Latest / The Blue Creek Outdoors Podcast / Ep# 103 Frogs, Faith & Football

Transcript

Ep# 103 Frogs, Faith & Football · The Blue Creek Outdoors Podcast

0:04
Welcome to the Blue Creek Outdoors podcast, where we're talking faith,
0:08
family, sports, and the great outdoors.
0:17
Welcome back to another episode of the Blue Creek Outdoor podcast.
0:19
I am Joe Bartlett. We got Les Meyer on here.
0:22
We're going to talk about week three of college football, a little bit of outdoor
0:26
adventures. We got a verse for the week and then we'll be done for the episode.
0:29
But we'll start off, like always, with the NAIA Top 25 roundup for Week 3.
0:35
Number 25, Georgetown won at Warner, 39-14.
0:38
Number 24, Baker won at St. Ambrose, 28-7.
0:42
Number 23, Dakota State beat Arizona Christian, 44-17.
0:46
Number 22, Olivet Nazarene won at Defiance College, 59-14.
0:50
Number 21, Montana Western lost to Rocky Mountain College, 38-32. Go Bears.
0:55
Number 20 yeah number 20 william penn beats missouri baptist 41 to 10 number
1:00
19 louisiana christian lost at fcs southern 50 to 31 the kind of a fun fact
1:06
louisiana christians now three and one that was their second game playing an fcs program
1:12
they beat the first one in beating northwestern state,
1:16
and then they hung 31 points on this southern team so,
1:19
kind of cool that nai program, played two FCS programs and beat one of them
1:23
and hung 31 points on the other, which is pretty cool.
1:26
Number 18, McPherson beat Evangel 40-14.
1:30
And Evangelo was number 17, so they flip-flopped there. Number 16, Southeastern had a bye.
1:35
Number 15, Carroll College beat Dickinson State 42-7. And here in the big upset
1:40
of the week, number 14, St. Thomas beat number 5, Lindsey Wilson, 17-7.
1:48
Number 13, another upset here, number 13, Northwestern lost to Midland, 28-16.
1:54
Number 12, Marion beat Madonna, 27-25. Number 11, Dort lost at home to number 8, Morningside, 35-31.
2:03
Number 10, Campbellsville beat Thomas, 80-10.
2:06
Another, I guess this is probably the biggest upset.
2:08
Number 9, Benedictine wins at number 1, Grandview, 21-7.
2:14
Or 17, sorry. Number 7, Friends beats Tabor College, 42-14.
2:19
Number 6, Indiana Wesleyan beats St. Xavier, 59-17.
2:23
Number 4, College of Idaho beats MSU Northern, 59-14.
2:26
And number two or three montana tech beat southern oregon 58 to 10 and number
2:30
two kaiser had a buy and that brings us to the frontier conference where dickinson
2:37
is beat by carroll college in helena 42 to 7,
2:41
and that game had two pick sixes in it if i remember correctly and i was kind
2:47
of expecting a better showing for the blue hawks after their game against northern
2:52
the last week I don't know. What did you think about that one, Les?
2:55
Yeah, that score doesn't make any sense. We all had Northern,
2:58
not necessarily beating Dickinson, but being a lot closer.
3:01
Right. And it just didn't turn out that way.
3:05
I think in terms of two pick sixes and all that kind of stuff,
3:08
that just shows dominance by Carroll. Right. And just the way it is.
3:13
Now they host Western. Right, right. Mayville State is 3-1 now after beating
3:18
Simpson 42-41. Some unfortunate news out of that game, but has taken a bit more
3:23
of a fortunate turn today, actually.
3:26
Mayville State's starting quarterback was hit in that game.
3:31
It's hard to tell all the information, but it sounds like shortly thereafter
3:36
then went unconscious and was life-flighted to Fargo, underwent a craniotomy where they,
3:45
relieve the pressure off of your brain.
3:48
His name was Matthew Donovan. He was in a medical-induced coma,
3:52
and so that was Saturday.
3:54
Today's Wednesday. The last article I read this afternoon said that they started
3:58
this morning backing off of putting him to sleep and his fingers reacted to pain.
4:05
They, you know, they did rubs, pinches, all sorts of stuff that he did react to.
4:09
So they're slowly, slowly starting to get him to the point where he wakes up
4:13
on his own. But Mayfield State was actually down by two touchdowns when that
4:17
happened and they came back, scored twice and won to win the game 42-41.
4:23
And so we'll, you know, continued prayers for Matthew Donovan and hopefully
4:28
he is on the road to recovery and even maybe wakes up here in the next day or
4:33
two, which would be good.
4:35
But even aside from that, Mayville State's been playing pretty good this fall
4:40
and Simpson hanging 41 points.
4:42
It's a different football team than we were talking about last year on a week-to-week basis.
4:48
Which one are you talking about? Simpson. I think Simpson's a different football
4:52
team than they were a year ago.
4:53
Yeah, we talked about that in the preseason. Remember they said,
4:56
hey, we got a chance to win. And they have, and they've stuck with some teams.
5:00
And whether we're talking about them right now or later, but I have Simpson
5:05
winning this coming weekend.
5:07
Oh, there we go. Okay. Montana Tech's 4-0 now after beating Southern Oregon at home, 58-10.
5:14
Man, Southern is, Montana Tech's good, but Southern Oregon's struggling right
5:18
now. And I don't, I guess I don't, it's weird to me to say that because they
5:22
were so good the whole time that we played them in college for the most part.
5:27
It's just weird that they're not playing very good football right now.
5:31
Yeah, this is kind of the third year that they, I think they've slowly declined
5:36
over the last three years.
5:38
Got it. When we first started doing this and obviously Tech's good,
5:43
but this isn't the kind of score that we would expect against the Southern Oregon
5:46
team until maybe this year.
5:50
So that's going to be quite the showdown at College of Idaho between those two teams.
5:56
Yeah, that's going to be awesome. We're going to discuss all these games here
5:59
that are upcoming here shortly. But Dakota State's now 3-1 after beating Arizona
6:03
Christian 44-17. Arizona Christian falls to 1-2.
6:06
That didn't really surprise me. I kind of figured the Trojans would go down
6:09
there and handle business down there.
6:12
But what I did not expect was the Batlin Bears to go to Dillon and pull out
6:17
a win 38-32 against the ranked Bulldogs who are now, what are they now? One and two.
6:27
And I'm anticipating, I actually haven't checked the new rankings this week
6:32
yet, but I'm guessing that they're not in them.
6:36
I wouldn't think so, and this is the first time in several years that Western
6:39
has lost back-to-back games.
6:41
It's the first time Rocky has beaten them since 2022.
6:45
Dang. And it probably would have been a fun game to watch if you're into offense
6:51
because there's over 1,000 yards in offense.
6:54
Both teams had over 500 yards of offense, which is interesting,
6:58
and they both only scored 38,
7:00
32 points, and Western couldn't come from behind to make it that close.
7:04
Right yeah because it was like 38 14 or 38 21 or something like that,
7:10
yeah i did i didn't i did read that they made a mounted a bit of a comeback
7:14
i will admit to you i went hunting this weekend and i was a couple games that
7:18
i was keying on a little bit but i was like okay rocky western like all right whatever we'll just,
7:23
when i hit service i'll check how much western won by,
7:27
and then we got back to service i was like holy cow rocky one yeah good good
7:32
win by coach bandolo So, you know,
7:34
no matter what, that's the old frontier.
7:37
Every game is a rivalry game.
7:39
Right. And you got a chance to beat a rivalry team in their house. Right.
7:48
Pretty good deal. That's awesome. Western's got to get some things shored up
7:51
on defense, and I'm sure Rocky does too if they give up over,
7:55
I think it's 555 yards off it.
7:57
Right, right. Well, good win for them, and I'm kind of starting to wonder if
8:01
Western isn't quite what we maybe thought they were preseason, but,
8:05
Well, I'm sure we'll learn here in the next couple weeks even more.
8:07
But MSU Northern is now 0-4 after losing at the College of Idaho,
8:11
or no, at home to the College of Idaho, 59-14.
8:14
C of I is now 3-0.
8:17
And I don't know, yeah, this week. We'll talk about that game here in a second.
8:22
But Valley City State lost at home to Eastern Oregon, 46-39. Valley City is 1-2 now.
8:28
And Eastern Oregon is now 2-1. So definitely a turnaround out of LeGrand.
8:34
But we'll talk about this week's games here, but we'll just go back up to the top here.
8:38
Dickinson State is at home against Montana Western, and I think Western probably
8:44
makes a statement with this game because I believe off the top of my head that
8:49
this is the last week of like out intra-division play.
8:54
I think next week we start to play in our divisions, but I'll have to double-check
8:58
that after this coming week. But,
9:00
I think Western goes and probably beats Dickinson by three or four scores.
9:05
But it's at Dickinson, right? Yep, it's at Dickinson, yep.
9:09
Yeah. So I'm going to pick Dickinson in this situation.
9:14
I think they're both desperate, but I just can't see Dickinson giving up 500 yards.
9:24
And I know the Norse kid is a bugger to deal with.
9:28
And I know Dickinson isn't what we thought either, but I don't know.
9:31
I'm just picking Dickinson here.
9:34
Right. They're both one and three, and I hear what you're saying.
9:37
They're going Dickinson. All right. Well, we'll have to see that.
9:41
Yeah, that'd be a good one. That'd be a good one. Yeah, that'd be pretty wild
9:46
if Dickinson pulled that one out.
9:48
That'd be a game changer for sure. Mayville State is three and one.
9:53
They are at Arizona Christian, who is 0-2.
9:56
I know that they're obviously now on a backup quarterback, but I think Mayville
10:00
probably takes this one.
10:02
Yeah, I think Mayville is a pretty good football team. And then they were able
10:06
to come back, and I know they're going to be dealing with the emotions of their
10:10
teammate, hopes and prayers with him.
10:13
But I think that's also something that they're going to play for.
10:16
So, yeah, I'm picking Mayville.
10:19
And actually, we're going to skip the big one until the very end here,
10:22
but Dakota State is three and one. Southern Oregon is one and two.
10:25
Dakota State travels to Southern Oregon.
10:29
That is a road trip and a half, but I think Dakota State goes and beats Southern Oregon.
10:35
Yeah, I think it'll be a great opportunity for Dakota State to show how mature
10:42
of a football team they are to go on the road like that.
10:45
Maybe uncharted territory for them.
10:49
But yeah, I'm picking Dakota State. There we go.
10:53
Rocky Mountains 1-2, Carroll College is 2-1. The Battlin' Bears host Carroll this weekend.
11:01
I'm a little torn on this one. My heart wants to pick the Battlin' Bears because
11:07
of what they just pulled off, but my brain also is leaning Carroll.
11:11
I think Carroll probably pulls out a very good football game.
11:15
Yeah, that's the same way. I hate picking Carroll over. Right, right.
11:24
Quarterback Hewitt, if you're listening to this, yeah, I hate that, but you,
11:30
got to go Carroll. Right. Yeah.
11:33
Right. Oh, and four MSU Northern travels to two and one Eastern Oregon as much,
11:40
of improved as MSU Northern is.
11:43
I don't know that this is the win they squeak out because we've seen Eastern
11:47
Oregon is much improved.
11:48
I think beating Valley City was no, I mean, I don't think that was the hardest
11:52
game they'll have all season, but I don't think it was, you know,
11:55
I don't think that was a gimme game either. And they, they went on the road and pulled it out.
11:59
So I think they probably beat Northern in a, not a, not a route,
12:03
but you know, I think they probably win, you know, by it, you know,
12:07
10 points or so at home against the Northern Lights.
12:11
Yeah. The one thing I'd be great for Northern, they just got thumped by CFI,
12:16
if they were able to host Eastern. Right.
12:20
Now they got to go on the road. I mean, as much as I'd like to pick Northern
12:23
and just pick the upset of the century here or whatnot, but they're decades,
12:27
I'd love to go Northern, but we're going Eastern.
12:31
Right valley city state is one and two simpson is one and two and valley city
12:36
state is on the road at simpson and yes i agree with you at simpson
12:42
based on what they've pulled off the last couple weeks getting their first win
12:46
they'll get the two they've lost have been very close games obviously a one
12:50
point loss last week i can't remember what their loss to southern oregon was but it wasn't much.
12:55
They scored a lot of points on Southern Oregon.
12:58
So I think they win their first football game against an NAIA opponent this week.
13:05
Simpson. Perfect. They're going to compete. They're going to compete. There we go. Yeah.
13:12
All right. The mother of all Frontier games is this week as well.
13:16
There's not a Frontier Conference championship game at the end of the season,
13:19
but this might as well be it.
13:22
Montana Tech at College of Idaho. Tech's 4-0.
13:26
College of Idaho is 3-0, I believe. Or am I seeing that?
13:32
Yes, 3-0. So based on the body of work, again, this is like where my heart and
13:39
my brain are differing a little bit. I want Tech to be the team.
13:44
I'm just wondering if my brain is giving College of Idaho the edge.
13:50
They've both had some convincing wins. I would just maybe say College of Idaho a tad bit more so.
13:58
I don't. Yeah, I don't know. So my brain's lean in CFI, but my heart's lean in tech.
14:04
Yeah, I'm going to go with College of Idaho, but I think it's not a bad,
14:10
as long as either team, whoever wins or whoever loses, regardless,
14:16
if everybody can stay somewhat healthy, there's going to be an injury or two during the game.
14:22
I think a loss, a good hard-nosed loss, will help either team as they go out there.
14:30
Throughout the season. So I'm at the College of Idaho.
14:33
Since it's at their place, I'm saying C of I.
14:37
Right, well, and remember last year too, Tech beats College of Idaho,
14:42
regular season game, same week, goes undefeated the rest of the season. Both teams do.
14:48
They meet again in the playoffs. CFI returns the favor and goes to the semifinals.
14:53
So, yeah, you're right. If history repeats itself, the loser of this game might
15:00
end up playing longer down the stretch.
15:03
We'll have to see, but I'm going to be tuning into that one.
15:06
That one's really intriguing to me. I'm excited to see it.
15:09
We will move on now to the FCS, and the stats perform top 25 poll.
15:14
Number 25, Harvard won at New Hampshire, 31-7.
15:18
Number 24, Southern Illinois lost at Illinois in a money game, 48-10.
15:23
Number 23, Mercer lost at Georgia Tech in a money game, 44-11.
15:27
Number 22, Villanova won at Long Island, 20-16.
15:31
Number 21, William & Mary lost to Fordham, 52-27.
15:36
Number 20 northern arizona won at utah tech 35 23,
15:40
number 19 yale won at holy cross 38 28 number 18 south carolina state won at firman 20 to 17
15:47
and number 17 west florida lost at home to number 15 austin p 38 to 16 number
15:55
16 idaho state had a buy number 14 lamar had a buy 13 tennessee tech had a buy,
16:00
number 12 stephen f austin wins at prairie view a&m i didn't write that score
16:04
down Number 11, UC Davis beat Stetson 45-7.
16:08
Number 10, South Dakota lost at Boise State 38-24. Austin's not here to defend himself.
16:14
That, I don't know if you watched that game or even checked the box score or
16:18
less, that was a one-score game in the fourth quarter.
16:22
And South Dakota gave, if I, man, I have to check again.
16:26
I even think that was tied at halftime. If I am not, or it was close at halftime, one of the two.
16:32
But South Dakota gave the Broncos everything they could have asked for in Boise.
16:38
Youngstown State lost at South Dakota State 27-20.
16:44
Number 8, Rhode Island, another big upset here.
16:48
Number 8, Rhode Island lost at Stony Brook 56-24, so not even a close upset there.
16:53
Number 7, Lehigh beats Dartmouth 24-20.
16:57
Number 6, North Dakota lost at Nebraska in a money game 34-7.
17:02
Number 5, Illinois State beats Eastern Illinois 49-13.
17:06
Tarleton State beats Merrimack 45-20. Number three, Montana lost at Oregon State 52-17.
17:12
South Dakota State beat Youngstown. And number one, Montana State beat Central
17:16
Connecticut 35-30 in a game that was way closer than I thought it was going to be.
17:22
That does bring us to the big sky, and we'll just start there with Montana State
17:26
beating Central Connecticut 35-30.
17:29
I don't think Central Connecticut is that great of a football team.
17:32
I don't really know what happened there.
17:34
I think it's just college football in general. If you look at college football
17:37
scores all the way across, especially in the Division I level,
17:41
just look at the Oklahoma score.
17:44
Right. And then are you saying that, you know, I know South Dakota played Boise
17:49
toe-to-toe, so does that mean South Dakota's going to play Oregon toe-to-toe? Right, right.
17:54
It's just the way it is. You have young people overlooking things.
18:01
Maybe they didn't have the best week of practice. Maybe they had some injuries,
18:05
and in a sense, maybe it's a wake-up call.
18:08
So what I would say for the maturity of the Montana State football team is they
18:13
were down and to not panic,
18:17
and come back and win is a pretty mature football team. Right.
18:24
I'm going to put a pin right there really quick. One last NAIA thing.
18:28
I was looking through my notes. I knew I had this note and I couldn't remember
18:31
what it was, but I just found it again.
18:33
Benedictine going and upsetting Grandview 21-17 and.
18:40
What I didn't know until I saw this, Grandview held a 73-game regular season winning streak.
18:49
It was the longest in college football, and Benedictine broke it.
18:55
I knew I had that saved somewhere, and I just couldn't remember it off the top
18:59
of my head, but 73-game regular season win streak for Grandview was snapped by Benedictine there.
19:05
So a couple of interesting facts this week that'll come out in the FBS as well,
19:10
but that was the first one. So back to, back to the big sky,
19:14
Idaho is now Oh and four after losing at home to Abilene Christian,
19:17
41, 39 Abilene Christian has been ranked.
19:20
They weren't this last week, but they had been. So it's not a bad football team,
19:24
but Idaho, man, even this is our fourth year doing this podcast.
19:29
And the, the first year we did this, they were in the big sky running.
19:32
Nobody looked past Idaho, and now they're 0-4.
19:37
Yeah, boy, the wheels are coming off, and there's going to be some,
19:40
I can't imagine what's going on right now at that university and within that, those football walls.
19:47
It's not a comfortable place to be right now.
19:51
They obviously couldn't get to the bye fast enough. Right, right.
19:56
Montana is now 3-1 after losing at Oregon State in their money game,
20:00
52-17. I will admit I didn't watch this game, but by all reports,
20:06
Montana did not play well.
20:09
Yeah, we weren't able to watch it either because we were watching the Fresno game. Right.
20:16
We did have a few people attend that game, and they walked away pretty impressed
20:22
with Oregon State and also thought that there were opportunities to score touchdowns,
20:30
by the University of Montana.
20:31
And had they done that, that would have changed the makeup of the game.
20:35
I don't know whether they played well or not, but they were in the red zone
20:39
and had some opportunities to score. It changes the makeup of the game.
20:44
Right, right. I just wish the score was a whole lot closer.
20:48
For sure. Yeah, yeah, definitely. It would have been good to see a better showing
20:51
from the Grizz there in the box score.
20:54
Southern Utah is now 2-2.
20:56
They beat St. Thomas at home 28-26 in a non-conference game.
21:00
UC Davis also wins a non-conference game, beating Stetson 45-7. and they're now 3-1.
21:05
Weber State also wins the non-conference Northwestern State 49-20,
21:10
2-2 now for the Wildcats.
21:12
Eastern Washington loses their money game at Washington 48-16.
21:17
Utah Tech, within the conference play, Utah Tech loses to Northern Arizona 38-35.
21:22
Utah Tech's now 0-4. Northern Arizona's 3-1.
21:26
Portland State loses their money game at Oregon 84-0, and man,
21:31
I'm not going to lie, I looked at the games upcoming this week,
21:35
and I thought to myself, this is not the week that you want to play Oregon.
21:44
And they definitely hung it on the Vikings there. But a game that I did watch,
21:49
Northern Colorado picks up their first win. They are now 1-3.
21:53
They played Division II Northeastern State.
21:55
Now, I know it's a Division II team. However, that's a ranked Division II team,
21:58
a very good Division II team.
22:00
And they beat them 23-17 in overtime. So it was cool to see that Northern Colorado,
22:09
tie it up and then pull out a gutsy win in overtime.
22:13
And I think they're going to pull two wins in a row out here and we'll talk
22:16
about that here when we look at the next week. But happy to see them get a win on the board.
22:20
Cal Poly lost to San Diego 38-35.
22:25
I did not see that happening. I thought they would beat the Toreros,
22:28
but no. And I wonder if that's not somewhat of a rivalry game, do you think?
22:34
I would think so, yes. Location-wise and within...
22:38
Some of those recruits are going to be recruited by both places. So absolutely.
22:44
And Idaho State had a bye this week. The Big Sky is now 13-17 against non-Big Sky teams.
22:50
And that brings us to this upcoming week here. Montana State hosts Northern
22:55
Arizona. Montana State is 4-0, Northern Arizona 3-1.
23:00
I think that'll be a good game, but I think the Bobcats pull it out.
23:04
Yeah, I hope it's a good game. I just, maybe it'll be a good game for a quarter
23:10
and a half, a quarter and a half in the end of it all.
23:14
MSU, if they, all things being equal, everybody plays their best,
23:18
MSU's probably four touchdowns better.
23:21
Right, right. Idaho has a bye week, like you said, probably couldn't have gotten
23:25
to that fast enough. 0-4, it's time to go back to the chalkboard and figure some stuff out there.
23:29
Probably the biggest game in the conference, well, there's two big games in
23:33
the conference this week, and this is one of them.
23:35
Montana at UC Davis. Both are three and one.
23:38
Both of their losses came to FBS programs and Montana's two and O and big sky
23:44
play. UC Davis is one. And oh, this will be a good game.
23:48
I, I, I think if it gets tight, I'm going to be a good game.
23:53
I think UC Davis squeaks it out at home, but I think if Montana can get the
23:57
momentum early, then they win by two or three scores.
24:01
Yeah, I'm not sure what time that game is. I think that game should probably be a late night game.
24:07
I'm going to find out really quick here. Let's see here. Of the heat? Right.
24:12
That is an 8 p.m. Mountain Time kickoff. Yeah.
24:16
So I don't think that favors one team over the other. I think an 8 o'clock game
24:21
is going to be about the same for both of them.
24:25
What I will say is I don't like the score of that Oregon State game for the University of Montana.
24:32
I just think that makes this game with UC Davis now huge. Not that it wasn't
24:38
big before. I think it's a huge game.
24:40
And I think this is going to be a big test for the coaching staff.
24:45
Obviously, the coaching staff has coached some big games. They've been on the road,
24:49
but it is this staff's first game at Montana, at UC Davis, and it's got everything,
24:58
on the line for a conference championship, everything along those lines. It's big early on.
25:03
Right. I'm going to go Montana, but yeah, this is huge.
25:09
Absolutely. It's going to be a good one. I'm looking forward to watching that one as well.
25:13
So the other big one in the conference this week is Southern Utah hosting Idaho
25:18
State. Southern Utah is 2-2, Idaho State's 3-0.
25:21
Idaho State has not played a Big Sky game yet. Southern Utah is 1-1 in Big Sky play.
25:27
Both are Idaho State coming off a bye. So even though it's at Southern Utah,
25:32
Idaho State has already gone to Utah and beaten a team out of Utah and got paid to do so.
25:38
So I'm going to go with the Bengals, go down to Southern Utah and pull this one off.
25:44
Yeah, this one's a tough one for me also.
25:48
Southern Utah has played Montana toe-to-toe. Yeah, they play good football.
25:55
I think they're a good football team. Idaho State is obviously playing way better
26:01
than I was going to give them credit for.
26:05
It's a tough one, and I've bounced back and forth. I'm going to go Southern
26:09
Utah, but it wouldn't surprise me one way or the other. Right, right.
26:16
Well, then we've got Weber State hosting Portland State. Weber State is 2-2. Portland State's 0-4.
26:22
The Vikings are 0-1 in conference play. Weber State's 1-1.
26:26
I know Portland State's playing pretty good football. I mean,
26:30
you can see the improvement from this year to last year, even though the record
26:33
is not showing it as of yet.
26:36
You can see that they are a much improved football team.
26:40
But, yeah, I don't know.
26:43
Weber State is not as improved as I thought they were going to be.
26:48
They are improved from last year, maybe not quite the jump that I was thinking.
26:52
This one is one where I wouldn't be surprised either way, actually.
26:55
I would not be surprised if Portland State goes down to Weber State and pulls out a win here.
26:59
And actually, that might be what I lean. I might lean Portland State on this one.
27:03
Yeah, I'm going to go Weber. I think one of the reasons Weber hasn't had a huge
27:08
jump yet is because, for one, they've lost their offensive line coach.
27:13
Right. And that's a big hole. But I'm going Weber.
27:17
Next one is Eastern Washington hosting Cal Poly. Eastern Washington's 1-3.
27:23
Cal Poly is 2-2 now. Cal Poly's 1-0 in Big Sky play. Eastern Washington's 0-1.
27:29
It's in Cheney. I know this one's a bit of a rivalry game.
27:34
I would have, a week ago, I'd have told you Cal Poly, but them losing to San
27:38
Diego, who's not necessarily a phenomenal football team.
27:42
I'm just, I guess I want to see a win out of Eastern Washington.
27:46
So I don't know if that's logical or sensical or not, but I'm going to go Eastern
27:51
Washington because just off of vibes, I guess, I want to see them pull the win out.
27:56
Yeah, I was having a tough time with that one myself. I went Cal Poly,
28:00
then I went Eastern, and then I checked the odds.
28:03
The odds are going to have Eastern winning it.
28:07
Gotcha. And probably has something to do with location, so I'll go Eastern as well. There you go.
28:15
Well, and then kind of the lower
28:16
key game of the week is 0-4 Utah Tech at Northern Colorado, who is 1-3.
28:22
Utah Tech is 0-3 in the big sky, and Northern Colorado is 0-1.
28:26
But after seeing both these teams play, coming off the first win of last week,
28:31
I think Northern Colorado, especially being at home, I think they beat Utah
28:35
Tech and pull this one off.
28:37
Yeah, it's funny. It's not necessarily a great marquee game, so to speak.
28:43
Right. But I think this game is huge to these two programs. Yeah, big time.
28:49
And probably can't tell them that it's not a marquee game. But I'm going UNC,
28:54
and they should walk away with it.
28:57
That brings us now to the FBS. Number 25, Virginia lost at home to West Virginia, 38-27.
29:04
Number 24, Oklahoma beat New Mexico, 14-6.
29:08
Number 23, Louisville won at home against SMU, 41-31.
29:13
And number 22, Houston lost at Texas Tech, who is number 13, 28-26.
29:19
Number 21, Oregon beat Portland State, 84-0.
29:22
Number 20, Missouri beat Troy, 27-17. number 19 michigan beat utep 52 to 17
29:29
number 18 iowa beat northern iowa 55 to 0,
29:32
number 17 utah beat utah state 33 to 0 and smu is number 16 losing to louisville
29:38
number 15 tennessee beats kennesaw state 42 to 9 number 14 penn state beats buffalo 55 to 13
29:46
number 12 usc wins at rutgers 42 to 35 number 11 BYU beats Colorado State 41
29:52
23 number 10 Alabama beats,
29:54
Florida State 50 to 36 and number in the top 10 upset of the week here number 9 Texas A&M.
30:00
Loses to Kentucky 31 to 21 and number 8 Ole Miss wins at home against number 7 LSU 32 24 kind of some
30:09
interesting drama there obviously, but number 16, Ohio state beats Kent state 59 to three.
30:16
Number five, Miami wins at wake forest, 33 to 20.
30:20
Number four, Indiana beats Western Kentucky 38 to zero. Number three,
30:24
Notre Dame beats Michigan state 27 to 10.
30:27
Number two, Georgia wins at Arkansas 45 to 17. And number one,
30:31
Texas beats UTSA 30 to six.
30:33
And one thing that caught my eye this week is Indiana's three and 0 they've
30:37
played I think an FCS program a Conference USA program and,
30:42
a North Texas team but last year they were ranked and we were all boo-hooing
30:48
about how that no big deal that they're undefeated because their schedule is
30:51
such a cupcake in the non-conference
30:53
and then lo and behold they don't lose a football game the entire year so it'll be interesting to see,
30:59
Do you think, here's a question for you, Les. Does the national champion come
31:05
out of the Big Ten or the SEC this fall? SEC this year.
31:10
That's kind of the way I was leaning as well. I think you're correct about that.
31:13
So that'll be something fun to keep an eye on.
31:16
A couple other fun facts here out of this last weekend. I don't know,
31:21
did you by chance see the finishing to the North Carolina State game?
31:27
Yeah, I didn't get to watch the game But I did see the highlights of it Right, so.
31:32
Had the quarterback just taken the safety And gotten tackled in the end zone
31:37
They probably would have won the football game But here's the stat Just two teams,
31:43
have held the ball and the lead,
31:47
with 10 seconds or less to play and lost the football game one of them was saturday
31:53
when north carolina state with six seconds left was 31 to 28 over vanderbilt,
31:59
and then fumble it instead of getting tackled and losing the football game the
32:03
other one was michigan in 2015 with 10 seconds left in the game they were up
32:09
23 21 they were about to punt the football.
32:13
The snap went over the punter's head. Michigan State recovered it and ran it
32:16
into the end zone as the clock expired. So two times have teams held the ball
32:23
and the lead with 10 seconds or less and lost the football game.
32:27
And the second time was on Saturday. So kind of interesting,
32:33
not the stat that you want to be in, but a cool college football stat regardless.
32:39
But that brings us to the Mountain West Conference. North Dakota State is 4-0
32:44
after beating Sacramento State 31-10.
32:47
Air Force had a bye this week.
32:49
UTEP lost at Michigan 52-17, no surprise there. Northern Illinois lost at Arizona
32:55
42-17, no surprise there.
32:58
I was a little surprised here. Nevada losing at Middle Tennessee 27-20.
33:02
Did you watch that game? Yep.
33:06
What was giving the Wolfpack a hang-up there? Yeah, it's truly boiling down to turnovers.
33:13
And I just don't know.
33:16
We got to watch the MSG one, and it was a backup quarterback situation and then a fumble.
33:23
And in this game, they had the starting quarterback, but still had some turnovers.
33:27
I really felt, yes, I'm biased, but I really, truly felt there in the third
33:32
quarter that Nevada was the better football team. They were getting them figured out.
33:36
They were moving the ball and really had control of the game.
33:43
And then the turnovers happened. And so, yeah, it was just a frustrating game,
33:48
actually. Right, right.
33:51
New Mexico lost at Oklahoma 14-6. Man, they played them tough,
33:54
which kind of pumped me up. I was hoping they'd squeak out a win,
33:57
but it didn't happen. UNLV had a bye this week.
34:00
San Jose lost to Fresno State, which I was expecting, 26-10.
34:04
Looks like Fresno State has found their offense a little bit here.
34:07
We'll talk about that I'm hearing a little bit, but not no.
34:10
You're shaking your head no. Hawaii had a bye this week.
34:14
That also brings us to my beloved Wyoming Cowboys, who,
34:19
if there was ever a hot seat that I, and granted, that being said,
34:24
I'm not ever like just jonesing for someone to lose their livelihood and,
34:29
burn them at the stake because you don't know, Omi, they're not a real human
34:33
being in your eyes. I understand all those arguments.
34:36
However, Wyoming can't do anything at all on offense. They're terrible on defense,
34:44
and their head coach gets paid $1.6 million a year.
34:48
Like it's time to win some football games and,
34:53
i i know he's on the hot seat i don't know how much longer this goes on
34:58
before before our coaching change is made but that we'll we'll go on we'll see
35:02
here the mountain west is 12 and 15 against non-mountain west teams and we'll
35:05
talk about this week's games here north dakota state's on a bye they're 4-0,
35:10
and there's inklings in the on on the in the sports networks here,
35:15
you know, that I've been paying attention to that North Dakota state,
35:18
will run the table and will be a candidate for the college football playoff. What do you say to that?
35:25
Yeah, I guess when we were talking about the North Dakota State going in,
35:29
I guess I fully expected them to be 4-0 going into the bye. Right.
35:34
Yeah, we kind of thought that as well. Yeah.
35:37
And now I guess let's just wait and see. We don't really have any common opponents.
35:42
We don't really see how things are going. But no matter what,
35:46
we talked about this too last year, this year, their facilities are as good
35:51
or better than everybody else's in their conference. Right, right.
35:56
So they should be right where they're at. And, you know, I guess we'll see when
36:02
they get into the meat of the schedule.
36:04
You know, they beat Sac State 31-10, and that's a fine score,
36:09
but it's not dominant either. Right.
36:12
When most of us would like to see Sac get beat by 40. Right. 100 would be cool. Yeah.
36:21
Yeah. Going to be interesting there. good time for a bye week.
36:24
They'll get a week off and then before they enter conference play.
36:26
So Air Force is coming off a bye and they are a one in one and they are traveling
36:32
to one and two Nevada this week. It's interesting here.
36:36
The ESPN analytics have Air Force at a 53.2% chance to win with Nevada at a 46.8.
36:44
I I'm going to Nevada on this one. Like you said, Nevada cleans up the turnovers,
36:48
they're not one and two. They're probably two and one.
36:52
And I think they're going to beat Air Force.
36:55
Yeah, I'm picking them too. And obviously I'm going to be biased and pick them
36:58
probably no matter what.
37:00
But in the end of it all, I don't think Air Force has been that impressive.
37:05
If Nevada can clean up the turnovers, again, that doesn't mean they're going
37:09
to win, but if they can clean up the turnovers, they really do have a chance
37:13
to, because they're going to play good enough defense.
37:17
Right. And so they can clean that stuff up. Offensively, they're moving the
37:21
ball. They're running the ball really well.
37:25
It truly just comes down to the turnovers and untimely penalties. Right.
37:30
The next game here, we got UTEP. UTEP is one and two. They are now hosting Oregon
37:36
state who just beat the Montana Grizzlies this week.
37:39
The ESPN analytics have Oregon state at an 83.1% chance to win that game.
37:45
And I'm not going to argue with them.
37:47
No, I would say analytics should have about 95%. Yeah.
37:54
Northern Illinois is Oh, and three. They are at Georgia state this week in their
37:58
final non-conference game.
38:00
They've got Georgia state at a 79% chance to win this game.
38:03
I, I want Northern Illinois to be a good program.
38:06
I like them as a program, but they are not good at football.
38:11
Neither is Georgia State, but I think they're going to beat the Huskies.
38:15
Yeah, and then plus being at Georgia State, I'm going Georgia State as well. Right.
38:21
New Mexico, losing at Oklahoma 14-6. That's a tough one there,
38:25
but they've got a rivalry game this week. They're at New Mexico State.
38:29
And the analytics show they've got an 85.5% chance to win.
38:33
I think they beat the brakes off of the Aggies this weekend.
38:38
Yeah, we've talked about this before. Remember that gentleman was at Montana
38:43
State as the offensive line coach, and he had followed McAdoo.
38:47
Not the most popular coach at MSU after following McAdoo leaves bounces,
38:54
goes to Idaho turns them around,
38:57
and then goes to New Mexico and I'm scratching my head thinking why would you
39:02
do that now here in New Mexico is playing very well so he knows what he's doing yep doing a good job,
39:10
yeah you know you're 2-1 you're only lost so far as to a ranked power program
39:14
that you played to one score which is pretty cool so
39:18
we'll see how it goes down the stretch but unlv is uh one and two coming off
39:23
of a buy they're at akron this week they've got a 76 chance to win i'm not gonna
39:28
lie i may have bought a binary option on this game
39:32
because they're gonna go beat akron yeah i know.
39:39
Capital UNLV and just going lowercase UNLV there you go,
39:46
San Jose State's on a bye this week. And then the last game of the conference
39:50
this week is Hawaii at Wyoming.
39:52
Hawaii has a 69.9% chance according to ESPN here.
39:58
The only thing I will say is that Hawaii historically does not play great in Wyoming.
40:06
They have won. They've won several games. You look clear back through the WAC
40:10
and the skyline and all those things.
40:12
They win games in Laramie, but they frequently have played not very well in Laramie as well.
40:18
However, as much as it pains me to say it, I don't think that's going to happen.
40:24
Here's the God's honest truth of it. They don't have to play good at all to
40:27
beat Wyoming. They could play terribly and beat the Cowboys.
40:31
It just is what it is at this point.
40:34
I'm going the other way. I'm picking Wyoming. Really? Yeah.
40:39
I don't necessarily know. No, I haven't got to watch Wyoming,
40:42
so obviously maybe they don't have good players,
40:48
but I know some of the coaches, or I know some of the stories of the coaches
40:52
there, and I know they're good football coaches. Right.
40:55
And so they're going to work hard. They're going to try to do,
41:01
I mean, they've been working all along, like losing his.
41:04
Killing them right now right and and and i don't know if it's their fault they
41:09
don't have good players i don't know if it's the university's fault i don't
41:12
know if it's the nil stuff,
41:15
but i'm just going to say they're going to they're going to work their tails
41:17
off and they have been doing it they're you're going to wyoming you're going
41:21
to the high high plains i'm picking wyoming right well i'll tell you a lot of the a lot of the hud the,
41:28
the buzz around the program right now is this.
41:30
It's like, we are paying some dudes some pretty decent NIL money.
41:35
And I will say this, like people of Wyoming, granted, when things are going
41:40
this poorly, it's a bad thing that that's the only football program in the state
41:44
because it's the only one people care about.
41:46
So you're going to hear about it when it's bad. You're going to hear about it
41:48
when it's good. And kind of the buzz right now is, no, we are paying guys some
41:53
pretty decent money and they're losing to bad football teams.
41:57
So like beforehand, you know, kids were college football players.
42:01
You can't really come after kids. They're college football players. That's fine.
42:04
But when they're now making six
42:07
figures, there's a bit more of a cutthroat attitude towards kids, I guess.
42:13
And in my mind, I'm kind of like, on one hand, they're kids,
42:17
they're college kids. But on the other hand, I'm like, well,
42:19
if you're going to earn a man's wages, you're going to be accountable for that.
42:24
Do you remember that saying on college game day? I think it was two years ago or three years ago.
42:28
There's a comedian saving a tough time about paying players.
42:32
Yeah, yeah, yeah. You got to pay the right ones. You can't pay the wrong ones. Right, right.
42:40
That doesn't mean you're – I don't care if you're paying them or not.
42:43
If you're not paying the right ones, everybody else is paying them too. Right.
42:48
I mean, what Wyoming's paying their guys isn't any different than anybody else paying their guys.
42:54
Right. No, it just comes with some extra scrutiny is all I guess is at the end
42:58
of the day, which I think is somewhat fair, but maybe not entirely.
43:03
But we got Boise and Fresno now. Boise State's two and one.
43:08
They are at Western Michigan this coming week. Their coach, Spencer Daniel,
43:11
he's paid a great amount of respect in interviews to Western Michigan.
43:14
He's called them undefeated, which is obviously the big controversy at the moment.
43:19
But the Broncos have a 64% chance to go win there. And I think they will probably do so.
43:25
Yeah, I would think so, too. I know they played Oregon tough,
43:30
but I don't know how good Oregon is. Right.
43:34
Probably their impressive win is when they went back east. Who'd they play here
43:37
just a couple weeks ago, and they won. That was a pretty good win.
43:41
Oh, gee, I mean, Christmas, let me see here. I'll find that out right now. They went out.
43:45
But then, you know, they're going to win. They beat Memphis.
43:49
They beat Memphis at home.
43:51
I think that was a pretty good win. Yeah, absolutely.
43:54
Fun? But then they turned around and they weren't dominant against USD.
43:58
Right. So I'm not sure how good they really are. I'm just going to pick them,
44:04
over Western Michigan, but time will tell. Right, right.
44:08
And Fresno's 2-1 now. They host Rice this week.
44:11
Funny enough, Tucker's had some pretty good luck against Rice,
44:14
even in less than stellar circumstances. They were down in Charlotte,
44:17
and the staff was already fired, basically. But they went down to Rice and beat Rice.
44:23
Yeah. I remember that a few years ago. So hopefully that luck keeps bouncing
44:27
that way. And I think Fresno beats Rice pretty handily.
44:30
I hope so, and I hope the offense gets on track. I know they're dealing with some injuries up front.
44:36
Right. And that's the same time those guys are, A, you'd say they're on scholarship,
44:42
or B, they're getting paid, however you word it now. Right, right.
44:48
But I watched some D-line twists, and they didn't pick them up.
44:53
They just couldn't run the ball.
44:55
But defensively, they're playing well, and so I hope that they're able to A,
44:59
get healthier or just continue to get better and they should be able to have it right. Right, right.
45:08
Well, looking forward to another good week of college football here.
45:10
I did get out on, I actually went out with my, took the kiddos out for a stroll
45:16
through the woods last Saturday as opposed to paying more attention to college football this weekend.
45:21
And what I was, I don't, you know, obviously you take little kids hunting,
45:26
you know that it's going to be what it is for the day, and that's fine.
45:29
But Aiden up to this point has been pretty shy, pretty cautious,
45:33
pretty non-adventurous.
45:35
But while we were walking along the edges of a lake,
45:38
A little frog jumped out and jumped in the water, and I went and grabbed it
45:42
real quick and let him hold on to it or whatever.
45:45
And I'll tell you what, the rest of the afternoon turned into a frog hunt.
45:49
He was aggressive. He was focused. He was determined. He got a little wet.
45:54
And he caught two frogs all on his own, which was pretty cool.
45:58
So it's kind of obviously not a day spent seriously hunting,
46:04
looking to kill something.
46:05
But it was kind of cool that I guess in some ways, like my,
46:11
my apprehensive, shy kid, little flash, a little flash of, uh,
46:17
of, uh, killer mode, I guess you could say like, he's not, you know, I, we were careful.
46:21
I told him, Hey, you gotta be, you've got to be firm, but gentle with the frogs,
46:24
right? You don't want to hurt them. But, but man, he was, he was grabbing ahold
46:27
of them and, and, and then we had one in his hands and he had his hands closed
46:31
over the top of each other. And he said, he's trying to get out of my fingers.
46:35
It was, it was a pretty funny. So cool. Cool. There wouldn't be that much room for that frog. Yeah.
46:41
Yeah. Luckily the frogs weren't super big, but yeah, Aiden's hands don't have
46:45
a ton of room in there for sure. But, uh, he, he had a good time doing that
46:48
and it was just, yeah, kind of cool to see when they get to the age where they're
46:52
like, they really start to like focus and take something seriously.
46:56
I don't know. It pumps me up when he gets in that mode. Cause it's,
46:59
it's kind of new. It's kind of a new thing, I guess you could say, but yeah.
47:03
Yeah. So probably a lot more walks in the woods in my future that are loud and
47:09
full of questions and maybe some frog catching.
47:14
Funny story. Long time ago when hunting, it really wasn't hunting either,
47:19
like you're talking about, but we parked the pickup, had Jolynn and Tucker,
47:23
and we were just going to go walking up this little knob and kind of look over the other side.
47:29
Really to no avail.
47:31
And when we got home, I was telling somebody I had tweet aloud and tweet a louder with me. Yeah.
47:38
That's awesome. That's pretty funny. That's pretty funny.
47:42
Well, I do have a really good limited entry bull tag this year and a buddy of
47:46
mine that lives in that area, he started sending me pictures this week.
47:50
He sent me pictures of one freak bull.
47:53
That's awesome. And another big, big bull.
47:56
And so here in a few weeks, I didn't take any time off.
48:00
Now they got a real job again, no time off in the archery season really that
48:03
I took, but that rifle season hits.
48:05
I've got some day's plan that we're going to go and film and try to make a good
48:09
video out of it. We've obviously that's taken a bit of a backseat,
48:12
but I have made three, three videos this year, which has been,
48:15
they're not released yet, but they are, they are, they exist and they're getting,
48:19
they're in the, in the works on the computer.
48:21
And hopefully we get a fourth one here with a nice bull elk on film this fall
48:26
and then see what else can pan out. But, but looking forward to the rest of
48:30
the week here. The, the verse of the week is Proverbs 18, 10.
48:33
The name of the Lord is a fortified tower, are the righteous, run to it, and are safe.
48:39
So always just remember where that safe place is and that priority,
48:42
and don't let those cares or worries just kind of drag your shoulders down without
48:46
putting them in the right place. But looking forward to this weekend. Good to see you, Les.
48:50
Appreciate you. And we'll be back here next week. I don't know if I'm going
48:54
to get out this week or not. We're going to find out, but we will be watching
48:56
some football this weekend anyway.
48:59
Yeah, it's going to be a pretty good weekend. And last weekend had some great games.
49:04
And there'll be some upsets this weekend again, too.
49:07
Yep, absolutely. Good to see you. Good to talk to you. And we'll catch you next
49:10
week. No, thanks for being here.