Speaker 1: Welcome to the Big Blue Insider. Dick Gabriel with you
Speaker 1: on a Thursday edition of our show, One day closer
Speaker 1: to Kentucky Football, one day closer to the basketball as
Speaker 1: well Blue White. As tomorrow night, we will be in Gainesville,
Speaker 1: though we mean in the UK Network crew, so Tom
Speaker 1: Leach will be calling football this weekend. Darren Headrick will
Speaker 1: sit in on radio side with Jack Gibbings as the
Speaker 1: Wildcats play the Blue White game tomorrow night. You'll hear
Speaker 1: it right here on six point thirty WLAP. When you
Speaker 1: talk about the Florida Gators, though you talk about a
Speaker 1: Kentucky blest, sound like Joe Knuxhall, don't know you talk about,
Speaker 1: but you're talking about a Kentucky team that of late
Speaker 1: four to the last six has beaten the Gators and
Speaker 1: now Florida without Graham Mertz, a six year quarterback, he's
Speaker 1: done for the year, he's done with college football injured.
Speaker 1: So now TJ. Lagway is the quarterback and the Wildcats
Speaker 1: will dial up I'm sure a lot of interesting looks
Speaker 1: on defense for him. We will come back and talk
Speaker 1: about that in just a minute, but we need to
Speaker 1: point out a couple of things first, of All Volleyball
Speaker 1: with a big win last night down in Tennessee. Wildcats
Speaker 1: four and two in the league. Doesn't look like they're
Speaker 1: gonna win the conference this year. They won seven straight
Speaker 1: because they just lost to Texas. That would have been
Speaker 1: big to knock off the Longhorns at home, But now
Speaker 1: you're playing for postseason. So Kentucky with another win against
Speaker 1: a brutally tough schedule. Four and two in the league,
Speaker 1: ten and seven overall. Asian thig Pen with fifteen kills,
Speaker 1: a freshman with her first start last night, So Wildcats
Speaker 1: pick up a big win on the road. They play
Speaker 1: against Sunday down at Alabama, three o'clock. It's going to
Speaker 1: be on sec plus Lexingon's Walker Buehller showed out last night,
Speaker 1: didn't he? Game three at the NLCS Dodgers ended up
Speaker 1: winning that one eight nothing. Bueller got the start, went
Speaker 1: four innings, had eighteen swings and misses. If you watched
Speaker 1: it all, a lot of movement on his pitches. He
Speaker 1: looked like his old self, and he turned it over
Speaker 1: to his teammates the bullpen, Shoel Tani who had a
Speaker 1: home run. And this is something the Dodgers needed. To
Speaker 1: see from Walker. He has missed the better part of
Speaker 1: three seasons. Enry Clay product Vanderbilt, a first round draft pick,
Speaker 1: but he has been struggling since those two different surgeries,
Speaker 1: and he has really not looked like himself for the
Speaker 1: most part until last night, and he looked really good.
Speaker 1: So now you're a step closer to the World Series
Speaker 1: if you're the Dodgers and a Dodger fan. Something really
Speaker 1: interesting I found on Twitter this morning. You may have
Speaker 1: seen it, but Michael Leaves responded to this. Michael, of
Speaker 1: course a Kentucky native. He's from Western Kentucky, worked for
Speaker 1: US at KYT, worked up with me in the sports
Speaker 1: department now at ESPN. But he retweeted a message a
Speaker 1: graphic from a guy who goes by Matthew leb on
Speaker 1: extra Twitter. This guy put up a map of New
Speaker 1: England and circled Connecticut and Rhode Island and he wrote this.
Speaker 1: He said, I honestly believe college basketball means more in
Speaker 1: this red line than any other part of the country.
Speaker 1: I mean, you sold out a scrimmage and thousands more
Speaker 1: watched on TV without Providence even being involved. You could
Speaker 1: make the argument that the two most passionate fan bases
Speaker 1: in college basketball. He's a little biased. I know are
Speaker 1: in this area well, Michael, of course, now a national voice,
Speaker 1: tweets back and maybe your belief in all caps, but
Speaker 1: it is nowhere near factual. No state or area exceeds
Speaker 1: the passion for college basketball like Kentucky. This coming from
Speaker 1: someone who grew up in Kentucky and currently resides in
Speaker 1: New England. Michael lives in Connecticut working for ESPN, and
Speaker 1: Michael knows where if he speaks. Michael lived in the
Speaker 1: Lodge for at least one year when he was a
Speaker 1: college student and worked camps for Rick Patino when he
Speaker 1: was in school, and it was tight with a lot
Speaker 1: of the players, and of course knows Kentucky basketball inside
Speaker 1: and out. And I can understand why this guy would
Speaker 1: get all excited about basketball in that area, especially with
Speaker 1: yukon going back to back. But when you're talking about
Speaker 1: the length and breadth of college basketball fan bases, and
Speaker 1: go back and look at the ratings, the TV ratings
Speaker 1: for UK and UOL basketball. The number one station in
Speaker 1: America for college basketball ratings is WLKY and Louisville, the
Speaker 1: CBS affiliate. Why well, because they get those CBS big matchups.
Speaker 1: You know, when UK or U of L are on,
Speaker 1: not lately u of L, but through the years, and
Speaker 1: when those teams play, the numbers are off the charts.
Speaker 1: They get like seventy fives and eighties, just in general
Speaker 1: the fan bases. Michael nailed it. Yeah, Like I said,
Speaker 1: understand why you're excited right now, But to make a
Speaker 1: statement like that, you're not paying attention. That's that's what
Speaker 1: I always come back to. All right, back to football.
Speaker 1: Quick note from the interweb. Talk to Justin Rowland about
Speaker 1: this on Tom Leach's show this morning. Montavin Quizonberry, five
Speaker 1: to nine receiver kick returner, has flipped from West Virginia.
Speaker 1: He's going to go to Kentucky. Boyle County High School
Speaker 1: and Neil Brown, the head coach at West Virginia, was
Speaker 1: a diminutive wide receiver at Boyle County and at Kentucky
Speaker 1: and he had Quistonberry. But he has changed his mind
Speaker 1: and he has posted that he will be a Kentucky Wildcat.
Speaker 1: So that's a big get for Mark Soops and his staff.
Speaker 1: As Quistonberry's coming home, the Boyle County product says he'll
Speaker 1: be a Wildcat Justin told me that as a high schooler,
Speaker 1: Quistonberry has fifteen return touchdowns fifteen touchdowns on returns only,
Speaker 1: and wants to be a return guy at Kentucky. And
Speaker 1: that is valuable because you have to want to return kicks.
Speaker 2: All right.
Speaker 1: The Wildcats heading down to Gainesville, as we said, facing
Speaker 1: a freshman quarterback. Anwar Stewart d line coach asked last
Speaker 1: night about going into a game against the freshman quarterback
Speaker 1: with an old line that's had its ups and downs.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know they've gotten bet up for you know,
Speaker 3: old lion wise, they've gotten better, you know that way.
Speaker 2: You know, he's really athletic, I can move.
Speaker 3: You know, We're just gonna have to make it tough,
Speaker 3: you know, up front, you know, be violent, play physical,
Speaker 3: get out to the quarterback, get him off his point,
Speaker 3: and make him uncomfortable.
Speaker 2: That's the name of the game.
Speaker 3: And what we want to do is we want to
Speaker 3: finish and finish at his feet and see if we
Speaker 3: can't get him to get that ball up in the
Speaker 3: air where our defense d backs can get a few
Speaker 3: pints a few tournaments.
Speaker 1: That's anwar Stewart and the unit he is put together
Speaker 1: for the Wildcats. That defensive front is the top area
Speaker 1: of this football team. People have recognized that nationwide. That
Speaker 1: will be the key to the game that will dictate
Speaker 1: Kentucky's fortunes on Saturday night.
Speaker 2: We'll have it for you right here. I want to
Speaker 2: come with a Big Blue Insider Tony.
Speaker 1: Franklin at the bottom of the hour. Former Kentucky assistant
Speaker 1: on six thirty WLAP Welcome back to the Big Blue
Speaker 1: Sider Dick Cabri with you coming up.
Speaker 2: In a few minutes.
Speaker 1: Tony Franklin, the former UK football assistant now a consultant.
Speaker 1: Basically he coaches coaches other players around the country with
Speaker 1: the Tony Franklin system. So we'll learn more about that.
Speaker 1: Get his thoughts on Jared Goff, his prized pupil at
Speaker 1: cal Berkeley and the football Wildcats as well. He is
Speaker 1: a Kentuckian from Princeton, Kentucky, and was best known at
Speaker 1: first as the head coach at Callaway County, where he
Speaker 1: coached the great Pookie Jones. So we'll hear from Tony
Speaker 1: coming up at.
Speaker 2: The bottom of the hour.
Speaker 1: Big story in college football. I think it's big. It's interesting. Nonetheless,
Speaker 1: you know that loophole that Oregon used to beat Ohio State,
Speaker 1: or helped him beat Ohio State when he ran a
Speaker 1: twelfth guy on the field and yes, got penalized, but
Speaker 1: it helped them burn clock and it forced Ohio State
Speaker 1: in part to run out of time.
Speaker 2: Quarterback made a bad decision at the end, of course.
Speaker 1: But Oregon used a rule, broke a rule, and benefited
Speaker 1: by it.
Speaker 2: First thing I thought is, well, they're going to shut
Speaker 2: that down.
Speaker 1: What surprises me is how quickly rules people got together,
Speaker 1: and this is a committee put together. I don't know
Speaker 1: if there are any officials on that committee. I know
Speaker 1: somebody once told me that on the basketball rules committee.
Speaker 2: No former officials or current officials. They run it by them.
Speaker 1: But anyhow, whoever the people are who get together, the
Speaker 1: ads and maybe retired coaches whoever, and decide this as
Speaker 1: part of an NCA committee. They quickly got together and
Speaker 1: released a new rules interpretation and had to handle a
Speaker 1: penalty for twelve players on the field. This comes in
Speaker 1: the final two minutes of either half. You kind of
Speaker 1: saw this coming. If the defense has twelve players actively
Speaker 1: participate in the down, the offense can choose, along with
Speaker 1: the five yard penalty, to have the game clock reset
Speaker 1: to the time that had been displayed at the snap.
Speaker 1: So it's up to the offense to choose that because,
Speaker 1: of course, at times you.
Speaker 2: May not want that time, You may want to burn
Speaker 2: that time away.
Speaker 1: But and by the way, if it's a twelve man
Speaker 1: situation where a guy's trying to get off the field
Speaker 1: and he doesn't make it, that's not the same thing.
Speaker 1: No time change would be made if that were the case.
Speaker 1: But they moved quickly to shut this down after Dan
Speaker 1: Lanning admitted Monday, yeah, his team intentionally used twelve men
Speaker 1: on defense, and he talked about the fact that they
Speaker 1: had kind of prepared for such a situation. You know,
Speaker 1: I assume he and his coaches, his staff sat around saying, hey,
Speaker 1: what if we did this and investigated and realized there's
Speaker 1: no downside, it's all upside. And how often is that
Speaker 1: situation gonna come up? Not very maybe once a year,
Speaker 1: maybe once every two or three years. But it worked
Speaker 1: for the Ducks, and they've had a lot of big
Speaker 1: wins in their program history. This is one of the
Speaker 1: bigger wins as they upset the number two team in
Speaker 1: the country, Oregon number three. I don't know why predicted
Speaker 1: in Ohio State blowout, which I did. But at any rate,
Speaker 1: these two teams may play well again in the playoffs,
Speaker 1: they may play for a national championship. And if that's
Speaker 1: the case, man, the buck Guy's got something for him.
Speaker 1: But right now it's Oregon with the upper hand because
Speaker 1: of that rule. But now nobody else can take advantage
Speaker 1: of it the way the Ducks did in the NFL.
Speaker 2: You know by now probably Tom Brady is an owner.
Speaker 1: He has been approved as a minority owner of the
Speaker 1: Las Vegas Raiders. He bought I think five percent of
Speaker 1: the team and apparently will be active as an owner,
Speaker 1: but now that has put certain conditions on him as
Speaker 1: a broadcaster. Brady has said in a letter release on
Speaker 1: social media this week he's eager to contribute to the
Speaker 1: organization in a way in any way he can, but
Speaker 1: he cannot sit in now with producer, director, playbook play
Speaker 1: guy in pregame meetings with players and coaches in the game.
Speaker 2: He's going to broadcast, and that's big. I mean, I've
Speaker 2: had a chance.
Speaker 1: To do that a little bit through my career, such
Speaker 1: as it is, and when you can sit in with
Speaker 1: coaches and I haven't done NFL games. But if you
Speaker 1: know they talked to quarterbacks and they talk to linebackers
Speaker 1: and team captains and things like that, and that adds
Speaker 1: a heck of a lot to the broadcast. You can
Speaker 1: you know hear that well and talking to so and
Speaker 1: so helps him predict plays things like that. Don Cricky
Speaker 1: was a long time NFL guy.
Speaker 2: He said, those.
Speaker 1: Meetings are the most useful thing we do all week
Speaker 1: and preparation for the game, so we have access to
Speaker 1: information that the audience doesn't have. Well, now they can't
Speaker 1: allow Brady to sit in on those meetings because he's
Speaker 1: an owner. Might not be the other team across the side,
Speaker 1: across the field on the other sideline. But who's to think, well,
Speaker 1: maybe he shares that information with somebody in the Raiders
Speaker 1: front office for a later game or a game involving
Speaker 1: the standings or things like that. That's got to be
Speaker 1: tough for the lead color commentator for Fox Sports, who,
Speaker 1: by the way, will be part of the broadcast crew
Speaker 1: for the Super Bowl. This is a very weird and
Speaker 1: difficult situation. And he had already signed his deal with
Speaker 1: Fox and people knew he was looking to buy interest
Speaker 1: in a team while he was signing a contract for
Speaker 1: three hundred and seventy five million dollars with Fox Sports.
Speaker 1: In the NBA, Lonzo Ball is back. And say what
Speaker 1: you will about the Ball family, we all kind of
Speaker 1: get tired of them because of their dad, but look,
Speaker 1: these guys can play. The ball kids and Lonzo's been injured.
Speaker 1: Lonzo hasn't played for thirty three months. And he checked
Speaker 1: in for the Bulls last night into a preseason game
Speaker 1: against Minnesota about midway through the first quarter and got
Speaker 1: a huge ovation in the United Center, the house that
Speaker 1: Michael built. He had not played in one thousand and
Speaker 1: six days. He had suffered a minor meniscus injury in
Speaker 1: his left knee, but needed three operations. I don't know why,
Speaker 1: but they kept him sidelined for two seasons plus. But
Speaker 1: evidently he looked good last night. He hit a three pointer,
Speaker 1: his first one since January fourteenth of twenty twenty two.
Speaker 1: Kaitlin Clark making headlines again, named to the All WNBA
Speaker 1: team as a rookie and got fifty two of a
Speaker 1: possible sixty seven votes. She of course, was the Rookie
Speaker 1: of the Year in a WNBA finished fourth in MVP
Speaker 1: voting in her first pro season set all kinds of records,
Speaker 1: and now it's the first time since twenty eight that
Speaker 1: a rookie was selected to the first team. Now that year,
Speaker 1: Candice Parker, who might be the greatest women's player ever
Speaker 1: number one pick in the draft Tennessee Volunteer, was the
Speaker 1: as a rookie now eight MVP Rookie of the Year
Speaker 1: First Team All Conference. Since two thousand and only five
Speaker 1: rookies have earned first team honors Parker and Clark, Diana
Speaker 1: Tarassi in four, Sue Bird in two, Tamika Catchings in two.
Speaker 1: So the awards just keep rolling in for Caitlin Clark.
Speaker 1: Ryder Cup. If you're a golf fan, you may have
Speaker 1: been to the Ryder Cup. You may enjoy following this event.
Speaker 1: Well know this if you watch.
Speaker 2: It on TV.
Speaker 1: The paying patrons you'll see paid a fortune for tickets.
Speaker 1: Practice day tickets now two hundred and fifty five bucks.
Speaker 2: Last time they had.
Speaker 1: A Ryder Cup, that was what you paid for a
Speaker 1: regular round ticket two hundred and sixty one I think,
Speaker 1: which came with some food. That's for the first two days.
Speaker 1: Now third day practice ticket four hundred and twenty three
Speaker 1: dollars and sixty four cents. Now, what that does is
Speaker 1: also gives you access to the Junior Ryder Cup opening
Speaker 1: ceremonies and some kind of celebrity match deal. So if
Speaker 1: you go to the three actual match days, nearly seven
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty dollars phenomenal. How do they justify that, Well,
Speaker 1: they don't have to, They're the Ryder Cup. Serena Williams
Speaker 1: underwent surgery recently had a cyst removed from her neck,
Speaker 1: a bronchial cyst that she said was the size of
Speaker 1: a grapefruit. Found the lumpback in May. Decided against surgery.
Speaker 1: Several tests confirmed it was benign, but it kept growing
Speaker 1: and doctor said, this thing could get infected. These things
Speaker 1: are like little sacks of fluid that you are found
Speaker 1: in the neck or under the arms. They can be tiny,
Speaker 1: they can be huge. And she decided, Man, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: get rid of this thing. That's kind of scary when
Speaker 1: you think about it. As we go to the break,
Speaker 1: an rip and a tip of the BBI cap. Klani
Speaker 1: Demrie a long time Kentucky football superfan and a guy
Speaker 1: who covered football for various publications. He has been a
Speaker 1: fixture on the UK beat. He was more into football
Speaker 1: than basketball, loved football, actually played football throughout his life,
Speaker 1: played football in the service when he was in the Army,
Speaker 1: and so he knew.
Speaker 2: The game, no question about that.
Speaker 1: And I sat next to Lonnie in the press box
Speaker 1: at the basketball games. Lonnie had suffered from cancer. He
Speaker 1: also took a serious fall in a parking garage a
Speaker 1: couple of seasons back, and I knew he was sick
Speaker 1: as well during the basketball season. And I come back
Speaker 1: from an open heart surgery, and so we sat next
Speaker 1: to each other a couple of old war horses on
Speaker 1: the mend, and he and I like to talk, and
Speaker 1: Lonnie really liked to talk. I could barely hear him
Speaker 1: though he had weakened, and I just felt bad. I
Speaker 1: leaned in and wanted to hear what he had to say.
Speaker 1: But he battled, he struggled, but he lost that battle
Speaker 1: last night, and we say rest in peace, Lonnie Demery.
Speaker 1: Up next, Tony Franklin, former UK assistant. We'll talk about
Speaker 1: high school in college football and how he helps people
Speaker 1: get better here on the Big Moon Sider six thirty
Speaker 1: WLAP Welcome back to the Big Winsider, joining us now
Speaker 1: as a guy I've known for a long time when
Speaker 1: he was an assistant coach at the University of Kentucky
Speaker 1: and went on to coach in several other spots, including
Speaker 1: cal Burkelee, where he had one Jared Goff.
Speaker 2: As a student who's now doing some great things in
Speaker 2: the NFL.
Speaker 1: Coach Tony Franklin is back with us. He is, of course,
Speaker 1: the owner and creator of coach tf dot com, and
Speaker 1: we'll get him to explain that in just a minute,
Speaker 1: the Tony Franklin system.
Speaker 2: But at coach, how are you.
Speaker 4: I'm doing awesome, Dick. Was good to hear your voice
Speaker 4: and good to think about all the great memories of
Speaker 4: the great city of Lexington.
Speaker 1: We were talking a little bit on the show the
Speaker 1: other night about some of the things that you tweet out.
Speaker 1: You basically you kind of coach coaches a little bit.
Speaker 1: And you posted the other day on Twitter about this
Speaker 1: kind of being halftime of the football season with some
Speaker 1: really sound advice. And I got to think the coaches
Speaker 1: all over the country, no matter what level, high school,
Speaker 1: college bro can do some of these simple things you
Speaker 1: talked about, like you know, attention to the tail fundamentals coaching.
Speaker 2: What really matters.
Speaker 1: Now You're just kind of sharing the knowledge you've accrued
Speaker 1: through the years, aren't you.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I do.
Speaker 4: It's funny the I think that when I first, you know,
Speaker 4: was out of coaching and was using social media, I
Speaker 4: think that maybe sometimes my goals were a little different. Uh,
Speaker 4: And today when I go on, I very simply just
Speaker 4: want to help somebody that might need help. And so
Speaker 4: it's been it's been very rewarding, especially this season, and
Speaker 4: I think it's because I've had a little bit of
Speaker 4: a refreshing attitude and the feedback has been really, really good.
Speaker 4: It's been good for me. And the good thing is
Speaker 4: that coaches they appreciate it, and they use it and
Speaker 4: they and they send me It makes a difference. I mean,
Speaker 4: I know that sometimes one thing can change your career.
Speaker 4: And you know, I've had a business since two thousand,
Speaker 4: two thousand and one where I helped coaches, and I've
Speaker 4: had coaches throughout the country that through something that I've
Speaker 4: been able to present to them in some former fashion
Speaker 4: that they accepted is that it changed their life and
Speaker 4: gave them a better life. And many of them are
Speaker 4: multi millionaires today. So it's been fun to watch that happen.
Speaker 4: And then you know, high school coaches, you're high school
Speaker 4: coach and you're making forty thousand dollars a year and
Speaker 4: you get a job making sixty five. That's the same
Speaker 4: as you know, being a big time college coach making
Speaker 4: a mean and getting a job at to me, and
Speaker 4: so it changes their lives. So it's fine. I enjoy
Speaker 4: doing it. And it's the one that's like my brother
Speaker 4: told me once, he says, a good thing you can coach,
Speaker 4: because you sure can't do anything else. So I keep
Speaker 4: trying to coach coaches.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you touched on a little bit, well, why has
Speaker 1: this season been especially rewarding for you?
Speaker 4: Well, I think it's probably because I figured out that
Speaker 4: a lot of the things that maybe I read about
Speaker 4: how to create and build business was probably wrong. I
Speaker 4: think that I was too invested still in and maybe
Speaker 4: the business of coaching, and I think I was. I
Speaker 4: was very angry, and I think that a lot of
Speaker 4: times my anger came through, and even when I when
Speaker 4: I was doing podcasts, you know, my anger came through
Speaker 4: more than my teaching came through. And so I just
Speaker 4: kind of made a point that there's enough anger out
Speaker 4: there without me adding to it, and I would just
Speaker 4: try to help and try to educate and u and
Speaker 4: not worry about whether or not just built my business
Speaker 4: or not, but make it more of can I help
Speaker 4: somebody out there to have a better life and to
Speaker 4: have a better day and going through some of the
Speaker 4: stuff that you know, ha's happened to our country, and
Speaker 4: you know, and being affected by myself from my hometown
Speaker 4: is devastated by the tornados. My brother's home is completely destroyed,
Speaker 4: and the people in Mayfield that I care so much about,
Speaker 4: so many people that I knew, lost everything. So you know,
Speaker 4: it's it's kind of a different reckoning with life when
Speaker 4: you all those things happen. And so it's been it's
Speaker 4: been rewarding, and you know, the good thing is there's
Speaker 4: lots of people that do appreciate it, whether they're high
Speaker 4: school coaches, middle school coaches, fans, or college coaches or
Speaker 4: even NFL coaches. So it's it's it's good to see
Speaker 4: that people respond to.
Speaker 1: Your website Touched the Tony Franklin System. One of the
Speaker 1: testimonials is from a coach in Alabama. You said, since
Speaker 1: eight we've had an overall record of forty five and
Speaker 1: five you know, it's just it's pretty amazing. It's interesting,
Speaker 1: and I'm certain it's very exciting, but there's more to
Speaker 1: it than just plays and formations, am I right?
Speaker 4: Yeah? I mean the thing that everybody has good plays.
Speaker 4: Every fan in the stands got a pencil and a
Speaker 4: piece of paper, got a good play. And the problem
Speaker 4: is is that you don't play with that. You have
Speaker 4: to go out and play, you know, one human being
Speaker 4: against another, and the things that something extremely simple such
Speaker 4: as leverage and leverage is something that is disciplining, can
Speaker 4: be taught. And what happens is that so many times
Speaker 4: in this profession is that you get so caught up
Speaker 4: and all the other stuff is that when you go
Speaker 4: out on the field, you forget that if you don't
Speaker 4: maintain the fundamentals and the details of when you release
Speaker 4: versus man press of trying to restack, trying to constantly
Speaker 4: clear the hands, so always toe receivers. If you get held,
Speaker 4: that's your fault. It's not the DB's fault. The dbs
Speaker 4: supposed to hold you. If you get held, that's your fault.
Speaker 4: You know, you got to be violent with your hands,
Speaker 4: but you have to you have to do these things
Speaker 4: in practice every day because the process is what makes
Speaker 4: good football teams. The process that's what makes great coaches.
Speaker 4: And the way college all is today is that if
Speaker 4: you're not doing the process right, you're not going to
Speaker 4: survive because everybody's your roster's changing completely every year, and
Speaker 4: if you lose sight of doing the little things right,
Speaker 4: then you're not going to survive in today's world.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it helps to have good players. And you've
Speaker 1: coached a lot of good ones. You worked at Kentucky
Speaker 1: with Dusty and then Jared Lorenzen, and in high school
Speaker 1: at Callaway County you coached mister Football.
Speaker 2: One of my favorite people in Pookie.
Speaker 1: Jones, who also played at UK. So it helps when
Speaker 1: you have good people as well as good well.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and that's the one thing that I say to everybody.
Speaker 4: You know, when you're looking at a championship run and
Speaker 4: having the best year, it starts with good players. You
Speaker 4: can do all the other things right. I mean, some
Speaker 4: of the best seasons I've ever coached were we were horrible.
Speaker 4: The last season I was a head coach at Mercer
Speaker 4: County High School, we were two and eight, and it
Speaker 4: was one of the most rewarding seasons that I've ever
Speaker 4: coached in football, because we got the most that we
Speaker 4: could get out of them. And that's you know, that's
Speaker 4: the part. If you don't have good players, sometimes good
Speaker 4: players can overcome bad coaching.
Speaker 2: I mean.
Speaker 4: And it used to be that the way the college
Speaker 4: system was built is that there were only you know,
Speaker 4: four or five or six teams out there in the
Speaker 4: country every year that we're going to have the best players.
Speaker 4: But today it's different. You see Georgia now that what's
Speaker 4: happened is that their twos aren't as good as they
Speaker 4: used to be, the threes aren't as good as they
Speaker 4: used to be. So now Georgia can actually get beat.
Speaker 4: You know, the coolest thing in all of football right
Speaker 4: now is Vanderbilt. You know, I got fired for losing
Speaker 4: Vanderbilt when I was at all of them. You know,
Speaker 4: Vanderbilt is the graveyard of coaches. If you go and
Speaker 4: you lose the vany somebody's getting fired the next week usually,
Speaker 4: And so for me it was me. And when Vanderbilt
Speaker 4: beat Alabama and I watched that, the thing that I
Speaker 4: had a gut in stink that Vanderbilt was gonna beat
Speaker 4: Missouri because I love Pavio Jerry Kill is maybe the
Speaker 4: best coach in all of football, the best pure football
Speaker 4: coach in all of football. And what Vandy did, but
Speaker 4: they had a head coach that swallowed any ego he had,
Speaker 4: brought in a guy that's probably better than him, which
Speaker 4: is what every great coach does. Got a lot of
Speaker 4: good players to Mexico State, and I think that's well,
Speaker 4: my god, in New Mexico State, are you kidding? Well, yeah,
Speaker 4: and that's the team to beat Auburn thirty one to
Speaker 4: ten at Jordan Hare. And Pavio is the guy that
Speaker 4: on Auburn's sideline when he ran over there and somebody
Speaker 4: bumped him or something, you picked him up and slammed them.
Speaker 4: This guy's the guy you don't want to meet in
Speaker 4: the back alley at twelve o'clock at night because he's
Speaker 4: gonna whip your butt. And so they've got a formula
Speaker 4: that works for them in today's world where they can
Speaker 4: beat a good football team and they don't have the
Speaker 4: best players, but they've got a formula that works for them.
Speaker 4: And I love how their portal has one. It's a
Speaker 4: portal where they go low and bring up good players
Speaker 4: from lower schools, lower levels and bring them up, whereas
Speaker 4: most people are looking. You know, when you're at a
Speaker 4: lower deal, you're looking to take George's number three, right,
Speaker 4: And I think that's a formula for failure.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Interesting.
Speaker 1: We're talking to Tony Franklin, former Kentucky assistant and now
Speaker 1: he has created the Tony Franklin System, an online roadmap
Speaker 1: if you.
Speaker 2: Will, the football success.
Speaker 1: We'll talk more with Tony after the break on six
Speaker 1: thirty WLAP Welcome back. We're talking with Tony Franklin, former
Speaker 1: Kentucky assistant coach and now the producer of the Tony
Speaker 1: Franklin System online at coach tf dot com. It's really fascinating.
Speaker 1: But I always enjoyed talking to you when you were
Speaker 1: at Kentucky and following your career, and as I mentioned
Speaker 1: at Cal, you coach Jared Goff, and I guess you're
Speaker 1: not surprised at what the Lions are.
Speaker 2: Doing right now, are you.
Speaker 4: Well, it's another one of those things that in today's
Speaker 4: world in the NFL, you just wonder how people do it.
Speaker 4: Andy Reid, how does he do it?
Speaker 5: Every year?
Speaker 4: He's got a formula. Belichick had a formula and then
Speaker 4: the formula. The formula didn't work anymore, and he didn't adjust.
Speaker 4: But Dan Campbell's got a formula, and his formula is tough,
Speaker 4: heart love, and they built players that can fit his
Speaker 4: personality and if they can't, they're not going to make it.
Speaker 4: And so together, what he did instead of what I
Speaker 4: felt like at the time with McVeigh when Belichick handed
Speaker 4: him his butt in the Super Bowl, then the scapegoat
Speaker 4: was Jared. And so what Dan Campbell did when Jared
Speaker 4: came in is he embraced him. He coached him hard,
Speaker 4: he coached him tough that he surrounded him with better
Speaker 4: players every year. And now all of a sudden, it's amazing.
Speaker 4: You know, Jared's a great player again. And Jared's been
Speaker 4: you know, Jared is a special young man. He's a
Speaker 4: really good football player. He's a better person. He came
Speaker 4: from really good people, and you know, he's in year nine.
Speaker 4: He's been an All Pro, made the Pro Bowl three
Speaker 4: or four times, been to a Super Bowl, and last
Speaker 4: year almost pulled off, you know, a major run, and
Speaker 4: hopefully this year he will again. So it's fun to
Speaker 4: watch him do that. And you know, you mentioned Pooky
Speaker 4: a while ago, and Pooki was one of my favorite
Speaker 4: humans I ever coached.
Speaker 5: You know, I went and.
Speaker 4: Helped Pooky's son that is now at South Alabama, that
Speaker 4: went to Grambling as a quarterback, and Pooky and I
Speaker 4: still communicate and talk once every few weeks, and he's
Speaker 4: loving living down in the Mobile area.
Speaker 1: Now, great, you have coached in the state or you
Speaker 1: did coach in the state of Kentucky high school and
Speaker 1: college from what nineteen eighty eight through the early two thousands,
Speaker 1: including a turn with the Lexid and Horseman?
Speaker 2: Was that fun?
Speaker 4: Most fun I've ever had, real car and nothing ever
Speaker 4: would come close.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 4: The thing with the Horseman was it was a group
Speaker 4: of young men that played football very simply because they
Speaker 4: loved the game. They got paid two hundred dollars game.
Speaker 4: They you know, we worked our practice schedules around their
Speaker 4: work schedules, and we formed a team that just really
Speaker 4: cared about the game and liked each other. And we
Speaker 4: had more fun and so, you know, instead of like
Speaker 4: in college, you know, you got curfew, you've got bed checked,
Speaker 4: you're going around making sure everybody's ready. You know, with
Speaker 4: the Horsemen, I took the bus and we dropped them
Speaker 4: off at the bars and told them we'd be back
Speaker 4: at midnight and if they didn't show up, And they
Speaker 4: showed up for a walk through the next day, and
Speaker 4: we went out and played, and it was literally the
Speaker 4: most fun I've ever had enjoying the game and just
Speaker 4: enjoying young people. And you know, some of those guys
Speaker 4: will be my friends forever, and we still communicate back
Speaker 4: and forth with each other and it's fun to watch it.
Speaker 4: So yeah, it was a pretty special deal.
Speaker 1: I was a season ticket older for as long as
Speaker 1: they existed.
Speaker 2: I love that I didn't cover the game.
Speaker 1: I did a little bit, but I just like my
Speaker 1: son and me, we just sat up in the stands
Speaker 1: and rooted for the Horsemen. Also on your resume, and
Speaker 1: I think we talked aboutcause you and I spoke, I
Speaker 1: think before the Super Bowl when Detroit was making a
Speaker 1: run during the playoffs, we spoke. But you were a
Speaker 1: coach of the Army's sprint team, right, What is it
Speaker 1: like being a part of that program, being on that campus.
Speaker 1: I can't imagine.
Speaker 4: Every single day that I drove. I lived in Beacon
Speaker 4: for Beacon, New York, which is about as the Crow flies.
Speaker 4: It's probably five miles but on the roads from Beacon,
Speaker 4: around the around the Hudson River and through the mountains.
Speaker 5: It's about a thirty.
Speaker 4: Minute drive to get there every day, and every day,
Speaker 4: the moment I drove up on West Point on the campus,
Speaker 4: my heart fluttered. I felt like I was the luckiest
Speaker 4: man in the world. Mark west who was my first
Speaker 4: quarterback that I ever coached at Murray High School in
Speaker 4: nineteen eighty three when I was the hit football coach
Speaker 4: at Murray High From nineteen eighty three to eighty five,
Speaker 4: Mark is the head coach of the Army sprint team.
Speaker 4: Mark went to West Point. He was a football player there.
Speaker 4: He played on the sprint team. They've been playing football
Speaker 4: for about sixty years there, sprint football. And now the
Speaker 4: cool thing is is that he's coaching his second son
Speaker 4: as the quarterback for the sprint team. He's had two
Speaker 4: sons and now I go to West Point. His youngest
Speaker 4: son is now his quarterback. But that year was again
Speaker 4: just man. You talk about appreciating the sacrifices. The big boys,
Speaker 4: as they call them, the real Army football, the ones
Speaker 4: that go and play, you know, in front of forty
Speaker 4: thousand people every week there on the road. You know,
Speaker 4: they get some privileges. The guy's playing sprint football. They
Speaker 4: got no privileges. They're running across campus trying to get
Speaker 4: to practice on time. They got to lose weight. It's
Speaker 4: like being a wrestler. You know, you might weigh one
Speaker 4: eight eight and a game day you got to weigh
Speaker 4: one seventy eight. And so they're losing weight, their missing
Speaker 4: meals just to play football. And you talk about loving
Speaker 4: the game of football, and that was just, oh my gosh.
Speaker 4: I just felt so privileged every day. I wish I
Speaker 4: could have afforded to go do it every year, because
Speaker 4: I would have done it every single year for the
Speaker 4: rest of my life. And I tell you a great story.
Speaker 5: He was a defensive.
Speaker 4: Coordinator and I told him at the end of the season,
Speaker 4: I said, you know, I've worked with Manny Diaz, with
Speaker 4: Will Muschamp, some of the best defensive coordinators in the
Speaker 4: history of football, and the defensive coordinator for Army Sprint
Speaker 4: Football was the best defensive coach I ever worked with.
Speaker 4: And I told him after the season, I said, you know,
Speaker 4: you could be anywhere coaching for anybody. You're better than
Speaker 4: anybody I've ever coached with. And he said, I would
Speaker 4: never for all the money in the world leave this place.
Speaker 4: He said every single day that I drive here, I
Speaker 4: am the most privileged man in the world. He was
Speaker 4: a veteran and it was just so cool to have
Speaker 4: the people that cared that much about it. And of
Speaker 4: course from Mark, you know, he got program in dal
Speaker 4: you know, he lives right there and he buried. He
Speaker 4: married a cada She's a retired colonel. He's retired lieutenant colonel.
Speaker 4: Her father was a general. So it's just a cool history,
Speaker 4: very much so.
Speaker 1: And we should have explained sprint football is for people,
Speaker 1: as Tony said, you.
Speaker 2: Can't weigh more than what one s eight. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's all about.
Speaker 1: Speed and agility and athleticism. And that's got the Tony
Speaker 1: Franklin system written all over it.
Speaker 2: Just a few minutes left.
Speaker 1: But Tony Franklin, he of course, the former high school
Speaker 1: successful high school coach in Kentucky and assistant at UK
Speaker 1: coach running backs wide receivers, was the OC after Mike
Speaker 1: Leach left, but coached at Troy Auburn Middle Tennessee cal
Speaker 1: And let me ask you too, though about it, if
Speaker 1: you've been able to keep an eye on Kentucky, because man,
Speaker 1: this season is a head scratcher coach.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, And you know, I'll tell you what, the
Speaker 4: whole the whole season for everyone's ahead scratcher. And so
Speaker 4: I watched Kentucky a couple of times this year, and
Speaker 4: you know, I said this before the season. I think
Speaker 4: I was talking to Alan Color one day. And football
Speaker 4: is constantly evolving. So there was a time where I
Speaker 4: would watch Kentucky and go, man, if they would just
Speaker 4: you know, run some of our stuff and go tempo
Speaker 4: and do this stuff. As good as they are on defense,
Speaker 4: you know, they could be contenders for the SEC. And
Speaker 4: now it's just the opposite is that defenses continued to
Speaker 4: get smaller, to adjust to the tempo stuff. Defenses became
Speaker 4: three man fronts, and so what now is the advantage
Speaker 4: is being big. Vanderbilt's success a lot of times Vanderbilt
Speaker 4: in three backs, just like wishbone football, and today that
Speaker 4: becomes an advantage. So for Kentucky, it's a weird deal
Speaker 4: because you think about this a feel. Go against Georgia
Speaker 4: and you know, another score against Vandy, and people are saying,
Speaker 4: what a great year it is at Kentucky, one of
Speaker 4: the best years ever. But that's just the way it is.
Speaker 4: I did a podcast the other day for a West
Speaker 4: Virginia group and they were asking things about Neil and
Speaker 4: he's getting all kinds of heat there and people are
Speaker 4: wanting him fired and all that, and I said, you
Speaker 4: don't be careful what you wish for, and they go, well,
Speaker 4: you know, we want Jim Bowsher. I said, Jimbo Fisher
Speaker 4: can't hold Neil Brown's job. You know, Neil Brown is
Speaker 4: a really good football coach, but guess what, so is
Speaker 4: everybody else. They're all good and every week when you
Speaker 4: go up and line up, you're going to play somebody
Speaker 4: who has players that are just as good as yours,
Speaker 4: and you're going to win some, you're gonna lose some.
Speaker 4: If you have a great year of the ball is
Speaker 4: going to bounce your way a few more times than
Speaker 4: it doesn't. So people better be careful what they wish for.
Speaker 4: And I don't have any I don't have much empathy
Speaker 4: for coaches in that profession because they make a hell
Speaker 4: of a lot of money to put up with the
Speaker 4: craft that they put up with. So you know, a
Speaker 4: high school coach is making forty thousand. I'm worried about
Speaker 4: somebody walking through the hallways, the gun and shooting people
Speaker 4: and listening to the same crap from his fans. So
Speaker 4: I don't feel too bad for the college coach.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and now they're dealing with the nil and with portal,
Speaker 1: and that's the conversation.
Speaker 2: I'd love to have with you in another night.
Speaker 1: Maybe when you're in town and we'll stop at Charlie Brown's.
Speaker 1: We'll talk about that. But I wish I had more
Speaker 1: time with you. Tony Franklin He is a former UK
Speaker 1: assistant but now known for the Tony Franklin System, seminar
Speaker 1: and great knowledge. He shares with us on Twitter or
Speaker 1: x via Coach TF and the Coach.
Speaker 2: Thanks. I'll try to touch base with you more often.
Speaker 2: I love talking football with you.
Speaker 5: Thanks Dick. It is so good catch up. Take care.
Speaker 2: That'll do it for our number one.
Speaker 1: Our number two brings us Maggie Davis of BBN Tonight
Speaker 1: and Steve Russell, who is a broadcaster from Gainesville. We'll
Speaker 1: get the lowdown on the Gators coming up in our
Speaker 1: number two. Here on the Big Bomb Side or six
Speaker 1: thirty w l a bag, welcome back to the Big
Speaker 1: Blue Insider and joining us down our celebrity Hotline is
Speaker 1: a longtime friend.
Speaker 2: Of the show.
Speaker 1: A though BB and Tonight Maggie Davis has been on
Speaker 1: the air for how long.
Speaker 6: Now, BB and Tonight, Josh, good question. I think this
Speaker 6: will be our fourth basketball season. It's our fourth football
Speaker 6: season right now. We started the COVID year because the
Speaker 6: first year was so weird. At that point, I was
Speaker 6: just a production assistant. Basically I was helping write the
Speaker 6: show and do a lot of work behind the scenes.
Speaker 6: But I believe that was in twenty twenty. So yeah,
Speaker 6: going on our fourth year and is in person and
Speaker 6: normal and fun and more fun when they win, of course,
Speaker 6: but any time that we're not on ZOM it's a
Speaker 6: good thing, right Yeah.
Speaker 2: And now you're the co host. Go from production assistant.
Speaker 1: You just kip your head down and your nose to
Speaker 1: the grinding wheel and your co host with Keith Farmer
Speaker 1: covering things all things UK and this is I know
Speaker 1: it's a hectic time of year, but when you're filling
Speaker 1: a show, you and I have talked about this. I
Speaker 1: did it for so long at KYT. There's no such
Speaker 1: thing as too much content.
Speaker 6: As there no, definitely not. And I've actually made this
Speaker 6: joke repeatedly over the last like two weeks, that I
Speaker 6: complain when there's nothing going on, and it's hard to
Speaker 6: fill a show in the summer, So I don't allow
Speaker 6: myself to complain about being busy, right, I feel like
Speaker 6: I can't complain both ways, So I'll take the busy
Speaker 6: October if I can complain about a splow June every
Speaker 6: once in a while. So no, I'm good. You're right.
Speaker 6: Not never too much content, certainly too many hours probably
Speaker 6: in the office and around the basketball facility, the football facility,
Speaker 6: volleyball game. Softball is actually playing this weekend, which is
Speaker 6: kind of crazy. So all sorts of fun stuff going on,
Speaker 6: and it makes our show fun. And I'm sure you
Speaker 6: feel the same way.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, and you know this is the overlap period,
Speaker 1: as I said. And of course last weekend you had
Speaker 1: the pro day at the beginning you and came in,
Speaker 1: were there for that, And then of course madness football,
Speaker 1: you know, volleyball. But let me let me start you
Speaker 1: with madness. Because you guys talked to Rick Patino. How
Speaker 1: surprised were you, Maggie that we knew he was coming
Speaker 1: to the football game. People wondered would he make an
Speaker 1: appearance at Madness or would he back off thinking, oh,
Speaker 1: this is Mark's night, this is their night. But he
Speaker 1: was clearly happy to be a part of it.
Speaker 6: Well, I think the biggest thing is yes, he was
Speaker 6: clearly so happy to be part of it. But I
Speaker 6: think Mark Hope was so happy to have his coach
Speaker 6: be part of it and to really welcome him back
Speaker 6: into the fold in that way, to make it not
Speaker 6: just about ri Petino but just part of the start
Speaker 6: of the season, ushering in a new era, to have
Speaker 6: players in national champions from so many different teams all honored.
Speaker 6: And then, of course Rick Patino is the one who
Speaker 6: comes out at the end and ultimately speaks to the
Speaker 6: crowd and gets that welcome that he got, et cetera,
Speaker 6: et cetera. But I think Mark Pope probably had a
Speaker 6: lot to do with it. Obviously, the story early on
Speaker 6: in the week leading up to the weekend was that
Speaker 6: Mark Stoops had invited Rick Patino to the game. He
Speaker 6: even said that on Saturday about the Vanderbilt football game,
Speaker 6: So that was maybe one thing, and then it just
Speaker 6: made too much sense that, man, this was happening that
Speaker 6: exact day weekend. Obviously, Keenland is in session as well.
Speaker 6: I actually didn't see any pictures of Patino out at Keeenland,
Speaker 6: but I would have to imagine that he made it
Speaker 6: out there at least for a little bit before he
Speaker 6: somehow got back to New York in time for some
Speaker 6: baseball games. So he's certainly been busy. But I think
Speaker 6: it was important not only to Patino but really the
Speaker 6: Mark Pope to have his coach in attendance and to
Speaker 6: usher in this new era. Like I said, that is
Speaker 6: so important to Pope to make it a family oriented experience,
Speaker 6: and he said that so much in terms of this
Speaker 6: is Kentucky's team and we're here for you and we're
Speaker 6: all in this together and all of that sort of stuff.
Speaker 6: And I think bringing Rick back was a big part
Speaker 6: of that for him.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I really loved how they brought out all
Speaker 1: the old players from every era they could find.
Speaker 2: Basically, I will say it introduced them.
Speaker 1: I know they were running short on speak, but but
Speaker 1: that was fun as well. And what did you think
Speaker 1: of because Mark Pope on media Day, you were there
Speaker 1: when he said I'm not going to come out on
Speaker 1: a motorcycle or something like that, because that's what Rick
Speaker 1: did at one point, what did you think of the
Speaker 1: way Mark Pope made his appearance, suddenly appearing in the
Speaker 1: cheapest seats in the house.
Speaker 6: Well, I thought it was perfect. It was so Mark Pope.
Speaker 6: It's exactly what he's done since he's been here. And
Speaker 6: that is, like I said, make this about Kentucky's team,
Speaker 6: and in that moment, it is so much about the coach.
Speaker 6: It is so much about Pope and the moment and
Speaker 6: welcoming him in and wow, let's let's look at him
Speaker 6: and put a spotlight on him and listen to him,
Speaker 6: and all of this attention goes to him and that
Speaker 6: is truly not the kind of coach or frankly person
Speaker 6: from what I've seen, that Mark Pope is or what's
Speaker 6: to be. So it totally makes sense to me that
Speaker 6: in that moment, yes, you're all going to be looking
Speaker 6: at him and the spotlight is still going to be
Speaker 6: on him, but it's really about the fans and wow,
Speaker 6: can you imagine what that is like for then? Can
Speaker 6: you imagine what that section is like right now and
Speaker 6: what they're feeling and seeing And it's so funny. And
Speaker 6: you mentioned I'm co host every night with Keith Farmer
Speaker 6: and We were talking about this on the air on
Speaker 6: Monday following Man on the last Friday Night, and he
Speaker 6: said on our show that he'd heard that Pope was
Speaker 6: kind of questioning, I don't know if I'm going to
Speaker 6: do it? Can I do it? And then ultimately gets
Speaker 6: up there and it's trying to hide so it can
Speaker 6: be a surprise and have like, you know, it's put
Speaker 6: up or whatever, trying to camouflage up on the back
Speaker 6: row of a prena back against the wall, and I'm like,
Speaker 6: our Pope, man, you are way too tall to blend
Speaker 6: in to any crowd, especially in all your UK year
Speaker 6: or whatever. But I love that it worked out. And
Speaker 6: yet I would love to take here from some of
Speaker 6: those bands who were in that section, because I think
Speaker 6: that had to be an incredible experience. And then even
Speaker 6: to another extent, the players doing their own version of
Speaker 6: it later in the night was really cool.
Speaker 1: I thought, you know, I thought that it almost felt
Speaker 1: like Caliperi. And I don't mean any of this to
Speaker 1: ever be just a knock session on Caliperi, but you know,
Speaker 1: it did run its course. We all know that I
Speaker 1: felt like he had kind of tired of madness. You know,
Speaker 1: and this was just more of the new life being
Speaker 1: pumped into the program.
Speaker 6: Well, I think there are certain events that just kind
Speaker 6: of lose a little bit of their sparkle year after
Speaker 6: a year, especially if they're done in a very similar way,
Speaker 6: and it is hard to reinvent the wheel. And that's
Speaker 6: not just John Caliperry. I mean I think you could
Speaker 6: say that about football events, volleyball events, anything that is
Speaker 6: the exact same every year. It's hard to build excitement
Speaker 6: and a lot of it, especially when you think about
Speaker 6: basketball season and how the past few.
Speaker 5: Years have gone.
Speaker 6: You have to think about how the year before ended,
Speaker 6: and there's only so many times you can build up
Speaker 6: excitement for a new season when you're just coming off
Speaker 6: of a disappointing one. And I think last year, the
Speaker 6: last year of cal Perry and his last Manness to
Speaker 6: kind of think back to that actually was a really
Speaker 6: good Big Blue Madness. I mean they brought out to
Speaker 6: Marcus Cousins and there were some really fun moments. Obviously,
Speaker 6: Big V had sort of just been introduced to BBN,
Speaker 6: so he got a huge pop when he got introduced,
Speaker 6: So there were some fun moments that I think he
Speaker 6: deserves credit for helping create. But I also think a
Speaker 6: lot of that was even with some disappointment from this season.
Speaker 6: Prior to that, there was excitement with the reach shepherd
Speaker 6: of it all, and DJ Lagner was a recruit fan
Speaker 6: that heard him out forever, right, So there was some
Speaker 6: natural excitement around that team that I'm not sure would
Speaker 6: have necessarily been there had the Calipari era continued. But
Speaker 6: you bring in a new coach, obviously all of that changes.
Speaker 2: Maggie Davis is co host of BBN Tonight.
Speaker 1: You see her each night Monday through Friday, and on
Speaker 1: Game Day Kentucky Game Day on Saturdays. And we'll come
Speaker 1: back and talk more with Maggie in just a minute
Speaker 1: here on the Big Bulling Sider six thirty WLAP Welcome Back, We're.
Speaker 2: Talking with Maggie Davis.
Speaker 1: She and Keith Farmer co host BBN Tonight every weeknight,
Speaker 1: and of course you see them on UK Game Day
Speaker 1: on Saturday. Christy Thomas is one of the co hosts there,
Speaker 1: and you and I talked a lot of basketball in
Speaker 1: the first Seven'm going I gotta drag you over to
Speaker 1: football now because this game with Florida, I think everybody
Speaker 1: saws a big opportunity because Florida's had troubles. Kentucky has
Speaker 1: played well against Florida through the years. Every game is new, though,
Speaker 1: But now against the backdrop of that Vandy loss, and
Speaker 1: of course Vandy rather at Florida loses at Tennessee in
Speaker 1: a game it probably should have won. Man, this thing
Speaker 1: is could be monumental, you know, for both programs.
Speaker 6: Well, I think it will be, and I think that
Speaker 6: this game always feels big for both programs. I think
Speaker 6: it's interesting where it falls on the schedule this year.
Speaker 6: This is maybe just me, but in my head, Florida
Speaker 6: is normally a week two, week three matchup. I like it.
Speaker 6: It's about halfway through the season this year. You know
Speaker 6: more about both teams. You've seen them, not just in
Speaker 6: a non conference, but you've seen how they've done against
Speaker 6: other SEC teams and how they want to play, how
Speaker 6: they want you to play. But obviously that will be
Speaker 6: changing for Florida this week with their backup quarterback expecting
Speaker 6: to make the start. He has started another game already
Speaker 6: talking about j Lagway. So Kentucky has a little bit
Speaker 6: of film on him and a little bit more inside
Speaker 6: than maybe the traditional backup quarterback Cup who comes in
Speaker 6: in the middle of a game and just takes you
Speaker 6: by surprise. Obviously, he finished the Tennessee game for them
Speaker 6: last Saturday as well, but there will be a certain
Speaker 6: element of newness to it just because of that element.
Speaker 6: And then for Kentucky there's certainly a lot to figure out.
Speaker 6: I mean, you talked about the Vanderbilt loss, and there's
Speaker 6: no sugarcoating what that loss felt like, looked like, et cetera.
Speaker 6: To fans and even to those within the program. Marchdoops
Speaker 6: has been incredibly frustrated every time we've heard from him
Speaker 6: this week. I mean, you know this, Normally, after a game,
Speaker 6: it's one thing, and then he talks again Monday morning
Speaker 6: and it's a little looser. He talks again Monday night
Speaker 6: on his radio show. He's a little looser, and then
Speaker 6: you know, you roll in the game week and by
Speaker 6: Thursday we're on to the next right, and this week,
Speaker 6: I mean, it just hasn't felt like that. Right after
Speaker 6: the game, he was frustrated Monday morning press conference, frustrated
Speaker 6: Monday night on the radio show, doubled down being frustrated.
Speaker 6: And maybe that's just his frustration with the situation that
Speaker 6: this team is in at this point, or maybe it's
Speaker 6: frustration that he's been saying these same things and the
Speaker 6: team doesn't seem to be getting it. At this point.
Speaker 6: He talked so much about discipline and playing clean football
Speaker 6: and not feeding yourself, and again that's what happened to
Speaker 6: Kentucky against Vandy. So I think that has clearly been
Speaker 6: the message this week for this team, and we'll see
Speaker 6: how they come out and respond to it this Saturday.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm wondering, and they need leadership. They talk
Speaker 1: about it, and I'm wondering if in this day and age,
Speaker 1: not just Kentucky, but so many players on the move
Speaker 1: learning new teammates every year, and some programs, as you know,
Speaker 1: are dramatically bigger than others in the transport portal movement era,
Speaker 1: but not learning guys as incoming recruits. You know, guys,
Speaker 1: I always talk about their that I can tell you
Speaker 1: what you have to So many players can go back
Speaker 1: and rattle off the names of the guys in their
Speaker 1: recruiting class. Right Well, now they're learning new teammates on
Speaker 1: the fly, and I wonder what that's like when it
Speaker 1: comes to trying to develop leadership and learn guys who
Speaker 1: should I follow?
Speaker 2: Who is this guy? What's he all about? What are
Speaker 2: his values? And is he the kind of guy I
Speaker 2: want to hitch my wagon to, you know what I mean?
Speaker 6: Oh, I totally agree with that. And I think the
Speaker 6: other point of that is is he a guy who's
Speaker 6: going to talk? Or do I need to toss?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 6: Who's in charge of this locker room? Right? And there
Speaker 6: is more of a balancing act. Think about certain positions
Speaker 6: being leadership or you think about certain ages being the leaders, right,
Speaker 6: the seniors on the team or the guys back so
Speaker 6: their fifth year, but even now in the portal era,
Speaker 6: that is the player who is in his fourth, fifth, sixth,
Speaker 6: in Kentucky's case, seventh year on the team. Margustock planned
Speaker 6: seven years of college football, but only his second year
Speaker 6: in Lexington. And that's true really, I mean across the country.
Speaker 6: That's certainly not just the UK. But it is a
Speaker 6: new dynamic of guys who are in these quote unquote
Speaker 6: traditional positions you think of as leadership positions not necessarily
Speaker 6: having the equity built up not just with their coaches
Speaker 6: but also with their teammates, with the fan base, etc.
Speaker 6: To really have a voice and to feel powerful enough
Speaker 6: and justified enough in using it right. You think about
Speaker 6: the quarterback, well, Kentucky's quarterback the last couple of years
Speaker 6: has been new, and so that's a new way of
Speaker 6: stepping into a locker room and trying to command that
Speaker 6: attention in that respect, and you have to earn it.
Speaker 6: And I think you look back a couple of years ago,
Speaker 6: we'll let us talk about that repeatedly, and we heard
Speaker 6: a lot about that when he was here, that he
Speaker 6: would have individual meetings with individual players to get to
Speaker 6: know them one on one and earn their respect. And
Speaker 6: you have to do that outside of practice as much
Speaker 6: as you have to do it at practice. And it really,
Speaker 6: I feel like has to be that intentional. And whether
Speaker 6: or not Kentucky's quarterback Simpson have done that, I'm not sure.
Speaker 6: They definitely could have. Devin Leary could have done that.
Speaker 6: Rob Vandergriff could have done that. But I just remember
Speaker 6: hearing so much about it the Will Levish year, the
Speaker 6: first his first year, that it really has stayed with
Speaker 6: me as something that made a big difference on that
Speaker 6: team that when you look at it really did have
Speaker 6: a lot of these same sort of components of a
Speaker 6: new quarterback a couple of new guys on the offensive line,
Speaker 6: you have one No Robinson at wide receiver. You know
Speaker 6: he was brand new too, so there were a lot
Speaker 6: of similar components, but they're just there. Does seem to
Speaker 6: be an issue of figuring out who the leader should
Speaker 6: be and who has earned that role within a team
Speaker 6: with so many guys, with new players, they learn it.
Speaker 1: And earn it with their work ethic, but then they
Speaker 1: go out and make play. That's such a big thing.
Speaker 1: I mean, I remember talking to players prior to Will
Speaker 1: Levis's first season and they were so impressed with his
Speaker 1: arm strength and his skills as a quarterback. I know
Speaker 1: he has struggled mightily in the NFL, but back then,
Speaker 1: but then he goes out and proves it with his
Speaker 1: toughness on the field. So, yeah, he walked it and
Speaker 1: he talked it. And for someone to come in and
Speaker 1: do that immediately. The more I see it, Maggie, or
Speaker 1: the more I see each season, that's rare.
Speaker 2: That's hard to do, isn't it.
Speaker 6: It is hard to do, and I think it's worth
Speaker 6: saying that it's hard to do in college, right. These
Speaker 6: guys are not professional athletes. And the more you're around them,
Speaker 6: and I know, obviously you are, I am anybody in
Speaker 6: the media or fans who get some kind of access,
Speaker 6: whether that's even at the catwalk or something like that,
Speaker 6: you realize up close and personal, some of these guys
Speaker 6: are nineteen years old, twenty years old. They look like kids,
Speaker 6: and they are like Peon Walker comes to mind, because
Speaker 6: he is such a huge guy just physically, and he
Speaker 6: plays so big on the football field and he makes
Speaker 6: these big plays and he is going to the NFL
Speaker 6: next year. But you see him in person and he
Speaker 6: just has his little baby face and he's so nice
Speaker 6: and I'll give you a hug, and he's excited to
Speaker 6: see you, and he's just nice. And I just you know,
Speaker 6: there's a lot of guys on this team like that,
Speaker 6: and you have to remember that they're figuring it out too,
Speaker 6: And a lot of that is why I think it
Speaker 6: does all on the coaching staff to get these guys
Speaker 6: in a position, like we talked about earlier, build leaders
Speaker 6: within your program in an intentional way. And if this
Speaker 6: is not a team with a personality to do it
Speaker 6: on their own, a coach does need to step in
Speaker 6: and facilitate that. However that looks for each particular team.
Speaker 1: So how do you think this game plays out Saturday night?
Speaker 1: Down there with the Kentucky would seem like Kentucky's strength
Speaker 1: against one of the biggest or the biggest question mark
Speaker 1: for Florida D line against Florida's quarterback.
Speaker 6: Yes, I think Kentucky's D line should have a very
Speaker 6: good game. I mean they've been very good at stopping
Speaker 6: to run all year. I mean, sea line has been
Speaker 6: obviously the strength of this team, really, I think so.
Speaker 6: I think all the off the question marks are more
Speaker 6: surrounding the offense, and certainly coming off of a Vannerbelt
Speaker 6: game where they only scored on two of their seven
Speaker 6: possessions and made some really big mistakes along the way.
Speaker 6: Penalties included in that. So I think clean football, discipline football.
Speaker 6: Going back to what we said earlier, Mark Fop's message
Speaker 6: for the week, you have to see that you cannot
Speaker 6: see five flags on the offensive line. I think that
Speaker 6: was brutal last week, not just score the number of
Speaker 6: yards we lost, in the momentum you lost, but just
Speaker 6: the morale of that group, of the offense and frankly
Speaker 6: of everybody in Kroger Field. I was there and every
Speaker 6: time a flag, you know, another flag flew out. It's
Speaker 6: like this collective sigh of like, why can't we figure
Speaker 6: this out? Why are we still playing like that? So
Speaker 6: I think seeing clean football and just avoiding those mistakes
Speaker 6: and not beating yourself will be just as important in
Speaker 6: this game as finding a couple more explosive plays. And
Speaker 6: Bush had been talked openly about that this week's saying
Speaker 6: we've only had five explosive plays in the run game
Speaker 6: this year. We have to find more of those. And
Speaker 6: I think just as important you have to find some
Speaker 6: more in the passing game as well. You have some
Speaker 6: dynamic options at wide receiver. They need to play clean
Speaker 6: football too and make catches when they do come their way.
Speaker 1: It's so weird, Maggie, how they play so much better
Speaker 1: on the road exactly.
Speaker 6: And I think, if anything, maybe that makes BBN feel
Speaker 6: better going into this game, right. I mean, Billy Napier
Speaker 6: has never beaten Mark Shops to this point. It's a
Speaker 6: totally different streak than the one we're used to talking about,
Speaker 6: which we can test you in Florida, right, But the
Speaker 6: guests have been better on the road this year. You
Speaker 6: go back to that all Miss game and they were
Speaker 6: good in that environment. We've had players tell us on
Speaker 6: our show this year they prefer to play on the
Speaker 6: road because it is fewer distractions. You do come in
Speaker 6: feeling like you have a chip on your shoulder. And
Speaker 6: Mark Shops has always had a program and fully done
Speaker 6: best with a team that has chips on its shoulder
Speaker 6: and feels like they're the underdog and wants to play
Speaker 6: with something to prove and maybe going on the road
Speaker 6: helps give them a little bit of that edge more
Speaker 6: so than at home. But at the same time, the
Speaker 6: Cats really do also have to figure out how to
Speaker 6: play a Kroger field when they have a fan base
Speaker 6: likes the Big Blue Nation. Packing it for a night
Speaker 6: game against Vanderbilts a blackout was awesome. I mean not
Speaker 6: the only time this year the fans have really showed
Speaker 6: up and showed out for the team to leave disappointed.
Speaker 6: And so obviously I'll win this weekend. It's crucial for
Speaker 6: full eligibility, it hopes for the season as a whole,
Speaker 6: but just as important it's going to be coming back
Speaker 6: against Auburn the following week.
Speaker 2: Follow her on Twitter, Maggie Davis TV.
Speaker 6: Thank you, ma'am, Thank you so much we soon.
Speaker 1: Gainesville radio hosts Steve Vetter peak Florida Gator Athletics. Steve
Speaker 1: Russell's sports director w r UF. Steve, you've been covering
Speaker 1: the Gators for how long now.
Speaker 5: Since nineteen seventy six.
Speaker 1: Wow, we go back to virtually the same time covering
Speaker 1: the SEC. You have seen the highs and the Florida
Speaker 1: football more highs than lows.
Speaker 2: But what's it like right now? I know the Natives
Speaker 2: are restless.
Speaker 5: Natives are really restless. Take and I think it is
Speaker 5: just directed at Billy Napier because he's the coach now.
Speaker 5: But I personally, I think this is an accumulation of
Speaker 5: frustration over the last you know, fifteen years or so.
Speaker 5: But if you look at the history of Florida football,
Speaker 5: they've really only had three pockets of success. The eighty
Speaker 5: four team, which is being honored in this game, you know,
Speaker 5: won the SEC on the field, and then this Burrier
Speaker 5: era and the Urban Meyer era, and there have been certainly,
Speaker 5: you know, decent teams, but those were the great days
Speaker 5: of Gator football. And it's been a while, frankly since
Speaker 5: Florida's been irrelevant, and that has not made the fan
Speaker 5: base happy at all.
Speaker 1: That always amazed me, Steven, probably you as well, that
Speaker 1: with all the talent in the state of Florida, and
Speaker 1: you've had some really good teams, that Florida has not
Speaker 1: been more dominant. But then again, easier said than done
Speaker 1: in the SEC, right.
Speaker 5: It is because I think, and you know this, I
Speaker 5: mean that the coaching in the SEC is better. You know,
Speaker 5: Florida is very late to the party on getting it
Speaker 5: getting facilities, so a lot of other schools passed more
Speaker 5: to buy and got better athletes and better recruits. Because
Speaker 5: of that, and because Florida wasn't winning, other schools were.
Speaker 5: You know, some kids decided to go to a program
Speaker 5: that was winning as opposed to what Florida was doing.
Speaker 5: So you throw that all into the to the mix,
Speaker 5: and that's kind of where you have Florida, you know
Speaker 5: where it is right now.
Speaker 1: And a tough break with your quarterback going down, Graham Mertz, Uh,
Speaker 1: I see according to his tweet, he's done.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 1: So you've got a freshman quarterback who's going to have
Speaker 1: to handle a load.
Speaker 5: Right absolutely, Uh, you know, Graham Mertz. Let me just say,
Speaker 5: and covering this team for as long as I have
Speaker 5: there has not been a guy who's shown more class,
Speaker 5: uh more loyalty to his team. Just a terrific kid.
Speaker 5: And and here be missed on the football field, but
Speaker 5: he'll still be part of what's going on. But yeah,
Speaker 5: now j Lagway with five star recruit, you know all
Speaker 5: of that, and he has tremendous potential. I think he
Speaker 5: has a chance to be a really good player here
Speaker 5: if he's back stays here. You never know these days.
Speaker 5: But he is a freshman and certainly you know, teams
Speaker 5: have tried to blitz him a little bit to rattle him.
Speaker 5: And Kentucky's really good on defense, so I'm sure Marks
Speaker 5: Dukes will has some things in store for the young quarterback.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I remember Chris Leak as a youngster. He got
Speaker 1: kind of thrown into the fire and acquitted himself fairly well.
Speaker 1: But I do remember Kentucky blitz the daylights out of
Speaker 1: him and Florida still won the game. But you can
Speaker 1: throw a lot at a freshman quarterback, can't you.
Speaker 5: You sure can't. Now, I will say this, If Florida
Speaker 5: has a strength offensively, it's in the receiving court. I
Speaker 5: think you know, Shamir dk Wilson, Myzelle that receiving group
Speaker 5: is pretty darn good. The issue has been protection for
Speaker 5: the quarterback. And you know, even with Graham Merch, the
Speaker 5: veteran guy that he is, you know he had protection
Speaker 5: issues from the offensive line. Lagway has a dynamic arm.
Speaker 5: I think he's a really good player for a young player.
Speaker 5: But that's going to be the key to the game.
Speaker 5: I think is going to be can Florida protect run
Speaker 5: the football and help Blagway out. You get him in
Speaker 5: third and long. You know, second and long. That's not
Speaker 5: good for a veteran quarterback, let alone for a young one.
Speaker 1: We're talking to Steve Russell WRUF Radio down in Gainesville.
Speaker 1: Lagway sixty five completion rate, more than seven hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty yards, five tds, four picks. How is he when
Speaker 1: the pocket breaks down?
Speaker 5: I think that's an area he needs to improve in.
Speaker 5: I mean, certainly he's got scrambled ability. He can he's
Speaker 5: pretty quick on his feet, but look, veteran quarterbacks can
Speaker 5: scramble and continue to look down the field. He's done
Speaker 5: that on a case and when he's done, he throws
Speaker 5: a beautiful ball. But that's what he's gonna have to
Speaker 5: do more consistently. Is when the pocket breaks down, keep
Speaker 5: his eyes downfield and try to make something happen in
Speaker 5: the throw game. He's better than he was, but still
Speaker 5: work to do.
Speaker 1: I know, Billy Napier is catching a lot of fire,
Speaker 1: the hot seat, all that stuff he was brought in.
Speaker 1: I was quite frankly, I don't know about you're surprised
Speaker 1: that Dan Mullen didn't get it done.
Speaker 2: I know that goes back.
Speaker 1: To recruiting, but Napier had been known as a strong
Speaker 1: recruiter at Louisiana.
Speaker 2: How surprised are you, Steve.
Speaker 1: That this hasn't had it hasn't really worked yet. Things
Speaker 1: aren't happening yet for Napier.
Speaker 5: Oh wow, that's that's tough. When when Napier was hired,
Speaker 5: obviously wasn't a household name, and that got some Gator
Speaker 5: fans off on the long foot. At least with Dan Mullen,
Speaker 5: you knew who he was. He'd coached here with Urban,
Speaker 5: he's been a head coach in the league and overall,
Speaker 5: except for the collapse at the end, if you look
Speaker 5: at his record, you think, well, why was he not
Speaker 5: still coaching? Because his record overall wasn't bad. But Napier's
Speaker 5: been a little bit snake bit, but they've had some
Speaker 5: things on the field, you know, twelve in on the field,
Speaker 5: you know, penalties like that that have just killed this team.
Speaker 5: The impressive thing for me, I will say, despite the
Speaker 5: losses and a sub five hundred record, overall, those kids
Speaker 5: played hard last week. They had kinda see on the ropes.
Speaker 5: Arguably should have won that game, Dick. So while that's
Speaker 5: impressive and that's good, it's still a loss, and that's
Speaker 5: got to turn around.
Speaker 1: Shut them out in the first half. Shut out a
Speaker 1: Tennessee team in a first half. How'd that happen?
Speaker 5: I don't think Tennessee is very good in the throw game.
Speaker 5: I think their quarterback is very overrated. From what I
Speaker 5: mean the first couple of games they played against nobody,
Speaker 5: he was great, but from what I saw, overthrew receivers,
Speaker 5: kind of zeroed in on one receiver and was not
Speaker 5: impressive at all. And Tennessee was just so so running
Speaker 5: the football, and that is an area, Dick. I think
Speaker 5: Florida's gotten better at They were frocious defensively. I think
Speaker 5: now they're a better defensive football game than what they
Speaker 5: were at the beginning.
Speaker 2: Of the year. What is the strength of their defense.
Speaker 5: I really liked their back end a lot. I think
Speaker 5: they're very athletic there. They've had some injuries there though,
Speaker 5: and that's what's kind of hurt them. They've not had
Speaker 5: their full compliment of guys playing corner and safety, and
Speaker 5: on occasion they can get pressure on the quarterback. But overall,
Speaker 5: I just think from a scheme perspective, knowing where to
Speaker 5: line up, knowing where to go defense is a lot
Speaker 5: better than what it was.
Speaker 1: I was on your show Tuesday morning. What kind of
Speaker 1: research have you done, What do you know about Kentucky
Speaker 1: and how do you see this matchup materializing?
Speaker 5: Well, I know this I witnessed last year and I
Speaker 5: know what a thumping Florida took on the ground with Kentucky.
Speaker 5: I mean when if you'd have told me that Kentucky
Speaker 5: throw it for what sixty nine yards or seventy yards
Speaker 5: and you win the fourth ball game, I would have
Speaker 5: taken that beck to the house. Well guess what happened.
Speaker 5: Kentucky just ran all over Florida. So I think the
Speaker 5: key of this game for Florida is going to be
Speaker 5: stopping Kentucky's run. Make your quarterback beat Florida in the
Speaker 5: throw game, and then hopefully you do enough on offense
Speaker 5: to go up against what I think is a very
Speaker 5: good Kentucky defense. I don't see this being a forty
Speaker 5: to thirty five kind of game. I see this being
Speaker 5: the game in the twenties, you know, maybe twenty eight
Speaker 5: to twenty or something like that, and you hope at
Speaker 5: home the crowd gives you an advantage. But I think
Speaker 5: this is going to be a trenches game, and hopefully
Speaker 5: the team that doesn't commit the most turnovers wins the game.
Speaker 1: Such a disappointing loss to Tennessee, you get it into overtime,
Speaker 1: but you lose it. Any idea of the emotional state
Speaker 1: of the Gators right now, I will.
Speaker 5: Say this is to their credit. The players that were
Speaker 5: made available Bick for media day expressed just that how
Speaker 5: difficult a loss this was, because they felt they should
Speaker 5: have won the game. Not just you know, hung in
Speaker 5: the game, but should have won the game. So I
Speaker 5: think that's going to be a big key for this
Speaker 5: game too. You would hope young guys forget this and
Speaker 5: bounce back. It's homecoming, you know all of that. But
Speaker 5: there's no question that lost stung. I think this football
Speaker 5: team felt it was better than Tennessee was on that
Speaker 5: day and should have won the game.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, well it appears that way.
Speaker 1: And it's interesting Kentucky just lost on homecoming and our
Speaker 1: color analyst Jeff pcorol I played at Kentucky back in
Speaker 1: the eighties under Jerry Claybourn and Frank Kersey, and.
Speaker 2: He told us, he said, you know, I didn't really care.
Speaker 1: For homecoming because there were so many distractions. Coaches like
Speaker 1: to talk about distractions, but that's a reality when it's
Speaker 1: home come, isn't it.
Speaker 5: It is? And I think it's how you embrace that, Dick.
Speaker 5: I mean you you could look at it as a
Speaker 5: as a distraction or hey, you know what our alumni
Speaker 5: are coming back. We're going to in this case onto
Speaker 5: the eighty four team which won the SEC on the field.
Speaker 5: I think it's all how you approach it. And yeah,
Speaker 5: you got Gator Grau and the parade and all of that,
Speaker 5: but it should not take away by that time, you know,
Speaker 5: on a Friday, your game plans in what you're going
Speaker 5: to do is already there. I've never been much about,
Speaker 5: you know, that being a distraction because it should not
Speaker 5: be your game plan should be in place.
Speaker 1: By that well, Florida goes into Nayland Stadium nearly pulls
Speaker 1: out a win coming home in a place where obviously
Speaker 1: I've tread the sidelines. Therefore, many years I've been rained on.
Speaker 1: I've an experienced brutal heat, some perfect evenings.
Speaker 2: What are we looking at Saturday?
Speaker 5: Low scoring game? I think, and I think the team
Speaker 5: that commits the fewest turnovers wins the game. And for Florida,
Speaker 5: you know, how does DJ Lagway do if Florida gets
Speaker 5: a run game to support him? That obviously makes it easier.
Speaker 5: You don't want to be, as I said earlier, third
Speaker 5: and seven, second and ten, that plays in the Kentucky's
Speaker 5: hands because Kentucky is good on defense. So I think
Speaker 5: the team that runs the ball better in this game,
Speaker 5: commits a fewer turnovers, has a better chance to win.
Speaker 1: And finally, is it good rain or is it going
Speaker 1: to be a pleasant evening? In terms of weather in Florida?
Speaker 5: Right now, it's supposed to be gorgeous with all the
Speaker 5: terrible weather we've had come through here. Tomorrow the highs
Speaker 5: are in the seventies and the lows of the forties.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 5: So yeah, so this weekend looks to be pretty nice,
Speaker 5: pretty kind of spring like weather here in Gainesville.
Speaker 1: Did you and yours make it through the terrible weather? Okay,
Speaker 1: I know you're not there on the coast.
Speaker 2: But.
Speaker 5: Yeah, thank you for asking. Like I said, have been
Speaker 5: in Gainesville since nineteen seventy three, and I got to
Speaker 5: tell you, the first storm that came through here created
Speaker 5: more damage than I've ever seen in our area. You know,
Speaker 5: being inland here, we're not as prone to getting damage
Speaker 5: because we're none on the coast and by the water.
Speaker 5: But it was pretty bad. We got lucky the second time,
Speaker 5: but just to see, you know, when you see piles
Speaker 5: of debris still out in front of my house after
Speaker 5: all this time, it heals into comparison with what happened
Speaker 5: in other places here in the state, in the southeast.
Speaker 5: So it's just devastating when you see that.
Speaker 1: By the way, did I see in your bio you're
Speaker 1: a you're a New york Er. You were a New
Speaker 1: York kid who came down to Florida.
Speaker 5: Yeah. The real quick story, my high school baseball coach
Speaker 5: graduated from here and I was a baseball player, and
Speaker 5: he raved about the place, so I I was going
Speaker 5: to walk on play baseball here, and then I was
Speaker 5: a pitcher and then hurt my arm, so I couldn't
Speaker 5: do that anymore. But I always knew I wanted to
Speaker 5: go into journalism or some kind of you know, sports journalism,
Speaker 5: so stuck it out. And it's been really good for me.
Speaker 2: I was going to say, worked out pretty well, didn't it.
Speaker 5: Sure I am a lucky you know, if you'd told
Speaker 5: me a kid from a one high school town in
Speaker 5: New York would be able to do what I've done
Speaker 5: and talk to the people I've talked to and seen
Speaker 5: what I've seen, I would never have believed that at sixteen,
Speaker 5: seventeen years old. So yeah, it's been great for me.
Speaker 1: Dick Well, you can follow Steve on Twitter or x
Speaker 1: if you like, it's Steve Russell eight p fifty and
Speaker 1: tune him in at WRUF Radio and gamesvill Steve, thank
Speaker 1: you so much.
Speaker 2: See you Saturday.
Speaker 5: You got to appreciate you save journey here.
Speaker 1: When we come back, we will wrap up with a
Speaker 1: look back at a big Kentucky road win. That's next
Speaker 1: on the Big Blue Sider six thirty WLAP.
Speaker 2: Welcome Back.
Speaker 1: Whented to wrap this up with a couple of looks
Speaker 1: back at UK football. This day in UK football history,
Speaker 1: of course, was the day that in nineteen ninety eight
Speaker 1: Kentucky went down to Baton Rouge and beat LSU on
Speaker 1: a seth Hanson thirty three yard field goal. You might
Speaker 1: recall that Kentucky had a big lead, two touchdown lead
Speaker 1: going into the fourth quarter.
Speaker 2: It was up thirty six twenty two.
Speaker 1: LSU tied the game with about five and a half
Speaker 1: to go and then the team swapped punts. Kentucky gets
Speaker 1: it back with inside I think two minutes or maybe
Speaker 1: just a little more than a minute, and first down
Speaker 1: runs it into the line. So we're all thinking, okay,
Speaker 1: how mummy's going to play for overtime and then next
Speaker 1: thing you know, it's an end around with Quentin McCord,
Speaker 1: who was incredibly fast but often injured, made it to
Speaker 1: the NFL, just couldn't stay healthy, and on this particular
Speaker 1: night it was plenty healthy and moved Kentucky into position
Speaker 1: for a field goal. Hansen nailed it and Kentucky goes
Speaker 1: on that year to the outback ball behind Tim Couch.
Speaker 1: So that was such a great memory that when you
Speaker 1: think about going into death Valley not a great LSU team,
Speaker 1: but man, that was a great game. I mean LSU
Speaker 1: was down at the half sixteen to thirteen. Kentucky poured
Speaker 1: it on in the third quarter, as I said, but
Speaker 1: then LSU comes all the way back before Kentucky goes
Speaker 1: fifty eight yards in a minute fifty seven for that
Speaker 1: field goal by Seth Hanson. I want to take you
Speaker 1: back as well, six years ago to Gainesville when Kentucky
Speaker 1: snapped the streak. And that's what was crazy about this
Speaker 1: thirty one game, losing skid and it ended in Gainesville,
Speaker 1: and it should have ended two years prior.
Speaker 2: Maybe it was four years but I don't remember, but
Speaker 2: it was one of the prior trips.
Speaker 1: You might recall that Florida got away with a play
Speaker 1: it shouldn't have when the play clock expired.
Speaker 2: But at any rate, Terry.
Speaker 1: Wilson, Benny Snell, they go down there and really this
Speaker 1: was the first touchdown, believe it or not, touchdown passed
Speaker 1: to a former walk.
Speaker 7: On four man rush as Wilson sets to throw, scrambles
Speaker 7: off to his right looking down field, throwing down field
Speaker 7: touchdown Kentucky.
Speaker 1: David Booby A how cool was that? And working the sidelines.
Speaker 1: I was ahead of the football. I'm either ahead or
Speaker 1: I stayed behind it to get a look at what
Speaker 1: the D line is doing to the O line. But
Speaker 1: I was ahead down by the end zone, and here
Speaker 1: comes David Boovier popping open, and Terry Wilson hits him,
Speaker 1: sneaking in there behind the Florida defense, and I immediately
Speaker 1: recalled that.
Speaker 2: I believe it was that year when I.
Speaker 1: Went to do an interview with Mark Steups priors of
Speaker 1: the Blue White Game, and I always ask him who
Speaker 1: has stood out, and oftentimes anymore he won't give you
Speaker 1: one name or real decline to answer, but a couple
Speaker 1: of times he mentioned specific players. In that year was
Speaker 1: one of them, and he right away said, you know,
Speaker 1: David Bouvier's had a really good spring. This guy is
Speaker 1: a former walk on but getting a lot of clock
Speaker 1: at wide receiver, and he catches the first touchdown pass
Speaker 1: to the game, giving Kentucky their early lead. That was
Speaker 1: also the game where Terry Wilson did it with his
Speaker 1: arm and his legs, ran away from trouble all night.
Speaker 1: And I remember one point the Florida student section and
Speaker 1: they hang over the wall. They like to heckle me
Speaker 1: and anybody from Kentucky. But I walk by them all
Speaker 1: the time. I have to to get from one end
Speaker 1: of the field to the other. And they're not dangerous,
Speaker 1: but you know, they can be funny, they can be rude.
Speaker 1: But they were really heckling me. But early in the game,
Speaker 1: I'm talking about middle of the second quarter, this one
Speaker 1: kid who had been yelling at me got my attention
Speaker 1: and I looked up. I'm like yeah, and he goes
Speaker 1: your quarterback. I'm like, yeah, he's awesome. I said, yeah,
Speaker 1: he is, isn't he?
Speaker 2: You know? But it was because he made plays like this.
Speaker 7: Wilson thankes the pitch on a keeper at the twenty
Speaker 7: at the fifteen ten five touchdown Kentucky. They sent the
Speaker 7: flow to the left, bake the pitch, and he cut
Speaker 7: it back right and went for sick.
Speaker 1: I don't know the Florida ever caught up to him
Speaker 1: that night, because later on he gets loose and finds
Speaker 1: Lynn Bowden, and you would hear that name a lot
Speaker 1: the following year, when Kentucky ran out of quarterback. Lynn
Speaker 1: Bowden had a sensational season moving from wide receiver to quarterback,
Speaker 1: but made a heck of a play this night down
Speaker 1: in Gainesville.
Speaker 7: Wilson with a play fake all kinds of time. He
Speaker 7: is throwing deep Soden's out there.
Speaker 2: Got it tuck down Kentucky.
Speaker 7: Wilson laden right in a Brent pasket inside the five.
Speaker 2: Well. Tom just about lost his mind. I know that one.
Speaker 1: And then of course at the very end, Florida still
Speaker 1: had a chance, but you know, nowhere near the goal line,
Speaker 1: and Kentucky flushed the Gators out of the pocket, forced
Speaker 1: a turnover and DeVante Robinson picks up a loose ball
Speaker 1: and Mark stoops and the guys on the sidelines were
Speaker 1: like run, and.
Speaker 2: So he did.
Speaker 1: He got tackled at the one, but fell into the
Speaker 1: end zone and it goes as a touchdown.
Speaker 2: On the last play of the game, four man rush,
Speaker 2: Frank's retreating, He's head.
Speaker 7: As he throws it flutters incomplete with five seconds to play.
Speaker 4: Josh Allen got.
Speaker 7: Him touchdown Kentucky.
Speaker 2: They're saying there was no look at this on replay.
Speaker 7: There was no whistle, Tom and the officials were just
Speaker 7: looking at Davonte Robinson I think was who picked that
Speaker 7: ball up, and they signed touchdown for Kentucky. After further review,
Speaker 7: the ruling on the field of a fumble is confirmed.
Speaker 2: It streak is over Tucky. At the end of the
Speaker 2: play turns over touchdown Ku.
Speaker 3: Touchdown Kentucky.
Speaker 7: After thirty one long games, the streak ends.
Speaker 2: That was a crazy night.
Speaker 1: That was fun being in the Kentucky locker room after that,
Speaker 1: and then the next time we all go down to
Speaker 1: Florida to cover this game that I believed two years
Speaker 1: later that might have been when the somebody was it,
Speaker 1: Roman Harper called Kentucky soft. It was one of the
Speaker 1: ensuing trips and Kentucky goes down and wins. And the
Speaker 1: first thing Stoops did when he got into the locker
Speaker 1: room was jump up on the bench and.
Speaker 2: The other Who's soft?
Speaker 1: Now there have been over the last several years some
Speaker 1: really amazing Kentucky Florida gamest Trevin Wallace as a freshman
Speaker 1: returning a blocked field goal for a touchdown, something that
Speaker 1: got away. Jared Lorenz and throws a bad pick. Derek
Speaker 1: Abney returns a kick for a touchdown, and a holding
Speaker 1: call behind the play on the other side of the
Speaker 1: field brings that one. So there have just been and
Speaker 1: then of course the blowouts in the Spurier era.
Speaker 2: We'd like to forget about.
Speaker 1: Them, but uh, this will be an interesting game on
Speaker 1: Saturday night and you will hear it right here.
Speaker 2: That's gonna do it. Thanks for joining us.
Speaker 1: Thanks to my guest Maggie Davis, Steve Russell, Tony Franklin.
Speaker 2: That's a good night from the garage in Lexington.
Speaker 8: Wants an orange whip, une whip, unge whip, three orange whips,
Speaker 8: say
Speaker 2: Dan.