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, Matt Zemon.
Speaker 2: Welcome to our latest episode of the Get Off My
Pilon College football podcast. This is your host, Matt Zemic.
Get Off My Pilon, part of the College Gridiron Coast
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of all things college football across the country in the
various conferences the various regions of the United States. So
Get Off My Pylon is our look at Western college football.
Plenty to discuss as we head into week three and
as we review week two. So we're really in the
early part of the season. We're focusing on the review
side because we're learning about teams, seeing how good they are,
seeing what's real, seeing what might not last for better
or worse, you know, things that might change as the
season goes along. So let's just focus on the reviews
of what we saw in Week two and what we've
seen from these teams through two games in this season,
starting the Big Ten with the West Coast teams, because
you have some really big stories in the Big Ten
West Coast teams. The good story is Oregon. Oregon hanged
sixty nine on Oklahoma State, and of course Mike Dundy
took some shots at Dan Lanning and the Oregon program
during the week and Dan Lanning said that that motivated us,
that you know, spurred us on, gave us an extra
spark for that game. And so Dante More We talked
about it before the season, the transfer from UCLA, the
quarterback who's taking over from Dylan Gabriel this year. You know,
Oregon not going with the transfer route at quarterback, going
with an in house quarterback, trying to develop him. He
looks the part. He definitely looks the part. I mean
when you put up sixty nine points against a Big
twelve team. You know, that's certainly a very good sign.
Oregon's offense functioning very smoothly and Oregon giving up only
three points. The defense is in a pretty good place
as well. So through two weeks, Oregon looks like the
real deal, no question about that. However, here's the note
of caution. Oklahoma State might be the worst power for
team in the country. Oklahoma State and Stanford might as well.
Just get Stanford out of the way right now. We'll
get back to the Big ten in a bit. But
let's just you know, the discussion just shifted to Stanford.
We'll hit that and we'll hit Stanford's opponent as well.
Stanford with quarterback ben Go Branson, you know, the transfer
from Oregon State just absolutely horrific offense. And Stanford and
Oklahoma State in their losses this past Saturday, both scored
just three points. And like Stanford and Oklahoma State could play,
one feels one gets the sense that one could see
these teams play for sixty minutes, one hundred and twenty minutes,
two hundred minutes, three hundred minutes, they would really really
struggle to score a touchdown at any point, their offenses
are that bad. Stanford and Oklahoma State are really the
two teams battling, as it were, with pillows, you could say,
or maybe even like feathers, the two teams that are
going to be, you know, discussed as being the two
worst among the power force. And you just imagine Stanford
versus Oklahoma State, like, how would you handicap that game?
How would you size those teams up? Would it be
like a three to three tie? I wouldn't be too surprised.
Stanford and Oklahoma State both really really bad. So Oregon
undeniably strong but against very weak competition, and Oklahoma State
might be the worst of the worst in power for
college football. So that's kind of the one note of
caution for Oregon. I know, Oregon plays Northwestern later later
this month, later in September, and Northwestern is not really good.
But Northwestern is better than Oklahoma State. I can tell
you that how much better? That would be an interesting question.
But Northwestern is better than Oklahoma State. So Oregon going
on the road against you know, an opponent it should
easily hammer. But you know, does Oregon win that game
by twenty or does Oregon win that game by forty five.
That's a question to watch as we look ahead into
the start of the Big Ten schedule. So Oregon dominant,
but Oklahoma State is really really bad. Like Oklahoma State
is not a six and sixteen. That is a team
that which looks at best, at best three and nine,
could very easily be two and ten or even one
and eleven at the end of the season. I would
put Stanford basically in that same category. It's really grim
and Mike Gundy might be out of here, he might
be out in still Water. I wouldn't be surprised if
he quits mid season. I think that sixty nine to three,
that's something you really don't come back from, especially if
you had a three and nine season last year. So
Oklahoma State not technically a school that we cover here
on get off my pilon, But it's just to reinforce
the point about Oregon awesome performance, but against a real
tomato Can from a power conference. You don't get that
very often. Usually the Tomato Cans are fcs. But this
was a power for tomato can from Oklahoma State. So
we'll see how Oregon handles better competition as it goes
along the other major stories we go back to the
Big Ten and the West Coast schools in the Big Ten,
which we follow every week here on Get off my
pylon Ucla. UCLA has a hot seat situation. Now, UCLA
does not as an institution, does not take football very seriously.
You know, if it did, you would have seen better hires,
you would have seen just more urgency in and around
the program. And the paltry attendance figures that the Rose
Bowl is just depriving this school of revenue. It needs
to offset its budget deficit. And UCLA is paying the
University of cal Berkeley calimony, you know, the several millions
of dollars each year as a consequence of the move
to the Big Ten. UCLA needs money in the door.
And yet with the football program just absolutely withering and
shriveling like that, it's going in the opposite direction. And
so Deshaun Foster I wrote this at UCLA Wire over
the weekend. He's not just losing, He's in over his
head And what do I mean by that? So the
losing is bad enough, and UCLA just totally unprepared in
each of its first two games, falls behind twenty nothing
to Utah, falls behind twenty three nothing to unlv just
not prepared, not ready to play in the first half
of either game. Tons of penalties, looks slow. They don't have,
you know, elite skill position guys. You know Nico im Aliava.
You know he's trying to do what he can. He's
not the problem. It's just that he has no help
anywhere else on his roster. So UCLA is squandering Nico
im Aliava. And side note, Tennessee looks great with Joey Agiar.
Former UCLA brewin transfer from Appalachian State. Josh Hipel integrates
Joey Agyar into the Tennessee offense and he looks really
good so far. So like the coaching the player development
that you see at UCLA with Deshaun Foster, it's a disaster.
It's it's awful. And you know, Carshon Swessinger, the star
linebacker for UCLA who went number thirty three in the
NFL Draft earlier this year. He made eight tackles for
the Cleveland Browns in his NFL regular season debut against
the Cincinnati Bengals. So like he's a stud and UCLA
doesn't have him this year. It doesn't have Olawa Femi
Oladejo who played a solid game for the Tennessee Titans.
You know, the Titans, they didn't win, but like they
contained Bo Nicks and the Denver Broncos on the road.
That was a good defensive performance from the Titans. So
Femi Oladejo also, you know from UCLA last season, another
high quality player went in the top fifty five of
the NFL draft, another second round pick like a Schwessinger.
So you know, without these defensive studs that kept the
team a float last year. And you know, Deshaun Foster
inherited Schwessinger and Oladejo also came Madrono of the Washington Commanders,
Jay Toya of the Dallas Cowboys. He inherited those guys.
He didn't develop them, he inherited them, and they were
coached up by Danton Lynn in twenty twenty to twenty three.
Deshaun Foster inherits them in twenty twenty four, and now
he doesn't have those four quality caliber players. UCLA defense
is lost. So it is a sinking ship at UCLA.
And just to amplify what I said earlier, it's not
just the losing, it's being in over his head. Part
of it is, you know, just not being able to
replenish the roster, not making the off season moves to
build back the defense. It's more than that. It's that
Deshaun Foster, you know, walled off the media from UCLA practices.
He he restricted availability and access to local media. It
was kind of a Nick Saban type hardball move. You know,
we block out the media so that we prevent and
limit distractions, and that's going to be how we're going
to get our team focused. Well. As I said earlier,
UCLA falls behind by twenty or more points and in
the first half of each of its first two games.
So when you do that kind of thing, when you
pull a Nick Saban's style move, but you get you know,
grambling state level results, you look like a fool and
you look like you're in over your head. So that's
what I mean when I say, as I wrote it
Ucla Wire, that it's not just the losing, it's that
Deshaun Foster looks clueless. You know, he's pulling this Nick
Saban level stuff, and then his team is a total
clown show, amateur hour on the field. You know, UCLA
was favored over unlv could not believe that if you
took UNLV plus the two point five or UNLV money line. Congratulations,
you made a very smart bet. It's like Nico Iamaliava
I think led Vegas to price UCLA a little bit
more generously than it should have been. Like this team
is just poorly coached, and New Mexico is next for UCLA,
and that's a game the Bruins might win, but they're
favored by fifteen and a half. Should UCLA be favored
by fifteen and a half over anybody, even the little
sisters of the poor? I don't think so, But like
that might be one of the few wins UCLA gets
this season. A reminder about UCLA's schedule. Gotta play Penn State,
Gotta play Ohio State, gotta play USC. Like the losses
are coming. So UCLA is zero to two Ohio State,
Penn State USC. That's pretty much three guaranteed losses right there.
So that's five UCLA's will almost have to run the
table like UCLA has only two other games that it
can or only one other game it can lose outside
of those three against Ohio State, Penn State USC. UCLA
can lose just one other game if it wants to
make a Bowl. So UCLA's chances of making a bowl
game are microscopic at this point, and not making a
bowl game with Nico Iamaliava that is a worst case scenario,
and it will just reinforce how irrelevant UCLA is as
a program. Like any other high profile prospect who wants
to come to Westwood is going to look at this
and say, no, thanks, I'll go where I'm going to
get coached. Well, I'm gonna go where I'm going to
actually get developed. I'm going to go to the NFL.
H UCLA is just burning its own house down and
Deshaun Foster is the lead arsonist at the moment that
that is an urgent situation at UCLA. If I was
in the eighties chair, if I was Martin Jarmond, I
would be firing Deshaun Foster right now, get get set
on the coaching search, revamp my program. But I don't
sense that kind of move happening, And I frankly, I
don't even think UCLA is gonna fire Deshaun Foster at
the end of the season. On merit, this is a hot,
very hot seat. But in terms of the politics at UCLA,
I think Deshaun Foster lasts into two thousand and twenty six,
because I don't think USCLA is serious enough about its
football program. All right, Continuing with the West Coast schools
and the Big Ten, Washington easily over UC Davis. Interesting
note about Washington is not so much the UC Davis game,
but Washington beat Colorado State by a modest margin somewhere
around seventeen to twenty points. Wasn't a blowout, wasn't a squeaker,
just kind of in between. Colorado State was fortunate to
beat Northern Colorado of the FCS this past weekend, so
Colorado State might actually be very bad. Washington not absolutely
obliterating Colorado State something just just something to consider as
we look at early season results. I'm not making any
strong predictions about Washington. I'm just telling you to take
note of those results. That the Colorado State team that
Washington did not fully blow out nearly lost at home
to an FCS team trailed most of the game but
was able to pull it out late. So that is
something worth noting. And then usc USC beats Clay Hilton,
It's former coach in Georgia Southern fifty nine to twenty.
The offense had a breeze. And you know, Georgia Southern
allowed forty two points to Fresno State. More on Fresno
State in a little bit, because that's a team we
cover here and get off my pylon in the Mountain West.
But Georgia Southern allowed forty two to Fresno State. So
if you allow forty two to Fresno State, you're probably
gonna allow a lot more to USC. And USC does
score fifty nine points, that's fourteen less than the seventy
three US he scored against Missouri State. Why did USC
not score seventy three? This is where we get to
the interesting question for the Trojans. That defense for USC
not good. Fifty nine to twenty might seem like, oh,
everything went great for USC, No, the defense did not
play well. Georgia Southern scored twenty, drove the ball down
the field several other times, and on a few occasions
dropped a pass that would have converted a fourth down
or gained another first down like Georgia Southern easily could
have scored thirty points on this USC defense, and Georgia
Southern got twenty six first downs twenty six. Georgia Southern
was able to control the clock and keep the ball.
That's why USC did not score in the sixties or
the seventies, that the offense didn't get nearly as many
snaps and didn't get nearly as much time of possession
because the defense couldn't get off the field and there
were thirty It's not as though Georgia Southern was always dominant,
but Georgia Southern did convert a third and ten. It
had a third and fifteen, which became fourth and one,
and Georgia Southern then converted the fourth and one. Is
the secondary in particular, the secondary for USC is just
all out of sorts to a certain extent, Guys aren't
communicating to a certain extent. Guys are just getting beaten
by their man sometimes and on a few other occasions,
dumb penalties. You know, a guy has a receiver covered
near the sideline, he has a pinned near the boundary,
and he just decides to chicken wing and discard, and
you throw a forearm and to commit a penalty, a
dumb penalty on a low percentage pass play. You should
be able to just you know, stay with the receiver,
force the quarterback to make the perfect throw. But instead
USC with a bailout pass interference penalty. Just it's a
lot of different things too, Like it's not just one thing.
Part of its communication, part of it's just not staying
with your man, and part of it is dumb penalties.
It's a lot of different things mixed together. So it's
not as though USC defensive coordinator Danton Lynn can say, oh,
there's one thing we need to fix. If we take
care of that, we're good. No, there are a lot
of problems across the board with this defense, so it
doesn't look like a quick fix. USC goes to Purdue,
and you know us, he should win, But I'm not
confident that USC blows out the boiler Makers. Purdue is
I wouldn't say a good team, but Purdue is a
respectable team, like not the doormat it was last season.
If USC does not improve on defense against Purdue, that
game's going down to the wire. That game is going
to be interesting and Upper grabs in the fourth quarter.
And USC did not handle its Big ten road trips
to the Central and Eastern time zones very well last season.
It didn't win any of those games in the Midwest
or the East, so a lot for USC to prove
and a lot of questions surrounding the Trojans going into three.
All Right, so I mentioned earlier we're going to talk
about Fresno States, like Fresno State of the Mountain West
against Oregon State of essentially, you know, the PAC two.
Next year is the true PAC twelve coming back, I
mean not the not the PAC twelve that we've always
known and loved, but it's going to be the reconstituted
PAC twelve. But this year it's still just Oregon State
in Washington State. Essentially the PAC two for all intents
and purposes, that's what it is. Fresno State and Oregon
State play on very even terms. A week ago, Oregon
State lost to Cal thirty four to fifteen at home,
so I thought Fresno State was clearly going to be
the better team in this game. Fresno State wins, but
Fresno State was not clearly the better team. This game
was close the whole way. Oregon State led for decent
portions of the contest. Fresno State had trouble finishing drives,
or State missed a key field goal in the fourth quarter,
so the game came down to the final minute, Oregon
State leading by one, Fresno State able to hit a
medium length field goal just over forty yards to take
the lead, and then in the final twenty seconds Fresno
State with a pick six. So if you weren't watching
this game, you'll say, you'll see this final score, Fresno
State thirty six, Oregon State twenty seven, You'll say, oh,
Fresno State was solidly better. No, not really, this was
a fifty to fifty game. It was anyone's game. In
the final minute, Fresno State getting the field goal to
just edge across the finish line. So not an especially
sharp performance for Fresno State, but good enough to get
the job done against an Oregon State team which you know,
improved from the previous week against Cal but is still
struggling and still faces a fundamentally uphill battle. Staying with
PAC two versus Mountain West, we had Washington State beating
San Diego State, and you know, San Diego State used
to be a power broker in the Mountain West, but
that's that's really not the case right now. San Diego
State has fallen on hard times. Coach Sean Lewis is
not really figuring this thing out. Washington State thirty six
to thirteen over San Diego State. I think that that
margin might catch at least some people by surprise, Washington
State breaking in a new head coach. You know, Jake
Dickert went to Wake Forest to take over the demon deacon,
so Jimmy Rodgers now the boss in Pullman. So that
has to be an encouraging performance for Washington State against
San Diego State. Of the Mountain West, let's stay off
the Mountain West. We'll get to the big twelve in
a little bit, but let's stay with the Mountain West.
Since you know we've got we've taken care of the
pack to Oregon State and Washington State. We touched on
Fresno State of the Mountain West, so now let's continue
with the Mountain West. And you know we mentioned a
few schools from the Mountain West earlier, Coloradle State not
looking very good, and we touched on UNLV beating UCLA.
That's really more of a commentary on UCLA being bad
rather than UNLV being good. You know, UNV got the
twenty three to nothing lead, but then nearly squandered all
of it. UCLA made a furious charge in the second half,
had the ball late with a chance to tie UNLV
with some curious play selection, and you know, on third
and two the Rebels were chucking the ball way down
the field instead of taking the five yard checkdown for
a first down. Some odd decisions by UNLV, and the
Rebels don't look convincing at all. This was a team
that had a lot of preseason hype. The Rebels do
not look the part. They're better than UCLA, but as
established earlier in this show, UCLA is just awful. So
UNLV cleared a very low bar. You know, if UNLV
had played a complete sixty minutes and had beaten UCLA
by thirty rather than seven, maybe we're talking about the
Rebels in a different way. But so far, a rocky
start for Dan Mullen gets the win over UCLA, and
UNLV is three and oh that's good. But it's a
three and oh that doesn't look very convincing. So the
Rebels have a lot of convincing to do as they
move forward in the Mountain West schedule. Boise State with
an easy win over over Eastern Washington, but you know,
that's a cupcake game, and you know, in fairness to
Boise State, and this might be a something that changes
the conversation surrounding the Broncos. You know, South Florida goes
on the road and beats the Florida Gators. That makes
Boise States lost to South Florida look a lot better,
not worse. So maybe maybe South Florida was a lot
better than we thought, and maybe that changes perceptions of
Boise State. But really in the Mountain West, the overview
is that there's no really good team Boise State UNLV
though those were like the two teams getting most of
the preseason publicity, neither one of them looks especially good
to start. So it's going to be a journey. It's
going to be interesting to see, how, you know, if
there is one team that really rises to the top,
How quickly do teams evolve, how well do coaches make
in season adjustments. That's going to be the theme of
Mountain West football because right now that conference as a
whole is struggling. South Florida and Tulane from the American
they look like the two favorites for the Group of
Five championship and the College Football Playoff. Berth the Mountain
West highly unlikely at this point to get the Group
of five championship, but maybe in October or a month
from now, things will be very different. So that is
a storyline to watch, all right, So let's continue. I
briefly mentioned Cal and CAL and Stanford both from the ACC.
So Stanford's horrible Cal looks okay Cal. Cal's defense did
not give up a touchdown to Texas Southern. The offense struggled,
had only eleven points in the first half. The offense
might be a work in progress, but the CAL defense
doing a decent job thus far. So let's see what
it's like for CAL when it goes up against ACC
opponents later in the season. So kind of a lot
to still learn about the Golden Bears. Oregon State's not
very good, Texas Southern a cupcake. Let's see what Cal
does when it goes into the teeth of its ACC schedule.
All right. Now we go to the Big Twelve. So
we were going to talk about conference, of course, and
we've arrived. So the big story from the Western schools,
the four Corners schools in the Big Twelve is that
Arizona State is not the real deal. Arizona State goes
to Starkville to play a Mississippi State team which widely
regarded as the worst in the SEC. I mean predicted
to be the worst in the SEC. Jeff Levy, you know,
not one of the better coaching hires two cycles ago.
Last year was his first season. He had a very
very difficult journey in year one. Mississippi State not expected
to be much better in year two. But Arizona State
goes to Starkville, falls behind seventeen, nothing, takes a late
twenty to seventeen lead, but then gives up a fifty
eight yard touchdown in the final minute to lose to
Mississippi State. So that's a bad loss for Kenny Dillingham
and the Sun Devils. And so, you know, the conventional
wisdom before the season was that, you know, no cam Skataboo,
you're probably looking at a regression on offense. And the
game against Mississippi State confirmed those fears. But you know,
that's a game Arizona State needs to win. If you
are a big boy program, if you consider yourself among
the nation's elite, you don't have to blow out Mississippi State,
but you do need to win that game. Arizona State
fails to do that. So an early check mark against
Arizona State, and there's an extra comment to be made here.
Arizona State was ranked number eleven in each of the
preseason polls, and I think we can safely say that
was based on twenty twenty four results, Arizona State making
the College Football Playoff very nearly beating Texas in the
quarterfinals in the Peach Bowl. Like that was really the
basis of Arizona State being ranked so high to start
the twenty twenty five season, because you take away Cam Skataboo,
like he was so amazingly important that team, both as
a producer and as a leader, you know, in terms
of what he did for the offense, but also what
he did for the team and that locker room. So
number eleven for Arizona State always struck me as a
very high and excessive ranking. Like Arizona State needed to
reprove itself this season, so a loss to Mississippi State
that's not how you reprove yourself. Arizona State obviously hasn't
played a Big twelve game yet, but it's hard to
think that the Sun Devils have the inside track to
the Big twelve championship. Colorado beats Delaware. Julian Lewis, the
five star freshman got the start. Was not spectacular, but
Colorado does win, and like Colorad got out to a
solid lead. You know, it wasn't too much of an
uphill battle, but it will be interesting to see, you know,
how Deon Sanders handles the quarterback situation with Julian Lewis
and how he's going to juggle the quarterback room over
the course of the season. You know, Julian Lewis did
not get the start against Georgia Tech, a game Colorado lost,
competed well in but ultimately lost. So as Colorado moves forward,
how is Dion going to handle the quarterback room in Boulder?
That's going to be something to watch. Utah looked great again.
Now played a cal Poly so that's a cupcake. So
and UCLA is horrible the team that Utah dismantled in
Week one. So basically, if Utah we're waiting to see
the youths play a good team, that's basically where we are.
We just need to see the youths play a good team.
You have a Texas Tech coming around the bend in
week four on September twenty, that could be a game
for the Big twelve championship. And so you know, when
that game comes around next week, we're definitely gonna preview
it here on Get off my Pylon. But you know,
for the moment, Utah looks great but hasn't played anybody,
kind of like Oregon. I mean, you know, the team
looks really really good when you see it on the field,
but competition has been cupcake pillow pillow fight, whatever kind
of image or metaphor you choose. But certainly Kyle Whittingham
has a team that looks a lot better than it
did last season. Last but not least Arizona and Arizona
shares something with another Western team, BYU. Arizona and BYU
get this. This is really fascinating how many people would
have thought this would be the case. Arizona and BYU
are the two FBS teams that have not allowed a
touchdown this season. Now, they haven't played daunting opposition, Arizona
playing Hawaii and then Weaber State, most recently BYU playing
Portland State and then that god awful Stanford offense that
I talked about earlier in the program. But nevertheless, like
you go up against a bad offense, you should shut
it down. And BYU and Arizona they're shutting it down.
They are doing what they are supposed to do on defense.
But now we'll see how the competition increases as we
head into week three. So really after week two, not
a lot of far reaching verdicts on specific teams. I
think Arizona State rates as an exception, Like, you know,
that's a team, okay, definitely not going to be as
good as it was last year. UCLA awful and in
huge trouble. There are a few specific examples of teams
that I feel I have a good read on, but
for the most part, it's how are they going to
do when the competition gets better and that story, that
perspective will gain more clarity dimension as we head into
week three. All right, So that's all for this week,
and get off my pilot. College football podcast part of
the College Grade Iron Coast to Coast podcast network. Grade
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Coast to Coast show on Apple, Spotify, Speaker, and wherever
else you find your podcasts. The all sports discussion show
on the ACC Yards and Stripes on the service Academies
Florida Football Insiders with Jason Powers and boy he has
a lot to talk about Belly Napier on the hot
seat at Florida in Gainesville. And on the other hand
you have Florida State and Miami doing really well and
South Florida becoming the group of five front runners. So
all that is on the Florida Football Insiders podcasts of
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the Big Ten as well, lots of different shows to
satisfy all your different tastes in college football, covering all
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twenty twenty five. So that's all for this episode of
Get Off My Pilon. I'm Matt Zeek. Thanks for listening.
We will see you and talk to you next week.