Speaker 1: Did you do this for me because we had a
Speaker 1: rough start to the show, because the first hour was
Speaker 1: not our best? Is that why you're giving me a
Speaker 1: little dave? Because I know Ck didn't pick it?
Speaker 2: Oh he did, Oh he did. Oh.
Speaker 1: Maybe he's doing it because he listened and realized it
Speaker 1: was a rough start to the show.
Speaker 3: I'm not entirely sure. I'm not entirely sure what his
Speaker 3: I gave him full full.
Speaker 1: Choice on the musical, all right, c K two part
Speaker 1: question why aren't you in studio? And why Tuesday instead
Speaker 1: of Friday?
Speaker 4: Well, busy week this week, and I had a staff
Speaker 4: meeting that, like you know, I know people don't think
Speaker 4: I have a real job, and oftentimes I don't. But
Speaker 4: I had a staff meeting unfortunately that bumped up way
Speaker 4: too close to this and it just got done at
Speaker 4: like three oh one, so I wouldn't have been able
Speaker 4: to swing it in person. So apologies, but duty calls,
Speaker 4: as you know, And I'm sorry about the rough start
Speaker 4: to the to the show. I wasn't aware, don't. I
Speaker 4: don't know where we landed on opening tip. I don't
Speaker 4: know if it was Isaiah Isaiah Colliers downhill ability or
Speaker 4: the daltoncaid catch. But whatever you need, I'm here to help.
Speaker 1: I wish I had texted you before because I would
Speaker 1: have needed that for Opening Tip. And that's that's disappointing,
Speaker 1: because I feel like Opening Tip is an everyday listen
Speaker 1: for you.
Speaker 4: It typically is, because like any good friend, I am
Speaker 4: never lacking for good material to either help or tease
Speaker 4: a good friend. So I missed it. So can you?
Speaker 4: Can you bestow it upon me? Or are we trying
Speaker 4: to move on?
Speaker 1: No, I'm going to bring you into the content of
Speaker 1: Opening Tip. The rough start is we just we had
Speaker 1: a guest who was I'm sure a very capable guest,
Speaker 1: but he was babysitting while he was talking, and so.
Speaker 4: You know, it's been there, Spence, Yeah, it's been there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but it was like Leo times ten. So I
Speaker 1: just had to let him go. It's it's all good,
Speaker 1: We're fine. But you know, doing a sports soccer radio
Speaker 1: show is not unlike doing any other job. Some days
Speaker 1: you feel like you're doing a good job. Other days
Speaker 1: you just you don't have it. It's like when you
Speaker 1: sit down and you fire up the classical music and
Speaker 1: you're ready to start writing a story.
Speaker 2: You know, you strike me.
Speaker 1: As a guy that at times might scrap something and
Speaker 1: then start over.
Speaker 2: Is that fair?
Speaker 4: Oh, one hundred percent. It's got to be top down.
Speaker 4: I think I've told you this. I think the monsters
Speaker 4: who can write like in various spots and then put
Speaker 4: it all together, that is That is alien behavior. That
Speaker 4: is stuff that I am totally unable to do. My
Speaker 4: OCD is just off the charts. It has to be
Speaker 4: from the top down. And you're right, you're right about
Speaker 4: the classical music man some Claire dealon on repeat. We're
Speaker 4: not wrong, You're wrong on repeat repeat. Yeah, you got
Speaker 4: to black out a little.
Speaker 2: Bit, okay, like a mad scientist.
Speaker 1: Who do you know in the business that writes the
Speaker 1: way you just described, Like, who's the biggest alien that
Speaker 1: you know?
Speaker 4: Oh? I mean a lot of people are really good
Speaker 4: at that. Some of our close friends. Faulk is very
Speaker 4: very good at writing different pieces and different like portions
Speaker 4: of the story and then putting it all together in
Speaker 4: like ten minutes. I could never do that. It's just
Speaker 4: it's a very very difficult gift. And I know that
Speaker 4: your listeners are very much into the idea of journalism construction,
Speaker 4: especially sports journalism. Construction. So I'm just here to tell
Speaker 4: everybody that while this job doesn't seem real, it is
Speaker 4: a creative task that sometimes can take its toll.
Speaker 1: Do you take for granted because you reference you at
Speaker 1: a staff meeting? And one of my favorite things about
Speaker 1: what we do for a living is I don't have
Speaker 1: to deal with a lot of meetings and I don't
Speaker 1: have to return a lot of emails. I don't have to,
Speaker 1: you know, do the everyday things that other jobs mandate.
Speaker 1: And God blessed the people to do that because I
Speaker 1: just I tried it. I wasn't great at it. And
Speaker 1: I don't know if that's ADHD or the bing bong
Speaker 1: brain or whatever. But because you don't have meetings, when
Speaker 1: you do have meetings, how does that hit?
Speaker 4: You know? It's funny you bring that up. Like I'm
Speaker 4: pretty talkative, but sometimes, like for today example, it was,
Speaker 4: you know, our college football staff just getting together to
Speaker 4: kind of talk about the end of the season and
Speaker 4: just look forward and kind of just bounce ideas. Very informal,
Speaker 4: very informal, But today for some reason, I felt a
Speaker 4: little spicy. Just got in there with some ideas, you know,
Speaker 4: try to mix some things up. But That's that's it. Man,
Speaker 4: Like I have, I really have just like one half court.
Speaker 4: Even me, I don't think I could ever exist in
Speaker 4: the realm where it's like you have multiple one of
Speaker 4: these a day. I just I don't have it in me.
Speaker 4: I understand that that is like coming from a point
Speaker 4: of privilege beyond measure. But kudos to the folks who,
Speaker 4: either digitally or in person, are able to just bounce
Speaker 4: from one meeting to another because they're doing They're doing
Speaker 4: a job and work that. Frankly, I know I could
Speaker 4: never do.
Speaker 1: I have a friend who works in a works for
Speaker 1: a staffing company, and he's done very well. He's a
Speaker 1: sweet guy, and for a decade, every morning Monday through
Speaker 1: Friday at seven thirty am, they had what was called
Speaker 1: their Red Zone meeting, and he had to be at work.
Speaker 2: You had to be up president. You'd be president at work,
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 1: He had to dress up all the things, and it
Speaker 1: was just an hour of them pumping each other up
Speaker 1: and they would like jump up and down to get
Speaker 1: ready to sell for the day.
Speaker 2: Dude, he did that.
Speaker 4: Sounds like some alpha con stuff spent.
Speaker 1: It was a little bit, but he did that Monday
Speaker 1: through shout out to the Bowl. He did that Monday
Speaker 1: through Friday for ten years, every morning, red zone seven thirty.
Speaker 1: Like there's not an amount of money you could pay
Speaker 1: me to do that.
Speaker 4: That sounds I mean a guy working all day in
Speaker 4: the red zone. It's his name, Scott Hansen.
Speaker 1: I understand you're a sports rider, but not everything has
Speaker 1: the sports connotation. It was the red zone to get
Speaker 1: people excited to go sell for the day.
Speaker 4: Okay, well, I mean, I guess once you get inside
Speaker 4: the twenty yard line, it is exciting the prospect of
Speaker 4: you know, breaking the play into the goal line and scoring.
Speaker 4: But what you described all I'm envisioning are very very
Speaker 4: questionable scenes in Wolf Football Street.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that it had that type of inner certainly at
Speaker 1: the type of energy. So do you care to share
Speaker 1: with the listenership any sweet, hot, hot leads, hot ideas
Speaker 1: that you had on the zoom call, like a good
Speaker 1: ckpiece to tease that we can get excited about.
Speaker 4: No, I mean a lot of it and a lot
Speaker 4: of what readers are interested in. Now Spence's roster construction.
Speaker 4: As you know, I know, the Drive is one of
Speaker 4: the most you know, pre eminent places in the market
Speaker 4: to go to talk about roster construction and college football
Speaker 4: with as we've talked about, with the wonkiness of the
Speaker 4: house settlement, whether or not you know, certain schools will
Speaker 4: have twenty point six million to be able to delineate
Speaker 4: to various you know, programs and players in their athletic departments.
Speaker 4: I mean, that's just always going to be a priority
Speaker 4: for anybody, because the more reporting you can do on
Speaker 4: that is going to be paramount to being able to
Speaker 4: tell the most accurate and up to date stories. It's weird, man,
Speaker 4: Like I can't think of what did we used to
Speaker 4: talk about before? And I l on the transfer portal
Speaker 4: in the offseason honestly, Like I was it just like
Speaker 4: pitching depth charts? Is that what it was?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Wait, and we're talking way to early top twenty five
Speaker 1: in a moment, way too twelve team in a month.
Speaker 1: But yeah, to your point, And I do think these
Speaker 1: stories that times can become a little bit exhausting. But
Speaker 1: if you don't really understand the landscape, then I think
Speaker 1: it's very easy to assume certain things that just aren't true.
Speaker 1: And we keep talking about the Ohio State thing as
Speaker 1: an example, and I am trying to loosely tie a
Speaker 1: parallel to the way Utah has got about their business
Speaker 1: this year by returning the bulk of a good defense.
Speaker 1: They've lost a lot of good players, but you know,
Speaker 1: a top twenty defense, and Kyle and Morgan have always
Speaker 1: been known to have that locked in regardless of who's
Speaker 1: on that side of the football. They have every one
Speaker 1: in the old line back, and then they surrounded them
Speaker 1: with skill position transfer players. It's exactly what Ohio State did.
Speaker 1: It's exactly what Ohio State did. So yes, roster construction
Speaker 1: is a big topic because it's a new thing that
Speaker 1: I think we all need to learn about together well.
Speaker 4: And Ohio State did a very impressive job of carving
Speaker 4: out probably I'm in a ballpark like eight to ten
Speaker 4: million dollars to go out and buy four guys that
Speaker 4: basically for the final pieces of the puzzle. Will Howard,
Speaker 4: Jeremiah Smith, Quinn, Shawn Judkins, Caleb Downs Like, if you're
Speaker 4: going to get those guys from the portal or high
Speaker 4: school and have them join a group that's already very talented,
Speaker 4: that means you're doing things right and you're going to
Speaker 4: have to pay a premium price. And obviously they did,
Speaker 4: But I do think Ohio State and maybe you know,
Speaker 4: the Georgias of the world are going to be operating
Speaker 4: in a class of their own for a while until
Speaker 4: all of this other stuff gets sorted out.
Speaker 2: Well.
Speaker 1: And the other thing that we could discuss during the
Speaker 1: off season that isn't as much of a reality now
Speaker 1: is you know, back before this entire shift took it
Speaker 1: was pretty easy to know what the team would look
Speaker 1: like even in January, right because you knew who was
Speaker 1: coming back, you knew who was going to the draft,
Speaker 1: you know who was graduating. And now I feel, and
Speaker 1: I told you this two weeks ago, prior to a show.
Speaker 1: I sat down, I'm like, all right, I'm gonna do
Speaker 1: the way too really big twelve football ranking thing, and like,
Speaker 1: I don't remember anybody saying Arizona State would even be good,
Speaker 1: let alone win it. Like so, I think the difference
Speaker 1: now is it feels almost impossible to predict what schools
Speaker 1: and teams are going to look like in the fall,
Speaker 1: whereas four or five years ago this time of year,
Speaker 1: we already kind of had a pretty good idea.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, I think to your point, you're basically Groundhogg.
Speaker 4: Dang it, every single day in real time, because you
Speaker 4: might come up against a massive roster change that could
Speaker 4: change the landscape of how a team can be viewed
Speaker 4: going into that following season. And that's just the reality.
Speaker 4: And it's not a good thing or a bad thing.
Speaker 4: It just is what it is. So like I guess
Speaker 4: springball used to be you know who's getting reps and
Speaker 4: you know who's acclimatizing themselves the fastest. Like now it's
Speaker 4: who's in the portal, who's not in the portal, who's
Speaker 4: joined a program, who's not joined a program, And frankly,
Speaker 4: I mean it does give in a weird way, Spence,
Speaker 4: I think it does give more clarity in real time
Speaker 4: as to where a roster sits, as opposed to just
Speaker 4: pontificating like what something could be, if that makes sense,
Speaker 4: Like you're you things are generally concrete. You're either on
Speaker 4: the roster or you're not, and they can change really fast.
Speaker 4: I get that, But like in the past, I felt
Speaker 4: like it was to your point, like, oh man, you
Speaker 4: know West Virginia's run rushing attack under Rich Rodriguez, watch out.
Speaker 4: It was great to watch, great to play with on
Speaker 4: NC DOUBLEA. But now it's like, Okay, Rich Rod's back
Speaker 4: at West Virginia House. He going to be able to
Speaker 4: you know, hit the portal and basically try to recapture
Speaker 4: the magic of fifteen years ago or whatever.
Speaker 1: So you're on a staff at the Athletic with some
Speaker 1: of the biggest and best college football minds and media
Speaker 1: members and writers.
Speaker 4: Heavy hitters, heavy hitters, any.
Speaker 1: Hitters, game changers, needle movers, you name it, uh, influencers
Speaker 1: if you'd like to go there. So when when when
Speaker 1: you're on these calls with some of the most widely
Speaker 1: read college football media members, what are the pitches? Is
Speaker 1: most of it n I L transfer portal roster construction,
Speaker 1: Like what's what what?
Speaker 2: What's kind of like the topic the content that's moving
Speaker 2: the needle right now?
Speaker 4: We take bets on how long my hair is going
Speaker 4: to grow, We take we take bet on next time
Speaker 4: I'm going to shave the beer. We take bets on
Speaker 4: how often I'm going to be stopped at t s
Speaker 4: A Like, that's that's a good that's a good one.
Speaker 4: That's always a good ice breaker?
Speaker 2: Is PK on the caller?
Speaker 4: It's it's it's everything, man, I mean, like I said,
Speaker 4: this was more just the detalks of the season and
Speaker 4: everybody kind of getting together and just you know, real
Speaker 4: living the season and looking forward to the offseason. I mean,
Speaker 4: it does feel like and I know, I'm I'm really
Speaker 4: placating to my guys census here, but how was it
Speaker 4: only January twenty eight? How did the season end eight
Speaker 4: days ago? It felt like it ended a long time ago.
Speaker 4: It did not. It ended last week. So we're in
Speaker 4: the very early stages. But yeah, it's everything, man, It's
Speaker 4: everything you would expect because covering college football and covering
Speaker 4: college athletics now, Spence is like you have to understand
Speaker 4: the sport. You have to understand understand scheme fit, personnel packages.
Speaker 4: You know, I know, I know how big of a
Speaker 4: two tight end personnel you got you are. I know
Speaker 4: you're all about the twenty two personnel.
Speaker 2: At least at least.
Speaker 4: But it's also, like like you said, I mean, you
Speaker 4: talk about it a lot on your show, man, it's
Speaker 4: trying to understand all of these nuances that pop up
Speaker 4: on a daily basis from a federal government point of view,
Speaker 4: and how things may be put into place, how they
Speaker 4: may not, what's going to temporarily be in place, what's
Speaker 4: a lift, what's a hold?
Speaker 2: What's this?
Speaker 4: I mean, all this stuff is my I mean I
Speaker 4: would just suggest to every fan spence to just do
Speaker 4: two things. Get it. You know, I always have water
Speaker 4: on hand to hydrate because you're stressed. And get some
Speaker 4: et cedric migraine if you're going to try to understand
Speaker 4: what's going on, because that sixty five milligram does to
Speaker 4: caffeine is really going to help fight it. Otherwise, if
Speaker 4: you just want to relax and just wait, I guess
Speaker 4: for like, start a fall camp and in July. Just
Speaker 4: do that because in the meantime, things are going to change,
Speaker 4: and things are going to shuffle about at such a
Speaker 4: rapid pace that it's going to make your head spin.
Speaker 2: Man, my LDS family loves et C.
Speaker 4: It's like it's it's the best. It's easily the best.
Speaker 2: In the vein.
Speaker 1: I don't I don't remember the last time I had any, etc.
Speaker 1: But I'm glad that that's kind of where we're at here.
Speaker 1: So now let's get over to Oh wait, one more thing.
Speaker 1: The athletic college football staff. When you guys are lining
Speaker 1: up for the zoom call, who's the one member You're like,
Speaker 1: I really hope Vanini doesn't join us.
Speaker 2: Who's the one guy you don't want on the call?
Speaker 4: I mean, all those guys are so much smarter than
Speaker 4: me that I want them on the call. It's kind
Speaker 4: of like, and you're gonna have to let me go here.
Speaker 4: You're gonna have to let me belittle myself so you
Speaker 4: can't fight me on it. It's kind of like when
Speaker 4: you're in school and you're hoping you don't get called on,
Speaker 4: you know, it's kind of like, oh, shoot, I hope,
Speaker 4: I hope this me being able to hide in this
Speaker 4: back row, in the back left seat of this classroom
Speaker 4: doesn't get me picked on. Luckily, there's a lot smarter
Speaker 4: people that I work with Spence, so they generally know
Speaker 4: how to, you know, steer these things. But there is
Speaker 4: nobody that I don't want to see on a zoom call.
Speaker 4: I want to see Vanini on the call because he's
Speaker 4: the He's the guy that simultaneously has the most ideas.
Speaker 4: He loves professional wrestling. Dude. When I told Vannini I
Speaker 4: was going to like Reno's like middle nowhere Reno to
Speaker 4: hang out with stone Cold, the blood left his face.
Speaker 4: He was so awestruck and so jealous that I felt
Speaker 4: bad because I know for a fact that like that
Speaker 4: would have made his like millennium. So that's a shout
Speaker 4: out for our guy. Nobody, nobody, Nobody works harder than Chrispinini.
Speaker 2: Nobody, by the way, is pro wrestling back.
Speaker 4: I don't think it's not back for me, but it
Speaker 4: might be back for others. Is Jake Paul a professional wrestler?
Speaker 1: I don't know. He just box his seven year old dudes.
Speaker 1: I don't think he's a wrestler, but I heard.
Speaker 4: I heard he's gonna box his brother. Are we going
Speaker 4: to watch that? Oh?
Speaker 1: Well, talk about a win win. If I could quote
Speaker 1: Michael Scott, that's a win, win, win win.
Speaker 2: I don't know. I fired up Netflix the other night.
Speaker 1: They're like, hey live in one hour w w E
Speaker 1: RAW and I saw the data and like thirty million
Speaker 1: people watched it, you know, I mean I was like
Speaker 1: an ultimate wrestler, you know, the the ultimate warrior, you know,
Speaker 1: like that era macho man, macho man, young hold Kogan
Speaker 1: before he earned.
Speaker 4: Right before he went before he went full in wo indeed.
Speaker 1: So, but I stopped watching when I was like twelve,
Speaker 1: and it feels like maybe I need to start watching
Speaker 1: again it feels like it's back.
Speaker 4: I mean, can we can we like test the Watters?
Speaker 4: Can we ask Connor like? And I think that's that's
Speaker 4: that's the age range that you need to figure out
Speaker 4: if it's back or not, because if it's hitting with
Speaker 4: those youngs, I think then then that can give us
Speaker 4: some more accurate tests we have.
Speaker 1: We have a young in the studio porter doesn't strike
Speaker 1: me as a w WE guy. Is so to your knowledge,
Speaker 1: your your ecosystem, your echo chamber is, is pro wrestling
Speaker 1: back in a way that maybe I'm not giving a
Speaker 1: credit for.
Speaker 3: I am not quite the young to ask because you yea, yeah,
Speaker 3: So I do know that there's been an influx of
Speaker 3: money from the Middle East, and also the Netflix streaming thing,
Speaker 3: I think just based on the the usual people to watch,
Speaker 3: I think is probably a really good move that you
Speaker 3: having to catch it live, right, it's kind of surging,
Speaker 3: But I don't know if it's back, all right?
Speaker 1: Fair enough, And yeah, you are the wrong young to
Speaker 1: ask how many during uh during COVID, what was the
Speaker 1: average amount of time you spent on on zoom because
Speaker 1: that's when we all kind of.
Speaker 2: Were introduced to the medium. Oh Man, was it daily
Speaker 2: with the athletics.
Speaker 4: Probably early on when everyone was scrambling trying to figure
Speaker 4: out what's going to happen from a minute to minute basis,
Speaker 4: It was pretty often weirdly though, Spence, like with the
Speaker 4: advent of zoom, it's helped me, like with actually getting
Speaker 4: to know, like interview subjects from a better point of
Speaker 4: view than just a phone call. Like sometimes depending on
Speaker 4: the type of story I'm working on, like I will
Speaker 4: ask somebody, can you zoom? Can you google me? Can
Speaker 4: you FaceTime? Because there's something so much more personal and
Speaker 4: real and genuine about, you know, meeting somebody and seeing
Speaker 4: their face and like, you know, rather than just a
Speaker 4: cold call, you know, the three eight five spam call
Speaker 4: that poisons are all of our cell phones every single
Speaker 4: minute of every single day these days.
Speaker 2: Porter, were you on the zoom call? I was on
Speaker 2: one zoom call.
Speaker 4: Yes, yes, answer is yes.
Speaker 1: So throughout the course of the entire COVID situation, I
Speaker 1: was invited to jump on one. Well that's not true.
Speaker 1: I was invited to jump on seven, and then I
Speaker 1: just declined because I didn't want to. And then you
Speaker 1: were playing you don't have to, you don't have to
Speaker 1: expose what I was doing. We were all just trying
Speaker 1: to stay alive. So then I was finally like strongly encouraged,
Speaker 1: like you've got to jump on these calls, man.
Speaker 2: So I jumped on one call.
Speaker 1: I think Porter was like eight thirty nine in the
Speaker 1: morning and something like that. I had just I'm still
Speaker 1: in bed and I'm on the call, and I thought
Speaker 1: that I had turned the video portion of the zoom
Speaker 1: off and proceeded to walk into the men's room, proceeded
Speaker 1: to sit down to handle the business.
Speaker 2: And also I had as best best, best, best, best best.
Speaker 1: Meds and our general sales manager at the time was
Speaker 1: yelling at me because I didn't turn the camera off,
Speaker 1: and the entire Zoom call saw me sit down to
Speaker 1: handle my business. I was not invited back after that, Chris,
Speaker 1: that was the one Zoom call I was on. That's
Speaker 1: a true story. By the way, I'm not making Porter
Speaker 1: back me up. That's a true story.
Speaker 2: It happened. It happened. I was there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there was no like over revealing, but you were
Speaker 3: clearly in your restroom, yeah, and clearly you know had
Speaker 3: your coffee in the morning, was you.
Speaker 2: Know, ready to go shirtless?
Speaker 1: And then yeah, anyway, all right, Chris, that's a long
Speaker 1: way of me getting to where I thought I was
Speaker 1: gonna lead off the conversation.
Speaker 4: I'm ready.
Speaker 1: It's a great thing about having you on so uh
Speaker 1: in the back into the area of like, okay, how
Speaker 1: do we create something that's interesting for college football fans? Well,
Speaker 1: ESPN has a couple of pieces over the past last week,
Speaker 1: Mark schleigh By releases his way too Early Top twenty
Speaker 1: five and then yesterday Bill Conley releases his way too
Speaker 1: early twelve team CFP projection, And then you combine that
Speaker 1: with the Vegas odds that were released this week.
Speaker 2: Of course, way too early.
Speaker 1: Utah and KSE State have the shortest odds in the
Speaker 1: Big twelve to win the national championship, and Bill Conley
Speaker 1: is already picking Utah to win the Big twelve and
Speaker 1: go to the twelve team CFP. That means nothing in January,
Speaker 1: but it is something to talk about because Bill's a
Speaker 1: smarkuya use his work as kind of a north star
Speaker 1: on the show. Is that simply like, Hey, I guess
Speaker 1: we'll just believe in their head coach, because I you know,
Speaker 1: it's hard to know what they're going to look like
Speaker 1: right now.
Speaker 4: Well, Bill is a you know, renowned stats guy, and
Speaker 4: I think he's like one of those really brilliant dudes
Speaker 4: who like creates his own algorithms with the bleep loop
Speaker 4: numbers like one point two, five sixty five, like all
Speaker 4: those things that are way over my head. So I'm
Speaker 4: not going to call into question why he shows Utah like, man,
Speaker 4: this has given me a little bit of PTSD from
Speaker 4: last year where I'm where I'm where I'm selling books.
Speaker 4: Like listen, guys, this is a total and this is
Speaker 4: a totally different ball game. Last year, in theory, they
Speaker 4: had everything going for them and then it went sideways.
Speaker 4: This year, they do have some returning players, they do
Speaker 4: have some people coming back from injury, but the entire
Speaker 4: offensive side of the ball is going to be new,
Speaker 4: outside of the offensive line, which is huge that cannot
Speaker 4: be discounted. I think Utah made one hundred the right
Speaker 4: move in investing whatever Nile resources they had in retaining
Speaker 4: all of those offensive linemen, because they're very good and
Speaker 4: it's going to help the transition under Jason Beck. But
Speaker 4: we have zero idea what that offense is going to
Speaker 4: look like. And you could have said that about Utah
Speaker 4: for most of the last two decades, but this year
Speaker 4: I think is like as stark of a difference as
Speaker 4: you're going to get. So, you know, maybe Vegas knows
Speaker 4: something we don't. Maybe Vegas is very high on Levanni
Speaker 4: de Mooney coming back from his season ending injury to
Speaker 4: partner with Lander Barton. Maybe they maybe they're bullish Sean
Speaker 4: Nate Ritchie at strong safety. Maybe all I'm saying is
Speaker 4: that proceed with caution. We have to wait and see
Speaker 4: what this thing looks like before we can really let
Speaker 4: our heads go wild. But I guess that's the whole point.
Speaker 4: Fans just want to be able to dream, So I
Speaker 4: guess I'm I shouldn't poop poo their dream. Basically, That's
Speaker 4: what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: Well, it's good to have Veidosa reality because expectations are
Speaker 1: the direct cause of most misery. If you're a sports fan,
Speaker 1: and I say it all the time, and that's why,
Speaker 1: you have to be careful as far as the expectations go.
Speaker 1: Do you think because I hear Klannie talk a lot
Speaker 1: about like the chip on the shoulder and nobody believed
Speaker 1: on us. If your coach wit, would you prefer the
Speaker 1: attention to be on other teams and nobody expecting you
Speaker 1: to do anything based off of what you just did,
Speaker 1: so he can play that up with his players during camp.
Speaker 4: I mean, I just don't see how you could not
Speaker 4: pick BYU or even as U going. I mean, we'll
Speaker 4: we'll see what those early polls are come, you know,
Speaker 4: media time in the middle of the summer. But I
Speaker 4: guess it will work. I mean, BYU, you could have argued,
Speaker 4: as John Wilner was basically beating this drum for a
Speaker 4: long time, like BYU he thought should have been still
Speaker 4: in the CFP conversation despite its two losses, and as
Speaker 4: we saw with the SMU loss, maybe he had a
Speaker 4: point like maybe by you shouldn't have been should have
Speaker 4: been there in the first place. I guess you can
Speaker 4: play that card. But like, what did b Why you
Speaker 4: end up finishing in the A people like top fifteen,
Speaker 4: right fourteen? Yeah? Yeah, I mean, like so nobody's really
Speaker 4: doubting you. I mean, like if your top if you're
Speaker 4: a top fifteen team after a ten and two season
Speaker 4: and coming really close to a Big twelve title game appearance, Yeah,
Speaker 4: we'll see. I will say that, like the hardest thing
Speaker 4: to do is to live up to expectations. And like, well,
Speaker 4: I've always said this Utah, like, the best Utah seasons
Speaker 4: are the ones you never see coming. The ones where
Speaker 4: everyone assumes Utah is going to go undefeated are the
Speaker 4: ones where they don't.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, that's true.
Speaker 1: And I just wonder if there's anything there as far
Speaker 1: as the way coaches prefer to motivate their players. But
Speaker 1: it's weird, man, Like, I don't know these professional athletes
Speaker 1: and that's what they are in college too, and coaches
Speaker 1: they all have to find something that to just the
Speaker 1: layman's eye, isn't there.
Speaker 2: And there are so many examples.
Speaker 1: I think it was two thousand and four when the
Speaker 1: Patriots wore the biggest favorite in Vegas in the history
Speaker 1: to win the Super Bowl because they were playing like
Speaker 1: the Panthers. And after the game the Patriots won. It
Speaker 1: was a pretty close game, but Rodney Harrison was like,
Speaker 1: we shot the world. Nobody believed in us, said, We're like, dude,
Speaker 1: everybody believed in you. You were You're the biggest favorite
Speaker 1: to win the Super Bowl in Vegas history. I can
Speaker 1: remember Darren Williams always talking about Ray Felton. He used
Speaker 1: to talk about Raymond Felton all the time, like, oh, man,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna kill him when he comes into town.
Speaker 2: I'm like, due, Darren, you won. It's over. It's Ray Felton.
Speaker 1: So there's something with athletes and coaches where they just
Speaker 1: find whatever it is to keep them as motivated to
Speaker 1: I guess, perform as well as they can.
Speaker 4: When you said Raymond Felton, I thought you said ray
Speaker 4: for Austin and I said I was gonna say, is
Speaker 4: that a skip.
Speaker 2: To my movie on Tuesday? Oh wow, now you're just misbehaving.
Speaker 4: Listen, man, I think it Sports has a fascinating dictionary,
Speaker 4: and like I should probably at some point, like do
Speaker 4: it do something on diving deep into these like idiosyncrasies
Speaker 4: and basically just these placeholders in the minds of both
Speaker 4: fans and athletes because that what you mentioned but nobody
Speaker 4: believed in us mantra is probably you know, at the
Speaker 4: top of the pyramid. And I and I understand why
Speaker 4: it's a motivating factor for a multitude of reasons. I
Speaker 4: just don't know why, because like you have to, you
Speaker 4: have to understand that, like probably I'm in a ballpark
Speaker 4: like seventy five to eighty percent of like your replies,
Speaker 4: I would imagine, are generally going to be positive. So
Speaker 4: why do we tend to from a human psychological point
Speaker 4: of view, why do we tend to focus on the
Speaker 4: negative minority that can be applied to a whole bunch
Speaker 4: of other walks of life in our society at this moment.
Speaker 4: But it is a fascinating like thing that even those
Speaker 4: who are clearly in the driver's seat, clearly close to
Speaker 4: accomplishing something great, and often when they do, they often
Speaker 4: decide to wag the thing, do the matumbo at the naysayers.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean yes, and we could ultimately get all
Speaker 1: in the weeds on this. You know, why are we
Speaker 1: hardwired for negativity? And that's kind of the default for
Speaker 1: most people, and then people that understand that that are
Speaker 1: in certain positions just feast upon it for their own
Speaker 1: personal gain. But it's already been a really weird hit,
Speaker 1: So why don't we just keep it going at this point?
Speaker 1: Because I'm trying to the other thing about college football
Speaker 1: offseason round here is oftentimes, more often than not, the
Speaker 1: jazz are interesting and right now. Like monson Road It
Speaker 1: wrote today on why the b YU band isn't allowed
Speaker 1: at basketball games.
Speaker 4: Bring the tubas back, baby, bring them home. I mean,
Speaker 4: we could, we could go, we could talk about the lads.
Speaker 4: We could talk about you know, RSL participating in the
Speaker 4: in the League's Cup, your favorite cup. And I know
Speaker 4: how many cups you like? You like? You like Leagu's Cup,
Speaker 4: you like Open Cup, you like what's the other one,
Speaker 4: Conker Cats Champions Cup.
Speaker 2: Now there are too many cups.
Speaker 1: I've been of this opinion for a long long time,
Speaker 1: but since you brought that up, you will have the
Speaker 1: hot take on RSL sitting out the US Open Cup
Speaker 1: because you c K are an Open Cup guy.
Speaker 4: I am me and the Legend three fits. We are
Speaker 4: Open Cup gentlemen. But I guess oursel is employing the Monarchs,
Speaker 4: so I'm gonna have to brush up on my Monarch's
Speaker 4: roster to see if they can shock the world. It
Speaker 4: is a bummer. I understand that the League's Cup probably
Speaker 4: gives you more eyeballs, more money, more opportunity to play
Speaker 4: against higher quality competition with teams from lega mckis. I
Speaker 4: get it, But listen, man, you in this country, we
Speaker 4: we I mean, we kind of talked about this last
Speaker 4: last week with the promotion relegation, like theory, like there
Speaker 4: could be a semi pro team. There was like a
Speaker 4: semi pro team from San Francisco, like at some point
Speaker 4: in the last few years that was sponsored by a
Speaker 4: local like Mission District Burrito company that like made a
Speaker 4: run in the US Open Cup. These are dudes that
Speaker 4: are like just average joes that are good at soccer.
Speaker 4: That's cool to me, man, Like that's that is the
Speaker 4: essence of sports. It is weird though in this country
Speaker 4: that like while everybody's favorite movie is Rudy, like, we
Speaker 4: don't we don't don't want to like promote the idea
Speaker 4: of certain underdogs getting their shot. I digress. Yeah, are
Speaker 4: so opened the Open Cup? I think is that the
Speaker 4: second straight year? Or were they in it last year?
Speaker 2: The last year, but I think they were Yeah.
Speaker 4: That's right. Yeah, I think they lost to Devin Sandoval's
Speaker 4: New Mexico United. Now I'm here, I got you.
Speaker 2: That was the Tree Fitzgerald Bowl. We talked it.
Speaker 4: Was the Three Fits bawl. Yeah, that's right, playing in
Speaker 4: the Isotope Stadium.
Speaker 2: I think, yeah, good pull.
Speaker 1: I mean, I mean, look, it's interesting. Shout out to
Speaker 1: our good friends at the Salt Lake Tribune. But you
Speaker 1: pull up the trip these days and it's simply a
Speaker 1: rough scene with the local sports situation, mainly because the
Speaker 1: Jazz just aren't interesting and how many people care about
Speaker 1: college basketball. Maybe that will change. Monson rights on the
Speaker 1: BYU band getting thrown out of games. We got the
Speaker 1: Triple team about whether or not the Jazz defense can
Speaker 1: improve during the rebuild. Salt Lake B's ticket prices are
Speaker 1: going to be different next year. The hockey club looking
Speaker 1: to regain their confidence and swagger after a road trip.
Speaker 4: And Kennon Johnson. Kennon Johnson's gone, Spence.
Speaker 1: Kennon Johnson is gone, as we've talked about. Do you
Speaker 1: have a hot take on Kennon Johnson Utah quarterback taking off?
Speaker 2: I don't.
Speaker 4: I think he played one quarter against the mighty Thunderbirds
Speaker 4: of Southern Utah.
Speaker 2: That's my take, Okay.
Speaker 1: Ultimately, Yanna Neapkins will save us all because she's killing it.
Speaker 2: We do it correct.
Speaker 4: Yes, I do think that that is That is a
Speaker 4: great pull. Lynn Roberts Landing, Kelsey Plumb shout out with
Speaker 4: the Los Angeles Sparks a baller. I'm excited to see
Speaker 4: what she does in a sparks uniform local sports scenia.
Speaker 4: Man like I said Isaiah Collier great end to end
Speaker 4: speed reminds me of He reminds me of Benny the
Speaker 4: Jet Rodriguez Mighty Ducks too.
Speaker 1: That's enough, Okay, there's a piece of good news. It
Speaker 1: appears that the Utah Hockey Club is having a difficult
Speaker 1: time trademarking Yetti.
Speaker 2: So I guess there's no is.
Speaker 4: That because of the cooler company Yetti.
Speaker 1: I guess, But shout out to Belle, who does a
Speaker 1: great job. Their first Yetti application was rejected. I just look.
Speaker 1: I cannot tell you how badly I just do not
Speaker 1: want that name for the hockey club.
Speaker 2: I just don't.
Speaker 4: Well, I have to correct myself because I just referenced
Speaker 4: Benny the Jet Rodriguez on Mighty Ducks too. That's my bat.
Speaker 4: Luis Mendoza was the speedster for Miami, Florida on Mighty Ducks,
Speaker 4: who had tremendous speed. So that's my bad.
Speaker 2: Same actor though, and he reminds you of Isaiah.
Speaker 4: Call you he does, and end speed is tremendous.
Speaker 1: All right, Chris, we have missed ba for too long,
Speaker 1: and you have a child to take care of. Weird
Speaker 1: Tuesday hit. But you know all good man, thanks for
Speaker 1: the time. We'll chat soon.
Speaker 4: I'm always here.
Speaker 2: I know you are. The great.
Speaker 1: Christopher Camaradie, senior staff writer from The Athletic, does a
Speaker 1: great job in the college football tip. Definitely follow his
Speaker 1: work and support him. We always appreciate his time, all right.
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