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Reviewing Our 2025 Sun Belt Football Preseason Takes
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In this episode, we take a look back at our preseason takes as Brian and Zeke review what they were wrong about, what they were correct on, and what we learned from this season that can be applied in the future.
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Transcript
Preseason Predictions Revisited
00:00:16
Speaker
Welcome everybody in to another edition of Warm Weather Fans. It is b Brian Stone and Zeke Palermo and today we are here to Judge ourselves. Who watches the Watchmen type thing? ah So we went back and re-listened to our preseason episodes where we previewed all 14 teams in the Sunbelt Conference. And we're here to discuss what we got wrong, where we were right, and where we kind of maybe split the difference and maybe there was a little bit more context needed and things that...
Surprising Success of Coastal Carolina's Third-String QB
00:00:48
Speaker
I'll I mean, I'll throw it out.
00:00:50
Speaker
Coastal Carolina, this quarterback position. I don't think I ever would have anticipated their third stringer coming in and winning five games. ah But apparently neither did Tim Beck, because otherwise he would have kept his job by putting Samari Collier in earlier in the season. But that's all neither here nor there. Zeke, how's it going, man?
00:01:09
Speaker
It's good. ah We're recording this. um um We needed a little extra prep time for this one, so we're recording this on a Wednesday, um and that's thrown my whole day for a loop because it's just we record on Sundays. and Yeah. so I don't know. It's felt like a Sunday. It's also felt like a Monday today. And I know this is the most riveting conversation. always It's like bad beat hearing about someone's gambling bad beats. It's like, awesome, man. This is so over the moon exciting. Thanks for sharing. um right That's where I'm at today. It's been funky.
Reflections on Past Projections
00:01:41
Speaker
So you you did a full-on psycho move that I laughed at over text message when you told me you were listening to our episodes at 2x speed, and you listened to, at one point, five of them in one night, which is hilarious. ah was a lot.
00:01:59
Speaker
i I kind of had just... I was like scrolling through some of them, especially like the longer ones. And I generally just kind of went to the end to be like, where did we project this team? And then kind of went back and was like, hey, if if I said they were higher or lower for some reason, why? And then I went back if if we were like way, way off and kind of listen to why. But the ones we were right on, I was just kind of like, yeah, this sounds about right. um in In retrospect, that was the better way to do it. um as As I think about how we're going to do this next year, I really wish I had done that because a lot of the notes that I took, and again, they're not all going to make this episode, but a lot of them, and because it's not worth mentioning, is like, oh, we thought this SEC West was
00:02:52
Speaker
third stringer last year was going to make a splash and he ends up with 14 carries on the year or, you know, we're really pumped about this offensive line transfer from, you know, Notre Dame that who just doesn't end up playing or it doesn't materialize or he gets hurt. So those are things that, you know, flavored some of our predictions, some of our ah expectations, but But the goal is here to take a little bit of a big picture. um I think a really good example um that we'll kind of get to is um like Brad Jackson at Texas State, who had a stellar year this season.
00:03:32
Speaker
And we went into the episode, ah that preview episode, and said, Brad Jackson, he played last year. ah He's no Jordan McLeod, and that was kind of it because that's all anyone knew about him.
00:03:43
Speaker
Like, yeah, technically we were wrong about this, but that's disinteresting. We're trying to keep these a little more big picture, high level things yeah just for the sake of conversation.
00:03:54
Speaker
and And I have a couple of quotes that like I pulled out, like direct quotes from the episodes, from the previous episodes, like the previous we did. So let's jump into it here. So i want to start with the stuff that we got wrong, because frankly, i think that's what, if anybody here is listening, that's what they're here for, is listening to us eat crow.
Old Dominion's Unexpected Performance
00:04:16
Speaker
um I'll start off with the obvious one. We were way off on Old Dominion.
00:04:21
Speaker
ah who ended up winning nine games, went nine and three. Colton Joseph was off offensive player of the year. Although I'm very sure in the preseason, I said he was the second best quarterback in the Sunbelt. And that proved true. i may have misjudged, I guess, who the best quarterback is in the Sunbelt because I thought Braxton...
00:04:41
Speaker
and then I thought Barnett was kind of a third place guy. But, you know, can tell you exactly why thought that they weren't going to be as good as they were this year. It was because a lot of their guys either hadn't done a lot at the D1 FBS level, like a Devin Roche, who had ran for, I think, like 200 yards in 2024. So was kind like,
00:05:07
Speaker
He was efficient with his touches, but he didn't really play all that much. So it's kind of hard to project what happens when you increase the volume on somebody like that, because there's always a chance that that falls off and they're better used kind of in spurts than like an every down guy.
00:05:21
Speaker
um But I'll go ahead and say for the the receivers, the receiving core, Um, namely Trey Brown, Ja'Cory Thomas, who both came from Hutchinson, uh, community college, which is a Juco that they actually played at with Samari Collier, the, the, the coastal quarterback.
00:05:40
Speaker
I was just wary to say, to go ahead and go, Oh, these guys played at Juco. They're going to be good this year as starting receivers for this football team. And historical precedence being that Ricky Ronnie had not really had a winning record at Old Dominion and since he took over basically 2020. think it was just...
00:06:00
Speaker
i think it was just I think the lesson i I can kind of take from this is like when I sit down and I look at a team and I go, okay, this this team has one of the best quarterbacks in the conference. I will be probably cutting them more slack.
00:06:14
Speaker
ah But then I know they had a better team even on paper than like Arkansas State did. But I mean, I made the joke on Twitter. It's like, then you get a guy like Jalen Rayner, who's like a Bugatti, like parked in a trailer park. So you're just like,
00:06:30
Speaker
I don't know. I will be granting like the best quarterbacks in the conference more more slack moving forward just because of how off we were on this. Sure. I think we also really slept on the defense, and you know that means we got both sides of the ball wrong. um But this goes to speak about the the the talent on that Old Dominion side and the the coaching staff, really, because ah what stood out most to me is that a lot of their best players were guys that were here last year and didn't do a heck of a lot.
00:07:02
Speaker
Um, obviously Jason Henderson, uh, medically retired very early in the season. I don't think he even played a game. He may have played one, two games. I think he played one game. It was like very early September where he says I'm done with football. Um, and he had been, you know, the, uh,
00:07:19
Speaker
like the linebacker for this team for a couple of years in a row. um But old dominion comes out second, most sacks in the conference, ah third best ah air defense, I think by yardage ah in the conference. And it's just because guys that were special teamers that, you know, finished the year with 10, 12 tackles um stepped up, stepped up in their secondary, especially Jeremy Mack, Jerome Carter, Brandon Crutchfield guys that were again, primarily gunners, primarily like kickoff return guys. And so, you know,
00:07:52
Speaker
whether this is kind of the the Butch Jones 8-5 year of last year where they're going to regress to the mean, especially post-Golton Joseph, to be seen. But um this is this season really reinvigorated or invigorated for the first time an interest in Ricky Ronnie and his coaching staff because um they turned a lot of guys that had not had production. You talked about Thomas who had – it wasn't like he was a stud.
00:08:18
Speaker
ah By my research, had 23 catches last year. Uh, in Juco Brown 27, uh, Naeem Abdul Rahim Gladding had two catches at old dominion last year. Right. So it's the ability to turn these guys into real playmakers that helped surround Colton Joseph and turn them into ultimately, uh, probably the second best team in the conference.
00:08:38
Speaker
Yeah. I remember defensively, I gave them a lot of credit in the linebacking core, but that way but then secondary-wise, I was kind of the same deal as the the receiving core, where I was like...
00:08:52
Speaker
Again, not not many of these guys played. You you just said you know how many how much production they had basically returned. So that that was just a miscalculation on my part. and i Although I think we all kind of, even when Matt was on the show, like universally were like...
00:09:11
Speaker
I just don't I don't see it. We were all really down on them. Yeah, I mean, i i will say, though, there is a little bit of middle ground. And I've said this before, because Old Dominion fans were hammering us in the preseason, saying that they were going to win the East.
00:09:25
Speaker
And you see that that didn't happen. And they lost two games in Marshall and JMU that basically put them out of the conference race pretty early in the season overall. I mean, they had a good season, no doubt. they're going to make a They made a bowl game. They won nine games. you know They had the offensive player of the year at quarterback. um this is This is not Old Dominion-centric, but I am really interested to see if Barnett moves on Of the guys that come back next year, it may be a really rough quarterback season ah for the conference next year, given who is still around, maybe. we We don't know. There's still a lot of movement that needs to happen like in the portal and all that kind of stuff. But it might be a really like not a banner year at the quarterback spot for a lot of these teams.
Quarterback Challenges Ahead?
00:10:14
Speaker
Early signs are pretty grim, especially because... as you look around the conference this year, most of the starting quarterbacks were not plug-in play transfer guys. Obviously there were a lot of injuries, especially down at Louisiana where they had the banner guy and Walker Howard transferring in from LSU. But...
00:10:31
Speaker
um but from a conference wide perspective, it was a lot of guys that had been in the system, you know, second, third year guys with the program and not necessarily first year transfer acquisitions. Like we saw with a lot of running backs, a lot of wide receivers in the conference this year were SEC big 10 rejects, mostly from the SEC. And that's just, you know, geographically, you talked about James Madison. I think,
00:10:58
Speaker
honestly, more than Old Dominion, i think we got them wrong as well ah because we were incredibly, incredibly lukewarm on James Madison. The three of us said, well, hear me out. The three of us said that they were going to be, they were probably going to win the East.
00:11:13
Speaker
um Granted, when we recorded the preview, we thought that Alonzo Barnett was still
James Madison's Dominance
00:11:18
Speaker
like two months away from playing. But I think we, even with Barnett's health,
00:11:25
Speaker
we were like, yeah, they're the best team in the conference by matter of no one else being there. This is a good James Madison team. Um, but ter I mean, this team was just an absolute buzzsaw ran through everyone. Um, defensive coordinator, absolutely legit. Um, the, this defense, I mean, we talk about the Troy defense from a couple of years ago and John Sumrall's last year, ah James Madison surpasses them.
00:11:51
Speaker
Um, just by magnitude of what James Madison did this year, they're my biggest miss personally because even though we were high on them, they were doing what I said Texas State was going to do two years ago. And we know how that went. Well, ah again, i think a lot I think for me a lot of it was Barnett's health.
00:12:12
Speaker
um I didn't love the outlook. And he looked shaky kind of early in the season. and you know right Throughout year. Yeah. Torres Torres ACL. No, but I mean, like, you know, he didn't seem to have his like lateral quickness, like running the ball, especially until about the old Dominion game, I would say, um or or somewhere thereabouts.
00:12:34
Speaker
I was just, I was just weary of a guy coming off of a torn ACL, rushing himself back, afraid that he would not be healthy or look himself. And again, he didn't really early in the season. Like he had some rough outings and he even had some rough outings when he was like a hundred percent, like later in the season. So, um, yeah,
00:12:57
Speaker
yeah that was That was the biggest sticking point for me. like i thought that I took the over. I bet the over, ah which hit for the win total. I thought they were going to win the East. They did.
00:13:08
Speaker
i mean, yes. like If we didn't go far enough by saying they were going make the college football playoff, like Sorry. Fair enough. No, it's fair.
00:13:19
Speaker
ah You mentioned this. The biggest, I think my sole biggest miss other than Old Dominion is Louisiana. oh yeah. I mean, we had, i think we all universally were like,
00:13:32
Speaker
Desormo is going to figure it out after losing Wooldridge and Carter, the tight end and Chandler Fields and like all of these guys, they, they lost, um, attrition via like the transfer portal or graduation.
00:13:49
Speaker
Um, we all took the win total over, which was like seven and a half coming into the season. ah it was It was pretty apparent right away that they were going to be in trouble. I mean, the first game of the season, they lose to Rice like 14 to 12 or something like that. Walker Howard looks bad in the bit he plays. Then he gets hurt and is out for extended periods. And I think...
00:14:12
Speaker
I'm not counting this as like a hit or whatever, but we even jokingly said like, God forbid you have to play Daniel Beal this season. And Matt was like, cool out on my boy, Daniel Beal. He was ah maybe the worst quarterback in the conference save for like Tad Hudson.
00:14:27
Speaker
Um, So we at least made that joke. And guess what? We late in week one, week two, until probably midway through the season, Daniel Beal was playing and it was ugly and tough to watch.
00:14:40
Speaker
ah The offensive line was terrible all season. I mean, I couldn't block for running backs. They couldn't block for the past, you know, you know, lunch Winfield who eventually stepped in and was about the only kind of sign of hope that they had.
00:14:55
Speaker
that was That was a huge whiff like for me because I was like, I think this team's going to win the West and be right up there with, you know quote unquote, Texas State was the other betting favorite along with ah Louisiana in the West.
00:15:09
Speaker
And another team, if we're doing who Vegas missed on, but not not really us, South Alabama's over under was seven and a half. like What were they smoking coming into this season?
00:15:20
Speaker
Yeah, the South Alabama stuff, um that that was just kind of a – we got that one right, actually, and you know we're stepping on the toes of the next section. The over-under was 7.5. We consensus said no way.
00:15:35
Speaker
um They defensively, they offered nothing um on the front seven. That was really what stood out to me this year. And then looking back at the numbers um from a per play or per passing play basis, South Alabama um had one of the highest, uh,
00:15:55
Speaker
you know yards per carry, yards per for catch in the country. um And that's just because they were getting no help up front. And that's not to speak about the offensive inconsistencies. Bishop Davenport was like... Well, hold hold on hold on. Go ahead. Sorry.
00:16:09
Speaker
Let's stay on Louisiana while we're in this section. We can talk about South Alabama in minute. ah Do you have anything else to kind of add on Louisiana? I mean, it was it was just a total miss on our part. Right. I don't know. um I think...
00:16:25
Speaker
I think the outlook of this season is a little different if they go lunch Winfield week one. um I think, I mean, this is an eight and four team with lunch Winfield ah because they would have won the game against Rice and then Eastern Michigan in the very, very beginning of the year. So yeah. Um,
00:16:44
Speaker
Obviously, we we didn't predict the offensive line team. That was very, very crippling. You had a fun quote, though, um I wanted to bring up. ah Talking about Walker Howard and Daniel Beal, God forbid someone lands on his collarbone and you're starting a guy named Lunch.
00:17:00
Speaker
That is a good one. Oh, man. so Talking about Walker Howard's collarbone or Daniel Beal's collarbone? um Again, I was going at two times speed. So I sounded like a chipmunk, probably. No, we were that was about Daniel Beal, talking about the prospects of like if Walker Howard didn't pan out or in what the case of what actually happened, got injured. It's like, all right, well, now you're at Daniel Beal, who at the time we were very low on, still very low on.
00:17:30
Speaker
And it's like, dude, you know if Daniel Beal gets hurt, you got to play a guy that's on the JEP chart lower than Daniel Beal. I mean, I've ended up working out, ended up kind of salvaging something from this Louisiana season.
00:17:43
Speaker
um Possibly kept DeSormo off the hot seat going into the off season, frankly. But, but Yeah, a quarterback play was the biggest thing. And i don't know, maybe maybe it's different with Walker Howard. That's why I'm willing to give him a pass to some degree.
00:17:59
Speaker
Can I say one thing, too? Please. is We have numerous examples now. Lunch Winfield being the latest. Samari Collier. When people i i hate when people do this, I hate when people say you're not allowed to have a take unless you're like an active player.
00:18:19
Speaker
The reason I've always pushed back on that and like, I'm even getting, i was commenting something on the Georgia Southern forum the other day and someone said that and I'm like, Do you know how many examples we have over the past two years of coaches putting the wrong quarterback in for long stretches of the season and then just finally being like, my hand was forced. I had to put this other guy in and he's a success.
00:18:43
Speaker
What is that? you You can say whatever, like, hey, we're not at practice every day. We're not like in the film room with them. Great. Those guys are and they still pick the wrong guy. So that's why I always push back on that because I'm like,
00:18:56
Speaker
I don't care what they look like in practice. I care what they look like on game day. If you are a star in practice and you show up on game day and you can't complete 50% of your passes, I don't care how good you are in the film room. I don't care what kind of, you know, practice player you are like, I'm,
00:19:12
Speaker
Sometimes there are guys that look worse in practice and then look good on game day. And like, again, Luch, Braylon Braxton last year, Colton Joseph last year. I mean, there's there's just numerous examples of like coaches that just picked the wrong guy and stuck with them, like almost out of a sense of like hardheadedness.
00:19:33
Speaker
And yeah, This is why I always push back on the whole, like, well, you didn't play college football, you're not allowed to have an opinion on college football. It's like, okay, but these guys coach college football, and they still pick the wrong guy. So, like, what do you what do you say then, you know?
00:19:47
Speaker
Yeah.
Georgia State's Disappointing Season
00:19:48
Speaker
um Shifting over another team, we also, kind of like James Madison, where we were generally right. Like, if you were to... James Madison was the best team in the conference. That's what we anticipated. So we were right. We were wrong to the degree at which. Kind of the flip side of that is Georgia State. Yeah, we weren't too low enough. We were not even close to low enough. We talked about how it takes a little while for a coach like Del McGee who is heralded as an all-American recruiter, a guy who's going to bring talent into the field,
00:20:24
Speaker
The stadium, you know, we we were conscious of that and realized, you know, last year was pretty bad. This year will probably be a little rough and tumble. But once guys get in the system, once we're in year three, year four, allegedly what we've been sold is that this is going to be a program with talent.
00:20:42
Speaker
We neglected the fact that Del McGee is incapable of winning football games. And is an hired Hugh Jackson, who's a noted loser. Well, we got that part right. We knew Hugh Jackson wasn't going to do it.
00:20:55
Speaker
um This was... i and this is kind of a trend. I liked a lot of the remnants. Louisiana was another team where it's like, I like the remnants of what was previously here. um Going into the first year of Jared Parker at Troy, which was last season, not this current season. I was like, I think there's good infrastructure here that might be able to sustain this team. And,
00:21:19
Speaker
you know Obviously, Troy is now back up there, but last season took a step back. um I thought there was enough offensive line infrastructure ah to keep Georgia State afloat. I thought there was enough um talent defensively to keep them afloat, and that just simply, simply wasn't the case. I said in that episode, quote, I'm willing to trust the process. I am no longer willing to trust the process. You're off the you're off the wagon then, huh? Yeah. um Again, jumping on the section earlier, I called out Cameron Brown. I said, hey, Cameron Brown is interesting to me.
00:21:49
Speaker
um And he ended up you know beating the very low floor, a very low bar of Christian Valer and PJ Hatter, who ended up not even playing, and TJ Finley. um But anyway, that's where we were at.
00:22:01
Speaker
i Yeah, I wrote down that we said four we we saw four wins on the schedule. They didn't even get to two. They didn't win an FBS game. Right. They didn't beat an FBS team. ah This was funny.
00:22:14
Speaker
i One thing that i wrote I wrote down that I pointed out was I was very dubious of the Valer Hugh Jackson combination. I was like, this to me does not scream set up for success. And, you know, again, we were wrong on the the over under or, you know, whatnot, the the eventual win total. But ah the the elements were there. We just weren't like how mad would people have been, though, if we'd have been like they're going win like one game this year and they're not going to be the FBS team. People would have been like.
00:22:44
Speaker
get the hell out of here. You don't know anything about football. I think that's why, especially from some of the voices in the Georgia state space that you're not, that usually you're going to go to bat for this team.
00:22:57
Speaker
You're starting to see a lot of folks that are very Homer for this team are really showing cracks. And it's because, this this was not supposed to be what happened. This was not what was – I mean, it's just unacceptable for any team to not win an FBS game, let alone a team that, again, is like really trying to sell this bill of goods when you know maybe we just needed to trade places with Kennesaw State who's just won a conference championship. or you know Maybe they want to join the Sun Belt and we'll join Conference USA.
00:23:28
Speaker
um Staying in Georgia, another thing I got wrong – I said JC French was maybe the third best quarterback in the conference. I think I pushed back on that too, didn't I?
00:23:39
Speaker
You did because you had Walker Howard, which is not necessarily untrue. We just have no idea. No, i'm I'm willing to say that I was wrong. I'm willing to say it should have been Alonzo Barnett was probably the second or third. It depends on how you feel about Braxton, but I was willing to. Sorry, guys. I was willing to give the offensive player of the year from last year or whatnot. The the benefit of the doubt.
Troy's Unexpected Rise
00:24:03
Speaker
Uh,
00:24:04
Speaker
the the one The big last one we missed on the on the misses section is definitely Troy. Yes. We said should should win more than four to five, but I think we settled on like six and six.
00:24:20
Speaker
Uh, you said you had internal optimism about the program and like the way it was heading. So that you were right there. We were overall wrong about them. Um, I was very dubious of goose Crowder and Tucker kill crease. And i I still, in my heart of hearts, feel like they played a pretty easy conference schedule. They weren't exactly going through the ringer every single week.
00:24:45
Speaker
And then they lose that old Dominion game 33 to 0. ah And then they lose in the Sunbelt title game, which, again, credit for getting into Sunbelt title game. and you know Nobody else in the West held it. But...
00:24:58
Speaker
you You know, it was close for for about the first half, and then JMU kind of ran away with it in the second half. And um once Crowder got hurt, that that game was essentially wrap. But yeah, we were definitely wrong on Troy. i mean, but as we talked about with Barry McKnight, you know, he was like even around the fan base, like the the expectations were six and six would be like...
00:25:20
Speaker
healthy growth toward this and for them to turn around win eight after, you know, doubling their win total from last year, that was huge for them. And I, I'm, I'm going to give Jared Parker credit. Cause I, I thought that maybe if he turned in another bad season, that he would be on the hot seat heading into year three, even if they were six and six, I'd be like, they're not going to tolerate six and six in year two for much longer than year two.
00:25:46
Speaker
I think when we look back at this Troy season, maybe when we start previewing next year or over the next couple years, i think we're going to look back at this team as greater than the sum of its parts um because – there are a lot of games where Troy goes in and you look at the score, you look at the numbers. And again, they can only tell you so much, but you're like, how did they win this game?
00:26:08
Speaker
how How did they come out on top of this one? Why, why is it? Why can't Tame Meadows find a hole to save his life? Right. Why does Tucker kill crease have the same average time to throw as incredibly mobile lunch? Will Winfield and Colton Joseph.
00:26:24
Speaker
Like why, why are we doing these types of things? Right. um what Why is this offensive line allowing double as many s sacks as the next worst team in the conference?
00:26:35
Speaker
um we And so this is a team that was ultimately greater than the some of the parts. um There were a lot of really good defensive players. Devin Lafayette we knew was going to be good. Jordan Stringer we knew was going to be good. Another community or JUCO guy that shocked us this year, Donnie Smith comes in with 10 sacks. Yeah.
00:26:53
Speaker
Um, so the, the defense really, really came up big for them. Um, there was a point that you made and again, I, you know, I'm not going to hold you to this. We don't have to call this a miss by any means, but you commented, Gerard Parker talking about last year, it felt very conservative at times.
00:27:10
Speaker
Um, talking about, you know, maybe that's just first year coach, but yeah, Sometimes those decisions need to be made. Don't take the field goal. Go for it on fourth. And he turned it around in in his second year as a head coach. Troy went for more fourth downs than any other team in the conference and kicked the third fewest field goals. um Yeah. and And so, you know, credit to him for making that adjustment because – Again, when youre when you can't run the ball, your quarterback game is shaky, and you have a defense, you got it you gotta to take the points when you can get them, and that requires gutsy calls like that.
00:27:45
Speaker
i I agree. I mean, even going back to 24, I still just felt like he was too conservative. There were games where it was like Memphis last year really sticks out in my mind where the game was over, and they just settled for a field goal, I think, to make it twenty seven to three And I was just like, who does this benefit at the end of the day? Are you just trying to get your kicker some reps? Like, you cut a 27-point lead down to 24 with, like, not that much time to go in the game. Like, what who what does that accomplish at the end of the day? So, yeah, no, credit to him. He turned this team around, definitely, because...
00:28:23
Speaker
you know i don't think I don't really think anybody had them go into the Sunbelt title game representing the West. so he's he He did a great job this year and you know deserves some leeway in the future, which we will obviously grant him based on this season.
00:28:39
Speaker
All right. Were there any more that we were... like wrong, wrong on before we jump? Because I know that there are people that are just going to click out after the the we were wrong section because they don't want to hear us take like victory laps. But, you know, is there anything else we just totally, even if it's not team just like specific points, I would i would say.
00:28:59
Speaker
um A quote that stuck out to me, I think from one of our first episodes, one of our very first previews of the year, um and this kind of goes back to the James Madison. I don't know which one of us, I think it was I that said, there is no dominant team in this conference.
00:29:12
Speaker
um And that was just simply untrue, as far from fact as it can get. um No, I think... There were a lot of surprises. There were a lot of middling teams, and this will transition into what we got right. There were a lot of middling teams that we kind of called out ahead of time and said, we don't really see it. I think the the top one is obviously Arkansas State, which regressed to the mean.
00:29:40
Speaker
So easy. I mean, it was it was the most obvious regression candidate out of the entire conference. If you look at the defensive numbers from last year, and and you looked at...
00:29:52
Speaker
like point differential and stuff like that, you were like, there's no way that they're going to, they can't keep this up where they have like a negative or almost even point differential, which would point you to saying this team is going to be like more of a six and six team. And then they went eight and you're just like,
00:30:09
Speaker
That's just one of those things that doesn't hold up. Now, I will say one minor thing we were wrong about on Arkansas State, but it only developed later in the year was the pass rush, where I think we said, who was what was his name? Brian Whitehead or something?
00:30:24
Speaker
Was like their only real guy that was notable. I can't remember what the pass rushers name that we pointed out was, but sure it was somebody that we were like, this guy's the only guy on the defense that's like even worth kind of mentioning.
00:30:36
Speaker
ah Outside of the pass rush, you saw it. i mean They were a bad run defense. They a bad pass defense. there they They lost Jaquez Cross early in the season. It kind of cratered the ceiling for what that offense could be. and therere They're right back to 6-6. It's like...
00:30:53
Speaker
and it's like back to reality, you know, and it's going to be, it's going to be rough. I still maintain going really rough after Jalen Rayner leaves because we saw the, the other quarterbacks that Butch Jones picked like James Blackman, Logan Bonner, like all of these guys have, we're just not it. And it's like, he kind of uncovered a, a gym in ah Jalen Rayner that frankly, like,
00:31:19
Speaker
what are the odds of that happening again? Probably not super high. I mean, Butch Jones surely has some level of blackmail on Jalen Reiner to keep him here. I mean, that's truly the only, only reason he's stuck around for so long. um Like he's had, you know, they've done well to put some interesting pieces around him.
00:31:40
Speaker
ah Corey Rucker, obviously, but then Corey Rucker really regressed himself this year, was not great, disappeared for like, the middle eight weeks of the season just did not show up to play football, which was really weird. um Obviously the Jaquez cross injury puts a ceiling. Cause then you're left with like Devin Spencer um was Kenyan clay. The second guy in that ah ah running game. Who's like,
00:32:02
Speaker
ah we said in the previews, anytime there was a Southern Miss transfer is, wow, the 2024 Golden Eagles are not really a team I wanted to load up on talent from. um So that obviously put a ceiling on what Arkansas State did, but we were spot on. This team was going to come back down to earth, and this is really where they belong in that six and six um plus or minus one
Texas State's Predicted Struggles
00:32:26
Speaker
Yeah. Kind of atmosphere.
00:32:28
Speaker
ah Another team we got dead on Texas state. um I mentioned it on a previous episode. I went back. We didn't get a lot of heat on socials just because I don't think there are a lot of Texas state fans on social media, to be totally honest. Like,
00:32:45
Speaker
yeah i've The amount that I've seen of them can probably be counted on like one hand or two hands. um We got hammered, though, in the YouTube comments. People were saying, I can't wait to come back and watch this video after the season.
00:32:59
Speaker
You guys are just hating on us. You're just, you know, you don't know what you're talking about. All that, all the the normal stuff pushback. I will request this, though. If you are a YouTube commenter or a social media person,
00:33:13
Speaker
and you say, I can't wait to revisit this at the end of the season, you have to come back at the end of the season. And like you can either victory lap or you need to eat crow, but you can't say something like, I can't wait to revisit this video at the end of the season, and then you're just in the wind and no one has seen has seen you. ah Okay, we said they'd have one of the worst defenses in the conference.
00:33:35
Speaker
They allowed 30.6 points per game. They were 92nd in the country in total yardage allowed at 398. They started 0-5 in Sunbelt play ah before beating Southern Miss, which was their lone, I think, good Sunbelt win.
00:33:53
Speaker
ULM and South Alabama, not exactly the cream of the crop right there. ah we had We had them winning five to six games. Like you said, maybe maybe we were a little off by not emphasizing Brad Jackson as much, but they...
00:34:06
Speaker
were using him last year like a gadget QB, the way that like Southern uses Weston Bryan or maybe JMU used Sluka early in the season. like So there was nothing to really go off of.
00:34:17
Speaker
He wasn't even in the backup last year. It was RJ Martinez was the backup behind McLeod. And so I didn't see him play that much outside of like certain formations and sets. We said they win five to six. They won six. ah they they They did well out of conference, and then they got in conference and kind of crapped the bed for the first like five games.
00:34:37
Speaker
And then they beat Southern Miss with a backup quarterback. And then they beat the, the two, two of the three worst teams in the conference from there on. So and I don't know what else to say.
00:34:50
Speaker
um See, ah it's been fun. I think Texas state, again, it, you know, it depends on who they keep. I think for the first time, um you know, Hindsight is 20-20. We all know my Texas State 24 pick. um But the from a postseason perspective, like as soon as the season is over, I think Texas State is in the best situation they've been in the past several years. And obviously this is at the season's end, before transfer portal hit, before we know Jordan McLeod's coming over, before we know um like what that situation was going to look like. um Because again, i I thought they were...
00:35:29
Speaker
conference playoff college football playoff bound. Um, I think there's some interesting talent. I think TJ Kinney, I think there's a real ceiling on him as a coach, but when you consider, when you look back like three years ago and it was Jake Spavadol who refused. Yeah. yeah yeah I think Texas state is trending gradually. It's a very, very, um,
00:35:51
Speaker
What's the opposite of steep? Gradual, I guess. Yeah, income on an incline. Yeah, it's very, very soft, but that they are trending upward. um And for the first time after game 12, I think we can say that pretty confidently.
00:36:07
Speaker
Well, they have to finally field like a real defense. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, that's they haven't really done during G.J. Kenny's tenure there yet. I mean, they were OK in 2024, but it's it was one of those where it was like when they got beat, they got beat like a drum.
00:36:24
Speaker
And when they played really well, they would hold a team to like nine points. So you'd look at the averages at the end of the year and go, ah, it's not that bad. But then when you go look at the individual games from 2024, you're like,
00:36:36
Speaker
I don't know, man. like Y'all got rocked by Georgia State like in 2024. What are we talking about? so Again, that was one where people in the YouTube comments were like on us by being like, you guys don't know what you're talking about. you're You're so wrong on this team. You guys are just hating because we're going to the Pac-12.
00:36:52
Speaker
No, you guys have a bad defense, and that has been proven. I mean, I... I don't know how, ah you know, we said the offense should be good. Not, I think we undersold the offense actually a little bit, but I think we also undersold how quite bad the defense was going to be, which was going to, going to literally cost them games against Troy.
00:37:13
Speaker
ah Who was it? Louisiana. I think Arkansas state Marshall. I think that, I think those were all like losses that they lost in like overtime and shootouts. So until they can field defense that is made up of warm bodies that actually make a difference. I mean, not that we ever have to cover them again, but I think that's, that was my, um that was my big reticence to give them credit. And I, you know, now we see that that was right to do so. Yeah.
00:37:47
Speaker
Another team we got crushed on socials
Marshall's Rebuilding Year
00:37:50
Speaker
and YouTube for, for not knowing ball ah was Marshall. ah Marshall fans said that they were going to pick up right where they left off after last year, after winning the conference in 2024, they basically said that the transition from Huff to Gibson was just going to be a wash. Like it was all all equal, all said and done. Um, um,
00:38:11
Speaker
People said we were too low on Carlos Del Rio Wilson and the downgrade from Braylon Braxton to him. um Turns out we weren't that low at all. the we We said that they would win four or five games. They won five.
00:38:25
Speaker
They started a shaky quarterback in Carlos Del Rio Wilson every week ah for almost the whole season until they finally had to play Zion Turner, who looked better than him, in spurts.
00:38:35
Speaker
But we didn't see enough of him to even know... where where either these guys are going to be come next season or even the bowl game. Um, Yeah, they they said we said this is going to be a true rebuild season. you know We saw it with Troy last season. We saw it with Louisiana two years ago where you get this mass exodus with the coach of talent and you're starting kind of back at ground zero almost.
00:39:02
Speaker
And all the Marshall fans told us on social media and YouTube comments that we didn't know what we were talking about. And um you didn't make a bowl game. You finished fifth in the Sunbelt East, which was not... a great division to finish fifth in. It's not like it's the sec East or whatever.
00:39:18
Speaker
Uh, yeah, and that was a, I think that was a relative layup. I don't think the, the masses, I think it was more of just the homers that were hammering us on that one. Um, cause it was a bit of a layup. I think another team we got right, broadly speaking, um,
00:39:36
Speaker
it got right in very much downplaying was ulm we said no amard hardy no offense we saw aiden ormenta and even though you know he had the off season he had the year of progression it's like we we kind of knew from the fourth or fifth week of aiden ormenta last year what we were gonna get out of him um and wouldn't you know this team Cannot throw the ball, did not have Ahmad Hardy who can you know break the hearts of opposing defenses.
00:40:07
Speaker
And ultimately, we just got a little bit closer to, luckily now it can happen now that they have a real AD, the Bryant-Vincent firing, and just kind of try to figure out where this team is going to get any semblance of identity offensively or defensively.
00:40:23
Speaker
um yeah because they're just they're just a team lost at sea. um I mean, they're – like it feels almost more desperate than what Georgia State is because with at least Georgia State, i don't know, we're like we're like two years removed from a bowl game, right?
00:40:42
Speaker
And from ULM, you're two years removed from Bowden saving your – program by winning three games in a year. um So that that program needs just like ah ah a top to bottom shake up. New AD hopefully um can do that for them. But that's something we had spot on. It's just like, no, um ah without a superhero back there, who's going to do it for you? Because it certainly wasn't going be Armena. Parker Smith wasn't that good. Braylon McReynolds was not great.
00:41:13
Speaker
Zach Palmer Smith was fine-ish at running back for them. ah All of their pass catchers, none of them make a difference, really. i don't That could be a chicken or egg thing with Armenta. It could be that he can't get the ball to them. It could be that they're just not that good. I don't i don't really know. but ah We said that they would win four games. They won three.
00:41:34
Speaker
um so We were relatively close. ah You talked about South Alabama earlier. i want to point them out as well. There's a direct quote that I listened to are two, two quotes that I took away from our preview that I think really nailed down what the season was.
00:41:52
Speaker
The first quote was, I said they either need to turn a corner or go into a ravine because you need to find out what you have with major Applewhite. They went into a ravine. They won what four games this season.
00:42:06
Speaker
And there was another quote. This has a bigger chance of going bad quickly than them winning eight plus games. That was from you. So you were, you were right on. We were right on. You said that they win five.
00:42:19
Speaker
I noted that their offense would regress without Gio Lopez. They finished 77th in the country in scoring offense at 26.5 points per game. um Yeah, it was just a bad season.
00:42:34
Speaker
i'm so I'm shocked. Applewhite still has a job. You have to imagine that year three is kind of the make or break season for him. But he's doing the reverse Jared Parker where what did he win eight in his first season? And now he's won four.
00:42:46
Speaker
So who knows what year three holds for him? With South Alabama, what we kind of anticipated, especially post-Gio Lopez, was that this is going to be a team that is in like the middle third to like a smidge below average at pretty much everything.
00:43:04
Speaker
um like You said seventy seven s nationally in points per game. that's you know just below the midway point, right? yeah And a lot of their on-paper numbers, ah defensively, offensively, just kind of sit in that range. This is a team that
00:43:24
Speaker
you know I know I just said that ULM is worth worse than Georgia State. There's a world where South Alabama is worse than ULM because they are equally without an identity, um but they're stuck in that purgatory that Arkansas State's been in, um that um App State was in for a couple years near the end of the Sean Clark stuff, um where it's like, we're going 6-6. We can't be mad.
00:43:50
Speaker
I'd say it's even worse than that now, though, i mean with the four wins. Yeah. i Again, it's such a – between two so seasons, it's like i don' you went two games above.500, two games below. I don't know what to make of you.
Coastal Carolina's Coaching Change
00:44:04
Speaker
um But we were down on South Alabama pretty heavily and rightfully so. Another team I want to hit – Quickly, for their coaching stuff, Coastal Carolina.
00:44:16
Speaker
um We said it was put up. I have a direct quote from this one that I think will make you laugh. I don't know if you wrote this one down, but I have. I don't have any direct quotes, but I mean, we just said it was put up or shut up for Tim Beck. um And something we were wrong about is all three of us, you, me and Matt. I don't know if all three of All of the people on that show, actually, I think it was just you and Matt on that one. I think I missed that.
00:44:38
Speaker
um Both voiced concerns that I would have echoed that six and six probably wasn't bad enough to get Tim Beck fired. um And so this is something we got wrong. A round of applause ah to their AD for making that call because, I mean, you know, that clearly wasn't going anywhere and they had to make a a difficult decision and they did so. So hats off there.
00:45:01
Speaker
Yeah, my my exact quote, ah and Matt kind of agreed, because we were talking about um some previous coach ah doing this, but I said, Coastal going 6-6 and bringing Tim Beck back for year four was their worst case scenario.
00:45:17
Speaker
ah Lucky for them, their AD had the guts to make that firing, um whereas a lot of other teams... I mean, look at... South Alabama was two games worse than...
00:45:29
Speaker
than they were, and they were like, let's just keep Major Applewhite around another season. You know, Georgia State won one one game this year and didn't beat an FBS team. They were like, let's keep Dale McGee around one more year. So, you know, so I'm just i'm like credit to their AD for being like, you know what, let's go ahead and pull the plug on this now and we can just start hiring and and doing a rebuild. um People on our in our comments once again of that preview said we were dead wrong and that we were... i don't i don't know. They said we missed players, but I'm like...
00:46:04
Speaker
Who did we miss? Like, i we named Ari Collier is like the only one that when I listened to facts the third, he was the third string quarterback. Like, sorry. Like, we yeah, we didn't mention the third string quarterback who came from a Juco. ah I said they'd win four, but I also didn't think that they were. I thought it was going to be Morris and Hudson all year.
00:46:24
Speaker
um battling it out. And I thought both of them were below average to mid Collier. obviously didn't see Collier coming in and winning going five and one in his starts and Hudson tanking the team and going one in five.
00:46:40
Speaker
ah So I would argue that the process was correct. even if the ultimate like win total was not. And then I said they'd allow 30 points per game on defense. They were 128th in the country in scoring defense at 33.9.
00:46:56
Speaker
Well, at Tad Hudson fan, 6-1-6-0, be sure to let us know because we know you're listening and we know you got strong feelings on this one. So, um Mr. Hudson, just give us a ring. Tell us why Samari Collier was the worst thing that happened to this program since, I mean, God knows what.
00:47:13
Speaker
It was very funny that that all of the coasts other coastal fans jumped on him and was like, hey, dude, you need to pipe down. We've heard enough. Um... I guess we can count this as a win. I don't know. Did you go back? i didn't listen to the whole ah Georgia Southern preview because I admit i'm basically like piloted it because you guys just bounced questions off of me.
00:47:34
Speaker
I was very... One of the things you mentioned, I was very dubious of you saying J.C. French was going to be like a top three quarterback in the conference. He's probably closer to like six, seven.
00:47:47
Speaker
i would put... uh brad jackson above him i'd put jalen rayner above him i put obviously brexton joseph barnett jack uh uh brad jackson um i'm trying to think of who else that i would put i would put an Rainer. um Yeah, I have quite a few quarter. i I even liked more of what I saw from like Samari Collier than I did really from. more I mean, he won games like for a defense that was allowing almost 34 points a game. um
00:48:22
Speaker
I don't know. I was like their defense is probably not going to be great. ah They fired their defensive coordinator like an hour after the last game of the season. Yeah.
00:48:34
Speaker
i I think I said that they were another clear like regression candidate. I was like, Clay can't help himself to stay above 500 for very long. ah it It started out this season looking that like they were going to be way even worse than that.
00:48:47
Speaker
And they actually had to claw to get back to 6-6 with some pretty embarrassing losses to like JMU, Old Dominion, which I think I called both of those like preseason. I was like, they're going to get crushed by both of these teams. south ah so south Southern Miss was another loss that I kind of pointed out.
00:49:06
Speaker
um Yeah, I was just shocked like they even clawed back to get to 6-6 because i at certain points, we thought that as a fan base, they were going to be like a 3-4 win team based on the way they were playing early.
00:49:19
Speaker
Yeah, I think I i remember, and I said this on the show, and I remember thinking that Georgia Southern was kind of postured to take a step forward.
00:49:30
Speaker
um But obviously we now know that from a talent and coaching perspective, that simply wasn't the case. I think more of that falls on Clay Helton um than any of the players or any of the, you know, obviously him and the um administration as well.
00:49:46
Speaker
um But like on paper, I... you know the They lost a handful of defensive playmakers. They lost, um obviously, Jalen White, who was like a stud.
00:49:58
Speaker
But you feel that really well with O.J. Arnold. um You get continuity. I think Clay Helton's offense... if he could just for the love of God, find a quarterback who's worth, you know, a nickel, right.
00:50:11
Speaker
that That's an offense that can make quarterbacks look really, really good. um I mean, they're like, even in the Kyle Van Trees, David Sprint, it was like some games, those guys were lighting up.
00:50:24
Speaker
Granted, they were lighting it up with three interceptions. Yeah. But they were, you know, throwing for 350 game, 400 like it was nothing. So, um yeah, i that team left a lot to be desired. And I i think i I know you're patting yourself on your back, and I think you had a more realistic view just being closer and following them a lot more closely.
00:50:45
Speaker
um The outside perception was that they were postured to take a step forward and simply did not materialize. I mean, i remember I pointed out a quote that was from Helton in the Sunbelt Media Day where he was like, our guys missed the the Sunbelt title game in 2024 by one game because, you know, Marshall beat JMU in the finale and we've got a real chip on our shoulder. No, you didn't. You mailed in the first like five games of the season. You you slept walked.
00:51:16
Speaker
threw two losses on the West coast to Fresno and USC. You came back and you beat Jacksonville state. And who was the FCS team main or something at home.
00:51:27
Speaker
ah And those were like, not overly impressive. And then you went out and got absolutely hammered by ah Arkansas state Southern miss at home. you know eventually you got beat by JMU, ODU. I mean, it was just like, yeah, great. You you scrapped and clawed by beating five-win app team, five-win Marshall team to to get back to six and six. But it's like,
00:51:54
Speaker
If anybody in the athletic department had a brain in their head, they would look at the season and go, we need to do what Coastal did and just jettison him like Tim Beck. But they don't.
00:52:04
Speaker
So they've been giving him secret extensions every year so that they've financially hamstrung themselves to a place where they can't feasibly feasibly do that. ah Or they they like to pretend they're cash poor. So... ah I don't know. I mean, i like I said, i I can just smell the BS from Hilton like a mile away. I don't believe a word that comes out of his mouth. And what you said about French is funny because there was there's somebody on the in the fan base who thinks that French is like the second coming of Christ like with his play. And I'm just like...
00:52:38
Speaker
what what are you guys watching on Saturday? are you watching the same games as me? And and that every time that he has a good game, they'll be like, see, he's really good. And I'm like, I wrote this out the other day. So Clay Helton played quarterback in college at Houston, right?
00:52:56
Speaker
In like the nineties. So in theory, you would think like this guy can develop a quarterback, right? He was one. He knows what it takes to to be great in his four seasons. He has never had the conference player of the year, the offensive player of the year, or a quarterback make the first or second team all Sunbelt.
00:53:15
Speaker
I think that says a lot about you as a coach when you're supposed to be the quarterback development guy or you're like, I'm the CEO and I can't hire coordinators. I'm bad at it. He's on his second offensive coordinator and now he's going to be on his third defensive coordinator in five years.
00:53:32
Speaker
So...
00:53:34
Speaker
I don't know. Yeah. um I got one here. ah This was, we even talked a lot about app state because that was an episode where we just kind of fired questions at Aikman. Aikman hit a slam dunk and we need to be sending all of our questions. He called out JJ Cole.
00:53:53
Speaker
Um, he said he had been hurt hearing great things out of camp. Um, and was a guy that was not on our radar. Even when he said that, I, I think all of us kind of shrugged it off. Like, awesome.
00:54:04
Speaker
That's great. Um, but then AJ Swan turns out shows up for like two weeks and then turns into a flop. Uh, JJ Cole, very, very impressive. Um,
00:54:16
Speaker
ah especially for a young guy, Aikman hit a slam dunk with that. Aikman also had ah kind of an interesting trajectory, and you know we check in with him from time to time.
00:54:29
Speaker
He said that there was a lot of initial disappointment with that Dowell Loggins hire because the app thought that they were getting Neil Brown for a while. That felt like a done deal. um Then they bring in a bunch of SEC transfers.
00:54:41
Speaker
um That's supposed to be really, really hype. um So excitement builds, and then it kind of falls back down again, um which you know if that hasn't been App State for the past several years where it's up and down a roller coaster of, oh, we've got this playmaker that really excites us, except we can't win football games.
00:55:01
Speaker
Oh, we have this quarterback in like Ryan Berger who's actually kind of good, or Joey Aguilar. It's like... Actually, we still can't win football games somehow. um Obviously, this year was ah derailed a lot by Kanye Roberts towards ACL in early August, and he was supposed to be like the guy, and then you're left with not a lot in the running back room.
00:55:25
Speaker
They played the wrong running back for a long stretch of time. Instead of playing Jakari Lewis, they played Dubinian for way too long. And he just totally tanked their running game. I'll say this. This was not. i specifically watched another episode. I didn't watch the app one at all because I don't I didn't I didn't even know how much we really like gave opinions on them because it was more of just a discussion.
00:55:48
Speaker
I kicked around the Tim Beck is secretly Dowell Loggins and vice versa take ah in the preseason. And I think it was Matt was just like, no, I don't think so.
00:56:00
Speaker
He was like, i think he's better a coach than Tim Beck. And I'm like, they might be the same guy.
00:56:07
Speaker
ah Offensive coordinator out of the Carolinas from a P5 that can't, can't, you know, hack it at the Sunbelt level. I guess we'll find out. we you know Give me four weeks of next year and I'll let you know, but early signs say yes.
00:56:22
Speaker
Yeah. um That was all the teams. We hit everybody. I don't know. you know We were high on ah JMU, but like you said, maybe we weren't high enough. ah But everybody universally... ah Or no, here's here's one more. We didn't even talk
Southern Miss's Coaching Uncertainty
00:56:38
Speaker
about this, actually. We missed one. Southern Miss.
00:56:41
Speaker
Um, so in in the preseason, ever the window over under window was four and a half, which I said was ridiculous. Uh, I asked Phil steel about it. He was more down on them than even I, that than I was. And I was just kind of like, Phil, look at the pieces, man. Like what you got, the they probably got the, the reigning offensive player the year or whatever at, at quarterback playing. So,
00:57:06
Speaker
We need to get like with the program and say like, you know, they're going to be better than four and a half. He said that their cat was like three third place in the West ah behind Louisiana and um in Texas State, I think he said was the other team. um But yeah, i I had I pounded the over. You actually said that you had them at seven wins this season. So you got it dead on.
00:57:29
Speaker
Yeah, which in retrospect is ah kind of shocking to me when I when i listened back and realized that because I remember being a lot lower on Southern Miss in the offseason than I guess I really was.
00:57:43
Speaker
I think we we had the general makeup of the team pretty bang on, right? There's obviously this incredible Marshall green-colored top layer that ultimately you know probably – in large part why they ended up with seven wins this year. ah But there was still a lot of program building to be done underneath. And we saw that obviously when Braylon Braxton went down, we saw that defensively. um Something we pointed to, like a guy that shocked me, excuse me,
00:58:15
Speaker
um But someone we got wrong there, Jamon Tapp, we were trying to kind of compare him to Mike Green, and obviously Mike Green was just world-beatingly good on the defensive end, and we kind of drew some comparisons and said, you know, maybe this defense doesn't work when you don't have a guy like Mike Green. Well, Jamon Tapp turned into that guy, ended the year with seven and a half sacks. so um I think he had three in one game against app two or three or four. He was, I mean, obviously again, with the Mike green year, so close in the rear view, everything looked so minuscule. And it's like,
00:58:55
Speaker
Okay, that's a lot. Three in a game. I think Mike Green did that three three games in a row. Right, yeah. So everything pales in comparison to him, but um we were generally spot on in that this is a Southern Miss team with flaws.
00:59:11
Speaker
um And unfortunately, with now, you know it looks like Blake Anderson is going to take the job. He's the leading candidate um as Charles Huff goes to Memphis. we're never going to see this Southern Miss team fully materialize. you know Even if Blake Anderson sees a immediate success, let's say they win seven games again next year, even win eight, we're never going to know what this Southern Miss team could have been, which is kind of a disappointment considering the one-year turnaround they had.
00:59:38
Speaker
When you've got those guys at the top and you just need to fill in with the best FCS, D2, JUCO guys to fill you know your third wide receiver, ah your fifth defensive lineman type things, that's that's a great opportunity that, you know, if I'm a Southern Miss fan, I'm pissed.
00:59:56
Speaker
Yeah. I, I get the sentiment from them that they're not happy about having to, to hire their third coach in three years at this point. Um, but that's kind of the business of college football. you know ah Ironically, Southern Miss hires Will Forber, or Tulane hires former Southern Miss coach Will Hall. Tulane fans were pissed.
01:00:19
Speaker
two lane fans were pissed and i i don't doubt them for one second i'd be so mad if if my if my ad had hired willie fritz and john summerall back to back and then his third hire he rolled snake eyes and just went will hall's good enough i'm too lazy to keep looking i would be i would be hot if that was me that's bad Um, something else while we're on Southern Miss, something I want to talk about, because this has come up several times throughout the year.
01:00:47
Speaker
Uh, we glossed over Southern Miss's game against Jackson state. And when we went over their schedule oh my and surprisingly caught heat, uh, Southern Miss ultimately wins that game 28, 38 to 20. It was 38 to 11 with like 10 minutes left. so Our apologies, Jackson state fans for glossing over y'all. Um,
01:01:09
Speaker
There was a whole play in Georgia state. You didn't have a chance. Right. I reread the comment section. There was a whole fight over whether Jackson state won the actual FCS national championship in 2024. And I was, and people were like, no, it was the HBCU national championship. and they're like, we are national champions. And I'm like, I think South Dakota state or whoever would have something to say about that. But, uh,
01:01:33
Speaker
Yeah, that was very funny when I was like, the last people I expected to show up in the Southern Miss ah comment section with Jackson State fans bombarding us with like, we will be competitive. And you were like, no, it's 38 to 11 in the fourth quarter. What are you going to It's all right.
01:01:51
Speaker
um Last thing, should we hit on the the App State being announced as the the representative for the Birmingham Bowl with Georgia Southern? Yeah, hit it. um but I want you to kind of explain this to me because when we spoke on Sunday and like as soon as we hung up on our ah recording, App State announces that they're going to play Georgia Southern in – The what bowl is it? The carriers, the Birmingham bowl.
01:02:20
Speaker
Um, I don't understand why this is such a bad thing. I don't think it's a bad thing. I just, they just played a month ago though.
01:02:32
Speaker
Isn't that cool? Is it like what I understand? Everybody's like rivalry, rivalry, like, i Again, i kind of repeat what I say on the episode on from Sunday.
01:02:46
Speaker
who who does Who benefits from selecting AppState other than just AppState?
01:02:53
Speaker
I mean, and then you have... And then to say, like, well, nobody else wanted to play them, that's not true either because Temple came out with a statement that they were asked before app State was asked, and they said, we literally did not have a chance to consult our, like, coaching staff and, like, athletic department before Birmingham turned to App State and was like, the game's yours.
01:03:16
Speaker
So I'm just like, it's not the fact that nobody wanted to play us. It was that they... they, for some reason they were scrambling last minute to fill that bowl. ah Again, like I understand people from like outside the program being like, yeah, just let the rivalry game play again. But I'm like, neither of these teams are very good.
01:03:36
Speaker
And we're replaying a game from a month ago. And I'm just like, other than just wanting to see JJ Cole take some snaps, what,
01:03:49
Speaker
I don't know. i'm just i'm i'm I'm bored, I guess, by it. It's like, yes, we have this rivalry with App, but it's not like basketball where you play your rival like seven times a season and then you're just like, okay. yeah i just i'm or Or even the NFL. like We don't play every team twice, so I'm just kind of uninspired as a choice, I would say.
01:04:11
Speaker
i That's how I characterize it. I don't know. i i I guess with no dog in the fight, i have no real qualm. um i like As I look at It's hard to find an example. Would someone want to watch us play Marshall again?
01:04:29
Speaker
it's It would be the same thing other than just saying like we're slapping a rivalry on it. I think the rivalry is why it's at all interesting. Right. But what I mean is App State is not a good football team because they won five games. So I'm kind of like, take any five-win team out of Sun Belt and put them against us, and it's like, is anybody super surreal? But it's not like this Michigan getting the call to play Michigan State.
01:04:59
Speaker
This is two, you know, same tier, kind of ah pretty bad. So it's not like we're getting another rendition of Michigan, Michigan State, where it's like, awesome, Michigan State's going to roll, and, you know, everyone's going to be out of the stadium by the third quarter.
01:05:14
Speaker
um Like, this is it this is a this is grounds for an entertaining football game with a little more meaning than most bowl games have. Yeah. I just think it it would be even like if you were going to do this, I would rather have them have picked a Sunbelt team that we didn't play this season and have us play them.
01:05:36
Speaker
If you were going to make it Sunbelt versus Sunbelt, I would rather see a matchup I haven't already seen, especially a month ago. It's not like other than putting JJ Cole in, nothing has really changed for Ab.
01:05:48
Speaker
And they well they did that like kicking and screaming. They didn't even want to put him in. Now you're getting into what happened in Division 2 with Delta State and Kentucky State. Did you hear about that story where no they were like, oh, these – so Delta State and Kentucky State were supposed to play um like an 11th game of the year um because in D2 you only play 10. Yeah.
01:06:12
Speaker
and Both of them, the way D2 playoffs work is you're ranked in regions and the top teams from each region get into the playoffs. It's kind of a weird mess, but it's actually better than what we have in division in the FBS. Anyway, um both of these teams are kind of fighting for playoff spot. Loser probably misses the playoffs.
01:06:29
Speaker
ah The conference that Kentucky State is in announces like at the last minute, well, doesn't announce, but says, hey guys, remember this press release we put on our website back like last February?
01:06:41
Speaker
Well, we're actually contractually obligated to send a team to like an... unofficial bowl game against another conference's worst team. So they send Kentucky state, uh, down to play actually at, or host through one of the teams I cover shorter, which hasn't been above 500. And I think in the past 12 years, um, to, and, you know, coincidentally Kentucky state gets to add an extra win ends up making the playoffs. And I believe Delta state ultimately misses out, uh, because of it. Yeah.
01:07:14
Speaker
I would just from Georgia Southern perspective, I would rather have seen us play like Texas state or somebody and, and let app take Texas state spot. Cause we're both six and six. It's not like they're a massive step up from where we're playing. um I just, again, I'm, I just don't really want to watch a game that I just watched. I think is my, my key.
01:07:37
Speaker
All right. Zeke. So, As we roll into bowl season, um we will be putting out, i think, our preview, I would say, for the first slate of bowl games. Maybe we record that on Sunday, put it out on our normal Tuesday show, and then maybe we don't do a Thursday one next week ah until, you know, the fall. We make it, like, weekly instead of biweekly just because we don't.
01:08:04
Speaker
There's not enough games happening at a fast enough rate to make it worth it. Yeah, I think obviously we got to do one next week because we ah obviously get the James Madison organ game. um and And as much as we would love to give that the same attention, we gave James Madison Troy for the conference championship.
01:08:21
Speaker
And as much as Jamie sports network is doing a bang up job on Twitter, they're doing a excellent job. um Yeah. Making that game sound intriguing. Yeah. you know we We know what we expect. I think James Madison is going to give a better showing than most people anticipate, um but you know we know the direction, the ultimate result of how that game is going to play out.
01:08:43
Speaker
Yeah. ah So as always, you can email the show at warmweatherfans at gmail.com. You can follow us on x, TikTok, at warmweatherfans. Zeke, let them know where they can find you on socials, and we'll get out of here.
01:08:57
Speaker
I'm on Twitter, at Zeke Palermo, Z-E-K-E-P-A-L-E-R-M-O. All right. Thanks everybody for tuning in. We will be back next Tuesday ah to put out our previews for the coming weeks bowl games.
01:09:12
Speaker
And then we will, like I said, move to more of a weekly thing as these bowl games come, come along and happen just because there's frankly not a ton to talk about, but yeah. So this has been another edition of warm of the fans.