Hoosiers Go 16-0: Title Game Breakdown and SEC Basketball

A program once defined by losses just went 16-0. We open on Indiana’s improbable national title and pull apart the turning points that made it real: a stubborn run game that controlled the clock, a blocked punt that swung seven points, third- and fourth-down heroics, and Miami’s baffling choice to drift from Mark Fletcher. It’s a story loaded with emotion and edge too—Fernando Mendoza, the Miami kid who couldn’t walk on, lifting the trophy a mile from home while Charlie Becker morphs from special-teams grinder to playoff star.

From there, we zoom out and ask what “best ever” even means.

Then a candid reordering of the AP’s top 14, including why Georgia should sit above Oregon and Ohio State.

Hoops fans get a full plate: Kentucky’s twin comeback wins ride aggressive defense and revived three-point shooting, while Georgia’s finish against Arkansas highlights growth, rim protection, and confidence from emerging scorers. We close with a Hall of Fame soapbox—Andruw Jones’ generational defense plus 434 home runs should end the debate—and a look ahead to college baseball and MLB spring momentum.

 Tap follow, share it with a friend, and leave a quick review. Tell us your title-game turning point and your top five—let’s argue it out.

Transcript

Setting The Stage: A Historic Upset

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This is sports takes with made skates, no spin, just straight sports. I want you to hop into the time machine with me real quick. If I had told you, no, no, not that far back. No, no, not even that far back. If I had told you three years ago that Indiana would win the national championship game in January 2026, there's no way you would have believed me. How could you have believed me? This was the losingest program in all of college football until this season. They had the most losses of any football team in college football until this season, when Kurt Signetti took over. They were three and eight. They were the worst team in the Big Ten. Two years later, they won the national championship game. Completely to say improbable just doesn't even begin to describe it. This is probably the biggest turnaround in college football history. It's probably the biggest turnaround in sports history. Talk about going worst to first. This was the biggest loser becoming the first team to go 16-0 since Yale in 1894. Did you have that on your bingo card? That Yale and Indiana would be the only two programs in the history of college football to go 16-0. Now, for the majority of the history of college football, teams have not had to play 16 games. It is not that no other team has gone undefeated. It's just in the last several years they've started to play more games again. But in the 12-team playoff format, Indiana's the first one to go undefeated. But the accomplishment of going 16-0, I mean, we had reached this point where it was beginning to look like well, would any team go undefeated again in this format with this many games, with this much parity. Teams are not able to stockpile talent the way that they were before. They're not able to be as deep as they were before. It looked like there may not be any more undefeated teams. Well, Indiana totally blew that up. And this was a phenomenal game. We said going into the game, these were the two best teams. We got the two best teams this season. These two teams were so great last night. The teams are filled with players who are great. Players on both teams were giving it everything they had. I mean, people were hitting in this game. There were great efforts in this game. And this is what I was saying on the previous episode. Anyone who thought Indiana was going to blow out Miami was not watching. All they were watching was the scores of the recent Indiana games. That Miami defense, the pass rush, is historically good. They were giving Mendoza fits all night. He was not able to be as accurate on his throws as he's been in some of these other games, such as the Oregon game, because he was under pressure nearly every snap. He got hit numerous times. Some of those were should have been flagged. But before I talk about the game anymore, I want to talk about the reality that Mendoza grew up less than one mile from Hard Rock Stadium. He was a Miami fan, grew up a Miami fan. Both his parents went to Miami. His mom played tennis at Miami. He won a state championship at Christopher Columbus High School, the same high school that his father and Mario Cristobal played together at. Yet Miami would not even let Fernando Mendoza as a two-star prospect walk on. Forget giving me a scholarship. They wouldn't even let him walk on. He goes to California, proves how good he was. Then in the transfer portal, Miami wanted him. Then, well, it was too late. The guy who had only one Power Four team who wanted him wins a national championship against his hometown team that wouldn't take them in their stadium a mile from his home. I mean, it can't get any more storybook than that. And the player who had the final interception, Jamari Sharp, from the Miami area. And then, I mean, there's so many things, so many storylines, so many people in this game that are just improbable. You had Charlie Becker. So Charlie Becker was on the roster before Kurt Signetti got there. And they were saying on the broadcast last night that essentially all the receivers were told you got to find somewhere else to go play. Charlie Becker stays. Even this year, he is main was mainly a special teams player. That's where he was at in Kurt Signetti's tenure was being a special teams guy. It was only in the last six to seven games of the season that he really became one of Mendoza's main targets. He had the clutch catch in the Big Ten Championship game. And then he had numerous extremely difficult, awesome, critical catches in the playoffs. He goes from special teams guy to star of the team. He had the phenomenal touchdown catch in the Oregon game. Then in this game, he made big play after big play. And that was one of the keys to the game. So here's what I think decided the game. The first point I want to talk about is Indiana was a little bit more physical than Miami was. Miami only had 21 rushing attempts, only 17 carries for Mark Fletcher. That was a mistake. And we're going to talk about that in a second. Indiana had 45 rushing attempts. Now they only had 21 more yards than Miami had. They had a much, a much lower yard per carry average. However, they were breaking down the defense. They were committed to running the ball. Indiana had the ball for 13 more minutes than Miami had it. I thought this was a key theme in the game that I saw as a mistake by Miami. They opened the game, handed it to Mark Fletcher, nine-yard carry. Then they pretty well, for the rest of the first quarter, really most of the first half, get away from handing the ball to Fletcher. And this is something where you say, you dance with the one who brung you. And Miami rode Mark Fletcher to the national championship game. Mark Fletcher is why, coupled with that defense, they were in the national championship game. They went nearly an hour in the first half without giving it to their big, fast physical leader running back. That is inexcusable. In the first half, Miami had a possession where they threw the ball three times and punted, and then they had another possession following that where no touches for Mark Fletcher. I talked about this as a thing that frustrates me about a lot of offense coordinators, particularly I can get frustrated with Georgia and Mike Bobo sometimes with kind of getting away from the running game, getting away from the guy who's really doing well. You cannot do that. You had your defense out there getting worn down because you wouldn't lean on what you said was your identity as the big physical team with the big offensive line, and we're we're tough and we're gonna wear them down. We're tougher at the line of scrimmage. You ran the ball 21 times. You didn't even try to prove you were tougher at the line of scrimmage. Then you see in the third quarter, start of the second half, Miami gives Fletcher the ball and he dominates. Open in the third quarter, goes for a 50-something yard touchdown run. He was consistently getting yards. He had two touchdowns in the third quarter. Fletcher ended the game, however, with just 17 carries for 112 yards, two touchdowns. That is a 6.6 yard per carry average. Now, yes, you've got the big 57-yard run in there. However, you just cannot do that. I don't know what's going on on the sidelines, but what are you saving him for? It's the national championship game. He's the leader of your team. Ride the guy. You can't get impatient with the running game. Yeah, there's gonna be some carries where you get zero yards. There's gonna be carries where you get one, two yards. There's also gonna be a lot of carries where you get three, four, five, nine yards. I mean, you wear the team down. You don't have to get all the yards in chunks. And Fletcher did get the yards in chunks in some circumstances. So you have to stick with that running game. You have to continue to pound the rock. I thought that was a mistake. I thought these were two physical teams, and you allowed Indiana to prove itself to be a little bit more physical. All of it, all the players on Indiana were hitting. All the players on Indiana were fighting for yards. Every time those backs carried the football, they were laying their shoulder into somebody. And you had a lot of physical play, particularly from Miami's defense, but I just thought that it wasn't an absence of toughness, it was just a refusal to try to be tougher than the other team. You have Fletcher totally dominate the third quarter, and then where was he? Where was he in the fourth quarter? Where was he in the particularly in the last several minutes of the fourth quarter? And I understand Miami's down at that point, but you still had plenty of time to get him the ball. So I thought that was a big mistake. He's one of the best players on your team. You got to get him the football. The second thing I think decided the game. Turnovers. The blocked punt is possibly the play of the game. That is seven points on one play. And I yes, I count a block punt as a turnover for Indiana. The margin of victory in the game was six points. The block punt in and of itself gave Indiana that margin. And block punts are famously an indicator of success. I saw somebody break this down. I don't know if these numbers are exactly accurate, but a team that blocks a punt for a touchdown wins 76% of the time. A team that blocks a punt in general wins 63% of the time. When you get a blocked punt, which Indiana is very good at, you are very likely to win the game. Particularly when you happen to recover it, smack dab in the middle of the end zone. I'm not sure what happened for Miami there. I'm not sure if the punter tried to hold it too long and roll out. I really don't know what his blocker's doing there. It kind of looked like he just O-layed the guy to the backfield. So that was a bad play. The other turnover was the interception at the end of the game. And I hate that for Carson Beck. He had kind of been shaking off the reputation he had built as turnover prone, particularly in big games. And then for his college career to end that way on an interception, I mean, that was kind of hard to watch. Two turnovers for Miami, no turnovers for Indiana. And I talked about this in the with the Oregon game. There were plays where Mendoza could have dropped the ball, but managed to hold on to it or managed to get it back. That happened in this game. There was a play where he was under a lot of pressure, the ball got knocked loose, he managed to regain control over it. When it happens that many times, you start to say it's not just happenstance. Maybe it's skill, maybe it's that he's that strong, that determined, that focused. Third thing that I thought decided the game, penalties. We talked about this going into the game. Miami commits way more penalties than Indiana. During the game, Miami had seven penalties for 60 yards, which was actually an improvement over some of the previous games. However, they were very costly penalties. You had the Ruben Bain offsides play when Indiana was in third and long, and you had a pass interference call that bailed them out. Indiana, meanwhile, only had five penalties. And fourth, in big situations, what happened? Miami was only three for eleven on third down. You had Indiana making plays when they needed to make plays. You had the fourth down catch by Charlie Becker. Fantastic, phenomenal catch that led to points. You had the run for a touchdown by Mendoza on fourth down. An incredible play. That play is going to go down as it's going to be one of those situations. You have the catch of the 49ers. I'm not saying that's going to rise to that level, but it is people are going to remember it like that. It was reminiscent of John Elway being helicoptered across the goal line. Mendoza put his body on the line. And I actually thought when I saw the play live, I was concerned maybe he's taken off too early. I don't know if he's going to get it. It was a phenomenal run, a tough run. He scored the touchdown when they needed to. When they needed him to. I thought Mario Cristobal made a bad choice by opting to kick the field goal on fourth and two. I think you go for the first down and you try to at least get closer for a field goal later. You try to get the first down, and then if you don't score a touchdown after that, at least you have a manageable field goal. But I did I didn't think that was a good decision. I thought that putting your kicker out there for a 50-yard field goal was was going to probably get you what he got, which was a missed field goal, no points, a total missed opportunity before halftime. And that very well could have made a big difference in the outcome of the game. And there were a couple of times during this game that I just said, man, these teams are good. Man, these players are good. I was I was excited to see this game. I thought we were going to have a very good game, and it was. It was great. And that Miami defense, that pass rush, Ruben Bain Jr. is an absolute monster. If I'm an NFL team, and I've talked about him a few times on the show, get me this guy. Just on the stat sheet last night, eight tackles, five of them solo tackles, one sack, two and a half tackles for a loss, and he had a lot more what doesn't show up on just the box score is the pressure. The guy had a lot of pressure. Mesador, two sacks on the night, two tackles for a loss. Moton had a tackle for a loss. I mean, they were all over Mendoza. They were all over. I was just very impressed as I've been the whole playoff with the way their front played. And I think Miami should be very proud of the way they played in this game, the way they played all playoff. It was a very good season. J just came up a little bit short and an absolute classic. I thought it was by far one of the better national championship games we've had in the last several years. But there's one group that I think should not be proud. And I said that this might happen on the last show. There were more Indiana fans at that game than Miami fans. They let people travel 17 hours. If you're just taking it from Bloomington, where the University of Indiana is, that is over 17 hours to Miami. You let people travel that far, after they had probably some of them just traveled to Atlanta the week before, and take over your stadium in the national championship game. Miami was the first team to ever play the national championship in their own stadium, and there were more Indiana fans. That is humiliating. How does a fan base let another an opposing fan base do that? How do you let the opposing fan base come in and take over your stadium in the biggest game of the year in the national championship game? Miami has not been in a national championship game in over 20 years. How can you let them do that? But I mean, it's really not that unexpected. They don't have good attendance normally. To me, I just think Miami is a really poor sports town. I mean, look look at the Marlins. Look at the hurricanes. Look at the Dolphins. It's just, I I just I guess think people either don't like sports that much there or they've got other things to do. Or most people maybe most people in Florida are not rooting for Miami. They're gators and Seminole fans. I just thought that was really embarrassing as a fan base to allow that to happen. So is a lot of people have been talking about people we're talking about before the game. Is this Indiana team the best team ever? I don't think you can really know that. It is one of the greatest stories ever, possibly the greatest, uh, especially turnaround story. It is an amazing accomplishment. In this time of college football, to go undefeated, to be the first team to go 16 0 since 1894, that is remarkable. I don't want to take anything away from their team. I think saying they are the best team ever is maybe living in the moment too much. We can't say who is the best team. So why take anything away from Indiana? Why take anything away from other teams who have been great, played in different seasons, different rules? It's impossible to fairly compare from one season to another, especially, you know, a team from a hundred years ago, a team from 10 years ago. It's too far. The game is too different. How can you compare that? And just in the last several years, just in the last 10 years, there have been many great teams that people are saying are the best team ever. You had 2018 Clemson, 2019 LSU, 2020 Alabama, 2021 and 2022 Georgia, 2023 Michigan, last year's Ohio State team. All of those teams have people have said they are the best team ever. I don't think saying that about any of those teams is silly. I think all of those teams were so good that you could make an argument for that. I mean, as a Georgia fan, I look at the two Georgia teams, and it's hard for me not to say they're the best ever. Especially, you know, the defense that the 2021 team had or the absolute dominance at times of the 2022 team. Look what they did to Oregon that year. Look what they did to TCU. But I mean, the 2019 LSU team, that's always been a team that I've gone back and said they were unstoppable. They went through some of the toughest defenses in college football. Georgia in the SEC championship game, Clemson in the playoff, and just torched them. And that schedule that year, I mean, they were playing, they played numerous top 10 teams. So a lot of times when I think about who's the best team, sometimes I would say, well, if I just had to give a team, I might say 2019 LSU, but it's in but it's impossible to compare the teams. So whether this Indiana team is the best team of all time, who knows and who cares? They're the best team this season. They won a national championship, so they are the best of the best in college football this year, and they are one of the best college football teams to ever play the game. Now, before I move out of football, I want to talk about the final rankings. The AP rankings are inept. It makes you think that people, the people doing the rankings didn't watch football, particularly at the end of the year, but really all year. So here are a few of what I think the worst rankings are. So here's I agree totally on Indiana 1, Miami 2, Ole Miss III. Here is where I think the AP gets it egregiously wrong. Oregon at 4, Ohio State at 5, Georgia at 6, and I'm gonna stop right there for a second. It is laughable that you would have Oregon and Ohio State in front of Georgia. I talked about that Georgia should have been ranked ahead of Ohio State going into the playoff when we talked about the final rankings for the selection show. I talked about they had had a Georgia had a better season than Ohio State, they had a better resume than Ohio State. Georgia has a conference championship, Ohio State does not. Coming out of conference championship weekend, Ohio State loses to Indiana, drops one spot. Georgia manhandled Alabama, won the SEC championship game. They're at three. The only common opponent between Georgia and Ohio State was Texas. Ohio State barely won that game, 14-7. Georgia throttled Texas. And then you look at their performances in the playoffs. Georgia lost a last second game to Ole Miss, a classic game, who then Ole Miss lost a last second classic game to Miami. What happened in the Miami Ohio State game? The margin ended up being 10 points. Did anybody feel like that was a last second thriller kind of game? Miami went in there and punched Ohio State in the mouth, and that was that. So you're trying to tell me that Ohio State should be in front of Georgia. There is no universe in which Ohio State should still be in front of Georgia. Ohio State drops two spots despite getting physically punished by Miami. Georgia drops four spots for a last second loss to Ole Miss. It makes no sense. So I flip-flop Georgia and Ohio State. Now you might say, well, Oregon won two games in the playoff. Why are you putting Georgia in front of Oregon? Oregon's wins in the playoffs are over James Madison, who late in the game they ended up giving up a lot of points to, and Texas Tech. Okay, Texas Tech is out of the Big 12. Texas Tech turned the ball over four times. Texas Tech had a really poor performance on offense. When Oregon won that game, one, the 23-0 score is a little bit misleading because one of the touchdowns was Dan Lanning running up the score at the end of the game. So Oregon wins the game against Texas Tech, doesn't have a very good offensive performance at all. Basically, they won the game because of four turnovers. Then Oregon got absolutely eviscerated by Indiana. Oregon should not be a top five team just because they won two playoff games. Georgia is a much better team than Oregon and Ohio State. Then one of the other worst takes I saw were things like putting Vanderbilt in front of Iowa. Okay, yes, Vanderbilt has a better record than Iowa by one game. Iowa just beat Vanderbilt head to head in a bowl game. And that was another complaint I have about these rankings is the AP was completely inconsistent on whether conference championships meant anything, which obviously they don't think that it does, and whether bowl games meant anything. It was completely arbitrary on whose bowl games mattered and whose did not. So here's how I would have ranked the top 14 teams. This is not who deserved to be in the playoff prior to the playoff. This is right now who I think the top 14 teams should have been. Okay, one and two. There is a gap there, I would say. Clearly, Indiana, Miami at one and two. Then I would say clearly Ole Miss and Georgia at three and four. Gap. Insert another gap there. Then I've got Ohio State at five. I've got Texas AM at six, Oregon at seven. The reason I have Texas AM at six over Oregon is Texas AM's only loss of the regular season was to Texas, their rival. Then they followed that up in the college football playoff with they only lost that game to Miami 10-3 and nearly tied the game, through a pick late in the game. Texas AM was one play away from tying that game against Miami. What happened to Oregon against Indiana? So to me, Texas AM is a better team than Oregon is. Then at number eight, I've got Notre Dame. Notre Dame doesn't have great wins. The best wins are Pitt and USC. That's nothing really to be excited about. However, the losses are a one-point loss to Texas AM and a three-point loss to Miami, the teams that I've got at two and six. So Notre Dame at eight. Got Texas Tech at nine, Texas at ten. Texas has the wins over Oklahoma, win over Vanderbilt, win over Michigan in the bowl game, and the win over Texas AM. Yes, they have the loss to Florida. Yes, they got manhandled by Georgia, who I have as the number four team. The other loss is a seven-point loss to Iowa State. So I've got Texas at 10. And here's where to me it got difficult. I think you could have made an argument for either as a pair, BYU and Utah to be 11 and 12, or Alabama and Oklahoma to be 11-12. What I ended up doing was I've got Alabama at 11, Oklahoma at 12. I think you have to put Alabama in front of Oklahoma because they won the first-round playoff matchup against Oklahoma at Oklahoma. Yes, the Sooners beat Alabama earlier in the year, but I value the playoff win over the regular season win. The last three games we saw from Alabama were getting absolutely blown out by Georgia, coming back and winning a close game against Oklahoma, and then getting absolutely dominated by Indiana. I'm not putting a team that ended the season that way any higher than 11. So then I've got Oklahoma at 12, and then BYU at 13, Utah at 14. The reason I have BYU and Utah under Alabama and Oklahoma is in the three matchups, two for BYU, one for Utah, that they played Texas Tech, who was the best team on either of their schedule, they got dominated. Texas Tech blew out BYU twice and Utah. So I'm not going to put those two teams above Alabama and Oklahoma when that's how they performed against who I've got as the number nine team in the rankings. Now I'm going to transition to college basketball. So last week, Kentucky had two amazing comebacks. They were down at least 17 points in both those games. That is the first time that has happened in years that a team has done that. In these games, Kentucky had much better three-point shooting, which was a huge part of the success in those two games. Now, against Tennessee, I'm mainly going to focus on the Tennessee game. Here's what I thought were the keys to that game on Saturday. One was Tennessee's costly turnovers in critical circumstances, and Kentucky's more aggressive defense, which led to eight steals. Secondarily, I say the better three-point shooting for Kentucky was a key factor in the game. In the first half, Tennessee looked fantastic. Great shooting, played very physical, good defense. This reminded me of the Arkansas game for Tennessee, where they got out in front and then lost. Tennessee looked really good in the first half. But the story of the game is the turnovers. Turnovers were huge in this game. In the first half, Tennessee was causing the turnovers, which helped them get their lead. In the second half, the game totally flipped. Kentucky became aggressive. You had Denzel Aberdeen was fantastic, scored 18 points in the second half. And that is something about this Kentucky team. They have shown they will fight back. In some of the losses, they fought back in some of those losses. They fought from way down in a horrible first half against LSU. They looked very bad on offense in the first half of the LSU game. They fought back from 17 down, won that game. But the tale of this game against Tennessee was the last few minutes of the game. Tennessee started making some mistakes, bad passes, bad turnovers. Part of that was Kentucky's defense. This is what I was talking about recently when I talked about Kentucky. Kentucky needs to play aggressively on defense. That is when they generate the turnovers and get out and run and make their big plays. What's so amazing about this game is Kentucky never led in the game until 34.3 seconds left. And how did that happen? It was a bad pass by Tennessee and a steal by Kentucky, being aggressive on that bad pass. It serves Kentucky well, year after year, to have that aggressive turnover-causing defense to go at the other team. And Kentucky shot 46% from three. That is much better. We were talking about earlier in the year. They want to shoot threes, they can't hit them, they're going to have to win ugly. If they're going to be able to start shooting their threes better, this is a team that gets much more dangerous. Kentucky's going to play Texas on Wednesday night. That'll be a good test. See if they can carry over that good shooting, aggressive defense in the Texas game. Now, Georgia and Arkansas. This was what a rapid pace for both teams. These two teams are two of the teams with the fastest pace in college basketball. Georgia starts out, it could not have started any better for Georgia. Got out to a lead of 19-3 in the first half. Then midway through the second half, Arkansas got back into it. It started to look like Georgia was going to do like they did against Ole Miss earlier in the week, play poor defense and lose a game they had a lead in. Not this time. Not so fast, my friend, Lee Corso would say. Georgia ended the game on a 20-6 run. Shut it down. Shut the comeback down. Blue Kane and Wilk Jeremiah Wilkinson went off in the last seven or eight minutes of the game. Mike White talked about how af Mike White had had to talk to Blue Kane after the last game, tell him how important he is to the team. This team is so much better when Kane and Wilkinson are confident, scoring, leading, being clutch. Wilkinson had 20 points, three assists, four steals. Blue Kane had 18 points, three assists, two steals. This was a game also for Samto Surreal. It's not any secret that Samto Surreal has a little bit, he is a little emotional, gets a little mad, and teams know that. And they hit him and they shove him and they try to get him angry. And we saw what happened in the Florida game. He threw an elbow, gets thrown out of the game. In this game, Arkansas was being very, we'll call it chippy with Surreal. There was a flagrant one called. Could have been a flagrant two. There could have been other flagrant fouls. Surreal could have lost his temper in the game, but he did not. He kept his emotions in check. I thought Mike White made a good decision at one point in the game when he was getting really frustrated. He pulled Surreal for the from the game, let him calm down for a minute. Surreal was huge in the game, he had seven blocks. So that is crucial to Georgia, is keeping him in the game. Other guys who had great games. Cannon catchings had 15 points, four rebounds, five assists, three steals. He has really been getting even better the last few games, and that is going to be huge for Georgia. If he comes in and starts being a big time scorer, uh making plays on the on the boards, assists, steals, that's going to be huge for Georgia. Jake Wilkins, Dominique Wilkins, the Hall of Famer son. We had not seen a ton of Jake Wilkins the last several games. He'd been struggling. We'll just say he'd been struggling. So Jake Wilkins comes in in this game, has 11 points in only nine minutes. He was playing great in the first half, got hit in the face. I'm not sure if that led to him not playing as much later on in the game, but it was a very good performance for Jake Wilkins. Shot well from three-point range. It's a very good sign for him going forward. This was a huge win for Georgia to beat the number 17 team in the country. And I and my dad were talking about this after the game, and we both said this is a game other Georgia basketball teams would have lost. But this year's team did not let that happen. Now, the the big game for the SEC of this past weekend was Florida at Vanderbilt. Florida, this was a great game. These are really good players on these teams. Florida wins the game. To me, Florida looks like the best team in the SEC. It's the SEC is very, there's a lot of parity in the SEC right now. However, Florida has blown Florida blew out Georgia, blew out Tennessee. Their loss was a very close loss to Missouri. All of Florida's losses have been very close, most of them to very upper echelon teams. To go to Vanderbilt after that Georgia and Tennessee win and win at Vanderbilt, right now Florida looks like the best team in the SEC. The great front line, the great rebounding. So they are probably going to be the team to watch going forward. Now, I've already complained about the AP's rankings in football. I'm going to complain about the AP's rankings in basketball. And primarily where I have a problem is in the 15 to 21 range. This is where a lot of the SEC teams are. Vanderbilt has a significantly better record than Florida, 16-2 compared to 13-5. Florida has had a tougher schedule than Vanderbilt and just beat Vanderbilt at Vanderbilt. So I see it as a little bit of a mistake to have Vanderbilt ranked over Florida right now. I think Florida has kind of shown that they are probably a little bit better team. Then 17, Alabama. Okay, what are we doing with Alabama at 17? Because to me, I don't mean Alabama shouldn't be ranked. What I mean is Alabama has not had a great last couple weeks. And at 13 and 5, I don't know. I'm just not sure about Alabama being at 17. I feel like they have not really been knocked hardly at all lately for some of these losses. Barely won on Saturday against Oklahoma. I'm just not sure about Alabama's getting to stay that high at 17 after the way that they've played in some of these games recently. The other one I have a problem with is Arkansas. Arkansas's at 20, Georgia's at 21. Okay. Georgia has a better record than Arkansas, 13-5 to 15-3. Arkansas has not had a good last two weeks, got blown out by Auburn, and then Georgia beats Arkansas by 14 points. Georgia led for the vast majority of the game. Georgia was way ahead the vast majority of the game. Yes, it got close at one point in the second half for a couple minutes. Well, then what happened? Georgia pulled away from them again. So this really Was not a super close game. It was by and large, Georgia dominated the game. So how do you have a Georgia team with a better record who just dominated Arkansas? How do you have Arkansas in front of Georgia? I I don't understand that. I mean, I know it doesn't matter at this point in the season. Whatever the AP says doesn't mean a hill of beans, but it it's just something where I I just don't understand what they're looking at. Okay, there's one more thing I want to talk about. And it is this. The MLB Hall of Fame vote is about to be announced. I might not even get the show out before it happens. This is a PSA for everybody. Andrew Jones has to be in the Hall of Fame. If the Hall of Fame is going to be legitimate, Andrew Jones has to be in the Hall of Fame. He is maybe the greatest defensive center fielder ever. At a position where we have seen guys like Ken Griffey Jr., I mean, center field is premium defense. He is consensus. Many people have said this. Many players, experts. He might be the greatest defensive center fielder of all time. Ten gold gloves. What he was able to do in the outfield was unheard of, tracking down some of these balls. Greg Maddox, one of the best pitchers of all time, who had Andrew Jones backing him up all those years, says he's the greatest center fielder of all time. Five-time All-Star, again, ten-time gold glove, four hundred and thirty-four home runs. How many guys do you know who are in the conversation of best defensive player of all time hit 434 home runs? Typically, if you're an exceptional gold glove defender, you might not be that great an offensive player. 434 home runs on his career. And the rationale has been that Andrew Jones gets knocked for his performance as he got older. Low batting average, batting numbers weren't great. And I just think that's silly. What do we care? I saw Harold Reynolds talking about this from MLB Network. Willie Mays, he said that Willie Mays said towards the end of his career, you had not, you didn't see Willie Mays play. Because what he was saying was Willie Mays was not the same player at the end of his career as he was earlier in his career. No player is the same player at the end of their career as they are earlier in their career. It is completely unfair to penalize Andrew Jones for that. Andrew Jones had numerous seasons of 30 or more home runs. 31 in 98, 26, 36, 34, 35, 36, 29, 51 in 2005, which was which was the Braves' record until Matt Olsen broke it recently, 41 in 2006, 26 in 2007. That's a long time of being a very good power hitter. And 10 gold gloves is a very long time of being possibly the best defensive player in the game. To me, Andrew Jones never did steroids. There's absolutely no evidence of any controversy regarding that. It is silly for Andrew Jones not to be in the Hall of Fame. And I don't understand why baseball voters feel the need to do this with guys. You don't have to make him wait. He's either a Hall of Famer by his career or he is not. I do not understand and will never understand the, well, I can't let him get in on the first ballot. Well, I can't let him get in on the second ballot. He's not that good. I remember when Chipper Jones got voted in. Chipper Jones wasn't unanimous. Are you kidding me? Are you kidding me? Who were the voters who didn't think Chipper Jones deserved to be in the Hall of Fame on the first ballot? What difference does it make what number ballot it is? Virtually no player has been a unanimous Hall of Famer. That's ridiculous. A guy's a Hall of Famer or he's not. And we all know it. Yeah, there's some disagreements here and there on guys who are maybe on the fringe, but this making guys wait, that's my opinion on it. Oh, and by the way, Dale Murphy. When are we gonna put Dale Murphy in the Hall of Fame? Dale Murphy should have already been in the Hall of Fame. So we will see here in just a moment whether they do the right thing and put Andrew Jones in. If not, you will hear me sounding off on how it's absolutely ridiculous. So I'm off my soapbox. Going forward, I want to give you a little bit of a preview of some of the shows that are work I'm gonna be doing now that college football season has ended. On the next show, I I plan on poking a little fun at my own expense by giving you what I thought what were my worst takes of the college football season and what were my best takes. Now, I've only been had this show out since December, so they won't all be takes from the show. They will be things that I said going into the season. I'll look at some of my rankings throughout the season and see. Also going forward, we're going to be talking more college basketball. We will also start talking some college baseball. The some of the college baseball rankings are being released here in the last week. College baseball will get going here in February. So we'll talk a little bit about college baseball, some issues I think college baseball has to that are stopping it from growing as a sport. And of course, as we get into spring training, uh the major league baseball season, we'll talk about that. And soon we will also start to try to branch out a little bit, uh, have some guests on, do some things a little bit differently. But you won't want to miss our next show where we'll kind of put a bow on the college football season and then also talk college basketball. So if you made it this far into the show, thanks for tuning in. Congratulations to Indiana, Kurt Signetti, all the fans. Very happy for you. This was they said on the broadcast last night, the first time a new team had won a national championship since 1996 when the Florida Gators won their first national championship. Every other team that's won since 1996 had already had a previous national championship. So that's pretty incredible. If you enjoyed the show, please subscribe, uh, share it, follow, like, and I hope you'll tune in on Thursday.