Carrying Cord: A USF Football Pod
Carrying Cord: A USF Football Pod
Bye Week Blues (Memphis Preview)
Send us whatever is on your mind.
This week the guys answer all the tough questions. Like why is basketball a sport? What happens during a bye week? Is sign stealing cheating? Will we beat Memphis? And most importantly how many USF fans does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
Hey, Red. Yeah, Pooka?
Pookah:How many USF fans does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
Red:Oh, God. How many?
Pookah:Fifty. One to get the bulb and actually screw it in, and the rest to bitch about how it took us so long, and how we don't actually like the way that light looks, and how we actually like the last lightbulb better, and how we wouldn't need a lightbulb if we made it through conference realignment. And we aren't contributing any more money to the lightbulbs until someone shows us a winning team, and yadda yadda yadda yadda. Oh, god. It's CarrionCore, y'all, and we are
Red:Pooka. And Red. Jam packed episode here as we, get on our soapbox and really get in our feelings.
Pookah:I have one feeling, Red. What's that,
Red:Pooka? Rage. Ooh, that's exciting.
Pookah:Does it feel good? It feels great. Let's get into it. Are you
Red:unhappy about the comments that have been made about your apparatus on the boards?
Pookah:there's a lot of talk about my apparatus on the boards. And for information's sake, yes, not only Red, but Red has seen it.
Red:Yeah, me and everyone else who worked or went to the University of South Florida from the years of 2005 to 2009, somewhere around there,
Pookah:I won't give the exact date so people can't find me, but, I'm a very positive kind of person. I believe that, you should be comfortable with what you got.
Red:So that was one thing that got a lot of, Commentary from the red episode. We've got a, we've got a lot to talk about. We're going to go over a whole spectrum of different things here. No retractions or tidbits, but our last couple of episodes have caused a little bit of a stir. Got some Q and A type stuff. And there's just a lot going on in the world of USF football and college football in general. Oh my gosh,
Pookah:yeah. There's some good stuff. With, to that end, Scoob. Was asking if we watch, I guess maybe thinking we can look outside of football, do we watch Basketball too? There's a really easy answer to that. Short answer is no. No, we don't watch that. Where do you even watch USF basketball at? It's not televised. I'm not going to the, what is it, the Yingling Center now?
Red:It is the Yingling Center. Yeah. Formerly known as the Sun Dome. I'll be fair. We're going to talk about some different fans here in a second. I am the definition of a bandwagon fan when it comes to USF basketball. When I was a student, I went to maybe a handful of games, then they made the NCAA tournament one year and you bet your ass I was going to those things. Oh yeah, I supported basketball. Woo! We're
Pookah:good! I've been here all along, you fair weather
Red:motherfucker. Yeah, exactly. So I can't tell you shit about basketball. I know we got a new coach, brought in a bunch of good transfers from Kennesaw State or something and women's basketball has been good for a long time. I know we're good at soccer and stuff and volleyball season baseball's had a couple good years here and there softball. We have Ken Erickson. we
Pookah:were powerhouses at softball back then we've got some good athletics outside of football at USF, just kind of hard to follow if you're not there. And I'm not. You are, but USF doesn't get a lot of coverage, especially being in after the biggies broke up. Which was like a basketball powerhouse, right? And we lost a lot of those teams. and it was really hard to follow. Now probably someone's gonna come back and be like, It's actually pretty easy! And post exactly how you follow USF Basketball. I'm not doing that.
Red:Yeah, just go to Bulls Unlimited, and you can listen to every game if you want to, and all that bullshit. I'm not doing that shit. the matter is... Really only care about football as a sport. Anyways, I got some hockey on the side when it's not football season, but during football season, I ain't got time for anything else. Hockey
Pookah:baby. I got my Barkov Jersey. We busting it out. Panthers just beat the Kraken last night. So what's up? There you go. I'll watch some hockey. Now, if USF actually had more than a club team, I'd
Red:be all about that. USF hockey. Oh yeah. K was big hockey guy. We used to go support his amateur hockey nights. That was just an
Pookah:excuse for us to drink in a cold room. There's no support because we were like, FIGHT THE MOTHERFUCKER As dudes are like in a no checking league. Yeah, exactly. People are like slipping and sliding all over the place. It's guys can't skate. It's yeah, that's Tom. He just came out here today. I think he just bought his skates over at Dick's earlier.
Red:Yeah. That's the attitude we need for USF football in some of these last years too, though, of Oh yeah, that guy is just learning to play football for the first time out there. You don't mind him. Is that wide receiver blows fast and for 300 yards,
Pookah:He just showed up. It's alright. FIGHT HIM! That's good shit. So no, we don't watch basketball. Will I one day? If we get good, yeah. I'll be. I'll follow him. I'll follow him for sure. And women's basketball too. They're great. Women's basketball doesn't get enough credit for how good they are.
Red:And that leads me into what I want to talk about with fans, because when you're good and when you win, fans come out in droves. So we're really just dealing with a certain type of fan right now, because USF sucks and has sucked for several years now. So we're really at the dregs of USF fandom, or the cream of the crop, I guess, of whoever's left, whichever way you want to look at it. But
Pookah:This is the best of the best?
Red:Yeah. The best of the best we're the US Navy Seals of USF fans right now.
Pookah:I wouldn't go that far.
Red:but you mean you got all kinds of different fans, right? You got your, and I say all these terms endearingly because I truly do believe you need all of these fans to make our little community work and. You got your jock sniffers who just want to get autographs from players and be able to talk to players and all that kind of stuff, right? You got your people who are just partiers. They're there for tailgate fun, social scene. They're for the good time, baby. They have no idea what's even going on in the football game. You got your actual football junkies who... Couldn't care if we're playing Sisters of the Blind, they're showing up, analyzing, breaking down what's going on in the plays. That's most of the people we hang out with, I feel They
Pookah:didn't see it coming. Yeah. Sisters of
Red:the Blind. I got it. I got it. I don't think I need to explain it. Just making sure. You got your, stat nerds who are doing all sorts of analytics and all that kind of stuff where they're not really aware of the physical sports going on. They're just charting things and all that kind of shit.
Pookah:I feel like that's a subset of the football junkie,
Red:but they're two different because they are you against each other.'cause the football people will be like more of your diehard coaches and stuff. Uhhuh who would be like, oh, this is why we would never actually do this in that situation. And oh, okay, then you have your nerds. Or the analytics say you should have kicked when you were down 17 points because that would've given you a 3.3% more higher chance to win, according to my models. Right. Moneyball. Moneyball. That's the best way to sum it up. Moneyball, guys. Yup. you got your message board warriors. We know all about them. You got your degenerate gamblers.
Pookah:Which I'm really feeling for those guys lately because it has gotten a lot harder to not be a degenerate gambler. Like every time you turn on the TV it's Hey buddy, you wanna lose some more cash? Take out that second mortgage. You really could make it back. 17 way parlay, baby. The Jets are winning this week. It's oh god. Shout out
Red:to the Jets for winning, by the way. Yeah, hey, they did win. Good job. Crazy ass game. bandwagon, which we were already talking about, which I think is the majority of USF fans of you've seen that when we were good, we had 65, 000 people. Where the fuck do all those people go when we're not good? I don't know. They're just enjoying their weekend somewhere else. So yeah. But you need that, and you're only gonna get Nothing is gonna bring those people back other than winning. I don't care what price you make the beers or the fucking hot dogs or... What kind of fucking acrobatics Rocky the Bulls doing out there at halftime? Those people are only coming to watch a winning product. There's nothing to change all the fucking arguing about we should do this We should do that They'll be here when they win and no matter how bad we screw it up when we're losing they will come back when we win So really don't worry about it.
Pookah:Like I was there all along. Yeah, I was 100 percent there.
Red:I say all this because we made fun of a Bullspen fan, I don't know, a couple weeks ago, cause he went on a long diatribe about him giving up on the team after donating.
Pookah:it was bull cocky,
Red:which funny story about that. one of my, our loyal listeners gave me some feedback and thought that was. B-U-L-L-K-A-K-K-E. Cocky. Wow. Buka B Exactly.
Pookah:no. This is a family show, Oh yeah. Real family friendly around here. This is very family friendly. but we did, we gave, we made cocky, a little bit of a ration. here's my take on that. We, you could argue that we kind of fall into that diehard category. We've been here through and a lot of the folks on the message boards, you could say that have been there for awhile. Bullcock, you'd be one of them. I'm sure. they've been with this team through thick and thin. Football is more than just football in that situation, right? It becomes. Memories. It becomes connections. It becomes something you wake up every Saturday and look forward to doing right? Talking with your friends about watching the game, getting into it. It's more than just a game. So I understand the emotion, right? I understand getting super frustrated when you see this team doing poorly. What I don't understand is Why now? why now in this season all of a sudden after all these games and we see some progress you see a little bit of regression and all I can think is that you just really didn't have a clear idea of what, the potential was or what the expectations were and like take a step back and some folks arguing he's allowed to have an opinion he's allowed to vent he absolutely is in the same way we're allowed to say that's bullshit you're If you're allowed to say I'm leaving this team and I'm not going to give any money and I'm going and this is it and I just can't take anymore losing and I've followed this team long enough. If you haven't done that in the past three or four seasons, you're just now doing it. we are just as justified in coming back and saying, all right, fucking go. And that's a dumb take. Because honestly, this team is rebuilding. This team's about to do great things. I honestly believe, as you do if you follow this team this long, that something is just around the corner. And if not, you kind of, there's a little bit of schadenfreude. There's a little bit of we suck and it's kind of fun, right? Because we're still, like I said, football goes back to connections. It goes back to friendship. It goes back to memories. We talk about it all the time on this pod. All the good times we had when we were there. Every, every year when we travel to a game as a group, the blast that we have, like it, football's more than that. If you want to throw that away because of giving up 56 points two weeks in a row to some bum ass teams, go for it. But I'm tuning in this week.
Red:Well said. And I really just wish I could leave it there with you, but I wrote down too much shit that I want to say. So
Pookah:now you got to come off
Red:the top of it. yeah, we get it. People are pissed off. They're angry. They're sad, whatever. But you're the one who said you wanted to leave the program, right? those were your words, not ours. And quite frankly, put your money where your mouth is. Leave. I don't give a shit. there's no fucking gatekeeping. I can say that. And like you just said, we haven't, we have the voice of our own to say what we want from the opposite side. But guess what? Neither fucking matters. You can say you're leaving and not leave. You can actually leave and come back in two years when we're doing well. No one gets to stop you from being a USF fan. But while you're here, shut up, get in the boat and fucking row. If you're here. Get on board with it and fucking cheer for'em. that's my ideal fan. You're fucking there. First thing when the parking lot opens, tailgate, you fucking drink your ass off. Get just drunk enough to go in there and cheer on every, get rowdy as shit on every defensive play, but you're still sober enough that you know to shut up when you're on offense. that's our guy. You talk enough trash to make it fun and enjoyable, but you don't actually start any fucking fights. Yeah. And then you go home and you fucking celebrate or commiserate the game and what have you, it's a fucking game. It means a lot to us, like you said, the memories and everything that goes with it, but it's a game. It's entertainment, and if you can't separate that, and you can't find the entertainment in it, then stop. I know that's the trade off. It is what it is. we went over this. Not everyone can win. How it works.
Pookah:That is how it works. USF has not been a winning program. that's real. So that goes back to the point, like, why
Red:now? and I saw that actually in some people defending him too. Some people mentioned, Oh, I wish I got into some other schools. I wish I would have gone to those schools sometimes. Fuck that. yeah, I got in, I got into Florida and Florida State and really probably could have gone to every school in the country if I really wanted to. And, if I had gotten to Florida during those years, I would have gotten to see multiple national championships and multiple basketball national championships. They were fucking good when I was in school. Oh yeah, they were. But I chose to go to USF because USF was building something and I wanted to be a part of that and have those memories and feel like I earned that success. And it makes it all that sweeter when it will eventually, and I fully believe it will come eventually, we'll get into a new conference, we'll be fighting for a national championship one day. Might be 50 years from now, but it'll happen. And it'll be that much fucking sweeter when it does. You think about being... The fan of a, you're a Jets fan, a Bucs fan, fucking Cubs fans, not seeing shit from 19, you, that's Lions fans of degenerately losing teams get to enjoy wins so much more.
Pookah:Yeah, are you kidding me? I wept. I wept when the, and this isn't a joke. I'm not making this up. I wept when the Florida Panthers got out of the first round when they beat Boston in seven this year. I fucking wept. And then they went to round two and they played the Maple Leafs. Oh my God, because so many years of coming so close just can't beat, but that's the thing you pour, you're there for all of it. And the same thing, right? to say that I could have gone to this school and I could have gone to that school. I'm in the same boat as you. It may not sound like, but I was like top of my class could have gone anywhere and I went to usf And i'm like a hundred percent beyond it now. I've got other advanced degrees since then I don't root for those schools We're actually going to play one of them. We're going to play one of them in a couple weeks. I'm not going to root for them, obviously. But it's who cares that you got into another school? This is the school you support. You want to go support one of them? Great. Your fucking 5 a year donation is not going to make a difference for them or against us. Go. Go. glad we had you when we had you. But I'm not going to miss you. I don't even know who you are. Half the time I don't even know who I am.
Red:To put this in perspective and really sum up my point here, I've found a tweet that someone retweeted from, the Jupiter Bowl. It's from 2020 when we were in the heart of losing with Coach Strong and then trying to rebuild with Jeff Scott here. Yeah. the Jupiter Bowl said, my wife. Ask me why I keep watching USF football when it's driving me insane and likely taking years off my life. Me. Same reason I hang my kids ugly art on the fridge. I know it's the best they can do, I love them, and part of me hopes against hope that it'll be better. I
Pookah:couldn't say it better, you just
Red:ended the segment right there. You don't have a choice to fucking support them or not. You're gonna support them every week. If there's a choice, then you're probably not really a USF football fan. Fair,
Pookah:I will fight a UCF fan missing brain cells in the parking lot for this team. I would do some ugly deplorable things for USF and I have, I climbed at the first bowl game, Meineke Car Care Bowl, Charlotte, North Carolina, right? That's where it was. We played NC state, woke up the next day, hung over out of my mind, climbed a light post, stole the Meineke Car Care banner. I don't know where it's at to this day. I don't know where it is, but we had it for a while as a memory.
Red:If it's in the equipment room, that's definitely not the stolen
Pookah:That's not the stolen one! Oh God. That's when I threw up on the airplane. but anyway, that's what I'm talking about. Memories. It's what it is. It's connections. It's friendships. It's just something that like, I have a connection to USF and I always will. There you go. I always will. Man, I feel a lot better after getting that off my chest. Good. Do you? Eh.
Red:Not really, because I know those same fucking fans aren't going to actually leave. They'll still be around and... let him be around, like they pay their money there. It's the same, like I said, no, not many people actually live up to being reds. Ideal fan. I've come to accept that over the years, I just go and enjoy the football and don't really worry about the other fans around me too much. So
Pookah:the other side to it though, is they can stick around and they can continue to say dumb shit, but just don't be surprised when folks come for you. You can't be upset. You can't be upset when you. Do something dumb like that and other folks like wow, that's pretty stupid. Oh How dare you right? How dare you call me out for my shit take
Red:I Have no power to stop people from being USF fans. I have no power to stop being US citizens It's all the same fucking dumb takes on both sides. It's all around us Yeah, just gotta live to coexist and enjoy what you can man. Yeah bullshit when you really see it
Pookah:you know what? I will call out when I really see it The fucking stadium renderings. Where are we gonna get those
Red:things? I don't know. This is another thing where I just... I am not of the same... Call me on the spectrum or what, I don't know. I'm not on the same level as all the USF fans. I don't give a shit when the renderings come out, man. Like... It's gonna be a 35, seat stadium. It's gonna have metal bleachers. It's gonna be some sort of oblong shape around a football field.
Pookah:You think
Red:it's gonna have metal bleachers? For most of it, yeah.
Pookah:I hope we don't do that to ourselves, that's gonna be super uncomfortable.
Red:Look man, it's gonna be expensive. I don't think people realize how much their season tickets are going to go up yet. not for the people that are leaving. But this is exactly, I think this actually illustrates the point too of exactly what I mean by just start fucking rowing. I'm against the new stadium, personally. Don't, I love Raymond James. Don't think you're ever going to build something as good of it. I get it's not ours, but we could have spent a lot less money, turning the fucking seats green each weekend if we had to or some bullshit. I don't know. I personally am not driving for a new stadium, but now that we've made the decision that we're getting a new stadium, I'm on board. I'll fucking be donating my money, I'll be buying my seats, I'll be giving my feedback to make that stadium as good as we can for my experience and other fans experience. I'm rowing in the same direction. that's the decision someone made above me for the good of this program, for the good of the school. I'm in,
Pookah:that's the way to be about it. We're gonna catch some flack for you being against the stadium. We're gonna move on from that and pretend you didn't say that because we're, don't add us. I'm all for the stadium. I think it's a great idea. Red and I don't agree on this one.
Red:I guess you're, you want to stay in the American athletic conference too, huh? you're not for conference realignment.
Pookah:Oh, no, I'm definitely, we need to get the fuck out of here, but to be fair, a lot of the teams that have made the move are sucking ass in their new conferences. Oh yeah. That's
Red:nice to see. That's real. That is great to see. Cincinnati, Houston, and UCF all struggling big time in the big 12. Struggling,
Pookah:doing horrible. And great. Good.
Red:Also, SMU may win the AAC this year and then go accept to no money to get their ass beat by the, AAC, but yeah, we need to get the fuck out of here. Yeah. But first we got to win this fucking car. So like maybe in two years or so, do you think we win this conference in two years? if everyone keeps leaving, it's just us and yeah, it's just,
Pookah:nobody's even going to be listening to the pod. It's going to end some fans from the nineties. I feel like I remember when this team wasn't even really a team.
Red:But no, I think conference realignment is coming. it's, there's still so much movement going around. the ACC teams are ready to break apart at any time here. So when that happens, I'm hoping that'll be our moment again. It's one of those things, just like the renderings. It's fun to read some rumors and some clippings and all that kind of stuff, but when it happens it happens. There's nothing I Can do between now and then it just keep watching. Yeah,
Pookah:that's it I mean, we're just along for the ride. That's it. And we're either rowing or not.
Red:Oh You're stealing my metaphor now. Okay. Yeah,
Pookah:it's mine now. It's all mine.
Red:Conference Realignment. I feel like it's probably the ACC, could be the Big 12. Who knows what the fuck's going on with the Pac 2 over there. It's a wild time. it's a
Pookah:wild time
Red:in Conference Realignment. It's all about money. And on that money topic, NIL's driving all sorts of crazy shit there, too. Oh my gosh. You want to hear my real get off my lawn moment? You thought it was bad that Red doesn't like the stadium. Red fucking hates NIL, let me tell ya. No, I think I agree with you on this one. And it's not because I don't want the players to get paid. I have no problem with players getting some sort of compensation. I personally thought the hundreds of thousands of dollars they got in education, board, meals. Other stipends was enough at the time, but Hey, yeah, some guys probably deserve a little bit more for their actual marketing and the billions they're bringing in for the industry. I get that. Yeah. I just don't think the system we have now set up is the best way to do that. I would have done a little more something like. percentages of jersey sales or things like that. And you just put in a trust fund for guys and pay them out when they're leave those types of things versus it's pretty much a free for all out there of Hey, I'll give you 5, 000 to say you're showing up on my radio show or whatever and promotion and all that kind of stuff. there's some funny ones out there if a guy's got a cool last name or it's just feels so. Unregulated and there are some laws being passed and stuff like that, but I'm just not a fan of these collectives Even the fowler avenue one. I know they're good people there or well intentioned people I know some of them but like it's just You're asking fans to put a giant Amounts of money into a big pot and really have no visibility at all Of where that goes who that goes to
Pookah:I think this is, it's early days for NIL and the pendulum is going to swing. I think we will see some changes to how NIL is done. I agree with you a hundred percent. It's a wild West. I got money flying all over the place. and there, there used to be a reason why this didn't happen. There used to be a reason so that you couldn't offer guys money. Reggie Bush who lost his fucking Heisman over, these rumors about payment and money he got to go. To school and all this other stuff, now you're actively paying guys to go certain places. I think it's gonna, I think it's gonna change. I think whoever's in it right now should count their blessings, cause I don't think it's gonna be like this for later, iterations of college
Red:students. Obviously, we saw some direct impact to USF with that, with guys like Horne and Weaver and Battea leaving, and I know we were entertaining when we were together at the, for the Navy trip. We had a little drunken roundtable of, do we think that'll affect guys like Byron Brown? Is he here next year? And I think we, we came to the conclusion that he's probably not either A, good enough To really be poached away strongly. Although I did see some sort of article saying him to Baylor or something like that. It was complete speculation. Yeah, but I don't think we've seen guys who have just straight up been Poached away as a freshman or sophomore, like you still generally see it as, Hey, your coach left or you lost a battle or you're a graduate transfer or something like that. And you're moving like if you're the starting quarterback for a team, you're generally not just taking a payday to leave. And yeah, exactly. But maybe it will get to that point, but I don't think we're quite at that level yet. I'm not too worried. And then, Hey, it's a good problem to have, right? If someone's really good enough to be paid millions of dollars to go. Then it means they've probably done something in the first place, but then we
Pookah:lose them, and then it's not good. You know what else isn't good?
Red:No.
Pookah:The subway? no, that's also not good. but they do have some good tuna subs. This Michigan shit. Oh yeah. this is bad. First off, how do you get a guy who claims to have been in the military and maybe he was and be some like tactical kind of like genius whose name is Connor Stallions. And he has this wild shit on his LinkedIn before it got nuked about being some like tactical solution finder or something. And this guy comes to you and he's alright. I'm going to go to all these schools and I'm going to record their signals and then I'll bring it back to you. And then they found it on Michigan computers in like a folder on their computers. It must've been labeled like. Don't open.
Red:Not nude pictures.
Pookah:not for NCAA eyes. what is it? What the fuck are you all doing up there? Oh my god. And then to know that Harbaugh could probably escape to the NFL and be okay. We know what you're doing. We know what, you cheating bastards. And that's what kind of frustrates me. They're all cheating. All of them. Oh, yeah, all every last one of them. I believe Bama's cheating. I believe Clemson's cheating I believe fucking TCU's cheating, Ohio State, Michigan Florida was cheating for a long time because they had Urban Meyer and then Urban Meyer left and it was like oh all of a Sudden they're bad, right? These shady bastards that go to other schools and make them really good. I believe they're fucking cheaters And they finally get caught, and I believe the rest of, the rest of the NCAA knows that it's going on. It's just are you blatant about it? And I think hiring a guy named Conor Stallions and trotting him out to fucking UMass... I was like, what the fuck are y'all
Red:doing? yeah. I don't know where to start on this one. I think my favorite part is Michigan fans trying to be like... Oh, it's not that big of a deal because we didn't win every game, so it must not have been working, so if the cheating isn't paying off, then it's okay, right?
Pookah:huh, yeah. Okay, bud. Tom Brady didn't deflate every ball.
Red:it's, yeah. There's always cheating going on. Everyone's trying to cheat. Obviously, we fucking throw three guys out there behind black screens in fucking The Wiggles to try and distract people from what our signs are. So obviously everyone knows that people are trying to gather your signs. Yeah. Whether that's through, generally it's just trying to look across the sidelines or look from the coach's box, which is the appropriate okay amount of cheating. It's the recording and then analyzing after the game that is... Too much cheating.
Pookah:whoa, that cheating is too much. You have cheated too much.
Red:It's essentially what the NCAA rules say, right? we can't stop you from stealing signs because you have eyes and can look across the fuckin field. but we're just gonna limit you to make sure you're not investing too much money in this, essentially.
Pookah:And, Michigan was paying like airfare and shit.
Red:that would have been a nice gig to have if USF had offered that to us equipment managers. hey, we're gonna fly you to some of the biggest games in the country for... to go scout, you're gonna have 50 yard line seats, and you just gotta hold up your fucking phone and record for the game. I've been like, deal. Done. I would've
Pookah:fucked it up somehow. I definitely would've been like, oh shit, I, where are my nachos? And
Red:Oh shit, drop the phone in the beer. Oh damn. Oh, I've been recording the cheerleaders for the last half
Pookah:hour. My bad. Like I've got the camera on selfie view. And so you have three hours of just my face,
Red:this is great. We've been over before. You didn't, you couldn't get the signs right when you worked for the team. So I don't think you're going to be stealing other people's
Pookah:signs. And I knew the signs. That's what fucking is wild. I knew it. And I still messed them up. That shit ain't easy.
Red:It's tough. It's not easy. So beyond signs, I don't understand how teams don't pick up on audibles better. cause half the fucking, pass protections and stuff like that are like. Leo, which means left, or rhino, or right, I'm like, Or water used to be a hard count. I'm like, Do you guys not fuckin hear this like twice in a game and realize what's going on?
Pookah:Hey, this guy keeps saying Omaha, should we do something about that? And we, hold on, I don't get it, and it's not picking up, anyway, I'm going to try to sack him. Yeah. I think that doesn't make
Red:sense. That's it for our little fireside bi week chat here. Glad everyone could come join us for our,
Pookah:thanks for coming to my TED talk.
Red:I pictured more of a Mr. Rogers neighborhood than a TED talk. We're more welcoming and inclusive to that, and then that given all of our heartwarming comments towards USF fans. I'm proud of you, bud.
Pookah:I'm proud of you. Nice job. Yeah, so let's go back to, let's do a little,
Red:and
Pookah:go back to the season prediction check in. Where were we at? What do we have? We're at the bye week. We're what now? eight games in the season. So good math. Yeah. Thank you. I had to count real quick in my head. Eight games in the season coming into the last four late in the season to have a bye week.
Red:It is, but I think we made it through relatively. We had some injuries in there and some, what we hope was fatigue as guys were wearing down or whatever. So much needed bi week, but I think overall a fairly healthy season. We've had a couple of big injuries, but you always do, right? Definitely not like last season. We didn't, yeah, last season we lost Gary and Marsh right around now. So yeah. let's, yeah, let's go through some of the different headlines we had as we were going through the pre season. First one, we were, we're anticipating a QB battle.
Pookah:I haven't seen it. No. Do we even, the only time we've seen another quarterback, we haven't seen Gary at all. I don't know. Gary, are you okay? Blink if you need help.
Red:See, he's on the sidelines. He's probably wearing his jerseys. I'm assuming coaching and helping and being a mentor. So good
Pookah:for him. Which is great. The only two quarterbacks we've seen are Byram and Bryce. That's it.
Red:Yep. Which is good. I think, despite some people's, misgivings about Byron Brown, we have stuck with him and I have no doubt that he will knock on wood that he stays healthy. He will be our quarterback for the last four, maybe five games.
Pookah:Oh, but also a QB carousel going into the season. I like that Coach Goh, even when Byron was struggling. Just stuck with them just know that this is what we're going with Jeff Scott would have pulled Byron by now. We would have been through like two or three quarterbacks already two
Red:or three We might be on fucking Sean Atkins as quarterback by now under Jeff Scott, which may not necessarily
Pookah:be a bad thing
Red:we'll get we're getting there. We also were eager to see what Todd Orlando would look like his defense coordinator That was a big one coming in after the Glenn Spencer experiment gone wrong I
Pookah:think he's done a really good job scheming with what we've got. I don't know if it's because, like you said, a little bit later in the season, maybe we're tired, maybe just some guys are injured, but obviously the defense has fallen off the past couple weeks. I'm interested to see what happens after the bye, if we have the same defense that held Alabama the way we did, or if we have the bajillion points to FAU. It's going to be interesting to see who comes out. But I like... What Orlando's done. I think he was a good hire.
Red:I think we've seen a lot more fundamentals and non, non easy plays. You see fight out of the team, you see them making tackles most of the time, all that kind of stuff. And I blame it on Glenn Spencer, but he was two years ago. Who was the idiot we had last year? I don't even know. He didn't even make it through the season. But yeah.
Pookah:Who was the idiot we had last
Red:year? We had Shoop. Yeah.
Pookah:Bob Shoop. We had Shoop. And we were like, oh yeah,
Red:Shoop. Shoop. But yeah, I think Orlando Juries still out. I don't think he's always played a very dangerous scheme with a lot of, blitz heavy. It's going to be high risk, high reward. Gonna have to live with that, but I think he's coaching players.
Pookah:If we had the secondary, I think it would work. Yeah. I 100 percent think it would work. And we have a lot of freshmen on the team. In the O line room, we have a lot of freshman team in the secondary, safeties and stuff. Maybe we're developing some talent, hopefully we start to see some of those guys in the next couple seasons we're developing. Because if you have the secondary, who can cover those guys on the blitz, cause there's always going to be somebody open. Yep.
Red:we can play it. Yeah, that applies offensively, like you said, you talk about O line and receivers developing and stuff. For both offensive and defensive scheme, it's really... I'm not judging too much this season, like I'm looking for moments. I'm trying to see what we can get out, look for individual players or different things that worked. But honestly, until you, I think next year is really the year we hold the feet to the fire.
Pookah:Yeah, 100%. I agree. So does that make us kind of like this year, a quote glorified C USA come up?
Red:Yeah, I don't know which one of us said that, but, that was one of our takes as we are previewing the conference and talking about all these other glorified Conference USA come ups, like your UABs and your FAUs who we just got blown out by and, but we beat Rice. So we're right in the mix with all these other, I'm pretty sure that's exactly what we are right now. I think we've got the ability to rise. Above that, more so than those teams, but the reality is that's exactly where we are right now.
Pookah:Yeah. I'm okay with that because we were, CUSA wasn't that bad. They just weren't a great conference, right? We were right in the mix whenever we were in the CUSA and then we went to the big East. Like I, I thought those were good years for USF. So I'm not too upset about being a glorified CUSA come up. Now, if it's time for conference realignment and we're still looking like a CUSA, like bottom feeder, we got a problem. But. Yeah.
Red:Yeah. The day FAU goes into the ACC and we don't is the day. I have, I might lose a arm or an eyeball or something. I don't know.
Pookah:I'll find you watering Dale Mabry. No shoes.
Red:You won't find me saying I'm not a USF fan, but I'll still be in a... I'll be in quite the
Pookah:state. You'll have the old school ball logo tattooed on your chest. Talking to yourself. Speaking of talking to myself, I don't know how that's a segue to the next part, but we did actually spend a lot of time talking about what players were going to be good this season, or who we were looking for. I was really looking forward to Dom Ganella, who hasn't done shit. I've
Red:seen him on the sidelines a couple times. Yeah. He's handing out water real good. He's
Pookah:doing a great job, but. I had Atkins. I said at the beginning of the season, I also had, I think we talked a lot about joiner and seeing where he would fit in and he hasn't done too much.
Red:Yeah, that's a disappointing one for sure. you had Atkins item, Morris Brown, even Brown, although you can tell he's definitely our best corner and he's dealt with a lot of injuries and hasn't been able to stay out there a lot. So I'm hoping he's someone who can finish strong. And I think I also mentioned Naquan Wright during the preseason. So he's come on last couple of weeks. that's nice to see. He's by far the best. The best preseason prediction was you with Sean Atkins, of course,
Pookah:I'll say one of the, maybe one of the negative surprises of the season is like some folks in the receiver room, like use of Terry, like, where does that guy gone? And like some of the other receivers, we maybe saw some previous seasons where those guys are at. Definitely, if we're talking about best player of the season surprise, like, how is it not Atkins? The guy has had more receptions this season in eight games than he had in the last two seasons combined times two. I
Red:hope everyone listening at home could follow that, follow along with that math. I'll
Pookah:just do it for you. He had 25 total receptions in the past two seasons. He's got 51 so far through eight games.
Red:Boom. Man knows his Sean Atkins stats. Sean Atkins!
Pookah:Cause Sean Atkins, my man, you are doing it, son. Does he have an NIL deal? Cause he should have one.
Red:He's going to be the first carrying cord NILDL. Yeah, I hope he's good. I don't know how he doesn't have just an Atkins diet NILDL. a hundred percent. Is Atkins diet not a thing anymore? Maybe, I don't know. Maybe they rebranded. Rebranded into keto and all that kind of shit.
Pookah:And then they're coming up with new names when they, whenever something starts killing people, they just change it, the name. I'm pretty sure some people died on Atkins, but not this Atkins. But he's out there killing motherfuckers. He's up there doing it. how is he not the surprise of the season to come out and just blow up like that? it's amazing. He's become a centerpiece of this offense. I think it's great. I
Red:think it's great. There you go. I think other nominees, maybe Braxton Clark, he's been holding down the second corner position. Yeah. some up and down play, but he's been out there starting every week. So you got to hold on to that, Tavon Ward out there when Mars Brown's been down, he's another young corner. I think. Probably Jalen Shuler though, starting middle linebacker, right?
Pookah:He, for me, it has to be him. He's leading the team with 55 total tackles. I think the next closest person to him is either Evans or Stokes. I'd have to go back and look, but he's absolutely killing it.
Red:Which is crazy because... Coach Golish talks about too is Oh, he wants to call Schuller, a young guy or a guy who wasn't here. He was here last year. He just was relegated to not doing anything. And now he's out here being the, not just making the tackles, like you say, but leading the defense, making the calls, getting everybody set up. Yeah.
Pookah:And that's what gives me hope when folks are like, Oh my gosh, we're going back or this team is regressing or anything like that. It's situations like that, where we had guys here last year who weren't doing anything, we had new coaches come in, keep those guys and find talent to where they are leading the team. Now we have found talent in what we had and that when you say we were struggling with coaching the past couple of seasons, there's a sign that we brought in the right people
Red:and, another example, we give this guy a lot of shit. And he's had some ups and downs, and we've also called him out for being accountable. Logan Berryhill, I just thought of him. He's the guy who fuckin played wide receiver for a couple last years under... Jeff Scott. and now you're the starting safety and one of the leaders on defense there too. again, some mismanagement,
Pookah:you look who we had at safety and those guys aren't even really playing Matt Hill, maybe one of the biggest surprises that he was still playing last season and he's done some work on special teams this year. T Mac, is that guy even still around? Where is he? Yeah. Will Jones. Where's that guy? Haven't seen him. He's not here. But we've got other guys coming in and filling in the gaps and we have talent on this team that was here that maybe wasn't getting an opportunity and it is now there's a, there's somebody else who's, we kind of give him some crap a little bit, but Simmons is actually having a pretty good season. He's the second leading receiver.
Red:We gave him some crap. he sucked
Pookah:a hundred percent suck, but the dude's got 28 receptions for 457 yards, three touchdowns. He's averaging like 16
Red:yards a catch. Wasn't all of that just in one game?
Pookah:I think it was, but hell who cares? I think he had 21 of those receptions in one game.
Red:Needless to say, even us being fairly plugged into the team, following guys coming in and their development, plenty of guys who took us by surprise, some other guys who we thought were going to do some stuff and didn't plenty of those guys. but let's look forward to the last four weeks here. Name me a player. We really haven't seen much from yet, whether he's been out there and not producing or just hasn't been gotten a shot yet.
Pookah:Yeah. So I definitely think it's going to be one of these guys who's in the secondary, one of these freshmen. Who's in the secondary room, right? Maybe one of the safeties. Maybe one of the defensive banks. I like how you put Lee here. I think he might be a guy that gets a shot. why not? Why not? Especially coming in towards the end of the season, especially if we're not bull eligible and just we kind of trickle into the season, give these other guys a shot. maybe they make an impact.
Red:Yeah, we'll see. I think it will tell a lot about what it is. Coach Golish's mindset is and things like that as we look at these last four games with red shirts and you know I don't have the game count on some of these freshmen and all that kind of stuff of how many they've already been in how Many they have left. It's a tough call to make honestly of you want to always play the best guy You don't want to hurt his development by playing him too early. Sure. You don't want to waste a year If you feel like he's someone who is going to develop and not leave early, those types of things. So look, I trust that the coaches will have those conversations with the players themselves, come to a decision between them and let's put it this way. There's no one out there who they think would be in every downstart or who is not playing for the sake of saving a red shirt, I don't think so it's your fringe guys, it's your guys looking for opportunities and you got four games now. So I think you can have a. You could start for a game and get your shot to really show that you deserve to be there and earn that spot for the rest of the season. If we do make a bowl game, I believe that game is now free towards your eligibility, so anybody can play in that one, I think. Oh, even better. Perfect. but yeah. I like Lee or Bayard at defense. Both of them are true freshmen, hopefully they get a shot. One guy who I'd like to see maybe come on strong at the, maybe the wide receivers, Jaden Alexis, he's played a little bit but really hasn't had his moment where he's put it together yet. I know everyone's been clamoring for Tyree Kelly, the true freshman wide receiver. he's been out there for a couple series as well. I haven't really seen him do anything. We talked about, who was our boy last week? Oh, Cole Skinner. Cole Skinner.
Pookah:I was just about to say, we got, we have a bunch of freshmen in the O line room. Cole Skinner got the nod, right? and actually started, didn't he? He came out and played like a hog molly. That got a lot of attention on the board too. You fucking used the hog molly, that I thought you
Red:made everyone going through the, the Germanic origins of the word. can you use that in a sentence? And,
Pookah:hog, hog molly. I do. I think that's awesome. Guys like that, that you see, all right, I'm going to give you a shot. Get out there and play. And they actually might've earned their spot. it's
Red:awesome. One guy, maybe. Who's not a young guy, but maybe has some gas left in the tank a kelly joiner He's you know, you mentioned him being quiet for most of the season. Maybe he's got something to offer That would be awesome.
Pookah:He's a fast guy. I haven't we haven't seen too many jet sweeps too many end arounds I need that work actually right and so Maybe we have some speed there with him. We can we don't really do too many two back sets
Red:I know that's something K is pining for. Every week we got a message about where's the two back sets. We don't
Pookah:do a lot of two back sets. And so maybe there's something to scheme up with Joiner Bank there with some motion out into the
Red:slot. You mentioned the two back set. This is just a random aside, but my favorite offense formation USS ever won, ever run, excuse me, the old wishbone. What did we call it when we had Jamar Taylor, Mike Ford and Ben Williams out there? I don't remember what we called it. It was, I liked it. I liked, I loved the three running back formation though. It was great.
Pookah:It was great. You
Red:never knew where it was coming from. I don't know how successful it was, but I loved it. Mike Ford was good. Jamar Taylor was pretty good too. Wish he'd done been able to do more. Yeah, a hundred
Pookah:percent. Speaking of doing more, what's coming after the buy, my friend, what do we got?
Red:Yeah, man, we are, we have not, we've, like we said, jam packed episode. We haven't even gotten to the Memphis preview yet, but that's who's coming after the buy. Right now, we're ranked, 114 SP rankings. As we've been saying, there's two teams above us, and the two teams above us are pretty, they're pretty gapped far ahead of us. They're the best two teams we've played besides Bama, Memphis and UTSA. They're at 57 and 61, respectively. We're at 114 in the middle and then the two teams we hopefully beat are Temple and Charlotte who are pretty nice gap below us at 129 and 131 yeah in dangerous contention for worst team in the NCAA this year, so I Like it though
Pookah:I mean like it until we'd lose until we lose them a la Temple of last year, but I mean that To two of the teams we have left way below us. We win two of those that gets us our six and six. Yep.
Red:Which is right where everybody thought we were going to be at the beginning of this.
Pookah:You had it as, as a two and 10 man, two and 10. Oh, ye of little faith. you weren't threatening to pull back your season tickets. Nope.
Red:But I am pleasantly surprised at being wrong. I'm looking at a lot more besides just the win loss column. As I'm, like I said, I'm really looking for your two goalish already, your three, where this team could be, but I'm happy to take the wins in the meantime, certainly makes it a lot more enjoyable and a lot more fun to talk
Pookah:about. So it makes it a lot more exciting during the game when you know, Hey, we can actually win this against UConn. This is a team that's not going to give up.
Red:And it gives you more to judge. because you. You try to evaluate all these different plays and players in a vacuum, but the thing is you want guys who are going to go out there and do shit when the game's on the line, right? Absolutely. It means a lot more to see a guy run for a touchdown. And execute his play when it's a tie game in the fourth quarter and you need to play to win versus He ran and did what he's meant to do when you're down 21 and no one really cared. Wah wah wah wah. Yeah. yeah. So I predicted 2 in 10. You actually predicted 7 in 5. I'm not
Pookah:far off. If we can sneak one out.
Red:You're a big fan of sneaking one out. I know. I'm
Pookah:a huge fan of sneaking one out. But I don't know that I'm going to change any of my predictions, for the last four of the season.
Red:Yeah, so you're 7 and 1 overall in your predictions. Yeah. I don't really understand how you're 7 and 1 and I'm 5 and 3, but I guess it's, we got some. Cause you suck. Yeah, That's how. But. and the problem is we only have one game we differ from in the final four, so I've done the math and realized I can't beat you in the predictions unless I change something. But I'm sticking with it anyways. I'm not that type of guy. You're sticking with what you
Pookah:had? Yeah. Okay. I'm sticking with what, we both had lost to Memphis. I think we're sticking with that. Yep. You had a loss to Temple because you're scarred.
Red:Yeah, I will admit that might be the one place where the, the results of last year may be skewing my unbiased opinion of this
Pookah:year. It's hurt you deep. I have us winning there. We both have us losing to UTSA. If we're going to sneak one out in my mind, that's where we sneak one out. UTSA. Yeah, at the Alamo Dome. and then we both have us winning. I'm not changing my prediction. I think we'll still lose, but I think there's one we might actually sneak out there. and then we both have us winning against Charlotte at Ray J. with that, with us both losing to Memphis,
Red:let's find out
Pookah:why. Let's find out why.
Red:so Memphis, 12 and a half point under dogs here. we are. Yeah. No, we're
Pookah:not clear. I had to clarify. I had to make sure folks know that. we've played
Red:them a lot. We have not quite as much as you come, but quite a lot where we're owing to this year is the double digit dog. but two of our not worst games. Western Kentucky, that first game. We ended up losing, by two scores we didn't cover, but, and then Alabama, we covered that one, but that was still pretty, pretty good effort late in the game. So
Pookah:we come out in surprise against some pretty good
Red:teams. but Memphis is six and two, they're three and one in the conference, they've beat Navy, UAB and North Texas. Okay. They lost to Tulane. They lost to Missouri out of conference. and they beat some other shitty teams. I don't remember. Those are the key ones. The things I want to focus on in there. Two losses, both games, they threw two guy in teas in their two recent wins against, I think it's UAB in North Texas. They scored 45, had no turnovers, played a balanced offense. So you can kind of see maybe the key differential there and some turnovers right off the bat. But even with no turnovers, they struggled against North Texas, which was surprising. I watched quite a bit of that game.
Pookah:right up till the end because they had to come up late against North Texas. And it's not like North Texas is a powerhouse
Red:now. no. Yeah, I was watching that one at halftime and I was like, Oh, I think they got this one pretty easily. Flipped around to some other games, came back in the fourth quarter, North Texas put up 21 straight in the fourth quarter, take the lead. Nice Memphis having to come score like a two minute drive touchdown to come win it, which they did. So they got that ability. don't be shocked if we get a late lead, take it back from us. But still that was more than more effort than they were expecting to have to give them that game. Absolutely. And
Pookah:maybe, maybe they're tired this week because of it.
Red:Who knows? One, one guy has got to be tired. The quarterback, Seth Hennigan, he's thrown for over 9, 000 yards in his, he didn't like that burp. You're right over there.
Pookah:So there we go. Why don't you say
Red:it again? Seth Hennigan. Just in case Puka needs to take that audio out. Nope, it's all
Pookah:staying. Seth Hennigan. Hennigan.
Red:That's how you have to say his name every time he says,
Pookah:Oh, there was something I wanted to get again. Number two. he's throwing a lot. he's throwing a lot. 9, 000 yards, 60 touchdowns. His career. He'll probably match that this week.
Red:probably double that up. That's how it feels when everyone plays USF. It's just like they're on a run playing blackjack. They're like double down. Let's do it.
Pookah:That's what I'm telling you. Every time someone says career day, drink. He is having a career day. This man who has never played football in his life. He has no legs. He has had a career day for Russian touchdowns against USF. Oh my God, man. On
Red:that note, Hennigan is a, is a able runner. he's not out, he's not Byron Brown, but he can convert a key third down or something if we don't. Keep them in check. He
Pookah:will then, cause that's, we are notorious
Red:for letting that happen. Yeah, that was a little bit of a premonition forecast there. they also have a quite a good running back number four, Blake Watson. He's got 120 carries, 762 yards and nine touchdowns. And they had some other running back last week who was just doing the short yardage stuff. He had four, four, one yard touchdowns or something like that. but yeah, Memphis is good. So they're going to put up some points on us. What do we need to do? Don't go down early. I think we saw that last week that if we can stay in the game, for struggling, we always have a shot to pull it out. If we're down 14, nothing early, then we get out of kind of our game plan. Yeah. It gets to 56 real quick.
Pookah:Absolutely. And then we're struggling because there's no way we're coming back from that.
Red:Yeah, but keep it a game going into the fourth, see what happens. that's, it's kind of what happened with Western Kentucky and Alabama. We stuck, we hung around, we stayed in it. Yeah, they pulled away late, but give yourself a shot at least. maybe things bounce differently. You got it. You got to be in it to win it, right?
Pookah:A hundred percent. maybe something comes with it. We had a little bit more time to prepare. We saw, we got to see what North Texas did against Memphis, so we got some stuff on tape. maybe that works in our favor. Hopefully that works in
Red:our favor. Yeah. I really want to see the bi week difference here. both offensively. I want to see kind of for the first time, show me what this offense really looks like. You've had eight weeks of working out some kinks, getting guys into the game, trying different guys out of different positions, all that kind of stuff. Figuring out who your best 11 are on the football field. Now you've had a bye week to look at film, break that down, let guys get healthy if they're banged up, rest. I want to see, put our best foot forward this week and show me. Without excuses. What your best looks like.
Pookah:if you're asking me what I want to see on offense, I love the hurry up offense. I want to continue to see that, but I want to see the field shortened. I want to see us get ahead of the sticks. I want to see us. So guys aren't having to run all the way back down the field because we're going deep over the top, right? let's Let's get short yardage situations. Let's get a balanced offensive attack. Go to Sean Atkins on the outside, start opening up those deeper routes and take those shots a little less often, right? And actually just build sustained drives. That's what we need because the defense is going to need some rest for sure.
Red:The defense on, did we miss a whole fucking section in here somewhere? We did,
Pookah:but we just kept going. It was like Memphis' history against us, so we just
Red:we kept rolling it. I had shit to say in there. we'll come, we'll circle back to that. We'll circle back to that. We'll come back around guys. There's a bi week for us too. We're, yeah, we're shit to cut. We're still working through. Cause I was going to segway into something. I was like, wait, but we didn't talk about that yet. what are you going to talk
Pookah:about
Red:though? So defense, Memphis is a team that can score on a score on us quickly. I just want to see our fundamentals reset. Guys are healthy. They're not thinking too much. They're not overcompensating out there. Hopefully we've got our best 11. We can just see the football, run to the football, tackle, play coverage. Don't we've had a week to. Talk about how we blew coverages where we're miscommunicating what we were not liking when we were Yeah Switching guys or what have you right because a lot of it is players need to get good coaching you have to give good feedback to the coaches about what you're seeing what you are able to understand or Physically able to do hey when you tell them I know you're telling me to switch to that guy But when you do I just can't He's got a step on me and he's beat me already, but by the time I switched or something like that, all those sorts of things of I can't get under that guy. I got to go over here. All that type of stuff. You have to give that back to your coaches. And a lot of times you don't necessarily have the full time to do that until the bye week of really Looking at that and being honest with yourself, self scouting and all that kind of stuff. And
Pookah:I think I would love to see, to that end, if we're just not getting it, drop the zone. Drop the handoffs. Let's just go man on the outside and try to scheme up some stuff that's going to throw their quarterback off. Get him off his game. Go man on the outside. Put an extra guy in the box and throw him off and try to stunt and see if we can't get him calling for blitz and getting guys kind of off their game. Why not? We're going to have to get creative with Memphis if we actually want to win this game, because it's a good team.
Red:Yeah. And that's really what it boils down to too, of. Surprise us with a win if you want, I'm not going to complain about that, but really what I'm asking for is show me something that gives me hope going in, gives me some confidence about this team going into the temple. Hope's the wrong word because temple has taken, eliminated all hope from me. I am
Pookah:seriously considering going back to last year's temple preview and pulling some audio bits of you being like, I don't think you realize how bad temple is and bringing that into this just as a
Red:reminder, a little bulletin board material for the pod. I gotcha. Yeah. So we skipped a section. Yeah, go back. We missed out on the Memphis history. We talked about how often we'd, Played them and then we jumped right into the line and all that kind of stuff. But again, they're very familiar opponent They've been a real thorn in our side since we became we were originally conference mates in the conference USA but that was before me, but then they joined the American we've really extended our Playing against them. We're four and seven all time two and three on the road currently on a two game losing streak and we're one in five against them in the American conference, so Definitely not a team we've seen good success against. Not good, Bob. Not good. Now, one very fond memory, 2008, before they joined the conference, we played them in the St. Pete Bowl. And you may ask, what's important about that? One, we schlacked them.
Pookah:Just absolutely.
Red:Two, we debuted the White Helmets for the first time in that. I know that's a very special, fond moment
Pookah:for one K Dawg. Yeah, he
Red:loves them White Helmets. He was polishing those things every night at his house.
Pookah:He's polishing something every night
Red:at his house.
Pookah:This fucking poor bastard can never get out here and defend himself. It's the dude jacks off at night and he sucks at hockey and wait till we get to his pecs.
Red:Oh man. What else we got against Memphis, 2014 was our lone win in the conference against them. We went 49 to 42, crazy offensive game back and forth. Flowers had 200 passing, 200 yards rushing as well, and five total touchdowns. He just went off in that game to just manned up and won it for us. Rodney Adams had like a 90 yard sweep for a touchdown in that one too. It was a nice game. a little heart palpitations though, that I swore in late in the
Pookah:game. I love
Red:those games, man. I'm more of a, I'm more of a 3 0 guy myself, but that's just the defensive nature over here.
Pookah:That's why your ass falls asleep during football
Red:games. only during the timeouts and it's like I'll be well rested for the important moments. it's called Efficiency. Oh, okay. 2020, that's the most recent game we had against them. We lost 33 to 34 in the most Jeff Scott fashion ever. maybe, we didn't know it at the time, but maybe the epitome of what it would mean for the next three years to be a Jeff Scott football team. We actually had a decent offensive effort. We put up 27 in the first half. We settled for field goals in the second half, but we're still up 13 with 436 to go in the game. Yep. Here comes
Pookah:the USF defense.
Red:Yeah. we had some guys who are still around. Tramell Logan. He was a freshman. He had a sack in the game. Dequan Evans had a pick, I think maybe a pick six actually in that one. Kelly Joyner had a long touchdown. So some familiar names are still around. maybe wanting some revenge against Memphis, but yeah, with four 36 to go, we gave up two 70 yard plus drives in about a minute each and lost the game by one. Amazing. Just classic. Just got time management, end of game. situational football was never the plus strong
Pookah:suit. No. And so where does that tie into what you're going to say that the defense is going to be the key to this game? It was the 2
Red:70 plus yard drives at the end is what was trying to tie in since Memphis pretty much just done that last week against North Texas as well. That was gonna be my tie in point.
Pookah:I'm gonna I'm going to come with some hot analysis here, hot
Red:take. You don't think it's going to come down to the last minute drive in the fourth quarter? No,
Pookah:maybe it does. Maybe it does. All I'm saying is we can't let them do that. I don't care what we have to do. Coach go. If you have to trip a guy on the sideline, do it. Do it. Nice. Take him out. I'm okay with it. if Michigan can steal signs, we can trip dudes on the sideline and get away with it. I'm okay with it. Everybody's cheating. Do it. Move the goalposts literally.
Red:In college football, I'm surprised that no one has employed the last second defense of just tackle the fucking wide receiver before he gets the ball. Yeah. It's only a 15 yard penalty. It's only 15 yards, just keep doing it. don't do it right off the bat, because you need the clock to run and all that kind of stuff. But you let the play develop, and you run with him, and then if he tries to catch it, you just fucking tackle him. Just
Pookah:tackle him, and then they'll get, what, an untimed down? Yeah. Okay, great, they get an untimed down. Then you know you just gotta play prevent. That's it. Yep. Tackle the motherfucker again, get him 62 untimed downs. We'll do this all night long,
Red:baby. Eventually the refs will swallow the flags.
Pookah:Speaking of swallowing, it's time for Kay's
Red:Bumper Dump. Gotta love it when those transitions aren't even written in there. Although he'll never believe that we didn't set him up That we
Pookah:didn't set that one up. That was beautiful. We didn't get any pics from Kay last
Red:week. Yeah, he had the week off too. Or maybe he and you were on a romantic trip together. Do I smell intrigue? Drama?
Pookah:The white helmets weren't the only thing he was polishing.
Red:We already used that joke. You can't say that again. Yeah,
Pookah:but I've got my own weight helmet.
Red:We've already talked, we've split off the episode talking about your apparatus over
Pookah:there. And here it comes again. Literally. What's
Red:he got? It only took you 44 minutes to recharge over there. Boom! He's got, Notre Dame minus three over Clemson. He's taken Notre Dame, thinks they'll cover.
Pookah:100%. That's easy
Red:money. You think, I think he just, I think he just doesn't like Jeff Scott's daddy Dabo over there doesn't like all the comments he's been making about the... I'm loving it. Clemson's losing a couple games see the real Dabo over here talking about his sports psychologist committing suicide and needing to lighten the bandwagon. I love it when coaches get a little feisty. Let it out a little bit.
Pookah:That's like they say you see a true person. When they're hungry or when they're tired you see a true football coach when they start losing when they're like We've got a couple national championships. You start losing. I'm pretty sure Nick Saban is like legitimately losing his mind right now Someone might need to look out for him Who's
Red:he got next? He's got Nebraska minus three over Michigan State. Kay's always had a hard on for Matt rule
Pookah:rightfully so didn't do too great in the NFL, but
Red:Yeah, Panthers were not, just not great without him either though. Uh, UCLA minus one and a half against Arizona. Another favorite coach of Kay's, Chip Kelly.
Pookah:I
Red:think Kay still has wet dreams about Chip Kelly being the head coach of the Bucs, but that never happened. Although I've heard rumors that it was very close.
Pookah:Yeah, that's all. It's all rumors, baby. what is, did he make a pick? I thought he was staying away from USF.
Red:No. Yes, but no. Okay. he is staying away from USF, but that is his actual pit. It's not that it's too close to call, he's literally saying USF, no chance they cover against Memphis. Okay.
Pookah:He's just, yeah, maybe he's just hoping if he goes with one side, it'll be the other or something. Sure. I don't know. Yeah, sure. Whatever. Who do you got? this may come as a surprise. After I just said who I was going to pick this week and that I wasn't changing my prediction. But I think Memphis is going to take this one. And I think they're going to take it 56 21. Giving us our third 56 point.
Red:56 par trah? Point,
Pookah:par dwa trah? Dry? You're going
Red:German.
Pookah:Yeah, dry. Trace? 3. We're fuckin doing it again. 56 21 Memphis. Wins it. We just can't get the offense going. We start trying to get a little bit too cute with it. And then Memphis just gets into a groove and pounds it down our ass. Throats. Something,
Red:whatever orifice they feel like,
Pookah:yeah, they'll find one. They'll find one. Trust me. Cover your
Red:ears, folks.
Pookah:Who do you got?
Red:Fairly similar, but I think we keep it a little closer. Okay. 45 39 Memphis wins. Maybe that's a late touchdown by us to cover something along those lines, make it look closer than it really was, but we hang around, we're not. The game's not over, let's put it that way, but we're never, we don't really have a shot to win it. It's, just enough to keep us hanging on.
Pookah:Just enough to make us angry at the end of the game, instead of okay, yeah, that's what we expected. we'll probably have some opportunities to win it, is what you're saying, and we'll be like, oh, motherfucker. Yeah, if we
Red:had coach prime, we would have won that one.
Pookah:We won that or like some breath call at the end that we're all going to be talking about for another week. God, I hope not. Cause that just ruins the rest of my fucking day. on the road again, on the road again, we are off to Memphis, Tennessee for this one.
Red:Every time, I know it says that I'm meant to say yeehaw, but I didn't really read this beforehand and I have a comment to make about Memphis, Tennessee, and I know we're in the outro so I'm sorry everyone for bleeding this a little longer. Every time I hear about Memphis, I always picture this press clip from the show New Girl. You familiar with that show? No. I didn't really watch the show, but it had Sure. Two actors, and they were promoting this, it's in the vein of Big Bang Theory, all that, sitcom, boy meets girl type shit. yeah. and they're on, the local news in Memphis, promoting their show, and they're high or drunk as fuck. And the newscaster's So tell us about your show! And he's Get your ass off Broadway tonight and stay home and what and the newscaster's Broadway's in Nashville. It's Beale Street in Memphis and they just start dying hysterically and they're like, yeah, the show will be on at, 9 Eastern and the newscaster breaks in again. She's actually, Memphis is in central time zone. So that'll be 8 for the folks at home trying to watch your show and you guys are just dying. It's a good clip. You should check it out. I should.
Pookah:What does that have to do with
Red:USF football? It's just Memphis, Tennessee. It's got nothing
Pookah:to do with us. But it's staying in there. Yee haw! Yee haw! Let's not get that excited. Because it's probably going to be an ass whooping.
Red:Probably?
Pookah:we have been wrong before. So it's a 3 p. m. kick. ESPN
Red:Plus. Did you know it's Memphis homecoming? And you know who just beat, got beat on their homecoming? By who? did we just beat someone on their homecoming? we got beat on our homecoming, but then we also beat UConn on their homecoming. Oh.
Pookah:does that sound like
Red:hope, Red? Nah, definitely not. I'm just like to point out asinine facts like that. Okay.
Pookah:Like two drunk people promoting their show in Memphis. Should be a nice day for some football. I think it's got a high in the 70s or something, low in the 50s in Memphis. You can catch us anywhere you listen to PODS. Follow us on Xtweet. We got our social media manager tweeting some
Red:wild shit out there. Also, just to clarify that little aside I just said. That should also point out to those of you going to the game the game is at 2 p. m. Local time 3 p. m. Eastern
Pookah:3 p. m. Eastern good. Thank For that
Red:if there's something that we could take away from that random rant that I went on it's that so might as well Do a little bit out of there. It's
Pookah:2 p. m You can catch us over on the bulls pen too. That's always a good time as always y'all go bulls
Red:go bulls
Pookah:Bye