Transcript
Speaker: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another episode of the 700 Pelham Road podcast.
Speaker: It is week number nine here for 700 Pelham Road.
Speaker: I am Caleb Williams alongside my co-host and partner Jalen Cooper.
Speaker: Jalen, how are you doing today?
Speaker: I am good.
Speaker: I'm good.
Speaker: It's a recording this on Halloween night.
Speaker: A little spooky.
Speaker: A little bit of a spooky recording.
Speaker: Yeah, but, you know, I'm good other than that.
Speaker: I'm just ready for this week to get going so we can, you know, head to Rome on Friday night in preparation for heading to Columbia, South Carolina on Saturday.
Speaker: Man, it's going to be a weekend.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: I mean, for those of you that don't know, it's us two and nine other people.
Speaker: We're all going to one of our friends, uh,
Speaker: high school football games the night before he's the band director.
Speaker: So we're going to go over there, support him and his kids.
Speaker: And then we're all waking up bright and early 5 a.m.
Speaker: heading on the road to Columbia, South Carolina to support those Gamecocks.
Speaker: And that also means that we'll be a little bit less than stellar in our happiness Saturday morning.
Speaker: So, Carolina fans, warning, don't piss us off.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: And even though it's an early game, that will not stop us from consuming fun drinks, if you know what I mean.
Speaker: What do you mean, man?
Speaker: I'm going to be drinking water the entire weekend.
Speaker: Yeah, okay.
Speaker: But, man, another good week for the Gamecocks.
Speaker: Finally, the first win of the year that didn't feel like we were stressing about it for 60 minutes.
Speaker: Outside of ETSU, at least.
Speaker: Well, okay, yeah.
Speaker: Really kind of bad.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: They're FCS.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We can say that now.
Speaker: We can say that other teams are FCS now.
Speaker: No, it was a good game.
Speaker: We struggled there kind of like late second quarter, early third quarter.
Speaker: But offense got the job done.
Speaker: Defense, once again, lights out.
Speaker: Couldn't really ask for much more, you know, heading into the – into the month of November, heading into South Carolina.
Speaker: And for it being the last weekday game, it just kind of culminates that stretch of really tough games.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I am so back and forth on the weekday games.
Speaker: I love it because the exposure and the opportunities are unlike any other, especially once we go back to Saturday –
Speaker: um, here at the end of the season, there's so many bigger games.
Speaker: People aren't going to be watching us.
Speaker: So that's where, you know, we did games are great, but I've seen a lot of, you know, half empty stadiums.
Speaker: If that, um, you know, we were lucky and had pretty decent fan turnout, but just seeing lackluster fan attendance and honestly, I, you talk to a lot of the players and it just throws their whole schedule off.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: with what's a rest day, what's an off day compared to what it used to be.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You mentioned the game day schedule getting thrown off.
Speaker: Even the home games, like against Western Kentucky and Liberty, you could tell that the slow starts on offense.
Speaker: I mean, these guys are used to – I think they travel to Oxford maybe, maybe Gadsden Friday night normally.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I think it's Aniston.
Speaker: I think it's the old fort.
Speaker: Yeah, okay.
Speaker: So, I mean, they travel out of town, and then they come on campus.
Speaker: I don't know that they do that on the weekdays because they've got classes the day before, and I'm sure some of them have morning classes the day of.
Speaker: You know, it's not your normal Saturday routine.
Speaker: So, I mean –
Speaker: It will be nice to kind of get the guys back into their normal Saturday game day routine where they're able to just kind of wake up in their hotel, or I guess it's actually a dorm over there at the fort.
Speaker: Um, and just kind of go through their normal game day routine.
Speaker: So that'll be nice.
Speaker: But, you know, like you mentioned, one, it's weird not coming home on a Tuesday night and not having Yankock football.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Two, two.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: The exposure was huge.
Speaker: I mean,
Speaker: We were getting shout outs from Pat McAfee, from Big Cat.
Speaker: And those are two of the biggest names in sports.
Speaker: So it'll kind of suck.
Speaker: But, you know, hey, it was a fun month.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: Definitely something that was a little different for, you know, everybody involved, players, coaches, fans.
Speaker: But I think as –
Speaker: the years go on because we're kind of locked into this.
Speaker: But as the years go on, I think people will start to warm up to it and kind of embrace it and make it a little bit better.
Speaker: Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker: And, you know, we talked about, I think, you know, coming into this, into that stretch of games in October, we talked about how it would give our fans a chance to, you know, to see their school on national TV.
Speaker: And I...
Speaker: I think at first people, it took a couple games to really kind of warm up to it.
Speaker: You could tell the last few weeks that the energy was a little bit different.
Speaker: It just felt like there was a lot more support for the program, even from outside of our fan base.
Speaker: So, you know, I don't want to fast forward to next year because we still got basketball, baseball, even the rest of this season.
Speaker: But I can't wait to see what October looks like next year when you kind of have people knowing what to expect.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, no, definitely looking forward to, like you said, looking forward to October next year.
Speaker: I will say, I hope the turnout can be the same because we're not going to have Liberty coming into town.
Speaker: We're not going to have Western Kentucky coming into town.
Speaker: Hopefully we'll get lucky and get Kennesaw State in on the night game.
Speaker: Um, that would be absolutely nuts.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: So hopefully even without, you know, those two big names coming into town next year, whoever we get, I hope we can still get a huge turnout from it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, no doubt.
Speaker: You know, you mentioned Kennesaw, you know, them entering the conference.
Speaker: It finally gives us a real rivalry and not just, you know,
Speaker: the gravy bowl.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: May it rest in peace forever.
Speaker: But, man, if Kansas all comes over here for a night game, first of all, that might be the most fool that Burgess Snow has been since the 2015 playoffs.
Speaker: Yeah, no.
Speaker: Honestly, and I'm hoping construction is done on the away side by then because we could easily, easily, easily pack that entire place out.
Speaker: No question.
Speaker: No question.
Speaker: We could.
Speaker: And, you know, even with an unfinished away side.
Speaker: Kennesaw fans travel.
Speaker: I have to give them credit.
Speaker: They travel pretty well for all sports.
Speaker: So I imagine they'd fill out the away stands even if it isn't finished.
Speaker: Right now we've got to get that field house finished.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: It's kind of an eyesore watching on national television.
Speaker: They're kicking field goals and driving down that end, and you see the camera shot.
Speaker: from the scoreboard and it's like there's the net and then there's just a bunch of iron sitting there and a pong table when I notice the pong table that was set up in there that is whoever did that hats off to you that is an absolutely perfect addition
Speaker: nothing screams Alabama state of Alabama football, like, um, like the all state hands and beer pong.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You know it.
Speaker: But, uh, the man.
Speaker: So, uh, I guess when you talk about this FIU game, cause it, you know, we mentioned it when we first started, you know, start to finish, uh, bless you.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: Uh, start to finish.
Speaker: We, uh,
Speaker: You know, the offense finally, finally came to play in the first quarter, and we saw what, you know, what happens when they actually – I don't want to say get off the bus, but it felt like they finally got off the bus.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I mean, we came out absolutely hot.
Speaker: I can't remember if we scored the first drive.
Speaker: I don't think we did.
Speaker: But there were three drives in a row that were just masterpiece, you know,
Speaker: Wasn't necessarily looking for the deep ball every play, you know, chunk it down the field.
Speaker: Give Zion a couple of easy, you know, dink and dunk passes.
Speaker: We have Ron Wiggins, Anwar Lewis, Malik Jackson in the backfield, and Zion can run it too.
Speaker: So essentially we have four running backs, you know, in our backfield.
Speaker: And then Zion has an arm.
Speaker: So like we were finally using...
Speaker: the weapon that, you know, the weapon in the game plan that we need to use, you know, yes, we have some really good receivers and, you know, they can burn paths and corners, but as we've seen the beginning of the year, I don't necessarily always trust that.
Speaker: Our passing game is not fully developed.
Speaker: Maybe that comes, you know, next year or maybe that's not even a,
Speaker: a huge priority for Rich Rod in this offense.
Speaker: But yeah, as we saw, especially in the first quarter, you stick to that run game and hand it off to these dudes, everything else will open up.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And, you know, one of the keys about Rich Rod's offense is that it's all based around one play, right?
Speaker: Read option.
Speaker: And, you know, not to not Logan Smothers
Speaker: or Ashton Frye or Tayshaun Smoot um what have we all seen Zion do well for the last six years run zone region yeah um and so yeah you know Zion's not you know Tom Brady right he's not Kyler Murray for that matter um
Speaker: But, you know, we've seen the last, I guess it's really been three weeks that his arm, when he starts to build some confidence downfield, he becomes one of the better quarterbacks in this conference.
Speaker: Oh, 100%.
Speaker: And, you know, it helps.
Speaker: You know, I got to give a shout out to guys like Quentin Lane,
Speaker: You know, shout out to guys like Sterling Galvan.
Speaker: You know, they're not our top two receivers, right?
Speaker: That's still Michael Pettway.
Speaker: You know, Sean Brown, obviously tied in one, but these guys are kind of glue guys.
Speaker: And we'll come back to Perry Carter in a minute because he's been balling out the last few weeks.
Speaker: But the glue guys, you know, who kind of fill in the rest of the touches, I got to give credit to them because Clinton Lane –
Speaker: before the Sam Houston game when he caught the game-tying touchdown, I really hadn't heard his name much.
Speaker: Yeah, me either.
Speaker: And pretty much really throughout the whole month of October, he's really built himself into a reliable downfield receiver for Zion.
Speaker: And if he keeps it up, I mean, he's got the – here's the thing.
Speaker: He has the build of an NFL receiver.
Speaker: I think he's 6'2", 6'3", good speed, good physicality.
Speaker: I mean, if he keeps developing, we're looking at a guy that could be wide receiver one in a year or two.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: We have a lot of those kind of guys in our depth chart, and their names, unfortunately for them, haven't been called a lot this year just because of the nature of how this offense runs.
Speaker: But, you know, they're still going out, putting in the work, just waiting for that opportunity and that ball to come their way because, I mean, the way we run, these safeties and these linebackers have to respect that
Speaker: even if Zion pulls it, you know, pulls it down at any second, he could take off if nothing looks available.
Speaker: And in the read option, they have to respect the fact that he could hold it and run it himself.
Speaker: So like every now and then, as you know, as should be the case, you know, we didn't conduct, we get these, these running plays in the field is going to open up and these guys just have to be ready.
Speaker: And,
Speaker: Nine times out of ten, as we've seen so far, you know, they have been ready.
Speaker: They've been right there ready to make the catch, make the big play.
Speaker: Yeah, and I'll say this.
Speaker: You know, we talked about wide receivers making plays downfield.
Speaker: You just touched on it.
Speaker: They really developed well throughout the year, whereas beginning of the season, we really weren't making any plays downfield.
Speaker: It didn't matter who was that quarterback.
Speaker: We weren't.
Speaker: I got to give credit now to Rod Smith and Rich Rod because they've schemed guys open better the last few games than they were previously.
Speaker: And I know with South Carolina coming up, that's going to be a big thing is we saw them against Georgia, right?
Speaker: We saw them against – geez, who else did they play?
Speaker: I think it was against – I think it was against maybe – who did they play?
Speaker: Vanderbilt or Kentucky they played.
Speaker: And they've made these passing games that have normally been elite and pretty explosive –
Speaker: somewhat pedestrian.
Speaker: Um, yeah.
Speaker: Um, so I think the fact that the coaches are actually scheming guys open versus just telling them, Hey, go, go beat a man one-on-one.
Speaker: Um, you know, that's really encouraging, you know, going into this Saturday where we've got, you know, I look, I know that South Carolina is not good, you know, from an sec standpoint, but they're still really, really talented.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: To be in the middle of the SEC is still insanely good compared to 90% or more of college football teams out there.
Speaker: Just because they are 2-6 or 2-7, something like that, we can't really read too deep into that and walk in here just thinking we're going to come away with it because it's
Speaker: Even with their record being what it is, it's still one of those games where we have to be on our A game and check every single box off just to have a chance to win.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: The good news is we're going in with really no expectations.
Speaker: Yeah, it's house money.
Speaker: I mean, you want to go in and play hard, right?
Speaker: You want to go in and execute well, even, you know, when you're out talented, you still want to go in and execute, you know, and just you want to get beat because they're better than you.
Speaker: You don't want to get beat because you beat yourself.
Speaker: So, I mean, you have to look at the last few weeks saying that you've proven you can execute.
Speaker: Now, they've only proven right now that
Speaker: And I hate to say this, I hate to jump on my team like this, but they've only proven that they're doing it for 30 to 35 minutes a game right now.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You know, we're still waiting for that 60 minutes of execution.
Speaker: It'd be great if we got it this week.
Speaker: I'll tell you what, because we're going to need it.
Speaker: But, you know, I just – I really just want to see, you know, some execution.
Speaker: And we saw it this last week.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And, I mean, there's a little added motivation.
Speaker: I was trying to remember South Carolina's record, but it's two and six because we can –
Speaker: put them out of bowl contention if we go in and win.
Speaker: And, um, for those of you who are unfamiliar, um, we are in the second year of our transition.
Speaker: Unlike James Madison, we took our first year while we were still in the FCS.
Speaker: So we're in our second year of transition, which means just like James Madison, the only way we can play in the post season is if there are not enough teams, uh, bowl eligible come season's end.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: And I think from one of our good friends, Jim Madison, I think the magic number is 51 for both teams to go bowling.
Speaker: I think it's actually down into the 40s now.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: I meant total, but yeah.
Speaker: I think now we're down to 41 or 42.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And yeah, South Carolina is one of those teams.
Speaker: So it would almost be poetic if in route to getting one of those spots because they don't have enough teams if we were the reason that one of them gets knocked out.
Speaker: Oh, yeah, that would be absolutely amazing.
Speaker: And then, of course, we would have the bragging rights for the mascot name.
Speaker: even though sadly our mascot will not be making the journey.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Cocky cheerleaders, Southerners, they're all staying home.
Speaker: So it's on us.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We got to be loud.
Speaker: We got to be obnoxious.
Speaker: Just got to avoid the, the, the drunk middle-aged white, white guy that's going to punch you.
Speaker: It's all right.
Speaker: Hey, look, Shane Bieber broke his foot after a loss.
Speaker: I can only imagine what these fans will do if they lose to us.
Speaker: Oh, God.
Speaker: We just got to duck and run.
Speaker: Yeah, we got to get back to the hotel safely and then take off all of our Jacksonville State stuff.
Speaker: What are you talking about?
Speaker: I'm going out in Columbia wearing that off if we win.
Speaker: Oh, man.
Speaker: Oh, man.
Speaker: But, yeah, so, you know, good win against FIU.
Speaker: That gives us three straight dubs over the Golden Panthers.
Speaker: And, you know, they were – I mean, we beat them twice while we were still FCS.
Speaker: And then, obviously, this last week, go in and beat them by about 30.
Speaker: So, it, you know –
Speaker: Going into this week, I mean, we've got a lot of confidence.
Speaker: We've played well.
Speaker: We're 7-2.
Speaker: And our two losses, you know, one is at Coastal Carolina, who I think if you gave us a second chance right now, I think we beat them.
Speaker: And the other is at Liberty.
Speaker: And I'm not going to say that we beat Liberty if we play them again, but I would love to see what that game, how that game goes with a fully healthy Zion and a fully healthy running back room.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Or just at least, you know, not losing both QB ones in a tight game.
Speaker: It was 17 to 13 going into the fourth.
Speaker: Obviously, the final score looks like it was more of a blowout than it was because they scored, you know, one touchdown, I think, pretty early in the fourth.
Speaker: And then they got that that like nail in the coffin.
Speaker: So like it was a closer game than QB.
Speaker: most people would like to think.
Speaker: But yeah, no, having a fully healthy team, especially you look at those two losses and we could easily be sitting here, sitting here right now, talking to y'all at nine and O if the ball just bounced our way, just, just, you know, one or two times differently.
Speaker: I, I just, especially looking at our defense, I think we can go into Columbia and win this weekend.
Speaker: We have an absolutely insane defense.
Speaker: The guys up front, the linebackers, the corners are showing up.
Speaker: They have been locking down and just staying hip to hip on these receivers and not letting them get an inch of space.
Speaker: Now, some of these corners are mismatched as far as height goes and yoke.
Speaker: They've given up some plays to wide receivers just because, you know, those guys have the reach.
Speaker: But when it comes to that, if you play coverage 99.9% and a dude is just four inches taller than you and he can get up and get it, there's honestly not much you can do there.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: At the end of the day, you know, you watch Western Kentucky who just three years ago,
Speaker: led the FPS in passing yards per game.
Speaker: And they didn't do much against us.
Speaker: You look at FIU, and I didn't realize this, FIU is one of the fastest offenses in all of college football.
Speaker: And we, for the most part, shut their offense down.
Speaker: Outside of really just – outside of one big pass play, that was about it.
Speaker: I honestly wouldn't have known they were one of the fastest offenses because –
Speaker: we kind of force them to slow down a little bit.
Speaker: But also, whenever we're snapping the ball every 20 seconds in real time on average, other offenses just tend to look slow.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We run faster than actually everyone right now.
Speaker: It's not an official stat for us because, you know, we're still transitioning.
Speaker: But, yeah, we're the fastest offense in the NCAA right now.
Speaker: And it's
Speaker: absolutely beautiful to watch when it's clicking like clockwork.
Speaker: Now, when we're getting three and outs in 20 seconds, maybe not so much, but yeah, we don't, we don't talk about that.
Speaker: It's one of those.
Speaker: It's truly a win-lose.
Speaker: If you can execute and get your four or five yards here and just chunk it down the field and not allow the defense to sub in and then just hit them, it works beautifully.
Speaker: If you get that three and out, though, and it's only been 30 seconds and your defense is still sucking down air, it can get rough, and we've seen that.
Speaker: For sure.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: Well, going into this South Carolina game, you know, one of the big concerns is which Spencer Rattler do we get, right?
Speaker: Do we get the 2020 Spencer Rattler that was – that looked like the next great Oklahoma Heisman winner, or do we get the 2021 Spencer Rattler that got minched after three games?
Speaker: You know, that –
Speaker: I've said all along that Spencer Radler is one of the most talented quarterbacks in all of college football.
Speaker: And it's just this square foot of real estate right here is just not quite there for him.
Speaker: I'll go ahead and make a prediction right now.
Speaker: If we manage to get three or more sacks this week, we win this game.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I mean, I could see it.
Speaker: The only thing was bringing that much pressure though is that man,
Speaker: respectfully, that man got wheels.
Speaker: So if he manages to get outside the pocket and we don't have a spy or any sort of contain, I mean, it could get real ugly real fast.
Speaker: And the thing about that offense, especially once they get the rhythm and the momentum, it gets really hard to stop because then they start playing really quick and
Speaker: they're going to be one of the more talented offenses we see, especially, you know, when it comes to wide receivers, you know, so if they get to the point where they start gassing our corners and we don't have the proper, you know, help over top, it could get real ugly real quick.
Speaker: So, yeah, I would love to see the pressure because that's just who Zach Alley is.
Speaker: He's aggressive.
Speaker: He's going to go after him.
Speaker: But I just hope we have, you know, measures in place to where if he tries to slip out,
Speaker: you know, somebody's right there to pull them down.
Speaker: Yeah, and that's something that Spencer Rattler has done so good this year.
Speaker: I got to give him credit because, I mean, he came in off of one of the hottest five-game streaks that you've seen at the end of the year.
Speaker: It didn't start great this season, but he's really picked it up.
Speaker: He played really well against Georgia.
Speaker: And, yeah, look, South Carolina's 2-6 or whatever.
Speaker: All right, a 2-6 SEC team wins a lot of G5 conferences.
Speaker: I mean, let's just – Yeah.
Speaker: Let's just call a spade a spade.
Speaker: This is still one of the most talented rosters, you know, in the upper echelons of college football.
Speaker: And, unfortunately – I mean, well, actually, I say fortunately for us.
Speaker: It's an 11 o'clock game.
Speaker: Fans probably won't be all that awake.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You hope that they sleepwalk through the first quarter and a half to two quarters and you're able to get some kind of a lead.
Speaker: But at the end of the day, I mean, it's going to come down to execution on the defensive side of the ball.
Speaker: Corners can't.
Speaker: They can't give too much room because South Carolina will take the underneath all day.
Speaker: And you can't get beat and press.
Speaker: And as much pressure as Zach Alley gets, and I'll drop a little football mound for y'all who maybe haven't played or maybe don't study, Zach Alley runs a lot of cover one.
Speaker: He wants to play one safety high a lot on early downs and get an extra guy into the box and then play man across the board.
Speaker: That's his base defense.
Speaker: He'll send bullets from everywhere, but generally you're going to see a lot of one high defenses.
Speaker: When that happens, you've got to get home.
Speaker: Um, that's that, that single high safety can only cover one side of the field.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: So I actually, I would not be surprised if we run a lot of cover to, you know, try to get two safeties deep because you can't run pressed against this team and not get home because they will eat us alive downfield.
Speaker: And we've seen it.
Speaker: We're, we're susceptible to deep shots.
Speaker: We really are.
Speaker: Yeah, that's, that's the biggest thing.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: leaving that one safety out there to dry, especially when you have as good of a QB as Spencer Rattler can be.
Speaker: You know, he'll make that safety drift left and then the pass is going right.
Speaker: And I don't care who you are unless you're Superman.
Speaker: There's no way you're recovering, you know, to go help that corner if he's beat.
Speaker: So, yeah, it's really one of those where defense is going to have to lock in.
Speaker: I'm going to need to see, you know, Chris Hardy and company in the backfield with their hands on Caleb Williams some way, somehow, you know, making him uncomfortable, you know, not allowing him to get through all of his reads, making him want to leave the pocket.
Speaker: You know, if we do have a spy or somebody there ready to take him down, don't biggest thing is just interrupt everything, anything and everything we can.
Speaker: Yeah, for sure.
Speaker: This defense has been disruptive, but I just said it.
Speaker: We've been susceptible to deep shots.
Speaker: They haven't been that we're just getting out physical.
Speaker: These guys aren't hitting 50-50 balls.
Speaker: A lot of these are getting beaten coverage.
Speaker: I would love to focus to be maybe playing a soft man so that they can't just run curl routes all day, but force them
Speaker: to run slants, force them to run crossing routes, force them to hit guys on the move instead of an easy five-yard hitch that turns into 10 yards because we're playing off coverage.
Speaker: But, you know, all in all, you know, if we execute on defense, especially in the back end and then on offense, I'm not going to say we can't throw the ball, but we need to run to set up the throw.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And we don't need to take those.
Speaker: We take those short throws, that five and 10 yards.
Speaker: We don't always have to go for, you know, the 25, 30, 35-yard bomb.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You know, one thing about Rich Rod, you know, at his best, offenses, believe it or not, have actually – they've thrown the ball for almost 300 yards a game.
Speaker: I was looking at – I mean, his numbers at Arizona, they slung the ball all over the place.
Speaker: But they had one of the best QBs in the Pac-12 that year.
Speaker: But when he's had a runner like Zion, I mean, I think he had Khalil Tate his last year at Arizona, and they led the country in rushing yards per game.
Speaker: So, I mean, that's – his M.O.
Speaker: is still to run the football.
Speaker: So, I don't – I would hate to see us get away from that this week.
Speaker: I mean, right now I think we're averaging almost 50 rushing attempts a game.
Speaker: So, I'd love to see us really ground and pound with some tempo and force South Carolina to get an extra man in the box so we can throw it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's been pretty evident the more we stray from using the run game as a base, the more our offense tends to struggle.
Speaker: Usually those three and outs, you see a lot of, you know, we run on first down and only get a yard.
Speaker: And then all of a sudden our next two plays are pass plays.
Speaker: And those typically never tend to work out well, because if we pass on second down, I'm like second and nine, second and 10 and don't get anything.
Speaker: Of course, you know, the defense knows a pass play is coming on third down.
Speaker: So I would love to see us kind of stick to the running game.
Speaker: And eventually something will break loose.
Speaker: We have those kind of guys in the backfield.
Speaker: Something's going to break loose at some point.
Speaker: We just have to, you know, weather the storm and stick to the game plan.
Speaker: And we'll be good.
Speaker: We'll be all right.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: You know, hey, what happens happens.
Speaker: We're going to have a ball either way.
Speaker: And one way or another, Rich Rod's going to have these guys scratching and clawing for 60 minutes.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So, all right.
Speaker: Well, I guess the next biggest news around the campus is we got some basketball action now.
Speaker: We finally, finally, finally are back to games in the Pete baby.
Speaker: We've got two exhibitions.
Speaker: We're recording this Tuesday night and the exhibitions are Wednesday night.
Speaker: So it'll probably come out just before the games.
Speaker: I know the women play Montevallo.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And the men have Talladega College.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So, you know, I don't know if it's, I mean, I don't think they're at risk of losing the exhibitions, but at least you wouldn't hope.
Speaker: I was about to say, you say that, but we, I don't know if you saw, but Rick Pitino and St.
Speaker: John just lost to a D2 school in their exhibition.
Speaker: A D2 school.
Speaker: I forgot that he left Iona.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: St.
Speaker: John came with the Brinks truck.
Speaker: But, man, I'll tell you what.
Speaker: Having games back in the Pete feels good.
Speaker: Obviously, NBA just started, and us and all of our friends, we're all huge basketball fans.
Speaker: As much as I love football, basketball is the one game I can sit down and just chill out and watch all day long.
Speaker: Oh, same.
Speaker: Hours.
Speaker: Hours and hours on end.
Speaker: Um, everything.
Speaker: I I'm a football junkie.
Speaker: I study the game, but football for me is probably the most watchable sport.
Speaker: So it, it's good to have it back.
Speaker: Um, it's gonna be good to have the Cox on TV.
Speaker: Hopefully on national TV, we start playing really well.
Speaker: This is a good, really good basketball conference.
Speaker: So.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Uh, I was looking and I see USA release their national TV.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: listings.
Speaker: I think we only have one and it's an away game.
Speaker: I think it's our away game at Liberty.
Speaker: That's going to be on national TV.
Speaker: All the rest are going to be ESPN plus except for the conference conference tournament.
Speaker: Conference tournament will be national TV.
Speaker: And I ain't saying that I'm going to be at the conference tournament, but I'm going to be at the conference tournament.
Speaker: I mean, it's right up the road.
Speaker: So why wouldn't we go to rocket center?
Speaker: Better than having to make the 10 hour, 11 hour trek up to Evansville.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Now we can just go to downtown Huntsville, go to the Von Braun center, eat a bunch of good food.
Speaker: Oh yeah.
Speaker: I know I'll probably go.
Speaker: Hey, we can, we can go, go to the space and rockets and they're just a,
Speaker: look around and have some fun.
Speaker: Exactly, man.
Speaker: Hey, Space and Rocket Center is fun.
Speaker: There's a lot of stuff.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: I haven't been since I was like six, too.
Speaker: It's honestly, it's pretty cool.
Speaker: You'll learn a lot of stuff no matter how old you are.
Speaker: Indeed, indeed.
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, that's huge, man.
Speaker: You know, with the A-Sun, it was home court advantage.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: for the tournament, which was neat until you weren't the high seed and then it sucked.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Our first year in the A-Sun, it was fun because, you know, we were what, the two seed?
Speaker: So we hosted every game up until the semifinal when we lost.
Speaker: But yeah, when you're not the high seed and with the way the A-Sun was traveling easy midweek for a basketball game,
Speaker: Kind of sucked.
Speaker: And, of course, you know, the city that shall not be named that the OVC tournament was held in.
Speaker: I'm going to go on record and say that, look, Evansville, a lot of nice people.
Speaker: And the arena is super nice.
Speaker: There is nothing in Evansville, Indiana.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And luckily there's everything and more in Huntsville.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: And if it's not in Huntsville, it's in Decatur or Athens.
Speaker: So, yeah.
Speaker: Um, and if you want to make a road trip to Birmingham, you're like an hour and 15 minutes away.
Speaker: So not, not too far at all.
Speaker: So, you know, it, um, I certainly plan to be at the tournament.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: But, man, it's huge.
Speaker: It's going to be really cool having the tournament in your home state.
Speaker: And just for me, it's not even two hours from where I live.
Speaker: So I can make a date for that.
Speaker: Yeah, me neither.
Speaker: Same here.
Speaker: Sam, I know that – I know the guys are excited.
Speaker: I know that Coach Harper and Coach Petrie are excited for the season.
Speaker: I mean, we've mentioned it in prior episodes, two of the most fiery coaches in all of college basketball.
Speaker: Regardless of men's or women's, they've got to be in the top ten.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: People just need to go watch a doubleheader and just –
Speaker: Watch, you don't want something to go wrong, but just hope that when you're a doubleheader, something goes wrong because the amount of emotion and the, the amount of foot stomping you will see between the two of them.
Speaker: Oh goodness.
Speaker: It's, it's a sight to see, but I mean, you love to see it coming out of your coaches.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And, you know, credit to coach Petrie, you know, I, I hate this cause I, I enjoy women's basketball.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: There aren't a lot of women's coaches that are all that fiery.
Speaker: Coach Petrie, it's like he's coaching in the NBA Finals, Game 7, Cavs-Warriors.
Speaker: I mean, that's what he looks like every game.
Speaker: That man reminds me of George Carl sometimes.
Speaker: Without the racism.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, without that.
Speaker: Yeah, without DeMarcus Cousins going on Twitter and calling you a racist.
Speaker: But no, man, it's going to be a good season.
Speaker: Even if – I mean, even when the teams aren't great, it's a fun time in the Pete.
Speaker: We make sure that they – we make sure that it's not easy.
Speaker: I mean, obviously we're five feet from the other bench, and it seems like every time we're getting in an argument with someone, so.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And it's not exactly a doubleheader.
Speaker: What is tomorrow night while we're recording?
Speaker: Because women play at 1130 in the morning, which is weird.
Speaker: And then the guys play at six.
Speaker: So it's not a doubleheader, but they both play tomorrow.
Speaker: So, yeah, if you don't have class and you're not, you know, feeling the type of way after the Halloween festivities, I hope you went and enjoyed some basketball.
Speaker: And if you are feeling the type of way, pop yourself a little packet of liquid IV and go to the game.
Speaker: Yeah, you're definitely going to need some liquid IV and ibuprofen because I'm not sure if hardcore is there, but if they're there.
Speaker: you're going to need some, you're going to need some medicine.
Speaker: Take some earplugs.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Oh man.
Speaker: But man, it's going to be a great season.
Speaker: It's going to be an exciting season.
Speaker: I have a sneaky suspicion that the basketball team has the same thing in store versus the football team did.
Speaker: Dude.
Speaker: I hope so.
Speaker: Here's, I really hope so.
Speaker: We're, we're jumping up in competition this year.
Speaker: So,
Speaker: But, I mean, we're also – we've got some pretty good transfers.
Speaker: I've been looking at the transfer portal.
Speaker: Coach Harper, you know, went out and got some absolute dogs.
Speaker: We went from ASUN, which was, I think, 20th ranked in Ken Palm, to CUSA, which is like 11th.
Speaker: So we jumped up big time.
Speaker: But, I mean, if we can go out and do what we did in football on the hard court,
Speaker: it will be nothing but, you know, an outpouring of respect.
Speaker: And, I mean, hey, let's see if we can go dancing for a third time in the Harper era.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And, you know, you mentioned that Ken Palm rating.
Speaker: You start doing the math.
Speaker: This is not in order, but SEC, ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12, West Coast Conference, MEAC,
Speaker: You start doing the math, you get real close to some of the best conferences in college basketball when you're number 11.
Speaker: Yeah, and especially coming from 20, yeah, that's a lot to climb.
Speaker: So we're definitely going to see some fun basketball on the Pete.
Speaker: We're going to see some fun basketball, you know, on ESPN+, ESPNU, wherever we can watch the games.
Speaker: You know, it's going to be pretty exciting.
Speaker: It's going to
Speaker: I'm hoping that kind of parlays into some pretty big names coming to Jacksonville in the years to come.
Speaker: Absolutely, man.
Speaker: Hey, look, there are some good guards in Alabama.
Speaker: I'll tell you what, we got good guards.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So if we can start to tap into some of these three, even three-star, maybe even some four-stars, we're going to start to play like a really good basketball team.
Speaker: And
Speaker: Prediction.
Speaker: We make the tournament in the next three years.
Speaker: I think we do it.
Speaker: I could see it.
Speaker: I could honestly see it.
Speaker: I actually think we win conference in the next five.
Speaker: As long as Ray Harper is still the coach, I think we win the conference in the next five years.
Speaker: Yeah, I can see it for sure.
Speaker: But I mean, so we got basketball.
Speaker: We're still waiting on baseball.
Speaker: I know softball has played an exhibition or two.
Speaker: Their season is about to start.
Speaker: Women's bowling.
Speaker: We have one of our new additions.
Speaker: Their very first tournament down in Orlando, they got second place.
Speaker: And I was reading the article about some of the teams they beat.
Speaker: And for those of you who don't remember, they got placed in a preseason top 10 poll for all of women's bowling.
Speaker: And there were some people that were like, this team never existed before.
Speaker: How are they top 10?
Speaker: Let me just read you off a list of the rankings of the teams they beat in this tournament.
Speaker: They beat number one in defending NCAA champion Vanderbilt.
Speaker: They beat number five, Stephen F. Austin, number six, Youngstown State, number 22, Tulane, number 27, Monmouth, number 33, Damon, and number 35, UAB.
Speaker: Glad they beat UAB.
Speaker: Always great to take down an in-state team.
Speaker: But yeah, no, these women are no joke.
Speaker: And to play second in your very first tournament together,
Speaker: That's absolutely nuts and only a great sign of what's to come.
Speaker: Yeah, and I think, I mean, preseason, we were top 10 in the rankings.
Speaker: And our coach, keep in mind, first year's program.
Speaker: And Greg Sides went out and hired a two-time national champion.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Who's been a national coach of the year seven – at one point seven consecutive seasons was the national coach of the year.
Speaker: I don't care what people say about that man.
Speaker: He has made some of the best – I mean absolute best coaching searches and coaching finds out of any athletic director.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He's got – just in the last three years, Rich Rodriguez –
Speaker: one of the inventors of the spread offense.
Speaker: He went out and got Missouri's former baseball coach, who actually was pretty good there.
Speaker: They just wanted a little bit more in a really tough baseball conference and then go out and get arguably the best bowling coach on the planet.
Speaker: I don't know how he keeps doing it, but he doesn't miss.
Speaker: And these people don't leave either.
Speaker: They stick around for the long haul.
Speaker: I mean, whatever he's doing, I need him to just keep to, you know, bottle it up.
Speaker: And whenever he inevitably retires or moves on, pass it on to the next athletic director, because it's working.
Speaker: That man has the, the Krabby Patty secret formula.
Speaker: He does.
Speaker: Oh man.
Speaker: But, uh,
Speaker: man, I, I think that about wraps it up.
Speaker: I think we've hit everything.
Speaker: I think so too.
Speaker: Uh, I'm like I said earlier, I'm just looking forward to this, this game this weekend.
Speaker: Um, my first time at South Carolina, not my first time in SEC stadium, both of us were lucky, you know, being in Southerners, we got to be in a lot of SEC stadiums, you know, as a, as a JSU Gamecock fan.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: SEC and ACC because of where we're located.
Speaker: But yeah, I'm excited.
Speaker: This will be my first one not in uniform.
Speaker: So that will be fun, you know, to actually harass the fans a little bit and be a little bit rowdy and PG-13 plus.
Speaker: Because, you know, we had to respect the uniform.
Speaker: We couldn't do that.
Speaker: But, you know, now...
Speaker: There are other factors at play, so it'll be fun.
Speaker: God help all of our girlfriends, fiancés, wives.
Speaker: Man, there are...
Speaker: Four coming?
Speaker: Yeah, four couples and then three flying solo.
Speaker: Yeah, three single Pringles that are coming.
Speaker: We got four wives, fiancés, or girlfriends that are going to have to put up with us for 48 hours.
Speaker: Luckily for them, we've stacked the seats.
Speaker: If they want to sit together and avoid us for a little bit, they can.
Speaker: I guarantee you that ends up being the move.
Speaker: Honestly, I don't blame them if that's how they go about it.
Speaker: All right, man.
Speaker: Well, it's been another successful week.
Speaker: If you're listening to this, it is Tuesday night, and I will hopefully have it out by Wednesday night.
Speaker: So all you Gamecock fans, we hope you have a great week.
Speaker: and we will be reporting live on the Twitter page from Williams-Brice Stadium and from around the campus all day.
Speaker: And so if you're getting a lot of posts in quick succession, it's because we're both right there live, and we both have our phones on us.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: I'm going to keep that thing on me, charged and ready to go.
Speaker: But, man, another good week.
Speaker: Jalen, hope you have a great rest of the week.
Speaker: You too.
Speaker: See you Friday night.
Speaker: That's 700 Pelham Road Podcast signing off.
