Speaker 1: Little yacht Rock.
Speaker 2: On a Wednesday, I told porder to watch the yacht
Speaker 2: Rock documentary on HBO Max because my next guest told
Speaker 2: me to watch it.
Speaker 1: I've got to say, you have pretty phenomenal taste all
Speaker 1: of your I'm glad you know.
Speaker 2: That's how we're starting Chris Camaradie Liven Studio log on YouTube.
Speaker 1: Right now, We've got seven viewers.
Speaker 2: You can seek in sunglasses and a shirt that I'm
Speaker 2: legitimately envious of, which is a T shirt with a
Speaker 2: picture of Aaron Falk on it. Oh in the Goat
Speaker 2: Adam Mikholitch and Aaron is trying to fix his ear
Speaker 2: piece before he goes on television.
Speaker 1: It's an excellent T shirt.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 1: How'd you get that done?
Speaker 3: Uh? There's a website called Tea Public okay, where you
Speaker 3: can upload high resolution photos and make them look weird
Speaker 3: and then they'll print a T shirt for you.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 3: So there was a time for a good four or
Speaker 3: five year stretch. We were making really stupid T shirts
Speaker 3: as like a side Joe Kusseles as a group of friends.
Speaker 1: Have any other falk teas or is that your only one?
Speaker 3: I have one? Falk made a once in a lifetime
Speaker 3: one that I lost that I of you, not of me,
Speaker 3: of the real goat Gordon Monson, no way correct. I
Speaker 3: haven't seen it since. The reason why I lost it
Speaker 3: is because, long story short, my bachelor party was in Moab,
Speaker 3: and for some insane reason, there was a bachelorette party
Speaker 3: in Moab as well, and we met at one of
Speaker 3: two bars in Moab and the groups got together and
Speaker 3: they started dancing to country music. Somebody liked my shirt
Speaker 3: and they asked for it and I gave it to him.
Speaker 1: Very nice of you.
Speaker 3: It's now no longer a bar, it's gone, so now
Speaker 3: there's only one official bar in Moab. This was This
Speaker 3: was called the Rio, and it was a great time.
Speaker 3: So you'll have to ask Aaron about the shirt that
Speaker 3: I don't know if he even has it. It's an
Speaker 3: amazing one.
Speaker 2: Falk has impressive Moab knowledge. By the way, I went
Speaker 2: down to Moab with Falk, our guy Nade bench and
Speaker 2: Trap and we played golf. And I don't think I
Speaker 2: had been to Moab since I was in college. I
Speaker 2: just have not been that down south very much. And
Speaker 2: Aaron knew where to eat, he knew where to go,
Speaker 2: He knew where to stay.
Speaker 3: A lot of his guys at school at Utah State
Speaker 3: were moab room amazing stuff.
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, without him, I would have been lost. But
Speaker 2: otherwise we had a great time.
Speaker 3: Great place.
Speaker 1: We need to get you down there. Hey, let's go.
Speaker 3: I was thinking about I think the last time, one
Speaker 3: of the last times I went golfing was when we
Speaker 3: were at Wassatch Mountain State Park and I wore my
Speaker 3: Antonio Daniel's.
Speaker 1: Jersey, yes, and your garden gloves.
Speaker 3: And my garden gloves. And the sheriff what do we
Speaker 3: call him, the ward, the marshall, the marshall, sorry, you know, aggressive.
Speaker 3: The marshall was none too pleased.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so, yeah, that's right. Did he ask you to
Speaker 2: stop playing? Did he kick you off the course?
Speaker 3: No, he he asked me to I think he asked
Speaker 3: me to put shoes on.
Speaker 1: Oh that's right.
Speaker 2: You also didn't have shoes. Yeah, yeah, I remember, uh yeah,
Speaker 2: I remember that. In time scenario, you also teed off
Speaker 2: for a par three with your driver and it was
Speaker 2: a great shot and it actually worked out.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think I landed on the green.
Speaker 1: It's very impressive. So we need to get you down
Speaker 1: involve it's a good time.
Speaker 4: Man.
Speaker 2: We had a good time. And when you get bench
Speaker 2: and fall together, you never know how it's going to
Speaker 2: go down, all right, Christopher. Big news of the week
Speaker 2: this week, Craig Smith has been encouraged to find more
Speaker 2: constructive things to do with his time. He's no longer
Speaker 2: the head coach at the University of you Top, So
Speaker 2: let's just get your reaction to that news, and then
Speaker 2: we'll kind of dig in a couple of dynamics here.
Speaker 3: Like everyone else thinks, somewhat odd timing, But if you
Speaker 3: are a smart person who can read the tea leaves,
Speaker 3: you are getting a jumpstart potentially on a coaching search
Speaker 3: now as opposed to three or four weeks from now.
Speaker 3: I understand the argument of wanting to retain players for
Speaker 3: the next potential coaching staff, but I think one thing
Speaker 3: we can say is the next potential coaching staff needs
Speaker 3: to make wholesale upgrades on this roster if they're going
Speaker 3: to be competit. And there are some pieces I think
Speaker 3: you can say on this team. But Craig Smith is
Speaker 3: a good coach. But looking at his track record, even
Speaker 3: going back to Utah State, he generally performed really well
Speaker 3: with guys he inherited. Namish Kita is the one that
Speaker 3: I can really think of that he brought in. Difference
Speaker 3: Maker went pro is in. I think he's in the
Speaker 3: Celtics rotation. But you know, Sam Merrill, he inherited. Sam
Speaker 3: Merrill is so old our guy. Sam's twenty eight now,
Speaker 3: which makes me feel very old. Sam committed to Stu Moral,
Speaker 3: that's how That's how long ago. He came back and
Speaker 3: played for Tim Durrea, who was Stu's an assistant. And
Speaker 3: then when Tim got fired, you know, Craig gired and
Speaker 3: so on and so forth. So long winded way of saying,
Speaker 3: if Utah is going to be good, I understand the
Speaker 3: fan base's desire to get a somewhat exciting new head coach.
Speaker 3: You gotta get plenty of very exciting talent, that's s
Speaker 3: bottom line.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're not wrong, And I do believe this was
Speaker 2: more of a talent issue than a coaching issue. I mean,
Speaker 2: let's keep in mind, Utah Basketball was picked to finish
Speaker 2: last in the Big Twelve this year, and when you
Speaker 2: look at the expectation for who most people thought they
Speaker 2: would be and the fact that they're mid table with
Speaker 2: a chance to still win ten conference games. I actually
Speaker 2: think Craig did a good job this year coaching the roster.
Speaker 2: The problem, Chris, as you know, is this isn't the NBA.
Speaker 2: Will Hardy did not draft these players. Will hard you
Speaker 2: to not acquire these players. That's Danny, that's justin. That's
Speaker 2: the jazz front office in college if you don't have talent.
Speaker 1: It also comes back to the head coach.
Speaker 2: Now in the new day and age of college of basketball,
Speaker 2: it's not as on the coach as it used to
Speaker 2: be because you have to have a healthy economic structure
Speaker 2: behind you to pay these players in a way you
Speaker 2: didn't used to. And I still have questions about where
Speaker 2: Utah's collective is. I honestly don't know. Mark Carlin releases
Speaker 2: a statement. You hear things about where they're at now,
Speaker 2: the excitement for where they could be moving forward. But
Speaker 2: from a basketball standpoint, it's pretty clear that economically you
Speaker 2: taught this point, has just elected not to lean into
Speaker 2: the basketball financing the way that Brigham Young has. How
Speaker 2: much of the consternation around Craig and Utah basketball do
Speaker 2: you think it's tied to what Kevin is doing down south?
Speaker 3: I think it plays a role in it. I think
Speaker 3: you'd be a fool if you didn't say that out loud.
Speaker 3: Either you're up in the night or you're just lying
Speaker 3: to yourself, and you could potentially be doing both. But
Speaker 3: the same way, BYU was gritting their teeth for ten years,
Speaker 3: while Kyle, you know, was kind of running the table
Speaker 3: over them with that, with that win streat you can't
Speaker 3: be shown up in such dramatic fashion by your rival,
Speaker 3: be so boring, be so irrelevant, and just not have
Speaker 3: the fan base get apathetic. The fan base has been
Speaker 3: apathetic for a long time. Let's be honest. I mean
Speaker 3: we've talked about I think the last time they had
Speaker 3: a really good team, that Sweet sixteen team with Kuzma, Yeah,
Speaker 3: Delon Wright, yaka Perl. They haven't made an NCAA tournament
Speaker 3: almost ten years. It's so wild, that is insane. Haven't
Speaker 3: had a player drafted since Kyle Kuzma in twenty seventeen.
Speaker 3: And I know, and I know the draft thing.
Speaker 1: You know, like you need pros, you need a fair point.
Speaker 3: Yeah, not only do you need pros, but you need
Speaker 3: guys who can go over and play at Barcelona Real,
Speaker 3: just like Utah hasn't had it right. And I know
Speaker 3: who is the dude who wants Saint John's that everyone
Speaker 3: was mad about.
Speaker 1: Davon Smith.
Speaker 3: Is he a difference make around?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, he's good. Okay, he's really good.
Speaker 3: But does he make them a top six team in
Speaker 3: the Big twelve?
Speaker 2: Probably not, But he gets them a lot closer because
Speaker 2: he's exactly what they're missing this year.
Speaker 1: Okay, he's exactly what they're missing this year.
Speaker 3: My argument would be, you need at least one or
Speaker 3: two guys better than a guy like that in order
Speaker 3: to really turn this thing around. And I don't think
Speaker 3: Utah has come close to developing anybody like that in
Speaker 3: house for a very long time.
Speaker 2: It's very fair and it's a simple exercise, and you
Speaker 2: can do it with both the local stuff and nationally.
Speaker 2: I mean, whoever wins the national championship this year, whoever
Speaker 2: is in the final four, they will have more than
Speaker 2: two or three high level pros NBA guys, fringe rotation players,
Speaker 2: and then maybe a couple of players that can go
Speaker 2: over to Europe. And we have examples of that that
Speaker 2: we can look at with the University of Utah. The
Speaker 2: best teams Rick ever had had Andre pro Alex Jensen,
Speaker 2: European pro Britton Johnson NBA and europe Mike Doliak made
Speaker 2: money playing pro basketball.
Speaker 1: Hanald Metzla like they. I mean, yes, probably the best example.
Speaker 2: So all of these teams that we all watched in
Speaker 2: the nineties that didn't just make the tournament but made runs.
Speaker 2: One of them came within a red bull of winning
Speaker 2: a national championship. They're up ten at halftime with Kentucky
Speaker 2: and then I'll never forget man. They come out of
Speaker 2: the locker room in the second half within five minutes
Speaker 2: and like their gas. Because Rick was essentially playing seven guys.
Speaker 2: He wanted his top shelf players playing. And it's not
Speaker 2: just Utah. I mean right now, Kevin Young down at
Speaker 2: BYU has two pros for Shore, two NBA guys for
Speaker 2: sure in Yegor Demon and Cannon Catchings, and a guy
Speaker 2: in Richie Saunders who's playing his way onto the radars
Speaker 2: and scouts. He's really good. He is a European guy,
Speaker 2: for sure. I think that's probably it. I know Dallen
Speaker 2: Hall talks about wanting to play pro basketball, but as
Speaker 2: John Kalipari used to say when somebody asked him, Ani
Speaker 2: prosy yat he said, I have twelve go ask him, right,
Speaker 2: they all think they can play. But no, to your point, like,
Speaker 2: if you want to win championships, if you want to
Speaker 2: compete for championships, if you want to make the tournament
Speaker 2: in advance, this is a player's game at the end
Speaker 2: of the day. Luke Walton took over the Warriors from
Speaker 2: Steve Kerr and won like thirty seven or thirty nine games.
Speaker 2: Luke Walton couldn't get a job. He just had that
Speaker 2: group of players. So the unfortunate reality is the coach
Speaker 2: is the one who falls on the sword. He's the
Speaker 2: one that loses his job because you can't fire the players.
Speaker 2: This to me is a talent issue, period, and not
Speaker 2: a coaching issue in my opinion.
Speaker 3: Oh, it's been an issue for a long time. I
Speaker 3: mean Larry, Larry inherited, I mean our guy Bill. Next
Speaker 3: time you have Bill on, you should ask Bill about
Speaker 3: his first year on the be He covered that first
Speaker 3: Larry team that arm Yeah, that won like five games
Speaker 3: back in the PAC twelve era.
Speaker 1: Idea, Bill Arm, Let's get Bill on this week.
Speaker 3: Larry built it into something that was tangible and it worked.
Speaker 3: Chris Hill was a huge Larry guy made him a
Speaker 3: top ten paid coach in the nation, which you can
Speaker 3: make an argument is is a reach, but Larry proved
Speaker 3: to be able to get to the NCAA tournament and
Speaker 3: did it a few times. It's interesting in retrospect that
Speaker 3: fans were frustrated with Larry when you know Mark Carlin
Speaker 3: decides to fire Larry. I think they were on the
Speaker 3: hook for about seven million of dead contract money with him,
Speaker 3: and then I think it's about four with Craig. So
Speaker 3: in three and a half years, the athletic Department has
Speaker 3: had to pay essentially eleven million dollars of dead money
Speaker 3: to coaches that have been released from their contract. For
Speaker 3: a school like you taught, that's a lot. It's it's
Speaker 3: a lot. We're not talking about a blue blood program
Speaker 3: that has cash rolling in. And to your point, I
Speaker 3: think one of the main reasons why this move was
Speaker 3: made was because the apathy within the donor booster supporter
Speaker 3: base reached a level that was untenable. And what is
Speaker 3: next is people going to try to live in the past,
Speaker 3: which I think is a very dangerous game, especially a
Speaker 3: thirty years ago type past. But if those are the
Speaker 3: people that are cutting in checks, all these years later,
Speaker 3: you kind of have to listen to them. So how
Speaker 3: this thing shakes out will see, But safe to say
Speaker 3: you have to nail the higher man. But you have
Speaker 3: to nail the higher and.
Speaker 2: Before we get to what's next, because that's ultimately where
Speaker 2: I want to go to. In just a moment, there's
Speaker 2: a little bit of pressure on Mark to kind of
Speaker 2: get this thing right.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: You know one of the things that we talked about,
Speaker 2: and you and I discussed this Tom Homo after he
Speaker 2: announced that he's stepping down after twenty years, and look
Speaker 2: for people that are upset. I know there are other
Speaker 2: sports outside of basketball and football, but these are the
Speaker 2: revenue generators, and these are what people watch more than
Speaker 2: anything and are interested in more than anything. Shout out
Speaker 2: to the other coaching hires you know that were made
Speaker 2: outside of it. But Tom essentially went five for five.
Speaker 2: You know when you look at Dave Rose and Bronco
Speaker 2: Menenhall and Mark Pope and Kline Satake and now the
Speaker 2: early returns on Kevin Jung seemed to be positive. And
Speaker 2: Mark's only hires Craig that didn't work. He's only outside higher, Yeah,
Speaker 2: he's only outside higher. Yeah, And he gave Gavin Peterson
Speaker 2: the job after Lynn Leu. Yeah yeah, right right, And
Speaker 2: so ultimately the plan was in place, I believe for
Speaker 2: more Goan to take over for Kyle before Mark took
Speaker 2: his job. So we have Mark Harlin, who, if we're honest,
Speaker 2: had a bit of a rough year A little bit
Speaker 2: here there, some rough looks. The press conference after the
Speaker 2: BYU game took a lot of heat, was reprimanded from
Speaker 2: the conference, they had to pay a fine, and the
Speaker 2: one main major higher he made is now over. I
Speaker 2: don't know how much of it was his call. I
Speaker 2: don't know how much of it was boosters. I don't
Speaker 2: how much of it was Taylor Randalls, one of the
Speaker 2: Taylor Randall's like an underrated figure and all this stuff,
Speaker 2: because that dude is sharp, he's very smart, and he's run.
Speaker 3: He's a sports guy too.
Speaker 2: He's a sports guy, but he's a wicked smart businessman,
Speaker 2: like he understands the bottom line. So were these boosters
Speaker 2: going to Taylor and then Taylor going to Mark and saying, look,
Speaker 2: we got to do something here. Is there something with
Speaker 2: player retention that they were worried about, which is why
Speaker 2: the timing was right? Now, like do they want Ezra
Speaker 2: usr back, and are there players that feel like they're
Speaker 2: underutilized that they want to keep. I don't fully know
Speaker 2: how it all went down at the end of the day,
Speaker 2: but it does sound like a lot of this was
Speaker 2: booster driven, and so the reasons could be varied. We
Speaker 2: could reduce it to the fact that he didn't win enough.
Speaker 2: We could reduce it to the fact that the attendance
Speaker 2: continues to dwindle. And it's a basketball community that I
Speaker 2: do think needs a little shot of juice, needs a
Speaker 2: little shot of life. And that's why let's move over
Speaker 2: to what's next. When you look at the direction that
Speaker 2: Mark could take here, there's a list of young coaches
Speaker 2: at smaller schools that have done a great job and
Speaker 2: kind of the college basketball ecosystem has always worked like this.
Speaker 2: You take a small school from a smaller conference, you
Speaker 2: get an auto bid to the NCAA Tournament because you
Speaker 2: won your conference. You win a couple of games, and
Speaker 2: your life changes. Craig did it right, and so Mark
Speaker 2: has already followed that model. You have names like Eric
Speaker 2: Olsen from UC San Diego. You have Nico Medved from
Speaker 2: Colorado State, you have Eric Henderson, from South Dakota State.
Speaker 2: You have Leon Rice from Boise, Russell Turner from UC Irvine.
Speaker 2: This is a list put together by Jeff Borzello. So
Speaker 2: that's one at the young college coach that's done well
Speaker 2: at a small school and you're gonna make him rich
Speaker 2: to coach in the Big twelve. The other avenue, as
Speaker 2: you outline just now, is the Johnny Bryant, the Alex Jensen,
Speaker 2: de Andre Miller, the former utes to sit on the bench.
Speaker 2: Let's start here. Do you think in our state it
Speaker 2: is over sold to need a BYU guy, need a
Speaker 2: Utah guy, need a guy that understands the community. Do
Speaker 2: you think that's inn Do you think it's Do you
Speaker 2: think it's overrated, because every time one of these jobs
Speaker 2: comes comes open, Chris, this is what we do. As
Speaker 2: soon as Bronco left, it was Kilane right. Kevin's different,
Speaker 2: you know, but LDS b Yu it's kind of a
Speaker 2: different thing. Do you think you have to understand Utah
Speaker 2: to take this job?
Speaker 3: Urban didn't, Urban didn't. I don't think so. But if
Speaker 3: we're talking about the power brokers behind the scenes, they
Speaker 3: are the folks who presumably were involved during the Heyday,
Speaker 3: and they lived it, and if they're going to have
Speaker 3: a say, they're going to trend in that direction. They
Speaker 3: do not want to see the bleachers covered up anymore
Speaker 3: in the upper deck. They shouldn't be covered up. They
Speaker 3: shouldn't be I mean, like it's been like that for
Speaker 3: so long it's insane. I personally think the Utah fan
Speaker 3: base as a whole doesn't show out the same way
Speaker 3: some of the other fan bases in this stay tue
Speaker 3: for basketball. They they just don't and they haven't for
Speaker 3: a long time. And maybe it is just being fed
Speaker 3: up with being so average or below average. But I
Speaker 3: can tell you the one time I was at the
Speaker 3: Huntsman Center where I felt like it was at the
Speaker 3: Marriott Center or up at up in Logan. I can't
Speaker 3: And I've covered a bunch of games there for fifteen years.
Speaker 3: I can't remember it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So.
Speaker 3: There is a lot that goes into this. Like I said,
Speaker 3: are you willing to go out and pay and Alex
Speaker 3: Jensen five to seven million dollars a year to leave
Speaker 3: the NBA lifestyle to take over at his alma mater,
Speaker 3: knowing that the nil landscape at the alma mater might
Speaker 3: be on shaky ground, I mean, nobody's ever going to
Speaker 3: come out and talk about what numbers they have because
Speaker 3: they're afraid of looking bad. But I think the Frand
Speaker 3: for Scilla tweet caught fire a little bit. And I
Speaker 3: don't think Frand was wrong in putting that out there either.
Speaker 3: There are many layers into what constitutes building a winning
Speaker 3: program in college basketball in college football in twenty twenty
Speaker 3: five now, and you mentioning the talent, looking at the talent,
Speaker 3: is there a indispensable player on this roster that absolutely
Speaker 3: has to come back next year? There's not. No, there's not.
Speaker 1: No, there's not there's not.
Speaker 3: I mean, like, can't you can't be a power for
Speaker 3: conference team in a market that is growing, at a
Speaker 3: school that presumably is in a decent spot that should
Speaker 3: be in a better spot when it comes to nil
Speaker 3: and not have a single indispensable player.
Speaker 2: It's a really, really fair point because if you look
Speaker 2: at the roster, so these are the players, there would
Speaker 2: be candidates to come back, and I think you'd like
Speaker 2: Ezra Sarback is at the end of the world if
Speaker 2: you don't get him back, it's not But he said
Speaker 2: he's had some real bride moments. He was the best
Speaker 2: player on the floor in that byu Win. So, I
Speaker 2: think you would like Ezra back, but it's not the
Speaker 2: end of the world. Keanu Daz is a sophomore. He
Speaker 2: has shown Spurts got the same deal. Think you'd like
Speaker 2: him back, Not a big deal if you don't have him.
Speaker 2: Hunter Erickson's gone. He's a senior. Of course, when you
Speaker 2: look down the roster, so is lost in lovering and
Speaker 2: Gabe Mattson, as is Gabe's brother Mason Shrob Jamps is
Speaker 2: a junior. Jake Wallen might be the answer. Jakes's sophomore.
Speaker 2: He was a pretty good player. But no, to your point,
Speaker 2: none of these players leaving would kill your program.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that is pretty damning. I think it is.
Speaker 3: And the fact that we have to go back to
Speaker 3: twenty sixteen, twenty seventeen, seventeen to really talk about the
Speaker 3: last time a Utah team had a potentially a potential
Speaker 3: NBA player on its roster is pretty wild.
Speaker 1: It's fair, No, it's very fair. What So let me
Speaker 1: get your thoughts on.
Speaker 3: So, let me ask you, let me interrupt you. Yeah,
Speaker 3: is going back in the time machine? Is that the
Speaker 3: right move for a guy who if we're talking theoretically.
Speaker 3: And Alex, who's been a head coach in the G
Speaker 3: League only hasn't coached college basketball. I don't think since
Speaker 3: he was an assistant for Rick at Saint Louis in
Speaker 3: like twenty eleven, almost fifteen years. Yeah, you know, taking
Speaker 3: Andre Miller out of Grand Rapids or wherever he is.
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 3: I just I can understand the draw, the desire for,
Speaker 3: you know, the legacy to come back, but I honestly
Speaker 3: just don't know what the right move is.
Speaker 2: Well, and you also touched on this earlier. Whoever Mark calls,
Speaker 2: the first thing they're going to ask is what's your
Speaker 2: nil deal? What's the collective? What's the economics, what's the foundation?
Speaker 2: The financial foundation around your basketball program?
Speaker 1: Looks like, what what is it now?
Speaker 2: And what are you willing to promise me in writing
Speaker 2: that it will be if I take this job, Because
Speaker 2: it doesn't matter if you resurrect Rick Majaris. If you
Speaker 2: don't have your NIL in order, you cannot compete. Kyle
Speaker 2: talks about it every time he has a mic, like
Speaker 2: he leans from him Yes, like this is what we
Speaker 2: need from you as our community if you want our
Speaker 2: football team to be good? There are wild reports, mostly
Speaker 2: on the football side, that top shelf football recruits won't
Speaker 2: even answer the phone until they get like fifty k
Speaker 2: and then they'll talk to you.
Speaker 1: I have no idea if these are true.
Speaker 2: I think you were Sharif Shaw, who gave a nice
Speaker 2: coach Shaw pep talk last year and shared some anecdotes
Speaker 2: about players that he wanted to get on campus to
Speaker 2: visit Utah football for like Texas, right, and he's like,
Speaker 2: I couldn't even get them to talk to me unless
Speaker 2: I was willing to like hit their venmo for.
Speaker 1: Fifty k or whatever.
Speaker 3: Shout out Kevin Reynolds.
Speaker 2: Shout out Kevin. Yes he is killing and we'll get
Speaker 2: to that in a moment. BYU's football andil situation and
Speaker 2: BYU fans who like to use the internet to be
Speaker 2: brave and killing our guy, Kevin. But it doesn't matter
Speaker 2: if it's Alex Jensen or if it's pat Riley or
Speaker 2: fitz Brad Stevens. If your nil isn't in order, you're
Speaker 2: behind the eight ball. But to answer your question, I've
Speaker 2: changed my view on this, and here's why I do
Speaker 2: think this basketball community needs a lifeline. I think they
Speaker 2: need an injection of energy and you know, just something
Speaker 2: to jumpstart the basketball community interest that we haven't had
Speaker 2: here to your point, if we're honest, in a very
Speaker 2: long time, consistently outside of moments Jacko Letti, Boge Boilin
Speaker 2: Dertcha Neville.
Speaker 3: Luca Dertscha, how tournament dare Yeah, Yeah.
Speaker 2: The five seat. They lost Arizona first round, but they
Speaker 2: were a top five seed in the tournament. You outline
Speaker 2: some of Larry's teams. We've had moments, but nothing's been consistent,
Speaker 2: if rous since Rick was on the sideline.
Speaker 1: That's just the bottom line.
Speaker 2: And because of that, I just think a Alex Jensen
Speaker 2: head coach, Andre Miller lead assistant would win the press
Speaker 2: conference in Jet Life, and I believe the basketball facility
Speaker 2: would be in in date with calls for season ticket deposits.
Speaker 2: That doesn't answer the question of what it looks like
Speaker 2: long term, and I can't speak to that. I know
Speaker 2: Alex better than I know Andre, and I think Alex
Speaker 2: is a very very smart basketball mind, and he is
Speaker 2: credited with a lot of development of very good players,
Speaker 2: namely Rudy Gobert. Five years ago, when Mark decided to
Speaker 2: move on from Larry and Alex's name came up. I said,
Speaker 2: I don't think so, because I just think he's going
Speaker 2: to be an NBA head coach at some point five
Speaker 2: years later. I'm not sure he's at an interview back
Speaker 2: in the day. He had one interview with Eveland before
Speaker 2: they hired bickerstaff up, and he was Quinn's lead assistant,
Speaker 2: and that was such a successful run here in Saal
Speaker 2: Lake Uner Quinn Snyder. If I'm an owner, I'm looking
Speaker 2: at his lead assistant. But at this point Alex himself
Speaker 2: might be resigned to the fact that the NBA has
Speaker 2: labeled me as a lifetime assistant. And if I ever
Speaker 2: want to be a head coach is probably going to
Speaker 2: be in college, and this would be an opportunity that
Speaker 2: I think at this point he would lean into in
Speaker 2: a way that I didn't think five years ago. So
Speaker 2: I think it makes more sense in my mind that
Speaker 2: I thought it did a number of years ago.
Speaker 3: So that we're going to bottom line it here before
Speaker 3: we go to break because I know you're ready. You're
Speaker 3: going to have to hire the right coach who will
Speaker 3: bring in the nil money, who has to go get
Speaker 3: the right players. Yep, it's as simple as that. And
Speaker 3: whether that's Alex Jensen or the dude from UC Riverside
Speaker 3: or Irvine or Richard Patino at New Mexico, that's how
Speaker 3: it works, period, end of story. Yep. You have to
Speaker 3: hire a guy that people want to give money to
Speaker 3: to go out and sign and pay players. Now that's it.
Speaker 3: That's how it works. So if it is a guy
Speaker 3: that has ties to the program, and it works great.
Speaker 3: And if it's a guy that doesn't have ties to
Speaker 3: the program and it works great too. Yeah, and right
Speaker 3: now it is an absolute crapshoot.
Speaker 2: And to your original point, if the Echos and the
Speaker 2: Huntsman's and whoever else, the Garfs, the garths, the Camaradies,
Speaker 2: you know, whoever else.
Speaker 3: Is My other point was going to be. I just
Speaker 3: think BYU has a longer history of rich people who
Speaker 3: are willing to donate to the to the university. I
Speaker 3: think Utah in a sense is still young there in
Speaker 3: terms of significant athletic success overall. That is, it is
Speaker 3: a school that hasn't reached that echelon as say a
Speaker 3: BYU that's been swimming in that pool for fifty years,
Speaker 3: as opposed to you can talk about Majeris and then
Speaker 3: Urban and Kyle. We're talking thirty years so there, and
Speaker 3: obviously with BYU, the reach globally with the church is
Speaker 3: much wider. And I'm not saying there aren't rich members
Speaker 3: of the church that went to the U. There are,
Speaker 3: but that is also a very big part of this
Speaker 3: as well. The really rich people who want to donate money,
Speaker 3: they are fewer and far between at the you as opposed.
Speaker 2: To and I think the data indicates that. So if
Speaker 2: you're a ute fan and if you're listening, we need
Speaker 2: to start instantly creating MLMs and salt lake that can
Speaker 2: fool peaking companies into believing that a gel will cure
Speaker 2: cancer or a drink.
Speaker 3: Have you watched the Netflix on the on the dude
Speaker 3: who wants to live forever?
Speaker 1: No, but from Utah? Of course he is.
Speaker 3: He went to BYU.
Speaker 2: Of course he is. That doesn't My brother sent me
Speaker 2: his book. I'm not reading this and I haven't watched
Speaker 2: it either, because you know what, you just put me
Speaker 2: in a bad rude. But the data, so what I
Speaker 2: was told by somebody would know, is that BYU right
Speaker 2: now has nine seven figure donors. Utahs too, And I
Speaker 2: think you can guess who the two are. But before
Speaker 2: we catch a break, to your point, if the Echos
Speaker 2: and the Huntsmen and the Garths and whoever or else
Speaker 2: up here is donating money at a large level, if
Speaker 2: they call Taylor President Randall and they say we want Alex,
Speaker 2: you gotta hire him, I think it's kind of that
Speaker 2: simple because the people with deep pocketbooks are running this
Speaker 2: thing in a way they never had. I agree, Yeah,
Speaker 2: last thing because I wanted to ask you, what what's
Speaker 2: your opinion on kind of the pressure that Mark is
Speaker 2: under to get this thing right based off of the
Speaker 2: rough year he's had.
Speaker 3: Well, when Mark was hired from UCF, he came in
Speaker 3: as a guy who was very very good at fundraising
Speaker 3: and wanted to prioritize facilities. That's talking to folks down
Speaker 3: in Tampa. They said that was his bread and butter,
Speaker 3: and he's done that. He got the you know, the
Speaker 3: garfend zone, whatever that's called. He got that across the
Speaker 3: finish line. After Chris Hill put in a lot of
Speaker 3: work on that. You know, they broke round on the
Speaker 3: gymnastics center. They're working on the baseball stadium wherever that's
Speaker 3: going to be up on Sunnyside. But at the end
Speaker 3: of the day, Man, I've said this on the show
Speaker 3: ad nauseum. The product is all that matters. Fans want
Speaker 3: to pay to see their teams play an exciting style
Speaker 3: of sport, whatever it is, and you have to nail
Speaker 3: it otherwise. If you don't nail this higher, then people
Speaker 3: are going to start to get really, really frustrated.
Speaker 2: I think, if we're honest, there are a lot of
Speaker 2: people in this community that have put some pressure on
Speaker 2: Mark and if this doesn't go well. I'm not making
Speaker 2: any sort of grand statement about what's next, but I
Speaker 2: think this is bigger for him than most people realize.
Speaker 3: No, right, I wholeheartedly agree.
Speaker 2: All right, ck Liven Studio. We got a special guest
Speaker 2: I think joined it us coming up next with Chris.
Speaker 2: He doesn't know who it is. I wanted it to
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Speaker 2: dot com or with Ck and a special guest live
Speaker 2: coming up right here on ESPN seven hundred. I got
Speaker 2: a Tom Boger tweet. Wow, this is a little serendipity
Speaker 2: acording to uh, what do we call him?
Speaker 1: Ck? Tommy scoops Tommy.
Speaker 3: Tommy Scoops MLS parlance.
Speaker 1: Now hold on a second. Okay, I'm gonna bring you in.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna bring in courting to Tommy Scoops courting of
Speaker 2: sources where I all saw Lake looking both international and
Speaker 2: domestic for a center forward. Aim As Dablance signed before
Speaker 2: the end of the window.
Speaker 1: Hopefully soon.
Speaker 2: RSL's called around MLS about Duncan Maguire, Brian White, Willie
Speaker 2: a Jada and you know what not even taking a shot.
Speaker 1: The last name Tanny is the first name. So there
Speaker 1: you go.
Speaker 2: A little RSL news, which is apropos because Chris Comraddi
Speaker 2: live in studio on sitting across from me, very handsome
Speaker 2: haircut Trey Fitzgerald on a Wednesday, Hello Trey, good to
Speaker 2: be here, Thanks for coming to see.
Speaker 3: You guys on Conker Calf home opener day.
Speaker 2: Well, let's start with Tommy Scoops. We got we got
Speaker 2: a Ford on the way or what I mean. Look,
Speaker 2: Kurt all but admitted it on the show last week. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you guys are looking.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: No, Kurt had a media breakfast that you did not
Speaker 4: RSVP for a few weeks ago.
Speaker 1: That's irrelevant.
Speaker 3: He shared.
Speaker 4: Basically, this information is that RSL seeking a forward, maybe
Speaker 4: a DP nine, maybe a winger, maybe both, hopefully getting
Speaker 4: it done before the April twenty third close of the
Speaker 4: current window, because if you wait till the summer, there's
Speaker 4: only a seven or eight MLS games left by the
Speaker 4: end of August.
Speaker 1: Who was at the media breakfast? Was it fucking Dens?
Speaker 1: Or who?
Speaker 4: Uh? Dens has hung up the tape recorder's basically hung
Speaker 4: up his Twitter game too.
Speaker 2: But shout out to Den's may the force be way
Speaker 2: of the originals? Oh yeah, love soccer and Star Wars.
Speaker 3: David James there, DJ made Andy Larson was there?
Speaker 2: Shout out to Andy? Okay several did you send me
Speaker 2: an email about this?
Speaker 3: I send you every email.
Speaker 4: I'm not it's the old well, I'm not going to
Speaker 4: give out your email on here. It's all right, the
Speaker 4: old st check one which you may not check.
Speaker 2: You just gave it out and that's all right. Do
Speaker 2: I get a credential this year or.
Speaker 4: What only if your hotmail accepted the application?
Speaker 1: Do you want to tell email stories on the radio
Speaker 1: today track? No?
Speaker 3: I don't have to.
Speaker 1: Do you know what Trey's email was in two thousand
Speaker 1: and four?
Speaker 3: I do not.
Speaker 2: Okay, quick story, anecdotally real quick. So two thousand and
Speaker 2: four Trays one of the first people we hire for RSL.
Speaker 2: We hadn't had our RSL email set up yet, and
Speaker 2: I wanted to start a fantasy football league for the
Speaker 2: new employee, so we get to know each other. So
Speaker 2: I go to Todd Titus brook Bingham, John Kimball, so
Speaker 2: I got to try and try and need your email
Speaker 2: and he goes, I don't want to tell you what, dude,
Speaker 2: we're starting a fantasy football league. You got to tell
Speaker 2: me what it is. And he looks at me and
Speaker 2: he goes, it's ll cool tray.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, oh yeah, at yes, at.
Speaker 1: AOL dot I did that at AOL dot com.
Speaker 2: LLAOL was still holding on at the time, No for sure,
Speaker 2: And instantly I'm like, I want to hang out with
Speaker 2: that guy, like that sounds awesome.
Speaker 4: Spence just wanted to play fantasy football against soccer guys
Speaker 4: for his ego's sake.
Speaker 2: I can't even tell you how much money I've made
Speaker 2: off that dumb league. I've wanted like thirteen times. If
Speaker 2: you want to feel good about your football knowledge, play
Speaker 2: fantasy football with soccer people. Matt Lennio is like my
Speaker 2: farm league. It is awesome.
Speaker 1: How many how many folks are we expecting out at
Speaker 1: the Riot tonight?
Speaker 4: I think we could see twelve to fourteen thousand out
Speaker 4: at America First Field in Sandy tonight. It's obviously clear day,
Speaker 4: beautiful day. It'll be a little chilly this evening to
Speaker 4: warm up even more this weekend for the two thirty
Speaker 4: kickoff Saturday against Seattle, which will be sold out very nicely.
Speaker 4: I know you just called it the riot, right, It's
Speaker 4: a riot, Okay, it's a right.
Speaker 1: I never called it vivid. It was Delta Center.
Speaker 2: It still is, you know, it always was, it is
Speaker 2: now it will always be the riot at America First Field.
Speaker 2: Let's get the online community angry today.
Speaker 1: And refer to it. Referred to it as America First.
Speaker 3: Field Credit Union.
Speaker 1: I'm aware of it.
Speaker 2: It's the same like if you get mad that coke
Speaker 2: is a soda because it's also a drug. You're an idiot.
Speaker 2: You can't hold two thoughts in your mind at once.
Speaker 2: It is a credit union. In addition to a statement
Speaker 2: that makes people upset, I'm here, RSL Striker Potential, what
Speaker 2: do you think necessary?
Speaker 3: I think you saw last year what Pablo Masteroeni can
Speaker 3: do with a full deck of cards. And I'm not
Speaker 3: saying he doesn't have a full deck of cards, but
Speaker 3: I kind of am right, now, I think the off
Speaker 3: season went sideways for RSL at the most important position
Speaker 3: on the team, and that happens, and you brought in
Speaker 3: some pieces that hopefully pan out. But as we saw
Speaker 3: over the weekend, Man and Trey knows this, like the
Speaker 3: teams that were winning and scoring goals, they were having
Speaker 3: goals scored by guys that came into this league and
Speaker 3: were paid five to ten million dollars. That's where we
Speaker 3: are now. You can't moneyball it anymore. You simply can't.
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 3: And I think RSL knows that the bones around the
Speaker 3: number nine position is there, But without that, without an alpha,
Speaker 3: I don't know what the ceiling is for this team
Speaker 3: beyond scraping for seven eight, I don't know, Trey. Are
Speaker 3: we still top seven? Is top? Top nine?
Speaker 1: Nineez?
Speaker 3: There's an eight to nine play in game in each conference?
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right, top nine for the playoffs? Yeah, dumb league.
Speaker 3: So point, there's fifteen teams in each conference.
Speaker 2: That's still too many teams in the playoffs. You just
Speaker 2: want more content for your Apple viewers, and then you
Speaker 2: can lie about the number of viewers.
Speaker 1: I understand, is it ilias Man? Well?
Speaker 2: Because I said Elias and he corrected me. He said
Speaker 2: it was ilious. I've heard it three different ways, all right. Anyway,
Speaker 2: he didn't person on Mogrado, so helped me understand this. Right,
Speaker 2: So what happened because it felt like there was a
Speaker 2: little bit of buzz around him potentially coming. And when
Speaker 2: I looked at simply the release you sent, they'd had
Speaker 2: numbers that he had scored goals and it looked like
Speaker 2: he could be was somewhat of an answer.
Speaker 4: So I think young young Anderson Julio was the thought there,
Speaker 4: you know, half the price five six years younger scored
Speaker 4: a hat trick in the playoffs two years ago. It
Speaker 4: was a pretty good player for New York. Pablo Kurt
Speaker 4: had a exciting in there in Kurt's terms, zoom call
Speaker 4: with this guy, and then after he was traded, and
Speaker 4: this happens, I think more often than not with foreign players.
Speaker 4: Is anywhere else in the world do you have a
Speaker 4: say in where.
Speaker 3: You go when you leave a team?
Speaker 4: In MLS, you're traded, much like in every American sports league.
Speaker 4: And this guy and his agent two days before training
Speaker 4: camp said hey, we're not going to show up until
Speaker 4: you triple my salary.
Speaker 3: And we said it's not how we were.
Speaker 1: It was a salary demand. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: And then he he and his agent, they wrote a
Speaker 4: big letter saying that they don't recognize Major League Soccers
Speaker 4: the contractual bylaws that allow you to be traded because
Speaker 4: MLS owns all the player comes. So it's a very
Speaker 4: unique thing. But so he never reported. He got suspended
Speaker 4: and fined and all these things. And I think now
Speaker 4: he's on the verge, according to Tom Bogert, on the
Speaker 4: verge of being sold to a very prominent team in Brazil.
Speaker 4: So I think RSL will end up being made whole
Speaker 4: for the for the gam that we sent New York
Speaker 4: for him and a bunch of draft picks back on
Speaker 4: December twentieth. It's a little disappointing, right, Like, you know,
Speaker 4: he sounded like he wanted to come take Julio's place
Speaker 4: and maybe compete to take Chicho's place eventually, but he
Speaker 4: was viewed internally as a Anderson Julio replaced him.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and if we're being honest, that's as a placeholder.
Speaker 3: He was a guy that could have helped stem the
Speaker 3: tide from January when they reported in camp through conquer
Speaker 3: Calf March April hopefully get somebody who's going to come
Speaker 3: in and be in Alpha. But he was not the
Speaker 3: guy that was going to be the person who was
Speaker 3: going to replace chi Cho Rongo. Is that that's just?
Speaker 1: Is that fair to say?
Speaker 3: Absolutely? Okay, yeah, all right, and and sorry to interrupt
Speaker 3: you please again to get back to where Ursel was
Speaker 3: last year, I understand deandrascomes sale had to happen, and
Speaker 3: you do that ten times out of ten, but you
Speaker 3: have to have somebody come in and take I don't know,
Speaker 3: bull by the horns, scruff of the neck. I don't
Speaker 3: know which RSL attacker right now instills fear in an opponent.
Speaker 3: I honestly don't. And there was a time last year
Speaker 3: where you had several and it's just part of it.
Speaker 3: But for ours all to get back into contention in
Speaker 3: a league now that is spending a leap ton of
Speaker 3: money on attacking players, they got to nail these moves.
Speaker 1: So the strikers on the roster now Ilius is on
Speaker 1: the website.
Speaker 4: Well he's still technically our proper finalized the sales Forrester
Speaker 4: for ser A, Jago Peel, Ari Peel.
Speaker 1: Are those the two best strikers on the rosters the
Speaker 1: two nines.
Speaker 4: Right now, there is a first round draft pick named
Speaker 4: his sus Barea, who will officially sign his MLS deal
Speaker 4: shortly once his student visa goes to being a p
Speaker 4: one Visa.
Speaker 2: You know what his middle name is, I don't hopefully
Speaker 2: starts with Jay JJ Brea.
Speaker 1: There you go like it.
Speaker 4: And then, as you said, Kurt is scouring the league
Speaker 4: and scouring the globe looking for more competition up top.
Speaker 4: I think, to Chris's point, like you've seen a vander
Speaker 4: go from Portland to Cincinnati for thirteen million. Cincinnati also
Speaker 4: signed an international striker named Kevin Danky for sixteen million.
Speaker 1: I believe.
Speaker 4: Lucha Acosta, who was the MVP two years ago, went
Speaker 4: from Cincinnati to Dallas for five million cash. So yes,
Speaker 4: the price of doing business is going up in this league.
Speaker 4: You remember we bought Chicho almost two years ago for
Speaker 4: six million. That's the biggest purchase in the history of RSL.
Speaker 4: As Pablo has taken a saying, before Chicho was Chicho,
Speaker 4: he was just a guy. Right now, Ripol and Forster
Speaker 4: Rajago are just guys and they got to perform to
Speaker 4: become what everybody believes they will be. I think between
Speaker 4: Diego Luna, Diogo Gonsalvi, Dominic Marchuk, there is a belief
Speaker 4: that we can set these guys up for success, but
Speaker 4: clearly we've not seen that in the first one hundred
Speaker 4: and eighty minutes this season.
Speaker 3: I think Forrester has had a couple of good breakaway.
Speaker 4: Opportunities that didn't get finished, and I think tonight you'll
Speaker 4: see a different team that just plays a little better
Speaker 4: and more cohesively than what we saw Saturday.
Speaker 2: Jason two weeks ago, Jason crist and shout out to
Speaker 2: John Paul, you guys have lost JP. We're trying to
Speaker 2: win JP back to becoming an RSL fan, So this
Speaker 2: is partly for him. Jason brought up the conversation that
Speaker 2: my father had with him when Jason went to him
Speaker 2: and said, I'm trading Jeff Cunningham, and my dad said,
Speaker 2: who's going to score our goals? And Jason said it'll
Speaker 2: be by committee, and ultimately that's what happened, right you trade,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna nail it Sturgis for Robbie Finley. Is that
Speaker 2: Nate Sturgis Robbie Finley, Chris Klein. Yes, Jason went brutus
Speaker 2: e two on his best friend tredon Mela. But you know,
Speaker 2: Robbie shows up and then you know, you never know
Speaker 2: when a hobby air type. I know rself fans hate
Speaker 2: when I go back to two thousand and nine, But Chris,
Speaker 2: is there a chance that the way that two thousand
Speaker 2: and you know, seven eight nine team was able to
Speaker 2: make up for Cunningham's goals by committee, is there a
Speaker 2: chance this group can do that?
Speaker 1: No, there's not.
Speaker 3: I'm going to be with my guy here. I'm just
Speaker 3: where the league is now.
Speaker 1: It is.
Speaker 3: I don't even can I go beyond night and day.
Speaker 3: It is so starkly different that like it is wild.
Speaker 3: Trey just mentioned a team spend twenty nine million dollars
Speaker 3: on two players.
Speaker 1: That's wild.
Speaker 3: And they were a team, an expansion team a few
Speaker 3: years ago that were like the worse than the history
Speaker 3: of the league. So it turns out if you spend
Speaker 3: a lot of money, you're gonna be really good. And
Speaker 3: now they're winning Conker CAF matches because they're really good.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So the same thing we were talking about with with
Speaker 3: the running Newts. Spend money, nail it and you'll be okay. Yeah,
Speaker 3: But if you don't spend money and you don't nail it,
Speaker 3: you will not be okay.
Speaker 2: So Trey, and if you need a pun on this,
Speaker 2: just pun on it, because I obviously am not going
Speaker 2: to ask you to speak poorly of your employer, and
Speaker 2: nor am I leading you with this question. But I'm
Speaker 2: just wondering if the rsl ethos of development right like
Speaker 2: I'm thinking of Andres. You know, and look, that's good economics.
Speaker 2: I understand the business decision, even though as a sports
Speaker 2: fan that wasn't raised with this model, I don't love it.
Speaker 1: I never will.
Speaker 2: Like if you sell Diego, I'm going to be bummed,
Speaker 2: but I understand that you kind of have to. But
Speaker 2: to Chris's point, with this money that's being spent, is
Speaker 2: there is it time to maybe take a look at
Speaker 2: the model and maybe adjusted a little bit as opposed
Speaker 2: to being a developmental club, Like we're in this game,
Speaker 2: we need to go spend some money to get some
Speaker 2: big dogs.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Look, I think if Kurt Pablo Jason, John Kimball went
Speaker 4: to David Blitzer and Ryan Smith tonight and said, look,
Speaker 4: we found our guy.
Speaker 3: He fits in our locker room. He's the right guy.
Speaker 1: He costs thirteen million dollars.
Speaker 4: I think if Pablo Kurt made the case that they
Speaker 4: could get it done. I do believe our ownership is committed. Look,
Speaker 4: I think besides what you see on the MLS salary cap,
Speaker 4: I think it's probably not well known that this team
Speaker 4: spends I don't know, seven million a year on academy
Speaker 4: and monarchs for that developmental piece. We haven't sold a
Speaker 4: kid to Europe for twenty million like Dallas or Philadelphia
Speaker 4: or the Red Bulls have started to do. The Andres
Speaker 4: Gomez sale was important not only because it was six
Speaker 4: times our previous highest sale, but because we are now
Speaker 4: a participant in that global market. We I'm sure that
Speaker 4: at some point we will have opportunities to sell Diego
Speaker 4: Luna for big money, and sell Dominic Marchuk for big money,
Speaker 4: and maybe now Kobe Henry for big money once you know,
Speaker 4: maybe we buy him from the team that is loaning
Speaker 4: him to us now from France. This is the one
Speaker 4: silver lining, maybe of the rumored calendar change, is that
Speaker 4: then the biggest transfer market window in the world doesn't
Speaker 4: happen in the middle of our season. It will happen
Speaker 4: at the end of our season. But there's a lot
Speaker 4: of obvious problems trying to play games in fourteen fifteen
Speaker 4: MLS markets in December, January, February. Yeah, so that's but
Speaker 4: that's the that's the trade off is that MLS could
Speaker 4: become an even more prominent economic player in the global marketplace.
Speaker 2: So c k if let's let's let let's give our
Speaker 2: guy the benefit of doubt. Okay, So operate off a
Speaker 2: hypothetical that over the next couple of weeks we hear
Speaker 2: of a big time nine that is signed, a DP
Speaker 2: type nine that is signed. Because if you look up
Speaker 2: and down the roster, there's great depth in the midfield,
Speaker 2: right like holding mid and that they seems like they
Speaker 2: have four or five options there.
Speaker 1: I don't know enough about.
Speaker 2: The keeper to have some sort of that he gave
Speaker 2: up four, but the team gave up four against San Jose,
Speaker 2: some acquisitions of the back line. If they can solidify nine,
Speaker 2: what do you think they can be this year?
Speaker 3: Well, I'll start by saying it matters who it is,
Speaker 3: and you have to look at the track record of
Speaker 3: the type of guy they're bringing in. Garth Fogerway and
Speaker 3: Chris Henderson brought in a guy from Middlesbrough for like
Speaker 3: twenty two million dollars. Who scores eight ton of goals
Speaker 3: and guess what he had two in his debut. Uh
Speaker 3: you know when when and Garth brought in Raul Rui
Speaker 3: Diaz for Mexico and Seattle. He was scoring a ton
Speaker 3: of goals in Mexico and guess what he was scoring
Speaker 3: a ton of goals in Seattle. They won MLS Cup,
Speaker 3: they won Conca CAF. Find guys that do it, do
Speaker 3: it often, and do it at a high level, and
Speaker 3: you'll be okay. But you can't go out and give
Speaker 3: and give the fan base that is satiating for some
Speaker 3: star talent right now. Oh this is going to be
Speaker 3: a guy who can potentially develop and they already have
Speaker 3: two those guys on the rostra. You need to go
Speaker 3: out and say, oh, this is a dude who was
Speaker 3: who has scored forty goals in Mexico in the last
Speaker 3: two or three years, or this is a guy who
Speaker 3: scored twenty five goals in Brazil the last two years,
Speaker 3: or a guy who scored fifty goals in the Netherlands
Speaker 3: over the last four years. Bring in guys who have
Speaker 3: track records who can do it and as Trey mentioned,
Speaker 3: the earlier you do it, you don't have the lull
Speaker 3: that all of these guys hit when they come in
Speaker 3: the summer transfer window because they're dusting in real time
Speaker 3: in the middle of the dog days of summer. As
Speaker 3: we saw with Diego Gonzalveez last year. It takes a
Speaker 3: very long time, especially for attacking talent, to adapt to
Speaker 3: a league that will beat the crap out of its
Speaker 3: attacking player. Still, it is a very physical league and
Speaker 3: that's part of that is part of the acclamation process.
Speaker 1: Do you think they need more than one nine?
Speaker 3: No, I wouldn't say they need more than one nine.
Speaker 3: I think depending on what they want to do with
Speaker 3: Diego Luna. If Diego does want to be sold to
Speaker 3: Mexico or Europe or South America, then we're having a
Speaker 3: much different conversation and that will be a very very
Speaker 3: difficult sell to the fan base because I think you
Speaker 3: can make an argument that Diego Luna is maybe the
Speaker 3: most beloved RSO player hmm. I mean, I'm thinking like
Speaker 3: he's up there with like like maybe Demir Crylocker and
Speaker 3: even before that, kind of like the star.
Speaker 1: Talent days, Rusty Pierce, Matt Banky.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think Chris is right though. I think you
Speaker 4: can put Diego in there with Demyr, with Kyle.
Speaker 3: With Nick.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, yeah, there's no doubt.
Speaker 4: And you know him playing with a broken nose, a
Speaker 4: shatter nose, creating six big chances in the game, winning
Speaker 4: assist in that US game a couple months ago.
Speaker 3: It's part of the legend. It went viral. It's massive.
Speaker 4: This is his team right now, and it will be
Speaker 4: this year, I think, until maybe a bigger name comes in.
Speaker 2: I've forgot to tell you, I had one of those
Speaker 2: nights where it's like sleep not an option tonight. Yeah,
Speaker 2: not too long ago, and I knew it's one of
Speaker 2: those things, you know. I'm like, all right, I've got
Speaker 2: to figure something out. And I pulled up the Apple TV,
Speaker 2: like quick dock they did on Diego.
Speaker 1: I'm assuming you saw it. Yeah, it was really good.
Speaker 1: It was good.
Speaker 3: It's great.
Speaker 2: I mean, so he seems like such a sweet kid,
Speaker 2: but obviously it helps that he's awesome, right, Like, it's
Speaker 2: one thing to have a player that you love, but
Speaker 2: it helps that he's really really good.
Speaker 4: And look, he just turned twenty one. Yeah, in September,
Speaker 4: he came to US when he was nineteen. He had
Speaker 4: a baby when he was nineteen. He lives apart from
Speaker 4: you know, his kid and his wife. He's trying to
Speaker 4: like build this career. And he's been talking for about
Speaker 4: a year now, very openly about when he was alone
Speaker 4: moving to Salt Lake City and didn't know anybody, taking
Speaker 4: a job at a coffee shop just to tone his
Speaker 4: social skills cool. And then he's talked a lot, and
Speaker 4: I think the doc you're talking about hones in on
Speaker 4: this his dedication to his mental health and really trying
Speaker 4: to juggle the pressure and the expectation. He started talking
Speaker 4: about why he left his home, which was a very
Speaker 4: soccer centric home when he's fourteen in the Bay Area
Speaker 4: to start pursuing some of these academy opportunities, and he's
Speaker 4: just he truly is an inspiration when you hear him
Speaker 4: kind of open up and talk about his challenges. And
Speaker 4: then we saw it last year in Chicago because he
Speaker 4: had been benched and Pablo is very much a father
Speaker 4: figure and a mentor to this young guy. And then
Speaker 4: he scored that fourth goal in Chicago, ran right over
Speaker 4: then had a nice embrace with Pablo, and those two
Speaker 4: have become very very close over last year.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you move on from him, and you're not bringing
Speaker 2: in reinforcements. This fan base might riot at the riot.
Speaker 3: Well, it matters that he's an attacking young player. To
Speaker 3: RSL has done a great job of producing young academy
Speaker 3: talent that our goalkeepers, defenders, holding midfielders, whatever. There's something
Speaker 3: about the position that with guys who score goals that
Speaker 3: have tantalizing plays, they endear themselves to a fan base
Speaker 3: on a different level and that matters. And you know,
Speaker 3: if and when Diego Luna does move, I think every
Speaker 3: RSL fan who understands the game will understand him. But
Speaker 3: it will be heartbreaking. But at the same time, it
Speaker 3: is part of the sport that you didn't grow up
Speaker 3: with Spence and it will be cool for us in
Speaker 3: Salt Lake to see him at a different club potentially
Speaker 3: you know, hitting a different stride, making maybe more inroads
Speaker 3: with the national team. Because is the reality.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I understand the dynamic. I just am used
Speaker 2: to We have a good player. Let's hold on him
Speaker 2: as long as we can, unless Donhiman doesn't want to
Speaker 2: live in Salt Lake and then he leaves, right Like,
Speaker 2: I just want to hold on.
Speaker 1: To the best players real quick.
Speaker 2: I just got an update, a text from lifelong RSL
Speaker 2: super fan JP John Paul Chungker.
Speaker 1: He says, I remain unconvinced.
Speaker 2: So before I set you loose, make a plead to
Speaker 2: our guy, get him back on RSL side.
Speaker 1: Twenty years of fandom out.
Speaker 3: The win, out the window.
Speaker 1: He's our guys out, let's win.
Speaker 4: Let's tell JP to text me at eight thirty tonight
Speaker 4: after the forster a Jogo hat trick.
Speaker 1: All right there, love it? Love it?
Speaker 4: And then and then Saturday after ri E Peel's coming
Speaker 4: out party.
Speaker 1: Okay, I love it. I like the confidence.
Speaker 4: I look, I see these guys every day. I'm biased
Speaker 4: as well. I definitely see glass half full. But I
Speaker 4: really do think these guys are talented and they are
Speaker 4: surrounded by creativity, and sure can they fail, Yeah, but
Speaker 4: I don't think. I don't think they're going to look.
Speaker 2: I want us all the stand on our feet and
Speaker 2: shout it out right. I want us all to believe,
Speaker 2: all right, lasting format tonight, you gotta win, right, Yeah, So.
Speaker 4: No away goals in the first leg, so that tiebreaker
Speaker 4: sort of tips in favor of already Ono any scoring
Speaker 4: tie tonight is bad for us.
Speaker 3: We got to win.
Speaker 4: If it is tiede zero zero after ninety minutes, you
Speaker 4: go thirty minutes of extra time. Away goals in extra
Speaker 4: time have no value, do not count. Still tied after
Speaker 4: one hundred and twenty minutes, we go to penalty kicks.
Speaker 4: The good news is that RSL has won three straight
Speaker 4: elimination games on Utah soil. Tonight, hopefully Pablo can make
Speaker 4: it a fourth. Only five of eighteen elimination games under
Speaker 4: Pablo have have happened at home.
Speaker 3: Almost all of them.
Speaker 4: If you think about the PK shootout losses and all
Speaker 4: these other things in different competitions have been.
Speaker 2: Away RSL dot Com for tickets k you think they
Speaker 2: get it done tonight.
Speaker 3: Who's in the starting eleven tree? Lots of changes, eight
Speaker 3: changes from eight changes from the first legger from San Jose.
Speaker 1: Well, that's good. To follow up a mecca with the
Speaker 1: armband again most likely good.
Speaker 3: A mecca is an absolute stud shout.
Speaker 2: Out in eight bench. That's right, all right, guys, great
Speaker 2: to see Okay, thanks.
Speaker 3: For coming to you, Thanks for having us.
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