College Football Conference Best Bets and Season Predictions
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00:00Matt Merchel has the app and of course, he's our college football insider from the Orlando
00:08Sentinel and he just spent some time in lovely Las Vegas where it was 120 degrees every single
00:16time he went outside and he thought this reminds me of Orlando except the humidity is way worse
00:23in Vietnam and Thailand and Orlando than it is in the microwave oven of Las Vegas. I want to start
00:31first of all good to see you Matt as always looking forward to a great college football
00:34season with you. I want to start with the expectations of you know Utah, Arizona,
00:41Colorado and Arizona State coming into the conference and the fact that Utah immediately
00:48gets tabbed the favorite of this conference. Now I don't deny that they're good. I don't
00:55deny that they're allegedly loaded and their quarterback who's frankly been injured in
01:01my book too much. So like handing them that conference that brutal conference that brutal
01:10schedule where you have to play everybody. It is absolutely impossible to win every game
01:16in that football conference. I don't care what anybody says and that's with Texas and
01:20Oklahoma leaving. How in the hell are they going to live up to being tabbed the favorite?
01:27Yeah, I you know, it's going to be interesting to me. I mean you look at this conference.
01:30They talked about this a lot over the last two days when we're in Las Vegas was this
01:34idea of this is a conference with a lot of parody. You know, you don't have necessarily
01:38one or two teams that you have the top that you think that really could kind of maybe
01:42you know push themselves to the being in the discussion for a national championship.
01:46You don't have that this year. You have a lot of teams. You got six seven eight teams.
01:49They feel like everyone could contend for the title, but no one's nearly I would say
01:53a runaway favorite. So as much as Utah was picked by the media to be the favorite. I
01:57still think there's some question marks there. I still think that Kansas Kansas State which
02:01were also picked to finish high Arizona all the teams that were picked to finish in the
02:06top half. I still think I have some question marks and I don't think it's necessarily given
02:10they're going to run away and win this this conference. So I think there's an opportunity
02:14to get a dark horse to come in there. Maybe someone else to comment and sweep it and get
02:18the title, but I do believe this is going to be a fun conference to watch because there
02:22aren't going to be those runaways the Alabama's the you know, the Georgia's a Clemson whoever
02:28you're going to have a couple teams that maybe get an opportunity to maybe surprise some
02:30people. Oh without a doubt Matt that this is a dynamic conference of
02:39talent and violence. I mean in both football and basketball any way you slice it. They're
02:45great and all these teams can play yesterday Carver High Road with Arizona. He's like in
02:53not so many words their coach bolted and all the players said screw him. We're not following
02:58him. We're staying in Tucson and we're going to show the world that we mean business. What
03:03do you think of that Arizona team sands their coach? Yeah, I think this is a good team.
03:10This is a good team last year and they felt like they needed to kind of get a couple pieces
03:14to get a little bit better. It says a lot really in this day and age with the transfer
03:18portal and NIL and everything the way it is a college athletics for a group of players
03:23to want to stick around at a school even when their head coach has gone on somewhere else.
03:28So I mean, I think it's going to be an interesting year for Arizona. I think they've got an opportunity
03:32to make a good push as well. You know again their schedule is going to be something they're
03:36going to have to look at they travel to you know, different spots that they're not used
03:40to playing. I talked to a couple people who said hey, you know, we haven't been to Orlando
03:44before where it's going to be interesting to see that happening. So I think the biggest
03:47adjustments for these four new teams are just been going to new places going to places.
03:51They haven't been familiar with fan bases. They aren't familiar with so that's going to be a
03:55challenge, but I like Arizona. I think Arizona is one of those four or five that I mentioned
03:59that I think can be right in the mix for the title.
04:02So Rich Cermonello does a lot of college football with us on SportsGrid
04:09and he jumped on Oklahoma State at around plus 850
04:14and he thinks that they're going to make a huge splash in this college football season.
04:20What do you think of that team and their coach? He certainly had an interesting week.
04:26Yeah, I think you know, when you look at Oklahoma State, this is a team that a lot of people
04:31are talking about with this idea of you know, if you're looking for someone to step up
04:34and replace the Texas and Oklahoma's Oklahoma State's that program,
04:38you know that they had some consistency over the years Mike Gundy's probably the most,
04:42you know, senior coach obviously at this conference.
04:45Now, he's the guy outside of Deion Sanders that gets a lot of attention.
04:49He got a lot of attention this week, obviously for some of the things he said,
04:52but they return a lot of talent.
04:54Alan Bowman's a guy who's been around for a long time, the quarterback, you know,
04:57Ollie Gordon was the nation's leading rusher last year.
05:01He's the guy that could have another outstanding year.
05:03This is a program that people aren't really talking about necessarily winning at all,
05:07but I could see that happening. And I think, you know, Gundy again,
05:09he's an older spokesman, so to speak, when it comes to college athletics.
05:13He talked a lot about some of the changes that are going on.
05:16But then again, when you think he's kind of that upper level, he said something.
05:20He talks about, you know, Ollie Gordon's arrest for DUI
05:23and mentions how the fact that, you know, who hasn't gone out
05:26and gotten, you know, a few drinks with him and driven as well.
05:29So, I mean, probably not the smartest thing to say, you know,
05:31after trying to do the whole vehicle type thing, you know,
05:34at the big 12 media days, but it did draw a lot of attention.
05:37I give him respect. Listen, he brought Ollie Gordon to this event.
05:41Most coaches wouldn't have done that. Most coaches would have hidden him,
05:44put them on the bench and said, you're not going to take you there.
05:47It's an award. We're not going to take you there to kind of be celebrated
05:50and have to deal with this. He brought him there and said, listen,
05:53he's a man. He's getting paid. He needs to step up and talk about what happened
05:58and give his kind of side of things. And that's what ended up happening.
06:02What do you think of Campbell and his team in Ames?
06:08Yeah, I think that's going to be an interesting one. You know, Matt Campbell,
06:11you know, Iowa State had done well for a while.
06:12Matt Campbell was a really hot coaching candidate for a lot of big jobs
06:15that opened up over the last few years, but then they struggled at times,
06:18you know, and I think this team coming back does have a lot of pieces.
06:22I think that's going to be a big boost for them as well.
06:25It's always hard to play in Ames. It's always hard to win at Iowa State.
06:28So I think they're going to have an opportunity. Again,
06:31they're going to need to find someone to step up and really lead,
06:35you know, at the quarterback position,
06:36somebody they feel like can really kind of push the ball down the field a little bit more
06:40and they got to play better defense,
06:41but they feel like they've got the pieces through the portal and through recruiting
06:45that they can be able to get the job done this year.
06:48Deion always gets the most attention. How was his session?
06:53Oh, it was it was crazy. You know, I mean he as he walked into the place at Allegiant Stadium,
06:58you know, he had a huge entourage. He had an entourage,
07:00you guys following him around social media people, camera crews,
07:04boom mics, everything was there following around at every spot
07:07and as people tried to get access to him.
07:10It was very difficult, you know, because he's everyone wants a piece of attention.
07:14I kind of likened it to when Johnny Manziel went to SEC media days.
07:18There was such a huge cluster of media members around him.
07:22It was impossible to even get to him until I talked to him a little bit.
07:25That's the way kind of Deion was and I think, you know, a lot of coaches said listen,
07:29Deion is good for this league. Deion puts a face on the league.
07:32He's going to draw a lot of eyes to it. That's going to be a good thing for them.
07:36Now, if he can win some games, that'll help them out as well.
07:39So it's going to be interesting to see how they're able to do that this year.
07:42How do you think BYU is going to do in this conference?
07:46I think they'll be better. I think, again, a lot of the new teams,
07:50you know, had to make some adjustments. I think what they're going to have to do
07:53is get deeper, stronger, faster, just like everyone else.
07:56It's not like they played a patty cake schedule over the years,
07:59you know, they've played some big opponents.
08:01I think it's going to take a little bit of time, but I think again,
08:04maybe year three, year four, I think BYU can make a big push.
08:07The stock on these two coaches in Kansas at Kansas
08:10and K-State are through the roof. Respectfully, I got 20 seconds.
08:15Yeah, I mean, both those guys have done a great job. Lance Lappold
08:18did a wonderful job at Kansas, a program that's really been down for a while,
08:21and Chris Kleiman has obviously done a great job at Kansas State.
08:24Both those two programs should be in contention in the Big 12 this year.
08:28Yeah, and I got to be honest. I think it's going to be fun to see it all play out.
08:34And I think it's going to be awesome football.
08:37And I also have said that I think Texas can go to the SEC
08:41and actually pull it off and win it in their first year
08:45because they're so loaded. We'll see. We'll talk football all year, man.
08:48Always good to see you, man.