Steve Rivera and Jag and Salles. They have their eye on the ball on
Tucson Sports yet Fox Sports fourteen fifty streaming live on the ID radio. Laugh,
I had I didn't know that was coming. I think I just know.
I literally went to go put in. They let it. I would
like, no way I happened. I think we I think it was right
before we miss Okay, well we're on. We're on. Welcome back to
breaking news and breaking whatever else we're doings. Well, if you heard that,
good for you, Jay and I. I know everyone is on the
edge of their seat finding out who won the bet from us this weekend.
Yes they are, and we actually split. So the under in the game
was won by I had under and for some reason I thought I had you
of a under eighty, but it was under seventy two. I think,
so you have a scored seventy eight and they won seventy eight seventy three at
Cameron. Obviously Steve was there, but it was a lot of what I
think we expected from this team and what Yeah, it really looked as though
like Tommy kind of out coached what is it shire yea And I think early
on in the season. We've seen Tommy and his team have a lot of
success. Hopefully that can continue. But they looked like a really, really
good basketball team and they're up to three and the eight people, what does
this do. We've been here a thousand times before, right, expectations get
high, right, and then they turned out to be unrealistic expectations. What
does this do? It gets those expectations high again. Yeah, yeah,
it's really lazing to see. We've seen this book, We've read this book.
What it does, Steve, is that for the rest of the season,
for the rest of the year, because of this one win, for
the rest of the year, people in this time are going to believe they
can win the national gap, right, unless they often lose, Like if
lose to Michigan State, lose to FAU, lose to Alabama. You know,
all those games that are on in front of them. You know,
these these games against ranked teams. Let's say go lose all of them.
But you just don't think they're going to know, you don't think that's capable.
Michigan State lost to James Madison, you know, and they got to
play Duke here. We'll find out something about Michigan State. I think they
played Duke on Thursdayday Chicago Classic. Yeah, Michigan. You know, you
know, in this time, because of what Arizona did to Duke, people
in this time are going to keep it on that game to say, Okay,
here's two teams Arizona plays. If Duke goes out and mashes Michigan State,
people are gonna circle that as a win for Arizona when they when they
under Thanksgiving unrealistic expectations, they're gonna lose some games. Of course they they
should realistically. They might, like you say, but this team showed what
it's capable of. I guarantee you. I guarantee you. There are a
handful of Arizona fans out there who think Arizona's going undefeated. Oh sure,
Oh sure, Hey, I don't think there's anything wrong with that. They
started twenty two to one to win it. I don't know where the're at
right now. You could probably check, but I would assume they're what eighteen
eighteen were probably down to that. We're probably fifteen to one now to win
the national championship. You said they were twenty two to one to begin the
year right now, Yeah, but they're up to third in the poll just
behind Purdue at to Kansas at one. Arizona plays Purdue in a little less
than a month now, the next big big game obviously, and they got
the first place votes. Yeah, they did get some free to get some
number one. It is the They were impressive. They were impressive. They
went to their eight guys, the eight guys. He showed who his eight
guys were. Our guy, my guy, Phillip getting the top eight Arizona
sixteen to one. Yeah, I would you know what, I'd be smart
to put ten Kansas. Kansas is at ten, per Due at eleven,
Kentucky at twelve, Duke at thirteen, Arizona and yukonnor at sixty. Interesting,
that's probably maybe the best value will be. Yeah, a year aside
from the beginning of the season games, but they just beat Doku. A
lot of people, according to Vegas, still like to win the national championship,
And as an Arizona fan, I'd be it'd be criminal for me to
say that, Oh I don't I think we can win the national championship just
by sure. But any other year you could have said that when he first
got here, in the year he had last year when they played really well,
he could have said that every year relute pretty much in the second half
of the Jesus career. We talked about it earlier. It feels like in
out of all the Tommy teams, maybe aside from Ben and Dalen, that
was that was his first real team, and Tommy was still maybe trying to
figure out how to be a head coach. It seems as though with these
guys it is different. I know you have a lot of stuff too,
So I want to maybe have this question just now that I thought of it.
Okay, so we hear this, but Jed, right, I didn't
really expect this from Jed. He proved me wrong, YadA YadA. Right,
Well, you could say the same thing for many people say about Tommy
he loses and can't rec right. Right. I want to see if anybody
has the nuts or the stones or whatever you want to say, to call
it and say I screwed up two in April I was on his ass,
and then now I don't. I'm wrong, just as many people said who
about Tommy as they said about Jed exactly, and in the in the spring,
we're saying, what the hell is he doing? Yeah? Am I
wrong? No, you're not, You're not wrong. I wonder if anybody
can call and say, Okay, I was one of those guys that really
screwed up. I thought that he was not capable of moving us to the
next level. Yeah, well he still does have to get us to the
next level. Sure, sure, but this level is a good level.
This level is pretty dang sweet, especially being a fan going to the school.
All the games are great when Gale's packed, Like, that's what you
want a you go to the school like I go to games and this is
I love Tommy. Tommy gets the crowd going he wants. He has a
certain passion for this program that I mean is expected, but you love to
see it. So it's good. But kyl and Boswell won Pack twelve Player
of the Week given his performance really kind of filled the stat sheet. Twelve,
twelve points, a bunch, rebound, some assists. That's just the
guy he's gonna be all. He does it fluidly, He doesn't do it
spectactularly. Nothing's forced. No, it's it's a lot less rigid than last
year. And maybe that's just because he has the ball in his hands more.
Maybe it's a second year confidence. But and I'm gonna say one thing
because he's don't make a mistake. I'm not saying he's a saline start of
myn level shooter, but he's got the nicest step back three. It's a
it's a smooth just a smooth thing. He hit a couple of those on
Saturday, and the step back and he's so quick with it. So we
were getting to you and I just happened to meet each other before the press
coverage, and Jake and and what did I say? The difference was the
back court is is nothing like it's been. It's not current influenced, it's
not anybody else influenced. It's not Ben, Ben was the guy. But
this is a group of three or four guys coming at you. Yeah,
one guy comes, one guy comes out, another guy comes in. And
it's the same yeah, and the same pressure, the same the same pronounced
aggressiveness. Yeah, there's there's minimal drop off in those next two guys,
right. I mean, I think Kylon and Caleb are going to be one
of the best backcourts in college basketball. But having Bradley and Lewis kJ Lewis
came in and he is an energizer. Dude, Dude, who grew up
in that game. But kJ Lewis and Crevas. Creis was not that dude
we saw last week. We didn't see that against Morgan State. In fact,
I was again as we were walking against Morgan State. I saw previously
he kept getting blocked from behind. He didn't have awareness of guys around him,
and Morgan State was blocking his shots. And then of a sudden,
he goes up against Duke and that didn't happen. He looked, he looked
like a guy who knows he made it some some level of adjustment or whatever,
and he all of a sudden was really damn good and effective. He
he's he's a big dude, big dude. I wonder if the Rocky felt
this one he was going against the Drago because he's got that big dude,
He's got that big presence. Yeah, And it feels as though we're two
games in some some preseason game in But the identity to this team feels wildly,
wildly different than last year's and that these guys as opposed to like whither
in the moment, they want to grab it and they will win these games
and they're gonna do whatever it takes. What was the what was the one
thing that was criticized last year, but total they have the toughness, toughness
and that's Hey, say what you want about the transfer portal, but that
it came from. It came from those guys. You have a grittiness with
love like and then you have Bradley who's not going to back down. And
then you have Johnson. Johnson going to be he doesn't care who you are
exactly. So there's our college basketball talk. We can talk a little bit
about a SU's athletic director Anderson he resigned. I don't I think for a
lot of people. Uh it was probably a long long time coming. But
he's gone. That's up there up north. But college football. So UVE
is now ranked nineteenth in the current People. The Coaches poll is twenty one.
Utah's eighteen in the Coaches poll and a little higher in the A People.
So it's gonna be realistically like a top twenty matchup this week, right
and Tyler Loop, who kicked the game winning field goal against Colorado Packtwell Special
Teams Player of the Year will leave him week week, not year, year
not year. We'll need him hopefully this week if the games are close.
Went kick. Well, I think you know how much confidence yeah, Jed
has in him with how he handled the last couple of minutes of the game.
He went for the field goal, you know, in that last instead
of In fact, he was happy that they didn't score that touchdown with a
little over a minute left because that would have given to Shador Sanders a minute
to go down and try and tie the game. So he was happy that
they didn't score that touchdown. And then he just said, we're playing for
the field goal. We know he's gonna make it, and that's what they
did, and he did, and he's moving Forwar or two. Jed has
confidence in him in like long field. So he has a big leg and
so he's not gonna be afraid to use it. And so squeaked squeaked out
a win in Colorado, and Jay mentioned it earlier, but those are games
in the past couple of years that they don't win on the road. You
need to win, right and seven and three Arizona seven and three Utah at
home this weekend. It's a twelve thirty pick on Pack twelve Network. Awesome
God, which is amazing to me that that game landed on Unpacked twelve Network.
In a week where the slate is bad, the next best game is
Kansas Kansas State or Tennessee Georgia. And this has a lot of Jed mentioned
it, a lot of implications for the PAC twelve. U of A is
still not mathematically eliminated from Okay, let's talk about that. Yeah we can,
because because that's that's a true story. And Steve's going, what Yeah,
And I confirmed this with John Wilner. So in its simplest form in
the in the simplest thing to happen, and it's a lot of so it
can't. You know, I'm not saying that this is likely. I'm just
saying it's not out of it, not out of the question. Okay,
Washington wins out, Arizona wins out, Oregon beats a SU which we think
they're gonna do, and then it loses to Oregon State, and U c
l A beats USC. Those things all happen in Arizona's in the Peckhal Championship
game. Now there's some other scenarios that can happen, like say, let's
say Oregon State beats Washington, and yeah, you know, all these other
things can happen. There's some other scenarios. This is the simplest one.
Now again, there's probably about a five percent chance this is gonna happen.
Maybe maybe the I think the biggest, the more unlike, most unlikely thing
that's gonna happen in there is USC losing to u c l A u c
l A look bad again, this US US. Yeah, but you know,
you don't know what's gonna happen, you know, in that game.
But it's not you know, it's not a stretch to say that Oregon stake.
So let me ask you. Before the game started, wasn't Arizona one
point dog at Colorado? Yeah? No, no, no, no,
no, you know began yesterday? What was it? What do they open
at? Oh, the Ardinols No, no, no, Arizona against the
Utah against Utah. I don't know. Because they're now a favorite by one,
they're not favorite by one. I thought they were a dog by one.
Yeah, I know, yeah, I can look it up, either
flip two points or whatever, because I thought they were a dog by one.
But you know, none of those, none of those four things.
Is that out of the realm of possibility? Now likely? No, possible,
Yes, this is a dumb question. But I ask it sometimes,
do you guys believe in destiny and things? How things happen? Sure,
this is a weird thing. What's happening with this football program is weird because
that's a super second. They do go nine and three, Jed Jed then
has some decisions, Arizona has some decisions. Uh, the players that kind
of stepped up with the other guys injured and the reason why they got injured.
Do you know what I'm saying? Things? Yea, if things happened
for a reason. Yeah, Like if if in three weeks you're telling me
you as playing for the Pactal Championship game, I would I would be shocked,
but I wouldn't be like, Okay, this is the craziest thing I've
ever seen. Like it would be one of them. They were not supposed
to go nine and three or what come on? He had it at what
eighty five percent? What did you say earlier? I said eighty five percent
they would go ten and three? And what did you say? What was
your eighty percent? When I said poop twin ten games? Now that's a
possibility. Well, yeah, we we thought we were gonna beat Colorado.
You gotta beat ASU and then well, Utah is the Utah is the key,
and so we'll see. But hey, if you throw the Pacteal championship
game in there, you get another game and they win that, they go
to rose ball. You're talking crazy. We only have a minute left.
But uh, the other college football news, if you if you're keeping up
with it, Harbaugh will be attending his court hearing saying quote, I will
talk. So we'll see. We'll see what that happens after he's been suspended
three games. But it didn't look like Michigan really skipped a beat. And
then the last thing, I found this interesting because it involves the Pac twelve.
So the heisman, the current heisman ods Bone Nicks is the odds on
favorite at minus one fifty, Michael Pennix, then Marvin Harrison, and then
jayde and Daniels, and so it's looking like whoever wins that Pack twelve championship
game, if it is Oregon and Washington, will win the Heisman. And
I'm looking at it in Jane Daniels and I've looked at his stats. Here's
thirty eight touchdowns this year. That's eight more than Michael Pennix. That's twelve
more than bon Nicks, and he's at plus seven hundred to win the Heisman,
even though LSU is only seventy to three. So and we have nine
seconds. I wasn't too impressed with him. He's stunk at ASU. Yeah,
but he's he counted for over five hundred yards. Better performer. Yeah.
Okay, good job, all right man, nice job. We're gonna
come back, Jodi Ayler. We're gonna talk about that thing that happened up
in Phoenix yesterday with the Cardinals, Kyler Murray having a great game. The
Cardinals win on a last second field goal. So Jody'll fill us in.
He's our Kyler Murray experts and stick around like the ceiling can hold, like
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I Meean, iHeartRadio app. This is I on the Ball with Steve Rivera
and Jay Gonzalez on Fox Sports fourteen fifteen. Hey, welcome back to I
on the Ball here Fox Sports fourteen fifty. I'm Steve's Jake Now and if
on we have Jody Taylor from Fox Sports nine ten and Phoenix Jody. How
you doing for good? Are you still jet lag from Durham, North Carolina
Sea. Yeah, might hate to travel nowadays. You know a lot of
it right? Yeah? I used to do it now I don't. I'm
okay with it. I'm okay with it. Where did it rank? Where
did it live up to the high You've seen a lot of buildings, You've
seen a lot of games, and it was it worth it? Oh?
Very much worth it, very much worth A good question. I don't know
if you remember, and asked Jay this back in the day, was Stanford?
Stanford? Those dudes were crazy too, Yeah, smart crazy. You
know that was good LSU, Michigan State. So it's in the top two,
top three. Glad I went, Glad I went. You know,
at least. I was in Durham, North Carolina this summer on a family
vacation, and I wanted to take the kid there to just use the bathroom,
to treat it like the toilet that it is. But it was all
flow. It's not as close as I've come. But I view it as
one of the nicest public restaurant. It's actually private, but one of the
light nicest bathrooms in the North Carolina. I thought I heard this, that
Billis had said this. You have guys are kids who are paiding eighty thousand
dollars a year to sleep outside to go to a basketball game. Now,
yeah, how messed up as well. The locals there talking about like that
none of those kids are from the area. You know, a bunch of
it's from you know, up north, and they come down and they spend
a ton of money to go and you know, and then it's duke basketball.
So kind of a neat little slice of life in college basketball for sure.
Even though I hate them with all of my all of my innergery,
you you'll understand this, and Jay will two. So Arizona's beat them three
three straight times. I think they have the series six to four, something
like that. And we talk a lot about Duke because it's duke basketball,
but you know what apples to apples outside of the national championships, Arizona's not
too far back. No, That's what I thought was so encouraging about that
game on Friday. Is just the litmus test. But you know, obviously,
and this has been a big topic conversation for a while, is just
Arizona's Final Four absence for so long makes it difficult to make that case.
And it's true, but they need to get back to the Final Four to
remind everybody. But I thought there was no difference between the programs, the
players obviously Arizona beat them. I mean, I agree with you, but
there is obviously Duke's got more national championship final fours in the last twenty years.
Yeah, yeah, okay, let's move on, all right, Jody,
As I said, you're you're our Cardinals slash Kyler Murray expert. So
anytime Kyler does something bad or good, we call you. So we called
you because he did some good things yesterday. Your expectations going into the game,
you know, coming off the the long injury, was he going to
be Kyler that you know, the good Kyler or is there he going to
be a bad Kyler or what? First of all your thoughts going in,
well, I was just excited to see what he would have learned and applied.
You know, physically, who can guess how someone's body's going to react.
Everyone's different, and so I honestly didn't really have any expectations for how
you would look physically. Now he blew any and all expectations way. He
was lightning quick. It was vintage Kyler. There was you know, mobility
and the athleticism and the quickness. But what I was really watching for is
we spent the last ten months hearing about how it's a different Kyler. It's
more mature Kyler. It's more engaged Kyler. He's starting to get it.
He's around the facility more, he's in meetings, he's he's reaching out more
to his teammates, And so I was really looking to look at the boxes
to check our body language on the field, communication with teammates, communication with
coaching staff. Remember, Kyler was dropping that bombs on DeAndre Hopkins, he
was dropping that bombs on Cliff Kingsbury once. It's easy to kind of be
new and improved until you get into a game and the emotions are running high,
and you know, he threw an interception to traymick bride shoot on him
a little bit. But then after the game was like, Trey McBride was
right, we didn't work on that in practice. I own it. It's
my fault. And so I thought in a lot of ways, Kyler passed
with flying colors. Yeah, nice, was he one of those guys because
he didn't study or whatever. The perception was that he just relied on his
athletic ability to get him through. Yeah, He's also like he's a really
really smart kid. He's a really smart kid, and I think what happened
is he just got used to like showing up and things would come easy,
because he's freakishly gifted athletically and he's gifted did intellectually, and so I don't
think the NFL was something he thought he would have to put an extra work
in. And I think what we saw last year, that humble, you
know, nature of losing in football, hopefully transformed him a little bit.
And so yeah, I think we watched him combine his physical skills his mental
skills and if that ever comes together fully and you know, one game in
the Dello story, and there's a long way to go. And Kyler's biggest
question in his professional career is he is really shrunk. And the biggest Cardinals
games he's played, and that's more or less true for his entire NFL career
will hopefully see more of an opportunity for him to prove that wrong in the
future. But I think he let showed he's on his way with a coaching
staff and in a real scheme and a real leadership structure, that the best
is yet to come. Yeah, Well, we've talked to you, We've
asked you about the new coach and the atmosphere that's being created. I mean,
is it I mean, is it that different? It is? Yeah,
No, it's wildly different. I mean, guys were surprised early on
that Jonathan Ganning cared if they were on timed meetings. Cliff Kingsbury ran it
very lax, you know, Cliff Kingsbury didn't have the leverage to hold guys
accountable because everyone knew he wasn't qualified to hope him accountable. He knew it.
And so I think Jonathan Gannon came in there said my way of the
highway. We're accountable, we're open, we're honest, we communicate, we
treat you like men. But you got to earn it. It is radically
different from the last four years. And Kyler, you know, has never
been outside of his comfort zone football. He's basically run the same offense from
high school through college. In his first four years in the NFL. This
offense, he's got to go under center a little bit, he's gonna run
play action, he's gonna run foot legs. And so what we saw early
on is that all of that seems to be gelling well together. Again one
game, plenty of cons further evaluate, but so far, so good.
I was just gonna say, let's not get too crazy, or maybe we
do, because they've after all, they've been Atlanta. Well, that does
not you know, that's not Buffalo, it's not Dallas. Is not well
there to be Dallas. You know what I'm saying. You have to put
things more perspective. They do. It's the top ten and overall defense,
Atlanta's been pretty good this year, but you're right, it's not a juggernaut.
And it's one game, and Atlanta's kind of a team on the decline.
They might fire their head coach mid season, and they're just sort of,
you know, poorly led from top to bottom with not a great quarterback.
But it's all we have to evaluate. And again, there were fifteen
ways this could have gone wrong. The offense could have looked a disaster.
Kyler could have looked slow and indecisive. You know, we could have seen
arguments on the sideline. We just didn't see any of that. The way
I described it this morning, guys, is what happened is it turned all
of the Cardinals questions into a positive question. All of the Cardinals questions had
been a negative like, oh god, what are they gonna do? What's
happening? What are they going to do next? Now it's like, oh,
what could they do next? What's possible? And for now, this
is a team and a franchise that needed that injection of positivity and they got
it after one game. Now, again, you and I, you guys
and I all know things change very quickly in sports. But for now,
it's a it's a good start. Well, as you said, again,
it's better than the the alternative. He had come out at a horrible game.
You know, they would have lost at home again. Now they're going
to one and nine and you know, I mean it's it was better than
the alternative, and so you give you give your fans some hope. So
he's got he's got a game coming up against a guy who's really lighting it
up right now, CJ. Stroud. You know, is he the kind
of guy that'll you know, see that as a challenge and want to go
out and show because of that, or is he just going to do what
he's going to do Tyler? I mean, I think Tyler is going to
absolutely want to go out there and shift that he's a better young quarterback than
CJ. Stroud. You know, it's kind of a really interesting matchup when
you consider Damiko Ryans and Jonathan Gannon are both first year head coaches. Obviously,
there was the draft day trade where they acquired Will Anderson with the Cardinals
third overall pick and trade at a future first of the Cardinals. We thought
that might have been the second overall. That might be the twentieth pickoverall the
way the Texans are going, So there's a lot at stake, and I
think it's a great point, Jay, where I think this is a game
where you could see Kyler and the team kind of want to show like,
hey, forget about this kid, this new kid on the block, like
Kyler Murray was forgotten about for eighteen months as a real deal NFL quarterback,
and there's a great opportunity on Sunday for him to prove that wrong. Now
again, Arizona's defense is not great. The Cardinals defense nearly cost him against
the Falcons. It's got some real questions in the secondary. They're banged up
on the defensive line, the offensive line is banged up. This is far
from a finished product, but it wouldn't shock me after the rust of the
first game was knocked up if Kyler Murray was really good on Sunday. So
what are these guys capable of the rest of the way. Yeah, so
they got seven games left and three games that I think are winnable. You've
got the Bears, You've got the Seahawks, You've got the Rams, maybe
the Texans, but you know, they still got the Eagles coming, they
still got the forty nine Ers, still have some tough games. I think
three and four over their final seven, So making it four and four under
Kyler Murray and probably ending up with like the seventh ninth picking the draft feels
about right based on what we saw. But you know, the defense is
bad enough to where they could When I say bat, they're just under talented.
They're well coached and well schemed, but they could. They could go
conceivably, you know, over the last seven two and five, and it
wouldn't be shocking. We're talking to Jody Taylor from Fox Sports nine ten in
Phoenix. All right, Joey, let's change subjects. Ray Anderson fired,
Uh not shock, not shocked? Right? No, what's next up there?
What are we thinking about? Kenny Dillingham looks like going to be UCLA,
so they got to feel good about him. Well, I think,
you know, it's interesting when as hired Kenny Dillingham, they kind of followed
the Jetfishmontel a little bit right the way Arizona succeeded with Jetfish. Kenny Dillingham
is a version of that. And I think if your ASU, you got
to look at Arizona and how they hired a n AV. Now, maybe
they go for a guy that spent a lot of time that was sort of
you know, d platform by Ray Anderson and kind of shoved at the side.
Or maybe they could go with somebody like Dave Heikey who came from a
smaller school, you know, and a group of five school that eager to
prove that they can get it done at the big twelve level starting next year.
But you know, it's it's just a challenge, man. It's really
hard for a issue to carve out a big footprint up here. It's been
an ongoing issue for everyone's entire life, and it's a big challenge for the
next ad who. You know, Bobby Hurley's future is a little uncertain,
although they wont up a tournament game last year. Obviously, Kenny Dillingham in
year one's not gonna win a lot of games, But I thought UCLA win
was a huge program win. So there's there's some opportunity here, but it's
it's a complicated environment to get the kind of attention that even Arizona intoy it.
So all the nine years that he was there and some of the goods
and a lot of the bads, how would you rate his performance there?
Ad the second he was the second highest bade athletic director in the country.
So it was a catastrophic failure by that measurement, right, I mean it
was herm Edwards was a bad hire. He did obviously kept Bobby Hurley around.
I think the hiring of Kenny Dillingham was more of a you know,
boosters and other people convincing Ray Anderson. He created a close relationship with Michael
Crow. I mean, if we're letter grading it, it's it's like a
D plus at best. It's probably an F. It just depends on,
you know, if you how bad you feel for the guy. But he
made a lot of money. Like you said, he had a long term
job and in a profession that it's not easy to do. But I don't
think he fair and and by the way, the biggest indictment of Ray Anderson.
He alienated a massive portion of the Sun Devil alumni base. I mean
he alienated his base, which is rule number one that you can't do as
an ad Absolutely. And how about Anial Pierce landing in the NFL job come
on after what he did, and then Herman is still on the ESPN.
You know, it's so crazy. He's like Antonio Pierce is a U of
a guy, Like he's a UFA guy. And I know everyone LinkedIn as
you, but I don't know how much jet Fish's future has come up on
your show. I think obviously with Michigan State and Mississippi State and perhaps Florida,
which would I think be the biggest threat to Jetfish. If you're just
in con perpetual panic mode as an Arizona football fan like most of us are,
you're like, all right, what's the short list for jetfish replacement?
Then I'd be willing to let bygones be bygones with his ASU tenure here,
and I know he put them into hot water, but you could do worse.
Yeah, he probably couldn't do that much worse than Antonio. It's just
stunning to the guy, like I think he's the one that's disconnected from Arizona
because didn't you tell me? Right? He said, I don't want no
part of it. Right. He was unhappy with Arizona after after he left,
So yeah, uh, because he had some issues with John mcovic,
who was his head coachairs it didn't ask Fish to his press conference about his
I know, the dumb question. Ask No, it wasn't, but he
did it get asked. It wasn't a dumb question, and I asked.
He said, we're focusing on Utah. Yeah, well that's what I meant.
I mean, it's a good question to ask because that's what people want
to hear. But you know, the coach isn't gonna give you anything,
but you gotta ask it anyway, exactly he said. He said that that's
what happens when you're doing a good job. But we're focused on Utah.
That was the end. Well, you know, the same thing at Arizona
is happening today is U is they're trying to play ketchup in the NIL world
and they don't have this huge bank account of dollars pay players like their professional
athletes, and both Kenny Dillingham and Jet Fish are looking for different reasons to
bolster that income, and man, that's tough. That's tough, okay,
And I you real quick. I use the word only in that it's not
only, but he's only getting paid two and a half million a year.
Yeah, well, I mean, you know again, I didn't go into
the nitty gritty on that report about Arizona's financial the whole university, but if
somebody wants to triple Jetfish's salary, I don't know that Arizona's athletic department is
in the position to match it. One last question, you being a UA
grad, how was the weekend for you? Man? It was so fun?
Dude, I I I du Beating Duke is just there's nothing better for
me. And it doesn't erase the sting of the two thousand and one championship
game, but every little win helps. And then you know, I expected
Colorado to fight and I bet them to cover the ten. But it's nice
to see Arizona win. Only only Utah's coming only one point favorites on Saturday.
That's so Arizona. It flipped. It flipped. Yeah, it's oh
wow, yeah, okay, Arizona's favorite. No fall. Oh man,
that game. That game is absolutely asinine. That it's on the PAC twelve
network. If I'm Jetfish, I know they're moving to the Big twelve,
but that game being on the PAC twelve network at twelve thirty with a reason
for me to take every incoming phone call from at the university. There you
have it, Thank you, Jody, Thanks Jarny always great, appreciate it.
Well, he covered all the bases, he did. He got them
all man got them all in really and I agree with every port that he's
made. Yeah, you know, he was very spot on, spot on.
Okay, we could do it show. Yeah, right, we need
the voice. I know we don't have the voice. All right, we'll
be right back. We'll close it out. We'll take your calls. Five
to two zero four one, six seventy four forty. What'd you think of
the Duke win? What'd you think of the Colorado win? And what do
you think about everything going forward? We'd love to hear from you. Five
to two zero four one six seventy four forty. If you're an Arizona men's
basketball fan, you know it's been successful for nearly forty years. Now.
Take a look back at the Ludelsen era. In my new book, Lessons
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dot net breaking down all the excess at Alls. It's Steve Rivera and Jacin
Salvias. This is I on the Ball on Fox Sports fourteen fifty. Hey,
welcome back to I on the Ball here Fox four fourteen fifty on Steve,
you're Jay, You're Sammy. If we got ten minutes, if you
didn't want to call, please do let us snow hold your weekend once.
Did you celebrate like everybody else? The weekend, the weekend, the winds,
the wins. Yeah, you know, yeah, you know I had
a great time. You know, I had a couple of nights dinners in
Vegas. We have we have fun. It was you know, it's a
fun weekend. You know, walking with the chin a little higher, wasn't
you know? It wasn't embarrassed to wear my Arizona gear. About that?
About that two hundred and forty million dollars yeah, there is that, but
you know, you know, I did have people say, hey, nice,
nice win against Duke and stuff like that. Yeah, here's the problem.
And because you Arizona's sports programs, I've never really been affected outside of
memory. They had the fire or they let go a lot of jobs back
in the day a long time ago, and I'm sure that could happen too.
But the sports they just added travel, They just added yeah, yeah,
yeah. I don't know what they're gonna do. It's tough. I
don't know what they're gonna do. A long way for finding out, though.
We have a caller. Hi, you're on the air and I on
the ball. Hey, this is Bell, Hey Bell, what's up?
Hey? Usually I called the bag on you J because you're either the kiss
of death or it's about beat l A. But I got to call Steve
on the carpet this time. Okay, all preseason this year, people are
calling and saying we're gonna win six, seven, eight, nine games,
and Steve would laugh at him and say why, and they'd say, because
we're getting better, and he'd say every other team is getting better also,
But here we are seven and three. How come you the listener that listens.
Well, well, usually day usually opens that door for me to for
me to get on him. But if you walk right into it this time,
you're You're right. I've said a couple of times this last two weeks
that I've been I was wrong. I was totally wrong. The thing about
it is, who would have predicted this? Jigs? Sure? Absolutely,
you know I'm not alone. I just said it publicly on the show.
Yeah, well it was. It was a it was a great weekend,
and I'm glad you got to experience Cameron indoor during the game. So yeah,
that was cool. It was a lot of fun. As crazy as
you think it is, that's pretty much right, Okay, Bill, I
said eighty five percent that they'd win ten games. Where do you think we're
at now? Well, I thought you were crazy for saying that, you
know, but uh, it's definitely possible, I mean definitely possibly if we
get through this one. You know. But I'm I'm like you, Jay,
I've I've seen so many disappointments and had so many heartbreaks that, uh,
I'm worried about this weekend getting right right, You're waiting for it to
crumble, like I am, absolutely, But like I said, do you
believe in destiny. Some maybe this is the year that kind of changes,
if only for a year. Enjoy the moment. Yeah, exactly. You
know what I'm thinking about now is now we're getting so good, and now
we're not gonna have to be able to have the money to pay our coach
and keep them here. So then there's that it's always dooming gloom. There's
something, man, every time when you're in Arizona, there's always something.
So by the way, oh by the way, exactly, all right,
Bill, thank you, thanks for Bill. All right, thanks for literally
listen if he tas on what a great weekend for you guys, because it
was it just was it just was, you know, I mean, yeah
we were. Was it tense during the during the Colorado game? Of course
it was because that game was was never a win. And do you see
the stat Arizona never led the game. You know, I have the game.
We'll take this call. I'll have a question, all right, call
it coming in. You're on the air and I on the ball. Yeah,
this is Nika man Nico. Hey, First of all, save I
told you gotta Mary would get a big win. You did, Man,
I been I'm on a bad streak here were you're You're right, Nico,
You're right, Nico. Good day, but over all good weekend for Arizoning.
Yeah, no, no question, no question. Are you going?
You're going Saturday? Right? You have to go? Man, isn't al
tour on Saturday? Yes? Go early, Go early. It's not gonna
affect you. The worlds won't affect you. Man. That stupid back race
goes right by my ass, Well, then it'll affect you. Thanks for
the editorial. I don't have to go like at nine in the morning to
get there. And our tailgate is our tailgate will be on at seven thirty.
Way way, that's too early, man, the games of twelve thirty?
Nicole, do you have beverages at your place? We're like, we're
going, We're going. We're going Ortis on eggs, menudo modelo medelo do
sequis. Probably some mimosa, Nico. That's got you written O Lady Mary's
we're going yard. It's our last tailgate of the year. Man, that
sounds like you're gonna be spending a lot of time in the bath. That
could that could happen too. You go. Thanks for your call, Nicole.
You're always good with the call hey, man, you still have me
a trip the Hooters? Man? What was the bet? You said?
The Gardens win? We got the review. Then they were going, I
guess I'll take you. I remember and I said I'm going to Okay,
so I was there too. I think it was last last Wednesday. I
remember this. I got you, I got you, those two on their
own. Okay, you know what you know he can do for me,
Steve? Yes, what can we do? Here's that money you're gonna spend
on me and Jay and Minky Clean Mackey Clean. I will I will take
a girl you like out on a date. Man, Okay, I'll do
that. That's easy because maybe if you get laid, you won't be so
grumpant. Yeah, I'll refrain from my comments. Seriously. Okay, Nico,
appreciate that. Thanks for letting me see Saturday. Nick. I expect
to see you. I'm always gonna be I'm always gonna be grumpy. He's
funny, funny. I was gonna say, oh, okay, So in
the post game for for and I hope I get this right. For Sanders,
he said early just in his opening says, I thought we were the
better team, and there were some people that said, well, no,
not really, they were for they weren't for fifty games. Yeah, how
could you? How could people not deny that, oh game? You know,
No, no, they weren't. They you know, and sometimes you
are on that day you know they're not the better team US season usc right,
I thought we thought Arizona was the better team. That exact exactly right.
So, you know, and I think Stanford thought they was a better
team when they played Arizona. But Arizona found a way to win. And
so in the end, you know, what a what a good team is
supposed to do is on a day that they don't play their best, they
still find a way to win a game. So you'll give them that argue.
When I heard that, I said, okay, that's fine. But
people just said, no, you didn't win. Well, you can still
play well and not win. I was pulling my hair out because every time
Arizona had a chance to get off the field, third and eight, third
and twelve, whatever, Georg Sanders was running for a first down. It
was crazy. It was very frustrating to watch that. The call it was,
I you're on the AARONI on the ball? Well you do? I'd
call in today. Okay, what's up, Jem. We can hear you
better too. Great. I know we're in fantasyland because we've got Steve talking
about destiny. Now it was destiny that you're gonna call. Yeah, So
I'm gonna tell you what I see. I see the field of play getting
smaller and smaller for Arizona opponent. The defense is looking at a smaller field
to play because they're getting trapped in that twenty twenty zone. Anyway. You
know, at the end of the game on Saturday, we had Tamac catching
swing passes behind the line of scrimmage in order to get five yards six yards,
and they're gonna have to figure out some way to stretch the field both
vertically and latitudinally in order to loosen up this defense. This defense allows eighty
five yards a game rushing, and that's going to be about So so let
me ask you a quick question, because I didn't watch the game. I
was en route. So when when Fafina didn't have a good game, what
were you thinking? What you were thinking the week before that? If he
didn't have a good time, I'm with you. I mean, a guy
can have a half or a game like that. I'm not ready. You
know, I'm not ready to pull him out of a game because he's you
know, a little bit off to start the game. Okay, what I
see that, What I see that's more perilous is the field of play is
starting to shrink for the opposing defense. We're not stretching him out. We're
not stretching him out with our runs and they're all inside. So we're going
to have to introduce speed and to the end of the game this week or
we're not gonna win. Well, but what I'm gonna say to that Jim
is that Fefida hasn't been that guy all season. He's been the guy who
plays more under control, doesn't go doesn't go for the deep thing every time,
which is the difference between him and Jayden. But Jayden was you know,
high risk, high reward. You know, Faida is more controlled,
throws the short patterns, takes what they give you. I'm sorry, it's
been working there. You know they're Utah Utah is not gonna give you that.
And I will say this day in response, the last four or five
teams they played weren't really as good as advertised. Maybe Organs, maybe Oregon
State is the real deal, but U c l A was pathetic, Washington
State was not good, and so far on down the line. I mean,
they've played teams that look good on paper, but they didn't perform on
the field, and they didn't they didn't they challenging. Well, my dad,
I'm gonna go Devil's advocate on. They were pretty all of them were
playing pretty damn good when Arizona played them all and they and they were all
ranked and Arizona beat them all. So I already against Washington State. I
understand the scores, Jim, But what I'm saying is at that time,
Washington State was playing really damn well and they weren't playing that well. Today
they played U of A that And why is that? Was that because of
the U of A or because they were bad? We don't because they weren't
that they weren't that good, all right, And that's when the rest of
the season you've been hanging out with Steve too much. Thank you, Jim,
all right, Jeff, thanks a bunch. We'll talk to you later.
You've turned Jim into Debbie Downer Man. No, sorry, Jim,
Jim was already Debbie. All right. That was that was a fun day.
Good stuff to talk about all week. Never got around to Michigan and
they're he mentioned, well, I'm talking about the poopy way they've been handling
this. But we'll get and we'll get to this tomorrow. But uh uh,
it's a it's gonna be a fun week. You got you talk coming
in Senior day for Arizona. You got an Arizona men's game tonight. The
women play tomorrow. They're on a roll, you know, they've been playing
well. So we'll see how all that shakes out. So be sure to
come back tomorrow and we'll get it, get on it all over again.
Steve okay, okay, books down the street, no sound but the sound
of street. Are you ready? Are you ready? Are you hanging out