Speaker 1: Welcome to the Big Blue and Sider Dick Gabriel with
Speaker 1: you on a Tuesday edition of our program. And this
Speaker 1: is a weird, weird week after a game that should
Speaker 1: have seen the Wildcats four and two. Now they're three
Speaker 1: and three at the loss to Vanderbilt, heading down to Florida,
Speaker 1: and so we will probably talk more in the next
Speaker 1: forty eight to seventy two hours about Vandy unfortunately, then Florida.
Speaker 1: That's why it works, seems like we talk more about
Speaker 1: the losses than the wins and looking ahead. But it
Speaker 1: was just so bizarre. You've heard Mark Stoops talk about it.
Speaker 1: We're going to talk about it tonight with John Hale
Speaker 1: of The Hair of Leader, and we'll hear a little
Speaker 1: bit from John Wong, Wong's Whinings blogger who covers the Wildcats.
Speaker 1: Also talk Kentucky basketball. My buddy Mike Sappo's coming up,
Speaker 1: a UK basketball super fan, and we call him a
Speaker 1: New York City Bureau chief because he lives in New York.
Speaker 1: We're going to ask him about the Karl Anthony Towns
Speaker 1: Julius Randall trade. But it's just so odd to see
Speaker 1: this team excel both against Georgia and Ole Miss and
Speaker 1: then flop against Vanderbilt. Played well, but you know the
Speaker 1: story about all the penalties. So it's just it's just
Speaker 1: been a weird season so far, going back to the
Speaker 1: terrible loss to South Carolina. Now you know about Mark
Speaker 1: Stoop's record of late in SEC games, in home games,
Speaker 1: in games after buys and Brett McMurphy on Twitter tweeted
Speaker 1: this records in the last thirteen games for the following coaches,
Speaker 1: Mac Brown of North Carolina, Sunny Dykes of TCU. These
Speaker 1: are big name coaches. Hugh Freese at Auburn, which is
Speaker 1: not a great team, Lance Lightpol at Kansas, who has
Speaker 1: led to Jayhawks to back to back Bowl games, has
Speaker 1: a huge contract now, Billy Napier at Florida coming up,
Speaker 1: Lincoln Riley Southern col Dion Sanders Colorado, Scott Saderfield. Say
Speaker 1: what you will about him at Louisville, but now he's
Speaker 1: at Cincinnati, and of course Mark Stoops. They're all in
Speaker 1: their last thirteen games five and eight, every one of
Speaker 1: these guys five and eight. I don't know if that
Speaker 1: says more about the portal and the NIL or scheduling,
Speaker 1: or I don't know what it says, but it's just weird,
Speaker 1: and it seems like anymore now there's more parody, and
Speaker 1: again with players on the move, we shouldn't be surprised
Speaker 1: at anything that happens. I honestly thought Ohio State would
Speaker 1: go out and clobber Oregon. But Oregon beat the Buckeyes.
Speaker 1: And by the way, if you're following that story, and
Speaker 1: it's a great one, Oregon, with some chicanery at the end,
Speaker 1: ran a twelfth man onto the field. Jepikoro was talking
Speaker 1: about this, and of course, being an Ohio State fan,
Speaker 1: he would But there were twelve seconds left. Oregon's up
Speaker 1: thirty two to thirty one. Ohio State's got time for
Speaker 1: a couple of plays trying to drive to field goal range,
Speaker 1: and in that final drive, Oregon runs a twelfth man
Speaker 1: onto the field, and Dan Lanning, the coach, confirmed that
Speaker 1: was intentional. They called time out and then at the
Speaker 1: last second ran another defensive back on the field that
Speaker 1: forced the Ohio State quarterback to throw in the other
Speaker 1: direction to a guy who was covered by another corner incomplete.
Speaker 1: Four seconds run off the clock and now flags fly right.
Speaker 1: So Ohio State gets five yards but loses four seconds
Speaker 1: essentially loses a play. Now, I guess there were ten
Speaker 1: seconds left. Now there's only six seconds left, and you
Speaker 1: may have seen the video, but Will Howard the quarterback
Speaker 1: takes off running and slides as the clock expires, and
Speaker 1: that was it Ohio State with no shot. This was brilliant.
Speaker 1: This was bending rules. Are breaking them if you will
Speaker 1: to make it work for you. Reason being it was
Speaker 1: a penalty called during a live play. There was no runoff.
Speaker 1: I gotta think that's going to lead to a change
Speaker 1: in the way the rules are executed because it helped
Speaker 1: or again by breaking a rule. And as Lanning said,
Speaker 1: we practice a lot of situations like this. Some of
Speaker 1: them never come up, and some do. But that was
Speaker 1: a brilliant piece of trickery. Ohio State's still in the
Speaker 1: running for a national title, may win it yet, but
Speaker 1: that was actually pretty cool when you think about it,
Speaker 1: and a shutdown in my theory that Ohio State was
Speaker 1: going to win and win big. As for Kentucky, look,
Speaker 1: Vandy's better than it has been in the past. It's
Speaker 1: already proven that, but I think Kentucky's better And Stoop's
Speaker 1: talked about this at his news conference on the radio
Speaker 1: lapp night if not for its own mistakes, I think
Speaker 1: Kentucky I say it, he didn't, but Kentucky wins that game.
Speaker 1: But Kentucky's not good enough this team, in particular to
Speaker 1: overcome all the mistakes. They could overcome some of them.
Speaker 1: Van the overcame penalties and mistakes and won the game.
Speaker 1: Kentucky just made more mistakes.
Speaker 2: As far as we go, you know, there's a very
Speaker 2: thin line between success and failure, and you know, we
Speaker 2: are definitely shooting ourselves in the foot in a game
Speaker 2: like that where you have seven possessions. I think we
Speaker 2: all myself, including during the game and certainly the last
Speaker 2: time I spoke with you, you feel the frustration, you
Speaker 2: feel you know so many motions, and then you look
Speaker 2: at it and you look at that then line that
Speaker 2: I'm talking about. It's crazy because you feel like offensively,
Speaker 2: you know we're falling short, and we are, but it's like,
Speaker 2: you know, you look at the seven possessions and we
Speaker 2: have it in our hands with every opportunity to score
Speaker 2: on five.
Speaker 1: And that's what drove me nuts. Every time they got
Speaker 1: the ball at that and it looked like they were
Speaker 1: going to score on every possession and they did on
Speaker 1: what three, but should have scored a lot more. You know,
Speaker 1: missed out on a TD, then missed out on a
Speaker 1: field goal. That was a difference in the game. This
Speaker 1: team's not good enough to make mistakes like that, obviously.
Speaker 1: And if they play clean, We've said it many many times,
Speaker 1: play clean football, you got a shot of winning. That's
Speaker 1: going to be the case with Florida coming up. So
Speaker 1: we'll talk more about that as the week goes on.
Speaker 1: Yankees win last night, Mets win last night. They're one
Speaker 1: and one with the Dodgers. Yankees lead one. Nothing could
Speaker 1: be a subway series. What's cool is on this day
Speaker 1: in history, Kirk Gibson hit that home run for the
Speaker 1: Dodgers against the A's in the eight eight World Series.
Speaker 1: And I'm going to share Vin Scully's call. That's the
Speaker 1: famous call. It was on TV, but I'm gonna play
Speaker 1: the radio call as well. I know I'm biased toward radio,
Speaker 1: but here's Vin Scully's call a Kirk Gibson's historic home run.
Speaker 1: But the game right now is that the play.
Speaker 3: High fine in the right po.
Speaker 1: She is gone. And then he does what we call layout,
Speaker 1: which means shut up and let the crowd. Let the
Speaker 1: pictures and the crowd noise tell the story. And he
Speaker 1: does a great job here in the year that they.
Speaker 3: Has been sire im prod Liam, impossible has happened.
Speaker 1: And because that's where you sail. Gibson, who was hurt,
Speaker 1: could barely run limping to home play being mobbed by
Speaker 1: his teammates. Well on radio side, Don Drysdale made the
Speaker 1: call because Scully worked primarily TV at that point. Drysdell
Speaker 1: worked with a guy named Ross Porter and was Don Drysdale,
Speaker 1: the former pitching great for LA. He was behind the
Speaker 1: mic when Kirk Gibson went yard.
Speaker 3: All the man's on their leading man. If there was
Speaker 3: ever a prippent the casey at the bat, it would
Speaker 3: have to.
Speaker 4: Be the ninth inning true.
Speaker 3: Out, the dying run a board, the winning run at
Speaker 3: the place, the bottom of the ninth inning, and good
Speaker 3: Gibson standing at the place.
Speaker 1: I'm cutting out a little bit here, but I wanted
Speaker 1: the casey at the bat reference to be in there.
Speaker 1: But he talked about how Gibson stepped out kind of
Speaker 1: playing cat and mouse with Dennis Eckersley, maybe at the time,
Speaker 1: the pre eminent relief pitcher in the game, and Gibson
Speaker 1: touches his helmet as he always does, and then they
Speaker 1: squared off Anckersley.
Speaker 3: Working out of this bet. Here's a three two pitch
Speaker 3: and a drive at the right tail way back this bof.
Speaker 1: And then Drysdale lays out, and in fact, he lay
Speaker 1: out longer than Scully did. He shut up for like
Speaker 1: twenty seven to thirty seconds before he finally jumped back
Speaker 1: on the mic. I'm sure he just turned his mic
Speaker 1: off and sat back and watched, and then he finally
Speaker 1: came back and kind of wrapped up the call in
Speaker 1: a great, great way.
Speaker 3: This proud love that out damn coming in the end,
Speaker 3: and this time Mighty Kase did not strike out.
Speaker 1: I love both of them, but it's been a while
Speaker 1: since I heard Don Drysdale with the radio call. Courtesy
Speaker 1: of the Dodgers Network of Kirk Gibson's home run. I
Speaker 1: was anchoring twenty seven Sports Spectrum that night, our our
Speaker 1: magazine show, and I was on the anchored US. We
Speaker 1: were on the air when that happened. It was so late,
Speaker 1: and Kayline shouts, our sports videographer came running downstairs with
Speaker 1: a script that said, you aren't going to believe this,
Speaker 1: and I called the Highlight cold and it was fantastic,
Speaker 1: big night for excat Ray Davis. That's next on six
Speaker 1: thirty Wlap Welcome back to the Big Blue and Sider
Speaker 1: coming up in a few minutes, John Hale of The
Speaker 1: Herald Leader. Of course we'll talk Kentucky football with us
Speaker 1: our number two. We're gonna talk to Kentucky football and
Speaker 1: basketball with John Wong, Doctor John Wong, the blogger Wong's Whinings.
Speaker 1: He's also covering the Bengals and did the double header,
Speaker 1: actually a triple header over the weekend madness Kentucky football.
Speaker 1: Then he flew to New York to cover the Bengals
Speaker 1: and the Giants. So John's been a busy man. But
Speaker 1: before we talked to John in our number two, we
Speaker 1: will also talk to somebody in New York and that's
Speaker 1: our New York City Bureau chief, Mike Seposnik. He's a podcaster.
Speaker 1: He goes by Mike Saffoy. He's a really interesting and
Speaker 1: entertaining podcast. He is a Kentucky super fan. He's a
Speaker 1: nut when it comes to UK basketball. Also the Yankees
Speaker 1: and the Knicks who now have Karl Anthony Towns and
Speaker 1: his real job. Mike is a New York City police officer,
Speaker 1: but flirting with retirement, flirting with moving to Lexington, but
Speaker 1: has been a UK fan since he was a young
Speaker 1: kid and fell in love with that Kentucky team that
Speaker 1: nearly upset Duke in the nca Tournament and that by
Speaker 1: Hooker by Crook. As how he befriended or was befriended
Speaker 1: by Cameron Mills. It's a long story, but that's how
Speaker 1: I met Mike through Cameron. So anyhow, Mike's gonna come
Speaker 1: up with us and talk about the Karl Anthony Towns
Speaker 1: trade for Julius Randall, another former Wildcat, and we'll get
Speaker 1: his thoughts on Mark Pope as well. If you stayed
Speaker 1: up late last night, way late, you may have seen
Speaker 1: this one. If not, that's why I'm sharing it because
Speaker 1: I did not. I heard it and saw it after
Speaker 1: the fact. But one of the stars of Buffalo's win
Speaker 1: over to New York Jets and Aaron Rodgers was Ray Davis.
Speaker 1: I watched the game and it was pretty evident that
Speaker 1: James Cook, their lead running back, was injured, because Ray
Speaker 1: Davis got a majority of the carries and had a
Speaker 1: great game and was one of the big reasons that
Speaker 1: Buffalo was able to knock off the Jets in the
Speaker 1: meadowlands of whatever they call it now. But Ray had
Speaker 1: a heck of a game. A typical game, I might
Speaker 1: point out ninety seven yards on twenty carries, but caught
Speaker 1: three passes for fifty five yards. So you look at it,
Speaker 1: that's what one hundred and fifty three yards. First rookie
Speaker 1: to lead the Bills in rushing and receiving yards in
Speaker 1: the same game since nineteen eighty six. You know his story, Temple, Vanderbilt, Kentucky,
Speaker 1: thousand yard rushing each time. His backstory, of course about
Speaker 1: being part of the foster care system swept up in it.
Speaker 1: But he merged literally victorious, and now after becoming a
Speaker 1: fourth round pick of the Bills, had a great game.
Speaker 1: And afterwards he was the guest interview on site for
Speaker 1: ESPN Scott Van Pelt, so you can hear what they
Speaker 1: call the Bulls Mafia, the equivalent of the BBN, the
Speaker 1: Bill's mafia in the background. As former Wildcat and Commodore
Speaker 1: and Owl now Buffalo Bill Ray Davis spoke on ESPN
Speaker 1: late last night early this morning.
Speaker 5: There's a saying in any level of sports.
Speaker 1: Next man up.
Speaker 6: You were the man tonight to step up. The mentality
Speaker 6: you brought to this stage tonight, how would you describe it?
Speaker 7: You know, it was about just again, like you said,
Speaker 7: next man, not mentality. For me, it was about just maybe,
Speaker 7: sure I do what I gotta do.
Speaker 1: We know James is so exposed.
Speaker 7: He's a great running back, so we knew that we
Speaker 7: got to still push the needle.
Speaker 1: We gotta make sure that.
Speaker 6: We stay in the right position to succeed.
Speaker 1: And when he got a cast like that.
Speaker 7: Josh, the offensive line, everybody doing their job.
Speaker 1: I don't succeed without them.
Speaker 6: I thought it was interesting from the jump, it was like,
Speaker 6: let's saddle this young man up and ride, and you
Speaker 6: come out in that first touchdown drive and Josh said,
Speaker 6: he stole the touchdown from you. He kind of hawked
Speaker 6: it in the end right from the one, but it
Speaker 6: was clear that they were going to put the ball
Speaker 6: in your hands. How does that to fuel your confidence
Speaker 6: when they have that much trust?
Speaker 1: To me, it's about the preparation throughout the week.
Speaker 7: You know, again, my coaches, you know, coach, skip the
Speaker 7: guys in a room. Just again, keep my head up,
Speaker 7: keep my spirits up, telling me and just play my game,
Speaker 7: understanding that things.
Speaker 1: May not hit perfectly.
Speaker 7: But again, as time goes on, those two to three,
Speaker 7: four or five yard runs gonna turn into big chunks
Speaker 7: an explosive places.
Speaker 1: That was about understanding that I don't got to get
Speaker 1: the home run right away, right by.
Speaker 7: Just playing your game and understand it's gonna be a
Speaker 7: slow grind and they not gonna.
Speaker 5: Want to tackle them at the end of the night.
Speaker 1: To get the win, that's the most important.
Speaker 6: But for you personally to contribute as you did over
Speaker 6: one hundred and fifty total yards, how do you describe
Speaker 6: the satisfaction of being able to deliver the way you
Speaker 6: did under the rightest lights here just outside New York City.
Speaker 1: You know, it's a great opportunity.
Speaker 7: You never want to get the opportunity when a guy
Speaker 7: goes down, right, But at the end of the day,
Speaker 7: you got to be able to step up. And you know,
Speaker 7: I don't want to be complacent and accept what happened today.
Speaker 1: I want to keep getting better.
Speaker 7: I want to keep understanding the things I need to
Speaker 7: get better at I can fix next week or whenever
Speaker 7: my opportunity comes again. Go out there and just present
Speaker 7: it the same round presented today.
Speaker 6: You're new to this whole scene, but as best as
Speaker 6: you can describe for me what Bill's Mafia's support is
Speaker 6: like to come down here. You're far from Western.
Speaker 1: New York, but you feel right at home.
Speaker 7: And we got the best fans in the world. I
Speaker 7: mean again, they travel, they show up no matter where
Speaker 7: it is. They understand that being being a part of
Speaker 7: the mafia something great, it's special.
Speaker 1: And they want to say something special. We got some
Speaker 1: special guys. Ray Davis, who got his degree actually from
Speaker 1: Vanderbilt and majored in communications, and you heard it. That
Speaker 1: was a great interview. You can doll and he wants
Speaker 1: to do this or that, you know, sportscasting, broadcasting when
Speaker 1: he's when he's done playing. But that took me back
Speaker 1: to the first time we got a chance to talk
Speaker 1: to Ray when he was a Kentucky Wildcat after he
Speaker 1: transferred in in the spring, and he was just I
Speaker 1: don't want to say mesmerizing, but there are some news
Speaker 1: conferences when when guys get up and talk, and usually
Speaker 1: it's a player coaches you expected from And Ray's got
Speaker 1: these kind of piercing eyes. I think they may be
Speaker 1: blue but anyhow, he just grabs your attention and was
Speaker 1: such a gifted speaker and just owned it and said
Speaker 1: great things including I'm not Benny Snell, I'm not Chris Rodriguez,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be Ray Davis. And he basically said, you know,
Speaker 1: and we'll see what happens. Well, you saw it happen,
Speaker 1: and the Buffalo Bills saw it as well, and they
Speaker 1: liked it. But that's what I was thinking on, and
Speaker 1: I think his very first game, if I recall, he
Speaker 1: was our player of the game, so I had a
Speaker 1: chance to sit down and talk one on one with
Speaker 1: him after the game. I also got to thinking about
Speaker 1: all the former Kentucky Wildcats who have been a part
Speaker 1: of the Buffalo Bills, and one of them was a
Speaker 1: guy you might not know the name. If you've been
Speaker 1: watching Kentucky football for a while, you know this one,
Speaker 1: but Willie Grant Willy was a center. We went by
Speaker 1: will here. I guess his buddy's called him Willie. But
Speaker 1: he was a center and played behind David Hopewell, and
Speaker 1: David got injured, will went in and basically while he
Speaker 1: pipped him. I don't know if David could have come
Speaker 1: back anyway, but Will Grant was so good and David
Speaker 1: was good too, But Will often clashed with fran Cursey
Speaker 1: and that's why he didn't get as much clock as
Speaker 1: he might have early. But he went on to a
Speaker 1: long career with the Bills. Spent eight years in Buffalo,
Speaker 1: then spent the nineteen eighty six season in Seattle with
Speaker 1: the Seahawks, came back played his last year with the Bills.
Speaker 1: This was after being a tenth round draft pick in
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy eight, and from his third year on he
Speaker 1: started played between Reggie McKenzie and Conrad Dobler. How about
Speaker 1: that for some names. But he was a starter for
Speaker 1: five years and really good player. But Kentucky fans, you know,
Speaker 1: you don't hear much about guys who played the old
Speaker 1: line back in the late seventies and early eighties year
Speaker 1: But Art still Art played for Buffalo after he played
Speaker 1: in Kansas City. But Mike Edwards is playing for the
Speaker 1: Bills right now. I wasn't aware of that. And who
Speaker 1: else played for Buffalo? Herv Goodie from Newport, Kentucky played
Speaker 1: for the Wildcats back in the sixties and had a
Speaker 1: long NFL career. Played for the Cardinals for doing eleven
Speaker 1: or twelve years, spent a year in Buffalo, finished up
Speaker 1: with the Miami Dolphins. I was not on there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he was actually on their Super Bowl team super Bowl eight.
Speaker 1: So you know there have been Wildcats who have gone
Speaker 1: on to Buffalo and done good things. And Ray Davis,
Speaker 1: who looks like is on his way when we come back.
Speaker 1: John Halo the Hero Leader here on six thirty WAP,
Speaker 1: welcome back to the Big Bluing Sider, joining us now
Speaker 1: as a longtime friend of the show and a veteran
Speaker 1: of the UKB John the Herald Leader and John, I
Speaker 1: guess people have scratched their heads now for seventy two hours.
Speaker 1: How in the world can this happen to a Kentucky team?
Speaker 1: And I don't know if we're any closer to having
Speaker 1: answers than we were in the past. What do you think?
Speaker 4: No, it's it's confusing for sure. I will say when
Speaker 4: I left, when I was leaving Oxford after that Ole
Speaker 4: Miss game, I said to a couple of people, They're
Speaker 4: gonna lose to Vanderbilt now, like that would be the
Speaker 4: most Kentucky thing ever. But I had talked myself out
Speaker 4: of that scenario based on the way the buye we
Speaker 4: played out when that when Vanderbilt beats Alabama, when they're
Speaker 4: getting a week full of attention and everybody in the
Speaker 4: national media is there's the Darlings and Diego Poppy and
Speaker 4: all that. Okay, well, now there's no chance that Kentucky's
Speaker 4: going to have a letdown. They're going to use all
Speaker 4: that as motivation. They're going to say, we just beat
Speaker 4: a top ten team and everybody already forgot about us.
Speaker 4: And then to come out the way they played, to
Speaker 4: see so many of those same issues from the South
Speaker 4: Carolina performance hot back up, it just felt like this
Speaker 4: team cannot deal with success. I mean from Dayton like,
Speaker 4: even when they played well in Georgia and they played
Speaker 4: well and they wanted Ole miss and they live out Ohio,
Speaker 4: all of that was built off the back of like
Speaker 4: proving that that South Carolina game was a fluke and
Speaker 4: everybody who said their season was over over wrong. But
Speaker 4: then as soon as it got to the point where
Speaker 4: everybody was back on the bandwagon, it feels like they
Speaker 4: just reverted back to all those bad habits, which is
Speaker 4: a very concerning trend for Mark Soups in this program.
Speaker 4: Given the way the last couple of seasons.
Speaker 1: Gone to me, What was even more maddening, John, was
Speaker 1: that when you subtract the penalties, as you can do post,
Speaker 1: they played fairly well. They moved the ball on offense
Speaker 1: and they protected it. They only gave up twenty to
Speaker 1: a team that scored forty on Alabama, Diego Pavia hit
Speaker 1: him for a couple of big plays, but they did
Speaker 1: a decent job containing him. That just added to the frustration,
Speaker 1: didn't it.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Absolutely. I mean, even like if you only take the
Speaker 4: one possison where they got down to the sixth inch
Speaker 4: line or whatever, and you get a touchdown there, it's
Speaker 4: a tie game at the end of the game, and
Speaker 4: so then you leave four points off the board in
Speaker 4: terms of you mess up the field goal there and
Speaker 4: then you miss an extra point. If you get those
Speaker 4: four points, then you're only playing the last possession, is
Speaker 4: totally different because you're just trying in the field goal
Speaker 4: range at very least, and so like, it was just
Speaker 4: so close to going the other way. I mean, it
Speaker 4: did feel like they were out playing bank about much
Speaker 4: of it other than their self inflected mistakes. But at
Speaker 4: this point through six games, like that is a trend.
Speaker 4: I know, they keep bringing up the idea of like
Speaker 4: they were the least penalized team in the SEC going
Speaker 4: into it, which is true, and we saw in that
Speaker 4: three game stretch they were better at that. But that's
Speaker 4: that's a little bit skewed because they only played half
Speaker 4: a game in the opener, and so like all of these,
Speaker 4: like counting stats are a little messed up pods the
Speaker 4: dad you look at them, but we know that when
Speaker 4: they have struggled, it has been many of these same issues,
Speaker 4: just like in South Carolina, and so like the disciplined
Speaker 4: part of this, which is why you know, it's interesting.
Speaker 4: After the South Carolina game, Mark Stoops was so negative
Speaker 4: and the post game, and then when he came out Monday,
Speaker 4: he made sure to start by saying, like, I know
Speaker 4: I questioned them response and everything, but like after watching
Speaker 4: the film, it wasn't that they weren't playing hard, they
Speaker 4: just weren't disciplined. So he kind of walked back on that.
Speaker 4: But yesterday is press conference, there was no walking back
Speaker 4: from anything. He was just as mad as he was
Speaker 4: Saturday night, if not matter, and so like it's clear
Speaker 4: he's frustrated with this message not getting through to guys.
Speaker 1: And the bizarre stat win loss at home, wind loss
Speaker 1: after buys. I've never seen anything like it, and I
Speaker 1: don't think they're any closer to figuring that out either,
Speaker 1: you know.
Speaker 4: No, And that's part of that's part of the big
Speaker 4: problem right now, is because like winning an old mess
Speaker 4: got them a lot of good favor from the fan base,
Speaker 4: and obviously everybody showed out and had an environment for
Speaker 4: Vanderbilt Kentucky game we're not used to seeing. But the
Speaker 4: fact that you're so bad at home. They're two and
Speaker 4: ten in their last twelve games at twelve SEC games
Speaker 4: at home, They've lost six straight SEC games in Kroger Field.
Speaker 4: Like there's no quicker way to get people to check
Speaker 4: out them. Having them spend a ton of money to
Speaker 4: show up and park and stand in concession lines and
Speaker 4: bathroom lines and all that, and then never see them
Speaker 4: win this person and like that is a huge problem
Speaker 4: for this team right now and in many years, Like
Speaker 4: I mean, we've seen stretches looking down. He's not get
Speaker 4: at home just because they were not very good overall,
Speaker 4: and you could you could ride right off, I say, oh,
Speaker 4: in those odd years or whatever, they get Florida and
Speaker 4: Tennessee and Georgia home or whatever happened to be well,
Speaker 4: like in that ten game or that team game. Sure
Speaker 4: they've lost to South Carolina twice, some VANDBIL twice at home.
Speaker 4: Like it's not like they're only losing to the best
Speaker 4: teams in the SEC at home. And I think that
Speaker 4: speaks to the discipline part of this, Like there's clearly
Speaker 4: something happening. And Mark Sup you know, brought it up
Speaker 4: after the game, like are you getting too many ticket requests?
Speaker 4: There are too many distractions? Is all of this other
Speaker 4: stuff that's part of college football now, like weighing on
Speaker 4: you when you're home and have accessed all these people
Speaker 4: like they have not. They've got to figure that out
Speaker 4: if there's any chance for them to be relevant in
Speaker 4: this new college football landscape.
Speaker 1: And given the schedule that lies, it's hard now, I
Speaker 1: think to figure out what lies After the South Carolina game,
Speaker 1: we were thinking, God, are they going to win three
Speaker 1: or four? Then after they beat Ole Miss, you're thinking, well,
Speaker 1: you know, and now you're right back to wondering what
Speaker 1: lies ahead for this team?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean I know. John clay colleague wrote this
Speaker 4: week he doesn't think they're going to make a bowl
Speaker 4: game now, which is understandable. You've got to find three
Speaker 4: wins among Florida, Auburn, Murray State, which you obviously still
Speaker 4: put in the win column, and Louisville. It's even if
Speaker 4: you write off Fitnessee and Texas on the road, and
Speaker 4: you know that's that's a difficult, you know, thing to
Speaker 4: predict now, given how widely variant the performances being. For
Speaker 4: the same reason, I walked away from Oxford and thought,
Speaker 4: you know, they might lose the Vanderbilt. It wouldn't shock
Speaker 4: me if they go out and win it at Florida
Speaker 4: this week. And obviously Florida is not great. They're breaking
Speaker 4: in a new quarterback. Kentucky's been very good in that
Speaker 4: series recently, they played better on the road. All those
Speaker 4: things are working in their favor. Now they have that
Speaker 4: chip on their shoulder again after everybody's saying they're toast.
Speaker 4: That wouldn't shock me. But I also don't think to me,
Speaker 4: he certainly can't count on it. We know that both
Speaker 4: Ford to this week, Auburn next week, both those teams
Speaker 4: are going to be desperate to also, you know, kind
Speaker 4: of be folded fighting for Bowl eligibility and see Kentucky
Speaker 4: as vulnerable. This is a bad spot to be in.
Speaker 4: I mean, it's crazy how we can go from you know,
Speaker 4: two weeks ago thinking maybe they could get back in
Speaker 4: the playoff conversation to now thinking, oh, maybe they're not
Speaker 4: going to make a bowl game. But that just seems
Speaker 4: like where this team is.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, and it's it's just a different day
Speaker 1: and age in college football. You wonder about the effect
Speaker 1: of nil money, and you know, with so many people
Speaker 1: changing their roster, so many teams changing dramatically, it's hard
Speaker 1: to get a handle on any team. Really.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that that's I think kind of the heart of it.
Speaker 4: Like I have been operating under this theory the last
Speaker 4: couple of years that they haven't met Mark Dukes and
Speaker 4: his staff and Kentucky have just not figured out the
Speaker 4: way yet to duplicate that same culture that was so
Speaker 4: successful from you know, twenty sixteen to twenty twenty one roughly,
Speaker 4: and this il transfer portal are like having you know,
Speaker 4: so many transfers were higher who haven't been here for
Speaker 4: three or four years learning all these lessons, Like it's
Speaker 4: harder to duplicate that same culture, and like that's part
Speaker 4: of this, like you know, weird losses thing. I asked
Speaker 4: Mark that yesterday Monday at his press conference, the last question,
Speaker 4: and he and he said, yeah, I think it is
Speaker 4: harder in this era with all the things. And then
Speaker 4: he stopped himself because he didn't want to go. He
Speaker 4: didn't want to sound like he was complaining, which we
Speaker 4: know that it is not popular among fans to hear
Speaker 4: coaches complain about the situation right now, but it is
Speaker 4: part of it. But then I also take a step
Speaker 4: back and say, like, how much of this is revisionist
Speaker 4: history because you look at some of their like even
Speaker 4: their good teams, like obviously they weren't very good from
Speaker 4: twenty thirteen to twenty fifteen, and then twenty sixteen they
Speaker 4: break through. But that year they you know, lost this
Speaker 4: other miss and you know, got blown out Florida and
Speaker 4: almost lost in Mexico State. And then you know, twenty
Speaker 4: eighteen their best team that they've had here man, the
Speaker 4: best team in fifty years. In the program lays an
Speaker 4: egg at Tennessee like a bad Tennessee team a week
Speaker 4: after they had to play for an SEC's title. In
Speaker 4: twenty twenty one, they won. They won ten games and
Speaker 4: played terrible at Mississippi State and almost lost Chattanooga. Like
Speaker 4: these games have been there even before the portal, in
Speaker 4: the transfer era. So I think part of it too,
Speaker 4: is like they have raised the expectations to a point
Speaker 4: where you just don't write those performances off anymore. Where
Speaker 4: you're when you're trying to take that next step, you
Speaker 4: can't do it. I mean, you can have these one
Speaker 4: or two games a year where you lay an egg
Speaker 4: and still make it to a bowl game, but nobody's
Speaker 4: happy with just make it the bowl games anymore, and
Speaker 4: so that kind of increases the heat on these performances
Speaker 4: they have.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it just seemed like no matter the season, You're right,
Speaker 1: there was one they should not lose. And it's just
Speaker 1: I don't know what it is, because it's almost schizophrenic.
Speaker 1: They look like a different team from one week to
Speaker 1: the next. And you can blame coaches, you can blame players.
Speaker 1: I suspect it's a combination of both.
Speaker 4: You know, yeah, absolutely, and you know part of it.
Speaker 4: We also have to acknowledge, like we've watched Kentucky week
Speaker 4: and so we're hyper aware there issues and they're not
Speaker 4: the only team in the country who had the issues
Speaker 4: outside of the top three or four teams in the country,
Speaker 4: Like everybody you know tends to have some of these games,
Speaker 4: like even you know part of like Alabama lose Nick
Speaker 4: Saban and they go out with to Vanderbilt. Like it
Speaker 4: just seems to be the landscape of college football right now.
Speaker 4: But for a program that is so desperate, in a
Speaker 4: fan base that's so desperate to be relevant and to
Speaker 4: take that next step in, the pressure is just so
Speaker 4: much on And you know, Mark Stoops signed his last
Speaker 4: contract extension the day before they lost to Vanderbilt in
Speaker 4: twenty twenty at home, and since then they have a
Speaker 4: losing record. Like that's that when you pay your coach,
Speaker 4: he's a top ten paid coach in the country. You're
Speaker 4: paying him nine million dollars a year and they take
Speaker 4: a step back, let alone take a step forward, Like
Speaker 4: that's going to lead to the questions and the unhappiness
Speaker 4: that happens after these games.
Speaker 1: John Hale is my guest beat writer for The Hero Leader.
Speaker 1: Will come back and talk more Kentucky football on it
Speaker 1: other side of the break here on six thirty WLAP
Speaker 1: Welcome Back. We're talking with John Hale of the Harold Leader.
Speaker 1: He covers Kentucky football Wildcats heading for Gainesville. And you
Speaker 1: mentioned a few minutes ago that it wouldn't surprise you
Speaker 1: if Kentucky beat Florida, Well, how quickly? And it's really,
Speaker 1: honestly not that quick. It's been several years, but over
Speaker 1: the span of four decades, it seems quick that UK
Speaker 1: fans have almost forgotten the long losing skid to Florida,
Speaker 1: which was actually worse than the Tennessee skid. Because of
Speaker 1: late Kentucky has either beaten or outplayed the Gators. You
Speaker 1: talk about a program that it's having, well, Kentucky's having issues,
Speaker 1: but Florida. I mean that's bizarre, isn't it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean you would you think there's a decent
Speaker 4: chance that if Kentucky wins this weekend, that maybe Billy
Speaker 4: Napier doesn't make it to next week as their coach.
Speaker 4: I mean, that seems kind of like a foregoing conclusion anyway,
Speaker 4: But the second half of their schedule is so hard
Speaker 4: that they desperately have to win this game this weekend
Speaker 4: if they're going to have any sort of positive momentum.
Speaker 4: And so if you lose it, you wonder if they'd
Speaker 4: almost have to make a change just to like get
Speaker 4: some excitement for the second half. But yeah, I mean
Speaker 4: it's a program. I was born in nineteen eighty seven,
Speaker 4: so the year the Street, and again I did not
Speaker 4: see Kentucky beat Florida until I was, you know, well
Speaker 4: into doing this job professionally as an adult, and so
Speaker 4: like for my entire you know, childhood adolescents, teenage years, twenties,
Speaker 4: like no, like, Kentucky just didn't beat Florida. And now
Speaker 4: they won three in a row. They won two other
Speaker 4: last three at gains Bull. If they win Saturday would
Speaker 4: be the first time they won foreigner own this series
Speaker 4: in nineteen fifty one.
Speaker 5: Like that.
Speaker 4: Just it's a long stretch of ineptitude and they just
Speaker 4: have turned the script completely to the point now where
Speaker 4: Kentucky fans are gonna be disappointed they don't win this game.
Speaker 4: It's going to add to the to the kind of
Speaker 4: unhappiness that's al already there, which is, you know, a
Speaker 4: says a lot about the what Mark Teops has done
Speaker 4: this program to raise you know, expectations in this series
Speaker 4: at that point, but it also says, you know, frankly,
Speaker 4: like how bad Florida has been compared to their historical standards. Like,
Speaker 4: given the recruiting base, the fans support all of the
Speaker 4: it seems like Florida is set up to be a
Speaker 4: Jugger Naut in this college football era and the fact
Speaker 4: that they just aren't is real indictment of.
Speaker 1: That program, right it is. And again I try not
Speaker 1: to blame coaches as much as most do, but I
Speaker 1: do think the Dan Mullen higher just not good. But
Speaker 1: that's not the only one. And I think we learned
Speaker 1: with Billy Gillespie, with all due respect, that there are
Speaker 1: some jobs where it takes a special amount of skill.
Speaker 1: Florida is one of them. Now. Of course, you know
Speaker 1: Urban Meyer abused that by we know what happened when
Speaker 1: he was when he was coaching down there. But still
Speaker 1: it comes back to recruiting talented players and knowing how
Speaker 1: to use them, and amazingly that just hasn't happened.
Speaker 4: If Florida hasn't, No, it's it's crazy, and you got
Speaker 4: to figure out, like, what's the Like, I know, Florida fans,
Speaker 4: what Lane Kiffin have that job? And maybe with all
Speaker 4: miss they can, you know, step back from their playoff hopes. Now,
Speaker 4: maybe he would be interested. He seems like the kind
Speaker 4: of personality that would be needed in that position, you know,
Speaker 4: kind of like the John Caliperry Kentucky marriage cappany at
Speaker 4: the exact right moment. But I'm not sure they could
Speaker 4: could vince him to come from another SEC program. So
Speaker 4: that's the thing. If you're going to fire Billy Napier
Speaker 4: at Florida, you got to make sure you get the
Speaker 4: next one right. And you know, old friends got Strickland's
Speaker 4: in charge there. But you know a lot of the
Speaker 4: eighties don't get the chance to hire multiple football coaches
Speaker 4: very often don't go well. And so you know who's
Speaker 4: going to be string pulling the strings behind whatever happened
Speaker 4: on the next search, I think is a big question too.
Speaker 1: What do you think of this Florida team? Of course
Speaker 1: now with Graham Mertz, who it looked like for a
Speaker 1: while I was heading for Kentucky was playing fairly well
Speaker 1: and now he's gone.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's interesting because I mean Kentucky made the choice
Speaker 4: in that transfer portal cycle to take Devin Leary over Mertz.
Speaker 4: They could have had either of them that they visited
Speaker 4: on back to back days, and they picked Leary as
Speaker 4: kind of the more experienced, more productive college option, and
Speaker 4: maybe Mertz had the higher upside, and I think from
Speaker 4: most the last season you could question maybe that was
Speaker 4: the wrong choice. Martz. I don't think you know it.
Speaker 4: When he was in the portal, it was kind of
Speaker 4: decided that maybe he was like Will Levins, where he
Speaker 4: had this canon arm and he just wasn't being used
Speaker 4: correctly at Wisconsin and Cohen could find that next step.
Speaker 4: Maybe that would have happened if he had come here,
Speaker 4: but when he went to Florida, he actually just turned
Speaker 4: into this kind of game manager. They asked not to
Speaker 4: make mistakes, and so the Kentucky could use some of that.
Speaker 4: Certainly could have used it at times last year. It's
Speaker 4: interesting to see how that played out. But now the
Speaker 4: guy who's replacing him, the freshman, is, you know, was
Speaker 4: the top prink quarterback in the country, and you know,
Speaker 4: it's if Billy Napier has a hope, it's to sell
Speaker 4: the fact that oh we got this guy and he's
Speaker 4: the future. So they're going to need him to come
Speaker 4: out and really show out. But he's throwing a bunch
Speaker 4: of interceptions, so it should be an opportunity for Kentucky's
Speaker 4: defense to make some plays this weekend, I would think.
Speaker 4: But every time Kentucky or Florida in the series, being
Speaker 4: the era I grew up in, I think at Tim
Speaker 4: Tebow coming out, I think it's Chris Leak, you know,
Speaker 4: his freshman year, you know, kind of making his coming
Speaker 4: out party against Kentucky and you just have that fear
Speaker 4: is this going to be the lead another Florida quarterback
Speaker 4: legend kind of emerges?
Speaker 1: Do you know that when Chris Lee came here and
Speaker 1: now was one of those infamous games working Kentucky had
Speaker 1: it and then gave it away. As you recall, they blitzed.
Speaker 1: I think it was Mike Archer told me they blitzed
Speaker 1: twenty seven times against a freshman quarterback and Florida never
Speaker 1: caught them once in the blitz and still Kentucky didn't
Speaker 1: win the game. So it tells you a lot, doesn't it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, there were so many of those games in this
Speaker 4: series that you're like, how in the world did they did?
Speaker 4: They like throw that away? And then frankly, there were
Speaker 4: a lot of games where Kentucky was just so bad,
Speaker 4: even on the same field. But when it goes on
Speaker 4: for twenty eight years, whatever ended up being like you
Speaker 4: got to look at it. There's there's always a handful
Speaker 4: that were like Kentucky should almost by accident, you're gonna
Speaker 4: win a game. You're gonna you're gonna recover the fumble
Speaker 4: in the end zone like they did it that old mess,
Speaker 4: like something like that's gonna happen. And just year after year,
Speaker 4: every one of those plays went against Kentucky.
Speaker 1: I've seen Kentucky go down to Gamesville and win. You
Speaker 1: have as well. And what's the most amazing thing to me,
Speaker 1: John is working a game in the swamp and I
Speaker 1: don't know how much time you've spent on the sidelines
Speaker 1: down there. It might be next to Vandy the tightest
Speaker 1: fit in the Southeastern Conference in terms of the crowd
Speaker 1: being right on top. So when it's rocking, it's nuts.
Speaker 1: But to hear it go silent or at least quiet,
Speaker 1: it's pretty incredible. And we've seen it in the last decade,
Speaker 1: haven't we.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And that's going to be I think a huge
Speaker 4: factor this week. It was good that they think they
Speaker 4: already gotten that road environment out of the way and
Speaker 4: that don't miss it. No, they can play and the
Speaker 4: game hapen. It's gonna be a night game. We know
Speaker 4: that fan base is desperate for when they're going to
Speaker 4: be excited to see the freshman quarterback play, like it's
Speaker 4: going to be kind of rocking there and they're playing
Speaker 4: you know, the big song before the fourth quarter. It's
Speaker 4: his electric as you ever see. But if Kentucky can
Speaker 4: make a couple of plays early, if they can get up,
Speaker 4: that fan base is going to turn fast on Billy
Speaker 4: Paper and that team because because they know, like as
Speaker 4: Ford offense, like we don't lose the Kentucky and we've
Speaker 4: done it three years in a row. Like if it
Speaker 4: looks like they're in bad shape again, like that will
Speaker 4: go from being a huge advantage to Florida to a
Speaker 4: huge disadvantage because their players are that are going to
Speaker 4: be one feeling the pressure from the stands as fans
Speaker 4: to get upset. So like I think a fast start
Speaker 4: would be huge.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, we also you and I have lived through
Speaker 1: the periods where I don't know how far back you go,
Speaker 1: but Florida in November, which was a great advantage in
Speaker 1: home games here of course, to starting conference play at
Speaker 1: Florida and maybe not brutal heats, well sometimes it was,
Speaker 1: but just uncomfortable heat, and now it's a little more manageable,
Speaker 1: isn't it. So we're not even talking about the weather.
Speaker 4: Yeah, no, I haven't looked at the forecast that, but
Speaker 4: you would think it would be nothing that they're not
Speaker 4: used to in terms of just playing in Kentucky in
Speaker 4: August and September and so like that. That helps a
Speaker 4: little bit. Depth is always a concern when you got
Speaker 4: to go play in the humidity, but you know, coming
Speaker 4: off the by coming off it seems like to Tuk
Speaker 4: you might get some reinforcements back, you know, Mark Radio
Speaker 4: Show last night, maybe Chip Tranum actually plays this week.
Speaker 4: We got Hardly Gilmore back last week, Courtland Ford's coming back.
Speaker 4: So depth seems like a good spot for them, And
Speaker 4: you know, frankly, they need that right now because not
Speaker 4: only do they need depth in a scenario like that,
Speaker 4: but when you're talking about all these undisciplined mistakes that
Speaker 4: we saw last week, the best way to combat that
Speaker 4: is to have other players pushing the guys who are
Speaker 4: making mistakes. And if you don't have anybody you can
Speaker 4: reliably put in the game to replace them, it's hard
Speaker 4: to hold those guys account. So for a variety of reasons.
Speaker 4: They need some more depth.
Speaker 1: Anyway. It may not be brutally hot, but it's sneaky
Speaker 1: humid down there no matter what. So that's something to
Speaker 1: keep an eye on. John Hale is the beat writer
Speaker 1: for Harold Leader covers Kentucky football. John, thank you so
Speaker 1: much and we'll see you at Kentucky dot com.
Speaker 4: Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: And a quick note. SEC Basketball Media Days done in Birmingham.
Speaker 1: Listen to Damian fishback on the SEC Network about Mark Pope.
Speaker 9: We all saw big blue madness. That was what I
Speaker 9: got for phenomenal shooters. Right, He's a five.
Speaker 1: Out zero in type of guy.
Speaker 9: Tops amongst the country in three points. But most importantly,
Speaker 9: he is putting the brand of Kentucky first, and everything
Speaker 9: that he does, he understands how Kentucky works. Getting Rick
Speaker 9: Patino back in front of Wildcat fans.
Speaker 6: By the way, I mean you're talking about Patino or
Speaker 6: the story times that he had over Kentucky.
Speaker 1: Then goes to Louisville and he's.
Speaker 5: Back there and it's just it looked wild.
Speaker 1: I mean it was. It was a new kind of
Speaker 1: fresh start.
Speaker 9: On everyth it's spot on. He's making the right moves.
Speaker 9: It was actually funny because Bruce Pearl did that at
Speaker 9: Auburn when he first got there. He wanted to make
Speaker 9: sure that it was a family, so he brought coach
Speaker 9: Ellis back, who hadn't been there in ten years. Mark
Speaker 9: Pope's doing those same type of things. He's given Cale
Speaker 9: the credit, but he's also saying, hey, I'm part of
Speaker 9: this family. We're gonna bring the family back together.
Speaker 1: Or on Media Day tomorrow and Hour number two is
Speaker 1: coming up next with UK super fan Mike Saffo from
Speaker 1: the Streets of New York City. That's all I had
Speaker 1: on six thirty l APERG welcome back to the Big
Speaker 1: Blue Cider and joining us on our Celebrity hotline. Is
Speaker 1: a good friend and a guy has been on several times,
Speaker 1: not for a while though. He's our New York City
Speaker 1: Bureau chief, Mike Sephaznik. He goes but Mike's Sappho on
Speaker 1: a very popular podcast. To Mike's Sappho podcast, We're going
Speaker 1: to talk about that in a minute. But Mike is
Speaker 1: a nutty fan of the Yankees and the basketball Wildcat
Speaker 1: So this, Mike, is a great time of year for you,
Speaker 1: isn't it.
Speaker 5: It's one of the best times. I always say, March manness,
Speaker 5: I get too stressed out. It makes me I don't
Speaker 5: do the brackets. I don't do the tournament. Now is
Speaker 5: a great time, though we have midnight. Man, it's put
Speaker 5: the Wildcats at my Yankees making a little world series run.
Speaker 5: That Bicks are about to start a lot of good
Speaker 5: things going on right now. If you're in New York
Speaker 5: yet and it's been too long, you're right, my friend.
Speaker 1: Well, and the reason we're checking in with you as
Speaker 1: our bureau chief is because of a huge trade. We
Speaker 1: often talk ex cats with you because you're New York Knickerbockers.
Speaker 1: I shouldn't leave them out. Traded Wildcat for Wildcat, Julius
Speaker 1: Randall for Karl Anthony Towns. And it seems, Mike that
Speaker 1: they just swap big for big, but that's not the case.
Speaker 1: Those are two different styles of player, and I think
Speaker 1: this trade really serves a good need for the Knicks.
Speaker 5: What do you say, it's very weird. Like the United
Speaker 5: States of America, New York is divided on everything metch Jets, Giants, Rangers, Islanders,
Speaker 5: but the one thing everyone agrees on, obviously, is is
Speaker 5: the Blue and Orange. So anytime the Nicks do anything
Speaker 5: at reigns supreme. And it's very hard for anything to
Speaker 5: knock your boy Arrow Rodgers. The drama he's calling causing
Speaker 5: up here and the Yankees and Mets to cause that
Speaker 5: to get off the New York radio doesn't happen much.
Speaker 5: But this trade did it. It came out of nowhere.
Speaker 5: It's like when you fire someone on a Friday, you're
Speaker 5: supposed to hide it. It came out of nowhere. And
Speaker 5: the fans are loving this trade. They have a few
Speaker 5: things they're worried about, but overwhelmingly they are. They feel
Speaker 5: it's a different it's a different team now with getting Cat.
Speaker 5: They all beyond excited and very rarely do you see
Speaker 5: ninety percent of the fan base really really excited.
Speaker 1: A huh wow. Well, I'm going to get to why
Speaker 1: in just a moment, when we need to point out
Speaker 1: as well that like everything in the NBA, it does
Speaker 1: revolve to a certain degree around money. I mean you're
Speaker 1: looking at laid money on contracts and cap hits and
Speaker 1: things like that as well. So it's not just you know,
Speaker 1: putting together a fantasy team, is it.
Speaker 5: It's not you know, it's not like the Yankees play.
Speaker 5: We'll just buy everybody. At this point, though it's been
Speaker 5: over fifty years since the Knicks won a championship, they don't.
Speaker 5: And it's funny when they say, oh, in five years
Speaker 5: we gave up draftics. Nobody cared. It's like we will
Speaker 5: mortgage children, firstborn children to see it. It does. It
Speaker 5: doesn't matter at all. So the money on the back end,
Speaker 5: like you get guys like you, extremely knowledgeable, who are like,
Speaker 5: in a few years, we have him, we have Og
Speaker 5: and then the fans are like, we don't care, give
Speaker 5: us one title and then we'll be basement dwellers forever.
Speaker 5: We don't care. We just want one parade down Broadway.
Speaker 5: You see how we act after winning one game in
Speaker 5: the playoffs. We beat the Hawks a couple of years
Speaker 5: ago and they threw a parade. Almost we were thirsty
Speaker 5: for a title here with the next.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I remember, you know. And then Randall that
Speaker 1: was probably his best season, is a nick and he
Speaker 1: he did great things in New York. But like I said,
Speaker 1: you all needed a true postman, a legit consistent and
Speaker 1: that's what you of course in the NBA. Now postman,
Speaker 1: stay out and shoot a lot. But tell me why
Speaker 1: they really like Karl Anthony Towns.
Speaker 5: Well, it was two things. One, it was such a
Speaker 5: rollercoaster ride with Sir Julius Randall. They loved him, then
Speaker 5: they hated him, then they loved him. And I think
Speaker 5: they realized after when we lost him last year with
Speaker 5: the playoffs, it's like, holy crap, we need a big guy.
Speaker 5: We lost him and Mitchell Robertson, we need we need Julius.
Speaker 5: And then when you get a guy like Kat and
Speaker 5: I hate it's Kat on cat crime. It's a wild
Speaker 5: cat on wild cat crime here no pun intended. But
Speaker 5: having Kat is just a different dynamic. He's going to
Speaker 5: open up the floor technically speaking, so much for brunts him. Listen,
Speaker 5: Julius light holding the ball and stuff. Kat's gonna be
Speaker 5: out there. He's one of the best big shooters in
Speaker 5: the league. I feel it just opens everything up. And
Speaker 5: I think what really changed the Knicks fans perceptives of
Speaker 5: him was in the playoffs last year, they beat Durant,
Speaker 5: they beat Joker, and he played great. You know he
Speaker 5: has the thing. Oh he's so off, he's this. He
Speaker 5: beat two of the best bigs in the game. It's
Speaker 5: like well, why can't we beat Porzingis in the Celtics now?
Speaker 5: So I think it just changes the whole team, which
Speaker 5: people were nervous about.
Speaker 1: But I think to be done, he above I think
Speaker 1: any other big man personifies what happens in the league
Speaker 1: when and the same thing happened with your man DeMarcus Cousins.
Speaker 1: They learn to step out and shoot a three, and
Speaker 1: you know, the thing is to be a consistent three
Speaker 1: point shooter. There's a lot of skills you need. I
Speaker 1: have none of them. But strength really helps, you know.
Speaker 1: I mean, you got to have a stroke. But these
Speaker 1: big guys who are strong and have a decent stroke,
Speaker 1: why not step out and shoot a three in this
Speaker 1: day and age.
Speaker 5: And I love that he also can bang down below.
Speaker 5: You know the old school mixed with Oakley Ewing chalk Smith.
Speaker 5: They banged, and Randall doesn't. He's built like a like
Speaker 5: a rock. But Carl Town's looks like the old school
Speaker 5: eighties nineties center. But he can shoot. So if you
Speaker 5: see Towns rocking the thirty two, like this guy can bang,
Speaker 5: this guy's gonna throw an elbow, grab a rebound, and
Speaker 5: he can shoot the rock. It's just like it was
Speaker 5: a no brainer.
Speaker 1: I think, well, while we're talking New York slash Kentucky,
Speaker 1: h what was your reaction when I don't know if
Speaker 1: you saw it or read it or heard it that
Speaker 1: Rick Betino showed up in Madness and got one heck
Speaker 1: of innovation, so you know.
Speaker 5: And I think it's because I'm kind of disconnected, not
Speaker 5: living down there. I love Coach P. You know that,
Speaker 5: And it's kind of like your first girlfriend. My first
Speaker 5: team I ever fell in love with was his team, So
Speaker 5: I love Coach P. He left went to Boston, which
Speaker 5: it really didn't affect me that much when he went
Speaker 5: to Boston, like, oh, it thinks he's leaving, But Robert
Speaker 5: Tubby came and we want a title right away. I'm like, Okay,
Speaker 5: we don't even need this guy Coach P. Then the
Speaker 5: Louisville days, that was a dark time, and then we
Speaker 5: love another dog after everything happened to him and he
Speaker 5: went to Greece, and then I own it. I love
Speaker 5: Coach P. And unfortunately I am friends with Camera Mills
Speaker 5: and he always tells me such great stories about Coach P.
Speaker 5: So I see that, I get emotional. I get chills
Speaker 5: when I see it seeing him address the team how
Speaker 5: much he really does love Kentucky like you can really
Speaker 5: he loved it. He loves the bluegrass state. And for me,
Speaker 5: that was like it's great to you know, it's so
Speaker 5: hard me up here to like tell my family, like
Speaker 5: you won't believe what Patino did it. My wife's like, okay,
Speaker 5: I'm like, look at this clip, and I'm sending the
Speaker 5: clips like I want him to care as much as me,
Speaker 5: and I'm like, I'm getting chills. You're like, oh, that's
Speaker 5: that's great, that's okay, Like no one gets it. I
Speaker 5: was so pumped up though. I loved that. He was
Speaker 5: beautiful and Polpe just seems like he's doing everything right though,
Speaker 5: like bringing back nostalogic. I love it. Man, I'm so excited.
Speaker 1: We're talking with Mikesapo. He is based in New York
Speaker 1: City and he is the producer and host of the
Speaker 1: Mike Saffo Podcast. But he has been a Kentucky fan
Speaker 1: since he was a kid watching the Wildcats almost upset
Speaker 1: Duke some Abby came intertwined with Cameron Mills. That's how
Speaker 1: I met Mike and claims he's gonna move down here. Now.
Speaker 1: You need to understand if you do or start spending
Speaker 1: more time after you retire from your real job. Cameron
Speaker 1: is something of a celebrity here. Now you're not gonna
Speaker 1: believe it, but he actually hosted Madness Standard and I
Speaker 1: was the on court host. Although you've talked to him
Speaker 1: long enough to know where, you know he can, uh,
Speaker 1: he can fill the time?
Speaker 5: Can he a little bit? He he gabs a little bit.
Speaker 5: Sometimes he'll go on on and on and on a
Speaker 5: little bit. The worst is when i'm uh, when I'm
Speaker 5: bed service and I lose the call and I call
Speaker 5: him back, He's like, where was I?
Speaker 6: Like?
Speaker 5: How long were you talking? That you didn't even know?
Speaker 5: But I'm you know, I'm so happy with him because
Speaker 5: when I really met him and met you, I came
Speaker 5: down that he was doing the Sunday night show. He
Speaker 5: really wanted to get into it. He was working his
Speaker 5: behind off, So I'm so proud that he did this
Speaker 5: as a beautiful wife. Now it seems like everything's coming
Speaker 5: around for a good friend camera, but he seems so
Speaker 5: comfortable doing it, really not boring the fan, which I'm
Speaker 5: shocked that Rubarina isn't falling asleep when he's talking. But
Speaker 5: he's doing I loved him so much. He's amazing. I
Speaker 5: love him.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and he uh, he actually at one point got
Speaker 1: his degree and I've given him so much grief out
Speaker 1: of that. Although I was very happy for him, I
Speaker 1: he needed one course, you know. So anyway, we're talking
Speaker 1: Mike Saphasnik. He goes to by Mike Saffo. He's the
Speaker 1: host of the Mike Saffo podcast. He is a UK
Speaker 1: Nicks Yankees fan and as our New York City bureau chief.
Speaker 1: We'll come back with Morning Minute here on six thirty WLAP.
Speaker 1: Welcome back. We're talking about our New York City bureau chief,
Speaker 1: Mike Saffo, host of the Mike Saffo Podcast and a
Speaker 1: UK super fan. And you mentioned Mark Pope. Your response,
Speaker 1: I think maybe we texted back and forth, but uh,
Speaker 1: what was your reaction your response to Kentucky's hiring of
Speaker 1: Mark Pope.
Speaker 5: I'm very fair. No one is more wrong about things
Speaker 5: in life than me, and I always admit my fault
Speaker 5: and there's a lot of them. When it happened, I was,
Speaker 5: I don't want to say discussed that that's not the
Speaker 5: right word. I was upset. I was I'm like, we
Speaker 5: are Kentucky we are the gold standards. Why do we
Speaker 5: not have Hurly? Why do we bring back Bobby Knight
Speaker 5: this point, coach k I wanted a huge name, and
Speaker 5: I was. I was very upset, and I was maybe
Speaker 5: maybe I tweeted a lot about how was not disappointed.
Speaker 5: I was, But I also did say I'm not an
Speaker 5: expert and I'm probably wrong. And then a few former
Speaker 5: players actually reached out to me. I guess they saw
Speaker 5: the tweets, that's the truth, and they were like, Bro,
Speaker 5: first of all, calm down. You know it's eleven thirty nine.
Speaker 5: You're saying you're gonna throw this out. You hate the team,
Speaker 5: you hate what's going on, how far we have fallen.
Speaker 5: But everyone's like, let me talk you up the ledge.
Speaker 5: Listen what this guy does. And I was getting polls
Speaker 5: and it wasn't like a fan phone call like when
Speaker 5: Simba would call him me and say, bro, we're good,
Speaker 5: We're good. It was legit fans. Tell me why this
Speaker 5: is a great hire. Trust me. He knows what he's doing.
Speaker 5: And Cameron said it best. He actually said he's gonna
Speaker 5: make you not only want to run through the wall
Speaker 5: with you, He's going to run through the wall with you.
Speaker 5: I'm like, oh my god, what an awesome thing to say.
Speaker 5: He's like, Bro, he's not gonna tell his team to
Speaker 5: do it, He's gonna do it first. He's like, trust me,
Speaker 5: this guy's gonna change the culture, change everything. And right away,
Speaker 5: I would say, twenty four hours later and maybe after
Speaker 5: this press conference, I'm like, I am one million percent rongs.
Speaker 5: This is the greatest hire. I love Pope. In Pope,
Speaker 5: we trust. When he bring out my old nineteen ninety
Speaker 5: six Kentucky started jacket, I am ail in again.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I tell you you know, you can swallow that
Speaker 1: kool aid by the gallon after you hear him and
Speaker 1: talk to him. But what I did, and I like Mark, Obviously,
Speaker 1: I covered that team. I interviewed him many times, spent
Speaker 1: a lot of time with him, putting together the documentary
Speaker 1: on the ninety six team that Cameron and Jason and
Speaker 1: I did. But what I did, Mike, No, not that
Speaker 1: I'm any expert, but I went back and looked at
Speaker 1: what he did at his prior to stops and what
Speaker 1: he did as a head coach was overachieved at Utah
Speaker 1: Valley State, at Brigham Young. No, he did not win
Speaker 1: an NCAA tournament game. But remember he was supposed to
Speaker 1: finish BYU ad or near the basement in the Big
Speaker 1: twelve last year, and they finished fourth and pulled a
Speaker 1: bunch of upsets. So that sold me, you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying.
Speaker 5: Yeah, And the players that called me, they were saying, like,
Speaker 5: first of all, he's a great recruiter, number one, So
Speaker 5: like he's getting guys, like you said to you time
Speaker 5: BYU they wouldn't have came, that came, and they worked
Speaker 5: at butter for him, and you know what, how many
Speaker 5: times and listen, I'm one of the biggest you know,
Speaker 5: proposents of this. I would scream and yell him forget
Speaker 5: about these one young guys. They don't care about Kentucky.
Speaker 5: They only care about going to the NBA. That's you know,
Speaker 5: obviously we overreact and you talk about his players all
Speaker 5: come for three or four years, like, hey, this is
Speaker 5: what we wanted. We wanted these maybe not every five
Speaker 5: star player, we wanted three and four stars who were
Speaker 5: going to grow here three years and get mature. And
Speaker 5: I'm like, this is kind of exactly what we wanted.
Speaker 5: He's bringing shooters. We wanted shooters. It seems like everything
Speaker 5: we needed, they listened to us. So I don't know
Speaker 5: why I overreacted and yelled so much.
Speaker 1: Well, like you said, he was not a recognized brand
Speaker 1: when it comes to head coaches who have accomplished this
Speaker 1: and accomplished that. But uh, the R word recruiting is
Speaker 1: is everything. As you know, and think about trying to recruit.
Speaker 1: Let's let's leave at Utah Valley State. We know they're
Speaker 1: they're you know, mid major at best, but let's talk
Speaker 1: about bringing me on. Think about recruiting to that school
Speaker 1: with all the challenges you know, social and cultural and
Speaker 1: all that stuff without a doubt, you know. And now
Speaker 1: he's got the greatest brand in college basketball to recruit too.
Speaker 1: And he and not only that, he lived it. He
Speaker 1: can wear that jacket that he wore on the sidelines
Speaker 1: at the football game that has all the championship seasons
Speaker 1: listed and point to ninety six and say I was
Speaker 1: part of that. Come be a part of one here.
Speaker 1: I think that's just invaluable.
Speaker 5: It's crazy because first of all, I love you know
Speaker 5: the youtubeer go back to ninety six, go back to
Speaker 5: our team, this was me. You win a championship here,
Speaker 5: You are a god they will love you for the
Speaker 5: rest of your life. You are iconic. Everyone's going to
Speaker 5: know we can name all the players on the ninety
Speaker 5: six ninety eight team. That's not normal, you know, unless right,
Speaker 5: you know, we'll talk about the team that we know
Speaker 5: its thirty eight and one. We know the plays because
Speaker 5: they all player in the league. How do we know
Speaker 5: players on the bench from this team and remember certain plays?
Speaker 5: Like you win a title here, it's like winning it
Speaker 5: seriously in New York. And maybe that's why I love
Speaker 5: it so much. If kat wins, wins the title here,
Speaker 5: doesn't mean a statue came in the cards. They're really
Speaker 5: like and you know Polpe doing this, He's like, guys,
Speaker 5: I did this. You have no idea what this is
Speaker 5: and you said it best. The recruiting BYU. How do
Speaker 5: you recruit a person to go there? If I was
Speaker 5: one of the best players in the country, I don't
Speaker 5: care what nild o, Yeah, how can you sell me there?
Speaker 5: It's impossible? Like he did it, and not only did
Speaker 5: he do it, they won there the internet. I'm super excited.
Speaker 1: The other thing too, style of play. You know, he
Speaker 1: has made no bones about it, and it's numbers at
Speaker 1: Brigham Young. Back it up. They'll shoot probably as much
Speaker 1: as those early Patino teams did. And people forget Mike
Speaker 1: that Patinos teams they shot a lot of threes. My
Speaker 1: Mark's not got to press the way Rick did. Uh.
Speaker 1: But they started shooting threes. They didn't shoot quite as many,
Speaker 1: you know, as they got better and better, but they
Speaker 1: still were not almost not allowed to shoot mid range jumpers.
Speaker 1: And he stopped practice the other day to tell somebody,
Speaker 1: you know, that's not a great shot if you're if
Speaker 1: you're standing here as a post over there behind the arc.
Speaker 1: So people are gonna love that too.
Speaker 5: Oh, I actually didn't hear that, And that is great.
Speaker 5: You know, he's recruiting shooting. And what's the biggest thing
Speaker 5: we always say, We always say, we're not shooting the ball. Well,
Speaker 5: we have no shooters. What are we to do? He's
Speaker 5: everything we best for Kentucky. Kann has complied with us.
Speaker 5: So how can we be mad about this?
Speaker 1: I'm very excited, you know, I know you know this,
Speaker 1: but people forget as well that in ninety six that
Speaker 1: team was so good, so talented, and I remember, distinctly
Speaker 1: like him or not, Billy Packer, who was so impressed
Speaker 1: with Kentucky, and the biggest reason Billy being, of course
Speaker 1: a former coach. He really really loved Kentucky's half court defense.
Speaker 1: And I remember talking to Tony Delk about this, if
Speaker 1: I may drop a name, and you know, Tony, of
Speaker 1: course he said we didn't have to, but he said
Speaker 1: it was in people's heads that we could press them
Speaker 1: at any time, and they had spent so much time
Speaker 1: preparing for our press that they were mentally beaten before
Speaker 1: the game began.
Speaker 5: You know, wow, how interesting is that?
Speaker 1: Yeah? And so Pope I bring it up because you know,
Speaker 1: Patino built with defense. Yeah, the three pointers were great,
Speaker 1: but that was a way to mask a lack of
Speaker 1: talent when he first got here. But his teams, just
Speaker 1: like Caliperi's were his best teams, were great defensively, and
Speaker 1: that's how Pope has built this roster, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean?
Speaker 5: And the suffocating defense again stuff we want we what
Speaker 5: was our biggest crist last few years? How how is
Speaker 5: this dude? We've never heard of dropping thirty five on us?
Speaker 5: That was our biggest and now posts like now we're
Speaker 5: playing defense. That's not happened this year. He's talking the
Speaker 5: game of what I'm ready to run with the wolf formesck.
Speaker 5: I'm telling the truth. I'm not like that.
Speaker 1: You can tell a couple of minutes off with Mike Sephosnik.
Speaker 1: He goes away Mike Saffo the Mike Saffo Podcast, and
Speaker 1: I've talked about the teams he roots for. Uh. He
Speaker 1: also roots for all the folks that Jay can LaGuardia.
Speaker 1: He is a literally a world traveler. Getting ready. Uh,
Speaker 1: You're You're now in the triple digits on countries you visit.
Speaker 1: You're heading for Iraq and India. How long will you
Speaker 1: be gone?
Speaker 5: One week? Because I just got back from another trip
Speaker 5: with my wife. The way we do it, Dick, is
Speaker 5: my wife picks I guess normal countries. So we went
Speaker 5: to Georgia, Armenia, Denmark and Azerbaijan. She gave me one
Speaker 5: crazy one at the end. I just got back and
Speaker 5: then this opportunity arose from people I work with. So
Speaker 5: I'm going to go to Iraq tonight and then I'm
Speaker 5: going to India to see my final Wonder of the
Speaker 5: World at taj Mahole. Now that will get me to
Speaker 5: go one to eleven one hundred and eleven country countries visited.
Speaker 1: So Julia's sitting this one out.
Speaker 5: Well, she heard Iraq. She's like, you know what, I'm
Speaker 5: going to pass on this one. You do your thing,
Speaker 5: and she's exciting. You know, I actually never travel. I
Speaker 5: never travel in March, I never travel in the end
Speaker 5: of October the Yankee World Series. But a trip like
Speaker 5: Iraq was just too rare to pass up. So I'm
Speaker 5: gonna We're hoping that there's a sports bars in Baghdad
Speaker 5: so I can catch Garrett Cole pitching.
Speaker 1: But we'll see a cradle of civilization. Fascinating. But let
Speaker 1: me ask you, because my wife asked me when I
Speaker 1: told her you were in Georgia, formerly part of the
Speaker 1: Soviet Union, how much do you worry about being in
Speaker 1: places that aren't exactly I don't want to say say
Speaker 1: for whatever, but you know, things happen.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it does. And you know what, I'm gonna do
Speaker 5: one more name drop. I actually just got back from
Speaker 5: the Congo and South Sudan. Obviously not with Julia. You're right,
Speaker 5: I think listen first of all, and I'm not going
Speaker 5: to compare New York to that, but New York isn't
Speaker 5: doing great with crime. Dick but in all seriousness, when
Speaker 5: you act like you kind of belong there, Like people
Speaker 5: see me and they're like, who's this dude just walking
Speaker 5: around here without a concern. It looks like people think
Speaker 5: maybe I'm Cia, maybe I'm this. But a lot of
Speaker 5: times at a large majority, people come up to you
Speaker 5: like what are you doing here, and like, I've always
Speaker 5: wanted to visit your country. I've heard about your food,
Speaker 5: your people very Anthony Bard didn't like when you up
Speaker 5: the food, yeah, people like really, yeah, tell me where
Speaker 5: to eat? Where should we go? And when I go there,
Speaker 5: humbly too, I'm not going there walking around. I try
Speaker 5: to kill the stereotype of a Latin American, so I'm
Speaker 5: there very humble. Obviously. Some of the Muslim countries, I
Speaker 5: try to respect every possible rule or way they roll,
Speaker 5: and it's knock on wood, I'll make the sonnets across.
Speaker 5: I haven't had any real issues, but you know, when
Speaker 5: I was in Afghanistan and these other places, when you
Speaker 5: show a curiosity like yeah, you know the truth, I've
Speaker 5: only heard bad things about your country, and I wanted
Speaker 5: to see myself Like I was in the Democratic Republic
Speaker 5: of the Congo, people will awesome to me. They're like,
Speaker 5: you have to try this. Eat here. Yeah, so eighty
Speaker 5: more to go, so hopefully I get eighty more. Are
Speaker 5: still friendly people where I go?
Speaker 1: You always have your Yankees cap on? Do you rock
Speaker 1: the UK gear much when you're out in the world.
Speaker 5: I do. My wife laughed at me because I packed
Speaker 5: the same stuff with me. It's the same four T shirt,
Speaker 5: it's the same hoodie, the same hat, it's the Yankee hat.
Speaker 5: Now it's the Yankee Yankee tea shirt. I'm rocking my
Speaker 5: one Sodo thing. I have my Kentucky shirt twenty twelve
Speaker 5: Championship short. I wear the same things over and over.
Speaker 5: But yes, I always wrong the Yankee stuff. How many
Speaker 5: people know what the UK means? They might think them
Speaker 5: from London or something, But yes, but I get a
Speaker 5: lot of the Yankee stuff. No one really knows the
Speaker 5: UK stuff. Hopefully both changes that and will become a
Speaker 5: worldwide brand.
Speaker 1: So well, I'll tell you what. Next time, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: carve out more time so you can tell me more
Speaker 1: about food. I know you're not Anthony Bourdain when it
Speaker 1: comes to expertise with food, but I do want to
Speaker 1: hear your stories and if and when you get down here,
Speaker 1: we'll definitely have you in the garage. I would I would,
Speaker 1: I would say maybe you and Cameron, but then you
Speaker 1: wouldn't get the talk.
Speaker 5: No words come in. He would ask me to be
Speaker 5: a guest on the show, and I would just sit
Speaker 5: there and just talk text with you the whole time.
Speaker 5: So it's never even to talk. But listen, I'm gonna
Speaker 5: come down there definitely this year for a game, so
Speaker 5: we'll set it up.
Speaker 1: Brother, Mike Sephazenic, Safe travels, buddy, and listen for the
Speaker 1: Mike Saffo podcast where you get your favorite podcast, boon
Speaker 1: Voyage Thick.
Speaker 5: I love you, brother, thank you so much for having
Speaker 5: me on.
Speaker 1: Doctor John Wong Wong's Whinings author He'll be up next
Speaker 1: here on a Big Blueing Sider six thirty Wlap join
Speaker 1: us own a celebrity Highline is a longtime friend of
Speaker 1: the show and a guy who loves covering sports, Doctor
Speaker 1: John Wong, who of course works for Nolan Media Group,
Speaker 1: and you read his musings on Wong's Whinings and Doc
Speaker 1: I want to talk to you about your You got
Speaker 1: another fun packed weekend. This isn't the first time you've
Speaker 1: had a doubleheader, although the Kentucky game wasn't fun, but
Speaker 1: you paired d with a trip to New York to
Speaker 1: cover the Bengals. How you holding up?
Speaker 8: Yeah, I'm running on fumes right now. Greetings from the
Speaker 8: Big Apple. I guess technically I'm calling from East Rutherford,
Speaker 8: New Jerseyay, which doesn't sound quite as exotic.
Speaker 4: But you know what I mean.
Speaker 8: Yeah, yeah, but yeah, it's been a heck of a
Speaker 8: seventy two hours. But the way I look at it, Dick,
Speaker 8: is okay.
Speaker 5: Life is short, you know.
Speaker 8: Honestly, you and I were probably in the fourth quarter
Speaker 8: of our lives right now.
Speaker 4: We got to make the most of it.
Speaker 8: We got to score that winning touchdown, you know, before
Speaker 8: we end up on a walk or in a wheelchair
Speaker 8: with the oxygen tanks dangling by our side.
Speaker 5: We've got to go for it. Life is short.
Speaker 8: Let's live the dream.
Speaker 1: I don't know if I should be cheered or depressed
Speaker 1: by that, but anyhow, tell everybody, how did you book
Speaker 1: this trip? And not how did you book it? But
Speaker 1: how did you swing it? Did you cover the Kentucky game?
Speaker 1: And then what?
Speaker 8: Yeah, I'm working for two media outlets right now, specifically
Speaker 8: for that for the NFL. It's Sportsview America. I cover
Speaker 8: the Bengals games. I've been doing most of the home
Speaker 8: games these paths, I don't know, six seven, eight years,
Speaker 8: and I've just begun now to kind of go on
Speaker 8: the road. I want to go ahead and hit a
Speaker 8: lot of these these NFL stadiums, these different stadiums, these
Speaker 8: different venues that.
Speaker 4: I've always heard about.
Speaker 8: And I saw where the Meadowlands where MetLife Stadium in
Speaker 8: New York was on the schedule, so I kind of
Speaker 8: marked that on the calendar. And then of course I'll
Speaker 8: have all the Kentucky games and the Kentucky events already
Speaker 8: spread out over there. And I saw that, hey, I've
Speaker 8: got this back to back to back. We've got Big
Speaker 8: Blue Madness on Friday night, then we got Kentucky Vanderbilt
Speaker 8: on Saturday night, and then oh it's Sunday night football.
Speaker 8: It's at nighttime. I can actually do that a quick,
Speaker 8: quick turnaround, because, as you know, that Vanderbilt game didn't
Speaker 8: end until shortly before midnight by the time the interviews
Speaker 8: were over, and I got home in bed by about
Speaker 8: one o'clock or so six am flight the next morning.
Speaker 8: So do the math three hours of sleep. But hey,
Speaker 8: it's New York. How often do you get a chance
Speaker 8: to do something like that. I'd never been to met
Speaker 8: Life before. This was the thing to do, and I
Speaker 8: have no regrets. Fortunately, after the sinker of the Vanderbilt game,
Speaker 8: the Bengals actually turned around and pulled one out for
Speaker 8: a change, So I'm happy right now.
Speaker 1: I think I told you in the press box I
Speaker 1: had been to that stadium once that the Meadowlands Kentucky
Speaker 1: played Rutgers up there was a home and home and
Speaker 1: back in the I think it might have been Bill
Speaker 1: Curry's first year. And just like Saturday Night beat itself,
Speaker 1: Kentucky made all kind of mistakes in that game and lost.
Speaker 1: But let's go back to Let's go back first to madness,
Speaker 1: to the first part of the weekend. I think it
Speaker 1: was a slam dunk, no pun intended, but there was
Speaker 1: so much to like about that. We was the first
Speaker 1: one for Mark Pope. Everybody got a chance to see
Speaker 1: this new team. The court was incredible. And then the
Speaker 1: Rick Patino introduction. How did you process all that?
Speaker 8: I'm still trying to process that. First of all, the
Speaker 8: excitement generated by this new regime coming in that spoke
Speaker 8: for itself, just to see the buzz that was in
Speaker 8: rough arena again for big blue manness, which honestly had
Speaker 8: gotten pretty stale over the course of the three or
Speaker 8: four five past past years. And it was fairly full.
Speaker 8: It wasn't completely packed seat to seat, but there was
Speaker 8: no stage, so it was legitimately in the round. And
Speaker 8: to see the players introduced and to see them mingle
Speaker 8: with the fines, to see Pope come in out of
Speaker 8: the top row of the stadium. So that spoke to me,
Speaker 8: That spoke volumes to a lot of people there that hey,
Speaker 8: the program has really turned a corner. This is a
Speaker 8: new regime. It was a folid program all around. The
Speaker 8: three point shooting, even the women's programs with Kenny Brooks
Speaker 8: coming in generated so much excitement. Boy, you talk about
Speaker 8: a classy guy. But by the end I was saying,
Speaker 8: this is solid. It's not great, but it's solid. But
Speaker 8: then when they marched in all those former players, you
Speaker 8: see the generations, the Kentucky basketball great the program with
Speaker 8: the greatest history and the tradition of college basketball. Just
Speaker 8: standing there on that beautiful led court, I was getting
Speaker 8: goose pimps. And then and then the coupe de gras
Speaker 8: of Rick Patino coming through. I thought that the surprise
Speaker 8: of him coming in probably directly resulted in that loud
Speaker 8: ovation that he finally got, because I was I was
Speaker 8: uncertain if you had asked me beforehand, should we go
Speaker 8: ahead and introduce Rick Patino. Now I'd be all for
Speaker 8: it personally, but from the fan base, there was still
Speaker 8: enough division in there that I felt like it was
Speaker 8: at the right time. But now looking back on it
Speaker 8: in hindsight, yeah, Hope in the program a former player
Speaker 8: of his. It worked out as great as it possibly could.
Speaker 8: I think it it ended up being in terms of
Speaker 8: a fan and the history and some guy who's followed
Speaker 8: Kentucky basketball for for fifty years. It probably that Patino
Speaker 8: walking back in to Ruugh Arena on Big Blue Madness
Speaker 8: with coach Mark put Hope's new regime coming through. Uh
Speaker 8: probably top five moments, a mount Rushmore moment for me.
Speaker 1: Do you think that the ovation Beatino god might sway
Speaker 1: some of the people who were still holding out, you know,
Speaker 1: and and still angry at him for taking the Louisville job.
Speaker 1: Do you think maybe they might have grudging and said, Okay,
Speaker 1: we'll let him back in the fold.
Speaker 8: Maybe a few, but I think those people who were
Speaker 8: still out of the fold, Dick were so out of
Speaker 8: the fold. I mean they still look at Rick as
Speaker 8: Benedict Arnold.
Speaker 5: You know, he was one who who.
Speaker 8: Married my worst enemy and then now is begging for
Speaker 8: forgiveness coming back. I mean, that's that's something that that
Speaker 8: digs deep and I can certainly understand. But I'm not
Speaker 8: in that camp by any means. I'm hoping that people
Speaker 8: are going to shift out. You know, we have to
Speaker 8: have forgiveness in our hearts. And Rick, granted he's still
Speaker 8: still very very self centered. I think he was certainly
Speaker 8: sincere in his emotions. But people change over time too.
Speaker 8: You and and I were a lot more mellow in
Speaker 8: our old age than we were in our younger days too.
Speaker 8: Don't judge the younger, thirty year old Rick Patino. Yeah,
Speaker 8: this is the repentant Rick.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And as I keep saying over and over, you know,
Speaker 1: Patino ultimately wanted to be a Kentuckian like us, you know,
Speaker 1: and that's not such such a bad thing. He decided
Speaker 1: the next best thing, with all due respect to you
Speaker 1: of Elle to the place where Rick has said many
Speaker 1: times he wished if you had to do it over again,
Speaker 1: he wouldn't have left. Was being, you know, being in Louisville.
Speaker 1: The next best thing to be an election. And so
Speaker 1: I think too, John, that the fact that he is
Speaker 1: so passionately endorsed Mark Pope has gone a long way
Speaker 1: with a big boe nation, don't you.
Speaker 8: Yes, and understandably so, because this is one of his
Speaker 8: former pupil It's the protege of his and it's gonna
Speaker 8: look good for him ultimately. Also if Pope succeeds here
Speaker 8: at Kentucky.
Speaker 4: But yes, I think a lot of that is genuine.
Speaker 8: He does realize that he does want Pope to succeed
Speaker 8: on his own merits.
Speaker 1: Also, yeah, we're talking with doctor John Wong. He is
Speaker 1: a former orthodonist who is now a sportswriter and covers
Speaker 1: the Wildcats, the Bengals, really whatever he feels like covering.
Speaker 1: But those are the two main beats for doctor Wong.
Speaker 1: And we'll come back and talk more with John about
Speaker 1: Kentucky football. Have to do that on the other side
Speaker 1: of the break here on six point thirty Wlap welcome back.
Speaker 1: We're talking with John Wong. He's a blogger, He also
Speaker 1: covers the Bengals and the Wildcats. He was at Bengals
Speaker 1: Giants on Sunday Night fun seeing Wandale Robinson, and he
Speaker 1: is an absolute key to that offense. But I don't
Speaker 1: know if that was the Bengals getting well of the
Speaker 1: Giants just perpetuating the look of the sad team that
Speaker 1: New York fans love to hate.
Speaker 8: Yeah, there was a lot of booing going on around
Speaker 8: around there, and it didn't take very much. But one day,
Speaker 8: I still remember all those interview sessions we had with
Speaker 8: him and being able to literally look him in the eye.
Speaker 8: I'm five eight, and I swear he's bigger than that. Now.
Speaker 5: He's a little bit stronger, he's got a few more.
Speaker 8: Muscles, and I think he's a past faster than you
Speaker 8: and I are a little bit dick when you say so,
Speaker 8: a little bit.
Speaker 1: A little bit better hands too, although you, of course
Speaker 1: had great hands as an orthodonist.
Speaker 8: But kind of different, yeah, very very different.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Well, let's talk about that mess Saturday night. You
Speaker 1: and I go back a long way. Didn't know each other,
Speaker 1: but a long way to when we were both in school,
Speaker 1: and I kept thinking, this is old school Kentucky football,
Speaker 1: beat yourself. They were better than Vandy, not a whole
Speaker 1: lot better van He's not a bad ball club obviously.
Speaker 8: Uh but no, Yeah, they had just played their game,
Speaker 8: they would have won that. But twenty years down the line,
Speaker 8: it doesn't matter that this is a good bandy game,
Speaker 8: this good bandy team, It's still Vanderbilt. So people still
Speaker 8: look back on this and say, well, look, Stoops couldn't
Speaker 8: be Vanderbilt, and that's eventually what got them fired. But
Speaker 8: it's just so frustrating and I hate myself, Dick when
Speaker 8: I think this way. But yeah, the history of Kentucky football.
Speaker 8: We can't put that out of our minds. It's hard
Speaker 8: not to say, well, this is as good as it's
Speaker 8: ever going to get, because in our hearts we might
Speaker 8: actually believe that. I don't want to say that at all.
Speaker 8: I don't want to believe it. But when you look
Speaker 8: back on the history, and we've been tempted and teased
Speaker 8: so many times, thinking that we're going to break out
Speaker 8: over this threshold and it just never happens. These other
Speaker 8: SEC teams they continue to get just as much better
Speaker 8: as Kentucky is. It's frustrating and I just can't see
Speaker 8: them getting over the homp.
Speaker 1: But they've done it in the past. They've had ten
Speaker 1: wins seasons, they've done great things. They flirted with an secs.
Speaker 1: That to me, John, is what's the most frustrating. Is
Speaker 1: that is that they know the road map, they know
Speaker 1: the way to get there. But you know, and I
Speaker 1: know every team is different. But what gets me is,
Speaker 1: and I'm not laying this all on him, but when
Speaker 1: a guy like Dane Key, who is such an experience
Speaker 1: now player, he's a leader, he has polished his game,
Speaker 1: it looked like he had grown up because you remember
Speaker 1: what happened last year in the Vandy game when he
Speaker 1: was flagged, you know, and then to start things off
Speaker 1: with the call that you know may or may not
Speaker 1: have been warranted. I don't know what was said on
Speaker 1: the sidelines. Clearly Stoops was upset about it with Dane
Speaker 1: and then it just kind of snowballed after that. I
Speaker 1: just don't get it.
Speaker 8: You just can't be doing that.
Speaker 5: Pick you can be doing that.
Speaker 8: It cost Kentucky points and ultimately, if you figure it out,
Speaker 8: it's gonna cost.
Speaker 5: Him the ball gain.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 8: Yeah, and that is critical and crucial. And I know
Speaker 8: he's good and maybe this is a reflection I hate
Speaker 8: sounding like the old man thing, get off my lawn,
Speaker 8: but maybe it's a reflection of nil. People keep saying
Speaker 8: that when Stoops made his pony up comments that that
Speaker 8: kind of turned the tide. Well, maybe his pony up
Speaker 8: comment is really really signifying what's really going on. It's
Speaker 8: not the pony up. It's the fact that we're having
Speaker 8: a pony up. And the mentality now I know of
Speaker 8: a lot of fans is these players are being paid
Speaker 8: a lot of money, so they need to be held
Speaker 8: to a higher standard. So when they screw up, when
Speaker 8: they don't succeed, then I think there's more a ratenus
Speaker 8: out there. There's more of a rage from the fan
Speaker 8: base of hey, I can't be putting up with any
Speaker 8: of this. The standards have been raised. It's different. It's
Speaker 8: a different world, the horses out of the barn.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it really is. And you know, it's interesting since
Speaker 1: we were just talking about basketball, and I believe that
Speaker 1: once Mark Pope starts to really weave his program the
Speaker 1: way he intends, Kentucky fans will get to know players. Again,
Speaker 1: not everybody's going to stay more than one or two years,
Speaker 1: but you know how it was when everybody when the
Speaker 1: world was young, and you'd get to know these guys
Speaker 1: over a course of one to four years. That's been
Speaker 1: the way it is with football, but not so much anymore.
Speaker 1: So fans have kind of lost that element, haven't they
Speaker 1: getting to know and embrace their football players.
Speaker 8: Fans certainly have, but I think it's also been magnified
Speaker 8: tenfold with the media themselves. I never experienced that as
Speaker 8: a media member, dick of being able to go and
Speaker 8: get to know a Dirk Minifield or Melvin Turfin for
Speaker 8: four straight years. How great would that have been if
Speaker 8: be able to talk to some of these guys. Can
Speaker 8: you imagine the depth of the question Well, of course
Speaker 8: you can, you did it. But the depth of the
Speaker 8: questions that can develop after you've developed the relationships with
Speaker 8: the players themselves. I mean, now it's just a matter of, hey,
Speaker 8: I just feel out there when you know you had
Speaker 8: that slam dunk there there's nothing deep in there. You
Speaker 8: can't really grasp anything. You can't get any of the
Speaker 8: stories that Mark Pope was talking about during its press
Speaker 8: conference through just these superficial interviews that we have with
Speaker 8: the players.
Speaker 1: You're right, you know, and you just got to try
Speaker 1: to get them, get to know them as best you can.
Speaker 1: But it's hard for fans now to really put their
Speaker 1: faith in a lot of these guys. And I think
Speaker 1: I think that Vandy loss has really shaken the Kentucky
Speaker 1: fan base. And of course, as we all know, all
Speaker 1: the goodwill they built with that win in Oxford, not
Speaker 1: just mathematically, but it just went out the window now,
Speaker 1: you know, because they they lost a win over South Carolina.
Speaker 1: They got it back, but how do you make up
Speaker 1: this this lost to Vandy, and how do you keep
Speaker 1: alive your streak of postgame or postseason appearances that's on
Speaker 1: the line.
Speaker 8: Well, in the words of the great Al Davis, just
Speaker 8: win baby, But that's easier said than done. In the
Speaker 8: sec I don't know how much time we had, but
Speaker 8: I wanted to ask you you're down there on the field,
Speaker 8: have you noticed. Sorry, I don't mean to be the
Speaker 8: host of the show now, I kind of turning the
Speaker 8: tables on you. But Stoop's demeanor down there, it seems
Speaker 8: to me, at least when I look at these little
Speaker 8: snippets of his halftime interviews and whatever, he seems a
Speaker 8: little bit more clueless for lack of a better word,
Speaker 8: do you notice any changes just in his general demeanor
Speaker 8: and running running the team.
Speaker 1: Well, that's an interesting question because I was talking to
Speaker 1: the guys with the radio network at halftime off air,
Speaker 1: and it was staggering to me the difference between stoops
Speaker 1: coming off the field in Oxford and Stoop's coming off
Speaker 1: the field Saturday night in Oxford. He was he was excited,
Speaker 1: he was intense. Uh, it was. It was really really fascinating.
Speaker 1: I mean he spoke in depth Saturday night. He was
Speaker 1: as puzzled John as I've ever seen him. Yes, I
Speaker 1: mean it was. It was almost like he was almost
Speaker 1: like he walked off the field with a shrug with
Speaker 1: his hands out, like what the hell is going on?
Speaker 1: You know, because I'll guarantee you this shocked him because
Speaker 1: throughout the week he was happy with practice. But what
Speaker 1: is it too about? By here I am asking more questions?
Speaker 1: What is it about bye weeks that do not agree
Speaker 1: with Mark Pope? With the Mark Stoops. I think that's fascinating,
Speaker 1: don't you.
Speaker 8: I I think somebody needs to really really do one
Speaker 8: of these deep deep dives into that. And stops even
Speaker 8: in his press conference afterwards he was talking about it.
Speaker 8: He was trying to diagnose the problem. He was asking
Speaker 8: the players themselves, are there too many distractions? Are we
Speaker 8: getting you enough tickets? Or family members starting to interfere?
Speaker 8: Because going two and ten at home is that's that's inexcusable.
Speaker 8: And we're not talking about playing the top rounding teams either.
Speaker 8: This is losing the Vamberbilt, losing to South Carolina. It
Speaker 8: just cannot happen. And I send the groundswell of disappointment
Speaker 8: within the Big Glue nation about that, and that never
Speaker 8: speaks speaks well, they got to turn this thing around.
Speaker 8: So I'm worried.
Speaker 1: Some of these SEC losses admittedly were against Georgia's and
Speaker 1: other in Tennessee, and you know, good SEC teams, But yeah,
Speaker 1: to your point, you've got to beat Vandy and Lexingon.
Speaker 1: You've got to be South Carolina and Lexingon, and for
Speaker 1: whatever reason, it just has not been happening. So now
Speaker 1: they go to Florida, which is desperate for a win,
Speaker 1: and of course we know the success Kentucky's had against Florida.
Speaker 1: Ironically enough, John, maybe this is a great time for
Speaker 1: a road trip, you know what I.
Speaker 8: Mean, especially now and this may have changed since this
Speaker 8: program is airing, but I think Kentucky was an underdog
Speaker 8: coming out of there, and as you know, stoops as
Speaker 8: teams always played that well. Not always, but most of
Speaker 8: the time they play better with that ship on their shoulders.
Speaker 8: So yeah, no distractions. Underdog, a Florida team that's that
Speaker 8: held its own against Tennessee. This this is the makings
Speaker 8: of another another good game. Kentucky needs to win this.
Speaker 8: They need to get that last loss back.
Speaker 1: You're right, and it's a Florida team that probably should
Speaker 1: have beaten Tennessee. So we'll see. Here's John Wong. Follow
Speaker 1: him on Twitter and the X at k Y Wong's
Speaker 1: h u A n GS. You can also read him
Speaker 1: on sports View America Wong's whinings Olden Media Group. He's
Speaker 1: a busy man, John, safe travels. We'll see you soon.
Speaker 5: Thank you, Dick, always a pleasure, talk to you later.
Speaker 1: Gon'll do it for now. Good night from the garage
Speaker 1: in Lexington, Nansi.