Steve Raverera and Jacin Salles. They have their eye on the ball on Tucson
Sports Stage yet Fox Sports fourteen fifty. Hey, welcome back to win the
ball here on Fox Sports fourteen fifty. I'm Steve Roberta, he's Jacin's aws.
Now we got our guy Ryan with breaking news and Lisa his eye on
the ball breaking news on Fox Sports fourteen fifty. I just wanted to start
off with the media day for tomorrow. I just wanted for anybody who's interested
in watching. It starts at one to twenty Pacific Standard time. It'll be
available on ESPN plus one one. Well, he's so he's going to be
doing an interview that Arizona. That's Arizona. But that the whole thing starts
at Uh, there's some things at ten o'clock in the morning there there the
CFP executive director will be there. Uh, stuff like that. But the
coaches Press conference has started eleven with Dione Sanders. I want to looking for
and they are you go to Yes, what you need to do is you
need to get a subscription to ESPN Plus. That's the first thing you need
to do if you're gonna watch, you know, for everybody who's saying,
where am I gonna watch baseball and softball and gymnastics and those things that I
used to watch on Pack twelve networks too? You hated it, but now
you miss it right because it was easy to go on your on your cable
and and and call these unless you have drag GV. The ESPN Plus is
the place you got to get a subscription. I think it's ten bucks a
month. You go on there and and you subscribe to the Big twelve Conference
because there's a you know, you can go to all the and you click
on the Big twelve Conference logo and all the stuff comes up. So you
even go there today you can see all the coaches press conferences. For some
reason, they didn't put Brett Yormark's press conference up there because I wanted to
see the whole thing because I'm seeing all these posts about things that he said.
But and then you can also watch it live. The press conferences are
only on ESPN Plus. On ESPNU is where they have the studio show and
they bring in the coaches, did an interview them. That's what I saw
today, And and they'll and they'll start at uh, they'll start at also
at eleven o'clock. I think coach Coach Brendan and uh Noah Afeta, they're
going to be on those right shows tomorrow right before the exactly exactly just want
to bitch of that. So I'm gonna h switch over to MLB. So
next week is All Star Week, but it's also the MLB Draft And according
to ESPN, the final twenty twenty four MLB Draft rankings came out the top
two hundred and fifty prospects. Jackson Kent is on that list. He's number
on the U A guy, right, yep, what's what's his position?
Is a piccher? Yeah? He was the Friday night pitcher right, so
yeah, yeah, the Friday night pitcher. Okay for that last the other
last series. Yeah. See the only guy is he the only Tucson or
Arizona guy, the only Arizona guy you know who? See Nick Sozalez the
still up there? Yeah, playing with you. He's now in my fantasy
team. Oh, I'm gonna call my st Hey. I turned it on
yesterday because the Mets and the Pirates had a like nine game. It started
at nine thirty in the morning our time, So I got to my desk
you know, to start doing my work. And I turned it on and
he's up and he doubles off the wall, we're down the line, knocks
in a run and he's activated by you. Yes, he's my active he's
my active shortstop. Well you're the blind squirrel that gets that guy. Yeah,
I got him. I got him. Well, we'll see what happens.
It'd be nice to see you see a Tucson guy get drafted and uh,
well I asked another Tucson guy drafted email b Okay Jay Price all this,
but uh Dodger's picture tell last now is on the fifteen day. Iow,
really, I didn't see that with what back stiffness or back tightness that's
all they need right now. They're they're pitching staff. It's so beat up.
You know, they have they have two bullpen bullpen days in their rotation
now, not just one. You know, the other day guy started,
I'd never heard of who's that? I remember his name? I existly,
I don't. I don't even remember his name, you know. But these
guys that come in, you know, they pitch two Indians two innings and
go through a game and they you know, I don't know who these guys
are. I mean, they've got just a couple of pictures left. Actually,
the two pitchers left that they've got that are decent are both on my
fantasy team. But they're both pretty good and they're doing really well. James
Paxton and oh god, I can't even think of the other guy's name.
Huh, the older hasn't been pitching. No, he's been. He's been
on the side. Kind of can't even think of the other guy's name.
But oh croud see, I'm I'm an idiot for not being able to remember
that. But anyways, so no, they they they're they're pitching staff a
mess right now. I mean, there's still in first place, in the
first place by a lot, but you know, it's a it's a struggle.
No, they got they gave up twelve runs the other day to the
freaking Giants or somebody like that, or the Diamondbacks, the Diamondbacks, like
crap. I mean, we could beat the dime. We could get nine
guys together in here and beat the Diamondbacks. He could even take Chris Cursus,
What did I do? What did I do? What did I say?
Gavin Stone is the picture I was trying to think of Gavin Stone.
Those two guys are you know, they're they're they're doing great, but they've
only got two guys. I'm hoping hoping they beat the Phillies this week because
we're playing the d Backs. I'm hoping that. Yeah. I don't feel
good about them going to play the Phillies. That's the way time I'm going
to reform. Okay, I'll take it a little bit of NFL news.
Just somebody came across Brett Favre looks to revive defamation suit versus Shannon Sharp.
I guess there was a case, all right, said Shannon Sharp said something
back in twenty two September on his show of Skipp and Skipp and Shannon Undisputed.
What did you say? He was talking? He was talking about five
Let's see the quote is taking from the Undeserved. I guess, oh from
that? From that, Oh yeah, we're Mississippi. Yeah, I remember
that. Did he get cleared for that? I guess he must have if
he's gonna sue because I thought he was still in the judge and Mississippi throughout
the lawsuit. In October and same Sharp constitutionally picked the speech on sports podcast
when he criticized FIV sure looking to bring it back up. Yeah, okay,
so see if you had something Yeah, yeah, yeah, So I
just came across this. I guess this is about a month old. Uh.
Some guy his name is a shore Callahan from West Virginia, apparently a
West Virginia sports writer or whatever you want to call him. He put the
twelve or the sixteen best Big twelve coaches from worst to first. Where do
you think where do you think Brennan was? Where do you think he landed?
Probably eight or nine, fifteen, fifteen, second worst, Dylan has
the first and here's Brett is Rents the second one. Let me see,
let me show you what he said. And it makes sense to how people
really don't know the stuff that happens out west, right. I was really
surprised Brennan ended up being the guy for Arizona. He didn't have all that
much success at Santisi State, posting just three winning seasons in seven years.
We'll see. So another reason why maybe there's a biased for the voters.
You have no idea, that has no idea how state correct? Right?
Right? Right? Well, kind of like a local guy that we ran
into not recently recently said I don't know if he's a guy he didn't have
success a TV guy, and he says, well, uh, Fish did
not have any that was that was? That was Jason Barr. Yeah,
yeah, I'm calling him out. I'm calling Jason. But even before Fish
took the job, you wouldn't say that about Fish because well he hadn't even
been a head coach exactly. So you know, apples to apples, right,
So Dion fourteen uh Cincinnati coach Scott Scatderfield for thirteen them she wears uh
Baylor coach twelve rounda Runda uh Texas Tech. You know you're gonna have the
same same guys Houston coach with Fritz Uh. So, I think I would
assume that the Oplahum Mistake coach is going to be the day. To me,
you have Kyle Whitningham Sonny Dykes, so he's like six, Kyle Weddingham,
Sunny Dykes, Bullet, Gus Gus Gus and how good of a coach
is Gus Malson, I mean he's five To me, you have those three
guys, and then everybody else is in a pile. Right the Karansas guy
three, Gundy two and Winningham. Yeah, number one, he's going by
records and stuff. I mean, that's easy to do. Well, we'll
see. Brennan's a pretty good coach. Yeah. In fact, it's harder
to win at a place you can't win to win it, right, Yeah,
you know, you go to those places. Get he got to a
couple of bullet You go to those places. It's like you mixed you.
You take that job in five years, guess what, you're no longer to
coach. You're no longer the coach. Right if you get Bavy how that
went, you're right? And who knows how good of a coach is.
But yeah, you go to Mexico State, you go to Colorado State and
you and you do well, you're gonna get the hell out of there as
soon as you're as soon as you can because you're not gonna last long and
you don't. Right, That's that's funny. There's no way there's fourteen coaches
better than Brent Brinton. Is Brent Brannan in the middle of the pack right
now? Probably? But are the fourteen coaches better than him in the big
twelve? Shut up? Right? Yeah? Okay, I just want that
to be interesting. But that's coach to show you that people way over there
don't know what goes on way over here. Right, It's gonna take a
lot of getting used to, you know. And again, Steve, you
and I don't know anything about most of those things, right exactly. I
mean, I think we think we know a little bit about about the the
three the other three teams that from the pack pob that went over there,
and beyond that, maybe TCU because there was so much in the news.
Maybe Oklahoma State because because uh, Mike Gundhy is, you know, is
such a visible figure. You know, the Iowa State coach, you know,
shows up at the press conference and I had heard his name, and
I knew Iowa State had a good season a couple of years ago. But
who you know, who's that guy? Lance Leipold was the coach that everybody
wanted to get last year after with Kansas. But he had a good year.
So how good is that guy? So there's a lot we don't know.
There's more, there's more that we don't know than we do, right,
and stuff that we do know. Okay, was that all you had
there, Senior? I'll just read reading stuff about the just about n I
l so there's a new there's a new college like football video game coming out
next week. And you know, they had a lot of the likeness of
the players from college in the game. And of course they're paying the players,
right, they get six hundred bucks. We get six hundred bucks for
it. And today, Uh, previously Arch Banning wasn't going to be in
the game. He didn't want to, he didn't want to be a part
of it. But now he's in it. He was in a commercial and
like I said, it sparked some outrage of fans. Well, again,
he's a visible, you know person in college football, regardless of whether he's
played it down or not. You know, he's very visible. You know,
he was the number one recruit coming out of high school and all that.
This is his third year, right, he may not even play.
Who knows? They got that quarter? Ye have Queen yours? Yeah,
that's right, they still got Queen ears, so you know, who knows
when he'll play? Now I add, you know, six hundred bucks seems
like so little for that, but you know, I guess if you're going
to pay him more than you can't do the game or whatever, right,
Well, getting paid lots for somewhere else too, you know, and if
your n'ch man, he just you know, get out and get I know,
you don't need the money, just get out there and get your visibility.
And you know, people buy your stuff when you go pro and all
that kind of stuff. That's what that's what that's about. That's what that's
about marketing yourself, not so much about the six hundred bucks that you're getting.
Do you think that you're done right? I assume well Brownnie's Brownny situation
because he's getting a lot of flak. Now, I mean before, before
he got drafted, he cut flack. When he got drafted, he gout
flack. But now it's more like daddy messed up. They're gonna find out
he can't play. Yeah, that's the whole thing. I mean left,
but he'd be good in ten years maybe. Is he an NBA quality guy?
Is he will be an NBA quality guy between now in the next three
or four years? Probably not? You know, you know what you know
what you're yeah, I mean, look, he got an opportunity because of
his dad, and let's just say what it is, what it is.
And if you know, if you're lebron and you try to say, no,
he's good enough to be here. Shut up. Well, he wasn't
good enough to start at USC If he was Bronnie Gonzalez or Bronnie Rivera,
he wouldn't be there, right, No, he could. He could even
be Bronnie you know, Ronny. No, no, Bronnie Bibi. He
was uh. They were talking about, you know, the Michael Jordan's he
had sons that could play. He never even got a sniff of trying to
do this for his kids, trying to act him because Michael Jordan was the
kind of person who said, if you're not good enough, then you shouldn't
be here. That was his personality. And I mean he said that to
his teammates. He said that to teammates, right, you know you're not
good enough, so get the hell out of here. So he wasn't going
to do that for his kids. And Lebron on the other hand, and
said, I'm going to take care of my kid, which is fine,
It's is fine, but you know, you put him in a bad spot
because you're exposing him for what he is, and also puts the Lakers in
a bad spot because you're trying to get out of this pole, right and
probably won't be able to right. I mean, are they gonna cut him
nope? Are they gonna send Hm to g Leaku No? No, no,
So then what are you doing? Yeah? Yeah, you know you're
telling all the other guys. It doesn't matter how good you are. If
you know somebody, we'll take you. And that's that's not a good message
you sent to your to your franchise. Okay, that's hit the road.
We're gonna come back. We'll have Michelle Gardner. She is at packed.
I wish you'd keep it, give it over under on how many times we're
gonna do that. She is a Big twelve media day. She covers a
su for THEIRS on the Republic. So we'll talk to her about a yes
you and then b again about the vibe up at the Big twelve media Day.
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to azypast dot com to schedule your free evaluation Today. Steve Rivera and Jagen
Saliz they have their eye on the ball on Tucson's sports stage yet Fox Sports
fourteen fifty streaming live on the iHeartRadio app. Hey, welcome back to I
the Ball Hero Fox Sports fourteen fifty. I'm Steve Rivera, He's Jaginsaus.
Now in IFO, we have Michelle Gardner from the Arizona Republic. How are
you, Michelle? I'm doing great. How are you guys? We're doing
well. You must be busy, busy, busy in Vegas. Yeah,
it was a pretty It was a busy today for me. It won't be
as busy tomorrow, but yes, it was a pretty active day. Okay,
what was your soldier? Sources or do topics today? Covering issue or
the whole thing? Mostly ASU, but I want to I think that the
most interesting thing that came out of today was when Oklahoma State was up and
obviously they've got one of the potential players of the year in Olie Gordon,
and everybody was surprised that he actually came to Pack Pack twelve. See here,
I am They twelve media day and he was arrested I guess two weeks
ago under a suspicion of Dui, and he still they still made him available
and he came to the media day today and Mike Gundy was asked point blank
about that. Then he said, yes, we talked about it. We
talked about it with him. Uh. He took responsibility when the incident happened,
you know, and they decided that it was going to be good for
him to come today answer questions about the incident and then after today it's over,
they're moving on. So that was kind of maybe the one of the
more interesting things that happened today. Well similar to when they took they took
Jade Dolaura right here too, So I don't know, you know, you
can do that either way, right either way, but you know, it's
kind of good, you know, Okay, go deal with it and try
and get past it. So I could see that. The other thing that
I thought was interesting is brett Ormark's comments about wanting to be in Vegas as
much as, you know, as much as they can, or more often
than you know than just a media they or whatever your thoughts on that.
Well, you know, when it was first announced that this was going to
be held in Vegas, I don't know if you all had the same impression,
but it seemed to me like the Big Twelve people were like rebelling,
how dare we have this in Las Vegas and it's not a city in the
Big Twelve, and how do they you know, I don't know what's wrong
with it. I mean, yes, it's hot here, but I think
it's a phenomenal place to have it. And the commissioner addressed that, he
said, you know, probably a lot of these people from some of these
schools have never been to Last eight and it's definitely a place that they want
to have a footprint. And what better place to come. You're hanging around
some other sports writers, you know, out from the other places. What
do they get? What kind of vibe you get from them because you're used
to the West Coast people. Yeah, I hate to say I gravitated more
towards the people I already knew than the people I didn't know, but everybody
seemed to be having fun. Like people were milling around on the field,
and the mascots were running around on the field and taking pictures, and I
think people were really enjoying it. I mean, it seemed to be a
pretty festive atmosphere. There were cheerleaders from both different teams taking pictures together.
You had players talking to other players, Like I thought it was kind of
fun to see the interaction between the athletes and personnel from the schools. You
know, we only got half the coaches today, but you know, to
me, it's kind of like, I hate to say it this way,
but I'm going to it seemed like every coach had got up was like the
previous coach, with the exception of Kyle Whittingham. Maybe even Sunny Dyke six
out a little, but it's kind of like they're all kind of the same
guy. That's just kind of what it seemed like to me. And I'm
saying that is because I think all the teams are very similar, right,
You don't want nobody really sticks out. Well, you know, it's coach
speak. They all get up there and they're all in front of everybody and
they say kind of the they do, they kind of all say the same
thing. I find the best time to get the coaches and athletes from my
particular school that I'm covering would be when they're off to the side, before
they're up on that stage, and that you get the canned answer that everybody,
the rehearsed answer that everybody gets. I get my best stuff when I'm
off to the side, or they have the breakout sessions when you can kind
of corral them one on one. I find that that's more favorable than the
whole. Like you said, the stage right, get up there and talk
and answer questions from national media that probably don't know anything about your team.
So, Michelle, I'm assuming that you we were talking to all these sports
writers. Did you vote for the media thing last week or two weeks ago,
whatever it was. I actually did not vote that. I feel like
I knew enough about the other team to put forwards. I mean, obviously
I know the former Pac twelve two pretty well. I watched quite a bit
of football, but I just didn't I don't fell I didn't feel like I
knew enough about like returning players, the transfer portal guys that I could just
be the you know, the person to make a vote. There point,
because I would not have put asu laugh though I can tell you that I
would not have put them last. Well that's loose to my point though that
I think that a lot of people out here didn't get a chance to vote,
or didn't weren't asked to vote, and a lot of the voters don't
know enough about the issues the Arizona's the other schools, because they, like
you, don't know enough. Absolutely, how many games do you think people
in Manhattan, Kansas? I mean, we all know the PAC twelve network
and it's extending reach, you know, but how many how many of those
people in Morgantown, West Virginia were up watching a game from the West coast
right? And I think and that's why, I, you know, I
think these these polls mean nothing. But in a case like this, where
you've got such a new conference, I think they mean less than nothing,
like I you know, I you know. And Kenny Dillingham was asked about
it, and he pretty much said exactly what I asked. You would think
that he would say, he said, well, who else are they going
to put last? We were three and nine the last two years? Who
else are they going to put last. Yeah, and the players said what
you would expect them to say, Well, we'll just go out and show
them. It's just motivation. Well, we know what we've got. We're
working hard. So in that respect, you got you kind of got what
you thought you'd get. So give us a little bit of Kenny Dillingham.
Did you learn anything new from him today or approach? You know, what
did you get from him today? I guess is what I asked, what
are you writing for tomorrow or today? Well, he's always entertaining. He
is. He is an entertaining dude. I can say that. And I
think it's just fascinating too, just because him being such a young coach.
I think he really relates well to the younger guys and he's just a pretty
articulate guy. And he even said, you know, we're looking forward to
going and playing in schools and cities that that's that's what they eat, sleep
and Breathe is college football, it's a college atmosphere. It's a different environment.
And he says, we hope our fans go to those games, experience
that environment, experience and then bring it back and try and recreate the same
thing. So yeah, he's always And I asked him at the end of
the day, I said, are you getting talked out? And he said,
oh, I could. I could go on for another hour or two,
and he said, don't give him any ideas. So let me ask
you a weird question. So you've covered the team for a long a while
now and this coach specifically for at least a year, right, Is he
the guy? Is he the guy that's going to move the needle and move
them forward? I think so. I think when you have you have a
guy that's going to invest. He's invested in this school because it's just it's
where he went, It's team he grew up rooting for. I think you
do a lot better in a scenario like that where somebody's got an invested you
know, he's invested in how that team in that school does, as opposed
to I hate to say, getting a cartpet bagger like HERM Edwards a few
years ago that has no clue about the landscape of the local area, what's
involved in recruiting athletes here. I think that you definitely get something that you
don't get when you hire somebody that's completely foreign to the environment, foreign to
the school. Foreign to the landscape of that particular community, and he's got
an energy and a passion that is unrivaled. I don't know of anybody that's
got the drive, the passion, the energy that Kenny Dillingham has. And
like I said, I think one of the biggest draws for him is that
he can relate to these players on their level because he's not that far removed
from being a college student. So along those lines, because we just talked
about it, Jay's the residentian in this room here, going back to you
know, before Dictomy and all that, and then they got Macovic and the
guy set him back a while, and then they got summoned, set him
back for a while. Herm set him back for how long though, Well,
when you look at he had the recruiting, the whole the recruiting alleged,
well not they're not alleged. They happened, okay, the violations,
and Kenny's living with that, Okay. He's had a reduction in scholarship,
he's had to cut kurtail. I think they had to cut four weeks out
of their recruiting time this year between April and August. That's a significant amount
of time. So Kenny Dillingham is living with it right now. So if
you're talking setting them back, you know you're talking at least three years,
four years in counting, you know, from going back to when this whole
recruiting the recruiting issues started, which would have been in COVID in twenty twenty.
So we're at least looking four years. And you know, until you're
past the sanctions, you're still behind the eight ball, if you know what
I mean, right right, no, I hear you. And then and
that's the thing I mean, you know, because I know, you know,
fans get caught up. Oh we got to get an Arizona guy,
We got to get an a su guy. In richest case. You're not
a Michigan man, you know, but there's something to that, uh to
a degree, because you know, you know, you never felt like like
uh uh HERM Edwards or as as you said, HERM Edwards, I say,
you know, Kevin, someone you never felt like they were here for
anything other than the check and and that was you know, as a fan,
you go, you want somebody to care about this program at least as
much as you do. And if you're the head coach, you should care
more and these guys didn't do that. Absolutely, I agree with you.
And again, I think the COVID thing was a big deal because when you
look at what Herm did the first couple of years, they were doing all
right. They were they were on a pretty good trajectory. They had improved
gradually in his first couple of years, and then the whole COVID thing hit
and then we all know what happened there. But I think that one of
his biggest flaws. There were two big flaws I think with Herm that kind
of started the ball rolling downhill, so to speakless. One he trusted Antonio
Pierce too much. He gave the guy way too much leeway, more way
too much power, and Antonio kind of ran ran the train off the tracks.
That was one. And then the second thing, a mistake that I
think he made was giving Jayden Daniel's mother free reign of tempe Like you got
to cut that. When you've got a mother interfering like she did, you
better cut that off the minute it happens. You think that happened at LSU,
I'm not thinking that Regina Jackson walked into a quarterback's meeting on the campus
of LSU Wow, those were the two things I think that Marehem's biggest flaw.
And then, like I said, I like what Kenny's done. I
think if they can go five hundred this year, and when you look at
last year, they could have very easily been five hundred last year because they
had three games that they should have won. So if they were six and
six last year, maybe it's a little bit of a different narrative. So
we're going to have the asuad here in a few days. We schedule him
sometimes, So you just had a big I think an interview with him not
long ago, recently. In fact, what are we expecting from him?
You know what? I like him. I mean, he's an easy guy
to root for. I understand why ASU people kind of went nuts about the
higher When you have the problems that they've had in their athletic department, the
last thing you probably want is to hire somebody that's already in that department.
You'd probably rather go out and get somebody with some experience that's in another program
that's not dysfunctional. But I kind of like the more I talk to him,
the more I like what I hear from him, And I think in
the same the same thing we can say about Billingham, you can say about
Grammercini is he's invested in this. You know, it's a school that he
went to. I like what I've seen out of him, and he was
out there today talking to people, and I think that people just need to
give the guy a chance. And I know your people went nuts over there
and they just love the hire because they thought it was great because it just
would make ASU worse because I know how y'all think out there. But I
think people have to give the guy a chance, okay before you you know.
And I think the other thing that made as U people go nuts was
the fact that Croke came out and said that he didn't interview anybody else for
the job. So I think those were the two things that made ASU fans
go nuts and basically lose their lunches. A. It's a guy from within,
and B you didn't even talk to anybody else. But now that I've
had a chance to sit down talk to him, watch him, I liked
the higher. I think he'll be all right, but people need to give
him a chance. Well, not all Arizona fans are Corilla Daville, and
they're not waiting for the device. But I hear you. I hear you.
You've been down here a time or two. They just they just treat
Bobby Hurley that way. That's all okay. So again Steve asked about,
you know, sort of the vibe in terms of the coaches. You know,
like you said, everybody got up and said the same thing. We're
happy with the Big Twelve and what we've done. We think restaurant conference,
YadA, YadA, YadA. But you know, I feel like every one
of them thinks that they can win this league because it's really so even Well
maybe well Kenny Dillingham is going to say that, but does he really think
they can win the league? I don't know. But that's kind of a
sense that you get, is like everybody feels like there's a whole new life
because Texas and Oklahoma are gone, and for the Pac twelve schools, USC
and Washington in Oregon, they're all gone. I mean, do you sense
that among the coaches? Yeah? I do. I mean, but I
mean I think it's I think it's like anything where you take your top five.
Okay, so it's a sixteen team conference, take your top five.
Then you've got maybe a middle five to six, and then you've got a
few on the bottom. I think that, I think. And the other
thing that when you look at ASU, they've got a very tough schedule,
and you know, if you look at it, numbers wise teams that made
Bowls, teams in their records last year as you've got the toughest schedule in
the Big Twelve, So that probably doesn't help them in that regard, you
know. So yes, I think that I think that I think there are
going to be a lot of close games though, and I think you've got
a lot of teams playing each other that haven't played each other in a while,
so there's going to be a little bit of a feeling out process.
ASU has played Oklahoma State the last couple of years, so that's been kind
of interesting the fact that they now get to play Oklahoma State and that's a
team that they're not completely unfamiliar with. But the other thing I think with
ASU, and it's one reason that you know, it's per be easy to
peg them last, not just because of their recent history, but there's an
uncertainty around the quarterback position, and if there's any position that you don't want
to have uncertainty it's it's a quarterback position. So I understand why people put
them last. I wouldn't have done that, but I understand it. Are
you there for another day? Are you there staying for tomorrow? Oh?
Yeah, I'll be there tomorrow. I'm gonna I'm gonna work on some other
stuff and so yes, I will be here tomorrow too. Okay, Well,
good luck over there and have a little fun and it's busy. Thank
you Michelle anytime. Yeah. Michelle Gardner from there was on the Republic a
lot of fun. She was very honest in the assessment of Arizona fans.
She knows I felt the same way that she thought that. I mean,
they could have hired this guy months ago. Yeah, that was the thing.
And you know, I can see when an ASU fan would be upset
with that. Wait, wait, what took so long? If this was
the guy who were going to hire all the long? Right, but that'll
happened? Or is he a fallback? We'll talk about that because I have
a question for you on the other side. Okay, sounds good, We're
right back. 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 Ludolsen era
in my new book, Lessons from Loot. It was a labor of love
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Meean, iHeartRadio Act. This is Eye on the Ball with Steve Rivera and
Jay Gonzalez on Fox Sports fourteen fifteen. Hey, welcome back to my I
on the Ball here Fox Sports forteen fifty. I'm Steve Rivera, he's Jaginsaus.
Got a guy Ryan with us for the next fifteen minutes. If you
want to call five two oh four, one six, seventy four forty.
So my question to you, Jay, and I kind of already know the
answer. I'm going to try to catch it, not in a in a
tilted way. So we've we've often heard, Uh I already kind of said
this that issues President Crow kind of doesn't give a crap about sports. Yes,
do you think that's true? And it's that part of the problem of
where they're at right now. I wouldn't. I'm not gonna say he doesn't
give a crap about it, but I will say that I don't know he
that he puts as much emphasis on it is a lot of the other schools.
You know, He's got one of the biggest universities in the country,
in the world, right, you know, and that's what that's what's on
his mind, not do we have a big football team. So I'm not
gonna say that he doesn't give a crap. I think he gives a crap,
but I don't think it's as high on his priority list as it say,
Arizona USC Utah, for sure. Do you think because it's not at
that level, these are the results? Uh? Yeah, Because you know
he went and got Ray Anderson and and and and and her Edward, which
didn't make much sense, which made no sense. He thought, yeah,
this can work. You know, it didn't put as much thought into it,
and then you know clearly didn't put Look, we're gonna talk to the
CU A D. We keep saying that, I hope it really does happen,
but you know, it's kind of like, okay, let's let's go
ahead and do this. You know, it certainly looks like he doesn't,
right, because you're asking the question, does he give a crap or not?
And you're asking the question to you, it apparently looks like he doesn't
really care. I think that it's much. It's it's one kind of proves
the other. Uh, and let me go this other way though, And
we think, I think we think, I don't know to say the world
of doctor Robbins. Here he's been on the show. We love having them
on the show. How long he lasts as the president, we don't know.
But he was kind of like the polar opposite of krow Right, it's
sports matter to him, sports matter to him, and it and here we
are where we're at. Well, let muse a cliche. I think in
Micro's Michael Crow's world, he feels like he's got bigger fish to fry,
and it's more academically right, and it's it's growing the university, making it
wherever, you know, to whatever place he thinks the university himself belongs in
the hierarchy of universities. And and it's football just and athletics just need to
come along with that as a part of it, as opposed to in some
cases where other schools where it drives it. In Alabama, it drives you
from you know, you know the University of Alabama because of its football.
You know, like Michigan is an incredible school, but more people know Michigan.
I think a lot of people know Michigan as much about football as about
act. I didn't know Michigan was a great academic school until my kids started
applying to colleges and their friends and you were hearing that Michigan is really hard
to get into. Same thing with UCLA, right, UCLA is a tough
school to get into. And so you know where today I know it used
to be a big deal right to them, how big a deal is UCLA
football to the administration of u c l A that they said, okay,
we'll go with usc because you know, we just don't want to stay here,
right, You don't feel like UCLA was like okay, let's all you
know, let's go, you know. So I think I think it shows
in the results that you have, you know, with your programs, right
and in Arizona is is not at the elite level of sports, but it
is pretty good. Yeah, and it was. It's been like that for
a while, even under Weaver, even though she was kind of a train
run for this pling place. Uh and and and what about the boss now,
I mean the president Robinson. It was a big deal to him.
Yeah, you know, it is a big deal to him. And I've
you know, I've told a story a bunch of times where you know,
I went to interview him for a story for BI Tucson. When he got
here, I had profile him and I had X amount of time to do
the interview, and I got through it and talked all about business. Yeah
yeah, And then he goes, are we going to talk about sports?
He wanted to talk about right, So it is a big deal to him,
and I think it showed. And look at what the program has been
with, you know, with the exception of the mistake they made on on
Kevin someone. But you know, we just last year we were talking about
how all the programs are kind of you know, the cloud lifted, right,
Yeah, I guess you could always there's always one way to skin a
cat part of the punch. Well, look, Arizona, you know,
from a football standpoint, is not at the top of the heap. Yet
they had one great season you know this last year that really great and I
guess you could call it great for ariz own purposes. You know, Oregon
does that all the time. But you know, you feel like that's that's
a result of putting some thought into Like again, you know who thought Jed
Fish was a good higher at the time. Nobody he did. Well,
Yeah, because he's the one that did the higher right, he did and
it turned out well for him. Now could have crashed and burned, but
it didn't. So you have to give him credit for for for the vision
of going and getting a guy like Jedfish thinking he's the right guy at this
time because he's the guy who will come here and build this thing with the
connections that he has, the NFL profile that he had and all those things.
And you know, to put that kind of thought into that higher it
looks like you put a whole on thought than than Michael Crowe put into hiring
Ray Anderson and and herm Edwards up at h up at a s U.
Yeah, so I don't know. There's a lot of ways of looking at
it, Steve, but I think that you know, you get you get
what you pay for when it comes to stuff like that, right. And
I know that people are excited about Kenny Dillingham because they feel like, here's
a guy with a passion for for a SU and you need to have that.
You can't coach football in this environment if you don't really care about it.
And Kevin someone proved that you and he didn't even have to deal with
nil and all that crap. He just came here and crapped all over the
place and and didn't care and he and he dragged the program into the ditch
right. Well. In fact, the last the coaches that we had talked
about, they all cared about it. Maybe Macavate not so much. Mike
Stoops cared about coaching, right, just coaching on the field. He cared
about You know, that guy was as intense as anybody. Well he was
in the rich Rod neighborhood. When it came to the intensity on the field,
he didn't want to do all the other stuff. So, you know,
did that make him a bad coach? It made him a bad head
coach. But you know, I thought what they were doing on the field,
the physicality of their teams, the quality of players you had, you
know, guys like uh, you know, Nick Foles and and uh,
you know, just all those guys that they had, the defensive players that
they had. You know, you felt like he really did. He did
care about all of that, but he didn't like all the other stuff that
that had to come with it, and that was his downfall, you know
at Arizona. Well, you know, the thanks for the administration now because
they're moving forward in a good way with all the coaches they have now.
Yeah, and look, you know, you feel like, you know,
the jury is still out on Desiree read Francois, you know, because she's
brand new. You know, she's doing a lot of stuff. Right,
we don't know what all this means yet. Part part of the problem.
Go ahead, I don't know. Well I'm just kidding. We don't know
what it all means yet, and well we'll eventually find out. We don't
know, right, part of the problem, and then she's gonna end up
facing this because she's making changes. Right. But if you have a bad
situation, what else can you do but make the changes? Right, you
have to because the changes they weren't working, then, right, you have
to do something different, right, and that's what she's doing. Yeah,
the question is are those are the different things good or not? The over
corrections again, right, you go and try to do well this. We
know this didn't work. Let's try it with this with some of my people.
Right, let's focus not an over correction of the magnitude of John McNett
correct or eighties. I mean, obviously we were spoiled when we had to
cover god, uh back in the day eighties. Come on, tell me
send Dey who was great? Who's great? And then Jim came in,
who was a good, fair guy. I did a good job, maybe
made a bad decision here or too. Yeah uh. And then uh,
Dave Hekey was Jim living good you know, Jim living good part too.
Yeah. Yeah, No, that's a good point and good point at the
level. Okay, give me give me Greg Burn. Yeah, well Greg
Byrne was the guy in the middle that you felt like, well, he
was a guy out the door too. Yes, that's what I was just
gonna say. He was a guy who was here building a career as opposed
to a guy who came here to run the best I mean, he was
trying to run the best program he could. He did a lot of good
things, but he was building a career. Sure it was rent it was
rented space. Yeah, pretty much. I agree with that. In fact,
I think you were in the in the in the room with me when
we did the story on the new facilities that they were building at the time,
the little Stevens area, and I said, you're doing a great job
here. Are you going to be the guy to see to the end?
And what's he going to say? Of course I am yeah, And and
was he? Of course we knew he was. We knew he wasn't,
so, you know, and and and and so they went back to kind
of the Jim living good, mam, nice guy, happy, Yeah,
you fit the mold, very home, you know, hometown kind of guy.
Uh, you know, great day to be a walk at kind of
guy. And and and and then and that was working, but then they
got into a into a an era an atmosphere and in college athletics, where
you know you had to you had to build a Lowell Stevens, you had
to build the the Colon Jeanie Davis Center, you had to build the Richard
Jefferson Jim And financially for Arizona, none of that was feasible, it turns
out, And I mean they were, they were. They were doing it
with smoke and mirrors, and they did it, and they got all those
facilities built in Arizona's in a good position to be able to get good players,
good coaches and stuff. But look what it's done to them financially.
Do you, I was gonna say, do you eventually think that they'll get
out of this? Uh? Well, like I said, they got no
choice. Well, it depends on how long. And we talked about take
a while with Robin's not gonna take eighteen to go with it. I'm sorry,
doctor Robins, with all due respect, eighteen months is too short.
And that was that was kind of maybe just wanting to shut us up.
But that everything's okay, Jay, don't worry about it. We got it.
We got this right. Well, we know that that's not the case.
Yeah, we got this. Well wait, okay, I I hope
you do, but I don't think you do so anyway. And then and
then you know again that gets us too. You know, I'm just I'm
reading Ross Dellen, was reading Ross Ellender's story on on on Me today,
you know, big to me today. He's there and just talking about Bret
or Mark and how he's just out there and you're just saying, you know,
we're not taking a back seat to anybody. We're gonna do things.
There's an aggressiveness about him that you hope is productive, right, You hope
that along the way they don't make decisions that screw things up. But so
far, so far, you know, it looks good what he's doing.
You know, there's a in this article, there's kind of an intimation that
you know, because we know that who wrote it, Ross Dallinger. Oh
okay, yeah, who sports about Okay? You know, uh, you
know he's kind of saying, he kind of said in a yeah you had
you have to read between the lines on this that Ray Ormark is he's going
to go after Florida State and Clemson who went on who And they're not they're
not wanted in the Big ten. So if they went out of the a
CEC. They're not. They don't the SEC doesn't want them, the Big
ten doesn't want them. So what's left? Right? And he said,
you basically said, you know, you could see brett Ormark going after you
know, and can you imagine if the Big twe that would be interested in
the state all of a sudden, this league is you know, getting in
the in the SEC Big ten neighborhood, right, and that would be even
more deep, uh more deep. In fact, Michelle's talking about this how
Arizona's probab be in the top Well, they are in the top five this
year in football, right right. I think they'll stay there for a while.
They were never going to be in the top five pack twelve or eight.
They would they could be in there this year and next year, you
know, you know, but not consistently because you're going to have four schools
uh football, really three schools football Wiites who are always going to be ahead
of the Oregon Washington US no matter what. U. C. L A
is kind of gone in the in the crapper, so you don't you don't
say them, but those three schools, so now you're really vine for two
spots to be in the top five. That's that's a it's a bit harder
an to be there, sure, but they're not going to be Oregon,
Washington or US. They never were going to be, right, And we
talked about that a lot because there are middling. They were middling for a
long time. It would take a special year and the data every now and
again. But now it's more consistent where they can get in the they can
lurk at the top more often. Yeah, yeah, no, and yeah,
they commit and then you know, you invite clumbson in Florida State if
by that time Arizona has kind of established itself, right, they're getting recruits,
they're getting you know, they're having good teams, and so you're you're
gonna welcome Clemson. All right, come along, let's go, let's see
what you got. You know, look, I'm not sitting here saying that
that's a rumor or anything like that. I'm just saying that in this Ross
Dellenser article, he just kind of said something along those lines. And again,
basketball the one that benefits his basketball, right exactly, So the soft
that's discounted, but softball, some of the other schools are other programs.
We're gonna yea from he's talking about. I'll read it. So no,
we're out of time. We got to get that out of here. Never
mind, go read the Ross Dollands article, Steve and anybody else out there.
It's a really good recap of what's happening in a big, big twelve
media. I'll read it when you read my Mulkey story. I almost got
to it last night, and then then I got busy doing that. I
would have got some orioles and some milk. I passed on it. All
right, Hey, thanks everybody for being here. We'll have some aura from
big tweve media days tomorrow. Uh and uh bread Brandon, we'll be we'll
be talking. So we'll be sure to play his uh his press conference in
full by the time we get here, So be sure to come back tomorrow.
We'll see you