Kevin Carter, CBS Sports College Football Analyst

Alrighty, we continue. This is the Zach Gelb show, coast to coast on CBS Sports Radio. And now joining us in studio, former NFL defensive player, played his college ball at Florida, has over 100 career NFL sacks and now is kicking ass and taking names from CBS Sports Network.

That's our dear friend in Kevin Carter. Kevin, great to see you as always. How you been? Thanks for having me. Well, I appreciate you coming in, but it's tough times around here and you're a big reason for the demise of yours truly because you do owe me a dollar and with the price of living here in New York City, you also told me it was going to be 100 pennies from when I beat you at a Super Bowl bet and still I don't have that dollar.

So I have to beg for change now. Well, you know, hopefully me coming down here to studio, you know, I had a day off. I was in studio last night.

We had a game on our network, you know, some, you know, some Conference USA action. But hopefully coming down, this is an olive branch. Like this is, this is me. That is true. I think it's making things right. I think this is better than the dollar. If I'm going to be honest with you, I'll still pay you that dollar. But, but in the meantime, you can rest assured that I'm doing the right thing. It's been like three, four years. You tell me that you're going to pay me that dollar.

That's like a girl saying, oh yeah, I'm going to call you back. Don't worry. But aren't you encouraged that I'm actually here in studio though?

Isn't that cool? You're teasing us a little bit. That's what you're doing. Let me start you off with Alabama A&M. I think everyone's trying to figure out still, what is the Alabama offense? And then for A&M, I know they lost their quarterback, but Max Johnson has experience before going back to his days at LSU. But A&M is a team that has a lot of talent and we're all wondering if they could put it together. A&M Alabama is, is a, is one of those matchups. It's like when you look at conference play across the country, there's somebody who has everyone's number.

Okay. And, and, and conference games are always tricky. You know, every championship that you see someone hosting a trophy at the end of the season, there was a conference game that they probably should have lost.

And it was someone that had no business being on the same field with them from a factual standpoint like where they are, what their record is, how many yards, points per game, all those things. But they play this team that they know and then they see every year, they just play them tough because they have their number. Texas A&M is that team for Alabama and has been a thorn in their side for the last couple of years. I think largely because of their ability to match up from a physical standpoint. I think along the line of scrimmage, when you, what you're seeing is, you know, you're seeing Elko's defense, you're seeing, you're seeing dudes, you know, that put their hand on the ground that have been pedigreed and taught and coached in a certain way that it takes a while to build that.

You know, when you, when you have that going, then, then, then you see the, the fruits kind of coming after, even after someone's gone, you see my Galcos moved on to Duke, but you know, like I said, the remnants of the players that he developed and coached are still there. I think in the last couple of weeks they have something like 28 or 30 tackles for a loss. I mean, something just like stupid, like, so this defense has decided to come on. Max Johnson has been better than 60% all season long. And when he's had it, when he's had his chance to last couple of games, he's played pretty well.

Actually had a 300 yard game, actually had a couple of touchdowns. So starting to look like he's the guy. And I think the rest of Texas A&M is starting to wake up finally. So last year in the SEC, right, LSU loses early in the season to Florida State.

Everyone's clowning Brian Kelly with the family videos and all those things. And everyone forgot about them. And the next thing you know, they're in the SEC championship game where they lose to Georgia. Is that happening now with A&M where they had the early loss to Miami, everyone's forgetting about them and then they'll be in the SEC title game? Well, it very well could work out that way. Because I, you know, going into this year, the SEC West was sort of an enigma, sort of wide open.

You know, not with anyone stepping up and being that heir apparent person who's going to take control. I thought coming into the season that it would be LSU. LSU really had my and still, I mean, they're at a point where after having dropped one to Ole Miss is going to be a little harder for them to do it.

They'll probably beat each other up. But LSU was my team. But Texas A&M was another enigma that we just didn't know enough about because we didn't know how they would play or whether or not they would play complimentary football. And I think that's what we're starting to see. The talent's always been there, but we're starting to see complimentary football. Now we're seeing things kind of work out.

I was in studio last night with Danny Kanell. He thinks that Bama's going down. He thinks that since he thinks the Texas A&M has their number and Bama's going to go down. I personally think that Bama's going to win out because I think that Bama knows what it is. And I think the Bama knows what it's not. So I never pick against Alabama and I can't stand Jimbo Fisher.

I think he's one of the more overrated coaches in the country. I kind of like A&M though this weekend. It's it's definitely a game that will be interesting. It's one that I'm that I'm kind of waiting to see.

We can prognosticate all we want, but even the the experts expert is going to be on bated breath, kind of waiting to see what's going to happen because we really don't know. I mean, obviously we don't know any, you know, what's going to happen on any game, but we really don't know this one. I, you know, looking at Alabama's offense, Roydell Williams, Jason McClellan, Jaden Milro, you know, they're, they're tough along the line of scrimmage and their defense has recommitted itself to being old Alabama defense. Like I'm talking like the standard of old Georgia, like Georgia defense. Yeah. You know, as we're talking about, I mean, Georgia's lost 28 players to the NFL draft in the last two seasons, but the fact that a guy like Jalen Carter is content to sit behind Jordan Davis because he trusts in the coaching and knows he's going to go first round.

That's the type of development you're talking about. So I think Bama has kind of recommitted itself to being that team because they know take everything else away. We're still five stars. We're still talented. We can still kick your, your butt.

You know, we can find a lot of physically and beat you. And so I think giving themselves the best chance to win is kind of their plan going forward in lieu of developing, you know, Simpson or Buckner or whoever else is there. Kevin Carter here with us from CBS Sports Network does tremendous job as a college football analyst. You touched on LSU a little bit. I high expectations for LSU as well. They've been the most disappointing team to me in college football through the first few weeks.

Their their defense. And I think like I like what they're doing in the run game. I think Logan Diggs and Caleb Jackson and Josh Williams, having someone basically be the leading rusher not named Jayden Daniels is was was was my was the thing that I had the biggest problem with last year. I mean, Jayden Daniels is he's dynamic. He's amazing. He's going to he's a one man wrecking crew, but you can't put your quarterback in harm's way that much.

He can't be your bread and butter because you need some bread and butter when people take away your bread and butter. So so I like what they've been doing on the ground in terms of not, you know, running him so much, but their defense came up short this past weekend and Ole Miss. I mean, you you give up that many points and I and I know Lane Kiffin can dial it up. I know he's an offensive, but but you're not going to win. You're playing Big 12 football.

And then that's and that's just not, you know, that's not going to work. So when we take a look at Kentucky, I love Mark Stoops. I think he's one of the more underrated coaches in the country. I think he's a top 10 coach in the country.

And we know what he did to your alma mater last weekend. Jeez, I think that kid Davis is still running for another touchdown. How alive is Kentucky this week against a Georgia team that people are saying is vulnerable now?

I think it's a farce. I think and I sat in studio last night and don't get me wrong, we're paid to be objective and we're paid to truly investigate. And as much as I can give credit to, you know, Ray Davis is averaging about a buck eighteen a game. They're turning in about the Wildcats are rushing for about one hundred and seventy yards per game. Their offensive line of stout, their defensive line of stout. They're physical. They're built the right way.

You know, there's so many great things about what they're doing. Devin Larry's not wowing me a quarterback. OK. And then to me, when you talk about making hay against Georgia, you know, we act like Georgia's vulnerable. We act like that.

That's actually a thing like, OK, vulnerability. When you throw to two different running quarterbacks and an offense they've never seen or don't know what to think of in Auburn. Yeah, you're going to have some success for a little while when Spencer Rattler comes out and he's thrown it all over the yard.

He's there. He's a good quarterback who can process. You face a quarterback like that, he's going to have some success for a half, you know, and then they make adjustments and then we come back down to reality.

And I think we've seen that. But Georgia is not worried about us saying that they're vulnerable. It's the same way that we talked about the Chiefs last year in the NFL. They don't care. They don't care.

They're there right now. They know they have Carson Beck. They know they don't have Stetson Bennett. They know they don't have the twenty nine guys that are playing on Sunday right now from the last two seasons. But what they do have is a type of buy in from four and five star dudes like Jalen Carter who were waiting their turn and now it's their shot. And they're every bit as talented as the guys who came before them. And we're seeing them be realized every weekend.

And we're seeing them feather and and basically take the evolutionary process of the quarterback Carson Beck slowly. He doesn't have to be the guy. He doesn't have to be the guy right now.

He doesn't have to win games. We'll outpace you for a half and then we'll beat your ass in the second half and you'll lose the game. Are they and they're going to tend to do that. Are they to you still the best team in college football until someone says different. Yes because you can't make them.

I haven't seen them not. I haven't I haven't seen them have to win a game a different way. No it's a fair point that you bring up to be the champ. You got to beat the champ. We could talk about Michigan. We could talk about the Pac 12.

You got to find a way to beat. And if you don't push him off his perch or make him change his course he can basically still do the same thing he was doing and develop his quarterback and they can develop their quarterback at their own pace because no one's making the move and the schedule for them stinks. The schedule is they're going to ride into the SEC championship game and it's going to be easy. And I mean but I think but I think that kind of hurts the SEC though in terms of oh you know the scenario of them possibly getting two teams and I think that's done. I think you won't have after a while you won't have significant representation in the SEC or in the top 25 of SEC teams like you will let's say the Pac 12 right now let's say some other conferences and you have two teams to get in again. Big 10 you could very well have two teams to get in because you're going to have two elite teams at the end of the season that will be left standing and whether whether Michigan or the Ohio State University. But you don't have that in the SEC. The SEC is going to cannibalize itself and teams are going to overachieve and some teams are going to underachieve like LSU and get beat by someone that maybe they shouldn't lose to and it's too hard. But that's where I think this year this is different. I think in years past we've said oh the SEC everything runs and I don't think the SEC is that strong.

The quarterback plate just isn't there across the league. Wrap it up with Kevin Carter who wins Red River this week between Oklahoma and Texas. I've got Texas.

I've got Texas. I do think we've been sleeping on Oklahoma and I said as much. I think that look when you look at their defense they came into last weekend giving up about eight and a half points a game. Dylan Gabriel is slinging it 75 percent efficient.

You know he's only thrown a couple of interceptions and he's got over 1,500 yards. This team is built right but they're not elite I think in all the ways that Texas is elite. I think Texas you saw the physicality along the line of scrimmage and that's the one common denominator that I don't quite think this Oklahoma team is ready for. And I think obviously we'll get our answer this weekend who's better Oklahoma and Texas and who's going to assume that leadership role. But right now it looks to be when you were in the Longhorns.

I got 30 seconds before we got to hit a break though on a scale of one to 10. Where's your confidence with Billy Napier at Florida. My confidence with Billy Napier is a 10 because I like because I like him. My confidence in the staff that he's assembled and to think and to be so naive to think that he will not have to replace staff and get more players that that is the open ended part. But as far as person to person man to man I've spent time with Billy Napier. I really like who he is and I really like the process and the way that he's working his plan going about doing it.

But that doesn't mean that it don't necessarily work in this day and age in college football especially at a branded program like Florida. He is Kevin Carter. It's a great job CBS Sports Network. I've exonerated you from the dollar. I do not need the dollar anymore.

This is made up for it coming in studio. Always great to see you my friend. Give me your Venmo. I thought it was 100 pennies my friend. It keeps changing.