Laura Rutledge, NFL Live & SEC Network host, tells McElroy & Cubelic what SEC teams will separate from the middle of the pack, and why Tennessee is flying under the radar
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Alright, welcome back in. McElroy and Kublik in the morning. I just realized I do horns up or down incorrectly. I do hang loose. I got to start doing it with these two fingers, right? Yeah, why would you do the hang loose? It's very different than horns. Because in my day, that was the cool thing to do. Not really, I'm just kidding. Yeah, I guess. They kind of try to do that thing. But yeah, I got to get my horns down right. I got to get my horns down going. Yes, correct. Laura Rutledge with us now on Radio Row. Laura, how are you? How's your week been?

You know, it is. You brought your bag. Are you leaving soon? Well, I'm going straight to the airport, but I couldn't leave without talking to you guys. It's about time you had me on. I, you know, did Radio Row. You're very important. No. Not true. I'm sorry. Thank you for letting me try on your cowboy hat. I'm not doing the SPR thing. I'm sorry. I can't. I can't.

Anyway, it's great to be with y'all. My friends will come talk to me when they have a chance, and that's how we're going to do it. Well, here I am. And I couldn't leave without it. And we appreciate it. I feel like I've been with Ruddy like the whole week. Yeah, I can't get rid of Greg. I've seen her more than anybody else, and I've done 12 hours of radio with you. I'm like, what is going on? Yeah, I've had enough of Greg. I'm sick of him. Right?

It's been a little, I guess, low-key, drama-free this week. But has anybody sort of given you something that surprised you? Or have you greatly changed your opinion on a team or a coach or a player since you've been here? It has been low-key, really. I would say...

One of the things that was interesting to me is the confidence that Tennessee came with. And I think they're a team that could be one of these kind of like six or eight teams that we talk about potentially contending. But Josh Heupel wasn't backing down at all. And, you know, they're unproven at quarterback.

but talented. I just think there's a lot there that we could be overlooking, and he made me feel I was buying what he was selling. So I would say Tennessee probably stepped up a little bit in my eyes this week. I think that's a good one for sure. I didn't get to visit with him as much. I didn't get to visit as much with Oklahoma either. I wish I would have spent a little more time with Venables, but it is what it is. You would have gotten a question or two in. Yeah, right, exactly. If I had 30 minutes, I'd get one question. Laura, he gave us the entire three deep of their defense. Roman asked them one defensive question and literally went through every position.

Stop. Did that really happen? It was amazing. It was like a 17-minute answer. It was great. Oh, my. But it was thorough. We had some filibustering this week across the board. No doubt. Even on our set. The other one that I feel, and it feels like forever ago now, but LSU, I got a much better vibe from Brian Kelly. Yeah.

And we were with him on set. And he feels really about his depth on his roster, which would have been a massive concern of mine coming in. So, like, you look at his track record, year three is when they break through. Both Notre Dame, Cincinnati, Central Michigan, that's when they break through. So, are we not talking enough about LSU? It's a good point because I think they're better at quarterback than we want to admit, too. I mean, I realize that Garrett Nussmeier is...

Somebody who hasn't played a whole lot, and you can't look at some of these times when he came in or even the spring game and say, oh, yeah, he's going to be great. I think he's going to be really good, though, and he's got a really strong arm. The way that they handle him is going to be important right now. I do think that opener against USC is huge for them. They haven't won an opener in, what, four years, maybe more? I think it's four since 2019.

They've got to win that game. And that sounds silly because we're in an expanded playoff. They could lose a couple, and it'll be fine if they don't. But I just feel like to see the progress that we want to see and the depth that we want to see after what they lost after last year...

that would be important. Their defense is going to be better. And the thing I liked about what Brian Kelly said to us, he wasn't shying away from it. He was like, I know, I had to revamp the entire defense. I had to rehaul. I had to change the staff entirely. What they did, getting Blake Baker from Missouri, there are so many things about that team that are going to be markedly better. And they were already pretty close last season with an all-world offense but a terrible defense.

You mentioned kind of this logjam of either if your tier two is larger or your tier two is small, kind of tier three, if that's bigger, LSU, Missouri, Oklahoma, maybe even Ole Miss if you don't have them towards the top, Tennessee, Texas A&M.

Who does separate, in your opinion? Like, minus the Bama-Georgia, even if you have Ole Miss up there, that's fine. But, like, who's the other team that kind of takes the leap between that group? Yeah, I would say right now I kind of have Georgia, I have Texas, I have Bama. Then I think Ole Miss is right there, kind of right behind Bama, maybe even even with Bama. Then I would say LSU.

And then in that next category, you know, are we overlooking A&M? I don't know. The one thing I would say about Missouri is their schedule's favorable, so I would probably slot them up. Like, I think they're going to kind of mow through that schedule and be in a really good position. Whether that means they're a better team than some of these other teams, maybe not. The schedule is such a big factor, especially this year. I mean, some of these schedules we're looking at, and Greg's going to get mad at me because he's, like, saying that we're all making excuses on these dang schedules. Right.

But some of them are really hard. You pointed out Georgia's schedule. It's brutal. People are saying Florida has the most difficult schedule. It's brutal. They're not in that necessarily contender group anyway. But I do think Missouri's schedule could lend itself to allowing them to kind of rise out of that group of six or whatever it is behind your obvious contenders. Trust me. We sat next to the schedule maker last night.

He wasn't having any of it. No. How did that go? Fantastic as always. Amazing as always. Looking at the teams that are not expected to contend this year, the South Carolinas of the world, Vandy, if you want to go there, Arkansas, Florida, those that are kind of viewed or perceived as a team that, you know, is at the bottom portion of the SEC. Which of those teams do you think could potentially rally up?

This is not a biased answer, but it's Florida. Graham Mertz is a good quarterback. They have more weapons. They have a better plan. Defensively, they have to be so much better. Their defense has been such a problem. I know with a young defensive coordinator who you kind of make a bet on in Armstrong, it didn't work out last season, but let's see what he brings to the table with a little bit of veteran leadership that's now brought in from Auburn, right? So I think...

Look, they know their backs are up against the wall. I think the hard part is going to be, do they look enough better even in losses that you can say, all right, this is working and progressing? And Florida fans are so tired of hearing that, right? It's just like, come on. But what I would say I'm concerned about is that, let's say they make a change. God forbid it doesn't go well for Billy Napier and it's another 5-7 season. Who's going there? Who are they getting? That's where I think it gets difficult.

frustrating to try to think through but I'm going to live in the world of a little bit more optimism than that because you know we can we can spit out some hope right now and I think Florida will maybe get some surprise wins here and there some wins that they were close to getting last season and just didn't do quite enough to finish at the end okay you had kind of a front seat to the debut of Nick Saban as a media member for SEC media days what is your best Nick Saban story from this week

Oh, my goodness. It was so much fun, you guys. Like, it really was. Greg was with me for a lot of it, too. Obviously, he's familiar with Coach Saban in a way that I'm not. But I think what was so fun overall was just how much he cared about all these teams. He spent so much time talking to each coach. He watched their spring games. You know, he did all of this. It's not surprising that he wanted to be so prepared, but he really does. My favorite story is after day one.

He went to all of us. We were kind of pow-wowing after it, and we're like, all right, coach, this was great. He wants a lot of coaching, which is hard to do because he's really good, so there's really not much that he really needs to change. But he said, well, I'm not working enough. We were trying to manage his schedule. We're like, we don't want to overdo it here. Like, come on. Don't bite off more than you can chew. He's like, what do you mean? I

I got to go sit up in my room. I need to work more. So we actually added more to his schedule after that first day because he was upset. He didn't think he was doing enough. He said, I came here to work 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. That's what I thought this was. Yeah.

He was, like, upset. But, I mean, geez. And then my other favorite story is when he absolutely buried Greg at the end of SEC Now last night. I mean, he killed me last night. Last night? He called you soft, Greg. He told me that, and I missed that part. Actually, I saw he and Coach early on listen to the Alabama players talking about Coach Saban, and it was when I got back from dinner, and so I turned it off because I had to go to sleep. I hate that I missed that part. We'll find it. We'll clip it off. I'm so mad at him. Like, I'm so mad at him.

Look, and that one I did not see coming. I know he's going to kill me. He kills me all the time. That's just our relationship. But I did not see that one coming. No, it was so random how we got there. It was so random, and I was just so unprepared for it. It's the last 30 seconds of the show. Your day is done. I'm already at the restaurant for dinner. I'm not even there. I'm on the set, but I'm not there. I had no comeback. I had nothing.

We were like filling time, too. And all of a sudden, you know, we're talking about Greg's making a nice point about he can't wait for the expanded playoff and the home games in the first round of the playoff. And then coach is like, I'm like, how cool would it be to go play in like Ann Arbor or Notre Dame?

And he's like, oh, if you went to Ann Arbor and Notre Dame, we'd have to cancel the game soft. I mean, you and snow? I'm like, look, Coach, you can say a lot about me. You can say I can't run, can't throw, can't see the defense, have terrible vision, terrible feel in the pocket. I don't care about any of that. That I can't control.

You cannot question my toughness. I'm good about everything. Like, if you want to question my character and or my toughness, those are the only two things that are off limits. Everything else I'm fine with. He struck a nerve. I was going to say, like, this guy is hot. Oh, he knew it. Coach is so happy. He's like, I just finished my week with an absolute burial of my budget.

Sark had told us, he was like, hey, watch out. He'll kind of seem like he's complimenting you or seem like he's just having a nice point, and then he'll hit you just right with a haymaker, right when you don't expect it. That was the haymaker. It was it just none of us knew what to do. We had to just say goodbye and get off the air. So you also got a little bit more of a peek into what Alabama football will be now.

How do you feel? What's your level of confidence of it being close to just continuing what it has been? Yeah, I mean, like I was saying, I put them in the top three of the SEC, which means they're probably a playoff team, you know, unless things don't go well. If they get really injured or something like that, right, which is true for everybody.

I think Jalen Milrow is going to take a big step forward. And Kalen DeBoer is so good with quarterbacks. He's so good with instilling confidence. I think that's big for Jalen. But it's worth remembering, and I think everybody did a really good job about this this week, reminding everybody, you know, this time last year he was in a quarterback battle. He lost his job. Everything was falling when they lost to Texas. It was like the world was over. They go to South Florida. They have that terrible performance there.

that was his world and then he rebuilt it with the help of many around him to have a moment where you know you've got the gravedigger play that gets you to be able to continue on you beat georgia but it was all precarious right like if you think of even the the situations that allowed for his success it was because of a lot of failures so i think he's kind of been through a gauntlet i think he'll be better and then they're they're really good at some important spots right so um

I think Kalen DeBoer is going to do a great job. Greg said something I was watching, you know, one of the rare times we weren't on together that I thought was really good. Kalen DeBoer is striking the perfect chord in the following of Nick Saban. He's being very respectful, very classy, and

about all of it. And you had to find the perfect coach who was going to do that. And I was impressed by that this week, the way that he's handled everything. Laura, thanks for stopping by. I know you have to finish some work and get to the airport. We have one more break, so we have to go now so we can get that in before we wrap up today. But

We appreciate you coming down. Because this is kind of a death march for you down Radio Row. Yeah, I don't know what I'm going to do, guys. She pretended to be on the phone. Yeah, you're low-key. That was my strategy. Outside, walk there, and I was like, she knows exactly what she's doing. No, it's a good move. You put the phone to your ear. I'm looking back. Pretend you're on the call. This way over here. Come behind. Okay, I'm going to go behind here. Now, y'all. But look, that door right there, you can cut straight across to the green room right there. Hey, if I get stuck.

I'm going to look back at you two, and I'm going to send you a horns down signal. You'll be all right. Is it going to be that horns down? Hang loose. One horn. It's going to be one horn. You know the horn you're getting, okay? Hang loose means you're really in trouble, and I'll get over there fast. All right, last break of the day. We'll finish up on Radio Road next on Mac and Cube in the morning. 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...

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