Spring Game Takeaways from Alabama, Florida, Colorado, Tennessee and more!

Welcome back to the Cover 3 podcast with your hosts Chip Patterson, Tom Furnelli, Danny Cannell and Bob Elliott. It's your call for the best college football coverage from National Signing Day to the National Championship and everything in between. CBS Sports presents the Cover 3 podcast. And welcome back to the Cover 3 podcast here on CBS Sports. That's Tom Furnelli, that's Bob Elliott. I'm Chip Patterson. Come to you live at youtube.com slash Cover 3 and everywhere to get your podcast on demand. Thanks for hanging out. Smash that subscribe, smash that like and come and join us in the chat. AKA the Cover 3 tailgate where we've got some Florida fans that are excited to talk about the Gators in the wake of the first spring game of the John Summeral era. We've got some commentary on the spring games in general. We see you, LSU, LSU fan back in the house as well. But I wanted to get started with Lane, okay? Our friend at 7.25 a.m. Eastern time, early bird Lane jumped in the tailgate, pulled into his spot and said, is there anything that you guys wish college football would pick up from the Masters? Although it's not realistic, I wish people would stay off their phones and watch the action live and not just record. I mean, how many spring games did you actually get to watch this weekend? Well, the spring games were not on television. Right. And you know what? The practice, like a lot of the shots on the range were like we're getting non-adjusted. We're getting non-actual game action from the Masters and we're not getting it from college football. Right? We get live look-ins from the NFL at practice, split squad practice. We get all the pre-season games. You just don't get to see a lot of the college football product. That's what I would take. That's a good answer. Tom? I mean, I don't know about you guys. There was a lot of anger this week about Masters coverage and I was one of those very angry people because I was like, but I wanted to watch spring games all weekend. And I couldn't because they weren't on television and I had to watch stupid golf instead of college football practices. And I don't know, man. It's an abomination. It was the worst weekend ever. I couldn't watch any of these spring games. I do think that there's while cell phone videos are some of our only ways to be able to see the highlights of some of these spring games so far because even the state-sponsored school-issued media is mostly just down to photo galleries and some reports, some quotes and clippings. Thank goodness we have our fantastic collection of reporters, eyes, ears and more from the 24-7 Sports Network to be able to give us the analysis as we start to run through spring game a little bit later on today. The seeing something with your eyes instead of being buried in your phone is obviously one of the great charms of Augusta National. And I will say that when there's a big moment in a football game, it is odd that it's just like a whole section of phones. Like if you're getting down into the end zone, it's third and goal from the seven yard line. That's always a little bit of an odd sight along the way. I don't see something as well if I'm trying to capture it on my phone. That's just a me thing. I don't have that skill. I get it if you have a really unique vantage point. You're on the goal line or something because you had sideline passes and you want to capture that memory, a memory that is not going to be captured from the standard TV angle. But if you're in the stands, put the phone down. You can easily just rip this afterwards. Screen record the replay. It's not hard. I just don't have my phone out. Like unless I'm actually looking at it to text somebody or talk to somebody on a phone, I just, I don't know. The idea of documenting everything via photo or video is not something I've ever really been into. So I don't know if I'm at a football game, I'm not on my phone anyway. So other than that, what I would bring from the Masters, I don't know. Cheap concessions? Cheap concessions. Yeah. Like give me some $3 beers, $1.50 hot dogs. That would be great if we can bring that to sports worldwide. Yep, I would agree with that. And I did find yesterday afternoon, I mean total side tangent 4.30 is way too early in the show for this, but whatever, it's April 13. I found even watching the Masters yesterday, I didn't yet by the afternoon, I mean, I didn't have any professional responsibility for it. I wasn't even really watching with Twitter open, you know, the coverage was, it was dizzying enough, trying to figure out all the different players that could win. So I was wild. Yeah, it was fun. It was, it was, I did not need to have another like experience of watching other people give commentary and analysis alongside my own thoughts of just sitting there and watching it. I think it's like probably difficult to, to produce the Masters, like probably more than we think. Like I found it, I found myself thinking like, all right, you should be using data golf. Look at like who actually has a chance to win this. And I want to like doubt in the final kind of two and a half hours, I really want to like focus on those guys, you know, like I don't need to see Hideki and, you know, some of the other guys, right? Like Hattan Lee, like going on a total side quest, like that's actually kind of entertaining, right? Well, I don't know. He did, he was, you know, he was jamming up some other golfers on the course, but he did excuse himself from the proceedings so that we knew what he was doing. But it's probably hard to actually like real time change who you're focusing on constantly, right? Like it's easy for me to sit on the couch and say, hey, like this guy's actually showing like data golf showing like he's the third best odds to win this thing right now. And we're not seeing him very much, but like, I don't think it's quite that easy to just like constantly flip like who's next. It's a lot more moving pieces, I think, than just guy on his couch. I was debating whether to say this, but if we can't criticize ourselves, who can we criticize? I do wonder if maybe some of our television producers and camera operators were on their phones on the 18th hole? I wouldn't, I wouldn't, I didn't have mine open, you know, I didn't, I just say it. I don't, maybe they still haven't found where those tee shots landed or where Roy's approach landed. I don't know. It's tough, you know, is it when accuracy is an issue, it's not predictable, you know, always gotta always gotta find out. But yeah, congratulations to Roy McRoy joining the exclusive list of back to back major winners, six major championships into the total puts him on another, you know, in rarefied air through and through. It was a while, it was a very, very different final round than his win in 2025. But a fun one. Congratulations to Patrick McDonald, Robbie Calland everybody on the CBS broadcast side. Great job. A lot of fun to be able to watch it from afar when we were because, because we had, you know, that what could we put on our televisions if the spring games weren't going to be on. But again, we'll get to our spring game analysis here in just a little bit one more newsy item in this one, you know, thank you to Yovie 93 821 a.m. Eastern time. You broke the news, Yovie, you got into the comments at 820. I didn't have this one on my radar. This is my fault. Did you all see the news about Chris McIntosh? He was a big reason. Luke Fickle has a job still. Do the Badgers change coaches with a new AD? Yes. To follow up on this, the Chris McIntosh news is that the athletic director at Wisconsin will be taking a job in the office at the big 10. Not just any job. Strategic. The deputy commissioner for strategy. Make get him a badge. Deputy Chris, get here with a badge right now. Getting ready to take all your bad strategies and put them to the side. So that means the Wisconsin athletic director job needs to be filled. And yes, that does have an influence on the future for Luke Fickle as he is under pressure as we discussed earlier, looking at the big 10. If Vegas is right, he is under pressure to have a good season. But just so you can go big picture, you can go micro on this. Knowing the inner workings of Wisconsin and sort of what this sort of points to, are you, are we shifting the odds? Are the prediction markets going heavier in terms of there being a new head coach in 2027 for the Badgers? Oh, he got it. Okay, go. Oh shoot. All right. So there's a couple of factors you had to put in your algorithm here like, okay. Would Macintosh be empowered to make the new hire if Fickle had another bad season? Because that he would get blamed for that not going well because it was supposed to be a full proof. How could you screw this up higher? I agree. Right. So do we think that there is signal in him essentially, if a coach did this, we would say he's, you know, restarting the clock, right? New job, new runway. How much are we reading into this? I don't know enough about like whether he actually has the cachet to do that, right? As far as like to make a new hire, like how stable would Macintosh's job have been at Wisconsin if Fickle, you know, went like six and six or something like that, right? To where it's like, oh wow, this is the best when we barely squeaked into a bowl game with a demonstrably easier schedule than we've had in past years. I don't know. It's hard to read it super positively for Fickle, right? Like if you really believed that he was on the verge of turning it around, if that was like truly the belief internally for Macintosh, I don't think he bounces. But I also don't know anything about like, you know, what's this, what, yeah, right. Like what's his family situation? Like, you know, is this more of a cush job? I would think so. Probably, right? Like, the deputy for communications is probably a little bit lesser workload than athletic director. I think it's different meetings. I think it's different challenges. Yeah, you have some emergencies in both for sure. I talked about it last season when we were talking about the Fickle hot seed. I said like there's some kind of scuttlebutt that Fickle's not the only one who's kind of in danger right now. Like there was some serious questions about Macintosh's stability in that position and what Wisconsin was possibly considering. And I think that what we're seeing here today is kind of the ultimate, you know, final act of that. But I wonder, I don't know if Luke Fickle's overall situation changes much. He has to have a good season, period, whether Macintosh is still the AD or not. Like, I think he would have been out and then whether they would have fired Macintosh at the same time, probably. And then they'd be going under a new AD. I think now he's in a situation where somebody knew he's going to take over. And unless he has a very good season, there's no reason for that new AD not to go his own way. But there's also the other aspect of this is the financial situation of Wisconsin's athletic department. I don't have people, but from what I have heard, like there was the big, kind of at the end of the season, the big, you know, public, we're going to invest money into the team kind of push. Why were you just now investing money into the team? Maybe because you haven't really had the kind of investment you were looking for in this current NIL era where we have seen other teams in the Big Ten kind of step up to fill that vacuum that Wisconsin once occupied at the top of the league. Teams that have been spending money. They went out and they got a bunch of transfers. So obviously they've been spending that money. But as I've said about that transfer class, who in there is somebody that you're like, oh, wow, that's a top dollar kind of signing. It's a lot of guys. I don't know how many great guys are in that class. I don't know if I think the biggest challenge for whoever ends up taking this job as the athletic director will be getting the money that they need to compete where they want to compete. Like we're looking, if we go to the other sports, their best player on their basketball team is in the portal. He's leaving because he knows somebody else is going to give him more money than Wisconsin can. Football wise, it's going to be a similar situation. So it is, it's an athletic department that I think is at a very interesting point, a very pivotal point for where the sports going in the future. It feels like if I am Chris McIntosh, a front office job with the conference, if not one of two conferences that are running all of college sports does feel like a safer position than sitting there with the target on your back and maybe looking at the big picture and the books and the outlook and be like, guys, our fan expectations are going to be a little bit more than that. The expectation is not matching with our prospectus. Right. We have run our analysis we have had all the number crutches we have had all of our brightest minds emerge from the woods with everything about what it's going to take to succeed and we don't have it right now. I could be wrong about that. Wisconsin fans could be coming for us on this one, but I do think that the idea that if you're Chris McIntosh, the big 10 working in the big 10 front office feels like a safe job. You are a deputy director of strategy, buddy, that could be a lot of things. You know, so you've, you at least have a little bit of time before you start facing real job pressure yourself where as Wisconsin AD given where things are right now, you could be facing real job pressure. But for as far as a Luke fickle piece of this, I think that he was already going to have his player evaluation challenged in a major way because they spent money. That's anybody can go spend money. Doesn't mean they're going to be good. If all of his evaluations were great and some of these transfer portal hits, it may be exceed expectations. Let's go. Sign. You know, get, get Luke fickle back on board and let him continue to build this thing. But we'll see if we'll see if the evaluations paid off. That's what it seems like is on the chopping block right now. Did he get the right guys because they got a lot of guys and it's going to be left to be determined if they were the right guys. As far as like getting the money, the other sort of missing piece of this equation is when did they start trying to get the money together? Is it too late? Yeah, like some programs were way out ahead of this, right? Some programs were way out ahead of it and then thought that like post house settlement, you know, there was going to be a real salary cap, you know, type stuff. It's hard to know exactly what Wisconsin's like true belief internally was and what their actual efforts were. So if they have been trying this whole time and they don't have money, that's like a huge red flag, but we don't know that. Right. They could, they could have been late to the party and be absolutely fine, especially if the new guy comes in and really puts an emphasis on that. We just don't know. Iowa, Nebraska, Wisconsin stack up those three programs in terms of like an overall five year outlook. Which one would you buy stock in? Iowa. I mean, it depends how long Kirk's there. That's I think that's part of the calculus. Do you think Matt rule is the guy? Do you think he ever is going to like have this big time high level breakthrough? I think they all could, but you know, Iowa is the closest. We're also seeing, we're also seeing Iowa like not only say, Hey, we want to have a real passing game. Like they're actually taking like real steps in terms of spending to a to a heavy real passing game in terms of transfers and high school. Like they're, they're actively trying, you know, and they know they probably have to overpay in some circumstances to get, you know, get receivers and quarterbacks to come there because they've been, you know, so questionable with those spots for a long time. So, and they're already so good at so many other things. There's not an identity crisis. Iowa knows who Iowa is. Right. Wisconsin is having some trouble trying to find its footing and Nebraska continues, you know, really. Yeah. As a big 10 member, you know, really trying to find its footing in terms of what makes us strong, what makes us different, what is going to allow us to be able to separate from the pack in a positive way. Yeah, I take Iowa because Kirk is there. Once Kirk leaves. It'll be interesting to see what happens, but because I do think financially of the three Nebraska's got the most power. Fine. Like if we were talking about backing it up. Yeah. And then in the five year outlook that comes down to do you think Matt's the guy or do you think there's somebody else who could get in there to be able to activate it and help them level up. But interesting stuff. I from the tailgate real quick. Garza. Oh, Miss Garz main. I mean, you'd probably buy rather by stock in Minnesota than Wisconsin. Why? I don't agree with that. Well, I'm, I don't either first blush, but I'm curious as to why I was wondering if one of y'all three did it and I'd see you could make the counter argument. I don't know. I don't think Minnesota is exactly. I mean, I will say they've had some recent success at the high school recruiting level. So maybe they're kind of stepping up their game there as far as finances, but I don't know. I think they lost Koi. Yeah. Koi Parrots is a huge high school in state recruiting win. And you still end up losing him to Oregon for his last year of eligibility. Exactly. So, yeah. Yeah, I would go with Wisconsin. I think that Wisconsin, while this isn't the Barry Alvarez as a coach days, while this isn't the Brett Bielma days and while this isn't the Big 10 West days, I still think that the, the collection of trophies matters. You know, there's still is a winning tradition that I would, I would favor in terms of the Badgers. All right. Coming up on the other side, we turn our attention to some of the things that we learned, heard and didn't see on TV, but at least got a chance to get a sense of from spring games across the country, Alabama, Florida, Tennessee, Colorado, and more. Who ever that announcer is saying Dean Thomas, it's a little Keith Jackson than that. Welcome to Paris piece. I said, yeah, your blind date is already at the table and there she is. Cousin Brenda, what are you doing here? You're married anyway. Substitution brought to you by Paddy Power. Cousin Brenda makes way for Beth, the office crush. Oh, get in. You might not always pick the right starter, but your sub can still deliver because with Paddy's Super Sub, your bet rolls over to the player coming on. Paddy Power. Validant, selected leagues and markets only. Pre-match and in-play bets on qualifying player outcome selections only. T-Series and exclusions apply. Are your ad campaigns lighting up the dashboard? They're not the pipeline. That's bull spend. And marketers are calling it out in...dashboard confessions. My boss asked for results, so I opened my dashboard for the only positive sounding metric I had. Impressions. Cut the bull spend. See revenue, not just reach. LinkedIn delivers the highest return on ad spend of major ad networks. Ties on LinkedIn. Spend 200 pounds on your first campaign and get a 200 pound credit. Go to LinkedIn.com. OK. I like that. Who is that? Taft. You want to do Mikey? Yeah, if Mikey was here, we'd be all good. But we appreciate Taft for filling in here, helping produce us on a Monday. I think there's more coming from him. Unfortunately, we have let another Georgia Bulldog inside the house. Pray for us all. OK. Let's start speaking of the Georgia Bulldogs in the SEC with Alabama, where a couple things stood out coming out of their A-day. Number one, we of course had our eyes on the quarterback battle. And we did not get to see a lot of Austin Mack. Only three series for Austin Mack in this game, where on the other hand, the very talented youngster, Keelan Russell, threw four touchdown passes, had pretty decent passing numbers. Most of the touchdowns, though, I mean, most of them were in red zone work, red zone type opportunities. This was a very structured A-day from what I've been able to gather. And in the post-game press conference, we find out from Keelan DeBoer that, hey, why did Austin not play more? It sounds like he has been quote, dinged up. But did you have any sense that we were dealing with some lingering issues with Austin Mack? And how does that change your evaluation of what we might be getting from the tide? I did not, mostly because I've been focusing on like just the teams that are finishing out so we can record summer school. And by the way, listen, it's, y'all get ready. All right. The summer school cannon. Go brrrrrrr. Yeah, we are on pace for the aggressive goal that we set for this year, which is way ahead of last year's goal. So yeah, locked and loaded. Okay. So the one thing I would say about this is that the Office of Coordinator for Bama noted that Russell's legs do bring a different element to this offense. They're both supremely talented, blah, blah, blah. I did not know that Mack had been dinged up. That's a pretty good day, 21 to 33 for 240. It's not amazing, but it's like not, it's not awful. But the run game was pretty crappy. So I am, I read the comment from the OC about Russell's legs and that kind of like, huh, okay. Like maybe that is, maybe that's coming. DeBore also, we brought this up when he got hired back when we were talking about the usage of Milrow. If you go back through DeBore's career, he actually, I believe there was a statin and I'm going to paraphrase it here, but he, his quarterback had either rushed for a thousand or was the team's leading rusher like multiple times in his coaching career as a head coach or Office of Coordinator. Like the Michael Pinnick's piece was sort of the outlier there, right? And I'm sure he likes to have a guy who's an NFL thrower. I think Keylon's really, really talented as a thrower too. But I mean, the run game stuff was not very good in this, in this, like eight eighths. So kind of just back of the mind there. Maybe that's the differentiator. Even though obviously on the throwing standpoint, it looked like Russell was way better throwing as well from what we could read. Um, I will, yeah, like the only thing to take away from me was, you know, they said Matt got dinged up, which is why he did not finish because they were alternating series. But I don't know if there's anything to take from it, but, you know, they were alternating. Matt came out first with the first team and then Russell came out with the second team before they switched teams during the thing. So there's anything to read between the lines there. Who knows? You mentioned the run game. That was something I've read in most of the takeaways. It was, it was not pretty. Although E.J. Crowell, their five star freshman, wasn't there. And also like they did completely overall. Yeah, Crowell was, was, was apparently on the sideline in a walk in the day. In a walk in the day. Yeah. They did overhaul their offensive line over the off season. So, you know, their first time. But you know, the takeaway here is not that the run game still sucks. It's that this defense might be historical. It might be a generational unit. It might be the greatest defense we've seen in Tuscaloosa in 2030, maybe even 40 years. Secondary is probably really good. Yes. Yes. I would agree. Like Alabama's defense, I do think it's going to be a strength. Alabama's secondary has NFL players in it. That's, that's undeniable. Tom pulling out for those, for those unaware. Tom just pulling out an age old, an age old spring game take. Your offense stinks. Don't worry. It's cause that defense is lights out. You're only going to have to score seven points a game, boys. Cause that defense ain't giving up anything. Yep. But Alabama not running the ball is a problem. Yeah. But it's a spring game. I know. I know. I agree. I understand. But if you were, they've been working on a retooled offensive line where six of their top eight guys from last year are gone. They changed out the offensive line coach. They are trying to really mix and match some pieces with a couple guys who could swap around positions. I mean, I think, I think that there is a lot of reason to be concerned that number one, you're not seeing enough right away, which is fine if you're a fan, but just know that that's going to be, in my opinion, the X factor for the offense going into the season. Cause your new group that just started playing together, 16 practices ago, doesn't need, might not be gelled all the way, but that's got to be a top two to three priority going into fall camp. And that's, you know, we'll see who has a good summer. We'll say, see who's going to start the fall, the healthiest. But if Alabama doesn't get one through five together playing consistently and executing at a high level, they're just not going to be able to accomplish like SEC title contention this season. Another note. Noah Rogers, their transfer receiver from NC State, left the game on a cart, unable to put any pressure on his left leg. And after the game, DeBors said, we'll get him evaluated where he's getting dinged up. We'll see what it looks like. He'll get some MRIs and stuff. And that's not great. Never great to hear they're going to an MRI. And, you know, I was sitting there saying that Tom and now I'm like, well, they run game stunk last year and they still made the playoff. So, I mean, that's, this is what we're dealing with, but I still think that last season, I mean, snap call last season did not meet expectations for Alabama football, correct? They played in the SEC championship game. They made the college football playoff, but an Alabama football team could look at that team and believe that it is not up to standard, correct? Correct. Yeah. Anything else from Tuscaloosa? Not really. I mean, it's not like anybody else out there had such an amazing spring game you watched and said, oh, like they're way better than Alabama. Right. Like the base, you know, sitting here nitpicking, talking about all these things that need to improve by the time that they get to their week one at the same time, they're still what undeniably a top 10 team? Somewhere in that, somewhere in that conversation. Let's go ahead and hit a break. And then on the other side, we will get to Florida, Tennessee. So coming up on the other side, John Summerall era had an extremely confusing, confusing spring game scoring system. So what do we make of a 45 to 45 tie all that in more next back here on the cover three podcast. So in Ben Hill Griffin Stadium, the swamp, as they like to call it, it was 45 to 42. The team with 45 came out to kick a field goal. It was Patrick Durkin, 49 yarder. He missed it. The other team gets three points, 45 to 45 tie three points awarded for the stop on the missed field goal. Very complicated scoring system here in the blue, orange game. Very difficult for me to be able to understand what to make of that. So that's where we had to go a little bit under the hood. Tramiel Jones and Aaron Filo, our quarterbacks battling for QB one played somewhat evenly, except for Filo had two interceptions. Jones had no turnovers. I've got some, some highlights for a couple of new transfer wide receivers, but this Florida Gators team, as we've discussed, is going to be favored in 15 games this fall. So what's our takeaway from the blue, orange game? So our quarterback, obviously, I think, you know, Jones playing that well has to be encouraging. I also, you know, you, you read swamp 24 seven, you read all the excellent Florida sources out there. They still like the guys that have watched all of camp still lean Filo. Filo did have a really rough start and then he closed like crazy. I mean, he was like, he missed like, I don't know, 13 or 14 or something down the stretch with two touchdowns. So like he closed really strong singleton, the transfer receiver. I think money well spent for sure. I mean, that one feels like, I mean, he's been good everywhere. Yeah. Or at least town. He was banged up a little bit last season, right? Yeah. Like our, our friend J. Bud Davis, I mean, got like a college ball guy named bud, right? You know, a big Gators fan. He was like, yes, duh singleton yards per outrun translates. If you adjust for level extremely well for receivers, it like, don't overthink it. It's yards per outrun. Like does the guy get open? The other one though, Mike Amaze is a kid we loved out of South Florida. He, I thought it was an absolute steal for wake forest. Sometimes you just have a guy that just plays really well when you watch him and then maybe doesn't do so well at other people's camps. And you're like, damn, like every time I see this guy, he's killing it. And then, you know, we talked to some school schools, he went to their camps. He was like, yeah, he was okay. Just wasn't great. And I'm like, okay, well, maybe you just, maybe it's sample set, right? But, you know, he showed some flashes at a wake. I think he texted Ivens this morning and he was like, he was tracking too. Cause that was a guy that we were high on and he had to have a shoulder cleanup, but I think he's got like real ability, which is important. Cause I don't think Dallas Wilson played. So Dallas Wilson clearly has like the most ability on that team, but like availability is an ability. And we would like to see Dallas Wilson actually be on the field at some point in Gainesville. Gentlemen, Tommy Chomp is worried. He was not worried about his gators before. First of all, it ended in a tie. Right. How can you have your spring game end in a tie? Are we handing out participation trophies? I don't know what kind of culture we're setting in Gainesville, John Somerall. We might want to rethink this. And then I'm also just kind of confused. The other team got three points because they missed the field goal. Yeah, cause it counts as a defensive stop. But the defense might not have a damn thing to do with it. Like the kicker might just shank the kick and you get three points for that. You forced them into a field goal. I mean, that's a stop. But them getting zero points is valuable to you, especially when you're winning 45 to 42 or whatever. That rule makes no sense. So I am concerned about my gators. Tommy Chomp's got to do some thinking. Like honestly, if you're going to do this kind of format, just do rounded EPA. Auto-score it. So much easier, right? Everybody will understand it. But it's actually in a weird way, less confusing than this. Like, I mean, it might be 17.4 to 14.3. But you got to go around it. I think. Buster Faulkner talked a little bit about the offensive line after the spring game mentioned. He thought it was one of the most improved groups from throughout spring drills, but admitted it was still a work in progress with them trying to figure out exactly how to make it. If you think about it, they've made some mistakes in match all those pieces there. He said that from a play calling standpoint, the goal was to put that line in a lot of difficult situations in terms of throwing the ball around a lot and basically constantly having them to get competitive pass pro reps in a live ball environment, something that they haven't been able to get. like I'm on the offensive line beat here, but in the modern spring practice world, I feel like that's the one thing where a lot of these really good teams have mixing and matching pieces and trying to find the right five at this time of year. And four teams that are playing at the highest levels, you probably have a decent idea of where quarterback and some of the other positions are, because that is the money that has been spent. But that's another thing to keep an eye on in Gainesville as Buster Faulkner continues to build out this offense. I'm sorry, I'm not over this yet. Were they, were they playing with a clock? Like did they know that that last field goal kick was going to end the game? It was a way, okay. This is from Swamp 24 seven with the blue team leading 4542 in the waning seconds. Florida called on Patrick Durkin, considered by the public to be the leader in the room. Okay. So it was the waning seconds. Yes. So it was like, the public has an opinion on if we're going to give Mario Cristobal shit for some of his late game decisions, if you're up 45 to 42 in the final seconds of the game, knowing that if you miss this field goal, it gives the other team three points, but kicking it and making it changes nothing. You still won the game. Why are you attempting the field goal? What are we doing? I, I, wow, I'm going to have to, I don't know if they're going to be favored in all 15 games anymore. This is the kind of decision making that they're taking on in spring games. I don't know. Troy Boy, get on the phone with your boy and ask him what the hell he's doing. All right. We're going to have AI keep a running log and we'll just, we'll clean it up and forward it over. For what? Like a notes, corrections, suggestions for Florida 20, 27 spring game. Yeah. Oh, just go ahead. The EPA per fourth down decision there. That's a, that's a negative in my book. I don't know. Yeah. I got to adjust my Florida number. Defense of coordinator Brad White loved the format. I mean, you're getting points for stops. He said it was great. It was nice to have the entire defense on one side of the football, especially while we're still coaching. If you split them into, I'm not on both sides. I can't make some of those correction points. I thought it was great talking about the format. I thought it did what it needed to do in terms of keeping it competitive. There you go. Any other, any other thoughts from Gainesville in terms of the Gators and what we might have picked up and looked at. I thought, I mean, it seems as though the, the conversation around Florida is a little bit twofold. We know what we have, but there's a lot of work happening on the recruiting trail as well. So this time of year is, I'm seeing as many headlines about the 27 classes I am about the 26 season. You might expect that, right? From a first year coach at this time of year. Is there anything that I'm missing from the, from the Florida? They had about 41,000. I mean, announced announced the 10 to 41,000. I think from photos that was not too crazy inflated. This was like probably, if you live in central Florida, probably the last nice weekend you're going to have until late September. Like, no, like legitimately it was like low 80s, no clouds, no rain. After like a whole week of just like rain, slop, weird nonsense. So perfect conditions to go out and watch a ball game. And that's a shame too, because I mean, just aesthetic wise, I like the swamp so much better in the sunlight than I do at night. I just think watching a game there, it looks better when it's sunny than when it's dark. That's a, that's a very important opinion that I need to share. This is an off season like, off season episode, but like which stadiums have the best camera angles, right? Cause like where they place the camera actually matters. And there's certain spots you can and can't put it in the stadium. Like, you know, which stadiums are better for night games or day games? Like I want Texas Tech at night. It just feels probably cause a lot of the big moments have happened. Like crap tree. Oh no, no, no, no. Black and red against a night setting. Yeah. Way more intimidating. I think you've got a huge factor there. Like I want UCLA daytime. Yeah. Should, Hey, tailgate, should we do this on Wednesday? Well, tiered stadiums based on what time of the day the game should be. We'll do, we'll do, what's it, what is the best time? There we go. We've got our Wednesday. What is the best time to have games? What is the best time at each stadium? And we'll do one for each conference. One for each conference. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. If you all like this, we'll be back with it on Wednesday. Since I'm actually recording summer school on Wednesday during, during our time slot. Cause I got to fit all these in. Blood's down. Tennessee for, for camera angle. Best camera angle because you've got more than all 22. You actually see, yeah. It's kind of cool. And do you know what I have just been so thankful. I mean, it's one of those, you know, tiny little blessings of this world that when you have a head coach who's running the offense, Josh, Hypel does matched it with a camera angle that can actually get both of the wide receivers on the outside. You should not be able to like run the viewershoot at certain schools where every play is, is a surprise. And it looks, it looks like, oh, they snuck a receiver on, you know, right? Yeah. No, I'm, I'm, I'm sorry. You've, you've got to go to, uh, to one of that. Okay. Save that for June. You have, he says. Yeah. That's probably true. That is probably true. Uh, Ohio state, we also prerecorded that by the way. Ohio state at noon, as much as the, the, the fans have hated it. I agree. Ohio stadium at noon and just feels right. Is there a big 10 stadium where night feels better? Oregon. Oh, okay. Traditional big 10 stadium. I would say Penn State at night. Yeah. And I would say probably Iowa. Oh yeah. No, because at night you can't see the kids waving. Oh, it's true. Oh, I was just thinking about just like how that is just upset catnip. Yeah. Right. Top five, top 10 team going into Iowa city. Just going most, I think most big 10 stadiums are day game stadiums. In general. Penn State's definitely at night. USC at night, if we want to go there. Um, yeah. Yeah. UCLA day, USC night. There's a lot of SEC stadiums that I think of as night stadiums because of that 745 sec network time slot. Kroger field, Kentucky, all the Kentucky, Missouri, you know, when Florida stinks, like they get put in that spot too. Oh, Ole Miss daytime. Yes. I think A&M daytime. I'll have to think about that. Well, give me the A&M afternoon, 2 30 local, 3 30 Eastern so that I can get it setting because I am sure I'm, I'm kind of with you that. Sun's still up for when they get everything going at the beginning, but it's it's kind of fun as, uh, as it starts to get dusk around college station. I have a line at night. Tennessee daytime. Yeah. It's nice to take the sale gating in there on the roof. Yeah. I think it's a good one. Nighttime for, uh, Clemson death valley. Yeah. I think South Carolina daytime, but they do like. Yeah. That one's a tough one. I can argue it both ways. I mean, there's, there's no time of day where those buses don't pop. Famous daytime, Georgia's nighttime. Doesn't, doesn't Georgia have a little bit of a mixed bag for some of these nighttime games? That's true. Now they're really proud of, which is kind of, Oh yeah. I'll tell you what, if I was head coach, I would, I would be divesting all of the light shows to invest in. Texas is a daytime stadium to me. My time, it looks very dark. Texas. Yeah. Yeah. I go home too, but you like home a daytime better. There's something about night games in Oklahoma. Like the sky in Oklahoma is just really dark at night. I don't know if they're further from the moon than any other place in the country. Or the lighting may be weird. Yeah. In the stadium. At both. Yeah. At both at, at Norman and in Stillwater, it's just so dark. Robbie, call in to question my off the top rip about Georgia and bad memories about night games. Georgia has not lost many games, period. Oh, like if I could say 50% of your games at home wins or home losses have been at nights too. Right. You know, so in general, I understand that we're, we're dealing with a little bit of different numbers game altogether. But I think because then Alabama went in Athens in one of these night games in the last two years. Oh, yes, but also 2008. Oh yeah. That's that was the. That's the one that scarred. That's a hot mic where Cochran is caught saying they're wearing black because they're going to a MF funeral. Right. Yeah. Right. That one right there. Okay. Back out of the tracks with more, with more spring gave takeaways. Tennessee, the Valls got out there, rotated their QBs one, two and three. Ryan Stahl threw a long touchdown early in this game. And from what I've been able to gather, George McIntyre, Phaeson, Brandon, though they continued to cycle through rotating one after another, just never really matched that offensive spark. Tom, you could read this as a, as a great. It's a tall one. Yeah. You can read this as a great takeaway for Jim Knowles and that new Valls defense. Is that, is that where we're going to go with this one? I mean, like that Tennessee offense came out there and they saw something they'd never seen before. They just saw a defense that nobody was prepared for. How are you going to have a great day against a Jim Knowles defense? And yeah, I don't know. Like honestly, again, I don't want to take too much out of this because it is a spring game. But if you are a team whose identity is we're going to put a whole hell of a lot of points on the board and they're coming into the spring and you're having new quarterback and you don't put a whole hell of a lot of points on the board. That's going to cause some anxiety, I think, with the fan base. I don't know how much it should. A lot of things will change by the fall, but just not not the most exciting Saturday spring in Knoxville. I did not recognize a lot of the receiver names that actually caught balls from the report. So I'm curious as to who. I think we were dealing with injuries in that room. All right. That would maybe explain some of this. I don't, nobody that I read really that I would say has a clue, thinks, stops when in this thing. Right. Right. I don't think we learned anything specifically from the spring game that should tip our hand one way or the other about what happens in the fall. Now, if you want to be. It's all for Colorado. We do want to just go ahead and because somebody jumped in on this one. Real coconut 842 a.m. Eastern time is Colorado fielding the team this season. A safety issue. Yes. Yes. If you did not see the video that came out this weekend of like Juju Lewis leading the buffaloes out of the tunnel onto the field for the spring game. That was a small looking football team. And it wasn't just the guys in like the single digit and the team numbers ever guys coming out with fifties on their shirt that looked kind of tiny to me. I don't know. Yeah. Is there something about altitude that just makes cameras make TV ads 10 pounds and the in the Colorado Rockies drop 20? I don't know. What's the math on that? I don't know. But I decided as soon as I saw that video, I am fading Colorado strongly this season. I will not be changing my mind. They could start off eight and I will still be betting against the face. That's just that video alone. Like if you look at their roster, we know there are players on there that are like legitimately really big because like we've seen them in person before. But yeah, like that video is like, oh, wow. Some of these guys do not look like they're putting in time in the weight room very much. OK. I mean, not to we don't need to do a forensic investigation of the the buffs roster at this point. But I was going to say, but had did you had you foreseen that Colorado might look like that, that we might be dealing with just a person, just a personnel gap from where this team might need to be or want to be to be able to accomplish its goals in the big 12. Well, just because Deon didn't retire doesn't mean that I'm changing my opinion that he built a team and not a program. So I mean, there there went totals four and a half. I think it's juiced under, right? So, you know, I don't I don't know what their goals are in the big 12. But, you know, if it's make a bowl, I think that's possible, you know, I don't really think that they have the ability to do much more than that, I guess. Did you know that it was going to look like that when they came out on the tunnel? Not like that. No. OK. So this guy, this guy has no idea what podcast he's watching right now. This is the tallest podcast on earth. Nobody in this podcast is below six feet tall. If we were walking out of that tunnel, we would have been the three tallest dudes you saw coming out of the tunnel. All right. Hey, doesn't a checking in at six or two forty like. Right. Yeah. I'm six. I'm I'm the short. I'm a true six feet. I'm on the short end of our podcast. I think Juju's got an inch on me. Right. Any six one? Maybe. Maybe. Oh, OK. Also important like distinction here. Chip is not being asked to go play college football. Everyone in that video is. They're saying, hey, go block whoever Texas Tech's paying five million to this year. Yeah. Oh, man. So any I didn't any other Colorado takeaways. Yeah. The receiver they got from San Jose State caught a ton of balls. I would expect him to like catch an absolute ton of balls because in the Marion offense, there's a lot of like schemed up stuff underneath. Brendan Marion, who comes over, you know, he's been at a lot of spots, but. The go-go offense. The go-go offense. Right. So I think Skadero is a kid's name. I think he's going to catch a whole lot of balls for them. Based on what I read, run games still didn't do a whole lot, which is. Kind of what we've seen the entire time there. But yeah, I think Skadero will probably catch a ton of balls and will probably also be like an absolute garbage time monster. Just I mean, teams sitting back in chills and just going to start playing fast. Backdoor cover. Colorado fourth quarter seems like a lock. Let's go. Colorado fourth quarter team total over. Yes, I think so. OK, I see the vision. I think Colorado overs could just be a thing. Oh, just Colorado overs. Take it because the go-go offense, like they they will move fast and they will, you know, they don't need to be efficient, but they will hit some big plays on you. They will put points on the board. It's just I don't know. Putting the sides of it aside, this is still an offense that lost Jordan Seaton. And that was probably the best player they had on their offense last year. And then you see what he looks like at LSU right now. And he looks to be in physical, like outstanding physical condition compared to what he looked like at Colorado. And then you see the guys coming out of the tunnel at Colorado. And you just kind of start to wonder about the strength and conditioning going on in that program. Sorry. One thing I will note, remember Buk Carter from Tennessee? Yes. He he's actually on the field and playing for them and was very active. That's good. Yeah, that's actually that's a real positive for that for that buffs defense. He is super talented and getting him out of the doghouse and onto the field was a problem at Tennessee. So glad to see him getting out there and making plays. I was going into the weekend. I had Colorado on my notepad because Julian Lewis was as a prospect, you know, projected to be a Power Five starter and a real difference maker. He late last season finally gets a couple of starts plays. OK, they shut him down so that he can preserve the red shirt so he doesn't go in excess of four games. Now he is leading this team. The offense with Brandon Marion should set him up to have a very productive season. I think that the offense with Juju Lewis, Scudero and the rest of those wide receivers should be able to set up for some explosive plays in a lot of yards. Being able to turn those into wins. I think it's something I'm not going to have a good idea of until I see the defense really tested in a fall competitive setting. Yeah, I think Lewis could be good for them, you know. I think there's like a little bit of Jaden Davis there where he was just very good, very early relative to his high school comp. Like the year he was in in high school and then other people caught up to him and surpassed him. But I think he's like a considerably better prospect physically than Davis was, you know. Right. Like Davis is that like Tennessee State or something now. And you saw him in Michigan and I was like, no shot this kid plays at Michigan. Right. Just, you know, like he was just so good for so long in high school, but people had started to he was kind of peaked physically. I think there may be a little more to unlock with with Lewis, but I am question of what the overall ceiling. I think that there's I think there is something potentially there for Lewis, where he is the most talented player on this roster. Yes. So your quarterback is the most talented player. Go be a leader. Like go go out there and be a true difference maker for this team because you've got the chance to be able to do it. But we'll see what happens in terms of the defense run game. The rest of the picture, I think that Lewis, the passing game and the new go go offense will at least be productive when we get into the fall. No spring game out at USC. They did conclude spring practice, though. And I wanted to at least make note of this because I found it interesting. Tommy, you got us? Yeah. All right. Cool. I but are you surprised when we hear that former five star tight end Mark Bowman is making a huge splash this spring with the Trojans that, you know, the likes of Trent Mosley at the slot receiver position is somebody who could be stepping right in. USC signed the number one recruiting class in the 2026 cycle. They got a lot of those guys on campus in January. And the projected depth charts from guys who follow this team have a lot of true fresh freshmen making a splash. Is this surprise you at all? Like what's does it concern you that this ends up being the case? Because Lincoln Riley, to his own analysis, said, no, there are some areas he was talking in this instance about the past catchers that he was concerned about those rooms and he feels like they've gelled and been able to answer some questions here in spring. Would you read of that be the same? The fact that we're seeing some of these young guys really jump to the top of the pecking order. So a little bit. Look, I'm not surprised because I recorded summer school on Friday with with USC. I'm not going to spoil the whole episode because they're starting to come out in two weeks. But the one thing I took away was, OK, they're going to play a lot of super talented young guys. They already know it. Like a lot of these guys are already popping in practice. Like Bowman has a really good chance to come in there and start. Right. And like he just has way more size than your typical tight end relative to the level of body control that he also has. Like that that guy is probably going to be good immediately. I don't know if he's going to be Brock Bowers immediately, but I think that's within the realm of possibility. You know, obviously they lost Lane and Lemon, who are big time replaces, but they do have a lot of like a lot of talented guys there that they believe in. They spent their butts off in the high school recruiting Luke Waffle, the big time edge rusher that they signed is also like apparently killing it for them. I think importantly with this roster build, they have a super soft start to the schedule. San Jose, Fresno, Louisiana and at Rutgers before a really difficult seven game stretch, which is Oregon, Washington at Penn State by at Wisconsin. Host Ohio State by week at Indiana. So you're going to need to probably do a lot of mix and match to find out the the optimal combinations of guys you need to be playing on this team early and get that locked in. And if you don't have it locked in by, you know, when the calendar starts to turn to October, you're in trouble. But if you do, then I think they got a chance to be really good. Yeah, this strikes me as a very volatile team because they do feel like they are more talented this year than they have been. But like you meant, they're also very young. So if the talent hits and the youth doesn't become a problem, this team could be very good, but we could also see a situation where maybe they have a disappointing year because of that youth and inexperience. So yeah, I think this is a volatile team. In fact, they didn't have a spring game. Doesn't really provide any insight and all even if they had, I don't know that would get what I would change anything. But yeah, I don't know. I'm going to need to see this team playing actual games before I know anything. Yeah, like how the youth on the team handles that kind of grind in that schedule section that I just read off is going to be a major storyline. We're going to have to follow all year. Torell Anderson in from NC State. Yeah, Newt Johns is back. That's another receiver to keep an eye on. Running back, they should be okay. Right. Yes. All by the time of line in return and you have some young guys actually pushing, which I think is probably, you know, interesting that like, just cause all five starters returned does not mean that all five of those guys will be the starters. If some of the young guys continue to push. Um, was it with Brian? Uh, no, I was a shotgun shotgun. Nice. Okay. Yeah. It's burnt name. Yes. It's different USC, uh, 24 seven. Uh, I love doing Ryan, but like, you know, I want to, you know, I want, I just want these to get out earlier with no spring portal, right? And have more room to breathe and be like more relevant for longer. I don't like from a publisher standpoint, I don't want to drop these four days before comfort, like before the big 10 medias that day starts. And then the coach says, Oh, by the way, this happened, right? And we were sitting on the recording for six weeks. So it also like from a public standpoint, you get a lot more VOD clips out of this. And this is like, you know, March, April, May, June, July is like the VOD kind of desert. Right. So if you have more VODs in your carousel that are actually relevant to the stories you write, it really helps your numbers. So yeah, that's free game. Hey, you know what? Like, we're, Hey, you were on the people. No one's got a network like we do to do this. So like that's fine. Right. Um, all right. So next weekend we've got, uh, Georgia will be out there with their spring game. Ohio State, Oklahoma, uh, among the others, Auburn will be our first look, uh, as we start to see exactly what, you know, things are going to look like under Alex Gholish, Texas A&M as well. Kentucky, the Will Stein era often running. So a lot more, we will be at the end of this week, start to set the table with what we're going to be looking for. And then next week with even more to be able to go back and recap that we appreciate everybody. If you are, by the way, if you're in the Cover Three tailgate and you're at these games, send us your takeaways too. You know, like we, I love our, um, I love our, our crew, our family, the, the tailgate, everybody was able to give your analysis. We would be sure to pass it along and share it here. Now we will be back on Wednesday, 11 a.m. Eastern times to come and hang out at youtube.com slash cover three, jump in the tailgate early, get the conversation started and you can follow him on Twitter at time for daily. You can follow him at blood Elliott three. You can follow me at chip underscore Patterson gentlemen. Thank you very much. Thank you.