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Check it out college football on the
West Coast. This is Get Off My

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Pylon, a look at the PAC
twelve and more, part of the College

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Gridiron Coast to Coast podcast network.
Here's your host, Matt Zemi. Welcome

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to the latest edition if you Get
Off My Pylon College Football podcast is Matt

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Zemmick Alex Blower has to be GoF
going through a business schedule for him this

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week, So I'm flying solo this
week. And hey, so Conference Championship

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Saturday in the PAC twelve in the
Mountain West. Let's review these two games,

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also look ahead at the bowls and
the playoff. You know, obviously

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we'll be able to look at the
bowls even more on next week's show.

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We'll get a preliminary look, but
we start with PAC twelve in the Mountain

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West Championship games. So, USC
was up seventeen to three. It had

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the ball at the Utah third nine
yard line after a turnover after a fumble

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recovery. USC's turnover differential this year
over plus twenty, and so the Trojans

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had a chance to get at least
a seventeen point lead with a field goal

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twenty one point lead with a touchdown. And you know, in terms of

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covering sports, and it's not just
college football, it's not just football in

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general, any sport, when you
have a chance to put the boot on

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the throat, you need to do
it. And it's not just a matter

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of you know, seizing an opportunity
in microcosm, but you don't know what's

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going to happen for the rest of
the game. You don't know what's going

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to happen for the remainder of the
competition. It's true in tennis, it's

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true in golf, it's true in
basketball, baseball. You don't know what's

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around the bed. Like in a
baseball game, if you don't get if

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you don't score at least two runs, if the base is loaded and nobody

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out up a run in the fifth
inning, and then the sixth inning,

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your pitcher gets hit by a comebacker, he has to leave the game,

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and then then you have to go
to your unreliable middle relief guy in the

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sixth in the early seventh innings,
and then the dynamic of the game has

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completely changed. Or take for example, in tennis, you know you have

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a break point to go up in
the third set, take a two sets

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to one lead and get back into
the match. You don't. You have

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a sitter up up at the net, but you net the volley, you

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butcher the volley, you lose that
point, you don't get the break,

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you don't win the third set.
Oh okay, you come back and you

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win the fourth set. But then
the fifth set your dog tired. And

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you know, because you didn't win
that third set, you could have won

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the match in four sets. But
then in the fifth you know, your

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body barks, maybe tweak a hamstring, pull a groin, and that's all.

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She wrote, on and on and
on and on. There are times

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when you can do something early in
the game so that you don't have to

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live with small margins later in a
game, and if you fail, that

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can make all the difference, and
it certainly did for USC in this game

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against Utah. Imagine if USC gets
the twenty four to three lead, Imagine

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if the Trojans go up twenty one
points. You know, USC got a

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fourteen point lead on Utah on October
fifteenth, in the first of these two

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regular season meetings between the teams,
went up by fourteen but never went up

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by three scores, and so the
Trojans could have gotten that extra bit of

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leverage, but they never did,
and Utah came back, reeled in the

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Trojans wanted at the very end.
Now this game, Utah didn't need to

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score two point conversion at the very
end. The final score forty seven twenty

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four, but the larger dynamic still
proved true that USC was electric in the

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first fifteen eighteen twenty minutes of this
game. That was very similar to the

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October game in Salt Lake City.
And then you saw the uts you know,

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pick themselves up midway through the second
quarter. You saw the offense get

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going. You saw Adalton kincaide graduate
we get into the game more and more.

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In this game, Utah's rushing attack
was more prominent than it was on

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October fifteenth. On October fifteenth,
you tied through for over four hundred yards.

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It wasn't quite the explosion in this
game from the passing attack, but

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still plenty of big plays generated in
the passing game and a lot more in

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the running game. Had the balance
that Kyle Whittingham and offensive coordinator Andy Lovewig

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want. And the other commonality with
point of commonality with the October fifteenth game

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was that USC just couldn't tack couldn't
missed about twenty tackles in the first game,

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missed twenty two in this one.
So yeah, that's that's a that's

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a pretty consistent theme from Alex Grinch's
defense. And let's talk about Ox Grinch

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for a little bit. Now.
You can say that guys were in position

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to make plays and they just didn't
make them. And as far as that

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goes, you know, just in
terms of a specific analysis in microcosm,

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that's true. All right, guys
were in position to make tackles and they

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didn't make tackles. Like that is
correct. There there's no disagreeing with it.

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But when we get into the weight
that we assigned to various comments,

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the weight that we assigned to various
realities, you know, do we just

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take that comment at face value and
assume that, you know, good Grinch

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actually coached a good game and it
was just the players not making plays.

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It's that's a little too simplistic because
as much as a coach's scheme might have

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worked or might have been right,
what also matters is which guys are being

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chosen to play, and also which
guys are being put in certain positions,

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like Max Williams was not in a
good position. He was not suited to

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take on Utah's tight ends. But
that was a matchup that Alex Grinch was

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willing to live with. Now you
could say in return that hey, USC

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could not have great options on defense, and that might be true, and

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that is part of the larger conversation
with USC and Alex Gringe. But nevertheless,

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like did he settle on the best
personnel for the various matchups and the

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problems and the limitations that he faced
in this game. Plus Dalton Kincaid destroyed

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USC in the first game. Alex
Grinch was rightly embarrassed by that. This

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was a time to show that,
you know, USC could actually learn,

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that it could evolve, that it
could do a lot more damage control against

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the Utes, and fundamentally USC failed
in that regard. So you give a

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lot of credit to Dalton Kincaid,
but you also say, you know what

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I mean, if our guys were
in position to make tackles and they missed

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them. The fact that it happened
a second time against the same opponent,

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you know, in terms of the
team Utah and also in terms of a

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specific player, Dalton Kincaid, who
did a lot of damage. You know,

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it does speak to a limit in
personnel, limitations in terms of what

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USC was able to achieve on defense
this year. But when it's the same

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opponent in a second game, in
a rematch, that also speaks to,

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you know, the defensive coordinator not
ultimately finding solutions. And we also have

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to say on a coaching staff,
any coaching staff in football, whose responsibility

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is it to make sure that the
defense tackles well? I mean, to

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a certain extent, it's the head
coach. Obviously, if the head coach

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is a defense first guy, you
would assign some more responsibility and significance to

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the head coach in terms of teaching
a defense to tackle. So to a

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certain extent, that falls on Lincoln
Riley. But of course Lincoln Riley is

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not a defense first coach. He's
an offense first coach. And so one

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can reasonably say that Alex Grinch,
more than anyone else on the USC coaching

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staff, is responsible for teaching his
players to tackle well, make sure that

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tackling technique is where it should be. And after a season in which tackling

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technique, especially in the second half
of the season from mid October through late

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November was lacking, you know,
to see the tackling regress basically to the

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same point that it was on October
fifteenth against Utah, that would certainly indicate

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that teaching technique in terms of tackling
was not done to the level that it

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could have been or should have been. And Alex sprinche has to wear that,

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and by extension, Lincoln Riley has
to wear that in terms of saying,

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Hey, I'm riding with Alex Bridge, He's my guy at defensive coordinator.

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I'm sticking with Alex Springe. Even
though I could have hired other defensive

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coordinators to join me at USC for
the twenty twenty two season, Lake Riley,

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in the eyes of many, settled
for Alex Grine. And we went

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into the season thinking, you know
what, USC doesn't have the dudes on

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defense. You know, it doesn't
have the depth, it doesn't have the

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across the board quality. And that's
that's why people didn't think USC was going

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to get to eleven wins. That's
why a lot of pundits and prognosticators and

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publications did not think that USC was
going to make the Pac twelve Championship game.

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This is why this season on a
lot of levels. Was viewed as

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overachievement for USC, precisely because there
wasn't awareness that the defense wasn't all there

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yet. It wasn't a college football
playoff roster. This team did not have

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a college football playoff level ceiling.
In the end, that conventional wisdom proved

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to be right. But it also
doesn't mean that Alex Gridge gets a free

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pass. I mean he didn't do
a bad job this year. The defense

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won the Oregon State game on September
twenty, fourth, Week four in Corvallis.

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The defense was excellent against Washington State
in Week six are October eight,

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shutting out the Cougars in the second
half and allowing only fourteen points in that

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particular. Games like, the defense
had a significant hand in winning a couple

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of very important games this season.
That's a couple more games than we thought.

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You know, it didn't seem as
though the defense was in position to

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win any game at any point this
season. It won two, so you

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could say that Alex Grinch still did
a little bit better than what the preseason

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expectations were. But of course,
when you're one win away from the playoff,

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as USC was, and the defense
pulls that kind of clunker in a

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big moment, and Utah absolutely dominates
this game, totally physically superior from start

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to finish. You're gonna get questions
about Alex Scringe, and you should get

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questions about Alex Scringe. And to
be fair to Alex Scringe, we know

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he wasn't inheriting a stock roster a
loaded defense. So you know that that

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is something that we all knew and
that never changed over the course of the

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season. But in many ways,
at what point is Lincoln Riley satisfied with

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the performance of his defense? At
what point is it more about Lincoln Riley

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accepting Alex Grnch and less about Alex
Alex Sprnch himself. And this gets to

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a fundamental question as us and stares
at its off season. You know,

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if Lincoln Riley was to let go
of Alex Springe and I don't think he

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will, and I think it's okay
if he If he retains him for twenty

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twenty three, I would say that
twenty twenty three is a real prove it

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or else moment for Alex Sprnch.
But let's say that Lincoln Riley does let

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Alex Brnch go some people would say, oh, it's a betrayal of Alex

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Sprinch. It would be backstabbing.
You know, Lincoln Riley has stuck with

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Alex Grinch for four seasons. That
is a lot of loyalty. That is

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a lot of fidelity in a cutthroat
profession. The idea that Alex that Lincoln

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Riley has to keep Alex Grinch uh, instead of you know, lest he'd

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be seen as you know, uh, you know and brutus you know at

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two brute uh, you know,
a real betrayer of a relationship that is

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overplayed. Like Lincoln Riley has already
given Alex Grinch more of a foothold in

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this business at high level programs than
many other coaches would have done. If

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Lincoln Riley can find an opening in
the coaching carousel to get a defensive coordinator

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better than Alex Grinch, he should
do it. That is his job.

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His job is to win games.
His job is to win national championships.

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His job is to make college football
playoffs. There is no uh, I

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think ethic of loyalty uh in which
Lincoln Riley is somehow beholden and morally obligated

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to the idea that you know he
has to stay with Alex Grinch for twenty

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twenty three. I think it's fair
if he does it, but I don't

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think like he would be breaking any
kind of sacred trust. And the thing

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with Alex Gringe, I'm not saying
he's a bad defensive coordinator, because you

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know, he's been asked to clean
up messes. He had to clean up

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a mess this year from last year's
USC defense, which was empirically much worse

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than this year's. So like,
he improved something that was bad, but

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merely improving something that's bad, that's
not the same as creating a great defense,

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which he obviously didn't do, and
that's that is the lingering question with

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Gringe is that he makes bad defenses
moderately better but not spectacular, and he

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doesn't make defenses great. So he's
in that limbo where, Okay, he

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takes something bad and he makes it
better than it was before, but he

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certainly doesn't create an elite product.
So he's not a bad coordinator, but

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he's not an elite coordinator. And
at USC, shouldn't you want an elite

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coordinator, or at least someone who
has conclusively proven that he's elite Alex Springe

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could in the course of time become
elite. But when do we get to

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a point where we say, you
know, he just doesn't measure up with

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the very best. And we can't
always say, oh he has limited personnel,

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Oh he doesn't have the dudes.
Just at what point is the Alex

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Springe conversation point to change? At
USC more on the pact of Tangship game,

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this time from the Utah side.
After this break, college football fans,

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two two think smarter at tickets Smarter. All right, So the Utah side,

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Now, USC had a key injury
in this game, which we didn't

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know about until a few hours before
the game. Andrew Vorhees, USC's best

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offensive lineman was out. Now Utah
of course no brand Quiefy on offense,

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Tavion Thomas left the team and also
on defense, Van Fillinger and Jonah Ellis,

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two prime members of the defensive front. They were out. They were

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not part of this game, so
it's not as though Utah was working with

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a fully loaded defensive line. But
when the USC lost Andrew Vorhees, that

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definitely even the things up in terms
of the matchup between USC's offensive line and

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Utah's defensive front and what happened Utah's
what Utah had in terms of its backups

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on the defensive front four was a
lot better than USC's offensive line, particularly

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backup Mason Murphy who got man handled
at right tackle, dude having to fill

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in there with Vorhees out. So
Utah's backups were better than USC's backups.

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And of course, when Caleb Williams
got injured, you know, and his

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mobility was limited, he needed a
comfortable pocket in which to three USC's offensive

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line before he's out not deliver that, But that is also a credit to

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Utah having backups ready to play,
having backups who were stronger, more physical,

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more powerful than USC. And so
that in many ways is the real

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story of the Pac twelve Chamanship game. But Utah had better depth. Utah

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had more physical depth. Utah what
Utah has established steadily over time under Kyle

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Weddingham. It was a better quality
of depth further down the roster, further

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down the depth chart than what Lincoln
Riley was able to do in one year.

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Now, make no mistake, Lincoln
Riley doing what he did in one

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year spectacular seven more wins than last
year. But Utah was uniquely equipped to

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expose USC's lack of depth. And
that is really the true triumph of the

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use that all the program building that
Kyle Wettingham has done. It really paid

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off in spades in this game against
USC. Utah had the physical, the

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culture, and the ability to rise
up in big moments that USC didn't quite

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match. Kyle Whittingham. You know, let's remember Utah lost the Pack twelve

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championship game in twenty eighteen and twenty
nineteen, lost in twenty eighteen to Washington,

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scoring only three points. Look where
the Utah offense has come. Look

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how far that that offense has come
over the past four years. Utah used

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to have a very unreliable offense in
big games. And now that Utah offense

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00:18:33,119 --> 00:18:37,200
was extremely reliable in a big game. It was also very good against Oregon

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and last year's Pack twelve Changship games. So we've seen the evolution of Kyle

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Whittingham it wasn't always this way at
Utah. Now, now the offense and

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00:18:45,680 --> 00:18:49,759
now the line play are much more
reliable on both sides of the ball in

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really big games. And that is
why the US are back to back pack

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twelve champions, clearly deserving of their
place in a second consecutive Rose Bowl where

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they'll play Penn State. All right, guys, with college football season heading

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So the Mountain West Championship, Now, the Mountain West had a brutal season.

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And you know, the champion of
the Mountain West in twenty twenty two

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has four losses. That's the kind
of year it was for the conference,

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all right. There was no exceptional
team, no team that you know transcended,

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no team that was in the hunt
for the Group of five championship,

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which is won by Tulane, which
is going to play a USC in the

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Cotton Bowl. But a great story. Jeff Tedford has recently dealt with health

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problems. He had to step away
from coaching, so been through a tough

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time personally not able to do what
he loves doing. And then Jay Kner

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injured for significant portions of each of
the last two season. He was out

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earlier this year when Fresno State lost
to Connecticut and really hit rock bottom.

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Both of those men battled back.
Both of those men endured so much.

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They went through the valleys, they
went through the tough times, and here

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they are on the other side of
the mountain. Fresno State demolishes Boise State

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led twenty eight nine at one point, finishes off a twenty eight sixteen win

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in Boise on the blue turf to
win the Mountain West Championship. Just a

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00:21:26,839 --> 00:21:30,920
triumph of the human spirit, triumph
over adversity, and we throw that around.

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00:21:30,960 --> 00:21:34,160
It could be at cliche, but
it's really true. For Jeff Tedford

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and Jake Haner all that they've been
through, They've been through a ton,

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00:21:40,119 --> 00:21:45,240
and they were both very emotional and
very grateful on the field in Boise after

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00:21:45,279 --> 00:21:52,119
that Mountain West Championship win. So
a rocky and difficult season for the Mountain

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00:21:52,160 --> 00:21:59,000
West, but a very satisfying storybook
style ending for that program and for its

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two leaders, the head coach Tedford
and the quarterback Jake Hanner. All Right,

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bowl games, just a few general
thoughts. One the PAC twelve has

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Oregon State playing Florida in the in
the Vegas Bowl. Now that that seemed

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to be a very interesting matchup,
but then we've had Anthony Richardson, the

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Florida quarterback entered the transfer portal,
so that takes a little bit of the

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00:22:21,680 --> 00:22:25,839
luster out of that game. But
it also means that Oregon State better win

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00:22:25,960 --> 00:22:29,480
that game. If you're going against
a Florida team without Anthony Richardson, you

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have to win that game. Well. Speaking of Fresno State and also the

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two conferences that we follow and get
off my pylon part of the College Greater

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00:22:36,880 --> 00:22:41,599
on Coast to Coast network, we
have Fresno State and Washington State in the

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LA Bowl. Now that is going
to be a very interesting pre Christmas Bowl.

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There are seven bowl games on December
seventeenth. That might be the best

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one of the bunch, especially with
Anthony Richardson no longer being part of the

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Vegas Bowl with Florida and Oregon State, so Fresno State Washington State, that

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is a game you'll definitely want to
watch. Let's remember that Jake Haner used

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to be at Washington, used to
be a Huskie, so he knows what

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the Apple Cup is like. And
now he gets to go against the Washington

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00:23:10,680 --> 00:23:14,880
State Cougars. Oregon in the Holiday
Bowl against North Carolina. That could be

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a fun shootout, and it does
seem at Oregon quarterback bow Knicks is going

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to be playing in that game.
So Utah lands in the Rose Bowl against

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Penn State. I love Utah in
that game. Utah's defense should be able

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00:23:26,119 --> 00:23:30,799
to shut down Sean Clifford of Penn
State. Utah has the much better quarterback

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in that game with Cam Rising,
So that's a game that I expect Utah

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in the Pac twelve to take care
of. Ucla against Pitt in the Sun

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00:23:38,440 --> 00:23:42,359
Bowl, that's a game that Ucla
should definitely win. And Pitt quarterback Keaton

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00:23:42,400 --> 00:23:47,559
slovis formerly at USC He has transferred
out of the program, so that so

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Pitt is gonna be down a quarterback
there. So you know, the Pac

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twelve really has a lot of favorable
bowl matchups. You also have Washington going

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00:23:57,640 --> 00:24:03,599
against Texas and the animal Steve Sarkisian
coaching against the Huskies work which used to

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00:24:03,680 --> 00:24:07,799
employ him. That is going to
be a very entertaining game. A lot

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of offensive playmakers there. So you
go up and down the list of Pac

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00:24:14,079 --> 00:24:18,119
twelve Bowl games the PAC twelve really
has to like its chances in many of

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00:24:18,160 --> 00:24:22,920
them. All right, more on
the bowl games next week, but that's

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really the rundown for this week's show. I'll get off my pile. I'm

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00:24:26,640 --> 00:24:29,920
part of the College Grid aund Coast
to Coast Network. Be sure to check

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00:24:30,359 --> 00:24:33,039
the College Ground Coast to Coast feed
on Red Circle. You can listen on

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00:24:33,079 --> 00:24:37,359
Spotify, Google, Apple, wherever
you get your podcasts. Listen to all

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00:24:37,400 --> 00:24:44,440
your favorites for Bowl previews, and
this week listen to Yards and Stripes Army

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00:24:44,839 --> 00:24:48,319
Navy preview. You want to listen
to Yards and Stripes the Service Academy podcast

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00:24:48,920 --> 00:24:53,279
part of the College Grid Aound Coast
to Coast network for more on Army Navy.

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00:24:53,400 --> 00:24:56,000
All right, I'm at ZEMAC.
I'll see you next week for a

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00:24:56,039 --> 00:25:00,920
fuller Bowl preview right here on get
off my piline. We'll see you next week