Speaker 1: Yeah, big twelve Football media days next week in Dallas,
Speaker 1: Texas will be down there as you're home of the Utes.
Speaker 2: Myself and Sean O'Connell.
Speaker 1: Have you taken care of We'll do back to back
Speaker 1: days of like seven.
Speaker 2: Hours of radio, so it should be a good time.
Speaker 1: It's kind of the unofficial start of the college football
Speaker 1: calendar for the University of Utah. Our next guest covers
Speaker 1: college football and some other things.
Speaker 2: We'll do mostly football today.
Speaker 1: E Buddy Kyle Bonagura from ESPN on a Tuesday, Kyle,
Speaker 1: Happy Tuesday man, what's going on? I do?
Speaker 3: Good? Spens and Jorge Summer and kind of gearing up
Speaker 3: for the season talking season starting.
Speaker 2: I guess yes, indeed, yes, indeed.
Speaker 1: So the big news around here over the past well
Speaker 1: past number of weeks, but a different kind of tone
Speaker 1: and tenor and direction. As a judge has granted a
Speaker 1: joint motion from BYU quarterback Jake Rhetz Laugh and his
Speaker 1: accuser to dismiss the civil suit against him. You and
Speaker 1: Pete Thamill doing a great job as always covering this.
Speaker 1: In addition, Jake has told his coaches and teammates he
Speaker 1: is now looking for a new place to play as
Speaker 1: a result of facing a seven game suspension. Just kind
Speaker 1: of unpack your thoughts on this whole thing, the whole process,
Speaker 1: and what you think comes next.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean it's really it's really complex, right, It's
Speaker 3: it's sensitive, it's complex. There's a lot of moving pieces here,
Speaker 3: you know, for for for college football fans, Like the
Speaker 3: bottom line kind of where we kind of left off here,
Speaker 3: you know this week, is that Jake retzlof fan, like
Speaker 3: you said, the woman who accused him of rape, they
Speaker 3: they their their case was dismissed. What the indication is
Speaker 3: is that there was probably some sort of a settlement
Speaker 3: and they agreed to kind of go their separate ways.
Speaker 3: And so what for redsoft this means is that as
Speaker 3: part of his defense and maybe you guys to talk
Speaker 3: about this, is that he admitted to you know, his
Speaker 3: defense was that the encounter was a consent, was consensual sex,
Speaker 3: which of course is a violation of b U i
Speaker 3: US honor code. We've seen a number of cases or
Speaker 3: instances in the past where you know, athletes, you know,
Speaker 3: admitted to having sex and we're forced if they forced
Speaker 3: into a suspension or kicked off the team. So as
Speaker 3: soon as as soon as this was I guess last Friday,
Speaker 3: when that defense publicly surface, I think it was pretty
Speaker 3: easy to kind of see that a suspension was coming.
Speaker 3: Then I was able to confirm it. You know, seven
Speaker 3: games was the expectation, and for Jake faced the seven
Speaker 3: games suspension in his final year of eligibility, a year
Speaker 3: that he hoped to develop into an NFL prospect. I
Speaker 3: think he made the decision pretty easy to ask, to
Speaker 3: decide to transfer from the UYU. And now we'll see,
Speaker 3: we'll see where he ends up. Right, There's a stigma
Speaker 3: now attached to him as a result of the accusations, right,
Speaker 3: and so we'll kind of see where that goes. I
Speaker 3: think we'll have a pretty good sense to the next
Speaker 3: week or two where where he winds up. And I
Speaker 3: do expect him to find a home before the season begins.
Speaker 1: So I am not a lawyer, and Kyle, unless I
Speaker 1: am mistaken, neither of you correct.
Speaker 3: Just spend too much time reading legal filings without the
Speaker 3: education to make sense of them completely.
Speaker 2: For sure, for sure.
Speaker 1: But I'll ask and if there's not much here, we
Speaker 1: can just move in another direction. Maybe you can enlighten
Speaker 1: us on how this process kind of played out lawsuit filed. Okay,
Speaker 1: that we had you on pretty quick after that because
Speaker 1: the details that you guys were reporting on at BYU
Speaker 1: as far as her accusations were, they were horrible. And
Speaker 1: then you know, Retz left is an attorney, and his
Speaker 1: attorney they filed kind of their side of things and
Speaker 1: they were very adamant that this was consensual and that
Speaker 1: included some pretty heavy language in the direction of this
Speaker 1: young lady as well. And then we have this situation
Speaker 1: where again the you know, it's kind of assumed that
Speaker 1: a settlement was reached, but we don't have any information
Speaker 1: in that direction. Now the judges is signing this to
Speaker 1: kind of just dismiss the whole thing. Can you enlighten
Speaker 1: us in kind of how this process works, and you know,
Speaker 1: how they kind of came to this resolution, if that
Speaker 1: makes sense, Yeah, and I.
Speaker 3: Think you can, like and the process is pretty similar,
Speaker 3: not just this case in particular, but like all all
Speaker 3: civil cases that are similar, right, they all follow a
Speaker 3: very similar kind of order of events. Right, the complaint
Speaker 3: is filed by the accusing party, she remains nameless, then
Speaker 3: you have a certain amount of days to reply, right,
Speaker 3: And so you know, I don't know what the exact
Speaker 3: number is, but that period time is thirty sixty days
Speaker 3: or some period you know in the within those parameters.
Speaker 3: That's what happened last week. So so Jake's hires an attorney,
Speaker 3: they file a response to why they think it should
Speaker 3: be dismissed or the or here's their defense that that's
Speaker 3: all standard. Right, is when when you're talking about civil cases,
Speaker 3: it can go a number of ways. Right, it can
Speaker 3: be flat out dismissed by a judge like hey, on
Speaker 3: its merits, we don't see anything here, there's not enough
Speaker 3: to proceed there is. It can go to trial, right,
Speaker 3: you all move forward, and that that could take a
Speaker 3: couple of years to wind through the court system to
Speaker 3: a point where we actually have a jury trial. That
Speaker 3: was the the quote unquote demand in the original complaint,
Speaker 3: which is all standard in the third like really common
Speaker 3: door to go through as a settlement, right, And I
Speaker 3: think that the based on the language that was included
Speaker 3: in the joint motion to dismiss, it's hard to come
Speaker 3: up with any other scenario to why they would have
Speaker 3: filed that unless they had come to some sort of
Speaker 3: a settlement. It's likely a financial settlement. And the territory
Speaker 3: you start treading into there. Its like in those cases,
Speaker 3: both parties agree not to ever discuss it, right, it
Speaker 3: would violate that the terms of the agreement. So the
Speaker 3: woman and her legal team are not allowed to discuss it.
Speaker 3: I'm sure there's some sort of financial penalties if they
Speaker 3: were to do so, And I think it's probably the
Speaker 3: same on the other side, where where Jake or his
Speaker 3: legal team is also not at liberty to discuss the numbers, right,
Speaker 3: And so it's easy to make the assumption. I think
Speaker 3: anyone understands that's probably what took place based on how
Speaker 3: it's being unfolded. But there's just not going to be
Speaker 3: any more details just because of the kind of the
Speaker 3: way the things are structured.
Speaker 2: Any inside at all.
Speaker 1: And I am just asking to ask because I honestly
Speaker 1: don't know. I mean, if you read the tea leaves
Speaker 1: d YU, the institution must have read Jake's court filing
Speaker 1: and what he had to say about, you know, the
Speaker 1: events that took place, and when he admitted to consensual
Speaker 1: premarital sex. I just am assuming that that's when the
Speaker 1: punishment came down and it was going to be seven games.
Speaker 1: Is that just a say safe way to assume how
Speaker 1: this went.
Speaker 3: Yes, I honest, I can say that I in talking
Speaker 3: with sources and durnal reporting problems, I know that Jake
Speaker 3: met with the school prior to the reply last week
Speaker 3: being filed. So, like b YU was not caught off
Speaker 3: guard by what was outlined in the reply where he
Speaker 3: admitted publicly that this you know, his or his stance
Speaker 3: publicly was that that the sex was consensual. So by
Speaker 3: the time Friday rolled around the universe, he had already
Speaker 3: been able to discuss internally what the appropriate punishment should be.
Speaker 3: And like how they settled on seven games, it feels
Speaker 3: a little arbitrary to me, but you know, I don't
Speaker 3: have a great sense of how they determined that was
Speaker 3: the number, but but it was relayed to him last week.
Speaker 3: I believe on Friday that the number would be seven
Speaker 3: and at that point, Yeah, I think it was a
Speaker 3: very easy decision for him to move on. And like,
Speaker 3: I don't think he was caught off guard by it either. Right,
Speaker 3: there's the precedent is there at BUYU that like this
Speaker 3: stuff is, this is how they deal with it. There,
Speaker 3: there's the honor code that you kind of you know,
Speaker 3: you can we can have a longer conversation about the
Speaker 3: merits of it, but like, that's what you sign up
Speaker 3: for when you go to that school, and so you
Speaker 3: kind of have to live with the consequences if you
Speaker 3: break the honor code. So that's and that's kind of
Speaker 3: where we are.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and the problem And I've said this quite frankly,
Speaker 1: I said when the story came out. I've been doing
Speaker 1: radio in this market, coming off this follity years and
Speaker 1: my most unfavorite things to cover are BYU honor code
Speaker 1: violations from players when things like this take place, because
Speaker 1: there are so many angles where you feel, at least
Speaker 1: I feel that you need to be fair to everybody
Speaker 1: involved in you know, the community of people that decide
Speaker 1: to go online and take victory laps if you're a
Speaker 1: UTAH fan or accuse this woman of extorting or lying,
Speaker 1: if you're a BYU fan, the whole thing. The whole
Speaker 1: thing feels really gross to me, Kyle. I don't enjoy it.
Speaker 1: But to your point about having a bigger conversation about
Speaker 1: whether or not the honor code is antiquated, whether or
Speaker 1: not it needs to be adjusted, I find that to
Speaker 1: be a moot point. You know what, you get into
Speaker 1: when you go down there. I had five siblings that
Speaker 1: went to BYU. I mean, and there's no ambiguity, by
Speaker 1: the way, Like it's there's no gray area, Like if
Speaker 1: you're going to go there, you're expected to behave a
Speaker 1: certain way, and if you don't, you need to understand,
Speaker 1: like things like this could happen to me.
Speaker 2: That's just kind of the bottom line.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think it's it's it's very clear, right, And
Speaker 3: that's why I don't think he was surprised that there
Speaker 3: was a suspension. I mean, starting quarterback at IT for
Speaker 3: a program with very high aspirations this coming year, and
Speaker 3: and and that didn't matter, right. I Mean we saw
Speaker 3: it however many years ago with with Brandon Davies, like
Speaker 3: getting suspended when the basketball team was twenty seven to
Speaker 3: two and ranked number two in the country, right, Like
Speaker 3: that's just that's that's how it works there, and so
Speaker 3: you have to kind of accept it if you're going
Speaker 3: to play it there. It does complicate things though, you
Speaker 3: know that that he's not that he's not Mormon, right,
Speaker 3: that he's you know, there was you know he had
Speaker 3: by J trademarked last year because he was such a
Speaker 3: unique uh, you know, dynamic for to have a Jewish
Speaker 3: starting quarterback at BYU for the first time ever. Uh,
Speaker 3: it was you know interesting if nothing else. And so
Speaker 3: uh the fact that it's you know, not of that faith,
Speaker 3: but you know, is being punished for you know, the
Speaker 3: beliefs of that religion is also like a very interesting conversation. Right.
Speaker 3: It's not football related at all, It's it's it's society
Speaker 3: and it's uh, you know everything that goes into that.
Speaker 3: But you know, from a from a college football standpoint,
Speaker 3: you know, it would have been very easy to avoid
Speaker 3: this scenarios Surgypop, and now he's just got to deal
Speaker 3: with it.
Speaker 2: I wonder how.
Speaker 1: And you know, this is where we get into this
Speaker 1: like slippery slope with this conversation, you know, because out
Speaker 1: here we're used to this, and certainly, whether you're a
Speaker 1: member of the LDS Church or not, if you live
Speaker 1: in this state, you have to find a way to
Speaker 1: exist in the ecosystem that's dominated on every level of
Speaker 1: state by the religion that essentially you know, settled here
Speaker 1: hundreds of years ago. So out here something like this
Speaker 1: goes down, you know kind of like yeah, that's the
Speaker 1: BYU experience. I wonder how you would articulate the reaction
Speaker 1: from somebody who's an outsider looking in And look, you've
Speaker 1: covered BYU and maybe you're the wrong the wrong guy
Speaker 1: asked this because you do you are familiar with Salt Lake,
Speaker 1: you've covered Utah in the PAC twelve, and because you've
Speaker 1: covered BYU stories. But when something like this happens, how
Speaker 1: do you think it's kind of digested and optically it
Speaker 1: looks from the outside looking in from somebody who may
Speaker 1: not be familiar with how this stuff works.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's an interesting question because like, yeah, like I'll
Speaker 3: just say none of this kind of common appy that
Speaker 3: I've been around it enough to have like understand kind
Speaker 3: of the state of play for the most part. So
Speaker 3: I feel like I had a decent understanding for being
Speaker 3: an outsider. But like imagine telling someone this and like
Speaker 3: the South right, like the college football quarterback. You know,
Speaker 3: your quarterback is suspended because he had sex, like pad
Speaker 3: pre marital sex. It's insane. Like I think there's like
Speaker 3: an expectation that like, yeah, he's the quarterback of a
Speaker 3: college of like a ranked college football team that is
Speaker 3: challenging for uh, you know, conference titles. There's a you know,
Speaker 3: there's a perception of what that individual social life might be, right,
Speaker 3: that comes with being a high profile athlete in college sports,
Speaker 3: especially the quarterback, right, and so if anything, you know,
Speaker 3: you would be I think you have a lot of
Speaker 3: people surprised if the starting quarterback wasn't having sex. Right,
Speaker 3: That's just that's just the reality of what the perception
Speaker 3: is nationally about about about that. But but again, so
Speaker 3: I think, yeah, there's some people that of course a're
Speaker 3: not going to agree with it, and they're gonna think
Speaker 3: it's weird, and that's just the way it is, right.
Speaker 3: There's there's no uh, you know, there's there's no way,
Speaker 3: no other way to explain it, right, There's just cultural differences,
Speaker 3: and you know it's in you know, in the United States,
Speaker 3: there's so many different subcultures that are that are so different,
Speaker 3: and college football has a way of bringing them all together,
Speaker 3: which I think most of the time is actually a
Speaker 3: really good thing and exposed to you to different backgrounds
Speaker 3: in areas of the country, which which mixes them all together.
Speaker 3: But certainly you're gonna have this, uh, you're gonna have
Speaker 3: some shock at times when stuff like this plays out.
Speaker 1: Do you think there's anything about this, and again, just
Speaker 1: covering this whole thing and trying to trying to talk
Speaker 1: about it appropriately and cover all sides of it appropriately
Speaker 1: continues to feel weird. And the fact of the matter is, Kyle,
Speaker 1: as you know, ever since n I NIL became a reality,
Speaker 1: BYU has been able to recruit at a very high level.
Speaker 1: Their twenty twenty six class, as a result of another
Speaker 1: commit is currently top twenty five according to the ESPN rankings.
Speaker 1: They've got the best college basketball freshmen in America playing
Speaker 1: in Provo next year. So the weird kind of dichotomy
Speaker 1: here is on one side, they've been able to find
Speaker 1: this lane with deep pocketed donors writing big time checks
Speaker 1: to pay what you need to pay to attract talent.
Speaker 1: Do you think something like this with the Jake stuff
Speaker 1: could have an adverse effect on the program when people
Speaker 1: kind of dig into it and to your point, might
Speaker 1: look at this as antiquated or weird.
Speaker 3: I think so yeah. I mean, I think if you
Speaker 3: put yourself in the shoes of a bunch of eighteen
Speaker 3: year old kids, right there are some of them who
Speaker 3: are not going to want to go into that sort
Speaker 3: of environment. That's just the reality of it, right, and
Speaker 3: so but I think that was the case before, Like
Speaker 3: this is just the most recent example of like, hey,
Speaker 3: it's front and center. It kind of refreshes the idea
Speaker 3: of like, hey, like this is kind of the environment
Speaker 3: that you're signing up for, and it's going to some
Speaker 3: people are going to shy away from it. But I
Speaker 3: do think that BUYU has benefit as much as anyone
Speaker 3: in college athletics by the way things have developed. From
Speaker 3: an analys standpoint, I mean, look at basketball, look at football,
Speaker 3: like you know, and I talked to some people over
Speaker 3: at UYU and they see it as look like UIU
Speaker 3: is like the church is very like sees this as
Speaker 3: an opportunity to help church, right, because the more high
Speaker 3: profile BUYU athletics is, the more front and center the
Speaker 3: LDS religion is, right, That's just it's it's pure marketing, right,
Speaker 3: and so there's an investment into football that benefits the
Speaker 3: church in that way. There's just like, look, you also
Speaker 3: want to be successful in sports. This is an opportunity.
Speaker 3: There's a lot of money there that can be using
Speaker 3: and is be and is being used to help fund
Speaker 3: these programs. And so I think like on balance, BYU
Speaker 3: is benefiting from this, but certainly like this event if
Speaker 3: you're gonna have any negative repercursions as well, but the
Speaker 3: launder methodsill be right.
Speaker 1: So it does come after a season where b caught
Speaker 1: a lot of people off guard with how well they played.
Speaker 1: And you know, interestingly enough, and we've talked about this
Speaker 1: so we don't need to look back on it, but
Speaker 1: the two games they lost like they they weren't that
Speaker 1: far off from having like an extra ordinary season, cracking
Speaker 1: a sea up here, what have you. But they stumble
Speaker 1: down the stretch at home to Kansas and then they
Speaker 1: lose an absolute dogfight Arizona State, they beat Colorado and
Speaker 1: the Alamo Bowl they go eleven and two.
Speaker 2: So now we move over to what could be next
Speaker 2: for them.
Speaker 1: You know, the interesting thing is Jake was eleventh in
Speaker 1: the Big twelve and QBR oftentimes they were able to
Speaker 1: win in spite of some really bad decisions he made.
Speaker 1: So when you look at you know, the quarterback room,
Speaker 1: McKay Hillstead is a Utah State transfer of tracing Borgay
Speaker 1: and Bear Bachmeyer. I don't know who's going to get
Speaker 1: the job, but the football takeaway, as we awkwardly now
Speaker 1: make this a football topic because it's just so weird
Speaker 1: to talk about all this stuff. What do you think
Speaker 1: this means for BYU football this year in the Big twelve?
Speaker 3: Yeah, So it's it's hard to say, right because like
Speaker 3: we just don't know how good the other quarterbacks will be.
Speaker 3: And it's like as good as Redsoft was, he wasn't
Speaker 3: like it was a set of the world on fire.
Speaker 3: I think he was a competent quarterback who who didn't
Speaker 3: lose games and and you know that's actually like a
Speaker 3: really valuable like aspet to have, right, Like he he
Speaker 3: made the mistakes at times and wasn't perfect and and
Speaker 3: and showed flashes at times where where I thought he
Speaker 3: was really good. I think there was a lot of uh,
Speaker 3: you know, a stock being and put into him coming
Speaker 3: back as the starter, right and and not being the
Speaker 3: same quarterback that he was last year and being able
Speaker 3: to have that that year of starting experience under his
Speaker 3: belt where now he's able to kind of make the
Speaker 3: step next step and be it more just be a
Speaker 3: better player. Right with him gone that it's a it's
Speaker 3: a complete unknown. I mean, I think l J. Martin
Speaker 3: is actually a really good back. Like like I think
Speaker 3: he's progressed pretty well over the last two years. Like,
Speaker 3: so I think a lot more will be put on
Speaker 3: him than probably would have been expected if if rets
Speaker 3: Off was was coming back. But yeah, it's it's it's
Speaker 3: a complete DOWNNWN with with with who the other quarterbacks are.
Speaker 3: You know, you got three different transfers, so we'll see.
Speaker 3: Like I still think, you know, this is a team
Speaker 3: that won with defense last year, right, They had the
Speaker 3: best defense in the Big Twelve, if I'm not mistaken statistically,
Speaker 3: If not, you know, one of the best of the country, really,
Speaker 3: and so when you're making your money that way, I
Speaker 3: think a lot of that is Schematically they're very sound,
Speaker 3: and you know, they've got some really important players to replace.
Speaker 3: But at the same time, there's enough coming back to
Speaker 3: where I think the expectations the defense should still be
Speaker 3: very good. So with all those factors, I still think
Speaker 3: buyu will will head into this year with really high expectations.
Speaker 3: But and we talked about this in the past that
Speaker 3: it's like it's just so hard to predict college football
Speaker 3: now with all the rosters turnover. Yeah, there's a lot
Speaker 3: like reading the telia, they should still be pretty good,
Speaker 3: but you know, they were expected to come what like
Speaker 3: thirteenth in the conference last year and almost won it.
Speaker 3: So what do we know?
Speaker 2: Not not a lot, I guess, and that's the problem.
Speaker 3: I mean.
Speaker 1: Now, I want to ask you about your thoughts on
Speaker 1: the Big twelve, but it is July first, and I
Speaker 1: to imagine that you've read some of the same predictions
Speaker 1: I've read. Phil Steele came out with his annually. He's
Speaker 1: got Baylor winning the conference, Utah at two. There are
Speaker 1: a lot of preseason predictions that have Utah in the
Speaker 1: area of like four to seven. I think a lot
Speaker 1: of people are curious about Texas Tech with the money
Speaker 1: they've spent. Then there's like the stall words k State,
Speaker 1: Iowa State. Obviously we have to talk about Kenny Dillingham
Speaker 1: and the team that won the conference a year ago.
Speaker 1: But on July first, Kyle, what's your gut tell you
Speaker 1: about this conference? It just seems to cannibalize itself, just
Speaker 1: like the PAC twelve US too.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I was actually going to make the tactical comparison.
Speaker 3: As you're kind of reading those lists up, you can
Speaker 3: make the like you can make the case for all
Speaker 3: those teams and feel pretty good about it. Right, And
Speaker 3: I think that's actually why I really like the Big
Speaker 3: Twelve and like, like it's really an interesting conference to
Speaker 3: start paying more attention to because it is wide open.
Speaker 3: There isn't the established powers. I like the parody, and
Speaker 3: it doesn't it's not necessarily great like for national prominence
Speaker 3: not to have just like a bell cow at the top.
Speaker 3: You can rely on to the top five or whatever.
Speaker 3: But you know, Arizona State was a great story last year.
Speaker 3: They were I think picked to come second to last
Speaker 3: in the conference and to go to the playoffs and
Speaker 3: showed well I thought in the playoff. Yeah, so yeah,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna I think, I ask you, you know, for me,
Speaker 3: they're very interesting. At course they've got a lot of
Speaker 3: production to replays. But then the most intriguing team I
Speaker 3: think has to be Texas Tech because in this era
Speaker 3: of college football, money matters, right, Like if you look
Speaker 3: at salary caps like an unsalary caps sports, but the
Speaker 3: teams to the highest payrolls are usually the best teams.
Speaker 3: Like it's a really easy correlation to make you have
Speaker 3: the most money, you get the best players. Texas Tech
Speaker 3: is that team. Like we've seen reports that you know,
Speaker 3: maybe thirty forty million dollars on their roster and whatever.
Speaker 3: The exact number doesn't really matter. Like the takeaway is
Speaker 3: it's a lot, and it's more than most other programs,
Speaker 3: not just in the Big twelve, but it's among the
Speaker 3: elite spenders in college football. Uh so that's gonna that's
Speaker 3: gonna help you out. Even all that stuff matters too,
Speaker 3: but the talent, at the end of the day is
Speaker 3: the most important aspect of winning football games. And so
Speaker 3: for me, I would probably pick textas tech as as
Speaker 3: a favorite. And then you know, confidence level on that
Speaker 3: like not a lot, because again, there's just this is
Speaker 3: just so hard to premit.
Speaker 1: All right, before I say you loose, let's talk about
Speaker 1: and unpack what you wrote concerning you know, and thank
Speaker 1: you for not writing about Bill Belichick and Jordan Hudson.
Speaker 2: I don't really need to read about that anymore.
Speaker 1: But you did write about Bill Belichick, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: obviously no longer in pro football. He's moved to the
Speaker 1: College of Ranks of Carolina, And you wrote about a
Speaker 1: you know, coach that people around here know of course,
Speaker 1: and Bill Walsh and kind of drew a parallel between
Speaker 1: how this could how this could look for Belichick. So
Speaker 1: I want you on pack what you wrote, and then
Speaker 1: I'm wondering if you think we will see more coaches
Speaker 1: maybe try this path if the NFL door closes. Now
Speaker 1: that things are a little bit different in the college game,
Speaker 1: that feels a little bit more professional.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So it's the short result for a lot of
Speaker 3: fun to report. I grew up in the bear age,
Speaker 3: you know, and like follow the forty nine Ers dynasty
Speaker 3: and all that. Bill Walsh is just kind of a legend.
Speaker 3: I mean the legend everywhere, but certainly here in the
Speaker 3: Bay area. And so they have a chance to talk
Speaker 3: with a bunch of coaches and players who were on
Speaker 3: his Stanford team in ninety two. Was just a funny
Speaker 3: assignment for me to do. It's it's the parallels are
Speaker 3: are pretty cool. It's this guy who oversaw dynasty coach
Speaker 3: the best quarterback in the NFL in NFL history at
Speaker 3: that point in Joe Montana, you know, steps aside, reasons
Speaker 3: are different, and then decides he wants to get back
Speaker 3: into coaching and returns to college football. He had you know,
Speaker 3: he had been the coach at Stanford before. So it's
Speaker 3: not the same as Belichick going to the college game
Speaker 3: for the first time. But it is the same that
Speaker 3: you have the guy who is essentially the defining genius
Speaker 3: of the sport schematically at the time, you know, becoming
Speaker 3: a college football coach and trying to you know, reverse
Speaker 3: engineer what he did in the NFL for the college level.
Speaker 3: They had a really good year in ninety two. They
Speaker 3: finished ranked in the top ten, which is obviously very
Speaker 3: difficult to do at Stanford. I have a lot of
Speaker 3: really good anecdotes and stories in my piece that published today.
Speaker 3: You know, Tom Holmo, that you know, just obviously step
Speaker 3: down as the idea of BYU recently told had a
Speaker 3: few of those. I mean, he talked about getting a
Speaker 3: call from Walsh we played for with the forty nine ers.
Speaker 3: He had just finished two years as a as a
Speaker 3: grad assistant at BYU. He's trying to break into the
Speaker 3: next stage of his life and Walsh calls the BYU
Speaker 3: facility in nineteen ninety at the end of ninety one
Speaker 3: or early ninety two, maybe January of ninety two, tells Tom, Hey,
Speaker 3: I'm going to Stanford and you're coming with me something
Speaker 3: like that, right, And Tom's like, okay, great. He calls
Speaker 3: his wife, and she's asking them all sorts of questions
Speaker 3: like how much he getting paid, what position are you coaching?
Speaker 3: All these things, and he's, I don't know, I have
Speaker 3: no idea. I didn't ask him many of those questions.
Speaker 3: But it's Bill Walsh. It's my first job, full first
Speaker 3: full time job, you know, after playing for football. I'm
Speaker 3: going to take it. He tells another story about going
Speaker 3: down to louis the Dam on a recruiting trip with Walsh,
Speaker 3: and there it's the small town in Louisiana. They're after
Speaker 3: this big time defensive back, and the high school coach
Speaker 3: parades them around town, stopping by all the establishments. Eventually
Speaker 3: it takes into a restaurant for dinner. That night. They're
Speaker 3: sitting at this long dining table and it's roped off,
Speaker 3: and so they sit down for dinner, and then the
Speaker 3: restaurant fills up with people. There's people standing five deep
Speaker 3: in the restaurant just to watch Bill Walsh have dinner
Speaker 3: at this small town in Louisiana with with with Tom
Speaker 3: Holmo next to him as this rookie, as this rookie
Speaker 3: college football assistant coach. There's a bunch of other stuff
Speaker 3: that's really fine and cool, so I would I would
Speaker 3: encourage people to go check that out. And so it's
Speaker 3: up on espn dot com right now.
Speaker 1: Well, good stuff as always, Kyle, thanks for the time today, man,
Speaker 1: have a good week, all right, sure thing, all right?
Speaker 2: All right.
Speaker 1: Kyle Bonager covers college football for ESPN. Consistent guest on
Speaker 1: the show. At Bonnager at ESPN is where you find
Speaker 1: him