Speaker 1: All right, what's good?
Speaker 2: Drives Tuesday afternoon, sixteen minutes past the hour of two o'clock.
Speaker 1: A cold front as hits a lake. I don't know
Speaker 1: if you notice.
Speaker 2: Past three or four days it has been frigid and
Speaker 2: it is today as well.
Speaker 1: Happy Tuesday to you.
Speaker 2: Got a lot to do on the program, and as
Speaker 2: it is every single day, it's going to have you along.
Speaker 1: For the ride.
Speaker 2: My name is Spence Check. It's I host this radio show.
Speaker 2: That young man is Porter Larceny produces it. We are
Speaker 2: back in studio on a Tuesday afternoon after really fun
Speaker 2: remote yesterday. Shout out to my guy Vidal and the
Speaker 2: warehouse saving people a grip of money while getting you
Speaker 2: brand new mattresses, sofas, vetting faces and the like. Hopefully
Speaker 2: we'll be back out there soon, but good to be
Speaker 2: back in studio with a lot to do on the
Speaker 2: program today. Ohio State is your college football national champ.
Speaker 2: We have the final AP and the final CIP polls
Speaker 2: BYU represented Utah Sadley was not now surprise, there some
Speaker 2: big twelve teams in the final AP in the final
Speaker 2: CFP poll, and then we'll do a little look at
Speaker 2: with the way too early top twenty five polls that
Speaker 2: are out, it's probably hard to expect Utah being ranked.
Speaker 2: I don't think that's breaking news BYU will probably be
Speaker 2: a top twenty team somewhere, maybe fifteen through twenty. They
Speaker 2: came in at number thirteen in the AP, number seventeen
Speaker 2: in the CFP poll. So do some college football on
Speaker 2: the show today, you know, yesterday, talking about the game
Speaker 2: last night, I wondered loud if Notre Dame could make
Speaker 2: it a fair fight, and I'm not, honestly, I'm not
Speaker 2: sure that they did. They punched back there at the end,
Speaker 2: they were nearly able to cover the spread, and there
Speaker 2: were a couple of, as they say in soccer, hearts
Speaker 2: and mouths moments if you were an Ohio State fan.
Speaker 2: But ultimately it didn't feel like Ohio State was ever
Speaker 2: really in danger after they countered that first big Notre
Speaker 2: Dame drive with just boom, boom, boom, three straight drives
Speaker 2: with touchdowns. So we'll do some college football program today.
Speaker 2: The Utah Jazz took a historic l last night against
Speaker 2: the New Orleans Pelicans. It was the biggest comeback in
Speaker 2: Pelicans history. And it's just great news, such great news.
Speaker 2: So we'll do some NBA. Able to do some jazz
Speaker 2: on the program today, mainly college football, little NFL as well.
Speaker 2: Ben Johnson to Chicago, What's next in New York. AFC
Speaker 2: NFC championship games coming up during conference championship weekend on
Speaker 2: Sunday of this week, and we'll have the games on
Speaker 2: this radio station. By U basketball kind of a sneaky
Speaker 2: Big one tonight at Colorado. Colorado has not won a
Speaker 2: Big twelve game and BYU. I'll say this is kind
Speaker 2: of a must win ultimately for BYU because they have
Speaker 2: not won a road game.
Speaker 1: They're two and four in Big twelve play.
Speaker 2: In case you missed it, the Utah men's basketball game
Speaker 2: was moved to tomorrow at four o'clock. So we have
Speaker 2: a very short show here in the afternoon tomorrow to
Speaker 2: make way for some Utah bas on the program.
Speaker 1: So a lot to do on the show.
Speaker 2: Good guest list, get you guys through this chili Chili
Speaker 2: Tuesday afternoon here in downtown Salt Lake City, Utah. We'll
Speaker 2: start things off today with Roxy Bernstein. Now, Roxy one
Speaker 2: of our favorites from the Pac twelve network. He has
Speaker 2: a beef with Courtney Cox it's a real thing. It's
Speaker 2: a bit I can't let go. We'll do some college
Speaker 2: football with Roxy. But he was in town on Saturday
Speaker 2: to call the Utah BYU basketball game, and I saw
Speaker 2: him from a distance, couldn't make it down to say hello,
Speaker 2: and so when I saw that he was doing the game,
Speaker 2: reached out to porter and get him on and so
Speaker 2: we were able to do that today. Matt Brown, our
Speaker 2: buddy from Extra Points, who was on the grounds in
Speaker 2: Atlanta for the CFP Final, So we'll see how that
Speaker 2: was for him and his thoughts on the current state
Speaker 2: of college football, and we'll go from there as far
Speaker 2: as Matt coming on on the three o'clock hour. Jim
Speaker 2: Jeffries stand up comic. If you're a fan of this show,
Speaker 2: first of all, thank you. Second of all, you know
Speaker 2: that our buddy Keith Stubbs and Wise Guys Comedy, we
Speaker 2: always reach out to them to say if anybody's rolling through,
Speaker 2: we'd love.
Speaker 1: To get to know them.
Speaker 2: We've had a bunch of big time stand up comics
Speaker 2: on the program, Michael Rappaport and Studio. We keep going
Speaker 2: down the list. Obviously, Jaoe Covan has become a friend
Speaker 2: of the show. I'm a big Jim Jefferies fan. His
Speaker 2: stand up comedy is not necessarily sports talk radio friendly,
Speaker 2: so we'll see if we can get weird with Jim
Speaker 2: but not lose the show. Coming up to four o'clock,
Speaker 2: then Mike Sanford junior, former college football player and coach
Speaker 2: will stop by to do a little more college football,
Speaker 2: mostly college football on the show today with Scotia of
Speaker 2: College Hoops and NBA Utah Hockey Club as well. So
Speaker 2: we'll get to as much as we as we possibly
Speaker 2: can on the program today with Roxy Bernstein with Matt Brown,
Speaker 2: with Jim Jefferies, with Mike Stanford Junior, me Spence checkets
Speaker 2: all of you the great listeners on a Tuesday, and
Speaker 2: that guy por Larson produces the show.
Speaker 3: All right, did notre Dame make that a fair fight?
Speaker 3: I mean not really, not really a fair fight. They
Speaker 3: as you said, they a few punches and that came
Speaker 3: in the form of literally a punch out late in
Speaker 3: the game that gave them the ball and you know,
Speaker 3: an eight point deficit. They they had a one possession
Speaker 3: game late in that in that matchup, right, so you
Speaker 3: have to give them credit for making a game of it,
Speaker 3: making it, you know, not a blowout, but early on
Speaker 3: it did look like it was going to be that way.
Speaker 3: Spence and I don't know that I ever really felt
Speaker 3: like the result was in doubt once Ohio.
Speaker 1: State really really got going.
Speaker 3: And you know, credit to them, man, they they played
Speaker 3: really really well on a college football championship month.
Speaker 1: No doubt about that, no doubt about that.
Speaker 2: So let's get two eights. Our first guest will be
Speaker 2: Roxy Bernstein. But before Roxy rolls, by courtesy of our
Speaker 2: good friends, you're good friends too at Standard Restaurant Supply.
Speaker 2: You want to stop shop for all of your tailgate needs,
Speaker 2: either online or their convenient location here in downtown Salt
Speaker 2: Lake City, Utah.
Speaker 1: It is time now for your opening tip.
Speaker 4: Welcome to the Drive with Spence Check it's on Utah's
Speaker 4: number one sports talk. Now into the studio of ESPN
Speaker 4: seven hundred to set the scene for the show.
Speaker 1: The opening tip of.
Speaker 4: The Drive is brought to you by Standard Restaurant Supply,
Speaker 4: your one stop shop to build the best tailgate in town.
Speaker 4: Standard Restaurant Supply thirty five hundred Southwest Temple.
Speaker 2: So the first twelve team expanded CFP Playoff format culminated
Speaker 2: last night in Atlanta at the Mercedes Benz Dome. It's
Speaker 2: a Ohio State take care of Notre Dame. Thirty four
Speaker 2: to twenty three. Really wasn't that close. Ohio State responded
Speaker 2: to that great initial drive from Notre Dame. Notre Dame
Speaker 2: came out of the gates and did exactly what most.
Speaker 1: People thought they had to do.
Speaker 2: Start quickly, but control the clock and keep Ohio State
Speaker 2: off the field. And it was like a super super
Speaker 2: long drive to start out the game that ended up
Speaker 2: in a touchdown and kind of looking around going okay, well,
Speaker 2: maybe Marcus Freeman and the fiighty and Iers can make
Speaker 2: this thing interesting.
Speaker 1: The Ohio State response was just perfect. Boom boom boom.
Speaker 2: Three possessions, all touchdowns, and they were not big hits.
Speaker 2: They were simply long, sustained drives that allowed the Buckeys,
Speaker 2: in my opinion, to basically put this thing away at halftime.
Speaker 2: As we talked about yesterday, Notre Dame is not built
Speaker 2: to come back once they go down by a couple
Speaker 2: of scores.
Speaker 1: It's just tough to picture them coming back. They're just
Speaker 1: not a high powered offensive team.
Speaker 2: Although Riley Leonard I thought last night showed some things
Speaker 2: potentially that not a lot of people had seen this
Speaker 2: year because they are a classic Notre Dame, great defensive front,
Speaker 2: you know, slow down the game and run the football
Speaker 2: with their quarterback mostly. And last night we didn't see
Speaker 2: any of Jeremiah Love, surprising a lot of people. It
Speaker 2: was really Riley Leonard and that's about it. Notre Dame
Speaker 2: did throw some punches late to make it somewhat interesting.
Speaker 2: It was an eleven point win for Ohio State. The
Speaker 2: spread ended up being eight point five, so Ohio State
Speaker 2: won and they covered. And you know, the ride of
Speaker 2: Ryan Day certainly is something that has to be talked about.
Speaker 1: This was a guy who has.
Speaker 2: As you know, little As like three weeks ago, there
Speaker 2: seemed to be a lot of conversation about whether or
Speaker 2: not he was going to keep that job, which is
Speaker 2: wild to me when you think about where he is
Speaker 2: at now on the pantheon of college football coaches, one
Speaker 2: of three current coaches to win a national championship, a
Speaker 2: better win percentage than Jim Tressel, the Sweater vest bro,
Speaker 2: and a better S and P index than Urban Meyer.
Speaker 2: I mean, he he's the fifth Ohio State coach and
Speaker 2: win a national championship, and he's one of the top
Speaker 2: three all time in win percentage period in college football.
Speaker 2: It is the power of not being able to beat
Speaker 2: your rival, and I talked about this with Sean Like
Speaker 2: coach Wit spanked Bronco more often than not, like Bronco,
Speaker 2: ment a.
Speaker 1: Lo had a tough time beating Utah.
Speaker 2: It's not like he never did it, but because Bronco,
Speaker 2: you know, ten win seasons bringing BYU football back to
Speaker 2: respectability after Gary Crowton left behind what was a clean
Speaker 2: up job after led Zeppelin Party. I didn't think Bronco
Speaker 2: was ever in danger of losing that job. He ended
Speaker 2: up leaving on his own accord and I get losing
Speaker 2: to Michigan four straight times, but ultimately Ohio State, in
Speaker 2: my opinion, showed people that when they were playing top
Speaker 2: shelf they were the best team in college football. Yes,
Speaker 2: apparently a twenty five million dollar or so payroll can help,
Speaker 2: but this run through the CFP, they had a tough,
Speaker 2: tough route and they ended up essentially in my opinion,
Speaker 2: not really being challenged. Smoked Tennessee, smoked Oregon the team
Speaker 2: that stayed clean during the regular season. They had a
Speaker 2: couple of self inflicted wounds that allowed that Texas game
Speaker 2: to be closer than I thought it should have been.
Speaker 2: And like I said, I felt like that game last
Speaker 2: night was basically over at halftime. So congratulations of Ohio
Speaker 2: State and some interesting things about the way that they
Speaker 2: have built this roster. I mean, you know, the attention
Speaker 2: is on that twenty to twenty five million dollar price
Speaker 2: tag for this group, but ultimately the majority of that
Speaker 2: money went to the players that they had on the
Speaker 2: roster already for the most part, not everybody.
Speaker 1: Obviously.
Speaker 2: They brought in a couple of very talented safety that a
Speaker 2: safety that they brought in via the transfer portal, that
Speaker 2: unbelievable freshman wide receiver, they bring in a quarterback via
Speaker 2: the transfer portal, But essentially in the trenches on defense,
Speaker 2: these are players that have played in Ohio State for
Speaker 2: a long long time, recruited out of high school and
Speaker 2: then came through and played. Some of them played more
Speaker 2: than fifty college football games. And so that's kind of
Speaker 2: good news when you look at it through the prism
Speaker 2: of the Utes, who have their entire offensive lineback, a
Speaker 2: defense that nobody's going to question, even with a couple
Speaker 2: of really big time players taken off in Kiata, Todda
Speaker 2: Austin and Camera Calhoun means there's a lot of pressure
Speaker 2: on Devin Dampier, who Jason Beck essentially said as the
Speaker 2: starting quarterback on this show a week ago. We'll do
Speaker 2: some more of this throughout the course of the show,
Speaker 2: but we'll catch a quick break how.
Speaker 1: I got Matt Brown on the show today.
Speaker 2: Stand up comic Jim Jeffries, who will be playing Wise Guys,
Speaker 2: is going to stop by, and then Mike Samford Junior
Speaker 2: will roll by as well to talk some college football.
Speaker 1: But on this radio show, the rem.
Speaker 2: Brands are saved for one person, and one person only.
Speaker 1: Of course, I'll be there for you.
Speaker 2: The theme song of the Horrible Horrible television show back
Speaker 2: in the nineties called Friends, it means it's time for
Speaker 2: Roxy Burnston. You guys know that by now. Roxy on
Speaker 2: a Tuesday, sir, how are you?
Speaker 5: I will be there for you, sence. I can't say
Speaker 5: that i'd be there for Courtney Cox, but I would
Speaker 5: be there for you now.
Speaker 2: We don't need to we don't need to make it
Speaker 2: weird on a Tuesday. I know when you hear the
Speaker 2: name Courtney Cox, it just your your ears get red,
Speaker 2: you start feeling yeah, I know. Well, let's be honest.
Speaker 2: I mean, enough time has passed. That was a that
Speaker 2: was a dumb That was a dumb show. It was
Speaker 2: a bad TV show that co opted the thoughts of
Speaker 2: people that just are simpletons that didn't like a intellectual
Speaker 2: television show like Seinfelder for Honestly.
Speaker 5: The show was pretty good. I could get past the
Speaker 5: personal issues.
Speaker 2: Fine, well, I was trying to have your back. Never mind,
Speaker 2: awesome show.
Speaker 1: How you been man, Thank you for the time as good.
Speaker 4: I'm good. You know.
Speaker 5: I was in town over the weekend. I had that
Speaker 5: overtime thriller at the Huntsman Center, and I'm on my
Speaker 5: Utah week with that game. Saturday. I have BYU Tonight,
Speaker 5: I'm in Boulder for the game against the Buffaloes. Thursday,
Speaker 5: i have the Hockey Club for ESPN against Minnesota, and
Speaker 5: then I'm back in your great state on Saturday. I'm
Speaker 5: double dipping. I have the Utah Women against BYU women
Speaker 5: down in Provo, and then the nightcap I'm double dipping
Speaker 5: on Saturday with Cincinnati against BYU.
Speaker 1: Wow. Well, never a dull moment.
Speaker 2: And Roxy Bernstein, the unofficial voice of Utah Sports.
Speaker 1: I love it. Well.
Speaker 2: I was actually I was at the Huntsman Center on
Speaker 2: Saturday night and I looked down. I looked down. I
Speaker 2: had some pretty good seats. I was about five rows
Speaker 2: behind you. But I did not have my credential. And
Speaker 2: I'm not going to be the dude that says, don't
Speaker 2: you know who I am? So I could not come
Speaker 2: down and say hello. But when I saw that you
Speaker 2: were on the call, say again, sorry.
Speaker 5: You could have yeah, but I don't I know, yeah,
Speaker 5: I know him.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but Roxy, I'm already unlikable enough on paper. Like
Speaker 2: you know, I'm well aware of how unlikeable I'm on paper.
Speaker 2: So I don't want to, you know, I don't want
Speaker 2: to further the narrative. So I simply texted Porter. I said,
Speaker 2: let's get our guy. And I wanted to start with
Speaker 2: Saturday night. And as you know, I was a student
Speaker 2: at Utah in the late nineties when their head coach
Speaker 2: was named Rick Majaris, and our weeks were playing around
Speaker 2: Utah basketball.
Speaker 1: Games when I was a student there.
Speaker 2: And I'll say, and look, Larry Chriscoviak had a couple
Speaker 2: of good teams, you know, Jim Boylan had an NCAA team.
Speaker 2: I'm not saying the building hasn't had one night like
Speaker 2: that in twenty seven years or whatever, but it really
Speaker 2: did feel like an atmosphere that reminded me of when
Speaker 2: I was watching Andre Miller and Keith van Horn and
Speaker 2: Mike Thleiak and Britton Johnson.
Speaker 1: So let's start with the environment.
Speaker 2: You travel all over the place for a college basketball game.
Speaker 2: To kind of feel and sound like that at the
Speaker 2: Huntsman Centers kind of war in my heart.
Speaker 1: What did you make of that crowd?
Speaker 5: Well, as you know, over the years, I have done
Speaker 5: a ton of games at the Huntson Center, and I
Speaker 5: think I've had a more energetic, boisterous crowd that was
Speaker 5: into it from even before the game started like we
Speaker 5: had Saturday night. That was an electric atmosphere. And I've
Speaker 5: done BYU Utah games there in Salt Lake City before
Speaker 5: and that was just a tremendous atmosphere for college basketball
Speaker 5: and it was great to see. And the Utah fans
Speaker 5: got rewarded with that overtime win, a huge w for
Speaker 5: Craig Smith in his program. But it was great to
Speaker 5: see that again. I've seen good crowds and full houses
Speaker 5: at the Huntsman Center before, but of all the games
Speaker 5: I've been to, they're up at the Huntson Center. That
Speaker 5: was probably the best in terms of atmosphere and fan
Speaker 5: engagement that I've seen, probably in all the years I've
Speaker 5: been going to games at the University of Utah.
Speaker 2: I agree a lot of fun and there were a
Speaker 2: good number of BYU fans, but not as many as
Speaker 2: I thought, because the rumors prior to the game was,
Speaker 2: you know, BYU fans, we're gonna grab all the secondary
Speaker 2: market tickets in the upper Bowl, and because Utah fans
Speaker 2: at times don't fill that lower Bowl, there was gonna
Speaker 2: be a lot of blue. There was some, not a ton,
Speaker 2: But let's get into the game and I'll tell you
Speaker 2: what roxy you like to start the season. When we're
Speaker 2: doing kind of a little preseason stuff to preview the
Speaker 2: Big twelve schedule, I looked at January eighteenth BYU here
Speaker 2: in Salt Lake and I'm like, well, that's probably going
Speaker 2: to be an ass kicking. And I don't know if
Speaker 2: anybody would argue that Craig has near the talent that
Speaker 2: Kevin does. I mean, reports are Jegor Demon is a
Speaker 2: seven figure nil kid and last Jonathan Cavoni, Matt Mack
Speaker 2: I looked at he was number seven off the board.
Speaker 2: Canon Catching's is all supposed to supposed to be a
Speaker 2: first round prospect, although I don't really see it with
Speaker 2: him just yet. But I don't feel like Craig has
Speaker 2: near the talent Kevin did. And certainly home court advantage helps.
Speaker 2: And you know, had a couple of performances from some
Speaker 2: players that were quite frankly things we hadn't seen before.
Speaker 1: But what stood out most to you.
Speaker 2: About the way the game played out that allowed Utah
Speaker 2: to get that win on overtime.
Speaker 5: Well, first off, I explained a little bit more for
Speaker 5: free flowing offense, and it didn't really come to fruition
Speaker 5: Saturday night. With the way Utah have been playing this year,
Speaker 5: second in the country and assists Spence, the ball has
Speaker 5: been whipping and moving around for the youths this year
Speaker 5: and it didn't really happen, probably because BYU, I think
Speaker 5: had it well scouted and they do for things, so
Speaker 5: I think they took that aspect away and tried to
Speaker 5: limit the movement and they were with the physical battle
Speaker 5: between the two, which I did anticipate just because of
Speaker 5: the rivalry, and that was the one thing I thought
Speaker 5: we'd get a score in the eighties. We did, it
Speaker 5: was overtime in the low seventies. But it was a
Speaker 5: fierce competitive battle from the outset, and I was really
Speaker 5: impressed with the toughness that really both team showed, and
Speaker 5: in Utah trying to defend the home floor crowd certainly
Speaker 5: was into it with Kavakata playing on the other side
Speaker 5: at starting for Utah, and it was really just an
Speaker 5: intense game from the outset. That's the one thing that
Speaker 5: really stood out to me is just how locked in
Speaker 5: both teams were and how physically intense this game was.
Speaker 2: I imagine you had a chance to catch up with
Speaker 2: Craig before the game.
Speaker 6: Yeah, yes, oh yeah, I saw.
Speaker 5: I was there shoot around. In fact, I was talking
Speaker 5: to him for about five minutes about twenty minutes of
Speaker 5: four tip over the hallway. So yeah, I have had
Speaker 5: a great relationship with Craig going back to his days
Speaker 5: in Utah State.
Speaker 2: So he's like the best dude as you know, and
Speaker 2: I'm pulling hard for him his son bountiful lum Rock stand.
Speaker 2: I know you don't have time, but when you have
Speaker 2: time later you can look up the nineteen ninety seven
Speaker 2: Bountiful Braize basketball team, the one state. People around here
Speaker 2: believe it's the best high school team in the history.
Speaker 2: I don't say that, even though I mean I may
Speaker 2: have been on the team, but I don't say that.
Speaker 1: It's not me.
Speaker 2: And so his son played for the same high school
Speaker 2: coach I did, so I used to run into him
Speaker 2: at some of those games, and I pull for him,
Speaker 2: and I felt so happy for him with this win,
Speaker 2: and he's had good wins in the past out of
Speaker 2: win over Oregon, and so we're hoping ultimately this is
Speaker 2: not only a moment in time, but can you shed
Speaker 2: a little light on some of the portions of your
Speaker 2: conversations with him and his thoughts on this group and
Speaker 2: what they could potentially do this year.
Speaker 5: First off, as you know when you talk to his fence,
Speaker 5: he's always upbeat, he's always positive, and the way he
Speaker 5: looks at things get so much energy and it's infectious,
Speaker 5: and I think his team feels that every time that
Speaker 5: they're on the practice floor, they're on this floor for
Speaker 5: shooter round, get ready for games in locker room, he
Speaker 5: gets them going and.
Speaker 6: They feed off it.
Speaker 7: And you're right they don't.
Speaker 5: Have the talent at BYU does, but Craig finds a
Speaker 5: way to get the most out of his talent, utilize
Speaker 5: the pieces. And the other thing about Craig is he
Speaker 5: recruits that style that he wants to play with the
Speaker 5: ball movement. Yes, Gate Madisen is a great shooter from
Speaker 5: the outside is going through a little bit of a
Speaker 5: funk right now, but he's also a willing passer. Last
Speaker 5: and lovering at center is a center that's averaging two
Speaker 5: and a half assists a game. It's a style that
Speaker 5: he recruits to and he wants to play, and to me,
Speaker 5: it's an aesthetically pleasing style, a putch because of the
Speaker 5: ball movement and how free flowing they go, and they
Speaker 5: shoot threes and he's excited. Look, they know this transition
Speaker 5: is not going to be easy the last ten years.
Speaker 5: I don't think anybody will give you the argument that
Speaker 5: the Big twelve has been the best league in the
Speaker 5: country this year.
Speaker 8: It's not.
Speaker 5: The SEC has shown that they are the best basketball
Speaker 5: league so far here, but I think the Big Twelve
Speaker 5: is right behind it. To be honest with you, With
Speaker 5: the way this league is balanced, you look at teams
Speaker 5: like Iowa State, Kansas, Baylor, after a rough opening to
Speaker 5: the season, has come on. There's a lot of really
Speaker 5: good basketball. Arizona's figured things out and it makes it
Speaker 5: challenging when you're in this league. And Houston's looked to
Speaker 5: me legitimate Final fourteen and that's now the competition level
Speaker 5: with Utah needs to embrace and I think they have
Speaker 5: and they stack up physically when you look at him,
Speaker 5: they look the part. And on Saturday night, it was
Speaker 5: a challenge to go up against BYU. They're on the
Speaker 5: whole floor and it seemed the emphasis in the second
Speaker 5: half was be physical, go inside, and that's where they
Speaker 5: took this game from BYU, with the physicality that Ezrasore
Speaker 5: played with and lost and lover and the way they
Speaker 5: were able to attack BYU on the interior.
Speaker 2: So I saw Craig on the sidelines of the Utah
Speaker 2: BYU football game and he was there to kind of
Speaker 2: do the basketball coach thing. It's like, hey, well you're
Speaker 2: all here, come see us play. And he told me
Speaker 2: about Ezra at the game and he said, you know,
Speaker 2: they were really excited about him East Carolina transfer, and he's.
Speaker 1: Had some personal stuff. Craig alluded to it after the game.
Speaker 2: He went home after the death of his grand and
Speaker 2: I got to say, Roxy, you're old enough to remember
Speaker 2: because I made this reference. And I think most young
Speaker 2: listeners are probably looking at me with eight heads. There's
Speaker 2: like a little Adrian Danley to this kid's game because
Speaker 2: he's not six ' eight, Roxy, He's not okay, he's
Speaker 2: listed at six to eight.
Speaker 1: He's like six ' five sixty six.
Speaker 2: But his the myriad of pump fix, the ability to
Speaker 2: finish with both hands. He's a better athlete than ad
Speaker 2: was because the knock on your head, but finishes with
Speaker 2: the right hand, finishes with the left hand. And Kevin
Speaker 2: threw everybody at him. He threw for foose tray or
Speaker 2: he at him. He threw ke Bacade at him. And
Speaker 2: it didn't matter who was guarding Ezra Sar. He just
Speaker 2: got whatever he wanted. And I didn't know he had
Speaker 2: that in him. And I know he had a nice
Speaker 2: game against TCU, but that was next level. What are
Speaker 2: your thoughts on what you saw from Ezra?
Speaker 5: It seemed like he was a different player in the
Speaker 5: second half Saturday night, maybe because the emphasis to get
Speaker 5: him the basketball, but he was unstoppable. And he went
Speaker 5: to town. B what you knew what he was going
Speaker 5: to do, and they couldn't stop him. And every shot
Speaker 5: was either right at the rim or within five c
Speaker 5: And it's not like he yet it on the perimeter
Speaker 5: and nailing threes or even hitting the mid rage jumper.
Speaker 5: It was all attack, attack, attack, and he's got that
Speaker 5: to his game, that toughness, strength and a nice compliment
Speaker 5: to loss and Lovering who isn't really your low post
Speaker 5: big man. He's more of a face up and looking
Speaker 5: to pass and facilitate, where Ezra just completely just game
Speaker 5: over in the second half. Two points at halftime was
Speaker 5: a non factor for the most part in the first half,
Speaker 5: but certainly in the second half. In in overtime it was
Speaker 5: a point of emphasis. Then they had to sweat it
Speaker 5: out with all the free throws they missed down the stretch.
Speaker 5: And that's one thing that concerns me going forward, Bence,
Speaker 5: is their struggles at the salal line and guys like
Speaker 5: Leering Ezra, who have the ball a lot and are attacking,
Speaker 5: get to the line a lot, but they miss a
Speaker 5: lot of free throws and it became shaky down the
Speaker 5: stretch for Utah.
Speaker 2: So before we get over to BYU, because I do
Speaker 2: have some questions about Kevin's team. I was really happy
Speaker 2: for Hunter Air and who is a BYU transfer?
Speaker 1: And it's fun.
Speaker 2: You know you mentioned Gabe and his shooting struggles. I
Speaker 2: will say this, I thought BYU did a remarkable job
Speaker 2: on Gabe. You know, they started with Mowatt mag on him.
Speaker 2: Richie Saunders chased him around for a while, Dawson Baker
Speaker 2: chased him around for a while, but every single screen
Speaker 2: he came off of BYU was ready. They blitzed him
Speaker 2: this and two. So he just didn't have a lot
Speaker 2: of space. And he's the type of shooter like Steve Kerr.
Speaker 2: And I'm before people get crazy, I'm not saying Gabe
Speaker 2: Matt's and Steph Curry everybody calmed down, But Steve Kerr
Speaker 2: always talks about I want Steph to take five or
Speaker 2: six horrible shots a game because when he gets going,
Speaker 2: you know, it's unstoppable. And when Gabe gets going, he's
Speaker 2: one of the elite shooters in this conference. So I'm
Speaker 2: fine at times with a fadeaway three to get the feel.
Speaker 2: But I thought Gabe was really mature with his ability
Speaker 2: to handle the space and the gravity effect allowed some
Speaker 2: open shots, but nobody could really capitalize until Hunter came
Speaker 2: in and knock down a couple of massive threes. He
Speaker 2: did airball free throw, but he stepped up and hit
Speaker 2: three free throws and his nine points during the final
Speaker 2: portion of the game, both in regulation on and overtime.
Speaker 2: Utah doesn't win that game without Hunter Rickson, so I
Speaker 2: was really happy for him.
Speaker 5: Yeah, no question, and the clutch plays you alluded to,
Speaker 5: and with Mattson, he needs to be a volume shooter
Speaker 5: on this team, and he is their best shooter. Okay,
Speaker 5: maybe not percentage wise, but he's got to be the
Speaker 5: guy that they look to to take the big shot.
Speaker 5: And that's what Craig's getting at with him being a
Speaker 5: volume shooter and those tough, challenging shots, those fadeaway threes
Speaker 5: end of a shot clock, when he's got a fire
Speaker 5: and he's off balance and falling out of bounce. Those
Speaker 5: are the type of things that Gabe needs to do
Speaker 5: for that team. And when you look around this group,
Speaker 5: he's the one that's capable of doing that. Shark Jompson
Speaker 5: is more of a creator. He can score. You know,
Speaker 5: other guys on this team there's things they can do,
Speaker 5: but at the end of the day, Gabe has looked
Speaker 5: to as that guy who needs to be the volume shooter.
Speaker 5: And look, he's second in Utah history and three winners
Speaker 5: may and that's why they're going to keep going to
Speaker 5: him because he's not afraid of the big moment either.
Speaker 2: Indeed, indeed, before I get to bring him young, What
Speaker 2: are you willing to say about Utah's Big Twelve chances
Speaker 2: this year? They're not winning the conference, but they've won
Speaker 2: three straight games. Could Craig somehow, some way get this
Speaker 2: team in the NCAA Tournament.
Speaker 5: I wouldn't rule it out because of what you alluded to.
Speaker 5: They've won three straight games and if you can come
Speaker 5: up with some clutch wins along the way, they're eleven
Speaker 5: and six overall to five hundred league. They got a
Speaker 5: tough game with Houston coming up, which on the road,
Speaker 5: and I think I think Houston's really good Spence. I
Speaker 5: had them early, and I'm so impressed with the way
Speaker 5: that they play. They're so tough mentally and physically. They
Speaker 5: just pound you and they beat you up, and to me,
Speaker 5: they're the team to beat in the Big Twelve. I
Speaker 5: think as good as Iowa State is and Kansas certainly
Speaker 5: over the years. I don't think this is a great
Speaker 5: Kansas team. For Bill Selp, I think they're really good.
Speaker 5: But to me, I think Houston is the best team
Speaker 5: in his league.
Speaker 2: I agree with that, And you know, we'll see how
Speaker 2: Utah stacks up. But I'm not going to take a
Speaker 2: ton away from that game because Houston might win by
Speaker 2: thirty and you know, ultimately, I don't think it would
Speaker 2: change a whole lot because there's a gap between those
Speaker 2: two teams all right.
Speaker 1: Over to BYU.
Speaker 2: And here's the thing, Like, you know, Kevin Young gets
Speaker 2: that job to a lot of celebration, a lot of
Speaker 2: a lot of BYU fans, you know, really really excited
Speaker 2: about the potential.
Speaker 1: And Kevin comes from the NBA.
Speaker 2: His bench is littered with assistant coaches that have NBA experience.
Speaker 2: They bring in an NBA strength and conditioning staff and
Speaker 2: nutritionness from the Phoenix Suns, and suddenly the collective starts
Speaker 2: paying a lot of money to get talent. I reference
Speaker 2: Diego Demon, who reportedly is a seven figure kid ken
Speaker 2: and catching is a lot of people think he's a
Speaker 2: first round prospect. Is making good money aged the bands,
Speaker 2: is on his way to play for Kevin next year.
Speaker 2: But you know the deal, Roxy, when you clearly have
Speaker 2: the talent on paper, you got to show you can coach.
Speaker 1: And he hasn't this before.
Speaker 2: This is his first go round and they're obviously close,
Speaker 2: but the fact of the matter is they're own to
Speaker 2: five and quad one opportunities, they're own four in games
Speaker 2: decided by five points or less, and they have not
Speaker 2: won a road game. They have to win tonight. What
Speaker 2: stands out most to you is you watch this early
Speaker 2: project that Kevin is tasked with leading.
Speaker 5: Well, it is a work in progress and it's different
Speaker 5: the way Mark Pope went about it. And certainly that
Speaker 5: offense was fun to watch as all the threes they
Speaker 5: shot last year. This is the team of still making threes,
Speaker 5: but they go about it a different way. And you know, Demon,
Speaker 5: he hasn't been the same since he hurt his knee
Speaker 5: in early December and that game against Providence, and I
Speaker 5: think they're hoping at some point it clicks back in
Speaker 5: for him. But you could see the talent in terms
Speaker 5: of his ability to create for others. He is not
Speaker 5: a scorer as of yet. He clearly needs to get stronger.
Speaker 5: But it's a talented team and right now, Catchings, for example,
Speaker 5: I think is going through a confidence is and that's
Speaker 5: a problem for them. He was really well early, but
Speaker 5: the last five games he has really struggled and trying
Speaker 5: to find his way again. And I think it's more
Speaker 5: mental than it is physical right now for him, Spence,
Speaker 5: and the talent's there, we see it, but he's got
Speaker 5: to get back on track and it's supportant for BYU
Speaker 5: that he does. And the interesting thing about them, Spence
Speaker 5: is I've talked to a few coaches and some NBA people.
Speaker 7: They think Richie.
Speaker 5: Saunders might be an NBA player. That the things that
Speaker 5: he does, how quickly he gets his shot off, the
Speaker 5: toughness that he plays with, that the energy he provides. Look,
Speaker 5: I'm not saying he's going to be maybe a regular
Speaker 5: rotation top guy in the NBA, but there is a
Speaker 5: lot of people that feel, including some coaches around the
Speaker 5: Big twelve, that Richie Saunders is an empty player.
Speaker 1: Well Mark badly wanted him at Kentucky.
Speaker 2: You know, he had a good offer to take off
Speaker 2: to play for his former head coach.
Speaker 1: And he's a good player.
Speaker 2: I mean, he means a lot to them, and I
Speaker 2: think they'll figure it out because that talent is undeniable
Speaker 2: and I just don't know if I can coach. I'm
Speaker 2: not trying to be critical here, but this is his
Speaker 2: first time. When you have the talent, we're going to
Speaker 2: talk about the coaching. Let's take advantage of the final
Speaker 2: few minutes to get a little hockey in roxy as.
Speaker 1: We are now.
Speaker 2: We are now hockey Town, USA. Of course, with the
Speaker 2: Utah Hockey Club here and then to Detroit. Well they
Speaker 2: might have a claim to it. We don't because we're
Speaker 2: still very early in our experiences. But you know, I've
Speaker 2: been to four or five games. It's so fun. I
Speaker 2: love watching that sport live and the NHL Live is
Speaker 2: something else to watch. These guys do what they do
Speaker 2: on skates forwards and backwards, like go out and try
Speaker 2: and skate in the straight line.
Speaker 1: See how that goes for you.
Speaker 2: But they've been up, they have been down, they have
Speaker 2: been up, they have been down. They've won a couple
Speaker 2: of straight games. And you're gonna call a game of
Speaker 2: theirs this week. What stands out as you do your prep,
Speaker 2: as you learn about the Utah Hockey Club, what stands
Speaker 2: out most of you.
Speaker 5: Well, right now, it's the play of the top line
Speaker 5: and basically the connection that Cooley Keller have. Keller last
Speaker 5: night coming back after getting popped in the eye and
Speaker 5: eat it. Stitches had the big game, and well if
Speaker 5: Utah's had it home for some reason, they played well
Speaker 5: on the road. Marino coming back I think is a
Speaker 5: boost for them on the back end. They need Surgachev
Speaker 5: back going again, and Connor Ingram being back certainly helps.
Speaker 5: But the top line right now, the way that they
Speaker 5: are rolling, even with gun Through being out. But the
Speaker 5: play of Keller and Cooley right now, it's just fun
Speaker 5: to watch those two. They have a chemistry, a connection
Speaker 5: right now that's really fun to see.
Speaker 2: Do you think as we sit here today they have
Speaker 2: fallen a little bit, but there's still somewhat in the
Speaker 2: mix for the wild card. They've got forty seven points,
Speaker 2: Calgary has fifty one, Colorado has fifty seven. They've fallen
Speaker 2: behind both Vancouver and Saint Louis. And look, you know,
Speaker 2: Bill Armstrong, I think I mentioned this to you. It
Speaker 2: was I got such a kick out of this. The
Speaker 2: introductory Utah Hockey Club kind of rally press conference included
Speaker 2: mostly players. At the beginning, Spicy Tuna stole the show.
Speaker 2: Fans were going crazy. Coach Torney took the mic, fans
Speaker 2: were going now, and Bill Armstrong took the mike. He's like, hey,
Speaker 2: everybody knows we're rebuilding, right. He's like trying to temper expectations.
Speaker 2: And so, you know, knowing what they were last year
Speaker 2: in Arizona and understanding how young they are, I felt like,
Speaker 2: if they could get a wild card, that would be
Speaker 2: a massive win.
Speaker 1: Do you think they have that in them this year?
Speaker 5: I wouldn't rule it out. He's are they gonna They're
Speaker 5: gonna happen on some home games because, as you know,
Speaker 5: it's been tough sledding for them. Well, for whatever reason,
Speaker 5: if Delta center this year, that has to get corrected
Speaker 5: if they're going to be a playoff team. But the
Speaker 5: interesting thing here down the stretch, and you alluded to
Speaker 5: the days in Arizona, is they haven't been through this
Speaker 5: as far as down the stretch being in a playoff race.
Speaker 5: If they are there, how are they going to handle this?
Speaker 5: And even let's say they don't make it this year, hypothetically,
Speaker 5: the experience of going through this will pay dividends for
Speaker 5: them going forward. But you look at the young core
Speaker 5: of this group and it is a talent group that
Speaker 5: is just going to get better and better. There's a
Speaker 5: lot of talent coming, whether it's in the miners right
Speaker 5: now are still playing in juniors, but they have drafted
Speaker 5: well at least by prospect wise, that the bright future
Speaker 5: if they happen to not make it this year. But
Speaker 5: I wouldn't rule it out with considering this group right now.
Speaker 5: But this is a key stretch for them, and they
Speaker 5: have to find bays to win home games. That was
Speaker 5: a good win against Saint Louis over the weekend in Winnipeg.
Speaker 5: They've got to keep it going and finding ways to
Speaker 5: win on homelights.
Speaker 2: All right, Roxy, before I say you loose, we now
Speaker 2: have a college football national champ in is Ohio State,
Speaker 2: and we now have the first iteration of the twelve
Speaker 2: team expanded CFP behind us, so we can diagnose ultimately
Speaker 2: how we digested it and the change is the need
Speaker 2: to be made. I just kind of wonder, as a
Speaker 2: guy that's covered this thing forever, what do you make
Speaker 2: of this new college football playoff and how we crown
Speaker 2: a national champ.
Speaker 5: I like the fact that they value the conference championship.
Speaker 5: To me, that was important, Spence, that was one of
Speaker 5: the famous for me that I wanted to see if
Speaker 5: they were going forward with the twelve team playoffs, you
Speaker 5: win the Big twelve, you win the ACC in the SEC,
Speaker 5: you should be rewarded with a first round by And
Speaker 5: I also like the fact they rewarded the group of
Speaker 5: five with Boise State. Now do I think Boise State
Speaker 5: was one of the elite teams, know? But I think
Speaker 5: they earned it and so you put them, you give
Speaker 5: them the buy. But now Ohio State, give them credit.
Speaker 5: They had to win four games along the way. They
Speaker 5: smashed Tennessee, they went to the Rose Bowl and they
Speaker 5: beat Oregon, and they won these last two games until Knights,
Speaker 5: And give them credit. They earned this national championship and
Speaker 5: this is the way we should be doing it, deciding
Speaker 5: it on the field. Okay, we had a lot of
Speaker 5: blowouts in the opening round, which stinks because we want
Speaker 5: competitive football. I do believe that going forward will get
Speaker 5: better opening round games. I do see the format expanding
Speaker 5: again at some point, just Spences, we know there's way
Speaker 5: too much money in television and putting these games on,
Speaker 5: So I do since we'll get an expansion. I don't
Speaker 5: know if it'll go to sixteen or what the next
Speaker 5: step will be. But this isn't going backward. You don't
Speaker 5: see playoff fomats move backward. At twelve is too many.
Speaker 5: We're to go down to eight, that's not going to happen,
Speaker 5: and so I'm just anxious to see what the next
Speaker 5: step is. But I do like that we got home games.
Speaker 5: Maybe you make the quarterfinal round home games well, rewarding
Speaker 5: those top four seeds. But I think it's great for
Speaker 5: college football when you get these type of matchups. I
Speaker 5: just wish we had more competitive games, to be honest,
Speaker 5: we only had a handful of them in the playoffs.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm with you there, all right, My friend, always
Speaker 1: appreciate the time.
Speaker 2: Great to catch up, save travels as you are now
Speaker 2: the voice of Utah Sports, and we'll get.
Speaker 1: You on soon, okay, anytime. Man, the great.
Speaker 2: Roxy Bernstein, our old buddy from the PAC twelve network.
Speaker 2: It's funny how many of these broadcasters we met as
Speaker 2: a PAC twelve institution here at vers of Utah. But
Speaker 2: he now does a grip of stuff for ESPN ESPN Radio.
Speaker 2: He is a Heisman voter and one of my favorite
Speaker 2: people that I've met in this business. He is on
Speaker 2: social media at roxy Bernstein is where you find him
Speaker 2: doing some EYU basketball tonight against Colorado, doing some Utah
Speaker 2: Hockey club against the Wild and on Saturday as the
Speaker 2: Utah Women and the BYU Men. So a lot of
Speaker 2: Utah content for a guy Roxy Bernstein. Coming up, I
Speaker 2: will catch break. One hour down, three hours to go.
Speaker 2: Matt Brown college football, college football media member writes a
Speaker 2: great newsletter. He was on the ground in Atlanta, So
Speaker 2: we'll get Tim coming up on the other side. But
Speaker 2: before we catch a break, it's time now for a
Speaker 2: little bit of breaking news. Do we have the worst
Speaker 2: breaking news center in media? I hope so we might.
Speaker 2: It's very newsroom. Aaron Sorkin ish, there's nobody. Usually breaking
Speaker 2: sounders include a vo of a guy being like.
Speaker 1: This is breaking news. Do you want me to do that? Yeah,
Speaker 1: go ahead. You can't put me on the spot. Now
Speaker 1: it's live radio.
Speaker 2: We're on the spot for four hours, so let's fire
Speaker 2: that up and let's do a little Okay, go ahead.
Speaker 1: And now breaking beaves. That really made a big difference. Thanks.
Speaker 1: Real salt Lake has added.
Speaker 2: Brazil Brazilian goalkeeper Raphael Cabral. So that rumor was floated
Speaker 2: out by our guy Tom Bogert. Raphael Cabral Porter, you
Speaker 2: should know that he's really good with the ball at
Speaker 2: his feet.
Speaker 1: Ah yep as a goalkeep yep.
Speaker 2: Thirty four year old Brazilian keeper so Zach McMath is
Speaker 2: having surgery. Gavin Beaver's has been loaned to a Danish
Speaker 2: club RSL.
Speaker 1: Looks like that they're starting keeper Rafael Cabral.
Speaker 2: College football season came into to an end last night
Speaker 2: in Atlanta, Ohio State is your national champ Our next
Speaker 2: guest was on the ground. I believe I saw him
Speaker 2: send out a picture on social media. He's been one
Speaker 2: of our favorites to college football all year long. The
Speaker 2: writer and creator of one of my favorite college football
Speaker 2: newsletters called Extra Points.
Speaker 1: My buddy Matt Brown on a Tuesday. Matt, Happy Tuesday.
Speaker 4: Man.
Speaker 1: You were on the ground in Atlanta last time? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was.
Speaker 6: I just got back to Chicago about twenty minutes ago.
Speaker 7: It was a little bit of a zoo.
Speaker 9: Getting out of town, but.
Speaker 6: I was there and it was a truly excellent experience.
Speaker 7: I think.
Speaker 2: Tell me about that environment, what was the percentage of
Speaker 2: Ohio State fans versus Notred Notre Dame fans And what
Speaker 2: was it like to kind of be on the ground there.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I think it was probably her around sixty percent
Speaker 6: Ohio State, maybe fifty five percent Ohio State. Normally, I
Speaker 6: think in these kind of circumstances, the Ohio State fans
Speaker 6: will generally take over a building, but Notre Dame is
Speaker 6: probably right up there in terms of as large and
Speaker 6: as national of a fan base and one that can
Speaker 6: afford to show the ridiculous amount of money for a ticket.
Speaker 6: I mean to get in the building leading up to
Speaker 6: the game, the tickets were over three thousand dollars to
Speaker 6: go just get at the very top row, easily the
Speaker 6: most expensive championship game ticket in the last last decade
Speaker 6: or so. And when that kind of thing happens, especially
Speaker 6: when you're playing in a really big NFL stadium where
Speaker 6: you have a really high roof and the sound kind
Speaker 6: of moves around differently, I think there's there's always a
Speaker 6: legitimate fear that it becomes more of a sterile, corporate
Speaker 6: environment rather than the more passionate, collegiate focused event that.
Speaker 8: You would expect.
Speaker 6: But I really found this to be a pretty high energy,
Speaker 6: high energy game, high energy crowd. Things kind of began
Speaker 6: to low a little bit in the middle of the
Speaker 6: third quarter when it looked like Ohio State had already
Speaker 6: won the game, but Notre Dame came back pretty quickly,
Speaker 6: and it was it was loud, it was it was,
Speaker 6: it was intense, and the level of relief I would
Speaker 6: say from Ohio State's coaches, their players, their staffers was
Speaker 6: very significant once you get on the ground here, because
Speaker 6: this is not the typical championship journey. The typical championship
Speaker 6: expectations are pressures.
Speaker 9: It's a I think it's it's a complicated ending for
Speaker 9: this team.
Speaker 1: And we'll get there in a moment.
Speaker 2: I have not seen a final number as far as
Speaker 2: the TV ratings go, but as you reference, if it's
Speaker 2: three grand just to get in the building, I would
Speaker 2: imagine that the powers that be in college football, and
Speaker 2: I would imagine when we see the number, the powers
Speaker 2: that be in television are probably going to celebrate this
Speaker 2: twelve team format. Right it feels like it's probably checking
Speaker 2: all the boxes for the people that make the decisions
Speaker 2: about this stuff.
Speaker 6: Oh I think, I think, unquestionably for anybody on the
Speaker 6: financial or business side of college athletics or this industry.
Speaker 6: The first year of this call team playoffs was a massive,
Speaker 6: massive success.
Speaker 7: UH.
Speaker 6: You were able to prove that you could host a
Speaker 6: campus site game on short notice and some notoriously difficult
Speaker 6: to UH to reach UH and and handle the environments right. Like,
Speaker 6: I don't know if any of you guys listening have
Speaker 6: ever been to State College Pennsylvania where Penn State is,
Speaker 6: but there's basically two hotels that it's in the middle
Speaker 6: of nowhere. It's a giant camping trip. They sent one
Speaker 6: hundred thousand people uh on on on the ten days
Speaker 6: notice to pulled off a game. There's not a lot
Speaker 6: of hotels in South.
Speaker 7: Bend, you know, on recruiting visits.
Speaker 6: People typically have to stay in Chicago or Michigan. They
Speaker 6: hosted a playoff game, you had, you had strong attendance,
Speaker 6: strong ratings UH and and improved ratings and and buy
Speaker 6: into the end of the regular season. So there's certainly
Speaker 6: things I think to be tweaked or improved, and those
Speaker 6: are things that the administrators are going to be talking
Speaker 6: about over the next couple of weeks. But I think
Speaker 6: it would be hard to draw up a better bracket,
Speaker 6: better result, better better finale for any of the Bean counters.
Speaker 6: Don't we had this year?
Speaker 1: All right?
Speaker 2: Moving over to the wild ride that it's been for
Speaker 2: Ryan Day, And look, yeah, you know, I don't know
Speaker 2: that I have an accurate frame of reference for how
Speaker 2: intensely passionate, maybe at times crazy Ohio State fans are.
Speaker 2: And I get losing to Michigan four times in a
Speaker 2: row is a really bad look. And I don't know
Speaker 2: how they lost to Michigan this year with how good
Speaker 2: they are, how deep, And I get it, I really do.
Speaker 2: But Ryan Day is a coach that has a better
Speaker 2: winning percentage than Jim Tressel. He has a better SMP
Speaker 2: index than Urban Meyer. He's now one of three current
Speaker 2: coaches that have won a national championship. And it feels
Speaker 2: like if they moved on from him at the age
Speaker 2: of forty five, he could pick his next job. How
Speaker 2: real was the heat around him? And what did this
Speaker 2: run say to people that think he should not be
Speaker 2: in charge there?
Speaker 6: The heat was meaningful. It was not a situation where
Speaker 6: I think he was in danger of Ohio State actively
Speaker 6: terminating the contract. And a large part of that is
Speaker 6: just because his buyout would be would be absolutely prohibitive.
Speaker 6: But the stresses on him and his family there were
Speaker 6: I saw some reports leaving the game that there was
Speaker 6: like extra security around his house after the Michigan game. Uh,
Speaker 6: he gets to that point when you realize like it's
Speaker 6: not worth it, especially because Ryan Day spent a lot
Speaker 6: of time in the NFL and and had interest in
Speaker 6: the NFL positions have as indicated that they had interest
Speaker 6: in him before, and so that the kind of mood
Speaker 6: and thought in a lot of the corners of the
Speaker 6: industry was if Ohio State lost early in this playoff,
Speaker 6: after the amount of money that was allocated for this roster,
Speaker 6: how senior laden and experienced this team was, and those
Speaker 6: kind of expectations, if it blew up in their face,
Speaker 6: then rather for the termination, there would be a kind
Speaker 6: of you know, mutual amicable parting of ways, and you know,
Speaker 6: maybe he goes to make the cult's job or something right,
Speaker 6: But that's that that isn't what happened, And it wasn't
Speaker 6: just that Ohio State had lost to Michigan four times
Speaker 6: in a row, like yeah, I think I think days
Speaker 6: like seventy to ten. He has one of the highest
Speaker 6: winning percentages legitimately in like college football history, but it's
Speaker 6: like every t all ten of those losses were especially
Speaker 6: brutal for Ohio State fans. Right, You lose to Michigan
Speaker 6: four times in a row. You lose two games in
Speaker 6: a row to Oregon.
Speaker 7: You had the.
Speaker 6: One versus two matchup earlier in the year in Eugene,
Speaker 6: and then you had Oregon the year before as your
Speaker 6: premier not out of conference game when they really weren't
Speaker 6: that good, and you had C. J. Stroud and you lose.
Speaker 6: You had the very winnable playoff game against Georgia when
Speaker 6: they won the national championship by roughly eight hundred points,
Speaker 6: and things kind of fell apart in the fourth quarter
Speaker 6: and you missed the shift the yard field goal, and
Speaker 6: that's the end of it. Right, There's something I think
Speaker 6: acutely frustrating about being a team that wins almost every
Speaker 6: single game, often in a way that fuels psychologically frustrating
Speaker 6: to the fan base. And then the last three or
Speaker 6: four years they've lost most of their big games unless
Speaker 6: they're playing ten states. Who has the same problem, and
Speaker 6: I think whose fan base is facing a similar kind
Speaker 6: of neurosis so then to go from all of that
Speaker 6: and all of the negative energy to not just beating
Speaker 6: four really good teams in a row, but mostly beating
Speaker 6: the absolute snot out of them in a way that
Speaker 6: they really didn't do it to any competent team during
Speaker 6: the regular season changes everything. And if anything, I think
Speaker 6: this actually might be an interesting case study for how
Speaker 6: you have to handle load management in the twelfth team
Speaker 6: playoff era. You're gonna have to play an NFL schedule
Speaker 6: to win a national championship. You're gonna have to play
Speaker 6: sixteen games. You can't empty the chamber in early October.
Speaker 6: And that might mean not that you're hot dogging it
Speaker 6: or anything, but that might mean that you're willing to
Speaker 6: trade some less exciting finishes or some closer margins of
Speaker 6: victuers than you might expect to keep your team fresh
Speaker 6: and ready to go in late December and January. And
Speaker 6: that's what Ohio State did this year.
Speaker 1: Do you think there's any chance?
Speaker 2: And maybe this getting older because I'm thinking what it
Speaker 2: would be like to win. He's finished in the top
Speaker 2: ten every year he's been the Ohio State head coach.
Speaker 2: As you reference, he's seventy and ten. That's third all
Speaker 2: time winning percentage in college football, one of three coaches
Speaker 2: to win a national championships as I reference, Do you
Speaker 2: think there's any part of him that's like, I'm over
Speaker 2: this and maybe he decides that he would like to
Speaker 2: go do what he does at a top the very
Speaker 2: you know, highest of levels somewhere else. If I don't
Speaker 2: think he'd leave for a college job, but you think,
Speaker 2: you know, all of the pressure regardless of what he
Speaker 2: seems to do, is that something that maybe he says,
Speaker 2: I'm not interested in doing this for you people anymore.
Speaker 6: I mean, it's entirely possible if that conversation is going
Speaker 6: to happen. I'm not just going to you know, it'll
Speaker 6: be happening after the championship parade and after something else.
Speaker 6: I think the next month in Columbus is.
Speaker 9: Going to be fascinating.
Speaker 6: Just I was to see how fans and I include
Speaker 6: myself in this honestly, how they reconcile their previous sentiments
Speaker 6: with this guy and compartmentalize the frustration over the last
Speaker 6: few years With the final result. I understand that many
Speaker 6: people listening to this and think, how on earth could
Speaker 6: you go seventy and ten and be unhappy like that
Speaker 6: sounds insane. People Utah and dou Fans walk across broken
Speaker 6: glass to have some kind of a run of success
Speaker 6: like that. But I think you also have to remember
Speaker 6: that urban Meyer, when he was the coach at Ohio State,
Speaker 6: had Ohio State in the top ten every single year,
Speaker 6: made the playoffs several times, won a national championship. Had
Speaker 6: there been a twelve team playoff era, I think Ohio
Speaker 6: State would have almost certainly won at least another championship
Speaker 6: during that era. And then Jim Tresno before urban Meyer
Speaker 6: had Ohio State in the top ten almost every single
Speaker 6: year and won a title. Like you really have to
Speaker 6: go back to World War Two to find multiple years
Speaker 6: in a row where Ohio State has sucked. It's probably
Speaker 6: the most recession proof program in college football.
Speaker 9: And that isn't me just saying that as a.
Speaker 6: Guy that was born in Columbus, Like look up sports
Speaker 6: Reference man like that.
Speaker 9: That's that they have the highest.
Speaker 6: Floor of anybody in the in the sport. So you
Speaker 6: come in and you're just a pretty good coach, You're
Speaker 6: gonna win nine games there. Now you have to really
Speaker 6: really screw up to bottom out. And I think that
Speaker 6: that juxtaposed to the results on the field. Is why
Speaker 6: you saw this awesome frustration I need. If a day
Speaker 6: decided in two weeks, I did what I said I
Speaker 6: was gonna do. I'm gonna go coach with the Colts. I'm
Speaker 6: gonna go work with grown men. Forget this. I couldn't
Speaker 6: blame him, but I don't know enough to know if
Speaker 6: that's if there's an opening right now that that would
Speaker 6: be of interest to him, given you now now that
Speaker 6: now there's a title.
Speaker 2: Defense Captain Morona, I wouldn't go seventy and ten in
Speaker 2: college football, Matt, if we're being honest, I mean you
Speaker 2: said b yu fans, you know, walking off, and you're
Speaker 2: one of the few media members I could actually make
Speaker 2: that reference to. But seventy and ten.
Speaker 6: I think would struggle to recruit in this environment. I remember,
Speaker 6: if it's been a minute, but I remember he rubbed
Speaker 6: a couple of people the wrong way. Yea very very
Speaker 6: passionate Hi, but not everybody was always thrilled with his approach.
Speaker 6: You have to be a little bit more of a
Speaker 6: team player in this era.
Speaker 2: But we're talking about the chief captain of the need fights.
Speaker 2: He'd ad just you know that sure.
Speaker 6: Well, yeah, definitely definitely team schematic mind.
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, moving on before we start getting emails. I
Speaker 2: just knew you were the one that I could ask
Speaker 2: that question too, for obvious reasons. All Right, we had
Speaker 2: a lot of good college football guests on yesterday. We
Speaker 2: also had the game on our station at five thirty,
Speaker 2: and I asked them all the same question, Matt, because
Speaker 2: I just felt like, in my opinion on paper, that
Speaker 2: was a mismatch last night, and so I said, can
Speaker 2: Notre Dame make this a fair fight?
Speaker 1: Do you think they did?
Speaker 8: Oh?
Speaker 6: Unquestionably. I mean the first ten minutes of the game.
Speaker 6: I think laid out exactly the script that Notre Dame needed,
Speaker 6: which was run a lot of qv power and hold
Speaker 6: the ball for eight minutes and just paper cut Ohio
Speaker 6: State to death and limit the number of possessions. They
Speaker 6: are times that Ohio State could score buck guys scored
Speaker 6: touchdown their first four Because Notre Dame was so shit
Speaker 6: at the beginning of the game, the margin never really
Speaker 6: got out of hand. I think that the only real
Speaker 6: mismatch on that game was Ohio the Notre Dame's ability
Speaker 6: to throw the ball downfield versus Ohio State's secondary. If
Speaker 6: Nelson has to throw in the ball thirty two times
Speaker 6: in the game, Notre Dame's gonna lose. That's not a
Speaker 6: team that's really built to come back, and they almost did.
Speaker 7: There was a there was a pathway for them to win.
Speaker 6: It would have looked a lot like the Michigan game
Speaker 6: where you just dragged the drag Ohives stayed into the
Speaker 6: mud to make the fight in a phone booth. They
Speaker 6: just weren't able to do it for four quarters. They're
Speaker 6: really only able to do it for about fourteen minutes.
Speaker 1: So equal time here for coaches.
Speaker 2: Because I've been wildly impressed with Marcus Freeman.
Speaker 1: Didn't start out well with that home loss.
Speaker 2: To Marshall, and obviously Week two wasn't Northern Illinois this year,
Speaker 2: But what would it be like at the age of
Speaker 2: thirty five, your first head coaching job is you're the
Speaker 2: head coach of Notre Dame.
Speaker 1: You know, like that's that's a wild thing.
Speaker 2: And as I've listened to him more throughout this run
Speaker 2: and studying him more throughout the Notre Dames, you know,
Speaker 2: march to the National Championship game, I've been wildly impressed
Speaker 2: with his communication, wildly impressed with the way his players
Speaker 2: respond to him. He kind of just feels like this
Speaker 2: rising star in the ranks to college football. So what
Speaker 2: stands out most to you about this kind of wonderkins
Speaker 2: rise we've seen from from Notre Dame's head coach Marcus Freeman.
Speaker 6: Sure, and maybe this market doesn't know about this or
Speaker 6: I don't know if it was, you know, mentioned on
Speaker 6: the broadcast four hundred times, but Marcus Freeman, of course
Speaker 6: played at Ohio State. He's from Ohio, and as Ohio
Speaker 6: State fans went to the message boards over the last
Speaker 6: two years contemplating ejecting Ryan Day in the space, one
Speaker 6: of the two people that everybody said we should go
Speaker 6: bring we should go bring home would be Marcus Freeman.
Speaker 6: I think you're exactly right. The most impressive thing that
Speaker 6: I think he's managed to do this season was take
Speaker 6: what is normally the most unlikable brand in college football
Speaker 6: and make them likable and make them fun. It was
Speaker 6: fun to root for Notre Dame this year. They're They're
Speaker 6: running an inspired triple option kind of offense. They're one
Speaker 6: of the only major teams where where the quarterback run
Speaker 6: game is an integral part of what they're doing. They
Speaker 6: had two really exciting offensive skill position players. And this team,
Speaker 6: you know, they had like five starters missing multiple NFL
Speaker 6: guys due to injury, and they were counted out nationally
Speaker 6: after that. Northern Illinois lost, you know, by like week four,
Speaker 6: you right, And part of that's just because they got
Speaker 6: a little bit unlucky with the schedule this year. We
Speaker 6: in our lifetime, we have had so many Notre Dame
Speaker 6: coaches who are so deeply, deeply unlikable. I don't know
Speaker 6: if there are blood relatives that enjoyed watching and rooting
Speaker 6: for Charlie White's and Brian Kelly.
Speaker 9: Is not somebody that's going to be on the.
Speaker 6: Mister Congeniality Award list for anybody that works in the
Speaker 6: college sports industry. That's not what Freeman is. And he's
Speaker 6: not the stereo type of what a domer has typically been.
Speaker 6: I don't know if he's gonna end up staying there
Speaker 6: for thirty years. Nobody really does in this industry other
Speaker 6: than winningham. But if I was an Notre Dame fan,
Speaker 6: which I'm not, but if I was, I would be
Speaker 6: very heartened by this year. And I feel very good
Speaker 6: about where your coaching staff is today and moving forward.
Speaker 2: Heard a lot of college football media members complain about
Speaker 2: the length of time, the fact that it's January twentieth
Speaker 2: in this Monday night game. I get it, but you
Speaker 2: can't go ahead to head against the NFL. You're a
Speaker 2: smart guy. What do you think the solution is here?
Speaker 6: I don't really know if there is one. I understand
Speaker 6: the frustration too. I think in a perfect world, maybe
Speaker 6: this is a game that's played in the Central time
Speaker 6: zone and you go a little bit earlier and try
Speaker 6: to alleviate some of those things you already kind of
Speaker 6: got beat up on some of these early early playoff
Speaker 6: games by going against the NFL. The only thing I
Speaker 6: could possibly think of is potentially starting the season.
Speaker 1: A week earlier.
Speaker 6: But then you're looking at a lot of lost revenue
Speaker 6: from having maybe multiple games before class actually starts. It's
Speaker 6: one of the issues that the college baseball schedule has
Speaker 6: with the postseason goes well past graduation for many teams.
Speaker 6: The Final Four.
Speaker 9: Has the same issue too.
Speaker 6: The championship game is usually on a Monday, it's usually
Speaker 6: in the.
Speaker 9: Eastern time zone.
Speaker 6: It usually goes way past everyone else's bedtime. It thinks
Speaker 6: when I'm president, will the day after the championship game
Speaker 6: will be a day off.
Speaker 7: Just like the super Bowl.
Speaker 6: But that's we're not there yet.
Speaker 1: I love it.
Speaker 2: What do you make of I think Joel Klatt's the
Speaker 2: one that's been pushing this narrative of college football, making
Speaker 2: the Rose Bowl their answer to the Super Bowl.
Speaker 6: I understand it from the perspective of tradition. And you know, look,
Speaker 6: even if you're a completely cynical person, when the sunsets
Speaker 6: over the mountains around the third quarter, it does look beautiful.
Speaker 6: The most cynical reporters. I know, I haven't covered a
Speaker 6: game there yet, but you know, tell me, like, no,
Speaker 6: when you touch the grass, you recognize that it's perfect.
Speaker 6: The very selfish state response for me, and this is
Speaker 6: not something that other people are going to care about,
Speaker 6: but you and I might care a little bit.
Speaker 7: Is that the Rose Bush.
Speaker 6: Is hard to get to, and when you host gigantic
Speaker 6: events in Los Angeles, because traffic is so bad and
Speaker 6: everything is so sprawled out, it's difficult to get hotels,
Speaker 6: it's difficult to do media availability.
Speaker 7: You just you're just stuck there.
Speaker 6: And there's there's really three cities where you can have
Speaker 6: a great stadium experience, and fans and everybody involved in
Speaker 6: the event can can.
Speaker 9: Be relatively close by and you can.
Speaker 6: Have all the programming within walking distance. I think that's Atlanta,
Speaker 6: It's New Orleans, and it's Indianapolis. I know everybody makes
Speaker 6: fun of Indianapolis that you've covered a major event there.
Speaker 6: You get it. You're not there to go, move or
Speaker 6: to go. You know, look check out the art scene.
Speaker 6: You're you're there for for this this major football game.
Speaker 6: It'd be cool for television. But having covered events to
Speaker 6: other places, I think if I had to go to
Speaker 6: the Rose Bowl every year, I would complain a little
Speaker 6: bit about being stuck in my car.
Speaker 1: And there it is. There, it is, Yes, the final
Speaker 1: the final point there.
Speaker 2: Hey, you know the narrative matters, you know, is that
Speaker 2: Ohio State Body Championship eight a grip of money for
Speaker 2: a group you know, twenty to twenty five mil.
Speaker 1: I don't know what the number is.
Speaker 2: But you know what's interesting, The majority of that revenue
Speaker 2: went to like returning players. You know, in a way,
Speaker 2: Ryan Day built this thing over a long game type play,
Speaker 2: and I think the narrative is like they just went
Speaker 2: and bought a bunch of dudes in the transfer port.
Speaker 2: They brought in some And we've been debating here because
Speaker 2: Utah football is bringing in forty one new players. It's
Speaker 2: a fifty three percent roster turnover, and you get it
Speaker 2: because they really struggled a year ago.
Speaker 1: But coach witz Mo has.
Speaker 2: Always been recruit, develop, retain, win, and the best Utah
Speaker 2: teams have always been teams that have had third four
Speaker 2: fifth year guys, so four eight you know, Rose Bowl,
Speaker 2: Pac twelve champs as well. And is that a model
Speaker 2: for success in college football? So how would you articulate
Speaker 2: the way Ryan Day and the Ohio State administration went
Speaker 2: about building this roster and allocating their funds.
Speaker 6: Yeah, this is this is something I'm going to be
Speaker 6: writing about some more this week because I've seen that
Speaker 6: narrative too, and I do think it's missing the.
Speaker 7: Point a little bit.
Speaker 6: So, yes, the total payroll for Ohio States football roster
Speaker 6: was about twenty million dollars down on the field. Talk
Speaker 6: to the athletic director, roster Orke. He confirmed that Ryan
Speaker 6: Day alluded to it in the final press conference. Both
Speaker 6: people also said, and I'm inclined to believe this that
Speaker 6: that wasn't the highest payroll in college football this year.
Speaker 6: And it's hard to get hard and fast data about this,
Speaker 6: depending on who you talk to. Oregon, Texas, Miami, we're
Speaker 6: all in that conversation as well. That they didn't make
Speaker 6: it to where Ohio State did. What I believe you're
Speaker 6: seeing at this point. Now we have a couple of
Speaker 6: years of data. It's enough evidence to suggest that you
Speaker 6: can and should plug particular holes in your roster hea
Speaker 6: the transfer portal. And there's some position groups where it's
Speaker 6: easier to do this than others, but that it's very
Speaker 6: difficult to build the bulk of your roster that way
Speaker 6: simply because you need continuity.
Speaker 7: So one thing I think i'd.
Speaker 6: Point to you here is that every single starter in
Speaker 6: that championship game on Ohio State's offensive and defensive lines
Speaker 6: was a high school commit to Ohio State. Set the Blackmow,
Speaker 6: the center, you know, came from Alabama. You might have
Speaker 6: remembered that he had a truly horrific game in the
Speaker 6: College Football Playoff, had a couple of fumbles, That's why
Speaker 6: he was off.
Speaker 7: He was injured.
Speaker 6: I did not play through the through the playoff run,
Speaker 6: but most of those guys were seniors or or red
Speaker 6: yerd juniors, or people that turned down going to the
Speaker 6: NFL for the third or fourth round, uh, delaying their
Speaker 6: their their second contract to come back and and win
Speaker 6: a title. I think there's enough evidence to suggest you
Speaker 6: can definitely get a quarterback and in the transfer portal,
Speaker 6: And in fact, I think that's going to be pretty
Speaker 6: common because no one's going to sit on the bench
Speaker 6: for more than one year, so there's gonna be a
Speaker 6: lot of good guys, you know, will will Howard as
Speaker 6: a as a mid three star who got you know,
Speaker 6: bench for Adrian Martinez. It wasn't exactly like picking up
Speaker 6: Kayleb Williams in the portal, but like those guys exist,
Speaker 6: Ohio State had picked up maybe the best safety in
Speaker 6: the country. Uh, there was only available because Nick Staban
Speaker 6: retires and picked up a really good running back that
Speaker 6: the side. It was okay taking a substantially lesser role
Speaker 6: to split carries with a five star high school Ohio
Speaker 6: State commit. The place where I think you run into
Speaker 6: the most trouble is trying to build the line of
Speaker 6: scriptage that way. And it's just because there generally are
Speaker 6: not enough good offensive linemen that hit the portal and
Speaker 6: you really generally need a lot of experience and time
Speaker 6: and reps to build chemistry specifically within that unit. We're
Speaker 6: gonna see a couple of teams win championships in different ways, right.
Speaker 6: I don't think everyone has to do things exactly like
Speaker 6: Ohio State. You don't have to spend exactly that much money.
Speaker 6: And to be fair, a non trivial amount of that
Speaker 6: money was not donor money.
Speaker 7: Well, that was actual, honest.
Speaker 6: To goodness, legitimate corporate marketing deals, and Ohio State will
Speaker 6: probably you know then in Texas will probably always have
Speaker 6: the most legitimate corporate marketing deals, maybe Michigan in a
Speaker 6: in some years. But I think it's going to be
Speaker 6: easier to build a team where the majority of your
Speaker 6: players are people that signed with you as high schoolers
Speaker 6: or if they were transfers, stay with your program for
Speaker 6: multiple years, and then you go when you try to
Speaker 6: fill three or four holes in your roster each year.
Speaker 2: So the Big Ten now has back to back national champs.
Speaker 2: They have Oregon with Uncle Phil's money, they have Ohio
Speaker 2: State and Michigan. They have LA Chicago, New York. If
Speaker 2: you can't Rutgers, I suppose, and there are a lot
Speaker 2: of Penn State fans in Philly. They have some of
Speaker 2: the biggest markets in the country, They have some of
Speaker 2: the best teams in the country. Is it time to
Speaker 2: say the Big Ten is not just a pre emitive
Speaker 2: conference in college football?
Speaker 1: But it might not be close?
Speaker 6: Don't I don't know if I'm willing to say that
Speaker 6: it's it's overwhelmingly the best conference in college football. I
Speaker 6: think I think pound for pound, is probably still the SEC.
Speaker 6: But that gap is as small as it's ever been,
Speaker 6: and there's a reason to believe that that friend could change.
Speaker 6: And it's interesting because this is also true when you
Speaker 6: look at the the history of college football. The main
Speaker 6: entities that were opposed to giving athletic scholarships were Big
Speaker 6: Ten teams. Because those Big Ten schools were in more
Speaker 6: industrialized and large, larger metropolitan areas, it was much easier
Speaker 6: to give those athletes.
Speaker 7: Make work jobs.
Speaker 6: And schools in the South, which were often in smaller
Speaker 6: areas and less wealthy states and had less wealthy fan bases,
Speaker 6: wanted to give scholarships so they could be an equal
Speaker 6: footing because they knew that Michigan and Ohio State in
Speaker 6: Minnesota and Wisconsin kind of outbid death and then you
Speaker 6: went to the athletic scholarship model. There was some more parody.
Speaker 6: He had the under the table Bagman era where I
Speaker 6: think the Southeast really had a major advantage. And there's
Speaker 6: an argument to be made as to move into revenue
Speaker 6: sharing and move into a world where money above the
Speaker 6: cap that have to be tied to marketing deals and
Speaker 6: it's going to be more strictly like monitored via.
Speaker 7: The court system.
Speaker 6: Is going to give another big advantage to schools in
Speaker 6: not just larger markets, but that have richer fans and
Speaker 6: are tied to larger industries. And you can say what
Speaker 6: you will that there's a lot of great schools in
Speaker 6: the SEC, but the higher end institutions in the Big
Speaker 6: ten has fifty thousand students, you know, student student bodies,
Speaker 6: alumni networks of two hundred three hundred, four hundred thousand people,
Speaker 6: and law schools and medical schools and a deeper tradition
Speaker 6: of professional education and richer alumni than most schools in
Speaker 6: the SEC. So it's entirely possible that the pendulum was
Speaker 6: flewing back. You know, Auburn has pressurized lumber money, Georgia
Speaker 6: has alcohol money, Texas and Texas and m have oil money,
Speaker 6: which is a different level of rich and mean. The
Speaker 6: Michigans of the world have fast money, tech money. Larry
Speaker 6: Ellison's girlfriend, you know, besides, she's in Michigan sand So
Speaker 6: Larry Ellison cuts a three million dollar check for Bryce Hunderwood.
Speaker 6: There's things at Ohio State and Michigan and the s extent.
Speaker 6: You know, Wisconsin and Nebraska can do that. A lot
Speaker 6: of schools in the SEC can't.
Speaker 7: And that's going to be I.
Speaker 6: Think an uncomfortable cultural reevaluation compared to how people in
Speaker 6: the South look at their football programs over the last
Speaker 6: fifteen years.
Speaker 2: Final thing mad will set you loose. And you know,
Speaker 2: when I saw that you're on the rundown, I wanted
Speaker 2: to ask you about this because you'll be good with it.
Speaker 2: The US Department of Education, we've been waiting for a
Speaker 2: little Title nine guidance.
Speaker 1: We got it.
Speaker 2: So future revenue distributions from a school to an athlete
Speaker 2: or his or her NL rights are now what's called
Speaker 2: financial assistance, which must be made proportionally available to male
Speaker 2: and female athletes. I was not aware of this, but
Speaker 2: my news alerts tell me we have a new president
Speaker 2: that has been installed, so potentially this could change things.
Speaker 2: But what's your take on where we're at now after
Speaker 2: the Department what the Department of Education released and moving
Speaker 2: forward with a new president in the White House and
Speaker 2: a new administration, what effect could that have on this ruling?
Speaker 1: And where do you ultimately do you think we land.
Speaker 6: It's a great question, And what I can tell you,
Speaker 6: guys is I've been tracking this for over a year
Speaker 6: and talking to a lot of experienced litigators and attorneys
Speaker 6: that work in the Title nine space, and what I
Speaker 6: heard pretty consistently over the last nine ten months was
Speaker 6: that based on the letter of the law and based
Speaker 6: on court precedent and administrative precedent, and not just from
Speaker 6: like the Biden and Obama administrations, but you're going further back,
Speaker 6: you're based on on on the law.
Speaker 7: The Doees guidance here makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 6: There was, there was. That's part of the reason why
Speaker 6: you saw a lot of universities try to really hedge
Speaker 6: their bets with how with with with revenue sharing a
Speaker 6: needle with some of their work with NIL because they're
Speaker 6: very worried about that potential liability. So that's true on
Speaker 6: one component. So I'm not I'm not shocked that the
Speaker 6: advice came at all. I am shocked that it came,
Speaker 6: you know, three days before the Biden administration's out the door.
Speaker 6: The other kind of challenging thing though about Title nine
Speaker 6: is that there's no Title nine cops right. The Civil
Speaker 6: Rights Division of the Department of Education will go after
Speaker 6: you when somebody sues you, when there's a complaint, and
Speaker 6: that process takes forever.
Speaker 8: Right.
Speaker 6: We have we have a case still pending right now
Speaker 6: with Oregon, and we're one of the components. Are are
Speaker 6: women athletes suing over uh, disproportionate publicity and and side
Speaker 6: benefits and and administrative support around nil to say nothing
Speaker 6: of revenue sharing.
Speaker 7: And we're not close to.
Speaker 6: That case being finished. So what a lot of a
Speaker 6: lot of universities in this market, in my market, across
Speaker 6: the country have decided to do is say, look, we're
Speaker 6: all speeding. They can't arrest all of us, and and
Speaker 6: we don't see enough state troopers out here. So I'm
Speaker 6: not going to adjust my speed. I'm just going to
Speaker 6: hope that I'm not the red Lambeau that that you know,
Speaker 6: that draws the FED detentions. First, like if the Feds
Speaker 6: can't stiffing in. Almost everybody in Division one is out
Speaker 6: of compliance and Title nine and in some capacity it's
Speaker 6: just not it's just not regular.
Speaker 7: It's not an worse very often.
Speaker 6: So this is a major question, is what this administration
Speaker 6: decides to do with this particular component of Title nine.
Speaker 6: And honest to God, I think that's that's not an
Speaker 6: easy political question to answer, right because you've had a
Speaker 6: lot of conservative activists points is Title nine as part
Speaker 6: of the justification for fighting back really hard against trans
Speaker 6: participation in athletics. You're going to have a lot of
Speaker 6: other conservative activists who are not willing to go to
Speaker 6: the mattresses to fight over equal distribution of financial payments
Speaker 6: for women's basketball players, to take money from football players
Speaker 6: and give it to women's basketball.
Speaker 7: Or women's volleyball.
Speaker 6: You're gonna have some conservative activists you don't think we
Speaker 6: should have Title nine at all. And I think there
Speaker 6: may be a real bipartisan conversation about.
Speaker 7: Revisiting that law because it wasn't written.
Speaker 6: For sports, and it wasn't really written for a world
Speaker 6: where where collegiate athletics becomes more explicitly professionalized. And that's
Speaker 6: a conversation worth having. So all of this is to say,
Speaker 6: I'm I actually am really frustrated that the Biden administration
Speaker 6: isided to do this because I think that just injects
Speaker 6: more chaos and uncertainty without a meaningful solution. And uh,
Speaker 6: it's not a good time to go be have a
Speaker 6: dot evu email address of working in this stuff here,
Speaker 6: because you're gonna get you're probably gonna get sued either way.
Speaker 1: Where can people go get all your work? Matt?
Speaker 7: You can find my stuff at extra Points MB dot com.
Speaker 6: Or Matt Brown EP on Twitter and Blue Sky.
Speaker 1: Thank you, my friend. Have a great week and we'll
Speaker 1: chat too.
Speaker 6: Oh it's always my pleasure.
Speaker 1: Thanks for having me, I the great Matt Brown.
Speaker 2: I'm telling you it's one of the best college football
Speaker 2: newsletters around. A lot of it is the business of
Speaker 2: college football things off the field.
Speaker 1: It's called Extra Points.
Speaker 2: Find it on extra points mb dot com or his
Speaker 2: Twitter pages at Matt brown EP. All right, got to
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Speaker 2: Use the promo code ESPN seven hundred to get fifty
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Speaker 2: Stand up comedian and Jim Jefferies will join the show today.
Speaker 1: I've watched a number of Jim's specials.
Speaker 2: What I'll say is, I'm not sure that it's the
Speaker 2: type of content that needs to be on sports talk radio.
Speaker 2: So have you order have you had a conversation with
Speaker 2: Jim Jefferies about the format that he is about to join.
Speaker 3: He doesn't know the deal, he doesn't know he's, you know,
Speaker 3: just promoing the stand up tour, not actually performing it.
Speaker 3: I'm always actually surprised, and I know I shouldn't be,
Speaker 3: because it's just they're just people. They're professionals like us.
Speaker 3: I'm always surprised at the filter some of those guys
Speaker 3: are able to have when they're like professionally able to
Speaker 3: speak the way that they do on stage.
Speaker 2: When you booked Rapaport and Studio, like exactly, if you've
Speaker 2: ever watched any of Rapaport's content, like he doesn't go
Speaker 2: more than one sentence without dropping the cursiest of curses
Speaker 2: and Jim Jefferies is kind of the same.
Speaker 1: He's an Australian guy. Have you ever seen in any
Speaker 1: of his specials. Yeah, they're like all on Netflix.
Speaker 3: He's got like six or seven of them up there,
Speaker 3: so I've seen I want to say, two or three,
Speaker 3: but definitely not like his whole.
Speaker 1: What do you call it discography.
Speaker 2: Yeah, his last special, This is Me Now, is on Netflix.
Speaker 2: I still I believe it's still on Netflix. His single
Speaker 2: day so I'm a single dad, as you know, both
Speaker 2: the son and now dog his single dad takes.
Speaker 1: Oh man, they're hilarious.
Speaker 2: They're not for on air consumption, at least on this format,
Speaker 2: but he'll be playing wise guys.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's going to be at the Eckles. Oh at
Speaker 1: the Eckles. The Eckles.
Speaker 2: So as part of the interview getting getting some free
Speaker 2: Jim Jeffers ticket, we do have a giveaway, so some
Speaker 2: of our listeners will get free Jim Jefferson.
Speaker 1: Now that giveaways, that giveaway is going right in my
Speaker 1: back pocket. I'll ask about you two.
Speaker 2: I'm not allowed to do that, but I would love
Speaker 2: to see Jim Jeffers live. So he's gonna hop on
Speaker 2: today then Mike Samford Junior rolls by for some more
Speaker 2: college football in the program. Some news that has kind
Speaker 2: of dropped since we have been on air and been
Speaker 2: very busy. Sounds like Josh McDaniels is being hired as
Speaker 2: the New England Patriots offensive coordinator for the third time,
Speaker 2: to work with Mike Rabel.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: From what I understand, that was the second that Mike
Speaker 3: Rabel was hired. It was pretty much a sure thing
Speaker 3: that that would happen. And that's from guys that have
Speaker 3: been in locker rooms with those two and and know
Speaker 3: the relationship that Vrabel and McDaniels have, So yeah, I
Speaker 3: think that was that was one that it's surprising when
Speaker 3: you see it just because third time, same job, you're
Speaker 3: gonna give it another try. I think that this time
Speaker 3: around it's it's the pairing that they really like, and
Speaker 3: Vrabel was the one that made that happen for.
Speaker 1: The third time.
Speaker 2: McDaniel's back in New England to call plays be offensive
Speaker 2: coordinator Kevin O'Connell. The Vikings agree to a multi year
Speaker 2: extension today as well. So obviously there's still NFL games
Speaker 2: to be played, but this is the time of year
Speaker 2: where a lot of the good teams are obviously still playing,
Speaker 2: so certain organizations are waiting for them to be done
Speaker 2: in order to find their next head coach. Ben Johnson
Speaker 2: has been hired officially this was yesterday as the head
Speaker 2: coach of the Chicago Bears.
Speaker 1: He will coach Caleb Williams.
Speaker 2: What so, here's my only question about Ben Johnson. Have
Speaker 2: you ever heard him interviewed and have you been like
Speaker 2: blown away by his personality? He seems to be kind
Speaker 2: of like robotic, right, And I'm not sure that that's
Speaker 2: bad for a play caller, but I don't know if
Speaker 2: that's great for your head coach.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: No, I share that sentiment because it is. It's one
Speaker 3: where you know, we can think of Andy Ludwig, a
Speaker 3: guy who I think is a really good play caller,
Speaker 3: a really good offensive formulator. But I would never see
Speaker 3: Andy Ludwig as a head football coach just because of
Speaker 3: his demeanor, the way he approaches the game. It's more
Speaker 3: about diagnosing. He's almost like a doctor. It feels like, right,
Speaker 3: he's figuring stuff out and trying to apply a fix
Speaker 3: to it. A head coach, in almost every circumstance needs
Speaker 3: a little bit of a little bit of I don't
Speaker 3: know whatever Dan Campbell has, right, and maybe that's something
Speaker 3: we have to get away from because you do see
Speaker 3: coaches come in and have somewhat some success that don't
Speaker 3: have that traditional traditional football coach field. But you know,
Speaker 3: I understand where you're coming from. But I want to
Speaker 3: see it now that he is the head coach, now
Speaker 3: that he does have that title, Uh does he adjust
Speaker 3: to it at all? Does he you know? Is he
Speaker 3: more upfront, more more public facing? And uh, well, we'll
Speaker 3: just have to see. But what I will say is
Speaker 3: I love I love some of his offensive designs, some
Speaker 3: of his play calls. You can call them trick plays,
Speaker 3: but a lot of times they're not trick plays at all.
Speaker 3: They're just designed to misdirect. They're designed to look like
Speaker 3: trick plays, and they're really simple formulations. I love watching
Speaker 3: his offense and I think with the rights of the
Speaker 3: right personnel, he could be really successful.
Speaker 2: All right, let me get let me get your take
Speaker 2: on this. So the final CFP rankings were released. Obviously,
Speaker 2: now the season is behind us BYU came in at
Speaker 2: seventeen Arizona State Land where did Arizona State Land?
Speaker 1: Oregon won?
Speaker 2: So BYU so Arizona State came in at twelve, BYU
Speaker 2: at seventeen, Iowa State eighteen, Colorado at twenty three. That
Speaker 2: rounds out your Big twelve teams as far as ranked
Speaker 2: in the final CFP rankings. When it came to the
Speaker 2: AP pole, Arizona State comes in at seven, BYU at thirteen.
Speaker 2: I know BYU fans are very sad today that SMU
Speaker 2: is twelve.
Speaker 1: It will be okay.
Speaker 2: BYU at thirteen, I was stayed at fifteen. Looks like
Speaker 2: that's it. Oh No, Colorado held on at number twenty five.
Speaker 2: So porter If BYU is thirteen in the final AP
Speaker 2: and they're seventeen in the final CFP, where's their preseasons
Speaker 2: next year? I feel like it's top twenty. I feel
Speaker 2: like it's like between fifteen and twenty.
Speaker 1: I think so.
Speaker 3: I think they'll be a top twenty five team when
Speaker 3: it comes to preseason rankings. But as you know, Spence,
Speaker 3: those rankings don't always reflect necessarily everything that you see
Speaker 3: at the end of the year. They're going to be
Speaker 3: taken into account of a bunch of recruiting rankings, a
Speaker 3: bunch of you know, prognostications of what this team will
Speaker 3: look like next year, I think by You will be
Speaker 3: a top twenty five team. I don't know that they'll
Speaker 3: be a top fifteen team in the preseason rankings.
Speaker 1: I think they'll be, you know, twenty two or so.
Speaker 3: But again, those are our things that why do we
Speaker 3: even do the preseason ones just to talk about in
Speaker 3: the radio, because we have.
Speaker 2: Four hours of sports doc rated to do porter Unfortunately,
Speaker 2: we can't just fill time talking about our favorite Jim
Speaker 2: Jeffrey stand up special.
Speaker 1: That's all it's for.
Speaker 2: It's for content for people like us to talk about,
Speaker 2: people like Mark Schlaba to ride about, because we're trying
Speaker 2: to rate interest in Do you want to talk about
Speaker 2: the jazz today?
Speaker 1: Yeah, we'll get there. We'll get there.
Speaker 2: Mark Schlabaugh wrote his Way too Early preseason top twenty
Speaker 2: five coming up for the Fall. BYU comes in at
Speaker 2: nine for sleay Ba's Way too Early Top twenty five.
Speaker 2: He has Ohio State as and they're the Vegas favorite
Speaker 2: to win it again. Texas at two, so a house
Speaker 2: date one, Texas to Penn State three, Notre Dame four,
Speaker 2: Georgia five, Oregon six, Clemson seven, LSU eight, b y
Speaker 2: U nine bringing back Jake Raetz laugh, LJ. Martin, Chase Roberts, Keeln,
Speaker 2: Marion Harrison, Taggart, Isaiah Glasger, Jack Kelly, and Tanner Wall.
Speaker 2: Jacob Robbinson is going to the NFL. Tyler Battie will
Speaker 2: play pro football, but he's graduated. Crew Wakeley transferred. Connor
Speaker 2: pay also will be playing pro football. So some losses,
Speaker 2: but a grip of players returning. Mark Haziowa State at
Speaker 2: eleven out of the Big twelve, Arizona State at fourteen.
Speaker 2: So he has Arizona State as the number three ranked
Speaker 2: team in the Big twelve.
Speaker 1: Kansas State.
Speaker 2: As we kind of scroll down, my guess is that's
Speaker 2: all for the Big twelve. And it is so no
Speaker 2: Colorado in the top twenty five. And obviously Utah has
Speaker 2: a lot of questions to answer. You know, I heard
Speaker 2: Joe Klatt talking about this on his pod this morning.
Speaker 2: He was talking about this from a Michigan standpoint, and
Speaker 2: he made a point that I thought was somewhat interesting.
Speaker 2: I don't know how much meat is on this bone,
Speaker 2: but I just thought about it through the prism of
Speaker 2: Utah and BYU, and I want to get your thoughts.
Speaker 7: Porter.
Speaker 2: He said, anytime your rival accomplishes something So like, if
Speaker 2: you're Sean Moore, if you're Michigan, if you're their ad
Speaker 2: and administration, you're looking at what Ohio State just did.
Speaker 2: You're looking at their formula, you're looking at their payroll,
Speaker 2: and because they are your rival, you're saying to yourselves,
Speaker 2: how can we get back on their level? Even though
Speaker 2: Michigan vet Ohio State this year? If your Utah, are
Speaker 2: you looking at what BYU did this year as a
Speaker 2: shot across the bow at all and using that as
Speaker 2: motivation to maybe get back to where this thing was
Speaker 2: not too long ago.
Speaker 1: I think you kind of have to.
Speaker 3: Maybe not, you know, in in all circumstances, all situations,
Speaker 3: is that your your guiding beacon.
Speaker 1: But you have to.
Speaker 3: And part of the reason is not just because their
Speaker 3: rival spence and you're wanting to best your rival. Part
Speaker 3: of that reason is because these two rivals are so interconnected.
Speaker 3: They are in the same market for all intents and purposes.
Speaker 3: They are in the same you know state. They are
Speaker 3: fighting for some of the same corporate money, which corporate
Speaker 3: money in college sports is now money for your roster
Speaker 3: if you can wiggle it the right way. So that's
Speaker 3: why you absolutely are looking at some of the things
Speaker 3: they're doing, both wrong and right, and trying to adjust
Speaker 3: to that, trying to, you know, maybe tinker with your
Speaker 3: strategy on how you approach this new landscape a little bit.
Speaker 3: You know, I think ultimately you're probably not going to
Speaker 3: use any other school as a guiding beacon again, but
Speaker 3: you're definitely keeping a side eye on not only your rivals,
Speaker 3: but also just teams that are similarly similarly suited to you,
Speaker 3: whether it's market or geographic recruiting footprint. There's a lot
Speaker 3: of that where you know, teams will teams will look for, yes,
Speaker 3: what b what you's doing, but also the other way around.
Speaker 3: We're by you've seen what Utah is doing, you know,
Speaker 3: developing players and the like. The same may go for
Speaker 3: Utah trying to see how they got their best defensive
Speaker 3: tackle to leave Salt Lake and go to Provo.
Speaker 2: This year, Utah Jazz went down to the Big Easy
Speaker 2: and dropped a couple of games with the Pelicans.
Speaker 1: They were ahead by twenty five points last night. TJ.
Speaker 2: McCollum had forty five six points at overtime the Pelicans.
Speaker 2: That's the largest comeback in franchise history. They came back
Speaker 2: to beat the Jazz. If you are looking to watch
Speaker 2: one of the best teams in the NBA that's actually
Speaker 2: trying to win, the Jazz are back in action tomorrow
Speaker 2: at Oka See.
Speaker 1: So not out for the Jazz tonight.
Speaker 2: Busy night in the NBA, of course, as we now
Speaker 2: have moved on from college football officially, so no Jazz
Speaker 2: basketball tonight, But there's a sneaky big game for one
Speaker 2: of our n state college basketball teams tonight BYU is
Speaker 2: at Colorado. Colorado is not good this year. I think
Speaker 2: they are the worst team in the conference record wise.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure they've won a Big Twelve game as
Speaker 2: I look up the standings in real time.
Speaker 1: In fact, they have not.
Speaker 2: They're zero to six and the Big Twelve they're nine
Speaker 2: and eight overall. B YU right now is two and
Speaker 2: four in conference. They've got to win tonight. They have
Speaker 2: not won one on the road, they have not won
Speaker 2: a quad one game, and as of now, they're not
Speaker 2: close to being projected as an NCAA tournament team. That
Speaker 2: two and four record in conference ties then with Cincinnati
Speaker 2: and Oklahoma State, Arizona State case Day one and five Colorado,
Speaker 2: oh and six. So BYU with kind of a sneaky
Speaker 2: big game tonight. Utah three and three in conference. And
Speaker 2: in case you missed it, Utah's next game has been moved.
Speaker 1: It was originally scheduled.
Speaker 2: For tonight and now will be tomorrow afternoon at four
Speaker 2: o'clock Mountain Time against Houston, who just is impossible. This
Speaker 2: will be a cage fight. This will be a physical matchup.
Speaker 2: Houston has big, physical NBA you know, prospects, future pros,
Speaker 2: and ultimately it'll be interesting to see how Utah stacks up.
Speaker 2: But if they keep with it, they stay within twenty
Speaker 2: against Houston tomorrow, I think that'll be a win. The
Speaker 2: women are in action tomorrow against Kansas here in Salt Lake.
Speaker 2: Utah State back at it after losing the UNLV last week.
Speaker 2: They welcome in Nevada tomorrow and Logan. So some college
Speaker 2: basketball top of mind this time of years. We are
Speaker 2: inching our way towards the IDEs of March. All right,
Speaker 2: two hours down, two hours to go. We're gonna take
Speaker 2: a little bit of break and have a little fun
Speaker 2: break from sports and eat Sports is fun. Stand up
Speaker 2: comedy is also fun. The legend Jim Jefferies, who's in
Speaker 2: town to play a show, at the Echos Theater. Will
Speaker 2: stop by coming up next, all right, rolling along on
Speaker 2: a Tuesday afternoon, We're gonna bring in Mike Samford Junior
Speaker 2: coming up to do a little college football. We'll launch
Speaker 2: it into the five o'clock hour of the program. But
Speaker 2: coming up on February the thirteenth at the eCos Theater
Speaker 2: here in Salt Lake City, our next guest is performing live.
Speaker 2: I've long been a fan, and so this is a
Speaker 2: treat for me to welcome in stand up comic actor, writer,
Speaker 2: et cetera, et cetera, Jim Jefferies on the program on
Speaker 2: a Tuesday afternoon.
Speaker 1: Jim, Happy Tuesday. How are you, sir?
Speaker 8: Thanks for having me mad, I'm doing great.
Speaker 2: I got to ask you right out of the gates.
Speaker 2: Are you a sports fan of any kind?
Speaker 8: I'm a big sports guy. Yeah. I'm mostly followed baseball,
Speaker 8: so I'm lucky enough to support the Dodges, which we
Speaker 8: seem to get all the trades at the moment, and
Speaker 8: I follow the Clippers a bit because my son's mad
Speaker 8: into basketball. But I grew up watching rugby and rugby
Speaker 8: league in Australia.
Speaker 7: Do you know who Joe ingles Well, Cop I'll watch anything.
Speaker 1: Really, Okay, do you know who Joe Ingles is?
Speaker 8: Yes, Joe Ingles is. Joe Ingles played for Utah Juys
Speaker 8: for a long time and now he plays Oh he
Speaker 8: plays to somewhere else now. But he got Australia the
Speaker 8: bronze medal. Man. I know Joe Ingles, of course I did.
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, because we had Joe Ingles and Dante ExHAM
Speaker 2: here and when they were here playing for the Jazz
Speaker 2: I was working over for the Jazz radio station and
Speaker 2: Joe was like the funniest dude.
Speaker 1: I mean, he was a basketball player, but he was
Speaker 1: just hilarious.
Speaker 2: What is it about the Australian humor that seems to
Speaker 2: tickle American's funny bone the way it does.
Speaker 8: I think a lot of it's got to do with phrasing.
Speaker 8: And we seem to be laid back, you know. It
Speaker 8: seemed to be cool guys, you know, but I don't
Speaker 8: know if we are. I think we're not as laid
Speaker 8: back as people say we are, you know. I think
Speaker 8: people thought we were cool for a while and then
Speaker 8: we got screwed over by Ray Gun in the Olympics,
Speaker 8: and it's really taking us back a few sticks.
Speaker 2: Hey, I'll the speak for myself. You know, I thought
Speaker 2: it was hilarious. I thought Raygun ruled. I thought it
Speaker 2: was awesome.
Speaker 8: There's a comedy club in Melbourne that's trying to do
Speaker 8: ray Gun the music, and she has sent legal papers
Speaker 8: trying to get it stopped, so she doesn't seem very chill.
Speaker 2: Old Reygun so high and dry out on Netflix right now, Jim,
Speaker 2: is that your seventh special that you released?
Speaker 8: It's my night ninth, but my seventh in America.
Speaker 1: Okay, gotcha.
Speaker 8: And I'm recording another one in Chicago in about four
Speaker 8: weeks time. That will be released in about four months
Speaker 8: on Netflix. So I got one more in me.
Speaker 2: I think you've got more than one more in you.
Speaker 2: You're forty seven years old. You've got a lot.
Speaker 1: Left in it.
Speaker 8: I never try to look too much further ahead, you see,
Speaker 8: I see. I always think that the last one I'm
Speaker 8: going to do is the last one I'm going to do,
Speaker 8: and then no one's going to want to see me
Speaker 8: again or whatever. So I try to put everything into
Speaker 8: the next special, and then you think you're never going
Speaker 8: to record run again, and then about a year later
Speaker 8: you're like, this material is pretty good. I probably should
Speaker 8: try to record it, but in saying that I'm forty seven,
Speaker 8: I'm going to be my birthday Valentine's Day, so I'll
Speaker 8: probably celebrate it there in Utah.
Speaker 1: Oh wow.
Speaker 2: Okay, Well, if you need somewhere to go, let me know.
Speaker 2: I know all the good spots around here. So seven
Speaker 2: specials here in the US. And of course that's how
Speaker 2: I became familiar with your work. I just actually know
Speaker 2: what before we get to what I was about to
Speaker 2: ask you, what you just said struck me because you know,
Speaker 2: we're sports talk radio show, but I like to branch out.
Speaker 2: And during COVID we had Jeff Schaeffer on the program,
Speaker 2: who's one of the producers of Curb Your Enthusiasm, And
Speaker 2: what you just said, Jim about recording a special and
Speaker 2: then believing this could be your last. I didn't know this,
Speaker 2: but Jeff told us that that's how Larry David was
Speaker 2: at the end of every season of Curb Your Enthusiasm.
Speaker 2: He said, I don't have anything left in me, and
Speaker 2: then took some time off and would record another season.
Speaker 2: Is that approach somewhat commonplace in your industry?
Speaker 8: I think that's a lot easier for Larry David than
Speaker 8: it need for you know, like it all so for
Speaker 8: him to go. I might not have another season. I
Speaker 8: could in me, what is the eighty years old? He
Speaker 8: might not, you know, to look at it like it
Speaker 8: might be the last one. But I think that is
Speaker 8: a common approach. I think it would be terrible to
Speaker 8: brag and just to go I've got ten more specials
Speaker 8: left in me. I'm going to go on forever or whatever,
Speaker 8: you know, if it all ends tomorrow, I'm happy with
Speaker 8: the body of work that I did and it's there
Speaker 8: for people to watch. My sons will get to see
Speaker 8: the specials, you know. So as I said, I just
Speaker 8: try to look one step ahead, you know, one step ahead.
Speaker 8: That way you're never too disappointed.
Speaker 1: Is it possible?
Speaker 2: Because I became familiar with you with Alcoholocaust back in
Speaker 2: twenty ten.
Speaker 8: That's one that's the best special. That's what Alcoholocaust is
Speaker 8: the one I'm most proud of. And no one saw it. It
Speaker 8: was it was shown on a showtime for like three
Speaker 8: or four times, and you have to see it online
Speaker 8: and it's not even on YouTube on my channel. But
Speaker 8: that's my best special with Alcoholocaust.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well you just answer my question.
Speaker 2: Because I was wondering if it was possible for you
Speaker 2: to rank who which you think your best one is,
Speaker 2: And that's the one that I believe, Jim was you
Speaker 2: at your peak. But it feels like and I've seen well,
Speaker 2: I'll just say I've seen all seven of the ones
Speaker 2: you released in America. That's why I thought, you know,
Speaker 2: in the United States, That's why I thought this was
Speaker 2: going to be you know, your your eighth coming up.
Speaker 1: It feels to me that you've and one of the things.
Speaker 2: I love about the craft, and I'm a huge stand
Speaker 2: up comedy fan. We always have stand up comics on
Speaker 2: the show when they're here playing in our market, because
Speaker 2: I think you people fascinate me. The courage that you
Speaker 2: have to do what you do and the fact that
Speaker 2: thousands of people show up to watch you with a
Speaker 2: microphone blows my mind. So from my vantage point, you've
Speaker 2: grown and evolved into a different place today. I don't
Speaker 2: know how much of that is just your your daily
Speaker 2: habits or just getting older. Is that fair to say?
Speaker 2: You know, since that alcoholic cost back in twenty.
Speaker 8: Ten, if I was the same like I was an alcoholicaust,
Speaker 8: I wouldn't be here now. Every day. Yeah. So you know,
Speaker 8: like you talk about evolving, a lot of it's just surviving.
Speaker 8: You know. Like if I think my second best special
Speaker 8: is probably Bare because of the gun control routine, and
Speaker 8: then my third favorite is Intolerant, and that's one that
Speaker 8: maybe rated the lowest out of all of them. But
Speaker 8: I look back on that special and I think that
Speaker 8: one's a banger. Yeah, of course you have to evolve.
Speaker 8: I'm a father, I got two kids. I couldn't talk
Speaker 8: about cocaine and prostitutes for the rest of my life.
Speaker 8: It's just it wouldn't have my wife wouldn't have been
Speaker 8: happy about it, you know. But my audience has evolved
Speaker 8: with me. So when I first started doing comedy, my
Speaker 8: shows to be at ten o'clock at night, and they'd
Speaker 8: be like a late night rock star type of thing,
Speaker 8: and everyone was young, and everyone was wasted in the crowd.
Speaker 8: And now as I go, more people in their forties
Speaker 8: are coming to see me now, and I've moved my
Speaker 8: performance time to seven o'clock because I know that we'll
Speaker 8: all be out of the theater by nine point thirty
Speaker 8: at a reasonable time, and we all can get to
Speaker 8: bed by ten.
Speaker 2: Where do you get the courage to do what you do.
Speaker 2: Where did you find that? Was that something you were
Speaker 2: born with? Was that something you developed?
Speaker 8: You know?
Speaker 2: Louis came often drops the line like, have the courage
Speaker 2: to suck at something until you're grade at it?
Speaker 1: Did you always have it? Jam or is it something
Speaker 1: you developed?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 8: I didn't always have it. I did a few open
Speaker 8: mic spots when I was seventeen that went so badly
Speaker 8: that I didn't do it again ntil I was twenty.
Speaker 8: You know, I thought I couldn't do it again, and
Speaker 8: I thought about it every day until I turned twenty
Speaker 8: to do it again. And then for the first year
Speaker 8: from twenty to twenty one, I didn't take the microphone
Speaker 8: out of the stand because my hands would shake too much,
Speaker 8: you know. And then twenty two twenty three, I just
Speaker 8: sort of figured it out. And then I probably had
Speaker 8: more confidence twenty five to thirty than I ever had,
Speaker 8: you know, doing the actual job, because I was just
Speaker 8: fearless at that stage. And now I have to be
Speaker 8: fearless doing the job because I'm so old now that
Speaker 8: I have no other skills. If I don't do this job,
Speaker 8: what do I do? So I better be good at this,
Speaker 8: you know, and I've also learned this to be comfortable
Speaker 8: in my own skin a little bit more. It takes
Speaker 8: sort of fighting a persona more than finding a voice.
Speaker 2: You've done other things, you've acted, you know, you've written,
Speaker 2: you've produced. It seems like a lot of people just
Speaker 2: get that stand up comedy bug and they can't shake it.
Speaker 1: Is stand up your preferred thing juxtaposed to all the
Speaker 1: other things you've done.
Speaker 8: Stand up is what I'm best at. I would like
Speaker 8: to do more acting, but that's not that's not in
Speaker 8: my control, you know. So everyone always goes, are you
Speaker 8: going to do more acting? And that's not saying to somebody,
Speaker 8: are you going to sleep with good looking women? Well,
Speaker 8: it's not my choice, it's theirs, you know what I mean.
Speaker 8: So if someone if someone chose for me to be
Speaker 8: in a movie, that I'll be in a movie, you know,
Speaker 8: But it's not my decision. Where stand up comedy is
Speaker 8: my decision every day. It's my decision to book the
Speaker 8: shows in it's my decision to write you Jokes's my
Speaker 8: decision to get up there and perform. And so I
Speaker 8: love stand up because there's always been there for me.
Speaker 8: If if I've ever needed an outlet, or I've ever
Speaker 8: needed some creativity where I want to get my voice out,
Speaker 8: I can just do it with stand up, with acting
Speaker 8: and anything that deals with TV or production or game
Speaker 8: show hosting or whatever. You're at the mercy of the executives,
Speaker 8: and I'm not the mercy of the executives. We stand up.
Speaker 2: I wonder, and I know that people probably roll their
Speaker 2: eyes when I ask this question. But Jerry Seinfeld talks
Speaker 2: about having a yellow sticky pad by his bed and
Speaker 2: he wakes up and writes a joke based off of
Speaker 2: something he thought of either the night before or a dream.
Speaker 1: What is if you have one?
Speaker 2: Your process when it comes to writing your material.
Speaker 8: Well, I've never written a joke down. I have written
Speaker 8: a word here and there on my phone in the
Speaker 8: note section there's a whole lot of jumbled up words
Speaker 8: from in the middle of the night. You write down
Speaker 8: and the word will help you bounce off to the
Speaker 8: actual joke. But I've never actually written a joke down,
Speaker 8: or I've never actually sat down and thought, now I
Speaker 8: have to write. What I do is I joke around
Speaker 8: with my mates. I find something funny that I've said,
Speaker 8: and then I think, God, there's something in that. Then
Speaker 8: I started on stage thinking it'll be ten and fifteen
Speaker 8: seconds or two minutes or whatever, and then I try
Speaker 8: to expect it as much as possible, so the core
Speaker 8: of the joke starts out at home, and then most
Speaker 8: of the writing actually happens on stage, because it's just
Speaker 8: like when you're riffing in a bar with your friends.
Speaker 8: You know, oh, I can top that joke with this
Speaker 8: line and that line in this line and that line
Speaker 8: and get the audience rolling. And so something that might
Speaker 8: be two minutes sometimes you can expand that into a
Speaker 8: twenty minute routine, so you never know where it's going
Speaker 8: to go. I always feel like a new joke is
Speaker 8: like a chooser Own Adventure book, where you start off
Speaker 8: on this page and then you go, oh, jump out,
Speaker 8: I've got an idea for a joke on this other
Speaker 8: topic that's related to it, and then it becomes an
Speaker 8: actual thing with its own momentum. I know that sounds
Speaker 8: very portentious, but yeah, I do most of my writing
Speaker 8: on stage.
Speaker 1: No, it's really fascinating. I've never heard that before.
Speaker 2: I think I heard Chris Rock once upon a time
Speaker 2: say he tours for four years and wants to get
Speaker 2: something like two hundred shows under his belt before he
Speaker 2: knows the special is ready. What about you, Jim, how
Speaker 2: long do you tour before you know, Okay, this is
Speaker 2: a special. I'm ready to do this for an hour
Speaker 2: or whatever, one.
Speaker 8: Year, one year. But then sometimes, look, I always just
Speaker 8: put my best hour of jokes out. It doesn't matter
Speaker 8: if I've written the joke a year ago or if
Speaker 8: I've written it a week ago. If I've written a
Speaker 8: week ago and it's storming it gets into the special,
Speaker 8: I just burn it straight away, because the special is
Speaker 8: the most important thing I worry about Tomorrow. I worry
Speaker 8: about tomorrow, tomorrow, you know what I mean. The specials
Speaker 8: are such like, in this moment, this is the best
Speaker 8: I have to offer, So I really leave it all
Speaker 8: out there, and then I give myself a little bit
Speaker 8: of space afterwards to write a new show. Or I
Speaker 8: have twenty minutes that I sort of like that isn't
Speaker 8: quite ready, and I try to build around that. The
Speaker 8: most stressful time in any comedian's life is the day
Speaker 8: after a special comes out and you walk on stage.
Speaker 8: That's a hell of a day and you just smile
Speaker 8: through the whole thing and hope everything goes well. But
Speaker 8: often those shows go great because people can feel the
Speaker 8: creativity going on. All the spontane is in the moment stuff.
Speaker 8: Sometimes you can have jokes and you're doing for too
Speaker 8: long and you lose the lose the life behind your
Speaker 8: eyes when you tell a joke. You don't want to
Speaker 8: let it sit there for too long. There's like wine,
Speaker 8: there's a year you're meant to open that bottle.
Speaker 1: When did you and how did you get the bug?
Speaker 2: Did you see somebody perform and said I want to
Speaker 2: do that or did you have a favorite comic growing up?
Speaker 1: What what hooked you to this craft?
Speaker 7: Jim Well, Eddie.
Speaker 8: Murphy When I was a kid, see I never I
Speaker 8: never got to see like George carl And or Richard
Speaker 8: prior to stand up because in Australia we didn't have
Speaker 8: HBO and we didn't have stand up specials. You know,
Speaker 8: we had like occasionally you'd have an American on British
Speaker 8: comic who came out to Australia and they did five
Speaker 8: minutes on our late night show. But I never saw
Speaker 8: anyone do stand up to more than five minutes on
Speaker 8: TV as a kid, and that except for Eddie Murphy's
Speaker 8: Delirious and Eddie Murphy's Raw because they were cinematic releases
Speaker 8: so you could get them at the video store. So
Speaker 8: I rented out Delirious. I got my brother to run
Speaker 8: at Delirious for me so many times because he was
Speaker 8: of age, and I watched it over and over and
Speaker 8: over and over and over again. And that was the
Speaker 8: comic I wanted to be, was Eddie Murphy telling stories
Speaker 8: about his childhood and you know all that type of stuff.
Speaker 8: So Eddie Murphy was my favorite. But I always say
Speaker 8: to people who want to get into comedy, don't go
Speaker 8: see a big theater act. Go down to comedy clubs
Speaker 8: where you might see someone who's really bad. No one
Speaker 8: gives you more confidence in stand up than someone who's
Speaker 8: really bad at it. So that's that's the moment where
Speaker 8: you actually watch it, you go, well, I can do
Speaker 8: better than that guy, you know what I mean. So
Speaker 8: luckily for me, stand up comedy in the in the
Speaker 8: nineties in Australia was pretty weak and well, there were
Speaker 8: some very good comics, but there was a lot of
Speaker 8: weak ones out there, and I saw some people that
Speaker 8: I thought I might be better than.
Speaker 2: Well, you're a heavyweight now Jim, do you ever get
Speaker 2: over a joke bombing on stage? Because I've seen thousands
Speaker 2: of stand up shows and I worked in LA for
Speaker 2: a year, so I used to go to the store
Speaker 2: after I was done recording my stuff, And so to
Speaker 2: your point, I saw a lot of people work shopping material.
Speaker 2: And it's painful as an audience member when a comic
Speaker 2: tries a joke that just falls on deaf ears. Do
Speaker 2: you ever get over that or is it something that's
Speaker 2: always in the back of your mind.
Speaker 8: Immediately in the early days, I didn't, But it's like
Speaker 8: any drug, right, the highs get lower and the lows
Speaker 8: get higher. You know, it's very hard to chase that
Speaker 8: buzz over and over again. So in the same way
Speaker 8: that I can have a standing ovation at the end
Speaker 8: of the gig and go oh, I did okay, right,
Speaker 8: but early on in my career I would have just
Speaker 8: been as arrogant as anything. I would have been thinking
Speaker 8: about how cool I was for days and days afterwards.
Speaker 8: But the flip side of that is if I bombed,
Speaker 8: I went into a fitter depression. I just laid in
Speaker 8: bed until I had to go back on stage again,
Speaker 8: until I had to go to whatever job I was
Speaker 8: doing to pay the bills, but my self worth was
Speaker 8: very tied in with how good I was at stand
Speaker 8: up comedy. And as you get older, you have more
Speaker 8: and more good shows and more and more bad shows.
Speaker 8: More importantly, the bad shows don't bother you anymore, because
Speaker 8: I'm confident enough to know that a good show is
Speaker 8: just around the corner, you know. So sometimes I'll be
Speaker 8: angry with the audience because I think, well, that was
Speaker 8: a good joke, and I've done that joke in other
Speaker 8: places and it's gone well, and why didn't it go
Speaker 8: well for you? And then sometimes I'm most of the time,
Speaker 8: I'm angry with myself when the gig doesn't go well
Speaker 8: because I think, yeah, I could have I wasn't putting
Speaker 8: quite enough effort in, or I didn't get enough sleep
Speaker 8: or something like that, you know. So it's a bit
Speaker 8: of blame game going on, but I don't let it
Speaker 8: bother me for too long.
Speaker 1: When did you know you were good at this? When
Speaker 1: did you know? When you know?
Speaker 2: When you walked out on stage you thought, Okay, I've
Speaker 2: got this, I'm good at this.
Speaker 1: Now. How long did that take?
Speaker 7: It took?
Speaker 8: It took me four years of doing it to think
Speaker 8: that I was a good comic. And then at about
Speaker 8: six years I started to believe that, you know, not
Speaker 8: that I was great comic, but I believe that there
Speaker 8: was no comic on earth that I was scared of following,
Speaker 8: you know. And that was the last hurdle. That was
Speaker 8: the last sort of Jedi master thing where you're like,
Speaker 8: because there's always a comic where you go, oh, I
Speaker 8: can't go on after that person. That person's too good
Speaker 8: and the audience will know how shit I am or
Speaker 8: whatever you know. I mean, sorry swing there. But then
Speaker 8: there was a moment where I was like, no, I'm
Speaker 8: not scared. I can go on a bill with anybody
Speaker 8: in the world. And I still believe that to this day.
Speaker 8: And so I think that must be the same as
Speaker 8: like an athlete or something. When you start, you know,
Speaker 8: playing in the G League, you think you're a pretty
Speaker 8: good basketball player, but then when you're smashing it in
Speaker 8: the NBA, you think, all right, I must be good.
Speaker 7: Now.
Speaker 2: I know you reference some of the comics you liked
Speaker 2: when you were growing up. Who in the game right
Speaker 2: now do you enjoy, Like when you see they've released
Speaker 2: a special Aura pod.
Speaker 8: I think Anthony jesselnext last special was very good. I
Speaker 8: think the best special day that I've seen in the
Speaker 8: last decade, and it's only thirty minutes long, is Earthquake.
Speaker 8: Well on Netflix, he released a thirty minutes special that
Speaker 8: was presented by Dave Chappelle, and I was proper laughing
Speaker 8: at home howling. I thought that was really you know what,
Speaker 8: It made me enthusiastic about stand up. I love that
Speaker 8: he went out there and the jokes were punch punch, punch,
Speaker 8: lunch punch. It was just like being beaten up with jokes.
Speaker 8: They never ended. At the end of thirty minutes, I
Speaker 8: had to get my breath and I was like, you know,
Speaker 8: I can't do that. I linger on a joke too long.
Speaker 8: You know, there'd be a lot more air. It's a
Speaker 8: different style of comedy. But I really enjoyed his special.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it feels like there's this boom of stand up
Speaker 2: comedy now is Do you feel like that's podcast?
Speaker 1: Do you feel like that's social media?
Speaker 7: Why?
Speaker 2: Why do you feel like there's been kind of this
Speaker 2: stand up comedy boom where so many stand ups are
Speaker 2: making good money now.
Speaker 8: Well, I was a little bit before the boom. You
Speaker 8: know I'm not. You know, my sort of peak ticket
Speaker 8: sales are maybe six years ago something like that, when
Speaker 8: there wasn't really arenas. Now people are doing arenas. I
Speaker 8: think we have. I think it's both good and bad.
Speaker 8: I've done a few arenas. I've probably done fifteen twenty
Speaker 8: arena shows in my whole career, and they always go okay,
Speaker 8: but they're never as nice as about a three thousand
Speaker 8: sext theater that's really comedy at its peak, where the
Speaker 8: audience still has a connection to the comedian and you
Speaker 8: still feel like you're talking to a room full of
Speaker 8: people and not just delivering material like you're on a
Speaker 8: big screen. So I think I think these arena comics
Speaker 8: are good for comedy because they're bringing in a lot
Speaker 8: of new fans to comedy who probably haven't seen other shows.
Speaker 8: But I think people will get tired of the arena
Speaker 8: shows and enjoying Once you've seen a comic once in
Speaker 8: an arena, I don't think you've see them twice in arena.
Speaker 8: I think you catch them the next time when they're
Speaker 8: in the three thousand seeder. But maybe I'm wrong.
Speaker 2: No, I feel like you're correct, because it's much better
Speaker 2: to watch stand up. In my opinion, in the smaller,
Speaker 2: more intimate venues, you're kind of you know, intimated there
Speaker 2: before I say you loose.
Speaker 1: Well, a lot of people.
Speaker 8: Reported comedy specials and they did it like Madison Square Garden.
Speaker 8: I always put my comedy specials in a thousand seater
Speaker 8: because I feel it's the most connected to the audience
Speaker 8: you can get, and that's the best sort of gig
Speaker 8: you can have with the cameras all in close. And
Speaker 8: I told you that I don't like the idea of
Speaker 8: a comedy club because I like a big stage to
Speaker 8: move around on. But I think for the specials, I
Speaker 8: always go to a smaller room because I think it's
Speaker 8: a better product to actually see on TV. Because the
Speaker 8: people watching a special on TV, they don't give a
Speaker 8: crap if you're in Madison Square Garden or you're filling
Speaker 8: a baseball stadium or whatever. They don't care about that.
Speaker 8: They just want to see the material. So for the specials,
Speaker 8: you're really performing at the people at home, not the
Speaker 8: people in the arena. I think it's just people trying
Speaker 8: to show up a little bit. Look at how many
Speaker 8: tickets I've sold, you know, And it is impressive, of course,
Speaker 8: but I don't know if it's the best thing to
Speaker 8: watch on Telly.
Speaker 1: Before I say you lose.
Speaker 2: One of the things that I always like about going
Speaker 2: excuse me to see stand up comics that have had
Speaker 2: great success like you, is the knowledge And Jim, if
Speaker 2: you don't have anything here, I get it because you're
Speaker 2: not coming to salt Lake until February the thirteenth. But
Speaker 2: I always enjoy a humorous mirror to look at about
Speaker 2: our state or city.
Speaker 1: What do you know about salt Lake?
Speaker 2: We are we are a very interesting, interesting market, Jen,
Speaker 2: to say the least.
Speaker 1: What are you familiar with salt Lake? What do you
Speaker 1: know about it?
Speaker 8: I came to the I went to the Sundane's Movie
Speaker 8: Festival once, and I think I've done one other gig
Speaker 8: in Salt Lake. I look back when I back when
Speaker 8: I was a drinker, I thought your place was a
Speaker 8: bit silly, you know, But now that I'm sober, it
Speaker 8: might be my utopia. But I'm also not a big
Speaker 8: fan of anyone who lived not anyone. I could never
Speaker 8: live in the cold, you know, if you have to,
Speaker 8: if you have to get out of your driveway with
Speaker 8: a shovel, why would anyone want to do that. I
Speaker 8: drow up in Australia and I live in La so
Speaker 8: I don't know if I do have a lot to
Speaker 8: tell you. I've never speed in me life, but what
Speaker 8: I do do is with places like Salt Lake, I
Speaker 8: always come in the night before and you normally get
Speaker 8: the story you get from the night before is whoever
Speaker 8: drove you from the airport and whoever worked at reception
Speaker 8: in the bar at the hotel. That's my reference point
Speaker 8: for each city. So if you've got two nice people
Speaker 8: doing that, I reckon your city is great. And if
Speaker 8: you don't, I'm going to rip into.
Speaker 2: You fair enough. I think you'll experience only nice people here. Jim,
Speaker 2: but it's the Son of the Carpenter, will Son of
Speaker 2: the Carpenter Tour February thirteenth at that Echo Center.
Speaker 1: Jim, where do you want people go to get their tickets?
Speaker 8: Go to Jim Jeffrees dot com and you'll just be
Speaker 8: able to click on a link there. It's on the
Speaker 8: front of the page that I have all my two
Speaker 8: of dates.
Speaker 1: Thank you, sir, this has been a pleasure.
Speaker 2: I've been a fan for a long long time and
Speaker 2: I'm going to be there at the Echos Theater.
Speaker 1: I cannot wait. So be safe and continue the great work.
Speaker 8: Okaye, make sure you come backstage and say hi afterwards.
Speaker 2: Oh happy to do it. That would be it would
Speaker 2: be an honor, Jim. So I appreciate that. Thank you
Speaker 2: very much.
Speaker 8: I appreciate you, brother, Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: All right. Jim Jefferies out of a carpenter tour right now.
Speaker 2: Looks like he's going to be in Spoke Can coming
Speaker 2: up in Denver for a couple of dates. He'll be
Speaker 2: here February the thirteenth at the Echo Center. He has
Speaker 2: his special right now on Netflix called High and Dry.
Speaker 2: The best special in my opinion, the Jim released was
Speaker 2: in twenty ten.
Speaker 1: It was called Alcoholocaust.
Speaker 2: He's got a great bit on gun control. He has
Speaker 2: recorded ten specials. He's gonna record one in Chicago and
Speaker 2: so yeah, excited for that. I'll be there and maybe
Speaker 2: I'll be backstage apparently, which is awesome. Special thanks to
Speaker 2: Jim Jefferies.
Speaker 1: How about that, man? That was fun.
Speaker 2: I've been a fan of Jim's for like fifteen years.
Speaker 2: I watched all of his specials, and I gotta be honest,
Speaker 2: if you watch Jim Jeffries stand up specials. He comes
Speaker 2: across as kind of a grumpy guy, maybe somebody who's
Speaker 2: not all that front, a facne and very kind.
Speaker 7: He was.
Speaker 1: He was great, he was. I was a little bit
Speaker 1: taken back. He's I'm gonna go with direct.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna go with direct because maybe I'm a little
Speaker 3: nihilist myself. So I kind of I'm with him on
Speaker 3: a lot of it. But it is, uh, it is.
Speaker 3: You're on the right track there.
Speaker 1: Did you just compare yourself to Jim Jefferies.
Speaker 3: I'm not nearly as funny, but I am maybe as nihilist.
Speaker 1: I guess does that work? Maybe you're the Jim Jefferies
Speaker 1: of Sportstoc Radio. I don't know about that.
Speaker 2: Jim will be in town February thirteenth Eckles Theater for
Speaker 2: his tour. Go to Jim Jefferies dot com for tickets.
Speaker 2: Joining us now another comic powerhouse, A very funny guy
Speaker 2: mostly known for his football acumen.
Speaker 1: Though.
Speaker 2: Mike Sanford Junior back on the show on a Tuesday, Mike,
Speaker 2: Happy Tuesday.
Speaker 1: How are you?
Speaker 7: They're awesome? I'm learning all kinds of stuff. The music
Speaker 7: you guys had coming in and Jim Jefferies. I mean,
Speaker 7: I feel like I'm in an alternate universe. I need
Speaker 7: to get with the times. Well, we've learned some pop
Speaker 7: culture in me.
Speaker 2: Well, you're you're a football guy. Football guys don't have
Speaker 2: pop culture knowledge. You know that because of all you
Speaker 2: care about is football, Which is good because I have
Speaker 2: a lot that I want to talk to you about today, Mike.
Speaker 1: I appreciate the time.
Speaker 2: Obviously we have a national champ, it is Ohio State.
Speaker 2: You have coaching experience, So I wanted to ask you
Speaker 2: right out of the gates, what do you make of
Speaker 2: this wild ride the Ryan Day has been on for
Speaker 2: somebody that's been as successful as almost anyone who's ever
Speaker 2: done this job. Noise around him as little as like
Speaker 2: three or four weeks ago that he might be fired
Speaker 2: if he doesn't, you know, at least go to the
Speaker 2: championship game. But here he is the top of the mountain.
Speaker 2: What do you make of this Ryan Day storyline and
Speaker 2: the ride he's been on.
Speaker 7: Well, I as a guy that grew up as a
Speaker 7: son of a coach and then also coached for eighteen
Speaker 7: twenty years myself having been a head coach. Certainly the
Speaker 7: offensive coordinator position is a job that I occupied for
Speaker 7: almost a decade, and that one's highly scrutinized, and you're
Speaker 7: always under pressure to perform and to outperform, frankly, expectations
Speaker 7: every single year and even every single game. And you know,
Speaker 7: the more and more I've watched Ryan Day and even
Speaker 7: my wife who has a great read on people, and
Speaker 7: you know, just seeing what what he's made of watching
Speaker 7: you know, interviews after losses, interviews after wins. He's a
Speaker 7: pretty likable dude, like if you if you really break
Speaker 7: it down, he's he's never overly arrogant when they're winning,
Speaker 7: you know. He he's never want to make excuses for
Speaker 7: not beating Michigan, which has obviously been the biggest problem.
Speaker 7: I think he's a guy that is, frankly, in the
Speaker 7: coaching profession. He's become somebody easy.
Speaker 6: To root for for me, and there's a there's a
Speaker 6: lot of these head coaches I've worked for for a few,
Speaker 6: to be really honest, that love to control the narrative,
Speaker 6: love to get into the spin zone at head coach
Speaker 6: and do everything in their power to deflect blame, you know,
Speaker 6: and and put it on two players or to coordinators.
Speaker 6: I just think Ryan Days has done a really good
Speaker 6: job as a coach, and I've been really impressed with them,
Speaker 6: and so I think that this is a testament and
Speaker 6: I think the real m VP and all of this
Speaker 6: is that actually, my former athletic director when I was
Speaker 6: an assistant coach at Western Kentucky is ross by Yorick
Speaker 6: for him to stand up boldly and really put his
Speaker 6: chest out and neck out on the line a little
Speaker 6: bit saying that this is my head coach, regardless of
Speaker 6: how things play out. And I think that goes a
Speaker 6: long way. And I think a lot of athletic directors
Speaker 6: and frankly, a lot of head coaches in this industry
Speaker 6: right now that are just towering to pressure could learn
Speaker 6: a little something about standing up for their people instead
Speaker 6: of just you know, hiding and ducking. There's a lot
Speaker 6: of cowardice in this industry. And I think that the
Speaker 6: Ohio State story of this year from athletic director to
Speaker 6: Ryan Day was actually a story of standing up for
Speaker 6: people during a tough time in the time of diversity,
Speaker 6: which was frankly, just losing to Michigan.
Speaker 8: That was it.
Speaker 7: That was There's one game that really persuaded this thing
Speaker 7: and almost put it off the rails.
Speaker 2: Can you give us a little bit of a frame
Speaker 2: of reference, because I don't know that there are very
Speaker 2: many fan bases that would want their coach to be
Speaker 2: out who's finished in the top ten every single year
Speaker 2: and has won a tremendous percentage of his game and
Speaker 2: games and more often than not is in the mix
Speaker 2: to win something special every single season. I mean, he
Speaker 2: has a better winning percentage than Jim Trestley, has a
Speaker 2: better S and P than Urban Meyer, and he's one
Speaker 2: of three coaches win a national championship. Now in the
Speaker 2: fifth coach in Ohio state history, he won a national championship.
Speaker 2: What is it about a fan base like that that
Speaker 2: has expectations that seem Mike to be so out of whack?
Speaker 7: Well, I would say, you know, just put it in
Speaker 7: a local context, and and I just imagine if Witt,
Speaker 7: you know, was was the perennial you know, eleven twelve
Speaker 7: win season every single year for a decade, or saying
Speaker 7: in you know, in the case of Ryan Day six
Speaker 7: seven years but lost five straight years to the team
Speaker 7: down south, to the team in Provo. I mean, that's
Speaker 7: a real thing. And that's a real that's a that's
Speaker 7: a real hated, bitter rivalry that that your fan base
Speaker 7: sometimes maybe puts even above the overall success of the season.
Speaker 7: And you know, I think as a result of some
Speaker 7: conference changing and you know, the you know, the Mount
Speaker 7: West and dissolving and then it was independent for BYU
Speaker 7: and Pac twelve for Utah, you didn't really have that
Speaker 7: as a as a consistent storyline every single year. Now
Speaker 7: it's going to start entering back into the conversation with
Speaker 7: the Big twelve. But I mean, you've got to start
Speaker 7: Those types of things really do matter, especially in football
Speaker 7: crazed places that have really high expectations. But those expectations
Speaker 7: sometimes are the one game means maybe more than all
Speaker 7: of them. And if you're if you have a trend
Speaker 7: that is so consistent where you just cannot beat that
Speaker 7: team and even when that team's not good, that's a problem.
Speaker 7: That's a that's a major problem for a head coach
Speaker 7: to overcome. And I think people that are that are
Speaker 7: listening right now that are Utah fans, or even if
Speaker 7: you're a BYU fan and say Kiwane's ripping off twelve
Speaker 7: thirteen wins every year you know, including the college football
Speaker 7: playoffs and the Big Twelve Championship, but just can't beat
Speaker 7: Utah five years in a row, three four, five years
Speaker 7: in a row. That becomes an issue in a place
Speaker 7: that really does care about a robbery game, like I
Speaker 7: do know that Yu and Utah, I do care about you.
Speaker 2: Hear a lot of docking heads like myself, media types
Speaker 2: say like, oh, that Michigan loss was exactly what they needed.
Speaker 1: Any meat on that bone.
Speaker 2: I mean, as a guy that coaches that like a
Speaker 2: wake I mean, look, the results are what they are,
Speaker 2: and when we all diagnose and play Monday morning quarterback,
Speaker 2: it's easy to create a narrative like that. But is
Speaker 2: that a real thing in a locker room, like you
Speaker 2: feel like maybe you needed a wake up call.
Speaker 7: I don't think it was from the perspective of motivation
Speaker 7: or they're over like they were over confident. I just
Speaker 7: didn't think it was really freed up and almost forced
Speaker 7: Ryan Day and Chip Kelly to get out of a
Speaker 7: little bit of this Big ten West football style of playing,
Speaker 7: which is just do everything in your power not to
Speaker 7: lose a game, which is how they lost that game
Speaker 7: to Michigan. I don't if you remember that game in particular,
Speaker 7: it was as risk averse of a game plan as
Speaker 7: that you will ever see. It was almost as if
Speaker 7: Will Howard was a was a quarterback that had leprosy
Speaker 7: and they didn't want him to use his his gifts
Speaker 7: as a throat as a passer because he he he
Speaker 7: had some type of dysfunction. He actually proved to once
Speaker 7: they started unloading his abilities, and that started really and
Speaker 7: you know, as the playoffs started to unfold, man, he
Speaker 7: looked really, really good. And I think the glow up,
Speaker 7: if you will, from the Michigan game to the very
Speaker 7: end of the college football playoffs and culminating last night
Speaker 7: in the win over Notre Dame of Will Howard might
Speaker 7: have been the best in college football. He was playing
Speaker 7: at the end like as well as any quarterback in
Speaker 7: the in the country. In fact, I'm starting to second
Speaker 7: guess some of these, these these draft narratives that it's
Speaker 7: a Shador Sanders and cam Ward conversation. I'm like, this
Speaker 7: Will Howard, dude, if he would have played like that
Speaker 7: all year, I don't know if that would have been
Speaker 7: the case.
Speaker 2: Yeah he was, uh, yeah, he was great. And I
Speaker 2: do want to get there in just a moment. But
Speaker 2: let's stick with the current situation where we find ourselves
Speaker 2: and let's move from Ohio State to Notre Dame and
Speaker 2: Marcus Freeman.
Speaker 1: This wonder kins rise. I mean, you were a coach.
Speaker 2: Can you imagine that your first head coaching job is
Speaker 2: Notre Dame at the age of thirty five, and obviously
Speaker 2: that fan base expects as much from their football team
Speaker 2: as any other. What stands out, Mike most to you
Speaker 2: as a guy that coached at this level with the
Speaker 2: way Marcus Freeman's been able to build this thing up
Speaker 2: over just four years at the precipice of almost winning
Speaker 2: the national championship.
Speaker 7: Yeah, Marcus Freeman's been really impressive. I got to know
Speaker 7: him a little bit just because that's the place I
Speaker 7: was an offensive coordinator at. We had some crossover in
Speaker 7: terms of people that we've worked with. Mike Denbrock and
Speaker 7: I were a bit of a two headed monster there
Speaker 7: as an offensive play calling tandem back in twenty fifteen
Speaker 7: and twenty sixteen at Notre Dame. My dad coached at
Speaker 7: Notre Dame. My sister graduated from there, so you know,
Speaker 7: I've lived there twice in two different stages of my life,
Speaker 7: both as a kid and then as a working adult
Speaker 7: in the industry.
Speaker 5: Man.
Speaker 7: I'll be honestly, this was a really impressive year for
Speaker 7: Notre Dame. Even the game last night I think really
Speaker 7: stood tall with regards to how much they were willing
Speaker 7: to step into the fight of battling adversity, you know,
Speaker 7: getting down early in games, and you know, even overcoming
Speaker 7: the Northern Illinois loss and how they bounce back from.
Speaker 6: That was all really really good.
Speaker 7: Notre Dame is great in the trenches. Notre Dame is
Speaker 7: really good in their defensive you know, linebacker play, edge play,
Speaker 7: their offensive line plays, hoigh end play, running back play.
Speaker 7: But there's just been a big problem, and I think
Speaker 7: it's because even in this nil portal area era excuse me,
Speaker 7: that we find yourselves in Notre Dame. You have to
Speaker 7: go to school, you have to go to college. This
Speaker 7: is a traditional Catholic environment education that it's in person education,
Speaker 7: and so many of these schools are going to just
Speaker 7: basically there's no college anymore. That's not the case to
Speaker 7: Notre Dame, you know. So if you're going to transfer
Speaker 7: to Notre Dame, you have to realize that you're going
Speaker 7: to be going to a school where you have to
Speaker 7: stay eligible by actually going to a class. What a
Speaker 7: novel concept in collegiate athletics. Well, it sounds crazy, but
Speaker 7: that's so rare in this day and age because of
Speaker 7: everything post twenty twenty and then now in this nil
Speaker 7: portal a era, everything's just going online, the online courses. Frankly,
Speaker 7: who knows who's actually doing the work. That's not a
Speaker 7: case of Notre Dame. And so I don't know that
Speaker 7: Notre Dame will ever have the skill players. And I
Speaker 7: know this is going to sound general generally, overly generalized,
Speaker 7: but the skill players to compete with, Like what Ohio
Speaker 7: State had They had the receiver play the DV play,
Speaker 7: It was a mismatch, and I just think that that's
Speaker 7: something that Notre Dame's going to have to deal with.
Speaker 7: I don't know that Notre Dame's going to win a
Speaker 7: national championship in my lifetime going forward. Nineteen eighty eight
Speaker 7: was the last one. I thought this was a great
Speaker 7: opportunity if they had gotten a turnover to to maybe
Speaker 7: get one, you know, just by way of I just
Speaker 7: don't know if we can get back to this spot.
Speaker 7: And I don't know that they're going to have the
Speaker 7: opportunity to excel in this current landscape to the extent
Speaker 7: to win a title. They've been there what three times?
Speaker 7: Nineteen it it was two thousand and fourteen, I believe
Speaker 7: thirteen two does a thirteen national championship? Lose to Alabama
Speaker 7: forty two to fourteen, and then they go and play Clemson,
Speaker 7: lose thirty to three in the College Football Playoffs semi
Speaker 7: and then they lose again I believe it was to
Speaker 7: Georgia thirty one to fourteen. And then this one really
Speaker 7: they lost by eleven points, but it just didn't feel
Speaker 7: very close. Thirday just hasn't. They haven't really stood up
Speaker 7: very well, very tall in these challenge in these challenging
Speaker 7: games to win a national championship. I just don't see
Speaker 7: it happening.
Speaker 2: So is there anything to be learned? You know, it
Speaker 2: doesn't matter the sport or the level. When somebody achieved success,
Speaker 2: others around them tried to learn what they did, and
Speaker 2: very much a copycat situation, the NBA, copycat league, the NFL.
Speaker 2: I mean, obviously there are different ways to approach it,
Speaker 2: but you know, if you could to bottle what the
Speaker 2: Kansas City Chiefs have namely fifteen under center.
Speaker 1: Maybe you try to copy that.
Speaker 2: So college football now looks to Ohio State as a
Speaker 2: north Star question mark to you, anything we could learn
Speaker 2: helps to have twenty twenty five mil. Whatever they had,
Speaker 2: but a lot of that money, Mike, as you know,
Speaker 2: went to returning players instead of just transfers. And we're
Speaker 2: in a market where coach win, as you know, is
Speaker 2: a recruit, develop, retain win program. The best Utah football
Speaker 2: teams have been with upperclassmen who have been here for
Speaker 2: a while, oftentimes recruits they weren't very highly thought of.
Speaker 2: And obviously Ohio State's different because they get some of
Speaker 2: the best recruits every single year. But this was not
Speaker 2: just a team that entered the transfer portal to get
Speaker 2: fifty four new players. They had a lot of players
Speaker 2: that are around for a long time, some played more
Speaker 2: than fifty games. What can other roster constructors, if anything,
Speaker 2: learn from Ohio State.
Speaker 7: Yeah, you have to develop and recruit and develop your
Speaker 7: your offense and defensive lines, your linebackers, I do your
Speaker 7: tight end position. And it just seems like if you
Speaker 7: look at the matchup with the quarterbacks last night in
Speaker 7: that National Championship game, they're two, one and done. You know,
Speaker 7: experienced quarterbacks. Riley Leonard comes over from Duke and of
Speaker 7: course Will Howard comes over from Kansas State. That's kind
Speaker 7: of the model. And I love what Utah has done
Speaker 7: with Devin dan Pier. I think it's fantastic. But then
Speaker 7: you know there's Quinn Yours was in the final four,
Speaker 7: and you can you can look at him a little
Speaker 7: bit more like a Jake Kretzlow that he's been developed
Speaker 7: and been the starting quarterback for a couple of years
Speaker 7: at YU. But if you're looking at Utah in particular,
Speaker 7: you know, I think, I think they do have the
Speaker 7: right pipeline and I think the Polynesian the Island pipeline
Speaker 7: that they have for O line, d line linebacker, you know,
Speaker 7: other positions as well. I mean, we have Denver Broncos here.
Speaker 7: Devon Veley and Joan Ellis are two awesome youths that
Speaker 7: are that I get a chance to watch on a
Speaker 7: weekly basis. But I just think that the Utah has
Speaker 7: a good chance to do something pretty special this year.
Speaker 7: And you and I have talked about in you know
Speaker 7: and shows in the past about I feel really good
Speaker 7: about Devon damp here. But if you're looking at Ohio
Speaker 7: State and a model, it's the money. I mean, you've
Speaker 7: got to be willing to raise and or support twenty
Speaker 7: five million dollars for if you want to go win
Speaker 7: a national championship. Hard part is that that's not a guarantee.
Speaker 7: Because it's sure he didn't look like it's guarantee about
Speaker 7: week twelve of the college football season for for Ohio State.
Speaker 7: And if you think about who are the people that
Speaker 7: are investing that kind of money, and if you're not
Speaker 7: getting return on investment, is that repeatable? Is there going
Speaker 7: to be you know.
Speaker 8: Some.
Speaker 7: You have to be like some exhaustion from donor fatigue
Speaker 7: of giving money and not seeing return on investment. So
Speaker 7: there's a lot of challenges and I think we're just
Speaker 7: starting to see some of some of the potential ramifications
Speaker 7: of how much money is being thrown into one season
Speaker 7: of college football.
Speaker 2: So now that we have the twelve team CFP behind us, Mike,
Speaker 2: I wonder what your takeaways are as far as whether
Speaker 2: or not you like the format, whether or not you
Speaker 2: think it's going to need to be changed, and whether
Speaker 2: or not you think it will be changed.
Speaker 1: What are your thoughts on.
Speaker 7: This well, you know the one thing, Spence, that I
Speaker 7: live in a pro sports market but does have college football.
Speaker 7: I mean, between Colorado and even the run they made,
Speaker 7: they were close to being in the CFP at one point,
Speaker 7: you know, week eleven, week twelve, a season. Man, it
Speaker 7: just seemed like Monday night. Even when I woke up
Speaker 7: Monday morning, it didn't feel like a National College Football
Speaker 7: Championship game day. It just something seemed just seemed to ry.
Speaker 7: And I don't know if it's that this thing bled
Speaker 7: too far into the NFL's postseason, that I live in
Speaker 7: a pro sports town. The NFL is king here for sure,
Speaker 7: in the NFL is king nationally, There's no doubt about it.
Speaker 7: Look At that Chiefs game that they had against the
Speaker 7: Texans drew thirty two and a half a million viewers,
Speaker 7: which is an all time record for ESPN for any game,
Speaker 7: any sport, any time of year. I just think that
Speaker 7: this needs to.
Speaker 9: Move be moved up.
Speaker 7: Because as much as the CFP accomplished what it set
Speaker 7: out to accomplish, I went to a CFP game. I
Speaker 7: went to watch. I want to see my alma mater,
Speaker 7: Boise State play against Penn State. And while you know
Speaker 7: that it seemed like a great atmosphere. It just didn't
Speaker 7: I don't know, it didn't have the juice that I
Speaker 7: expected being in the building. It just felt like, I
Speaker 7: don't know, it's like, this is such a long process.
Speaker 7: I want to see the college football decision makers and frankly,
Speaker 7: the TV money I think would be even through the
Speaker 7: roof if you moved the season more into mid August,
Speaker 7: and whether you start with a week zero I still
Speaker 7: think that this Army Navy Week zero only game on
Speaker 7: that weekend could be a really powerful weekend because I
Speaker 7: don't believe that college football playoff and certainly the National
Speaker 7: Championship should really be competing at all with the NFL
Speaker 7: playoffs in the NFL postseason. I think it's a big mess.
Speaker 7: I think there's a bandwidth issue. Even for somebody like
Speaker 7: me that does sports for a living. The college football
Speaker 7: games just there was not any memorable moment at real
Speaker 7: memorable time, except for maybe the Arizona State Texas game.
Speaker 8: But at the end of the.
Speaker 7: Day, was that like something you're gonna remember the rest
Speaker 7: of your life. There was nothing out of this twelve
Speaker 7: team playoff that really stood out to me. I'd love
Speaker 7: to hear from you and your opinion, but it just
Speaker 7: didn't feel like it really captured the emotion of America
Speaker 7: in this first year of it.
Speaker 2: So here's my assertion, Mike, can you tell me if
Speaker 2: you think this is even possible, because I believe college
Speaker 2: football should be played on college football campuses, and I
Speaker 2: mean like every single game, maybe outside of the final game.
Speaker 2: Joel Klattz idea is to make the Rose Bowl college
Speaker 2: football's answer to the Super Bowl. Is there a way
Speaker 2: to reward teams in communities so they don't have to
Speaker 2: travel to Atlanta and then Dallas and then back to
Speaker 2: Atlanta or whatever. So you can play all of these
Speaker 2: games on college campuses because that would capture the passion
Speaker 2: you're talking about. And then save the final game of
Speaker 2: the season for what Joel Clatt believe should be the
Speaker 2: Rose Bowl and preserve the bulls that are in place,
Speaker 2: because the bulls that are in place simply employ a
Speaker 2: lot of people, and they will not go away quietly.
Speaker 2: They want their place at the table because people want
Speaker 2: to keep their jobs. So that's my thing that I
Speaker 2: feel like not a lot of people have discussed. I
Speaker 2: think college football is meant to be played on college campuses.
Speaker 2: Is there a way they could pull that off.
Speaker 7: I think there's certainly a way you could pull it off.
Speaker 7: I mean, you're you're going to deal with a lot
Speaker 7: of the weather issues and a lot of the excuse making.
Speaker 7: But you know, at the same time, you know, if
Speaker 7: you want to you want a home game, and you
Speaker 7: need to perform better in your regular season and your
Speaker 7: conference play. I think there's an equity issue, even Notre
Speaker 7: Dame not having to be forced to play a conference
Speaker 7: championship game. You know, there are some issues. You think
Speaker 7: about the teams that were in the national championship game
Speaker 7: last night didn't play in a in a in a
Speaker 7: in a conference championship game, right, both Neither one did.
Speaker 7: So that's one less game because Ohio State, I believe
Speaker 7: the Big Ten the Big Ten championship game was was
Speaker 7: Penn State and Oregon. Correct. Correct, that's an that's an
Speaker 7: extra game. You know, there's a there is inequity issue
Speaker 7: in college football. I mean Notre Dame is I mean
Speaker 7: that that certainly stands out that they, no matter what,
Speaker 7: would not have to play in a conference championship game.
Speaker 7: But yeah, I mean I think I like the idea
Speaker 7: of Spence, I do. If you do that, I think
Speaker 7: you really do have to move everything up a bit.
Speaker 7: I think you want to. You don't want two week
Speaker 7: breaks in this college football playoffs or even ten twelve
Speaker 7: day breaks. I think you should just stick with whatever date,
Speaker 7: like Thursday Friday, those are Thursday Friday night or that's
Speaker 7: those that's when the college football playoff games are, and
Speaker 7: it's every six seven days, boom boom boom, and just
Speaker 7: let it go so that people can know what you know,
Speaker 7: when the games are on. It feels like there's some
Speaker 7: type of schedule. I mean, I found myself just, hey,
Speaker 7: what one of the games is one of the college
Speaker 7: football playoff games? And they're just they were like, is
Speaker 7: it before the college the NFL Playoffs, the NFL Weekend,
Speaker 7: is it after whatever it is? It just needs consistency.
Speaker 7: I like, I like home games. There was something a
Speaker 7: little bit strange, Like I loved all the build up
Speaker 7: to having college football playoff games on home sites, like
Speaker 7: the Notre Dame Indiana game is like beautiful to see,
Speaker 7: but when the game started, it just didn't feel like
Speaker 7: a playoff game in me, Spence, I don't know why
Speaker 7: you can agree and we can agree to disagree, but
Speaker 7: just watching it, it didn't feel like the magnitude of a
Speaker 7: playoff game like the NFL, like captures like you feel
Speaker 7: that And I don't know what that is. I don't know.
Speaker 7: Maybe it's just year one of it, But I don't
Speaker 7: know what was the issue this year. It just didn't
Speaker 7: feel it didn't feel like it was as exciting as
Speaker 7: it could have been.
Speaker 2: And I'm with you there, and you know, certainly, I
Speaker 2: think because there are a lot of people that just
Speaker 2: they belong to the church of college football and they're
Speaker 2: gonna love it no matter what. And you know the
Speaker 2: fact that it was seventy seven thousand people. The cheapest ticket,
Speaker 2: according to Matt Brown, who joined us from Extra Points,
Speaker 2: was three grand. We haven't seen the final number, but
Speaker 2: I bet it's over twenty Milo. All of those numbers, Mike,
Speaker 2: indicate that you and I can debate about what they
Speaker 2: need to change, and they can send us their p
Speaker 2: and l stay and and say tell us what we
Speaker 2: need to change. This feels like for the people that
Speaker 2: are in charge of making decisions, this first iteration of
Speaker 2: the twelve team CFP was a massive, massive success.
Speaker 7: Yeah, you know, I mean, did you see some of
Speaker 7: the ticket prices though on like for example, you know
Speaker 7: some of the some of the I guess it'd be
Speaker 7: the second round and third round games that were traditional
Speaker 7: bowls like the Fiesta Bowl for example. I mean almost
Speaker 7: I ended up going to the Fiesta Bowl. And I
Speaker 7: worked as a credential member of the media for the
Speaker 7: Boise State media, and so I didn't pay for tickets,
Speaker 7: but I wanted to bring my family. And the original
Speaker 7: ticket prices were like three hundred and fifty bucks something
Speaker 7: along those lines to buy through the Athletic department, you know,
Speaker 7: the official allotment. Well then I checked. I checked ticket
Speaker 7: prices the day before the game. For this is Penn State.
Speaker 7: We're talking about Penn State, Boise State, and Boise State
Speaker 7: travels really well, I mean the tickets were in the
Speaker 7: eighteen to thirty dollars range on the on the aftermarket,
Speaker 7: and then you show up to the game and there's
Speaker 7: there's full corners of the festibul that are completely empty,
Speaker 7: you know, and so I think that, yes, the National
Speaker 7: Championship Game, I think you hit because you got Notre Dame,
Speaker 7: you got Ohio State. These are two fanatical fan bases
Speaker 7: and wildly how the State's won This was their third
Speaker 7: national championship since nineteen sixty eight. I don't if you
Speaker 7: realize that, Matt's you think about how the State as
Speaker 7: a perennial national champion team three that in that timeframe,
Speaker 7: that's pretty wild. Notre Dame is not one one since
Speaker 7: nineteen eighty eight. So this was a big moment in
Speaker 7: time for both those programs that have very passionate fan bases.
Speaker 7: But I was surprised by some of the lack of
Speaker 7: just sheered excitement, certainly for some of the second and
Speaker 7: third round games of the college football playoffs.
Speaker 2: Mike, before I say you lose, I know we have
Speaker 2: talked about this before, but a great radio mind once
Speaker 2: told me radio is not linear, so for our listeners
Speaker 2: it may not have been tuned in. I wanted to
Speaker 2: revisit your opinion on Jason Beck as a new offensive coordinator,
Speaker 2: your reference you like Devin Dampier as well, and Utah
Speaker 2: football bringing in forty one new players with a fifty
Speaker 2: three percent roster turnover after a year that nobody saw comment,
Speaker 2: including me, including you, including.
Speaker 1: Them, right, So what are you expecting next year? Year two?
Speaker 1: Big twelve? Utah football.
Speaker 7: Well, I'm really excited about the hire of Jason Beck.
Speaker 7: He has a great familiarity of the state of Utah.
Speaker 7: He understands, you know, what what that program at Utah
Speaker 7: is all about, and he's been on the other side
Speaker 7: of that rivalry with BYU, of course.
Speaker 1: But I got to know Jason.
Speaker 7: I called a couple of his games, you know, followed
Speaker 7: his team really closely. I did the CSU versus New
Speaker 7: Mexico game, which frankly was probably one of his one
Speaker 7: of their worst games. They had a pretty banged up
Speaker 7: roster with missing a ton of their skill players. But
Speaker 7: I'll tell you this schematically, he's one of my favorite
Speaker 7: coaches in college football today. And I think it's a
Speaker 7: combination of really creative shift in motion and the trick plays,
Speaker 7: but also it's a quarterback driven run game, and Devin
Speaker 7: dan Pier is about as good as you can find
Speaker 7: both in the QB driven run game and then the
Speaker 7: play actions off of that. I just love what Jason
Speaker 7: Beck does. I don't think he does a really good
Speaker 7: job of keeping it as simple for his own personnel
Speaker 7: in this transfer portal turnover the roster era, so that
Speaker 7: you can go out and and learn this offense and
Speaker 7: it's easily ingested and then easy to go execute. But
Speaker 7: it's really difficult for teams to defend. And that's something
Speaker 7: that I saw, and I think that that's the secret sauce.
Speaker 7: In this day and age, a lot of people run
Speaker 7: an offense in a box, like the air raid or
Speaker 7: certainly like the Art Riles Baylor system that you know
Speaker 7: Lane Kiffin's running and the University of Tennessee with Josh
Speaker 7: Hipel's running. I think those systems are pretty easy to
Speaker 7: defend if you don't have elite personnel everywhere. And I
Speaker 7: think that what Jason Beck does is he gives enough
Speaker 7: eye candy, enough misdirection and just the threat of the
Speaker 7: trick play week by week that it does defenses really
Speaker 7: much on their toes and they're guessing. And so I'm
Speaker 7: really excited about Jason Beck. I think he's a great man.
Speaker 7: I think he's gonna be a great fit. And you know, hey,
Speaker 7: I'm just gonna throw a little bit of my advice,
Speaker 7: not that it's necessarily desired or not, but you've got
Speaker 7: a really good offensive coordinator. They're at University of Utah,
Speaker 7: so let him cook. And I'm talking fans. I'm talking
Speaker 7: head coach. I'm talking defensive coordinator. Let Jason Beck be
Speaker 7: a really good offensive mind and stay out of his kitchen.
Speaker 7: Let the man cook.
Speaker 2: Oh, Mike, I guess you've never met college football fans.
Speaker 2: I love the message. But you you know, you know how,
Speaker 2: and you know what's rough, man. It's always the OC,
Speaker 2: isn't it. It's always the offensive coordinator of the falls.
Speaker 1: On the show, you know what.
Speaker 7: It's that way in the state of Utah. And I
Speaker 7: love the state of Utah. I love coaching in it.
Speaker 7: I was the offensive coordinator at the Utah State. There
Speaker 7: definitely is a culture defensive minded head coaches at most
Speaker 7: of the schools in that state. Certainly, like you look
Speaker 7: at the history of the last couple decades since Ervin
Speaker 7: Meyer was at Utah, there's a lot of meddling with
Speaker 7: the offensive coordinator position. Let the man coach and he
Speaker 7: will do a great job. That's my advice to anybody
Speaker 7: who wants mine. Yeah, so I'll give that unsolicited.
Speaker 2: Well said, and we do want your advice because you've coached. Okay,
Speaker 2: So I appreciate the time, my friend, have a great week.
Speaker 2: We'll get you back on soon.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I appreciate you Spence all right.
Speaker 2: Mike Sanford junior, longtime college football coach, played his college
Speaker 2: ball at Boise State, where he's a good quarterback. Appreciate
Speaker 2: Mike's time doing the media rounds these days. That coach
Speaker 2: underscore Sandford two is where you find him