggled at times with teams worse than Indiana this season. So I am super excited to watch this one. There are a ton of great college football games this weekend. If you are a fan of the sport, man, we're coming down the stretch here. Things are going to get crazy. I can't wait for Vanderbilt at LSU, Lucy.

That could be a hilarious game. Mississippi and Florida, who knows? Stanford at Cal, one of the greatest rivalries of people that are stereotypically considered nerds of all time, but we love them. The band is on the field, Lucy. It is a great, great college football rivalry, and we love our Cal, Calgorithm fans. They had a rough season. I think we're both rooting for them this weekend.

Oh, yeah. One of those nerds, my best friend. Happy birthday, Hannah.

Happy birthday, Hannah. Go, bears. Go, bears. Not the Chicago ones, though.

Not those. No.