From Radio Row, Day 3: Roman Harper, Dennis Dodd, Peter Burns & more

Wednesday morning's edition of TexAgs Radio emanated live from the Omni Dallas Hotel, the site of 2024 SEC Media Days. Today's special guests included Kris Budden, Roman Harper, Chris Phillips, Dennis Dodd, J.D. Pickell, Nick de la Torre, Peter Burns, Cole Cubelic and Jordan Rodgers. 

Key notes from Kris Budden interview

• To know that town in Knoxville and see how thirsty it was for a national championship... When I got there in 2008, it was a really long decade of firing coaches and not finding success. It was so cool to see how Tony Vitello got that program to the top of baseball. It was a really fun series.
   
• It was incredible what the Aggies were able to do, especially with everything they lost. You always wonder, “How is this pitching going to set up?” Both these teams went through the winners’ bracket, and to do that without a day three starter and without Braden Montgomery was incredible.
   
• You knew when the firing of David Pierce announcement was made with Chris Del Conte, you are making it on this day because he wanted one of those two coaches. I didn't think Jim Schlossnagle was going to go because of the statement he made before. This would have been apocalyptic without that statement, but because of what you said, it was nuclear. I don't fault him for taking the coaching job, but the way that everything happened was kind of unbelievable.
   
• Mike Elko is the right guy, the right pieces, and a defensive-minded coach coming into this league, I think this is a big year because of recruiting. That is something that A&M has had over Texas. It’s, “We’re in the SEC. We are in the biggest and baddest, ‘It just means more’ conference.”
   
• From a recruiting standpoint, being able to close off the borders on some of the best high school athletes in the country is so big. The time you spend around coach Mike Elko, you get why he brings guys to campus. He is a great recruiter, and he is a guy that people want to play for.
   
• There are so many storylines, and we haven’t brought up the fact that Bobby Petrino is going back to Fayetteville. We all sit here and say Georgia will be in Atlanta. The way I see it is that there are eight or nine teams that can make the SEC Championship. To me, it is just how many teams can be that No. 2 team. We know Texas could be that, but who knows who it is going to be?

Key notes from Roman Harper interview

• Honestly, I think Texas A&M is naturally going to be better because Mike Elko is better. I think they got an upgrade at the head coach position. It's going to happen organically. I think he's hungry, and look at what he did at Duke. If he scratches the surface of what he did at Duke, there down in College Station, it should be just fine.
   
• There are a couple of teams out there that you can be optimistically scared of when you talk about them. Texas, for example, always loses a game that they aren't supposed to lose. Then, I'm always let down by one of the Mississippi teams. With Texas A&M, I feel like with Jimbo Fisher gone, the temperature has gone down.
   
• The easiest and quickest way to lose a game, defensively, is over the top, so you have to be sound on the back half. You also have to affect the quarterback in rush and coverage, and I think you all will have the rush part down.
   
• I really enjoyed watching Mike Elko’s defense play, so I'm looking forward to that again. If A&M gets the secondary piece working again, that allows you to be so much more defensively. You have safeties that can cover in space and then being hard edge setters in the run game makes your game so much more dynamic.
   
• Lane Kiffin’s laissez-faire attitude toward the media trickles down to the team, too. You didn't really see that last year. You never saw the highs and the lows. I think Kiffin’s attitude, being able to be himself, helps Steve Sarkisian. It was outstanding that he was that humble and that open. When you know who you are as a person, you can't be defined by anyone else's opinions. 
   
• It's not even a question. The best corner ever is Aaron Glenn. You cannot even run a slant route against him. To see him evolve into a coach has been really cool. He balled. He was a first-round NFL Draft pick, and now, he's doing it at the highest level. I know him and his respect for the game.
   
• That’s why when we talk about it, it's like, “A&M hasn't put a corner in the league since when?” They have too much talent to not do so. It just doesn't make sense to me. You look at them, and they play fast, so it makes you ask what they're doing between the lines. Are they playing zone or man? Are they running downfield or doing all the little things?
   
• I'm ready for Texas to hurt me. I haven't drank the Kool-Aid yet, but I look at their schedule, and I only look at three games. Oklahoma has won eight out of the last ten. They got Georgia at home and then go to play in Kyle Field at the end of the year, which I cannot wait for. I'm really looking forward to that. 
   
• The other team that could hurt me is LSU because I just don't know. I can see them being good, but then I can also see them not. The only step they can take is defensively, and they'll naturally take a step back offensively.
   
• Texas had the ability in the Big 12 to kind of relax. There was not the same amount of pressure playing Texas Tech than there was playing Oklahoma. I'm looking forward to it, but I have never seen a group of fans whose self image of themselves is so lofty.

Key notes from Dennis Dodd interview

• We were talking to Nick Saban in a big group, but I just wanted to talk to him and find out where his headspace was. He said, very revealingly, that he prepped 200 hours for the NFL Draft.
   
• There's part of me that goes, “Why does Tom Brady need to do it?” because he has a gazillion dollars. I thought that way too about Saban until you talk to him, and he's always tapping his foot, talking about players and looking to the next thing. He misses it, and he's very involved in it.
   
• I think they targeted Kalen DeBoer early on. He had an offer on the table, a big extension from Washington. When he didn't take it, I thought it was odd. This is the ultimate guy to replace the ultimate guy. He embraced that.
   
• I think Steve Sarkisian is building. That first year at 5-7 wasn't good, but it's a steady climb. He got the Big 12 Championship, which was fine, and then the integration into the SEC. They did not rule the Big 12 on the field all the time because, combined, they only won 11 titles in 27 years. They're going to be, in any given year, the fourth or fifth-best program in the league.
   
• I love the Mike Elko hire. He's solid, and he's a ball coach. He's embraced NIL, and he's gotten in the mix. He's just a hell of a coach. I loved watching Duke play, and he's a great defensive mind. Maybe, he even brings back the Wrecking Crew persona.
   
• On paper, Texas A&M is the best job in the country. They have the facilities, salaries and resources, but it just hasn't happened. I can't explain Jimbo Fisher.
   
• Does Ole Miss count as a sleeper team? I wrote about Lane Kiffin the other day. There's a cohort of teams that kind of meet in the middle, where if you play how you played last year, you're going to be in. Lane, although it sounds cliche, has matured before our eyes.
   
• I always called him the boy-king when he was younger. Now, he's the portal king. He's even gone beyond that. Ten stars back on offense and 10 stars back on defense. They're only a dark horse because they've never done it before.

Key notes from J.D. Pickell interview

• It's funny when we are just past spring football, and there's not as much content going around, there's a way you can separate yourself from everyone. Finding new content is a way for people to find you in March and follow you into the fall.
   
• I think all of us got into this because we genuinely love all of it. At the end of the day, it's like, “We’re all in this together,” and it's a lot easier to be friends with people than to have beef. 
   
• I think, to some degree, it's OK to be wrong. This is why I believe this and the facts I am standing on. I can sleep fine at night knowing I took a shot. I was wrong, but the logic was right in my mind.
   
• A&M’s brand, in itself, is like a lightning rod because as soon as you say anything about them, people come in saying how much they've heard that A&M is going to be a contender or compete with the SEC. I think with Mike Elko this season, it's a lot of laying the foundation and getting the right things in place for the future.
   
• The thing with college football as a whole... If you have great input, you'll have a great output. A&M has seen a lot of good input and has not received the output. They're not crazy.
   
• I just wonder how long it takes to gel at A&M. I think you have the talent to be competitive right away. Obviously, Conner Weigman needs to stay healthy to translate into what we think he's going to be. I think about year two or three of the Mike Elko era is when I would be very excited.
   
• It's funny we are saying, “Georgia, Texas and Ole Miss,” instead of Alabama, right? If you told us that a year ago, we would go, “Woah,” and I think Ole Miss and the pressure they have to break through is massive. I think the floor at Georgia is ridiculously high. I think it's them and Ohio State in the national championship. I think this year for Texas is a lot of trying to validate what they did last year.
   
• I think with Georgia, the scary part is that they get a mulligan. They can go 10-2 and find themselves in that seven spot. I think Georgia treats losing a game like an ice bath. They kind of get shocked and wake up. We saw that last year in almost losses where they would come out in the next game and completely dominate.

Key notes from Peter Burns interview

• With LSU, as long as the defense is better, the offense doesn't need to be 2019 LSU caliber. It just needs to be top-20 in the nation, and with Garrett Nussmeier, Kyren Lacy and those guys, I think they are. Arguably, I think they have the best offensive line in the country. Will Campbell and Emory Jones Jr. are going to be no-doubters as fast as NFL Draft picks?
   
• You just don't need to be No. 70 or 80 on defense. There needs to be some type of complementary. I was there for the LSU vs. Florida game last year. I saw Jayden Daniels win the Heisman that night, and it was still so sickening when I think about how bad that defense was.
   
• It would be like if you were looking at the Wrecking Crew defense, and they were terrible, you would go, “Wait a minute, I remember Dat Nguyen and all these great players.” It would be like, “We might lose, but we're going to give you a hell of a fight.” To see LSU play lackadaisical on defense last year was sickening.
   
• I think the Aggies have a ceiling-to-floor gap as big as anybody. I don't think the floor is five or six wins. I just don't know how they pair with everyone coming into this league. We hear Billy Napier or Sam Pittman having pressure or Kalen DeBoer replacing Nick Saban, but I think it's Mike Elko.
   
• He is in the most pressure-packed situation because A&M had a decade-plus headstart on their rival, and it always felt like they had gotten to that same plateau as them, or even better because they were in the SEC. Now, with Texas coming in as a national championship contender, it is up to Mike Elko to use that talent on their roster and overachieve.
   
• I went through Texas’ schedule, and they go to Michigan in Week 2. By the way, UTSA, being the week after, is the biggest trap game. Jeff Traylor runs a hell of a program. If Elko had not got the job, I thought Jeff Traylor would have come in. I think that's going to be a weird spot for Texas.
   
• You heard Nick Saban talk about it. He picked Texas and Georgia to play in the SEC Championship, but he said, “If you think you're just going to come in here and run the SEC, you got to know that they're coming,” It's one thing if Peter Burns or David Nuño says that, but when Nick Saban says it? He conquered this league.
   
• Steve Sarkisian told me that if they're going to be joining somewhere else, they have to up the line of scrimmage. They can't play “patty-cake” football because that Big 12 football isn't going to cut it in the SEC.
   
• Arkansas is a caged animal. They’re wounded with their backs against the wall, and they have nothing to lose, and that's the most dangerous kind of opponent. If I'm Sam Pittman and Bobby Petrino, I'm not looking at future development. I'm just going out there to have fun.  
   
• Nick Saban is just different. He walks in and comes over and says hello, and I'm like, “I just had coffee and sat down with Nick Saban. He's my coworker.” There's almost a breath of fresh air in Tuscaloosa. I think Alabama is set up better for the future of college football under Kalen DeBoer than they were with Nick Saban.
   
• That's not saying Kalen DeBoer isn’t going to win as many championships, but I think the NIL and transfer portal world we live in is not a sport in which Nick Saban wants to be affiliated with.
   
• He can adapt to RPOs and fast-paced offenses, but I don't think he was ever going to bend the will to an 18-year-old kid sitting in his office saying, “Unless you can pay me $650,000? Deuces,” so I think Kalen and Alabama are going to be solid.
   
• I think there are six or seven teams in the SEC that can legitimately be College Football Playoff teams, A&M being one of them this year.
   
• I remember a couple of years ago, in Atlanta for SEC Media Days, I went up to Nick Saban. I knew he liked golf, so I went up to him to make conversation. It was pretty one-sided, though, but he came up to me yesterday and asked me how I was playing. I was like, “This guy’s talking to me now.” It was so surreal.
   
• I watched him and his commitment to excellence is unbelievable. He looks at every rundown like it's the script at halftime in a national championship. He wants to know what everything means, and his brain works in a different way. It's cool.

Key notes from Jordan Rodgers interview

• Putting together a quarterback list was tough. I could have put Conner Weigman higher and justified it. I went back and watched as much film as I could of him.
   
• I go back to the Miami game. You will not find another tape of any quarterback in the country, especially in the SEC, that was a better, big-time throw film out there. It was unbelievable. He was as dialed as I have seen anybody. That was the offense that was letting him do what he does best. 
   
• With what Collin Klein will bring, Weigman will have a hell of a year. I think so highly of him. I could have moved up a couple of slots. Because the lack of body of work, I knew I would get heat. I love the kid.
   
• When you go watch Klein’s last two years of offense, it looks different at times based on what they do best. The core concepts are still there, but they adapt it. I was as loud as anybody saying Jimbo was changing anything for years. 
   
• Mike Elko locking himself in a room and watching every snap of Klein, there is no better indicator than one of the best defensive coordinators in the country going, “I don't like game planning against a guy like that.”
   
• I don't think they are moving into the contender stage, but I thought Florida was a better football last year. Graham Mertz was greatly underappreciated. Their schedule is brutal. Will they go win eight games? No! Probably not, but they will not be an easy out for anybody.