Kris Budden, ESPN reporter, tells McElroy & Cubelic why it's playoff or bust for Ole Miss & how drastically different SEC Media Days is to what the Big 12 did last week
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All right, welcome back in. SEC Media Days, day two. McIlroy and Kubrick in the morning. Jocks, 94-5. It's 8-20, Tuesday, July 16th. We're live in Dallas in a bit of a home game here for Chris Budden of ESPN who joins us now. First off, contrast for us the difference in vibe between Big 12 Media Day that you covered and now SEC Media Days that you're here with.

Four times the amount of media. It's just different. You know, the Big 12, I will commend them for bringing it to Vegas and bringing a different kind of vibe. And that was very cool for the student-athletes who had never been there. And they say at the Bellagio and you're looking at the fountains. But they jam-packed eight teams into each day. So it was two days.

And it was at Allegiant, but in terms of the media coverage, there's not nearly as big of a radio row. There's not nearly the local media that comes. Because for a lot of these smaller local stations, something like Vegas is hard to get to. And you're only going out for two days versus being able to sit here on radio row and get your money's worth for four days. Did you creep over to the Pac-12 media desk?

I did not, although I heard there was an open bar. Which will get people's attention. Had I known that, I might have made a different decision. That will get people's attention. When you look at, just kind of, look, you're from Dallas.

This is not – I don't know if you're from Dallas. Yeah, I moved here in 93. Okay, so you've been here for literally 31 years. All right, long enough. Long enough to claim it. How did you do that math that fast? God, that's impressive. Because I moved here in 98. Like, if we moved here around the same time, like, I could probably add up pretty quickly. It would have taken me four minutes just to figure that out. Yeah, all right, long story short, like, you've been here a long time. This has never been – like, as my hometown, it's never felt like SEC country. Yeah. Yeah.

It's always felt like Big 12, and it's kind of strange now to see the SEC encroach on this market, but what's the temperature like in Dallas for the SEC and this new brand of football? Yeah, you know, since you've moved away, Texas A&M has joined in Missouri, so I do feel like

There has been a pull towards the SEC. And then this thing, you know, got announced two years ago. I do think it's the perfect mesh. Like those two fan bases, like when you look at an SEC stadium and you go into Neyland or Alabama or Athens, that's exactly what a game day looks like in Austin. Yeah. And that's why A&M fits so well.

those fan bases bleed their team's colors. And it's not like that top to bottom in the Big 12, so I think that that was a perfect marriage. And there's also up in Dallas, there's so many Aggie fans up here anyways, you kind of already got that SEC vibe. Chris Button joining us live on Radio Row at SEC Media Days. If you had to pick one of the two over the next three years, who do you think has the most success? Is it Texas or Oklahoma?

I mean, certainly this year, I don't know who in Austin paid off Greg Sankey because that schedule compared to Oklahoma is a lot easier. I would say Texas, and I think for this reason, A, there's the money there, the NIL component, but I think also if you have immediate success this year,

that could be kind of detrimental to the recruiting of being able in this state to keep this talent going to Austin instead of going to A&M. So to me, that's why I think long-term Texas is set up for success. It's hard not to see Texas having success long-term for sure. I do think Oklahoma is going to be better than people realize. Like you said, the schedule, really, really challenging. We have Tennessee here today. We have Oklahoma here today. Yeah.

We have a bunch of other teams coming the next couple days, but is there a team that you feel like is not getting enough attention?

heading into whatever time slot they're afforded here at SEC Media Days. Yeah, and I don't say this as the Missouri grad because I have been burned too many times to really have a lot of faith. But when you look at their schedule, their schedule pans out nice for them, and they're favored in 11 of their games. And, you know, they surprised everyone last year with what they have coming back with Luther Burden and Brady Cook. And I also think, like, what Drink has done to get a guy like Luther to stay.

You know, like what that means for that state. There's a heck of a lot of talent in Kansas City and St. Louis. And if you can kind of start to build those walls and get people like, hey, the cool thing to do is to go to Mizzou. And, you know, it was a little bit like that when I was there and Chase Daniel came up here from Dallas. And Mizzou was kind of cool. And Brad Smith was there. And Drink has gotten that for Mizzou. And I also just think the way that the schedule pans out, they could be a sleeper to end up.

in Atlanta at the end. Where are you on the loss of Blake Baker? I mean, I think it's big. I think he's awesome. But I think there's enough left up front to where... And then obviously...

You were involved in that defense last year. You know what it's supposed to look like. I think the offense can just overcome a lot of that. It's a little bit of the LSU factor. If your offense is good enough, I don't think they're going to sit here and have a major drop-off. I believe they were around fourth in almost every category with Baker there. I do think it's a huge loss, but I think what they have offensively

you know, is it going to be a thing where you got to put up 30 to 40 points every time? I don't think it will be a dramatic drop off when you already had the system running in place. How would you assess kind of the bottom half of the SEC? Like yesterday, Shane Beamer came out, kind of went scorched earth. Like, Hey, you guys think we stink, whatever. Um,

The thing about it is I don't necessarily disagree with them, but I also can't really justify moving them ahead of a lot of the teams in front of them. So how do you assess kind of the bottom half of the league and how much noise they might be able to potentially make? I think there's a drop-off, right? I was going through some of the ESPN analytics, and there's eight teams with a 10% chance

to make it to Atlanta. And that didn't even include Ole Miss. So really, there's nine teams and then there's the rest.

And, you know, Vanderbilt will be Vanderbilt. But, like, someone's got to take the losses. Like, for all these teams, they're going to end up with eight, nine wins. That means someone else is going to take the losses. And Shane Beamer is going to get his guys. Like, there's a viral video going around where, you know, at the end of last season, he says, shut the cameras off. And the audio keeps rolling. Meanwhile, the camera is still rolling. It's still rolling. It's like, if you're satisfied with five and seven, get that.

the hell out of here. That's a little bit of him, but they got a ways to go, and maybe that offensive line will be much improved, and

have some depth where they sustain injuries. They're not going to have what they have last season. But in this conference, if you're going to have teams that have 11 and 10 wins, there's going to be teams that start racking up some losses. Chris Budden of ESPN joining us live on Radio Road Day 2, McIlroy and Kubelik in the morning. You brought up Ole Miss a moment ago, some of the odds. We talked about it with Jordan a few minutes ago. It feels very difficult to find holes just in the roster, personnel-wise.

You've had Ole Miss the last couple of years more than once. You understand Lane and how he operates, and you know what the roster is. What should the expectation be? Should it be playoff or bust? Can they win a national championship? So twofold on that. I think it's playoff or bust. I mean, if the playoff was expanded two out of the last three years, they would have been in. They went out and got five guys in the transfer portal that were top 50. They lost pieces, but they also kept a lot.

And so I think the expectation for Lane is play off our bust. And they're one of those teams, you throw them and Penn State and Utah, of programs that had this thing been expanded, they would have been in there. And to me, this is the year where you have the talent. And I don't know for however ESPN Analytics comes up that they're not one of the eight teams.

Because by Vegas odds, they're like the third best team. Especially with that schedule. You've got to love the analytics. Come on. You've got to lean in. I trust Vegas. They took all my money last week, so I trust them more than ESPN analytics. Lastly, as far as odds, George is the big favorite. I don't know anybody that's really going to push back on it, frankly, but...

I feel like we're kind of ignoring a conversation that might need to be had, given the way they looked against Bama in the SEC Championship game. They got mowed off the ball in that game. Are we just anointing them unjustifiably, or is their reign as the top dog in the conference and really the sport, is it justified? Would there be a bigger conversation if Saban was still there? I just think Saban wasn't playing right guard. Yeah, but he was 1-5 again.

I agree. For the first three matchups or so, it was very much, you know, you know, knives in one hand and guns in the other. Like, it was not necessarily an apples to apples comparison with where the programs were at, but...

But I would say in some cases, Georgia surpassed them in the last three years, and yet Bama's still 2-1. I'm not saying Texas is better than Georgia. I'm not saying Bama's better than Georgia. I'm not saying either of those teams are. But the perceived gap that exists between Georgia and everybody else appears huge. Should it be? Yeah. I think roster-wise, yes. I think last year...

they come in really hungry. Last year, they were great defensively, but they weren't what they were two years ago. And whatever it is, the Kirby, he didn't have any bulletin board material last year that said, you know, they doubted us. But every year he comes in with something. I remember when he came in last year at SEC Media Days and he had said he had done like a four-week deep dive of the New Zealand All Black.

of figuring out how to sustain success. I find him fascinating. I remember interviewing Dana Holgerson one time, and he said he went and stayed and did like a two-week basically camp out during their fall camp, and he was mesmerized. He's like, I learn more than I have ever have in all my years coaching, just being around Kirby's program. And so I thought that that stood out.

I think roster-wise, I think with Kirby being, you know, the best coach in this league right now, they deserve that conversation. I do wonder, though, if Saban was still here, would we be talking about that large of a gap? I don't think that we would. Just remember the stories about, like,

Holgerson sleeping on Leach's couch and Kingsbury having another room in there. So that group of coaches, and then he goes to hang out with the main guy from the Saban tree, and he has this eye-opening experience. I don't think that there were probably as many six-packs and pizza around a couch as there probably was in that Leach coaching tree. Probably not. Or Red Bull. Or Courtside. Unbelievable.

We appreciate you joining us. Before we go, I wanted to ask you just nationally, sort of big picture. You've been to some other media days as well. Georgia on a national scale, how many teams outside of the SEC do you have sort of classified in their grouping? I'll tell you what I thought was really interesting that I learned at Big 12 Media Days because Chris Kleiman had never really said this before. But, like, we put Georgia and then we put Ohio State because of everything that Ohio State got. And at quarterback...

Will Howard was going to be a backup this year at Kansas State. He didn't leave because Ohio State poached him. Like Chris Kleiman said, Avery Johnson was going to beat him out. And that's a true sophomore. You can say that now. I mean, it's...

Yeah, but the guy also scored five touchdowns in the bowl game and had started to take some of his snaps away. But everybody and their brother was going after Will Howard. Like, everybody. SC, Ohio State, like, everybody. Because at that time, how many Will Howards were there in the portal? I do think he's good. I just think it's, you know, it's a little bit low-hanging fruit. I love climbing. No one loves climbing as much as I do. I think he's awesome. But, like, it is a bit of low-hanging fruit that...

Oh, yeah, you know, he left, but he wasn't going to be our guy anyways. I understand what you mean. It just tempered my expectations of what Ohio State has on that roster. I will say to that point, if you're, for me...

I think Ohio State and Georgia talent-wise are probably ahead of everybody else. Having the same coordinator and having the same quarterback, that's the big differential for me between those two teams. Like, Ohio State's up the ante on talent, but you've got Bobo and Beck back together. And I love Chip. Craig would say I love Chip Kelly's offense. It's incredible. I love it. But you have a new quarterback in a new offense for all the guys around him, and they haven't done it together yet.

It doesn't matter how much talent you have. It's going to take some time to come together. So I'll lean Georgia mainly from that perspective. The only other reason why I find the Will Howard conversation interesting is because Ryan Day had told our guys that covered the Cotton Bowl, I'm not looking for a quarterback. We have a quarterback on our roster, and the Cotton Bowl went the way that the Cotton Bowl did. Come on. It's a good performance. For Missouri, yeah.

Chris, thanks so much for hanging out with us. We appreciate it. It's a very watchable game. Very extremely watchable. Good stuff. Chris Button coming off a big 12 media days in Vegas, now hanging out here at SEC Media Days in Dallas. We'll be back with more live on Radio Row from day two of SEC Media Days next on JOX 94.5. Catch up with all things McElroy and Kublik in the morning by subscribing to the podcast. Mythically, he's grown. He's almost like a little bit bigger than...

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