This episode of The Dan Le Batard Show examines the Miami Heat's struggling defense and shooting, including the production of Andrew Wiggins and whether the team's problems are systemic or individual. The hosts and guest debate Spoelstra's job security and whether the NBA's culture would tolerate a coach in his position.
The second half turns to college football, with a discussion of Miami's upcoming Notre Dame game, the injury to Malachi Tony, and how the College Football Playoff committee might weigh a loss. Listeners will hear competing arguments about rivalries, conference strength, and playoff seeding, with each opinion attributed to the speaker who makes it.
In this episode Dave Dameshek
This Dan Le Batard Show episode on the Miami Heat's defense and the Notre Dame football showdown was made with HappyScribe's transcription service.
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Salam aleikum, brothers and sisters. Welcome to the Dan Le Batard Show. Wow, mashallah. We've never had a group like this before. Has this group ever worked before? Tony, how are you doing?
Wa alaykum salam.
How are you doing, Tony?
I'm here.
Oh, alhamdulillah. Alhamdulillah, brother Tony's doing all right. Man, we have a great show for you guys today. I'm so excited. It's Miami-Notre Dame weekend. Inshallah, the Hurricanes are going to get it done. Obviously, we're going to talk NFL. We got my brother Dave Dammisheck in Los Angeles. How are you doing, brother?
Habibi.
Oh, habibi. Alhamdulillah, you're doing great. We got so much to get to, but first, we got to start with the Miami Heat. Tough one for them last night. Again, that's the Shaytan, Steph Curry. He just bedeviled them with so many ills and curses that they just couldn't get it going. And I got to ask the question, guys, off the top. The Miami Heat defense, is there any hope? Jeremy, this is the thing that neither you nor I had the foresight or the clairvoyance to see coming, that the Heat would be one of the worst defensive teams in the NBA.
Yeah, they've been pretty dreadful, mostly on the perimeter. And that's been an issue mostly on the wing with a player I know Mike Ryan wants to talk about. Within their starting lineup, Andrew Wiggins has been the weak point thus far and where Klay Thompson has actually been one of the best three-point shooters in the NBA in terms of volume. Tough night on the second night of back-to-backs. Donovan Mitchell, Davion Mitchell has been really good, more than you could have even expected.
And both Bam Adebayo and Giannis Antetokounmpo have played their part. The problem has been shooting off the bench for those who wanted to troll for where are they going to shoot for. Look, we thought Tim Hardaway Jr., Andrew Wiggins would both play a piece in that if they were just their average selves, and both of them have not been there.
See, that was your first mistake.
Yeah.
This is me asking a genuine question. Even though Klay's shooting all right, is he a net negative?
No. I don't believe so. We were talking about this in a group chat yesterday.
Yeah, does he concede more points than he scores?
I don't think that's the case, but also, clearly, he's not enough to overcome an overall system-wide problem. And that's the problem, is that this is a system-wide thing. It starts with they can't stop straight-line drive.
Yep.
Like, just guys just going right through. Other than that Davion Mitchell, anyone else is basically getting driven right past. And then I'm not going to absolve anybody. Rotations aren't fast. They're not there.
No, not at all.
Not from Bam and not from Giannis. And a lot of that is being a collective, right, being together. But some of that also is some personal responsibility. Am I aware? Am I on top of it? And those guys aren't. Now, also, when the penetration happens that fast, sometimes I can't rotate. So we were talking about this yesterday, Mike, where someone like Klay Thompson, while not as fleet of foot as he used to be, he still has the little tricks where he'll slap from behind. He'll do something to disrupt that blow-by that's just happened, as opposed to some of the other guys who are just, you're just getting blown by.
That's the ultimate old man trick on defense. I pull that one out a lot. See if I can tap out. I got the arms long enough to tap out from behind, knowing I'm letting him go to the secondary part of the defense where there's no help side. So I'm just going to try to spook it out. It's not OK.
Let's take it back to the Joy Taylor take in that, you know, let's put some attention on Giannis here. Giannis is not the same type of defender that his reputation suggests.
You know, brother Mike, I don't know about that. Like, it's the same because Bam's having the same issues too. Is it Bam's not the same caliber defender as he once was, or is it just, again, this is a system-wide problem that everyone is playing a part in? And then, you know, you even hear Spo talk about it. They just need to get their shit together on the same page. Excuse me for cursing, brothers. But the other part of this is the offense, specifically the shooting. And Jeremy, I remember having this conversation with you.
Klay Thompson, reputation shooter. Klay Thompson, last year, 39% from three, the worst three-point shooting year of his career. And the sky is falling for Klay at 39%. Tim Hardaway is the opposite. Tim Hardaway has a reputation of a shooter when he really isn't. And I went through the numbers yesterday, the very basic numbers. And so what would you say is average three-point shooting in the NBA, the average three-point shooter?
36?
36. It's been 36 the last couple of years. It was 36.5 a year before that. Year before that, it was like 35. But 36 is generally considered, all right, you're a good three-point shooter. Excuse me, you're an average three-point shooter. 36.
Look up Luca's numbers, by the way.
Yeah, we're going to get to that.
For the volume, look at the percentages of him from three and just from the field.
Yeah, I want to talk about that with Dave. I think Luca's off to you can make an argument. Luca's off to the greatest shooting start ever.
Will it continue?
Will it continue?
Sorry. So anyways, so 37.5 is like, you're a good shooter.
Habibi.
39%. 39% is OK. This is an elite shooter. Tim Hardaway Jr. has shot 39% plus from three twice in his career for a season. Twice. Last year was one of them. And then his either, yeah, his second year in Dallas, he shot 39.1. Flip side, how many years has he shot below 37? What I said is, like, that's why we call good, right? And that's pretty much every year of his career other than like three or four.
Everybody wanted to make him the 39% shooter rather than the up-and-down player he's been.
That he's always been. Because he came off a career shooting year last year.
Yeah, and people thought, well, this is how he's aging. But you got to look at someone's entire body of work, which leads me to Andrew Wiggins. Man, boy.
Ya Allah.
Boy, did I get a full-court press from Dan, the biggest Andrew Wiggins defender on the planet after a 118-point game in Atlanta, which, going through the game logs, appears to be the only OK game that Andrew Wiggins has had this season. Andrew Wiggins on this West Coast trip has made four more shots than I have.
Wow.
He made the first bucket of the game yesterday. That was his last bucket of the game yesterday. Told you I wasn't a fan of this guy's body language, his effort, and counting on Andrew Wiggins is basically making your own bed and you got to sleep in it.
I called him the modern-day Tim Thomas, where it's like, hey, if we have a contract on the line, I'm going to be great. And everyone's going to be like, see, there he is. We always just needed this kind of right scenario. And then as soon as the ink is dry, he's back to being complacent.
You needed Andrew Wiggins to be your third best player. That was the hope. That was the expectation. Andrew Wiggins, statistically, I mean, is he the worst starter in the league?
Scoring-wise, I would say.
Yeah, like non-defensive specialist starter.
Yeah.
He's at 8.6 points per game.
At 8.6 points per game. That places him 187th in the NBA.
Murder-death kill.
Yeah. 187. A great movie starring Samuel L. Jackson.
Who's he around?
So this is my favorite thing about this, right? Some of these names are hilarious. It's just names to say. So 8.6, Josh Hart is 8.6 points a game. But Josh Hart is not looked at as a guy who's supposed to score. Anything he gets you is gravy.
Yeah. And they're not counting on him the way that Miami was counting on Wiggins entering the season.
Sam Merrill, who is.
Three-point specialist.
And also a very funny stand-up comedian. Keldon Johnson, six-man, kind of do-it-all. But like, again, he doesn't get the kind of minutes that Wiggins gets. And then Isaiah Jackson, who has started since the injury to Haliburn. And then two guys who weren't in the league, Mo Bamba and Mario Hazonia.
I go.
Yeah.
Calling.
I can't sing that song. He's disrespecting the sisters.
But also, I don't see the efficiency numbers. I think given who he's grouped with, and you look at what he's shooting from the field, which is just awful right now, like, you can make a solid argument that Andrew Wiggins, and when you contextualize what the money is being paid, this is the worst starter in the league right now.
Yes. You know, in some places, they might call it usury.
For me, the bigger issue actually comes on the defensive end because if you're not going to contribute.
What are they now, 28th in the league?
Well, if you're not going to contribute on the offensive end, if you're Andrew Wiggins, the thing that is needed is to be a guy who can lock down the best player on the wing or even guards it sometimes, something he's always been capable of doing regardless of the inconsistencies offensively. And as a three-point shooter, this is a guy who shot 37% or better all but one year since COVID.
Right.
Like, that he has been a consistently good three-point shooter over the course of the last five to seven years. And it's the little things, right? On the offense, what you don't see from Andrew Wiggins right now is relocating on the three-point line. Like, when their offense is getting bogged down, it's because the other team is creating a wall. Giannis and Bam were both really good in the first half yesterday. And then in the second half, because of the lack of shooting in the starting lineup alongside those two players, Andrew Wiggins being a primary point within all of that, Warriors said, all right, we're just going to back up, build a wall, and we're going to force the Heat to do anything else offensively.
And you don't see Wiggins relocating on the three-point line. You don't see him with the timely cuts that you saw from last season and throughout his career. Those are things that are supposed to be a strength of his on the offensive end to get cheap points for you.
Dare I say, some of this lies on Spo. I feel like Spo has not done enough. And maybe, I don't know, it just takes time. Maybe they're working on it. But I don't think he's done enough to put his guys in a position to be successful, specifically Bam, who clearly struggles when Giannis is on the floor.
I wanted to know exactly that. I mean, you read my mind. We park our cars in the same garage. Habibi, I thought it was very funny that Mike Ryan just said greatest Andrew Wiggins defender as someone who loves irony. One of the great days of my life, of course, was when I was driving home after pining to see it. I saw a tow truck getting towed. And my life has never been the same. It was one of the great highlights I've ever had. Anyway, great Andrew Wiggins defender. Irony. But in an age in which we discuss, you know, I mean, almost daily about is it time for this head coach to go?
And, you know, we cut off head coaches' heads very quickly. Isn't it wild that Eric Spoelstra's still there? I mean, is that a rolling subject down in Miami? It doesn't feel like you guys lean into that as much as given, like I say, that that's all anybody ever talks about. It's time to move on from the head coach. New era. Oh, we lost in the playoffs. New team. It's wild that Spoelstra's still there. How many years has it been, Mike Ryan?
38, 35 years.
Well, as a head coach.
Yeah.
He's been here forever.
My child.
In other franchises, it might be a question, but given the continuity within this organization. And look, Eric Spoelstra, I think, once again, was named by his peers as the most revered coach in the NBA. They thought he was the best coach. But I do think there were questions worth asking about the leadership at this organization. Now, they went ahead and they got their whale. Giannis appears to still be an elite player, especially offensively. But look, it's irrefutable that this plan, which was flawed entering the season, and we give them that, it is working out way worse than we thought.
I thought the one thing, I knew that we'd all kind of assumed that there would be struggles offensively as they figured it out. But I thought the night-in, night-out effort defensively was something that you can count on. And this team is what rank defensively? Like 28, 27, 28?
After last night.
That just boggles the mind, Dave. And that goes against this man's reputation. Everyone, like, they put the photo sitting next to Bam, Spo, like, figuring it out. And you give these guys a lot of credit. But you look at the landscape of the NBA. Guys like Bodenholzer are gone. Guys like Nick Nurse are gone. Guys like Vogel are gone. A championship buys you a lot, no doubt. And I'm not putting Spo in that class. But the NBA, the culture is, if it ain't working out, we move on from you.
And that's just not something that applies down here in Miami.
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No Lelio. PJ. Dave, the mic check.
That's pretty good.
This is the Dan Le Batard Show.
Yeah, but that's weird. That's weird, right? Because here's one thing that has been going around on the other side of the way a guy looks spectrum among head coaches. Mike McCarthy, it's back in the news. Somebody else said what I've been saying since he got hired in Pittsburgh. You know, in the QB whisper discussion and all of that, Mike McCarthy gets left out because of the way he looks. Heavy said older man. And we don't associate that with Sean McVay and Shani and all those cats. Spoelstra, weirdly, I think here's a hot take for you.
He benefits from looking young, right? I think we would not talk the same way about him if he were a balding guy with grayish hair hanging around the back and carrying around an extra 60 pounds around the waistline, right?
Well, he's going to make sure that grayish hair never shows up. But yeah, like, the whole thing about that part of it, I think it's an institutional strength that they don't have to that he gets to coach the way he wants to coach. And he doesn't have to worry about his job because two things. Number one, we know he's a great coach. Mike talked about it. He's revered by his peers. He's year in, year out, one of the best ATO guys, one of the best guys that can get the most out of the least type of situation.
But then the other part of it is, yeah, I don't have to worry about my job. I can make the tough decision. Like, hey, Tim Hardaway, not going to be in the rotation anymore. Hey, Andrew Wiggins, not going to like, I will pull you. And I will do things that any other coach might have to worry about. This could be my ass.
I want to be abundantly clear. I'm not a fire Spo guy whatsoever. I love Spo. I think he's the best coach in the NBA too.
Yes.
And one of the greatest of all time. And I do think he'd figure it out. But I think that this organization takes him for granted because they give him a bunch of pieces, and they're like, Spo will figure it out.
You got it.
And this was really challenging. You weren't ignorant by calling into question the very obvious flaws with this. The thing that has me shook is the defense. And we are affording Spo, which he's earned, a credibility that guys like Michael Malone don't get. Like, an NBA championship usually doesn't buy you time in this league.
I agree with you. I mean, like, I think to put a bow on it, it's we're staggered that the defense isn't working. That's the part where I, you know, and I don't think they gave him mismatched pieces on defense, right? Like, if we're talking about who are the bad defenders on this team, Hardaway, Jovic.
Clay maybe.
Clay maybe, right? But is Clay worse than Duncan Robinson was?
No.
Right?
And we made it work with Duncan.
Right, exactly. So that's the part where it's a little wait, what's happening here, right? And I will lean to trusting that Spo is going to figure that out, even though they haven't figured out to this point, which is kind of shocking. All right, I know everyone's chomping at the bit to talk about foot. Oh, excuse me. The halal bacon I had earlier, just outside. You know, brothers, did you have any of the halal bacon we have out there in the breakfast?
I'm fasting.
Habibi.
Yeah, we've done such a great job really embracing the changes around here. And I really appreciate everyone kind of going with it. But we have to talk about Notre Dame versus Miami, the Hurricanes versus the Infidels. Mike, Malachi Tony is out.
This is right.
Right?
Let me, I am exclusively reporting here. Malachi Tony had surgery. Malachi Tony is not playing in this game.
Brady Quinn? Not so sure.
There are people that don't believe that he's actually hurt. Marcus Freeman, chief among them. Marcus Freeman.
Head coach of Notre Dame.
Said in front of a microphone, hey, we're going to prepare like he's out there. Why?
Why would you do that?
Why? He's not out there. Do you understand what a caper this would be?
Oh, my God. It's Malachi Tony.
He was wheeled into a surgery center. He was.
Did you see the surgery, though?
I did not.
He might have just taken a nap, right? And then just came out. And then now.
Did he post an Instagram story selfie from the bed?
I didn't see one.
I didn't see it.
This would be it would be one of the great, great capers, one of the great film noirs of all of sports, right? Dave, first of all, does anyone.
There's no precedent for this ever happening.
I know.
Outside of professional wrestling. Why would Brady Quinn and Marcus Freeman fear this happening when it's never happened in the history of people before? Like, all of a sudden, like, I know they do it in commercials with Deion Sanders and stuff. But like, who's that coming out of the locker room? Is that Malachi? No, it's Tony Malachi. I mean, what do they think is going to go down here? Obviously, Malachi Tony is out.
Malachi Tony is out and will be out for the next month. And Miami has to reckon with that. And we have not seen Miami be a good offense with Mali either hampered by injury or not out there. Their production is cut in half. They go three and out. Now, I'm probably overreacting and taking that data sample because we know Shane and Dawson has done way more with far less. This is a very talented roster. I think in this game, I will be way more at ease if I see the offense move the ball once or twice in that first half because my eyes are really to the next month of this schedule because there is a scenario here which Miami loses this game and Miami loses at least one of their next three home games.
I'm circling that Virginia Tech one. That one's got me worried. So they go into the ACC Championship, say, as a two-loss team. Still, Mali not playing in that ACC Championship game. You're going up against either Wake Forest or a Louisville team that is really coming online. What happens if you lose that game? How will the CFP committee react? Will they hold it against you the way that they did with BYU? Or will they not the way that they did with Alabama? You're in the ACC. That's not the Big Ten. That's not the SCC. You don't get the same kind of credibility.
And that's a real danger zone. And it's got my booty hole puckered up.
Let me just, I'm sorry to derail for just one second. I started laughing, brothers and sisters, because on the TV screens here, you know, we have a bunch of other TV just happening just in case something breaking news happens. There was a local ad that came on for a local urologist.
I saw it too.
And so it's advertising for, hey, getting snipped. You know, a what's it called?
Vasectomy.
Vasectomy, right? One of the images was a dude.
I know exactly what you're talking about.
A dude getting ready to have a vasectomy done. And he's lying on the table like so with his hands behind his back. Like, it's like, yeah, this is behind his head.
That'll be me if we score on the first drive.
Like, just legs up and his hands behind his head, relaxed back, just to indicate.
It wasn't not only legs up, knees up. It wasn't legs up. It was knees up.
While the doctor goes to work. Damn check, vasectomies aside, what salute.
I know I've had one. It hurts like a mother.
Does it?
They told me it wouldn't hurt. It hurt so bad.
Dude.
You know.
I've been on the fence. And I'm worried because ever since I saw that family guy where Luke Skywalker is doing the vasectomy and the what do you call it? The lightsaber just and just cuts everything off. I'm like, I don't know if I want to do this anymore.
I don't mean like for days after. I mean actually, wow, it's happening. I was like, my sweet Jesus, this is brutal.
Sweet Allah.
Yeah, I'm my wiener. Now, Mike Ryan, I applying the because we had this conversation and it was a grand one on Football America. And I encouraged Nate Demand everybody go check it out. Mike Ryan was in his feels. We really were a safe space for him to let all his emotions out, complicated as they are. But applying the Kenyan Martin standard, if there's a more current one, and I imagine there is. But the Kenyan Martin one, of course, goes back to when.
2000.
Cincinnati. Yeah, 2000 was the best team in the country until right before the tournament. I think it was in the conference tournament. In fact, he got hurt. And the committee, College Basketball Committee, knocked down Cincinnati as a result of that by the standard or the logic that, well, obviously, they're not as good if Kenyan Martin isn't playing. So does the Football Committee sort of do the opposite of that? It's like, all right, Miami lost, but they didn't have their best player. And now that he's back on the field, we're going to put them into the tournament because we know what they look like when they have their best player out there.
Yeah, apples to apples. It was a different CFP. It wasn't expanded with Jordan Travis. It's held against an undefeated FSU team.
Yeah, Jordan Travis, right, right, right.
Because, hey, he's your best player and he's not playing. This would be a unique scenario in which, hypothetically speaking, Miami loses to Notre Dame, one of their next three ACC games, and then loses in the ACC Championship. Also, if they lose to Wake, that's kind of weird, right? Because they beat Wake Forest. And I don't know what you do with that data point. But then you're faced with a three-loss Miami. It's not the Jordan Travis situation because Malachi Tony is scheduled to be back for the CFP. This is a very scary situation that Miami finds itself in, provided that their offense looks the way that it does that it has all season long without him.
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Down Le Batard.
Let's throw it to my boy Jeremy Tasche who's sidelined right now. Cash money. What you got for me?
Jeremy Tasche.
Thanks, Jax.
This is the Down Le Batard Show.
I'd like to ask Brother David something. Yesterday, Brother Daniel posited that this is actually a positive for Miami, that this is now that they get to be the number one team in the country and somehow an underdog, and that a victory here not only ruins Notre Dame season, but it bolsters their reputation among the CFP voters or the CFP board, I guess is what they call them. What say you, Brother Daoud?
Well, I think that's exactly right. For just in the very short term, Notre Dame has all the pressure. They have the curse of Sposta on their shoulders. They're supposed to now officially win this game. Malachi Tony is out. Obviously, it's in South Bend. If Notre Dame loses this one, and I started this conversation a month ago, and now everybody's jumping in on it. But if Notre Dame loses this one, especially without Malachi Tony, what is Notre Dame's claim to participating in the 12-team tournament?
But more importantly and more fundamentally, the standard that the ACC is one of the power for conferences. Just as you have another undefeated team and another power for, it's UCLA. And somehow, the math is still taking us to this SCC bias jive is so loco that we're still going to jam in. We have to work around the assumption that the committee is going to put four SCC teams in no matter what, even after this Saturday, when if you're a person of justice, you will see that a number of them are going to have three losses by Saturday night.
I mean, all these head-to-heads with the SCC should clear a path for Miami, who is clearly a heavyweight team. When they have Malachi Tony on there, it would be absolute pap, absolute hooey and applesauce if somehow the Canes wound up outside the tournament.
Fixed also.
If they lose, if they lose bad to Notre Dame and then Duke whipped them or something like that, then OK, then Miami may not have a claim. But then again, living in a world in which the SCC is going to have, you know, Missouri or Tennessee or Alabama with three losses, and it's like, oh, yeah, of course, they're in the tournament is loco and inconsistent crap.
Brother David, I'd like you to amend now. From now on, it's instead of hooey and applesauce, it is hummus and date sauce, please.
Hummus.
Hummus, yes.
Habibi.
Well, a lot of the discussion around boosting the credentials of these SCC teams that are kind of beating up on one another is like, well, look at their record against P4 teams. I saw the blind resume. And Wake Forest, while being 0 and 1 against a top 25, they're one loss coming to number one Miami. More P4 victories than Texas Tech and Alabama. Much better point differential against these P4s than Texas Tech and Alabama. It's a weird thing that we're doing with Wake Forest. But it is this is why I so desperately need Miami to just settle into its offense and score it because there is a scenario here that gets really dicey for a team that, thank God, you look back on games like North Carolina and games like FSU, games that Malachi Tony ended up winning for this team.
And that has given you a little bit of a buffer here. But you lose this game, you see the next three opponents and potentially another big-time opponent in the ACC Championship game. It's scary if they lose that game. And I don't know what the committee does with that, with Malachi Tony coming back. Do you contextualize it with, oh, well, he's not going to be the same player. I'm sorry you missed your opportunity. Your resume isn't exactly what we expect it to be when you're undefeated with Malachi Tony, but you still look terrible in November. And we know how much they value recency. Mike, when is the conference championship?
Like, what date? The first weekend of December.
He's got the hotel room.
Right. So that's why I wanted to ask. So Mali had surgery yesterday. We got about a month now.
He's not coming back.
Man, he would not be coming back for that.
He would not be coming back for that.
He shouldn't, right?
It's four to six weeks is what they're calling it.
But like the conference, no disrespect, but the conference championship is a meaningless game.
It's not, though. It's not because it's meaningless in the SEC, but in the big 12, it's not. Like, BYU got shut out because they lost it.
I'm talking about for Miami.
I don't think so.
You think it's going to matter?
If they have two losses in that loss column and now you make it three and you have a three-loss Miami lumped in with, let's say, a three-loss Texas, a three-loss Ohio State, a three-loss Indiana, what have you. Dude, they're going to take the Big Ten and SEC teams.
Especially because it really is just the reverse theoretical of what FSU went through. It really is. You have a resume that says, we were all of these things, but now you don't have the player that led it. And so the credentials that you have out the window. This would be the reverse. You would have a team with a pretty terrible resume of losing three games in their final five or six, losing the one big game that they played against Notre Dame, losing potentially to a Wake Forest that they had beaten before. But it would all be without the Heisman Trophy leading candidate when he went away.
If I may, one interesting data point, if Miami finds itself in this hypothetical scenario, right? You would assume Notre Dame is now a top four team.
Yeah, it's an assumption.
You would assume if it's indeed Wake Forest, Wake Forest is a top 10 team. And so, yeah, they slipped up against, say, Virginia Tech. But two of their three losses are now quality losses at the hands of top 10 opponents.
Fascinating dynamic of Notre Dame is as an 11 right now. If you beat Miami handily without Malachi Tony, how much do you really jump? Because does everyone instantly view Miami as not the same team?
That's right.
It's the double.
They must. That's right. Notre Dame has no choice but to win this game or they have no claim to anything afterwards. With Miami, are you certain? I'm sure you're much more familiar with how it seeds out in the ACC. But if you're maybe assuming too much, Mike, that Miami goes to the ACC title game if they were to lose to Duke or Virginia Tech, are you sure they have the tiebreaker there? They obviously do.
Yeah, right.
Against Wake.
Yes. Right now, they're undefeated in ACC conference play. The next closest team to them has one conference loss in Wake, that conference loss coming to Miami. So you have the head-to-head tiebreaker. And then you have a bunch of teams that are at two losses. So Miami can afford to lose one ACC game. Then when you open up the portal to two, and it's a whole bunch of teams that you haven't played. And by the way, keep an eye on Louisville. I don't know what it is. Another thing to consider here, if Notre Dame does beat Miami, we are going to see one of the greatest leaps in CFP history, week over week.
Because you cannot, with a straight face, after everything that happened last year, you cannot put Notre Dame behind Miami after they feel jobbed. And Miami fans were pounding the table head-to-head. You cannot have Notre Dame behind Miami if they beat Miami and they have the same amount of losses. So what is that going to look like?
That's what Jeremy is saying, basically. It's like you're getting cut from both sides. On the one hand, like, Notre Dame, you beat Miami. You deserve to get up. And it's like, Miami, you lost to Notre Dame.
But you didn't have Malachi Tony as well.
Yeah, which one is it, right?
Well, and they could make the argument that they were just making between, what, it's Tennessee and Alabama, I believe, which is, well, we're still rating them in different tiers. Miami, we still believe to be one of the three or four best teams in the country based off the fact that they don't have Malachi for this individual game. We're only going to keep dropping them if they lose more games. And, oh, Notre Dame, yeah, that's a good win, but it's not actually over number one in the country. And you could just justify it in a million different ways and not back to your head-to-head.
My passionated.
Here's an extra layer for you. And Mike's point is undermined by Utah whipping BYU. If that happened on Saturday at the same time, it's not as big a win for Notre Dame, right? I mean, it's not as big a win. Then Notre Dame is diminished. And then you get into the area of what we're talking about, which is like, all right, you beat the U, but you beat them without one of their two best players.
Well, that's what's so great about this college football weekend, which may indeed be the last great consequential college football weekend ever. It's going to be weird for Notre Dame to climb like 10 spots, right? So you see who's ahead of them. And all of them have big-time games against ranked opponents. There is going to be a seismic shift from week one of the CFP rankings to week two because all these teams are playing one another. If LSU beats Alabama, and right now the line, according to our friends at DraftKings Sportsbook, is five and a half, they are favored to do so.
You're going to see LSU crack that top 10.
There they come.
And they're going to be they're going to have the head-to-head over Alabama, an Alabama team that has puzzled everybody by being ranked at five. They have established a very strange and unique template. And right now, despite all the head-to-head narrative last year, the CFP committee, Dave, has valued head-to-head thus far.
I get it. But here's another one just to throw some more in, throw a grenade in. Minnesota beats UCLA this weekend. Minnesota has a claim as much as any of those second-tier SEC teams does. This thing about the the thing that suspends the whole conversation is the Tennessee. Forget Alabama at five, which is the most ludicrous. But Tennessee is in the mix, and we're talking about LSU and Texas and all these teams because of our perception in July and August of these teams. But Minnesota, the lack of regard for the best conference in the nation defined by who wins the national championship, which is the Big Ten, which is one of the last three.
And in each of those title games, they beat non-SEC teams. So this idea that we have to constantly hold up the SEC is wild given that Wisconsin and Northwestern and Minnesota and there are some other viable teams out there. The Big Ten is plenty deep, too. The idea, well, but look at the SEC. Look at their eighth team there. Yeah, look at the Big Ten. That's not a bunch of jive knocking around in the middle of the Big Ten pack either.
Brother David, it's funny you mentioned BYU and Utah playing. And obviously, Miami and Notre Dame are two big rivalries, right? Typically, we don't see rivalry games outside of rivalry week. But for this week, there are massive implications. Where does Miami and Notre Dame rank for you in rivalries?
Well, there are different kinds of rivalries, of course. There are ones that are based on the region in which you play. I mean, like Ohio State, Michigan is Auburn, Alabama, all of those. But there's a distinct group, and maybe my favorite one, circumstantial rock, based on just the two powerhouse teams in different parts of the country. I refer you to the enduring Lakers and Celtics rivalry in the '70s. You had the Steelers and the Cowboys. You had the great 30 for 30 documentary, Reggie Miller's Pacers against the Knickerbockers of a certain age.
This fits into that category. And I think pretty high up there. And maybe let's see how this one flows and how it impacts who wins the national championship this year. It may be more important at this point than Notre Dame USC, which is one that we have now lost because of Lincoln Riley's fear.
Is it a rivalry if it ever dies, right? Isn't the spirit of a rivalry it's got to exist? And you throw out the records when these two teams get together. Isn't that the hallmark of a rivalry?
Yeah, when you start yeah, I am resentful of when people refer to certain head-to-heads as rivalries when one side kicks the crap out of the other endlessly. As a chip on the shoulder Steelers fan, I hate when people talk about the Browns as the Steelers' rival. What? The Browns never win. How are they the rival of Pittsburgh? The Ravens, now we're talking.
I'll give you an example. The team that I the program that I despise the most, the program that I consider Miami's most fierce rival is the Florida Gators. We do not play them regularly.
Really?
Yeah.
Over Notre Dame?
Over Notre Dame easily.
Wow.
Yeah. It goes Florida, FSU, Notre Dame. Miami has it like.
Really? Notre Dame not even top two?
No, but all these things are sliding scales. Let's say when you consider it, last year's week one game was one of the more consequential CFP era games ever. And it was in week one. And it ended up mattering more than any other game, right? You have this one, which is an elimination game, basically. That's what the CFP told you for Notre Dame. That has a ton of juice. And you have the Mali subplot to it. Can you imagine Notre Dame does what they're expected to do? And these teams play again in the CFP being the single biggest storyline of the last two weeks.
What a thing. This is what we want. These are the stories that we love that are you know why are the Packers and a three-way rivalry that has gone through the decades now, Packers, Niners, and Cowboys in the NFC is grand stuff. Those three teams have nothing in common except being in the same conference. They're in completely different parts of football America.
Guys, we've had a riveting round of discussion. I'm so happy and blessed to be part of this. Alhamdulillah. I cannot wait. Coming up in a little bit, we're going to talk to our sister, Jessica Smetano, who lives in the great nation of Mamdanistan. And she's going to come tell us about all the glorious things that are happening not only there, but all across the college football landscape. What a time to be alive in this new day that we have here.
Say that again.
I'm going to help myself to some of the shawarma that's coming soon. We have a cater today courtesy of, of course, the new world order. You guys, sit tight. We'll be back.
Well, Mike, sweet Jesus.
"Courtesy of, of course, the New World Order..."
Brother Amin leads Dan's dream podcast: a Local Hour featuring fear. Fear for local teams and local teams only.
Today's cast: Brother Amin, Your ol' pal Dave Dameshek, Roy, Chris, Jeremy, Mike, and Tony.
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