Speaker 1: Welcome to the Big Blue Insider. Dick Gabriel with you.
Speaker 1: Back with you after a couple three days for the holiday.
Speaker 1: I hope you enjoyed the best of shows. But tonight
Speaker 1: we'll get you up to date. We have got our
Speaker 1: West End Bureau chief Gary Moore coming in for kind
Speaker 1: of a yearly wrap up, and we're gonna talk to
Speaker 1: Richard Skinner as well from local twelve TV up in Cincinnati.
Speaker 1: We'll talk Bengals, and we'll talk Wildcats with Skinny as well.
Speaker 1: Plus we'll talk with the voice of the Wildcats, Tom Leech,
Speaker 1: as the Cats head into a weekend without basketball, but
Speaker 1: up men's basketball. The women play tomorrow against Western Kentucky,
Speaker 1: a game you'll hear right here on six thirty WLAP
Speaker 1: but Darren Hedrick, But the men don't play until next Tuesday,
Speaker 1: an odd time, two o'clock game against Brown. So we'll
Speaker 1: get Tom's thoughts on what happened up in New York
Speaker 1: and what he expects to see from here on. We're
Speaker 1: going to talk about the New York trip coming up
Speaker 1: in our next segment. We'll hear from Mark Pope and
Speaker 1: some of the Wildcats as well. But you've had a
Speaker 1: little while to think about that. That game is festered
Speaker 1: with you, and I don't blame it just wasn't much
Speaker 1: to watch. Was it wasn't fun to watch. It was
Speaker 1: great if you're an Ohio State fan, but the Wildcats
Speaker 1: just never really got untracked and they were not not
Speaker 1: happy at all. Mark Pope was as despondent as I've
Speaker 1: seen him since he was a player. So anyhow, we'll
Speaker 1: talk about that coming up, but I wanted to start,
Speaker 1: and this story popped up yesterday. But you talk about
Speaker 1: a sign of the times, Jim Larranaga stepping down at
Speaker 1: Miami right now, I mean immediately effective now retiring, And
Speaker 1: this was one year and a little longer removed, I guess,
Speaker 1: a year and a half from his team making the
Speaker 1: Final four. Miami makes the Final four, and ironically enough,
Speaker 1: this is tied directly to the portal in Nil. Well,
Speaker 1: Miami gets to the Final Four by taking advantage of
Speaker 1: the portal and nil. And I'm not calling him a
Speaker 1: hippoc or anything, but it's just a sign of where
Speaker 1: we are now at college athletics. And I hate to
Speaker 1: keep banging on this drum because it certainly doesn't make well.
Speaker 1: I'm not the only one who said this, but I
Speaker 1: did say it on these very airwaves when all of
Speaker 1: this stuff started coming down, when the rules were passed
Speaker 1: basically as theories, as even as suggestions, and then as
Speaker 1: they became a fact and were formulated, I said, this
Speaker 1: is the end of college athletics as we know it now.
Speaker 1: What I was referring to is not just all the
Speaker 1: movement by players, and I certainly didn't foresee a huge
Speaker 1: dollar figures that are being thrown around. What I foresaw
Speaker 1: was the bigger picture, and that is and it's probably
Speaker 1: going to begin next year at least, the seeds will
Speaker 1: be sewn. When the schools begin to pay the players
Speaker 1: and the revenue sharing and all that, Athletics directors will
Speaker 1: have very little choice, few options when it comes to
Speaker 1: figuring out how to pay for all this and what
Speaker 1: they're going to have to do. And this will begin
Speaker 1: at the lowest levels of Division one. They'll have to
Speaker 1: drop sports. They'll have to drop some of the so
Speaker 1: called minor sports. The Olympic starts sports, it'll start with
Speaker 1: men's sports because the title nine. You've got to keep
Speaker 1: the scholarship levels, even man and women. And if you've
Speaker 1: got football, those eighty five scholaries count against They try
Speaker 1: to get that, you know, some sort of waiver about
Speaker 1: football from day one, and I was voted down. So
Speaker 1: if you got a football program, you got to make
Speaker 1: sure in addition to other men's programs, you have the
Speaker 1: com mesual number of scholarship opportunities for women. You may
Speaker 1: see some schools drop football eventually because if you look
Speaker 1: at all the dollar figures that are thrown around from
Speaker 1: these huge contracts with the TV networks, with the conferences,
Speaker 1: the rights fees, all that, they're enormous numbers, but people
Speaker 1: think that those are immediately applied directly to the bottom
Speaker 1: line for the major sports and their major schools, and
Speaker 1: they're not. They pay for everything. When you see the
Speaker 1: dollar figure for the NCAA Division one basketball tournament, it's massive,
Speaker 1: it's a billion plus, But that chunk of change pays
Speaker 1: for all the other tournaments in every other sport men's
Speaker 1: and women's in NCAA Divisions one, two, and three men
Speaker 1: and women, all sports, not just basketball. So people who
Speaker 1: would see this number go, well, just take that up
Speaker 1: and divide it up and give it to the players. No,
Speaker 1: it's earmark for other things and That's what's going to
Speaker 1: start to happen. You're going to see schools chopping sports
Speaker 1: and the first time of school. Remember what happened when
Speaker 1: UAB chopped football. This was well before the NIL and
Speaker 1: the portal, and there was such an uproar and outcry,
Speaker 1: and a couple of years later they brought it back.
Speaker 1: Boosters got together and brought back football. Could you afford
Speaker 1: to do that now and play at a competitive level
Speaker 1: with the NIL? No, not at the higher levels of
Speaker 1: D one. You'll always have football at the big schools.
Speaker 1: You'll always have football in the SEC. Anybody who thinks
Speaker 1: Kentucky should lead the SEC is nuts, simply because of
Speaker 1: financial safety blanket in the Southeastern Conference. But Jim Larranaga
Speaker 1: joins the growing ranks of college coaches, and his was
Speaker 1: particularly pertinent because he ducked out here, not even the
Speaker 1: middle of the season. They haven't even started a conference
Speaker 1: play yet. And this is what he said when he
Speaker 1: made his announcement.
Speaker 2: I'm exhausted. I've tried every which way to keep this going.
Speaker 2: And i know I'm going to be asked a lot
Speaker 2: of questions, but I want to answer them before I'm
Speaker 2: even asked. What shocked me beyond belief. Was after we
Speaker 2: made it to the Final four just eighteen months ago.
Speaker 2: The very first time I met with the players, eight
Speaker 2: of them decided they were going to put their name
Speaker 2: in the portal and leave. I said, benj, don't.
Speaker 1: You like it?
Speaker 3: No, I love it.
Speaker 1: I love Miami.
Speaker 2: It's great. But the opportunity to make money someplace else
Speaker 2: created a situation that you have to begin to ask
Speaker 2: yourself as a coach, what is this all about?
Speaker 1: In case you're wonder, Yeah, Miami is struggling this year,
Speaker 1: but that was not why he made his announcement in
Speaker 1: the middle of the year or shy at the middle
Speaker 1: of the year. And there will be others now he
Speaker 1: can afford to leave. Remember, this guy also took George
Speaker 1: Mason to the Final four, one of the greatest runs
Speaker 1: by a Cinderella team, and that was in twenty oh six.
Speaker 1: That's the year that Florida won. One of the years
Speaker 1: Florida won, the runner up is UCLA. The Gators beat
Speaker 1: the Bruins. George Mason and LSU both made the Final
Speaker 1: Four that year. And you know what, all right, Florida
Speaker 1: is not a big basketball school. UCLA has some fans,
Speaker 1: but it's a neighborhood school. They don't have Yeah, they
Speaker 1: got a lot of titles, but they don't have a
Speaker 1: huge sweeping fan base. LSU football school. Do they care
Speaker 1: about basketball? Some? George Mason tiny Those TV ratings for
Speaker 1: the Final Four that year worse than the history of
Speaker 1: the Final Four and at least in modern times when
Speaker 1: they started really tracking it. So that always tells you
Speaker 1: that people love Cinderella's the first couple of weekends after that. No,
Speaker 1: they want the big names. They want the Kentucky's and
Speaker 1: the Kansas and the North Carolina's in the Final four,
Speaker 1: and the ratings say as much.
Speaker 4: So.
Speaker 1: Anyhow, Learronagua has got a great legacy, but it's sad
Speaker 1: that he had to leave this way. And again, who's next?
Speaker 1: That's the question, Who's next? Speaking of the nil, Maxwell
Speaker 1: Harriston's decision had nothing to do with it him leaving
Speaker 1: for the National Football He had another year of eligibility,
Speaker 1: but I do believe he should go and he's played
Speaker 1: four years. Yeah, he was hurt much of this year,
Speaker 1: only played seven games. Still had nineteen tackles, forced, a
Speaker 1: couple of fumbles, had a pick, had a sack, he'll
Speaker 1: get a great look. And my Packers, of course drafted
Speaker 1: and signed Carrington Valentine and he is stuck. He took
Speaker 1: advantage in camp, some guys got hurt and he made
Speaker 1: the club. But Harrison's got a better resume. I don't
Speaker 1: know if he's a better player, but he's got a
Speaker 1: real shot at making the NFL. Vince Merrill needs go
Speaker 1: and find another Maxwell Harrison since he has decided to stay.
Speaker 1: Football Scoop made that announcement quote unquote air quotes. Now,
Speaker 1: football Scoop it's a fun website, but football Scoop publishes
Speaker 1: everything it hears. Everybody who contributes to Football Scoop they
Speaker 1: dump it all onto that website. So a lot of
Speaker 1: times it's not true, it's a little bit true. It
Speaker 1: might be true. Well, we knew that Merrill had gotten
Speaker 1: a call from Bill Belichick, or at least there had
Speaker 1: been I don't know who made the call first conversation
Speaker 1: with Bill Belichick. But Vince has decided he would stick around.
Speaker 1: That's according to Football Scoop sources with direct knowledge. They
Speaker 1: say I was told this, I think the day before Christmas,
Speaker 1: that Vince was staying. But why wouldn't Belichick make the call,
Speaker 1: and you look around at the job that recruiters have
Speaker 1: done around the country, and look where Kentucky is now
Speaker 1: compared to when Stoops and Merrow got here. And the
Speaker 1: biggest reason for their success not lately, I know better
Speaker 1: players and so much of that has to do with
Speaker 1: Vince Merrow. While we're in college football, Vanderbilt Georgia Tech
Speaker 1: finishing up their ball game today, the Birmingham Bull Kentucky
Speaker 1: played in that what Randall Cobbs last year. You know,
Speaker 1: it's it's a fun game for these teams, for their
Speaker 1: fans if they go. I gotta think Vandy will take
Speaker 1: some fans I don't know about. I guess Georgia Tech will,
Speaker 1: and I'll probably on it. We pre record, so I
Speaker 1: can't tell you what's going on in the game. But
Speaker 1: what's interesting is the impact Vandy and Georgia Tech had
Speaker 1: on college football this year. On the College Football Playoff,
Speaker 1: Bandy was the best story in college football because of
Speaker 1: the upset of Alabama. That was the biggest upset of
Speaker 1: the year. But remember how the season began. We watched
Speaker 1: Georgia Tech beat Florida State, I mean outclassed Florida State,
Speaker 1: in Ireland. Now, we didn't know at the time that
Speaker 1: Florida State would be an absolute dumpster fire. This is
Speaker 1: after that glorious year they had last year. Horrible this year.
Speaker 1: But Georgia Tech was the first team to take full advantage,
Speaker 1: so that kind of told us a little bit that
Speaker 1: this season might not be what we thought. And sure enough,
Speaker 1: Bandy with Diego Pavia starts winning games and the biggest
Speaker 1: win of all forty to thirty five in October fifth,
Speaker 1: knocking off Alabama, which had just beaten Georgia the week
Speaker 1: prior and did not get itself ready for the game.
Speaker 1: Bans rushed the field school had to pay a hundred
Speaker 1: thousand dollars fine, they were happy to do so. Pavia
Speaker 1: threw for two point fifty two and two touchdowns and
Speaker 1: ran for fifty six yards and moved the chains at
Speaker 1: the end of the game when Mandy absolutely positively needed
Speaker 1: first downs. That knocked Bama from the number one ranking
Speaker 1: to number seven and had never got any higher. And Bama,
Speaker 1: which also lost to a six and six Oklahoma team,
Speaker 1: as you know, doesn't make the playoff if it wins
Speaker 1: one or the other. I believe Bama's in the playoff.
Speaker 1: So you can look at Vanderbilt as being a team
Speaker 1: that's responsible for Alabama not playing in the playoff. And
Speaker 1: by the way, remember Vandy almost beat Texas And remember
Speaker 1: Georgia Tech nearly beat Georgia, and if it had done that,
Speaker 1: it would have kept Georgia, I think from the playoff. Well,
Speaker 1: if it wouldn't have been a conference game, if Georgia
Speaker 1: won the conference, it would have gotten there. But man,
Speaker 1: whatdn't upset that might have been? They're up seventeen to
Speaker 1: nothing at the half and let it twenty seven to
Speaker 1: thirteen of five and a half to play. Bulldogs got
Speaker 1: it into overtime and won it. And yeah, if Georgia
Speaker 1: had gone on to win the conference, they were locked
Speaker 1: into that that buy, but they wouldn't have been seated
Speaker 1: as highly probably. So yeah, those are the teams that
Speaker 1: really made headlines this year in college football. Two of them.
Speaker 1: All Right, we'll come back and talk about Wildcat basketball.
Speaker 1: On the other side of the break, Here are the
Speaker 1: Big Moon Siders six thirty WLAP Welcome back to the
Speaker 1: Big Moon Sider. Coming up at the bottom of the hour,
Speaker 1: Tom Leets, the voice of the Wildcats and now renumber
Speaker 1: two Richard Skinner from Low twelve TV up in Cincinnati,
Speaker 1: and our Western Burea chief Gary Moore, of course preempted
Speaker 1: on Wednesday, Christmas Day, but we'll hear his comments and
Speaker 1: the two guys in a six pack coming up in
Speaker 1: our number two. But need to look back on the
Speaker 1: Wildcats trip to New York City and I went up.
Speaker 1: We had a very good time, although it was cold,
Speaker 1: it was windy, but Christmas in New York, Yeah, the
Speaker 1: decorations and all that, it's a lot of fun. A
Speaker 1: friend of mine said something about the chaos, and I said,
Speaker 1: I like the chaos because I can leave the chaos,
Speaker 1: but I do enjoy it. I've been up there several times,
Speaker 1: and I've been up there for Kentucky Ohio State, and
Speaker 1: once again the Wildcats lose. But this was in the
Speaker 1: Madison Square Garden. I was up there in twenty the
Speaker 1: twenty fifteen sixteen season, the Jamal Murray season, as I
Speaker 1: put it, where the Wildcats lost in Brooklyn to Ohio State,
Speaker 1: and Murray had a huge game, but Kentucky just never
Speaker 1: could start to click. And the same thing happened against
Speaker 1: Ohio State. Eight bluck guys did a great job of
Speaker 1: making Kentucky play their game. They ran the Wildcats off
Speaker 1: the three point line and defended well in the paint,
Speaker 1: and then at the other end of the floor, they
Speaker 1: made Kentucky play defense, probably longer per possession than the
Speaker 1: Wildcats were used to playing, because Kentucky is a good
Speaker 1: defensive team, but didn't make enough good defensive plays in
Speaker 1: that game. And the Jake Deebler, the Ohio State coach,
Speaker 1: talked about the fact that Ohio State was able to
Speaker 1: control pace.
Speaker 5: Felt like we needed to make them guard longer in
Speaker 5: the half court in those moments. So again, that's a respect,
Speaker 5: you know, to what they've been able to do. But
Speaker 5: I thought we were able, you know, and Bruce Thrton
Speaker 5: led us in that we were able to get to
Speaker 5: the free throw line some of our own, and you know,
Speaker 5: we were able to come up with a couple timely
Speaker 5: offensive rebounds too.
Speaker 1: Jake Deebler, by the way, in his first year as
Speaker 1: the head coach at Ohio State, started actually as a
Speaker 1: video coordinator from fourteen to sixteen, then left and came
Speaker 1: back as an assistant a few years ago, and now
Speaker 1: he's the head man and he has a pretty good
Speaker 1: win to his credit as Ohio State held Kentucky to
Speaker 1: twenty nine point eight percent field goal shooting and really
Speaker 1: more sobering the numbers. Wildcats had eight field goals in
Speaker 1: the first half, nine in the second half. Wow, eight
Speaker 1: for twenty three in the first half, nine for thirty
Speaker 1: four in the second half in Ohio State meanwhile, shot
Speaker 1: fifty six point six percent for the entire game and
Speaker 1: the Cats three point three point percentage four for twenty two.
Speaker 1: But to me points in the paint Ohio State thirty six,
Speaker 1: Kentucky twenty four, and Aaron Gershaan chartered you may have
Speaker 1: heard or read this already Kentucky seven of twenty three
Speaker 1: from on layups. Kentucky missed so many shots near the
Speaker 1: basket it was nuts. It's crazy. Mark Pope talked about
Speaker 1: the fact that as things went poorly, the Wildcats basically
Speaker 1: reverted got away from Mark Pope style of basketball, and
Speaker 1: he's talked about this before. He talked about it going
Speaker 1: into the game, into the season, talked about it after
Speaker 1: one of the losses. I believe it was Clemson was
Speaker 1: the only other loss, but it might have been after
Speaker 1: one of those close games. I do believe it was
Speaker 1: at the Clemson game where he basically said, they quit
Speaker 1: doing what they're supposed to do, and they do. They
Speaker 1: were doing what they knew to do because their veterans,
Speaker 1: you know, they played so much basketball. They reverted and
Speaker 1: that can't happen. Pope said they had to trust in
Speaker 1: what they were doing as wildcats.
Speaker 6: You know, we had some defensive shot this night, and
Speaker 6: then we just fell to pieces offense of we and
Speaker 6: we just went to our default. And our default is
Speaker 6: not right yet. Our default is still bad habits and
Speaker 6: and and it's not bad habits coming from a bad
Speaker 6: place in guy's hearts. It's coming from a great place.
Speaker 6: It's coming from a desperation to help their team. But
Speaker 6: we don't do that by ourselves. And we do it discipline,
Speaker 6: and we do it the way we do it, and
Speaker 6: we do it by making place for each other. And
Speaker 6: and that's still not our default. And that's just that's
Speaker 6: just a trust building process. And and sometimes when things
Speaker 6: go wrong, it can build your trust because you see this,
Speaker 6: you get to see, hey, this doesn't work when we
Speaker 6: try and do this this way. And so but these
Speaker 6: guys will respond beautifully because they're incredibly young men and
Speaker 6: they'll come back and they'll work like crazy and they
Speaker 6: know who they represent and how much it means, and
Speaker 6: it's incredibly painful to lose this game, but they'll respond great.
Speaker 1: That kind of reminded me of a football coach talking about,
Speaker 1: especially on defense, particularly on defense, how guys try to
Speaker 1: do too much. Stay in your gap, mind your gap,
Speaker 1: play your gap. I remember Mike Archer telling me about
Speaker 1: one of the early Kentucky defenses he coached. He said,
Speaker 1: our best player is the worst example of this. You know,
Speaker 1: he knows his job, but he's so good he thinks
Speaker 1: he can do other people's jobs as well, so he'll
Speaker 1: stop doing what he's supposed to do and go try
Speaker 1: to help somebody else as well. And then there's a disaster. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, it's not being selfish, as Pope said, it's
Speaker 1: trying to help, trying to do the right thing, and
Speaker 1: it just wasn't working. And Andrew Carr at a rough
Speaker 1: time in and around the paint three for nine, only
Speaker 1: got off nine shots, did get to the free throw
Speaker 1: line nine times, missed all four of his three pointers.
Speaker 1: But he talked as well about yeah, they got a
Speaker 1: couple buckets early, but then after that, Ohio State challenged
Speaker 1: every at the rim.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, definitely, I think we kind of knew
Speaker 4: going into the game that they helped a lot, especially
Speaker 4: you know, if once we got into the paint, felt
Speaker 4: like we probably could have done a better job of,
Speaker 4: you know, when things aren't going our way to playoff
Speaker 4: two feet, go back to being you know, the fundamentals
Speaker 4: of the game and stopping at the rim, and we'd
Speaker 4: be able to get whatever we wanted. So definitely something
Speaker 4: to learn and improve on.
Speaker 1: What struck me was how Kentucky did get some good
Speaker 1: shots like those shots inside and they weren't hitting. And
Speaker 1: I asked Otaga away if the frustration began to build
Speaker 1: as the game went on, I.
Speaker 7: Mean, that's that's kind of basketball. Sometimes the ball won't
Speaker 7: go into the rim, but we just had to find
Speaker 7: other ways and we didn't today, but we will next time.
Speaker 7: We just have to find ways to just have hot
Speaker 7: energy at all times, even when the ball's not going in.
Speaker 7: On a defensive end, I feel like we could have
Speaker 7: sparked some energy there, maybe get some easy baskets by
Speaker 7: cleaning turnovers, but fortunately.
Speaker 3: We did it.
Speaker 7: But it's okay. We'll learn and get better.
Speaker 1: Statistically, Ohway had a good game, twenty one points, only
Speaker 1: one turnover in thirty and a half minutes. But here's
Speaker 1: another reason to take the plus minus figure with a
Speaker 1: huge chunk of salt. If you're a plus minus person,
Speaker 1: that's fine. But otega Oway, who led Kentucky in scoring
Speaker 1: and drew nine fouls. He was thirteen for thirteen at
Speaker 1: the free throw line at a couple of rebounds. It
Speaker 1: was only four for thirteen from the floor. But again,
Speaker 1: nobody shot well for the Wildcats. His plus minus was
Speaker 1: the worst of the night for anybody, minus twenty six.
Speaker 1: So again take it with a huge grain of salt,
Speaker 1: because he was one of the few Wildcats who was
Speaker 1: able to get and make shots. Although he was four
Speaker 1: for thirteen, he still got to the line and helped
Speaker 1: keep Kentucky close. But the Cats just could not make
Speaker 1: up the ground even when they got to what six
Speaker 1: And the crowd, by the way, crowd was good. You
Speaker 1: know what, we had a great crowd in North Carolina.
Speaker 1: I walked in early in the first half of the
Speaker 1: first game. Carolina UCLA place was full. I told my
Speaker 1: wife where I left the hotel room. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: they'll have some fans there. The building was almost full already,
Speaker 1: and most of it literally North Carolina fans. You knew
Speaker 1: UCLA wouldn't have many, and you knew Ohio State wouldn't
Speaker 1: have many because they're involved with football. You figured it
Speaker 1: would look like an nca tournament game for the Wildcats.
Speaker 1: It did not. So learn from this one, put it
Speaker 1: behind you, and go back to work. On Tuesday, Tom
Speaker 1: Leech to the Wildcats. He is the voice of the Wildcats.
Speaker 1: Is next heer on six thirty WLAP. Welcome back to
Speaker 1: the Big Blue and Sider, Joined now by the voice
Speaker 1: of the Wildcats, Tom Leech. You hear him on this
Speaker 1: very radio station each and every morning, and of course
Speaker 1: he'll be behind the mic the next time the Cats
Speaker 1: tip it off. But Tom, let us go back to
Speaker 1: Madison Square Garden, which is one of the great basketball venues.
Speaker 1: I know you were kind of up in the boonies
Speaker 1: a little bit, but what a thrill still to work
Speaker 1: in that venue, isn't it?
Speaker 4: Yeah? It is.
Speaker 3: I was a Knicks fan. My first favorite sports team,
Speaker 3: probably even before the Wildcats as a kid, was the Bears,
Speaker 3: and then and then you know, got into the Wildcats
Speaker 3: just through you know, family, and then The next one
Speaker 3: was I Think the Knicks. I loved the Knicks and
Speaker 3: won the title in seventy and then again in seventy
Speaker 3: three with Walt Frazier, and the second title team had
Speaker 3: Earl the Pearlman Road, Willis Reed, David Busher and Brill Bradley,
Speaker 3: and I was just a big Knicks fan. So one
Speaker 3: of my great thrills and doing this job was working
Speaker 3: a game at the Garden Kentucky and Yukon in December
Speaker 3: of nine. Really good game and we were at courtside
Speaker 3: kind of, you know, somewhere near where Marv Albert would
Speaker 3: to sit with a sat calling all those Nick games. Now,
Speaker 3: when we do these events like CBS sportscass that grew
Speaker 3: up in what they call a hockey press box way
Speaker 3: up high. Not quite as special of an experience, but
Speaker 3: still a garden is a cool place.
Speaker 1: First time I ever covered games in the garden, as
Speaker 1: you know, was the NIT in seventy six, and my
Speaker 1: scenes for the Kentucky Colonel were up in the hockey
Speaker 1: press box. But the third game was providence of the
Speaker 1: semi final game, and there wasn't much of a crowd
Speaker 1: and I was down on the floor talking to Kwood
Speaker 1: and Ralph and just as the game began, I saw
Speaker 1: there was an empty seat right next to the official scorer,
Speaker 1: so I grabbed it and I thought a lot of
Speaker 1: move if they moved me, And that's where I ended
Speaker 1: up watching the game and saw Larry Johns. I remember
Speaker 1: the last second lay up from there, and that was
Speaker 1: a great vantage point.
Speaker 3: And first whatever reason there wasn't you know in cuahampionship team,
Speaker 3: but that was one of my favorite UK seasons because
Speaker 3: it didn't look like they were going nowhere, and then
Speaker 3: it got hot and played their way into the n
Speaker 3: I t when that was a much more meaningful tournament,
Speaker 3: and you know, it was played like the Sweet sixteen
Speaker 3: is here for the boys and girls, where it's you know,
Speaker 3: sixteen teams at the garden and you know, you play
Speaker 3: over four days till you get knocked out. And it
Speaker 3: was just really enjoyed that team. And part of the
Speaker 3: reason was I was a big James Lee fan at
Speaker 3: that time, and somebody was hurt. I think it was
Speaker 3: Robie was hurt, so James was moved into the starting lineup.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Rick Bluees near early in the year, and the
Speaker 1: whole season began to Korean a little bit.
Speaker 3: But goose Yah had that Providence game. I looked this
Speaker 3: up and adventually to Gooster in our broadcast that he
Speaker 3: had twenty eight against Providence, and I think Tony Delk
Speaker 3: had twenty nine as the only Kentucky player to score
Speaker 3: more in the garden.
Speaker 1: Wow, that's a great stat. Well, back to the matters hand.
Speaker 1: That Kentucky Ohio State game, You've got to credit the
Speaker 1: Buckeyes and I don't know if you read later the
Speaker 1: comments from their coach or heard about it, but they
Speaker 1: were determined to force Kentucky to play their game on
Speaker 1: both ends and the court, and they did it. And
Speaker 1: every time a team loses a game, you wonder, is
Speaker 1: this the blueprint? Well, we know teams are going to
Speaker 1: run Kentucky off the three point line as best they can,
Speaker 1: but really ratcheting down the pace of the game I
Speaker 1: thought was a big, big move for Ohio State. Did
Speaker 1: you see it that way?
Speaker 6: Oh?
Speaker 3: Yeah? And there were two things I thought that were
Speaker 3: the kind of the big storylines in the first half.
Speaker 3: Aaron Bradshaw scored nine points, yes, sir, off the bench,
Speaker 3: and their leading score of House States was in foul
Speaker 3: trouble so they got zero from their leading score, but
Speaker 3: they got nine from Bradshaw, which made up that difference.
Speaker 3: And so then that was ironically a nine point lead
Speaker 3: at halftime. And Lamont Butler got into some early foul troubles,
Speaker 3: so he sat for a lot of the first half,
Speaker 3: and then in the second half, Butler picked up his
Speaker 3: third foul pretty early and maybe that was, you know,
Speaker 3: affected his play because Thornton, I just thought dominated the
Speaker 3: second half and it was tugging with Mike the coursing
Speaker 3: my show about this that how dominant Ohio State was
Speaker 3: in that point guard matchup went on paper, it seemed
Speaker 3: to be one that would you know, maybe be a draw,
Speaker 3: a toss up, and Thornton got thirty and Lamonta I think,
Speaker 3: had had four, and just then he wasn't as good defensively.
Speaker 3: But I have to think when he picks up his
Speaker 3: third so early, and he also knows that they don't
Speaker 3: have Kerr Creasan now and so there's more of a
Speaker 3: drop off when Lamont goes out at the point that
Speaker 3: maybe that affects his defense and feeds into how Orton
Speaker 3: was able to just dominate the second half.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and when Butler went out. If memory serves, that's
Speaker 1: just about the time that Ohio State went on a
Speaker 1: run which was like nine or ten points and it
Speaker 1: stayed that way. There was that one run Kentucky made
Speaker 1: late when the crowd got into it and they got
Speaker 1: it down to what six or something like that, But
Speaker 1: that was the difference in the game, and Kentucky was
Speaker 1: able to impose its will for about a minute and
Speaker 1: a half and get the lead down and then the
Speaker 1: next thing you know, it's a twelve point lead again.
Speaker 1: And one of the plays in you knew where I
Speaker 1: was sitting in the end zone and it came right
Speaker 1: at me, was the play where Lamont Butler reached in
Speaker 1: and stole the ball. I mean, as clean as steel
Speaker 1: as you could make. And here he comes down on
Speaker 1: the break and one of the Ohio State defenders reaches
Speaker 1: in ties him up held ball. I think it was
Speaker 1: Kentucky's ball, But they failed to score, and I thought
Speaker 1: that if they don't get that bucket, I'm wondering are
Speaker 1: they ever going to get back on track. It is
Speaker 1: that kind of night, wasn't it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, It just they just Kentucky, I thought, just seemed
Speaker 3: kind of about a step behind the whole night. Yeah,
Speaker 3: Our buddy Mike Pragg used to talk about a term
Speaker 3: called game slippage, and essentially it refers to you your
Speaker 3: team's rolling along and you just kind of lose a
Speaker 3: little bit of your edge or focus on to what
Speaker 3: the you know, your plan is, your approach it. And
Speaker 3: for this particular team, they don't, as Pope reiterated after
Speaker 3: the game, they're not. You know, it's not a team
Speaker 3: built to just you know, okay, I mean a mom
Speaker 3: Butler got thirty three against Louisville, but you know, you
Speaker 3: don't have a guy that you can just kind of
Speaker 3: lean on to get you through the night when you're
Speaker 3: struggling to go ahead and get you twenty five. And
Speaker 3: they've got to do it collectively, kind of like a
Speaker 3: think like an offensive line in football.
Speaker 4: And they.
Speaker 3: In that game just seemed a little bit off. And
Speaker 3: the best example I can think of it a six
Speaker 3: point game. Kentucky had a run going, Brea had hit
Speaker 3: a three, they got it to six, and they have
Speaker 3: the ball in transition one of the few times they
Speaker 3: got out and ran and Oway makes a fantastic pass
Speaker 3: as he's coming across the midpoint line. It fires a
Speaker 3: bullet to Garrison right under the basket. He's gonna catch it,
Speaker 3: dunk it, and make it a four point game, except
Speaker 3: he fumbles the ball at Ohio State takes it away
Speaker 3: and goes down and calls time out and comes out
Speaker 3: of that time out it hits a three, and that
Speaker 3: was essentially the game. This Kentucky never made a real
Speaker 3: run after that.
Speaker 1: It's exact. I've had more people have brought that up
Speaker 1: to me, and I remember that. Yeah, because you talk
Speaker 1: about turning points, emotionally, momentum, all that stuff. But you
Speaker 1: know they're going to learn from it. But they've got
Speaker 1: another weekend off before they get back to work. We'll
Speaker 1: talk more basketball with Tom Leach on the other side
Speaker 1: of the break here on a big Blue Sider six
Speaker 1: thirty WLAP Welcome back. We're talking with Tom Lea's the
Speaker 1: voice of the while Cats, and of course he called
Speaker 1: the action as the Wildcats lost to Ohio State up
Speaker 1: in New York. And yeah, there was there was, you know,
Speaker 1: no big gun to the rescue. They haven't had that
Speaker 1: all year. We knew that going in, but I think
Speaker 1: a lot of us Tom thought and I'm not laying
Speaker 1: any blame in his feed. But we all thought that
Speaker 1: Jackson Robinson might become that might kind of develop into
Speaker 1: that kind of go to guy instead of Totega oh way,
Speaker 1: which is fine, you love to have more than one.
Speaker 1: But uh, I'm a little surprised that Robinson has been
Speaker 1: a little more deliberate, let's say, in his development. What
Speaker 1: have you seen?
Speaker 3: Yeah, he is probably not scored consistently as at a
Speaker 3: higher level is maybe the best way to look at it.
Speaker 3: And I think probably he's been a little more up
Speaker 3: and down in his production game in a game at
Speaker 3: place hard. I mean it's not like he disappears. He
Speaker 3: gets been solid enough to sensively you know, good as
Speaker 3: to turnover ratio, all those things. It's just that the
Speaker 3: shooting percentage isn't what you would have expected for him.
Speaker 3: He's shooting him just looking at it here now, thirty
Speaker 3: percent on threes. Last year he shot thirty five years
Speaker 3: before thirty four, year before thirty three, So a little
Speaker 3: under on that percentage. Not getting quite as much at
Speaker 3: the free throw line as he did last year. Percentage
Speaker 3: still good, but just as many opportunities two point shots,
Speaker 3: about the same turnover rates down. I mean, if you
Speaker 3: just look at his numbers, rebounding rate is up to
Speaker 3: a career high. So there's a lot of things to
Speaker 3: like about if you just kind of look at the numbers,
Speaker 3: But then you look at his points, and he's been
Speaker 3: pretty consistently double figures. But just look at the last
Speaker 3: four games ten, twelve, eleven, eighteen twelve. I think probably
Speaker 3: you'd think maybe it'd be more you know, average year
Speaker 3: around fifteen sixteen, he'd be the leading scorer. So it's
Speaker 3: probably a little unfair to say it's any big issue
Speaker 3: because he has consistently scored their both figures. But you know,
Speaker 3: and part of it maybe just the system and you
Speaker 3: know what they're what they're doing. It's kind of it's
Speaker 3: not designed to make one guy, you know, be the guy.
Speaker 3: It's going to be whoever gets open. And you know,
Speaker 3: he was the guy that I think a lot of
Speaker 3: people expected to maybe score at a higher level, and
Speaker 3: so the opposing teams know that and maybe get a
Speaker 3: little more of the off or the defense toward him.
Speaker 3: But maybe that's why Olway has scored a little higher
Speaker 3: level than we expected.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's going to be a group effort. Whatever happens
Speaker 1: is going to be a group effort. And I played
Speaker 1: the comment from from Mark Pope a couple of minutes
Speaker 1: ago about the fact that and he mentioned this before
Speaker 1: for one of the other games that they kind of reverted,
Speaker 1: they got away from quote the system when they were
Speaker 1: trying to make up ground and went back to what
Speaker 1: they knew from their previous stops at other places where
Speaker 1: they had to stick with what they were trying to do.
Speaker 1: And I think you know that the instances like that,
Speaker 1: I think will become fewer and fewer as the year
Speaker 1: goes on. But they've really got to knuckle down with
Speaker 1: the SEC schedule coming up, don't they.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they do. There's a couple of things. I think.
Speaker 3: One they're missing Creasa more than is being talked about.
Speaker 3: He was a great change of pace guy, and the
Speaker 3: course he was telling me, not many teams had the
Speaker 3: luxury of having a veteran starting point guard coming off
Speaker 3: the bench, so and it was a different kind of
Speaker 3: point guff So it kind of changed the pace of
Speaker 3: the game. And he gets he was the guy got
Speaker 3: them up and down the floor a little bit more. So.
Speaker 3: It was a good combo with him and Butler, and
Speaker 3: they'll get that back. He'll be back it'll be probably
Speaker 3: the last third of the season. And then you know,
Speaker 3: Andrew Carr. I think when if you look at the
Speaker 3: Gonzaga game, his two best games probably in Gonzaga, and
Speaker 3: those are the two biggest wins for Kentucky. And so
Speaker 3: maybe you know, he's a guy at you know, Christmas,
Speaker 3: Ohio State thirteen points and you know, four rebounds, you're
Speaker 3: like a little more rebounding, but thirteen points that they
Speaker 3: solid out him. But maybe he needs to be a
Speaker 3: little more, you know, could be a little more assertive
Speaker 3: offensively because you know, he can score in so many
Speaker 3: different ways.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and he was frustrated as well, but I thought
Speaker 1: Ohio State did a good job on him. But they've
Speaker 1: just got to learn to play through this. And as
Speaker 1: we said, Ohio State, we well, you know, you kind
Speaker 1: of have to throw out and you love horse racing throughout.
Speaker 1: The Auburn game is a bad race because that State
Speaker 1: Yeah that was yeah, that was because not who they were.
Speaker 3: No, because I went back and looked at that game.
Speaker 3: In the first half, Auburn made nine to three in
Speaker 3: Ohio State made one, so the game was over and halftime.
Speaker 3: When you have that kind of you know, dispairity. Auburn
Speaker 3: block thirteen shots in that game, so there were just
Speaker 3: some some freakishly good Auburn stats. Bradshaw didn't play in
Speaker 3: that game either. Again, I think his his production to
Speaker 3: get eleven points off the bench, Kentucky really got very
Speaker 3: little out of its bench and Ohio State was able
Speaker 3: to get a lot. Bradshaw scored eleven, Hafe had six,
Speaker 3: Glover had nine, So that's twenty six points off those
Speaker 3: three guys coming off the bench. Excuse me. Kentucky ended
Speaker 3: up with eleven points off its bench, so that was
Speaker 3: a significant advantage for Ohio State. You know, I think
Speaker 3: Kentucky needed a little more production out of out of
Speaker 3: its bench guys. Brandon Garrison was really good against Gonzaga
Speaker 3: and Duke in those two big games. He didn't have
Speaker 3: his best game in this one. Yeah, some of that
Speaker 3: sometimes it's going to happen, gonna go through the SEC.
Speaker 3: They're gonna be some nights when you are made to
Speaker 3: look bad in this league. I was looking at the
Speaker 3: the Ken Palm numbers. Fifteen of the sixteen teams are
Speaker 3: ten and two are better.
Speaker 1: Amazing.
Speaker 3: Just in Kentucky's first three opponents are combined thirty four
Speaker 3: and two Lord of Georgia, and it's like two them
Speaker 3: on the road. Now some of them, you know, Georgia.
Speaker 3: You look at you know who some of these teams
Speaker 3: have beaten and it's not a lot, but you know,
Speaker 3: Georgia did beat you know, a solid Saint John's team
Speaker 3: and played Marquette to an eleven point loss. But you
Speaker 3: look at you know, Mississippi State's eleven and one. You
Speaker 3: know they have I'm looking at here. They beat Doug Memphis,
Speaker 3: that's really their their best win. They lost a Butler
Speaker 3: by ten, So they have a nice record, But don't
Speaker 3: you know, have a lot of marquee wins and yet
Speaker 3: and yet when you watch them play, they sure look good. Yeah,
Speaker 3: you know, Myths has had a little more in terms
Speaker 3: of marquee wins. Texas not much. Oklahoma's twelve and oh
Speaker 3: probably their best win might be Louisville, you know, but
Speaker 3: you know, Missouri was winless in the league last year
Speaker 3: and beat Kansas. That's probably the best. You know, comment
Speaker 3: or whatever on the on the strength of the league
Speaker 3: this year, where a team that was winless in eighteen
Speaker 3: league games last year had Kansas down by twenty pretty
Speaker 3: much the whole game. He is.
Speaker 1: Tom Leach is the voice of the Wildcatch you hear
Speaker 1: him on this very radio station each and every morning,
Speaker 1: and of course broadcasting the Kentucky games with Jack Evans.
Speaker 1: Follow him on extra, Twitter or whatever you like at
Speaker 1: Tom Leach, Ky and Thomas will see you at Rupp Arena.
Speaker 3: Sounds good, happy here here.
Speaker 1: Our number two is next with local twelves Richard Skinner
Speaker 1: out of Cincinnati and West n Bureau chief Gary Moore
Speaker 1: here on six point thirty WLAP. Welcome back to the
Speaker 1: big moone side of joining us now. Longtime friend of
Speaker 1: the show and a guy we've known for ever. Richard
Speaker 1: Skinner Local twelve up in Cincinnati. He does really a
Speaker 1: little bit of everything TV radio, he writes for the
Speaker 1: Internet coaches Basketball. But Skinny, let me start off first
Speaker 1: of all, Merry Christmas to you. Let's ask about the
Speaker 1: Cincinnati Bengals, who played tomorrow mathematically alive. But they're a
Speaker 1: long shot in the playoffs, right yeah.
Speaker 8: I mean, they gotta have a lot of things happen.
Speaker 8: First and foremost, they've got to win these final two games,
Speaker 8: one of them against Denver.
Speaker 3: They need Denver to.
Speaker 8: Lose the final two which would be obviously if they
Speaker 8: went on Bengals beat them on Saturday.
Speaker 3: That's one of them, and.
Speaker 8: It's an odd one. They play Kansas City in the finale,
Speaker 8: and the question then is how long or at all
Speaker 8: does Kansas City play at starters after they wrapped up.
Speaker 3: The one seed.
Speaker 8: It isn't interesting to let me even for Andy reid
Speaker 8: Dick because if he chooses not to and he doesn't
Speaker 8: know the Bengals anything, I'm just laying the scenario out.
Speaker 8: If he chooses not to play starters, they're going to
Speaker 8: not play a game for twenty five days between them
Speaker 8: playing on Christmas Day and their first playoff game at
Speaker 8: a long time for guys to not play, So I
Speaker 8: would think he plays them some I'm sure some of
Speaker 8: us with trepidation, especially Patrick, and maybe maybe he plays
Speaker 8: a chunk of the starters, and the chunk of the
Speaker 8: starters don't have Patrick Mahomes's name on it, maybe it's
Speaker 8: Carson Win.
Speaker 1: Yes, it's an.
Speaker 8: Interesting limit to see what takes place. But even then,
Speaker 8: even then, let's just say Bergman stake Kansas City does
Speaker 8: beat Denver, the team that's kind of in the driver's
Speaker 8: seat if that happens, is Indianapolis. They've got two really
Speaker 8: winnable games left at the New York Giants and then
Speaker 8: home to Jacksonville. Now you can always says, you know,
Speaker 8: trip up on the road in the NFL. I don't
Speaker 8: know if you trip up with the Giants because they're
Speaker 8: just so bad, but it's always a possibility. And the
Speaker 8: Olpins are also still in the mix. They have to
Speaker 8: lose one of their final two games as well, so
Speaker 8: a lot has to happen. But the thing that you
Speaker 8: can control with the moment is beating Denver to at
Speaker 8: least go to the last week at Pittsburgh and have
Speaker 8: a meaningful game in some way, shape or form.
Speaker 1: Denver, to me is such a great story, not just
Speaker 1: because it's my son's favorite team. Started rooting for the
Speaker 1: Broncos just hoping they would beat my Packers back in
Speaker 1: the mid nineties in the serping ball. He's yeah, he's
Speaker 1: that kind of ornery. But I just think the bow
Speaker 1: Knicks story is really interesting. And if not for Jaden
Speaker 1: Daniels in DC, he might be the rookie of the year.
Speaker 8: But yeah, yeah, either either him or Brock Bowers, because
Speaker 8: Brock's right, he's been he's been great. It's funny because
Speaker 8: you know when I watched him at Auburn and they
Speaker 8: threw him right in the Nicks right away, right as
Speaker 8: a freshman, and you know, you still have to take
Speaker 8: that into consideration. That's a true freshmun At times he
Speaker 8: looked the talent. At times he looked it over his
Speaker 8: head and never really came to fruition. And then you
Speaker 8: know when when he transferred and and you know, you
Speaker 8: watch him player, like, Okay, he's probably a product now
Speaker 8: of what he's playing around, but he's really good, and
Speaker 8: they played with strengths. He's a good athlete. They use
Speaker 8: a lot of naked bootleg with him off of their
Speaker 8: run actions, and they like to run the ball. They
Speaker 8: don't ask him to do a ton, but he's also
Speaker 8: capable of dropping back and making some throws. And to
Speaker 8: your point, yeah, I think this is a odd year.
Speaker 8: I mean, there are three legit candidates between bo Nicks,
Speaker 8: jayde Daniels, and uh and Brock Bauers for for NFL
Speaker 8: Rookie of the Year uh In In in another year,
Speaker 8: a normal year, what bo Nix has done would be
Speaker 8: more than well enough and probably end up finishing third
Speaker 8: in the voting.
Speaker 1: You know, when he was at Auburn and of course
Speaker 1: he was the quarterback the COVID year when they beat
Speaker 1: Kentucky and all that. I thought it was the typical
Speaker 1: SEC team, as you said, throw the rookie quarterback in
Speaker 1: there and then just devour him. You know, I guess
Speaker 1: that's where we are to stand. Age, he had very
Speaker 1: little time to develop, and as you point out, he
Speaker 1: was not surrounded by the can't same kind of talent
Speaker 1: he had up at Oregon. But that was just typical,
Speaker 1: wasn't it.
Speaker 8: Yeah, no, no question. And again you know he came
Speaker 8: from a lineage's dad was a quarterback at Aubert and
Speaker 8: that probably factored in a little bit to it as well.
Speaker 8: But yeah, and again we know, you know, you see
Speaker 8: these guys and you know the talent. I mean, you're
Speaker 8: not playing without some level of talent, but you know,
Speaker 8: you're jumping from high school football to playing in the SEC.
Speaker 8: That is that's that's like jumping from college football to
Speaker 8: play in the NFL. That is a huge monks jump.
Speaker 1: That's right. Well, while we're talking quarterbacks in the Bengals,
Speaker 1: as we talk with Richard Skinner or Local twelve, obviously
Speaker 1: we got to talk about Joe Burrow and what kind
Speaker 1: of incredible, slash frustrating year he has had. You must
Speaker 1: just scratch your head every week as you watch this
Speaker 1: team put up so many point and you lose so
Speaker 1: many games.
Speaker 8: Yeah, it's been weird, you know. The storyline obviously in
Speaker 8: training camp was him coming off the wrist search, and
Speaker 8: there were times in camp he didn't look good. There
Speaker 8: were times in camp he flexed the wrists around right,
Speaker 8: and it felt like all of us to cover the
Speaker 8: team on a daily basis or we're on wristwatch for
Speaker 8: a wall. Oh he's putting on a glove today he's
Speaker 8: taking the glove off. What does that mean?
Speaker 1: Uh?
Speaker 8: And then the opening game against New England it looked
Speaker 8: like they didn't they weren't sure what the risk was
Speaker 8: like either, because it was very much a dink and
Speaker 8: dunk checkdown day. Some of that again, it's just the
Speaker 8: structure of what New England did defensively. But really, when
Speaker 8: this team gets rolled, it doesn't matter what the structure
Speaker 8: of the defense is, they're going to pick you apart.
Speaker 8: And that was an not one and it was like, Okay,
Speaker 8: they don't trust the risk either, And then all of
Speaker 8: a sudden, he just started cutting it loose, and a
Speaker 8: question was asked of him with the every day we
Speaker 8: talked to him Tuesday this week because of the holiday,
Speaker 8: usually we talked to him on Wednesdays. And I can't
Speaker 8: remember how the phraseology, I mean a paraphrase here was,
Speaker 8: you know, we haven't even to asked you about the
Speaker 8: risk in five or six weeks. How's it doing? And
Speaker 8: he said, yeah, I don't really think about it a
Speaker 8: ton anymore, and uh so that storyline quickly went away,
Speaker 8: and it is I mean, he's on a roll of
Speaker 8: something that nobody's ever done in the league before. He's
Speaker 8: got seven straight games of two hundred and fifty plus
Speaker 8: passing yards in three touchdowns in seven straight games in
Speaker 8: the National Football League. That's and no other quarterback can Hey,
Speaker 8: you name every quarterback you want to name, no one
Speaker 8: else has ever done it. So he's doing some just
Speaker 8: incredible things. He's about to become the eleventh or twelfth
Speaker 8: quarterback to ever throw forty touchdowns in the season that
Speaker 8: some of those guys have done it multiple times. Yeah,
Speaker 8: but he's only going to be the twelfth different quarterback
Speaker 8: to do it. So he's just putting up some verified
Speaker 8: stuff that if he wasn't on a team that's not
Speaker 8: going to make the playoffs in all likelihood, I truly think
Speaker 8: he's the MVP of the league.
Speaker 1: Wow, and yet they're they're not winning, as we all know,
Speaker 1: because they can't stop the other guys and skinny as
Speaker 1: you know, this is an expensive defense. They got a
Speaker 1: lot of guys making a lot of money. I got
Speaker 1: to think that that as a fan base just phenomenally frustrated.
Speaker 8: Yeah, you know, unfortunately, you know, one of the guys
Speaker 8: that are paying fortunately Trey Henderson is having a good season,
Speaker 8: but otherwise, no, you know, they remade the safety room
Speaker 8: for the second year and signing Von Belt back, signing
Speaker 8: Geno Stone from Baltimore, and Voon is just a shell
Speaker 8: of himself. He lost his starting spot at Jordan Battle
Speaker 8: who struggled to get in shape and training camp and
Speaker 8: he wasn't quite ready early on, and Gino Stone just
Speaker 8: wasn't the same guy that he was in Baltimore. He
Speaker 8: picked off seven passes. In fact, literally, I'm about probably
Speaker 8: a handful of paragraphs away from finishing story of Bengal
Speaker 8: Safety's trying to finish season on redeeming note. You know,
Speaker 8: all three of those guys came away with a takeaway
Speaker 8: last week. You know, Stone with an interception, Jordan Battle
Speaker 8: of interception in the end zone, and the biggest play
Speaker 8: was von Bell punching the ball away at the goal line.
Speaker 8: He only played seven defensive snatch, but he was in
Speaker 8: on goal line defense, punched the ball away and recovered
Speaker 8: it and the Bengals turned around, went ninety nine yards
Speaker 8: instead of trailing seven to nothing. And Geno Stone has
Speaker 8: an interception in each of the last three games. But
Speaker 8: you know, the other part of it is, you know
Speaker 8: they missed on some draft picks. You know, Miles Murphy,
Speaker 8: the first round pick last year, doesn't he I think
Speaker 8: he got one quarterback pressure doesn't he doesn't play it.
Speaker 8: In fact, Joseph Osai, who was a third round pick
Speaker 8: a few years ago, is playing over him at the moment.
Speaker 8: And so, yeah, they spend a lot of money on
Speaker 8: that defensive line. They haven't quite gotten the production. They've
Speaker 8: gotten some rookie start to do some things. But even
Speaker 8: to the point of the story I'm writing, and even
Speaker 8: to some of the things of the last three weeks,
Speaker 8: and they won three games in a row. You also
Speaker 8: have to swallow hard go. Yeah, but it was Cooper Rush,
Speaker 8: Will Levice and Dorian Thompson Robbinson. I mean, okay, you
Speaker 8: should have beaten those guys, right, but you know, you
Speaker 8: gotta find a story somewhere. Right now, it's the redemption
Speaker 8: story for the safety room. But we'll see if they
Speaker 8: can do that against bo Nixon and his crew.
Speaker 1: Is there any danger that Joe Burrow and I realized
Speaker 1: contracts or contracts, but any contract can be changed, beaten whatever.
Speaker 1: Burrow throws up his hands at some point and says,
Speaker 1: you know what, I'm wasting myself here. And he's had
Speaker 1: great success in the past with the Bengals, but I'm
Speaker 1: wondering could he say, look, I got to go someplace
Speaker 1: where I'm not squandered.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 8: I don't think we're there yet, but I do think this,
Speaker 8: and I think there was palpable frustration with him, you know,
Speaker 8: even after the Dallas game where they win one and
Speaker 8: it was a very telling thing when it was Joe Burrow,
Speaker 8: T Higgins, Jamar Chase went out for the coins off.
Speaker 8: They've never done it as a group before, and of
Speaker 8: course Jamar is you know, he's on the fifth year option.
Speaker 8: But he's he had obviously contentious negotiations to try to
Speaker 8: get an extension. He's playing on the franchise tag and
Speaker 8: after the game, I mean, the storyline was about the win,
Speaker 8: and they won it a weird way. All of a sudden,
Speaker 8: Joe Burrow hits this with, Yeah, I'm pretty confident we're
Speaker 8: gonna get TV signed, and it was like, wait a minute,
Speaker 8: you are well. A few days later, t drops his
Speaker 8: agent and picks up Jamar's agent. I think Joe knows
Speaker 8: in order to get him resigned, he's going to probably
Speaker 8: have to restructure his contract into probably getting a different
Speaker 8: signing bonus to pro rate the money out across the
Speaker 8: cap as approsed to I mean, just giant chunks of
Speaker 8: guaranteed money. And I think that's the frustration for him
Speaker 8: at the moment, is, Hey, I want this guy back.
Speaker 8: I'm basically telling everybody I want this guy back, and
Speaker 8: I'm going to try to make it work to get
Speaker 8: this guy back. I think if they don't do that,
Speaker 8: they don't address the defense, and he's playing forty one
Speaker 8: thirty eight shootouts again next year. I think that's when
Speaker 8: the frustrat we're really get in. But I will also
Speaker 8: tell you he's still got about one hundred and ninety
Speaker 8: million dollars of guaranteed money coming twice the Cincinnati Bengals,
Speaker 8: So yeah, he can be frustrated, but that's a lot
Speaker 8: of that's a lot of dough.
Speaker 1: Richard Skinner is my guest from Local twelve TV up
Speaker 1: in Cincinnati. Will come back and talk more with Skinny
Speaker 1: in just a minute here on the Big bloom Sider
Speaker 1: six thirty WLAP. Welcome back. We're talking with Richard Skinner.
Speaker 1: He covers all kinds of things for Local twelve up
Speaker 1: in Cincinnati. But right now we're talking about those Cincinnati
Speaker 1: Bengals and Man last night. And some people say the
Speaker 1: NFL is almost unwatchable this year. There have been some
Speaker 1: great games, but what is it? I mean that that
Speaker 1: Bears Seahawks you. I couldn't watch it, Skinny. I had
Speaker 1: to turn it off. It just seems like you've got
Speaker 1: the handful of the cream of the crop up here
Speaker 1: and everything else is just not even worth tuning in.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I did have to watch Dick because I'm in
Speaker 8: the in the playoffs in my fantasy league and Gina
Speaker 8: Smith is my quarterback for me, and that didn't work
Speaker 8: out so last ninety free games, so I need some
Speaker 8: others to take up the slack. I'll be honest with you.
Speaker 8: The Bengals offensive line gets a lot of knocks for
Speaker 8: allowing sacks, and you know they've allowed thirty seven sacks
Speaker 8: in approximately six hundred and twenty dropbacks.
Speaker 3: That's not awful.
Speaker 8: I think the problem is. I think you saw it
Speaker 8: last night with the Bears into some degree in Seattle
Speaker 8: to Pittsburgh on on If you watch the Netflix game
Speaker 8: on Christmas Day against Kansas City, offensive line plays just horrible.
Speaker 8: And I don't know if that's because we've gone to
Speaker 8: all the spread quick get it out of your hand
Speaker 8: stuff in college that you're not developing one blockers or
Speaker 8: guys who have to do you know, seven step past
Speaker 8: drop sets. But man, it just feels like everybody's scrambling.
Speaker 8: So in the prison of Cincinnati Bengals fans are offense
Speaker 8: on line stinks. Well, there are parts of us that
Speaker 8: are struggle. I mean, the guard play has been horrible
Speaker 8: and they've you know, they're taking Courto Bolson out again
Speaker 8: this week and putting Cody Forty in because Orlando Brown
Speaker 8: is back. But you look across this league. There's a
Speaker 8: lot of bad offensive line play, and I think that's
Speaker 8: part of it. That just lea's up the games because
Speaker 8: even when they maybe do something well eighteen yard game
Speaker 8: holding number seventy three on the offense, you know why
Speaker 8: they game block. And I think that's where we're at.
Speaker 1: Unfortunately, that's a great point and it hits home here.
Speaker 1: I know you keep an eye on a lockcat. You
Speaker 1: covered Kentucky, but fans are unhappy with two mediocre seasons
Speaker 1: in a losing season, and you know you can you
Speaker 1: can look at the portal and then I own this
Speaker 1: and that. But and I'm not blaming any one kid
Speaker 1: in particular, but the old line has not been anywhere
Speaker 1: close to what it was with Stoops's best teams. And
Speaker 1: it all starts there, doesn't.
Speaker 8: It, no question? And I mean I think the second
Speaker 8: game of the year against South Carolina were the alarm
Speaker 8: bells just began ringing big time, like, oh no, they
Speaker 8: can't block anybody, and they really couldn't. And you know,
Speaker 8: I'm not gonna I know it's easy to point the
Speaker 8: finger of blame of going to the pool and getting
Speaker 8: guys all that. I get why you got to do
Speaker 8: it at the same time when they were really good,
Speaker 8: and it's as hard to do as you know, because
Speaker 8: when you have this sort of stamps, guys then turn
Speaker 8: around and leave. Was when John Slarmo's the offensive line
Speaker 8: coach and they would develop ten guys basically at the
Speaker 8: time of you know what, I can plug this guy here,
Speaker 8: this guy here, guy snaps here, And there's always somebody
Speaker 8: in the pipeline to do that. And again I'm not
Speaker 8: blaming Eric Wolfer or the current staff or any that
Speaker 8: because it's a different landscape than even five or six
Speaker 8: years ago when it was a big blue wall. It's
Speaker 8: just that felt like the right formula. Let's just get
Speaker 8: our guys. We'll develop them. Guys aren't patient though, right
Speaker 8: If I'm not playing by my sophomore here playing the
Speaker 8: snaps I want to play, I just plug my name
Speaker 8: in the portal and go somewhere else. And I think
Speaker 8: that's the challenge at the moment.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Stoops and Vince Maryland nurse, they you know, evaluate, recruit,
Speaker 1: sign them, develop them, coach them up, and plug them in.
Speaker 1: And as you say, you just can't do that now
Speaker 1: with all the movement, and you know how about Lara
Speaker 1: Andaga in Miami. I talked about this off the top
Speaker 1: of the show, just up and you know, here's a
Speaker 1: guy eighteen months from a final four and he said,
Speaker 1: I can't do this anymore. And he ain't the only one.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I think he said, I paraphrase, you get a
Speaker 8: you know, I kind of realized when a guy has
Speaker 8: for one point two million dollars and I'm not doing
Speaker 8: I'm not ready for this now. And I think you're
Speaker 8: gonna see more. I think you are seeing more and
Speaker 8: more that are just fed up. And again I'll go
Speaker 8: back to Mark and his staff. You know, when you
Speaker 8: go to the portal, you think you're getting a fairly
Speaker 8: established guy, but you possibly missed or this guy just
Speaker 8: decided I got paid. I'm good. I'm not going to
Speaker 8: be to be an NFL guy. I'm I got mine.
Speaker 8: I'm good. I'll I'll do just enough. And that's just
Speaker 8: I think it's really a tough evaluation, I really do.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Or I'll stay healthy so I'll be ready for
Speaker 1: the draft.
Speaker 3: Right, No, that's right.
Speaker 8: Yeah, that's the other part. Yeah, make a business decisions.
Speaker 1: Yep. If you've ben us left with skinny, let me
Speaker 1: get your thoughts real quick, just on what you've seen
Speaker 1: from up the interstate of Mark Pope and his team.
Speaker 1: I know, not a happy day up in New York.
Speaker 1: I talked about the Ohio State loss earlier, but brother,
Speaker 1: it's a different age down here and election when it
Speaker 1: comes to basketball, well.
Speaker 8: You know you'll have to state game's gonna temper the
Speaker 8: enthusiasm a little bit, and understandably.
Speaker 6: So.
Speaker 8: The only thing I think that's a little alarming, not completely,
Speaker 8: but a little it is the last two games athletic
Speaker 8: lead slash point guards really did their business. Chuckie Hepburn
Speaker 8: of Louisville and then Bruce Thornton of Ohio State. They
Speaker 8: just had a really hard time guarding those guys and
Speaker 8: keeping them from scoring. And then the two losses, the
Speaker 8: Clemson loss and then this one. Offensively, Listen, our head
Speaker 8: coach is where I coach. I'm an assistant coach at Beechwood
Speaker 8: High School. He actually went to a Mark invited a
Speaker 8: handful of coaches down for a clinic before the seasons already.
Speaker 8: He went down and fell in love with everything he
Speaker 8: was doing. So we had offensive stuff and he's like, no,
Speaker 8: I'm putting all zoom acts of stuff there. We're gona
Speaker 8: run our stuff, but he goes, I goes that stuff's
Speaker 8: just really good.
Speaker 1: It is.
Speaker 8: It's really good when you're running it and guys are
Speaker 8: making shots, right, and we've seen it. I mean the
Speaker 8: Clemson game, there was really no answer when you weren't
Speaker 8: making shots, and then the Ohio stinky and there really
Speaker 8: wasn't an answer when you weren't making shots. And they
Speaker 8: don't have a ton of dynamic players who can take
Speaker 8: you off the dribble and get their own I don't
Speaker 8: mean to pick Jackson Robbins has been a bit of
Speaker 8: a disappointment to me. And again I'm saying this despite
Speaker 8: the fact that they have arguably the two best on
Speaker 8: conference wins of anybody in the country this year and
Speaker 8: the duke winning the Gonzaga within. The only thing that
Speaker 8: flipside that is what is it night off in the
Speaker 8: SEC this year? For anybody there's there's to forget it exactly.
Speaker 8: It's it's gonna be a dogfight. So I mean, even
Speaker 8: if this team goes eleven and seven in the league,
Speaker 8: I probably would look and go I did pretty dog
Speaker 8: on Well. I don't know where that puts him for
Speaker 8: a seed and I think that's where the enthusiasm of
Speaker 8: with the one loss, the Clemson loss, a close one
Speaker 8: on the road, and coming back and beating the Zagon,
Speaker 8: you felt like they'll take care of Ohio State and
Speaker 8: obviously they're gonna take care of Colgate on Wednesday or
Speaker 8: on New Year's Eve on Tuesday. That you know, going
Speaker 8: the SEC with one loss and maybe you'll lose four
Speaker 8: or five games and you're in a mix for a
Speaker 8: one or a two seeds. I think we all got
Speaker 8: over our skis, myself included because I will plead guilty
Speaker 8: to being that. But I do think they have some
Speaker 8: issues in certain circumstances that there's gotta be some other
Speaker 8: answer if you're not making shots. And I know that
Speaker 8: sounds simplistic, but there's nobody to throw it to in
Speaker 8: the post. I thought maybe Andrew Carr in the Clemson game,
Speaker 8: they had got him a little more in the post,
Speaker 8: but I get it, you're trying to run your stuff,
Speaker 8: and even then they had a shot to win that game.
Speaker 8: But to me, the defensive stuff with the two athletic
Speaker 8: point guards the last two weeks, that's a little ding
Speaker 8: ding new for me at the.
Speaker 1: Moment, That's a great point because Butler gets in foul trouble, right,
Speaker 1: and then what happens, you know, and they you can
Speaker 1: you can find somebody to run your stuff. But you're right,
Speaker 1: I mean, how do you guard and your boy? The
Speaker 1: Ohuse State guards got to the rim. It seemed like
Speaker 1: whenever they.
Speaker 8: Felt every time Yeah, yeah, just a.
Speaker 1: Couple of minutes. Let but to your point about running
Speaker 1: their stuff. I had a comment from Pope earlier. Uh
Speaker 1: he was saying that what happened was against Ohio State
Speaker 1: and against Clemson's well they would abandon what they were
Speaker 1: supposed to do and revert to what they knew from
Speaker 1: three or four years at other places. And he said,
Speaker 1: they're not being selfish, They're trying to win, but they've
Speaker 1: got to stick stick with the programs. Son, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean, that's a fair call.
Speaker 8: And sometimes you know that happens, like you know, you
Speaker 8: have a set call, do you have action call? Do
Speaker 8: you want the action continue? And a guy you know
Speaker 8: his missed three straight shots or you've got five straight
Speaker 8: empty trips of no, I think my way is going
Speaker 8: to be the best at the moment, and it's not.
Speaker 8: I mean I get that and that's kind of the
Speaker 8: end of the hang of coaching, right as you know,
Speaker 8: if you'll hope guys follow the rules and sometimes they
Speaker 8: just revert to trying to to do things on their own.
Speaker 8: And so I just am fascinated about what this SEC
Speaker 8: is going to be, not just for Kentucky but for
Speaker 8: everybody the SEC and where I am in Cincinnati with
Speaker 8: the Big Twelve and even to some degree the Big East.
Speaker 8: But Xavier's down at the moment because their best player
Speaker 8: is hurt. I mean, U See is a really good team,
Speaker 8: and Dick they have a chance. I don't think it's gonnappen.
Speaker 8: They a chance to start owen for in the Big Twelve.
Speaker 8: I don't think they will. But their first games are
Speaker 8: at Kansas State, which isn't great, but it's at Kansas State.
Speaker 8: Then they play Arizona and they play Kansas and I'm
Speaker 8: growing and Baylor in their first four games. I mean
Speaker 8: in Kentucky opens big Big SEC play with Florida. Yeah,
Speaker 8: I mean you are you buckle in, folks, because it
Speaker 8: is going to be a crazy, crazy ride if you're
Speaker 8: a college basketball fan in some of these major conference bumped.
Speaker 1: Into hoops wise, in Madison, Square Garden. He said, I
Speaker 1: could say champion regular season having six losses in the league. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and not entirely possible. Whatever happens, Richard Skinner will keep
Speaker 1: an eye on it for Local twelve up in Cincinnati.
Speaker 1: That's how you find him on X or Twitter. Skinny.
Speaker 1: Have a great new year coming up, and we'll keep
Speaker 1: in touch.
Speaker 8: Absolutely, did you two? Take care?
Speaker 1: West End Bureau Chief Gary Moore next on six thirty
Speaker 1: WLAP Welcome back to the Big Blue and Cider. Joining
Speaker 1: us now is our Christmas elf. He is our West
Speaker 1: End Bureau Chief. Gary Moore, a long time West Coast
Speaker 1: Bureau chief when he worked at KELOST Radio in Los Angeles,
Speaker 1: but now in LA the Louisville area, joins us each
Speaker 1: and every week. I'm certain you had a great holiday.
Speaker 9: I did, and you and your bride as well, and
Speaker 9: your family and the furry friends there did the same.
Speaker 1: All good.
Speaker 9: Well, we haven't talked since I guess last week when
Speaker 9: all the hoopball was going on. Dick, I'm sorry, but
Speaker 9: I got to join the whiners, all the whiners complaining
Speaker 9: that the about all these blowout college football games, I mean,
Speaker 9: based on the teams, based on the teams. We thought
Speaker 9: the Myrtle Beach ball would be close, but ut San
Speaker 9: Antonio forty four to fifteen over coach of Carolina. Come on,
Speaker 9: man again, experts.
Speaker 1: You know death spend a lot of time worrying about
Speaker 1: that one, do you? Oh?
Speaker 9: Man, I was so disappointed. I was so looking forward
Speaker 9: to that. Death taxes and cry babies about college playoff games.
Speaker 9: Not remember TCU and Georgia. Yeah, it's still going on,
Speaker 9: and so I find somewhere. May I remind the little
Speaker 9: lanies of Oxford that in the ten years of the
Speaker 9: fourteen playoffs leading up to these twelve, do you know
Speaker 9: what the average score was? Forty to twenty one.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 9: I will repeat that. For those who do not remember
Speaker 9: playoff history, they are condemned to be reminded by football
Speaker 9: junkies like me that the average college football playoff score
Speaker 9: in the last ten years with those four teams every
Speaker 9: year forty to twenty one, according to the Athletic. And
Speaker 9: for those with their panties into not because Indiana got in.
Speaker 9: At least A they didn't lose to Bandy on the
Speaker 9: road or to UK at home, and b the Hoosiers
Speaker 9: lost by fewer points than SMU did, or Clemson did
Speaker 9: or Crocky Top so eat at Herb Street. And by
Speaker 9: the way, Herb your Alba Mater, lost to a Michigan
Speaker 9: team again at home, and a Michigan team that Indiana beat.
Speaker 9: So there's some logic for you.
Speaker 1: It seems to me, Dick.
Speaker 9: If you beat a ranked team, then you tank against
Speaker 9: an unranked team, you kind of offset everything. Yep, I
Speaker 9: you didn't offset anything. And for the record, just go
Speaker 9: back last week into our picks. I was one for four.
Speaker 9: You know, I had IU, I had SMU. Yeah, and
Speaker 9: that ugly Orange school. I know you did way better
Speaker 9: than I did.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, I'm watching these games and I'm thinking, of course,
Speaker 1: reason being, all right, SMU has to move to the
Speaker 1: frigid North. Here are guys who when they started I'm
Speaker 1: not making excuses, this is just reasons. When they started
Speaker 1: their preseason workouts, they were in one hundred and five
Speaker 1: degree weather yep. And of course the season wears on.
Speaker 1: But here they are playing this team from Texas, playing
Speaker 1: in fridging conditions like that. That's home field advantage, That's
Speaker 1: part of it. My other point is, and weather figured
Speaker 1: in a couple times, But I really believe that Notre
Speaker 1: Dame was underseedd. I think Ohio State was underseated, but
Speaker 1: it's their own fault for the reason you just gave.
Speaker 1: Don't lose the Northern Illinoist home. Don't lose to Michigan
Speaker 1: again when you're clearly better. Take care of business, and
Speaker 1: then the games look a little bit more. I guess
Speaker 1: the biggest one gary that surprised me was Tennessee, given
Speaker 1: that that was one of the more at least what
Speaker 1: we saw physical teams in the sec They got punched
Speaker 1: in the mouth and never responded.
Speaker 9: Second swig in our two guys in a six pack here.
Speaker 9: Let's go on to the quarterfinals now. Game one Tuesday,
Speaker 9: New Year's e Fiesta Bowl, Glendale, Arizona, seven thirty pm
Speaker 9: on ESPN, with the aforementioned Penn State Nitney Lions ten
Speaker 9: and a half point favorites over Boise. I'm picking the
Speaker 9: Nitney Lions, but I'm rooting for Ashton, Jenny and Boise
Speaker 9: to win that one. Then on New Year's Day, the
Speaker 9: next three on up first at one o'clock, and by
Speaker 9: the way, all the games are on ESPN one o'clock.
Speaker 9: Peach Bowl in Atlanta, Texas, a thirteen and a half
Speaker 9: point favorite over Arizona State. I will take the long
Speaker 9: horns of Texas over the satanic devil horns of Asu.
Speaker 9: Then at five o'clock, the Granddaddy of them all in Pasadena,
Speaker 9: my former address, the Rose Bowl, top ranked Oregon two
Speaker 9: and a half point underdogs against the Buckeyes. Dick, I'm
Speaker 9: gonna pick the Ducks anyway, mostly with my heart because
Speaker 9: I love Oregon some of my head, but honestly, I
Speaker 9: don't know if they can beat Ohio State twice. And finally,
Speaker 9: eight forty five pm New Year's Night, ESPN wraps up
Speaker 9: the day with the Sugar Bowl New Orleans, Georgia Bulldogs, Dogs,
Speaker 9: I mean dogs, two point favorite. I'm sorry, yeah, two
Speaker 9: point favorites over Notre Dame. Call me crazy, but I'm
Speaker 9: actually gonna pick the Irish in this one.
Speaker 1: No, go ahead, No, I like your I like your picks.
Speaker 1: I'll be rooting when I was growing up as a
Speaker 1: Penn State fan, but I'll be roading for Boise. I
Speaker 1: think that'll be a better story. I think if Boise
Speaker 1: gets off to the proverbial goods start, that one could
Speaker 1: go down to the wire. Penn State, I think is
Speaker 1: really good. I have to give James Franklin credit. I
Speaker 1: will root for the Ducks as well, because any any
Speaker 1: guy named Gabriel playing quarterback with my initials. But the
Speaker 1: other thing too, is I have a an army of
Speaker 1: cousins who moved the family moved out to Portland from
Speaker 1: West Virginia. They're massive Oregon Duck fans. And I'm a
Speaker 1: Richforks fan, and he's a He's an Oregon Duck deep down.
Speaker 1: But I do believe it'll be tough to win that game,
Speaker 1: but I'll go with Oregon. I think Arizona State, if
Speaker 1: it gets off to the good start, can can cover
Speaker 1: the thirteen. But Texas, Texas has way too many athletes.
Speaker 1: And you know i'm Quinn Yours. You know I got
Speaker 1: to see him up close and personal, good game manager,
Speaker 1: and I think that's what this will take. I think
Speaker 1: Texas just too good for ASU, and I will pick
Speaker 1: Notre Dame as well. Like I said, I think they've
Speaker 1: been under seated and Georgia is gonna be with that
Speaker 1: Carson Beck. They got a good backup quarterback. But I
Speaker 1: think Notre Dame is sneaky good if you can be
Speaker 1: that as Notre Dame.
Speaker 9: Just in case, my friend Ross Biork, who is the
Speaker 9: athletic director at Ohio State's listening. Ross, you guys win,
Speaker 9: I'll be very happy for you. I'll still be rooting
Speaker 9: for the Ducks. Third swig in a six pack Bowl Mania.
Speaker 9: The rest of them now in full forth. Five bowl
Speaker 9: games today, including the Liberty Bowl going on right now
Speaker 9: as we speak down in Memphis. That's Texas, Texas, Arkansas
Speaker 9: and ESPN Holiday Bowl coming up at the end of
Speaker 9: the hour of a DIC at eight o'clock, Number twenty
Speaker 9: one Syracuse and Wazoo Washington State. That's done Fox, and
Speaker 9: then there's still more ten thirty tonight ESPN, the Vegas Bowl, Texas,
Speaker 9: A and m and USC. Then tomorrow eight kind of
Speaker 9: eight bowl games, but only three with ranked teams. Those
Speaker 9: three will include our new favorite and you're definitely yours,
Speaker 9: Pop Tarts Bowl from Orlando. Yeah, with the real toaster
Speaker 9: in the trophy. Number eighteen Iowa State and number thirteen Miami.
Speaker 9: That's at three thirty tomorrow on ABC at seven thirty.
Speaker 9: Also in ABC, this looks really juicy. The Alimui Bowl,
Speaker 9: Number seventeen BYU and number twenty three Colorado. They do here,
Speaker 9: then at nine fifteen on ESPN, number twenty two Army
Speaker 9: and LA Tech down in the Independence Bowl. No bowl
Speaker 9: games on Sunday, just one on Monday, Music City Bowl
Speaker 9: Iowa and number nineteen Missouri, and before the Fiesta Bowl
Speaker 9: on Tuesday, Dick New Year's Eve. There's four bowl games
Speaker 9: in order, number eleven Bama and Michigan, Louisville and Washington,
Speaker 9: number thirteen South Carolina, and number twenty Illinois. And then
Speaker 9: you've got Baylor and LSU. Besides the pop Tarts bawl.
Speaker 9: I definitely want to see BYU and hopefully see him
Speaker 9: beat Colorado and maybe Michigan beat Bama.
Speaker 6: Two fingers.
Speaker 1: Also, yeah, I'm also curious to see how that Bama
Speaker 1: Michigan game plays out. But interesting, those two mighty brands
Speaker 1: of football kind of relegated a little whit. Yeah a reminder,
Speaker 1: Louisiana Tech is five and seven and playing in a
Speaker 1: ball game only because Marshall was forced to back out
Speaker 1: because it didn't have enough players after a ten win season.
Speaker 1: That's got to be exhibit A when they sit down
Speaker 1: and figure out how and why and where to change
Speaker 1: the college football calendar with regard and I know you know.
Speaker 1: One of the things Gary, we don't talk about you
Speaker 1: and I mentioned this before, You can't throw a blanket
Speaker 1: over all of it. Because some schools have semesters and
Speaker 1: some have quarters, you know, So if a kid wants
Speaker 1: to go from a semester school to a quarter school,
Speaker 1: that still matters. You know. What I'm telling you is
Speaker 1: the academic end of it still matters. Boys. So many
Speaker 1: games to look at, but I think the A and
Speaker 1: M's Southern col game is going to be interesting a
Speaker 1: program you used to cover, and remember, if not for
Speaker 1: complaints by some prominent boosters in College Station, that A
Speaker 1: and M team would have been coached this year by
Speaker 1: Mark Stoops. But I love Bowl games. We've talked about
Speaker 1: it before, probably too many. But I hate the people
Speaker 1: in ourlina who are talking heads writers who dismissed them
Speaker 1: as being worthless and meaningless because they've never covered up
Speaker 1: close to these games. And I always go back to
Speaker 1: the O six Music City Bowl and the joy that
Speaker 1: the UK players and coaches had in getting there, playing
Speaker 1: and winning and watching their celebration. It is still one
Speaker 1: of the great days in my career getting to see
Speaker 1: that up close and.
Speaker 9: I think a lot of whining about who is in
Speaker 9: the playoffs and how many bowl games they are is
Speaker 9: just the perflust. It makes you just look like a whiner,
Speaker 9: bast It doesn't matter if they're gonna go on anyway,
Speaker 9: that's right. And by the way, what a difference of
Speaker 9: year makes Remember the last time Michigan and Alabama played
Speaker 9: about a year ago?
Speaker 1: Yeah, how about that?
Speaker 9: Uh, let's talk NFL here on the fourth swig, I
Speaker 9: caught your fellow Trinity Lom Steve Rabel on the Seahawks
Speaker 9: call for a little while on the radio Chicago.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 9: I love listening to Steve.
Speaker 1: He does that exciting. What's that he gets excited.
Speaker 9: Well, when the Seahawks do something, but when somebody, when
Speaker 9: the other team does, you don't even realize it.
Speaker 1: Now, that's that.
Speaker 9: That's that drives me crazy in every line. And Mike
Speaker 9: Shannon used to do this with the Cardinals. Yeah, and
Speaker 9: there's a Grand Slam Cardinals lose, will be right back.
Speaker 1: And Steve does that too.
Speaker 9: He did it last weekend. I had the radio broadcast
Speaker 9: that I was listening to the thing with the with
Speaker 9: your Packers and uh, with the Vikings and Jefferson's in
Speaker 9: zone and he's got a touchdown and the Vikings go ahead.
Speaker 1: Why they just scored?
Speaker 2: What?
Speaker 9: On to Saturday, three big NFL games, all with playoff
Speaker 9: implications Chargers at the Patriots had won, and the Broncos
Speaker 9: are Rep. I seventy five at the Bengals and finally
Speaker 9: Arizona at the LA Rams. All of those games are
Speaker 9: on the NFL Network, by the way. Three in particular,
Speaker 9: I'm interested in the Sunday Dallas at Philly Eagles fans
Speaker 9: hate Dallas even more than you and I do, which
Speaker 9: is substantial, and your lava hot packers at the Vikings.
Speaker 9: And then Sunday Night you got the Falcons and Michael
Speaker 9: PENNOCKX at Jayden Daniels and Washington Monday Night Lions and
Speaker 9: the forty nine ers. I like your pack to serve
Speaker 9: a cold, green and gold platter of revenge in minne
Speaker 9: Haha on Sunday, even though they are one point underdogs
Speaker 9: last time I look.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that line's been changing. The question is how
Speaker 1: long do you leave your starters for some of these teams?
Speaker 1: You know, the playoffs slots are already set and the
Speaker 1: packers are going where we're a wild card team can't
Speaker 1: win the division. But I think you play to stay sharp.
Speaker 1: You know, you got to keep guys healthy. But yeah,
Speaker 1: you're right, we're rolling. Packers are rolling. Play the stay
Speaker 1: sharp and learn more about your opponents and things like that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's difficult this time of year. Some of these teams
Speaker 1: just playing out the string. Guys are playing for stats,
Speaker 1: guys are playing for negotiations. But teams like ours are
Speaker 1: playing for momentum, and that's something you need. And by
Speaker 1: the way, Steve Rabel, he and I have spoken since
Speaker 1: high school a couple times, but we were not boys
Speaker 1: in high school. He's a year ahead of me. His
Speaker 1: brother was a very good friend of mine. But Steve
Speaker 1: and Mike, his brother, and I played gary on the
Speaker 1: same little league football team my one year of little
Speaker 1: league football. Mike and I were two of the smallest kids.
Speaker 1: He never played. Steve, of course, was our star and
Speaker 1: the Saint Matthew's Bears, and we won one game with
Speaker 1: a future NFL player. We won one game, and I yes, yes,
Speaker 1: I have a participation trophy and I still have it.
Speaker 8: Of course you do.
Speaker 9: World got smaller all of a sudden, That's right, No,
Speaker 9: I do love listening to it to Steve, and of
Speaker 9: course I'm gone you yeah, Fitzwig and the six pack
Speaker 9: College hoops in order this weekend and the week ahead
Speaker 9: for the locals, Louisville's back in action over here at
Speaker 9: the Young Center tomorrow high noon against Eastern Kentucky. That's
Speaker 9: on the CW two. By the way, Sunday, my Hilltoppers
Speaker 9: and they're gonna be an ann Arbor take on Michigan,
Speaker 9: and both the Toppers and the Wolverines are nine and
Speaker 9: three so far in the season. That's on the Big
Speaker 9: Ten Networks Sunday night at eight. And of course, as
Speaker 9: you mentioned before, ten games or ten days between games
Speaker 9: for the Cats. They'll be back at it New Year's
Speaker 9: Eve at twelve thirty at RUP against Brown on ESPN U.
Speaker 9: And by the way, speaking of the SEC, as of today,
Speaker 9: ten SEC teams in the AP top twenty five, including
Speaker 9: number ten Kentucky. The SEC not only the best basketball
Speaker 9: conference in America, Dick, this may go down is the
Speaker 9: best conference in college basketball every right now. Three teams
Speaker 9: twelve and zho five teams eleven and one, seven or
Speaker 9: ten and two including Kentucky and South Carolina. Is the
Speaker 9: quote unquote worst of the conference at nine and three. Now,
Speaker 9: you've been covering the SEC for what eighty seven years
Speaker 9: or so? Is this the greatest start to a dozen
Speaker 9: games that you've ever seen in the SEC?
Speaker 1: Well, clearly, and the numbers back that up. If we
Speaker 1: all know, they'll start beating each other up and that
Speaker 1: will force some teams to drop and all that. But
Speaker 1: the key Gary, as you know, is going to be
Speaker 1: when the committee gets together and if they have eyeballed
Speaker 1: these teams and done their job, they'll know that a
Speaker 1: team of six or seven conference losses could still conceivably
Speaker 1: be a one or two seed.
Speaker 9: Yeah, that's that good a conference at least so far. Anyway,
Speaker 9: Final Swig and our six pack, as US media types
Speaker 9: often like to do here at years in, let's trade
Speaker 9: what you and I thought were the biggest sports stories
Speaker 9: here in the Commonwealth as well as across the country.
Speaker 9: If my wife had anything to do about it, she
Speaker 9: would say, well, what about Indiana's football season? Well, that's
Speaker 9: not our commonwealth. But yeah, as for me, the biggest
Speaker 9: local story obviously UK and Louisville both getting new head
Speaker 9: basketball coaches at the time first time ever and saying
Speaker 9: goodbye to well coach cal and the embarrassing, the incredibly
Speaker 9: embarrassing tenure of ex card Kenny Payne. The biggest national
Speaker 9: story for me, Dick greatest college basketball scorer who became
Speaker 9: a must sy WNBA superstar, Caitlin Clark. Think about it,
Speaker 9: one woman, single handedly changing the popularity and trajectory of
Speaker 9: a major sports league and still to the chagrin of
Speaker 9: certain current and former WNBA players. Was there with some
Speaker 9: resentment there? Yeah, it's tangible. The question has also been raised,
Speaker 9: has there been some reverse racism as well? It's not
Speaker 9: my call, but will she keep growing the league and
Speaker 9: eventually winning championships? I say yes, and I hope.
Speaker 1: So I can't argue with any of that. I will
Speaker 1: throw this in perha Apps is the national story, the
Speaker 1: portal in the nil which you're fundamentally changed college athletics
Speaker 1: and not for the better. It seems like every day
Speaker 1: we hear a new and again, we just talked about
Speaker 1: a bowl game that team had to drop out because
Speaker 1: of that. So we'll look back on this period with
Speaker 1: Caitlin Clark, and we'll look back on this period with
Speaker 1: the portal in the NIL more with Gary Moore or
Speaker 1: Western Bureau Chief in just a minute here on the
Speaker 1: Big molon Siders six thirty wlap welcome back. We have
Speaker 1: heard two guys in a six pack from Gary Moore
Speaker 1: or Western Burea Chief. Time for a couple of hot reads, Gary,
Speaker 1: NFL football all over your TV dial? Not really a
Speaker 1: dial anymore. Our Christmas Day Netflix breaks it's streaming records
Speaker 1: with the Christmas Day doubleheader. I know Beyonce had a
Speaker 1: lot to do with that. Great Nearly one third of
Speaker 1: Netflix's global concurrent viewers our Christmas Day watch the game
Speaker 1: at one point, most watched concurrent stream of any Christmas
Speaker 1: Day for Netflix in a past four years. Should we
Speaker 1: be surprised?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 9: I disagree with Lebron. Loved Lebron, but Christmas Day is
Speaker 9: not for just the NBA anymore. NFL just lapped you guys,
Speaker 9: something serious, and it helps when you've got four teams
Speaker 9: in playoff mode. They just played four days earlier, right,
Speaker 9: all four of those were in play on Saturday. But
Speaker 9: the Beyonce show was unbelievable. I loved every second of it,
Speaker 9: well except for the rap part, but other than that,
Speaker 9: it was really cool.
Speaker 1: The halftime performance Ravens Texans game the viewership peaked twenty
Speaker 1: seven million viewers tuning in. That's just that's just smart programming.
Speaker 1: Second Hot Reid for Gary Moore. Teddy Bridgewater, the former
Speaker 1: Louisville Cardinal, is returning to the NFL. He's only air
Speaker 1: quotes thirty two years old, which is getting up there
Speaker 1: in the NFL. But came back from that awful knee
Speaker 1: injury that almost he almost lost his life because of
Speaker 1: the damage to the arteries around his knee. But he
Speaker 1: coaches his high school team in Miami is Alma Mater
Speaker 1: to a state championship and then says I can still play,
Speaker 1: and he's signing with the Lions. He will be their
Speaker 1: number three guy. Hendon Hooker is the number two guy.
Speaker 1: Dan Campbell says Hooker is still our number two guy,
Speaker 1: but Teddy might be able to help us your thoughts.
Speaker 9: Well, he was last with him three years ago.
Speaker 1: He left him.
Speaker 9: He was the twenty twenty three. It was the last
Speaker 9: time he was with the Lions. A lot of people,
Speaker 9: as you know around here, love love Teddy for his
Speaker 9: three years that he was with the Cardinal won the
Speaker 9: Sugar Bowl beat Florida. You know that's etched forever and
Speaker 9: that injury. God to come back for that. You know,
Speaker 9: that was so bad that the Vikings have pretty much
Speaker 9: destroyed all any kind of footage from that. It just
Speaker 9: doesn't exist.
Speaker 1: It was.
Speaker 9: It was that bad of a well you dislocate your
Speaker 9: knee and your legs flailing. You don't want to see
Speaker 9: that kind of apen the Texans receiver.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, and but so much worse. And I remember
Speaker 1: seeing cover. I didn't see the actual injury, but seeing
Speaker 1: the surrounding video it reminded me later on when Hamlin
Speaker 1: went down, Yeah, and players were on their knees, they
Speaker 1: were crying, they were praying because they could. They knew
Speaker 1: how terrible it was. But Bridgewater very popular with his
Speaker 1: teammates and the fan base. And even though they're in
Speaker 1: my division, I root for the Lions to be successful,
Speaker 1: and I'll root for him as well. He is Gary Moore.
Speaker 1: As we close up this year, I'll be back with
Speaker 1: us next year, our west Ham Bureau chief. You can
Speaker 1: always find him at.
Speaker 9: At Christmas ELF dot No, Weston Bureau ELF. I'm at
Speaker 9: nine to five five Gary on ex Twitter. What do
Speaker 9: you want to call it the same place you're at.
Speaker 1: Ron a big blue Insider one. Thank you sir, and
Speaker 1: we'll talk to you as the New year dawns next year.
Speaker 9: Happy New Year to y'all and that'll do it.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much to all my guests, Gary Moore, Richard Skinner,
Speaker 1: Tom Leach. Reminder Kentucky basketball tomorrow it's the UK women
Speaker 1: playing Western Kentucky. Darren Hedrick will have the call for
Speaker 1: you four o'clock tip off, three forty five pre game
Speaker 1: right here on your number one spot for sports. And
Speaker 1: of course the UK men don't play again until New
Speaker 1: Year's Eve Tuesday at two o'clock and we'll have that
Speaker 1: four year as well. That's it. Good night from the
Speaker 1: garage in Lexington.
Speaker 3: What's going I say, what's going on here?
Speaker 1: We'll staying there with your beak.
Speaker 3: Open, say something explaining yourself.
Speaker 8: You're tombs flapping, but no Norse that's coming out of
Speaker 8: your big mob.
Speaker 1: Don't get out and stay out squashing that air
Speaker 4: Data