Everybody spent the weekend dunking on the empty seats at the Coliseum. Colin isn't buying the outrage — and his defense of USC isn't really a defense, it's a theory of American sports geography. Big cities belong to pro teams. Mid-sized cities belong to college. Small towns belong to Friday nights. LA has been paying that tax since the Rams and Chargers moved in, and USC already conceded the point when it shrank the building and added suites. It's not an excuse, it's a reason.

Then the part the attendance story buried: true freshman Trent Mosley looked like a first-team All-American in his first college game, and Lincoln Riley emptied the bench on purpose, because September is for getting a very young roster ready for Oregon, Washington, Penn State, Ohio State and Indiana. Colin also explains why he thinks USC, Ohio State and Texas all have schedules too brutal to survive, why Notre Dame and Miami is his national title call — twice — and why he'd take the Longhorns at home against the Buckeyes. Plus NFL Week 1: the Colts as a live home dog, why Jacksonville could bury Cleveland, whether Denver's 14-win magic regresses, and why Goodell's London talk is a stadium-leverage bat signal, not a real plan.

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Colin is joined by John Middlekauff, host of “3 and Out” on The Volume.

They start with the Browns & the stark contrast between Shedeur Sanders having an affable sideline interview and Deshaun Watson’s disaster of a press conference, and they agree that the Browns should start Shedeur (2:00). They also agree the Brown’s deal for Watson is the worst in league history (13:00).

They move to JJ McCarthy’s disastrous performance in the Vikings second preseason game and Colin believes that if McCarthy can’t succeed with Kevin O’Connell… he isn’t going to succeed (14:30). They also revisit past quarterback draft classes and Colin finds that only 10% of them are franchise guys… showing the NFL may have a development problem with quarterbacks (21:30).

They pivot to college football and the story of Dae’Quan Wright going from the Cleveland Browns back to LSU as proof that the NCAA is diminishing in power and keeps losing in court (30:00).

They poke holes in the NFL Top 100 and the Athletic’s Top 25 Players Under 25, and Colin marvels at the Seahawks being overlooked as a potential back-to-back champion (40:00).

They react to Joe Burrow’s comment about being tired of talking about “next year” and Colin argues that the Burrow could be burning out while languishing in Cincinnati, and that he shouldn’t sign with them again… but John offers some defense of the Bengals (55:00).

Finally, Colin highlights all the amazing undrafted players who have popped in the preseason and marvels at the amount of football talent in America (1:04:00).

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Colin is joined by John Middlekauff, host of “3 and Out” on The Volume.

They start with Colin attending the Bears preseason win over the Browns and offer their biggest questions surrounding the Bears in Caleb Williams second season under Ben Johnson (2:00).

They move to Ty Simpson having a great debut for the Rams in his first preseason game and Colin argues that young quarterbacks ending up with head coach like Sean McVay is like hitting the lottery, and that the Rams weren’t crazy to spend a first round pick on a quarterback while Matt Stafford is still the starter (8:00).

They pivot to the 49ers and the highlight trend of Christian McCaffrey getting injured the year after leading the league in touches… which he did last season (16:30).

They also wonder whether Giants QB Jaxson Dart will stay upright after getting smoked during their first preseason game after getting beat up last year (24L15). Colin argues that Fernando Mendoza’s intangibles and work ethic are going to further elevate the Raiders #1 overall pick (32:00).

They wonder who gave Jayden Daniels the terrible advice to send a cease and desist to LSU over his former #5 going to another player (40:00) . They also laud Sam Darnold for becoming the leader of the Seahawks (48:00) and explain why buying the Seahawks may have been the best franchise purchase years (1:00:30).

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Follow Colin and The Volume on Twitter for the latest content and updates!

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