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and roaring willing to go for this b YU Arizona
State matchup tonight at the Marius Center. B what you
a favorite? But Arizona State do have some good uh
they're they're well well coached and some good talent that
they're bringing into probe. We're gonna break it all down
here with our know the fau expert. Uh here momentarily.
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age seven. Let's get out to the online. Welcome to
Tim Healey, voice of the Arizona Sun Devils. Tim, how
you living well?
Speaker 1: It's the Arizona State sun Devils.
Speaker 2: I know, I got I apologize, Arizona State sun Devils.
How dare I? And I'm from the great state of Arizona.
I messed up? I apologize.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's surprising how many UH reporters on
the national scene do the same thing. I mean, it's
it's mind boggling over the years, because the funny thing
to me is that you never hear people different, you know,
call them the Michigan Spartans or the Michigan State Wolverines,
but boin nationwide, even on ESPN sometimes you have you know,
commentators talking about the Arizona sun Devils or the Arizona
State Wildcats, and you know, just one of those things,
I guess, but you have to fight for your own
respect and ongoing process. For the sun Devils, obviously, they.
Speaker 2: I apologize that sickening is maddening, but I will say
this is Arizona State team is well coached, and they
are talented. And look, I would say, you know, the
combo of football and basketball right now, I feel like
it's on the rise in Tempee. How are you feeling
about it?
Speaker 1: Well, I'd say, yeah, football definitely is on the rise
under Kenny Dillingham. A Big Twelve championship that came out
of nowhere last year. I mean, we were picked to
finish what sixteenth last in the Big Twelve, and they
end up winning the conference championship and coming within a
fourth and thirteen stop in the Peach Bowl of beating
Texas and advancing to the quarter to the semi finals
of last year's College Football Playoff. And this year they
backed it up with what I thought was a really
solid eight win season. Solid when you consider the fact
that they were missing some key players for a good
chunk of the year, including their best receiver, Jordan Tyson,
who is onto the NFL and their star quarterback Sam Levitt,
who's in the transfer portal and to the best of
my knowledge, still looking for a landing spot there. But
the Devils had an eight win season, and I thought
put on a really good show in the Sun Bowl
last week, even though they were missing thirty five players.
They put up six hundred and nineteen yards of offense
against the defending or the current Atlantic Coast Conference champions
in Duke before falling in a high scoring game at
the Sun Ball. So football on an upward trajectory basketball,
it's been you know. The season got off to a
nice start for Bobby Hurley's team. The Sun Devils won
nine of their first eleven games, put on a great
showing at the Maui Invitational Thanksgiving Week, advanced to the
championship game in Maui before losing to USC in the
title game. Had some really good quality wins in the
non conference over Texas, Oklahoma, Washington State, a win at Hawaii.
Rallied from nineteen down in the second half to beat
a good Santa Clara team in a neutral site game
in Henderson, Nevada. But the last three games they've taken
a step backward. They've lost their last three in a
row have the Sun Devils, including two losses in their
last two games in what I thought were highly winnable
home games against Oregon State right before Christmas, and they
lost at home to Colorado Saturday and their Big twelve opener.
And among the challenges for the team the last three games,
they've suddenly gone dry from three point range. They were
a pretty a good three point shooting team for most
of the season up in the I don't know, thirty
eight to thirty nine percent range, But in the last
three games they're shooting nineteen percent from outside the arc,
and they're getting good looks, they're just not shooting them well,
and a lot of it I think it's just a
confidence issue. And you know, hopefully tonight they can get
a few to fall early, because I think that makes
a difference. And in conjunction with that, another problem is
that the Devils have gotten off to very slow starts.
Their last three games. They've basically fallen behind by double
digit margins in the first half of each of these
last three games, and not coincidentally, they've lost. So basketball
is you know, you know, football, I think very much
on an upward trajectory. Basketball challenges await to. Certainly, the
Big Twelve is the I think the best basketball conference
in the country, and the Sun Devils tonight start an
unbelievably tough stretch where they play three of their next
four games on the road, all of the road games
against top ten ranked opponents. They have BYU tonight, they
have Arizona in Tucson next Wednesday night and Arizona's number
one in the country. And then on Sunday, January eighteenth,
the Devil's go to Houston and the Cougars are ranked
seventh in the nation. So that's that's a gauntlet right there,
and challenges dual weight.
Speaker 2: Arizona state net ranking ninety four. They're nine and five
on the season, ze one in conference play. But I
look at their Quad one, Quad two opportunities. They're competitive
in all these games, I mean, sixty five seventy, So
we know Gonzaga is a very good team. You were
on a you were at home. Maybe that's why he
kept it close, but neutral game versus Southern California seventy
five eighty eight, you gotta win versus Oklahoma on a
neutral court, that was a nice dub. The UCLA loss
lost by thirteen, that was in a way setting. So
how competitive has ASU been in these Quad one Quad
two games? You guys are three and one in Quad
two opportunities.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they've been, you know, competitive in most of their games.
They really don't get blown out of any games. All
three of these games that they've lost, they've been in them.
You know. Even they lost by thirteen at UCLA, And
if they had just had a bad shooting night from
three point range at UCLA, they might have won. They
only made four of twenty six three point attempts in
that game. If they had made eight of twenty six,
that wouldn't exactly be lighting it up, but it would
have made a huge difference and they might have been
able to win the basketball game. And another problem is
not only are they not hitting threes, but their opponents
these last three games have been ASU has not been
good defensively these last three games, giving up an average
of eighty eight points in the last three games, and
their opponents are shooting I think something like forty one
forty two percent from three point range the last three games.
So it's been kind of a double edged sword for them.
But yeah, they're competitive in all these games. You know,
they lost, as you said, by twelve at home to
gun Zaga. They were in that game all the way,
but Gonzaga kind of had control of that game most
of the way. But they're you know, Gonzaga is a
great basketball team. In the USC game, I think the
Sun Devils just ran out of gas, you know, playing
their third game in three days at the Maui Invitational,
and as luck would have it, I don't know why
they did it, but this year at Maui, the championship
game on the day before Thanksgiving was scheduled for nine
to thirty in the morning Hawaii time, So the Sun
Devils had very little turnaround from their Tuesday evening one
hundred to ninety four went over Washington State in the
semi final to get rested and ready to play USC.
But they just kind of ran out of gas in
that game. And these last three losses, as I said,
they've they've been competitive, but these last two games home
games against Oregon State and Colorado are games that you know,
the Sun Devils just have to figure those are games
they need to win, and they just could not get
it done.
Speaker 2: The Big twelve Gauntlet. I've described the Big twelve as
the g League with university logos on it. You've seen
a lot of ball in the Pac twelve, in the
Pac ten. You've been doing this for a long time
and wanted to get your overall eval of the transition
from Pac twelve play in both football basketball and going
in coming into the Big twelve football and basketball. Give
me your synopsis, maybe eval talent coaching product. Obviously the
destinations aren't as beautiful, you know, but you know there's
some really good football, really good basketball being played right now.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, we were in the Pac twelve for a
long time. This is my twenty eighth year doing the
radio for ASU. So obviously twenty six of those were
broadcasting in the Pac twelve. Plus I did Arizona State
on television for ten years prior to becoming the radio voice.
So it's actually my thirty eighth year broadcasting Sun Devil
sports and all the two of them in the Pac twelve.
And you know, like anything that you've been a part
of for a long time. You miss it when it's gone.
It was actually kind of neat, even though we lost
the games to reconnect with, you know, going to UCLA,
going to Pauley Pavilion the week before Christmas and having
Oregon State come to our place on December twenty first,
and then actually seeing you. Although I didn't get to
do the Maui Invitational this year because of football commitments,
the Sun Devils hooked up with another Pac twelve opponent
in usc and actually they're zero to three this year
against their former Pac twelve rivals. But I miss it,
you know. And on the other hand, the Big Twelve
is you know, it's been great. You know, there's more.
One thing I like is that there's a lot of
college towns in the Big Twelve. The PAC twelve was
a mostly urban conference, and there are some beautiful destination
cities Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle obviously, Salt Lake City,
and the Denver Boulder area as well, but you know,
it's mainly an urban conference, whereas the Big Twelve has
a lot of college towns like games Isowa, Lawrence and Manhattan, Kansas,
and Stillwater, Oklahoma, and Waco, Texas. And Morgantown, West Virginia,
and it's really been fun to experience those places for
the first time. And the quality of the competition is terrific.
You know, say what you will about the Big Twelve
as a football league, but I think it was a
tremendously and has been the last two years, a tremendously
balanced league. A lot of really good teams in the
conference and basketball. I don't think there's a better league
in the country than the Big Twelve, but I think
it's pretty self explanatory for anyone who follows college basketball.
And the baseball is very good too, some really nice ballparks.
A lot of schools in the Big Twelve put a
lot of emphasis financially and otherwise on baseball and getting
to go to parks like Baylors and last year we
were also Cincinnati has a very nice ballpark right on campus.
You know, West Virginia has become a really solid program
in baseball. It's a heck of a good baseball league.
So the competition has been really good. The people have
been very welcoming. As soon as we joined the Big Twelve,
I was invited into a text message chain of all
the radio play by play announcers in the Big Twelve Conference,
and you know, it's all been very welcoming. And I'll
never forget last year in twenty twenty four when we
played our first football game at Kansas State in late November,
when we were starting to make our run toward the
Big Twelve championship, and we're walking into the stadium in Manhattan,
and we had about four or five different fans k
State fans who stopped us on the way in to
just say, Hey, great to see you guys in the
Big Twelve, Welcome to the Big Twelve. Great to have
Arizona State in the league, that sort of thing. So
it's all that's been really really good. And you know,
the quality of the competition and the quality of the
basketball is just you know, phenomenal, and the coaching, you know,
it's just primo the best league in the country in
my opinion.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I feel the same way. It's been.
It's been, Uh, it's kind of been fun to watch
this uh, this conference morph and meld together with the
some of the old Pac twelve teams, et cetera, in
some of the the AEC teams that they picked up
as well. So the future of the Big twelve. How
does it look? Does it look promising to you? Does
it look like the power force structure will stay intact?
Kind of how do you? How do you feel about that?
You know, the next five to ten years, as conferences
begin to renegotiate their their TV deals and their structures.
Speaker 1: Well, the feeling I've always had, and it's not men
in any way as a slight to the Big Twelve,
but I've I had the feeling when this all first
went down a couple years ago, and I still kind
of maintain that feeling, is that at some point in
the next three or four years, I just have a
feeling I wouldn't be surprised if administrators and the people,
the powers that be have a sort of, as I
would call it, a come to Jesus moment and realize,
you know what, we really need to get a West
Coast based sports league college sports league back up and
running and almost kind of like get the Pac twelve
bunch back together. I just don't know how sustainable the
model is. Like when we were at UCLA back in
late December, I was looking at the Bruins schedule in
basketball and this month I think the Bruins opened Big
Twelve play with games at I think it was maybe
Minnesota and Iowa. This week, they're home to play one
game this weekend, and then next week they go back
on the road, I think to play Maryland in Ohio state.
I mean, you're talking about transcontinental trips, you know, very
very frequently during the course of the year, and for
all of their sports teams. I just don't know how
sustainable that model is for all these schools based on
the West Coast to be playing conference games and opponents
almost an entire continent away. I mean, think about it
from a Cal and Stanford perspective. How first of all,
how ludicrous is it that two schools in the Bay
Area are part of the Atlantic Coast Conference. I think
it should be the ACC really should be renamed the
All Coast Conference, because that's what it is right now.
And you know, you talk about tough models for you know,
Cal and Stanford sports teams. You know, so many of
their trips are of a trans continental nature, and I
just don't know where the money's going to come from
to keep teams traveling you know, that far that frequently.
So we'll see what happens. But I tell you what,
when all this went down, Arizona State was very fortunate,
I think, to have found a landing spot as solid
and as competitive as the Big twelve conference, because the
sports competition has been great, the schools, the venues, the towns.
It's been a good experience. You know. I told people
two years ago about how bittersweet it was.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: The bitter part was that last year in the Pac
twelve and making the rounds, like our final baseball series
of the year was at Stanford, and as luck would
have it, Arizona State went up there and swept the
three game series against Stanford and what was our final
Pac twelve series ever. And I remember interviewing Stanford's baseball coach,
David Esker, who's been a friend for a long time,
during that series, and he was just lamenting how just
it just didn't seem right for the Pac twelve to
be going away, and and and so forth. But the
sweet part came the following year when we started making
our first go through of the Big twelve, and again
how welcoming everyone's been and the new experiences that we've
been able to enjoy as a part of a tremendous conference.
Like the Big Twelve, and you know, we'll see what happens.
And you know, my theory could be wrong. Maybe maybe
this is the future of college athletics go in this direction.
But it does seem to me that they're you know,
they're they're just I don't know, just it's it's a shame,
you know that there isn't a major power conference based
on the West Coast like there was for so many
years in the Pac twelve conference.
Speaker 2: I'm sure you've been asked this question before. You've been
doing this a long time, and you know, I truly
it's unfathomable that the Conference of Champions no longer exists.
I mean, that kind of exists, but it doesn't exist.
Speaker 1: Really.
Speaker 2: We tend to, you know, after games, you know, when
big events care we tend to delve into not a
blame game. But I look at it more as like
a PI chart of accountability, because I don't know if
it's any one thing that that uh loses you a
game or you know, contributes to a conference that's been
around for one hundred years or whatever disappearing overnight. Have
you ever pie charted you know, a kind of a
from an accountability sense, how the heck this happened. Like
we talked about Larry Scott, we talk about, you know, overspending,
We talk about maybe internal consultants. You can talk about ESPN,
Fox TV, people maybe making certain decisions overvaluations of oneself,
the hubris of maybe overvaluation, usc U, c l A.
When you're asked, how did this happen? What's your response?
I guess is what I'm getting at with your pie
chart of accountability?
Speaker 1: Well, I would say my response is you pretty much
gave the response because you pretty much included everything there.
I mean, no need to.
Speaker 2: Mbil is there is there a bigger piece of the
pie though, that somebody needs to.
Speaker 1: Eat, don't I don't think so. I think I think
it's all of that's intertwined. It all kind of came
together in a sad amalgamation of factors. And it's just
just the way the sport has involved and how money
and television and all that is just kind of taken
taken root as the predominant factors these days. It seems
in college sports, you know, so many people lament you know,
the transfer portal, for instance, and how it's such a
different day and age, and it really is I mean,
it's like it's not like your grandfather's college sports. You know,
following that years ago, the line between amateurism and professional
sports has been truly blurred. I think, you know, for
the foreseeable future. Although intellectually it's very difficult for me
to argue, you know that these kids they deserve to
be compensated. I mean, the athletes are the ones who
make college sports exciting. They're the ones that go out
there and risk injury and put on these performances. And
you know, you're going to have seventeen or eighteen thousand
fans at the Marriott Center tonight there to cheer on
their BYU team, and they're there to cheer on the players.
They're not there to cheer on the television network that's
covering the game, or the announcers or the administrators who
will be there watching. They're there to watch the players perform,
and you know they're the ones that you know deserve
to be compensated. But it's just it's just such a
different world now, and you just wonder to yourself how
sustainable the model is moving forward year in and year out.
Schools through their various means generating all the revenues that
will be necessary to compensate all the student athletes and
all the different sports and so forth. That's that's the
way we are now. But it's it's just interesting to
see how sustainable the model is going to be moving forward.
But you know, like you said an answer to the question,
you know you really did very succinctly. I think, you know,
dish out all the different characters in this saga, this drama,
if you will, that have led to this. But you know,
you can sit here and wallow and you know, you know,
organizational self pity, you know, thinking I wish we could
be back in the old PAC twelve of old, or
you can accept the change and move on and see
what the future holds. And I think that's what all
the teams that have come from the PAC twelve to
the Big twelve have done. I think they're all very
excited about being in the league with the other schools
from the Big twelve, and hopefully the schools from like UCLA, USC,
Oregon and Washington feel the same about their experiences in
the Big ten and CAL and Stanford and the All
Coast I mean the Atlantic Coast Conference. But yeah, I
mean it's just to say the least, to say the
very least, it's a new day and age in intercollegiate
athletics for sure.
Speaker 2: Let's talk ASU, b Y, you're going to be on
the call, and a issue has got a great opportunity
to just create a more robust resume right now. If
they were to knock off the Cougars, it would be
tremendous for their resume. And they're a talented team. They've
been competitive. Give me a breakdown of who ASU is
on the hardwood briefly, and then let's talk scoutt report.
What you've been hearing about this bo basketball team.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, the Sun Devils do have some good players,
you know, fun to watch our point go mo odom as,
a transfer from Pepperdine who is second in the Big
twelve and assists. While still he scores nearly seventeen points
a game. He's coming off a twenty one point twelve
assist game against Colorado this past Saturday. I think Moe
really needed the thirteen day Christmas break that the Sun
Devils had because his shooting had tailed off in a
couple of games prior to the Christmas break, but he
was on the all tournament team. He put on quite
a show and the Maui Invitational had thirty six in
the Sun Devils opening when he literally carried them single
handedly to victory over Texas in their first game in
Maui and just had a phenomenal tournament. Made the All
Maui Team. He was fourth in the nation and assists
at Pepperdine a year ago, and he's I think in
the top fifteen nationally in assists this year. Another guy
that they brought in, a seven foot freshman from Senegal,
Masamba Jop been just a terrific player in the low post.
He is first in the Big twelve, eleventh nationally and
field goal percentage coming off his season high of twenty points,
as well as seven block shots against Colorado on Saturday.
The seven block shots the most by a Sun Devil
in eleven years. And he's been a real find. I
think he is a future NBA player. In his first
season at Arizona State, It'll be very interesting to watch
him and aj De Bonsa go at it in the
low post tonight. I mean, I don't have to tell
you how great a player Debonsa is and Masamba Jop
just oozes potential. He's not as he doesn't rebound as
much as you would think a guy of his seven
foot size would averages about five a game. But he
is a potential rim protector, scorer, has a nice shooting
touch from the outside. He's a very good free throw shooter,
and he's averaged seventeen points over the last five games
in his shooting seventy one percent from the field in
those last five games as well. And then a guy
that I think you'll enjoy watching is Anthony His nickname
is Pig. We call him the pig Man. Pig Johnson
a transfer from a small school in Kentucky, the University
of the Cumberlands, where a year ago in the NAIA
he was I think the number four scorer nationally NAIA basketball,
and his game has translated to the major college level
at Arizona State. He's averaging fourteen points a game. Excellent
free throw shooter, he gets to the free throw line
more than any other Sun Devil and is intense on
the defensive end of the floor and not afraid to
drive the ball into traffic into bigger, taller players underneath
the hoop. Just so much fun to watch. And you
also have a former BYU Cougar on this team in
Marcus Adams, who was with BYU two years ago. Fortunately,
Marcus won't play tonight. He suffered a back injury and
practice Monday and he's I don't think he's on the trip.
I haven't seen him at practices, so unfortunately he won't
get a chance to take the floor at the Marriott
Center tonight. Another good player that had his best game
Saturday as Colorado is Alan Mukaba, a six eight, two
hundred and fifty pound forward transferred from Oakland University in Michigan,
where he was an All Horizon League player a year ago.
And I wish I had a body like Alan Mukaba's.
That guy is ripped and he could play tight end
or be an edge rusher, I think on any college
football team he wanted to. And he had season highs
against Colorado's Saturday sixteen points, six rebounds and had the
play of the day on Sports Center's Top Ten with
an in your face dunk on Colorado's Sebastian ron Cheek
that just brought the house down at our arena, Desert
Financial Arena on Saturdays. Those are some of the players
that you'll be seeing tonight for Arizona State. The key
is that if the sun Devils can make shots. I
mean they for most of the year were pretty good.
They were like in the thirty eight to thirty nine
percent range as a three point shooting team, but that
shooting percentage has dipped to thirty five percent heading into
tonight's game. They're fourteenth and out of sixteen teams in
the Big twelve and three point shooting percentage, and they've
just got to be able to knock down the open
looks when they get them to have any remote chance
to pull off the upset here tonight.
Speaker 2: What percentage of the roster was retained from last year
to this year?
Speaker 1: They're an a issue. Sun Devils have one returning scholarship player,
Trevor Best Guard, who probably will not see a lot
of action. We'll play a little bit. And Trevor joined
the team last year at mid season. He went to
the same high school in North Carolina as a SU's
star recruit from a year ago, forward Jaden Quaintance, who's
now at Kentucky. But Trevor is the only returning starting player.
They do have one walk on guard, a kid named
Quentin McCoy. Who's back with the team this year, but
every other player I'll just go down my score sheet
here for Arizona State, they're top rotation players. Moe Odam
transfer from Pepperdine, Bryce Ford, a guard from the Phoenix
area by the way, transfer from Toledo. Masamba Jop comes
over from Senegal. Santiago Truet. Their leading rebounder is a
transfer from the University of San Diego, Andrea Grebovich, who
is a six to eleven Serbian wing or. He's from
actually Montenegro. He is a European in his first year here.
Pig Johnson a transfer from the NAIA. They have a
freshman guard from Belgium named Noah Mayhusen who's a pretty
solid all around player. Alan mckayba I told you about
from Oakland University. Marcus Adams last year bridged sixteen points
a game at cal State Northridge, and he has been
slowed by injuries this year and we're still waiting for
him to become the player that he was a year
ago at Northridge. And they also have a true freshman,
Cash Polk, who won't play tonight because he is injured,
and a couple of other newcomers but like I said,
it's almost an entirely new team that Bobby Hurley's had
to put together, and it just seems to be an
annual ritual, you know, where you're just almost reconstructing a
roster year in and year out. And it's not just
Arizona State. It's a lot of schools in college basketball
right now. But yeah, one one returning player from a
year ago. BYU fans might actually remember the name Trevor
Best because Trevor actually scored eighteen points against the Cougars
in Tempe last February twenty sixth, which still ranks as
his career scoring high, you know, in that game against
BYU at our place a year ago.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I just wonder like I was stocked with coaches,
like many of the coaches that coach ball, right, football, basketball,
they get into it because, you know, they love to
get back to the kids, they love the sport, all
those things, and then you get through it, right and
something's changed about the business of it. For a play
by play guy like yourself, I imagine you've grown fond
over the last almost thirty years of getting to know
the players year in and year out, developing relationships long
term relationships with these guys, re interviewing them pregame, post game,
seeing them develop, et cetera. We're losing a little bit
of that in this era. Has that been at all
impactful for you?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it is. It's definitely. You're getting different
groups in and out. You know, just talk about you know,
the guy who was my broadcast partner, Kyle Dodd. Kyle
played at Arizona State as a point guard from nineteen
ninety nine to two thousand and three, and he used
to come on the post game show with me, you know,
when he'd play well, and he used to joke around.
He said, someday I'm going to be your broad cast partner,
and ten years later he was. And now we're like
fifteen years together as you know, a play by play
guy in color analyst. And you talk about this year's team.
One thing about I'll say about this year's team that
Bobby Hurley's put together. There are some really, really good
kids and likable players on this team. I think this
team is much more connected individually than last year's team was.
At Arizona State. Last year, the Sun Devils had some
really highly tauted recruits. Jaden Quainton's of five star centers
now Kentucky Joson Sannon a five star guard, good shooter
who's now at Saint John's. But the team just didn't
seem very connected. You know, internally, this year's group is
and there are a good bunch of kids. I remember
the first practice I was able to go to because
of my football obligations was in late October, and I
went to watch them practice one day just to kind
of start familiarizing myself with the team. And after practice,
Bobby had every one of those players come over and
introduce themselves individually to me. And even to this day,
like last night, we got to the hotel and Alan Mukayba,
the kid I told you about with the rip body
of the Oakland transfer, he came up to all of
us and you know, there's a group of seven of
us in the travel party that are unable to fly
with the team because of the smaller size of the
team playing only they start charter a thirty seater and
there's about seven of us who go commercial. So we
arrived at the hotel separately, but when they got back
from a shoot around, they came over and you know,
Alan comes up to every each each one of us
and slaps hands or you know, shakes hands, gives a
hug and says, good to see you guys. And pretty
much all the players on this team are the same way.
They're they're really really good kids and very well connected.
And that's why you'd really like to see them have
some success this year, because they've been fun to be
with and be you know, travel with on the road
and uh and you know, I wish I could have
been with them in Hawaii for many reasons obviously, but
was not able to make that trip. But you know,
they put on a good showing there and hopefully they
can you know, find their footing as Big twelve play
unfolds and maybe pull off an upset or two and
kind of get back into this thing. But they've been
they've been a fun group to be a part of.
But yeah, I mean that's one of the byproducts of
this day and age in college sports. These teams as
they are constituted, they changed dramatically year to year, and
it's you know, it's hard to uh, you know, get
a get a you know, to I would imagine, very
hard for fans to bomb with. I mean, like, you know,
just less than a year ago. Sam Levitt, Well, it
could have you know, could have run for the mayor
of Tempe I and cam Scataboo, could have run on
a ticket and gotten elected, you know, to statewide office
in the state of Arizona. And now you know, Sam
Levitt is a persona no grata. You know, he he's gone,
he's in the transfer portal. He's going to play elsewhere.
And you know, we hardly knew ye Sam. You know,
it's he was in a year and in and out,
and that's just that's just the way it is. And
college athletics. It's not necessarily anything bad about Sam Levitt,
It's just, you know, that's the way it is.
Speaker 2: Tim Healy, Ladies and gentlemen, the voice of the Arizona
State Sun Devils. Good luck on your call, not that
you need it, but if they want to tune in,
if our listeners want to tune in to you, how
do they do such well?
Speaker 1: In the Phoenix area, we're broadcasting kta AR is the
biggest radio station in the state of Arizona. They have
several different signals and tonight we are in ESPN six
twenty am. But I do believe they also have the
Arizona Sports app. If you want to, you know, dial
us up that way, give us a listen, And Kyle
and I love working together. We have a good time.
Kyle's terrific analyst has one of the best senses of
humor of anybody I've ever been around. He does great
impersonations as well, And I hopefully we are a good
listen game in and game out, and I think we're
always you know, fair and objective about our opponents as well.
We recognize good play when we see it, no matter
who's making the good play. So if you get a chance,
give us a listen, we'd love to have you listen.
Listen to us, and we wish byu all the best
of this season. Like not that they need any added
luck from us, because they are an enormously talented team
and they're going to go far this year.
Speaker 2: I'm sure enjoy your time at Pro Tim. We appreciate
you man. We'll see at the game.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much, Thank you, appreciate it.
Speaker 2: Diego. That's another Folks segment brought to you by Bresa
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Toll coming up next. This is Cougar Sports on one
O three nine ninety eight point three eight SP.
Speaker 3: Big twelve football.
Speaker 2: Miss You.
Speaker 3: Got some new sheriffs in town, but they better be careful.
So I'm been around here for a while and they
might learn a thing or two. You see that.
Speaker 1: There's a storm.
Speaker 3: Broad You're not scared, are you? You're always ready, ready
to go Big twelve football. They don't get better than this.
Speaker 2: Wether Banker the Sports one up three nine, not the band.
I've been doing the broadcast from our Banderwall Studios, Bandawell
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Let's stock some Big twelve football with Big twelve Insider
also hosts of his own show, The Drake Toll Show
on Westwood One. We got Drake Toll on the line. Drake,
how the heck are you?
Speaker 4: Man? I did what any twenty four year old does,
what they're going through an early crisis and I got
a second dog to so monumental day to be on
your show. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2: Well is it now like I I in my single life? Okay?
I dated a lot of different types of ladies, okay,
and one of them was very much an animal lover
and not just animal and like she she loved stray animals.
She wanted to go buy pound animals, she wanted to
like like pure bred animals. No, no, no, I didn't
want anything to do with it, but like all of
the animals on the earth, she wanted to bring into
the home. Is that you uh?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 4: Indeed, I didn't think it was going to be me.
But here I sit with two dogs at my feet.
One of them is a wonderful, beautiful, paid for Australian
Poodle and he is the single strangest dog you could
ever draw up. And the other is a rescue the
rescue today, miss Sunday, and she's a Shepherd mixed, which
I don't really know what that means. She has no shots.
And so yeah, Ben, I am getting the rescue stray
thing in my house. And when I'm picking speak out
of my scalp in two days, I will regret all
of this.
Speaker 2: I love it. You got a big heart and a
big mind full of Big twelve content. Right now we're
getting into the college football transfer portal chaos and the
Big twelve, especially Texas Tech they're making freaking moves right like,
immediately they go out and get their quarterback that they
want they've had their eye on for a while, and
they're picking up wide receivers. It seems like Texas Tech
knows exactly what they want. They fell short. They made
its all look bad. For the love of all that
peat we had, all this equity built up, Texas Tech
is supposed to be something great and they fell flat
on their face because you know, they just didn't have
a quarterback. Give me your eval of what happened, why
it happened, and what Texas Tech is doing now.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Texas Tech is gonna go full Pelton metal. And
the biggest piece of why they're having such early success
is the money. Sure that that's one thing, but the
other they have an entire department with their football program
set up for recruiting and the transfer portal. They've got
coaches whose full time job is to work the portal,
work recruiting, and do it even in season or in
December where these kids are entering the transfer portal. That
is such a big key to what Texas Tech has
seen success through the idea that we're not just a
bunch of football coaches. We're also salespeople, recruiters. We have
to sell the idea of winning at Texas Tech to
these student athletes who coming out of the transfer portal.
And so they've attacked us for a long time. And
one could argue tampering, Oh you're tampering. Than tampering, your tampering.
We're all tampering. It's kind of part of the of
the system now because it's such a broken system without
any guardrails. What Texas Tech is doing is not illegal.
They're doing what everybody in the SEC has done forever,
and everybody the SEC is especially doing now in the
transferport era. Texas Tech has big money. They're going after
the big names, the big recruits that land of Brendon
soaresby at their quarterback gave five star. And the question
becomes Ken the guy who was seven and five at
Cincinnati this past season walking to a Texas Tech system
and be better than Baron Morton. It needs to be
significantly better than Baron Morton. Now, as we saw the
Red Raiders score zero points hit their college football playoff
game against Oregon. But I've also heard from a lot
of cover from coaches men that have told me like
Big Twelve coaches that have said, I just I feel
like Brendan Sowarsby isn't a five million dollars quarterback, And
I'm not sure if they didn't just get another revert
Baron Morton. There's a lot of there's a tumultuous air
around the pickup of of Brendan Sworesby an intra conference
addition for Texas Tech, we'll see if the pays off
at that price tag pays off for Cody Campbell and
Joey McGuire.
Speaker 2: We know Texas Tech is at the top of the
food chain in the Big Twelve. Who are you like
your number two, number three, number four teams right now?
Heading into next season, we know that there's gonna be
plenty of movement in the portal. There's gonna be some
retention efforts made by all these Big twelve teams. But
who are like your early favorites outside of Texas Tech
to once again compete for a Big Twelve title.
Speaker 4: Yeah, man, as long as bear Bachmeyer doesn't break the
honor come, Let's be very clear. As long as Bear
Brockmeyer keeps it between the navigational booies, I think with
the Isaiah Glaster News and him coming back to BYU.
The Cougars are station at number two behind Texas tecond
the Big twelve Conference, as they should be. Utah would
have been free. You could have argued for two with
Devin Dan Pierre. And obviously he is still expected as
of right now to come back. The hope is that
he will come back. I think they're they're down a
few notches with Kyle Woodingham. The way that situation unfolded
in Salt Lake and everything I've heard, it's not a
great time. I mean, Utah is going to put its
head down and try to operate without half its coaching
staff from last year, and it's head man, the Hall
of Fame head coach Kyle Whittingham. It'll be different, though,
I mean, there are still big question marks of what
they're going to do in twenty twenty six and how
that how that program looks without Whittingham at the helms
for the first time in a couple of decades. It's
Texas Tech one, it's BYU two, and that third spot
is pretty open. But right now, oddly enough, I'm leaning
in on what Oklahoma.
Speaker 2: State is doing.
Speaker 4: They took what Kurt Signetti did from James Madison to
Indiana and they're replicating that. But with North Texas they
bring it Aaron Eric Morris and Eric Morris hit the
ground running recruiting his own guys. It guts, I mean,
it absolutely guts that program in Denton, but it builds
in Stillwater and they've got a top three transfer portal
class right now because of what they've built off the
backbone of North Texas. So I liked. I liked what
Oklahoma State is doing in the office season. They'll have
a quick turnaround there if things continue in the training
in this direction in Arizona State. To me Dillingham keeping
him in town, reinvesting into football West Virginia year number two,
I'm really excited for year number two of Rich Rodriguez.
There's a Willie Fritz Houston. We forget that team. We're
looking at a ten wins Houston team. I see three
or four Big twelve squad that are all competing for
that spot right behind Texas second EYU.
Speaker 2: Is there a most underrated Big twelve team right now?
Speaker 4: In your mind, still has to be Houston, really still
has to be Houston, and nationally the most underrated Big
twelve team is BYU when you consider that they were
left out of the College Football Playoff. But I've said
it a million times in my show that eleven and
one team in the Power four being held out when
we have these these arbitrary, subjective metrics were putting teams in.
We will look back in five years and say, oh,
that was a precedent. We did not want to set
the president at eleven and one Power four team can
be held out of the College Football Playoff without any
accountability to the committee. That is bad. That is the
definition of overlooked, disrespected, absolutely spit on by the college
football world, and BYU was subject to that. So no
doubt they are the most underrated nationally when you look
at the committee that did not put them in despite
them being one of the most disturbing twelve teams in
the country. And then past that, it's Houston and Willie Fritz.
They were dominant defensively for a large portion of twenty
twenty five. This pass ball was a really good fall.
And then they competed against LSU in their bowl game
to cap of off the season, winning a game against
an SEC team that they allowed a fourteen point cushion
two in the beginning of that contest. Houston was incredibly
oppressive this year. As long as Willie Fritz has still
got it going on, as long as he is still
the head coach for the Cougars, they've got a shot
to win any and all game that they are in
love what he's building ten this season. But you wouldn't
know what if you turned your TV on, because no
one talking about the ten and three? Who's Houston? Couger's
Give me.
Speaker 2: Your theories as to why Bay was left out the
last two years of the college football Playoff? Do you
just chalk it up simplistically to Big twelve bias? They
you know, and they just you know, they're not as
big of a brand. What do you chalk it up to?
Speaker 4: This is a question that I genuinely believe goes deeper
than that. I think we have to go back to
LaBelle Edwards in the mid eighties.
Speaker 1: There.
Speaker 4: Okay, let's go back in pinpoint when BYU was at
its best in college football and the national championship year
was certainly it, but the rhetoric nationally after that was
never again BYU. How do we keep BYU from being
a part of this again? We cannot be giving national
championships to BYU because they are perceive the little man.
They are this perceived underdog that we don't want to
consider a stalwart or powerhouse in our sport. And then
after that there is a history the next couple of
decades of leaving BYU out that there's the Ball Commission,
The Bowl Alliance is created because of BYU getting left
out of a New Year's Day Bowl. And then there's
the BCS, which is in essence almost created because of
BYU trying. And it's the second of the VCS. Okay, well,
we finally figured it out. We can put the most
deserving teams in the ballgame to deserve to go to
and pretty immediately BYU deserves to be a Sugar Bowl team,
a Rose Bowl team in one of these bigger bowls.
They get left out. Again. The goalposts continue to move,
specifically for one school, and it is BYU, and those
goal posts are being away from the university, away from
the football proger, away from opportunities. So I could be
the crazy person. I can be the guy in the
tinfoil hat who's going back in the mid eighties and
saying there's an underlying reason why BYU has been left
out the last few years, have been disrespected the last
two years. But it's no coincidence when you look at
the way that college football has historically created this program.
It is not an accident. It is purposeful, and it
is the reason that BYU was once again left out
for whether it's religious discrimination, whether it's it's uh discrimination
against the brand itself, whether it's that that feeling that
you got when Novelle Edwards won the national championship and
the big wigs, the big dogs, the Michigan's of the world, thought, Nope,
that should have been us. That's not a word we
can give to the little guy BYU. Whether it's any
of those things, I'm not sure if you can pinpoint
a single one, but you have to understand this is
more than just twenty twenty five. This goes back decades
of BYU being disrespected. It is a trend. It is
a very very bad trend in college football.
Speaker 2: Drake Toll Lockdown Big twelve also a host the host
of his Westwood One show, Drake Toll Show here on
esp and the Fan talking some Big twelve football, you know,
every single year. I mean, we're in two thousand six,
we're gonna have another shakeup of the college football world,
probably in twenty twenty nine, twenty thirty. We're gonna see
maybe an expansion of the playoff of the next year
or two. We'll see how that works itself. Out here
in you Thah, there's always talk about the team, the
next team that's gonna get called up to the big leagues,
the Big Ten and the SEC. Now, I personally think
that the SEC has been built their brand, their equity
over the last thirty years has been built off of
bag men and cheating, and now we're seeing kind of
the realization of a free market college football capitalistic economy
even in the playing field, now that we can all
compete at the same level and not have college football
cartels and cabals limiting the access, et cetera. But give
me your thought on the next maybe domino to fall,
Give me your thoughts on maybe the next team two
called up to the big leagues if we do have
somewhat of a power to conglomerate that does come about.
I don't think it will, but it could give me
a few of your thoughts on some of those topics here.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I do think Ben that as we moved thirty
hit nail on the head of the timeline. Here we'll
start talking about what clems in Florida State do. We're
as a country, as college football fans starting to forget
that those two schools sued the ACC and half of
that conference that we're going to leave if something does
not change in the wake of that. That's when cal
and Stanford SMU came in and they went to seventeen teams.
Some people are going to point to Notre Dame as
the north star of where we're going, where this is headed,
and what conference they join. I don't see it that way.
I personally believe once those two schools leave the ACC,
what it's now opened the door for. And this is
the same thing I've heard from multiple people now, is
Brett Yormark to look at the ACC as so inferior.
He can pick apart the ps he wants and build
up the Big twelve in esseence creating a power three
with the SEC and the Big ten. That is the goal.
Brett sees it coming. He is a businessman. He knows
when the ACC loses its power brokers and they're still
power Well, they were bad at football this year, Florida State,
and yet they're still power brokers. They have the brands,
they have the money. When you have the money, you
control everything. When they exit the Big Twelve, that's an
opportunity to poach. Now, there will be Big twelve schools
three years, so we're getting close to this three years
from now that say we want an opportunity somewhere else,
and those schools will be Texas Tech, they will be Utah,
they will be BYU, they'll be the universities that invest
the most. But the problem is is we don't have
a brand like Florida State that can lose for ten
straight years and still be again a power broker in
college football. What you will have to do out of
this league is win consistently. If you're Utah and you
want to go to the Big Ten, if you're BYU
when you want to go to the Big Ten, if
you're Texas Tech and you want to go to the
SEC or the Big Ten, you have to continue to
win Big Twelve championships, play in the Big Twell title Game,
go to the College Football Playoff, and win games. Otherwise,
the Big Ten doesn't want to take a slut of
the Big Twelve that's never been to the dance, that's
never won a Game of the Dance, and can't compete
for a national championship. That's not their goal. It's not
what they did in adding the team that they added
in the Pac Twell. They want to add big money
and big money that had competed in the last decade
or had massive brands. The Big Twelve, where it doesn't
have brands. Where it lacks brands, makes up for in
playing the game and the way that we used to
love college football. The Big teve is great at that,
but it doesn't always sell the tablet fell. People want
stories from the big schools, and if the Big twelve
is going to build those, we need consistent winning elite
teams at the top. BYU Texas Tech and now even
after one year of rebuilding its brand in football, Utah
come to mind, those three schools will be the next
dominoes to go if somebody from the Big tal gets
the call up to the Big two conferences.
Speaker 2: Drake Paul, Ladies and gentlemen, I do think the Big
twelve sure is bright.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: I wish the Big twelve maybe BULLRECERD was a little
bit better, but I think they've showcased decently well. Unfortunately
Texas Tech kind of fell flat on their face. Hopefully
they bounced back, and I think they will. I think
they'll be ready to go uh this this next season
and we'll probably be the bell of the ball in
the Big twelve going forward with all that filthy luker
cash that they have backing of that that oil money,
that oil money, that crude. Baby. I know you're a
Texas guy, you know about that.
Speaker 4: Texas any mountains, Yeah.
Speaker 2: No, they have, they have. We have silicon slopes. We
got that going for us. We have the tech world bidus.
But black black Gold is a little bit more filthy,
if you know what I mean. Drake told ladies and gentlemen,
I appreciate him joining us. Great stuff is always make
sure you download his podcast, subscribed through it every single
day Big twelve Locked up on Big twelve Insider. That
second was brought to you by rubies In, rubies In dot Com.
Head on over to rubies In dot Com Fords last
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of Bryce Canyon. These hoodoos are beautiful. Uh. Tons of adventure,
tons of experiences, make memories with friends and family members,
freaking you in the mouth. Head on, all right, leave
out Marnie Robin. All right, it's the moment we all
have been waiting for.
Speaker 3: Ben.
Speaker 2: This is perfetxample.
Speaker 5: YU is working to finalize the deal to promote Kelly
Fopinga to defensive coordinator and play call. He's been promoted
with special teams coordinator.
Speaker 2: So there you go.
Speaker 5: We've been waiting for it, Ben h for a long time. Okay,
here's a finish off was clicking on the ESPN app
I apologize. He's been promoted from special teams coordinator slash
defensive ends coach. He's coached two stints at BYU two thousand,
ain one to fifteen and twenty twenty two through president.
He takes over for Jill who left to become the
defensive coordinator at Michigan. But Pinka spent twenty sixteen at
twenty one at Virginia. He's a BAU graduate and former
star linebacker. There it is been We've been waiting, and
it has been announced.
Speaker 1: There we go.
Speaker 2: Love this higher well deserved I'll keep on saying, there's
special teams has been the best unit over the last
three years. Year every year, better than the offense, better
than the defense. He's been the special teams coordinator. He's
a former BYU great, He's recruited, recruited, coach to developed
arguably the best defensive players in BYU football history, Kyle
Vanoy and Fred Warner. Who's better? Jason Buck is up
there too, right, but in the modern era, the best
defense defensive player, the best defensive players in BYU football history. Okay,
we're recruited, signed, developed, coached by Kelly Papinga. That alone
is enough for me to say, Look, this guy deserves
an opportunity. He's been a co DC a Virginia PU
four institution. He's recruited around the country. Phenomenal recruiter, phenomenal developer,
puts in the work, and he's loyal, strong and true,
loves BYU, loves Provo and I mean I was his
teammate for three years. Yeah, there's gonna be some bias,
but every day, Bro, we competed on the scout team.
Every day we were getting in fights with the offense.
Every day, we bawled out in two thousand and six.
He should have been a star. He's a rotational guy.
Should have been a start. I don't want to get
into it, but he should have been a guy that
was starting next to me in my opinion. Okay, every
single play and the following year he did move up
and was the starter at mike linebacker, replacing Cameron Jensen
and a team captain, led with integrity, led with by example,
and balled out for Brigham play in the NFL. He's
got the NFL pedigree as well. Comes from a fantastic
football family. You hear Brady Papingall on the show every
single week. I love this higher. I think it's the
right higher. This guy has grit, tenacity, energy, he's young,
he's full of vigor and vim and he's gonna be
great guys. And this also, okay, this allows for the
continuity in chemistry and culture of the defense that has
been built over the last few years. You like the scheme.
This is a brainchild of a conglomerateive coaches. This is
not just This is not just. This is not a
j Hill defense. I'm sorry. This is not the Kyle
Whenyham defense. This is not just the Kilani Satake defense.
This is an aggregate conglomerate of Jay Kelly, Kilanie Kyle, Gary, Anderson, Gennaro,
justin Enna. Everybody's contributing this last year seventy thirty. Okay,
you saw thirty fronts versus forty fronts. If it was
a true just J. Hill defense, right, he probably would
have been a forty front the entire game, the entire time.
Four to five, Nickel, Go back and check tape. That's
not what I saw. That's not what we saw. We
saw thirty front We saw stand up outside linebacker. We
saw Jack Kelly on the edge. Two point. We saw
a new c the news has got the juice.
Speaker 1: Two point.
Speaker 2: We saw a plethora of different player personnel implementations. You
saw a decent amount of Nickel, yes, right, but not
not just the the the Coylewiteham lineage four two five. Sorry,
that's not it. Not it. K Pop congratulations. K Pop
has got the opportunity. Can't wait to see what he
does with it. Here in twenty twenty six and beyond,
we'll go to break, don't go anywhere. Still plenty to
get to. On a Wednesday, January seventh edition of Cougar Sports,
here on your Uti es Ben ready on Network one
three nine ninety eight point three