Transcript of The Craziest College Football Weekend in History? | Local Hour

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There is nothing casual about football season. You can tell yourself you're just gonna watch one game, and 6 hours later, you're emotionally invested in a 4th quarter between 2 teams you don't even care about. That's what I love about this time of year. The entire weekend becomes football. You're texting friends, tracking games, second-guessing coaches, convincing yourself you saw something before everybody else did. And then Monday comes around and you get to do the whole thing again. Those are the weekends you remember. And for me, some of the best ones have usually involved some good people, a great game, and a cold Miller Lite. No matter what triumphs are in store this season, legendary game days start with Miller Lite. Cold, crisp, refreshing, that clean finish. And it's part of plenty of memorable football weekends. Make game day legendary. Go to millerlite.com/dan to find delivery options near you, or you can pick up some Miller Lite pretty much anywhere they sell beer. Game time is Miller time. Celebrate responsibly. Miller Brewing Company, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. 96 calories and 3.2 carbs per 12 ounces.

Roy, what happened at the cemetery?

All right, I, uh, I buried my friend of 30 years. Unfortunately, on Sunday, the actual day of the burial, I never got a time. So, um, my friend Tom texted me like, I think this is happening at 10. I thought it was at noon. It was like 10:30. Luckily, I was already dressed and I picked Tommy up, went to the cemetery. Not a single person was there, man. Circled the entire cemetery 4 times before I asked somebody in the office, Hey, is this happening or not? Apparently not. So, so one more time.

Had it already happened or what?

It already happened, Dan. I missed it. Missed it.

How much earlier than 10 AM could it have been? Was it the day before?

I thought it was at noon, so we were— I was obviously— I was gonna end up being 2 hours late. Instead, I was 1 hour late. We got there at 11.

So they wrapped it up quick though.

Yeah, it was pretty quick. It was a weekend-long funeral. The wake was Friday, celebration of life was Saturday, and the burial was Sunday.

Okay.

This is terrible news to start the show with.

It really is, right?

But what—

how often do you get a cemetery misadventure?

Yeah, exactly. But I was laughing the entire time because this is the type of misadventures that my friends got into when we were younger, you know.

Dan just did the, we're all trying to figure out who did this, and as he's wearing a hot dog suit, it's like, yeah, that is a weird way to start the show. You started it!

I know, but it's only because Roy had the misadventure, and it's very infrequent that Roy comes in with a misadventure. It's not something, uh, it's not the most common thing in the world. So when Roy's walking through and he's just, uh— did you get in trouble with anybody?

No, I did get out of the car because I saw 2 tents. I was hoping to find at least a marker, but everything was covered up and, uh, scattered. So it was empty, man. Completely empty.

But you, you go to the funeral, at least in part, to be seen by the other people who are there to share in the mourning. Uh, you didn't get to share either the mourning or the mourning.

Luckily they saw me on Friday and Saturday. They just didn't see me on Sunday.

Dan goes to funerals for attendance. Like, I was here, I was here, you all saw it, you saw me.

I mean, you don't go to the funeral to have it be the way that Roy had it go where nobody knows he was there. There's no proof that Roy was there to be mourning or in grief over his friend on the Sunday that he was being buried.

What is this proof you keep talking about?

I should have took a selfie.

There's no proof. He's wandering around the grounds and there's no proof from anybody who cares about this person that Roy cared enough to show up. They think Roy slept in.

I have a question, Roy.

Um, what made you more upset, not being able to mourn at the funeral or no one knowing that you were there?

I would say both.

See, you think I was— you think I had it wrong. All you guys are mocking there and all I am is more honest than the rest of you.

you went to the other stuff throughout the weekend and then you didn't go to, you know, the, the grand finale in the end, like, they, they may think that you had enough. You were like done with this.

Exactly. That's the— I was thinking that the entire time, unfortunately. But, uh, they saw me the entire weekend. I, I, I made my due diligence. I was there.

I also missed Mike Norvell's funeral.

The grand finale, Zazz. The grand finale. We're going to have a 3-loss team in the college football playoff right before it ever gets to 24 teams. We're going to have this year a 3-loss team. What an interesting weekend in college football, not the NFL. College football had a weekend that you will rarely ever see. And it is funny, Zaslav, to be in a space where people want to know more about college football than they ever have, and we know less about college football than we ever have.

I don't want to be hyperbolic, Dan, because if there's 2 things that everybody knows about me, number one, not a cuck, I'll never be a cuck. Number two, I'm not hyperbolic. All right? I feel like this was as great a weekend of college football in a long, long time. It was crazy, Dan.

Okay, but here numerically is what Zazz is saying, because never mind the feels like, 5 of the top 8 lose, 3 of them at home. 15 of the top 22 played one-score football games. And when I say we don't know what we're talking about, not since 1961 has the following happened. Texas was number 1 2 weeks ago. They've lost consecutive weeks to unranked teams. Most of the people who voted the last time that happened are no longer alive. People thought Texas was the number 1 team in the country. Today they're talking about, wait a minute, Arch Manning's not any good.

Well, I would push back on that a little bit. Like, this whole time Texas had been number 1 in the country for most of the season, but there was always like this feeling of, eh, are they really the best team in the country? But, but, but to the same thing, you know, Georgia— when Georgia finally took the mantle last week, it was like, yeah, that, that's a number 1 team. And, and then they still lost the following week.

Okay, but I don't know what was the most interesting thing about Saturday, okay? Because that Indiana-Ohio State game was bonkers. Ohio State Yeah. But they lose their starting quarterback. He's off in a sling. The way he got flattened, like, it was picturesque if you're Indiana. The way that he gets hit by a 290-pound defensive tackle and is just laying on the center of the turf. And then when Feag comes into the game, Ohio State has a guy who's backpedaling. The whole team spent the entire second half backpedaling because they were so scared. What did you think of the last play? Let's start there. before we get to UM and FSU, because Miami was dying to lose that game this weekend. I don't know. I don't know how you guys feel about Miami being number 1. Are you happy about Miami being number 1, Mike? Are you— are you happy that this point in the season when everyone else has fallen, Miami's undefeated and UCLA is undefeated? That's what you've got that's undefeated.

I haven't been the number 1 team in the nation in 24 years. Yeah, I think it's a monumental— it's a monumental achievement for everything that Miami has been building. So while The rankings are largely BS. And I think this weekend shows us that preseason rankings are really stupid. Yes, I'm thrilled that Miami is number 1. That's what they've worked so hard for.

Weren't they number 1 going into Pittsburgh with Mark Richt?

No, they were number 2. But number 1 was there for the taking because of the results headed into that weekend.

So, you know what? Let's start there and we'll get back to Indiana-Ohio State because the way that game played out, Miami had almost 600 yards in total offense. I'd be worried about their defense going into Notre Dame against C.J. Carr. Are you worried about that? Because that defense is— what Norvell did with screen passes, because they need the blitz now in order to get pressure, they cannot get pressure with 4, so they have to take chances. Norvell, with a couple of screen passes, showed you exactly how it is that you can beat that blitz.

I think that the Canes offense is good enough to beat anyone. And I think that's what you're going to be talking about going into South Bend. It's going to— like, they're going to have to win a shootout.

I'm surprised at the take. The issue is the offense. If there is an issue here, the defense was, was fine. Mike Norvell has shown throughout his time at FSU he knows how to game plan. And I think that that's—

But Notre Dame's offense is a lot better than FSU.

It's not about better. It's about matchups. Like, for instance, against Notre Dame, I'd be worried about that matchup. Right now, this Miami offense is missing the dimension that Josh Moore brought to the table. If they throw outside, it's something underneath to Malachi or Lofton. We don't have a prototypical deep threat on the sides. So, and what Notre Dame does very well is it sits on those underneath routes, and that's Miami's entire offense right now. I would be concerned watching that tape about the pass blocking. This has been an issue.

This is—

I don't think there's a complete team in the nation. I still think that Miami is the most complete and I trust their staff to fix it, but that pass blocking is an issue and Mensah feels pressure that isn't there often because he doesn't trust the pass blocking.

Everybody's flawed, but I'm surprised by your take. Miami had 583 yards of total offense.

Yeah, we could run whenever we wanted there and some of the play calling was a little confusing and those, those 3-and-outs, those successive 3-and-outs that happened, there were some Some things that reminded me of what Wake Forest was able to do in that second half. But if Miami's offense scores 35, they're going to win the national championship.

That's what I'm thinking.

And I'm most worried in this equation—

That they're not going to get to 35?

Yeah. Yeah. I think that the offense now has some warts to it that, that have popped up here.

Okay. That's not what I'm worried about. Okay. It's not just 443 yards that they allowed to FSU, an FSU team that is really, really flawed. You got 4th and 31 twice at the end and they're just throwing into your end zone and should take the— should have touchdowns on both of the plays.

I still don't know what happened on the final play. I got to be honest, Dan.

I mean, they got lucky the same way they got lucky against Virginia Tech. That is simply to be lucky. What are you— what are you sighing about?

Lucky in that the plays were reviewed and the call on the field— it's— everyone's acting like they didn't analyze this.

Let me ask you, if the call on the field was FSU had that ball, would they have overturned it?

I don't think so.

I watched the reviews. I have no idea.

To me, I'm going to wear my homers stuff here. It was pretty clearly— it was pretty clearly Bryce Fitzgerald coming down with the ball first and then Deuce Robinson trying to get his hands on it. And I know in most of those instances they say tie goes to the receiver. I don't think it was a tie. And I think the clips, like every breakdown that I've seen of it, is like they probably got the call right. Everybody has a huge problem with the holding that happened before. I'll tell you, I agree with That was— that— I couldn't believe how late that flag came.

Oh, you think it was BS, the holding call?

No, I think— I— yes, it was. They shouldn't have called holding there. That was, that was crazy, especially since if you watch that drive, they were letting get it, uh, letting FSU get away with tons of holding. So I thought that they were gonna let them play.

That's interesting that you say that, because certainly upon first seeing it, and even replays the next morning, it looked like a really soft holding call. But then yesterday I saw another angle with some dude breaking it down, and Yeah, it looked like a hold.

They're saying that he got underneath both pads and then pulled him down.

That he was in the, uh, inside the, you know, the neck, whatever.

Here's where the way that they were calling that drive in particular, they were letting FSU hold every play. So that call seems soft given what they established. And also pretty sure FSU had a backwards pass that they just blew dead that Miami came up with.

Let me explain to you the number of reasons Miami got lucky, okay? Uh, because They had 2 stops inside of their 5-yard line. Like, Norvell wouldn't kick field goals. He wanted only touchdowns because he thought touchdowns was what he was going to need. And so they get 2 goal-line stands, and at the end of the game, twice— once on 4th and 31, they look like they're completing passes in the end zone when there's only one place they can throw the ball and have it work. I'm just stunned to hear that in a game when they had more total offense against an For the first time in the history of an FSU team that I can ever remember, Mike's worried about the offense and not the defense going into Notre Dame.

Yeah, it's a point total. If we get to 35, we win. And I'm worried that our quarterback feels pressure that isn't there. And oftentimes there's more pressure there than usual. And when you project that against more talented teams, that's where this season can get undone. I, I, I'm— my head is spinning at the, at the defensive takes because our defense is the best in the nation headed into that game. Like, things happen. He can game plan. we have short guys guarding against Hail Marys and no one's knocking the ball down. I think most— like, look at all the yards that came from those big chunk plays. I, I think that Miami's defense is going to end up being okay. For me, it's the pass blocking.

Hey, what do you mean when you say your quarterback is worried about pressure that isn't there?

He doesn't trust the pass blocking, so he's starting to feel he's getting a little antsy in the pocket.

I was surprised to see him throw an interception because I trust him. Like, I have grown to think that he is somebody who can be trusted. And so when I see him throw an interception, it was confusing to me. Like, I'm like, oh, that's strange that he would make that decision there or that he would make that mistake there. Let's talk for a second, though, about Malachi Tony and the ways that he opens everything up, because if you're going to be concerned about the offense, the place that I would be concerned about the offense is just If he's hurt. Because do you see what they look like every time this guy's limping? Every time he's limping, all of a sudden the offense does not look— it's been, it's been like, you know, 2 half quarters where he limps or, or has trouble with his oblique. And all of a sudden the offense against Wake Forest in the second half can't do anything. And in this game, when he went away, all of a sudden you can game plan against Miami's offense. All of a sudden, no matter, no matter even if it's not Fletcher who's doing the damage with the running.

Oh, the running back room definitely rose to the occasion with Mallory doing like that Frank Gore overtime run. Mallory's, uh, really making everybody that made those Frank Gore comparisons seem pretty, pretty smart. Yeah, Malachi Tony definitely was feeling something in that game, and when he went out of, uh, when he went out of the field of play, Miami's offense sputtered a little bit, and you had the successive 3-and-outs that really helped FSU grow into that game. I thought FSU was really, really good. And a lot of their big plays came on, you know, 1v1 man, like make your guy miss and house it. They had a lot of chunk plays. They took advantage of Miami's aggressiveness on defense. There's a lot of stuff there that can help Miami going forward, but for me, the offense is pretty limited if you don't trust the pass blocking, if you don't have a downfield threat the way that Josh Moore provided. So I'm worried about those things, especially in a matchup against Notre Dame.

How was the atmosphere?

Second loudest I've heard that building.

Really?

Second loudest I've ever heard that building.

Loudest is Notre Dame, right?

The Trajan Bandy pick-6.

Yeah, that was loud.

Nuclear pop. But yeah, the stadium definitely was a great atmosphere.

Really?

And definitely helped Miami pull through a game that they probably didn't deserve to win. I think of all the takes, even though I think the interception was the right call, I do kind of agree with Scott Van Pelt's assessment, which is they made so many big plays down the end and the penalty was unfair. Just give them the touchdown. Let's go for 2. Because remember, they still need to get the 2-point conversion to send it to the weird 3rd overtime in college football.

Where is that? When you just do extra points?

Where you just trade off 2-point conversions.

I never know the rules.

I think that would have been just— FSU gets an opportunity to tie the game with a 2-point conversion.

So many rules in football.

There are a lot of flawed teams, and these are very often kids barely out of high school. They're learning how to play football. College kids can't be trusted. But that Florida State team hasn't won a road game since 2023. Like, that is really concerning that you would be a 3-touchdown favorite against Florida State. You saw what Florida State did against Louisville, right? And then what Louisville did against Syracuse. I know that we don't know very much. Florida State's not any good. I know that. I know that.

Ask Alabama.

I know Florida State's not any good. And what happened in that game was surprising to me because they should have lost it. And they should have lost it with 600 total offensive yards. That's crazy to say.

Yeah, I think Florida State isn't terrible. And given the limitations of that entire program, you come away from that game thinking like, can they do something better than Mike Norvell if they're not going to have resources?

Mike, when I tell you they're 10-21 over the last 3 years, it's one of the worst Division I program records that there is anywhere in the sport.

No doubt. That would have been a crazy loss for Miami. We saw with Georgia how embarrassing it can be if you lose as a 20-plus-point favorite at home. Thankfully, Miami survived where other teams couldn't.

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Going for 2 when you're up by 5. Switching the zone when man isn't working. Oh, and building your new stadium in the state your team actually plays in. In sports, some things just make sense. You know what else makes sense? Drinking Jägermeister shots. Ice cold. Drinking it any other way would be like punting on first down, or letting your worst hitter bat first, or like going for 2 when you're down 3 with a second to go. It wouldn't make any sense. So don't let the team down when it comes to Jägermeister. Drink it cold or don't drink it at all. Jägermeister.

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Folks, listen up. You know what nobody thinks about until it ruins your entire afternoon? Glare. You've got the TV exactly where you want it, you've got the couch, you're ready for 7 straight hours of football, and then the sun moves 3 inches and suddenly you're watching the game like this, like, I'm leaning, I'm squinting, I'm trying to figure, is that a touchdown? And instead of fixing the actual problems, we'll just live with that. Yeah, around 4:15 you just can't see the TV. No problem. Yes, problem. That's insane. Your windows matter. The right window treatment can change the way a whole room looks, feels, and most importantly, whether you can actually see what you're watching. Blinds.com makes it easy. Go DIY or have a vetted pro handle everything from measuring to installations. You can talk with an award-winning design expert for free, virtually, with no awkward in-home visit. They'll even send up to 10 samples fast and free, and everything is backed by their SureFit guarantee. Visit blinds.com right now for an exclusive $50 off when you spend $500 or more with code DAN. That's blinds.com with code DAN.

Dan Levitar.

For 5 minutes, I was watching everyone just like, nope, not letting you in, not letting you in. So when I got up there, I had to say something, and I said it. Cheaters never prosper.

Chris Cody.

My buddy was saying, not today.

Yeah, but you're—

Not today.

I think that was what he was adding.

Yeah, that would have been so much better.

But I'm telling you, the response I got from this This guy—

what I said was amazing.

Cheaters never prosper.

This guy yelled as angry as he could.

I ain't cheating! This is the Dan Le Batard Show.

The rivalry games in that sport are always interesting because it wasn't just Auburn winning at Georgia, it was Florida winning at Texas. Yeah, for that. BYU winning at home against Notre Dame. What good does Notre Dame have in its heart when all of a sudden after the game, the conference says, hey, sorry, we should have given you another second? What, what kind of solace is that exactly? And does that take it— get taken into account when you start putting these people in the rankings? Notre Dame, Notre Dame, listen to this. Notre Dame has not beaten a top Notre Dame's always been in the conversation for the last couple of years as considered one of the national championship contending elite. They have not beaten a top 15 team since 2024. And in this particular game, the winning throw by BYU, I don't know if you guys saw this, but it should have hit the referee in the face. The referee ducked and it missed his head by, I think, this much. It should have hit him in the head. What good does it do after the game? It's a great point. What kind of— how many— if that had happened to Miami, what do you think that people would be saying if they, if, if they were denied a second and then the conference said afterwards, sorry, our bad?

I feel like using Miami as a hypothetical is maybe the wrong one this week because they just got away with something and won a game against FSU.

That's it. A lot of people are just disappointed they didn't get that moment. And I get that. It was an interception. They reviewed it. They looked at it. It was an interception. Bryce Fitzgerald got there early. It wasn't a tie.

I like when Mike does this condescending, oh, that's real well and good, but it was already ruled an interception.

I mean, it was like, to me, like the bigger insult is like, freaking knock it down. Why do we have short guys back there guarding against a Hail Mary? You got lucky there. There was bad personnel decisions made.

BYU should be the number 1 team in the country, not Miami. They're in the better conference and they have the better win.

I don't disagree. I don't disagree with the better conference stuff. They have a winning record against the ACC. Utah is good. BYU is good. Texas Tech is good. It's been a tougher conference this year, no doubt. And that Notre Dame game should, should really change the way that we talk about the Big 12, no doubt.

Dan, in true we're doing 2 shows at the same time fashion, while you were talking, we were having our own very sober Mike conversation around here about his predictions for next week. Mike, do you want to share? Is this something that we're going to What prediction? For Miami-Notre Dame.

Oh, that's not next week. We play Pitt.

It's in 3 weeks.

Yeah, we play Pitt, who by the way is—

Time is a construct.

And then at North Carolina on Halloween. Spooky.

Yeah, North Carolina's playing better. Pitt's the number 1 rush defense in the nation. So look, they sell out for it.

So the passing offense— They're playing without their backup quarterback.

Yeah, no, their season's come undone. But defensively, Miami's going to have to lean on a passing game that I think appears a little bit more limited than we care to realize.

This is what I heard last week. Zaslow said of FSU, Miami's going to kick the bleep out of them. So not only start kicking them and kicking them and kicking them, but then they were going to bleep themselves because all of the kicking that was happening, the, the bleep was going to come out of them and end up on the floor. And Mike was saying that Miami was going to step on FSU's neck. None of that happened.

No, no, no, it didn't. It's a rivalry game.

Your perspective.

Yeah, it was a rivalry game. I thought that we were going to end Mike Norvell, and instead I actually came away really impressed with Mike Norvell's recent track record against much better Miami teams. But what Amin was alluding at is I, I now think we lose to Notre Dame.

Yeah, there you go.

There it is.

That's the show he was doing back here.

Yeah.

While you guys are talking about, oh, BYU has a better schedule, he's over here telling us that Notre Dame is going to beat Miami.

I think we're going to need to be a little bit more creative without a traditional outside deep threat unless Jacobs emerges here. I think Miami, their passing game, what Notre Dame does really well is they sit on the underneath stuff. They can make those tackles. And we lean on that part of our game quite heavily right now. So I think Notre Dame in terms of styles-making fights is, is very well equipped to stop what Miami does very well.

But that's not the part I'm worried about. The part I'm worried about is your secondary can't guard anybody, is hurt, and CJ Carr is somebody who I believe can dice you up a little bit.

Well, those—

all those things are related. First off, the secondary can guard people. The secondary has been really good despite all the injuries. Remember, Xavier Lucas got kicked out of that game. So you finally get him back and then he's there for like 5 minutes And yeah, like, we had some other injuries there, but I do think that this is a personnel thing. I think the secondary, like, leaning on that one performance there, 2 huge chunk plays that were—

It's not the one performance. It's also what Wake Forest did to them. Like, if you've got—

Wake Forest hasn't looked that bad.

I know.

Against us, they looked pretty bad.

I know, but Notre Dame, I only lost— I believe, yeah, Wake Forest is really good. We already talked about this, but what Wake Forest was able to do to your secondary, I believe that Notre Dame was able to do to your secondary. I think Notre Dame can do similar things to your secondary.

They're not as explosive and the running game is inconsistent. I think that's a, that's a rock fight and I think that the D-line of Notre Dame can get after our offensive line a little bit. For me, what scares me about Notre Dame is what they can do defensively to our offense. My takeaway is not the defense. I think if you're worried about the chunk plays and the secondary and all that stuff can be answered by getting guys healthy and even the backups have had some really good moments. I'm not at all worried about the defense. Not at all.

This is a really good emotional hedge by Mike, what he's doing here. I get it. I get it and I like it.

Yeah, but you guys told me you weren't scared of Deuce Robinson and then he's in your end zone doing the upside-down U.

Yeah, well, I thought Xavier Lucas would be out there guarding him, but yeah, we covered their big guys with short guys and we missed tackles. And Omar Thornton, despite being able to replicate some of what Keontae Scott did on the blitzing stuff and being a solid blitzer for Miami, I think he's a bit of a weak spot in the secondary at this moment.

Love a good blitz.

A blitz. Malachi Tony has missed time against Wake Forest, against Clemson, and now against FSU. And when he leaves the game, it's not just that you notice, you feel it. They, they all of a sudden become a 3-and-out team. That second half against Wake Forest, you go from the first half, Mike's worried about the offense. And this is what happened against Wake Forest. You complete 20 of 20 passes. And when the coach comes out at halftime, he tells the sideline reporter, yeah, I thought our defense played great. While allowing 20-for-20 from Mensah to start the game. The things that you saw in that game on Saturday when you're a 3-touchdown favorite, I do believe that you have to be encouraged simply by the fact that you survived it on a weekend when everyone else went down bad. Amen.

Amen. It's just, to me, again, the defense won us that game. The defense was called on after the offense sputtered. After the offense passes midfield and gets itself out of field goal range, the offense let Miami down. The defense had several opportunities to lose that game and they made plays. They got big 3-and-outs. So again, I, I just, I just don't understand that takeaway.

I, I don't like what we're doing. I really don't. You know, the Canes are number 1 in the country for the first time in 24 years. They're undefeated and we're sitting here talking about the things that they did wrong against FSU on a weekend where so many top 10 teams lost and how the Canes are going to lose at Notre Dame in a few weeks. What are we doing here?

Well, Jeremy, can you do me the favor of just looking up for me when Miami played against FAMU and won 77-7? Can you give me their total yardage in that game just so that people understand how bad this FSU team is?

I'll bet it wasn't 600.

I bet you it's pretty close to about 600 yards.

Against FAMU?

Against FAMU, yes. What they did against Florida State in terms of recreating offensive output, I'm guessing it was right about where it is that this game was.

They had 856 total yards.

All right, like I said, I'll bet it's a lot more than 600.

That's crazy.

That kind of blew up in Dan's face a little bit. 856 yards?

There's a 6 in there.

600 yards is still a ton of yards.

It's not 850.

It's not the counting numbers, it's the offense went 3-and-out in crucial times. had opportunities to win the game and FSU got, got to stop an offense that we feel really good about. I know you keep trying to get to the point, which is a huge takeaway here, is Malachi Tony is the best player in the country. He had multiple moments in that game. The RPOs were sexually graphic in nature that we were running with Malachi Tony.

Oh.

The catch at the middle of like Mensah dropping that ball in between 3 defenders, no gloves because it's raining out. Malachi Tony, unbelievable concentration. You have the Heisman moment with the 2-point conversion. Malachi Tony, if he wins a national championship, it is all there for the guy in terms of all-time Miami Hurricanes lore because he is a one-man wrecking crew.

Dan, at this point, you're looking back at the total yards here. They were closer in individual rushing yards and individual passing yards in that FAMU game to the total in the game against FSU than the total between the 2 games.

Dan Le Batard.

Put a finger in there, but if you tell anyone, I'll deny it.

Mike Ryan. Don't just stare at it, eat it. This is the Dan Le Batard Show.

Put it on the poll, please. Uh, was the RPO sexually graphic in nature? And when he says that Malachi Tony is the best player in the country, says, uh, Jeremiah Smith would like a word.

Malachi He would also like a quarterback.

Yes. His quarterback's arm is in a sling. I don't know if they're in some trouble.

I would say you look at the schedule they have the next few weeks. It's USC, Oregon, and Northwestern. They can be in a little bit of trouble.

Yeah.

Eventful news coming out of Eugene, Oregon overnight. Go ahead and check that.

Yeah, they got a DUI. And Rhule again came close to having a signature win. Matt Rhule came very close to having a signature win. That game started at 11:00 p.m. If you didn't have enough crazy in your day on Saturday with everything that happened in college football, to have Oregon, Nebraska start at 11:00 PM and then go deep into the night. Ohio State has a bye in there. But I do believe they've got a major problem in that if you were watching that game, their quarterback was scared like he was in Indiana and he was obviously— Fahey was— he was scared of everything that was happening out there because he's not ready for what—

I thought you were talking about Sain too, because Sain, as Miami showed in the Cotton Bowl, if you get home, he's a totally different quarterback. Many quarterbacks have struggled with pressure, but the variance in no pressure And pressure for Julian Sayan is quite measurable.

Dan, the NFL is great and the NFL doesn't need me to defend it. But anyone who says that college football is not better than the NFL, you have to laugh in their face, right?

No, man.

That moment at the end with Nick Marsh and Josh Hoover. Nick Marsh is getting crushed. I understand why people are pointing the finger at him, but Josh Hoover, he was open by a mile.

It's not even close.

You can't put the ball—

Well, hold on, hold on. Before you go down this path, let's just— you just said Malachi Tony is the best player in the country. And I was reading an article on ESPN.com before the game this weekend.

Nerd.

That they were, they were talking about Jeremiah Smith being the best college receiver there has ever been.

What?!

And in that, they were comparing him to Randy Moss.

Both things can be true.

Have they ever heard of a guy named Peter Warwick?

Just, just like, both things can be true. Jeremiah can be the greatest college wide receiver ever and Malachi Tony can be the best player in college football.

The difference in the Indiana-Ohio State game was Ohio State made both of its 4th-down conversions and Indiana didn't, and in the most spectacular way possible, right? Because Ohio State on 4th 4th and 1, Sain drops back to pass and just punts, basically punts the ball to Jeremiah Smith, who's double-covered in the end zone, and he comes down with the ball. And then you were mentioning Hoover and March. Let's talk about that play for a second. What a balls call. Do you have the balls imaging? This is the first balls imaging that has been given to a loser because Indiana lost that game. But 4th and 4, Zaslow, when the corner was sitting on the slant and that route was so perfectly run.

Balls!

The ballsiest of balls.

Ballsy.

Oh, the balls that took. Cojones.

Balls! Ballin' it.

It's time for the ballsiest move of the weekend.

He did that in one take.

Balls.

Balls are fragile, aren't they?

Nah, nah, nah, made of steel sometimes.

I think that they're never made of steel.

Oh yeah, they are.

And I think that it's a strange thing to say that, uh, when, when something is courageous, it's ballsy, given it's among the most fragile parts of the body. Balls.

What makes it That's what makes it ballsy, Dan, is that you're taking the most fragile, most vulnerable part and saying, I'm so confident that success will happen, I'm willing to put myself out on a limb in the most vulnerable of fashions. That's what makes it ballsy.

Yep. You don't understand how balls work.

That—

balls!

Well, thank you for the clarification. Once you put it that way, I understand better. I didn't understand before, but when you do it that way—

Amin, are you wearing a Kawhi Leonard Rhode Island Energy jersey?

Oh, it's an RIFC jersey. Is it a Kawhi Leonard? I just, I was, you know, number 2 is my favorite number and so I looked up and down the roster and said, oh, number 2.

Let's talk about the last play in the Indiana-Ohio State game because the, the route that was run was perfect and all you have to do is throw the ball inbounds. Admittedly under pressure because that's not the easiest throw to make, but you just have to keep it in bounds. Was Marsh getting killed for stepping out of bounds on that because he He had 3 yards on the defensive back, and I thought Indiana was going to win the game in the ballsiest fashion on 4th and 4, just playing for the entire game.

Big for the ball knower discourse. You know, if someone knows ball, if they're blaming Nick Marsh or blaming Josh Hoover, because that was Josh Hoover's fault.

It was a play, uh, that should have given Indiana the game in the most spectacular of fashions.

Uh, I don't know, you got to keep your feet in Like, was the throw perfect? No, but he could have kept his feet up.

He had an entire end zone to put the ball in. That's how wide open Nick Marsh was, and he put it in the spot he could have.

He had a defender in his face, okay? Hoover had a defender in his face. It was not— he did not get to make a clean throw. That was not a bad throw because—

He also had a receiver in the end zone having a mimosa.

Yeah, he, uh, he was wide open, says, and he could have put it anywhere in the end zone, and instead he threw it.

He could have. There was no one near him.

This might be a classic. Both things can be true.

Always try to put it in the end zone.

The games from this weekend, if I tell you to choose the biggest upset, is it Auburn-Georgia? Is it Cardinals over Rams in the NFL? Is it Florida-Texas?

That one.

I was there for that.

That one.

That one.

That one changes everything.

It was awesome.

But like the top half of the SEC just totally imploded. I love that you started the show with saying no one knows anything. That's what we've been saying the entire time. Like the SEC isn't this monster. The Big Ten isn't this monster. There are no elite teams here. We got to stop talking about college football like this is 2020 and we got to start talking about this is the new reality of college football.

Dan, you want to talk about balls? John Sumrall Went for 4th and 12 down 17-3 with his backup quarterback.

Yeah.

Who couldn't complete any passes. Yeah, at the time.

But Sumrall's always going for it on 4th down. That guy's crazy.

4th and 12!

That guy's nuts. And, uh, their secondary is weak, and Arch Manning didn't do much of anything against their secondary.

He's not good.

I was asking that question weeks ago.

He's not good. Oh no, he's the number 1 overall pick.

Oh, why?

Who's that impression? That's not me.

You know who.

I know it's not me.

I'm, I'm going to give the stat again in case you missed it. It hasn't happened since 1961 where a team we thought was number 1 lost its next 2 games to unranked opponents. That's not knowing anything. That really is— we know nothing if we're putting someone at the very top of college football and in consecutive weeks they lose to unranked opponents. So how many years is that? That's 39, 26, 57 years. That has been math right there.

Dan, question, do you think they knew more about football in 1961 than we know now?

We can't ask those people because they're all dead. All the voters in that poll are now dead.

Greg's still here.

And it was tough to watch every team back then.

It was more difficult back then to really have an idea of what it is that happened at the Indiana game.

Okay, but let me make this argument for you.

It would be sent by courier. You'd get it by some sort of typed thing delivered by pigeons.

It was tough to get an update on Louisville-Syracuse back then.

Let me—

no, it wasn't. You had to go to a phone bank and everyone would just call all the press like, hey, it's a baffle performance by Johnson. But no, here's my— here's my thing. Here's my theory, guys. I think we have information overload, right? And when it was simpler, it was easier to understand rudimentarily what was happening. But as we add more and more information without the lack of discretion of is this useful information or not, or is this this piece of information as useful as this other piece of information. It's caused us to have this paralysis by analysis leading us to know less about the sport than we did 56 years ago.

57. I like the idea—

61?

I like the idea that we don't know what we're watching because we clearly don't. You're talking— the SEC doesn't have an undefeated team. The last time we talked, do you remember the last time we talked about UCLA? It was when DeShawn Foster was giving that press conference as their head coach.

Rough moment.

Where it was an introductory press conference and he clearly didn't know how to do a press conference. And now UCLA is unbeaten and nobody had that. Nobody had that. If I had told you before the season, what kind of odds do you think I would have gotten 6 weeks in? SEC doesn't have an undefeated team, but UCLA is undefeated.

Million to one.

SEC doesn't have an undefeated team. Where are the good teams? Like, I do believe we can just say flatly they're all flawed.

They're in Utah.

Well, that's part of my lament, and we need to stop talking about things in those terms. D-Money had a great take on Kane's insight. Nobody's good compared to what? Compared to what? Because right now, compared to the rest of the nation, There are plenty of good teams. There's just not the standard elite team where, you know, that team is chock-full of NFL talent and they're gonna run this thing. We gotta deprogram ourselves.

So we should say there are no elite teams?

At the end of the day, the team that's winning the natty is going to be elite. So there's an elite team in there. It's just compared to the 2010s, it's a different time in college football and we need to accept that.

How about compared to 1961?

Put it on the poll at Le Batard Show. Do we need to deprogram ourselves? Yes or no? Because, uh, I think it's fair to say the SEC is not any good. I think that that's okay to say.

Compared to what?

The SEC that I remember.

But it's interesting, right? Because you're just looking at the top of it. Because to me, I'm seeing an SEC—

No, I'm looking at Missouri too. I'm looking at Vanderbilt too.

But I'm seeing an SEC that's still competing with all of these other conferences at a pretty elite level and going and beating all of these other teams. So wouldn't you make the argument, or you could make the argument, that there's actually a stronger conference than there's ever been because they're all beating up on each other because they're all better than the rest of the world?

I, I hear that. It's a cope. Yeah, I, I, I just think that it's a cope.

It's an understandable takeaway.

This is not, this is not a shocking thing. NIL has opened up the door for these talents to be like, well, I'm gonna get my reps elsewhere. And you're seeing all that talent disperse across the nation with elite programs. And we have something that's more in line with parity and it's phenomenal. These are good teams. That's just what they look like now.

So, Jeremy, you said they were beating each other.

Oh, and then they're, they're beating the other teams as well.

Got it.

What'd I do?

You think we're being too negative about the University of Miami?

I do. Yeah.

I like the takeaway.

That's good. Celebrating here.

That's a good cope, right, Zaz? Like, Miami survived where other teams couldn't this weekend.

Take a hit of that copium.

The first time they've been number 1 in 24 years.

You copacetic.

Whatever, man. Use whatever words you want that I don't understand. I don't care. UM's ranked number 1.

They are ranked number 1. But when they play that game as a 3-touchdown favorite, it sort of brings up the flinching and the spasming that comes with, oh, I can see how they'll lose from here. I can see how it would happen here where they've clearly got the better team because you're not going to— you're not going to be able to prove to me that FSU, which hasn't won a road game since 2023, Deserves to be in that football game.

We're partying at the Copacabana. Flying out of Cope Canaveral?

And a masturbation joke. You're on fire so far.

What?

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