8-16-24 McElroy & Cubelic in the Morning Hour 1: Why the AP Poll matters; what do Auburn fans actually want; What you've overlooked in the preseason
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This Chalks 94.5 podcast is brought to you by Millennium Satellite and Video. Log on to MSBnow.com. TV excellence everywhere. That's Millennium. McElroy and Kubelik in the morning starts now. Welcome in. McElroy and Kubelik in the morning, 7 a.m. here on Friday, August 16th. Hope everything's going great for you as we're ready to put a bow on the week. We are eight days away from college football, ladies and gentlemen.

Damien, eight days away from college football. Is that, have you jacked up right now or no? Yeah, it's, there's a little bit of juice. There's a little bit of juice. Like this is the last weekend where literally I get to place a couple of wagers on the ball. Why is this the last weekend? I mean, you could have been placing wagers all this time. No, no, no. There's all kinds of things out there. I go week of. You talk about Elf League all the time. Are you talking about this is the last weekend that you can't place wagers? Yeah, I can't do it, yeah. Oh, okay. I was like.

I mean, you can play Sawager when the games are starting. You can bet on Little League World Series probably right now if you really wanted to. You could have done over-under win totals, futures. There's a whole bunch of stuff you could have done. There's lots of fun things out there for you. I don't know why you're...

Not willing to dive in. We go week of. Going to be degenerate, like just go all in. No, no. We tease it. Week of. We go week of. Love it. Because once I lock it, if I lock it in today and then tomorrow I wake up and I ain't feeling it no more, it's already in there. I can't take it back. Fair enough. Well, to help you with your gambling picks, we'll have Stanford Steve join us here in 90 minutes. Kirk Bowles will join us from...

He formerly the Austin American Statesman. Now the Houston Chronicle. He'll be with us at the top of the nine o'clock hour. Tell us what's going on with Texas, man. They continue to just have the injury bug have lost multiple, multiple players to season ending injuries already in camp. And for a team that's expected to win all their games for the most part and compete for not just playoff spot, but possibly a national championship, uh,

They got some issues at running back. Yes, they still have Jaden Blue, who's been solid in his career, rushed for 431 in his career. Not bad at all. Quintravian Wisner is also back, played mostly on special teams last year. They have another freshman that was the number two player in the country in his position last year in Jarek Gibson.

But he's a freshman. So there are some challenges right now with Texas's depth chart. We will address them with Kirk Bowles, who's dialed in as it gets to the Texas Longhorns. And then RJ Young will join us at 930. RJ has been ranking teams one through 134. You heard that right. All of them. Quite literally every single FBS team.

Why he's doing that. I don't know, but I appreciate it. Uh, how he's doing that. I don't know, but I appreciate it. Damien. It's like the Joe Moore award. All they, all, all 134 teams are in the, in the running. They say that, but I don't believe them. Uh,

Aren't watching and grinding on every single team's tape. You know, for someone, I guess, you know, like Cole and the brain trust of the Joe Moore Award, you'd think they would put out a watch list. Because, yes, technically all 134 are eligible. But you know what that feels like? Participation trophy. And that also feels like that's something that the big meatheads would not want. That's a good point.

I feel like it would be really valuable if he would just also rank the FCS teams. If you're going to do 134, why stop there? It's D2. Yeah, D3. D2's a lot. NAIA's a whole lot. NAIA, probably not going to get to that level, but I just don't know why you need to stop at 134. I think you just rank all...

3,000 colleges in the country that play football and rank them all one through 3,000. Sounds like an untapped market with a write-up on all of them. Oh, why stop domestically? I think you could actually start to get into elf league. And I think it'd be fascinating to see, Hey,

How North Dakota State is not going to be 135, by the way. No, they're right. They're going to be in the top probably 80 North Dakota State, South Dakota State. Those two probably top 80 programs. So who's to say? I think we start measuring pro teams against put the UFL teams in there. I don't care. Put the stallions in there. Oh, they'd be the top of the list. They'll be near in the top. The stallions. Yeah, absolutely. You're just sucking up now. Come on, man. They might crack the top 30. Giddy up. Maybe. Probably not, though.

Seeing that team play a lot, not top 30. Good team. But if you think they're beating Georgia, Alabama, Ohio State... Well, nah. A lot of Panthers are looking up at a lot of teams. I think Panthers are probably 7. Right behind Notre Dame. Depends on where the game's played. If they're on the road, I mean, power ratings...

Penn State probably would get him, but I don't know. It's James Franklin. The sick part is people are probably actually taking it seriously. You know they are. There are a lot of people that really think that an NFL team would lose to a college team. There's a lot of people that really think that. There's some what we call grown men on the professional level. Yeah, whose lives depend on winning. Right, mortgages. Whose kids won't go to school and won't eat if they don't play football. I will say this. If that game did end up being played, the pros would have to really be motivated.

I could see that be a reason why they'd lose. We're like, oh, we got to do this for what? For why? And you have the weak Panthers or the Browns from, you know, a couple of years ago when they were basically going winless when the when Detroit was basically kind of a team like that, that had maybe three wins across four seasons. Are you talking about the Stafford era?

No, they actually made the playoffs and did some things. But what those really, really pathetic NFL teams – I could see them – if they were to take on a college team that would be very, very up for the game, why would the pro team get up for it? Like, why are we doing this? Like, why? Yeah.

All right, guys. Yeah, y'all go away. I don't care. Like, I'm going to go home to my mansion. Yeah, I still don't think that the pro teams are too proud. And along the line of scrimmage, they would absolutely destroy college. Oh, my God. It would get ugly. But it is what it is. But there are people that think, oh, we could take them. Yeah, I don't know.

There are people who think Auburn's going undefeated this year, too. People think that Auburn doesn't have a quarterback either, apparently, listening to the last little bit of y'all's show this morning. They said by Oklahoma, there'll be a new starter. Do they know how bad their backups are? That's what I need to know. I really need to know. I wasn't going to ask. I think it's funny to me. It's like, oh, well, this guy can't play. Well, have you seen what's behind him? Watch the bowl game again. I mean, seriously, have you seen what's behind him? No.

They say Walker White's the one, though. They say he's just young. He's fourth string, which means there's three other guys in camp doing better than him. And I know this sounds weird, but coaches are not in the business just saying, he's going to sound crazy, so you just got to take this in stride with me and just understand what I'm saying is true, whether you choose to believe it or not is up to you. Coaches, oftentimes, in this weird backwards political society...

They usually start the best player. I've heard. I've heard some rumblings about it. And when I say usually, I mean like 99.9% of the time. They're going to play the player that gives them the best chance to win. Why? Because their job is to win. Yep. I know it's an amazing backwards, totally up in the air thought. I get it. It doesn't make sense.

But there is a possibility. This is also a possibility. Might be a rare one. Might be a one that's pretty regular. The guy that's a five-star or a high four-star might not be a five-star and or a four-star when they get to college. Might have been in high school. When you get to college, those star rankings go away. So you tell me they don't mean nothing when you get there. Not when you start, no. No. No. Not a lot.

I played with a lot of five stars that weren't very good. A lot of four stars that weren't very good. I played with a whole bunch of two stars that could go. So I think star ratings are fun. They're great. But I wouldn't treat them as if they're the word of God. They're purely a starting point. So if you're an Auburn fan and you're wanting Walker White to start this year, think again. Don't think it's in your best interest to have him on the field this year. But I do think after a year of redshirting,

a year of sitting behind Peyton Thorne, allowing that supporting cast to get more comfortable, confident, a young supporting cast too. Think about how many freshmen might be on the field this year for Auburn. It's going to be a bunch. You might have four or five freshmen on the field at one given time. You think having a freshman quarterback to add to that mix is going to be good for business? Seems high risk.

Norman's done well with freshman quarterbacks before. Yeah, Bo Nix. Extremely succeeded. Bo Nix. Sean White. Shall we keep going? Jeremy Johnson. Jeremy Johnson. Was he a freshman? He was a first-year starting quarterback. He was. I think it's funny how Peyton Thorne, it's amazing to me, and this is not going on a rant against Auburn fans. Peyton Thorne is the third-best quarterback that Auburn's had in the playoff era. It's not that bad.

And honestly, by the end of this year, you might be second. Go watch Jared Stidham. I know he's starting out in the NFL or whatever. People are going to remember and kind of hang on to that. That dude was scared to death of contact at times. Go watch him play against Mississippi State seven, eight years ago. Just saying. Go watch it. I know you remember him fondly now, but it wasn't good. Nick Marshall was great, by the way, back in 2014. So he would fall into this category. He was really good.

Like, Peyton Thorne's got a chance to have a pretty good year. I also want to remind everybody that Peyton Thorne, he's actually won a New Year's Six Bowl game. Something that Auburn hasn't done in quite some time. He's won one. Yeah. I don't understand. Who did you want? You want Will Howard? No, Grayson McCall. Grayson McCall couldn't get into Auburn. Should have played school. I just don't understand. Like, you want Grayson McCall, fine. But, like, they tried to get him last year. It didn't work out. So, it just...

Peyton Thorne's what you got. He's your best option by a mile. So, I don't know. I guess I just can't understand it. One thing we're going to do today, too, we're going to go through the AP rankings. We haven't really had a chance to go through, get a decent reaction. Y'all can, of course, hop in on this, too, because there's a few things. I am curious. I think AP rankings in the preseason matter. I know a lot of people don't. A lot of people think they're worthless, which is perfectly fair.

I happen to sit on the other side of the aisle of that one. So we're going to go through those, give you some historical implications of what those rankings mean. I don't think we've done it yet so far this week, so we'll do it today. I already told you that we had Stanford Steve, Kirk Bowles, and RJ Young coming up here in just a little bit. And one thing that's coming up this weekend are some great deals that can be had at Bill Smith Buick GMC. They're the GMC dealer of the year, seven-time national champion.

It's a short drive up to Coleman. You go see it for yourself. All the different vehicles they have on the lot. All of them. A 2024 GMC Sierra 1500 SLT Z71 4x4 loaded. This thing is loaded. $67,860. You can take $12,500 off and get $55,360.

That's a pretty dang good deal. That'll keep you coming back. That's why 75% of their business is repeat customers. It's because you have a better experience when you shop with Bill Smith. Take the short drive up to Coleman. You'll be glad you did. Go see Andy Cole and Jonathan Yeager. Tell them we sent you here at Jock's. And you can also shop online. Have it delivered right to your driveway at billsmithbuickgmc.com. All right, we come back. A little AP poll breakdown. Who's too high? Who's too low? And what do you think things might look like here in the coming days?

for some of these teams. It's next on McElroy Cubic in the Morning with Jock74.5. Catch up with all things McElroy and Cubic in the Morning by subscribing to the podcast. Mythically, he's grown. He's almost like a little bit bigger than a player, right? Like the myth of Bo Jackson. Like, rate, and download the show from the Jock app or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome back to McElroy Cubic in the Morning with Jock74.5. We're going to do some AP poll.

We haven't really talked about it earlier. Earlier in the week, I know on Tuesday, I was out taking my oldest to kindergarten, but hadn't really had a chance to dive into some of these, I guess, trends, if you will, with the AP poll. But before we get into the trends of the AP poll, I'm going to tell you why I think the AP poll matters. A lot of people try to basically denigrate the AP poll, say how...

insignificant it is, how much it doesn't matter. I'm not saying it does. It should have no place at the table when the playoff committee gets together. I would hope that the original preseason AP poll is not a factor when it comes to evaluating these teams. Right. That's a hope. Yeah. That's not a no. I think that's a hope. To be honest with you, I think human nature would tell you otherwise.

If I see at any point in the season seven next to a team's name or three or an 18, I'm automatically going to register that team as a team that's legitimate. But the problem is the preseason is all based on narratives throughout the offseason. It's based a little bit on what you did the year before. It's based quite a bit on what you bring back. Coaching continuity, ratings, power, everything.

you know, upgrades within the coaching staff and the event in which you did have some guys leave and or graduate. So there are a bunch of external factors, but how many people you get a win against Ohio state, how many people are going to look at that win and say, yeah, I don't know about Ohio state. I think we pretty much know about Ohio state, right? Yep. We pretty much know if you beat Georgia, that's a big win. Facts. That's not anything that would be earth shattering, uh,

For anyone listening to our show, you pull off a win like that, pretty good day at the office. Same can be said with a win against Bama. Even though there's tons, there's tons of question marks about Alabama this year. Tons. And the court of public opinion, right? I think we all, listening to this show, feel pretty good about them. But I think the average Joe, ask him on the street, hey, what's Bama going to look like this year? Let's go up to...

you know, let's take a short drive up to Amarillo, Texas and say, Hey, what do you think of Bama this year? The guy's going to tell you or lady, whoever they end up asking. Yeah. They lost coach save and probably not going to be as good. That's the thought process. Right. But I think if you look at the AP poll traditionally, well, they've only picked the national champion 11 times in the 74 years that they've given us a preseason poll.

11 out of 74 and just three since 1998, which is pretty amazing when you really think about it. That's wild. Pretty amazing. If you look at the teams that have actually won it, though, several of which started the season in the top five. There are very few examples of teams that came out of nowhere that were, quote, disrespected by the AP poll that went on to win the national championship. Very few. Very few.

Had Auburn won in 13, that would have been an example. Auburn winning in 10 was an example of a team that kind of came out of nowhere. But those are few and far between, ladies and gentlemen. And it kind of gets me back to this whole playoff thing. Like, oh, you know, teams have just never been given a chance because of perception. Okay, well, maybe that's true. But if you ask people that really, really know ball, most people don't think it's going to be super competitive when the Iowas of the world

Play against Georgia. Yep. You'll see. And then the people pushing back on that are like, well, they've beaten Ohio State before. Yeah. After Ohio State played at Penn State, they had to go to Iowa. It was blowing 47 miles an hour. Yep. And it was three below. Yeah, they've beaten them, but it was a circumstantial beating. Mm-hmm. Put them in a dome with a championship on the line, and the outcome's probably going to be a little more predictable. Yep.

I agree. Sabre, do you agree? Overall, yes. I don't know if the block punts probably still might have happened in a dome, but yeah, I'm pretty sure Ohio State would have taken a duel. So let's go through it real quick. All right. AP poll. You know who the favorite was to win the national championship last year? Georgia. That'd be Georgia. Georgia Bulldogs. Yeah. You know who was second? Was it Alabama? That'd be Michigan. Michigan. They won it, right? Mm-hmm. Double check me. Georgia.

Georgia did not win. Michigan did. That is correct. Okay. I can confirm. 100%. Our resident statistician here, Damien. 100%. I've seen the tape. Yes. I've seen it. Can confirm that was a dub. All right. In 2022, Bama was one. Ohio State was two. You know who was three? Bama. No, wait. We said that. Georgia? Maybe the Georgia Bulldogs. Yeah, that's right. That's right. Georgia. Yeah. 100% correct. And guess who was unranked that year?

Washington. That would be TCU. TCU, who finished runner-up. Question is, should TCU have been unranked after that game? Yes. Yeah. Too soon? All right. Sorry. No, it's fresh. We're good. All right. 2021. Who won the national championship that year? It would be the Georgia Bulldogs. It would be the Georgia Bulldogs. Okay. They started the season ranked number five. Okay. They're way on down there at number five. Way, way down. I'm starting to see a thing. Almost like Bama this year. Let's go to 2020. All right. Clemson was ranked number one.

Trevor Lawrence was back that year, remember? Remember him? He did miss a game that year. Goldilocks. He missed three. Yeah. The old COVID. Three of the four he played, or however many it was. Still almost won the Heisman. Right. Alabama ended up winning the national championship there in 20. They were ranked number three. Yeah.

LSU. Good example of an outlier, right? That was the year that nobody saw coming. That's a fact. Nobody saw that year coming for LSU, right? Of course not. Average Joe coming back. Right. Hozieron can't coach them. Just lost to UCF. They're going to change their offense. Oh, let's see how much that matters. Oh, boy. Yeah. Nobody. They were way on down the list, right? They were number six. Yeah.

They were definitely number one for a long time. 18. You know who won the National Championship at 18? Clemson. You know where they were ranked? Number two. 17. Bama won the National Championship. Bama was ranked number one. One of the three outliers here in the BCS slash college football playoff era where it wasn't 100% true. 2016. You know who won the National Championship? Clemson. Clemson. You know where they were ranked? Two. Makes sense. All right. Well, I'll keep going. 15. You know who was number one? Ohio State. You know who won the National Championship? Bama. They were number three. Clemson.

Ohio State won the national championship. Oh my goodness. They were so down the list. No one saw that coming. Cardale Jones, Braxton Miller got hurt in the preseason. He did. But this guy named JT Barrett, no one knew who that guy was. All he did was got their set records. You know where they were ranked? Way on down the list, right? After that quarterback got hurt, man, they can't play. They might as well cancel the season. Might as well.

Yeah, they're ranked number five. Oh, okay. So you're telling me there's a thing here. So what I'm getting at is those that want to discredit the AP poll and say, well, we don't change our mind about these teams. And they will point to the outliers. They will point to the outliers of the teams that were competing for the championship, the TCUs of the world in 22, the Auburns of the world in 2013. They're going to point to the examples of,

that support their narrative, but their narrative is way on down, way on down the list as far as regularity, predictability. The AP poll is far more, far more accurate than people probably give them credit for. And it's not, like I said, it's not the Ten Commandments. We don't need to etch it in stone and treat it as if it's some sacred list. It's not. But what it is is it does a pretty dang good job

Because I think you do have knowledgeable people. Now, are there times when teams and people will always point to, well, there's always that team that starts in the top 10, finishes unranked. Yeah, injuries happen. People always point to Florida State back in 2017. They played Bama week one. Oh, yeah. DeAndre Francois. DeAndre Francois, Terrence JCL. Yeah. Okay. And they didn't have a backup.

Oh, see, Bama got that. See, that's an example. Number three team in the preseason. Bama gets propped up because of that win against the number three team. Well, the team that they teed it up against in week one was very different than the team that limped their way to the finish quite literally with a quarterback that had one leg. Yep. So I'm not saying we need to sit here and say, oh, my gosh, wow, the AP is just the goat. No, I'm not saying that. All I'm saying is that there is weight that can be applied to this poll.

Because odds are, and we just went through the last 10 years, the last 10 years of data from the AP poll, and odds are your national champion is going to be one of these six teams. Georgia, Ohio State, Oregon, Texas, Bama, and Ole Miss. Odds are that's your national champion of one of those six teams. There's also about a 5% chance in the last 10 years

That one of those six teams finishes unranked. But there is a 100% chance that one of those six teams, based on the last 10 years, wins the national championship. If you want to point to the 5% anomaly, I'm good with that. I'll point to the 100% likelihood, given the fact that the lowest ranked team that won the national championship was LSU in 19. I'm going to point to that. More so than me pointing to what's going on. Now, I will also say, with the portal and the other stuff, the portal...

Has kind of changed the game. Teams are more thin. Teams are less susceptible to weather the storm from an injury standpoint. You get banged up. You lose a couple guys. All of a sudden, you got freshmen playing at multiple spots. It makes a difference. You're in trouble. Hold on for dear life and hope that those injuries are not season ending because if they are, you're dead. Your season's over. There's only so much you can do. Look at

Let's use last year as an example. If I were to describe Utah, actually, I'll let you guys do it because I know what I would say. If you could describe the Utah Utes in like a couple sentences, how would you describe them? Just I'm not talking like you need to go in the weeds like, oh, they have this guy, this guy. I'm talking more like programs perception. Physical. Physical. Tough. Hard-nosed. Old school. Trustworthy. Steady. Yeah.

You know what you're going to get. Consistent. Consistent. Like, all those words apply to Utah, Saber. Am I wrong? I would not disagree, no. Like, boring. Pretty. Right. Blue collar. Like, all the usual vernacular for a team that, man, I trust that team. Like, I know what I'm going to get from Utah. Like, when they go on the field, it might not always be pretty, but the final outcome is going to look pretty good. You know what I mean? Yep.

Well, they lost a million guys to injury last year and limped their way to an eight-win season. They finished eight and five. And that is about as trustworthy and dependable a program as you'll find. You won't find many more than that. There might be seven other programs that are more trustworthy and dependable than Utah. And yet they still fell victim to the injury bug. And guess what? They don't have a lot of guys that are transferring out either. That's a team with very little turnover.

So it happens to everybody. And there will be examples of teams this year in the top 10 that blow up. It's natural. It happens. It's not an indictment on the coach. It's not an indictment on the program. It's just circumstantial. But the odds are, guys, your champion this year, based on the last 10 years, Georgia, Ohio State, Oregon, Texas, Bama, Ole Miss.

So get comfortable with the idea that Ole Miss could win a national championship. You said it, not me. I'm telling you, it's a real thing. They got to stay healthy, but it could happen. It could. Which is a mind-blowing thought, but you need to get comfortable with that. All right, when we come back, I'm going to explain a couple things in the AP poll got wrong. And when I say a couple, there's probably about five things that I strongly disagree with.

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About five significant takeaways from the AP poll, and I'll give them to you next. I'm Matt Cary, QB of the Morning on Jocks245. The capital of the sports talk nation. This is Jocks94.5 and JocksFM.com. Hurry and... Welcome back to Matt Cary, QB of the Morning, Jocks94.5. Side note, I watch, we watch, you know, the local news all the time. Correct. Oh boy. Oh boy.

One in particular has spent some time at the Legion, the Birmingham Legion new facility. And I've seen the coach get interviewed live four times today. Is that interview on loop? Have they done that once and they're just repackaging it? Because I saw it first thing this morning. When I woke up, first thing I turned on was that. And he's talking about his new facility, which is great. I'm really excited that we have a soccer team here in the community. I'm also very happy that we have

you know, a new facility for those guys to go work at. But is he just standing around like waiting to do the interview? Like, or is that interview repurposed? Cause it looks different every time. I really need to know these things. Yeah. Kind of. Maybe it was a longer interview and there's just finding, you know, other pieces to talk about it. But yeah, it does seem like he has been up there on the screen. It does. I've seen him. I've seen him three times since we started the show. That was 38 minutes ago. And I saw him once this morning before I left the house. Yeah.

I'm just saying, if he's sitting around. Right, like a more powerful tool. Hey, you need me to do another hit? I'll do another hit for you. Then that dude's a nice guy. He's got to be. Yeah, that's a patient coach. We need more of that in college football. I mean, it is game day today, so the hay's in the barn. Like, you're not going to practice in the day.

Maybe a final walkthrough or something. So tell coach saving that coach Hayes in the barn. Just go sit there and talk with JJ all morning. Well, yeah. No. Well, please. OK, first off, it was Rick Carley or Rick Carley guy or, you know, or any of the guys. I mean, all those guys are great. Like I know I knew all of them when we were down in school, like,

I bet. I'm talking to anyone. Go on a little car wash. They're in the lobby of the whatever. I don't remember the name of the hotel we stayed in. Capstone. And just keep on coming through. Perfect. I think there's other things Coach Saban would rather do. Yeah, like stick his hand in molten hot lava. I mean, that's probably something where he'd probably start.

Uh, one thing that you never want to have as an issue though, uh, if molten hot lava is sweating the walls of your basement to crawl space, you really need to get that looked at. That is not normal unless you live on Dante's peak. Um, but if for whatever reason it is, or if it's not lava, if it's water, you might want to call my friends at B-Dry. The largest waterproofing company in the country. The only company that can stop all five ways that water can enter your foundation.

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I really don't. I think Ohio State's got a few less questions than Georgia. But I'm not going to lose my mind over them being two and Georgia being one. Few people have been very frustrated about this. I'm like, are you serious? We're in a 12-team playoff era, and we're worried about who's one and two in the AP preseason poll? Right. And it's not like it was...

You know, too close. There were 46 first place votes for Georgia, 15 for Ohio State. Yeah. So it's obvious where people felt about them. Yeah. And if you trust Georgia more than you trust Ohio State, who can blame you? Right. Nobody's going to be upset. I mean, I think a lot of people would make the case right now that Georgia was the best team in the country last year. Lost to Bama in the SEC championship doesn't mean they weren't the best team in the country.

Doesn't mean they wouldn't have won the national championship. Potentially, had they gotten in the playoff. I mean, I got no problem with that. Ohio State's 2, Oregon 3. I've said this a couple times, and this is not at all a slight towards Oregon. I think Oregon's going to be really good. I think their schedule's really good. I would have them at 3 or 4. I don't have any problem with that whatsoever. But it's kind of amazing to me how Oregon, like the cool kids you get to sit. Vince and I have spent the last couple days talking about lunch and sitting at people's table.

And while in kindergarten, there's not a cool kids table. Like as you get older. Yeah, there's a cool kids table. There is. And at that cool kids table for the longest time has been Ohio State, Bama, Georgia, Florida State. Kinda. At times. I think for, I mean, Florida State over the course of my lifetime, they've definitely sat at the cool kids table. I mean, there were times I was like, they're never going to not win 10 games.

Yeah. Miami at times has been in there. Like there's been some that have rotated on and off. I have never seen someone get elevated so quickly to the cool kids table as Oregon did last year after they beat Colorado the way they did. And it was a convincing victory, a dominant victory. Then they went and beat a Stanford team that went three and nine. Colorado was four and eight, by the way, they lost to Washington that everyone talked to. I've never seen team to get more credit for a loss ever.

In my lifetime, I've never seen a team get more credit. They beat Washington State that following week. Washington State was a good team. Solid team. Solid win. It wasn't super convincing. They won by 14. But it was a solid win nonetheless. Then they go and beat number 13, Utah, 35-6. Utah wasn't good. We talked about that earlier. They were completely underwater. They were wounded. With injuries and all these other things. Cal, they beat them 63-19. Cal wasn't good.

They beat SC by nine. SC wasn't good. Are you sensing a trend here? Like, they didn't really beat anybody that was that great. They won at Arizona State convincingly. So they had a run of about five or six weeks where it's like, oh, they're just kicking everyone's doors in. Yep. None of them are good. They should kick their doors in.

And they had a really nice win against Oregon State before losing to Washington in the Pac-12 title game. So Oregon comes in at three. But, man, we've really anointed them. Doesn't mean they can't do it this year and potentially win it. And I do think maybe things will be easier for them in the Big Ten. I don't know. But, man, alive, there are a lot of things that are questions to me. I think Texas is a bit of a question now. You already have injuries. You already have injuries to running back. Not that that's a position that's impossible to replace. It's not.

But I'm starting to maybe soften on them a bit. Schedule's manageable, for sure. But this idea that they're a bona fide lock to the playoff, man, I don't know. I really don't know. They played a few games last year. The Houston game, Houston won good. Played to their level. TCU game, TCU not good. Played to their level. Iowa State couldn't move the ball offensively. Double overtime against Kansas. Kansas had four chances inside the five-yard line to win the game.

I think Texas is good. I just don't know for sure. We'll ask Quills about that at 9 o'clock here coming up about hour 15 from now. Bama at 5. We've got no problem with that. I think Bama, for most people, have been way on down the list. And people are like, well, Nick Saban's gone. Did Nick Saban? Who's harder to replace? Seriously, on a football team from year one to year two. On a football team from year one to year two. A Heisman Trophy winner or the best program builder in the history of college football?

I would probably lean more at the Heisman Trophy winner. Because Nick Saban, if... Then the program that he built should still be mostly intact. Exactly. So, like... And we have history of that LSU. We've seen it happen. We saw Les Miles win the national championship. We did indeed. Don't know how. We did indeed. It happened. I mean, what I'm getting at, though, is I feel people are looking at it and saying, man, you know, I don't know.

I don't know. Bam is just not going to be the same as Coach Saban there. Coach Saban didn't throw passes. He didn't catch punts. He didn't kick field goals. He is the best program builder. And what he did Monday through Friday was the best ever. But I think Bam is going to be fine. I mean, I don't think the wheels fall off. Long story short, because of the program that he's built and the culture that's been established. Ole Miss is the real deal. But here's where some of the takeaways start to happen. People are all bent out of shape about Notre Dame.

If you hate Notre Dame, just tell us you hate Notre Dame. But if you take five minutes to do a little bit of a dive, just a little bit, on what they have coming back at all three levels defensively, if you look at what they have at running back, the one-two punch at running back, what should be an improved receiver core, a solid transfer from Duke at quarterback, assuming he stays healthy. Yes, there are questions at tackle. Who doesn't have them? Everyone's got questions at tackle.

Notre Dame, plus their schedule, their hardest game might be at Texas A&M in week one. And A&M's ranked number 20. Right. But A&M ain't ranked number two. Nope. It makes a difference. That's their toughest game. That is their toughest game. You say, well, Florida State. Okay, well, Florida State goes to them. Florida State goes to them. I think playing a Florida school in South Bend, Indiana is advantage Irish. But either way, I mean...

Notre Dame is appropriately ranked. And a lot of people, that's one of the takeaways. Everyone wants to knock Notre Dame. Notre Dame is appropriately ranked. They really are. You got Penn State after that, Michigan after that. Michigan's too high. I agree. Now, I know they're the lowest ranked defending champ, reigning champ, if you will. But it doesn't mean that they should be ranked in the top 10 based on what's been done the last two years. This year, with all the turnover, with all the departures, with the loss of leadership...

That they had on last year's team. That's going to be a significant hurdle to overcome. So Michigan's too high. Notre Dame appropriately ranked.

Michigan too high. Those are the first two takeaways. I have three more for you, and I'll tell you what they are next on McElroy Cube of the Morning on Jock 745. Catch up with all things McElroy and Kubrick in the morning by subscribing to the podcast. Mythically, he's grown. He's almost like a little bit bigger than a player, right? Like the myth of Bo Jackson. Like, rate, and download the show from the Jock Cup or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome back to McElroy Cube of the Morning, Jock 745.

Going through some AP poll takeaways. So far, we've established that Notre Dame is appropriately ranked at seven. Michigan is too high at number nine. They should be somewhere in the teens. Here's where it gets real interesting, though. Florida State at 10, probably about right. Missouri at 11. Probably a little too high, y'all. They lost another defensive lineman yesterday, Darius Diggs.

Blanking on his last name. Darius. Was it Smith? Sounds right. We're just assigning that last name to everyone now. It's an inside joke. Darius Smith. People don't understand the context of that one. We keep that one in house. We can't say what that means, but somebody on our air said,

on jocks, 94 or five might've been assigned the last name Smith. And it wasn't Pat. Um, there was a lot of questions on a name tag. So really quality stuff, quality banter. Uh, anyways, Missouri, they just lost the defensive end. They still don't have an answer for who's going to be the replacement for Darius Robinson from last year. So that is of a slight to moderate concern. I think when looking at it, takeaway number three, uh,

The SEC is crazy deep, guys. Crazy deep. Unusually deep when you take everything into account. They have nine teams in the top 20. The other thing that's interesting about it, though, I could make a very strong argument on behalf of Kentucky and Auburn. I really could.

It would not be difficult for me to tell you Auburn should be in the top 25. Here's why, here's why, here's why. Improvement here, improvement here, depth improvement here. There's a bunch of reasons why you should probably be on board for Auburn being in the top 25. Should. Kentucky the same. Kentucky's done a really solid job creating a very predictable identity in the SEC. I think their schedule is challenging for sure.

But at the same time, I wouldn't be surprised if we fast forward to season's end and Kentucky finishes in the top 25 with an 8-4 record. Would not surprise me whatsoever. The SEC's crazy deep. A&M coming in at number 20. I don't know why, but I think we continually sleep on LSU. That's takeaway number four. LSU as far as upside. Tell me who has more upside, just out of sheer curiosity. LSU or Utah? Talking upside here.

If they played head-to-head, would you feel more confident in Utah or in LSU? LSU, because I don't think Utah would be able to score at that clip if everything goes right for LSU. Now, if Utah could control the tempo of the game, like there's a few what-ifs. Right. And they could kind of slow LSU down and disrupt the rhythm offensively. I think Utah is definitely a team that...

can face anyone, but I would say more often than not, LSU would be, would be victorious in that matchup on a neutral site. What about LSU and Missouri? We saw that last year. Yep. And that was a bad LSU team on the road at Missouri and got it done. Now we saw LSU and Florida state last year too. And I know Florida state walked the dog for sure on them, but Florida state sits at 10 tons of replacements, tons of pieces to replace all that other stuff.

Uh, we've seen LSU against Penn state. Like I would take LSU over Penn state. Yep. Penn state sitting there at eight. I'm talking to head to head. LSU and Ole Miss was down to the wire at, at Oxford last year. LSU scored 49 and lost. I don't think that's happening this year. No, I just don't think it's happening. So LSU is perennially underrated. I don't know why I think people like have an ax to grind against Brian Kelly, but it certainly seems like that's the case. And then finally Miami, uh,

Is way underrated this year. Takeaway number five for them to be sitting there at number 19 with Kansas State and Oklahoma State and Clemson and others in front of them. Y'all, I understand that we have been burned by schools in the past. Maybe Miami is one of those teams that has burned us.

Look on paper. If we're supposed to be going off of what's on paper, that's what the preseason poll is all about. What do you have on paper? There are not many teams that have more answers on paper than the Miami Hurricanes. Get comfortable with them being around for quite a while under Mario Cristobal. This is McElroy and Gubelik in the morning. It's time for Bob's Dare to compare. You get style. You get features. You get style.

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