Welcome back to Joe and go. Michael Junior,
Michael Senior Emerson. Lazy and now going out to
be joined by our friend Jessica Matana. You can
catch her down at the Dan Lebatard show. You
could see her out sweating her whole ass off outside
of hard rock last night, Jess. Have you
fully recovered from that mess? That is a great
way of saying it. Yes, I did.
In fact, sweat my whole ass off. It
was very toasty down here last night at the Dolphins
Bills game. Did you end up going into that
Jets? Were you just outside the stadium? How
did that go for you guys? I know you're
doing hits for Emerson and them on the pregame power
up. But did you actually stick around for any
of that game? No, I didn't get to
stick around. I was just there for, for
all the pregame festivities. But man, that ended
up being kind of a brutal game for Miami.
Oh my God II, I thought it was bad
enough going into the third quarter with how badly Miami's
offense was playing and then two of course, getting
that concussion was terrible. What's uh what what's your
getting? Everybody's thought that your thought on tool and
the concussion and just the timeline of it and,
and his future. Yeah. I mean, I
think just my initial reaction is just how bad I
feel for him. Like he's a player that I've
really enjoyed watching since his college days and he's obviously
had such terrible, uh, luck, I guess
you could say, with head injuries and with other
injuries and I, I really just feel bad for
the guy and I hope that he, he knows
that fans are, you know, all hoping that
he recovers and takes the time that he needs away
from football right now. So, I, I
mean, it was just awful to see that and
you, you obviously never want to see that in
a football game. Nope. And we've heard all
the right stuff from Mike mcdaniel and this Dolphins organization
about what they're going to prioritize with Tua right now
being the player, the person and Mike seems like
the right coach to handle this the right way,
going forward. Hopefully, after everything we've seen with
Tua and this organization. So, uh Jess,
I've tried to now put it off for as long
as I can with that conversation about the NFL.
Uh How are you feeling, Bud Notre Dame football
really lobbed us a grenade last week. They're going
on the road to Purdue this weekend. Are you
feeling any more hopeful about our chances as a big
road favorite against Purdue this weekend. Let me start
with this. I heard you pick Texas A and
M over Florida in the last segment. And I
have to say, I don't, I don't feel
confident about Texas A and M they have a transit
of loss to Northern Illinois. That's pretty bad guys
. I don't know how you can pick them in
anything going forward. Um No, but in all
seriousness, Mike, I think. and in some
ways, uh Saturday felt like uh a warm embrace
from, from an old friend. It felt like
a Notre Dame of, of years past maybe.
Um But yeah, it was. And exactly,
and I didn't want to say it. Uh and
I did, I did think about your Notre Dame
last night watching Texas State, uh led by their
head coach, uh GJ Kinney who beat Notre Dame
when he was a quarterback for Tulsa back back in
your day. Um So that was a nice little
blast from the past. But, uh yeah,
I, I don't feel very confident. I'm actually
very concerned about what we have heard and haven't heard
about Riley Leonard's health if he's able to do what
he, there's a fire alarm going off here.
They don't want me to talk about Notre Dame guys
. This is not going well. I said Riley
Leonard and like flashing lights went up. Uh But
no, I, I'm worried if he can't run
the ball if they're not going to use him to
his full abilities and in running the football, um
, that is a huge part of his skill set
and why I think Notre Dame brought him to campus
. So I'm, I'm very curious if he's 100%
. It didn't seem like he was in the latter
half of the game against Northern Illinois. Um,
just based on what plays they were giving him.
Obviously, he threw some horrible interception in that game
. Um But at the same time, like,
I, I don't really know what the coaching staff's
confidence is in the rest of the quarterback room and
if they feel like someone has shown them that they
have taken that step ahead of Riley Leonard. So
I, I fully anticipate they're gonna start Leonard.
They said they're going to start Leonard. Um maybe
he just had a bad game and it's not injury
related at all, but I, I'm definitely worried
about that non throwing shoulder. Yeah, I'm definitely
definitely, you know, th this is a team
where you don't talk about playoffs anymore. You talk
about one week at a time and getting, getting
back kind of in the groove, uh, like
they did against at least getting the win against Texas
A and M. So before, before we get
to what's going on in, in the PAC 12
, just your, your overall thoughts of the top
of the, the college, uh, um,
land now landscape now and how many teams you think
are are viable champs. Oh, that's a great
question. You know, after week two we've really
only seen, um, a couple of the top
teams play like a legit F BS opponent. So
I still feel really good about Georgia. I feel
pretty good about Ohio State. Um, I thought
Texas looked amazing last week against Michigan and I think
, you know, maybe I would end the list
there of like my, my top three, but
I'm not ruling Alabama out of anything like Alabama in
a lot of ways, had a similar, uh
, start to their game as Notre Dame. But
then in the fourth quarter, they were actually able
to show why they're Alabama and just, yeah,
beat the brakes off of us f in one quarter
and, and definitively won that game. So I
guess I'd put Alabama up there with like, maybe
a little asterisk because, you know, new head
coach, you always are curious what you're gonna get
later in the season when conference play starts. Um
, but yeah, I think, I think if
you asked me at the beginning of last season,
I would have also said those four teams too.
So there, there you go, 12 team playoff
or not, the good teams are still really good
. Yeah, I was gonna say the more things
change, the more they stay the same because we
always said this college football playoff expansion wasn't really going
to change the teams that were good now for Alabama
they did. The one thing that we always thought
might give people a chance, which was Nick Saban
retired, but Ken De Boer comes over as an
incredibly capable coach. And so now we've got that
same situation there. So, uh Jess in terms
of a little bit of different. Can I interest
you in a little Pac 12 revival? That news
breaking late the other night where now all of a
sudden the remnants of the PAC 12, Washington State
and Oregon State announced that they're going to scoop up
four of the mountain West's best in Boise State,
Fresno State. Um Colorado State and I forget why
I'm blanking on the other one right now, but
San Diego State and I just, I am currently
out at Fresno right now. I'm calling the New
Mexico State Fresno State game tomorrow night. So as
you can imagine, our open is going to be
a very interesting place talking about this. What was
your reaction when you saw this break the other night
or maybe in the morning? I think my initial
reaction was like, wow, they're actually gonna pull
this off like it. It seemed like that was
the game plan from Oregon State and Washington State after
they decided to stick with the PAC 12 and not
move to the Mountain West permanently. Um So I
think great for the PAC 12, obviously not great
for the Mountain West because now there's eight teams left
in the mountain west that don't know if, you
know, some of them may get poached to the
, to the PAC 12. There's two more spots
for the PAC 12 to fill for them to be
, uh, you know, a F BS conference
. Uh I think you need eight teams. So
, um there's obviously going to be more uh ramifications
from this that we haven't seen yet. And some
of them, I've seen people say that they want
uh the PAC 12 to absorb a couple of the
top F CS teams which obviously great for F Bs
football would stink for F CS football because those are
some pretty storied programs that have had a lot of
success there. But obviously, there's more money in
the PAC 12. It's an iconic brand and it's
some, it's a conference that quite frankly is just
, it's worth more on the market even though it
was uh very mismanaged for the past decade and a
half by leadership there. So like good and bad
, I think I, I've, I've been frustrated
to see the, the big 10 try to co
opt the PAC 12 after dark uh or uh the
last couple of weeks and I, I want the
PAC 12 to, I don't know if they can
trade mark that or, or whatever, but tell
the big 10 to back off. The PAC 12
is not going anywhere. We are still gonna have
weird wacky uh late at night, PAC 12 football
in 2026. Well, I, I hope for
the Mountain West, uh, uh, concern for
them that more teams don't leave because then they would
not have the minimum eight teams because now they're down
to eight and hopefully more won't leave other teams that
are being talked about because you guys are right.
The, the PAC 12 needs two more. They
need a minimum of eight. There's talk of Tulane
Memphis Un LV. Uh, going in. But
how about this, how about Stanford and Cal one
year in the AC C going back to the PAC
12? I mean, it would be phenomenal.
I, I think it would be great for,
for the school for, from the travel, especially
from the non football sports. But even the football
travel, you're used to traveling a lot but non
football to have Stanford and Cal go back to the
PAC 12 from a geographic standpoint. I think that
a lot of people are saying like the Cal Stanford
AC C thing doesn't make sense. They should go
back to the PAC 12 but from a financial standpoint
, I don't even know if that's really possible or
on the table right now. Plus I've heard a
lot of, you know, college football reporters talk
about how Cal and Stanford, like the uh institutional
, like uh academic standing of the other AC C
schools and they don't want to go back to a
PAC 12 with schools that they believe that they have
a a higher standing of like, we, we
know that this is a factor for uh big universities
in choosing a conference and like the academic rigor and
yada yada yada. So I don't know if it's
possible, I don't know if they are even interested
in that. I think it's, it's probably likely
that they're happy um staying in the AC C for
now. And I've also, I, I have
been really impressed with Cal Twitter over the last few
days. I don't know if you guys have been
, you've ended up on the algorithm go gojo.
But they are so OK, they beat Auburn last
weekend and like, they have just been going crazy
on Twitter and they, they don't seem like they
want to go back to the PAC 12. They're
like, we've gotten more exposure in the AC C
in two weeks than we've ever gotten in the PAC
12, which I don't know if that's true or
not. Uh Because there, there have been a
couple, you know, pretty big time athletes that
played for Cal before, but regardless, uh they
seem pretty happy. I don't know, it just
seems like they're not going back. They don't want
to look back. Yeah, you really ask for
them. Yeah. Yeah. Did you really ask
if I was up on the algorithm? Did you
really ask if I was, you should be on
the CAL. It's very, it's good stuff.
I Mike, I think you would enjoy it.
I'll send you some tweets. Ok. Yeah,
I need to, I need to get myself involved
in this. I've seen people talking about it but
I have not been served members of Cal Twitter just
yet. And I guess that's what happens when you
beat Hugh Freeze's Auburn. Like you get upgraded to
this immediate class of Twitter that everyone else wants to
be involved in. But I, I, uh
, I'm gonna have to check this out now.
I love weird college football Twitter and it sounds like
this hasn't crossed over into toxic college football Twitter yet
. No, it's like, it's pretty, it's
pretty fun. It's a lot of, I would
say shit posting. It's a lot of shit posting
their mascot. Um, there was a lot of
, you know, pictures of Auburn's stadium, Jordan
Hare Stadium that said property of Antifa. There is
a lot of that sort of like ribbing back and
forth with you. Freeze over the, the woke
mine virus. But, um, I, I
highly recommend it. They seem very amped up right
now. They think they're getting game day in a
couple of weeks if they keep winning. So it's
a fun place to be. Hey, I mean
, listen, get me at LSU, South Carolina
, which wouldn't have necessarily jumped off the page me
a week ago. Now, obviously South Carolina baptized
Kentucky last week and gets an LSU team coming to
town that's on, you know, got the one
loss against us. C at the start of the
season, but still looks like they're competent enough offensively
. So, stranger things have happened. And I
think you're right just overall about, uh, Cal
and Stanford and the AC C most notably too because
this seems like a precedent issue if you're the AC
C while it would be fun for all of us
to say, hey, let's do a do over
and just give them back to the PAC 12.
You got Florida State and Clemson sitting there looking at
you like you sure you want to do that bud
, you want to go ahead and light that candle
. We can do this and now all of a
sudden they get the chance to get out. So
that seems like lawyers and, and to your point
, university presidents making this decision like that academic portion
of it pops up all the time because as we
constantly have to remind people, these are university presidents
that are actually the ones governing a lot of the
change around college football and they care about nerd stuff
a lot more than the rest of us do.
Yeah. And like they, uh, it's the
whole athletic department, right? It's not just college
football, like if we did have sort of like
how Notre Dame has its own, uh, you
know, conference agreement with college football that's separate from
the rest of the athletic department, then I think
you could make these sort of like geographical, uh
, alliances, but we don't really have that right
now. It's, it's, you know, if
you want to be in a conference, the whole
school has to join all of the teams. So
, so, which is it though for, you
know, we sit there and talk about the PAC
12 and their values of academics, uh, of
staying in the AC C. Well, let's be
on, come on, it's a, it's about
the money. They're making more money in the AC
C student athletes. Be damned. They don't care
about the student a because they're making them travel from
one coast to the other to play volleyball or soccer
. Uh, and, and so I, I'm
, I'm sorry, I'm not buying the academic part
that it's a better academic standing in the AC C
, it's a bigger frigging paycheck. We know it's
all run by money. I'm not gonna argue with
you there, Mike. Yeah, they can,
I mean, it, it is, but we
know that stuff is the stuff that they can at
least slap the sticker on it and, uh,
go there and make it happen. Uh, Jess
, this has been a lot of fun. I'm
really hoping that we don't have to exchange any more
. Incredibly frustrated wellness, check text messages this weekend
after Purdue. I've played some weird hairy games against
Purdue, that stadium. I, I don't have
a lot of good things to say about the stadium
or their drums, so I'm just gonna keep them
to myself. So as not to get aggregated in
case this goes wrong. I hate their stupid drum
so much Mike. I, I, I'm really
nervous. They have a good defense. They have
a, a very, a head coach with a
good track record with defenses and Notre Dame's biggest issue
as we know the offense scoring points. I am
nervous. They're not going to do very much of
that against Purdue, but you look, we'll see
if anyone out there like hacks into our phones and
reads how depressing our text messages back and forth over
the last week have been. They would be very
alarmed. Um, but let's hope that never happens
. Fingers crossed. Thanks, Betty. We'll talk
to you soon. Thanks, Jess. Oh God
, I can't believe it is an absolute mess in
so in our mentions right now, an absolute mess
. God help us both coming up next. We'll
get you set for the NFL this weekend here on
Gojo and Golic.