Steve Rivera and Jake and Salez. They have their eye on the ball on
Tucson Sports Big yet Fox Sports fourteen fifty streaming live. I mean, iHeartRadio.
Wow. Hey, welcome back to Eying the Ball here on Fox Sports
fourteen fifty. I'm Steve, he's Jay. Now we have said with breaking
news, Eye on the ball, breaking news, all right, starting off
the breaking news with some Arizona football. Raymond Fuldo has been drawn from the
transfer portal you for the offensive line at Arizona. So that means that,
you know what, the only guy missing is the guy that ran, you
know, Jordan Morgan that ran out of his uh eligibility. That the rest
of the starting offensive line is back. Mm hmm. That's great news.
I guess we'll see. I try to get his dad on. Maybe he'll
come on some point he's been on before. Then we'll see him around now,
as we talked about, maybe a week or so. Go Jay.
He just needs to stay healthy, yeah, yep, yeah, he does
well. They all do, but you know, but him specifically, he
didn't play a lot because he was hurt. Yeah a lot. Yeah,
but you know, the bigger pictures that you know, Brent Brannan has obviously
you know, the pieces he needs. Uh. You know too, there's
gonna be high expectations, you know, maybe not quite as high because the
coach left, and you know, there's going to be this there's this transition
and all that kind of stuff. But you know the fact that I think
fans can go into twenty twenty four believing that Arizona's got a shot to you
know, to have a good uh maybe even a special season. Yeah,
they had they have some NFL bodies on the line that could be developed for
sure, right especially I mean Polito was only a freshman last year. Yeah,
you know, so you know the big piece of the one, the
piece that kind of stings that that that that left is is Jonah Coleman.
Uh. You know, I'm sure Brent Brandon would have loved to have Jonah
coleb going in the next season. But you know that the kid, the
freshman coming in, Jordan Washington, Uh, he's you know, he stands
by his uh you know, his commitment. He's coming. You got Speedy
Luke who you know, I don't know that we saw enough of Speedy.
Look, you know, I'm gonna be interested to see but you know who's
gonna get the you know who's gonna get the yards that the DJ Williams and
and uh and uh and Jana Coleman got you know, the the the the
third and two right that they you know, they run somebody off tackle and
and get that uh, you know the power runner that they had and you
know and Coleman, you know, broke a lot of those. So that's
gonna be the part that's gonna be interesting to see. But certainly Brent Brennan's
got a lot to work with. Yeah, the higher the running backs coach,
Alonso Carter, he's going to play a major role in trying to find
maybe a veteran back in the portal something. Right, if they bigger back
the kid from the you know, the running back that he had at San
Jose Stay. He looks like a bit of a bit of a beast,
So we'll see. Yeah. Staying with the running back topic, Cayden Luke
remains committed to Arizona. You mentioned, ye, speedy Cayden Cayden Luke the
recruit out here. Oh okay, all right, yes, yeah, he's
so he will be another running back. We'll see how his career pans out,
but running back rooms starting to I think they have about four backs as
of right now. Yeah, look, in the end, it looks good
that Brandon was able to keep virtually all, you know, for certainly most
there wasn't this exodus of players that followed Jedfish out of here. Yeah.
Yeah, Now, if you can keep one of those cornerbacks, one of
those price soccer Davis, then the defense starts to really pan out as well.
So right, moving into a little bit of saturd news, there's a
former Arizona Wildcat that passed away, Kelly Melvo yep, forty seven years old.
Yeah, I mean you you watched the news and you read the things
on the internet. A lot of dudes are a lot of people are passing
away under sixty. It's crazy, It's just unbelievable. How did we get
here, Steve? How did we get Did you get the styfour? Yeah,
that's exactly what I'm saying as to borrow my boys Sid's cliche. I
work day to day, stated way, maybe I'm on a contract with God
day to day. Oh yeah, oh god, that's you know again.
Kelly Melbol was one of those guys that I mean, I was I was
grown up and old when he was playing, right right. Yeah, he's
forty seven, and we'll look at all the there's been a few of the
guys offensive linemen. Yeah, that's too bad, very very very sorry to
hear that. Condolences to his family, yeah, for sure. Staying with
college football, Colorado self reported the minor n CUBA violations related to the transfer
portal social media and more so did they do I believe. I don't know
who or how this came about. Uh, there's there's more violations, but
the ones that are known as trans report on social media, they were reported
by Colorado themselves. We'll see what happens with that. What what what the
band will be if there's a band or if there's just a minor suspension or
because one of them was related to Deon Sanders use of social media. Ah
okay, all right, shocker and it was from last season. Okay,
all right, so we'll see what happens there. The Falcons moving into NFL,
they hired Raheem Morris, the Rams defensive coordinator. They had several interviews
with Bill Belichick. So this is a little bit of a shocker to some
because Bill Belichick, this is the only team that he's interviewed with. Well,
I Justin Spears had a really funny comment on social media to see what
he said. He said, Bill Belichick blew a two interview lead at Atlanta
because it was reported he had he had a second interview there, but then
they gave the job to Raheem Morris. That is a good that's a great
line. Justin props to you on that. Uh, but you know,
Raheem Morris has history with the Falcons. Know, I think, you know,
I think the reaction has been pretty good to you know, so I
find that he's a defensive coordinator. I don't know about defense coordinators being head
coaches, not that they're not goorect but to score now in the NFL,
it's become an offensive games as we're seeing. Also, the Panthers are looking
to hire the Bucks offensive cordnertor Dave Canalis, who helps Baker Mayfield that his
best season. So Panthers are looking to go offensive coordinator, try to develop
Bryce Young while others may be looking the defensive coordinator route. We saw what
happened with the Chargers when they hired Daily, a former defensive coordinator. Yeah,
very well, not very well. But look, let's let's you know,
since we make it, since we talk about it when it's not happening,
we'll talk about it when it is. You know, a couple of
couple of African American coaches high with uh with Antonio Pearson now Raheem Morris,
so so good on, good on the NFL for doing that. It's it's
it's it's sad that you got to keep, you know, poking them at
it. But you know, hopefully that's a you know, maybe the start
of something. Yeah. Looking into this weekend as the NFL games, UH,
for the forty nine Ers and Lions NFC Championship Games, the honor captains
will be Joe Montana and Barry Sanders. Wow, okay, good for Barry
Sanders. Yeah, so some familiar faces in there. It saw an interesting
interview with Barry Sanders the other day, just talking about, you know,
when he quit and he's been asked this a million times and stuff, but
he said he just good. That was what it was. There was never
there were never second thoughts about it. You know, after he quit,
he just said like I'm done, I've had it, I've had mine and
uh, and he moved on healthy way to yeah he's healthy. Well he's
doesn't he do the commercials with the Heisman or whatever he does those? Yeah,
he's in the Yeah, yeah he does that stuff. So clearly just
you know, just kind of having fun. Some of them were funny because
they're old. You know, it's like, you know, are Marcus Allen
and those guys yet? Yeah, and then they have the and then they
have the young guys like Bryce Young and there it's kind of funny. Super
Bowl news, Uh, super Bowl participants will not be able to engage in
any sort of gambling as it's in Vegas. No gambling. You can't go
throw the dice or anything nothing. I don't want to play. I don't
want I don't want to go. Oh no no I'm going. I'm going.
I got I got, I got a hamster. All of a sudden,
I'll be the lower Yeah. God, you know, thinking back to
you know, what's this like the eleventh how many packed off tournaments have been
in Vegas? Ren the very first one, and there you know, and
all you know, all of us who were working the tournament, and there
was you know, there was an organizational meeting the night before the tournament.
The tournament started, they said, and finally, please, please, don't,
you know, don't let us see you hanging out in the sports books.
And you know, I mean they really, you know, at that
time, really really told us, you know, just stay away. I
mean, they obviously weren't going to stop us from playing blackjack or whatever,
sure, but they were just like, you know, you know, don't
don't be wearing your pack twelve gear and a sports book. Don't even go
to a sports book and all that stuff. Do they still tell you that,
Yes, they still tell you that, but it's sort of a wink
wink kind of thing because they know that, you know they i mean,
look, you go to sportsbook to watch the game. Sure of course,
you know, to just sit there and watch games because you got all this
time. That's why Vegas to me is like the economy. It's just kind
of strange because they have the kids tournaments there. My son's played soccer.
I went to basketball, high school basketball stuff that's recruiting. In the summer.
I saw literally I was at the old Riviera. I think I was
sitting with my then wife in a place outside and you'd see kids going into
the in the clubs, clubs, and then eventually coming right out, you
know, because when you're seventeen eighteen, you want to you're curious, but
THEYD come right out. And I'm thinking Vegas is not the place to be
for these events, but but your parents are taking you or whatever the exactly
they let and for your case, how many how many tournaments four or five
in Vegas? Yea? With how many administrators? Twenty five to forty?
Yeah, yeah, but at least so much. I said, don't do
this, okay, whatever you say, whatever you say a problemise, Yeah,
no, it's a it's a and and with us, you know,
work in the tournament sort of becoming okay, you know, we we know
the you know, we know the ropes, we know we know the situation
and we but you know, you and I will go to our we go
to our radio show from the sports book and at the at the uh Park
Park West, Yeah park do it again, Park MDM Parking Gym. And
when we were at the place for the we did the man the mandalay On.
Gotta get back. We're gonna we have to start checking into yeah,
we have to. Yeah. So anyways, yeah, that's all the major
news I have. I know you Steve you well, you go ahead,
you don't have the Brennan stuff or yeah, yeah, okay, okay,
Well, I guess the the Border regents today had their meetings and the Brennan's
contract has been approved. So that's good. We were anticipating more news out
of the Border regions. Well, and here's this is not a Border Regions
thing, but posted by the airs of Data Star about an hour ago that
Dave Hikey is going to get paid through the end of his contract March of
twenty twenty five, which is basically another million bucks. Do you know how
much? Did you see a number? We say that, yeah, how
much a month? No, but it says the salary totals a million,
forty two five seventy five thousand dollars a month. Wow. I can live
off that. I can live off a little of that. Good for Dave?
Yeah, yeah, you know, I mean, I'm sure he wants
to go find another job. Fine, he'll He'll be fine. We're all
you know, Come on, you've just lost how many jobs? How many
have I lost? Yeah? One where TP? Yeah? City? Oh
no, I've been fired twice by the Sugar Stars. No, I quit
the city. Okay, So but you don't have to quit this, not
so much. You've for some summer. I think I hold a record,
not counting the players. I've been let go twice by the Sugar Skulls now
because because of the TV thing. But my point is you'll be fine.
You'll be fine. You know, when the paper closed, I was kind
of on my careers. It's unnerving. Sure, sure, right, you
don't know where, but guess what another bus comms. Yeah. I remember
my first after I got laid off at t EP, or shall we say
a better term its severed from TEP. Remember the first weekday, which I
don't know if it was the next day, if it was like Monday or
whatever. And I got up in the morning and I didn't have to get
dressed and go to work, and I thought it was just really weird.
Oh yeah, yeah, like the first week or two. It was just
really really weird. Well, Gab was working in the Citizen when I was
working the Citizen, right, I was in La with the team usc uc
other game and they called ahead their meeting into paper blah blah, we're gonna
be closing down in a few months. And I was getting the call and
I felt worse when I came home. Then you see yours and then you
have to say, this is going to happen. Yeah, and you felt
bad, but you're hope. You're hopeful. And then the paper continued for
three more months, and then the last day is like you, what am
I going to do tomorrow? I do tomorrow? What do I do tomorrow?
That's why I'll never retire. I hope I passed the next day.
Don't do that. Okay, maybe two days later. You need to have
some time to kind of wind down from a life of work. Oh sure,
okay, I got okay, you know, go play some golf,
Go play some soccer, Go play some cards. Yeah cause that'll be that'll
be exactly that borrow some money exactly. Well, okay, so the Border
Regions one's one. You got all the players coming back, right, yeah,
all the players coming back. Here's what? Okay, So I told
you there was a on this day. Oh yeah, on this day in
nineteen eighty eight, Steve, on this day in nineteen eighty eight. Nineteen
eighty eight, Okay, I was my first year here a sport, A
sport, Give me a house basketball this day look till raftery Oh the bringing,
bringing home, send it in Sean. Sean Miller's passed to Jerome Lane
busted a score a backboard on a on a fast break. So what was
the most distinctive thing about Sean that you thought? What was if you say
Sean, describe him for me. Sean Miller, his his his his his
level of intensity and and and tunnel vision on basketball. Okay, his one
life focus on basket. So accurate, very accurate. Okay, So mine
is that, but it's more after like the third year, when he was
doing really well, I called uh to do a story for for Fox,
and I called his former players, former teammates of that team. He said,
what did you what do you remember him the most? And you know
how cool was it play with him? He says, we loved it?
But he was intense. And those eyes, oh yeah, they stared at
you like you know when you did that kind of little squint at you.
Yeah, you're thinking you were in trouble. Did your dad do that to
you? My dad, Yeah, he had a look. There was a
look and my mom had one too. They both had a yeah, well
yeah, but there was a look that you knew that Sean was the odes
for me because if he gave you that stare down you said, well,
he's probably thinking about I want to kick your all. Right, let's uh,
let's get out of here for our next break. We're going to come
back and it'll be mad Moneina. We'll talk about players coming and going,
both at Arizona and elsewhere. He'll give he's a runs u Goasy catch recruiting
site uh and works with rivals. So Matt Mordano coming back and we'll talk
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I mean, iHeartRadio WAP. This is I on the Ball with Steve Rivera
and Jacob Salez on Fox Sports fourteenth fifteen. Hey, welcome back to y
on the ball Hero, Fox Sports Fortwen fifty. I'm Steve Rivera. He's
Jacobsaus. Now on the phone we have met moodin go ezycatch dot com.
Matt. How you doing, fren Great guys, thanks for having me back
Azolwi. You must not be getting much sleep these days given all the movement
with players and coaches and all that. Yeah, I mean it's been kind
of never ending. At us was on a trip to Hawaii to cover the
Polynesian Bowland. As I was taking off, literally I think right as the
tires are leaving the runaway Klein de Bore decided that it was time for him
to make a move to Alabama. And and then as I've been taking off,
you know, coming back to the West coast, if he decides,
you know, time to hang him up for Arizona de tide maybe four d
ivek that has time to hang them up. And you know, so not
stop busy, busy times, but definitely a fun time and obviously a lot
going on for for Arizona and everywhere. Well there was a lot happened in
between there as well, along with Jed Fish leaving in Arizona hiring Brent Brannon.
So you know, obviously the big you know, the big question mark
when Jed took the Washington job is what, you know, what happens to
the players at Arizona, your impressions of how well of a job, how
good of a job, and why Brent Brennan is able to hang on to
the guys that are sticking around. Yeah, I mean my first thought when
Jed Fish decided to take Washington was, you don't take that job unless you
have guarantees from some of your players that you're going to be from at least
a lot of your top players that you're going to be having them with you,
you know, up in Seattle. So a little surprising that you know
that was the case. And uh, you know, kudos to Brent Brennan
for being able to hold on to not only Team Mac, but No Fafida
and uh, you know a bunch of other players as well who are going
to matter and we're going to play a big role in what they do next
season. And uh, it makes all the difference in my opinion for for
year one. And you know, for him, it's not about a rebuilt,
it's about trying to continue what Jeed Fish built. And uh, he's
going to be able to do that with a lot of the top players coming
back, and I think especially along the offensive line, that's really key to
have a lot of those guys coming back right in Toledo obviously, uh you
know, reportedly coming out of the portal today and so it sounds like he'll
be back as well. And so to get a lot of those top guys
back, I think says a lot about, you know, what Brent Brandan
is going to bring to the table, what he's going to be as a
recruiter, the culture he's trying to build, and just the uh, the
leadership I think he's going to bring to the program at the head coach condition,
which is what Arizona wanted and that's why he was, you know,
uh seemingly going to be the guy for a time last time around, you
know, before they hired Jet Fish, and so, you know, I
think it says a lot about just kind of what he's going to be and
what to expect I think for Arizona in the coming years, where it's not
if you're an Arizona fan, looking like it's going to be too much of
a drop off in terms of what they're able to do. The production and
it's it's so pivotal for head coach, uh, you know, stepping into
a situation to have success early on because of the transferportal era, so many
players, so many recruits are looking for that kind of instant success, and
so I think if you don't have that, it becomes really difficult to to,
you know, truly rebuild a program. And Brent Brennan is probably not
one of the names that a lot of players that have been looking at Arizona
are super super familiar with. And you know, santise was pretty active.
Santaise k was pretty active and recruiting a lot of the guys that ended up
at Arizona. So maybe it's a little bit less at you a but across
the board, you know, he's not a name that his first on the
minds for a lot of recruits. And so I think being able to seemingly
what feels like is going to be a successful year shaping up to be a
successful year for Arizona with who they have coming back, I think it's going
to set them up really well because it'll show that, hey, he can
coach at the Power five level, you can coach at a place like Arizona
and you know, moving to that Big twelve and potentially, you know,
having a chance to win the Big twelve. I they're able to kind of
replicate what they did this last season, all good things, and I think
it will be positive momentum for Arizona. And I really like when he's down
to the staff. I mean, obviously not everybody is officially announced, but
most of the staff is announced, and I think he's put together a really
strong staff. A lot of those coaches they're coming over with him from San
Jose State, but even if Pie he's kind of plugged in elsewhere, I
think are really important, really key pieces. And I think they're going to
continue to kind of keep this thing moving forward and do what they did at
San Jose State, but maybe on a bigger level. So not to rehash,
but I'm a gonna rehash because I want to compare the two. And
you just talked about to Brendan being a recruiter at the end of the day,
at the end of the day, the three years and you do this
for a living, though. Was Fish a pretty good recruiter or very good
recruiter or was Noah Fafita the good recruiter? Fish was a pretty good recruiter,
and I think he was a he's a pretty good kind of manager of
his staff and talent. I think he understood kind of what buttons he needed
to push, you he needed to bring on board, and I think he
kind of made a lot of the right decisions. Couldn't have been better,
absolutely, And I think he's gonna have the challenges at Washington. I think
it's a different type of recruit recruiting that you have to be there, and
there's a different type of appeal to a place like Seattle. But I don't
think it's going to be, you know, an easy kind of Hey,
everyone's going to come and want to play for me, because you've already kind
of seen that. Because if that was the case, there'd be a lot
of guys who are staying at Arizona wouldn't be at Arizona right now. So
I think there's kind of rooms we made. I think that the staff he
had at Arizona, it was a solid staff and did a lot of good
things, but it was kind of, you know, with some of its
pieces. Because I thought the coaching staff that he had at Arizona was really
good and was really aware of what it needs to do. And you know,
you saw that kind of in the early portions of this last recruiting cycle
and they had you know, Elijah Rushing committed, and they had cand of
real high committed and they were kind of really dominating the state. I think
you saw kind of what types of recruiters they can be. Ultimately a matter
who you signed versus who you had committed at one point. So you know,
there's obviously still things to be desired there, but it's a pretty good,
pretty good recruiter, probably the best that you know, I've seen at
Arizona in terms of my time covering the teams went over a decade, so
uh, you know, went through a few different coaching staffs, and a
lot of that was just effort and just really being willing to put in the
effort. I think you're going to see that kind of replicated with Burn Brennan
and the current staff. I think they're going to be really active and really
go getters about trying to reach out to recruits early on. I think that's
one of the things that if you look at just the last years and the
time under Burnt Brennan at San Jose State, they were one of the programs
that was always first to offer a lot of recruits ended up landing a lot
of recruits pretty early on. It would lose them to bigger schools down the
line because they just didn't have real the resources to compete in a lot of
ways. And you know, they didn't have the appeal of being a Power
five school or you know, a high level program, and so you know,
they lost out with some guys. But they're really active and they're really
good to identifying talent. I think that's gonna benefit them as they all kind
of make that move to Arizona. Now, well, I was gonna ask
you that. I mean, do we know yet how good a recruiter Brent
Brandan is yet? You know, the presumption is if you can win some
games at Sales, they stayed, you got to you gotta be doing something
right. Yeah, I mean they've had a number of you know, guys
make it to the NFL from Santo they state, And again, I think
it's tough to really judge because they just you didn't have all the schools to
really have complete success on the recruiting side, because you know, they're getting
beat out. In the end, they were kind of Arizona's enough for a
long time where no bigger school to come in and offer late in the period,
and you know, they would say, well, I'm gonna go play
at this school versus you know, stay at you know, stack them into
Arizona, and so Arizona can kind of now be that a little bit more.
And I think for Brent Brennan and Staff, I think they again it
comes back to identifying talent. That's what it really stands out about what I've
seen with them just over the lot of several years, is they really are
early on a lot of recruits and will jump in early with that first offer
and really feel confident in who they like. I think is kind of the
feeling. And I think that's going to benefit them as they may go to
Arizona. If they continue that and if they continue to have that kind of
foresight and eye for talent, I think it's going to be very good for
them at Arizona because they'll be able to move in and really make make a
move with those recruits early on in the process and you know, either get
them committed or at least put a good word in and kind of stay in
the picture with them for a long time. And I think they'll have more
resources and things available to them at Arizona to maybe lead to more success.
But we'll see. It's kind of remains to be seen whether he's a good
recruiter or not. I think so far it feels like that's the case,
but kind of the proof will be in the putting and what he's able to
do at Arizona in these coming years. The fact that Arizona was able to
keep Noel fafieda team act, you know, Jacob Mona, as much of
the roster as they've been able to keep, there's got to be some long
term benefit to that for Arizona as a whole, and you know, as
and for Brent Brannan, for you know, recruits out there, to say,
Okay, these guys stayed there when they could have gone elsewhere. You
know, we had you know, one of the boosters in Bert to Lopez
just came on the you know, came on the radio a couple of days
ago and said, team at could have gotten a lot more money going somewhere
else, but he stayed here. How, you know, how can Arizona
use that down the road when it comes to recruiting. Yeah, I mean
I think you know, it speaks very loudly about what you know, they're
capable of what they're going to. You know, a lot of the discussions
these days are NIL related and that's just kind of the reality of the situation.
So, you know, I think a lot of recruits are going to
see that. You know, these players decided they had other opportunities. We
know that they could have had other opportunities if they entered the portal and it
would have been a wide open kind of chase to figure out who can sign
them and get them in the mix, and for them to kind of push
that away as they know we're staying at Arizona. I do think it says
a lot about the situation. I think recruits will see that and see,
well, they didn't leave for a reason, and that's that's something to pay
attention to. And ultimately it'll be what this new staff can sell recruits on.
And that doesn't matter as much to those guys as winning and their position
in the field and whether or not they're going to get playing time early.
There's a lot of other factors like into It's not just as simple as seeing
no Fafita and you know, Temac staying at Arizona now that that makes my
decision for me, will get them intrigued, absolutely, but it'll be up
to the staff to kind of deliver the rest and you know, sell them
on on the other things that that matter to all these recruits, and there's
a lot of that. Feels like every day there's a growing number of things
on that list that they're looking for, and Nil has definitely creeped up that
list and probably at the top for a lot of the top end guys.
And you know, that will be something that they kind of have to continue
to forge and build on at Arizona under Brent Brennan. But I think in
terms of the appeal and the optics, I think it's a it's a very
good thing for Arizona that and Burn Brennan that they're able to keep, you
know, those two guys at the top and then you fill it in with
some other very talented players who are I think it'll make a big impact.
I think as they kind of move forward. So are you in your capacity
now with go as you cats do they? Does it change? Are you
still gonna follow Arizona? You're still gonna follow Washington? What's your what's your
job? In terms of doing that, Yeah, absolutely. You know,
the Polynesian Blood talked to several Arizona recruits who were landed in Honolulu and you
know, found out that they didn't have a head coach anymore, so you
know, and then Hockey, now, who's an offensive lineman who was already
on campus that Washington was trying to figure out what he was going to do.
And so yeah, I mean I'm going to very much keep tubs on
everybody. It's you know, you it was the fact luve at one point,
but still, you know, the pact full footprint, I guess is
still what I'm gonna pay attention to. And so yeah, I'll be able
to continue to track all the all this movement. Uh, it's kind of
happening rapidly right now. But I think what you're seeing from dead Fishing and
staff up in Washington is they're reoffering a lot of the guys that they offered
at Arizona, and they're trying to get a lot of the players that you
know, they wanted at Arizona up there with them to Seattle and we'll kind
of see how it all plays out. Because Arizona's reoffering a lot of those
same guys as well, and then as they stayed was in there with a
lot of those same guys as well in the upcoming classes. So it'll be
a fun, little interesting battle to kind of see how it all plays out
and you know which school ends up winning or if there's another school that kind
of comes in and makes a move on a lot of these recrupsies. I
don't know if we talked about this last time, but are you started to
seeing any early effects of the realignment stuff of USC and UCLA, Oregon,
Washington going to the Big ten? You know the corner school is going to
the Big twelve in recruiting. Is that affecting decisions that you're hearing yet?
I think more so the Big Ten is the one that is grabbing a lot
of attention. I think there's a lot of recruits here. If the teams
they were picking did not play in a big conference, they would not be
picking those schools. I think that mattered a lot for you know, places
like Oregon in USC in particular, I think a lot of those recruits are
like, if we want to play the top competition, we know we're going
to play Ohio State in Michigan Michigan State a lot of you know, in
most years, that makes a difference, and so I think that's what you're
really seeing. I haven't heard about it as much as the Big Twelve move.
I think there's still some crowns to be made up there in terms of
the Big Twelve feeling like it's on the same level as the SEC in Big
Ten. But definitely the move to the Big Ten has grabbed a lot of
attention and recruits a lot about that with you know, those schools that have
made that move or are making that move, and so that's come up a
lot with those recruits. Is that's been a big part of it and understanding
that they're going to play at a very very high level. Again, I've
heard less about it with the Big Twelve, but you know that there will
be time for that to kind of build and we'll see kind of where that
goes in the coming years. So you're saying that the recruits, Southern California
recruits, so the West Coast recruits are liking the fact that they can go
play in the Big Ten, as opposed to what some people thought might happen
that some of them might not want to be traveling to the Big Ten.
Is that what you're saying, Yeah, I mean, not the background.
I don't think anybody has been like, oh, I hate the move.
I mean I think I think a lot of them are sad and that they're
not going to be able to play in front of their families as much as
they would like. But I think they are looking at the benefits of it
and they want to be on a big stage. That's ultimately what it comes
down to is they want to play in the NFL. They think the best
way they do that is to be on the biggest stage. They feel like
the SEC Big ten are the two conferses that are going to put them on
the biggest stage. And that's what I've heard about a lot, you know,
that's been brought up quite a bit throughout recruits, is that they they
want to play against the best competition. They feel like those two conferences have
it. And that's really why, you know, that's a big part of
a lot of decisions made by those recruits that pack, you know, some
of these tactical schools that are making the move to the Big ten. That
it was something that got brought up, and so yeah, that's definitely I
don't think that they love it. I don't think I think they much rather
be playing closer to home. But I think they understand the situation that's not
changing. So they're all for you know, playing for the top, playing
against the top competition, and that's that's really been pretty consistent across the board
with those recruits. Interesting. Okay, well, we'll see what happens.
Uh moving forward, we'll probably have you on as we continue with basketball and
not we'n't even talk about basketball, so we'll get well, we'll get closer
to a win tonight. Split tonight. What's going on though? Split this
weekend? Uh? Yeah, I mean it's been an interesting time for sure.
I mean, obviously it doesn't it doesn't feel like the same team that
we were watching, you know, earlier in the season, and you had
to kind of bounce back and work different things. But I think the split
is probably what Arizona's looking at right now. And you know, if they're
able to get two wins, that's you're all better for one. But yeah,
it sounds like a split. It's kind of an interesting point in the
season. We'll kind of see, uh, you know, how they kind
of push through this part of the year you have give Mick cron and the
call she was doing for us, Tracy have Tracy call. I'm gonna say,
probably a little bit angry. Still he was a little cranky here,
still yelled at Justin Spears. Thanks Matt, Thank you, Matt. I
appreciate it that not saying as long as it wasn't me, I'm good.
I loved what. I loved what Ali farhaning he had to say, he
said, only we get to yell at Justin like he said that in the
morning, in the and on Twitter. It's very funny. So all right,
thank you Matt for for being with us. Interesting stuff. I think
that you know, those of us who are like trying to find you know,
fault or bad, you know, make the pack, the move to
the big ten you know bad, you know saying, oh, you know
they're gonna they're not gonna want to go play over there. Yes they do.
They they want to plan on the biggest stage. And it makes a
lot of sense. All right, I got a resolution from the from the
what the reasons? All right, well let's cover that when we get back.
All right, we're gonna take a break, we'll be back. We'll
take your calls five T zero four, one sixty. If you're an Arizona
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the excess and olls, It's Steve Rivera and Jagin Salaz. This is I
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terms. Okay, yeah, get a Call's how you're on the air and
I and the ball? Hey, Jerry, this is done? How you
doing, Steve? Hey? Don? How's relatives out in northern New Mexico?
They're all cold? I know better here, better for us to be
here. They're all cold there? Hey, you know what not to change
the subject. But whatever happened to academic ineligibility in college sports? I have
not heard about a single kid being ineligible, and I don't know how long.
Well, they have a lot of resources, now, yeah, a
ton of resources. So if you're failing, that's on you, baby,
because now they have five, I don't know how many people. That's an
exaggeration, and helping them to get through the semesters and each eat, each
year, we're hearing how teams are setting records for grade point averages and stuff
like that. Look, I remember, I still remember. This is a
while back, but a player named Darryl Brooks and Arizona, he played in
the Stoops years. Somebody did a profile on him, a story, and
in that he was talking about the academic piece of it. He said,
with the resources that you have, and mind you, this is fifteen years
ago, maybe more, he said, with the resources we have and the
things that we have at our disposal, you have to try to be ineligible.
So yeah, no, you're right. We haven't heard much about that
at all. I mean not from anywhere. And I can't imagine there's not
somebody out there just not trying, you know, Yeah, who knows who
knows. It's just something that I've been thinking about with all this nil and
everything else, and you know, well that's it's all wile waw West as
far as the rules, as far as that goes, Yeah, no thinking,
man, hurt anybody get in trouble for I didn't get a paper in
on time or something like that. You're always looking for bad news. Well
and the other thing. Even even you know, there's more and more resources
on the road too. It used to be that, you know, like
the basketball team would take one academic advisor with them and stuff like that.
There's a whole team of people that go on the road with these with these
athletes to make sure that they you know, they because there's so much travel
now that they you know that they that they stay up on things as well.
Well. Plus there's now that you're got my mind going. You know,
there's the Internet, so you can sit in on a class right,
stuff online if you have to write. Yeah, you do a lot of
your stuff online as well. I mean you can do you can do your
class work on a plane now where you couldn't. Didn't used to be able
to do that. Yeah, yeah, all right, that's all I got,
all right, man, we're good. Thanks Don. We appreciate the
call as always. Thanks guys. So let's talk about the question I brought
up, how long it would take for them to get out of debt.
Least they brought up a timeline to get the start of the process, right,
that's still a long ways away. It's it was eighteen to thirty six
months. That's you know, that's about three years, you know, but
it's it's a it's one hundred and forty million dollar gap, but not to
not to much you get out of it totally. It's just to just to
fix that, just to fix that. This report has come out of come
out of the Border Regions, and we're quoting the Arizona Daily Star story done
by Ellie Wolf posted just a little bit ago. John Arnold quoted throughout the
throughout the story as well as Fred Duvall, who's the chair of the Border
Regions, saying that there was one hundred and forty million dollar gap last fiscal
year. It says athletics was responsible for about thirty five million of that,
so it's not all it's not all athletics, and they wanted to make a
point of that. So I read it like you read it, you had
you and you'll tell them what you told me about Robins Atien, but without
question, without question. And I'm not the smartest guy in the room,
and I'm fine with that. Peaky was an escapegoat to no end, right
to no end, and it feels bad for him because of it. But
they had who knows what's what the follow out is going to be afterward,
But but there's no question somebody there abr governor whoever didn't want them there anymore,
right, ye say, yeah something probably somebody on the border regions just
said, okay, we're going to start here. Yeah. The story mentions
that the story mentions that the that the athletic departments loaned eighty six million dollars
over over the last several years. You know, it sounds like, you
know, if they if they're saying they're only responsible for thirty five million of
this gap, that that the athletic department maybe has paid some of it back,
or yeah, well this also hasn't done any great details This year are
going to be didn't right, They're going to have a thirty million dollar deficit
this year. Let's take this call. Hi, you're on the air,
and eye on the ball. Yeah, good afternoon, gentlemen. You doing
How are you doing this? Rick? It is my friends, how are
you doing? Good? Good? Thank you? What's going on? What's
one on your mind? Well, you were talking about I heard you earlier.
You briefly touched on this budget for the university, and it's no different
than the federal government. It's one government entity after another where there's no requirement
to fulfill allan's budget, right, and it's become the norm instead of and
we're finally catching up with it a little bit. But I think you're young
man Kevin. That your intern there. Yeah, En, Rome's going to
go down, the cost of tuition is going up, and students, you
know, frankly, I don't know where they're coming up with the money to
go to four year university anymore. Uh. It's the whole pitre financially for
the state of Arizona as well as the federal government, is how do we
manipulate the dollars to make us look better. We're always going to be in
debt and they're just chasing debt is what we're doing. They are, as
a lot of us do. But you know, Fred Duvall has quoted that
that you said, it's clear that the cost curve at the U of A
is unsustainable. That they have to they have to make changes. And you
know whether or not that's you know, words, you know, just words
that are out there, or they're actually going to do that. But as
you said, Rick, they have to do something right that this is it
is unsustainable. You can't keep going in the direction they've been going. You
can't keep raising tuition, you can't keep you know, donors, you know,
you can't just rely on on donors and endowments. Is you've got to
change the way you do business. And we don't have to populate here that's
going to be able to sustain this financial stat Yeah, well can I borrow?
They're gonna ask Rick, can you borrow? Can we borrow a few
billion? Rick? Maybe next year here or maybe not? Yeah? Right,
But thanks to col Rich And that's a great point, a good real
good point. Yeah, okay, thanks about you. And then at the
end of the stat at the end of this a really interesting, uh interesting
thing, it's that John Arnold again the he's the he's the executive director of
the Border Regions. He's the one that's leading this He's sort of the CFO.
Now he's just saying that, you know, they're very happy with what
what uh uh uh Robbins is doing. A Fred Vault thanked Bobby Robbins.
Uh he said, uh. He said, the university is quote unquote on
the right track today. It is a strong university with world class teaching and
research and brilliant students. We have a bright future. And he specifically thanked
uh Robins as well. So it sounds like Robbins might be here to stay
for a while. And I don't know he's if he's in as much trouble
as we were thinking. I don't know. But all I know is if
if I'm if, I'm me and you're my boss, Jay, and I'm
screwing up with moneies, moneys and you've signed off on these moneies, what
you're part of this? Yeah? No it is, Yeah, no,
it absolutely So. I don't know. Again, we're not in the room
right, we don't see exactly what's going on. You know, did some
of this Did some of this happen just out of inattention by Bobby Robbins,
You know, he thought things were okay and nobody was telling him they weren't.
And then it turned out that they weren't, and I was like,
Holy hell, what happened? But it's hard to know. Let me ask
you, and I'm gonna be asking this might be a tough question to Jay.
Okay, so we know, Michael, we lived in Michael for a
long time, twenty five years. Whatever. You know, Michael, pretty
you've been around. Not that you want to cut anybody's job, right,
But they have a lot of people in that building, right Do they have
enough people in that building or too many in that building? I'm asking you
now because your son is no longer in that building, but you can you
that for It's hard. It's hard to know. Like like I see the
the uh the communications staff, which is what we see. They worked their
asses staff, you know, with all the with all all the stuff that
goes on in athletics that they're understaff. But you know, marketing, uh,
some of the other areas. You saw this huge staff that that that
uh jetfish brought in, you know, sort of an NFL type of front
office type staff, and you thought, you know, do you need all
of that? You know, accountants and you know ticket people. I have
no idea. It seems to me what it looks like is people are overworked
in Macaune. Is that the case across campus? Right? It's hard to
know. You know, there's always been an impression that that the u of
A is uh that in most colleges are fat when it comes to you know,
staffing and stuff like that. But yet all the people that I know
the work at the u of A or yeah, no, I get so,
I don't know. That's why I ask. I do find it peculiar
that someone had a driver or the right hand man who made decisions about who
we talked to. You really need that guy? Yeah, I think Jed
had that guy back in the day. Either you talk to him or did
you talked to the coach and he didn't? Right, So whatever price he's
getting paid, seventy five hundred thousand whatever. Really, you used to be
able to go knock on Dick Tomy's door and so used to be able to
walk into Loudolson's office. You need to be able to walk into Jim live
in Goods office, and you can't do that anymore. No, they can
manage it. No that so I'm sure there was a couple a couple extra
guys that they don't need and that's that was kind of my point. But
you know, an another point, and we're run out of time here on
this, but how much has you know, the whole the explosion of social
media, so the importance of marketing yourself on social media. Now you got
more video people, you got more graphics people, you got more social media
you've had. That's a lot of staff. I mean, Jove has a
big staff dedicated to the visibility of the program because you're you're you're managing your
visit. You're not just going to the newspapers anymore to get yourself out there.
You're creating, you're creating your own stuff. Yeah, and and there's
a lot to that as well. Well, now you have a compliance guy
traveling with the team everywhere, YadA YadA. When building do that before,
well, thank you Sean Miller for that, because now they need to see
what the coaches are gonna say. Honestly that I hear you, I hear
you, I hear you, the kind of butterfi babysit. Yeah. Yeah.
Anyways, all right, Well, interesting topic. I'm sure we'll have
more of it. We'll see some more reaction to all of this over the
next twenty four hours. We hope you'll come back tomorrow, and as always,
download the podcast, give it a listen if you miss any of the
show, and we'll be back tomorrow some more great guests and uh we'll talk
more about this and everything else going on around athletics and sports and two Sunday.
See you tomorrow,