Ohio State's Jeremiah Smith, OU's Deion Burks, LSU's Kyren Lacy and the truth about this

this turns into something like a mailbag episode because I've been thinking about this mostly since talking about Dion Burks at Oklahoma and a lot of Jeremiah Smith JJ to those that know him at Ohio State and I even wanted to talk a little bit about LSU and Kiren Lacy and Garrett nus me and the changes that we seeing in these programs that we all expect to be good now we all expect Ohio State to be a contender for the Big 10 championship and later in the year for the national championship Oklahoma and LSU we still think are good but also are probably going into the season looking to secure one of those at large bids in the new 12 team playoff and this season is going to be really interesting and important because it's going to level set what we're going to expect from programs as long as we're in the 12 team playoff I think that we're locked into this until the end of the next ESPN deal and then we might even see this go to 16 teams and might even become more like the NFL and how we emulate it like we call it at large burst they call it a wild card right we call it a national championship they call it a world championship we can keep going on about this but I like where we're going with the sport that said the way that the sport is being played is always constantly evolving and as I picked out these three programs Ohio State Oklahoma and LSU I picked out three programs that are undergoing tremendous change at the quarterback position and at the wide receiver position in as far as who you can expect to provide most of the production at Ohio State it was Kyle McCord and Marvin Harrison Jr right we think that Marvin Harrison Jr was a little bit more important than Kyle McCord however behind Marvin Harrison Jr you have to get to Kade Stover and then AA abuka before you get to the next best receivers out there and neither one of those guys had more than 600 yards receiving obviously Marvin Harrison Jr was good enough to win the bit off award without even playing in the college football playoff or the Big 10 Championship that's how good he was at Oklahoma it's been a couple of years since we had a thousand yard receiver and just because you have a thousand- yard receiver does not mean that you're G to have a good football team however it is an arbitrary number that we have picked out for rushers and for receivers for what we think is pretty dog on good in as far as what your program or what your player is capable of uh I would look again at Marvin Harrison Jr who went over basically did what he did sophomore as a junior and it was people paying attention this time but going over a thousand yards still a very big deal in all sports even as we're playing more games right it doesn't mean you're averaging a 100 yards receiving a game or 100 yards rushing the game it does mean that you've been dependable enough that they want to give you the football and defenses aren't at all sure about what they can do to stop you looking at place like Oklahoma where you have Jackson Arnold coming into a spot that was once occupied by Dylan Gabriel and then you have Dion Burks who we think is going to ascend to the top of the depth chart who is a physical freak but also going to be joined over there with Nick Anderson Jalil Farooq we keep going down the line on this because Andre Anthony because there's depth at Oklahoma and I think that was the part that I didn't say enough of I think Jackson Arnold's going to have a whole lot to do with whether or not Oklahoma's good in 2024 but that depth at wide receiver and at tailback quite honestly you know what we got out of toe Walker we won't be getting out of him this year for obvious reason is important and then at LSU it wasn't just that Jaden Daniels turned into a superhero in 2023 it was that he had superheroes at wide receiver Malik neighbors and Brian Thomas Jr and this year it will be Garrett nus Meer throwing passes to Tyron Lacy who like Cade Stover and meaa and like most of Oklahoma the last couple of years has not gone over a thousand yards receiving so the way I tend to look this is you guys have really smart things to say often times in the comments when they're not add hominum attacks at me uh basically for looking good in a turtleneck or having a Widow's Peak or just being out here being myself okay I'm this way fulltime with everybody I meet and that means you too however I do acknowledge that there are some times for which we need to really go back to another segment and do it again because it's going to be a storyline that we continue to follow follow and I got this one from Jackie Hallmark sure that's a username but it's it's a username that I or excuse me Jackie Hall yeah Jackie Hallmark but I'm gonna let that one slide you come at me with something stupid or uh like a a ridiculous profile picture I'm just I'm I'm going to treat you the way that you present yourself I'm presenting myself to you like this with a level of decorum right we'll do that so the comment was pretty insightful uh in as far as what this person would want it is I would rather have a three or four receiver rotation with 600 yards piece than have to depend on one to get 1,000 gives the opponent's defense more to worry about and I have an answer for this but I want to get at this by offering all of you the same sort of alternative so let's go through five right I think five is a good number let's say you have in your program a rusher that doesn't go for 500 yards and a rush and a receiver that doesn't go for 500 yards probably don't like that at all no matter how that looks on paper you know because Iowa basically do something similar and you wouldn't want to be the person that is an Iowa Hawkeye fan just watching the offense not embarrass you two players going for 600 and more okay yeah we that's probably something you can expect but it's not going to light you up Oklahoma didn't have a thousand yard rusher in 2023 but won 10 games had a 1300 yard rusher in 20222 and we finish six and seven right would you like just one 1500 yard receiver and then you'll take what you can get I think there's something to that and I and I'll unpack that in a bit a thousand yard rusher and a receiver yeah I think everybody would like a thousand yard rusher and a, yard receiver the inverse of that is maybe you are playing uh football for Lincoln riy or roote for riy football team because he had two 1,00 yard rushers and a th000 yard receiver at Oklahoma and he had a Heisman trophy finalist at quarterback at Oklahoma and then you go and play LSU in Peach Bowl and we all know how that win so that's not necessarily indicative of a good football team to have a thousand yard rusher and a thousand yard receiver is indicative of a good offense but is it coming at the expense of a good defense and one of the things that Oklahoma Ohio State and LSU fans will all tell you we can't stand a bad defense Matt house is a profane gesture met with a profane gesture in LSU you know the same thing I think is true of Alex Grinch at Ohio State or even at Oklahoma right you'll put up with a lot you will not put up with a bad defense you need to be good on defense if you want fans to be on your side right and to think that your football team is worth a damn because we aspire to be tough we aspire to be fast and we aspire to win but among other things the the thing you cannot be for football is considered weak or soft we will not allow it it is a sport that was created to simulate trench warfare by Walter Camp he railed against the forward pass because he wanted to see guys learning how to fight that's the point the sport is built on toughness on grit on desire on ain't no blood no foul right and even when there was BL probably didn't want you to call a foul the last one there is a 2,000 yard rusher and I bring that one up because we will see another 2,000 yard rusher right it has not become so uncommon like some others we saw Oly Gordon go for 1700 on the ground then 2,000 from scrimmage chuba hubber went for 2,000 yards rushing Oklahoma State right we've seen um great players like Jonathan uh Jonathan Taylor comes to mind who can get close Wisconsin used to feel like they were going to have one every every couple of years really but is that indicative of a good football team it's indicative of a team that probably plays great defense because you have great ball control and you're able to hold the ball long enough you're not putting your defense out there in situations that are hard to defend reminds me a lot of frankly how Michigan built their football team they didn't have any 2,000 yard rushers but they were building around we're going to run the ball and run the ball and run the ball and we're going to give our defense an opportunity to attack the offense with a field advantage I think I would rather have the 1500 yard receiver and then we'll take what we can get for a couple of reasons I'd rather have one guy you absolutely cannot stop than a variety pack of guys that maybe kind of sort of you feel good about because if you have one person that the defense cannot stop the rule is you Fe that person the football until they can no longer stand up you give that person the football because football comes down to putting your players in the best position to win matchups you need your Jimmy to be better than their Joe and once you identify that it would be malpractice for you to go away from it if you know that you can run the ball for five yards a clip every time a tailb touches the ball you're going to protect them from getting tired you're got to find ways to try to spread the ball out but the ball is going to go back to that person more often than it's going to go to anybody else you're going to continue to build your program so that you got options right so let's say that that player that you think is your home run hitter ain't hitting home runs late in the season you need to have options and that's why we talk about depth right I'll give you another example last year trayon Henderson was the reason that Ohio state was able to come back and beat not Dame okay trayon Henderson rushed for 926 yards in 2023 he might not be rb1 in 20124 even though he was the leading rusher on that football team by some margin now they added quenon jins but my point is the same here you want to have somebody ready to go if trayon ain't the trayon you saw in September in November that's why we try to get guys touches and we try to get guys game action because yeah the human element is important here and I don't want to act as if it is not but I want to know I have a guy that come hell high water Gotta Have It moments we're going to him that is the reason I don't like having three or four because I don't think the defense needs to worry about three or four if you're really good I think they have to worry about one or two which is why it's an embarrassment of riches at Ohio State with the receiving Court cuz you got six guys that could be ones anywhere they want to be and you have similar all over the country so as we continue to talk through this I wanted to give that a little bit of air especially as we're going to play play more football games and the games are becoming more meaningful with the 12 team playoff