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get out to the hotline. Welcome into the quarterback Scientists.
Former BA great John Beck, he's on the line, John,
How theck are you doing?
Speaker 3: Good?
Speaker 4: Ben just can't believe we're chipping away now in the December,
with the regular season done and bowl games on the horizon.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, there's a lot to take in obviously
over the last week. Let's start off with the Texas
Tech game. Look, boy, you got two shots at Tech.
And there's obviously a chasm between great and elite teams.
Speaker 3: I think BA is a great team.
Speaker 2: If I was to segment it out, I think one
through five they're probably elite teams this year. You know,
six through probably around maybe eighteen twenty maybe those are
all Those are all good, great teams, very good to
great teams. That's a that's a pretty start chasm though,
where by needs to get in order to be elite.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know what, Look, this is a really good
BAU football team. And I was so happy to see
that they were able to come out in the beginning
score first. I mean I was actually watching the game
thinking how exciting it is for these fans that are
there in the stadium and if YU can keep this
up like this is amazing, and you know what it like,
it was a tough game, and I know it's tough
as a player and as a coach to have the
feelings that they probably had going into the game and
then to have it be the result that it is.
But it doesn't take away from what the team was
able to accomplish, and especially you know, to have two
losses in the season and have it be against a
really good Texas Tech team that I think, you know,
and I think many people are thinking that they are
going to for sure be playing in a semi final
game maybe farther. And to me, that's where BYU like like, like,
you're right, this is a really, really good BU football
team right on the edge of really being able to
compete for four quarters against those elite teams. Could they
the two times they played against Texas Tech? No, But
I feel like, man, it was close, and it gives
this BYU program something to continue to aim upward for,
which is exciting.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's uh you know, bwa, you just signed the
top twenty one recruiting class and the modern era one
of the best classes in BAU football history, the best
probably class in BA football history. I remember there was
a time where, you know when BYU was uh, you know,
in two thousand and one, for instance, they had a
great season. They they were able to pick up a
lot of great recruits in that two thousand and two
class that ended up bawling out for Brigham in six, seven, oh,
eight and nine. That two thousand and two class was
a really pivotal class and it piggybacked off special season.
We're seeing a little bit of that momentum in this
recruiting class.
Speaker 3: When will we see I.
Speaker 2: Guess the ROI uh, will it be four or five
years before BYU was able to maybe make up that
ground that they see with Texas Tech and Indiana and
Ohio State the top of league teams in college football.
Speaker 4: Well, something that I think is different nowadays from before
is you always looked at recruiting classes as a determining
factor in what is the season two years from now,
three years from now, what is the potential for that season?
The difference now is transfer portal. The BYU having the
two seasons that they've had playing in a conference championship game,
that impacts what nowadays is basically free agency in college football.
It impacts the people that want to go come right
now to BYU and make an immediate impact, and you
can't foresee those things. Those things happen when the transfer
portal opens up, but you have to think that what
happens is the earning power of BYU right now to
go earn transfers and to go say, look what we've
accomplished the last couple of years. Come and play for us,
because we are maybe just a step or two away
from being an elite team. Like that's what BYU is
probably shooting for. And that's the difference where Hey, a
great recruiting class is awesome. The other reality, though, is
some of those guys in this recruiting class are going
to come to YU and within the first few years
there's gonna be a reason, whether it's their own performance,
whether they feel like it's a coach not giving them opportunity,
whether they start listening to people outside the program saying bro,
you should leave because you could go to these other
schools and make X and get playing time, and they leave.
The reality is recruiting classes are not going to make
it as far as they used to and they're gonna
be impacted by people coming in on the transfer portal,
and that is what's gonna dictate the future of BOU football.
Speaker 2: John Beck, you're on ESPN the Fan talking to BYU
football the transfer portal. What's the weaknesses then, as you
evaluate this football team, where does BYU need to get
better from a personnel standpoint in order to take that
next step.
Speaker 3: Or even stay status quo where they're at right now?
Speaker 2: I mean winning, getting double digit victories, going eleven wins
with a big bowl game, opportunity to get to twelve wins,
I mean even just getting to that mark would be
great in continuing the momentum into the future.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, I think the tough part for me
evaluating is to be able to make a realistic comment
on what BYU needs. I would want to sit down
and spend a lot of time watching every aspect, also
getting to communicate with what is being said in the
meeting rooms, like what are these players being coached to do?
How efficient are they? Like to just go and say like, well,
BYU probably needs this because it's weak in that area.
That's then calling out a position group or a coach
or something and I just that's not my style. Like
I'm not going to do that. I'm just going to say, like, look,
every team, when you don't achieve the thing you want
to should look at every single position group, every single
player and say what can those players be doing to
get better to help the team, And are there players
we can bring in to make it even more competitive
in that position group. That's it. That's what it always
comes down to, you know. And I think it's awesome
that byu Cites continually just get getting set higher and higher.
You know. I think when by You entered the Big Twelve,
it was we would love to be competitive, and then
by You became competitive, and then it said we want
to get to the conference championship game. And the next
year by You got to the conference championship game. And
now the standard is probably going to be set different.
They're gonna want to get back to the conference championship game,
but do it in a way that they don't get
left out of the collegeotball playoffs. And to me, that's
always going to be about what are you always do
doing to bring in the most like the best players,
the most that you can and create the most competition
you can to put the best team out there.
Speaker 2: When you when you evaluate this BAU football team and
what they've accomplished this season, do you think that this
is one of the best seasons in b WAU football history.
Speaker 4: I think it has to be up there with the
best teams seasons. You know. Being a part of the
Big Twelve Conference, I think has been awesome for the players.
I think you know, you're a former player, and you know,
I think I think all of us, you know, we
don't dislike our Mountain West games like those like that
was the conference we are in, and it was exciting
to be a part of a conference and to have
the competitions we get against, you know, the TCUs and
the Utah's good football programs that year in and year out
sat at the top of that conference. It was a
good conference. But man, I think the Big Twelve Conference,
it's so awesome that that is our play that's our
schedule every single year. For BYU to be in a
powerful conference, to have the seasons that they've had, and
to you know, to what I believe, this season was
a better season than last year. You know, like I
mean again, your only losses came to the Texas Tech
team that may end up playing in the national Championship.
To me, that has to go down as a great
season and one of the best seasons that BYU's had.
And for sure you have to say it's the best
season we've had in the biggest conference we've ever played in.
Speaker 2: It's uh, it's been fun to watch, right But by
you is still on the outside looking in and not
during this college Football Playoff committee process was BYU's resume
ever compared to Alabama's or Oklahoma's, or Miami's or Notre Dames.
They were just relegated to the outside looking in.
Speaker 3: Why is there a certain amount of disrespect for BA?
Speaker 2: Why weren't they even considered even though their resume, their
strength of schedule, strength of record, and their only two
losses came to a number four team in the country
on the road and then on neutral site. Never once
were they ever compared side by side identity these other
teams that either got in or in Notre Dames case,
has to play or were slated to play BAU in
the Pop Tarts Bowl.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm not sure, you know. I read a comment
that said like that the committee once BYU lost and
changed positions, they were then able to compare Notre Dame
in Miami. And I remember reading that thinking like, so
BYU losing in their conference championship game made them then
like remove them from a spot of comparing against other teams.
But obviously that was not the case for Alabama. Losing
in their conference championship game didn't remove them so that
then they could look at other programs. You know, I
love when I see people across the country standing up
for BYU and saying it's wrong and why are people
not taking notice? You know, I know Robert Griffin is outspoken.
There's other people outspoken. I think they have to be.
I think that what has happened with BYU, and I
know that the losses. Of course the losses didn't look good.
But again we're talking about you are playing in the
conference championship game and you are somehow being punished because
you lost to arguably one of the best teams in
the country. And you know what for BYU, and the
wills were falling off at the end, and the turnovers
were happening in the game got a little uglier at
the end. I knew I was like, shoot, like this
this almost is going to hand the committee you know,
like like an easy out. And so I'm so happy
that people the country are not letting the committee do that.
They're saying, hold up a second, if you're going to
talk about Alabama this way, where is BYU? And the
fact that they weren't in on any of the graphics
is strange, especially a program that for years ESPN, you know,
a huge network, a huge power in college football sports,
ESPN deal during so much of their time as independent.
You got to think the relationship that ESPN has had
with BYU, like you can't argue and say, well, you know,
the powerhouses like the Alabama and the Notre Dame just
have a different fan base. That's not true. BYU always
travels extremely well wherever they go. It's not that the
you know, the tickets aren't going to sell out immediately,
or that they're not going to have a national fan
base watching everything or watching the game, all of those things.
From a network broadcasting money, all of that would happen.
So to me, I think it's baffling that so quickly
the BYU team was just dropped out of the equation.
And you know, I think that more people need to
keep pushing for explain that to us, give us your
explanation other than well, they lost in the conference championship.
There needs to be more than that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I don't know if it'll ever really come
down the pipeline. I just wonder what needs to happen
in order for BYU to get the respect it's.
Speaker 3: Looking for.
Speaker 2: And be considered one of the major brands of college football.
You figure, since nineteen seventy two, they've had they've had
a national championship, they've had a Doke, they've had they've
had a Heisman, they've had many conference championships. And in
they're only their third year of the of being a
part of the power structure, they're in the Big twelve
championship game and they're they're showing wasn't great, but they
got there and they went up against the elite of
college football. You wonder, okay, from an NFL standpoint, you're
in the NFL, what is the viewpoint of those in
the National Football League? Coaches, GMS, players, in those locker rooms.
Speaker 3: How do they view BYU? Is it just like this
nice little program? Oh yeah, you guys are nice little program.
Is their respect there? Do you think?
Speaker 4: Well? You know, I mean, look at the NFL. It's
all about like what the players and the like the
individual is doing. You know. I think everybody has respect
for programs, especially like ones that are considered bigger programs.
Is there a little bit of a bias amongst especially
like the SEC or the Big ten? Guys? Like absolutely, Like,
you know, there there was always that kind of chatter
back and forth of which conference is really the strongest
conference in the United States, And those guys would laugh
at references of like the PAC twelve and the Big twelve.
You know, they would come be like, bro, there's no way,
It's like like it's either SEC or Big Ten. I mean, yeah,
that like that exists. But you know, like ultimately, like
in those locker rooms, it always comes down to the individuals.
I think that people have fun with the rivalries and
they definitely don't look at BYU as like a week
team by any means, especially because BYU has been out
winning so many games. I mean, how many guys I
bet have lost their bets and had to wear BYU
gear in their locker room because BYU quite honestly has
been winning just as much as any of the other
top programs in the country for the last two years,
it's been a winning program where so many good things
have been happening. Here's one thing that I have, kind
of going back on the other stuff about the playoffs
is I think one of the toughest things is to
watch schools that are, you know, barely sneaking in in
the top twenty five rating ranked like the top twenty
in the country, that have you know, multiple losses, but
play in a conference championship against an opponent not even
close to what BYU had to play against. But because
they but because they won the conference championship game, they
now have an automatic bid to be able to go
play in the playoffs. To me, that's the other part
where it's like, hold up a second, Like the playoffs
have to be bringing in, especially when it's it's limited.
We're not talking college basketball, We're not talking a huge field.
It's limited to only a dozen teams, and four of
those teams get automatic bids, and so you only have
eight teams playing on the first week. To me, that
should be outside of those top four. It should absolutely
be the next best eight teams in the country. And yeah,
there's got to be arguments for teams. There's got to
be a group that sits down and evaluates. But like
I do have a little bit of a tough time.
And look, I'm really happy for one of the quarterbacks
because I've worked with Jake for a long time. Jake
and the stuff. I'm like, I'm really happy for Jake
retz Laf to go to a team, to have to
learn the offense in a month, and then to go
out there and lead your team the way that he
has and to help take them to arguably one of
the biggest seasons that Tulane has had. Like what an accomplishment,
you know, for him and for that coaching staff and
the mentality that I like, I watched the interviews that
coach does, and I see how he keeps his team
hungry and driven, and he's doing all the right things
and he's getting an opportunity to move up. I mean,
that's what those teams, you know, that's yeah, it's awesome
for them. But to see other teams like A BYU
left out of it, that's the tough part.
Speaker 2: How how far let let's say there's an expanded playoff, right,
Let's say what's the number? What what's the number that
it should be expanded to? John if you had your brothers,
if you are the emperor of.
Speaker 3: College football.
Speaker 4: Oh man, you know that's tough because football is such
a physical game. You can't continue like just add games
because adding games adds impact. Adding impact heightens the you know,
the chance of injury. I mean, I wish there was
some way for like, okay, if you are in the
bottom four, right, like, let's say it expands to a
different number, and okay, you know what, We're going to
create a play, and we're going to create like similar
like a wild card, like add a play and add
those things. Right, Yeah, you know what you have to take,
take a little bit more of a beating. You're going
to have another game on the schedule. But it adds
a little bit of a play, and maybe like maybe
that's the right avenue. Maybe adding it to sixteen and
just saying, you know what, we're going to expand it
so the net gets bigger, because quite honestly, now you
can't complain if you're the seventeenth team that you should
have been in, right, like, just come on, like sixteen teams.
We are absolutely gathering enough teams to be able to
identify a national champion. And maybe that's the way that
it has to move forward. I just think, you know,
there are other teams that I think are really really tough,
Like think if Texas, you know, and I'm stepping away
from from from Notre Dame because I don't I really
don't like what they're doing. I would have loved to
have seen BYU play against Notre Dame in a bowl game.
And I think to say, well, we're just really unhappy
that we didn't get in, so we're going to stop.
I don't understand that, and so I'm leaving them out
of the conversation. But like, let's look at what Texas
did to finish their season. Who knows what that Texas
team could have done if they entered the playoff. And
I don't hear, you know, a bunch of teams or
a bunch of people coming out saying like that, well,
Texas got screwed. They were a really good football team
capable of of potentially knocking off some of these big teams.
I think Texas is taking the right avenue and they're
saying like, hey, you know what, we had other losses
that should not have happened. Yeah, we're a really good
football team, and I think we could have had an
argument to get in, but we quite frankly didn't do enough,
and so we're going to go back to work and
make sure that we do enough in the following season.
I actually really like that mentality that they're taking, and
to me, like, what if it was expanded to six
team and what if a team like that got in there?
Who knows how far a team like that could go?
And that's how I feel about this BIU team. How
can you realistically judge what they're capable of when the
only losses came to Texas Tech in the state of Texas.
Speaker 3: That's as you let me ask you this.
Speaker 2: So six, like, I felt like we could we could
compete and beat any buddy, especially at the end of
the year. Right, the committee really valued November momentum. Uh
BYU's November momentum was really good. In six we ended
up sixteenth in DAP Pole at eleven and two with
two losses. One was in double overtime to Boston College
on the road to a ranked Boston College team, and
then the other one was the first game of the
season U of A on the road and it took
like a fifty yard field goal to win it. By
the way Nick Folk is still kicking game winning field
goals in the NFL.
Speaker 3: Can you even freaking believe that?
Speaker 4: And how many times he kicked a field goal? And
I'm sitting by my kids and I go, yeah, that
guy nailed the game winner, you know, and I still
remember it right, like we had a touchdown kicking off
the board because of a passengerfirit call. But anyway, like like,
you're right, I mean, look at the Super Bowl, Like
teams getting hot in November and December is what matters most. Yeah,
and I do think, like, I mean, look, Miami, whys
Miami went in because the committee came out and said,
in head to head, when we did all all of
these things and we looked at head to head, that
was week one, Like that's not a good indicator of
what a football team is in December. Like week one
is by no means an indicator of that. And you know,
I mean, and I can see why a team like
Notre Dame would be frustrated, like, wait, so you went
back to week one. I would have felt the same
way if in O six somebody said, well, yeah, you
guys lost in Week one to Arizona on the road
and it's like, Okay, that's not at all an indicator.
I mean, and we can have a whole separate show
about the game plan for that week and how it
varied from what we kind of were to finish the
season before. And they thought that was going to give
us an advantage, you know, and you're you're also plugging
in new players, and I mean, there's just so many
things that happened week one. I don't like it that
week one as an indicator or a barometer for like, well,
let's decide if they should play at the end of
the season based off of who they are in week one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, and that's the thing, Like you said sixteen,
I'm like, man, just wanted to be twenty or twenty
four and give more buys and start the season a
little bit earlier, right, Like.
Speaker 3: Why not start college football in.
Speaker 2: Week week zero and and get more data points? You know,
maybe you can't schedule fcs upon us anymore. Moved the
FCS upon it's the springball.
Speaker 4: If you want to, you want to know some MILS
twelve game seasons. I think I only played like my
freshman and sophomore year at BUYU, we only had eleven
game seasons, yep. And I think my junior year we
only had an eleven game season because I believe the
bowl game was our twelfth game, and I think we
were six and six. Is that right to finish the year?
Speaker 3: Yeah, we were six and six is yep? Only twelve games.
Speaker 4: And then my senior year, I remember they had me
sit out a game, and I think that was a
twelve game schedule right, with the thirteenth being the bowl game,
because I think we finished eleven and two. But like
in college football, I never played more than twelve games
in a season, and the three of those seasons I
only played an eleven Because of the schedule, you could
also trim off a game, and you could also say,
if it's the number of games that everybody's worried about
for a long time, college football was playing eleven regular
season games and the twelfth game was the bowl game.
If it's the number of games they were worried about,
and we need to expand the field, Okay, fine, do
it go back to an eleven game regular season or
do what the NFL is doing. Crap? They just keep
adding games. They're like, if they're going to add another one,
this is going to be an eighteen game regular season
pretty soon for the NFL, you know, I mean, you
can do something with the number of games that are played,
and you could even do like a like an NIT
type thing for teams. You know, all right, hey, we're
going to go to eleven game thing, and the top
twenty teams are going to be able to go and
play in this backet for a computer that's the championship,
and the other teams you're still going to play two
more games. We're going to have a another system where
you're gonna get to play in a bowl game system
that then goes to other ones. I mean, there's also
a way to adjust the schedule. I mean, it's not
like America is going to be disappointed with more football games.
I think that everybody would be happy with, like with
more football games. I mean, how many of us are
watching the No Name Bowl game on December fifteenth against
Chattanooga A and M against West Texas who knows what
their name is, And we're watching it, and me and
my kids are doing it in the little betting thing
because the winner gets fifty bucks at Dick's in our house.
I mean, yeah, we're watching the game.
Speaker 3: I love it. Man John Beck legend.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I just I thought everyone's been kind of leaning sixteen.
That's what Ronald the three Man Weaver says.
Speaker 3: He's like sixteen.
Speaker 2: I'm like, yeah, I mean I kind of want twenty.
I want twenty four. Man, I want I just want
a bunch of complainers, right, And I don't think if
you go twenty twenty four, I don't think there's gonna
be that many complaints because, like I even look at
like our year and six right the top twenty five.
You know, if you to cut it off at twenty,
you probably have the best.
Speaker 3: You have enough teams.
Speaker 2: You got enough teams in there, and you have you
can't put four loss teams into the playoff. The cutoff
is like three losses. You got three losses, you got
four losses. You're out three losses, you know, and your
brand and you've got some good wins, good resume. You're
probably and that's kind of the cutoff of about twenty.
But John, we got to run great content. As always,
we invite everyone to check out the Train three dqb
dot com to get trained up by the best biomechanical,
science based gurus of quarterbacking like yourself. Thanks so much John,
all right man, all right, there you go. That was
brought to about Odion Menswear Odion menswear dot com.
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