ESPN and SEC Network’s Laura Rutledge dishes on the top SEC and college football storylines in 2019, her stance on fall weddings and her work with Buffalo Wild Wings.
Schmidt: Tell me about the work you’re doing with Buffalo Wild Wings. This football prenup sounds pretty fun, so tell us about the football prenup and how fans can get involved in this.
Rutledge: Yeah so a lot of times during football season things can get pretty crazy in my house with my husband Josh. Josh is a really big Alabama fan and I’m a Florida fan, also I just want to see every single game in college football because of my job and with them it was just too tough so a lot of times we get in these arguments about you know who gets to watch what and who gets control of the remote.
The best thing about the college football prenup is that we get to agree on this ahead of time and everything’s good to go so you know if someone starts going rogue on me I could point back to the prenup and say, hey look you agreed to this.
So our trade-off in our house is that Josh has to watch every Florida game with me and then I have to watch every Alabama game with him. But somehow I also have to give him a back rub during every Florida game. So I don’t know how that could have happened but I did agree to that prenup and it’s pretty cool too. You can add some addendums, so like if there are some games that you know you are really interested in you want to go ahead circle them on the calendar. You can add those in.
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Schmidt: So on the topic of Alabama and Florida. The Gators got the win in Week 0 but it wasn’t pretty. Feleipe Franks is up and down so how much should Florida fans trust him for the rest of the year?
Rutledge: I think when you think about Feleipe Franks and just some of the maturation that he has gone through. Some of the work that he’s done, you just really get used to Dan Mullen’s system, well a lot of people expected Florida to come out at the gates kind of rearing and ready to go and a couple of things here. The first thing being Miami’s defense is really good and they are better on defense even forget that Manny Diaz knows Dan Mullen and while he was Dan’s defensive coordinator a couple of times, I think that cat mouse game between them is kind of really all over the board.
I think Miami deserves a lot of credit at the end of the day. And the other thing that I would say about it is that what I take away… you don’t really know where Florida is based on that game. I think getting ready for week zero just knowing that the entire world was watching that game… the entire college football most certainly. Other than that knowing who is replacing two offensive linemen really returning their center and knowing that yeah Feliepe Franks still has growing pains. He can walk away from that game saying all right let’s see what they do they next time they play. They’ve got a couple of weeks now to get ready for that.
Schmidt: So Georgia, they are the favorite in the East, but do you think Florida is the biggest challenger to Georgia or do you think there is another team that is being overlooked?
Rutledge: Yeah, I would still think that in some ways that team that can challenge Georgia. Some of that too has to do with where that Florida-Georgia game sort of comes in during the season. I think it’s kind of a crucial spot for both teams almost at the half-way mark, but the other team that I would bring out… I’m not saying that Missouri is necessarily the big challenger to Georgia like I said it still would be Florida, but just don’t forget about Missouri and I think some people have. They’re going to be good. What Barry Odom has done I don’t think has been given enough attention. In a world of transfers, they didn’t lose any players despite the bowl ban, nobody transferred. That’s incredible to me, that all of those players believed enough in what their AD is doing that they wanted to stick around and Kelly Bryant at the quarterback spot for them is a huge part of my belief in them. Their defense will be good and I think they could be a team… that when they face Georgia it might be 8-0 at that point… which you say that you know, my goodness, they’ll be in the top 10 certainly and that’s a top 10 showdown. So just watch out for Missouri, don’t forget about them.
Schmidt: Let’s jump over to the other side of the SEC in the West where Alabama will be without Dylan Moses. How will Alabama rebound and recover without the preseason All-American?
Rutledge: Yeah, this is a test for them. I mean first and foremost just Dylan Moses was poised for a breakout year. He was on pretty much every watch list for defensive awards and deservedly so and I am heartbroken for him. Because this could have been such a great year for him and really was poised to be and you just hate to see anything like this happen. And then from a football standpoint, this is really bad for Alabama. I expect that coach Nick Saban has some sort of plan here certainly as he always does, but he had already said that they were thin at the linebacker spot even before Moses went down and that’s very true about Alabama. The other thing that’s important to note is that in Saban’s defense… the linebacker position is particularly important. it’s why we’ve always seen these guys that have been kind of dominant forces on these Alabama defenses have a lot of times been linebackers and that’s because of the way that their defense operates so they will be missing him big time.
And I guess when you look at Alabama’s schedule, you know the one positive is that sure their offense is one of the best in the country’s so maybe the defense isn’t on the field as much, but they will have to rely on putting up a lot of points because I don’t know if they are going to be as strong as some of these big defenses that we’ve seen in the past. I guess my one thing on that too is the fact that you know Clemson is… if not the best one of the best teams in the country. You won’t see somebody of that caliber until we get into college football playoffs if they are able to, but in the meantime, they’ll have some kinks to work out too.
Schmidt: Speaking of Clemson, they have a big game with Texas A&M. Two-part question, one, what are your expectations for Jimbo Fisher and [inaudible 00:07:53] for Texas A&M, and then part two Clemson, are you expecting more of the same from that team this year and they’ll just have a march to the college football playoff again?
Rutledge: So with Jimbo and Texas A&M I think their schedule is just brutal and so when you look at what you would expect out of them they may actually have a worse record this year than last year but be a better team and that’s going to be a tough pill to swallow for A&M fans certainly that have high expectations, but I think there’s a lot to be excited about with A&M. I really like Kellen Mond at the quarterback spot. Their defense is going to be marginally unproven, but Jimbo told me in media days that he loves their D-line so certainly that’s kind of where the SEC is won is in the trenches. If their D-line is as good a team as they are acting like it was and he’s going against them every day from the offensive perspective and I do think that maybe their defense can surprise some people, but they are going to … play Alabama, Georgia and Clemson.
Speaker 3: And then as for Clemson, yeah is Clemson going to be in the college football playoff again… don’t think they’ll repeat as a champion and we’ve seen that in history and certainly in the playoff era so I don’t know that I’m right now sitting here saying that Clemson’s going to be the national champion. I would still actually pick Alabama to win the National Championship even with the Dylan Moses news. Just because I think they’re going to have a huge chip on their shoulder combined with a very talented team, but Clemson is going to be right there and we might be in Clemson-Alabama part five.
Schmidt: We saw what Baker Mayfield did in this offense we saw what Kyler Murray did in this offense, what do you think Jalen Hurts is going to do in this offense when they can rally in Oklahoma?
Rutledge: Yeah, everyone talks about the chip that Alabama may have on their shoulder but Jalen Hurts’ chip on his shoulder is just bigger than all that combined. He is ready to prove that you know he’s gone somewhere to show what he’s all about and just show what he could have done at Alabama. It’s just about proving who he is and what he can do, and he’s worked so much on the passing game. Everyone knows about his athletic abilities and that will be featured I believe in Lincoln Riley’s offense at Oklahoma, but he has worked a ton on his passing game and look even people love to criticize his arm but if you can go back to the SEC Championship Game last year that he won for Alabama. Alabama is only in the playoffs because of Jalen, he threw the ball and really that is the reason why they won that game so I believe that he’s poised for a great year.
Now look is he going to be a three-peat Heisman winner for Oklahoma? Is he going to make all kinds of history from that standpoint I don’t know, but I do think he can get Oklahoma to the College Football Playoff and at that point who knows what could happen. I think he’ll flourish in the Lincoln Riley system. The thing about the way that Lincoln’s system works in the Big-12 is that you know the quarterbacks have a ton of time to throw to playmakers in space and there’s a lot of separations these receivers can get. He’s got CeeDee Lamb, he’s got great coverage there, he’s got a talented group there offensively and I think he’ll take advantage of that.
Schmidt: You let the cat out of the bag early, you’ve got Alabama winning it all, you’ve got Clemson in the playoffs… what are the other teams that are going to join them in the playoffs?
Speaker 3: I love one of these picks because it’s different. The other three it’s like I get it it’s typical, but I just look at these teams and it’s hard to pick anybody else so I have Georgia as the third team and then Oregon as the fourth team.
Speaker 3: I really like Oregon, Justin Herbert… I think he’s willing to really have the year that will live up to the hype and I could see him being the number one overall pick. People will question… you know if there is anything you are going to question about him it’s just consistency and decision-making because everything else you’ve got all the tools. He can certainly make all the throws, he’s going to wow NFL scouts every single time they see him, but he does need to prove a little more consistency and maybe decision-making as a quarterback.
Speaker 3: They’ve got a dominant schedule in the Pac-12 and I think that’s going to be something that works in their favor big time. They’ve got to beat Auburn this to start the year but I’m high on Oregon and I think it will be exciting to see Pac-12 team in the playoffs again.
Schmidt: This football prenup thing got me thinking. So what is your official stance on fall weddings because it’s a very touchy subject among the college football community.
Speaker 3: Well, I am anti-fall weddings. I would say is I sort of broke even on one of my own rules by being pregnant and getting married in the fall so I don’t know that I have much of a leg to stand on here in on fall wedding because I will say… I mean a child is a little different from that but… giving birth right in the middle of college football season is something that I did not necessarily intend to do so… On fall weddings I would say look, especially when that’s something that you can plan out just don’t plan for the fall I mean there’s always going to be somebody who has a game that they want to watch that particular weekend. You just have to protect against that and you have to make sure that the sanity of all your guests is in a good place and otherwise people are loading up the ESPN app and watching college football games at your wedding. That’s just going to be part of it.