Notre Dame, USC, Miami and Georgia stand out in Week 1, should Michigan & Colorado be concerned?

Intro I've got alarm Bells going off right now for Colorado Elite Talent same problems college football has never been better interest has never been higher believe that we are at the dawn of the golden age of college football it was an epic day of college football it was one of those days where you fall in love with the sport all over [Music] again hey hey what's up everybody Welcome to the Joel clat show our show is presented by Hampton by Hilton and we have a week of college football in the books man that was awesome was it not listen I know we still have uh what is it BC Florida State tonight but that was just sweet to be back in it and and traveling around and in college football and feeling the atmosphere being at West Virginia was fantastic Penn State West Virginia even with the delay that we had on big noon Saturday it was still awesome to just be out there I love this sport and Saturday just reminded me why I love this sport some great performances and we'll get into all of that just remember though wherever you're listening to this podcast go ahead and subscribe to it uh follow us rate review the show please um uh if you could that always helps us out and then make sure to always go over to YouTube subscribe to the YouTube channel almost up to 150,000 we're going to have a lot of exclusives there during the course of the year uh excited about that we're going to have a kind of a film series on the YouTube channel so get over there even if you're just listening right now on your commute go to YouTube subscribe and you're going to get that content leave a comment below I'll try to jump in there and chat with you guys here's what I wanted to do there's a lot to get to I had a list of like 15 subjects that I wanted to get to there's just not going to be enough time so that will have to come for Wednesday show so we're going to have a lot of great stuff on Wednesday show but for tonight I want to touch on kind of the the most impressive things that I saw out of week one of the college football season mostly these teams and some of these players and then some of the concerning things that we saw um out of week one and we'll touch on on those uh including uh my Colorado Buffalo so um some honesty here about the Colorado Buffalo that's coming up later in the program let's start with what I thought was not only probably one Notre Dame of the best environments of the week but really to to me I thought was the performance of the week and that's Notre Dame and what they did at Texas A&M so Notre Dame goes into Texas A&M and as an underdog they get a win against the top 20 Texas A&M team and they did it in one of the most hostile environments that I've seen in a long time that was an incredible environment know a few of the people that went down by the way have some Irish fans here on the podcast uh part of our staff and they said that it was the loudest environment that they've ever been in could hardly think and so the way that Notre Dame executed in that game is even more impressive Riley Leonard transfers in and Marcus Freeman knew and you can tell by the way that this team played he knew all he needed was an experienced quarterback a guy that could have a slow heartbeat in crunch time and he was going to have something and they did I tell you that was an incredible win for them and I think it sets them up even more so for something that could be a really special season we'll get to that schedule in just a just a moment but if you look at what this this team was and I told you this in the preview for this game I said A&M was going to have a really hard time scoring because this defense is one of the Premier defenses in college football and they proved that on Saturday night in college uh College Station at Kyle Field what did they allow 100 pass yards they didn't let anything go and wigman had no chance in that game A&M looked totally disheveled on offense and this is a guy in Colin Klein that's going to catch a lot of heat as as new offensive coordinator and I believe in I I still think what I saw from A&M I was like okay like they've got something what was more impressive that's kind of what I knew I felt like that was going to play out what I didn't know was how the new OC Mike Den Brock was going to pay off for for Notre Dame how their new quarterback Riley Leonard was going to pay off for Notre Dame and then how this young offensive line was going to play against a really talented I would even say upper tier in the SEC Defensive line for Texas A&M there's a lot of talent some NFL Talent on that Texas A&M defensive line that was the biggest surprise of everything that went on for for Notre Dame is the way that they ran the ball they ran the ball incredibly well when they had to on the road late in the game loud loud environment defense knows they're going to run it's a premier defensive line and what did they do they ran for 198 yards 5.8 per carry that o line was better in the second half than they were in the first they got better and better and better and they wore out the Aggies that's what was impressive I I am a big believer in Notre Dame and I told you before this game and I'm going to stand by it if Notre Dame beats Texas A&M on the road with what their schedule is they're probably going to be an undefeated team certainly going to be undefeated when they play USC now could they have an injury here or there and slip up yes but I I just do not see this team being anything less than 11 and one during the course of this season which puts them dead in the middle of the playoff if there's anything that happened that really that really allows us to formulate what the playoff is going to look like in this first year of the 12 team format it's that Notre Dame with their schedule in this win is almost certainly going to be a part of this 12 team playoff it would have to go completely off the rails for the Irish Riley Leonard that's his 22nd career start and you can tell you could tell with the experience you could tell with the toughness I just really loved that and now I keep harping on it but man college football even more so than in the past is really all about schedules because of the imbalance in schedules that we're seeing not only with within conferences and I know that doesn't apply here to Notre Dame but across college football so now Notre Dame is sitting there and their toughest games are going to be Louisville at home Georgia Tech in Atlanta Florida State at home and at USC like they they don't really go on the road anymore they've got some neutrals they've got to go to USC Notre Dame is set right now for a primed run at the college football playoff Marcus Freeman doing a of a job um there was some questions about Marcus Freeman that loss last year at home to Ohio state was I know a tough pill to swallow for a lot of the Irish fans because you you felt like you were going to beat Ohio State and in particular you know they thought that I feel like they thought like they had arrived last year and so that was difficult last year but now this year all of a sudden Notre Dame so in the driver's seat as it relates to a college football playoff birth again and I've by the way I've been saying this since the beginning of the preview episodes Notre Dame is damn good and they're going to have a home game in the playoff I they could go TW 12 and0 and by the way just remember just so that we we're all clear even if they're 12-0 and ranked number one in the country they will not get a first round buy because those buys are reserved for one of the five Conference champions the top four champions get the top four seeds so the highest seed Notre Dame can get and I know I'm probably preaching to the choir is the fifth seed in the playoff even if they're ranked higher than that the highest seed that they can get in this playoff is the fifth seed and then they would of course host a game and it would probably be against the group of five champion and maybe that's I don't know Boise Liberty someone like that there was so much so much greatness over the USC weekend how about last night how about Sunday night I mean how about USC I mean gez I mean listen I I know what I said about Notre Dame I know you know everything that this USC win is going to reverberate around college football because there's a few things going on here in and of itself the game was incredible it was a great game you know Kiren Hudson those catches that he made right at the end of the game with the targeting one-handed the one-handed game uh qu uh catch earlier that was ridiculous so the game in and of itself was really good I thought nus Meer was good for LSU Miller was obviously good there's a lot to build on and rather than going through all that I think The Narrative of what just happened on Sunday night is actually a bigger point in that game and its result so USC gets the win and now all of the sudden the Big 10 is sitting there and you're like oh crap Lincoln Riley who's been to a bunch of playoffs who wins conferences constantly plays big games constantly basically there's one year in his coaching career that it didn't go well which is last year and now all of the sudden he's got a better defense and what have we always asked what is Lincoln Riley going to do with a defense and now he's got one holy cow so if you're the Big 10 if you're Oregon and you struggled against Idaho if you're Michigan and you were sloppy against Fresno or at least sluggish if if you're Ohio State and you were sluggish a little bit during the course of that game against akan I mean folks USC now is all of the sudden right in the echelon and it's a five Team league at the top and State looked really good and now USC can clearly say yeah we're in this race as well coming into this season I don't think people gave USC that type of due I mean they what were they ranked 23rd in the country and now here they are and guess what everybody is going to have to deal with USC and Lincoln Riley so that in and of itself is a big deal then you start to get to just this narrative question about the two conferences the Big 10 and the SEC anytime they face off there's going to be narrative that emerge from it that are going to impact the way that we view not only the teams that play in those games but the conferences at large now see going in what did we say in in all of these preview episodes is that this game was going to be huge number one if USC wins it it announces that they're a playoff Contender and that's absolutely the case number two it takes two teams that are pitted very similarly in their conference at least in terms of what we think in the preseason right around that four five five rank if you were to rank teams and you pit them against each other and now all of a sudden these leagues are going to go off and they're going to play and then at the end of the year you're going to get together and you're like okay who's getting these at llarge spots and these head-to-head wins conference over conference are going to be massive it's why this Texas Michigan game is is going to be so big so you know I don't think that we we can I don't think we can just view this as like wow what a great win for USC and LSU is going to be fine this win for the Big 10 over the SEC will kind of linger pending what happens with Texas and Michigan we'll obviously talk about that more next week but this is a huge deal and how about de and Lynn paying off for Lincoln Riley I went to bat in these preview episodes for Lincoln Riley and for USC and for Miller Moss saying Lincoln Riley is who he always is and if he can get any semblance of a defense then watch out and that's exactly what happened I picked them in this game they win this game and I told you if they do beat LSU then guess what they're a legitimate playoff Contender and that's exactly what's going to happen they're going to be right up there close to the top 10 I'm not going to put them in the top 10 but close to the top 10 there are some really good college football teams LSU is one of them that was a really good team really good team but watching USC kind of bow up when it got tough and LS you started to run the ball and they all of the sudden get tougher at the line of scrimmage run the ball in at the end not even have to go um to Overtime or or kick it like that was pretty impressive pretty impressive like I said that that win clearly one of the most impressive wins of the week um all right next and the most impressive hey the U Miami is looking like it's back how about Miami going into the swamp and handling Florida handling Florida now some could say like hey wasn't that more impressive than what Notre Dame did to Texas A&M the only reason that I'm not going to put it in the same stratosphere is that I just don't think Florida is anywhere nearly as good as what Texas A&M is I might be wrong about that but I think that we're going to look up at the end of the season and we're going to say did we overestimate this win from Miami cuz there's a good chance Florida's a three- win team at the end of the year and we might be thinking to ourselves like man there's because there's always these these games in college football based on what we think of a team or a conference and what their history is so many factors we can see games early in the year and we can attach narratives to who won and lost those games and then what ends up happening is at the end of the year those narratives can be completely different and yet that narrative was able to shape the year for weeks and weeks and weeks now I don't think that's going to be the case on the Miami side but we could be looking up at Florida at the end of the year as a three- win team so let's just keep that in the back of our mind as we Heap Praise on Miami here in week one and I'm not trying to downplay what I saw because what I saw was a team that was I think easily the best team in the ACC and that was made abundantly clear with what happened with all the results over the first you know start of college football I keep wanting to say week one but Florida State play that stupid week zero game I hate week zero there is no such thing as week zero we should just all start the regular se but whatever I die Gress I know that becomes the thing Florida at home gets blown out Miami looks like they're the real deal Miami was owned up and down the line of scrimmage or excuse me Florida was owned Miami was really good at the line of scrimmage and you know that they've been recruiting well there remember their talent composite gets better and better and better I think it would be interesting to note though that Florida actually has a higher Talent composite of their entire roster than Miami does so then what's the difference is it coaching maybe or is it quarterback and that's really where it lies cam Ward's the best quarterback in the ACC and cam Ward is why I believe in Miami I've also been high on Miami in this preseason and now you can see why it's a talented team I think there's a lot of pressure on Mario crisol because that i' I would say fan base and Administration has really supported the team they have allowed them to go out and have the resources to build a roster that is in the top 15 in college football and go get a guy like cam Ward which became a bidding war in his process of am I going to the NFL am I not going to the NFL so he finds his way to Miami and guess what that guy can play and I think what's evident is that a lot of people did not watch Washington State football unfortunately which is a big reason why the Pack 12 ended up folding you're kind of seeing that play out right now this guy can play ladies and gentlemen and he is absolutely the best quarterback in the ACC and this is why Miami should feel so good about their position coming out of week one it's not just about the win against Florida although that helps in particular when you're talking about recruiting in that state and all those instate recruits that were inevitably there in the swamp on visits in fact I saw some of that Social Media stuff where the Miami guys were walking by the Florida recruits the official visit guys and they were like hey man we run this state come to the U that is a flex right there and that's why that game was so important but then you look at this from just an ACC standpoint this was not an ACC game but you can start to see the ACC taking shape why Florida State lost to Georgia Tech Clemson gets blown out by Georgia Virginia Tech loses to Vanderbilt NC State didn't look great and yet Miami goes out there they have a clear number one quarterback a guy that can easily be considered one of the better players in college football certainly in the ACC and now you're starting to think to yourself yep there's the favorite in that League that's why it was such a big game and a big result on the Miami side now for Florida I don't know what's going on now we're in total Hot Seat mode for Billy Napier because that was awful I talked about the composite think about this Miami is the 14th ranked team in the talent composite in 247 FSU is the 13th ranked team in the Talent composite Florida is the 12th ranked team in the talent composite what's the difference between those three because they went one and two in the opening of college football Florida State losing Florida losing Miami winning what's the difference cam Ward cam Ward is the difference and if you have a quarterback then you can play quality football in particular at the top end of the sport and that's going to be a theme as we continue during the course of this program here today Miami really Georgia impressive um hey Georgia is still Georgia speaking of impressive hello dogs are just ruthless especially in these openers a few years ago they played Clemson and remember it was just a knockdown drag out and you could kind of think to yourself boy those programs and those teams are similar while Georgia might have had the upper hand and did in that game a few years ago you could say they were similar now they they open the season and you cannot say they are similar those are two different programs and obviously in the last two years they have headed in very opposite directions now we're sitting here and you're you're looking at a team in in Georgia that is what they've won 46 straight games against teams that were not coached by Nick sabbin so yeah they're pretty good because guess who's not involved in college football at least on the sideline Nick Sabin so the question is now going to be who is beating Georgia who based on the way that they played experienced quarterback and Carson Beck Talent everywhere physical at the point of attack defense incredible best defense in the SEC over the last three years I know that they've got a tough schedule and I maybe they won't go undefeated but man like that was a serious announcement to everyone that hey we are not going anywhere there is no dip in our expectation we don't care if we if we don't care if more people think that they can have an National Championship or a playoff birth they feel like they still run this sport even if they didn't win it last year 46 straight wins against teams not coached by Nick Sabin Georgia impressive as anybody in week one of the college football season now what's concerning is Clemson Clemson so if you're going to talk about that game then you've got to bring up what happened to Clemson 34-3 34-3 and listen I can hear it as it's going going on and I can see the tweets and then Dabo has got to even address it with some of his postgame comments everybody talking about the transfer portal well they don't have a transfer starter they haven't had a transfer starter they can't do this it's all the transfers transfers transfers in fact he even said dabos Sweeney on the transfer portal criticism he says we're going to do what's best for Clemson people are going to write and say whatever and he says that's warranted after a loss like this but it doesn't annoy him and guess what he's right he's right I don't think it's about the transfer portal I've thought a lot about this I don't think it's about the transfer portal and the reason is is I'm I'm thinking to myself and I'm like hold on Michigan didn't change their roster with the transfer portal did they add some depth yeah they added some depth and could you argue that Clemson could AB add some depth in the transfer portal sure and could you argue that they they lost Steam and needed that depth late in that game yes okay I understand that now what's more plausible what's more plausible is that they're taking the exact same trajectory as many teams before them I touched on this in the preseason when I said that Clemson was coming off a seven-year stretch that is as good as any seven-year stretch in college football history they reached number one in the AP pole in seven straight College foot football seasons that's only been matched by Alabama and so it happened this seven years quietly because of what was going on and coinciding with that seven years at Alabama in their 15-year run so we were seeing what we've never seen in the sports history with the greatest coach we've ever seen in the sports history at Alabama and Nick Sav and what they were doing and they were number one in the country for 15 straight years at some point in every single season it was just ridiculous they winning Six National Championships but then here's Clemson Clemson was putting together a Great era of college football Great era one of the greatest or at least equal to the greatest that we've seen we've seen Pockets from teams like Nebraska and Miami and USC and Texas and Oklahoma and guess what that's exactly what Clemson did Clemson did what was the norm in college football they put together about a five six sevene Dynasty and then what inevitably happens is it starts to tear off and this dynasty actually reminds me a lot I'm a lot of a dynasty that started a taper off in 2009 10 and 11 isn't it more plausible that Clemson is going through exactly what Texas went through hear me out ma Brown built something so special at Texas he really did and they were winning 10 ball games and they played for national championships they won a national championship and then they played for another National Championship had another year where they feel like they were robbed out of playing for a national I mean they were right there they were a preeminent team for about six seven eight years they were the sport ran through Texas and in a lot of ways the sport ran through Alabama and Clemson and that six seven eight years what was it about Texas that was just so Elite well at the beginning they built this roster that was incredible right linebackers like Derek Johnson they had Dorp Award winners in the in the back end with guys like Michael huffin I mean they were so good and guess what they got this guy named Vince Young and he was incredible and he took a really good roster and won a national championship and then after that they had another really good quarterback and boy he was generational in a lot of respects in terms of college quarterbacks and Colt McCoy took him and really should have played for two national championships played for one and he got injured but what happened at the tail end of Colt McCoy's career he was carrying that organization and that program and when he walked out the door they thought they had an answer because garri Gilbert played pretty well in the national championship game against Alabama and guess what happened Garrett Gilbert wasn't the answer and they didn't have the answer on the roster and they couldn't find the answer for years and so what happened at Texas is that they missed on quarterbacks they had two Elite quarterbacks take them on this wild ride that was at the top of college football and because they got complacent their roster slipped the quarterback masked it and then when that quarterback walked out the door bam reality hit and that's exactly what's happening to Clemson and it was so apparent to me as that game is playing out against Georgia and I'm thinking to myself what happened what is it is it transfer portal kind of maybe that's what everyone wants to say about it but it's not really transfer portal what's happened at Clemson they missed on quarterbacks when you get five-star quarterbacks and they don't pan out that sets you back and it sets you back in a big way we saw it at Texas in 2009 10 11 12 and so on until now Sark has brought him back to the playoff era and what's going on at Clemson they missed we thought dju was going to be that guy because of the way he played for an injured or yeah injured Trevor Lawrence against Notre Dame that one night in prime time and then he became the quarterback and we're like o actually it's not really that well I think it's probably more like you know Kade kumnick and Kade kumnick is the guy and he's the star and guess what it's not panning out and maybe it will and I hope it does because Kade I think is still a really good player and maybe that's a team that can still develop and go on and have a really good year and what is unquestionably a soft league and I hope that's the case but right now this looks exactly like what happened at the University of Texas the roster is not what it was under deshun Watson and Trevor Lawrence DeShaun Watson wins a championship Trevor Lawrence wins a championship but then he was masking issues when those older players graduated so by the time Trevor walked out the door Clemson was not Clemson just like by the time Colt McCoy walked out the door Texas was not Texas this to me is the parallel and this is what dbo is fighting the roster is not where it needs to be when you miss on quarterbacks this is what happens this is what happens and I feel like we've seen this play out before I feel like history is repeating itself right before our eyes um okay let's move Penn State on the game I was at I I did I would be remiss if I didn't talk about the impressive nature of Penn States win because they went into a team in West Virginia that was right around kind of receiving votes in that 30 31 32 33 area in terms of ranking in the country they had won nine games a year ago they were returning the most production almost of anybody in the country in particular in the Run game with Garrett green their quarterback Jem white their running back CJ Donaldson their other running back all three of those guys had run for 700 yards I Was preparing for this game and I was like man this is going to be a really tough game for Penn State all the newness at Penn State the questions surrounding the offense the questions surrounding their offensive coordinator Andy codal Nikki what's he going to do what's it going to look like is Drew Aller going to respond is he going to take this next step forward there's all these questions around Penn State and then this very confident bunch at West Virginia was playing at home in a rockus environment I'm like this is going to be a very tough game and what did Penn State do they looked really impressive 3412 win on the road against W West Virginia I I touched on some of those questions and and let me work through it quickly Penn State over the last two regular seasons is 20 and0 against everybody not named Michigan and Ohio State okay so they had to go out and get better what did they need to get better at well on offense namely they needed two things they needed more explosive plays and they needed DAL to be able to push the ball down the field both of those two things happened and I think that was a huge I mean a huge development early in this season you've got Nick Singleton with a 40 yard touchdown run he did not have a run over 40 yards or 40 or more yards last year at all he had seven of them as a true freshman that led college football and now all of a sudden he's got a 40-yard touchdown run in the very first game the creativity in the Run game helping out Drew Aller was 124th last year in terms of air yards per attempt meaning how far do you throw the ball down the field per attempt and guess what he did yesterday he threw the ball down the field was it always perfect no but they created explosive plays and that is a great development for a team that feels like they're not only a top 10 team but just scratching the surface in terms of getting over the hump of playing and beating some of the better teams in the sport namely Michigan and Ohio State now I talked about it on the broadcast Penn State has a very favorable Big 10 schedule they miss Oregon and Michigan so that means that they've got to play USC and they've got to play Ohio State it's not easy but it's favorable I mean of the contenders I think you can make an argument that they've got as good of a path to 12 wins as anybody except for Ohio State who would be favored in all their games they're only going to be underdogs in one game and that's to Ohio State so this is a team that's absolutely going to be in this playoff race till the end and the signs that we saw and the questions that they answered I thought were a huge development for them the reason that I'm not going to get carried away with the performance and say hey everything is fixed is because this is essentially the exact same result and play that we saw in the first week of last season against this exact team West Virginia now I do think West Virginia was a better team this year than they were last year at this moment I do think that this offense has more staying power for Penn State because of the creativity of Andy codal Nikki I really enjoyed meeting with him and sitting with him in our production meetings I really did he was is an an excellent guy really smart good energy all those things um the other quiet development is that they changed coordinators again because Manny Diaz had to you know get a he well he had to he got a new job as the Duke head coach and so now all of a sudden they've got their third defensive coordinator in Four Seasons and their defense was excellent excellent they held West Virginia in check they did not let them run the ball that defense is fast they're aggressive they tackle well there's some stars on that defense Abdul Carter is going to get a lot of the credit and and rightly so because I think he's probably the most talented player on their defense number 11 but there's a lot of great players on that defense I tell you there's safeties can fly their linebackers can tackle and they made it difficult on West Virginia schedule sets up nicely four straight home games before that trip to USC so Penn State quietly optimistic but the questions remember you can't just jump up and down for Joy because the questions Remain the questions are can you go beat Ohio State because we've seen them beat everybody else up to this point so that that kind of does it I know there were some individuals that were really impressive um but I want to move on to to a couple of the big let's just call them concerns or or Michigan I think points of of consternation around college football with some fan bases and I'm going to point to two and we'll get to to others on Wednesday um I wanted to touch on this Michigan Fresno State game so Michigan wins 30 to1 if you just look at the box score you think to yourself like okay you know that's that's probably fine 30 to 10 not in question n not necessarily the case that's a sixo game with six minutes left in the game so if you watched the game and I know millions of you did it was a more concerning performance than 30 to 10 would indicate all of us agree on that all of us agree on that so the the question for me is like what is this version of Michigan going to be I think a lot of people were surprised that Chiron Moore started Davis Warren and not Alex orgy for this entire offseason there was this idea that Alex orgy was going to be the quarterback he's certain certainly the more gifted athlete there's no question about that but Davis Warren is a more serviceable passer of the ball you see there's a difference here and and I think you'll understand what I'm talking about there are guys that that can throw the ball well and beautiful and strong and they have strong and powerful arms and they're great throwers there are other guys that are great passers and the two are not the same thing okay I think Davis Warren is a much better passer than Alex orgy and and with some of the throws that orgy made during the course of the game you could see why he was not the main starter or certainly the main quarterback for the bulk of the game there was a little half roll to the right side and he's got a wide open wide receiver over on the right sideline and he throws it literally seven yards short at the feet of the receiver and I'm thinking to myself that's why he didn't start right there when you see that throw in practice which inevitably happened then you you sit to yourself like we can't do that that's a layup we can't have a guy in the starting five that cannot make a layup you see Alex orgy makes the difficult things look really easy and he makes the easy things at quarterback look really difficult and that's not a good combination so they were trying to mitigate that by starting Davis Warren now I'm not suggesting that orgy is not going to play a major part in this game plan and maybe won't become the quarterback maybe that's the case maybe he can continue to develop and develop that passing ability rather than just the pure throwing ability but for right now I could see why Davis Warren was the quarterback because he was much more serviceable in terms of throwing the ball from the pocket reading in post Snap and trying to get the ball to his wide receivers on the outside they've got some wide receivers I don't know if they're as good as they were a year ago they're certainly trying to find their footing and develop that offensive line that was obvious people are saying to themselves like Michigan's offense looked terrible um let's just let's just stop for a moment and and think to ourselves like what was this Michigan team what what are they what is this version well we know the defense is going to be really good and we know the defense is going to play complimentary football will Johnson with that great pick six at the end like he's one of if not the best corner in college football they're they're going to be fine on defense which allows you to at least extrapolate that they may not get blown out we'll see this week against Texas cannot wait to get to Ann Arbor to watch that game we'll see how good their defense is against a really good offense and potent offense and explosive offense this week but you know they're going to play good defense and then now it becomes how well can you develop on offense how complimentary can you play in all three phases can you go out there and just win the game because it's never really been about the Showmanship of can you blow somebody out really until last year Michigan was always a methodical team that would pull away late the score was always um I think over the course of the Harbaugh era the score would always get to a point that was not indicative of kind of the game that was played there was a lot of one possession games late in the third quarter early in the fourth quarter and then Michigan would wear people down they would get that two possession lead and sometimes a third that would happen that happened a lot which I started thinking to myself well man this is what's so familiar about this when I'm watching the Fresno State game I'm thinking to myself there's some fil familiarity with what I'm seeing and I and I started thinking to myself this was early Harbaugh Michigan this was early Harbaugh Michigan this reminded me of watching the 2015 Jake rudo quarterback Wolverines really good on defense and like trying to find their way offensively what are we going to be can we develop a power Run game can these five line linemen become dominant we had seen the power Run game at at San Francisco and at Stanford and then Harbaugh went to Michigan and it was like we know that it's going to get there but it's going to have to develop and so through the course of the Harbaugh era what was Michigan self- admittedly a development program I think that we have gotten skewed by last year's National Championship we automatically think that Michigan just has to reload load like we want Georgia to and we want Texas to and we want Alabama to and we want Ohio State to but that's not what Michigan is and they are self- admitted about that they have never recruited like those teams by the way now they recruit well I'm not saying they recruit bad but they recruit like a a upper tier development program and that's what they want to be they want to develop a veteran tough minded football team and that's what they're going to have so to me I said this in the preseason and now it's becoming more clear to me you're going to have Peaks and valleys at Michigan I don't think that you're just going to have a sustained best in the country program year in and year out because that's not what they do they recruit and develop and recruit and develop and recruit and develop so now all of the sudden you've had these guys leave and you're going to have a little bit of a dip so that you can dip and start the development process I thought Saturday night was the starting of a development process I think that this team can still win nine games maybe 10 games depending how they develop depending how the offensive line plays how the quarterbacks continue to play again the Jake rudo Michigan team of 2015 shocked everybody and won 10 games I remember vividly doing their first game my first game with Gus was the Michigan Utah game Harbaugh's first game true short and Colin coward had just been signed by Fox or or somewhat in the recent past right around that time and so he came out to do the pregame show and I'm sitting on the desk with Colin cower we're doing the night game it was like a Thursday night game at Utah in Salt Lake and we're doing the game and and or excuse me we're doing the pregame and the question was how quick can Jim Harbaugh get this program back to the top 10 and and Colin was like no it'll take three years and I said no I think that they're going to be in the top 10 at some point this season and I was he almost laughed me off the desk and guess what happened they got into the top 10 That season and why it was because of this complimentary development style that Harbaugh was going to bring to the table and I think that's what's going on might be giving too much credit to Michigan it might be giving too much credit to Chiron Moore but that's what I see I see the 15 version they won 10 games with Jake rudock and they finished 12th in the country if they finish right around that area guess what they will be sniffing a college football playoff Birth by the way you could also O say like that might be their floor and their ceiling might be the 2016 version of the Michigan Wolverines that was a quarterback team by Wilton Spate by the way that team was well let's say it it was a bad spot in Ohio stadium I know Ohio State fans are just going to be livid about that a questionable spot from Ohio State away from going to the playoff that team won 10 games and went to the Orange Bowl so like I think Michigan will be okay I think that we just need to change the framing and Expectations by which we watch them okay we can't expect them to be the 2023 national champions and reload and then go right back up there to the upper echelons of the sport that's not how they've recruited self admittedly they develop so what are we going to need to see the little bit of a dip I think it's going to be a 2015 2016 version Michigan team top end they're the Wilton Spate Wolverines I won't be shocked if Davis Warren Remains the quarterback for the rest of the year and they work in Alex orgy as one of the 10 12 13 best offensive players in packages in order to help them attack the defense that won't shock me at all it wouldn't shock me if orgy becomes the quarterback they will develop into something into something um so was it a concerning game Colorado yes kind of I think if we just change our framing it maybe was more expected by the way Fresno State was picked to finish third in their league that was not a bad offense so that defensive performance was pretty good um all right last one that I want to talk about is Colorado I save it for the last because I I thought about saving this for Wednesday and I just thought to myself you know what what I'm about to say is is is truthful and I just you've got to say it Colorado beat North Dakota State 3126 now in and of itself that's about what I thought was going to happen if you actually go back to last week's episode I said Colorado wins but does not cover that's exactly what happened in this game I knew it was going to be a tough game against North Dakota State because I really like North Dakota State's program you saw they were tough man you know like they're going to be right there uh for an FCS National Championship now you could say like okay well if that's what you expected then you must be riding High because man that performance from shadur and Travis Hunter was incredible and yes that's true about the performance and know I'm not Riding High with Colorado I was convinced in this off season that we were going to see a Colorado team that that had gotten better a Colorado team that had gotten gotten better better at the line of scrimmage better on defense better in situations better in the game plan and what I watched last Thursday night was two Elite stars and really maybe more with a guy like Jimmy horn shador Sanders and Travis Hunter are elite players Jimmy horn is an elite wide receiver and everything else is really questionable for Colorado nothing got better from last year so they have these elite players that carried them over North Dakota State carried them and yet all the same stuff that happened last year happened again they didn't get better now to be fair it's the first game they had another huge roster turnover and maybe they're going to continue to get better and get better from week one to week two which is the the week in which you you generally see the most amount of growth because you can actually go back from a game against an opponent and you can teach and you can put that on tape and you can put that on the practice field and try to fix some of those mistakes but here's the problem with that is that we saw the exact same things happen that happened last year and so to me that's alarming I've got alarm Bells going off right now for Colorado Elite Talent same problems here's some of the issues from last year they ran it for less than three yards per carry they had no creativity in the Run game they have got to the the game plan running the football has to get more creative because it's not about being dominant in the Run game it's not about a establishing the Run game it's about creating easier opportunities for shador to throw the football that's what it's about it's about throwing the football when you want to not when you have to because if you continue to do what you did against North goota State guess what you did throw the ball because you have to which exposes shador Sanders that's unsustainable there's so many things that happen on Thursday night that are totally unsustainable for Colorado not running the football is one of those at some point Point those guys up front are going to have to take pride in the fact that listen you're either going to sit there and you're going to watch the Stars around you carry you to PO potentially be in games or you can actually be a teammate and you can actually contribute to what's going on because right now it's not happening they did not run the ball well enough shador was unbelievable under pressure 7even of n for 165 and a touchdown 18 yards per attempt and he was only sacked one time why cuz he was phenomenal the offensive line was not very good again and that's unsustainable the pressure rate was 30% of his dropbacks very similar to last year last year was right up there around 35% 36 37% this was an FCS team and it was 30% that's an alarming statistic so the same things popping up again that has to get better at some point whether it's the game plan and the creativity of the Run game or whether it's the pride in those guys up front take that has to get better for Colorado to take the next step Travis Hunter playing both ways I know we all love to see it we love to see it and I'm not suggesting that they don't play him both ways but the plan for Travis Hunter has to change it has to change he played basically every snap on defense and missed only two snaps on offense so he played and he played seven on special teams so guess how many snaps he 136 136 and if he plays 136 out of 180 I'm like okay okay it's one it's 136 that's what it is but when it's 136 out of 140 that's too much because that suggests that he was wasting effort in because listen a game is kind of like a bell curve all right there there are snaps that that become meaningless and then there are the bulk of the Snaps are kind of like in the middle and then there's these snaps on the other side and there's just a few that mean everything everything and what you have to do is that you have to shove his snap total into the back half of the bell curve you've got to get him off the field for this 10 12% of the snaps that don't matter that has to be part of the game plan first downs base base defense on on you know your opponent's side of the territory you know all these different things that you can do by the way here's here's another little one build an offensive game plan so that he's always the wide receiver nearest your bench build a defensive game plan that he's always the corner nearest your bench maybe not always but maybe there is a certain call or in certain parts of the field where you can put him there so that he can slide in and out and take five or six snaps off and it doesn't hurt you okay based on field position time of game game situation all these those these different things I make the contention that you need to take 10 to 15% of Travis Hunter snaps away from him and you can do that so that in those moments that you need him to be the elite player that he is he can play at his Peak potential because right now when you Redline like that the entire year it will break down and if he breaks down after what I saw on Thursday night they don't have anything else so it's incumbent on the coaching staff to build a game plan that allows him to be sustainable so again this this word of sustainable what happened Thursday night was not sustain able at all you can't expect shador and Travis to do that every single week and bail everybody else out the game plan has to be better from the coaching staff and the play from those teammates have got to get better we see this same undisciplined play from the same undisciplined players time and time again those penalties have to stop that's a that's a big one um and then the clock mismanagement the clock mismanagement at the end of the game was egregious now I do believe that that was shor's call at the end of the game I haven't talked to anybody within the organization or the program and I don't know this to be absolutely the fact but what happened at the end of the game with the clock management if you if you didn't see it with a minute 41 colado had the lead and they had first down all right not or excuse me North Dakota state had some timeouts and all you need to know is that if you just play it out correctly North Dakota state receives the ball at worst with about 5 seconds left or four seconds left in the game and yet what happened they threw the ball on first down with a minute 41 this cannot happen now if it was a check on the field by the quarterback then that's going to be evaluated by the next level that can't happen it cannot happen I don't care what the defense is it doesn't matter if they're if nobody's covering it has to be a run play there is no way that you as an offense can stop the clock for the defense in that moment they must burn their timeouts the sequence goes like this anybody knows this this was about this was almost a Mario crystal ball moment and it almost burned them because North Dakota State got the ball and drive back and they catch a Hail Mary we'll get to that in a moment first down 141 left what do you do run the ball I don't care if there's 11 guys stuffed in the Run box you run the ball whether you want to hand it off or run with the quarterback you run the football takes about 5 Seconds North Dakota State what do they do they take a timeout and 5 Seconds is generous by the way some of them take six or seven seconds so this is just in in in a very conservative clock management style so now it's second down there's a minute 35 left what do you do run the ball you have to run the ball in that situation there is no other option I do not care what the defense does or what they're in you run the football the clock must run at that point it takes about 5 seconds and at third down you're snapping the ball with conservatively 50 seconds left what do you do at that point snap the ball again and you run the ball again and you punt the ball and North Dakota state gets the ball with about 5 seconds left conservatively at that point you might not even need to punt the ball you can you can snap it and run backward Ward and Bleed it and go down there's there there is a scenario where you never have to punt the fact that North Dakota State touched the football with a chance to win is an egregious mistake egregious mistake it's unsustainable to play this way if you're Colorado they have Elite Talent and you cannot waste it with these same mistakes that they continue to waste it with everything that I'm talking about is factual none of it is personal and if if it continues they will lose a fair share amount of their games why do I know that because in that conference they will play 8 to n one possession games from here on out they just played one against North goota State they're going to play eight or nine more in that League because everybody's bunched up everybody is good everybody is tough in that league so if you don't fix these things that were clear mistakes they will come back to haunt you it's the exact same type of mistakes that we saw last year it bit them in the butt and that's why they only won four games and they didn't go to a bowl game I said they could win eight or nine games not if they play like this not if they play like this so I've been very bullish on Colorado they went at 3126 they played Nebraska this weekend and they've got to fix all these mistakes that I just laid out right there all right when we come back on Wednesday I do have to give a take about some young guys that played incredible Outro out there um Rola by the way I'll talk about Nebraska Ohio State and what we saw from that great roster Oregon almost gets upset and that would have been the biggest upset maybe in the history of college football when you really look at it we'll talk about all those things and more when we come back on Wednesday remember to subscribe to the show uh on YouTube leave a comment below uh and if you're listening wherever you like to listen rate and review us please it's going to help us out and I love the fact that college football is back I know that you do too share this with a friend college football is always better with a friend thanks for for listening everybody we'll be back on Wednesday