Speaker 1: Right, what's going on?
Speaker 2: Drivetime on a Wednesday afternoon, about eleven minutes past the
Speaker 2: hour of two o'clock. Another pretty warm day for a
Speaker 2: December Wednesday afternoon. It's once again about forty five degrees
Speaker 2: in sunny here in downtown Salt Lake City, Utah. And
Speaker 2: as it is every single day, it's going to have
Speaker 2: you along for the ride. Spence check. It's behind the mic.
Speaker 2: That's portal Larsen behind the glass. It is a jam
Speaker 2: packed day. You know, Once upon a time, National Signing
Speaker 2: Day in the world of college football was a real
Speaker 2: headline grabber and dominated much of the content on local
Speaker 2: airwaves and folks that ride about college football and such.
Speaker 1: It's still a big deal, but the transfer portal has changed.
Speaker 2: Kind of the way this day lands juxtaposed to the
Speaker 2: way that we used to cover it back in the day.
Speaker 2: There's still so many ways to add talent and unfortunately,
Speaker 2: so many opportunities to lose talent as a result as
Speaker 2: a result of the transfer portal.
Speaker 1: It's a little bit different.
Speaker 2: Now, transfer portal twenty days, it's a little bit smaller
Speaker 2: than it used to be, as the powers that be
Speaker 2: in college football try to corral all of the issues
Speaker 2: surrounding this great sport that we all love. But we'll
Speaker 2: talk some signing day to day on the Utah side
Speaker 2: of things, on the BYU side of things, national implications
Speaker 2: as well. Obviously, the CFP rankings released last night while
Speaker 2: we were still on air, and it's always kind of funny.
Speaker 2: I'm trying to scramble to bring you guys the information
Speaker 2: as far as what the rankings look like, what the
Speaker 2: bracket will look like in real time, and then you
Speaker 2: sign off air, and then you dig into it and
Speaker 2: you know it hits a little bit different. Sold talk
Speaker 2: about the CFP rankings that were released last night. Championship
Speaker 2: weekend and college football will start on Friday. Should be
Speaker 2: a fun weekend at college football. Unfortunately, no local teams involved,
Speaker 2: but we'll get to some college football storylines on the
Speaker 2: program today. On this Wednesday afternoon, Week fourteen in the
Speaker 2: NFL gets rolling with Thursday Night football tomorrow should be
Speaker 2: a good one. It's the Packers and the Lions Ford
Speaker 2: Field in Detroit. As of right now, the Lions are
Speaker 2: a three point favorite at home over Jordan Love and
Speaker 2: the Green Bay Packers. So we'll do some NFL on
Speaker 2: the program today Utah Hockey Club is off until Saturday.
Speaker 2: That's right, the Utah Hockey Club essentially getting the week
Speaker 2: off after a really busy schedule. But we'll do some
Speaker 2: hockey on the program today as well on a Wednesday.
Speaker 2: The Utah Jazz played a basketball game last night. Well,
Speaker 2: they were present, they showed up. It was ugly. It
Speaker 2: continues to be bad. We'll do some jazz basketball, some
Speaker 2: NBA basketball.
Speaker 1: On the show.
Speaker 2: The thunder are really really good, but the Jazz did
Speaker 2: themselves no favors. Tied an NBA record for turnovers and
Speaker 2: a half with nineteen in the first half, and they
Speaker 2: finished with twenty nine turnovers. OKC scored forty five points
Speaker 2: offset turnovers, and it was not good. Continues to not
Speaker 2: be good, but probably by this but we'll do some
Speaker 2: jazz on the show ultimately. This time of year, right
Speaker 2: around Thanksgiving, thereabouts twenty games played by most teams. They'reabouts
Speaker 2: about nineteen twenty twenty one. It is kind of an
Speaker 2: unofficial benchmark in pro basketball where you look around and
Speaker 2: try to understand exactly what the tone and tenor of
Speaker 2: the league is going to sound like, going to be
Speaker 2: like teams that are off the bad starts recalibrating as
Speaker 2: to whether or not they need to shift move on
Speaker 2: from certain players and teams that might find themselves in
Speaker 2: a position like the Houston Rockets, where they've just surprised
Speaker 2: a lot of people.
Speaker 1: Do they add to the group.
Speaker 2: Do they think they're in a situation where they can
Speaker 2: actually compete for something pretty special? Fun game last night
Speaker 2: between the Warriors and the Nuggets. TNT had a double dip,
Speaker 2: And there's plenty of NBA action going on tonight on
Speaker 2: this Wednesday. One more day until the NFL is back
Speaker 2: a couple more days till college Football Championship weekend BYU
Speaker 2: basketball got thumped last night. Watch that game they took
Speaker 2: on Providence. They went east and they they got thumped.
Speaker 2: It's a young team. Kevin Young's got a lot of
Speaker 2: growing pains to do, I guess is the way I'll
Speaker 2: put that.
Speaker 1: But I mean, it.
Speaker 2: Really wasn't even close all game long. So college basketball
Speaker 2: here and the first iteration of the net rankings are out.
Speaker 2: Providence won eighty three to sixty four BYU now, who
Speaker 2: has lost two of their last three. And that is
Speaker 2: a team that a lot of people thought could make
Speaker 2: some noise in the Big Twelve. Utah hoops will have
Speaker 2: a very interesting preseason challenge coming up on Saturday. Utah's
Speaker 2: preseason schedule is let's see it's soft.
Speaker 1: I guess as hell.
Speaker 2: I'll say that one loss to Mississippi State, They're gonna
Speaker 2: take on Saint Mary. Saint Mary's, of course, a very
Speaker 2: very good college basketball program, will be in Salt Lake
Speaker 2: City on Saturday nights. And then will you kind of
Speaker 2: wait for Utah to get into Big twelve play and
Speaker 2: hopefully Craig has some tricks up his sleeve. That team
Speaker 2: has picked to finish last in the Big Twelve. So
Speaker 2: a little bit of everything going on right now across
Speaker 2: the market. Good guest lists on this Wednesday afternoon. Hope
Speaker 2: you're off to a great start to your work week
Speaker 2: and you're halfway home, halfway to the weekends. One day
Speaker 2: closer on this Wednesday, the Voice of the Utes, Bill Riley,
Speaker 2: will stop by today on National Signing Day. Still a
Speaker 2: waiting word about an offensive coordinator, Still a waiting word
Speaker 2: about coach wit his official status.
Speaker 1: Maybe Ryles can shed some light on that.
Speaker 2: Today Richard Smith live in studio for an entire hours
Speaker 2: made He's gonna roll by and we'll do some jazz,
Speaker 2: some NBA and kind of understand exactly what this team
Speaker 2: is and what they'll look like moving forward.
Speaker 1: There.
Speaker 2: Every time one of these NBA riders releases a piece
Speaker 2: on the trade deadline and the potential movement prior to
Speaker 2: the jazz are involved. Talked about this with Timmcman yesterday
Speaker 2: and we'll get Smithy's take on it today during the
Speaker 2: three o'clock hour NBA Daily Assists style was Zach Harper.
Speaker 2: Then Ali Mata stops by from the Utah Hockey Club
Speaker 2: friend of the show, Utah Hockey Club player will talk.
Speaker 1: About the start of the season.
Speaker 2: It's been up, it's been down, It's been a little inconsistent,
Speaker 2: which is what you would expect from a young team.
Speaker 2: And what's the plan for their week off? Like an
Speaker 2: entire week off here in the market. So Bill Riley,
Speaker 2: Richard Smith, Zach Harper, Ali Matami, Spence check its all
Speaker 2: of you, the great listeners, and that guy Porter Larson.
Speaker 2: On a signing day Wednesday, it does hit different than
Speaker 2: it used to. It used to be like the only
Speaker 2: day where college football programs could add talent, but now
Speaker 2: with the transfer portal, it's still interesting but it's not
Speaker 2: near as intense as it used to be.
Speaker 1: Is that fair to say?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean you're still adding players to the roster.
Speaker 3: You're still you know, adding talent to the pool that
Speaker 3: you have. But Spence, you you also don't know how
Speaker 3: many of these guys are going to actually ever be
Speaker 3: in your locker room, how many of them are going
Speaker 3: to decommit and then getting an NIL deal with you know,
Speaker 3: another Big twelve school and you don't see him again.
Speaker 3: That's just the reality of this new landscape of college football.
Speaker 3: So signing day is still a big deal, not a
Speaker 3: huge deal because as I mentioned, there's just so much
Speaker 3: still to be learned both about these players. Number one,
Speaker 3: analyzing talent for sixteen seventeen year olds is hard to
Speaker 3: begin with. It makes it even more difficult when you
Speaker 3: add money into the equation and you add what is
Speaker 3: basically a pro style model, and we're seeing that, as
Speaker 3: you mentioned, the windows a little bit closed, a little
Speaker 3: bit smaller. NCAA is trying to put the genie back
Speaker 3: in the bottle a little bit, but that only goes
Speaker 3: so far. So yeah, it's a little different than it
Speaker 3: usually is, but still a day where you see some
Speaker 3: new faces that some of which will eventually play for
Speaker 3: the you.
Speaker 2: And look, it's always just exciting to players are always
Speaker 2: really popular when you've never seen them play. I always
Speaker 2: get a kick out of signing day when it comes
Speaker 2: to the coaches and the fan base. Then you kind
Speaker 2: of see them player, they take off and you're disappointed.
Speaker 2: But it is good content because of course Utah football,
Speaker 2: by football very topical.
Speaker 1: So we'll bring in Ryles today.
Speaker 2: To kind of get us up to data what's going
Speaker 2: on with Utah football program. But before Bill hops on
Speaker 2: courtesy of our good friends at Standard Restaurant Supply, it's
Speaker 2: your tailgate headquarters. You get everything you need to make
Speaker 2: your tailgate epics. Standard carries everything for your tailgate needs.
Speaker 2: Stop by their location of thirty five hundred Southwest Temple
Speaker 2: or online at Standard Restaurant dot com. On a Wednesday,
Speaker 2: it's time now for your opening tip.
Speaker 4: Welcome to the Drive with Spence Check. It's on Utah's
Speaker 4: number one sports talk. Now into the studio of ESPN
Speaker 4: seven hundred to set the scene for the show. The
Speaker 4: opening tip of the Drive is brought to you by
Speaker 4: Standard Restaurant Supply, your one stop shop to build the
Speaker 4: best tailgate in town. Standard Restaurant Supply thirty five hundred
Speaker 4: Southwest Temple.
Speaker 2: So still a waiting word on the Utah football side
Speaker 2: of things for who the offensive coordinator will be. I'm
Speaker 2: starting to wonder if we're actually going to get anything
Speaker 2: official about coach Wit either coming back or retired. It
Speaker 2: sounds like you might just come back and never anything.
Speaker 2: I mean, he is under contract. It might just be
Speaker 2: a scenario where nothing needs to be said and he
Speaker 2: comes back as the head coach. I'm kind of leaning
Speaker 2: more and more in that direction as of right now.
Speaker 2: So nothing efficient with the offensive coordinator. I'm sure conversations
Speaker 2: are going on fast and furious, and yes, I believe
Speaker 2: that it is paramount to get this done sooner rather
Speaker 2: than later.
Speaker 1: But it is early signing day.
Speaker 2: For Utah football, for BYU football, for all of college football.
Speaker 2: Transfer portal will officially open on the ninth. I mean,
Speaker 2: we've already heard a bunch of players who have put
Speaker 2: their name in the transfer portal, giving them some time
Speaker 2: to negotiate essentially deals now to try to get some
Speaker 2: nil money before they decide where they're going to play.
Speaker 2: And unfortunately that's driving everything because hey, we do Live in.
Speaker 1: America Capitalism High five.
Speaker 2: But last night during the five o'clock hour of the show,
Speaker 2: and it's always funny, Like can remember when I first
Speaker 2: started the show over five years ago, and it was
Speaker 2: twenty nineteen when Utah football was really good five o'clock
Speaker 2: hour of the program CFP release and back then, you
Speaker 2: know BCS. It's different in college football playoff now twelve
Speaker 2: twelve teams expanded and the only thing people wanted was
Speaker 2: to hear the rankings release live, so we would try
Speaker 2: to bring that to you. And it's funny when you're
Speaker 2: just trying to digest them in real time and then
Speaker 2: talk about them on air, you really miss a lot.
Speaker 2: So ultimately, last night, after the show, go home and
Speaker 2: dig in on a couple of different things. And I
Speaker 2: think it's safe to say, whether you like it or not,
Speaker 2: I feel like Alabama is in.
Speaker 1: I think that's a lock. Now.
Speaker 2: The one caveat here is if Clemson beats SMU, what
Speaker 2: does the committee do with what I perceived to be
Speaker 2: an SMU versus Alabama situation? And the more you kind
Speaker 2: of dig into it, the more and more I believe
Speaker 2: that they are going to put Bama in even if
Speaker 2: SMU loses, because the fact of the matter is if
Speaker 2: SMU loses to Clemson coming up in the ACC Championship game,
Speaker 2: and I feel like the ACC is the world of
Speaker 2: the p four conferences. I know a lot of people
Speaker 2: feel like that's the Big twelve. I just feel like
Speaker 2: the Big twelve has better depth overall one through twelve.
Speaker 2: I mean, Oklahoma State, Utah, you know, two of the
Speaker 2: worst teams quote unquote, worst teams than the conference. I
Speaker 2: think would probably be two of the top four or
Speaker 2: five teams in the ACC. The Big twelve to me
Speaker 2: has better depth than the ACC. But if SMU loses
Speaker 2: to Clemson, they will essentially have lost to the two
Speaker 2: best teams they played all year, which is BYU. BYU
Speaker 2: got them early in the year in their building, and
Speaker 2: then Clemson in the ACC Championship game. Like otherwise, their
Speaker 2: schedule has manifested itself as very average. The Louisville win
Speaker 2: at the time looked okay. The Pit win at the
Speaker 2: time looked okay. Pitt finished conference play three and five
Speaker 2: or seven and five overall, Louisville five and three. They
Speaker 2: stumbled to fifth in the conference eight and four overall.
Speaker 2: So in my opinion that would mean SMU would have
Speaker 2: lost to the two best teams they played and therefore
Speaker 2: opened the door for Alabama. I feel like Bama is
Speaker 2: in no matter what, because if s and you wins
Speaker 2: therein Clemson won't jump Alabama.
Speaker 1: This really is bad.
Speaker 2: News for Ole Miss, South South Carolina and then Miami.
Speaker 2: But I don't think, like I've listened to a lot
Speaker 2: of people today say Miami has a case.
Speaker 1: I don't think they do. I really don't.
Speaker 2: You know, Miami with a couple of bad losses and
Speaker 2: it is how you're playing at the wrong time of
Speaker 2: year for Miami much in the same way as it
Speaker 2: was for bringing me on BYU. If they would have
Speaker 2: had those two losses earlier in the year and time
Speaker 2: to rebound and put together a streak of wins to
Speaker 2: end the year like they did to kind of start
Speaker 2: the year, we might have a different conversation about BYU
Speaker 2: and the Big Twelve. But the committee clearly, excuse me,
Speaker 2: the Committee clearly puts a lot of emphasis on head
Speaker 2: to head And I know there are a lot of
Speaker 2: South Carolina people out there, including our buddy Spencer Hall,
Speaker 2: who joined us this week and kind of was hoping
Speaker 2: that South Carolina would get in over some of these
Speaker 2: at large teams. South Carolina straight up loss to Alabama
Speaker 2: head to head, so there's really no leg to stand on.
Speaker 2: I think Old Miss probably has a little bit of
Speaker 2: a case more so than South Carolina or certainly Miami.
Speaker 2: But Miami, to me is the one team that nobody
Speaker 2: should be banging the drum for. I mean, they had
Speaker 2: an opportunity and they completely blew it. So for all
Speaker 2: of the hand ringing and all of the people upset
Speaker 2: and look, ultimately, the seeding and the buys will take
Speaker 2: care of themselves coming up during conference championship weekend. But
Speaker 2: I don't think any of the outcomes will push Alabama out.
Speaker 2: I feel like the bubble teams are in as of now,
Speaker 2: and then we'll see over the weekend who's able to
Speaker 2: win their conference championship games, and then that will equate
Speaker 2: to the buys. It feels like Boise if they win,
Speaker 2: they'll probably get the buy in the first round out
Speaker 2: the Big twelve champ If UNLV excuse me, finds a
Speaker 2: way to beat Boise, does that allow Arizona State to
Speaker 2: maybe jump in and grab that buy if they beat
Speaker 2: Iowa State potentially, but as of now, the bracket feels
Speaker 2: like it's almost set depending on what happens over Conference
Speaker 2: Championship weekend. Oregon one, Texas to SMU three, they lose,
Speaker 2: obviously it's different. Boise State four, and then your first
Speaker 2: round matchups with the Arizona State, Penn State, Tennessee, Ohio
Speaker 2: State at the Shoe.
Speaker 1: That would be awesome.
Speaker 2: Alabama Notre Dame for a first round game, then Indiana
Speaker 2: Georgia to advance on to play the teams with a
Speaker 2: buye to start. So CFP rankings released, even though there's
Speaker 2: no local flavor anymore, still fun, still very topical because
Speaker 2: we have Conference Championship weekend coming up this weekend.
Speaker 5: Risk of the Mackfield put Montgomery three receivers on the
Speaker 5: right hand side, Utah showing some pressure. Now they back
Speaker 5: away from now they bring a safety up, four man rush,
Speaker 5: risk looking surveying, throwing down the field and it's intercepted
Speaker 5: at the forty, at the fifty, at the forty, at
Speaker 5: the thirty, a convoy.
Speaker 1: To the end zone and a touchdown. It's a buy
Speaker 1: a bond with a pick six and his final game
Speaker 1: as a US.
Speaker 2: Wow, Well it's U not eleven o'clock circa four or
Speaker 2: five months ago.
Speaker 1: It is two thirty on a Wednesday afternoon.
Speaker 2: Hopefully we brought a little nostalgia to the listeners today
Speaker 2: as the voice himself, the Voice of the Youths, Bill Riley,
Speaker 2: stops by on a Wednesday afternoon.
Speaker 1: Ryle's happy Wednesday. How you doing.
Speaker 6: Spend some good things? Going good on a Wednesday. I
Speaker 6: don't know what's gone faster. The fact that I've been
Speaker 6: off the air, not doing my show for four or
Speaker 6: five months.
Speaker 7: Or the football season.
Speaker 6: It feels like the football season went by really glad.
Speaker 6: I know it wasn't the season anybody wanted. I get
Speaker 6: that part of it, but it just felt like it
Speaker 6: was like the Southern Utah or the Baylor game just
Speaker 6: the other day.
Speaker 7: I can't believe the season's over.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I talk about it all the time.
Speaker 2: All we do when football is gone is complain and
Speaker 2: wait for it to come back, and then we're like
Speaker 2: miserable when it's here and then it's gone. It's like
Speaker 2: you need to enjoy it even when the season isn't
Speaker 2: what you hoped it would be, because it does come
Speaker 2: and go really quickly.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 6: I've always said, it's the season we wait longest for
Speaker 6: and it goes by the fastest. Nobody ever said, man,
Speaker 6: that NBA season just flew by. Nobody ever said, oh,
Speaker 6: that NHL or that baseball season flew by. But we
Speaker 6: always talk about football season like it was a blink of.
Speaker 1: An eye, no doubt, no doubt.
Speaker 2: So Ryle's on a Wednesday afternoon, I have to ask
Speaker 2: you Early Signing Day hot or not?
Speaker 7: I would say not.
Speaker 6: I feel like the transfer portal has overtaken National Signing Day?
Speaker 7: Does that make sense?
Speaker 6: In the old days, we were all about the signing
Speaker 6: day and press conferences and who. I just feel like
Speaker 6: everybody is like, Okay, that's great, but most of these
Speaker 6: kids aren't even going to play for a couple of years,
Speaker 6: if or even with our program in a few years.
Speaker 6: The transfer portal opens next week.
Speaker 1: Who can we go out and get Yeah? No, I'm
Speaker 1: with you there.
Speaker 2: I wonder how many of our listeners have any sort
Speaker 2: of context or frame or reference as to why I'm
Speaker 2: posing the question that way, But we don't need to
Speaker 2: dig into it any further.
Speaker 1: I will ask.
Speaker 8: You it spent yeah, a different time.
Speaker 2: It was a different time, for sure, in a lot
Speaker 2: of different ways bill a different time. But I'll ask you,
Speaker 2: I'm not going I mean, I've got the list in
Speaker 2: front of you. We're doing kind of just live tracking
Speaker 2: here instead of going down the list, I'll just ask you,
Speaker 2: is there any buzz about any of these young players
Speaker 2: that Utah has locked in that you're hearing about up
Speaker 2: on the Hill.
Speaker 6: No, I mean it's kind of quiet today to be
Speaker 6: really fair. Again, I just think even schools and universities
Speaker 6: they're publicizing it, but it's just not quite what it was.
Speaker 6: It's very interesting to me that the quarterback they landed,
Speaker 6: not the kid from southern California, but the Texas State
Speaker 6: commit flipped just a couple of days ago.
Speaker 7: You know, does that have anything to.
Speaker 6: Do with a potential offensive coordinator flip? And then the
Speaker 6: Thatcher kid, the linebacker, who I think is going to
Speaker 6: be a really really good kid too. I like him
Speaker 6: a lot as well. But it's it's just so hard today.
Speaker 6: It used to be home which one of these guys
Speaker 6: is going to play next year? You know, what are
Speaker 6: they going to be in a couple of years, And
Speaker 6: now it's just kind of like, Okay, I hope they
Speaker 6: stick around to develop because college football's become such a
Speaker 6: here and now, Spence. It's not about you know, you know,
Speaker 6: being in a program two or three years in biding
Speaker 6: your time. It's about, okay, how quickly you're going to
Speaker 6: get on the field, or if I can't get on
Speaker 6: the field, where can I go and get on the field?
Speaker 8: Now?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, well okay, So let's just move on from it then,
Speaker 2: because there's really nothing to dig into. And as I
Speaker 2: tell our listeners, we'll continue to update John the breaking
Speaker 2: news that comes down if any of us rolls our way,
Speaker 2: but we do. We are at a spot now we're
Speaker 2: waiting to hear who the play caller is going to
Speaker 2: be next year as far as the OC. The offensive
Speaker 2: coordinator Ben Arbuckle, who was the name that was kind
Speaker 2: of floated out, ends up at Oklahoma after doing a
Speaker 2: really good job on the polue.
Speaker 1: So I'll just ask you any buzz you're.
Speaker 2: Hearing anything about any names, any idea when we may
Speaker 2: hear an announcement.
Speaker 6: I think, well, I think it's the priority right now.
Speaker 6: I mean I think the longer this goes, it feels
Speaker 6: more and more to me like Kyle Whittingham's coming back.
Speaker 7: I don't know, anything.
Speaker 6: I honestly, people have I've been bombarded all day long
Speaker 6: with text messages for the last four or five days.
Speaker 6: Kyle's been very hush about it. He told me over
Speaker 6: the weekend when we're in Orlander, he goes, hey, I'll
Speaker 6: let you know if something changes. I'm like, great, thanks.
Speaker 6: I haven't heard anything from him, so so I think
Speaker 6: if we're going to play the car you know, it's
Speaker 6: always there's not going to be a press conference. If
Speaker 6: Kyle Whittingham comes back, might be a release says hey,
Speaker 6: I'm back for a couple more years, whatever, But I'm
Speaker 6: approaching this as business as usual. So to your point,
Speaker 6: the offensive coordinator is the most important hire right now.
Speaker 6: I do know that they coveted the Arbuckle oc from
Speaker 6: Washington States, and a lot of people saw that connection.
Speaker 6: And bringing the Materier kid his quarterback with him, well,
Speaker 6: Oklahoma apparently swept in last second and must have made
Speaker 6: him an offer he couldn't refuse. Because he's now in Norman, Oklahoma.
Speaker 6: My guess is the quarterback Matier goes with him. So
Speaker 6: now it's on to the next I'm reading a lot
Speaker 6: of the same.
Speaker 7: Stuff that you're reading.
Speaker 6: I do know that this name, the mac Leftwich name
Speaker 6: from Texas State is somebody I even heard a week
Speaker 6: or two ago when our Buckle's name was starting to
Speaker 6: come up too. He runs a really good offense. It's
Speaker 6: they balanced offense. They throw it quite a bit, but
Speaker 6: they run it as well at Texas State.
Speaker 7: He's one of.
Speaker 6: Those young and up and coming former college quarterbacks. Really
Speaker 6: done some good things, one of those hot young names.
Speaker 6: And people say Texas State. Well, Texas State's a pretty
Speaker 6: good program, and he's had a lot of experience and
Speaker 6: he's recruited Texas So I think that's a name to
Speaker 6: keep an eye on. And then there's some other stuff
Speaker 6: out there as well. I mean there's a guy at
Speaker 6: Tulane to people like a lot. They've mentioned the ULV coach,
Speaker 6: although he might have plans to go bigger or try
Speaker 6: and get a head coaching job. But I think the
Speaker 6: name that's intriguing to me right now is the OC
Speaker 6: from Tech State, Mac Lethwich.
Speaker 1: So you I want to follow up.
Speaker 2: You touched on coach Wit, But I want to follow
Speaker 2: up because of course, as you know, I mean, if
Speaker 2: I'm getting text Ryle's, I can't imagine what your phone
Speaker 2: is sounding like and looking like with everybody really wanting
Speaker 2: to know what's going to happen. And I started the
Speaker 2: show off today surmising that because there is no news,
Speaker 2: I do believe that means he's coming back. And I
Speaker 2: suppose the exception would be if he hasn't decided. But
Speaker 2: that seems pretty anti Kyle to me. He's not a
Speaker 2: wishy washy like emotional guy. He strikes me as the
Speaker 2: type that would just decide and boom, move on to
Speaker 2: whatever's next. And I don't think he would put Morgan
Speaker 2: in a spot of ambiguity, and I don't think he
Speaker 2: would put the program or Mark Harlan the ad in
Speaker 2: a spot of like, okay, wondering what the deal is.
Speaker 2: So for me, the fact that there is no news
Speaker 2: does me and the coach wit will be back on
Speaker 2: the sidelines for Utah. Is that kind of where your
Speaker 2: head is at right now? Give me your thoughts on that.
Speaker 6: Yeah, just because he's talked so much Spence about doing
Speaker 6: what's best for the program, because it's it's his program.
Speaker 6: He's done. He's sunk twenty years as head coach in
Speaker 6: thirty years of his life at the University of Utah,
Speaker 6: he is more synonymous with this football program than probably
Speaker 6: any player that played for him over the last twenty years.
Speaker 6: And he's talked in the last couple of weeks about
Speaker 6: whatever his decision is, he was going to do the
Speaker 6: best for the program. Well, holding out and making a
Speaker 6: decision a week or ten days that isn't what's best
Speaker 6: for the program. And at least in my mind, you know,
Speaker 6: if you're going to make that decision, you make it,
Speaker 6: You make that change, you let the new guy get in.
Speaker 6: That's Morgan Scalley coach and waiting and go from there.
Speaker 6: So the fact that we're sitting here on Wednesday, now,
Speaker 6: maybe it has something to do with National Signing Day.
Speaker 7: I don't know.
Speaker 6: I don't think that's the case. But you know, it's
Speaker 6: not as if you just started thinking about it Friday
Speaker 6: after the game. It's probably been something he's been mulling
Speaker 6: over for a little while. So the fact that we're
Speaker 6: sitting here on Wednesday and we've really heard no news,
Speaker 6: I'm kind of with you. I don't know this again,
Speaker 6: no news you know, officially to Bill Riley. But my
Speaker 6: inkling would be because he's talked about doing what's right
Speaker 6: and what's best for the program. It kind of feels
Speaker 6: like it's trending toward him returning.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm with you on that, all right.
Speaker 2: There was a rumor yesterday that Noah Flafida was hitting
Speaker 2: the transfer portal.
Speaker 1: That has been dispelled.
Speaker 2: Noah's father told the ESPN that he's staying at Arizona.
Speaker 2: I only bring it up, Bill, because yesterday I was
Speaker 2: just kind of talking aloud about the possibility of you
Speaker 2: tie hitting the transfer portal to find a quarterback. You
Speaker 2: watched every game up close, You called all these games
Speaker 2: up close. Do you feel like the answer under center
Speaker 2: is in the room or in the transfer portal?
Speaker 7: I think you probably have to go find somebody. Spence,
Speaker 7: I do.
Speaker 6: I think I like some of the stuff I saw
Speaker 6: from Brandon Rose.
Speaker 7: I do.
Speaker 6: And Brandon's got a couple of years left of eligibility.
Speaker 6: But you know, I to me, and it's really going
Speaker 6: to be up to the new offensive coordinator, whoever that
Speaker 6: happens to be, to evaluate with his room.
Speaker 7: Look.
Speaker 6: But I think the head coach knows they have to
Speaker 6: have somebody, you know. I think Isaac Wilson could still
Speaker 6: be a terrific quarterback. But Isaac Wilson was thrown into
Speaker 6: a tough situation as a true freshman, and I think
Speaker 6: it takes a little.
Speaker 7: Time to marinate.
Speaker 6: Hey, look at Dylan Ryola Spence who's at Nebraska. He
Speaker 6: was supposed to be the second coming of Patrick Mahomes
Speaker 6: this year and he's just been okay. He's had a
Speaker 6: lot of downs and ups. I just think it's tough
Speaker 6: at the power forward level as a true freshman without
Speaker 6: any game experience to come in and be successful. So
Speaker 6: I still think I'm still a guy that thinks Isaac
Speaker 6: Wilson could be a big quarterback. But I think redshirting
Speaker 6: for a year and maybe sitting back and looking and
Speaker 6: watching would be very beneficial.
Speaker 7: I think that was the plan.
Speaker 6: I think the plan all along was sit and learn
Speaker 6: from Cam Rising for a year, but obviously that went sideways.
Speaker 6: So to me, I think you're probably going to shop
Speaker 6: the portal and try and find somebody.
Speaker 2: So as of now, I believe, at least from what
Speaker 2: I understand today, and certainly pieces of news I could
Speaker 2: have missed. But is it only Jalen Glover who said
Speaker 2: the transfer portal from the utes or anybody else they've lost.
Speaker 1: I feel like the.
Speaker 2: Only name I've heard of note has been Jalen and
Speaker 2: he left prior to the end of the season.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I think I saw a couple of notes that
Speaker 6: some not frontline guys, some guys that were maybe reserve players.
Speaker 6: Maybe it hit the portal, but yeah, you're right, there's
Speaker 6: been nobody of note that has hit the portal. In fact,
Speaker 6: you've seen some of the guys on social media, the
Speaker 6: Spencer Fanos and the cam Calhouns and the smith Snowdens,
Speaker 6: some of these really good, young, talented cornerstone pieces kind
Speaker 6: of reaffirmed they're coming back. In twenty five, Logan Fano
Speaker 6: did the same thing. So yeah, Glover hit it up.
Speaker 6: You know, a week or so ago, I saw a
Speaker 6: couple of you know, kind of reserve type players that
Speaker 6: maybe did, but nobody of note.
Speaker 2: Well, that's excellent news, and obviously there's plenty of time.
Speaker 2: The portal officially opens on the ninth. So here's how
Speaker 2: I'll pose the question to you, Bill, what gives you
Speaker 2: the most confidence that this year was an anomaly and
Speaker 2: a moment in time as opposed to the new normal
Speaker 2: for Utah.
Speaker 6: Football because we haven't seen dips like this. It was
Speaker 6: back to back. I mean a year ago. You know,
Speaker 6: I teach the class up at the U and I
Speaker 6: had one of the kids in my class the other
Speaker 6: day make a presentation on Utah football and what it was,
Speaker 6: and he brought up an interesting stat. Had Utah football's
Speaker 6: offense simply averaged twenty four points a game this year,
Speaker 6: they would have gone I think nine to three. Had
Speaker 6: they averaged twenty eight points a game this year, I
Speaker 6: think he said, they would have gone ten and two.
Speaker 6: Twenty eight points and twenty four points are double digit
Speaker 6: points lower than what they averaged the two years they
Speaker 6: won the Pac twelve championship.
Speaker 7: It just hasn't been like this.
Speaker 6: I think injuries and attrition and and a little bit
Speaker 6: of bad luck haved befallen this team. The defense was
Speaker 6: still outstanding. They were in every game in the fourth quarter,
Speaker 6: with the exception of I think the Colorado game where
Speaker 6: they were double digits down there. But besides that, they
Speaker 6: were in every game. Just some pretty average quarterback play.
Speaker 6: This year, Spence and Utah would have been I'm not
Speaker 6: going to say would have won the Pack. I don't
Speaker 6: know if they would have won the Big twelve, but
Speaker 6: averaged to slightly above average quarterback play, and they would
Speaker 6: have been in that discussion last weekend with BYU and
Speaker 6: ASU and in Colorado and Iowa State. So that to
Speaker 6: me says there's still a lot of talent in the program,
Speaker 6: but they've got to get it fixed at the most
Speaker 6: important position, which.
Speaker 1: Leads me to Cameron.
Speaker 2: Of course, when Coach Witt was asked about Cam potentially
Speaker 2: coming back for year number eight, which is just it's
Speaker 2: so crazy to think about the potential, but that's the
Speaker 2: deal now, Kyle said it's up to him. I wonder
Speaker 2: what Kyle would do if Cam called him and said, hey,
Speaker 2: I got to talk to you and rolled into the
Speaker 2: coach's office and said I've thought about it. There's some
Speaker 2: Nile money out there, and I've decided to come back
Speaker 2: for your aid. If we take Kyle at his word,
Speaker 2: he just opens the door, right, Like, what do you
Speaker 2: think Coach Wit does if that scenario presents.
Speaker 7: Itself That I don't know, because I don't.
Speaker 6: It's hard to you know, after back to back seasons,
Speaker 6: we're Cam. I mean, Cam's been here five years and
Speaker 6: he has been hurt season ending injuries in three of
Speaker 6: those five years. We all forget the COVID year where
Speaker 6: he hurt his shoulder in that USC first second game
Speaker 6: of the year, and then of course you had the
Speaker 6: end of the Rose Bowl, and then he missed the
Speaker 6: entire season and then this year too. That's a lot
Speaker 6: of track record of injury to bring back. I'm not
Speaker 6: saying somebody wouldn't give him a chance. I'm not even
Speaker 6: saying Utah wouldn't. But boy, you really have to weigh
Speaker 6: that because you see guys all the time. Once you
Speaker 6: start getting hurt, that tends to be your kind of
Speaker 6: tells you the body is just not taking and recovering
Speaker 6: the same way it used to. So I think it'd
Speaker 6: be a really tough decision, and I wouldn't want to
Speaker 6: hazard a guess as to what Kyle and his staff
Speaker 6: will do again, though, I think it's up to the
Speaker 6: offensive coordinator too. Spence, you're bringing in an offensive coordinator,
Speaker 6: and in theory Kyle said, it's got to be a
Speaker 6: guy that's running a new and different system. It's got
Speaker 6: to be plug and play. The new OC has to
Speaker 6: be on board with who his QB is because that's
Speaker 6: the most important position on the field. So I would
Speaker 6: think it would be a kind of a co op
Speaker 6: decision between head coach and OC as to whether they
Speaker 6: brought him back.
Speaker 2: You know the other thing, Bill and I don't know
Speaker 2: how much meat is on this bone, but I did
Speaker 2: hear several people surmise last year that the fact that
Speaker 2: Cameron was coming back potentially may have scared some quarterback
Speaker 2: prospects to play, you know, wanting to come play here
Speaker 2: because they simply didn't want to be as backup.
Speaker 1: Those are just rumors.
Speaker 2: I have no idea, But I think the other side
Speaker 2: of it is, if Utah wants to be aggressive in
Speaker 2: the transfer portal to go get one of these topshell
Speaker 2: off qbs to be here for a year or two,
Speaker 2: it might just be better for both parties to say, hey,
Speaker 2: thanks for the memories, but you walk that way, I'll
Speaker 2: walk this way and we part in love type thing.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's just kind of what my gut tells me.
Speaker 6: Well, yeah, I mean, if you're if you're serious about
Speaker 6: shopping in the portal for a bit, nobody that's no
Speaker 6: Noah fa Fido or John Mattier is coming here that
Speaker 6: they're coming here to be the guy that that's what
Speaker 6: they're coming here to be. They're coming here to be
Speaker 6: the starting quarterback and they've got a chance to you know, again, everybody,
Speaker 6: I understand you've got to win the job in fall
Speaker 6: camp blah blah blah. But but it's the unwitten wink wink.
Speaker 6: As long as you show up and play hard, you're
Speaker 6: you're gonna That's that's the thing. So you've got to
Speaker 6: really make your choice. If you're Utah, you're either bringing
Speaker 6: Cam Rising back or you're going in the portal and
Speaker 6: shopping for a big time you know, transfer quarterback.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the only time will tell.
Speaker 2: Okay, one more football thing, then I want to do
Speaker 2: a little basketball with you. We got Saint Mary's on Saturday,
Speaker 2: which should be an interesting test for Craig. And look,
Speaker 2: I honestly don't know if there's anything to hear, but
Speaker 2: I do know that BYU year one of the Big
Speaker 2: twelve talked a lot about the lessons they learned in
Speaker 2: their first year in the conference. Now, the main difference
Speaker 2: here and real important line of delineation is Utah football
Speaker 2: played a decade of P five football, then P four
Speaker 2: football now with the PAC twelve, and BYU football independent
Speaker 2: was not a P four P five program. They did
Speaker 2: not have that schedule year and in year out. So the
Speaker 2: one year adjustment period for them just makes more sense
Speaker 2: in my mind than it would for Utah. But are
Speaker 2: there lessons to be learned for Utah football year one
Speaker 2: in a new conference? So maybe Utah next year, like
Speaker 2: BYU year two, can turn some of those close losses
Speaker 2: into wins and then be potentially looking to be in
Speaker 2: the race for the conference championship.
Speaker 1: Is there any meat on that bone?
Speaker 6: I think there's small lessons Spence, and I think it's
Speaker 6: more specific to opponents or venues or styles of play.
Speaker 6: But to be fair, I don't I don't think that
Speaker 6: the Big I think the Big twelve was very competitive,
Speaker 6: but I don't think it was any better a league,
Speaker 6: or certainly at the top, than what Utah saw for
Speaker 6: thirteen years in the Pac twelve. I don't think there
Speaker 6: was a roster adjustment or a talent level. I don't
Speaker 6: think there was a disparity in talent between the two
Speaker 6: leagues by any means. So if there were any lessons,
Speaker 6: they were maybe smaller lessons about opponents in particular, or
Speaker 6: how coaches liked the coach against. You were styles of
Speaker 6: play more than anything else.
Speaker 1: You saw both teams up close. Who do you like?
Speaker 2: Iowa State Arizona State coming up Saturday in Arlington.
Speaker 6: I think I like Arizona State. It kind of feels
Speaker 6: like a team of destiny this year. It kind of
Speaker 6: feels like Kenny Dillingham has found something there.
Speaker 7: I like Levit a lot.
Speaker 6: That being said, I did say this, I think Iowa
Speaker 6: State is the most balanced team Utah played this year,
Speaker 6: may have been the best team on both sides of
Speaker 6: the ball. But I think Arizona State's kind of playing
Speaker 6: with the purpose and they've got that proverbial you know,
Speaker 6: that that that the horseshoe up their rear end just
Speaker 6: a little bit, getting some breaks and playing hard. And
Speaker 6: I like Kenny Dillingham too, so I think it's gonna
Speaker 6: be a good game. I don't think either one of
Speaker 6: those teams are greatly better than the other, but I'll take.
Speaker 7: A issue, all right.
Speaker 2: Last thing that I'll set you loose Saint Mary's roles
Speaker 2: into town Saturday night. Should be a fun preseason test
Speaker 2: for Craig's team. They're six and one through seven. The
Speaker 2: one l is to Mississippi State. I've been intentionally watching
Speaker 2: a lot of Big twelve basketball, and I know Craig,
Speaker 2: and I love this about Craig's attitude. He wants to challenge, Well,
Speaker 2: he's going to get the challenge, because, my goodness, it
Speaker 2: is deep, and even even the teams that aren'tranked in
Speaker 2: the top twenty five are really really high caliber. BYU
Speaker 2: get smoked last night against Providence, But give us an
Speaker 2: update of progress report through seven games on this basketball team,
Speaker 2: and what's a reasonable expectation, not just Saturday night, but
Speaker 2: throughout the course of the rest of the season.
Speaker 6: I've been saying this for a while.
Speaker 7: This is a this is a good team.
Speaker 6: I think they're gonna outplay their preseason expectations by what.
Speaker 6: I don't know yet, but they're six and one right now.
Speaker 7: Spence. They lost.
Speaker 6: Their one loss was a neutral court loss in Mississippi
Speaker 6: to Mississippi State. But I do maintain have lost and
Speaker 6: Lovering played that game, they would not have lost that game.
Speaker 6: They got beat seventy eight to seventy three. In that game,
Speaker 6: they were playing four guards and they had they were
Speaker 6: small ball all day long in a bunch of foul trouble.
Speaker 6: I think they're seven to zh If they have that now,
Speaker 6: they're gonna need Lovering and a little bit of Zach Keller.
Speaker 7: They're gonna need their size.
Speaker 6: And their big boy bridges on Saturday because Saint Mary's
Speaker 6: is tough. They're eight and one. Their only loss was
Speaker 6: to ASU and a close one. They leave the nation
Speaker 6: and offensive rebounding. NBA fans out there will be interested.
Speaker 6: The great sharonas Marshall Owe. His son Augustus is the
Speaker 6: stud for this Saint Mary's team. But they're balanced and
Speaker 6: it's what Randy Bennett always does.
Speaker 7: Spence.
Speaker 6: He's got a bunch of big bodies that will just
Speaker 6: bang in the front court and got good guard plays.
Speaker 6: So this will be the best non conference game for
Speaker 6: Utah by far, and the best game of the Huntsman
Speaker 6: Center till Big Twelve's play begins in Utah's got great
Speaker 6: depth and they can really shoot it too. They've got
Speaker 6: five guys who can shoot it, a couple of guys
Speaker 6: coming off the bench.
Speaker 8: But to me, the one thing if they can keep.
Speaker 6: Saint Mary's off the Saint Mary's has twice as many
Speaker 6: offensive rebounds as their opponents this year. They lead the
Speaker 6: nation in offensive rebounding. You can keep them a little
Speaker 6: bit off the offensive glass. I think they could beat
Speaker 6: Saint Mary's. I think it'll be a great game though.
Speaker 2: All right, my guy, I appreciate the time on a Wednesday,
Speaker 2: still waiting for you to roll in the studio and
Speaker 2: hang out with us at some point, so let's do
Speaker 2: that soon.
Speaker 1: Okay, sounds good, Spence, thanks all right.
Speaker 2: The Voice of the Utes, Bill Riley, brought to you
Speaker 2: today by Big O' Tires, is their extended Black Friday.
Speaker 1: It ends on December the eighth.
Speaker 2: You're bringing Zach Harper today little NBA Daily Assist style
Speaker 2: Ali Matza, who just was called up to represent Finland
Speaker 2: from the Utah Hockey Club.
Speaker 1: We'll stop by a little.
Speaker 2: Bit later on as well. Start things off with the
Speaker 2: Voice of the Utes, Bill Riley. It is early signing Day,
Speaker 2: a day that does not hit near the way it
Speaker 2: used to as a result of the transfer portal, because
Speaker 2: so many of these kids who have signed the play
Speaker 2: for these local teams may never even play here because
Speaker 2: they could get an offer to go elsewhere. A transfer
Speaker 2: portal officially opens up on December the ninth, but a
Speaker 2: lot of players have already announced their intention. No news
Speaker 2: yet on either the offensive coordinator or an official announcement
Speaker 2: for coach with which leads me to believe that he's
Speaker 2: coming back, but live in studio for an entire hour.
Speaker 2: My buddy, Richard Smith on a Wednesday, Smitty, happy Wednesday.
Speaker 1: How are you? Let's turn his mic on? No, there
Speaker 1: we go. It probably works better for your ratings.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, as I often say, my Christmas wish
Speaker 2: as a radio host is the ability to control microphones
Speaker 2: in the studio.
Speaker 1: But that's probably too much to How are you. How
Speaker 1: are you, buddy?
Speaker 9: We're doing great. Yeah, we're doing just a beautiful day outside.
Speaker 9: And we had a great Thanksgiving weekend last week, as
Speaker 9: as I know you did back east and with your
Speaker 9: family and uh, you know, it's all good.
Speaker 1: Good to be back east.
Speaker 2: And for you, you spent the holiday vacationing in the
Speaker 2: happiest place on earth.
Speaker 1: Was this was big time spent. We were down.
Speaker 9: We were down to Disneyland for four glorious days. And
Speaker 9: I'll tell you what, when you're in the middle of
Speaker 9: Disneyland and I did not know this. This is the
Speaker 9: first time that Linda and I've ever done this with
Speaker 9: some friends. But they when you're there, you if you
Speaker 9: don't know anything else that's going on in the world,
Speaker 9: you would make the assumption. Well, I guess in the
Speaker 9: United States, they don't have the traditional family get together
Speaker 9: around the table at home now anymore. Everybody just goes
Speaker 9: to Disneyland, jam packed. Oh it was walder people.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it was.
Speaker 9: But the weather was good and we had a fun time.
Speaker 9: It was a different experience for us. And yeah, yeah,
Speaker 9: we had a lot of fun. It was great.
Speaker 1: So we'll get to the Jazz in a moment, because
Speaker 1: my goodness.
Speaker 2: But I wanted to ask you this today, and you know,
Speaker 2: I want to be very clear here. I don't know
Speaker 2: what coach Wit is going to do. I just feel like,
Speaker 2: because there has been no official announcement, it leads me
Speaker 2: to believe he's coming back. I mean, right now, it's
Speaker 2: early signing day. They're so busy with recruiting and transfer
Speaker 2: portal and such. I think if he was going to
Speaker 2: step aside, we would know by now. But I wonder
Speaker 2: if you could illuminate us a little bit, what are
Speaker 2: some of the things you kind of balance out when
Speaker 2: you know, you saw a lot of coaches come and go,
Speaker 2: and when you're in admittedly the late fall, early winter
Speaker 2: of your career, what are some of the things you
Speaker 2: balance out when you want to decide whether or not
Speaker 2: you want to keep going.
Speaker 9: Yeah, when you have a year like the youths had
Speaker 9: this year, I think the most important thing for them
Speaker 9: is to be able to step back and take a
Speaker 9: deep breath and and get a little perspective.
Speaker 1: On on what happened.
Speaker 9: You know, when you were in the middle of that
Speaker 9: that tornado that they were in, and and that downhill
Speaker 9: slide in the in October November. Uh, you know, a
Speaker 9: lot of things come at you and and you have
Speaker 9: a lot of different thoughts about any time anything goes wrong,
Speaker 9: it's it's just exacerbated and and overblown. So when you
Speaker 9: get to the end of the season, you want to
Speaker 9: be able to step back and and and step away
Speaker 9: from it for a little bit and try and and
Speaker 9: and get away and just clear your head and kind
Speaker 9: of look at it for what it what it really was,
Speaker 9: without all of that drama that that you were in
Speaker 9: the middle of. And I agree, I tend to agree
Speaker 9: with you, Spence. I don't know anything about anything regarding
Speaker 9: UH coach Whittingham and his thoughts and and and the
Speaker 9: program going forward, but it just feels like if they
Speaker 9: were if it was gonna be something around the deal
Speaker 9: of him leaving, that they probably would done it already
Speaker 9: early this week, just to cut it clean and let
Speaker 9: everybody know, Hey, so don't bother us again. We'll give
Speaker 9: you some more updates kind of thing. And uh, it
Speaker 9: just you know, But then again, maybe he's you know,
Speaker 9: maybe he's off on some uh some island somewhere for
Speaker 9: a week, you know, trying to get his head clear.
Speaker 9: I'm sure with the with the early signing date and
Speaker 9: all that, that probably you're just the opposite with their
Speaker 9: heads down and in the office trying to get those
Speaker 9: kinds of things locked down for their program. But but
Speaker 9: it just it feels like to me also that that
Speaker 9: just as a fan, that that you probably would have
Speaker 9: heard something else if there was something in that regard
Speaker 9: going on. So my my gut also tells me that
Speaker 9: when the dust settles, there won't be uh, there won't
Speaker 9: be anything. They'll just be business as usual and they'll
Speaker 9: be looking for an offensive coordinator obviously, and then uh
Speaker 9: and then just going on with that would be my guess.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I'm with you there. And Kyle also doesn't
Speaker 2: strike me as a wishy, washy guy. I mean, He
Speaker 2: seems to be a pretty pragmatic person, where like, if
Speaker 2: he knew he was going to leave, I think he
Speaker 2: just would have told everybody and then moved on right
Speaker 2: to whatever's next. But you do have some context with
Speaker 2: college coaches that you know over the years that have
Speaker 2: just elected to not deal with the new reality of
Speaker 2: college athletics. And we've seen examples in college football. Nick
Speaker 2: Saban's the biggest one. Others too, Tony Bennett, who won
Speaker 2: a national championship right before the year.
Speaker 1: It's like, yeah, you know what, I don't think I
Speaker 1: want to deal with this.
Speaker 2: So while I do believe Kyle's coming back, part of
Speaker 2: me wouldn't blame him if he's like, you know what,
Speaker 2: this is a new game. It's not the game that
Speaker 2: I signed up to coach. It's not the business that
Speaker 2: I signed up to lead. Because as a college football coach,
Speaker 2: you're a CEO. You're not just a coach. There are
Speaker 2: so many layers, and yes, now a lot of them
Speaker 2: have general managers and guys that can help him out
Speaker 2: run the program. But the new reality of college athletics
Speaker 2: seems to have really struck a lot of these old
Speaker 2: school coaches in a way.
Speaker 1: Where some of them just don't want to deal with it.
Speaker 9: Yeah, well that happened, I know, last week with Mac
Speaker 9: Brown in North Carolina, a longtime coach and won a
Speaker 9: national championship when he was at Texas. Has had two
Speaker 9: successful stints at the University of North Carolina as they
Speaker 9: had football coach, but they they decided to let him
Speaker 9: go last week before their their final game with NC State,
Speaker 9: And then they had the game with their and they
Speaker 9: and they lost, and and in his postgame press conference
Speaker 9: he said, yeah, I'm done, and he goes, this isn't uh,
Speaker 9: and he made reference to just the whole thing in general,
Speaker 9: not just his his situation, but when he said, this
Speaker 9: isn't this isn't the the game that I signed up for,
Speaker 9: you know, way back when this is it's all different now,
Speaker 9: and so this is probably a good timing for everybody
Speaker 9: and for me to to exit stage left, and and
Speaker 9: for them to you know, to bring in somebody else.
Speaker 9: And hey, Jay Wright did it last year, right, and
Speaker 9: he had won two national championships. And we know our
Speaker 9: good friend up the road, Randy Ray, got out Weaver
Speaker 9: State a couple of years earlier than he he had
Speaker 9: originally planned.
Speaker 1: In terms of his career plans.
Speaker 9: Because he just thought, you know, he saw this, all
Speaker 9: this stuff coming and said, I don't want to I
Speaker 9: don't want to deal with this, and especially at a
Speaker 9: place like Weaver State, which is a mid major, which
Speaker 9: you know is gonna have trouble competing with nil kinds
Speaker 9: of stuff, you know, with with the biggest programs and
Speaker 9: and that kind of thing. So I'm surprised that that
Speaker 9: that we don't see more of the coaches. I guess
Speaker 9: you know, when you're in it, you you like what
Speaker 9: you're doing, and it changes and you have to adapt
Speaker 9: and and coach Witt said this, I know in one
Speaker 9: of his recent press conferences that hey, whether you like
Speaker 9: it or not, whether you agree with it or not,
Speaker 9: whether it works for you or not, you know, the
Speaker 9: bottom line is if you're in in the business, then
Speaker 9: you just have to adapt and figure out how to
Speaker 9: make it work to the best of your your ability.
Speaker 9: And so that's something that that you know, probably uh
Speaker 9: would come into play if you were to make some
Speaker 9: decision to uh, you know, to get out now, you know,
Speaker 9: just because all of that, and it seems Spence that
Speaker 9: it's evolving and changing all the time, like there's not
Speaker 9: a set path that everybody's going down. It's always diverging,
Speaker 9: it's always going left or right, and uh, different things
Speaker 9: are happening, and the you know, the transfer portal, and
Speaker 9: and I heard on the OC Show earlier they're talking
Speaker 9: about just the and with You with Bill Riley just
Speaker 9: in the last segment about the early signing day and
Speaker 9: the fact that it really doesn't carry as much impetus
Speaker 9: or weight now as it used to with fans and
Speaker 9: the media in general, because how much does it matter
Speaker 9: because the kid, the kid says, yeah, I'm.
Speaker 1: Signing with you.
Speaker 9: Utah, Yeah, thanks a lot, Okay, okay, and then a
Speaker 9: month from now he says, oh, I changed my mind.
Speaker 9: I'm going to USC instead, you know, like they can
Speaker 9: do that, and so it really doesn't matter.
Speaker 1: And so that's the hard part I would think the coaches.
Speaker 9: Are dealing with is is how do we get somebody
Speaker 9: how do we then hold on to them because there's
Speaker 9: really not a contractual type situation at this time in
Speaker 9: college at college athletics where you can get a commitment
Speaker 9: and then have it be binding and have to have
Speaker 9: someone have to stay like you do in the professional ranks,
Speaker 9: where you signed contracts.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And you know, we had a guest on yesterday named
Speaker 2: Matt Brown who writes a college football newsletter called Extra Points,
Speaker 2: and Matt is a very bright guy who essentially creates
Speaker 2: content to help people understand the new business of college football,
Speaker 2: like college football issues off the field, and right now,
Speaker 2: it's it's it's pretty crazy that essentially the nil contracts
Speaker 2: or whatever you want to call them, are created by
Speaker 2: legal teams from member institutions. There's no uniformity, there's no
Speaker 2: governing body. So University of I'm not saying they're doing this,
Speaker 2: but the University of Utah could have their legal team
Speaker 2: put together a contract for a player to sign and
Speaker 2: essentially say, hey, there's a stipulation in this contract that
Speaker 2: you can't transfer for a couple of years or whatever,
Speaker 2: and the player, can you give them a double bird
Speaker 2: and go down and sign a BYU because BYU doesn't
Speaker 2: have that stipulation. For me, Smitty, every issue that keeps
Speaker 2: popping up with collegiate athletics can be solved with one thing,
Speaker 2: and that is moving into the pro model allowing the
Speaker 2: players to unionize collectively bargain with the powers that be.
Speaker 2: The problem is who are the powers to be right now?
Speaker 2: Like football wants to break away from the NCAA, but
Speaker 2: the problem is there's so much red tape between here
Speaker 2: and there in that finish line. University presidents aren't interested
Speaker 2: in having their athletes be employees because of all those implications.
Speaker 2: I still believe that's the one solution, though. Do you
Speaker 2: think people would have an issue at this point? It
Speaker 2: doesn't feel like they would have an issue because there's
Speaker 2: so many problems. But you think the people that consume
Speaker 2: collegiate athletics would have an issue if they just unapologetically
Speaker 2: leaned into the pro model.
Speaker 1: Well, I think that.
Speaker 9: I don't think the fans are going to have a
Speaker 9: problem with it as long as your your team gets
Speaker 9: the guy that they want. I mean, it's but you
Speaker 9: know what's interesting is I saw I think a couple
Speaker 9: weeks ago, uh, one of the ESPN broadcasters had done
Speaker 9: a recent game with Williams and Amherst uh Division three
Speaker 9: football programs back in Massachusetts the you and I are
Speaker 9: familiar with, and Uh, they don't have scholarships, they don't
Speaker 9: have all this kind of you know, n I L
Speaker 9: kind of stuff going on at that level. He said,
Speaker 9: he went, went, was part invited to the game, went
Speaker 9: and did the game. Uh saw experience that on the
Speaker 9: small college level. And then afterwards the you know the
Speaker 9: team from from Williams. When they win, they have a
Speaker 9: in that big rivalry game, they have all the whole
Speaker 9: team marches up the hill that goes through campus, goes
Speaker 9: through town and h and everybody rallies around them. And
Speaker 9: he said it was such a great old style collegiate experience.
Speaker 9: And you know, I wonder if if at some point,
Speaker 9: you know, fans will go, well, yeah, well I can
Speaker 9: go to Utah games.
Speaker 1: I can't go to b y U games.
Speaker 9: But you know, these guys are just you know, they're
Speaker 9: they're getting paid like money, and they're getting paid more
Speaker 9: than I work at my job, and their eighteen year
Speaker 9: old kids playing basketball or playing wide receiver on the
Speaker 9: football team, whatever it is. And I don't know how
Speaker 9: much interest I have in that, especially if they keep
Speaker 9: raising my ticket prices. I'll just go to watch the
Speaker 9: guys over at Westminster play play basketball, right Or yeah,
Speaker 9: I'll go out to Solely Community College and watch the
Speaker 9: the the women's softball team, which is you know, highly
Speaker 9: competitive and all that kind of stuff. And and get
Speaker 9: my fixed that way. It's really it's really gonna be interesting.
Speaker 9: I think the fans. What's gonna happen is when as
Speaker 9: this continues with the nil stuff and the money that's
Speaker 9: involved with with that, a student athletes, how it affects
Speaker 9: your ticket prices and how it affects you actually attending games. Uh,
Speaker 9: is gonna be a big deal because you know, this year,
Speaker 9: trying to go to Utah football games is was was
Speaker 9: really really astounding to me. The prices that that you
Speaker 9: were looking at to try and go to a game,
Speaker 9: and that's what one game, and and have a lot
Speaker 9: of people who are paying season ticket prices and seat
Speaker 9: licenses and and uh and that kind of stuff and
Speaker 9: Crimson Club dues and all those those kind of things.
Speaker 9: At some point, there's a saturation point where the fan
Speaker 9: is gonna say that's enough. I'm not I'm out, you know,
Speaker 9: unless your team runs a table and has a year
Speaker 9: like b YU had in football. Right, Otherwise, if you're
Speaker 9: middling around, it's really going to be tough to to
Speaker 9: hold on to the fan base that you have.
Speaker 2: All right, let's move over to some NBA stuff, and
Speaker 2: I have a big picture NBA topic before we get
Speaker 2: into some jazz stuff. And I'm really interested to get
Speaker 2: take because the highest rated television NBA Finals nineteen ninety eight.
Speaker 1: You were there, I was there, Jazz Bowls.
Speaker 2: At its peak, it was essentially thirty five point eight
Speaker 2: million viewers that Sunday night game, which is a twenty
Speaker 2: two point three rating, So thirty five point eight nine
Speaker 2: million viewers is a massive, massive number. The highest rated
Speaker 2: NBA Finals game from last year was Game four Celtics
Speaker 2: MAVs nine excuse me, eleven point four to three million viewers.
Speaker 2: That's the highest rated game. And we're talking about nineteen
Speaker 2: million less then, And to be fair, the highest rated
Speaker 2: NBA Finals, which was Jazz Bowls, Jordan's last dance, all
Speaker 2: that stuff, and during the mid to late nineties, pro
Speaker 2: basketball never passed the NFL, but it was throwing punches
Speaker 2: with it. There was a legitimate debate like what's the
Speaker 2: most popular sport in America?
Speaker 1: Is it basketball or football?
Speaker 2: And while football was the answer then continues to be
Speaker 2: the answer. Now the gap is huge. The other night
Speaker 2: one point nine mil for the TNT, that was the
Speaker 2: biggest number TNT pulled the other night, one point nine mil.
Speaker 2: That's down seven percent year over year. Why do you
Speaker 2: think people are tuning out NBA basketball games? Why do
Speaker 2: you think the ratings are dipping so hard?
Speaker 1: Well, I think there's a couple of reasons spents.
Speaker 9: Right on the surface, One is that there are so
Speaker 9: many other options now, and and the generation now that's
Speaker 9: younger than we are been brought up with accessibility to
Speaker 9: anything they want any time they want online uh and
Speaker 9: streaming services and so uh. Getting people to focus in
Speaker 9: on one thing, you know, like an NBA game, Even
Speaker 9: if you're a basketball fan, you have so many other
Speaker 9: outlets and so many other options to do. Unless there's
Speaker 9: something that's really compelling at that moment to attract your attention,
Speaker 9: You've got all these other things that you can go
Speaker 9: and spend your time doing. Another reason I think personally
Speaker 9: is that I don't think the NBA game is very
Speaker 9: attractive right now to the average fan. I think it's all, Yeah,
Speaker 9: I'm watching the game last night and I was counting
Speaker 9: the number of possessions where where both teams were running
Speaker 9: a half court offense and there wasn't one player anywhere
Speaker 9: near the lane. Everybody was out on the perimeter, and
Speaker 9: it's all drawn kick and it's all, you know, long
Speaker 9: range shooting, and people can't shoot very well. That's why
Speaker 9: the guys who can shoot, whether it's a Kevin Durant,
Speaker 9: you know, or Ray Allen his day, or guys like
Speaker 9: that Steph Curry, who are good shooters, that's why they
Speaker 9: stand out so much because most guys can't shoot. But
Speaker 9: what happens Spence, they do shoot all right, because that's
Speaker 9: what the last night I saw several times I was
Speaker 9: I was kind of keeping track of my head. How
Speaker 9: many times I thought that they took a three point
Speaker 9: shot what we used to phrase by default, meaning that
Speaker 9: I was there, I can take this shot, or I
Speaker 9: can work for a better shot. There's still nine seconds
Speaker 9: on the shot clock, but there's a defender near me.
Speaker 9: But I'm being lazy and it doesn't really matter. So
Speaker 9: here it goes and just jack it up. And nobody
Speaker 9: wants to watch that stuff because it looks lazy, in
Speaker 9: in large part because it is lazy and the players
Speaker 9: don't work as hard. That's why the announcers last night,
Speaker 9: you know, kept harping on the fact that Oklahoma City
Speaker 9: was playing very well, especially on the defensive end, because
Speaker 9: there are hard nosed defensive team who sticks to their
Speaker 9: principles and and and shows it by the way that
Speaker 9: they play.
Speaker 1: Did they force you to do things?
Speaker 9: We talked about this and one of our earlier segments
Speaker 9: as if you're a good defensive team, you want to
Speaker 9: try and be the protagonists. In other words, you wanted
Speaker 9: to try and dictate to the offense what they're doing.
Speaker 9: That's what oka See did last night to the Jazz,
Speaker 9: which resulted in the Jazz having twenty nine turnovers, which
Speaker 9: resulted in forty five points off turnovers for okay See.
Speaker 9: The Jazz actually shot a better percentage than oka See
Speaker 9: did for the game from the floor, but the fact
Speaker 9: was they couldn't hold onto the ball, and they couldn't
Speaker 9: hold onto the ball because of the pressure of Okayc's defense,
Speaker 9: coupled with the fact that the Jazz are a sloppy
Speaker 9: and at sometimes lazy ball handling team. And they call
Speaker 9: it there sometimes they're their own worst enemy. How many
Speaker 9: times last night did they drive into traffic and just
Speaker 9: stumble around and the ball came out the other way
Speaker 9: on a fast break for ok See? But I think
Speaker 9: to answer your question, the fans of finding other things
Speaker 9: to do I think they don't really like the product
Speaker 9: as much of the NBA that they're seeing nowadays, with
Speaker 9: dollus five out and none in stuff and people just
Speaker 9: jacking up shots and a lot of one on one
Speaker 9: kinds of stuff, and I think they're finding other ways
Speaker 9: to spend the time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the Warriors calvs.
Speaker 2: Era, the Lebron versus Steph era, the ratings were pretty healthy,
Speaker 2: you know, they approached seventeen eighteen, nineteen mil nothing has
Speaker 2: touched ninety eight when Jordan was in his last year
Speaker 2: in John and Carl, and they were so compelling. And
Speaker 2: I hate to be the old guy that yells into
Speaker 2: the microphone, but there was just something about that era
Speaker 2: of basketball. And maybe I'll come at it from a
Speaker 2: selfish perspective with my background of the Jazz and the
Speaker 2: Knicks when both those teams were so fun and compelling
Speaker 2: in the nineties. I don't know if it's production value,
Speaker 2: I don't know if it's characters. I don't know if
Speaker 2: it's protagonists antagonists. There was something so compelling about nineties
Speaker 2: NBA basketball, and even me as a basketball junkie and
Speaker 2: somebody who will watch random games on a random Tuesday night,
Speaker 2: all tune in.
Speaker 1: It's like.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna take the dog for a walk, you know,
Speaker 2: like there's just something about it that is not as
Speaker 2: compelling as it was when I was growing up in
Speaker 2: the nineties.
Speaker 9: Well, and I think Spencer again to date ourselves, right,
Speaker 9: you're talking about games are almost thirty years ago, so
Speaker 9: you're talking about a different generation, and you're talking about
Speaker 9: all the things that happened between then and now relative
Speaker 9: to access of information through the Internet and laptops and
Speaker 9: your phone and all those kinds of things. It's interesting
Speaker 9: that nowadays, what does the NBA do and what have
Speaker 9: they done.
Speaker 1: For a while?
Speaker 9: They market the star players and they hope that you
Speaker 9: will tune in on a Tuesday night to see Kevin Durant,
Speaker 9: you know, go up against Lebron James. Oh oh, they're
Speaker 9: both out tonight. Oh that's right, they're not playing, you know,
Speaker 9: for whatever the reasons. And so you know, there goes
Speaker 9: your hook. If you're the NBA. It's it's just that
Speaker 9: there are a lot of games there. There's a lot
Speaker 9: of content, and there's a lot of that's accessible to
Speaker 9: the fan if you're a basketball fan. How many college
Speaker 9: games were on last night, how many are on tonight.
Speaker 9: You know that you think, well, maybe I'd rather watch
Speaker 9: that instead.
Speaker 1: It's just it's just a different era.
Speaker 9: And and look, another part of that equation for me,
Speaker 9: when you're talking about peeling back the layers, is that
Speaker 9: when you look at the you look at the bench
Speaker 9: of any team in the NBA now, and they've got
Speaker 9: more guys in pullovers than they have in uniforms. Right,
Speaker 9: so they've got seventeen coaches and analytics guys and whoever, whoever.
Speaker 9: Those guys aren't doing whatever it is they're doing, and
Speaker 9: the end product on the floor is not any better.
Speaker 9: And you could argue that it's worse, you know, And
Speaker 9: so you wonder what that equation is and how that
Speaker 9: fit factors into everything.
Speaker 2: One more thing, we'll catch a break. We'll do our
Speaker 2: second segment pretty jazz centric. Do you think this NBA
Speaker 2: Cup idea? And I want to be clear, like I
Speaker 2: applaud the effort. I applaud and I respect trying to
Speaker 2: do something different, I really do. I think the NBA
Speaker 2: does that as well as any league. The NFL doesn't
Speaker 2: have to adjust anything right there top of the mountain.
Speaker 2: Major League Baseball might bring a golden bat to the equation.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure if you've heard about that, but the
Speaker 2: NBA really tries to be forward facing and progressive with
Speaker 2: some changes. If things aren't working, it just seems to
Speaker 2: the courts are weird, players are slipping. Do you think
Speaker 2: at some point this will reverberate and maybe improve the
Speaker 2: interest level during the regular season.
Speaker 9: Well, I think one of the things is that they're
Speaker 9: trying spence. It's going to take a little while for
Speaker 9: people to hook on to it, but it's the whole
Speaker 9: Cup thing to try and get interest in November and
Speaker 9: juster in the early months of the season when when
Speaker 9: you're struggling to get get attention from from fans and
Speaker 9: and especially in the TV viewing and uh, and what
Speaker 9: what's part of the approach you're taking now is what
Speaker 9: you saw last night? And okay, see with an all
Speaker 9: blue floor and and and every team is trying to
Speaker 9: come up with the new thing that looks cleaner and
Speaker 9: sharper and hipper on TV and whatever.
Speaker 1: The product is still the same.
Speaker 9: You know, the the eight teams, Uh, they're they're gonna
Speaker 9: go into the quarterfinals next week of the Cup. You know,
Speaker 9: all four teams in the West are different than they
Speaker 9: were last year, so that those fans get pulled into
Speaker 9: it a little bit, you know, and and uh, and
Speaker 9: then they have the whole Vegas vibe with it at
Speaker 9: the end, you know, and where they'll be playing the
Speaker 9: Semis and the final four, so to speak, in in
Speaker 9: Vegas in a few weeks, you know, will hold I
Speaker 9: I don't know, it's it's it's better than that than
Speaker 9: than just playing the games. I guess in early season
Speaker 9: when people aren't paying attention. I think it's the teams
Speaker 9: that make it now to these one and done games
Speaker 9: over the next couple of weeks, those fans will be interested.
Speaker 9: The other fans now, like the Jazz fans, for example,
Speaker 9: couldn't care less what's going on with the NBA Cup
Speaker 9: because they're not in it, right. So they get a
Speaker 9: couple of games and and uh, next week they're rescheduled
Speaker 9: and all that and they and you move on. So, yeah,
Speaker 9: trying something new, is it? Is it hooking people? I
Speaker 9: don't know. I guess they'll have TV ratings that will
Speaker 9: tell you whether it did or not. I don't know,
Speaker 9: you know, it's you know, for me, I understand what
Speaker 9: they're trying to do. It's I think again, it's it's
Speaker 9: it feels somewhat to some level like a gimmicky type thing.
Speaker 9: You know that we're trying and and see see if
Speaker 9: it if it hooks or not?
Speaker 1: All right?
Speaker 2: Coming up next with you a jazz centric UH segment
Speaker 2: with Smittie. I want to get his take on a
Speaker 2: conversation that we've had all week about the potentially most
Speaker 2: to an exciting prospect of the six young players, first
Speaker 2: and second year players. We'll see if he agrees with
Speaker 2: a take that was handed out on the show this week.
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Speaker 2: eight weeks or less.
Speaker 1: At eighth one eight five zero ninety one hundred.
Speaker 2: Richard Smith live studio forty years with the Utah Jazz
Speaker 2: Front Office. He's gonna bring in Howard Beck today. We
Speaker 2: made a little bit of a pivot. Zach Harper is busy,
Speaker 2: one of my favorite riders, the hippist NBA rider out there, Howard.
Speaker 1: Beck from the Ringer.
Speaker 2: And then Ali Mata, who is a player for the
Speaker 2: Utah Hockey Club, just was called up to represent his
Speaker 2: homeland of Finland. He'll be playing some hockey for Finland.
Speaker 2: So interviewed Dolli before really nice kids, stay tuned hockey fans.
Speaker 2: That comes your way in about an hour from right now. Oh, smitty,
Speaker 2: smitty smitty. As we've talked about before, and as I
Speaker 2: readily admit, we are spoiled basketball fans in this market
Speaker 2: and part of it is your fault, and the front
Speaker 2: office you worked for always seem to put a very
Speaker 2: good product on the floor, with very very few exceptions.
Speaker 2: Now there were some exceptions, but Scott Lane and Kevin O'Connor,
Speaker 2: Dennis Lindsay found their way out of what i'll say,
Speaker 2: poor to mediocre basketball very quickly. Oh, by the way,
Speaker 2: before we do, I can't believe it. I buried the
Speaker 2: lead Paul Millsap retired. Yes, now I will say I
Speaker 2: thought he would two years ago. But when I and
Speaker 2: I love Paul, who doesn't But you had a front
Speaker 2: row seat too. And then we'll get back to the
Speaker 2: topic that I was just unpacking. But I wanted to
Speaker 2: ask you this kind of right off the top. I
Speaker 2: forgot looking at my notes. Paul caught Jerry's eye as
Speaker 2: a rookie, which is hard to do, asked Darreon Williams.
Speaker 2: And you know, we were kind of having some fun topically,
Speaker 2: like where does he exist on the all time great
Speaker 2: jazz player list if you include his entire career, probably
Speaker 2: top fifteen, top sixteen ish. He actually if you look
Speaker 2: at the list, you know, but that's a different topic.
Speaker 2: What was that like to watch Paul kind of evolve
Speaker 2: and how would you characterize what he meant to some
Speaker 2: of those really really good Jazz teams.
Speaker 9: Well, you know, it was interesting with Paul when we
Speaker 9: when the Jazz drafted him, he was we got him
Speaker 9: in the middle of the I think it's the number
Speaker 9: forty seven pick, in the middle of the second round.
Speaker 9: And he came in that summer league, he did okay,
Speaker 9: you know what was anything special, came into training camp,
Speaker 9: he was you know, really uh, you know, in all
Speaker 9: honesty in terms of our group, was just another guy there.
Speaker 9: You know, is he gonna is he gonna make the cut?
Speaker 9: Is he not gonna make the cut? And we're gonna
Speaker 9: have him on the team and we not, you know,
Speaker 9: And it was kind of a debate, like and it
Speaker 9: was really kind of you know, a lot of shrugging shoulders,
Speaker 9: like whatever, you know, you want him, you don't want him, whatever.
Speaker 9: And then and then I remember and in the last meeting,
Speaker 9: we had to make a decision yes or no to
Speaker 9: have him on the team that had that rookie year.
Speaker 9: And and it was coach Sloan who just said I
Speaker 9: kind of like him, and uh, we said, what do
Speaker 9: you like coaching?
Speaker 1: You go, well, you know, he seems to.
Speaker 9: Work hard, and he kind of, uh he kind of
Speaker 9: does this a little bit, and you know, does that.
Speaker 9: And then he said, he said, but you know, probably
Speaker 9: maybe his best attribute at the moment is, uh, I
Speaker 9: don't even know what his voice sounds like, because I
Speaker 9: heard him say one thing, and and and so so
Speaker 9: Jerry goes and only the way Jerry could so so
Speaker 9: that's pretty good, you know. And so he was saying,
Speaker 9: you know, well let's keep him because we don't have
Speaker 9: to listen to him complain or anything, you know, Okay, yeah,
Speaker 9: all right, whatever you want to do. And then you know,
Speaker 9: and Paul was was a good worker. Uh but he
Speaker 9: but he was a very quiet guy. And at that time,
Speaker 9: of course, he came in and he's behind Carlos Boozer,
Speaker 9: who was an All Star level player, Olympic level player
Speaker 9: for US, and and he had to wait his time.
Speaker 9: But he just worked hard and and and developed uh
Speaker 9: you know, enough of an outside game, uh that that
Speaker 9: could compliment his mid post game and his ability to rebound.
Speaker 9: And that was the thing that struck us when we
Speaker 9: uh when when the just drafted him, was that he
Speaker 9: had led the n n C A a and rebounding
Speaker 9: all three years that he was at Louisiana Tech. And
Speaker 9: that's one of the skills usually Spence, you look at
Speaker 9: UH on prospective players, that's the one area where typically
Speaker 9: you can make a correlation that that's gonna try rans
Speaker 9: late to the NBA level without without much of an interruption.
Speaker 9: Is your ability to go get the basketball, uh, you know,
Speaker 9: off the rim and uh and Paul made himself into
Speaker 9: a better player. He was a four time All start
Speaker 9: when he was in Atlanta. You know, in Atlanta had
Speaker 9: some very good teams when he was there. And uh
Speaker 9: was just a really good guy to have on your team.
Speaker 9: Because even even when he when he got quote good
Speaker 9: and he and he was a regular rotation guy and
Speaker 9: then he was a starter, and then he went to
Speaker 9: Atlanta and became an all star level guy. You know,
Speaker 9: he was still the same approach every day, just you know,
Speaker 9: the old Jerry Sloan phrased a lunch bucket guy just
Speaker 9: bring his lunch pail and and go to work and
Speaker 9: not say much and and uh, you know, I know
Speaker 9: he had stopped playing a couple of years ago. And
Speaker 9: I think it came out today probably because the way
Speaker 9: the NBA works. You can stop playing, uh, but you
Speaker 9: can not officially retire like whatever. Yeah, you know you
Speaker 9: have to put in if you want the retirement benefits
Speaker 9: and all the stuff that comes with retirement and pensions
Speaker 9: and all that. At some point you have to submit
Speaker 9: the proper paperwork to the NBA. I'm guessing that's why
Speaker 9: this this came out, you know, the last few days.
Speaker 9: It's probably because they probably decided to put his paperwork
Speaker 9: in after the last couple of years of maybe sitting
Speaker 9: out of the sidelines waiting to see if he got
Speaker 9: a last minute call from somebody in a playoff type run.
Speaker 2: Yeah, more of a role player for you guys early on,
Speaker 2: and then after Booze bounced and Darren was traded. He
Speaker 2: was kind of a main cog with those Al Jefferson years,
Speaker 2: you know, seventeen points eight boards in twenty ten, played
Speaker 2: all eighty two three of his first four years for
Speaker 2: you guys, but didn't start mini games up until kind
Speaker 2: of the second iteration.
Speaker 1: But he reinvented himself after he left.
Speaker 2: Here were you surprised to watch him shoot like thirty
Speaker 2: eight percent from three and kind of expand his horizon.
Speaker 1: He left the jazz.
Speaker 9: Yes, yeah, I mean, but that's you know, to his credit.
Speaker 9: You know, that was something that that the coaches talked
Speaker 9: to him about and and and about being able to
Speaker 9: get be a little more versatile with his offense and
Speaker 9: be able to step out.
Speaker 1: And he was willing to do it.
Speaker 9: And he had enough of a touch, you know, shooting
Speaker 9: wise and the free throw line that he could extend
Speaker 9: it out a little bit. And again it wasn't a
Speaker 9: high volume, but it was you know, him taking smart shots.
Speaker 9: And most of the time he was the kind of
Speaker 9: player who would who would just go with the flow
Speaker 9: of what was happening in the game. In otherwids, he
Speaker 9: didn't force shots. So most of those kind of three
Speaker 9: point shots that he would get would be open shots
Speaker 9: on the weak side or the defense would sink in
Speaker 9: that swing it he got it, had a lot of space,
Speaker 9: you know, got into a nice little easy rhythm, and
Speaker 9: was able to knock down enough that that made you know,
Speaker 9: defenders honest against him. And then that set up his
Speaker 9: ability to to go a couple of dribbles into the
Speaker 9: mid lane and get something there, and uh, you know,
Speaker 9: but he was willing to do that, and that's the
Speaker 9: kind of guy he was. He was, you know a
Speaker 9: little bit like Carl in that he was always willing
Speaker 9: to look at adding something to his game and trying
Speaker 9: to diversify it that would make him, you know, keep
Speaker 9: him on the floor more and and.
Speaker 1: Get him more opportunities.
Speaker 2: So, look, fifty years of jazz hoops has bread a
Speaker 2: lot of simple, simply very loyal jazz fans. Right Like
Speaker 2: we were talking about this through the Utah Hockey Club prism,
Speaker 2: the novelty appears to have worn off, and the past
Speaker 2: couple of home games there's it's not as full as
Speaker 2: it was opening night when I was there first couple
Speaker 2: of games. And some of it's gonna depend depend on opponent,
Speaker 2: because we do have hockey fans who live here. But
Speaker 2: if you go to Utah Hockey Club games and if
Speaker 2: they're playing like the Avalanche, you see a lot of
Speaker 2: Avalanche jerseys. So for the Utah Hockey Club to consistently
Speaker 2: draw people to sell out the building, they're gonna have
Speaker 2: to be really good, really quickly, like the Vegas Golden
Speaker 2: Knights were, or it's just going to take a number
Speaker 2: of years like I did with the Jazz, very lean
Speaker 2: years early Salt palace, shout out, jazz band, all the things.
Speaker 2: But fifty years of jazz basketball has bread a lot
Speaker 2: of loyal jazz fans, and there have been so many
Speaker 2: really really good teams and exciting teams, never over the
Speaker 2: hump to win a championship. And this is a tough ask,
Speaker 2: even for loyal jazz fans. This is as bad of
Speaker 2: a team as we've ever had here, and maybe the
Speaker 2: worst team that we've ever had here.
Speaker 1: So what do you make of? And look, the problem is,
Speaker 1: and you and I both know this.
Speaker 2: Of course this is by design, but we can't turn
Speaker 2: on a mic and say, hey, they're trying to lose.
Speaker 1: We'll talk to you tomorrow. We have to kind of
Speaker 1: unpack it a little bit.
Speaker 2: It is a tough ask of a community to show
Speaker 2: up night in and night out and road games. Turn
Speaker 2: on your television. Yes we're a cold weather city. You
Speaker 2: want something to do at night, you turn out a
Speaker 2: jazz game, go to a jazz game. I get all that,
Speaker 2: but there has to be some sort of pushback from
Speaker 2: a lot of fans who are watching this product night
Speaker 2: in and night out and say, what are we doing here?
Speaker 1: You know what I mean?
Speaker 9: Yeah? Sure, well I think what's happened. I think the
Speaker 9: first couple of years here of the U of the
Speaker 9: Ryan Smith and his group ownership group, uh, taking control
Speaker 9: of the team from the Miller family.
Speaker 1: Uh, they've made a lot of changes.
Speaker 9: Obviously, if they've made changes all the way across the board,
Speaker 9: you know, with the the team itself, with the coaching staff,
Speaker 9: the front office, the building, the uniforms. I mean, they've
Speaker 9: changed everything from A to Z that they can think of,
Speaker 9: trying to get it younger, trying to get it hipper,
Speaker 9: trying to get it more mod you know, whatever, whatever
Speaker 9: the approach, marketing approach is. And I think some of that,
Speaker 9: you know, fans have bought into, oh okay, yeah, okay,
Speaker 9: we're trying to get Oh that's that's kind of change out.
Speaker 9: It's kind of new okay and and uh and and
Speaker 9: but now they're they're right near that that point, I
Speaker 9: believe where during the third year of doing this and
Speaker 9: you know, the team is not look like it's.
Speaker 1: Getting any better. They've been worse.
Speaker 9: They've invested a lot while they've invested a lot in
Speaker 9: in young guys, and uh, that's that's the route they've
Speaker 9: chosen to go for whatever their Their rationale is they
Speaker 9: believe they can build that up. They've got to hit
Speaker 9: on the right draft picks. You know, the you know,
Speaker 9: we we just played a team last night, and okay,
Speaker 9: see they're showing how you can do it if you
Speaker 9: hit the right guys, uh and the add guys in,
Speaker 9: and how you can rebuild a team. And that they
Speaker 9: did that when they had the the Paul George fiasco
Speaker 9: and and had to move on from that and kind
Speaker 9: of bottom down. And then you see what the Houston
Speaker 9: Rockets have done once they moved on from James Harden
Speaker 9: and Westbrook and Chris Paul and now they've they've bottomed
Speaker 9: out and now they've they've got a nice competitive team,
Speaker 9: young guys, and they and they've had several good draft picks.
Speaker 9: And that's what the Jazz are trying to do.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 1: The the you know, uh.
Speaker 9: Several of the top five, six, seven teams in the
Speaker 9: NBA right now, if you include okay, see, if you
Speaker 9: include Houston as a young team, if you include the
Speaker 9: Orlando Magic, all these teams were bottom feeders spence three, four,
Speaker 9: five years ago and they've all built up by drafting
Speaker 9: smartly and and and and putting together a roster that
Speaker 9: makes sense. The Jazz are trying to do that. They've
Speaker 9: got a bunch of draft picks they're trying to play.
Speaker 9: There are a bunch of guys who who in my opinion,
Speaker 9: the way I look at them when they're playing, I think, well,
Speaker 9: these guys, they're they're supposed to be doing this at
Speaker 9: the G League. They're supposed to be throwing the ball
Speaker 9: up in the third row in a G League game,
Speaker 9: not in an NBA game. But they're they're force feeding them.
Speaker 9: They're they're making them play against NBA guys. They they
Speaker 9: think that that's gonna that's gonna get them your hardened
Speaker 9: and and develop quicker. In all of that, that remains
Speaker 9: to be seen. The guys they have, I don't think,
Speaker 9: again my opinion that it's a good mix of guys,
Speaker 9: I don't. I don't like the the the just how
Speaker 9: they play off each other or don't play off each other.
Speaker 10: Uh.
Speaker 1: The the the.
Speaker 9: Defensive end is very worrisome to me because the defensive
Speaker 9: they have not gotten any better from last year to
Speaker 9: this year. Statistically, they're in the same they're bottom five
Speaker 9: in all these different categories. And you watch them last night,
Speaker 9: they play defense. The defense is very lazy. And I'll
Speaker 9: give you two examples from last night that really struck
Speaker 9: out of me. The last play of the first half,
Speaker 9: they come down, Okay, see as the ball they're walking
Speaker 9: it up the floor to get the last shot with
Speaker 9: like fifteen seconds left in the first half. The Jazz
Speaker 9: don't switch, they don't match up properly. They've got Walker
Speaker 9: Kessler guarding Shay Gilgess Alexander for the last play of
Speaker 9: the first half, and everybody's just standing around and they're
Speaker 9: leaving Walker Kesseler out on an island and there's no
Speaker 9: way he can guard that guy who's an MVP level
Speaker 9: player and wing player, and he just right is up
Speaker 9: and shoots right over him and drose pH three at
Speaker 9: the end. Then in the second half they're in a
Speaker 9: in a in the secondary transition and and they come
Speaker 9: back over half court and Castle's walking looking for someone
Speaker 9: his guy to guard, and and uh can't they George
Speaker 9: points to Alexander and and just says, you know, like
Speaker 9: to Walker, hey, you get you get him, and and
Speaker 9: I go and I'm watching the game. I'm going you
Speaker 9: get him. You're telling you your seven foot center to
Speaker 9: go guard the MVP wing player. I said, when you
Speaker 9: have time to go get you know, no, no, why
Speaker 9: is that my again? My opinion is that they're just lazy,
Speaker 9: and so hey, you get him. I don't want to
Speaker 9: have to run another ten feet and go guard the
Speaker 9: guy I'm supposed to be guarding. So you get him,
Speaker 9: and the same thing, And Alexander played around with them.
Speaker 9: Boom boom between the legs, step in the lane, little
Speaker 9: step back jump her from the free throw line. You
Speaker 9: know how you doing? That's you know, they're just they
Speaker 9: look like they're a lazy defensive team. It doesn't look
Speaker 9: like that they're being called out on it. I'm sure
Speaker 9: they work on it in practice. I'm sure they drill
Speaker 9: on it. I'm sure they talk about it. I'm sure
Speaker 9: they watch film about it. But in the game they're
Speaker 9: making the same mistakes, and they're making the same the
Speaker 9: same errors in judgment. They don't approach it with any
Speaker 9: kind of urgency, and that's why you get twenty nine
Speaker 9: turnovers in the game albet again against a very good
Speaker 9: defensive team who caused some of those. But that's because
Speaker 9: you're you're careless, you're lazy. You don't really have play
Speaker 9: with that that fortitude that you need to be able
Speaker 9: to secure the ball. Uh and that leads to forty
Speaker 9: five points off turnovers for the other team, you know.
Speaker 9: And and and while that's egregious, and that's that's a
Speaker 9: big example, and maybe you know, but it's not unfortunately
Speaker 9: an outlier. That that is the type of thing that's
Speaker 9: been happy all along.
Speaker 1: And that's why the Jazz is.
Speaker 9: Sitting, you know, with the third worst record in the
Speaker 9: league at four and seventeen, and with a lot of
Speaker 9: road games coming up here in December.
Speaker 2: So Cody Williams, who's the highest pick they made this
Speaker 2: last draft and number ten out of Colorado, get some
Speaker 2: time early on.
Speaker 1: It didn't look great.
Speaker 2: It looked well, I'll be honest, it looked bad. He
Speaker 2: badly needs to get stronger. He's only nineteen years old.
Speaker 2: He will fill out, he will put on weight. Time
Speaker 2: will tell what.
Speaker 1: He will be. I'm not ready to annoint or dismiss
Speaker 1: at all.
Speaker 2: Taylor goes down will Alects to start Cody, and you're watching,
Speaker 2: You're like, dude, this is not it's not working. So
Speaker 2: they send him down to the G League to develop.
Speaker 2: Now that's what the G League is for so I
Speaker 2: get it. And to your point, all of these guys,
Speaker 2: maybe outside of marketing and the Vets could utilize some
Speaker 2: G league minutes. We'll get to Walker in a minute, who,
Speaker 2: in fairness has been really, really good. I do want
Speaker 2: to talk Walker Kessler, But don't you want your top
Speaker 2: ten pick to show some signs of being ready to
Speaker 2: at least show that he's shows that he at least belongs.
Speaker 2: I mean, there there was nothing from Cody at all.
Speaker 2: And what do you make of the fact that the
Speaker 2: highest pick they made in the draft last year is
Speaker 2: now cutting his teeth in the G League.
Speaker 9: Well, that's again, that's that's what the game plan that
Speaker 9: they have for for for these guys that you know,
Speaker 9: they're they're bringing him in and they're throwing them to
Speaker 9: the wolves and they they're saying, hey, go figure it out.
Speaker 9: And uh, you know, with the Williams kid, I don't know.
Speaker 9: I don't know what he's gonna end up being. Maybe
Speaker 9: he's gonna be, you know, a top level player. Uh
Speaker 9: you know that obviously that that stuff remains to be seen.
Speaker 9: For me, when I saw him at Colorado last year
Speaker 9: is one year there in college and what I've seen
Speaker 9: in the handful of games he's played in in the
Speaker 9: Summer League, both in Salt Lake and Vegas, and then
Speaker 9: here early part of the NBA season. He doesn't, for me,
Speaker 9: doesn't play with any any sense of urgency, doesn't play
Speaker 9: with any sense of pop or or toughness. He's yeah,
Speaker 9: he's long, he's rangey. Yeah, okay, so what you know,
Speaker 9: you have to you have to figure out how you
Speaker 9: use utilize that to your advantage. He had a couple
Speaker 9: of plays, and by a couple, I mean two or
Speaker 9: three or four plays in the Summer league action where
Speaker 9: you said, whoa, Now that's good. Now that's you know, okay,
Speaker 9: took it off, the bounce, went by two guys, went
Speaker 9: up over a third guy, boom and banged it on
Speaker 9: his head, And okay, that's that's what you want to
Speaker 9: see out of those guys. But he doesn't, has not
Speaker 9: shown that, and so that is going to be interesting
Speaker 9: as you pick it on one guy spends for a moment,
Speaker 9: because that is the part of a guy's game that
Speaker 9: is very hard to develop, and that is that aggressiveness,
Speaker 9: the tough minded mindset that, by the way, his brother has,
Speaker 9: now maybe his other has all of us.
Speaker 1: I don't know. He's uh and that's the way he plays.
Speaker 9: Maybe the Jazz took him thinking, oh, we can develop
Speaker 9: him to be some some form of his brother. Who's
Speaker 9: we're talking about Jalen Williams who plays for Oka See
Speaker 9: who's developed quickly in the NBA as a very good
Speaker 9: main guy on a team, on a winning team, who
Speaker 9: makes winning plays.
Speaker 1: But you haven't seen that from Cody Williams.
Speaker 9: Chante George has played somewhat okay in spurts for the Jazz. Again,
Speaker 9: for me, it seems like they're trying to put a
Speaker 9: round peg in a square hole with him. I don't
Speaker 9: think he's a point guard. They seem like they're trying
Speaker 9: to make him one, or they believe he can be one.
Speaker 9: I think he can be more more of a small
Speaker 9: scoring two ala Jordan Clarkson, And then you can cheat
Speaker 9: with him in games and in little spurts by putting
Speaker 9: him at one when you have other matchups that you
Speaker 9: want to take advantage of. But having a steady diet
Speaker 9: of him or a steady diet of like the other
Speaker 9: young kid. They've got a collier who also had four
Speaker 9: turnovers last night in in in limited minutes. I mean,
Speaker 9: this is this, this is what they're they've set up
Speaker 9: to do, and they're willing to live with the pain
Speaker 9: of it. The interesting thing is going to be how
Speaker 9: they can keep selling that to the fans to say, hey, hey,
Speaker 9: give us time, give us time, give us time. You
Speaker 9: know you're gonna see some improvement, because at some point
Speaker 9: the clock is ticking and you have to see some improvement.
Speaker 9: You're not asking them to go from a thirty win
Speaker 9: team to a fifty six win team overnight, but you
Speaker 9: have to see some improvement in the way they play.
Speaker 9: And so far through this experiment, it's it's very hard
Speaker 9: to hang your hat on anything that you can say, yeah,
Speaker 9: there's the there's the incremental improvements we're looking for.
Speaker 2: Well, and there is also a fine line between young
Speaker 2: players learning tough lessons and learning bad habits and suddenly
Speaker 2: this is who you are because I can remember, you know,
Speaker 2: when Kevin O'Connor, when Booze left for Chicago trade exception
Speaker 2: Minnesota bringing Al Jefferson and that's when Paul Millsap went
Speaker 2: from a bench player to a starter. And look, that
Speaker 2: team was never going to win a trophy, but it
Speaker 2: was competitive and it was a playoff team, and I
Speaker 2: can remember I was on air at that time talking
Speaker 2: about well, yeah, like, there's nothing wrong with making the playoffs,
Speaker 2: there's nothing wrong with maximizing your good. Yes, is there
Speaker 2: a little bit of a dynamic when you're going to
Speaker 2: be in the middle. Yeah, and at some point you
Speaker 2: probably do have to break it down in the name
Speaker 2: of building it back up, like Dennis did. But what's
Speaker 2: the danger of seven players under the age of twenty three,
Speaker 2: who at this point really only know pro basketball is
Speaker 2: getting their heads kicked in every night? Like, what's the
Speaker 2: danger in taking this approach?
Speaker 9: Well, one of the dangers is that you get used
Speaker 9: to it, and there is there's not a lot of
Speaker 9: accountability for what what the end result is. In other words,
Speaker 9: you know, I make mistakes, I throw the ball out
Speaker 9: of bounds, I have five turnovers. I have three of them,
Speaker 9: or or what we would term unforced turnovers. They were
Speaker 9: just bad decisions. And then the next day you go
Speaker 9: back out and you start doing it again, and there's
Speaker 9: no account there's no you know, accountability that says your
Speaker 9: you know your your your limits, your minutes are gonna
Speaker 9: be limited, or you're not going to get as many opportunities,
Speaker 9: or you're gonna have to go to the G League
Speaker 9: or you know, whatever, whatever it is, and so those things.
Speaker 9: At some point you have a certain level of professional
Speaker 9: pride that has to come into play where where you
Speaker 9: don't accept that from yourself as a player, and you
Speaker 9: determined for yourself, I've got to get better, I've got
Speaker 9: to figure this out. Or the other part of it, Spence,
Speaker 9: is that maybe everyone finds out at some point, oh,
Speaker 9: maybe he's not good enough to do this, and maybe
Speaker 9: we have to look.
Speaker 1: At plan B or Plan C or whatever.
Speaker 9: It's going to be because we didn't make the right
Speaker 9: decision in this regard, if that's if that's what it
Speaker 9: comes to, but making the same mistake over and over
Speaker 9: again and not correcting it and not being held accountable
Speaker 9: for it in some regard, it's just, uh, it's tough
Speaker 9: to watch. It's tough to understand how a team gets
Speaker 9: in these positions. But look s MESSI. The Jazz aren't
Speaker 9: the only team. There are a lot of teams that
Speaker 9: deal with this from year to year, and a lot
Speaker 9: of teams that keep wallowing around. The interesting thing is
Speaker 9: going to be how long they stick with their game
Speaker 9: plan and do they really believe in what they've set
Speaker 9: up to do to be able to stick with it
Speaker 9: and work through it. Because these are as we've mentioned before,
Speaker 9: These are the low times for the Jazz, and these
Speaker 9: are the growing pains, and you know, can it get worse?
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 9: Maybe it can get worse, you know, obviously it certainly
Speaker 9: can get better, and it needs to get better. But
Speaker 9: how how long that takes to happen and how you
Speaker 9: go about doing it is going to be interesting. Last night,
Speaker 9: the second quarter, the Jazz come out of the of
Speaker 9: their their their time out and their their second uh.
Speaker 9: Their starting line up for the beginning of the second quarter,
Speaker 9: mkaylik U Banks, Sensible, Jusang Collier.
Speaker 1: Stop it.
Speaker 9: That's that's the starting five in the NBA game last night.
Speaker 9: That's supposed to be the starting five for the Stars
Speaker 9: G League team on Saturday night. I mean, come on,
Speaker 9: are you kidding me? And then I didn't understand this part.
Speaker 9: And again maybe they were working on something. Sometimes coaches
Speaker 9: do this near the end of games that are out
Speaker 9: of hand. I understand if that was the mindset. I
Speaker 9: think they were playing a zone for a couple a
Speaker 9: couple of possessions. Maybe that's what they were kind of
Speaker 9: live working. But five minutes left in the game, they're
Speaker 9: down twenty seven, and they put in their starting five,
Speaker 9: they put in you know, Collins Kessler market in Sexton, George.
Speaker 9: They're in there with five minutes to go on the court,
Speaker 9: down twenty seven. You know, if you're running a developmental thing,
Speaker 9: I don't know.
Speaker 1: Maybe they were.
Speaker 9: They were trying to do the thing with the with
Speaker 9: the zone defense or trying to see how these I
Speaker 9: don't know, but that's all part of it.
Speaker 1: But it's hard.
Speaker 9: It's hard to explain to fans who are paying money that,
Speaker 9: you know, we're just we're just practicing with this stuff
Speaker 9: now and we're asking you to pay full price, you know,
Speaker 9: to uh to watch that live. That's that's a tough
Speaker 9: sell that they've gotten away with so far, and it's
Speaker 9: going to be interesting to see how long it goes
Speaker 9: on for before there's some you know, kind of pushback
Speaker 9: from fans of saying, hey, when when are we getting better?
Speaker 9: When when is this going to happen? You know, what
Speaker 9: do you got for me? You know, because I'm investing
Speaker 9: my time and money in you, but I don't I
Speaker 9: don't see what I'm getting out of it. You know,
Speaker 9: that's going to be the interesting part if you're a
Speaker 9: Jazz fan, and and if you're at the Jazz front
Speaker 9: office and the ownership group.
Speaker 2: Will end on a positive note, because there's not a
Speaker 2: lot of positive things to talk about with this current
Speaker 2: iteration of the Jazz. But I will say Walker has
Speaker 2: been very good in the fifteen games he's played. He's
Speaker 2: at eleven points, eleven boards, nearly three block shots. His
Speaker 2: rim protection is elite. The opponent field goal percentage against
Speaker 2: him at the rim is not good, which is good.
Speaker 1: For the Jazz.
Speaker 2: I want to see that free throw percentage job fifty
Speaker 2: eight percent from the free throw line, but seventy four percent.
Speaker 1: From the floor.
Speaker 2: And just looking at him watching him play, he looks bigger,
Speaker 2: he looks stronger, and I think I would say he's
Speaker 2: been the main bright spot for me through fifteen games.
Speaker 2: I mean, one of the debates we keep having is
Speaker 2: who's going to be here when the Jazz are actually
Speaker 2: legitimately good and a serious team, serious about winning. Walker
Speaker 2: seems to have maybe played himself into that conversation throughout
Speaker 2: the first portion of the season.
Speaker 1: What have you seen from Walker Kesseler, and I would
Speaker 1: agree with you.
Speaker 9: And this is his third year, right, so at the
Speaker 9: beginning of his third year, he looks like he's developing
Speaker 9: into a comfort level where he understands what he can
Speaker 9: do and what they want him to do and not
Speaker 9: trying to do too much. Right, you know, he's averaging
Speaker 9: twenty nine minutes a game, averaging eleven points, ten rebounds,
Speaker 9: almost three blocks. If you were to say, hey, we
Speaker 9: would take that, We would take that for the next seven, eight,
Speaker 9: ten years and put that in our lineup and have
Speaker 9: our big man do that.
Speaker 1: Okay, we'll lock that in. Okay. Now we lock in.
Speaker 9: We've locked market in in Okay for on a long
Speaker 9: term deal. So now we got two of those guys
Speaker 9: that we like that we're comfortable that they're they're gonna
Speaker 9: be those guys and those positions. Now we're trying to
Speaker 9: find out, you know, what the other ones are and
Speaker 9: where they're coming from.
Speaker 1: But I like what he's done.
Speaker 9: I like the fact that the game looks like it's
Speaker 9: slowed down a little bit for him, that he feels
Speaker 9: comfortable being on the spots that he's in, and he's
Speaker 9: he's delivering, and he seems to me just to be
Speaker 9: playing a little more comfortably out there, which is what
Speaker 9: you want to see. And that's all part of the
Speaker 9: developmental Process's what we saw on Rudy. When Rudy made
Speaker 9: his incremental progress until his fourth year, well you know
Speaker 9: when he when he started busting out, And maybe that's
Speaker 9: what's what's happening with Kessler.
Speaker 1: It's beeny great to see him.
Speaker 2: My friend, did you have a favorite ride in Disneyland?
Speaker 1: Hey, we went on.
Speaker 9: We went on It's a small world that can't be
Speaker 9: your favorites, and we broke the ride. We were sitting
Speaker 9: there for fifteen minutes because they couldn't figure and we're going,
Speaker 9: wait a minute. All these other rides are spinning and
Speaker 9: jumping and throwing you in the air and doing all
Speaker 9: this stuff.
Speaker 1: And we're on the slowest ride that you can be
Speaker 1: h and.
Speaker 9: The right brakes and we're in limbo for for fifteen minutes.
Speaker 9: But you know, look, I spend my days of going
Speaker 9: through those things where they're throwing you around and jumping
Speaker 9: up and down.
Speaker 1: And you're swinging you around or whatever.
Speaker 9: I used to enjoy those, but I'm I'm like the
Speaker 9: fair weather fan going to the game right now, I
Speaker 9: can't do those anymore. I did them, but I realized, Okay,
Speaker 9: that's exactly right.
Speaker 2: Yes, it's as small as as a seasoned Disney vet.
Speaker 2: It's a small world. Is the ride you take when
Speaker 2: you need a nap between all the other one. Thank
Speaker 2: you very much. Yes, there we go. Hey, great to
Speaker 2: see you. Okay, I've been great. Richard spent forty years
Speaker 2: with the Jazz front office. Howard Beck's gonna roll by
Speaker 2: from the Ringer. Got to tell you about my friends
Speaker 2: at Prize It's the best place to get real money
Speaker 2: sports action. With over ten million members and billions of
Speaker 2: dollars in awarded winnings, Prize Picks has made daily fantasy
Speaker 2: sports accessible to all. Okay, so it's easy if you've
Speaker 2: never tried to gamble on sports before. You don't have
Speaker 2: to worry about over under or spread or whatever money line.
Speaker 2: All you do is pick more or less on two
Speaker 2: players for a shot to it up to one hundred
Speaker 2: times for cash. So we use the Jazz for an example,
Speaker 2: Walker Kessler more or less than two and a half blocks,
Speaker 2: Lowry Marketing more or less than nineteen and a half points.
Speaker 1: Things like that. It's very very easy.
Speaker 2: You've got Ali Mata on the show today from the
Speaker 2: Utah Hockey Club. Utah Hockey Club is off all week long,
Speaker 2: back in action coming up on Saturday. Ali's been called
Speaker 2: up to play for Finland, his home country, so exciting
Speaker 2: news for him. Bill Riley joined us earlier Richard Smith
Speaker 2: forty years with the Jazz front office, but time now
Speaker 2: to bring in Yes, like it or not, he is
Speaker 2: the hippus NBA rider out there. Always good to chat
Speaker 2: with Howard Beck on a Wednesday. Howard, Happy Wednesday, sir?
Speaker 1: How you.
Speaker 10: Bence?
Speaker 7: How are you?
Speaker 10: I'm uh, I still protest. I'm not that hip, but
Speaker 10: I will put on the best possible version of that
Speaker 10: for your audience that I can.
Speaker 2: Howard, We've been over it all. The NBA writers are nerds.
Speaker 2: It's not like that big of a compliment. I mean,
Speaker 2: you know, ultimately, you know you don't have a lot
Speaker 2: of challengers on the list, you know what I mean.
Speaker 10: It's a it's a low bar. And you did bring
Speaker 10: me into the war on drugs, which I appreciate.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I need you like that. What does Thanksgiving look
Speaker 1: like for Howard Beck?
Speaker 10: I gotta know, Well, we uh have a standing tradition
Speaker 10: of going to the Thanksgiving Day parade, even though for
Speaker 10: most of my life I was sort of anti parade.
Speaker 10: Parades are a little silly frankly, especially on TV, but
Speaker 10: being there in person, it's different, Like it is kind
Speaker 10: of magical and you're you're out there with a lot
Speaker 10: of other you know, people, like literally thousands of other people.
Speaker 10: And we started doing it with our when our daughter
Speaker 10: was small, and we go with another family when their
Speaker 10: daughters were small, and then it just became kind of
Speaker 10: a standing thing. We did it, you know, prisonly, you're
Speaker 10: doing it for the kids, and then eventually you kind
Speaker 10: of like enjoy for your own reasons. And now our
Speaker 10: kids are eighteen. But we went anyway in the rain
Speaker 10: and watch the balloons go by and all that stuff.
Speaker 10: And then our friends are kind enough to actually host
Speaker 10: us for Thanksgiving because our families are not here. My
Speaker 10: wife and I hear our families are back in California,
Speaker 10: so we have never done Thanksgiving with our families for
Speaker 10: the last to twenty years. So we do the friends
Speaker 10: to the friends giving thing and yeah, great time. I
Speaker 10: hope hope yours was as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah it was, it was.
Speaker 2: I was actually back in your neck of the woods
Speaker 2: back in Fairfield County. Spent a little time in Manhattan,
Speaker 2: but good to be back on the ground. And you know,
Speaker 2: we're not going to do a lot of jazz because
Speaker 2: there's just not a lot to talk about with the
Speaker 2: Utah Jazz right now. But I'm just going to ask
Speaker 2: you generally speaking, you know, watching them last and look,
Speaker 2: okse is awesome.
Speaker 1: They're really good.
Speaker 2: But the Jazz are twenty sixth in offense, they're thirtieth
Speaker 2: in defense.
Speaker 1: They're four and seventeen.
Speaker 2: And there's a fine line between teaching young players lessons
Speaker 2: via competition against the varsity and then allowing losing to
Speaker 2: seep in as part of your identity.
Speaker 1: What's the danger because.
Speaker 2: They, you know, they said at the start of the season,
Speaker 2: justin Xantag Danny Ings, they said player development were playing
Speaker 2: the young kids, and they're playing the young kids, they're
Speaker 2: getting their heads kicked in. What's what sort of danger
Speaker 2: is there with this approach as far as you know,
Speaker 2: wanting to make sure that these young some of them
Speaker 2: very talented players, don't become completely accustomed to getting their
Speaker 2: heads kicked in every night.
Speaker 10: That's funny because I've thought about this a lot, and
Speaker 10: I've had conversations with people occasionally about this, and it
Speaker 10: is something I kind of want to dig deeper into
Speaker 10: at some point, just the psychological side of this and
Speaker 10: whether teams, how much they grapple with this. I mean,
Speaker 10: look at the Wizards right now, They're two and seventeen.
Speaker 10: They've lost fifteen games in a row. None of it
Speaker 10: is surprising. They were engineered to do this. This was
Speaker 10: definitely going to be a tanking year, and it's year
Speaker 10: two of their tanking and teardown since their new administration
Speaker 10: under Michael Winger arrived. Right like, they they tore off
Speaker 10: the band and they traded Bradley Beal. They you know,
Speaker 10: they went young, they went read whatever, all that stuff,
Speaker 10: and you know, the Nets are supposed to be doing that.
Speaker 10: They're kind of screwing up their whole tank job. The
Speaker 10: Jazz have been kind of stealth tanking the last couple
Speaker 10: of years, or not quite tanking, and now it looks
Speaker 10: like they finally are, you know, in a position where okay, cool,
Speaker 10: like let's just go get the best pick we can.
Speaker 10: I think, if I had to guess, not being a
Speaker 10: psychologist myself or a GM, I think if you're a
Speaker 10: team that has young talent, and you're giving them all
Speaker 10: the rope in the world and all the the the
Speaker 10: reps in the world to develop get a feel for
Speaker 10: the MBA and for who you are and for what
Speaker 10: your your your possibilities and limitations are, and all that.
Speaker 10: You can do that for like a year or maybe two.
Speaker 10: I think beyond that, when you start getting into what
Speaker 10: the Sixers were doing during the process era, you know,
Speaker 10: ten years ago, that's when I think you're you're in
Speaker 10: danger of well now it's just there's just a malaise
Speaker 10: hanging over everybody. Now now there are no expectations. Now
Speaker 10: everybody expects to lose, and bad habits are are are
Speaker 10: more easily seep in. Because if so, this is the
Speaker 10: fine line. Let's take it through the prism of like
Speaker 10: a single player, especially like a single player who is
Speaker 10: a primary ball handler type. You can go get your
Speaker 10: numbers every night. You can just put up all the
Speaker 10: shots you want. You could be I mean, at his
Speaker 10: worst at times here in Brooklyn, cam Thomas right, maybe
Speaker 10: Jordan Poole at times, although it hasn't been nearly what
Speaker 10: we thought it might be in Washington. But if you
Speaker 10: want to just go get yours, and you got the
Speaker 10: ball in your hands a lot, and you're great at
Speaker 10: taking guys off the dribble. You can score, you can
Speaker 10: score inefficiently, but you can put up numbers and you
Speaker 10: can play for your next contract, and you could say,
Speaker 10: screw it, we're not losing, We're not winning anyway. I'm
Speaker 10: just gonna get mine. That's the danger, that and not
Speaker 10: having any expectations of winning. Maybe bad work habits too,
Speaker 10: but the right coach can keep guys on task, and
Speaker 10: I think you've got that in Utah with Will Hardy,
Speaker 10: and I think think the Nets have that with Jordy Fernandez.
Speaker 10: It's why they're overachieving right now. So I think it's
Speaker 10: possible to be tanking and still instill the right values
Speaker 10: in standards in your franchise. But I do think the
Speaker 10: danger becomes if you do this as a multi year thing.
Speaker 10: And again, like I think that malaise can set in.
Speaker 2: So the G League is designed for development, and I
Speaker 2: understand that. And look, I think there are a lot
Speaker 2: of players on the Jazz roster the kid utilize some
Speaker 2: minutes in the G League, but the highest draft pick
Speaker 2: they made last year was Cody Williams at ten, and
Speaker 2: you know, after Taylor Hendrix broke his leg, will elected
Speaker 2: to start Cody and it just looked horrible.
Speaker 1: There was really just.
Speaker 2: Nothing there at all on either side, offense or defense.
Speaker 2: And look, there are players that have spent time in
Speaker 2: the G League. There's the Rudy Goberts, the Pascal Siakams,
Speaker 2: the Danny Greens, the Jonathan kaming Is. So I'm not
Speaker 2: saying that this should overly concern Jazz fans, but as
Speaker 2: a top ten pick, you just hope that he shows
Speaker 2: a little bit more.
Speaker 1: Eddie's nineteen.
Speaker 2: I mean, look, like I said, just a kid, But
Speaker 2: what do you make of that dynamic a top ten
Speaker 2: pick now, you know, spending time in the G League
Speaker 2: in order to get some minutes, as opposed to him
Speaker 2: learning next to the rest of the young kids that
Speaker 2: are still up with the Jazz.
Speaker 10: People have I think, very different philosophies about this around
Speaker 10: the league. Some people feel like, you know, if you're
Speaker 10: not playing at the NBA level, if you're not in
Speaker 10: the rotation, then you're better off just getting as many
Speaker 10: reps as you can, and if you play in the
Speaker 10: G League, at least you are getting a chance to
Speaker 10: compete and be in game situations. There are others who
Speaker 10: actually think there's more value maybe not more value, but
Speaker 10: a different kind of value to if you're the fourteenth
Speaker 10: or fifteenth man, but you're with the big league club, right,
Speaker 10: it's different. You've got you can get specialized attention from
Speaker 10: the coaching staff, you know, more hands on and even
Speaker 10: though we've got a lot of you know, mostly one
Speaker 10: to one now relationships between NBA clubs and G League teams,
Speaker 10: and you can instructor or direct your G League staff, Hey,
Speaker 10: this is what we need this player to do for
Speaker 10: the next couple of games in the next couple of weeks.
Speaker 10: There's nothing like having the head coach and his staff
Speaker 10: have hands on on a daily basis in practice. And
Speaker 10: so you know, there's a certain amount too that you
Speaker 10: just learned by observation of you know, if you were
Speaker 10: you know, the Jonathan kouoming Is and Moses Moodies right
Speaker 10: of the Warriors of the last several years, right being
Speaker 10: on that bench and in that locker room with you know,
Speaker 10: Draymond and Steph and Clay, there's a value to that
Speaker 10: that I'm not saying it's better than being in the
Speaker 10: league and actually playing. But it's different. And of course,
Speaker 10: the Warriors, I think, to their credit during that time,
Speaker 10: were also sending those guys down at the G League
Speaker 10: as much as they could. And so it's it's I
Speaker 10: think it's a balance. I kind of lean on the
Speaker 10: side of if the guy's not playing at the NBA level,
Speaker 10: if he's not in the rotation regularly, you might as
Speaker 10: well get him down to the G League as often
Speaker 10: as possible. And you know, and some teams, if you know,
Speaker 10: if the proximity is you know, conducive to it, you
Speaker 10: can also have them do what a lot of teams do,
Speaker 10: which just bounce back and forth as much as possible.
Speaker 2: Last Jazz related question that we'll move on, because ultimately,
Speaker 2: you know, there are some vets on the roster that
Speaker 2: I think could help out contending teams down the stretch.
Speaker 2: And I'm not a John Collins guy, but I'll say
Speaker 2: that John's played pretty well early on in the season.
Speaker 2: And you know, it seems like every time somebody writes
Speaker 2: the piece on hey, which teams could be active come
Speaker 2: trade deadline, the Jazz are brought up because they do
Speaker 2: have some vets like Collins and Sexton and Clarkson, And
Speaker 2: the bottom line is they were willing to trade those
Speaker 2: guys this summer, So that's not breaking news. But if
Speaker 2: you're an opposing GM and you have a team that
Speaker 2: you think is good but a piece or two away,
Speaker 2: and you want to vet do any of these Jazz
Speaker 2: players catch your iodol.
Speaker 10: They do, it's gonna be So the broad answer here,
Speaker 10: before getting into the details of it, is, I don't
Speaker 10: know how the second Apron and all this new CBA
Speaker 10: stuff is going to affect this trade season. This this
Speaker 10: will be the first trade season where all of the
Speaker 10: new limitations are in effect and things are kind of tight,
Speaker 10: and there are a lot of teams that don't have
Speaker 10: much wiggle room, and team might think like, oh, John
Speaker 10: Collins will be a great asset for us, or Jordan
Speaker 10: clarks would be will be great for us, but they
Speaker 10: just might not be able to pull it off, just
Speaker 10: logistically and cap wise. And so I don't know what
Speaker 10: effects that might have. And but that said, like, yeah,
Speaker 10: John Collins, Collins, Exton, Jordan Clarkson, you know, any number
Speaker 10: of guys on that roster I think could be of interest.
Speaker 10: You know the fact that John Collins still has a
Speaker 10: player option, so essentially one more year after this season. Like,
Speaker 10: I can't imagine he's going to decline his player option
Speaker 10: at twenty seven million. I don't think he's getting that
Speaker 10: again next summer. So a team, if they're acquiring him
Speaker 10: in particular, and you're right, like he's having kind of
Speaker 10: a rebound year or a resurgence, does a team want
Speaker 10: to take them on at that number, knowing that they've
Speaker 10: got another full season at that number. I don't know,
Speaker 10: but I do think that the Jazz will be at
Speaker 10: a minimum active in discussions like that's you know, that's
Speaker 10: kind of a no brainer, and I think, yeah, for sure,
Speaker 10: teams are going to be sniffing around to see who's available.
Speaker 2: So moving off the Jazz specifically, this is somewhat related,
Speaker 2: but I do want to ask you about the Timberwolves.
Speaker 2: This is the year where the return of the Gobert
Speaker 2: and Mitchell trade start paying dividends for the Jazz, namely
Speaker 2: a first round pick from Minnesota this year. And of course,
Speaker 2: the Jazz are doing everything they can to hold on
Speaker 2: to their own draft capital so they don't have.
Speaker 1: To give it away to OKC like everybody else.
Speaker 2: But are these early average performances from Minnesota troubling. Is
Speaker 2: there a chance maybe the Jazz actually luck into a
Speaker 2: decent draft asset from the t Wolves this year.
Speaker 10: I think the timber Wolves are going to be okay.
Speaker 10: I was not a big fan of the trade, the
Speaker 10: cat trade from their side of it, because going from
Speaker 10: Towns to Randall was a clear downgrade. And you know,
Speaker 10: everybody loved what Devingenza did for the next last year,
Speaker 10: and he hasn't quite found that same rhythm with Minnesota.
Speaker 10: But you needed the Devincenzo piece of that trade to
Speaker 10: be so good that it made up for the downgrade
Speaker 10: from town to Randall. And so I'm not entire I
Speaker 10: can't say I'm shocked that they're struggling. I'm surprised they're
Speaker 10: struggling as much as they are. But also, like you know,
Speaker 10: Mike Conley's thirty seven and you know, not you know,
Speaker 10: he's he still has some great moments, but he's you know,
Speaker 10: he's missed some games. He's not as effective as he
Speaker 10: once was. They don't really have another point guard who's
Speaker 10: ready to take over the you know, the rookie Dellingham
Speaker 10: has had, you know, a moment here and there, but
Speaker 10: like he's I think he's more of a scorer than
Speaker 10: a you know, a setup guy at this stage to
Speaker 10: the point of the draft pick. You know, my guess
Speaker 10: is that when all a said and done, the timber
Speaker 10: Wolves are a playoff team and probably a straight up
Speaker 10: playoff team, and not a play in team. One thing
Speaker 10: that's interesting is I look at the standings real quick,
Speaker 10: so they're an eleventh in the West right now. But
Speaker 10: if you look at point differential, which the advanced stats
Speaker 10: guys will will tell you is more indicative of a
Speaker 10: team's you know, you know, true, you know abilities. There
Speaker 10: are three teams ahead of them that have actually four
Speaker 10: teams ahead of them that have worse point differentials, which
Speaker 10: suggests that things are going to even out in Minnesota's
Speaker 10: going to leap frog some of those teams.
Speaker 1: Excuse me, Yeah, I tend to agree with that.
Speaker 2: Now, the piece of draft capital that's coming their way
Speaker 2: that will not be good is Cleveland, and I wanted
Speaker 2: to you know, it's kind of a funny dynamic here, Howard.
Speaker 2: We've never really seen one of our star players leave
Speaker 2: here and go like kill it. Like Darren after he
Speaker 2: was traded did not have great years, as you know,
Speaker 2: with the nets. Unfortunately Gordon Hayward snapped his leg in half.
Speaker 2: But Donovan this year and look, he has questions to
Speaker 2: answer by his owner. Admission comes springtime. But as I'm
Speaker 2: watching them, I watched the Celtic game the other night,
Speaker 2: there is like a level up feel with Donovan this year.
Speaker 2: And the Calves are nineteen and three. How real is
Speaker 2: this start? And what are you see in from Mitchell?
Speaker 10: He's been awesome? Yeah, I mean, he's just been great.
Speaker 10: Are jazz fans rooting for him weirdly?
Speaker 7: Or are they?
Speaker 10: Are they like resentful that he's having this kind of success.
Speaker 2: I think it depends on the jazz fans. You ask,
Speaker 2: and I you know what, I'll just leave it there.
Speaker 2: There's definitely we could take a few steps deeper into
Speaker 2: that category, which we will not. I very much cheer
Speaker 2: for him because he's a good kid, and I appreciated
Speaker 2: the time he spent here. I was disappointed that it
Speaker 2: ended prematurely, but you know, I'll just speak for myself.
Speaker 2: I watched the Calves because I cheer for Donovan.
Speaker 10: Yeah, he's been awesome. And look, I've known Kenny Atkinson
Speaker 10: for years, going back to when he was assistant coach
Speaker 10: for Mike Antone with the Knicks, and then when Kenny
Speaker 10: was out here coaching the Nets, and I've got, you know,
Speaker 10: really high regard for him, and I thought, you know,
Speaker 10: I was curious to see, given that they didn't make
Speaker 10: substantial changes to the roster, was Atkinson going to be
Speaker 10: able to come in take a team that has Again,
Speaker 10: you and I've talked about this. I think there's a
Speaker 10: lot of duplication between Donovan Mitchell and Darius Garland and
Speaker 10: even a little bit of of you know, kind of
Speaker 10: awkward fit between the two bigs, you know, Jared Allen,
Speaker 10: Nev Mobley, and Kenny's a very offensive minded coach who's
Speaker 10: played for or excuse me, you have coached under, you know,
Speaker 10: Steve Kerr and Mike D'Antoni and Tron Lou and Rick Alleman.
Speaker 10: Like he's he's got a great u you know, just
Speaker 10: to just resume himself of the guys he's learned from,
Speaker 10: and I thought, maybe he's the one to unlock them,
Speaker 10: and it's very much what has happened there. I also
Speaker 10: just think there's a comfort level that comes after a while,
Speaker 10: like these guys have gotten used to each other a
Speaker 10: little bit, and they're they're for real. Nineteen and three.
Speaker 10: You don't get that by accident, even though you know
Speaker 10: the early part of their schedule was definitely a little soft.
Speaker 10: They built up some momentum, but nineteen and three is
Speaker 10: never an accident, and so they're legit by definition. Whether
Speaker 10: they're good enough to beat the Celtics four times in
Speaker 10: a seven game series, that's the only question that matters,
Speaker 10: right Like, unless somebody else is going to knock out
Speaker 10: the Celtics first, Eventually this is going to be are
Speaker 10: the Cavalier is good enough to beat Boston? And I
Speaker 10: don't know if anybody's good enough to beat Boston.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm in the Boston and everybody else camp myself,
Speaker 2: But I do want to ask you about the Knicks,
Speaker 2: you know, watching them run Orlando off the floor last night.
Speaker 2: Orlando's been a fun story this year. And I, you know,
Speaker 2: like you, I was not a huge fan of Minnesota
Speaker 2: trading for Randall, but I'm not a big Cat guy either.
Speaker 2: With the way that Thibodeau likes to coach, although thom
Speaker 2: has had Cat before and I would say the results
Speaker 2: have been mixed. But what are you willing to say,
Speaker 2: right now about the early returns and where the Knicks
Speaker 2: are at after twenty one game.
Speaker 10: They're fine, right, Like they've been up and down, They've
Speaker 10: they've got a little bit momentum recently. They certainly like
Speaker 10: blowing out Orlando last night. Like, no, no discredit to
Speaker 10: what the Knicks are or have accomplished, but like you
Speaker 10: realize the Magic have been in New York at that
Speaker 10: point for like a week.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right, Yeah, because it was.
Speaker 10: The weirdest thing. I don't think I've ever seen this
Speaker 10: in all my years of covering the NBA. They were
Speaker 10: here for two games against the Nets Friday and Sunday,
Speaker 10: so they came in like before Thanksgiving and then like
Speaker 10: by the time they played the Knicks last night, like
Speaker 10: you know what happens when players are in New York
Speaker 10: for too long. So anyway, the Knicks are really good,
Speaker 10: and I think Towns has Towns and Brunson have found
Speaker 10: their stride together. I think the challenge for the next
Speaker 10: this season. They're the last night checked, I think they
Speaker 10: were number one in offense, but they're like twenty two
Speaker 10: twenty three or something in defensive efficiency, and so the
Speaker 10: the challenge for them is kind of like what it
Speaker 10: was for the Nuggets of a couple of years back
Speaker 10: when they won the championship, which was, well, Jokic is
Speaker 10: really good and Carnathony Town's is not Yokic, And nobody
Speaker 10: on the NEXS is Jokic, but Carolathony Town's Nikola Jokic
Speaker 10: offensive minded biggs who are not going to give you
Speaker 10: classic rim protection from your seventh footer. So can you
Speaker 10: build a different kind of defense, in a respectable defense
Speaker 10: top ten ish? And the Nuggets eventually did because of
Speaker 10: Aaron Gordon and Katavis Calwell Pope and they kind of
Speaker 10: like build their defense from the outside in. And I
Speaker 10: think that's where the Knicks are right now, right you know,
Speaker 10: ogn Andobi, Mikhail Bridges, Josh Hart. If you if you
Speaker 10: are solid enough on the perimeter, you don't put as
Speaker 10: much pressure on your bigs and you don't need the
Speaker 10: classic rim protection in the way that we usually think
Speaker 10: about it in the NBA.
Speaker 7: Can they get there?
Speaker 10: I don't know. And then we're waiting on Mitchell Robinson
Speaker 10: right like he's presumably due back maybe in January, But
Speaker 10: like the Knicks have not exactly been very you know,
Speaker 10: straightforward about all that we don't know when he's coming back.
Speaker 10: When Mitchell Robinson does come back, can he stay healthy
Speaker 10: because he's been hurt almost every year of his career,
Speaker 10: He's missed a ton of games. Are they playing him
Speaker 10: next to kat or are they still starting Towns and
Speaker 10: then bringing Mitchell Robtson off the bench behind him?
Speaker 1: Like?
Speaker 10: Those are all really interesting questions and I don't know
Speaker 10: the answer to them. But again, the Knicks are in
Speaker 10: that group of teams that really really good, great talent.
Speaker 10: I don't know if there's enough there to beat the
Speaker 10: Celtics four times for sure.
Speaker 2: Howard, thanks for the time, my friend. Thanks for hopping on.
Speaker 2: I'm glad you had a great Thanksgiving and have a
Speaker 2: good week. Man with chat soon, Okay, appreciate It's Ben's
Speaker 2: talk soon.
Speaker 1: All right, my guy, Howard Beck from the Ringer.
Speaker 2: I'm telling you, if you're an NBA fan, he's the
Speaker 2: best in the business at Howard Beck does most of
Speaker 2: his posting on Blue Sky these days, but he still
Speaker 2: is on Elon's X or.
Speaker 1: Twitter, whatever you want to call it. We'll get back
Speaker 1: to some.
Speaker 2: College football conversation coming up in the five o'clock hour.
Speaker 2: It is the early signing day for college football does
Speaker 2: not land the way that it used to back in
Speaker 2: the day prior to the transfer portal, so stay tuned
Speaker 2: for that. But let's do a little hockey now. The
Speaker 2: Utah Hockey Club is off actually all week. Good to
Speaker 2: have Ali Mata back on the program on a Wednesday.
Speaker 1: Ali, Happy Wednesday, sir.
Speaker 7: How you doing really good?
Speaker 8: Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: I appreciate the time today.
Speaker 2: So how rare is this for you guys to have
Speaker 2: this amount of time off. You don't play again until Saturday.
Speaker 2: I mean, this must be kind of a nice break
Speaker 2: for you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's pretty rare.
Speaker 8: I think last six seven games we actually we've had
Speaker 8: quite a stretch. I think it might be the top
Speaker 8: of a season we just got through. And having four
Speaker 8: days you're kind of recess, see where you're at and
Speaker 8: work on a couple of things.
Speaker 1: So i'd probably bury the lead.
Speaker 2: Some exciting news came down today that the Finnish Ice
Speaker 2: Hockey Association has announced that you're going to play for
Speaker 2: your home country at the Four Nations face off in February.
Speaker 2: So I have to say congratulations. Tell us about this,
Speaker 2: tell us about this tournament. What does it mean to
Speaker 2: you to be called up to play for Finland.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I mean, thank you.
Speaker 8: That's that's awesome. It's always an honor. It's going to
Speaker 8: be probably the first time since the World Cup two
Speaker 8: thousand and seventeen, best against best. I think everybody's excited.
Speaker 8: Hockey world is excited about this. I think Austin's players
Speaker 8: were really excited. Fans are excited. It's been a while
Speaker 8: since we've seen seen the best players but put their
Speaker 8: national team jerseys on and go at it.
Speaker 2: So is this this tournament looks like it's gonna be
Speaker 2: February twelfth through the twentieth, and it is Canada, Finland,
Speaker 2: Sweden and the US. Is this the tournament that you
Speaker 2: played in before? Is this your first experience with it?
Speaker 8: You know, just the first time they're doing it?
Speaker 1: Oh gotcha?
Speaker 8: Okay, we used to be a part of Olympics. Twenty
Speaker 8: fourteen was the last time the NHL players went to Olympics.
Speaker 8: So after that, twenty seventeen, they made up World Cup
Speaker 8: of Hockey, which is kind of similar concept. Couple more
Speaker 8: teams and now finally they're trying to trying to bring
Speaker 8: back more, uh more best best the national team hockey was.
Speaker 8: That's a That's always a big part for me when
Speaker 8: I was watching growing up as a kid, watching team
Speaker 8: fail and play against Sweden, Russia, Canada, US check and
Speaker 8: I think we've been missing that the last couple of
Speaker 8: years since we haven't been part of Olympics. So I
Speaker 8: think everybody wants to have a tournament like that back
Speaker 8: Basketball has it Olympics most of the time. So and for hockey,
Speaker 8: that's always been one of the biggest ones, biggest ones
Speaker 8: that people like to see.
Speaker 2: Who's the biggest rival for Finland, who's the biggest hockey
Speaker 2: rival for you guys.
Speaker 8: I think it's always been Sweden being neighbors, and we've
Speaker 8: had We've had some tough, tough matches against them, we
Speaker 8: have tough loss we actually had some really good big
Speaker 8: wins against them. It's kind of a love hate relationship
Speaker 8: we got. I actually any sweetish guy. I know, I
Speaker 8: like him a lot, but whenever you play against them,
Speaker 8: there's something different about it.
Speaker 1: Love it, love it.
Speaker 2: I wonder what your experience has been like Ali out
Speaker 2: here in Salt Lakes since you were traded in October.
Speaker 2: How do you like the market, how do you like
Speaker 2: the city?
Speaker 8: I'm loving it. I think city is awesome. I had
Speaker 8: actually no idea what to expect because, like you don't,
Speaker 8: you don't really hear anything about it. Nobody's been here
Speaker 8: before and there there there wasn't a team. Usually when
Speaker 8: you get traded you get a little idea what the
Speaker 8: city is like, all the little things, but you kind
Speaker 8: of have to start from the scratch and kind of
Speaker 8: figure it out on your own. I'm loving it. I
Speaker 8: think there's a good, uh good atmosphere here, Organizations great.
Speaker 8: You can see the the difference they've they've made since
Speaker 8: moving from Arizona. I really think we had a good
Speaker 8: thing going on here.
Speaker 1: Does it remind you of home at all?
Speaker 2: I mean, Finland is a four distinct season spot and
Speaker 2: it does get cold. Does does Salt Lake remind you
Speaker 2: of home at all?
Speaker 7: Yeah?
Speaker 8: With the with the seasons wise, yes, and I missed
Speaker 8: I missed the winter, so this is this is nice.
Speaker 8: At the same time, you do get a lot of sun,
Speaker 8: which we know we don't really do, and finnel over
Speaker 8: the winter, so that's a big plus two.
Speaker 1: I'm assuming you guys aren't allowed to ski, is that correct?
Speaker 7: Yeah?
Speaker 8: No, no, I've I actually grew up skiing a little
Speaker 8: bit back home. But since I started taking hockey seriously,
Speaker 8: I've I've dropped that. Maybe maybe when I'm done, I.
Speaker 1: Like go back to Do you miss it at all?
Speaker 7: Yeah?
Speaker 8: Yeah, especially in a place like this, when there's so
Speaker 8: many runs close to you, you definitely want to go
Speaker 8: out there and do it. At the same time, I
Speaker 8: really like hockey too.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I was gonna say I'd give up skiing if I
Speaker 2: could be a pro athlete, So I think it's the
Speaker 2: right right choice for now. Hey, I wonder how you
Speaker 2: would characterize I mean, you've been in the league for
Speaker 2: a while, you know, you want to Stanley Cup, and
Speaker 2: it did seem like the team needed some help on defense,
Speaker 2: which is why they made the trade. How do you
Speaker 2: feel like the progress is going? You know, you guys
Speaker 2: will have a couple of really really exciting games, you
Speaker 2: smoke Vegas and then you come home and lose to
Speaker 2: a good Dallas team.
Speaker 1: But it has been a little bit up and down.
Speaker 2: Ali, from your vantage point, how'd you characterize the progress
Speaker 2: of the hockey club so far?
Speaker 8: Yeah, I think you're right. I just I think we
Speaker 8: played better than the results are indicating. Sometimes a night
Speaker 8: we just can't find a way to cancer move find
Speaker 8: a way to win those one goal games or we
Speaker 8: haven't lately. And I'm actually really confident we can we
Speaker 8: can change that. We're playing good hockey. There's obviously things
Speaker 8: we want to get better at. Overall, it's it's going
Speaker 8: in the right direction. And I think the trust and
Speaker 8: confidence in this room, like how could we can be
Speaker 8: like we were in Vegas that night. We've beat in
Speaker 8: some really good teams and obviously that Dallas game, I
Speaker 8: that's that's one of those that I felt like we
Speaker 8: could have we could have turned maybe maybe won that
Speaker 8: game and we end up losing by one goal. And
Speaker 8: it's just games like that. You just have to find
Speaker 8: a way to win him if you want to be
Speaker 8: a good team and successful. And then but I do
Speaker 8: trust that we have the group we have like we
Speaker 8: have that in us.
Speaker 2: So when you guys win, when you're playing well, what
Speaker 2: stands out? What do you do well when you guys
Speaker 2: are winning games and what do you feel like you
Speaker 2: struggle with when the results aren't going your way?
Speaker 8: Well, I think we're tough team to play against, honestly,
Speaker 8: Like I don't think we give up a lot of
Speaker 8: time and space. It feels like when you play against us,
Speaker 8: it's just feels that we're coming and on top the
Speaker 8: whole time. There's not a raw room make plays. And
Speaker 8: when when things kind of break down, I think we're
Speaker 8: giving Autoland rushes. I think it's just that offense off
Speaker 8: the rush. Like sometimes sometimes when we get a little
Speaker 8: lazy or a little miscues happen, we give up a
Speaker 8: little bit to have an easy offense, and that comes
Speaker 8: off the rush usually. But when we're on our game,
Speaker 8: like a lot of teams can really break out against us.
Speaker 8: We're a really good for checking team. We got guys
Speaker 8: who can escape, We've got lots of skill. We're not
Speaker 8: afraid to make plays, and it's exciting. It's exciting to
Speaker 8: be part of.
Speaker 2: Is it challenging to have the goalie situation be split
Speaker 2: like it is?
Speaker 1: Or do you like that you have two options behind you?
Speaker 8: I think you like that. It doesn't matter who who's
Speaker 8: in that you know you're trusting them. You know they're
Speaker 8: gonna make the saves for you to go and win
Speaker 8: the game. Uh, They're always going to give you a chance.
Speaker 8: So I think it's a it's a big advantage.
Speaker 1: All right, Dolly, Before I set you loose.
Speaker 2: You know, we we've had a bunch of hockey club
Speaker 2: guests on the show, and you know, obviously following the team,
Speaker 2: it feels like most people believe that you have the
Speaker 2: talent on the team to maybe compete for a playoff
Speaker 2: spot down the stretch. Now, like I said, it's been
Speaker 2: a little bit up, been a little bit down. But
Speaker 2: you know, like the Dallas game, you put like thirty
Speaker 2: six shots on goal, just one needs to find the
Speaker 2: back of the net and maybe you have outperformed you know,
Speaker 2: kind of the results so far. So you just kind
Speaker 2: of keep doing what you've been doing. But from a
Speaker 2: team standpoint, are there goals out there that you guys
Speaker 2: want to accomplish? Do you talk openly about, you know,
Speaker 2: things like wanting to make the playoffs?
Speaker 10: Yeah, I think we all do.
Speaker 8: But at the same time, like I don't think you
Speaker 8: go over any game, especially a team we have. Every
Speaker 8: game you go into, you know you can win at
Speaker 8: You just got to play play your game and play
Speaker 8: play your best game.
Speaker 7: That's it.
Speaker 8: I think, just the confidence we have that when we
Speaker 8: do that, we're gonna more often than not. When and
Speaker 8: like you said, it's been up, up and down. I
Speaker 8: think the results haven't been what we wanted. There's things
Speaker 8: we want to fix, and definitely like these four days,
Speaker 8: like we talked about it, really big thing to like
Speaker 8: kind of reset and look at look at your game
Speaker 8: and go back to their details and what you had
Speaker 8: and then but at the same time, like I just
Speaker 8: looking behind results and we're playing some good hockey. We're
Speaker 8: we're beating some good teams. We're close to beating other
Speaker 8: other good teams like Dallas game, and I think just
Speaker 8: trusting that and the process that we keep doing that
Speaker 8: we're gonna be We're gonna be a tough team to
Speaker 8: play against.
Speaker 1: Okay, OLLI, thanks so much for the time.
Speaker 2: Once again, a big congratulations representing your country coming up
Speaker 2: in the Nation's face off.
Speaker 1: Best of luck the rest of the season. We'll love
Speaker 1: dave on again soon.
Speaker 8: Okay, all right, thanks for having me.
Speaker 7: Have a good guys, all right.
Speaker 2: Ali Matza he has been around the NHL for quite
Speaker 2: some time and won a Stanley Cup.
Speaker 1: He's thirty years old.
Speaker 2: He was traded UH for a third round pick in
Speaker 2: October when it became pretty clear and certainly some injuries
Speaker 2: came into play for the hockey club, but they definitely
Speaker 2: needed help on the back line, so he was with
Speaker 2: the Red Wings and then they traded him to the
Speaker 2: Hockey Club for a third round pick.
Speaker 1: That was on October the twenty ninth.
Speaker 2: Has been called up to represent I did not know
Speaker 2: this was a new tournament. Silly me for asking him
Speaker 2: if it's the first time he's played in it when
Speaker 2: it's actually the first time the tournament has taken place.
Speaker 2: So good stuff. Seems like a nice guy, really good player.
Speaker 2: A couple of assists on the season so far. He
Speaker 2: has used in some of the powerplay situations. Hockey Club
Speaker 2: had a game on Monday, a loss against Dallas, no
Speaker 2: games all week, and then a back to back situation
Speaker 2: on the road at Buffalo than at Philadelphia. His early
Speaker 2: signing day for college football. According to the ESPN rankings
Speaker 2: out in front of me, Utah is the fortieth ranked class.
Speaker 1: In the country.
Speaker 2: Now, as we've talked about all day, this day hit
Speaker 2: a little different. Back in the day when really it
Speaker 2: was the only way to add talent and such. But
Speaker 2: now with a transfer portal, a lot of these things
Speaker 2: have changed. You know, there's no guarantee that these young
Speaker 2: men are even going to play for the college is
Speaker 2: they signed with because NIL and the transfer portal have
Speaker 2: changed it, they could get offers, they could get more
Speaker 2: money elsewhere, and ultimately they could never even set foot
Speaker 2: on campus. But when you look at what the University
Speaker 2: of Utah has been able to accomplish today, Yeah, most
Speaker 2: of the recruiting rankings think very highly of the class.
Speaker 2: And only time will tell as far as how this
Speaker 2: is going to go down. Now we're waiting for official
Speaker 2: news on the offensive coordinator and porter. There are reports,
Speaker 2: and you tell me if you know much about this
Speaker 2: young man, we'll talk about it with Bill coming up.
Speaker 2: Mac mac Leftwich, Texas State offensive coordinator is twenty nine
Speaker 2: years old, and according to multiple people, I don't do
Speaker 2: the whole like track the planes thing because I'd like
Speaker 2: to go live my life when I'm not on air,
Speaker 2: just do other things.
Speaker 1: But apparently he's in sau Lake.
Speaker 2: Any inside as to whether or not this should be
Speaker 2: the guy we're focusing on.
Speaker 3: Now, Yeah, Well, I'll just give you my insight on
Speaker 3: kind of this whole story and how it's played out,
Speaker 3: and go back to last Wednesday, last Thursday, maybe, and
Speaker 3: Utah of course was preparing for their game, but they
Speaker 3: were also in the throes of an OC search.
Speaker 1: Ben R.
Speaker 3: Buckle is a name that, of course we know now
Speaker 3: is with Oklahoma and Utah was essentially zeroed in on
Speaker 3: Ben R. Buckle Spence to the point where there were
Speaker 3: people in that department that thought it was done right,
Speaker 3: that it was that close with some of the stuff
Speaker 3: with our Buckle.
Speaker 1: Of course, Oklahoma.
Speaker 3: Comes in, he heads there and at that point, from
Speaker 3: what I understand, attention was shifted not to resuming the
Speaker 3: search but directly to mac leftwitch right, And from what
Speaker 3: I understand, yeah, that's something that they're trying to get
Speaker 3: along the across the finish line in the probably the
Speaker 3: next twenty four to forty eight hours. As we know,
Speaker 3: timing is crucial in all of these regards. But they've
Speaker 3: been operating Spence under the assumption that they've got a
Speaker 3: guy in place in the next you know, several days,
Speaker 3: and that's what you know, a lot of the recruits
Speaker 3: are operating under the assumption of and and it appears
Speaker 3: based on you know, maybe some of the recruits that
Speaker 3: are coming in, including a Texas State transfer quarterback that
Speaker 3: announced his intention today, it appears that's the direction we
Speaker 3: are moving in. But I will also say that, much
Speaker 3: like Oklahoma did with our buckle, Texas Tech is hot
Speaker 3: on the hills of one Mac Leftwich and something we
Speaker 3: have to keep an eye on.
Speaker 2: So we've heard a lot about and Coach Wood has
Speaker 2: kind of alluded to certain things as far as the
Speaker 2: type of offensive coordinator he's looking for to call plays
Speaker 2: for the squad coming up next year. What sort of
Speaker 2: boxes do you think he wants checked? Because I wondered
Speaker 2: if there would be more of like an out of
Speaker 2: the box high or not the typical higher that we've
Speaker 2: become accustomed to. And I do think history will smile
Speaker 2: on Andy Ludwig for the success he had when he
Speaker 2: had a good quarterback and it wasn't typical Utah just
Speaker 2: simply three yard and cloud of dust football. I mean
Speaker 2: Andy was a creative guy and when he had talent
Speaker 2: and a good quarterback, they had some of the best
Speaker 2: offenses in the history of the school. Does left which
Speaker 2: fit what you feel like Kyle's looking for? Are those
Speaker 2: the boxes that he wants checked? Or do you think
Speaker 2: it's going to be more of an offensive coordinator higher
Speaker 2: that's in line with what we're used to.
Speaker 3: Yeah, No, I mean the offense that the Mac Leftwich
Speaker 3: runs is one that it's balanced, right, So that is
Speaker 3: is one that Kyle Whittingham in Utah from their ethos,
Speaker 3: they're going to look at that is at least a
Speaker 3: good candidate, right, A guy that can win in multiple ways,
Speaker 3: whether it's on the ground, whether it's through the air.
Speaker 3: But he also runs a little bit of a pro
Speaker 3: style spread offense when it is a passing down say that.
Speaker 3: I think through the years of the Pac twelve, through
Speaker 3: the years of the Big Twelve, the one year of
Speaker 3: the Big Twelve, even in days in the Mountain West,
Speaker 3: it was a type of offense that it seemed was
Speaker 3: a real challenge for Morgan Scalley. A guy that you
Speaker 3: know is maybe going after an offensive coordinator that challenges
Speaker 3: him on the other side of the ball each day.
Speaker 3: You know, going forward, it seems like, you know, if
Speaker 3: you do want to zero in on Mac Leftwich in
Speaker 3: Texas State, it's a guy that's going to grow alongside
Speaker 3: a new head coach. A guy that's that's going to
Speaker 3: grow with the new head coach and does some things
Speaker 3: that I think can can help both of them along.
Speaker 3: And I think that can be true whether Kyle's here
Speaker 3: this next year or not, And that kind of seems
Speaker 3: like the way they're approaching this this higher two.
Speaker 2: Four to seven Sports overall team rankings, Utah ranks forty
Speaker 2: sixth in the nation, which is seventh in the Big Twelve.
Speaker 2: Last year, Utah, according to two four to seven, had
Speaker 2: the fortieth rank class in the country. BYU finds itself
Speaker 2: fifty fifth in the country, twelfth in the Big twelve,
Speaker 2: five spots below Utah with their twenty twenty five recruiting class.
Speaker 2: But this could change. I mean it changed last year.
Speaker 2: I think BYU jumped into the top forty last year
Speaker 2: with some late signees. According to the ESPN rankings, the
Speaker 2: top offensive prospect for the Utes is Wyatt Becker, the
Speaker 2: quarterback out of California, and then Christian Thatcher is their
Speaker 2: top defensive prospect to linebacker as well. So look transfer
Speaker 2: portal right around the corner again early signing day. It's
Speaker 2: kind of fun content and fun fodder. But only time
Speaker 2: will tell.
Speaker 1: All right, what's going on? Drive at five.
Speaker 2: Time, your commute home on a Wednesday afternoon, gets rolling
Speaker 2: right now. It's been a nice day today, about forty
Speaker 2: five degrees, sunny and clear, although we do have a
Speaker 2: little inversion situation settling in which you know is the deal.
Speaker 2: Happy Wednesday to you halfway through your work week, and
Speaker 2: then one day closer the weekend, one day closer to
Speaker 2: pro football, two days away from championship weekend in college football,
Speaker 2: don't forget we are your home of the NFL in
Speaker 2: this market.
Speaker 1: Should be a good Thursday night game.
Speaker 2: Hard to believe that it is Week fourteen, but that
Speaker 2: indeed it is potentially fantasy football playoff time maybe for
Speaker 2: some of you. The Packers and the Lions coming up
Speaker 2: tomorrow night prime video. Right now, Detroit's a three point
Speaker 2: favorite for a little Thursday night action to get Week
Speaker 2: fourteen rolling. Then a bevy of really really good college
Speaker 2: football games throughout the weekend, starting on Friday with the
Speaker 2: Mountain West Championship UNLV and Boise, and then all day Saturday.
Speaker 2: Brett your Mark, the Big twelve commissioner, is politicking for
Speaker 2: his conference as most people are wont to do this
Speaker 2: time of year, and obviously college football with early signing
Speaker 2: day today and Championship weekend coming up, combined with the
Speaker 2: CFP rankings released last night, very topical today. The Voice
Speaker 2: of the Utes Bill Riley coming up at about twenty
Speaker 2: two minutes from right now five o'clock out of the drive.
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Speaker 1: Run your game on Prize Pick so early.
Speaker 2: Signing day today again does not hit the way that
Speaker 2: it used to. And Utah, according to two four to
Speaker 2: seven Sports, has the number forty six class in the country.
Speaker 2: That's good for seventh in the Big Twelve. On the
Speaker 2: other hand, BYU as of right now number fifty five
Speaker 2: in the country, and that is twelfth in the Big Twelve.
Speaker 2: As we've talked about all day, there's simply is no
Speaker 2: guarantee that any of these young men will ever end
Speaker 2: up on campus because of the new reality of college football,
Speaker 2: the potential to sign nil deals. There are no rules,
Speaker 2: the NCAA can't enforce anything. So ultimately we'll see who's
Speaker 2: here come spring. We'll see who enrolls early, and then
Speaker 2: we'll see who's actually on the roster when it comes
Speaker 2: to this signing day situation. We are awaiting word on
Speaker 2: potentially news about the offensive coordinator slot that is vacant
Speaker 2: right now at the University of Utah. Ben Rbuckle, who
Speaker 2: most people believe was the top candidate on Utah's list,
Speaker 2: agree to become Oklahoma's new offensive coordinator this week. There
Speaker 2: are people who actually track private planes and track witch
Speaker 2: coaching candidates are left on the list and where they're at,
Speaker 2: and according to multiple reports, Mac Leftwich, Texas state offensive
Speaker 2: coordinator and their quarterbacks coach, is currently in Salt Lake
Speaker 2: City interviewing for the offensive coordinator job. Obviously, if any
Speaker 2: of the news comes down and breaks while we're on air,
Speaker 2: we will bring it to you. As we discussed throughout
Speaker 2: the course of the show today, it just simply feels like,
Speaker 2: as a result of no official announcement of the status
Speaker 2: of Coach Wit for the upcoming season, it just to
Speaker 2: me it means that he's coming back. That's ultimately what
Speaker 2: I've landed on here. The other scenarios just don't seem
Speaker 2: to be very realistic when it comes to who Kyle
Speaker 2: appears to be. I just don't think he's a wishy,
Speaker 2: washy guy. He feels like the type of pragmatic thinker
Speaker 2: that when he makes his mind up, he simply would
Speaker 2: just make his mind up and then move on to
Speaker 2: the next thing. And you don't really need an announcement
Speaker 2: when a coach is under contract.
Speaker 1: So that's just kind of my gut feel.
Speaker 2: As Coach Wit has talked about during his media availability,
Speaker 2: he and Morgan are in lockstep with this hire. When
Speaker 2: it comes to the offensive coordinator, somebody taking over for
Speaker 2: Andy Ludwig, who stepped down after some struggles when he
Speaker 2: came to the offense on the side of things for
Speaker 2: the University of Utah and look the cruel reality for
Speaker 2: Utah football this year because of the dominant performance of
Speaker 2: the defense more or less all year long. Early on,
Speaker 2: the defense was dominating outside of creating turnovers, but they
Speaker 2: turned that around down the stretch when they started you know,
Speaker 2: pick sixes, scoop and scores, creating havoc plays. An average
Speaker 2: offense leads the Big Twelve. Excuse me, it leads Utah
Speaker 2: to essentially at least competing for the Big Twelve championship.
Speaker 2: But the offense was less than average. Most measurable metrics
Speaker 2: put it near the bottom of the Big Twelve. So
Speaker 2: we'll see what they're able to do via transfer portal. Addition,
Speaker 2: according to the ESPN rank ave in front of me,
Speaker 2: they rank Wyatt Becker as the top offensive prospects signed
Speaker 2: by the Utes this class. He's a four star quarterback
Speaker 2: out of California, and Christian Thatcher, who's a linebacker out
Speaker 2: of Vegas, is, according to ESPN's ranking, the highest ranked
Speaker 2: defensive prospect signed by the University of Utah. So starting
Speaker 2: the show off today with some conversation about the CFP
Speaker 2: rankings that were released last night and talking about it
Speaker 2: in real time when you're on air live in the
Speaker 2: five o'clock hour and ESPN's doing their reveal. You just
Speaker 2: try to get as much information out there on the
Speaker 2: airwaves as you possibly can. You're not really digesting it
Speaker 2: in real time. Top four seeds, No surprise, it was
Speaker 2: Oregon as well as Texas. SMU comes in at three,
Speaker 2: Boise's date comes in at number four, and Brett Yormark
Speaker 2: with his comments today, is not very happy about a
Speaker 2: P five potential situation to get that number one seed
Speaker 2: as opposed to the winner of Arizona State and Iowa State.
Speaker 2: It does appear that the bubble teams right now are
Speaker 2: the bubble teams that are going to be in, you know,
Speaker 2: teams like Tennessee, teams like Ohio State, Alabama, Indiana. You know,
Speaker 2: in the event that Clemson beats SMU, there will be
Speaker 2: a real debate about who gets in, either SMU or Alabama.
Speaker 2: But if SMU loses to Clemson, it means they lost
Speaker 2: the two hardest games they had on their schedule to
Speaker 2: BYU and to Clemson. And then a lot of upset
Speaker 2: old misfans, which I get, I don't really buy the
Speaker 2: South Carolina stuff. Then Miami to me biggest paper tiger
Speaker 2: and has been all year long. It just appears that
Speaker 2: who's in right now is probably going to be in
Speaker 2: conference championship. Friday and Saturday will kind of give us
Speaker 2: more of a clarity when it comes to the seeds
Speaker 2: and what the matchups are going to be. The matchups
Speaker 2: as of right now it would be Arizona State and
Speaker 2: Penn State.
Speaker 1: These are projections.
Speaker 2: Obviously Iowa State will have something to say about this,
Speaker 2: but the Big twelve champs lated to play potentially Penn State. Obviously,
Speaker 2: Penn State has a game against Oregon. Oregon's the favorite
Speaker 2: out of the Big ten. Penn State pulls an upset
Speaker 2: that would kind of throw a monkey wrench at everything.
Speaker 2: Tennessee would be at the shoot to take on Ohio State,
Speaker 2: which would be a lot of fun. A first round
Speaker 2: matchup between Alabama and Notre Dame and then Indiana and Georgia.
Speaker 2: The winner of Indiana Georgia would advance to play Texas.
Speaker 2: The winner of Bama Notre Dame would advance to play
Speaker 2: I mean, Alabama has a pretty clear path all the
Speaker 2: way to the semi finals, where they would most likely
Speaker 2: play either Texas or Georgia, which would be great television,
Speaker 2: you know, And there is brand bias.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry.
Speaker 2: We can complain about it, we can yell about it.
Speaker 2: There's brand bias. There always has been, and that's the
Speaker 2: way this thing is designed for powerful television executives to
Speaker 2: get the most incendiary TV show on their network.
Speaker 1: That's what they want.
Speaker 2: The winner of Tennessee Ohio State would advance to play Oregon.
Speaker 2: The winner of Arizona State Penn State would advance to
Speaker 2: play Boise State. And that's kind of the scenario as
Speaker 2: of right now out of the world of college football.
Speaker 2: So it is a busy, busy news cycle. Even though
Speaker 2: the season is over for the University of Utah, the offseason,
Speaker 2: one of the most important offseasons in Utah football history,
Speaker 2: is going on right now. A bunch of news about
Speaker 2: targets being flipped. Here there the up to date and
Speaker 2: this is ESPN two four seven does a really good
Speaker 2: job as well up to date recruiting rankings. At the top,
Speaker 2: it is the usual suspects at number one, Dan Lanning
Speaker 2: in Oregon at number two.
Speaker 1: Texas comes in at number three.
Speaker 2: It's Ohio State at four, Alabama, Kaitlin Debor at five,
Speaker 2: Michigan comes in at six, Auburn jumps up to number seven,
Speaker 2: LSU at eight, Texas A and M at nine, Florida
Speaker 2: at ten, you have to scroll all the way down
Speaker 2: to I haven't even seen it yet. The number one
Speaker 2: Big twelve recruiting class as of right now is TCU.
Speaker 2: They come in at number twenty, so their number number
Speaker 2: twenty and the number one ranked Big twelve recruiting class.
Speaker 2: You got some breaking news for us on early signing day?
Speaker 2: What is what do you got.
Speaker 1: For signing day? What do you got?
Speaker 3: As you mentioned Utah their their top offensive prospect that
Speaker 3: they had landed over the course of the day was
Speaker 3: Wyatt Becker the quarterback. Well, they just landed another four
Speaker 3: star on the offensive side, racing. Guillory is a running
Speaker 3: back who had offers from Old Miss. He had some
Speaker 3: other sec offers and they went and nabbed him out
Speaker 3: out of Texas. It's actually a big get for Utah
Speaker 3: on racine Guillory he can really run. You watched it
Speaker 3: says fast he is, he is quick.
Speaker 10: No.
Speaker 2: Look, I just get a kick out of days like
Speaker 2: today where you hear from people and you know, my
Speaker 2: favorite thing is listening to the coaches being interviewed after
Speaker 2: signing day is done, like, yeah, we got everyone we wanted. Well,
Speaker 2: you're the seventieth rank recruiting class. You didn't get everybody
Speaker 2: you wanted, maybe some of them, but everybody kind of
Speaker 2: gives you the same walking line.
Speaker 1: So yeah, racing is it? Gillory?
Speaker 2: Is that Gillory? Okay out of Texas? Yeah, his final
Speaker 2: two Utah and Old Miss. So I don't know if
Speaker 2: that's a flip, but that obviously is a good sign
Speaker 2: b YU. At this point, no four star recruits. According
Speaker 2: to the rankings out in front of me BYU, their
Speaker 2: recruiting class as of now is number twelve in the
Speaker 2: Big twelve and number fifty five in the country. Now,
Speaker 2: last year BYU was also ranked in the mid fifty
Speaker 2: and they made a massive jump adding some late ads,
Speaker 2: they jumped up into the forties. So look, today is
Speaker 2: just kind of a day. That's fun to talk about possibilities,
Speaker 2: but nowhere near a finished product. And certainly, as we've
Speaker 2: talked about, BYU with eighteen players signed from high school,
Speaker 2: but as of right now, no four or five star players,
Speaker 2: and the names keep spelling in Utah right now, a
Speaker 2: four star player, JJ Buchanan out of Henderson. I believe
Speaker 2: he's a Bishop Gorman kid, Cyrus Paulu linebacker from Saint
Speaker 2: George four star and then the new running back to
Speaker 2: Porter just reference also a four star player. So according
Speaker 2: to the numbers I have in front of me, by
Speaker 2: excuse me, Utah has four four stars as of now,
Speaker 2: and maybe as a result of this, I don't know
Speaker 2: if it's a flip at running back, but maybe that
Speaker 2: will improve the rankings for the University of Utah Transfer portal.
Speaker 2: Right around the corner, which the corre reality is a
Speaker 2: lot of these players are probably gonna get gone before
Speaker 2: they ever end up on campus. Just continuing to really,
Speaker 2: in my opinion, mandate the expedited process to try to
Speaker 2: get this thing a little bit settled in so schools
Speaker 2: and member institutions aren't necessarily out there on their own.
Speaker 1: But early returns right.
Speaker 2: Now, I guess you have to surmise that the nil
Speaker 2: stuff pretty good situation for the Utes because as of now,
Speaker 2: really only Jalen Glover, is that your understanding? Port I
Speaker 2: just have not seen any announcement of any player as
Speaker 2: of no. And look, Jalen Glover this year was like
Speaker 2: the third of the fourth string running back. But byus
Speaker 2: of now has lost four players to the transfer portal,
Speaker 2: some good ones as well, and I think Utah has
Speaker 2: only got got with one. And it's not like Jalen
Speaker 2: Glover is going to sting that much. Any other utes
Speaker 2: that you're hearing potentially entering the transfer portal.
Speaker 3: Yeah, as of now, Jalen Glover is the only contributor
Speaker 3: that has entered the transfer portal. You've got to go
Speaker 3: back to deep, deep into depth chart. The lely tua
Speaker 3: fatto fua nice job is your other your other one
Speaker 3: that has entered the transfer portal. That's the two for
Speaker 3: the use of Okay, so no harm, no foul there.
Speaker 2: Cody Epps has entered the transfer portal for Brigham Young
Speaker 2: ass has Jackson Bowers, Michael Harper who at one point
Speaker 2: was one of their better defensive players, but he had
Speaker 2: a knee injury that.
Speaker 1: Kind of knocked him out. And then Miles Davis.
Speaker 2: The best name for a running back really in all
Speaker 2: the college football. Maybe it's just how I think if
Speaker 2: my running back was Miles Davis, he'd get all the carriers.
Speaker 3: No, I mean it is the best, the best name there, Miles.
Speaker 3: If you're in football. We can go back to is
Speaker 3: it Friday night Lights, the Booby Miles guy. It's it's
Speaker 3: just a good name. It's just a good name. It's
Speaker 3: an excellent name.
Speaker 2: So obviously, if any of the breaking news comes our
Speaker 2: way before we sign off at six o'clock, we'll bring.
Speaker 1: It to you.
Speaker 2: Shout out to Miles Davis, phenomenal trumpeter and also very
Speaker 2: good running back for BYU, Miles Davis has left us.
Speaker 2: He's not dead, he just endered the transfer portal. So
Speaker 2: BYU looking for maybe some the running back. But shout
Speaker 2: out to the actual Miles Davis. He passed away way
Speaker 2: back in nineteen ninety one. So there you go. All right,
Speaker 2: I've been waiting all show to ask you a question
Speaker 2: that I think you're a uniquely qualified to answer.
Speaker 1: Uniquely qualified. Yes, you'll see why.
Speaker 2: So there was a video that went viral today on
Speaker 2: social media of some gentlemen who I believe were fishing
Speaker 2: and a brown bear, a very large brown bear, started
Speaker 2: running up river and it was an impressive specimen. And
Speaker 2: attached to the video is like, I guess black bears
Speaker 2: aren't as dangerous, so you can engage with them.
Speaker 1: The saying was like.
Speaker 2: Brown bear laid down, black bear fight and white bear.
Speaker 1: You're going, yeah, you're dead.
Speaker 2: Fine, So it is if because you're a gentleman that
Speaker 2: spends a lot of time in the wild. You enjoy hiking,
Speaker 2: you enjoy the enjoy the outdoors. You were in God's
Speaker 2: Country up in Summon County. Let's say you're on a
Speaker 2: solo mission. I'm talking cut off T shirt, bandana, camel pack,
Speaker 2: just you out there, real, real Christopher mccandles stuff. Yes,
Speaker 2: you are into the wild. Which one animal would you
Speaker 2: most not want to see? As you turned around and
Speaker 2: realized the animal was like fifteen yards away from you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a it's a tough on because I mean,
Speaker 3: this is a a one that's been posed to me
Speaker 3: many a times. And you mentioned the polar bear, right,
Speaker 3: that's one that is You're done. It's two thousand pounds,
Speaker 3: it's the size of a bowl, but it has teeth
Speaker 3: that are longer than your fingers, right like that, there's
Speaker 3: just no way around it. But for me, it always
Speaker 3: comes down to like things I could actually experience. I'm
Speaker 3: not trudging around the Arctic, right, I'm not just around
Speaker 3: the North Pole yet. Yeah, And for me, it's always
Speaker 3: been mountain lions. Oh really they I mean the cats
Speaker 3: are killing thee They are genetically engineered killing machines. And
Speaker 3: when you see what your house cat can do to
Speaker 3: you know, whatever, birds or rats or even you if
Speaker 3: it gets pissed off, just imagine what a three hundred
Speaker 3: pound cat can do. They can run forty five miles
Speaker 3: an hour. And the thing with the mountain lions is
Speaker 3: that you're not going to really attack you, but if
Speaker 3: they do, you're not going to know it until after
Speaker 3: it's happened, or as it's happening, whereas a bear usually
Speaker 3: you see it right, there's a warning there. It's hard though,
Speaker 3: because when you're if you're up there alone and maybe unarmed,
Speaker 3: that's the big equalizer. Humans are always big, tough guys
Speaker 3: walking around with their their weapons. But if you're up there,
Speaker 3: if you're up there in the in the bush, and
Speaker 3: you come across a bear, a cougar, a wolf, a moose,
Speaker 3: something that doesn't even want to eat you, you're outmatched
Speaker 3: and it's not a great situation.
Speaker 2: The video of the brown bear was like I saw
Speaker 2: that actually overwhelmingly impressive.
Speaker 1: It was like a specimen running up the river.
Speaker 3: That's kind of what I was getting out with the
Speaker 3: Mountain lions. I don't think a lot of people who
Speaker 3: haven't seen them up close and personal don't realize that
Speaker 3: they're not little kiddies. Those are monsters. Like I've seen
Speaker 3: one in the Canvas area that Spence. I thought it
Speaker 3: had escaped from the zoo. It was like a Serengeti type,
Speaker 3: like five hundred. It was massive. It looked like one
Speaker 3: that you would see in Africa, and it's it's probably
Speaker 3: the animal that strikes the most fear into me, even
Speaker 3: though they will leave you alone no matter what, unless
Speaker 3: kind of corner.
Speaker 2: Utah Women take on Utah State tonight. Utah women's basketball
Speaker 2: coming off a big upset of Notre Dame. The Utah
Speaker 2: women are six and two. They're five and zero at home.
Speaker 2: This game is at the Delta Center of Utah State.
Speaker 2: One and seven oh and three, so not a very
Speaker 2: good team. So you're gonna hear that coming up in
Speaker 2: just a little bit here on the radio station as
Speaker 2: you're home of the Utes. But Porter, before we get
Speaker 2: out of here, what comes our way on a Thursday
Speaker 2: show on.
Speaker 3: A Thursday edition of the program, As you just mentioned,
Speaker 3: you taught women's basketball in action tonight, well tomorrow, we'll
Speaker 3: hear from Gavin Peterson, the head ball coach for Utah
Speaker 3: women's basketball, of course taken over for Lynn Roberts in
Speaker 3: the last couple of weeks. Craig Bowler, Jack Gordon Monson
Speaker 3: for our big hour on a Thursday, and then switching
Speaker 3: up a little bit since he's out of pocket on
Speaker 3: a Friday, Chris com Ronnie, he's going to stop by
Speaker 3: the program, so a bunch of fun in studio stuff
Speaker 3: and then of course catching up with the Utah women's
Speaker 3: basketball coaches. You taught women's basketball's newest head coach.
Speaker 1: All right, there you go. That'll be a fun Thursday show.
Speaker 1: Join us for that.
Speaker 2: With that, we'll say good night for a Wednesday, and
Speaker 2: a very special thank you to Bill Riley, Richard Smith,
Speaker 2: Howard Beck, and Ali Mata for any of the sound
Speaker 2: you may have missed from the program today. Go to
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Speaker 1: He supporter. I'm Spence saying, I enjoy your Wednesday evening.
Speaker 2: We'll talk to you on a Thursday Drive right here
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