Speaker 1: Check it out college football on the West Coast. This
is Get Off My Pylon, a look at the PAC
twelve and more, part of the College Gridiron Coast to
Coast podcast Network. Here's your host, that Zimbi.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the latest edition of Get Off My College
Football Podcast. This is your host, Matt Zemika. This episode
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So as we look at western college football in the
United States, that's what we do here at Get Off
My Pylon. Lots to talk about, and you know, before
getting into specific games, there are some really fascinating situations
at various programs across the country. I've obviously I covered USC,
and you know, it's a broken record. Like what happened
against Maryland was not new. It was USC giving up
a go ahead touchdown in the final sixty seconds. That
happened against Michigan, that happened against Minnesota. But obviously Maryland's
not that good. Maryland got blown out fighting with Western
by twenty seven points. And so even against Maryland, USC
plays to the competition. Let's a game go down to
the final couple minutes. It's really rather remarkable just that
this keeps happening again and again and again. It's not
surprising in the I that USC is playing to the competition,
but it is surprising that just like the same script
is just repeating itself time after time. And there was
a statistic. USC's led in the fourth quarter of all
seven games that is played, and it has a losing record.
And over the past twenty seasons of college football, there
have been twenty teams, or the past twenty seasons of
college football, there are only two teams that have had
a losing record overall when when leading in the fourth
quarter in seven games. So USC is one of those
two teams. So like that shows you how rare it
is to lead that consistently and yet lose a majority
of your game. So that really puts in perspective what's
going on at USC. It's it's hard to lead in
the fourth quarter this consistently and not win. But by
goll UFC is pulling it off. So obviously it's not
a mentally tough team. The thing we have to identify
about this game in terms of why USCU lost, and
of course there are a million different reasons, mistakes on
both sides of the ball, you know, and of course
having a field goal blocked. Field goal would have given
USC a nine point lead late and would have sealed
the game. So you know, all three phases came up short.
But Lincoln Riley had fourth and one late in the
game up six, and I know that a field goal
gives you a two possession lead, So this was a
perfectly legitimate, reasonable rationale for kicking the field goal to
go up two scores. But here's the thing. If you're
USC and you're trying to change mindsets, you're trying to
change the culture, you're trying to change a reputation, you're
trying to change an identity. What's the thing that you've
been lacking at USC late game two toughness. So isn't
the right move to try and get one yard and
trust you're struggling inconsistent offensive line to get that one
yard because anyone who follows USC as I do. But like,
it's not just me, Like I'm not the only one
saying this. This is a pretty pervasive viewpoint, So don't
give me too much credit here. But the pervasive view
is that the offensive line has been holding the program
back and that the offensive line needs to get better
in order for USC football to improve, not just in
twenty twenty four, but in general, that the offensive line
needs to be nasty, It needs to take over games.
It needs to find a new level of toughness and consistency.
You need to build confidence in that offensive line. So
as much as the field goal gives you a nine
point two score lead, if you get that one yard,
not only are you trusting your offensive line, but also
if you get that one yard, the defense does have
to take the field again. You're able to run out
the clock, you give the defense the rest of the
day off. You don't put the defense on the field again.
You could have just sent a message that hey, I
trust my offensive line to be tough enough to get
one yard against Maryland in a big situation, and Lincoln
Riley didn't choose that path, And I think that's alarming.
I think that even though you can do the simple
math and say, hey, nine points two scores, it would
be a forty one yard field goal, which generally should
be made. And of course the field goal unit deserves
to be raked over the coals for not being able
to protect that kick. But it's bigger than the field
goal unit. It's not trusting your offensive line at a
moment when you have to be able to trust your
offensive line, you have to build confidence in your offensive line.
And Lincoln Riley shine away from that. He's coaching scared.
And when you coach scared, that is a good explanation
for why a team is coming up short laid in games.
You know, it all comes together. And this offensive line,
you know it had the ball, usc had the ball
five minutes left against Michigan, couldn't run out the clock,
couldn't even get one first down, had a chance to
you know, pound home to win against Minnesota up seventeen
to ten, couldn't finish tied at seventeen with the ball
against Minnesota, couldn't take the lead, tied with Penn State
at the end of regulation, and in overtime, couldn't score
on either of those two possessions. There's a there are
moments in games when the USC offense. USC offensive line
played well, but in each of the high leverage possessions,
in each of the high leverage moments against Michigan, against Minnesota,
against Maryland, the offensive line has faltered. You know, so
like easy play well for portions of the second quarter,
for portions of the third quarter when game pressure is
not especially intense, but in the fourth, in fourth quarters
and overtimes, when the game's on the line, that offensive
line has faltered. And so what does that tell you?
What does that tell you about the mentality that USC
has in the mentality that the Trojans are failing to acquire.
You know, it's it's a bigger story here, not just
about Lincoln Riley failing to recruit on the offensive line,
failing to get the portal reinforcements on the offensive line,
but then not trusting his offensive line. Like if you
don't trust your position group, if you can't if you're
not coaching these guys to be tougher in the big
moments like how is that How is that unit going
to change in a meaningful and positive way. So hopefully
that's more perspective on what's happening at USC the other
crisis program in the West, at least one that's worth
focusing on is UTAH firing Andy Ludwig or Andy Ludwigs,
you know, stepping away from his spot as offensive coordinator.
And let's remember this about Ludwig. First off, he took
Cam Rising and the Youths to a couple of PAC
twelve titles at Rose Bulls, did a really good job.
You know, he and he had struggled earlier in his tenure,
but you know, he really found a groove with Cam
Rising in twenty twenty one, in twenty twenty two, but
now the air is out of the balloon and he
just his tenure at UTAH ran out of steam. Let's
keep in mind it. You know, Notre Dame was not
willing to pay top dollar to bring in Andy Ludwig
his offensive coordinator and the Fight and Irish really struggled
on offense last year and a lot of people chalk
that up to Notre Dame being Penny Pinchers and not
being willing to hire Andy Ludwig, and now here we are,
Lovewig is done as a Utah offensive coordinator. So that
is a startling development and it just speaks to how
without Cam Rising healthy, this coaching staff did not have
a plan for Isaac Wilson. And it's interesting that, you know,
before Cam Rising became the guy, and before before Utah
was able to put the pieces together in twenty twenty
one and twenty twenty two, winning the Pac twelve, finally
getting to the Rose Bowl. You know, in the late
twenty teens, the late twenty tens, twenty eighteen, twenty nineteen,
you saw Utah falling short in big games because it
didn't have the quarterback, you know, losing ten to three
to Washington in that ugly twenty eighteen Pac twelve Championship
game and then also losing to Oregon as in nineteen.
Utah just did not have the quarterback that it needed
to get over the hump. And you know, Cam Rising
became that guy. But with cam Rising being injured, Utah
did not have a plan B. And it does show that,
you know, obviously, in Utah's case, it was banking on
Cam Rising being the guy, so you know, to a
certain extent, you can't fault the coaching staff too much.
But knowing Cam Rising's injury problems, you know, they they
could have showed a little more urgency in terms of
having the right backup and having a guy who was
who could have been ready to play. Ready to insert
the fact that Utah went all in on Cam Rising
to the extent that it didn't have a robust plan B.
You know, like in twenty twenty three, I can I
can say, hey, you know, like can't You're coming off
a Rose Bowl season and you're thinking that Cam Rising's
the guy and he gets hurt. You know, that's understandable.
But for it to happen two years in a row,
you know, I think you get a little less leniency.
You know, if we're if we're evaluating Utah and the
staff this year because you went through this last year,
should have had more of a reinforcement this year. And
so it's kind of a history repeating itself for Kyle Winningham,
not having the quarterback needed, not having the depth in
the quarterback room to be able to, you know, compete
at an elite level. Utah scoring just seven points in
a home field loss at night to TCU. I mean,
TCU is not that good. TCU allowed sixty six points
to SMU. TCU blew a twenty one point lead at
home tooin not very good UCF team. And Utah is
able to score just seven points, like the bottom should
not fall out like that, and you can tell that
morale around the program is low. And you know, so Utah,
which entered the season is the Big Twelve favorite. Obviously
that was contingent upon came raising being healthy. But nevertheless,
the extent to which Utah has fallen, it's a real stunter.
So like Utah and USC both in the same boat
in terms of entering the year with you know, high
expectations and a lot of optimism, and like both seasons
are shipwrecked midway through October. Definitely not what people were
expecting from those two programs. One program we haven't talked
a lot about, and this is Western college football, but
you know, we focused on the Pac twelve exiles, the
Pac twelve refugees if you want to call them that.
You know, the Arizona schools, Colorado, Utah and the Big Twelve,
and of course USC, UCLA Washington and Oregon in the
Big Ten. But if the school we haven't focused on
too much, which is BYU E Yu is definitely a
Western college football program. Cougar's are unbeaten and they are
definitely in the mix to play in the Big twelve
championship game and make the College Football Playoff. Kilonie Sataki
doing a remarkable job in Provo. And you know, while
you can say, you can say that you know the
Big twelve is weak and it's unstable. You don't have
Texas there anymore. That's obviously been a factor. But you know,
let's even if Texas was still in the Big twelve,
all right, that would be one spot in the Big
twelve teamship game, but there would have needed to be
a second one and b YU would still be in
line to play for that second spot. Now be I
mean BYU and Iowa State who had that on a
Big twelve bingo card before the season began. You know,
being unbeaten, it speaks for itself. Now you can you
can make comments about the quality of competition, and you
know that's one debate that we can have, but you know,
you win every game. You should never have to apologize
for winning every game in college football. You know, it
is hard to win in this sport every week, and
BYU is finding ways to do it. And sometimes it's
with defense, other times it's with offense. You know, BYU
against Kansas State, the defense was able to turn Kansas
State over, you know, get some takeaways. Against Oklahoma State,
the defense wasn't working that great, but the offense was
able to zoom down the field, score a touchdown with
eleven seconds left, come from behind, beat Oklahoma State. So
it's not just that BYU is finding ways to win,
it's winning in different styles in different ways. That is
a football team which is resourceful and doesn't panic when
things go south, kind of the opposite of the USC
team that I've been covering this season. So credit to
the Cougars. You know, they're not a dominant team, but
they're winning every week. Kind of like Miami as well.
I mean, we don't focus on Miami, but really don't
apologize for winning every game you play. If you're scrambling
from behind, or you're winning shootouts, or if games are
you know, choppy on uneven, if you're winning them instead
of losing them, you know, that's all you can really
do for that given week, and the competition might not
be incredible, But you know, this is a new and
unstable world we have in college football. There's more parody.
You know that the portal has actually democratized the sport
as opposed to creating what some people felt were concerned about.
You know, it was gonna entrench the upper class at
the top, just everybody was gonna flood to a few
programs and they would lord themselves over the rest of
college football. No, it hasn't happened that way. Other programs
have been able to reignite themselves. They've been able to
find a fresh spark by going to the portal. I mean,
you look at what why Miami has done with cam
Ward Heisman Trophy front runner along with Ashton Genty. You know,
Miami was bad the past couple of years, but you
get the right quarterback of the portal and you have
a whole new life. Uh. It's very similar for you
know what BYU was doing and and also what Iowa
State is doing in the Big Twelve. You know, they
have been able to reconfigure their rosters in ways that
makes sense for them and other teams in their conferences.
Haven't been able to find those solutions.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: And like you know, so with Utah crumbling, with Arizona struggling,
Arizona got blasted by Colorado.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: You know, with with all of the instability in the
Big twelve b, YU has taken advantage of it. And
you know you can you can kind of dismiss or
a minute what the Cougars are doing. But you know,
in a world where everything is tenuous and unstable, well
BYU is stepping into that vacuum, that power vacuum, and
is making the most of its opportunity to this point.
So you can only credit the Cougars for doing what
is within their control, winning each game they play against
the given opponent during a given week. You know, some
people will argue about the style points to me, you know,
going twelve and oh thirteen and oh, it's one of
the hardest things to do in sports. That's why Florida
State was so fully and deeply wronged by the selection
committee last year. You know, you might have your flaws
and your falls, but if you're winning every game you play,
there's only so much criticism that should go around. Save
the criticism for the teams that aren't finishing games that
aren't living up to expectations. There's nothing bad to say
about BYU because BYU keeps finding a way. I mentioned
briefly Arizona struggling. Arizona's offensive line is a disaster, and
that's really why the Wildcats are falling short. And if
we're going to criticize Arizona's offensive line for falling short
and what was a pancake flat performance at home, we
also have to give credit to Coloradle's defensive line. How
many people thought Colorado's defensive line could control a game
on the road the way it did against former Pac
twelve neighbor now Big twelve neighbor Arizona. So Deon Sanders
has his team playing tough, physical football, something we didn't
think that team was capable of, or at least when
I say we had, you know, most college football pundits
and I include myself in that group. Colorado definitely exceeding
expectations and also taking advantage of the Big twelve. So
you have to tip the cap to Dion to coach Prime,
Colorado definitely raising the bar. All while Arizona has a
brutally disappointing first year under Brent Brennan. But but Brent
Brennan's a good coach. He did a great job at
San Jose State. You gotta think he is going to
find some portal and recruiting solutions for his offensive lines
that he's not going to get caught shorthanded next season.
But nevertheless, a bitter disappointment for Arizona and on the
other side of it, Colorado closing in on a bull
bit which would undeniably make this a successful season for
the Buffs in Boulder. Other stories from western college football
the United States. We also have to talk about CAL
and you know, not a this is not a long
story because you know, having talked about USC and its
failure to close out games late, well that's what that's
the same story with Cal. Like it's not an elaborate,
confusing story. It's just wow, this team just gets right
to the door step of victory and then steps on
a rake, just like USC. So CAL, the team which
blew a thirty five to ten lead to Miami at
home earlier in the season, now blew another multi score
lead against North Carolina State and then you know, fell
behind twenty four to twenty three, but had the ball
in the red zone late, misses a twenty eight yard
chip shot field goal and falls twenty four to twenty
three to North Carolina State at home. And so you know,
justin Wilcox, he has this team competing well, playing tough football.
COW has been the better team in for a majority
of the games that it has played, and it has
been the better team for a majority of the sixty
minutes in the various games it has played. So let
me let me just step back and unpack that again,
most of the games Cow's played, Cow's been the better
team most of the time the allotted sixty minute time
within Cal's games. CAL has been better for a majority
of those sixty minute segments. But as is the case
with USC, you don't get a medal. You don't get
a prize for winning most of the sixty minutes. You
don't get a prize for being the better team in
most of the games you play. If you're the better team,
you have to actually finish the job. So being the
better team for forty five minutes that doesn't guarantee you win.
If the other fifteen minutes are a disaster and you
make very untimely mistakes. That is the life that Cal
is living and has been living in twenty twenty four.
So that is the reality with Justin Wilcox. And this
has happened before. We've seen his Cal teams blow games
in past years that they should have won and lose
games that they absolutely you should have won. So this
is a recurring problem for Justin Wilcox. But like his
teams are prepared at the beginning of games, but they're
not finishing in the fourth quarter. It's it's hell for
any football coach. But that is what Justin Wilcox is
going through right now in Berkeley and just across the
way in the San Francisco Bay, Stanford just gets hammered
by SMU And it's been a brutal season for Troy
Taylor and the Cardinal You know, they had a very
highly rated recruiting class coming in. Now, obviously they're freshmen
in twenty twenty four, and so the thought process was, Okay,
Stanford's gonna struggle in the first half of the season,
but as those freshmen get more reps, they're gonna get
better in the second half. Well, we're not seeing it.
It's gonna be really interesting to see if Troy Taylor
can get that team to play noticeably better in November.
But we're not seeing that team go through that positive
learning curve that we were thinking, you know, would happen
before the season began, that highly rated recruiting class that
that came in this year, we're not seeing the manifestations
of real growth and real upside for Stanford, just non competitive,
non competitive against SMU, and that has to be a
real concern on the farm in Palo Alto. All right, now,
we saved the best for last here on, get off
my pile on and our look at western college football
in the United States this week Friday in Vegas, Boise
State UNOV the big showdown in the Mountain West with
huge group of five implications college football playoff implications. This
is the big one. And so you have Ashton gent
Heisman Trophy front runner. I mentioned cam Ward is the
front runner. I think you know Genty and Ward are
the two top guys in the Heisman race that they
are jockeying for position right now. It's the two of
them and then it's everyone else. And so you know,
so the Heisman is you know, one of the storylines
in this game. But you know the main storyline is
the group of five championship and a college football playoff.
Berth very much a part of the story as Boise
State goes to Vegas to play UNOV again a Friday game,
and so that's really our starting point. It's a short
week for UNLV. UNLV played a Saturday night game in
Corvallis at Oregon State, and really the way that game
played out, it did feel, certainly in the first half
when UNOV fell behind, that the Rebels were thinking ahead
a week and they were able to focus back in
deal with the opponent in front of them. They were
able to handle Oregon State in the second half. But now,
after playing that late game on Saturday, UNLV has to
turn around and face a short week of preparation playing
Boise State on a Friday. And meanwhile, Boise State at
this past weekend off, So that is a huge advantage
for Boise State. It's not just having a week off,
but UNLV is on a short week, so Boise State's
gonna have maximum rest and UNLV is gonna have less
than normal rest. So this is a massive rest advantage
and it's gonna be really interesting to see, you know,
if this game is roughly even at halftime, early third quarter.
Will UNLV have the staying power in the second half,
or will Boise State be able to wear down the Rebels.
I think if you're looking at this game from a
un L v dvantage point, you're thinking, we have to
get off to a fast start. We have to get
the lead. We have to put Boise State on its heels,
because if we don't and this game is basically tied,
it's basically even at the halftime. Midway through the third quarter,
Boise State's offensive line probably could lean on UNLV's defensive
line and then just feed Ashton Gent the rock and
Boise State can not only score, but also take time
off the clock, keep the ball, keep UNLV's high powered
offense off the field. I mean, UNLV has to win
the first quarter and and very probably has to win
the first half by at least a touchdown, at least
a touchdown. If un LV is up three or four
at halftime, probably not gonna be enough. But if ullv's
up seven and show some really good things in the
first half, then you go. You go into middle of
the third quarter and UNLV can probably get this game,
you know, into the final few minutes with a chance
to win one way or another. If you and LV
can be up ten or fourteen even better, you know,
and if you UNLV can be up ten points fourteen
points late third quarter, then Boise State might have to
pass a little bit more than it would want to
and Ashton Gent might not have the foothold in this
game that the Broncos would want. So that really informs
my view of Boise State versus UNLV. I definitely give
the advantage to Boise State. But let's keep in mind
U and LV lost to Matthew Sluca. You know, the
quarterback who you know went into the portal and claimed
that the nil package that he was promised or at
least felt he deserved, was not being delivered by UNLV.
You know, if he had got off to the great
start with Sluca and then when he left, it was
easy to think, well, this program is going to collapse,
and that has not happened. U and LV has been good,
not great, but it's been good. And in fact, you know,
the offense has been fine. You and you lost to Syracuse.
That was not the offense's fault. That game was a shootout.
It was the defense that just gave up too many scores.
In French time to Syracuse. But like you know, these
offenses continued to be good after sluca's departure, so you know,
don't don't underestimate the rebels. Barry Odom has done an
amazing job there with that program, and you know, right
off UNLV at your peril. But I will say, like
this is Boise State's game to win. I need the setup,
the alignment, the schedule, the rest. Like this is boys
should be Boise State's moment and we'll see if the
Broncos can take advantage of the situation in front of
them this Friday in Vegas. So that's you know, our
our focus for this week on get off my Pilot.
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So that's all for this week. I get off my pileline.
I'm met Zemik. Thank you very much for listening.