Local Hour: Head-To-Head

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Speaker 1 And February 15th, 2026 at 1159 p.m. Eastern.

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Sweepstake starts 12, 15, 2025 at 12 a.m. Eastern and ends 123, 2026 at 11.59, 59 p.m.
Eastern.

Speaker 1 See official rules at program website. Is Mike DiPasquale a local legend? No.

Speaker 1 Ooh, there's some longevity there. Pretty Pretty sure he was a local legend last week.
Yeah. This is a sliding scale.

Speaker 1 I don't think I asked him about Deepasqually last week.

Speaker 1 I specifically remember being asked and not answering. Wow.
Hmm. Because if someone mentions Steve Shapiro, I'm right there with a Deepasqually.
It's like Batman and Robin.

Speaker 1 Whoa, you got to give Steve Shapiro a local legend.

Speaker 1 I'm not calling him Robin. I'm saying in terms of tandems.

Speaker 1 You've got to give Steve Shapiro a local legend. You have to.

Speaker 1 And if you have to give it to him, Deepasqually's been doing it longer, no?

Speaker 1 At this point, isn't Shapiro retired a few years ago? Yeah, but Shapiro, nah, I think Shapiro's still. I think we could look that up, but before we do that, Channing Crowder? No.

Speaker 1 Ooh, that was quick. Whatever, man.
Is he speaking for

Speaker 1 the committee? You gave O.J. McDuffie local legend and not Channing Crowder.

Speaker 1 OJ's an all-time great dolphin receiver. Crowder's a legend.
Yeah, but no, I was...

Speaker 1 This wasn't about... Wait a minute.
He plays a part? You gave McDuffie local legend based on the playing career? It plays a part. But nobody else we were talking about had it.

Speaker 1 Crowder had that fumble return.

Speaker 2 That was a big one.

Speaker 1 Dan was like, all season. He doesn't touch the football.
And then Channing Crowder touched the football in a big spot. I heard a great story the other day.
It was great about Steve Smith.

Speaker 1 15 years ago, okay, Channing Crowder is running across the middle, and Steve Smith blindsides him. It's not even a legal block anymore.
And Channing Crowder goes sliding on his back like 10 yards.

Speaker 1 And when he gets up, because it was like a wet field, when he gets up, he told Steve Smith, anytime I see you anywhere around the world, I'm going to bleep you up.

Speaker 1 I'm going to, anytime I see you, he says this to Steve Smith. That's called on site.

Speaker 1 Yes,

Speaker 1 it is now. It wasn't then.
It's called on site now, but he was saying, I'm going to bleep you up.

Speaker 1 And so, 15 years later, 15 years later, Steve Smith sees Channing Crowder across a mall somewhere and starts to take off his hat and his wristwatch and starts to take off his shirt because he's assuming if I see you 15 years later, and Channing Crowder, who was a notorious badass, like people feared Channing Crowder.

Speaker 1 He like wrestled boars in the offseason. Channing Crowder was like, oh, no, I don't hold the grudges that long.
Like, I don't, Channing Crowder's like, ah, that's funny.

Speaker 1 And Steve Smith's like, no, I wanted to, I would have fought. I would have fought 15 years ago.
In a mall? In a mall, just seeing someone. Do you know what what on-site means?

Speaker 1 Well, didn't you say, but Steve Smith was reminding him, didn't you say that it was on site any other time?

Speaker 1 Like, Steve Smith did that to get him to back down in a mall, or they could have fought, or like Steve Smith. What would have been the expensive part of Sawgrass?

Speaker 1 This is the Don Levatar Show with the Stu Gats Podcast.

Speaker 1 The worst team,

Speaker 1 the worst feeling a team can have locally in a market is that its fans don't care. So if you're angry, if you get angry, that's better than fans not caring.

Speaker 1 I got angry at the Dolphins yesterday for making me watch that and forcing me to have to talk about that today when I'd like to talk about the University of Miami and Inter-Miami playing a championship game and Aaron Rodgers very much looking at this stage of his career like somebody in a survivor movie who is being hunted by humans you tell me i'm wrong when i say that at the point like he's got a cast on his arm he's got blood all over his face and he's looking around like what am i doing this why why am i doing this and it's because the afc is that bad cincinnati's in the mix at four and eight they're in the mix cincinnati's legitimately in the mix but

Speaker 1 I was mad at the Dolphins yesterday, Zaz, for making me watch any of that and deserving to lose it. And the Saints are god-awful.

Speaker 1 Like, who are these people who who veil valay you got a quarterback with two h's in his name you cannot win with one of those you cannot point you've got a kicker who does not have a vowel in his name his last name of any kind no vowel who were those people you've got a guy named stutz man hitting uh hitting a cleaner than anyone's ever hit him and i'm mad the entire time at my television i don't want to be watching any of this holy shit too is bad we're gonna do this for another 16 games how do you pronounce that shuck i don't get it.

Speaker 1 Shock.

Speaker 1 Doesn't look like shock.

Speaker 1 Shu. Shock.

Speaker 1 Tyler, shock. The Dolphins should have lost that game.
Olive.

Speaker 1 Oh, they hit him in the hands. It's like

Speaker 1 the Cuban catching touchdowns in Miami. That was a good moment for us.
How did he not catch that ball?

Speaker 1 That was... The Saints had the game in their best.
They're only good players. Kamara's not playing.
Olive. Did you make a Miguel? One Cuban wide receiver.
Get his name right.

Speaker 1 They should have lost that game. And I don't actually want to talk about it, except the despair of the Dolphin fan around Tua must be so large because

Speaker 1 that game was torture to watch. I understand that that league, in that league, six of the seven games in the one o'clock window, a lot of bad football.

Speaker 1 Six of the seven games, one score game in the fourth quarter. So, of course, I don't know how that league does it.
I really don't.

Speaker 1 How these shitty, shitty teams that Tennessee is the only one yesterday that's getting slaughtered or Minnesota on its seventh quarterback is the only one that's getting slaughtered so all the games are going to be close but if you're fighting that way to beat the saints at home you stink yeah well we know the dolphins stink but I had a different experience than you watching that dolphin game yesterday because I was watching it on an airplane home from Norman yesterday so if you can like if you could find a way to watch your your favorite team on the airplane like you're just oh thank god i got something to watch here it's a great feeling yeah so like i i didn't have that experience yeah but you're trapped.

Speaker 1 Okay, so you've got three hours of entertainment and it's not like you're going to read a book. Like you're going to sit there.
I don't look like I read. Is that what you're saying?

Speaker 1 Did you watch that football game in Norman? Yeah, of course. You stayed for the game? I left it halftime.
Yeah, I would too. I left it half-time.
Terrible football.

Speaker 1 I watched the rest of the game of the whole time. Oh, it's awful.
Okay, so

Speaker 1 let's get there quickly because Oklahoma is not better than Miami. I've watched both of these teams all year.
All Oklahoma has is a defensive line.

Speaker 1 If they've got a quarterback with a broken hand, like that they cannot do anything offensively. They have no chance to win the championship.
But Miami's better than BYU. Miami's better than Utah.

Speaker 1 Miami is better than Oklahoma. Miami is better than both of the teams playing in the ACC championship game.
You cannot have a system that does this. And all of a sudden, the ACC, you know what it is?

Speaker 1 It's a small conference. That ACC title game is an abomination.
You're treating the ACC now like

Speaker 1 a tiny conference. Manny Diaz.
Manny Diaz. Come on, that's funny.
I'm getting it. Manny Diaz playing in a championship game before Miami does in the ACC.
That's insane. That's ridiculous.
That's dude.

Speaker 1 Even Manny's got to to be like, look, look, look. Look, what's going to happen to Miami here? This is unbelievable.
It really is. Okay.

Speaker 1 Malachi Toney is an unprecedented player in the history of the program. There's never been a guy who can catch the ball one-handed and be a jitterbug in the open field and beat you deep.

Speaker 1 And also, he's going to be the greatest non-passing statistical quarterback they have in the history of the program. He's a threat in so many ways.
You must see him in the top 12.

Speaker 1 Like, this is clearly one of the 12 best teams in the country. Don't give me computers.
Don't give me voters. Don't give me anything.

Speaker 1 Anyone sitting in front of a television, if I show you the eight games the Hurricanes have won by 17 or more points, and in a way that ravages, physically ravages opponents like South Florida, a very good opponent.

Speaker 1 I know the ACC is bad, but Miami is clearly and obviously to the eye. And anyone who's ever watched football would say, yes, that's got draft picks all over the field.

Speaker 1 That's one of the 12 best teams in the country. It's not half a team like, it's not even half a team like Oklahoma.
It's all Oklahoma is, is pass rush. They don't have anything else.

Speaker 1 We were so close to this not even being an issue. If LSU wins that game, like it's over.
Kanes are in. There have been about three dozen games over the last three weeks that Miami needed.

Speaker 1 But that was like the one.

Speaker 1 Auburn. Auburn two.

Speaker 1 Auburn's been doing that all year to us. Like, come on, War Eagle, one time.
But LSU was up like all game in Norman this weekend. It's weird.
I test doesn't seem to apply to SEC teams.

Speaker 1 Miami got held out of the CFP, rightfully so, because their defense was a disaster. Oklahoma's offense is every bit that kind of disaster, but they're going to get in.

Speaker 1 Miami's going to get screwed out of this one. I think it's pretty obvious now that they've conditioned the audience and the nation to normalize head-to-head, not mattering.

Speaker 1 And all these other arguments, bring in the computers. Miami's got very good advanced stats.
Well, that rating's very good.

Speaker 1 But like, there isn't a big gulf between Miami's numbers and the other teams. We're just, we're already used to Miami being left out of this discussion.
They've spent the last month doing that.

Speaker 1 All right, let's do this this way, okay?

Speaker 1 Because you can tell me, if you've watched all of the football this year, you can tell me you think the ACC stinks, and that's fine.

Speaker 1 I'd argue that over the course of what happens to these teams during a season, Louisville and SMU now are not the same team they were when they played Miami. Like, these games are physical.

Speaker 1 Justin Herbert's out there with one hand. Like you understand, or I understood the last two weeks of what I've seen of

Speaker 1 Louisville football is not that Louisville is bad. It's that they got healthy against Kentucky.
Louisville's very good. That's not a bad loss to lose to Louisville, but I understand how it is.

Speaker 1 People look at this conference and are now treating it.

Speaker 1 When you have Duke and Manny Diaz playing in the championship game and Miami still never played in one of those, you can't tell me Mario Cristobal hasn't fixed this.

Speaker 1 I'm seeing one of the best teams in the the country. Like, I'm watching it every week.
It's not just that they're interesting.

Speaker 1 They've got a team that was built to win a playoff.

Speaker 1 This is as balanced a team as there is in the country. Yes, they lost a one-score game against SMU in overtime.

Speaker 1 So that game, the entire conference is basically coming down to SMU was in the playoff last year, and now SMU beats you in overtime because they pick off a ball and it's one play, and it's the worst loss you have in four, in two seasons.

Speaker 1 It's six points because in two years, Miami will have lost four games and not be an either playoff. That doesn't make any sense to anybody rational who's ever watched football.

Speaker 1 Like just, never mind if you haven't seen the last two years, just on the history of what football is, you don't do this to this program because you got to get BYU. And I saw BYU drag by Texas Tech.

Speaker 1 Like BYU, I saw Texas Tech. There are three teams in the country that have beaten people 17 or more, okay? It is Texas Tech.
It's Ohio State, defense obviously championship good.

Speaker 1 And when you look at what's happening to Miami, you see what's happening here, right? Utah is one of those teams.

Speaker 1 Utah also dragged by Texas Tech because Texas Tech is good enough to beat anybody, but so is Miami. Like, that's that.
I can't say that of many teams. I could say it of Ohio State.

Speaker 1 I could say it maybe of Indiana, but you've just made college football so different that Ohio State, Indiana for the championship there doesn't matter at all. I could say it about Notre Dame, too.

Speaker 1 Notre Dame is very good. Ohio State and Indiana are playing a game, and it doesn't matter at all.
That would have been the biggest of all big games, and now it's not even a playoff game.

Speaker 1 It's a game that doesn't matter because they could all rest their players. Well, no, because

Speaker 1 you're not guaranteed to get the bye if you lose the Big Ten championship. Okay, that's important.
Okay, fine. You get the bye.
Ohio State shows you that they don't play close games.

Speaker 1 They haven't played anybody. They will win with defense.
They might be half a team, too, for all I can tell. Like, there are a lot of flaws.
In college and pros and injured. There's a lot of flaws.

Speaker 1 This is the most wide open NFL we've seen. Is it not? Like where the AFC, you've got, if I had told you before the season, the top of the conference, Broncos, Patriots, Bears, nobody has that, right?

Speaker 1 Right. No, nobody has.
If I had told you before the season, San Francisco is going to have that many injuries, but they're coming in at the bottom of the NFC at 9-4.

Speaker 1 At 9-4, they're the bottom of the NFC while Bengals 4-8 in the mix.

Speaker 1 Football at the highest level is a bunch of people being hurt, and now us playing random ball as the Colts might miss the playoffs because look at their schedule the next five games.

Speaker 1 Dolphins are one game worse than the Chiefs. Daniel Jones has a broken what? Broken fibula? I feel like you need one of those.

Speaker 1 It seems like you would have them not broken would be the best way to play football.

Speaker 1 I know we kind of moved on the NFL here, but it's just at some point I'm going to need someone to explain this tiebreaker thing and how Duke is in this ACC championship. It's a joke.

Speaker 1 Have you seen who they beat in the ACC? They beat all the, like, I think Clemson's their best win.

Speaker 1 Have they beaten any of the teams that they're tied with? You have a

Speaker 1 head to head not. Chris,

Speaker 1 you have an ACC championship game, which features two teams in it. Neither of those two teams has a win over the top five in the conference.

Speaker 1 You have a team in Virginia that lost to NC State that doesn't count in the conference.

Speaker 1 And you have a team in Duke that lost to Yukon that's seven and five and again played nobody. Dan, if Duke wins the ACC championship,

Speaker 1 it is a very real thing that there are going to be two group of five teams in the playoffs and not the hurricanes.

Speaker 1 Okay, so I know that people hearing this, and I would not blame them for this, all they would hear in my voice of this biased show is some form of the wonderful tears that you've wanted emotionally because all of this is ridiculous.

Speaker 1 Like, we're doing it with judges, we're doing it with scorecards, it's gymnastics, it's made for television boxing, it's nonsense.

Speaker 1 We are at a point in 2025 where we've distorted this thing so much that anybody who's watched college football this year would just simply tell you, watching all of the games, Miami is one of the 12 best teams in the country.

Speaker 1 Clearly, physically, they've got something that feels a little professional, offensive line and defensive line.

Speaker 1 They've lost two games to Rhett Lashley, to two of the best coaches in Brom, and that's going to happen to Mario at least once a year.

Speaker 1 We didn't expect to happen twice, but we know that's going to happen to Mario at least once a year. And SMU in Louisville.
Louisville gets a four-interception game, three great great interceptions.

Speaker 1 There's just no one who's watched college football this year who wouldn't look and say, I don't care what the computers say. Miami is clearly one of the 12 best teams in the country.
It's obvious.

Speaker 1 And Miami's offense looks way different.

Speaker 1 We knew what was, we were fearful headed into that SMU game that you have your tendencies, you're pretty predictable, you're trying to win these games in close margins when you're the more talented team.

Speaker 1 Also, absent from the national discussion, was that was one of the worst officiated games that we've seen for a very, a very poorly officiated conference.

Speaker 1 But I'm happy that we've got back-to-back 10-win seasons.

Speaker 1 Mario Cristobal has done what he set out to do, even though everybody that you would ask before the season is, oh, it's got to be either playoffs or Charlotte.

Speaker 1 The fact that you're sitting at 10 wins and you're neither in the playoff nor in Charlotte is something worth criticizing, but it was a great season.

Speaker 1 A lot of people stuck their neck out over the last four years. You're waving the white flag.
No, I'm not. No.
That sounds like you're waving the white flag. What I'm saying is, welcome to the watch.

Speaker 1 You guys got it from here. I was renting, Raven, sticking my neck out, terrified that this team would fall on its face in November like they do every year.
Mario Cristobal had my back.

Speaker 1 This team looks incredible. It's playing its best football.
And now I'd much rather Dan Lebatard do the yelling and shouting. Jonathan Zazzlo, welcome to the party.

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Speaker 1 Don Lebatard.

Speaker 1 That's not my favorite rejoin.

Speaker 1 Context needs to be applied to it. I was going for a joke and.
I thought that context was applied.

Speaker 1 We'd like to rip that out of context. I was going for a thing.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 you're going to pretend here that you don't love Matthew Katchuk more than you love anybody you've ever loved? I don't love Matthew Kachuck more than my daughter. Stugats! Now it's pretty damn close.

Speaker 1 This is the Don Lebatar Show with the Stugats.

Speaker 1 Did Chuckle help out at all this weekend? He did, from what I was told. They learned their lesson.
They learned their lesson.

Speaker 1 There was like a three or four minute stretch late in that game where Miami fans would have been rubbing their nipples listening to it. They were like, one of the best teams in the country.

Speaker 1 The eye test, this is the performance they needed. They were saying all the things that they didn't say last week.

Speaker 1 Look, I will say a couple of things that I found interesting about the last couple of weeks of coverage.

Speaker 1 If you were listening to this show, and listening to the end of that broadcast where poor Lewis Riddick and Bob Washusin had to descend into the muck. They've got an uninteresting game.

Speaker 1 Miami is dragging Pittsburgh by the neck around the field. What do we talk about? Oh, I know.

Speaker 1 Chuckle will show that he's been influenced by Mike Ryan and his co-conspirators, Lou Riddick, will be asked all sorts of questions that put Lou Riddick in the corner where both of them were saying, yeah, Miami's one of the best teams in the country, obviously, again and again.

Speaker 1 Lewis Riddick is saying of Malachi Tony, he's saying, no, no, this is the best there is.

Speaker 1 Like, he's like, this is the very best of special, the way that they're using this football player on the field.

Speaker 1 And you heard in the broadcast that Chuckle and Lou Riddick had been bought and paid for by the Miami Propaganda Army. Or Miami just played better than

Speaker 1 they're saying what they said. No, that's not the way Chuckle was talking a week ago.
It is not. They look like shit against Virginia.

Speaker 1 No, no, well, you said it, and it's not true, but they. It didn't look great.
Maybe not. I mean, somewhere in the middle between shit shit and again, again, I will just give you the stat again.

Speaker 1 There are four teams in the country that have won this many games by 17 plus. Those four teams are not Indiana.
Indiana is not one of them.

Speaker 1 It's Ohio State, it's Texas, Texas Tech, it's Utah, and it's Miami.

Speaker 1 So on the full slate of whatever their schedule is, if you think it's that much weaker than Ohio State's or all those frauds in the SEC,

Speaker 1 it's not. Am I wrong in thinking this is an apples to oranges comparison?

Speaker 1 This feels like the 2000 season where Miami lost to Washington but beat Florida State, but it was Florida State that ended up going to the national championship.

Speaker 1 Totally different since no, this is the history of Roy. Roy's got it exactly right, of course.
And Roy is sitting here saying, We, you were this upset 20 years ago, Dan.

Speaker 1 You cared like this 20 years ago. And it is the last time I cared about this because this is clearly a wrong.
Like, it's just for that year was the all-time bullshit.

Speaker 1 But, Zaz, when I simply say, okay, it's always been about judges and, you know, voters and influence, I saw many years Nick Sabin pleading on television, just running propaganda everywhere, where Nick Sabin

Speaker 1 was doing interviews that I thought were beneath him because he realized that part of the job was this time of year, the way to get into the playoffs with judges is argue your way in.

Speaker 1 Get in the most old-fashioned way. Argue.
So I saw Mario Cristobal with Mike Ryan in his ear. I saw Mario Cristobal.
He gets the post-game interview and he doesn't care what the question is.

Speaker 1 His only job here

Speaker 1 is to swagger in front of the microphones and say out of nowhere. No one asked him about Notre Dame.
No one asked him about head-to-head. He just went straight in.

Speaker 1 And the only God-given American thing that I know about football is that head-to-head map. It would have been great if instead of actually letting her ask the question, he just took the microphone.

Speaker 1 Just took the microphone. Should have.
Wrestling style. He should have.
All right. My turn.
He practically did. Mario's a big-time old school 80s wrestling guy, too.
He learned from the best.

Speaker 1 Chris, do you have, do we have, I know our computers have been buffering. There have been some video.
Okay, so that's not helpful to me now.

Speaker 1 Is Jeremy ready in the other room? Because Jeremy has been listening to us talk the entire time, lest you think that this will only be Miami bias. Roy, file that away.

Speaker 1 I want to come back to, yes, we've always been doing it this way, but this will be one of history's great wrongs when it comes to this program.

Speaker 1 It would have another championship if not for instant replay not yet being around when Cleveland Gary was fumbling at the goal line.

Speaker 1 Before Alabama,

Speaker 1 Miami was in the position that Alabama was where they were the ones with all the pros. Miami's legitimately got three national titles that they were boned out of.

Speaker 1 You probably say that about most big programs. No, not three.
No, not one. No,

Speaker 1 not there's a penalty flag in the air. Like just

Speaker 1 one call decides a championship, not very often. But this is the best team I've seen since those teams.
Last year's was not. It had the best player.
Cam Ward made that the best offense.

Speaker 1 What I've seen from Miami this year has been championship good. I believe this team can beat anyone and also lose to a well-coached team that's a two-touchdown favorite, as they did twice this year.

Speaker 1 But Jeremy has been eating it for weeks on the Miami subject. And Jeremy has had no room whatsoever to make the argument on behalf of everyone else.

Speaker 1 So I've told him, please put your notes outside over there, and you tell me what you think when I can go to it.

Speaker 1 So he's been in this Kevin Spacey and 7 kind of manifesto stage of arguing the other side of this. Where am I wrong, Jeremy, on anything I've said over the course of these 25 minutes?

Speaker 1 And how do you feel about the Kevin Spacey name? Yeah, I was going to say you're wrong on invoking Kevin Spacey's name. We could have done literally anything else.

Speaker 1 But look, there are five automatic qualifiers, right? You're going to have OSU, UGA, Texas Tech, Virginia, if they beat Duke, and then the winner of Tulane and North Texas.

Speaker 1 And then in terms of at-large bids, Dan, you tried to make the argument that Oklahoma doesn't deserve to be there over Miami. They have two losses.

Speaker 1 Those are to number five Ole Miss and number 14 Texas with wins over number 10 Bama. And Missouri, which I know how Mike Ryan feels about the AP.

Speaker 1 We don't even have to count number 25 Missouri, but they do have a top 10 win there. Better losses than Miami does, tougher schedule.

Speaker 1 When we're bidding for numbers 11 and 12, I think the first team that you have to mention, Dan, BYU. They have one loss this season.
It's to number five Texas Tech.

Speaker 1 If they have a second loss, it'll be to the same team in their conference championship game because they actually made it to their conference championship game.

Speaker 1 They also have two top 25 wins with wins over number 15 Utah and number 21 Arizona. So we have to include BYU.
We have to. You have to include BYU.

Speaker 1 It would make no sense in terms of resume when you're looking at each and every one of them when you're nitpicking, even if they lose to Texas Tech. That's crazy.
Two losses, both to a top five

Speaker 1 and winning out. That's fine.
They're going to get dragged the same way they were last time. Texas Tech is a good deal better than BYU.
That's right.

Speaker 1 And I think Miami, you would make the argument, is a good deal better than SMU or Louisville, but they lost both of those games to unranked teams.

Speaker 1 I want you to look at the rest of these resumes here, Dan. This Texas Tech team is the best Texas tech team I've ever seen.
It's

Speaker 1 better than anything that Michael Crabtree was doing at the top of when they were beating Texas. Like, this is the best Texas Tech team there's ever been.
And they're going to drag BYU again anyway.

Speaker 1 Well, you're making the argument on behalf of BYU then, because if their loss is to a better team, if Texas Tech is maybe the best team in the country, the best Texas Tech team ever, those two losses to Texas Tech shouldn't knock you down so much.

Speaker 1 So to me, BYU is an obvious number 11 there. But when you look at the rest of these teams, you've got Miami.
Now let's start looking at losses.

Speaker 1 Obviously, they have the head-to-head win over Notre Dame, but when you start looking at losses... Hold on just a second.

Speaker 1 Let me influence you a little bit before you get going too much further with here's Mario Cristobal getting a question after the game, ignoring it entirely and just chirping Mike Ryan's thoughts into a microphone.

Speaker 1 Well, the fact that this is a college football playout team, I think we've all seen it. We know it.

Speaker 1 Proud of the way our guys came out, dominated from start to finish.

Speaker 1 And certainly, we left a lot of points on the board as well. But, you know, we're really starting to click.
We're getting some guys healthy.

Speaker 1 We still didn't have our top corner back, and he's going to be back in about a week. Our defensive tackle was still out, so we're looking at even getting way better here in the next couple weeks.

Speaker 3 You didn't want to stump for your team until this game was over.

Speaker 3 For the selection committee watching today, what do you hope that they saw out of Miami football complete dominance you know a team that just

Speaker 1 we've got great players in all phases and we're playing great football in all phases and you know what the best part about football you get to settle it on the field where head-to-head is always the number one criteria for anything regarding athletics and football I appreciate the time congratulations

Speaker 1 No one asked him about that. It was good to see the floating head of Ed Hudak still

Speaker 1 protecting coaches. Let's put that up on the screen so people can see that.
Ed Hudak has been doing this for UM coaches for a long time, protecting them from all people around them who might be scary.

Speaker 1 Look at that. That is the face of UM football for real.
Yes, go ahead and do that.

Speaker 1 Close up because people do not know this, but go that, look, Mario Cristobal always has Ed Hudak whispering things like that

Speaker 1 in his ear. Yes, look, that man has...
Hey, what's up with that question? He protected Mario's coaches. That guy protected Mario's coaches.

Speaker 1 And that guy has been in his ear, and he's proud of Mario right there. Just went full.
You can tell the handshake that guy's got. Oh, my God.
Rip your wrist clean off.

Speaker 1 Put it on the poll at Lebatard Show. Will Ed Hudak rip your wrist clean off with a handshake? And he will.
He's been law enforcement for this town. Do you know the scars that leaves?

Speaker 1 Protecting that program for 40 years? You know how many times Dennis Erickson had to be driven home?

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Speaker 1 Don Lebatard. It sounds to me like everybody could use a hug because a hug is always the right size.
Stugats. All I have put in my body today

Speaker 1 is three cups of coffee and an entire cup of coffee.

Speaker 1 Don't let him fool you. He said in the break that he's jittery.
This is the Don Lebatar Show with the Stugats.

Speaker 1 Ed Hudak has been protecting coaches in this market for 50 years. And Mario Kristenball did him proud with his team and his argument.

Speaker 1 But let's go back out to Jeremy to see if he can argue the other side of this. Well, he's just looking at head-to-head, Dan.
There are several other teams that qualify here.

Speaker 1 I already mentioned BYU should be the 11. You have Alabama.
Now, they lost to FSU. That's a tough look.
Their other loss to Oklahoma, they could end up with a third loss to Georgia in this scenario.

Speaker 1 It's going to be tough to overcome that, in my personal opinion, despite their three top 25 wins. But there's two teams you can look at here, Dan.
Let's start with James Madison.

Speaker 1 Now, they have one loss this season. They will be a conference champion with one loss.

Speaker 1 That loss, Dan, to Louville, a team that you all are trying to convince me is not a playoff eliminating loss for Miami, despite the fact that they also lost to unranked SMU.

Speaker 1 James Madison as a conference champion with a dominant win over Old Dominion.

Speaker 1 Old Dominion, Dan, who beat Virginia Tech by by 30 plus points, a win that Miami is trying to hold up as a great win over the last month, showing you the type of team that they are.

Speaker 1 Keep it moving, Jeremy. Be a professional.
The power went out, and you got to just keep going. You got to keep doing show.
You got to keep going. Jeremy, like if we're on live television.

Speaker 1 Jeremy, you know about being a professional? The power went out, Jeremy. Do you know about being a professional? Me.
James Madison is the argument you're going to make.

Speaker 1 James Madison

Speaker 1 is there over the University of Miami. But if you want to do it the other way,

Speaker 1 if you want to do it the other way and not go based off of who's a conference champion, but go based off of who has the best wins, who's beat the best teams, who's actually shown

Speaker 1 that they can beat playoff teams, that's where you look at Texas. They have a win over number seven, Texas A ⁇ M, over number eight, Oklahoma, over number 13, Vanderbilt.

Speaker 1 Their losses coming to two automatic qualifiers in Ohio State and Georgia. There is the tough loss of Florida, but how do we stack up that that Florida loss as compared to two unranked losses tonight?

Speaker 1 Jeremy, I don't think you heard me the first time I said this because I haven't heard something from you about Notre Dame yet. Did you hear him the first time he said it?

Speaker 1 Head-to-head is always the number one criteria for anything regarding athletics and football. Well, that's what I'm showing you.
You want to put James Madison in there? Fine. Take Notre Dame out.

Speaker 1 I don't have Notre Dame in there. I have BYU and James Madison as your final two teams

Speaker 1 getting an at-large

Speaker 1 Notre Dame Dame over Miami. Head to head is irrelevant if Notre Dame also doesn't have a head to head is James.

Speaker 1 You get one school named after a person.

Speaker 1 You get one school named after a person. Take one.
Brigham Young or James Madison. You can't put two schools named after a person.
Head to head.

Speaker 1 If Hudak could help Miami protect the ball, maybe they wouldn't. Can you put on the poll Juju at Lebetard show, can you put two people in the playoffs named after a person?

Speaker 1 Two teams in the playoffs. Because this is James and Madison.
Well, Well, this is the other thing. Thank you for doing that again.
Head to head.

Speaker 1 Do you realize that the only reason Mario Kristobal is not undefeated is because what he believes about football is right at his core is I'm going to try and run up the middle and I'm going to beat you

Speaker 1 right up the middle with Fletcher.

Speaker 1 I'm never going to notice that Pringle should be running. It should be Fletcher every time.
Head to head. I'm going to hitch in the face mask.
Head to head. Again, what you got?

Speaker 1 What do you got, Rhett Lashley? I got this. Head to head.

Speaker 1 What do you got? Head to head. Just straight up the middle.
I gotta be honest. I think Mario Kristobal is wrong.

Speaker 1 I think he's wrong when he says head to head matters in everything in athletics and football

Speaker 1 I would argue head to head matters in so many things outside of athletics and football as well for anything regarding athletics and football no just for for anything for anything for anything

Speaker 1 yes not just athletics and football for anything for anything

Speaker 1 if something is going on in the world and there's

Speaker 1 head-to-head happening, that matters. For anything.
You know what? You're making good points, but I feel like Jeremy cooked my ass with a James Madison win over Old Dominion.

Speaker 1 Because Old Dominion beating Virginia Tech worse than Miami did. Like, you're right, man.
I'm going to lay my sword down. That one hurt.

Speaker 1 I'm not the only one who's talking about wins over teams that other teams didn't play as well.

Speaker 1 That's been the argument for Miami all the way through is beating down opponents that maybe other teams couldn't compete against, beating teams that beat other teams.

Speaker 1 If we're going to constantly be doing the transitive property, you have to look at a team that's a conference champion. We're not.

Speaker 1 And has dominated their entire schedule outside of Louisville, a team that Miami holds up as a loss that is not that bad.

Speaker 1 I mean, I hear your point, but we're actually not doing head-to-head, as Mario Crisobal points out, or common opponents. We're doing it literally everywhere in the CFP.

Speaker 1 If you look throughout the top 15 in the CFP, every single person that has either a common opponent or a head-to-head advantage is ranked against the other, especially if they have the same record.

Speaker 1 There is one outlier throughout the entire top 15 where common opponents do not matter and head-to-head does not matter. Guess which one that is?

Speaker 1 Guess? It's the obvious one. It's Miami.

Speaker 1 Look what they say when they say Notre Dame. They lead with equality losses.
Okay, that's the argument. That's a barometer.
Why is Alabama ahead of Miami?

Speaker 1 All of a sudden, the criteria shifts to quality wins. We're literally shifting the criteria team to team rather than holding one consistent.

Speaker 1 If you're invoking quality losses, then invoke it when it comes to Alabama. They lost to FSU.
No, then the conversation changes to quality wins.

Speaker 1 It's clear as day what's been happening over the last month. Been trying to overcome.
Is it clear as day? Is it clear as day? Because Jeremy, you're not listening to Mario when he says head to head.

Speaker 1 You're still here arguing for James Madison and invoking old Dominion. Jeremy, you do not believe with a straight face that Miami is not one of the 12 best teams in the country.

Speaker 1 You don't believe that either. One of the best teams in the country is not the conversation that I thought we were doing this based off merit.

Speaker 1 If you're going to constantly argue that the singular game between Miami and Order, they settled it on

Speaker 1 who won more games. That's merit.
Who's winning more of their games? There's a team that's going to be a conference champion.

Speaker 1 There's going to be a conference champion that is excluded from this conversation in a 12-team playoff.

Speaker 1 Of course, unless Duke ultimately beats Virginia, in which case the ACC should not have a single team in the playoff, if that's the case, including Miami, because BYU would get in there.

Speaker 1 James Madison would all of a sudden become an automatic qualifier with either Tulane or North Texas. Virginia shouldn't make it.
And as you can see here, Duke, LMAO.

Speaker 1 All right, Jeremy, thank you for your contributions.

Speaker 1 The argument I would make, all right, this is just,

Speaker 1 I am indeed a little late to this, so my humble apologies in not articulating this this way earlier because I have failed the region and my alma mater in whatever it is that I aspire to around

Speaker 1 neutrality. But

Speaker 1 my argument in 2025,

Speaker 1 after

Speaker 1 many years of watching championship football in this market, taught to me by this program, okay,

Speaker 1 My argument for the computers and the voters and however it is anyone measures this stuff, whether it's Herb Street or Feinbaum or however it is that the advanced metrics are measuring sports better than ever today.

Speaker 1 My argument in 2025, after 40 years of experience in this market, is my argument on behalf of Miami is

Speaker 1 Look at them

Speaker 1 Just look at them or the most obvious one they beat the other two No, but just look.

Speaker 1 Just look at them going up and down the field, mauling people on the offensive side of the football, only to get bleeped where their coaches will bleep it up because they're obviously... Look at them.

Speaker 1 Look at them physically. They're stronger than everyone they're playing.
I just had an epiphany watching Jeremy do that fairly uninterrupted.

Speaker 1 I was on the FPI college football playoff predictor, and Miami's chances actually went up as Jeremy was talking. Really? And I think that this is a bold new strategy.
We should put out...

Speaker 1 let me reach out to Cam Gorby over at the University of Miami. Go on.

Speaker 1 Instead of having Mario Crisobal do post-game interviews where he's saying the obvious, we should actually hire Jeremy to make an argument against us because I think it actually helps Miami's case.

Speaker 1 I think it's a good strategy. Yes.

Speaker 1 He is that unlikely. No, it's not.
He finds a way to make Miami's case more compelling when he argues against it. Hear me out.
I think this is the way.

Speaker 1 Numbers literally went up 3% while he was talking about it. The more he talks, the more people like Miami.
Keep it going, Jeremy.

Speaker 1 I lost my power button to hit him with the stop talking because the power went out earlier in the segment during his segment, as he just stopped doing. How about us? That was the Lord.

Speaker 1 That was the Lord showing us a path. He can't cut off Jeremy.
He must be speaking. Jeremy, are the heat broadcasts so lean and mean that there's never a mistake where the power goes out?

Speaker 1 There's never been a mistake on a heat broadcast, no, not by me or anyone else. Wow.
Other than the action being like four seconds.

Speaker 1 Eric Reed. I mean, geez.
Wow.

Speaker 1 He's looked at him. He's pissed off.
And I don't think this is about him being unlikable. I think the moment that you mentioned.
Oh, you don't? No,

Speaker 1 this is what I would say. Not this time.
He's finally giving him the usage rate he wants. Give him more.
Feed him the rock. I need him there.

Speaker 1 The argument on the other side of it. Once you've gotten to, I concede on Notre Dame, you guys are the same.
And I can't do it head-to-head. I'm going to make the argument around head-to-head.

Speaker 1 And I'm going to go get James Madison. I'm going to go get James Madison.
And what I'm going to look at and say to people is, an old Dominion beat Virginia Tech by more than Miami.

Speaker 1 That was good shit, Jeremy. You keep doing that.
You're welcome. Hey, look.
I love that point. Losing to Louisville.
You both did the same thing, except Miami also has another loss.

Speaker 1 Louisville, and there's going to be a conference champion right here staring you in the face. There's also going to be Texas that has a bunch of good wins.
Texas. Three top 15 wins right there.

Speaker 1 Now they have a loss

Speaker 1 that Miami beat. So I won't include them.
They have Alabama, FSU. Hey, I thought you wanted me getting the usage rate.

Speaker 1 No, no, I'm saying, but you just mentioned Texas, which went to overtime with Kentucky, a team that just lost to Louisville. They lost to Florida.
A team that just lost to Louisville 41-0.

Speaker 1 That team, Kentucky, took Texas to over. overtime.
Oh, now we're not even doing the results of the game. We're doing if they went to overtime.

Speaker 1 Do you want to talk about the first quarter against Florida in the swamp? I mean, what are we doing?

Speaker 1 Texas also lost to Florida in the swamp, a team that Miami thoroughly dominated.

Speaker 1 It's just like, out of all your metrics, when you want to invoke old Dominion and you want to do common opponent stuff, the most obvious common opponent thing is head-to-head.

Speaker 1 Okay, then I won't do that to matter. I won't do that.
I'll do James Madison's going to be 11-1, 12-1, and win a conference championship. You can't win an argument against this.

Speaker 1 You're losing to Mario Cristobal head-to-head with your charges. the number one criteria for anything and your whiteboard

Speaker 1 and your your kevin spacey and seven for anything right damn white and making you bored manifestos

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