Welcome to On the Bench. I'm Brendan Sonone.

Chris Ney is across from me or I guess next to me how you're looking at the computer

screen. And if you're listening to us on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, thank you.

This is On the Bench. Welcome, Christopher. We've had a few days to digest the Notre Dame

Game game. We're in a preview, Jacksonville State, but really what I kind of want to do is go

more big picture. We took away from the season opener and how we're feeling about the team

and kind of how office you build on it from there. So with that in mind, now that you've

let it digest and simmer for a few days, what is your outlook on this team? Did it change drastically

from that one game sample size? I wouldn't say my record projection has changed drastically.

I'm not ready to move really any which way with that, but I feel better about them.

You know, I went in that game with concerns about physicality just because of how preseason

is structured. I thought FSU was very good at being physical flying to the ball, being aggressive,

finishing plays as an offense. All those things were big positives for me. Fundamentally speaking,

much better football team than we've seen in a few years. We've talked about the belief that we

see players developing. I think that game proved that in many cases, others, you know, you hope to

see more, but that's kind of the way it works. But not in general, I feel pretty good about

what we saw. I still think this team has some major holes. I think it certainly has some depth

issues, and I was tested even in the fourth quarter of that game against Notre Dame. So those are

things that kind of get me to hesitate and stop from getting ahead of myself and thinking,

oh my god, this team's going to be drastically better than I thought, you know, two weeks ago.

But I think there's reasons for optimism. Obviously, that game coming up at Wake is a huge one

for them. It's crazy, but anybody and everybody that talks about this team, especially on the

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