Congress vs Private Equity, Loud Ads, and the Wildest NFL Collapse You’ll Hear This Year

Chaos had a busy week. We kick off with a sharp look at who’s trying to buy into college sports—and why a new bill in Congress aims to slam that door on private equity, hedge funds, and sovereign wealth funds. If you care about how conferences are run, what gets prioritized, and how non-revenue sports survive, this fight matters. Then we pivot to a quality-of-life win for fans: California’s SB576, which forces streaming platforms to match ad volume to program volume. If you’ve ever jumped for the remote mid-game, you know exactly why this fix could spread beyond one state.

On the field, the college landscape turned inside out. Texas and Penn State tumbled from preseason royalty to unranked, UCLA stunned in a half-empty stadium, and we make the case for delaying polls until teams actually play a few games. We assess real contenders, false signals, and how to bet responsibly when the transitive property lies. The NFL wasn’t calmer: the Titans-Cardinals meltdown had everything—dropped ball before the goal line, a fumble-six off an interception, and a prevent defense that prevented nothing. Add New England’s shocker over Buffalo and Jacksonville’s gritty finish against Kansas City, and you get a market that’s ripe for overreactions.

We also put Bill Belichick’s college venture on the Stay Frosty seat, not for the résumé but for the fit—recruiting, availability, and alignment matter. Picks and leans follow: Ohio State to roll Illinois, Alabama over Mizzou’s “paper mismatch,” and an Oklahoma moneyline stance in the Red River Rivalry. In the NFL, Jacksonville edges Seattle at home, San Francisco plus the number in Tampa feels right, and we plant a flag on Rams -7.5 at Baltimore with Lamar likely out and the Ravens defense leaking explosives.

If you enjoy sharp angles without the fluff—real talk on policy, practical betting edges, and a few superstitions we won’t mess with—hit follow, share with a friend who lives for Saturday and Sunday, and drop your hottest upset call in the reviews.

Chapters

• 0:00 Opening And Record Check
• 1:46 Private Equity In College Sports
• 5:45 Streaming Ads Volume Law
• 9:57 College Rankings And Freefalls
• 16:50 UCLA Upset And Attendance Rant
• 20:30 Big 12 Stakes And Bama Watch
• 24:27 Miami-FSU Spread Heartbreak
• 27:07 NFL Comebacks Overview
• 31:15 Titans-Cardinals Collapse Deep Dive
• 38:20 Around The League: Jets, Ravens, NFC West
• 45:10 Patriots Shock Bills; Jags Top Chiefs
• 50:13 Stay Frosty: Belichick At UNC
• 57:04 College Picks: OSU-Illinois, Bama-Mizzou

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:12

Hey everybody, today is Thursday, October 9th, and this is the newest edition of the Sportsbook Sharps. As always, I am your host, Andy, and we have a pack show for today. It's just me flying solo again in the studio, so uh, but get ready for some deep analysis. A old man yells at cloud update from old last week's old man yells at cloud. And then I've got uh Stave Frosty, and then a bunch of picks for you this week. So let's jump right into it with our gambling update from the week before. Not a great week again. 3-4-1 after going 4-4 the week before. Ah, we cannot get it going this season. I don't know what the deal is. I actually picked up my first loss of the season. I know I backed the G-Man, the New York Giants. If you remember, I talked a lot last week at the end of the episode for my lock about how Spencer Rattler was 0-10, he'd be 0-11, 0-12, you know, etc. etc. in New Orleans is never gonna win with him. What a dumb thing to do to bet on the Giants. I mean, you just you cannot trust the New York football Giants. I just I don't know. I should be banned from making that selection ever again. No more Giants bets for me. But whatever. I got a new lock for you this week. We're gonna get right back on track. And uh we're gonna keep pace now. I'm tied with Uncle John uh for the first overall spot, so uh need to keep that pace going. I I can't afford to lose another one. So if I lose another one and John Uncle John loses one, then we're sitting amongst the muck with two losses. So we're gonna we're gonna keep it a level above that, and I predict we are going to have a big week for the people this week. So let's uh get to the old man yells at cloud. I got a lot to say about this one. Uh first up, update from my rant last week about private equity. Remember, last week I gave you a two parter. Uh, and the second one was about how the Big Ten is investigating some private equity stake in college sports. They were the Big Ten's reaching out to private equity firms, looking at taking investments from them, uh, like they don't have enough money with the Big Ten network that they created, their huge contract with Fox and Peacock and all the other channels. You know, NBC still shows a bunch of stuff. Well, I guess that's Peacock, but they have a million and one endorsements. Everywhere you look on the field, there's endorsements and stuff like incredible that they were even think about it. Well, a hero has emerged in this story. Congressman Michael Bumgardner of Eastern Washington has introduced a bill that will block private equity deals with athletic departments or conferences. No school or conference would be permitted to sell ownership stakes to a sovereign wealth fund. Uh, that's a very popular thing. Uh, if you don't know what a sovereign wealth fund is, it's as I understand it right now, it's basically Saudi Arabia. Like they have a bunch of sovereign wealth funds. Uh, they most recently are in the acquisition, trying to acquire EA, famous for EA sports, Madden, FIFA, and now it's called FC. I don't know why they changed it from FIFA, but uh maybe they want to pay the license to FIFA or whatever the deal is. Uh they used to make NBA Live. That franchise has been gone for a while, but EA makes a ton of sports games, Madden and college football being two of the biggest ones, and FC internationally, one of the biggest of all sports games. Um that's what a sovereign fund is. Uh private equity or hedge fund. So they cannot sell ownership stakes to sovereign wealth fund, private equity, or hedge fund. Finally, Congress isn't totally worthless. Now, I just want to preface that with, or I not preface, I didn't preface it, I anote it. I want to a note that it's only a bill. So it's going up into the house. Uh, you need to break out your little schoolhouse rock and remember the I'm just a bill song up on Capitol Hill. Uh, because it does not mean it'll be a law, it doesn't mean it'll ever even get voted on. Uh, in this day and age with Congress, uh, you don't I mean, I think a million bills don't even ever see the floor. So this may go nowhere fast, but I had to bring it up because I just talked about it last week, and this guy immediately jumps up. Again, his name is Congressman Michael Baumgardner from Eastern Washington. I cannot believe somebody jumped in and did it that fast. That is awesome. That leads me to hope that he's not the only one that wanted to do that. Maybe they'll put forward a bunch of different bills, maybe they'll get together and consolidate bills and and just pass one giant one, but we do not, I cannot stress this enough. I stressed it last week. We cannot have private equity start to go into college sports. It'll be the end of it. It'll be the end of amateurism. We're already on the edge of that. We cannot have private equity in college sports. Speaking of laws, this is adjacent sports adjacent. Governor Gavin Newsom recently signed into California law SB576. Now, you don't you don't know what SB576 is, it has such a great name. How do you not know that? It makes it illegal for the volume of commercials to rise to a level louder than the video content that is being streamed. This applies only to streaming. Um they already actually have a law. I would beg to question how effective the current law is, but I guess back, I think it was in 2010, they actually made a law, a federal law, that TV volume for like cable cannot do this. But the streaming services, you know, famously streaming services don't have advertisements or did not. That's why they tried to sell you on streaming. Oh, pull the plug, cut cable, all this stuff, go to streaming, there's no commercials. Well, well, I mean, as we all know, streaming prices have gone through the roof in the last couple of years. Uh, what you used to pay, you know, seven, eight bucks a month for Netflix, now it's like sixteen or seventeen dollars, and they have ad versions. Uh, even the ones that don't have ads, like if you just go to like your Google or Roku or Amazon Fire home screen, you're immediately hit with ads on that home screen, and they are super loud sometimes. Um at least in our house setup, especially, Netflix is notoriously quiet. So whenever we stream Netflix, we have the volume way up. Then if we switch to another streaming service or even just go back to the homepage on our fired cube TV, it is so loud, it like blows your eardrums out. You're immediately grabbing for the remote and turning the volume down. And they do this all the time. We watch uh Tubi. It's either Tubi or HBO or Paramount plus one of those three we have with ads. Well, Tubi has ads that's free, it's but they come with ads. I'm pretty sure it's Tubi, but it may be one of those other two. Anyway, my point with this is they're so loud that Darby and I literally mute it when the commercial comes on. And it comes, and they chop up the movies or whatever you're watching in such a weird way that there'll be like two ads in the first five minutes and then there won't be ads for 20 some minutes, and you're like frantically grabbing for the remote because you're not prepared to mute it. Um, this will be awesome. I don't know how I will benefit from it here in Ohio, but I also don't understand how a streaming service could do this only in a certain state. So I feel like even though it is in California, it's a California law, I the streaming people might just fix their app and do it and not try to do it by state. I don't it seems like it would be very complex code to be okay, where are you streaming from? Now you got the noise filter in California, but you're a different account and you're in Ohio, now all of a sudden you get the loud commercials. I don't know, but this is awesome. I hope more states either adopt a bill like this or it gets to be at the federal level, or Ohio at least adopts it so they can fix it here. That is one of my biggest complaints. That's an old man complaint of mine, and I think I've had it on here before that the commercials are so loud. It's just it's hard to watch. And especially, and this is why I say sports adjacent, the Big Ten schedule came out the other day for college basketball. Uh not the not the times, I don't think, but just where the games will be shown, at least for the Big Ten. Purdue, my Purdue Boilermakers have eight or nine games on Peacock. I didn't memorize it, but they led. They had it in a little box quadrant thing, and Purdue somehow got one of the most or the most amount of Peacock games. So not exactly sure how they decided and divvyed all those games up, but uh I will be watching uh Purdue on Peacock at least eight or nine times this year. So the the commercials will be very important not to be super duper loud. Alright, let's get into a little bit of recap from last week. College football, we're gonna start there. Texas is Penn State. Oh man. Y'all thought you were cute. You started the season. Texas won, Penn State two. This is our year. Then we're gonna be the best. We got Arch Manning, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I don't think so. Not so fast. After being preseason one and two, they are both unranked in week seven. We are in week seven of college. That sets a record for Texas. That is the fastest fall from the preseason number one to unranked in NCAA history. The previous record was held by the USC Trojans in 2012, but that took them until week 12 to be unranked. So they went from one to unranked in 12 weeks. Texas said, I see that, and I raise you five weeks, I'll do it in seven. Just incredibly bad. Uh, preseason ranks, all ranks, honestly. This could be almost old man Jason. Um they shouldn't rank them early. Uh, they need abolished before, I think before week three or four. I don't know. Discuss amongst yourselves if you think I'm crazy or not. Let me know uh in the comments. Uh hit me up. Uh I have a little message link on the podcast. You can always drop me a message uh wherever you listen to the podcast, uh, Spotify, whatever, uh BuzzFeed, where wherever BuzzSprout, whatever it is, where I post the podcast, uh, Apple podcast, wherever you listen to it, hit me up. You think I'm crazy. But I think it needs to be at least week three or four. There need to be at least two to three games played before we start to rank these people. Because if you saw Texas and Penn State early, while Penn State, you might have still ranked them high. Uh, that may not have solved the Penn State problem. I think it would have absolutely solved the Texas problem. Uh you could tell they were not a number one team. Uh they not. Uh currently, so speaking back to the rankings, currently, the numbers one, two, we talked about, four, which was Clemson, thirteen, which was South Carolina, 15, Florida, 16, SMU, 17, Kansas State, 25, Boise State. Like, eight teams out of the top 25 aren't even ranked anymore from the preseason. That just shows you how bunk they are. Like, we just need to get rid of them. We need to, and they they need to do this in in college basketball too, because there's a lot of now, college basketball is a longer season, there's more games played. It tends to write itself out. Some of these teams they don't get fixed. There's not enough games that if you start really, really high, like in the top five, and you lose a bad game or two, you can still bounce back up if you win a couple of good games. So, like, but but if you lost those games early, you would never have been ranked in the top 25. So we need to see what a team looks like before we rank them, I think. Uh as for Texas and Penn State, I I don't really know which loss is worse. I Florida beat Texas to get only their second win of the season, and Penn State lost in front of uh 900 people at UCLA. What a sad sight that was. They tried to storm the field. I don't know if you saw this or not, if you were on social media or if you were watching the game. Uh the game was kind of out of hand, so you may not have been watching it at that point, but uh the UCLA tried to storm the field, they didn't have enough people to storm the field. Like there weren't enough people in the stands to make it even like it looked like a joke. It looked like just random 50 people kind of wandered out after the game was over to take pictures or something. Like it didn't even look, it didn't make any sense at all. After some of these stormings, the court uh court stormings and and field stormings that you see, I was just kind of embarrassing. But that's who Penn State lost to. They couldn't even get part of a crowd. They're so uh bad at crowds in UCLA that the one end zone, they don't even try to sell the seats to it. They put a giant UCLA banner over four entire giant sections of the entire end zone. They don't even try to sell it, they just draped it over all the seats and it marks up like a fifth of the stadium or something. They're like, we know we can't sell what we have uncovered. We're just gonna cover up a fifth of the stadium here because we're so bad and embarrassing. That was their first win of the season. They had already fired their coach. When we get to Stave Frosty, uh, I'll hit him up in the running list, but uh, he was fired a couple weeks ago, and so they have a new coach and they upset the what started as the number two team in the preseason rankings, just incredible. Uh, but Florida, they they only had one win before this. They look terrible. Uh Billy, their coach, Napier, has already been up on Stay Frosty. Like, they look like a program that was spiraling out of control. Uh, so yeah, I would probably pick Penn State. Uh I don't know if I would have picked UCLA to win a game after their first four games and firing their coach and everything. So, like, this is just stunning to me. Uh, they lost 43 Penn State, or UCLA did. They lost 43 to 10 to Utah, 35 to 10 to New Mexico, and then they go in and beat a ranked team at home. I they were very uncompetitive in their games, and they scored a huge victory. So, hats off to them with the new coach not giving up. The coach was hilarious in the press conference after two. He was talking about how he didn't even know on the day of the game how the microphones worked for the headset and stuff like that. That's how little experience he has and how poorly run that athletic department is. They couldn't even get a guy on the sideline to like coach up the new coach on here's the headset, here's how the buttons work, here you go. Just an absolute terrible program, and they upset Penn State. Incredible win. Uh ranked Iowa State loses by eight to UC. They were positioning themselves to win the Big 12, I think, and try to make the playoffs or at least get to the Big 12 championship. Now they've dropped the 22 in rank and they sit a game behind BYU and Texas Tech, and Big 12's not a too big conference, I don't think. They don't have the names anymore now that half of them have left for the SEC with Texas and Oklahoma leave-in, um, and others before Texas and Oklahoma, like they just don't they don't have the brands. They don't they don't have the push, they don't have the polls. If you don't win the Big 12, you're not getting invited, probably, to the to the eight teams that make the playoffs. So uh yeah, they're uh unless somebody loses in those two and they can get up into that championship game, their season's probably over uh by losing that game to UC. Their game behind BYU and Texas Tech. So uh Bama 30, Vandy 14. I guess Bama's back. Um I don't know. I still think that they don't look like the Bamas of old. I I don't know if it's because their offense is pretty good, but the defense isn't. Um and usually Alabama had really good defense under Saban, so I I just don't know if my eyes I can't see it or what, or maybe I got Bama blinders on. I'm not honestly sure what's going on with me there, but uh I thought Vandy had a real shot here. They upset him last year. I thought they had a shot to win, but they uh couldn't even cover. So yeah, hats off to Bama, and uh I think Bama might be back, so we'll see. Uh and then Miami 28, Florida State 22. That was the last big game from last weekend. Uh, I told you I didn't know to make of this one. I talked about it a little bit on the podcast last week, the spread of Miami minus four and a half. I said it's FSU at home, you'd probably go with them, take the points. Uh, but the hurricanes could not be stopped early. This one uh it got a little exciting late, but Miami was up 28-3 heading into the last 10 minutes of the game. Then FSU scored three times in a row. Uh, if only, oh, and I and I took it. I told you to take uh Florida State four and a half. If only that last score, they kicked a really short field goal. They did the we'll kick a field goal with like 30 seconds left and try to get an onside kick. If only they could have got that last drive into the end zone, they would have covered. Uh, but instead they did the they did the field goal first, then try to get a touchdown. I wish they'd gone touchdown first, then try onside for the field goal. You're not likely to get an onside kick, so just get the points. Get the cover the spread. You're at home. Cover the spread for your people. Ugh, frustrating that they didn't do that. But but it is what it is. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, and sometimes your four and a half spread gets covered by the hook there. If it was five, it would have been a push. Oh no, it wouldn't have. I can't do math. Oh my gosh. If it was six, it would have been a push. I can't do math. Sorry. Alright, so they covered by a point and a half. But anyway, if they had scored the touchdown, my point remains. It would have covered. NFL, what a wild, wild weekend in the NFL. Uh, I'm just gonna hit some of the highlights here and then I'm gonna get into it uh kind of game by game with a little more analysis. But uh the Titans overcame an 18-point deficit to beat Arizona in the wildest game of the weekend, in my opinion. Uh I'll get to that in a minute. The Panthers overcame a 17-point deficit to beat Miami 27-24. Broncos overcame a 14-point deficit to rally and defeat Philly, 21-17. And then the Saints overcame an 11-point deficit to beat the Giants 26-14. Commanders, lastly, overcame a 10-point deficit to beat the Chargers 27-10. Um I'm not really sure which of these were the most shocking. If I had to have a shock meter here, where would I rate it? Um I'd love to say that it was Philly, but I've been very anti-philly for a bit, and uh I've told you all that. You know, uh, this was their first loss of the year. It was a great game. Big comeback in the fourth quarter. Uh, my superstitious wife watched the entire fourth quarter on the small TV in our master bathroom. She was getting ready. We were heading out to dinner for her mother's birthday dinner on Sunday, and uh I was downstairs, I was ready, I was downstairs watching the Cowboys dismantle the Jets, J-E-T-S, Jets, Jets, Jets. But she was upstairs getting ready or whatever and had the Broncos on up there. So she they scored. Uh she started, she was almost ready to go, and they scored the first time in the fourth quarter. So she kept changing and going back in and changing wardrobe, changing clothes, changing out the earrings, etc. She didn't want to stop and come downstairs uh because the comeback had started. So she was very superstitious. She wanted to watch the rest of the game, even though it's a very small, uh, like a 15 or 17-inch TV or something in the bathroom. She wanted to watch it in there while she did her makeup and all that, and uh did not want to stop getting ready because she was afraid if she stopped, then they would stop winning or stop coming back. So, and it worked. I mean, she didn't, and I didn't I respect, hey, this is a we're superstition house here. Uh it's Thursday. Cubs play later. Uh, I'm very superstitious. I flew the flag the other day when the Cubs won. Flag immediately, you gotta come down the next day. They didn't win or lose yet, so you gotta you can't leave the W up too long. I left it up too long over the weekend, and the Brewers took both games. I am a superstitious person. I was downstairs watching the Cowboys, and once that game ended, I flipped over and saw that the Broncos were coming back. I didn't say a word. I didn't go upstairs, I just stayed where I was. So we're a very superstitious house here. Uh, you may think that's silly, but hey, that's sports fandom sometimes, alright, people. Uh the Saints getting their first win was pretty surprising, but the Giants stink, so I'm not gonna rate that the most surprising game. Uh not a total surprise. The Giants, by the way, that was my lock. They're dead to me now. The New York football Giants, you're dead. You're banned. I'm not betting you again. I'll do, you know, I'm not not saying I'm gonna always take against the Giants. I'm just banned. Like if I think the Giants might cover, no. Stop, stop, put my phone down, get out of the app, can't do it. Uh the Commanders got Jaden Daniels back. They look much better with him at quarterback, and I never ever trust Air Bear and the Chargers. Chargers still banned from batting on. But I think the most wild game, the most uh shocking game was the Titans beating the Arizona Cardinals. It might go down as the not the worst loss in NFL history, but the most improbable way to lose. Let me let me set the stage for you here. If you didn't see the game, which I hope, unless you have a million TVs, I hope you did not see this game because the Cardinals and the Titans is not exactly must-see football for anybody. Uh so I hope, I hope, unless you're in that market, I hope you're watching anything but this game. The Cardinals had a 21-6 lead, and with 12 minutes 30 seconds to go, they had a breakaway touchdown. But the guy did, and you've seen it before, so this isn't shocking, because I still to this day don't understand how people do this. He did the thing where he was running way ahead of everybody else, and he dropped the ball before he crossed the end zone line, resulting in a touchback. In this year of 2025, I cannot believe people still dropped the ball before getting into the end zone. Just incredible. They were up 21 to 6. That would have been 28-6. I would have wrote the words game over in my notebook and flipped to another game. No. So he does that. Uh they go for two and fail. So then up 21 to 12, under five minutes ago, the Titans are driving. They're down close to the red zone, just outside. They're in the maroon zone. The maroon zone for the lay person at home is between the 20-yard line and the 40-yard line. That's the maroon zone. Uh they're in the maroon zone. Uh driving, almost in the red zone. I think they're at like the 25-30. Under five minutes ago, the corner for Cardinals intercepts the ball in uh like the seven-yard line, rolls to the ground, doesn't get touched by anybody or anything, you know, catches it, takes a step or two, then falls and rolls to the ground, completes the catch, has the ball pop out, and then four or five of his guys stumble, bumble, fumble around. They end up kicking the ball into the end zone. Four or five Cardinals. They had numbers. They outnumbered, if you watch the replay, they far outnumber the Titans players in the end in the area. Four or five of them. They kick the ball around like there should be some Benny Hill music playing in the background, just incredible. And uh a Titan recovers it in the end zone touchdown. Titans touchdown. That's a 21-12 with five under five to go. Then the last straw on this incredible comeback. Finally, with under 40 seconds to go, their uh Cardinals are up two points. The Titans only have one timeout. The Cardinals allow an almost 50-yard completion to the sideline. They then only had to kick a 29-yard field goal to win the game. Just unbelievable. I can't believe it. Just an unreal collapse. I don't know if we'll ever see a collapse like that again where the guy has a touchdown to go up four scores, drops it before he gets to the end zone because he's an idiot, not because somebody punched it out or anything. He just drops it. Then they get another pick, but somehow they turn that pick into a fumble six. I mean, just incredible. And then a 50-yard pass to set up a game-winning field goal. Like, how many times do you see where they only give up the short? You know, they got everybody playing way back, they got two people rushing at the quarterback or whatever, and they got everybody watching the the sideline and trying to keep it, you know, 10, 15 yards and out. Like, that's it. You can only get, we're setting up a defense where you cannot beat us deep, and they and they dart one for 50. Just incredible. Yeah. Just a wild game. Um here's your Jets stat of the week. They are the first team in NFL history to start 0-5 and not record a single takeaway. Just an incredibly bad team and organization. And uh, how about them Cowboys? Whooping up on the Jets. Good job, uh Dak and the Cowboys. Had to say that. I'm a Cowboys fan. Um Baltimore. They're done without Lamar. And it might even be too late if he comes back. They are one and four after getting destroyed by one win Houston. They lost 44-10 to Houston. This is the most lopsided home loss. No, just loss. No, home loss. Yeah, I read that right. I gotta check my notes here. That is the most lopsided home loss in Ravens history. 34 points. This week the Ravens host the Rams. That'll be a mess. So they'll be heading to 1-5 in the bye week. Uh last year, if you remember, Cincinnati started off slow like this. They could not turn it around in time. They barely, Cincinnati almost did it. They almost turned it around and made the playoffs. They missed it by one game last year. I think the same thing happens for the Ravens. They play the Rams, then they have a bye, and then allegedly Lamar is going to be back. He's doubtful for this week. It's Thursday. He didn't practice Thursday traditionally. If you don't practice Wednesday, don't practice Thursday. Fridays are usually a light practice, and then Saturdays are walkthrough only. If you don't practice any of these days, you're most likely not going to play. They're in almost desperation mode, though, so if something were to heal miraculously over the weekend, he could come back. They haven't ruled him out yet. But it's highly unlikely that Lamar is going to play this weekend. But I think the same happens here. They're going to be one and five, and Lamar will come back, but one and five might be too late to get your season started. The Bengals did that last year, and I think we're seeing a repeat of it in the same division. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the NFC West is the best division in football. San Francisco at Los Angeles Rams last Thursday night football went into overtime. What a tremendous game that was for a Thursday night football game. A lot of times we get really bad Thursday night football games. We got Eagles, Giants tonight. That is a bad game. I don't think I have any notes on it here because it's I have nothing to say. The Giants stink. Eagles are going to soar. Fly, Eagles fly. They're going to kick the crud out of the Giants, the G-men. So I have no notes, no talking points about that. Seattle barely lost to Tampa Bay, 38 to 35 at home. And then the Cardinals, you know, they're kind of second tier, but those top three teams, San Francisco Rams, and Seahawks, they're very good. They're very good. They're highly competitive. Even when they lose, like to Tampa, they lose by three. They've been very competitive in the games they've lost. That's going to be a tough division to win. I think that's those three teams, I think all three of those teams could make the playoffs. I haven't done the playoff calculator or looked at that, but they are those teams are very good. We still have a lot of season left, so it's hard to say, but it would not surprise me if we're sitting here in 12 weeks and we're looking at those three teams in the playoffs. And finally, in the last of uh some of the shocking wins for the weekend, New England upsets Buffalo. At Buffalo, 23-20. Uh, what a boring first half. That was Sunday night football. Uh boring. 6-3 in the first half. Have a touchdown explosion in the second half, four touchdowns in the second half. I think you might chalk this up to a division rival game. Sometimes those division rivals are weird. But uh keep an eye out, keep one eye open on Buffalo. Uh Stanley got this right, by the way. Stanley Pucci, what a good doggo. Uh he's at my feet here taking a little nap. Um good job on that. I I frowned big time on the video when he picked New England to cover the spread, but oof, they won outright. And then the other night game, Monday night football in DuVol. The Jacksonville Jaguars beat Kansas City Chiefs 31-28. Take that. Swifties and uh Travis Kelsey, the boyfriend, the fiance, and all the songs about him. You can take that and go. Uh we were flipping back and forth on that game. Uh but the Cubs were playing Monday night, so we were flipping back and forth. Uh, but we locked into this game once the Cubs lost during the fourth quarter of the game. So we were we had the Manning cast on, we were flipping back and forth, listening to it when we could. What a game this was. It felt this game felt like the type of game that Kansas City always wins. Like you you've seen it. If you've watched football in the last five, seven years, Kansas City always wins this game. They they they have some dumb play. There's a flag that flies from heaven that comes down on the field from nowhere, anywhere. Like it's just incredible. They get all the calls, they always win this game. Uh well, not so fast. Trevor Lawrence fell down not once, but twice during the game-winning play. He gets up, he he takes the his uh lineman stepped on his foot, so he fell down, then he kind of rolled around and fell again, got back up, sprinted to his left, and got into the end zone for the game-winning touchdown. It was incredible. Now Kansas City sits at 2-3. Uh, something's just off with them. I don't know what it is. They this is a game. They drove down, they took the lead, they were down. It was under two minutes. Mahomes drives them down, touchdown, they went, they take the lead, and I'm sitting there, I think there was like a minute 30, minute 40 left, and I'm like, I don't know. Jacksonville's got all three timeouts, but Kansas City always does this. This is what they do. They win the game. Uh they did not win the game this time. So I don't know. So this is something that feels a little off in Kansas City this year, but uh we'll see. We'll see as the season plays out. But that's it for the recaps this week. Now we're gonna get into our stay frosty. Um update on the running list of coaches fired. Nobody got fired this week. Hats off to all the coaches that are inept. Uh, you were just good enough not to get fired this week, even though we've had already uh one, two, three, four, four firings in college football. None in the NFL yet. I'm a little surprised uh that there hasn't been any movement in the NFL yet, but I guess they're gonna wait a little longer. Uh some of the teams that were 0-4 won the last week or two. Uh, so maybe they think they still hope, there's still time, uh, whatever you may think. But uh, I'm gonna go to college for this one. I'm gonna put up a pretty famous head coach. Now, not famous in the college game. In fact, he's never coached in college before this season. I'm putting up University of North Carolina head coach Bill Belichick. Things are so bad at 2-3 UNC. There was all sorts of hubbub and uh hoopla and and oh, Bill Belichick, what a great coach. This is good, this is such a coup for UNC to get this great coach. Oh, he's gonna be tremendous. He's a builder of men, and he installs great uh, you know, he's great at being a coach and this and that, and he's gonna mold those young people into men and blah, blah, blah, and all this stuff. Uh, they're two and three. And it's so bad and so toxic at UNC that Hulu has canceled their documentary five games into the season. Also, why? Why is Hulu doing this? We love a good disaster here in America. We love a good disaster show. This would have been a slam dunk ratings win by Hulu. Everyone wants to take Belacheat down. People still are mad about his time cheating in New England. Uh, I stand with those people. I would gladly watch Bill Belichick lose. I've turned on some of the UNC games to watch him being all frumpy and grumpy on the sidelines and got his scowl going, and I just sit there and laugh and say, ha ha ha. Uh now he's probably laughing at me because he's making quite a lot of money to be there this year. Uh but if if this documentary was only supposed to show UNC and Bill in a positive light, then it's not a documentary. Documentaries show people what reality is. It's you document reality. That's why it's called a documentary. It's not called a puff piece or a spin piece or whatever, it's a documentary. So this already feels like it would have been a sham of a documentary anyway. Um I'm not familiar really with Hulu docs. We don't watch a lot of Hulu in this house. We have it, but uh we don't leverage it much. Uh, but we watch a lot of documentaries on Netflix, and those are often well done. Uh, and they don't always paint the subject in the best light. Sometimes they're very critical of the people, um, especially there's some of their sports ones. So, and then also just yesterday, there's rumors of Bill looking at accepting a buyout. Those are up all over social media this week. If you get if you search Bill Belichick or search UNC, uh it sounds like they're coming to an agreement soon where they'll be separating. Uh, they have to go and cat to Cal and play at 10.30 at night next weekend. They're off this week. So I wonder if Bill just wants to get out before that because it's way past his bedtime, like 10.30 Eastern. That's it's pretty late for an old man. Uh, rumors are that Bill doesn't want to be there. He's absent a lot, they can't reach him. Uh, there were rumors going around this week that they tried to reach out to him on his cell phone and everything. They can't get a hold of him. He doesn't show up to things. Uh and then and then the game after Cal, they play rank Virginia. I I don't think he wants to be around for that Virginia game. So I would imagine if he doesn't take the buyout this week and he plays Cal, I would think he's probably done in the next couple weeks. But I don't know, maybe not. He's not a quitter. I guess he never quit on New England or anything, but I just I get the feeling he just is going through the motions. He has no desire. They talked about that over the summer, how he didn't really recruit people. He just kind of let people come to him because of his name recognition and stuff. He wasn't out, you know, going to kids' houses and meeting parents and things like that. That traditionally is what separates a college coach from an NFL coach is they have to go and sell, you know, hey, come to this university instead of this other one to all these kids and their families and stuff. Why should I move? I live in California. Why would I want to go all the way to North Carolina? Well, come here and this and that and the next thing. You got to sell them on it. And he's not ready for that. But he is one of the top 10 paid college coaches. He makes over$10 million just for this season. Uh, UNC, I will gladly coach your team to two and three. Uh, you only have to pay me two million, though. I'll give you quite a discount. 80% discount. And uh I'll just do it for the low, low price of two mil. We'll go, we'll go to rallied. We'll we'll we'll go move. I'll just take me two mil. I just gotta move my wife and the dogs. We'll go coach there for a couple years for two mil. I can get you two and three. I can do two and three. I've never coached a lick in my life, but I can get to two and three. I mean, come on. Some of these schools they play early, you can roll out a bag of footballs and they could coach them to two and three. Come on. Uh, this whole thing's a disaster, and for that reason, Bill Belichick, you need to stay frosty. Alright, we got a couple big games here. We're gonna roll through here for college football this week. We got number one, OSU. At number 17, Illinois. Illinois, a 14.5 home dog. This is an Illinois team, by the way, that got destroyed at Indiana University. I think the final was 63 to 10. Then they barely beat USC, which they're questionable. USC, how good they are. They're ranked, but they're it's a it's a low ranking. It's like 24. Uh if they're even ranked, actually, after last week. And then they beat a very mediocre, mediocre to bad Purdue team by 16. I think the Ohio State just destroys them. OSU just destroyed row the boat, PJ Fleck in Minnesota. They're still rowing the boat up there, even with uh very subpar seasons for many, many years by PJ Fleck. Uh when's he gonna get on the Frosty Throne? Maybe he's been there before. I can't remember. Uh anyway, OSU beat him 42-3. They just beat Washington by 18. And what people kept saying, oh, that's a trap game, oh, you don't want to go to Washington and play. That's a long flight, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. No, they won by 18. Like, come on, people. I don't think OSU loses this game. I don't I don't see it being closer than two touchdowns. I think uh I think Ohio State covers the 14 and a half. I like Ohio State there. We got number eight Bama at number 14, Mizzou. Mizzou, another home dog, plus three at home. But I love the tide here. Roll damn tide, as they say. Palfine Baum would be very happy with me right now. Pow, pal, pal. They have been tested and they've prevailed. They beat Georgia, they beat Vandy. I am fully back in on the tide. Uh now Mizzou has the number one ranked rushing defense in the nation, but you know what? Alabama doesn't even know what a run game is this year. They are ranked 104th in rushing this year, so that great defense is just gonna sit around uh while Ty Simpson and the tide roll right through them. I think they cover three easily. I Alabama wins this game hands down. They beat Mizzou. Undefeated Mizzou, by the way, but this is Mizzou's first loss of the year. And then we got the Red River S out. Now you can't say shoot anymore. You gotta call it the Red River S out or the Red River Rivalry, I think is what they actually market it as. Uh, but it used to be called the Red River shootout. We can't say that anymore. Uh number six, Oklahoma, playing Texas. Texas is a point and a half favorite. Uh, this one's being played in the Cotton Bowl in Dallas. This line makes my head hurt. Physically hurt. I had to check it three times. Uh Arch Manning stinks for Texas. Texas quarterback. If you don't know who that is. He might be the first college NIL bust. I don't know. I don't know if anybody's tracking that. I don't, I don't know. But since we've gone into this NIL era, like NFL teams years ago were talking about, oh, have you seen the Arch Manning high school tape? Oh my gosh, I can't wait until he gets into college and then goes to the NFL. Like, there were NFL people going around watching his high school games and high school film and stuff like that. Oh, we can get him in a couple of years. This guy's gonna turn our NFL franchise around. No, no, no, dude. This guy's a bum. He throws like he has a noodle arm. He has a weird throwing motion, like everything about his mechanics looked terrible. I don't know what teams were looking at uh when they saw his high school tape. I don't know if he threw like that in high school, or I don't know if he's hurt and he just can't throw. That I'm I'm baffled that he has the throwing motion that he has because it looks terrible. Um I don't know if in high school they played the New Orleans School for the Blind or the Bayou 5 foot and under Academy or what, but he is terrible. If he did look good in high school, he must have played some really bad teams because he is awful. All last year the talk was why is he benched? Why are they not starting him? Why don't they start him? He's a freshman, but start him. Uh this season he's got 11 touchdowns and five interceptions. Uh that's why he wasn't starting. Uh, because every coach on the Texas uh roster watched him practice and watched his throwing motion and can't stop laughing. And uh I personally can't believe they paid him 6.8 million in NIL money this year. For what? To throw a ball like it weighs 800 pounds? I mean, I've never seen such a bad delivery. I can't get over it. Um I don't know why Texas is favored. Uh well, I do know a little bit. I looked into it a little bit. Um their quarterback, John Mater, he's still listed as questionable. Questi Whoa, that was added some extra syllables there. He's still listed as questionable. He didn't play in the last game. Um but uh Texas just lost to a very bad Florida team. The Florida team that only had one win. They've trip completely dropped out of the top 25. I'm taking Oklahoma anyway. I think even if uh Maider doesn't go and they have a backup quarterback, he can beat Arch in his noodle arm. I think Arch throws three interceptions. Oklahoma destroys him. Like, don't even don't even mess with that plus one and a half on Oklahoma. Just hit the money line. Hit the money line hard. And then the last big college game, we got number seven Indiana University at number three Oregon. Ducks, seven and a half point favorite. I loved the Ducks last week to cover this, but now after seeing Penn State and UCLA, I'm thinking, uh oh, did the Ducks I thought Ducks, you know, they went into uh Happy Valley and they beat Penn State, and I thought, oh, that's a huge win, even though James Franklin always loses that game, and I put him up on Stay Frosty last week for losing it. Uh, and he should probably just be fired after that UCLA game, but whatever. Um, you know, I thought Oregon very, very good. Now I'm starting to like I'm starting to second guess myself. Uh are they a good team or they just really beat no one? Because I counted the Penn State as a good win. Indiana has a great win. They destroyed Illinois. It's still ranked Illinois, um, even though I just said Ohio State's gonna roll them. Uh but I, you know, I oof seven and a half's a lot. It's in Oregon. I I I don't know. I'm putting this firmly in my don't bet this area because I don't know what's gonna happen. I still get a little scared of Indiana and big games. Now, in the Illinois game, I told you I was scared and they destroyed Illinois. So some I I don't always know best, but I'm putting this one firmly in the I'm not betting this game. I'm gonna enjoy it, I'm gonna watch it, but uh I am not gonna wager either side of this one. I don't I don't know where to go with this. I I'm very scared after Penn State lost to UCLA because now I'm starting to like do the transitive property and say, well, okay, Oregon beat Penn State, but Penn State's not that good now, so what what does it even mean? What does it mean? And when you don't know what it means, you just stay away from it. So that's my stay away game. Uh bye week for this week in the NFL again. Texans and the Vikings. We're only down to two on the bye week. So let's get to some of the big games. There's not a lot of big games, a lot of bad games in uh in the NFL this weekend. Seattle at Jacksonville, two of the better teams in the NFL this year. Jacksonville is a point and a half favorite in Duval. I think the Jags are legit. It's at home, it's in Duval. I'm gonna keep doing that. Even though Seattle's playing well, I think the Jags are just better and they're at home. I think they cover here, I think they cover at home. I think you take Jacksonville minus one and a half for that one. Then we have San Fran at Tampa Bay, Tampa Bay, Buccaneers, minus three. San Fran is so injured. They have so many injuries. I went over it last week. A million people injured. But they just keep winning. They have that real gritty, tough next man up mentality. But Tampa just won't quit either. They've had several comebacks. Every Tampa Bay win has been within three or less points. Uh I think this might be the game of the week. I think you should definitely tune in for this one. Uh I also think San Fran covers. Uh, because every game Tampa's won has been within three or less. I think you either get the three or you push. Uh, you know, I don't that I don't see Tampa winning this by more than three. So at best they push. Uh, but I'd rather be on San Fran's side, so I'm taking San Francisco on the road. And then uh these aren't great games, but I had to call it out. We got the double Monday night football again. So look, we're gonna do it, ladies' locks, two of them. Uh we're gonna give you Buffalo at Atlanta, Atlanta four and a half point favorite, and Chicago at Washington. Washington a four and a half point. I'm sorry, Atlanta is a four and a half point underdog to Buffalo. I read that wrong. Buffalo at Atlanta. Atlanta is a home dog, four and a half point underdog. Chicago at Washington. Washington is a four and a half point favorite at home. Uh, these are not great games, but they're revealing games. This is going to tell us a lot. These are not great, but look, it's Monday night, it's 7 o'clock Monday night, 8 o'clock Monday night. Put them on a little bit. They're gonna reveal some things. If Buffalo bounces back, then I'm calling the New England loss a fluke and I'm adjusting my bets accordingly. I look, I'll whatever Lady tells me to do, I'm gonna do on this game. I'm not giving you a lock on either of these, or I'm not, not a lock, but I'm not even gonna tell you which way I lean. Although I lean, uh I just said I'm not gonna tell you Buffalo, nobody circles wagons like the Buffalo Bills. But if Lady picks Atlanta, I'm not gonna be upset. Because I don't know what Buffalo is right now, because the New England thing, it pretzeled my brain a little bit. So I'm gonna tell you what do what Lady says when we post the thing on TikTok. But uh, if Buffalo bounces back, I think New England's a fluke. If Washington wins big, they have Jaden Daniels back. This is the second game in a row, Jaden's back. If they win big, I think they're legit NFC East contenders now that Jaden's back. And then uh, you know, if that doesn't happen, then you know, I don't think this tells you a lot about Chicago. Uh Atlanta, Tampa Bay's got like a two-game, three-game lead there. Um excuse me. I I mean it tells me Atlanta, if they if they hold within the four and a half, they're gonna be contenders for maybe a wild card spot. I don't know, but um I don't think I don't think they catch up to Tampa unless something unless Tampa really falls off. They they're for Tampa's four and one, so they're looking really sharp like they're gonna win that division pretty easily. Um but yeah. Alright, let's get into the locks this week. And one I already talked about, Greg. This scares me a little bit because I'm on the same side as Greg. Greg has given us Oklahoma plus one and a half against Texas reminder from moments ago. I told you just toss that plus-minus out the window and just take the money line. Take Oklahoma money line. Uh I think Greg's right. Greg, I think, has more right this season than he had all of last season, so he's doing better. He's at least tied what he did last season. I think he might be a game ahead, even. So you can't just throw Greg's picks out in the trash this year. I like that one. That's a good pick, Greg. Uh, Ethan, Chargers, minus four and a half at Miami. Uh, band. Ethan, you must not subscribe to and follow the Sportsbook Sharps. I don't understand. This is Liberty Township's premier sports gambling podcast. I have email after email of potentially fake AI people wanting to be on this podcast. How are you not listening to this? Uh, they're banned, and a ban means you can't bet them. So some of the people in the family need to listen to the podcast and figure out uh what a ban means because you cannot bet this. I I forbid it. Now, I'm not again, I'm not saying you take Miami plus four and a half. Just I put a big ban stamp on the Chargers. No, we're not betting the Chargers and Justin Air Bear. I don't trust them. They've lost two in a row. They have not earned my trust. They need to cover, they cover this. I'll consider lifting the ban. Georgia was famously banned last week. Uncle John still picked them. I said, ban. They covered. So um, you know, you can earn your you can get rid of your ban, but for now, they're banned. Uh they're dead to me after dropping two in a row. Uncle Mike gave us Bangles at Packers over 44.5. Uh Mr. Overs Club has returned. He's a lover of the Overs, Uncle Mike. This is his third over selection for a lock this year. Now, uh, if you missed the news this week, I think it was on Tuesday. Bangles got a new quarterback. Old man Joe Flacco, the elite. Joe Flacco is at the helm now in Cincinnati, traded for a sixth round pick. Um, Flacco already beat Green Bay 13 to 10 when his when he was in Cleveland. But uh, if you do a little math there, 13 and 10, that's uh do a little quick math. Boop, boop, boop, 23. Not quite 45, Mike. Uh, you're what in over 44 and a half. That means you need 45. I don't really like this pick. Uh Flacco might die during this game. Uh, that offensive line is so bad. He I if Flacco finishes this game, it's gonna be a miracle. Uh that offensive line is a sieve. I talked about this when they played the Broncos. There was famously one moment late in the fourth quarter where the Broncos only blitzed three people against five. No, against six. They had three against six. The running back stayed back too. They had three against six, and they sacked the quarterback in like a second. Joe Flacco has no mobility. He's about 500 years old. He was elite at one point, people say. Uh, but he's he's I don't think he's elite right now. So uh I don't like this pick. Unless you think Green Bay can hang 45 on the Bengals. The Bengals defense is bad enough. Green Bay could hang 45. So that's the way I think it happens. Maybe maybe they get a field goal, so it's it's 44 to 3 or something, and then gets the over. But I oof, I don't know. I don't know about this one. I don't like it. I'm not gonna bet it. Uh, Matt is giving us IU plus nine and a half. So he got it. I said a little bit ago it was seven and a half. It has shifted since Matt put his lock in by two points. Um yeah, I don't know. I told you I'm not gonna bet that one. So boy, I'm uh out of the locks, I don't like Mike's, Ethan's band, I like Greg's, and then Matt's. I said I that's my stay away game. So, you know what we need to do? You need a lock from me. Me, me, me. I've only missed once this year. And I was embarrassed. I can't, like looking at it, I picked the Giants last week and I gave you a loss. That's embarrassing to me. I took that personally. I went back into the lab. I've been looking at lines all week, I've been looking at stats, I've been looking at game tape, I've been racking my brain, I gotta get back on track. I'm giving you one here. We're back on track, people. Ride with me on this. Rams, minus seven and a half at Baltimore. The Ravens might be the worst defensive team in all of football. And that offense without Lamar is right behind them. In their games so far this year, they've surrendered 41 points. And only 17, but that was to the Flacco-led Browns. 38, 37, 44. Those are the amount of points they've given up. Terrible. That's just terrible. That's a sieve on defense. You throw that one Cleveland Flacco game out, and the lowest one is 37. 37! That's the low. Uh without Lamar, this team is broken. Harbaugh seat might be getting a little frosty there. Um we might we might have to revisit that here later in a couple weeks. Uh, we may need to put him up on the frosty throne, but uh the Rams have an absolutely elite offense. They are number one in passing yards. They are gonna be throwing darts all over the place. And their defense is pretty good too, the Rams. The Rams' defense is ranked 10th overall. They're gonna be packing the box, stopping Derrick Henry, and they're gonna make Cooper Rush, the quarterback who's backing up Lamar and starting this week, look like an absolute fool as he lost another wobbly duck on third down. I I think the Rams destroy him here. I think you can you could press it up more if you wanted to, but you're it's a lock at seven and a half. The Rams are winning this game by more than seven and a half. That's my lock of the week. Rams minus seven and a half, and we are. Getting back on track with that lock. Let's go. That's gonna do it for this week's episode, everybody. We've got the dog picks. They're coming on TikTok. Remember to follow us at TSS Gambling. I put little funny meme AI generated pick things out for all our locks this week. You'll get the rest of the crew. You know, we don't have it from Scott, Steve, Uncle John. We don't have everybody's lock-in. We only got a couple of them for this week, about half of them. So check that out. I put them on TikTok and I put them on X, formerly called Twitter. At TSS Gambling is our handle at both spots. That's gonna do it. The dogs are picking three games this week because we got the Dumble Monday Night Football. Good luck gambling, everybody.