Speaker 1: College football right out of the gates, though, with our
Speaker 1: buddy Kyle Vonagura, who covers college football sometimes a little
Speaker 1: soccer as well for ESPN.
Speaker 2: Kyle, Happy Monday. It's been a minute. How you been, Bud?
Speaker 3: I'm big good? Are you?
Speaker 2: I'm good? I'm good.
Speaker 1: So some interesting offseason college football storylines. Let's start with
Speaker 1: the new CFP expansion proposal, the five plus eleven model,
Speaker 1: which of course has support in some areas and detractors
Speaker 1: and others. The Big twelve media or excuse me, the
Speaker 1: Big twelve kind of summer meetings were held this weekend
Speaker 1: in Orlando. Heard a lot from Brett Yormark, But what
Speaker 1: say you about what's on the table?
Speaker 2: Five plus eleven, sixteen? You think that's right?
Speaker 1: With the AQ bids four for the Big Ten, four
Speaker 1: for the SEC, two for the ACC, two for the
Speaker 1: Big twelve.
Speaker 2: Do you do you like that model? Do you think
Speaker 2: that's where we're headed?
Speaker 3: Yeah? I think it's where it's headed. Is as far
Speaker 3: as I like it. I kind of felt like sixteen
Speaker 3: was the right number from the beginning. The buyers or
Speaker 3: it felt like the NCA always takes small steps right.
Speaker 3: They're not willing to you know you're willing to go
Speaker 3: from two to four, from four, then you jumpy. I
Speaker 3: guess they did jump out eight to twelve, but it's
Speaker 3: filled for me, like if you're gonna have, if you're
Speaker 3: gonna have a real playoff sixteen, it makes it nice
Speaker 3: and tidy. Right, There's the problem that you have with
Speaker 3: twelve there, and there was a lot you know, there's
Speaker 3: problems with all these different formats. Was that you continue
Speaker 3: to devalue the bowls, right and so now, and that's
Speaker 3: always going to be the case whenever you cut it off.
Speaker 3: But I think once you got to twelve, like when
Speaker 3: you get the thirteen through twenty five, those bowl games,
Speaker 3: like we're essentially meaningless, right, and so you have the
Speaker 3: trickle down effect on how it impacted Bowls was problematic.
Speaker 3: So I thought, you know, might as well just add
Speaker 3: more playoff games, make those other teams play meaningful games
Speaker 3: at the end of the year. I mean, I really
Speaker 3: like the FCS model that's even bigger than that of
Speaker 3: these twenty four teams. Like for me, that you could
Speaker 3: do buys with early round byes and include more teams.
Speaker 3: It doesn't necessarily add too many games in total for
Speaker 3: the whole country, right, but you get to have meaningful
Speaker 3: games at the end of the season. So yeah, like sixteen,
Speaker 3: Like I think it's there's more football, and I like
Speaker 3: having more football that matters, and I think it's the
Speaker 3: simplest way to look at it. That's why it's a
Speaker 3: good thing.
Speaker 1: As far as the multiple automatic qualified spots for the
Speaker 1: Big Ten and the SEC essentially taking half the spots
Speaker 1: and then the Big twelve in the ACC getting two
Speaker 1: and then leaving one for the Group of five and
Speaker 1: then you know the at large stuff. Do you think
Speaker 1: that's where we're going as well? Or do you think
Speaker 1: there's enough pushback from people that aren't in the Big
Speaker 1: ten and the SEC to maybe just make it a
Speaker 1: straight sixteen sixteen team with eleven plus five.
Speaker 2: How do you think that plays out?
Speaker 3: I think it should be eleven plus five. It would
Speaker 3: be kind of a bully You feel like it would
Speaker 3: be bullying the other conferences if they added more automatic
Speaker 3: bids for the SEC and the Big Ten, because like
Speaker 3: the thing is like they don't need the automatic bids.
Speaker 3: There's not going to be you can game it out
Speaker 3: however you want to do it. Like it's just I
Speaker 3: don't see a scenario where that would even really come
Speaker 3: into play, right, maybe you can get to get creative
Speaker 3: with it, but yeah, like make it. Give it for me.
Speaker 3: The five is what makes sense one one for outside
Speaker 3: of the power conferences. Give the champions a bid. But
Speaker 3: at the same time, also, you know, if you're a
Speaker 3: champion of one of those conferences, like you don't even
Speaker 3: need the automatic bid at this point, Like it mattered
Speaker 3: more at twelve. It certainly mattered at four where they
Speaker 3: valued conference championships to a degree, but at sixteen, like
Speaker 3: if you were in one of those leagues, like you're
Speaker 3: going to get in. So it's almost kind of a
Speaker 3: point atition to see how they'll use that to determine
Speaker 3: you know, seating or hometeil advantage those sorts of things.
Speaker 3: Is I think it is where it gets more interesting.
Speaker 3: But as far as like getting in the field, like,
Speaker 3: I don't think that is ultimately going to make that
Speaker 3: much of a difference. However, they decided to structure it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree with that, well said, So the sixteen
Speaker 1: team expanded model will come our way twenty twenty six.
Speaker 1: This year, we will have the twelve team format, but
Speaker 1: it will be straight seeding I don't know why they
Speaker 1: didn't do this initially, Kyle. This seems to be one
Speaker 1: of those like very common sense type things that should
Speaker 1: have been done right away. But you know, we've already
Speaker 1: got your thoughts on the sixteen team thing, but that's
Speaker 1: in a year. So what do you think about the
Speaker 1: twelve team format moving just a straight seeding this fall?
Speaker 3: Yeah? So, I I mean, I think, like you said it,
Speaker 3: for me, it was like another obvious move. And as
Speaker 3: you know, I do like the both productions during during
Speaker 3: the regular season, and this is something that I identified the
Speaker 3: first week. I did it the first week after games
Speaker 3: are played. Where the impact like I understand like the
Speaker 3: idea of it, Like they wanted to reward those like
Speaker 3: the Big twelve champion and the ACC champion, right, they
Speaker 3: wanted to give them a reward for winning their conferences.
Speaker 3: And like in theory, like I can understand the logic,
Speaker 3: but how it played out, Like it didn't play out
Speaker 3: that way because it effectively punishes the top seed, Like
Speaker 3: any playoff format should be designed to give an advantage
Speaker 3: to the number one seed. That's why you're valuing the
Speaker 3: regular season, right, Like, that's that's very basic with competitive sports, right,
Speaker 3: But by getting buys to you know, the you in
Speaker 3: the three and four spot for teams that weren't actually
Speaker 3: the third and fourth best teams, he created inequitable matchups
Speaker 3: in the second in the quarterfinal round, and it ended
Speaker 3: up punishing you know, Oregon, like Oregon ended up playing
Speaker 3: Ohio State, a team that would have been seated differently.
Speaker 3: So it really messed up with how it should have
Speaker 3: gone and punished the team at the top. So I think, yeah,
Speaker 3: this is a I wrote. I wrote this almost every
Speaker 3: week during the season, you know, kept hammering it at
Speaker 3: the point home because it was just it just it
Speaker 3: just never made sense when once you went and kind
Speaker 3: of saw how it was going to play out. So
Speaker 3: I'm unhappy that they were able to act quick and
Speaker 3: restore kind of restore order in that respect.
Speaker 2: Do you still think, you know?
Speaker 1: Coach Witt was on a podcast a couple of weeks ago,
Speaker 1: and he continues to talk about, uh, the super league
Speaker 1: potential possibility that you and I have discussed for years
Speaker 1: now and college football writers have written about for years now,
Speaker 1: And I don't know, man, like it feels like this
Speaker 1: is the come more fluid, in my opinion than actually
Speaker 1: something concrete that I believe is inevitable. At one point
Speaker 1: I was convinced that we were high speed ahead to
Speaker 1: something that looks a lot like the NFL with two
Speaker 1: conferences whatever you call them, big ten SEC grab you know,
Speaker 1: number of schools that they want, and then suddenly that's
Speaker 1: AFC NFC and we have like a miniature NFL model
Speaker 1: in college football.
Speaker 2: I don't know how convinced I am that we're headed
Speaker 2: there now, Kyle? What about you?
Speaker 3: So? I think for like, I'm still like pretty confident
Speaker 3: eventually it will get there. I think for me, the
Speaker 3: question is just like how long is it going to take.
Speaker 3: It's not going to happen in five years. It might
Speaker 3: not happen in ten years, but you know eventually, you know,
Speaker 3: once and I think two is like you have to
Speaker 3: kind of get people to cycle out right, the current
Speaker 3: admitted like the leadership in place across the country, conferences
Speaker 3: and schools. You know, you can kind of get a
Speaker 3: sense of what they want right now, and that's going
Speaker 3: to hold court for a while, right, But those people
Speaker 3: will only be in those jobs for so long, and
Speaker 3: then eventually you'll have, you know, an SEC commissioner who
Speaker 3: doesn't care about Vanderbilt or an Alabama athletic director or
Speaker 3: a president who pushes for Hey, like why is Vanderbilt
Speaker 3: still in our Like why are we still on equal
Speaker 3: plane field with them? Like why are why are we
Speaker 3: peers with them as opposed to uh creating a larger
Speaker 3: pie and less less people to pull from or less
Speaker 3: schools to pull from. So I think like eventually it
Speaker 3: still gets there, but it's just a matter of waiting
Speaker 3: to see how how long that will take. I mean,
Speaker 3: in hindsight, it's kind of remarkable that this didn't all
Speaker 3: happen faster, Like it's no seeing how it has all
Speaker 3: played out so quickly, Like there's just so much money
Speaker 3: at stake that eventually money will always drive this, you know,
Speaker 3: once these once the kids are employees, like that's going
Speaker 3: to change things. Like there's eligibility questions that are still
Speaker 3: kind of up in the air and kind of fluid.
Speaker 3: So there's there's so many things that are going to change.
Speaker 3: I think eventually there'll just be too much money for
Speaker 3: the schools at the top not to be, you know,
Speaker 3: tempted to take a bigger slice.
Speaker 1: So we've all been waiting for the House of the
Speaker 1: NC double A settlement, and you know, we continue to wait,
Speaker 1: and it's been kind of wild to watch what has
Speaker 1: unfolded surrounding this dynamic, with certain states passing laws kind
Speaker 1: of behind closed doors where it's like, yeah, our schools
Speaker 1: do not have to adhere to whatever that settlement says,
Speaker 1: and then the P four programs are all writing contracts
Speaker 1: to say, well, actually you do if you want to
Speaker 1: hang out with us. And so you have this interesting
Speaker 1: juxtaposition in dynamic where Tennessee among others, have literally passed
Speaker 1: legislation saying that their member institutions will residing their state
Speaker 1: don't even have to adhere to what House VNCUBA has
Speaker 1: to say about nil distributions and such. The nc DOUBLEA
Speaker 1: has already been told like you're not allowed to essentially
Speaker 1: put any sort of restriction. You can enforce any of
Speaker 1: your rules. Like it all continues to be very fluid.
Speaker 1: I think maybe I was a little bit hopeful in
Speaker 1: Pie in the Sky and maybe naive believing that the
Speaker 1: House VNCAA settlement would suddenly give us guardrails and guidelines
Speaker 1: looking for So, how is this going all play out?
Speaker 1: And what's you're understanding about where we're at in the
Speaker 1: process of the House n A.
Speaker 3: I mean, that's a great question. I wish I had
Speaker 3: a nice, tidy answer for you, because it's I mean,
Speaker 3: it's just so messy, and I think, what's difficult. Rights
Speaker 3: you have you know, fifty states or you know, not
Speaker 3: that quite not quite that many in the nc double
Speaker 3: A that are are kind of in play here. But
Speaker 3: the point is you have all these state governments, you
Speaker 3: have local governments who have private schools, you have public schools.
Speaker 3: There's so many different parties that are governed by different entities.
Speaker 3: To get them all on the same page, it's just
Speaker 3: so hard to do, and so ultimately it's still unclear
Speaker 3: who gets final say right. I mean, you've seen every lawsuit.
Speaker 3: It's anytime the NCUBA has been challenging law or last
Speaker 3: you pick your time period, like they've lost right, whether
Speaker 3: it's eligibility, whether that's you know, name anything they've they've
Speaker 3: always sided with with with the players, and they're kind
Speaker 3: of chase to have get more money and more uh
Speaker 3: you know, more distribution from from the nc double A.
Speaker 3: And so it's I just don't see how that's ever
Speaker 3: gonna like it's gonna change while you're still dealing with
Speaker 3: student athletes, and I think, like that's for me, like
Speaker 3: out in the out in the distance, like it just
Speaker 3: seems inevitable that eventually they become employees. And once you're
Speaker 3: employees and you're not students and you're not kind of
Speaker 3: governed by Title nine in the same way, then you
Speaker 3: can say, okay, like then salary caps become a little
Speaker 3: bit more real, right the n C, Like then you
Speaker 3: operate like a professional league and the government isn't going
Speaker 3: to be able to step in and and govern in
Speaker 3: the way it is, you know, effectively do or not
Speaker 3: now with that with the kind of looming house settlement.
Speaker 3: So yeah, like I don't I don't have a great
Speaker 3: answer to you, but it could because there's just so
Speaker 3: many moving pieces that until you get until you knock
Speaker 3: one dominant dominant down, like it's it's really hard to
Speaker 3: say what what's gonna happen with the next one?
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: One of the walking lines you hear a lot, and
Speaker 1: I'm guilty of using it too, is and sometimes maybe
Speaker 1: if you do what you and I do for a living,
Speaker 1: this is just like a smoke screen when really what
Speaker 1: you're saying is I don't understand any of this.
Speaker 2: So you land on, well.
Speaker 1: Saturdays in the fall will always still feel like Saturdays
Speaker 1: in the fall. Well, it doesn't feel that way for
Speaker 1: Washington State anymore, or Oregon State, and honestly, Kyle, Saturdays
Speaker 1: in the fall around here still feel a little bit
Speaker 1: different based off of the conference affiliation change, where for
Speaker 1: years it was Oregon and SC and the PAC twelve
Speaker 1: West Coast brands and Washington and do respect to the
Speaker 1: Big twelve because it's at least a home for the
Speaker 1: University of Utah. The brands and teams that rolled through
Speaker 1: last year, it felt different.
Speaker 2: It just did.
Speaker 1: So my question is, well, Saturdays in the fall still
Speaker 1: always feel like Saturday's in the fall or is it
Speaker 1: just for a select few now?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I hope. So that's probably the best I can do.
Speaker 3: I mean, I do think that there is a novelty
Speaker 3: about the conference realignment that was interesting here. You have
Speaker 3: to see new schools and new teams, and and that
Speaker 3: part had had some lure. But I do think that
Speaker 3: aware off, you know, pretty quickly, at least for me,
Speaker 3: and eventually when you're playing these games that you don't
Speaker 3: have strong regional or historic ties to it, won't it
Speaker 3: won't be as fun. I mean you talk benefits because
Speaker 3: it's you know, in the same conference with by US.
Speaker 3: I think for a lot of people that like localized
Speaker 3: it in a way that was like, you know, you
Speaker 3: gain the rivalry back and it's like in a meaningful way.
Speaker 3: So there's there's there's given cake to some degree. But
Speaker 3: but but I do still feel like as long as
Speaker 3: they're playing these games on campus, as long as the
Speaker 3: you know, there's a those ties exist, like attending the
Speaker 3: game is still going to feel pretty similar. I mean,
Speaker 3: it's the uniforms are going to be the same, cheering
Speaker 3: for football at the end of the day, like at
Speaker 3: its core, like that's that experience. A lot would have
Speaker 3: to change for it to be, you know, so different
Speaker 3: that it wouldn't be worth like participating or paying attention
Speaker 3: to anymore. But the evolution is definitely going to keep happening.
Speaker 3: And in two degree, right, it's that's been college football
Speaker 3: for a long time. But if you look over the
Speaker 3: one hundred years, like there's been so many different iterations
Speaker 3: of what the sport has looked like that you know
Speaker 3: even you know ten years ago, twenty years ago, you
Speaker 3: know that looked very little like it did, you know,
Speaker 3: thirty years before that, And so I in a way
Speaker 3: like changes is part of the sport, and I guess
Speaker 3: that's what it can continue.
Speaker 1: To expect one more thing in this space, and I
Speaker 1: apologize if you feel like you've gone on Bloomberg News
Speaker 1: on a Monday afternoon, but I do want to ask
Speaker 1: you about another storyline. Brett Yormark, among many things he's
Speaker 1: had to say over the past seventy two hours, is
Speaker 1: the Big twelve has elected to not accept private equity
Speaker 1: money for an ownership stake in the conference. And you know,
Speaker 1: about a year ago, I think it was Mark Lasry,
Speaker 1: if I remember correctly, the owner of the Bucks, who
Speaker 1: in a public form said he planned on making an
Speaker 1: offer at Ohio State Football to try to buy like
Speaker 1: forty nine percent of the Buckeyes.
Speaker 2: And there are rumors around here that some of the.
Speaker 1: Powerful folk that have deep pockets wanted to get involved
Speaker 1: in Utah BYU football and potentially have an ownership stake.
Speaker 1: And now the momentum is going the other direction. Folks
Speaker 1: are now saying no to private equity money. I am
Speaker 1: no finance major, but my gut tells me this must
Speaker 1: mean that conferences and programs have done their own valuations
Speaker 1: on what they can make and understand that they don't
Speaker 1: need that money.
Speaker 2: Now, if they needed the money, they would take it.
Speaker 1: But it must mean that they don't want to sell
Speaker 1: any ownership in either conferences or teams because of how
Speaker 1: dumb the money continues to be with live TV rights.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's where my antenna goes when I keep
Speaker 1: hearing these stories that now go the other way. As
Speaker 1: far as people not accepting private equity money, what are
Speaker 1: your thoughts on that?
Speaker 2: So?
Speaker 3: I think it's like everything is a negotiation, right. I
Speaker 3: think what happened was the Big twelve, you know, realized
Speaker 3: that they were going to get enough money that they
Speaker 3: were there was like the the idea the offer wasn't
Speaker 3: big enough, right, Because if you had whatever the number is,
Speaker 3: are you say say, like, we'll just throw a number
Speaker 3: that makes no sense, but you would have to accept,
Speaker 3: right if the number was fifty billion dollars, right, of
Speaker 3: course they would have accepted private actview money at that
Speaker 3: at that number, right, But at a certain point, at
Speaker 3: a certain point, it's worth it and they would have
Speaker 3: to say yes. But they just didn't get to that point,
Speaker 3: and so eventually could that change, Like, I think absolutely
Speaker 3: it could change, But right now they've made the determination
Speaker 3: that that that sort of investment isn't in their best interest.
Speaker 3: And you know, if and when that changes, like I
Speaker 3: think they'll be open to revisiting it. But for now, yeah,
Speaker 3: I mean, it hasn't It hasn't happened yet. But just
Speaker 3: the idea of that so many people are looked into it,
Speaker 3: are considering it makes me think that eventually it'll probably happen.
Speaker 3: It just and it'll just be a question of what
Speaker 3: the circumstance lookd like for that for that to be
Speaker 3: the case's.
Speaker 1: Move over here, you know, Brian Santiago hired as by
Speaker 1: u's athletic director, taking over for Tom Holmo. So before
Speaker 1: I expand to the second part of the question, let
Speaker 1: me get your thoughts on that, and and and mostly
Speaker 1: I'm quite sure you don't You don't know Brian, but
Speaker 1: covering too as BYU's athletic director.
Speaker 2: I think he did a remarkable job.
Speaker 1: Traversing through independence for a decade was a tough ask,
Speaker 1: but they were able to find a landing spot. Their
Speaker 1: basketball team is insanely good, and their football team is
Speaker 1: coming off a really nice year in the Big twelve,
Speaker 1: So Brian inheriting an athletic department in really good shape
Speaker 1: as a result of the work that Tom did. So
Speaker 1: your thoughts on Tom Homo as he goes to spend
Speaker 1: the rest of his days on a beach somewhere probably, Yeah, No,
Speaker 1: I mean, as you know.
Speaker 3: I live here in the Bay Area. So my first
Speaker 3: kind of experience with Tom Homo as he's the coach
Speaker 3: of Cal He's a coach or assistant coach of the
Speaker 3: forty nine ers before it, So I was kind of
Speaker 3: like always generally aware of him in this space, and
Speaker 3: then you know, I had a chance to get to
Speaker 3: know him a little bit this past year with a
Speaker 3: few stories I was working on about BYU And like,
Speaker 3: I think those interactions like with Tom that I had,
Speaker 3: I really enjoyed all of them. For me. He was
Speaker 3: really good to work with. He was he was candid,
Speaker 3: he was open, he was a good storyteller. And then
Speaker 3: you can't argue with with results of where the program
Speaker 3: is right now. I mean, I mean, I mean you
Speaker 3: said it, Basketball football both are in a really good
Speaker 3: spot position to be good for a long time, you know,
Speaker 3: getting into the Big twelve was a big win after
Speaker 3: the kind of the obviously of independence for so long,
Speaker 3: and so he leaves BUYU in a spot where you know,
Speaker 3: for Brian you can hope to build off that. Obviously,
Speaker 3: the I think BUYU, you know, more than a lot
Speaker 3: of schools has really benefited from the ANL shift. They
Speaker 3: have a lot of people who are willing to help
Speaker 3: out with those programs to help them stay competitive. And
Speaker 3: so yeah, I have only nice things to say about
Speaker 3: Tom and kind of the way he handled himself in
Speaker 3: personal actions with me, and just kind of the big
Speaker 3: picture accomplishments that he had in his time done in provo.
Speaker 1: I think the Santiago News became official on May nineteenth,
Speaker 1: and then on May twenty first, the Salt Lake Tribune
Speaker 1: reports that Jake retz Laugh is being sued by a
Speaker 1: woman here in Salt Lake. It is a civil lawsuit
Speaker 1: and we've talked about it on the show. These are
Speaker 1: not criminal charges. So the Tribune reports on it, and
Speaker 1: then you wrote on it for ESPN. You were actually
Speaker 1: able to uncover some new details. I don't know that
Speaker 1: I have a question, and I don't want to make
Speaker 1: this a football story because it isn't. He is the
Speaker 1: starting quarterback for BYU and coming off a really good year.
Speaker 1: But I wondered throughout the process that you went through
Speaker 1: to kind of have the discovery for what you wrote
Speaker 1: on the dot com for ESPN, what you would like
Speaker 1: to share about this story, and if you have any
Speaker 1: insight on what the next steps are.
Speaker 3: Yeah, these are always tough to report, and you get
Speaker 3: into this industry hoping to write about sports and you
Speaker 3: end up reading a civil case about a really gruesome
Speaker 3: allegation of rape. Right, I've read a lot of these
Speaker 3: sorts of civil filings over the years, and this is
Speaker 3: one of the worst ones that I've read, just in
Speaker 3: how graphic it was. That's all part of the public
Speaker 3: domain at this point. Yeah, you don't know if these
Speaker 3: are Again, I can't stress the stuff. It is an allegation,
Speaker 3: but when I read it, you know, if if the
Speaker 3: allegation is true, it's it's it's it's as serious a
Speaker 3: case of of rape and sexual assault that I've that
Speaker 3: I've read covering sports, So you know, beyond that, you know,
Speaker 3: it's it's. It's tough to say much other than kind
Speaker 3: of like the news, right, He's he was never arrested.
Speaker 3: The Progo Police Department, uh did deny the women's the
Speaker 3: women's claim that that she was told that sexual assault
Speaker 3: victims never seek justice. They had a pretty lengthy statement
Speaker 3: about that. They'll, you know, they'll there'll be some time
Speaker 3: before Retslaus lawyer will reply to the lawsuit. It sounds
Speaker 3: we are pretty adamant in their comments that it that
Speaker 3: it didn't happen, and so they'll reply. We'll see what
Speaker 3: they're kind of rebuttal is. I'm sure they'll try to
Speaker 3: get the case dismissed. But other than that, there's there's
Speaker 3: not a lot to say. It's especially without a police
Speaker 3: report that documents anything from the time that it allegedly
Speaker 3: took place.
Speaker 1: All Right, Kyle, before I say, you loose, and I
Speaker 1: always kind of chuckle when I do this to you,
Speaker 1: because it's early June and we have no idea what
Speaker 1: these teams are going to look.
Speaker 2: Like come fall.
Speaker 1: But I will ask you about the University of Utah
Speaker 1: because we're a mile away from Riceycle Stadium and we're
Speaker 1: the home of the youth. So Vegas has set the
Speaker 1: over under at seven point five. That's mid table for
Speaker 1: Big twelve. I think most of the preseason prediction stuff
Speaker 1: i've seen has Utah anywhere between like four and seven.
Speaker 1: So I think it's probably better for them not to
Speaker 1: have these lofty expectations like they did a year ago.
Speaker 2: And of course the health stuff with.
Speaker 1: Cam Rising and all the stuff that went down has
Speaker 1: been something we've covered at nauseum. So it's a new quarterback,
Speaker 1: it's a new offensive coordinator. PFF has them ranked as
Speaker 1: the number two offensive line of the country behind Bama.
Speaker 1: So they're going to be stacked where they need to
Speaker 1: be in the trenches like they always are. So I
Speaker 1: won't ask you about specifics because I'm quite sure you're
Speaker 1: not grinding on Utah's too deep in June, but just
Speaker 1: you your thoughts on what a potential bounce back season
Speaker 1: could look like for the ut year two in the
Speaker 1: Big twelve.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's it's I certainly expecting to be much much
Speaker 3: better than a year ago. It's hard to you know,
Speaker 3: two and seven, it's hard to be worse, as they say, right,
Speaker 3: And I think like the schedule is, you know, it's manageable.
Speaker 3: I think non conference UCLA, Cal Poly Wyomings, they are
Speaker 3: all winnable games, so you expect to be three to
Speaker 3: o headed in the conference, and then if you go
Speaker 3: then if you go four and five even the conference,
Speaker 3: that puts it at seven wins, which would be a
Speaker 3: two win improvement. And you know, like you said, it's
Speaker 3: it's tough to break it down right now and feel
Speaker 3: any sort of level of confidence. But I think having
Speaker 3: you know, damp here come along, you come over with
Speaker 3: Jason Beck. You know, he knows the offense, he knows
Speaker 3: the system. That's a model that's worked at a number
Speaker 3: of places over the years, moving a quarterback with the
Speaker 3: coach as opposed to just kind of grabbing someone or
Speaker 3: even just matriculating someone on the roster. So I think
Speaker 3: there's like a reason to be optimistic that they can
Speaker 3: be successful. It's it's going to be a different look.
Speaker 3: You know, Dampier ran a lot more than Utah has
Speaker 3: expected its quarterbacks to do in recent years, and so
Speaker 3: I think there will be a lot more of you know,
Speaker 3: that quarterback run game will give them a new look,
Speaker 3: a new fresh look that they probably needed after things
Speaker 3: got stale. So yeah, I think Utah will be better
Speaker 3: in terms of how much better, you know, let's wait
Speaker 3: and see it, all.
Speaker 1: Right, my friend, Well, I appreciate your time today. Hope
Speaker 1: all is well with you, have a great week and
Speaker 1: we'll chat toon. Thanks Kyle, all right, Thanks. Bonna Girra
Speaker 1: covers college football and a little soccer from time to
Speaker 1: time for our friends at ESPN. I'm noticing that he
Speaker 1: never tweets anymore, but his work is up on his
Speaker 1: Twitter page at Bonna Gera. ESPN is where you find him.
Speaker 1: So appreciate Kyle's temp. The time brought to you today
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