8-8-24 McElroy and Cubelic in the Morning Hour 1: The guys return from ESPN Seminar; First Day of school vibes; Nick Kelly discusses Alabama fall camp so far
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This Chalks 94.5 podcast is brought to you by Millennium Satellite and Video. Log on to MSPNOW.com. TV excellence everywhere. That's Millennium. Welcome in McElroy Cubic in the morning, 7 a.m. here, Birmingham, Alabama. Glad to have you with us. Out for the last couple days, the college football seminar for ESPN.

Going on the last couple days. And when the seminar happens, you know what that means. It means we are full go. Full steam ahead for what's coming in just a couple weeks. We have games kicking off, ladies and gentlemen. Kicking off in 16 days. And not just any run-of-the-mill games either. I mean, I remember two years ago being prepared to do backflips when Northwestern and Nebraska kicked off in Dublin, Ireland. If that happens,

gets you fired up, then you must love ball. Well, try Florida State Georgia Tech on for size. Team that I think a lot of people believe should have been in the playoff last year, whether you agree or not. Against a team that can be very challenging with a lot of team speed. And Cole, I know that

When we were at the seminar the last couple days, you talk and kind of interact with people that feel really, really strongly about one particular thing or another. But one thing we all feel strongly about is the fact that the games are coming, and they're coming quickly. So it's time to go full speed ahead towards college football season, my friend. We ready to roll today? First day of school? Ready to go. First day of school, first and fourth. So we're excited about that, trying to get everybody ready, get everybody set. Excitement's all through the house, but...

A lot of excitement at the seminar, too. It was cool to kind of catch up with everybody. I think there's a lot of stuff that fans are going to be excited about that's going to be around the broadcast, specifically of SEC football and some of the things that ESPN and ABC are going to do with it. And then when you just think about some of those games and how they're going to line up on certain Saturdays, it's that traditional time slot. I think people are going to be excited about. I think the way it's going to look, people are going to be excited about it.

And I think this league in general is going to be a lot of fun. Add Texas and Oklahoma and just everything that's going to bring. And then nationally, what the playoff picture is going to look like and what it's going to be like in November. Just to kind of start talking about that in a bigger picture with different people, it got me realizing that I need to

I need to hit fast forward here and get ready. I'm not mentally or emotionally ready for the season right now. I'm just going to be honest with you. I've been walking around and people are like, oh man, however many days, you ready? I'm like, no, I'm not. I just need some time.

I just need some more time to kind of get ready. And, uh, I don't know if it was this first day of school obstacle, if it was our seminar in Bristol that we went to, whatever it is, I just, I need, I need a little more time just to get ready. And thankfully I've got some, but, uh, I'll get there. I'll be there. It's not that I'm not excited about it. It's not, that's not going to be incredible. It is. It's going to be a lot of fun. Um, a couple of press releases coming up yesterday, read and react season two. Let's go. We got that thing rolling. Uh, Roman and I'll be back in studio every Monday. So looking forward to that one. Uh,

But it's going to be a fun year. And one, I don't know if you want to do it now because we got some guests lined up today also. But one thing that I did want to kind of share with the people, and I know we can't share everything, but we had a chance for Charlie Baker to sit down and talk to us, our entire group. And you talk about walking away from something with a completely different impression of somebody.

and maybe viewing somebody in a completely different lens after they spent, I don't know, what was he up there, 35 minutes, 40 minutes? Yeah, maybe longer. It was a while. Didn't feel like a long time, though. Full disclosure, I had never spoken to him, never heard a lot from him. Charlie Baker, for those that don't know, is the president of the NCAA. I know that in our world, we don't know that. Get out.

go over to talk 99 five. Like you can talk about Tim waltz or whatever. I got, you can go do that. If you don't know, Charlie Baker's this show, we had dial it up, but there might be some people down there for multiple reasons. It's a good point actually. Yeah. You know what? Probably a bad example. We can go to, you can go to hot or something. I don't know. Go somewhere. But, but yeah, Charlie Baker, president of the NCAA and you're, you're a hundred percent right. Cole, go ahead.

I was just, his vision, his thoughts, and the only thing that I really knew of him were his quotes and what his background was. And I didn't realize his background was as heavy in collegiate athletics as it was. Not only him, but his wife, two of his boys. Wife was a gymnast at Northwestern. He played basketball. Both of his boys played D3 football. So he's in it, man. Like he is immersed in college athletics and has been for a long time. And just his view of,

The reality that he brought, Greg, was very refreshing.

And I'll say this, he's done some things I didn't agree with. You know, opening up the portal, didn't agree with it. I thought I knew why he did it, and it was to avoid litigation. But hearing him talk about where he thinks things need to go, where he wants things to go, his sort of quasi-obsession with maintaining the student-athlete portion of college athletics, essentially just keeping it college football, college basketball, college baseball, right?

The realism that he brought with the scholarship limitations and things around that in baseball. It was just I wanted to at least have us share with people that if you haven't given this guy a chance, you probably should. Because I have a lot of confidence that he's going to make some real change in college sports. Now, he's handcuffed. Some of that because of the courts. Some of that because of the entity that he works for in its past. And he very well recognized that with us.

But, man, I came away from that really impressed with Charlie Baker, the president of the NCAA. No, he's the man. And I was really, really impressed with his – he's just a very honest person. Or he gives off the impression – I know he's a politician. I get that. Like, former governor of Massachusetts decided to pursue this endeavor. But he's the right guy for the job. And will we ultimately get any traction –

in Washington, D.C., because Charlie Baker is lobbying on our behalf? No. I don't think that's going to matter. But he's, I do think his vision's really solid. I do think he's willing to tackle some challenging issues. And I'm really glad that he's in charge. I really am. The people have such a bad, I mean, people, everybody wants to just rip on the NCAA. Everybody wants to rip on the NCAA. Yeah.

I actually have always kind of been a bit of an NCAA supporter. I felt like Mark Emmert, the guy that was there prior to Charlie Baker, he did exactly what he was supposed to do. Same way. Roger Goodell absorbs all the attention and negativity at the NFL and the owners get shielded. That's what Mark Emmert were supposed to do. He was supposed to basically take all the jabs while the NCAA was kind of shielded. And

I feel like the NCAA is a little unfairly characterized. I don't think the NCAA, every one of those people are making a boatload of money and all this other stuff. I think they do well in some cases. I think others scrape by. But the NCAA has always, I thought, done a pretty good job of creating a level playing field. The NCAA is there to basically be a bunch of officials.

That's what they are. They're referees. They're back judges. They're line judges. They're umpires. That's what they are. They're trying to level the playing field and make sure that everybody plays under the same rules. And they're there to support and sponsor championships that nobody else would watch if the NCAA didn't support them. Okay, sure. People might watch baseball. People might watch women's basketball. People might watch men's basketball.

I don't think there's going to be people watch softball and gymnastics and some others, but there's not a lot of people watching cross country. There's not a lot of people watching swimming and diving. Not because they're not good sports. I've been watching them for the last two weeks in Paris. They're great sports. It's just, I don't think there's, I think the NCAA does a lot more good than bad. And no one ever wants to talk about the good that they do and providing opportunities for student athletes to,

And I'm saying that word just like that intentionally. Student athletes, because that's when you decide to run cross country in college. That's what you are. You're not making a bunch of NIL. You're not doing it so you can go pro. You're trying to get your education and maybe someday have a chance to go play and train and be a part of the Olympic team or whatever it may be.

So I think the NCAA does a pretty good job in those situations. But I could not agree with you more. Probably as big a takeaway as I had at the seminar in the last two days was just how impressive Charlie Baker was. Another thing that we talked about was the presentation of the SEC on ABC. I know that means a lot to the people in this part of the world, Cole. And look, we can't play the music for you. We can't over the radio.

draw the picture of what the graphics and things like that are going to look like. I'd love to try.

And I know that there is a little bit of it. And I don't want to say animosity, but there's a little bit. Look, ABC's new. And SEC's where we've lived forever on CBS. I know what to expect when I turned on the game at 2.30. I'd see Gary and Vern, and I'd hear it sound a certain way. I'd see it look a certain way. And it was very familiar. And frankly, it felt like home. But I'm just going to be honest with you. What we're doing at ABC...

for the SEC and making it crazy, crazy special is going to be amazing. Cole, and you saw some of those things over the last couple of days. So if you could help the fans kind of understand just how we're going to make that game kind of stand alone and make it feel different.

Yeah, the presentation is going to be awesome. It just is. It's not going to be the same thing that you see on ESPN, on the SEC network. It's going to be standalone, if you will. The SEC on ABC is going to be its own presentation. And some days you'll get three games over there. Some days you'll get one game over there. Some games you'll get two. You don't know.

But I feel pretty good about telling you that you can be pretty comfortable knowing that the time slot you're used to seeing it on CBS, you're going to see it on ABC as well. I know a lot of people have some concerns about that, wondered about that. Would that be the case? You're going to get an SEC game at 2.30. I don't really know another way to say it, but that's going to happen. That's done. Yeah. So I don't even think we need to bring news there.

There will be an SEC game on network television at 3.30 every week. And see, I asked Kurt Dargis about that, the guy who handles programming, and I said, so that's a lock. And he's like, that's a lock. Don't worry about it. And I said, okay, because I remember some of the back and forth of will it be, won't it be, it might not be. I haven't seen anything concrete about that. So I don't know if folks actually really know that that's going to happen, going to be the case, but you're going to get it at 2.30 every week. Don't worry about that. That's happening.

But the way it's going to look is going to, it's not just going to feel different. It's going to look different. It's going to be different. Um, the audio, the graphics, everything, um, you know, the score bug, it's all going to be different and separate and it's going to be its own entity. And I think that's going to make it cool. It's going to make it feel more special. Um, and then obviously when you look at the lineup, the potential games that are going to be there and those, some of those matchups, I'm, I'm beyond excited about that. It's going to be, it's going to be incredible. Um,

you know it's it's something that's going to be fun this year i'm extremely excited about it and

looking forward to it so it's um you will like it i'll say that and i know that it's not going to be the same music it's not going to be the same people um some of it won't look exactly the same uh but it's going to be it's going to be pretty sweet i'll i'll say that i'm confident that was two things that i left extremely confident in charlie baker president in cwa and the potential of him to make real change because of who he is and what he believes in and then

that the SEC on ABC is going to be awesome. I know that leaving that seminar. Greg and I just coming back from our college football seminar in Bristol, which was pretty cool to kind of be there, see some things, talk about some things, talk to some different people. Some of the things with the playoff, I don't know if we can get into all of them right now, but just –

There will be more and more reasons for you to be excited about the playoff. There are going to be more things attached to it. There are going to be more things around it, the way it's going to look and feel, the way we're going to talk about it. That's another thing, Greg, that I left saying. I mean, I knew it was coming. I knew it was going to be there. But I think when you start to see how it's going to be laid out, how it's going to look, what we're going to do with it,

You're like, okay, I'm starting to get a little bit more pumped up about this. I'm starting to think about just how sweet this is going to be when we get this 12-team playoff. Yeah, I think it's going to be awesome. I mean, that doesn't concern me whatsoever. The 12-team playoff is, I think, 10-plus. I mean, it's going to be really good. And we actually had a moment in the seminar where Dave Doran

And head coach at NC State, Joey McGuire, head coach at Texas Tech, and Sam Pittman, head coach of Arkansas, all kind of addressed our group. How much do you want to play for Dave Dorn, by the way? Love Dave Dorn. I've always loved Dave Dorn. Once I got past the fact that he's got that gruff exterior and I think he wants to fight me, I love him. He's just a guy's guy. He's awesome. I love him to death. But think about...

Those three programs. Think about how many games that NC State, Texas Tech, and Arkansas have played in November that have mattered in the national landscape in the last 10, 20, 30 years. I mean, maybe none. Texas Tech, everyone's like, oh, well, yeah, back in 08 when they had the crab tree catch with Graham Harrell and they beat Texas and they were ranked number one or number two in the country. Great. They came...

I don't even think they made it to the Big 12 title game that year. There have not been many games for those three programs in particular that have mattered on a national scale. And I know for people in this part of the country, it's like, well, yeah, I mean, playing for national championships is a birthright.

It's just like air and sun. It was just a guarantee. It's going to be there. Yeah, but for most programs, that's not a realistic possibility. For the Kansas States of the world, they've never had access to the 14 playoff. There's never been a chance. And now, Texas Tech, by the way, if they don't get hurt at every position like they do pretty much every year...

Maybe they win the Big 12. It's not that crazy, which would lead to them having the exact same advantages as a Georgia or an Alabama in the event in which they win the SEC. You get a first round by. So I think that the 12 team playoff, the more you think about it, the more that we realize how from a television standpoint, we're going to make it special. I'm feeling more excited about it than I probably was before.

up until the last three or four months. And there's one thing that we talked about on Tuesday that I kind of wanted to talk to you about. Sabre kind of brought it up accidentally, and I don't think we're going to have enough time to do it here. And I don't know if you caught it when we were running through some of the different things when the director of the playoff was in front of us giving us a little bit of a presentation as well, but it's the teams when those rankings are there late in the year, Greg, 9, 10, 11, 12,

that are not getting into a 12-team playoff. That's going to be a problem for some folks, a big problem. And as we heard, win more games, win your conference, and it won't be a problem. It won't matter, which is fair to an extent, but that's something we'll get to a little bit later in the show today. Your HVAC system, one of your largest investments this time of year, constantly being pushed to the extreme.

You can trust the Train Home Comfort system to give you reliability and peace of mind day in, day out for years to come. Visit train.com to find a comfort specialist near you. And remember, it's hard to stop a train. Nick Kelly is going to join us on the other side. He's had a chance to watch that Alabama offensive line in practice a little bit, watch the center position a little bit, the tackle rotation. He'll give us an update on that, what's been happening.

Also his assessment on the Alabama quarterbacks, which I think is going to be cool for McElroy to kind of follow up on. Take some of what Nick has actually seen in person. Let Greg discuss just kind of what he thinks that means or what that's going to be. The SEC –

closing in on potentially having injury reports be mandatory coming up this season. Alex Scarborough joins us at 8 o'clock to discuss that. The coach, Wim Sanderson, at 9. Bruce Feldman has his freaks list out. He's going to be with us at 9.30. We'll also get to you, Miami. Will they make the college football playoff? That is our team of the day today. We

We will discuss that and we will ask that question and we will answer that question of will the Miami Hurricanes be in this year's college football playoff? First, I want to tell you to get tailgate ready at Royal Automotive. My friends at Royal Automotive want to help you experience how car buying should be for Royal owned dealerships in one location. The selection and savings are unmatched. Royal is the only place to find over 19 unique truck and SUV options in one spot right now.

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Greg?

Hold it down for about 45 minutes or an hour, and then I'll be in. I got to get the kids to school for the first day. Go take your picture. Can we get a quick rundown? What have we chosen for outfits today? Judge really mad that he's not able to wear his Otani jersey. I was going to say jersey for the young one would be a tough one. Mom ain't letting that happen on day one. For day one, maybe a change. After the picture, maybe the Otani jersey goes on.

No, I think it's just going to be like a day two or day three deal. Love that. Okay. Day three. But he was bummed about that. I knew that would be an issue for sure. Because one of the first things he told me when I got home last night, he said, he goes, Dad, I'm not wearing a Tani jersey day one. I was like, Dad, I probably could have told you that, son. But that's, you know, it's all right. Mom's going to handle that one.

Daughter showed me her dress last night. She's pumped about that. He does have some sweet new J's that he's going to be wearing to school. Well, there you go. I was like, it doesn't really matter what you're wearing because your kicks are going to be good. Like, you're fine. No, that's clutch. Going to be good. Very good. I wasn't as worried about what Kit was wearing, full disclosure. But I knew a jersey was going to be a part of the talking point with Judge. I don't know why because we were already preparing for that battle to be fought on Tuesday.

He's trying. He made a good push at it. Mom is not bending on that one. Vince told me yesterday, as soon as I got home, Cole, you dropped me off. I walked in. Vince showed me his hoodie from the Space and Rocket Center that he got that has a monkey flying on the back of a rocket. It's crimson, and it's...

How that thing has not found its way into the lost and found yet with me being out of town the last few days is amazing. But he said he's wearing that first day of school, so it got my wheels spinning a little bit. But the fact that you avoided the Otani jersey is a win. That's good. Cat holding it down over there. That's aggressive, Otani.

It doesn't matter. It's got a rocket. It's got a monkey riding a rocket on it. I mean, what more do you need? Nothing. All right. Enjoy, buddy. All right. See you guys in a few. Sounds good. Cole Kublik, first day of school. Congrats to all the Homewood moms and dads that survived the summer. That's big. I love that you guys are getting a little bit of a head start. We start on Tuesday. I'm not sure when everyone else is starting.

Um, but that's awesome. Very, very cool. Uh, first day of school though, what I've come to realize, and I guess I just never thought about it. I don't know. And when you're in pre-K and all this other stuff, like I just never thought about it, but the first day of school stuff, when their oldest is going to kindergarten, oh boy, there've been some emotions in the house.

Not just for him, but for mom. It's a bigger deal than I anticipated. Another big deal is talking to Nick Kelly. We'll do so on the other side right here on McElroy and Kewlick in the morning on Jock's 24-5. It's time for Bob's Dare to Compare. You get style. You get features. You get quality and thousands of dollars in savings.

Everyone's winner when you dare to compare. In store at MyBobs.com. When you have sports mixed with your pop culture, along with humor and celebrity interviews, your earbuds are enjoying the Rich Eisen Show. Good to see you, Bruce Feldman. The Big 12 landscape, I just know how Dion is, where he's coming from. His wins are measured differently.

The question is, as you said, it's got to go from four to eight. I think they can do that. It would be hard not to get better considering how bad they were on the offensive line last year. Now, their schedule actually feels harder this year than it was last year. Search for the Rich Eisen Show on YouTube or wherever you listen. Welcome back. Matt Croy, Cubicle Morning, JOC 74.5. Summer's winding down, but don't worry. Still some time.

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Cole sent a video, and I'm sure you do a lot of video. I don't do social media, so I apologize. But Cole sent a video of you just...

Taking video of Parker Brailsford snaps yesterday. One, that speaks to your attention to detail, which I very much appreciate. Two, it speaks to the rapidity of the fan base, which knows that snap accuracy was a problem last year. And three, does Cole have an alert on his phone about center snap accuracies? And all the tweets about them go to his notification center, buddy. What's going on?

That wouldn't shock me, to be honest, right? It wouldn't, right? Nothing would surprise you there. No, well, I'm just here to serve, and a lot of people have been asking me about how Parker's snaps have been looking for good reasons. So, of course, what we're seeing in practice is guys playing against air, and that's kind of essentially a walk-through drill with a little bit more speed than a walk. So not exactly...

you know, score a touchdown. And if you don't, your season's over situation in that snapping, but people were asking. So I I'm here to serve and that's, that's what I captured for him. So you also wrote some things about, about the quarterbacks and, and Jalen. And we, we know that there's not, you know, any quarterback controversy or anything, but how does he look? Cause he, does he look like he's progressed? Does he look comfortable? And,

The viewing opportunities that you've had, how would you assess the quarterback play? Yeah, I think, I mean, he looks like the guy. He looks confident. One thing that stood out to me the most, Greg, was how in between reps, and again, we're seeing just mainly position work. We're not seeing any 11-on-11 or anything like that, but just in between these reps, he would go talk to DeBoer. Him and DeBoer would frequently have conversations, and I noticed that on several drills, and that tells me that

Whether it's DeBoer asking him, hey, can we talk for a second? Or Jalen trying to talk to Kalen. It just shows me that Jalen's trying to take that next step. And really, they seem to have a good relationship, even though they haven't played any games yet. How would you assess the depth of the quarterback spot? We know Ty had a great spring.

I know they feel great about him. I know the previous staff loved Lonergan. I haven't heard as much this fall as I had a year ago. And obviously, Mack is the guy that they brought with them. So how are we feeling currently about the depth of the position? It's time for Bob's Dare to Compare. You get style. You get features. You get quality and thousands of dollars in savings.

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I think it's pretty good. I mean, just to give you a sense of kind of a pecking order that we saw through drills. So Jalen's getting all the first team reps. Ty is almost exclusively second team. And so it's pretty clear those two are the top. And then you would see Mack and Lonergan kind of rotating if there's only a third offensive line, for example, because they don't

they don't quite have the depth for a fourth group. Um, so they would rotate with that. And then, uh, it would just kind of depend on the drill or see who goes first. But yeah, it doesn't seem that, um,

So there's the case of them competing with Ty as much as Mack and Lonergan competing for who would be third. But I think the depth is good. I mean, they have guys they like. They like Mack, obviously bring him from Washington. And I don't know where that leaves Lonergan, but as far as Mack, he seems to be in a good spot. In your video that you sent out as we visit with NickKelleyL.com, does a great job. Follow him at underscore Nick Kelly on X, formerly known as Twitter.

When you look at the offensive line, and I've kind of found myself gravitating almost exclusively to the snap accuracy. It's a walkthrough. So, I mean, how much can we really show from it? Right. I'm not going to look at the pass set of the right tackle in a walkthrough and think, oh, man, they've got that position figured out.

But based on the people you've talked to, I've heard that they've been quote pleasantly surprised, but they also acknowledge that it's still a little early to probably fully evaluate what the offense is going to look like up front. And it looks like welcome form B has been a guy number 75 that they've

I think maybe he's grown a little more than anticipated. I think most people still believe it's Elijah Pritchett that will occupy that right tackle spot and Caden Proctor will slide right back into the left tackle spot. But how do you think things will ultimately shake out up front?

Yeah, there's been a lot of talk about the tackle rotation. And I think at this point, when camp started for the viewing periods, it was Pritchett left tackle and Formby at right tackle. And I think you had to do that just because if a guy leaves for the spring, even though Proctor's really good, he started all last season, you can't just say, hey, you were here all spring, Proctor wasn't, we're going to put him in your spot. So I think I get why they did some of that. But at this point, a week into camp,

like it's Proctor's job at left tackle as we figure. It's not surprising, but I've also heard that he's played well. He's looked good. And so I think the reviews have been good there as well. And as far as right tackle, I think they're still working through it. So we'll kind of see how that battle goes because the other thing is whoever doesn't start, you want to be able to play that swing tackle spot. You

You need a guy who can play both. And so maybe that plays into it some as well, if it's really close between Formby and Pritchett, that whichever guy can play both better, maybe you think about that in your decision as well. But I think going into camp, it seems a tight battle. It remains the case. And we'll kind of see how, through these scrimmages the next couple weekends,

who emerges and go from there. And it's entirely possible to Greg that they continue to rotate into the season early. I mean, that's not out of the realm of possibility as well. So that to me outside of corner is probably the top position battle to watch right now. Yeah. Corner is my next question. Um, well really, well, it's really two questions in the secondary corner and Husky, uh, formerly known as star. Um,

I've heard really, really great things about Sabian Brown. That goes all the way back to the spring. If the season started on May 1st, Sabian Brown would have been your starting corner opposite to Monte Jackson. But as we now have moved forward a couple months, I've heard more and more about Day-Day Jones, and I've heard, unsurprisingly, Jalen Mbakwe, super talented blue chip, five-star, what have you.

hearing more about him getting comfortable. So how do we think that's going to shake up?

Yeah, that's a great question because they have interesting players there. Not necessarily one that's a multi-year veteran player who is a clear starter. But like you, I've heard Xavier Brown's legit, and I've heard very good things about him. He's a little banged up right now. He's got a club on his one hand, but he's still practicing. I don't think that has slowed him in the competition. But I've heard a lot of good things about him.

Danny Jones, Deshaun Jones, the Wake Forest transfer, I've heard some things, but he's the most experienced, but I also haven't heard some guys rave about him maybe as much as I thought that

he would just be the natural early season starter, and then maybe Xavier Brown takes over eventually. So at this point, and Bakwe too has some positive reviews, but at this point if I'm having to pick one and predict one, I'm picking Brown to start opposite Demonte Jackson, but a lot of camp left, and we'll see what happens.

I think that's a safe pick right now for sure based on how he played in the spring. But I don't think that position is going to be settled when they tee it up against Western Kentucky. I think that's going to be one that is under constant evaluation. And rightfully so, it probably should be. The good news is Western Kentucky can throw it around the yard. USF can throw it around the yard. And Wisconsin will throw it around the yard. So you're going to find out whether or not you got a guy

very early, which is good. I think because if you're playing against, you know, little sisters of the poor in the first three weeks, you might think you're good at corner and you're not. So I think all is good there. The other one is it hit Husky red Morgan. If the season started in may like Zabian Brown, true freshmen would have started. But it sounds like Devante Smith has kind of closed that gap. He's a little beat up last year, a little beat up in the spring and

but I think having another veteran at that position would be really valuable. I still don't think though, and Nick, maybe I'm crazy. I still will not rule out the possibility of Malachi Moore sliding back down to the star spot at some point this year. I know that there were some promises made in order to get him to return, but,

but I think his best position is still star slash Husky. And it just wouldn't shock me if after three or four games, they think, all right, we got to have a difference maker at that spot. We'll move him down and he could play the Husky role that is so valuable to this defense. So how do you evaluate the Husky right now? And where do you think this thing will ultimately go?

Yeah, that's entirely possible that maybe they look at that and talk to him about that. And the other thing, too, is you can point to a Brian Branch and say, look, this guy did this for us, and he still was a second-round pick, right? And so there's still, I think, some very attractive qualities to play in that spot. But as of right now, I mean, yeah, Devontae Smith seems like he's got maybe that leg up just being a veteran guy. And the key for him, like you mentioned, is staying healthy. I mean, he's just...

dealt with injuries and he's got to be a guy who can stay on the field. Availability is the best ability, right? But I think he's in a good spot. But they do really like Red Morgan. He brings some good things. Another guy that was brought up too was King Mack, the Penn State transfer. Yeah, I haven't heard anything about him. I mean, he looks the part. He's not super long, but he kind of looks like a guy that

would be good at that position just based on the hoof. You know what I mean? Just body type. So I'm glad that you've heard good things. I have not heard anything about him.

Yeah, and I haven't necessarily heard a ton about him, but I think that he could make sense developing in that position. I don't know that he's competing for that starting spot right now, but I think when they added him, he's a guy with talent who there's intrigue with, and I think that they like the idea of working with him to see where he fits. And yeah, Husky might be that spot. And so they have guys who are versatile that way, and so it's just kind of how do you want to put the

pieces of the puzzle together back to your original point about malachi if the five best are malachi's at husky and you have someone else's safety is a better option than someone else at husky than malachi then you try to do that so i think you just try to find the five best and go from there but right now if they're keeping as is my my guess would be that davante smith is starting week one at husky but again we'll just see kind of how that progresses yeah great stuff nick awesome man really really appreciate it and we look forward to having you back on very very soon

Thanks, Greg. Have a good one. Nick Kelly joining us here from AL.com. You can check him out on Twitter at underscore Nick Kelly. He does a really good job. He's got cool videos, too, if you're into practice and you want to see what's going on during the walkthrough period or the individual period. He's got a lot of cool stuff on there. So go and check him out today or at some point here in the very near future. You also got to go check out what's going on at Bill Smith Buick GMC. It's just ridiculous. I mean, the deals they have are just off the charts. I don't know how they do it. I don't know. They have to be losing money at this point.

How do you make money when you are listing trucks for more than 12,000 off the sticker? That is unbelievable. The reason why they can do it, though, is because they get favorable rates from GMC because they buy so many and they sell so many. Nobody, nobody in the Southeast sold more than Bill Smith last year. Not one person, not one company.

So why would you waste your time going anywhere other than Bill Smith? You don't take short drive up to Coleman and go get yourself. How about a Hummer? You got a Hummer. I got a Hummer. You can go get a Hummer. These brand new EVs are really sweet, by the way. Saw one in person the other day. First time I've seen one. These things are really sweet. They're priced like it too. $109,335 is the list price.

Nobody else is marking these things down at Bill Smith. They are. You can get it for under 104, eight, one Oh three, eight 35. Nobody else can mark down the Hummer in the entire world. Nobody else can mark down a Hummer. Bill Smith, Buick, GMC can take the short drive up to Coleman. You'll be glad you did go see Andy Cole. Go see Jonathan Yeager.

go see their incredible service department. 75% of their business is repeat customers because you have a better experience if you shop at Bill Smith. Take a short drive to the colon, I-65, exit 310, or shop online. Have a liver right to your driveway at billsmithpuickgmc.com. All right, when we come back, kind of want to go into a little bit of those competitions that are being had right now in Tuscaloosa because there's some big ones. There's some really, really big ones, and we already talked a little bit about it, but I figured we'd do a little deeper dive next. We're here on Macaroni Cube with the morning on Chalk Center 4-5.

Welcome back. Mac, we're cubic. The morning jock 74 five. We're talking a second ago with Cole about the back to school attire. Well, I know where we're going to go to get our back to school attire. That'd be the pants store. And no, I don't think they sell crimson hoodies with a spaceship and a monkey riding a spaceship. No, I don't know if they have that. I'm going to be honest with you. I'm not sure, but they do have Bama Auburn polos, quarter zips, hats,

famous name brands like Horn Legend, Cutter & Buck, Antigua, Gentile. Nobody does game day apparel better than the Pant Store. And the ladies, they got stuff for you as well. Head to toe and get you game day ready. They also have Hoka, New Balance, Western Boots. Need a romper or a perfect dress? Pant Store has you covered. Pant Store has tons of clear purses as well.

So that you can just go right through security. Piece of cake. No problem whatsoever. Free alteration. It's a free gift wrap as well. Zip on down to the Pan score for all your game day needs. You can go see them in one of their several locations. So check them out online as well at pan store.com. All right. Talking a little bit about Bama and a couple of competitions that I'm watching very closely. All right.

And it's not the, like, okay, yes, I'm very curious to see who the right tackle is going to be. I am. At the same time, I really don't think the right tackle is going to be a huge issue. I'm not saying that because, you know, I'm not worried about the O-line. I just think the tight ends, this is a really solid and deep tight end group that nobody's talking about.

Nobody's talking about the tight ends, and they go five deep at the position, all with experience. I mean, Dupree's played 12 years of college football at Maryland and Bama. Cuevas transfers over from Washington. He's a handful on the end of the last scrimmage. We all know what Robbie Utes is. He's a 265-pound hammer. Danny Lewis is also, I think, a guy that has a chance to have a really nice year for him. He's 260-pound.

They have four tight ends that are 250 plus. If your right tackle is struggling in pass pro, guess what? I got a tight end over there. And guess what? He's not like an Amari Nye Black tight end. He's a guy that wants to stick his nose in there and beat you up. And Nye Black was a great, great, great route runner. A real problem situationally in matchups. And honestly, I think they'll miss him a little bit for sure. But

Amari Nye Black's not going to help your right tackle. He's just not. It's just not who he is. I'll tell you who will, though. Josh Cuevas. His dude will stick his elbow in the defensive end's ribs every play. So I guess I'm just not that worried about tackle because I really like what they have at tight end. The other thing I think I'm really... Last year, they tried to do too much in the drop-back passing game.

And that's, look, that's Tommy Reese's bread and butter. Duo run game in between the tackles and drop back passing game. That was what Tommy Reese was. And Tommy Reese, I still think is a good coach. I know some people don't think he is. I think he is. I will always think that. I still think Bill O'Brien is a good coach. No one seems to think he's any good either. But, you know, he's only been hired by Bill Belichick, Nick Saban, Ryan Day, and now Boston College. These guys are good coaches. But I do think they did too much in the drop back passing game.

And going back and watching Jalen a little more last year, he retreated in the pocket too much. There were often times where he was way too deep in his drop. When you get past nine yards on your drop, your tackles are dead.

It doesn't matter how good they are. You could put Joe Thomas out there, and a defensive end is going to be able to run around at nine yards. You've got to stay seven, eight at most. And I do think Jalen stepped back too often as opposed to stepping up. And if you watch him in the later parts of his season, he was stepping up a little bit more. He wasn't getting as deep in his drops. And that helped the offensive line. And I don't think this offense in particular –

This is going to be one that really kind of forces Jalen up in the pocket. Any quarterback runs can be a huge element. They couldn't run the quarterback last year. Why? Because they didn't have great depth of quarterback. If Jalen went out, they had problems. And I know some of the same guys, but Ty Simpson was probably not ready last year to be the guy. So if Jalen got hurt, they're dead. This year, they have guys that can come in, and if Jalen twists an ankle and has to miss a series, they can come in and they'll be okay.

So I think quarterback run will help the tackles as well. So tackle's not a concern. You know what's a concern for me? Off-the-ball linebacker depth. Off-the-ball linebacker depth, to me, is a big concern. Doesn't mean they don't have players. They do. They're just young. When Dante Lawson got hurt last year and you insert Shahad Campbell, no drop-off, really. You know what a great luxury that is? I can remember 10 times in the last, I don't know,

12, 15 years dating back to 09 when Dante Hightower tore his ACL in the fourth game of the season. Like that position gets beat up. Last year, Georgia, amazing depth, right? Really good players. They were at one point playing two true freshmen off the ball linebackers. And guess what? With the green dots this year where everybody has to wear the green dots and the green dots like the NFL, you have the helmet communications. You're off the ball. Linebacker is responsible for being the signal caller.

So you want to put some young guys in there that haven't played a whole lot? Not particularly. No. And while we might fast forward and Sterling Dixon and Justin Okoronkwo and Caden Jones and Jeremiah Alexander are the next best things to slice bread, that could very well happen. I mean, if God forbid something happens to Deontay and Jeremiah Alexander steps up, maybe he's as good as John Campbell was. We just don't know it yet.

But that position group in particular, I think it's extremely, extremely important to have depth there. And I think Bama is a touch thin. They have talent. I think they're a touch thin.

So it's going to be very important for those guys to stay healthy throughout the season. So I'll be watching the depth at linebacker and the competition going on there. We've already talked about the secondary. We know that that will be a huge point of contention all throughout the season. Nick Kelly joined a moment ago. And remember, all jocks guests appear on the buyer's right hotline for all your insurance, financial and HR needs. It's buyer's right insurance, a Higginbotham partner. We're going back top three. Damian next on MacroCubicMorning. Jock's 74.5.

Welcome back. Macro cubic. Good morning. Jack, 74, five, 7 53 AM here on Thursday, August 8th. Damien, what you got going on, my friend?

Not much. Just hanging in there like a loose tooth, as one Pat Smith would say. But let me tell you about my friend Ben Hedden from the Beham Realty Group. If you're thinking about selling your home and when it comes to selling, you only want excellence, hire my buddy Ben Hedden. Give him a call at 205-568-2705 or go to behamrealtyco.com. If you're struggling to get your house sold because the markets are changing every single day, you need an expert that focuses on adapting at half the time to make sure we come out on top. That's my buddy Ben Hedden of the

Bham Realty Group. You can visit his website at bhamrealtyco.com or give him a call at 205-568-2705. I think this will be an interesting top three for you specifically. I have a feeling who will be number one, but it's very niche. It's on the gridiron too. I will say this. Who are the top three coaches that you have played for?

Well, I haven't played for that many. It doesn't have to be head coach. It could be your position coaches. It could be a coach just on staff that you're just hanging around, or he was that dude. Who are the top three coaches? Nick Saban won. Had a feeling. Yeah, that's tough. Jim McElwain, too. My OC at Bama. Okay. And number three, I loved Marvin Lewis. I really did. I thought he was a good coach. But I also loved Rex Ryan. Rex was just so different than...

than Marvin and, frankly, Coach Saban. So I think just the shock value of playing for Rex was really unique. So I'm going to go Rex Ryan at number three. Yeah, and he wasn't bad on TV either. He's good on TV. I feel like he was kind of like –

He was old school in some ways because he would tell you straight up how it needs to be, how it needs to get done. Oh, yeah. But he balanced it out with a little fun. He does not care. I'm just going to flat out tell you. You want to talk about not caring about anything? That's Rex. And in a very positive way. It's not like a negative, I don't care thing.

He doesn't care what you think or what anyone says. He just rolls. Yeah, and I also think Marvin Lewis is kind of a bad rep just because of his playoff record, but anybody that's played for him, I've always heard just glowing things about him. He's a great dude, but yeah, playing for him, you want to talk about an injury experience on the sideline? When you have players trying to fight coaches and coaches trying to fight players, like

We had some dogs on that team. He's the man. You played with Vontaze Burford, didn't you? Yeah, and Pac-Man and a bunch of guys. We forgot about Pac-Man. I know him as a Titan. Or I remember him most as a Titan. There you go. But, you know, it is what it is. Who's your three? Brent Huber, who's my high school head coach, my position coach from college, Cody Piercy, and number one, my head coach for my senior year in college, I want Tony Joe White, who's the head coach of the Austin College Roos right now. Love it. That was my top three. Alex Scarborough next.

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