Should Georgia’s Kirby Smart worry about Florida with Jon Sumrall
The Audible with Stew, Bruce & Ralph: A show about college football
The Athletic
4.4 • 1.2K Ratings
🗓️ 23 July 2026
⏱️ 57 minutes
🔗️ Recording | Apple Podcasts | RSS
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this episode, Bruce Feldman, Stewart Mandel, and Ralph Russo dive deep into the latest college football headlines, rank the nation's quarterbacks, and answer your burning questions in the mailbag.
First, we react to Florida head coach Jon Sumrall embracing the grueling 9-game SEC schedule and his thoughts on the rivalry with Georgia. Then, things get spicy in Lexington as Kentucky offensive coordinator Will Stein drops a bold, Curt Cignetti-style claim about why the Wildcats will win.
Next, we break down The Athletic’s 2026 college football quarterback tiers, ranking every projected starter from 1 to 138. The guys reveal their picks for:
- Which tier-2 (or lower) QBs will jump into Tier 1 (LaNorris Sellers, Marcel Reed, Jaden Craig)
- Which big-name signal-callers they are highly skeptical of (Josh Hoover, Julian Sayin, Noah Fifita)
- Their favorite under-the-radar tier 4-7 sleepers to ride with this season (Tyler Hughes, Alberto Mendoza, Lincoln Kienholz)
Finally, we open up the mailbag to tackle your questions:
- Is Indiana's Curt Cignetti destined to regress like Chip Kelly now that the rest of college football has copied his transfer portal blueprint?
- How would the summer hype surrounding Miami be different if Notre Dame had made the College Football Playoff over them last winter?
•Why has the recruitment of elite Junior College (JUCO) players dropped off so drastically over the last 15 years compared to the 1990s?
0:00 - Intro
0:48 - Will Jon Sumrall help reignite the Florida-Georgia rivalry?
11:15 - Has Kentucky found their Curt Cignetti in Will Stein?
16:43 - Start of the QB tier discussion
17:50 - Which QB not in tier 1 will finish the season in tier 1?
22:50 - Which QB are you skeptical of?
31:03 - Pick a QB ranked in tiers 4-7 to ride with this season.
40:19 - Mailbag questions
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Audible presented by Trader Joe's. |
| 0:09.3 | I'm Stuart Mandel, joined as always, or almost always, by Bruce Feldman and Ralph Russo. |
| 0:15.0 | Got a great show for you today. |
| 0:18.5 | Two of our colleagues did a, had the, the, um, an enviable task of ranking all 138, uh, presumptive |
| 0:27.4 | starting quarterbacks in the country this year. |
| 0:29.2 | We will give our thoughts on some of those guys. |
| 0:31.8 | Obviously, it is the second episode of the week. |
| 0:33.6 | It's mailbag time. |
| 0:35.7 | Uh, first, it's SEC Media Days has been going, talking season, as Steve Spurger once coined it. |
| 0:41.4 | And we just kind of wanted to weigh in on a few things that caught our eye. |
| 0:47.3 | One of them, Bruce, was John Sumerall, we're big fans of that higher. |
| 0:52.3 | I know not all Florida fans were. |
| 0:55.2 | And he was asked a question that I think probably every SEC coach gets asked at some point, |
| 1:00.6 | nine game schedule versus eight game schedule. |
| 1:03.1 | And we've already heard several of them like Eli Drinkowitz complain about it. |
| 1:06.4 | Summerall just said, |
| 1:07.3 | I'm not going to whine or complain about being an SEC head coach. |
| 1:12.1 | Music to my ears, |
| 1:17.2 | because I hate the whining. You had some thoughts on our group text about what that says. |
| 1:24.5 | Yeah, I think big picture wise, I love that he's not, that he's not bitching and moaning about it, |
| 1:28.9 | right? I feel like that's just a bad look for, if you're, you know, |
| 1:34.8 | in the SEC, you know, you wear it. You're in the SEC. And I think here's a guy who played in the SEC as a linebacker. And I've been a big believer in him since the moment he got the Troy job. |
... |
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