This is I on the Ball with Steve Rivera and Jay Gonzalez Sound Fox Sports
fourteen fifty powered by Nova Insurance Services and Sure Your Most Prized Possessions kat z
r tub sag at iHeartRadio Station. Hey, good afternoon, everybody. Welcome
to I on the Ball Hero Fox Sports fourteen fifty. I'm Steve Rivera,
He's Jaginsaus. Got our guys sit in again on Friday. Welcome to the
show. We've had a great hectic week, it has been why not finish
it with a great hectic day? Strong show? Steve yees strong. So
and hey, if we're gonna start it this way, let's edit this way
exactly. So we have a lot of things going on today. We put
it on social media. We have like four guests. Uh, first we're
gonna have other than Brent Brandon Brennan. Yes, you football. He did
a number of one on ones. Actually I put up one on one on
social media. Actually the two on right. But we got ten minutes with
Brent Brennan, so we got to ask him the questions we wanted to ask
him. So we'll play that here in a minute. Then we're gonna get
Jake Fisher who's always got some stuff to say. We haven't talked to him
since all of this happened. Yeah, so we'll get his thoughts both on
Jeed Fish leaving and Brent Brannan arriving. And then we've got Yogi Roth back
twelve Networks. He's he's he was high right at four seventeen. He was
very high on Jed Fish, also very high on Brent Brennan. So we'll
get you guys played both sides they do, they do, and then we'll
close it out with uh, we'll get Matt Othic on on on the phone
and talk about his days in the UCLA Arizona rivalry. It's gonna be according
to Tommy, still exists, Yeah, but not as often. Yeah,
and uh, you know they won't I'm sure they won't be playing twice a
year, but he'd like to keep it going at least once a year.
You know, if they do a home and home every year with those guys,
you know, uh, you know, back and forth, that'd be
fine. But that you got UCLA tomorrow two o'clock. So we'll get some
of matt Othic's thoughts on some of those games from his time in Arizona.
Yeah. So your best time if you want to call us, will be
about three thirty five to four, and after that we're going to be pretty
pretty busy. Yeah. So we're gonna go to the tom and we're gonna
go to the Brent Brennan. Uh. Okay, So now now you've called
him Jed and now you've called him Tommy, you got, you got.
If you ever call him Kevin, we're gonna fight who. We'll get to
that later after the suck. We talked to Brent after we showed the clip.
We'll explain that later. Okay, Yeah, you just don't call me
late for dinner. So that should be fun. We're gonna go in about
three minutes out good day. I think it's a good show. Yeah.
No, And and it was. You know, it's good to get,
you know, to get a couple of minutes just outside of a press conference,
uh, atmosphere with with the coach and you know, we'll get to
know and outside of getting getting Kevin there you go. See you just called
him Kevin. Okay, Sean is next shut Sean. Uh. We had
more time with Brent than we did with Fish. But although we had him
on the show late into right so already we're doing we're cruising along. So
we'll let's say so you get it. You can call me Ray, you
can, Yeah, No, we'll call him Ken Kevin. We'll call him
Brent. I wonder how many people are gonna call him Brad also or Brett.
Yeah, yeah, okay, let's go to it. All right,
let's get to it. We got the nine minutes. We're just gonna play
it straight through with with Brett Brennan. Hey, welcome to I m the
ball here on Fox Sports fourteen fifty. I'm Steve Barbara, He's Jakinsaus.
Now with us, we have a new head coach, Brenton Brennan. How
you doing, Coach. I'm doing great. It's been a fast and furious
few days here, but just enjoin every minute. I've been excited about the
future. So I want you to know that Jane and I covered Dick.
Tell me when he first started here, that's how old we are, late
eighties. For three years, two years we covered him. So we're gonna
make a bingo board for all the tomy isms and cross them off when you
have them. I'm sure you have a bunch of them. Now your favorite,
My favorite is probably work together, stay together. But or my other
favor would be your action speaks so loud, I can't hear what you say.
That was one that I've used repeatedly my team at San Jose. Those
guys heard that one frequently. So it's it. I'm sure, been a
whirlwind few days. So just just feelsen, what have you been doing the
last couple of days. The one thing that everybody keeps asking me about,
and that is getting to know the players and working on retention and keeping this
team of really good players and really good kids together. And so just I've
had a million one on one meetings. I've met with two guys, three
fourths you know, in groups of twenty, had a couple of team meetings.
I'm just trying to give them a chance to get to know me and
for me to get to know them. It's obviously it's harder for me to
get to know them because there's so many of them, but for them to
get to know me and start to have an idea of how I'm going to
do this and and how we are going to do it together and what that
can be for them is really important. And so in order to do that,
we got to get face to face and we got to be together.
You've been here before, obviously, you know the locals and how they feel
about the program. You were there for the basketball game at halftime, you
could feel the energy was palpable. Can you talk about that and just get
the sense of the community and how important football is. I thought that was
such a That was such an amazing moment in my life. They're like walking
out on that court and looking around Michale during you know, a u of
a basketball game was just epic. And to be out there with my wife
and my daughter and my brother and get to talk to the fans and just
their reception was was special and really meant a lot to me because I know
we're going to need to pack that thing in the fall. You know,
having a real home field advantage is absolutely impactful to the success or lack of
that for your football team. And we've all been to stadiums where we know
that if the crowd is on you, it's going to be a long day,
and that that that's happening here right now, that happened, that happened
here this past season where you had great crowds, a lot of energy.
The Zona Zoo is rocking, Like all those things are so important towards building
a consistent, winning football program. You need the support of the fans to
show up for the team so that you can make it hard on those people
when they come to Arizona Stadium to play. So you're making this transition at
a time in college football where it's just so different from the last time you
had to had to do this. You know, where do you get ideas,
thoughts, suggestions on how to go about this? And mainly, you
know the part that's you know, the big outfhant in the room, you
know, keeping good players and keeping them out of the transfer portal. You
know, where do you get the vision or the strategy or the ideas on
how to do that by talking to other head coaches. You know, one
of the cool things about college football is it other head coaches help each other,
or coaches help each other. We share ideas, we share concepts,
you know, we share recruiting and kind of it's kind of our version of
professional development. And and so, you know, when you're trying to make
sure you can put all that together and build the program the way you want
to build it, talking to the people that that I'm fortunate to have in
my life. There's so many people that helped me on this journey, and
you know, I still did. Dick Vermeil and Chris Peterson and Mac Brown
and David Shaw and Dino Babers and it's just people that have been head coaches
a lot longer than me. And and then you know, before there was
also some people that were a programs that had more staff or more resources,
so they were you know, we would have good back and forth because we
would explain how we were attacking one situation with a limited staff and how they
were attacking the same situation with a maximum staff, right, and could we
find a better way? So it was it's been a lot of fun and
the people that I'm fortunate to have in my life are really helping me,
you know, be a better coach every day. So you come from State,
I'm not sure how the coverage was media wise. I'm sure probably out
there in the corner somewhere. Now you can see the sense of how many
people care media wise. How is that gonna be for you? More attension,
more spotlight. Oh that doesn't bother me. I like the media,
you know, I enjoy working with them. I had a great working relationship
with the media in San Jose, I have my whole career, you know,
And so I think that I'm looking forward to that. I'm looking forward
to getting to know people in that space. And I think it's also a
really important thing because you know, that space is where our fans, future
players, recruits, you know, donors, students get a lot of their
information about the program, right and so I think it's important that they were
active in that space. And then I do a good job getting to know
people and building relationships. So the great stories about the students here at University
of Arizona and get told. So I don't know if this is kind of
an overlooked is a question I haven't heard. I didn't hear it in the
press conference. But what's your team going to look like on the field?
What do you do compared to what Jed Fish was doing here in terms of
the type of offense, the types of things you do defensively as well.
Well. I think offensively you'll see us be schematically similar, you know,
because you know, I've talked a ball with Jed lots of times in my
career. A couple of years ago, I spent a couple of days when
he was at the rams with him. I guess it was four years ago
now, just talking football and concepts and in the past game and you know,
but I think everything in college football is stolen or borrowed, and so
I think you'll see a version of that on. You know, defensively,
will be a mix of odd and even front playing anywhere from you know,
playing out of a nickel you know, five DB's or playing you know,
out of a more heavy with a more heavy group, you know. And
we've had success with I think in the variety of stuff that we've run at
San Jose State, and you know, it was fortunate to have a bunch
of good players there. And really the biggest thing is the players. Schemes
or schemes. People win football games lots of different ways. You need players
that really care about that are connected and really care about each other and are
willing to play their tails off and work for each other on game day.
And the scheme is second to that. Well, no, I think the
biggest question you're talking about players are keeping the players that you have here already?
How what's the process of that with a couple of kids that are high
profile that want this community wants them to stay. Yeah, well that's I
think that's a great thing because I think the community is making every effort to
help convince them to stay, you know, and I think that's really cool.
I mean, the reception for four of those young men the other night,
you know and McHale was incredible, Like you can see how loved they
are, and I can tell you from firsthand experience, it's not always that
way, you know, And they're loved in this community, and I think
that's one of the things that's keeping them here as a team. They are
really connected, right with the head coach and a new coaching staff coming in,
we're like kind of feeling that out and getting to know each other.
And then with the comunity involvement in their life, you know, and what
that is here in this town because the u of A is so important to
the city of Tucson, and and the sports programs here at the university are
such a part of the you know, of people's life here. That's all
contributing to this being a good decision for the players to stay with us,
and we're working really hard at it. So how's the coaching staff assembly going,
you know? Honestly, it's been secondary to the to the player retention
work that we're doing. That that's been the primary. And spend a ton
of time talking to players, just like I said earlier, getting face to
face like that has been the total focus. Because they had this great season
and then they have a coaching staff change, and then there's this transition and
then all of a sudden there's a new guy put in front of them that
they don't know, and so that's that's complicated, right, So I need
to be sensitive to that and and try to give them a chance to get
to know me. I just need them to get to know me quickly.
If Dick had the team, the team, the team, to me,
you come off as a guy of the people, the people, the people
that it's the people that make it better. It's the people that make the
experience, you know. And and when you combine great people on a coaching
staff and in a locker room with that football team, with the people on
campus here at the u of A, and then a community like if we
can get all those people in great alignment, we can continue to do something
really really special at the u of A and football program. Thank you very
much, Brent for joining us today. Appreciate it's great talking to you guys.
So so so we laugh. We laugh because I pulled the what the
hell what name you call? No? No? But I didn't start you
got the j out you. Yeah, that's why we were laughing at I
did. I did edit it out for but it was kind of funny.
We're talking about laughed. You know, it's great. I'm still it's all
new to me. Man, It's just happened yesterday. Okay, we got
we got about two minutes and we got to get and then we're gonna get
take fish out real quick. What you know, your your thoughts, just
exactly being able to sit across the stage, just exactly who he is.
He's genuine, uh, just one of the dudes. I guess we'll see
how he acts on the car. I think he's just a calm dude man.
Sound likely Jen was a little like that, but this dude's just more
like you. He'd been in running at this radio show. Here. Here's
what got me is that and again this has become you know, I'm you
know, I'm dug in here right, I'm I'm a native. You know
when when when when Arizona higher. Jed, I thought it's gonna take him
a while to understand this community, understand what makes it tick, Understand where
the buttons are that need to be given, what his given where he's been
or ed Yeah, that he didn't know tu soon from Joe Schmoe, Right,
You know, you feel like Brent Brandon already has that coming in.
I think he's got a good feel or uh And and I know he wasn't
here here a long time, but the fact that he was connected to Dick
and you know, did spend some time here, his his brother went here.
You know, I think he's he's more up to speed on Tucson itself
and the community than any previous coach that Arizona has had and quite some time.
Yeah, No, he's gonna compit in if they can win that first
year man, yeah, man, look if he yeah, I mean,
if he can just keep a handful of these guys. He didn't have to
keep them all, but you know, keep some key guys, win some
games, maybe go to a Bowl game, you know, in the transition
here like that, you feel like that's that should be good enough. And
you can tell given the sense in the back behind the scenes people are working
on keeping keeping him. However, some interesting stuff I just saw some is
stuff come out on Twitter. So yeah, all right, let's take our
break. Jake Fisher will come on. I'm sure he's got plenty to say
about what's happened here in the last week or so. So we'll get Jake
on, and then later on we have a Yogi Roth from pac Feve Networks
at matt Othik. We'll talk a little bit about the UCLA game. We'll
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Breaking down all the exes at OHS. It's Steve Rivera and Jake and
Salvias. This is I on the Park on Fox Sports fourteenth fifty. Hey,
welcome back to I I on the Ball hero Fox Sports forteen fifty.
On Steve, he's Jake no One, but we had Jake Fisher for were
ulea football player? What are the sponsors? What's going on? Jake?
Yeah, Jake's been going on. What's happening? Nothing much? Just ready
to talk about the whole coaching situation and moving forward. Okay, so give
me a refresh us because you were high on Jay je jays see, I'm
sweet them names Jed and you even predicted what they would would happen. You
were the guy. I mean, I say this all the time. Now,
how do you feel about Jed? Well, before I get into Jed,
I just want to give a congratulations to coach Brennan and to Antonio Pierce
for taking over the Raiders. That's awesome. I'm a Denver Broncos fan,
so I'm actually gonna have to root for the Raiders, which is gonna stuck.
But other than that, yeah, complete one eighty from what I had
been hearing. You know, obviously it took everybody by surprise. And to
be honest with you, like I try not to take a side on this
because if I got offered you know, seven million or whatever it is a
year, I might have looked twice at it as well. But you know,
you don't go around the facility shaking hands saying I'm gonna be here.
I'm gonna be here. But that's why coaches a lot of times nowadays,
because of the landscape of college football, they say, don't commit to me
or a staff, commit to the university. I mean they do that because
obviously they know they can move if they get a bigger deal, they're gonna
move. I'm just really happy we found a guy that seems like he is
going to be here for a while. He loved the university, and you
know, you can tell that he doesn't talk out of the side of his
mouth. He's straight up on it. He cares about the players. And
I'm just hoping that we can retain the team and get a good coaching staff
in place, because we have the guys to win the Big Twelve next year.
So it's just about basically keeping the pieces and adding a few more.
Yeah, you you went through a coaching change here, so and we probably
talked to you about this back when you know Jed came in, but you
know that was three years ago, and Steve and I don't remember anything from
yesterday. So you know, what's it from a player standpoint? You know
what's the hardest thing about a coaching change? And then thinking about the fact
that this is even different from when you went through it, What do you
think the players are going through right now? Well, the players might field
betrayed the fact that Jed went in there, talked to him for three minutes
and then said I got to go catch a plane. That's kind of selling.
The other thing is is completely different situation back when, you know,
we had a coaching change that wasn't it Francis. So it was a lot
more you know, it was a lot more difficult. I guess if you
wanted to leave to do it. You know, I never once thought about
leaving. But you know, talking to other players, they're like, man,
I you know, I committed to the staff, I might want to
move closer to home, et cetera, et cetera. So nowadays, you
know, players can jump into the portal. You know, they have nil
deals. They might have to you know, keep fulfilling, and so you
have a bunch of folks sitting on the edge of their seats wondering what the
hell. You know, a guy like Jonah Coleman, who's probably going to
be able to go whatever school in you know, the new Big ten or
the new Big twelve. You know, you have guys like Noah Fafida and
cetera McMillan and Big Jonas Savanea who you know, all of them. Who
knows what they're going to do. I've heard good things, but you just
never know because a lot of these guys that jumped into the portal. Now
it doesn't mean they're gone, So it's going to be up to the to
the coaches to really uh you know, build the relationships with them, tell
them on why they should stay here and stay at the u of A,
uh stay here connected with the players. But it's also one of those things.
Then I might also have, you know, something different and you go
to you know, a place like you know, Washington. As much as
I hate the Purple rain Bs, if they try to throw out their Husckey
fans whatever, they're terrible, not as bad as a couple of other stand
bases. But I'm a little on the edge right now too. But I
mean they might have more. They're in a big market. They're in a
Seattle market. You know, Seattle's obviously one of the biggest cities in the
country. So you never know. It's just completely different from when I was
in college. Yeah, no question. You use the word, uh,
not betrayed. What do you use the word at the beginning? Maybe that's
going to be a good thing for for the Arizona football players who who you
know heard jed for three minutes or feel betrayed and decided, you know,
if that's the guy I'm going to play for, I don't want to do
that, Yeah, exactly. And I'm also hearing stuff I don't know how
much of this is true, So I mean, I probably shouldn't be putting
it out on the way, you know, on the radio. But you
know, there's a lot of people now talking about tampering, so you never
you never know. I just I don't know. And and the fact that
you know, Jed's guy went out and he was basically on a on a
not an apology tour, but he was trying to change the perspective of people
of you know, in the media, of him and all this other stuff.
They're trying to you know, throw it in Arizona State. It was
our fault, it was our fault, all this crap, you know,
and just all the things coming out lately. It's it's annoying. But you
know, if you're a player, you guys just went ten and three.
You know, he's taking credit for a lot of his stuff, saying I
called the players, which he did, but you know, he's always talking
this way, and then all of a sudden, the players go out,
they win that game, and then like three days later he goes three minutes
I'm out, y'all, see I got to claim to catch I mean,
come on, and then he already had these media videos, you know,
ready as soon as he's left, you know, the folks from Washington walking
in his house. He's smiling, he's still got the Arizona Rock outside.
You know, he's signing all this crap, and it's just, you know,
it just it comes off as so fake and disingenuous that if I was
a player, I'd be pissed off. I wouldn't even you know, consider
it. Well, you're not a player, and you still sound pissed off.
So there you go when you stro Okay, So this, this is
why I get annoyed at people because they say the transfer portal sucks. No,
the transfer portal is literally the way that players can move if they don't
like a coach, whereas the coach can take a bigger deal. You know,
why do you think Dorian Singer went to USC. I mean he probably
got a huge nil deal and it's the same thing that Jed did, so
you know, you see, it makes you feel some type of way.
But at the same time, some folks value you know, being together as
a family more than money. Right, So okay, so we did get
a chance to talk to a Bret Brendan today and he said, an interesting
thing because, like you know, you've been here a couple of days.
You know, what's been the focus? And I asked him, I said,
how's the coaching staff thing going? He said, that's kind of that's
been secondary to what he's doing to try and keep the players here. As
a player, you know, let's say you're a defensive player. You want
to know who the new defensive coordinator is going to be, who the new
linebackers coach is going to be. You know, how long can these guys
wait around to find out you know, who the coaches are going to be.
Because it's been said a number of times during this stretch, the players
have more of a connection and a relationship with their position coaches than they do
with the head coach. This thing of putting you know, having to wait
to get you know, the coaching staff put together. How much does that
affect with these guys are going to decide or how are they going to decide
it? Well, a couple of things. These guys are all close,
you know, I hear nothing but things about how these guys have, you
know, a relationship with each other they're all really close. They hang with
each other outside of the facility. They spend all day together. You know,
they're just really good friends and they love each other. Number one.
Number two, they got thirty days to decide, which means Coach Brennan is
going to sell them on his vision and the fact that he is going to
be bringing a good staff. I know that Danose say they're going to have
their guys, you know, whoever it is that's going to be the head
coach by the end of the weekend, So we might have a couple of
guys come over here from there. I know that he's got a lot of
ties on the West Coast. He's developed a lot of good NFL players,
so you know, just sell the vision there, you know. And then
another thing. That's the reason why the players, some of them have jumped
in the portal. It's prove it to me. But I'm also going to
go ahead and see who else is interested, so I have a backup plan
if I don't like the idea. So yeah, it's all kind of working
together here. You know, these guys are going to know where they can
go if they you know, if they don't like the guys coming in and
then the other thing is at the end of spring ball, they're going to
have the ability to move again, So you know it's almost worth it to
not upbrook yourself and move somewhere else. You know, you have an il
deal here and sometimes grasses and greader on the other side, So you know,
if you don't like it during spring you can get the hell out of
there, and you're going to have a bunch of colleges that you knew you
could go to probably are still going to want you there. So we obviously
know the history of a Brent. He's been here before. We see his
style. I'm sure you've seen these clips and all that. You probably talked
to some players. Uh, he's a guy I would want to play for
and I and I say that not knowing much. But his demeanor is presence
that gives me that vibe. Yeah, it looks like he genuinely cares for
the players. You know, there are not a lot of coaches at San
Jose State for what was it seven years? Right, there's your far No.
In fact, in fact, Jack said, we talk about this where
you go to a place to get fired. Yeah, you're breaking you're breaking
up, breaking up Jake, Oh, can you hear me now? Yeah?
Yeah, a guy that says that, you know San Jose State for
that long takes them from being, you know, kind of one of the
bottom player, bottom teams in that conference. And the last three of the
last four years they've been able to make a Bowl game. Is pretty great
and you can tell it by the videos you watch the players, the coaches,
they all love them, you know, and even told the players I
watched the video. He said, if you guys know anyone in San Jose
and you guys on a reference, ask them they know me and they'll tell
you. So he's all about it. It seems very genuine. No,
No, I agree with you in a sense that it's a place where you
go to get fired. You get a job, right, and you hope
you well enough just to get the heck out with the next one. And
he didn't. I mean, after seven years, you would have been fired
if you didn't do a good job or they didn't think that you were good
at what you do. Yeah, I mean three Bowl games in the last
four years at Santos Stay. That's a that's a pretty damn good accomplishment.
Yeah, that's really all you need to say. So, So, Jake,
you know, put us at you know, put us in the mind
of a you know, of a player. Uh, what do they want
to see? You know you've talked about that a little bit, but specifically
what do they want to see? Not only for Brent Brennan, but you
know, as you said, you know other people who know him. What
what do you want to know? I want to know that he's very genuine,
he's no bs. If I do something right, he's going to tell
me. He's gonna be the first person to tell me. So if I
do something wrong, he's going to be the first one to tell me.
So I don't want him talking out of the side of his mouth. I
want him to be straight up honest with me. And I want to know
that he actually cares about me as not just a football player, but outside
of the game. Yeah, yeah, no, no, no kidding.
You know he mad some second guys say that again. Scheme comes second to
that. You know, he said that, right, he said, they
said, our scheme is our scheme. You know, we just got to
have the right people, you know, to do that. So, na
see, and I said that, and I forgot I was going to ask
you something, so oh. You know. Also, you know, when
you think about it, and he brought this up a little bit at his
press conference, you know, if you had taken the job back in three
years ago, it would have been a hell of a lot harder job than
maybe it is right now. Now there's a different kind of pressure because now
there's an expectation to win. But he's already had a point for there are
good players in the program. There are some expectations they hadn't you know,
they're on a nice track, better time to take the job now than three
years ago. Yeah, and competitors, they're okay with that kind of outside
pressure. I mean, if you're a competitor, you want to know that
people think that you should win. You don't want to walk into a job
like Jed did. And guys, Jed did a great job, like I
said, And it doesn't matter what scheme it is. You know, you
have good players like they were able to bring into the program, You're going
to be fine, you know. But yeah, of course, coming into
this situation is a lot better than the last. I mean when when you
walked in to the job a few years ago, I don't I don't think
there was there was like two or three years where nobody got drafted. Like
from this class, you're going to have probably three or four people drafted,
and you've got you know, as long as these guys don't leave, you've
got another twelve to thirteen fourteen NFL players on the loster, so you have
a much better roster. Players win the games. Obviously it's up to the
coaches to put these guys in the right situation. But again, the players
got to execute. If you have players, that's what wins. So yeah,
I mean high expectations, but guess what, that's what you want if
you're a high level head coach. Yeah. No, quote, Hey,
let's get you a little upset. Now, what are your thoughts on Arizona
Van's basketball. In my eyes, they're not playing like they had been playing.
It looks like they're playing well enough just to win. But you know,
when we get to March, if they're still missing you know, towards
the basket or close to the basket at this clip, we're going to be
doomed from the start. I mean, we're going to make it to the
second weekend, but at the same time, it's just if we want to
get further than that, we cannot be missing bunnies. I don't know what's
going on with Bollow. I mean, once he starts making it like he
did last year close to the basket, you know we're going to be fine.
I know that. Uh. You know, I'm really happy with Kha
because even if he's not making shots, at least he's active on defense and
active on the boards. You know, I love the way that Pelle's playing
the last few games. Uh, Caleb Love is going to be the X
factor as always, and uh, I mean I just Kylan right now.
I know he's going through a little bit of like a sophomore you know,
slump type deal where he's up and down zero points one game, fourteen the
next that type of thing. But if he he's got to be kind of
like key shot and and uh, you know, Jayden Bradley, if you're
not making shots, you got to play hard on defense and you've got to
be a disruptor. So I think that some of these older guys we're gonna
have to lean on a little bit more. But you know, we'll see
what happens. Totally agree with your observation. Very good. You know you
can do this show if you wanted to. You know, you're really good
at I just I just listened to people smarter than me and then copy their
stuff. Well, good for you. You're not listening to people smarter than
you right now, so you need to go find some find some of those.
Just give us your last second pitch for your company. We've got to
take off, Yeah, guys. Arizona Health Insider where Arizona's leading health insurance
advocates. We help individuals looking for something that's not going to break their bank,
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hurt to come and get a quote. Let's save you money and increase the
benefits. Work with a fellow wildcat bear down five two zero eight five zero
six eight sixty six. Thanks a bunch, Jake, as always have a
great weekend. Get two guys. Yeah, always good to talk to.
Jake. A straight shooter, well, a straight shooter. And again we
said, every time you know a guy who's been there, you know you
and I haven't been there. No you know we we we've been there.
We just covered it. But you know we didn't. We didn't suit up,
we didn't put the pads on, and we didn't we weren't in the
locker rooms. So always gives us a good perspective on them. Okay,
let's go to break all right, let's take right. This is the this
is the only chance you're gonna have to give us your get us your cost
of five two zero, four one, six, seventy four forty. We
got a full second hour with breaking news. Uh Yogi Roth coming in from
pac Club Networks, and then Matt Othik you talk about the u c l
A. You have a basketball rivalry, so stick around for all that's if
you're an Arizona man's basketball fan, you know it's been successful for nearly forty
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one email me at Steve dot RIVERA ninety five at gmail dot com. Ki
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streaming live I the iHeartRadio app. This is I on the Ball with Steve
Ravera and Jay Gonzalez on Fox Sports fourteen to fifty. Hey, welcome back
to I the Ball here Fox Sports fourteen fifty. I'm Steve, You're jakey
am you j I am? You know, I'm not Jaed, I'm not
Keavin, I'm not Sean who else, I'm not Tommy So I'm none of
those guys. Good that you're Jay. Yeah, I am who I am.
And he said, he said, we got twelve minutes. Anybody wants
to call, no matter what your name is, We'll take the call exactly.
Yeah. So, because we're going to be busy with breaking news,
then we have Yogi and then we have Matt Othick. So a busy show
today. That's a good show. Yeah, a lot of thing's going on.
I think that the U A programs isn't gonna be in good hands.
I think it is. You know, there wasn't any i mean, not
an inkling of anything, you know, sitting across from from Brent Brandon.
Then maybe they made me think I'm not not sure what we have here.
No, No, I get you know, one of the questions that I
thought, and Anthony tweeted it that he asked Anthony was there. Uh,
he asked him if Teddy Bruski was going to be part of a part of
the situation because he was with jet He said, he's called him, he's
left a message. He hasn't heard back. Right, Let's see what happens
there. Yeah, you know, And so look, that's the thing that
we'll be missed from the time that Jetfish was here. You know, he
was bringing in you know, Pete Carroll and Bill Belichick and all these guys
that were coming in here. You know that the Arizona players were googly eyed
over. Yeah, were seeing these legends, uh, you know coming in.
Sure, I was talking to them, and I was I thought that
was a fantastic idea. Yeah, you know, and and and doing a
lot of that, all the name dropping that that that Jetfish was able to
do and did. But you know, Brent Brennan's you know, a guy
like that who's been in this business for as long as he has been,
He's got his own connections. Sure, and can he call up Bill Belichick
and say, hey, can you come to a couple of practices? Probably
not. But you know what also matters is that he's he'll you know,
he'll well lean on guys that he feels can have a great interact on his
program. Sure, well you talked. I think he did answer. He
talked about Vermeil talking about the people who've been Yeah, so he's not uh,
he's not a guy who just showed up, right. And it's funny
when you think he's been to San Jose State all the time. You think
he's kind of been in the backwoods of college football. But as he said,
you know, college college football coaches all help each other. I'll talk
to each other and and so he knows guys just by being a college football
coach. And and you know, I mean San Jose State isn't you know,
some hyphenated you know school and you know somewhere and you know the mountains
of Tennessee there, you know, Samsey State is a program that's you know,
people are well aware of. So he'll have his own connection. I
also think that because I asked him about the media, he he doesn't get
a lot of attention out in Sanderse State. Obviously, there's the forty nine
ers or the Warriors, there's all these teams. Uh, he'll be in
the limelight a lot. And I think maybe you you know this, and
knowing this, he might be more available to the media to tell his story
and to tell his team story. Well, he already has been right and
and you know, well, you know, look, he clearly a guy
that understands how important it is. I mean, he said, you know,
through the media is how people learn about our program, learn about our
players. Uh and and uh and and get you know, connected to the
thing. And you and I have talked a million times about how unfortunate it
is how much access has been limited. Yeah, from a time you know,
when we were covering sports on a regular basis. And you know how
much of that comes back the other way. I don't know how much they
can do that, but it certainly sounds like, you know, we may
see him a little bit well. And also where are we We're in Tucson,
affectionately noticed the old Pueblo. We even talked to Jim Moore earlier this
week about the Seattle And I think it's the way the media has gone softer.
Who's gonna ask the dumb, not dumb, the hard, the just
critical question. They're not they're not. This is this is a media group
that wants this team to be good. Well, you know, it's fun.
I was having him. And I'm not saying this is as a criticism
of, you know, the local media. We like those guys at all.
We've been part of it. But they're very young, very you know,
yeah, and the media is different here. There's not a bunch of
you and me and Greg Hansen's running around. They're all younger guys who are
less inclined to take the New York Times approach. To every press conference,
they're trying to find something bad out to write it, to write an article
about. These are just kind of like, I'm a scrap part what's going
on and it's mostly good news, and you know, yeah, I mean
I think I think about the coverage in the Sling years that yeah, it
was just it was just uh, you know, I mean, we knew
that was we knew it wasn't going well, but every story wasn't ripping on
Kevin someone right, And they had a gatekeeper, a gatekeeper that that I
wonder, what the hell is his job? It is either to drive someone
or prevent him from tough questions. And I didn't get it. But you
know, University of Arizona paid for the guy, right, and and and
Jet had it too. You know, why waste them? I don't know
what they're making. I don't know what they're making, but could you use
that money for better? Are you growing up? Are we grown ups here?
Why have another grown up taking care of another grown up? Right?
I'm trying to be no. I hear you. I hear you, I
hear you. But you know, it seems to be the thing that that
happened. Look, and there have been guys like that, you know,
dating way back still remember going to Georgetown and running into their uh media relations
guy, you know, trying to get anything regarding John Thompson. It was
like the guy was like, you know, the gay as you say,
the game closed and you're not getting in yah, you know, and or
what are the questions? Yeah, what are the questions? Sorry, we
don't do that. Sorry we don't do that so that you don't get to
interview. Well okay, then we don't get to interview. Yeah, but
uh, you know, so look, it's a it's a whole new thing.
This will continue to develop over time, you know. Uh, I'm
like, okay, you know I was asking Jake Fisher, you know,
okay, who's the coaching staff going to be? You know, it's kind
of like by this time, most coaches have their staff here and they're you
know, they're going out and then but you know, the biggest recruiting thing
that that Brent Brandon has to do right now is the guys that are here.
No question he's got and I didn't mention my name. He's got to
come up with uh. He and other people have probably had to come up
the little cash uh glue coin to keep these guys here. And and that's
the way the world. I was thinking that as as you were were paying
a clip here, the world has changed in athletics so much you're you're paying
it's not and it's ni l and alsup. But you're not paying them to
come here. You're trying now, you're paying them to keep them here.
How do you we asked Rubew of this, how do you coach that where
you've got to be tough on them to to get better, but you can't
piss them off so they so much that they leave right well you know,
well, you know the Clipper referred to we were watching uh Bromberto Lopez local
uh businessman, very prominent businessman, philanthropist, you know, a guy who's
been very generous with his with his money, not only for you know,
the community philanthropic philanthropic things, but he's also kind of also you're seeing him
making his uh uh presence known as it relates to the athletics and uh you
know, there's an event yesterday for a nine million dollar uh donation he made
to the to the School of Business. And it sounds like a whole bunch
of the conversation was his involvement in in trying to keep these these players here,
uh you know, through Nil. He did a brief interview where he
just flat out said, uh, Jetfish is out here throwing money around at
these guys, which is a huge which is a huge accusation. Call it
an accusation, call it a comment, whatever it is. If he's doing
that, that's against the rule. Right. And this is after and I
don't know how they place the quotes, but after him talking to Jet saying
whatever you need, I'll make it happen, and you say right, and
he he flat outside He's very disappointed at Fish. He thought that they had
come to a shape, you know, handshake agreement that that fish was going
to stay, and then he took the job. So look, I believe
it, right, Why I believe Why was Burt? Why would Burt Lopez,
who you know I know personally, I know how well you know him.
I've done I don't personally and have done some you know, business stories
on him. The guy's you know, he's a he's a straight shooter kind
of guy. And he's not a guy who's gonna I don't see Bert Lopez
as a guy who's gonna speak out of you know, he doesn't need to
make stuff up. He's Burt Lopez and and you know he's he's in that
group of of of high end businessmen in the in this town who you know
made this town, you know, like the Burt Knerks and those kinds of
guys. And you know, for him to say the things that he said
to k Wild as it was, as it was part of the story they
were doing on the on the donation he made to the A was was kind
of amazing to me. And you know, I, you know, I
there isn't any reason to not believe that these things are going on. But
we know, we knew that, right but to have somebody say it is
different. Sure, sure, So we'll see what happens, because it's it's
a crazy time with Bama doing doing o Bama for Washington, Washington, Arizona,
who knows what buy down to sand as they state. We'll probably see
some guys from so I mean, I think about it, the Alabama Nick
Saban retiring. The trickle down is gone all the way down to San Jose
State, and it's not done because Sanday State is going to go get their
coach from somewhere unless he's unless they hire a coach is unemployed, somebody else
is losing their coach, whether it's an assistant coach or a head coach somewhere.
Yeah, that I think the head coaching search for San Jose State is
also going to play a direct role into us, into into who we can
bring to our staff. Yeah. Yeah, let's say they hires as they
state assistant. How many guys decided to stay there? How many does Brandon
try and bring here? Right? Well, there's still not over. Still
more trickle down to go, a lot more trickle down to go, which
means, guess what, we have a lot to talk about coming days.
This is what you call sid keeping our job security. Yeah, because we
have a lot to talk about. I mean we're having that conversation with Damian
Alabina, a Chaunter thirteen guy at Okay, well do you guys should call
him that? At this function is one on one thing and where everybody's getting
their shot with with Brent Brennant, we were and that this is just keeping
us, you know, keeping the lights on because we're having so much to
talk about and there's still so much more. There's a lot that still has
to happen with the Brent Brandon ire well, no question, the players and
coaches. So the news kind of trickling out too, is that will a
Keena stay, will we come back? What position? If he is the
if he did he say yes? Did you see the tweet that? Yeah,
I was a little confused by that. Yeah. I had to verify
because I'm friends I follow him one. You know, we've talked a couple
of times and he uh, that wasn't that wasn't out of the co ordinary
tweet from him. I had see if that was actually him. Yeah,
I went I did the same thing, went back to has he been on
social media? And why are why are we why aren't we following him?
Yeah, you know he's been on browing out there, so we'll see.
And anything official comes from me, exactly exactly it. I thought that was
the sources. No, it comes from me. Yeah, yeah, very
funny stuff. Yeah, so much more left to happen here. You know,
the thirty day clos is ticking from when what was the official higher up?
What about school? So you have these kids coming to school, right,
you're two weeks in maybe a week? Yeah, about two weeks in,
so so okay, let's see if they make a decision in a week.
What about school? If you've already come to school for three weeks now
you have to cancel out and then go somewhere else? How does that work
for the semester? Yeah, that that's a huge part of it. Also,
they have to make sure all of these guys have majors that are very
versatile, that that can they can make it work. But yeah, for
for transferring wise, it you gotta it's not just moving schools. You gotta
worry about what what classes you're gonna take, What what classes transfer? What
classes do transfer? And this is going to play a role into into the
older guys as well, because say they're close to graduating here, what if
they transfer, They don't the credits don't transfer, right, and you know
now you're ineligible. Washington started it's current quarter January third. Yeah, see,
that's exactly jan There are two weeks into the uh, you know,
the semester over there. All right, we do have to go. We're
gonna be back and we're gonna be busy the rest of the hour, the
rest of the last hour, breaking news at the top of the hour,
Yogi Roth at at four point fifteen and Bat I think at four point thirty
five, So stick around for all that. Lots to talk about