CFB Team With Most Pressure This Weekend (Hour 3)

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Is this right? Hold on. I was just about to toss it to a news brief. Like, you consider Ryan Dunleavy a really good journalist, uh, hickey, right, for the New York Post? Yeah, he does a really good job covering the NFL.

I remember when he used to be on the Rutgers beat. So if he's quote-tweeting something from Dov Kleinman, you would think that it's pretty accurate, correct, Amundo? You would hope and you would think. Did you see the latest thing that is out there? Uh, I guess not.

Now, I don't know if this is a parody from the whole Taylor Swift, Travis Kelsey thing where everyone's now like quietly hanging out. Remember the wording in that report? But on Dov Kleinman's Twitter report, have you looked at it yet? Please don't look at it. Have you already seen it?

No, I have not. Who do you think Kim Kardashian is now hanging out with according to People magazine? Is it in the sports world or no? It is in the sports world. Um, hmm. I'll tell you this. I'll give you a hint. Current NFL player, if you want to call him that, but a current NFL player.

Um, what was that last part for? If you want to call him that. Ah, just not always healthy. Not always healthy. Not always healthy.

We have talked about him a lot. Current NFL player. In the last 10 years.

In the last 10 years, good player can stay healthy. Are you just repeating everything I say now? I'm trying to buy time.

You need more hints here? Yes. Offense or defense? Offense.

Used to be an offensive star. Which makes sense. So I'm thinking res- If we interviewed Kim K, we'd have to ask if he liked one certain fetish that he's been accused of before. Is it Odell Beckham Jr.? Yep, I knew that.

That would make sense. You remember the little number two fetish that he may have Odell Beckham Jr. Also, celebrity kind of loves the fame maybe more than the game. Kim Kardashian and Ravens wide receiver Odell Beckham are hanging out according to People. An insider tells People that Kim Kardashian and the NFL wide receiver are getting to know one another. From the report, the insider confirms that the Kardashian star and the Baltimore Ravens wide receiver are hanging out. Multiple sources also add that the 30-year-old NFL pro and his long-time model girlfriend, Lauren Wood, have officially split. So there you go on that front.

Oh yeah, that's right. She was pregnant for the Super Bowl. How much do we really buy that- Like, it's not inconceivable that Odell Beckham Jr. and Kim Kardashian are hanging out.

But, remember at the Michael Rubin whiteout party? There was all these insider reports that, oh, Tom Brady and Kim Kardashian were a little touchy at that party. And the next thing you know, Tom Brady's dating some other model. And who even knows if him and Kim Kardashian were ever actually a thing. So, I don't know how much to believe this one. It is coming from People Magazine though. There's a difference between, oh, they were seen at a party talking and maybe being too close versus a report of, oh, they've been hanging out.

I would put stock into this. That screams OBJ. Here's the thing though. And really, Kim K too. I love Kim Kardashian. I don't think I could date Kim Kardashian for one reason. If I was Odell Beckham Jr. Now, Odell is never afraid to throw himself into some crazy situations with some crazy drama.

There's no doubt about that. But do you really want the inevitable wrath of Kanye West, Kim Kardashian's ex-husband? That to me, I think it's tough because Kanye, remember right when Pete David, whatever happened to Pete Davidson and Kim K? When did they split? You knew that was inevitable.

They were going to split. But remember the stuff that Kanye West was posting about Pete Davidson. So, I don't know if, like, I know you're a star in Odell.

I don't know if you want to deal with the inevitable freak out by Kanye West if you are seeing Kim Kardashian. You never want to be the guy replacing Tom Brady, the guy replacing Nick Saban in Alabama. Well, we don't know if Odell is replacing Brady here in the Kim Kardashian situation.

I don't think that's how you meant it. You never want to be the guy replacing the guy. You want to be the guy replacing the guy who replaced the guy. Pete Davidson was the guy who replaced the guy. He replaced Kanye West. He was the first person. That we know of. Now, if you're OBJ following it in Pete Davidson and maybe someone else's footsteps. Probably a few others, I would imagine. You're probably in the clear for the most part with Kanye.

So, I think you should be fine. What do you got to worry about? I don't think you can handicap Kanye West here. Well, true. If you're trying to predict what mood Kanye West is going to wake up in, especially with your track record, Hickey, you could be my guest.

I will not make that mistake. I'll say it seems Kanye's a little tied up at the moment, so maybe his focus is elsewhere. Like that's prevented him before. And I think if you're Odell, you don't got to worry about looking over your shoulder every two seconds of if Kanye's going to beat you up or something.

Or make a diss track. I don't think it's being afraid that Kanye's going to beat you up. I think it's just whatever he's going to post about you is going to be a bunch of bull junk, as Deion Sanders would say. And for a lot of stuff he's posted in the past, I think he's lost himself a lot of credibility. Oh, he has no credibility. So whatever he posts, I'm not sure how many people are going to believe in the first place. Put it this way, my friends and I, we were talking and we used to go to a bunch of Kanye West shows.

It's like even if you wanted to go to a Kanye West show now, how could you actually believe that he's going to go on with the show before lecturing everyone and then running off the stage and not actually performing and playing some music for you too? Anyway, that's the latest on the Nookie front when it comes with Kim Kardashian and who she could be hanging out with with all the gossip blogs. Ankle injury. Hope the Kardashian curse is not already started for OBJ here. Well, let's see this. Are the Ravens home this weekend? That's the big question. They are. They are against the Colts. Listen, distracted OBJ is good for me. Young corners, their assignment got a little easier. You think the Colts are winning this game?

No, I do not. I'm just saying. Actually, that would actually be pretty fun. You got Kim Kardashian on the sidelines in Baltimore this weekend.

That would be good. I think that would make it would make me want to watch that game. You know who we need announcing that game. I don't know who's announcing the game. I'm assuming it's not this great announcing team, but Jim Nantz is doing the Patriot jet game. But that was probably scheduled before the start of the season. Is he really going to be there?

Yeah, it makes sense. The A crew for Jets Patriots week three. If I an eagle isn't he's on assignment, but I don't know where he is. I would love I an eagle to be doing the Ravens game this weekend with all the references.

He was throwing about Taylor Swift and and Travis Kelsey. Imagine if he starts doing some Odell and and Kim Kardashian references. That would be fun.

Be very enjoyable. Let's get I an eagle. Let's get the bird to land in Baltimore this weekend for Colts and Ravens.

I think you're going to say Brent Musburger. And that kids is why you play wide receiver. It's a panic in Canada sidelines. Okay, if you have sons right now, tell them play wide receiver. That's why you're the quarterback at Alabama. Alabama already news brief time.

Let's go. Time for your daily news brief. We get you caught up on the rumors reports and reconnaissance from the day in sports.

Kevin Stefanski. He says the entire offense was bad last night on Monday Night Football. We just didn't play well as an offense.

Obviously have to look at it. There were some throws. I'm sure he wants back. There's some play calls. I want back.

So it's you're really just not good enough as a team. So someone who's a liar, Deshaun Watson. We all saw the video. He made contact with the refs before we play the audio. I do think the situation is a little overblown. Like you got to know as a quarterback, you can't make contact with the ref, but I don't think it was in a malicious way. There was a lot of back and forth going on and the ref and him had an exchange and he was trying to shed the ref off of them. I'm not excusing Deshaun Watson.

But when I watched that it wasn't as if I was like, oh my goodness gracious is the craziest thing that I've ever seen. You know, I don't like people always say don't have the refs decide the game whether it's a bad penalty and they inject themselves people last night on Twitter and I get it's Twitter wanted Deshaun Watson ejected for shoving the ref. But at the same time like all the referees don't you know, please let the players decide the outcome of the game.

If you eject Deshaun Watson from the game and know they lost eventually they're losing right there. Can't have both ways. But we could both agree even though we're in the same line of thinking we could also both agree that he did make contact with the ref. Oh, no, he did. Was it egregious enough to get thrown out? No. Should have gotten a flag?

Probably. But he made contact with the ref, correct? It is clear to use a phrase you love from the TV refs.

It was clear and obvious. You watch the film and watch the game his hands were on the referee. Well habitual liar Deshaun Watson says he never made contact with the ref. No, the man the ref was having a conversation.

There was no contact with the ref. We were having a conversation. The whole thing on the sideline was and I'm not going to get into it. You know, we spoke about it man that coach for the Steelers. So we're on good terms. I'm you know, I'm not going to speak on that. But yeah, we wasn't there was no contact with the ref.

Yeah, me and him was talking about the CIF form and he was just getting me on the way and I was just letting him know what was going on. Hickey, let's just put it this way. Let's say I just called you stupid.

Right? I get on the radio go Ryan Hickey is a stupid human being. Then a reporter goes. Hey Zach. Why did you call Ryan stupid? I never called Ryan stupid. I would never call Ryan stupid. I think Ryan is intelligent. I never called him stupid.

It's like we all see the video. I don't think he should have been ejected but you made contact with the ref and he's like, oh, I didn't make any contact with the ref. He's so unlikable for many reasons of Shawn Watson, but this dude just loves to lie. Let's go to Mike Tomlin.

He responds to fans chanting fire his offensive coordinator Matt Canada, man. We don't run from challenges. We run to challenges.

This is a sport entertainment business. It is our job to win and thus entertain them. And so, you know, we don't begrudge them for that.

We want them to be fat and sassy and spoiled. It is our job. We should play a game here. I used to do this with Belicheck whenever we would play audio and you'd have no clue if they won or lost and we would try to guess it.

Maybe you should start doing that with Mike Tomlin, like that one was obvious, but I do feel like even in wins, it's sometimes sounds like the same Mike Tomlin as we just heard that annoyed with a loss. They did win though. That's the funny part. Oh yeah, true. You're right. You know when you say, Oh, they lost the game. Yeah, you're right in the game. Now this offense was bad and deservedly so you can feel that way about how ugly it was, but painful.

Yeah. As Herman would say, they won the game. He just mind bleeped me there where we just talked about it last hour, how the Steelers won the game, but doesn't it sound like he lost right there? And the crowd for 95% of the game would have told you they lost the game and the crowd's not wrong. The offense stumped. Right? No, they're in the right. That's how ugly of an offensive game was and how impossible it is to win when your offense is that bad.

And they managed, I guess, I guess credit to them, but they managed to win the game. But coming up tomorrow, coming up later on the Zach Gelb show, I'm cutting the promo for you now. Right? Right now. Hickey is Mike Tomlin and Bill Belichick ever happy.

Find out 6 p.m. Eastern three Pacific. If coach prime is the best motivational speaker in college football, isn't Mike Tomlin the best quoted motivational speaker in the NFL? I love the one liners that Mike Tomlin has. He mo. Yes. Motivational.

Yes. I do love Bill Belichick and his one liners. The literally the one word he says.

But Tomlin's number one, long snapper, long snapper, long snapper. Let's go to TJ Watt on why he isn't worried about setting the Steelers all time sack record. I don't know. I say there's so much ball left to play for me that I'm not going to think about anything like that until I'm done playing.

I'm just trying to make as many plays as possible in as many games and try to be a positive contributor for this team. I would imagine there's a newspaper writer there for that response. That is just throwing things in the press room.

You have TJ Watt, an historic franchise, set the all time Steelers sack record. And the next thing you know, you're trying to get this big quote, whether it's your TV or for it's an article about what it means to you. And he basically just said, it means nothing to me. We'll do reflections at the end of the career. Classic Watt response right there.

It's all family. Let's go to Derek Carr, Saints win, but the offense didn't look great. He says there is plenty of room for improvement. There's so much that we have to clean up, but it feels so good to clean it up when you win. You know, like I said outside, like we're 2-0 and I don't think that we've played at the level that we're all expecting to play at yet, but we're going to keep striving. We're going to keep working and make those corrections, but it feels good to do it with a win for sure. So they won two games. You got to give him credit. He's made two big throws in two games.

I don't know though. I just don't see it with the Saints this year. I will hitch my wagon to the Falcons who I picked before the year. And even before I go to the Saints hickey, I would go with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. The Panthers are definitely last in that division.

Yes, they are definitely by right now the pinata, but you're right. Like the Saints, even though they're 2-0, out of those three teams give you by far the least amount of optimism. Let's go to Brian Deball. Even though Adam Schefter is saying that Saquon Barkley is going to be out for three weeks, Brian Deball is saying he's not ruling out Saquon Barkley for Thursday Night Football up against the Niners. I'm not saying that he's out yet.

He's a quick healer. I'm not saying he's in. He's out. We're going to take it all the way up with him to Thursday, but he feels a lot better today.

I just talked to him. So we'll see where we're at. You think he's playing Thursday? I'd be shocked. No chance. No chance.

Maybe it's closer than what we thought and it's not going to be three weeks, but I don't see how he's playing on Thursday night. Let's go to Coach Prine, Deion Sanders. He says Colorado State's defensive back Henry Blackburn, who was the player that put the dirty hit on Travis Hunter, doesn't deserve to receive death threats for his hit on Travis Hunter, which is the truest thing ever, but I love the way that Deion Sanders handled this. Henry Blackburn is a good player who played a phenomenal game. He made a tremendous hit on Trappers on the sideline.

You could call it dirty. You could call it he was just playing the game of football, but whatever it was, it does not constitute that he should be receiving death threats. This is still a young man trying to make it in life, a guy that's trying to live his dream and hopefully graduate with honors or degree, committed to excellence and go to the NFL. He does not deserve a death threat over a game. At the end of the day, this is a game. Someone must win, someone must lose.

Everybody continues their life the next day. Very unfortunate. I'm saddened if there's any of our fans that's on the other side of those threats. I would hope and pray not, but that kid was just playing the best of his ability and he made a mistake. So I forgive him.

See you. My team forgive him, Travis is, he's forgiven him. Let's move on. But that kid does not deserve that.

It's so crazy that that's the world that we live in now. Like don't get me wrong. It was a dirty hit, but we've seen a lot worse hits on a football field that were dirty or not justifying the hit. And for someone to send death threats to this kid and his family, it's like, I know probably 95% of the people doing it are trolling, but like how dumb do you have to be? It's just one of those situations where you wonder, I know it's sports and we all are passionate about it, but like, how dumb are you?

Like do you have a life outside of sports? If you're sending a player, a kid, death threats because you didn't like a hit that he put on in a game. Just dumb. That, the Alexander Madison disgusting messages he got.

It's a fortune of mine, there's a lot of sick people out there, a lot of sick people that have no regard for human life. I don't know all the details of it, but you see a Patriot fan died at the Patriot game this weekend because a dolphin fan beat him up. Yes, I did see that. So from one account, I was hoping it was false. I guess not. It's crazy. Hopefully he's, if that's true, charge a murder and throw him, lock him up. Very sad. Travis Hunter, last one, and then we'll get to Jared Versa, the other side for the Florida State football team says he has no hard feelings toward Henry Blackburn.

This court is a courtesy of bleacher report. This football day, at the end of the day, stuff like that is going to happen, so I just stay humble. I mean, Hey, you did what he was supposed to do, it's football, something bad is going to happen on the field, something up later.

He's got to get up and fight again. That's what I tried to do. You know, before I, then the doctor stopped me because if there was no doctors there, I would have still been out there playing, but I don't think for everybody to help me that day, it ain't going to work, it's going to be a speedy recovery. That's also the craziest part. The player who was affected by it and then the coach who was affected by it, they're, they're the ones that have to say, guys, stop what you're doing. It's football.

It happens even though it was a dirty play. But then you have idiots that are like, Oh, let's send Henry Blackburn death threats. And like, if you want to suspend him, okay, that's fine.

But this idea that I see from people that he should like lose his scholarship and be expelled from the university. What the heck are we doing? Sometimes people just don't get it. And they do very stupid things. Great story.

Florida State defensive lineman projected top five pick in the draft, Jared verse will join us next before his big game against Clemson. Facts are facts like how contributing to employees financial security makes them want to work harder for their company. In fact, according to a 2023 study by principle, 87% of employers say that better employee financial security means employees are more engaged and productive at work. The fact of the matter is that employees want to feel financially secure in their future. So consider this principle helps you invest in your employees by providing customized benefits and retirement plans to help keep your employees more engaged and productive. When you take care of your team, they take care of business.

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Ask your doctor or pharmacist to learn more and schedule on the CDC's vaccines.gov. Sponsored by Pfizer and BioNTech. You're listening to the Zach Gelb show. We continue this Zach Gelb show coast to coast on CBS Sports Radio. We'll go out to the guest line right now and welcome in one of the better defensive players in the country.

Part of the undefeated fourth ranked Florida State Seminoles. Big matchup this weekend up against Clemson and that is Jared Vers here with us on the Zach Gelb show. Jared, appreciate the time as always. How are you? I'm good. I'm good. Thank you for having me.

Well, thank you so much for coming on. We'll talk about your great story in just a second. But first I got to talk about the toughness of your quarterback, Jordan Travis. We all know he's one of the better quarterbacks in the country, but last weekend getting hurt coming back to the game and playing the way that he did to secure a victory. Just what really impressed you about Jordan?

That's that dog mentality. That's something he's always had. You know, he's always been overlooked and everything like that. So when he has the opportunity, even when he's hurt, when he's down, he's still gonna come and give everything he has for the team, for us, for the offense to get everybody going. That's something that when me as even a defensive player, where his impact is something like it doesn't directly affect me. I'm not the one catching his touchdowns.

I'm not the one throwing the ball or catching his, grabbing his handoffs. But you still see that you're like, I work better for that guy because he's going to give everything he has. How do you kind of describe his leadership skills?

Right. You're the leader on the defensive side of the ball. He's the leader on the offensive side of the ball.

What do you kind of take from him to make you a better leader on the football team? Definitely his poise. He never gets too high. He never gets too low. You know, after a touchdown, you don't see him going crazy.

They all hiked up with anything like that. He's just like, we'll call him. He's like, alright, we got to do something next. That's something I try to take away. Like, we have a bad snap as a defensive unit, if something, they have, the offense has a big play against us, I'm like, alright, that just happened. Let's move on from him. We're not going to think about it right now.

We'll think about that later. Right now, we got to handle this next play. What do you take from the BC game? I think a lot of people, including myself, thought that was going to be a lopsided game where you guys are going to blow them out. You end up winning by two points, which is important. But what's the overall message you guys latch on to from that game? Don't ever overlook your opponent. Every player we go, every team we go up against is somebody that's great. They're going to play harder against us, they're going to try to knock us off. You know, we have something great going and everyone wants to destroy that. Everyone wants to do that because they want to do what's best for their season too. And beating us is something that's great for anybody's season, no matter, like it's a win on the record.

That's just how it is. So that's how we can, we just focus on being us, being better, going in there with the right mindset. We don't have the right mindset and we were lucky to get out there with a win. But you know, that's why I always live by a little quote, you know, be good enough on your worst day, you can beat your opponent on their best. And we were lucky to have that on Saturday, but we can't let that happen again.

Is that what you have felt like happened? Maybe too many guys were looking ahead to next week with the big hype about the Clemson game where you guys just did overlook BC? I think we definitely did overlook BC. They're a great team. You know, they have a fast quarterback, fast athletic, you know, their offensive line is with their pretty sturdy team, like their strong team, their good all across the board. But I think we kind of just try to look past them. And then once they hit us in the mouth, we're like, all right, we can't do that. Like this team, they're in front of us right now. We are locked in. And for a good amount of time, we locked in. We had to build our lead. I think we got comfortable again mid-game and then that's where they started to come back.

Might have to come back and get like that. We were like, all right, lock in. Like put our foot in the ground. I think that was a good lesson that every team needs to learn, like no matter across the board, any team needs to learn that lesson.

Jared Vers here with us. So you take a look at Clemson. We all know they've been the standard in the ACC. They've won the conference seven out of the last eight years. This Florida State program has not had a victory up against Clemson since 2014.

For you, with how highly touted your team is this year, do you feel as if this is a moment to show that, hey, Florida State now runs the ACC and that you guys are the top dog in this conference this Saturday? I wouldn't say anything like that. You know, that's something that I definitely will let the fans say.

I'll let, you know, people outside this building say that. But the people in this building, the people in this locker room, we're focused on one game at a time. We're not worried about being the top. We're worried about being our best. If we're our best, everything else will come along with it.

But on Saturday, we just got to show up our best in another new kickoff games and earlier game and stuff like that. They're a great team. You know, we're watching them. We're dissecting them and everything like that. Like they're doing us. And they're a good team. So we can't get too high, get too low against them. We got to go up and just give them our best. What stands out to you about them first? Is it the quarterback in Klubnick or is it the great running back in Shipley when you're getting ready to defend and prepare for them?

I think they go hand in hand. You know, we play a lot of great quarterbacks. Last week we played a great running back or a great quarterback, you know, running around everything like that. The week before or the first week we played, Jayden Daniels, a great quarterback that can run really use his feet. And this week we played a great running back quarterback duo. That's something that we don't see too crazy often.

You know, when you see great running backs, you don't see like great running backs, which is what Shipley is. So that's something we definitely have to focus on. That's definitely a threat that they can definitely use against us because it goes both ways.

You got to be prepared for whatever they do. You guys made such a big statement in week one. I picked you guys before the year to win the ACC. I think you guys are a heck of a football team. When you make a huge statement like that blowing out LSU, I think it's kind of tough to keep it week by week.

As a leader of this team, how do you make sure that everyone else is just focused in on the opponent week in and week out so this team could go where you guys expect to go at the end of the year? A lot of us are transfers from other schools, you know, schools that, some of us went to schools that were like really highly touted, like some of us were like, like Trey went to Oregon. But otherwise it was like, I was at FCS school, you know, Braden Fisk, he wasn't at a super highly touted school. A lot of us know like what those mindsets of those schools are, the schools that like aren't in the same position as us, we knock them down. That brings us up, like that puts us up in people's head, everything like that. So we know these other schools want to put us down.

I think it's just like kind of a mindset thing. You got to know what they're thinking, they're thinking they're going to come in here with their best. Whether we go there, whether they come here, they're going to come at us with their best. We have to be prepared for that. We owe them, you know, we owe ourselves, we owe our fan base, we owe Florida State our best every day.

Last week that wasn't that, but it's going to be that this week. Talking to Jared Verse right now, I love a good story. Your story is one of the best stories in college football at Albany, eventually transfer over to Florida State.

We saw what you were capable of a year ago and now, you know, I don't know how much attention you pay to these mock drafts when you're in the thick of a season, but everyone has you going in the top 10, top five. Just how do you kind of explain your rise to where you are and what do you want people to know about your story? It was just hard work. You know, it was a lot of days where you don't see the work, like, hard work is the thing that accumulates. It's not something one day, it's just all there, it's not something like the first day you get there, the second day, the third day, it's a grueling process and the whole time it was hard. Like, you know, you're doing all this hard work and you're not seeing results. I mean, I was still 200 something pounds, you know, a little skinny guy trying my hardest to bench, you know, everything like that, trying my hardest hitting the field and everything like that, but I just kept working.

It was just a grueling process. I think, I definitely think my whole family, all my siblings, you know, my older brother Aaron, I mentioned him a lot, my younger sister Nia would always like, she constantly mentioned, hey, go hit that field, like, you got to do this, you got to do that, if you want your goals to be achieved. My little sister Maya, she plays at Georgia now, she's always just like taught me. That's how we like compete with each other.

She'd be like, oh yeah, I'm one of the best in the country, what about you? I'm like, all right, I'm going to get there. Like, there's always that, I'm going to get there.

Like, I can't argue with you, you right, you right now, you there, I'm not. So I just kept trying my hardest and it was just, it was a long grueling process. When did you start to realize, I know you're never satisfied, but when did you start to realize, okay, I'm a lot better than what people thought and I'm really starting to put it together? I still think I got a lot more I got put together.

You know, I'll say once I came to Florida State, it was probably after the LSU game was when people started giving me my flowers, but I still didn't give them myself. So you know, even watching that first LSU game, I'm like, I could have done this differently. I could have done that differently.

Got another sack here, got another sack there, TFL here, block this, whatever. So I'm just, I'm still looking at myself going like, I'm still an unfinished product. You know, this year has given me a lot of different challenges than I had last year. So I'm still, you know, I'm looking at it, I'm like, all right, this is what's going to happen.

Let me figure out how to read out of this and stuff like that. But I've definitely, probably after that LSU game is when I started to realize people give me my attention, give them my respect. So with how much more you think you still have to build on, Jared verse, when you get to that top level, that apex, what type of football player do you think you could be? And how would you describe yourself when you envision that on a football field?

I'm not gonna lie, that's like a scary thought. I don't think anybody else, I think when I hit my full potential, you know, everything gets laid out, everything gets perfectly, I'm able to read the game on a whole nother level. I think it's unstoppable.

Like there's great offensive tackles out there, you know, across the board. I don't think any of them will be able to stop me, I don't think any of them will be able to stand in my way. I think it will just be like, it's like a terrifying thought just like imagine like the perfection of the game I could have if I get to that level.

Every day I'm trying, I'm trying to chisel away at it and get there. I'll tell you this summer, I talked to your head football coach Mike Norvell, and he gave you a lot of praise because we all know the way that we talk about you now. And he said he thought you were still one of the more improved players this summer. So what did you work on this summer to really your coach say, hey, out of all the guys on the team that you're one of the most improved players?

It was definitely technique. That was a big thing I focused on because that was something I definitely lacked. And you know, Coach Odell always says all the time, you can be as great a player as you want, as great as a physical specimen, everything like that. At the next level, if you don't have technique, they're going to maul you.

Like that's just how it is. Everybody at that level is very strong, everyone's very fast across the board. So you got to be like technically sound on top of, you know, strong and fast. So that's another reason I came back to I want to become better at my technique.

I'm trying to focus on that in the first couple of games, everything like that makes in a little bit of my finesse, too, but that's something I'm definitely focused on. When you were jumping in the transfer portal, I remember Mike Norvell was telling me he was watching film. I think it was Syracuse, Albany, maybe. And that's when they first came upon you.

And then you go in the transfer portal. It's like up defensive player from Albany goes, was that that kid that we were watching? So clearly you were on their radar. But what made you say, OK, I want to go to Florida State and that was going to be the right fit to continue your college career? I have like a lot of answers for that. I definitely like one way I say it was I narrowed down everything I put every school on a board and I kind of nailed it down chiseled away to Florida State was the only one left.

I kept always like looking at that board and everything like that. Another one that's like I say, my mom loved to hear that when we came on our visit, everybody was hyped up for me to come here, everything like that. But my biggest reason was probably just felt like home. You know, when I came here, like it was raining, it was like it was raining. It was like cloudy.

It was disgusting. Like Florida, like like cloudy weather and everything like that. And I'm like, I'm wearing like my Albany coat, you know, a bunch of heavy stuff. And I'm hot because I explore the way it just felt like home.

I even do all of that. It just felt like I belong here for you moving forward. Clearly there's been a lot of praise directed your way and you've been thrown right into the spotlight from someone that was coming from Albany, where no one really knew who you were to where you are now. Have you handled living life with a lot of people now paying attention to Jared Verse? You know, it's definitely different than at Albany where you can just go to the store and not knows nobody knows you just go to the store, walk in, walk out. Now it's like go to the store. People are looking at you.

You ask for pictures, anything like that. And I definitely love it. I feel like I love interacting with fans. I love talking to people. Whenever a fan comes up to me and asks for a picture, I never say no. I just always try to do it.

You know, unless it's like urgent. I have to leave. But for the most part, I'm like, I try to see everybody because who knows if I'm going to see them again, who knows if they'll see me again, but I just like, I love it. It's exciting. It's a whole different atmosphere. Some you imagine, but you never like think about how that's going to affect my whole mindset when I was at Albany was I'm going to get to this level and I'm approved. I can play that. I never thought about once I play there, the fans reaction.

That's just something cool is unexpected, but have like very welcome. In 10 to 15 years, how do you hope we're talking about Jared versus the football player and also the person? Oh, everybody talks about how hard I work. You know, we always hear about mamba mentality. I think that's like the apex of a hard worker that anyone could think of. And even like now, when I think of like mamba mentality taken away from like just excluding Kobe because that's obviously like the hardest worker, the person I first think of is probably either me or Braden Fisk, like two guys that are just working hard all the time. So I definitely want to be like in that conversation of like that guy had that mamba mentality.

He worked super hard. You know, I don't need all that. I love stats. It's cool. I love making plays. I'm always trying to do that. I think that's one thing that people love about making plays, but I definitely want my biggest thing to be that guy worked hard like that guy, he earned it all.

Nothing was given to him. I was never the most talented. I was always the hardest worker. And the last thing I'll ask you, do you think that kind of philosophy has really defined what you've been able to accomplish? Like when I was at Temple, I remember when Hassan Riddick was a walk on and Hassan Riddick ends up going to be a top 15 pick in the draft.

The last three years has had double digit sack seasons in the NFL. And to see that work and what he had to overcome and everyone doubted him, I think really built a chip on that shoulder. Is that what kind of drives you knowing how much work you had to put into it is why you're going to be able to go where you think you're going to be able to go?

Most definitely. You know, when you put all the work on, it's harder to quit. It's hard, like a lot of people are just talented. It's easy for them to quit. If you're running too many gasses, they'll be quick to put their hands on their hips and walk away.

If you're doing too many stadiums, they're quick to just sit at the bottom and wait for everybody to finish. But when you put in that much work, it don't matter how far we go. Like my legs can be shaking and everything like that. My arms could be exhausted from doing bench. I could be sweating, like bent over, about to kill over and I'm going to still keep going just because I put too much work in to give up now. I can't imagine myself giving up. I have to fail. I can't give up. Well, I love your story.

It's been really a joy to watch. Good luck this upcoming weekend against Clemson and good health the rest of the season, Jared Verse. Thanks for doing this. Thank you. Thank you.

Have a good one. What's up, everybody? I'm Danny Parkins based out of Chicago. This is my buddy, Andrew Filippone. He's based out of Pittsburgh.

You really got to check out our podcast, First and Pod. Twice a week, we're going to break down the NFL after Thursday Night Football and Sunday Night Football. It's every team. It's every game. We're all 32 teams. We give you a complete picture and we get into it. We don't kiss each other's fannies on this show.

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Visit Carvana.com to start tracking your car's value today. You're listening to the Zach Gelb Show. When you look at the big matchups this weekend in college football, is anybody under more pressure than Florida State? You have an opportunity to make a significant punch and really deliver a big blow to the Clemson Tigers season, where Clemson has won the ACC seven out of the last eight years.

The one year they did in pit won it with Pat Narduzzi and Kenny Pickett. And also, you have not had a win up against Clemson since 2014. And right now, Florida State opens up the season with a big bang taken down and just eviscerating LSU. And now you have Clemson sitting there who already has a loss on the year to an ACC opponent in Duke. Like, we talked about this before the season, you know, what Florida State and Clemson, the two best teams probably in the ACC, and then you have UNC lurking. If Clemson loses this game, it's going to be tough for them to make the ACC championship game. Like, not impossible, but tough to go have a match up, you know, go have a rematch with Florida State.

It would be, the odds would be stacked against them. But I look at Florida State this weekend, I would say the only other team that you could rival has more pressure than Florida State this weekend would be Ohio State. Because even though Ryan Day has only lost six games as the head coach of the Buckeyes, the Buckeye fan, some of them are starting to lose patience with Ryan Day because they lost the last two up against Michigan. And if you don't even get to that Michigan game undefeated, which they may not, they have Notre Dame this weekend, I'll let your guesstimate is going to be tough, Sam Hartman's going to be tough, and then you do have Penn State as well, who's a good football team this year, and I don't like to give Penn State compliments, but they're a good football team, before you have the big game at the end of the year, the game at the end of the year up against Michigan. But I look at Florida State, Clemson is weak right now. You have Shipley, they're starting running back, getting into it with the coaching staff, Cade Klubnick, and keep on hearing how every Clemson quarterback is going to have this, and do this, and do that, and they don't end up working, like DJ Wengill Lays is going to join us later, he even said it this offseason.

Bruce Feldman, he said to Bruce Feldman, they didn't play to his strengths at Clemson. And now, I'm not going to pat Oregon State too much on the back yet, but they're three and 0 right now, they have a big game this weekend in Pullman up against Washington State. But you have a very vulnerable Clemson team. Like if you're Ohio State, you lose to Notre Dame, obviously no one's going to be thrilled, but that's a damn good Notre Dame team. Notre Dame is better than Clemson this year. And that's why when I look at it, if I have to evaluate it, I don't think there's a team in a monster weekend of college football with more pressure on them than Florida State. Because it's a chance to make a statement that the ACC, not that you'll win it by getting this win on Saturday, but the ACC is going to go through you this year with two what would be great wins against LSU and Clemson to kick off the season. I still think actually Notre Dame is a lot of pressure, maybe equal to Florida State, but how many times- Real Notre Dame?

Yes. Not Ohio State? No, because Ohio State, you beat Penn State, you beat Michigan, you're going to the playoff, no problem, and your season's in front of you, and everyone's going to forget the Notre Dame loss. So for Notre Dame not being in a conference, you have to probably sweep the trio of three big games you got with Ohio State, USC, and Clemson later in the year to have any sort of chance for a college roleplay of appearance. But also too, this is just bigger than one game for Notre Dame because they have a history, a recent history, of coming up small in the big game. Everyone wants to bring up their, they get hyped up and they flop- National championship game against Bama, the playoff appearances, yeah.

They've gotten handled in a lot of times, in a lot of situations, they've been able or had an opportunity to make a statement in. And now you have the most vulnerable, we'll say, Ohio State team under Ryan Day coming to your house with a quarterback that has led up the country right now so far in Sam Harmon. This is a big game. You have to win it.

You got to win it. I just, I can't say there's more pressure on Notre Dame than Ohio State for starters. I get your logical point that still, Ohio State has everything there to still go win the Big Ten and maybe go to the college football playoff. But even if Notre Dame loses this game, you know, they still have Duke coming up the week after that. They have USC, they have Clemson. You know, if you only have one loss and it's to Ohio State, yeah, it could come back to bite you at the end. If let's say Ohio State doesn't win the Big Ten and they're a one loss non-conference champion, yeah, they would probably then Ohio State would get in over Notre Dame. But in terms of the way that we viewed Ohio State and Notre Dame going into the season, I thought Ohio State had flaws, but how many people were really talking about Notre Dame in a big way? There was intrigue. There was a like of Notre Dame because you're bringing Sam Hartman, it's Marcus Freeman's second year.

He survived that martial loss, finished the season strong. Audric Estime has been a wonderful player for them the first few weeks of the season. But going into this year, I don't think people were saying Notre Dame to the college football playoffs. Now, expectations could change rather quickly. And this is the like, I don't want to poo poo NC State, but this is the first legit, legit opponent that Notre Dame's playing this year. I think there's more to lose here in terms of the public perception for Ohio State than there is Notre Dame.

It's an interesting way that you put it. I didn't think about it that way. But you think there's more pressure, let me ask you this way. On Notre Dame this weekend than, let's say, Florida State? I do because Florida State could still win the ACC and still go to the cultural playoff if they lose to Clemson because they can get a rematch. I get what you're saying about making Clemson a flag, but you could also lose in the ACC title game even if they beat Clemson on Saturday.

You're not wrong. That the win that they would get on Saturday is a race they lose in the rematch in December. But Clemson's on life support. And with how much that they've been a bully in that conference and have dominated the conference.

What I mean by that is, this is as vulnerable as Clemson has ever been in the last decade of their run of dominance. We keep on saying, when is Florida State going to be back, right? When is Miami going to be back?

When is Texas going to be back? This should be the season where if you're Florida State and Mike Norvell, where you plant that flag that you're back and you beat them once and then you get to play them again, you kick the crap out of them again. I can't go, I understand what you're saying in terms of, it's so tough for Notre Dame to make the college football playoff because they're not, I know they have affiliation with the ACC, but they're not in a conference. And if you lose this game, then you really have no margin error to lose another game. And this would be a huge win for them. But I still look at the Ohio State fan, if they lose, if Ryan Day loses to Notre Dame, I know they could still make up for it and beat Michigan and beat Penn State at the end of the year. The Ohio State fan will be crushing, crushing Notre Dame coming up, will be crushing Ryan Day coming up on Monday, if Notre Dame loses like 41 to 30, I don't think people are crushing Marcus Freeman. All right, he's at Gelb's show, CBS Sports Radio, we'll take a break, we'll do a little overreaction, proper reaction next as week two of the NFL is in the books.