The Best of The Dan Patrick Show

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Speaker 1: You are listening to the Dan Patrick Show on Fox Sports Radio.

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Speaker 2: He joins me every.

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Speaker 3: Thursday and Friday on the Ross Tucker Football Podcast.

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Speaker 2: And yet that's still not enough.

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Speaker 3: This guy's been working in NFL films for forty six years. He loves football and I love him. Check him out on social media at Greg Cosel.

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Speaker 2: Greg. Great to see you always here in a different venue.

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Speaker 3: I think a lot of people are familiar with your outstanding work the NFL Matchup Show on esp and ESPN two the next couple days. I guess we got to get your thoughts on the poll question first, Greg. I know that this is why you break down the tape spicy mustard, yellow mustard, honey mustard, or djon mustard.

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Speaker 4: I think I'm a golden spicy brown kind of guy.

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Speaker 2: Ross. Yes, I knew it. I knew it.

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Speaker 4: Yes, I'm not a great pupon guy, don't. I can't remember the last time I ever had great poupon. But you know that's why above my investment portfolio.

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Speaker 2: You know, I love the fact.

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Speaker 3: Just so everybody knows, I talked to this guy at least once a week, now twice a week. I've never talked with Greg about mustard before. And not only did he say spicy, he shouted out my favorite spicy brown mustard Goldens, he gave it the actual name brand. Gosh, this show is going so well so far. All Right, we'll get to more of the mustard talk a little bit later. I guess here's my first question, Greg, after watching that game last night.

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Speaker 4: Oh you did?

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Speaker 2: Huh? Yeah?

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Speaker 4: I feel I built Phil Badley for you. Well, I went to better early Ross because I was at the gym at ten or five this morning, so I didn't see much of that game.

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Speaker 3: Well, I know you'll break down the film later, so that's why I'm not going to specifically ask you about last night. But when you look at, for example, the Broncos and the Patriots, they both only have two losses, where are you right now with bo Nix and Drake May? In other words, have you seen enough from either one of those guys to think, you know what they might be able to do it in a playoff game against Josh Allen and the Bills or Lamar Jackson Ravens. What have you seen from those two guys, you know, in particular Nixon May.

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Speaker 4: Well, if we want to start with May, I think May has played consistently far better than Nix has. May has just better traits overall too. I mean, I've had the ability to stand next to both guys. May is just a big, big man, and he plays the game effortlessly easily.

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Speaker 2: You know.

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Speaker 4: One of the things that I was taught years ago, and actually I think it was a conversation I had with Phil Simms years ago. When you watch a quarterback and they throw it so easily, May looks effortless throwing the ball effortless down the field, and it's just easy for him.

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Speaker 2: To throw it.

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Speaker 4: And one thing I think is really stood out this year, and you're never sure about this till you get to the NFL ross is his ability to move within the pocket. You don't see a lot of that in college because it's not usually that necessary in college football to play like that, But in the NFL, pockets get squeezed, there's more bodies around you. How a quarterback reacts to that is something that I really evaluate carefully, and I think that pocket movement is a really important trade and May has really shown that trade. Nix, on the other hand, I think has been very very inconsistent. I think that his ball location has at times been good and has at times lost something to be desired. You're almost and you hate to say this about a quarterback, and I like bo Nicks overall, but he's almost at the point now where sometimes you're just not certain what you're going to get with bow Nicks. And you know, obviously he's had these big fourth quarter come but you don't want to you don't want to live like that. You know, you want more consistency from from play one to play seventy, and that hasn't been the case with him for much of this season.

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Speaker 2: I'm curious about that.

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Speaker 3: When you're breaking down the tape and you see these guys play their best in the fourth quarter or in the last couple of minutes, what do you what do you make.

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Speaker 2: Out of that?

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Speaker 4: Well, you have to look at the reason why. What kind of plays are they making? You know, if bo Nix has made a number of plays in the fourth quarter where it's been one on one on fade balls and he's made a very good throw, and then quarter lit Sutton has gone up against good coverage and made a catch, Obviously that play counts and it's a good job by both guys. He did make a great play. I remember specifically against the Eagles where he made a great read and a great throw to I believe it was sudden on a third and fifteen maybe if memory serves me correctly, and that was a really big time throw with great timing and anticipation and ball location. But I think you always have to look at the plays themselves, and that to me is just like interceptions. You always have to look at interceptions as individual plays, not as a number on a stat sheet. You've got to look at the plays. So, you know, I think that Knicks has made obviously they've come back in games, and he certainly made throws and he uses his legs extremely well. We saw that who do they It was the Giants, right, The Giants would have had that crazy comeback and scored thirty three in the fourth quarter. And you know, you have to look at all those plays as individual plays, not just say wow, they came back. So you know, that's the way I go about it anyway.

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Speaker 3: You know, it's funny by the way you think about some of the rookie quarterbacks that are playing right now, Jackson Dart and Yep and cam Ward and obviously now Tyler Shuck and maybe they're not in great situations. You know, Greg, I called a couple of Patriots games last year, and they might have had the worst O line and the worst receiving core, and I still thought, Drake Maye look good, you know, so you can still look good as a quarterback the other teams I wanted to ask you about, Well, just.

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Speaker 4: One quick point if I could. Yeah, when you evalue I learned this from people smarter than I am at back quarterback play. Going back to Bill Walsh, when you evaluate a quarterback cross you have to evaluate him separately from the circumstances. You have to isolate on the traits of the quarterback. We know that certain teams don't have great receivers, or certain teams may not have a great run game. That's all fine, That has nothing to do with how a quarterback plays the position of quarterback. You have to isolate the quarterback and separate him from the rest of the team. That's how you evaluate a quarterback. You understand that, hey, maybe he's not throwing to great guys, but that doesn't dictate how he goes about playing the position of quarterback.

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Speaker 3: All right, Well, let's evaluate a couple of other quarterbacks. Because again, looking at the top of the standings, I see the seven and two Indianapolis Colts. Yeah, And I see the six and two Seattle Seahawks, and yeah, Greg, No matter who I talk to, they are not gonna believe in Daniel Jones or Sam Darnold until they actually see those guys win a playoff game.

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Speaker 2: What are you seeing?

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Speaker 3: Are you seeing enough that the rest of us should buy in and should believe that these teams are real?

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Speaker 4: And I don't think of it like that.

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Speaker 3: Row.

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Speaker 4: It's like, you know, when people say, are these teams for real? All I know is what we have up to this point and how these teams play. So if you look at the Colts, and by the way, Daniel Jones made some really good throws this past week, even though they lost to the Steelers and he had to drop back fifty five times, which, as you know, no coach wants a quarterback to drop back fifty five times in a game. He had twenty six dropbacks alone in the fourth quarter, and as I said, he made some big time throws. Now, there's a team that is very much based on the fact that they dominate on first down, and first down domination is the result of being in control of games close enough that you can do what you want to do. On first down, Jones had the most first down passing yardage in the league. Jonathan Taylor is among the league leaders in first down rushing yardage. They dominate on first down, and when you can't do that, the game changes. And then when you have to drop back on every single play, as they did every play in the fourth quarter last week was a pass twenty six plays and as you probably saw, their two tackles in that game did not play well in one on one pass protection when they were asked to block one on one against Watton Heismith. So they had a very difficult game. But I think the nature of the Colts offense is such that if they can stay within the game that they're very very good. Donald he's another guy. He's really good in specific ways. Every quarterback, for the most part, Ross has defined strengths and then certain limitations. That's just true with every quarterback, even great ones. Okay, so Donald is really good as a play action quarterback, the reds are more defined. He pushes it down the field as well as any quarterback in the league. Now they have Shaheed that's only going to help in that regard, Darnold is better in that kind of offense than he is, let's say, in the shotgun offense, sitting back there being asked to scan the field. So if all of a sudden they get down big and he's asked to do that, he may not look as good because that's not what he does. As well as play in an under center play action game where they can control the pace and tempo of the game. More so.

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Speaker 3: Greg Our producer here is Pauly Paps and he's a die hard, die hard Bears fan. So you talked about Bonnicks, you talked about Drake may I think he'd be upset if I didn't get your evaluation of Caleb Williams, the number one pick in last year's draft. Where are you and what are you seeing on the tape with Caleb Williams so far this year in Ben Johnson's offense.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, I think it's been a work in progress and I totally expected that. It's a very difficult offense, just starting with the operational perspective, Rawson, you know what I mean by that, where you know, calling the play in the huddle where there might be two plays called then there's alerts. Then you want to have enough time when you get to the line of scrimmage because that offense features shifts and motions. Then you want to have Williams be able to sort of research the defense. So the operational part was something he really struggled with as a rookie under a different coaching staff. But then he had to learn that this year. I would say that last week in the game, last week now, and again this is not relevant to me that Cincinnati doesn't have a good defense. But I thought you saw a lot more of the Ben Johnson pass game concepts come to fruition, and I thought that there were times Williams looked really good executing those. Now there are still times because it will be a work in progress, where he was a beat slow with his reads and did not get the throws that were there. There are times there's a little bit of an unfocused phonetic nature to him to his pocket play. That's his next step in his continued development. But I gotta tell you, this guy throws the balls. It's crazy the way he throws the ball. And when you talk about with throwing the ball on the move, I mean this guy has an absolute power hose when he throws the ball on the move. I don't know if I've seen anybody throw with that kind of even Aaron Rodgers in his prime, with that kind of velocity on the move.

00:11:20
Speaker 3: Check him out on social media at Greg Cosel and check him out every week on the Ross Tucker Football Podcast Thursday or Friday, a lot more hardcore football talk. Where that came from. Greg, Thank you so much for the time here on The Dan Patrick Show. Really appreciate it.

00:11:37
Speaker 4: Appreciate it. Ross, thanks so much for having me.

00:11:40
Speaker 1: Be sure to catch the live edition of The Dan Patrick Show weekdays at nine am Eastern six am Pacific on Fox Sports Radio and the iHeartRadio app.

00:11:50
Speaker 3: Hey, it's Rob Parker and Kelvin Washington from The Odd Couple on Fox Sports Radio.

00:11:55
Speaker 5: And in addition to hearing us live weeknights from seven to ten pm Eastern on Fox Sports, we are excited to announce brand new YouTube channel for the show.

00:12:04
Speaker 3: That's right, you can now watch The Odd Couple live on YouTube every day.

00:12:10
Speaker 5: All you gotta do search Odd Couple FSR on YouTube again YouTube, Just search Odd Couple FSR. Check us out on YouTube and subscribe.

00:12:20
Speaker 3: I think Andy Staples has probably been to every cool college football venue you can possibly go to. I'm sure there's some that you know what, even Andy probably has one or two, and maybe it's a group of five stadiums that he hasn't been to. Maybe he wants to go to that Dome of North Dakota State. I guarantee Andy has some that he hasn't been to yet that he wants to. He's a good friend of mine. He does an unbelievable job in all sincerity. If you are into college football and you're not following Andy's work or following him on social media, at Andy underscore Staples, you are doing it wrong. Andy, really appreciate the time. Great to see you.

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Speaker 2: I guess I.

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Speaker 3: Gotta start out with these two questions, So one of which is what's on your bucket list college football venue that you have not been to yet.

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Speaker 6: I've got a few, and you actually just mentioned a couple of them. So Mikey Stadium at Army I overcovered a game there, want to do that, The Fargo Dome you mentioned at North Coast State, the Kibbi Dome at Idaho, seventeen thousand seat Dome, Moscow, Idaho. I have driven driven through the parking lot when I was in Pullman to do some Washington State stuff, and obviously Moscow, Idaho's eight miles away, so I drove.

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Speaker 2: I was like, I gotta see the Kibbi Dome, but I want to.

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Speaker 6: See a game in the Kibbi Dome, and then yeah, those would be my three. Also, I need to commend you Ross on the impassioned defense of spicy Deli mustard, because it is the world's greatest condiment.

00:13:53
Speaker 2: Oh, you know what I gotta tell you. I already knew.

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Speaker 3: I liked Greg Cosel, I liked Andy Staples. I had no idea they were part of the spicy mustard tribe. I didn't know they were part of the family. Although they're really smart, successful people, so you would assume that they know that spicy mustard's by far the best mustard.

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Speaker 2: All right, here's the second part of that question. Andy.

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Speaker 3: And by the way, I've done a bunch of games at Mikey Stadium.

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Speaker 2: I couldn't possibly more highly recommend it.

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Speaker 6: I believe I've heard you and Jason Horowitz doing games at Mikey Stadium before.

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Speaker 3: Yes, And honestly, Andy, the crazy thing about Mikey Stadium is it's actually probably best observed from the press box because it's so elevated that you can then see the reservoir and the water and the Hudson River. It's actually better almost the higher you are, if that makes sense. But you're gonna tell me, give me one or two or three that I probably haven't been to that, you know, power for whatever. What should be on my college football venue bucket.

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Speaker 6: List If you've never been to a game at LSU, if you've never been to Tiger Stadium, that is it's the best tailgating in college football, and when they're good, it's probably the best overall stadium experience in college football. It's just so cool and the tailgating is incredible that people go all out. It's not you know, we talk about the Old Miss tailgating, but Ole Miss doesn't allow open flames, so limits what you can cook. Like they're grilling gator like when they play Florida, they're grilling gator at LSU.

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Speaker 2: So it's incredible.

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Speaker 6: Going into the one that people maybe don't think about. If you get a chance to go to a k State home game, a Kansas State home game Manhattan, Kansas Bill Snyder Family Stadium. They do it right there, like that's a great crowd. It's a great town, just a great little college town, the Aggieville district with the bars and the restaurants and everything. That's an that's a fun one that I don't think people think about when they're like, oh, these are the best atmospheres in college It's one of the best atmospheres in college football. And the other one. You'll never believe it until you actually get there. To autsin stadium in Oregon, sixty thousand people sound like one hundred thousand people. I don't know how they do it, but it's incredible.

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Speaker 3: There's something weird about the Pacific Northwest and the acoustics, because I guarantee you the people in Seattle are not louder than the people in Philadelphia. But yet when you're in that stadium in Seattle, it is so loud. They've done a nice job with the acoustic.

00:16:35
Speaker 2: The Seahawks Stadium.

00:16:36
Speaker 6: I've driven past it, I've never been inside it, but it does look like it's just built perfectly to capture this Maybe Autson's secret. Autson is sort of like an extreme version of the old sombrero in Tampa. Yes, And so you've got these two really high middle parts that just kind of bounce off each other, and I think that's what helps.

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Speaker 2: All right.

00:16:56
Speaker 3: So, Andy, we are, I guess, a year and a half into the new college football playoff tournament structure, and I know it could be changing, But I guess has it been a good thing or a bad thing so far? Are you a fan or not a fan of it so far?

00:17:13
Speaker 6: I love the twelve team playoff. I don't want them to go any bigger. If they go sixteen, fine, I know they've talked about that, because that just that doesn't really add another round. It just keeps you the same general structure. But don't go any bigger than that. Like, this is good. I like the stress and the adjecta that it causes among the teams from twelve to twenty that still have a chance. I like the fact that if you win the Big twelve, or if you win the ACC even if you didn't have the greatest year, you're in. I think that's pretty cool. So I like this format. I thought four was too small, Like it's still the most exclusive playoff format in major American sports. Like the fewest number of teams get in the lowest percentage of teams get in, And I think that's great, but it needed to be bigger than four.

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Speaker 2: So this feels like the perfect number to me.

00:18:08
Speaker 4: You know what.

00:18:09
Speaker 3: I also think when it was four, we really only talked about who was five, six, and seven and maybe eight. Now that it's twelve, people are looking at who's fourteen, who's sixteen, who's eighteen? I saw on your show you were apoplectic that Miami's that much further down than Notre Dame. Is that the biggest thing that jumped out to you? Yeah, because why'd they bother playing the game?

00:18:36
Speaker 6: Like, if they're gonna have the same record, and it's not like Notre Dame's played much better competition than Miami throughout the year.

00:18:43
Speaker 2: They haven't.

00:18:43
Speaker 6: Their their schedules are fairly comparable, and they have the same record, and they played in Miami won.

00:18:50
Speaker 2: How in the world can they be eight spots apart?

00:18:52
Speaker 6: That makes no sense at all, And that's what bother. I mean, if you're gonna do that, just simulate the whole season on a computer. Don't even bother playing the games, because that the results of the games need to matter at some point.

00:19:04
Speaker 3: How much do you wait what happened recently versus what happened at the start.

00:19:10
Speaker 6: It all matters ross, It doesn't matter when you played the like it all matters. It doesn't Just because you played it in September doesn't give you a mulligan for losing.

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Speaker 3: I would agree, But wouldn't you agree if two teams are ten and two and one of them lost the first two won the next ten, the other won the first ten lost the last two, don't you think that there should be some nod given to the teammates.

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Speaker 6: Team had better lost the first two where there's there only two really good games and everybody else was not very good.

00:19:46
Speaker 2: I don't think I'm not I love Notre Dame. I love Notre Dame.

00:19:51
Speaker 6: Will defend their independence till the day I die. Well, we'll fight anybody who says Notre Dame needs to join a conference.

00:19:58
Speaker 2: I love Notre Dame. I think Notre Dame's a really good team.

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Speaker 6: I think Notre name is probably gonna wind up in the college football playoff, mostly because I think Miami is gonna lose another one along the way, and and Notre Dame's not like they're both gonna They're both gonna play Pitt, and maybe Pitt beats Miami and doesn't beat Notre Dame. But you gotta you gotta have results matter. You can't just say well, it didn't matter, same record, whatever they play, like you you have the ultimate event. What if they played well? They played all right?

00:20:29
Speaker 3: Maybe the bigger question in college football right now is with all these guys getting fired, why has there not been any hires made yet?

00:20:38
Speaker 2: Like, why why hasn't Virginia Tech jumped on James Franklin. I mean he would be.

00:20:45
Speaker 6: Maybe James Franklin is waiting for Florida State to open up. Maybe James Franklin wants to go coach at Auburn.

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Speaker 3: So you think it's there's a pecking order of available candidates and those guys are way until they see what all their options are.

00:21:03
Speaker 6: Oh yeah, James Franklin's going to have options if he if he thought his best option was Virginia Tech and Virginia Tech was offering in the job, he would have already taken it. But I think he's going to have quite a few options.

00:21:16
Speaker 2: So we don't know yet.

00:21:18
Speaker 6: What all the options are going to be because we'll see what happens with Florida State. That's still very much up in the air. They're playing Clemson this week. If they want out Mike Orwell will be fine. But if things go badly that their fan base is itching for a change, even though it would be very expensive.

00:21:35
Speaker 2: Kentucky's another one. You know, Mark.

00:21:37
Speaker 6: Stoops beat Auburn that got Hugh Freeze fired last week. If they lose, you know, to Louisville, if they lose to Florida, I don't think Mark Stoops is all that safe, even though he has the most school unfriendly buy out in the country of thirty seven million dollars do within sixty days of the firing, all in one lump.

00:21:57
Speaker 2: Sum Wow, incredible.

00:22:02
Speaker 3: I mean I try to get fired at this point, that would be all right. So what about, like, I guess, what's the value in firing these guys so early if you're not gonna then make a hire. I mean, I live in Central Pennsylvania, penn States losing recruits left and right.

00:22:20
Speaker 2: I thought the whole point.

00:22:21
Speaker 3: Of firing him early, if you're gonna do that, was to get somebody else in there and rally.

00:22:26
Speaker 6: But you're not going to hire somebody who's actually coaching another team right now, they're gonna finish their season, So like, who are you going to hire? You go hire an NFL coach the you're just gonna leave their NFL team, Like, so, then what's the boy?

00:22:38
Speaker 2: You get Pat Fitzgerald?

00:22:40
Speaker 6: You could get Pat Fitzgerald now, and I think he's one who has multiple options and is waiting to see could you what winds up?

00:22:47
Speaker 3: Could you agree with an agent for a guy like Bob Chesney from JMU, but just not announce it but kind of.

00:22:55
Speaker 2: Know that has happened many many times.

00:22:58
Speaker 6: That's that happened with Scott Frost when he went from UCF Nebraska. And you fire the coach during the season to tell your fan base that you're making the change that they're clamoring for.

00:23:09
Speaker 2: To tell them you hear them. That's why you do it.

00:23:12
Speaker 6: A lot of schools do it because they see a ton of empty seats and they're like, oh god, the fans are not even going to come back this season if we don't do something and show them we care enough to make a change.

00:23:23
Speaker 2: Do you think Kurt Signetti has kind of ruined this whole thing?

00:23:28
Speaker 3: He's good.

00:23:29
Speaker 2: I love it.

00:23:29
Speaker 6: I think he has broken every bad coach's excuse. Well, every bad coach who makes excuses, you just point to Kurt Signetti No, like he can do it, why can't you?

00:23:38
Speaker 2: Right?

00:23:39
Speaker 3: But how much of that is I don't want to say fluky because obviously they've accomplished at all.

00:23:47
Speaker 2: Right, they've accomplished what they've accomplished.

00:23:49
Speaker 3: But I guess my point would be, you can't all be twelve and oh, you can't all be eleven and one.

00:23:55
Speaker 6: You can't all be twelve and oh. But you also can't be in year three or year four where your trend line is heading down, your trajectory is heading down, and you're saying, well, we just need more time to build.

00:24:06
Speaker 2: No, you don't you know by year two if you got if you made the right higher or not. You know.

00:24:15
Speaker 3: Do you feel, though, Andy, like we should be at the point in college football, especially when I look at some of these SEC schedules and like who Florida had to play this year or who Texas has to play? I feel like this is just my perspective. I don't think it should be as soon as you get a third loss, we're going to fire you. When you have the schedule.

00:24:34
Speaker 6: Its Millionaier was twenty two and twenty three and three plus seasons at Florida. I'm a Florida grade. I can tell you right now five hundred football is not acceptable.

00:24:44
Speaker 2: At the University of Florida.

00:24:46
Speaker 6: Three and a half years is more than enough time to get better than five hundred.

00:24:53
Speaker 2: Man. So the way you're making it sound, this is gonna be the new will. You either have standards or you don't. That's really what it is now.

00:25:01
Speaker 6: The Penn State one, yes, we can argue about that one all day, because James Franklin was winning, was successful, but he wasn't getting them what they wanted.

00:25:11
Speaker 2: What they wanted national titles. And if that's what you.

00:25:14
Speaker 6: Want, I'm not one to tell the consumer what they do and don't want. The Penn State fans want national titles. Now, getting that is going to be difficult. Like I think the Penn State job, of all the ones open is the toughest one to take right now because you will be judged against what James Franklin was doing, which means you'd better start winning double digit games immediately. You'd better start competing for the Big Ten title and in the College Football Playoff immediately. It's kind of like when Georgia fired Mark Richt and hired Kirby Smart. He was in the national title game in year two. Great, but year one when he was you know, he I think he was seven to five or six and six, it was like, oh boy, what is this.

00:25:54
Speaker 2: So you have to succeed immediately if you're in that job.

00:25:59
Speaker 6: But like the Florida and he was not getting it done, so they fired him. Auburn, he was not getting it done, so they fired him.

00:26:08
Speaker 3: Yeah, I guess it's a great point about landing spot because entry point means a great deal. Franklin by all accounting, and it was a top ten program over the last ten years. They just weren't top five. Penn State believes they have the resources to be top five. I guess, you know, Franklin used to say this all the time, But I'll get your opinion. I'm not sure people realize how hard it is to go from top ten to top five, because.

00:26:33
Speaker 2: Top five is exactly right.

00:26:35
Speaker 3: It's Georgia, Alabama, it's Ohio State like that can only be five in the top five.

00:26:41
Speaker 2: It's the hardest part. It's the hardest move.

00:26:43
Speaker 6: Dan Mullen mentioned that when he was at Florida, where he wins ten games, he wins the Orange Bowl, and they interview him on the field after the Orange Bowl and he said, it's that eleventh and twelfth they're the toughest step. And he was right, and I mean he ended up gotting fired at Florida. It is very hard the places where they expect national championships. The margins are so thin, and they're going to make mistakes too, because look at what Georgia did. They fired a really good coach and Mark Richt, and they hired an even better Coachan Kirby Smart.

00:27:17
Speaker 2: That's not gonna happen most of the time.

00:27:20
Speaker 6: Most of the time, the person you hire is not going to be as good as the person you just fired. If that person's winning ten games a year.

00:27:26
Speaker 3: Check him out on social media. He's fantastic. He's all over college football at Andy Underscore Staples.

00:27:34
Speaker 2: We got a good weekend this weekend.

00:27:35
Speaker 3: Indiana's double digit favorites against Penn State. That's a real thing in society. It's unbelievable. Thank you, Andy, me, Thanks Ross. Fox Sports Radio has the best sports talk lineup in the nation. Catch all of our shows at foxsports radio dot com and within the iHeartRadio app search FSR to listen live. Let's go to my guy, Dan Brugler. I try to get them all on my shows as often as I can. Ross Tucker Football podcast. Sometimes he's doing the College Draft podcast. He does a terrific work. I don't know anybody that puts in the time that Dane does. Dan, I want to start with this, thank you so much for coming.

00:28:14
Speaker 2: On the show.

00:28:15
Speaker 3: As always, Who were your top and this is documents, they don't try to lie now, who were your top five quarterbacks coming into this year in college football for the twenty twenty sixth NFL Draft.

00:28:32
Speaker 7: So if we go back to my top fifty that came out in August, it would have been arch Manning, Leonora Sellers, Garrett nus Meyer, Fernando Mendoza, and Drew Aller top five, and they would have spanned between two and like thirty five in the top fifty. Safe to say that arch Manning, you know, projection has not panned out the way we thought it would. I don't even think we consider him a twenty twenty prospect anymore. We're looking at him at twenty twenty seven and beyond nus Meyer. Everything that's happened with that LSU offense. That's been a struggle. Lenora Sellers is tough because the talent is evident and you watch South Carolina play and I don't think that the quarterbacks the problem. And so Lenora Seller is still just twenty years old. He's a young player and he'll have a big decision to make after this year about what his future holds. He's a South Carolina kid. His younger brother's on the team, so transferring is in exactly the obvious answer for him. Do you go to the NFL? Do you really think going back to South Carolina is going to make you better? So Lenora Seller is kind of in a weird spot. Fernando Mendoza was a top twenty prospect coming in. He has only elevated himself with where he's played as a first year starter at Indiana coming over from cal He's got the Hoosiers as a national title contender and then drew Aller. Unfortunately, things did not play out the way he had hoped over the first month of the and then, unfortunately for him, he doesn't have the second half of the season to kind of rectify that and make things better. After that season ending ankle injury that is going to sideline him for who knows how long. You know, hopefully we see him back during the draft process, so you can throw for scouts.

00:30:16
Speaker 3: All right, So who are like the top three or four guys now? So you know, PAULI and I just went over a bunch of teams might be drafting quarterbacks in the top ten, it sounds like Mendoza is the only guy that's still one of the top three or four.

00:30:29
Speaker 2: Now, is that right? Well?

00:30:31
Speaker 7: I think that if you're going to put odds on it right now, I think Mendoza is the odds on favor to be the first quarterback drafted. I think is a very similar skill set to say like a Jared Goff, where the physical traits aren't necessarily going to wow you, but it's the football IQ. It's what he does pre and post snap. That Indiana offense is very RPO heavy, you know, so he does a great job of reading the defense, understanding what they're trying to do, and then finding solutions. Is very accurate. You see a lot of back shoulders, you see a lot of in that RPO offense. It's all based on the run. So it's something that I'm hoping that we see Indiana Ohio State in the Big Ten championship game, just to see Mendoza go up against a defense the caliber of Ohio State. That'd be really fun for evaluation purposes. But after Mendoza, then I think you talk about Ty Simpson at Alabama. The trouble with Ty Simpson is he's a first year starter. I mean, he is the rare case of a player who graduated college before he threw his first touchdown pass in college. But you just don't see that in today's NFL because if you're blocked in the depth chart, you're going to transfer. Well, Ty Simpson, he's a five star kid, waited his turn behind Bryce Young and then two years of Jalen Milroe finally gets his chance now and you watch the tape and you see an NFL starter. But if he declares after this year, he's going to have thirteen, fourteen, fifteen starts, and that's tough. You look back the last ten years quarterbacks that have had twenty five or fewer star arts. We're talking about the Mitchell Trubisky's, the Anthony Richardsons, you know, the best quarterback who had such meager experience and has done well. Is Sam Darnold, but he needed he's on his fiftheam, he needed those bumps along the road to become the quarterback that we're seeing today in Seattle. And then Dante Moore at Oregon would be the other one I would want to mention, but he's twenty years old, still young.

00:32:23
Speaker 2: Oregon pays well.

00:32:24
Speaker 7: I think there's a good chance we see him go back for another year for the Ducks. So a lot will depend on these underclassmen in which guys come out.

00:32:32
Speaker 3: It's kind of weird, though, Dane, because hearing you talk and seeing what happened with especially I would say nuss Meyer, Aller and Sellers. If I'm wreck, if I'm advising Simpson more Mendoza, I feel like I tell him to go, you know, because sometimes you come back for that next year, you could play worse, you could get hurt.

00:32:58
Speaker 2: There's a larger.

00:32:59
Speaker 3: Sample size of people kind of picking out your works. I mean, who's to say that if Simpson and Moore and Mendoza all came back next year that they wouldn't have this similar things happening to them that happened with nuss Meyer, Aller, Sellers and Manning.

00:33:17
Speaker 7: It's true, but I think, you know, there's two sides of it, especially in today's nil when you know you could, you know, Carson Beck could have left for the NFL and maybe been a third round pick. But he you know, he went back to school and he's gonna he's making what four million dollars this year, and he's still probably going to be a third or fourth round pick. You know, with sellers, he's in a tough spot. But if he were to be on the quote unquote open market in college football, he would get paid pretty handsomely. And I still think that his skill set will be very popular when it comes to twenty twenty seven draft. But I think it's very telling that the Jets, they were perfectly fine picking up those twenty twenty seven draft picks the first round when they made the trades this week, and I think that is very intentional. When you look at the quarterbacks this year and then the quarterbacks for next year, I know it's very cliche to say, oh, just wait for next year's class, it's going to be better. I don't know, it's scouts. They look at it and they think that's kind of true. This year. Next year you talk about maybe an arch man, and we'll see where he's at, Julian Sayin what he's doing at Ohio State. They're looking at a twenty twenty seven quarterback class, especially if Dante Moore goes back, le North Sellers goes back, and thinking that twenty twenty seven quarterback class could be where teams really think they can strike gold. And that'll we'll see how and teams thought that last year. The Browns thought it was a one quarterback draft last year and that Cam Newton or excuse me, cam Ward went number one, and so the Browns at number two, they went to Plan B and you know that's how things played out for them.

00:34:48
Speaker 2: This year.

00:34:49
Speaker 7: We'll see who comes out. I think Fernando Mendoza will come out and then any other underclassman, and that there'll be a trickle down effect. There'll be a domino effect of how these teams operate, and you know how they look to move around in the draft.

00:35:01
Speaker 3: All right, So Dane, I don't want you to say anything other than this guy's name because I know your answer, because I've seen your answer. But I'm gonna see something with the guys. Your number one prospect for the twenty twenty six NFL Draft.

00:35:15
Speaker 2: Right now? What is his name?

00:35:18
Speaker 7: Rvil Rees?

00:35:18
Speaker 2: Okay, Fritzy, who does rvel Reese play for? No clue, Seaton? What position does rvel Rees play? Linebacker? Marvin? Do you know either the answers to do you know the answer to either one of those questions? Edge?

00:35:36
Speaker 3: I'm gonna think that, Paul, do you know about r. L.

00:35:39
Speaker 2: Reese? I read his stuff before he came on. I read Dane stuff before he came out. Okay, so you cheated. Yes, I'm not cheated. I read before the question. But isn't that isn't that crazy? That the number one? I mean Dane.

00:35:52
Speaker 3: I never heard of the guy last year, so he didn't play last year and now he's just getting time.

00:35:56
Speaker 2: He's an edge.

00:35:56
Speaker 3: Rusher for Ohio State. And I see Dane's clips on social media. He's awesome. Where do they get these guys? Because he came out of nowhere and he's now your number one prospect.

00:36:08
Speaker 7: Well, he's he's a Cleveland, Glenville kid, and so he he did start a few games last year, but it was more in an injury situation. But yeah, it's rare to find sixty four, two hundred and forty pound linebackers, and Ohio State has two of them. With Sunny Styles and r VLA Reese, both are going to be first round picks. Reese, the way he has played this year and really elevated his game, he is that true hybrid where you want to play him off the ball, he can do that. You want to play him on the edge, he has shown that he can do that with his length, with his power, the violence in his hands is phenomenal. And so you see a guy like Abdul Carter go high last year, that's what we're looking at right now with with r VL Reese, a similar type of player in terms of impact and what you think you're getting. But I you know, coming into the year, r VL Reese wasn't in my top fifty because it was all potential and it was all okay, we've we've seen, but until we see a snap in, snap out, it's still a wait and see type of situation. But I think it was evident from the first game against Texas, this guy is different. The different ways you can deploy him. He could be a spy and he's going to have the burst to chase, chase down the quarterback you want to go up against a guard one on one. He can do that because he can win with power, he can win with quickness if you want to drop him in space. In coverage, he can cover a wheel route, cover an angle route with a running back. So it's just everything that he does is really impressive. But I do think relative to most years, he would not be exactly what you're looking for in the top player in the draft. This is a very light year relative to other years when we're talking about top five overall picks. So if you don't love one of these quarterbacks, this year might not be a great year to be drafting in that top five.

00:37:55
Speaker 3: So, as I was saying, Dan Brugler has no idea what he's talking about. Number one player in college football wasn't even in his top fifty before the season. So don't follow Dane on social media at DP Brugs.

00:38:08
Speaker 2: He's got no idea.

00:38:09
Speaker 3: So Dane, last question for you, Big game tomorrow, Texas Tech BYU. Now they both have some real dudes, right, and I think this is as a result of nil that you know Texas Tech brought these guys. I mean, there are like legit NFL high round picks on these teams tomorrow, right.

00:38:31
Speaker 7: No doubt, and specifically Texas Tech, especially at defense, and that's not what you think of when you think Texas Tech football, right. But David Bailey coming over from Stanford, he's going to be a first round pick, maybe a top fifteen pick. He's a bullet off the edge. The speed that he plays with converting that speed to power really impressive. Romelo height on the other side, not as highly ranked as a prospect, but he'll still be drafted and be someone that is part of a rotation Jacob Rodriguez at linebacker, and then on the interior, guys like Lee Hunter, a defensive tackle who's former five star kid.

00:39:07
Speaker 4: And so this is.

00:39:08
Speaker 7: A Texas Tech has been pooning up the cash and it's paying out in a big way when we watch the games, and we'll see it on draft weekend when we see a lot of those Texas Tech defenders drafted. I do think Texas Tech's gonna win that game and they're going to be in pole position to win the Big twelve and get one of those spots in the College Football Playoff.

00:39:27
Speaker 2: That is Dane Brugler.

00:39:29
Speaker 3: He's the NFL draft analyst for the Athletic he's fantastic. I try to get him on the Ross Tucker podcast as often as I can.

00:39:37
Speaker 2: Check him out on Twitter x at dp Brugler.

00:39:40
Speaker 3: But just go ahead and subscribe to all this stuff over at the Athletic.

00:39:43
Speaker 2: There's nobody better.

00:39:44
Speaker 3: Dan.

00:39:44
Speaker 2: Thank you so much, man, really appreciate it.

00:39:46
Speaker 7: Now you say I'm you're the best.

00:39:47
Speaker 2: Ross