Stewart Mandel of The Athletic joined the K&C Masterpiece to talk about all the top storylines surrounding college football at the season's midway point, including this weekend's massive LSU/Texas A&M matchup, why OU has struggled so much in the SEC in their first season in the conference, if Indiana's undefeated start is for real, and more!
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00:00How do you feel about the A&M LSU matchup and then potentially A&M's playoff prospects?
00:22Well I think this is definitely the swing game for both of them and it's really hard
00:26to pick against either of them because they're both playing so well right now.
00:29You know all the credit to A&M for coming off that Notre Dame loss in the opener and
00:34I feel like it's gotten better and better.
00:37So just because it's at home I think I'll lean toward A&M but obviously LSU is playing
00:44pretty well of late and I think whoever wins this game has an excellent shot to make the
00:49playoff and this is very simplistic and whoever loses is going to have their work cut out
00:53because they both have pretty tough schedules down the stretch.
00:56Now that could be simple but could you tell us about the possibility of a super complex
01:008-team SEC tiebreaker?
01:04I think there's going to be a crazy tiebreaker in both the SEC and the Big Ten this year
01:09because they have such big conferences and such uneven schedules especially in the SEC.
01:14Just for fun in my mailbag today I did sketch out an 8-team tiebreaker or an 8-team tie
01:19of everybody going 6-2 and honestly it did not require some crazy Mississippi State knock
01:26somebody off kind of scenario.
01:29Every team's losses among those two losses are definitely possible.
01:33Is that actually going to happen?
01:34No.
01:35Especially because there will be losses that you don't see coming.
01:39Somebody from the bottom 8 will beat the top 8.
01:41But if I can come up with 8 that way then I'm sure we can come up with 4 and half of
01:48these teams finishing with the same record which would also be really messy.
01:54Has the transition of the teams that moved into the SEC been better or has it just lived
02:01up to exactly what you thought it was going to be?
02:04Well Oklahoma's been disappointing.
02:06I mean Texas, despite what happened the other night, I think you have to say has fit in
02:10just fine.
02:12I think Steve Sarkeesian did a great job in his recruiting of having that program ready
02:16to go in the SEC.
02:18And then Oklahoma, it's crazy that they were ranked as recently as they were because I
02:21don't know, they're going to have a hard time making a bowl game unless, obviously he changed
02:25offensive coordinators this week, he's going back to Jackson Arnold at quarterback.
02:30If he looks much better than he did early in the season then maybe they've got a decent
02:33chance but all season long the offense has just looked completely broken and kind of
02:38wasting frankly that Brenna Venables did what he said he was going to do and build Oklahoma,
02:43build up their defense.
02:45This is the best defense they've had in a long time there.
02:48You know, it would be easy to say they weren't prepared for the SEC but I don't know, I think
02:52they'd be having the same problem in the Big 12 right now.
02:54If you don't have a quarterback, you don't have a quarterback.