Mike Sanford Jr., Former College Football Head Coach

Coach, appreciate the time. How are you? I'm doing awesome, Zach. I'm just like you, man. I got my brisket ready to go. I'm ready for this football palooza for the next five days. It's that time of year, man. If you're anything like me, I can barely sleep. I'm so excited to watch these games. I'm already in love here with this conversation.

I don't even need your football analysis anymore. Brisket, that's a power move right there, coach. Tell you what, man.

Farmers Market's out here in ranch land out here in Colorado, man. There's some pretty impressive briskets out there for sale. So I got a nice nine and a half pounder waiting to get smoked and my family's ready for it.

I just told them it's got to be football season before we fire that thing in the big green egg. So looking forward to talking some football with you, man. I appreciate you having me on. Yeah, so on Saturday, I got to hear more about the brisket. You have the brisket. What else do you have with the brisket? I mean, I'm in charge of the meat, you know. I'll take care of the protein. My wife is an unbelievable cook with everything else, so I trust that she'll get her job done and do it very well, but I'm going to make sure that that brisket comes off perfect with the perfect amount of moisture content, low in flow, no more than two and a quarter. So yeah, it's going to be a heck of a weekend.

It sounds great. Well, I know you're going to be watching Boise State, Washington. Your alma mater going up against Washington and what a quarterback matchup we have with Taylor Green of Boise State going up against Michael Penix at Washington, who last year made a big push to try to be a Heisman Trophy finalist.

Yeah, Michael Penix Jr., start with him. I had a chance to coach up in Seattle against him. I was in the Big Ten at Minnesota as the offense coordinator as well, and so I saw him while he was at Indiana, and he really jumped off the screen to all of us back in the COVID year of 2020. That pylon stretching touchdown to beat Penn State kind of was his coming-of-age moment, and what I'm so impressed with him is, you know, he was really athletic, kind of a bit of a runner early in his career, had an ACL, has had a shoulder, and last season, seeing him firsthand, I mean, the amount of throws that he makes, the full catalog. I mean, we're talking back shoulder throws, perfect touch balls, driven balls.

I mean, the field cover two hole shot he threw against Oregon last season might have been the best ball placement I saw in college football last year, so I'm excited to watch how my Boise State Bronco defense defends him and his slew of weapons starting with Roma Dunze, so it's going to be a battle up there in Seattle, and I'm looking forward to seeing the Broncos go up there and do what we've always done, man, try to knock off a giant. So it got me thinking with what you were saying about Michael Penix Jr., and I love the way that you laid it out, because when he was at Indiana, there was ups and downs, right? Same thing with Bo Nix when he was at Auburn.

Both those guys go to new schools. Penix Jr., as you just said, had a monster season last year, so did Bo Nix as well. Is there at all concern about either of those two players and not only be able to replicate what they did a year ago, but to even get better off of it? I think Michael Penix Jr. will get even better.

Just one more year in a settled system. Kalen DeBoer was with him and recruited him at Indiana, so there was familiarity a year ago, but there was a three-year gap between when he played under Kalen DeBoer and Ryan Grubbs at Indiana, and now obviously he's doing kind of back to what he did and had success with early in his Indiana career. I think he's going to take that next step, and not only that in his system, but also just to have that many returning weapons at the receiver position at Washington. Polk, McMillan, the running back position is very good. Offensive lines have been a strength of theirs. I think that offense is going to be very dynamic, and the craziest thing about it is that Washington's strength of their entire football roster isn't even their offensive skill. It might be their defensive front seven. You look at it, it's a fifth-year senior, six-year senior across the board, and I think that they are a team that will be around. Certainly in the CFP conversation, we'll get into November. So, the school that you were at the last few years, Colorado, or last year I should say with Colorado, he ended up becoming the interim head coach as Coach Mike Sanford Jr. is here with us.

It's totally different now. You bring in Deion Sanders. A lot comes with that, and you know you have Shadore Sanders.

You have Travis Hunter Jr. as well. Big matchup early on against TCU. How about the direction of the Colorado program as they get ready to embark year one of Coach Prime? Well, first off, I have to go study the roster because I don't really know anybody. There's only about seven or eight scholarship players that remained from the team a year ago. Clearly, this team has been handpicked by Deion Sanders and his staff. Obviously, with Deion Sanders coming in, his notoriety as a baseball player, as obviously an all-pro football player, Hall of Famer in football, there's always going to be eyeballs on the bus. It's certainly going to be a game that every single one of us is going to tune into on Saturday morning. I believe it's 1230 Eastern time when they go to TCU.

Just a thing to look out for. This has never been done in college football. You're looking at, I think it's 86 new players total on the roster. Just what that looks like in week one.

Obviously, are they in sync? Everybody's playing on the same page. Where I think you're going to see some of the issues might be in the line play, and not because they don't have good players, but because of just playing together and quote-unquote gelling in the line play. I do think, I predict that CU will go up early in that game.

I think that they have skilled players on the perimeter, and then it's just going to be about weathering the storm. TCU's got a lot of skill as well. Yeah, I know that the big talking point is all about Colorado, but I'm also curious about TCU because Sonny Dykes has been around the block for a long time, right? Had another new head coaching job. Last year, they get to the national championship game. Yeah, they lost Quinnen Johnson.

They lost Max Duggan, but I also think things that people forget here with how much we talked about Duggan last year. Chandler Morris was the starter last year at the beginning of the season, then got hurt, so I'm curious to see what Chandler Morris is going to be able to do this season. Yeah, he, in fact, last year when I was the offensive coordinator at CU, we opened up hosting TCU, and really for two and a half quarters, it was a really good football game. You know, nobody really knew what TCU was with the brand new coaching staff. Certainly, we didn't know that there were going to be a CFP, you know, play in the national championship game, but Chandler Morris was the starting quarterback and was running around making plays, looked really good, and got hurt in that game in Boulder, Colorado, so this is going to be a game where he gets back under the saddle.

I think he is, there is a reason that he was the starter going into last season. He's had one of those careers which had to overcome a whole lot of adversity, so I'm excited to watch Chandler Morris. I think he is going to present some problems, I think, from his mobility is definitely something that's going to pose problems for for CU, just because he gets outside of the pocket, he gets rid of the ball effectively, and, you know, son of a coach, so I think it's going to be a fun matchup to watch.

Coach Mike Sanford, Jr., here with us. When we get to UNC South Carolina, that's another game with the big quarterback matchup. You have Spencer Rattler going up against Drake May, who could be the second overall pick in this draft.

Who do you give the edge to in that contest? You know, I just love what Shane Beamer has been doing at South Carolina, you know, a former defensive coordinator of mine at Western Kentucky. Clayton White has done a fantastic job on the defensive side of the ball, but, you know, as that season wore on, Spencer Rattler's confidence just grew exponentially. I think he's going to play a really good football game. You know, I think it's going to be a pro South Carolina crowd, even though it's in a neutral side crowd. They travel extremely well, the Gamecocks do, and I think that they're going to edge out North Carolina. It's going to be a close game.

It might be the game that we're all talking about on Sunday and Monday. I think that Drake May is a player. I personally haven't necessarily bought the hype yet, but I haven't had much time to watch him, to be quite honest, and this fall I'm going to have my eyes on Drake May and just see what his skill set is as we go into this, you know, this next draft class, because I've seen Caleb Williams first hand, and he is a dude, and I've seen Michael Pennix first hand, he's a dude, and then you can go down to different guys in the conference in Pac-12. There's quarterbacks all over the place, so I think the standard's been set pretty high with the Pac-12 in its last year with the quarterback play.

Yeah, there's so many names inside the Pac-12 and the Pac-12 shaped it up to be a great conference this year. The question just is, will they beat up on one another too much, or they're on the outside looking in the college football playoff, but I'm also curious what D.J. Ungolale does this year, because we talked about, right, Bo Nix and Michael Pennix Jr. bouncing back from adversity. I wonder if D.J. could do that this year.

I think D.J. 's in a perfect situation up in Corvallis, you know, playing up there last season, their line play, their ground in town run attack. He doesn't necessarily have to be in such a quarterback-driven run game like Clemson has been traditionally over the last decade, you know, and that's, I don't think something he was as comfortable with.

He certainly is able to do it, but he's going to be able to run more of a pro-style attack, and I think with his height, his length, his ability to make throws down the field, I think it's going to be a great situation for him, and you know, even if he, you know, doesn't throw the ball 30 times to 50 times a game, I think he's going to love having such a good ground game to set up the nakeds and the bootlegs and the play actions, and I think D.J. has a really good year, but I think they're going to be a really good football team, a thorough team, and if I'm a conference out there, I'm trying to get the Oregon State Beavers, because what they built up there, both in the football program and facilities, it's just, it's a shame that right now they're almost homeless right now relative to a conference. Let me get to a school that you were the offensive coordinator at, of course the Notre Dame Fighting Irish. I know they were going up against Navy, but they still won the game 42 to 3 and played a pretty flawless game.

It was good to see Sam Hartman get off to the right start. We all know the quarterback he could be. Ultimately, this Notre Dame season is going to come down to those three games, Ohio State, USC, and Clemson, but how dangerous of a team do you think Notre Dame is this year? Notre Dame's going to be, I think they're going to be the class of college football with regards to line play, and particularly on the offensive line. I saw that was the storyline for me coming out of week zero is just how incredibly dominant Notre Dame's offensive line was, and you could say it's against the Naval Academy. What I would say to that is a lot of teams are going to open up with FCS and even non-scholarship FCS programs in their opening week.

This is Navy. This is a team that's won double digit games in the last 10 years multiple times. That offensive line was truly recreating a line of scrimmage to the point where if you freeze the ball, when the ball was put into the running back's belly from the shotgun, that line had moved two to four yards almost on a consistent basis. I just see that they're coached well. They play extremely hard.

I think Joe Rudolph, former offensive line coach from Wisconsin, now at Notre Dame, he's made a tremendous impact. I was fortunate enough to be there in 2015, and our offensive line consisted of Mike McGlinchey, Quentin Nelson, Ronnie Stanley, Nick Martin, and I think that this offensive line at Notre Dame rivals that group. I think that's going to be the name of the game for them is riding their physicality, their big backs, and the question is going to be down the stretch for them. Do they have the dynamic playmakers out on the perimeter?

I see length. I see size, but do you see that make you miss like I saw with Zachariah Branch at SC? I haven't seen that yet from Notre Dame. Mike Sanford Jr. here with us. What does LSU Florida State come down to last year?

We know it came down to the kicker at the end, but the way that we talk about this game is much differently than last year because both these programs at the end of the season were playing some great football. Yeah, I really like Jayden Daniels. I like him when he was at Arizona State and just tracking his growth, even seeing draft reports recently that say he's going to be a receiver in the NFL. I think he's a quarterback, and I think people are making the same mistake about Jayden Daniels and how they're projecting him just like they did with DTR, and we've seen what DTR did in this preseason for the Browns. I think he's that similar type of player.

He just has a little bit more length than DTR. It can be in the pocket, out of the pocket last year, almost having a thousand yards rushing. I think that LSU is going to win this football game. I personally like Florida State. I think that both programs are in a completely different space than they were going into game one last year, but I personally see that LSU has too much firepower, and I think they're going to win this football game. How about Texas?

The Big 12 this year, I think you have a lot of good teams. I don't know if you have any great teams, but are you a believer in Quinn Ewers, SARC, and this Texas program? Well, I think Quinn Ewers has clearly won the starting battle at the quarterback position, and two tremendous backup options, which is a blessing, and it's also a curse in Malik Murphy and Arch Manning. I think that's going to be a storyline, that it's going to be looming over both Steve Sarkeesian's head, over his shoulder this whole season, and certainly Quinn Ewers.

The eyes of Texas, as they used to say, they're going to be watching that very closely. Quinn's going to have to play really good football to silence the doubters. I think that's added pressure to a program that needs to deliver this year.

I think they've done a good job in recruiting, and I think this has to be a good year for Quinn, and I think that we saw the progress in the tail end of last season, and obviously it ended up in a loss to University of Washington in the bowl game, but there were a lot of really positive things to take out of Quinn Ewers' game from the end of that season. Last thing I'll ask you, I always find it funny with college coaches about the depth chart games. Nick Saban's not even going to tell us who his quarterback is.

Ohio State says, yeah, it's Kyle McCord, but also Devin Brown's going to play as well. What do you kind of make of also Ohio State and then Alabama this year with the uncertainty of their quarterbacks? I mean, as coaches, we're all anxious.

We all have extreme levels of paranoia. It's fun for me to be on the outside looking in now and just almost snicker at some of the tactics that we all employ as coaches, but there are some schematic advantages. I mean, if you have a quarterback battle that's going on right up until the very first game of the season, there might be two completely different skill sets that a defense has to prepare for, and a defense coordinator might have to double their call sheet with regards to containing an athletic quarterback that presents a threat in the quarterback run game or the auction game on the perimeter or a traditional dropback player where you just have to play your gaps and play of sound.

You know, so I can see the benefit of doing so, but at the end of the day, once you've played your opener, you pretty much show your cards and then obviously get into the season, and then it becomes the same game with injury reports, which we're already seeing with Cam Rising in Utah, and there's certainly a lot of games and tactics being played there as the Gators come to rice cycle stadium in Salt Lake. Well, coach, enjoy the brisket. You know, my sister lives in Centennial now, so next time I'm in Colorado, I may have to go try some, but really to appreciate the time today. Great insight, and we'll definitely have you on again throughout the season. Hey, I really appreciate it, Zach. Great being on, and anytime you want brisket, man, we'll fire it up. I've had a couple bad times firing them up, and I'm ready for some really, really good briskets.

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