Carrying Cord: A USF Football Pod
Carrying Cord: A USF Football Pod
Gettin Loose In Tuscaloosa (Alabama Preview)
Send us whatever is on your mind.
The disrespect is unbelievable. Everyone thought we were dead and gone, but you can't keep us down! Biggest upset win since 2007 coming your way this week and you heard it here first on Carrying Cord. Come for Red's fastest minute in sports and stay for the happy ending.
Somebody shut that crying kid up. We got a podcast to record. Ding dong, baby, the witch is dead! No more Nick Saban. He was the only thing standing between us and the wind. So, fasten your seatbelts, folks. Welcome back to CaringCord. It is week two. I am Pooka.
red_1_09-02-2024_200812:I'm red.
squadcaster-54g1_1_09-02-2024_200829:You always pause a little too long there. Like you don't know that you're supposed to say your name right after I say my name. Ding dong. I don't know what you're waiting
red_1_09-02-2024_200812:I just, I like the computer to take it out.
squadcaster-54g1_1_09-02-2024_200829:We're pumped. We're going to Alabama this week. Not just the team. We're going to Alabama this week. We're going to mention it. We're going to mention it more times than someone that does CrossFit talk about their workout routine. That we are going to Alabama this week. We're going to take in the sights and sounds of Tuscaloosa on our way, I call it last week, to a huge upset victory. We're going to do it,
red_1_09-02-2024_200812:Tuscaloosa.
squadcaster-54g1_1_09-02-2024_200829:Tusk Tuscaloosan. Maybe you should leave the jokes to me. I don't know. Maybe not. Maybe they're mine are just as bad as yours. What do you Let's just
red_1_09-02-2024_200812:before we get into our grand trip to Alabama, we did play a little football game this weekend. We want to hit that quickly.
squadcaster-54g1_1_09-02-2024_200829:I meant
red_1_09-02-2024_200812:Keep it to a nice tight 15.
squadcaster-54g1_1_09-02-2024_200829:were trying to I put this Can 15? We're getting behind the scenes. We should have commented that out. I, I meant to look up where Bethune Cookman is, I don't even know where it is.
red_1_09-02-2024_200812:It's like Daytona somewhere, I
squadcaster-54g1_1_09-02-2024_200829:Is it, like, Florida?
red_1_09-02-2024_200812:Yeah.
squadcaster-54g1_1_09-02-2024_200829:Like, it's in the same state?
red_1_09-02-2024_200812:It is in the same state.
squadcaster-54g1_1_09-02-2024_200829:Man, they still played, like, dog shit. I mean, what were your thoughts? I was excited for a football game. I will admit that I was doing the little iPad Cocoa Melon Baby thing. Cause, dinner, we had dinner plans, all this other stuff, so I had the iPad. I had my phone, actually. And I was watching the game on my phone while engaging in conversation. and then my fantasy football draft was two hours into what apparently was a six hour long game. So I had split screen on my Samsung Galaxy S 22 ultra doing my draft and watching the football game.
red_1_09-02-2024_200812:All that to say, that is why you're not going to have any hot takes on the game and you'll leave all the analysis to
squadcaster-54g1_1_09-02-2024_200829:Oh, I've got some, I've got some hot shots, my friend. I'm getting some ready. I'm ready. I mean, it feels like what you want to happen in the opener. Wow.
red_1_09-02-2024_200812:to kind of check on and hopefully that's not too bad. We played a lot of different guys, 18 true freshmen. And we did what we were supposed to do, and I guess that's a good thing because a lot of cases we haven't. But it just didn't feel exciting, doesn't feel. Like, oh yeah, we're definitely gonna go beat Alabama next week. Like, we didn't do anything stunning. But, but we took care of business.
squadcaster-54g1_1_09-02-2024_200829:we did. We look good doing it. Uniforms look pretty nice. Uniforms look clean. So great job to the equipment staff lately has been kind of pulling a bad name, bad rap for the equipment staff for this
red_1_09-02-2024_200812:We'll get to that, we'll get to
squadcaster-54g1_1_09-02-2024_200829:to that. Yeah. We don't want to ruin any of the content. We look good doing it. That's just. It's very early on, because I'm pretty sure first drive we go, we go three and
red_1_09-02-2024_200812:three and out,
squadcaster-54g1_1_09-02-2024_200829:we go three and out. And it's, you get that moment of like, oh, fuck. Here we go again. This is exactly how the season's going to go. It didn't look like throughout the game that we had necessarily expanded the playbook. It looked like a lot of short, we took some, some deep shots that didn't really seem to be there.
red_1_09-02-2024_200812:Absolutely. Um, look, we'll start with some of the, the good. Like, there was no huge daggamits of why the heck are we doing that, we can't get lined up right, or we're having troubles with the new helmet communication system, or I'd say the biggest flaw was probably our inability to get short yardage runs. And I'm looking towards the O Line primarily on that. Um, the only, you know, no huge controversies in the game. The refs were fine for the most part, except for one weird gaffe over how many downs there were.
squadcaster-54g1_1_09-02-2024_200829:They spent a lot of time talking about that.
red_1_09-02-2024_200812:It was, it was super messed up, but the bigger takeaway there was we had like four downs, maybe five downs to get two yards and we didn't get it. anyways. So
squadcaster-54g1_1_09-02-2024_200829:That was the weird
red_1_09-02-2024_200812:get it on one of the first two downs and there's no controversy. So
squadcaster-54g1_1_09-02-2024_200829:could, we, we could drive the ball, and the run was working pretty well, especially as Byron started to hold on to it. And, you know, Wright and Joyner, I think even Keith got some good yards. But really, like, we would drive down the field, and then would kinda, I don't know if we would stall, or if their goal line defense was better than ours. Our offensive line. I don't know what it was, but we just could not get penetration. And to run, I got a little bit of, um, you know, some Sterling Gilbert vibes. When we started running up the gut like three times in a row. It's, it hasn't worked, it hasn't worked, it hasn't worked. And I think we did that in that goal line where we couldn't get two yards. It's like, we're calling the same play again. They'll never see it coming.
red_1_09-02-2024_200812:I don't think it's that, uh, Sterling Gilbert definitely thought that way. I think in this case it's more of, Hey, this is a preseason game. I want to see if our guys can get.
squadcaster-54g1_1_09-02-2024_200829:Sure.
red_1_09-02-2024_200812:when everybody knows it's coming and I just want to put my, my guys against their guys and see what happens. And so I know whether we have that in our back pocket for a later game. And, and we weren't just, it was a very limited playbook. We weren't showing anything. I'm pretty sure nine out of 10 pass plays was just a standard option come back if they were playing deep and we took it every time and move the sticks with
squadcaster-54g1_1_09-02-2024_200829:we took it every time. And I feel like there's something if you watch the receivers, they're instantly reacting to contact, even if it's not there, they're rolling off a defender that and so great on the coach is great on practicing that because that's how you get the yards after contact where we're catching the ball and kind of rolling off a tackle that's there or not there.
red_1_09-02-2024_200812:Alright, we gotta organize this because we're crushing that 15 minutes already over here. Uh, let's, let's start, let's
squadcaster-54g1_1_09-02-2024_200829:We got to get organized. Yeah,
red_1_09-02-2024_200812:But we did, they were able to create some holes and kind of like seams or creases where our running backs could get through and then get to the second level, kind of untouched. So that was nice. I don't know exactly who was playing on the O Line, what the different combinations, how much we were rotating guys around. I know pre season coach Goh said he like had 8 or 9 guys he kind of trusted. And then he wanted to get playing time to see kind of what the best combos were throughout the year, who kind of gels well.
squadcaster-54g1_1_09-02-2024_200829:mean, when we got the two deep, there weren't a lot of guys on that whole line. I mean, you had Colbest at center as the two deep, and then also as the starter at the left guard. I mean, you only have You don't have a lot of guys to rotate through in those positions. And so it really worried me. It's like, alright, what if we get somebody that gets injured? We had a couple of linemen. And I don't know if they were cramping or if they got injured or what was happening. But, you know, there was a couple times where a guy would go down and you're like, uh oh. That was fast. That's not gonna be good.
red_1_09-02-2024_200812:As far as I know, no major injuries there on the O Line. Byram was Byram. You know, I think he, he scored the nice early touchdown on the run. Pretty sure he could have done that at will all game if he wanted to, but like the coaching staff, I think he wanted to evaluate how our line would do, how it gives the running back some love. I will say a little criticism for him is just on the, the throws weren't particularly sharp. I mean, he wasn't missing stuff awfully, but. Deep balls, he put a couple in there that guys could have made some plays on. On some of those comebacks, he's, he's probably just like a half second late where he's waiting to see the guy. And that's tough with an option route, right? You want to make sure the guy has stopped and isn't
squadcaster-54g1_1_09-02-2024_200829:Yeah. I
red_1_09-02-2024_200812:are reading the same thing from the defense. But we'd like to see a little more crispness there, but nothing, nothing crazy, nothing huge to criticize. We're being real critical
squadcaster-54g1_1_09-02-2024_200829:mean, he, he, that, that touchdown that he had, there was a pretty nasty hold by the receiver. I don't know if he went back and watched that, but he pretty much was like holding Yeah, I'll take it any day of the week, and, and twice on
red_1_09-02-2024_200812:There's holding every play,
squadcaster-54g1_1_09-02-2024_200829:ha ha! Whatever, man.
red_1_09-02-2024_200812:Uh, running backs, We had kind of three different rotation there. All of them were solid. I feel like Naquan Wright probably got the shortest end of the stick with just yards per carry. He was in more of those short yardage situations where we
squadcaster-54g1_1_09-02-2024_200829:weren't getting anything. Yeah.
red_1_09-02-2024_200812:both Terron Keith and Kelly Joyner kind of had a couple where they broke through to the second level. I was a little disappointed not to see them make that last man miss and go for a Like if that's our safety, we know we're getting torched and
squadcaster-54g1_1_09-02-2024_200829:Oh, yeah. That's, that's, that's, that's going to the end zone. Yeah. But they didn't have that. I thought I really was impressed with Joiner, and that Joiner had a great game. I thought that Joiner and Keith had a great game, and there were
red_1_09-02-2024_200812:nice. It's nice to see him coming back. Yeah. I know what you're most excited to talk about though, is what we saw from It was, it's very impressive. I will say both Ysine and Atkins surprisingly did have one drop each. Atkins is probably a little more egregious. Don't expect that out of them, but it's nice to see a one two punch there. Only thing I'm a little disappointed in is I'm not seeing the third great option, real deep ball thread or just a playmaker who we can, you know, Atkins is shifty, but he's not blazing fast. So I'm really hoping to see a Tyree Kelly or a Jaquan Smith step up and be that threat. Fair. Defense was much more of a pleasant surprise than offense, honestly. Like, offense scored a lot of points, was relatively efficient, but just wasn't, I wouldn't say dominant. Defense, I think, was much more dominant, especially, you know, coming off of the end of last year, going back to the Charlotte game. It's now been nine something quarters since we gave up a touchdown. They were flying downhill, filling run gaps, 16 tackles for a loss. That's not a lot of missed tackles, which is nice. We're used to that before. Uh, not a lot of blown coverage assignments. There was one play that they hit like two or three times on us where it was Kind of against us and cover three and they'd run like a post and then a wheel behind it in our corner just never picked up the The wheel and they had that open a couple times Um sure we can put that on film and figure it out Didn't get a whole lot of qb pressure either. I mean we had a couple sacks but Right and I think it was more of You Call it a coverage sack, call it a missed assignment, or QB holding the ball for too long dancing. Those types of sacks versus just rush four, beat a guy off the edge. Those types of dominant wins that you want to see. Two interceptions. Unfortunately we lost Shuler on the one. Guys, don't try to be heroes on those interception returns. Especially against Bethune Cookman. Ugh. It didn't, I mean, and Jalen Shuler's a big guy and that running back looked like he was just trying to save his own life and get him down of go low, yeah. Yep. Absolutely. And I'd say the biggest, most pleasant surprise for defense is the deep rotation of players we got in there and still managed to have success, keeping them to only three points. I mean, right off the bat. And this is the difference between how we played defense and how we played offense. So I guess I'll take a step back and talk about that. Offense, we came out there with the ones, played the ones pretty much the whole first half. And then once we had the big lead, kind of subbed in first Archie and then other wide receivers and O line, etc. And then kind of lost our mojo at that point once the subs all kind of came in en masse. Defense, right from the beginning, we were rotating guys at corner, safety, D line. All over the place. Uh, really seeing, I guess, kind of who would be able to play. And it was nice to see that most of them held up pretty well. Like, no one stood out and being like, oh, that guy doesn't belong on the field. At least not to the naked eye. I'm sure once they put on film, they're going to be like, that guy had no idea what he was doing in run assignments or something like that. You know, but. Absolutely. I mean, that's probably the biggest negative we saw out of the defense was a couple of untimely penalties. extending drives, but it's nice to see us, then the adversity bounce back from that, still get the stop anyways. Like you're saying, in the culture shift, years past, oh, they extended a drive, you immediately know they're going down and scoring a touchdown, as soon as you've kind of given them that free possession, right? And quite frankly, it's nice to see a lot of, like I said, with the huge rotation, young players playing, and transfers immediately playing. Certainly on the D line, a couple guys stood out of like, uh, Rico Watson, Jahari Grant. Secondary, I think, pretty much all those transfers played. I mean, it was Augustine who got the interception, I know. I mean, Amaris Brown didn't even start the game. We had the transfers out there. On the D line, um, Jason Vaughn, I'm not sure if he's still coming back from injury and that's why he didn't play or they just know what they have in him so they weren't gonna risk him in this game. He didn't play a single snap. Yeah. I mean, special teams was solid all around too. I mean, you hit a 53 field goal, 53 yard field goal. I didn't know Cannon had that leg. He certainly didn't last year. Uh, we, we used two other, I mean, we, again, we rotated a lot of guys, we used both Ippolito and Grammatica in point after attempts and kickoffs. So we're getting everybody some playing time. We used both punters as well, I mean, they both had 40 something yard averages, both managed to pin them inside the 20. That was your cue to ask what the hang time was on the punts though, cause I know you're such a, an expert on punting ability. You mean you didn't have your stopwatch out while you were at dinner watching Bluey or whatever it was on the side? Right, I mean, I was, I, my, my stopwatch thumb was a little busy with a beer in it instead, you know, so otherwise I would've, would've, would've been timing, you know, both the, the get off time of when the snap gets to the punter and he's able to kick it away, you know, that's an important timeframe, and also the hang time on the punt, obviously, as well. But, but you know all that, you're an expert. Yeah. I mean, my get off time. Well, well documented under three seconds, so. Get him out of there. Get him out of there. Teron Keith showed explosiveness on the, I think, one return he had. We've got, you know, three man rotation there running back. If, God forbid, something happens to Keith on a punt return, we got some other guys to go. If Atkins gets hurt returning a punt, burn down the program, you know, like. I get it, I get that he's a trusted veteran. He's got some shiftiness to him when he does, you know, have room to return it as well, but it's just not worth the risk reward. He's gonna get smoked on one, and Maybe it's just us being, uh, gutted and traumatized by him fumbling at the Navy game last year, I don't know, but We haven't. Love ya, Atkins. Don't want you returning punts. Just, never will. He did. Agreed. No. Let's talk some Alabama. It's gonna be exactly like the Spithoon Cookman game. I'll be surprised if we play the same number of guys against Alabama. I think it'll be a much more set, here are our starters, but Maybe, maybe that'll also be a strategy though of just keeping us fresh against a, what should be a much more physically dominating team, right, in Alabama. That, hey, we're just gonna have to use a lot of bodies there to, to stay alive too, I don't know, so. From USF football. Happens every time. Did you not want to at least explain why you were trying to call it like, so the rapid fire, the way it's gonna work. I know, but I wanted to go back to at least the naming, because right now it just sounds really weird that we're talking about Red trying not to come. No, that's, that, you got to at least explain of how long I'm meant to last for, like. Okay, continue, continue. Sorry, I already came. Yeah, I already blew my load too early. Always. Not really, but let's do it anyways. There's no problem with the manhood. I like, I think it's a funny joke. I like the segment. I just don't think it makes sense right now. If anything, I'm trying to go under a minute and not last over a minute. That's the opposite. Yeah, don't worry about that. Just do your thing first. Ready? Number five, Alabama. Want to know, they just got done smoking Western Kentucky 63 to nothing. Uh, was minus 27, and I think it's moved to minus 30 and a half, so, big points. Oof, tough one, uh, Jalen Milrove's the obvious answer. He went 200 passing yards, 3 touchdowns, another 10 carries for 80 yards, and 2 more touchdowns. But, that's too easy, I'm going to go with Ryan Williams, true freshman wide receiver, probably number 1 wide receiver coming out of the country this year. Not having Nate Saban anymore, but also on defense, they lost a lot of guys to the draft and they, you know, no multiple consensus first round picks anymore. Uh, do not go three and out. Western Kentucky literally went three and out every drive in the second half. Also on defense, we gotta tackle, especially in the second level against Millborough. Oh, that's the timer? I didn't last long enough? Damn it. Well, let's go round two and just finish it out this time, you know. Yeah, don't worry baby, I'm always, I'm always last longer the second time. You know, that's, I mean. So their new head coach brought in, uh, Ron McKefree, former strength and conditioning coach for USF. Back when we were with the program, he's now special assistant to the head coach at Alabama. So looking forward to seeing him. Um, yeah, shout out to Ronnie. Oh, yeah, so we're going to put 15 minutes on the clock for this. And it's a very simple question. Going to give you all the time you need. No limiting you just to one minute. Uh, please, uh, educate the people on the difference between cover 2 and cover 3 defense. Don't worry about it, yeah. Uh, we'll, we'll do a whole separate pod on that. It is, and we're streamlining things here as well. Uh, just going down to one pick. Three was too many. He just needs one, one lady in the bedroom only. Settling down in life. Of course he did. Number four Texas at number nine Michigan. He's taken Texas minus six and a half. They did and Michigan struggled in their game, but could also just be that has Kay lived in Texas for too long with his Texas wife? Potentially. Also, Kay did want to just pick the USF game as well. He's got us covering the 30 points, but we will not win. Uh, okay. You can tell him that in person this week. Before we get to our own score predictions, I do have one quick question for ya. We talked about how Texas looked last week, uh, Hit a little bit in the rapid fire minute there about how Bama looked against Western Kentucky. You know, just smoked to their opponent 63 to nothing, looking amazing. Miami also looked really great week one, putting a beat down on Florida. So right now, you know, for me, definitely before the season, I thought my Bama was going to be the tougher game right now. Do you think Bama or Miami after those week one results is going to be a more challenging matchup for us? He, he looked good. Yeah, there was more questions. I'd say there's more questions marks about Miami heading into it. And they answered a lot more of those questions. So they both look like very tough games. All right. So you just kind of spoiled the score prediction here. Who you got this weekend? USF versus Bama. I like it. Unfortunately, I'm with Kay. We cover, but we're gonna, Bama's just gonna be too much for us. 38 17 Bama. I know, man. I know. But it's, you know, you wanted to go opposite me anyways, cause that gives you a chance to be, say you were right and I was wrong. So I hope you're right too. Honestly, I'm not allowed in Brazil either. So I am. Yep. Just had our draft. I did not win. No. Get to your point. Yeah, I mean, I guess there wasn't a whole lot to complain about on the fields. They turned their attention off the field cause people got a bitch, right? Uh, apparently concessions and parking are now too expensive at Raymond James Stadium. Newsflash, water's wet. Owners try to steal us and gouge us for money. I think they've always been expensive. I didn't notice them being more expensive than usual. Uh, that's why you tailgate. You drink your own beer and your own food and Student section was excellent. Student section was our biggest student section. They said 6, 000 plus, filled the lower bowls there, looked great. I think overall we were the number one attendance for G5 programs in, in this week. So, things looking, looking up there. Obviously, I think, uh, Miami should even be better attended if we're both on track there. So. We'll have to see how well Bama fills out their stadium this week against us, uh, you know. I mean, if you come here for football news, you're just, you're just wrong. And let me tell you, especially for that first episode, we did that on about five minutes notice, hadn't researched Southern Myth at all, knew that they, we'd played them before, uh, Just kind of threw it out there, based off of schedule and happening, so Don't, don't put too much faith into those predictions. Keep coming back for the weekly ones, where maybe we'll do some sort of analysis, or at least regurgitate things we've read on the internet. Oh, I wasn't sure, yeah, I was waiting to see whether I was good to speak now. Might have to give you a Red's Fastest Minute over there, Jesus. Whales. Yeah, we see you USF water tower putting out some rankings. Not even, we weren't even, not only were we not in the top 10, we weren't even the honorable mention. We're not even receiving votes. Well, just like USF, just like USF coming in for the upset over Alabama. Here comes carrying cord out of obscurity. Let's wrap this bitch up like a loser. Go Bulls. Now, if you're still listening, we have a special bonus preview of Southern Miss. For all you who said we were lacking on content, this is just for you. I kinda like this just kinda being at the end just to see who truly listens past the outro music all the way through. Yeah, this is the Marvel, this is the Marvel cutscene at the end. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well now, not only have they had to listen to the ending music, they now had to listen, talk, uh, let us explain how this bonus track's gonna work. So they're really having to listen deep right now. We're definitely not editing this. So, so here's our preview of Southern Mist, currently as it stands, because we're not sure whether we're gonna be able to do an episode next week. If we do an episode, then this is just like bonus bonus for you, and you really get all the in depth Southern Mist news. Um, so So, here we go. 3 against Southern Miss. All those games were back in 2000, 2004. And we were 0 and 2 in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. No clue. Bumfuck Mississippi. Uh, last year, Southern Miss was 3 and 9. So you can see why we picked ourselves to lose to them. Uh, Exactly. This year they are 0 1, but it was a range shortened game against Kentucky, but they still got smoked 31 0. And that, and that was them calling it in like the third quarter. Uh, the game that they're playing this week is against Southeastern Louisiana, so they should win that one. That should give us a better indication. But if they struggle there, that might give us some news. Um, what else we got here? Oh, last year their defense was awful in the rankings. Worse than even ours. Correct. Correct. It was pretty bad. It was pretty bad still, but it wasn't the worst. Uh, offensively they lost their biggest playmaker in Frank Gore Jr. You might recognize that name. Even someone like Puka with limited football knowledge knows who Frank Gore is, right? Okay. Proud of you, proud of you. Uh, so that was last year. This year now they've got a new quarterback, uh, also a familiar name, Tate Rotemaker. Uh, he transferred from FSU, um, and he, fu He, yeah, and he was also a former USF recruit as well, but spurred us for FSU, so. And so with all of that said, in this super secret bonus preview. We will go back, or at least I will, go back on my preseason prediction with absolutely no research and say this should be a win. I mean, it makes more sense if we're coming off a big win of Alabama that we just get a little cocky, but, uh. Any other thoughts for the super secret, secret message here, bonus track? We could take this time to now further explain either what cover 2 defense is or how red's fastest minute works, but I have a feeling you're going to say no to both, so let's just end it. Go Bulls!