Jason and Mike open Hour 4 reacting to an old quote resurfacing from Brian Kelly after his former team, Notre Dame, just earned a spot in the National Championship. Did Kelly make a mistake leaving Notre Dame for LSU a few years ago?
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A couple head coaches making big headlines following Notre Dame's twenty seven to twenty four win tonight over Penn State No. Tre Dame in the National Championship Penn States answering questions, James Franklin saying maybe I shouldn't have seemed so haughty and elitist at the press conference yesterday.
With Freeman next to me. Maybe I want to do that again.
Do you think Argus Freeman's hair got into a victory here? I'll hang up and listen for your response, mister Franklin.
But there's two head coaches that are making a lot of headlines, and one you would expect and one you wouldn't expect. Let's deal with the guy that you would expect making headlines first, right, And yes, Marcus Rehman, we've talked about him with a phenomenal job.
He's done.
Third year, he's playing for a national championship, first time they've done so. They're playing for a title in twelve years, and he has done a tremendous, tremendous job. James Franklin, he goes thirteen and three, finishes second overall in the Big Ten, and he's facing an offseason where he made it to the semi finals of the College Football Playoff the first one, and he's within a hair's breadth of making to the national championship. And it's still gonna be James Franklin's not a big time head coach. It's still gonna be James Franklin's not a big time head coach. He can't win the big games. Sometimes stuff like that is really just insane. And and you don't you gotta understand that, Hey, you have it pretty good, right, you can't. Not everybody's gonna win. And to make it this far, you're really being unreasonable when when when you.
Talk about a coach.
Right, The last time I saw the real unreasonable was when I went to England this summer and we were there during the Euro and everybody hated Southgate. I'm like, all you're doing is winning. You're in the you're in the fight. I was talking to all the cab drivers, Everybody's like, what do you think the Euro? He goes, oh, we can't, but we can't do anything. Coaches terrible, he's terrible, manages terrible, he's dead. You see the way we play. I'm like, you're winning and you're in the championship in the Euro but it's not good enough. Right, that's a little ridiculous. But for Penn State, I get it because James Franklin wins games. He's supposed to win, right and that and and that's good, right, that's good. Hey, well you win games, you're supposed to win. It means we're not gonna go win and get upset. We're not gonna lose to Vanderbilt and have that come back and bite us. But if you want to be in next level program, you gotta win big games. And I'm sorry. You could put the resume, the regular season resumes of Penn State and Indiana right next to each other and they would look indistinguishable because the only thing Penn State has on their resumes. Ah boy, you know they they beat Illinois. Okay, Illinois was ten and three. They were pretty good then. But that's it, right, And part of it is, hey, the unbalanced scheduling. You know this year Penn State didn't play Michigan. You know, it happens that way. Sometimes you're not gonna play all the great teams. It's the way it goes. But you can only go by what you see on the field, and that is Penn State still doesn't win games where it's a toss up or they're an underdog and they're winning beating somebody really good, and you gotta win a big game. And I'm gonna continue on and say I'm not gonna pick Penn State to win a big game until you show me you can win a big game. And I don't know that I can quant by saying it's this game at this point in time, but I'll know when it's there, you know, late September on the road aainst number one team in the country. That's a big game, right November in a game you have to win, tomit, that's a big game. But I just haven't seen it, and especially in this in this level. Penn State really had an easy path to make it to where they are, right. You know, SMU was not great, but hey, we can't let a team that made it to the championship of the ACCUT out of the playoff will look really bad if we left them out for Alabama and then you get Poise State. Who Hey, Boise State, They're a great story, you know, a great player ash and Genty is really good. But I mean, really, Huggard of these teams, right, they had a great draw to make it as far as they have and no matter how you want to cut it up, it's hey point to give me the signature win, giving give me the big one. Penn State kind of moved around the schedule this year to make it as far as they did. So, yeah, I see the criticism of James Franklin.
I get it.
You want to beat a big team at some point and you just haven't. So yeah, until that happens, this is gonna dogument. And that's kind of the way it goes in college football.
Yeah, I mean, you go back to when they won that game against Illinois. Nobody cared about Illinois at that point.
No, no, not at all.
Right, I mean you went back at the end, but still they did win.
Well, they only wins.
Yeah, they only cared when they was fighting Beamer in the game against South Carolina and people paid attention to say, wait, Illinois won how many games this year? Yeah, they lost ben State twenty one seven. You're final otherwise, no wins against rank opponents, and and look, you play who's on the schedule, and that's the way it works, and it rolls through. Just because you got to a title game and you gave Oregon fits before losing, it's still a loss. Right, There's no such thing as good losses. If we're gonna play that game, Go ask Alabama about that. Go ass goal miss about those kind of things, right, Go ask Kirk Kurbstreet about wins and losses at all. See what I did, I dragged him back in there. I had to. But all of that to say, it's the A to B B two C argument that we've made, and I've been making on this network for as long as I've been doing it. You got a guy that can get you to this point and it's consistent, and it's when you may like how he runs. As a program. You'll be able to hear a lot of our guys, right, our buddies, rich Hornberger, LeVar Arrington, Penn Staata alums, though encapsulated. Maybe I'll reach out to Richie and we'll drag him into the mix tomorrow. What do you think about that? Smith to talk about the PostScript on this season, but all of that to say, it doesn't lie at the end when you're playing top notch, top ranked opponents and consistency. Yes, you consistently lose margin to victory. We can talk about that. We can argue about games going in the margins. As Todd Verman alluded to, some of the coaching decisions Franklin made here. You ran for one hundred and forty one yards in the first half. Second half, you got cute aler eleven of twenty two for the game, no completions to wide receivers, and you went away from running the football in chunks. Right, you got cute at the goal line where you were running the ball effectively and said, and yes it was a drop would be touchdown to the running back out of the backfield. That ended up making you make a decision for a field goal. That was a let me run the ball down your throat moment because now we fully take advantage of this, and we take full of this possession with a touchdown that might have been insturmountable at that point. Instead you kick a field goal. Eh yeah, ten minute drive, we gave up a field goal.
Who cares?
Okay, move on, play on, and that's what you have. So for James Franklin, yeah, a lot of wood. It could have showed have moments in his fourteen years. Great winning percentage? What's he at about seven hundred?
Yeah? Yeah, he wins the games he's supposed to.
Right, the Ryan Dakers when your penns now Ohio state's acting, when.
Your Penn State, you're supposed to win those games, right, said, those are games you are you are supposed to win.
You shouldn't.
You're not losing games in Northern Illinois or anything. You're supposed to win those games. So James Franklin has kind of been as expected. But I mean, I mean they did Paumel Kent State before that year.
Okay, there was yes, I mean I narrow win over Bowling Green didn't want to leave the golden flashes out.
You're right, yes, very nice, very nice.
Now the other guy getting a lot of attention that you wouldn't think is gaining a lot of attention is Brian Kelly, former Notre dame head coach and current head coach of Louisiana State University. Why because this quote has resurfaced in the wake of Notre Dame's win to make it to the national championship. In April of twenty twenty two, when he left Notre Dame for LSU, he said quote, I want to be in an environment where I have the resources to win a national championship. I'm not always one for boy that that quote didn't age well because you know, things change, but wow, that quote didn't age well. I want to have the resources to win a national championship. And he is just getting pummeled over this coca is Obviously LSU has not been close. And here's Notre Dame. In Marcus Freeman's third year playing for the national Championship. But the real misstep that Brian Kelly had because this, this is this is really what it is, like you want to rip Brian Kelly. Should you say something like that? No, but he wanted to say something strong about LSU and you really, I mean really he was He's Notre Dame for twelve years, right, he had good years at not Treme. He played for the national championship. He was in the top five, he had he had a great run, right. They came off a run with Charlie Weiss where they were five hundred and he was eight nine ten eleven wins. He had great success.
And when he did his final five years, ten wins, twelve wins, eleven they were wins, eleven wins. I still have problems with the guy himself related to that incident in the inclement weather and the videography that was going on, like he's always been a loser to me after that.
But the big thing, right, the big thing that you know, say, yes, that was an awful statement to make the same that now you're really gonna wear it, He's gonna wear that thing like a golden sombrero.
Right, Well, for five five strikeouts, yeah, you're you're awaring that.
But his real misstep is he failed to understand the unpredictability of college football, right, because what's this thing here. I want to be in an environment where I have the resources to win a national championship. When he left, he saw Notre Dame as boy, are they really gonna compete in the nil era? I mean, anybody can give money to anybody, a school like LSU, of course they're gonna do it. Alabama is no Tre Dame gonna hold themselves to a standard where it's gonna be impossible to compete for a national title because they're gonna want to do it better than everybody else and and and that's gonna be a thing. And that's that's ostensibly why he left, right because he was having great success.
His best years were the last few.
But boy, I really need to I see the way the college landscape is, and I don't think in the future that we're gonna be able to compete that way.
And that's his misstep.
I want to be in an environment where I have the resources to win a national championship. College football changes every five minutes, and he should have seen that. You know, your reason you're paid big money to understand the landscape of the game and where it's going. And when the NIL transfer portal era began, which was right around it, we had just seen it right after twenty twenty, after the COVID season twenty twenty one, everybody got extra years, they opened the transfer portal. All the time NIL became a thing, right, he thought, I understand this, and I'm gonna go because we're not going to be able to compete. And what have you seen the last couple of years. Well, Notre Dame is competing. Everybody's competing. The rules change every five minutes. And to make that knee jerk decision to leave, that was his mistake, thinking I know where college football is headed, and I'm gonna make this move to LSU, when really nobody knows where college football is headed, because again, it changes every five minutes. The only thing I can tell you for sure is that the old school coaches now, who have coached a certain way for a long time, they're gonna slowly leave.
Guys like Nick Saban, they're done because this is not their game. This is not what they do.
It's not constant recruiting, it's not constant nil money for people. It's not talking to somebody's uncle who says, hey, we're supposed to get that extra thirty grand. You know, my nephew's not gonna play unless he gets there. People leaving the portal having to go back and recruit. But it's not how they were brought up. That's the only thing I can tell you that's gonna continue on the next few years is the old guard college football coaches will leave and the new guard, the coaches with the energy who have come up with a recruiting background. We'll get these head coaching jobs and they'll go forward everything else.
Who knows.
We could We could have these conferences in the next few years. We might have two conferences in the next couple of years. We could we could wind up having a expanded playoff of sixteen teams. We could have the big ten in the SEC having their own playoff, and everybody else has a different playoff. Like, nobody knows where college football is headed. And that was Brian Kelly's mistake. For a guy that spent his whole life in college football, you would think he'd understand, Boy, I really don't know where things are going right now.
And you know, what.
Things are going pretty good here at Notre Dame. We're winning a lot of games. We're eleven twelve games. I know that people get a little antsy we're not winning playing for the national championship. But I'll tell you what, twelve and one, eleven and two, ten and two, eleven and two, Yeah, you're not replacing me after those games. This is I got Notre Dame back to where it needs to be, playing in big bowl games all year long, playing in big games, competing for a national championship.
Yeah, I get we haven't won.
We're also in the era where Alabama was great and other teams were great. USC was great before that. Yeah, he had Notre Dame in a great place, and he jumped when he had in its best place because he thought he knew where college football was going. And that's the big that's the big fault. He should have known. He didn't know, because nobody knows. So now he's here at LSU thinking he has all the answers, and now he's got to watch you know, players, players that I'm sure he recruited some of them, a lot of them, because they're all seniors now going in He's gonna watch these guys playing for the national championship because he misread college football and it's and it's unpredictability, and that's what's.
On him now the meme. But him doing that photo booth with recruits is always going to live strong. So that's good. That's making the round. His accent to Yeah, that was good when he went kind of Austin Butler character, you know, method actor kind of thing. I like that. No, it's good. Look, the Notre Dame Collective alive and strong. They had collected some twenty plus million dollars of revenue. They're changing into something called Rally, which is interesting because Rally is also the name of a website and entity whereby you know, we had Shares and the Andre the Giant Jack jockstrap there, So I mean, you know, it's curious that they would pick the same name. Probably not going to be confused, but either way, they're they're developing a whole other portal there. But Brady Quinn, our teammate here at Fox Sports Radio, part of the Hall of Fame for the Orange Bowl. He was part of the process. Tony and I'm sure enjoyed his Notre Dame fighting Irish with their twenty seven to twenty four victory. Sure, he'll have some thoughts on Brian Kelly because that has to come up in the wake of what's gone on here. That is to say it's been a complete failure. Right, they're twenty nine and eleven. They won all three bowl games there at LSU, but some expectations and results are you know, they're not equal? All right, twenty nine and eleven at LSU does not track quite so well for the alumni base there, and certainly with what Marcus Freeman and his team have been able to do and in support of the collective and now this next initiative of rally and nil opportunities for student athletes at Notre Dame, they're in pretty good position. Oh and by the way, by not joining a conference, they got to keep all twenty million dollars for advancing to the title game for themselves, not splitting it with a damn soul. Pretty good business.
Exit out of Fresca, Exit Swollen Dome. The Jason Smith Show with my best friend Mike Carmon live from the ti iraq dot Com studios. Coming up next, we'll have more on this game, more on notere names victory plus a double dose of drama as we head into the NFL playoff weekend. That's right here, Jason and Mike Fox. I'm not a weather man, but I'll give you my forecasts. Snow and ice are coming, and I'll make driving a challenge. Thankfully, the experts at tire Iraq know a thing or two about conquering winter's worst, rain, sleep, slush, whatever winter means to you. Ti Iraq has tires that'll elevate traction and breaking and keep you safe. All season tires, all weather tires, and if you live where it snows a lot, dedicated winter tires. Go to tiraq dot com. They're easy to use, shopping tools will guide you to a personalized recommendation. They'll show you the right tires for how, what and where you drive. Choose from the full line of Goodyear tires. They're shipped fast and free and backed by two years of free road hazard protection. Go to tiraq dot com slash sports to see their Goodyear testers and special offers. Ty Iraq has thousands of recommended installers and offers the convenience of mobile tire installation.
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Fox Sports Radio The Jason Smith Show with my best friend Mike Harmon Livethetirack dot com studios. We'll have more on Notre Dames thrilling twenty seven twenty four win over Penn State coming up in a few minutes. But you know, today was rife with drama for the NFL playoffs coming up in a couple of days and no Michae and I'll give you our picks for Ohio State and Texas as well. But the first bit of drama, and this is more a life thing than it is anything else, is that the NFL made the decision to move Minnesota and the Rams from Sofi Stadium on Monday night to Arizona to the Cardinal Stadium due to the wildfires that have been going on in La over the course of the last three plus days. And look, this was the right call initially when they talked about it on Monday, when the wildfires first came out, it was, hey, we're.
Looking into moving things if this goes on. And I got that.
But you know, look, we've had wildfires out here. I understand where it's at. It's about the air quality of it, because you know, look, we get to the part where the city of Los Angeles is a little too city and a little too suburban, you know, for the for the fires to get in to get in there close, like right now, they kind of bracket the city and now they're moving out north and east, and it's just unbelievable. So I got the whole thing. Look, it's all about the air quality. And today was the first day where quite honestly, the air quality in all of the city was really bad. We still had moderate air quality the last couple of days, but the AQI was bad. We've had days like this where you walk outside it feels like you're on tattooin. But today, going out and running a couple of errands real fast, I want to be outside for too long. But when I first I'm like, oh, here's a little bit of ash that's coming that I can feel from the from the from the fires wherever it's get's getting blown in from and so you could tell the air quality was tough. There was a fire in Woodland Hills that broke out, which is another suburb just a little bit north of LA that it was a couple of miles from where the Rams practice. They had to endure that. So the NFL made the right call today and in making this, and I get that the Rams, look, you want the home game. I'm sure they wanted it more than anything. But in the end, sometimes peace of mind is worth more. And the fact that now the Rams who are trying to practice all week and make sure their families are safe because a lot of them, you know, everybody lives all over Los Angeles and some many people live outside of the city and in places like Pasadena and Alta, Dina, and and and in Malibu and Pacific Palisades, and you know, trying to keep your family safe. And we still have practice here. And what are we doing to make this call on Thursday? There's still three days before the game. Now, everybody can relax, right, We're gonna play the game here. We can leave now if we want to. We can get to Arizona and leave La No. I don't have the family doesn't have to worry about me because I'm staying behind and everybody else is left. Sometimes peace of mind is worth it. Now is it worth giving up a home game for it? Look, I'm sure the Rams would love to play at home, but sometimes, knowing that you're gonna have seven days of uncertainty leading into a game, this was the right call. And the Rams are not going to win or lose this game because of they don't have the home field, but of course you want to have it because you want whatever advantage the home field brings you, with the crowd, with whatever calls you might get.
But still this is the right call for the NFL to do this.
Yeah, in the end, you're looking at assumption of everything clearing up, right, there's no magical elicks or here, it's still burning. You've got some containments, so we're finally seeing some progress to track that way. But all said, the resources and emergency response facilities, all of these things are part of the consideration. Right for an event that large, you have to have people public service. When we're talking police, emergency response and ambulances and all of those around a giant stadium that you just can't tax. The system that much more for a football game, right, You've got to be diligent and responsible in all of that, say nothing of hotels and other facilities that need to be on call and have been utilized for so much of the devastation. Right, the displaced families, we're seeing all the good works of restaurant tours and hotel owners and all of these things that those facilities are in use. So to move the game to Arizona a couple of days ahead of time, I fully anticipated we'd have another twenty four hours of maybe maybe not. But you and I have talked about the videos we've seen of complete and utter trails of what emptiness for lack of a better term, Right, all of those buildings, all of those facilities that have been wiped out through these last seventy two hours, that you know what, move the game for the Rams, for the Vikings, for their fans, you know, give them the extra day to plan about getting out there and be able to play it where there's no uncertain dya and no more decisions that need to be made for the NFL applaud them making it early. Just be done with it, yeah, I.
Mean the latest it does over ten thousand structures have been damage are destroyed. Anybody who has seen any of the video the last few days understands, Okay, this is they can't play a game here, Like the rose bowl is being used to hold animals right because you know they have animals escape because they're stables and and all kinds of different uh, animals they had to move, whether it's a horses or or anything else. And now the rose bul is holding them right like like this is this is as bad as as as you've ever seen.
Uh.
You know that this city in this area looks as the second biggest market in the country. And I know that the word apocalyptic has been thrown out a lot. And I can see where because you see the fires and the destroyed buildings. But you know, in in In the Apocalypse and all the movies that we've seen, there are still structures that are standing, right, Like that's something you compare it to and that's something that is you know that that's a you know, this is all in Hollywood imagination when you talk about stuff that's post apocalyptic, right, what what.
I see is it?
To me?
It's it's like you understand when you when you see a tornado going through someplace, because that's what all the property looks like.
Entire blocks and neighborhoods are gone.
Like in the Palisades, nothing is standing like everything is there's nothing more than two feet high off the ground. Everything is gone. There's no empty husks of hey, here's a burned out building here here.
No, everything is gone. It's all burned to the ground, and and and and looking.
At it's it's That's what strikes me is that it feels like it's like a like a giant tornado just went through everywhere, and and and this is the devastation that we have in such a.
Short period of time. And you know, it's good that, you know, finally.
Maybe it's turning a little bit in a couple of the fires seem like we're getting a little bit of containment. And you just need a little bit of containment to really start making sure that to really start, you know, cutting into the fire and making sure that we.
Can put it out.
It's it's really been an unbelievable last few days. And my mind, I'm sure is still processing it. And I really I don't know how Greater Los Angeles comes back from this. Like there's no Pacific Palisades for years. I mean that the entire town has gone. Malibu is going through the same thing. Pasadena all to Dina, like all all these towns that are just outside of LA and and even though it's not technically in the city, it's you know, it's a it's something that's five minutes away on a freeway, it's here.
It's all of these towns. I don't know how LA is going to recover.
And I'm not even talking about, Hey, we got to recover for the World Cup in the Olympics in twenty twenty, and I'm going how do we recover as a city and and still be the you know, the Los Angeles that we were. I don't know that that happens. I don't know how we get back to that. I think there's the damage is just so big and so huge.
It's it's going to be.
This really bad new normal that nobody ever wanted to go through. But like I said, towns are gone and neighborhoods are gone, and so many people displaced. I really I don't know how we come back.
I don't know.
Now, you got the resiliency of people, right, I mean, look, everybody fights and people that are here, it's because they chose to be here, and they fought through whatever industry they work in, uh and around. You know, a lot of the homes that were last were not celebrities, right, That's the big misnomer in all this. People that have did their ass for years and bought in smartly, you know, getting a little bit of luck and good grace. Talk about a guy who's the next door neighbor who had worked at the airport, just happened to buy down in the Beach Cities forty years ago and there he is. Same thing with the Palisades for a lot of those people in Malibu. And yes, the headlines are this Hollywood star lost their home and you feel terrible for them. But a lot of folks rank and file through all sorts of industry, and you know what, they'll break their back to do it again because they love the communities. And we've seen so many people that have risen up. Now the federal and state governments have to do their parts. I know they got a great commitment from up top earlier today, so that'll help in the restoration. But yeah, it's going to be a long, arduous process. A lot of hard work a lot of growing pains, but you know this is where the human spirit the West Coast and the love of that area really comes back to play.
Right.
There's still is great value to being here in one of the world's biggest economies. So yes, don't lose heart, Smith. It's gonna take some time, but you'll be back at those restaurants and hanging out on the Malibu coast here in short order, as will all the tourists as we welcome you back with open arms.
I hope, so, I hope you're right. I really do.
Just take some time, buddy, You and I, I mean, I'll be a little grayer, You'll still be bald. We both will both look good be based on what we're doing with our program here in conjunction with Fox Sports Radio, and we'll have all our friends and family be out here with us. But yeah, the prayers, the good will all. Like watching all the stuff around the Rose Bowl. You know Chef Jose Andres who always shows up when there's there's bad cataclysmic weather events. He's out there. They're feeding people into the middle of the day. I'm sure Dave Grohl will have his barbecue thing going up in short order, feeding the first responders. This is where we get the best of humanity, and this is where we still that dangerous word, as we recite from shawsh inc where hope comes in. So I believe in the best of people, as skeptical as I am about the world around me.
Let's find out what's trending right now in the wide world of sports. Were someone we have no skepticism about because.
We love her here at the Legend Radio.
Did you say allegedly I said a legend?
Oh I thought you said a legend. No, we all know. How dare you on?
It's Manci Belagno, She's got what's trending?
Manzy?
Hello, Hello, Hello, there we go, guys.
Yeah, I hope you're right that.
You know this sucks and it's awful, but that we will survive and it might take some time, but it'll eventually, I think, hopefully, we will be back to what we think is normal film news. You guys were just talking about Monday's Wildcard game being moved because of these fires, But Chiefs defensive coordinator Steve Spagnolo's scheduled to do his virtual ahead coach interviews with the Jets, Raiders and Jaguars tomorrow Friday. Former Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll met with the Chicago Bears on Thursday. He's gonna meet with the Raiders next week, and the Ravens have rolled out wide receiver Za Flowers for Saturday's wildcard game against the Steelers. But the big story of the night, Notre Dame headed to the National Championship for the first time since twenty thirteen after defeating Penn State twenty seven to twenty four thanks to a forty one yard field goal from Mitch Jeter. Notre Dame leeds the nation in takeaways with thirty two. They had a big one in the final minute of the game. Penn State did not have a single catch from a wide receiver into night's game. They also had one hundred and forty one rushing yards in the first half and ended with just two hundred and four. In the NBA, the Cavaliers of one twelve in a row after beating the Raptors one thirty two to one twenty six behind Darius Garland, who had forty points. Despite a bad shooting night from Steph Curry, Warriors beat the Pistons one o seven to one oh four, while the Timberwoods Cruise passed the Magic one O four to eighty nine. The Rockets defeated the Grizzlies won nineteen oh one fifteen, and the Suns top the Hawks won twenty three to one fifteen. No upsets in college shops today, Number fifteen ore agaon number sixteen Michigan State, and number twenty per Due. They all won their matchups and on the ice, the Islanders shut out the Golden Knights for zero.
The Avalanche outscored the wild six to one. The Hurricanes beat the Maple Leaves six to three, and the Stars have won six in a row after defeating the Flyers four to one. It's been fun, guys, have a good night.
Thanks see you soon do great things you too.
Be safe about that, Yes, be safe everybody.
Now, you just heard Monty say, Look, the first big injury of playoff weekend hit. The Ravens are going to be without Zay Flowers for this game against the Steelers. And yes, it's a blow, right. Zay Flowers is a terrific receiver. Second year in the NFL, pro bowler this year, It's not going to matter. Baltimore is going to smash Pitchburg. Pittsburgh is sputtering their offense. You can see how limited it is. You can see how limited Russell Wilson is. Mike Tomlin is finally going to pay the piper for Hey, we're going to try to win this way all the way till we get it's not nineteen eighty four. You can't win like this by running the ball the entire game, hoping your quarterback makes a player two and playing great defense doesn't work that way.
That's not the NFL now, but it's how Mike Tomlin wants to win.
That will get you through the regular season, it will get you killed in the playoffs. Russell Wilson's showing you he's at the end. He had a really good start first four weeks. Hey, that's really good, but not the same. They're going to have to score a lot to keep pace with the Ravens because Lamar Jackson is on a Michael Jordan iPad I took that personally revenge tour.
Pittsburgh is not going to be able to keep up with that.
And get ready for the futures of Russell Wilson and Mike Tomlin to be discussed right after because it's time for that to happen. I'm going Baltimore thirty one to thirteen, and I think I'm being kind with the final score of the.
Steal look at.
You'd be curious to see whether we get some of Justin Fields in this one Arthur Smith and some of his public canvassing and media opportunities this week before he's taking head coaching interviews. That one's still a head scratcher for me, But that's fine, is that it seems like he wants to get that element back in that Justin Fields gave you to where you could do a little of the read option, you could do some of the design runs that you're not for Russell Wilson. We watched it painful, painfully obvious at the end of their last game when he tried to run and was indecisive about whether to throw the ball at a bounds and it ended up being a run that cost them precious seconds on the clock. So we'll see whether you get a little bit of a mix and match there that maybe tries to give some juice to the offense and maybe they can convince George Pickens that he needs to give them sixty minutes of football as well. All of that is wishing, wanting and hoping Baltimore even with with nose flowers in this one. You've gotten great second half results from Mark Andrews. Rashod Bateman will be available. He's had a pretty nice season overall. Oh in that run game with Derrick Henry. Oh, and that Lamar Jackson gut can still run the football too. Yeah, they're gonna run rough shot all over Pittsburgh in this one. That thirty four to seventeen second game that they played is probably kind of what this looks like as opposed to the eighteen to sixteen loss earlier in the season. Offenses home and Lamar Jackson ready for bear here and loaded for bear here in this playoff season.
Exit out bout a Fresca exit swollen Dome. Jason Smith Mike Harmon live from the Tirek dot Com Studios.
Coming up next.
Three big takeaways from Notre Dame's win over Penn State, and we'll tell you how OSU and Texas is gonna go tomorrow night.
Keep it right here. We're ending with a flourish Jason and Mike Fox Sports Radio.
Be sure to catch live edition of The Jason Smith Show with Mike Harmon weekdays at ten pm Eastern, seven pm Pacific, Fox Sports.
Radio The Jason Smith Show with my best friend Mike Harmon. We'll give you r pick between Ohio State and Texas coming up in a couple of minutes. But three big takeaways from note tre Dame's twenty seven to twenty four win over Penn State and an absolute thriller. And tonight was really about three plays. Well, there's Jeter, there's Jina.
Jedd.
It wasn't good in the regular season, doesn't matter at Jeeta's great in the playoffs.
He's a legend.
He's alleged Gina baby jeus Burg is partying tonight at Mitch jeters Berg. It's happening, MITCHI meet Derek, Derek Me mitchief Pielgeal.
Leave your phone in the bucket.
But let's deal with Penn State first.
Because Drew Aller I give him a lot of credit because he answered a lot of tough questions tonight following the game, and he had had an absolutely horrendous game. A guy who was initially projected to be a first round pick in the NFL draft was absolutely off tonight. To put it kindly, he should have had an extra interception, but got bailed out by the officials on.
A pass interference call.
But he threw a horrendous pass with thirty seconds left to go across his body that Notre Dame picked off allowed them to kick the game winning field goal.
You have to make a better decision than that. I know, he said.
He tried to throw it in the ground, But dude, why are you throwing it across your body? And a play like that's just no one. It never works out for anybody throwing her. Two guys in the history of the NFL could do that, right. Throwing across your body like that is never a good idea.
It doesn't work, and.
Still he tried to do it. I don't know how you go to the NFL off of this. It's why I think it made the right decision coming back to Penn State for another year. But what I told you last night, the back seven of Notre Dame was going to be the difference makers. How many passes at all or complete to wide receiver tonight zero, all the tight ends and running backs, Notre names defense is able to keep him down. He needs another year to get better before he really makes that check.
Even with the injuries and players missing on both sides of the ball, Notre Dame down another lineman. Is that game unfolded. Leonard had to miss a minute, which we'll get to all of that. The defensive effort was fantastic pressure when they needed it, and the back seven did their job. Even against the all everything tight end, he was more or less a non factor. He got into total eighty plus total yards, but when they needed big plays, yeah, he made one or two big catches, but they kept him quiet when it was necessary and made you know, that extra clock speed up in Aler's head all night long. And kudos to the defensive coordinator into those players rallying knowing they needed that one big play down the stretch.
Jeremiah Love of note, I know he didn't have a great night, right he was one of the bad nights. The guy averaged seven yards of carry this year. He's going to be a superstar.
There was a question of whether he was going to play Jason and how much they were going to be able to get out of him tonight.
I want to draft him solely because of the touchdown run. He had that two yard touchdown run. That's the best run I've seen in college and you can yeah, sure, why not?
Right?
Or love?
Well, I could wear one that says geta and I could have one that wears love. He gets his legs taken out from under him, he still stays up. He gets stood up at the two yard line, he still stays up. Another tackler comes in, he still stands. A third tackler comes in, and instead of going down, he finds a way to scoot forward for the touchdown.
That's everything you want in a running back.
It's speed, it's vision, it's power, it's execution, it's desire, it's everything.
Off of that play.
I've seen it twenty times now, and it's more amazing every time I see it. There is nothing better than seeing that play. That kid, I know he's still got another year. Ago I would say, sit out, wait and we'll draft you in the second round next year. He said, don't worry about I promise you you're there in the second round. We are drafting you, but do not play another another second of college football.
We don't need you to.
Yeah, that sweep, the leg able to keep his feet just unbelievable as you look at that and gutting it out didn't have big explosive plays over the course of the night. The seven point three yards per carry that he had in the regular season, coming in with the knee spraying, all the video pregames, stretching it out, just hoping you were gonna be able to get a couple of meaningful runs. And that goal line, I mean, that's textbook. That's heart, determination, broken tackles, keeping your feet and not saying all right, there's another doubt. No, this was I'm getting to the pylon no matter what, and just a huge run. I'm watching the secondary market on his trading cards. Holy he's in one. And well, there was a big set that got released just the other day and people you know, post and I just pulled one of these out of five.
It's like, what do you want? What the market will bear?
Just absolutely insane.
And now the third big thing is that what's the biggest moment of this game? And you can point to the big touchdown pass to tie the game up for Notre Dame. You can point to a lot of different things, but I'll tell you what. Notre Dame was dead and buried in this game. They were absolutely cooked. They had nothing going on in the first half, Riley Leonard gets dinged up and he goes to the medical tend to be evaluated for a concussion, and you think, okay, well, Notre Dame.
Just wants to get to halftime. This is as bad as it could be. What do you really expecting to do?
And then Steve and Jelly comes in the game and they throw the football down the field. He has the big fourteen yard completion that really breathed life back into Notre Dame, like they were flatlining and like all the air went back in the balloon. After that drive, they get a field goal at the end of the first half, and suddenly everything in the second half feels a little bit more attainable where it would have been untenable if you're going into the if you're going into halftime down ten nothing, where nothing has worked offensively. They don't win that game if he doesn't come in and give them that spark, because, like I said, the air was out of the balloon and it went right back in when he came back in the game.
That was the biggest moment of the game.
Yeah, you had the sack fumble, but they get the recovery, You have a timeout and I just want to know what was that halftime speech. Right it's ten to three, you're getting run over. You managed to balance the time of possession a little more, I mean because he had that huge drive from Penn State. But all of that ten to three, you only give up sixty rushing yards after halftime. I want to know what Fraeman had to say. Are you guys gonna let him punk me like he did at that press conference where he tried to sun me and he talked about my hair and my age, and he made fun of us not having a conference, made all of that just to speech.
No one comes into our house and pushes us around, but coach in the Orange Bowl, it doesn't matter.
Go out there and play.
How many times did you see Rudy on TV over the course of the night. He was in your bottom left corner all night long.
Tomorrow, who you got Ohio State or Texas? Buck guys roll them, Yeah, I'd love to be able to pick Texas.
One of my best friends is from Texas. I can't pick that Ohio State wins. My buddy Ben Maller is next. This is Fox