National Championship Game is tonight!

Coming up tonight, the college football national championship game.

We have this one. I think we have one more like it and then we will get to the expanded field and well, we'd probably we would already be at this point. So not a big deal, but we'll have a lot more playoff games in our rearview mirror.

I've always felt this that ultimately the end result isn't going to change. That we'll still get to the two teams or two of the four teams that were the best during the year. And there's no question that TCU is one of the best four teams during the course of the season. Roddy Jones from ESPN, college football analyst joins us to talk a little bit about the national championship game.

So let me start with this here. How do you go from five and seven and a fired head coach, somebody who was great for such a long time there and Gary Patterson? How do you go from that to being in the national championship game the next year? It's a great question. I think every five and seven team across the country is going to be asking themselves.

I think it's a couple things, Adam. First and foremost, the fact that TCU is a team that's been talented and was talented under Gary Patterson. And he obviously did a nice job of stocking that team with talent, especially top in town.

I couldn't, Johnston was all that roster. And he's probably going to be the number one receiver drafted this year. Max Duggan, obviously on that roster, it started a bunch of games for him. The guy like a JBS Hodges Tomlinson was on that roster who won the Jim Thorpe award.

So, so the talent was there. But I think what, what Sonny Dykes has done is an excellent display in organizational rehab, if you will, like creating a situation in a culture where those guys enjoy coming into work, hired an incredible staff. What Garrett Riley has done on the offensive side of the ball and Joe Gillespie on the defensive side of the ball has been tremendous. They've been very particular in their transfers and have found some really impactful transfers in some places that you may not have thought a guy like Johnny Hodges transferring over from Navy.

That was a guy that was probably overlooked by a lot of people, but it's been one heck of a football player for him. So on the defensive side of the ball and they've got transfers from Navy ULM amongst other places, places that, that you wouldn't think would, would result in you playing for a national championship. But I think it's, it's, and then the other part of it is probably a little bit of luck. I mean, there was a stretch there where they want a lot of close games in the big 12, a lot of come from behind wins. But there's a belief that I think Sonny Dykes is a part amongst his team. I had a chance to have them during the middle of the year and you could tell that they were just sort of enjoying the run and if it had ended at eight, no, I think they would have said, Hey, it's been a good run, but we were, you know, this was, this was kind of, we expected it to end at some point just because you run into the luck ending, but it really didn't for them. And so the big 12 championship game, but that win against Michigan kind of shows that they put it back together.

So, so I think it's all of those things. And, and for that reason, I give a lot of credit to Sonny Dykes for just having his team believing. Yeah. And they're, they're a wide open, fun, offensive team and offense rules college football. We all saw the lowest score was Ohio state's 41, I believe from the semifinals first year we've had, uh, two really good semi-finals, uh, at the same time you talk about luck. Is TCU even in this position? If Southern Cal beats Utah in the PAC 12 title game?

Um, yeah, I think so. I think Ohio state was the one that would have been, would have, would have had the conversation. Like I think TCU still gets in based on what they did during the regular season. Plus you're still comparing, um, you're comparing a team that had, you know, been in the top four basically the entire season.

So, so, so yeah, I think so. Um, now I think it's fair to ask like, is TCU in this situation? If multiple quarterbacks don't get hurt over the course of the year, like Jim Daniel, Jalen Daniels, uh, at, at, at Kansas gets hurt when that game was a back and forth affair. Uh, Adrian Martinez went into that game against Kansas state banged up. Now, well, Howard ended up being fantastic down the stretch for Kansas state and beat him in the big 12 championship game.

So, so maybe that one aside, uh, but yeah, I can teach you still would have gotten in and had to had, uh, had USC beaten, um, had USC beaten Utah. Two more things before I actually turn this to, uh, to the Georgia Bulldogs, the 13 point favorite in this game, which is just mad disrespect for TCU that has just found ways to win as a story. What do you find the, the, like for me, everybody's looking for a Cinderella in college football as though, I mean, look, I'm not saying that other leagues, this, the group of five leagues don't play good football.

It's not, it has nothing to do with that. Central Florida a few years ago and they went undefeated. Ultimately when those teams got up against, uh, the power five schools, when they got into a game where it mattered to both sides, it was going to be a different story more than likely, but TCU plays in a power five league. They're not, they're not overwhelmed by the athletes, uh, on the other side of the ball.

I, I think this is Cinderella. It's not about, you know, Louisiana Monroe or central Florida or coastal Carolina or app. I think this is every bit the Cinderella that college football maybe wants or needs. Uh, it's, it's as close as you're going to get to it in college football. Um, and TCU has been on the national stage for a long time.

They're not coming out of nowhere. And this is a team that probably should have gotten in the college ball playoff at 2014 in the year that they decided that the big 12 wasn't going to have a championship game because they were, you know, they were co-champions with the true champion. Yes.

Yeah. One true champion ended up being two and Baylor beaten TCU, but TCU had the better record and they had a better string to schedule all that. It was just, it was a mess.

And so neither one of them got in. So you put it in Ohio state and they won the national championship. Um, and this is a team that went undefeated back in, I believe 2010 with Andy Dalton. So we've seen them before, but it's also a team that was in the whack and in conference USA and the mountain West and worked itself into the big 12.

Um, and now it was playing for a national championship. They don't fit the blue chip ratio in terms of number of players on the roster that were four or five stars. They don't fit a lot of the things that we expect. It's not a coach that is super conventional. Uh, Sonny Dykes is a guy who was sort of a cast off a few years ago when he got fired from Cal was on that TC staff as an analyst to kind of go through the rehab and then did a great job at SMU and obviously has made an impact at TCU. A lot of that I think is because those are very, not only are they very close, but they're very similar places. Um, in terms of the size of the school, the amount of, uh, the amount of funding that the school gets for football SMU is just about 10, 15 years behind where TCU is and their process.

So, so it sort of accelerated him. It's as close as we'll get. Like maybe Cincinnati in a 12 team playoff scenario, Cincinnati team last year would have beaten somebody and they wouldn't have been the 12 seed, but I think it would have been somebody, I think they would have won a game. And so we may have fallen in love with that.

It came out of the American. Um, but in a 14 playoff scenario, this is close against. Yeah, I, I agree. I, I think it's an awesome story and I, I actually give them a punching chance, uh, to beat Georgia, even though logic would tell us otherwise.

So let me get to Georgia. Did they get away with it against Ohio state? A little bit. And George has been fortunate the last couple of years with receiver injuries that changed the fortune of a game. Um, and I guess that was two games that they had receiver injuries that, that changed the fortune, uh, that certainly changed the fortune of the second game.

And it didn't necessarily change the fortune of the first one, but that's part of it. I mean, Georgia ultimately was the team that was favored coming in. They do have more talent than Ohio state. They're just not overwhelmingly more talented than Ohio state.

Like they are with most of the teams that they play. And that's not at all a knock in the SEC thing. It's a testament to where Georgia is as a program. Um, but when you have to count on a field goal kicker, missing a long field goal, and honestly, and often going very conservative after getting into long field goal range and Medicaid field goal kicker missing a long field goal.

Yeah. You're a little fortunate, but championships happen due to fortune. I mean, they came back against Missouri won that game. Um, truly the only game they've been incredibly, they've been threatened seriously. Um, but you have to have things go your way.

So, so yeah, they sort of got away with one, uh, but Ohio state also got away with it because USC lost their championship game, which let them in and had Georgia played USC. Like we're not even talking about this conversation. So, uh, so, you know, it kind of goes both ways.

Uh, there's, there's no question. It's, it's funny. I mean, it's a different sport, but tiger woods always used to talk about, you have to get lucky. Even tiger recognized as great as he was that there's a little bit of luck that is involved everywhere, a bad bounce here and there, especially with a football, which like I was, what, what, which was the game, uh, last night where, or yesterday in the NFL where the, the game winning or tying field goal bounced off the crossbar and fell back. No, it was in the Packers lions, right?

Yeah, it was the Packers. I mean, that could have gone, that could have gone forward for the same price. It could have gone forward. It just hits a different, different spot on the football and it falls forward as opposed to coming back. So there's so much luck involved, especially in a sport like football Stetson Bennett, better as a quarterback than anybody gives him credit.

Yes. Um, he was Heisman final was this year. So, so it's hard to continue to play the Stetson Bennett, no respect card.

Um, but I think over the course of his career, he has proven that he is better than we have given him credit for. Now let's not act like he had a virtuoso performance and the college will play off semi-final or even the national championship game last year. Like most of those two games, they were fighting him to stay in the game. Um, Ohio state probably should have had three interceptions for halftime in that game. They had one, there was one in the end zone, one right before half, uh, that they got their hands on those. And again, like those bounces didn't go Ohio state's way. They went Georgia's way, but in crunch time, that's the most fantastic.

The throws that he made to help them come back was great. So, so yeah, so I think you, you sort of ride the wave of Stetson Bennett and in these clutch games, Georgia is good enough to allow him to get away with them a mistake or two. Um, whereas some teams aren't that fortunate with their quarterback, you may have a quarterback that's the same talent level as Stetson Bennett, and it never gets to crunch time because you can't overcome the mistakes that they make early in the game. But with Georgia, they're so talented everywhere else that, um, that no matter the mistakes that he makes, they're usually still in the game and it gets them a crunch time and he's fantastic in crunch time. So, so I think both of those things can be true at the same time. And when we talk about good fortune, I mean, Ohio state had a defensive back slip and player running wide open down the field and areas, this long touchdown, like if that guy doesn't fall down, just doesn't even throw that ball complete that ball.

Does he score? Like there's all these questions that could be asked over the course of the football game, but Stetson Bennett has proved over the course of the career that when it comes down to it and it's winning time, he is a winner and he finds a way. My only argument to that is a finishing second in the Heisman or a runner up in the Heisman trophy is that I can't even, I can't even gather how, what percentage of voters vote for the quarterback of the best team automatically. So I just, I mean, as a voter, I try never, never to do that.

I did not put Stetson Bennett on my final three, my ballot, he was not there. But it's so many people, so many people do that. If Georgia wins, why will they win?

Um, because they're a machine. Um, I think Georgia is the answer to what would happen if you took Alabama and what Nick Saban has done over the last 15 years or so, what would you, what would happen if you put it in a bigger state, a bigger state that honestly is a sort of the same, well, it's not the same as Alabama because Alabama has two schools. What would you do if you put that, that, that school in a bigger state with more talent and a state that is much more of a one state school, like Georgia is a one state school. I went to Georgia tech and I really admit that Georgia is the school of the state.

Like the chances of those guys growing up rooting for any other team are pretty slim. Um, Georgia is the answer. Like Atlanta is where Nick Saban has to go to get a guy like will Anderson and numerous others like Jameer Gibbs, their leading restaurants are transferred from Georgia tech. But even if they had gotten him out of high school, like you got adult Georgia. So, so Georgia doesn't have to go anywhere to get the ball players.

Now it certainly does. Like it goes to California and gets a Brock Bowers, but that's the luxury that they have. Um, so like Georgia is, is more talented, the most talented team in the country.

They've got as many resources as anybody in the country. It's a, again, like compared to Alabama, the population of Georgia is bigger. So the depth of booster or the breadth of booster that you can get is bigger, um, because of how big the state is because of how, how much money there is in the city of Atlanta.

And so I think Georgia is what would happen if you supercharge Alabama. And that's why if they win it's because of that, they're more physical on the lines of scrimmage. Ultimately it's a big person game and there's no state in the country that's better at putting out big people than the state of Georgia. There's no school in the country that's done a better job of amassing the numbers of big people, offensive and defensive linemen, uh, than the university of Georgia.

So that's why they'll win. It is remarkable. Roddy Jones. Yes.

From, uh, from Georgia tech, uh, throwing not, not throwing shade. They're just speaking facts really. It's a reality that we all live with a second. You are fighting it on build battle, but you must like break key. Oh, I love breaking. Yep. I think break key is going to do an excellent job because he will give you all of the ideas that Jeff Collins tried to implement about the city, uh, what it means, the connection to the state with a lot of the substance that you get from a guy who coached under Nick Saban and Georgia O'Leary.

All right. Final thing for Roddy Jones. If TCU wins this game, why I think it is the same game plan that they had against Michigan and the same sort of path that they had against Michigan, just without their own turnovers, if you turn the ball over three times in that game. So if they beat Georgia, they'll have to create turnovers, uh, probably turn one, if not two or multiple turnovers into touchdown, um, and then challenge Georgia secondary down the field, you have to mitigate what Georgia is able to do from a blitz perspective by beating them. When they do it, you have to win one-on-one battles down the field with those defensive backs to force them out of blitzing so that you can give max Duggan some time. And then the creativity of, of Garrett Riley, if I were them, and this is much easier for TCU to do in a week than it is for Georgia to do in a week, you find all of the things that have given Georgia trouble this year and try and incorporate them into your game plan with shifts, motions, get their cleats out of the ground, pre snap on defense and, uh, and, and, and, and try and figure out how you can make them play slower. Cause it's the fastest, most physical defense in the country. They haven't always been great. Uh, but they have been very, very, very good the entire year. So, and then on defense, they're going to have to create turnovers because they're not going to stop Georgia consistently.