Speaker 1: You're just going to BEBA.
Speaker 2: It is.
Speaker 3: Let's Bebia, but it's me too.
Speaker 4: Actually, no place I'd rather be. Welcome to The Big
Speaker 4: Blue and Sider. Dicadrill with you on a Monday edition
Speaker 4: of our program. Yep, that was otega Oway and Mark Pope.
Speaker 4: As we lead things here on the Monday edition of
Speaker 4: The Big Blue Insider. You start off with Kentucky basketball
Speaker 4: whenever you can, or Kentucky football. It is that time
Speaker 4: of year when talk show hosts and writers are looking
Speaker 4: for things to talk about. No shortage of topics tonight
Speaker 4: because not just of Kentucky football and basketball, a little
Speaker 4: recruiting news coming up as well, College World Series stuff
Speaker 4: the NBA. A former wildcatch shay Gilges Alexander had a
Speaker 4: huge game last night. We're coming off the Belmont Aaron
Speaker 4: Rodgers has signed. He's a Steeler if you care. But yeah,
Speaker 4: there's still stuff to talk about, no question about it.
Speaker 4: But we needed to start off first of all by
Speaker 4: talking about the House settlement. Finally, finally it came through.
Speaker 4: Now colleges have to set about deciding on and dealing
Speaker 4: with the impact on athletics. The California judge Claudia Wilkins
Speaker 4: Friday made the move that has changed the landscape of
Speaker 4: college athletics arguably forever. Well, it's always going to be changing,
Speaker 4: but now the schools have the freedom to pay athletes
Speaker 4: directly a total of two point eight billion in NIL
Speaker 4: back pay dating back to twenty sixteen. There are new
Speaker 4: roster rules, there's a new enforcement arm that will include
Speaker 4: a clearing house for future NIL agreements of six hundred
Speaker 4: dollars or more. Mitch Barnhart releasing a statement over the weekend.
Speaker 4: You may have seen that, but what this has done
Speaker 4: basically is provide some of the guide rules that college administrators,
Speaker 4: including Barnhart, have been craving. There are all kinds of
Speaker 4: and whispers when this first started that and again I'm
Speaker 4: not trying to carry the guy's water, but I've spoken
Speaker 4: to the man about this kind of thing. Barnhardt was
Speaker 4: accused of dragging his feet, trying to subvert NIL deals,
Speaker 4: trying to keep people from getting what was coming to
Speaker 4: them in the early days. And I've mentioned this before.
Speaker 4: I was on a panel discussion show they threw together
Speaker 4: over at k ET. I'm hundred enough that they asked
Speaker 4: me to come in, not just because I don't live
Speaker 4: too far away, but they've asked me to come. I've
Speaker 4: been around for a little while, and you know, I
Speaker 4: basically in one situation I deferred to Mitch about the
Speaker 4: fact that getting schools to pull together in the same
Speaker 4: direction is like hurting cats when it comes to the NCAA.
Speaker 4: And when it comes to this sort of thing, you've
Speaker 4: got a hundred plus schools playing D one football, You've
Speaker 4: got three hundred plus schools I believe it is playing
Speaker 4: D one basketball. Everybody has a different mission, So how
Speaker 4: do you get everybody going in the right direction? And
Speaker 4: what he didn't bring up, and I couldn't really get
Speaker 4: into it that much because at the time it wasn't
Speaker 4: as pronounced, but it sure became pronounced leadership from the
Speaker 4: top of the NCAA. Again, the nca is the members institutions.
Speaker 4: It's all the membership, but somebody at the top has
Speaker 4: to organize stuff. And they were getting some of the
Speaker 4: worst leadership at the top in the history of the
Speaker 4: NCAA at the time. Well, now, thanks to what went
Speaker 4: to court, they've all had to pull together and they
Speaker 4: all have to, as Mitch says, navigate these challenges responsibly. Meanwhile,
Speaker 4: maintaining high standards and support of varsity sports. Right so,
Speaker 4: the College Sports Commission will oversee the process. It will
Speaker 4: facilitate revenue sharing and ensure the name, image and likeness
Speaker 4: deals between student athletes and third parties are fair and
Speaker 4: comply with the rules. Nothing is going to be equal.
Speaker 4: We know this, but they're looking for it to be equitable.
Speaker 4: It's got to be fair the process for everybody. But
Speaker 4: here is what you know, and here is what I know. Yeah,
Speaker 4: there are going to be rules in place, and all
Speaker 4: the same people to scream about society going to hell
Speaker 4: in a handcard because there's no respect for law and order.
Speaker 4: A lot of a lot of those people turn a
Speaker 4: blind eye or encourage you to turn a blind eye
Speaker 4: to rules governing this that, including the NCAA, And it's
Speaker 4: all these rules are so stupid. Well yeah, some of
Speaker 4: them are. But you know why they're there because the
Speaker 4: rule book was the size it became because so many
Speaker 4: people out there are dreaming up ways to cheat. And
Speaker 4: right now with this new process in place, with the
Speaker 4: CSC in place, with the new basically commissioner in place,
Speaker 4: there are people well right now, I promise you trying
Speaker 4: to figure out ways to cheat, and you know, well,
Speaker 4: if you're not cheating, you're not trying. That's garbage. Yeah,
Speaker 4: that's Look. I know you can wink at things that
Speaker 4: happened in a NASCAR race, But if your kid was
Speaker 4: playing on a team, and I hear from parents, I've
Speaker 4: heard from parents my entire career. If your kid was
Speaker 4: playing on a team against the team that routinely beat them,
Speaker 4: and you know they were cheating somehow, yeah, you'd be
Speaker 4: pretty upset about it. And it's happened. And look, you
Speaker 4: know the stuff about well it used to be against
Speaker 4: the rules to put cream cheese on a bagel for kid. Yeah,
Speaker 4: that sort of stuff got ridiculous. And I couldn't believe
Speaker 4: that that committee members who put the rules together sat
Speaker 4: in a room and what they did was came up
Speaker 4: at broad rules and then you know, well what about this?
Speaker 4: Could you put peanut butter? Could you've been cheating? You
Speaker 4: know all that kind of stuff. No, I'm amazed that
Speaker 4: got that. That's stupid. But as I learned when I
Speaker 4: worked in the old Southwest Conference for those communications, the
Speaker 4: reason those rules are in those rule books is because
Speaker 4: there were people out there dreaming up new ways to cheat,
Speaker 4: and I don't mean putting cream cheese on a bagel. Remember,
Speaker 4: Southwest Conference was the most corrupt conference by the time
Speaker 4: it disbanded in the history of college athletics. SEC wasn't
Speaker 4: too far behind before Mike's Live got there. And I
Speaker 4: just got so sick of hearing that all the rules
Speaker 4: were so hard to follow. No, they're not. And I
Speaker 4: told the story before. David Kwood, Harlan product was the
Speaker 4: number of two or three man at the NCAB by
Speaker 4: the time he retired, came to work with us at
Speaker 4: those communications, and once told me because I complained to
Speaker 4: him one day, I said, Dave Man, that rule book
Speaker 4: is three inches thick. He said, the rules that get
Speaker 4: programs in trouble cover about twelve pages. I'm like balls,
Speaker 4: he said no. I said, what's all that other stuff?
Speaker 4: He said, Oh, it's stuff about transfers and red tape
Speaker 4: and things like that. But he said, the rules that
Speaker 4: get you in trouble cover about twelve pages. And he
Speaker 4: suggested that the NCAA that they pull those twelve pages,
Speaker 4: make a pamphlet out of it. Still give the schools
Speaker 4: the big book, but make pamphlets and say have your
Speaker 4: coaches carry every one of your recruiters should have this
Speaker 4: in their back pocket. And it was a great idea,
Speaker 4: and they turned it down. The NSAY turned it down.
Speaker 4: I said, why, well, because they said, somebody somewhere is
Speaker 4: going to break a rule that's not in the pamphlet.
Speaker 4: And then they'll say, well, you didn't tell us weird
Speaker 4: to worry about that rule, which to me is nonsense.
Speaker 4: But that's just the way that they were thinking at
Speaker 4: the time. So anyhow, I want to see how this
Speaker 4: all shakes out with the House settlement, with the new
Speaker 4: basically commissioner, and the way the money's doled out. But
Speaker 4: I do worry about all these regional institutions because when
Speaker 4: they start shutting down programs, and they will, it's already started,
Speaker 4: that's going to mean opportunities for men and women that
Speaker 4: they might have had to go to a D one
Speaker 4: school now they're not going to have them. Maybe they
Speaker 4: can go D two or three, maybe they go JUCO,
Speaker 4: get partial scholaris or whatever. But some kids just talking
Speaker 4: to be able to afford to go to school. And
Speaker 4: I know, you know, you have a tendency to think,
Speaker 4: or at least too many people in my line of
Speaker 4: work look at college words, odd's just grooming ground for
Speaker 4: the pros. One percent, maybe two percent of the kids
Speaker 4: competing in college athletics top to bottom men and women
Speaker 4: D one to D three two percent go pro. You
Speaker 4: talk about the tail wagon the dog. When these idiots
Speaker 4: think like that, it's just about going to the pros,
Speaker 4: shut up. And I know I'm terribly biased because I
Speaker 4: cover baseball, volleyball, women's sports, and some of the folks
Speaker 4: who helicopter in and cover the college well series of
Speaker 4: the bowl games or whatever, and they look at it
Speaker 4: simply as minor league sports. Totally wrong, totally wrong. Go
Speaker 4: a little deeper and you'll find out all right before
Speaker 4: the break, we'll come back to We'll take all away,
Speaker 4: Mark Pope. This was a clip on the UK Sports
Speaker 4: Network social media accounts, Oh take it Away at one
Speaker 4: of the Mark Pope satellite camps, asking his coach is
Speaker 4: once in future coach now that he's back, to recreate
Speaker 4: the moment that Pope heard that otakea Oway was returning
Speaker 4: to the Wildcats.
Speaker 5: Do you want me.
Speaker 4: O good? So, first of all, I was on a plane.
Speaker 3: I was on a plane and I don't understand why
Speaker 3: or how, but the call actually came through.
Speaker 5: And so take a call mean and he said.
Speaker 1: Coach, let's do this.
Speaker 4: I'm coming back, And I was looking around.
Speaker 1: I'm like, I think the pilot.
Speaker 4: Is about to throw me out the plane right now.
Speaker 1: So I was like, oh, Tega, I gotta call you
Speaker 1: back later. We just hold that on. Fifteen minutes later,
Speaker 1: called him back. He says, come back. Tears were to
Speaker 1: up my face.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean, it's a lot because I knew.
Speaker 3: I knew a couple of things.
Speaker 6: One I knew I know how how.
Speaker 3: Excited you are and how much you want to go
Speaker 3: play in that league. I know it's a dream of lifetime.
Speaker 3: I know it's super humbling to see you. One understand
Speaker 3: how much you watch it get better, how committed you
Speaker 3: are to keep getting better. And second thing was to
Speaker 3: see how much you understand I appreciate what you have
Speaker 3: right now. That's special stuff.
Speaker 4: Man, Yes, sir, better but hold on.
Speaker 1: Hey, And he's been hiped.
Speaker 3: He was super hiped all the way until he heard
Speaker 3: about the conditioning.
Speaker 5: Test on the first day summer workouts.
Speaker 3: And then it was like, whoa coach, Maybe I need
Speaker 3: to go back to this journey West, y'all.
Speaker 4: Go see that when there's gonna be times at so
Speaker 4: take it all away along with Mark Pope, Curtis City,
Speaker 4: UK Sports Networking. As he said, you heard it off
Speaker 4: the top. Always said there's no place I would rather
Speaker 4: be and there there's no fan base that is happier
Speaker 4: about that than the Big Boe Nation. We'll come back
Speaker 4: with more of the Big Boon Insider coming up a
Speaker 4: little bit later on in the show. Rick Bose, it's
Speaker 4: from WDRB TV. We'll talk to him about the House settlement.
Speaker 4: And Kobe Wilson from Fox fifty six that's ahead on
Speaker 4: six thirty WLAP. Welcome back to the Big Blue Insider.
Speaker 4: Dick Abriel with you coming up a little bit later
Speaker 4: on Rick Bose, it's from Fox fifty six WDRB. I'll
Speaker 4: tell you what surprise today on Twitter. I guess we
Speaker 4: shouldn't be when you add up to years. But John
Speaker 4: Clay announcing his retirement. You might have seen it earlier today.
Speaker 4: I talked about it with Tom Leach on the Leach
Speaker 4: Report earlier this morning. I had reached out to John
Speaker 4: over the weekend to see if he could come on
Speaker 4: and talk about the House settlement and other things. But
Speaker 4: he said I can't today, I can do it tomorrow.
Speaker 4: I don't know if that's because he's filling out paperwork
Speaker 4: all day or whatever, or just at another commitment, obviously,
Speaker 4: but John's gonna come on tomorrow, so we'll talk not
Speaker 4: just about the matters of the day, but about his career.
Speaker 4: And it's been a great one at the Herald Leader.
Speaker 4: Came from the Kentucky Colonel as I did, and worked
Speaker 4: his way up and he's done a really nice job.
Speaker 4: So congrats to John. Not the only headline out there,
Speaker 4: of course. Quick note on UK basketball recruiting. David Sisk
Speaker 4: of Cats Illustrated, part of the Rivals Network, is reporting
Speaker 4: that Turan Stokes is making a visit to UK. He
Speaker 4: attends Notre Dame High School in Sherman Oaks, California. A
Speaker 4: consensus five star recruit and the top ranked player in
Speaker 4: the class of twenty twenty six. He is from Louisville
Speaker 4: but prepping in California, so well, we'll see if that helps.
Speaker 4: But if a kid's prepping in California, then he is
Speaker 4: used to being away from home, so he could wind
Speaker 4: up anywhere. But on the Cats Illustrated site earlier today,
Speaker 4: David Sisk who was a friend of the show reporting
Speaker 4: that's Turan Stokes is currently on an official visit to
Speaker 4: UK and was going to come last month but had
Speaker 4: to reschedule. You know, when we talk about the House settlement,
Speaker 4: you've got to talk about schools that just can't afford
Speaker 4: to keep all of its sports programs. And you've already
Speaker 4: seen one D one school perdue Fort Wayne announced the
Speaker 4: discontinuation of baseball and softball. How about that because it's
Speaker 4: going to save the school a million dollars and the
Speaker 4: school itself, the entire university is looking at six million
Speaker 4: in budget cuts. So it's a D one school dropping
Speaker 4: sports and that's not directly related to the House settlement,
Speaker 4: but it is indirectly, So brace yourself for more of
Speaker 4: the same. Murray State will play for a spot in
Speaker 4: the College World Series tonight down at Duke. Racers destroyed
Speaker 4: the Blue Devils yesterday and forced a game three. It
Speaker 4: will not be a College World Series that is overwhelmingly
Speaker 4: sec acc but there is a lot of that because
Speaker 4: LSU won eliminating West Virginia in two games. Arkansas beat
Speaker 4: defending champion Tennessee in two games, four to three and
Speaker 4: eleven to four. But that's it because Coastal Carolina jumped
Speaker 4: up the thirteen seed and eliminated Auburn the number four seed,
Speaker 4: in two games at Auburn, acc lost a spot when
Speaker 4: at home. North Carolina lost in Game three to Arizona
Speaker 4: four to three. Carolina had a three to two lead
Speaker 4: in the eighth couple innings away from Omaha, bullpen collapsed,
Speaker 4: Arizona wins. Another team from the West, Oregon State beat
Speaker 4: a good Florida State team in Tallahassee. I'm sorry in
Speaker 4: Corvallis in game three. So Oregon State the same program,
Speaker 4: not same team, different team, same program that lost to
Speaker 4: Kentucky in the Super Regionals here in Lexion last year.
Speaker 4: Going back to Omaha. UCLA going back for the first
Speaker 4: time in ten or eleven years, won the title in
Speaker 4: thirteen beat the Cinderella team, well one of them, Moury
Speaker 4: State's the other Texas San Antonio in two games. So
Speaker 4: the Bruins move on and the Louisville Cardinals win in
Speaker 4: Game three yesterday afternoon against Miami, which had the tying
Speaker 4: and go ahead run on base in the ninth inning
Speaker 4: and two guys struck out another guy to fly ball
Speaker 4: and Louisville goes back to the College World Series NBA Playoffs.
Speaker 4: You know this, Sey Gilgess Alexander is the MVP, and
Speaker 4: he played that way last night. Oklahoma City, which blew
Speaker 4: the first game against the Pacers, came outmped all over
Speaker 4: Indiana early and beat the daylights out of the Pacers.
Speaker 4: So now they head back to Indianapolis. But the series
Speaker 4: is tied. But SGA thirty four points and didn't need
Speaker 4: a million shots to get there. He had thirty eight
Speaker 4: in the lost Thursday, but needed thirty shots to get there,
Speaker 4: but only three assists. But last night, eleven of twenty
Speaker 4: one from the floor. He had all of his points
Speaker 4: via his driving is dribbling. They all came in the
Speaker 4: paint or from mid range, but then he would fan
Speaker 4: it out. He had seven or eight assists and six
Speaker 4: of them led to three pointers by his teammates. So
Speaker 4: SGA back at it, and he's the reason that Oklahoma
Speaker 4: City was picked, the biggest reason. But Pacers beat him
Speaker 4: up and ground him down in game one, So we'll
Speaker 4: see if they'll try to do the same in game two.
Speaker 4: In Game three, which happens Wednesday eight thirty start time,
Speaker 4: and if you're interested. Tickets are going for as low
Speaker 4: as six hundred and twenty three dollars. Okaysee is favored
Speaker 4: by five and a half. On Wednesday night. Hope you
Speaker 4: got a chance to see the Belmont Stakes over the weekend.
Speaker 4: Sovereignty wins it over journalism by aza was third, same
Speaker 4: finish in the Kentucky Derby, and once again journalism on
Speaker 4: the lead as they turned for home. Sovereignty was sitting
Speaker 4: right there, sitting chilly as they say, and overcomes journalism
Speaker 4: and wins going away, wins by three lengths. I had
Speaker 4: it simply because my buddy and I talked to Kenny McPeak.
Speaker 4: You might have heard our interview with him on the
Speaker 4: Big Blue Insider, Well Off Mike. He predicted and it
Speaker 4: wasn't off the record because Kenny's got his own podcast.
Speaker 4: He picked sovereignty to win the Kentucky Derby on his podcast,
Speaker 4: and he picked sovereignty, and he picked sovereignty to win
Speaker 4: the Bellmont. He told us he would win by four.
Speaker 4: I think when one by three and so now what
Speaker 4: a great rivalry developing between sovereignty and journalism. Clearly the
Speaker 4: best two to three year olds in America and most
Speaker 4: experts said, well, if he wins the Belmont, that stamps
Speaker 4: Sovereignty as the champion three year old. Well they may
Speaker 4: race again later in the fall. But I got to
Speaker 4: thinking about this after the race. Yeah, Sovereignty won two
Speaker 4: of the three legs of the Kentucky Derby. Journalism made
Speaker 4: that great move in the Preakness and came through traffic
Speaker 4: in one and had to head. Yes, Sovereignty has beaten
Speaker 4: Journalism twice. But and as you know, Seignty didn't run
Speaker 4: in the Preakness. But you know, if Sovereignty loses to
Speaker 4: Journalism later this year, you could make the great case
Speaker 4: for Journalism simply because he was the only horse to
Speaker 4: race in all three legs at a triple crown and
Speaker 4: finish first or second. So if he wins over Sovereignty
Speaker 4: sometime in the fall, I'll bang a drum for journalism,
Speaker 4: not just because that's been my profession through the years,
Speaker 4: but you could make that argument. It would be fantastic.
Speaker 4: It would have to take ahead to head win, but
Speaker 4: it would make for really a great debate among those
Speaker 4: of us who love throwbread racing. One other note before
Speaker 4: we hit the brake, Aaron Rodgers is now a Steeler
Speaker 4: that became official over the weekend. Adam Schefter of ESPN
Speaker 4: recently reported that Rogers was the third choice for the Steelers.
Speaker 4: How about that? If this is true, and I have
Speaker 4: no reason to doubt it, because so much of these
Speaker 4: stories were out there swirling, but the Steelers evidently, and
Speaker 4: I think what Shifter's good at is kind of throwing
Speaker 4: a net over everything that's out there. I don't know
Speaker 4: how many times he personally breaks stories, but ESPN always
Speaker 4: puts Schefter report, well, sometimes other people have reported. At
Speaker 4: first anyhow Matthew Stafford was out there and the Steelers
Speaker 4: wanted him, couldn't get him. Then they tried to re
Speaker 4: sign Justin Fields. He took a better deal with the Jets,
Speaker 4: ironically enough, which left the Steelers with Mason Rudolph and
Speaker 4: they wanted more and they got it theoretically for Aaron Rodgers.
Speaker 4: So the former Packer led my team to five conference
Speaker 4: championship games but only one Super Bowl is now going
Speaker 4: to be wearing the Steelers gold and black. We're backing
Speaker 4: them in with Rick Bosic on six thirty WLAP Welcome
Speaker 4: back to the Big Bluinsider joining us on our celebrity Hotlines,
Speaker 4: A longtime friend of the show. He is Rick Bosich,
Speaker 4: anchor reporter for Fox forty one WDRB in Louisville, and
Speaker 4: so much to talk about right now. Believe it, it's June, Rick,
Speaker 4: which used to be kind of a dead zone in sports.
Speaker 4: But first of all, this house settlement has shaken college
Speaker 4: athletics to its core. We know it was coming, but
Speaker 4: it's it's dramatically and drastically changing the face of college athletics.
Speaker 4: How do you think it's going to impact right away?
Speaker 4: What do you think is going to be the immediate
Speaker 4: impact of this thing? Have you do you even have
Speaker 4: any idea?
Speaker 5: And I don't think any of us really have any idea,
Speaker 5: and even some administrators that I've talked to don't have
Speaker 5: any idea. I think we're going to see more separation
Speaker 5: from the you know, the top level schools, like the
Speaker 5: schools in the SEC and the Big Ten, especially from
Speaker 5: the rest of college sports. I worry about mid majors,
Speaker 5: I worry about low majors. I worry about, you know,
Speaker 5: the non revenue sports and what's going to happen to them.
Speaker 5: We've heard all the stories that at different schools where
Speaker 5: they'll be eventually moved to club club sports status because
Speaker 5: all the resources have to be poured into the sports
Speaker 5: that generate revenue.
Speaker 4: A couple of programs you covered on in Western Kentucky.
Speaker 4: Bellerman is you know, you wonder.
Speaker 5: At this Murray State baseball team right now there they
Speaker 5: going to beat Duke today to go to the College
Speaker 5: World Series. What's going to be their status moving forward? Yeah,
Speaker 5: Bellerman very ambitiously six years ago made the move from
Speaker 5: D two to D one. Uh, they've already retrenched a
Speaker 5: little bit by moving back from Freedom Hall back into
Speaker 5: Knights Hall on campus. But you know, and the other
Speaker 5: we hear these whispers. We've heard them from Greg thank you.
Speaker 5: We've heard them from Charlie Baker, the head of the NCAA,
Speaker 5: about expanding the NCAA tournament to get you know, that's
Speaker 5: a code word for putting more major teams in there
Speaker 5: with sub five hundred records in conference play and making
Speaker 5: it harder for the for the teams that give the
Speaker 5: tournaments so much of its character and flavor of the
Speaker 5: opening weekend, the mid majors and low majors making it
Speaker 5: harder for them. So the thing, it's going to be
Speaker 5: twenty million. But you know what, Dick, we're going to
Speaker 5: talk about this in six weeks, and it's that's not
Speaker 5: going to be enough. There's it's never going to be enough.
Speaker 5: That's what we see in this and we've seen forever
Speaker 5: there's never enough money. And until they find some way
Speaker 5: to solve their spending problems, it's it's not a revenue
Speaker 5: problem because they will never have no And last.
Speaker 4: Week I was at Aku and e Ku hired a
Speaker 4: new baseball coach and I was chatting with one of
Speaker 4: the athletic administrators. Their budget, Rick at Eku, is twenty
Speaker 4: three million. That's chump change to SEC schools. But they've
Speaker 4: they've got to get it done and they've got to
Speaker 4: compete at the D one level. And from this chunk
Speaker 4: of money, they're going to get about two hundred and
Speaker 4: seventy thousand dollars and you know, it's a lot for them,
Speaker 4: but they're still expected to compete for the same trophies.
Speaker 5: Right theoretically they are. You know, we all know that
Speaker 5: that can't continue forever. It just doesn't work. I mean,
Speaker 5: I think we're headed more to it's professional college sports.
Speaker 6: That's what it is right now.
Speaker 5: And I think we'll see more of a professional model
Speaker 5: in scheduling and structure of postseason play, and we lose.
Speaker 4: A lot of, for lack of a better term, the
Speaker 4: charm that we've all enjoyed through the years. Now it's
Speaker 4: not been fair. We know that to the athletes, this
Speaker 4: could have been avoided. That's the sad part. This could
Speaker 4: have all been avoided. I don't know what it could
Speaker 4: have been.
Speaker 5: Avoided if college administrators hadn't clung to the right you
Speaker 5: know sham for as many years as they did. Yeah,
Speaker 5: and that's you know, you mentioned this in the beginning,
Speaker 5: and you're so right. At the speed with which we've
Speaker 5: gone from the previous system to the current system been numbing.
Speaker 5: Nobody can really understand it when you hear some of
Speaker 5: the numbers about things that you know, players are getting
Speaker 5: two million dollars, three million dollar basketball players one hundred thousand,
Speaker 5: two hundred thousand dollars college baseball players. So you know,
Speaker 5: a million dollar softball player got Tennessee Texas Tech to
Speaker 5: the College World Series. They lost, but that's right, nobody,
Speaker 5: they would have no chance of getting there, but they
Speaker 5: decided to spend some of their Nile money in the
Speaker 5: college softball pitcher, and now we're talking about her, and
Speaker 5: it worked.
Speaker 4: They got to the World Series Championship game.
Speaker 5: Yep, you're right, yeah, talking to Rick.
Speaker 4: Bozych of WDRBWDRB dot Com has covered Kentucky sports for many,
Speaker 4: many years, earlier for the Career Journal and now for
Speaker 4: Channel forty one Fox WDRB over in Louisville. Just to
Speaker 4: your point about administrators, I really I did see m
Speaker 4: Newton's radio show for years in the summertime, and I
Speaker 4: really enjoyed CM and respected him a lot, but disagreed
Speaker 4: with him on a lot of things. And one of
Speaker 4: them was when we were talking about this very thing
Speaker 4: about athletes and compensation, and I said, coach, you got
Speaker 4: all these Tim Couch jerseys hanging in bookstores going off
Speaker 4: the racks, and Tim's not getting anything. And oh no, no,
Speaker 4: they bought the those jerseys because they were UK jerseys.
Speaker 4: I'm gonna come on, man, you know, you had too
Speaker 4: many old school administrators like that who kind of held
Speaker 4: things back. He was so great for the game on
Speaker 4: the one hand, but held things back on the other.
Speaker 5: You know. Yeah, And it wasn't just him, it was everybody.
Speaker 5: That's the system they grew up with, and that's the
Speaker 5: system they wanted to maintain and the one part of
Speaker 5: it though that still sometimes gets to me though, and
Speaker 5: I'm sure you can relate to this, which that the
Speaker 5: value of an education has been totally pushed aside or
Speaker 5: discounted in all this, and it is valuable. I mean,
Speaker 5: for those of us who put kids into college and
Speaker 5: watch them go for four years and graduate, we know
Speaker 5: that that's a significant amount of money and for them
Speaker 5: for so many people to act like that's irrelevances that
Speaker 5: bothers me. Man, It drives me crazy because how many
Speaker 5: of these guys are going to be professional athlete And
Speaker 5: I worry about guys who There are a lot of
Speaker 5: guys now who this year will be in their fourth
Speaker 5: college and I want somebody to sit down and tell
Speaker 5: me how the transferring of credits work so when they're
Speaker 5: done with their four years, they're in a good spot
Speaker 5: to get their degree, because the guys who are transferring
Speaker 5: them many times usually aren't going to be the guys
Speaker 5: who are pros because they didn't have success at their
Speaker 5: previous job and how they set themselves up for the
Speaker 5: rest of their lives. But that's the conversation, which is
Speaker 5: at the you know, not at the top of the
Speaker 5: priority list for the stuff we're talking about now.
Speaker 4: It's not even on the list. That's what bothers me.
Speaker 5: I know, it's not the list. You're right. I didn't
Speaker 5: want to be that strong, but I mean, it's we
Speaker 5: never talk about education anymore. All we talk about is
Speaker 5: money and sports and the games. We don't ever talk
Speaker 5: about the educational part of it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, you know, and you and me and our
Speaker 4: other media brethren, we talk about this and that with
Speaker 4: the coaches at the highest level at uku L. But
Speaker 4: I know when you talk to people at Bellermant at
Speaker 4: Western Kentucky, if I talk to people at EKAU at
Speaker 4: Murray State Transylvania, they do talk about it, you know,
Speaker 4: because I think that they should. Yes, and they're more
Speaker 4: held account.
Speaker 5: That's what their recruiting advantage is. I know that Scottie
Speaker 5: Davenport and Doug Davenport development. One of the things they
Speaker 5: talk to their players about it is they have a
Speaker 5: good business school and if you come here and in
Speaker 5: the business school, we'll get you an internship in the
Speaker 5: summer that oftentimes lead to a good job there. You
Speaker 5: go and that's that's that's kind of the old school
Speaker 5: way of looking at it. I find it refreshing. I
Speaker 5: might be a dinosaur or whatever, but I think it's
Speaker 5: in the long run. Nobody wants to look at twenty,
Speaker 5: you know, fifteen, twenty, thirty years from now, what's your
Speaker 5: career going to be, what are your connections in the
Speaker 5: community going to be? They just want to talk about
Speaker 5: how much money am I going to make in the
Speaker 5: next six months or night. Yes, and very rarely is
Speaker 5: it life changing money. It's momentarily life changing money, but
Speaker 5: it's not life changing money for your entire life. Oh.
Speaker 4: In former UK quarterback Freddie Maggard worked at UK. He
Speaker 4: created a program called four for forty, which meant the
Speaker 4: decision you make about the next four years of your
Speaker 4: life will directly impact the next forty years of your life.
Speaker 4: And they had speakers come in and talk about everything
Speaker 4: you just mentioned, Rick about the future, about how let's
Speaker 4: face it, you're probably not going pro even if you do,
Speaker 4: how do you handle your money, how do you handle
Speaker 4: your life? And there it just isn't enough of that
Speaker 4: going around, at least it doesn't appear to be. Right now,
Speaker 4: we're talking to Rick Bosch from Fox forty one WDRB
Speaker 4: and Louisville Back in a minute on six thirty WLAP
Speaker 4: Welcome back, We're talking with Rick Bosch. He is a
Speaker 4: sports reporter and anchor for Fox forty one WDRB over
Speaker 4: in Louisville and has been covering a lot of college baseball.
Speaker 4: Of like, there were people throwing dirt on the UL
Speaker 4: baseball program. Rick the dam McDonald's got him back in Omaha.
Speaker 4: That had to be a fun weekend, I would think.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it was a great weekend. Patterson Stadium siccessand fans
Speaker 5: there for every game. Miami says, one of the traditional
Speaker 5: powers in the game. The games were other than the
Speaker 5: first game. They were close and the Cards, who really,
Speaker 5: they're not in the top twenty five when the tournament started.
Speaker 5: After beating Vandy is the number one overall seed the
Speaker 5: previous weekend in Nashville. Came home and got it out
Speaker 5: of three, two victory yesterday, and they're going to Omaha
Speaker 5: where they're playing Oregon State. So you know, I look
Speaker 5: at Dan McDonald's. He's not a coach, he's a difference maker.
Speaker 5: He's been here since two thousand and seven. Yeah, and
Speaker 5: this is a little sixth trip to Omaha. In the
Speaker 5: first twenty years I lived here. If you Tony Louisville
Speaker 5: was going to Omaha, I went to last There's no
Speaker 5: reason for them to go Omaha. This is not a
Speaker 5: baseball They don't have baseball weather, it didn't have baseball tradition.
Speaker 5: And he turned it into a program that not only
Speaker 5: you know goes to Omaha. They produced MLB guys. They
Speaker 5: got six their six former louisll players in Major League
Speaker 5: Baseball right now.
Speaker 4: And it's not just you know, whatever conference they're in,
Speaker 4: You've still got to win a regional and a super
Speaker 4: regional to get to Home Maw. And we learned this
Speaker 4: last and a few years with Kentucky. That's the key.
Speaker 4: If you can host a super you got such a
Speaker 4: good shot.
Speaker 5: And they did it this year, no doubt about it.
Speaker 5: And you know this is the year they weren't supposed
Speaker 5: to do it. They've stumbled a little bit down the stretch.
Speaker 5: They lost the home game to Bellerman in May and
Speaker 5: people were grumbling. They were on Dann McDonald's back. He
Speaker 5: lost his mojo and they hadn't made the tournament the
Speaker 5: two previous years. And I'm happy for him because he
Speaker 5: forced himself into the program. And they got a lot
Speaker 5: of Kentucky kids on the team. At the end of
Speaker 5: the game yesterday, to the pitchers that pitched, one was
Speaker 5: from Trinity and one was from Paduca Tillman, so they've
Speaker 5: got some. And their number one starter from Bowling Green,
Speaker 5: Patrick Forbes, so they've they've Kentucky baseball in general, high
Speaker 5: school baseball in general has really gotten stronger over the
Speaker 5: last ten or fifteen years. And the commitment made not
Speaker 5: only by lit and Kentucky to baseball, but Western which
Speaker 5: had a good team in made the regional and Murray State,
Speaker 5: which could shock the world today beat Duke in the
Speaker 5: College World Series.
Speaker 4: That would be cool.
Speaker 5: UHKU, two teams in Omaha.
Speaker 4: How about that? You know, I gotta admit that, dude,
Speaker 4: I called the Kentucky Louisville game over here in Lexington,
Speaker 4: and Kentucky blew them out seven run or seven inning
Speaker 4: run rule. I thought, what is wrong with Louisville, especially
Speaker 4: the bullpen, which has always been a strength, but just
Speaker 4: a bad night. Got to throw out that bad race.
Speaker 4: A few minutes left with Rick Bosices, let us talk
Speaker 4: quickly about uh UK football. You get over here. I
Speaker 4: see you hauling cameras and tripods like a good TV
Speaker 4: guy does. Back in the day, when you were a
Speaker 4: newspaper guy, you just had to haul a notebook and
Speaker 4: maybe a computer. Uh. But that's the price of fame.
Speaker 3: I know that.
Speaker 5: But this I'm old Hall of Typewriter Dick.
Speaker 4: That's true me too, That's how I got started. Uh.
Speaker 4: But a pivotal year for Mark Stoops. That's that's the
Speaker 4: word around here. And as I've talked all summer and
Speaker 4: we'll keep talking about it, he's a victim of his
Speaker 4: own success. Isn't He raised the ceiling and raised the floor.
Speaker 4: And how the pressure's on, isn't it?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 3: It is.
Speaker 5: And I saw they're projected by Vegas to win five
Speaker 5: and a half games, and I'm not sure that'll get
Speaker 5: it done from whether it gets five or six. You know,
Speaker 5: once you get people accustomed to winning eight, nine, ten
Speaker 5: and going to bowl games and having success and have
Speaker 5: exciting teams, when that kind of goes away, people start
Speaker 5: grumbling about it. And it's a success oriented world. And
Speaker 5: he's making a lot more money now than he made
Speaker 5: when he first started, and people expect more when your
Speaker 5: salary goes up, and you know, South Carolina's kind of
Speaker 5: bounced back. Missouri's gotten better, Vanderbilt's gotten better, his job
Speaker 5: has become tougher. So Mark Stuts is a fighter though.
Speaker 5: The one thing he beat the ass when he first
Speaker 5: began to think. So we'll find out how motivated he
Speaker 5: is and how much some of the changes he's made
Speaker 5: within his staff will pay off.
Speaker 4: I know you don't come over for you come over
Speaker 4: for games, not for the weekly press conferences. But they're
Speaker 4: up online. I'm sure you take a peek at him
Speaker 4: and his tone of late. I think trying to read
Speaker 4: between the lines has been and I'm inferring that some
Speaker 4: of the people he brought in didn't fit his way
Speaker 4: of doing things, him and his staff, and he believes
Speaker 4: this group now it's back to that blue collar ethic.
Speaker 4: You know what I'm saying. Could it be that simple?
Speaker 5: It's only that simple if your entire team buies into it. Yeah,
Speaker 5: you know, I mean last year they had some guys
Speaker 5: who were really supposed to be really good players who
Speaker 5: I thought kind of underperformed and talking about you know,
Speaker 5: Dean Walker on the defensive line and a couple of
Speaker 5: other guys and they can't have that. I mean, the
Speaker 5: SEC is an unforgiving lead league, and your guy's got
Speaker 5: to perform at the top level every week. And I
Speaker 5: hope that's the case. If he's been preaching it since
Speaker 5: the end of the last season, I think it'll be
Speaker 5: the case. But you know, all the other teams are
Speaker 5: are trying hard too, and they're spending money, and they're
Speaker 5: ambitious and they don't want to fall behind. So it's
Speaker 5: not going to be easy to reclaim her spont in
Speaker 5: the SEC, especially now.
Speaker 4: With Texas and Oklahoma involved, and with Missouri looking like
Speaker 4: a real program. Finally again, it was several years ago
Speaker 4: South Carolina you mentioned, and now Kentucky second game of
Speaker 4: the year's old miss and Lane Kiffin's got it going
Speaker 4: down there. So uh, there was a period where teams
Speaker 4: were backing up in the SEC, including Florida, which still
Speaker 4: is struggling a bit for Florida standards, but not anymore
Speaker 4: right top to bottom, no.
Speaker 5: Doubt about it. You know, like I said, Vanderbilt, they
Speaker 5: be Kentucky two in a row. Billy Billy what's his name,
Speaker 5: the guy from Florida. He's fighting for his job down there. Man.
Speaker 5: He had a really good freshman quarterback last year, I mean,
Speaker 5: and then after all those years it was a five
Speaker 5: or six in a row, Kentucky had beating Louisville in football.
Speaker 5: That was the game that I think really uh intensified
Speaker 5: the narrative around coach Stops is that bron came in
Speaker 5: there and beat Kentucky decisively and beat them with two
Speaker 5: running backs. I mean, they had two guys run for
Speaker 5: one hundred yards of that game. And Kentucky had always
Speaker 5: been the team with the better, more powerful running game,
Speaker 5: and then a little kind of out muscled them. So
Speaker 5: you don't that's the thing about the game. That's the
Speaker 5: last game of the year when you led you when
Speaker 5: you have a dud like that, that's the last memory
Speaker 5: that people walk out of the stadium with and and
Speaker 5: they're not happy. So they need to get off to
Speaker 5: a good start. And as you mentioned early some SEC games,
Speaker 5: it's going to have to shock a few people.
Speaker 4: Yeah, just a couple of minutes Leven rig Bos that
Speaker 4: you mentioned U of L And I think Kentucky fans
Speaker 4: over have realized that the days that you could put
Speaker 4: w by that and there were only a few years
Speaker 4: over that that the brom family basically has made its
Speaker 4: market U of l. That's going to be back to
Speaker 4: a really fascinating rivalry, I think, don't you think?
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, because you know Jeff grew up in the state.
Speaker 5: He had offered from Kentucky. I don't he left before
Speaker 5: the series started, but he coached under Petrino when the
Speaker 5: series was Uh, pretty chart between the two schools. Uh,
Speaker 5: he knows how much it means. Uh, and he has
Speaker 5: he now recruits against them, He now competes against them.
Speaker 5: And uh he got beat at home. Uh his first
Speaker 5: season here when Louisville was a ten win team, didn't
Speaker 5: like it and came back and one last year. And
Speaker 5: it's a big game for him too. He'll he'll that
Speaker 5: Louisville will remain competitive in that game. But the struggles
Speaker 5: they had understood Satterfield, even though he said the right things,
Speaker 5: I never thought he grasps how important the game was. Really, No,
Speaker 5: I didn't. He said the right things, but you know,
Speaker 5: I don't think he really grasped everything that Louisville had
Speaker 5: to go through to even get that series started and
Speaker 5: how much this meant. Remember the first four games I
Speaker 5: played and they didn't want to. They didn't want to play.
Speaker 5: And you know there's a lot of you know, legitimate
Speaker 5: competitive fuel between the two schools, and I never really
Speaker 5: that's a satterfield grass now.
Speaker 4: And you got to give Stellenberger credit for agreeing to
Speaker 4: play those first four and lexi and but it worked
Speaker 4: because it move the U of L backers off their
Speaker 4: butts and they got the money get together for the
Speaker 4: football stadium over there. That's exactly the way Howard get
Speaker 4: envisioned it. And he and Curry you wanted people to
Speaker 4: stop talking about basketball recruiting in the summertime and talk
Speaker 4: about foot correct and it worked.
Speaker 5: Can I say one more thing?
Speaker 1: Sure?
Speaker 5: I want to say congrats to John Klay. Yeah, you
Speaker 5: know today he's retiring as a hair Leader columnist. John's
Speaker 5: not only a great newspaper man, but he's a better person.
Speaker 5: He's one of my best friends. It's been an honor
Speaker 5: and my privilege to travel with him through the years.
Speaker 5: We've gone to all kinds of games and events together
Speaker 5: and covered a lot of horse races together. And we're
Speaker 5: such a wild pair that we go out to dinner
Speaker 5: and then after we go out to dinner and we
Speaker 5: go to the Barnes and Noble for books, Matt John,
Speaker 5: are we still going to be able to go to
Speaker 5: Barnes and Noble together? Pographic like done it for a
Speaker 5: long time and did it the right.
Speaker 4: Then Bose it's w dr B.
Speaker 5: Thank you sir, all right, thank you, Dick.
Speaker 4: I re number two is next here on six thirty
Speaker 4: w l A P.
Speaker 7: The thing can anything to attack that snack thinking, don't.
Speaker 4: Welcome back to the big Lewinsider. And earlier I mentioned
Speaker 4: Aaron Rodgers that was a big story over the weekend.
Speaker 4: He is a Steeler and in my thoughts immediately go
Speaker 4: to my friends who are Steelers fans. Keith Farmer of
Speaker 4: l e X eighteen and one and only Jay drum
Speaker 4: Jeff Drummond from Cats Illustrated part of the Rivals Network.
Speaker 4: He is that rare combination of Reds fan and Pittsburgh fan,
Speaker 4: but it is Steelers, not Pirates, Jay Drumm, Are you
Speaker 4: happy about this?
Speaker 6: I would say I have mixed feelings about this. I
Speaker 6: have no idea how it will turn out, but if
Speaker 6: nothing else, I think the team will be interesting with
Speaker 6: Rogers at quarterback. I think that there's still a lot
Speaker 6: of you know that the arm still looks really good.
Speaker 6: My big concern is ahead and you know how things
Speaker 6: will go with our offensive coordinator ur and uh just
Speaker 6: kind of how he'll deal with some of the the
Speaker 6: personalities in Pittsforton.
Speaker 4: You went out, though, and you've got a big time
Speaker 4: and physically imposing wide receiver. The question when Rogers went
Speaker 4: to the Jets was who's he going to throw to? Yes,
Speaker 4: pretty good receivers in Green Bay, including DeVante Adams, but
Speaker 4: you went out and got DK Metcalf. That's got to
Speaker 4: count for something, right.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I would think so. I think that was a
Speaker 6: big factor in him deciding to give it a shot
Speaker 6: with the Steelers. If they didn't have DK, I don't
Speaker 6: think they would have worked out, you know, a deal,
Speaker 6: and who may have even decided to retire the way
Speaker 6: things is going. But you've got one of the top
Speaker 6: big receivers in the entire league and a guy that,
Speaker 6: you know, a major downfield threat that Rogers hasn't had
Speaker 6: in a while.
Speaker 4: We've talked before about and I always like to talk
Speaker 4: about the genesis of people who root for this team
Speaker 4: or that. A lot of people ask me why I
Speaker 4: route for the Packers things like that, and it's not
Speaker 4: that you grew up in Pittsburgh or that I grew
Speaker 4: up in Wisconsin. Everybody has their reasons. And you became
Speaker 4: a Steelers fan back when they were the best thing
Speaker 4: going in the NFL. And one of the strongest ties
Speaker 4: to that era, Terry Bradshaw blasted the Steelers or even
Speaker 4: thinking about signing Aaron Rodgers. What do you think about
Speaker 4: that as a Steelers fan.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I was a little surprised that Terry was so
Speaker 6: strong with his criticism there, but you know, he's got opinions.
Speaker 6: And if anybody is it titled the one if the
Speaker 6: guy who's lived there can't about it, the ups and
Speaker 6: downs about what Steeler football is all about.
Speaker 4: Yeah, one more Steelers question and we'll get to the
Speaker 4: why cats Mike Tomlin. I don't know if he's the
Speaker 4: best coach in the NFL, but if he left the
Speaker 4: Steelers tomorrow, almost every team would have to think about
Speaker 4: dropping whoever they've got and hiring him. What do you
Speaker 4: think of the mix now Tomlin and Aaron Rodgers.
Speaker 6: Well, there's you know, their potential there. I know they've
Speaker 6: both really admired each other for a long time. They
Speaker 6: anytime the Attackers and Steelers have played, you can kind
Speaker 6: of see the admiration and respect and even some gamesmanship
Speaker 6: that goes on the wink and a smile out there
Speaker 6: on the field. So hopefully this is the guy that
Speaker 6: can kind of get Mike Tomlin back over the hump
Speaker 6: in terms of, you know, having a chance in the playoffs.
Speaker 6: It's been a while since the Steelers have been able
Speaker 6: to win a playoff game and that's kind of been
Speaker 6: the bugaboo they all they always have winning through them,
Speaker 6: which is incredible. Yeah, that record he's got, saying his
Speaker 6: entire career, but in Pittsburgh, it's all about what you
Speaker 6: do in the postseason. So that's that's why they'll be measure.
Speaker 4: By talking to Jeff Drummond of Cats Illustrated, part of
Speaker 4: the Rivals Network and on the website cats Illustrated dot
Speaker 4: Com is a piece written or at least moderated by
Speaker 4: Jay drum a c I round table asking does Mark
Speaker 4: Stoops face the most important opener of his career? And Jeff,
Speaker 4: with that giving away the story, we want people to
Speaker 4: uh to subscribe obviously, but tell me what went into that,
Speaker 4: who was part of it, and what was it like?
Speaker 4: What was that roundtable like?
Speaker 6: Yeah, we're starting to gear up for you know, our
Speaker 6: our football coverage with uh you know, camp will just
Speaker 6: be right around the corner once you hit June. That's
Speaker 6: he'll be honest, before we know it. But you got
Speaker 6: to think about what what some of the big questions
Speaker 6: would be going into this season. I thought this would
Speaker 6: be interesting because typically your your first game as an
Speaker 6: afterthought in a lot of this ways, and you're supposed
Speaker 6: to win that game no matter you know who it
Speaker 6: is in most seasons. But I think there's a little
Speaker 6: bit of of, you know, extra weight to this one,
Speaker 6: not only in the fact that Toledo is a really good,
Speaker 6: solid MAC program capable of coming into Mexican and winning
Speaker 6: that game, but I think the Cats have to look
Speaker 6: good in that one too to kind of get the
Speaker 6: fan base, you know, back motivating for the rest of
Speaker 6: the season because right now, I don't know about the
Speaker 6: people that you have to in general, but it's it's
Speaker 6: ominous with everybody I talked about Kentucky football. It's just
Speaker 6: the optimism is that it's low point since probably you know,
Speaker 6: going into that year four with with Mark Steps, when
Speaker 6: a lot of people thought that Kentucky might need to
Speaker 6: start another coaching search, and you know, with what they
Speaker 6: wound up with though after that was I think eight
Speaker 6: consecutive trips to the postseason.
Speaker 5: With that one.
Speaker 6: It's it chrudged. Me is a little odd that things
Speaker 6: have turned so quickly and and far, you know, as
Speaker 6: far as the public opinion of Mark Stoops goes. But
Speaker 6: you know, last year obviously a bad season. I don't
Speaker 6: think the two years before you would consider bad, but
Speaker 6: there was definitely the start of a little bit of
Speaker 6: a downward trend. And when you combine that with the
Speaker 6: you know, the infamous Tony Up comment and the Texas
Speaker 6: A and M situation, I think that's just a lot
Speaker 6: of people have kind of made up their mind that
Speaker 6: this is the end of the road.
Speaker 5: And you know, I don't necessarily think that's the case,
Speaker 5: but it's going to be hard.
Speaker 6: To win people back.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I agree. Well, I think there are a couple
Speaker 4: of issues at play, and you mentioned the Pony Up comment,
Speaker 4: which kind of ironically enough, that was sort of a
Speaker 4: raw expression that is echoed by all the different and
Speaker 4: slicker and kinder urgings by UK and really every university
Speaker 4: out there to please consider relating to our collective and
Speaker 4: be a part of You know, that's the same way
Speaker 4: as saying pony up. But to hear the head coach
Speaker 4: on his radio show really bluntly, that was a raw
Speaker 4: emotional moment and it has followed him. You're right about that,
Speaker 4: But I think there are two factors in play. Jay Drummers.
Speaker 4: We talked to Jeff Drummon of cat Illustrated. Tell me
Speaker 4: which you think first of all, Yeah, years gone by
Speaker 4: a lull like this, people would be grumbling and a happy,
Speaker 4: but not to the level.
Speaker 1: They are now.
Speaker 4: And I think a lot of that has to do
Speaker 4: with social media. You know, if you have a feeling
Speaker 4: or a hot take, you grab your keyboard, you hit
Speaker 4: send before you even think about it, and you go
Speaker 4: have lunch. But now you know, and you're not held accountable.
Speaker 4: The other thing, Jeff and I didn't invent this, but
Speaker 4: as somebody pointed out, Mark Stoops raised not just the
Speaker 4: ceiling but the floor. You know, you and I've covered
Speaker 4: this program back when flirting with six wins was a
Speaker 4: big deal. Now that's considered failure and nine or ten
Speaker 4: wins is almost expected, which used to be impossible back then.
Speaker 4: And it's not as easy to schedule wins, as people think,
Speaker 4: but it all comes into play. Does that make sense?
Speaker 6: Yeah, definitely. Well for years, I mean we heard this,
Speaker 6: you hit you and I and many others. Just give
Speaker 6: me the six wins, a chance to be in a
Speaker 6: bowl gate and I'll never ask for anything more. You know,
Speaker 6: that was the That was the typical UK fan response.
Speaker 6: You're right when you do find a way to get
Speaker 6: to a couple of New Year's Day, you know, bowl games,
Speaker 6: When win team games a couple of times, you elevate
Speaker 6: the thinking that he's kind of you know, I don't
Speaker 6: know if this is the right term for it, but
Speaker 6: it's a little bit of a victim of his own success.
Speaker 6: Terms of the way the fan base has judged these
Speaker 6: last two or three years. They they want a little
Speaker 6: bit more, and I think even more than that. You know,
Speaker 6: this has been the case for a long time in Kentucky.
Speaker 6: It's important for them to to win in kind of
Speaker 6: a fun way too, And the last couple of years
Speaker 6: it's just felt like such a grid, especially on the
Speaker 6: offensive side of the ball, trying to find ways to
Speaker 6: move the football and score. I think that's a pretty
Speaker 6: big part of it. While you turn on the TV
Speaker 6: every Saturday. If you see people doing all kinds of
Speaker 6: crazy things with their offense at Kentucky campaign to get
Speaker 6: that point, yeah, and you know not to.
Speaker 4: Be pointing fingers, but I do believe it all starts
Speaker 4: with the old line because people, of course fell in
Speaker 4: love with the offenses that were keyed by the big
Speaker 4: Blue Wall, the traditional, the original big Blue Wall. They
Speaker 4: haven't seen that three years, so that is such a key.
Speaker 4: And to circle back to your original point, Toledo coming
Speaker 4: off an eight and five year you've got to assume
Speaker 4: that they've had roster turnover. Everybody has roster turnover. But
Speaker 4: that's a team that won their first three games last year,
Speaker 4: including at Mississippi State, beat an SEC team on the road,
Speaker 4: finished up with in overtime six overtime win over Pittsburgh
Speaker 4: in a bowl game, and in the game above Sports Bowl.
Speaker 4: So yeah, the group that's running this program, they know
Speaker 4: how to get it done. They're going to see this
Speaker 4: as an opportunity, aren't there to come in and pick
Speaker 4: off an SEC team that's been wounded of late? Right?
Speaker 6: Yeah, I think they'll come in expecting to win.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know that.
Speaker 6: I think the previous season they went to Illinois and
Speaker 6: played a very competitive game, and the two years before
Speaker 6: that played a Notre Dame in Ohio State. So they're
Speaker 6: not going to come in here and intimidated in any way.
Speaker 6: So that was part of our question too. You know,
Speaker 6: most of us say, you know, they've got to beat Toledo, right,
Speaker 6: you know, it's almost an afrogat. I think that all
Speaker 6: of the fans still think that way. But it's not
Speaker 6: going to be easy, to be a very challenging game.
Speaker 6: But I think I think if Kentucky can take care
Speaker 6: of business and then rest of passion, maybe it helps
Speaker 6: turn the mindset and the attitude around going into that
Speaker 6: big Week two game against Old Miss.
Speaker 4: He is Jeff Drummond of Cats. Paul kef I'll start
Speaker 4: that again. I'll cut that out. He is Jeff Drummond
Speaker 4: of Cats Illustrated. We'll come back and talk basketball with
Speaker 4: Jay Drumm in just a moment here in the Big
Speaker 4: blon Sider six thirty WLAP. Welcome back. We're talking with
Speaker 4: Jeff Drummond of Cats Illustrated. And before I ask you
Speaker 4: about the basketball catch you cover a lot of UK baseball.
Speaker 4: You pop into our booth. We get to see you
Speaker 4: when you're shooting photos of the home games and the
Speaker 4: College World Series is taking shape. It is not the
Speaker 4: SEC party that it was last year. Still some set
Speaker 4: teams involved. But I like the fact that Coastal Carolina
Speaker 4: is going back, and honestly, that program has been more
Speaker 4: successful than people give it credit for. I think this
Speaker 4: is their ninth trip to Omaha. But you got to
Speaker 4: Murray State making a bid tonight.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 4: I love seeing SEC success, Jeff, but I think I
Speaker 4: like seeing the not that Coastal is a little guy,
Speaker 4: but I like seeing sure of the off brands get
Speaker 4: in there too, you know what I mean.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's It's certainly been an exciting tournament. You've got
Speaker 6: a lot of parody, for sure, and the SEC did
Speaker 6: a little bit of a faith plant in some ways.
Speaker 6: But the more I watched of it, I think it
Speaker 6: might be coming to how to Arkansas and m SU
Speaker 6: look like the cream of the crops in the field
Speaker 6: that's going to be going to Omaha. And then then
Speaker 6: you'll have a little bit of a drop off in
Speaker 6: my opinion, because you had such a big upset with
Speaker 6: Vanderbilt Texas and North Carolina going down arguably, you know,
Speaker 6: at one point, you could have considered those top three
Speaker 6: teams in the country.
Speaker 4: There's an ongoing social media argument now with some of
Speaker 4: the national heads about too many SEC teams getting in
Speaker 4: UH pointing at without naming him, Kentucky with only thirteen
Speaker 4: conference wins. But you know, when you're locked into a
Speaker 4: conference like that, strike to schedule, you know, conference wins,
Speaker 4: it's all going a factor. And I was amazed Kentucky
Speaker 4: got in the tournament.
Speaker 6: Frankly what they made it to the regional final. So
Speaker 6: I don't know why they used Kentucky as an example
Speaker 6: because they I think they outperformed probably what they were
Speaker 6: expected to do, especially with that drubbing of Clemson to
Speaker 6: make it for the regional final, and quite honestly, they
Speaker 6: should have gone to the supers. Yeah, they found they
Speaker 6: found a way to blow both games through West Virginia.
Speaker 6: I don't think they could have probably advanced much further
Speaker 6: than that, but you know, they're they're animetics. UH saved
Speaker 6: them this year and it was one time that a
Speaker 6: committee really put the money where the mouth was behind
Speaker 6: these things like the RPI and strength of schedule. Kentucky's
Speaker 6: numbers were definitely worthy of the tournament.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and he got to tip your captain, nickmn Je
Speaker 4: And he went to school or back to school on
Speaker 4: analytics a few years ago and changed the way he
Speaker 4: scheduled when he does business. So a few minutes left
Speaker 4: Jef drumming to catch illustrated. Right now, Mark Pope's got
Speaker 4: his satellite camps going on, his father's son camps going on.
Speaker 4: That's what basketball coaches do. But one of his players
Speaker 4: is otega Oway taking part. I had a clip on
Speaker 4: earlier with the Oway teasing Pope about the phone call
Speaker 4: he made to Mark telling him he was coming back,
Speaker 4: and Pope said he literally the coach had tears in
Speaker 4: his eyes when he heard that. I guess you can
Speaker 4: understand that. But always return impressed.
Speaker 1: Some of the.
Speaker 4: Preseason way too soon posters. Some have him in the
Speaker 4: top ten. Some are saying they could make a run
Speaker 4: at the national title. Is that is that too soon
Speaker 4: to say? You think?
Speaker 5: No?
Speaker 6: I think that's fair, And especially when Mark Ope endorses
Speaker 6: the idea, he says that should be the expectation. And
Speaker 6: I think he knows that he's put together a roster
Speaker 6: of talent definitely capable of making it there. It's just
Speaker 6: a matter now if it all comes together in jail.
Speaker 6: He'll have as much talent as anybody in the country.
Speaker 6: I don't think anybody will be able to point to
Speaker 6: a roster and say this one he has definitely better
Speaker 6: than Kentucky's. But we've just got to see how the
Speaker 6: pieces fit, how they fit into his particular style, and
Speaker 6: you know, will they have enough kind of star power
Speaker 6: at the top and the leadership that's going to be
Speaker 6: needed to get there.
Speaker 4: Well, I think they've got that in a way in
Speaker 4: terms of star power. And he's gonna have to be
Speaker 4: the leader because I always agreed with Larry Brown's that says,
Speaker 4: back when you want a title with Kansas, and he
Speaker 4: kind of clashed with Danny Manning, who didn't want to
Speaker 4: be a leader, and Larry Brown said, no, your best
Speaker 4: player has to be a leader. I think Away can
Speaker 4: do that. My question to you is, I think you
Speaker 4: were there when Pope doubled down on the number of
Speaker 4: three pointers he wants his team to take in a
Speaker 4: news conference a couple of weeks ago. Is that a
Speaker 4: concern do you think with this team three point shooting
Speaker 4: because it was not last year?
Speaker 6: Well, I think that the only concern for me is
Speaker 6: the number they get up because they just for one
Speaker 6: reason or another, they weren't able to get their goal
Speaker 6: numbers of being around thirty a game, you know, as
Speaker 6: close to I think twenty a game, and a lot
Speaker 6: of teams were able to overextend on defense and kind
Speaker 6: of I think the term that Pope's a lot was
Speaker 6: chased them off the line. I think the pieces this
Speaker 6: year are built and in a way that people won't
Speaker 6: be to be that as much. Because you've got two
Speaker 6: or three guys that will play a lot of minutes.
Speaker 6: You try to overextend and come out, you know, be
Speaker 6: on the free point line, they're gonna put it on
Speaker 6: the floor and go buy you and attack them were
Speaker 6: so I think that's gonna lead to a lot more
Speaker 6: kind of penetrating kick fight three. Yeah, and they ought
Speaker 6: to be able to get closer to that number that
Speaker 6: Hope would.
Speaker 5: Like to have.
Speaker 4: Well, I'll let you go with this. I think last
Speaker 4: year fans, I know, really enjoyed they were. They were,
Speaker 4: of course disappointed by the end of the year. Everybody
Speaker 4: always is unless their team wins it all. But the
Speaker 4: way they got there was so uplifting to the big
Speaker 4: Blue nation, you know, and of course, the way the
Speaker 4: head coach does business compared to the last guy, and
Speaker 4: when the last guy was going to the final four
Speaker 4: and all nobody complained. But when it got a little
Speaker 4: bit hard to digest, and you know, it all kind
Speaker 4: of fell apart. But do you think fans will be
Speaker 4: a little tougher on the head coach this year? Because
Speaker 4: you might have heard, I know you listened to his
Speaker 4: calling show from time to time last year and there
Speaker 4: were folks who called in and were gently trying to
Speaker 4: explain to him why he was making a mistake the
Speaker 4: way he subbed people, and of course, you know Mark
Speaker 4: dug In and gently explained why or animatedly explain why
Speaker 4: he does the way he does things. But do you
Speaker 4: think it gets a little bit tougher and the fans
Speaker 4: get a little bit tougher on him this year?
Speaker 6: Yeah? I could see that. I don't know if the term,
Speaker 6: you know, the honeymoon's over, I don't know if that
Speaker 6: would be the right way to put it. But they
Speaker 6: kind of gave him a year of grace, I think,
Speaker 6: to rebuild that entire roster with you guys, and most
Speaker 6: Kentucky fans knew they won't probably weren't going to the
Speaker 6: Final four or contending for a title in that first year.
Speaker 6: But I think the expectations will ramp up a little
Speaker 6: bit with this kind of But I like the fact
Speaker 6: that Mark Pope will kind of meet those questions had
Speaker 6: on and deal with them in a way that kind
Speaker 6: of disarms people, Whereas you know, the previous guy had
Speaker 6: a little bit of pushback and fight it at any
Speaker 6: time anyone dared to question something he was doing. So
Speaker 6: I think that that buys Mark Pope a little bit
Speaker 6: more good will. And the fact that he's a former
Speaker 6: player too and a champion uh shoot factor into that.
Speaker 6: But I think people will want to see a few
Speaker 6: things kind of six to see I don't know six
Speaker 6: the right word, but a few adjustments on his part
Speaker 6: that helped them optimize, especially the the regular season, so
Speaker 6: they don't take as many offices and maybe have a
Speaker 6: little bit better speed going into the tournament.
Speaker 4: I can't imagine, although anything's possible, something coming up within
Speaker 4: the Big Moon Nation or UK Bash that might catch
Speaker 4: Mark Pope completely off guard, but you never know.
Speaker 1: He is.
Speaker 4: Jeff Drummond follow him on Twitter at j drum UK
Speaker 4: and at Katchillustrated dot Com.
Speaker 6: Thank you, brother ad.
Speaker 4: Take care Up next Kobe Wilson from Fox fifty six
Speaker 4: here in Lexington, stay with us here on six thirty
Speaker 4: WLAP Welcome back to the Big Moon Sider joining us
Speaker 4: here on the Celebrity Hodline. We talked to Kobe Wilson
Speaker 4: a while back, haven't had a chance to chat on here.
Speaker 4: We see each other all the time at news conferences. Kolbe,
Speaker 4: how's your summer going so far? Fox fifty six by
Speaker 4: the way, sports anchor.
Speaker 2: Yep, you know it's going well. It feels like it's
Speaker 2: our downtime. I always say after the Derby that's the
Speaker 2: time to like just kind of relax for a second.
Speaker 2: But then it's like, well, summer league's coming up.
Speaker 6: You still got off.
Speaker 2: Season basketball moves going on baseball and softball courts, and
Speaker 2: then we've been at the We've been at Kentuckistrock Park
Speaker 2: in John Stadium religiously this past week with state state
Speaker 2: champions on softball. So it's been it's still been pretty busy,
Speaker 2: but it's been good. Other than the cicados, I'm ready.
Speaker 6: For those to go.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we can't forget about the high. The high school
Speaker 4: sports is still happening out there, and a lot of
Speaker 4: drama mixed for good television. So does horse racing. And
Speaker 4: you mentioned the Kentucky Derby and Colby by way of background,
Speaker 4: played college soccer in Portland, but it's from southern coup
Speaker 4: from the LA area or Daz a football coach. But uh,
Speaker 4: you have had to learn horse racing and you've got
Speaker 4: tweets pinned on your Twitter page about the Belmont you
Speaker 4: cover the Derby. How did you come to find horse
Speaker 4: racing as a journalist. I mean, it's an intimidating sport
Speaker 4: to cover. Did you even know much or care about
Speaker 4: horse racing before you got here?
Speaker 2: You know, it's funny because coming from the West Coast,
Speaker 2: everyone knows about the Kentucky Derby just because it's the
Speaker 2: Kentucky Derby, but no one knows what goes into it
Speaker 2: the behind the scenes. You don't know owners or trainers
Speaker 2: or you know, you don't know any of the x's
Speaker 2: and oh detailed stuff. So, like you said, I knew
Speaker 2: absolutely nothing coming to Kentucky. All I knew is you
Speaker 2: better get caught up pretty fast because it's horse racing
Speaker 2: country here. But I will say I mean going on
Speaker 2: my I just covered my second derby is absolutely incredible.
Speaker 2: Everyone asked me like, how is it. Everyone I talked
Speaker 2: to They're like, it's on my bucket list. But you really,
Speaker 2: I can't even put into words what it's like. I'm
Speaker 2: just like, you have to come. But as a journalist,
Speaker 2: I mean, it's been super fun and I feel like
Speaker 2: just even in the morning times going out to the barns,
Speaker 2: you get to know these trainers, You get to know
Speaker 2: familiar faces, and then you really like become attached in
Speaker 2: a way a little bit. Like the only trainer I
Speaker 2: talked to ahead of this derby was Billmont actually trainer
Speaker 2: and so, and then last year the only trainer I
Speaker 2: talked to was Kenny McPeek. No, for me, it's been
Speaker 2: like it's been like a two out of two over
Speaker 2: here with me. So it's been super fun. But no,
Speaker 2: I've absolutely enjoyed it.
Speaker 4: It can be intimidating, but those are two of the
Speaker 4: best trainers to talk to because Kenny a little younger
Speaker 4: than Bill, but he he so understands and embraces, you know,
Speaker 4: the value of getting the message out about horse racing.
Speaker 4: He's got his own app he's got his own podcast.
Speaker 4: I spoke to him the Monday morning after the derby
Speaker 4: for crying out loud. He made time for me because
Speaker 4: he said that's important. And Bill Mott, as you know,
Speaker 4: is one of the great gentlemen in racing nights get
Speaker 4: a horses won two jewels of the Triple Crowns. So
Speaker 4: that that helps, doesn't it?
Speaker 6: Well?
Speaker 2: Absolutely, And I think you know, everyone's trying to understand
Speaker 2: now the way of the world, and with media like
Speaker 2: it's always it's now going to that like short form
Speaker 2: type of media like going on TikTok and all those things.
Speaker 2: So I think these trainers are kind of understanding too, like, well,
Speaker 2: this is kind of we have to adjust in a way.
Speaker 2: So I think Kenny mcteek is certainly doing that. And
Speaker 2: then Bill Mott, I mean, he's just the world class guy.
Speaker 2: When I interviewed him, he was on he was on
Speaker 2: top of his horse and I was down at the
Speaker 2: bottom on the ground, just had my microphone high and up.
Speaker 2: But he was it's an all around great guy. He
Speaker 2: was just he really just was talking about just trying
Speaker 2: to enjoy the moment, and I can tell he certainly
Speaker 2: done that up to this point.
Speaker 4: Talking to Kobe Wilson in Fox fifty six. She covers
Speaker 4: really everything for Channel fifty six. Well, we're not supposed
Speaker 4: to call it that anymore. I know, consultants say call
Speaker 4: letters w DK. Why bumped into you over at EKU
Speaker 4: When Jan Weisberg was named the head coach, I covered
Speaker 4: her so far back, I go, I covered him as
Speaker 4: a player, but his resume is just staggering when you
Speaker 4: look at everything he's accomplished. But I think, really, and
Speaker 4: you probably remember this the story a couple of years
Speaker 4: ago when he was a head coach at Birmingham Southern
Speaker 4: and the school closed, not didn't drop baseball. The school
Speaker 4: shut its doors. Everybody, we're out of business, but the
Speaker 4: baseball team wouldn't go away, and he spoke passionately about
Speaker 4: what it was like to be the head coach and
Speaker 4: keep that team together, throw all the emotional ups and downs,
Speaker 4: which is something quite frankly, I hadn't really considered when
Speaker 4: I knew he was the coach. When it was going on,
Speaker 4: I said, yeah, I remember that guy, but what is
Speaker 4: players must have been going through. I thought that was
Speaker 4: a great storyline, didn't you?
Speaker 2: Absolutely? And I think those are the kind of guys
Speaker 2: you want to lead a program, because that just shows
Speaker 2: you if it's more it's beyond the x's and o's.
Speaker 2: For him, it's about culture. It's about you know, building
Speaker 2: young men into into men that are going to go
Speaker 2: off in the world one day. And you can certainly tell,
Speaker 2: just based on his press conference and the people that
Speaker 2: were there, that he's not just coming in there to
Speaker 2: change a program, but also people. And I think that
Speaker 2: was a big time higher from the Colonel.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I agree, he's only got five players right now,
Speaker 4: but well when we talk to him, I guarantee he's
Speaker 4: got more bocking.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I'm not saying he's way too experienced. He
Speaker 2: knows exactly what he's doing.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, yeah, Well, speaking of a guy who knows
Speaker 4: what he's doing, Mark Pope as Otaga, Oh way back
Speaker 4: in the fold. And again you've only been I think
Speaker 4: here for a couple of years. But one of your
Speaker 4: pinned tweets is video I guess you shot it after
Speaker 4: the Louisville game of the past Kentucky players throwing l's
Speaker 4: down after the U of L game. What's that been
Speaker 4: like for you to sort of assimilate into the big
Speaker 4: Blue Nation scene. I mean, you're on the outside looking
Speaker 4: in as a reporter. But yeah, uh, it's it's a
Speaker 4: big story, isn't it.
Speaker 2: It has been incredible. I mean, of course, when I
Speaker 2: first got here it was cal Perry's last year, so
Speaker 2: just just to even cover a Hall of Fame coach
Speaker 2: and be at one of the biggest blue bloods, it
Speaker 2: was incredible. And then of course this whole Mark Pope
Speaker 2: thing comes along, and you know, Big Blue Nation doesn't
Speaker 2: really know what to expect. I heard all the all
Speaker 2: the talk going into when his name first popped up,
Speaker 2: and then of course the second he took the job,
Speaker 2: BBN just embraced them. But I will say what just
Speaker 2: completely changed my perspective on Kentucky, Kentucky basketball and what
Speaker 2: this this fan base is about, was Mark Pope's introductory
Speaker 2: press conference. I mean I actually had chills from the
Speaker 2: bus to just help pack out, help pack out the
Speaker 2: gym was I actually couldn't believe that. I think I
Speaker 2: was in like a in disbelief for probably half of
Speaker 2: the press conference before I could actually snap back into
Speaker 2: what I was actually doing.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I frankly I was into disbelief as well. And
Speaker 4: I remember talking to people who had been there at
Speaker 4: Repperina early and they said, yeah, the Reperena people expected
Speaker 4: maybe they needed to prepare four or five sections, you know,
Speaker 4: for fans coming in, but I mean to leave out,
Speaker 4: to shut the doors and leave thousands on the sidewalk.
Speaker 4: I've been here forever, Klobe. That was one of the
Speaker 4: most incredible things I've ever seen, you know, I mean,
Speaker 4: how do you describe that to you to your fans
Speaker 4: and friends back home?
Speaker 6: You can't.
Speaker 2: I Frienson video pictures and you can tell they're like,
Speaker 2: oh my goodness, because it just that doesn't happen in
Speaker 2: any other program. So the second they see that, they know, okay,
Speaker 2: it's she's a tucky. But until you're part of it.
Speaker 2: I actually had my best friend from the West Coast.
Speaker 2: She came to Lexington that for the Arkansas name when
Speaker 2: cal Perry came back, and her her boyfriend's are long
Speaker 2: just a sportsman in general, so they were like, we
Speaker 2: have to come back for this moment. And even them
Speaker 2: coming here, she knows absolutely nothing about basketball. She's just
Speaker 2: here for the good time. But she even had the
Speaker 2: most incredible time and was like it just feels so
Speaker 2: much different. And I mean, she's the West Coast girl
Speaker 2: that Lakers games, you name it right, and she came here.
Speaker 2: She came here and even was like, it's just it's
Speaker 2: just different.
Speaker 4: She is Colby Wilson. She is an anchor reporter for
Speaker 4: Fox fifty six here and lexingon We'll come back and
Speaker 4: talk more sports with Colby on the other side of
Speaker 4: the break here on six thirty WLAP Welcome back. We're
Speaker 4: talking with Colby Wilson. She covers sports for Fox fifty
Speaker 4: six w DK Why. You might see her work on
Speaker 4: the anchor desk or out in the field, but like
Speaker 4: every TV sports reporter has to be kind of an
Speaker 4: expert on everything. Although soccer was your game in college.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, and you've made a lot of trips to
Speaker 4: the soccer pitch out there way out I guess technically
Speaker 4: is not Richmond Rode but at there by seventy five.
Speaker 4: What has that been like for you and give Lexington
Speaker 4: kind of an update on soccer taking rut that level
Speaker 4: of soccer for men and women taking root here in Lexington.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I mean it's been super fun, Like you said,
Speaker 2: playing soccer in college in all my life, it's definitely
Speaker 2: more natural for me to talk about and kind of
Speaker 2: be Immerston, but Lexington Sporting Club. It's been so much fun.
Speaker 2: I host a thirty minute show called Around the Pitch
Speaker 2: for Fox each week on both teams, and just getting
Speaker 2: to know these players. I think the cool part for
Speaker 2: me is one I have a lot of connections that
Speaker 2: I found out with these players. I've played against at
Speaker 2: least four of the of the women's team, and then
Speaker 2: on the men's side, a lot of them played at
Speaker 2: Oregon State when I played at Portland, so we have
Speaker 2: made those mutual Oh yeah, so we've made a lot
Speaker 2: of mutual connections. And like I interviewed a girl not
Speaker 2: too long ago and we played each other in club
Speaker 2: Soffer women in high school kid. So it's been it's
Speaker 2: been super fun to make those connections. But no, this
Speaker 2: this club, I think they're they're really going in the
Speaker 2: right direction. They've got a solid fan base that really
Speaker 2: cares about them and the direction that they're going. And
Speaker 2: you know, like anything that's new, you have your growing pains,
Speaker 2: you got things you have to work through, which I
Speaker 2: think after you know, the women's first USL Super League
Speaker 2: inaugural season, uh, they're learning and now that season has ended,
Speaker 2: so they're trying to kind of rebuild their roster up
Speaker 2: for next season. And then the men, I think they're
Speaker 2: they're finding their ground as they go. I mean again,
Speaker 2: a new team, new faces, new head coach, new staff.
Speaker 2: So it's just those those first year of growing pains.
Speaker 2: But I'm excited to see where this club is going
Speaker 2: in the future for sure.
Speaker 4: Yeah. How have the crowds been.
Speaker 5: The crowds have been.
Speaker 2: They've been good. You know, I've definitely the men's side
Speaker 2: gets more fans than the women. I think they're still
Speaker 2: trying to put the word out there and build that.
Speaker 2: But you know, it's a great environment. And when I
Speaker 2: walk in, you got fan zone, you got stuff for
Speaker 2: the kids. I mean, it's like a hat in it spot.
Speaker 2: It kind of feels like busy bees when you walk in.
Speaker 2: And I mean it's a huge stadium, so that's going
Speaker 2: to take time to put people in the seats. But ultimately,
Speaker 2: I would say they've got they've got a big crowd
Speaker 2: for the first year. It's been pretty impressive.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and they've got social media presidence. They're trying to
Speaker 4: do everything right, you know, but in this day and age,
Speaker 4: when you're competing for eyeballs and attention. Ye, it's a challenge.
Speaker 4: We're talking to Kobe Wilson from Fox fifty six, covers baseball, football, basketball, soccer,
Speaker 4: played soccer. Mark Stoops in his program are under intense
Speaker 4: scrutiny right now. Are you looking forward to the upcoming
Speaker 4: season because this could be one of those years when
Speaker 4: you've got to really take the temperature, read the room,
Speaker 4: whatever you want to call it, when it comes to
Speaker 4: the D one football program you cover.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, Yeah, No, I definitely hut. I would say, you know,
Speaker 2: last year was my first year covering four and eight.
Speaker 2: Not not not ideal, not always fun when you're at
Speaker 2: games and you know we're we're on the losing side
Speaker 2: of things. But I am looking forward to it. I
Speaker 2: think it's like you said, it's a rebuild year, but
Speaker 2: I think it is a make or break here for
Speaker 2: Mark Soups. I think he knows that. I mean, these coaches,
Speaker 2: My dad's a football coach. They know how it goes.
Speaker 2: You don't want, you don't win, you don't have a job,
Speaker 2: and I think he knows that before anybody else. But
Speaker 2: I'm interested to see how this incoming trendfer class, how
Speaker 2: they do I mean of course you mentioned zat Calzatta.
Speaker 2: I mean, he has sec experience. It's going to be
Speaker 2: interesting to see how, you know, he competes now because
Speaker 2: the other schools are doing the same thing Kentucky's trying
Speaker 2: to do. I mean, just look at what Vandy did
Speaker 2: last year. So I think I am excited because I
Speaker 2: want to see if he really did adjust to this,
Speaker 2: you know, nil and all that stuff like other teams
Speaker 2: did last year. And I'm interested to be kind of
Speaker 2: how it all plays out.
Speaker 4: It's interesting that you bring up Vandy, which beat Kentucky
Speaker 4: and also beat Alabama and by Vandy standards at a
Speaker 4: terrific year when six and six in a regular season.
Speaker 4: But like I said, Vandy standards which used to be
Speaker 4: Kentucky standards before you got here, of course, but you
Speaker 4: knew that, and now fans want so much more. But
Speaker 4: fans be fans, right, I mean.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, And at the end of the day, we know
Speaker 2: how fans are. They just want they just want to win,
Speaker 2: whatever it takes to win. If you're winning, they love you,
Speaker 2: and if you're not, you got to go. And that's
Speaker 2: just that's just how they are. And so you know,
Speaker 2: with a Vandy thing, but I do think that shows
Speaker 2: that it is possible. Bandy. It's for people that.
Speaker 6: Keep up with the SEC.
Speaker 2: They were never, like you said, it was always Kentucky standards.
Speaker 2: Just get to a bowl game and you're probably good.
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 2: But you know, now they're a top team in the SEC.
Speaker 2: And that was just in the snap of a finger
Speaker 2: that they got that point. So it does so hope
Speaker 2: that with this NIL and transfer portal stuff it can happen.
Speaker 2: So it is possible for Mark Soops, but they just
Speaker 2: kind of go out there and do it at this point.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's all going to fall into place. But the
Speaker 4: problem is, uh, for a while there you had teams
Speaker 4: that were backing up in the secs. Tennessee was not
Speaker 4: the usual Tennessee, not even what it is now Florida,
Speaker 4: and Florida's still trying to get back and Kentucky has
Speaker 4: taken advantage of that. You know, Missouri now is getting strong.
Speaker 4: Those mid level teams South Carolina, those are the programs
Speaker 4: Kentucky used to beat up on. Now they're making life
Speaker 4: tougher for Mark Stoops and company. But there's only one
Speaker 4: way to get around that.
Speaker 2: Right, Uh yeah, and that's NIL. Unfortunately, I mean it's because,
Speaker 2: I mean that's what it is now.
Speaker 5: It's a free for all.
Speaker 2: It's not like how it used to be just recruiting,
Speaker 2: and these kids are going to a school where they
Speaker 2: know they're just going to compete and play. I mean,
Speaker 2: it's all about money now. And so now that everyone's
Speaker 2: getting on board, I don't really know if we can
Speaker 2: look at the SEC how we used to like, Oh,
Speaker 2: it's just your Missouri, it's just your Bandy, it's just
Speaker 2: your South Carolina. Like I know, I think everyone's going
Speaker 2: into this with kind of on the same level, and
Speaker 2: I think, of course that's what makes it so hard.
Speaker 2: But if you don't adjust, then you've really got no shot.
Speaker 4: I was talking to Jeffdrummond earlier on the show tonight
Speaker 4: about this and about the Kentucky schedule. He brought it
Speaker 4: up the opener with Toledo, which is a sneaky good
Speaker 4: team and beat Mississippi State last year, beat Pittsburgh last year.
Speaker 4: I'm sure they've got a revamp roster too, but that
Speaker 4: second game, not to be looking ahead is all miss
Speaker 4: My point is we're going to know really quickly. I think,
Speaker 4: aren't we about this football team?
Speaker 2: Absolutely? Which you know, in a way I think is
Speaker 2: good for them. I think I think that gives you
Speaker 2: time to see what you've got, to see how you
Speaker 2: compete against the high level SEC team. I mean, of
Speaker 2: course they got it done on the road last season,
Speaker 2: but I think it's going to be an eye opener
Speaker 2: for Mark suston his staff and then you see, you
Speaker 2: see really where you're at early on, so at least
Speaker 2: you're fully aware and you're not finding out this mid season.
Speaker 4: I would like to know if your dad comes to
Speaker 4: town and she's a game and maybe he can help
Speaker 4: break down UK football for us at some point being
Speaker 4: a professional coach.
Speaker 5: Yes, for sure.
Speaker 2: And it's funny getting to talk to him. And actually
Speaker 2: funny story I think I had mentioned to you last time,
Speaker 2: but he my dad was actually on staff with Bob's
Speaker 2: soups at Oklahoma, so he's good friends with Mark and
Speaker 2: so in the summer, he when in the summer when
Speaker 2: he was here, he actually went to a practice and
Speaker 2: you know, caught up with Mark and Mike and I
Speaker 2: think Bowlwear also two with that ou so that there
Speaker 2: was that connection. So he he's actually good friends with Mark,
Speaker 2: so he's definitely in support of him. And wants to
Speaker 2: see him do well.
Speaker 4: So he's already a fan. He's already sympathetic, isn't he.
Speaker 6: Oh? Absolutely.
Speaker 2: I mean as a coach, you got to be kind
Speaker 2: of sympathetic for anyone you know, they know too well
Speaker 2: how this how this business goes, and it's a it's
Speaker 2: a tough business to be in.
Speaker 4: Yeah, oh yeah. But with coaches, it's like, I like
Speaker 4: the way this guy does things. And I've talked to
Speaker 4: a lot of people who have come in from the outside, analysts,
Speaker 4: people at former players, and they do like Stoops in
Speaker 4: his philosophy and his approach. And I can't imagine her
Speaker 4: dad is any different.
Speaker 3: She is.
Speaker 4: Kobe Wilson watched for her work on Fox fifty six
Speaker 4: w dk Y and follow her on Twitter at Kolbe
Speaker 4: with two Eyes, Wilson with two ends. Easy enough, thank you,
Speaker 4: Seeing down the road, Thank you Jack, and thanks to
Speaker 4: my guest Kobe. Jeff Drummond to Rick Bosich. While college
Speaker 4: football is going to be on top of us before
Speaker 4: we know it, so hey, just buckle up and hang on.
Speaker 4: It's going to be an interesting ride, going to be
Speaker 4: a bumpy ride for the football Cats this year. We
Speaker 4: may get right back to the middle of the season,
Speaker 4: windows basketball start. We'll take it as it comes. That's it.
Speaker 4: Good night from the garage in Lexington.
Speaker 1: You want to hold it?
Speaker 6: Yes?
Speaker 1: Please, Yes? And the child at Tandon anything any.
Speaker 7: Such tacting, donnything, can anything, anything, then change tact. Doth
Speaker 7: think to back them? Tap? Then don't do