This is I on the Ball with Steve Rivera and Jay Gonzalez on Fox Sports
fourteen fifty. Subscribe now to the podcast on the iHeart Radio AHP, just
Surge on the Ball. Hey, welcome back to I on the Ball here
on Fox Sports fourteen fifty. I'm Steve, He's Jay, and I hope
Jay has breaking news. This is I on the Balls on Fox Sports fourteen
fifty. I do some some interesting stuff going on today, but I want
to start with this. I want to I want to look. I'm I'm
that guy that when somebody gets a lot of attention and is, you know,
kind of way up there, I'm like, Okay, I'm ready for
the upset to happen. Right. I was rooting for Colorado State on Saturday,
you know, And I don't know why I'm like that. I'm just
always rooting for the underdog. And so, you know, the game happened,
double overtime, Colorado wins the game. You gotta give it up for
them for doing what they did to come back and win the game. But
in the course of that and course of the game, there was that hit
on track A hunter knocked out of the game. He's gonna miss three or
four weeks last rated Deliver. We talked about that yesterday. So today or
or maybe it was yesterday in his press conference, Deon Sanders comes out or
I think once today comes out, he does. Look, the hit happened.
We forgive him. He's a good player, he played hard. You
know it was an unfortunate hit. You know he got a fifteen our penalty
four. Come on, you know he's getting death threats. You know,
son jackass posted his phone number and his family's address on social media so that
people can do whatever they're gonna do. All that stuff. And we've talked
about this before. Casey's scouring that the UFA kicker who got death threats after
missing a game winning field goal against the USC in the twenty fourteen season,
or maybe it's a game time field or whatever. You know that these things
happen, and it's stupid. It's the stupidest thing you could possibly do.
Dion went in and said, I just hope it wasn't our fans. Well,
of course it was your fans. Well it wasn't Colorado States fans,
right, it wasn't the Arizona fans, It wasn't anybody else. It was
your fans and and everybody's got those fans. We've seen him. Uh but
you know, give it up for Dion for just trying to defuse it a
little bit as much as he could, you know. But you know,
when you gotta have guys like that said, we got people like that,
there's not anything you can say to him, most usually to say, you
know, the guy who put his ad dress up isn't gonna say oops,
I'm sorry. I didn't need to do that, right, you know,
the guys whoever did that just an idiot. I don't to my point,
if it were happened to me and my sons or whatever, I'd go after
and I'd go after him if it was capable of doing it. Yeah,
I legally, yeah. I mean, at some point you gotta say enough
enough enough. That's pretty serious, sty, it's your stuff when people start
as you say, look and are those death threats real? Probably not,
I don't be stupid, but but what the hell are you doing? Right?
Right? Right? What the hell are you doing? So anyway,
and you never know if they're you never know, you do never know.
I mean, this this country is nuts and stuff like that. So so,
but you know, good good on for dion and for doing in his
right. He was. He was very I saw most of it. You
heard me playing it as as we were preparing for the show. Very contrite,
very low. Sounded low key like he did. And it's funny how
he addresses the media because you know, I'm gonna meet you, good to
see you, gotah blah blah, you know whatever. Very cordial. But
that's just kind of well, he will see, we'll see. We'll see
Monday. Yeah, we'll see monday. How it goes. Maybe he wins
the game, who knows. Maybe you imagine if they win this game,
well, the media go back, Well they were twenty one earlier. I
think this will be different obviously, but uh, we'll see. Yeah.
But anyways, good good could be one of my picks. So I can't
see you what all right? Big news in baseball show you shoot a statement?
He had a he had a surgery this morning. They call her a
procedure. There was a statement made through through his his agent, and here's
here's the meat of it. It says that the ultimate plan, after deliberation,
show Hey, was to repair the tissue at hand and to reinforce the
healthy ligament in place. All addy viable tissue for the longevity of the album,
and this is a throwing arm. I expect full recovery and he'll be
ready to hit without any restrictions come opening the day of twenty twenty four,
and do both hit and pitch come twenty twenty five. So it sounds like
he's not pitching next year, which if you have Tommy John surgery today,
you're out for a year. You're not pitching. But then he'll be able
to hit, and then he'll be able to pitch back in twenty twenty five.
Now, let's understand that a part of this is he's in a contract.
He's a free agent. You know, is somebody going to give him
the six hundred million dollars that he was certain to get had this not happened.
That's gonna be interesting to see what happened. No, I get it,
I get it. Would you probably not? Right? Would I give
him the six hundred million? No? Which because his value? How much?
How much would you give four hundred fifty? Because he's he he there's
there's certain guys. I mean, if there's certain guys, you'd pay and
you have maybe to go pay to watch right to see to get their joy.
You know that guy, Uh probably Steph Lebron. Yeah yeah, football
wise, it's hard to do it football wise because because it Mookie Bets Mahomes,
Mahomes a guy like Mookie Bets or you know some of those guys you
know back in the day. Uh, you know the last real big guy
was Noel Ryan for me back in Texas. Yeah, but that's that's I'm
a cheap bastor too. You hate sports? Sports? What I get open
my watch to play? You know, you know Michael Jordan, right,
obviously you know COVID right of course. Anyway, so you know I'm boy.
Okay, first more problem, Right, do I get a four hundred
million dollars contract or a six hundred million dollar contract? Right? But I'm
fascinated to see how he how he's valued if all he can do is hit
well for a year, maybe for one year. But you know, but
this is his second, his second Tommy Johnson, Okay, okay, he's
had one before. How's he gonna come on? Who he is? Who
he is, generational player? He is who he is? Yeah, So
anyways, okay, get oh, let me another serious one. Let me
get back to this. So some more back and forth going on on this
mouth Tucker issue of Michigan State. Michigan State has sent him notification that they
intend to fire him. It's a whatever process. It's outlined in his contracts
saying they're gonna fire him for cose, meaning it's gonna cost him about eighty
million dollars if that's what's on the contract. He's thrown back that, uh,
it's not about his his relate, his private relationship, consensual private relations
ship that he had with another adult. As he said that, he says,
a cursory reading of the facts of time mind because any fair minded person
to conclude that other motives are at play. Basically, they don't want to
pay him the contract. He threw the race card out a few days ago.
But uh, you know what, in the end, and there was
a really a really good article about all of this in The Athletic today.
In the end, he was stupid. Yeah, I mean you could have
stupid. Stupid, you could have started an end of that story right like
that. Right, he was stupid. He put he put himself in this
position, whatever the outcome is, he put himself in this position. He
didn't have to be in this position, and he did, and he didn't.
He thought with a certain part of his body that a lot of a
lot of us are accused him thinking with. And now he's in you know,
he's in this situation. Yeah, yeah, just an unfortunate situation for
him in a school that's already kind of been on the alert, right right,
after all that's been out there. And that's part of it too.
I'm sure that's a big piece of it. Is Michigan State wants to you
know, they're trying to clean all this out, the reputation. How they
get this after all that with Larry Nasser, the gymnastics coach, and how
they get this. I mean, it's like, guys, if you're gonna
be here, you got to be extra cautious. I'm sure new clauses in
the in the contracts. Yeah right, any sex related controversy that's caused,
you're out of here. Get out of here. Sean McVay trying to uh,
trying to deflect, claims that he knew what the points Fred was tell
me about because I read it all the yesterday. Tell me tell me.
His quote was apparently there's a lot of people in Vegas or pissed off about
that decision to kick that field goal, right, he said, I clearly
was not aware of that stuff. Why why was he okay? He said?
He said that in the end, what they were trying to do was
to get down there kick a field goal. That was a plan the whole
time. Get him playing, get close enough to kick a field goal,
with enough time to do an onside kick and hopefully get one play. He
said, with four seconds left. We didn't want to throw a hail Mary
where we could get our quarterback hurt. We wanted to, you know,
just run out there kick a field goal to have, you know, to
kind of get the work in of kicking a field goal in the game.
So they kicked the field They would have been just easy enough because it was
like five six take exactly exactly. Well, but what he said, but
he said, we wanted to kick the field goal because you know, it's
obvious, it's an opportunity to kick a field goal in a game last second,
you know, good. But there's a lot of people that's just it's
like some people won't take the knees and and you've been on the out side
of that, We're no go score, No, they take a knee and
then our family fan friendly or whatever the word is. You know, they
want to be nice. They don't want to team friendly. Speaking of that,
the Iowa game, right, okay, so I will so we don't
like. Yeah, you know the contract twenty five points a game for for
Kurt Ferrence's kid. He's offensive coording his contract. They got average twenty five
points a game. So Iowa is winning twenty four. Uh they're they're winning
thirty four to ten or something like that. All right, So they're up
twenty four point, but he's got thirty four points and they're going down at
the fifteen seconds left, they're inside the five yard line and they score instead
of taking a knee. People are saying, you know you did that.
You know, well the savior to savior, Well, the son's job,
Well, possibly they might need that. So I saw them the week before
because the TJ, right, he's the Iowa guys. I went to the
Iowa up party and it was a little different. So so we talked about
that, right, and they scored like twenty four is twenty four, right,
but guess who scored twenty twelve of those points? Yeah, defends right
rights, what the hell it doesn't, But say that it doesn't. The
contract doesn't say the offense has just scored twenty well, he better, but
the team has to average twenty five points, so they give him the extra
you know, they give them, they get the extra touchdowns. If people
were saying you obviously, you know, don't tell us that you weren't thinking
about that when you when you scored that extra touchdown. It's just it flipped
the spread. They weren't covering touchdown and they were covering it looks. It
looks bad. It doesn't it look bad. It looks really bad. Looks
There's so much going on with now, so much, all right, especially
especially at school, ja, especially at school where half the kids are damned
suspended because it kidd gambled, right, yeah, exactly exactly. Guys,
guys, guys, you got to be thinking about stuff, all right.
Uh. Michael Wiley got name name to the Weekly Paul Horney Award Honor Roll
for his performance against against U tep So's He's uh, he's in the you
know, on the list of not finalists, but that it was not a
Player of the Week then it was. There was a number of players,
players that get you know, the on the quote unquote Honor Roll for the
award, So Michael Wiley got that. And again, he does so many
things there's not except I mean he did in the SU game last year,
but he's never doesn't ever seem to be spectacle. But then you get to
the end of the game you realize all the things that he did catching the
ball, and statistically he's not gonna be as good because there's so many other
people running the ball. But he is your steady guy. He is your
steady guy. So I know watching you said you didn't watch games. I
watch some of them. Did you see the Nick Chubb injury. I didn't
want to see that. I didn't want to see it. I didn't see
it because they said, if you want to see it, you'll be grossed
out. Yeah, no, there it was. It was gross, but
they'll be There have been other ones like it and worse. But ESPN would
not show the replay the replay, and there's a lot of people saying you
needed to show it once because of its news value. And then if you
and you would say here it comes, look away. If these kinds of
things bother, you show it and then don't show it anything. Well,
I think he said if you care to watch it. We're not gonna show
it here. Good the internet, right, which it's all over the internet.
It's bad. But he was not that much in pain. Whether that
I saw because I was in shock is what it would maybe because he was
not what I saw. He was just still kind of getting ready to get
up or picked up or whatever. Yeah, that's it's a brutal sport.
It's a brutal sport. So u Tom Brady, he got asked, got
asked. He does a podcast with Jim Gray, and Jim Gray asked him
if you know if the Jets called or you you know, because with Aaron
Rodgers out, you know, if the Jets called, hi, would you
go back? And he said no, no, no, next question,
Tom Brady is not coming back at least not now for sure. The Jet's
gonna go with Zach Wilson. Good luck for that because they can move the
ball. You can move the ball. They didn't do so well. Yeah,
Keepernick still build, some would say, and then where's the red rifle?
No other thing's funny with it. I don't know. I don't know
if he because not a Cincinnati anyways, that New York either. All right,
that's about it. Uh, we've got uh, we're coming up on
Bob Davey. Yeah, former Order Game coach, former New Mexico coach,
former Arizona assistant, now a TV broadcaster. He did the Arizona game with
you Tap on PAC twelve network on Saturday night. So we'll pick part Davy's
brain about stuff going on. I'm getting college football these days, so'll stick
around for that. We'll be right back. For more than twenty years,
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Steve Rivera and Jacob Solace they have their Eye on the Ball on Tucsons Sports
station Fox Sports fourteen fifteen. They welcome back to Why on the Ball here
on Fox Sports fourteen fifty. I'm Steve Rivera. He's jiggles as now in
the phone, we have former UVA assistant football coach, longtime football coach,
and now turn TV color analysts Bob Davey coach. How are you leave?
One? Great Adams's good to see you Saturday night to see the Cats have
a big winning through Sunset's so good to be with you. Thanks for joining
us so much to talk to you about Albuquerque the Cats. I was curious
when you come back here because it's been a while since you coached here.
Just a landscape and and the things that have happened here since you were since
you've been gone from the University of Arizona, your thoughts on that, and
you know that was a long time ago. And I was the eventeen seventy
eight and seventy nine. You know, I grew up in Pittsburgh, as
did my wife. You know we were married in two songs oh downtown at
the courthouse just as of a piece on a Tuesday morning in nineteen seventy eight,
in June. So how many years is that? Forty five or forty
six? I'm embarrassed to say forty five forty five, but you know,
we we we always you know, we as I said, we were from
Pittsburgh, we fell in love with the desert, always wanted to get back
there, and actually vacation back in Arizona a lot as I was coaching and
as I was with ESPN. But we when I when I left Motor Dame
and went to ESPN, we bought a home in North Scottsdale that we've had
for about twenty years now. And even when I was at un M for
eight years, you know, we kept at home in Scottsdale. So I've
kind of gradually watched Tucson change. You know, it wasn't like I was
gone from seeing it for a long time. So you know, it reminds
me a little bit of Albuquerque, quite honestly. You know, the PAC
twelve money has obviously changed and upgraded the facilities because they've had all across the
conference, so it still has a neat, kind of smaller town field to
me, and you know, I love it. You know, I love
Tucson. So you got to come back and call the game here. I
you know, as you said, you did that a bunch for ESPN.
I'd remember watching an Arizona State the Arizona game that you did with your son,
you know, in the game and stuff like that. So you've had
a lot of a lot of those kinds of nights. But you know,
coming back here and watching the program after the dark period that it went through
and seen what's going on here at Arizona now, just some of your thoughts
of what you feel like you saw on Saturday night. You know, first
of all, it's not an easy job, obviously, you know, I
think Jed Fish has done a remarkable job. I was taking an advantage of
the new transfer portal and has rebuilt that roster amazingly well in the last two
years. You know, from where they were when he first took over,
from from just a talent and depth standpoint to where they are now is really
remarkable. And I think he has some really good recruiters on his staff,
particularly Johnny Manson, and you know, I don't want to leave anybody's name
out, but guys that have tremendous relationships, particularly on the West Coast,
and they've taken advantage of that, and I think they are really an entertaining
football team to watch. I think they'll be right in the middle of the
Pac twelve race the big asterick as you saw last Monday night with the Jets
and Aaron Rodgers and you saw last night with Nick Chubb. You know,
can they stay healthy, particularly at quarterback. If they can, I think
they'll be right in the middle of it. So you bring up the quarterback,
let me talk to you, but just him specifically. So you have
a quarterback and I don't know if you had many of these type of guys.
Where do you love their enthusiasm, You love their courage, you love
their confidence, that's the positive. The negative you hate their confidence. Hate
here's because you don't know which player you're going to get and he's going to
take chances. Yeah, he's a dilemma. He definitely has an instinct to
improvise. You know, he's one of the best improvisers I've seen. I
kind of reminds me of Johnny Manziel actually, or in Manziel with at Texas
A and M. The difficult thing for the defenses and I said this on
air Saturday nights. You have to defend two plays every time he drops back
the pass right, the first one that Jedfish called in more dangerous, the
one that he improvises to and creates on his own and he's just a nightmare
for defenses, and you know, I love watching him play. You do
have to. He's going to turn it over at times because he is the
prototype gunslinger. But with his supporting cast and the different kind of receivers they
have, many they are they are fun to watch. So yeah, I
mean it's gonna be some heartache in there, but there's a lot more positive
plays than our own negative, right. You know. The PAC twelve is
it's been there's been a lot of talk about how good this league is.
You know, you've got eight teams ranked you know, a couple them in
the top ten. I mean, just talk about the grind of a conference
like that. You know, you you know you you're you're a notre dame
where you know, the schedule is always, you know, a huge challenge
with good teams weekend and week out. Talk about the grind of going through
something like that with a coach where every game is you know, is up
in the air on both sides. Yeah, I think it's the best way
to look at it. Like if you look at their schedule, you know,
once they get past Stanford, which stands which is not very good,
I mean, that's a complete rebuilding job. Washington at home. Then you
go at USC. Okay, both those games are gonna be right lights,
enthusiasm, you know, highs, the highs. Then the ones I look
at are like at Washington State after USC, who's really a good team,
But you go up there to Pullman, you know, they're probably twenty one
thousand people there. Then you come home and play Oregon State, who's,
you know, again, really really a good team. Look the Washington's,
the USC's, the UCLA's, they kind of take care of themselves in some
ways. You know, it's those games at Washington State, Oregon State at
home, those are the ones that make me nervous. So you just said
it. Now every team after Stanford probably with the exception of the last game
of Arizona State, and that's a rivalry game, obviously, you guys know
better than me those other games in there. I mean, that's a gauntlet.
So but they do have the roster, they do have an improved defense
as far his talent and depth, they have plenty of explosiveness on offense.
They've got a good kicker. They're going to be fun to watch and it's
going to be very competitive. So I'm sure you've had a player or two
or ten of these guys, But what are your thoughts on McMillan and how
did you call the catch that he had. You don't have to stay much.
I think that one's freakish. You know, just the length of his
arm on the replay. You know, it's psyche double jointed, like his
arm came out of his shoulder. They compliment each other so well, right
McMillan the big, tall receiver cowing the guy in the slot, and then
Wiley coming out of the backfield, and then the tight own's good. So
they you know, McMillan's kind of an under the radar guy nationally. I
think by the end of the season, everyone in the country is going to
know about him Cowing everybody knows about on the West Coast because of what he
did coming in last year against shoots Up. You know, it all comes
down to Delora's staying healthy and Delora's decision making because you know there's gonna be
those big time, big time moments against the good teams where his decision is
going to have to be spot on. Yeah, Steve and I've been debating
this h since the preseason Washington or USC. Steve likes USC to win the
league. I like Washington. I'm a big fan of Michael Michael Panos.
I'm I don't know if you are to say he's better than Caleb Williams,
but he's certainly in the same neighborhood as Caleb Williams. I like him a
lot. Compare those two teams. What are your thoughts on those two teams?
Hard for me to say, You know, it's hard for me to
bet against USC, just because of the overall explosiveness, particularly in the kicking
game now with the young freshman back there who looks like Reggie Bush returning kicks,
right, I don't know, you know, USC goes to Notre Dame.
I don't know. It's hard for me to say. I don't know
exactly how many years you've been out of coaching, But as I joked with
Jim Ivan Good earlier, I'm sure he's happy to be retired. Given the
NIL, given all the craziness that's going on, the transfer portal and all
that. Can you put a grasp on what's going on today? You know,
it's everything that you deal with and adapt and I've been out three years.
This is my third season, you adapt as a coach, but I'm
glad I'm retired. You know, the transfer portal thing of just guys coming
and going the nil deal that you know, obviously players deserve to get something,
and I think them as spake. It was made was we let these
coaching salaries just explode, just go completely crazy with paying coaches because of the
TV contract money and these Power five conferences and the gap of what coaches were
getting paid and then the players getting nothing. Then the player thing just exploded.
You know, I wish we would have eased into this thing with more
of a common sense approach. You know, coaches don't need to make millions
of dollars, and players, certainly in college, don't need to be paid
billions of dollars to a scale down, more common sense version. But when
you let the thing explode and you spend all this money on facilities and you're
building these just ridiculous facilities and you're paying coaches this amount of money, well
then the players the gap was just too ridiculously big. So it's out of
control. It is out of control. I don't think it's really sustainable.
Thank God for these TV contracts, But where is that him, you know,
with the things happening at ESPN, it's it's it's scary to me,
it really is. But with that said, you guys know it, no
matter how the player got there, when they put that helmet on, when
they put that wildcat helmet off, people are gonna show up and they're gonna
cheer. And college football is still the greatest thing going in the greatest brand
out there. But the foundation of foundation of it makes me a little bit
nervous. Yeah, no, it's it is scary when you when you see
what could happen, right or you just hope for the best. So when
a big game a lot of big games this weekend, one of the big
ones that arguably the best game of the weekend, or how State and Order
Dame. You were part of the Order Dame program as the head coach,
and you have a lot of big games during to give and you're what's the
atmosphere going to be like this weekend in South Bend, particularly at night,
and Notre Dame being a really good team, it'll be off the charts,
you know, it'll be off the charts. And you know, we played
Ohio State twice when I was at Notre Dame. The Michigan game, the
Ohio State game, the USC game, those are traditional and this one's a
backyard rivalry. I mean, there's probably it's probably a four or five hour
drive to Columbus, maybe not even that. It'll be a tremendous atmosphere a
Saturday United South band on national television. And Notre Dame is good. Notre
Dame is really really good in physical I think Notre Dame will beat them,
I really do. Notre Dame is a physical football team. But when you
went into a game like that, how nervous were you versus excited? You
know? What was the balance there of that heading into that kind of a
game? As the head coach of Notre Dame, you know what I say.
We we went to back to back Bowl games with the University of New
Mexico in two thousand and fifteen and sixteen, and truthfully, there might have
been twenty one thousand people in the stands in Albuquerque, But if we played
a big game. From a coach's standpoint, it wasn't any different. I
mean, truthfully, I don't mean to minimize the vibe of what all the
Notre Dame thing is or the big games. But when you're in coaching and
you're doing your thing, it can be it can be New Mexico boys,
And that's no different than Notre Dame USC when you're coaching and being on the
sidelines. And I think that's the great thing about this sport. You know,
it's it's it's the same from a coaching standpoint. You know, obviously
it sounds a little different reverberating in your ear on that this set. You
know what a hundred thousand people sound like compared to twenty one thousand. But
it's just the joy you get out of it and the competitiveness that goes into
it and the rewards you get in the heartache you get from coaching. There
wasn't any different in New Mexico in the eight years I spent year as a
head coach than it was the eight years I spent it at Notre Dame.
So I got two more for you, coach. You talk about in New
Mexico. As you know, I'm from northern New Mexico, I guess,
and I'm an eggy, so you can say whatever you want about the locos.
I'm okay with that, but I missed. I'm sure you missed the
food. You know what. Let me go first, say, New Mexico
State came into Albuquerque, New Mexico Saturday night, as you know, and
that's two in a row. Well, Doug Martin did a great job in
Mexico State, because you know, that job's difficult. It's a place,
as Jerry kill pardon me, it's a place where you go to get fired
if you don't do well, you want get fired. You know, I
was there eight years and after my fifth year, we had gone to back
to back bowl games, won a Bowl game, won the most games in
the history of Mexico football back to back years. And I chose to stay
just because my family and where I was in my career later in life.
Probably should have left, honestly, could have left, stayed, and then
three years later I'm fired. So I do think you're right about that.
I do think that that is probably what ends up being at the end of
the day, what happens at a lot of those places. You know,
you tests an example that, right. But to answer your question, you're
a much better expert on food in Albuquerque. I'm a little bit of a
hermit, you know. I've been married forty five years and spent most of
my free nights who were at home with my wife's cooking. So I'm not
going to give you the answer that you're looking for. It is there are
some great, great places, and you know that Southwestern flavor to Albuquerque is
pretty neat. Yeah, and last thing, okay, so tell me if
this story is true or not. You got to Arizona. You talked about
seventy eight seventy units. Were you one of the guys, if not,
the guy to bring Ricky Hunley here or to convince Ricky Hunley to play here?
You and maybe Rogie not so much. ROGI. It was myself and
Tony Mason, the head coach. Tonny Mason was a great recruiter, a
great recruiter and a great person. And actually we found out about Ricky.
There was a walk on player from Arizona named bobble and Camp that sent a
letter that got to me, and because I was the East coast recruiter,
I went back and started the relationship. But Ricky sell in love with the
Southwest, He fell in love with the desert. Thought he was going to
play baseball for Jerry Kendall. Although a lot of guys think they're going to
play, but they're not quite that good to do it, because that's a
big time baseball. But now, it was a lot of guys, but
it was really Tony Mason, who was a unique individual and a great football
coach. Yeah, he said once he landed here, he said, he
called all the other school say I'm coming here, I'm staying. Yeah.
You know, he was supposed to visit Ohio State yea, And there was
a snowstorm in Columbus and he didn't want to fly in the snow. And
then he had an aunt. It was a port with Chuka. So there
were a lot of good things in play for us, but definitely Ricky Hunley
putting you on m on the map, excuse me, putting you of a
on the map the standpoint of defense, No, yack. You can argue
that a lot of what's happened since the eighties year were because you guys were
able to get you know, Ricky Hundley into Tucson. No, I've been
here in my whole life and I saw that happen. And you know,
that was the period of time where you felt the Arizona was as you said,
you know, Arizona is not to keep going. But Ari's first year
in the PAC ten then was nineteen seventy eight with Tony Mason. That was
my first year on the staff. In seventy nine, we go to the
Festa Bowl, if you remember, play Danny Marino in a thirteen seven game
or something like that. And then in the spring, you know that unfortunate
that thing came up with expense accounts and stuff, and that was the end
of the Tony Mason era. But definitely there were some good players in the
program, and Larry Smith came in and took advantage of it and did a
great job. Bob, thank you a bunch, thank you, a bunch
of you going to come back down here and do another game or you don't
know yet, Well you got to invite me down so I can send in
your a VP set at all the games. I might even get some U
Exco food for us. Okay, how about that? Thanks you talking to
you. Than everything works out and you have a great season. Thank you
very much, appreciate you. Take care, Bob Davey, very good,
very fun, very cool. All right, let's we went along to take
a quick break and we'll be back and we'll take a calls Matters ten thirty
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page to sign up. We'll see you there. If you're an Arizona men's
basketball fan, you know it's been succe for newly forty years. Now take
a look back at the Ludolson era in my new book, Lessons from Lute.
It was a labor of love through the eyes of twenty five former players,
coaches, and friends to give insight to the coach and the man who
led them, competed against them, and inspired them. Twenty five chapters for
his twenty five years as Arizona's beloved coach. Lessons from Loot is an insight
to how he built the program into a national powerhouse. What one email me
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how at Pima dot eedu slash someday. So we bid farewell the Goldie,
the goldfish as she journeys to that big pond in the sky. Amen,
be still there, Goldie's still there. She didn't flush because Dan didn't use
picture rocks, cooling, heating and plumbing. This little pet funeral is going
to take a long time, all right. We therefore command our Goldie once
again to the appropriate plate picture rocks, cooling, heating and plumbing, making
sure all your plumbing is working the way it's supposed to. And so Goldie,
we did the farewell. The holidays are fast approaching. After a difficult
year workshire, everyone could use a little financial help. Pyramid Federal Credit Union
is bringing back to the holiday Helper Loan, a low interest, short term
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Pyramid is making our donation to the Community Food Bank of Southern Arizona from
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Pyramid Federal Credit Union in Shared Mcadall season is upon us and fans are bearing
down for our new and improved Arizona football team. I know Edmund Marcus is
He's a huge Arizona football fan and of course a University of Arizona graduate.
If you don't see him at the football game or are you a sporting event,
go see him at All State Insurance on Campbell and get a quote for
your car and home insurance and more. Visit Edmund Marcus or State Agency at
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Marcus All State Agency. Looking for an exhilarating adventure New Told Tour Day Tucson
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That's m add dot org, Slash a Z. Do you want to
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Apply online today at a team security dot net. Come ride with United Way
of Tucson for the fortieth annual Eltour Day Tucson joined the Ride United team and
help support the one in four members of our community who receive life changing help
from United Way of Tucson in Southern Arizona. Learn more at United Way Tucson
dot org. Steve Rivera and Jay Gnsalez. They have their eye on the
ball on Tucson Sports Stage. Jeff Fox Sports fourteen fifty streaming live on the
iHeart Radio. Whap Hey Welcome back to On the Ball Hero Fox Sports fourteen.
Cookie. I'm Steve Rivera. You're Jakin's as. We've got eight minutes.
If anybody wants to give us a quick call, please do, but
hey, I make it quick. I was, I was going out side
of this office and I said, you know, today is one of those
days where I really enjoy what we do, right because we had fun with
Jim obviously, Coach Davy was it was a lot of fun too, he
was. He was fun in his dry way. Yeah. Well yeah,
you know, but look when we talk to these guys who've been, you
know, done some I mean I think about Bob Davy. You know,
he was an assistant coach at Arizona forty five years and years ago. You
know, he's been the coach in Notre Dame and all these places. You
know, he's done TV stuff. I mean, there's a lot of knowledge
and history and that guy's head. Sure, and then and in fifteen minutes,
we'd try and draw out some of it, you know whatever, you
know some of it, Uh, it's interesting to us, but there's so
much more that those guys know. Jim living Good too, you know,
athletic director, you know at four schools U including you know, fifteen years
at Arizona. I mean, how much did those guys see right right,
you know, during during all that time. So anyways, those guys,
but the guys want a call. We have seven minutes now five two o
four one six seventy four forty do give us a quick call. I don't
do you want to talk about that that weird story. Well, I know
it doesn't pretend to anything. Yeah, yeah, yes, and no,
I mean without knowing all the details, Like I'm sure there's there's you there's
an Orange Country Register reporter who's been suspended from UH from UH access to football
team still cover for two weeks. He can still cover the team, just
not get I guess you can't. You can't go to press conferences stuff.
I don't know if he's credential has been pulled for the games or or what
so. Through the years, Jay, through the years, here, through
the years here, and you've you've been a part of it, Like when
Luke, if you ever say something bad, they're gonna take your credential away.
And I'm thinking they're not gonna do that. They can't do that.
But see they can bok Okay they can. Okay, they can. This
is why because they make their own news. Okay, no, and that's
fine, And that's fine. They still can pull the credential. You can
still write from the couch, which many people to the game and criticize whichever
way right, whichever way right, and you're not going to prevent that from
happening. You're done, whether they create their own news or not. And
how bad does it look? How bad does it look on the institution?
Right, And that's what people are saying, says us, You guys,
you're usus. What the hell are you worried about? Exactly? Because because
what two guys were quoted about the situation was two players, they're getting ready
to do a media session, right, two players are talking, they're talking
this reporter, here's what they're talking about. And he reports that, which
you generally don't do. No, fine, it's kind of off the sure,
it's sort of okay, So be pissed at him and go to him
and say, hey, don't do that this year. But you're going to
cut their access off this unless depends what he said. What they said.
Yeah, but the problem is the issue with that is that Steve, is
that you know, the schools do their own news anyway. They put out
their own news. They're so sneezing they don't need the newspapers anymore. Sure,
no, no, I get that one. The stuff that they put
out isn't going to be as good as the news is. One. You
remember Jim Moore. Remember we talked to Jim Moore from Seattle on the Funny
Guys when and he we talked about the story about him being in the hallway
before Arizona played Wisconsin in Utah, and he was one to ask Lukee,
did you guys overlook Wisconsin? And because he was in the hallway, right,
guys, and he got the impression that there and they were and they
were looking ahead to round two or three over Wisconsin because they were they were
talking crap. And Luke got pissed, YadA, yadda. But you hear
more stuff in the hallways so so often, right right? Is it usable?
I don't know, Jay, I don't know. Jay. Depends what
was written. Well, again, and look based on its face value.
Okay, If if two guys are having a side conversation, you happen to
be standing, they don't know you're standing there listening to it and then you
report. That's okay. I agree with that, but I don't agree with
saying, well, we're gonna cut you off for two weeks. We're gonna
punish you for that. That's stupid. And he can still do his job
just not covering the team. But that part of it is stupid. Well,
because again, you're usc You're way bigger than all of it. Of
course, you know, right, you know, just going again and say
that, you know what, we don't appreciate that. That was a stupid
thing, dude. Don't don't do that. Don't do it anymore, right,
right, right to say, well, oh we're gonna take away your
privileges fight me, Yeah, you know exactly. Yeah, Yeah, I
was gonna do something. But might he's a good thing. Well, look
at look the Baltimore Orioles radio guy. He criticized in house about something that
is in paper. Right, you know, we beat we're beating these guys
more than than we had before. Oh you're fired, you're you're suspended for
two weeks. Yeah. Well he was just stating the facts. And the
woman who did the bills, yeah, I guess our open. Well,
that's a little different because she was an employee. Well, she's the team.
We'll seem like the ball made and made a comment about one of the
guys on the team. That's that one's a little bit. Everybody's so sensitive
they are, well, they want to controls. They wanted to get it.
There's so many of these, whether it's an athletic department, a pro
a pro franchise, they want to quote unquote control the narrative, control the
narrative. I hear you. I think it looks more. I think it
looks more petty than it does exactly. That's the That's the word stupid too,
but petty petty's a more appropriate word. So anyways, Okay, big
game Boomer out with his with his updated ball projections today playing he's got Arizona
in the first Responder Bowl, where I have no idea, but he's got
him against b Yo in the first response. Okay, where's that up out
first responsible somebody's already got the I hope it's somebody good somewhere. Good.
Yeah. No, I probably wouldn't go because there's too many best ball greg
best ball games. Uh it's in Dallas. Oh never mind, what day,
it's uh December something. Uh yeah, it's played in the Cotton Bowl.
This year's game is on December the twenty six Oh okay, so did
they have to Christmas know that that day? Okay, So I'm just saying,
you know, the twenty sixteen. No, no, we're gonna be
out. Yeah, we're gonna be out that week. But they got the
air zone in the First Responders Bowl in Dallas against b YU. He's got
his his new year six games are Cotton Ball, LSU, Oregon State,
who Festibal, Fresno State, Washington. So he doesn't have a pack twolve
team in the playoff, Peach Bowl, Texas, Notre Dame, Orange Bowl,
Duke old Man in the playoff, and the Rose Bowl. He's got
Michigan, Florida State, and in the Sugar Bowl Georgia and Penn State.
Penn State, all right, and then he's got Michigan Georgia in the championship
game. I'll I'll give you right now. Florida State will not be playing
in the He's got Alabama in the Relia Quest Bowls against Ohio State. It's
happt to be a damn good game. I know what they have. The
relia Quest Bowl is Oregon in the Holiday Bowl against Louisville. He's got Utah
and the Alamo Bowl against Oklahoma. Who else does he have from the PAC
twelve in there? UCLA in the Independence Bowl against Kansas. Yeah, okay,
there's one thing we could talk about tomorrow. The College Basketball Report,
the top fifty best college athletics. Arizona is I think two, and they
were a head of Arizona State. That's all that matters. Come on,
you're talking about the shambles of a place right now. God, what happened
to him on Saturday? So bad? Oh? One more, he's got
USC in the Sun Bowl against North Carolina. Who who USC? Yeah?
Oh no, no, one're taking credentials away. They saw that story,
got pissed. We need better than the Sun Bowl. Don't you know who
we are? They? According to this, then he's got USC finishing in
fourth place. Oh, we gotta get him on the phone and say what
the hell you? We gotta go. We got five seconds. Oh we
do have to go. Okay, we're out here. We'll be back tomorrow.
We'll be talking to some high school football, so be sure to be here.