THE HEISMAN HOPEFULS PODCAST
Episode 1 — Preseason Preview

Host: Chris Huston
Guests: CJ Carr, quarterback, Notre Dame
        Wayne Knight, running back, UCLA
        Andrew Zock, defensive end, Toledo
        Bill Connelly, ESPN

Edited for length and clarity.


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OPENING
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HUSTON: The 2026 college football season is here, and everywhere you look, players, coaches and programs are on the move. We're seeing wave after wave of transfers, impact coaching hires, ongoing conference realignment, zombie leagues, and maybe even some zombie players coming back to school. What can possibly be next for college football? No one seems to know for sure. It can get overwhelming and confusing for fans. A lot of the things we've been used to have gone away, and a lot of the new things don't always make a whole lot of sense. I think we're all crossing our fingers in the hope that the sport will muddle through.

Meanwhile, the Heisman Trophy has never been more important to college football than it is right now. It serves as a unifying symbol that connects the sport's history and tradition with the modern era. Without the Heisman, who or what would keep that flame alive? Whatever the case, it's going to be another exciting race for the most prestigious award in sports.

I can't remember the last time I've seen so many impressive preseason candidates. One of them, Notre Dame quarterback CJ Carr, is our featured guest on this week's episode. There was a time when the Irish quarterback position was the most glamorous in college football. Names like Bertelli, Lujack, Huarte, Theismann, Montana. The standard was set at an insane level, but that was decades ago. Can CJ Carr wake up the echoes? Can he succeed where so many have fallen short? I wouldn't bet against it.

About two hours and forty minutes from South Bend by car is the University of Toledo, where our second guest, defensive end Andrew Zock, is one of many lower-division players making the move to the FBS. Except he's not just any player. He's the reigning FCS Defensive Player of the Year, a sack master and a disruptor, and he's trying to prove himself yet again. Can he take the MAC by storm? I wouldn't bet against him either.

We'll wrap up the show with ESPN's Bill Connelly, who walks us through some of the more interesting trends we're seeing in college football — trends that will probably influence how you view the game going forward. It's a fascinating discussion from one of the best thinkers in the sport today. I'm excited to talk with all of them here on the first real Heisman Hopefuls Podcast of the season. I'm your host, Chris Huston, and I'll see you on the other side with Notre Dame quarterback CJ Carr.


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CJ CARR, QUARTERBACK, NOTRE DAME
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HUSTON: Our featured guest today grew up in Saline, Michigan, in a family where football was the family business. His father played at Michigan and his grandfather coached there and won a national title there, but he chose Notre Dame to play college football. Last fall, as a redshirt freshman in his first season as a starter, he threw for 2,741 yards and 24 touchdowns against just six interceptions. He led the Irish to a 10-2 record, and he threw a touchdown pass in every game he played. Back for another year, he opens his season at Lambeau Field against Wisconsin two Saturdays from now, with the No. 4 Irish looking to leave no doubt and compete for their first national title since 1988. Notre Dame quarterback CJ Carr, thanks for joining us on the Heisman Hopefuls Podcast.

CARR: Absolutely. Thank you for having me.

HUSTON: The Fighting Irish ended training camp last weekend with a nearly 100-play scrimmage, and now you're in game prep for Wisconsin. How did camp go for you personally, and what do you and the Irish offense still need to clean up before you play the Badgers?

CARR: Camp was great. It was exactly how we wanted it to go. It was challenging, it was tough, long days, but I thought we got better as a team and as a unit, and we built a ton of chemistry in the locker room and on the field. So we're really excited for week one, now that we can turn our attention away from playing each other and toward one common opponent in Wisconsin.

HUSTON: Your offensive coordinator, Mike Denbrock, says the conversation between the two of you on the headset is completely different now compared to last year at this time. What do you think he means by that?

CARR: I think it's the comfort we have with each other — the way Den calls a play, the way he knows what I'm thinking. I understand what he wants within a certain play call, what we're attacking and what it isn't good against. He can communicate that, and I can fix the problems on the field if any arise.

HUSTON: Looking at your tape last year, the first touchdown pass you threw against Miami was pretty memorable stuff. A nifty scramble, really just pure magic. Is that the real CJ Carr, what we saw on that play? Or was that you doing what you had to do in that moment to get the score?

CARR: That's a good question. I'm not sure. I want to be able to make good decisions within the pocket, get the football to our playmakers and give them space to run and make plays. Those are the real athletes out there. But when my number's called, I have the ability to make things happen like I did on that play.

HUSTON: Very exciting play. Last year you averaged around twenty-four pass attempts per game, with two first-round guys in the backfield. Now that they're gone, is Coach going to let you take the Ferrari out for a spin more often, maybe get more aggressive downfield?

CARR: We'll see. If he asks me to do that, and that's what we need to do to win the football game, then I'm welcoming that and excited to do it. And if we need to hand the ball off a hundred times a game, that's good too, as long as we end up with a win.

HUSTON: Name something you cannot do right now that you intend to be able to do by the end of the season.

CARR: Name something I cannot do right now? That's a good question. I'm not sure what I can't do right now. I think you use games and practices to find out what you can't do. So it's just working to be more consistent within our offense, finding those things I can't do and fixing them with urgency.

HUSTON: Fair enough. What's the throw or play that you've come closest to perfecting to your satisfaction?

CARR: We have a bunch of down-the-field passes that you have to see against every coverage, every different look you can get, before you feel super comfortable with them. So in my mind: how does double post with smash to the boundary work against man, quarters, two, three, sim pressures, hot zones? Where's the ball going? It takes a lot of time and reps to visualize those plays and know where the ball should go within each and every one of those coverages. I'd say that's one of the plays I feel very comfortable with. But we're continuing to work toward that comfort with all of our plays within our offense.

HUSTON: I think I saw somewhere that you're not a superstitious guy, that you're into routines. Tell me about some of the daily routines you stick to hardest at Notre Dame.

CARR: It depends on what season we're in. In fall camp, our whole schedule is laid out for us, because we're in the building all day, every day. During the school year it's more personalized, with different people going to different classes. For me, I like to have most of our charting of the opponent's plays done by Thursday. Those first few days are big on watching tape, and toward the end of the week it's more about seeing yourself succeed — less tape and more building confidence in the game plan. It changes from season to season.

HUSTON: For you, what is the most satisfying aspect of being a quarterback?

CARR: One of the most satisfying things I think anyone can do is throw a touchdown pass. When the ball leaves your hand and it feels good, and you can see the rotation on the ball, and then your guy comes down with it and the crowd goes wild — that's satisfying for sure. But the ultimate satisfying feeling is winning. You've put in a bunch of work throughout the week, you've been training for this opponent, and then you get to go out, execute your routine and your game plan, and it ends up being successful. I think those two are very satisfying.

HUSTON: How old were you when you decided to be a quarterback?

CARR: That's a good question. Growing up, I was always throwing things in the backyard with my dad — baseball, basketball, football. I always grew up wanting to be a quarterback. I wasn't allowed to play tackle football until seventh grade, and when tackle football started I was like, all right, all these other sports, I don't care about any of this. This is the sport for me. But even before that, I knew I wanted to play quarterback, and I wanted to be a guy who could lead a team. And I could always throw it pretty well. So I'd say for most of my life.

HUSTON: Once you decided to be a quarterback, do you think the demands of the position already fit your personality and work habits, or did those things change to meet the demands?

CARR: A little bit of both. Within each team you play on, you lead that team a little differently, and I think it comes down to the people on that team and building relationships with those guys. Coach Freeman talks a lot about how the best leaders understood what different players on their team needed at different times. You're going to talk to Micah Gilbert a little differently than you're going to talk to Anthonie Knapp, and differently than you'd talk to Adon Shuler. In order to know how to talk to those guys, you've got to be around them, you've got to be close with them. So it flips from team to team.

HUSTON: It's been talked about a lot: you're from a Michigan family, you grew up a Wolverines fan bleeding maize and blue, obviously super familiar with all the ins and outs of that tradition. I've always wondered — going to Notre Dame, how long did it take you to internalize the idea that you're now responsible for carrying on a completely different tradition than the one you were raised on?

CARR: I think the Notre Dame and Michigan standards aren't too far apart. They're both historically great programs that really emphasize winning football games and playing at a high level, but also want strong academics. So it wasn't a huge leap. The one difference I saw at Notre Dame is that it has that same outreach as Michigan, maybe even more, with the fan base — people love you or hate you. But I think it's a little different at Notre Dame, because you walk onto campus and it has that outreach, and you think of it as such a big, exciting brand, but on campus it's such a small, tight community. You know your classmates by name, and you're best buddies with some of your dormmates who don't have anything to do with the football program. The tight-knit community wasn't an adjustment, so to say, because it's effortless here and people really do love each other. But that was a little different coming from Michigan.

HUSTON: And you're playing one of the most storied positions in college football history. Is that a burden, a blessing, an inspiration? What's it like to be in this position, Notre Dame quarterback?

CARR: It's a lot of fun. It's a blessing, like you said. I grew up always wanting to be a quarterback, like we talked about, and wanting to play football. To think that every day I get to wake up and play the greatest sport ever created, and in my opinion at the greatest position — quarterback is such a unique position, there's only one of you and everyone's kind of looking at you. Coach Freeman said it: win or lose, the head coach gets blamed and the quarterback gets blamed. So it's a unique position for sure. But I love it. I get to come out here, like I said, and play ball with my best friends. It's a lot of fun.

HUSTON: You grew up in a football family, around college football a long time. Are you a fan of the sport in the sense that you look at the history of Notre Dame? Do you know the past players, the Heisman winners, the past quarterbacks?

CARR: Not too much. I was more of a Michigan history guy, just because of my grandpa. I've tried to become a little more familiar with the Notre Dame history and the great players who have come before us, but I don't think I'd be great on a Notre Dame Jeopardy type of game show. Maybe in a couple more years.

HUSTON: The Fighting Irish kick off this season against Wisconsin on September sixth. What feels different going into this game compared to last year against Miami down in Florida?

CARR: Personally, just the game reps and practice reps I've gotten over the last year and a half have been huge, and my comfort playing ball. Football is a unique sport, because you only get twelve to fifteen games guaranteed every year. You go play a sport like baseball or basketball and you're playing a hundred and fifty games, you're practicing, you've got a lot of failures to learn from. Football is just not like that. So the amount of reps you get in a game and in practice is huge to build that confidence and that comfort with playing the position.

HUSTON: If you score a touchdown against Wisconsin, any plans to take a Lambeau Leap?

CARR: Not that I know of yet. I hope we score a bunch of touchdowns and we've got a bunch of guys doing the Lambeau Leap, but I don't know if I've got the bunnies to get up there.

HUSTON: Okay, we're going to do some rapid-fire questions and get you out of here. What's your favorite class?

CARR: Ancient and medieval philosophy with Dr. Corey was my favorite.

HUSTON: What's one rule you'd change about college football tomorrow?

CARR: No TV timeouts. I hate TV timeouts. It's the worst part of the game.

HUSTON: What's the longest you've gone without touching a football?

CARR: Not long. In high school, my dad made us take a week off after the season. We couldn't touch a ball, couldn't throw at all. That was probably the longest I went.

HUSTON: What sport would you play if football didn't exist?

CARR: Ping-pong, probably. Ping-pong, volleyball. Those two.

HUSTON: What job would you want if you had never played sports?

CARR: I wouldn't want a job. That would be terrible. I'd just want to play sports. I don't know. I don't even want to think about that.

HUSTON: What's a piece of advice from your grandfather that you use?

CARR: Show up every day, continue to compete, and just be you.

HUSTON: Finish the sentence. People would be surprised to learn that I...

CARR: No. You are what you are, right? There are no secrets.

HUSTON: No secret talent? You're not a piano player on the side, or a singer?

CARR: No. Whenever someone asks what my hidden talent is, I say I play chess. I'm not good at chess, but I play chess. That's my classroom fun fact, I guess.

HUSTON: Fair enough. Well, CJ Carr, thanks for coming on the Heisman Hopefuls Podcast. Good luck to you and your team against Wisconsin and beyond.

CARR: Yes, sir. Thank you.


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WAYNE KNIGHT, RUNNING BACK, UCLA
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HUSTON: Wayne Knight exploded onto the college football scene last year as a versatile junior running back for James Madison, totaling over 2,000 all-purpose yards as he helped lead the Dukes to the College Football Playoff. For those efforts, he was named an Associated Press second-team All-American. The 5-foot-7, 190-pounder from Smyrna, Delaware, said farewell to the East Coast in the offseason and is now spending his final season at UCLA, where his former JMU head coach, Bob Chesney, has taken the reins. They're expecting big things from Knight in Westwood this year, and he wouldn't be the first running back of short stature to tear things up as a Bruin. Wayne Knight, welcome to the Heisman Hopefuls Podcast.

KNIGHT: Thank you. Appreciate you having me.

HUSTON: The Bruins are getting ready to face Cal next Saturday. How did camp go for you guys, and what's the mood of the team as game day approaches?

KNIGHT: Camp has been a process — a process of us growing together, some guys being more efficient in the scheme, kind of just putting everything together. So far, everyone has done a great job of buying into the process and believing in the coaching staff, in Coach Chesney and everything he's brought here to UCLA. We're in for a ride.

HUSTON: I'm sure by now you've heard comparisons to Maurice Jones-Drew, who was a similar size and played at UCLA. But I also think Ashton Jeanty from Boise a couple of years ago was a pretty good comp. Who out there would you say is closest to your style?

KNIGHT: Those are definitely two very good examples. I'd also say De'Von Achane and Bucky Irving, two guys in the league right now who are doing their thing. Similar builds to me — being able to make guys miss in space and also catch the ball out of the backfield. So those four guys right there are definitely good comps to me.

HUSTON: One thing that struck me is how patient you are as a runner. When you see the hole, you really accelerate through it. You're very decisive once you make your cut. Is that a natural, instinctive thing for you, or was it taught to you at some point along the way?

KNIGHT: Definitely a little bit of both. Having good coaches in my past career who could facilitate those kinds of things for me, but also just gaining confidence as the years go on and understanding the burst and acceleration that I have. Being able to trust that allows me to play at that tempo and hit a hole at full speed, or whatever the case may be. So just a combination of both of those helped me get to where I'm at right now.

HUSTON: There's one run in particular that you made last year that's pretty sick. I'm talking about your career-long touchdown against Troy. It's a read option, 73 yards to the house. You were bottled up at the line, broke about four tackles, got to the second level, and then you were off to the races. What do you remember about that run? Can you paint a picture for me?

KNIGHT: It was a blur. It happened fast. I made the first guy miss, made the second guy miss, and then before you know it, you're up to the second and third level. When you fall back on your technique, everything just happens so fast. But before you know it, I was in the open field running for a touchdown, and the only thing I could think was don't get caught.

HUSTON: When you're out in the open field, a lot of guys try to go down the crown of the field, try to get to the sideline, try to pick up speed. Is that something you think about as well?

KNIGHT: Nah, I just run in as straight a line as fast as I can to the end zone. I'm just trying to get points on the board.

HUSTON: Nice. I think a lot of coaches who could have recruited you out of high school are kicking themselves right now. Smyrna, Delaware, is not exactly known as a hotbed for football. How hard was it to get noticed during the recruiting process?

KNIGHT: It definitely was a process. I would say it was slow for me. I definitely didn't have any big Division I offers coming out of high school. That was also the COVID era, so there was more adversity during that time for me and a lot of other players. I definitely wasn't recruited high, but I had a coach bet on me, and to get to James Madison University, I just took full advantage of my opportunity.

HUSTON: Now tell me about the experience of being recruited by Curt Cignetti.

KNIGHT: It's an experience for sure. He likes what he likes, though, and he tells you exactly what he likes and what you're going to bring to the table for his team. He stuck to his words, and I ended up in a position where I was able to commit there.

HUSTON: He found a gem, that's for sure. Cignetti left for Indiana, and Chesney picked up right where he left off, as JMU made the playoffs last year. Compare for me these two coaches in style and approach.

KNIGHT: I'd say night and day. Coach Cignetti is kind of standoffish, a coach of very few words. He doesn't say much, but his point gets across. On the flip side, Coach Chesney is a guy who has a lot to say. Both coaches get their players to buy in to everything they're saying. They get them on the same page, and get them to understand what's at stake and that you've got to get these things accomplished on a day-in, day-out basis. It's two different approaches, both very successful.

HUSTON: As a player, does it matter to you which approach is taken if they're both successful, or do you have a preference either way?

KNIGHT: I'd say at the end of the day, you just want to win football games. Everyone's happy when football games are being won. But if I had to go with one, I'd definitely go with Coach Chesney — a guy who has an open door at all times. He wants to talk to his players. He wants to get to know you, know your journey, and know what kind of person you are. So you come out not only a better player for him, but a better man after it's all said and done.

HUSTON: So when Coach Chesney left to go to UCLA, was there ever a doubt that you'd go that way as well? What was the process like for you to make that transfer out to Westwood?

KNIGHT: No, definitely not a doubt. You definitely have to look at the business aspect of everything, especially now in 2026. It's a business, and you've got to make the best decisions for you and your family, or whatever the case may be. There definitely wasn't any hesitation. I know this guy wins. He wins football games. He's done it at every single level, and he's going to do it here now.

HUSTON: Were there any other teams whispering in your ear, trying to get you to come their way?

KNIGHT: Yeah, of course.

HUSTON: What were some of those teams? Can you tell?

KNIGHT: I'd say schools from every conference, on a Power Four or Power Five level, whatever the case may be. But at the end of the day, I trust in my leader, and I know we're going to win games here.

HUSTON: It seems like a pretty good advantage to transfer to a place where your coach is already there and a bunch of your teammates are already going. It creates an advantage compared to transferring to a totally different school, right? You don't have to learn a new playbook, you've got familiar faces. Is that a fair assessment — that it takes a big part in making that decision?

KNIGHT: A hundred percent. You hit it spot on, actually. I would say for me, the biggest thing is knowing the playbook, knowing the scheme, and understanding the guys you have around you and things of that nature. It allows you to jump into a different aspect of your game that you may be lacking in, or deficiencies you may need to clean up. It gives you more time to focus on those kinds of things so you can continue to become an elite player.

HUSTON: So all those things were in place for you at UCLA. What's been the most difficult aspect of the transition?

KNIGHT: I don't know if there is one. There's always been competitiveness in every single running back room I've been in, and it's no different here. We have guys that can go, and it's a strength to the team. You don't want the drop-off to be anything — if I go out, or someone else goes out, someone else comes in and the job's going to be done at a very high level. So having that in the room, and the competitiveness that Coach Chesney brings to the team on a day-in, day-out basis, is everything I'm used to. I wouldn't say there really is a disadvantage.

HUSTON: How are you enjoying Westwood so far?

KNIGHT: It's great. You can't complain that you're in LA. The weather's amazing. I think the people are a little bit nicer.

HUSTON: Nice. What's the most cliche SoCal thing you've done so far?

KNIGHT: Went to Rodeo Drive. Walked around there, got the full experience, seeing the cars and everything around there.

HUSTON: That's a pretty interesting place for sure. Did you see that car parked out front of that one store? It's always parked out there. It's a really crazy-looking car. Have you seen that one?

KNIGHT: Maybe not.

HUSTON: Okay. Look for it next time you're out there. Have you eaten at In-N-Out yet?

KNIGHT: I have. I'm not a huge fan. I've only been there one time. I kind of wrote it off, and I don't know if I'm going to be back.

HUSTON: You're going to make a lot of people angry with that one. Have you met any movie or TV stars yet?

KNIGHT: I haven't. I've just seen a few rappers in malls. That's probably one of the biggest things, but I haven't met any actors or actresses.

HUSTON: How about the other Wayne Knight? I think he lives near UCLA. You know who I'm talking about?

KNIGHT: Yeah, he gets mentioned a lot now. His name keeps coming up. But I haven't had a chance to meet him or anything like that. That would be a cool experience.

HUSTON: You averaged about 15 carries per game last year for the Dukes. You caught 40 balls, you returned punts and kicks. What's the plan for you this year? Are you still going to be focused on being an all-purpose guy, or since you're in the Big Ten now, will you be asked to carry more, now that the league is maybe a little more ball-control oriented? What do you think is going to happen on that end?

KNIGHT: I would say my role is probably going to be similar. I'm going to bring a different game to the team, just being able to be available — special teams, the pass game, and of course the run game. But I would say a similar kind of year for me. Maybe a little more kick-return oriented from the special teams standpoint, but on the ground, I'll go.

HUSTON: What do you like better, kick returns or punt returns?

KNIGHT: I just like the ball in my hands, but if I had to pick one, I'd probably say punt return. You catch it, you've got some space, it's backyard football, you can make anything happen.

HUSTON: Plus, you like being out there all alone against a hostile crowd, when everyone's looking at you.

KNIGHT: You've just got to keep poised back there, see the ball into the tuck, and then it's backyard football from there.

HUSTON: Aside from the usual team goals, what are your personal goals for this year?

KNIGHT: Personal goals, I would say just be the best version of myself, win the Heisman Trophy, and be at an elite level of my career going into the NFL.

HUSTON: That's a great goal, winning the Heisman Trophy. You're on the right show for that, for sure. Tell me about meeting Nico Iamaleava and the rapport you've built with him.

KNIGHT: Nico, that's a good dude right there. I've been able to get close to him this past summer and going into fall camp — some of the outside-football stuff, learning more of him as a person and who he is, and his roots being in LA. He's shown me a few things around here in LA. It's been great so far.

HUSTON: It seems like the relationships you make in this game are pretty special. What's your favorite thing about playing college football?

KNIGHT: I would just say the version it makes you as a person. You've got to be disciplined, you've got to be detailed in everything that you do, and that carries over into life. I wholeheartedly believe in that. It's brought me this far, and it doesn't stop here.

HUSTON: Okay, let's do some rapid-fire questions to get you out of here. You ready?

KNIGHT: I'm ready.

HUSTON: What's one thing people don't know about Delaware?

KNIGHT: Everyone loves Wawa in Delaware.

HUSTON: Eagles or Ravens?

KNIGHT: Eagles for sure. Die-hard fan.

HUSTON: What's one thing about Harrisonburg that you'd move to Los Angeles if you could?

KNIGHT: I would maybe say just the quad in the middle of the campus. It's always busy there, a lot of people there, a lot of time for social gathering around the campus.

HUSTON: LA traffic: worse than advertised, or exactly as advertised?

KNIGHT: I would say exactly as advertised. People definitely say the traffic out here is terrible, and it's lived up to the hype.

HUSTON: One rule you'd change about college football tomorrow.

KNIGHT: I would say less targeting calls. It's too many. It's football at the end of the day. It's a collision sport, and there are going to be big hits.

HUSTON: What's a sport you'd play if football didn't exist?

KNIGHT: I ran track.

HUSTON: You ran track in high school, right?

KNIGHT: I ran track in middle school. It's been a little while.

HUSTON: What's a job you'd want if you'd never picked up a football?

KNIGHT: Something in finance.

HUSTON: What's the best running back you've ever watched?

KNIGHT: In college, I'd say Reggie Bush.

HUSTON: And who's the best running back you've ever played against?

KNIGHT: You stumped me. I don't know if I've got one there.

HUSTON: Fair enough. Maybe you didn't play against any good running backs. Okay, finish this sentence: people would be surprised to learn that I...

KNIGHT: Snowboard.

HUSTON: Okay. Well, Wayne Knight, thanks again for coming on the Heisman Hopefuls Podcast. Good luck against Cal next Saturday, and good luck the rest of the season.

KNIGHT: I appreciate you. Thank you.


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ANDREW ZOCK, DEFENSIVE END, TOLEDO
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HUSTON: Andrew Zock is a 6-foot-2, 250-pound junior defensive end for the Toledo Rockets. He transferred in from FCS Mercer with his coach, Mike Jacobs, who took over the Toledo job last December. If you look up the word disruptor in the dictionary, you'll probably see Zock's picture. Last year for Mercer, he had 11.5 sacks, 20 tackles for loss and 23 quarterback hurries. That's just insane. He was the FCS Defensive Player of the Year, and big things are expected of him as he makes the move to the FBS and the MAC. Toledo takes on Michigan State in week one, and I wouldn't be surprised to see him make an immediate impact. Andrew Zock of the Toledo Rockets, welcome to the Heisman Hopefuls Podcast.

ZOCK: Yes, sir. Thank you for having me.

HUSTON: Andrew, you've had a really interesting journey so far. You started out playing football, basketball and track and field, and doing weightlifting, for your first three high school seasons at North Marion High in Citra, Florida. You did very well there. Then you transferred to Hawthorne High for your senior year, had a huge season and made all-state as a linebacker. You briefly committed to the Naval Academy, but at the last minute you decommitted and wound up at Mercer in the FCS, where you made an instant impact as a true freshman with fourteen and a half tackles for loss and seven sacks. Then last year you tallied twenty tackles for loss, eleven and a half sacks, plus an amazing twenty-three quarterback hurries, and you won the Buchanan Award as the top defensive player in the FCS. Now you're in the MAC as a junior, getting ready to take the field for the Toledo Rockets. The way this trajectory has gone so far, I'd say you're a decent bet to take the MAC by storm. Based on how camp has gone, how ready are you for the step up to the FBS?

ZOCK: I've never been this excited for a season. I'm excited every year, obviously, but just coming up a level — it was always a lifelong dream of mine to play FBS football, and now I've got the opportunity to do so. I feel like I don't have a lot of pressure on me as far as moving up a level, but I definitely feel like I've still got to prove myself. It's high-level competition, and with all the accolades you've gotten before, you can't just come up here and not continue to do that same thing. But throughout camp I've been healthy and had a good camp. I feel like the D-line room, the defense and the team in general are coming together well. So we're definitely looking forward to getting out there.

HUSTON: Good to hear. You played some big-time FBS schools while at Mercer. As a freshman you had two tackles for loss against Alabama, going up against some really high-level athletes on that line. There was a play where you came from the backside and stripped Jalen Milroe of the ball, later ruled he was down. I've got to imagine that game against the Tide gave you a lot of confidence as a freshman, right?

ZOCK: Yeah, definitely. It was crazy. It was surreal going out there and seeing a hundred thousand people in the stands. You watch Alabama on TV every Saturday when you're growing up, so going out there and being able to play against future NFL first-round picks — it was definitely a great experience.

HUSTON: Did it give you a feeling that, hey, I can really compete at this level?

ZOCK: Yeah, most definitely.

HUSTON: I'm kind of fascinated by the life of a transfer athlete such as yourself. I know that a lot of your Mercer teammates came with Coach Jacobs to Toledo, so I'm sure that helps, to have so many familiar faces around. But otherwise, what's it like being a transfer, coming to a brand new place in the middle of your college career?

ZOCK: It's basically like coming in with a couple of your friends from high school. You're just restarting. It's like how it was as a freshman: you come in and you've got to meet a whole new group of people. I was lucky enough to have the guys I knew from Mercer, and the coaches, so that made the transition pretty easy there. But as far as getting to know the guys who have been here, and guys who transferred from other schools, it's just like starting over fresh. We all have a journey that brought us here, and we're here together at the end of the day. That brings everybody together, and everybody has a different story to tell. So it's pretty easy to make that transition, especially when you've got a bunch of transfers who have been in college for a couple of years. They know the ropes, they've experienced it already. So everybody just comes together. It was pretty easy. Not a lot of cliques. I feel like we mesh pretty well.

HUSTON: It looked like you were coming off the edge a lot, sometimes from a standing position on the weak side, sometimes with your hand in the dirt on the strong side. You were already showing great pass-rushing ability back then, and you were seemingly everywhere on the field. Where did that skill and talent as a pass rusher come from? Is that something that took a long time to develop, or was it pretty natural for you?

ZOCK: I would say that was always my most natural thing to do. Ever since I started playing football, I was always a D-lineman. Now, when I played offense, I would play every position on the field, really. I'd be having the ball in my hands and stuff like that. But D-line was always my thing when it came to defense. So in high school, the more I developed, the more athletic I got and the more I started growing into my body, I was really able to go out there and make a lot of plays. Obviously, like you said, I played linebacker my senior year. So my freshman year, when I got to Mercer, I was really relearning basic fundamental things about D-line, and next-level stuff I'd never really even thought about in high school. In high school I was really just going based on being a football player, but using that ability and mixing it with the stuff you learn playing college football, with a great D-line coach like Jimmy Long, took me a long way.

HUSTON: It seems like playing all over the field the way you did in high school — linebacker, some tight end, D-line — it's almost like you were learning to become a complete football player. And now you're playing defensive end, but having all that influence of learning the game from other positions has to be a big help right now, right?

ZOCK: Most definitely. And like you mentioned earlier, playing other sports, training for other positions, working with other position groups and not just strictly D-line, helped me be able to move more fluidly. Obviously tight end — I was out there running routes and stuff — and linebacker, dropping into coverage and moving across the field. And other sports I did in the offseason in high school. It just helped me continue to build different skill sets and bring it all together for me to play D-line now.

HUSTON: You can usually tell someone's a player just because they have good hands. I saw some highlights where you're getting balls out of the air, tipped balls, returning the ball for touchdowns, stuff like that. When you line up nose-to-nose with an offensive tackle — say Kadyn Proctor at Alabama — and you want to get to the quarterback, what's the first thing you're looking at? How do you plan your attack? Can you walk me through the process a bit?

ZOCK: First and foremost, you've got to be in the correct alignment, and your stance has got to be good. You've got to be in a good low stance so that you're able to actually get off the ball and move. But the first thing you're always thinking of is just get off. That's how you win most of your reps. If you're hesitating, that already sets you back. Every split second when it comes to rushing the passer is very pivotal. So just get off the ball, and then try not to be too set in on doing this one thing, because if you only have one plan when you're getting off the ball, and they counter that plan, then you're done for. So just get off the ball and work from there, having multiple different plans to counter.

HUSTON: Is there anything a left tackle does in his stance, for example, that's a tell — that gives you a sense of, hey, this play's going to go this way, or if I do my get-off I'm going to be able to get to the outside on him, or the inside? Are there little things you look for like that?

ZOCK: There definitely is. And this can go from week to week, obviously. Every alignment's a little bit different, every scheme's different. But a lot of times you'll be able to tell when it's more likely to be a pass just based on how they are in their stance. A lot of times teams will have their hand down when it's a run and their hand up when it's a pass, or a draw, or something where they'll be getting back. And then based off my alignment — if I'm tighter to the tackle, or if I'm wider — you can kind of get a tell of whether they'll set outside and you might have a chance to go inside, or vice versa. So you can examine a few different things. Like I said, it's week to week.

HUSTON: Are there times when you can tell a left tackle is tired, when you can hear him breathing hard, and it gives you extra energy to go hard?

ZOCK: Well, I mean, they get tired fast. So yeah, I'm always like, I've got to go attack him.

HUSTON: You're six-two, two-fifty. You'll be playing against a lot of guys who are six-six, six-seven, three-twenty. How do you overcome that physical disadvantage? What advantages do you bring to the table that maybe a typical D-lineman wouldn't possess?

ZOCK: I'd say I'm just very intentional with everything that I do — with my hand placement, my timing, everything, because that's very important. Obviously, if they can get their hands on you first and they're longer than you, then you're at a big disadvantage. But if I can get my hands inside and time up my strike well, get them off of me and have my outside arm free, then I can get off blocks and go make plays. And I'd say I'm also just a competitor. I like to go get the football. I've got a high motor. So even if they stopped me on my first move, I'm going to continue to keep working. I'm going to go to the whistle.

HUSTON: What parts of your game do you expect will translate best from the FCS? Which ones are you the most sure about, and which ones are you the least sure about?

ZOCK: I'd say those two things we just talked about, my hand placement and my strike timing. Even if somebody's setting to where you can't just get around them, if you get your hands inside and you strike on time and you're very intentional about it, that'll give you a great advantage. And obviously just getting to the ball and never stopping, having a high motor. Those are things that you can just do — having a high motor doesn't take a lot of skill. As far as what I'm not sure about, I don't feel like I have anything. There's obviously always something you can improve on, whether it's different pass-rush moves or this and that. But I feel pretty sure about everything I've got in my game. I'm always working to get the things I'm good at better, and to get the things I need to improve on better. So yeah, I'm definitely ready to go.

HUSTON: I've seen a lot of versatility from you. You're moving around a lot. Sometimes you're on the strong side and great at the point of attack, and sometimes you're standing up and rushing. Is that going to continue at Toledo? Are they going to move you around a bit, or is the plan to leave you in one spot and let you work?

ZOCK: I'd say you can expect more of the same. Same staff, same defensive coordinator, same D-line coach, so as far as the scheme, it'll still be the same. I'll be moving around side to side. On some passing downs I'll be standing up, and I might drop into coverage every now and again. It'll be more of the same, just another year under my belt, another year of training, getting better, more experience.

HUSTON: What do you like better, standing up or hand in the dirt?

ZOCK: I like having my hand down. Obviously I'm not the tallest guy, not the longest guy, so if I can be the lower man, that gives me an advantage. But there are some situations where standing up helps as well — like on a passing down, where I can get a feel for the whole field, or what type of set I might get, or if it might be some type of play to my outside.

HUSTON: You did the throws in high school, shot put and discus. Those are two events that really lend some leverage to you, right? You're really good at bending your knees, getting low, having your balance, change of direction, all that stuff. Is that something that has helped you develop?

ZOCK: Yeah, most definitely. Obviously, when you're shorter, not as long, like I said, getting your hands inside and being lower than the guy across from you always brings you an advantage. And then, like you said, playing with leverage and being able to bend and move side to side — those are all big things you need to do as a D-lineman to be successful, and the things I continue to focus on throughout my career.

HUSTON: You won the Buchanan Award as the top defensive player in the FCS last year. Looking back, there are some pretty big names who won that award, like Dexter Coakley, Rashean Mathis and Jared Allen. I think Allen actually presented the award to you, right? What do you have to do from this point on to be the next Jared Allen type of player, do you think?

ZOCK: Just continue to attack every day. Not being complacent. Obviously I've moved up a level, and like I said, I feel like I've got a chip on my shoulder, going all the way back to high school and my recruiting process. But just continuing to attack every day, every rep, being very intentional with what I do, never just going through the motions, always finding something I can be better at. And then continuing to be a great teammate. That means a lot to me too, my teammates around me, because with team success comes individual success. I've seen that at Mercer, and I'm hoping to continue that here at Toledo.

HUSTON: Your first FBS snap will come at Spartan Stadium at night. What are you looking forward to the most with that game?

ZOCK: Just going out there and being able to play against a different team. I've been here since the spring, and I've seen a lot of the same things, the same players, every day during practice. They give me a lot of great work, but being able to go play on a big stage on a Friday night against a different team, and go show that we belong — that's what I look forward to the most.

HUSTON: Awesome. Well, we will be watching closely for sure. Andrew Zock, thanks for coming on the Heisman Hopefuls Podcast. We wish you and your team the best of luck this season.

ZOCK: Yeah, I appreciate it, y'all.


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BILL CONNELLY, ESPN
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HUSTON: Bill Connelly of ESPN.com is one of the most insightful college football writers around. He's also a friend of the pod, and he's recently come out with a piece I found quite interesting over at ESPN.com. It's about the changes we will see in college football in 2026. He's talking less about rules changes and more about some of the overall trends we're seeing. So we're bringing him on so you can learn more, especially given that it's week zero and the games are just around the corner. Welcome, Bill.

CONNELLY: Thanks for having me.

HUSTON: Let's go through your main points in the article. The first thing you brought up was tempo. We're seeing a lot slower tempos. You mentioned that there are higher efficiency rates. Starting back in the first decade of the 2000s, we started seeing Chip Kelly and Art Briles and all these offensive masterminds developing offenses that went at breakneck speed, and as a result we saw a huge explosion in points production, total yardage, yards per play, all that kind of thing. The trend of the last few years has been unmistakable: it's been tapering off, right? I'm curious what you looked into, what you found, and where you think it's going.

CONNELLY: It's funny, because we can all sense that the game's slowing down a little bit. We can see the scoreboard. We don't see nearly as many 70-63 types of games. But at the same time, points per drive have not really changed. They've actually gotten a little better. Rittenberg and I were just kind of diving into the data a little bit. He goes around and talks to all the coaches every offseason, and everybody was talking about certain things, like slowing tempo down. So we put together a piece that combined the two.

From a stats standpoint, as late as 2016 the national average for seconds per play was 25.1. Now it's 26.9. The clock rules changed a couple of years ago and the clock's moving more, so we expected something there, but it had actually already shifted more than a second before those clock rule changes, and then that added another half second or so to the average. Basically, we're in a situation now where there are more seconds per play, therefore fewer plays per game, and therefore fewer points per game. But at the same time, like I said, points per drive has never been higher.

One of the things I found really interesting: one of the biggest analytics contributions to college football, or to football in general, has been fourth downs. They're exciting, and I love that teams are going for it more. But what that's added to is that now teams are going for it when they're supposed to, and they're converting, and that's making their long, slow drives even longer. It's dropped the drives per game even further. In 2015 it was 13.1 drives per game nationally. Last year it was only 11.7, and that's per team. So that's how you get efficiency higher than ever and scoring lower than it's been in a long time. It's kind of an odd combination.

HUSTON: To use an analogy: if you have more meals, it feels like you're eating more often, it feels like there's more food. But you're saying it's more efficient — we're having fewer meals, but the meals are bigger.

CONNELLY: Right.

HUSTON: I think there seems to be this higher margin for error in those situations. Like you mentioned in the piece, some of the coaches talk about how they have to become more efficient per drive. But gosh, sometimes you can't control how many drives you're going to get. You might not end up with enough drives, and now you're having a really hard time trying to be competitive in some games.

CONNELLY: The most interesting thing to me was when Ryan Day was talking about how now we have to plan for 16, 17 games. When you think about playing 60 snaps per game versus 80, over the course of a season that's like a 300-snap difference. So if you're a paranoid head coach — and they're all paranoid — you're thinking, man, that's 300 injury opportunities that I need to remove from the equation. But what makes that really interesting is that it means Ryan Day is very motivated to slow games down, while from a math standpoint, when you have more talent, when you have a per-play advantage, you want more plays, because you're more likely to exacerbate the advantages you have. So it really becomes a conflict, two different motivations at the same time.

I think Michael McRoberts from Championship Analytics made the point in the piece that this is just one of the ways we see parity creeping in, and single-game variance and whatnot. A lot of that comes from the best teams. If they're intentionally slowing things down, they have fewer opportunities to prove they're the best team, and you're one funky bounce away from being in trouble — which is kind of how the Ohio State-Miami game worked last year. I love when things are in tension. And right now, if you have a really, really talented team and you want to win the national title, you have two extremely different motivations at the same time.

HUSTON: And isn't this kind of what a lot of coaches have wanted for a long time? There were these renegade coaches going to the speed-up. You look at Ohio State-Texas last year up in the Horseshoe. Texas lost that game, but it was a close game. If you're going to lose a game, you're going to lose it close if it's two teams that are really talented and maybe you're just coming up on the wrong end of the possessions, right? And once everybody knows that, and the committee's trying to seed people or decide who to put in, they're like, well, this game just came down to fewer possessions for this team. Isn't that kind of what coaches want — having that plausible deniability to say this is just where the game is going?

CONNELLY: I'm not going to have any sympathy for losing those games, but no, that is the effect. Last year in the SEC — the competition level in the SEC is really even anyway — but when you slow the game down and you have fewer drives, you end up with fifty percent of all SEC games last year decided by one score. So points are good, but close games are also good. It seemed like that roped in viewers as well, and probably had a positive impact in that regard. I still like tempo, I still like points, but close games are also pretty fun.

HUSTON: Sure. And we're kind of going back to maybe the more golden era of SEC football, before the spread infiltrated, right? Where you had this smash-mouth, seventeen-points-should-be-enough style.

CONNELLY: Yes, exactly.

HUSTON: You mentioned earlier that fourth down attempts are way up, and you mentioned that as a piece connected with the overall tempo and the length of drives. But a lot of that was also the analytics coming in and saying this is a wise thing to do. Tell me about that, beyond the ancillary effects of tempo. How and why did coaches start going for it on fourth down more?

CONNELLY: I think it just took time. I mentioned Championship Analytics — they were huge in this regard, a decade ago, just putting math to the idea. If you're going for it on fourth down, the announcers inevitably say the head coach is taking a risk here. But we never think about the opposite side of that, which is that you have a fourth-and-one and you're voluntarily giving the ball to the other team by punting. That's a risk. There's massive risk in that, especially when nobody plays the field position game quite as well as they think they do in their heads. So I think it just took a lot of time, and it took some very key examples to convince coaches that maybe I am doing this wrong.

I think Army in the late 2010s was kind of the first breakout team that suddenly started going for it 30 or 40 times per season, and openly benefiting from it. They became one of the early poster children for the fourth down movement, and for championship analytics in general. Now something like 90 percent of power conference teams have the book by Championship Analytics.

Another key example was Ole Miss in, I think, '21 and '22, when Kiffin first took over. He was really aggressive on fourth downs and benefited from it. Sometimes he didn't — you don't always make your fourth downs, so they would lose some games and he'd take some negative headlines — but they were clearly benefiting from it overall. They were profiting. I've been playing with the idea of fourth down profit for teams: how many points did you score after converting a fourth down versus how many points did you allow after failing on a fourth down? Just the fact that most teams are positive in that regard tells us we're headed in the right direction. And it's a huge difference. In 2015 the go rate on all fourth downs was 19.6 percent. It was 34 percent if you were past the fifty. Both of those numbers have increased. It's 27 percent overall now, and 41 percent of the time teams are going for it on fourth down in opposition territory, no matter what the distance is. So that's just a huge number. And it's mathematically correct to do it. The fact that fourth down conversion rates are still going up tells us we haven't maximized that yet, that we haven't overdone it by any means.

HUSTON: There's always a lag time between when these trends are hitting and when it trickles down to the fans understanding what's happening and why it's happening. Even the color analysts — some of these guys maybe played in the '80s, and now they're here and they're still kind of thinking about it as a big risk, like you said, going for it on fourth down. How long does it take for one of these things to become accepted dogma in college football?

CONNELLY: I should have really been counting the announcers each year, because it feels like every single year the percentage goes up a little bit where people have just seen it enough. They understand it. But there are so many former players in the booth, and they all have their version of football that's been coached and hammered into their heads since they were six years old. It's just really hard. You see a lot of the former players and coaches saying, well, I like the idea, but moderation. That's a word you'll hear a lot: you can do it too much, you can be overly aggressive and so on. But teams are just following the numbers and the odds — here's our chance of converting, here's what's likely to happen if we convert, here's what's likely to happen if we don't. It feels like a lot of coaches — you still see a huge variance between the most aggressive coaches and the least — but slowly but surely, teams are starting to understand that maybe we're trusting our special teams too much and we're not trusting our defense enough. It's an absolute difference that we're seeing in the game.

HUSTON: I like moderation in all things, especially moderation.

CONNELLY: That's right.

HUSTON: One of the things you mention a lot in the article, that the coaches kept talking about, is this word "sequencing." What is sequencing?

CONNELLY: It was funny. Suddenly you hear that from every coach you talk to. But it's basically that once you accept that maybe we should be going for it on fourth down more, the next thing is to put yourself in the best possible position to convert the fourth downs that you encounter. A lot of times that'll mean running a little more on first down, maybe running a little more on second-and-long, because you know you have three plays to get the distance instead of four. And you see it a lot on third downs now. There'll be designated coaches saying, we'll go for it if we get to fourth-and-three on this one. So if it's third-and-seven, we want seven, but we need four. And that kind of alters your play calling.

I expected to dive in and see third down run rates having changed, and they really haven't all that much. But one thing I did pick up on was that throwing short of the sticks has gone up. I think it's that same thing. You're kind of hammering it to your quarterback on third-and-seven now: if you find twenty yards, still go for it, but be quicker on a check down. It's okay to only get four yards on this play, because you'll still be on the field on fourth down.

HUSTON: The fans are kind of like — I know, I know. Short of the sticks has always been a maddening thing, but I guess if you turn around and get the fourth down, then fans will stop complaining quite as much.

CONNELLY: Yeah.

HUSTON: One of the trends I see happening that you didn't mention, but I'm curious to see your take on, is this move toward larger personnel. One of the counters to the spread was to go to the 4-2-5 defense, which is almost as universal as the spread is now, and you have these hybrid linebacker-safeties who are supposed to be able to cover and also support the run. But now offenses have shifted back almost to the Stanford style under Andrew Luck, that period where it's jumbo formations, three tight ends, even H-backs, and maybe even fullbacks are coming back. I feel like the position might be on its way back. How does that tie into some of these changes you're talking about?

CONNELLY: Basically, the spread explosion — the fact that the spread became kind of the default college football offense, and a hurried-up spread at that — forced defenses to adapt in two ways. And all innovation is just a conversation between offenses and defenses: one adapts, then the other adapts, and so on. But everybody had to figure out how to handle tempo, because one of the major points of tempo was: we run a good play, we find a mismatch, we're going to hurry up and make sure you can't fix it with a substitution or something, and we're going to try to take advantage of it as many times as we can before you can fix it. I think defenses have absolutely adapted to that. You see better communication, quicker calls with the defense. Occasionally a defensive lineman falls to the ground with a supposed injury — I guess that's come into play too. But both legally and illegally, defenses have figured out a way to adjust. And of course, the way they adjusted to quicker, faster personnel was by making themselves quicker and faster.

You can kind of almost see the next innovation coming, though where it comes from and who does it the best, we'll see. But in 2026, yeah, it feels like offenses have a motivation for getting bigger personnel on the field. My editor and I have been waiting for the McVay-style bunch formation to explode for a while. I realize that's better against man than zone, and you have less man defense in college, so there are things like that. But I do wonder about almost just adjusting where the space is on the field a little bit and trying to break defenses in a different way. I think we'll see a lot more of that. And the motivation is: yes, we want to go slowly when possible, but if you're Ohio State you still have to be really good at moving fast when you need to. That's why they lost in Miami. They were taking more time per play in the second half against Miami than Miami was. That's crazy. You just can't have that. You still have to be able to go fast. So bigger personnel, varying tempos — I think those are the things that somebody's going to take advantage of, and we'll just have to see who makes the most of it.

HUSTON: In the spread era, one of the strengths of the spread, at least in some of its iterations, was that it was very easy for players to learn. Easy to learn, hard to defend. And now you look at some of these offenses: they're going under center, they're going big, they're running tempo, they're spreading it out, they're doing wildcat. It's just what coaches love to do. They like to get into their laboratories. Are we moving toward these thicker playbooks? Which seems kind of like a risky thing in an era of people coming in as transfers and not being in systems for very long. Somewhere Jimbo Fisher's ears just perked back up. He's ready.

CONNELLY: I think that's absolutely where the motivations are right now. If moving fast doesn't give you the advantages it used to — for some coaches it still does. We know Josh Heupel's going to go fast. We know Zach Kittley down at FAU is going to go really fast, and some of those teams are still going to find advantages in doing it. But if on average fewer teams are finding advantages from tempo, then once you've slowed down, you realize you have more time to figure out a good play call. Making things more complicated is always still going to be hard in an era where you have 40 or 50 new players per year. I think that's been the other thing that's gone on here: depth isn't as good. Ohio State can't stockpile quite as well, Georgia can't. So you have even more of a reason to slow down. It's almost like coaching a junior college, where you have a new roster every year and you can't get as intricate as you want. That part's still going to be an issue. But once you know you've got 20 seconds to line up the right play instead of five, then you can certainly experiment a little bit more, if your personnel can handle it.

HUSTON: One of the things you mentioned in the piece toward the end was how things seem to be becoming more like the NFL. Are we heading toward a slopification of college football, where everything looks the same, where everyone runs the same offense, where the margins between good and great are just outcomes emanating from the proper application of an analytic? Is that where we're going?

CONNELLY: Scoring's going down. Tempo and scoring are both going down. So in that regard, it is absolutely more NFL. But I'm relying on college football to remain college football, and on option teams to still find advantages running the option. And anytime you have such a dramatic talent difference, the teams with less talent are always going to be trying weird things to compensate. So we're always going to have that going for us. But when we're talking about Ohio State, Georgia, Miami — the biggest games with the most talented teams — we saw it last year, and it's always been the case to a certain degree, but yeah, it's got to feel more like an NFL game than an insert-mid-major-team-here kind of deal.

HUSTON: How do you think some of these changes are going to affect the Heisman race going forward? We've seen in the spread era these Heisman-winning quarterbacks having massive numbers. Fernando Mendoza's numbers at the time of the Heisman vote were about at the average of where most of these quarterbacks have been over the course of the last 15 or 18 years. I guess what I'm asking is: do you think voters are now conditioned to look for four thousand yards and forty touchdowns? Or are they ready to understand that thirty-two touchdowns and twenty-eight hundred yards and three interceptions, but a high efficiency rating, is going to be something suitable for the Heisman?

CONNELLY: It's funny. Even with sixteen games, Mendoza still only hit like thirty-five hundred yards. It was kind of crazy. In theory, you can say that this opens up the door for other positions. If the quarterbacks aren't so dramatically, ridiculously statistically dominant, then a two-thousand-yard rusher, or a fifteen-hundred-yard receiver, or God forbid a defensive player — I'm still a little bitter about Ndamukong Suh's year. But in theory, it at least means that when you don't have a five-thousand-yard, forty-touchdown passer, you're willing to look in other directions a little bit more.

And it's so hard, because the quarterback is always going to be — aside from softball pitcher, it's the most important position in all of team sports. So we're always going to look to the quarterbacks first. Each year in my Sunday columns I do my little Heisman of the week thing; I think it'll be a standalone thing maybe this year. Who stood out the most this week? Ten points for first, nine points for second, and I do a little horse race throughout the season. In a given week, this amazing running back will finish number one, but over the course of the season it's still always quarterbacks. They just have the most opportunities to stand out and the most opportunities to rack up yardage. So they always have that baked-in advantage. But if it becomes a little more utilitarian, a little more creative, I'd be all for an offensive tackle making a Heisman push. I think that'd be fun.

HUSTON: I think they need an offensive line cam in a game. For example, the main camera follows the quarterback, follows the ball, right? So maybe there should be an offensive line cam for that.

A couple of other things before we get you out of here. I wanted to ask you about the new rule change about the five years. If players now have five years to play, there are going to be some downstream effects of that, right? There are going to be some players five years from now who will have played 70 or 75 games in their career. This is going to affect career statistics and the perception of what they've done. Someone's going to say, hey, he's the all-time leading rusher, maybe he's a Heisman candidate. Yeah, but he did it in five years. He did it in 70 games. Are we going to be able to have a clear break from this era to that era and judge it on its own, or are we still going to just kind of pretend that it's all the same?

CONNELLY: Dillon Gabriel slowly racking up like seventeen thousand yards, or wherever he ended up over the course of his career, was kind of an inflection point, I think. For all the things we just said, in a given year we're going to see fewer yards, but then over the course of a career, it'll be pretty easy — not easy, but we'll see a lot more guys hit 10,000 career yards and become the all-time leading passer at a given school. Well, that one might be a problem if you're changing schools. But still, the raw totals are going to go up. And it's going to be really interesting to see how many guys use three years versus four versus five. Are you going to go somewhere for a grad school year where you play four and one, and then make a jump somewhere else? I don't know. If this ends up being tied to transfer restrictions through the legislation, or however that plays out, that would introduce a ton of stability, obviously. And that's what coaches want more than anything. But on its own, it's just going to change how we look at raw totals. This has happened in other sports where they keep increasing seasons, the NFL among others. So I don't know what the long-term effects will be, but we'll see a lot more 10,000-yard passers. I know that.

HUSTON: What are we going to call these guys? What do we call a guy in his fifth year?

CONNELLY: I have my roster spreadsheets that I maintain every year, and I'm already trying to figure out: am I just going to do one, two, three, four, five now?

HUSTON: Here's your chance to name it. Here's your chance to coin the term.

CONNELLY: Well, I've already seen some schools basically doing freshman, sophomore, junior, senior, fifth. That's been one thing I've seen a lot of so far. And maybe that's what catches on. But it's a victory for Michigan and Notre Dame and Stanford and the schools that for the longest time would say on their rosters that this freshman who didn't play last year is a sophomore, not a redshirt freshman. They win. So now everybody's going to do that.

HUSTON: Right. Finally, what games are you looking forward to in week zero? The season's coming up this weekend. What are you going to be watching, and what players are you looking out for?

CONNELLY: This is a really sicko-mode kind of slate that I really, really enjoy. I'm going to miss it when week zero is just a normal week. I like kind of easing in with some strange matchups that we wouldn't otherwise watch. Number one, the FBS slate's really fun. Whether you care about the Belichick narratives or not, you still get North Dakota State and Sac State playing in their first FBS games, and North Dakota State against a recent FCS team, no less. It should be a really good game. We accidentally got a really fun ACC game with NC State-Virginia that didn't end up being in a foreign country. And then we're finishing with Memphis-UNLV. That's a legit, almost playoff-elimination kind of game in week zero. So all that's fun. And then you throw in Abilene Christian-Lamar, which is going to be a blast at the FCS level. That's a league that still really wants to score points, and the winner of that is going to be the number two challenger in their conference. And then William & Mary-Villanova, and so on. There are just going to be a lot of fun lower-level games that you can kind of nerd out on.

HUSTON: He is Bill Connelly of ESPN.com. He's got some great stuff up over at that website. Go check it out. As you can see, he's super excited about college football. No one does it better. So Bill, enjoy the games this weekend. Thanks for coming on the show.

CONNELLY: Thank you.


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HUSTON: Well, that's all for this week's episode, our final preseason episode of the Heisman Hopefuls Podcast. Big thanks to CJ Carr of Notre Dame, Andrew Zock of Toledo, Wayne Knight of UCLA, and ESPN's Bill Connelly for joining us. Next week we'll have some actual real-life college football to react to and break down, thank God. So don't forget to subscribe to the Heisman YouTube channel and follow us wherever you get your podcasts.

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