Previewing Mizzou vs. Buffalo | Week Two

welcome back tiger fans to rocking radio's football podcast I'm Nate Edwards that's Nathan Hurst this is before the box score it's Buffalo week playing the bulls not the bills I learned a lot about Buffalo doing my research over this summer Nathan hris what what do you know about Buffalo it's cold it snows a lot there and they love Bine characters yes that's that's about it yeah they like hot wings invented the hot wing hot wings are important buffalo wings are important uh I do like those um also you know it used to be one of the major uh throw fars in the United States just because he had the lake there and the rivers around it uh major port major big area of course that goes away as soon as you know people drive or take trains uh but for a little bit Buffalo was on top of the world uh but not their fault their college football team that that's never been the case and uh mou gets to play them this week and well we'll talk about it we'll talk about it because we're in the middle of the Season uh but you know we also wanted to recognize that we did have a game you know we talked about it uh the postgame show on Friday night which came into your fees on Saturday and you know time has passed you talk about it you know the day that happens you talk about the day after then you think about it for a couple days and maybe some other things come up so I mean HST you it's it's been a couple days what did you think about missou against Missouri or Murray State there we go I mean it it was a good performance it's kind of I have the same thoughts as I did uh the day after the game um good performance was it the best performance this team could put on the field no and I don't think we really wanted it to be in week one um but it was a good solid performance there are things that can be tightened up uh which I think the coach is probably happy about because it's something they can focus on and keep the team focused for another hopefully light matchup this week um they got a lot of guys in uh into play get their nose but blooded a little bit especially guys that you know may not see a whole lot of the field moving forward hopefully they will this uh this week as well um but just a you know kind of holistic good strong start of the Season uh not not a whole lot in my opinion to say beyond that um it's hard to pull specific scheme things out of that first game because you really don't not sure how much the team is holding back how much the coaching staff is holding back I don't think they were holding a ton back especially not compared to last year um or if they're showing something specific just to get it on tape and we're never going to see it again uh down the road so it's really hard to pull any any real specific things out from the scheme side so um you know dominated every facet of the game and you know move on to the next week that's kind of how I feel about it yeah there there are things that you can obviously improve on I think you know a lot of it is just it's fun with numbers you know fun fun at watching one-sided fist fights on camera um you know for for example Murray State ran One play in Missouri territory H now that's an offensive play obviously they had a punt in there which we're not going to count but they had the same amount of plays run in Missouri territory that Missouri's backup quarterback had in in completions which is one that's fun um also M State's net kickoff yards was negative -2 I you don't get that a lot that's a that's a rarity um but that's what happens when you get one kick and it's an onside that is recovered and moved forward two yards that's fun I like that we're probably leading leading the country in that in that St statistic at the moment uh yeah could be could be uh I'm not going to check but I'm going to I'm going to trust that to be true I also like this you know again there's only so much you can learn from an FCS opponent but knowing what we know about how important third Downs are and how important it is to stay ahead of the chains I thought it was really impressive that you know looking at how Missouri operated you know they averaged 12 yards per play on first down that's that that's very good um a little less on on on second down I mean once you got into second down they're averaging six merely 6.8 uh but then on third down which is obviously the money down for for you know the the common vernacular if you will they still averaged eight yards per play 8.2 specifically so you know they got their yards kind of no matter what um obviously they weren't perfect on third down but you know if you can average eight yards per third down uh throughout the year you're doing pretty well the other thing I'm I'm going to track and I don't know if you if you saw this in my piece but I'm going to attempt to track guys who get first downs not guys who convert third downs but the on who are crossing the chains on first second or third down uh I don't know if you saw the piece but do you know who led the Tigers in first down conversions I did not see that piece but I'm GNA guess and this would be for it would wouldn't be a quarterback who completed a pass to be the receiver that caught it so it would be the pairing right so Brady cook the oise would be one grouping Brady cook Luther buron would be another but then a running back would be run back be a single guy sure um I would I would go ahead and wager either Marcus Carroll [Music] or um yeah probably Marcus Carol would be who might my guess will be yeah that's a good guess so Marcus Carol actually finished tied for second technically fifth uh the first first was also a tie with three do you want to try to give it another shot so it's three in that case uh it'd be probably Brady to Luther Brady to um that's another uh Brady to Theo and Brady to um who was who was up there in receiving because it wouldn't have been North Fleet mooki I guess so the asashi the running backs you were really close to your first time Nate Noel and Kanan Lacy tied for three first downs okay each um I think Nate got his on first and second Downs uh and then Kanan uh converted a third down and then got two more so uh he those two are at your top and then right below that with two first downs Brady cook to Luther Burton Brady cook running Marcus Carrol running Brady cook to Theo uh through the air and then Drew Pine to Daniel blood oh nice I was thinking blood might have gotten in there because he had several several catches there in the fourth quarter yeah so they they all had two and that that leads me to my other you know commentary that we mentioned I think during the postgame show but I wanted to point out again everybody got a touch there was like no receiver went over 49 yards that was like the the the invisible ceiling uh if you go down through the the targets and everything I mean your your leading Target getter uh was Maris Johnson with seven but you know you know those are all the Deep passes that didn't connect once that the targets go Daniel blood six Theo Wei six Luther Burton five Nate Noel four mooki Cooper four Josh Manning three in the yards 41 47 31 49 19 49 2120 like it's just they rotated guys in they didn't really go deep all that much except for the one to Luther and this like four or five to to Speedy and they just just worked guys in they just got them on the field you know we talked about the eight guys who ran the ball Nate Noel had 10 Marcus Caroll had six and then it's Kanan Lacy five divorce Jones five Jamal Roberts four Brady cook three Drew Pine one you just it was a group effort and you knew you could do that uh and we we'll talk about depth on defense but at least depth on offense we knew it was there and now we're getting to the very fun problem of how do our most talented guys who are in line for rewards get the targets because everybody needs to get fed because they're all that good yeah I it it was a round robin Affair I mean it's oh your turn your turn your turn kind of uh pass the Baton to the to the next guy I will be very interested to see if that continues this week or not um for a couple reasons first does that would that if it does happen similarly this week uh regardless of score but hopefully because we're we're winning by a lot does that signify that we're going to have a much bigger rotation this year on offense probably on defense too than we thought originally and that and that dritz has ever had just because he has over the course of four years built the depth to be able to to do that or this week are we going to see um that rotation cut down quite a bit at least in the first half at least when the game is you know marginally competitive uh because do they do they want to nail down the rotations for next week against Boston College when it looks like it's going to be a little you know a little more uh competitive of a game uh so put a feather in that put a feather in that we'll get right and we'll talk about that later but are they are they gonna be going out trying to trying to tighten up the rotations and get really get a good feel for how once the real games start yeah how it's going to look or are they going to keep spreading the wealth I would be very surprised if they spread the wealth and that ends up being the case that it's oh we're going to run four or five running backs out there every game don't think that's gonna happen um but I would but if there's running four or five running backs out there in the first half or the first three quarters that might be a little bit more of a a hint that maybe they they are more interested in getting a wider swath of guys touching the ball even later on in the season very interested to see how that how that plays out and I I don't even know I want you know Ohio state has this problem all the time Oregon has this problem all the time Alabama has this problem where it's like we have our starters by the way we've got eight other guys who could also start it's a great problem to have tremend sign me up sign me up every day for that problem but it's tremendous but what happens to those Ohio State Penn State Alabama receivers now now they go somewhere else if they don't get fed and I think it's different for missou which I know I'm just doing the arrest of development meme of well this but maybe we're different I think it's different in this case because your top three guys are gone next year like I know we can we can hedge against Luther and all he's gone okay no matter what happens this year so it's a situation where it's like you we don't need to I mean maybe you need to get the third guy you know third string guys involved but most of those guys are freshmen are barely second-year players you know it's hey we we got to win we have to win and Eli drit talks about games are for playing and winning and practices for practice and so I want to see the depth guys I want to see them roll out for Buffalo I you know I'd like to see them against BC and van2 because that means you're blowing them out but once we get into conference season I don't want to see a deep rotation unless it's how you win if we're doing this to force it in in conference season to make sure people don't transfer away let thrilled about that if they're on there because they can actually contribute then fine it kind of goes back to what was a 2013 where you had your top three dgb Marcus Lucas lamian Washington and then you also had Darius white you had Bud Sasser you had Jimmy hunt and you worked them in situationally so that they had 20 Targets in 13 and then hit the ground running and 14 ready to go so I like that approach I just I don't want to force it does that make sense absolutely I and I I'm 100% there with you I think the smart way to do it especially if they're going to now certainly not give a ke on Lacy the amount of carries he had um on you know last week throughout the season but this and this might might work better for for receivers than running backs but figuring out what are what's the one thing that this guy does really well and maybe it's multiple things but what's the thing he does best what's the thing that Daniel bled does best what is the thing that uh Josh Manning does best let's get them on the field for four or five plays where we've designed into the op you know we're going to have we hypothetically Daniel Bud runs fantastic dig routes okay we're gonna we're gonna get him on the field for five plays a game where he's running a dig route and we're expecting him to be open because he's really good at that now can he run all the other routes yet no so we're not gonna have ask him to do that but but we we know the times he is going to be on the field because we want to get him on the field a little bit he's going to excel he's going to set himself up up for success and you can do that with you know down down the line so you're getting these guys on the field each limited amount but they're they're on the field for top for plays that they can contribute in and not just to to check the box that they that they stepped on the field for that for that day yeah and that that's great you know until defenses start picking up on that and then it's like well now we're gonna run them out there just to do the thing they're not good at so they can get some reps on that um yeah I I it's again it's a great problem to have trying to work in your um your death because they're just so damn talented uh but you know against Murray State you could do that and we did see that to the point where that last Drive was you know 10 freshman and an upper classman and also I saw this from Eli Hoff uh looking at the the alignments you had three down linemen one linebacker and then seven defensive backs uh at one point on the field great 317 I mean you know if you know they're going to pass and you can get pressure with three guys do it yeah knock yourself out out I don't think that's something that Cory baton is going to roll out you know every single game but you know uh what's his name Dave heok over at Iowa State he did something very very similar he did uh I think he did a 32 was it 326 or 317 I think he did something like that a couple years ago in the Big 12 and it worked really well for Iowa State um because they had talented secondary and everybody threw the ball in the Big 12 at that time so whatever you know just you got the guys out there you can you can see what you do against Murray State uh and it's not really going to bite you in the butt which was great so I'm happy that it that it happened I know missou is like statistically number one in defense because they're the only team that allowed less than a 100 yards uh on in their first game which great you know that total yardage is is certainly a kind of an Antiquated stat but we can go with that because it makes me feel good uh and now we turn the page to Buffalo Nathan Hurst do you remember 2008 uh I do yeah do you remember do you remember missou plane buffalo in 2008 I do remember playing Buffalo I couldn't have told you that it was 2008 uh it would have I would have guessed somewhere in that 08 you know 07 to 11 range I do remember playing them I do I remember them not being particularly notable but uh yes I do remember that do you remember let's name some guys do you remember Drew Wy does that name sound familiar to you is not he was an NFL quarterback he was at Buffalo he was a senior that year um so you remember Turner Gil I do remember Turner Gill good old Turner Gill yeah so he was in his second year of Buffalo when they played in 2008 Buffalo if you don't know has been kind of just a run program for a very very long time even back in the 60s they had like a little bit mini run and then just uh they've moved up and down conferences a lot the administration stopped funding football and they the students said no you need a fun football so they kind of got a late jump in the 70s uh they pushed themselves up through the onea the 1A ranks probably faster than they should but that was back in the days when it was a little less restrictive on who can move up and who can move down and they have just struggled since they got here now 2008 comes around and Turner Gill Fields a team that has all the turnover magic in the possible world I think they're like plus seven or eight by the end of the year which doesn't sound like a lot but boy if you know your your offense turns over the ball and you're still plus eight that means your defense was really good at it Missouri was in a dog fight with Buffalo this is this is pre Oklahoma State mind you this is mizou is going to win the Big 12 and make a run of the national title missou and they're in a dog fight with Buffalo into the third quarter and everyone's going what is happening now they ended up winning by 21 but Turner Gil did so well at Buffalo that he didn't turn took the Kansas job and it was all because of this incredible turnover luck in an NFL quarterback who is making safe throws I'm saying all that to say don't overlook G5 programs you never know when one's going to jump up and bite you in the butt and Gary pinkle and Mike Alden and the missou football team had this nasty habit of scheduling the worst G5 programs in the country the year they get competent and make a run and it started at Buffalo when they won the mac and went over to San Diego State when they won the Mountain West it went to Bowling Green when they won the MAC every single year they scheduled a G5 team who traditionally sucked and then had their enlightened years so do not Overlook them do not freak out of Buffalo's game also Buffalo is kind of bad can you name any player on Buffalo's roster um now that I've uh dug through their their stats from last last uh last week I can uh but only because of outstanding names like ja Jaz Barksdale which is just a winner um I do remember CJ aona from Simo as well uh so he he did have uh played on the field I don't know if he started that game when when mou played years ago he did find find the field in that game um and he has moved on to actually bigger and better things weirdly enough um beyond that uh not particularly yeah not particularly I did actually I take say that CJ macarin is a quarterback one of their better quarterbacks probably their best quarterback I did in my top 10 Oppo opposing players uh on offense and defense over the summer for roam Nation I mentioned him because I wanted to throw somebody in there from the non-conference sure uh he was a he's a sophomore this year he's a true freshman last year had a very solid true freshman year um looks like he had five tackles last week week uh no picks or anything only one game but he would be the only one that I could honestly say that I had ever heard of before yeah CJ Bazil is the guy that I recognized um I know he he had a big 2021 I think um or is it 22 no it doesn't matter he had a good year he didn't have a good year last year but that's why he came back uh you know here's the thing about Buffalo they are the second worst team left on this schedule according to SP plus they are 111th uh last year uh last year last week they played Lafayette which again is an FCS team and they beat them they were again in a fight in the third quarter uh they had turned the ball over kind of in the middle of the third quarter and Lafayette uh was threatening to close it within single digits as far as points did not Buffalo went on to win by at least two scores but again this is an improvement remember Pete limbo is the first year head coach of Buffalo he was a former Ball State guy got Ball State to 10 wins couldn't get another job so he just kind of left in the middle of the night uh to be special teams coordinators at a couple different places uh he is familiar with making mac teams good he's really good at special teams he was on South Carolina Staff last year and you know Buffalo for the past two years had been upset by an FCS Patriot League team so it did not happen this year and this was against uh well they were ranked 19th in the FCS rankings basically favored to win the Patriot league so they had lost the doldrums of the Patriots uh the last two years and then finally beat a ranked pretty good team this year so improvements and I'm not being a sarcastic jerk here like that is actual Improvement for Buffalo yeah they still have a ways to go um they still have a ways to go is there anything that you might be concerned about when it comes to Buffalo um no um I do agree with you that I no not concerned about there are things that I'm interested in seeing for sure um I agree with you that limbo is I think he was a very underrated hire for Buffalo just based on his past proven ability to win in at the Mac level now um has he you know turned turned uh been a mega successful take him to a you know take him to a I guess formerly New Year's six bowl level success no but he has uh put put up winning Mac teams on the field and I don't see any reason why he necessarily couldn't do that at Buffalo eventually uh but this is this is a f his first year he's very much a development coach a build you know build from the ground up coach and this is his first year so they're they're not there yet they could be there in a couple years they're not there yet I am interested in seeing how the defense manages their running game uh they are a much better rushing team than Murray State was uh I mean they put up 200 more than 200 yards against Lafayette and the as L yet but um the the before mentioned Jak Jaz barale had 99 yards they had six other players five or six other players that that ran the ball um at least four or five times including the quarterback now he only had 20 yards ogana did but um three running backs had 14 carries 14 carries seven carries so they like to spray it around a little bit too so I'm very interested to see how you know how they can how the defense can act against a more competent offense yeah right that can do something they you know they can point to something from last week say hey we ran the ball for 200 yards that's good no matter who you're playing uh they passed for just under 200 yards not particularly amazing you know completion percentage average eight yards per throw so not not crazy worried about them passing it through the air uh but really just worried about not worried but interested to see how how how how they play Just against a better team I mean I don't think It ultimately is going to be a problem um long term but you know I don't think they're going to shut flow out um they probably not um you know they if they give up 10 points that's fine that's going to be fine I mean you know from a from a rushing perspective yeah they're they're they're better rushing offense than passing they only really attempted 20 passes uh 22 whatever uh but their their ground game is good uh both on the offense and the defensive side uh now a lot of that rushing came on on big plays you know barkdale had you know 99 yards but he he got that big chunks um you know alj Henderson who's kind of more of their nominal starter he's big dude 6 foot 210 um he's kind of more of a grinder guy and and like he really didn't get his yards but to your point yes six different players carried the ball 46 carries on the game 46 uh versus your your 20-some passes so that that is what they wanted to do when it came to Lafayette that's how they figured they could win and yeah please run right at us like again not being a jerk like I want to test the defensive line and the linebackers um you know Murray State really just kind of packed it in and not GNA say the Q word but like they got pretty predictable pretty conservative they became very conservative once it was clear that the game was very far out of reach the first 11 minutes of theame yeah and it's just like I'm not taking anything long term it looked great but like that doesn't tell me anything for the future so I want to see them stress test uh I want to see that secondary stress tested I want to see what it looks like when the linebackers you know have to make a stop on third down like in a goal to go or like hey this is we're getting to the end of the quarter here we got to stop them you know I want I want some stress uh I want to I want to press them a little bit and make them feel threatened a little bit to see what that looks like just because there are so many guys and you know Murray State played everybody played everybody 39 guys you know there's only 37 listed on the dep chart we played even more than that so like what does that rotation look like when you get to crunch time who are your defensive tackles that you're looking at who who is out there at the cornerback slot um what do you do with them are we are we crazy blitzing like Blake Baker did on on you know with LSU on Sunday night are we dropping to a shell and and get the pressure with the fourman front like again you're not going to get all the answers but I'd like to see some schematic stress on these guys just so I get a better idea of how Cory Batum calls a game yeah for sure I and I just wanted we've talked a lot all offseason about the the interior defensive line uh we didn't learn a whole lot about those guys we saw that Chris mlen is a beast and I think he will continue to be but we had a good idea that he was going to be in the first place we didn't really get to see Maris gracial tested he was out there he played a lot of snaps um but we didn't really get to see him tested um same with all the other guys so I I I'm interested to just maybe they can get punched in the mouth once uh piss them off and then see how they react at that point and if they give up as I said if they give up 10 points that actually might be fine because that's gonna get them pissed off going into the going into the next week say no you know we should not have given up this many points to this team what do we got to fix let's fix it now yeah and and you know offensively every you know the only thing that people really been talking about is the Deep ball or the lack of success at it because there really wasn't anything to pick at Brady cook we we talked about this like you're G to you're going to miss some you're going to make some one of those would have made a huge difference it didn't and I'm sure he's practicing it all week um this this pass secondary is not good it's it is their weak spot their run defense is pretty good currently 12 again sample set of one so that really doesn't tell you a whole lot uh what does tell you a lot is that the defensive line for Buffalo averages about 62 and a half in height and somewhere between 260 and 280 as far as weight uh which would put them as 1 two 3 four five six the 14th lightest person on Missouri's offensive line um so really doesn't matter who you Trot out there they're bigger than they are uh size is not everything speed is not everything technique is part of it too but Buffalo likes to put some kind of shorter squatter guys out there get some speed and just you know hope to to Havoc you and harass you into making a bad choice so okay now we're going to have hopefully less of a clean pocket for Brady cook to throw the ball maybe he get has to move a little bit that'd be nice uh maybe we do hit some deep shots on there and then Speedy or Luther or anybody just burns their guy because I think they could probably do that uh but also I want to see again crunchtime running backs who's it going to be last two years we knew it was gonna be Cody shider is it Nate Noel our Speedster or is it Marcus Carroll or is it Jamal Roberts who can apparently pass block like a mofo I I don't know what those answers are so I want to get some dirt on Brady's jersey I want to see the Run back rotation and I want to see how they react when they're stressed yeah just give us a little more make them sweat a little bit more than than they did last week I don't want don't want them to sweat past the the second quarter but make them sweat up until halftime and then uh you know kind of let the good times roll after that that wouldd be the the ideal scenario here I want Brady to get hit not because I'm mad at him I just I want you to remember what it's like I want you to to feel the pressure uh I want to feel you know when you're running the ball what it feels like to get smacked by an FBS player so don't get hurt you know I don't know if Brett Norfleet or Theo whis are going to play it sounds like Eli drinkwitz is going to release uh injury reports Thursday Friday Saturday so we can look forward to that since we are recording at nine o'clock on a Wednesday we should be able to see this tomorrow when this comes out I I would not be surprised if they are probable or questionable and just sit him because they don't feel like they need to do that for this game I would not be surprised by that I would also not be surprised if they say oh yeah that's fine and then either play them or don't I just I don't feel a real sense of urgency uh with this game it's probably famous last words that you can cut and paste and throw out there and make me look like an idiot but if mou plays its b game it should beat the heck out of Buffalo just simple straight up fact right there um so I don't are we goingon to do uh score predictions this year is that a crazy dumb thing to do what are you thinking uh I mean I'm I'm I'm down for it I mean I happy to be wrong every week so that sounds great to me all right so what uh what are you predicting well I've got them I've got Mook covering the 34 and a half points that it was uh listed at yesterday um I'm not sure what the line is today I haven't checked it today but I have them covering so I'm going to go I'm going to go 48 to 10 I like the 10 the 10 points there 48 to 10 okay I'll probably go 457 okay so also covering yeah I think see I think Brady's gonna hit at least one if not a couple deep shots that he didn't hit last week that's going to make a big difference on you know just on terms of his yardage the scoreboard um CU I don't know if we're going to put up a ton of points in the second half or at least in the fourth quarter just because hopefully we'll be running the running the backups backups out there at that point but if they can put up you know four or five touchdowns in the first half a couple more in the third quarter and then you know pack it in at that point yeah I I feel like if you see Brady cook or Luther buron or any of the ones on offense past 10minute Mark third quarter something's gone wrong yeah get him out there for one drive depending on how the first half goes get him out there for one drive in in the second half just to just to get the feel for sitting and then coming back out and yep and and playing again and then at that point you know bring him out yeah and I like to see some Havoc uh Missouri's defense last week managed a 30% Havoc rate which is better than almost any other game that Blake Baker did in the past two years now keep in mind not a lot of plays there okay it like 40 plays if that um so it you know one pass broken up one interception ction and one tackle for loss puts you way higher when you're only at 40 plays than if you're at you know 50 60 70 but still 30% is really good I'd like to see somewhere in the 25% range you know when every out of every four plays you're you're blowing something up or making something go boom um so again not crazy I just want to see everybody have fun play be safe get some exercise and not hurt yourself and get the W uh because they this one does count just like the other one but speaking of games that count I you know we had Football Saturday and we got to watch a lot of teams play including teams that Missouri will play in the future and uh I think there's some uh revising of uh strength of schedule that's going on on the Fly here if in case you have not heard vanderbelt played Virginia Tech Virginia Tech was kind of viewed as a a Darkhorse candidate for ACC Championship H potential playoff run toin on who you ask just because they returned so many guys including Kyon drones their quarterback then they went to Nashville and lost to Diego Pavia the imported New Mexico State offense that now plays for vanderbelt and Jerry kill the special adviser to Clark Lee then uh on Monday night Florida State continues to just shine a light on its Redemption tour um and and show all of its Wars and how bad it is because they lost in Ireland to Georgia Tech in week zero and then came back to United States and then lost again uh yeah they lost again to Boston College who last I checked is going to be the third team that Missouri plays this week now there's context behind how these games went and obviously both potential you know future opponents did it differently what were your takeaways from these games and are you scared um am I scared no am I more interested in those games absolutely um am I if either of them were on the Road and not at home I would it would be a little more you know oh you know I'm I'm would be getting a little bit more nervous thankfully they get both of those games in Columbia um both the teams clearly are are better than we thought that they were going to be uh but in different ways uh Boston College um I think in a in a lot of ways they kind of punched Florida state in the mouth and they were not expecting it they figured okay we lost on the road we're coming home we'll be back in front of our fans we can just roll out there and we're going to win and before you know it it's been an entire quarter and Boston College has had the ball the entire quarter and they score um and then Florida State goes three and out then Boston College gets the ball again and goes down and scores again and then and then at that point Florida State just was a mess and their mess anyway they're just not a good team this year their quarterback is bad their defensive line is bad uh because Boston College ran all over them and they're not the only ones Georgia Tech did so as well um Vanderbilt is fun and you know competent but I'm also not necessarily worried about them either it will make those games more interesting it'll make them more fun for the Casual viewer to tune in for for sure um because there actually are some Stakes now attached to those games um and maybe missou beats them by 10 points instead of 17 uh but I'm not scared of them um it I will say though against against Boston College here next week they're gonna have to strap it on up front and figure out what where their eyes are are looking because Boston College runs at least against Florida state ran a lot almost nothing but misdirection and uh kind of reminded me a little bit about on about August mileson offense in that their quarterback can't throw it their quarterback is he he he is very fast uh he's not a passer not a not a great passer the receivers aren't great either but he can run really well and he can you know fake it here and hand it off here and if you're looking in the wrong spot the ball's running you know as fast as it can be 20 yards behind you uh so they're gonna have to figure out where they're looking and how to defend that style of offense now are they as talented as an Auburn Gus Malon team was or even a UCF Gus Mal on team I don't think so they're really not that talented uh but O'Brien has done a really good job of giving them a game plan which I don't think their offense really had at least not a not one that was suited towards the strengths that they do have and I think that shows shows he's a good coach so um he's gonna put them in in the best spots to succeed now will they against mou not if not if mou comes to play so with let me look at vanderbelt first and and I love Diego Pavia that that is a that is dude that that is a that is a guy that it's like Cody Scher you don't know why he's so good but he is he just keeps winning and and in retrospect it's it's incredible that uh the king Slayer Diego Pavia did not take down the 2022 Missouri football tigers kooy that was not a good team because he did he didn't start that game that's why well he it could have happened it should have happened and it didn't so Missouri dodged a bullet there uh but the Vanderbilt you know they they imported New Mexico state's offense the Jerry kill who was the head coach he resigned from New Mexico State didn't want to be a head coach anymore uh at least there he's now special advisor to Clark Lee of course they brought in a quarterback running back couple receivers and oh by the way their offensive coordinator 10 Beck now there's like three 10 Becks in college football so whatever one you're thinking not that one um but that they did really well now it's the exact same Playbook that they did get with New Mexico State they run a ton in in one game they're top 10 in run rates in both standard downs and passing Downs like that's what they do they run the ball now when they pass it because they run so much it is very effective and Diego Pavia is a little summer [ __ ] he makes you feel like he's goingon to run and at the last the very last microsc he tosses it to the side or deep and he just he can he just he's just better than you so it's very effective passing it's not deep it's not explosive but it's effective they go super slow they're one of the slowest teams in the country right now they run all the time there's a lot of you know Diego papia making stuff up as he goes along and even then and even then they had to benefit from like one of the best field position advantages of the of the week uh started at Virginia Tech basically they're 37 was their average uh which top 10 in the country they had uh an extra 8.8 in turnover 8.8 points in turnover luck in a game that they won by seven okay so like this stuff matters and they had a win in an overtime and Virginia Tech is maybe a little bit fraudulent and they are on the road so like I'm not going to take one game and say that this is it but this is the New Mexico State script that has beaten teams like that including Auburn and I just I'm not I'm not worried because they know certainly Eli drink knows how to do this but like just keep your eye on that just keep your eye on it um then with Boston College I think I think he nailed it right Thomas castalanos is chaos Master uh he he's fast he makes good decisions but they cannot throw to save their life um I think it's yeah currently the 80th best pass game in the nation that's not good the reason they were winning was because they were running and yeah Florida State's defensive line is not good because they imported like an entire one over this over the off season um so I think a lot of this is Florida State being bad and Boston College pouncing on a wounded animal um because really their their Advance stats are not super impressive um really what they did they did well was third down conversions and not taking a sack um and they had a big advantage in my opinion in that game because Flor state had already played a game uh also overseas and they were coming back on uh you know it was it was like a nday eight n day rest but they still played the game they had been scouted uh Boston College coming in with a brand new coach no one knows what no one knew what they were going to do coming in I mean Bill O'Brien's been at all over the you all over the place he was at Alabama most recently in college as their offensive coordinator but they certainly W weren't going to run Alabama's offense with the Cent that Boston College has um and then he was at the Patriots and they were going to run the Patriots offense so there's no way the for State staff had any clue what they were going to come out with um and then before they knew it it had been they they they Boston College quite literally had the ball the entire first quarter um I think uh and then that just gassed the defense and they who were they because they could not get on the field off the field it was basically three yards in a cloud of dust but a much more um uh exciting version of three yards in a cloud of dust all the way down the field just third down conversion after third down conversion after third down conversion uh score a touchdown get the r back do the exact same thing by that point in time Florida State started to figure it out um really the second half Boston College had one legitimate Drive their other touchdown they scored was on a long interception all the way down to like the six yard line or something um so Florida State eventually figured it out um but by that point it was too late and their offense sucks and so it it is interesting I'm glad because it's GNA I'm glad that Boston College has a pulse not even talking about the you know playoff implications of having a stronger schedule but it's just going to make the team have to coales sooner um and you know put the strap their jock on tighter sooner and not wait for the first week four first four weeks in the buy before they go down a college station and have to play a team that they legitimately you know are have to have to come out and give their aame for so I think I think ultimately will will be a good thing that both of these teams are good or at least yeah I'll never I'll never accuse a college football team of overlooking an opponent I feel like coaches and their staffs are paid enough that they're really good at putting in the effort to get you to focus but it also helps if like it's a legit opponent who's like actually beaten a name brand and you know whatever you want to think of Virginia Tech nobody thought anything of Vanderbilt and whatever you want to think of Florida State they were technically the 10th best team in the nation uh whatever uh and they they they lost they lost by getting out physical which Eli dingis talks about all the time so uh yeah it's nice to have your opponent get you know to pay attention to that that's really good uh especially when you could you could potentially uh maybe take them a little lighter than you should um but no I I'm not changing my opinion on whether those will be wins or losses uh I just think you should we should all pay attention and see what happens this week too for sure uh but speaking of this week we got Buffalo coming up it's at six o'clock uh central time so I think it's SEC plus SEC Plus and ESPN plus so if you have a cable provider or streaming provider that gives you ESP access to ESPN and and the SEC network you do have access to SEC plus you might just have to find it in a different place um you might have to get on your computer if you have a streaming device attached to your TV you have to get on the ESPN app there to find it it's not just going to be on your Direct TV box well it may not anyway because ESPN's uh I don't know if that's been resolved yet with Direct TV but it's not going to be it's certainly not going to be on your on your spectrum cable box you're going to have to get online whether it's on your phone on on your Roku or whatever to watch it but we did this last year you should everyone listening should have already figured this out um one game a year it's you know not not that big of a deal yeah you could the team will will make the effort you can make the effort too so that's the show for today as always we appreciate the downloads and the subscriptions leave a comment or read us we love all types of feedback from you all you can follow us on Twitter I'm Nat at n Edwards he's at bursta Hurst of course you can follow the rockim flagship at rockim nation and our podcast now at rockim Radio We Appreciate You tuning in this time we'll try to do better next time and until then misz Z you