Speaker 1: Welcome to the Big Blue and sider Dick Abriel with
Speaker 1: you on a Thursday edition of our program. As we
Speaker 1: draw one day closer to game night, but also one
Speaker 1: day closer to event night. This is the overlap period
Speaker 1: in October when there is so much going on in
Speaker 1: college athletics, including basketball and football. The games have not
Speaker 1: begun yet in college basketball, as you know, but Madness
Speaker 1: is upon us. That happens tomorrow night. Know radio coverage,
Speaker 1: but there will be TV coverage on the SEC Network.
Speaker 1: In fact, Tom Hart has double duty this week for
Speaker 1: the SEC Network. He's the guy who called Vanderbilt Alabama
Speaker 1: with Coole Kublick and Alyssa Lang last week. He'll be
Speaker 1: working Kentucky Vanderbilt Saturday night, but also coming to town
Speaker 1: today early to work Madness, which he has done before.
Speaker 1: Tom's going to join us on the show tomorrow night,
Speaker 1: just ahead of the Madness telecast, but also he'll talk
Speaker 1: to us about Kentucky football as well. We'll have that
Speaker 1: one for you at five thirty. Christy Thomas, Slogan Stenberg,
Speaker 1: Jeremy Jarman with Pregame, Tom Leach, Jeff McCory, Yours Truly
Speaker 1: with Commodore's Cats. It's a huge game for both both
Speaker 1: coming off huge upsets, Vandy of the two a little
Speaker 1: bit bigger upset, but boy to Kentucky need that win now,
Speaker 1: like Kentucky needed the win more than Vandy. Now. The
Speaker 1: Vandy people would argue that nobody expected. Of course, that
Speaker 1: went over Alabama, that was not circled as a win
Speaker 1: on the Vandy schedule. And I don't know how many
Speaker 1: people expected Vandy to go to a bowl game this season.
Speaker 1: Of course, a huge step closer for the Commodores, but
Speaker 1: Kentucky had already given away that game to South Carolina,
Speaker 1: got it back against Ole miss Vandy fans could argue
Speaker 1: they gave away a game, which they did to Missouri.
Speaker 1: So it's huge for both sides. And you know what, though,
Speaker 1: it always is, And I know I've said this before,
Speaker 1: but I always go back to the news conference when
Speaker 1: Rich Brooks was here early in his tenure, and he
Speaker 1: got a little testy a couple times, although I think
Speaker 1: it was more delivering this as a wry observation, but
Speaker 1: I remember he stood up in front of the media
Speaker 1: and Wildcat Den and he talked about the Vandy series
Speaker 1: and he was basically an unparaphrasing saying, you know, everybody
Speaker 1: expects us to win this game every year. But he
Speaker 1: pointed out that at the time, and of course this
Speaker 1: was what twelve to fifteen years ago more, the series
Speaker 1: was deadlock. I want to say eighty one, eighty one
Speaker 1: and four. Both teams had won eighty one times with
Speaker 1: four ties. This is a game that both sides fully
Speaker 1: expect to win. I'm talking about the fans, not so
Speaker 1: much the coaches and players, but fans absolutely expected their
Speaker 1: respective teams to win this game. And yet it could
Speaker 1: not have been more evenly split. And it's like that
Speaker 1: this weekend. You know, if Kentucky loses this game, people
Speaker 1: are going to be picked off and devastated and all that.
Speaker 1: Oh we lose to Vandy. It's it's just not the
Speaker 1: same And if Vandy loses, it's not the same Kentucky team.
Speaker 1: And in fact, Vandy came in here two years ago
Speaker 1: in Kentucky was flat through their helmets on the field
Speaker 1: and lost. Like, Hey, we're Kentucky or Vandy, We're gonna win. No,
Speaker 1: it doesn't work that way. I'll double back to Kentucky
Speaker 1: football in just a minute. But I wanted to share
Speaker 1: a couple of stories with you. You know by now,
Speaker 1: the Mets beat the Phillies Francisco Lindor with a Grand
Speaker 1: Slam in the NLDS Game four. So the Phillies, who
Speaker 1: have said it's World Series or bust for us, they're busted.
Speaker 1: And the Mets, you know, one of the Cinderella teams
Speaker 1: still in the playoffs, are moving on. But the Phillies,
Speaker 1: for all the money they invested, you forget the Mets
Speaker 1: spent a ton of money on indoor. They invested three
Speaker 1: hundred and forty one million dollars and thought, well, this
Speaker 1: guy can get us some playoff wins. And guess what
Speaker 1: he did. When you're a hedge fund billionaire like Steve Cohen,
Speaker 1: the owner, you can afford that kind of money, which
Speaker 1: he did. He shelled that out three years ago, got
Speaker 1: himself a star shortstop, thought he would have that position
Speaker 1: locked down for the next decade. And it looks like
Speaker 1: it was money well spent. Yankees beat the Royals last night,
Speaker 1: so both New York teams are still alive. So are
Speaker 1: the Dodgers, who were on the brink, but they blanked
Speaker 1: the San Diego Padres bullpen got it done. Our man
Speaker 1: Gary Moore was almost us last night, our Weston bureau
Speaker 1: chief who covered the Dodgers for the longest time, and
Speaker 1: we both talked about how pitching has just been ravaged
Speaker 1: by injuries, but Dodgers still alive. Padres are one of
Speaker 1: those Cinderella teams the NFL, of course, the biggest story
Speaker 1: this week so far the Jets firing coach Robert Sala.
Speaker 1: Now comes to the debate about the role of Aaron Rodgers.
Speaker 1: And I came across a column written by Mike Florio,
Speaker 1: who is a well re the calumnists, but he has
Speaker 1: his opinion and he sits down and he writes his column,
Speaker 1: and his opinion is that Rogers basically got Robert Sala fired,
Speaker 1: not that he went to the owner and said, I
Speaker 1: need you to fire this guy, which is what the
Speaker 1: cynic in you says what happened. But that did not.
Speaker 1: But as Foyo points out, he did not go to
Speaker 1: the owner and say, hey, man, don't fire this guy.
Speaker 1: Here's the thing, I don't really know that that would
Speaker 1: have mattered, because from everything I've heard and read, the
Speaker 1: owner watched the latest mess by the Jets getting beat
Speaker 1: and made up his own mind, came to work, what
Speaker 1: was it Monday or Tuesday, and Sala came in and hey,
Speaker 1: mister Johnson needs to see you. So, yeah, Rogers had
Speaker 1: a lot to do with the fact that they're not
Speaker 1: playing well. Their defense is really good. Salah's a defensive guy,
Speaker 1: and he went on and guy Nathaniel Hackett, who is
Speaker 1: rogers offensive guy, but they're just bad on offense. And
Speaker 1: I will say this, Tyler Conklin said, I don't think
Speaker 1: anybody inside this building, player wise or anything, thought that
Speaker 1: Aaron had anything to do with the firing. He told
Speaker 1: ESPN dot Com. He said, I honestly, truly believe Aaron
Speaker 1: probably took this harder than almost anybody. Of course, he
Speaker 1: had gone on, Rogers said with Pat McAfee, and I
Speaker 1: didn't hear it, but I read the transcript, and you know,
Speaker 1: he talked about the emotional impact and things like that.
Speaker 1: Rogers can make things sound though like he's shrugging things off.
Speaker 1: But as long as he's got Hackett, I think he's
Speaker 1: If not happy, he's comfortable, Well, they better start producing
Speaker 1: points because whoever is the next head coach is going
Speaker 1: to need more points or hit the unemployment line. Hey,
Speaker 1: remember when the Wildcats would prepare for South Carolina and
Speaker 1: quarterback Spencer Rattler, the guy who transferred from Oklahoma after
Speaker 1: being the Heisman favorite and fell off the table, transferred
Speaker 1: not a decent time in Columbia. Well, guess what he's
Speaker 1: going to start for the New Orleans Saints. Derek Carr
Speaker 1: is injured and Spencer Rattler has beaten out Jake Hayner
Speaker 1: for the starting job in the game with Tampa Bay.
Speaker 1: And that's Billy Rutli's team and our own. Mister Rutlige
Speaker 1: will tell you Buccaneer Saints is a big rivalry. Saints
Speaker 1: fans and Buccaneers fans, they hate each other. Former Wildcat
Speaker 1: Karl Anthony towns now a New York Nick had a
Speaker 1: bad shooting night last night against the Washington Wizards, but
Speaker 1: it didn't matter. He ended up at twenty five and twelve.
Speaker 1: He did go one for seven from outside from three
Speaker 1: point land, including an air ball, and apparently when that happened,
Speaker 1: the crowd groaned, but they gave him an ovation when
Speaker 1: he left the game. After his twenty five points and
Speaker 1: twelve rebounds, he was ten of eleven from the free
Speaker 1: throw line. They know he can shoot, but he's the
Speaker 1: big man. He's the inside guy, a post up player
Speaker 1: that Julius Randall was not. Julius was at a times
Speaker 1: face to basket, back to the basket power forward. But
Speaker 1: the thought is that the Knicks have needed a true
Speaker 1: low post presence and that's Karl Anthony town So maybe
Speaker 1: he's that last piece of a puzzle for them. We're
Speaker 1: going to talk to our New York City Bureau chief
Speaker 1: Mike Sephaznik, super UK fan, super Knicks fan, coming up
Speaker 1: in the next day or two. All right, on to
Speaker 1: Kentucky football. Now, the Wildcats, especially on defense prepping for
Speaker 1: a Vandy team that'll show you a lot, including quarterback
Speaker 1: Diego Flavia and Brad White, talked about the challenge that
Speaker 1: comes with a guy trying to stop a guy he
Speaker 1: can do almost anything.
Speaker 2: Obviously, it starts, you know, with the quarterback, his ability
Speaker 2: to one handle the offense. The multiplicity of what they do,
Speaker 2: you know, that's a lot. And obviously he's been in
Speaker 2: that system, certainly understands, he understands what they're looking for.
Speaker 2: They stress you in a lot of different areas.
Speaker 1: Kentucky did not have Maxwell Harriston against Olemiss and still
Speaker 1: got the job done thanks in large part to what
Speaker 1: happened up front. With a defensive line which is now
Speaker 1: drawing national acclaim being called elite. They're going to have
Speaker 1: to be elite in minimizing the damage done by Diego
Speaker 1: because obviously what that does is make life better for
Speaker 1: the back for they still got to do their job.
Speaker 1: But if the d line can put the pressure on
Speaker 1: Diego the way they did against Jackson Dart, who still
Speaker 1: made some plays, but they forced him out of the pocket,
Speaker 1: forced him to throw in the run, did not let
Speaker 1: him get comfortable. They've got to do that against Vanderbilt,
Speaker 1: and they got to do that with some young players,
Speaker 1: with some new players, including Christian Story, senior defensive back
Speaker 1: transferred in from Alabama and has played well, has made
Speaker 1: some plays, and he talked about the fact that communications
Speaker 1: in the back four, really the entire defense will be vital.
Speaker 1: They've got to keep the quarterback from working his magic.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I feel like he's a really big part of
Speaker 3: the offense. And they all work together and play all.
Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying. Everybody played on the same
Speaker 3: page a lot, and we just have to execute and
Speaker 3: everybody do our job on our hand, and I feel
Speaker 3: like we'll have a res successful game, and I feel
Speaker 3: like everybody's communicating and we're all playing as one, like
Speaker 3: everybody's doing their job, and I feel like there's going
Speaker 3: to be a big part of this game, everybody making
Speaker 3: sure that we're on the same pain and everybody doing
Speaker 3: their job.
Speaker 1: Story is in his final year of eligibility after spending
Speaker 1: his first four years in college football at Alabama. Red
Speaker 1: shirted actually his freshman year, and then saw a lot
Speaker 1: of action after that, played in just about every game since.
Speaker 1: Started a couple of games as a junior, one again
Speaker 1: against Chattanooga and one against Kentucky, And of course he
Speaker 1: said he was as surprised as anybody by his former
Speaker 1: team losing the Vanderbilt didn't dwell on it, but everybody
Speaker 1: was surprised by that. I think if you held the
Speaker 1: Commodorees down, they might have told you they were surprised.
Speaker 1: But they followed the game plan just as Kentucky did
Speaker 1: against Ole Miss, and not just that executed it perfectly.
Speaker 1: And yeah, I mean perfectly is a relative term. Everybody
Speaker 1: makes mistakes, but in terms of what they tried to
Speaker 1: accomplish going in control the football on offense to the
Speaker 1: tune of forty minutes of possession and keep from being
Speaker 1: damaged terribly by big chunk plays on defense. Both Kentucky
Speaker 1: and Vandy got it done in their last respective games
Speaker 1: against Ole Miss and Alabama, and it may be a
Speaker 1: bit of a plus. Obviously playing at home is for Kentucky,
Speaker 1: but having to face another mobile quarterback is a plus
Speaker 1: I think for the Wildcats because they prepped for Old
Speaker 1: Miss real well. I got to think they'll do the
Speaker 1: same this week. Up next, angry betters are making life
Speaker 1: miserable for college athletes and coaches in a lot of
Speaker 1: different sports. Bottom of the Hour, Van Hiles on six
Speaker 1: thirty WLAP Welcome back to the Big Blue and Sider.
Speaker 1: Coming up in a few minutes, we will talk Kentucky
Speaker 1: football with Van Hiles. Of coursemen are our favorites. You
Speaker 1: hear him all week long, really on a number of
Speaker 1: radio shows and podcasts, and he's just so good at
Speaker 1: breaking down UK football. Former UK defensive back and George Plaster,
Speaker 1: my old buddy from Nashville, will join us. George's on
Speaker 1: TV and radio in Nashville for several decades and has
Speaker 1: the greatest sense of history when it comes to Vanderbilt.
Speaker 1: He's been part of their network on and off for
Speaker 1: many years as a radio sidelines guy and the Playboy
Speaker 1: play guy. At one point was doing Western Kentucky basketball
Speaker 1: and TV. So George will join us and our number
Speaker 1: two also Logan Salo, who is a Kentucky assistant baseball
Speaker 1: coach and was a relief pitcher for the Wildcats. Spent
Speaker 1: five years in the minors, but injuries curtailed his pitching career.
Speaker 1: He was doing really well, was in the A's organization.
Speaker 1: They traded him to the Dodgers and was just he'd
Speaker 1: gotten up to Triple A but just couldn't stay healthy.
Speaker 1: And we'll talk to him about his decision to retire.
Speaker 1: But I looked up his minor league numbers. They were great,
Speaker 1: not just good, but I mean great. And he's left handed.
Speaker 1: I mean, if you're left handed and you have a pulse,
Speaker 1: you have a shot at making it to the majors.
Speaker 1: And so that just tells you just how extensive his
Speaker 1: injuries must have been. But we'll talk to him about
Speaker 1: that difficult decision to step away as a player from baseball.
Speaker 1: And when he did, he came home He's an Ashland
Speaker 1: native and came home to work for Nick Minngiona now
Speaker 1: has been promoted to director of Scouting, so and of
Speaker 1: course he's helping out with the pitching staff when they
Speaker 1: talk analytics as well. He's in charge of that, so
Speaker 1: that's coming up as well. In our number two, I
Speaker 1: wanted to share something with you though that I saw
Speaker 1: on the ESPN's website. David Purdham wrote a story about
Speaker 1: angry betters angry sports betters, and according to the lead
Speaker 1: in his story, it's one of the most common types
Speaker 1: of harassment that college athletes receive. Evidently, it makes up
Speaker 1: at least twelve percent of publicly posted social media abuse.
Speaker 1: That's according to a new analysis conducted on behalf of
Speaker 1: the NCAA. They hired an outside group called Signify. The
Speaker 1: Signified Group, which looks into data science and the analyze
Speaker 1: social media accounts for more than three thousand college athletes.
Speaker 1: This isn't just shooting from the hip. Three thousand athletes,
Speaker 1: five hundred coaches, two hundred event officials, and one hundred
Speaker 1: and sixty five teams overall. During the twenty twenty four
Speaker 1: college Football Playoff, Men's and women's basketball tournaments, men's and
Speaker 1: women's college World Series, plus volleyball and gymnastics championships, and
Speaker 1: it's out right now. The NCAA has published the full findings,
Speaker 1: and they've released excerpts on ESPN's website starting on Tuesday.
Speaker 1: But it's phenomenal. They call angry sports betters people who
Speaker 1: I'm quoting now engage in problematic and intrusive communications due
Speaker 1: to match events and results, contradicting betters predictions in plain English,
Speaker 1: people who think they got screwed and lost money, lost
Speaker 1: their bets. And again, this is the kind of thing
Speaker 1: where you say, who didn't see this coming? Who didn't
Speaker 1: see athletes getting abusive messages after games? But before and
Speaker 1: during games? Games? Right? The survey listed sexual abuse, racism,
Speaker 1: and homophobia as among other common harassment categories. But gambling,
Speaker 1: they said. Signify analysts found some abusive posts did not
Speaker 1: overtly mention gambling, but still it ties to betting. I'm
Speaker 1: talking abusive or threatening messages referencing betting or match fixing allegations.
Speaker 1: I see that all the time from Kentucky fans and
Speaker 1: fans in general too. But all the refs have fixed
Speaker 1: the games. You know when you think about what has
Speaker 1: to happen, not for one individual. That's happened every decade.
Speaker 1: There's been a scandal, a gambling scandal in college athletics
Speaker 1: every decade at least since the fifties. But it's generally
Speaker 1: one or two guys fixing basketball games, which are so
Speaker 1: much easier to influence if you are a player with
Speaker 1: influence who handles the basketball, who plays a lot. All
Speaker 1: these morons who keeps saying that the referees are fixing
Speaker 1: and again Tim Donaghy in the NBA fixed games or
Speaker 1: had influence on games, and I'm not naive, I know
Speaker 1: that can happen, but people indicate that they believe it's
Speaker 1: the entire crew. The entire crew is fixing games, which
Speaker 1: is just I mean, you think about the length of
Speaker 1: a conspiracy and a depth that would have to happen,
Speaker 1: starting at the top within the conference for that to happen.
Speaker 1: You know so many people. I remember Roy Kramer is
Speaker 1: making sure the referees don't let Kentucky win. You know, Kramer,
Speaker 1: who was making six hundred thousand dollars a year, had
Speaker 1: an incredible golden parachute and he wants to risk it
Speaker 1: all to keep Kentucky out of the Independence bawl. Come on.
Speaker 1: But we should have seen this coming, and many people
Speaker 1: did that there would be abuse of players and coaches
Speaker 1: and teams in general. When the betting picked up. Women
Speaker 1: athletes have gotten fifty nine eight percent more abusive messages
Speaker 1: than men, the analysis found. And you can't shrug it
Speaker 1: off because as long as there are games, men or women,
Speaker 1: there will be action, there will be betting. The issue
Speaker 1: occurred even in sports less popular with gamblers. It's said,
Speaker 1: including softball, we're twenty four percent of abusive messages flag
Speaker 1: were from angry betters. Softball women's sport. Well, there's a
Speaker 1: winner and a loser. There's a spread. That means there's action,
Speaker 1: and that means there's going to be abuse. And you
Speaker 1: know what, I don't know what you can do about it.
Speaker 1: Probably nothing. You can be more diligent in chasing down
Speaker 1: people who make the worst threats, but I think it's
Speaker 1: only going to get worse. But you can dig it
Speaker 1: out for yourself. Just google it, Google angry betters and
Speaker 1: NCAA and I'm sure you'll find out a lot if
Speaker 1: you're so inclined. And by the way, yes, artificial intelligence
Speaker 1: is involved signifies using it to flag potentially abusive social
Speaker 1: media posts. The tag athletes, coaches, teams, officials on all
Speaker 1: sorts of social media Facebook, TikTok, Instagram X. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: sounds like Big Brother, but quite frankly, it's really really
Speaker 1: needed right now. All right, when me come back, we'll
Speaker 1: talk football with Van Hiles, the former Kentucky d back.
Speaker 1: A little bit later on, we'll find out more about
Speaker 1: Vandy from a man George Plaster down in Nashville. That's
Speaker 1: all I had here on the Big Moon Sider six
Speaker 1: thirty wlap Welcome back to the Big Moon Sider, joining
Speaker 1: us down our celebrity hotline. One of our favorite guests.
Speaker 1: You hear him on Sunday Morning Sports Talk with Tom
Speaker 1: Leach on Monday Morning Quarterback. He is become, he is
Speaker 1: blown up. He is so popular. Van hois, former Kentucky
Speaker 1: defensive back, getting together with us to talk about the
Speaker 1: Vanderbilt game and of course the win over ol Miss.
Speaker 1: How surprised were you? I gotta think a bunch by
Speaker 1: Bandy's upset of Alabama.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that that was in a moment, it was surprising,
Speaker 4: But then I looked at some things at that game
Speaker 4: later and it's kind of like our soccer Atlanta game.
Speaker 4: Alabama's not gonna win that game. Alabama lost possession out
Speaker 4: of possession. They had an illegal number on a punt
Speaker 4: after they after they stopped them, they got a legal,
Speaker 4: legal number, and that prolonged the drives they had rough
Speaker 4: the passers. That prolonged drives like it was they gave
Speaker 4: their off, They gave drives away to pick six, the
Speaker 4: strip sack like nothing went Alabama's way in It was
Speaker 4: just meant for Vanda to win that game.
Speaker 1: This pick six happens in games like that. I mean,
Speaker 1: you gotta steal points, you gotta steal possessions. But a
Speaker 1: lot of that other stuff you described that was mental,
Speaker 1: wasn't it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that that was man like as a player or
Speaker 4: because that's not a player fault. That is someone on
Speaker 4: the sideline's fault. That is like when we played Florida
Speaker 4: years ago and we left the guy open multiple times.
Speaker 4: As a player, I am thoroughly upset because coaches get
Speaker 4: on us for making a mistake, but we can't get
Speaker 4: on the coaches but when they make a mistake. So
Speaker 4: that to me was just a just a the marcro
Speaker 4: cosm of that game. Players messed up, coaches messed up,
Speaker 4: the scheme, the discipline. I saw things on Alabama's defense
Speaker 4: that I haven't seen in years. And I mean when
Speaker 4: you have a captain that's kicking the ball and they
Speaker 4: missed the play, but before that where he actually twisted
Speaker 4: him and one of the guys running the ball, It's
Speaker 4: like you cannot come that on Rado so much in
Speaker 4: that game. I mean, I don't know, man, Bama's interesting
Speaker 4: this year because they haven't stopped anybody in six quarters.
Speaker 1: Really, and meanwhile Vandy was good enough to take advantage
Speaker 1: of it. How good is Vandy in your opinion?
Speaker 4: I've had the pleasure of meeting Clark Lee at my
Speaker 4: high school, and they are taking on his character. He
Speaker 4: found a quarterback that matched him a lot. Plus the
Speaker 4: guy played with the OC and the previous stop, so
Speaker 4: there's some continuity. And those guys play hard, they play sound, discipline,
Speaker 4: That defense flies around. They play like Clark played. That's
Speaker 4: impressive for those guys to buy into it and play
Speaker 4: like he played and play as hard and sound and physical.
Speaker 4: Essay they have this year, they should have been a Missouri.
Speaker 4: To be honest with you, they should be too and
Speaker 4: oh in conference. So they are going to be a
Speaker 4: major test for us, and I think that fortunately just
Speaker 4: why we came at a perfect time for us to
Speaker 4: get healthy.
Speaker 1: Well, let's talk about the test, because it starts with
Speaker 1: a quarterback with Diego, who is a troublesome guy man.
Speaker 1: I mean, got to keep him in the pocket. To me,
Speaker 1: he's kind of a Johnny Manzel with common sense, that
Speaker 1: kind of guy. How do you stop a guy like
Speaker 1: that or at least slow him down.
Speaker 4: I think playing Jackson Dark two weeks ago is gonna
Speaker 4: help us because he extended drive. He extended the first
Speaker 4: to open the drive which they scored on against US
Speaker 4: two weeks ago. I think if they can kind of
Speaker 4: repeat what they did two weeks ago, kind of corral
Speaker 4: him a little bit. He is a better pass so
Speaker 4: than people will give him credit for. The kid hasn't
Speaker 4: thrown in a sception. I think he has about seven
Speaker 4: to eight touchdowns, so he knows how to protect the
Speaker 4: ball but also make big plays. That fourth and one
Speaker 4: touchdown against Alabama. I don't think there's many quarterbacks that
Speaker 4: would have made that play. The initial red was taken
Speaker 4: care of, he came off the instal ree and threw
Speaker 4: a dot to the to the I can't remember the
Speaker 4: guy's name for a touchdown. That was a great play
Speaker 4: that not many quarterbacks will make.
Speaker 1: Kind of reminded you of the big pass in the
Speaker 1: Kentucky Ole Miss game.
Speaker 4: Didn't exactly that. That play right there, I think really
Speaker 4: broke Alabama. They had him in a situation and if
Speaker 4: they get the ball back after they lost a possession,
Speaker 4: they get the ball back again, I think they might
Speaker 4: win that game.
Speaker 1: You talked about Clark Lee and then how the team
Speaker 1: reflects his his passion and the way he played. And
Speaker 1: good teams do that, don't they They take on the
Speaker 1: personality of their coach.
Speaker 4: And I think that's what that's what made coach stups
Speaker 4: so great, is that they are taking on his kind
Speaker 4: of characters, specially defensively. When you when you find players
Speaker 4: and more importantly the leaders that can that be an
Speaker 4: extension of the coach on the field, because one thing
Speaker 4: players do respect us are their peers, and when you
Speaker 4: can you can extend that coaches to the players, and
Speaker 4: that goes on down to the to the to the followers.
Speaker 4: I guess you can have a great season and I'm
Speaker 4: really feeling good about this season. I know it didn't
Speaker 4: start off like our one to start off, but I
Speaker 4: think they're fine picking it up. And I think I'm
Speaker 4: gonna say this, I think this Sad is gonna be
Speaker 4: a special game for us.
Speaker 1: How Why Because.
Speaker 4: I think there's something that that's starting to click offensively.
Speaker 4: I think they'll find their identity. I think coach Hampden
Speaker 4: has recognized what they do best and and I think
Speaker 4: that Bandy beating Bama woke us up. It's kind of
Speaker 4: like when we lost to South Carolina. Now that they
Speaker 4: know this is not a game that we can play
Speaker 4: around with. So now they had a week to kind
Speaker 4: of get themselves healed. Then they had a day to
Speaker 4: watch good football. Now that oh whoa. We have seen
Speaker 4: these guys first hand, not on video. We've also seen
Speaker 4: them live. Because Washington live is different than Washington on tape.
Speaker 4: They understand how good this team is and they can
Speaker 4: come into to coming Wealth and just take it from us.
Speaker 1: Mark Stuff kind of joked about the fact on Monday
Speaker 1: that he didn't have to come in and build up
Speaker 1: Vandy to us the media because we all obviously knew
Speaker 1: what had happened. And as you just said he didn't
Speaker 1: have to do that with his team, does he, because
Speaker 1: that's the way that the Alabama win.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and plus we owe him one. They came into
Speaker 4: All Home a couple of years ago with Ray Davis
Speaker 4: and kind of handle one to us. Now we got
Speaker 4: to hand it back to them again on this Saturday
Speaker 4: back at home. I think this is a payback game
Speaker 4: for some of these guys who played in that game.
Speaker 1: You know, Stoops was asked about that and he kind
Speaker 1: of said, ay, you know that was two years ago
Speaker 1: and played it off. I've never heard a coach man
Speaker 1: ever publicly say yeah, we owe him, so we got
Speaker 1: something for him. But I've seen video Rich Brooks for
Speaker 1: the LSU upset, the video of him talking to his
Speaker 1: team about things people have said about you, about us,
Speaker 1: about our team. You know they use that kind of stuff,
Speaker 1: don't they.
Speaker 4: For sure? I mean I don't like to say would,
Speaker 4: could have, should have, but we remember that game. We
Speaker 4: were two players of away from being a nine win team.
Speaker 4: The legal procedure old miss payback game this year the
Speaker 4: hands to the face, a hand to the for for
Speaker 4: oxydyin on a pick yep by key drawing that ends
Speaker 4: that game. That's nine wins. I think the players remember that.
Speaker 4: Oxydn remembers that, Dion remembers that. So it is gonna play.
Speaker 4: It's not it's not gonna make it's not gonna help
Speaker 4: us win, but it's gonna help the guys focus. The
Speaker 4: big thing about football is not not the bulletim board
Speaker 4: material that's gonna help you on Saturday and all. It's
Speaker 4: helped you Monday through Friday. Because now you're gonna be
Speaker 4: You're gonna be focused and better prepared and willing to
Speaker 4: take some of the things that happened during the week
Speaker 4: because you don't want to lose that game on Saturday.
Speaker 1: Ox was the last week, was the defensive lineman of
Speaker 1: the week. As we you and I talked now him
Speaker 1: kind of he didn't exactly bookend Dion even they might
Speaker 1: be shoulder to shoulder. But I think it's becoming Kentucky's identity,
Speaker 1: isn't it the defense, especially that front line. I've heard
Speaker 1: the term elite thrown around. I don't know if they're
Speaker 1: at that level yet, Van, but they've got to be
Speaker 1: in that neighborhood for the rest of the year, don't they.
Speaker 4: I think they are venturing to that point. I've said
Speaker 4: this many times. I don't think they've reached their ceiling yet.
Speaker 4: They are still doing some things that they can tighten
Speaker 4: up on. The One thing that is going to make
Speaker 4: them even to the elite elite is a secondary. They
Speaker 4: played their best game in a long time two weeks ago.
Speaker 4: If they continue that, that front seven that's been great
Speaker 4: the whole season. They have been minimizing run game. Now
Speaker 4: when we're forced them to pass the ball, then a
Speaker 4: secondary has to feast on that. When we know they
Speaker 4: are going to pass, the guys on the back end
Speaker 4: has to feast on that. And they did that two
Speaker 4: weeks ago.
Speaker 1: Well, let's talk about that defensive secondary. That's that's your
Speaker 1: area of expertise. And they may not have didn't look
Speaker 1: like they'll have Harriston again this week. And a guy
Speaker 1: who made a name for himself nationally against Vanderbilt last
Speaker 1: year with two pick sixer is now different scheme, different quarterback.
Speaker 1: But he's a really good d back. How concerned are
Speaker 1: you about that?
Speaker 4: I'm always concerned because you just lost not just a
Speaker 4: good defensive back, a playmaker. He is a playmaker. Playmakers
Speaker 4: are not born, I mean, are not made they're born
Speaker 4: and he's just a natural playmaker. You lose that ability
Speaker 4: on defense that can take an interception of pick. I mean,
Speaker 4: what was that a couple of three weeks ago he
Speaker 4: had to pick six against Ohio. Like, those things are
Speaker 4: just playmakers, and that's one thing that I think we're
Speaker 4: going to miss. But the thing that had me proud
Speaker 4: of that team was the cornerbacks rose to the occasion
Speaker 4: and played great defense. They played some man, They made
Speaker 4: great open field tackles. They didn't panic on a deep
Speaker 4: ball because usually corners panic on the deep ball when
Speaker 4: they're a little out of phase. And none of them panic.
Speaker 4: They all broke up the ball greatly with patients and
Speaker 4: reading the hand. So I'm okay with them this week.
Speaker 4: Because Vandy, to me, doesn't have an elite room of
Speaker 4: wide receivers. They have a tough room of receiver because
Speaker 4: they will block you, they will put their hands on
Speaker 4: you an extent or run play. But I think those
Speaker 4: guys came a long way last week, and I feel
Speaker 4: like their cornerback is all about confidence, and a confidence
Speaker 4: is starting to build.
Speaker 1: JQ Hardaway, I think struggled a bit and you know,
Speaker 1: you know you've forgotten more about d backs than I'll
Speaker 1: ever know. I'm still waiting for a chance to play
Speaker 1: college football. But just from the outside looking in, he
Speaker 1: struggled last year. He looks like a different player this
Speaker 1: year to me. Does he look that way to you?
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's all about confidence. He's I don't think he
Speaker 4: played as much zone probably in his life, so I
Speaker 4: think that's a new scheme to him. And understanding how
Speaker 4: important eyes are and being a little patient. I think
Speaker 4: he was too worried about being off the receiver and
Speaker 4: getting beat deep. Now I think he's kind of settled
Speaker 4: in a little bit and being a little more patient
Speaker 4: in his pedal and not bailing all there although he's
Speaker 4: seven yards from the receiver. He's starting to bail out now,
Speaker 4: He's starting to get a little more patient back pedal,
Speaker 4: letting receiver come to him, because remember we can jam
Speaker 4: in college. So I think that his patience and getting
Speaker 4: enough reps at zone is starting to pay off.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, And the guys around him, some of those
Speaker 1: guys are so young and yeah, as you said, they
Speaker 1: came through in Oxford, didn't they.
Speaker 4: Yeah, those were that was my word in Oxford. Wasn't
Speaker 4: the front It was just the ability because Ole miss
Speaker 4: has a great group of receivers, a really good, high
Speaker 4: end group of receivers, and honestly, nothing was really taking
Speaker 4: off of the corners. The biggest plays came off the safeties.
Speaker 4: So as far as the corners, I am so confident
Speaker 4: in them right now. I hopefully they can be on
Speaker 4: the street. That was only one game. Now we got
Speaker 4: to build off of that. They can build week after
Speaker 4: week because now is the time to build. We're not
Speaker 4: facing the elite group that Tennessee would have to offer.
Speaker 4: Now the time with this group, then Florida than Auburn
Speaker 4: to start building that confidence. So then we play Tennessee.
Speaker 4: Those guys are really on a level that you can't
Speaker 4: knock them off of.
Speaker 1: I want to come with Van Hiles on the other
Speaker 1: side of the break here on six point thirty Wlap
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Big Blue Cider. Talking with former
Speaker 1: Kentucky defensive back Van Hiles. You mentioned eyes and going
Speaker 1: into the Georgia game, we were hearing when we interviewed
Speaker 1: the players the term of high discipline. Yes, and we
Speaker 1: learned about it if we didn't already know what that was,
Speaker 1: and we heard it much more going into the old
Speaker 1: miss game for obvious reasons, different styles of offense. I
Speaker 1: know that's to you, that's probably d back one oh
Speaker 1: one stuff. But that's a that's a tough lesson to learn,
Speaker 1: isn't it.
Speaker 4: It is the two toughest things to learn on the
Speaker 4: next level high school is eye disciplined in doing your job,
Speaker 4: and sometimes they come hand in hand. Sometimes your eyes
Speaker 4: take you to a position that you shouldn't be in
Speaker 4: because you're trying to do too much. We have ten
Speaker 4: other teammates who were probably the best guy on their team,
Speaker 4: just like you were. Let them do their job, and
Speaker 4: I don't have to overstem myself to make up for
Speaker 4: someone that might not be as talented as I am.
Speaker 1: I heard that for years and years. Your gap, just
Speaker 1: play your gap, do your job, I know. And I
Speaker 1: remember Mike Archer telling me when he wouldn't tell me
Speaker 1: the player was, I kind of knew who it was,
Speaker 1: but he said, the best player in our defense. You know,
Speaker 1: he keeps leaving his gap and going over and trying
Speaker 1: to help it because he felt like he had to.
Speaker 1: But that's a sure way to give up a big play,
Speaker 1: isn't it.
Speaker 4: That's the sure way of it's just weird. In this league,
Speaker 4: guys find the vacant gap, even though the play is
Speaker 4: not designed to go there. A guy a good runner
Speaker 4: back or cut back to a backside open gap one
Speaker 4: hundred time, even though the hole was supposed to be
Speaker 4: front side, he sees it and he hits it and
Speaker 4: it's touchdown. I've never coached ARTI call a perfect blitz,
Speaker 4: and we got a guy going to roll hole and
Speaker 4: then running back straight there hit his hand on the
Speaker 4: goal post.
Speaker 1: Frankly, I do. I think he was talking about that
Speaker 1: simply because whoever you guys had played had so much
Speaker 1: success cutting back, you know, because everybody who was watching
Speaker 1: a game because oh my god, there's a lane that
Speaker 1: I could run through. So uh yeah, it is about discipline,
Speaker 1: especially with a Vandy team just a couple of minutes
Speaker 1: level with Van Hile's former Kentucky defensive back. We saw
Speaker 1: what happened in Nashville was Vandy upsetting an Alabama team
Speaker 1: that had more fans than Commodore fans. And you've you've
Speaker 1: seen that as a player at Kentucky. That happens. I
Speaker 1: don't know if it's going to keep happening now, but
Speaker 1: I don't know how much faith I put in the
Speaker 1: crowd lifting a team and this and that up until
Speaker 1: the last few years. But I've seen it now with
Speaker 1: some of the teams Mark Stops has had. And it's
Speaker 1: weird to say and weird to think about the fact
Speaker 1: that a Vandy game is gonna need a good crowd
Speaker 1: turnout and the crowd being engaged, isn't it?
Speaker 4: For sure? There is nothing better than to be on
Speaker 4: defense and to hear the roar. We can't hear all signals.
Speaker 4: We know we can't hear ours. We know they can't
Speaker 4: hear theirs, and that's more of an advantage for us.
Speaker 4: So that plays a fact that you feed off the energy,
Speaker 4: You feed off the enthusiasm, you feed off everything that
Speaker 4: you can feed off in that in that in that moment,
Speaker 4: because you need energy, and the fans can give you
Speaker 4: that little bit of energy that you might have been
Speaker 4: might be leaking because you've on a ten play drive.
Speaker 4: If they get loud, it definitely does bring it back
Speaker 4: and and and it has a big effect on the
Speaker 4: opponent's offense. We saw it Florida a couple years ago.
Speaker 4: It does matter. And I would say this, we have
Speaker 4: had a great group BBN. That's been awesome even when
Speaker 4: I was played when we're not winning games. So I
Speaker 4: have no doubt that they're going to be ready and
Speaker 4: come like crazy, like they've come for a long time now.
Speaker 1: Those procedure penalties against Florida won that game for Kentucky.
Speaker 1: I felt like.
Speaker 4: That as a defense, you get them at first and fifteen,
Speaker 4: you're probably gonna win.
Speaker 1: You're calling the shots. Well, let you go with this.
Speaker 1: Dandy's time of position against Alabama you alluded to that.
Speaker 1: That was I think the difference in that game, just
Speaker 1: as it was for Kentucky in Oxford, almost to the
Speaker 1: minute forty to twenty, right. I think this is going
Speaker 1: to be an ugly game, a grind them out game.
Speaker 1: Whoever can put together those long offensive drives will be
Speaker 1: the one that comes out on top.
Speaker 4: I think so Vandy stole two or three possessions. I
Speaker 4: think that was a difference in their game. We also
Speaker 4: just we just took the will of old Mess a
Speaker 4: little bit in that second half. I think it was
Speaker 4: a little bit of different game. I think if if
Speaker 4: we played to our best and Vandy plays to their best,
Speaker 4: we should come out victorious. But if we slip up
Speaker 4: just a little bit, just a little bit, they will.
Speaker 4: They will take advantage because they are not gonna make
Speaker 4: a mistake. They're not gonna give you possessions.
Speaker 1: They're smart kids.
Speaker 4: They are smart and tough.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they are tough.
Speaker 4: All right.
Speaker 1: The million dollar question is is this a brisket weekend
Speaker 1: again for you?
Speaker 4: I don't. Look, I'm really starting I need to be,
Speaker 4: but I am really really messing with this jerk And
Speaker 4: I did a jerk rib and normally I don't do anything,
Speaker 4: but I had my wife and daughter doesn't like the spice,
Speaker 4: so I put a little barbecue sauce. At the time.
Speaker 4: I'm like, wait a minute, that is got a little
Speaker 4: tang a.
Speaker 1: Little huge with the jerk with the jerk season Was
Speaker 1: that with the jerk seasoning?
Speaker 4: Yes, that's exactly what I said. So I had a
Speaker 4: little extra barbecue south. I'm like, I'm gonna just put
Speaker 4: on half of it and see what's going. I'm I'm
Speaker 4: I'm starting to.
Speaker 1: Like it coming around, coming around and around. Okay. That's
Speaker 1: how That's how great chefs work, man. They get into
Speaker 1: the the lab and they try stuff.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well keep me posted on that because I like
Speaker 1: I like the jerk spices, but I could see the
Speaker 1: mix with the with the barbecue show with the right
Speaker 1: barbecue sauce.
Speaker 4: Just just a little bit, don't don't drown it, no,
Speaker 4: just it was actually I was pulling off and I
Speaker 4: was like, I just put a little bit on at
Speaker 4: the end and it was just enough.
Speaker 1: Okay, sounds good. Now I'm hungry. Follow him on Twitter
Speaker 1: at v styles, also the Locker four to one one podcast,
Speaker 1: hearing him on Sunday Morning Sports Talk, and of course
Speaker 1: on Monday Morning Quarterback with Tom Lee Van Hiles. Hey Man,
Speaker 1: thanks so much, always a pleasure anytime. Up next hour
Speaker 1: number two, including my buddy George Plaster, who's worked TV
Speaker 1: and radio in Nashville for a long time. We'll get
Speaker 1: his thoughts on what happened against Alabama and the Vandy
Speaker 1: team coming to town. That's next on six thirty.
Speaker 5: Wlap says, join us on our celebrity highline and long friend,
Speaker 5: longtime friend, and a guy you've heard before on our show,
Speaker 5: mister George Plaster, who has worked TV.
Speaker 1: And radio in Nashville for many many years. At one
Speaker 1: point was a sidelines reporter for Vanderbilt football, Playboy play
Speaker 1: man and now on his talk show, George, you guys
Speaker 1: have been turning over and discussing the greatest upset in
Speaker 1: the history of Andy football. What's happened like? Well, first
Speaker 1: of all, welcome, thanks, thanks for joining.
Speaker 6: Us, Thank you.
Speaker 1: But I got to dive right in. What's that beened like?
Speaker 4: For you?
Speaker 6: It's been a total shock. Anybody who says they saw
Speaker 6: this coming is lying. You know, I went into that game.
Speaker 6: I was up in the press box. And by the way,
Speaker 6: I'm proud of this. I believe I'm one of less
Speaker 6: than fifteen people who has physically been on site for
Speaker 6: Vandy's last three wins in football over Kentucky, over Alabama.
Speaker 4: Sorry.
Speaker 6: Nineteen sixty nine, Watson Brown was the quarterback. I was
Speaker 6: like ten years old, sitting in these wooden bleachers. That
Speaker 6: would you know, if you got a splinter in the
Speaker 6: wrong place, that wouldn't be good. In eighty four, I
Speaker 6: was Vandy's sideline announcer. We went down and mauled Alabama.
Speaker 6: But if you remember, a year later, Vandy got caught
Speaker 6: in the middle of a really the first steroid thing
Speaker 6: that any of us ever remember. And then there's Saturday
Speaker 6: here that I mean, who saw that coming.
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh man, amazing. And you knew Diego Pavia was
Speaker 1: a different kind of quarterback, But did you think he
Speaker 1: had that in him?
Speaker 6: Maybe not to beat Alabama. But I'll tell you a
Speaker 6: funny story. A year ago, you know, Conference USA signed
Speaker 6: this deal with ESPN where they'd get like a Tuesday
Speaker 6: and a Wednesday night game. And I kept seeing this guy,
Speaker 6: and finally one day on the air, I said to
Speaker 6: Kelly Holcombe, the former NFL quarterback who's part of my show,
Speaker 6: I said, have you seen this kid? Who is he?
Speaker 6: He's pretty good? And you know, little did I know
Speaker 6: at the time that he was going to end up
Speaker 6: at Vandy. I don't know. There's just something about this kid,
Speaker 6: an it factor, an it factor of a leader, it
Speaker 6: factor of he makes all the plays, and yet you
Speaker 6: know he's not your prototypical six ' five to thirty
Speaker 6: five quarterback.
Speaker 1: But he's like a Johnny Manziel, only with with a brain,
Speaker 1: only with discipline.
Speaker 6: Right as well said, hadn't thought of it that way
Speaker 6: to me? The only question has been can you keep
Speaker 6: him upright? Because he takes massive hits. I thought Alabama
Speaker 6: tried very hard to go after him in that game.
Speaker 6: A couple of clotheslines, you know, And if I was
Speaker 6: playing against them, my strategy would be, Look, the rest
Speaker 6: of this group isn't good enough on its own. If
Speaker 6: we can keep Pavia under control, we're going to beat them.
Speaker 1: I was talking with Chris Doring of the SEC Network,
Speaker 1: and I also mention this to Mark Troups at his
Speaker 1: news conference. I felt like Vandy matched Alabama's physicality and
Speaker 1: as the game went on, became even more and more aggressive.
Speaker 1: And we've seen this before. I remember a year Vandy
Speaker 1: put two or three kids off its defense in the NFL,
Speaker 1: but they were for the most part, secondary people. I
Speaker 1: just felt like, for that the entire afternoon, Vandy matched
Speaker 1: or bested Alabama when it came to physical football. Was
Speaker 1: that to be expected from this team?
Speaker 4: Oh?
Speaker 6: Good lord No. And that's the part that shocked me.
Speaker 6: For whatever reason, I parked a good ways away from
Speaker 6: the stadium on Saturday, and so an hour and a
Speaker 6: half after the game, I had a long walk to
Speaker 6: my car that was really very peaceful and really a
Speaker 6: cool walk, and I remember thinking, you know, they really
Speaker 6: physically went toe to toe with Bama. And you know,
Speaker 6: as well as I do, the thought of that by Vandy.
Speaker 6: I never saw that coming.
Speaker 1: No, And I got to think as much of that
Speaker 1: comes from Clark Lee and the coaches that he hired
Speaker 1: away from New Mexico State, Am I right?
Speaker 4: Must be?
Speaker 6: I mean, Jerry Kills has had a history of being
Speaker 6: a really good football coach, and you know the story.
Speaker 6: He's had epileptic seizures in the middle of games. It
Speaker 6: really has been kind of a sad story. I don't
Speaker 6: think that's why I left New Mexico State. He got
Speaker 6: into it with them about something and clark Lee apparently
Speaker 6: done the possibility of getting him, having no idea that
Speaker 6: Pavia might be part of it. Because they signed a
Speaker 6: kid from Utah, Nate Johnson that they're paying way more
Speaker 6: money in NIL two and that kid can't throw a
Speaker 6: lick and Fabia blew him out. You know, I kept
Speaker 6: hearing open competition. I was like, I don't think so.
Speaker 1: Well. You can see why, you know, I mean, this
Speaker 1: kid in Alabama just kept coming back and tell me
Speaker 1: the truth. It's okay because you've seen it before. You've
Speaker 1: seen Vandy, just as I've seen Kentucky flirt with upset.
Speaker 6: I know where this is going.
Speaker 1: They just get away, but it just did. It didn't
Speaker 1: feel that way to me. I mean it did a
Speaker 1: little bit innately, it did, but when Vandy would do
Speaker 1: something good, it didn't surprise me. How did you see it?
Speaker 6: I had the exact same thoughts I used to have
Speaker 6: forty years ago when I did sidelines, and you would
Speaker 6: see players look around in sort of an uh oh,
Speaker 6: here we go again, Or if they got into the
Speaker 6: fourth quarter of the game that they really shouldn't win,
Speaker 6: they would all look around kind of going, what do
Speaker 6: we do now? And you've seen it in the old
Speaker 6: days of Kentucky football, So I mean it took me
Speaker 6: into early fourth quarter just say, well, wait a minute,
Speaker 6: yeah Andy could win.
Speaker 1: This is there swagger now to Andy football.
Speaker 6: I'm not willing to go that far because here's a
Speaker 6: scenario that I could see. I don't think they have
Speaker 6: any clue, They have no experience at pulling off something
Speaker 6: like this, and then seven days later they've got to
Speaker 6: get off the mat, you know, quit patting each other
Speaker 6: on the back. What happens, for instance, if they come
Speaker 6: up to your place and get beat thirty three to
Speaker 6: eight and don't look like they have any clue how
Speaker 6: to handle that, and that would be. That's a big worry.
Speaker 6: And oh, by the way, that's a really good Kentucky team.
Speaker 6: That's not exactly some one double a Patsy. They're playing
Speaker 6: right well.
Speaker 1: And you saw the upset of Ole Miss. What were
Speaker 1: your thoughts as you saw that happen.
Speaker 6: You know, Dick, the longer it went on, the more
Speaker 6: I had to say, this is not a fluke. Kentucky
Speaker 6: looks like the better team, and you know, you've got
Speaker 6: glimpses of it in the Georgia game, where I use
Speaker 6: this term emptied all the barrels. I thought Kentucky emptied
Speaker 6: every barrel virtually at their resource to try to beat Georgia.
Speaker 6: And I'll admit I was rooting like crazy for because
Speaker 6: you know, like you, I know what a win over
Speaker 6: a Georgia for a Kentucky or an Alabama for Vandy,
Speaker 6: what that can do. It's huge. Yeah, I wish it
Speaker 6: would have happened.
Speaker 1: Would have been a great story, that's a fact. George
Speaker 1: Plaster is my guest. He is a veteran of TV
Speaker 1: and RADI sports coverage down in Nashville. Or of course,
Speaker 1: talking about those Vanderbilt Commodorees coming to town Saturday night,
Speaker 1: We'll come back and talk more with George in just
Speaker 1: a minute. Here in a Big Bonsider six thirty WLAP.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Big Blue Sider on the Celebrity Hotline.
Speaker 1: Is George Paster, my longtime buddy from down in Nashville.
Speaker 1: Has covered sports down in nash Vegas for many many years,
Speaker 1: has worked in Memphis. Has covered Western Kentucky basketball as well.
Speaker 1: But of course we're talking about UK Vanderbilt football. Mark Stoops, George,
Speaker 1: it looks like has dragged this Kentucky program around a corner.
Speaker 1: I don't know if it's around the corner because Rich
Speaker 1: Brooks flirted with it, how Mommy flirted with it. But Stoops,
Speaker 1: through his recruiting, his development of talent, and the money
Speaker 1: that the school has put into facilities, has at least
Speaker 1: made Kentucky relevant in SEC football. I know it's way
Speaker 1: early for this, I'm sure, but do you see the
Speaker 1: potential for that with Clark Lee in place, the portal
Speaker 1: in place, which I know can can go terribly one sided,
Speaker 1: but also the facilities that we have seen for what
Speaker 1: the last couple three years under way down in Nashville.
Speaker 6: You know, I'd like to say that I fully believe,
Speaker 6: but I don't. I guess I'm at a point in
Speaker 6: life where I've got to have a little bit more proof.
Speaker 6: Let's take the Kentucky thing for instance. You know there
Speaker 6: has to be a mental toughness about this guy, Mark Stoops.
Speaker 6: I don't know him the way you do, but there's
Speaker 6: a mental toughness to him that is obvious. And never
Speaker 6: was it more obvious than when South Carolina took them
Speaker 6: behind the woodshed and it was ugly looking, and to
Speaker 6: me it was like, Okay, Kentucky's got a choice here.
Speaker 6: They can eat, continue to slide and get back down
Speaker 6: toward the bottom of the conference, or they can rise
Speaker 6: up and show everybody who now doubts them how wrong
Speaker 6: they are. Well, look at the effort they gave against Georgia.
Speaker 6: Not all Kentucky teams in the past would have done that.
Speaker 6: I just I am so impressed with that guy, how
Speaker 6: to be his agent, because I just the job he
Speaker 6: has done. It's the most underrated job in the country. Wow,
Speaker 6: year after year what he had done.
Speaker 1: Pretty strong words, brother, But again, you've covered the SEC
Speaker 1: for a long time and the challenge at Kentucky for
Speaker 1: the longest time. Similar to what happened in Vandy minus
Speaker 1: the academic hills that they have to climb at Vanderbilt.
Speaker 1: But you know, recruiting class you only need twenty five kids,
Speaker 1: I guess I would say you ought to be able
Speaker 1: to find kids who can do that kind of class work.
Speaker 1: The other thing, too, is, and I talked to some
Speaker 1: people around the Bandy baseball program. I mentioned a portal.
Speaker 1: It is more of a challenge for Bandy to get
Speaker 1: kids through the portal because of academics.
Speaker 6: Right suppose, Yeah, I mean that's what I hear that
Speaker 6: in particular with a baseball program that's you know, risen
Speaker 6: to heights nobody saw coming for a long period of time.
Speaker 6: That one of the frustrations has been that they don't
Speaker 6: accept all of the credits that kids earn at other school.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 6: I don't pretend to know how you get around all
Speaker 6: that kind of stuff. So I'll just go to the
Speaker 6: money part of it, because Clark Lee told me back
Speaker 6: in the summer that they had been able to raise
Speaker 6: about six million in nil money. Even at that it's
Speaker 6: at the bottom of the league. You've got some schools
Speaker 6: ole myths and Tennessee appear to have jumped out ahead
Speaker 6: of everybody in that area. And you know, I sound
Speaker 6: like an old fuddy Doug, but I hate this system.
Speaker 6: This We have lost our way with this system.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 6: You know, I look at Alabama at the end of
Speaker 6: the game, and you know, I've always had a really
Speaker 6: healthy respect for the way they've gone about doing their
Speaker 6: winning with class. But you know, I didn't see a
Speaker 6: lot of that Saturday at the end of the game.
Speaker 6: That was disappointing.
Speaker 1: Male Im Moore acting out.
Speaker 6: Yeah, you think he'd have done that if Nick Saban
Speaker 6: had been the head coach, I would think not too.
Speaker 1: No, it's a different world, there's no question about that.
Speaker 1: And for the longest time, Nashville No, I guess maybe
Speaker 1: Austin's the biggest city now in terms of market size
Speaker 1: in the Southeastern Conference. But you know, you'd think that
Speaker 1: nil dollars would be there. But it's a pro town now,
Speaker 1: and Vandy is kind of a boutique school, isn't it.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's I mean, it definitely is not page one
Speaker 6: of the sports anymore. It's all Titans and then Predators,
Speaker 6: and it filters down to our business. I refuse to
Speaker 6: make every show about the Titans. I could care less
Speaker 6: you know to read everybody the depth chart every week
Speaker 6: and act like it's a religious experience. It's football, and
Speaker 6: so I try to do a little bit of everything.
Speaker 6: But it's a lot different than when I first started
Speaker 6: in the talk show business. It's a different city and
Speaker 6: having grown up here, there's some parts of it I like,
Speaker 6: but there's some parts of it I don't like.
Speaker 1: Weit on. One of the arguments is that because of
Speaker 1: the now legalized gambling, people are hungry for information. But
Speaker 1: as someone who's likewise and I'm not in a pro market,
Speaker 1: but the interest in the NFL is worldwide. You know,
Speaker 1: my feeling is, well, if they're looking for information, it
Speaker 1: can help them make a bet. There are plenty of
Speaker 1: other places they can go, you know. You and I
Speaker 1: like to get into the people stories and you know
Speaker 1: less about depth chart. Who's playing? Who should I start
Speaker 1: on my fantasy team? I have an interest in that
Speaker 1: because I do play fantasy, but I'm not going to
Speaker 1: devote my radio show to that.
Speaker 4: No.
Speaker 6: And it's you know when I first got into this,
Speaker 6: and Dick, you'll appreciate this because basketball is loved in
Speaker 6: your area, right It's king Nashville used to be a
Speaker 6: great basketball city, that's right. And it wasn't just being
Speaker 6: you had Belmont, you had lipscumb You know that there
Speaker 6: was a lot of you know, here's a good game
Speaker 6: in the city tonight, even if you don't have a
Speaker 6: dog in the hunt. And that part's really changed and
Speaker 6: that saddens me. That's one of the changes that's going
Speaker 6: on is the football, whether it's pro, college or both,
Speaker 6: has just sort of neutralized the basketball in this city.
Speaker 1: You know, it's interesting. I had Jack Gibbans on the internet.
Speaker 1: He and I worked the UK Pro Day telecast on
Speaker 1: SEC Plus on Monday, and Jack, when he was a
Speaker 1: high school senior, on a couple of occasions, I believe
Speaker 1: played a regular season game George in Memorial Coliseum back
Speaker 1: when it held eleven thousand, and you've been there many times,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, and filled the place. I mean, if Fire
Speaker 1: and Marshall had to turn people away. There are every
Speaker 1: once in a while big high school games in town,
Speaker 1: but what that means is filling the high school gym,
Speaker 1: not the coliseum. And I just don't know where that's gone.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 6: You know, one thing that I'm convinced of college basketball
Speaker 6: has made a mistake. To me, by starting at the
Speaker 6: beginning of November. When you and I were first getting
Speaker 6: in this, it was sort of a start of you know,
Speaker 6: Thanksgiving week is when it would all start. And I
Speaker 6: think what's going on is some really good games are
Speaker 6: getting lost in the football shuffle. Yeah, and I think
Speaker 6: that's a mistake. And I know that they hesitate, you know,
Speaker 6: they tell you, well, we've got to get March Madness
Speaker 6: in in March. But you know, I would contend some
Speaker 6: TV network would shell out the bucks to do it
Speaker 6: in April. If that's what we had to do, it'll happen.
Speaker 4: Well.
Speaker 1: The other thing, too, is the NFL is a loaded plus.
Speaker 1: Every game's on television now. It's everybody's god given right
Speaker 1: to see every game. And I know we sound like
Speaker 1: a couple of it, we sulld like a couple of
Speaker 1: those Franks. Yeah, but I just I just really miss
Speaker 1: those days when in a town like Lexington, you know,
Speaker 1: where you've got the natural rivalries, the Brian Stations versus
Speaker 1: the Henry Clays and you know, yeah, shools like that.
Speaker 1: People are missing out and it's just but again, you know,
Speaker 1: everything's on TV. Everybody's got a seventy inch set and
Speaker 1: nobody wants to go to a game, uh and sit
Speaker 1: up in the boonies and pay twelve bucks for a
Speaker 1: be even know you get beer now UK games.
Speaker 6: You know, right? And God forbid you listen to a
Speaker 6: game on the radio. I mean you think about that.
Speaker 6: I grew up in the in the early seventies listening
Speaker 6: to k Wood, Ledford and Ralph Hacker.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah.
Speaker 6: And when I first got a chance to be part
Speaker 6: of Vanderbilt's broadcast. The first time I ever met Kwood
Speaker 6: was at the SEC broadcasters meeting and he looks at
Speaker 6: me and he goes, what's your story really? And I said,
Speaker 6: I've been listening to you since I was eight years old.
Speaker 6: And he goes, you had to tell me that.
Speaker 1: But it was.
Speaker 6: True, John Wart, same thing at Tennessee. You know it is.
Speaker 6: It's a different time. But man, k Wood was as
Speaker 6: good as it gets.
Speaker 1: You got that, right. Brother. George Plaster is a sportscaster
Speaker 1: in Nashville. Tell everybody if they want to listen to you,
Speaker 1: how they can dial you up on the interweb.
Speaker 6: Well I would, you know, I'm going to try to
Speaker 6: act like I know what I'm talking about. We do
Speaker 6: this as a podcast, but We also do it on radio,
Speaker 6: and the radio part is ninety four nine. It'll be
Speaker 6: three to five o'clock every day, Central day, Lifetime. And
Speaker 6: would love to have anybody tune us in. Would love
Speaker 6: to hear from somebody up in Lexington. I love your city.
Speaker 6: I've always loved your city because basketball is important, Got.
Speaker 1: That right, brother? Hey, thanks so much, Looking forward to
Speaker 1: seeing you soon.
Speaker 6: Hey, same here, love being on with you.
Speaker 1: Want to come on the big Blues sider including a
Speaker 1: former UK baseball Wildcat now part of the coaching staff
Speaker 1: who just got a nice promotion back in just a
Speaker 1: minute here on six point thirty Wlap and a lot
Speaker 1: of you have been there for Kentucky basketball in nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety eight as the Wildcats were on their way to
Speaker 1: the championship under Tubby Smith. That's where they played the
Speaker 1: South Region semi finals. Now the first game they played
Speaker 1: a UCLA team that quite frankly wasn't very good and
Speaker 1: Kentucky was great that night. The Wildcats won it ninety
Speaker 1: four to sixty eight, as Kentucky put five players in
Speaker 1: double figures, led by Scott Patchett with nineteen points and
Speaker 1: Jeff Shepherd was sixteen. Nazi Muhammad had fifteen. The Wildcats
Speaker 1: blistered the nets that night, and then came Duke and
Speaker 1: you know what happened there. Kentucky falls behind by what's
Speaker 1: seventeen in the second half with about eight or nine
Speaker 1: minutes left, came back in one at eighty six to
Speaker 1: eighty four. That gave birth day rise to Cameron Mills,
Speaker 1: the shot heard around the Bluegrass. Although he will admit
Speaker 1: openly and freely, and whenever you talk to him about
Speaker 1: that bucket, he mentions the fact that Scott Paget's ensuing
Speaker 1: three pointer gave him a lead for good. But anyhow,
Speaker 1: that was a huge night at Tropicana Field. Those were
Speaker 1: the only two games Kentucky has played there in the
Speaker 1: NCAA tournament. But man, last night, it's some major damage
Speaker 1: thanks to Hurricane Milton. Huge parts of the stadium ripped
Speaker 1: apart by the hurricanes. So everybody's safe, apparently, and they're
Speaker 1: already back at work putting it back together. But that
Speaker 1: was a great spot for Kentucky basketball back in nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety eight. Join us now our celebrity highline as a
Speaker 1: guy we knew as a player, and now we need
Speaker 1: to call him coach because he is coach Logan Salo,
Speaker 1: who's been promoted now to Director of Scouting and Analytics
Speaker 1: by head coach Nick Minjeone.
Speaker 7: Coach, congratulations, No, thank you, dig I appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Tell me a little bit about your new role. How
Speaker 1: it differs from what you've been doing.
Speaker 7: So day to day life. It's not a whole lot different.
Speaker 7: So the reason we kind of found this role for
Speaker 7: me from last year was because as the grad manager
Speaker 7: last year, I found myself really feeling, you know, I
Speaker 7: tried to find how I could help this coaching staff.
Speaker 7: I mean, they had a lot of things taken care
Speaker 7: of obviously as I got in, so I was just
Speaker 7: trying to find my niche find where I could really
Speaker 7: help this team prosper And I found myself doing a
Speaker 7: lot of scouting report stuff with coach Cuzno and coach
Speaker 7: a Muratti last year. And then the analytics side, you know,
Speaker 7: with with me being from professional baseball spent a lot
Speaker 7: of years there with the Dodgers, they really fine tuned,
Speaker 7: fine tuned us in in that in that realm to
Speaker 7: where you know, I found myself really enjoying the analytical
Speaker 7: part of baseball, whether that had been you know, the
Speaker 7: movement profiles of pitches or just really diving into deeper
Speaker 7: statistics that you know, weren't just the averages and the slugging,
Speaker 7: but you know, trying to find the finer details in
Speaker 7: order to kind of refine my game. So those two
Speaker 7: things kind of put together, and as we sat down
Speaker 7: and talked about it, you know, that's where I found
Speaker 7: myself trying to help this team out in the most
Speaker 7: last year. So it kind of felt like the best
Speaker 7: fit moving forward.
Speaker 1: So many questions. First of all, you're an Ashland, Kentucky native,
Speaker 1: and of course a guy who lived the dream of
Speaker 1: the wildcatch part of their regional title team back in
Speaker 1: twenty seventeen, and you talk about saving your best for last.
Speaker 1: Ye had a monster year that year. So when you recruit,
Speaker 1: when you talk to a young player, I mean, it
Speaker 1: is straight from the heart, isn't it. You've done what
Speaker 1: the guys did the last couple of years and what
Speaker 1: everybody helps to do. Right.
Speaker 7: Well, yeah, I mean I'm not allowed to do a
Speaker 7: whole lot of that just yet, right, you know, when
Speaker 7: we get guys in, you know, I'm able to really
Speaker 7: speak from the heart. I mean, obviously I had to
Speaker 7: turn into this experience my four years here at UK.
Speaker 7: So you know, when they get on campus and things
Speaker 7: like that, you know, I'm one of those guys that
Speaker 7: you know, I'm a Kentucky lifer, like I believe Blue
Speaker 7: and you know I like to like the kid coach
Speaker 7: Kuzno a little bit since he played for us too,
Speaker 7: But I was like, nobody wants this program to win
Speaker 7: more than I do. You know, we go back and
Speaker 7: forth on that a good bit, but you know, I
Speaker 7: feel that to be true. Like I love this place
Speaker 7: with every part of my being. So for me, it's
Speaker 7: like when they get here, it's like hey, like, whatever
Speaker 7: it takes or whatever, wherever I can help you, whatever
Speaker 7: realm that may be. Maybe it is the stats, you know,
Speaker 7: the scouting, the analytics, but it's like, hey, man, like
Speaker 7: I've done it at every level or close to every level,
Speaker 7: and and I've and I've seen, you know, the successes
Speaker 7: and failures at every single level. So you know, like
Speaker 7: I've been there. I'm here for you in any way
Speaker 7: I can help you. Know, you know I'm here for
Speaker 7: you because the number one thing, the main thing for
Speaker 7: me is how can we get this team to mesh fast?
Speaker 7: And how how can we win baseball games.
Speaker 1: I know, you can't go on the road. You can't
Speaker 1: go on the road, you and do all that, but
Speaker 1: I got to think that anytime a pitcher's on campus,
Speaker 1: a perspective pitcher, you're going to shake hands with them
Speaker 1: at some point. Uh. You mentioned the Dodgers drafted by
Speaker 1: the Oakland A's and then you end up in the
Speaker 1: Dodgers organization and you're telling me they are. Do you
Speaker 1: feel like they're one of the leading franchises when it
Speaker 1: comes to using analytics?
Speaker 7: Yeah, I would say so, especially during my time, you know,
Speaker 7: going into professional baseball, there was the craze about the
Speaker 7: you know, the the numbers that you see now typical
Speaker 7: on typical broadcasts, you know, they weren't originally, you know,
Speaker 7: back in back in twenty seventeen, twenty eighteen. There's a
Speaker 7: lot of numbers that pop up nowadays that that you know,
Speaker 7: that weren't there on TV on the broadcast that we
Speaker 7: remember back in the early twenty ten. So when I
Speaker 7: got there, they really opened my eyes and in terms
Speaker 7: of you know, using the skills that I already had
Speaker 7: and not necessarily creating new things, but just augmenting what
Speaker 7: I did well already, and you know, whether that's manipulating
Speaker 7: a pitch gript slightly or recognizing, you know, how how
Speaker 7: I had success during games and used that in terms
Speaker 7: of how I need a pitch going forward. So, you know,
Speaker 7: being able to know where I got to got most
Speaker 7: of my swing and miss or it got most of
Speaker 7: my weak contact. Now I was catering my bullpens in
Speaker 7: different things in order to you know, I am trying
Speaker 7: to throw every pitch where nobody hits me, you know.
Speaker 7: But they really opened my eyes to it, and I'm
Speaker 7: forever grateful for them. So and it just kind of
Speaker 7: made sense.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 7: It's one of those things that's like, you know, it's
Speaker 7: like sugar. Man, if it tastes good, you keep eating it.
Speaker 7: And that was that was it for me. Now I
Speaker 7: was like, man, that's that's awesome. Information makes sense to
Speaker 7: keep doing it. So No, I love the Dodgers, and
Speaker 7: I definitely say that they are They're definitely at the
Speaker 7: front for sure.
Speaker 1: And I know some some hardcore guys who go way
Speaker 1: back and baseball kind of roll their eyes about analytics.
Speaker 1: But my contention has been baseball people have always used analytics.
Speaker 1: It's just kind of being collected and collated a little
Speaker 1: more efficiently. Now do you see it that way?
Speaker 7: Oh yeah, I totally agree with that. I mean, if
Speaker 7: you talk to any any coach across the country, especially
Speaker 7: at the collegiate level, they're using analytics to some degree,
Speaker 7: and those teams are typically using the exact same numbers
Speaker 7: across the board. It's it's it's how you use them
Speaker 7: in order to you know, fine tune or develop your
Speaker 7: players from a from a more individual aspect. And when
Speaker 7: you have the ability to have extra coaches on staff
Speaker 7: as as you know we do now and a lot
Speaker 7: of these other bigger programs and do, that's where you
Speaker 7: see the most benefit is because you know, the pitching
Speaker 7: coach is the pitching coach, and they have to spend
Speaker 7: time with these kids each day teaching them how to compete,
Speaker 7: teaching them how to you know, fine tune their mechanics
Speaker 7: and things. And I'm able to sit back and be
Speaker 7: able to you know, evaluate them from a more you know,
Speaker 7: statistical or metrical analysis and be able to kind of
Speaker 7: mesh the two together, and it really just kills you know,
Speaker 7: it takes time off Coach Zel's book and I'm able
Speaker 7: to you know, cut the time in half in terms
Speaker 7: of development, so well, at least that's the goal, you know,
Speaker 7: But that's the whole idea is that you know, you're
Speaker 7: you're absolutely right. I mean they use it to a
Speaker 7: certain degree, but it's you know, when you when you
Speaker 7: start dialing in and focusing in on on how you
Speaker 7: can make each individual player better and not just look
Speaker 7: at the numbers as a whole, as when you really
Speaker 7: see progress.
Speaker 1: Talking to UK assistant coach Logan Salo, he was a
Speaker 1: terrific left handed reliever, but a twenty seventeen regional title
Speaker 1: team and now director of scouting and analytics has rocked
Speaker 1: down is promoted the chief of staff. And you know,
Speaker 1: you mentioned the fact that you were with the Dodgers
Speaker 1: previously with the Oakland A's. They're the ones who've drafted you,
Speaker 1: by the way, man, isn't it crazy what's going on
Speaker 1: in Oakland and the fact that they're leaving and their
Speaker 1: fans are so upset. I don't know if you're ever
Speaker 1: much of an A's fan, but that's nuts.
Speaker 7: Yeah, it's uh, you know, that's that's part of that's
Speaker 7: part of it. Obviously, you know sometimes that that happens
Speaker 7: in different sports and stuff. But it does feel, it
Speaker 7: does feel a little bittersweet for everybody in Oakland just
Speaker 7: because you know, I mean, I guarantee you it would
Speaker 7: be the same as you know, somewhere ten twenty years
Speaker 7: down the road the Reds left town. I mean, I
Speaker 7: think that the heartbreak would feel the same, you know.
Speaker 7: So you know, it's I guess it's just the changing
Speaker 7: of the times or whatever it may be. But man,
Speaker 7: it does really stink to not see that, you know,
Speaker 7: the green and gold in Oakland with the white shoes. Man, Like,
Speaker 7: you know, it's it's something that we'll always remember and
Speaker 7: potentially not not ever get to see again here in
Speaker 7: these coming years. So it definitely is a bummer.
Speaker 1: Growing up in Ashland. Were you were a Reds fan?
Speaker 7: Oh yeah, absolutely, I got to uh, you know what
Speaker 7: those early early two thousands is kind of when I
Speaker 7: fell in love with with baseball as a whole, I
Speaker 7: want to be honest with you. From Kentucky, you know,
Speaker 7: it's a it's a it's a basketball state.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 7: And and when I was when I was young, I
Speaker 7: loved I loved UK basketball and that's what I fell
Speaker 7: in love with was I mean, I loved basketball, love football,
Speaker 7: love baseball, played them all and but you know, in
Speaker 7: early two thousands, you know, we get we get King
Speaker 7: Grifrey Junior in there in Cincinnati, and then you know
Speaker 7: we had Barry Lark in a short stop and you know,
Speaker 7: I remember the you know, the Dog days I got.
Speaker 7: I remember Aaron Harang, I remember Eric Milton and Graves. Yeah,
Speaker 7: you know, I was you know, they were on TV
Speaker 7: all the time. So I grew up a Red fan.
Speaker 1: Well, the old school Reds fans. The Dodgers were the
Speaker 1: arch enemy. And here you ended up playing a Dodgers Shane.
Speaker 1: That was kind of weird.
Speaker 7: Oh yeah, oh yeah, that was my very first my
Speaker 7: little league team was the Dodgers. We're in white down
Speaker 7: in Ashland. We're murin and White down to Ashland. But
Speaker 7: but yeah, I was a Dodger then and it was
Speaker 7: pretty cool to be able to kind of full circle
Speaker 7: it and be able to be a Dodger in professional
Speaker 7: ball though. It was pretty neat.
Speaker 1: Were Logan Salo when we come back on six thirty
Speaker 1: w l A P Welcome Back. We're talking with UK
Speaker 1: assistant baseball coach Logan Salo as the director of scouting
Speaker 1: now that the scholarship rules have changed and then the
Speaker 1: portal and all that, Uh, how has that affected that
Speaker 1: position that job?
Speaker 4: Uh?
Speaker 7: So far, we're we're kind of going business as status quo.
Speaker 7: You know, we're we're still evaluating players the same way
Speaker 7: we have. You know, we're we're waiting for that final
Speaker 7: word you know right now in terms of how that
Speaker 7: it's all going to shape out, in terms of how
Speaker 7: many people we can get on campus and everything before.
Speaker 7: I think, you know, you really see huge adjustments being made.
Speaker 7: But right now it's still, you know, still the same
Speaker 7: same as always been. You know, you you want to
Speaker 7: go evaluate each player on the same level with no
Speaker 7: bias and and you know, be able to evalue them
Speaker 7: whether they can help your style of play and all
Speaker 7: that stuff. So so far, you know, we haven't seen
Speaker 7: too much change. You know, we're still trying to get
Speaker 7: the best athlete and the best picture or position player possible.
Speaker 7: So so not much change yet. But you know, obviously
Speaker 7: in the coming years, as as as wins and losses
Speaker 7: can become part of you know, how you can continue
Speaker 7: to evaluate and continue to you know, revamp how you
Speaker 7: think about those things. Is when I think you'll see
Speaker 7: the biggest change.
Speaker 1: Talking to Kentucky assistant coach Logan Salo, part of the
Speaker 1: team last year that went to o Mah for the
Speaker 1: College World Series. And I'll tell you right now, I
Speaker 1: am wearing my College World Series shirt. And I'm going
Speaker 1: to tell you, Logan, every time I go out, at
Speaker 1: least one person mentions the College World Series to me.
Speaker 1: What has it been like for you guys over on
Speaker 1: your side of campus? Uh, since that trip to Omaha?
Speaker 1: Because man, what a run.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I mean, it's been awesome. I think that the
Speaker 7: community is still is still excited about what happened. I
Speaker 7: think that they, you know, the memories that we've created
Speaker 7: for this community and around campus has been awesome. So
Speaker 7: you know, our players are reaping the benefits of that,
Speaker 7: you know. Uh, the Kentucky Baseball T shirt you got,
Speaker 7: I stare your way a little bit more and different
Speaker 7: things like that, which I'm sure that our players are loving.
Speaker 7: But you know, for us, it's it's raised the bar.
Speaker 7: It's raised the standard.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 7: Now now we can sit there and say like, hey,
Speaker 7: like if you come to Kentucky, like the expectation is
Speaker 7: in the Super Regional that Omaha run and you know,
Speaker 7: the level of play that that dictates and and the
Speaker 7: type of focus, intensity and effort that that takes every
Speaker 7: day is now you know, we know what that looks like.
Speaker 7: And so for us, you know, we're we're probably going
Speaker 7: to be able to reach the benefits of you know,
Speaker 7: more players and more people looking our way in years
Speaker 7: to come. But also what it does is it heightens
Speaker 7: the level of expectation here and it definitely heightens the
Speaker 7: level of of development. So it's been awesome for us,
Speaker 7: so and our guys are using that energy, and we
Speaker 7: know the job's not finished, you know. I mean, making
Speaker 7: it to Omaha is one thing. Win international championship is another.
Speaker 7: So move forward. That's still our goal. And making it
Speaker 7: to Omaha was awesome and that's a step in the
Speaker 7: right direction. But ultimately we want to be national champions
Speaker 7: and be a winner on that last day of the season.
Speaker 7: So until that day comes, you know, the job's not
Speaker 7: finished and we're going to continue to develop and recruit
Speaker 7: and in order to make that happen.
Speaker 1: Haven't had a chance to get over and see you
Speaker 1: guys scrimmage yet, but I've been reading everything I can
Speaker 1: and you've got so many new faces. Just from the
Speaker 1: pitching side of things, What can you tell us about
Speaker 1: the staff you've put together now as.
Speaker 7: A unit, Oh, I mean, as a unit, I think
Speaker 7: you're going to see a bunch of guys that have
Speaker 7: a bilability to pitch. So far, we've seen anybody from
Speaker 7: a freshman to a seventh year senior and Nick McKay,
Speaker 7: I mean, like we have guys that understand what it
Speaker 7: takes access to the zone with all their pitches and
Speaker 7: and there's they're still you know, figuring out the compete
Speaker 7: piece some of them and things like that. But from
Speaker 7: a from a full staff top to bottom, you know,
Speaker 7: we have we have really really good stuff. We have
Speaker 7: a bunch of different varieties on how to get it there.
Speaker 7: You know, we have a lot of lower lower slot
Speaker 7: guys as well as you know, pure over the top.
Speaker 7: We have guys that are shorter, taller. The the the
Speaker 7: variety in which we have and the ability for us
Speaker 7: to be very dynamic in terms of you know, we
Speaker 7: we can match up with you or we can just
Speaker 7: go straight toe to toe with you. So that's you know,
Speaker 7: that's that's a really really good cool piece about our
Speaker 7: staff is that we are very dynamic and very different.
Speaker 7: But at the same time, the main thing is the
Speaker 7: main thing, and that's attacking the zone and and working
Speaker 7: really fast, and you know, trying to put guys away early,
Speaker 7: so they they're starting to understand that. And as we
Speaker 7: go forward, I see nothing but progress that that's bound
Speaker 7: to be made.
Speaker 1: Well, before I let you go, I got to ask
Speaker 1: you because as you were pitching so well in the
Speaker 1: minor leagues, your overall numbers just terrific, and you're left handed.
Speaker 1: There's the premium a need for left handers, but injuries
Speaker 1: cut your career short. How difficult, logan was it to
Speaker 1: say goodbye to the playing side of your career. I
Speaker 1: know you you got a great opportunity to stay in
Speaker 1: the game, come back home, be a part of a
Speaker 1: really strong college program, but I know there's nothing like
Speaker 1: playing and you had to you had to say goodbye
Speaker 1: to that.
Speaker 7: Yeah, no, it was, obviously it was. It was one
Speaker 7: of the hardest things I've ever had to do, you know,
Speaker 7: from a personal, you know, selfish standpoint, But you know,
Speaker 7: it ended up by the end of it, it was
Speaker 7: it was pretty easy. I tried the indie ball rat
Speaker 7: and I struggled, and for me, Uh, my priority shifted.
Speaker 7: You know, I had a wife now and for four
Speaker 7: years we didn't get to live together. We were married
Speaker 7: for three almost almost four years in professional ball, and
Speaker 7: we never got to we were never living in the
Speaker 7: same city. And so you by, by the end of it,
Speaker 7: I got released from LA and you know, my priorities
Speaker 7: started to shift a little bit, and you know, making
Speaker 7: it to the big leagues ultimately wasn't, you know, number
Speaker 7: one on my list anymore. And I knew that, you know,
Speaker 7: if that wasn't a number one on my list, that
Speaker 7: the amount of effort and hard work that it takes
Speaker 7: in order to do that and is something that that
Speaker 7: was the piece that I wasn't I didn't want to
Speaker 7: do anymore. You know, I didn't want to put the
Speaker 7: work that I know what it takes to get there.
Speaker 7: I know what I didn't do in order to get there.
Speaker 7: And it was just ultimately time to sit down and
Speaker 7: really think about, you know, what I wanted to do next,
Speaker 7: and that was coaching, and ultimately that was coaching at
Speaker 7: the University of Kentucky. Like I made one phone call
Speaker 7: when I got done, and it was to coach Min Jim,
Speaker 7: So I knew what I wanted to do next. I
Speaker 7: knew where I wanted to be, and my wife spending
Speaker 7: at a plus supporter of it all and I couldn't
Speaker 7: thank her more for being on the ride with me,
Speaker 7: but also you know, allowing me to see the you know,
Speaker 7: the the reality, and and that was that I wanted
Speaker 7: to be with her a lot more than I wanted.
Speaker 6: To be in the big league at that point.
Speaker 7: So that that ended up being pretty easy by the
Speaker 7: end of it. But uh, but but during the time, no,
Speaker 7: it was. It was definitely really tough. But I knew
Speaker 7: I had a home here in Lexington. Coachman always made
Speaker 7: me aware of that, and so when I really sat
Speaker 7: down to do the thing, it was just like, man,
Speaker 7: that that was.
Speaker 6: That was pretty easy.
Speaker 1: So well, it is great seeing you back here. Congratulations
Speaker 1: on the move up and we'll see you at the ballpark.
Speaker 7: All right, sounds good. Can't wait to see you there.
Speaker 1: I was going to do it thanks to my guest,
Speaker 1: Van Hiles, George Paster Logan Salo. That's it. Good night
Speaker 1: from the garage in Lexington.
Speaker 7: Gosh, you lo to get the ball around the Envy
Speaker 7: you lo gag you right there on.
Speaker 5: The first you out of the dugout, did you know
Speaker 5: what that makes.
Speaker 6: You same every sid